Braling II:

Musicians survive? Of course. Plus new kinds of musicians, far advanced than the current electronic synthetic sounds. All the old stuff gets to be kept in some drawer or some place in the world or by some few individuals. Somewhere, someplace, the old printing presses are still working thumping out letterpressed invitations, tho the 36-color ink-jet spews them out lightning faster and more effectively by leaps and bounds....

By the way,
""Congratulations on your 2000th Posting"" upcoming!!

Thanks, Nard!
I don't feel too good about your analogy, though. Laser printing, as a means to the end of communication and data preservation, is an improvement over slower, more cumbersome ways.
Music doesn't fit this analogy because a great violinist or singer from 100 years ago will be a great one 100 years from now. And one certainly could not embrace all trends within music (e.g. electronics, new instruments, or talking instead of singing) as improvements!

Braling II
The old stuff will be there, somewhere buried in the shadows of new stuff. When we make these assumptions of the future, we tend to get this idea over that the old stuff doesn't exist anymore. Letterpress printing, for instance, tho antiquated, is still used. In fact, a rather good sized printer in downtown Chicago, recently bought an old letterpress and hot type company, and set it in the background of its own lineup of digital technology. www.wernerprinting.com

Humankind will continue with its selfish, tribal ways. A group can bond and rally together when there is a common enemy. We are constantly being provided with that enemy, we're being fed, our need for condemnation is satisfied. Because when no such enemy exists the group falls apart and often finds the new enemy within its own ranks. Family drama is a good example of this. There's no indication this will ever change. If there has been a change, I think it's for the worst. Disease, starvation, cataclismic disasters, environmental concerns, and poverty don't have the draw or the staying power of a good old-fashioned villain. When any of the above tragedies DO surface we often look for someone to blame or to villify. It's always somebody's fault and the process of blaming is a big part of the whole experience. Perhaps it's a post-September 11 phenomenon or maybe the media's need for hyperbole and its power of influence has had the ultimate influence?

Because I can remember when an earthquake was just an earthquake.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: grasstains,

"Because I can remember when an earthquake was just an earthquake."

Oh yeah? Well, I can remember when there was such a thing as a bad haircut!


(There, you see, despite my tragedy posted above on the previous page, for which I still haven't received nearly enough sympathy from my friends on the board here, I still have a sense of humour.)

Ohhhh...
Did B-II get a bad haircut?
I sowwee.
Remember when Alfalfa lost his "personality"?


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Mankind will nearly destroy themselves with bombs and war. Aliens from far distant stars that likely are not even affected with time as we know it, will have intercepted the old I Love Lucy programs sent out by TV signals, and follow them all the way back here. They will intervene and stop all the wars before everyone kills themselves. Then they will likely ask for more I Love Lucy programs when everyone gets themselves back on their feet again.

When all this? by 2033

Those aliens would tell us, "Joo gadda lotta splainin' to do!"

... and TACO BELL will win the Restaurant Wars. Every single restaurant, whether it's fast food or fine food, will fly the TACO BELL banner.

No, not a bad haircut. That I could take.

BII, after 8 years of trombone playing in school band, I can truthfully say I don't have a shred of musical aptitude. Yet, I'm sorry for your misfortune. Can your bass really be fixed?

And--as for the future--there are hopes, dreams, I hold dear for humanity. You know, the old "world peace" thing. Yet, after 22 years on the job, I no longer speak much about the future in polite company.

It would be nice if, as a civilization, we could just agree on how to survive, and live to see our children's children flourish.

Thanks, rave.
My bass is getting a new neck and some cracks filled. A couple thousand dollars and 6 weeks...
(*groan*)

When I see my grandchildren I worry about what the future holds for them and, at the same time, know the world will be a better place for having them in it!

quote:

there are hopes, dreams, I hold dear for humanity. You know, the old "world peace" thing

My therapist said that her clients always say that when asked what they want for the future. It's a selfless answer. And she said that is probably what most people the world over also want. So, what happens? Between the time we say we want world peace and the time we visciously cut somebody off on the freeway or refuse to yeild any ground in any other way, something has changed. Many of us are not constantly focused on achieving peace. It takes work. It takes patience. It takes comprimise. It takes forgiveness. It takes faith. It takes a sacrifice of self, of ego. There is a great deal of effort involved with feeling compassion for total strangers, and people you don't even like. Peace cannot be achieved through heavy-handedness and attempting to teach those who have offended you a lesson, the hard way. It takes compassion, and many other noble qualities. That is a lesson worth teaching.

