Welcome to my world.

So. 19 years ago it was 1989, I was 16, just about to leave school, and my family was moving to Solihull, where I would go to college.

Oh yes, and I was looking forward to watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...

yes, it came as a bit of a shock to be reminded that that was 19 years ago, I really thought it was a little bit later, y'know like in the 90's... Which TBH it probably was for us in the UK, if I remember films took an absolute bloody age to come out over here back then...

We are getting a lot of headlines about the genetic-manipulation Frankenstein Science*, which I heard one of the pro-campaigners suggesting that this moniker cheapened the argument by siding it with Science Fiction. I disagree.

Science Fiction has been exploring issues like this for years, not just Genetic manipulation but all kinds of technology has been written and explored before its actual invention… And for the vast majority of the time, the writers and readers have hit the proverbial nail on the head. Enough that it should be worth referring to the relevant fictions as a logical primer. Often distilling complex social, environmental and cultural side effects of these scientific advances into safe easy-to-read form. There is nothing wrong in this, and it certainly doesn’t ‘cheapen’ the subject matter.

Most often the arguments in fiction are well thought out and balanced, showing the positive AND the negative… At least enough to form a reasoned debate and often even enough to start the general layman off with enough information to understand some of whats really going on.

We all know this, most of you guys will read the stuff in some form or another (I guess), and this is a good thing.

Of course sometimes fiction just doesn’t really cover everything. The human condition is such that we will always find new ways of using the technology for self gratification or labour saving, or some other way of abusing the technology that really was not considered upon its fictional or reality creation.

The internet as envisioned by William Gibson, or even when that first email was sent, nobody could foresee the sheer amount of time wasting created by the damn thing, for every economical advance with internet shopping, thousands of hours are wasted making up music videos or downloading funny clips about a fat kid. For every marvellous world shrinking use of the technology, millions of people are just watching porn. See what I mean?

Hell, it took Star Trek nearly 7 years (in DS9) to acknowledge that in a fully working holodeck, where fully realised, tactile and customisable virtual reality was created at the whim of the programme creator, that Holodeck users would probably be using it for having virtual sex. (hate to have to mop up the holodecks between users…), makes you wonder what the top 10 programmes were on the USS Enterprise, 10 to 1 that it wouldn’t really have been Dixon Hill, Mountain Glade and Sherlock Holmes... ;)

So what other unforeseen possibilities have failed to be addressed in Sci-Fi that you spotted?

I always thought that Trek glossed over the obesity crisis from the creation of Transporter technology, lets face it, why walk ANYWHERE, when you can site to site transport. Got to go to town, it’s a 10 minute walk or you can get there instantly by transporter… C’mon, people don’t really want to exercise, just look at things as they are RIGHT NOW. There are people that rather than go out for a walk want to get a Wii fit. If they are too damn lazy to actually seek exercise, chances are they will get bored of the gadget of the week in short order, can you really see the same species avoiding a marvel of technology that saves them all effort?

What you got?

* For the record, I am FOR stem cell research, the benefits far outweigh the failings, and I seriously doubt that we will create an animal/human hybrid slave race or clone humans as a result... Well, not straight away.