I've started hearing that phrase over the last few weeks. We apparently feel we are entitled to cheap food, cheap petrol and a generally higher standard of living than the rest of the world. And when we feel that slipping... well we aren’t happy campers. I mention it here because many of the great Sci-fi writers included the paranoia of the day in their stories. I could slip this prevailing attitude into a short.

unforchently there is, go to Afghainastain (i spelled that wrong)and see for your self. and the sad thing is they dont realy do anything to change that.

almost home

An example, here in south florida, they closed the land fills and are now using the garbage stream to provide electricity.

I have read about processes that turn plastic in to natural gas which then is either burned or reprocessed into plastic. Locally, they skip the cracking process and make fuel out of it directly, along with everything else.

You will find that most countries would love to have our standard of living. Our poor live better than their high middle class people do.

In my group, we say, instead, that America would be much better without the American Government (read as: return to the letter of the constitution).

One way to design your governments in your story, is to decide how much property rights do the people have.
Governments where there are no property rights are ones where people are not much better than slaves for the lords. The societies around the world with no property rights, where the government has the right to take anything they want, are stuck in primative times where people scrape a living from the land.
Governments where people have the right to buy and sell property little or no governmental interfearance or confinscation of property as taxes or graft, the civilizations are advanced, techological, powerful, with all sorts of new inventions appearing all the time.
The reason for this is that when the powers to be come by and steal you blind every year, you are not going to put a lot of effort in getting ahead. It is not worth it. It will be taken from you anyway. Instead, you will make just enough an no more. If you can profit from your labor, you are going to make more so you can profit from your labor more.

One can show this by having the local lord appear in force and empty your grain storage (especially after a bad year) as winter approaches, as a tax payment, making it look like your family might starve this winter.

Look around at the counties of the world. The easier it is to open a business, the better their standard of living will be. Years ago, before India made some recent changes, It took over a year to get permission to start a business. In America, it might only take a few weeks to get permission from the government to start a business. The quicker one can start a business, the more people will be in their own businesses. That next essentual product that everybody desparately needs might depend on how soon one can get a business running.

In a story, you might have your character's father sitting doing paperwork. He is in his second year of trying to get permission to start a business, thinking about giving up, not being worth the effort.

On the other hand, one might show a space based society where there are no diseases, people are rebuilt from serious injuries, Paupers live better than what the visitors thought the kings or super rich could live. Everybody is in their own business, those doing physical labor contract out their services to the highest bidder or best deal and are paid well according to their abilities. One invents something new, it is protected from others making the same thing with patent protection. One comes up with an idea and writes it down, it is copyrighted and other than fair use provisions, one is paid for use.
An american would be as stunned with this society as some primative from a dirt hole country would be of America.

Government acts strictly as a brake. It can only say stop, don't do that. Taxation stops activities that are taxed, such as making more money. laws prevent actions.
Of course, people will do what they can to get around the "stops" to improve their conditions.
An example, Years ago, the government fixed the prices of certain cuts of meat. It did not matter what the meats cost, the government decided that they could not be sold for more. The butchers cut the meats differently, gave them a new name, and sold them for what they were worth. They found a way around the laws. (BTW, a federal government following the American constitution would not have the power to pass such laws)

Sorry for the rambling.

Edited to note about natural resources. People are the natural resource. Consider, Sand. there is no shortage of sand. Sand in every where. It is a problem in some areas. Sand though, makes glass and computer chips. again, it is the people that are the natural resource, not the raw materials.

I'll avoid talking politics at length, but...stories of any particular era or generation of course reflect what's going on in the world around them. In science fiction, you had high optimism ("we'll solve and fix everyting") of the twenties, giving way to the depression of the thirties ("things will only get worse"), then into a practical optimism of the forties ("we're in this thing to win it, and we will"), into the paranoia of the fifties ("everything is against me"), to the turmoil of the sixties ("we'll tear this down and start it over"), through the cool-down and heat-up of the seventies ("things are pretty bad and we have to live through them"), to the bitterness-tinged-with-optimism of the eighties ("things are pretty bad but things will be better when we live through them"), down to the renewed paranoia of the nineties ("things are out to get us for reasons of their own.") (I'm not up on what it is currently so I leave that out.)

You are wrong, try to think beyond the agit-prop.

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We are actually the most efficiant in resource use than any other country.

