Venator, Everard and Van Rijn On Misery
Opinions expressed by characters are not necessarily those of the author. However, sometimes they are and usually we can tell. Anderson also gives sympathetic treatment to characters that he clearly does not agree with in Mirkheim, The Devil's Game and Murder Bound.
Everard's saying could be included in "The Quotable Time Patrol." See Quotations which links to quotations both from the Time Patrol series and from The King Of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson). The Anderson multiverse is vast, encompassing both "scientific" and "supernatural" non-human intelligences (see Blurring A Distinction) as we might soon see depending on which direction this blog takes next.
21 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I also thought of how Anderson described very favorably two characters from THE WINTER OF THE WORLD: Captain General Sidir and Yurussun Soth-Zora. Both of whom I liked much better than the Rogaviki.
Ad astra! Sean
I had my doubts about WINTER OF THE WORLD. Humans don't need genetic modification to live in small hunter-gatherer bands -- it's the way we evolved.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember. Basically, you thought 8,000 or 10,000 years was too short a time for a genetic mutation to change a group of humans into another species of hominins.
Truthfully, I didn't like the Rogaviki, my sympathies being for the "original" humans they opposed, the Rahidians/Barommians.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, the emergence of 'behaviorally modern' H. Sap. Sap., about 60,000 years ago, was a drop in male testosterone levels.
That made widespread cooperation easier for human beings, which gave them a comparative advantage.
The Rogaviki are sort of instinctual libertarians, which IMHO would make them (however individually formidable) pushovers for human beings, who cooperate better.
The better you cooperate, the better you are at competition.
Hence, team sports.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And we see exactly that in WINTER, modern humans having a far greater capability for large scale cooperation than the Rogaviki. Whenever Captain General Sidir's army fought the Rogaviki face to face, it was the Rahidians/Barommians who won. Because their disciplined cooperation under orders enabled them to grind the Rogaviki to dogmeat.
Yes, I think the "instinctual libertarianism" of the Rogaviki would eventually doom them once somebody understood their weaknesses. They seemed to have been genetically hardwired to be bison hunters. Just killing off enough of those bison herds to break them would settle matters with the Rogaviki. Perhaps by an army commanded by Sidir's son by his Rahidian wife?
Paul: Team sports alone will not be enough for many people. Some will go into business/commerce to compete for greater rewards as Musk has done. Others will enter politics to compete for office/power. Still others will seek military careers.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You are tilting at windmills here! I offered "team sports" as an example of people competing better by cooperating (as had just been said), not as part of an argument about possible future societies.
But since you return us to that argument, people will not go into business/commerce when technologically produced abundance is held in common and distributed equally and will not compete for office/power when public office has been stripped of all means of coercion.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Common ownership of everything is an impossibility outside of Benedictine or Trappist monasteries. Nobody will care about anything which is commonly owned. Nothing will get produced if nobody can hope for some kind of profit.
Nor can any society have any kind of peace unless the State, with its monopoly of force, of coercion, keeps that peace. It only takes a small number of the criminal and violent to make life dangerous for everybody else. You will need the State, with police, courts, punishment of criminals, to have peace.
You keep asserting "technologically produced abundance" held in common and public offices with no powers of coercion will end in abundance and peace. You have never produced any proofs of that--all we are getting is what you hope will happen. A hope I don't believe in, don't believe is realistic, don't believe will ever happen.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Common ownership is the only way to control and distribute the massive wealth that should be technologically produced in future.
"Nothing can be produced if nobody can hope for some kind of profit"? Everything can be produced if we, society, humanity, use technology to produce what we need and our profit from this will be that we will have everything that we need in a society no longer turn apart by competition and conflict for (formerly) limited resources.
The State has been and still is currently necessary because society is divided into economic classes and the State protects the property of the possessing class. That kind of economic division will have become redundant when wealth is abundant and held in common.
"Criminal" means breaking the current laws about private property which will not exist any more.
Why should even a small number of people become violent in such conditions? But, if they do, the majority will be able to restrain such a minority without needing an elaborate apparatus of police, courts and prisons. Society can make and keep its own peace.
Of course I keep asserting what I think will be POSSIBLE with socially controlled advanced technology in future. Of course I cannot PROVE what will happen in future. It is all too possible and plausible that the system of global economic competition and armed nation states that you support will destroy our environment and us with it very soon.
You are getting what I hope will happen and reasons why I think that it is possible. Technology produces wealth. Its productive capacity is increasing. It is POSSIBLE that it will produce more than everyone needs, making competition, hoarding, security guards on warehouses, laws against theft etc redundant.
I do not understand why you have to keep repeating that you do not believe in this, do not believe that it is realistic and do not believe that it will ever happen. We do not know what will happen. But what is the point of continuing to produce wealth only to continue fighting over it unnecessarily and destroying it in waste and warfare?
Paul.
Sean:
Don't roads built and maintained by governments count as common ownership?
Sure there can be difficulties with extending the practice to other activities. Maybe those difficulties would be so great as to make such extension impractical, but I think you exaggerate the limits of common ownership.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: I will never believe "common ownership" of massive wealth is either possible or desirable.
