Sci-Fi Writers of the Past Predict Life In 2012 179
cylonlover writes "As part of the L, Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future award in 1987, a group of science fiction luminaries put together a text 'time capsule' of their predictions about life in the far off year of 2012. Including such names as Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson, Algis Budrys and Frederik Pohl, it gives us an interesting glimpse into how those living in the age before smartphones, tablets, Wi-Fi and on-demand streaming episodes of Community thought the future might turn out."
Amazing! (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if this is any more accurate than their predictions of the years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, or 2010
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if this is any more accurate than their predictions of the years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, or 2010
The predictions for 2010 were highly exaggerated, but the ones for 2010 were spot on.
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
One is an alternate universe 2010.
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the one where Spock has a beard?
Mirror Universe! (Score:3)
No that would be the year 0102.
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And what about the prediction by Heinlein that the election of President of the US would result in "Nehemiah Scudder" being elected 2012 and that there will be no election in 2016.
Nehemiah Scudder not US president (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16409664 [bbc.co.uk]
Seriously, sometimes you Americans do scare the living crap out of us rest-of-the-worlders..
Re:Nehemiah Scudder not US president (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes we scare the crap out of ourselves.
Who cares about 2012? (Score:5, Funny)
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And holographic billboards and self-drying clothes.
(I just introduced my 9 year old son to Back To The Future. He was bored all through the initial setup and wanted to stop watching. Once Marty went back in time, though, he was hooked. Now he can't wait to see the next 2 movies.)
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(I just introduced my 9 year old son to Back To The Future. He was bored all through the initial setup and wanted to stop watching. Once Marty went back in time, though, he was hooked. Now he can't wait to see the next 2 movies.)
Weird. I'd think that for him, it would be someone going from the past to the past. The 80s, the 50s -- it's all long before he was born. I'm not sure I'd be hooked on a movie of someone going from the 50s to the 20s.
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Weird. I'd think that for him, it would be someone going from the past to the past. The 80s, the 50s -- it's all long before he was born. I'm not sure I'd be hooked on a movie of someone going from the 50s to the 20s.
Why? The world isn't that different from 1985--not in the ways that matter. Sure, the cars are dated, and Marty uses a Walkman, but he spends so little time in 1985 that it doesn't make much of a difference. (For the record, the movie is 3 years older than me, and it's always been one of my favorites.)
Re:Who cares about 2012? (Score:5, Funny)
Now he can't wait to see the next 2 movies.
Ahhh...it's good for kids to learn about crushing disappointment early.
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Grandpa is cool but dad is an old fuddy-duddy.
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And holographic billboards
Large scale 3D [youtube.com] lenticular billboards are possible, it just seems no one cares about them.
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Years ago I had the idea to make a site or wiki to gather all the movies from the past once we reach that point. As you pointed out, BttF is just 3 years away. 2001 and 2010 have already passed. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man* was supposed to take place in 1996 and Judgement Day in T2 was supposed to be in 1997.
Inspiration came from one of my favorite books, Yesterday's Tomorrows [amazon.com] but I wanted to focus specifically on the future as predicted in movies and TV shows that were set in the "future".
But, lik
Pr0n (Score:5, Insightful)
They all missed that scientists would build a worldwide, high speed network for the reliable transmission of pornography to all corners of the planet, from Communist China, to the Soviet Union to the Arab world.
Re:Pr0n (Score:4, Funny)
Once again we learn that porn will trump all. Flying cars and moonbases are great and all, but are completely insignificant next to the power of the porn.
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Mmmm, Soviet Chinese Arab Pr0n.
Well, I'm not getting any work done today. Thanks AC.
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Murray Leinster predicted the internet in the March 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction in a story titled A Logic Named Joe [baen.com] (full text at the link).
Re:Pr0n (Score:5, Interesting)
Murray Leinster predicted the internet in the March 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction in a story titled A Logic Named Joe (full text at the link).
Forster predicted "internet" social networking and remote shopping in 1909. http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html [illinois.edu]
Re:Pr0n (Score:5, Insightful)
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They all missed that scientists would build a worldwide, high speed network for the reliable transmission of pornography to all corners of the planet, from Communist China, to the Soviet Union to the Arab world.
