Raymond Gaynor's Blog, page 57
September 22, 2020
RELIGION AT THE EDGE OF MADNESS
As an author, I’m taught to always avoid two subjects when appearing in public: politics and religion. Despite the warning, I’ve mentioned politics numerous times on this blog in relation to my SCI-FU (Science-Based Futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (Browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”). After all, it is a futuring work, and as such presents many opportunities of reflecting on the nature of politics in the future. So, now it’s time for religion.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS begins after TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by William Maltese and Raymond Gaynor, with a United States of America in economic shambles and the complete dis-integration of federal services. Sound familiar? In THE EDGE OF MADNESS, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live. One challenge is religion, or rather, spirituality. While many today don’t distinguish one from the other, they’re quite different when standing at THE EDGE OF MADNESS.
Religion has continued down it’s repeated pathway, from spirituality to social club to tax-free business. Spirituality, the intimate personal relationship between an individual and a higher power, is no longer a necessary part of religion. With the further businessification of religion and its eventual elevation to a politically-correct entity, some, objecting to the status quo, can be expected to go in search of something new. This pattern is repeated over the centuries. Remember that SCI-FU is “science-based” futuring, and science is all about repetition leading to the same outcome.
One religion that retains a modicum of spirituality is nature worship, which, merging with the belief that a higher power’s actions are, by definition, not fully comprehensible to the worshipper (or it wouldn’t be a higher power) — call this “magic” — and we have Wicca. Part spirituality, part religion. And that’s what Simi Andry Jan [Jan-Rho], one of the three protagonists, daughter of legendary patriot-revolutionaries Adlephius Tripler and Amelie Stewart, as a coven high priestess espouses. In fact, Andry, in her mind, is presented the opportunity of obtaining her heart’s desire but only through letting go of it through Wicca, a power challenge not unlike that experienced by at some point by many religious adherents.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS reflects back a plausible future in which humans still must deal with the fundamental questions of life, but in an increasingly complex and dangerous milieu. Remember when your parents and grandparents mused on how much better life was in the past? Substitute “simpler” for “better” and I believe you can begin to imagine the challenging world of our children and children’s children. But why imagine when you can experience it first hand in THE EDGE OF MADNESS:
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
THE EDGE OF MADNESS begins after TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by William Maltese and Raymond Gaynor, with a United States of America in economic shambles and the complete dis-integration of federal services. Sound familiar? In THE EDGE OF MADNESS, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live. One challenge is religion, or rather, spirituality. While many today don’t distinguish one from the other, they’re quite different when standing at THE EDGE OF MADNESS.
Religion has continued down it’s repeated pathway, from spirituality to social club to tax-free business. Spirituality, the intimate personal relationship between an individual and a higher power, is no longer a necessary part of religion. With the further businessification of religion and its eventual elevation to a politically-correct entity, some, objecting to the status quo, can be expected to go in search of something new. This pattern is repeated over the centuries. Remember that SCI-FU is “science-based” futuring, and science is all about repetition leading to the same outcome.
One religion that retains a modicum of spirituality is nature worship, which, merging with the belief that a higher power’s actions are, by definition, not fully comprehensible to the worshipper (or it wouldn’t be a higher power) — call this “magic” — and we have Wicca. Part spirituality, part religion. And that’s what Simi Andry Jan [Jan-Rho], one of the three protagonists, daughter of legendary patriot-revolutionaries Adlephius Tripler and Amelie Stewart, as a coven high priestess espouses. In fact, Andry, in her mind, is presented the opportunity of obtaining her heart’s desire but only through letting go of it through Wicca, a power challenge not unlike that experienced by at some point by many religious adherents.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS reflects back a plausible future in which humans still must deal with the fundamental questions of life, but in an increasingly complex and dangerous milieu. Remember when your parents and grandparents mused on how much better life was in the past? Substitute “simpler” for “better” and I believe you can begin to imagine the challenging world of our children and children’s children. But why imagine when you can experience it first hand in THE EDGE OF MADNESS:
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
September 21, 2020
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Anyone else a fan of H. G. Wells and know this work? As a teenager, I teethed on H. G. Wells, writing my first novel, THE PARABOLIC CURVE, at age 16. Sent the manuscript to 75+ publishers including (in my innocence) New Yorker magazine. Much to my parent’s horror, I papered one wall of my bedroom with pink slips (yes, they were decidedly so in those days past) the most memorable being from, yes, you guessed it, the New Yorker. It was my most encouraging rejection and kindly worded, suggesting that the New Yorker might not be the best publication for a budding science fiction writer. I still smile even now, recalling how that particular rejection actually launched my authoring career. A rejection. Says something about the delicate balance between disparagement — so common today in light of human hubris — and kind truth. I miss that feeling of cooperative kindness and caring. I hope we can resurrect it again someday, knowing it begins with individuals, in my case the dreaded and typically overworked acquistions officer.
