Denying the impact of automation is like denying climate change. We can now build machines that are more efficient than humans. Soon we'll be using machines that are smarter than humans. Whenever I read modern science fiction stories I ask myself could a machine replace the main characters in their jobs. Quite often I think they can.
Twice in my life I've gotten involved in astronomy and each time gave up after a while. When I was young I bought a cheap department store telescope, and when I was older, bought a 4" refractor with equatorial mount. My fancy scope wasn't that conducive to just going out and looking at the sky. It was a pain to set up an align Generally I waited to use it when I was willing to drive an hour out of town to the astronomy club's site, and even then I was always hassling with the setup. If I tried astronomy again I'd be tempted to get a small dobsonian or small refractor with a good alt-az mount, or even some good binoculars. I'd want something that I could keep near the door and would be easy to drag outside and use.
I was always disappointed with what I saw in a telescope. It's exciting to see Jupiter and the Moon, but it was always terrible frustrating and a disappointment to me to find the faint fuzzies. In the end I just loved being out in dark sky sites learning the constellations and just learning to find things in the sky. There's nothing with more sense of wonder than seeing the Milky Way at a good dark site without any equipment. I would recommend any parent with a kid interested in astronomy first start by joining a local club and going to their dark sky site. You'll be able to look through many kinds of scopes and get lots of advice. Don't buy a scope until you've gone sky gazing a few times without one.
I think getting a telescope for a young person involves a number of compromises. You want to get something good enough and easy to use for the kid with a casual interest, but also good enough for the kid that truly has the astronomy bug to grow with. I tend to think a well made small dobsonian is the best starter scope. But a quality 80-90mm refractor that's small with a solid alt-az mount might be equally good.
End in the end, the scope that's easy to grab and use often is the better one to buy first.
Where else can you get 8 movie rentals for $8? If I watch everything as soon as I get it, I could cycle through eight flicks a month. But even when I'm slow and lazy I probably get in 4 movies a month, or $2 a rental.
I agree that everyone should learn as much math and statistics as they can. I think it turns off most kids to math when they teach pure abstract math. Adding programming might make math more appealing and less abstract. Have you ever used Mathematica? I bet grade school kids wold think math was a lot more fun if they learned math with Mathmatica. You wouldn't even have to mention that it involves programming. They should learn the basics of mathematical problems without calculators and programming first, but should be shown applied math next with real world problems, and then shown how to automate the problem solving with tools.
But don't think that math and programming go together like peanut butter and jelly?
To figure out how to program a math problem requires learning the math. Turning a problem into an algorithm means learning how the problem works in a very fundamental way.
Python is great for quick programs if you don't need a GUI and don't plan to give your programs away or sell them. But what about a rapid development language that is inherently GUI aware? Of course this ties you to an OS, but this guy sounds like he's asking for the modern version of Visual Basic. I'm not a Mac person, but it sounds like Swift might become VB on OS X. I'm not sure Visual Express is the modern version of Visual Basic for Windows anymore - so what is? And did Unix/Linux ever have something like VB?
Without a GUI, programming is text based, and that can be cool if we don't mind writing programs that look like those of the 1980s.
They should integrate programming with math classes. They should start students using Mathematica or Sage as early as possible. Programming math problems would teach both math and programming. Students would see programming as a problem solving tool, and not just another burden of something else to learn. If they integrated programming into math classes they wouldn't have to worry about adding programming classes to their curriculum. They could also integrate programming into other classes like science, or even English.
I've switched to streaming (renting music) because it's so much more convenient than owning music. I have 1,500 CDs, hundreds of LPs, and 24,000 mp3 files, but I seldom play any of them because streaming is so damn convenient. When streaming becomes the obvious standard that will last, I'll probably get rid of my other forms of music.
I stream through the computer, through my mobile devices, and to my TV and big stereo system via the Roku. I want the streaming services to succeed, pay the artists more, and to improve their software. This is the music payment model I want for now and in the future.
There are many albums I bought as LPs, then as CDs, then as SACDs, or as re-mastered CDs. Ownership isn't that permanent. I'm tired of buying, shelving, backing up files, being a librarian, etc.
No offense, but this list seems like one an old hippie would make up. I guess the counter culture lives on in young people. This list begs for some depth and diversity even though I like the books on it. How about Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Sun Also Rises, Sister Carrie, Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, etc.
