Science Fiction Interpretations

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Subject: Science Fiction Interpretations

Posted by: brm50diboll
Date: Jan 02 17

I have debated with myself starting a Virtual Blog for months. I have so little free time nowadays that I may not be able to keep it up, but I think I'll at least try. This is intended to be wide-ranging, so it wouldn't fit in the Television, Movies, or Literature boards categories and I don't want to clog up General with just my observations but here I can rant if I choose and people can choose to ignore me or engage my flawed analysis if they wish.

469 replies. On page 2 of 24 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Mixamatosis

On the programme about demographics the importance of education was emphasised. It was said that older age groups should consider education a priority for the young and be prepared to contribute public funds to that to ensure there were enough employed young people who were able to contribute towards care for the old - a kind of reciprocation. However numbers of young people are also important. The older the workforce, the more health issues they may face which can reduce the vigour and capacity of the workforce. In the UK a lot of people were concerned about immigration levels when they voted for Brexit but now the government is starting to talk about "exceptions" because farmers are protesting that they will be unable to get the labour to harvest their produce otherwise and either the supply will fall or they would have to offer premium wages to attract a national workforce and prices of food would rise. National young people seek to avoid manual labour and back-breaking work if any other type of work is on offer. People in developed societies don't want to live like rural peasant populations but it's those sort of conditions which make food so cheap for all of us.

Reply #21. Jan 07 17, 4:35 AM

Mixamatosis

I have a feeling that if IT systems go down in future for any length of time, whether through malware, hacking, capacity issues or other reasons, the generations that have only known this technology may be "lost" without it. The "Jack of all Trades" or "Renaissance Man" type who has a diversity of skills, including the old skills and practical skills, would then be pre-eminent.

Men have developed in particular ways through evolution to adapt to the environment but in the last couple of centuries, man has also learned how to adapt the environment to suit himself/herself so that may have stopped or slowed down physical aspects of our evolution because it's not so necessary. However that could change back in future, given some global catastrophes affecting life on Earth.

Reply #22. Jan 07 17, 4:44 AM

brm50diboll

I would not dare to tell the UK what they should do about immigration, but the Brexit vote to me indicates a majority of Britons want such decisions made in London, not Brussels. Similarly, I think decisions about US immigration are best made by Americans. But again, most future immigration into first world countries will need to be skilled, not unskilled, and thoroughly vetted before it is allowed.

Reply #23. Jan 07 17, 2:47 PM

brm50diboll

Cyberwarfare is an interesting phenomenon. It is sufficiently new that off the top of my head, I cannot think of a good science fiction analog for it immediately, but I don't think accidentally triggering a nuclear war (a la Matthew Broderick's 80s movie War Games) is a likely possibility. I'll think about that more. A lot of interesting directions there.

Reply #24. Jan 07 17, 2:54 PM

brm50diboll

In the 1997 movie "Gattaca", with Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law, a futuristic society is able to genetically engineer humans to specification, not only eliminating disease, but also choosing characteristics. You want your first child to be a blonde male, IQ 180, able to run a marathon in under three hours when he becomes an adult? No problem. We can do that.

The movie does not describe a utopia. As is typical for my tastes, it is a dystopia. Offspring who were genetically engineered are called valids. Those born without the assistance of genetic engineering are called in-valids. The society preferentially discriminates in favor of the valids over the in-valids, leaving the in-valids, however capable and determined they may actually be, to do low level menial labor. Ethan Hawke's character is an in-valid who basically steals the identity of a valid played by Jude Law in order to get on a risky space mission that Law's character doesn't want on. The movie didn't do so well when it was released, but has developed a bit of a cult following since. I, personally, am an egalitarian, so this movie appealed to me.