So, in my current mind, the shape of things to come is neither dystopic nor science fiction, but science-based futuring — SCIFU –right up to THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”).
Enjoy the Kindle version though 30 September 2020 at $2.99 (usual price $7.95)
The Edge of Madness
So, in my current mind, the shape of things to come is neither dystopic nor science fiction, but science-based futuring — SCIFU –right up to THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”).
Enjoy the Kindle version though 30 September 2020 at $2.99 (usual price $7.95)
The Edge of Madness
September 18, 2020
THE "NEW WORKER"
COVID-19 has already resulted in changes to the way we think about many aspects of life, not least, the way we think of work and workers. While the divide between wealthy management and middle class workers is supposedly widening day-by-day, the COVID-19 workplace situation is pushing back. Executive or middle class (blue or white collar) workers are experiencing the “distributed workplace” in increasing numbers. Japan recently boasted about workations (“simultaneous work and vacation, that is, distributed work in enviable as well as “home” locations). And the idea of physical control, bullying and assault as a means to “keep everyone in line” is already being challenged, narrowing the distance between executives, management and workers (actual product or service producers). But even more telling is the slow but incessant change from salary to income based on success, and most importantly, success in product sales and service provision.
Capitalism can expect to result in overly-well-paid executives and poorly-paid-producers. Increasing Profit Capitalism, a variant where the “value” of a business is based on it’s ability to increase profit rather than to simply satisfy consumers in a supply-and-demand economy, opens the opportunity for gaming and gambling called “Wall Street” trading. But the “New Capitalism” resulting from COVID-19 distancing requirements (which, I believe, must persist after COVID-19 in anticipation of the next pandemic or disaster) is creating what at first appear to be part-time, contract-style, distributed-workplace, pay-based-on-success jobs, is heralding a “new worker,” and equally so a “new management” and “new executive.” The seed are there. The question is if and how it will fit into our overall work-based economy. The biggest challenge is in recrafting the idea, what I call updating infrastructure. The potential effects are staggering.
One effect of this emerging change is that social services like health care, will be pushed even further to be provided by the federal government on an egalitarian, single-payer basis. Another effect is that to fund this and other federal services, there will be a push for capping individual income, and elimination of “deductions” for corporations. With redistribution of work will come redistribution of population, hopefully from centers of increasing concentration to wider distribution of people and households, ushering in the opportunity to rebuild public health services to prevent the spread of war, disease, pestilence and chronic stress. It will also challenge the very nature of the family.
It’s difficult for any one person to fully imagine the extent of “one little” change or shift in thinking, opening the door to a new genre I call SCI-FU or science-based futuring. The idea is to create a mirror for individual readers to “look into a science-based, plausible future” and in doing so, clarify what changes one wishes to embark on. In short, a shift from being victims of change to masters of our fate. A move as a people from adolescence, with its divisiveness to a more compassionate and diverse adulthood. From evolution based on pure competition to a new level of well-thought-out-and-discussed cooperative planning which places in the future for everyone. Even my female protagonist Simi Andry Jan [Jan-Rho], a Wiccan Priestess and professional acronymeur in THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”) available in printed and ebook formats
The Edge of Madness
Capitalism can expect to result in overly-well-paid executives and poorly-paid-producers. Increasing Profit Capitalism, a variant where the “value” of a business is based on it’s ability to increase profit rather than to simply satisfy consumers in a supply-and-demand economy, opens the opportunity for gaming and gambling called “Wall Street” trading. But the “New Capitalism” resulting from COVID-19 distancing requirements (which, I believe, must persist after COVID-19 in anticipation of the next pandemic or disaster) is creating what at first appear to be part-time, contract-style, distributed-workplace, pay-based-on-success jobs, is heralding a “new worker,” and equally so a “new management” and “new executive.” The seed are there. The question is if and how it will fit into our overall work-based economy. The biggest challenge is in recrafting the idea, what I call updating infrastructure. The potential effects are staggering.
