Catastrophes and Fiction Writing

The annual ChessieCon was held virtually this past weekend. One session explored how catastrophic events influence literature. The panelists mentioned works of fiction inspired by real-life disasters, whether sudden and traumatic or longer-term "slow catastrophes," and discussed the ramifications of choosing to compose stories about such events. Authors may write about characters caught up in the real-world event itself, a science-fiction scenario that transforms the actual situation into speculative terms, or a near-future society that reflects the ongoing effects of the catastrophe.

They considered some advantages and disadvantages of making art out of contemporary catastrophes. Pro: It's a way to form a deep emotional connection with the audience. A story that mirrors the trauma and anxieties of the present time can feel immediate and believable. Moreover, SF and fantasy can, of course, offer a fresh perspective on events that may seem overwhelming if faced straight-on. Con: Authors may find themselves writing the same kinds of stories as everybody else inspired by the same event. A story about a pandemic, for instance, may get lost among hundreds flooding the market at the same time. Another potential pitfall is the accusation of exploiting a grave crisis for personal gain by writing fiction about it.

Literature, of course, has always reflected the catastrophes and traumas of its time. C. S. Lewis, in an essay about the impact of the King James Bible on English literature, points out the difference between influences and sources. One can hardly understand many of the great English classics without knowing the biblical stories they mine for sources. The influence of biblical prose on the style of later writers, on the other hand, isn't nearly so widespread, if only because "Bible language" stands out so obviously. Likewise, disasters, whether natural or human-caused, supply fiction with endless sources of material. "Influence," as I conceive it, refers to a more subtle, indirect effect that pervades the cultural atmosphere even when not explicitly mentioned. Many early twentieth-century authors were influenced by World War I in both senses of the term, whether they wrote war fiction or not. Hemingway wrote war stories, but he also wrote about characters living with the social and psychological aftereffects of the war. Those effects show up in genres where you might not expect them, such as Lord Peter Wimsey's posttraumatic stress (as we'd call it now) in Dorothy Sayers's detective novels. The recent Great War shadows the background of the literature of the period.

In the 1950s and 60s, many science fiction works explored nuclear war and its aftermath, such as ALAS BABYLON, ON THE BEACH, and Heinlein's FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD. A bit later, pollution became a dominant theme. For instance, I own an old paperback about which I've forgotten everything except the title, THE SEA IS BOILING HOT. Nowadays, numerous authors confront the potential short-term and long-term effects of climate change. After the 9-11 attacks, most TV series continued their story arcs (if any) in an alternate present wherein the attacks were never mentioned. A few, though, incorporated the aftereffects of the catastrophe into their plotlines, such as NCIS and a series about firefighters and police officers in New York City. NCIS and its spinoffs continue to inhabit a world where terrorism remains an ever-present concern. As far as "influence" is concerned, most fiction set in the present day or near future takes for granted an environment of security checks at airports and our country's perpetual involvement in anti-terrorism campaigns.

A striking example of the long-term cultural influence of a "slow catastrophe" appears in "Thoughts and Prayers," by Ken Liu, reprinted in THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY 2020, edited by Diana Gabaldon. This story combines our society's free-floating anxiety about mass murder rampages with the total devastation of privacy made possible by the internet, in the harrowing experience of a family whose teenage daughter has been killed in a school shooting. Aside from some near-future computer technology that doesn't yet exist but can easily be imagined as realistic, there's nothing in this story that couldn't happen right now.

One downside (in my opinion) of including acute catastrophic current events in fiction wasn't mentioned by the panel. If a writer incorporates such material into a story while the disaster is either ongoing or fresh in memory, it almost has to dominate the work. That's fine if the story is "about" the crisis itself or the protagonist's confrontation with an aspect of it. What if you're writing about some other dimension of a character's life with the disaster looming in the background, though? After the disaster recedes from current events into recent history, the story becomes dated. That's why I haven't mentioned the pandemic or its societal effects in my recent fiction. The three pieces I've had published last year and this year, as well as the novella I'm finishing at the moment, fall into the light paranormal romance subgenre. Allusion to the present crisis would throw those stories completely off balance. Also, it would "date" them in a way I don't want. Assuming our current plight won't last forever, I chose to set my stories in an alternate present where the pandemic doesn't exist, so that if anyone happens to read them (let's say) two years from now, they'll still feel contemporary.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 10 - How To Marry An Alien Billionaire

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration 

Part 10

How To Marry An Alien Billionaire

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous Parts in this 4-way integration of skills series are indexed here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

Applying 4 (really hard, abstract, mysterious and spiritual) skills at the same time is a job for the well oiled subconscious.  These blogs apply that oil.   

For the most part, when a writer "has an idea" -- all this "integration" work has already been done by the subconscious. Learning to write novels is the process of training the subconscious to "integrate" all these elements before telling you to write the story. 

Once the subconscious has done the integration, it believes it has done it all wonderfully well, regardless of how inappropriate the result may be.  That is why writers who first begin submitting to large commercial publishers get back arcane, incomprehensible, and just plain utterly WRONG, demands for changes.  The subconscious has finished, knows it is correct, believes in its work, and refuses to make such wrong changes.

The subconscious knows the editor does not love it, and very likely its owner (the writer) does not really love it either.  Subconscious, which does all the work for the writer, can be sullen and stubborn if rebuked by an editor demanding changes.

Most beginning writers are bewildered by such demands because they feel like rejections.  Even an outright rejection letter tagged with an encouraging P.S. on the boiler plate note of rejection does not convince subconscious it has been understood and loved.

To hit the large commercial fiction market, a work has to conform to a number of parameters -- all moving parts of an artistic composition -- that make it "marketable."

Science Fiction, which is the genre we are blending with Romance here, arose from a group of writers who -- just like the "self-publishing" writers of today -- walked to the beat of a different drummer.

For many decades, Science Fiction was boring or ridiculous to the bigger readerships Manhattan publishers had to reach. 

Very few editors or readers had the education to understand the science -- which was inserted as expository lumps -- never mind the made-up science explained in those expository lumps.  The real key to the Science Fiction readership was simply to understand that the story (plot and all) arose from a questioning of "real" science.

