The Contribution of Outsiders (Quote)

Funny how it's always society's outsiders who create the things that bind society together.

Christopher Fowler in The Invisible Code, referring to Alan Turing

Lest Darkness Fall (Classic SF Novel)

Brandy. Sorcery. Accounting Systems. Copper Tubing. Printing Press. Reporters. Clock. Telegraph. Crossbow. Gunpowder. Politics. 

Lest Darkness Fall by David Drake is an early example of alternative history science fiction. This classic first appeared as a short story in 1939 and was first published as a novel in 1941. The story is still amusing and enjoyable to read.

Briefly, a present day — late 1930’s — archeologist is struck by lightening and sent back to 6th century Rome. There he introduces some modern inventions. But, his ultimate goal is to prevent the coming of the Dark Ages. One of his biggest obstacles is the politics of the era. Some things never change.

The novel was well worth the time I spent reading it.

The Time Machine (Classic SF Novella)

It is a law of nature that we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble.

Time Travel. The Fate of Mankind. The Fate of the Earth. Prophesy. 

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells was published in1895. This novella is the ancestor of so much of the science fiction that we read today. —Would Connie Willis have written Blackout and All Clear if there had been no The Time Machine? Would Walter M. Miller have written A Canticle for Leibowitz? — While the novella introduces time travel, most of the story is devoted to describing a haunting dystopia. H. G. Wells challenged the people of his generation to think in a new way. The story might have even more relevance to those of us in the current era.

Briefly, a Victorian Era inventor creates a time machine in which he travels to the year 802,701. There he discovers that humanity has evolved into two separate species, neither of which is particularly intelligent. One is the frail but beautiful Eloi. The other is the unattractive, underground living Morlocks. When the time traveler’s time machine is stolen, he must find it or be stranded forever. Along the way, he becomes friends with Weena, an Eloi. He also uncovers the true relationship of the Eloi to the Morlocks.

This is the type of story that is hard to forget. The time traveler raises questions of why the two species evolved. More than a century later, one could argue that our dependence upon technology has the potential to propel us to a fate similar to that of the Eloi or Morlocks.

I, Robot (Classic Science Fiction Book)

“And that is all,” said Dr. Calvin, rising. “I saw it from the beginning, when the poor robots couldn’t speak, to the end, when they stand between mankind and destruction...”

I, Robot consists of nine short stories (with some transitions to tie the stories together) about robots that were written by Isaac Asimov and published between 1940 and 1950. Each story deals with one or more of the Three Laws of Robotics in some way. The book reminds me of the boxes of small puzzles I often see sold at Christmas time. Each story is a small puzzle about robot behavior that the characters must solve. Most of the stories include the main characters of Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan, who are robot engineers, or Dr. Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist. The complexity of robots within the book progresses from a very primitive robot that can’t speak in the first story to robotic machines that basically oversee the management of Earth in the last story.

While I found I, Robot enjoyable but not necessarily great science fiction, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read Asimov’s major books. The stories provide background into the later Foundation Series and Robot Trilogy. When I was reading the Foundation Series, I was jarred when robots first appeared; they seemed so out of context. In retrospect, I wish that I had begun reading with I. Robot and then read the Foundation and Robot books in order of their publication date. Some things would have made more sense.

The Caves of Steel (Classic SF Book)

A Murder. Elijah and Jezebel. A Dangerous Political Situation. Robots. Underground Cities. Overpopulation. Increasing Unemployment. Riots. Yeast. Medievalists. 

Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel is like a peanut butter cup for the geek mind, combining the two great tastes of science fiction and mystery. Oh, how fun! The novel was original published in 1953 as a serial and in 1954 as a book. It is the first novel in the Robot Series and introduces the character of R. Daneel Olivaw, who appears in many novels in the Foundation Series.

Briefly, the novel takes place in the future, where the people of Earth live in underground cities and unemployment is an ever-present concern. The relationship between the Spacers—descendents of space colonists—and the people of Earth is not good. When a leading Spacer scientist is found murdered, there is fear that it could lead to retaliation. Lije Bailey, a police officer, is called in to investigate. Like most of the people of Earth, he is not fond of robots, but the Spacers insist that he be given a robot partner, the newly created R. Daneel Olivaw. As Lije works to overcome his prejudice against robots and solve the murder, he finds himself in potential danger from both the Spacers and the Medievalists, a back to the past movement. Despite a number of wrong turns, Lije and Daneel solve the murder and form a bond.

