Nowism vs the Replacement Principle [Archive]

MadScientistMatt

12-15-2005, 11:18 PM

I came across these two terms in the SFWA Critique Glossary (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/glossary.html), but I'd been pondering this subject for a while before learning that they had names. I wanted to hear how some of you handle this:

In science fiction set in the future, how many everyday items will be replaced with future technology, and how much of your world is likely to stay the same? For example, do you still see people in the future cooking with cast iron frying pans and charcoal grills, or would those be similar only made from new materials, or replaced with something altogether different?

If you dropped a modern day person into your future world, how many things still in common useage would this modern person recognize?

HConn

12-16-2005, 01:42 AM

I saw a documentary on the making of Star Trek: TNG, and the designers said they started with the things that wouldn't change. First up: bucket seats.

One thing I think won't change is people's desire to live near water and to have a small patch of land of their own.

ChaosTitan

12-16-2005, 02:13 AM

I think that the answer partly relies on how far into the future you are dropping the character.

For example, if you picked up someone (we'll call her Jane) from 1988 and plopped them into 2005, what will she notice? That cellular phones went from the size of a tennis shoe to the size of a credit card, but they are still cellular phones. That cassette tapes have become CD's and digital downloads, but music is still transportable and recordable. That we have computers instead of typewriters, but we still type the written word.

It's only seventeen years, within our lifespans, but still the future to Jane. Now let's say we take someone from 2005 (Joe) and drop them into 2022. Another seventeen-year gap, and still the future to Joe (although our mindset would argue that only 2022 is "the future," but *any* time is the future, depending on your POV).

How will cell phones have changed again? Will they be smaller? Larger? Permanent implants in our ears? What about music and computers and books?

Even in Star Trek (all series roughly 200-400 years from now), they have recognizable items. Guns (phasers, rather than the projectile bullet variety), food dispensers (replicators), clothing (although fashion design has gone downhill http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/tongue.gif ), cell phones/walkie talkies (Communicators/comm badges).

Electronic technology and advances in medicine seem to have changed the most rapidly in the last sixty years or so. It stands to reason that they would continue to change dramatically in the coming decades and centuries. I think I'd still recognize a cell phone in one hundred years, but it may not look anything like the little Nokia in my purse.

-Kelly....in need of coffee.... http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/emoteCoffee.gif

Vuligora

12-16-2005, 03:10 AM

It's definately partially dependant on how far into the furture you have gone. It also depends on the events of the past years. Has some war prevented progress? Are the rainforests dead, therefore destorying a means of obtaining coffee? Has a movie stars obsession with pink and purple conviced the pshyco idolists to tatto themselves in color? Where is Carmen Sandiago?

Okay so I got carried away. My point, everything matters...patterens in progress, past events, characters statis (I doubt anyone here would recoignize the stuff in top secret military areas...but that's current. People of a high military statis do) and what you feel is right. Personally, I have no trouble with the level of tech and items and stuff...my issue is futuristic settings. I've been hit with this annoying bug in my brain that makes me think of silver stuff...Help Me..AHAHAHAHAHAA.................................. *DIES, BUT WILL COME BACK TO LIFE LATER*

Saanen

12-16-2005, 03:38 AM

If you could bring a person from 1505 to 2005, what would they recognize? Basic kitchen stuff hasn't changed appreciably in 500 years--your cast-iron skillet, for instance, and wooden spoons and so forth. Outside, rakes and other garden tools are still pretty much identical to what they were 500 years ago. Furniture hasn't changed. Clothing styles have changed radically, but I'm sitting here wearing a cotton T-shirt and jeans and leather boots, so it's not like we're all clad in plastic or anything radical (and even if we are, we take pains to make it look natural).

In short, I'd say things that have basic uses, like clothes and furniture, are not going to change much in the next 500 years. Technology is going to change a lot. That person from 1505 would be amazed at some of the comforts we take for granted, like electric lights, but not confused by most of them. They had oil lamps in 1505. Everything we use has been designed to give us comfort or pleasure, and people are not going to turn into strange alien beings in 500 years.

DaveKuzminski

12-16-2005, 04:53 AM

There's a web site with a picture of a doctor's kit from one of the first Roman doctors compared with what doctors would use now. Virtually every instrument was still present and in much the same shape and size as before. If you plopped a doctor from now into the past and he had a way of obtaining instruments, he'd recognize them and know their use. Same goes in reverse.

Sorry I don't recall the URL for that site. It might come up on Google with the right search terms.

