1 I think Sawyer's underlying point is that he isn't much a believer that the predictions of Future Shock didn't come to pass. Remember Future Shock was never a "reality" just a very popular prediction of how we as a culture might react to change. Personaly I'm inclined to agree with him people living at the dawn of the 20th century saw more dramatic change than we have had over the past thirty years. The next thirty years might be a different story though.

2 I see his points but he conveniently talks about two areas which have not kept up with Science fiction, but how about the area of genetics? Cloning, transgenetic food, and animals? these are all a reality. In some other areas such as the impact of personal digital devices, I think reality has outstripped a lot of Sci-fi. The reason there is no Future shock is because these things happen incrementaly and we anticipate them.

3 I wouldn't go so far to say that our genetic technology outstrips SF predictions. Most of the older SF steers clear of biotech in general but there are plenty of counterexamples. I agree with you on the Future Shock front but its also true that our modern world resembles 1950 a lot more than 1950 resembles 1900. Alvin Toffler, the author of Future Shock, was talking about a radicaly different, unrecognizably alien future compared to the one we have today.

1 Ah, yes. Like the feeling that I've had to keep my atheism quiet since moving to Texas. Oops, did I just say tht in public?

2 Ah, that explains the Christmas tree/Christmas present discussion we had back in December. You might find this article interesting. The second paragraph in particular was thought-provoking to me, since I've classified myself from agnostic to Deist for the last 20 years or so.

3 Considering that atheists are the most distrusted minority in the US (of those minorities checked; I hope we still come out better than axe murderers), I'm sure that you'll understand that I wasn't going to spill my dirtly little secret until I got to know you better. But once I learned that you're a libertarian, even though a regular church-goer, I figured that I was safe with this. The article you cite is very interesting. I'm been trying to work out my own view on the matter. On one hand, I try to be as non-confrontational as possible. I won't make a fuss about crosses in public places and things like that. But on the other hand, I am more confrontational: To the extent that religious ideas shape history they must be fully open to public scrutiny. That is, I should be a free to ridicule someone's ideas about the ascention of Mary as I would be to ridicule someone's idea UFO abductions. There is a taboo about criticizing religious beliefs (we are supposed to be respectful), but that taboo shields religion from the kind of scrutiny that other idea are subject to. If religious ideas were purely private matters with no impact on the public sphere, then there would be no need for much public scrutiny. But religion is important and influention, and so the ideas must be open to scrutiny with the "respect" shield. Anyway, I'm preparing a longer essay on that issue. But I haven't worked on it lately.