Conference noted::sf

    	Have you ever seen how some of the people who write in USENET's
    rec.art.sf-lover's newsgroup act towards each other?  It makes me
    seriously doubt they can handle life on Earth, let alone from another
    planet!
    
    	Larry
    

    I've found SF lovers to be more tolerant towards other people,
    generally willing to overlook appearance, and to focus on the "inner"
    parts of other people.  People who love SF are a different breed,
    true.  They're more willing to discuss the logistics behind life
    on the moon, and to explore the possibilities (I'm waiting for the
    "flying chamber" at Luna City to be built) that are out there.
    
    Towards things, they tend to be more analytical, and less afraid
    of technology.  They're often the first to take apart the new
    appliance, the first to order some new gizmo, etc.
    
    In some ways, however, we seem to be less rooted to the mundaneness
    of everyday life, and we're (I include myself, to avoid flames)
    often frustrated when confronted with an obviously inefficient process,
    with an obvious solution.
    
    Bill

    I think sf fans are usually science lovers, to one degree or another.
    People who like science usually are more rational about things,
    open minded and tolerant, but NOT ALWAYS!
    
    Many sf fans are creative, spontaneous and have weird and wonderful
    senses of humor.  (Who else but a roomful of SF fans would dress
    in strange costumes and pretend to be fromother planets?  D&D and
    SCA are in the "speculative fiction" zone, so they are included.)
                                       
    Some sf fans, on the down side, are introverted to the extreme,
    antisocial, misfits, and lonely escapists who deal with fictional
    better tomorrows much better than mundane real life and regular
    real live people.
    
    The point, I guess, is that it's like newspaper horoscopes...you
    can say and think what to want to generalize sf folk into categories,
    but they really span the whole range of human characteristics, and
    to generalize is to endorse stereotypes that do nobody any good.
    Some parts of any generalization will fit and maybe give someone
    an ego boost, but basically pigeon holes are best left for bird
    houses!
    
    Sherry

    I think youall are missing my point here.  I am not asking how
    open-minded sf types are in terms of personality - I think we all
    know that we (sf-readers) span the full personality-spectrum.  
    
    What I am really asking here is are sf people any better at accepting
    an event that goes totally against all of our rational understandings.
    When you read sf, you allow yourself a "temporary suspension of
    disbelief"...but what about real-life?
    
    I would like to believe what SR has to say in that excerpt, that
    sf-reader types would be more accepting of such a situation, would
    be less likly to run or deny such things.  Take the flying saucer
    example SR proposes...  As much as we all love to read ET stories,
    it would be entirely different to be faced with such a thing in
    *real* *life*?  I think that reactions to a situation like that
    would not be rational - they would be gut-instinct, based on
    survival/territoriality and perhaps xenophobia... I mean, you can
    *say* you aren't a xenophobe, but since none of us (I am assuming)
    have ever met a really xeno (?) how to we really know?  you can't
    predict phobic reactions.
    
    So, before you give me a knee-jerk reaction about how you would
    be rational and open-minded with respect to ET's, imagine this situation,
    and really try to picture yourself *in* it, rather than reading
    it - some warm spring night you hear some noises in your front
    yard...thinking it's the kids next door teasing your dog again,
    you go out there to shoo them away...and you see something in the
    porch light that is about the size of (say) a deer, but has three
    equally spaced legs, what appears to be antannea or tentacles or
    something, and it glistens in the light, as if it were wet, you
    can't see it real well, but it definately appears to be something
    like nothing you have ever seen before.  It's moving towards you.
    What would you do?
     
    D!ana (Who, when she asked herself this question *honestly* decided
    that she would run as fast as she could inside, lock the doors,
    panic for a while, and then convince herself that she had imagined
    it...)

    Re .0, .4 (D!ana):
    
    I tried this twice; last time into the breach...
    
    I would approach the phenomenon with caution.  A BEM appears in
    the woods near my house, I'd take out binoculars and observe at
    a distance before trying _anything_.
    \
    I certainly would let somebody else know about it.
    
    Re Spider's naked lady:  I'd approach _that_ with caution, too,
    on the basis, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."
    Ask any trout that's gone after a luscious-looking fly -- to discover
    it had a hook in it.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr. 