All the readers were assumed to know the real-world-science being used, and being challenged with a "What if...?"

What if you could go faster than the speed of light?  What premise of current science has to be proven wrong in order to accomplish that?

Well, at that time (the 1930's) every science educated person knew a set of facts taught in High School.  Research the history of science today, and you will find (if you know current science) that almost everything taught in High School at that time has been proven wrong.

Electrons do not circle nuclei in orbits.

The atom is not the smallest indivisible component of matter.

Our solar system is nowhere near unique.

Quarks, Black Holes, Quasars, and the Higgs Boson were not mentioned because the math didn't include them.

Yes, in the development of science, usually math comes first -- math is the language of science, and to write science fiction romance, you really have to know your math.

Science fiction depicted many ways to go faster than light, get to other stars, explore other planets -- each presented different premises that defied the known science of their day.  Some of the science fiction writers of 1930-1970 have now been proven correct.  Some have simply been proven to have spotted the premise that was not true -- but not extrapolated what is actually true (by today's understanding of the universe, tomorrow is another matter entirely.)

In the 1960's to 1990's another breed of science fiction writer arose -- the Sociological Science Fiction genre inventors.

These writers questioned the premises then taught in universities as "the truth" of "settled science" and built fantasy worlds based on ideas about how our understanding of "what is human" and "what government works for humans" was flat out wrong.

Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson are two leading names.

Ursula LeGuinn added many unseen dimensions to exploring social constructs -- revealing what Poul Anderson taught his writing students -- all society is rooted in and driven by the power of gender.

Poul Anderson created his aliens from animal species found on Earth, extrapolating what such a type of reproductive drive would produce for a society of a star-spanning civilization.

Also from the 1960's on, we had writers like Katherine Kurtz -- even Tolkien -- founding the new genre of Adult Fantasy.

By "Adult" here is not meant the current must-have-monkey-sex scenes, but rather Adult in the sense of taking up the life-issues of grown up people rather than the "talking animal" issues of children's fantasy.

So Adult Fantasy became about worlds where Magic is real, where threats are invasions from another dimension, Heros defend a way of life from such supernatural invaders.

Adult Fantasy of Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series were sociological-religious-Fantasy -- where a breed of human, the Deryni, had both ESP and real-magical-powers.  The Deryni were rejected for their abilities by the dominant religion, and created their own religion based on that dominant religion -- the novels talk around the concept of "The Church" of the Middle Ages, but it is very similar.

So religion and ESP were tackled head-on as social constructs.

The Deryni novels are all about who will be King.  The economic structure is based on typical Fantasy ideas of an entire government and economy modeled after the real-world year 1000 - plus or minus a couple centuries.

What would today be like if the Deryni Kings had held sway through the Dark Ages, and piloted human society into the Enlightenment?

Those modern day novels in the Deryni series have not, as far as I know, been written.

But many writers today are exploring the Unseen Worlds, Magic Is Real, or Defend From Intruding Demons, worlds that are so fascinating and scary.

Some such fantasy is pure horror - at least from some people's point of view.

Some seems to appeal on the level of, "I'd go live there if I could."

One version of the attractive Fantasy World arose in the Vampire Romance -- where a human woman would fall in love with a Vampire, and he with her, and they would attempt to solve his problem of killing humans for their blood.

All these worlds, and variations on them, have been explored at great length.  Much imaginary science has been invented to support the sociological discussion about human nature -- most of that imaginary science is not based on real-world science being systematically (scientifically) challenged, the way early science fiction writers challenged the unquestioned beliefs of science textbooks of that day.

Many writers with ideas about how Relationships might work out to a Happily Ever After ending just plunge into writing their stories based on an impression they have derived from reading many Fantasy Novels.

There's nothing wrong with this commercially!  What your intended readership wants, loves, responds to, (or ignores and doesn't care about) is relevant to what story you are telling about what Characters.

Copying what academics call the trope that has become popular is a way to sell a lot of books - and that is the goal.

But there are vast areas of human society that have remained untouched, and could make grand new ingredients in those worn out tropes.

Science Fiction started with modifying scientific "laws" to allow for Faster than Light travel to explore Alien Planets.

Then Fantasy writers challenged "science" -- with the idea that there are other dimensions to reality that science does not (can not) describe.

Ghosts are real.  Zombies can happen,  Vampires have to be dealt with. Telepaths exist.  Psychokinesis works.  The Russians were reported to be spending money on research into Clairvoyance - Far Viewing to spy on American defense plans, was that Fantasy or Science Fiction?

And of course, UFO nuts still promulgate conspiracy theories -- guess what, 2017 revealed the USA was spending millions investigating UFO's.

So where is a Fantasy writer to go to find an accepted idea, premise, or theory that can be refuted?  What difference do you base your Worldbuilding upon that will, in 50 years, be proven correct?

Look at the world of 2018 -- all around the globe -- and cut away the noise and chatter, the politics and nonsense.  You see a world in the grip of a number of very hot Religious Wars.  And even war to extinguish all Religion as superstition, hypocrisy or outright lies told to gain control of "the masses."

Now look at the world from another direction, and you see a world where the entire concept of "the masses" is being systematically dissolved away.

Google, Microsoft, Apple, -- Artificial Intelligence, Social Networking -- all of the emergent technologies are groping for control of "Big Data."  People are handled as individuals, each unique, but composed of standardized units of information (name, address, date of birth, facial recognition, fingerprint, credit rating).  Fill in each field in the form with standardized information blocks, and the resulting form is a unique composite -- an Identity.

Identity Theft has run rampant when the sociological assumption behind all the governments of the world (including the U.N.) is that government exists to control "the masses."  The assumption is that there is no such thing as "an individual" or an "Identity."  People move in masses, and all the ones with the same "label" are identical to one another (interchangeable) -- Black, White, Muslim, North Korean, Chinese -- we are our labels, not ourselves.

So we are a civilization that has been founded on governing masses by whatever force necessary, now in transition to a civilization founded on independent movement of unique individuals.  Will that transition continue to completion, or reverse itself?  How many Billionaires can this planet hold?

