Here's to the Frivolous

Once upon a time, there were pulp magazines. They were derided as frivolous.

As the pulps died they gave birth to the medium of comic books, and the full blooming of the genera of science Fiction.

Comic books also contained a great deal of Science Fiction. Comic books were and are derided as frivolous and dangerous drivel for adolescent boys.

Science Fiction is our scout into the future, it gives us time to cope with new technology and the effects that it will have on our culture. It trains the thinking of the people who will build that future. When Philosophy abdicated it's role as the field that asks Important Questions, and threw down the banner of knowledge, Science Fiction picked up the banner, cleaned off the mud, and continued the march. Because of this, Science Fiction is the most important cultural artifact of our species.

Science fiction was and is derided as frivolous drivel for adolescent boys.

In the late 80s video games became popular, Science Fiction made the jump from print medium to the new entrant with ease. Partly due to the people who are able to make video games being the same as the people who like Science Fiction. Partly because the medium has sufficient bandwidth to do proper Science Fiction in ways that movies cannot, and TV has difficulty with.

Video games are and have been derided as dangerous and frivolous drivel for adolescent boys. So dangerous in fact that merely playing one would turn a person into a violent mass murderer, or in the new war with Eastasia, a rapist.

Contemporary with video games, personal computers appeared. PCs have become so vital to the economy (at any scale you care to observe) that removing them would be analogous to removing electricity. While they have the potential to usher in Big Brother, they have an even greater potential to banish him forever, and even to banish the need for government in the first place. Whether enabling accurate logistics, and making everything in the economy run more smoothly, or enabling things that could not have happened before, PCs have improved everything they touch.

PCs were derided as a frivolous waste of time for anyone who wasn't a business, especially for those stupid adolescent boys, who are probably autistic losers anyway.

The next time a person tells you that something is frivolous or dangerous and only of interest to adolescent boys, you should first inquire as to how they managed to get their head so far up their ass that it came out the other end. Then go buy the "frivolous" thing, and study it.

You will be ahead of the curve for whatever society changing event happens next.