PRIVACY SURRENDERED

At a time when everyone’s offering their forecasts of what the new decade will bring, there are so many fronts one could explore. But over the holidays I was struck by how often one subject came up in conversation: surveillance technology. Not so much the kind forced upon us, but the kind we’re willingly embracing. Siri and Alexa. Google Nest. Facebook Portal. Some of us are willing to have internet-connected devices listen and watch us 24/7 for those times when we want to give a command to turn on a light, turn up the thermostat, place a call, or play a game that reacts to our physical movements.

Used to be that a peeping Tom had to sneak up to our windows. How times have changed!

I’m not a luddite—I use my laptop and smartphone constantly—but I have been known to put masking tape over the laptop camera and I’ve turned Siri off on both my Mac and iPhone (I’d never had the “Listen” feature activated anyway). Does that mean I’m now confident that my devices aren’t listening and watching? Not really. I’m counting on being too old, boring, and frugal to be of interest!

But isn’t it cool to think that you can just talk to your house and appliances and have them do the things you want without lifting a finger? Of course it is. And almost all of that functionality could be accomplished with a purely local non-connected system. Except that wouldn’t let the tech giants gather and sell information about you, and that’s how they make a big chunk of their money. As a wise person has said, if you’re not paying for a product (or you’re paying much less than its worth) then you are the product.

Along with all of this potential surveillance at home, there’s increasing use of closed circuit cameras and facial recognition in buildings and the streets of major cities (and smaller centres the moment they can afford it), police and military drones, and ever-more-advanced optics in reconnaissance satellites, so true privacy will be as rare as [insert your own joke about virgins here].

I see no signs of this trend ending anytime soon—privacy legislation is being enacted, but can laws protect the privacy of someone who willingly gives it up? So my crystal ball says that by the end of this new decade the feeble struggle will have ended and society at large will have fully accepted that Big Data companies, governments, and faceless tech employees can see and hear everything we say and do, anywhere anytime. No big deal. Right?

What will this look like? Well, of course, the reason companies want to know so much about you is so they can sell you things, and by the end of the decade all advertising will be personalized advertising. Compliment a friend on their choice of jeans and a moment later your devices will be showing you how and where to buy them. I know people who’ve already experienced something like this, even when their phones have been locked. In ten years it will just be assumed. Store signs you pass will point out that they stock the product you were looking at on the person who just walked past you (thanks to eye movement analysis). If you still read physical magazines and linger over a particular ad, your favourite device will add that product to your wish list with a helpful link to the retailer who placed the ad. Your fridge will reorder groceries automatically based on not only your regular use but also your plans to entertain, host a kids’ sleepover, or go on a trip. Your home office will reorder supplies. So will your bathroom.

This personalized marketing will surround you in cars as well as your home, whether it’s a private car or, more likely, a shared ride or Uber-type vehicle (self-driven, though). And don’t worry about having to rummage through your purse to find a payment card. Apps will know the expression on your face when you’ve decided to buy something, and they’ll take it from there. Your closets and cupboards might remind you about articles you’ve bought and aren’t using, but you’ll be able to turn that function off, because who likes a nag anyway?

It also goes without saying that, even without posting on social media, all of your friends and acquaintances will know what you buy because that just might convince them to buy it too. You’ll be OK with that, because it’ll all be part of the social status game that no one will be able to avoid without going off to live in a cabin in the woods.

Buying things won’t be everything there is to life…not quite. People will still do other things in their homes and cars, and companies will find ways to monetize that. The most obvious way is pornography. Yes, I mean starring you. In ten years companies will no longer even pretend that they’re not recording and storing the things you do that might interest other people, and sex will be at the top of the list. Mind you, they won’t want you trying to sue for a cut of their profits, so they’ll probably use “deep fake” technology (already very advanced) to alter the appearance of you, your partner, and your home. Not only will such “amateur porn” be in demand, and accepted, but people will enjoy the game of watching it to see if they can spot themselves or others they know. After all, they’ll be able to set a preference for local subjects, maybe even neighbourhoods, just like the Find Friends apps you use now.

Bedrooms aren’t the only places people get intimate, and by 2030 most cars on the road will be self-driven. Freed of the burden of having to drive themselves, people will do other stuff. Though the fad will probably ease off after a few years, there will be an exuberant competition to see who can do the most outrageous things in their cars. Sex too? Of course!

Won’t all of this surveillance make us safer? How will criminals get away with anything when somebody’s always watching?

I think it’s pretty obvious that, as technology advances, so will the means to spoof or defeat it by those with enough money, like organized crime organizations. Or there’s always the low-tech method: bribing underpaid employees with access to all these feeds. One thing’s for sure, every item of value you own, your home and business addresses, your schedule, and your real-time location will be available at any time. Not to mention every other form of personal information imaginable. What more could a criminal ask for?

