Some Anderson fans might be interested in the issues addressed by CenSAMM.
(In Buddhist terminology: Maitreya, come soon!)
Sunday, 5 May 2024
Millenarianism
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Some Anderson fans might be interested in the issues addressed by CenSAMM.
(In Buddhist terminology: Maitreya, come soon!)
34 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I hope CenSAAM pays some attention to the threat of Shia Elevener millenarianism, the ruling ideology of the Iranian theocracy. Some in Tehran just might be crazy enough to attempt triggering a millenarian jihad. Then all bets are off!
I agree, Anderson's THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN gives us a better science fictional treatment of millenarianism than in Herbert's books. Can't comment about the DUNE movies, not having seen them--except the bits in trailers.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am sure that Muslim millenarianism is on the current agenda! There are also Christian millenarians who welcome conflict in the Middle East as presaging their salvation in the Rapture.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that kind of impatient joggling of God's elbow never amounted to much in the Catholic Church, where the Magisterium/Tradition/Hierarchy prevent such people from gaining much, if any, influence. And, even among evangelical Protestants I don't think the Rapture types amount to much.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Might some of them back policies that increase tension in the Middle East?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Mere support for Israel does not necessarily have to "increase tensions." Don't forget how even some Sunni Muslim states like Jordan and Saudi Arabia are tacit allies of Israel, because of how they too hate and fear the Shia theocracy in Iran. The real world is complex!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I know it is complex! I know there are more than two sides! But, if someone thinks conflict is a good thing and if he has the ability to increase conflict, then he might do it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That can happen, if some crazed fanatics in Tehran triggers a jihad.
Ad astra! Sean
Or someone in the US as well, surely?
Kaor, Paul!
That's more likely to happen from a Shia fanatic hopped up on Elevener millenarianism.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I took a look at the Survivalist link at the CenSAAM website and I noticed the mention of the Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age Theosophist sect. Very Stirlingian!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well, I am not talking about which is more likely.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I am. Who is threatening or menacing all their neighbors in the Mid East? Who is arming terrorists like Hamas, Hezbullah, the Houthis, etc.? Who is working day and night to get their hands on nuclear weapons? Answer: the Shia theocracy in Iran!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There are American Rapturists who think that conflict in the Middle East brings Armageddon closer.
Those who try to get nuclear weapons are following the example of others. It is a scandal that all such weapons are not being dismantled and banned now.
Paul.
I would like to see more of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
Especially using bomb grade plutonium in nuclear reactors to generate electricity.
This would result in the residual plutonium having more Pu240 and less Pu239 so it becomes somewhere between more difficult & impossible to use it for a bomb. Even if used in a breeder reactor which produces as much or plutonium as it fissions the resulting plutonium would have enough Pu240 to make it impractical for bomb use.
Somewhere in "The Doomsday Machine-Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg, it is stated that anyone rational enough to be deterred by the threat of nuclear weapons would be deterred by far fewer than major powers have, somewhere between 10 & 100 IIRC.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: And I don't take these Rapture types among US evangelical Protestants very seriously. I've never heard of any of them having political ambitions and running for office. While the Shias, from their very beginning, have been political minded!
Would be great powers want nuclear weapons because that is a powerful "force multiplier." The only realistic way to do anything like what you desire would be for a world state to arise and monopolize nukes. Good luck on that happening any time soon!
Jim: I like your suggestions about nuclear power. And I think the US did reduce how many nukes it has after the disintegration of the unlamented USSR.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We have to pressure existing governments to do away with nuclear weapons now. I do not say that this will happen quickly or easily but I do say that it is what we should do.
I think the Rapturists can fund policies which they see as increasing tension.
Paul.
Paul: why do you think there has been no World War since 1945?
The answer is simple: nuclear weapons.
'Tis the Peace of the Mushroom Cloud.
To start a war, you have to have some prospect of victory -- even if your reasoning is warped by wishful thinking.
Eg., the Japanese, when they attacked the US in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, were counting on Germany to tie down the bulk of US and British power after disposing of the USSR.
That turned out to be a serious miscalculation -- but it was a rational calculation.
If the only possible result of a war is your own destruction, the calculus becomes very different.
So abolishing nuclear weapons would re-start the cycle of the World Wars... except that everyone would know that nukes were possible, so pretty soon they'd be back.
I agree about nuclear deterrence.
I have been worried recently that the powers that be might after all wage a replay of World War II while continuing to agree to keep nukes out of it! Dangerous, of course, but how much are they capable of?
