Although I can quite accept there is a place for it, I never feel there's enough mature end work that seeks to bring an entire reality into existence, rather than a simple daydream.

You know what flaws I'm talking about - cities with no history, peoples with no culture, 21st century healthcare, anachronistic behaviours and technologies...etc.

So if this is a direction you'd like to take your own writing [and my expression of personal taste here is simply that], then here are my main Mediaeval Resources links [I hope some of them prove useful - I personally favour paper resources, but all sources can provide useful information]:

INTERNET MEDIAEVAL SOURCEBOOK:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

NETSERF.ORG [MASSIVE ONLINE LIBRARY]

http://www.netserf.org/

THE VIRTUAL LIBRARY - MEDIAEVAL:

http://www.msu.edu/%7Egeorgem1/history/medieval.htm

MANCHESTER MEDIAEVAL SOURCES:

http://www.medievalsources.co.uk/

And here's a beauty - just a few important mediaeval terms explained:

BRITTANIA LEXICON:

http://www.britannia.com/history/resource/gloss.html

I do have a comment here though…

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You know what flaws I'm talking about - cities with no history, peoples with no culture, 21st century healthcare, anachronistic behaviours and technologies...etc.

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I get what you’re saying here. I would agree that you need some sort of consistency of technology levels – sophisticated brain surgery and sword-based warfare probably in most cases should not go together.

Nothing wrong with historically accurate. Not saying that at all.

But if avoiding such thing requires historical accuracy, I’m not so sure about that.

In fantasy, if you have elements like magic, and depending how you choose to set it up, you might have a different state of technology development all together because of that different stimulus. Example – Magic diminishes the need to develop guns because if fills the same technology role, so more energy gets focused into health care, an area that this magic can’t influence. So some things might not be anachronistic in the newly developed setting.

Cities with no history and people with no culture is more a problem of sloppy world construction or execution of said world into the story than anything else.

So I guess what all this opinionated babble is trying to get at is sort of the following thought:

Does realism really require historical accuracy? (And by realism, I’m taking that to mean that the world used as the story setting feel real and fleshed out. That may or may not be the correct definition.)

I’d say no. At the same time, certainly having a healthy background of history, technology, and culture is going to given a lot of really sound examples of how to do it so it looks real and a good understanding of where you are tweaking around what is real, and all-out throwing a ringer into it.

Even magic should be thought out... I like how Stephen King puts it: You have your ONE untrue thing (such as magic), and surround it with facts (realism). Your readers will accept the "make believe" of your world if you surround it with realism and accuracy.

Wow... That was a quarter's worth of words for a 2 cent thought!

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/thud.htm

If you are going to use real elements, then by all means, get the facts and do them right! Otherwise you’re going to get people going “That’s all wrong,” and by association throwing out the rest of the things you said as improbable, resulting in your story getting chucked out of the window. I think this was discussed recently in the Alien Compass thread concerning physical reality. A good deal of the reason I put the “thank you” in the first post is that I’ll probably use those sites to snoop around for some more information on a couple of things I’ve been thinking about using lately.

I’ve read the Pohl article at www.sfwa.org before. The just of it was, use some common sense and reason, and where appropriate, do the needed research. People do not gallop horses all day in the dead of winter while wearing a fur loincloth and have horse and rider live to tell the tale. This is beautiful and highly practical advice.

Back to the “anachronistic behaviors and technologies” part…

I just think there is a case (depending on how they are set up) for fantasy situations having anachronistic behaviors and technologies in them and still being realistic. Such situations result from some fantasy element being introduced having such a profound effect on the society that it logically shifts its development in another direction, which may not be historically accurate in a real world sense. Such shifts in reality better be reasonable and logical, and their affect on the created reality well thought out such that the new world “works.”

Take Pern for example. (And yes I have heard that Anne McCafferty classifies these books staunchly as science fiction. It will still work for my point.) The basis is a pre-industrial society with transportation means limited to beast-of-burden type animals and walking. Such limited transportation should equal isolation and long times for news, etc. But that doesn’t take into effect the dragons. Because of their instantaneous means of transportation, you have a much more global sort of culture, with frequent world meetings and news traveling swiftly at least between major population centers that seem fairly modern concepts, than should be “historically” demanded by such a pre-industrial society. No, not everyone gets the full benefit, but it is there and shaping the culture.