The Caves of Steel isn’t great literature, but it is very enjoyable storytelling. I love to try to follow the threads of a mystery. The novel felt real to me, with a well thought out setting and interesting characters. While the style might be simpler than that of current novels, the plot is perhaps even more credible than it was over half a century ago. Many of us feel vulnerable in a fragile economy. Instead of blaming robots, present day people blame immigrants. Groups protesting the current political situation are becoming more common. A growing population was recently in the news. I also think that an explosion in robotics is just around the corner. While The Caves of Steel is not a must read, I definitely recommend it to science fiction fans.

Vortex (Book)

Prophesy. Consensus. Eutrophication. Message in a Bottle. Forgiveness. Agency.  Sum of All Parts. 

Vortex is the third and final book in Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin Sequence. (Spin and Axis were the first two books.) Not only is Vortex a good book in its own right, but it is also a worthy conclusion to the series. Wilson takes reader from the everyday to the epic. He finally reveals the truth about the Hypotheticals and the ultimate fate of the Earth. Wilson expertly weaves storylines together and sculptures chapters that continually made me eager to know more. And, most important to me, he includes some fresh, ponderable ideas.

Briefly, Vortex has two major storylines that intertwine at times. The first storyline involves Sandra Cole, Orrin Mather, and Jefferson Bose. It takes place in the near future, in the post-Spin era. Sandra is a psychiatrist responsible for intake evaluations at State Care. Bose is a police officer who brings in Orrin, a fragile vagrant. Sandra soon learns this is far from a routine case, and her involvement changes her life forever. Orrin, it turns out, is a witness to corruption that involves some powerful people. Most important to the story is the set of notebooks he protects and in which he writes words that he doesn’t understand. Sandra and Bose do everything they can to protect him.

The second storyline involves Turk Finley, Isaac, and Treya/Allison Pearl. It takes place approximately 10,000 years after the first storyline. At the end of Axis, Turk and Isaac were pulled into a temporal arch that was created by the Hypotheticals. On schedule, 10,000 years later, they are disgorged. They are rescued by the people of Vox, a type of cult that was built around deifying the Hypotheticals and a prophecy that involves the return of the “uptaken.” Treya is a Vox woman put in charge of Turk. Like all Vox people, she has a cortical implant that connects her with the Vox Network. Early in her life, in preparation for helping Turk, she was also given virtual memories of Allison Pearl, a woman who lived shortly after the end of the Spin. Isaac sustained major injuries when emerging from the Temporal Arch, and the people of Vox rebuilt much of his body and mind. They also irreversibly connected him to the Vox Core, leaving him even less human than he was in Axis. In an effort to fulfill the prophecy, the Vox people return to Earth, which has become uninhabitable due to a poisonous atmosphere. Nevertheless, the Vox travel to Antarctica, where they plan to be united with the Hypotheticals. Turk and Treya/Allison attempt to escape before the journey reaches its likely fatal conclusion. By the end of the story, Isaac, a passive victim for much of Axis and Vortex, finally comes into his own power.

Wilson gave me some ideas to think about. One of the most interesting related to “cortical” versus “limbic” democracies. In the future world, people are linked together, but some groups are linked via intellect, and some groups are linked via emotions. Conversely, Wilson made me think about how people are often shaped by the tragedies they live through. Most of the major characters were strongly molded by incidents in their pasts. Ethics again plays a part in the story. One group in the near future world uses the illegal Martian longevity drug with ethical constraints, insisting that its use uphold a moral code. At the same time, another group has stripped the drug of its ability to make people behave more benevolently.

When I finished the book, I kept on muttering “wow.” Wilson did such a wonderful job of bringing the storylines around in the final pages. Vortex has so many strengths that I hope the major science fiction awards will give it some consideration next year.