One effect of this emerging change is that social services like health care, will be pushed even further to be provided by the federal government on an egalitarian, single-payer basis. Another effect is that to fund this and other federal services, there will be a push for capping individual income, and elimination of “deductions” for corporations. With redistribution of work will come redistribution of population, hopefully from centers of increasing concentration to wider distribution of people and households, ushering in the opportunity to rebuild public health services to prevent the spread of war, disease, pestilence and chronic stress. It will also challenge the very nature of the family.
It’s difficult for any one person to fully imagine the extent of “one little” change or shift in thinking, opening the door to a new genre I call SCI-FU or science-based futuring. The idea is to create a mirror for individual readers to “look into a science-based, plausible future” and in doing so, clarify what changes one wishes to embark on. In short, a shift from being victims of change to masters of our fate. A move as a people from adolescence, with its divisiveness to a more compassionate and diverse adulthood. From evolution based on pure competition to a new level of well-thought-out-and-discussed cooperative planning which places in the future for everyone. Even my female protagonist Simi Andry Jan [Jan-Rho], a Wiccan Priestess and professional acronymeur in THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (browser search “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”) available in printed and ebook formats
The Edge of Madness
September 16, 2020
THE IMPOSING GULF BETWEEN WRITING AND AUTHORING
I’m often asked if there is any difference between writing and authoring, especially in today’s roiling world of publishing, publicity, marketing and distribution. It is my experience that fundamentally, writing is what one records for oneself; authoring is what one records for “targeted” readers, or, in the most general sense, humanity at large. The latter includes the idea of recording content in an enduring manner that allows present and future readers a platform for investigation and intellectual growth. I equally include both non-fiction and fiction in this approach. Recently, I introduced a new genre, SCI-FU (science-based futuring) that is meant to provide a “mirror” into which readers can peer reflecting a plausible hypothetical world the result of future human decisions.
Another difference is that writing for oneself doesn’t necessarily require sales skills like public speaking, publicity, advertising or marketing, especially regarding both author and title, all key elements an author must acquire in order to “get the word out.”
Aside from futuring, hasn’t it always been this way? Good question. I’d like to think not, but everything I read suggests otherwise. If anything, that gulf between writing and authoring now has a “bridge:” self-publishing. True, we’ve always had vanity publishers to do the same, but I hold that they lie slightly more on the authoring side than the writer side; whereas self-publishing definitely leans more to the writing side.
Notice I haven’t included “professionalism,” though it can be another major element in authoring in two distinctly different ways: First, money. Enough to “live on,” whatever that means to the individual author. Second, quality of workmanship. The idea and practice of discipline whereby the product gains in quality with experiential maturity. For many amateur or pseudo-authors, the “honor” that accompanies “publication” of a single, first-published work is forever enough. For professional authors, whatever is published is never good enough.
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
Another difference is that writing for oneself doesn’t necessarily require sales skills like public speaking, publicity, advertising or marketing, especially regarding both author and title, all key elements an author must acquire in order to “get the word out.”
Aside from futuring, hasn’t it always been this way? Good question. I’d like to think not, but everything I read suggests otherwise. If anything, that gulf between writing and authoring now has a “bridge:” self-publishing. True, we’ve always had vanity publishers to do the same, but I hold that they lie slightly more on the authoring side than the writer side; whereas self-publishing definitely leans more to the writing side.
Notice I haven’t included “professionalism,” though it can be another major element in authoring in two distinctly different ways: First, money. Enough to “live on,” whatever that means to the individual author. Second, quality of workmanship. The idea and practice of discipline whereby the product gains in quality with experiential maturity. For many amateur or pseudo-authors, the “honor” that accompanies “publication” of a single, first-published work is forever enough. For professional authors, whatever is published is never good enough.
