Future Moral Monstrosities of the Past
Captain Button
I have often mused about.
SF written in the past often is criticised for not conforming
to modern sensibilities. For having sexist or racist assumptions
built in to at least the fictional society, if not in the writer's
mind.
This leads me to ask:
What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
moral monstrosities in the future?
I don't mean things that are subjects of substantial controversy
now, like gnu c*ntr*l, or the death penalty, or the endless
arguements about economics, or the balance of the state vs
the individual.
I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers
of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions
as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities.
Vegetarianism I'd consider borderline in this spectrum, for example.
I mention this because the first book that always occurs to me
in this area is Arthur C. Clarke's _The Deep Range_. In TDR, set
at least 100 years in the future, whales are herded, cared for,
and slaughtered for food just like cattle are nowadays. A
Buddhist leader leads a large movement calling for an end to
slaughtering whales for food for moral reasons.
Clarke had another item in one of his later books about a great
controversy on if smoking should be digitally removed from old movies
for moral reasons.
I'll toss out a couple of possibilites (but I'd be interested to see
what other people's ideas are):
Some basic aspect of child rearing now considered normal might
be regarded grossly abusive (consider how perception of spanking has
changed).
People being required to work for a living at a disagreeable job.
What if people were as fussy about getting just the right job
as they are about getting the right spouse?
People being allowed to be lonely or socially isolated.
(This one has come up in various SF, usually as the pretext
for a dystopia.)
Animal rights.
Anyway, that should do as a starter....
--
"You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake
asteroids on Earth." - James Nicoll
Captain Button - [ but...@io.com ]
mike stone
>Vegetarianism I'd consider borderline in this spectrum, for example.
>I mention this because the first book that always occurs to me
>in this area is Arthur C. Clarke's _The Deep Range_. In TDR, set
>at least 100 years in the future, whales are herded, cared for,
>and slaughtered for food just like cattle are nowadays. A
>Buddhist leader leads a large movement calling for an end to
>slaughtering whales for food for moral reasons.
[snip]
>Some basic aspect of child rearing now considered normal might
>be regarded grossly abusive (consider how perception of spanking has
>changed).
This arose in one of the more recent Clarkes (possibly Richter 10 - I'm not
sure) in which a character reacalled having been spanked when he was caught
eating natural (as opposed to synthetic) meat. Regrettably, Clarke never
explained why corporal punishment had come back into fashion but meat-eating
hadn't
>
>People being allowed to be lonely or socially isolated.
>(This one has come up in various SF, usually as the pretext
>for a dystopia.)
>
That isn't entirely fiction. Educationalists sometimes use suppposed "social
isolation" as an excuse to interfere with homeschoolers
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough England
"The English people are like the English beer.
Froth on top, dregs at the bottom, the middle excellent" - Voltaire
Jordan S. Bassior
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
Assuming a reasonably "bright" future:
Stories in which immortality exists, but the state forces everyone to die by a
certain age. A society of genuine immortals would be about as horrified by this
as we would by a proposal to solve the population problem by decimating our
population every now and then by UN mandate.
Stories in which mood-altering substances are illegal (sorry, "Doc"). People in
the future will probably have direct volitional control over their emotional
states, and will regard this with the bemusement that we regard the old English
law requiring a man with a red flag to run in advance of motorized road
vehicles.
Stories in which full AI exists but the AI's are forced into a subordinate
role. (Sorry, Keith Laumer). If we _don't_ turn into some sort of AI slave
society, it'll be because we respected the rights of the AI's -- they make far
too useful slaves otherwise.
Ditto for stories in which artificial organic intelligences are created but
forced into a subordinate role (a la Cordwainer Smith's underpeople, though I
think that Paul Lineberger meant to portray that as unjust in his universe,
too).
I think that our current nucleomitophobia will date a lot of stories. If our
control over energy continues to expand, centuries from now we'll be using
megaton explosions for engineering applications, especially off the Earth
herself. Likewise, nuclear weapons will eventually become "standard" for
serious warfare -- I think that this means at least planetary scale governments
if we hope to surivive this development :) Finally, in a century or so almost
all of our power will be generated directly by some form of nuclear energy
(inclusive of the big fusion bomb we orbit around).
>Animal rights.
Especially animal rights. We treat animals, even very smart animals such as
chimapanzees and dolphins, like _garbage_ right now. I think that our closest
cousins, and a species which has always been nice to humans despite the fact
that in the water they could kill us as easily as we wring the necks of
chickens, deserve better treatment, don't you?
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
"Whoever would be a man must be a non-conformist" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
--
John Ringo
: >moral monstrosities in the future?
I'll throw one out:
What about societies that appear from our point of view as "repressive" of
individual rights but actually are based on real differences? Saying
anything further will bring the PCiegheil Nazis down but there are some
cases in which we are forcing people into molds that don't fit for purely PC
reasons.
The one thing I can imagine readers in 60 years looking back and going "oh,
those slope-browed idiots!" is many things that are currently considered the
PC norm.
John
--
As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I am in touch with my inner sociopath.
"Life Affirmations that are Attainable"
See sample chapters for my upcoming book "A Hymn Before Battle" at:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200007/0671319418.htm?blurb
Available in October from Baen Publishing wherever fine books are sold!
www.johnringo.com
"Jordan S. Bassior" <jsba...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001008090403...@ng-cc1.aol.com...
Ide Cyan
> : >What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> : >moral monstrosities in the future?
>
> I'll throw one out:
>
> What about societies that appear from our point of view as "repressive" of
> individual rights but actually are based on real differences? Saying
> anything further will bring the PCiegheil Nazis down but there are some
> cases in which we are forcing people into molds that don't fit for purely PC
> reasons.
>
> The one thing I can imagine readers in 60 years looking back and going "oh,
> those slope-browed idiots!" is many things that are currently considered the
> PC norm.
Depends on your definition of political correctness... For example,
maybe libertarianism will be seen as callous and uncautionable refusal
of social responsability by people who wouldn't be what you'd call
"PCiegel Nazis" or anything like Puritans either.
(It is with much sadness that I write this in a thread that succumbed so
quickly to the fatal attraction described by Godwin's Law... May it
survive an early NDE.)
J Greely
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
Global warming. More an embarrassment than a monstrosity, really, but
people who jumped under that bandwagon will be glad they're dead whn
future critics start laughing at them. :-)
-j
Michael Hargreave Mawson
<but...@io.com> writes
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
>
>I don't mean things that are subjects of substantial controversy
>now, like gnu c*ntr*l, or the death penalty, or the endless
>arguements about economics, or the balance of the state vs
>the individual.
>
>I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers
>of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions
>as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities.
Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
eventually all cars.
ATB
--
Mike
"His wish was to become a historian - not to dig out facts and store
them in himself... but to understand them, call the dead back to life
and let them speak through him to their descendants. She sometimes
wondered who would pay for it and who would heed."
- from "Harvest of Stars" by Poul Anderson.
James Nicoll
Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
>
snip
>People being required to work for a living at a disagreeable job.
>What if people were as fussy about getting just the right job
>as they are about getting the right spouse?
Some people would stay at the same job for year and others
would switch every few years.
>People being allowed to be lonely or socially isolated.
>(This one has come up in various SF, usually as the pretext
>for a dystopia.)
I imagine if we ever have space colonies, the level of
personal monitoring might be high, to prevent a unibomber from
trashing the LSU. There's a bit of this in _Oath of Fealty_,
although that's because they live in the world's largest gated
community.
>Animal rights.
>
>
>Anyway, that should do as a starter....
>
>--
>"You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake
>asteroids on Earth." - James Nicoll
>Captain Button - [ but...@io.com ]
--
My Pledge: No more than 2 OT posts to rasfw a day. No replying
to trolls and idiots. Start five good on topic threads a day to drown
out the crap. Drink more coffee.
Phil Fraering
> Captain Button <but...@io.com> writes:
> >What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> >moral monstrosities in the future?
>
> Global warming. More an embarrassment than a monstrosity, really, but
> people who jumped under that bandwagon will be glad they're dead whn
> future critics start laughing at them. :-)
The people for or against Global Warming?
