The retro future
Zed
The retro future
*or*
What if "The Great Gatsby" took place in 2019?
I have recently become intrigued with the concept of the
"retro-future" and am looking for more information about it.
Basically, The "retro-future" is my wittgensteinian family name for a
certain vision of the future, and the examples in this post are
members of that family.
(Wittgenstein family concept: A group of objects which share certain
common characteristics. However, no one object has to have all the
characteristics, or any particular one, to be a member of the family.)
. Briefly, the traits include
a fascination with technology and the culture of technology
a belief that progress will continue forever
Positivism
Art deco archticture
_Metropolis_ type architecture
all problems can be solved by science
human beings as cogs in a machine-city/organism
art deco
pseudoscience
modernism
abstract art
The future as an updated version of 1890-1930 (politics, culture,
architecture, etc.)
Here are some examples of "retro-futures" I've found in different
media. If you know of any others, please add to the list.
Architecture--
The architecture of the "retro future" has a look that is modern and
art deco-esque. Everything is vast, streamlined, imposing, and
somewhat dehumanizing. I have no training in architecture, so most
of the examples I've seen come from T.V and the movies (more on that
later). The architecture seems to be a mixture of the early
industrial architecture of germany, the art deco movement in the U.S.,
and old cover illustrations from pulps like Astounding and Amazing
Stories. The guiding principle (from what I've gathered) is that the
city is a tremendous organism, almost like a brain. It establishes
more and more connections with itself (Tangent: all of the connections
were imagined to be aboveground, e.g. monorails and skywalks between
buildings rather than buses and tubeways). The city also has to have
a certain homogeneneity. All of the buildings must be designed so
that they are part of a cohesive, harmonious whole. Humans are the
neurons in this brain, the cogs that make up the machine, living in
tiny efficient spaces, but free to think and create since robots do
all the drudge work.
Books--
The retro-future vision is most clearly articulated by William Gibson
in "The Gernsback Continuum." This is the reality of Ralph8243+ and
his magical future of techno-panacea. But very few books deal
explicitly with the retro future; most just use it as background.
Gibson's is the only story I've found in the former category. Of the
latter, much of the early "scientifiction" and pulps such as The
Shadow and Doc Savage used the retro future as backdrop (then
considered to be the actual future). Many current sf authors have
also set their stories in the retro future, such as the new Doc Savage
books, _Doc Sidhe_, the new Lensman books, Neal Stephenson's _The
Diamond Age_, and the "Steam Punk" genre (Of that last, the only
author I'm familiar with is James Blaylock--are there any others?)
Movies--
Metropolis--an obvious choice
The first two Batman movies-- The set design is incredible.
Everything is streamlined, art-decoey and dehumanizing. Shreck's
office and the worker statues in the christmas square were especially
cool.
The city of lost children-- Full of highly ornate retro tech--wood
and bronze rather than plastics and steel. This is 1972 seen from
1896.
Brazil-- Another bizarre retro future. Computers and technology in
this movie look as strange and arcane as their inventors imagined the
products of the future would be--rather than now, where technology is
a constant background hum and everything is taken for granted.
Tv--
Batman: The Animated Series-- Dark, urbane twenties look to
everything. A blimp, not a satellite, patrols the skies of a morbid,
art deco New York that never was. Batman still has the batjet, but
there's no color television. Computers are hulking monstrosities,
magic and technology co-exist uneasily, and everyone dresses well.
This and Brazil are probably the best articulations of retro futurism.
Comics--
The current pulp revivals such as The Shadow and The Sandman (not
Morpheus, but the guy who wears the gas-mask.)
Music--
The Buggles put out an album called Age of Plastic featuring the song
"Video killed the radio star." Here are the lyrics ( they're much
better when sung.)
I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two
Lying awake intent at tuning in on you.
If I was young it didn't stop you coming through.
Oh-a oh
They took the credit for your second symphony.
Rewritten by machine and new technology,
and now I understand the problems you can see.
Oh-a oh
I met your children
Oh-a oh
What did you tell them?
Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
Pictures came and broke your heart.
Oh-a-a-a oh
And now we meet in an abandoned studio.
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago.
And you remember the jingles used to go.
Oh-a oh
You were the first one.
Oh-a oh
You were the last one.
Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far
Oh-a-aho oh,
Oh-a-aho oh
Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far.
Pictures came and broke your heart, put the blame on VTR.
You are a radio star.
You are a radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
repeat
Video killed the radio star. (You are a radio star.)
Anyway, that's about it. All comments, critiques, and suggestions for
further sources appreciated. I would also appreciate any insights as
to why this particular vision of the future has continued to have such
a hold on peoples' imaginations.
---
BE BRAVE, NEW WAVE!
"I am the story I tell myself."
--Greg Wait (z0...@ix.netcom.com)
Yarrick40
a few comments...
Loved Gernsback, haven't seen Blaylock. For Steam Punk, check out The
Difference Engine, by Gibson & Sterling. Babbage, say no more. For comix,
try Grimjack, which is no longer published. Architecture-wise, nobody
comes close to Frank Lloyd Wright, but your comments on elevated trans
were on the money. Music-wise, I've heard rumors of a Gary Numan tribute
album in the works, 'coz everybody's doing covers of his stuff lately.
I'll let you know if I come up with anything else.
I Dream of Wires!
Yarrick40
Philip Dahl
"retro-future", which faded after the dawning of the atomic age and the
rise of the "post-apocalyptic future". H.G. Wells was a major figure in
both.
Star Trek links the "retro-future" with an optimistic, post-atomic
future--maybe call it the "new age future"?--since the original pilot was in
"retro-future" style but the Capt. Kirk pilot was in the optimistic
"new age future" style.
xstr...@iwl.net
>Movies--
> Metropolis--an obvious choice
> The first two Batman movies-- The set design is incredible.
>Everything is streamlined, art-decoey and dehumanizing. Shreck's
>office and the worker statues in the christmas square were especially
>cool.
> The city of lost children-- Full of highly ornate retro tech--wood
>and bronze rather than plastics and steel. This is 1972 seen from
>1896.
> Brazil-- Another bizarre retro future. Computers and technology in
>this movie look as strange and arcane as their inventors imagined the
>products of the future would be--rather than now, where technology is
>a constant background hum and everything is taken for granted.
>Tv--
> Batman: The Animated Series-- Dark, urbane twenties look to
>everything. A blimp, not a satellite, patrols the skies of a morbid,
>art deco New York that never was. Batman still has the batjet, but
>there's no color television. Computers are hulking monstrosities,
>magic and technology co-exist uneasily, and everyone dresses well.
>This and Brazil are probably the best articulations of retro futurism.
Zed, you have a strange, but fascinating mind. You should go outside
once in awhile.
I like the visions in the movies you described. How about Blade
Runner? The way they built new structures right on top of old ones.
Technology growing so fast that it became easier to retro-fit an
existing machine than to replace it. How the city seemed to swallow
the people in its' seedy streets, lurking in the shadows of the ever
growing technology. Ridley Scott is a genius.
Ricky Cheatwood
xstr...@iwl.net
Jonathan Somers
technology, while not flashy, was certainly far-futuristic; but the
costume design, the vintage autos, etc. were definitely period works.
Unfortunately the architecture did not stand out as being either retro
or futuristic, but again a feel for melding past and future.
MILK-MAN
me something that made me see it in a whole new light. I got it
out on video, and seeing it the second time, I picked up a lot of
things I didn't notice before. It's not so much science fiction
as extremely well-executed satire.
If you have any family members or friends leaning towards
Scientology, you would do well to show it to them.
>
>
Cateland White
stuff? As in Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum"?
All that flanged, Ming The Merciless stuff. Does this count? I
always feared a future where that existed.
Gabe Wintermute
P.S. If this is misspelled, excuse me--my mom's computer has a
problem with Netscape and all I'm seeing is this bizarre text
mixed with blank space.
Filip De Vos
: Books--
: Movies--
: Tv--
: Comics--
: Music--
Anime--
I'm told 'The Wings of Honeamise' is very good. It is set in an
alternate future, where instead of electricity and intenal combustion
engines, the world runs on steam and pneumatics.
--
Filip De Vos "Manned exploration initiatives will be
difficult to afford when transporting a
fid...@eduserv.rug.ac.be single meal to the US space station will
cost $15.000"
Lt Col John R. London III
Daniel Sissman
Mister X, from Vortex Comics. It's a flawless combination of dystopian
urban decay and art-deco 1930's futurism. Definitely worth hunting down.
Chris Ferguson
> Zed, you have a strange, but fascinating mind. You should go outside
> once in awhile.
> of old ones.
> Technology growing so fast that it became easier to retro-fit an
> existing machine than to replace it. How the city seemed to swallow
> Ricky Cheatwood
Hey, neat topic!
I totally agree. The theory behind that movie, and quite possibly this
whole retro future idea could be found in a lot of writings by a
gentleman by the name of Arthur Kroker (Concordia: http://ctheory.com/).
He writes of the Neitchze-like attitude towards technology as a whole by
his re-worked statement - "the will to technology equals the will to
virtuality," something I also agree with. We become bodiless in the
expanse of cyberspace, thus act as cyberbodies with nothing real except
the "virtualness" we feel - that is all that we would know and
experience.
Going along the premise that H. Ford is a cyborg in the movie,
this description fits him well (this is the running theory in the Blade
Runner sequel book.)
funkster
rsf...@uncg.edu
Vos) writes:
>Anime--
>I'm told 'The Wings of Honeamise' is very good. It is set in an
>alternate future, where instead of electricity and intenal combustion
>engines, the world runs on steam and pneumatics.
Um.
Having seen that, I don't think that's quite the situation - there're electric
lights, rear-engined propeller planes, etc, etc.
_WoH_, instead, seems to feature an alternate present - the map's different,
the countries are different, the technology's different-in-the-details ... (the
story, for those who care, which probably isn't that many, can be roughly
described as "The Right Stuff Goes To Japan." But anyway...)
Rob F.
James Nicoll
Filip De Vos <fid...@eduserv.rug.ac.be> wrote:
>Anime--
>I'm told 'The Wings of Honeamise' is very good. It is set in an
>alternate future, where instead of electricity and intenal combustion
>engines, the world runs on steam and pneumatics.