Is this just far-out paranoid conspiracy theory stuff? I only wish. Since much of it is already feasible, I’m probably being too conservative.

We’ll know in ten years. Maybe sooner.

WHERE WILL THE PAST DECADE'S DISCOVERIES LEAD US?

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

At the end of each year we humans love to take a look backward and review the changes that the passing year has brought. That urge is even stronger when we come to the end of a decade. The folks at National Geographic have provided a great overview of twenty of the key scientific advances of the 2010-2019 decade here, and there were some exciting ones: the discovery of thousands of planets around other stars, fantastic close-up views of Pluto, Vesta, and the Kuiper Belt object named Arrokoth, dramatic progress in rocket launching technology, the gene-splicing potential of Crispr-Cas9, and new insights into our ancient human ancestors. There was also one looming shadow over everything: the spectre of human-caused climate change.

For a refresher on the science, read the article and maybe follow the links or do research on your own to learn even more. But a science fiction writer can’t help but look at a list like this and wonder which of these developments will have the greatest impact on the human race in the years, decades, and centuries to come.

New knowledge about the ancient past of our species and others is fascinating, but barring major surprises (like finding out we’re descended from aliens) it probably won’t have much effect on how we move forward as a race. I believe that what we’re learning about the universe beyond our planet will have a bigger impact: not only knowing that there are potentially hundreds of habitable planets we might someday reach, but also that organic molecules—the building blocks of life—are present even on other planets and moons of our own solar system. Add to that the data we’re gathering about other celestial objects from asteroids, to comets, to dwarf planets, and recently two visitors from outside our solar system (the object Oumuamua and Comet Borisov), plus the rapid improvements in the technology we use to get beyond the atmosphere and function in outer space. These advancements all mean that the prospect of breaking out of our cradle Earth to other worlds is coming closer and closer to reality. I know that SF writers have often been overly optimistic on this subject, but I really do think it will happen within the lifetime of today’s children, and it will change everything.

Humans will live on other planets, maybe someday in other solar systems. There’s a good chance we’ll find life on those planets. We might even meet other thinking beings with advanced civilizations. All of those things are huge.

Sooner than space colonization, though, we’re going to witness the ramifications of gene-splicing technologies like Crispr-Cas9 along with rapidly advancing reproductive science. These things won’t just affect where we live, they will impact what we are as human beings. We could eliminate devastating genetic conditions, horrible diseases, and maybe even repair severe physical injuries. But we might also choose to “improve” the human body via cloning, tailored genes, and nanites (like microscopic repair robots in the human bloodstream), and those alterations could just as easily become driven by fashion as by medical necessity. Sure we’ll choose to bequeath our children with good genetic health. Will we also arrange for them to be born with cat’s eyes? Webbed fingers and toes? Genius IQs? We will link computer interfaces directly to our brains, and order replacement organs every few decades. The very definition of what it means to be human could change in ways we can’t even foresee now. I’d wager we’ll face some very challenging decisions on this front before the coming decade is through. The processes are already here, we’ve just been really lax about deciding how far they should go.

Yet even space travel and extreme human modification are a little ways off. The most imminent development we face as a race is global climate change.

We’ve had warnings about it since the 1970’s. Week after week we learn more. And even the frightening forecasts of climate scientists consistently turn out to be too conservative. Polar ice is melting, ocean levels are rising, coral is bleaching, extreme storms are increasing in frequency and strength. Our coastal communities will flood and dry regions will become full-blown deserts, forcing millions of refugees to flee across borders, sparking international conflicts. Food production will be threatened as weather ruins crops and fisheries are depleted.

That’s not being alarmist, that’s just science.

Bottom line? Climate change is, hands down, the most critical science story of the decade we’ve just lived through, and will have the biggest impact in the decade to come. If we can survive the mess we’ve made of our home planet, things could look very bright. We know that we can further reduce the suffering caused by disease and injury and continue to extend the human lifespan. We can find other places for us to live and ways to adapt ourselves to living there, which will relieve the population pressure that has caused so many of the current problems here on Earth.

2010-2019 has been a ground-breaking decade.

The decade to come just might be “make or break” for the human race.

POWERFUL SCIENCE AND SCIENCE FICTION

From time to time I like to offer a look at what other people are writing about science and science fiction. So here are my impressions of a couple of books I urge you to read. They’re completely different, and worthwhile for very different reasons, but both offer lots to think about.

The Power  by Naomi Alderman  (5 stars out of 5)

In The Power young women suddenly begin to discover that they have the power to concentrate electrical energy with a new, or previously dormant, organ in their bodies. They can awaken the power in older women too. They can use it as a plaything, or they can use it as a weapon. But it’s here to stay, and the world—religion, politics, relationships—will never be the same. The main characters Allie, Roxy, Margot, and Tunde (a man) are deeply flawed but relatable and real. There aren’t stereotype black hats and white hats here, though another writer might easily have taken this premise in that direction.

