A book that influenced my career choice

In my list of favorite science fiction books, I really wanted to talk about my favorite book, "The gods themselves" by Isaac Asimov. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should talk about it here.

This is my (and Asimov's) favorite book by him. In it, Asimov creates a completely new Universe, with its own physical laws and forms of life. He goes on to develop how our Universe (human beings) interact with this other one and the devastating consequences it could imply. All of this while exploring how the creatures from this other Universe live, and the great mystery of how their lives are connected with ours.

It's in this book where I've found one of my favorite quotes, which gives the book its tittle: "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain". 

What I like the most about this book is how it portrays the first (to me) alien life. They are not just humans with bigger heads or green skin, but a truly different life form in every way.

But the part that I think influenced my career choice was its actual plot, more specifically the part that happens on Earth. If you haven't read the book yet, I would suggest you stopped reading here because SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Ahem. So, about the plot. In the book, a scientists finds a way to interact with another Universe and produce free energy that way. Obviously mankind is thrilled with this discovery. But then someone realizes that, if this invention kept functioning, everyone would die. Literally. Every person living on Earth (and the Moon) would die. 

The thing is that, even when this is made public, people don't want to believe it. No one wants to give up free energy, no matter the cost. It's in this situation when the phrase that gives the book its tittle is said: "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain". 

So how does all of that relate to my career choice? I want to be a civil engineer mention in hydraulics. Since I was little I've been hearing about how we need to take care of water, that it's a scarce good, the vital element, that future wars will be fought over it. And in all that time I haven't seen anything being done about it. Every year underground water reserves get lower throughout the country, and there's just nothing being done to stop it. Every few years we have droughts and everyone gets worried until it rains, then its over.

The book isn't the only reason I chose this career. It showed me that people won't give up something they like until it's too late. But it also showed me a solution. By the end of the book, the protagonist invents an even better energy machine that doesn't destroy the world. I want optimize the processes where water is used in order to make them sustainable or regulate how water is used. 

I know I can't do this on my own, but I want to contribute with my grain of sand. And, if we are lucky, we ( or our children) won't all die.  Hopefully not literally.

Favorite books (so far)

The truth is I haven't really read a lot of science fiction books. One of the reasons I took this course was to get to know more books and authors in general. And it has worked great so far!
Most of the science fiction books that I've read are by Isaac Asimov. I liked his style with the Foundation series, so I started looking for more books by him. It turned out that he was one of the most prolific authors ever!, so to this day I'm still finding new material from him, not counting the books I want to read but haven't found yet.

So, without further ado, here are my favorite books:


1. The Gods Themselves, by Isaac Asimov

2. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. The last Question, by Isaac Asimov (this is actually a short story, but I love it, so it goes here)

4.  Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

5.  Dune, by Frank Herbert

The joys of Time travel

In one of the earlier sessions of the course we talked about Terminator and how the original idea by James Cameron didn't involve time travel, and how it was added because at the time it would had been impossible to film a robot v/s human war.

Well, that little-known fact explains a lot about the franchise, including the inconsistencies that began to appear each time a new movie came out. I remembered I had seen something that tried to make sense of all the films. Today, I found it!
Here's a little chart that puts all this inconsistencies into graphic form. They are quite a lot.

Source: cracked.com

Willing Suspension of Disbelief

An odd title for those who haven't heard the term before, isn't it? Well let me explain what it means for those who don't know and how I got a first hand taste of it while watching Blade Runner.

The term "willing suspension of disbelief" was coined by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. It basically refers to the fact that the audience, while watching/reading/listening to apiece of fiction, will ignore certain inconsistencies for the sake of the plot, because they are enjoying themselves. For example, when watching Rambo, you don't ask yourself how doesn't he run out of ammo, because you are entertained watching him kill stuff.

But I couldn't do that with Blade Runner. At the beginning I was quite intrigued with what is presented in the interview. But the moment they introduced Rick Decker, my curiosity started to fade away. I guess that I started to lose my interest because of how little Decker talked. I didn't know who he was or why I should care abaout what happened to him, so I didn't have any emotional attachment to him or anyone in particular, really.

And right there, I stopped suspending my disbelief. And the movie became a parade of unanswered questions and inconsistencies. For example:

• If the replicants are so dangerous, how come there's only one cop assigned to the case?
• If they are not, why put anyone after them? They're going to die anyway.
• Are they actually stronger that people? If so, how can Ford endure getting beat up so much? Why don't they just burst into the pyramid?
• How intelligent are they? They range from quiete clever (the one in the interview), to stupid (the girl) to genius (the blond one)
• If he's so intelligent, why does he need his creator?

What's the matter with the space colonies?:

• Is everyone there?
• If replicants are so dangerous, why aren't them banned in space?
• Why are they banned only on Earth if there is no one there?
• Why do you need combat replicants?

  I know that most of these questions have very reasonable answers, but the fact that I asked them during the movie meant that I couldn't pay attention to what was going on. So I don't have any deep reflection on what it means to be human or whether we should build robots that live only for 4 years. But so far this has been the only movie in the course that has had this kind of impression, so hopefully I'll get the chance to make a deeper analysis in the future.

Time to get started

So, I'm finally going to start my blog. I guess I'm kinda late to the party but I've had a very demanding semester so far. I hope that posting twice a week will be enough to catch up with everyone else.

Ok, before I actually start posting I'll let you know a little about myself. My name is Oscar López, I'm in second year of Engineering in Universidad de Chile. I like reading, mostly science fiction and fantasy, but I read some non-fiction now and then. Once upon a time I practiced archery and hopefully I'm going to pick it up next year. I want to learn french and study abroad and... I could go on and on about what I'd like to do in the future, so I'm just going to say that I love learning new stuff and trying new things. Right now I'm working on the "NGOs and Public Services job Fair" (FONGSP in Spanish) and the "FECH's Study Center" (CEFECH).

I think that's enough about me, let the blogging begin!