"...a permanent human presence in space should also yield nearly unlimited economic returns. As solar collectors achieve their full potential out yonder, we should have all the energy we could ever use, free, clean, inexhaustible. We should have abundant raw materials, no longer taken out of the hide of Mother Earth. We should have industries moving to locations where they cannot harm her, and entire new industries coming into existence. We should be able to abolish poverty, if not the other ills that our race keeps visiting upon itself, and abolish poverty not only in America but throughout the world. What this would mean to the spirit is incalculable."
-Poul Anderson, Introduction IN Anderson, Explorations (New York, 1981), pp. 7-11 AT pp. 10-11.
This is the situation on Earth at the end of Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains after the asteroids have been colonized.
Think of the implications:
all the energy we could ever use
free
clean
inexhaustible
abundant raw materials
no more pollution
global abolition of poverty
meaning for the spirit
No longer any need to engage in conflict for energy sources or raw materials. I think that abolition of poverty and its meaning for the spirit would help to end other ills as well. Why resort to fundamentalism or terrorism if you are no longer starved or deprived? Why resent immigrants if they are no longer seen as a threat to your economic well-being?
I do not think that current economic or political power structures would tolerate the abolition of poverty. Surely power aims to maintain the status quo, including existing inequalities? However, the scenario that Anderson describes would be a massive boost to those of us who do want to bring about that kind of change on a world scale.
24 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with what Anderson wrote. But note what he did not say, nothing about any kind of "common ownership" of everything. My belief is that utility companies will be the ones to develop really cheap solar power.
I think you still don't understand, people can and will quarrel about anything. Esp. about ideas that touches their hearts. And they don't need to be poor or starving for that! So, yes, we are going to continue having people like jihadist fanatics.
I believe in the possibility of that enlarging of the human spirit. But it's gong to be quick or smooth. Or likely to last forever, because civilizations will rise and fall.
Ad astra! Sean
Correction: "But it's not going to be quick or smooth."
Sean
Sean,
I do not attribute any ideas of common ownership to Poul Anderson.
I understand what you are saying but disagree with it. People do not quarrel about anything or everything. They very often coexist peacefully without doing that. We will not always have jihadist fanatics. Poverty and starvation obviously are one cause of violence that can be eliminated. So can other causes. Mere difference of belief is not such a cause. Every Sunday on one street in Lancaster, people attend churches of different denominations without attacking each other. The conditions underlying that coexistence can be extended everywhere.
Paul.
Sean,
Well, of course utilities companies will be the ones who develop cheap solar energy because that is how the economy is organized at present but think of the implications of free inexhaustible energy. Who will profit from it then? We have got to look beyond present social structures.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I know, re "common ownership," I was thinking of what you had said, earlier.
I don't understand how you can keep denying that people can and do quarrel/fight about anything when that is simply not true. I can cite real world examples from as recently as the notorious UK "football hooligans" brawling over their games to how the Blue and Green chariot factions rioted about chariot races in the Eastern Empire. Or how Hindus and Muslims periodically massacre each other in India. I could go on and on listing more examples.
You keep repeating how people of widely different beliefs are peaceful in the UK. Good, but that is because a State exists which still has the will to enforce that peace by coercion, when necessary. "Conditions" enhancing that peace are possible only as long as the State exists.
Another very basic principle I should not need to mention is "economies of scale." If circumstances are right many companies get their real, long term profits not from charging high prices for goods and services, but low, even very low prices. I see no reason not to think utilities developing cheap solar energy may well get their real profits selling energy at low prices due to economies of scale. If joint stock, limited liability companies work so well now when allowed to function, why should that change in the future?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And I don't understand how you don't understand that all those conflicts express social alienations and grievances that often do not exist and that can (not inevitably will) be completely transcended in future. You do not need to list examples. I do not deny that those conflicts have existed and unfortunately often still do exist. No wonder - given the general state of the world.
Yes, we keep making the same points to each other. We will have to break off eventually. It is not just the State that prevents Catholics and Baptists from attacking each other on Sunday mornings. Coercion is often not necessary and can be made even less so until it comes to be seen as part of a barbaric past like cannibalism and burning heretics.