I also use Outlook for some of my RSS feeds and it works very well. I'd use it for all my feeds except that it fills up my Unread folder with too many unread messages. It overwhelms my work email. If Outlook had Unread Email and Unread RSS folders, I'd probably use Outlook for all my RSS feeds.
I have a Kindle 3 and iPad 2. The Kindle is much easier to hold than the iPad. The Kindle is easier on my eyes, especially for longer periods of reading. However, even though I have bad eyes, and both devices can enlarge the print, I've found it easier to read books instead. Lots of books I want to read aren't available yet in ebook format. Also, many ebooks are more expensive than a used hardback or paperback. Plus, now that everyone is going to digital readers, used books are cheap and plentiful.
I've been off cable for over 2 years. I built my own DVR using Windows 7. I recently bought HD Home Run, a network TV tuner box with 2 tuners. I plug a network cable into it, an indoor antenna and a power cord. It's about the size of a Roku box. Any computer in the house can watch TV, and I record shows on my HTPC, which is hooked up to my 56" TV and stereo rig.
I use Rdio and Rhapsody for my music because I want to be legal and pay for my music, but I don't know how much I'm helping the artist. I wish there was some kind of scorecard that rated the various music services so it was easy to see which company to use if we wanted to support the artists. This article was convincing but confusing. It doesn't even mention MOG, Rdio and many other of the new streaming music services. We need something like the old Goodhousekeeping seal of approval. Some agency for the artists should rate the various forms of music distribution, maybe A+, A, A-, etc., so fans can easily tell what company to support or avoid.
I gave up cable and built myself a HTPC. I find CBS, NBC, PBS and ABC to provide more than enough TV especially since I have Netflix. In fact, I could probably give up broadcast TV except for PBS. I do miss some documentaries from the History Channel, National Geographic and the various Discovery Channels. More than anything I miss Turner Classic Movies. If TCM was a paid streaming service on the Internet like Hulu+ I would pay for it. I can get old movies from Netflix, but I can't replicate TCM. I would subscribe to cable again if I could get a la carte but I'd probably only want 7-8 channels. I hate having channels I don't want. Comcast's PVR is better than Windows Media Center, but WMC does fine.
And I've also learned patience. It's not all that hard to wait 6-12 months to get the HBO and Showtime series I like on Netflix bluray discs. Sooner or later, most stuff comes to Netflix.
Lala is near perfect in my book. And it's extremely easy to add $20 worth of credit to buy another 200 songs. Surprisingly it takes a good while to spend down the $20 if you only buy songs you want to play over and over again. I also have a Rhapsody subscription, but I most use Lala because it's more convenient.
If I could buy a Samsung Blu-ray player for $149 I'll switch. However, I'd still get my discs from Netflix. But do renters help make a market for a new format?
I love my Kindle. It's easy to read and I'm finding lots of content for it, both cheap and free. But in the last five years since I joined Audible.com I've been listening to way more books than reading. The Kindle may shift this back some, but carrying around audio books on my Nano makes it extremely easy to always to listen whenever I find a spare moment or I'm doing something physical that doesn't take much brain activity. I went from averaging a book a month with paper books, to finishing a book a week with listening. I also discovered I like listening to a wider variety of books than I was willing to read.
I can even read a book on my Kindle and listen to the Audible version at the same time. This combo reading is a great way to study books and retain more information.
I liked to know the answer to that too. I love Rhapsody. I've put all my CDs and LPs into the closet. It's far easier to call them up on the computer than get them off a shelf to play them. I have my home office hooked up directly to my stereo. I have my living room stereo getting a WiFi feed through a Roku Soundbridge M1001, and I listen at work though PC speakers. All my playlists are centralized. I have legal access to millions of songs for $10 a month. Stealing takes a lot more work and time than earning $10 a month. Geez, I can't believe that Rhapsody isn't the most popular site on the Internet.
Whenever new albums come out I just log on and listen. My only complaint is Rhapsody doesn't have everything, especially older out of print albums.
I can't believe every music lover doesn't pay for Rhapsody just to sample the new stuff every week.
Is the tide really turning? Or is their another tide beyond MP3? Are DRM-free MP3 songs the ultimate solution to music distribution? Rhapsody recently made deals to put subscription music on cell phones, Tivo and cable TV services. In a blog I wrote inspired by Ian's blog, "Are MP3s a the End of Their Lifecyle?" I suggest and hope the new paradigm will be subscription music.
