#75974
07/19/2002 8:39 AM
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As for 1984, I'm not sure how common TVs were in '48 ...but he seems to have predicted fairly well the wide-spread usage of them (telescreens)Hi fellow denizen, Yes, Orwell was well ahead of his time on this one. Definitely not straight line prediction. Two relevant developments at the moment: 1. Widescreen TVs you can hang on your wall 2. Interactive digital TV (what is the US situation here?) 2. Monitoring usage of digital TV through set-top boxes which are connected to phone lines. So in a sense we are being observed through our TVs.  I would hope that we're moving in the opposite direction of his society in the area of social stratificationWell, Brave New World presents a sharply stratified society, with several levels - and, of course, Huxley is very much making a point. But the gap between the haves and have nots - certainly in global terms - is as wide as ever, if not wider. I also think there's a significant (possibly widening) gap between the haves and the have a lots. Personal impression, though.
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#75975
07/20/2002 5:48 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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All very well, shona, but most of the predictive stuff that you and the others have been talking about (Verne, early Clarke, etc.) is mere extrapolation of the present into the future. I'm not being critical of these authors; they were being pretty far-fetched at the time and it probably wouldn't have been obvious to their readers that they were actually extrapolating what was into what might be in certain areas, generally restricted to technology. Orwell, similarly, didn't have to invent Big Brother, he just had to take what was happening around him to an extreme. He was after all writing allegory.
Authors who invent different futures, or who project futures into the far distance have one strike going for them and one strike against. The strike for is that no one currently alive will ever be able to tell them that they were wrong. The strike against is that if they wish to be taken seriously by intelligent readers they can't posit basic changes in human nature or the way that society works. I point out as examples of this Herbert's Dune series and SJ Delany's Triton plus plenty of perhaps more Rabelaisian efforts. Often, much predictive fiction is pretty mundane and half-hearted. TV programmes such as Star Trek, flms such as Star Wars and novels such as Heinlein's Starship Troopers definitely fall into this category. They merely take current social structures and mores and impose a "superior" or "advanced" technology on them, calling it "the future". They don't ring true for me; they use predicted technology to entrench the way things work in the present.
Of course there are exceptions to this. One series that fascinated me because it tinkers with institutions is Greg Bear's Eon trilogy.
Yet we know, even using the past century as a short timescale for comparison, that institutions do change and can change rapidly as a response to technology, even if they appear outwardly similar. Think about the impact on the way we live of the telephone and latterly the computer. These two inventions, along with advances in personal and mass rapid transportation, have transformed life in ways that Verne and Orwell never imagined - or if they did, they didn't write about. I don't for a minute pretend to be able to do this myself, you understand.
Rereading what I've just written, I realise that I haven't made another point clear: Basic human nature won't change as a response to any technological or situational changes. We appear to have avoided this for millenia so far and I predict with confidence that this fact will hold good for the foreseeable - and pretty much, the unforseeable - future!
I'm bored by the mostly purely prescriptive futurisation of the present, I have to admit, and I'm buying less and less sci-fi as a result. The one thing I can say for sure is that whatever any writer predicts, I predict it won't happen that way if they are projecting more than 20 years into the future. If you think I'm being needlessly pessimistic, I suggest you re-read Toffler!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#75976
07/20/2002 6:42 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Rabelaisian Delightful word, sir! You continually impress me, you know that?
I mostly agree with what you're saying; I will point out that the Star Trek series showed humans being fully accepting not only of other races, but of other species as well. I'd say there is a slight argument for that being a change in basic human nature.
Basic human nature won't change as a response to any technological or situational changes. Oh, I hope you are wrong about that, though I have to admit the odds favor your prediction. What I'd really like to see, or at least hope for for my childrens' great-grand-children, maybe, is an end to the haves and the have-nots. I'd like to think that there might actually be something like the replicators on Star Trek, where anybody can just push a button (or speak!) and presto--whatever item they desired will appear.
I think it is slightly more likely that we will eventually consider all races on the planet as equals. I think, through business expansion and the internet, that more and more people around the globe will--oh dear, I don't mean think alike, exactly, but perhaps come to share many of the same values--and maybe even more importantly, realizing that they do. Talking to people from other countries on this board has been a real mind-opener for me, for example--and not always positively, either. But what is, is.
My friend's son-in-law was recently deported to -- an underdeveloped country, and she told me that they'd finally heard from him: he'd gone to visit his tribal elders, then found a place to hook up his computer. Now, THERE are two terms not often used in the same sentence, I'll warrant. So--I think perhaps that eventually, all of the peoples will be figuratively brought out of the deserts and the jungles, and will more or less catch up with the majority of the populace.
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#75977
07/20/2002 7:14 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
<<Most of the books I read were simply recycling others' earlier ideas, usually badly expressed and written - which is, in my book, an even worse crime! >>
And still you boast about it, Cap!