Reply #25. Jan 10 17, 2:38 PM

brm50diboll

The Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon" involves a computer-simulated war between two planets with a twist: whenever the computers register deaths in a location on either of the planets, the citizens of the "destroyed areas" are given 24 hours to report to disintegration chambers to be killed. The Enterprise is "hit" in one of the computer simulations, but Kirk (strangely enough) refuses to order his entire ship's crew to the disintegration chambers. The planetary leaders explain to Kirk that the reason their centuries-long war has been fought this way by computer simulation is to protect the civilizations themselves from being destroyed by actual nuclear attacks. Kirk disagrees with the readers' logic and disables their disintegration chambers and tells the leaders that if they want to continue their war, they will need to do it the old-fashioned way, with real destruction. As Kirk anticipated, the leaders are afraid of that and quickly negotiate peace. In the Cold War, Kirk's strategy would have been called "Mutual Assured Destruction" and indeed did provide a powerful incentive for avoiding World War III. It is interesting also, along these lines of thought, that in Orwell's classic "1984", in the book supposedly written by Goldman, it is stated that the ongoing continuous war between Oceania and Eurasia (or Eastasia, whichever one Oceania happens "always" to have been at war with at that particular time), the war occurs far away from the centers of populations of the main world empires in third-world regions, precisely so as not to threaten the societal structures (which are totalitarian for all three regimes), but simply rid them of "excess population" and provide each one with nationalistic sentiments for their populations to rally around. Eternal war, how patriotic!

Reply #26. Jan 14 17, 6:33 PM

Mixamatosis

There's a read across from Orwell's "1984" to modern warfare now where most wars take place away from the populations of rich countries but they are often supported or supplied with weapons by those countries.

Reply #27. Jan 15 17, 11:21 AM

brm50diboll

Proxy wars are commonplace nowadays. They can go on almost indefinitely because they cause such little damage to the powers that are actually behind them, though they cause extreme suffering in the places they are fought.

Reply #28. Jan 15 17, 5:46 PM

brm50diboll

I've been thinking about the movie "The Butterfly Effect". I know, I know, Ashton Kutcher does not exactly a classic make. Well, it's not so much the plot of the movie itself (although I will confess I liked it despite itself) as the premise: if we could go back in time to repair something that was wrong, what we did would have unpredictable consequences that could actually make things worse. It's a classic science-fiction premise that, unfortunately, has no real-world meaning and is totally untestable because (and I'm sorry to break this to some of you) we can't go backwards in time. There are these uncomfortable things called *The Laws of Physics* that get in the way. Nevertheless, such considerations can tell us something about human nature, the choices we make, and the consequences that ensue from those choices. In the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", Kirk finds out he must let a woman he fell in love with (played by Joan Collins) die in an auto accident to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II. Sometimes people do things with the best of intentions that ends up making things much worse. One of the things that makes humans intelligent (as opposed, say, to lower animals) is the ability to ask the question "What if?" The ability to anticipate future consequences of present actions, a prefrontal lobe speciality. We should use that "executive action" part of our brains a bit more, I think.

Reply #29. Jan 20 17, 10:14 AM

Mixamatosis

I understood that scientists think that it's theoretically possible to go back in time if you're travelling at a speed greater than the speed of light, but no one has managed that yet, and I assume you'd have to travel at a greater speed for quite a while to go any significant distance back.

Reply #30. Jan 20 17, 10:34 AM

brm50diboll

Going faster than the c (the speed of light in a vacuum) is precluded by those pesky Laws of Physics (as we know them). Some people misunderstand this: it is possible to go faster than the speed of light *in a medium*, since such speeds are less than c, and space itself may expand faster than light (in inflation theory), but matter is constrained by relativity which says that as the velocity approaches c, its mass (and thus its resistance to further acceleration) increases without bound (becomes infinite). Thus all acceleration of known matter is limited with velocities approaching c asymptotically. Yes, there are hypothetical particles called tachyons which may travel faster than c, but there is no real evidence they exist, and, even if they did, they are not ordinary matter. So all "warp speed" violates the relativity laws. Too bad. I love both Star Wars and Star Trek and "accepting the premise" is a big part of enjoying science-fiction. But it can't happen, not in the universe we live in.

