(The attached image shows covers from Poul Anderson's first two future history series.)
Societies are either static or dynamic. Since the Industrial Revolution, society has incorporated successive technological innovations with all the consequent changes in work patterns and life-styles. Our society is dynamic.
A Planetary Engineer asks a Jovian:
"'...can your particular culture stand the introduction of so much new technology?'
"Weller's face darkened. For an instant, Davenport thought he was going to order his men to shoot the Engineers down.'" (IV, p. 167)
Jovian society, although maintained by technology, has statified. The Engineers serve all mankind without becoming involved in politics. However, sometimes the introduction of new technology is revolutionary.
6 comments:
It's usually upsetting. New technology always damages some people's established interests -- while its benefits are speculative and in any case in the future.
This is why most societies aren't very technologically innovative -- it's easier to suppress new tech and avoid the upset -- often violent -- that it will bring.
It took a particular organization and historical nexus to produce a culture which -didn't- suppress innovation.
Kaor, Paul!
And the kind of "dynamic society" you mentioned is rare. It took a unique combination of causes of the kind Stirling mentioned above and discussed in detail by Anderson in IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? before such a civilization arose on Earth. Absent the right "organization and historical nexus" we would be far more likely living in a static world like that seen in "The House of Sorrows," where real changes were rare. Dynamism cannot be guaranteed!
Ad astra! Sean
Yup. Some things would have happened anyway -- the spread of gunpowder from China, for example. But no Industrial Revolution or rise of science.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Or possibly not even that. IIRC, Anderson had Manse Everard speculating in "Delenda Est" that timelines where Judaism and Christianity never existed would still have nations thousands of years later thinking the most advanced and impressive thing to was building ziggurats.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: I doubt that. Gunpowder is one of those things that you have to copy if someone else is using it. The Chinese invented it, IIRC, towards the end of the Tang dynasty -- 9th century.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
But I was thinking of centuries or millennia before the T'ang Dynasty, certain things not happening (such as the existence of Judaism/Christianity) could have "ripple effects" preventing/delaying the invention of gun powder.
So, the coolest thing people could think of "now" might still be building a mud brick ziggurat.
Ad astra! Seam
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