They had electricity in WoH. The beginning of the story is at
the funeral of an astronaut whose urinal bag ruptured and caused a
lethal short circuit. WoH seems to have a 1945-1955 level of technology
and the space program is run off of the money the project leader gets
through graft and his connections to the Royal Family.
James Nicoll
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
Jim Kasprzak
>I'm told 'The Wings of Honeamise' is very good. It is set in an
>alternate future, where instead of electricity and intenal combustion
>engines, the world runs on steam and pneumatics.
The world of "Honneamise" is a planet like our Earth, with human beings,
but a different geography and history. There are indeed internal combustion
engines and electricity -- we see cars, motorcycles, airplanes and
helicopters in the movie. They have radio, and early television. Their
computers seem to be vacuum-tube based with some Babbage engines in their
ancestry. The overall technological level of the world seems to correspond
to our 1950's.
Since I first saw the untranslated Japanese version in 1988, this has
been one of my favorite films, animated or otherwise. I highly recommend
it to fans of animation, people who are skeptical about whether animated
movies can be "serious film", and people who just want to see a really
good movie.
--
__ Live from the bustling metropolis of the Big Apple...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, just a guy from New York.
/____ | I'm sick of left-wing nuts. I'm sick of right-wing nuts.
\_| No wing nuts in '96!
*==== e-mail: jim...@panix.com
Aaron Boyden
> Going along the premise that H. Ford is a cyborg in the movie,
> this description fits him well (this is the running theory in the Blade
> Runner sequel book.)
I hate this theory. IMHO, one of the strongest statements in the movie
is to be found in the fact that Deckard is considerably less human than
the replicants he hunts. This statement is completely spoiled if Deckard
isn't really human to begin with.
---
Aaron Boyden
650...@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
"If there were gods, how could I endure it, not to be a god? Hence, there are
no gods." -Nietzsche
Cateland White
that KafkaGoths are retro futuristic (although that won't make
sense to anyone except net.goths).
Chris Ferguson mentions something about "the will to
virtuality", from the Kroker (I love saying that). What is with
these compound/abbreviated words like "virtuality" or
"cyberpunk" or "hyperreal"? What the fuck does virtuality
mean? I know what it's *supposed* to mean; but the word
means nothing. And as Tim Leary pointed out, the word
"cybernetics" literally means "dead helmsman" (don't ask me
why). So a cyberpunk could be translated as a "dead
helmsman punk". Which might be the same as being a Dead
Milkman punk, though I'm not an expert in these matters.
With new territory comes new ideas--but do we need all of
these words beginning with "virtual" or "hyper" or "cyber"?
The bandwagon's starting to fill up the global village, isn't
it, kids?
Let's use the word "circuit" as the new prefix. As in
"circuitpunk" or "circuitosity" or "circuitreal". "Hey, I'm in
circuitspace! Bitchin'! Hey, I'm goin' to the circuitcafe, guys!
Wanna hang with your circuitbuddies and do some
circuittalkin'?"
I think that the whole thing was over when the government
discovered the Net. I have this vision of Clinton jumping up and
down at four a.m. in the Oval Office going "Cyberbabes!
Cyberbabes!" The thought of the President getting excited over
naked pictures of Pam Anderson quite frankly gives me the cold
chills. "And they won't SLAP me either!" I'm still waiting for
Gore to show up on alt.lack.of.personality.
There is a point to all of this...the point being that the future
IS going retro. I mean, didn't we all think that we'd be living
in this cybernetic (I can't help it) anarchistic society in which
information would always be, if not free, at least
obtainable? Instead we have Senator James "Valdez" Exon
making moral decisions for us that came right out of a Decency
Act written in 1934. Is that not retro enough?
Running the Net like a day care is retro. Treating us like
we're all a bunch of slimy pedophiles is retro (Horny Rob, fuck
off!).
Of course, that's just my opinion...I could be cyberwrong.
Gabriel
Legba Wintermute
(card-carrying
retro-futurist since Max Headroom)
DL McCroskey
> The retro future
> *or*
> What if "The Great Gatsby" took place in 2019?
>
>
>
>
> I have recently become intrigued with the concept of the
> "retro-future" and am looking for more information about it.
> Basically, The "retro-future" is my wittgensteinian family name for a
> certain vision of the future, and the examples in this post are
> members of that family.
>
> (Wittgenstein family concept: A group of objects which share certain
> common characteristics. However, no one object has to have all the
> characteristics, or any particular one, to be a member of the family.)
>
> Architecture--
> The architecture of the "retro future" has a look that is modern and
> art deco-esque. Everything is vast, streamlined, imposing, and
> somewhat dehumanizing. I have no training in architecture, so most
> of the examples I've seen come from T.V and the movies (more on that
> later). The architecture seems to be a mixture of the early
> industrial architecture of germany, the art deco movement in the U.S.,
> and old cover illustrations from pulps like Astounding and Amazing
> Stories. The guiding principle (from what I've gathered) is that the
> city is a tremendous organism, almost like a brain. It establishes
> more and more connections with itself (Tangent: all of the connections
> were imagined to be aboveground, e.g. monorails and skywalks between
> buildings rather than buses and tubeways). The city also has to have
> a certain homogeneneity. All of the buildings must be designed so
> that they are part of a cohesive, harmonious whole. Humans are the
> neurons in this brain, the cogs that make up the machine, living in
> tiny efficient spaces, but free to think and create since robots do
> all the drudge work.
> BE BRAVE, NEW WAVE!
>
> "I am the story I tell myself."
> --Greg Wait (z0...@ix.netcom.com)
You might want to look at "The City in The Image of Man" for a look at an
arhitect who tried to put his ideas into practice. Paolo Soleri published
it in 1969, from MIT Press. I don't know if it's still available. Lots of
ecologic and sociologic philosophy goes into his ideas.
Dave
--
DL McCroskey --be seeing you...---
chap...@netaxs.com
http://www.netaxs.com/~chapeaux
Bill Capehart
>The 1984 production of "1984" has some reaaly cool retro-sets.
I gotta agree there... 1984 (this is the 80's version, I hear there was
one in the 50's or 60's) was exactly how I pictured it in the book. It
also made perfect sense since Oceania was so anti-intelligence and anti-
reason, that there was nowhere for society to go but to slide down a
razor blade of decay and decrepitude... NICELY done....
==========================================================================
Bill Capehart <w...@essc.psu.edu> "If you're going to shoot someone you
Penn State Meteorology should mean it. Stun settings are
University Park, PA 16802 for people who cannot commit."
=================== http://www.essc.psu.edu/~wjc =========================
Hey GAllen
> city is a tremendous organism, almost like a brain. It establishes
> more and more connections with itself (Tangent: all of the connections
> were imagined to be aboveground, e.g. monorails and skywalks between
> buildings rather than buses and tubeways). The city also has to have
> a certain homogeneneity. All of the buildings must be designed so
> that they are part of a cohesive, harmonious whole.
This is exactly what I like about World's Fairs: one of their objectives
is/was to "define" the future. From the COlumbia Expo in Chicago to the
NY fairs in '39 and '64, there were these incredible exercises in the
uniform, clean, happy, always corporate and benevolently authoritarian
future.
Two Books: 1939 (subtitle I forget), by David Gelertner. He examines the
message of the 1939 NY World's Fair, its predictions, and determines we
got exactly what we asked for. Now what? In hindsight, we got screwed,
judging by today's criteria. Major trends in design, urban policy (or
suburban policy) and consumer and mediafication of society have happened,
yielding an unforeseen group of problems.
Also, "Delirious New York" by Rem Koolhaas. Just reissued. Possibly the
best book about New York and Manhattan EVER. He explores the issue of the
grid and its effect on the development fo NYC. It led to the skyscraper.
"Architecture by zoning" is how he describes the uniformity of city block
designs (setback requirements determined a maximum volume and shape a
building could take).
The guy who turned Manhattan into GOtham City (dark and brooding,
charcoal renderings) basically had a lock on the rendering business in the
city and a disdain for ornament, so he drew everything the same, with
blurry pencil. Koolhaas celebrates the dysfunction or the heterogeneity
of cities, though, seeing success in confrontation, not in uniformity.
great book. great book.
greg allen
cyber(cgi-bin?/any word in the dictionary/)
Tom Maddox
William Gibson's "The Gernsbach Continuum" does a light and very funny
number on the retro future. Available in the short story collection
_Burning Chrome_ and the _Mirrorshades_ anthology.
Tom
--
**********
By such shameless and inept experiments is the mastery of a very
difficult language achieved.
Evelyn Waugh
Macarthur William
present look like what was expected in the 1940s.
Pete Nalda
I kinda think the future might still look like this if we had some kind
of large scale disaster, think we'd still have the tech, just not
the pretty plastic coatings.
Macarthur William (bil...@uwindsor.ca)
wrote: : The ultimate retro future movie is Brazil. It makes the
: present look like what was expected in the 1940s.
--
Pete Nalda
Have Accordion, Will Travel
lpn...@bga.com
Chris Ferguson
> virtuality", from the Kroker (I love saying that). What is with
> these compound/abbreviated words like "virtuality" or
> "cyberpunk" or "hyperreal"? What the fuck does virtuality
> mean? I know what it's *supposed* to mean; but the word
> means nothing. And as Tim Leary pointed out, the word
> "cybernetics" literally means "dead helmsman" (don't ask me
> why). So a cyberpunk could be translated as a "dead
> helmsman punk".
> these words beginning with "virtual" or "hyper" or "cyber"?
If we, those that actually talk about this stuff, know in our minds where
this actually comes from, who cares if we use the particular terms that
are overused by those who think they're cool? I'm not going to waste my
time trying to think up a new "cool" term to use just because 90% of the
telephone-owning population uses them. Call it for what it is, and don't
worry about it.
But I do think "circuit" is neat. That is actually realistic.
funkster
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> I'm curious...what is the exact term for the 50s futuristic
> stuff? As in Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum"?
Er... Folks, please keep in mind that Gernsback (1926-1936), the first
instantiation of Ming the Merciless (1936-1940), and Asimov's original
40's stories later assembled in "The Foundation Trilogy" are not exactly
"50s futuristic stuff" as some posters seem to believe.
