At 04:51 PM 1/20/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I don't really see a difference between "What if" and "If this goes
>on", since the latter is just a shortened form of "What if this goes on".
>
>-- Mike Resnick
I'd always seen the "If this goes on" stories as implicitly grim. Whatever
is being extrapolated is usually fraught with bad consequences (e.g.
overpopulation, bigotry, violence, etc.). On the other hand, the "what if"
stories suggest, at least to me: 1) at least the possibility of a radical
break with the present--not just a continuation of current trends but a
discontinuity; and 2) at least the possibility of the change being positive
rather than negative. This interpretation of course might be too
idiosyncratic to be of general relevance, but perhaps it suggests a reason
to distinguish between "what if" and "if this goes on."
Kevin
Kevin P. Mulcahy
Alexander Library
Rutgers University
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