Actually, talking of phones ...
Sept 27 2007
A Science Fiction parable, OR why I wish I was ten years old again, OR how to fill embarrassing silences if you’re on a panel at an sf convention OR I wish I was a spaceman.

Award yourself 200 Sad Points if you know where this comes from without asking the internets: “Just machines to make big decisions/Programmed by fellows of compassion and vision … “

The future was going to be wonderful in the past. When I was ten years old, my little mates and I had no doubt that some, perhaps most, of our adult lives would be lived out in space. NASA had put men on the moon and mankind would continue to explore the final frontier for centuries to come. It was utterly axiomatic that people (especially us boys!) would continue that work.

And even if we were fated to spend most of our adult lives tied by Earth’s surly bonds, we’d at least take holidays on the moon, or Mars.

I knew that one day I'd see the earth from afar, and every adult agreed. Men in lab-coats were taking us towards a new golden age. No more need for cooking, the womenfolk would say, just pop a pill with all the necessary nutrition. No need for boring menial work, the men would say; we’ll have computers and robots to do that.

At the same time, I had another, fonder fantasy. I dreamed of owning a pocket-sized gadget that would solve all of everyday life’s little problems and queries. It would tell me the answers to hard sums, it would know the capital cities of all the world’s countries and the dates of the Kings & Queens of England. It would tell me what’s for tea, whether or not Mum was at home, and (during the week I made my unsuccessful attempt at being interested in football) how Bristol City had fared.

I even got as far as drawing pictures of this machine. It would fit into my hand and it would have a little TV screen on it. All I had to do was ask it a question, press a big button on the side, and the answer would appear on the screen.

Of course I knew it could only exist in the realm of magic. Whereas space travel was hard, incontrovertible fact. It had happened, and just as Columbus was followed by Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Captain Cook … so the moon landings were only the beginning of the conquest and colonisation of the galaxy. That's how history works, isn't it?

So here we are in 2007, and the closest most of us have been to space has been a 747 cruising at 29,000 feet. Branson or someone else will be soon bring us holidays in space. It’ll cost you tens of thousands to spend about four minutes in actual, like, space and you'll probably be sick as a dog.

But the twist is that the magical gadget I dreamed of, the impossible helpmate, exists after all. My mobile phone does all the things ten-year-old me wanted and more besides – I never anticipated it could also take photos and play music. So like Arthur C. Clarke says, in a quote carved into every science fiction writer's soul: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

But I'd gladly swap it for the human race to be looking towards space again, instead of merely militarising the earth's orbit with satellites. Instead of getting mired in stupid wars driven by overpopulation, diminishing resources and that same idiotic religious fundamentalism which science was supposed to finally kill off … I'd trade calling home from the supermarket to ask if we have enough milk for a noble dream. Trade this banal consumer gadget that sends your mates pics of you getting pissed so that some of our children can settle a new world before this one's destroyed by the greedy abuse of all the wonderful things the men and women in lab-coats gave us.

I'm by the freezer cabinets. D'you want that Ben & Jerry's, or can I get some old-fashioned raspberry ripple instead? It kinda reminds me of more optimistic times.