Ahasuerus, writing on behalf of the ghost of Theodore Sturgeon :)
Dragoness Eclectic
'jona...@soho.ios.com (jonathan edelstein)' wrote:
>This may be a little tangential to this discussion, but I have frequently
>noticed that the vision of the future contained in any given SF novel/
>story/movie is all too often an extension of the present in which the
>author is living. When a work of this sort is re-examined three or four
>decades later, there is a very unintentional retro-future effect.
>
>Asimov's Foundation series comes most quickly to mind in this regard.
[snip fairly accurate comments on Asimov]
I find one very interesting exception: Robert Heinlein's juvenile
novels, written in the 1940s-50s. Everytime I re-read something
like "Starman Jones", I find it creepy how accurately he managed
to predict the basic mindset and everyday life of, well, now. The
future. And the direction we're heading... The only major miscall
is that Heinlein didn't see the Green Revolution coming, and
presumed world-wide food shortages and rationing. Of course,
strangling capitalism with socialism and central control of food
production could produce the same effect...
[NB: Stories like "Starman Jones" presaged the dystopian milieu
of cyberpunk long before Gibson was even thought of...]
--dragoness
--
"Taxes: a great topic for discussion at shooting matches"
--Steve Higginbotham
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PGP key on request----NRA Life Member--...@usa.pipeline.com
Jo Walton
lawr...@clark.net "Lawrence Watt-Evans" writes:
> In article <DoE5y...@news.uwindsor.ca>, bil...@uwindsor.ca says...
> >
> >The ultimate retro future movie is Brazil. It makes the
> >present look like what was expected in the 1940s.
>
> No, it makes the present look like what was FEARED in the 1940s.
Quite. It is a wonderful film of the spirit of Orwell's _Nineteen-Eighty-Four_
much better than a more literal film would be.
--
Jo J...@kenjo.demon.co.uk
********************************************************************
- - I kissed a kif at Kefk - -
********************************************************************
Florin is free at last. The rightful King is going home. Help us
drag a fantasy realm into the 21st century at Evolution, Easter 1996
Brett A Riley
: Cateland White (cate...@mail.lasvegas-nexus.com) wrote:
: > I'm curious...what is the exact term for the 50s futuristic
: > stuff? As in Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum"?
: > All that flanged, Ming The Merciless stuff. Does this count? [snip]
: Er... Folks, please keep in mind that Gernsback (1926-1936), the first
: instantiation of Ming the Merciless (1936-1940), and Asimov's original
: 40's stories later assembled in "The Foundation Trilogy" are not exactly
: "50s futuristic stuff" as some posters seem to believe.
I've always been amused by the fact that Sterling latched onto
"The Gernsback Continuum" like a leech, completely unaware that ol'
Bruce himself was wearing Hugo the Rat's crown.
--
--reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away-----
--withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy---------------------------
--truth is as terrible as death but harder to find--------------------------
----------vote cthulhu in '96------------------------------black myron------
Jeremiah A Blatz
Cateland Wh...@mail.lasv
> discovered the Net.
You misspelled "society's commercialization engines." Please display
more clue in the future. Thanks.
> There is a point to all of this...the point being that the future
> IS going retro. I mean, didn't we all think that we'd be living
> in this cybernetic (I can't help it) anarchistic society in which
> information would always be, if not free, at least
> obtainable?
No.
> Instead we have Senator James "Valdez" Exon
> making moral decisions for us that came right out of a Decency
> Act written in 1934. Is that not retro enough?
Look up the words "cycle" ad "pendulum" in your dictionary. Then reas
_Islands in the Net_. It's applicable.
Jer
"standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew
why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole
Lee K. Gleason
>I find one very interesting exception: Robert Heinlein's juvenile
>novels, written in the 1940s-50s. Everytime I re-read something
>like "Starman Jones", I find it creepy how accurately he managed
>to predict the basic mindset and everyday life of, well, now. The
>future. And the direction we're heading...
Indeed. While re-reading Between Planets last week, I noticed
how well RAH had hit some of the little things...like cell phones
and security checks & weapons searches at airports.
RAH is often condemned for not seeing the role computers would play
in the future...I assert that in many cases, he did...they were
just in the background, doing their jobs...take for instance,
the cell phones, and automated cabs in Between Planets...either one
indicated the presence of powere computers & networks. The voder
used by Sir Isaac suggest powerful portable computing power as well.
Anyone else remember how far fetched it seemed whenever
a character in an RAH novel would "reach into their pouch and
get their phone"? When I first read these stories, it seemed
flatyl impossible...now, a young person reading these stories
would not even recognize it as speculative..
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
gle...@mwk.com
Joseph C Wang
jonathan edelstein <jona...@soho.ios.com> wrote:
>
>This may be a little tangential to this discussion, but I have frequently
>noticed that the vision of the future contained in any given SF novel/
>story/movie is all too often an extension of the present in which the
>author is living. When a work of this sort is re-examined three or four
>decades later, there is a very unintentional retro-future effect.
The Jetsons is a good example of this. Also Star Trek:TOS also
retro-elements.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Wang The opinions expressed here should not be considered
j...@mit.edu official policy of the Globewide Network Academy
http://www.gnacademy.org explicitly unless marked as such.
Nancy Lebovitz
jonathan edelstein <jona...@soho.ios.com> wrote:
>
>This may be a little tangential to this discussion, but I have frequently
>noticed that the vision of the future contained in any given SF novel/
>story/movie is all too often an extension of the present in which the
>author is living. When a work of this sort is re-examined three or four
>decades later, there is a very unintentional retro-future effect.
>
not the future". I wouldn't go quite that far myself, but you can
usually date an sf novel by the author's preoccupations. They aren't
quite as worried as they used to be about nuclear war, but they think
about ecological disaster a lot.
>Asimov's Foundation series comes most quickly to mind in this regard.
>It's very amusing to read the original Foundation Trilogy in 1996, watch
>the Foundation politicians plotting in 1950s-style bachelor apartments,
>and listen to Arcadia Darell describing her 1950s-style suburban family
>life on Terminus (complete with a displaced lower-middle-class maid and her
>father's rocket commute into the city!). What little we see of male-female
>and parent-child interaction in the Foundation (once again exemplified by
>Arcadia Darell's existence in retro-Long Island) is also straight out of
>1950s America.
>
>Then, of course, the *really* amusing part of the Foundation series is
>the novels written in the 1980s, where Asimov clumsily attempts to redraw
>the milieu to fit his evolving political-social ideas. (Read, for
>example, "Prelude to Foundation" followed immediately by "Foundation,"
>and you will see what I mean - retro-1950s future clashes pretty severely
>with retro-1980s future.) Of course, Asimov was always clumsy as far as
>internal consistency was concerned, but this has to be seen to be believed.
>
He also tried to re-fit Future History to include chaos theory.
And then there's LeGuin trying to make Earthsea consistant with
feminism.....
>At any rate, I for one find the 1950s retro-futures scarier than the
>1920s retro-futures. At least in the 1920s, they had some fun...
>
I'll have to try looking at the books from that angle--but in the
20's, people had a lot less to be scared of.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
12/95 updated calligraphic button catalogue available by email
Nancy Lebovitz
Dragoness Eclectic <cyhi...@usa.pipeline.com> wrote:
>
>I find one very interesting exception: Robert Heinlein's juvenile
>novels, written in the 1940s-50s. Everytime I re-read something
>like "Starman Jones", I find it creepy how accurately he managed
>to predict the basic mindset and everyday life of, well, now. The
>is that Heinlein didn't see the Green Revolution coming, and
>presumed world-wide food shortages and rationing. Of course,
>strangling capitalism with socialism and central control of food
>production could produce the same effect...
>
of _Starman Jones_? I think there's way too much credentialling
and licensing going on, but I don't think it's nearly that bad
yet.
I would describe the modern mindset as tending toward fear of
chaos rather than the settled despair in _Starman Jones_.
eyeb...@interpath.com
(Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
> I'll have to try looking at the books from that angle--but in the
> 20's, people had a lot less to be scared of.
The crashing world economy that drove millions into starvation? A lunatic
whipping Germany into what seemed very likely to be eternity under lived
under the bootheels of the conquerors? Hey, it was a pretty scary time in
ways we have a hard time imagining today. The waning years of the 20s may
well be one of the most terrifying periods for an average American.
Rarely has the future looked bleaker.
eyebrown
Douglas Turek
: With new territory comes new ideas--but do we need all of
: it, kids?
I've always said you can have a lot of fun by replacing the word `cyber'
with `robo' in these stupid buzzwords, which I tend to see more off-net
then on.
: Let's use the word "circuit" as the new prefix. As in
: "circuitpunk" or "circuitosity" or "circuitreal". "Hey, I'm in
: circuitspace! Bitchin'! Hey, I'm goin' to the circuitcafe, guys!
: Wanna hang with your circuitbuddies and do some
: circuittalkin'?"
Love it!!!!!
--
Peace,
Doug
liz...@laraby.tiac.net
_________________________________________________________
"If there's been a way to build it, There'll be a way to
destroy it, Things are not all that out of control"
---Stereolab, "Crest"
_________________________________________________________
Moore James P
I followed the posts-to-date on this thread with great interest.
I am surprised that someone hasn't already mentioned it yet, but I'd like
to add Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" to the list of books
worth reading for their approach to the idea of a retro future.
NS illustrates a future were many different retro future based societies
exist together, ignoring old style political and cultural boundaries.
--JP
All opinions expressed here are my own and not those of TAMS or UNT.
----------------------------------------
JP "Gonzo" Moore <jpm...@unt.edu>
Network Manager,
Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science
University of North Texas
----------------------------------------
jpm...@sol.acs.unt.edu
----------------------------------------
Tom Maddox
Brett A Riley <bar6...@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu> wrote:
>
> I've always been amused by the fact that Sterling latched onto
>"The Gernsback Continuum" like a leech, completely unaware that ol'
>Bruce himself was wearing Hugo the Rat's crown.
I don't get it. Bruce included the story in the _Mirrorshades_ anthology
and said a few words about it--but how that constitutes latching on like a
leech or in what sense Bruce is wearing "Hugo the Rat's crown" and what
doing *that* involves--these I don't get.
It all sounds very *knowing* but what does it mean?