I find owning and managing MP3 files to be a pain. My essay points out the trouble I have maintaining LPs and CDs and MP3s will be the same. I stopped buying movie DVDs because Netflix is just a better model. Rhapsody frees me in the same way. I even make a point that subscription music could also be DRM free if it was a common form of music marketing. Once you discover the pleasure of net music you realize owning music is so 20th century. The ease of use is like comparing regular TV and DVR TV.
I was going to stick with XP as long as I could, but then I gave in and tried Vista. I've had some minor problems, and the flashy front end doesn't matter to me. I use it at home and work now, and at work I'm even testing it out by running it without an anti-virus program. I know that sounds insane, but I want to see how good is the new built-in security. So far so good. The more I use it the happier I am.
I think the FUD surrounding Vista might be unfair. The shift from XP to Vista seemed far smaller than from OS 9 to OS X or PowerPC to Intel on the Mac. Change requires some adaptation. I think it's insane to suggest scraping Vista. It might not be sliced bread, but I'm starting to wonder if it's not more stable and secure than XP, and that step up could be a big one.
The advantage of Windows over Linux is software compatibility. I am not looking forward to Windows Vista because of the hundreds of computers we maintain at work, few, if any, will be ready for Vista because of hardware compatibility. We have ten percent Macintoshes and they suffer from both software and hardware incompatibility. At least where I work, the momentum is behind Windows XP & Office 2003. It's not a choice, but a fact of reality. Getting Macs and Linux boxes to work on the same playing field requires a lot of effort. I fear that Vista might add extra work to our load and have no plans to move to it.
Linux entices on the server side, but not the desktop side. My newest interest is Plone. The potential there is to provide useful services for hundreds of my users. Internet applications is where the creativity is at.
Religious people often consider their beliefs to be more than just speculation. Most people's beliefs are caught up in their desires. Zen Buddhism is a good method to explore those issues.
I think you have exposed some of reasons why you want to believe in faster-than-light travel. You want humanity to expand across the galaxy. Now you should explore why you have this desire.
I think exploration is a genetic thing with humans, but there are limits. We could have people exploring all the way to Saturn by now if the mass of humanity really wanted it to happen.
We have the technology to do far more exploring than we do. Even if we had faster-than-light tech, I wonder if Congress would vote to use it?
I am like you and want humanity to explore the galaxy - and in person. But I want it to really happen. I grew up with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs while going to K-12 school. I expected men to be on Mars sometime in the late 70s or 80s. It didn't happen. I've been asking why for decades.
Some of us have the desire for space exploration, but it's not common. Science fiction is common. Think on that. One of the ideas I've been considering is modern science fiction sold the people a bill of goods and that's what they want, not the stuff that NASA provides.
In other words, until Star Trek/Star Wars technology exists, space exploration isn't appealing enough. This gets to the heart of what the Mundane SF people are exploring. Science fiction needs to sell a realistic way to space travel.
I think everyone has beliefs that make them feel positive or negative about the world and the future, either for the future of mankind, or for their own future. For some people, the meaning of life might be surfing. For others, it might be making money, or spreading their religious beliefs. I think lots of people have a belief in the future that is inspired by Star Trek or science fiction. I don't know how many that number is, but I'd guess it could be large.
I once was talking with a young woman, about twenty-two, who was gushing about her love of Star Wars. I asked her if she thought the future would be like that. She said no. I asked her if she thought mankind would travel to the stars and she said yes. I asked her what if we can't travel faster than light. She was truly horrified at that idea. She said the future would be boring and depressing if we couldn't travel to the stars.
I said, mankind could still travel to the stars, but it would take years to make the trip. I mentioned generation ships and other science fiction stories about slower-than-light travel.
We actually know a lot more about the universe than during Newton's time, and for the last one hundred years, we have only been refining the insights of Einstein. Yes, there are lots of theories about how to travel faster than light, but they are only that, and usually those theories involve the use of massive amounts of energy. One episode of the PBS show NOVA discussed this, and one scientist said it would take converting all the matter of Jupiter into energy to open a wormhole one meter wide for one second. So even if such theories are true, are they practical?
