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....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.
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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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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.I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Of course, the reason for the loathing and fear of this gentleman was that he held a frame of reference that degraded the present.
11 comments:
And we get to hear Greggers giving the Loon from the North Woods a tongue bath again tonight on WCPT, Chicago's "progressive" radio station.
"Of course, the reason for the loathing and fear of this gentleman was that he held a frame of reference that degraded the present."
Possible Lesson #1(offered for your consideration):
Reality based thinking/remembrance degrades the illusory thinking that we know as the "conventional wisdom" of today's society.
I see they configured metropolis on a cd format.
We're going to need a "Driftglass's Basic Sci-Fi Literacy List" pretty soon, I think! Books and movies, pls!
I hear you. A while back I not only made a blogger whom I like/respect very much (Sandy Underpants at http://ristocrats.blogspot.com/) aware of David Crosby's "Triad", but explained its reference to "water brothers".
God I'm glad I'm old [enough to have lived through the 60s...]
Teach your children well.
on the vintage si fi topic -
I got so lost in the Foundation Trilogy that I carried it with me to work so I could read it on the train ride into the city. Standing in the lobby of the building where I worked, waiting for the elevator, I opened the book to read a bit on the way up to my floor. I got on the elevator and absent-mindedly poked my toe around to find the anti-gravity bar on the floor. When I didn't find one, I experienced a split second of panic as the elevator door closed. Of course when I didn't float to the ceiling ...
But not for US.
I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Thanks for the memories, Dg.
S
Which reminds me of another great SF short story about the forgetting of things past: "What's the Name of That Town?" by the inimitable, indescribable R. A. Lafferty -- whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Worldcon in Boston in 1980.
"What's the Name of That Town?" is in the collection titled Nine Hundred Grandmothers.
(Yeah, I'm an old skiffy fan. You just gotta deal with it, kids.)
I love R.A. Lafferey. James Schmidt. Keith Laumer.
Feeling a bit like Lazurus Long, are we?
Heinlein's interesting to me, because he stands in a tradition of right wing libertarian sci-fi that has so many interesting ideas about technology and so many horrible ones about society. And I say this as someone who grew up reading Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, Robinson (who wanted to be Robert Heinlein WAY more than was healthy for him as a writer). I'd compare him to Ayn Rand, but he could write an engaging story in all the ways she couldn't.
Ah well, I kinda think it should be illegal to sell a copy of Starship Troopers without a copy of Bill The Galactic Hero, or at least some kind of warning label. "Warning, no military in the history of ever has worked this well or been this free of corruption, incompetence careerism or greed".
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