Filed under: Bruce Schneier, Emergency, Failure, Government, Preparedness, Society, Terrorism, Uncategorized
That’s the closing line of yesterday’s post by Bruce Schneier. Of course, Schneier has thought this for a long time. But what is he going on about? This:
Are the fire hydrants in your neighborhood turned on?
ROCKWALL COUNTY – A North Texas homeowner wants you to learn from his family’s tragedy.
The fire hydrants in his neighborhood are turned off.
Now, why are the hydrants turned off?
You guessed it: terrorism.
More from the news story:
Clay Hodges is the general manager of Cash Special Utility District.
He explains all the district’s hydrants, including those in Alexander Ranch, have had their water turned off since just after 9/11 – something a trade association spokesman tells us is common practice for rural systems.
“These hydrants need to be cut off in a way to prevent vandalism or any kind of terrorist activity, including something in the water lines,” Hodges said.
But Hodges says fire departments know, or should have known, the water valves can be turned back on with a tool.
Insane. Just bloody insane. As Schneier says:
One, fires are much more common than terrorism — keeping fire hydrants on makes much more sense than turning them off. Two, what sort of terrorism is possible using working fire hydrants? Three, if the water valves can be “turned back on with a tool,” how does turning them off prevent fire-hydrant-related terrorism?
Yes, this is insane.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Society
So, remember the S&L Crisis of the late 1980s? I do. It was a direct result of the deregulation pushed by Reagan which resulted in unwise real estate lending. In the end, it cost American taxpayers something like $160 billion to clean up the mess (that’s about $270 billion in today’s money). Notable names associated with this debacle include John McCain and Neil Bush.
Well, guess what happened this morning?
WASHINGTON — U.S. federal regulators outlined their takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Sunday morning, including control of the firms by their regulator and a Treasury Department purchase of the firms’ senior preferred stock.
The plan, outlined jointly by the Treasury Department and Federal Housing Finance Agency, also includes a plan for the Treasury to purchase mortgage-backed securities from the firms in the open market, and a lending facility through the Treasury from its general fund held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
OK, this is basically S&L Crisis, Part II: Revenge of the Greedoids. You, and me, and every other US taxpayer are now on the hook for trillions of dollars of bailout money. Why? Deregulation and unwise real estate lending.
Yes, that is a gross oversimplification. But it is essentially true, and even one of the men responsible said so last year. Between them, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac control something like half of the mortgages in the US, to the tune of about $12 trillion. Now, not all of those mortgages are going to go ‘bad’. But it’ll probably take trillions of dollars to clean this mess up.
Why do it? Well, the argument is that this is just too large a component of the US economy to allow things to spiral down. So the government has stepped in to secure ‘preferred stock’ in these two entities – the kind of stock held by other banks and foreign governments – in order to cushion the impact of the ongoing credit crisis.
But there is a problem in doing this. From the Wikipedia entry on the 2007 Subprime Mortgage Crisis:
A taxpayer-funded government bailout related to mortgages during the Savings and Loan crisis may have created a moral hazard and acted as encouragement to lenders to make similar higher risk loans.[68]Additionally, there is debate among economists regarding the effect of the Community Reinvestment Act, with detractors claiming it encourages lending to uncreditworthy consumers[69] [70] and defenders claiming a thirty year history of lending without increased risk.[71][72][73]Some have argued that, despite attempts by various U.S. states to prevent the growth of a secondary market in repackaged predatory loans, the Treasury Department‘s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at the insistence of national banks, struck down such attempts as violations of Federal banking laws.[74]
Yeah, you got that right: the feds *stopped* individual states from enacting legislation which would have limited the damage.
Your tax dollars at work. In the service of the big national banks who wanted to operate under the easier rules on the Federal level.