But all of that is not the point. I'm not trying to be pessimistic. I'm asking if the belief in faster-than-light travel is a kind of faith, like the desire for immortal life?
Why is this such a passionate belief for some people? Why is faster-than-light travel so important? I think the Mundane SF Manifesto brings up another issue unrelated to writing novels. The concepts it attacks are the tenets of a modern faith in the future. I think challenging those tenets hurts people's sense of well being that is inspired by that faith.
I wonder if the Mundane SF people are not suggesting that writers create more realistic science fictional concepts to believe and have faith in for the future.
I think you need to ask yourself: why do I feel the need to believe in FTL travel? What will it mean to me if it isn't true?
The line wasn't meant to make geeks look bad. The point of the post was to examine a new challenge to writing science fiction.
Actually, my last line was edited -- I guess because it used a specific religion as an analogy.
My point was science fiction has become a kind of faith that brings about a sense of well being that generates a positive hope for the future - not unlike various religions I guess I shouldn't name.
If the Mundane SF comments about traditional SF are true, they are in reality an attack on this faith. But more to the point, if what the Mundane SF theorists say about the common tropes of traditional SF is true, and most of the ideas are bogus, why not write fiction projecting other positive futures that are more realistic?
Growing up in the 1960s I thought there was a one-to-one relationship between the love of science fiction and a passion for space exploration. I was obviously wrong. Science fictional themes have become almost universal in fiction, movies, games, comics, etc., but interest in space exploration is so low that most politicians say they consider it non-existant.
I think science fiction did influence the early rocket pioneers, and later space scientists, but all of that is in the past. I'm wondering if the Mundane SF people are not asking writers to write stories that will inspire new generations of engineers to work on practical forms of space exploration.
I've read a lot of science fiction, especially about space travel, and none of it strikes me as realistic. The idea of mankind hopping around the galaxy like we take jets around the world today strikes me as real as the promise of living after death and walking streets of gold in paradise.
I was also asking, in a side-ways fashion, does that love of science fiction inspire a religious like belief in certain concepts because we want them to be true. People passionately want to believe in faster-than-light travel. Why?
Slashdot Mirror
Denying the impact of automation is like denying climate change. We can now build machines that are more efficient than humans. Soon we'll be using machines that are smarter than humans. Whenever I read modern science fiction stories I ask myself could a machine replace the main characters in their jobs. Quite often I think they can.
Twice in my life I've gotten involved in astronomy and each time gave up after a while. When I was young I bought a cheap department store telescope, and when I was older, bought a 4" refractor with equatorial mount. My fancy scope wasn't that conducive to just going out and looking at the sky. It was a pain to set up an align Generally I waited to use it when I was willing to drive an hour out of town to the astronomy club's site, and even then I was always hassling with the setup. If I tried astronomy again I'd be tempted to get a small dobsonian or small refractor with a good alt-az mount, or even some good binoculars. I'd want something that I could keep near the door and would be easy to drag outside and use.
I was always disappointed with what I saw in a telescope. It's exciting to see Jupiter and the Moon, but it was always terrible frustrating and a disappointment to me to find the faint fuzzies. In the end I just loved being out in dark sky sites learning the constellations and just learning to find things in the sky. There's nothing with more sense of wonder than seeing the Milky Way at a good dark site without any equipment. I would recommend any parent with a kid interested in astronomy first start by joining a local club and going to their dark sky site. You'll be able to look through many kinds of scopes and get lots of advice. Don't buy a scope until you've gone sky gazing a few times without one.
I think getting a telescope for a young person involves a number of compromises. You want to get something good enough and easy to use for the kid with a casual interest, but also good enough for the kid that truly has the astronomy bug to grow with. I tend to think a well made small dobsonian is the best starter scope. But a quality 80-90mm refractor that's small with a solid alt-az mount might be equally good.
End in the end, the scope that's easy to grab and use often is the better one to buy first.
Where else can you get 8 movie rentals for $8? If I watch everything as soon as I get it, I could cycle through eight flicks a month. But even when I'm slow and lazy I probably get in 4 movies a month, or $2 a rental.
