Jim Baen's Universe

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The Future and You February 2007

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

Listen as Elizabeth Bear, Toni Weisskopf, Walter Jon Williams, Ginjer Buchanan and L.E. Modesitt describe many of the technological and social changes which will alter your life during the next few years.

The Future And You is an award-winning audio podcast about the future which may be downloaded and enjoyed, or even copied and shared, for free. Every episode contains many interviews which reveal a wide variety of ideas and opinion from a wide variety of people.

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The February 1, 2007 episode includes all of the following and more:

Elizabeth Bear shares her expectations on the future discovery of earthlike planets and her ongoing involvement with SETI-@-home. She also discusses religion, agnosticism vs. atheism, buying things on eBay, non-lethal military weapons, and her reluctance to use any future version of Microsoft Windows as the primary operating system for her eventually augmented brain.

Toni Weisskopf describes several of the trends going on within book publishing such as SF&F titles crossing over into mainstream and how the shrinking shelf life of books in stores hurts authors as well as customers.

L.E. Modesitt suggests there is a growing inflexibility in the world, and that cell phones are slowing the rate at which today's teens mature. He sees the media as promoting inflexibility most prominently in politics since they will not allow a politician to learn, grow and change his or her mind. Instead, the media will hold a politician to old statements and policy positions even if those statements or positions were made decades ago. He also suggests that the media promotes conflict, since it insists that all conflicts are between polar opposites. Disagreements which are seen as small or subtle or nuanced will not draw a TV audience or sell papers. He also describes how cell phones may be slowing maturity in students by preventing them from ever being "on their own" when facing life's problems. With cell phones, no one is ever on their own, so self-reliance becomes an option which is rarely chosen and never incorporated into the personality. Even young people's opinions seem to be formed by a committee of friends through a consensus of feelings, rather than by cold solitary logic. And when asked about eBooks, Mr. Modesitt described how Isaac Asimov formally analyzed what would make up the "The Perfect Book."

Ginjer Buchanan (Senior Executive Editor and Marketing Director of Ace and ROC books) names those Hard SF authors she feels have the most accurate or persuasive vision of the future. Her picks include Charles Stross (a former Linux programmer), Alastair Reynolds (astronomer), Allen Steele (journalist) and Jack McDevitt. One of these authors, she discovered herself from the slush pile twenty years ago. She also addresses the question of how well Hard SF is competing in the bookstores.

Walter Jon Williams says with assurance that "The war against Utopia has been won." He also asserts that the fight of the 21st century will be the war against fundamentalism. He suggests that Nanotechnology is "all over the place," and that biotechnology is likely to produce immortality within forty years. He expects the big publishers will eventually solve the problem of making money from eBooks, even if they have to use methods that appear heavy-handed. He expects wirelessly networked computers to becoming ubiquitous in most all of your household devices, even those that never before contained computers such as washers, driers, microwaves, as well as your clothes and your shoes. And that all these computers will talk to one another—about you. He also describes how consumer databases are already being used to not only market products to people but also to market political ideologies.

And as always we include another installment in our serialization of the Hard SF novel, Bones Burnt Black; and Bananaslug & Stoney do their bit to let the world at large know what's in the current issue of Jim Baen's Universe.

News items in the February 1, 2007 episode include:

An artificial intelligence programmer has just released a computer version of the strategy board game Death Stacks which was invented by the host of The Future And You, Stephen Euin Cobb. No word yet if the programmer intends to enter his heuristic software to compete in the—so far, human-dominated—Annual Death Stacks Tournament which is only a few months away and will be held at the Marriott Executive Hotel in Charlotte NC as part of the SF&F convention ConCarolinas. The curious may download this freely available, and freely improvable, Death Stacks computer game, as well as its C# source code. (However, as of this writing, the program will only run under Microsoft .Net 2.0).

During 2007 your host is scheduled to visit with the fans at RavenCon in Richmond VA (April 20-22, 2007) ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC (June 1-3, 2007) LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN (July 27-29, 2007) and DragonCon in Atlanta GA (August 31-September 3, 2007).

All the cons are great fun, but I have a special fondness for ConCarolinas. Maybe because it's where I get to award tournament trophies, or because it was the first con to put me on the bill, or maybe it's just because the Klingons of Dark Star Quadrant are mysteriously convinced that I can karaoke.

If you do spot me at one of these conventions, however, try not to be too shocked by my new appearance. On January 3, 2007, for the first time in my life, I shaved my head. I still have my mustache, goatee and eyebrows, but that's about all.

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And if the current episode's ideas and opinion are not enough, check out the previous month's episode of The Future And You which contains Kim Stanley Robinson, David B. Coe, Jay Lake, Sarah A. Hoyt, Catherine Asaro, and John R. Douglas (editor for scifipedia) discussing all the following:

Is our world already changing too fast for our cultural headlights? And in the future will those who don't benefit from The Singularity at its very beginning be forever left behind? Jay Lake (author and anthologist) discusses this as well as Wikipedia, Google and global warming.

Do large segments of the American population have various vested interests in not looking at the future's potential dangers? John R. Douglas (an editor for scifipedia) believes that Americans would rather be happy consumers than listen to the scary predictions from scientists. He also says that too many business people plan for the future only as far as their company's next quarter, and not one second farther. He also suggests that the first immortal is already alive, and his name is Bill Gates.

Is the internet killing used bookstores? Sarah A. Hoyt (author and voracious reader) was surprised to discover long after she changed her book buying habits that others had simultaneously changed theirs.

Does POD publishing (Print-on-demand) have a future? And are there times when it makes sense to use it now? Catherine Asaro (author and former president of SFWA) uses concrete examples from two of her friends. She also talks of eBooks and electronic rights.

Professional grade digital photography: David B. Coe (author and nature photographer) says the advantages are legion and the future is here now.

Is our civilization in a time crunch? Have we reached a crisis point in history? Or has every generation seen themselves this way? Kim Stanley Robinson talks of this as well as nanotechnology and his doubts about The Singularity and artificial intelligence.

And, as always, another installment in our serialization of the Hard SF novel, Bones Burnt Black; and the official segment from Jim Baen's Universe in which Bananaslug & Stoney take us inside the greatest online science fiction and fantasy magazine in the world.

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This podcast about the future is at http://www.thefutureandyou.com.