The opening dialogue of this novel:
"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we my be at war. We may already be.'
"'That's just why I have to go,' the young man answered. 'They're calling Khruaths about it around the curve of the planet. Where else should I fare than to my choth?'" (p. 437)
A member of the human community wonders what his Parliament is doing about the threat of war whereas a member of a choth attends an open mass meeting that will discuss and decide on action. The choth sounds better! And should we not be "...calling Khruaths...around the curve of the planet..." now about the current threat to our planet?
Lesser differences: when Chris speaks about choths and Khruaths, his accent changes and he sounds as if he is translating from Planha.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree, because Ythrian style Khruaths simply would not WORK for humans. Anderson himself mentioned that idea, using the USSR as an example, but dismissed it because of how the USSR, and others like it, had failed BLOODILY. Enough, no more of such impossible fantasies!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But our present systems are not WORKING to save the planet. That has to be said before anything else.
People are not used to attending meetings that decide anything important. To get them used to that requires a culture change but human beings can do culture change especially when there is a lot of necessity and urgency involved.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Khruaths are basically committees of the whole. And large, complex human societies simply cannot be governed like that. I guarantee that all you will get is endless debate and wrangling. Kings, presidents, PMs, parliaments, congresses, etc., might not appeal to you, but they WORK, more or less creakily, because they conform to what HUMAN beings actually are.
So I dismiss impossibilities like khruaths.
Ad astra!
Sean,
But they are not working right now as regards the climate crisis. The crisis affects us all but most of us are powerless to do anything about it. That is very wrong. Two questions: (i) What is to be done? (You have given yours answers to that.) (ii) How can what needs to be done be made to happen? (Will people endlessly wrangle even in the face of extinction?)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That powerlessness might be wrong, but it's also what most HUMAN beings seem willing to accept, most of the time. And many, many don't even bother to vote.
As for your second question, I don't think anything will be done rapidly. Either by an alliance of the more powerful nations or by some Napoleon type conquering the world. And both would need years to become effective.
No, I suspect the best we can hope for is for Elon Musk to found a lasting colony on Mars, so that something of the human race might survive, if the worst possible outcomes a la "Murphy's Hall" or "In Memoriam" happens.
Ad astra! Sean
Face-to-face democracy works fairly well in a setting like a Kibbutz or a New England town meeting; or to take a fictional example, a Mackenzie dun.
Small-scale meetings mostly discussing local matters with people who all know each other and identify each other as kin or pseudo-kin, with their own networks of mutual respect and knowledge of who knows what.
Now try to imagine running London or New York that way -- or, great Ghu help us, Mexico City.
Or a nation of 334 million people spread over 3.5 million square miles.
Despite my enthusiasm for Khruaths and although I do think that democracy can and should be made more representative and participatory than it is at present, I have to agree that Mexico City etc cannot be run on the lines of village meetings.
Imagine: a global emergency; a generally perceived common interest; local mass meetings sending recallable delegates to regional and national representative bodies; communications technology fully utilized not just to report on events but to put localities and regions directly in touch with each other; procedures changing all the time as people find better ways to do things; beyond that, I cannot speculate.
It is different from what we have but we need something different from we have at present.
Kaor, Paul!
And what you wistfully dream is not going to happen, for the simple and plain reason that human being don't and will not think in terms of settling a global crisis by any kind of committees of the whole. Any such attempt will still bog down in endless debate and wrangling.
You are still trying to bring in impossibilities like khruaths!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Whatever else happens, the world will not remain as it is now.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course, and not necessarily in ways you or I would like.
AD astra! Sean
Sean,
"Pessimism of the intellect. Optimism of the will."
That is a good principle because discussions tend to oscillate between "What would be the best possible outcome?" and "What is the most probable outcome?" Two obviously different questions.
Two obvious points about the future: we don't know what will happen and our input can make a difference. By predicting a disaster, we can move to prevent it.
Goethe said (paraphrasing): Theory is grey. Life is green.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except people WILL disagree about the MEANS to be chosen for resolving a problem or problems. So I would oppose, for example, "solutions" demanded by the left.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We will all oppose solutions that we disagree with but there have to be agreed procedures for reaching a practical decision. Sure, we can keep arguing as the boat sinks if we prefer.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And those "procedures" have to be realistic. What you had been advocating, a la Ythrian style khruaths, are impossibilities, applied to human beings. And humans seem to PREFER to wrangle even as the ship sinks!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Realistic, yes, but we can also try to stretch ourselves. People argued against universal suffrage and votes for women.
I can see people wrangling as the ship sinks right now. How many Republicans still buy Trump's lie that that election was stolen from him?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still say NO to impossibilities like khruaths.
I don't care about Trump. And only a minority of Republicans believes that Democrat corruption and cheating was bad enough to steal the 2020 election. Much as I despise the bungling and corrupt "Josip," I believe he won legally.
Ad astra! Sean
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