And now, we’re going to wind up with the tab for the bulk of the mess. And, in doing so, will once again establish that we’re not willing to let big businesses suffer the consequences of their errors in judgment (in this case the monetization of bundled subprime mortgages). I hold the current administration predominantly responsible for this debacle, just as I held the Reagan administration predominantly responsible for the failure to regulate the banking industry in the 1980s, but both political parties share some of the blame for refusing to stand up to the special interests who wanted to be insulated from their bad business practices.
I believe in the free market. But intelligent regulation has to temper the excesses of business. We learned that lesson in the 1930s. It looks like we’re going to have to learn it again.
Jim Downey
(PS: yeah, I do have a degree in Economics. It doesn’t usually come up here, but I actually understand this stuff.) Cross posted to UTI, where there are more comments you may find interesting.
Here’s a fun little thing I thought I would pass along: the visual recreation of Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1814. Using a combination of historical documents, paintings, maps, geological surveys, mixed with state-of-the-art imaging technology, they’ve created a short digital reconstruction. Nice use of technology and solid scholarship.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Civil Rights, Daily Kos, Government, Guns, Politics, Preparedness, RKBA, Society, Violence
Hmm. As noted in comments in the previous post, I seem to never have cross-posted this essay here from Daily Kos. So, I thought I would.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you own a fire extinguisher? Why?
Do you own a fire extinguisher? Why? Are you expecting a fire? Or do you have some sort of left-over juvenile desire to play fireman, a private macho image of rushing into a burning building to save a child? Don’t you know that improperly used, a fire extinguisher can be dangerous to yourself and others? And there have been “studies” done that show people who own fire extinguishers are actually more careless with fire risks, thinking that they’ll always be able to resort to their fire extinguisher to solve the problem. Besides, firefighters are always right there when you need them, and can put out any fire for you, so there’s no point in having your own fire extinguisher.
How about an emergency first-aid kit? Do you have one of those? Why? Are you expecting to injure yourself? Or do you have some sort of left-over juvenile desire to play doctor, a private macho image of saving someone from bleeding to death with an improvised tourniquet? Don’t you know that improperly used, medical supplies and equipment can be dangerous to yourself and others? And there have been “studies” done that show people who own first-aid kits are actually more careless in general, thinking that they’ll always be able to resort to their medical supplies to repair any injury they sustain. Besides, Emergency Medical Technicians or doctors are always right there when you need them, and can instantly patch you up if you get injured, so there’s no point in having your own first-aid kit.
Are these responses to being prepared absurd? Yeah. But they are exactly the sorts of responses I get when people find out I have a permit for carrying a concealed weapon, and generally carry a pistol whenever and wherever I can legally do so. And my experience is not at all unusual – most gun owners encounter the same sort of reaction from non-gun owners. We’re asked if we’re expecting to have a shoot-out in the supermarket. We’re asked if we have some childish fantasy about playing cops & robbers. We’re told that if we want to play with guns and shoot people that we should join the military. We’re confronted with facts that guns are inherently dangerous to ourselves and others, and that “studies” have shown that owning a gun makes it more likely that we will behave in such a fashion as to need to resort to using one to get us out of a dangerous situation. And besides, there’s always a cop around when you need one, just to protect you, so there’s no need to have a weapon for self defense.
Are there gun owners who think that carrying a weapon makes them invincible, and they therefore go around with a chip on their shoulder, putting themselves in dangerous situations thinking that they can always whip out their pistol and escape? Yeah, probably. But that is no more the typical mindset of a gun owner than is the notion that someone who owns a fire extinguisher is going to be careless with fire risks. Are guns inherently dangerous, and if used improperly present a threat to the owner and anyone else in the vicinity? Definitely. Which is why anyone who carries a weapon has a responsibility (usually mandated by law in the state which issued their concealed carry permit) to know how to safely handle and use a firearm, how to safely store it, and when it can be legally used in defense of self or another. And are there gun owners who think that they’re some kind of auxiliary police force, ready to jump in and right any criminal wrong they see being committed? Yup. In fact, a lot of people who legally carry a firearm do so precisely because there are situations where intervening could save the life of a loved one, a friend or even a stranger. But that doesn’t mean that they are wanna-be cops. Rather, they’re just trying to help contribute to their own safety and the safety of others. The police, firefighters and EMTs can’t be everywhere. We do have a responsibility to protect ourselves, to make prudent preparations in the event of an unexpected turn of events. That means having a fire extinguisher handy in case of a fire. It means having a first aid kit, and knowing some basic medical skills for dealing with an emergency. And for me it means having a gun available as a tool for self protection. Your level of comfort with how you are prepared for what situations may well be different, but that does not mean that my decision, and the decision of millions of other Americans, to legally and safely carry a concealed weapon is wrong or paranoid.
