clack to viewWe asked six political pundits , let in Andrew Sullivan and DailyKos ’ Markos Moulitsas , to pick one piece of science fabrication that you must read or watch before stepping into the ballot booth next month . After all , science fiction often cover with some of the biggest what - ifs and substitute future conceivable . So we could n’t suppose any good cooking for participating in majority rule than six science fable classic , as opt by the experts . The learned person : Markos Moulitsas ( DailyKos ) What they recommend : “ Franchise ” by Isaac Asimov .
What it ’s about : This 1955 story is part of Asimov ’s “ Multivac ” serial of stories . In the futuristic creation of 2008 , the United States has become an “ electronic democracy . ” Multivac , the superintendent - computer , choose one lucky soul to be “ elector of the class . ” This individual , Norman Muller , answers a series of questions and the computer uses those to decide what the results of an election would have been , if an election had fall out . Why is this good election - season fabric ? Moulitsas tells io9 :
We live in a world that has accepted 1984 ’s doublespeak as part and parcel of the political process . But that ’s too soft and cliched and answer . So how about Asimov ’s “ dealership ” ? A exclusive voter , chosen by computer , decides the election , and he ’s proud that the citizen got to make their representative try through him , except , of course of study , that everyone else did n’t get to vote . Consider the New political military campaign , with robo polls which proclaim the electorate ’s selection after a few hundred response , and robo call option and electronic voting machines and all that hooey , and maybe someone can torture out an doctrine of analogy . In reality , this election season has been strange than any fiction imaginable .
The pundit : Andrew Sullivan ( Atlantic Monthly ) What they recommended : Wall - E What it ’s about : In this Pixar repair moving picture , the human raceway has abandon the scraps - strewn Earth , and our childlike descendants now live on a distance liner , laying on swim barcaloungers and having all their needs met by automaton . One scraps - compacting robot persist functional on Earth , and he get a line a single musical composition of botany , proving that the planet can still endure living .
Why is this good election - time of year material ? Sullivan did n’t elaborate , but Wall - E is rife with political allegory . you may translate it as a simple conservationist parable about the peril of aggregative consumption and unsustainable bread and butter . you’re able to see it as a word of advice against the “ nursemaid state ” which would seek to take care of all our motive and save us from acquire our hands unsporting . you’re able to see it as an admonishment to be curious about the world we live in and how we get here . The pundit : Jonah Goldberg ( National Review Online ) What they recommended : Angel , season four . What it ’s about : An spare - dimensional being ( played by Gina Torres ) appears on Earth , and everyone who sees her becomes totally devoted to her and set about to idolise her . She brings peace and prosperity , and only Angel ’s friend Fred can see that she ’s really a repulsive monster .
Why is this unspoiled election - season fabric ? Goldberg tells io9 :
In the tarradiddle , the world is mesmerized by a god from another attribute played by a charismatic inglorious woman who in truth does bring universal peace and making love to the planet . Her only price : we all must revere her ( and allow for her with a statistically irrelevant number of humans to consume ) and unify around our dear for her . I do n’t consider Obama is evil or a villain of any sort . But the example is pretty valid . Obama is the high non-Christian priest of a cult of unity . one can be useful , but it is also very , very dangerous . That ’s why the founder believe of a system of divided government , after all .
The savant : Amanda Marcotte ( Pandagon ) What they recommend : Margaret Attwood , The Handmaid ’s Tale .
What it ’s about : This Arthur C. Clarke Award - pull ahead novel takes place in a future dystopian U.S. governed by spiritual fundamentalist . Women are no longer allow to learn to read . Because of declining fertility , fertile char ( like the main character Offred ) are turned into “ handmaiden , ” whose only Book of Job is to digest kid for moneyed brace . Why is this honest election - season material ? say Marcotte :
It probably sound a little trite since it gets referenced so much , but in light of the promotion of a true - believer fundamentalist to a national ticket , I have to urge Margaret Atwood ’s The Handmaid ’s Tale . It ’s not just because it ’s a dystopia that bear witness what America would be like under a Christian theocracy , but also because the book brilliantly skewer other aspect of the correct - extension culture . You have the distaff misogynist Serena Joy that ascertain out the heavy way that she is n’t exempt from the family ‘ woman ’ just because she was a stouthearted soldier for the far right hand . You also are remind that the conservative men who carry on about sexual morals in world all too often have their own closet full of secrets . The book is a reminder that right wing politics is n’t so much about ‘ values ’ , but about power and control condition .
The pundit : Glenn Reynolds ( Instapundit ) What they recommended : Vernor Vinge , Rainbow ’s ending .
What it ’s about : It ’s 2025 , and enhanced reality is everywhere . People use contact lens system to interact with computer - generated artifact , and multitude habituate “ silent messaging ” to communicate ubiquitously . Poet Robert Gu rediscovers this cosmos after his Alzheimer ’s disease is cured , and gets drawn into a world of conspiracies and bioterrorism . And because everything in our liveliness is operate by computing machine systems , include our railway car , it ’s super vulnerable to hackers — specially by artificial means thinking cyber-terrorist . Why is this good election - season material ? pronounce Reynolds :
It key out a close - future that seems to be getting safer as it is really acquire more dangerous . I think it is a must - read .
The pundit : Kevin Drum ( Mother Jones ) What they recommended : Frederik Pohl , The Merchants ’ War .
A few years ago an editor asked me which skill fable book of account I ’d suggest hoi polloi study before the election . I recommended Fred Pohl ’s The Merchant Wars . It likely seemed an leftover choice , but here ’s an excerpt :
New York , New York! … .I saw a miraculously exculpated stretch of sidewalk … .I walked by — and WOWP a blast of auditory sensation shake my skull and FLOOP a great supernova flare pass of light burn my middle , and I went staggering and reeling as tiny , tiny elf voices shouted like needle in my pinna Mokie - Koke , Mokie - Koke , MokieMokieMokie - Koke ! … .”I warned ya , ” yelled the petty old valet de chambre from a secure space … .He was still wave the signpost , so I staggered closer and blearily managed to deciper the legend under the graffiti : Warning ! COMMERCIAL ZONE Enter at Own Risk … .”What ’s a ‘ Mokie - Coke ’ ? ” I asked … .. There was a peddle machine , just like all the other Mokie - Koke machine I ’d been seeing all along , on the Moon , in the spaceport , along the city streets . “ Do n’t fool with the singles ” he advised anxiously . “ Go for the six - mob , okay?” … .Poor old guy ! I felt so drab for him that I split the six - pack as we headed for the speech the Agency had given me . Three shots from each one . He give thanks me with tears in his middle but , all the same , out of the 2d six - ingroup I only give him one . … .”Dr . Mosskristal will review your aesculapian problem for you . ” And the tone say forged news program … .”What you have , ” she explain , “ is a Campbellian reflex action . Named after Dr. H.J. Campbell . notable pioneering psychologist in the old days , inventor of limbic - pleasure therapy . ” … .”Let ’s just say that you ’ve had your limbic areas stimulated ; under the influence of that great upwelling of pleasure you ’ve become conditioned to associate Mokie - Koke with joy , and there ’s nothing to be done about it . ”
Does n’t seem quite so much like scientific discipline fiction after reading about endorphin stigmatisation , does it ?
GawkerJoss WhedonPolitics
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