People have talked about Ray Bradbury opposing book-burning and nuclear weapons. But also notice how he portrays the "parlor" in F451 in relation to book-burning. Maybe the "parlor" is more his point than "censorhip."

What I mean is, perhaps nuclear weapons falls under a broader theme - an inherent wariness towards technology and its potential (and often actual) misuse. What was that story in which a guy shoots all the machines in his life? (Edward Abbey's character Henry Lightcap analogously shoots his refrigerator.) Or the Chinese emporor who kills the guy who makes wings to fly.

What do you think? Is Mr. Bradbury a mild Taoist-non-technocentrist?

Good questions! His attitude toward nuclear weapons is very interesting. He has called The Bomb "the greatest Christianizing influence in the history of civilization, because it makes us be good and behave"--in other words, find solutions other than war for conflicts (this was back in the days when only supposedly "rational nations" had nuclear weapons.) He's always answered people who ask, "Aren't you against machines?" "It's like a hand in a glove, it depends what sort of hand you put in the glove." As for the Chinese story, it isn't "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind," so I'm thinking it has to be "The Flying Machine." I have the story in a "Children's Digest," but it's packed up right now. It seems rather a grim choice for a kids' publication but some pretty strange things do show up in kids' literature.

That's an interesting view of the A-bomb, more as something symbolic, the idea of something ominous that changed people's attitude, rather than the bomb itself. It seems like deterrence: the purpose of building up so many nuclear weapons so that people will be too scared to use them - but a more positive way of looking at it.
But does the bomb really make people THINK about other solutions besides war, or just scare them stiff, like pointing a gun at somebody's head?
People still use traditional weapons anyway.

(Also interesting that he calls it the greatest "Christianizing" influence.)

Yes, the story I was thinking about was "The Flying Machine."
So it is the use of technology that Ray Bradbury is concerned about. Sort of like the promotion of "conscious consumerism" rather than the ending of comsumerism. Like how the Manhattan Project scientists had no intention of dropping the bomb on people. But couldn't one argue that it is their responsibility to consider that a bomb is being made to be used? that it is inevitable that technology will be abused somehow by someone.

What do you think (or know) Ray Bradbury thinks about cloning?

How does Mr. Bradbury feel about environmental issues? especially in relation to technology?

Be sure to check out his short story "The Murderer," all about one man's response to encroaching technology. Also, it was made into an episode of Bradbury Theater, well worth watching.

In one of Mr Bradburys recent interviews he was asked about cloning? I remember to the effect that he said why clone when you can be with someone, and make a child the old way. I tend to agree, I think he would despise cookie cutter people when you think about how he celebrates diversity!

The answer to that would simply be vanity. Certain people wouldn't want to bother being with someone else--they want an exact copy of themself! (It would be a good solution for people like Mitch in "The October Game"--he's the sort of person who might have favored a clone!) In fairness, though, some people actually *can't* produce a baby the regular way--even with all the scientific and technological breakthroughs now available to assist. Someone pointed out, all it would take was one couple able to properly manipulate the media to convince them that cloning was their only chance for a child to blow the whole human cloning thing wide open.

[This message has been edited by dandelion (edited 03-02-2002).]

How about combining our genetic and biological capacities (skills at cellular injection, modification, enhancement, replicating, and eliminating) with our engineering abilities in micro-circuitry, chips, super-fabrics and materials, and what do we can come up with!!??

How about "Marionettes, Inc." or "2026, The Long Years?" Although they were completely mechanical, they had biotechnical traits it seemed. Also, how about the mechanical dog in 451? And the fireman's pole too. They had some (innate) sense not typical in a purely mechanized creation. A cross-over of sorts.

Oh, yes! Of course, I Sing the Body Electric!

Is Mr. Bradbury's vision similar to that of his pioneer predecessors: Shelley's Frankenstein, Wells' Isle of Dr. Moreau, and even in Serling's TZ: "Eye of the Beholder".

Time can only tell! (Or maybe it is already so in some covert setting down the hall from the cats, sheep, pigs, and dogs.)

What other titles of RB address this?

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 03-01-2002).]

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 03-04-2002).]

The March 2002, copy of Popular Science addresses these topics with facts:
Articles - "I,PC", "Robot Bugs Planned for Mars (They'll have chemical muscles!), and "IBM Wants Computers to Care of Themselves".

The short story "The City" and the onboard computer/crew member "HAL 9000" come to mind in reviewing these articles.

If a person consists of 51% chips, processors, bionic parts, programmed behavior, and other artificially enhanced components, will his "humanity" still take center stage??

