highlights one of the problems in the Polesotechnic League, unscrupulous traders selling spaceships and atomic weapons to barbarians;
gives us a glimpse of how Nicholas van Rijn appears to the general public when his answer to a question in a telescreen interview is quoted.
Thus, the Technic History coheres, probably more than any other long sf series.
After tomorrow, I will be away from Lancaster until a week on Sunday.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Compared to what Nicholas van Rijn would do to them, the bandits in "A Little Knowledge" would do well NOT to fall into his hands! The irresponsible giving of advanced technology and its military possibilities was NOT one of the things Old Nick would do!
Sean
Here's another area I would like to more thoroughly discuss:
It seems that that individuals/organizations have access to tech that either are WMDs or could be weaponized to be such If such parties had few scruples about selling such to potentially hostile aliens, then I doubt they'd have objections about selling them to potentially hostile elements close to home. It wouldn't have to be nuclear weapons:
let's suppose that gravity generators which allow ships to furiously accelerate cost $100k/piece. The "bad guys" attach a 1-ton sand bag to it and boost it up to 0.01 c- 3km/s. You now have the equivalent of a cheap 1 MT H-bomb (http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/08/space-warfare-vi-kinetics-part-1.html), which you can set off until your grav generator breaks, the power supply runs down, you run out of sand/bags, or they catch you. ".... you will also be giving every space fleet, astromilitary, corrupt corporation, James Bond Villain and little Jimmy in his garage lab access to civilization-destroying relativistic weapons (http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/reactionlessdrive.php)
There should be some protocols for what gets sold to whom,- nothing too far advanced above the existing tech level, with careful prior analyses of potential side-effects.
Here are a couple of examples of what SHOULDN'T be done:
During the early League Era, a number of the Shalmuan societies suffer from a disease which routinely kills 40% of the the children in a rather gruesome, hemorrhagic fever type of way. At the behest of a joint mission from the government of Esperance and the Galilean Order, Planetary Biologicals is given a contract to come up with a cure.
P B does so rather quickly, and provides it to the mission at a reasonable price. (P B incorporates this as part of a major PR/ad campaign in the Commonwealth, but that's irrelevant here...) The treatment is quickly and successfully distributed to the Shalmuans who, while being less pushy on average than humans, are also less resistant to change. The child mortality rate plummets, and there is a population explosion. After a few Shalmuan generations, famine, new diseases, and environmental collapse cause the population to crash far below the pre-treatment level...
As another example:
In the Cyberpunk "Islands in the Net" Bruce Sterling talks about the effect of cheap ceramic machetes with fractal blades being introduced. IMSM, poor peasants went into rain forests in search of farmlands, and were able to quickly and easily cut down trees with the blades, so massive deforestation occurred.
What do you think?
-kh
Kaor, Keith!
Still trying to track down comments I missed.
As for what to do about the irresponsible use or distribution of modern weapons, I don't know what can be done to truly stop that beyond attempts to do background checks on the customers of legitimate weapons dealers. And neither such checks or the banning of the legal possession of such weapons by law abiding persons (which I would oppose), would do anything to stop either criminals from obtaining such weapons or a black market in them.
Sean
And, assuming both a FTL drive and the rise of an interstellar civilization, I don't think it would be POSSIBLE to prevent all abuses of modern tech by irresponsible or criminal persons. See, for example, the pirate nation of the "Addercops" in "Hiding Place." Albeit, once the League became aware of the location of the Addercop planet, a few of its naval ships were sufficient to break it. Poul Anderson was admirably thorough and realistic us the dark side of Technic civilization as well as its better side.
One reason why I disagree with the hypothetical you proposed about the Shalmuans is because I believe your scenario underestimates the intelligence of that race. From what I recall, Shalmuan seem to be more thoughtful and less quarrelsome than human beings. So, if a well meant medical intervention by non-Shalmuans aborted a plague from decimating that race, my impression or view is that they would be able to see the possible bad consequences of an excessive increase in their numbers. I believe population would not increase beyond the "carrying capacity" of the level of technology they had reached.
I am not familiar with Bruce Sterling's ISLANDS IN THE NET, so I can't really comment about it. But I do wonder such land hungry peasants would use MACHETES for cutting down trees? Axes and saws of all kinds would be more practical. I do agree on the necessity and desirability of preventing the excessive destruction of rain forests.
Thank you, Sean. I'm not talking about personal weapons (previously discussed) about WMDs-
do you believe individuals and organizations have the right to posses those?
Based on what I've read on hard SF sites like http://toughsf.blogspot.com, http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/, and http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/) anything that cab be boostd to 3km+ second is equivalent to its weight in TNT and will be carefully monitored- we live in a post-911 world with asymetrical warfare. If you want to read a detailed analysis of possible spwace piracy: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2018/01/piracy-in-space-is-possible-part-i.html#more, http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2018/03/piracy-in-space-is-possible-part-ii.html.
The author even addresses the Mirkheim-style corporate raiding:
"There is also a type of pirate that is a criminal, but has nothing to fear from the authorities: the corporate raider.
The East India Company practically had its own military, and its rule was law.
Corporation in space will compete at every level for control of the markets. This competition can spill over into illegal activities, such as attacking competitors' spaceships and raiding their commerce to ruin reputations or steal sensitive information. Between the enormity of space and the amount of money corporations have on hand to spend on bribes, a lot of these illegal activities can be hidden.
In short, these corporations can hire off-the-book crews to acts as pirates that attack only the spaceships of their competitors. They will be protected from the consequences if they follow these rules, but left to the authorities if they breach the terms of their contract.
A competitor might be frustrated by police and military inaction, and might decide to take matters in its own hands by hiring its own pirates and pirate-hunters. There is even less of a chance that military forces intervene in 'red on red' conflict, even if it escalates into corporate warfare.