I was afraid this book might be anti-men. It isn't. In fact, it's extremely well-balanced. It depicts a shift in the gender power balance of the world, but doesn't portray the new as a shining improvement over the old. That would have made it a shallow book--instead it has real depth.

This novel could have been just a taut thriller or a clever science fiction tale, but Alderman makes the right decisions to make it much more: a modern classic.

18 Miles: The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather  by Christopher Dewdney  (4 stars out of 5)

 When I had the pleasure of meeting Christopher, I’d just begun to read this book—I hadn’t read enough to talk meaningfully about it to him. But he’s a poet as well as a non-fiction writer, and a former book editor. You can easily see the evidence of both in this book.

Dewdney covers a lot of territory here, from the outer limits of our atmosphere to the Earth's core, from ancient myth to modern battles whose outcome was influenced by weather. And, of course, the challenges of our current climate change situation, though 18 Miles isn't heavily focused on that. Dewdney’s lifelong fascination with storms is easy to relate to, and his personal experience of Hurricane Katrina makes the details even more compelling. There are scientific explanations of clouds, wind patterns, precipitation and more, but served up in palatable portions, and accompanied by tales like the harrowing story of U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin who bailed out of his crippled fighter jet straight into a colossal thunderstorm.

We Canadians get every kind of weather, and if you'd like to understand where it comes from instead of just complaining about it, this is a great book for you.

MY FIRST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL CAN SOON BE YOURS

I’ve written a number of novel manuscripts, so in deciding to enter “independent publishing” I faced a hard choice: which story should go first?

Well, I’ve decided to go with a science fiction thriller that comes from the Michael Crichton side of my writing persona.

Please welcome: The Primus Labyrinth!

Here’s the back cover blurb:

A woman’s bloodstream has been seeded with death.

An American president must betray his country or sacrifice a woman he loves.

And their only hope lies with a broken man and a desperate gamble.

Curran Hunter almost died at the bottom of the ocean. Now an innocent victim will die unless Hunter can purge her body of deadly devices by piloting the Primus, a prototype submersible the size of a virus. Its control system uses Virtual Reality—its creators assure Hunter there can be no danger.

They are utterly wrong.

Hunter’s every belief will be tested, his very sanity on the line for a woman he doesn’t know.

And to save her life will require the deepest violation of all.

Ride the currents of the inner ocean in a race against time in The Primus Labyrinth!

The novel was inspired by the 1960’s movie Fantastic Voyage, a long-time favourite of mine, though the two stories are very different.

The Primus Labyrinth will be published in print and e-book form in February 2020.

But here’s more good news: I’m going to give away 20 Advance Reader Copies of The Primus Labyrinth in e-book format and you could receive one of them!

Just send me an email at scott@scottoverton.ca  and say “Yes! Please send me an ARC of TPL! But send it right away—before Nov.3 . Then I’ll pick 20 winners and follow up with an email to ask you which e-format you’d prefer.

Is there a catch? No! But I do hope that you’ll be willing to read the book by January and post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or both in time for my pre-sales order period. Because posting an honest review is the absolute best way you can support my writing.

So don’t wait—send me that email right now!

I love The Primus Labyrinth and I can’t wait for you to read it.

PAINTING NEW SPOTS IN A SPOTLESS MIND

Some years ago, scientists successfully introduced a “memory” into a sea slug by implanting it with some ribonucleic acid (RNA) from another sea slug that had the original experience. The experiment illustrated one of several mechanisms involving memory in living organisms, though it’s still a long way from, say, the movie Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character buys an artificial memory of a vacation he can’t afford (Colin Farrell in the 2012 remake—both movies are adaptations of the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”).

However, recent research has brought a team of scientists closer to that capability. First, the researchers trained mice to associate an electric shock with a specific odour. They carefully observed which neurons in the mouse brain were stimulated by these activities. Then, using a technique called optogenetics, they used light to stimulate equivalent neurons in the brains of other mice, creating a “memory” in mice that had never experienced either the shock or the odour themselves.

Other research has shown that the most robust memories get their vividness and durability because they involve multiple neurons encoded the same way. You can easily see how this would happen when experiences are repeated lots of times, like when we practice skills to train ourselves, or actively memorize certain information. But particularly powerful experiences can produce a similar result. The more neurons involved in the memory, the better it’s able to withstand the loss of a neuron or two through aging or other malfunctions. Also, as with groups of former high school buddies who get together to reminisce, the slightly different information contributed by each of them produces a more accurate, fleshed-out whole. (Though we sometimes remember the same events very differently!)