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#75978
07/20/2002 10:09 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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which is, in my book, an even worse crime! >>And still you boast about it, Cap! Ooh, insel, you sly dog! That was good! 
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#75979
07/21/2002 12:35 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
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Lots of goodies, Cap! The strike for is that no one currently alive will ever be able to tell them that they were wrongYes. But it does depend on what they're trying to achieve whether that matters or not. I don't think many SF writers are genuinely in the prophecy business, so probably they wouldn't give a damn either way, as long as people buy their books. All else is a bonus (that they won't know about  ). Oh, and probably the writers would rather people enjoy reading their books, so they can make a living writing. The strike against is that if they wish to be taken seriously by intelligent readers they can't posit basic changes in human nature or the way that society worksHmmm, generally agree with you here, Cap (as I generally agree with you that basic human nature won't change) , but it is just a matter of degree, certainly not 100%. Even Asimov, many years ago, wrote about an alien society based on three sexes. What relation does that have to anything we know? Did it adversely affect sales of that book or subsequent Asimov books? Not in the least. People love to be entertained and many love to have their imaginations stretched and thoughts provoked. In that context anything is fair game. Creating coherence and plausibility is difficult, but certainly not impossible. Again, it's not really about prophecy. I feel SF books about parallel worlds are quite relevant here, as they can show how very different our world would be following an often small historical twist. And where do you draw the line between basic human nature, and changeable human nature? Same applies to the way society works. I agree there is something fundamental that appears to be in us and our society regardless, but it's bloody difficult to pin down what that "something" is. They merely take current social structures and mores and impose a "superior" or "advanced" technology on them, calling it "the future". They don't ring true for meCertainly true of Star Wars, although that is (again) more of a myth/allegory - "a long time ago..." Dunno how much you could really call it projection of the present though. Then-current social structures and mores did and didn't apply to Star Trek - the tolerance and (sometimes) appreciation of significantly different cultures was a very important aspect. All I know about Starship Troopers is that I enjoyed the book as a 12-year-old, and enjoyed the film fairly recently. Plausibility? Not bloody likely! Present projection? Too right! Messy jingoistic childish fun, totally unworthy of a mature adult? Yep.   One series that fascinated me because it tinkers with institutions is Greg Bear's Eon trilogyI'll check it out some time. I liked Bob Shaw's Vertigo for its depiction of a society changed by anti-gravity harnesses. Nothing essential changed there, though, really. How about his "slow glass" stories? Maybe the same. I keep coming back to Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time. The one thing I can say for sure is that whatever any writer predicts, I predict it won't happen that way if they are projecting more than 20 years into the future- Or a lot less! These are very interesting times to live in, to quote the Chinese curse. Although it is definitely something to watch the future happening. Something wonderful. Something absobloodylutely terrifying.
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#75980
07/21/2002 3:30 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Fahrenheit 451
Can't let this thread go without a mention of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451...another sociofuturist fantasy with, of course, the burning of books, and the cults of people which actually become the book they dedicate themselves to keeping alive with total memorization (one person was, for instance, Charles Dicken's David Copperfield). And, then, too, there was the ever-present Teloscreen, an actual entire wall of your living room, as it were...ever watching, ever manipulating.
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#75981
07/21/2002 1:43 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Re:ever-present Teloscreen, an actual entire wall of your living room, as it were...ever watching, ever manipulating.
this of course exists.. and what's more people are lining up to pay for the privledge!
its called TIVO.. and it tracks what you watch and when you watch it, and it serves up more of the same...
(it also continuously records, and is marketed as a device that will let you pause live TV.) but it is also a data collection device, and it send back infomation about TV viewing habits, and if you start watching say nature shows, it will search all the channels, and then let you know what nature shows are available, and will tape them for your convenience..
TIVO is not the only one... several US Cable companies have "tracking" devices.. and send back info.. and some have the same software on there cable lines for internet connections.. allowing them to tack the web sights you have visited, and sell the information to other venders.. so if i visit "pier 1" and "Ikea" and "targets" web pages, i might find i am getting targeted ads for "ll bean" or other large catalog/online/real retailers..
and if i visit science sites, i might find i am getting invites to subscribe to Scientific American, or Nature, or other zines..
targeted marketing is getting big.. and cable companies see that they have the resourse to collect the data, and sell it.
that as scary as having the government collect data about me..
i am very reluctant to 'conduct business', banking, purchaces, etc over the internet.. i worry a bit about credit card data being stolen, but a lot about what else is being collected and stored!