Jim Downey
I just came across a clipping from four years ago – a political Op-Ed I’d written for one of the local papers. Thought I’d repost it, just for grins. Here it is, and it can also be found on my archive writing site.
Jim D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Real Americans
A local radio station promotes itself as “Real Radio – for real Americans!” It’s a station that I listen to occasionally, because I like to think I’m a real American. After all, I was born here (on the Fourth of July, no less). I pay my taxes, try and make my community a better place, fly my flag and love my country. Some of the shows are interesting. Some of the hosts are funny (sometimes intentionally so). Some of the opinions are ones I agree with.
But since I only occasionally listen to this station, I guess I’m not a “real American.” Or maybe I’m partly a real American, proportional to the amount of time I listen in. OK, but do I figure that as the percentage of my time listening to radio overall, as a percentage of my waking hours, or what? Perhaps it should be calculated according to how much I agree with the politics stated on the radio station. Well, that leads to problems, too, because after all, even the hosts have major disagreements from one show to the next.
I don’t conform completely to most of the right-wing ideas espoused by this radio station. Nor do I comfortably fit in with the beliefs of the far left. I’m pro-choice but also pro-death penalty. I believe in concealed-carry, but wanted the assault weapons ban. I supported Desert Storm, but think that the latest Iraqi Adventure was nothing more than a Neocon con-job. I find opera boring, but NASCAR is also a snooze. I read The Economist, but also check out Mother Jones regularly. The current version of “JFK” is a pale shadow of the one I remember being assassinated, but then, the current President Bush can’t hold a candle to the intellect, experience, and accomplishments of his father. I’ve worked in Republican presidential campaigns, but have contributed money to Democrats. I’m somewhere in the happy middle, and don’t trust fanatics of any stripe, either in politics or religion. Most people are like me, using common sense and their internal moral compass to make tough choices in a complicated world. So maybe that means we’re all not completely “real Americans.”
The numbers would seem to bear this out: the radio station only has a small share of the market (let’s be generous and say it’s 10%). Does that mean that 90% of the people here who aren’t tuned in aren’t real Americans?
Or maybe the hype of the radio station’s promotional material is out of sync with reality, a reflection of the unfortunate tendency for the far right to think that they somehow have a monopoly on what it means to be a “real American.” This radio station isn’t the only example of this I’ve come across lately.
Recently on NPR there was an interesting interview with a nice couple in Dallas who are putting together a film festival for those with a more conservative inclination. They’re doing this because they feel that so much mainstream film reflects a Hollywood liberalism, and wanted to balance the ledger a little. Great. But in the course of the interview the woman said that they’re putting together the film festival for ‘real Americans.” When asked by the host what the woman meant by that, she stuck to her guns, said she meant “folks like us – in tune with the news, such as the War on Terror.”
Ah. So, if I keep up with the news, I’m a real American. Got it. But once again, does that mean that everyone who doesn’t keep up with the news, particularly the war on terror, doesn’t qualify? And how do I scale this? If I can point to Afghanistan on a map, can pick out Osama bin Laden from a line-up, and can name the three countries in the Axis of Evil, do I qualify? Do I get extra points for being able to identify the Americans killed this week in Iraq, or being able to explain how their deaths make me safer?