--
Phil Fraering "One day, Pinky, A MOUSE shall rule, and it is the
p...@globalreach.net humans who will be forced to endure these humiliating
/Will work for tape/ diversions!"
"You mean like Orlando, Brain?"
James Nicoll
the human personality, relying on haphazardly formed personalities
rather than inserting pre-tested building blocks of the mind might
be considered anti-social.
I noticed there's a considerable difference in views about
child labour in rural Canada and the UK: every kid I knew had to
help out but it seemed to me the idea of child employment was
viewed with disapproval in the UK, possibly for historical reasons.
Imagine being a kid in a mileau where people live longer and are
more protective of their kids: you might lead a cotton-padded life
until you were 50 or 60...
Peter Bruells
> J Greely <jgr...@corp.webtv.net> writes:
>> Global warming. More an embarrassment than a monstrosity, really, but
>> people who jumped under that bandwagon will be glad they're dead whn
>> future critics start laughing at them. :-)
> The people for or against Global Warming?
Who cares, when the laughing future critics are likely to live in
world with reduced CO2 content.
Really, It's kinda like people laughing at predictions that horse-dran
carriages could never cope with the traffic need of the future, while
conceniently forgetting that it were government programs that made
large scale car traffic feasible.
Rick
I would say that future generations will be horrified at our architecture.
Its lack of artistic content will probably make them think we're a
generation (or three) of Phillistines.
Peter Seebach
>moral monstrosities in the future?
The use of "comprise" to mean "compose".
-s
--
Copyright 2000, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting & Computers: http://www.plethora.net/
James Nicoll
Michael Hargreave Mawson <O...@46thFoot.com> wrote:
>In article <ntVD5.16152$Ly1.2...@news5.giganews.com>, Captain Button
>
>>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>>moral monstrosities in the future?
>>
>>now, like gnu c*ntr*l, or the death penalty, or the endless
>>arguements about economics, or the balance of the state vs
>>the individual.
>>
>>I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers
>>of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions
>>as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities.
>
>Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
>eventually all cars.
>
by young males.
Young males: the behavioral patterns might be chemically
influencable so we could make males jump from childhood appropriate
behaviors to middle aged behaviors without the 'lets see if I can
beat that train to the crossing' behaviors in between.
Human-to-human sex. I am not sure what happens when
our machines are better at mimicking our courting signals
than we are at producing them in the first place.
Lois Tilton
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
Prisons.
The income tax.
Retirement.
Nation states.
--
LT
www.darkspawn.com
Old Toby
>
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
Given sufficient time, aiming nuclear weapons at your own planet.
Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net
James Nicoll
No, they'll be horrified by the thinking [as typified by Frank
Lloyd Wright buildings] that you can have either functional or beautiful
but not both. We have buildings which are supposed to be highly aesthetic
as exemplified by the William G. Davis Center for mumblemumblehandwave
at the University of Waterloo, which are sadly deficient from the users POV,
also as exemplified by the Billy Building.
"Looks pretty" !justifies 'not actually livable in".
Karen Lofstrom
: I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers
: of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions
: as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities.
Advertising.
"They actually let special interests control their information feeds! How
could they?"
"You mean they let the advertisers lie? In front of impressionable
children?"
"Exhortations to consume, everywhere? Disgusting!"
"Landscapes littered with such hideous art? They must not have had any
aesthetic sense at all."
--
Karen Lofstrom lofs...@lava.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bool bool bool! It makes me laugh just to "trink" about it.
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> J Greely <jgr...@corp.webtv.net> writes:
>
>> Global warming. More an embarrassment than a monstrosity,
>> really, but people who jumped under that bandwagon will be
>> glad they're dead whn future critics start laughing at them. :-)
>
> The people for or against Global Warming?
Yeah -- the Canadians and Alaskans, or the Bangladeshis?
-- M. Ruff
Jason Bontrager
> John Ringo wrote:
>
> > The one thing I can imagine readers in 60 years looking back and going "oh,
> > those slope-browed idiots!" is many things that are currently considered the
> > PC norm.
>
> Depends on your definition of political correctness... For example,
> maybe libertarianism will be seen as callous and uncautionable refusal
> of social responsability by people who wouldn't be what you'd call
> "PCiegel Nazis" or anything like Puritans either.
Conversely they may look back on the notion of "social responsibility"
as it's used today and see it as an attempt to undermine individual
freedom and use the state as a tool to foster socialist political agendas:-).
Not really trying to start a political thread here, (though given the subject
I expect several to start up Real Soon Now(tm)) just pointing out that the
future of outrage could go either way, and the prognostications made
today are more likely to reflect the prognosticators biases than anything
else.
Jason B.
--
"What sort of rites?" I enquired.
"*Unspeakable* ones," he said reproachfully.
ala Joe Slater
Aaron P. Brezenski
James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> No, they'll be horrified by the thinking [as typified by Frank
>Lloyd Wright buildings] that you can have either functional or beautiful
>but not both.
?!? You don't find FLW buildings beautiful? Well, tastes vary, I guess.
--
Aaron Brezenski
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there isn't someone out to get me."
Card-Carrying Member of the Illuminati
J Greely
>The people for or against Global Warming?
Yes. Oh, and add in "the Gaia hypothesis".
As for a certain recent novel that appears to take Velikovsky
seriously, that one looks silly now, so we don't have to wait for
future generations.
Hmmm, all manner of psi references will certainly qualify, as will any
attempts to either assume trivial FTL or deny any possibility of
interstellar travel.
-j
mike stone
>I would say that future generations will be horrified at our architecture.
>Its lack of artistic content will probably make them think we're a
>generation (or three) of Phillistines.
You mean future societies will think like Prince Charles
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> Captain Button wrote:
>
>> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>> moral monstrosities in the future?
>
> I've seen this in a couple of books already).
Only a couple? There's a whole subgenre of SF dedicated to environmental
dystopias.
> People having to live in environments without trees, grass or
> foliage.
I don't see how you can call this "unconsidered" either.
-- M. Ruff
Jason Bontrager
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
I've read many of the responses to this question now, and my god
people! The amount of social control necessary to invoke the
attitudes of the future being proposed here is just terrifying.
The assumption that people in the future will be so different from
ourselves that they would be horrified (more than we are anyway)
by advertising or contemporary architecture or the use of nuclear
weapons or any of the other snooty attitudes that are being projected
is totally unwarranted.
Some of it might come true, but I expect that the vast majority
of people simply won't be any more easily outraged than people
today, and certainly not over the trivia being described here.
I certainly don't see people being shocked at the abundance of
material wealth, consumerism, or personal vehicles available
today. Most likely they will enjoy *more* of these things than
we do now. And people will still be bemoaning the lowbrow
tastes of the masses and decrying the "cheapness" of commercial
culture and looking down their collective noses at readers of
trash like SF:-). *sigh*
Rant over:-).
John Ringo
: ourselves that they would be horrified (more than we are anyway)
: by advertising or contemporary architecture or the use of nuclear
: weapons or any of the other snooty attitudes that are being projected
: is totally unwarranted.
Yep. That was more or less what _I_ was saying. Just once I would like to
live in a society where nobody was stupid enough to believe that war was a
thing of the past. Or hatred. Or "injustice." Or that there was anything
"unjust" about monetary inequality.
As I said: "What we will be laughed at will be our PC pretensions."
Just think of communism as the perfect utopia and you'll be on the track to
what people of the future will be laughing at us about.
John
--
As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I am in touch with my inner sociopath.
"Life Affirmations that are Attainable"
See sample chapters for my upcoming book "A Hymn Before Battle" at:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200007/0671319418.htm?blurb
Available in October from Baen Publishing wherever fine books are sold!
www.johnringo.com
"Jason Bontrager" <jas...@gslis.utexas.edu> wrote in message
news:39E0E593...@gslis.utexas.edu...
:
Phil Fraering
> Phil Fraering wrote:
> >
> > J Greely <jgr...@corp.webtv.net> writes:
> >
> >> Global warming. More an embarrassment than a monstrosity,
> >> really, but people who jumped under that bandwagon will be
> >> glad they're dead whn future critics start laughing at them. :-)
> >
> > The people for or against Global Warming?
>
> Yeah -- the Canadians and Alaskans, or the Bangladeshis?