TheIT

12-20-2005, 03:06 AM

There's also the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude. Why replace something if it's still working? Walk through any city and you'll see a mix of architectures from the glass and steel skyscrapers to the historical sites. Take a look at your kitchen drawers, or in your closet. Unless you can afford to replace everything each time something newer or niftier is invented, you'll see a mix of items from different time periods. In a house, the mix of styles will also be a function of how old the occupants are. A newlywed couple will more likely to have items of the same time period (the time when they were married) than a couple who has been married for fifty years.

Another thing is the sentimentality factor. Older items are kept in use because of attachments, like using a fountain pen because my grandfather gave it to me.

It always bothers me watching futuristic movies to see only "future" items. Doesn't anyone in the future collect antiques? I think the TV series Firefly did a good job of mixing future/current items.

Form follows function. Certain functions do not require new forms. Also, primitive does not mean stupid. Some forms haven't been improved upon.

emeraldcite

12-20-2005, 04:17 AM

TheIT

12-20-2005, 05:05 AM

Then again, it's also amusing to watch some of the older SF movies and see what was new then being completely outdated now. I'm thinking of things like spinning tape drives and 5 1/4 floppy disks, or even older cell phones and record players. A lot of older books use tapes as a storage medium. Maybe there is some advantage to creating your own new technology for your story. No one can come along and replace it.

Sage

12-20-2005, 06:17 AM

That was true even for things like the most recent Star Treks. I remember reading somewhere how one of the captains' console was less advanced than current technology by the end of that series (I think it was Janeway's).

DaveKuzminski

12-20-2005, 06:54 AM

On the other hand, some authors got it right to begin with. I recall in some of Andre Norton's YA books that I read back in the 1950s(?) where the ship was piloted automatically by small program disks. There were different ones for each destination that apparently automatically plotted the necessary course.

Dhewco

12-26-2005, 11:36 PM

I agree with the poster who said sentiment would allow some things to stay the same. I think there will be projectile weapons for centuries to come, either because they will become cheap, gun enthusiasts claim more stopping power, and the ever popular 'it worked for your father, it'll work for you.' Until we all get personal shields, projectile weapons will be the choice weapon for some people.

I think wrist phones will eventually occur, too. I might be alone in that, I know of no company that has one out now. As big as they were in the Bond and other spy movies, I thought they'd be out by now.

I'm still wondering where the data crystals are, LOL. Will they have hover cars in 20 years? Beam me up, George, I'm not smarter than the average bare. (everything in that sentence is intentional, just thought I'd say that before you think I'm an imbecile because of it.)

David

Pthom

12-27-2005, 02:38 AM

I think there will be projectile weapons for centuries to come, either because they will become cheap, gun enthusiasts claim more stopping power, and the ever popular 'it worked for your father, it'll work for you.' Until we all get personal shields, projectile weapons will be the choice weapon for some people.I think you're right that a weapon that in effect throws an object at your enemy (whether by hand or by an explosion) is going to be around for a long time. But projectile weapons inside a pressure vessel, such as a space ship, where there is vacuum on the other side of the hull may not be prudent. Even though explosive decompression is generally considered a myth (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22explosive+decompression%22+%22myth+busters%22 ) currently, blowing a hole in your space cruiser's hull is a really bad idea.

I think wrist phones will eventually occur, too. I might be alone in that, I know of no company that has one out now. As big as they were in the Bond and other spy movies, I thought they'd be out by now.Well, they are, sorta, aren't they? But instead of occupying real estate on the wrist, they clip over the ear. Not as snakey as the ones on Stargate: Atlantis they nonetheless are very small. The Wrist Radio/TV posited in "Dick Tracy" of years ago, is now a very real possibility. The reason it is not in general use is probably due to lack of interest, rather than limited technology.

I'm still wondering where the data crystals are, LOL. Data crystals are sometime off in the future, yet, I'm afraid. Although the idea of storing binary data in the atomic matrix of a crystal had been around for awhile, getting it to work in an economical manner hasn't been achieved. Yet. Stay tuned.

Will they have hover cars in 20 years? Maybe. Probably not. Takes too much energy. That's the main problem with "cars" in the first place. Besides the fuel necessary to operate them, they need roads, places to park, and they kill more humans than just about anything else. Some other method of transporting humans to where they want to go when they want to go there will come to light first, I think. (I'd love to see implementation of Niven's stepping plates for example.)

Trying to come up with a scenerio for the future is what writing science fiction is all about, isn't it?

Dhewco

01-01-2006, 11:51 PM

I think it's more likely that the spaceship interiors will be made of bulletproof materiels, rather than people using lasers or energy weapons. The energy weapons will be there, but there'll always be some people who prefer projectile weapons.

