Don't be silly. Why read science fiction at all if what you really care about is rigid definitions and excluding anything you don't happen to already like? The whole point is to expand your mind, otherwise you might just as well be reading boring "realistic" fiction about middle-aged middle-class midlife crises. I think the two genres, sf and fantasy, lie next to each other on a spectrum, and there's a lot of overlap. Anyway, there are plenty of us out there who like BOTH... and we don't waste a lot of time whining about how the book club actually offered us MORE than we thought we were looking for!
I hear a lot of talk about "values" from a lot of right-wing idiots. Somehow their "values" always mean that doing whatever THEY want is good, and now they want to lash out and kill for revenge without even waiting to confirm guilt. They're just as fanatical as the terrorists -- fanatics and terrorists of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other religion or ideology are all the same -- too bad they can't just blow each other up and leave people who AREN'T fascist morons alone. If someone thinks the Taliban is bad -- and it is -- why would bombing the hell out of the women and children suffering under it be a good thing? Is slaughtering the helpless a "good American value"? Is someone living in a country automatically a "supporter" of a tyrant?
So... you're saying that only killing is creative? If the stories are about people figuring out ways not to kill other beings, that's not creative? Sounds like -- well, a bad political word I'd rather not repeat for fear of being told I'm a flamer.
The Democrats did not lose the election. Not only did Al Gore win the popular vote, but the Supreme Court, by refusing to let the Florida votes be recounted, stole the election and gave it to Shrub, a coup d'etat if there ever was one, and the most shameful thing the Court has done since the Dred Scott decision. And if you think that's not so, (a) check out Vincent Bugliosi's article in The Nation Magazine -- he was the prosecutor in the Charlie Manson trial so I think he knows criminal behavior when he sees it -- and (b) try to imagine what the Supremes would have done if it had been Gore appealing the recount.
You idiot, insurance companies don't automatically charge men more because they have dicks and women don't; they charge men more because men have more accidents than women. How you can think (if "think" is the right word for whatever's going on inside your thick skull) that this is "genetic" discrimination is beyond me.
We do see evolution today, that's part of how we know about it. If you want to start from the idea that you're going to prove the existence of God from your belief in God, you're already too screwed up in the logic department to be taken seriously. Read some real biology, why don't you? Try the National Council for Science Education -- not whatever idiot medieval superstition you happen to buy into. And of course "descendage" isn't a word. How on earth do you expect to be taken seriously if you can barely write your own language?
"The power companies probably don't want this to happen. If people could actually be full participants in the market, they could sell power as well as buying it.... But none of this can happen unless and until there is a real, minute-by-minute market in electric power where everyone can participate, and you know who's not going to let that happen."
Well, maybe... but I think you're expecting too much of most people. Your idealized world in which everyone is making a profit off their hot water heater is one where people have time to hassle with it without scanting something else they'd rather be doing. Ask the typical young working family with a couple of kids how much extra time they have in their day. And I also think you're a little paranoid about how "they" won't let it happen. If power distribution isn't a natural monopoly, for cripes' sake, what is?
Talk about energy-sucking holes, have you driven through San Jose's endless miles of concrete parking lots lately? Or the East Bay, which makes rush hour in L.A. look like summer on Sunnybrook Farm? There were SEVENTEEN "interruptions" in SCE's service territory because of Stage 2 emergencies this summer -- that's after a grand total of 4 interruptions during the entire 1990's. So take your b.s. about how Northern California is so superior and so much more environmentally aware and tell it to the bums lying on the sidewalks on every block in Frisco. The only thing green they ever see is mold.
Re: Foundation beat the Lord of the Rings, so what
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Lord of the Terabytes
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That vote was taken back in the 70's, as you mention, which means it was heavily weighted by guys (and I do mean guys) who were young when Asimov was writing the Foundation books, back in the late 40's-early 50's. Besides, it's idiotic to compare an SF book to a fantasy anyway -- they're completely different genres with different kinds of intentions. And "greatest of all time" is just a popularity contest; give it a hundred years or so and take the vote again. "Most influential of the 20th century" -- now, there's a good case for Lord of the Rings as that.