Perhaps I should rephrase things to "the people who believe Global
Warming is an ongoing CO2-mediated process, or those who don't"?
John Ringo
: >moral monstrosities in the future?
: >
What would be interesting is to see them reviling the things we revile.
Example:
"What in the hell was wrong with letting a person give themselves lung
cancer if they wanted? Especially since second hand smoke was such bogus
science..."
"I don't understand this antipathy they held towards slavery..."
"What in the hell was wrong with corporal punishment? Didn't they realize
they were destroying their society?"
"But...but...women _aren't_ equal to men!"
"What in the hell was wrong with racial slurs? The feelings behind them were
still there and all it did was lead inevitably to the Great War of 2045.
Wouldn't it have been better to talk about it openly rather than bottle it
up?"
"Why did they have a problem with Hitler? Surely if all the Jews had been
wiped out we could have avoided the End Time Wars..."
"Who in the hell thought that gays marrying under the same conditions as
straight couples was a good idea? Didn't they realize that it was completely
different circumstances???? What a silly idea!"
"Why in the _hell_ did they end the days of fission power?! We wouldn't be
huddling in the dark now if they had just used some common sense!"
"Why didn't they like burping after dinner? Didn't they realize it was a
sign of respect???"
There is no reason to believe that our current beliefs have some universal
purity to them. Or that past beliefs of whatever culture have some universal
negative to them.
If SF and history teach us nothing else, it should teach us that.
(And, by the way, some of the views expressed above, as I would hope anyone
would realize, are not by any stretch of the imagination my personal views.
Just some possible extrapolation. Although I do hold to some. I leave it as
an exercise to decide which.)
John
--
As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I am in touch with my inner sociopath.
"Life Affirmations that are Attainable"
See sample chapters for my upcoming book "A Hymn Before Battle" at:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200007/0671319418.htm?blurb
Available in October from Baen Publishing wherever fine books are sold!
www.johnringo.com
"Michael Hargreave Mawson" <O...@46thFoot.com> wrote in message
news:9$2+7zMck...@hargreave-mawson.demon.co.uk...
: In article <ntVD5.16152$Ly1.2...@news5.giganews.com>, Captain Button
: <but...@io.com> writes
:
: >What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
: >moral monstrosities in the future?
: >
: >I don't mean things that are subjects of substantial controversy
: >now, like gnu c*ntr*l, or the death penalty, or the endless
: >arguements about economics, or the balance of the state vs
: >the individual.
: >
: >I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers
: >of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions
: >as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities.
:
: Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
: eventually all cars.
:
: ATB
Ethan A Merritt
Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
>
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
Clarke City, Day 423, 2304: Authorities today arrested three parents
for failing to protect their children with tinfoil hats.
The arrested trio were members of a retrogressive splinter group of
the SCA, and claimed that under the Lifestyle Freedom Act of 2290
they had the right to dress their children in period costume.
An expert on pre-Enlightenment dress contacted at Clarke University
confirmed that it was indeed common in earlier centuries to risk
external exposure without tinfoil protection, but doubted that this
fell under the intended purpose of the LFA. The children are
under close observation at a local hospital. No evidence of induced
thought-deviance has been detected, and doctors are hopeful that
exposure to MCR [Mind Control Rays] was below the threshold for
permanent harm.
Ethan A Merritt
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
That "freedom" and "individuality" have value, or that any component
might prefer isolation to assimilation for any reason other than
simple ignorance. All the *cool* people are in the Comprise; why
aren't you?
--
Joe Foster <mailto:jfo...@ricochet.net> Got Thetans? <http://www.xenu.net/>
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above They're coming to
because my cats have apparently learned to type. take me away, ha ha!
mike stone
make their soap and lampshades?
mike stone
>Primarily human driven cars, esp ones targeted^H^Hdriven
>by young males.
Iirc that one _has_ beeen considered - by Heinlein in "The Rolling Stones"
Alexandre Grand-Clement
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
> Some basic aspect of child rearing now considered normal might
> be regarded grossly abusive (consider how perception of spanking has
> changed).
'In those days children, from 6 years of age to their mid teens were
legally bound to spend their days in classrooms. They were expected to
memorize facts rather than to acquire knowledge, show respect rather
than initiative, punctuality rather than improvisation. If indeed they
had been aware of how intimately linked playing and learning is they
chose to ignore it. Rather, they used the former as an incentive for the latter.
But of course the main reason was to keep the 'kids' out of the way
while parents were at work (see also Career).'
Alex
Brett Paul Dunbar
<jgr...@corp.webtv.net> writes
Which, in its original form, is fairly sensible (e.g. Daisyworld, a very
simple modal ecosystem displaying Gaia type environment modifying
characteristics). Don't confuse Lovelace's hypothesis with the new age
drivel that goes by the name.
ObSF. That is what Brian Aldiss did when writing Helliconia, the physics
of the set up was pretty well thought out, the biology on the other hand
was mostly awful.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Paul Dunbar
Brenda
Michael Hargreave Mawson wrote:
> In article <ntVD5.16152$Ly1.2...@news5.giganews.com>, Captain Button
> <but...@io.com> writes
>
> >What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> >moral monstrosities in the future?
> >
> >I don't mean things that are subjects of substantial controversy
> >now, like gnu c*ntr*l, or the death penalty, or the endless
> >arguements about economics, or the balance of the state vs
> >the individual.
> >
> >I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers
> >of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions
> >as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities.
>
> Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
> eventually all cars.
>
> ATB
That settles it -- I -will- go and buy a sports car.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough, author of DOORS OF DEATH AND LIFE
From Tor Books in May 2000
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Anne M. Marble
architecture.
> Its lack of artistic content will probably make them think we're a
> generation (or three) of Phillistines.
A lot of beautiful Victorian buildings were torn down because after the
heyday of the Victorian era, they were considered monstrosities. Art deco
buildings from the early part of the 20th century are still
controversial -- some consider them monstrosities while others strive to
preserve them.
I can imagine future generations looking at some present-day building
considered to be an architectural monstrosity and saying, "I can't believe
those fools wanted to tear this down! Can't they see the beauty in this
concrete?"
Anne M. Marble
> <snip>
> 1. I expect to see meat eating banned in my lifetime. If you doubt me,
> consider the number of teenage vegetarians there are now.
This one made me smile. My niece, who is in her early teens, has been a
vegetarian since she was about seven years old. Her brother went away to
college. As soon as he left the house, she started eating meat again. But
she made sure he was gone first because she didn't want to get teased. :->
While many if not most vegetarians are sincere, I think there are a lot of
teenage vegetarians who would sneak a burger if they could get away with
it.
Dr. Dean Edell brought up the subject of vat-grown meat on his radio show
lately. He postulated that many of the vegetarians who refuse to eat meat
on moral or ecological principles would be quite willing to eat a juicy
steak if it was grown in a lab.
<snip>
> 2. Circumcision. There's already a bit of a fringe movement on this.
> Don't expect it to get banned soon, and it may never be if easy body-
> modification becomes possible, but our descendants will be horrified that
> it was done to infants with no anaesthesia.
I think there was an attempt to ban circumcision in some European
country -- like Sweden or something. I'm not sure if it passed. Most people
there are uncircumcised anyway. (No, I don't know this from personal
experience. <g>) The measure raised some controversy in certain religions!
Just think... If circumcision is banned, all that porn of "uncut" men will
become commonplace instead of a "special interest." Maybe there will be a
blackmarket in illegal porn with circumsised men.
<snip>
Sea Wasp
>
> : >What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> : >moral monstrosities in the future?
> "What in the hell was wrong with corporal punishment? Didn't they realize
> they were destroying their society?"
RAH, several, most often Starship Troopers.
> "Why in the _hell_ did they end the days of fission power?! We wouldn't be
> huddling in the dark now if they had just used some common sense!"
Quite a number of SF stories -- Weber's Honor Harrington series
touches on this in an interestingly backhanded way.
> : Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
> : eventually all cars.
Harry Harrison, the Stainless Steel Rat series ("I couldn't bring
myself to believe that they were burning irreplaceable
hydrocarbons...")
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Sea Wasp
>
> Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
> > What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> > moral monstrosities in the future?