David

Wrist phones are cooler than clip to the ear phones. LOL. To me, anyway

Pthom

01-02-2006, 02:17 AM

I think it's ... likely that the spaceship interiors will be made of bulletproof materiels...Just so the it's possible to use projectile weapons against the occupants without blowing a hole in the hull?

hm. Maybe.

But think of a Brinks' armored car. Or a Bradley fighting vehicle. Now imagine sending such a heavily armoured vehicle into space from the surface of an Earth-like planet. Now imagine the overdraft charges on your bank account.

Now imagine your average get-around-town automobile. Bullets go right through them. The concussion from the discharge of even a small calibre firearm inside the cab of a car is enough to burst ear drums. As I said, projectile weapons will no doubt still be in use far into the future. But I maintain their use on space ships will be limited to those invented by Hollywood.

In one of my stories, I needed a weapon for the 'cops' to use against an uprising of a segment of the population in a space station. I had already eliminated projectile weapons for the reasons above. In fact, in my space station, there are no guns at all, but something like a taser. Inside a pressure vessel, you don't need a long-range weapon anyway. I looked online--discovered sonic weapons. I postulated that to a gentleman who was a retired submariner.

He shook his head. "You'll play hell with echos. Even the bearers of the weapon will be affected." Then he grinned. "But you might consider a gun that shoots ice needles. The ice can contain an anaesthetic--or poison. The individual crystals won't have enough mass to ricochet, but will penetrate skin and knock out your opponent."

Sage

01-02-2006, 03:05 AM

Just so the it's possible to use projectile weapons against the occupants without blowing a hole in the hull?

hm. Maybe.

Or maybe just so it's possible to fly at FTL speeds & not have a tiny piece of a space rock that's in the way blow a hole in the hull from the outside of the ship....

Pthom

01-02-2006, 03:13 AM

Or maybe just so it's possible to fly at FTL speeds & not have a tiny piece of a space rock that's in the way blow a hole in the hull from the outside of the ship....;)

That should be a worry only if you don't subscribe to Einsteinian physics. (If you don't, then you'd better have a darned good case for not doing so.) For an object travelling faster than C is, from the viewpoint of things NOT going that fast, pure energy. And in that case, pity the poor rock, not the space ship.

Sage

01-02-2006, 03:19 AM

Okay, then how about, just under light speed? Still pretty fast, not pure energy, ne? More than likely while they're on their way to making those FTL speeds possible, & therefore in use for space ships as a standard by the time they are possible :wag:

Richard White

01-02-2006, 03:20 AM

He shook his head. "You'll play hell with echos. Even the bearers of the weapon will be affected." Then he grinned. "But you might consider a gun that shoots ice needles. The ice can contain an anaesthetic--or poison. The individual crystals won't have enough mass to ricochet, but will penetrate skin and knock out your opponent."

We have something like that today, although they're not made of ice.

Flechette Rounds are REALLY, REALLY nasty. Think of sending a couple thousand steel needles downrange at about 2000 ft/sec. Then think about what they'd do to a target. . . ick.

They're not really useful against metal armored opponents, but against people wearing kevlar, it's just nasty (goes right through the ballistic weave). Really useful against dismounted infantry these days, but they'd be devestating inside a space ship but highly unlikely to penetrate all the way through a bulkhead or a port window.

Pthom

01-02-2006, 03:39 AM

Okay, then how about, just under light speed? Still pretty fast, not pure energy, ne? :wag:Yeah, very fast. You are correct that in high-speed collisions, there is a vast amount of energy released. Physicists call the kind of collision that converts a Brinks Armoured Car into a puddle of slag an "elastic" collision. The same kind of collision of a baseball with a bat. If it weren't for the strength of the wood of the bat or of the leather covering of the ball, things would go poof and the game would be over. (An inelastic collision is one like dropping the pie dough on the floor. It lands there and stops.)

But the kinetic energy has to go somewhere. It can be converted to heat (asteroid hitting Siberia and causing massive forest fires), sound, or redirected kinetic energy. This last is what Hollywood likes to show in space opera movies: big (and little) pieces of space ships and space men flying all about accompanied with wonderful sound effects.

So, how to get from our galaxy to the next? While we still have all our hair and teeth? Why, in Very Fast Ships of course. (Or with magic, but I'm limiting our discussion to science fiction where magic is usually not involved.) In a VFS, you have the risk you state: running into Bits of Stuff That Are Inconviently In The Way. You can make shields such as they have in Star Trek (but never use for this purpose), or have some sort of laser broom to get the Inconvient Bits out of the way (curling in space, anyone?) or an amazing navigational computer to locate and dodge them all.