WWW: Wonder (Book)

Wonder. Human Nature. Missing Hackers. Great Firewall of China. Transparency. WWWD. Non-zero-sum. Hacker Street Cred. Homo Placidus.

WWW: Wonder, released this past spring, is the final book in Robert J. Sawyer’s WWW Trilogy. The story continues where WWW: Watch left off. The book has a more driving plot than WWW: Watch but also continues most of the philosophical discussion. It is a wonderful conclusion to a very rewarding trilogy.

A quick overview of major developments from WWW: Wake and WWW: Watch that I did not discuss in my previous blog entries is in order here. In WWW: Wake, Webmind, an entity that resides on the World Wide Web, is created when the Chinese government puts up a huge firewall in an attempt to isolate the country from the rest of the world. When a hacker, Wong Wei-leng, pokes a hole in the firewall, Webmind becomes conscious of self and a part of self that is cut off. Later, in an attempt to avoid apprehension by the police, Wong Wei-leng jumps off a balcony. In WWW: Watch, with the help of Caitlin and her family, Dr. Kuroda, Anna Bloom, and some others, Webmind gains access to all the information on the Web. After the authorities learn of Webmind’s presence, he decides to reveal himself to the greater world. He first gets their attention by eliminating all spam and then sends an e-mail explaining who he is. He then gives people a way of contacting him with any questions they may have. People ask him all kinds of questions. He reminds me of a combination of Google & Bing, Dear Abby,  and Santa. In one of the books, Catlin describes Webmind as everyone’s Facebook friend. Whew! Between this paragraph and my previous two entries, we should be caught up. Now to WWW: Wonder.

Briefly, one of the major storylines involves Colonel Payton Hume. After the initial failed attempt to eliminate Webmind and his subsequent conversation with the current administration, WATCH is no long actively looking for ways to eliminate Webmind. After all, he seems to be doing a lot of good. Hume doesn’t buy this at all and decides that he is the only one standing in the way of Webmind enslaving the human race. First, Hume attempts to find the best and most notorious hackers to eliminate Webmind. When one by one they go missing, Hume decides that Webmind is killing them. Hume then decides to turn to the media in an attempt to crowdsource a virus that will destroy Webmind.

In the meantime, Webmind is attempting to control his public image as well as continue on his personal mission to do good in the world. After a disastrous television appearance by Caitlin, Webmind enlists the assistance of Hobo when giving a speech before the United Nations. (One of my favorite lines of the trilogy is actually signed by Hobo, who refers to all the alphas in government as chest thumpers.) Webmind also decides to look for the hacker responsible for his birth. He finds that Wong Wei-leng is partially paralyzed and in Chinese police custody. Webmind enlists Dr. Kuroda to try to help heal the hacker. Ultimately, Wong Wei-leng is made to work for the Chinese government. When the firewall is again put up, there are some unexpected and tragic results. Throughout the story Webmind and the people he touches continue to grow.

This has been an enjoyable trilogy for me for a number of reasons. The plot was interesting, and I could relate to the characters. I could even sympathize with Colonel Hume. Oh, and who couldn’t love Hobo? Sawyer’s philosophical discussions are continuing to make me think. I wish more people in the world were discussing the topics —including non-zero-sum and reciprocal altruism—that were brought up in the book. I enjoy Sawyer’s optimism about the future and about technology.

WWW: Wake (Book)

Consciousness. Expanding Awareness. An Epidemic. Eyepod. WebSight. Phantom. Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. Cellular Automata.  Zipf's law. Asperger Syndrome. Bicameralism. 

WWW: Wake, nominated for the 2010 Hugo and Campbell Awards, is a story about expanding consciousness. Robert J. Sawyer’s novel describes the cognitive awakening of a fifteen-year-old girl, a chimpanzee-bonobo hybrid, and a cyber-intelligence. This is the type of science fiction I love. Sawyer fills the novel with science and technology. At the same time, he creates characters that I can care about.

