Archie Brock presides over a community of morons, imbeciles and animals. A chimpanzee and a moron build a charcoal apparatus.
A small silent ovoid with no visible means of propulsion lands and a man steps through its shimmering side. Intellectual mankind will leave Earth not to conquer the many lesser intelligences out there but just to build its own interstellar civilization which might help others now and again. Spacefaring human beings do not:
"'...intend to establish a galactic empire. Conquest is a childishness we've laid aside...'" (p. 187)
These guys know what they are doing in a way that we need to.
Brock's community and any others like it will inherit the Earth. They might be helped now and again but basically they are on their own. Brock would not want to return to the old days. Everyone is making the most of their new reality which, I suddenly realize, is what we have to do every day.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I am totally skeptical about mankind leaving behind that kind of "childishness," Because I don't believe in Utopianism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
When technology produces abundance for everyone, there will be no motivation for colonialism or imperialism. What seems "Utopian" to us can become common sense for future generations.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, people will still crave status, prestige, power, etc. And that's always going to be limited, never enough for everybody. So ambitious people will still scheme, engage in intrigues, etc., for offices and power. I continue to reject Utopianism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I have replied about status, prestige and power before! Power requires means of coercion, bodies of armed men, which will be redundant when there are no longer conflicts of material interests for possession of resources, oil, trade routes, markets etc. People will be more usefully engaged in life-enhancing activities instead of in preparations for mass destruction.
People can contend for status or prestige if they have not yet matured beyond that but their competition need not coerce or oppress anyone else so it doesn't matter.
"Utopianism" implies that something is impossible. If you asked me whether I believed that the impossible was possible, then I would agree that it was not. But I present arguments that what you think is impossible is in fact possible. Flying to the Moon was "impossible" until someone did it.
Paul.
The argument that something has never happened before, therefore it can never happen in future, is clearly invalid. If that were true, then nothing would have happened ever.
Conditions will be different in future, therefore how people live will also be different, whether or not it is going to be the way that I prefer. That much at least is clear. I can keep presenting arguments that what I would prefer is at least possible, not impossible. Every time "power, status and prestige" are cited, I give the same reply. It must be possible for an argument to move beyond this point.
Kaor, Paul
Your arguments are weak and unconvincing because they do not fit the facts about what real humans are like, innately flawed and prone to strife and conflict. I don't care if material prosperity is as universal as we see it in Chapter 6 of GENESIS. Mere prosperity will not remove our flaws. Because humans don't need material reasons for fighting and quarreling, any reason will do, even boredom!
Moreover, all societies need the State, in whatever form, to keep the peace internally and defend against hostile outsiders. You have not proven that will cease to be the case a thousand years from now.
Utopianism is the right word because you have not proven your arguments. All I'm getting from you are hopes, wishful thinking, speculation, etc. No facts, no evidence. Only assertions that if A exists, then B will as well. I have never said that "...if something has never happened before, it can never happen in future," what I object is your insistence, most times, that what you are hoping to exist will exist.
I do not believe your changes in "conditions" will somehow drastically change men and women "interiorly." Again, I am seeing only hope, not evidence that will be the case.
At least you conceded that changes in the future will not necessarily be what you would like them to be. That is a start. I expect those changes to be the usual mix of bad and good we have now. Because that is what real humans, in the real now, are like. And I've never seen any evidence that will be different in the future. That was Anderson's view in STARFARERS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is not a concession to acknowledge that the future might not go the way I want. That is obvious and I have said it from the start. If you think that it is "a start" now, then you have not understood from the beginning.
You have not seen any evidence that things will be different in the future? The present is different from the past! You cannot be asking me to show real "evidence" from the future without a time machine.
You repeat that these are mere hopes. It is logical that when reasons for fighting no longer exist, fighting will no longer exist. People do not fight for any reason or none. They do not fight from boredom. The population of the United States does not get up in the morning only for each man to grab a bread knife and cut his neighbour's throat with it for no reason and with no provocation. The very small minority that does act like that is constrained. The social conditions are such that I have no reason to attack my neighbour and those conditions can be extended across the whole world in future. We can discuss and plan how to end those conditions instead of just saying that as things have been so they will remain which is patently false.
I do not INSIST that things will go as I want. That is your misinterpretation.
Paul.
how to extend those conditions
I say the same things every time in reply.
The main role of the state is to protect private property. The poor must not "steal" food from supermarkets. The homeless must not occupy the second or third homes of the rich. All that deprivation, division and alienation can be consigned to the dust bin of history.
You do argue that what hasn't happened before and isn't happening now can't happen in future. That contradicts sf.
BTW, I reply each time just to demonstrate that I still can, not because I expect us to get anywhere with this. No doubt "power, prestige and status" will come up again. If what has been said before were to be remembered, acknowledged and taken into account, then there would still be disagreement but with less repetition.
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