“…you put yourself out there, so I was wondering, are there any subjects that get to you in your mind that you have not necessarily given vent to in print or on the site?”
-Ed
Sure, Ed. I would say malicious myths, lies that are so big that we almost all believe them and that serve to hide many an ugly truth about how our society operates.
1. Racial predetermination: that all blacks will be as violent as Shaka Zulu, all Jews puppet master millionaires, all white uncles rapists, all Asians high level math wizards, etc… I am a believer in human adaptability and individual choice which makes this particularly grating to me, for the same reason as the next item
2. That it is impossible for humans to colonize the solar system. Most science fiction readers and most highly intelligent people that I know now believe this to be the truth, which, if this belief holds true for our kind, amounts to our suicide letter as a species.
3. That there has only been one genocide. This is such a touchy subject I am not even going to mention who suffered the only genocide allowed to be discussed. It was not the Cambodians, the Tasmanians, the Manocs, Erie, the Nez Perce, the Taino, the Neanderthals, the Solutreans, the Armenians, the Canaanites… When I bring up such genocides they are decried as lesser genocides, not as meaningful as the only genocide, as if having all or most of your people killed and your heritage slated for extermination is a special gift only to be enjoyed by one tribe.
4. That the slavery of black Africans by white Americans in North America and the West Indies was either the only kind of slavery that was a crime against humanity, or was the worst form of slavery ever. #4 like #3 above are simpleton myths pushed on us by governments so that we will believe that most states do not exterminate certain types of people, when, throughout history, it has been the habit of most states to single out certain groups for extermination.
What?! Science fiction writers no longer believe in interplanetary colonization? Say it isn't so! Almighty God forbid it! We need to fire all our current crop of Sci-Fi writers then and hire all new ones. After all it is the job of sci-fi writers to explore new possibilities, to come up with things that nobody else has thought of before, even if those things appear to be pure fantasy at the time. Have contemporary Sci-fi writers forgotten Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws of Prediction?
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2.The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3.Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Right now interstellar travel seems unlikely if not altogether impossible since among other considerations Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which states that speeds faster than light are not possible in this universe, has not been disproven. But that doesn't mean it can't or won't ever be (as Einstein himself said) or that we will not find other ways to transit the vast distances between stars systems. Of course another factor discouraging space exploration is that it is enormously expensive and right now our money is tied up taking care of all manner of refugees and freeloaders. There just doesn't seem to be any money to be made by traveling to other worlds. Keep in mind that Columbus did NOT set out to find a previously unknown continent, instead he was hoping to get rich by finding a trade route to China and the Indies that avoided Muslim lands. Also when Vikings were blown off course and discovered Iceland by accident in 860 A.D. they were looking for people to rob and hold for ransom or sell into slavery rather than embarking on a voyage of peaceful exploration. People often need some material incentive to set off into the unknown or at least that is what you must provide to get financial backers for any new and different enterprise. Of course if we were to quit wasting our money on Marxist redistributionist Ponzi schemes that just keep poor people poor and buy votes we might be able to find some capital with which to fund innovative space exploration programs. Anyway it is a sad state of affairs if even our contemporary science fiction writers can't think outside of the PC box. If they can't, who can?
This drives me crazy that I cannot have a conversation with a science fiction author or reader under 60 who believes we should or could be on mars, the moon even, or Titan. Ben Bova is still writing and selling his grand tour, but the thread seems dead among younger authors. Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke are lucky they died when they did.
Thank you for his three laws. I had forgotten #1, am horrified that #2 is not universally intuited, and use #3 all the time.
Both 3 & 4 are used to effect by the involved socioeconomic groups.
It my opinion that that is all they have to work with, considering their continual whining about it.
The civil war has been over since 1865, with great loss of life on both contending sides. The issue is resolved, particularly with the civil rights activity in the 40s, 50s 60s and after.
Except it isn't, what with this or that interest group jockeying for position and advantage, much like the Third Reich.
Not that amurrikans study or understand history. Hmmm, wonder if there's a connection?
Nah! Oh, look! It's Kim Kardashian!
One of the reasons why I got rid of my TV was that I could not stop looking at Kim's ass, and was afraid that my neurons would stop firing one by one as my vestigial parts took back control of my brain!