Response to Orson Scott Card

I recently reread an essay by Orson Scott Card titled “Are We the End of Science Fiction?" Just last week, I went to the movies and saw Surrogates, and haven’t been able to shut up about how happy I was with the science fiction involved. Sure, the plot was kinda predictable and the murder mystery was just an excuse to examine the human condition, but that’s what science fiction is supposed to do! Yes, Mr Card, we are not the end of science fiction, but the precipice of reevaluation.

I know, it’s irksome to go to the bookstore and hunger for a book that is truly sci-fi and have to dig through masses of sword and sorcery, books barely a step away from bewitching bodice rippers, and fifteen different types of media spin offs (Star Trek, Star Wars, World of Warcraft, World of Darkness, D&D and so many others). I picked up a hopeful by the name of Whitechapel Gods, which seemed to be a steam-punk book based on the summary, but quickly found myself in a fantasy involving human machines, not a shred of science to be found. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of story. It would definitely highlight the human condition. But I wasn’t able to get past the betrayal of expectations. The same thing happened with A Brief History of the Dead. A marvelous opportunity to examine our fears at the most basic level, with twists on science and socio-political theory…thwarted by the writer’s intent to write a survival tragedy with sci-fi trimming. And if you need to call that much attention to foreshadowing…but he must have done something right since his book was on the New York Time’s Best Sellers list for a while.

As much as it pains me, Card is right that fantasy is crowding out science fiction. Sci-fi is, as he puts it, too involved for most readers now. They need to observe and think about the world they are experiencing. I saw Surrogates with a friend from work. During the drive home, I started talking about the science- would the Surries correct color blindness and how would the human know since his/her brain had never experienced those colors before? Would the color I see finally be provable as the same the color you see since our optics are set to an industry standard or would we still have the theoretical misinterpretation of the brain? What about eating? If I had a food allergy, could I have my Surry eat something for me just so I could experience it? What if I have seizures? How come Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, the internet, and a life monitoring system aren’t included with Surries? My friend is a full time mom and part time gardener. She gave me a blank look and said, “I liked the story. I don’t know about the science. I don’t have time to think like that anymore!”

And it got me thinking. I had thought, the first time I read Card’s article, maybe a year or more ago, that the problem with writing science fiction now is that the science is always changing. I keep up with science magazines and the articles argue back and forth over so many topics that if I start writing about, say, a society that uses black holes as an energy source because they emit radio waves which can possibly do such and such (utopic/distopic sci fi), by the time I get to a finished draft in six months to a year, there will be an article about a brand new study that says that black holes DON’T emit radio waves, but cause vibrations in the dark matter field, thus debunking my “science.” And popular science hasn’t truly made it into scifi either. Why can’t my android secretary update her Twitter account while she’s being “murdered?” I mean, beyond the fact that she doesn’t know she’s an android and doing a constant upload of data?

Science has gotten to the point that magic is more believable. For some reason, our popular conscience (haha) finds that having witches and wizards building a conspiracy to keep Mundies like us from noticing how amazingly scary cool their world is even as it intersects our own is more reasonable. Maybe it has something to do with this “debate” about how “real” science is- after all evolution is only a theory that’s been proven with birds, peas, dogs, cats, fish, and other lower life forms that aren’t human. I mean, humans aren’t evolving are we? Oil of Olay has a commercial out that says that it protects my skin’s DNA and humans aren’t evolving. But I’ll totally believe in ghosts, angels, demons, and the power of my friend Will to overcome physical reality. Philosophically real reality.
But real science is changing every day.

If, as Card says, sci-fi is about exploring and preparing ourselves for the changes that science makes in our day to day lives, and I think it is, then science fiction is more important than ever. But it’s more than that. Science Fiction is supposed to help us stay human and recognize the humane in technology. There was an article on Wired.com around December of last year that talked about violence against Tickle Me Elmo. Does violence against a life like object desensitize us to violence against living creatures? If I kill an AI, does it count as murder? The first question was posed by the writer at Wired; I could draw correlations between “life like objects” being treated humanely and the studies being done with autistic persons via face recognition software that may answer that. The second question is purely theoretical right now but as we move toward a society that interacts with creations that mimic life to the point that we can’t tell the difference it will become important and be put to our lawmakers: Macintosh vs. Wade anyone? There’s already been a case where someone has “murdered” another by deleting their SecondLife character and followed up by murdering the real person.

There has never been a human time without human imagination. As long as we keep trying to understand our place in the world, the natural that exists without us and the social economic political network we have created, there will be something like science fiction. But we as science fiction writers need to do service to ourselves and imagine things that will be useful to our society. We aren’t going to get the science right- it is rare that we predict the future in that sense. But we have predicted human nature and we need to draw attention to that so we can get the minds of the world thinking again.

