Ok - my take on it is that old, degenerate refers to the institutions of the
culture, not the biology of the race, and that those institutions strangle the
energy and desire to innovate of most bright people in the cradle.
First of all, there would be widespread corruption, and probably absolutist
government if there was government at all.
Second, the rulers would have been strip-mining the economy from time
immemorial, and the tech level would show it. Why innovate when anything you
have can be taken from you because somebody wants it? Far better to focus on
your own safety.
Finally, there would be wdespread fatalism, probably backed up by popular
religion - and believe me, it would be popular because it would offer an
explanation of the way things were. Priesthoods preaching and enforcing this
fatalism would be a bonus.
Cultures like this have been known throughout history, and they often appear
brilliant as long as there is anything to steal, and fall back into the pattern
above when the loot runs out, so add in a sense of a bygone golden age that
they are living in the ruins of.
Is this not the description of these old and degenerate races so beloved of
the writers you mention? Picked apart here with an eye to political science?
Certainly it describes a lot of the ones so described by Western explorers in
our own 17th-19th centuries.
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:17:58 +0100
From: k...@stock-consulting.com
To: brin-l@mccmedia.com
Subject: Degeneration? Re: Where to now?
Okay, back to my discussion with myself ;-)
This, of course, a tendency only. But it's sufficient and it surely
kills innovation. I wonder how much further this tendency will go.
I always found it hard to swallow when SciFi authors wrote about old
degenerate races. Not only Dr. Brin; it also appeared in the Perry
Rhodan pulp. I always wondered why there was no single brilliant,
energetic, innovative member of this degenerate species who would
turn the tide.
Yup, that's naive. Probably read too many stories and/or watched too
many movies where the hero would save the world/universe/everything,
either singlehandely or with (or despite) the help of his/her idiotic
sidekick.
But now I wonder if we haven't already reached the goal of becoming a
degenerate race. Progress mainly happens in marketing, not in
research and development. And while we have a lot of hero material
in our population, none of them is apparently able to make a
difference.
- Klaus
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