Charles Holness
simply be ascribed to the personality profile of science fiction writers
then... overeducated loners. Remember how in early SF characters talked
in long winded historical analogies ? They made stagey speeches like in
Edwardian melodramas. The quality of science fiction writing has
improved dramatically since the 'golden age'.
It is true about SF being era typed. How many Cold War SF stories have
you read about a red blooded American hero fighting to save Earth from
the slimy, treacherous alien invader with comsymp, pinko peaceniks trying
to sabotage him at every turn ? Nowadays in the era of downsizing and
globalization you have the cyberpunk future of giant corporations
towering over vestigal governments and cities turned into chaotic ghettos.
Marilyn G McNally
I think eyebrown's misconceptions should be nipped in the bud:
The "crashing world economy" didn't happen until the early 30s (after the
1929 Wall Street crash it took a couple years for the effects to be
felt worldwide). And contrary to widely-held belief, people did not
starve in the millions during the Great Depression. Hitler likewise
didn't come into power until 1933, three years after publishing Mein
Kampf, and few people raised the alarm even then; which is how the
travesty of the Holocaust was allowed to happen.
The 20s in America was a decade of optimism and forward-thinking, a
decade of expansion and some damn good fun. The sore spots were
Prohibition, of course, and the attendant increase in organized crime,
but these things by and large had but minor effects on the speakeasies
with their high rollers and flappers -- what is known as the "Roaring
Twenties."
The period after WW I was a truly terrifying and depressing time, with
tens of millions of people dying of a worldwide flu epidemic a year
after tens of millions had died in one of the most horrifying wars ever
fought. Which is almost certainly why the release of the Roaring Twenties
happened.
Doug Tricarico, not Marilyn
Bob Goudreau
: In article <4iq5p0$q...@universe.digex.net>, nan...@universe.digex.net
: (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
: > I'll have to try looking at the books from that angle--but in the
: > 20's, people had a lot less to be scared of.
: The crashing world economy that drove millions into starvation? A lunatic
: whipping Germany into what seemed very likely to be eternity under lived
: under the bootheels of the conquerors? Hey, it was a pretty scary time in
: ways we have a hard time imagining today. The waning years of the 20s may
: well be one of the most terrifying periods for an average American.
: Rarely has the future looked bleaker.
Aren't you still off by a few years? The great stock market crash
didn't occur until mid-1929, and the Great Depression didn't really
kick in until the 1930s in the US.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
James Nicoll
Marilyn G McNally <uwr...@dsdprod.meaddata.com> wrote:
>
>The "crashing world economy" didn't happen until the early 30s (after the
>1929 Wall Street crash it took a couple years for the effects to be
>felt worldwide). And contrary to widely-held belief, people did not
>starve in the millions during the Great Depression. Hitler likewise
>didn't come into power until 1933, three years after publishing Mein
>Kampf, and few people raised the alarm even then; which is how the
>travesty of the Holocaust was allowed to happen.
Was genocide seen as a bad thing pre-WWII? After all, the US
had, within the previous century, managed to cram all of its native
population into camps *and* kill a surprisingly large number of Philipinos,
the Armenians had been massacred in the early 20th without too much public
fuss, and the Germans had herded Africans into the desert and posted soldiers
at the watering holes to make sure they didn't get water, to pick three
quick examples. Who complained? During WWII, the same nations who reacted
with outrage to the deathcamps also refused to let Jewish refugees into
their nations, in effect consignig them to the camps. I bet the officials
responsible for that bit of policy were not hanged, more's the pity.
I wonder whether it was the photographs of the deathcamps that
caused the public outcry? Before, one could butcher people and not have
to look at the aftermath during one's breakfast.
Judging by reports friends have made of their experiences in
Eastern Europe, I wouldn't count on genocide being unfashionable there
in the same way it is in the west: antisemitism and anti-gypsy sentiments
seem to be quite acceptable there.
It would probably be wise for me to point out at this point that
I am not a supporter of mass killings of one's own civilians as a public
policy.
James Nicoll
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
Sarah Ross
>On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Chris Ferguson wrote:
>
>> Going along the premise that H. Ford is a cyborg in the movie,
>> this description fits him well (this is the running theory in the Blade Runner sequel book.)
>
>I hate this theory. IMHO, one of the strongest statements in the movie
>is to be found in the fact that Deckard is considerably less human than
>the replicants he hunts. This statement is completely spoiled if Deckard isn't really human to begin with.
>
>---
>Aaron Boyden
>650...@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
>
It seems to me IMHO that whether you like this theory depends on whether
you prefer Blade Runner the movie to Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep.
While I agree that Deckard the human's lack of 'humanity' in the movie
provides an interesting counter-point to Rachel the replicant's feelings,
the movie *is* a highly romanticised Hollywood interpretaion of the
book.Perhaps also the strength of this statement is as much to do with
the films tribute to the film-noir genre and Decker's characterisation as
the 'seeker-hero' of noir.
If I recall correctly,(which I may not *shrug* :)) in the original book,
Decker encounters a mirror society in which he is assumed to be a
replicant and Rachel is far more cynical...
I enjoy both the film and the books enormously, but they are very
seperate entities and therefore trying to analyse one in the light of the
other could prove to be confusing.
I apologise if this post is completely off the thread...I picked up on
this in alt.cyberpunk and couldn't find the orignal articles to which
Aaron refers.
cheers
Sarah Ross
>
Nancy Lebovitz
Bob Goudreau <goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com> wrote:
>eyeb...@interpath.com wrote:
>: In article <4iq5p0$q...@universe.digex.net>, nan...@universe.digex.net
>: (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
>
>: > I'll have to try looking at the books from that angle--but in the
>: > 20's, people had a lot less to be scared of.
>
>: The crashing world economy that drove millions into starvation? A lunatic
>: whipping Germany into what seemed very likely to be eternity under lived
>: under the bootheels of the conquerors? Hey, it was a pretty scary time in
>: ways we have a hard time imagining today. The waning years of the 20s may
>: well be one of the most terrifying periods for an average American.
>: Rarely has the future looked bleaker.
>
>Aren't you still off by a few years? The great stock market crash
>didn't occur until mid-1929, and the Great Depression didn't really
>kick in until the 1930s in the US.
In any case, I didn't say that the 20's were a period of serene delight,
just that there was less to fear than in some later decades.
Hitler didn't get rolling till the 30's--I don't know how many people
were worried about him in the 20's.
Hitler was a lot scarier when he was building his empire than when
he just had Germany.
A worldwide nuclear war was a new sort of fear--and so is ecological
destruction.
Macarthur William
Nobody had heard of Hitler in the 20s and few were worried about him in
the 30s. Churchill spent years trying to warn the British and
Roosevelt's fireside chats were less successful in the US. Hitler was at
his scariest in 1941 and 1942 when it looked like he was going to win.
It wasn't until the death camps were overrun that people realized how
scary he really was.
Jordi Sod
>
> In article <4iq5p0$q...@universe.digex.net>, nan...@universe.digex.net
> (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
>
> > I'll have to try looking at the books from that angle--but in the
> > 20's, people had a lot less to be scared of.
>
> The crashing world economy that drove millions into starvation? A lunatic
> whipping Germany into what seemed very likely to be eternity under lived
> under the bootheels of the conquerors? Hey, it was a pretty scary time in
Well, Hitler was not as important in the 20's. Germany was both a horrible
place to live in and a most exciting one since it was in a cultural bloom.
> ways we have a hard time imagining today. The waning years of the 20s may
> well be one of the most terrifying periods for an average American.
> Rarely has the future looked bleaker.
Well, I think thigs got bad after '29. Before it was "the roaring twenties":
full with Art Deco, Charleston and flappers!!
>
> eyebrown
Jordi (eyegrey :^).
Kevin Johnston
> >At any rate, I for one find the 1950s retro-futures scarier than the
> >1920s retro-futures. At least in the 1920s, they had some fun...
> >
> 20's, people had a lot less to be scared of.
That's an interesting way to put it. Even though the 50's was flush with
post-WWII pride, and roaring industrial and technological growth, there is
a pervasive fear of Otherness throughout the culture. Whereas the 20's
was maybe the most carefree decade of this century. Great observation!
It reminds me of a comment I made on the sf.tv baord about the difference
between modern and classic Outer Limits (the new one is very techno- and
xenophopbic, the old one more openmind) and how it reflects the respective
contemporary social attitudes about science & technological progress...
Kevin
James Nicoll
In article <catchwd-23...@union.islandnet.com>,
Chris Burd <cat...@island.net> wrote:
>In article <DooqD...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>, jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca
>(James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> During WWII, the same nations who reacted
>> with outrage to the deathcamps also refused to let Jewish refugees into
>> their nations, in effect consignig them to the camps. I bet the officials
>> responsible for that bit of policy were not hanged, more's the pity.
>
>*while* reacting with horror (*not* outrage, surely) at images of the death
>camps. Correct if I'm wrong but I thought one event took place before the
>war; the other at the war's end. The refugee policies was reprehensible,
>true, but you're presenting a caricature.
A poll at the end of WWII in Canada concerning who should be allowed
into Canada as immigrants placed Germans at the top of the list as desirables
and Jews at the bottom of the list. That was *after* what was went on in the
death camps was revealed. Before that, we only let in a few hundred Jews
during the 1930s, and given what the Nazis said they wanted to do and
Germany's record in Africa, the camps should have come as no surprise.
>> I wonder whether it was the photographs of the deathcamps that
>> caused the public outcry? Before, one could butcher people and not have
>> to look at the aftermath during one's breakfast.
>>
>> Judging by reports friends have made of their experiences in
>> Eastern Europe, I wouldn't count on genocide being unfashionable there
>> in the same way it is in the west: antisemitism and anti-gypsy sentiments
>> seem to be quite acceptable there.
>>
>I think you miss the unique quality of the Holocaust. It wasn't just
>another E. European anti-Semitic outrage.
It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
but not out of keeping with the practices of the previous centuries. You
would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
>> It would probably be wise for me to point out at this point that
>> I am not a supporter of mass killings of one's own civilians as a public
>> policy.
>>
>Watch what you're saying here. Someone could interpret this as meaning, you
>think it's OK that Hitler killed millions of Poles etc., but he should have
>respected the rights of German citizens.
