The Way the Future Blogs

 
Like almost everybody else, we have the habit, in our house, of celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and other significant events. The trouble is that a single day doesn’t seem to be enough for some of the king-sized anniversaries we’ve been getting lately, so, in the interest of fair play, for everybody over 70, we have changed the rules. For such priceless and well preserved specimens of humanity the proper greeting is now “Happy Birthmonth,” and birthday cakes, cards or presents are appropriate on each day.

It seems fair, then, to extend the same courtesy to major holidays. This period, therefore. is Christmonth and we wish a very happy one to every last one of you!

Dear Readers:

Today is my 92nd birthday, an age which gives me the privilege of asking for the kind of birthday present I would most like to get. That present is simply this: Please take this seriously.

As you can see, the letter below is addressed primarily to our American occupiers, since they’re the ones most likely to climb on and make it move. But it’s also for every American voter who can see that something is crucially threatening our society’s basic needs, and wants to do something to stop it.

Dear Occupier:

You’ve made a wonderful start! Now give the Republican war machine a kick where it hurts them the most. Copy the letter below. Send it to every Republican official or candidate in your state, town or district. Make some more copies and send them to all your friends … and do it quickly, before the Republican High Command finds some way of stopping it.

The Republicans think they own everything, from the Supreme Court to your local school board. They come pretty close, too. But they don’t own your vote — yet. Use it while you’ve still got it!

Print or type your name
And your home address
All of it

Dear former Republican friend:

This letter is to let you know that your Party’s tactics of destroying the ability of our government to function by means of your no-tax increase-pledge is too recklessly destructive a threat to be taken, even by fanatics.

Accordingly, I now pledge that I, the undersigned, will never again vote for any Republican candidate for any elective office in America until the Republican Party abandons this perilous, un-American and very nearly treasonable action.

Sincerely yours,
(A Registered Voter
At the Above Address.)

Dear Readers:

Tomorrow is my birthday, and if any of you would care to do me a birthday favor, there is one I would like to request from you. In tomorrow’s post, I want to try an experiment. I would be grateful if you would read it and take it seriously.

Thanks, and Happy Almost Birthday to me,

Fred

(This is a new feature I’ve been wanting to add to the blog, talking about some of the most memorable meetings I’ve attended — meetings about science, science fiction, world affairs, all kinds of things.. Some of them were one-off or by invitation only, so I can’t urge you to try them for yourself. Most, though, are regularly scheduled yearly functions — for example the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Future Society and (of course!) the World Science Fiction Convention. The good part of that is that I’ll try to time the columns about the open ones for a few months before their next meeting and give details of how to register, so that if one takes your fancy you can try it for yourself.)

 
The NASA Conference on Speculative Technology

Ed Mitchell, failed telepath?

This first, and so far only, NASA conference on speculative technology was the brainchild of a NASA man named George Pezdirtz. If I ever wanted to put together a really fun scientific conference of my own would try to hire Mr. Pezdirtz to plan it. He did just about everything right.

To start with, the conference was held on an island off the coast of Georgia. I have come to believe that that is the very best kind of site for a conference that wants to explore new possibilities in its mandate. You see, the only way in or out for most of the participants was a single-engine propeller plane that commuted between the Atlanta airport and the island. In most conferences that feature a lot of high-profile participants, the superstars generally fly in just in time for their performances. Then they fly right out again as soon as they’re over. At Spec Tech they couldn’t do that. There weren’t enough seats on the plane. So nearly all of the conferees hung around for the duration, mingling with the others, to the great enrichment of the discussions that followed each paper.

Of course another factor that made that work so well was that so many of them were in fact superstars themselves.

Before we go any farther, let me make a confession. I had some personal reasons for particularly enjoying it. One was that, during a break in the proceedings, Arthur Clarke found some bicycles nobody was using, and attempted a spot of bicycle jousting — I pedaling, Arthur on the handlebars. (That was about the last time both Arthur and I were spry enough for that sort of juvenile delinquency.)

And then there was the question of Wernher von Braun. He and I had been aware of each other’s existence, but the only tangible connection was that he did keep inviting me to watch rocket launches at the Cape. This troubled some mutual friends, Willy Ley in particular, who thought that Von Braun and I could be good friends, but he never offered any one-on-one invitations, and I couldn’t get past the fact that he had been an officer in Hitler’s SS to take the initiative.

But then came an evening at Spec Tech when we had all been invited to a barbecue on the far side of the island. It was an automobile road away, and there weren’t enough cars to go around. So we doubled up. And for half an hour there I had Wernher Von Braun sitting in my lap. . . . Oh, it didn’t overtly change much, but after that I couldn’t help thinking of him less as a Nazi slave-labor driver and more as a human being who shared the same interplanetary ambitions as I did. I don’t think I would have done what he did to get there. But I wouldn’t have got as far as he, either.

Continue reading ‘Great Conferences I Have Attended, No. 1’ »

That headline, of course, is meant to be sarcastic. You see, we do have a problem. Our Ma Dell upright created it, all by itself, and all of the wizardry of our ordinarily undefeatable Guru, Dick Smith, has been unable to it restore it to civilized behavior. So please tell me (and Dick). Have you ever had this particular trouble with a computer? If so, what did you do about it?

First it goes on nicely writing down my well-chosen words. Then, when I switch to another file, it flashes a blood-red sign in my face that starts with the threats, saying something like, “You get out of this file or we’ll make you wish you had! This file is reserved for Frederik Pohl to work on, so you leave it at once. Exit this file now!”

Nothing as deranged as this has ever turned up on any of the four other computers in the house. Just on the one that I write blog material on, so tell me, please. Has anybody got any help for a seriously demented computer?

 

Mike Darwin’s response to my piece on the loss of that very good man, Bob Ettinger, caught me completely unaware. I am grateful to you for repeating the offer of a free freeze, Mike, just as I am grateful to the people who sometimes tell me that they’re going to pray for me. Even though I can’t accept your offer, it’s a kind thought.

Let me quote from a poem that was written long ago by John Dryden, in an attempt to sum up the teachings on this subject of the even longer ago Roman philosopher Lucretius. The last six lines say it all, but I’ll give you the whole thing. It goes like this:

So, when our mortal forms shall be disjoin’d.
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free,
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.

Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost
We should not move, we should only be toss’d.
Nay, e’en suppose when we have suffer’d fate
The soul should feel in her divided state,
What’s that to us? For we are only we
While souls and bodies in one frame agree.

Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance,
Though time our life and motion should restore.
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.

But I do appreciate the offer.