>
>
> The income tax.
I thought EVERYONE believe this was a moral monstrosity already.
>
> Retirement.
You mean mandatory retirement, or do you mean that everyone should be
slaving away until the moment the pencil/shovel/tool of trade in
question slips from their paralyzed fingers and they lapse into the
welcoming arms of eternal rest?
>
> Nation states.
? I'm not even sure what you mean? You can't have a large scale
civilization without SOMETHING that performs the functions of a large
scale state...
Sea Wasp
>
> <jab...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > <snip>
> > 1. I expect to see meat eating banned in my lifetime. If you doubt me,
> > consider the number of teenage vegetarians there are now.
If they try banning meat-eating, there will be a lot fewer of them
shortly. I understand vegetarians are tasty eating. Just call me a
humanitarian.
(I'm at the top of the food chain. Don't even think about trying to
change that... or I'll demonstrate how you STAY at the top!) :-)=
J Greely
>Which, in its original form, is fairly sensible
...and never seen. It's as if the entire world read about it with the
same casual approach to science that Alan Dean Foster used when he put
"fractal dimensions" into one of his Humanx novels.
-j
Mark Atwood
> In article <ynvy9zz...@corp.webtv.net>, J Greely
> <jgr...@corp.webtv.net> writes
> >Phil Fraering <p...@globalreach.net> writes:
> >>The people for or against Global Warming?
> >
> >Yes. Oh, and add in "the Gaia hypothesis".
>
> Which, in its original form, is fairly sensible (e.g. Daisyworld, a very
> simple modal ecosystem displaying Gaia type environment modifying
> characteristics). Don't confuse Lovelace's hypothesis with the new age
> drivel that goes by the name.
I believe that in several recent public statements, Lovelace is
actually denouncing and condeming the "deep greens" and neo-Gaia types
for ripping off his research and writings to lend respectability to
their idiocy.
--
Mark Atwood | Freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom from choice.
m...@pobox.com | Is that the freedom you want?
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Mark Atwood
> Michael Hargreave Mawson wrote:
> >
> > Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
> > eventually all cars.
>
Hey, it's part of the reason *I* drive a SUV. *grin*
Sea Wasp
>
> Brenda Clough said:
>
> >That settles it -- I -will- go and buy a sports car.
>
To hell with the Barchetta, *I* want the gleaming alloy aircar. (if
it's an aircar, why the heck does the bridge stop it???)
Mark Atwood
>
> Here's another that I haven't seen anywhere: the idea that it's
> intolerably rude to try to influence other people's emotional
> tone.
Egan. _Diaspora_ (Even painful eternal insanity isn't enough to
break the taboo on inviolatibility.)
J Greely
>1. I expect to see meat eating banned in my lifetime.
I wouldn't be surprised, but not for the reasons you give. I figure it
will come either from a series of (no)class-action lawsuits or an
out-of-control socialized medicine program.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3626/hersheys_pay_obese.html
Today, this is a joke. Tomorrow?
>This thing has all the makings of a good crusade, as meat eating is
>fun, but expensive and can be 'proved' to be bad for the environment.
But how many SF stories make a huge fuss about how wonderful it is to
eat meat, so as to produce the datedness necessary to fit into this
discussion? I can think of very few dinner soliloquies in SF novels at
all, much less ones focused on the delights of carbonized animal
flesh. Indeed, most of the food references I can think of already talk
about veggies and food pills and vat-grown meats and soylent green...
>2. Circumcision.
I find it even harder to locate SF references to the foreskin,
although I suppose there might be occasional short fiction published
in FQ. I've never checked.
>3. This is gonna cost me, but I think that surgical abortion will
>horrify our distant progeny.
Yes, it's so much cleaner to use reversible sterilization of the form
popularized in the later Heinlein novels.
-j
jab...@my-deja.com
"John Ringo" <john...@cuthis.mindspring.exthisout.com.invalid> wrote:
> : >What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> : >moral monstrosities in the future?
>
> What would be interesting is to see them reviling the things we revile.
> Example:
>
> "What in the hell was wrong with letting a person give themselves lung
> cancer if they wanted? Especially since second hand smoke was such bogus
> science..."
>
> "I don't understand this antipathy they held towards slavery..."
>
> they were destroying their society?"
>
>
> "What in the hell was wrong with racial slurs? The feelings behind them were
> still there and all it did was lead inevitably to the Great War of 2045.
> Wouldn't it have been better to talk about it openly rather than bottle it
> up?"
>
> "Why did they have a problem with Hitler? Surely if all the Jews had been
> wiped out we could have avoided the End Time Wars..."
>
> "Who in the hell thought that gays marrying under the same conditions as
> straight couples was a good idea? Didn't they realize that it was completely
> different circumstances???? What a silly idea!"
>
> huddling in the dark now if they had just used some common sense!"
>
> sign of respect???"
>
> There is no reason to believe that our current beliefs have some universal
> purity to them. Or that past beliefs of whatever culture have some universal
> negative to them.
>
> If SF and history teach us nothing else, it should teach us that.
>
> (And, by the way, some of the views expressed above, as I would hope anyone
> would realize, are not by any stretch of the imagination my personal views.
> Just some possible extrapolation. Although I do hold to some. I leave it as
> an exercise to decide which.)
>
activists, gay marriage, or ant--corporal punishment types. The Hitler
thing and the slavery thing were included as hyperbole to make your
point. You wouldn't make racial slurs but aren't keen on speech codes
that forbid them. You are ambivalent about feminism and belching - okay,
kidding there. Am I right?
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
jab...@my-deja.com
Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
> Several subthreads running now have reminded me of something
> I have often mused about.
>
> SF written in the past often is criticised for not conforming
> to modern sensibilities. For having sexist or racist assumptions
> built in to at least the fictional society, if not in the writer's
> mind.
>
> This leads me to ask:
>
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
-----Good question!
1. I expect to see meat eating banned in my lifetime. If you doubt me,
consider the number of teenage vegetarians there are now. This thing has
all the makings of a good crusade, as meat eating is fun, but expensive
and can be 'proved' to be bad for the environment. Undergrads who in our
day would annouce that Arisotle way okay with slavery, thinking they have
refuted anything to do with him, will in 2200 note triumphantly that
[insert some present-day secular saint here] chowed down on veal.
2. Circumcision. There's already a bit of a fringe movement on this.
Don't expect it to get banned soon, and it may never be if easy body-
modification becomes possible, but our descendants will be horrified that
it was done to infants with no anaesthesia.
3. This is gonna cost me, but I think that surgical abortion will
horrify our distant progeny.
4. For those (and they are many on this thread already) who think that
history will condemn the things that they do (ie, that it will 'mock our
PC pretensions'): I doubt it. I mean, do you know or care who the
Jansenists were? Or the Iconoclasts? Where do you stand on the Pelagian
heresy, or for that matter the Optimates versus the Populares? Lots of
people in 44BC would have thought of Julius Caesar as history's greatest
monster, but to us he's a wannabe tyrant among many, or a guy in play or
on a pizza box.
Richard Harter
wrote:
>Several subthreads running now have reminded me of something
>I have often mused about.
>
>SF written in the past often is criticised for not conforming
>to modern sensibilities. For having sexist or racist assumptions
>built in to at least the fictional society, if not in the writer's
>mind.
>
>This leads me to ask:
>
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
Private defecation. In the future people will defecate communally in
defecatoriums. Synchronized defecation will be a major olympic event.
The wealthy will preserve their droppings in lucite blocks; when they
die they will be entombed within mausoleums built of those blocks. It
will be better if we do not discuss street art. People who do not
participate in communal will be looked at with askance, suspected of
the grossest perversions - "What ever does she do in there, alone?"
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri
"It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold"
Hunter S Tolkien "Fear and Loathing in Barad Dur" - Iain Bowen
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>Interesting question.
>I would say that future generations will be horrified at our architecture.
>Its lack of artistic content will probably make them think we're a
>generation (or three) of Phillistines.
>
Obnotreallysf: _The Fountainhead_, by Ayn Rand.
--
Pete McCutchen
Jordan S. Bassior
>Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
>eventually all cars.