The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
September 15, 2020
OVER THE EDGE, FINALLY
Any “revolution” begins with a first step. I’ve repeatedly posted my opinion that COVID-19 is merely the spark that lit the powder keg of infrastructure problems that account for a significant portion of the financial damage due to the pandemic. I even began posting on how that outdated infrastructure within various sectors like government, transportation, education, health care and others might be advanced so that we don’t continue to suffer at the next pandemic or crisis (and surely there will be another after COVID-19). Today I read an article in NPR News that takes the first, albeit conventional baby step in this direction in regard to business and “offices.”
The idea of the article is to address common root problems with offices that would cause health problems during any future pandemic. The article calls for more collaboration between better trained environmental engineers and public health officials. Essentially, more open ventilation, more sanitizing stations, more spacing considerations.
While an admirable first step, I don’t for a moment believe this will adequately address the “office” infrastructure problem. In essence, I believe the “office” as we experienced it pre-COVID-19 is now extinct, if not for the difficulties in redesign, retrofitting and general move from cities back to distributed, individual, distance, country dispersion. While businesses (including schools, colleges and universities) may retain a “business facade” to promote and maintain the prestigious “big look” of yesteryear, most, if not all actual work will be done outside offices. The infrastructure that’s needed then, is not once of “office space” but socially-relevant communication.
In my book, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), education is done via interactive holography where instructors and learners from “home,” interact with each other holographically in a virtual shared “grassy knoll” outdoor classroom. Cities build “above-the-clouds” higher and “beneath the ground-and-ocean” lower to escape the problems of urbanization, freeing up cities to become people instead of automobile friendly. “Roads and highway riparian zones will become citizen-maintained walking and pedaling recreational corridors. Advertising will be less intrusive, “whispering” in passersby’ ears specifically-targeted information on products in which the person is known to have an interest. I could go on and on, but it’s much better, I think, to simply read the book and experience these innovations as if they were already here. That’s the difference between science fiction and what I’m calling SCI-FU — science-based futuring. Even novels (like this innovative one) will become recreational entertainment “mirrors” of what a future world could be, allowing readers to experience them and choose to rework the world’s infrastructure as they need, want and desire.
Available though 30 September 2020 as a Kindle eBook for the special price of $2.99 (regular price $7.95)
The Edge of Madness
The idea of the article is to address common root problems with offices that would cause health problems during any future pandemic. The article calls for more collaboration between better trained environmental engineers and public health officials. Essentially, more open ventilation, more sanitizing stations, more spacing considerations.
While an admirable first step, I don’t for a moment believe this will adequately address the “office” infrastructure problem. In essence, I believe the “office” as we experienced it pre-COVID-19 is now extinct, if not for the difficulties in redesign, retrofitting and general move from cities back to distributed, individual, distance, country dispersion. While businesses (including schools, colleges and universities) may retain a “business facade” to promote and maintain the prestigious “big look” of yesteryear, most, if not all actual work will be done outside offices. The infrastructure that’s needed then, is not once of “office space” but socially-relevant communication.
In my book, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), education is done via interactive holography where instructors and learners from “home,” interact with each other holographically in a virtual shared “grassy knoll” outdoor classroom. Cities build “above-the-clouds” higher and “beneath the ground-and-ocean” lower to escape the problems of urbanization, freeing up cities to become people instead of automobile friendly. “Roads and highway riparian zones will become citizen-maintained walking and pedaling recreational corridors. Advertising will be less intrusive, “whispering” in passersby’ ears specifically-targeted information on products in which the person is known to have an interest. I could go on and on, but it’s much better, I think, to simply read the book and experience these innovations as if they were already here. That’s the difference between science fiction and what I’m calling SCI-FU — science-based futuring. Even novels (like this innovative one) will become recreational entertainment “mirrors” of what a future world could be, allowing readers to experience them and choose to rework the world’s infrastructure as they need, want and desire.
