Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Inurbanity (Inurbane) | ||
| Criminal penalties for persons who are unable to behave properly in crowded cubic cities. |
| “What,” smiled the doctor, sadly, “is a poor official to do? On the one hand I must brave your displeasure or, on the other, I must release upon Society a man who really, on two counts, is not urbane.” "What is this 'Inurbanity’?” I asked. “When people crowded together in cubic cities,” answered Doctor Gray, “We found that it was possible to commit a great many offenses for which there was no law. We therefore made laws against such things as hawking and spitting, giggling, loud laughter, talking in raucous voices, bad temper and a thousand other like matters. These laws could not be enforced. Any good lawyer could clear his client; for they are all matters of degree, dependent upon manner, time and place. Yet any one who did not choose to keep them could make all comfort quite impossible for hundreds round him. A few such men and women, comparatively a few, could have destroyed our rising new civilization. Therefore we lumped these things under the head of Inurbanity.’ People with 'Ists’ and ‘Isms’, criminals, people mentally ill without being quite insane, people incurably boorish and stupid, people with complexes and phobias, people deformed, all people, in short, who bother others too much and will not or cannot change, are classed as ‘Inurbane.’ In a safe, simple, painless way they are made incapable of bearing children and are confined for life in humane institutions outside the city. Most of the institutions are almost empty. We have no longer any criminal classes. We have no insane, no idiots, no crippled or deformed, no one with inheritable diseases, no drunkards nor drug-addicts and very few extremists of any kind.” “Also no rebels, I suppose,” said I, “and no reformers.” “Plenty of both,” bowed the doctor. “Cartex here is a great rebel against dramatic conventions, and every new scientific discovery means drastic reforms ; but every rebellion anH reform must be courteous and urbane.” |
| Technovelgy from The Cubic City,
by Louis Tucker, D.D.. Published by Science Wonder Stories in 1929 Additional resources -
|
This passage reminds me of the sentiments expressed by Lee Kwan Yew, the long-time leader and founder of the remarkable nation of Singapore:
"Mine is a very matter-of-fact approach to the problem. If you can select a population and they're educated and they're properly brought up, then you don't have to use too much of the stick because they would already have been trained. It's like with dogs. You train it in a proper way from small. It will know that it's got to leave, go outside to pee and to defecate. No, we are not that kind of society. We had to train adult dogs who even today deliberately urinate in the lifts.”
“I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters - who your neighbor is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think...”
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Cubic City
More Ideas
and Technology by Louis Tucker, D.D.
Tech news articles related to The Cubic City
Tech news articles related to works by Louis Tucker, D.D.
| Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million |
| California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone |
| Chinese Hospital Tries Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' Cosplay |
| A Remarkable Coincidence |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