The many processes involved in making, storing, and retrieving memories are still not well understood. Some neuroscientists will insist that memory storage in our brains is fairly nebulous, involving electrical potentials more than hard and fast artefacts of information. They’ll say that there’s no place in your brain where a picture of your first pet exists, although you can probably remember every line of its furry face (or think you can). Having been a radio broadcaster for decades, there are popular songs I’ve heard hundreds of times and, though I probably couldn’t recreate the recordings note for note, I can at least easily tell when I hear a remix or re-recording of a song even if it’s by the original artist. The singer holds a certain note a fraction longer, or the sax riff is played on an instrument with a slightly different tone than in the original. I have tunes playing in my head most of every day, no Spotify required. Maybe I don’t have a library of mp3s stuffed somewhere in my head, but the experience is pretty close to that. No wonder there’s no room in there for remembering to take out the garbage!

Because memory is such a critical part of our identities and how we perceive the world around us, the prospect of copying, erasing, altering, or replacing our memories is a disturbing one, which no doubt explains why the subject has appeared so often in science fiction. From the 1880’s when Edward Bellamy wrote Dr. Heidenhoff's Process about a doctor who could remove unwanted recollections, the subject of “memory editing” has been a staple of the genre. Getting rid of traumatic or otherwise unwanted memories is an obvious subject to explore, often used in military SF (the equivalent of joining the Foreign Legion) and, in the interest of an exciting plot, it usually goes wrong. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a great movie example. Erasing memories as a way of protecting secrets is especially common, utilized by the Mule in Asimov’s Foundation series, the Utopia-dwellers in Clarke’s The City and the Stars, the Strangers in the movie Dark City and the special agents of Men In Black, among many others. Memory erasure by aliens is an absolute given in UFO mythology!

Less common is the concept of actually inserting memories of experiences that never happened, like in Total Recall or the 2010 movie Inception (visually stunning and exciting, even if the science is non-existent)—this is more the territory of thrillers involving “brainwashing”, like The Manchurian Candidate. But the prospect of remembering things that may not have happened might be even more disturbing than losing memories. It not only calls our sense of identity into question, but the very knowledge of what is real and what isn’t.

A better understanding of how memory works could be a godsend to an aging population facing the increasing risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and offers hope for those suffering brain injuries. We can readily believe that removing, or at least weakening, traumatic memories could be therapeutic for many troubled people. And artificially “remembered” skills or knowledge could be genuinely useful and save a lot of time. But it’s just as easy to imagine the frightening misuses such technology could be put to, as often seen in dystopian stories about authoritarian governments seeking to control the minds of the masses. Innovators in business or technology could be tricked into revealing vital secrets to competitors, or national security operatives fooled by hostile nations. Political leaders could be manipulated by enemies, or even just suspected of being controlled—the results of either could be devastating.

On the individual level, a victim of a tragic life might be given an invented past of happiness and fulfillment instead, allowing them to live the rest of their lives in contentment. Yet every struggle they’ve undergone, every achievement they’ve made, would be rendered meaningless.

As with so many areas of scientific advancement, the knowledge we’re gaining can be invaluable, but its value is in how we make use of it. That’s also where the pitfalls lie. And they are many.

THERE'S MORE TO PLANTS THAN MEETS THE SALAD FORK

Plants don’t see like we do. They don’t experience smell, taste, or touch like our human senses either. In fact, without brains, they can’t truly be said to “experience” anything at all. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no body of reliable evidence that plants respond to certain kinds of music, or grow better if you sweet talk them (school science fair projects notwithstanding). There’s no conclusive evidence that plants can “hear”, though they can react to certain kinds of vibrations. In spite of books like 1973’s The Secret Life Of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (roundly scorned by plant researchers) plants don’t think, have feelings, or experience pain in any sense comparable to ways humans do (And telepathy? Don’t even go there!)

Nevertheless, plants are amazing in the things they can do. Even where their abilities seem to mirror those of humans, they’ve evolved brilliant alternative ways to perform such functions.

The book What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz is an enjoyable collection of comparisons between plant ways and human ways of sensing things. Because, as different as they are, plants do have methods of encountering and evaluating the environment around them. They have to, in order to survive and thrive.

Even though they don’t exactly “see”, they do sense light, of course, especially to optimize the efficiency of the photosynthesis that sustains them. We all know about plants growing toward the sun. Photoreceptors in the tips of plant shoots signal cells lower down to grow in such a way as to make the stem bend toward the source of light. Using chemical dyes that absorb various frequencies of light, they can distinguish colours too. Blue light helps regulate plants’ daily cycles—circadian rhythms just like humans have (which means, yes, they can even get jet lag). Plants rely on certain shades of red light, like those of sunrise and late sunset, to tell them when the day begins and ends. That enables them to distinguish the shorter days of autumn from the lengthening days of spring, which is important information for picking their optimal time to bloom, produce fruit, or drop their leaves. Because of this, greenhouse growers can turn lights on for a few minutes in the middle of the night to trick some flowers into blooming out of season—just in time for Mothers Day, for instance.