"all it would take was one couple able to properly manipulate the media to convince them that cloning was their only chance for a child to blow the whole human cloning thing wide open"

Very intersesting, and freaky.

At the Museum of Science, Boston, there is a "Current Science and Technology" stage where people give presentations. Currently there is a short skit about cloning...it's weird, definitely not a Bradburian-perspective skit. Anyway, when I saw it, at the end they asked the audience who would clone for a child, and nobody raised his/her hand. Then they asked, what if a child had a fatal genetic disease, would they alter its genes? Would that make a difference? A few people said yes.

fjpalumbo, what is Popular Science's take on these biologised machines/mechanized animals?

Other examples along different anti-techno-centric lines: the Garbage Collector, the Rocket Man, A Sound of Thunder; Dandelion Wine's Happiness Machine & Green Machine.

You all ought to read Edward Abbey. Everybody in the world should :-)

All this "fear of cloning" business is just so much nonsense. What are identical twins but naturally-occuring clones of each other, and you don't see people getting all upset about that, do you? Just having the exact same genetic material as your parent doesn't make you the same person -- it's the combination of genetics and life experiences that make a person unique. A clone would essentially be no different than any other child. A lot of sci-fi tries to present clones as some sort of horrible evil menace, and that's where people's fear is really stemming from. The worst thing you can really say about a clone is that he or she has only one genetic parent instead of two. Cloning, if carried out on a *really* wide scale would be bad for the human race as a whole because it would reduce the overall diversity of the gene pool, but then, you could say that human beings have been exempting themselves from the forces of natural selection through medicinal advances for a long time now. What people are really afraid of, it seems, is not cloning per se, but some sort of Nazi-style eugenics program in which genetic engineering chooses what traits are desirable in a human being, and what are not. But then, nobody wants their child to die of birth defects either, do they?

[This message has been edited by positronic (edited 03-12-2002).]

Annie, Popular Science was just stating the facts objectively. The technology is just about here. It will be expanding in many areas of science, military, space program, environmental uses, etc. Will it help us? I am sure it can offer many benefits in the future if in the proper hands!

As for the "nonsense" for concern in cloning - how many abandoned, disfunctional, orphaned children do we now have that could use a real family and home? Q: Do we really need to start manufacturing children? Or are you considering harvesting for corporate gain? An interesting short story is Peter Tate's "Post-mortem People! (Medical and insurance companies, after all, have some of the most powerful holdings in the world.)

In an ideal world, the cloning technology would be for the benefit of whom? Comparing cloning as the "same" as naturally produced twins or triplets, for that matter, is quite a stretch.

In a less than ideal world we may very well have Huxley's Brave New World.

Finally, no parent would be anything less than devastated by the loss of a child because of "birth defects" - of which you speak. Is cloning bringing a "no risk" clause to mankind's most miraculous capability? A combination of medicine, technology, and faith has always held the answers to the human frailities we must acknowledge we possess. Playing "master of the universe" just might produce some real and unfortunate surprises for us over the long run.

Your final comment on eugenics seems a bit ambiguous.

In retrospect, that must be the reason I have always loved Mr. Bradbury's stories (to name a few) "The Rocket", "Goodby, Grandma", Million Year Picnic", and the timely arrival of Mr. Jonas toward the end of Dandelion Wine! They are written to inspire parents and their children (humanity) to be ethical and some how better in the coming generations.

In any case, that is what I get out of them!



[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 03-15-2002).]

I don't mean to oversimplify a somewhat complex issue, and there remains a lot of research to be done before we could produce human clones with the assurance that there will be no medical complications. We should proceed cautiously.

My main point here is that a human clone would be no more or less a unique individual human being than any other person born, whether naturally-birthed, test-tube baby, genetically-engineered, or what have you.

The issue of "harvesting" clones for spare parts would require an ethically arbitrary designation of clones as *property*, as opposed to being human with all the human rights accorded to any other human. I'd consider this highly unlikely in our present culture, but there *have* been societies throughout human history that have considered children (and women) as chattel. That is, unless we can produce otherwise-perfect clones without brains (i.e. consciousness) or clone individual organs-on-demand, a prospect which potentially would afford extended life-spans to many. Sounds a bit too sci-fi pie-in-the-sky to me, though.

