Silent Emptiness

Charles Ponzi - after whom "Ponzi scheme" was named - convinced people to invest in postage stamps. This plan was widely criticized, because it promised profits, when in fact all it did was pay off early investors with a fraction of the money put into the scheme by newer investors. These days, anyone who isn't self-deceived recognizes that this is the entire basis for Social Security, and increasingly all government spending. The entire idea behind the national debt is that someone will pay it off later - someone who must be a lot smarter than we are today, or perhaps a lot harder working, or perhaps just really stupid to pay off such a huge debt without having ever gotten any benefits and having no realistic chance of ever getting such benefits themself. So ultimately, as no one seems willing to admit, the debt will be retired in one of two ways - repudiation, or inflation. Probably a combination - inflation to reduce the value, then some complex "currency re-valuat...

What would it take to make a good (or even great) Blade Runner sequel? The original became a cult hit mainly because (a) it had an interesting, well textured setting (b) it projected a very clear style or mood that fit well with (c) an interesting moral question about what makes one "human" that is ultimately left up to the viewer, (d) while including enough action directly related to the question to keep it interesting on first viewing. I think a good sequel would need to (a) replicate and build on the setting (b) choose a DIFFERENT question, or perhaps deeper examination of the original moral question to examine; and (c) fit the style/mood to that examination - and of course (d) driving it all with some cool action scenes. Forget the off-world colonies - it's far more interesting to look at how alien Earth would have become, to our eyes. The original looked at an organic mix of decaying remnants of today's cities threaded and overshadowed by ultra-tech future stuff,...

The most effective counter to desire to have children... is to have some. The number required to shut down any instinctive desire to reproduce will vary from person to person - for some, merely being an aunt or uncle is sufficient; most find that "two's company, three's a crowd"; for others, "eight is enough"; and a very few seem to feel kids are "cheaper by the dozen". But eventually grandkids come along and that cheaper "fix" for infant-addiction, combined with memories of the reality of child-rearing, will almost always be sufficient to shut down the reproductive urge. As a result, once life extension becomes practical, we'll find that the reproducing fraction of the population will drop steadily until eventually zero growth will be hit as suicides match births. Population will likely grow until that point is reached. In fact, we'll probably find that for the first century or so after full control over bodily health is po...