SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Just watched below. So seek stories with setting in which homosapiens and/or descendants automate their nutrition intake and food and eating are obsolete.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8NCig...

So you're really into dystopias now? :)

As long as there are endorphins there will be eating ;P

"So you're really into dystopias now? :)"

No. Automating eating to point of consuming all nutrients in pill form and on other end deleting wastes internally so no need for excretion would be utopia for me.

Smallo wrote: "No. Automating eating to point of consuming all nutrients in pill form would be utopia for me so I'll have time to do other stuff."

Ahh. More time for drinking. Clever. My bartender will be pleased. My liver less so.

Smallo my friend, I think you've been looking too far afield to find alien points of view. All you need to do is look in the mirror! :)

Indeed but not alien enough!

I think we've been a little cruel in not taking this topic seriously. I recall that Hellstrom's Hive has a lot of weirdness in it regarding artificially-evolved humans, though it's been a while since I read it.

Based on my other topics I'm somewhat surprised SF readers have difficulty imagining humans who don't "work for a living" eat, have sex, suffer, have stress, excrete wastes, have tribal feelings, etc.

Maybe they do because those actions,feelings and bodily functions have been basic parts of what humans are during the millions of years of our evolution, and are also part of many animal species (except for going to work). Without those, could we be called humans still? Personaly, I would find such 'evolved' humans very dull indeed. I would find no joy at reading a novel describing such people.

I would...or maybe not...but I don't always read for joy. And the human thing or what we consider human is too limited for me...

It's not a matter of being unable to imagine such things, it's the improbability of all of them being together in such a way to make an interesting or enlightening story. I can't see how a story with all the above wouldn't just end up being boring or (even worse) preachy.

And anyway, there are plenty of SF stories with people not working for a living, and not having tribal feelings. There's a fair amount where the average people don't have stress or suffer too much--but stories about all the above would be pretty dull so authors who are using those backdrops generally write their stories about exceptions to the average person, or about conflicts between those cultures and external ones (Star Trek, Iain M. Banks's Culture novels, etc.).

No suffering, though? Sorry, but suffering is simply a part of life. The universe does not allow life without suffering. Ultimately someone you know is going to die. Even if you come from a race that is technically immortal you can't stop accidents of a cosmic nature from happening. And unless you also breed out emotional attachment, when someone dies, those left behind suffer. That's cosmic rule #1: shit happens, everyone/everything suffers.

No eating? Food pills were a huge staple of early pulp SF. Like flying cars and jetpacks, though, they didn't happen and probably won't. At least not until the human body is understood far more than it is today--or when it can be genetically altered to accommodate radical changes to our food requirements. I mean, researchers are only now starting to sit up and wonder if the bacteria in our guts plays more of a health role than just helping us digest food.

Plus, not many are really going to want to abandon food. It's too much of a pleasure, like sex...and who the hell wants abandon that other than radical puritanical/religious fanatics (or neurotics who have intimacy issues)?

And no excretion? Man you'd have to really do some fundamental changes to human physiology for that. Excretion is not just about getting rid of indigestible food, it's about removing toxins and waste produced by your body's functions...every cell in your body is a little engine, and no engine functions with 100% efficiency. That's what you'd need in order to produce 0 waste.

And if you stack all those up together, just what the heck would these people do all day? Sounds like they'd be a bunch of lotus eaters...oh, wait, they don't eat...so...???

The thing is, if you're going to take away a distinct, positive pleasure (such as eating) from your imagined life, you're going to have to imagine other positive pleasures to replace it -- convincingly -- or human readers are going to interpret the imagined world as dystopic.

Food as pleasure seems somewhat overrated when the "food as medicine" trend becomes more popular. Sure vegans can make and promote pleasurable vegan meals. But there are also lazy aspiring vegans like me who prefer to put plants in blender and are indifferent to taste as long as it doesn't taste bad.

So maybe we'll see some SF extrapolations of above...or not.

In John C. Wright's Golden Oecumene (The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcendence) series, eating is a habit that only a small percentage even of base-line humans engage in -- and they are a small percentage of intelligent beings.

A non dystopia world requires sex and eating. Otherwise it's best to download our minds into a silicon substrata.

Looking at beautiful things. Enjoying nature and life. We are animals, after all.

I think part of what makes life so enjoyable is the contrast between things we enjoy and things we have to work a little harder at. If everything was easy, how would our psychology change to fit into that world? It's hard to imagine everyone continuing to excel when there isn't much need for it.

"If everything was easy..."

I'd read and/or watch that story but I might be only one or part of tiny minority.

But if even if "everything" is easy some things are still hard like intergalactic and inter dimensional travel, immortality, developing into super beings like star treks Q. That's why homosapiens shouldn't be bothered with "daily grind" at least not in fantastic fiction.

....my goodness, do not do not forget that it's those in that daily grind that have the imagination for more and better and that drive all developing of advances.

Yes and no. But more latter -- I think I speak for many who feel they would be better and more well-rounded without daily grind. Given our forum who doesn't want to feel like "Time Enough At Last" (minus nuclear apocalypse)instead of feeling like time impoverished drones like in "Repent Harlequin Said the Ticktock Man".

Well if it's thought that being immortal intergalactic inter /multi dimensional beings of super ability would put a stop to a daily grind of some kind well, it'll likely be we come to be thought of as fairies (which can be terrible or mischievous or sly or clever but rarely kind) by the rest of the inhabitants. *amused* I haven't read either of those but they do sound colorful.

Smallo wrote: "Yes and no. But more latter -- I think I speak for many who feel they would be better and more well-rounded without daily grind. Given our forum who doesn't want to feel like "Time Enough At Last" ..."

You speak for many, you say? How could you be better and more well-rounded if you simply sat doing nothing and expecting to become some kind of super being? People read SciFi and Fantasy to change their minds from 'the daily grind', yes, but the large majority of readers want to improve through their own efforts and achievements. A story where someone expected to become a 'superior being' by doing nothing himself but meditate would quickly be put aside by most readers as being an ode to laziness and selfishness. I certainly would throw away such a book.

"A story where someone expected to become a 'superior being' by doing nothing himself but meditate would quickly be put aside by most readers as being an ode to laziness and selfishness. I certainly would throw away such a book."

K. Guess I may be only one who would at least try to read that book just to see if writing about above content is possible, especially if content generates innovative forms (experiments with language, narrative techniques, etc.) but doing that may negate affect of content...

Mediation is especially hard for daily grinders and using language to articulate it within daily grind context is much harder...that attempt alone would be interesting at least for me and perhaps very few others.

"I haven't read either of those but they do sound colorful."

Actually "Time Enough at Last" is TV episode of Twilight Zone.

Michel wrote: "...A story where someone expected to become a 'superior being' by doing nothing himself but meditate would quickly be put aside by most readers as being an ode to laziness and selfishness..."

That reminds me of Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (the title story). Laziness doesn't really apply to the rigors of meditation; Dahl's tale is about the selfishness aspect. His adult short stories are fantastic reads.

Steph wrote: "Michel wrote: "...A story where someone expected to become a 'superior being' by doing nothing himself but meditate would quickly be put aside by most readers as being an ode to laziness and selfis..."

Thanks. Added to my list.

Rigors of meditation indeed -- practicing my qigong wrong for several years, got inkling of doing it right before returning to doing it wrong!