Why would the people of the future consider privately owned cars, especially
those _not_ running on fossil fuels, to be "monstrous?" (I'm assuming that in
the future we'll have _more_ energy and _better_ control systems, of course).
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
"Whoever would be a man must be a non-conformist" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
--
Jordan S. Bassior
>Human-to-human sex. I am not sure what happens when
>our machines are better at mimicking our courting signals
>than we are at producing them in the first place.
Then we'll augment ourselves using the same technology, naturally :)
Jordan S. Bassior
>That settles it -- I -will- go and buy a sports car.
A red Barchetta? ;-)
Jordan S. Bassior
>The way we currently plunder the earth for fuel sources (I admit I've
>seen this in a couple of books already).
Especially "fossil fuels", which are really good plastics feed stocks. Though
of course if we discover huge oil seas on Titan or someplace like that, I could
be wrong :)
Jordan S. Bassior
>Given sufficient time, aiming nuclear weapons at your own planet.
Of course, that may well be because by that time warfare is entirely
interplanetary ...
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> Human-to-human sex. I am not sure what happens when
>our machines are better at mimicking our courting signals
>than we are at producing them in the first place.
>
default in Pohl's "Day Million".
Here's one that's fringier than vegetarianism now: the idea that
fatness is just ordinary human variation. Bujold is one of the
few sf writers who wouldn't revolt a fat-accepting future.
Here's another that I haven't seen anywhere: the idea that it's
intolerably rude to try to influence other people's emotional
tone.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
Nancy Lebovitz
Nully Fydyan <fyd...@9mm.COM> wrote:
>On Sun, 08 Oct 2000 19:23:34 GMT, Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
><Storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>>Nully Fydyan wrote:
>
>>> People having to live in environments without trees, grass or
>>> foliage.
>>
>>I don't see how you can call this "unconsidered" either.
>
>It is not currently considered a danger, let alone a "moral
>monstrosity" for people to live in places without trees etc. Some
>people may think it's not the greatest environment in which to raise
>kids, but it's not a horrifying thought. Have you seen evidence to
>the contrary?
>
That's the point. We're looking for things which aren't considered
horrifying now that might be considered horrifying in the future.
Nancy Lebovitz
Jason Bontrager <jas...@gslis.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>I've read many of the responses to this question now, and my god
>people! The amount of social control necessary to invoke the
>attitudes of the future being proposed here is just terrifying.
>The assumption that people in the future will be so different from
>ourselves that they would be horrified (more than we are anyway)
>by advertising or contemporary architecture or the use of nuclear
>weapons or any of the other snooty attitudes that are being projected
>is totally unwarranted.
>
You may be underestimating how much social control you're already
living under. Consider the shift (in just a few decades) from taboos
on talking about sex to taboos on ethnic slurs.
Jorj Strumolo
CB> People being required to work for a living at a disagreeable job.
Lois Tilton:
LT> Retirement.
Surely it's work, period, that would seem an aberration.
A civilized society where people have to make an effort
to live? The mere thought is painful....
LT> Prisons.
What are the options, death or personality reconstruction?
Karen Lofstrom:
KL> "They actually let special interests control
> their information feeds! How could they?"
I'd think it more quaint than horrifying, like letting beliefs
in spirits or luck control one's fate.
Jason Bontrager:
JB> The amount of social control necessary to invoke the
> attitudes of the future being proposed here is just terrifying.
Well, yes, there's little I'd see as "horrifying". Plenty as
"such ignorance" or "how quaint". I mean, I can't imagine being
"horrified" by architecture, even in it's vilest incarnations.
I'd think buildings were boring or ugly, but I'd not feel moral
outrage at any of it.
jab...@my-deja.com
> Circumcision. [...] our descendants will be horrified
> that it was done to infants with no anaesthesia.
This is the closest to horrified anything mentioned so far
has made me. It seems a pointless infliction of pain.
If one must disfigure a kid, at least do it painlessly.
James Nicoll
Aaron P. Brezenski <tina...@primenet.com> wrote:
>In article <8rqe30$pld$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca>,
>James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>> No, they'll be horrified by the thinking [as typified by Frank
>>Lloyd Wright buildings] that you can have either functional or beautiful
>>but not both.
>
>?!? You don't find FLW buildings beautiful? Well, tastes vary, I guess.
>
They're pretty but the roofs leak. Chairs are put in stupid places.
They are at the aesthetic end of the scale away from useful. I think
it is a damnfool scale to begin with.
--
My Pledge: No more than 2 OT posts to rasfw a day. No replying
to trolls and idiots. Start five good on topic threads a day to drown
out the crap. Drink more coffee.
Rick
James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote in message
news:8rrcrf$j0i$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca...
> In article <8rqhgh$2n8$1...@nnrp2.phx.gblx.net>,
> Aaron P. Brezenski <tina...@primenet.com> wrote:
> >In article <8rqe30$pld$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca>,
> >James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> >> No, they'll be horrified by the thinking [as typified by Frank
> >>Lloyd Wright buildings] that you can have either functional or beautiful
> >>but not both.
> >
> >?!? You don't find FLW buildings beautiful? Well, tastes vary, I guess.
> >
> They're pretty but the roofs leak. Chairs are put in stupid places.
> They are at the aesthetic end of the scale away from useful. I think
> it is a damnfool scale to begin with.
> --
I went to college at a campus designed by FLW. I kept banging my head on
the low corners and low overhangs over stairways.
Chad Irby
> Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
> >
> > This leads me to ask:
> >
> > What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> > moral monstrosities in the future?
>
> 2. Circumcision.
<snip>
--
Chad Irby \ My greatest fear: that future generations will,
ci...@cfl.rr.com \ for some reason, refer to me as an "optimist."
Old Toby
>
> Old Toby said:
>
> >Given sufficient time, aiming nuclear weapons at your own planet.
>
> Of course, that may well be because by that time warfare is entirely
> interplanetary ...
Highly unlikely, there are always civil wars, in fact the current trend
virtually eliminates purely international wars.
Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net
Chad Irby
> I can imagine future generations looking at some present-day building
> considered to be an architectural monstrosity and saying, "I can't believe
> those fools wanted to tear this down! Can't they see the beauty in this
> concrete?"
Note the number of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and projects that have
disappeared over the last half-century, some of which were so well-made
that they were expensive as hell to demolish.
Chad Irby
> I went to college at a campus designed by FLW. I kept banging my head on
> the low corners and low overhangs over stairways.
Aaahh, yes. Florida Southern.
I could reach up and place my hand flat on the ceiling in many places
when I toured that campus.
Chad Irby
Lebovitz) wrote:
> Here's another that I haven't seen anywhere: the idea that it's
> intolerably rude to try to influence other people's emotional
> tone.
_Clans of the Alphane Moon_.
Old Toby
>
> Old Toby said:
>
> >Given sufficient time, aiming nuclear weapons at your own planet.
>
> Of course, that may well be because by that time warfare is entirely
> interplanetary ...
I also want to add that this isn't simply something they don't
do, but something they look at as morally repulsive and wonder
"why did they ever do that". That's what this whole thread
is about, after all.
Peter Bruells
> Highly unlikely, there are always civil wars, in fact the current
> trend virtually eliminates purely international wars.
I find that doubtful. Most "civil" wars right are "intra-national",
yes, but really international wars in disguise, when forcefully
intergrated nations see a chance to break off.
mike stone
>
>Private defecation. In the future people will defecate communally in
>defecatoriums. Synchronized defecation will be a major olympic event.
>The wealthy will preserve their droppings in lucite blocks; when they
>die they will be entombed within mausoleums built of those blocks. It
>will be better if we do not discuss street art. People who do not
>participate in communal will be looked at with askance, suspected of
>the grossest perversions - "What ever does she do in there, alone?"
Aldiss came close in "The Dark Light Years" but even he attributed it to
aliens, not humans
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough England
"The English people are like the English beer.
Froth on top, dregs at the bottom, the middle excellent" - Voltaire
Kristopher/EOS
>
> Here's another that I haven't seen anywhere: the idea
> that it's intolerably rude to try to influence other
> people's emotional tone.
I often find it intolerably rude, in the present.
Kristopher/EOS
Russ Massey
<c...@tiac.net> writes
>>moral monstrosities in the future?