What if I am current on the news, but just happen to disagree with the way the War on Terror is being conducted? Somehow, I doubt that the nice lady who is putting together the film festival would think that makes me a real American. Would she say that those families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq qualify as real Americans? Even the ones who oppose this war?
What about you, are you willing to let her decide whether or not you’re a real American? Isn’t it time that we asserted our status ourselves, rather than let some narrow partisan group or radio station claim that as their sole property? If you think that you’re a real American, whatever your politics, then don’t let someone else steal that from you. Patriotism isn’t only the province of the right; it belongs to all of us, and it’s high time we started saying so.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, ACLU, Babylon 5, Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Guns, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, RKBA, Science Fiction, Society, Survival
There’s a line from a Babylon 5 episode (I’m a big fan of the series) which has always stuck with me. Several characters are discussing the political situation on Earth following the imposition of martial law. One character says that people love it – crime is down, things are calm, peaceful.
“Yeah, the peace of the gun,” replies another character.
And that, my friends, is what we have today, here in the US. Specifically, in one small city in Arkansas:
HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. – Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that’s been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.
On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.
Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.
“Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I’m fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here,” Mayor James Valley said. “The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.”
From another source:
Controversial Curfew in Helena-West Helena
Mayor James Valley has given residents in one high-crime neighborhood two choices…. go home or go to jail.
Valley’s issued a mandatory curfew for Second Street and the surrounding blocks — a place he considers to be a “hot spot” for crime. The curfew applies to anyone of any age at any time of day.
* * *
“This turf belongs to taxpaying citizens, not to hustlers and drug dealers….We are going to pop them in the head,” Mayor Valley said.
* * *
The mayor only has the power to issue a 48 hour curfew – so he says when this one expires, he’ll issue another one, and another one.
Predictably, the ACLU is taking a rather dim view of this:
The ACLU has written a letter to Helena-West Helena Mayor James Valley protesting the curfew he imposed on a portion of the city. The mayor says he’s received the letter, but believes it’s intentions are misplaced.
* * *
Mayor James Valley says no constitutional rights have been violated — he says they’re doing what’s needed to clean up the streets.
No doubt. And he’s willing to be reasonable:
Helena-West Helena Curfew Changes
Leaders in Helena-West Helena have come up with a new plan after criticism by the ACLU of the mayor’s recent curfew on a particular part of town.
This past weekend, Mayor James Valley issued a mandatory curfew for Second Street and the surrounding blocks — a place he considers to be a “hot spot” for crime.
* * *
Valley’s curfew will remain in place for all minors, but adults will be allowed out if they can answer questions about their need to be outside their homes.
See, like I said – he’s being perfectly reasonable about this. You can leave your house. If you can explain to authorities why you need to do so.
How could anyone possibly object to this?
*sigh*
This is nothing more or less than the peace of the gun. This is the abrogation of civil liberties as a solution for incompetent governance. Of course people like it – let things get bad enough that they fear for their lives more than they value their liberties, and you can get people to do almost anything. Mayor Valley is just applying the same logic as he applied in mid July when he, well, here’s the news report:
Mayor Orders Dogs Released Into Forest
You’ve heard it before…..Arkansas animal shelters struggling to take care of unwanted dogs and cats. One mayor has decided the best way to fix the problem in his town is to set the animals free.
KARK visited the Helena-West Helena animal shelter back in January. Conditions were dirty and animals were in poor health.
Thursday, KARK learned the town’s mayor James Valley has taken the unconventional approach of releasing the animals into the wild. In a press release, the mayor says “we fed and watered them and took them to the St. Francis National Forest.”
Yeah, he just turned them loose.
Like I said, incompetence. Let things get so bad, and then you can take absurd steps.
Like imposing martial law.
Is this just a trial run for other cities? Other levels of government? Because you can be damned sure that there are power-hungry people watching this situation very closely, and drawing their own conclusions. If a small-town mayor can get away with it, why not a large city mayor? Or a governor? Or a president?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI and Daily Kos.)