	It all depends on the situation. If it means believing that someone
	will land on the moon, or will make it to Mars. Then I think SF
	reader are believers. We have the faith that we can do it.

	If it was a BEM - I'd run as soon as I heard the music that means
	something awful is going to happen! I've seen enough movies where
	I found myself saying "oh no, don't go in there" just from the theme
	music to know what I'd do. liesl

    I'd run like hell to get my camera.
    
    len.
    

    Here's an appropriate quote from Damon Knight in his book "In 
    Search of Wonder".  He's discussing the mass media attention that SF
    got in the Fifties, and this was written around that time:
    
    "... Probably all of us, consciously or not, have been thinking that 
    science fiction is a good thing which only needs to be sold to 
    the public to become a big thing: hence our delight when the 
    slicks began publishing (bad) science fiction stories, the 
    hardcover houses (worse) science fiction books, and Hollywood 
    began to produce (incredibly awful) science fiction movies.  
    Never mind about the quality: at least They were noticing Us, and 
    the rest would soon follow.
    
    We had forgotten that a previous boom in magazine science fiction 
    was accompanied in Hollywood, not by movies about adventurers in 
    spaceships, but by something quite different: movies about the 
    drafty old castle, the eerie flasks and retorst, the crashing 
    sparks, the deformed servant, and above all, the shifty-eyed 
    scientist.  ("Isn't it true, /Dr./ Foulfingers, that you were 
    hounded out of Peoria in 1929 for practicing vivisection?").
    
    The humbling truth is that science fiction is only for the small 
    number of people who like to think and who regard the universe 
    with awe, which is a blend of love and fear.  "The public" does 
    neither; it wants to be spoon-fed by its magazines and movies, 
    and it regards the universe with horror, which is a blend of fear 
    and hate..."

    And it's still true after several more boom and bust cycles in SF.
    
    /jlr

    We ALL fear what we don't understand.  It's an instinct as old as the
    species.  And it's what's enabled us to survive as a race long enough to
    evolve into reasonably intelligent beings.
    
    I think Mr. Robinson gives too much credit to SF readers.  Most people
    would instinctively run away from such a scenario in total fear and
    panic, at least till they were far enough away to feel reasonably safe. 
    Then perhaps the more bold or intelligent would allow their rational 
    thought processes to take over.  Those who would not run in such a 
    situation probably wouldn't survive long enough to propogate.  That's 
    just evolution in action.
    
    If anything, I think most SF readers would be intelligent enough to
    seek safety first, then try to rationalize whatever it was they thought
    they saw.
    
    ... Bob
    

    But what if the naked woman was 12 ft. tall.?
                                                 
    Based on what occured last summer when a neighbor's dog (BIG dog)
    got into our totally fenced-in back yard ('bout midnight, as I recall),
    I think I know what I'd do.
    
    1.  PANIC!
    2.  Move to 'safety'
    3.  Acquire a weapon
    4.  Cautiously investigate 
    
    All the while converting large volumes of oxygen to CO2.
                               
    I didn't tell my wife, I didn't call for help.  Wanted to see what
    it was first.  (I'd hope I'd remember my camera if there was anything 
    unusual to see.)  As it was, I was able to eject the alien from the yard
    and allow the crickets to resume their lustful chirping.
    
    						Don
    

    
>    What I am really asking here is are sf people any better at accepting
>    an event that goes totally against all of our rational understandings.

Well, I don't know how I would react.  I've never experienced anything
that goes against 'all my rational understanding'.

>    When you read sf, you allow yourself a "temporary suspension of
>    disbelief"...but what about real-life?

When I read sf, I wouldn't describe my state of mind as "temporary suspension
of disbelief".  I don't believe or disbelieve ideas in stories; I recognise
them as the product of a writer's imagination.  To me 'belief' means
unreasoning acceptance of an idea.  I like to think that all ideas are open
to re-examination.

Instead of 'belief', I may assign to an idea a measure of plausibility.
I tend to pay more attention to and think more about sf ideas that
seem more plausible to me.  The most plausible ones often lead me to
ask "what would I do if this happened ?".