Personally, if it's important to the story, I prefer the broom idea. The shield has the problem of what to do with the energy of the collision with the object. It has to go somewhere, and unless you have a cool engine that can somehow convert grit into fuel, the collision(s) will just serve to slow you down. And the navigational computer might work, but everyone'd be car sick once they got to Andromeda.

Or you could just write about travelling to and fro in the universe while watching in-flight movies and not worry about road hazards. Just as Thelma and Louise didn't worry about potholes until the very end.

Pthom

01-02-2006, 03:43 AM

We have something like that today...Flechette Rounds.
...
they'd be devestating inside a space ship but highly unlikely to penetrate all the way through a bulkhead or a port window.Right.

I still worry about ricochet. If I'm arming my police force aboard my space vessels, I want them to have something that will stop the opponent but not damage the user of the weapon or the surroundings.

As for whacking on an intruder...let's come up with some sort of system so the intruder never gets in, eh?

Sage

01-02-2006, 08:59 AM

I like the curling-in-space-to-avoid-collisions idea too :e2bike2:

DaveKuzminski

01-02-2006, 07:45 PM

They already issue special bullets to air marshals for use in thin-skinned aluminum passenger liners. The bullets are designed to shatter on impact with metal.

Pthom

01-03-2006, 03:17 AM

Lead bullets. Copper jacketed bullets. Rubber bullets. Bullets that shatter upon impact with metal. Fletchets. Ice needles.

All are iterations of throwing rocks at your opponent. And although I have no doubt such weapons will be in existance centuries from now, I can't help think that armorers of the future will invent weapons that 1) don't need to be aimed very carefully or at all and 2) incompacitate the intended victim without permanent damage to either the victim or his surroundings.

Maybe it's some kind of a gun. We seem to be in the mindset that guns (or their cousins) are the ideal weapons.

But maybe it's something else. Focused psychic waves? What if your army had a squad of folks who could, merely by concentrating on it, cause your enemy's army to think they were on the battlefield just to pick daisies? Wouldn't that be a better way of winning a war than destroying lives and irreplacable property?

Maybe in a future, fire and brimstone battles will be just a diversion for what really wins or loses wars.

Maybe we're already doing that.

Richard White

01-03-2006, 03:59 AM

Maybe in a future, fire and brimstone battles will be just a diversion for what really wins or loses wars.

Maybe we're already doing that.

I'm sorry that's classified.

If I told you, we'd have to cut off your head and store it in a safe.

Please ignore the man behind the curtain.;)

DaveKuzminski

01-03-2006, 06:25 AM

There's already a mobile sonic weapon and a new personal laser weapon that both are non-lethal.

The sonic weapon, of course, can be aimed and if I recall some knowledge about sounds, it cancels itself out when the same waves are bounced back, so there's little danger to the users. Of course, it currently requires a vehicle to carry it and provide the power, but I wouldn't doubt that there's a smaller version under development.

The personal laser weapon is about the side of a rifle. It's effective unless your opponent also has sunglasses since that tends to filter out many of the effects.

While I missed remarking earlier about the jet cars, those do exist already. However, they're simply too expensive and using them requires a license from the FAA. I doubt if they'll be used by civilians for much more than making movies. I do believe there might be some military use for them as they could prove useful to the field commander in need of something small and fast since it could land in an area smaller than what many helicopters need.

Pthom

01-03-2006, 07:00 AM

Not to be argumentative, but: There's already a mobile sonic weapon and a new personal laser weapon that both are non-lethal.

The sonic weapon, of course, can be aimed and if I recall some knowledge about sounds, it cancels itself out when the same waves are bounced back, so there's little danger to the users. Of course, it currently requires a vehicle to carry it and provide the power, but I wouldn't doubt that there's a smaller version under development.Sure, possible, if every location where it's used is a perfect sonic reflector. But sound waves (or any waves, really) work like light. If the cancelling thing worked, it'd be like shining a spotlight at a wall and not seeing any light. Kinda defeats the purpose of a spotlight, but it'd be cool if you could get it to work with a sonic weapon (http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/153_sonicweapons.shtml). Since sonic waves depend on air, or some other medium, to propagate, it is practically impossible to eliminate reflections. Now there is one possibility: Noise cancelling headphones (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-noise-cancellation.htm?referrer=adwords_campaign=noiseca ncellation_ad=010041), which work by identifying objectionable frequencies and using a microprocessor, produce cancelling frequencies or modify them in such a way so as to not be objectionable. Sonic weapons are in use, as you say, but as far as I know, are only used outdoors (http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001741.html). However, they require enormous power to be more effective than the loud speakers at a rock concert. Come to think of it, a rock concert is a pretty darned good weapon, if not very portable.