Reply #31. Jan 20 17, 10:46 AM

brm50diboll

The lava-covered planet Mustafar in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith is actually a close parallel to Earth in its Hadean Eon four billion years ago. Early Earth was extremely hot from the heat of formation of the aggregating planetesimals that were colliding to form it. The crust was not fully formed and was very thin in the places it did exist and was frequently broken anyway by frequent large meteorite bombardment. And Earth's primeval atmosphere would not have been breathable by today's animals, including humans, as it contained no free oxygen. Oxygen is actually an extremely reactive element and extremely reactive element are generally found only in compound form, not as the free element. The presence of molecular oxygen in an atmosphere is actually considered one of the factors that suggests life, since oxygen on earth was created by life, not the other way around. That is, life developed before oxygen did on Earth by primitive heterotroph and not for hundreds of millions of years later did photosynthesis begin to eventually lead to atmospheric oxygen. Traces of oxygen have been found in the very thin atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Europa leading some to speculate it may harbor life in its subsurface water oceans, but a more reasonable origin for the tiny amount of oxygen there is ultraviolet radiation breakup of water molecules rather than photosynthesis. It is interesting to me how several of the planets in the Star Wars saga are actually very similar to Earth at different periods in its geologic history. The ice world Hoth, for example, parallels Earth during one of its "Snowball" phases of extreme ice ages that existed in later Precambrian times. During "Snowball" phases, the ice ages were so severe the oceans were frozen all the way to the equator, unlike the better-known and far milder ice ages of the much more recent Pleistocene epoch.

Reply #32. Jan 24 17, 12:43 AM

brm50diboll

The death of John Hurt brings to mind his role in the original "Alien" from 1979, as the character famous for having the creature burst from his chest (and so parodied in "Spaceballs"). When thinking about the "Alien" series of movies, people think of Sigourney Weaver, but the original movie was an ensemble cast. I still remember the tag line from the ads for that movie after all these years: "In space, no one can hear you scream." The crew of the Nostromo were doomed by a secret corporate policy enforced by the turncoat android. (Not too different from HAL 9000, when you think about it - artificial intelligence as evil is a running theme in science fiction.)

Reply #33. Jan 28 17, 2:22 AM

Mixamatosis

Some of John Hurt's finest performances were in TV dramas, playing Caligula in "I, Claudius" and playing Quentin Crisp in "The Naked Civil Servant". It's a bit sad if he's only remembered for film parts. He came late to films like Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Ian Mcellen. They had some brilliant acting behind them by the time they entered films.

Reply #34. Jan 28 17, 9:24 AM

brm50diboll

Actually, it's not science fiction but I agree with you wholeheartedly on "I, Claudius". It is based on the Robert Graves's novels so I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it is excellent in my opinion. I know it was a British production, but it aired in the US on PBS and I have the whole miniseries. John Hurt's Caligula is indeed excellent, but the performances of everyone in it were great as far as I'm concerned - Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, Patrick Stewart, and on and on.

Reply #35. Jan 28 17, 3:03 PM

Mixamatosis

It's not science fiction but I agree with you that all the performances on "I, Claudius" were great. The script was also excellent. It was based on excellent material from Robert Graves's books. It's a series I've watched more than once and could watch again, it's so good.

Reply #36. Jan 29 17, 4:41 AM

Mixamatosis

I'm not a great fan of science fiction. I've read and enjoyed some but the phrase "you couldn't make it up" comes to mind here. Reality is often more interesting because things that happen in real life are often more strange than our imaginations can conceive of. However I love it when science fiction writers seem to have correctly predicted the future. I hear that "1984" has recently shot up the best seller list in the US in these days of "post truth" and "truthiness" and I read that someone is moving it from their fiction shelves to their non-fiction shelves.

Reply #37. Jan 29 17, 6:48 AM

brm50diboll

Back to Science Fiction. One measure of how well-known a science fiction work is is how often it gets parodied, especially if it shows up on The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror".

Submitted for your approval: Another Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man", which has had the honor of being parodied on both "Treehouse of Horror" and The Naked Gun series.