True. I meant to say I found herding defenseless and inoffensive
civilians up and killing them reprehensible, while leaving open the option
of dropping great loads of bombs on other people's civilians (Although
depending on the bomb technologies, that can be as useless to the purpose
of winning a war as the German camps were), should those civilians be working
in war-related industries when the bombs are dropped.
John McCarthy
...and given what the Nazis said they wanted to do and
Germany's record in Africa, the camps should have come as no
surprise.
It was a surprise to the Jews. A friend told me that his parents had
survived Auschwitz, which was a labor camp as well as a death camp,
and his parents were in their early 20s and fit for labor. He said
that until they arrived at Auschwitz they had no idea of what was in
store for them.
Another friend who survived in France told me that most French Jews
considered the death camps just another wartime rumor.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
Macarthur William
James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>In article <catchwd-23...@union.islandnet.com>,
>Chris Burd <cat...@island.net> wrote:
>>In article <DooqD...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>, jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca
>>(James Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>>> During WWII, the same nations who reacted
>>> with outrage to the deathcamps also refused to let Jewish refugees into
>>> their nations, in effect consignig them to the camps. I bet the officials
>>> responsible for that bit of policy were not hanged, more's the pity.
While it is right to be critical of the anti-semitism that prevailed in
many countries before WWII, it is incorrect to assume that people new
that Jews were facing gas chambers if they did leave Germany. It was
known that they were facing repression but the depth and duration was
uncertain. Many people in the world have faced the same level of
repression that Jews faced ***before*** WWII broke out and have not been
accepted with open arms. I think that if most countries had any idea
that the holocaust was going to take place, then they would have acted
differently. Hindsight is always 20/20.
>
> A poll at the end of WWII in Canada concerning who should be allowed
>into Canada as immigrants placed Germans at the top of the list as desirables
>and Jews at the bottom of the list. That was *after* what was went on in the
>death camps was revealed. Before that, we only let in a few hundred Jews
>during the 1930s, and given what the Nazis said they wanted to do and
>Germany's record in Africa, the camps should have come as no surprise.
Poll results depend on how the polls are structured. I would believe a
Statistics Canada (Dominion Bureau of Statistics then) versus the Toronto
Star or whatever. Again polls can be structured to give the kinds of
results that pollsters want to achieve.
The Nazis never said that they wanted to exterminate the Jews. Most
people would have assumed that the confiscation of rich Jews property and
resettling in less desirable areas would occur. Remember aside from the
Wannsea Conference there is no evidence that anybody even ordered the
Final Solution.
Germany's record in Africa was by standards of warfare exemplary.
Remember that the Afrika Korps was lead by General Irwin Rommel who is
widely acknowledged to have followed the Geneva Convention. The British
and Germans had grudging admiration for each other somewhat similar to
WWI. The Germans tended to use the Italians as cannon fodder but the
fault is with the Italians for allowing this to happen. However, I have
never read of even isolated atrocities in North Africa let alone anything
systemic.
>>I think you miss the unique quality of the Holocaust. It wasn't just
>>another E. European anti-Semitic outrage.
Exactly. The Holocaust is a cusp in western history. The most advanced
and civilized western county, which had given us Beethoven, Nietsche,
Heisenberg etc. etc. etc., conducted the most barbarous acts
systematically and efficiently. We who have come after this outrage can
never look at western civilization the way our forebears did.
>
> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
If you bought into the Nazi logic it had a very clear point. They
wanted to get rid of all those who they considered undesirable. Given
another year or two they would have succeeded completely and achieved
their goals.
>but
not out of keeping with the practices of the previous centuries. You
>would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
>leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
>control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
Come on! There is nothing that Britain, France, Italy, Russia,
Austria-Hungary or any other colonial power did which comes close to the
Holocaust. The only example is the Turks with the Armenians which Hitler
used for justification. All of the above did some terrible things and
had some repressive policies but nothing which comes close to the scope
and intent of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust was unique and unprecedented in post Age of Reason times.
That accentuates the horror.
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
>would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
>leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
>control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
>
deliberate killing. (When I say "may be", I actually mean it.)
Also, though I'm willing to take correction on this, I think that
policies leading to mass death were more likely part of conquest than
killing pretty well assimilated members of a society.
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
>In article <Dor23...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
>James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>
>> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
>>but not out of keeping with the practices of the previous centuries. You
>>would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
>>leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
>>control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
>>
>There may be a difference between policies leading to mass death and
>deliberate killing. (When I say "may be", I actually mean it.)
I see your point, but I will still lump the two together. I
suppose a person in power who contributed to the Irish Famine might
say that he wasn't acting out of malign intent*, like the Nazis were,
but I doubt it makes a difference to the dead Irish people whether the
people starving them were thugs or imbeciles. At least the Germans
seemed to have learned something from 1933-1945; the British managed
to recreate the Irish Famine in India during WWII.
>Also, though I'm willing to take correction on this, I think that
>policies leading to mass death were more likely part of conquest than
>killing pretty well assimilated members of a society.
That lets the US off the hook for its Indian Wars and the
attrocities committed in the Philipines, but the English had had
cotrol of Ireland for quite some time before the Famine. Indeed,
if they had not controled Ireland's farmland, the Famine wouldn't
have happened because the peasantry wouldn't have had a need for
a high yield monocrop agricultural system. If the Brits hadn't
cotrolled India, the Bengal Famine couldn't have occured the
waty it did, either.
How well integrated into the Russian Empire were the Ukrainians?
Askew?
James Nicoll
* One reason for not giving food to the Irish was the fear that aid would
undermine their moral character, so you see, when a merchant decided
to export food from Ireland, he was acting in the best interests of
the starving people.
James Nicoll
Macarthur William <bil...@uwindsor.ca> wrote:
>In article <Dor23...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
>James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>
>>In article <catchwd-23...@union.islandnet.com>,
>>Chris Burd <cat...@island.net> wrote:
>>>In article <DooqD...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>, jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca
>>>(James Nicoll) wrote:
>>>
>>>> During WWII, the same nations who reacted
>>>> with outrage to the deathcamps also refused to let Jewish refugees into
>>>> their nations, in effect consignig them to the camps. I bet the officials
>>>> responsible for that bit of policy were not hanged, more's the pity.
>
>While it is right to be critical of the anti-semitism that prevailed in
>many countries before WWII, it is incorrect to assume that people new
>that Jews were facing gas chambers if they did leave Germany. It was
>known that they were facing repression but the depth and duration was
>uncertain. Many people in the world have faced the same level of
>repression that Jews faced ***before*** WWII broke out and have not been
>accepted with open arms. I think that if most countries had any idea
>that the holocaust was going to take place, then they would have acted
>differently. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I note that genocides and state approved mass murders have occured
recently in nations such as Iraq (Kurds), Indonesia (In East Timor) and
Cambodia and international military intervention to prevent such mass murders
did not occur. I therefore suspect that genocide and mass murder are in
general not considered suffiecient reason for nations to spend the wealth
and effort needed to prevent them.
snip
>Germany's record in Africa was by standards of warfare exemplary.
[Rommel material snipped]
I was refering to Germany's history as a colonial power in Sub-
Saharan Africa.
>>>I think you miss the unique quality of the Holocaust. It wasn't just
>>>another E. European anti-Semitic outrage.
>
>Exactly. The Holocaust is a cusp in western history. The most advanced
>and civilized western county, which had given us Beethoven, Nietsche,
>Heisenberg etc. etc. etc., conducted the most barbarous acts
>systematically and efficiently. We who have come after this outrage can
>never look at western civilization the way our forebears did.
If you look at the German record in Africa, then it doesn't appear
surprising, except that it involved Europeans instead of Blacks and
'industrial' techniques rather than exposure.
>> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
>
>If you bought into the Nazi logic it had a very clear point. They
>wanted to get rid of all those who they considered undesirable. Given
>another year or two they would have succeeded completely and achieved
>their goals.
>
>>but
>not out of keeping with the practices of the previous centuries. You
>>would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
>>leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
>>control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
>
>Come on! There is nothing that Britain, France, Italy, Russia,
>Austria-Hungary or any other colonial power did which comes close to the
>Holocaust. The only example is the Turks with the Armenians which Hitler
>used for justification. All of the above did some terrible things and
>had some repressive policies but nothing which comes close to the scope
>and intent of the Holocaust.
It's arguable that the Russians under Stalin exceeded the number
of people killed by the Nazis. The Americans not only waged genocidal wars
against their Natives, they made movie heroes out of them in the 1950s.
They also killed an amazing number of Philipinos while invading and
pacifying that nation. The British agricultural policies in Ireland
led to a famine which killed a rather large percentage of my relatives.
Even a nonentity like Leopold could manage to arrange mass murder in
the Belgian Congo. These might not appear to be as interesting or as
dramatic as the mass murders of the Germans and their allies in WWII
but I assure you that the people on the short end of the stick in those
cases would disagree.
>The Holocaust was unique and unprecedented in post Age of Reason times.
>That accentuates the horror.
>
I disagree. The Holocaust had precedent and was unusual only
in the thoroughness and industrialization of the process of mass murder
and *that* accentuates the horror. Unique events are by definition
one of a kind, and one need not be concerned by their repetion. Since
the events of WWII were not unique, then they could be repeated, even
in so called civilized nations. Treating the events of WWII as an
aberation is comforting (except, I suppose, to people who are German
or their victims) but misleading, as the mass murders since WWII
show.
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz
>>In article <Dor23...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
>>James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
>>>would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
>>>leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
>>>control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
>>>
>>deliberate killing. (When I say "may be", I actually mean it.)
>
> I see your point, but I will still lump the two together. I
>suppose a person in power who contributed to the Irish Famine might
>say that he wasn't acting out of malign intent*, like the Nazis were,
>but I doubt it makes a difference to the dead Irish people whether the
>people starving them were thugs or imbeciles. At least the Germans
>seemed to have learned something from 1933-1945; the British managed
>to recreate the Irish Famine in India during WWII.
>
different versions.
>>Also, though I'm willing to take correction on this, I think that
>>policies leading to mass death were more likely part of conquest than
>>killing pretty well assimilated members of a society.
