Jim Baen’s Universe

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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 77

by Edited by Eric Flint


  But this is not all. My nob­le fri­end's plan is not me­rely to in­s­ti­tu­te a lot­tery in which so­me wri­ters will draw pri­zes and so­me will draw blanks. It is much wor­se than this. His lot­tery is so con­t­ri­ved that, in the vast ma­j­ority of ca­ses, the blanks will fall to the best bo­oks, and the pri­zes to bo­oks of in­fe­ri­or me­rit.

  Take Sha­kes­pe­are. My nob­le fri­end gi­ves a lon­ger pro­tec­ti­on than I sho­uld gi­ve to Lo­ve's La­bo­ur's Lost, and Pe­ric­les, Prin­ce of Tyre; but he gi­ves a shor­ter pro­tec­ti­on than I sho­uld gi­ve to Ot­hel­lo and Mac­beth.

  Take Mil­ton. Mil­ton di­ed in 1674. The cop­y­rights of Mil­ton's gre­at works wo­uld, ac­cor­ding to my nob­le fri­end's plan, ex­pi­re in 1699. Co­mus ap­pe­ared in 1634, the Pa­ra­di­se Lost in 1668. To Co­mus, then, my nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve six­ty-fi­ve ye­ars of cop­y­right, and to the Pa­ra­di­se Lost only thir­ty-one ye­ars. Is that re­aso­nab­le? Co­mus is a nob­le po­em: but who wo­uld rank it with the Pa­ra­di­se Lost? My plan wo­uld gi­ve for­ty-two ye­ars both to the Pa­ra­di­se Lost and to Co­mus.

  Let us pass on from Mil­ton to Dryden. My nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve mo­re than sixty ye­ars of cop­y­right to Dryden's worst works; to the en­co­mi­as­tic ver­ses on Oli­ver Crom­well, to the Wild Gal­lant, to the Ri­val La­di­es, to ot­her wret­c­hed pi­eces as bad as an­y­t­hing writ­ten by Flec­k­noe or Set­tle: but for The­odo­re and Ho­no­ria, for Tan­c­red and Si­gis­mun­da, for Ci­mon and Ip­hi­ge­nia, for Pa­la­mon and Ar­ci­te, for Ale­xan­der's Fe­ast, my nob­le fri­end thinks a cop­y­right of twen­ty-eight ye­ars suf­fi­ci­ent. Of all Po­pe's works, that to which my nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve the lar­gest me­asu­re of pro­tec­ti­on is the vo­lu­me of Pas­to­rals, re­mar­kab­le only as the pro­duc­ti­on of a boy. Joh­n­son's first work was a Tran­s­la­ti­on of a Bo­ok of Tra­vels in Ab­y­s­si­nia, pub­lis­hed in 1735. It was so po­orly exe­cu­ted that in his la­ter ye­ars he did not li­ke to he­ar it men­ti­oned. Bos­well on­ce pic­ked up a copy of it, and told his fri­end that he had do­ne so. "Do not talk abo­ut it," sa­id Joh­n­son: "it is a thing to be for­got­ten." To this per­for­man­ce my nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve pro­tec­ti­on du­ring the enor­mo­us term of se­ven­ty-fi­ve ye­ars. To the Li­ves of the Po­ets he wo­uld gi­ve pro­tec­ti­on du­ring abo­ut thirty ye­ars. Well; ta­ke Henry Fi­el­ding; it mat­ters not whom I ta­ke, but ta­ke Fi­el­ding. His early works are re­ad only by the cu­ri­o­us, and wo­uld not be re­ad even by the cu­ri­o­us, but for the fa­me which he ac­qu­ired in the lat­ter part of his li­fe by works of a very dif­fe­rent kind. What is the va­lue of the Tem­p­le Be­au, of the In­t­ri­gu­ing Cham­ber­ma­id, of half a do­zen ot­her plays of which few gen­t­le­men ha­ve even he­ard the na­mes? Yet to the­se wor­t­h­less pi­eces my nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve a term of cop­y­right lon­ger by mo­re than twenty ye­ars than that which he wo­uld gi­ve to Tom Jones and Ame­lia.

