Re: Fate of SF as World Slides Down Back Side of Hubbert's Curve?

On Mar 25, 9:39=A0am, "Kevin Cherkauer" <a...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> What happens to SF as it becomes clearer that the future will not be
more
> like Star Trek, but instead will be more like the past? Will newly
hatched=

> 14-yo boys lose interest in all that "futuristic space travel" stuff as
it=

> becomes more clear that:

Most SF I have read has had very little to do with futuristic space
travel as such. If that was the only trope that the genre flogged than
we all would have switched over to westerns or Mills and Boons long
ago. :)


>
> =A0 -- Humanity will never go to the stars (probably not even one human
> =A0 =A0 =A0will go to the stars)

Not in mine or your lifetime - maybe. But eventually, yes.


> =A0 -- Instead of more and more every year, we can start to expect less
an=
d
> =A0 =A0 =A0less

> =A0 -- Infinite progress is increasingly exposed as a fraying myth of
our
> =A0 =A0 =A0times, not really "how the universe actually works"

Hey, let's first end world hunger. Lots of work still remains to be
done before you start moaning about humanity having made all the
progress it is possible to make.


> =A0 -- The pace of scientific discovery, like the pace of everything,
star=
ts
> =A0 =A0 =A0showing that it too obeys the law of diminisihing returns
(whic=
h it
> =A0 =A0 =A0has already started doing)

Nope.

> =A0 -- Even CPUs have stopped doubling in clock speed every 18 months
>

So?

> Before we knew much about the planets in the Solar System, there was SF
> about aliens on those planets. After we learned how inhospitable these
are=

> to LAWKI, the SF switched to focus more on journies to distant stars,
> planets, galaxies, instead of the weekly Saturn run. Will the genre now
lo=
se
> its appeal altogether to the demographic that becomes new SF readers?
>

New writers need to reflect on the new realities. If you insist that
the genre is only about futuristic space ****p travel than that betrays
a sad poverty of imagination on your side.



> What happens to SF now when the new generation of kids are born into a
wor=
ld
> where going to the moon is something we "used to be able to do," but is
no=
w
> so far in the past as to be to them like ancient history, essentially in
t=
he
> same category as how we also "used to be able to" build monuments like
the=

> Great Pyramid?

Oh come on! I responded till here in good faith. Now I know you were
just trolling.