Demographics and television

I was looking for population statistics so I could plan a spaceship crew to be representative (because this is what I do for fun) and I found on wiki a map of median ages around the world about now.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Median_age.png
I think this means more than half the world is younger than me. That's really depressing. I haven't even finished college. (which is also somewhat depressing at my age.)

I think also it explains why so much TV is aimed at young people: they outnumber everyone. you want high ratings, there's just more young people to go around. I had not thought about that before, even though I knew all the pieces. It's like the way there's more high school stories than college stories, because everyone goes to school but quite a small percent of everyone goes to college so you've limited your audience already.

I don't think it's a good plan to only make stories about teenagers and young people though. You end up with lopsided stories that you can grow past quite quickly. Then the stories end up like my dad always talking about his school days, always looking back. That wasn't good for him. People need a story map to deal with all the life phases. Stories can work through the cost-benefit and give us a conceptual framework for things before they happen, even if we decide we want our lives to be completely different. If the only story there is past a certain age is to be the people sitting in homes being looked after, or the people there's funerals for, then what? Living for other people's stories only. No helpful. Need more map.

But while TV is trying to get big ratings they'll aim at big groups.

Hence also all the other representation problems.

I think I've gone off scriptwriting, at least within the existing business models. It seems like everything I'd want to tell nobody would want to make.

realized after reading an AU

if I stick to mostly-canon fanfic then I can go find more in the same 'verse
if I get sucked in to an AU that's actually more interesting than the canon, and it was last updated in 2009, no amount of poking the internet will make More Like That.
:-(

should go make feedback. That might make More Like That. But probably not.

everyday drugs in the future

I was thinking about plants that someone might grow on a spaceship that's going out for months or possibly years. While looking up interesting things I found a lot of different things humans have grown over the years to get mellow or energetic. Humans seem to really like tweaking their own chemistry.

So at the moment we have alcohol, lots of, and given half a chance humans will make alcohol, lots of, from whatever is left over. The stereotypical effects of alcohol are well known, the social uses like with a posh meal or sitting around after dinner or at a party are pervasive, we have buildings dedicated to the consumption of alcohol, the stuff has shaped our geography and our crime maps. Also hospitals and drug treatment programs. I kind of hate the stuff, but I'm in a society that apparently really loves it.

There's also caffeine, which again has stereotypical effects, social uses, buildings, but not to my knowledge crime mapping. And rarely medical problems, or maybe withdrawal headaches or ones I don't know of.

( Read more... )

So, in science fiction settings that I've read or watched, the drug use background seems to be basically 'like here, only with silly names', and for a definition of 'here' that means socially acceptable mainstream America. The number of different ways to write 'coffee' gets ridiculous. ( Read more... )

So if you invent a future, does it include alcohol? Caffeine? Recreational spitting?

Are the attitudes basically the same, or drawn from a different particular moment of history, or basically different?

Do you write a happy future where people can wake up or relax on application of chemistry, or is it always inherently Bad? Are there in fact drugs that enhance performance without bad health effects, or is it always Demon Drugs?

And moving away from the recreational, are there going to be characters that take pills every day, or have medical implants to regulate their biochemistry? Or does 'healthy' necessarily mean 'without medical intervention'?

I think it's an area of unexamined attitudes in a lot of story. You get quite a lot of 'and let that be a lesson to you' stories, quite a few 'coffee, brains neeeeeeed coffee', but none I can think of where there's something as innocuous as chocolate. Unless it's actual chocolate, and Deanna Troi is fighting with the computer to be allowed some.

And the constant drip of 'drugs bad drugs bad did we mention drugs are bad' in stories leaves a bad splash over necessary medical chemistry. If the only reason to show pills or regular chemical use in a story is to show how they mess you up I think that's unhelpful when people (rather a lot of them) need pills to keep them healthy. There's social disapproval. Even for prescription stuff. And when you get on to the drugs that are both used and abused in the same society that can get ugly consequences. Ones that tend to make it harder to get and use them responsibly, yet apparently don't stop people who want to mess with them.


So: In The Future, are there drunks?
If not, humanity has managed a new thing...

weird, yet cool

today I discovered shampoo ginger, which delights in the scientific name Zingiber zerumbet.
It's a plant you squeeze shampoo-and-conditioner juice out of.
... would you believe this world if you read about it?

half a thought

am reading an old comment thread about underlying values in a generation ship and one commenter is having an argument about individualism vs conformity while the other is having an argument about individualism vs collectivism/co-operation. Do not yet know if either has noticed.
Enforced fitting of the boxes, with each individual striving for their individual betterment and suffering individual setbacks, is conformity+individualism. Creative self expression or inventing new boxes, but automatically thinking of team or group efforts and rewards, is individualism+collectivism. Yesno? The words, they is slippery.

Doctor Who book: Hunter's Moon

I been reading this one but I stalled in the middle. They don't exactly take a long time to read so that isn't a good sign. But I think it just lost all its points.
First there was the Doctor saying "A snivelling housewife is no good to me", which isn't a line I can imagine him saying, especially to someone who hasn't actually pissed him off at all. Actually that paragraph has some point of view fail cause it has theoretical Doctor point of view, has the Doctor doing thinking, but then thinks this about her clothes: "Tight-fitting, and made of shiny black vinyl, it accentuated her female form, and suited her long dark hair and pretty face." ... this from the "You're a beautiful woman, probably" guy?
And her getting changed is part of the feminism fail in this one, which I think ties to being aimed at a wrong audience. ( Read more... )

So the thing that made me stop and complain to the internet *waves hello* was about Amy. In books with Rory there's a terrible tendency to lack Amy. Or if she exists she doesn't do useful things. But I thought this one was doing okay. Sort of. ( Read more... )

So now I am bored and want to skip the rest of this and go do something more interesting.
And it's supposed to be Doctor Who.

I keep hearing from fanboys that Amy has no personality and just runs around in short skirts.
Dear actual stuff from the BBC: Stop making annoying people right.