Ruffling Feathers

It takes courage to tell people what they don’t want to hear. Often times doing the right thing is not doing the easy thing. Politicians struggle with this and usually fail. It is a rare politician who tells an inconvenient truth to his constituents. With good reason; said politicians are usually not reelected. And that serves to reinforce the problem.

“You see, I told you not to tell people that bridge needs to be replaced. You deserved to lose!”

“But it’s going to collapse and kill people!”

“That’s somebody else’s problem.”

The fault is not really the politician’s. The fault is the voters. As Walt Kelly’s character said “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We enable this behavior. If you are not willing to vote for, or even listen to someone who is telling you bad news, then you are in trouble. If you only listen to a news source that reports the stories you want to hear, then you are deluding yourself. This problem is not limited to one political party. It applies to liberals and conservatives, Libertarians, Greens, and independents. Denial is a natural human condition.

In the 19^th Century weavers, textile workers, and others were frightened that the industrial revolution taking their jobs away. These “Luddites” went around breaking into factories and smashing machines. It had to have been terrifying seeing a mob coming for your factory. But as we all know, the Luddites did not win. The Industrial Revolution happened despite their best efforts. Mobs are never a good thing and they usually do long term damage to their own interests.

We need to be able to take our medicine. You cannot make an informed decision if you are only listening to half of the information. But telling it like it is requires courage. It is going to make you unpopular. Jesus told truth to power. Those powers had him crucified. Galileo made the true observation that the Earth was not the center of the universe. They locked him up. The emperor is not going to reward you for telling him that he is not wearing any clothes. Courage is knowing you are going to take a hit and doing the right thing anyway.

History is made by feather-rufflers.

Star Liner

Comments

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

My first experience with cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction was Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer was one of the early works that defined the cyberpunk genre. It was insanely influential. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award. But for me, it just did not resonate. I had a hard time visualizing the concepts. It left a bad taste in my mouth for cyberpunk. I mostly avoided the genre. Then a couple of years ago I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson which is cyberpunk (although some people say it is a parody of cyberpunk). Whatever, I liked it. I recently picked up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu and it immediately became apparent to me that this was cyberpunk. Julia Z is the main character, and I think this is going to be the start of a series following her. She is a hacker (hence cyberpunk). She has got herself in trouble and so she lives on the margins, barely making it. Then a lawyer asks her for her help. His wife has been kidnapped. The ...

The Linear Nature of Time

Go Go back Go back to the time before Before you did it Before they did it Before it was done to you Before the toast fell on the floor Before the catastrophe Before the mistake Before time’s scars Before Go Go back Redeem it Rework it Fix it Go back No you cannot Go back Star Liner

Why Walls Don't Work

At the peak of the Roman Empire, the empire stretched from the Persian Gulf to Brittain, from northern Africa to southern Germany. But the great conquering emperors like Trajan learned that conquering land was easy compared to holding on to it. In fact, Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, was known for shrinking the empire and consolidating Trajan’s gains into a more defensible set of holdings. This made him not popular among his generals who wanted glory and spoils. But he understood if you stretch yourself too thin, you can wind up with nothing. To consolidate the Empire’s holdings in Brittain, he had a wall constructed from Solway Firth to the Tyne River. Construction began in the year 122 AD. The Empire had never been able to subdue the highland Scottish tribes, so this wall (Hadrian’s Wall) divided the “barbarians from the Romans.” It was a solid piece of engineering with forts and towers scattered along it to keep the “barbarians” out. Hadrian’s successor, Antonius Pius...

A speculative mind

Search This Blog