Short, fun, light space opera with good writing, great plot and somewhat abrupt ending. One hopes the authors expand upon the universe & the struggles of humanity versus the evil overlords in sequels. 4/5 Stars.
I have become curious recently about the utopian concepts within post-scarcity civilizations such as Iain M Banks' Culture books. The optimism is dubious in light of the ugly reality contained within numerous historical examples of the resource curse. (see here and here) Banks needed the "Minds" (powerful, guiding AI) to balance the darkness of human nature that corrupts society. Hamilton may summon his theology and supernatural religious ideas as a cure. Is there some purely secular, enlightenment approach to overcoming the resource curse? Pinker's ideas assume scarcity. I welcome and enjoy your comments.
3 comments:
Post-scarcity it's highly unlikely concept, as for me.
For example, we can claim solar energy as someting we can have in abundance.
But that is exactly because we able to consume insignificantly little part of it.
But for a civilization that would utilize power of a star fully -- size and lifespan of our miserly Sun would be a very hard limit.
Another word, all is question of perspective view.
Well, is it worth to mention that that that tech of making robots -- is one of possible paths to post-scarcity.
But well, to read about it in some fiction is much more pleasant than try to push real deal. :-)
How to make that post-scarcity?
I'll show it in historical context.
1) in 19th century we learned Science -- because it is impossible to make anything without knowing basics.
2) in 20th century we learned Technology -- means a way to scale it all up. Now we can process material in thousands or even millions tons.
3) now, in 21st century we see a cross line: we either can do something complex, but only for a little, as an individual artifacts
OR
we can make something in a big numbers, but relatively simple, only by pre-defined algorithm.
So, next step is obvious in that setup -- we need tech to make complex, customised to a case and environment things, and in big enormous numbers.
How hard to believe that something like that is possible even? But we have an example -- when whole Earth wakes from winter slumber to produce that variety of blum and fruition.
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