Laptops can rarely, if ever, be built by the amateur user.
True, the laptops put stuff all together, which is why the water took it all out, though the harddrive was enough intact to retrieve data. But I could
learn how to get parts. And desktops are systems where the parts are not smooshed together, so yes, they are very much like legos. I know what the parts are. I know how to do maintenance on them. I know how to select a system. I know some basic electronics stuff. But to do correct soldering and wiring and what not to actually put them together, I would have to learn additional stuff. And I can -- you can learn anything, given enough money, time and effort, some able to learn some things faster than others. But I have to choose and so do we all.
Red Dobbs said:
I say slow down people and write good stuff, don't copy something else with a different name and location, find your own thing and do it.
I know that many people don't believe this, but that's what most of the authors actually do. But the claims of stagnation are joint -- one is popularity stagnating, which is arguing that SF isn't mass produced; it's failing to attract interest. The other is stagnating in terms of being able to explore ideas, which may mean all of science or a complaint that certain types of science aren't being used and centrally enough. Often, the stagnating issue is saying both -- it's dying and it's dying because writers are not doing what some readers feel is acceptable content. A favorite variant is that SF is stagnating on ideas because all the ideas have already been found and we know everything. That's a piece of hubris that I find impractical myself.
psikey said:
What if men stopped being dumb consumers and didn't need jobs so badly? Women too? Wouldn't that be just as much a form of equality?
No, because the equality issue isn't purely about cash flow, having a job and purchase power. I misspoke in my previous post, because I made it sound like it was about getting women into the workforce. It wasn't. Women have always worked for pay and trade. My grandmother, for instance, had to drop out of school to pick crops during the Great Depression, sold quilts and crafts, ran a gun store with her husband, owned and managed rental property, etc. Her daughter, my aunt, got to go college and was a terrific artist and photographer who sold her work, taught classes, worked in the graphics department of the city newspaper, helped run her husband's sport and security dog training business, did some rentals, etc. While the small percentage of women who could not work or work part-time while raising kids increased somewhat in the growth of the middle class post WWII in places like the U.S., the reality was that most women were in the workforce.
What wasn't happening is them getting higher levels of education, getting paid the same as a man or the same terms for equal work, being allowed into certain industries -- like tech -- being promoted, etc. We do not have equality because women were deliberately blocked from equal rights through legal discrimination, business discrimination and social discrimination, (which is still going on.) And that was and is about beliefs, not cash flow. There are other things involved with work besides just money -- power, political control over your rights, personal safety, property rights, etc. If we are equal, then we are adult human beings under the law with equal protection under the law. If we're not, legally we used to be property, then the legal equivalent of minor children, then we could vote but we were blocked from political representation and fair employment. So it's complicated.
Could we become a less consumer-oriented society? Yes, we certainly can (and this is an issue that SF keeps exploring, both ways.) Recycling, etc. is part of that. Many people pursue self-sufficiency, back to the land, reduced use, etc. But those cultural shifts, while they tackle some of our problems, would not give women equality. Only ensuring equal legal protection and combating discrimination does that.
Now, if you're saying we should all stop working and women should work for that goal instead of not being discriminated against in the workplace, how exactly would that work? We cannot all be agricultural, and even if we were, it would not be sufficient. Are you going to somehow manufacture your own microchips, but only enough for yourself? How are you going to get the necessary materials if you live in a part of the world where you can't get them naturally? And isn't that work, just not work you're getting paid for by someone else? And why would you then need bookkeeping skills? But certainly, those are issues that SF can and does explore.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.”
And yet, Heinlein did not know how to do all those things.
Whether a society is pre-industrial or not, being able to survive alone is rarely possible. Humans have to cooperate to survive. And where there's cooperation, there's going to be trade. And there's going to be specialization because to be really good at particular things takes time and not everyone in the community can devote that much time, not and have the other needs met. You don't need everyone working on one problem, like making barrels or weaving cloth.
Bookkeeping or personal accounting are taught in schools to both sexes. It's just not consistent from place to place, as the money willing to be devoted to schools and for what varies widely. I think basic accounting skills are critical to being able to function in our Western society, but I'm not sure that has much impact on SF.
I think a lot of this specialization is artificially created.
Very possibly true. But some specialization is going to happen in any society. I'm pretty sure there are things that you don't know how to do, psikey.
You could learn how to do them, you might be able to figure out how to do some others in a pinch, but you don't know them. Instead, you chose or sometimes had choices made for you (certainly again topics of SF,) about what to know in your life. I know how to butcher a hog, but I have chosen not to butcher hogs in my life. I have chosen not to live on a farm, though I know how to grow crops and have grown vegetables, fruits and herbs.
So let's play with this. If I did know more than just parts and basic systems, if I was a computer engineer, what would you expect me to do when the water killed the laptop? What would you have done?
Is changing the technology but talking about the same issue a form of stagnation?
I don't think so. Social issues about humanity don't change that widely. But those social issues in reaction to changing technology is part of SF exploration, of how technology is part of us.