So there may be things that would seem anachronistic given the initial foundation for the setting, but in the created reality would not be.

Hence, the realism does not equal historical accuracy (with its real world anachronistic issues) opinion.

You can find the information at:
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm

(Oh, and it should go without saying that the other articles found on this website are helpful too!)

They were also deeply theocratic, in the sense of having a state religion that had an enormous amount of importance in politics. While they did have sufficient technological skills with metalworking, chemistry, and mass production to manufacture fairly modern arms...basically anything short of solid state semiconductor components or advanced materials like carbon composites (and I would tend to thing that they could even make some of the rare earth ceramics if somebody told them how) would be within their manufacturing capability if they had directions on how to make them. But that was true of the ancient Chinese over three thousand years ago, too. Heck, we now have the manufacturing capability to create genetically engineered telepathic, intelligent, motile plants that can survive in deep space and travel near the speed of light carrying humans in complete comfort to other worlds where they will obey their every whim and create a personalized paradise for each individual, as well as producing a nectar that will activate the telomerase reaction while suppresing mutations in somatic tissue, thus allowing humans to live forever.

We have the manufacturing ability, not the technical knowledge to actually design such a creature.

I would, however, have to say that if Rome found a way to overcome the degeneracy that led to its downfall, it would certainly have had to involve a radical shift in cultural attitudes. Constantine's conversion to Christianity allowed the Eastern Roman Empire to florish for another thousand years, for instance.

This all brings up an interesting point. If we manage to destroy ourselves somehow or other, how long will it take future generations to believe that our world was anything more than a mythical "golden age of miracles" such as is so common in prehistories? We are discovering that the Classical Greeks were actually far more advanced than was even suspected, having invented the steam turbine, the chronometer, and any number of fabrication techniques that we still haven't duplicated.

China will be a nexus of technology in the upcoming decades, but underlying that will be a deeply entrenched conservatism of certain Chinese values, like the centrality of China as a nation. One thing that is critical to understand is that to the Chinese, "advancements" in the sciences and technology are really just a return to the historical superiority of China in these respects (it is a fundamental element of Chinese culture to regard itself as superior in all cultural respects, actually). Without some external influence to push them along, they are likely to be quite conservative from a scientific point of view.

In fact, there is a significant danger that a resurgent Chinese Empire will decide to wipe out European culture altogether...the Europeans managed to inspire much more hatred in a far shorter time than the Mongols managed with their invasion, and look where the Mongols are today! Not that this was all because of China...exactly.

Anyway, it is just as likely that there will be a massive, full scale civil war in China before they can establish stability. On the other hand, the current government may start a war with an external enemy to prevent this. The Chinese are good at war.

OTOH Asian nations, Japan and India more than China, are doing a wonderful job in educating their children in science and mathematics.

Reasonable Prediction #1: Within 50 years a software company will bring Microsoft to its knees. That company will be Asian.

Reasonable Prediction #2: Within 50 years the cost of healthcare will drop due to falling drug prices. The reason will be that American pharmeceutical manufaturers will be bankrupt, and all the new medical discoveries will take place in Asia.

Besides cosmic expansion discoveries being ascribed to "some ethereal agency" {God, maybe?}in Physics Today no less, and Einstein Gulfs and myriad other problems, the probability of all the necessary proteins and peptides and whatnot coming together to create life is less likely than someone winning every lottery worldwide and getting struck by lightning each time.

I don't anticipate that this will bring Microsoft "to its knees", anymore than the recent anti-trust suit did, but it will make them considerably less important to the future of software (and despite Microsoft's various attempts to dink about with hardware, I doubt that they will become a major player in that arena). But I'd say that this will happen in much less than 50 years, more like 20 years.