And you exactly catch my point, that my last comment is ambigious. While the concept of eugenics may be repugnant to some, taken to its logical extreme, as in a Nazi-style scenario, it's important to remember that we have already begun to make value judgments about what is "good" or "bad" in nature by pursuing a medical quest to eliminate birth defects -- is it really that far a leap to picking and choosing genes that will make our children healthier, more robust, taller, stronger, more beautiful? For that matter, cosmetic surgery (a billion-dollar industry) is already pursuing alternate paths to the same end.

Then there is the totally-seperate issue of who controls who will be cloned and who won't (assuming one wants this). Will certain people be barred from being cloned on the basis of the "quality" of their genes? Will only the elite, or the rich, have access to this technology?

The issue is murky, but it's fair to say there are arguments both for and against. Historically, of course, once a technology is perfected, it is nearly always employed in some fashion. That is humanity's nature. But I hate to see fear of the unknown or different or new rule human emotions on this issue. The issues need to be approached rationally.


[This message has been edited by positronic (edited 03-14-2002).]

Positronic, perhaps you outrationalize all of us.

A clone would be a person, yes, just like test tube babies are people. So nobody is refuting your main point.

I don't know what you mean by "fear of cloning," as in cloning itself.
"What people are really afraid of, it seems, is not cloning per se, but some sort of Nazi-style eugenics program in which genetic engineering chooses what traits are desirable in a human being, and what are not." Cloning itself is not good or bad...you can't even say that because nothing can be good or bad until people attach some moral perspective to it, so I don't see how fear of use of cloning differs from fear of cloning.

Also, could you say that without using "Nazi"?

Ok, I mostly disagree with you, maybe because you oppose some of my fundamental beliefs, and nobody likes to question their fundamental beliefs. But anyway.

"Cloning, if carried out on a *really* wide scale would be bad for the human race as a whole because it would reduce the overall diversity of the gene pool."
That's kind of a big deal. And once the technology is being used, and you & other rational people are dead, there's no stopping it from being used on a wide scale.

"...but then, you could say that human beings have been exempting themselves from the forces of natural selection through medicinal advances for a long time now."
"...we have already begun to make value judgments about what is "good" or "bad" in nature by pursuing a medical quest to eliminate birth defects -- is it really that far a leap to picking and choosing genes that will make our children healthier, more robust, taller, stronger, more beautiful? For that matter, cosmetic surgery (a billion-dollar industry) is already pursuing alternate paths to the same end."
You could say that, but that seems to imply that since we've been doing that for so long, we might as well go further with our "resist-natural-selection" practices.
It also seems to assume that most people think medicine & modern genetic engineering & plastic surgery are good technologies, and that when it comes to cloning they are now simply afraid of something new...which is probably true for a lot of people...
I guess my main point is that MAYBE we should mess LESS with nature instead of MORE. It probably is a hackneyed & socially constructed idea, but seems logical enough. There's no reason we must always venture into the "unknown" and try to make things better and better.

There's nothing wrong with technology itself because it's a thing, but I think people at every level have a responsibility to see it's potential misuses, and the best way to minimize/prevent that is to minimize technology, because people are people, who as a whole are not always that rational.

Not to assign labels, of course, but are you a technocentrist?

Also, there are not & cannot be "perfected technologies" as you assume all used technologies are. There will always be medical/other complications. I guess the question then becomes, should we trade our old problems for new ones? We might as well learn to live with our old problems, and maybe some will go away (e.g. certain diseases). But of course it wouldn't be HUMANE to just be ok with our current problems.
______________________

That's interesting, though, I have/had never heard well-constructed arguments for cloning.

quote:

Originally posted by annie31415:
I don't know what you mean by "fear of cloning," as in cloning itself.
"What people are really afraid of, it seems, is not cloning per se, but some sort of Nazi-style eugenics program in which genetic engineering chooses what traits are desirable in a human being, and what are not." Cloning itself is not good or bad...you can't even say that because nothing can be good or bad until people attach some moral perspective to it, so I don't see how fear of use of cloning differs from fear of cloning.

Agreed that cloning in and of itself is neither good nor bad, and it is people's moral perspectives as applied to the potential uses (and MISuses) of cloning that is the source of people's fear. The real question to be decided is whether the potential for misuse should cause us to ban a technology altogether, ignoring the possible benign uses of it.

quote:

Also, could you say that without using "Nazi"?

