"'Are you not being denied the right to tax yourselves for public purposes chosen by your democratically elected representatives?'"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT XIII, p. 188.
See also:
Issues In Mirkheim
Political Factions On Hermes
Liberation On Hermes
In The Governor's Problems combox, discussion of inter-species politics on Luna led to discussion of Zionism. Sf is both speculative and relevant.
Poul Anderson's The Stars Are Also Fire speculates about future issues transcending current concerns. Venator thinks that:
a single equation unifies all of physics;
all possible matter-energy interactions can be computed or accounted for;
the endless frontier is not space exploration but mind and mental creations;
brains matter more than stars;
the cybercosm's destiny is to transcend the material universe;
chaotic organic intelligence might somehow disrupt that destiny and must therefore be curtailed.
What nonsense that last proposition is. Is Anderson manufacturing an implausible conflict for the sake of a novel? I would think that organic and post-organic intelligences can at best interact creatively or at worst develop separately. Conflict should not arise.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
To begin with your last statement here, conflict is MORE likely than not. Which means I did not find the idea of organic intelligences and sophotects having clashing interests at all implausible. I simply don't share your optimism that all conflicts can be avoided.
And I emphatically disagree with the political agitator you quoted from MIRKHEIM. The INEVITABLE result of more and higher taxes beyond a certain point is an increasingly oppressive and incompetent gov't. No more they were theoretically enacted by allegedly democratically elected "representatives." My sympathies lies with the gov't of Hermes as it was during the earlier years of the reign of Grand Duchess Sandra.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Another thought I should have included in my first comment here was almost all INTERESTING novels are driven by conflicts or problems that needs to be somehow resolved. And when you have problems, conflicts, contending peoples and interests, then it follows that not every can or will be satisfied by how these conflicts end. Somebody will gain or benefit more than another person. That is what makes many stories interesting. I can hardly think of any interesting story which is about nothing but a quiet peaceful life where nothing much happens. Who will want to read such things?
Even stories about the every day lives of ordinary people, such as Jane Allen's EMMA will be propelled by problems and conflicts.
Poul Anderson did write stories which features how people with contending interests found or were offered a solution in which everybody benefited. Which is what we see Nicholas van Rijn doing in "Territory" or THE MAN WHO COUNTS. Bu we first see strife, conflicts and problems which Old Nick found ingenious ways of settling.
Sean
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