Editorial – November 2024: Evolution Isn’t Just For Organics.

Hello everyone,

When is there ever a final form of anything? Everything has a level of evolution, and we don’t always know its final form. People preferred photographs to paintings when they first appeared, even though they were then considered an art form. Once you had a camera, you could produce your own photographs more quickly. Eventually, as film emulsions improved, you could produce them in color and even print them yourself. Initially, moving pictures were silent, but their synchronization to film led to the introduction of sound. Film transitioned from black and white to color, capturing a wide range of hues, before transitioning to digital. Cameras and mobile phones have the same recording capabilities as film, making it accessible to everyone. The form and product have evolved and changed. Some events were obvious, but even after 30 years, I doubt if people would have wondered what Blu-ray was. Where will the visual medium go from here? I’m uncertain if 3D interactive technology will be effective outside of computer games. People will still prefer to view things from an outsider’s perspective.

Just because everyone has it doesn’t mean there are many breakout film directors. Becoming professional means a different kind of talent and desire. Having the right tools doesn’t make you an artist. There’s a lot of skill involved. The principles of drawing—especially figures—and understanding color are rather handy. How can talent and aptitude be anything but innate, refined through learning? You might even find a talent for something you never thought you had. Material evolution can only go so far. Continuous repetition, particularly with musical instruments, achieves professional standards, yet it doesn’t account for sporadic talent.

Most things fall into this category. The initial goal of space travel was to launch an object into space, followed by orbit, manned flight, the Moon, and finally a manned space station. It was a perilous endeavor, with numerous attempts made throughout the journey. Then a massive delay. The public lost interest in it, and further development in manned space travel was never initiated. Things moved too slowly, literally. We know that we want to reach the planets and even nearby stars, but it looks like our machines, not ourselves, will be the first. Human limitations in long flight under low gravity are still problematic. We’re slowly going to do it. However, the primary challenge lies in the method by which we plan to achieve it. Chemically driven rockets have their limitations, and it would certainly be hazardous to use nuclear fuel. The next advancement is likely still in the planning stages or has not even crossed our minds yet. Indeed, speculation exists, particularly within our own genre, but a comparison between the moon module and fiction reveals a significant difference between speculation and actual design. It’s up for debate whether the creation of the moon module will stem from SF speculation. SF is the power of dreams, and when you consider scientists who are inspired by it as career options, it definitely has its place. Most people were happier with a fictional presentation than the cost of the real thing.

Evolution doesn’t just affect organics. It mostly takes longer with them. Material evolution is a lot faster. It’s challenging to estimate the number of generations. A lot depends on technology evolving and, as with CPUs, how it can spread across different devices and bring the price down to gain more sales and a general acceptance of need. Computer and Internet technology evolved because people like to communicate quickly. The evolution is there. A letter. A postcard. Two-way radio was a stepping stone. The telephone defined needs and customers. Those unable to afford home phones utilized street kiosks. Mobile phones combined the two. Multi-functions meant you could see and talk to people. See the evolution? Where can we expect it to go next, excluding implants?

The transition from specialist to general use appears to be a common factor for many products, with the exception of pharmaceutical drugs, whose manufacturers don’t seem to realize they’d make more money if people could afford them.

Evolution extends beyond the evolution of organics. The survival of the fittest is largely down to the company that can sell sufficiently at a quality the public can tolerate. Just a quick glance at VHS and Betamax recordings reveals that the latter failed due to their high cost for both machines and tapes. Market forces are peculiar and unpredictable, largely due to advertising and word-of-mouth.

Making predictions about how something will change is even harder. Despite experiments with flying cars, their viability remains uncertain. There are enough crashes on the ground that put low-level flight casualties at risk. The future of automated cars remains uncertain, primarily due to the ongoing evolution of artificial intelligence. Decision software can take over automatic functions. Making the correct decision in an emergency is more important than its speed. We just have to hope that an AI-driven car will have enough time to consider two options: saving its passenger or colliding with a number of people.