The personal laser weapon is about the side of a rifle. It's effective unless your opponent also has sunglasses since that tends to filter out many of the effects.More rocks and shields.

While I missed remarking earlier about the jet cars, those do exist already. However, they're simply too expensive and using them requires a license from the FAA. I doubt if they'll be used by civilians for much more than making movies. I do believe there might be some military use for them as they could prove useful to the field commander in need of something small and fast since it could land in an area smaller than what many helicopters need.Even if it wasn't for the FAA (and the FAA may not exist very far into the future), jet engines have one major drawback: hot exhaust. But I read one story where the exhaust from a rocket motor was used to wipe out a large part of the enemy's army by just flying around over them.

None of these things is impossible...none of these things is an easy solution. That's the joy of writing science fiction (and fantasy, I suppose, although I've not written any): We get to make up the rules.
:)

Higgins

09-11-2006, 09:13 PM

victoria.goddard

09-14-2006, 06:36 AM

<Come to think of it, a rock concert is a pretty darned good weapon, if not very portable.>

Like Disaster Area (I think that's the name of the band) in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe? Though I believe they end up doing more in the way of terraforming. . . .

Ordinary_Guy

09-14-2006, 10:05 AM

I came across these two terms in the SFWA Critique Glossary (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/glossary.html), but I'd been pondering this subject for a while before learning that they had names.
These are pretty cool. For the uninformed:
Nowism. Short for 'now-chauvinism'. The tendency to export present-day forms, conventions, technology or morality to a future setting where they are inappropriate or unlikely. (CSFW: David Smith)
Replacement principle. The axiom that, in the future, everything we know now will be replaced with something more technological and better. Often an important means of avoiding nowism, it can sometimes be taken to absurd extremes. (Kathryn Cramer)
That out of the way...
I wanted to hear how some of you handle this:

In science fiction set in the future, how many everyday items will be replaced with future technology, and how much of your world is likely to stay the same? For example, do you still see people in the future cooking with cast iron frying pans and charcoal grills, or would those be similar only made from new materials, or replaced with something altogether different?

If you dropped a modern day person into your future world, how many things still in common useage would this modern person recognize?
Personal answer: it depends.

Cop-out, I know, but it's true. It'll depend on when they get dropped in and almost as importantly, where. For instance, drop someone from the 14th century into the rustic (but current-day) kitchen of a Vermont B&B, and the new [old] arrival would be able to cook their own breakfast. OTOH, drop them into some super-sleek $85K Architectural Digest kitchen somewhere in the hills of Malibu and if the Cuisinart doesn't scare the cr@p out of them, the trash compacter will.

Good prognostication is really about finding the balance between the nowism and the replacements.

Shweta

09-14-2006, 12:52 PM

Just put little electrodes in everybody's heads. If they get out of line, send a signal directly to their brains.

But try not to zap the wrong guys or let the insane computer get hold of the brain codes.

The only problem with this idea is, what I understand you to be saying wouldn't work.

If you actually look at brain activation, individual differences are huge. There's no way you could set up electrodes so that they'd "tell" everyone the same thing.

Though... you could set them up to just cause pain to everyone, probably. Or you could set it up to temporarily blind them or temporarily disable motor function or something else "low-level". Maybe.
I'm not sure it'd work if you had to do it too often though.

Though, hm, wires in to the pleasure center. *stop* sending them happy vibes if they stop behaving...
I uh, dunno if that would work, though.

Spirit_Fire

09-15-2006, 12:04 PM

I saw a thing on TV recently where scientists had inserted electrodes into a rat's brain, and they would control the rat using electric signals. They figured out how to access the 'pleasure centre' and would make the rat feel good when it obeyed commands.

In other words, they would send a message to the brain, which makes the rat feel a sensation on its right whiskers (which means turn right). Then when it turns right, they send another message that makes the rat feel good. After a while it's trained to follow the orders. Presto: a remote controlled rat. They use the computer to give it orders, and it can be led through a special obstacle course.

So, maybe if people had some sort of implant (maybe a bit more technologically advanced than the rat's), they could be made to feel pain when they do something wrong, or feel pleasure when they do something right.

It could be kind of like a scientific Jedi mind trick. When the citizens start rioting, they just turn on the mind control. All the citizens turn into mindless zombies and just go home.

