From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sat 10 Jul 2004 - 20:47:54 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Doty" <gdoty@fidnet.com>
> I think the difference is that the common attitude attributes a kind of
> prophetic ability to the sf writer, whereas a memetic view sees the
> writer as a vector for memes that may or may not develop beyond the
> bounds of the fiction.
Gene, Keith and all...greetings,
The above may be true, and you could say that ( some) writers has
indeed an alibilty to forsee a future...but I think that is not the case.
What a writer will ever write will be in some future a truth, mentioning
water- beds as a possible future household attribute is not an ability
as such, but a fact of someone his imagination.
I can forsee people floating around in their private airships to avoid
daily traffic, and maybe in some future this will be the common way
by which we will go to our work, although the latter is changing
already, but is this something of my ability or of some personal
ability !? Analyses of trends within society and culture can give
you some clues in which way they will evolve and what will be
the new trend to follow, but forseeing and predicting the future,
no I doubt it ! And moreover, publicity agencies will box us
around with things we don 't want and which are accordingly
to those guys things we must have.
I see a lot in Holodeck- technology and I write and wrote,
with minor succes, about it possible applications, does that
makes me the next Nostradamus if my copies were to picked
up into the mainstream of society/ culture !?
Do bear my ideas any prophecy- element if the field with I
wish to contribute by is lacking the basic understanding of
what I am trying to say in the first place !?
Sexual- and childabuse are still constrained within our social
and cultural myths and we try at any price to maintain our ideas
about those things, moreover we try to protect ourselves against
the very painfull reality of our modern society and the inherent
treath of destruction that goes with it.
That means that we try, and the main thought within psychology
drags itself along these walls, to avoid to see evidence that tells
a complete different story as something that needs investigation
and further analyses.
To get people to believe that my contributions are facts of some
prophecy ability on my part we need more than a certain guarantee
of people who say that it does !
Regards,
Kenneth
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