I agree that everyone should learn as much math and statistics as they can. I think it turns off most kids to math when they teach pure abstract math. Adding programming might make math more appealing and less abstract. Have you ever used Mathematica? I bet grade school kids wold think math was a lot more fun if they learned math with Mathmatica. You wouldn't even have to mention that it involves programming. They should learn the basics of mathematical problems without calculators and programming first, but should be shown applied math next with real world problems, and then shown how to automate the problem solving with tools.
But don't think that math and programming go together like peanut butter and jelly?
To figure out how to program a math problem requires learning the math. Turning a problem into an algorithm means learning how the problem works in a very fundamental way.
Python is great for quick programs if you don't need a GUI and don't plan to give your programs away or sell them. But what about a rapid development language that is inherently GUI aware? Of course this ties you to an OS, but this guy sounds like he's asking for the modern version of Visual Basic. I'm not a Mac person, but it sounds like Swift might become VB on OS X. I'm not sure Visual Express is the modern version of Visual Basic for Windows anymore - so what is? And did Unix/Linux ever have something like VB?
Without a GUI, programming is text based, and that can be cool if we don't mind writing programs that look like those of the 1980s.
They should integrate programming with math classes. They should start students using Mathematica or Sage as early as possible. Programming math problems would teach both math and programming. Students would see programming as a problem solving tool, and not just another burden of something else to learn. If they integrated programming into math classes they wouldn't have to worry about adding programming classes to their curriculum. They could also integrate programming into other classes like science, or even English.
I've switched to streaming (renting music) because it's so much more convenient than owning music. I have 1,500 CDs, hundreds of LPs, and 24,000 mp3 files, but I seldom play any of them because streaming is so damn convenient. When streaming becomes the obvious standard that will last, I'll probably get rid of my other forms of music.
I stream through the computer, through my mobile devices, and to my TV and big stereo system via the Roku. I want the streaming services to succeed, pay the artists more, and to improve their software. This is the music payment model I want for now and in the future.
There are many albums I bought as LPs, then as CDs, then as SACDs, or as re-mastered CDs. Ownership isn't that permanent. I'm tired of buying, shelving, backing up files, being a librarian, etc.
No offense, but this list seems like one an old hippie would make up. I guess the counter culture lives on in young people. This list begs for some depth and diversity even though I like the books on it. How about Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Sun Also Rises, Sister Carrie, Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, etc.
I also use Outlook for some of my RSS feeds and it works very well. I'd use it for all my feeds except that it fills up my Unread folder with too many unread messages. It overwhelms my work email. If Outlook had Unread Email and Unread RSS folders, I'd probably use Outlook for all my RSS feeds.
I have a Kindle 3 and iPad 2. The Kindle is much easier to hold than the iPad. The Kindle is easier on my eyes, especially for longer periods of reading. However, even though I have bad eyes, and both devices can enlarge the print, I've found it easier to read books instead. Lots of books I want to read aren't available yet in ebook format. Also, many ebooks are more expensive than a used hardback or paperback. Plus, now that everyone is going to digital readers, used books are cheap and plentiful.
I've been off cable for over 2 years. I built my own DVR using Windows 7. I recently bought HD Home Run, a network TV tuner box with 2 tuners. I plug a network cable into it, an indoor antenna and a power cord. It's about the size of a Roku box. Any computer in the house can watch TV, and I record shows on my HTPC, which is hooked up to my 56" TV and stereo rig.
I use Rdio and Rhapsody for my music because I want to be legal and pay for my music, but I don't know how much I'm helping the artist. I wish there was some kind of scorecard that rated the various music services so it was easy to see which company to use if we wanted to support the artists. This article was convincing but confusing. It doesn't even mention MOG, Rdio and many other of the new streaming music services. We need something like the old Goodhousekeeping seal of approval. Some agency for the artists should rate the various forms of music distribution, maybe A+, A, A-, etc., so fans can easily tell what company to support or avoid.
I gave up cable and built myself a HTPC. I find CBS, NBC, PBS and ABC to provide more than enough TV especially since I have Netflix. In fact, I could probably give up broadcast TV except for PBS. I do miss some documentaries from the History Channel, National Geographic and the various Discovery Channels. More than anything I miss Turner Classic Movies. If TCM was a paid streaming service on the Internet like Hulu+ I would pay for it. I can get old movies from Netflix, but I can't replicate TCM. I would subscribe to cable again if I could get a la carte but I'd probably only want 7-8 channels. I hate having channels I don't want. Comcast's PVR is better than Windows Media Center, but WMC does fine.