Again, no, what you said about "profit." Stirling explained very well why I don't believe that. Banning any REAL competition leading to real rewards will only end in boredom, frustration, stasis--and, ultimately, collapse.
No. we have and need States because human beings are flawed, imperfect, prone to being violent and quarrelsome. I continue to dismiss "common ownership."
No, there are far more kinds of crimes than those against property. Such as crimes of violence, assault and battery, murder, rape, and many other kinds of crimes of sexual violence.
We are all of us potentially likely to be violent, and more than a few are violent, often being like that just for fun. Recall how Stirling was nearly murdered by some chance stranger he never even saw. Nor can some vague, amorphous "majority" control crime. If you don't want lynch mobs or vigilante justice you are going to need police, courts, and prisons, managed by the State.
You have sometimes gone beyond "possible" or "hope." Disagree, we have competitive nations because that is what human beings want, with competition being innate to us.
I don't believe in your reasons because I believe them based on a false view of human nature.
It's not just me who "repeat," you do as well. That does not bother me, if you want to advocate for socialism/common ownership. Repeating why I believe you wrong (and you consider me wrong) can lead to a more precise clarifying of beliefs.
Jim: I don't consider roads built and maintained by States to be the same as "common ownership." How can it be when a gov't has to raise taxes to pay for building road? Coercion is often used via eminent domain for compulsory sales of land many projects.
I distrust "common ownership" outside of monasteries because it always ends with an ever more autocratic state.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I know you will never believe it! Why do we have to keep saying this? When there is far more than everyone needs, why hoard any of it? Why divide it up unequally? That makes no sense! I see that you have written a lengthy comment. I will read through the rest of it but might come to the conclusion that it is all repetition and does not require any further response from me.
Paul.
I have indeed replied to all of this before. I do not repeat political arguments in the posts. You do repeat them in the comboxes.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I will consider this discussion at an end, restraining my own urge to be argumentative.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: "I distrust "common ownership" outside of monasteries"
Maybe if you extend the meaning of 'monastery' in an unconventional way.
Hutterite colonies, kibbutzes, communes of varying ideologies have worked fairly well.
An important factor is the membership being small enough (< ~150) for every member to know every other member and so know who is a slacker and who pulls his/her weight.
Co-ops sort of involve common ownership. Most corporations are sort of 'investor cooperatives' while the term co-operative is usually used for customer or worker cooperatives. Those all involve a certain amount of bureaucracy to organize something of more than ~150 people.
Kaor, Jim!
Exactly! You have touched on the only way "common ownership" can work, 0small groups of people voluntarily agreeing to live together according to certain rules for attaining certain ends. And pooling their resources for that purpose. Monasteries, kibbitzes, communes, whatever, are voluntary associations, not States/gov'ts claiming the right to coerce everyone to live as they do. And such voluntary associations can and often have been dissolved for one reason or another. A classic example being Henry VIII's violent seizure of the English monasteries. Because he needed money and wanted to buy support for his quarrel with the Catholic Church with the loot.
I agree, co-ops are private, voluntary associations. Yes, "investor cooperatives" are corporations formed for attaining commercial, financial, or industrial goals. With the most successful of the latter often employing more than 150 persons (hence the need for a bureaucratic structure). Corporations can and have been either dissolved or merged into other companies.
Ad astra! Sean
Social common ownership, if and when it is built, will be administered through participative democracy and through a culture of cooperation and solidarity, not through "States/govt's claiming the right to coerce everyone to live as they do."
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe in that kind of "Social common ownership," because it still boils down to an autocratic bureaucratic State using coercion for top down "common ownership." Because that is how all such attempts have turned out.
Nor do I believe one bit in a "participative democracy" acting "through a culture of cooperation and solidarity." Human beings are simply not like that. NTTB is the best we can expect.
"Common ownership" is best left to the kind of small, voluntary associations I discussed above.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you don't believe in anything that I am saying!
It does not still boil down to an autocratic bureaucratic State using coercion for top down "common ownership." There have not been many such attempts and they do not rule out what might be achieved in more favourable conditions with greater social abundance in future.
Human beings are simply cooperative. NTTB is not the best we can expect.
"Common ownership" is necessary on a larger scale because the alternative is the continuation of present competitive accumulation and destructive conflicts.
More repetition.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The fact still remains that every time, without exception, socialism/"common ownership" has been tried, all that has been seen is failure after failure, all of them despotic.
Human beings are both cooperative and competitive, including violent forms of competition. Stubbornly denying that is an error.
Large scale "common ownership" of the kind you want is not going to happen and is unworkable. We have conflicts because human beings are competitive and strife prone.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The fact remains nothing of the sort! Those bureaucratic despotisms were not "common ownership."
I am not stubbornly denying anything and not making an error. Competitiveness need not exist except in healthy ways when abundant wealth is held in common and distributed equally.
I do not know what is going to happen but I see no reason why "common ownership" is not ONE workable possible future.
We are not competitive and strife prone. We can identify and eliminate causes of strife, like vast imbalances of wealth and poverty, when, in a technologically advanced future, there is more than enough wealth for everyone.
Now can we PLEASE stop merely repeating ourselves?
Paul.
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