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The first thing that came to mind was Robert Heinlein’s ‘Howard Families’. And his later ‘Methuselah’s children’. Heinlein was a mixed bag. Mostly nuts. But hi
by jelliclesfarm 6y ago
The first thing that came to mind was Robert Heinlein’s ‘Howard Families’. And his later ‘Methuselah’s children’.
Heinlein was a mixed bag. Mostly nuts. But his meta concepts and storylines were way ahead of his time(50-70s)..and some would say even by today’s standards. Still..one of favourite early sci fi authors.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_families https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_families
[..] The Howard Families are a fictional group of people created by the author Robert A. Heinlein.
According to Heinlein, the Howard Foundation was started in the 19th century by Ira Howard, a millionaire dying of old age in his forties, for the purpose of extending human lifespan. Howard himself did not live to see the outcome; he simply endowed the experiment with his own fortune, and the trustees of the Howard Foundation used the limited scientific knowledge of the time to create a selective breeding human program to encourage, financially, people of long-lived ancestry to have children together. The Howard Foundation is greatly enriched during the Great Depression by knowledge gained through time travel so that they get out of the stock market before the crash and invest in gold rather than cash and are able to reinvest in stocks that rebound after the crash.[1]
The novel Methuselah's Children is focused on the Howard Families and their quest for acceptance on Earth and other planets. [..]
- johncearls 6y agoI wouldn't call Heinlein nuts. I think he was deeply interested in the idea of how social mores are a reflection of the times and conditions they exist in. It's one of the things that set him above his peers. The technological advances and space cowboy stuff was just a backdrop to discuss philosophy and morality. He did so in a generally entertaining way. I don't know that he was advocating any particular philosophy or moralism. He was just exploring them. The difference in points of view between Stranger in a strange land, starship troopers, and the moon is a harsh mistress demonstrate that.