I would tend to argue that the only way the cost of healthcare will fall is if people stop trying to live forever by overusing every single medical advance made...which is going to happen sooner or later. Once the demand for healthcare drops, the price will follow suit. This will happen just as soon as a significant number of Americans stop using "conventional" medicine entirely, and not before. I can't give a time-line, though. But I doubt that Asia will take up the slack in researching new drugs, particularly if doing so is not very renumerative...intergenerational ties are too strong in Asian cultures to permit the very old to selfishly gobble up resources that could better be used to improve the lot fo the younger generations (just think for a moment...when's the last time you heard of a western story in which the old person was depicted as a monster for demanding expensive medical care?).

The only way that medical costs will fall short of people learning to accept that everyone dies sooner or later would be if one of the various biotech companies now working on immortality drugs makes a breakthrough. I personally am betting against it, not because immortality drugs are impossible, but because there isn't enough time left ("hah," you ask, "what does that mean?").

Kolona is right that "evolution" is not a hard science. But Biomolecular chemistry is. However, human macro-genetic engineering is too far off to matter, and the Christian Right actually favors genetic engineering for food sources and drugs. The Christian Right is also comparatively tolerant of animal and plant cloning (I mean compared to the eco-lefties ). So as far as the next several decades of the field are concerned, the Christian Right is no bar to progress, whereas the liberal left is.

The following is submitted in the spirit of intellectual stimulation:

I live in Ohio, clearly the most backward of the 50 States. We might actually have the arrogance to start teaching "Intelligent Design Theory" as science. It's arrogant because it supposes that humans are capable of recognizing Intelligent Design when we see it.

It is possible to recognize intelligent design only if we can understand the purpose of the design (e.g. the purpose of a roof is to shelter from weather). The arrogance is in supposing that we can assume intelligence went into designing a complex system whose purpose we do not and cannot objectively understand.

This could lead to many very good science fiction stories that go both ways.

Imagine a human explorer who discovers something more complex than the entire human race and announces that it is proof of God. How would human society react?

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Please, Kolona and Survivor, let's not engage in a political debate here. I see no reason for you to attack either hard science or the political left

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I re-read my posting and stand firm in that it was neither political nor an attack. I was discussing what is or is not hard science.

Labeling a difference of opinion as an attack is somewhat disingenuous, and seems only an attempt to intimidate or embarrass someone into silence.

The fact is, the evolution emperor is not fully clothed, my friend.

This particular discussion is a good example. Doc seems to think that a Christian value system (historically the only value system that lead to the modern age) will inevitably retard technological progress. I think just the opposite, that the underlying values of Christianity (individual moral freedom and so forth particularly) are still the best values for rational development of useful technologies. Which of us is right? Only time will tell (though there isn't enough of it left to get an experimental answer, darn it!).

Anyway, there are plenty of cases of "a human explorer who discovers something more complex than the entire human race." So far this has failed to have far reaching consequences for "human society" as a whole. And I have to wonder why an alien capable of understanding the purpose of a Playstation (or a Furbie, even ) would have conceptual difficulty with a condom (or an electric chair). I must be missing something.

By the way, Microsoft is now trying to convince the Chinese to use Windows instead of Linux Excuse my laughter, but what makes them think that the Chinese would then actually pay for the software?

Which brings us back to realism, in a way. Microsoft's efforts to persuade the Chinese to use Windows is based on a grand delusion of epic proportions. They must actually think that if they convince the Chinese that Windows is actually superior to Linux, then the Chinese will (for reasons unknown) refrain from simply making billions of illegal copies of the software. Heck, the Chinese already do that, and they don't even use the software themselves.

By the way, bringing up politics again, I think that patent law should be re-written so that if anyone can demonstrate that a patented device occurs in nature, then the patent automatically expires. Partly this is because I'm tired of being in violation of dozens of patents by virtue of the molecular structures in my cells (which I happen to require for the continuation of life, you jackals). Partly I think this because it just makes no sense for our government to allow people to patent naturally occuring phenomena. It's really kind of sick.

Patenting a genetically engineered animal is okay, I guess, as long as it is really different from the animal that occurs naturally. But that's not the kind of thing that most of these patent applications cover.

