Right Wing Nation

Wordpress allows you to start something and save it as a draft, and I found this in my drafts. I should have finished and published it in May. Better late than never.

MOGS has posted a good response to my latest Sci-Fi article, a really good response, and it may very well spark a couple of articles. He says a couple of things I want to use as springboards:

“It’s not about the technology, stupid” - again, right most of the time. There IS very much a category of fan who comes in for the cool factor. Spaceships, ray guns, other gizmos, like military fiction where sci-fo or present day, has its own following. Now, what will keep those fans once the “neat” factor wears off? The writing, the aforementioned “characters and plot.”

[ . . . ]

He’s right on this, when a writer needs to bend, break, ignore, or reinvent the laws of physics and other deviations from reality, the writer needs to insure that application of those breaks is consistent throughout. The logic applied, for how and why reality is different here, needs to be consistent throughout. The way out of is of course is to rely on “multi-dimensional” stories, time travel, characters so powerful they can “bend” or reshape reality on a whim, but you know what? Reading this stuff over the years has convinced me there’s nothing arty or avant garde about this - it’s a means to conveniently ignore the writer’s own rules when he wants to make his “characters and plot” do something he may have spent several hundred pages explaining to you and me that they couldn’t do.

After reading his response, then re-reading my article, I have come to a conclusion: The Probability Principle is paramount for good Sci-Fi. To explain why, let me leave Sci-Fi aside for a moment.

In business classes, we discuss business. The business case we pick apart that is applicable here is the IBM/Microsoft v. Apple (expanded to IBM/Microsoft v. Apple or Linux, and later becoming the current Microsoft v. Apple or Linux) case (no, I’m not going to start ranting about Apple.) We use the case to exemplify the First Rule of IT:

People buy technology for what it can do.

There are two reasons IBM, later Microsoft (that’s a case itself, although not applicable here) dominated the PC market and marginalized Apple, one hardware-related, and the other, software-related. It is the latter that is relevant.

Apple maintained strict control over all software written for their platform. IBM/Microsoft provided an API (for you non-geeks, that’s an Application Programming Interface) so anyone could write software to run on the PC.

You probably don’t remember all of those IBM PC commercials from the 80s, but I found this Australian commercial that demonstrates why IBM ruled the market and Microsoft, IBM’s successor, still does.

See all of the applications stacking up? That’s why Apple was, and still is, a fringe platform. Apple came out with the Mac, and it was “cool,” but only a small fringe market buys technology because it’s cool. People buy technology for what it can do. IBM/Microsoft won because they had far more applications — that is, you could do a hell of a lot more — than Apple. The first killer app was Visicalc, which ran on the Apple II among other platforms, but Apple didn’t care much about practicality, and focused on cool, and instead of capitalizing on the enormous potential of Visicalc, went on to produce “cool” computers, first the Lisa, the the Mac. IBM really didn’t care much about the cool geeks, saw the potential for their product in the business workplace, and other spreadsheets were released for the IBM PC (Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro Pro, and finally, Excel). And this is still true today. We always had students who wanted to know if they could use Macs, and we always had to tell them no, for the same reasons: The Mac has no VBA, no Access, and no SPSS. In other words, lack of applications.

The same is true of Open Office and Google Docs. Both lack the functionality of Excel, because nobody is developing the add-ons to extend the functionality.

What, you ask, does this have to do with Sci-Fi, or the Probability Princple?

If there is (likely to be) little demand for technology, it, like Apple, will be relegated to the fringe cool market. Human beings are pragmatic. We use technology because it performs useful functions. Most Sci-Fi writers seem to be Apple users. They really don’t care whether some technology they invent has any useful function or not; they invent it solely because it’s cool.

The problem with that is that it doesn’t reflect humanity (I have a similar disagreement with Hube over this principle, but on a wholly different topic, so I’ll leave it for later). Most of us like cool, but aren’t overwhelmed by it. In fact, we will put up with all kinds of problems such as instability or program conflicts as long as we get the functionality (this is why the superior stability of the Mac or a Linux box is trivial). Technology that is purely cool is highly unlikely to ever be adopted, no matter how advanced we become, and no matter how technologically feasible it is.

Remember all of the hype about internet-enabled toasters and refrigerators? Seen one in Target lately? No? I’m sure there are patents and copyrights for them, that is, that they were developed, and the technology exists. But the mere existence of technology is trivial; it’s the adoption of technology that counts. The problem with Sci-Fi is that most of its authors are the type that think internet-enabled toasters are really kewl.

Let’s look at the replicator, first as it is presented on the Star Trek franchise. It’s a machine that converts energy to matter. That, in itself, is feasible. I maintain that whereas the technology of the replicator does not violate the Probability Principle, the major function of the replicator does.

An energy-matter converter would have enormous applications. One could create spare parts, for example. And they do this a couple of times on the Star Trek shows, but only a couple of times. Usually, they use it for something that is not believable.

“Computer, give me a pot roast, with red wine sauce, and two glasses of 1928 Château Latiffe!”

I’ll assume here — and the assumption is quite a stretch — that an energy-matter converter of this level of complexity can be developed, that is, that it’s scientifically feasible. What is not feasible is that people will see a need to substitute computer-created food for the real thing (and you dystopians, can it right now, because your dystopia is itself a silly fantasy). Now, producing some sort of foodstuff for emergencies is realistic, but not pot roast with red wine sauce and champagne for when the Smiths come over for a dinner party.

One would need a far more complex energy-matter converter to produce any food in the database than one would need to produce basic rations or spare parts. A converter of this complexity violates the Probability Principle. Why replicate fake food when you can, well, cook?

Ray guns sit on the border. There are applications for which laser technology would provide a very real advantage; this is why the military has been working on large, anti-aircraft lasers. But lasers (or phasers, or whatever name you want to give your ray gun) as personal firearms violate the Probability Principle.

What is the technological advantage of phasers over bullets? The only one I can think of is you can set them on stun, but we can already do that. They’re called tasers, and note that in many cases, nothing short of a bullet will bring down an attacker. Personal ray guns don’t even fulfill the cool factor, when you think about it. Conventional firearms do, but most of the people who think personal phasers are cool only do so because they don’t exist, and if they did, would be calling for phaser control legislation.

There just is no advantage to producing personal lasers. They do nothing you can’t already do, and with plenty of cool for those who buy them.

It’s probability, never possibility, and probability is determined not by science, but by the market. The market determines what technology is developed and adopted, and not the cool factor. If authors and screen writers understood this, we’d have much better quality Sci-Fi. Then, if they understood it, they’d be conservatives, and not starry eyed liberals.

More Heinlein and less LeGuin, please.

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