Well, I agree with the parent that science fiction isn't necessarily about the future. It must necessarily have an element of science (preferably accurate science), but it can easily be set in the present day or even past. I dislike the assumption that all stories set in the future are science fiction, even when they don't deal with science at all. There's a name for that genre: it's speculative fiction. The genre overlaps with both science fiction and fantasy. Of course, most people have never even heard of it.:P
Seriously. As an aspiring science fiction author, this whole thread makes me want to go bang my head against a wall for an hour or so. Obviously, people saying there's no good science fiction out there haven't been keeping up with the genre (and considering that I haven't really, either, that's sad)--read a book by China Mieville or something. There's lots of innovation in science fiction today.
In response to the grandparent post, creative work without pay is ridiculous. So authors shouldn't expect to get paid for commercial publication of their stories? Or we just shouldn't try to make money off of our work at all--since, god knows, no one else on earth gets paid for the work they invest in whatever it is they happen to do. Books should be published for free, without any regard for paying all those involved and the cost of production? Please. Maybe it would work for someone who is creative as a hobby who just posts stuff on their geocities site, but not for someone like me who, uh, wants to avoid getting a "real" job. (Coincidentally, suggesting that ALL programmers should do open-source work without pay of any kind is also ridiculous for all practical purposes, and seems to be what is being advocated here.)
Now, adopting a more open-source approach to creative works IS a good idea and one that I strongly advocate. In fact, I license all of my publically-available work with Creative Commons, and if you haven't heard of them, it's much like the GPL adapted for creative works. (Images, text, and even music now.)
As a writer and artist, I want money for COMMERCIAL uses of my work. I don't want people taking credit for my work itself, either. The only copyright violations that upset me are the use of my work for commercial purposes without my permission and other people taking credit for my work. If someone's making copies for personal use, to share with friends, or making a derivative work (using an image in a collage, fan fiction, quoting me, whatever), I'm frankly flattered and I don't care. That's not the same as just giving it away free for anyone to do what they want with it, but this attitude is not shared by some (very famous and successful, by the way) authors and most big publishers, which I think is sad.
That's just my take on the issue, and I think it's a nice compromise between idealism and the fact that you actually need to make money in order to survive, and of course, to afford the materials necessary to make creative works to begin with.
At least I know I'm not the only one! I can't tell that the red images have been tampered with at all. I was pretty confused for a while (the description of the pictures certainly didn't match what I saw) until I figured out it must have something to do with being colorblind.:P I feel special.
What disturbs me about the RIAA is that they seem to think that they are the enforcers of copyright law. The RIAA is not, contrary to popular conception, a law enforcement agency. If they really wanted to punish "criminals," they would let it be handled by legal authorities. As it is, I see these kind of lawsuits as sheer vigilante justice. This has nothing to do with the legality or illegality of downloading music. It has to do with corporations enforcing the law, which, at least, as far as I know, is not the way that criminals are supposed to be dealt with.
You know, I feel the same way, but about my writing. In the past, authors would use characters from old stories and update or alter them (this is also the way that myths and legends change over time). Was Dante using the character of Ulysess in The Divine Comedy copyright infringement? I certainly hope not! Are authors making reference to Shakespeare's characters or writing updated versions of Romeo and Juliet copyright infringement? For that matter, does the fact that Shakespeare himself basically stole other people's plotlines and made them better mean he was some sort of terrible criminal?
Obviously, no one would support the branding of all classic literature (all of which contains some reference to either the Bible and/or classical myth) or derivative literary works "copyright infringement," but I fail to see the legal difference between re-writing The Iliad from a different character's point of view (perfectly acceptable, mind you) and deciding to write epic Harry Potter fan fiction. You have a lot of authors (Anne Rice, notably) who threaten fan fiction writers with legal action much like the scare-tactics of the RIAA, when the desire of a fan to use the author's characters/setting and expand upon them should be considered a high form of flattery, at least in my mind.
