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Monday 16 August 2010

Lessons From Recent History

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from ...creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."
-- R.A.Heinlein



Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.
-- R.A. Heinlein

The Park in the picture retained its 1969 character until 1989, when the Soviets withdrew. By 2001, after just 10 years of feudal infighting and Theocratic rule, it was in the same state it is now.
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4 comments:

  1. Nikola KovacsTuesday, August 17, 2010 9:39:00 am

    Religious fundamentalism.

    A sure way to go back in time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownWednesday, August 18, 2010 2:03:00 am

    This is why America, and Europe, need to stay in Afghanistan. To help recreate a stable society.

    Hamid Karzai notwithstanding (or particularly helping), of course.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ZimbelWednesday, August 18, 2010 3:22:00 am

    The 1969 image is 9 years prior to Ratebzad's New Kabul Times "War against the Planet" editorial: Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country .... Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention..

    I don't think I would have wanted to be in the first image, either.

    ReplyDelete
  4. JosephMonday, August 23, 2010 10:05:00 am

    I think both of Heinlein statements need controlled experiments.

    On the other hand, in an SF context they make more sense since we can always assume that the futuristic society in question has the data, which our society doesn't.

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous commenters - please add a signature (doesn't have to be your real name) on each post of yours. Anne O'Namus, Norm D. Ploom, Angry from Kent, Demosthenes, or even your real initials, it doesn't matter.

Commenters are expected to be polite to each other, but the same standard doesn't apply to comments regarding me.

Australian commenters are very very strongly advised to publish anonymously. Sydney alone has more defamation actions than the entire USA and UK. Nearly double that of the UK in fact.

As Google does not reliably inform me that a comment has been posted, and I have no control over first publication, I assert that all comments are innocently disseminated under the NSW DEFAMATION ACT 2005 - SECT 32 and similar acts.