Given the flying saucer example, I would have to say that I would not
be likely to think very long on this, because I would likely assign
the circumstance a very low plausibility.  Since I think it's implausible,
I don't have even the wispiest notion of an action plan for what I would
do if the event happened to me.

After thinking about it, I guess the survival instinct would prevail and
I would react in fear (run away).  I sure as hell wouldn't run up and touch it.
The downside potential of such an action seems pretty high !  If anything, all
the sf (and science nf) I've read would probably accentuate the fear.  Think
of the possibilities: radiation, incompatible biologies, if it's a probe
maybe I'M the specimen, etc.  I don't think its a good idea to jump into ANY
circumstance that you don't have an understanding of.  I'm unlikely to be
able to communicate with it or its occupants.  Where's the win in ME being
the first contact ?  Maybe I'd just upset (it)them.  Walking away seems the
closest thing I can think of to a universal non-threatening action, so I'd
do that.  He who turns and runs away ...

>    
>    I would like to believe what SR has to say in that excerpt, that
>    sf-reader types would be more accepting of such a situation, would
>    be less likly to run or deny such things.  Take the flying saucer
>    example SR proposes...  As much as we all love to read ET stories,
>    it would be entirely different to be faced with such a thing in
>    *real* *life*?  I think that reactions to a situation like that
>    would not be rational - they would be gut-instinct, based on
>    survival/territoriality and perhaps xenophobia... I mean, you can
>    *say* you aren't a xenophobe, but since none of us (I am assuming)
>    have ever met a really xeno (?) how to we really know?  you can't
>    predict phobic reactions.

I agree.  And it's a damn good thing that humans (and our evolutionary
forebears) had that caution/flight mechanism built in or the human race might
have been snuffed out back in the Paleocene (forgive faulty archaeobiology;
I'm too tired right now to go hunt up the right era) when our overcurious
lizard precursor stuck his snoot into an interesting looking carnivorous
plant.

Pioneers often die nasty deaths and go without regular meals :-).  Madame
Curie died of radiation poisoning.  One famous early chemist (Was it
Priestly? Lavoisier? somemone else?) died of snorting too much chlorine (or
one of the other toxic gaseous substances he discovered; someone help me out
here?).  Sadly, it's generally the cowards, slinkers, and slimebuckets of
history that survive and go on to capitalise on the discoveries or hard work
of others.  Take Pompey, for example, or Henry Slater.

>    So, before you give me a knee-jerk reaction about how you would
>    be rational and open-minded with respect to ET's, imagine this situation,
>    and really try to picture yourself *in* it, rather than reading
>    it - some warm spring night you hear some noises in your front
>    yard...thinking it's the kids next door teasing your dog again,
>    you go out there to shoo them away...and you see something in the
>    porch light that is about the size of (say) a deer, but has three
>    equally spaced legs, what appears to be antannea or tentacles or
>    something, and it glistens in the light, as if it were wet, you
>    can't see it real well, but it definately appears to be something
>    like nothing you have ever seen before.  It's moving towards you.
>    What would you do?

I ain't stickin my snoot in no carni-vorous plant !  Lock the door and get
the gun ! :-}

>     
>    D!ana (Who, when she asked herself this question *honestly* decided
>    that she would run as fast as she could inside, lock the doors,
>    panic for a while, and then convince herself that she had imagined
>    it...)
>

    Faced with a real flying saucer, the average SF reader probably
    WOULD be more curious and accepting than usual, just because the
    average age of an SF reader is probably fifteen.   Younger people
    tend to be more curious and accepting to begin with.  As they age
    people tend to lose their sense of curiousity and also tend to
    stop reading SF.  Instead of invoking a sense of wonder, SF
    invokes a sense of disbelief.  Teenagers aren't bothered by the
    plausibility of the stories they read because they don't know any
    better.  Adults are more skeptical, and also have too many other
    things to do to spend time on what's perceived as useless or
    wrong.  I'm an SF fan, but I find myself reading more and more
    non-fiction as time goes on. Most people wind up reading nothing
    but the newspaper. 
    
    /jlr