Paradox Point

         On Pantopia                  The word ‘Utopia’ was Sir Thomas More’s sour joke; it meant both Eu-topia, the Good Place, and also Ou-topia, No Place. The satirical pessimist More meant Utopia as a place literally too good to be true. Somehow world culture missed the joke, and covertly thinks Utopia possible after all; but fears that such perfection might prove to be boring; so in sheer reaction later culture invented the antithesis to utopia: Dystopia, the Bad Place.                But perfect wrongness is just as unnatural, unsustainable and boring as any other perfection; so I propose a third place:                Pantopia, the All-place.                Pantopia is a place where everything that happens everywhere, happens. Anything inevitable, like death or taxes, or cosmic...

On Dog and Cat Language   Imagine that in the future, dogs and cats acquire the power of speech. This may be by evolution, or by our genetic manipulation, or a combination of the two; and the result gives dogs and cats the full human mental mechanics of vocabulary acquisition and grammar; by which they could send messages of great complexity and specificity. I predict that they would express this ability in different ways. Dogs would learn the human’s language; they would struggle to approximate human pronunciation; and it would mostly be about giving human orders to the dogs. Typical dog utterance; “What can I do for you?” The dogs would also talk to each other, in a doggy sub-dialect of the human language, with more words about smells. Some of these neologisms will be appropriated by the humans. Whereas the cats would teach a language to their humans; it would be in normal cat sounds, which the humans will clumsily approximate in reply; and it would be mostly about giving...

On Democratizing Magic        I propose ‘democratizing magic’ as a trope fit for several genres: superheroes, fantasy, science fiction. A story with this trope subverts and transforms its genre. A story democratizes magic this way: 1. There are magical superpowers, poorly understood, which a few wield to dominate the many. The superpowered fight among themselves, with collateral damage; more oppression for the normals. 2. A low-powered superhero, alienated by low rank, teams up with rich and/or smart normals to investigate the science of superpowers. 3. Montage sequence of labs, experiments, chalkboard scribblings, an ‘aha!’ moment, gizmos and tests. The team solves the superpower riddle through the power of technobabble. 4. They invent super-tech, which can give anybody superpowers. These superpowers include strength, invulnerability, shields, flight, levitation, telekinesis, telepathy, super-senses, and healing touch. 5. They finance mass-produc...

Magic for the People!                     Consider these three fictional worlds: Harry Potter, Star Wars and Avatar, the Last Airbender. In each of these worlds there is efficacious magic, wielded by a genetic elite; and in each of these worlds those elite magicians constantly bicker, and the common folk just have to take it.           I object! And I counter-propose that, in each of these worlds, the common folk shall scientifically investigate magic, deduce its nature and principles, and invent technologies to duplicate or surpass the powers of the magicians. Magic for the People!           Obviously most of the magicians would oppose this move; but a few renegade magicians would side with the common folk for reasons of their own. This creates conflict, which is always good for story-telling. ...

                 The Broken Battlefield    Once upon a time, there was an ancient battlefield, on which many a war had been won or lost. The generals knew it well. But then one day the earth shook. The quake broke open a wide fissure all the way down the middle of the battlefield.           From then on, whenever the generals sent their armies there, their men and horses would fall into the fissure, and battle was impossible. The generals would then withdraw; but they always returned, to find the fissure still there.                       Moral: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.     Comment: Jonathan Schell compared the condition of war in the nuclear age to this.    

          Lunar Defenses   The first words spoken by Neil Armstrong when he set foot upon the Moon were, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” He intended to say “a” man, but somehow that word got lost. He blew his line! He and others then planted American flags. But in the 48 years since, the unfiltered actinic lunar sunlight has bleached those flags pure white. So those solemn first words turned into glorious nonsense, and the flags into flags of surrender! The Moon was better defended than we realized...