We peer forward into speculative futures and sometimes see them peering back at us. Chuan says that the project to transform Phobos and terraform Mars:
"'...was always more an ideal...than a business venture... Not unlike the state of Israel or the movement for a viable space program on twentieth-century Earth.'" (p. 338)
How will our remote descendants regard us?
Since writing the immediately preceding post, I have:
attended a Zen group where two of us agreed that maybe our Prime Minister is currently facing a "koan," an unanswerable question;
returned home and watched TV news coverage of the Prime Minister facing questions and accused of lying;
reread and posted about Chuan's remarks as above.
And that brings us up to date. As ever, the future stretches ahead from this moment, from tomorrow morning and in sf.
Tempus fugit.
25 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I love that idea, Israel having its own space program and founding off-Earth colonies, perhaps on Mars. I hope that happens!
I won't weep if Sir Keir's weak and ineffectual Labour gov't soon falls!
Ad astra! Sean
I regard all politicians as complusive, serial liars unless exhaustively proven different.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, with rare exceptions like Churchill.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: oh, Churchill fibbed occasionally -- but often through self-delusion. For example, he didn't think the UK would go bankrupt if it kept up WW2. He was wrong, but sincere. Halifax knew it would, which was why he wanted to cut a deal.
In point of fact, the UK went belly-up early 1942, IIRC, and was dependent on the US for the rest of the war and for post-war recovery, which severely limited its policy options.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Granted, and I sympathize with Churchill's self-delusions. I believe it would have been better if a powerful British Empire had survived WW II.
Ad astra! Sean
No way.
Paul: well, there wouldn't have been any India-Pakistan wars... or the mass slaughter that Western Pakistan tried on Bangladesh-to-be... or the twenty-sided internal fighting in Burma...
The good point about large empires is that they usually enforce internal peace.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul. Yes way! Besides the examples Stirling listed, I could cite many other bad things happening because of the British Empire's disappearance.
Mr. Stirling: It does make me wonder what might have happened if Hitler had not so rashly declared war on the US a few days after Pearl Harbor? The US would naturally focus on the war with Japan, not Germany. Even if war with Germany was probably inevitable, what might have happened to the UK if that had been delayed even just six months?
Ad astra! Sean
Was the British Empire not brutal and bloody? We need an end of empires.
Paul: all states, large and small, are brutal and bloody. All title-deeds are written in blood -- the only difference is how long the blood has had to dry.
That said, bigger states are better because they secure a larger area without war, generally speaking.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: We are going to continue having empires because IWHBD. I've seen zero reason to expect otherwise.
Mr. Stirling: I agree. What matters is whether or not an "empire," under whatever name, is not too terribly bad.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There is abundant evidence that society has changed and continues to change. We have not always had empires and need not always have them.
Empires have been terribly bad to many of their subjects. In future, with greater capacities and possibilities, "not too terribly" bad will be nowhere near enough.
Paul.
Paul: we've had empires for the last 7000 years, more or less -- since the development of the State.
7000 years, yes. A very short time compared with how long human beings have existed and will, hopefully, exist in the future. I have given my views on the State often enough before.
Theory is grey. Life is green.
Let's say that I am wrong and that some level of state functions will remain necessary for far longer than I would have expected. Those functions will at least change enormously over a very long period of time because everything does change enormously over a very long period of time. Consider the differences between the earliest city-states and Asiatic despotisms on the one hand and modern democratic Welfare States on the other hand with the levels of personal knowledge and freedom of movement that can now be open to each of us as individuals - even though at the same time everything that we have gained is always under threat.
We should be able to move towards better general conditions in the future even if those conditions do not conform to what I now think that they should be. Future constitutions will be formulated by future generations, not in blueprints drawn up by minority opinions now. (My opinions are in a minority which does not prevent them from being my opinions.)
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: We have abundant reason to agree human societies have changed technologically. But I do not believe human beings have changed innately. We all remain imperfect, flawed, prone to strife, conflicts of all kinds, and violence.
"Empires" are merely States larger than tribes, city states, kingdoms/republics, etc. All of them have bloody title deeds because human beings are innately prone to violence. That said, empires don't have to be all of them brutal all the time. Nor do they have to be totalitarian monstrosities like the USSR, Nazi Germany, or Mao's China. One big advantage of an empire is that peace is enforced over large regions, as was the case with the Persian, Roman, or Han empires, etc. Because the State restrains and punishes the violent and criminals. Given internal peace and a not too intolerably bad gov't much can be done.
Because I believe all human beings are imperfect, flawed, prone to strife and violence, my conviction remains that Not Too Terribly Bad (NTTB) is the best we can prudently hope for.
I don't see all that much difference between ancient city-states and Asiatic despotisms and modern "democratic" bureaucratic Welfare States. Because human beings have not changed, only technology has changed. Bureaucratic welfare states can be just as oppressive in their own ways as any past regimes. The only way modern States can be made less cumbersome, bureaucratic, heavy-handed, etc., is by reducing their scope of activity, cutting back on what they do, restricting States to their proper functions--and so many, many are hostile to that.
Mr. Stirling: Maybe even longer than 7000 years ago. I'm sure there were embryonic States in pre-literate eras. Such as village headmen.
Ad astra! Sean
Our ancestors changed innately by BECOMING human beings.
We are endlessly repeating ourselves.
We both know (i) that I can reply in detail to these argumentative points because I have done so before and (ii) that it would be completely pointless.
Kaor, Paul!
Except, as Kermit Pattison discussed in books like FOSSIL MEN, human beings were already imperfect and innately prone to violence millions of years ago. Because that was what the evidence discovered by archeologists and anthropologists discussed in that book concluded.
Before true States arose, life was all too Hobbesian for almost all humans: nasty, poor, brutish, and short. It was a war of all against all, everyone outside one's immediate family/clan were either foes or prey fit only to be killed (and sometimes eaten), with women captives being raped/enslaved. Otzi the Iceman being one example of that, from study of his remains. Recall as well, the evidence/cases discussed by Stirling.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are NOT innately prone to violence. Of course life was violent for identifiable reasons (not just innateness) in the past but it is often peaceful without the need of state intervention now and CAN be peaceful in completely different conditions in the future but I see absolutely no point in repeating this over and over.
Paul.
Paul: human beings are behaviorally flexible. They are not, however, -infinitely- behavorially flexible. They are not blank slates on which 'whatever' can be written. They vary within inherent limits.
Agreed.
Sean,
You think that "People have been and still often are violent" is equivalent in meaning to "People are innately prone to violence." It is not.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, innately prone to violence. Note, that is not the same as saying all of us will be violent--but the potentiality for that violence exists in all of us. And in times of anarchy and collapses of States some of us will have to be violent.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But my point here was not just to deny human innateness to violence but to point out that such innateness cannot be deduced merely from the fact that human beings have been in many situations to which they have responded violently. You might just as well say that we are innately prone to peacefulness because there are many situations in which we are peaceful.
Of course potentiality for violence exists in all of us. Of course some of us will be violent in extreme circumstances. We CAN be violent and often have been in situations where that potentiality was realized. But potentiality is not innate proneness. A disagreement continues forever if one of the participants shifts his ground.
Paul.
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