On Utopias: Our Best Case Scenario--'The Jetsons', 'Foundation', or...?
Is there a purpose to human existence? A meaning to human life? Most philosophers today won't go near such grandiose and nebulous questions, not least because such questions seem to presuppose that there's a transcendent force--God, e.g.--directing our lives. But it's natural and unavoidable to wonder if, as a species, there's some end-state we are either barreling towards or ought to be striving to realize. In science-fiction (and fiction generally), such end-state societ
On Dystopias: The Threads between '1984', 'The Day After', and Beyond.
Somebody once said that the worst person you'll ever know is yourself. All the horrible things you've ever heard about Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Pol Pot and so on are, truth notwithstanding, just that: hearsay, surfaces, mere information. The sources of the evil deeds of those men--rage, lust, envy, hatred, fear--are known immediately and intimately only in the privacy of our own minds. (The good news is the obverse fact: the best person you'll ever know is yourself--more o
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