It's been said that porn has been responsible for ALL technological advancements. VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, all for porn. The internet, graphical displays, web browser, usenet, ftp, etc. I'm drawing a blank at the moment for other examples, I'm sure /. can fill in the blanks for more.
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Fixed for accuracy.
Fixed for current events.
Bring a bottle? (Score:3)
Re:Bring a bottle? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm thinking a 25 year old Scotch would be appropriate.
Might not hurt to have it delivered by a 25 year old blonde.
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Actually, the use of the spelling "blonde" automatically indicates female. Use of the spelling "blond" would imply male.
not really the strength of sci-fi (Score:5, Interesting)
This is vaguely interesting, but imo, near-term predictions of technological development aren't really what you go to sci-fi for. If you really want an accurate prediction 15 years out, there are more qualified but generally less exciting people to get it from than sci-fi authors: that's near enough that you really just need people with a good amount of historical knowledge, extensive information about current developments, and perhaps especially, accurate knowledge of current research progress, prospects, and bottlenecks. And a decent ability to synthesize and evaluate all those variables.
Sci-fi's strengths are, instead, more about what-if than what-is-likely. One kind is technological what-ifs, imagining (at least in hard sci-fi) conceptually plausible but not anywhere near buildable technologies and their results and implications; and ethical/political/etc. what-ifs, analyzing how future societies might operate (often in either dystopian or utopian visions).
At least, that's what I go to sci-fi for.
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What are you talking about? Two of those are correct, they just got the scale wrong. Energy has gotten much more expensive than in 1997, but not enough that it's causing massive problems in developed countries, yet. Why do you think energy-efficient appliances and vehicles are so popular now?
No one really thinks they can predict the future (Score:5, Insightful)
No serious science fiction writer in their right mind seriously thinks they can accurately predict the future. The good science fiction writers merely use the future to explore the issues of the present and their implications (and perhaps offer admonishment, with a glimpse of what could go wrong if a particular path is followed).
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No serious science fiction writer in their right mind seriously thinks they can accurately predict the future. The good science fiction writers merely use the future to explore the issues of the present and their implications (and perhaps offer admonishment, with a glimpse of what could go wrong if a particular path is followed).
I didn't get the impression that any of them seriously thought their predictions might be correct, but it's still an interesting read.
Curiously, in an article containing L. Ron Hubbard, your sig was the first mention of scientology!
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Hubbard likely never thought he could predict the future, but his followers certainly thought he could do that and more. Of course, they believe that Scientology can make the gay go away too.
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some do, but they just don't predict stupid things if they want to sound like they're predicting actual future.
for example, shouldn't it be obvious that it's easier to build a machine to win in chess than to write good books? yet that's what one of the guys(neverheard of him) predicted.
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While nobody can accurately predict the future, it's sometimes fun to try extrapolating where society will go based on our past/present and then see just how wrong we were.
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"While nobody can accurately predict the future,..."
When I read the news I even doubt that most people can predict the past.
I >SciFi writers (Score:2)
I knew someone was gonna say that.
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There, fixed that for you.
Science fiction keeps getting put up on some kind of pedestal, and people keep forgetting that it's primary goal is to be entertaining enough to induce people to part with their hard earned cash. Science fiction authors are neither mystics nor prophets, they're entertainers.
Author's not just in it for the money (Score:3)
people keep forgetting that it's primary goal is to be entertaining enough to induce people to part with their hard earned cash.
So, you are saying that Picasso only ever painted pictures to make cash?
That Michael Jackson only danced to make money?
That Mary Shelly only wrote Frankenstein to make a few extra notes?
I can assure you many people are driven by more than money......
I mean, have you ever wondered why kids climb trees?
Hmmmmm
I don't suppose by any chance, you vote republican?
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Had I mentioned Picasso, or any of the others, you'd have a point. But, in actuallity, you're just blowing ignorant bullshit.
Sometimes. Other times Democrat or Independent. Never Libertarian and only rarely for fringe one plank parties.
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Ender's Game is like a third grade reading level, and Orson Scott Card went on a tirade against all his critics claiming that writing prose isn't really important. In his book about Characters and Viewpoint, he even makes a different argument: if you don't write well, nobody is going to figure out what the hell story you're trying to tell.