>
> That lets the US off the hook for its Indian Wars and the
>attrocities committed in the Philipines, but the English had had
>cotrol of Ireland for quite some time before the Famine. Indeed,
>if they had not controled Ireland's farmland, the Famine wouldn't
>have happened because the peasantry wouldn't have had a need for
>a high yield monocrop agricultural system. If the Brits hadn't
>cotrolled India, the Bengal Famine couldn't have occured the
>waty it did, either.
>
Ireland would be an intermediate case. It had already been conquered,
but the Irish weren't nearly as assimilitated into British society
as German Jews were into Germany.
david carlton
> And then there's LeGuin trying to make Earthsea consistent with
> feminism.....
I just reread those books, and I like _Tehanu_ a lot more now than I
did when it first came out. It's quite different from the other
books, and I'm not sure that they hang together as a quartet; on the
other hand, I was never too sure about them as a trilogy, either.
(When I was a teenager, I only liked the first book; I had (and still
have) a thing for bildungsromans.) I certainly don't think that there
is anything in _Tehanu_ that's inconsistent with the world that was
built in the first three books; it's just that it's told from a
radically different perspective. And the first three books did have
their share of darkness that was less cartoonish than that in most
fantasy trilogies; the world as we know it was starting to fall apart
in _The Tombs of Atuan_ and really was in _The Farthest Shore_, and in
the latter especially there was a not unsympathetic portrayal of
people who weren't on top of things.
I was going to say that in the trilogy, there's perhaps more faith
that there's a right order in the world, and that if the right people
do the right things, we'll all get back on track. The thing is,
that's there in _Tehanu_, too; witness how having a king installed
really does lead to some changes/improvements in peoples' lives
(e.g. he starts dealing with the pirates). So I'm not sure that it's
such a wrenching change in the world; it's just being told from a
different perspective.
david carlton
car...@math.mit.edu
Xerox your lunch and file it under ``sex offenders!''
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> I'd argue that the twenties ended in October 1929, in the same way that the
> *20th century* ended in 1989. BTW, I don't think the Nazis really got scary
> until the 1930 election. If I recall, they did rather poorly in 1928, and
> it even seemed that the radical right might be fading away.
Reichstag Elections, 1919-1933, Percentage of Total Votes
05/04/24 12/07/24 05/20/28 09/14/30 07/31/32 11/06/32 03/05/33
6.5 3.0 2.6 18.3 37.4 33.1 43.9
L. S. Stavrianos, _The World Since 1500: A Global History_, 4th ed.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentince-Hall, 1982.
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew, miscellaneous SF
Please consider posting (as opposed to e-mailing) ID requests
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> Hitler likewise didn't come into power until 1933, three years after
Volume 1, _Eine Abrechnung_, was published in1 1925. Volume 2, _Die
nationalsozialistische Bewegung_ followed in 1927. Reynal and Hitchcock
published a pretty good translation in 1939 and reprinted it a few times
in 1940 and 1941, complete with maps, annotations, notes, etc.
Recommended.
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> A poll at the end of WWII in Canada concerning who should be allowed
> into Canada as immigrants placed Germans at the top of the list as desirables
> and Jews at the bottom of the list. That was *after* what was went on in the
> death camps was revealed. Before that, we only let in a few hundred Jews
> during the 1930s, and given what the Nazis said they wanted to do and
> Germany's record in Africa, the camps should have come as no surprise.
Oh boy. So many questionable assertions have been made in this thread that
I don't even know where to start :( First, it took time for the notion
that the *death* camps (not to be confused with all kinds of other camps
that existed in Europe at the time) were for real to sink in. Please keep
in mind that one reason why the generation which grew up in the 20's was
so cynical was that many of the 'German atrocities' stories that it had
been fed during WWI (and which caused, among other things, the anti-German
hysteria in the US in 1917-22) were later proved incorrect.
Second, there were all kinds of reasons why the borders were closed in the
20's and in the 30's, e.g. see the history of the second Klan in the US,
the 1923 March On Washington, etc.
Third, the Nazis didn't "say what they wanted to do" in so many words.
Hitler's policy in the 30's was to force German Jews to *emigrate*, and it
did succeed to an extent if you consider that about one third of the
Jewish population left Germany prior to WWII (ca. 150,000-160,000). And
then there was the Madagascar option, etc. Not to mention that state
anti-Semitism practiced in Germany in the 30's was hardly unique at the
time.
Fourth, colonial experience, brutal as it occasionally was, was not
tranferrable in the minds of most citizens of (what was called at the
time) the civilized world to Europe, which was considered a different kind
of place.
> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
Actually, I would call it neither thorough nor pointless. It made sense in
the world of Nazi ideology, and it couldn't be as thorough as Hitler
wanted it to be because other priorities kept interfering. Although
ideology tended to win through in the end, the process often left a gray
area large enough for the end result to be far from thorough. Slovakia
would be a good example.
> but not out of keeping with the practices of the previous centuries. You
> would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
> leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
> control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean). [snip]
There is a great deal of difference IMO between a policy "leading to mass
death among one or another victimizable group" and genocide. To answer
another question of yours, Stalin's policies in [the] Ukraine led to mass
death between 1930 and 1938, especially in 1932 and 1933, but it was *not*
genocide because he was trying to "break" Ukrainians, not to destroy them.
Sigh. We had this discussion a few months ago, didn't we?
Kest
: And then there's LeGuin trying to make Earthsea consistant with
: feminism.....
Are you talking about Tehaanu (sp)? If you're not, I'd love references
to places she attempts this. The role of women in Earthsea was one of the
few things about it that really drove me nuts.
Nicola
Brett A Riley
: In article <4j3usq$a...@universe.digex.net>,
: Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
: >In article <Dor23...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
: >James Nicoll <jam...@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
: >> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
: >>but not out of keeping with the practices of the previous centuries. You
: >>would be hard pressed to come up with a Great Power who didn't have a policy
: >>leading to mass death among one or another victimizable group under their
: >>control in the modern era (Post-Napoleon, I mean).
: >There may be a difference between policies leading to mass death and
: >deliberate killing. (When I say "may be", I actually mean it.)
: I see your point, but I will still lump the two together. I
: suppose a person in power who contributed to the Irish Famine might
: say that he wasn't acting out of malign intent*, like the Nazis were,
: but I doubt it makes a difference to the dead Irish people whether the
: people starving them were thugs or imbeciles. At least the Germans
: seemed to have learned something from 1933-1945; the British managed
: to recreate the Irish Famine in India during WWII.
Maybe you're forgetting that the Nazis were Germans who generally
blamed many of its problems on oppression from non-Germans; basically
a correct assumption (since French leaders decided out of spite to
virtually destroy Germany's economy), but hardly justifying butchering
millions. The IRA operates from the same assumption, on a smaller scale.
Don't expect for me to hand them any gold stars, though... if they had
the means I'm sure the deaths would increase correspondingly.
: >Also, though I'm willing to take correction on this, I think that
: >policies leading to mass death were more likely part of conquest than
: >killing pretty well assimilated members of a society.
: That lets the US off the hook for its Indian Wars and the
: attrocities committed in the Philipines, but the English had had
: cotrol of Ireland for quite some time before the Famine. Indeed,
: if they had not controled Ireland's farmland, the Famine wouldn't
: have happened because the peasantry wouldn't have had a need for
: a high yield monocrop agricultural system. If the Brits hadn't
: cotrolled India, the Bengal Famine couldn't have occured the
: waty it did, either.
At the same time, using past sufferings as an excuse to commit
atrocities is reprehensible.
: How well integrated into the Russian Empire were the Ukrainians?
: Askew?
: * One reason for not giving food to the Irish was the fear that aid would
: undermine their moral character, so you see, when a merchant decided
: to export food from Ireland, he was acting in the best interests of
: the starving people.
Well, no famine, then many Irish wouldn't have come to America;
John F. Kennedy probably wouldn't have been president; Curtis LeMay (head
of SAC in the early 60s) would've been able to go ahead with his plan to
start a nuclear war; and hence, no one would be around to argue about
the famine.
--
--reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away-----
--withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy---------------------------
--truth is as terrible as death but harder to find--------------------------
----------vote cthulhu in '96------------------------------black myron------
Brett A Riley
: >> It was exceptionally thorough and remarkably pointless, I'll grant,
: >
: >If you bought into the Nazi logic it had a very clear point. They
: >wanted to get rid of all those who they considered undesirable. Given
: >another year or two they would have succeeded completely and achieved
: >their goals.
: >
Philip K. Dick suggested that the Nazis would eventually end up
exterminating the whole of humanity, including themselves. Since their
ideals were religious in nature (i.e. did not have to conform to logical
sense), this is entirely plausible.
: >
: >Come on! There is nothing that Britain, France, Italy, Russia,
: >Austria-Hungary or any other colonial power did which comes close to the
: >Holocaust. The only example is the Turks with the Armenians which Hitler
: >used for justification. All of the above did some terrible things and
: >had some repressive policies but nothing which comes close to the scope
: >and intent of the Holocaust.
Are you forgetting Stalin and his purges, which documented
evidence shows accounted for the deaths of 30 million? Or does the fact
that it was his own countrymen that discounts this?
: It's arguable that the Russians under Stalin exceeded the number
: of people killed by the Nazis. The Americans not only waged genocidal wars
: against their Natives, they made movie heroes out of them in the 1950s.
: They also killed an amazing number of Philipinos while invading and
: pacifying that nation. The British agricultural policies in Ireland
: led to a famine which killed a rather large percentage of my relatives.
Yet blaming whole populations historically is like tilting at
windmills. Not only was a handful of a population involved in the
decision-making, they are all long since dead.
: Even a nonentity like Leopold could manage to arrange mass murder in
: the Belgian Congo. These might not appear to be as interesting or as
: dramatic as the mass murders of the Germans and their allies in WWII
: but I assure you that the people on the short end of the stick in those
: cases would disagree.
What about the Thirty Years War, which killed 1/3 the population
of Germany? Who can be held responsible for that?
: >The Holocaust was unique and unprecedented in post Age of Reason times.
: >That accentuates the horror.
: >
: I disagree. The Holocaust had precedent and was unusual only
: in the thoroughness and industrialization of the process of mass murder
: and *that* accentuates the horror. Unique events are by definition
: one of a kind, and one need not be concerned by their repetion. Since
: the events of WWII were not unique, then they could be repeated, even
: in so called civilized nations. Treating the events of WWII as an
: aberation is comforting (except, I suppose, to people who are German
: or their victims) but misleading, as the mass murders since WWII
: show.
