Two Great Flavours

It seem likely at some point in the fairly close future we'll need to re-arrange how we produce energy [1]. We also no longer really need rural or suburban cultures to the extent we have them: how can we use the one to make the other economically unsustainable while maintaining advanced and wealthy urban civilizations?




1: This is not the same as "We should embrace some luddite-inspired, human-hostile low-technology lifestyle that dooms our children to short, painful lives of brutish superstition." If I wanted that, I'd move to the Chlamydia Zone. We can increase our use of energy on Earth by several orders of magnitude before the oceans boil, so there is no reason for the human population to settle for anything less than an upper class Western lifestyle.

Of course, there are those who would be uncomfortable on an Earth that was even moderately populated, who would see even a few hundred billion people as unendurable. I propose that Antarctica be set aside for them to frolic in low population density utopia. Because high technology would introduce the risk of urbanization, I further suggest that nothing invented after 1800 be allowed in, to preserve their cultural purity.

Two Great Flavours

It seem likely at some point in the fairly close future we'll need to re-arrange how we produce energy [1]. We also no longer really need rural or suburban cultures to the extent we have them: how can we use the one to make the other economically unsustainable while maintaining advanced and wealthy urban civilizations?




1: This is not the same as "We should embrace some luddite-inspired, human-hostile low-technology lifestyle that dooms our children to short, painful lives of brutish superstition." If I wanted that, I'd move to the Chlamydia Zone. We can increase our use of energy on Earth by several orders of magnitude before the oceans boil, so there is no reason for the human population to settle for anything less than an upper class Western lifestyle.

Of course, there are those who would be uncomfortable on an Earth that was even moderately populated, who would see even a few hundred billion people as unendurable. I propose that Antarctica be set aside for them to frolic in low population density utopia. Because high technology would introduce the risk of urbanization, I further suggest that nothing invented after 1800 be allowed in, to preserve their cultural purity.

Two Great Flavours

It seem likely at some point in the fairly close future we'll need to re-arrange how we produce energy [1]. We also no longer really need rural or suburban cultures to the extent we have them: how can we use the one to make the other economically unsustainable while maintaining advanced and wealthy urban civilizations?




1: This is not the same as "We should embrace some luddite-inspired, human-hostile low-technology lifestyle that dooms our children to short, painful lives of brutish superstition." If I wanted that, I'd move to the Chlamydia Zone. We can increase our use of energy on Earth by several orders of magnitude before the oceans boil, so there is no reason for the human population to settle for anything less than an upper class Western lifestyle.

Of course, there are those who would be uncomfortable on an Earth that was even moderately populated, who would see even a few hundred billion people as unendurable. I propose that Antarctica be set aside for them to frolic in low population density utopia. Because high technology would introduce the risk of urbanization, I further suggest that nothing invented after 1800 be allowed in, to preserve their cultural purity.

One point defines a curve, right?

Since all of Hugo nominated novels this year are written by non-North Americans, I think it's time for a panicky assessment of NorAm SF, with general finger-pointing to follow.

So when exactly did the US [1] stop being fertile soil for real SF? OK, obviously we can't expect a nation more than a generation into fond nostaligia for the 1950s to produce all that many forward thinking SF writers [2] but when _exactly_ was the battle for the future lost? 2000? 1980? Or did the basic assumptions of Campbellian SF spread the seeds of self-destruction?

I eagerly await the angry denials that the American future was in fact lost but answer me this: when was the last time you read a NorAm (Nah, make that "American". Who the hell cares what the Canadians think [4]) SF book set some time in the next hundred years that did not assume civil liberties would be rolled back or lost? Or one set in the same period whose characters were better off than their grandparents?


1: Yeah, there are Canadian SF writers but the publishers are pretty much all in the US and if Canuckian SF writers don't adapt to market realities, they won't get published. In other words, the Canadians are and will remain irrelevant in the grander scheme of things until such time as they develop a globally oriented SF publishing culture [pause for laughter] or they more vigorously exploit British and other markets.

2: Thus the growth of alternate history fiction, which I see now as a cancerous growth on the brain stem of SF. Although it could be a virulent STD in the community of minds. I have not yet made up my mind. Could someone ask the current lot of NorAm AH writers where the burning sensation is?

