[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by aohige

Do you actually have numbers to prove this?

The birth of organizations such as CERN, the internationally collaborated building of LHC, emergence of Doctors Without Borders, Bill Gates' massive effort into bringing science and technology to darker corners of the world... I don't see the world nearly as bleak as you paint it to be. Globlization has brought like-wise people together, and perhaps you don't see the enthusiasm of knowledge in your peers because, they have already found their place?

I don't have the numbers to prove this, most of this is from experience. As for my peers finding their place as pop-product consumers? Sure.

Globalisation and introduction of new technology is a great thing, that I have to agree with. What I don't agree with is the general attitude of people towards technology and knowledge, they seem to think that if technology simplifies the accumulation of knowledge, then the acquisition of knowledge should not be complex.

It isn't true. A single processor with hyper-threading function contains as much complexity as a procedure to operate on the spinal column - McNamara killed many soldiers in Vietnam with the M16 with the kind of thinking that everything can be represented by a single simple system.

It's become easier to connect people, but that also seems to create physical isolationism between individuals on a local scale.

As for on-topic matters, literature and history may have taken a hit.
The medium for consumption of such has become less and less bookbased, so yes, novels may face a bleaker future than it ever has in the past.

Well a light novel has already presented a future like this; at least in Japan. * So did another ancient English novel......

The possible future that we face is that language might easily be degraded into Ingsoc (we already have some form of garbage called "political correctness"). The books that pass the test of time would probably be those that are "inventive" and "creative" - Shakespeare didn't become as well known as he is without inventing a few thousand new words.

* - I wouldn't mind having a little sister to teach me kanji like that. In return, I can teach her anything else....

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Naipaul and Atwood may be a little less well-known, but Golding and Rushdie are very much in the public's consciousness because of landmark novels like Lord of the Flies and The Satanic Verses, respectively. Ishiguro is also likely to be better remembered as the author of books that have had successful movie adaptations, such as The Remains of the Day and the more recent Never Let Me Go.

Susan Hill - I Am The King Of The Castle. In otaku context, Edward could be said to be the yangire of the pair, psychopathic and scheming, and Kingshaw's mum is one heck of a slut that even his classmate called her a "cheap old tart".

Though I am surprised that the Japanese animators had yet to pick this up and turn it into a BL fanwork - it is obvious who is the seme and who is the uke.

Other modern writers who I believe will stand the test of time include Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms) and George Orwell (1984), the former for firmly popularising the style and form of modern American literature and the latter for his wide range of fiction and political essays. (It helps, of course, that I greatly admire both writers for their use of simple, straightforward language that still manages to strike hard with stark realism.)

Orwell isn't much of a storyteller, I would say he is more of a social critic like Dickens and Huxley because of how he portrays the world in his stories with brutal honesty. Orwell even criticised his own government in Burmese Days that the book was not as well received in the "upper class" of the society, and Animal Farm was barred from publication until WW2 was over.

In the realm of fantasy, it'll be hard to ignore J.R.R. Tolkien's influence on a now multi-million-dollar gaming industry. Then, there are science fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick, who imagined worlds and alternative realities so advanced that it's only recently that movie special effects are able to portray them adequately.

Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein are two people that has to be included alongside Arthur C. Clarke that presented the positivity and future of science affecting our lives. However, their ideas tend to be idealistic at best, it seems that the overly pragmatic premises of H.G Wells and Jules Verne, where people contemplate disbelief towards the wonders of science and its utility as a destructive force to control others make it seem that technology is dangerous. The Time Machine, Nautilus and the Carolinium bombs seem to perpetuate greed and messiah complexes (Koalar, Captain Nemo, and in "The World Set Free") and seem to be more "realistic" as compared to Asimov and Heinlein's works.

Though I wish Huxley's idea of the Malthusian belt actually came true.