Read:
Frankenstein
The Time Machine
The Shape Of Things To Come
Brave New World
1984
Player Piano
James Blish's After Such Knowledge Trilogy
Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy
Anderson's Genesis
Later - when we might have a little more leisure! - we will quote some telling passages from Harvest Of Stars, Volume IV, The Fleet Of Stars. However, basically, the point is that, in this novel, technology has ended many ills but is no longer controlled by human beings and this is bad.
That means that another novel could be written in which we have retained control and that is good.
Onward and upward. The adventure continues. And so on.
23 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Science and technology, in themselves, are neutral things. It's human beings, who can behave badly or well, who can make science/technology bad or good things.
THE HARVEST OF STARS books how the rise of AIs to dominance over mankind led to varied kinds of resistance, which were eventually successful in THE FLLET OF STARS. Anderson's stand-alone novel, GENESIS, shows us what happened when resistance failed.
Ad astra! Sean
Science and technology increase human capacities. What people do with the increased capacity is up to them.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, that's what I tried to say in my first, somewhat garbled, comment. But I still believe what's done with that "increased capacity" can be good, bad, or indifferent.
Ad astra! Sean
I suspect that very different societies will produce very different technologies although they must have some points in common. The same principles of heavier than air flight apply to aircraft that drop bombs or that drop medicine.
I recently reread "1984".
IF the book 'by' Emanual Goldstein expresses Orwell's beliefs then he believed technology could provide prosperity for all and the Inner Party wanted to prevent that so that there could be an upper class and they would be it.
So Orwell seems to have believed that technology could very likely be mostly beneficial and it takes action by psychopathic leaders to pervert the use to technology to make it harmful.
Of course everything in "1984" is told by (in a sense) an unreliable narrator.
Jim,
I think it is self-evident that:
(i) technology can provide prosperity for all;
(ii) an upper class prevents this although it is (mostly) not comprised of psychopaths.
I would automatically become a member of that class if (unlikely) I inherited a billion dollars but I would then have to decide what to do about that.
Paul.
Paul: the first "great leap forward" in aircraft capacity took place during WW1. Compare aircraft in 1914 and 1918, and you'll see revolutionary change.
The prospect of being defeated concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Jet aircraft, for example, probably wouldn't have been developed until the 1960's if WW2 hadn't intervened.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: I remain skeptical that mere technology alone will somehow magically provide prosperity for all. Because human beings, all of whom are fallible, imperfect, flawed, etc., can easily bungle things without any need to be malignant or psychopathic.
Mr. Stirling: Exactly, the competitive drive innate to human beings can be expressed in different ways. The case you cited from WW I, being an example of rival nations competing against each other. I also thought just now of how I think the Austro-Hungarian Navy built excellent small submarines.
And it was the Germans who first built fighter jets in WW II. If they had been able to make enough of these jets quickly enough the Anglo/US air forces would haven out of the skies.
Ad astra! Sean
Ad astra! Sean
Technology produces wealth. It is not magical.
Paul: it would -seem- magical to someone from, say, 1250 AD. You'd have to give years of education before electronics became comprehensible. Presumably future technologies would seem magical to us.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! Even geniuses like Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Ramon Lully would have hard struggles understanding electronics. Ditto, about futuristic technology looking like magic to us.
Ad astra! Sean
I was responding to Sean's completely different use of the word "magically" above. Advanced technology CAN produce prosperity for all, not magically.
Paul: it already -has- produced prosperity for all, by the standards of the past. And standards are on a sliding scale!
The idea that poor people would be fat and rich people thin would seem utterly nonsensical to someone from, say, 1700 AD.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I saw that in your book BLACK CHAMER, which began in an alternate 1912. It was still common for well-off people like Pres. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt to eat far too much for their own good.
The current situation, in much of the West, where the rich look like they are starving while many of the "poor" are fat, would be inconceivable in 1900.
Ad astra! Sean
We can produce a situation in which everyone is well and properly fed.
Paul: no, we can't, because people don't have the requisite appetites.
People will gorge unless there's some strong factor (like social acceptance by their peers) deterring them, and even then many do. Things like fats and sweets hit your receptors as "rare treat -- gobble them down fast"!
Unless they're in GLP-1's, which admittedly have made a great difference.
Well, I am thinking of changes in how food is produced, distributed, regarded etc, not just everything else remaining the same while the Government or some such agency tries to regulate our diets for us.
Paul: our appetites are inherent, and they evolved in an environment in which rich, fatty or sweet foods were rare treats. That they're commonly available now is unprecedented.
Having rich foods avaiable cheaply and commonly is an invitation to overweight.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly, it does NOT matter how food is produced or distributed if "...rich, fatty or sweet foods" are cheap/abundant. It's still going to take self-discipline and self-control not to gorge on such tempting foods. I know that from personal experience!
Ad astra! Sean
It DOES matter how food is marketed, promoted and distributed.
Paul: yes, but not much.
Promotion and marketing have to take into account human inclinations, or they just don't work.
It's easy to promote rich, sweet, or fatty foods because we have an inherent tendency to crave them, because during our evolution they were rare.
Since I've been on GLP-1's, my "interior food noise" -- the cravings -- have just.... gone away.
Now, -that's- a technological advance!
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I personally observed what Stirling described. At the grocery store where I do weekly shopping, there are whole aisles full of "...rich, sweet, or fatty foods." They exist because people crave them, like it or not. There are plenty of other aisles with foods available for people who want to eat sensibly.
Mr. Stirling: I'm glad GLP-1s exist. Alas, after slowly and painfully deblimping myself the hard way, starting in Feb. 2012, I feel little need to use them, using self-control to prevent weakening too often.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Like it or not, we can build a society where food is produced and distributed not for profit but for healthy living.
Paul.
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