We imagine that we are living in the Chaos of Anderson's Technic History although without believing that this is going to be followed either by a Solar Commonwealth or by a hyperdrive. But how will we, in our timeline, get through our version of the Chaos? At what point will the two timelines diverge?
Wisdom from Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop today:
US politics - everything has already been said about this so now we can only wait and see;
despite all the current escalation, no one wants to start throwing nukes around because of the uncontrollable consequences.
We must hope that that second point, which has held since 1945, remains valid. Of course, Anderson created fictional futures both with and without nuclear wars. For every conceivable option, read Anderson.
3 comments:
Well, as long as nuclear deterrents deter, there won't be another world war.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Our times are certainly chaotic enough! I might be going back too far but I would our Chaos from the Sarajevo Assassination. Stirling's "A Slip in Time" shows us a timeline where there was no Sarajevo.
The only halfway plausible alternatives to our anarchy would be Anderson's Solar Commonwealth or the United Commonwealths in the Hoka stories he co-wrote with Dickson. The latter series explicitly mentions the US acceding to the British Commonwealth, making it enormously more powerful.
Even if mankind doesn't get a FTL drive by 2100, we can still hope the human expands widely thru the Solar System, as we see happening in "The Saturn Game." The wonderful successes of Musk/SpaceX in space tech give us hopes for that!
Maybe I should soon reread Anderson's THERMONUCLEAR WARFARE (1963), his most sustained non-fiction examination of nuclear war. A pity he didn't revised it to reflect what was known or thought of such issues in the 1990's.
Mr. Stirling: I agree. But I also strongly suspect some might be crazy enough to throw nukes, such as N. Korea's Kim Jong Un. Or fanatical Iranian Muslim Shias, hopped up on their millennialism, might fire nukes at their pet hates. If they get nukes, of course.
Ad astra! Sean
Corrections. My first paragraph: "...I would date our Chaos..."
Third paragraph: "...hope the human race expands..."
Sean
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