Long Straight Highway (redux) » sci-fi http://www.longstraighthighway.com amusements for gentlemen and scholars Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:54:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 This goes a long way toward explaining everything http://www.longstraighthighway.com/2008/10/04/this-goes-a-long-way-toward-explaining-everything/ http://www.longstraighthighway.com/2008/10/04/this-goes-a-long-way-toward-explaining-everything/#comments Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:09:02 +0000 shanusmagnus http://www.longstraighthighway.com/?p=547 You’ve seen the strange clusters so often you don’t wonder anymore why they’re strange. For instance: why do people who think government should be small get fighting mad at the implication that humans have caused global warming? And why do libertarians inevitably have beards? Or at least some kind of weird facial hair that looks super retarded, but they think it looks super cool?

The world is full of those mysteries.

If you’ve wondered any of those things, or a host of other things, like what Artificial Intelligence is or might be, how humans might be enhanced by technology and how that might affect society, and, in the very large view, how modern life is mutating under technological onslaught, if any of this piques your curiosity I can heartily endorse this book, by Vernor Vinge and a host of essayists:

In re-reading this I see that I’ve completely mis-characterized the book. Well, you fucking try it: it’s a book about technology and culture and what happens when you start connecting people together. Except that sounds dry and boring and if you’ve retained any vestige of intellectual curiosity the book is neither.

Now I sound antagonistic. God damn it. Just read the book. On the new rating system, where I not only take note of _when_ I finished a book, but also rate it from 1 to 5, this book garnered the first five.

On a related note, a popular cliche has been floating around since the dawn of time that says: science fiction is about predicting the future. The slightly-less-but-still-cliched response is that science fiction isn’t about predicting the future, it’s about predicting the present. Well, if anyone ever asks you for the author most gob-smackingly superb at predicting both the present and the future make sure you direct that person to Vernor Vinge.

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