When Last...

When last I wrote, we had just found out that my grandmother had cancer on her kidney. I have been taking time off from writing so I could be with her. She had surgery a few days after my last post and was released from the hospital the day after. She's been at home recovering since. Two weeks ago, she got a small cold, otherwise I probably would have started writing again sooner.

Other big developments- Hoyt and I have decided to go a head and get the marriage liscence stuff taken care of next week rather than next year. September has been riddled with "heavy discussions" and anxiety for both of us and I think we will both be comforted in knowing that the other can hold us for legal ransom very soon.

Busy Week So Far

I've been pretty busy this week working on building up my Examiner.com profile. I got off track and did some unplanned work- a partial review of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency proposal (Senate version; haven't finished reading the House one) and finished a quick proposal on how to live on minimum wage, something most of us have done at least once.

Other projects to finish this week- SMS Phishing on the rise, and work on some short stories and other fiction, finish with the House version of CFPA (which so far has been friendlier to the financial industry than the Senate one, but still has vague definitions which could allow broad applications and drastic changes), and do some table top gaming! Hooray for L5R and Modern D20!

We did get to watch the new Harry Potter yesterday- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It made me realize how long it's been since I've read the books. The movie was beautiful and followed enough of the ideas of the book that I didn't find anything too jarring. I've had some fun "at work" talks about the cannonized shipping; I thought that had finally died. I will admit that Ms Watson and Mr Radcliffe seem to have a better on screen chemistry than Ms Watson and Mr Grint, but that's just the way some things are.

Two of the coolest things this week were me accidently doing my post on CFPA the same day that Rachel Maddow had a segment on it and Thomas Zahler, writer and artist of Love and Capes, announcing that he has completed the final drafts for his wedding edition comic book cover, which fiance and I will be on. Mr Zahler said in his announcement email that, "The official reveal for te cover is....for the PopCandy blog on the USA Today site, scheduled for next Friday."

Fusion Fall

Hoyt and I tried Cartoon Network's MMO over the weekend, Fusion Fall. Fusion Fall is a browser based MMO, so it doesn't require any disks or downloads, unlike most MMORPGS. Another great thing offered by the game is the "family" account- which has multiple (4) individual accounts tied to one billing and login account. The game currently offers
a free account type, which has limited leveling, item use, and item aquisation. The price for the game isn't that high either, with a normal account billing at $5.95 a month and a family account at $9.95 monthly.

The game brings back many of Cartoon Network's favorites- Dexter, The Kids Next Door, Samurai Jack, The Power Puff Girls, and more, for the Player to interact with. The voice actors are all present, which makes character dialouge simply a joy to hear. The animation
and graphic style is a generic and clean anime style, rather like the Digimon series.

While I like the game generally, with clear story expectations and mission tracking (it has a Quest Helper built in to the interface) I found myself frustrated with the primary method of movement, which is mouse based. Unlike most MMO's, this isn't optional and there is no "point and click" function of the mouse unless you move to the options screen, the same screen used for in game chatter. So for someone like me, who keeps a few programs going in the back ground, as well as text messenger, the only way to switch between programs is to hit enter, which brings up the game's options and automatically starts the chat window. This also means that the game is entirely auto-target, no selecting your target. If you want to target the monster on the right, you have to make sure it's centered in your screen and the auto-target system has selected the target and isn't stuck on a different monster. The good news is that the monsters don't appear to have an Aggro range; they only attack once engaged. To attack, you click the mouse and no auto-continue on attacks. I found, after some digging, that the game is built to be compatible with play on the XBox 360, for which these control issues wouldn't be a problem.

The game also doesn't appear to offer specailty classes; everyone can use everything and has the same fighting styles. I didn't see anything indicating a healing class (my favored class in just about everything I've ever played), but after the first hour or so, I wanted to move back into a more complicated world. Again, I like the world, and will probably continue playing, but I can't see myself quitting my WOW account or paying the otherwise reasonable fee for an unlimited account.

A Good Time to Save

Now that the heat of summer has is in full effect and dreams of Christmas in July have gone, many local stores are doing their best to remind patrons that Fall is just around the corner. Walmart hasn't quite put up their Christmas decorations yet...

What they really want to know is, "Have you started saving for Christmas?"

While it's true that banks are not offering the best interest rates right now (average of local banks in the Norman area is around 0.5%), now is a good time to start a savings account, or start seriously contributing to the one you have, and keep contributing throughout the year.
The third quarter earnings are going to be very high for a lot of regional banks, which have been benefiting from the record low mortgage rates and strong feelings of insecurity and distrust in national bank chains, which will push up interest rates on all deposit items (savings accounts, money markets, and CDs). These reports will be released internally by the end of October and externally in November, usually in time for Black Friday. August and September are also months when most banks offer specials on some deposit accounts, such as CD's and first time checking accounts for college students.