OK, let me clarify. I'm really talking about two different things here - cloning, and genetic engineering. However, either technology (and I believe perfection of the first will lead to great advances in perfection of the other) holds the potential for abuse in the sense of some overriding authority (or merely a powerful majority) picking and choosing (either subjects for cloning or individual genetic traits themselves) and assigning "superior" and "inferior" labels to them. Now, some of these traits (or people whose genes contain these traits) can be said to be evolutionarily advantageous, in that they lend the individual organism a benefit of resistance to disease, cancer, etc. And some of them can be said to be completely arbitrary traits (blond hair, blue eyes) which are still subject to selection by the people doing the cloning/genetic engineering. Most people would agree that selecting for the first would be a "good" thing, and the second would be "bad" thing (unless you believe in creating a "master race"). However, there may be a number of things that fall in-between and aren't as clear-cut a value judgment -- should we try to eliminate say, the "baldness gene", or choose cosmetically-related traits to make more beautiful children? (It's interesting to note that studies have shown that physically-attractive people have more success in life, hold better jobs, make better money, etc....)

quote:

Ok, I mostly disagree with you, maybe because you oppose some of my fundamental beliefs, and nobody likes to question their fundamental beliefs. But anyway.

It would probably be helpful to me, if you could define exactly which fundamental beliefs you are talking about here, purely for the purposes of shedding light on this discussion.

quote:

"Cloning, if carried out on a *really* wide scale would be bad for the human race as a whole because it would reduce the overall diversity of the gene pool."
That's kind of a big deal. And once the technology is being used, and you & other rational people are dead, there's no stopping it from being used on a wide scale.

Yes, it is kind of a big deal. But how likely is it to actually happen? That's the question. There have been many science fiction stories written along the lines of "If this goes on..." in which something (often something innocuous, that we make take for granted as a normal part of life) is extrapolated to ridiculous extremes. In general, we tend to feel that things that are acceptable in moderation become unacceptable when taken to extremes. But if we are going to judge from the extreme scenarios, we should also go about making alcoholic beverages, automobiles, and air travel illegal as well. And computers, since there have been innumerable science-fiction stories of extreme futures where the computers take over.

quote:

"...but then, you could say that human beings have been exempting themselves from the forces of natural selection through medicinal advances for a long time now."
"...we have already begun to make value judgments about what is "good" or "bad" in nature by pursuing a medical quest to eliminate birth defects -- is it really that far a leap to picking and choosing genes that will make our children healthier, more robust, taller, stronger, more beautiful? For that matter, cosmetic surgery (a billion-dollar industry) is already pursuing alternate paths to the same end."
You could say that, but that seems to imply that since we've been doing that for so long, we might as well go further with our "resist-natural-selection" practices.
It also seems to assume that most people think medicine & modern genetic engineering & plastic surgery are good technologies, and that when it comes to cloning they are now simply afraid of something new...which is probably true for a lot of people...
I guess my main point is that MAYBE we should mess LESS with nature instead of MORE. It probably is a hackneyed & socially constructed idea, but seems logical enough. There's no reason we must always venture into the "unknown" and try to make things better and better.

Unfortunately, the bulk of humanity is so removed from forces of "natural selection" (excepting perhaps, forces of nature like tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, drought, and asteriod impacts). Except for diseases (which we are constantly working to eradicate) humans have no natural predators - we are at the top of the food chain. Additionally, the current level of technology (at least in developed countries) tends to insulate us from other factors of natural selection, with the exception of those that are part of the human social structure. Think about it -- if most people were thrown out into the wilderness without tools or weapons, how long could they survive? Like it or not, we are now largely dependent for our survival as a species on technology (this will be even more true when as a species we begin to outstrip the resources on this planet -- a scenario I consider all but inevitable). I suppose there's a chance that in a worldwide disaster we could lose our technological infrastructure and slip back to a medieval state of technology (with a concurrent massive reduction in human population), but I think most people would consider that a bad thing.

quote:

There's nothing wrong with technology itself because it's a thing, but I think people at every level have a responsibility to see it's potential misuses, and the best way to minimize/prevent that is to minimize technology, because people are people, who as a whole are not always that rational.

Not to assign labels, of course, but are you a technocentrist?

Well, I guess that depends on the viewpoint of the person doing the asking. As I alluded to above, thousands of people lose their lives every year in airplane and auto accidents -- yet there are very few people lobbying to get rid of these things because of the negative consequences. We accept the risk as part of the benefit of the technology. On the other hand, if you are a Christian Scientist, you don't believe in medical interference in your body's functioning -- whatever happens is "natural" or was "meant to be" or is "God's will". I personally happen to believe it's too late for the human race to reject technology in principle (and almost ALL technologies have their potential downside). If that makes me a technocentrist in some peoples' eyes, I guess I'll just have to accept the label.