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Don't be silly. Why read science fiction at all if what you really care about is rigid definitions and excluding anything you don't happen to already like? The whole point is to expand your mind, otherwise you might just as well be reading boring "realistic" fiction about middle-aged middle-class midlife crises. I think the two genres, sf and fantasy, lie next to each other on a spectrum, and there's a lot of overlap. Anyway, there are plenty of us out there who like BOTH ... and we don't waste a lot of time whining about how the book club actually offered us MORE than we thought we were looking for!
I hear a lot of talk about "values" from a lot of right-wing idiots. Somehow their "values" always mean that doing whatever THEY want is good, and now they want to lash out and kill for revenge without even waiting to confirm guilt. They're just as fanatical as the terrorists -- fanatics and terrorists of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other religion or ideology are all the same -- too bad they can't just blow each other up and leave people who AREN'T fascist morons alone. If someone thinks the Taliban is bad -- and it is -- why would bombing the hell out of the women and children suffering under it be a good thing? Is slaughtering the helpless a "good American value"? Is someone living in a country automatically a "supporter" of a tyrant?
So ... you're saying that only killing is creative? If the stories are about people figuring out ways not to kill other beings, that's not creative? Sounds like -- well, a bad political word I'd rather not repeat for fear of being told I'm a flamer.
The Democrats did not lose the election. Not only did Al Gore win the popular vote, but the Supreme Court, by refusing to let the Florida votes be recounted, stole the election and gave it to Shrub, a coup d'etat if there ever was one, and the most shameful thing the Court has done since the Dred Scott decision. And if you think that's not so, (a) check out Vincent Bugliosi's article in The Nation Magazine -- he was the prosecutor in the Charlie Manson trial so I think he knows criminal behavior when he sees it -- and (b) try to imagine what the Supremes would have done if it had been Gore appealing the recount.
You idiot, insurance companies don't automatically charge men more because they have dicks and women don't; they charge men more because men have more accidents than women. How you can think (if "think" is the right word for whatever's going on inside your thick skull) that this is "genetic" discrimination is beyond me.
We do see evolution today, that's part of how we know about it. If you want to start from the idea that you're going to prove the existence of God from your belief in God, you're already too screwed up in the logic department to be taken seriously. Read some real biology, why don't you? Try the National Council for Science Education -- not whatever idiot medieval superstition you happen to buy into. And of course "descendage" isn't a word. How on earth do you expect to be taken seriously if you can barely write your own language?
Well, maybe ... but I think you're expecting too much of most people. Your idealized world in which everyone is making a profit off their hot water heater is one where people have time to hassle with it without scanting something else they'd rather be doing. Ask the typical young working family with a couple of kids how much extra time they have in their day. And I also think you're a little paranoid about how "they" won't let it happen. If power distribution isn't a natural monopoly, for cripes' sake, what is?
Talk about energy-sucking holes, have you driven through San Jose's endless miles of concrete parking lots lately? Or the East Bay, which makes rush hour in L.A. look like summer on Sunnybrook Farm? There were SEVENTEEN "interruptions" in SCE's service territory because of Stage 2 emergencies this summer -- that's after a grand total of 4 interruptions during the entire 1990's. So take your b.s. about how Northern California is so superior and so much more environmentally aware and tell it to the bums lying on the sidewalks on every block in Frisco. The only thing green they ever see is mold.
That vote was taken back in the 70's, as you mention, which means it was heavily weighted by guys (and I do mean guys) who were young when Asimov was writing the Foundation books, back in the late 40's-early 50's. Besides, it's idiotic to compare an SF book to a fantasy anyway -- they're completely different genres with different kinds of intentions. And "greatest of all time" is just a popularity contest; give it a hundred years or so and take the vote again. "Most influential of the 20th century" -- now, there's a good case for Lord of the Rings as that.