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#75982
07/22/2002 9:07 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
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its called TIVO.. and it tracks what you watch and when you watch itAh-hah! Thanks Helen, you've answered a question I posed above: http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=76739TIVO, I believe, is primarily a "hard disk" VCR, i.e. it stores TV programmes in digital format. In the case of cable TV, certainly, the transmission is also in digital format, and this is the way everything is going. In areas where you can't get cable, you can still get "satellite" TV - fairly big in the UK. That used to be in analog(ue) format but is now almost all digital, which makes much better use of the bandwidth and allows extra features. In the bandwidth previously used for one channel you can now incorporate several "sub-channels", allowing varying viewpoints of a match, a choice of matches to watch, interactive news channels (brilliant, these) etc. Presumably these are the same features offered by cable TV in the US? And what's the state of digital transmission over the airwaves in the US? Big drive on that over this side of the Pond, though not entirely successful as yet.. In terms of "being watched", digital transmissions are fed through a set-top box/digitizer that has a certain amount of memory (a lot in the case of TIVO, which is also a digitizer). If the digitizer is connected to a phone line or cable, it can share information with a central database. I'm sure the companies would assure you, as on the Web, that no individual information is retained... Also check out White Dot's perspective on this front: http://www.whitedot.org/It's half-run by someone I used to work (and argue ) with, but don't let that put you off. i am very reluctant to 'conduct business', banking, purchaces, etc over the internetWell, your credit card info is pretty damn safe these days, as long as you have a Secure Sockets connection (padlock shown in most browsers). Really that's just a matter of how much you trust the company you're dealing with, and credit card fraud in (for instance) restaurants is much more commonplace. Other than that, individual tracking depends mainly on cookies; and there's a lot of software available that can block cookies, with varying degrees of selectivity. As a huge bonus, these products can often also block ads. If you don't have a personal firewall and an automatically updated virus checker these days, then you could be giving away much more than consumer information.  We all need to know how we're being watched, though. It's not necessarily a problem. Credit Card companies and banks have known our buying habits for years. Oh, very appropriate mention of Fahrenheit 451, W'ON. Another allegorical piece of SF, isn't it? Aspects of the present projected and polarised to make a very important point.
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#75983
07/23/2002 4:26 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 618
addict
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Is there a word for the tendency, when making predictions, to project the present into the future?
Myopia? Short-sightedness
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#75984
07/23/2002 11:57 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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"All Futures and Pasts begin here." --- John Cage
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#75985
07/23/2002 6:28 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The term expressing the linear extension of the present into the future is extrapolation, but no parallel term for a more creative polation comes to mind, partly because the accepted meaning of extrapolate - to infer from a trend within an already observed interval; to project, extend or expand known information into an area not known - usurps extra in the sense of outside and beyond. How about coining something using "create" or "imagine" as a base?
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#75986
07/23/2002 7:19 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
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In the movie Fahrenheit 451, as Montag is walking through the dissenter's camp he hears (and we the audience hear) snippets of various Great Books recited by the camp's denizens. In one case, there is a young boy reciting "...I never loved my father..." and later something about "...as the first snow fall..." or something as his father has just died (the young boy presumably having learned to recite the book).
Does anyone know which book this person was? (i.e. which book the boy was reciting?)
thanks,
k
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#75987
07/23/2002 9:41 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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The term expressing the linear extension of the present into the future is extrapolation, - sparteyeI dunno sparteye, we extrapolate almost continually and so a more confining term might be needed. How about base projection? Naw, that kinda thinking might actually be functional. What shona wants is a sorta derisive term that will point out the folly of basing long term predictions on the nature of events and things of today, you know like - presentdiction. For example, I was guilty of presentdicting when for twenty years I saved up bond money to spring my children from jail and then they wasted it on a college education. But maybe an even better term might be paradigmation. I was guilty of paradigming way back in 1952. As a street urchin who was running the streets wearing an ice-cream container space cadet helmet when a Birmingham News reporter, in search of human interest story, asked me for my prediction of when men would first land on the moon. "By the year 1960", I said, "and definitely by 1968." The next day my friends and teachers and relatives saw my picture and my prediction in the Birmingham News. They all had a big laugh. And rightly so, everyone today knows that mankind didn't land on the moon until [edited] July, long into the year of 1969. - -
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#75988
07/23/2002 10:39 PM
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
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everyone today knows that mankind didn't land on the moon until long into the year of 1970.
July '69.
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#75989
07/23/2002 10:50 PM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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Thanks sjm, may I call you sjm? I'll alter my post to reflect that fact. milum. ~~~
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#75990
07/25/2002 9:31 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
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>Is there a word for the tendency, when making predictions, to project the present into the future?
