Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Jerry's right.

re: Jerry's right.
TB — (archived)

Nostalgia for the past is like the borrowed memory of the immigrant's son--the reason they left the old country was because it was intolerable, the same reason the past has evolved into the present. The brave new world may have its problems, just like the new country may be no paradise, but there are usually very good reasons for the change. Very often it is because there was no choice.

Your premise seems to be that the continuous concentration of ever more power and wealth into a centralized authority is the only way we have to avoid burning witches, flogging sailors, and throwing people into debtor's prison.

This is the fallacy of the excluded middle, not to mention leaving out a very large section of history.

Pournelle is old enough to clearly remember a time when things ran pretty well with the Federal government a quarter the size of what it is now (in constant dollars). I was only 12 at the time myself.

There are other ways to solve these problems.

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