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Journal by khallow
Recently there have been several stories about recent space activities and our thoughts have naturally turned towards the possibility of space colonization. My view has been that not only will that happen, but some day there will be more people living off of Earth than on it.
When that happens, their mere existence will skew what is perceived as the greatest and most influential works of literature on Earth. For it won't be the great religious works of the major religions by which our descendants in space will be able to trace their mere existence. The Bible, Koran, I Ching, or the Vedas won't get us there. It won't be the great works of philosophy from Plato's many works through to modern times. Or almost anything we consider great literature today. One doesn't get into space by the unsteady hand of Hamlet, for example.
Works of economics are similarly disfranchised. This future might be enabled by Das Kapital or Wealth of Nations, but it's not going to be able to trace its lineage to these. Nor most great works of science such as Origin of Species (though Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica will have a prominent role in the foundation leading up to this great work).
There is a peculiar aspect to early space engineering (basically everything before the Second World War). Namely, that it was very insular, even from its closest neighbor, astronomy which would reasonably be thought to share common interests. There are very few notable researchers in the field until one gets to the late 1920s. There was little official interest in space development until the Nazis got involved in the mid-30s. But they all share common inspiration. And everything that involves putting anything in space or doing anything in space comes from this inspiration.
So when humanity has gone beyond Earth, there will be one work of literature which will stand out from all the rest. I, of course, speak of From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne, published in 1865.
When that happens, their mere existence will skew what is perceived as the greatest and most influential works of literature on Earth. For it won't be the great religious works of the major religions by which our descendants in space will be able to trace their mere existence. The Bible, Koran, I Ching, or the Vedas won't get us there. It won't be the great works of philosophy from Plato's many works through to modern times. Or almost anything we consider great literature today. One doesn't get into space by the unsteady hand of Hamlet, for example.
Works of economics are similarly disfranchised. This future might be enabled by Das Kapital or Wealth of Nations, but it's not going to be able to trace its lineage to these. Nor most great works of science such as Origin of Species (though Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica will have a prominent role in the foundation leading up to this great work).
There is a peculiar aspect to early space engineering (basically everything before the Second World War). Namely, that it was very insular, even from its closest neighbor, astronomy which would reasonably be thought to share common interests. There are very few notable researchers in the field until one gets to the late 1920s. There was little official interest in space development until the Nazis got involved in the mid-30s. But they all share common inspiration. And everything that involves putting anything in space or doing anything in space comes from this inspiration.
So when humanity has gone beyond Earth, there will be one work of literature which will stand out from all the rest. I, of course, speak of From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne, published in 1865.
The most influential work of literature?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday October 09 2016, @02:17AM
SirFinkus and I want to start a SoylentNews book club, with its own nexus. This would be a good candidate for one of the books to be discussed. One book a month is the plan.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:07PM
Now this I would agree with, although you may not like the idea of me being a part of it -- I've read no sci-fi(well, except for this [amazon.com]) or fantasy and I'd be putting my dick in the mashed potatoes with Atlanta Nights, Hannibal Lecter, Dostoevsky, and Hunter S. Thompson. Hey, I'm trying to fit in, I really am. I'm reading Starship Troopers and I do intend to finish it!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:48PM
I don't care how you choose to participate (I'll take... anything?). It's fun for the whole family and the format of it should allow more than enough time for most of the interested users to read the bookz. We want book suggestions after the first run, probably.
We don't have to keep it to just science fiction, although SirFinkus is not keen on having non-fiction works in there.
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(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday October 09 2016, @05:44PM
Going super meta, we could read something by mcgrew [mcgrewbooks.com] or devlux [wattpad.com]. I don't think devlux has any finished novels, or anything available in print, but mcgrew's Nobots and Mars, Ho! are both available in print as well as legally free (as in beer) ebooks. I haven't actually read them so I can't personally vouch for either of those novels, but I've enjoyed some of his short fiction that he's posted on the site. I don't know of any other Soylentils who propagate their fiction.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 09 2016, @09:27PM
I did suggest mcgrew. You can check what was said by searching the IRC logs. But I would like to get mcgrew on the menu at some point, since it would give me an excuse to finally read what he has to offer. I also admire the man's "throw it on the Web for all to see" stance.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:50PM
For me, it's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz'. Great book.
For series, i'd say 'Game of Thrones'. I 'get' it and enjoy it more than the Lord of the Rings series.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @06:15AM
Too bad Tolkien wasn't alive and active today. Imagine him creating an LoTR wiki and adding stuff to it all the time (just look at The Silmarillion to see what I mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion ). I'd probably get caught up in such a wiki for more hours than from his books.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Sir Finkus on Friday October 14 2016, @03:00AM
For me, it's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz'. Great book.
