Rereading Jack Havig's account of Berkeley, 1970, I wonder whether to comment but check and find that I have already done so better than I could have done now. See: Gadarene Swine. This novel was first published in 1973, only three years after "Berkeley." We are rereading it in 2025. The issues have not changed. We have moved closer to the blowup and breakdown that Havig experiences in the further future. Or, if we imagine ourselves as in the Technic Civilization timeline, then we are still in the Chaos. I will reread something more cheerful, maybe attend meditation group, and then return to this Maurai History.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And the comment I wrote for "Gadarene Swine" continues to be applicable now. Anderson would have had as much scorn for the PC woke "radicals" of today as for the Berkeley leftists of 1970. Both are much the same!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The main point is how do we save the world, not which other groups do we scorn?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Instead of repeating principles/policy proposals you would probably disagree with I'll quote this bit from the end of Chapter XXI of OPERATION CHAOS: "You will not, repeat not, get improvement from wild-blue yonder theorists who'd take us take us in one leap outside the whole realm of our painfully acquired experience; or from dogmatists mouthing the catchwords of reform movements that accomplished something two generations or two centuries ago; or from college sophomores convinced they have the answer to every social problem over which men like Hammurabi, Moses, Confucius, Aristotle, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, Jefferson, Burke, Lincoln, a thousand others broke their heads and their hearts."
This will get copied into my second Andersonian notebook.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
How does that answer the question?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Obviously, this quote tells us where Anderson believed we should not look for answers to our troubles. Consider the list of thinkers he plainly had the most respect for.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
My question was how do save the world now, not which thinkers Anderson respected.
Our painfully acquired experience is currently producing disasters. However, either we will find our way forward (not backward!) - or we will not.
Paul.
how do we save
Kaor, Paul!
We will not save ourselves via wild blue yonder leftist dogmatists, we will not save ourselves with that catastrophic failure called socialism, we will not save ourselves banning things like nuclear power, as so many leftists demand. I could go on and on and on listing leftist follies.
No, only the limited State, in whatever form, along with free enterprise economics (plus a strong pro-Space mindset), has been shown to work, when ever they were given a chance. Just for starters, look up Robert Zubrin's THE CASE FOR SPACE.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We really are at complete cross-purposes here. I do not support wild blue yonder leftist dogmatists! Your extreme language suggests that you are a dogmatist. I have given my reply on "socialism" many times. You can keep stating that economies which are merely partially nationalized are catastrophic failures. You are reinforcing your own opinions, not convincing anyone who sees things differently and who is prepared to discuss the issues (but not like this!). I could go on and on and on listing rightist follies.
No. Shared abundance can make both free enterprise and the need for state coercion redundant. Just for starters, read something else.
I have been referring to the issues in THERE WILL BE TIME without intending to reopen all these arguments yet again. Although my opinions of course come out in the course of discussion, I do not here set out to propagate any political dogma. You do seem determined to propagandize for free enterprise, the limited State and anti-socialism and of course I reply to this although I would prefer not to have to do so over and over.
Paul.
Western interference in the oil rich Middle East is worse than a catastrophic failure.
Kaor, Paul!
First, you pressed me to make explicit what I was willing to leave implicit. Second, many of the ideas you have expressed support for are, IMO, rightly described as extreme, such as implausibilities that human beings will somehow, someday, no longer be so prone to strife and violence. Nor do I believe in your hopes of no longer needing the State to keep the peace.
I don't believe anything you say about socialism, because real life and real world experience has never shown a single example of the kind of socialism you hope for. Every single socialist regime has been run as a command economy mismanaged from the top down by politicians, bureaucrats, and secret police using coercion to force socialism to somehow "function."
You cannot have abundance without some means of pricing and allocating resources and materials of all kinds, and demand and supply provide those means.
I mentioned Zubrin's book because he discussed many ways how our current could be managed using off the shelf tech we already have. With no need for some "transformation" of the human race. I prefer his nuts and bolts approach to what I consider hopeless unrealism.
Noted, what you said about not wishing to reopen old arguments. However, you still pressed me.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But you have not made explicit how we should save the world, an urgent question that we must all face now whatever direction we come from. Human beings will not "somehow, someday" no longer be prone to strife and violence. They are not prone to it now. There are many situations in which they are not violent. Strife and violence do happen because of conditions which I have shown can be removed in future. People will not steal food if everyone is fed. People will not need to compete for resources if there is more than enough for everyone. I keep repeating arguments to which you do not reply.
There were two examples of socialism and they were both destroyed. In any case, the fact that something has not happened yet does mean that it cannot happen in the future. By that argument, humanity would never have evolved, men would never landed on the Moon etc. We know that the future will be different. The only question is how it will be different. The socialist regimes that have become command economies have not been workers' democracies producing for need instead of profit.
We can with advanced technology produce abundance and share it equally without needing money.
I do not advocate a "transformation" of the human race. Human beings as they are now behave differently in different conditions. They do not become violent in just any conditions.
I did not press you to reopen old arguments. I asked the urgent question of how to save the world because of rereading THERE WILL BE TIME with its War of Judgment and because of the state of the world and the environment now. Governments ignore the environment and destroy it further by waging wars. Wars happen because the global power structure, not because people in Russia or Palestine are prone to strife and violence. The question of what to do now does not need to lead to a denunciation of leftist (or rightist) follies.
Every word here has been said before.
Paul.
because of the global
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