And I've also learned patience. It's not all that hard to wait 6-12 months to get the HBO and Showtime series I like on Netflix bluray discs. Sooner or later, most stuff comes to Netflix.
Lala is near perfect in my book. And it's extremely easy to add $20 worth of credit to buy another 200 songs. Surprisingly it takes a good while to spend down the $20 if you only buy songs you want to play over and over again. I also have a Rhapsody subscription, but I most use Lala because it's more convenient.
If I could buy a Samsung Blu-ray player for $149 I'll switch. However, I'd still get my discs from Netflix. But do renters help make a market for a new format?
Jim
I love my Kindle. It's easy to read and I'm finding lots of content for it, both cheap and free. But in the last five years since I joined Audible.com I've been listening to way more books than reading. The Kindle may shift this back some, but carrying around audio books on my Nano makes it extremely easy to always to listen whenever I find a spare moment or I'm doing something physical that doesn't take much brain activity. I went from averaging a book a month with paper books, to finishing a book a week with listening. I also discovered I like listening to a wider variety of books than I was willing to read.
I can even read a book on my Kindle and listen to the Audible version at the same time. This combo reading is a great way to study books and retain more information.
Jim
I liked to know the answer to that too. I love Rhapsody. I've put all my CDs and LPs into the closet. It's far easier to call them up on the computer than get them off a shelf to play them. I have my home office hooked up directly to my stereo. I have my living room stereo getting a WiFi feed through a Roku Soundbridge M1001, and I listen at work though PC speakers. All my playlists are centralized. I have legal access to millions of songs for $10 a month. Stealing takes a lot more work and time than earning $10 a month. Geez, I can't believe that Rhapsody isn't the most popular site on the Internet.
Whenever new albums come out I just log on and listen. My only complaint is Rhapsody doesn't have everything, especially older out of print albums.
I can't believe every music lover doesn't pay for Rhapsody just to sample the new stuff every week.
Jim
Is the tide really turning? Or is their another tide beyond MP3? Are DRM-free MP3 songs the ultimate solution to music distribution? Rhapsody recently made deals to put subscription music on cell phones, Tivo and cable TV services. In a blog I wrote inspired by Ian's blog, "Are MP3s a the End of Their Lifecyle?" I suggest and hope the new paradigm will be subscription music.
I find owning and managing MP3 files to be a pain. My essay points out the trouble I have maintaining LPs and CDs and MP3s will be the same. I stopped buying movie DVDs because Netflix is just a better model. Rhapsody frees me in the same way. I even make a point that subscription music could also be DRM free if it was a common form of music marketing. Once you discover the pleasure of net music you realize owning music is so 20th century. The ease of use is like comparing regular TV and DVR TV.
Jim Harris
I was going to stick with XP as long as I could, but then I gave in and tried Vista. I've had some minor problems, and the flashy front end doesn't matter to me. I use it at home and work now, and at work I'm even testing it out by running it without an anti-virus program. I know that sounds insane, but I want to see how good is the new built-in security. So far so good. The more I use it the happier I am.
I think the FUD surrounding Vista might be unfair. The shift from XP to Vista seemed far smaller than from OS 9 to OS X or PowerPC to Intel on the Mac. Change requires some adaptation. I think it's insane to suggest scraping Vista. It might not be sliced bread, but I'm starting to wonder if it's not more stable and secure than XP, and that step up could be a big one.
Jim Harris
The advantage of Windows over Linux is software compatibility. I am not looking forward to Windows Vista because of the hundreds of computers we maintain at work, few, if any, will be ready for Vista because of hardware compatibility. We have ten percent Macintoshes and they suffer from both software and hardware incompatibility. At least where I work, the momentum is behind Windows XP & Office 2003. It's not a choice, but a fact of reality. Getting Macs and Linux boxes to work on the same playing field requires a lot of effort. I fear that Vista might add extra work to our load and have no plans to move to it.
Linux entices on the server side, but not the desktop side. My newest interest is Plone. The potential there is to provide useful services for hundreds of my users. Internet applications is where the creativity is at.
Religious people often consider their beliefs to be more than just speculation. Most people's beliefs are caught up in their desires. Zen Buddhism is a good method to explore those issues.