Personally, I'm not really very into fan fiction (used to be), but that an author can claim to own a derivative work itself disturbs me as an author myself. (I have often seen, in debates about the subject, ominous questions posed such as: "Who owns this fanfic? J.K. Rowling or the writer?" The obvious answer would be the author of the story, since they, uh, created it.) What worries me more is the way the publishing industry monopolizes things very much like the RIAA, but doesn't get as much attention because it affects fewer people.:(
The Declaration of Independence doesn't say anything about legality, more about the rights of people to rebel against unjust laws/government. (Just because they wrote a document saying that they should have the legal right to rebel didn't mean the British government had to listen to them.) Interesting how that only applied in the Revolutionary War and not the Civil War or any modern conflicts.:P
Just because you think it's absurd doesn't mean it necessarily seems that way to the people who believe it. And if you can't disprove or prove anything either way, there's no way you're going to do anything but offend people by calling it such and being rude about it. Going out of your way to offend people is childish.
You can never know for certain that something like your examples is actually 100% correct though, can you? Just because you come to a conclusion doesn't mean it's right; take religion, for instance... (Not trying to just be an ass or anything, I'm just one of those people who has no absolute faith in any sort of human knowledge on principle.)
But you can't scientifically disprove the existence of the divine, either, at least not conclusively. (As has been pointed out, there are many complex variables that could have been neglected in this study.) It's pointless to try to change the minds of others either way when they've already made up their mind about it.
Personally, I think the ability to believe or disbelieve in an omnipotent God must be some sort of inborn mental characteristic, because I certainly can't comprehend it, and my devout Christian friends can't figure me out!
Communism might work if it were set up in a way that was actually communist (and we won't know till that actually happens). All so-called "communist" regimes have gone against their own idealogies and devolved into despotism. Granted, it's not a particularly realistic ideal, but neither is capitalism. (By that I mean that it's a system based on the potential for infinite growth, which, being physically impossible because of limited resources, burns itself out.) And capitalism has huge social problems too, like rampant corporate corruption.
If you go by Marx's theories, capitalism will because of its flaws also inevitably break down...into communism.:) You can argue it either way. What people need is a nice, happy medium. Mmm...socialism.
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Thank you! It's good to see someone posting who has an idea of what science fiction and speculative fiction are really about.
Well, I agree with the parent that science fiction isn't necessarily about the future. It must necessarily have an element of science (preferably accurate science), but it can easily be set in the present day or even past. I dislike the assumption that all stories set in the future are science fiction, even when they don't deal with science at all. There's a name for that genre: it's speculative fiction. The genre overlaps with both science fiction and fantasy. Of course, most people have never even heard of it. :P
Seriously. As an aspiring science fiction author, this whole thread makes me want to go bang my head against a wall for an hour or so. Obviously, people saying there's no good science fiction out there haven't been keeping up with the genre (and considering that I haven't really, either, that's sad)--read a book by China Mieville or something. There's lots of innovation in science fiction today.
In response to the grandparent post, creative work without pay is ridiculous. So authors shouldn't expect to get paid for commercial publication of their stories? Or we just shouldn't try to make money off of our work at all--since, god knows, no one else on earth gets paid for the work they invest in whatever it is they happen to do. Books should be published for free, without any regard for paying all those involved and the cost of production? Please. Maybe it would work for someone who is creative as a hobby who just posts stuff on their geocities site, but not for someone like me who, uh, wants to avoid getting a "real" job. (Coincidentally, suggesting that ALL programmers should do open-source work without pay of any kind is also ridiculous for all practical purposes, and seems to be what is being advocated here.)
Now, adopting a more open-source approach to creative works IS a good idea and one that I strongly advocate. In fact, I license all of my publically-available work with Creative Commons, and if you haven't heard of them, it's much like the GPL adapted for creative works. (Images, text, and even music now.)
As a writer and artist, I want money for COMMERCIAL uses of my work. I don't want people taking credit for my work itself, either. The only copyright violations that upset me are the use of my work for commercial purposes without my permission and other people taking credit for my work. If someone's making copies for personal use, to share with friends, or making a derivative work (using an image in a collage, fan fiction, quoting me, whatever), I'm frankly flattered and I don't care. That's not the same as just giving it away free for anyone to do what they want with it, but this attitude is not shared by some (very famous and successful, by the way) authors and most big publishers, which I think is sad.
That's just my take on the issue, and I think it's a nice compromise between idealism and the fact that you actually need to make money in order to survive, and of course, to afford the materials necessary to make creative works to begin with.