Yeah, that sounds  ridiculous, but look with your writer's glasses on.  Look at China and the culture that embraced Communism because they even name their children putting family name first, then personal name.

The Group is your Identity - not your personal or individual name.

That tension between Group and Individual is built into humanity.

Astrologically, it is First House opposite Seventh House -- the individuality of First House is inside you, but the Spouse/Public/Partner is ALSO inside you.  That is the portrait of the Natal Chart we all share - every one of us has a First House and a Seventh House, and we all have them in opposition-tension.

Individually, few of us could survive, never mind thrive.  In fact, most all "apes" (the animal family we sort of belong with) live in "tribes" and develop a Group survival strategy.

So, as humans, food, clothing, shelter, reproduction, raising the young, etc. all the basics of life depend on our Group affiliation.

But Groups have Structures, and even Great Ape communities have bosses, dominants, go-along-to-get-along, and humans periodically look around and declare, "We have to get organized!"  Groups don't function to survive without being organized.

So for thousands of years, some humans have spent their lives studying Organizations -- how to organize humans, how to make an organization work, which organization structure is superior to the neighbor's organization (Communism, vs. Socialism, vs. Capitalism).

Humans study animals, and that seems to work -- we seem to be able to make sense of animals and predict their behavior.  From the first spear-carrying human, we have relied on understanding animals to hunt them for food.  We can predict animal behavior.

But humans studying humans has not been all that successful, up until Public Relations became a science by applying math to human behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations

Public Relations dubs "the masses" as "the public."  These are all the people you don't know personally, but have to deal with as if they are all identical (e.g. the masses.)

There are many applications of these predictive assumptions, many of which have gone unquestioned for decades (longer than most practitioners of public relations have been alive).  Advertising is one such application.

The predictive assumptions have gone unquestioned because they have worked -- they have worked, gangbusters!

Most of Economics as taught in universities and applied using government, regulation and law, is obviously wrong.

Much math is being applied and much psychology -- all of it targeted at predicting and thus controlling human behavior on the survival level.

Ultimately, economics is about getting enough food, clothing, shelter, sex, and satisfaction, in spite of all the forces arrayed against you.

The phrase, "Dog eat dog world" -- applies today.  It is how basic humans behave.

"Standard Economic Theory" assumes people act rationally.

What if your Aliens actually acted Rationally?

Could your human Character fall in love with someone who was totally rational?

Well, look at the success Gene Roddenberry had selling the American woman on how sexy Spock is - even Sarek!  Of course, in his heart, Roddenberry did not think of Spock as really (actually, provably) rational.  Logic is not the same as rationality, is it?

Logic requires a Helenistic view of the Universe, which is based on an "either/or" or zero-sum-game choice.  Public Relations is the root of "Game Theory" -- which pits one side against the other, to produce a winner.

All through human history, survival has been a winner-take-all, either/or issue.

Maybe Artificial Intelligence, or some new application of the communications facility of the Internet will change what it takes to survive, and thus change all economic theory of humanity.

One of my hobbyhorses here has been solving the Energy problem.  Fossil fuels work, obviously - and kill us, obviously.  Energy is necessary for individual and group survival, but getting it and using it kills us all.

Allan Cole, in his Sten Series,
https://www.amazon.com/Sten-9-Book-Series/dp/B071992Q6C/

postulated an anti-matter driven galactic civilization.

Isaac Asimov predicted getting our energy from an adjacent universe (but they fought back against the theft).  Star Trek postulated an anti-matter drive.  So far, we haven't got that -- but Nuclear Fusion (far cleaner than Nuclear Fission) might be within reach.  An abundant energy source that doesn't kill us (even the smoke from caveman fires killed), would change the entire definition of "economics."

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/iter-nuclear-fusion-reactor-halfway-complete/

---------quote-----------
Earlier this month, the director-general of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) announced that construction of the project had reached the halfway point. It’s an important milestone for the multi-billion-dollar facility being constructed in southern France. The goal is to begin generating plasma, an essential component of nuclear fusion reactors, by 2025.

ITER (Latin for “Way”) is a partnership of 35 countries, all hoping to share in the scientific rewards. “This gives us confidence as we face the remaining 50 percent,” Dr. Bernard Bigot of ITER told the journal Live Science.
-------------end-quote---------

Note the size of the financing, location and staffing.  Note the source of funding.  Also note, they do not yet have a way of producing as much energy as it costs to run such a fusion plant, so it isn't an abundant-clean source of energy to run the planet (yet).

But what if Aliens arrived who knew how to do this fusion trick?  Would we reject them because it puts the lie to our beliefs about the structure of reality?  Embarrasses academics or politicians?  After all, humans were in charge of the Roman government that thought it was a good idea to crucify the guy they thought was the Jewish Messiah (mostly because he was gaining political klout).

THEME: Is there anything humans wouldn't do to defend beliefs?

Maybe it will take a first encounter with Aliens (and yes, a love affair) to change how human society organizes around economics.

THEME: If you want to know what's really going on, follow the money.

Right now, the field of Economics is split (just like the current global religious wars) around two belief systems derived from two Nobel Prize Winners in Economics, each of which did an amazing job of following the money.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/milton-friedman.asp

---------quote----------
Milton Friedman was an American economist and statistician best known for his strong belief in free-market capitalism. During his time as professor at the University of Chicago, Friedman developed numerous free-market theories that opposed the views of traditional Keynesian economists.
--------end quote------

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keynesianeconomics.asp
-------quote-------

Keynesian economics was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes during the 1930s in an attempt to understand the Great Depression. Keynes advocated increased government expenditures and lower taxes to stimulate demand and pull the global economy out of the depression.

------end quote------

Both concepts are being hybridized, just as Science hybridized with fiction to produce science fiction and romance hybridized with science fiction to produce science fiction romance.

But maybe these economists adding modern data-science and psychology and brain/nervous system studies and so on to these two theories are missing something?