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Really? If you're so sure, prove it. I'll save you the researching: check out how Northern European countries do their ecology thing. Check out CO2 production and gas consumption for American cars compared to cars produced elsewhere. Tell me where the efficient resource management is, because I fail to see it.

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You will find that most countries would love to have our standard of living. Our poor live better than their high middle class people do.

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I beg to differ. Have you ever lived outside the US? I'd say that your middle class lives worse than our poor. At least our poor have health care. College education is cheap enough that almost everyone can afford it and there are grants for those who can't. Just by being born in Spain, I expect to live five years longer than you.
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?IndicatorID=117&country=US#rowUS

My other country isn't perfect, but don't go tauting your USness when you don't know what you're talking about.

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One way to design your governments in your story, is to decide how much property rights do the people have.
Governments where there are no property rights are ones where people are not much better than slaves for the lords. The societies around the world with no property rights, where the government has the right to take anything they want, are stuck in primative times where people scrape a living from the land.

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Bad bad commies! They're out to get us!
Take a hint: the cold war is over. Bush said so.

Also that Robert summed up very well the psychologies of every era/decade in the US.

Sara, I appreciate your oppinion, but you did not need to resort to flaming:
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One last point. I'm guessing you're American and that you were educated in the US. Go back to your post, check your spelling and grammar. If you can't even get your own language right, I doubt you have the moral authority to pan the rest of the World.

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I would have to say that rstegman is right, at least 99.96%.

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Provide evidence, or at least some reasoning behind that statement, please.

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Sara, I appreciate your oppinion, but you did not need to resort to flaming:
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One last point. I'm guessing you're American and that you were educated in the US. Go back to your post, check your spelling and grammar. If you can't even get your own language right, I doubt you have the moral authority to pan the rest of the World.

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Asking someone to respect others enough to apply a spell checker to their posts isn't starting a flame war. There are loads of reasons why spelling mistakes occur, but actually taking the time to try to minimize errors shows that someone is trying to engage others rather than blather on regardless of evidence.

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And, Sara, there is a reason why English is the international trade language. Americans and Englishmen have very good reasons to be proud of their countries. I am proud of mine everyday.

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I hate to burst in and contradict you but your assumption that the United States is the "most efficient" is not consistent with what I have studied at length. As much as I'd like to believe you, I would guess somewhere else, like Denmark who doubled productive output without increasing energy use by even one watt, would be the winner of such a title.

Sara George,

rstegman is correct in his assessment that the "poor" of the United States live lavishly comfortable lives compared to the rest of the world. I don't believe he means anywhere in the world, for instance Japan and the EU wouldn't be on the list. But I have lived in South America, and I think various countries there and Africa would most certainly qualify.

I can only assume that most of the reason for this is that Europe and Asia share a massive continent, and have other countries just a drive away. (Yes, we have Canada and Mexico nearby, but we--as a nation--look down on Mexican poverty, and don't really think of Canada as a separate country. I'm talking "literal thinking", not official position.) Spain (for example) touches Portugal and France, and is but a short hop from Morocco and Algeria. From France, it's a short hop to UK, and it touches Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. Germany touches eight countries. USA and Australia, are unique in the limited number of countries they touch (Australia more so), and USA has been able to be self-sufficient almost from it's birth. In the early days, we didn't have to rely on as much trade as the other countries have.

It's easier/more natural to learn/hear things about the US, which is why people tend to know about it more often than the reverse. I don't think the reason is just that people in the US are so purely lazy and selfish and stupid by comparison, sorry, law of large numbers (statistics) would try to refute that... though there's the issue of a biased sample... but 300 million people is a pretty large sample notwithstanding.... I'm babbling again... but my points are these:

1. The US is not the most efficient country, though not sure where it ranks, it's unlikely to be number 1.

2. The living standards in the US are better than the average of the rest of the world, absolutely. There are exceptions, but most people in the world are worse off. I've read the ratio is something like 6 times as many resources per person than worldwide average, (this includes africa and south america.) That said, I'm not sure it's something to be proud of. It's like a fat kid eating a whole pizza, which he doesn't really need, sitting next to a scrawny, starving kid. And ignoring him, maybe letting him lick some grease drips from your plate.

3. I think the stereotype that Americans are just lazy and ignorant by nature is largely false. I think circumstances, which can be identified easily, are the cause of why people know about the US and people in the US might not know about you. The difference is global attention. This is a grossly disproportionate analogy, but it's the same idea, roughly, as why you might know something about Brad Pitt but he's unlikely to know anything about you. But if your roles were reversed, so would-be the flow of information.