Ah, the wonders of the atomic bomb, which rains on the just and
the unjust equally, regardless of race, creed, or religion.
Nonlocal
the word "cybernetics" literally means "dead helmsman" (don't ask me
why).>>
Someone fairly reputable recently mentioned to me that Timothy Leary is
actually now dying of cancer. Hmmm. If he is, I wish him well. If he
isn't, I wish him well.
Nonlocal
Emmet O'Brien
>Brett Riley wrote:
>
>>vote cthulhu in '96
>
>for when you're tired of the lesser of two evils?
...and you thought Clinton had Gore ?
Emmet
--
set BUGS = OFF
Coyote
>Hear hear!
>I kinda think the future might still look like this if we had some kind
>of large scale disaster, think we'd still have the tech, just not
>the pretty plastic coatings.
If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
______________________________________________________________
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an
ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared,
from the perspective of any of the other players (ie.
everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex
version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for
infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules,
and who _smiles all the time._
- "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
______________________________________________________________
E-Mail: coy...@thehub.com.au
Brett A Riley
: In article <4iltee$b...@news.cc.ucf.edu>,
: Brett A Riley <bar6...@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu> wrote:
: >
: > I've always been amused by the fact that Sterling latched onto
: >"The Gernsback Continuum" like a leech, completely unaware that ol'
: >Bruce himself was wearing Hugo the Rat's crown.
: I don't get it. Bruce included the story in the _Mirrorshades_ anthology
: and said a few words about it--but how that constitutes latching on like a
: leech or in what sense Bruce is wearing "Hugo the Rat's crown" and what
: doing *that* involves--these I don't get.
: It all sounds very *knowing* but what does it mean?
Sounds all mysterious, does it? "Hugo the Rat" was one author's
nickname for ol' Gernsback. Gernsback hijacked the young sci-fi movement
to propel his own brand of "cultural revolution" ( as much as you can
get on cheap pulp paper). All I'm saying is that Sterling's strong
antipathy towards Gernsback is amusing as he is "heir to the throne",
so to speak. The whole "future is now" phenomena, neh?
Randolph Fritz
Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>
>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>
"One ceases to be able to date works of art, even to the
century."--Oswald Spengler, more-or-less, *The Decline of the West*,
on the death of culture in urban empires.
Nancy Lebovitz
Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>
>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>
be slightly different, and people will write articles (or convey
the thoughts in whatever way is technologically appropriate) about
the differences and what they all might mean. Punditry never ends.
On the other hand, this 50s-60s-70s cycle might be a result of
the boomers still being around. While I enjoy my continued
existance (which started in '53), it's possible that things
will go through some interesting changes when the boomers lose
their dominance. On the other hand, this is the generation
when longevity research might just pay off.....
Nancy Lebovitz
the wrongheadedness of men and how women have a special wisdom.
I didn't have enough sense to be driven nuts by the role of women in
Earthsea--though I remember a great sense of relief at the depiction
of a woman wizard (or possibly merchant) in _The Farthest Shore_.
A Fredericks
>
>In article <4jkhpa$4...@hunkyd.thehub.com.au>,
>Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>>
>
retro.
Does that give us hope or a broader sense of doom?
CD Skogsberg
in <Dp35z...@ebi.ac.uk> the scribe eaob...@ebi.ac.uk (Emmet
O'Brien) wrote thus:
His speeches are more than empty bites!
Vote for the Elder Party in '96!
cd
--
\\\\\ HFF Spokeshuman, Head of the Quisition /////
\\\\\\\__o Archbishop (Church of Hedgehog) o__///////
_\\\\\\\'/____CD Skogsberg/c...@alfakonsult.se____\'///////_
Join us in bringing Jimmy and Hedgehogs to the Common Folk
David Gerard
On Tue, 2 Apr 1996 02:52:16 GMT, Randolph Fritz (rand...@netcom.com) wrote:
:In article <4jkhpa$4...@hunkyd.thehub.com.au>,
:Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
:>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
:>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
:"One ceases to be able to date works of art, even to the
:century."--Oswald Spengler, more-or-less, *The Decline of the West*,
:on the death of culture in urban empires.
Too much history. Too much awareness of what's gone before. Not enough
intelligence not to be swamped by all this data, to be dissatisfied
with this little.
Too little reinvention of the wheel.
Too much of more of everything. Less of nothing.
Too little common education such that those with too much knowledge have
too many tricks still in the hat that will work when they shouldn't be
able to get away with it.
--
Rev Dr David Gerard Melbourne, Australia http://suburbia.net/~fun
GothCode 2.0: GoAu!3CS+ TJt(ZZ) B10/23Bk^1 cR(DBR){G} p++ PPe(LNa) V++s M+3p1w
ZEx(!!--Go) C+3p1u a29- n!O b+:- H194 g+! m+)++( w+T r-4E D+~! h++TFe(Ad) s7 k+
Rn SrNy N0488Wn LauVIC+* HsMp1 We are much more beautiful than you.
Lucky
>:In article <4jkhpa$4...@hunkyd.thehub.com.au>,
>:Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>
>:>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>:>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>
>:"One ceases to be able to date works of art, even to the
>:century."--Oswald Spengler, more-or-less, *The Decline of the West*,
>:on the death of culture in urban empires.
There's an interesting piece on "Retro Trends" in the magazine 21C. (I
think it is actualy by Bruce Stirling, may be wrong but he does have an
artical in this edition)
It relates this retrofitting ( a term I think devised by R. Scott for
Bladerunner's set design) of Industrial age imagery into "Information
Age" society. It deals mostly with the "stark powerfull & masculine"
images of industrial hardware V's the "sleak, feminine" image of
computers. It does try to explain why these Retro images are so popular
with modern artists.
Mark Secker
M.se...@cowan.edu.au
Gabriel Legba Wintermute
up and i tried to do the whole "retro future" thing with its' look. Not
the 50s style, more the Fritz Lang-Metropolis thing. If you care at all,
this is my style of retro future. It's at:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/4108/
Gabe
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Gabriel Legba Wintermute pa...@mail.loop.com
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/4108
--------------------------------------------------------
There is no equation to On the meridian of time
explain the division of there is no injustice.
the senses. --Henry Miller
--Patti Smith
--------------------------------------------------------
Adam Miller
>Mark Secker
>M.se...@cowan.edu.au
What is 21C, and where is it found?
---
BE BRAVE, NEW WAVE!
"I am the story I tell myself."
--Greg Wait (z0...@ix.netcom.com)
Eugenia Horne
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@universe.digex.net> wrote:
>In article <4jkhpa$4...@HunkyD.thehub.com.au>,
>Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>>
>be slightly different, and people will write articles (or convey
>the thoughts in whatever way is technologically appropriate) about
>the differences and what they all might mean. Punditry never ends.
[Since this has been crossposted to - like - everywhere...]
There are "undertones" of retro-Regency (the "gothic" look),
and retro-Victorian (redecorating, weddings, etc.) currently
in fashion although so "romanticized" and re-interpreted that
few people recognize it.
But it's okay, this period in history (1820's - 1850's or so)
was absolutely taken with the "medieval" recreation theme
along side the latest innovations which resulted in such
goofy things as Queen Victoria's medieval costume ball
being illuminated with some of the first arc lamps.
>On the other hand, this 50s-60s-70s cycle might be a result of
>the boomers still being around. While I enjoy my continued
>existance (which started in '53), it's possible that things
>will go through some interesting changes when the boomers lose
>their dominance. On the other hand, this is the generation
>when longevity research might just pay off.....
Watched the fashion programs the other day; it
was so 1960s. I'm waiting for the disco craze to
return full-swing.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ernst has walzed at one or two Court balls and I have eaten macaroni,
neither of them feats that would justify a triumphal procession."
- Prince Albert
eyeb...@interpath.com
> What is 21C, and where is it found?
21C is an excellent slick Australian magazine about various things cyber.
It's extremely well designed, not only is it graphically innovative but
it's also readable (unlike a certain TiReD magazine). The articles seem
to be *about* something (for the most part), rather than recursive
observations on how well other people's observations are being observed by
still others ( also unlike a certain TiReD magazine).
It's worth hunting down. I've managed to get ahold of a couple of issues
and have been trying to subscribe. You might take a peek at their site:
eyebrown
John Long
Nonlocal <nonl...@aol.com> wrote:
>Cateland recently wrote, among other things: <<as Tim Leary pointed out,
>the word "cybernetics" literally means "dead helmsman" (don't ask me
>why).>>
>
No, it doesn't. Leary can be a crock when he wants to make a point.
The "helmsman" part is right, but the "-netics" part means something
to do with information.
Cybernetics is the study of control communication, especially
the control of machines, and most especially, the two way flow
of information -- the feedback loop from human or machine, to
machine.
The word was coined by Norbert Weiner, the first cyberpunk. He
was a pompous and arrogant whiz kid professor at some high mucky
muck ivy league school, who did much to design the very effective
air defense of London during WWII. His system worked well because
it used communication between emplacements to coordinate firing
of AA guns.
The image I have of him has him stomping into a colleague's office,
announcing with a puff of his cigar, that "Chaos..(puff).. is ENTROPY!"
and then stomping out.
He and Claude Shannon are pioneers in information theory. Shannon is
just about the opposite in personality.
Norbert's book "The Human Use of Human Beings" is a must-read. The
guy's writing style is a hoot.
His books on "pure" or "hard" cybernetics are also a hoot, whether
or not you can read math... you'll see some text like "suppose that.."
followed by a few pages of equation, followed by "nevertheless, it
is appearant that if... " (more math)
Stuff gets over my head fast.
>Someone fairly reputable recently mentioned to me that Timothy Leary is
>actually now dying of cancer. Hmmm. If he is, I wish him well. If he
>isn't, I wish him well.
>
Yeah, prostate cancer. He's really happy about it, looking forward
to it, blablabla... heard him on the radio a couple weeks ago.
IMO, the Unabomber would have despised Leary. Brilliant as Leary
is, he's also one hell of a politician. Or was. I've heard some of
his pre-acid lectures, and he's lost a few, for sure.
