Retired notebook: part 1

Like most writers, I keep a notebook with me at all times.  I use it a lot for scrap paper, but I also jot down all the weird story ideas that come to me, usually while I’m doing something completely unrelated to the idea.

A while ago, my old notebook got too ratty to keep in my back pocket, so I replaced it and put the other in my dresser drawer.  I thought it would be interesting, though, to go through some of the ideas I came up with.

Here they are, from the beginning:

A society in which infanticide is not considered a crime, up to two years (since infants are not conscious in the same way as adults and children).

…okay, maybe that one was a little creepy. Next:

A near future dystopia in which the film extras in movies made in overpopulated developing countries literally act out the battle scenes, because hollywood studios can pay for the loss of life.

Another creepy one, but it’s actually legit. I came up with it in the Las Vegas airport, listening to a panel from CONduit on my iRiver while waiting for my connecting flight.

On the panel, Dave Wolverton mentioned that in China, the most that any corporation can be sued for negligent homicide is $10,000. This got me to thinking, what if they had the extras fill out forms indicating next of kin, and shoot the battle scenes with real guns? It would cause a huge uproar among humanitarian organizations, for sure, but there’s certainly an audience that would pay for it. And really, who loses from it?

Yet another example of economics at work–and why capitalism is evil.

A time travel device that allows collection of data from the future without affecting causality–how would this change political science?

In other words, what if we could go into the future and quantifiably measure the effects of decisions made in the present? What if our hindsight really was 20/20? Something like that.

A candidate who always has the latest liberal candidate’s bumper sticker on the same corner of his/her car, so it builds up over time.

Just an interesting character quirk.

An MMORPG for orcs and elves where they play as humans.

Haha! I’d forgotten about that one. 🙂

Zombie insects.

“Infestation” takes on a new meaning.

Sentient planets.

We’ve already got that (sort of): it’s called the Gaia hypothesis.

Golfing on the moon or mars.

Or tennis, or soccer, or basketball…seriously, how cool would it be?

Were-squirrels!

…okay, maybe that one wasn’t quite as awesome.

A psychic agency that allows you to IM dead relatives.

I’d be surprised if this doesn’t already exist.

There’s more, but I’ll save it for another post.