Filed under: George Orwell, Government, Politics, Privacy, Publishing, Society, Writing stuff
Or maybe you don’t. My own knowledge of George Orwell was limited to his most popular novels (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four) until graduate school, when I also delved into some of his essays. Any would-be writer, and almost anyone interested in political rhetoric, should be familiar with “Politics and the English Language”. His piece on “Why I Write” had a powerful impact on me, and I still find that this passage at the end resonates strongly:
All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
Well, anyway, if you’ve enjoyed Orwell’s writing, you may also enjoy his diaries. The Orwell Prize has just started running entries from Orwell’s diaries 70 years ago, posting them day-to-day as a blog starting with the first entry dated August 9, 1938/2008. As stated on the blog:
From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.
What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be a largely unknown Orwell, whose great curiosity is focused on plants, animals, woodwork, and – above all – how many eggs his chickens have laid. From his political diaries (from 7th September), it may be the Orwell whose political observations and critical thinking have enthralled and inspired generations since his death in 1950. Whether writing about the Spanish Civil War or sloe gin, geraniums or Germany, Orwell’s perceptive eye and rebellion against the ‘gramophone mind’ he so despised are obvious.
I’m looking forward to it, to seeing how this man’s mind understood the changing events of the world around him at a critical juncture. Maybe you will, as well.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, General Musings, Government, Guns, Politics, Society, Violence
Last week, in the investigation of a major drug distribution network, police staged a no-knock entry into a private residence. They seized over 30 pounds of marijuana. Two guard dogs who were a threat to the police had to be killed in the execution of the raid. Two people in the residence at the time were handcuffed at the scene and questioned as to their involvement in the crime.
Sound pretty straight forward? More or less standard procedure when police are investigating a large quantity of narcotics?
Well, how about this version of the story?
It now appears that the entire raid on Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo may have been illegal. Last week, police stormed Calvo’s home without knocking, shot and killed his two black labs, and questioned him and his mother-in-law at gunpoint over a delivered package of marijuana that police now concede may have been intended for someone else.
The Washington Post reports that the police didn’t even bother to get a no-knock warrant, which means the tactics they used were illegal:
A Prince George’s police spokesman said last week that a Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and county police narcotics officers were operating under such a [no-knock] warrant when they broke down the door of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, shooting and killing his black Labrador retrievers.
But a review of the warrant indicates that police neither sought nor received permission from Circuit Court Judge Albert W. Northrup to enter without knocking. Northrup found probable cause to suspect that drugs might be in the house and granted police a standard search warrant.
“There’s nothing in the four corners of the warrant saying anything about the Calvos being a threat to law enforcement,” said Calvo’s attorney, Timothy Maloney. “This was a lawless act by law enforcement.”
Oh, a couple more things to fill in the blanks. One of the labs shot was running away from the police:
As the police came in, Calvo said, they shot his 7-year-old black Labrador retriever, Payton, near the front door and then his 4-year-old dog, Chase, also a black Lab, as the dog ran into a back room. Walking through his house yesterday, Calvo pointed out a bullet hole in the drywall where the younger dog had been shot.
The police were the ones who delivered the package:
Calvo’s home was raided after he brought a package addressed to his wife inside from his front porch. Police had been tracking the package since a dog sniffed the presence of drugs in Arizona. It was delivered to the house by police posing as deliverymen and left on the porch on the instruction of Calvo’s mother-in-law.
Police are required to provide a copy of any search warrant at the time the search is conducted. They got around to doing this several days later:
Another issue that could arise in court is whether officers provided Calvo a copy of the warrant at the time of the raid, as required by law. Maloney [attorney for Calvo] said they did not, even though a detective signed a sworn statement to the judge indicating that he had. Instead, the detective brought the warrant to Calvo several days later, Maloney said.