Maybe some predictive-fantasy writer might nail that something by worldbuilding an Alien Interstellar Civilization around a THEME that encompasses human behavior (seeking survival) and yet points out where the belief systems of Award Winning Genius Scientists (which both Friedman and Keynes were) are actually flat out wrong?

That's how science fiction themes form the foundation of worldbuilding.  "What do we know for a fact is true, that we base all our very successful actions on, but is actually not true?"

Science fiction plots are built on 3 question:

"What If ...?"
"If only ...?"
"If this goes on ..."

Science Fiction Characters are built on, "What does he know that I don't know?"

Aliens know things they believe are true, that belie what humans know and believe.

Characters build worlds.

Worldbuilding is not done by the writer -- but by the writer's Characters.

Your human finds a crashed space ship with a barely living Alien crawing out of the wreckage.

Which one's "beliefs" will be proven wrong?  Maybe both?

Are they "rational" -- within the contexts of their own worlds?

Does "logic" transcend their social worlds, as a "hard science" - a "cold equations" situation?

In the 1940's science fiction tropes, the alien in the crashed space ship is an explorer or military scout (The Day The Earth Stood Still, Starman).

What if, in today's sociological/fantasy trope the Alien is a Billionaire in his own civilization -- the top of the top of the economic ladder in his world?

Maybe in his world there is no ladder and everyone wields enough wealth to be an autonomous Power in their own right?

Would complete economic independence from all others of your species make you asocial -- a loner, a maverick, not a member of the tribe?

Would such a loner, totally independent of others of his species for sustenance and success, not supervised by "government regulations" and not "ruled" by an aristocracy, not taxed, not bound by family honor, just an independent individual be a Romantic Interest?

Is Independence sexy?

How many good Romance novels have you read about marrying "up" -- to higher status, money, social prominence -- to gain happiness?

From Pygmalion to Meghan Markle's Royal Wedding -- is it money, status, power, that causes happily ever after?  Or is it changing your mind about something you don't even know you believe?  Does it rain in Spain's mountains?

The theme generates the Character, the world they come from and the world they go to during the Plot -- and the theme generates the plot, too.

Theme is the basis of all fiction.  Theme is what the story says about "life, the universe and everything."

If your theme says, "Something you (the reader) are absolutely certain about is in fact wrong," then you very likely have a science fiction story to tell.

The art behind this type of fiction, the challenge to common beliefs, is a work painted from shades of cognitive dissonance.

For example, if your Main Character is absolutely certain there can be no other kinds of people than humans, then your opening scene is the moment that Main Character meets a person who is not human.

If your Main Character believes there is no way in all creation for a space ship to go faster than light or travel back in Time -- well, he's the Air Force pilot who sees the Enterprise dipping into Earth's atmosphere, has his plane break apart, and gets beamed aboard.

The opening moment of How To Marry An Alien Billionaire has to redefine "Billionaire" using something that disproves both Friedman's theory of economics and Keynes's theory. 

To find that opening event (something dramatic, symbolic, visual, like the 1929 Market Crash featuring Stock Traders jumping out of skyscraper windows) -- read this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/17/heretics-welcome-economics-needs-a-new-reformation

------------quote-----------
Keen and those supporting him (full disclosure: I was one of them) were making a simple point as he used Blu Tack to stick their 33 theses to one of the world’s leading universities: economics needs its own Reformation just as the Catholic church did 500 years ago. Like the medieval church, orthodox economics thinks it has all the answers. Complex mathematics is used to mystify economics, just as congregations in Luther’s time were deliberately left in the dark by services conducted in Latin. Neoclassical economics has become an unquestioned belief system and treats anybody who challenges the creed of self-righting markets and rational consumers as dangerous heretics.

------end quote--------------

Note the use of language like "reformation" "orthodox thinking" and "heretic" -- these word choices are not accidental.  This article pointing out the failure of previously revered economics is explaining how authority promulgates belief systems until they become not only self-perpetuating but permeated with self-fulfilling prophecies.



Things are happening on Earth, among human societies today that belie the most cherished, heart-felt beliefs -- religious beliefs, and everything we put in place of religion and every mis-use of religion.

Faith itself, as a human cognitive function, is being challenged.  Note: Fake News.

When has "News" ever not been "Fake?"  The Bards sang songs of Grand Battles -- hardly a word being true, except there was a fight and lots of people died, this side won and that side lost -- (and even THAT might not be really true).

But we believe.

We take on faith.

We govern ourselves by rumor.

We discount "official sources."  We believe our neighbors when they relate rumors because we know someone who knows someone it happened to.

We, as humans, believe what we experience is true.

Do your Aliens share that propensity?

To create an Alien Romance, you need to identify what the couple has in common with each other, and use that as the affinity that "Conquers All."

Then you must identify the obstacle to their founding an HEA together.

Then you must show-don't-tell how Love itself, a universal force that is a property of reality throughout all creation, conquers "all."

Whatever the obstacle, however long and complex the path from initial cognitive dissonance moment to the HEA, show how Love provides the energy.

Take today's worldwide religious war -- how does Love conquer that?

Ordinarily, people fight and kill each other until someone wins and someone gives up (and/or dies).  The winner is proclaimed "right" and the loser or dead side is "wrong."  The fight is about WHO IS RIGHT, and never a word or issue about WHAT IS RIGHT.

Any dispute among humans can be settled by killing the opposition -- even if only metaphorically, overpowering by brute twitter-storm.

But what if Aliens didn't settle disputes that way?

What if the academic dichotomy now applied to our political world of Friedman vs Keynes was viewed by the Aliens as silly because neither is correct.  How would an Alien mediate such a dispute between two Economists, and persuade both of them to give up the panoply of beliefs each holds so dear they don't even know they are beliefs, not facts?

Would a human, watching that Alien argue, fall in love?  What would the human do?

Or take another dispute that's boiling over in our world -- take Israel vs. The Palestinians.  Or take North Korea vs. the USA.  Or Britain vs. The E.U.

It is human to rely -- to the death -- on a belief.

How do you persuade a human to doubt those beliefs?

LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

I'm not the only one who sees and understands the world through Love Conquers All.  It is a favorite hobbyhorse topic on chabad.org, and I subscribe to a Whatsapp daily bit of wisdom they send out.

