Polite24 wrote:Fat Man, I read your book review and it did look like a very interesting book and one I'd actually consider reading. Could something like that happen in the future? It's an interesting question, as I was just thinking the other day how almost everything these days is automated and so much communication is on the computer instead of in real life, preventing people from developing true social skills. Maybe it's because I didn't live then but nothing seems as lively as it used to be.
Thank you!
Now we're getting somewhere!
You ask, if something like that could really happen in the future.
Well, if your question is in reference to the level of decadence and shallow-mindedness of people in that future society a thousand years from now, yes, I believe that it could happen, just as depicted in the science fiction novel, NOAH II.
In fact, it's beginning to happen now.
I'm guessing that you're about 18 or 19 years old right now.
When I was that age, I was very intensely aware of the political climate of the times, back in the 1960s and 1970s. When I turned 18, I was afraid that I might get drafted and have to fight in Viet Nam. Back then, an 18 year old did not have the right to vote, but we could get drafted. Another words, 18 was that awkward age. Old enough to kill or die, but not old enough to vote.
My generation, we took to the streets protesting against our involvement in Viet Nam, and we protested to have the voting age lowered from 21 to 18 because we felt that if we were old enough to get drafted and get killed fighting in some stupid war, we should be considered old enough to vote.
By the time an 18 year old was finally allowed to vote, I was 20 years old, so I never got a chance to vote at 18, even though I was among those fighting for our right to vote.
So, my generation, we were very much involved in political issues. Many of us didn't didn't care about sports. We only cared about political issues. We stood up against racism, we protested the war, and many of my generation got clubbed over the head with billy-clubs by the police, so we had to protest against police brutality.
Back in the early 1970s on Kent State Campus, collage students protesting against the war were shot by police, and some even died while protesting the war.
Of course, back then, all the sports fans were safe, and the jocks were allowed to run rough-shod all over the schools and bully the other students around, and if you were a sports fan or a jock, you were considered a patriot, and if you didn't like sports, you were called a Commie!
Back then, we didn't have home computers or PCs. Only the Government, some businesses, the military, and NASA had computers, but in 1972 the first pocket calculators came out, and electronic digital watches. Back then, a computer was rows of large cabinets with circuit boards inside with transistors, resisters, diodes, and capacitors mounted on them, and the cabinets had multi-colored lights flashing, and reel-to-reel memory tapes on them. A typical computer back then would fill and entire room.
And rap was not music. To rap simply meant having a discussion, or rap session.
But I see today's younger people in their late teens and 20s as being rather shallow. In my generation, when we were only in our late teens and early 20s we were already political animals. Back then, politics was a sport.
HEY HEY LBJ! HOW MANY KIDS DID YOU KILL TO DAY???
HELL NO! WE WON'T GO!
Then there was Watergate, and good ol' Tricky Dicky. That was President Richard Nixon.
Yeah, my generation, we were real political animals!
But today's younger generation, so many of you are shallow compared to my generation, especially the sports fans.
Now, even the art of conversation is dead.
But it's
not all due to having home computers or the Internet. The Internet is actually a good thing, because we wouldn't be having this discussion if it weren't for the Internet.
No, what I really mean to say is, that the art of conversation is dead, even when going out with friends to eat in a restaurant.
It use to be, after a meal, we sat around drinking coffee, and discussing the social or political issues of the day, or anything of interest, which sometimes did include sports, but we also discussed other issues.
But now, you go into a restaurant, they have a big flat screen TV on with the volume up full blast, and it always has a football game on.
We can no longer sit around the table with friends and hold an intelligent conversation because the TV is blasting too fucking loud. It use to be mostly in bars, but now, it's even happening in family restaurants. Everything is being taken over by sports to the point where the art of conversation is dead.
We can't hold any kind of intelligent conversation.
We have to sit there with our mouths shut and listen to . . . . .
DUH UH HUH! HE THROWED THAT BALL REAL FAR! HE KICKED THAT BALL REAL HARD! HE PLAYS REAL GOOD! DUH HUH HUH HUH!!!
Now, I don't mind people watching a game, but does the volume have to be so fucking loud that friends can't hold an intelligent conversation around the table???
It's another way of controlling us, to take away our freedom, another form of censorship. You see, they don't want people holding conversations and talking among themselves about various issues. It's probably because they're afraid we'll plot against the government, so sports is played really loud, and we all have to shut up and listen to drooling moronic monkey-boys.
Our society is becoming more and more decadent. We are no longer allowed to think for ourselves. We are required to let those in power do all the thinking for us. In another century or so, we will be well on the way to the kind of society as depicted in NOAH II.
So yes, Mr.
Polite24, something like the society as depicted in the novel could very well happen.
It's happening now!
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