Where exactly is the human species headed? How will we get there? Is any great improvement in human culture and technology really possible… or are we close to the end of the line? Throughout history, various authorities and pundits have suggested such, most recently at the end of the nineteenth century, when some suggested closing the U.S. patent office because significant new discoveries would be impossible. We all know how accurate that prediction was. And yet… are there limits to what we as a species can do?

A perhaps apocryphal statement attributed variously to either General Hoyt Vandenberg or Senator Arthur Vandenberg supposedly doubted the feasibility of developing the atomic bomb because such a project would require doubling the electrical power generation capacity of the United States in wartime. In fact, such a doubling was required and did take place, largely based on the TVA Project. Whether or not either man did make such a statement, the underlying truth is that large advances in technology have always resulted in or required, if not both, an increase in the use of power. The industrial revolution was effectively supported by the widespread coal mining; the technological developments of the twentieth century by massive use of oil and natural gas.

Currently, the United States with roughly five percent of the world’s population, employs/consumes/uses more than a quarter of all the world’s energy and resources, yet most experts in the fossil fuels field believe that any significant increases in oil and gas production are not possible and that sustaining current production levels for more than a century at the outside is highly unlikely. Given the fact that world population shows no signs of rapid decreases and that major powers such as China and India are becoming increasingly industrialized and technology-driven, with increasing demand for energy and goods, it doesn’t take much intelligence to realize that the human species either has to become far more efficient in energy usage and production or face increasing conflicts over energy supplies… OR develop new science and technology to utilize far vaster energy sources. The problem here is that renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, do not provide energy that is easily concentrated — and concentrated energy is necessary for high technology and our current society — not to mention mass and long distance transport.

Yet each advance in power sources has required a greater energy input. It takes more energy to mine coal than to gather or and cut wood, more energy to drill oil wells, especially now, and refine the product than to burn coal. Fission power plants cost far more than natural gas, coal, or oil-fired power plants. The next apparent step in concentrated energy production is fusion power, but even the research into developing fusion power is hideously expensive… so expensive that there are only a comparative handful of research projects pressing forward.

The next related problem is that, without something like fusion power, and with the current world population levels, maintaining a standard of living even remotely close to the present level of industrialized nations will not be possible for longer than a few generations, if that. Over the long term, the prognosis is even less rosy.

With all our species’ eggs, so to speak, in the basket that is Earth, we’re not only vulnerable to energy depletion, but to species extinction, sooner or later. But there are no other habitable planets in our solar system, not without massive terraforming — and that also requires huge amounts of technology and energy. So… what about interstellar travel?

At the moment, with what we know now, travel to even the nearest star systems will effectively take generations, because current physics doesn’t provide any ways around the apparent limitations of the speed of light in terms of attaining speeds conducive to what one might call real-time interstellar travel. The one possible loophole might be the creation of something along the lines of a Hawking wormhole, but preliminary calculations suggest that the energy necessary to create such a tunnel through space/time would approximate that used/radiated by a black hole. And that leads us back to the energy problem once more… and to the question that no one seems to want to ask.

Given what lies before us, why aren’t we devoting more research resources to high-energy power generation possibilities?

I’ve heard or read innumerable times, including at least once in the comments to this blog, that younger Americans don’t need to learn as much as older generations did because the young folks can find information quickly on the web. I’m certain that they can find “information” quickly, but that argument ignores a number of basic points.

The first is the assumption that these younger Americans will always have instant access to the web, via their Iphones or Blackberries or whatever. Perhaps, but there are many times and places where accessing those devices is difficult, if not dangerous, or impossible. It can also be time-consuming, particularly if the young American in question doesn’t know very much, especially since, in more complex areas of learning and life, a wider knowledge base is necessary in order to know what to look up and how to apply such information. My wife has watched scores of supposedly intelligent students — they tested well — have great difficulty in “looking up” simple quotations about musical subjects. Why? Because their subject matter vocabularies didn’t contain enough synonyms and similar terms, and because computers only search for what you ask for, not everything that you should have asked for, had you known more. The more complex the subject, the greater this problem becomes.

The second problem is that trying to evaluate a mass of newly acquired information leads to greater mistakes than if the acquirer already has a knowledge base and is merely updating that knowledge.

Third is the fact that operating on an “I can look it up basis” tends to postpone dealing with problems until the last moment. In turn, planning skills atrophy, a fact to which all too many college professors and supervisors of recent graduates can testify.

