A quarter of Highsky Choth membership is human and influences the rest. Tabitha Falkayn/Hrill (human) and Draun (Ythrian) have started a commercial fishery. Her managerial skills complement his seamanship. Following Highsky custom, Tabitha had wandered across Avalon for several years as itinerant huntress, trapper, sailor and prospector and had gained her stake in the fishery at poker.
Young members of Stormgate, Many Thermals and the Tarns have launched a silvicultural engineering firm.
"...interspecies economics is often a wonderland in need of all the study anyone can give it." (V, p. 494)
We want to know more but are told enough to convey the impression of a rich bi-racial culture. Students of economics would have to observe and learn a lot before starting to formulate any new theories.
19 comments:
Advanced humans would find a species that doesn't have police and laws against interpersonal violence rather stressful...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And Ythrians do have laws and customs for handling things like Draun's rape of that female Ythrian (I forget her name). And duels to the death were also used for handling many offenses/disputes.
Ad astra! Sean
Eyath.
Yeah, the thing about duels is that among humans, they lead to a) very substantial violence, and b) lots of bullying by people who are very good at dueling.
Andy Jackson killed something like 20 men or more in duels and affrays -- he was what was known at the time as a "killing gentleman". Many of them were politically motivated.
It was notorious at the time that Jacksonian Democrats included many duelists who'd pursue anti-Jacksonians with constant challenges, or just beat them up and/or kill them.
That was aided by the fact that Jackson came from a very violent part of the frontier country, where duels and less formal fights to the death were very common.
For example, Jackson's wife's first husband was last seen in Tennessee running into a swamp with Jackson in full pursuit screaming curses and waving a large fighting-knife.
He got away... but you get what would have happened if Jackson had caught him.
David Weber's Honor Harrington series is set in a society in which dueling is accepted practice.
The novel "Field of Dishonor" shows the downsides of that. I don't recall an upside to the practice being shown.
Kaor, Paul, Mr. Stirling, and Jim!
Paul. Got it, Eyath. Thanks!
Mr. Stirling: Dueling can lead to feuds, vendettas, violent strife of the kind that wrecked the old Icelandic commonwealth.
I knew Jackson fought duels, but not that he had so many duels. Yes, he would have murdered his wife's first husband. I also knew politics could be rough, but not that rough!
Considering how much I dislike the Democrats, finding out they so often used duelists or plain old thugs to intimidate their opponents confirms my prejudices against them!
Jim: There's no upside to dueling. It's nothing but homicide. The Catholic Church struggled for centuries to discourage, penalize, or condemn dueling. As late as the 1917 Code of Canon Law imposed automatic excommunication was imposed on Catholics who took part in any way in duels.
Ad astra! Sean
A reasonable attitude toward the US Democratic Party for most of 19th Century. They tended to be the white supremacists. Over a few decades in the 20th century the white supremacists mostly shifted to the Republicans. One reason I currently regard the Democrats as the less bad option in US politics.
The difficulty for third parties to get anywhere in US politics looks like a flaw in the system for US democracy. I have seen the suggestion of approval voting, ie: the voter checks off all the candidates s/he regards as acceptable, both the ones they really like and the ones they like less but regard as most likely to defeat the candidate they really don't want to get in. That would make it easier for a third party to get somewhere.
Jim,
It is a sham democracy run by money.
Paul.
Kaor, Jim and Paul!
Jim: I disagree, white supremacists do not control the Republican party. They are scorned and despised by all honorable Republicans.
And I detest the Democrats for many reasons, not just for their thuggish history. Ever since 1912 the Democrats have become the party of an ever more centralized and autocratic state. They have become the party of monstrosities like "legalized" abortion and an ever more insane woke leftism. Given that I am skeptical the kind of tinkering you suggested will work.
And they still use, de facto, thugs!