You should not need to mention? Please! I always benefit from explanations of economics. Companies may very well continue to function by selling cheap. But Anderson referred to FREE, unlimited energy. That is a qualitatively different proposition: transcendence of free enterprise.
I am willing to keep replying as long as slightly different points are being made but a lot of this is almost word for word repetition of what has been said more than once before. There ceases to be any point to it but sometimes it seems as if you cannot let go of the issue.
Paul.
Also, poverty is relative. Even a. poor person in the 1st world is well-to-do by the standards of several centuries ago. They're even -fatter- than average, which would have been unthinkable in the past -- it was -rich- people who tended to be fat then.
That was me, Steve Stirling, btw. For some reason it's suddenly listing me as 'anonymous'. Which I am not...
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Because whatever it is that makes people feel "alienated" is something which is innate to all human beings, and not going to be eliminated by material prosperity or happy talk. Something to be managed, not "solved."
Many people can be nice, whatever they believe. That does not mean all people will be actually decent--given the chance many of the latter will, like it not, be brutal and nasty. For any reason at all. The existence of the State is what keeps them, sometimes, from going too far.
Then I have to express some disagreement with Anderson. Can any good, resource, or service be truly free? I think even a space based solar power system will have costs: R & D, construction in space, inspection and repair, administrative costs and management, etc. That does not have to mean prices for selling energy needs to be high, only that there are going to be some costs needing to be paid for.
Mr. Stirling: Ha! So you are "Anonymous."
Absolutely, what you said about "poverty." You have to go to places like Haiti for real, grinding poverty. Or Venezuela. And that's usually because a State has collapsed or is collapsing.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Alienation is not innate. It basically comes from having to spend hours per day working at someone else's behest just to survive but it is also caused by social exclusion, discrimination etc. All of these conditions can be eliminated. People can be enabled to engage in work or other activity that is meaningful and fulfilling to them. Then, no alienation. Help humanity to advance. Don't hold them back.
Given the chance, many people are brutal. Of course. We do not need to give them that chance. We need the State now, yes, of course, but not necessarily in the future.
Of course space stations will have costs in the sense that they will require labour to construct and install them but surely we can advance to a stage where so much wealth is produced that it is no longer necessary to use money as a form of exchange, where every single member of society is a shareholder in social production, where it is no longer necessary to limit distribution, where it is not longer necessary to categorize some people as unable to afford to buy what they need. That was an unavoidable stage of economic and technological development that should be relegated to the past along with a lot of other stuff that we don't need now like hereditary monarchies and illiterate or semiliterate unskilled manual labourers. Everyone can be educated to do much more.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I continue to disagree, re "alienation." I believe we are all innately alienated due to Original Sin or because we are imperfectly evolved chimps. We are all innately prone to making mistakes due to our urges, drives, passions, neuroses, etc. A condition to be managed, not "solved."
It follows from that we will continue to need the State, now and into the remote future.
Labor is worth only what people are willing to pay for it. And I believe money will continue to be used even in a post-scarcity economy. Because it is a convenient shorthand. A means of calculating the value of resources and the costs of making use of them.
Nor am I hung up on forms of gov't. I fully expect many different kinds or forms of gov't to exist in the future. What matters is not the form, but whether a particular kind of gov't is believed to be legitimate by its people. And, of course, whether it governs badly or not too badly.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I do not believe in Original Sin. I believe that evolution means that we are products of change. Further, we are a species that survives not by adapting to its environment but by changing its environment, that we have changed ourselves by changing our environment, that changes caused by human beings are accelerating for both good and ill and that we have the potential for unlimited change in an indefinite future - provided that we survive long enough, of course. Why should change in human beings suddenly stop? That at least is impossible. I have asked this recently but some points get lost in the course of an argument. It follows from this that we will not necessarily need the State into the remote future. The remote future will surely be beyond anything we can possibly imagine.
If money in some form continues to be used, then it will be in a completely different form. An individual will not be able to accumulate money as if it was a commodity in its own right and use it to control and direct the work activities of large numbers of other people - so that he can accumulate more money. Everyone will do work that is needed by society and that fulfils him as an individual.
We will not always need forms of government. Communities of mature, self-realizing individuals using advanced technology will be self-governing.
Think outside the box.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It's not good enough to say "think outside the box." We have to go by actual facts and realities. Which is why I don't believe in Utopian dreams and hopes. Speculations of the kind you seem to favor are best left to works of fiction.
