"'Earth could send warheads that'd blow the whole asteroid to gravel, if Earth had to.'
"'If Earth had to, 'Kenmuir repeated. 'Why should it?'" (p. 454)
Why indeed? With vast technological wealth and unlimited space, what is left to fight about? See here. Civilizations with incompatible philosophies can simply go their own ways. And I suggest that an sf series could be written about peaceful exploration and discovery without any need to manufacture a continued conflict between control freaks and freedom lovers. Populations enjoying from birth the full benefits of material and social freedom will have neither the means nor the motivation to revive the old practice of imposing their will or ideas on others by force. We should not project unchanged attitudes into radically transformed conditions.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Here I admit to feeling just a bit frustrated by what seems naivete on your part. Peoples, nations, civilizations, etc., DON'T need rational reasons for conflicts or wars. The mere existence of people with opposing ideas and beliefs can, has, and will make some nations feel threatened. And can actually be threats if those ideas and beliefs undermines their own. And of course sheer ambition and the desire for power and dominion will also cause conflicts. Esp. when rising powers challenges older, established ones.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that you are naive to think that nations, powers, ambitions and desire for power will last forever. There can be a society where all those things are history. Mere differences of belief certainly don't threaten anyone. Everyone in town attends their chosen place of worship or none and then gets on with the rest of their lives.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree. NOTHING in past, current, or likely foreseeable events extending into even the remote future makes me think ambitions, rivalries, conflicts, and wars, etc., between individuals, peoples, nations, cultures, etc., will ever cease. The situation you described is only possible because those who don't want to live in peace with people disagree with them are not able to impose their fanaticism on others. And, EVEN SO, we still have lone wolf jihadists who perpetrate atrocities from time to time. I needn't bore you with the long list of such crimes, both in the UK and the US.
Ad astra! Sean
If something has lasted from the earliest times we can know anything about to the present, and is present in all the multifarious variety of human societies, it's probably going to last as long as there are human beings.
Because it's almost certainly instinctual -sensu strictu-.
PS: Paul, you're assuming that a religion is something you do one day a week in a special building, rather like a stamp-collecting club.
This is not, to put it mildly, how most people regard it!
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