The main difference between corporate warfare and true piracy is that the corporate pirates are unlikely to gain any money by ransoming their victims, as the corporations have nothing to lose from writing off their responsibilities, and are unlikely to target major settlements by using spaceships as WMDs, as this will draw in attention from the authorities that cannot be bribed away."
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My examples are hypotheticals and examples of situations where good actions lead to negative consequences I used them to illustrate my point.
1) Shalmuans- I think there is a "halo effect" operating here- just because Shalmuans may be more easygoing than we are that doesn't imply they are also better at foreseeing/dealing with difficult problems. WE can anticipate climate change but so far have done very little to minimize it.
2) "Islands in the Net" is a major work of Cyberpunk- it takes place in 2023.. The ceramic machete lets people cut through tress as easily as cutting through loaves of breads, so they don't need the axes, saws, and great deal of work, so they're able to cut down trees much more quickly and easily. IMHO, if the banks had gone down in 2008, we'd be living in a Cyberpunk timeline today, and not this strange Phillip K. Dickian one we're in now...
Best to You,
-kh
Kaor, Keith!
Do I think INDIVIDUALS should own weapons of mass destruction? Briefly: No. It gets more complicated when it comes to organizations like the Polesotechnic League. In the heyday of the League, up to at least SATAN'S WORLD, my view is that it was all right for the League to have a Navy. Think, there were many independent worlds, and none of them could police the area covered by Technic Civilization. Only the League, a loose consortium of private corporations, had anything like a Navy. And that was only large enough, really, for action against pirates like the Addercops.
I barely know more than the bare term "corporate raider," so I feel unable to comment. Except this, if all the raider does is buy shares in a company whose stock is plunging because of a panic in the markets, I see nothing wrong in that. it's his risk if he wants to speculate.
You mentioned the East India Company. A better analogy, and one thought of by Poul Anderson himself, was the Hanseatic League, a confederacy of mercantile city states mostly in the Holy Roman Empire. Besides trading fleets, the Hansa cities also fought wars and made treaties. But the Polesotechnic League was not quite like that. It was a consortium of private companies operating in interstellar space, where no state, in its time, claimed suzerainty over Technic space. But it made no claims to being a state. It's Navy was always small and used against pirates.
The East India Company began as an ordinary trading/exporting/importing company. If my memory is correct, the Charter it received from the Crown, plus legislation by Parliament, allowed the Company to arm its ships. Not only against the pirates to be found in dangerous waters, but also for taking part in the wars against France or Spain when Britain was at war with those countries.
Yes, the East India Company came to dominate India. But that was because the decay of the Mughal Empire after about 1705 led to more and more chaos within the collapsing empire. To defend its interests and "factories," the Company gradually gained an army, which came to be used to conquer parts of India, because of the Mughal Empire's collapse.
But I don't agree with what you said about the criminal activities of the East India Company. As it more and more came to be the actual ruler of the northern half of India, it also came more and more within the scrutiny of the British Crown and Parliament. And this led from time to time to Parliament investigating complaints made about the Company's activities in India. A famous example being Parliament's impeaching and trial of Warren Hastings, a governor general of India for the Company.
I have to disagree with what you said about the Shalmuans, because nothing in our only sources, Anderson's texts, bears out your hypothetical.
I'm still dubious about CERAMIC machetes, which I've never heard of before you mentioned them. And I can only repeat I agree it would be bad to log off to much of the rain forests.
Sean
Thank you Sean. IF WMDs arent tightly controlled, they will fall into the hands of the unscrupulous- we've been very fortunate these 70+ years that nuclear weapons haven't fallen in to the hands of such.
If you believe that governments should be very limited in its scope and powers, and no/few such limits apply to companies, how can companies be prevented from doing unscrupiulous activities, such as the EIC's involvement in the slave trade and the Opium Wars?
Please cite successful current or historical examples where business self-regulation has successfully kept a market free (competive) and fair (societally beneficial), ideally for extended time-periods.
If (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100/) is to be believed, for much of its history the EIC was more powerful than the British government, and was able to get the British governemtn to do its bidding...
IMHO, powerful companies don't wish to be ignored by/ignore government, they wish to become the government or control the government, because the government is a another center of power and control and many companies don't just seek money, they want power and control, too. ON may not have wanted to force his will on others, but there are lots of CEOs who do... Can you cite a recent example where companies (without governments) stopped a rogue CEO like Bayard Story? What (do you imagine would the League have done) to stop the "banksters" who led to the Financial Collapse of 2008?
Cheers
Kaor, Keith!
But weapons of mass destruction HAVE fallen into unscrupulous and dangerous hands. Think North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan (esp. if jihadist sympathizers open take control in Islamabad).
The best way for companies not to become dangerously unscrupulous is for a multiplicity of rival companies offering similar goods and services. And to prevent the natural tendency of anybody, including the leaders of companies, to game gov'ts in their own self interest. Again, competition from many rivals would tend to cancel out such attempts.
No, I can't think of any company which was led by a man like Bayard Story, except George Soros, a left wing billionaire not shy about using his wealth trying to advance leftist goals in the US. Not much can be done about Soros as long as he remains within the law.
As for the crash of 2008-09, that was largely caused by foolish gov't policies interfering with the market. Forcing banks to give loans to people who were not likely to be able or willing to repay them was beyond stupid. And the increasingly desperate attempts of the banks to limit the losses they faced from these sub prime loans had to end as they did, in a crash.
There was nothing quite like that in MIRKHEIM. So I don't consider that book very relevant to the 2008 crash, except: the dangers and problems caused by cartelization, for whatever reason or cause.
Sean
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