To: redrock; Joe Bonforte; orionblamblam; VadeRetro; Oztrich Boy; section9
Heinlein's view of cloning wasn't very well developed, and it's fair to criticize his use of sexuality to market his writing. The secularism of the mid-20th century carried with it a gross potential to dehumanize us by undermining the precious uniqueness of each human being, and Heinlein didn't seem to notice the pitfall. Christian anti-communists such as Pope John Paul II understood that abortion, cloning, genetic research, and cyborging were all extremely dangerous to our future. There are science fiction authors who have treated these themes. Even Asimov's discussion of robot rights and obligations begins to account for the nature of sentient beings. I consider Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell series to be one of the best hard-scifi treatments of cybernetics gone mad, and they far outstrip Heinlein's naive perspectives.
Francis Fukuyama has treated some of these issues in his book
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002; Picador, 2003 (paperback).
197 posted on
05/03/2005 9:50:00 AM PDT by
risk
To: risk
Heinlein's view of cloning wasn't very well developed, and it's fair to criticize his use of sexuality to market his writing. It may be fair, but you'd have to string up a lot of SF writers and every other genre of writer if you do. At least Heinlein takes the trouble to embed the sex in a good yarn. That he didn't forsee all the perils we will face from dehumanizing negative utopias is no big deal, either. That's almost a sub-genre of SF which goes back to Orwell and Huxley. Heinlein just didn't write with that kind of pessimism. There was always evil in his books, but it's never the kind of world where evil has already triumphed totally and a long time ago.
209 posted on
05/03/2005 3:21:46 PM PDT by
VadeRetro
(Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
To: risk
Heinlein's Friday was more the results of genetic engineering than cloning - she had lots of parents, and lots of modifications. Some of them not so well thought out.
But, it's not like Heinlein was a biologist as Asimov was.
220 posted on
05/03/2005 8:25:15 PM PDT by
hocndoc
(Choice is the # 1 killer in the US)
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