A Work in Progress

Panel: Laura Burns (M), David Brin, Gregory Benford, Joe Haldeman, Albert Jackson

An interesting panel that raised some good points, particularly if you want to write a story based on current knowledge and technology

My Notes

• Non-excluded magic — something that happens we didn't foresee
• A lot of science fiction is moving back into the solar system, so why don't we?
• Starting points:
• Experiments that are being done now by putting people in a tin can and seeing what they need to survive and how they adapt
• What do you need to end up with when you reach your destination
• The first starships will probably carry an AI
• We can get within a few % of light with technologies we know--we just have to build them big
• One other SLT (slower-than-light) technology is fusion
• Generation ships where stations become so self-sustaining that they just leave
• Comets, but you need a different species of human to live there
• Suspended animation: enabling technology is developing
• AI: goes to the asteroids, makes copies of itself and moves outward; it could fill the galaxy with copies of itself—within three million years (an eyeblink in astronomical time)
• How difficult it is to create a micro kilogram starship that can flash by a sun and collect data, wave a flag—very expensive, but a fraction of the cost of a full-blown human mission
• Exploring our own solar system should put us in better shape for interstellar flight
• The past two centuries really didn't start until their 14th year—that's next year
• What are we looking for?
• G-type stars with Earth-like planets
• What about the weird exceptions?
• The second-closet star to us (a brown dwarf) was discovered just last year
• Habitable worlds around brown dwarfs might be the largest population of habitable planets in our area
• Energy beamed from your home solar system
• Microwaves would be more effective than lasers
• If you can sustain acceleration, then a living person can see the stars
• 1g acceleration and you can reach Andromeda in 26 years, but the sweetheart you kissed goodbye—and it was good-bye
• Fusion is just another rocket—and you still have to carry the fuel
• Beings that live on the "roof" of the world
• The reason to think about starships now is to look at what steps we need to take in the next century
• You have to wonder, "Where the heck is everybody?"
• The closest it is we get to the stars, the weirder it is

Ramez Naam

This session was absolutely fascinating. The speaker was both entertaining and informative. Enough so that I made a point of purchasing his books later.

My Notes

• Most of the research today is for medical purposes
• One the earliest implementations was the cochlear implant
• It could eventually lead to telepathic cyborgs, but right now its usages are much more prosaic
• It's not fantasy to pump information into the human brain; it's technology
• Training time is down to less than an hour for some patients to control remote limbs with their brains
• Scientists have developed a chip to replace a damaged hippocampus (formation of long-term memories)
• Test rats ended up with "super memories"
• Prefrontal cortex implants (intelligence) more than correct functions (leading to the planet of the cyborg super apes?)
• Mostly today, our electronics are used to communicate
• Can we use this technology to transfer information between two different brains?
• Primary source of research might be medical; second is military
• Bridge data between two chips to see if the second rat can use the data from the first rat
• Neural dust
• Remote rats share information when implants are activated
• Remote professors share data
• Lower visual fidelity than normal
• This is your brain we're talking about
• Computers are perfect, right?
• Hacking and spam in your brain
• Hacking of medical devices is here now
• Check out his books Nexus and, soon, Crux

Panel: Tore Hoie (M), Lois McMaster Bujold, W. A. (Bill) Thomasson, Sam Scheiner

How can you arrange for your un-conceived child to inherit your possessions? What are the medical, ethical and legal implications of modern reproductive practices such as surrogate parenting, IVF after the male spouse is dead, and the use of sperm banks?

My Notes

• We already have the ability to screen embryos for genetic diseases. Soon, we'll be able screen for specific traits.
• What are the rights of surrogate mothers and the rights of adopted children?
• That's why we have lawyers
• We have egg donors now, not just sperm donors
• Technological advances bring decisions that didn't exist before
• We've had the capability to screen for certain genetic diseases for a while now, so there's been a shift in attitude toward the families who allow disabled children to be born
• On panelist offered this idea: It is not a baby until the woman carrying it decides whether or not to allow it to be born
• Is it a similar set of decisions for end of life?
• It's about making decisions for people who cannot
• A gene sequence has no ethical or moral rights
• Whether a specific genetic defect is dangerous can be context specific
• What sort of society are we? Want to be?
• What happens when the 1% get to have "better" children than everyone else? (They get to be the Guinea pigs for a change.)
• What happens when insurance companies are making the choice?
• It won't ever get simpler.
• When did we all decide that we can have everything we want?

I was recently going over some background notes for a novelette I originally wrote many years ago. I found it shocking to see just how little has changed—or perhaps come full-circle—in the years since those notes were written. Those notes posited a time in the future where the socio-political landscape of that time had continued down a dystopian path that provided the backdrop for the story. That period in future history is targeted is now.

What is most disturbing, I find, is the strength in which some of our political leaders cling to the past. The “old white men” of today often refer to that period of the past of some kind of golden era. It was, I suppose, for the wealthy and powerful, supported by a Republican political power base—which is what they want to return to today.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, as was repeated many times as scripture in Battlestar Galactica, “All this has happened before, and will happen again.” I hope, like they did, we realize the fallacy of this belief.

Part of what I also find interesting is that during that time period, technology has advanced in ways and uses that many science fiction authors had not foreseen. It is the human part of equation, unfortunately, that seems unchanged.

