Monday, October 06, 2008


Sci-Fi Recommendations for the Undecided Voter

Found this list of Science Fiction tales to help voters decide the next president from some geek site called io9. Apparently they solicited pundits to name off some politically-relevant stories and, although admittedly SciFi has never been my genre of choice (save Atwood or Orwell), I think this list has much to be desired.

However Markos Moulitsas' pick, Isaac Asimov's Franchise, seems almost apropos. Set in the year 2008 (good so far), the U.S. President is chosen completely at random through a computer system that picks one citizen to choose on behalf of the entire electorate. Moulitsas mentions, but does not fully explore, an analogy here with the way in which we rely on poll indicators.

But shouldn't there be a Vonnegut tale in there somewhere? What about the Watchmen? I don't know enough good SciFi to truly weigh-in here. But c'mon! Really Jonah Goldberg of National Review fame? (Btw he's crap. Case in point). All that comes to mind, Mr. Goldberg, is a minor character on "Angel" for you to compare Barack Obama to--from a spin-off show of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"? I mean, this entry is truly stretching, Senior Dorado-berg, you take the only black character you can find in the entire SciFi canon and compare it to Obama? Racist.

2 comments:

SteveF said...

Some Geek site! That's io9. It's one of the top geek sites.

Regards,

A. Geek.

amityb said...

Awww I meant that in a good way! Some of my best friends are geeks!