In Isaac Asimov's future history, the secret Second Foundation restores Seldon's psychohistorical Plan after it has been derailed by an unpredictable individual mutant. More plausibly, in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the Psychotechnic Institute is overwhelmed simply by social complexity and there is no hidden "Second Institute." On the contrary, the outlawed Institute becomes a fanatical cabal that has to be prevented from forcibly regaining power. However, psychotechnic science continues.
In Anderson's Technic History, although Flandry defeats individual enemies, the Long Night remains inevitable. In the Psychotechnic History, the Un-man and the Sensitive Man have defeated particular manifestations of the protean enemy which, however, will bring two more Dark Ages and two or more interstellar empires. History is up and down or has been till now.
2 comments:
Human institutions -- at least since the Neolithic -- tend to expand until they collapse under their own weight.
The problem is that while humans are behaviorally flexible, we're also designed for a small-scale, face-to-face society.
The more you stretch the net of interaction, the more prone it is to systemic collapse.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Which is why I believe decentralized States, under whatever form, are vastly preferable to tightly centralized gov's. Unfortunately, too many in the US, usually Democrats, prefer the latter, not the former.
Ad astra! Sean
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