>
>Private defecation. In the future people will defecate communally in
>defecatoriums. Synchronized defecation will be a major olympic event.
>The wealthy will preserve their droppings in lucite blocks; when they
>die they will be entombed within mausoleums built of those blocks. It
>will be better if we do not discuss street art. People who do not
>participate in communal will be looked at with askance, suspected of
>the grossest perversions - "What ever does she do in there, alone?"
>
--
Russ Massey
Larry M Headlund
<deleted>
>
>4. For those (and they are many on this thread already) who think that
>history will condemn the things that they do (ie, that it will 'mock our
>PC pretensions'): I doubt it. I mean, do you know or care who the
>Jansenists were?
I think their influence on Pascal, speaking as a mathematician, was
almost wholely bad.
>Or the Iconoclasts?
Ironically, it is the art they were trying to destroy which
is the most apprecaitted feature of their times now.
>Where do you stand on the Pelagian heresy,
You could argue that that has had a revival recently.
>or for that matter the Optimates versus the Populares?
Discusting the way Cicero sucked up to them.
All right I was showing off. I did remember something Orwell wrote
to lend some substance to this posting:
Orwell was talking to an old lady in the 1930's. They are looking
off a bridge and she says:
"We used to toss pennies to the mudlarks here when I was a child."
"Mudlarks?"
"Yes, when I was a child people would wait in the mud below the
bridge here. You would toss coins in the muddy water and they
would dive in after them."
>Lots of
>people in 44BC would have thought of Julius Caesar as history's greatest
>monster, but to us he's a wannabe tyrant among many, or a guy in play or
>on a pizza box.
See also the changing views of Napolean or Cromwell. Churchill (shouldn't
he be allowed in under the exception rule? Also he wrote one SF
story.) mentions in _History of the English Speaking People_ that
as a dictator he was viewed in Victorian times as a mildly regretable
figure whose ruthlessness gave a little frisson. Current (mid-20th)
experience of dictators had taken the glamour off.
--
--
Larry Headlund l...@world.std.com Mathematical Engineering, Inc.
(617) 242 7741
Unix, X and Motif Consulting
Speaking for myself at most.
Michael Hargreave Mawson
<ama...@abs.net> writes
><jab...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> <snip>
>> 1. I expect to see meat eating banned in my lifetime. If you doubt me,
>> consider the number of teenage vegetarians there are now.
>Dr. Dean Edell brought up the subject of vat-grown meat on his radio show
>lately. He postulated that many of the vegetarians who refuse to eat meat
>on moral or ecological principles would be quite willing to eat a juicy
>steak if it was grown in a lab.
<raises hand> Yes. I'd have no problem with that at all - it would
be morally no different from eating Quorn (TM) fillets.
ATB
--
Mike
"His wish was to become a historian - not to dig out facts and store
them in himself... but to understand them, call the dead back to life
and let them speak through him to their descendants. She sometimes
wondered who would pay for it and who would heed."
- from "Harvest of Stars" by Poul Anderson.
Michael Hargreave Mawson
Bassior <jsba...@aol.com> writes
>Michael Hargreave Mawson said:
>
>>Private car ownership, particularly cars running on fossil fuels, but
>>eventually all cars.
>
>Why would the people of the future consider privately owned cars, especially
>those _not_ running on fossil fuels, to be "monstrous?"
All sorts of reasons.
> (I'm assuming that in
>the future we'll have _more_ energy and _better_ control systems, of course).
I'm not necessarily making those assumptions. Here are just a few
possible reasons:
Inefficient use of energy ("Have you any idea how much energy it used to
take to build a car? And how much to run it?")
Inefficient use of manufacturing infrastructure and resources ("Just
think of the progress in space exploration they could have made if they
had put half of the money they spent on cars into developing
spaceships!")
Safety ("Hundreds of people used to be killed by these things, *every*
day!")
Congestion ("The average speed of traffic in London used to be 11 miles
per hour before we did away with private cars - can you imagine?")
Pollution ("Millions of these machines, pumping filth into the air they
had to breath! The social costs were extraordinary!")
Increased home-working ("Now that most of us work from home, we simply
don't need cars any more.")
Inverse snobbery (1999 - "Well of course, I wouldn't have a television
in the house." 2009 - "Well, of course, I wouldn't dream of owning a
*car*!")
The lunatic fringe of car-control freaks have already managed to
persuade governments to impose massive taxes on car ownership and on
fuel. Alternative fuel sources are being actively supported by
governments around the world. "Improving Public Transport" is a
shibboleth of modern British politics, and getting cars off the roads is
already seen as automatically desirable by our glorious leaders. As a
smoker, a shooter and a driver, I believe that my car is going to be
under the same sort of threat in a few years' time as my addiction and
my hobby are now. I could be completely wrong (I make no claims to
prophecy), but it seems to me that this is certainly a plausible
candidate for a futuristic moral monstrosity. That is one of the
reasons I recently swapped my sedate little 1.4l family car for a 2.0l,
16-valve, fuel injected Saab. I may not have the opportunity to drive
such a vehicle for very much longer...
Come back to me in twenty years' time, and we'll see whether I was right
or not.
iantr...@my-deja.com
> As for a certain recent novel that appears to take Velikovsky
> seriously, that one looks silly now, so we don't have to wait for
> future generations.
I think this is referring to James P. Hogan's Cradle of Saturn, details
of which can be found at
http://www.jamesphogan.com/cradle/background.html
But there are many recent non-fiction books that also take Velikovsky
seriously:
* Dance of the Planets by Angiras, see http://www.danceoftheplanets.com/
* Predicting The Past: An Exploration of Myth, Science, and Prehistory,
by By Roger William Wescott, see
http://knowledge.co.uk/kronos-press/predict.htm
* Sun, Moon, and Sothis. A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in
Ancient Egypt, by Lynn E. Rose, see
http://knowledge.co.uk/sun-moon/index.htm
* Martian Metamorphoses: The Planet Mars in Ancient Myth and Religion,
by Ev Cochrane, see http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/aeon/mars.htm
* Our Rock who Art in Heaven, by Jacqueline Brook, see
http://www.sinclairpress.com/
Ian Tresman
Society for Interdisciplinary Studies,
http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
thomas jorgensen
> In article <8rqhgh$2n8$1...@nnrp2.phx.gblx.net>,
> Aaron P. Brezenski <tina...@primenet.com> wrote:
> >In article <8rqe30$pld$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca>,
> >James Nicoll <jam...@babbage.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> >> No, they'll be horrified by the thinking [as typified by Frank
> >>Lloyd Wright buildings] that you can have either functional or beautiful
> >>but not both.
> >
> >?!? You don't find FLW buildings beautiful? Well, tastes vary, I guess.
> >
> They're pretty but the roofs leak. Chairs are put in stupid places.
> They are at the aesthetic end of the scale away from useful. I think
> it is a damnfool scale to begin with.
It's also a false logic. There is no reason utility and aesthetics have
to conflict. As demonstrated by a lot of the buildings commissioned
by the danish govt. Near as I can tell the government decided to
subsidize danish architecture by having *all* their buildings run
through an open bid for architects. They don't always go for the
low bid either. It doesn't always work out, but generally it makes
paying the high taxes a bit less painful.. :)
Lots of pretty and user-friendly libraries, schools.and so on.
Rick
news:cirby-B0078B....@news-server.cfl.rr.com...
> "Rick" <rikw...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> > I went to college at a campus designed by FLW. I kept banging my head
on
> > the low corners and low overhangs over stairways.
>
> Aaahh, yes. Florida Southern.
>
> I could reach up and place my hand flat on the ceiling in many places
> when I toured that campus.
I think FLW had an intense dislike for tall people. :-)
thomas jorgensen
as some child sits through history class aka "horrors of the past":
Given Uterine replicators and time:
"People used to have to be pregnant for 9 months? And they didn't
have proper control over the enviorment of the fetus? Ick! "
Given good genetic engineering and time:
"They used to have to let their children be born with random genes?
Slaves to limited potentials ? Poor souls."
Given good longivity tech:
"Peoples bodies used to just fall apart for no particular reason?"
*openmouthed expression of horror*
Given drexlerian nanotech and plentiful energy:
*in a tone of total incomprehenison*
"What is this economics thing? What is a job? and what *is*
death anyways?