Briefly, the main storyline is about Caitlin, a teenager who has been blind since birth because of a disorder involving the way her retinas and brain communicate. After a doctor performs an experimental procedure to attempt to restore her sight, the first thing she sees is the World Wide Web (nodes, routing, etc.)—she has been using the web since she was eighteen-months-old. Eventually, she also gains physical sight. Sawyer shows how she gradually adjusts. One of the unexpected effects is that she realizes her dad, a respected physicist, has Asperger Syndrome. She retains her WebSight and comes to see a phantom in the web. The second plotline is about the expanding awareness of this phantom. To control public reaction, a major country temporarily creates a firewall isolating it from the rest of the world. The phantom becomes aware that part of him is cut off from another part of him. This awakens his consciousness. The third storyline is about Hobo, a research chimp who uses sign language and occasionally paints. After the researchers put him on a web conference with another sign using chimp, something in Hobo’s thinking process changes. He begins to understand the concept of representing the three dimensional world in two dimensions. To add to this idea of awakening consciousness, Sawyer weaves in the story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller and the ideas in Julian Jaynes’s book Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. 

I was drawn into the story and don’t want to leave, even after I have finished the book. Fortunately WWW: Wake is the first book in the WWW Trilogy.

A Deepness in the Sky (Book)

A sun that turns on and off. A spider race. Folk heroes in disguise. Brilliant slaves. People in cold sleep. Nanotechnology. Deceptions. Exploitation.

I found the 2000 Hugo award and Campbell award winning novel, Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, brilliant and thought provoking, but I did not enjoy reading it. For me it was too long, too dark, didn’t have enough warm, and didn’t have enough science to keep my attention. Perhaps the bad guys were just too evil for me. Yet, the premise is fascinating.

An inhabited planet encircles a sun that goes on and off—almost like a furnace—every two hundred and fifty years. The planet has a very hot period, an inhabitable period, and a frigid period when the inhabitants must be in a type of hibernation underground: in the deepness. The inhabitants are a spider-like species. During each inhabitable period, the Spiders must rebuild what has been lost to the cold and relighting of the sun and then further their technology with the time they have left. Two human races go to the planet just before the relighting the sun. One is a merchant race, the Qeng Ho. The other is an opportunist race, the Emergents. The Emergents have found that by using a virus and magnetic wave technology they can create a group of slaves so focused that they are almost machinelike—think someone with Asperger syndrome but many times more focused. The Qeng Ho and Emergents briefly go to war, and the Emergents come out the winner, but their resources are seriously depleted. Along with the captured Qeng Ho, they wait for the Spiders to achieve enough technological knowledge so that they can help rebuild the Emergent ships. The Emergents monitor the Spider technology and then infiltrate and corrupt it.

I was fascinated by the concept that all civilizations rise and fall, gaining and then losing technological ability. Another interesting idea—not explored enough—was human’s ability to relate to a totally alien species. A third concept was the right to control one's own destiny.

A Deepness in the Sky is the prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, the 1993 Hugo award winner.

Forever Peace (Book)

Nanotechnology. Universal Welfare State. Humanization. The End of the World. In Forever Peace—winner of the 1998 Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards—Joe Haldeman once again explores the subject of war. As part of the draft, Julian, who in civilian job life is a physicist, is required to spend ten days a month jacked to a remote controlled soldierboy. The jack implanted in his skull not only allows him to operate the robot, but also connects him to the other members of his military unit. For those ten days he is intimately connected to all their physical and emotional feelings, their memories, and even their knowledge.

In a raid gone wrong, Julian accidentally kills a boy with his soldierboy, causing Julian’s emotional health to deteriorate. About this same time, his girlfriend discovers that the particle accelerator project that she has been involved with might trigger a new Big Bang, ending the world as we know it. In addition, one of Julian’s other friends, decides that he can use the brain jacks to bring peace to earth.

The book is relatively fast moving and has plenty of action. Some of the social issues are thought-provoking. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Maybe, it is just more of a guy’s book.

The Diamond Age (Book)

Confucius. Nanotechnology. Neo-Victorians. Ractors. Tribes. Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.

Reading the 1996 Hugo Award and Locus Science Fiction Award winning novel, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, was a refreshing experience for me. While I see it categorized on-line as Cyberpunk, I don’t feel comfortable putting it into any one box. I was drawn into the story from the very beginning and found myself carried along by my curiosity about how the story would unfold.