*Sigh*
Let’s recap: In the course of investigating a suspected drug distribution network known to be using false deliveries to private homes, police intercept one such package. Posing as delivery personnel, they take it to the home of Cheye Calvo. Where they are told to leave it on the porch. (Who the hell would leave an expected shipment of 32 pounds of pot sitting on the porch???) When Mayor Calvo gets home, he takes the package inside and sets it aside, leaving it unopened. A short time later, a SWAT team kicks in his door, and shoots his dogs, rather than having coordinated with local police to gain access to the suspect and home without the need to resort to violent tactics. Calvo and his MIL are handcuffed and interrogated at the premises for hours. No warrant authorizing the raid is produced until days after the event.
One more quote from the Washington Post story yesterday:
Were Calvo or his wife, Trinity Tomsic, to be charged in the case, the issue of the search could come up if prosecutors tried to introduce the box of marijuana as evidence. More likely, experts said, the issue could form the basis of a civil rights lawsuit filed by the family against the county in the incident.
No shit. The authorities responsible for this debacle are facing a huge lawsuit. And they’re damned lucky that the only bodies on the floor were dogs (as tragic as that itself is).
And consider for just a moment how this situation might have been reported differently were Calvo and his wife black or Hispanic, had they not lived in a nice middle-class home, had he not been well established and politically connected. Consider for just a moment if this situation had happened to you.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos and UTI.)
Filed under: BoingBoing, Climate Change, Cory Doctorow, Emergency, Flu, General Musings, Global Warming, Government, Heinlein, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Tor.com, Weather, Writing stuff
Via BoingBoing, an interesting discussion over on Tor.com: The Dystopic Earths of Heinlein’s Juveniles. An excerpt:
It’s funny how it’s overpopulation and political unpleasantness that cause the problems, never ecological disaster. Maybe that wasn’t on the horizon at all in the fifties and early sixties? I suppose every age has its own disaster story. It’s nice how little they worry about nuclear war too, except in Space Cadet which is all nuclear threat, Venusians and pancakes. They don’t make them like that any more. Come to think it’s probably just as well.
* * *
No individual one of these would be particularly noticeable, especially as they’re just background, but sitting here adding them up doesn’t make a pretty picture. What’s with all these dystopias? How is it that we don’t see them that way? Is it really that the message is all about “Earth sucks, better get into space fast”? And if so, is that really a sensible message to be giving young people? Did Heinlein really mean it? And did we really buy into it?
Yeah, he meant it. And further, he was right.
No, I’m not really calling into question the premise of the piece – that Heinlein had something of a bias about population and governmental control. And I’m not saying that he was entirely correct in either his politics or his vision of the future.
But consider the biggest threat facing us: No, not Paris Hilton’s involvement in the presidential election, though a legitimate case can be made that this is indeed an indication of the end of the world. Rather, I mean global warming.
And why do we have global warming? Because of the environmental impact of human civilization. And why is this impact significant? Because of the size of the human population on this planet.
And what is the likely response to the coming changes? Increased governmental control.
[Mild spoilers ahead.]
For Communion of Dreams I killed off a significant portion of the human race as part of the ‘back story’. Why? Well, it served my purposes for the story. But also because I think that one way or another, we need to understand and accept that the size of our population is a major factor in all the other problems we face. Whether it is limitations caused by peak oil or some other resource running out, or the impact of ‘carbon footprints’, or urban sprawl, or food shortages, all of these problems have one common element: population pressure. We have too many people consuming too many resources and generating too much pollution. In fact, when I once again turn my writing the prequel to Communion, I may very well make this connection more explicit, and have the motivation of the people responsible for the fireflu based on this understanding.
So yeah, Heinlein was right. He may not have spelled out the end result (ecological disaster) per se, but he understood the dynamic at work, and what it would lead to. Just because things haven’t gotten as bad as they can get doesn’t mean that we’re not headed that direction. Our technology can only compensate for so long – already we see things breaking down at the margins, and the long term problems are very real. You can call it ‘dystopic’, but I’ll just call it our future.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 