  Go on to Bur­ke. His lit­tle tract, en­tit­led the Vin­di­ca­ti­on of Na­tu­ral So­ci­ety is cer­ta­inly not wit­ho­ut me­rit; but it wo­uld not be re­mem­be­red in our days if it did not be­ar the na­me of Bur­ke. To this tract my nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve a cop­y­right of ne­ar se­venty ye­ars. But to the gre­at work on the French Re­vo­lu­ti­on, to the Ap­pe­al from the New to the Old Whigs, to the let­ters on the Re­gi­ci­de Pe­ace, he wo­uld gi­ve a cop­y­right of thirty ye­ars or lit­tle mo­re.

  And, Sir ob­ser­ve that I am not se­lec­ting he­re and the­re ex­t­ra­or­di­nary in­s­tan­ces in or­der to ma­ke up the sem­b­lan­ce of a ca­se. I am ta­king the gre­atest na­mes of our li­te­ra­tu­re in chro­no­lo­gi­cal or­der. Go to ot­her na­ti­ons; go to re­mo­te ages; you will still find the ge­ne­ral ru­le the sa­me. The­re was no cop­y­right at At­hens or Ro­me; but the his­tory of the Gre­ek and La­tin li­te­ra­tu­re il­lus­t­ra­tes my ar­gu­ment qu­ite as well as if cop­y­right had exis­ted in an­ci­ent ti­mes. Of all the plays of Sop­hoc­les, the one to which the plan of my nob­le fri­end wo­uld ha­ve gi­ven the most scanty re­com­pen­se wo­uld ha­ve be­en that won­der­ful mas­ter­pi­ece, the Oedi­pus at Co­lo­nos. Who wo­uld class to­get­her the Spe­ech of De­mos­t­he­nes aga­inst his Gu­ar­di­ans, and the Spe­ech for the Crown? My nob­le fri­end, in­de­ed, wo­uld not class them to­get­her. For to the Spe­ech aga­inst the Gu­ar­di­ans he wo­uld gi­ve a cop­y­right of ne­ar se­venty ye­ars, and to the in­com­pa­rab­le Spe­ech for the Crown a cop­y­right of less than half that length. Go to Ro­me. My nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve mo­re than twi­ce as long a term to Ci­ce­ro's juve­ni­le dec­la­ma­ti­on in de­fen­ce of Ros­ci­us Ame­ri­nus as to the Se­cond Phi­lip­pic. Go to Fran­ce. My nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve a far lon­ger term to Ra­ci­ne's Fre­res En­ne­mis than to At­ha­lie, and to Mo­li­ere's Eto­ur­di than to Tar­tuf­fe. Go to Spa­in. My nob­le fri­end wo­uld gi­ve a lon­ger term to for­got­ten works of Cer­van­tes, works which no­body now re­ads, than to Don Qu­ixo­te. Go to Ger­many. Ac­cor­ding to my nob­le fri­end's plan, of all the works of Schil­ler the Rob­bers wo­uld be the most fa­vo­ured: of all the works of Go­et­he, the Sor­rows of Wer­ter wo­uld be the most fa­vo­ured. I thank the Com­mit­tee for lis­te­ning so kindly to this long enu­me­ra­ti­on. Gen­t­le­men will per­ce­ive, I am su­re, that it is not from pe­dantry that I men­ti­on the na­mes of so many bo­oks and aut­hors. But just as, in our de­ba­tes on ci­vil af­fa­irs, we con­s­tantly draw il­lus­t­ra­ti­ons from ci­vil his­tory, we must, in a de­ba­te abo­ut li­te­rary pro­perty, draw our il­lus­t­ra­ti­ons from li­te­rary his­tory. Now, Sir, I ha­ve, I think, shown from li­te­rary his­tory that the ef­fect of my nob­le fri­end's plan wo­uld be to gi­ve to cru­de and im­per­fect works, to third-ra­te and fo­ur­th-ra­te works, a gre­at ad­van­ta­ge over the hig­hest pro­duc­ti­ons of ge­ni­us. It is im­pos­sib­le to ac­co­unt for the facts which I ha­ve la­id be­fo­re you by at­tri­bu­ting them to me­re ac­ci­dent. The­ir num­ber is too gre­at, the­ir cha­rac­ter too uni­form. We must se­ek for so­me ot­her ex­p­la­na­ti­on; and we shall easily find one.

