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"What I have in my stories is ethics. Ethics and morality are very different cups of tea. I adhere to a very strict rigor of personal ethics and I demand it of those around me as well."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Brain Rejuvenation | ||
| Erase unnecessary parts of memory to make room for new impressions. |
| "...our life span has been so tremendously increased that 85,000 cycles is not an uncommon age among us. That is because there are no parts to wear out. But what does happen is this: You know that the brain is only capable of absorbing a certain amount of knowledge and ideas. In the case of such a race as your own where the lifetimes are so short, this fact is of no account, as you probably only use a small fraction of your total mental capacity. But with us it is different. After a very long time the brain becomes saturated and loses the power of recording any new impression. When this occurs the individual is no longer conscious of the present but of the past only. Originally, as such a one was of no use to the community, they used to be painlessly exterminated. But in the light of advanced science it became possible to make certain operations on them which destroyed all the less important impressions and thus partially rejuvenated the brain. Each Extrosian can survive about forty of these treatments which are undergone once every two thousand cycles. After the brain has taken more than forty treatments, it grows stale and becomes worn out. Then it is extinguished. I myself am comparatively young, for I have as yet only taken eight treatments." |
| Technovelgy from The Message From Space,
by David M. Speaker. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
