Offensive Squid

Lanius said:

Smart narcisstic jerks are the bane of mankind. They believe they can do no evil, rationalize anything by picking their reasons.

At least this one did not go into politics.

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You made me thinking about an alternative history, where Hitler ran amok after writing his "manifest" … killing a dozend instead of millions …

Post edited 12:40 pm – August 2, 2011 by Andrea_A

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Hehe! Thanks for the link.

L. Neill Smith's Gallatin Series made it to a German translation, and reading it had been definitively fun. (I think I'm somewhat more critical nowadays.)

And Norman Spinrad's "The Iron Dream" had been banned in Germany for a couple of years. The youth-welfare misunderstood it as Nazi propaganda … 

"Weaver", the last book in Baxter's "Time's Tapestry" is located in a modified WW2 setting (England had been partially occupied by the Germans), and the "Weaver" gets captured by the SS and forced to change history.

I tried to find a story about a time traveller's plan to make the Germans win WW1, so that Hitler wouldn't gain power. With the effect that the French got suppressed and De Gaulle had been sliding into Hitler's role. I didn't find it, but another one: http://clarkesworldmagazine.co…..les_11_07/

 

P.S.: Do you know "The Bonker"? http://video.google.com/videop…..6064698594

Lanius said:

I'm a bit of a Draka fan… I know it's not plausible, but the idea of modern-day Sparta like society is just too sweet. Shame about the slavery, though.. Draka  could equally well not work on a feudal basis.

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Would you really want to live in this world? Depending on your role … even as a serf? Maybe then better being designed for your role as in Huxley's "Brave New World"? (or Peter's zombies?) Several years ago I had read an interview with an author that he hadn't thought of the novel as dystopic.

I also figured out that S. M. Stirling's "Domination" books are not available via Amazon.de …

You mentioned such system without a need for slavery. An example: In Brian M. Stableford's "The Paradox of the Sets" settlers find primitive ape-like creatures on the new planet and enslave them (at least it looks like), but the scientists from the controlling ship "Daedalus" find out that the Sets are biological robots (and their former lord extinguished).

Utopias look well until they get realized: regardless if communistic, fascistic or religious ones. Taliban are in the news almost daily, but have you heard about the priest Savonarola, setting up a theocracic terror regime in the 15th century's Florence? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…..Savonarola)

Post edited 11:50 am – August 14, 2011 by Andrea_A

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Lanius said:

If a society like the Draka worked on a feudal basis, where the lesser people wouldn't have many political or personal freedoms, yet were not subject to regular abuse, and the country would be run somewhat sanely.. why not? 

Even as a serf. I'm told I'm pretty smart, so I'd probably find it possible to find a good place. And while I like freedom to move around and do what I want, that's just the way I was brought up. If I were born in such a society, I wouldn't miss freedom. 

Probably I'd find my place and won't miss freedom, too. As long as I won't get across with my boss (I'm somewhat stubborn, all-out in doing my work right, and therefore got some trouble a couple of years ago). Or (as a woman) getting unwanted attention (though not looking attractive). And eventually my Alter Ego would be in a better physical condition (or dead).

The way the society was set, the people in it were less abused and subject to less privation than in say, Soviet Union. 

I'm now living in Eastern Germany since about five years. My co-workers told me some very interesting stories how they arranged themselves with the system, and about the well-running shadow economy … as well as lots of spirits drunken clandestinely at work.

Apropos Soviet Union: Some guys sold illegal Rock'n Roll records engraved into discarded X-ray films: http://www.kk.org/streetuse/ar…..ecor_1.php

The concept of  people who are delibaretely designed to be slaves. Hmm. Kind of runs against the current thinking, where no man is supposed to be a mean to an end, but that's just ethics. 

From the ethical point of view, they won't suffer … nor even know. Won't have to be self-aware. Better than "Focus" described in Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky".

Btw: I've to re-read some of Cordwainer Smith's stories about the enslaved animal-people, e.g. hybrids between cat and human.

Utopias. What's so wrong with the Culture ;-)

"I had a dream …" They are thought experiment and base for discussions — promoting the development of culture. But transferring them 1:1 into reality normally fails. Marx had been a philosopher, writing about the worker's situation and how it would be possible to improve it. But he got misunderstood by his epigones. And the Taliban and Savonarola … well, their intention had been to save souls.

In the Eastern Bloc science fiction often included hidden system criticism (Stanislaw Lem, Strugatzky brothers, e.g.).