  It is the law of our na­tu­re that the mind shall at­ta­in its full po­wer by slow deg­re­es; and this is es­pe­ci­al­ly true of the most vi­go­ro­us minds. Yo­ung men, no do­ubt, ha­ve of­ten pro­du­ced works of gre­at me­rit; but it wo­uld be im­pos­sib­le to na­me any wri­ter of the first or­der who­se juve­ni­le per­for­man­ces we­re his best. That all the most va­lu­ab­le bo­oks of his­tory, of phi­lo­logy, of physi­cal and me­tap­h­y­si­cal sci­en­ce, of di­vi­nity, of po­li­ti­cal eco­nomy, ha­ve be­en pro­du­ced by men of ma­tu­re ye­ars will hardly be dis­pu­ted. The ca­se may not be qu­ite so cle­ar as res­pects works of the ima­gi­na­ti­on. And yet I know no work of the ima­gi­na­ti­on of the very hig­hest class that was ever, in any age or co­untry, pro­du­ced by a man un­der thir­ty-fi­ve. Wha­te­ver po­wers a yo­uth may ha­ve re­ce­ived from na­tu­re, it is im­pos­sib­le that his tas­te and jud­g­ment can be ri­pe, that his mind can be richly sto­red with ima­ges, that he can ha­ve ob­ser­ved the vi­cis­si­tu­des of li­fe, that he can ha­ve stu­di­ed the ni­cer sha­des of cha­rac­ter. How, as Mar­mon­tel very sen­sibly sa­id, is a per­son to pa­int por­t­ra­its who has ne­ver se­en fa­ces? On the who­le, I be­li­eve that I may, wit­ho­ut fe­ar of con­t­ra­dic­ti­on, af­firm this, that of the go­od bo­oks now ex­tant in the world mo­re than ni­ne­te­en-twen­ti­eths we­re pub­lis­hed af­ter the wri­ters had at­ta­ined the age of forty. If this be so, it is evi­dent that the plan of my nob­le fri­end is fra­med on a vi­ci­o­us prin­cip­le. For, whi­le he gi­ves to juve­ni­le pro­duc­ti­ons a very much lar­ger pro­tec­ti­on
than they now enj­oy, he do­es com­pa­ra­ti­vely lit­tle for the works of men in the full ma­tu­rity of the­ir po­wers, and ab­so­lu­tely not­hing for any work which is pub­lis­hed du­ring the last three ye­ars of the li­fe of the wri­ter. For, by the exis­ting law, the cop­y­right of such a work lasts twen­ty-eight ye­ars from the pub­li­ca­ti­on; and my nob­le fri­end gi­ves only twen­ty-fi­ve ye­ars, to be rec­ko­ned from the wri­ter's de­ath.