Now, returning this topic to writing, for fear we'll lose a rather interesting thread; I think the answers to the above questions and discussion about the above points are quite valuable. The relationships between different political entities and how that effects the flow of information, or biases the views we might have about our own nations, is a valuable thing to consider when writing something. Especially when writing something political, especially involving multiple political entities.

For instance rstegman's pride about the US and Sara's instinct to reject his statements is an interesting event to think about. Clearly their viewpoints are different, therefore someone's information must not be correct. Why not? Is it because someone is ignorant because he's fat and happy? Or is it because someone else has been lied to/or bought into propaganda? I'm really sorry to use you two as an example, but my final point is this:

This topic is absolutely useful for a writer, especial with regard to world building, so please don't shut this topic down.

On a philosophical note, I doubt you're a programmer, but on occasion, in programming, two commands will exist that will seem to contradict. Or rather, two events are trying to happen at the same time and they cannot. The solution, to prevent a crash, is to assign priority.

My question to you is, as good as property rights are, should they take priority over any kind of rights? What about human rights? Individual rights?

The reason I bring it up is because there appears to be something of a contradiction. (And yes this is useful for stories for assigning motivations behind various political groups) The idea of a very fundamental and simple government, as you seem to want, isn't consistent with a government that protects an individual's right to... say ride on the front of the bus, or drink from the same fountain, vote, or not be sexually abused. Because, you see, if property rights are the most prioritized right then business owners, etc (property owners) have absolute domain on their land. And anyone there happens to be at their mercy. Which can disadvantage certain groups disproportionately, for instance the poor, minorities, etc.

The trouble is to "solve" these problems requires some level of government intervenability (is that a word?)

I've raised this argument with several "Ron Paul types" (who seem, to me, to be advocating the same thing as you) and I haven't found anyone who thought it was worth their time to consider this and give me a thoughtful answer.

I think I have some insights on this topic, considering that I have lived in the least developed country in the world, according to the United Nations Human Development Index. Please find link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

You might notice that the United States isn't even in the top 10...

But back to my experience... Yup, Sierra Leone would be #177 out of 177. I served there as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1992 to 1994. At that time, it was #176 out of 177. Looks like the poor keep getting poorer.

However, the reason that the poor keep getting poorer in Sierra Leone, is because American Companies (filled with that amazing zeal to make the almighty dollar), came in and bought all the land that had any likelihood of having natural resources.

In 1984, when Sierra Rutile Corporation http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/product-compint-0000484766-page.html first bought land from the Mende chiefs, the Sierra Leone "Leone" (currency) traded on an even exchange of 1 dollar for 1 Leone. When I was there in 1992, after the cold war ended and America didn't need titanium to build ICBMs anymore (Rutile = Titanium Dioxide = Titanium Ore), the value of the Leone had fallen to 1 dollar to 480 Leones. That would be a valuative deflation of 48,000%. When I left in 1994, just as the war was starting to get kicked off, the Leone traded at 1 dollar to 860 Leones. As of this writing, the Leone currently exchanges at 1 dollar to 2,929 Leones. But hey, at least they get to own their own land...

Oh, yeah. Most "entitled" Americans couldn't find Sierra Leone on a map if I paid them, even considering that it was featured as the setting in a recent blockbuster film (Blood Diamond). It is just south of Guinea. Oh, sorry, that probably didn't help. It's on the west coast of Africa, between Guinea and Liberia, about 500 miles south and east of Dakar, Senegal, which is the western-most point of Africa. If this still doesn't ring a bell, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Now, as to that whole American entitlement thing... some of the more... agitprop statements above (to borrow a word from Sara) are probably the best example and characterization of the concept of American entitlement.

"We're the best."

"Our government is the best (that's why we're currently exporting democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, isn't it?)"

Oh, wait... "Our government is the best, except when it charges ME money and then gives that money to somebody else, you know, who isn't ME."

"We are the best at protecting the environment." ROFLMAO! We wish.

"We are the only place that comes up with inventions, technologies, medical procedures, intellectual research, or any other value-added application conceived of by man (women, not so much)."

So, Tracy, if you want to depict the concept of American entitlement, my recommendation is that you ask rstegman for his sources, or watch Fox News, or both.

We are writers; this top down view should be easy for us.