One tiny capsule of wisdom that came in 2017 was a summation of a process I have seen work on humans over and over again in a wide variety of contexts.

I think it might seem plausible if you wrote an Alien it worked on, or who worked it on your human Main Character.

It is in that graphic at the top of this post.  No one listens to rebuke unless they believe that you love them.

I saw it used in a Hawaii 5-O episode where a terrorist captive was being questioned to little avail, but Steve McGarrett reversed the strategy and treated the terrorist as a human being -- water, food, time to pray, clean clothes.  He was rebuked by authority for this tactic, but did not accept what authority decreed (torture works).

Authority has never loved Steve McGarrett -- so he never accepts such decrees unless he's woefully out-gunned.  Then he beats a strategic retreat and lives to fight another day.

Rebuke is a tool of love.  In any other hands, rebuke is counter-productive.

Here's the Quote from chabad.org  Whatsapp.

--------quote--------
It's #ThoughtfulThursday!

Here is something to think about all day long:

Rebuke

No one listens to rebuke unless they believe that you love them.

By the time Moses returned to the scene, his people had hit an all-time low. They worshipped idols, spoke slanderously of each other, and had wandered very far from the path of their forefathers. Perhaps he should have told them off, saying, “Repent, sinners, lest you perish altogether!”

But he didn’t. Instead, he told them how G‑d cared for them and felt their suffering, how He would bring about miracles, freedom and a wondrous future out of His love for them.

As for rebuke, Moses saved that for G‑d. “Why have You mistreated Your people?!” he demanded.

If you don’t like the other guy’s lifestyle, do him a favor, lend him a hand. Once you’ve brought a few miracles into his life, then you can urge him to chuck his bad habits.

--------end quote-----------

Think about that quote.  How easy to turn an idealistic thesis into a tactic for controlling people - into a Power Grab.  Do something for a person, give them something they want or think they want, THEN contradict (rebuke) their most cherished belief and they will accept what you say.  E.G. bribery works.

Think about Keynesian theory -- the government takes wealth that someone makes, and gives it (as if it belonged to the government because the government made it and is generous) to someone (of the masses) who wants it.  Then the government tells the recipient anything the government wants the recipient to believe.

In other words, "the government" is the origin of the only forces in the world that allow humans to survive.

Now think using Friedman's idea -- there exists a force circulating among individuals that causes wealth to be created.  That force (the free market) can overturn governments, reward and punish individuals, -- a force of Nature like the ocean, to be reconned with but not stopped.

Government can build sea-walls, and maybe submarines with torpedos, but government can not stop the market.  The market will be free even if it kills all humans.

There is an old adage (you do know how much I love adages, the more cliche the better): If you've got a tiger by the tail, there is only one thing to do: swarm aboard and ride it.

That tiger is the Free Market that Keynes had seen destroy (1929) his world.  We saw it again in 2007 with the Housing Crash, mortgage fraud, international monetary fraud, and the collapse of the international banking system (because by then computers, the internet, and global markets were emerging as Artificial Intelligence is today.)

Periodically, the Free Market self-destructs, and maybe next time will take us all with it.

THEME: Given the size and nature of the Market "Ocean" with currents, monster storms, unfathomable depths, we must either build a true Titanic Economic Vessel, or stop the ocean currents and storms from circulating (using government or magic).

THEME: There does not exist any such thing as a "Market" -- it is a figment of human imagination.

THEME: humans can be "happily ever after" only if they keep shedding out-worn beliefs (such as "The Market" is "Free.")

THEME: No human can be sovereign, an individual, independent and rational.

THEME: Identity can not be stolen.

THEME: There is no such thing as "the masses."

THEME: Humans don't need to "be governed."

THEME: Humans need to govern others to be happy.

THEME: No human can survive long without a government (support group, tribe, family).

THEME: Money is not the root of all Evil; Envy is.

THEME: There is no such thing as "The Market."

How do you marry an Alien Billionaire?  As in the recipe for rabbit stew, "First Catch Your Alien."   
Would you recognize your Alien Billionaire?

How can you tell, by looking at someone, or even listening to their voice, that they are ultra-wealthy?  Are all wealthy people independent individuals?  By "marry" do you mean make the Billionaire dependent on you for emotional satisfaction?

What is wealth?  Is it the same as money?  How do humans acquire wealth?

Do all human societies need an Aristocracy of Power supported by wealth sucked from the hands of peasants (the masses).

Modern Fantasy Romance often uses a Setting of Kings, Dukes, arranged marriage, and revolution by warfare, Court Magicians and decorative Characters.  Theme generates Setting -- the presence of an aristocracy in a setting limits the range of themes possible.

If you must write in an Aristocratic Setting, you will have to create "masses" (peasants -- people who out-number the Aristocrats) to support them.  Just establishing the existence of an Aristocracy sets up your Economic System.

Human history worked through that stage of Kings and Kingdoms.  Did your Aliens also evolve through thousands of years of Aristocracy?

Have your Aliens, now an Interstellar Civilization, evolved a different kind of Economy because of their reproductive methods?  Humans are all about dominance, winning, and the Alpha Male.  What are your Aliens all about?  How could a human Alpha Female find such a male attractive?

The Billionaire image is a symbol of an individual whose will gets done.  That is, the Billiionaire has the magnitude of wealth that is sheer, unadulterated Power -- like the Market-Ocean, Power, Force, irresistible.

Is that sexy, in and of itself?  Or is it sexy only when contrasted (artistic composition) with "the masses" - who individually are powerless, but together can overcome a multi-trillionaire, in the improbable event they chose to do so.

Small wonder Kings fear The Masses.   Kings rule only by making sure that "they" (the masses) don't all know/believe the same thing at the same time and move as one.

And "the masses" (or "The Market Forces") will be much-much-much larger in an interstellar civilization.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Thorium - The Real Hope For E-books?

Thorium

The Real Hope For E-books

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Green's the thing.