  What I re­com­mend is that the cer­ta­in term, rec­ko­ned from the da­te of pub­li­ca­ti­on, shall be for­ty-two ye­ars in­s­te­ad of twen­ty-eight ye­ars. In this ar­ran­ge­ment the­re is no un­cer­ta­inty, no ine­qu­ality. The ad­van­ta­ge which I pro­po­se to gi­ve will be the sa­me to every bo­ok. No work will ha­ve so long a cop­y­right as my nob­le fri­end gi­ves to so­me bo­oks, or so short a cop­y­right as he gi­ves to ot­hers. No cop­y­right will last ni­nety ye­ars. No cop­y­right will end in twen­ty-eight ye­ars. To every bo­ok pub­lis­hed in the co­ur­se of the last se­ven­te­en ye­ars of a wri­ter's li­fe I gi­ve a lon­ger term of cop­y­right than my nob­le fri­end gi­ves; and I am con­fi­dent that no per­son ver­sed in li­te­rary his­tory will deny this,-that in ge­ne­ral the most va­lu­ab­le works of an aut­hor are pub­lis­hed in the co­ur­se of the last se­ven­te­en ye­ars of his li­fe. I will ra­pidly enu­me­ra­te a few, and but a few, of the gre­at works of En­g­lish wri­ters to which my plan is mo­re fa­vo­urab­le than my nob­le fri­end's plan. To Le­ar, to Mac­beth, to Ot­hel­lo, to the Fa­iry Qu­e­en, to the Pa­ra­di­se Lost, to Ba­con's No­vum Or­ga­num and De Aug­men­tis, to Loc­ke's Es­say on the Hu­man Un­der­s­tan­ding, to Cla­ren­don's His­tory, to Hu­me's His­tory, to Gib­bon's His­tory, to Smith's We­alth of Na­ti­ons, to Ad­di­son's Spec­ta­tors, to al­most all the gre­at works of Bur­ke, to Cla­ris­sa and Sir Char­les Gran­di­son, to Joseph An­d­rews, Tom Jones and Ame­lia, and, with the sin­g­le ex­cep­ti­on of Wa­ver­ley, to all the no­vels of Sir Wal­ter Scott, I gi­ve a lon­ger term of cop­y­right than my nob­le fri­end gi­ves. Can he match that list? Do­es not that list con­ta­in what En­g­land has pro­du­ced gre­atest in many va­ri­o­us ways-po­etry, phi­lo­sophy, his­tory, elo­qu­en­ce, wit, skil­ful por­t­ra­itu­re of li­fe and man­ners? I con­fi­dently the­re­fo­re call on the Com­mit­tee to ta­ke my plan in pre­fe­ren­ce to the plan of my nob­le fri­end. I ha­ve shown that the pro­tec­ti­on which he pro­po­ses to gi­ve to let­ters is une­qu­al, and une­qu­al in the worst way. I ha­ve shown that his plan is to gi­ve pro­tec­ti­on to bo­oks in in­ver­se pro­por­ti­on to the­ir me­rit. I shall mo­ve when we co­me to the third cla­use of the bill to omit the words "twen­ty-fi­ve ye­ars," and in a sub­se­qu­ent part of the sa­me cla­use I shall mo­ve to sub­s­ti­tu­te for the words "twen­ty-eight ye­ars" the words "for­ty-two ye­ars." I ear­nestly ho­pe that the Com­mit­tee will adopt the­se amen­d­ments; and I fe­el the fir­mest con­vic­ti­on that my nob­le fri­end's bill, so amen­ded, will con­fer a gre­at bo­on on men of let­ters with the smal­lest pos­sib­le in­con­ve­ni­en­ce to the pub­lic.

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  Mark L. Van Name

  The first ti­me you stand out­si­de as a ma­j­or storm is blo­wing in, you may not know how to in­ter­p­ret all the signs. From then on, ho­we­ver, all yo­ur sen­ses will tell you what’s co­ming. You’ll see the clo­uds gat­her and the sky dar­ken. You’ll smell the crisp air. You’ll fe­el the pres­su­re chan­ges wash in­vi­sibly over yo­ur body. You’ll bre­at­he de­eply and tas­te the air. You’ll know with a de­ep, ani­mal cer­ta­inty that for­ces be­yond yo­ur con­t­rol are gat­he­ring.

  What you can ne­ver fat­hom un­til af­ter­wards is exactly what tho­se for­ces will end up do­ing and how the we­at­her will play out, but you will know the phe­no­me­na sig­nal a storm.

  We li­ve on the ed­ge of a tec­h­no­logy front the li­kes of which hu­ma­nity has ne­ver se­en. The ra­te of chan­ge in many of our key tec­h­no­lo­gi­es is ac­ce­le­ra­ting ex­po­nen­ti­al­ly, and the­re’s no end in sight. Com­pu­ting, com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and net­wor­king, bi­olo­gi­cal en­gi­ne­ering, and na­no­tec­h­no­logy, to na­me fo­ur of the most ac­ti­ve for­ces, are all evol­ving at an ever-in­c­re­asing ra­te-and they’re all do­ing it at the sa­me ti­me.

  Just as the as­t­ro­no­mi­cal sin­gu­la­rity of a black ho­le is a pla­ce at which all the physi­cal ru­les chan­ge, the sin­gu­la­rity that may re­sult from the con­ti­nu­ing ex­po­nen­ti­al ra­te of chan­ge of our tec­h­no­lo­gi­es is a ti­me at which all the ru­les of our li­ves may chan­ge, a po­int at which hu­mans may tran­s­cend bi­ology and non-hu­man in­tel­li­gen­ces may sur­pass the com­pu­ta­ti­onal po­wer and the in­tel­li­gen­ce of our bra­ins.