(Unfortunately for them, trouble starts when our hero bumps his head, damaging his mind control implant, and is unable to be controlled. He then goes on a mission to save the world from the fascist police state by liberating fellow citizens from the grip of mind control implants) Or something like that.

P.S. this might have been done before - it sounds a bit simple. But it's just an idea.

Shweta

09-15-2006, 09:46 PM

Yeh, you could do it through classical conditioning by triggering pleasure/pain centers; but this is the same idea as standard (pavlovian) behaviorist experiments, just with more technological sources of pleasure/pain (the behaviorists used food and electric shocks).

The issue there is, there is a strict limit to how much you can actually condition any critter to do.

For example, you could condition a rat not to eat certain types of food by making it sick; or you could condition it not to go somewhere because of an electric shock; but (if I remember this right) you couldn't do it the other way. You couldn't condition it not to go someplace by making it sick, or to avoid food of a certain sort by electric shocks.

So simple pleasure/pain triggers might not be a versatile enough motivator.

Now, you could get conscious obedience by threatening pain, or threatening to take away some regular trigger of the pleasure center. (you wouldn't want constant pleasure; rats that had their pleasure centers constantly active just died, cause they didn't bother eating).

But you could get this effect much more easily with a drug (like Soma in brave New World) that you could withhold.

I think my overall sense is that anything complex enough that you couldn't just d it with drugs, you couldn't do on a mass scale with electrodes. Mayyybe with a nanobot-electrode-formation that built them in brains based on individual brain activation patterns. But not just by wiring up to a particular brain patch.

Those pretty fMRI pictures showing neat active zones? They are lies. Actual scanning data is a mess. (More on this only if people care).

TheIT

09-15-2006, 09:57 PM

Cop-out, I know, but it's true. It'll depend on when they get dropped in and almost as importantly, where. For instance, drop someone from the 14th century into the rustic (but current-day) kitchen of a Vermont B&B, and the new [old] arrival would be able to cook their own breakfast. OTOH, drop them into some super-sleek $85K Architectural Digest kitchen somewhere in the hills of Malibu and if the Cuisinart doesn't scare the cr@p out of them, the trash compacter will.

It's also fun to think of things in the other direction, too. I remember a story where scientists created a time machine and snatched someone out of the future to find out the grand answers like cures for diseases or secrets of future technology. Unfortunately the person they snatched was an ordinary citizen who used the future gadgets but had no idea how they worked. Cure for cancer? Sure, you go to the doctor and get a shot. New power source? You just plug the machine into the wall and it works. The odds of the scientists randomly snatching a person who could teach them how to build the future technology were astronomical.

Higgins

09-15-2006, 10:17 PM

The only problem with this idea is, what I understand you to be saying wouldn't work.

If you actually look at brain activation, individual differences are huge. There's no way you could set up electrodes so that they'd "tell" everyone the same thing.

Though... you could set them up to just cause pain to everyone, probably. Or you could set it up to temporarily blind them or temporarily disable motor function or something else "low-level". Maybe.
I'm not sure it'd work if you had to do it too often though.

Though, hm, wires in to the pleasure center. *stop* sending them happy vibes if they stop behaving...
I uh, dunno if that would work, though.

I was thinking of electrodes as a way to keep order on a disorderly spaceship. It seems like a bad idea in many ways, such as well...how do you make sure they are installed properly and work?

Who has control over whose electrodes and when? And Why and How?
How do you make sure the right electrodes are in the right heads?

Probably easier to control irate people in some other way or try to keep them happy even.

RG570

09-15-2006, 10:32 PM

hm, in my writing, I usually purposely commit these errors.

For example, in my current project, I have people firing regular guns in a space ship. OMG YOU CANT DO THAT!!!!!!1111one

Well, see, I figure that if you can build a space ship that's going to survive hitting bits of space flotsam at insane speeds, and is sturdy enough to protect those inside from radiation, small arms fire inside isn't going to bother much. They surely would not be flimsy pieces of sheet metal like the space shuttle.

But why use firearms in the first place? I dunno. I like committing nowisms. I find them interesting. And I really don't think things will change much. When something simple works, you don't replace it. Especially when the military industrial complex has such a huge stake in it. Nobody would buy bullets if all they had to do to reload their raygun is plug it into the wall.

I think people get wrapped up in the inconsequential gadgets we are bombarded with. They are meaningless. There's very little that's actually changed. Also, who is to say that the current rate of discovery will remain steady? Isn't it naive to think that nothing can slow or stop it? Look at the dark ages.

