Science *Fiction*?

[krkaufman]

Caught bits of a couple TV shows/movies over the weekend....

'Deep Space Nine' episode... yet another time-travel episode, where Sisco and a few others are flung back into mid-21st century San Francisco, where people looking for work had been tricked into Warsaw-like ghettos. The working class and elites look down upon them for being jobless, and have generally forgotten about their plight. The imprisoned riot, and quite a few are killed by police forces.

'Soylent Green'... crowds in the streets looking for food, rioting, people getting scooped up in bulldozers; beautiful women are treated as "furniture" for the corporate elite; euthanasia facilities for those looking to end their lives; and the death of the oceans' plankton.

Sci-Fi is starting to appear a little too light on the Fiction.

What the hell's happening to us?

[Christ was Socialist]

1. well how about this statement

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

name a civilazation who didnt war itself out of existence.

[AngryAmish]

2. Are you down on civilization?

I submit we live better than subsistence farmers or hunters and gatherers.

[Deja Q]

3. Points to ponder for those

1. Oscar Wilde was gay...

2. Add to that, name a civilization that didn't get warred out of existence (meaning how many civilizations died out because of being the victims of a war that the victors re-told in their own warped image...)

[TN al]

4. What the *%## has #1 got to do with anything?

[Christ was Socialist]

10. maybe it should be pondered it's quite relevant<nt>

[TN al]

12. 'Cause you say so?

[Christ was Socialist]

14. you obviously don't see the significance so you right it off

dismiss it. Also think about that little slavery thing, and i don't know a time when all americans were equal (in theory), to exploitative capitalism and the bottom line *cough* ruling corporate elite. How much time went between them.

[TN al]

17. You see the whole thing is...

... I don't see that Wilde's homosexuality needs to be taken into acccount to understand what he said. It just looks to me that pointing out his homosexuality does one of two things: The speaker is either trying to dismiss what Wilde said because he is gay or else trying to claim a higher understanding of it because of the speakers homosexuality. It would be like me telling you that you can't talk about hockey because you aren't Canadian.

I knew I shouldn't have missed last weeks meeting. It looks like the secret decoder rings were passed out then.

[thebigidea]

6. boy, #1 better have a good explanation

otherwise, I'll be forced to re-enact that Monty Python skit about Wilde and Shaw...

and you WOULDN'T WANT THAT.

So: what does his being gay have to do with anything?

[Deja Q]

8. You be gay for a while and then you'll know.

:-)

That also answers the other guy who wondered what it has to do with anything. (post #4)

Here are some hints:

We have seen (and have been a target of) barbarism.

We haven't seen civilization, though it appeared for a while that we might have actually gotten it (current events threaten to, shall we say, do a lot of bad things against us...). But that's from our perspective. If we want to talk about civilization from a certain baseline, we need to know Oscar's context and definition of the word.

We don't get the decadence others take for granted.

[thebigidea]

9. adding that to your original post would've helped

Because it looked like an insult or something without elaboration.

I was about to burst in with some kind of "Oscar Wilde? Gay? NOOOO! Hold the presses, have we got a scoop!"

[Selwynn]

13. What the fuck does being gay have to do with anything?

[bigtree]

5. Saw Dr. Strangelove-Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love the Bomb

last night

[krkaufman]

7. Strangelove is wonderful, and it's on TCM at 5pm tonight (CDT)

Strangelove starting NOW on TCM.

(My bad, Laura's not on for another hour.)

[bigtree]

18. Clips

President Muffley: "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room." (31K)
http://www.tigersweat.com/movies/strange/slove04.wav

Video clip:
http://www.tigersweat.com/movies/strange/slove.avi


"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration , Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids... "
-Base Commander Ripper

[FreedomReload]

11. Another DS9 Episode Which Relates To Our Time

"Homefront" deals with paranoia after a terrorist attack.

[krkaufman]

19. The one where "Changelings"(?) may have infiltrated?

But turns out the attack was orchestrated by power-hungry Federation officers?

[FreedomReload]

20. Yes

[nostamj]

15. they could show THEY LIVE

and call it a documentary in these days...

[Soup Bean]

21. I've watched that movie twice in 3 months..

"...I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. I'm all out of bubblegum."

[DarkPhenyx]

16. Anotehr soylent thread here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=1056048#

Little more light in tone too. :)

But I will ask when was Sci-Fi ever really fiction? It is usually just the dreams of the dreamers who create the technology after all. The "brain session" if you will from where the ideas and inventions of tomorrow come fron. Da Vinci? Far too many others to list. All of them were "sci-fi" writers in their own time. Look where we are now. :)