RE: Finish the Story Contest - Lucid Dream
Thank you. Yes, as a matter of fact, I wanted to draw a dark end for mankind here. It should reflect the moral of the story.
I think the intention to improve us humans by means of machine implants and genetic alterations is a form of madness. A rather myopic effort to prolong life and the pursuit of amplification of feelings through science fiction stories designed to support human emotions. Our attention is captured by the figure rather than the background.
Obviously we are scanning the environment looking for trouble. Our target fascination, going straight forward for disaster.
We notice the things that look important to us. We have the linear way of looking. We screen out anything not immediately important, ignoring the things which are quiet and underestimate always the not attention producing backgrounds.
Fascination for doom might be neutralized if we would say "why bother about that?"
I think the fascination with doomsday stories is a way of sublimating our own existential anxiety. Religion filled this role, traditionally.
As soon as the individual becomes aware of mortality, a kind of angst sets in. Unamuno gave it a name, The Tragic Sense of Life. We can run around with a vague, unacknowledged despair about our own eventual demise, or we can seek philosophical/religious perspectives that help us to deal with the tenuous nature of existence.
I had an uncle who was a war veteran. He had a fragile psyche before his combat experience, so he wasn't prepared to deal with the extraordinary stress of being a prisoner on a war ship that was bombed by his own side. When they found him he was under a pile of bodies. He never recovered--never lived a complete, independent life after that. One thing I remember about him was his extreme fear of death. He couldn't sublimate, couldn't deal on any level. I think he lost the ability most of us have to deal with the reality of mortality, the realities of life.
So, anyway, my long response to your observation: people use these stories the way the Greeks used drama, I think. They allow the observer to emotionally work through profound issues from a comfortable distance.
Your observation is, as always, thought-provoking.