This past weekend I was a guest at the storm-wracked PiCon convention in Enfield, Connecticut. I had a good time, and I hope others were entertained by my presence. I'll be going back next year if they'll have me.
So now I'm going to be exceedingly ungracious.
At the various panels I attended, I noticed a lot of lazy thinking about future issues. Science fiction fans pride themselves on having open minds and active imaginations, yet I was disappointed to see too many examples of both convention attendees and panelists dusting off old, unexamined assumptions.
Example One: Oppressed Clones
In a couple of discussions about the ethics of bioengineering or robotics, people brought up the idea of clones being created as slaves or playthings for the rich. Trouble is, in the real world we have laws and Constitutional amendments forbidding that sort of thing, and they say nothing about how a person was conceived. Sure, people have never lacked for motives to act like bastards to each other, but in a time when 50,000 kids a year in the United States are conceived by in vitro fertilization, it's kind of hard to imagine clones somehow being classed as non-human or second-class citizens.
The idea that billionaires would pay for clones of supermodels is even more silly. Billionaires can already dates with supermodels, even without spending huge sums on dodgy biological engineering. They just ask.
Example Two: Kill the Aliens!
A second rather irritating cliché that cropped up a few times was the idea that governments or military forces would be over-eager to attack or capture any alien visitors to Earth. Lord knows this one gets used in fiction way too often, as well. Can anyone actually imagine a real-world, developed nation military force launching any operation against a foe with unknown capabilities? Or imprisoning and/or vivisecting a being who is a representative of an interstellar-capable civilization? Again, people can be pretty mean, but this is ridiculous. Literally, it's ridiculous and I don't want to see it suggested ever again.
I'm not just grousing here. I'm grousing for a reason. I expect better from science fiction fans. I'm one myself, after all. Question your assumptions!
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