I use hearing aids which I hide behind shoulder length hair. Nicholas van Rijn's ringlets sometimes hide a button-sized:
"...transistorized sound amplifier, patterned after hearing aids from the period before regenerative techniques were developed." (p. 188)
- useful for eavesdropping.
That pre-regenerative techniques period is our period! It is good to find a link, however small, back from van Rijn's period to ours. However, I do not expect our future to be anything like his present. Astronomers are now finding evidence of what might be Dyson spheres around nearby stars. If this is verified, then it will differ from the interstellar situation described in Anderson's Technic History but I will be happy then to know that humanity is not solely responsible for passing the lights of consciousness, intelligence and civilization into the future.
Imagine if we are called to account at some time in the not too distant future:
22 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
As you sort of implied, I am not so confident non-humans with advanced technology will be all that much better than us! Not if they are as innately flawed and imperfect as all humans are.
And, short of something like China or a Napoleon type conquering the world, I believe the most tolerable form of unification we can hope for is an Anglosphere, an alliance of English speaking nations evolving to become something like the Solar Commonwealth.
I once saw a picture of you, when you were posing as a butler. Your hair was cut short at that time.
Regenerative techniques capable of correcting bad hearing would be great, but I don't expect that to be practical in our lifetimes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Where is the innate flaw? We are capable of understanding and changing ourselves.
I also allowed for the possibility that other intelligent species are not much better than us.
Arthur C. Clarke argued somewhere a long time ago that a species with very advanced technology must have overcome its social conflicts and problems by now because otherwise it would have destroyed itself long ago. Certainly a Dyson sphere would require a high degree of cooperation with no one trying to channel any of that stellar energy into destructive
purposes.
We might also find evidence of destroyed worlds where a species polluted its own environment or committed MAD.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Both Stirling and I have repeatedly listed the qualities showing how innately flawed all humans are.
I disagree with Sir Arthur because he should have considered another possibility: a quarrelsome and bellicose species could have exercised enough self restraint to avoid wiping itself out.
Mankind might also destroy itself, I agree, as Anderson speculated in works like "Murphy's Hall" and "In Memoriam."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree that we have those qualities but do not agree that anything is innate. We did not exist. We began to exist. If the qualities of non-linguistic animals were "innate" and unchangeable, then we could not have come onto existence.
When we have organized our material environment properly - and we urgently need to do that -, then there will be the opportunity for more people to address inner/psychological/spiritual issues.
Paul.
BTW, I have got the point that hunter-gatherer instincts are still with us in a technological society but this is not an unchangeable Fallen depraved sinful human nature. It is an aspect of our genetic inheritance that we can understand and do something about. There are many people who are prepared to cooperate for the common good. We can encourage positive behaviour and discourage negative behaviour. And nothing lasts forever. It might just last longer than we had expected.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we are going to have to agree to disagree, because I believe all humans are innately flawed and imperfect. And the propensities leading to how our flaws are "expressed" are not going to be eliminated.
And I will oppose the kinds of "organization" you prefer: socialism and "common ownership of everything," both of which are bloodily failed impossibilities. I'm sticking with free enterprise economics and the limited state, in whatever form.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But socialism has not been tried many times. Mankind is not unchangeably flawed and is perfectible.
How can there or why should there be free enterprise when there is technologically produced abundant wealth? No one will any longer need to warehouse it and distribute it in exchange for money.
I keep showing how very different conditions can make crime redundant:
no food riots if not food shortages;
no bank robberies if no banks;
no wars if no weapons or territorial divisions;
no theft if everyone has instant, equal access to abundant wealth;
anyone who for no reason whatsoever wants to attack his neighbour will be restrained and offered psychological help.
Paul.
Paul: we already have no food shortages of any magnitude in the developed world.
As for no wars if no weapons, human beings -produce- weapons -for- wars, not vice versa.
And humans are inherently territorial, like any other social carnivore. That's coded into our DNA, like tribalism.
If deprived of anything else, people will kill each other over football teams.
Kaor, Paul!
Stirling replied better than I would have. I'll touch on a different point.
Socialism has been tried many times since the monstrous Lenin seized power in Russia in 1917. Every single Marxist regime has tried socialism, using the state to incompetently plan and produce/distribute all the goods and services of an economy thru huge bureaucracies. And all such attempts have failed in every single Marxist regime.
It's no use saying this is not socialism. I am sticking with the true, historically verified facts of what socialism actually is, not what you wish it was.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I do say that mere bureaucracy is not socialism. By the latter, I mean cooperative and democratic control of production for need, not competitive control for profit. Economic competition for profit becomes redundant when wealth becomes abundant instead of scarce. The present competition for oil and the massive expenditure on instruments of destruction are holding humanity back. Think of what the productive capacities of technology could accomplish - and, hopefully, will.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
What you hope for is sheer Utopian unrealism. You can't even determine what needs to be produced except thru the signals given thru economic competition.
We have massive production of armaments because human beings are quarrelsome and aggressive, meaning there is a demand for them. Not the other way about!
Half a century ago a start was being made in replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power. But then leftists took it into their heads to fanatically oppose it. Meaning we still depend on fossil fuels. People you favor are responsible for our situation.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
What I hope for is what will have to come about sooner or later with advanced technology if we do not destroy ourselves first.
People will discuss and decide what is to be produced. Why should there be competition for resources or profits when there is more than enough for everyone? Competition becomes redundant.
"Leftists" are responsible for everything bad? No. It is not leftists that control the world. Nor should a small group of leftists try to take control, either. "Leftism" is about an end to minority control.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
On this matter, fanatically opposing nuclear power, yes they are. And leftists can be just as power hungry as anyone else.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Leftists, as individuals and as groups, can certainly be power hungry. There is something better in some of them.
Do we not all sound "fanatical" in exchanges like this? I do not understand the technicalities about the pros and cons of nuclear power. I have read about it, of course. I want governments and large organizations to take the best scientific advice and then to act urgently on the climate crisis, whether or not this involves a return to nuclear.
Paul.
From Sean M. Brooks:
Kaor, Paul!
The technical and scientific work has been done. What is holding up making proper use of nuclear power is, , political opposition--mostly from leftists.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The work has been done and the experts disagree. That is the reality. You can choose to opt for one set of experts and believe them. But they continue to disagree.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I favor those who want to go ahead and use nuclear power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sure. But this needs to be sorted out and quickly.
Kaor, Paul!
And that is going to require lengthy political action.
Ad astra! Sean
Certainly. But there is also a lot of urgency as well.
Kaor, Paul!
Anti-nuclear fanatics will urgently try to stop nuclear power, up to and including vandalism, even terrorism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
OK. Let's just give up then.
Paul.
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