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"In science fiction one can say a great many things that are unpalatable, … because it's expressed as science fiction you can slip it past their defenses."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Diaspar Memory | ||
| The city's memory could store works of art, and reproduce them upon request. |
| It was the custom of the city's artists - and everyone in Diaspar was an artist at some time or another - to display their current production along side of the moving ways, so that the passers-by could admire their work. In this manner, it was usually only a few days before the entire population had critically examined any noteworthy creation, and also expressed views upon it. The resulting verdict, recorded automatically by opinion-sampling devices which no one had ever been able to suborn or deceive - and there had been enough attempts - decided the fate of the masterpiece. If there was a sufficiently affirmative vote, its matrix would go into the memory of the city so that anyone who wished, at any future date, could possess a reproduction indistinguishable from the original. |
| Technovelgy from The City and the Stars,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Frederick Muller Ltd in 1956 Additional resources -
|
I note in passing that Clarke sees no future for intellectual property law in Diaspar...
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'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