Ender's Game had a well-developed story, but it was poorly executed. It was like reading a kid's story.
Awful accuracy (Score:3)
Counting through the predictions I'd say 10-20% of those accurate with maybe 50% pointing to trends that may happen (and probably where started before 1987 anyway like credit cards leading the way for cashless society).
Pretty crappy performance really - and generally over-estimating the rate of progress. But I think that is well known phenomenon where people over-estimate progress over 10-30 years but substantially fall short on predictions for 50-100 years. Interesting paradox !!!
Re:Awful accuracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Even when they're get something right, they usually miss the real use or significance of it, or they characterize it in some bizarre way. A lot of people predicted, for example, that people would one day all have computers in their homes, but they almost all botched how they would actually be USED.
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Most science-fiction authors like to think of a society with a focus on science (they are sci-fi authors after all!), where people have the same thirst for knowledge and creation that they have.
Rarely is it factored in that people would rather sit in their couch watching the dumbest shows on Earth or click the cow for days on and find it interesting.
Plus, I don't think anybody wants to be the one predicting that the human race will be ravaged by something as simple as laziness and stupidity, instead of ther
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Plus, I don't think anybody wants to be the one predicting that the human race will be ravaged by something as simple as laziness and stupidity, instead of thermonuclear war or worldwide hunger.
Mike Judge has already made these predictions... see Idiocracy.
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To some extent, see also "WALL-E".
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Don't forget Lucas's first movie, THX-1138. The people there watch TV, and it's just a show about people mindlessly beating each other. It was a pretty good prediction for today's "reality TV".
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Funny, when I read the parent post, "Idiocracy" the first thing that came to my mind too. A society of dumbasses seems a far more likely future scenario than some Star Trek socialist/intellectual utopia.
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Most of the greats I know of were wildly wrong in their predictions. Maybe you live in an alternate timeline.
Re:Awful accuracy: Endpoints, not rates (Score:2)
L. Ron Hubbard and writers in the same sentence? (Score:2)
With a straight face?
Money trying to buy a reputation does not turn a crappy SF writer into a good one.
Re:L. Ron Hubbard and writers in the same sentence (Score:5, Funny)
Come on, Battlefield Earth was pretty good (though the movie was a lot better than the book).
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Please, please, please tell me you are joking... I am an avid reader of science fiction from William Gibson/Neal Stephenson to Robert Heinlein/Isaac Asimov and around to John Varley and Spider Robinson. In my much younger years (call it late teens), I tried to read Battlefield Earth and then the Mission Earth series (I had the first 5 volumes in hard cover for some reason). I quit reading Battlefield after 60 or so pages. I quit reading the first book in the Mission Earth after 20 pages or so. I do not mind
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Forest Whitaker's finest film, if you ask me.
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One has to admit that going by the fanaticism of his fandom, he beats out every modern writer.
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Tablet Computers from 1968 (Score:5, Informative)
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Alan Kay also came up with the Dynabook concept in 1968, although I don't know if at that time it was a tablet concept, or a laptop.
Re:Tablet Computers from 1968 (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Arthur C Clark stole it after Steve Jobs invented it.
Re: Cell Phones in 1948 (Score:2)
Space Cadet, written in 1948, had a throw-away line about cell phones as well. The protagonist is standing in a line and gets a call from his father. Someone else in the same line notices and asks if it was family calling. When confirmed, the second person claims that he stowed his phone in his luggage to prevent such calls.
When I first read this story as a child, I wondered about how long the phone cord would have to be. It wasn't until several years later, when cell phones did arrive, that I realized how
Sci-Fi or Wi-Fi, what is the difference? (Score:2)
Wi-Fi Users of The Past - Get A Life In 2102
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0zt4opqL18 [youtube.com]
So, why read Sci-Fi when real-life in early 21st Century nearly beats the fiction?
Nah, I still like Sci-Fi, but these authors, Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson, Algis Budrys or Frederik Pohl did NOT predict the clueless.
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Reminds me of the standard interview question (Score:5, Funny)
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
My usual answer is "I used to have a great answer for this, and then five years went by."
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"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
Wherever the hell I am.