Given Vingean singularity:
"I am that which I am"
Per C. Jorgensen
> See also the changing views of Napolean or Cromwell. Churchill (shouldn't
> he be allowed in under the exception rule? Also he wrote one SF
> story.) mentions in _History of the English Speaking People_ that
> as a dictator he was viewed in Victorian times as a mildly regretable
> figure whose ruthlessness gave a little frisson. Current (mid-20th)
> experience of dictators had taken the glamour off.
But haven't there been some English radicals in this century
who have seen something worthwhile in the Lord Protector's reign?
Egalitarianism and levelling, New Model Army, Commonwealth,
'plain simple folk of England' and all that. Of course, it is possible to
read history in many, many ways...
- Per
mike stone
>But haven't there been some English radicals in this century
>who have seen something worthwhile in the Lord Protector's reign?
Sure there have. He appeals to some guy's power fantasies. "If _I_ were
dictator - I'd show 'em" . Napoleon arouses the same emotions - by no means
confined to the political right. Liberals are just as susceptible to
pwer-worship as anyone else
>Egalitarianism and levelling,
Actually it was OC who _supressed_ the Levellers. There is a little plaque in
the centre of Oxford, marking where the last Leveller mutineers died before a
Cromwellian firing aquad
Brenda
Sea Wasp wrote:
> Jordan S. Bassior wrote:
> >
> > Brenda Clough said:
> >
> > >That settles it -- I -will- go and buy a sports car.
> >
> > A red Barchetta? ;-)
>
> To hell with the Barchetta, *I* want the gleaming alloy aircar. (if
> it's an aircar, why the heck does the bridge stop it???)
>
> --
I am flirting with a Toyota Celica, which -looks- like an aircar. It also resembles the
Batmobile, assuming you could get a Batmobile that isn't loaded down with ejection seats
and amphibious capability and the trunk encumbered with a crime computer.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough, author of DOORS OF DEATH AND LIFE
From Tor Books in May 2000
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Chad Irby
> Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> > "Rick" <rikw...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I went to college at a campus designed by FLW. I kept banging
> > > my head on the low corners and low overhangs over stairways.
> >
> > Aaahh, yes. Florida Southern.
> >
> > I could reach up and place my hand flat on the ceiling in many places
> > when I toured that campus.
>
> I think FLW had an intense dislike for tall people. :-)
Naah... that was a Frank Lloyd Wright thing. Most of his buildings were
scaled for, well, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Christopher K Davis
> It's also a false logic. There is no reason utility and aesthetics have
> to conflict. As demonstrated by a lot of the buildings commissioned
> by the danish govt. Near as I can tell the government decided to
> subsidize danish architecture by having *all* their buildings run
> through an open bid for architects. They don't always go for the
> low bid either. It doesn't always work out, but generally it makes
> paying the high taxes a bit less painful.. :)
> Lots of pretty and user-friendly libraries, schools.and so on.
Now you're tempting me to try to learn enough Danish to move there.
Again. (I already loved Copenhagen for the bike-friendliness of the
city when we visited it a few years back.)
ObSF Architecture: the bit in, um, was it _Memory_? where the
architecture of ImpSec HQ (designed by mad old Dono Vorrutyer) is
compared to the Investigatif Federale building on Escobar and Simon
Illyan says "I was never closer to emigrating".
--
Christopher Davis * <ckd...@ckdhr.com> * <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/ckd/>
Put location information in your DNS! <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/dns-loc/>
JAMES S BATTISTA
>
>
> Sea Wasp wrote:
>
>> Jordan S. Bassior wrote:
>> >
>> > Brenda Clough said:
>> >
>> > >That settles it -- I -will- go and buy a sports car.
>> >
>> > A red Barchetta? ;-)
>>
>> To hell with the Barchetta, *I* want the gleaming alloy aircar. (if
>> it's an aircar, why the heck does the bridge stop it???)
>>
>> --
>
> I am flirting with a Toyota Celica, which -looks- like an aircar. It also resembles the
> Batmobile, assuming you could get a Batmobile that isn't loaded down with ejection seats
> and amphibious capability and the trunk encumbered with a crime computer.
They're cute and all... but I suspect you can do better.
You're lucky to be living in what will be seen as the Golden Age of sports-cars.
There are *tons* on the market, apparently most of astonishing performance,
reliability, and economy.
I've only driven a Miata a couple of times, but I couldn't stop grinning the
whole time I was driving. OTOH, I found myself looking *over* the windscreen
at stop-lights.
If what you want is a space-car, try to find the latest series of Nissan 300ZX.
Not made any more, but you can find the last few model years from $15K to the
low twenties depending on year, miles, and turbo or not.
--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, he was short.
Curiously enough, his last work is fairly near me and though I've
never been inside it I've often driven past it. It's the Marin
County Civic Center, rows of arches of varying sizes atop each
other (like a Renaissance pallazo) andtarnished-bronze-green
domes atop all. I have never heard any adverse comments about it,
but maybe that's merely because I don't live in Marin County and
have never been inside it. ;) It looks very nice from the
outside.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Jordan S. Bassior
>I also want to add that this isn't simply something they don't
>do, but something they look at as morally repulsive and wonder
>"why did they ever do that". That's what this whole thread
>is about, after all.
It's possible that we'll be in a Golden Age in which war per se is
(temporarily) a "thing of the past", in which case it will be the "war" part
that they find horrifying. I find it difficult to imagine that, as long as we
keep fighting wars, that we're going to be _downgrading_ the energy levels
used, so it's far more likely that "nuclear" weapons will be rendered obsolete,
if ever, by something even more destructive.
--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
"Whoever would be a man must be a non-conformist" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
--
Jordan S. Bassior
>To hell with the Barchetta, *I* want the gleaming alloy aircar. (if
>it's an aircar, why the heck does the bridge stop it???)
Maybe it's really a hovercar?
Ruud van de Kruisweg
>Clarke had another item in one of his later books about a great
>controversy on if smoking should be digitally removed from old movies
>for moral reasons.
Disney is already doing that. They've digitally altered scenes with smoking
characters in at least two dvd reissues. In the movie "Melody Time" Goofy is
now holding something invisible in his hand, in "Saludos Amigos" Pecos Bill
has become a non-smoker.
Ruud
Jordan S. Bassior
>> (I'm assuming that in
>>the future we'll have _more_ energy and _better_ control systems, of
course).
>
>I'm not necessarily making those assumptions.
Why not? We've been doing so every generation from 1750 to the present.
>Inefficient use of energy ("Have you any idea how much energy it used to
>take to build a car? And how much to run it?")
>
>Inefficient use of manufacturing infrastructure and resources ("Just
>think of the progress in space exploration they could have made if they
>had put half of the money they spent on cars into developing
>spaceships!")
Both these are being paid for by the buyer, though. Are you saying that we'll
have lost most of our economic freedoms?
>Safety ("Hundreds of people used to be killed by these things, *every*
>day!")
Well yes, but that's where "better control systems" come in. We're already
making major progress on designing autopilots for cars. It doesn't seem likely
that this research will never bear fruit.
>Congestion ("The average speed of traffic in London used to be 11 miles
>per hour before we did away with private cars - can you imagine?")
Seems likely that telecommuting will abolish most of this problem in the long
run. Furthermore, as the population increasingly shifts from old-style urban
centers, poorly designed for motor traffic, to more modern cities, this problem
also abates.
>Pollution ("Millions of these machines, pumping filth into the air they
>had to breathe! The social costs were extraordinary!")
I think it's very improbable that the cars of 2050 or 2100 would be powered by
fossil fuels in any case.
>Increased home-working ("Now that most of us work from home, we simply
>don't need cars any more.")
That would lead to less use of cars, but not to "moral horror" at them.
>Inverse snobbery (1999 - "Well of course, I wouldn't have a television
>in the house." 2009 - "Well, of course, I wouldn't dream of owning a
>*car*!")
Possibly, though it's rather hard to imagine as cars give one an active power.
> As a
>smoker, a shooter and a driver, I believe that my car is going to be
>under the same sort of threat in a few years' time as my addiction and
>my hobby are now.