Oh fuck you
Spoiler Alert: that's what it is.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Monday October 10 2016, @10:25AM
I'd be up for that.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:05AM
The problem with comparing the influence of literature from radically different time periods is the butterfly effect. Surpassing All Other Kings, alternatively titled The Epic of Gilgamesh, is obviously more influential than the complete works of Jules Verne; there would be no Jules Verne without Gilgamesh.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:57AM
These in turn directly inspired others, such as Wernher Von Braun (who was originally inspired by reading Oberth) who ran the V-2 rocketry program for Nazi Germany as well as developing rockets for NASA. Two links goes from a guy writing 19th Century adventure stories with a scientific twist to a key manager of the Apollo program. Similarly, Tsiolkovsky was influential to Soviet rocketry and their space program with several of the pre-Second World War pioneers known [russianspaceweb.com] to have direct communications with him.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:20AM
On March 28, 1883 Tsiolkovsky demonstrated the reaction principle through experimenting with opening a cask filled with compressed gas. He discovered that movement of the cask could be regulated by alternating the pressure of the gas released from it.
And then going whole hog:
In 1903, his first article on rocketry appeared in the "Naootchnoye Obozreniye" (Scientific Review). The article was entitled "Issledovanie Mirovykh Prostransty Reaktivnymi Priborami" (Exploration Of Space With Rocket Devices).
IMHO, his exposure to From the Earth to the Moon prepared him to think in these ways.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:55PM
^This is why i love the BBC Connections show: he clearly links one insight/invention to the next down the line until you have something that no one could have thought of from the initial insight/invention.
Another reason i am a Star Trek person more than Star Wars person: Star Trek is 'possible' science (if you put your head sideways at times) whereas Star Wars is pure fantasy (and leaping/dancing around with light sabres, now, instead of standing stoically and fencing as in the beginning).
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:36PM
Star Trek is 'possible' science (if you put your head sideways at times) whereas Star Wars is pure fantasy
Can you explain the Mirror Universe without invoking a ridiculous coincidence? If ridiculous coincidences are allowed, everything in Star Wars is explainable as an absurdly unlikely series of happenstance particle movements. If they aren't, I think Star Trek jumps the shark as well (albeit far less often).
instead of standing stoically and fencing as in the beginning
I think you mean the middle. *ducks*
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:22PM
No, the beginning...the movies that came out after the first 3 movies that came out DID NOT come out. They did not occur.... nope nope nope! NO! THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT! IF YOU'RE NOT WITH ME, YOUR AGAIN' ME!
No.
No.
No.
As per Star Trek, the stuff like Mirror Universe is the stuff you turn your head sideways for: i mean, it could happen! Yup! Sure! Look, Trump just got elected! Crazy, right? Yup! Yuuuuuup!
The stuff like communicators you sit up straight for :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 10 2016, @04:51AM
Can you explain the Mirror Universe without invoking a ridiculous coincidence?
It's an exploration of nature versus nurture. It's a crude what-if which explores what would happen with a tyrannical empire in place of a mostly munificent Federation. Hopping into a world where different choices were made is unrealistic. But using that as a rhetorical device to muse about what would happen, if different choices had been made in the past is not.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday October 10 2016, @04:09PM
I'm not opposed to soft sci-fi, I just think that the division drawn by Gaaark between Trek and Wars is silliness. They both have totally unrealistic elements, like the Force or the Mirror Universe. Trek's silliness arguably shows up less often, but it's there. You can appreciate a piece of art without pretending it's realistic.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:06AM
They both have totally unrealistic elements, like the Force or the Mirror Universe.
The Mirror Universe is just a throwaway plot device used in a couple of episodes. The Force is instrumental to the Star Wars universe.
Trek's silliness arguably shows up less often/quote Exactly except I wouldn't call it arguable.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:22AM
...being the seminal work for the entire concept of space travel.
Been 40 years since I read it, so had to go look, and in a quick skim, the first line my eye lit on explains it all:
"Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it."
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:59PM
and when the Germans have an idea, they work hard on it. You know... damn the torpedoes, get the ovens going hot, cross the "i's" and shoot the Jews, i mean dot the "T's"....
uhhh.....
...
...
what?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:53PM
That's actually a good point. German science has tended to barge ahead as pure research without regard for consequences, which can be profoundly impractical. American science has tended to get sidetracked into commercial enterprises, albeit with more general usefulness. (Very broad brush, and looking more at the late 1800s than later.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Sunday October 09 2016, @05:46PM
Or you could model it as the German chemistry establishment siphoning off the more practical engineering types leaving the flakier types to contemplate the diffraction patterns of two nearby slits when an arbitrarily low electron (or photon) current is blasted at them, etc.
All the practical types get assigned at a young age: "I'm gonna make nitrogen fertilizer out of air and lots of energy" "I'm gonna make an entire petrochemical system based on coal and water as sole inputs instead of crude oil"
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:15AM
The Mars Project is a technical specification for a manned expedition to Mars. It was written by von Braun in 1948 and was the first "technically comprehensive design" for such an expedition. The book has been described as "the most influential book on planning human missions to Mars".
--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mars_Project [wikipedia.org]