It would be possible to create a myth of the Fall within the spaceship, the Pioneer. In the beginning, there were only two hundred people with different roles but no social divisions, a common aim and "'...more to do.'" (p. 104) By the time of "The Troublemakers," the population has grown to seven thousand and it is planned that it will be ten thousand on arrival at Alpha Centauri. Meanwhile, there is factionalism, in-fighting and bribery.
Hegelian philosophy: quantitative changes become qualitative. Population increase has caused social deterioration. Psychotechnicians have predicted and planned for precisely such a process. Social conflicts will happen but will not ultimately jeopardize the mission.
But I think that another way is suggested by that phrase, "...more to do." The psychotechnic plan seems to be merely that a human population will be transported to Alpha Centauri. But if that population were kept smaller for longer and if a greater proportion of it members were physicists, astronomers, cosmologists etc, then there would be no end of "more to do" throughout their journey.
Zen meditation is a direction, not a destination, and the same observation should apply to any interstellar expedition.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I am not so sure what you suggested in your last paragraph is realistic, at least for a STL generation ship. Those "physicists, astronomers, cosmologists" would need the socio-economic support of a reasonably large population in order to even exist. Otherwise the scientists would be too busy doing all the other more routine but necessary tasks and jobs a complex society requires to BE scientists. It might even be the case that 7,500 to 10,000 are too few!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Automation would take care of a lot of the support work.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then you might end up with not enough of a population base to run the ship if something goes wrong. To say nothing of not having enough people for a colony at Alpha Centauri.
Ad astra! Sean
And a population comprised of intellectuals would be... as Jerry Pournelle used to say, "Oh, Jesus in the foothills!"
Note the viciousness of academic politics. And the wild swings of ideological fashion to which they're prone.
Like a ship, a population needs ballast.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good points, absolute agreement! I recall William F. Buckley, Jr. once saying he would rather be governed by the first 1000 names taken from the Boston, MA phone directory than by the faculty of Harvard University.
Frankly, I don't trust "intellectuals" in politics!
Ad astra! Sean
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