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Prison
All I want to know... (Score:2)
Hunger (Score:2)
I suspect the article is wrong about hunger. Compared to the 80's, the world has fewer famines. The absolute number of hungry people may be up, but as a percentage of the global population, it's probably lower than in the 80's.
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The absolute number of hungry people may be up, but as a percentage of the global population, it's probably lower than in the 80's.
Indeed. The UN says [worldhunger.org] there are 925 million hungry people in 2010, around 13.1% of global population.
Around 1980 there were 850 million, although the global population was much smaller (4.5 billion versus 7 million), so the percent hungry then was around 19%.
Most hungry people are in Asia and Africa. India [indiatimes.com] alone has 230 million hungry people. Other countries with large absolut
Heinlein's "False Dawn" was spot on (Score:5, Informative)
In Heinlein's Future History series from the 1950s, there is a time line chart. This chart shows a "false dawn" in space travel - initial success around 1970, then a long hiatus.
In Heinlein's "The Man who Sold The Moon", the problem is made clear - fuel. A chemically powered rocket can just barely make it to the moon, with severe weight restrictions. Nuclear rockets are too dangerous. And so, the first lunar landing is a publicity stunt.
Heinlein could do the math. Space travel with chemical rockets is just barely feasible and hugely expensive. Nuclear rocket engines were built and successfully tested in the 1950s, but are too dangerous to use. Fusion isn't even close to working. So we're stuck.
David Brin (Score:2, Interesting)
David Brin is not included in these predictions, but he started writing a book called "Earth" in 1987 that had some interesting predictions of its own for the near future (2038, in his case).
-Networked computing connects all the people on the globe, and becomes the dominant way people access news and information.
-Computers shrink to the point where they become wearable, and people carry them around with them at all time.
-It becomes common for people to carry around small personal video cameras so they can
United Nations (Score:2)
However, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which even the CIA missed predicting, made the whole U.N. running the world to avoid nuclear war thing moot. Meanwhile, the current situation in Syria and the ineffectiveness of the U.N. in dealing with it only illustrates how far off the mark he was in predicting a world at peace.
Au contraire, with India and Pakistan in possession of nukes, and the technology in increasing danger of falling into the wrong hands, I would say that international bodies like the UN are needed more than ever. The UN was never intended to "run the world" anyway, that's just redneck paranoia. The UN is about providing a forum and framework in which nations can discuss their concerns and make them known without resorting to conflict as the first option. There's nothing "moot" about the threat of nuclear an
Re:My prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict more of the same. I also predict that people 25 years from now will still be making inaccurate predictions.
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I predict that, 25 years from now, this prediction will be proven inaccurate.
Re:My prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
you sure you don't life in the fifties? or sixties? or seventies? or eighties? or nineties? or 00's?
that's exactly the prediction all those guys got wrong pretty much.
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How do you figure they got it wrong?
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Yay! More geek angst. Who's awesome? You're awesome, emo kid!
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Whatever happens, I can predict one thing: the world tomorrow will be uglier, more crowded and less educated that the world today.
That's true, and one doesn't even have to touch upon the more controversial (not for me) things such as AGW.
For intance, there was a time when eating salmon and other large fish was unambiguously healthy. Not anymore: the concentration of mercury in the oceans (because of coal-fired plants) has been steadily increasing, and with it, mercury in the fish. Now you have to weight the pros and the cons of eating it.
Population has been steadily increasing as well.
And there is a clear trend of unethical business p
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Heck I don't even know we are in the end of cheap energy. Fracking seems to be giving us a real surge of cheap energy. At the same time solar efficiency as gone from 10 years output to 3.5 years output to build a panel. Which means its viable. Wind turbines now work really well so that technology can spread. Be careful with predictions we may very well have been through a trough of expensive energy.
As far as education.... the last decade has been bad. The last century has been amazing.
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Wind Turbines are being fought by hippies because they kill eagles. Within 5 years, I expect the ELA (Eagle Liberation Army) to be formed, and in 25 they are a well known terror group that destroys wind turbines in such numbers that military protection is necessary, making them largely uneconomical. Solar efficiency becomes much better, but only in China because the US government collapses under its "far worse than Greece" debt after the Renminbi becomes the world bank currency and they are no longer able t
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You can't have it both ways. US debt is denominated in dollars. If the dollar crashes the US doesn't have a serious debt problem anymore.
