Slice of PIE: Post-Ideas – Is This Like Post-Christian and Post-Truth?

Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in August 2016 (to which I was invited and had a friend pay my membership! [Thanks, Paul!] but was unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This is NO event as the link is provided below appears to be dead now…(How much would you like to bet that the title generates more hits than I’ve ever gotten? The current record after “CHRISTIANITY: Anthropogenic or Universal?” is “Conspiracy Revealed: Adolph…” with 979 hits…)
OMGosh! I’m going to have to come up with some of my own ideas again!
So, in no particular order, here I go:
YA science fiction – where’s it going now that the dystopian frenzy seems to be settling down?Christianity and science fiction – is there really any problem…or is it more a “quality issue”?Education in SF – why do SF writers insist that Americans have somehow hit upon the “perfect” educational institution and how might the union-stasis be having a negative effect on paradigm-shifting change? (See: “Gladly Wolde He Learne” by Harry Turtledove -- http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/Gladly_Wolde_He_Lerne)The future of the Wild – why do we seem to build cities over everything? Is “progress” REALLY our middle name?The future of Population – is “more people” always better? (GRR Martin’s Tuf Voyaging stories, in particular, the Suthlam ones)AI – REALLY possible? REALLY desirable?: And do the proponents realize that they TOO will be destroyed…or do they assume that because they sing its praises, they’ll be accepted by our “robot overlords”?Nature – what’s natural and what defines a “park” and do us 21st Century types REALLY know what “nature” is?Camping in the Future – where? What? How might it be…REALLY different?Different Societies – Will They Be As Leftists Expect Them To Be? (Historical Note: Left was Right, Right was Left…the old GOP (anti-slavery) and DFL (pro-slavery)…)Back to WHAT Future? – What if the Global Warming debacle led to a society that went ALL THE WAY backwards? (Returning to pre-1800 levels of CO2, pollutants, emissions, etc…means eliminating excess population…and a way to DO that may be to secretly boost the anti-vaxxer movement.)Fifty Solutions To The Fermi Paradox – I’ll comment on each one from this list! That should keep me going until the Program for WorldCon in Helsinki is published! (www.astro.ufl.edu/~lebo/.../Fermi's%20Paradox%20-%20Stephen%20Webb.docx)
And For Yet MORE Ideas – here you go: http://www.mikebrotherton.com/2008/09/08/ten-issues-for-hard-science-fiction/
So then, until next time (‘cause I’m on vacation AND I don’t have any idea what to say about ANY of these…well, that’s not exactly true, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!), ponder these and then have at it whenever I post an entry!
Program Book: the link appears to be no longer alive…Image: https://www.portent.com/images/2013/08/iStock_000016093336Small.jpg