For an early example of doom laden yet fascinating sci fi, H.G. Wells “The Time Machine” comes to mind – hardly a work with a cheerful theme or intrinsic hope, still recognised as a seminal classic. Are we at the metaphoric stage of Morlochs and Eloi yet, or just about? We passed the scenarios of Brave New World and 1984 a few years back.

Pass the soma, I need to feel positive again whilst I wait Evolutionary changes through natural selection in human potential take millions of years – and there’s no guarantee given our current preponderance of lauding less admirable qualities over higher intellect and consciousness that those with the latter will survive to reproduce in sufficient numbers to ensure longterm evolutionary changes tend toward greater mental complexity and sanity.

Perhaps the human race would be better off dumbed down for a while at least? de-evolution might be the most promising scenario. Many of us seem to be smart without wisdom, acquisitive and irresponsible, competitive, not cooperative, wasteful, polluting – with trust in technology to dispose of our messes rather than learning control over our excesses. Once humans become too stupid to run the machines, perhaps we might evolve in a different direction next time, sharing the benefits of new technology more equitably?

Perhaps someone has written this scenario already – it vaguely reminds me of Orson Scott Card.

Science fiction should not be about freaky aliens, FTL drives and interstellar, hypergalactic wars – not that I don’t relish expertly given recipes containing elements of those. It should rather be about a more anthropocentric conceptualization maturing under the auspices of societal evolution. And this, in itself, entails a continuous amelioration of the characters involved, characters that are flesh and blood of the society nurturing them. It’s a give-take situation that perpetuates. The more, one individual of the formulae improves, the better, society incorporates the benefits and refines itself. In theory. Reality dictates otherwise, unfortunately proving how alarmingly uninfluential one individual can be to society as a whole.

But love drives hope onwards. It’s one of the shaping forces of character. Clive Barker knows:

One part of love is innocence
one part of love is guilt.
One part, the milk, that in a sense
is soured as soon as spilt.

One part of love is sentiment
one part of love is lust
one part is the presentiment
of our return to dust.

- Weaveworld

Unfortunately most of the people think of a future which will be only technologically advanced. It seems that people are getting used to isolate the rest of the parameters of their lives, somthing that the great Spinrad, as it is proved by his novels, wants to remind to all lovers or not of the SCI-FI.
I totally understand his concerns.

As I said, Zaf, I haven’t been able to place, or even verify, the quote. Anyway, I’ve always felt that Spinrad’s thinking (not always his prose) is timeless.

Interesting stuff, Philos, thanks for the heads up (and the praise). Funniest bit in the AT article:

“Earlier this year, I predicted the coming Roomba insurrection. Start stockpiling ammunition now, because it’s only a matter of time before those evil little circular dust busters figure out that the best way to keep the house clean is to dispose of the filthy flesh-bags that make it messy in the first place”

And the serious, important bit:

until testing, bug fixing, user interfaces, usefulness and basic application by subject-matter experts is given a higher priority than pure programmer skill, we are totally in danger of evolving into an out-of-control situation with autonomous technology

There are many shades of “out of control”, of course, not nessecarily just a Skynet or Maximum Overdrive-like scenario. But you’re right as well: we keep focusing on the extraneous and the superficial.

PS: What’s with the Star Trek fixation in the AT article? As if these themes haven’t been exhaustively explored in SF literature, or even other other genre media (SF movies, SF comics, SF games, Babylon 5…)

I think that you are wrong. Even if Love is the only thing that provides for a reason for humankind to stay alive, I do not think that there is something different today than from other eras’/

Even if there are possible and plausible predictions or promises from many fields today, consider for example the 60´s or 70′s when the same future predictions or projections failed to materialze. We as a species seem to keep falling short of everything we need and predict and hope for the future. But I think that this is inherent in the human condition I mean , we are programmed to fail. So why not have a good time doing just that , fail?