Methuselah's Forgetful Children

Like truffles, on Teh Internets the laughs are free if you know where to find them.

While averting my gaze from the horror of the gaping cultural head-wound that was David Gregory interviewing Michele Bachmann, my eyes fell upon this...

Latent Magic

06 Mar 2011 10:40 am

Mark Changizi predicts that future humans will find amazing powers not from AI or genetic engineering, but from simple evolution - something he calls nature-harnessing...

Which would be even more amazing if science fiction hadn't been kicking the same idea around for the last 70 years. From Wiki:

"Methuselah's Children is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in the July, August, and September 1941 issues. It was expanded into a full-length novel in 1958....
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The Howard Families derive from Ira Howard, who became rich in the California Gold Rush, but died young and childless. Fearing death, he left his money for the prolongation of human life, and the trustees of his will carried out his wishes by financially encouraging those with long-lived grandparents to marry and have children. While the Families (who, by the 22nd Century, have a life expectancy of 150 years) have kept their existence secret, with the enlightened human society established under The Covenant, they decide to reveal themselves.

Society refuses to believe the Howard Families simply 'chose their ancestors wisely', instead insisting they have developed a method to extend life, and the Families are persecuted and interned. Though the beleaguered Administrator of the planet, Slayton Ford, is convinced the Families are telling the truth, he is helpless to control an increasingly irrational public and their efforts to force the Howard Families to reveal their "secret" or face execution.
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I must say, one of my greatest sources of free internet laughs occurs almost weekly when some (often otherwise well-read) writer whose understanding of science fiction begins with "Blade Runner" or "Terminator" gets tweaked (and massively linked, re-linked and mentally masticated by his peers) about an idea that was showing its age 30 or 40 or 50 years ago when Asimov or Pohl or Kornbluth or PK Dick was cranking out whole novels on the subject.

Being one of the last remembers of the details and literature of a past that has all but vanished down the American Idol Hole has its rewards...

..one of which is remembering that the remembrance of lost things past has been the theme of about a third of everything Ray Bradbury has ever written, including "The Chicago Abyss":

Ray Bradbury's "The Chicago Abyss" is a tale of an old man who remembers too much. In the rubble of some bombed out urban center, the people physically abuse the old man when he shares his memories of such things as Baby Ruth candy bars, music, restaurants, and television. A small group protects and cares for the old guy, hiding him from the ever-searching police.

Of course, the reason for the loathing and fear of this gentleman was that he held a frame of reference that degraded the present.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.