More valuable and infinitely less influential. About 50% of any modern economy rubs on unpaid labour, one way or another: volunteers, students, neighb...
I'm sure many people did believe all that. Some of the commanders were patriots, idealists, and even competent commanders - some always are, on every ...
Or maybe the movie about a girl going mad. No empire is meant to last forever. A century is short by Roman and British standards, but then, the US rep...
All those sources I cited in the first umpteen pages of this thread, from different time periods and regions. You have mainly talked about the whole n...
Not there, no. Never did get to Nova Scotia. We saw the Bay of Fundy from the other side, watched that crazy tide come ripping in one morning. Had to ...
I don't even live in that unfortunate, hag-ridden country. Of course, we have our home-grown right-wingnuts, anti-vaxxers, etc., as well as the import...
Wrong! Wealth-accumulation is for assholes like Musk. They're healthier and happier than the striving, climbing, back-stabbing people. Plus, they're n...
There are no 'nefarious'. There are world leaders, statesmen, economists, captains of industry and job creators. And there is 'progress'. Luddites, go...
Attach any date, in recorded or unrecorded history so far, and this would be true. This would only have been true of any date since Oct. 16, 1962 CE a...
Like money, technology is good servant. Like domesticated animals, technology can be a good teammate. Neither would make a suitable master, let alone ...
I still don't agree. According to what I've read, American education before that act, followed by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, ...
I was only talking about Paradise. Purgatory is all of this. And that's what I mean by a place for which we feel homesick - a place where we found hap...
I guess this thread should really have been about happiness. English - or, for that matter, Japanese or Canadian or Estonian countryside can inspire h...
That's the second most ... ah ... novel question I've been asked today. Whatever the actual alternatives might be , of course I do not want to be rich...
True. Some are brainwashed into believing no other arrangement is possible, or that they have their proper 'place' and should aspire to nothing more, ...
Air stays air, water remains water; food is still edible; clothes and walls keep out the cold, regardless of who owns them or how much they cost. I wa...
I was attempting to illustrate the distinction between what I call "direct utility" and what you call "a unique force" in the modern world. Money is a...
Or Eden, yes: either the perfect place from which we have been excluded for doing wrong, or the perfect place to which we may be admitted if we do eno...
No place is 100% safe. It's a rule of utopian literature that there should be some external threat. Threadfall is the occasional interruption to a pea...
While I consider Wisconsin so beautiful that I placed a good chunk of my own utopian story there, that particular location is surprising.... unless so...
I had forgotten. I guess it was a long time ago and I only read the first two, though I enjoyed other LeGuin books. I was anything but methodical in m...
"If you can't eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away" Is the post-modern euphemistic poster version of the dog's approach to encountered obje...
There are many reliable sources on line. Of course, for forum posts, the level of rigor is much lower than, say, a university paper, but some interloc...
Thanks! It's on my "get" list. I was quite keen on Pern at one time , and long before that, my first taste of an imagined utopia was Islandia (Not Hux...
Except for the vast majority of luxuries he distributes among his several other dwellings and bank-vaults and off-shore accounts, sharing with no-one,...
They were made to accede to it the first time a ruler stuck his face on a coin and demanded it back as tax, tithes, tribute, toll and license fees. On...
I started watching that video. The narrator spent ten minutes telling me how old it is and what-all we don't know about the period, so by the commerci...
Money makes the system stupid - or at least, irrational. Money-as-profit has a logic of its own, which has no connection to human logic, or fulfillmen...
I'll look at the civilization one, of course: that's exactly the kind of thing we watch at lunchtime (unless there is a current bakeoff or sand sculpt...
I know. I never thought they stood up to mine, either, but what the hey. Wasn't making an argument, just trying to fill you in on Athena's ... uh... t...
This is probably why wiki is not recognized by academic institutions. I've been on a couple of forums where it wasn't accepted, either. It's easy; it'...
She did, numerous times, in the first few pages. The 1958 thing is about Eisenhower and education for technology. She is convinced that, prior to that...
How do you know the quick answer is the correct answer? I suppose your search criteria will depend on your reason for seeking the information. If you'...
Why? Did the stone and iron and dark ages have particular values? It's a description; as such it's either accurate or inaccurate. And my point was tha...
Somebody may have recorded that, but it's not true. Humans have been capable of deliberative self-governance for far longer periods of time (more sust...
Not necessarily. Information is a one-way process. A teacher lecturing a class conveys information to the students, but gets no information from them....
Yes. I think it begins as an idea too internal and primitive to articulate. It forms long before the infant acquires language. If that's a concept, th...
Have "we" ever discussed that topic? It seems to me, humankind has had many agendas, divided into many factions, and some of them were quite reasonabl...
From your perspective, not the perspective of ASI. No wars recorded for that year, according to wiki. Probably more slaughter? Undocumented for then, ...
It forms as the infant's pre- and post-natal neural networks forms: gradually. Concepts are a fairly late addition to the mental development of any in...
And just as many, if not more, teaching it how to invent more effective weapons. The programmers' idea of desirable isn't necessarily mine. If, if and...
What has that to do with the question at hand? Alien life-forms, whether biological, artificial or some combination, do not require my approval and do...
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