This blog entry originally published in December 2009, is still valid in 2019.  Much work has been done with Thorium, and in 2018, the BBC did a story on India mining beaches for Thorium.  And, in 2018, I'm seeing comments by owners of all-electric cars (LEAF in particular) saying they pay less per mile than with gasoline.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181016-why-india-wants-to-turn-its-beaches-into-nuclear-fuel
Notice the black background on this blog?  Black with white letters takes less electricity to render on your monitor than white with black letters. Read green!

The problem of e-books vs traditional publishing isn't just a green issue -- it's a writer's worldbuilding paradise!

Devon Monk, the author I raved about last week got me thinking about electricity, magic, technology and worldbuilding.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/recommending-devon-monk.html

And before that I pointed you to a twitter-based worldbuilding exercise by a group of writers and a publisher creating an anthology.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/12/worldbuilding-by-committee.html

Then I ran into an article I will point you to at the end here. It crystalized a vision of "the" future for me, and I think you can use this to build backgrounds for your own fiction.

My blog entries on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com give glimpses into the mechanism of a writer's mind, so let's retrace my reasoning a step at a time to look at the whole seething, bursting phenomenon of the e-book infrastructure and its ecological sense.

This applies to all the information available via the internet and to it's "green" component and a thousand questions SF/Romance has not yet addressed that I know of (please drop references to great SF/Romance on the comments here!).

It's still very problematic whether the budding trend toward e-books, e-music downloads, feature film downloads, the indie film makers distributing free downloads on the internet ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091226/wl_time/08599195000500 is a Yahoo news story about this phenomenon) the whole web 2.0, cloud computing direction and the changing business model of writers which I've written about here ...

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/crumbling-business-model-of-writers.html

...along with the "paperless office" writers and publishers are adopting, is actually greener than the old fashioned method of hauling paper around the world.

On Cloud Computing, see this page (in an article on failing to succeed) which shows graphically how the business decision making process can go awry (look at the table under the picture of the black box):

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_oracle/3/

And remember as I indict government decision making below, I'm NOT advocating the decision making system used by bussiness either. Focus your mind on the decision making processes used in our world, and how any little change in those processes might change the world you set stories within. This is basic sociological science fiction using futurology.

In the Worldbuilding By Committee article linked above, the Twitter group kept coming back to the idea of replacing government with a corporation, i.e. a Company Town for the venue for these stories. That has been done, and well done, so here, I'm trying to get writers to think outside the box we normally don't even know we're inside of.

Ask the next question. That was Theodore Sturgeon's motto when it came to SF writing (he wrote the Star Trek episode Amok Time that started the whole Spock phenomenon). He was a good friend of mine and an influence on my SF writing. Here's where I discussed that.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/theodore-sturgeon-ask-next-question.html

So when doing futurology, you need to "ask the next question" not just find an answer and stop thinking. E-books and green tech are fraught with next questions to ask because both are driven by government decision making (e-books and copyright; green tech and our power supply).

If not government as we know it, or corporations as we know them, then what? To find "then what" take a close look at what has gone on in this world since 1950 and the rise of the buzzword ecology (yes, the SF magazines of the 1950's obssessed on "ecology").

The problem with all "green" tech is electricity and what it takes to get enough of it to make the products that are supposed to be greener. E-book reader screens are very dirty to make. Batteries are worse! (you gotta read Devon Monk's novels)

The carbon footprint of say a KWH of electricity produced by a solar panel has to include what it took to make the solar panel array, transport and install it and maintain it (every time the service guys come out, it costs gas for their truck, etc) PLUS how fast the panel wears out (like lightbulbs, a solar panel only lasts the time the manufacturer builds into it on purpose).

I found out a shocking thing when shopping for additional attic insulation.

The solar panels they sell in the USA (as of 2009) are (by Fed law) not allowed to be as efficient and long-lasting as the ones sold in Europe.

The ones sold in the USA lose (I think it was) 20% of their ability to produce electricty in (I think) 10 years but are rated to last a longer than 10 years. Whatever the figures were, they're different in 2010. The exact figures are unimportant. The point here is that government makes these decisions and shapes our world in ways that most people don't know about. (that insulation salesman wasn't supposed to tell me that fact because he also sells solar panels).

In other words, you'll be thrilled the year you install a solar panel and probably won't notice the gradual fall-off of production of electricty you can sell back to your utility (if your local utility is set up to buy it back) over time. But the good deal you got on install turns into a real bad deal with time, and you never know that if you lived elsewhere you could have gotten a better deal.

You never see the carbon footprint (or any of the other exotic and seriously toxic pollutants) generated when the panel and its components are created, assembled, transported to a warehouse, sent to another distribution point, etc etc until it's installed on your property. Then of course there's the gasoline needed to tote it away when it dies. Then landfill problems. Recycle doesn't always recover as much as is expended doing the recycle; it depends what you include when you calculate.

The whole idea of plug-in commuter cars depends on CHEAP electricity that's cleaner to produce than what we have now.

At the moment it costs more for enough electricity to commute to work than it costs for enough gasoline to commute to work, and running cars by plug-in electricity is dirtier than gasoline.

The Obama initiative to create the "smart grid" and replace our electrical distribution system is really great, and I'm all for it no matter what it costs (frankly been irked that it wasn't done 20 years ago, but we have better computer controllers now).

That smart grid will reduce the cost of electricity, but Big Brother will be able to deny you electricity if you misbehave (brown-out a single house that's over-using, and nevermind that they have someone on hospice life-support equipment).

But we do need to rebuild the grid, and smart-grid is the way to go.

If you read Devon Monk's novels, you see why I'm thinking about the grid! You have no idea how romantic this grid-tech stuff can be if you don't read novels like Monk's!

But which way to build a "smart grid" is a decision that will be made by the same government process that gave us the decision to disallow U.S. residents from having the same high efficiency solar panels Europeans can buy. Will our grid be as smart as other countries? (build that world, don't argue for or against my assuptions here. Don't get distracted by your opinions. Ask The Next Question and build a fictional world from those questions.)

Yet smart grid is not enough. We need to be able to feed that grid with a lower pollution footprint. (Yay, Magic!)