But I don't dislike him, I just realize that he's very much into
hot air. I wish him well, and am looking forward to his reports
from the other side.
John Long
On Wed, 10 Apr 1996, George Swan wrote:
> In article <4kffra$q...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com> you write:
[cybernetics]
>
> >The word was coined by Norbert Weiner, the first cyberpunk. He
> >was a pompous and arrogant whiz kid professor at some high mucky
> >[...]
> >The image I have of him has him stomping into a colleague's office,
> >announcing with a puff of his cigar, that "Chaos..(puff).. is ENTROPY!"
> >and then stomping out.
>
> Did you know him?
>
No, that's just something I read. I've seen pictures of him, he
wore a Sigmund Freud type beard and a tweed three piece suit. I
don't recall that he was wearing glasses in the picture.
> I heard a couple of stories about him. Ted Nelson said that
> he couldn't recognize his own children. Ted tells of him moving,
> and his wife pinning instructions inside his lapel. He got lost
> anyhow, and he was wondering around, when he saw this little boy.
> "Little boy! I'm Norbert Weiner, do you know where I live?"
>
> The little boy took him by the hand, and said, "Its OK dad, Mom
> sent me to look for you."
>
> Was he near-sighted?
>
Don't know. He could have been senile in his old age. He used to
live in Marin County (across the Golden Gate from S.Francisco)
near Alan Watts, I think they used to get together. Watts was one
of the psychedelic rangers of the '60's, and I think that Weiner
had a sort of philosophical following, but I think his get-high
was more on the order of gin and cigars. All just speculation.
His book "The Human Use of Human Beings" is pretty interesting
social commentary, and his writing style is very entertaining.
He says a lot of things the Unabomber would agree with.
John McCarthy
the spelling of his name.
He was a professor of mathematics at M.I.T. from 1919 until he
died in 1964. I don't believe he ever lived in Marin. He died in
Sweden. The story about chaos seems anachronistic. Chaos as a
concept didn't become popular until well after Wiener died.
I knew him slightly at M.I.T. until I left in 1962. He wasn't senile
when I knew him but eccentric and absent-minded to the extreme.
He did coin the word cybernetics, and his book about it was in 1948.
I refreshed my memory using the on-line Britannica article, but you
have to spell his name correctly to find that.
Wiener did not have any of the characteristics of a cyberpunk. He
never learned to use a computer, and I doubt he would have done so had
he lived longer. Also he wouldn't have like cyberpunks or understood
them at all. He was a great mathematician, and to get in his good graces
you would have to understand some of his mathematical discoveries and
discuss them with him. I consciously avoided applying the word
cybernetics to artificial intelligence, because I was afraid that if I
used it, M.I.T. would ask him what he thought of AI, and I never had
the slightest idea what he would say. Marvin Minsky knew him a lot
better than I did, since he was also in the Mathematics Department
while Wiener was active.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
Dragoness Eclectic
'j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)' wrote:
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
have thought to see THE John McCarthy posting on alt.gothic!
I'm boggled. You never know who's reading the 'Net...
(BTW, I preferred your approach to AI to Marvin Minsky's)
--dragoness, ComputerGoth
--
"And the angels had guitars
even before they had wings" -- Meatloaf
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Alt.gothic.CR Master-at-Arms ---------- cyhi...@usa.pipeline.com
George Partlow
of his autobiography are quite interesting. In Bertrand Russell's
autobiography he includes a letter from Leo Wiener, Norbert's father,
asking Russell to look out for the boy at Cambridge. Russell was not
impressed. As for pompous and arrogant, Leo (who was a linguist and i.a.
a classmate of L.L. Zamenhof, the initiator of Esperanto) far out-classed
his son, IMHO. He was responsible for trying to turn Norbert into a
prodigy; the result was a painful and complex relationship between father
and son, which reminds me of that between Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart. I
believe Norbert wrote at least one SF story, which I read in the 60's
when he was still alive, but now I don't remember what it was about, at
all! Never heard he ever lived in Marin county; are you sure of that?
BTW, have you ever read his "Cybernetics: control & Communication in the
Animal & the Machine"?
--
George Partlow (fifama kiel "fonobo" t.e. "freneza norda barbulo")
Timeo danaos et "flat tax" ferentes...
Coyote
>In article <4jkhpa$4...@HunkyD.thehub.com.au>,
>Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>>
>However, due to changes in taste and technology, each cycle will
>be slightly different, and people will write articles (or convey
>the thoughts in whatever way is technologically appropriate) about
>the differences and what they all might mean.
An interesting thought. I'm wondering if every transition from age to
age (or whatever the correct term may be) involved a stage like this,
where trends, be they social or artistic, were incorporated into the
evolution of some new trend.
I still hate it though. Primarily because the CURRENT trend seems to
be for anyone with airs of fashionability to look like the most
expensive dag possible.
> Punditry never ends.
"Punditry"? Being learned? How does that fit into your previous
paragraph?
> On the other hand, this is the generation
>when longevity research might just pay off.....
Any news on that, BTW? Last I heard it'll probably be our kids that
benefit. Or their kids.
Coyote
coy...@thehub.com.au
_______________________________________
Dark party bars
Shiny Cadillac cars
and the people on subways and trains
Looking gray in the rain
as they stand disarrayed
oh but people look well in the dark
- Lou Reed, 'Afterhours'.
________________________________________
Coyote
>>In article <4jkhpa$4...@hunkyd.thehub.com.au>,
>>Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>>>
>>>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>>>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>>>
>>
> Silly solipsistic (sp?) sap!
I don't appreciate being called a 'sap', but whatever.
> When I was a young 'un, it was 20-30-40's
>retro.
See my previous post concerning this.
> Does that give us hope or a broader sense of doom?
You tell me. You're the old one.
Bryan Munn
: Wiener did not have any of the characteristics of a cyberpunk. He
: never learned to use a computer, and I doubt he would have done so had
: he lived longer. Also he wouldn't have like cyberpunks or understood
: them at all. He was a great mathematician, and to get in his good graces
: you would have to understand some of his mathematical discoveries and
: discuss them with him.
So, a cyberpunk writer and former mathematics text-book writer like Rudy
Rucker wouldn't have anything to say to Wiener (or vice-versa)? Also, do
you need to use a computer to be a cyberpunk? I ask merely for information.
Bryan
bm...@uoguelph.ca
Andrea Chen
>I consciously avoided applying the word
>cybernetics to artificial intelligence, because I was afraid that if I
>used it, M.I.T. would ask him what he thought of AI, and I never had
>the slightest idea what he would say.
Interesting. I thought at that time many still defined programming
in general as a subset of cybernetics, but that the word was losing
appeal because 1. the words was attracting lots of crackpots. 2.
Those who created work which could fit into the rough definition of
cybernetics wished to identify and publish in established disciplines.
Programming still suffering a lack of respectability seemed to
cluster in mathematics departments and latter into engineering.
By the sixties it seemed the word had become popularly associated
with robotics. In a way it is unfortunate that cybernetics went
through such a decline. I think since then there have been about
two dozen words (ranging from systems theory to all kinds of
strange sounding compound structures) which dealt with the
same general domain.
The failure of cybernetics to establish itself does point to a
potential problem in the organization of disciplines. Here was
a word with huge popular appeal that was interdisciplinery in
that basic structures (eg. negative feedback) applied to a
wide range of systems, yet within academia it was difficult if
not impossible to class concepts within two intellectual structures
and you often ended up with a variety of words for similar ideas.
Cybernetics did (and maybe does) provide a possibility for a
shared vocabulary. Some words (such as homeostasis) do seem
to have acquired widespread use.
-ac-
Andrea Chen
>John McCarthy (j...@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
While admitting that no one is quite clear what a cyberpunk is
(the same is somewhat true of cybernetics as well), the general
cyberpunk mythology is of individuals who tap into a system
and exploit it for their own ends, manipulaters (or parasites)
rather than creators. If I recall correctly this comes up at
the very beginning. In Neuromancer Gibson has one of his characters
remark that cyberpunks never went into AI. They are not philosophers
or scientists, but technicians and pragmatic explorers of an
existing system with which they have a love/hate relationship.
They are crackers not hackers (in the sense of L Peter Deutch,
one of the individuals who improved upon John McCarthys tree logic
known as Lisp).
-ac-
Nancy Lebovitz
>>Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote:
>>>
>>>If this trend for recycling EVERYTHING continues, we'll be living in
>>>an endless cycle of 50s-60s-70s for the rest of eternity.
>>>
>>be slightly different, and people will write articles (or convey
>>the thoughts in whatever way is technologically appropriate) about
>>the differences and what they all might mean.
>
>An interesting thought. I'm wondering if every transition from age to
>age (or whatever the correct term may be) involved a stage like this,
>where trends, be they social or artistic, were incorporated into the
>evolution of some new trend.
>
>I still hate it though. Primarily because the CURRENT trend seems to
>be for anyone with airs of fashionability to look like the most
>expensive dag possible.
>
>
>> Punditry never ends.
>
>"Punditry"? Being learned? How does that fit into your previous
>paragraph?
Speaking about one's society as though one is above and outside it.
>> On the other hand, this is the generation
>>when longevity research might just pay off.....
>
>Any news on that, BTW? Last I heard it'll probably be our kids that
>benefit. Or their kids.
>
No news, though I've heard that centenarians form the fastest-growing
demographic group. (Admittedly, they started from a small base.)
Aside from any technological improvements, I don't think we've seen
all the effects of improved nutrition and sanitation. Just don't
count on retiring....
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> Coyote <coy...@thehub.com.au> wrote: [snip]
> >An interesting thought. I'm wondering if every transition from age to
> >age (or whatever the correct term may be) involved a stage like this,
> >where trends, be they social or artistic, were incorporated into the
> >evolution of some new trend.
> >
> >I still hate it though. Primarily because the CURRENT trend seems to
> >be for anyone with airs of fashionability to look like the most
> >expensive dag possible.
>
dag \'dag\ n [ME dagge] 1: a hanging end or shred 2: matted or
manure-coated wool
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew, miscellaneous SF
Please consider posting (as opposed to e-mailing) ID requests
Shawn Stacey
trends to repeat themselves. Just a thought