Available though 30 September 2020 as a Kindle eBook for the special price of $2.99 (regular price $7.95)
The Edge of Madness
September 13, 2020
TIME AND AGAIN – TENSE AND PERSON IN WRITING
Fiction books are traditionally consist of a narrative and dialog. The narrative is traditionally past tense and dialog is traditionally present tense (though there may be deviations in either part depending on timing, both absolute — in relation to the entire storyline — or relative — in relation to each element. This difference in tense helps the reader easily distinguish between the two, the narration of which is generally considered “fact,” and the dialog “opinion.” There are also traditional exceptions.
For instance, a diary or personal journal might be wholly narrative, written in the writer’s present, past, future (or other tense) as one might when writing day-to-day in a diary or journal. It’s generally believed that reading narration in the present tense can create a sense of current intrigue, as if one were reading something not meant to be read, or even voyeuring. Present tense has also been used to fix the action in the reader’s present, making it supposedly more “palpable.’. Similarly, narration in fiction is traditionally written in the third person (he, she, it), while dialog can appear in any person depending on the speaker(s) and the subject/object(s). Diaries are often in the first person.
More experienced authors tend to write for a broad target audience with traditional reading expectations. One interesting exception is science fiction/fantasy. By definition, it is in the future, therefore, technically it should be written in future tense; however, often it is written in traditional format to make the work an “easier read,” or in mixed tenses (e.g. perfect tenses) which, while they highlight a writer’s dexterity, are often anything but perfect for many readers.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor is a good example of a new genre of sci-fi (the author calls it “science-based futuring” or sci-fu) where not only does the entire storyline exist in the future, but it incorporates frequent present tense episodes, past tense flashbacks and future tense speculation as well as thoughts in addition to actual spoken dialog. The challenge in writing it was to utilize tense in a “clear, complete, concise and correct” manner so as to provide readers as much as possible with a “clean, easy read.” NOTE: Authors, editors and publishers often refer to the 3 (or 4) C’s — clarity, completeness, conciseness and correctness — as being of primary reading importance in that order. The goal with THE EDGE OF MADNESS was to create a balance of intriguing palpable present, factual past, speculative “future-future” all with a clear, clean, easy but mature read.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 – Kindle eBook on sale through September 2020!
For instance, a diary or personal journal might be wholly narrative, written in the writer’s present, past, future (or other tense) as one might when writing day-to-day in a diary or journal. It’s generally believed that reading narration in the present tense can create a sense of current intrigue, as if one were reading something not meant to be read, or even voyeuring. Present tense has also been used to fix the action in the reader’s present, making it supposedly more “palpable.’. Similarly, narration in fiction is traditionally written in the third person (he, she, it), while dialog can appear in any person depending on the speaker(s) and the subject/object(s). Diaries are often in the first person.
More experienced authors tend to write for a broad target audience with traditional reading expectations. One interesting exception is science fiction/fantasy. By definition, it is in the future, therefore, technically it should be written in future tense; however, often it is written in traditional format to make the work an “easier read,” or in mixed tenses (e.g. perfect tenses) which, while they highlight a writer’s dexterity, are often anything but perfect for many readers.
THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor is a good example of a new genre of sci-fi (the author calls it “science-based futuring” or sci-fu) where not only does the entire storyline exist in the future, but it incorporates frequent present tense episodes, past tense flashbacks and future tense speculation as well as thoughts in addition to actual spoken dialog. The challenge in writing it was to utilize tense in a “clear, complete, concise and correct” manner so as to provide readers as much as possible with a “clean, easy read.” NOTE: Authors, editors and publishers often refer to the 3 (or 4) C’s — clarity, completeness, conciseness and correctness — as being of primary reading importance in that order. The goal with THE EDGE OF MADNESS was to create a balance of intriguing palpable present, factual past, speculative “future-future” all with a clear, clean, easy but mature read.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 – Kindle eBook on sale through September 2020!
