"'I have this nightmare notion that it came not just as a result of huge areas turning into deserts, but came barely in time.'"
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), V. p. 53.
In time? If machine culture had not destroyed itself in a war, then it would have destroyed the environment?
Havig describes a process:
"Environment" is merely one "cause," to be replaced by another;
people stop caring;
the most powerful country never tries to meet its responsibilities;
the US makes halfhearted attempts to stop its Asian enemies;
such attempts waste lives and treasure to no purpose;
the US estranges its remaining friends;
politicians identify inflation with rising prices and impose wage and price controls;
economic collapse causes international impotence;
the affluent concede just enough to minorities to bring on revolt which brings on reaction which stops progress;
Americans feel guilt, then inadequacy and apathy and seek escapism;
maybe they want to die?
I am paraphrasing Havig, remember! He reminds me of van Rijn's sunset speech about the decline of the Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
THERE WILL BE TIME was first pub. in 1972, and much of what Anderson described as going wrong in the US of the 1960's and 1970's can be seen in that book. And in some of those bad things are still afflicting us, such as liberal guilt and self loathing, Political Correctness, and nonsense like "intersectionality." But, fortunately, we have not yet arrived at a situation as bad as what is described in the book. And I hope we never will!
All this brings to mind yet again my conviction we urgently NEED to get off this rock! If the human race and human civilization is so survive then it's past time we started founding colonies and bases off Earth. So I ardently hope Elon Musk succeeds in his efforts at restarting a REAL space program. A real life D.D. Harriman, Nicholas van Rijn, and Anson Guthrie would be a blessing!
Sean
Sean,
Some common ground must be possible! I recognize that there has been and still can be both sexual and racial discrimination but I neither loathe myself nor feel guilt because I happen to be both male and white. There are personal actions that I have felt guilt about but they have nothing to do with being male, white, European, having a British passport etc. They are purely individual issues.
Is Martian colonization feasible soon? I know that in theory it can happen on a much shorter time scale than expected - look at the progress made in the 20th century - but it seems a big leap to go from nowhere in space to Mars very quickly.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course I did not have YOU in mind, you are far more reasonable and sensible than too many on both left and right. But there are some people who somehow think it's wrong or bad to be white, male, a Westerner, a Christian, etc.
Yes, I believe some kind of colonization of Mars is possible, using technology we have now. See in particular Robert Zubrin and Richard Wagner's book THE CASE FOR MARS.* And Elon Musk is working hard at SpaceX to develope the kind of space ships needed for getting there (and all other parts of the Solar System).
And Jerry Pournelle made some very convincing similar arguments in his collection A STEP FARTHER OUT, using technology current in 1980. I recommend both the Zubrin and Pournelle books.
Sean
*The only real criticism I would make of the Zubrin/Wagner books is of their silly comments about Giordano Bruno, accusing the Catholic Church of having him burned at the stake for saying other worlds exist. Not true, when I looked up the article for Bruno in the 1913 CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, the author wrote that the charges against him were for his theological and doctrinal errors, not for speculations about other planets.
Of course I would far rather the Inquisition in Italy had simply imprisoned Bruno, and not sentenced him to death. And the Tribunal of the Inquisition did take a LONG time before finally doing so.
Sean
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