Plants can tell when they’ve been touched (and may respond as if threatened, so don’t pet your petunias). After all, they need to know if there are any obstacles, or unwanted sources of shade springing up beside them. And some explore nearby objects as a means to climb higher into the sunlight and air. Though there’s no reason to believe they experience pain, they certainly “know” when parts of them have been damaged and react appropriately. Which brings us to some of the incredible ways plants use odours.

Sure, they give off pleasant perfumes to attract bees and other pollinators, but they also use scents to tell their fruits to ripen at the same time, or their leaves to close up and fall off for winter. When attacked by insects, some plants can use aromatic chemicals to attract other insects that prey on the attackers. What’s more, they can detect such signals from other plants. Thus alerted that a neighbouring plant is being munched on by pests, they might make their own leaves unpalatable or even poisonous to the predators.

The range of these capabilities is almost as varied as the many thousands of species around the world, and while some of the processes involved are similar to human biology (after all, we share a common ancestor in the wiggly things of the primordial Earth’s waters), others are wonderfully different.

We humans have come to rely overwhelmingly on mechanical and electrical technology, sometimes inspired by other animals and birds, but plant solutions offer enormous potential. Some fledgling efforts in this area include Plant-e (generating small amounts of electricity from plants) and Botanicus Interactus (a technology that relies on the electrical conductivity of plants for some diverting applications mainly related to touching them). But a little imagination could produce all kinds of possibilities. Plant-based weather stations. Geological surveying. Earthquake early-warning systems. Distribution of medicines (picture vaccine-type remedies or other disease cures spread on the air like pollen).

I applaud SF writers who’ve described alien races that grow their spaceships and buildings instead of manufacturing them. Why not? They’d be reliable, adaptable, and self-repairing. Not to mention bonus features like solar power and oxygen regeneration. Why not use mycelial networks in the soil for our own communications, as plants already do? Have cities with water and sewage facilities based on the cellular water transport systems of trees? And since plants can’t run away from threats, their methods of defense should be a natural inspiration for designing colonies and outposts as we reach out into the great unknowns of outer space. Many plants evolved to be eaten, so they can sustain substantial damage thanks to elaborately decentralized functionality and redundancy. Being eaten isn’t a pleasant image when we think of future contact with alien beings (!), but surely the redundancy and resiliency of plants offers a lesson for any endeavour under hazardous conditions.

Let’s start looking to plants for inspiration and not just vitamins. And although it’s nearly certain that plants don’t have anything comparable to the consciousness and awareness that we prize so much, who knows what a few million more years of evolution might produce? It did quite a lot for some scrawny lowland apes.

WILL YOUR STUFF STAND THE TEST OF TIME?

Global disaster. World destruction. The Apocalypse.

They’re the stock and trade of science fiction writers. After all, when you’re imagining the future, Earth could become the hub of a galactic empire, the gleaming homeworld of a cosmos-spanning race. Or the coin could land tails and our few thousands of years of human history will in some way be derailed, leaving behind wilderness or wasteland. Post-apocalyptic worlds have been imagined hundreds of times, and as I sit at my laptop mulling over one such concept that might form the setting of a novel, I find myself wondering, “If civilization were to hit a brick wall tomorrow, and Earth returned to a world of wild forests and primitive villages, what remnants of our technology would still be useful?” Say a tribal chieftain and his flunkies somehow dug up a long-buried Walmart or Canadian Tire store, how much of what they found would be of any use to them?

It’s easy to guess what would be useless junk. Anything that requires electricity to function.

Without the infrastructure to produce 110V 60Hz electricity, microwaves, toasters and toaster ovens, vacuum cleaners, blenders, hot plates, George Foreman grills, Instant Pots, electric shavers, hair dryers, clothes dryers, washing machines…a long list of items would become no more than shiny doorstops. Freezers and air conditioners would tease with their unfulfilled potential. Televisions, radios, projectors, iPads, cell phones, game consoles and more would not only be inoperable without power, they’d have no content to deliver anyway. Certainly, all of the ‘smart’ fridges, heaters, lights, music players, and security systems would merely mock us with their brilliant—and completely useless—sophistication. Computers and smartphones—the technological darlings we can’t live without (we think)—would be inert lumps of exotic materials.

Gasoline would be worthless after a few decades, so forget about cars (sorry Mad Max). It’s conceivable that some contrivances powered by rechargeable batteries might last a long while, if kept topped up by solar chargers, but that doesn’t make your Tesla a sure bet because synthetic hoses, gaskets, and a host of other parts break down with time. Heck, most roads would crumble thanks to thermal expansion and contraction, and pervasive weeds growing through every available crack.

Another category that would no longer be useful is items that are too specialized for a particular purpose or related product. Forget refills for this or that air-freshening system. Motor oil might still come in handy for lubricating wooden axles or something, but fuel injector cleaner not so much. Not gas stabilizer, not carburetor cleaner, not rad stop leak, brake fluid, or a whole department’s worth of Canadian Tire stock. All those car parts and fancy accessories to pimp out your wheels would be only curiosities. The same with all those star-athlete-endorsed pieces of esoteric equipment for all of the strange sports and recreational activities that somebody has talked us into trying but will leave future generations stumped. Our twelve-and-eighteen-speed bikes might amaze until they hit the first big rock.