A global system that would restart a cycle of World Wars, even after the lessons of the first two, if not for nuclear deterrence is certainly a bad world system that needs to be replaced by something better.
Paul: let's put it this way.
If Hitler could have taken the world down to destruction with him, would he have hesitated? Or the men running Japan in 1945? Seppuku was their guiding light.
You can't have a war with -decisive results- against someone who can 'do a Samson' and pull everything down on you.
As Hitler said, "If we fail we shall take a world with us -- a world in flames."
If he could have, he'd have done it.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Again, I agree with Stirling and not you. You keep talking about wishing for something better--and I did propose some time ago something like the "Anglosphere" could be a start in that direction. An alliance of English speaking nations might expand to include other nations sharing some of their values. That alliance could be powerful enough to keep at bay ambitious aggressors like Russia, China, Iran, etc. Start with something that might be realistic, not some dreamy impossibility!
Mr. Stirling: I have thought one of Hitler's worse mistakes was declaring war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor. He should have let an infuriated US focus on Japan alone, even if it was likely America would also go to war with Germany soon. Why provoke the US to sending forces to Europe too soon? I recall reading of how Churchill dreaded exactly that would happen!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
English speakers against Russia, China, Iran etc is not a way forward. It is what we have now! Are English speakers not ambitious aggressors?
To show how technology can be used to change social relationships is not to engage in a dreamy impossibility. Technology can produce enough wealth to change economic relationships fundamentally.
Paul.
Again. Not certain but possible: technologically produced wealth becomes as abundant and free as air. An end to: the struggle for existence; competition for resources, profits or employment; the employer-employee relationship; money as a medium of exchange; stock markets; "theft," first as an act, then even as a concept. No longer any need for: warehouses protected by security guards; an apparatus of laws, police, courts, prisons, weapons or armed forces either to protect "property" or to prevent/perpetrate violence; economic "free enterprise" by individuals. Instead, collective and individual freedom. A transitional generation needing psychological adjustments. Subsequent generations not having to struggle to eat but instead enjoying life, satisfying their curiosity and engaging in activities ranging from merely pleasurable to profoundly meaningful. Thus, a big change in people but because of a transformation of their conditions, not because of some inexplicable inner metamorphosis.
Paul: English-speakers are not ambitious aggressors -now-.
They're just defending the position their ancestors won.
Russia, China and Iran are trying to upset the status quo.
My general approach to such situations is: "Touch what's ours, and we'll exterminate you."
And if they touch it, do it. That will discourage the next lot.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: The problem is that you are making a cardinal error, assuming that a post scarcity economy will make mankind so universally rich, prosperous, comfortable, etc., that humans will have no need to be ambitious, competitive, aggressive, etc. Iow, all we need is more bread and then all of us will be happy, content, peaceful. I say no, it will not be that simple. As a certain Person once said to the Enemy of mankind urging Him to turn stones into bread: "But he answered and said, "It is written, 'Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.' "
Iow, humans need more than simply material things! People need to believe in bigger or better things than bread. That can take many forms, including being employed and taking satisfaction in one's job. Or striving to found a successful business. Competing with oter artists and writers in the arts. Or even seeking to rise in politics and win public office!
Anderson examined what might happen assuming a post scarcity economy as long ago as "Quixote and the Windmill" and in massive detail in the HARVEST OF STARS books and GENESIS, and came to a negative conclusion about them. Wealth and peace simply wasn't enough, without something to believe in, or to strive for, humans would fall prey to frustration, ennui, boredom, despair, etc. And soon enough all the worst passions, vices, and follies of mankind bursts out. Or, if that was somehow suppressed, the human race might give up on life and die out.
I don't believe what you hope for is doable or desirable.
Mr. Stirling: Absolutely! While I would not go so far as to exterminate the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, they should be smashed if they try to destroy us.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
This is crazy. I certainly believe that man does not live by bread alone. I argue only that liberation from drudgery, toil, deprivation and exploitation will remove all obstacles and will give everyone the opportunity to find and develop something worth living for. Some will succeed in that. Others will not. That is why I have said that there will be a transitional generation. Of course there will be a period when everything has changed and when many people do not (yet) know what to do next. Smooth transitions do not happen, at least not on that scale.
I believe that what I hope for is both doable and desirable and also the only hope for the future of mankind.
Paul.
Being employed and founding a business WERE ways of finding meaning although certainly not everyone employed by someone else has found that a meaningful or fulfilling experience! Writers and artists do not need to compete against each other. Our imaginations are limited. We think about activities previously engaged in. There are many more possibilities. Science fiction should help us in realizing that.
