Sterile Does Not Equal Peaceful

You know how, in bad science fiction movies, everyone seems to be wearing plastic and tinfoil uniform jumpsuits? Maybe that was a more apt metaphor for the direction of our world than it seemed at the time (or that the filmmakers intended, consciously). I say "metaphor" because rather than a prediction that people would actually dress like that, maybe the art designers were subconsciously reflecting the direction in which they felt the world moving in terms of its mood.

Cold. Metal. Plastic. 

Ray Bradbury, in an interview many years ago, said he was out to "prevent the future." Near the end of his life, when asked about that, he said, "they didn't listen to me."

It feels to me like we are distilling everything; attempting to move toward a perfection of social interaction that we can never achieve and that we are attempting this by sterilizing every dynamic of human intercourse. 

I am empathetic to the idea of trying to create Utopia. Really. But, if Utopia means the total absence of varied viewpoints; of natural sexual dynamics; or, if it means that the average (groupthink-oriented) mind is going to continue to try to "interpret" the statements of others and find within those interpretations evil thoughts, I don't want to live in it.

When Everything's Smooth

When everything's smooth...
 

...can't it all shatter under the force of a rough, hard-thrown, earth-clumped stone?

 Or, am I just hoping too hard?

Big Food

Today, my students, in a class called "Literature of Science Fiction and Fantasy," began an annual project: "The Sci-fi Invention Project. " What they have to do is to come up with an invention -- a machine of some kind -- that solves a social problem. I've gotten glasses that prevent racism; I've gotten machines that stop drunks from driving; I've gotten anti-obesity devices, anti-stupidity hats, force-fields for preventing street violence and the like.

I've also gotten a lot of machines meant to end world hunger. These devices often have to do with syntheses that result in food.

"Ions" come into play, a lot. And various waves named with Greek letters.

Well, the gist of the assignment is that the year is 2038 and the inventor has to present his or her invention to the class, which plays the part of "NECSI" -- the Neo-Earth Committee for Societal Improvements. The inventor's goal is to convince NECSI to send the invention proposal to the President, in the Green House (the name was changed, for obvious reasons, some time in the 2020s).

The Way-Forward Machine

By combining a lot of clock-springs, some cogs and some torn-up poems with a quirky melange of sprockets, love letters, campfire scents, tunes played on bells and crumpled appointment notes and by mounting these things on a metallic scaffold dotted with some shiny buttons and containing a screen that constantly prints and deletes an impressive series of deucedly latinate words, I have created a machine for entering the future. The problem is that this it is a subjective and preferential machine.

See, it only takes the young on journeys and, then, only to their dream careers. What it does is it drops teenagers smack into the middle of their projected desires. It allows them to experience said desire for one month. Thus, they can spend that month as a rock star; as a research scientist; as a novelist, as a doctor; as a priest; as a dancer; as a professional skate-boarder; as a housewife; as a wealthy writer of sonnets; as a tribal chief; a reporter or a linguist . . . anything they can conjure -- any career they wish.

For one month, they can see what it is going to be like.

Clanks and Pings

I remember watching The Jetsons as a kid. I also remember picking up the message about the direction of technology that the creators built into the Jetsons' lifestyle. Mostly, I remember thinking how unnecessary some of it was. Couldn't they walk? They needed conveyor belts for everything? Robots had to dress them? Of course, this is all part of the cliched fear of the mechanized age. It's how the Eloi became so frail. It's why we imagine aliens with huge heads and weak limbs. Someday, the writers imply, technology will do everything for us. Ridiculous, right?

This weekend, I was with my sons at a neighborhood kid's birthday party. He had it at a place called "Funplex." (What ever happened to names like "Mister Licorice's Candy Drop Mountain? [long pause ] What?) It is a wonderland of technological fun -- go carts, video games. The works.