I frequently have ideas for what could be called "optimistic" science-fiction premises - imaginary technological or social changes which I think would create an unusual and interesting setting, and "optimistic" in the sense that they have no immediate, obvious downside (or if they do, that's not the area I'm interested in exploring).
Finding conflict in a "pessimistic" premise is clear to me - if the premise is a cruel one (or has a central dark side), then people are suffering, and you can build your story around that. But, when I'm trying to portray a premise as mostly benign, I can't go that route.
Just to throw out a few examples, The Matrix and Minority Report take SF-nal concepts (simulated reality, precognitive crime prevention) and find ways for them to be used for horrible oppression. Asimov's robot stories present a far gentler society, but a great many of them still boil down to "How did this technology go wrong?," or "How can this technology be abused?".
How can I introduce and explore an SF-nal premise, while focusing on its positive aspects and largely ignoring the negative ones? If I want stories to explore the kind of society that would arise in a commonly-controlled simulated reality, or in one where PreCrime worked unquestionably well and was well-managed - where could I look for my story's driving conflict?
I am particularly interested in responses addressing short fiction. In longer form, "optimistic" sf-nal premises can be a single element in a larger setting with plenty of conflict. (For example, Star Trek is pretty archetypal "optimistic SF," but the stories aren't much about transporters, replicators, and warp drives.) In short fiction, I am finding this approach unhelpful, because there simply isn't room to expand a major concept that isn't central to the story.
Answer
If your change solves a problem that previously had no solution, there are likely people who have a stake in preserving the problem.
If your change solves a problem better than some previous solution, there are people who have a stake in the old solution.
If your change opens up new possibilities for people, then people don't yet know how to make the most of the new technology or its possibilities. They will have differing opinions about that, and those differences offer the possibility of conflict.
The new possibilities will likely draw people's attention, which will leave them less attention for some of the things that they used to attend to. Somebody has a stake in the things people used to attend to.
If your change solves problems without creating any new ones [see below], then some previously low-priority problems will become the highest priority problems. First-world problems like: "My god, so many paint colors to choose from for my ping pong room. How am I ever going to choose?"
It is highly unlikely that your change solves problems without creating any new ones. If you can't think of at least three problems created by your solution, it's almost certain that you haven't thought deeply enough about the ramifications.
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