I love science fiction. There are ways in which this community kept me and my partner alive through some very, very bad years, and I will always acknowledge that.
Interpretation
The quote expresses gratitude towards the science fiction community for providing support during difficult times.
Nalo Hopkinson reflects on how the science fiction genre and its community have been a source of solace and support for her and her partner during challenging periods in their lives. She acknowledges the importance of this community in helping them navigate hardships, emphasizing the profound impact that shared interests and connections can have on personal well-being.
In practice
In a speech at a sci-fi convention to highlight the power of community support.
You look at science fiction and look how often it talks about being alien, being alienated about the other. Look at the number of blue people - 'Avatar,' I'm looking at you. And it is now easier to find people of color in science-fiction literature and media, but the issues of representation are still really, really troubling.
It is possible in medicine, even when you intend to do good, to do harm instead. That is why science thrives on actively encouraging criticism rather than stifling it.
If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more splendid than the moon.
I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way.
Science has a culture that is inherently cautious and that is normally not a bad thing. You could even say conservative, because of the peer review process and because the scientific method prizes uncertainty and penalises anyone who goes out on any sort of a limb that is not held in place by abundant and well-documented evidence.
It was strange, in a way, because there were no ideas involved in the laser that weren't already known by somebody 25 years before lasers were discovered. The ideas were all there; just, nobody put it together.
In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. All energy is the same as mechanical energy, whether it exists in the form of motion or in that of elasticity, or in any other form. The energy in electromagnetic phenomena is mechanical energy.
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