Rude People at Estate Sale Today

[W1GFH]

Did you ever read Heinlein's book, "Farnham's Freehold"? I found his defense of incest rather interesting, to say the least!

[WB2EMS]

Yeah, I think I've read pretty much everything he wrote. He had an engineer's view of things in a lot of ways, and would apply that to social customs - the question being not whether it was 'the way things ought to be' but rather did it serve a function? Or was there a valid reason for it?

In one of his 'future history' series he postulated a long lived sub group of humans ("Methusela's children", "Time Enough for Love") as a  product of a genetic breeding experiment - to conserve the desirable genes for longevity required a fair amount of close breeding, and the protagonists discussed the undesirable outcomes that came along with that. The question wasn't about the morality of incest or inbreeding, it was whether the results of violating such a prohibition based on tradition or superstition was justified. In this case, it was held that it was, but provisions were made to care for the offspring who didn't get the good results of the close breeding.

In another part of "Time Enough for Love" the main character discourages breeding between his children (at a very isolated homestead) as they come of age by making them keep track of the results of their small heavily inbred animal herds and the sometimes negative results that came with that. (knowing that within a year or two other families would be settling near by and providing more appropriate opportunities)

In another section of the story, he's presented with a pair of slaves who are a complementary diploid pair, and who have bred and has to decide if the pregnancy is safe and there's a further exploration of genetics in that part of the story.

A lot of Heinlein's fiction was basically about looking at social norms (marriage, family, governance, business) with a critical eye and writing 'what if' stories about how things would be if this or that was different. He was into making well reasoned decisions about things, not blindly following the norm, and was apparently pretty experimental in his own life.

He's probably best known for the story "Stranger in a Strange Land" about a human born on Mars to the first group of explorers, raised by martians, and repatriated to earth and trying to integrate into human society. A perfect foil for exploring various facets of humanity.

[W1UJR]

the main character discourages breeding between his children

This is NOT good, and why we have the problems that we at 75 meters.

[W1GFH]

Yeah, I think I've read pretty much everything he wrote. He had an engineer's view of things in a lot of ways..

That sounds about right. I got hooked on Golden Age scifi some time ago. Eric Frank Russell ("WASP") was one author I really enjoyed but a difficult one to find in print. Another was Fredric Brown. He did a short story called "The Waveries" that dealt with RF-based alien life forms that traveled on radio waves, lots of fun. Dozens of journeymen like Russell and Brown cranked out tales for pulps like Amazing Stories in the 40s and 50s.

[WB2EMS]

This is NOT good, and why we have the problems that we at 75 meters.

Too true Bruce! Or at least it seems like it some days.

In the story, the problem was that he had 2-3 kids who were beginning to get curious about each other, no neighbors for 50 miles, and knew the impossibility of riding herd on them well enough to prevent the inevitable. So he was educating them on the possible consequences - let them draw the conclusions and figure out the implications to their situation. Understanding the situation helped defuse things till some neighbors with kids settled the area.

Too bad the solutions on 75 meters aren't as easy. 

[WB2EMS]

I got hooked on Golden Age scifi some time ago.

When I was in school I got totally hooked on all of it. I read everything our school library had, then everything the town library had, and over the course of a summer, everything the Rochester city library had that I hadn't read before. I was hooked!

I remember a couple of stories that had radio involved but not the details. A few stories stand out. One of them that was most chilling was "The Cold Equations".

Favorite authors are Heinlein, Dean Ing, Spider Robinson.

[Opcom]

I'm a long time Science Fiction buff, and one of my favorite authors is Robert Heinlein. He thought and wrote a lot about politeness, and speaking through his characters said it was "the lubrication that allows the human machinery to work properly"

In several stories, some of them set in this time period more or less, he pointed out that one of the signs of a declining society was the loss of politeness, and the 'me first' attitude that evolves. When that time came, it was time to move on. In his stories, the characters could do that because of the development of space travel. (Here and now, because of William Proxmire and others like him, we don't have that option, though we might have.)

I wonder if it's a symptom of a scarcity mentality developing. Like folks feel that they've seen the peak and it's never going to be as good again so you need to grab as much as you can and hang on.

A lot of his stories were written in the 50's and 60's and seem eerily prescient of the way things are today. One of his later novels, "Friday", has been coming to mind a lot lately.

"May I do you a service?"  - I recall those words. Many of those stories with the politeness also had a backscatter of the bad things that happened to people who were not polite. Like the guy that cut in like getting his arm broken. I think he also wrote that children should be raised in a barrel and fed through a bung till they are 18. At that time the patents can decide to let them out or seal up the bung. A bit extreme but entertaining and always interesting.

[K9PNP]

Did you ever read Heinlein's book, "Farnham's Freehold"? I found his defense of incest rather interesting, to say the least!

Heinlein wrote many interesting books.  Like many people here, I got into Sci Fi in the mid-50's in grade school.  Unfortunately, it wasn't until 10 or 15 years later I started reading between the lines to see what he was actually saying.  Also very unfortunate is the way Hollywood messes up many good books when making them into movies; his "Starship Troopers" coming to mind.  A very good comentary on things that are wrong such as covered in this discussion was made into a "sci fi action movie" so that it would "sell".  Same applies to Asimov and others and, while not sci fi, Clancy.   Of course, many people now do not read books.  Service guarantees citizenship.

[WB2EMS]

Also very unfortunate is the way Hollywood messes up many good books when making them into movies; his "Starship Troopers" coming to mind.

Yeah, they did an awful job on that. It was a good book, and I also agree with the idea of earning the vote with a stint of service.
A lot of his books were kind of preachy via the protagonist, but I didn't mind. He got better at getting the point across without that as he got more skilled. You know how a lot of the current books have multiple plots that are cooking along and hop between them chapter by chapter? He basically invented that style of writing back in the 50's. 

As for Hollyweird butchering books, Tom Clancy was so incensed after they butchered "Clear and Present Danger" that he sued the studios, but learned that they really know how to write a contract. They totally turned around the main point of that book in the movie. They also apply political correctness to his work. I remember the movie where Jack Ryan is being hunted by terrorists and they are in his house (I think on Thanksgiving). In the book he grabs a shotgun and takes one of them out. In the movie, he picks up the shotgun, looks at it, puts it back down (with armed men in your house trying to kill your family??) and then manages some McGiver solution to the problem. Stupid stuff like that blows my suspension of disbelief out the window for the rest of the flick.

Heinlein has provoked a lot of thinking the years. I miss him. As Spider Robinson said "RAH, RAH, RAH!!" 

[N0WEK]

I'm a long time Science Fiction buff, and one of my favorite authors is Robert Heinlein. He thought and wrote a lot about politeness, and speaking through his characters said it was "the lubrication that allows the human machinery to work properly"

In several stories, some of them set in this time period more or less, he pointed out that one of the signs of a declining society was the loss of politeness, and the 'me first' attitude that evolves. When that time came, it was time to move on. In his stories, the characters could do that because of the development of space travel. (Here and now, because of William Proxmire and others like him, we don't have that option, though we might have.)

I wonder if it's a symptom of a scarcity mentality developing. Like folks feel that they've seen the peak and it's never going to be as good again so you need to grab as much as you can and hang on.

A lot of his stories were written in the 50's and 60's and seem eerily prescient of the way things are today. One of his later novels, "Friday", has been coming to mind a lot lately.

Thread drift warning!

Now that you mention Heinlein and Proxmire in the same post...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_William_Proxmire

The entire (7 pages) here...

http://sf.colophon.org/syllabus/assets/NivenProxmire.pdf

It's a great story!