I don't see a problem with having our society take a few steps forward, enough to gain some nifty space travel technology, then fall from grace for a bit. And I think it's such an assinine assumption to link technological progress with social progress. I mean...come on. We're living proof that this idea is totally wrong. So why does the science fiction elite try to tell me that I can't have people in the future with the same wacky values we have now, when it's entirely possible that this will be the case?

Shweta

09-15-2006, 10:49 PM

I don't see a problem with having our society take a few steps forward, enough to gain some nifty space travel technology, then fall from grace for a bit. And I think it's such an assinine assumption to link technological progress with social progress. I mean...come on. We're living proof that this idea is totally wrong. So why does the science fiction elite try to tell me that I can't have people in the future with the same wacky values we have now, when it's entirely possible that this will be the case?

Hm, I think I agree with you in principle, here, and I understand that you're responding to the thread, but...

I'm left wondering why you write SF, if you don't want to change anything that isn't... well, superficial. Space travel and colonizing planets is just superficial, in my mind, because unless it has consequences, you might as well write about ships and colonizing the new world.

Maybe there are other things you change, that you're not mentioning here because of what you're responding to?
:Shrug:

Higgins

09-15-2006, 11:01 PM

<snip>

I think people get wrapped up in the inconsequential gadgets we are bombarded with. They are meaningless. There's very little that's actually changed. Also, who is to say that the current rate of discovery will remain steady? Isn't it naive to think that nothing can slow or stop it? Look at the dark ages.

I don't see a problem with having our society take a few steps forward, enough to gain some nifty space travel technology, then fall from grace for a bit. And I think it's such an assinine assumption to link technological progress with social progress. I mean...come on. We're living proof that this idea is totally wrong. So why does the science fiction elite try to tell me that I can't have people in the future with the same wacky values we have now, when it's entirely possible that this will be the case?

Not much about 'Now' (however big a slice of chronology that might be)
holds for the past. Just 20 years ago there was still a big important Cold War which is now a quaintly antique thing. Everything changes in human experience and it changes so fast and so completely that it is very hard to imagine the way things are outside of the now. That's the challenge for SF writers, to do that extra mind-boggling work of imagining the world outside the present, apparently completely unchangible and absolute world of the present.

Imagining the future, even only a few years from now, is even more difficult than imagining the past. For the past we have lots of clues, for the future we have only the present and it is basically deceptive in the extreme in terms of what even a slight step into the future will be like.

Peggy

09-15-2006, 11:35 PM

But why use firearms in the first place? I dunno. I like committing nowisms. I find them interesting. And I really don't think things will change much. When something simple works, you don't replace it. Especially when the military industrial complex has such a huge stake in it.
[snip]
I think people get wrapped up in the inconsequential gadgets we are bombarded with. They are meaningless. There's very little that's actually changed. Also, who is to say that the current rate of discovery will remain steady? Isn't it naive to think that nothing can slow or stop it? Look at the dark ages. I agree with this to a certain extent, at least in the broad sense. Some things have stayed the same over the last couple of hundred years. We still use vehicles with wheels. We still use guns with bullets. I cook my dinner on a stove which is little different conceptually than cooking over a fire. But.... the details are what matter here.

We use wheeled vehicles, but we can easily drive further and faster in a car with an internal combustion engine than we could if we used horse-drawn carts. The development of cars helped spur the development of paved roads and the current freeway system. The network of freeways helped spur suburban sprawl. The lack of city centers has changed the way in which we interact with our neighbors, and so forth.

I may cook over a fire, but a modern gas stove doesn't require me to gather wood or maintain the flames. The fact that I have a microwave oven too means that I don't need to put a kettle of water on the stove if I just want one cup of hot tea. Reducing the labor required to cook means that I have more time to do other things than my ancestors did.

For an example of a "gadget" that has made big changes, look at the cell phone. Just in the past 10 years it has changed the way people interact with each other. In the same way, the availability of affordable and reliable birth control has changed the way that many people think about sex. Gadgets do affect society. So why does the science fiction elite try to tell me that I can't have people in the future with the same wacky values we have now, when it's entirely possible that this will be the case? I'm not saying that all of our "values" have changed at all (although the definition of what is "moral" has changed many times over the centuries). I would argue that technology can and does change social interaction and the way in which people live. That's the fun of science fiction. You think of a discovery or innovation, imagine what effect that will have on society, then turn that into an interesting story.

UrsulaV

09-16-2006, 12:47 AM

If you could bring a person from 1505 to 2005, what would they recognize? Basic kitchen stuff hasn't changed appreciably in 500 years--your cast-iron skillet, for instance, and wooden spoons and so forth.