Fourth, the “look it up attitude” does not distinguish between discrete bits of information and knowledge. For example, one blog commenter made the point that much of the information handed out by teachers and much of the required reading was “useless.” In the context of the comment, “useless” translated into “it wasn’t on the test.” Speaking as a former college instructor, I have to point out that only a fraction of the material that should be learned in a college-level course could ever be tested for, even if every class period were devoted solely to testing. These days, all too many college professors are either giving up or over-testing in response to a student — and societal — attitude that seems all too often to say, “It’s not important to learn anything except to pass tests.” In addition, tests that merely require regurgitation of information or the plugging of values into formulae do nothing to enhance thinking and real-life problem solving. In short, what’s overlooked by all those who rely on tests is that test results do not equate to education, nor do they build a wider professional knowledge base for the student.

Fifth, without a personal knowledge base, how can you evaluate the accuracy of the information you’re seeking? With every day the amount of information available increases, and with wider access the amount of misinformation increases — to the point where a substantial amount of erroneous information is being promulgated on subjects where the accuracy has been scientifically established without any doubt — such as in the case of vaccinations, as I noted earlier. Without a personal knowledge base, either a greater amount of cross-checking is required, which takes time, or more errors will likely result.

Sixth, as noted in earlier blogs, continual reliance on instant information access dulls memory skills, and there are many, many occupations where reliance on instant “outside” information is not feasible and could be fatal. Pilots have to remember air controller instructions and procedures. Paramedics need to know emergency medical procedures cold. While rote memorization is not usually required in such occupations, a good memory is vital if one is to learn the skills to be highly professional… and looking up everything doesn’t help develop memory or skills.

Finally, lack of a broad knowledge and information base, one firmly anchored within one’s own skull, leads to narrow-mindedness and contributes to the ongoing societal fragmentation already being accelerated by our “bias-reinforcing” electronic technology.

But… of course, you can always ignore these points and look “it” up — if you can figure out how to get the precise information you need and whether it’s accurate, if you have the time to assimilate it… and if you can remember it long enough to use it — but then, you can just plug it into the Iphone… and hope you’ve got access and sufficient battery power.

Recently, there’s been a fair amount of resentment expressed in the media and elsewhere, if in a scattered manner, about the “bonuses” still being paid to the already high-paid and most likely overpaid senior executives in the financial industry. Here in Utah, one state agency dealing with trust lands paid bonuses to senior personnel early, just in order to avoid the legislature’s pending ban on such bonuses. I not only understand, but also share, a certain amount of the public outrage at monies above and beyond salaries going to those who have created the financial catastrophe the world is trying to muddle through, as well as at all sorts of maneuvers to keep such extravagant pseudo-compensation.

But… very few of those professing the outrage are looking beyond the obvious sins of the financial, real estate, and other malefactors to the even larger underlying problem. Exactly how rational is a society that pays — or allows to be paid — tens and hundreds of billions of dollars to a relative handful of people who manipulate paper, while underpaying and laying off those who are the backbone of a functioning society?

Everyone professes that education is essential to an information/high tech society. So why are legislators and their constituents allowing teacher layoffs, salary freezes for educators on all levels at a time when school enrollments are growing — particularly college enrollments? Again, here in Utah, college enrollments increased almost ten percent this year, and the higher education budget was cut something like 15%. Next year, enrollments are projected to increase another 15%, and more budget cuts are already before the legislature, while faculty numbers are declining, and, as a result, because many students cannot get into already overcrowded required classes, some may take as long as six or seven years to graduate. Some faculty are so overloaded that they literally have neither time nor space to take on more classes and students. This problem isn’t confined to Utah. Similar problems face other localities, including states like Virginia and California.

Order and law are also another support of society, and more than a few police forces have laid off personnel or stopped hiring and let attrition reduce their numbers. Prisons are so overcrowded in state after state that even dangerous felons are being released early.

Over the past several decades, governments on the federal, state, and local level have neglected infrastructure maintenance, to the point that we’ve had bridges and highways collapse. While a few of these problems are being addressed, most are not… and, by the way, such maintenance problems resulted in the closure of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco for nearly a week — because five thousand pounds of metal dropped out of the bridge and onto the roadway.

On the other hand, the federal government can hand out billions so that Americans can buy new cars — another bailout for the incompetent automakers.

As the retired senior corporate vice president of a large high tech firm once put it, “You can tell how people are valued by what they’re paid.”

So… why, exactly, are we as a society continuing to pay excessive millions to those who’ve already endangered us while underpaying and laying off those who support our society? By what logic do we rationalize the irrational?

The other day, my exhausted wife the professor came home from the university, late again, and collapsed into a chair. After sipping some liquid — and not non-alcoholic — refreshment, she asked, “Why can’t they remember anything? Why can’t they remember to open their mouths?” Now… my wife is a professor of voice and opera, and she teaches singers. One of the very basic rules behind singing is very simple: open your your mouth. It’s difficult to project sound with your mouth closed or barely open, especially if you’re trying to sing opera.

