This chapter is a conversation between Captain Nansen and Hanny Dayan. There are so many references to the wind in the background that I will not quote them. I urge blog readers to reread Poul Anderson, noticing such details.
Hanny Dayan is a direct descendant of Moshe Dayan, another name that we should recognize and can google if we don't. In Anderson's The People Of The Wind, Tabitha Falkayn is a direct descendant of David Falkayn, a name that we definitely recognize if we have read the Technic History in chronological order. In both cases, the point is historical continuity.
Hanny Dayan proved Cosmosophy to be a fraud by demonstrating that its revered device had always been inert but Cosmosophists call her a liar and some try to kill her. Society is still in bad shape if such things can happen. What shape will humanity be in when the Envoy returns after ten thousand years?
"'...when we return, this will be a whole new world, too.'" (p. 39)
Two discoveries: a planet remote in space and Earth remote in time.
22 comments:
If you debunk a religion, its believers will feel an impulse to kill you. Same for any other belief system. That's just the way human beings generally work.
I am confused here. I started to write a comment but got distracted and now can't find it so I'll have to start again, wondering whether an unfinished comment is going to show up somewhere.
That is alarming. What good is a religion if its adherents are motivated to kill anyone who debunks it instead of continuing to seek truth elsewhere? My "religion"/spiritual practice could be debunked only by demonstrating that just sitting meditation was not beneficial and, in that case, I would have to look for another spiritual practice.
On more secular issues that are sometimes invested with religious fervour, if a competitive, profit-accumulating economy could be made to work without recurrent economic crises, with everyone's standard of living rising uninterruptedly and with their quality of life improving steadily, so that social resentments and conflicts significantly reduced, then I would have to revise several opinions - and not kill those whose economic practice had debunked those opinions!
Paul:
You or I identify as people who will change our minds on an issue if we find evidence against our current belief.
Unfortunately, too many people hitch their identity to holding some belief as true. It would be good to get people to not identify in such ways, but how to do that is something I do not *know*.
However, see 'Street Epistemology' for something that shows some promise.
Jim: precisely. People identify with their tribe and its belief system. Attacking it is, at a fundamental level, attacking -them-, threatening them with nonexistence.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: And I don't expect human beings to ever change from identifying with their tribes, nations, or systems of belief. If you threaten them on such deeply existential matters some will become dangerous and violent.
Jim: Actually, "recurrent crises" are necessary for the proper working of free economies. As time passes mistakes and misallocations of resources of all kinds accumulates, making an economy less efficient. A recession, slump, or even depression, when not hindered, forces a "clearing of the decks," a more efficient reallocation of all kinds of resources, including labor. Clumsy attempts by incompetent politicians, bureaucrats, or ideologues to prevent slumps merely prolongs the pain and agony. Politicians would do better to arrange for short term emergency help for people who really need it, until the economy recovers.
Unfortunately, incompetent meddling by such people is so tempting!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Economic crises are inherent in competition because competition increases investment in technology until the rate of profit falls and investment stops.
Paul.
Sean,
If most people just identify with a tribal belief system, then how can any of them be confident that their belief is the one that is true among the many that are simply false? It is no good saying, "I'm sure of it." Anyone else can say the same. And do.
Paul.
Paul: yup, they do. And they all sincerely believe it. Hence head-bashing.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly, we need competition for an economy to work. Also, it absorbs the aggressive drive of ambitious people into productive channels. Falling profits would be a sign an economy may soon have a slump.
As for your second point see Stirling's comment. If a Mormon wants to believe in Joseph Smith's magic spectacles that's his business and I would leave him alone. But if fanatical Muslims want to wage jihads their head bashing needs to be resisted.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Material abundance will make economic competition obsolete.
Paul.
Sean,
But millions of people just sticking to their tribal beliefs and expressing disdain for others is no way to find the truth.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I remain skeptical of your economic views.
As for your second response--it's what human beings are like. And they won't care beans if we think their beliefs are irrational. Their response will still be: "Evil infidels! Kill, kill, kill!"
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are approaching the technological ability to produce abundance. This should be acknowledged and addressed, not denied or covered up. I believe Musk has said it but, if not him, then others.
It is what human beings are like? How many Catholics do you include in this?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
My belief remains imperfect and fallible human beings will continue to bollix up any and every imaginable socio/political system. So I remain skeptical.
I hope anyone influenced by the Gospels won't always react so violently.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I mentioned economics in this combox not to repeat past disagreements (God forbid) but as an example of an opinion that could theoretically be changed in certain circumstances - and that therefore should not involve killing anyone who had helped to change the opinion!
Paul.
Cyclical crises are inherent in capitalist systems, and that is a -good- thing.
In the long run.
It can be unpleasant in the short run. But then, so were mass famines.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
It would help a lot if more people would think ahead, even just a little, and do some saving and investing, to help cushion the pain of those cyclical crises. That, plus things like "unemployment insurance," would also help lessen that unpleasantness.
I knew as long ago as 1978 that it would not be wise, mildly put, to depend too much on what is humorously called "Social Security" in the US. So I've also been building up personal investments, to supplement or even replace SS (and my pension, when I finally retire). And I do have bank savings!
In one of his letters to me Anderson expressed exasperation at how so many people can't or won't think ahead even one week!
All my efforts to think ahead can still go down the drain, but at least I tried!
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: "We are approaching the technological ability to produce abundance."
Some would say the depletion of fossil fuels will reduce our technological ability to produce abundance.
I would say that claim is only slightly true. We can get all the electricity we need for abundance from nuclear fission, even if nothing else works. However, much of our current transportation system depends on flammable liquids from fossil fuels. We can shift road & air traffic to electric rail and power large ships with nuclear reactors, but that would still leave much transport at least much less convenient. This would not be pre-industrial but in some ways a decline in general wealth.
Abundance isn't an absolute, it's relative.
By the strandards of 1000 CE, we already have fantastic abundance. By the standards of 2200 CE (failing catastrophe) we're probably dirt-poor.
But there is no such thing as "enough".
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: Not only what you said, the crazier or more fanatical Greenies would like to force almost all of us (except them, of course!) into those hugely expensive trains. Depriving people of cars and freedom of movement is also a lessening of wealth.
Mr. Stirling: Absolutely! Needs, wishes, perceived "abundance," etc., is always going to be relative. Never going to be "enough."
Ad astra! Sean
I would point out that for the overwhelming majority of human history since the neolithic, the idea that the -poor- will be fatter than the -rich- would have been regarded as a fantasy.
Sean:
The merits of trains vs. cars or airplanes for moving people depends on the population density, the higher the population density the better trains are relative to those alternatives. So yes for most the N. America it is hard to justify passenger rail, though if petroleum gets expensive enough, electric rail may be the only practical option.
OTOH if practical lithium-air batteries are made they would be close to the energy density of liquid hydrocarbons and humanity can have electric cars & trucks for the low population density areas.
Also *maybe* liquid hydrocarbons can be made from CO2 extracted from air or seawater for a non-exorbitant cost.
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