It’s actually unfair to brush all of humanity with such a broad stroke. Some progress has been made in several areas, but, as seen by the observations above, their hold is tenuous, bucked against by the wealthy and powerful—just, I suppose, as it has always been since the beginning of human culture.

I try to be optimistic for our future. I have to believe that, eventually, we will get our collective act together and, as Captain Picard told Lily Sloane in Star Trek: First Contact, “The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity.”

The alternative is a future too bleak and oppressive to consider.

Yet, as I examine it, the difference between that future and a bright, optimistic one lies on a razor-thin boundary. Sufficient force—and I suspect not very much of it, driven by social forces rather than military and political ones—can send us in either direction.

Okay, so this post is a little bit tardy. The month of the September was the time of Star Trek series premiere anniversaries. However, I could not let is pass unremarked upon, particularly considering the prolonged—and possibly evenly profound—impact that Star Trek has had on my life.

As the 45th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek approached, I began to wonder what kind of world we might live in today were it not for its creation. Even those who are not fans of any the series or films have been in some way touched by their impact, if not in a personal, then in more subtle cultural ones.

In no particular order of importance or attempt at categorization, I’m going to start with these:

• Would William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (or any of the other cast members from any of the series) be the celebrities they are today?
• Would we have known Patrick Stewart aside from the occasional Shakespeare production from across the Atlantic?
• Would some of the scientific and technological advances of the past 40-plus years taken the form they had were it not for the models and ideas that Star Trek popularized?
• Would there still be as large a group of people—fans and non-fans alike—who would have such fervent beliefs in a better future for humankind and a possible model for it?
• Would there have been Star Wars, Stargate, Babylon 5, or Battlestar Galactica?
• Would there have been another such unifying (and, occasionally, polarizing) phenomenon among science fiction fans?
• What might have replaced the catchphrases “He’s dead, Jim.”, “Beam me up, Scotty.”, “Long Live and Prosper”, and “Make it so!”

I could go on, probably for hours, but these are just some of those that have come to my mind as I consider the possible implications of the past 45 years of Star Trek.

To Star Trek, in all of its forms: Live Long and Prosper. Make it so!

I’ve been pondering the future of books.

Well, printed books, that is.

As much as some visions of the future might have us believe otherwise, I am no longer convinced that printed books are going to survive as a mass-market commodity. For those of you who know me, you’ll probably realize that this is a significant—perhaps even shocking—change in my opinion.

Even with all the changes in publishing and media distribution, I have trouble believing that books as an art form will go away. Long forms of fiction will continue. If anything, it should reopen the market for other short lengths of fiction (such as novellas and novelettes) that might otherwise have had trouble getting published or distributed.

There’s no denying the allure and impact of the eBook r/evolution. As much as I totally enjoy holding a printed book in my hands, I can completely understand the ease and simplicity of having them in digital form. Carrying around an entire book series on your Kindle or tablet is a lot easier than transporting them in your luggage.

There are going to be some people who will still want to feel paper beneath their fingers, and bindings beneath their palms, but I think they can be more than adequately served through print-on-demand services.

I was pondering this during the session at WorldCon, “Publishing in the Age of e-Books”. Someone asked the question about what would happen to getting authors to sign your books. One of the panelists responded by saying that he has them sign his Kindle and, when the back of it is full, he’ll get a new one. An interesting solution, but, I think, an ultimately unsatisfying one.

I’m not sure there’s quite the same satisfaction for book collectors of getting an author’s signature on a one-of-a-kind copy of a book that they got printed out at their local POD vendor. They’d have the autograph, sure, but the book itself might have no other unique value beyond that, as anyone else could print out a copy just like it.

Perhaps the next evolution in book collecting will come in the form of very limited print runs with the specific intent of being distributed with the author’s signature. It might also have a special layout or design that would not be available to the print-on-demand audience. I can see value in this.

I honestly don’t know. I can foresee current books becoming collectible antiques once they no longer become commonplace. And I dearly hope that the love of reading does not diminish as time passes.

What will the future bring?

I guess we’ll just have to turn the page of time and see . . .

This blog has been neglected for several months (not that anyone has noticed, I suspect). There are several reasons for this:

1. Although I created this blog as a means to express my personal opinions on matters, I had failed so far to find a sufficiently interesting slant that might be of interest to others. There are innumerable blogs espousing opinions on political, social, and corporate matters. While I could offer my perspective to that sea of words, the odds are that they would be lost in that ocean of voices.
2. Blogging on matters of writing alone feels a bit egotistical and self-serving with only one published book to my credit, and that one out of print.
3. I have no desire to use my blog as a public diary. My personal life is just that—personal. I have little wish to share its intimate details with the online masses, nor does my ego support the supposition that my day-to-day activities might be of even remote interest to anyone other than close friends and family (and that's even doubtful).

All that said, I found myself unable to simply delete this blog and move on. So, I tidied up a bit, dusted away the digital cobwebs, and added a fresh coat of paint.

We'll see what happens.

I offer this without comment . . .

Okay, so it's potentially hokey and many of you have probably seen it long before I did, but there's something about this that gives me hope for future of the human race:



I think the music is nice, too!