I would have titled the book, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, because much of the novel centers on the primer. A nanotechnological engineer creates a primer for a wealthy client to give to his granddaughter in order to ensure that she will grow up to be an exceptional woman. The primer tells “stories to a young person, tailoring them for the child’s needs and interests—even teaching them to read if need be.” The engineer, who has a daughter about the same age as the granddaughter, makes an illegal copy of the book. Unfortunately, he is mugged by a gang and his copy of the primer stolen by one of the boys. The boy gives it to his four year old sister, Nell, who immediately bonds with the book. It tells hers stories that incorporate what is going on in her life. This includes Nell’s attachment to her four dolls/stuffed animals as well as the physical abuse and neglect she experiences. Many of the stories are in the style of Grimm’s fairytales. The stories also have an anonymous human element to them, ractors—think actors who help create animated movies and games. Nell interacts with the primer well into her teenage years.

The Diamond Age is just a good over all story. As a reader, I felt the love that an older brother or father has for a little sister/daughter, yet the book was not in the least bit sentimental. It contained a few moments of humor. In a few places, I found some profound wisdom, yet I would not describe the book as especially philosophical.--Stephenson brings up some interesting points in regard to the topics of belonging to a tribe, discipline and intelligence.--The neo-Victorian subculture presented in the book isn’t just an affectation, but adds to the story. The book contains some sex and violence, but it also contains moments of childlike innocence. It is an odd book, but a very pleasing one to read.

Neuromancer (book)

Disturbing. Brilliant. Trail-blazing. I won’t even pretend the 1985 Hugo and 1984 Nebula Award winning novel Neuromancer by William Gibson was my cup of tea. It is filled with violence, drug use, disturbing images, and perverse sexual references. The pages also are woven with invented slang that left me lost at times. On the other hand, Case, the antihero cyber-hacker, has enough redeeming qualities that I wanted to know what happened to him. I also admired Gibson’s ability to create an original, vivid world.

Neuromancer is a classic, a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the larger genre of Science Fiction. It helped to popularize cyberpunk and is reputed to be the inspiration for the direction of the Internet and Web. Gibson coined the term “cyberspace,” and Neuromancer was the vehicle for exposing the term to millions of people.

My commitment to reading all the Hugo Award winning novels between 1959 and the present has been an interesting path. Neuromancer was another one of those novels that took me outside of my comfort zone. What it rewarded me with was a sense of history, an example of brilliant writing and an example of a human being’s capacity to imagine.

The Gods Themselves

Parallel Universes. Academic Politics. Alternative Energy. Interesting Science. Fascinating Aliens. The 1973 Hugo award winning novel The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov is a story about an energy technology created by the interaction of a parallel universe—one with different physical laws— and our own. I liked the novel, despite the slow moving plots and emphasis on politics in scientific circles.

The book is divided into three main sections. The middle section contains a story about life forms in a parallel universe. This section made the book memorable and worthwhile. The life forms were interesting and unique. I even found myself getting emotionally attached to the little fellows. The ending of the section was satisfying and surprising.

Some of the discussion in the book is timeless. A major part of the plot deals with the safety of the energy technology. If I hadn’t known that the book was written in the early 70’s, I would have thought it was inspired by the politics of Climate Change and Global Warming:

"It is a mistake,” he said, “to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort."

Asimov also offers wisdom on how to counteract some of those arguments. I think the Hugo voters got this one right.

Ms. Chumlig’s Wisdom (Rainbows End)

In Rainbows End, a science fiction book by Vernor Vinge set in the near future, Ms. Chumlig is a teacher at Fairmont High, a sort of tech school for not so successful teenagers and for older adults. (See My November 29th Blog on Rainbows End.) Although she is fictional, her wisdom is relevant to adults in the real-life job market today.

The first bit of advice could come straight out of a Seth Godin book or blog entry:

Some of you think your hand in life is all deuces and treys. But I have a theory of life and it is straight out of gaming. There is always an angle. You, each of you, have some special wild cards. Play with them. Find out what makes you different and better. Because it is there, if only you can find it. And once you do, you’ll be able to contribute answers to others and others will be willing to contribute back to you. In short, synthetic serendipity doesn’t just happen. By golly, you must create it.