Fishing rods would attract some initial interest, though they’re not as practical as nets or spears. Firearms would be treasured marvels, but only while ammunition supplies lasted, if it had never gotten wet. And not assault weapons—or not for long, They might put a warlord at the top of the hill, but wouldn’t keep them there because of their voracious appetite for ammunition. Boring old rifles and shotguns would be the real treasures to a hunter-gatherer society. While camping gear made of advanced materials would be a coveted prize, the use of accessories like Coleman-type stoves would have to be so rigorously rationed as to be nearly useless. Water filters and firestarters, yes. Hiking GPS, nope.

It occurs to me that our far-future descendants won’t much appreciate the fancy-looking and amazingly lightweight plastic gardening tools and wheelbarrows we consider so convenient (and cheap!) once they break after the first hard use. Think of how many of our consumer goods fall into that category, quickly obsolete or broken, meant to be discarded and replaced.

Lightweight, durable, and even dirt-repelling clothing and footwear would be a hit (although eye-stabbing colours might not serve well for hunters stalking their supper). Current styles might well run afoul of the moral standards of tightly-knit rural communities, though. I suspect the swimwear section might well end up in a big bonfire.

You know what I think would be among the most desirable department-store items to a future subsistence society? A good sharp knife and a non-stick frying pan. Seriously, what preparer of food can’t use a knife whose blade keeps its sharp edge and a cooking dish that doesn’t require big muscles and handfuls of beach sand to get the bear grease out? And let’s not forget books! Real, hardbound paper books chocked full of valuable information or entertainment.

Try this out for fun: look around your home and calculate which of the things you see would still be valued in a world stripped of our technological infrastructure. (Voilà! You’re a science fiction writer!) In a way, it’s an exercise to decide which of our clever creations has lasting value because, when you think about it, the more technically advanced an object is, the more likely it is to be rendered obsolete by new advancements too, not just a societal breakdown. I’d love to know what you come up with.

And that’s not even talking about our cultural products—music, art, movies, literature, and games. Those might leave people scratching their heads only a generation or two from now, no apocalypse required.

PASTIMES OF FUTURE TIMES

Decades ago it was thought that the growth in robotics and an increasing focus on computers, would see most of us only working a few days a week, with way more leisure time on our hands. Hardly! What we found instead is that automation eliminates a lot of jobs entirely, requiring people to shift careers several times in their lives, or hold down more than one job at a time. More leisure hours? Not so much.

From that, I think it’s fair to project into the future that whatever provides us with an income will still occupy most of our week. But that doesn’t mean we won’t want, and need, leisure activities. There’s lots of evidence that hobbies and crafts are important for our well-being. Engaging in complex activity with learnable skills, continual room for improvement, and a concrete reward in the end, can foster feelings of worth and accomplishment and supply important diversion from stress. Researchers compare it to meditation—we can’t dwell on our other problems while doing it, so it calms us, lowers blood pressure and stress chemicals, and provides a range of health benefits from that alone. (Knitting has long been prescribed for soldiers returning from the horrors of combat.) Such activities have been shown to sustain and improve cognitive function (memory, concentration, and problem-solving), and maybe help ward off dementia. They can reduce the likelihood of depression (quilters apparently benefit from working with lots of colours during a drab winter), and provide lots of opportunities for social interaction with all the mental health benefits that go along with that, from emotional support to language skills to mental stimulation. The list of possible benefits from hobbies and creative pursuits is long and most could also be applied to playing sports, too, along with the obvious gains from regular physical activity.

Yet when we picture the future in our stories, TV shows, and movies, leisure activities are rarely mentioned. (There are exceptions: Hollywood seems to be convinced that high-tech gaming will take over our lives, and TV shows like Star Trek have always had more time to indulge in character development, including hobbies. The STNG characters playing out mystery scenarios in the holodeck is a plausible extension of present day game nights and the escape room boom.) Outside of TV series, though, we hardly ever see characters knitting, painting, making music, doing pottery or, for that matter, kicking around a soccer ball. SF novels seem to be especially stingy on this front. And believe me, I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I get that we authors are afraid to hold up the plot, but research consistently shows that what makes readers love and remember books is the characters, and that should include (at least briefly) what a spaceship pilot does for fun when he’s not on the bridge. Interestingly, a study of scientists found a connection between their leisure activities and their professional success—their hobbies often helped them discover solutions to puzzling problems in their work, so this could be true for our fictional heroes too. (Lots of potential there!)