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Doc seems to think that a Christian value system (historically the only value system that lead to the modern age) will inevitably retard technological progress.

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If this is what you think I said, then I've gotta sharpen my communication skills.

How about this statement:

ALL conservative sets of values always inevatably retard progress, be it technological or sociological or both.

Christianity is not a special case, conservative Muslims or Budhists or (fill in the blank) do the same thing. We're probably most familiar with Christians conservatives having their dark moments of desperately trying to stifle human technological progress because they had built their beliefs with incomplete knowledge. Once they insisted that the world must be flat. Then they insisted that humans did not evolve from apes. Now they are insisting that human beings have "free will" and "personal responsibility" (whatever that means).

(If that doesn't get this thread closed then nothiing will!)

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Which of us is right? Only time will tell (though there isn't enough of it left to get an experimental answer, darn it!).

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I can tell you the answer immediately: neither of us is right.

I would argue that certain types of conservatism are necessary for civilization to continue. For instance, if we become too "liberal" in education, then our children will not be able to understand or invent new technologies. If we become too "advanced" in certain kinds of technology (macrogenetic engineering, computer intelligence, industrial production, etc) then society may gain the power to enforce total uniformity or quash freedom (improvments in technology were critical to the totalitarianism of both Germany and the Soviet Union--and if there hadn't be "free" nations competing against them, they might have lasted forever).

You have to remember that "All conservative sets of values" conserve something. The best ones conserve something valuable to real progress (remember, not all change is "progress", change can easily be regressive--like our growing worship of Ashtoreth and Molech).

"Liberalism" can destroy progress as easily as allow it, "conservatism" can protect progress as easily as prevent it. The failure to understand this is at the heart of most "unrealistic" societies. Every society in history in which "liberalism" has completely won out over "conservatism" has self-destructed in the end. The flower of Greek democracy in Athens lasted only a century before the mob destroyed it (with a little help from the outside).

If you want civilization to survive, then you need to conserve some things. And if society doesn't survive, then how can it advance?

Of course, just because something doesn't need to be conserved to retain civilization, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be conserved. We don't actually need individual liberties. But I'd like to keep them.

By the way, changing directions again, I think that the only plausible method of protecting "soft" targets (meaning civilian populations or installations under civilian control) against terrorism is to let citizens carry weapons. An armed populace was (and still is) a critial element in the defensive strategies of many successful civilizations.

Of course Doc's assertion that between the idea that the Christian value system will retard technological progress and my assertion that it is the best value system for rational development of technology are not polar opposites. Logically, both could be true (in other words, if even the best value system for promoting rational development of technology also retards some technological progress) or both could be false (if the Christain value system doesn't retard technological progress, but is still not the best system of values to rationally advance technology).

As it so happens, Doc's assertion that both statements are false is just silly, hence his wink. My initial contention that the positions were "just the opposite" of each other is also incorrect, except that the two views are in fact, opposed to each other in the world in which we actually live (meaning that it is true in a literal rather than abstract sense).

I think it's safe to say that the human race could have survived if the technical progress of the last 200 years had been a little faster. But it couldn't survive extremely fast technical progress. Imagine if Napoleon had suddenly gotten computers, supersonic jets, atomic bombs, and cloning. The human race would probably be extinct by now.

The optimal speed of technological (and fiscal, etc. etc.) progress is instantaneous--as long as I'm the one benefiting. If someone else is benefiting, then the optimal speed is determined by how much I like them.

Hey, so simplistic it sounds stupid, but that is the heart of all arguments over how fast we should allow technology to progress. If we suspect that someone will use wealth and technology to hurt us, then we would rather they not have them.

Change is necessary, but all too often it is believed that liberality is the only thing from which change spawns, but conservity inevitably creates a slow, but steady, change upon those around, for nothing can be truly static when surrounded by change.

TTFN & lol

I can't find it. Okay, short form, there was a guy that, a while back, postulated seven or eight socialogical factors that corresponded to "failure" in societies that displayed them.

One of the factors were:
1. Opression of women
2. A dogmatic belief system
and I just can't remember what the rest were (I feel like I've had an overload ).