After talking with my fifth grade teacher hostess on Thanksgiving, I am convinced that most middle-aged and older adults could use some classes to update their skill sets:

Administration has changed a lot—Okay. So we have to learn some new tricks—Yes …That’s an important point. This class is about search [web searching] and analysis, the heart of the economy. We obviously need search and analysis as consumers. In almost all modern jobs, search and analysis are how we make out living. But, in the end, we must also know something about something.

Rainbows End

Chocked-full of interesting ideas. Fast-paced. Intriguing. Feel-good. Rainbows End, the 2007 Hugo award winner by Vernor Vinge, is a techno-fiction novel that takes place in the near future.

Two worlds collide. The first belongs to Alfred Vaz, who has developed some new YGBM (You-Gotta-Believe-Me) technology, mind control he plans to unleash worldwide. “Then he would be in control. For the first time in history, the world would be under adult supervision.”

The second world belongs to Robert Gu, a once acerbic, world renown poet, who almost succumbed to end-stage Alzheimer’s disease, but with the help of some new medical breakthroughs has been restored to the capacity of a young adult. Many of his other illnesses have also been reversed. Robert, with the help of his not always so loving family and some friends, tries to maneuver the new, technologically enhanced, world that he finds himself in. Not entirely known to Robert, his chief ally is Miri, his teenage granddaughter. Most of the world is “wearing:” they have hoptics, a type of contact, and wearables, clothing with technology embedded, that allow them to see overlays of information on top of the physical world and communicate with each other without using voice or keyboard. Robert and a band of his old group of friends from the university unknowingly become cast as stooges in Vaz’s plot.

The novel is so filled with ideas that I find it difficult to isolate just a couple for discussion. The novel made me think about technology, about people, and about my own future. For me, this is the mark of a good novel.

Of Jung, Spock, and Revolution

Experiential and Participatory, those are some of the words that describe how we have changed in the last 40+ years, continuing on with some of my thoughts from my last blog entry, Stand On Zanzibar. We are no longer satisfied to passively watch an entertainer. We are less concerned about finding the right teacher or guru.

In the world of entertainment we want to have an active role. At the very least we want to choose when we watch a television program or vote for the winner of a reality TV series. Many of us want and expect our entertainment to come from multiple platforms. We want more than a book or a TV program; we want a larger experience. [Last night I finished Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik, and one of my first thoughts was “I wonder which dragon I am" and made a mental note to see if there was a personality quiz on-line.] We twitter, blog, Facebook, YouTube. If we can’t be discovered by a talent scout, we put our art out on the internet and let the “public decide.” We write fan fiction, create avatars, roleplay our favorite characters. It used to be only a bunch of nerds wearing Mr. Spock ears; now a larger percent of us want to be immersed in our entertainment.

The authority figure role has also diminished over the last 40 years. Instead of a staff of paid encyclopedia writers, people from all over share their knowledge on sites like Wikipedia. We ask questions in internet groups. We share recipes and helpful hints on websites. We are more likely to actively seek out the answers ourselves from multiple sources, rather than looking to one expert and, we are more likely to want to make the final decision ourselves.

I am reading Jung on Active Imagination by Joan Chodorow. Carl Jung drew mandalas almost every morning in 1918 through 1919. Finally one day he realized: “One could not go beyond the center. The Center is goal and everything is directed toward that center,…the self is the principle and archetype of orientation and meaning.” This profound idea helped change psychology. But the point is that Jung actively participated in the process. He needed to experience hundreds of mandalas to reach his conclusion. He was an unusual man. Now, more and more people want to interact with life experientially, whether directly or virtually, to find their wisdom.

I hear friends and family lamenting about how few people attend Sunday services. Many churches are filled with old congregates. Part of the situation is that traditional churches are working on the old model. Younger people want an experiential religion. They are less likely to want someone with impressive credentials standing in front of them. Yet, I also hear of churches bucking the trend and creating new experiences for their members, some taking full advantage of social media.

Part of the revolution of the last forty years is where we put ourselves. We are no longer playing follow the leader. We are putting ourselves in the center of our world and then creating the picture of our lives by reaching out to the larger world around us. The idea is not so different from Jung and his mandalas.