MilSF needn't be so terribly awful as it is, I think. Looking at the SF writers whose fiction I like, most of them who wrote about military matters wrote about some aspect of the military that they had actual experience with. I therefore propose a special MilSF Award that will enrole the winners in units serving in active warzones, to be awarded authors whose fiction needs more research. This should be presented at the same time as the Mack Reynolds International Experience Award, which will consist of a one way ticket to the glorious Libertarian Utopia of Somalia.

4: Thus nicely removing DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM from consideration....

One point defines a curve, right?

Since all of Hugo nominated novels this year are written by non-North Americans, I think it's time for a panicky assessment of NorAm SF, with general finger-pointing to follow.

So when exactly did the US [1] stop being fertile soil for real SF? OK, obviously we can't expect a nation more than a generation into fond nostaligia for the 1950s to produce all that many forward thinking SF writers [2] but when _exactly_ was the battle for the future lost? 2000? 1980? Or did the basic assumptions of Campbellian SF spread the seeds of self-destruction?

I eagerly await the angry denials that the American future was in fact lost but answer me this: when was the last time you read a NorAm (Nah, make that "American". Who the hell cares what the Canadians think [4]) SF book set some time in the next hundred years that did not assume civil liberties would be rolled back or lost? Or one set in the same period whose characters were better off than their grandparents?


1: Yeah, there are Canadian SF writers but the publishers are pretty much all in the US and if Canuckian SF writers don't adapt to market realities, they won't get published. In other words, the Canadians are and will remain irrelevant in the grander scheme of things until such time as they develop a globally oriented SF publishing culture [pause for laughter] or they more vigorously exploit British and other markets.

2: Thus the growth of alternate history fiction, which I see now as a cancerous growth on the brain stem of SF. Although it could be a virulent STD in the community of minds. I have not yet made up my mind. Could someone ask the current lot of NorAm AH writers where the burning sensation is?

MilSF needn't be so terribly awful as it is, I think. Looking at the SF writers whose fiction I like, most of them who wrote about military matters wrote about some aspect of the military that they had actual experience with. I therefore propose a special MilSF Award that will enrole the winners in units serving in active warzones, to be awarded authors whose fiction needs more research. This should be presented at the same time as the Mack Reynolds International Experience Award, which will consist of a one way ticket to the glorious Libertarian Utopia of Somalia.

4: Thus nicely removing DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM from consideration....

One point defines a curve, right?

Since all of Hugo nominated novels this year are written by non-North Americans, I think it's time for a panicky assessment of NorAm SF, with general finger-pointing to follow.

So when exactly did the US [1] stop being fertile soil for real SF? OK, obviously we can't expect a nation more than a generation into fond nostaligia for the 1950s to produce all that many forward thinking SF writers [2] but when _exactly_ was the battle for the future lost? 2000? 1980? Or did the basic assumptions of Campbellian SF spread the seeds of self-destruction?

I eagerly await the angry denials that the American future was in fact lost but answer me this: when was the last time you read a NorAm (Nah, make that "American". Who the hell cares what the Canadians think [4]) SF book set some time in the next hundred years that did not assume civil liberties would be rolled back or lost? Or one set in the same period whose characters were better off than their grandparents?


1: Yeah, there are Canadian SF writers but the publishers are pretty much all in the US and if Canuckian SF writers don't adapt to market realities, they won't get published. In other words, the Canadians are and will remain irrelevant in the grander scheme of things until such time as they develop a globally oriented SF publishing culture [pause for laughter] or they more vigorously exploit British and other markets.

2: Thus the growth of alternate history fiction, which I see now as a cancerous growth on the brain stem of SF. Although it could be a virulent STD in the community of minds. I have not yet made up my mind. Could someone ask the current lot of NorAm AH writers where the burning sensation is?

MilSF needn't be so terribly awful as it is, I think. Looking at the SF writers whose fiction I like, most of them who wrote about military matters wrote about some aspect of the military that they had actual experience with. I therefore propose a special MilSF Award that will enrole the winners in units serving in active warzones, to be awarded authors whose fiction needs more research. This should be presented at the same time as the Mack Reynolds International Experience Award, which will consist of a one way ticket to the glorious Libertarian Utopia of Somalia.

4: Thus nicely removing DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM from consideration....