September 12, 2020
HYPERESTHESIA, SYNESTHESIA AND BIRTH
A particular challenge for authors is to convey “sensory pictures” to readers using words. Such pictures are typically conveyed in sentences, and require exceptional word-choice. An interesting side-issue is that of synesthesia (“crossed senses” e.g. feeling a smell or hearing a taste). This is a topic of particular interest to me, and one i broach in my newly released Sci-Fu (Science-based Futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) where the protagonist is hyperesthetic for smell. What would it be like to smell one’s birth during each moment of the experience? What would birth be like from a hyperesthetic, synesthetic or even a normal baby’s sensory point-of-view?
Raymond Gaynor’s THE EDGE OF MADNESS Special eBook Sale – regularly $7.95, only $2.99 12-30 September 2020
The Edge of Madness
Raymond Gaynor’s THE EDGE OF MADNESS Special eBook Sale – regularly $7.95, only $2.99 12-30 September 2020
The Edge of Madness
September 11, 2020
MIS-INFORMATION AND THE FICTION WRITER
In this new age of rapid, near universal communication and fake news, mis-information, propaganda, copycatting, pishing, digital coockooing, conning and outright fraud, I sometimes feel qualms about being a writer of thriller fiction. Do some readers actually believe everything they read even knowing it’s fiction? Is that even possible? Five years ago, I would say no. People seemed to have a good grasp on reality, facts and truth. I’m not so sure anymore.
That’s not to say that everyone’s psychotic, though sometimes I do wonder. No, it’s more that everyone is subject to chronic stress these days, and part of that is a blurring of reality accompanied by a decided impulsivity. Not a great combination. Add to that, that I read thriller fiction to escape from the reality of the present, and I suppose so do many other readers. Despite my qualms, or maybe because of them, I recently invented a new genre: Sci-Fu (Science-Based Futuring), meant to provide a mirror into the results of our current beliefs and choices, and hopefully a reflection of our contemporary world with all it’s complexities. Futuring, sometimes called future studies or futurology, is about discovering and confronting alternatives. Diversity. Expanding and exploring the likely, or at least plausible results of our attitudes and decisions today. Unfortunately, some look within futuring for either a utopia or dystopia, when, in my opinion, the importance of futuring and Sci-Fu (follow or join my Goodreads Sci-Fu group at
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
is that it provides us with a glimpse at the repercussions of our thoughts and behavior, something infinitely rare in this life. It provides a counter-platform to mis-information as long as one doesn’t regard what one reads or sees as necessarily “true” or unalterable. Sci-Fu isn’t about fate, it’s about choice. The big questions is whether humanity is ready to seize control of it’s socio-political evolution.
In THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I try to provide just such a platform to readers. It’s not about liking or disliking the consequences of our individual, family, group, city, state, federal or global actions, but having a way to reflect on them, providing us more and better choices.
Like the human body, human thought, behavior, society, politics are all highly redundant. Changing “one isolated little thing” doesn’t result in “one isolated little change.” Redundancy affords us the ability to do many things with the fewest systems. It is highly integrative; it is the basis of societal evolution. It assures that when some small isolated change actually results in a positive evolutionary step, it simply “happens.” We don’t have to analyze the myriads of possible pathways.
The Edge of Madness
That’s not to say that everyone’s psychotic, though sometimes I do wonder. No, it’s more that everyone is subject to chronic stress these days, and part of that is a blurring of reality accompanied by a decided impulsivity. Not a great combination. Add to that, that I read thriller fiction to escape from the reality of the present, and I suppose so do many other readers. Despite my qualms, or maybe because of them, I recently invented a new genre: Sci-Fu (Science-Based Futuring), meant to provide a mirror into the results of our current beliefs and choices, and hopefully a reflection of our contemporary world with all it’s complexities. Futuring, sometimes called future studies or futurology, is about discovering and confronting alternatives. Diversity. Expanding and exploring the likely, or at least plausible results of our attitudes and decisions today. Unfortunately, some look within futuring for either a utopia or dystopia, when, in my opinion, the importance of futuring and Sci-Fu (follow or join my Goodreads Sci-Fu group at
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
is that it provides us with a glimpse at the repercussions of our thoughts and behavior, something infinitely rare in this life. It provides a counter-platform to mis-information as long as one doesn’t regard what one reads or sees as necessarily “true” or unalterable. Sci-Fu isn’t about fate, it’s about choice. The big questions is whether humanity is ready to seize control of it’s socio-political evolution.
In THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I try to provide just such a platform to readers. It’s not about liking or disliking the consequences of our individual, family, group, city, state, federal or global actions, but having a way to reflect on them, providing us more and better choices.
Like the human body, human thought, behavior, society, politics are all highly redundant. Changing “one isolated little thing” doesn’t result in “one isolated little change.” Redundancy affords us the ability to do many things with the fewest systems. It is highly integrative; it is the basis of societal evolution. It assures that when some small isolated change actually results in a positive evolutionary step, it simply “happens.” We don’t have to analyze the myriads of possible pathways.
The Edge of Madness
September 10, 2020
YOU SEE, BUT YOU DO NOT OBSERVE...
The quintessential author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his famous Sherlock Holmes series, had his detective, Sherlock Holmes, state to his almost equally famous partner, Dr. Watson, “You see, but you don’t observe!” What were the two, author and protagonist, trying to convey?
Seeing per se is a purely receptive sensory event. To see a ball, is to sense it with one’s eyes. Observing, however, involves consciously knowing that it is a ball with all the ramifications of the experience. It isn’t necessarily “knowing,” as knowing per se means being able to extrapolate what one consciously extracts from an experience to another, typically, different experience. Having said all that, perhaps the best catchphrase for this past four years is Holmes famous sextuplet.
People today are being barraged by requests for their attention. We see perhaps more than any generation before, but in doing so, we have to shut a lot out for fear of frank overload. We see, often because we are obligated to, but we filter out the observation. Perhaps this is most true with traumatic events. Try for just five minutes to keep all the trauma going on in the world today in your mind. I can’t do it for even 20 seconds without stopping. The extent of trauma in this world is simply too great — to overwhelming.
But there is a downside to this protective mechanism, keeping us from falling into the dark mental abyss: what we see becomes subject to mental manipulation and we tend to revert to “lemming behavior.” If one lemming jumps off a cliff, the others seem compelled to follow. At some point one must stop and ask the question “Why?”
That’s the very foundation of SCI-FU (science-based futuring) and my recently released novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. Stop for just a moment, grab a copy, and enjoy seeing a trio of youths coming-of-age, question “Why?” and then observe the world they inherit.
The Edge of Madness
Why?
Seeing per se is a purely receptive sensory event. To see a ball, is to sense it with one’s eyes. Observing, however, involves consciously knowing that it is a ball with all the ramifications of the experience. It isn’t necessarily “knowing,” as knowing per se means being able to extrapolate what one consciously extracts from an experience to another, typically, different experience. Having said all that, perhaps the best catchphrase for this past four years is Holmes famous sextuplet.
People today are being barraged by requests for their attention. We see perhaps more than any generation before, but in doing so, we have to shut a lot out for fear of frank overload. We see, often because we are obligated to, but we filter out the observation. Perhaps this is most true with traumatic events. Try for just five minutes to keep all the trauma going on in the world today in your mind. I can’t do it for even 20 seconds without stopping. The extent of trauma in this world is simply too great — to overwhelming.
But there is a downside to this protective mechanism, keeping us from falling into the dark mental abyss: what we see becomes subject to mental manipulation and we tend to revert to “lemming behavior.” If one lemming jumps off a cliff, the others seem compelled to follow. At some point one must stop and ask the question “Why?”
That’s the very foundation of SCI-FU (science-based futuring) and my recently released novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. Stop for just a moment, grab a copy, and enjoy seeing a trio of youths coming-of-age, question “Why?” and then observe the world they inherit.
The Edge of Madness
Why?
September 9, 2020
LET’S TALK ABOUT EDUCATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
In a previous post, I decided to stop decrying our reticence as a country to address what I consider the “problem” underlying COVID-19 and it’s seemingly profound effects on the USA today and begin addressing specific areas of outdated, ineffective infrastructure. I began with travel, using the airline industry as an example; however, most of my comments on the airline industry would equally apply to ships, trains, busses and other forms of public transportation. Today I want to tackle education.
Why is education in such turmoil due to COVID-19? Again, it is my opinion that COVID-19 is just the spark that led to the explosion of pre-existing problems, most related to outdated, ineffective infrastructure. The rest being related to individual and corporate financial greed.
