Flandry postulates:
"'...some thoroughly armed bully boys hidden away in buildings near the Capitol...'" (p. 549)
- and, furthermore, that such a group of armed bully boys might try to seize the Capitol! (They might.)
Oscar Wilde's Lady Bracknell said that education might lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square. See here.
Since Poul Anderson's Technic History begins with an Apollo University in Leyburg on Luna in 2057, I think that its timeline diverged from ours earlier than 2021 and therefore that that alternative timeline does not contain the events of our January 6, 2021. Nevertheless, I sense events in divergent timelines passing almost detectably close to each other, like trains on parallel tracks. Miss Marple witnessed a murder in one train while leaving Paddington in another. (See here, although there are different versions of this story. See here.) This feels a bit like that.
If I can leave you with a bizarre thought for the night, I will. Good night.
6 comments:
“Violence is always the ultimately decisive means of political action.”
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And it's a bad sign in any society when that happens. It means the norms and systems used to manage and peacefully resolve disputes and quarrels are breaking down.
Paul: And I only wish I could some of these bizarre thoughts you have!
But, I don't think our timeline has yet diverged from what might become the Technic universe. Esp. if Elon Musk manages to found his Mars colony in the next few years.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am finding this Musk colony difficult to believe but the next few years will tell their story.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Why is the idea of founding a colony on Mars so hard to believe? An educated, scientifically trained man like Robert Zubrin has written extensively and in detail on how that might be done in books like THE CASE FOR MARS or THE CASE FOR SPACE, both of which I recommend to you despite some faint traces of anti-Catholicism in them. And I have even quoted quite a lot from the second book in this blog, as I am sure you recall.
MY fear is that political factors, such as disastrously short sighted Democrats opposed to a REAL space program, will act in ways preventing Musk from achieving his goal.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course colonizing Mars is perfectly believable. Someone doing it within the next few years less so.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Good! And Zubrin's detailed explanation of how it could be done using mostly current technology makes it even more plausible. And Elon Musk hopes to start the process by 2024, first by sending unmanned vehicles to land on Mars with supplies and equipment. Next would come manned ships.
Ad astra! Sean
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