From: hibbert@netcom.com
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 15:39:15 MST
GBurch1@aol.com said:
> Second, talk of dismantling Mars will turn that group against you:
> Expect the "peasants storming Frankenstein's castle" reaction. The
> Mars Society is HEAVILY influenced by Kim Stanley Robinson's books
> (they are considered as a kind of scripture among the group's
> founders and activists) and there is a lot of "Martian Spirituality"
> talk amongst this crowd.
Has anyone pointed out to them how astonishingly ignorant of economics
those books are? I've read them, and mostly enjoyed them as good adventure
store, but I had to treat them less as science fiction than as economic
fiction. There's no commerce of any kind in the book. And it's not just
the usual "it's not part of the story line, so I don't have to include it",
it's actively denied as part of the story. (Communal living, communal
values, you know.) No buying and selling, but everyone always has plenty
of water, food, air, and shelter, except when a crisis is happening.
There's no way a society could exist under those conditions, let alone
grow, and evolve. Does the "law and governance" crowd expect supplies to
arrive everywhere by magic, or are they confronting these problems?
Chris
--- Chris Hibbert hibbert@agorics.com http://www.agorics.com 650 941 8224
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