Actually, while invented much earlier, the fork wasn't introduced to England until 1608, and apparently didn't come into common usage in America until the 18th century.

Go figure.

Alex Bravo

09-17-2006, 11:55 PM

Actually, what I think is cool is when we become more intellectual and think that when we are in the future that we are actually doing better stuff, when sometimes we learn that we made a mistake. For example, bleeding sick people in the 1700s. Or in the Victorian age thinking that sleeping with a virgin cured diseases. More recently, there is this forest fire craze where everyone wants to prevent forest fires. Now, after stopping ALL fires, when fires do happen they burn hotter and are harder to put out and they do a lot more damage and kill more wildlife. What we learned is that forest fires AREN'T bad, that it was natures way to clear out kindling, and before man came, fires raged but didn't do as much damage as they do now. Oops. So much for trying to out smart mother nature. Even some seeds of trees won't germinate until after a fire.

Shweta

09-18-2006, 06:15 PM

Higgins

09-18-2006, 06:45 PM

Kind of on the same topic, and also going back to what RG was saying...

we've been talking a lot about technological changes, but there's also been (I think) an implicit theme of psychological changes. Whether people would still think "in terms of" projectile weapons on a spaceship; what we're doing now that will look daft in fifty years...

I'm thinking that our hypothetical guy brought forward a thousand years might be freaked out at the cuisinart, but what about these women who are educated and go around like they're as good as men? And the lack of respect for the divine right of kings? The lack of respect for the divine in general -- this notion that people have power and can figure everything out given time and resources. And the notion that different cultures can have different values without one being wrong! (Okay, people now have trouble with that, but still)

So what will people be thinking, and assuming, about the universe, and society, and their own place in them... a thousand years from now?

My mind boggles. I'd love to know what you guys think.

Divine Right of Kings seems to be a gesture at Western Europe, though, of course "Divine Right" as applied to Western European kings was a much later fad. Let's tilt the focus a tad and assume our hypothetical dude is a Byzantine officer of the Imperial Court . The Cuisinart might not worry him as a device since he would have seen automatons, but he would conclude that the obsession with grinding up food would imply that we were all either in poor health or overly-worried about health and obvouisly:

a) did not get enough exercise
b) had nothing pressing to do

I doubt that educated, non-submissive women would bother a Byzantine since by that time there would have been a few Byzantine Empresses and Anna Comena would be writing history in a few decades.

His feeling about our interest in our own power over nature would be one of interest rather than dispair and after showing him gigantic ships and aircraft he would understand our nostalgia for his World of monasteries and helpful Archangels and I suppose he would not blame us much for our uncertainty about how the Divine fits along with us in the same Cosmos...since ours has such an array of widely shifting scales of significance.

"Cultural relativism" would be a total non-issue for a Byzantine who would have to deal with Viking mercenaries in the morning and Papal Legates in the afternoon. There would be an array of different cultural protocols and he would understand their necessity. He might wonder that we give "relativism" any thought at all since it is obviously the only way to run an Empire in Trouble.

Shweta

09-18-2006, 07:19 PM

Yeah, I was kind of assuming the thousand years ago I know anything about.

It still leaves the question of what might be the case a thousand years from now. Yeah, it'll depend on the culture, and yeah, in many cases spec fic is really about people now, just in a non-literal way, but...

What would we be astounded by or amused by if we were grabbed and dragged a thousand years into the future?
-- apart from temporal transfer of our matter :D

RTH

09-22-2006, 12:45 AM

do you still see people in the future cooking with cast iron frying pans and charcoal grills

As long as there is cornbread, people will use cast iron pans. :)

Birol

09-22-2006, 12:54 AM

I'm in the process of going through everything I own and getting rid of items that are just taking up space. I haven't moved in a few years and have started accumulating things. This makes me uneasy.

I'll be moving on to the kitchen soon and started thinking about my cast iron skillets. I don't plan on getting rid of everything I don't use in the kitchen, because some items actually come in handy once in a blue moon. I mentioned the cast iron to my mother. I told her I hardly ever use them, except when I need company and need an extra pan for breakfast pancakes and the last time this came up, I'd borrowed her griddle, anyway. Yet, I had trouble with the idea of getting rid of the old, durable, reliable, multi-functional cast iron. Her opinion was that cast iron was forever, good indoors and out, and something that no kitchen should ever be without, and I'd be silly to get rid of cast iron that had already been seasoned.

I think when it comes to items like this, items that have been around forever and a day, such conventional attitudes will prevail. People like what's comfortable and familiar.