So if you have never seen "To Serve Man", you should. I don't mind plot spoilers on 55-year old TV episodes, but I deliberately won't do it today and focus directly on the theme I want to hit. The argument is made by the main character that if man gets enough to eat and his basic needs are satisfied, then Earth will become a Garden of Eden. False. Demonstrably false, as the episode shows. Humans have minds and are by nature constantly striving. They would never be content with the "peace" enjoyed by cattle or sheep. Our farmers and ranchers want their livestock to be unthreatened because violence is not good for their business. So too were the Kanamits.

The Kanamits did in fact bring peace to Earth, just as they had promised. So if you're looking for peace, check out the Kanamits. Just remember to eat. They wouldn't want you to lose weight.

Reply #38. Feb 02 17, 3:57 PM

brm50diboll

A position I have long taken is that current science education is inadequate, particularly in developing the kind of critical thinking skills necessary for a post-industrial society. By that I mean, frankly, skepticism. You cannot believe everything you find on the internet. A good science education helps people sort out science from pseudoscience and determine what on the internet is actually useful.

Rant now over (for now.) To pick a specific area where I think people have fallacious ideas about what science can or can't do, I will pick the area of Genetic Engineering, or Gene Therapy. In my opinion, there is too much "faith" out there by laypeople that science can cure a variety of diseases through gene therapy. It amazes me that people freak out over genetic manipulation of plants, calling it "frankenfood" when all evidence shows it not only to be not dangerous but actually beneficial, and yet these same people think genetic therapy is the panacea that will cure diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. I don't think so. I'm not against gene therapy research for human diseases, I just don't think it's anywhere close to practical therapy. There are trillions upon trillions of cells in the human body, and manipulation of genes in humans for treatment of disease would require gene therapy in at least a significant percentage of this untold number of cells to be effective, and there are numerous technological obstacles to this which I think have not been fully thought out yet.

The Star Trek episode "Miri" is illustrative of my concerns. In this episode, scientists on a planet almost identical to earth tried to alter human genes using a virus to slow the aging process and greatly extend the human life span. Their goal was to slow the aging process so that only about one month of aging occurred for every 100 years of real time elapsed. It was a success, sort of. It turned out it worked only on children. All the adults on the planet developed a rapidly fatal illness that transformed them into mad "grups" before they died. The Enterprise reached the planet 300 years after the genetic experiment. By that time, all the adults were long dead. But there were 300-year old children running around in a feral state. The beam down party of Kirk and crew contracted the viral disease and began to transform into "grups". Also, teenagers on that planet, one by one, would also turn into "grups" and die. As it happened, the central character of Miri (played by Kim Darby) was in the process of developing the disease when Kirk and company arrived on her planet. The episode had a happy ending, but a few harrowing things happened first.

Anytime I read somewhere that viruses can be engineered to alter human genes to treat diseases I think of "Miri". Hubris. Pure hubris.

Reply #39. Feb 07 17, 12:41 AM

Mixamatosis

The thing about manipulating plant genes is that 1) the genetic mutatations can spread to other areas that are not meant to be mutated.2) In the end that may mean that people don't have a choice about what they are eating (unlike with gene therapy in humans which is a choice).Already, in the food supply chain, we are informed that it's impossible now to distinguish non-modified soya beans from genetically modified soya beans because they are all mixed together. 3) In deliberate plant mutations multinational companies own the seeds, which I believe produce plants that don't produce seeds so farmers using these in poor parts of the world can't do their traditional thing and save seed for replanting but are forced to buy them from companies each season though they can ill afford this. These companies therefore have a massive amount of power and control over the food supply which is not consistent with democracy or fairness. As is so often the case, it's not the science that is the problem but how it's used and how accountable the scientists are. We also seem to rush into letting the genie out of the bottle without allowing time for any unintended consequences to emerge by which time the changes may be irreversible.

Reply #40. Feb 07 17, 5:47 AM

469 replies. On page 2 of 24 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

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