It’s a basic, very fundamental, point. And it’s not just my wife. Last week, I heard another voice instructor complaining about the same thing. So why is it that these young students, who love nothing more than to open their mouths to use their cellphones, won’t do so when they’re supposed to? And this is after months, if not years, of instruction.

Unfortunately, it goes beyond that. A good third of the students in her literature and diction class tend to forget when assignments are due… or ask in class, “When is that due?” Of course, they got a syllabus with all their assignments on the first day of class, and one page even listed the “important dates.” So… not only can they not remember, but apparently many of them can’t read, either, or they can’t remember what they read. My own suspicion is that they can’t remember because they can’t concentrate and weren’t really listening. Or they immediately lost their syllabus.

There’s been much debate over the past year about the problems of so-called multi-tasking and how all tasks are done poorly when people attempt to do more than one at a time. Ask any good voice teacher about it. They can testify to the problem. Most undergraduate students can’t handle remembering words, music, and keeping their mouth open at the same time until they’ve had several years of training… if then. Given this, why, exactly, do we as a society think that these same individuals are able to handle automobiles and cellphones simultaneously?

For several years, I taught writing and literature courses on the college level. I occasionally still do, and I learned early on that a considerable proportion of students don’t truly listen unless threatened with pain, i.e., tests, lowered grades, or embarrassment. Even then, the results are mixed. They all want good grades, and the better jobs that tend to follow higher education, but it’s apparently a real chore to remember the little things that comprise good grammar, such as the fact that adverbs aren’t conjunctions, or that independent clauses can’t be joined just by commas, or that spell-checkers don’t pick out wrong word choices spelled correctly… or that plagiarism has some very nasty consequences.

But they don’t have much trouble remembering idiotic lyrics sung off-key by models pretending to be singers… or the rules and strategies for a dozen video games. And why is it that so many teenagers and young adults, when corrected, immediately say, “I know.” If they know so much, why are so much repetition and reminding required?

And this is the generation that so many pundits have claimed will save the world from the sins of the baby-boomers?

Over the end of September and the beginning of October, at the behest and expense of my publisher, I traveled to several regional book shows hosted by associations of independent booksellers. For all the hype about the demise of such bookstores, there are still a considerable number of such stores in business and ordering books. It’s also clear that the majority of such bookstore owners and employees do love books.

My tasks at such shows are relatively straight-forward — to sign books for booksellers in the hopes that they’ll order more, to participate in whatever activities the show and my publisher have lined up for me, and to stand somewhere in the publisher’s booth that is out of the way of the sales reps and yet located where I can talk about my books to booksellers. Fortunately, Macmillan had large enough booths to make this possible, and very professional sales reps who were very accommodating.

I’ve done this, on and off, for years, but it’s an experience that every author should have for a number of reasons. First, when you walk past the rows and rows of booths from publishers large and small, it brings home just how many publishers there are and how many books are published every year. What’s more amazing is what isn’t there. Tor is a division of Macmillan, and Tor publishes over two hundred F&SF titles a year, over half of which are new hardcover titles. At each show, the Macmillan booth displayed, at my best estimation, no more than 200 titles — and those were titles from close to 20 Macmillan subsidiaries, of which Tor is only one. There were display copies of less than ten Tor/Forge titles and advance reading copies. Ten… out of two hundred, and the same general ratio doubtless applied to the titles of other Macmillan subsidiaries. And, remember, the majority of books displayed represented less than half a year’s titles. Now… I can’t say what ratios applied to other publishers, but I’d wager that none of the larger publishing firms were displaying all their current titles or even a significant fraction of those titles.

This didn’t mean that the sales reps weren’t selling the other titles. They were. They often went over long, long title lists with bookstore buyers, but there are thousands of titles, and even the best rep can only mention so many.

Why do I bring up this perhaps obvious point? Because too many authors seldom understand why their publishers don’t “do more” for them and their books. Given the low margin in bookselling, publishers have to focus the majority of their efforts and resources on the blockbuster books, and then on a comparatively small number of best-sellers. The rest are sold through the publisher’s seasonal catalogue and through booksellers who ask for certain titles because their customers want them — call it the end product of word-of-mouth and past sales figures.

For all the logic behind the process, for an author, or at least for me, such shows are always a very sobering reminder that even those of us authors who have enjoyed some moderate success are still very small fish in a very large ocean of books.

NOTE: Because I’m headed to World Fantasy Convention, the next post won’t be until November 3rd..