All of this has a bearing on science fiction. From transport to—well, anything else. The majority of these services will continue to operate in the future. Despite potential advancements and new names, the functions remain recognizable and relatable. We haven’t required anything different except perhaps games, and even computer games have some relation to their physical counterpart. How many of you now prefer playing Solitaire or Patience on your computer over using a pack of cards? We still play with cards, just in a different medium. I question the possibility of combining the two.

For a science fiction writer, staying ahead in future stories is crucial. It’s not surprising that certain details remain vague unless they are essential to the plot. They serve a function; why elaborate? The reader doesn’t need to understand the mechanics of the engine; they just need to understand its operation, along with some usage guidelines and a hint of realism when it malfunctions. In normal fiction, there’s no need to explain the workings of a combustion engine, so why is it necessary in science fiction? All you really need to do is remember that things like anti-gravity aren’t likely to happen without drastically changing the world in the process. There is no evolutionary process going on. Horses to ride on. Bicycles. Cars. Aircraft. Spaceships. That line is easy. Leg-power. Petrol. Battery. There is a clear path, but it lacks features such as anti-gravity, which could significantly alter the nature of transport. The application of quantum entanglement at our scale remains uncertain, despite the potential benefits of teleportation.

Since beginning to write this editorial, I’ve read several examples of different things evolving or even going back for a restart, like battery cars happening before the combustion engine but not practical until now. Today, technology and global warming have once again caught up. It is evident that humanity has not dedicated enough time to devising practical solutions, which has impeded the evolution of tools to address these issues.

The lesson from all of the above is that we don’t always predict how things like technology will evolve, let alone how to use it within a science fiction narrative. The reality that technology hasn’t progressed as anticipated must inform every Science Fiction writer’s ideas. All one needs to do is compare the use of computers and their software in science fiction to the current state of affairs to realize that we were mistaken. To be fair, the SF writers of the Golden Age relied solely on the information provided by scientists about the size of computers, not considering the possibility of a drastic change in size due to silicon technology, which would have been difficult to predict or plausible. Imagine a processor the size of your thumb, packed with multiple circuits? Who could imagine such a thing? It’s understandable why science fiction writers found themselves caught off guard. It wasn’t as though they had to describe how it works. The function would have remained unchanged, but no one thought to reduce the size and make it mobile. Indeed, they had already done so with robots, but no one connected the dots.

Is this making science fiction harder to write? I hope not. This year, I seem to be rekindling my creativity with some original stories. However, I discovered that my agoraphobia had resulted in a vitamin deficiency, leading me to restrict my diet and disregard the importance of remembering certain words. Fortunately, I realized what was happening and started taking Vitamin K, which resulted in an extraordinary change. I doubt this is likely to help anyone with early signs of dementia, and if you have a varied diet, you’re probably eating enough Vitamin K anyway. For me, it served as a sharp reminder of how crucial it is to not only have the right vitamins, but also to recognize the importance of having enough of them. If we are going to survive the calamities of nature that we brought upon ourselves, we need to think fast and implement as quickly as possible.

Just because we’re living in a world of science fiction doesn’t mean we can’t contemplate where it is going. While science fiction may not offer the same excitement or adventure, we have learned to exercise caution. Humanity may be fortunate enough to survive some form of global warming. We might even survive a third world war, provisionally with some of our technology intact. Will future generations learn that territorial war or overreligion means there will never be any winners, just a lot of wasted lives? If the only sentient species in local space were killed off due to its stupidity, it would likely disqualify us from any intelligence quota. Surely there is latitude for SF stories in the future?

Things will always grow and change. It would be wise for us to be present to witness this growth and change, and perhaps even to initiate it.

Thank you, take care, good night, and remember there’s a world out there waiting for us to evolve.

Geoff Willmetts

editor: www.SFCrowsnest.info

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