wa123

Several subthreads running now have reminded me of something I have often mused about. SF written in the past often is criticised for not conforming to modern sensibilities.  For having sexist or racist assumptions built in to at least the fictional society, if not in the writer's mind. This leads me to ask:   What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered moral monstrosities in the future? I don't mean things that are subjects of substantial controversy now, like gnu c*ntr*l, or the death penalty, or the endless arguements about economics, or the balance of the state vs the individual. I mean things that no one, or no one but some small numbers of extremists that almost everyone considers looneys, questions as obvious truths, or at least unavoidable necessities. Vegetarianism I'd consider borderline in this spectrum, for example. I mention this because the first book that always occurs to me in this area is Arthur C. Clarke's _The Deep Range_.  In TDR, set at least 100 years in the future, whales are herded, cared for, and slaughtered for food just like cattle are nowadays.  A Buddhist leader leads a large movement calling for an end to slaughtering whales for food for moral reasons. Clarke had another item in one of his later books about a great controversy on if smoking should be digitally removed from old movies for moral reasons. I'll toss out a couple of possibilites (but I'd be interested to see what other people's ideas are): Some basic aspect of child rearing now considered normal might be regarded grossly abusive (consider how perception of spanking has changed). People being required to work for a living at a disagreeable job. What if people were as fussy about getting just the right job as they are about getting the right spouse? People being allowed to be lonely or socially isolated. (This one has come up in various SF, usually as the pretext for a dystopia.) Animal rights. Anyway, that should do as a starter....

People being allowed to be lonely or socially isolated. (This one has come up in various SF, usually as the pretext for a dystopia.) That isn't entirely fiction. Educationalists sometimes use suppposed social isolation as an excuse to interfere with homeschoolers

What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered moral monstrosities in the future? Assuming a reasonably bright future: Stories in which immortality exists, but the state forces everyone to die by a certain age. A society of genuine immortals would be about as horrified by this as we would by a proposal to solve the population problem by decimating our population every now and then by UN mandate. Stories in which mood-altering substances are illegal (sorry, Doc ). People in the future will probably have direct volitional control over their emotional states, and will regard this with the bemusement that we regard the old English law requiring a man with a red flag to run in advance of motorized road vehicles. Stories in which full AI exists but the AI's are forced into a subordinate role. (Sorry, Keith Laumer). If we _don't_ turn into some sort of AI slave society, it'll be because we respected the rights of the AI's

: What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered : moral monstrosities in the future? : I'll throw one out: What about societies that appear from our point of view as repressive of individual rights but actually are _base_d on real differences? Saying anything further will bring the PCiegheil Nazis down but there are some cases in which we are forcing people into molds that don't fit for purely PC reasons. The one thing I can imagine readers in 60 years looking back and going oh, those slope-browed idiots! is many things that are currently considered the PC norm. John

: What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered : moral monstrosities in the future? I'll throw one out: What about societies that appear from our point of view as repressive of individual rights but actually are _base_d on real differences? Saying anything further will bring the PCiegheil Nazis down but there are some cases in which we are forcing people into molds that don't fit for purely PC reasons. The one thing I can imagine readers in 60 years looking back and going oh, those slope-browed idiots! is many things that are currently considered the PC norm. Depends on your definition of political correctness... For example, maybe libertarianism will be seen as callous and uncautionable refusal of social responsability by people who wouldn't be what you'd call PCiegel Nazis or anything like Puritans either. (It is with much sadness that I write this in a thread that succumbed so quickly to the fatal attraction described by Godwin's Law... May it survive an early NDE.)

What unconsidered elements in present day SF will be considered moral monstrosities in the future? Global warming. More an embarrassment than a monstrosity, really, but people who jumped under that bandwagon will be glad they're dead whn future critics start laughing at them. -j