"A phone chimed. Every room had one; the colony was glutted with nanotech and assembly-complex wares, including robot workers. Kyra sometimes wondered if any commercial enterprise would evolve on Demeter." (p. 437)
Why should it? People might eventually make or grow commodities to exchange not by barter but by the circulation of standardized units of exchange, a revival of "money." But such exchange will no longer be their means of livelihood. Commerce, like theft and war, has become redundant. Sf writers project fundamental social transformations. Guthrie went to Alpha Centauri to preserve freedom, not necessarily to perpetuate economic "free enterprise." Demetrians, freed from the necessity to earn their living, are now even freer to explore and create.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Careful! As you will see, war won't be totally "redundant" even at Demeter. Moreover, CONFLICTS will remain a part of human life. Poul Anderson imagined the possibility of there being "post scarcity" economies, but he did not believe conflicts would simply disappear.
Sean
Sean,
I argue from what I think are the logical implications of this passage. We do not fight for the air that we breathe and would not have to fight for the products of nanotech if the planet were glutted with them.
I know that the Lunarians get up to some mischief at Alpha Centauri as is their "nature," so they tell us.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And humans often fight or merely have conflicts about IDEAS, rather than about material things. I simply don't think conflict or war will disappear as easily as you might prefer to hope.
Sean
Sean,
I think that ideological conflicts reflect and express material conflicts, e.g., Jihadists and Crusaders wanted empire, loot and booty, not just a place in Heaven.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But IDEAS and beliefs and hopes can drive and motivate physically expressed conflicts. Or simply a desire for POWER will also drive conflicts. I don't believe a post scarcity economy will somehow eliminate conflicts.
Heck, even a chess game is a conflict, in which two opposing players strive to gain the mastery. And so on for other games and sports.
Sean
Sean,
Oh yes, competitive sport should continue. There is the pleasure of winning or the pleasure of knowing that the game is possible only because two sides play by the rules.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And we see that in GENESIS, competitive sports and arts. So strongly expressed that that they became conflicts. Even political conflicts.
Sean
Sean,
Yes, because the participants had nothing better to do.
My friends, the cricketers of the Bentham Grammar School Association, stopped playing against one team because its members disputed umpire's decisions as if winning were more important than enjoying the game. What was the point? "If you want it that badly, you can have it!"
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The characters in that part of GENESIS which we are referring to had "nothing better" to do because the AI which had come to de facto control the world had gradually deprived humans of all real power. Quarrels about competitive sports and arts had become the last real objects arousing passions in humans. And once the AI's intervention had prevented the humans from even quarreling about such things, competitive sports and arts would begin to decline. The ennui, frustration, boredom, and despair this caused led to the race's extinction.
All this leads me to think that passionate intensity and the energy that generates is an important part of what makes humans to BE human. And that we need this kind of fierce energy and passion for human creativity, even if that too often takes regrettable forms, such as wars. Anderson would have added that sometimes a war is necessary, if that was what it took to resist or defeat a greater evil.
Sean
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