Terrible Person/Better Person
OK. I’ve started to see some of the sadly inevitable smug pushback on various things related to 2016 and the horrorshow it has been for so many people out there, so let me break down what not to say as people express their grief. I like to call this game Terrible Person/Better Person. Here goes:
Terrible Person: “Oh sure, everyone was sad about David Bowie, but what about Person X? Huh?”
vs.
Better Person: “I’m sorry that losing Bowie hurt so much; I felt the same way when Person X died. What made Bowie so special to you?”
Terrible Person: “Oh sure, everyone’s upset about George Michael, but nobody cared about an earthquake that just killed 1500 people in Country X! Talk about privilege!”
vs.
Better Person: “I know a lot of people are still reeling about George Michael’s death, but if you want to to channel some of that grief into action that will do some good and might make you feel a little better about the world after the shitshow that was 2016, here are some charities that are helping in the wake of the terrible earthquake in Country X.”
Terrible Person: “People are getting so upset about a bunch of celebrities dying, but they didn’t even know these people!”
vs.
Better Person: “It really seems like a lot of people lost their artistic/personal heroes this year. That’s rough, and honestly I can’t even imagine what it’s like for the families of those people to mourn a loved one they share with the world.”
Terrible Person: “Well you know Celebrity X did terrible things when they were younger, and therefore you are a terrible person and condone all the things they did by liking them or expressing any feelings of loss regarding their passing, right?”
vs.
Better Person: “So Celebrity X did some terrible things when they was younger, yes, and it’s important to remember the whole person. That said, someone who was problematic, even harmful, can have had a positive impact on your life, and it’s OK to grieve that.”
(Thanks to Matt McFarland for this one.)
Terrible Person: “You should be glad for all you have! I’ve had X, Y, and Z horrible things happen to me this year, but I’m not bitching!”
vs.
Better Person: “I didn’t realize this year had been so hard for you. I’ve had a pretty rough one myself – want to talk about it?”
Terrible Person: “You know 2016 is just a year, right? A period of time? It doesn’t have motives and it can’t kill anyone. Stop acting like it’s a hitman or something, that’s just stupid.”
vs.
Better Person: “I know there have been rough years before, but it seriously seems like we’ve had a bigger than average run of deaths, tragedies, and disasters in this one. We’d better come together so we make sure 2017 isn’t more of the same.”
h+
Between anticipation for the new Deus Ex installment, reading the superb Eclipse Phase game and a couple of books like Soft Apocalypse and Altered Carbon, the future’s been on my mind lately. A couple years back, I was introduced to the concept of transhumanism, which can be briefly described as a philosophy that seeks to anticipate and sometimes even precipitate what’s going to happen to humanity in the next 10, 20 or 100 years. One of the big things about a lot of transhumanist writing that sets it apart from more traditional views of the future is that it tends to take a close look at the changes that will happen within us, both as individuals and as a species, as opposed to external changes and technologies.
To put it another way, for traditional science fiction, think of Star Trek. In that vision of the future, almost all the technological advancement is external. Human beings are basically unchanged physiologically (though that might have had more to do with the makeup budget in some cases). Sure, they have awesome medical advances, and occasionally you find out that someone like Picard is actually a super cyborg with a crazy artificial heart, but otherwise they deal in external technologies: holodecks, starships, phasers, three level chess sets, Mr. Data. When he looked forward, Rodenberry saw a future like our present, only with better toys.
By contrast, for a more transhumanist view of the future, read the graphic novel series Transmetropolitan, Warren Ellis’ gonzo, foul-mouthed, hardboiled and venomously optimistic opus. In this future, there’s plenty of external technology – most of it weapons, predictably enough – but it pales in comparison to the stuff that people have done to themselves. Genetic engineering, cybernetic augmentation, neural enhancements, cryogenic statis, even migration of consciousness into clouds of nanotechnology. In other words, Ellis looked at the future and figured that we’d use all of our wonderful advances to get high, score more often and otherwise enjoy ourselves. When we weren’t killing each other in new and interesting ways, that is. Transhumanism isn’t necessarily that gonzo and decadent, but the heart was there.
Personally, I look into the future, and I see the next decade or so bringing big changes. I think we’re going to see a few big leaps – restoring sight, restoring hearing, improved prosthetics, etc. – and I think I may be a little bit too conservative, on the whole. I think of the future and I keep hearing “This Is the Moment” from Jekyll & Hyde, though if you know your musicals, that’s not necessarily the best omen. But I think we’ll manage. I hope we do, because I’m an optimist at heart, and I think we have it in us to go more Star Trek than Transmet.
Though I would love a bucket of caribou eyes.
So here’s my question for you out there in reader land:
What do you think we’ll see in the next 10 years?
Positively Woodworthian 