  Note my use of the qu­alif­ying “may.” My go­al with this co­lumn is not to per­su­ade you that a sin­gu­la­rity is co­ming, nor is it to de­fend a par­ti­cu­lar be­li­ef system. (If you want a lengthy and com­pel­ling per­su­asi­on, re­ad Ray Kur­z­we­il’s The Sin­gu­la­rity Is Ne­ar: When Hu­mans Tran­s­cend Bi­ology.)

  Instead, my pri­mary aim is to show you so­me of the co­ol ed­ges of the co­ming storm, bits of tec­h­no-chan­ge that are in­te­res­ting-and, every so of­ten, scary-re­gar­d­less of whet­her you be­li­eve we’re ra­cing to­ward a sin­gu­la­rity. Many of the­se de­ve­lop­ments al­so open the do­or to a wi­de ar­ray of is­su­es and qu­es­ti­ons, and I want to en­co­ura­ge you to con­si­der tho­se is­su­es and pon­der tho­se qu­es­ti­ons.

  Some of the to­pics I’ll co­ver, such as the ma­in fo­cus of this month’s co­lumn, will be qu­ite re­al, de­ve­lop­ments and tec­h­no­lo­gi­es that exist right now, whi­le ot­hers will be re­se­arch or pro­tot­y­pes that are ba­rely out of the lab. I’ll al­so try to po­int out whe­re the trends un­der­l­ying the­se ble­eding-ed­ge techs may ta­ke us.

  When I was a kid and re­ad abo­ut Tom Swift, Jr.’s Trip­hi­bi­an Ato­mi­car and his ot­her in­ven­ti­ons, I didn’t re­ali­ze I was a sci­en­ce-fic­ti­on re­ader; I didn’t even know the term “sci­en­ce fic­ti­on.” All I knew was that the world was a pla­ce whe­re a smart, hard-wor­king sci­en­tist might be ab­le to do an­y­t­hing, cre­ate an­y­t­hing, be an­y­t­hing, and that uni­ver­se of pos­si­bi­lity was so in­sa­nely gre­at that my yo­ung he­ad al­most hurt with the ef­fort of con­ta­ining my sen­se of won­der.

  Today’s ra­pid tec­h­no­logy ad­van­ces fre­qu­ently gi­ve me the sa­me be­li­ef and the sa­me hit of co­ol­ness, won­der, and awe. Let’s start with a fun one that’s hap­pe­ning right now.

  Putting it all on­li­ne, 2006-style

  Most of us al­re­ady de­pend mo­re he­avily on tec­h­no­lo­gi­cal adj­uncts to our me­mory than we’d li­ke to ad­mit. Whet­her tho­se hel­pers ta­ke the form of old tech-gro­cery lists and post-it no­tes co­or­di­na­ting fa­mily sche­du­les spring to mind-or em­p­loy de­vi­ces that are a bit mo­re au co­urant-I rely da­ily on the sche­du­le I ke­ep on my PC and rep­li­ca­te on my PDA-they are in­teg­ral to our li­ves. The di­gi­tal ones, such as my sche­du­le, li­te­ral­ly are small parts of our li­ves that we’ve di­gi­ti­zed and up­lo­aded.

  So, too, are any let­ters who­se so­ur­ce fi­les we ke­ep on­li­ne, as are di­gi­tal pho­tos, di­gi­tal vi­de­os, ema­il mes­sa­ges, and on and on. Our in­c­re­asing re­li­an­ce on in­for­ma­ti­on tec­h­no­lo­gi­es has the si­de ef­fect of ca­using us to up­lo­ad ever-gro­wing, tho­ugh still small, por­ti­ons of our li­ves.

  Most sf sto­ri­es that in­c­lu­de hu­man up­lo­ads de­al with them in terms of en­ti­re con­s­ci­o­us­nes­ses be­ing di­gi­ti­zed (so­me­ti­mes with des­t­ruc­ti­ve re­sults for th
e ori­gi­nal bra­in car­ri­er, so­me­ti­mes not), but as our com­mon fled­g­ling ef­forts in­di­ca­te, we don’t ha­ve to go an­y­w­he­re ne­ar that far to put parts of our li­ves on­li­ne.

  The ob­vi­o­us qu­es­ti­on is, how far can you go right now?

 

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