At least I know I'm not the only one! I can't tell that the red images have been tampered with at all. I was pretty confused for a while (the description of the pictures certainly didn't match what I saw) until I figured out it must have something to do with being colorblind. :P I feel special.
What disturbs me about the RIAA is that they seem to think that they are the enforcers of copyright law. The RIAA is not, contrary to popular conception, a law enforcement agency. If they really wanted to punish "criminals," they would let it be handled by legal authorities. As it is, I see these kind of lawsuits as sheer vigilante justice. This has nothing to do with the legality or illegality of downloading music. It has to do with corporations enforcing the law, which, at least, as far as I know, is not the way that criminals are supposed to be dealt with.
You know, I feel the same way, but about my writing. In the past, authors would use characters from old stories and update or alter them (this is also the way that myths and legends change over time). Was Dante using the character of Ulysess in The Divine Comedy copyright infringement? I certainly hope not! Are authors making reference to Shakespeare's characters or writing updated versions of Romeo and Juliet copyright infringement? For that matter, does the fact that Shakespeare himself basically stole other people's plotlines and made them better mean he was some sort of terrible criminal?
:(
Obviously, no one would support the branding of all classic literature (all of which contains some reference to either the Bible and/or classical myth) or derivative literary works "copyright infringement," but I fail to see the legal difference between re-writing The Iliad from a different character's point of view (perfectly acceptable, mind you) and deciding to write epic Harry Potter fan fiction. You have a lot of authors (Anne Rice, notably) who threaten fan fiction writers with legal action much like the scare-tactics of the RIAA, when the desire of a fan to use the author's characters/setting and expand upon them should be considered a high form of flattery, at least in my mind.
Personally, I'm not really very into fan fiction (used to be), but that an author can claim to own a derivative work itself disturbs me as an author myself. (I have often seen, in debates about the subject, ominous questions posed such as: "Who owns this fanfic? J.K. Rowling or the writer?" The obvious answer would be the author of the story, since they, uh, created it.) What worries me more is the way the publishing industry monopolizes things very much like the RIAA, but doesn't get as much attention because it affects fewer people.
The Declaration of Independence doesn't say anything about legality, more about the rights of people to rebel against unjust laws/government. (Just because they wrote a document saying that they should have the legal right to rebel didn't mean the British government had to listen to them.) Interesting how that only applied in the Revolutionary War and not the Civil War or any modern conflicts. :P
Just because you think it's absurd doesn't mean it necessarily seems that way to the people who believe it. And if you can't disprove or prove anything either way, there's no way you're going to do anything but offend people by calling it such and being rude about it. Going out of your way to offend people is childish.
Well, it's all the same elements, but it provides different information about them that's specially relevent to cosmology.
So those stories about the Japanese crucifying Santa around Christmas are actually closer to the truth than one would think?
You can never know for certain that something like your examples is actually 100% correct though, can you? Just because you come to a conclusion doesn't mean it's right; take religion, for instance... (Not trying to just be an ass or anything, I'm just one of those people who has no absolute faith in any sort of human knowledge on principle.)
But you can't scientifically disprove the existence of the divine, either, at least not conclusively. (As has been pointed out, there are many complex variables that could have been neglected in this study.) It's pointless to try to change the minds of others either way when they've already made up their mind about it.
Personally, I think the ability to believe or disbelieve in an omnipotent God must be some sort of inborn mental characteristic, because I certainly can't comprehend it, and my devout Christian friends can't figure me out!
Hell, in Utah you can't even get a wine list at a restaurant unless you specifically request it...and they're not allowed to tell you it's available.
Communism might work if it were set up in a way that was actually communist (and we won't know till that actually happens). All so-called "communist" regimes have gone against their own idealogies and devolved into despotism. Granted, it's not a particularly realistic ideal, but neither is capitalism. (By that I mean that it's a system based on the potential for infinite growth, which, being physically impossible because of limited resources, burns itself out.) And capitalism has huge social problems too, like rampant corporate corruption. If you go by Marx's theories, capitalism will because of its flaws also inevitably break down...into communism. :) You can argue it either way. What people need is a nice, happy medium. Mmm...socialism.