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Whatever happens, I can predict one thing: the world tomorrow will be uglier, more crowded and less educated that the world today.
Harry Harrison beat you to that prediction a while ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room [wikipedia.org]!
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I think this prediction is total bullshit. Go to China and ask young people there whether they look forward to a brighter future or not. Over there, things are constantly getting better.
Sure, the sun has set on the American empire, and everything is indeed getting worse here in the so-called "land of the free" where the police have turned into para-military squads, but America is not representative of the whole world.
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the world tomorrow will be...less educated that the world today.
World literacy has risen [indexmundi.com] from 77% in 1995 to 82% in 2005. More recently [unesco.org] in 2010, 87% of female youth had basic literacy skills, compared to 92% of males.
In China almost all youth are now literate. In Kenya, 93% of youth are literate. Only countries like Ethiopia, Niger, Chad, and Mali have youth literacy rates at or below 50%.
People with college degrees increased [huffingtonpost.com] to 6.7% of the world population in 2010 from 5.9% in 2000. That is around 50 m
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Nonsense everyone is an agreement about what's good and what's bad about energy:
1) Cheap
2) Safe / Clean
3) Reliably priced / reliable availability
4) Domestic
Where there is disagreement is what to do about the tradeoffs between those 4 objectives. Not addressing legitimate concerns about safe / clean has created mistrust. The way to handle that is an effective outside audit i.e. regulation.
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Fracking for natural gas -- one of the cheapest, cleanest, safest, and most reliable domestic energy sources -- has been made illegal in some states. Environmentalists oppose fracking for natural gas because they don't want us to have cheap energy.
The only state in which fracking is illegal to the best of my knowledge is Vermont and they don't have any natural gas, so it is symbolic. If someone discovered natural gas reserves in Vermont symbolism be damned they'd be fracking. Now the real issue with fra
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"No one has any idea", so let's obstruct.
"No one has been able to answer",so shut it down forever.
"That's a problem", so don't produce any energy.
"No one knows", so stop doing anything until everyone knows all possible outcomes.
"There is a lot of risk there potentially" and no risk can ever be tolerated.
"There have been some problems" and no one in the world has ever had problems before, so let's not start doing this problematic energy production.
There's "not enough oil" and therefore it's impossible to dis
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Where is that coming from? I would suggest you start reading actual environmentalists and not FOXNews' version of environmental debates. Sheila Jackson gives speeches on these topics all the time. Pull some of the transcripts.
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I didn't say anything about shutting down fracking forever. The only person whose been talking about shutting down fracking is you. If you want my actual proposals:
1) That fracking chemicals no longer be consider trade secrets and instead are matters of public record, subject to regulation
2) That a permanent geological group be established in the EPA to evaluate effects of fracking with budget to conduct and fund research
3) Other than that I'd like to encourage the US to move as quickly to as much frac
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3) Other than that I'd like to encourage the US to move as quickly to as much fracking as possible starting now, despite the risks.
That's not a view consistent with modern environmental orthodoxy. Most environmentalist leaders would consider you a right wing extremist tool of the oil and gas industries.
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No actually that is the mainstream opinion.
Let me quote the President BLM: http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=293917 [doi.gov]
Which basically summarized is, fracking is a huge economic benefit and the we need to evaluate safety procedures in terms of their costs to keep them down for the oil and gas industry while protecting the long term viability of fracking as an energy source. Both parties are pro-fracking. The debate is over the amount of regulation ranging fr
Re:Which award? (Score:4, Interesting)
For L Ron Hubbard though, Scientology has overshadowed everything else he ever did.
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Re: You can still admit to liking... (Score:2)
I'm not ashamed to admit I liked Battlefield Earth, the book.
For one thing, it is a masterpiece of plotting. Before the end of the over 1,000 pages there are dozens and dozens of loose plot threads, and yet by the end every single one is neatly tied up.
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OSC was pretty crazy even in his youth, though I will admit it's gotten worse. Still, if you buy books used, the money doesn't actually end up with the author, which is usually a bad thing, but in this case...