You could be right. I hope not. And I hope that if it is it's geographically
limited, so that there's time for the looniness to reveal itself as people
leave the no-car areas in droves.
Aaron P. Brezenski
ObSF: _REMAKE_, Connie Willis.
--
Aaron Brezenski
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there isn't someone out to get me."
Card-Carrying Member of the Illuminati
carl Dershem
> Sea Wasp wrote:
>
> > Jordan S. Bassior wrote:
> > >
> > > Brenda Clough said:
> > >
> > > >That settles it -- I -will- go and buy a sports car.
> > >
> > > A red Barchetta? ;-)
> >
> > To hell with the Barchetta, *I* want the gleaming alloy aircar. (if
> > it's an aircar, why the heck does the bridge stop it???)
> >
> > --
>
> I am flirting with a Toyota Celica, which -looks- like an aircar. It also resembles the
> Batmobile, assuming you could get a Batmobile that isn't loaded down with ejection seats
> and amphibious capability and the trunk encumbered with a crime computer.
>
> Brenda
But...
Those would be the *fun* parts of having a Batmobile! I can think of several long trips
where ejection seats would have made the drive *much* more enjoyable.
cd
--
This post is copyright 2000 by Carl Dershem. Permission to
insert links when displaying it is available for $100. Use in
this fashion constitutes acceptance of these terms.
J Greely
>But there are many recent non-fiction books that also take Velikovsky
>seriously:
There are also many books that take astrology seriously. That
doesn't make it any less laughable.
-j
mike stone
>It's possible that we'll be in a Golden Age in which war per se is
>(temporarily) a "thing of the past", in which case it will be the "war" part
>that they find horrifying.
Rather like the situation on Earth in the run-up to the Man-Kzin Wars
aja...@my-deja.com
Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
> What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
> moral monstrosities in the future?
>
> Some basic aspect of child rearing now considered normal might
> be regarded grossly abusive (consider how perception of spanking has
> changed).
I'll bite:
1. Formula feeding (vs. breastfeeding).
2. Less than 1 year off the job as maternity leave.
3. Letting infants sleep in their own rooms (vs, "co-sleeping"
and "family beds").
ajante
Mark Atwood
>
> Both these are being paid for by the buyer, though. Are you saying that we'll
> have lost most of our economic freedoms?
That's what the anti-transportation zealots and Nadarites *want*.
"We can't let people do what they want, they keep doing the *wrong things*!"
--
Mark Atwood | Freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom from choice.
m...@pobox.com | Is that the freedom you want?
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Charlie Stross
as <but...@io.com> declared:
>What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered
>moral monstrosities in the future?
One item I notice at a very low level in US and British SF is residual
anti-German (and to some extent anti-Japanese) sentiment left over
from the 1940's. It's not that common any more, but it's still there
and bites me on the ankle from time to time. (ObFawltyTowers: "don't
mention the war!")
Now, there are other similarly intrusive nationalist stereotypes that
crop up all over the western media these days and that are a lot more
prominent. Take anti-islamic sentiment, for example, or the gross
prejudice towards people from central or south America. Both these
attitudes are at root predicated on "they're dirty, poor, and have a
different religion from us good folks" -- which conditions are capable
of changing over time.
Another example: today, the Russophobia of the cold war looks quaint and
dated. What used to be a chilling, globe-spanning authoritarian threat
is now a bunch of okay guys whose leaders are either incompetents or
drunkards or both and who have an economy that's been royally screwed
by decades of mismanagement and corruption. (I'm talking stereotypes
here -- but what would you make of a recent book, set in today's world,
that proposed Russia is going to *out-compete* and *conquer* the west?)
So, answer: anything that relies on national stereotypes or the perceived
world order is unstable over a timescale of decades.
Beyond that ... let's just say that gender roles are mutable over
a similar timescale; this is not the future that anyone would have
predicted in the 1960's, and I doubt that the 2040's will be _either_
a reversal to the 1960's or (as one or two recent SF novels posited)
a neo-Victorian era.
One [semi-random] possibility is that assuming someone's gender role is
indicative of their social position will come to be seen as unwarranted
prejudice. I have an impression that people are more inclined to engage
in role play these days than, say, a couple of decades ago; maybe I'm
misreading things but I think economic affluence and longer lifespans
will enable people to experiment and explore possibilities far more
than they do now -- a lot of conformist roles are enforced by economic
pressures as much as social ones.
One possibility that annoys me: "feminist" becomes conflated with
"blue-nosed religious fundamentalist". There are lots of feminists who
aren't -- but Andrea Dworkin and Patricia McKinnon seem to get more
publicity for their views, which appear to boil down to "women are poor
wee helpless things who need to be protected" rather than any kind of
declaration of equality. This sort of thing could really confuse
future readers, if "anti-feminist" means in favour of equality and
free speech ...
-- Charlie
Dorothy J Heydt
Aaron P. Brezenski <tina...@primenet.com> wrote:
>>Disney is already doing that. They've digitally altered scenes with smoking
>>characters in at least two dvd reissues. In the movie "Melody Time" Goofy is
>>now holding something invisible in his hand, in "Saludos Amigos" Pecos Bill
>>has become a non-smoker.
???
Pecos Bill isn't *in* _Saludos Amigos. He's a legendary Anglo
humanoid cowboy and he was in one of those Disney two-stories-to-
one-film like _Fun and Fancy Free_.
The characters in _Saludos Amigos_ are Panchito the Mexican
rooster and Jose' Carioca the Brazilian parrot. And Donald
Duck, of course. I just played the film over (on a DVD bought
less than a year ago) and Panchito doesn't show any signs of
ever having had a cigarette in his hands. He does, however,
have two six-shooters at his belt which he shoots off repeatedly
in his first two scenes and which afterwards disappear. Jose'
Carioca, on the other hand, never lets go of his cigar from
beginning to end, no, not even when there are four of him, all
dressed like Carmen Miranda, dancing the samba and trailing four
trails of cigar smoke.
Jim Mann
Mark Atwood wrote in message ...
>"We can't let people do what they want, they keep doing the *wrong
things*!"
>
While that sounds very clever, there are times "people" do want to do the
wrong things (with wrong being defined as detrimental to the country as a
whole). Several hundred years ago, through parts of Europe, people wanted to
just toss their garbage and sewage into the streets. Some people still want
to be able do dump trash whereever they feel like it. Others would love to
be able to burn trash in their back yards. (And, on a corporate level, until
the government (pressured by the majority of people) stepped in and stopped
"people" from doing the wrong things, steel mills thought it was just fine
to dump slag right into the river.
---
Jim Mann
Charlie Stross
>3. This is gonna cost me, but I think that surgical abortion will
>horrify our distant progeny.
I think you'll find a general consensus, even today, between pro-choice
and pro-life people, that prevention is preferable.
The problem comes in when people try to figure out what "prevention"
means, of course. Some people mean "abstinence until marriage, no sex
outside wedlock, sex only for purposes of reproduction", while others mean
"give me the implant and point me at the orgy". The different social
attitudes implied by these definitions give rise to ... interesting
... possible SFnal routes by which abortion might become a horrifying
rarity.[*]
-- Charlie
[*] Speaking personally, however, I find the idea of a reversion to the
era of the back-street abortionist considerably more horrifying than
anything that's going on in clinics today.
Joseph Michael Bay
>On Sun, 08 Oct 2000 07:35:47 GMT, Captain Button <but...@io.com> wrote:
>>Clarke had another item in one of his later books about a great
>>controversy on if smoking should be digitally removed from old movies
>>for moral reasons.
>Disney is already doing that. They've digitally altered scenes with smoking
>characters in at least two dvd reissues. In the movie "Melody Time" Goofy is
>now holding something invisible in his hand, in "Saludos Amigos" Pecos Bill
>has become a non-smoker.
Ever see Popeye on those food bank "reverse coupons" at supermarkets?
Not only does he look remarkably freakish without his pipe, he's encouraging
us to "help keep families strong to the finish". The "finish"? Yikes.
--
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of sXXXch, Joe
... or the right of the people peaceably to XXXemble, and to Bay
peXXXion the government for a redress of grievances." Stanford
-- from the First Amendment to the US ConsXXXution University