Many banks offer a "Christmas Club" Savings account, which will only allow deposits until November, when it will either send out a check for the balance of the account, transfer the funds to a pre assigned checking account, or send a out a prepaid Visa. These accounts are separate from normal savings accounts so emergency funds aren't confused with Christmas money. Christmas Savings accounts sometimes have differing interest rates from normal savings accounts, since they function as an 11 month rolling deposit CD.

False Choice in Public Option Debate

As I was watching the news this morning, the anchor and his interviewee kept saying how scared Americans are about their employers opting to support the “public option” rather than continue contracts with private health insurance providers and I thought to myself, “How is that different than any other year?”

Last year, my dad’s company changed insurance providers, as many companies do every year. My dad lost a significant portion of his vision coverage and his optometrist is no longer on the ‘in network’ provider list. And yet his premiums and deductible are higher. When he reviewed his health care package in January, there were no multiple choices for insurance providers, just different plans offered by the same provider.

Also last year, my insurance provider also raised their premiums and lowered coverage. The health insurance offered by my company doesn’t cover labs, x-rays, or medications for asthma. Now it’s little more than a discount plan. And I’m on the ‘optimum’ plan offered by my company. Again, when I went through my enrollment in December of 08, there is only one company listed, and the option to go to Afflac for a stopgap plan.

My grandma is the widow of a retiree of GM. She recently lost her dental coverage since GM’s collapse. She’s going in this week for a biopsy. She had cancer as a young adult and recently found a lesion that could be a recurrence, or so I expect the insurance company will claim. Her previous cancer was on her eye, which was removed when she was 26. The lesion is on her kidney some 52 years later.

So am I afraid that my company will opt for the public option? Not really. It couldn’t possibly be worse than what my company currently offers and I might even get vision coverage (not currently offered by my employer or my fiancé’s). And who knows, if it saves enough money, maybe they’ll be able offer all of us a miniscule raise to opt out. Is my dad afraid that his company will opt out? No. His company has enough employees in other countries that opting out wouldn’t make sense. As for my gran, she’s a conservative Republican who’s afraid that the public option won’t pass and she won’t be able to pay for long term care unless she sells her house.

The other major concern that has been raised by the opponents of the public option is that there will be ‘long lines’ to see our doctors.

For the last three months, I’ve been trying to get my doctor to call in a prescription and make an appointment. I have gotten the office several times, and finally succeeded in getting the appointment, but haven’t had any luck with the prescription she said was necessary when I was in her office. I finally went in to the office to try to get one of the nurse’s to write it out. I waited 20 minutes and was eventually told to call again and go home (Yes, I am getting a new doctor). The appointment I got? The first opening was in August. That’s a wait time of approximately 45 days from when I spoke with the office. That’s a wait of 70 to 80 days from the day that she asked me to make the appointment. The lines for treatment by specialists in Canadian hospitals are between 46 days for cancer patients and 18 weeks (126 days) for non-life threatening treatments. So my poor Dr is already acting like she’s operating in Canada.

To be fair, I also called my dentist last week with a concern and his office asked me, “Are you free right now?” I was in and back to playing WOW in less than thirty minutes. And the wait for my primary care physician is usually fairly low, so if I call thinking I have the flu, I can see him next week when I’m feeling better.

Cash or Credit?

Let’s face it, carrying cash, while a good budgeting strategy, is dangerous and passé. But how much risk are you putting yourself in if you carry only cards?

I have CID written on the back of all my plastic, but I rarely get asked for my ID, even at stores I don’t frequent. A debit card may have a spending limit of around $1,500 for pinned purchases and $2,500 for signature based transactions. For people with Overdraft Protection, that could put an account negative thousands before Overdraft fees if a debit card is stolen. When I was a call center employee for a local bank, I would get calls from people who hadn’t seen their debit card in weeks and not know why they were over drawn, let alone where the card was used. “Who’s PCC anyway?” they’d ask. (Answer: Stripes gas station and deli)

While Visa will guarantee returning funds on credit and debit purchases made fraudulently, the process for funds being returned can take up to 90 days. Many banks will give immediate credit for disputed transactions, for differing definitions of “immediate,” and only if their dispute process is followed exactly, and occasionally involves additional information requests which customers can’t provide, such as, “Who was using your card? Do you know who might have used your card?” If it turns out fraudulent transactions were made by a friend or family member, banks will ask permission to prosecute or remove the credit given to the account.

Of course, if your wallet is stolen and you’re carrying cash, you can’t call your bank and ask that they put a stop on it. 1-800-VISA-911 may not be local, but they have the number to your local bank and can shut down missing cards immediately while contacting your bank.