The first “problem” is that teaching, while highly effective, is traumatic to both the teacher and the student – see UNLOCK THE GENIUS WITHIN: NEUROBIOLOGICAL TRAUMA, TEACHING AND TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING by Dr. Daniel S. Janik at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1578862914.
What is needed is a paradigm shift from teaching to learning, where “instructors” become guides and mentors helping learners to learn how and where to locate learning resources relevant to learner interests. Curiosity => cooperation => discovery => resources => knowledge => wisdom. This simple paradigm shift opens up education to include effective distance learning, something many school districts balk at because it is simply too traumatic for teachers and students. It requires a new form of learning evaluation and feedback other than traditional testing – see SELFDESIGN: NURTURING GENIUS THROUGH NATURAL LEARNING by Dr. Brent Cameron at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591810442
The second “problem” is that teaching, while highly effective as a means of conveying basic memorized information, is both largely unnecessary and not very good at providing either knowledge or wisdom. As AI becomes increasingly efficient in recording and indexing information (meaning it’s not necessary to memorize all information), what is needed is a platform for delivering knowledge (the ability to take what one learns and apply it to other areas of need) and wisdom (the ability to do it at the right time and place, without hurting others). This opens the door to learning spirituality (rather than religion), an important segue into morality and ethics, both of which are sorely needed in the USA today — see THE SOUL OF EDUCATION: HELPING STUDENTS FIND CONNECTION, COMPASSION AND CHARACTER AT SCHOOL by Rachael Kessler at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0871203731.
These are only a few of the many academic and popular works investigating a a new approach to education called transformative learning. However, the emphasis is not as might first appear on transformation per se, but on transformative learning in learners.
These are a few of the basic infrastructure issues extended and applied in my newly released SCI-FU (Science-Based Futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS by Raymond Gaynor
The Edge of Madness
Get it. Peer over the edge. See the future. Boldly go where few have gone but we all need to go.
Why is education in such turmoil due to COVID-19? Again, it is my opinion that COVID-19 is just the spark that led to the explosion of pre-existing problems, most related to outdated, ineffective infrastructure. The rest being related to individual and corporate financial greed.
The first “problem” is that teaching, while highly effective, is traumatic to both the teacher and the student – see UNLOCK THE GENIUS WITHIN: NEUROBIOLOGICAL TRAUMA, TEACHING AND TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING by Dr. Daniel S. Janik at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1578862914.
What is needed is a paradigm shift from teaching to learning, where “instructors” become guides and mentors helping learners to learn how and where to locate learning resources relevant to learner interests. Curiosity => cooperation => discovery => resources => knowledge => wisdom. This simple paradigm shift opens up education to include effective distance learning, something many school districts balk at because it is simply too traumatic for teachers and students. It requires a new form of learning evaluation and feedback other than traditional testing – see SELFDESIGN: NURTURING GENIUS THROUGH NATURAL LEARNING by Dr. Brent Cameron at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591810442
The second “problem” is that teaching, while highly effective as a means of conveying basic memorized information, is both largely unnecessary and not very good at providing either knowledge or wisdom. As AI becomes increasingly efficient in recording and indexing information (meaning it’s not necessary to memorize all information), what is needed is a platform for delivering knowledge (the ability to take what one learns and apply it to other areas of need) and wisdom (the ability to do it at the right time and place, without hurting others). This opens the door to learning spirituality (rather than religion), an important segue into morality and ethics, both of which are sorely needed in the USA today — see THE SOUL OF EDUCATION: HELPING STUDENTS FIND CONNECTION, COMPASSION AND CHARACTER AT SCHOOL by Rachael Kessler at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0871203731.
These are only a few of the many academic and popular works investigating a a new approach to education called transformative learning. However, the emphasis is not as might first appear on transformation per se, but on transformative learning in learners.
These are a few of the basic infrastructure issues extended and applied in my newly released SCI-FU (Science-Based Futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS by Raymond Gaynor
The Edge of Madness
Get it. Peer over the edge. See the future. Boldly go where few have gone but we all need to go.