We can change our "environment," but only up to a limited point. Humans are going to continue to be quarrelsome, aggressive, competitive, strife prone, etc. Iow, Fallen. I've nothing in real life and real history to convince me otherwise. Again, Chapter Six of Anderson's GENESIS is far more realistic than what you hope for.
I also disbelieve in your speculations about economics. A real economy, no matter how advanced, will still need basics like demand, supply, economies of scale, division of labor, etc., to function. It is the interactions of such principles which determines what work is done. Nor is it wrong for a person with wealth to use his money to either set up a business with employees or hire the services of businesses who have employees.
And I don't believe one bit in your last paragraph! Nothing I've seen makes me believe every single human will be "mature" as you define it. Nor are you allowing for how people can and will disagree and quarrel. So the State will continue to be needed.
I also believe many different religions, with opposing POVs, will continue to exist in the future. Or rival philosophies. Iow, fertile sources for continued disagreement and strife.
We simply can't come to an agreement. Only a clarifying of views.
Ad astra! Sean
Power is inherently unequally distributed.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That seems so obvious to me. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of people: those who covet and actively seek power; and those who don't. I recall you commenting that a stable monarchy could have as head state a man who was not covetous of power but acts as a restraint on the power hungry. If such a man was also conscientious and able, like Marcus Aurelius in TO TURN THE TIDE, all the better!
At least your name showed up here!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Maybe the drafters of the US Constitution in 1787 should have made the Presidency an office held for life, with only "reserved" powers, with a Prime Minister doing the day to day governing, and embroiled in the turmoil of partisan politics. The President might have become the dignified embodiment of the State mediating between the contending factions. Which is what the UK's gov't was becoming.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I also recalled you commenting that the 1787 US Constitution looked a lot like a somewhat tidied up version of the 18th century British monarchy.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, it did -- the early 18th century English monarchy as conceived by theoreticians. The American perception of how England worked was somewhat out of date: but then, so was George III's, before he went doolally. Which was what consolidated the PM-dominant version of British parliamentary supremacy.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Some of those theoreticians were esp. influenced by Viscount Bolingbroke's THE PATRIOT KING. A work which also left its mark on George III and how he conceived of his position as King.
With or without George III, the UK was well on the way to the PM becoming dominant as long as he commanded a majority in the Commons.
I also think it wouldn't be so bad if the Lords regained some of its former authority, as a restraint on the Commons. Analogous to the US Senate.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We have not Fallen from Paradise but risen from sub-humanity and therefore can, not necessarily will, rise further.
I think that we should be clear about one basic point. Sub-human animals changed into human beings. Therefore, it is at least possible that one kind of human being can change into another kind of human being. It makes no sense to insist that such a lesser change is impossible. Can we pause there and try to get agreement on that one point? Otherwise, we just repeat ourselves. You say that people will always be quarrelsome and I give multiple reasons why I think we need not always be quarrelsome, starting with removal of physical causes of conflict but then going much further than that.
Things that I think can happen in the future have not already happened in the past. That is correct. People had not flown to the Moon before they flew to the Moon.
People can accumulate money only in a money economy. If you imagine an unchanged society, then, yes, it follows that nothing will change.
Of course people as they are now will not suddenly be miraculously transformed into fully mature individuals! We are talking about future generations growing up in completely different conditions with changed values, possibilities, expectations etc.
Different possible futures stretch ahead of us. But the future will be different from the present just as our Earth is different form the pre-life Earth, the pre-consciousness Earth and the pre-intelligence Earth.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I remain unconvinced that the kinds of changes you hope for in a race as flawed and imperfect as ours will happen. So I will continue to believe we are Fallen.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But we have not Fallen. We have evolved and, only partially so far, civilized ourselves. We have changed not only our environment but also ourselves - into rational, linguistic beings. We can change ourselves further. How could we have started perfect? Perfection can be approached even if never fully realized. But do not place limits. We would never have got as far as we have already if we had done that.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because, unlike you, I don't deny the existence of the supernatural. Meaning, both evolution and divine intervention shaped what genus Homo would become after the first man made his choice.
Ad astra! Sean
This should have been said in the first place! I am glad to get away from repetition.
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