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The restraint of genuine evil in a world society will likely begin to give way big-time in the next generation. Since everything is beginning to operate on a global effect like never before, I can't imagine what that may all look like, expect in a highly localized definition. I expect it would not be a place to raise kids.
No one seems happy with any leader in government. No one seems too be happy with any government. I suspect a world-figure, with a personality unexpected in its sweep of power, may likely take hold of peoples all around the world. Let's hope that person wasn't raised on too much TV, junk food, and radical religions.

I think we'll be a kinder, gentler species 100 years from now, through gene therapy and selective breeding. Oh, we'll still have tyrants but there will be so few of them and they will be so outnumbered that they'll be seen as degenerates and as soon as those tendencies surface they'll be tossed into the Atom Annihalator. The little Hitlers and Napoleons will think they've lucked out as they're shuttled past the slaughterhouse, only to see the atom smashers on the horizon. Do you really think we'd want THOSE genes in our food supply?

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: grasstains,

Predicting the future is always a tricky business.

I don't remember the author (I think Frederick Pohl), but I like the quote that science fiction is not about predicting the auotmobile, but the traffic jam; and you have Heinlein's great story, "The Roads Must Roll" (something like that).

In many cases, dramatic changes to our lives come in small areas. The microwave has changed the way the industrial world eats (an important part of our lives), but who could have predicted that change? Medical advances are awe-inspiring, to say the least. In my grandfather's lifespan we went from horse and buggies in the streets of Los Angeles to Americans on the moon. IN ONE LIFESPAN!

When a new technology occurs, it can have an almost instant impact on our lives. In many cases, the technology changes, but human nature seems to remain essentially the same. Our capability for technological growth is nearly limitless, yet for every advance, we find an evil purpose to it. The internet--man's greatest tool for communication--is used to privately share the worst forms of pornography and child pornography. Yet, there remains in man the capability for great good. The struggle between good and evil appears to be always with us as a species.

Bradbury has spoken/written over and over again about the power of science fiction to allow ourselves to "see" into the future. . . to imagine future developments and the moral and psychological impact that could come of them.

I think that one of Bradbury's strengths as a writer is his ability to see the dark side of man, yet to hold onto hope that the good in man will prevail. His ultimate demonstration of that is in his amazing novel, "Something Wicked This Way Comes"--where the conflict between good and evil and the power of the dark is very real. Yet, man, through love and joy, can overcome the very real powers of dark. (This, by the way, is the overarching lesson of the Harry Potter books. The power of Harry over Voldemort is that Harry loves and is saved by love; whereas Voldemort is incapable of love. While Voldemort thinks love is Harry's weakness, it is, in fact, his strength.

This, I think, is the primary message of Bradbury. As Tommy James and the Shondell's said, "Love,love is the answer...". And, as Christ indicated to the lawyer, the highest law is two-fold: the love of God and the love of man.

What will the future hold? I don't know. But whatever happens, man will always succeed when he loves. And man will always have the conflict between good and evil to deal with.

A quote from the master:

"For that, almost completely, is what science fiction means to me. It is the history of towns and cities yet unbuilt, ghosting our imaginations and lifting us to rise up and find hammers and nails to build our dreams before they blow away."

(Bradbury, "Art and Science Fiction". in YESTERMORROW: OBVIOUS ANSWERS TO IMPOSSIBLE FUTURES. Ray Bradbury. Joshua Odell Editions, Capra Press, Santa Barbara. 1991. p. 21)

Recognizing the dark, but always the optimist. . .

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