Again, I can enjoy and appreciate Poul Anderson's works without always agreeing with them.
Something is wrong with this exchange. I feel that I am consistently misunderstood and must endlessly repeat a point. I hope that it is possible to move a discussion forward.
Kaor, Paul!
I know you have repeatedly argued that somehow abolishing "...drudgery, toil, deprivation and exploitation will remove all obstacles and will give everyone the opportunity to find and develop something worth living for." But that begs many questions which I don't believe you can answer: how and why should it? As yet we don't have the kind of post scarcity economy that could give everyone a decent income via "citizen's credit." And I believe that would require getting off Earth and exploiting the resources of space and the Solar System. And, even assuming that, why should it? Most of the human race, including me, are not geniuses. Most, frankly, will be of very ordinary mental/intellectual capabilities, more like the unemployed technician and skilled manual worker in "Quixote" who lost their jobs because of no longer being needed. I do not believe most of the human race has any interest in being intellectuals, aesthetes, etc. Most likely many, many will sink into despondency, ennui, despair--seeking relief in drink and drugs. Or turn to violent, radical political movements.
That "transitional generation" is more likely to last for generations and full of frustrated people with nothing to do that interests them! The best long term hope for the human race is to open up new frontiers and get off Earth.
And founding new businesses of all kinds has been one of the biggest drivers of technological advances. For that you need competition.
Artists and writers certainly do compete. They have to compete to sell their works to galleries, publishers, customers, etc. They do compete against each other.
Science fiction can speculate about possibilities, and only that. The best SF strives as well to be realistic, as in the works of Anderson and Stirling.
I don't think Stirling and I misunderstand you--we simply don't believe you to be right.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You generalize from people as they have been in the past and are in the present, not as they can be in completely different circumstances.
The "misunderstanding" was in apparently thinking that I thought that mere wealth and comfort alone would work a miraculous psychological transformation.
You don't have to be a creative genius to benefit from improved environmental conditions. If your conclusion becomes that, technological advances notwithstanding, we should preserve forever an economic system in which the majority has to be employed by a minority in order to earn a living, then I can only disagree profoundly. We have not got production of abundance yet because so much production is being wasted on instruments of destruction.
Competition is not inherent in artistic creativity but, of course, in a market economy artists and writers must compete. Circular argument.
Of course sf can only speculate! But it should make us aware or possibilities. I think that I am being realistic in saying that everything changes, profound changes have already happened and that we stand on the threshold of even greater changes if we don't hold ourselves back.
Paul.
There is no "somehow" about it. I have tried to spell it out. Enough food for everyone, no food riots. Enough houses for everyone, no blaming of homelessness on immigrants. A culture of acceptance and tolerance, no racism. Equal treatment of men and women, no need for a women's rights movement. No manufacture of weapons, no use of weapons! We can go through a whole list of seeing what the cause of the problem is and then seeing how to eliminate the cause. But preserving the current status quo at all costs means indefinitely perpetuating all the problems.
Kaor, Paul!
I "generalize" as I do because actual, real history and experience is the only evidence we have--and it contradicts what I have to consider your unrealistic Utopian hopes.
I believe that "misunderstanding" a reasonable inference from what you've said.
Yes, I believe free enterprise economics to be the system the most practical for mankind. Nothing I've seen in real history or people who think as you do convinces me otherwise.
Incorrect, competition is an inherent part of creative genius. You have to convince others of the value of your work, instead of somebody else's work. Again, I prefer the evidence given by real history.
No argument, good SF makes us aware of many possibilities, both plausible and implausible. I believe the most desirable change is mankind getting off Earth.
Your last comment still boils down to saying all we need is plenty of bread and we will then be capable of developing in better ways. I don't buy that, our innate and permanent flaws will not be gotten rid of so easily.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It was not. And thinking that I needed to be told that "man does not live by bread alone" was definitely a misunderstanding.
Free enterprise will be made redundant by the production of abundance. People will be able to things other than just surviving/earning a living.
Incorrect. Someone creating without an economic motive does not have to convince anyone of the value of his work.
We have the evidence that things change and that we are producing the capacity for an entirely different way of life.
I do not say that all we need is plenty of bread. I do say that eliminating poverty and economic compulsion will make a very big difference. We do not have innate or permanent flaws. We have flaws that we can address.
Every time we have said everything that we have to say on this issue, we say it all again. The object of the exercise cannot possibly for either of us to persuade the other to change his mind and repetition ceases to be informative so is there any point?
Paul.
do
Post a Comment