Paul: There's never going to be a perfect political system. The vices and flaws to be found in the US, UK, France, Italy, India, et al, exist because of how flawed human beings are. All that can be done is for weak, imperfect humans is to try to keep such things from getting too bad. And I far prefer an imperfect political system to a brutal despotism of the kind found in Russia, China, Iran, and many parts of Africa.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course imperfection is preferable to despotism!
There CAN be what we would think of as "a perfect political system." Think how much progress has been made already. Think of an indefinite future ahead with massive technological advances and, hopefully, a fully social application of technology, not its continued, competitive, conflictive misuse.
Paul.
Jim: note that the nonwhite portions of the working class are following their white counterparts into the Republican Party -- Hispanics first, then Asians, then blacks considerably behind.
In fact, Hispanics are doing what Germans and Swedes did in the 18th century, the Irish in the 19th century, and Jews and Italians in the early 20th -- they're being assimilated into the 'white' group. Which is a social construct, not an objective fact.
Society is so dynamic.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: No, there never will be perfect, totally uncorrupt political systems. The vices to be found in the State, any State, spring from the flawed humans who make up these States, high or low, in or out of office, etc. That inevitably means such flaws are going to exist. That is why all Utopian dreams are going to fail.
Mr. Stirling: A fascinating phenomenon, what you described, but not completely unknown to me. Reputable sources like NATIONAL REVIEW has also noticed this. A big reason why we are seeing a steady drift of Hispanics, Asians, and blacks from the Democrats to the GOP is because of how the leftists who dominate the Democrats party has been alienating them on many issues. Convinced Catholics and Protestants will never agree to left wing Democrats fanaticism about abortion. And the woke insanity about illegal immigration and "transsexuals" won't help Democrats!
We're also seeing Jews, once one of the most solid pro-Democrat voting blocs, drifting away from the evil party. The war Hamas started on 10/7/23 and the explosion of antisemitism seen among US leftists since then are alienating many Jews.
I hope this continues and the horrible Democrats get dumped on the ash heap of history!
Ad astra! Sean
I do not agree that we are flawed.
A war did not start on 10/7/23.
Leftists are anti-Zionist, not anti-semitic.
Paul: since more than half of all Jews live in Israel -- and that's the only expanding Jewish population with a birth-rate above replacement level -- that is a distinction without a difference.
How leftists have ended up on the side of people who want a tyrannical, exterminationist theocracy is a mystery.
In Gaza when Hamas ruled it, they commonly threw gay people off the roofs of tall buildings with cheering crowds watching, and they were vocally and publically committed to killing all Jews and pushed the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as gospel.
The people of Gaza voted them into power.
Is the cutting off of water, food and electricity into Gaza justified as well as the large number of Palestinians held in custody without trial?
There are many anti-Zionist Jews.
Settler violence and land seizures in the West Bank must not be forgotten.
Our part of the left says that the oppressed have a right to resist but that does not mean supporting everything that they do. I personally spoke out in a public meeting against what was done in the 7 October attacks and against similar slaughters in other countries in the 20th century. But we do not condemn the violence of the oppressed while ignoring the violence of the oppressors.
This whole world order is in a very bad state and should not be conserved or defended. We can build something much better.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree on every point. And it's naive to deny leftists can be antisemites.
Hamas started this war, they need to be forced to pay the bill for doing that. And I note how you glided over how Hamas throws homosexuals off the tops of tall buildings to the cheers of gloating mobs.
You are supporting the wrong side and a bad cause.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree on every point. I do not deny that leftists CAN be anti-semites. We talk past each other all the time.
Hamas did not start this war. I do not glide over gays being thrown off buildings. (Talking past each other again.) I had not known of that and am appalled by it. I have just done a quick google check and the reports that I saw were of Islamic State doing this. But, as I have said, I do not support Hamas politically and do not defend anything and everything that oppressed groups do.
I am supporting the right side (dispossessed, oppressed Palestinians) and a good cause (liberation for all).
This is sufficient condemnation of the present world order and its competition for oil in the Middle East, that it puts us on opposite sides of vicious conflicts like this.
Paul.
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