I had to write this down, but I’m not sure how successful I am.
One of the things commonly stated is that Handwavium is a memetic substance. It responds to thought and belief, and with the variance of thought in people (and while one person can approximate the thought of another person, they cannot exactly match that original thought because that are not that person at the time of that thought.) the effects and affects are different.
That is not to say there are not commonalities in thought with people. There are certain things all of us think about.
In the case I’ve chosen as an example, the commonality I’ve chosen is survival. Survival is by the definition of the www.oed.com]The Oxford English Dictionary:
Thus, we get the lack of quirks in Life Support technologies.
This does, however, mean that Handwavium does not just respond to the thoughts of the individual currently using it, but to the collective thoughts of Life in general.
Given the above, you would think ANYTHING that endangers Life would be prevented, but for the vast majority of Life it requires OTHER life to end. This is the Food Chain, and we all know it at least subconsciously.
It does, however, lead to that property that has come to be known as the Slapstick Effect. After all, weapons are normally used to make sure the wielder is not killed. The problem with this is that there are times where not being killed requires killing the threat, of whom there is quite naturally an inbuilt reluctance to die either. This leads to methods that prevent all parties being killed.
This does not mean things have to be painless, or not embarrassing. Pain is a biological response to physically harmful situations, whereas embarrassment is a socially conditioned response to socially harmful situations. Preventing harm thus equates to preventing death.
Extrapolating from this is tricky. If Handwavium is in fact responding to the psychological states of both the individual and society, than the inconsistency seen is an effect of clashing priorities.
This doesn’t solve anything, but does at least partially explain why Handwavium is as chaotic as it seems.
I don’t know how clear my views are here, but I hope this adds to the discussion.
One of the things commonly stated is that Handwavium is a memetic substance. It responds to thought and belief, and with the variance of thought in people (and while one person can approximate the thought of another person, they cannot exactly match that original thought because that are not that person at the time of that thought.) the effects and affects are different.
That is not to say there are not commonalities in thought with people. There are certain things all of us think about.
In the case I’ve chosen as an example, the commonality I’ve chosen is survival. Survival is by the definition of the www.oed.com]The Oxford English Dictionary:
”The Oxford English Dictionary” Wrote:the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.It’s fairly easy to see how this would apply to the Fen, but in an intrinsic sense we think about survival in subtler ways. Take for example, food. We need food to continue to live. Getting food in a modern society requires purchasing it, which requires some means of exchange (normally something of acknowledged value, like money), which means acquiring that means of exchange, which means working, etc… This requires systems to move all the necessary resources around without problems so all the steps in the chain have the inputs needed to produce the outputs the next step use.
Thus, we get the lack of quirks in Life Support technologies.
This does, however, mean that Handwavium does not just respond to the thoughts of the individual currently using it, but to the collective thoughts of Life in general.
Given the above, you would think ANYTHING that endangers Life would be prevented, but for the vast majority of Life it requires OTHER life to end. This is the Food Chain, and we all know it at least subconsciously.
It does, however, lead to that property that has come to be known as the Slapstick Effect. After all, weapons are normally used to make sure the wielder is not killed. The problem with this is that there are times where not being killed requires killing the threat, of whom there is quite naturally an inbuilt reluctance to die either. This leads to methods that prevent all parties being killed.
This does not mean things have to be painless, or not embarrassing. Pain is a biological response to physically harmful situations, whereas embarrassment is a socially conditioned response to socially harmful situations. Preventing harm thus equates to preventing death.
Extrapolating from this is tricky. If Handwavium is in fact responding to the psychological states of both the individual and society, than the inconsistency seen is an effect of clashing priorities.
This doesn’t solve anything, but does at least partially explain why Handwavium is as chaotic as it seems.
I don’t know how clear my views are here, but I hope this adds to the discussion.