I think you have exposed some of reasons why you want to believe in faster-than-light travel. You want humanity to expand across the galaxy. Now you should explore why you have this desire.
I think exploration is a genetic thing with humans, but there are limits. We could have people exploring all the way to Saturn by now if the mass of humanity really wanted it to happen.
We have the technology to do far more exploring than we do. Even if we had faster-than-light tech, I wonder if Congress would vote to use it?
I am like you and want humanity to explore the galaxy - and in person. But I want it to really happen. I grew up with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs while going to K-12 school. I expected men to be on Mars sometime in the late 70s or 80s. It didn't happen. I've been asking why for decades.
Some of us have the desire for space exploration, but it's not common. Science fiction is common. Think on that. One of the ideas I've been considering is modern science fiction sold the people a bill of goods and that's what they want, not the stuff that NASA provides.
In other words, until Star Trek/Star Wars technology exists, space exploration isn't appealing enough. This gets to the heart of what the Mundane SF people are exploring. Science fiction needs to sell a realistic way to space travel.
I think everyone has beliefs that make them feel positive or negative about the world and the future, either for the future of mankind, or for their own future. For some people, the meaning of life might be surfing. For others, it might be making money, or spreading their religious beliefs. I think lots of people have a belief in the future that is inspired by Star Trek or science fiction. I don't know how many that number is, but I'd guess it could be large.
I once was talking with a young woman, about twenty-two, who was gushing about her love of Star Wars. I asked her if she thought the future would be like that. She said no. I asked her if she thought mankind would travel to the stars and she said yes. I asked her what if we can't travel faster than light. She was truly horrified at that idea. She said the future would be boring and depressing if we couldn't travel to the stars.
I said, mankind could still travel to the stars, but it would take years to make the trip. I mentioned generation ships and other science fiction stories about slower-than-light travel.
She said, "that sucks."
We actually know a lot more about the universe than during Newton's time, and for the last one hundred years, we have only been refining the insights of Einstein. Yes, there are lots of theories about how to travel faster than light, but they are only that, and usually those theories involve the use of massive amounts of energy. One episode of the PBS show NOVA discussed this, and one scientist said it would take converting all the matter of Jupiter into energy to open a wormhole one meter wide for one second. So even if such theories are true, are they practical?
But all of that is not the point. I'm not trying to be pessimistic. I'm asking if the belief in faster-than-light travel is a kind of faith, like the desire for immortal life?
Why is this such a passionate belief for some people? Why is faster-than-light travel so important? I think the Mundane SF Manifesto brings up another issue unrelated to writing novels. The concepts it attacks are the tenets of a modern faith in the future. I think challenging those tenets hurts people's sense of well being that is inspired by that faith.
I wonder if the Mundane SF people are not suggesting that writers create more realistic science fictional concepts to believe and have faith in for the future.
I think you need to ask yourself: why do I feel the need to believe in FTL travel? What will it mean to me if it isn't true?
The line wasn't meant to make geeks look bad. The point of the post was to examine a new challenge to writing science fiction.
Actually, my last line was edited -- I guess because it used a specific religion as an analogy.
My point was science fiction has become a kind of faith that brings about a sense of well being that generates a positive hope for the future - not unlike various religions I guess I shouldn't name.
If the Mundane SF comments about traditional SF are true, they are in reality an attack on this faith. But more to the point, if what the Mundane SF theorists say about the common tropes of traditional SF is true, and most of the ideas are bogus, why not write fiction projecting other positive futures that are more realistic?
Growing up in the 1960s I thought there was a one-to-one relationship between the love of science fiction and a passion for space exploration. I was obviously wrong. Science fictional themes have become almost universal in fiction, movies, games, comics, etc., but interest in space exploration is so low that most politicians say they consider it non-existant.
I think science fiction did influence the early rocket pioneers, and later space scientists, but all of that is in the past. I'm wondering if the Mundane SF people are not asking writers to write stories that will inspire new generations of engineers to work on practical forms of space exploration.
I've read a lot of science fiction, especially about space travel, and none of it strikes me as realistic. The idea of mankind hopping around the galaxy like we take jets around the world today strikes me as real as the promise of living after death and walking streets of gold in paradise.
I was also asking, in a side-ways fashion, does that love of science fiction inspire a religious like belief in certain concepts because we want them to be true. People passionately want to believe in faster-than-light travel. Why?