Why it can be hard to be a science fiction writer

If you don't like down and out and depressing entries, skip this one!!!

I'm often asked if it's hard to come up with ideas. The answer to this is, no, it's not hard. What can be hard is coming up with plausible ideas. I like for my SF to have a ring of truth to it, and given what's going on in the world right now, it's hard to come up with plausible ideas because, quite simply, I'm really beginning to doubt that the human race has a future.

More than 30 people were massacred on an American college campus today. People are blowing themselves up in Iraq for political (read that as religious) purposes...meanwhile, our government continues to wage a crusade against Muslim nations. Notice that I didn't say wage a war...I said wage a crusade. Other than the obvious economic reasons (oil) for us to wage war on these countries, the main reason we're over there is for religious reasons. As always, I'm just spouting opinion, but I think there's some truth to these opinions.

Bush and the neo-cons are highly religious individuals...even evangelical, and they are doing whatever they can to wage war against a rival religion. As many of you know, I'm an atheist, and basically have no use for religion. If someone wants to believe in some kind of higher power, that's their choice...just don't force your beliefs on me...and that's what's starting to happen in this country. Various school systems are trying to implement the teaching of "intelligent" design, while trying to ban anything that has to do with evolution. I read today that a school system in Kansas banned Pokemon because of its evolutionary overtones. I don't know enough about Pokemon to know what in the hell they're talking about...but there it is.

I'm more than a little curious to find out what the reasoning for the attacks in Virginia were, but it makes you wonder where people are safe anymore? We had a school shooting here in Colorado last year, and then there was the shooting at the Amish school. What's wrong with people?

A long time ago, a friend told me something that has stuck with me...I'm not really sure if it was his quote...he was a bright guy, but this sounds too profound for him. We had been discussing the fall of the Roman Empire, and we'd basically agreed that there were no longer any barbarians to come over the hills. To which he responded, "When there are no longer barbarians to come over the hills, a society will create its own." That's exactly what has happened. The United States has abandoned so many of the ideals that made us at least somewhat of a great nation, and has instead decided to embrace, religion, Brittney Spears, and American Idol.

This country is in serious decline, and sadly, much of the rest of the world wants to be just like us.

This, my dear readers, is why I find it hard to be a science fiction writer. How are you supposed to write about the future, when there probably won't be one?