Granted, it might be challenging to imagine future hobbies and crafts, but it can’t be harder than figuring out the kinds of controls a spacecraft’s helmsman will use, exotic forms of transportation between stars, or the mating habits of alien species.

There might not be a lot of call for knitted sweaters on a spacecraft with carefully-regulated temperatures, but on planetary colonies or research stations, why not? And people will always want to personalize our living spaces with unique art, crafted items, wall-hangings, you name it.

Men, especially, used to tinker at repairing appliances and small motors. That’s fallen out of fashion—not to mention that it now requires electronic and even computer knowledge as well as mechanical skills because of ubiquitous ‘smart’ circuitry. And woodworking might suffer from a shortage of raw material anywhere but Earth. But it’s possibly to envision a diverting pursuit of useful gadgets, aided by future offshoots of 3D printing or Trek-like replicator technology, and assisted by computers or neural augments.

Constantly-improving music synthesis might seem to make most physical instruments obsolete, but I think that playing a musical instrument (like, say, a spacey miniature harp) could well see a resurgence as we look for ways to reassert our individuality. The same could be said for any number of artistic pursuits. We already feel modern society reducing us to the anonymity of being “just a number”. Creativity and special talents are a way to fight back.

There’s no reason that astronomy won’t remain fascinating for many—the universe seems to hold endless mysteries—we’ll just have much superior instrumentation with which to watch the night sky.

If you want to think on the grand scale, we might someday have the ability to mould clouds, sculpt asteroids, or rearrange space phenomena like Saturn’s rings. But I think it’s more likely that, whether on Earth, fledgling colonies, or interstellar craft, limitations of space will force us to go smaller, perhaps producing ever more intricate models or even subatomic tchotchkes only visible with microscopes. Simply for the pleasure in making them.

I also expect that our current trend toward letting our communication technologies make us more isolated, with less real contact with people, will eventually undergo a reversal and we’ll seek out more in-person social activities. We’re social animals—we’re not meant to only interact by screens.

And let’s not forget that, as a species, we’ve always been storytellers. It’s how we pass on knowledge, relate to other people, and entertain ourselves and others. Maybe we’ll still write books—whatever they might look like—or maybe technology will enable any of us to create games, visual presentations, or holodeck simulations, and participate in them with almost anyone, anywhere. I can’t imagine us ever losing our love of stories. It’s in our DNA.

What hobbies or other leisure activities do you think our future holds? I’d love to see your comments.

HOPE IN SCIENCE

It’s impossible to ignore all of the discouraging stories in the news these days, but there are also stories of great hope, including in the various fields of science. Here are a few recent ones:

In October 2017 a couple of teenage Cystic Fibrosis patients in the UK who’d been given double lung transplants developed bacterial infections that didn’t respond to any of the drugs available.

A University of Pittsburgh micro­biologist named Graham Hatfull had been gathering the world’s largest collection of bacteriophages—viruses that prey solely on bacteria—more than 15,000 of them, so a colleague at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital called him up. Although Hatfull’s team couldn’t save one of the patients, they were able to identify four phages that would attack the other patient’s infection once they were “activated” via some genetic modification. That patient is slowly recovering. The drawback is that this method is ultra-specific—it involves tailoring a cure for each individual patient. As bacteria and viruses become more drug-resistant, this development offers hope, though it needs to be greatly improved in efficiency to be practical on any larger scale. And there are an estimated nonillion phages that haven’t yet been discovered and catalogued (a US nonillion is a 1 followed by 30 zeroes). Other top-level medical science facilities are now exploring this territory.

With climate change threatening to make some dry areas of the planet even drier, and with industry and agriculture’s voracious appetite for water, the need to reclaim industrial waste water and even produce drinkable water from the oceans will become increasingly urgent. Now some researchers from Columbia University have developed a process called Temperature Swing Solvent Extraction which involves mixing amine solvents with heavily-salted water at room temperature. The solvent-and-water is lighter than the salts and can be extracted, and then higher temperatures separate the solvent from the pure water. Experiments show that up to 98.4% of the salt can be removed, which is comparable to reverse osmosis. But this new process requires relatively little energy and produces very high water recoverability compared to current desalination methods. If it can be scaled up, it could be a real lifesaver in the world of the future.

Researchers who call themselves agroecologists are promoting more natural ways of growing crops. This approach not only nourishes soil, which makes it more productive and its crops more nutritious, but by helping the microorganisms in the soil to flourish, it also helps to absorb carbon dioxide and water vapour from the air at a much greater rate than scientists thought possible. CO2 and water vapour are two of the most prevalent greenhouse gases driving global climate change. Plants soak up carbon and share it with the microbes in soil, which helps the soil retain water. Scientists warn that, although reducing the amount of CO2 we produce is absolutely necessary, it’s no longer enough to ward off serious climate effects. So we need to find ways to remove excess carbon and water from the atmosphere, and the methods of agroecology could be very effective in doing this. Plus it reduces dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides while making food more nutritious. Sounds like a big win in my book.