Next Question: Do we really need a cleaner power source? What if we don't find one?

Well, 2010 is (in the USA) a census year, but population actually grows every year.

And that's what's been happening. Population has out-grown our energy production capacity, not just because each individual pulls more from the grid but because there are more of us. Substantially more! (some undocumented; some with pirating taps into the grid too -- smart grid will find them and cut them off).

The 2010 census may find 330 million of us in the USA. In 1960, there were just over 179 million in the USA.
http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_popl.html

I haven't tried to hunt down the stat on how many KWH/year each USA person used in 1960, but just looking at my own life, it was a LOT less than today, however frugal I attempt to be. I use an electric toothbrush that's got a rechargable battery. An unthinkable concept (even in SF novels) in the 1960's. And back then, I had a manual typewriter.

I have seen stats bandied about that indicate how our gasoline and electricity use per person has risen over these decades. The USA is really shamefully profligate in usage.

But what do we use, and what do we get for it? Is our usage worth it? Do we produce a profit from all this convenience? And how do we reduce our total footprint in absolute terms while still increasing our population at this rate? Because the world can't support this current world population (nevermind the growth) if we all use power the way the USA folks currently do.

I saw a TV feature retrospective last week showing that the world population will reach a full 7 billion by 2012 and rise to 8 billion only 16 years later. That's a 1 Billion population increase in 16 years. Population increase is geometric, you know. The interval it takes to produce a billion more people will get shorter and shorter.

In the 1950's collapse of the entire world ecology was predicted by 2050, due to overpopulation and that was without the intense rise in usage of gasoline and electricity.

Today the boogey man is Global Warming. Tomorrow it will be something else, food crop fungus, the extinction of the bees, -- remember acid rain?

With more people, "human activity" will have greater and greater effect on ecology.

It doesn't matter (for a worldbuilding writer) what aspect of global resources maxes out first - collapse is collapse and our population growth and increasing technology has us headed right for total collapse because of our primate-based habit of tossing our trash (pollution from energy use, non-biodegredable packaging, or even just sewage) aside and expecting it not to come back to haunt us (like dropping a bananna peel from a tree and forgetting about it).

I've seen bragging statistics about how much manufacturing has increased the efficiency of gadgets and cars so they do the same but use less electricity. Oh we are so good! But, there are so many more of us that the total amount of oil and electricity we use is still growing at a rate that will reach a maximum and not be able to grow any more even though the population still grows.

We either have to drastically reduce population or reduce our standard of living.

SFF/R writers find neither alternative acceptable. Love is. And the less time we spend working, the more time there is for love.

So since Love Conquers All, it better get conquering real fast.

We need a cheap, abundant, non-polluting, non-nuclear waste-to-store-forever, non-weapons grade Uranium producing, non-fetus-mutating, source of POWER.

And the astonishing fact is that we have indeed had that magical source of POWER since the 1950's and have turned away from implementing that magical technology for political reasons (according to the article I found).

Maybe this article nails the causes for that turn-away from the "real" solution, maybe not. Maybe this scientific article is actually pure fantasy. I don't know and for the purposes of this worldbuilding excerise it doesn't matter.

But I do vaguely remember reading probably in the 1970's that the Thorium nuclear power plant technology had failed, and it would be impossible to use.

According to this article that I just found last week, that was not true. According to this article the choice to fuel atomic power plants with Uranium was made because the government wanted to make war not love in the 1960's, and that statement itself could be politically slanted. It doesn't matter. We're thinking SFR here.

Personally, I enjoy love more than war, even in fiction. I do know there are those who don't feel that way, and huge lucrative industries (such as video games) are founded on feeding the lust for destruction. But maybe there's marketing room for another industry based on SFR?

If this article explains what happened in the 1950's to the 1970's correctly, the huge power-crunch we are in right now could have been avoided if government hadn't meddled in the business decisions of the power industry.

Here's the article for you to judge for yourself (there are some other articles you might want to look at linked on that page too), and while you're reading think about the the consequences of allowing government to decide the direction of the health care delivery system by the same mechanism used to decide the direction of the power-delivery-system's development. Remember, conflict is the essence of story.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/

And a prior ABC News story on the topic of using Thorium instead of Uranium in nuclear power plants:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1616391.htm

See? It doesn't matter which party or which politicians are in charge. It's the decision mechanism that needs a "next question," more than politics or ideology.

As a voter, would knowing about the law against you having an efficient solar panel installed on your house, or about forcing you to use nuclear power from Uranium rather than from Thorium to power your house or car, make a difference in what you say to your congressman at town hall meetings? Conflict is the essence of story. Marriages are made and broken by these kinds of conflicts involving larger world-girdling issues (population explosion; pollution; political ascendancy).

The worldbuilding writer can slice and dice that decision mechanism and create whole new political systems. Devon Monk just used the usual, ho-hum corporate structure and barely acknowledged the government structure that supports the corporation's rights to patents and profits.

The only innovative thinking in the Allie Beckstrom universe is the idea of conduits of magic akin to the electrical grid, and the magic grid isn't even "smart."

The SF of the 1960's would not have accepted worldbuilding that was so rudimentary.

I'm still searching for writers of today who will not stop short of asking the next question like that. When you build a "world" you can't just change ONE thing about our current world and call it Fantasy or SF.

Why? You saw how there's a connection between the kind of solar panel you can buy, the health care system, and nuclear war potential connected to power generation. That's our real world. Any fantasy world must have that property too -- connections. If one thing changes (magical conduits beneath certain neighborhoods in the city), that will change everything else a little bit.

Devon Monk hit on a lot of the changes that her magic-technology would bring about, but left out other things that would be impacted. In defense of her work, I have to say that she is less than a generation into the new technology. However, if you think back only 20 years to 1990, and the attitude of publishers toward the field of e-books then as compared to now, the attitude of retailers toward amazon and online merchandising then as compared to now, you see that the changes created by a single technological innovation come faster, and are more pervasive than depicted in the Allie Beckstrom novels.

When you're building your world, don't stop thinking. Ask The Next Question.

Understand the links between apparently disconnected trends and forces in our real world, and create a pattern of links just like our real world pattern among the postulates of your constructed world.

