Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 10:41:25 -0400
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Alternative reality v SF
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

> omni at omniphile.com 4/29/2005 10:24:46 AM >>>
>At 09:26 AM 4/29/05 -0400, Michael Walsh wrote:
>>> drewbitt at yahoo.com 4/28/2005 7:48:31 PM >>>
>>>What I think is great is that the future *has*
>>>arrived, but it isn't in any way how we thought it
>>>would look.
>>
>>Science fiction as a predictor of the future has a fairly poor track
>>record.
>
>So does the national weather service, but that doesn't keep people
>from
>broadcasting the forecasts and actually making plans based on them.

Cute...

Hari Sheldon aside... the future is not knowable.  We can guess, we can
make vaguely educated guesses.  There aretoo many forks in the road, and
those are in deep shadows.

>People
>are just stupid most of the time I guess.  Probably one of the reasons

>the
>shiny version of the future didn't happen.
>
>Maybe SF authors need to factor in a larger dose of stupid when
>figuring
>out what will happen someday?

& in some cases books have, in a sense, prevented futures from
happening.  Orwell comes to mind.  Remember the Apple Mac advt?  "...why
1984 won't be like '1984'."

> I think they tend to assume too
>much that
>most people are as smart as they are and this is obviously untrue.
>Half
>the population has an IQ below 100 after all...and it shows.

I don't read SF for future predictions.  Better off with tea leaves...

mjw
>
>-- Mike B.
>--
>Trendy People Suck.