In a similar story, though on a much smaller scale, astronauts on the International Space Station will be testing an algae bioreactor—a contraption that will use the CO2 the crew exhales to grow algae which can be used as food. On one level, this could be a great help for long space voyages and colonies on other planets, but it has often been proposed that large algae farms here on Earth, perhaps on the oceans, could be an abundant source of food while, again, removing a lot of unwanted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

All of these stories offer much-needed hope in trying times. Science fiction has been coming up with ideas similar to these, and many more, for decades, as authors imagine the exploration and exploitation of outer space. Science is constantly proving that radical ideas can be turned into reality, and I would argue that science fiction provides the fertile imaginative “soil” from which harvests of new scientific developments spring.

Examples like these also reinforce my belief that hopeful and optimistic SF is still not only defensible, but perfectly sensible. We can’t ignore the potential hazards of human technology and growth, but we also have a duty to promote science as a force for good.

It truly is, when we make it so.

WITH GREAT KNOWLEDGE COMES GREAT HOPE

Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Science marches on. It’s almost impossible to even keep track of all the standout new achievements and discoveries, as the search for knowledge shows no sign of slowing.

One of the biggest stories of the past week was the first-ever actual picture of a black hole. We’ve known they existed. Scientists are certain that there’s a supermassive black hole (4 million times the mass of our sun) at the core of our own galaxy. Now we actually have a picture of one that’s 6.5 billion solar masses in the heart of a galaxy called M87, about 54 light years from Earth. Of course, we’re not actually seeing the black hole itself (because they absorb all light and therefore are as black as you can get) but the gases around it. And it’s not a photo as we’d normally think of one, but the result of processing more than 5 petabytes of data from eight radio observatories around the world, an astonishing feat not possible only a few years ago. Let’s call it the first imaged evidence of a black hole. Still groundbreaking.

In other space news, a team has discovered a possible new planet orbiting our nearest stellar neighbour, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, only about four light years away from us. More study is still needed to confirm its existence, but Proxima c is probably about six times the mass of Earth and takes about six of our years to orbit its sun, so it’s likely not habitable by our standards. Still, the discovery of any new exoplanet is exciting, and especially when it’s so close in galactic terms. A sister planet, Proxima b, was discovered in 2016 much nearer to its star, and is much more promising in terms of being hospitable to life.

Space technology continues to advance, too. The private company SpaceX succeeded in not only launching a Saudi communications satellite into orbit with its Falcon Heavy rocket (now the most powerful rocket on the planet) but also in safely landing its core booster and two additional booster rockets after the flight. Sadly, the core booster was still lost after high seas knocked it off its ocean-surface landing platform, but the technology worked!

Another new species related to humans has been identified from fossils found in a cave in the Philippines. Homo luzonensis is thought to have lived more than fifty million years ago, so other hominids like Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens existed at the same time, but distinctive pre-molar teeth are among the features that set Homo luzonensis apart.

In medical news, researchers in Tel Aviv have succeeded in 3D printing the first complete duplicate human heart made from material taken from a human patient. Previous efforts didn’t include all of the required blood vessels and other features, and this one isn’t transplantable either—it’s not full-size and it can’t (yet) beat on its own and pump blood. But with the severe shortage of donor hearts available for transplant, this new development is a huge step forward. Also exciting is the news that scientists have isolated several chemical compounds found to be in extra high concentrations in the skin secretions of patients with Parkinson’s Disease. This followed research involving a woman in Scotland who learned how to smell these compounds on her husband, a Parkinson’s sufferer. The finding offers hope of new ways to diagnose Parkinson’s much earlier than now possible, which could greatly improve treatment outcomes.

This is just a handful of the stories I could have mentioned, all reinforcing the fact that the human race is endlessly curious, inventive, resourceful, and determined. We have everything we need to create a bright future for our species. Don’t we? Don’t we?

Well maybe. But what about the many ways in which we’re threatening our very survival by destroying our environment? Climate change and other air pollution, ocean acidification, destruction of animal and fish habitat, and the spread of plastic garbage and microplastics throughout our air and water (and bodies!)

My point isn’t that human inventiveness can find technological solutions to these problems, although it probably could eventually. But it’s always better not to make messes in the first place than to have to figure out how to clean them up. And, really, the problems we’re causing are almost all the result of our addiction to consumerism in one form or another. We consume much more of everything, from raw materials to energy, than we could ever actually need. Our national and international economies are based on it—whole industries exist to persuade us to consume more and more, a road that must ultimately lead to disaster.

The Millennial generation’s movement toward downsizing, simplifying, decluttering etc. is a gleam of hope amid the gloom. We need to fully embrace that philosophy and put our species’ incredible ingenuity into finding other ways to keep us employed, to protect our planet, and to find alternatives to all of the things we’re doing wrong.

We can do it. Knowledge is power.