Revealing those hidden connections and patterns of links is what Art is all about. Show don't tell how the real world is connected by building your world to reveal that pattern.

Here's an exercise, just for fun.

Delve into the issues of human nature that produce the kinds of people who end up in charge of those government and business decisions, and the kinds of motivations that drive people into politics. Create a character with 6 problems to solve.

Now postulate an alternate universe where the Thorium - Uranium choice was made by a different mechanism toward a different objective from different motives than the articles I've mentioned show in our everyday world.

Postulate a world where there's no pollution, and no real difference in energy usage and convenience gadgets between USA and the poorest tribal regions of Afghanistan. What happens when everyone in China can freely access the internet and all the opinions rampant around the world?

Would we have a drug and slave trade grossing enough cash to buy governments if thorium power plants were the standard around the world?

Would human population have exploded even faster and be at just as great a risk of destroying the world as we are now? What resource would we max out instead of energy? Space to live? Oxygen? A lot of people today are worried about the drinking water supply. Do we drink enough water to keep our kidneys healthy or grow plants to ward off vitamin deficiency?

Do this exercise a few times. You have plenty of time. You can do it in the shower.

I think there's a feature film script here for a political historian writer, tracing the decision making process that went on between 1950 and 1970 (McCarthy Hearings; Korean War; Viet Nam War; Feminism (talk about genies and bottles, but your constructed world needs a set of macro-issues and trends like that).)

In that atmosphere of the '50's to '70's, the road of human history forked in a sharp V, and we went down the Uranium branch of that V.

Remember the fabulous film about Madam Curie, a woman physicist with a real, original discovery, and how politics buried that discovery for so long? How could it be that Weinberg's life so focused on the technology of thorium use hasn't been made into a similar movie?

Why did Al Gore win the Nobel prize for An Inconvenient Truth? Shouldn't that inconvenient truth be that this global warming issue could have been avoided had the Thorium - Uranium decision gone for Thorium?
Wouldn't a movie about Weinberg's life have been a Nobel type subject? Who better than a politician to implement the creation of such a deep expose of the political decision making process?

How did that Uranium - Thorium engineering decision happen in the political arena?

And of course the real burning question: Is It Too Late?

Can we rescue the world by going Thorium now?

Can love conquer political decision making?

Is it enough to "win" on the thorium issue? Don't we need to win on the issue of the kind of decision making process we rely on?

Just look what happened this past weekend with an attempt to bring down another passenger plane. After the attempt nearly succeeded, then (and only then) the authorities "decide" to increase security for the homebound holiday travelers. Talk about locking the barn door!

The terrorist objective is to wear the larger enemy down by luring them into wasting resources. One lone person making a single bold move, with the effluvium of an organization behind him, costs him a few hundred dollars and his life -- but costs the larger enemy millions of dollars. That's a successful terrorist move.

There's a 1950's novel with the same title that Marion Zimmer Bradley used, TWO TO CONQUER. It was by Eric Frank Russell and postulated an imaginary terrorist organization that cost a planetary government (of aliens who didn't know much about humans) enough to almost bankrupt it. In actuality it was only one human man cleverly planting "evidence" of a "movement" by spreading slogans around. When caught and imprisoned he invented whole cloth out of pure imagination a non-material partner with nearly magical powers, and sold himself to his jailers as a powerful threat. It bought him enough time to get rescued.

The novel (written by an author with real world experience in these matters) explained the tactics of the terrorist as clearly as several currently popular (and old classic) TV shows explain the confidence rackets so you can armor yourself against being taken as a mark. (Mission: Impossible, Remmington Steele, and today White Collar).

Why is it that government's decision making mechanism leads us to increase security after a terrorist feint, rather than before an actual move?

------------
Here is a quote from a comment posted on a Newsweek article about the US Terrorist Databases at
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2009/12/28/what-u-s-intelligence-knew-about-the-underpants-bomber.aspxHere's the comment:
I invented a holistic semantic system that is far superior to what the U.S. Government is using -- in the words of many of their own specialists, and leading scientists in CS, but to date we have had no luck in overcoming the adoption barriers facing small and emerging technology companies attempting to resolve serious problems. One recent blog post of mine might be of interest:
How to prevent the Fort Hood tragedy, by design.
http://kyield.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/preventing-the-next-fort-hood-tragedy-by-design/">http://kyield.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/preventing-the-next-fort-hood-tragedy-by-design/
Another paper written in laymen's language is a use case scenario developed specifically for the DHS:
http://www.kyield.com/images/SCENARIO_3-_Roger_the_maintenance_man_at_the_hydro_dam.pdf">http://www.kyield.com/images/SCENARIO_3-_Roger_the_maintenance_man_at_the_hydro_dam.pdf
We've invented the solution, but it has yet to be adopted, despite a significant amount of direct communications at decision levels in the past three admins.
Mark Montgomery
Founder - Kyield
http://www.kyield.com
http://kyield.wordpress.com
---------------

See what I mean about worldbuilding from the patterns available in our real world?  Keep asking the next question.

Why is it that government's decision making mechanism leads us to focus and expend resources on a failed attempt to bring an aircraft down rather than watching for a real thrust coming from the other direction? (haven't they ever read any classic romances where the pretty girl or a thrown stone distracts the castle guards and the miscreant sneaks right into the castle past the distracted guard? I loved the TV show, Zorro!)

The worldbuilder needs to look at the pattern of these breaking-news Events and analyze the forces causing the behavior of large institutions (government, corporations, or non-profits) just as the writers of those old TV shows make the behavior of individual guards clear.

So ask the next question. What does it take to go greener and accommodate a larger population? What happens if we don't go all-e-book paperless office? Why is there such resistance? What would have to change to melt that resistance? Why doesn't government trick us into going all e-book the way it tricked us into going all-Uranium?  Where is the glitch in government decision making?  Corporate decision making?  Find it. Change it. Change everything in your universe to match.  Write a story in that universe. Win the Nobel Prize for PNR! 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
6 arguably greener e-book titles; 4 on Kindle