Myopia? You'd think so, wouldn't you, doc? The ridiculous thing is that "linear" projection can work sometimes, and surprisingly well. Or perhaps I should say "has been known to work", as past performance is no guarantee of future returns (to quote my mortgage lender)
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#75991
07/25/2002 10:21 AM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
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The term expressing the linear extension of the present into the future is extrapolationThis is certainly the technically correct term, Spartan - so thanks and congrats! There's also a very mathematical and linear feel to it... although don't mathematicians extrapolate curves more than lines? That may imply more creativity and efficiency than I'm after. I suppose milum is right in saying I want a sorta derisive term that will point out the folly of basing long term predictions on the nature of events and things of today - so a subset of extrapolations where, by intention or not, the future is shown as implausibly like the present. Could the implausibility be judged in retrospect? Uh, yes. How about if we talk about intrapolation as projection that stays "in the box" ? Then we just have to work out what form the adjective would take. For the opposite scenario I agree that imagination and creativity are key - but "visionary" captures all that, so stays up the top of the list as far as I'm concerned. I was guilty of presentdicting when for twenty years I saved up bond money to spring my children from jail and then they wasted it on a college education.What milum, you mean there was once a point where your kids did what you expected, rather than the exact opposite? Wow.
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#75992
07/25/2002 11:48 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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don't mathematicians extrapolate curves more than lines?
Generally we try to extrapolate in whatever shape we have data for. If it "looks" linear (there are actually measures available to determine what kind of shape is the best fit to data), the extrapolation will be linear, and so on. And I think "curve" is just a general word which means "not a point" so a straight line can also be a curve.
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#75993
07/25/2002 12:40 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 11,613 |
a straight line can also be a curve.
[yobbity-yobbity] Wha--?? I'll take your word for it. Nice to see you here, Dear!
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#75994
07/25/2002 1:13 PM
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 679
addict
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so a straight line can also be a curve
Theoretically yes but actually no. A curve is a line of which no part is straight and which shows diagrammatically a continuous variation of quantity or force etc. It can also be a surface of which no part is plane.
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#75995
07/25/2002 2:07 PM
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
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[bean]
so a straight line can also be a curve
[/bean]
[rubrick]
Theoretically yes but actually no. A curve is a line of which no part is straight and which shows diagrammatically a continuous variation of quantity or force etc. It can also be a surface of which no part is plane.
[/rubrick]
Like so much of what I think I almost know, the meaning of curve is something I have osmoted and not something I have ever looked up.
There is a difference between the common understanding of a term and the way the term is used in a specialized case like mathematics. (Forgive me for stating the obvious.) Ask a race car driver how to accelerate a car -- you'll get an odd stare or glare and, if you get any response at all, a reply in tones clearly indicating that the question was asked by an idiot, that "you step on the ACCELERATOR." Ask an eager algebra student the same question and he'll immediately recognize that a deceleration is a negative acceleration and he could reasonably say "you can step on the gas or the break." An engineer realizes that if a direction changes, even if the speed is constant, that this is an acceleration and so he might respond "step on gas or brake, or turn the steering wheel." Some people might give clever responses like running into a wall or shifting weight or what have you. But everyone answered correctly in the scenario. (I use this example all the time, but don't recall if I've used it in this forum.)
But back to the point, I think in the common language that clearly curved lines are not straight lines. In the technical language of the mathematician, I do not know the correct definition, but I do know that I have heard mathematicians talk about curves (generically, as the loci of functions) that could, in some cases, be straight lines. I don't know that these guys used the terminology correctly, but I do know they used the words that way.
Trivial example:
Find the area under the curve y=2x between x=2 and x=5.
(Clearly this is a straight line.)
I'm quite sure I've heard this said in class, and I 'think', but am not sure that I've seen this language used in text books. Again, just because mathematicians have used the terms like this doesn't mean they used it correctly.
k
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#75996
07/25/2002 3:51 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
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Sorry, I wasn't very clear. Mostly we use curve to mean the plot of a function, like the calculus usage that TFF gave above. (Especially when the context is extrapolation/interpolation, where we are most certainly talking about a plot of data and a best-fit curve.) So the definition might be something like: curve, all the points which satisfy some equation. (If they all happen to lie on a straight line we still refer to it as a curve, and I apologize.)
Again, just because mathematicians have used the terms like this doesn't mean they used it correctly.
They've used the word correctly in the given context, in terms of what all mathematicians understand "curve" to mean. In any language, one word may have multiple "correct" definitions - it's all good as long as everyone using the word has the same idea of which definition is being employed. You'll find the terminology used consistently in math books written in English, so this is by definition, correct usage in in this context, since everyone in the field has tacitly agreed to that usage. If they were inconsistent, it might be a mistake, but that terminology is quite consistent.
I mean, much as we may rail against changes or irritating neologisms, usage is what makes language "correct" or "incorrect". If the majority of people accept and use a word or construction, then it's correct. So, the majority of mathematicians consider any locus of points* satisfying an equation a "curve", and it is thus correct.
Edit: *Should clarify that I mean in 2-D, specifically.
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