|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
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 ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379
Pooh-Bah
|
|
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!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
which is, in my book, an even worse crime! >>And still you boast about it, Cap! Ooh, insel, you sly dog! That was good! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
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!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
OP
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 618
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 618 |
Is there a word for the tendency, when making predictions, to project the present into the future?
Myopia? Short-sightedness
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,330
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
1,018
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
