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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
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| Young-Forever | ||
| A very particular formula for human immortality, which solves the most serious attendant problem (population explosion). |
As those who read speculative fiction know, one of the scarier results of widespread anti-geriatric drugs or remedies is overpopulation. Niven finds a unique way around this particular problem in A World Out of Time.
| Earth was ruled by children, twenty billion children aged from eleven years to enormous. "It was young-forever that did it. The State had discovered an ideal form of young-forever," the old woman said. "Parents can see to it that their children stop growing older at an age just below - what is your word? When girls begin their cycle of blood - " "Puberty." "Just before puberty, they are stopped. They live nearly forever. There is no resultant rise in numbers, because these Children do not have children. The method was far better than the older method of staying young forever." |
| From A World Out of Time,
by Larry Niven. Published by Random House in 1976 Additional resources -
|
Naturally, Corbell (the protagonist of the novel), an old-fashioned 20th century human) would like to have the old method of staying young forever.
In the future society, it turned out the Girs and Boys had relatively little in common, and never found a reason to come together.
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| Neurodevices For Consumers? Neuroethicists (And Philip K Dick) Say 'Caveat Emptor' |
| BrainEx Restores Some Activity To Severed Pig Head |
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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'The planes flew continuously, twenty-four hours a day...'
'It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.'
'...a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves.'
'Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?' Quail asked.
Megastructures have repair robots, which have repair robots, ad infinitum.
‘She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew...’
Perfect for clot-busting in the human brain. No Raquel Welch and no lasers, though.