The Windup Girl--Part 2

To a certain extent I believe in the Gaia hypothesis, that the earth is a living system. At the very least, I believe that everything affects everything else. I believe that we all need to live our lives with an awareness of how our actions or inactions affect the world around us. Lately, I have been looking at that paradigm in terms of air pollution regulations. Paolo Bacigalupi in The Windup Girl looks at the interconnectedness with regard to genetic engineering:

The symbol for the Environment Ministry is the eye of a tortoise, for the long view—the understanding that nothing comes cheap or quickly without hidden cost.

Lately our weather has been unusual. A local meteorologist said that in all the decades he has been forecasting weather, he has never seen anything like we experienced this summer. Similarly, I have been working on a project with an individual who is expert in an aspect of air pollution monitoring, and I also have been trying to get a pulse on the environment through Facebook and newsfeeds. Studies indicate that air pollution may contribute to heart disease, high blood pressure, respiratory problems, and even diabetes. Have we gone beyond the tipping point? Besides rethinking our housing, transportation, diets, and occupations; do we need to rethink our physical bodies?

The “Windup Girl” refers to a genetically engineered person created as a servant. In the story a scientist argues that she represents the future of humankind:

Our environment has changed. If we wish to remain at the top of our food chain, we must evolve. Or we will refuse, and go the way of the dinosaurs and Felis domesticus. Evolve or die. It has always been nature’s guiding principle…

This is all very creepy and yet very interesting to me.

The Windup Girl--Part 1

I began reading the Hugo and Nebula winning novel The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi the same day as an article appeared on Yahoo! about genetically modified salmon. Creepy. Very, very creepy. The Windup Girl is an incredible novel, well deserving of every award it has received. But I didn’t enjoy reading it. It made me feel too vulnerable. The novel is just too plausible. Many people are mistrustful or at least a bit skeptical of the motivation of large food companies. Our recent tainted egg scare is just one in a series of examples. Many people don’t trust government agencies to always hold people’s best interests in mind. Bacigalupi extrapolates a dark future based on those ideas. I usually am not paranoid, and I actually think genetic engineering has the potential to do a great deal of good for some serious conditions: diabetes, inherited cancers, spinal injuries. Like many things, it also has the potential to do devastating harm.

I need to lighten up a bit before I am ready to look at some of my bookmarks.

Evolution

How might the human race evolve? We assume that it will evolve technologically and perhaps physically, but could it also advance in other ways? Socially? Psychically? In its ability to co-exist with nature? Once again I made our local librarians trudge down into storage to pull out a book for me. A Choice of Gods, written by Clifford D. Simak and published in 1972, looks at some of the other possible forms of evolution. The book’s message is still relevant. Perhaps the majority of mankind is drawn to power and conquest, but there will always be pockets of individuals drawn to a different way, and their potential is endless.

What comes next, I ask myself, and I do not know. There seems to be no logical progression to this sort of thing and the reason that there is no logic is that we are too new at it to have an understanding of what may be involved.…As it stands at the moment, I can only speculate….Standing on my mountain top, I strain my eyes to look into the future.

Metatropolis

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to see what the country would be like in the future. In some ways, my request was answered in the guise of Metatropolis, five short stories edited by John Scalzi. Five authors created a not too distant future, where the governments of the United States and other major countries have collapsed. What are left in their places are pockets of cities centered on green technology and high tech communications.

Several concepts fascinated me. I have been interested in the concept of memes. One of the stories describes a city that is disbanded so that its ideas can be transmitted around the world. Conversely, another story describes “turks” for covert activities. Basically people are paid to do one tiny task, such as walk a package a few blocks, without knowing their part in the larger scheme. They can never be successfully interrogated or held accountable, because they just don’t know. Another concept is mobile societies, like the nomads of old except connected by technology. My favorite concept was a virtual world laid over a physical world using technology embedded in glasses. It begins as a sort of video game, but towards the middle becomes much more complex, representing a true society.

The world the authors created was fascinating to me, neither bright nor dreadful. It did open up my mind to new possibilities, which to me is the reward of enjoyable science fiction.