Ten With a Flag by Joseph Paul Haines

What if we can find out everything about a fetus: its potential health problems, including longevity; its skills and potential careers; its characters and temperaments? In Joseph Paul Haines’s “Ten with a Flag,” the government health organization has rated a fetus a ten--indicating potential greatness: an Mozart or an Einstein--but a flag hints at potential complications. And the parents have the option of aborting the fetus. To complicate the situation, their social status will depend on whether they have the baby: having it will raise them to status level eight--ten the top level.

We’re learning more and more about embryos through DNA mapping and technologies will advance to give us more information about a fetus’s health and perhaps its innate skills. Should parents get and view the information? What should they do if they find out their baby has a high risk of heart attack or Alzheimer’s disease? A situation similar to whether we should look into the future if we can. Will the information help us plot a course to minimize the risks? Or will it stifle us with fear and worry? And what are the moral implications? These are not easy questions though in general we should go through life with our eyes open. But we are humans and we fear and worry and indeed sometimes knowledge chokes us. May we have the wisdom and maturity for greater knowledge.

Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, though the stoning reminds us of the Old Testament punishment, its original intent has long been forgotten. We view with horror at the barbarity and insanity of the custom, just as we consider the Romans barbaric for entertaining themselves with gladiators. But perhaps a visitor to the U.S. without previous exposure may find American football, shoulders banging into heads and players piling on top of each other, also “barbaric and insane.”

Shirley Jackson

We do not question our customs and habits just as the villagers in the story do not theirs. What we view as “normal living” may be considered insanity to foreigners, and vice versa.

We sit in the traffics for hours, stare at the TV or computer or tablet until bedtime, and text 24/7 to feel connected with some body. Just because everyone else is doing it? Just because our parents or grandparents have been doing it for years? Just because TV ads tell us it’s the good life? Or because it’s the path of least resistance?

Through Jackson’s story, the reader reflects on his or her customs and habits, most of which are detrimental only when gone through without understanding their purposes. We may realize how silly some of our routines are. And also others’ habits and customs may no longer be as “strange.”

The Blue Religion: New Stories about Cops, Criminals, and the Chase Edited by Michael Connelly

The collection of police crime fiction includes Law & Order type police procedural such as Persia Walker’s “Such a Lucky, Pretty Girl” to capers such as Bev Vincent’s “Rule Number One.” But all the stories are about cops and criminals and the onus and responsibility of the badge. And there is even a provocative story by Diana Hansen-Young, “Oaths, Ohana, and Everything,” about the handing-over of Hawaii to the United States. A great collection for crime fiction fans.

Philip K. Dick's The Minority Report

What if we can detect crimes before they happen? What if we can arrest criminals before they commit crimes?

Anderton is the commissioner and founder of Precrime, the police force that arrests criminals before they have a chance to commit crime. Computers manipulate “gibberish” from three “precogs,” each one seeing into a possible future, and Anderton determines whether a crime will be committed. When two or more “precogs” agree on an outcome, the resulting agreement is a majority report and the police can act on it. The system has been working fine until one day a majority report indicates Anderton will murder a retired general.

When he reviews the reports and tried to understand how the minority report differs from the majority. He realizes the fact that he, unlike other criminals, could see the report has altered the results. The first report gives the situation where he doesn’t know he will kill the general and in this scenario he would kill the general to prevent the military from taking over. But the second report, the minority report, considers his seeing the first report and therefore changing the outcome and in this scenario he wouldn’t kill the general. Then the third report, which consider his seeing the minority report, indicates he would kill the general. The very fact that he could see into the “future” changes it.

Philip K. Dick

In this story, Philip K. Dick questions the validity of “seeing into the future.” If we could “see into the future,” we have the opportunity to change that future and therefore create a different future. Hence, the paradox.

I enjoy reading Philip K. Dick because his stories spurs to think about issues in our existence. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it is the nature of being alive and being human. In Ubik, it the nature of reality. And here, it is the paradox of knowing the future.