Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE
Alice Grove MCDLT - July 2016
brasca:
--- Quote from: BenRG on 21 Jul 2016, 23:39 ---The reason why there has been no rebound is a strong cultural aversion to doing so.
I've got the feeling that, post-Blink, those still on Earth were mostly either technophobic or technology-ambivalent. They blamed technology for the war and the losses of The Blink and wanted to use only the bare minimum that they needed. The rest was cast aside. I wouldn't be surprised if, as in A Candicle for Lebowitz, those with technological skills were lynched and scientific and technical libraries were mostly destroyed.
Five thousand years later, technology above early industrial age is considered magic and those who use it witches and wizards.
--- End quote ---
Maybe for a few centuries, but it doesn't take long for people to forget when all they have is ancient books to reference or worse oral tradition. I think JimC is right about some other force being at work. Perhaps some secretive organization that maintains this level of development and thwarts any attempts to improve it. Perhaps they were the ones that stole Gavia's nanotechnology. As such Earth might be similar to the Star Trek episode "The Return of the Archons," but without cloaked lawgivers and purge festivals. Regardless it's not the people who maintain this, but so called guardians. Alice and Sedna don't appear to be a part of it, but they may be sympathetic since they actually can remember how terrible things were before the blink.
JimC:
--- Quote from: brasca on 22 Jul 2016, 00:57 --- I think JimC is right about some other force being at work. Perhaps some secretive organization that maintains this level of development and thwarts any attempts to improve it.
--- End quote ---
I wasn't thinking external forces at all...
We mustn't forget that for most of human history people have tended to live in much the same way as their grandfathers did, and been reasonably content to do so. If you posit a society in which there are social pressures not to expand population or use extra resources, and life isn't too bad, then I don't see why that shouldn't be static for a prolonged period. Plenty of examples in history or even geography where societies have been essential static and stable until external factors change them...
We can speculate that the people have plenty of stories from history of the terrible things that happen if society or individuals get too greedy and try to expand and develop. If you wanted to think pejoratively then its a kind of crab bucket, but if in fact life is good in the crab bucket, no-one starves, no-one gets killed in wars, all the rest, it could have a definite appeal.
brasca:
--- Quote from: JimC on 22 Jul 2016, 04:42 ---
--- Quote from: brasca on 22 Jul 2016, 00:57 --- I think JimC is right about some other force being at work. Perhaps some secretive organization that maintains this level of development and thwarts any attempts to improve it.
--- End quote ---
I wasn't thinking external forces at all...
We mustn't forget that for most of human history people have tended to live in much the same way as their grandfathers did, and been reasonably content to do so. If you posit a society in which there are social pressures not to expand population or use extra resources, and life isn't too bad, then I don't see why that shouldn't be static for a prolonged period. Plenty of examples in history or even geography where societies have been essential static and stable until external factors change them...
We can speculate that the people have plenty of stories from history of the terrible things that happen if society or individuals get too greedy and try to expand and develop. If you wanted to think pejoratively then its a kind of crab bucket, but if in fact life is good in the crab bucket, no-one starves, no-one gets killed in wars, all the rest, it could have a definite appeal.
--- End quote ---
True, but not all civilizations choose to live that way and it's usually the ones that seek advancement and improvement that tend to conquer those that prefer to live simplistically.
Zebediah:
Also true. But Alice's village has something that the pacifist pastoralists of history didn't, and that's Alice to defend them. I expect any low-tech army (and by low-tech I mean pre-20th century tech) that went up against Alice would quickly find itself decimated. Even a higher-tech army would find itself in a crisis of leadership as everyone above the rank of lieutenant suddenly found themselves dead at the hands of an unstoppable super-soldier assassin. This puts a severe brake on any wannabe conqueror.
And yes, I think Alice really is that good.
KOK:
No culture has been static for 1000 years. Neandertals maybe, but never Homo sapiens sapiens.
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