I can only speak with authority about the UK but I suspect much of Europe (in which I’ve traveled extensively and have several resident friends) is similar. In the 70’s it used to be the case that Europeans were far more aware of the world than your average American. That however has now reversed in my experience. With the advent of multiple competing 24/7 cable news networks and the Internet many people are very well informed of what’s happening in the world around them. Every channel of information has its bent, but when you balance them out you get a decent picture of reality.

Here’s my problem with Britain: the BBC. Used to be great, 20 odd years ago. Now… not so much. Listening to the BBC on anything to do with the US is like turning on Foxnews to find out about the DNC. (For you Europeans, Foxnews is staunchly Republican and CNN staunchly Democratic and they spin most everything as subtly as possible whilst both claiming objective reporting.) Europeans are being systematically brainwashed to despise everything American, mostly through outright deceptive or speculative reporting and picking only the ultra-negative stories to report. For example, a few years ago, a long time friend who is a very successful developer from the UK was visiting me in California and he started trying to help me see that the US had invaded Iraq simply to steal the oil. I was dumbfounded that someone as intelligent as this wealthy man could believe this. Then I thought he must mean that the vulnerability of the oil from the region was a motivating factor, which I would agree with. Nope. He firmly believed that the US actually intended to steal the oil – to simply take ownership of Iraq’s oil resources and profit from it – that this was oil-man Bush’s sole motive.

If you ask the average European on the street what they believe the American motive for the Iraq war actually is – very few will say they believe that this country was willing to lay down their lives, almost break their economy and spurn the rage of millions of Muslims simply to liberate a few million people from tyranny. Very few would believe that. No no no, it has to be greed in some form or another – it has to be American arrogance. It’s not the Europeans fault, its what has been told to them by their media – and why would the media spin the truth?? And all the nationalism that is brainwashed into every child in every country on the planet only makes thing far worse. We all become inclined to start grandstanding for our respective National pride and that generally plays right into the hand of such propaganda.

Getting back to literature. Countries are like competing companies to me. The employees are all humans. All are in the same market that needs all the players to function. Do you remember when you were a kid and you would say “I wish I had all the money in the world” without quite comprehending that if you did in fact have all the money in the world it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on because the world economy would instantly collapse. Where was I going with that? Not quite sure but it is interesting times we live in. I guess, just that we are all the same and need each other no matter which company we work for.

Bent tree recently sent me a rough draft of a story in which the old and new human settlers of another planet regarded each other with suspicion and immediately started drawing lines in the dirt and being less than kind to each other. I thought it a good story plot. Would men be so foolish as to make the same mistakes over and over as they colonized the planets?

I don't know that politics discussed in this manner is quite appropriate material for Hatrack, regardless of how tangentially you would like to associate it with your current WIP, or an idea you've had in your head recently. Issues such as political affiliation, national interest, economic forecasts, and international relations are often fraught with emotion and are lightning rods for closed-minded argument. I suggest we all move on.

That said, with baited breath I await the moment when a fight breaks out and SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED comes in and lays the law down.

Secondly, this has noting to do with writing. If "I could use this in a short story" is enough justification, then nothing is off limits.

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And there is merit in study any counry's birth, rise, and the opinions of other countries about them, when creating a milieu or writing about a people.

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And Tracy said

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We are writers; this top down view should be easy for us.

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Bent tree recently sent me a rough draft of a story in which the old and new human settlers of another planet regarded each other with suspicion and immediately started drawing lines in the dirt and being less than kind to each other. I thought it a good story plot. Would men be so foolish as to make the same mistakes over and over as they colonized the planets?

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Also, I believe one of the keys to learning to develop quality characters and effectively utilize dialogue for those characters is to hear different, heart-felt opinions from disparate voices.

While I might vociferously disagree with many of the opinions stated here, they are providing me with a certain sense... a cadence, that allows me to better see how a character of the same convictions would argue similar points.

I think it's easy to forget how diverse opinions can run on both sides of any issue, and one (specifically ME) can easily get lulled into the perspective that, "everybody thinks like I do..."

So, I think this has a lot to do with writing. It's just not the mechanics of the craft. It's the flavor, the approach, the shadings. And, in my humble opinion, those shadings are what make good writing...

I added examples of how what I said could be used in stories.

I will say that many of the criticisms of my note was valid. Some were not. I made some mistakes and got some things wrong, I got other things Right, some in spite of popular opinions.

First off, Geniuses cannot spell........ This browser has a spell check. Now I can get my magic right....

Government provides and controls education in the United States. Government molds the children into good little supporters of the government. It is in the best interest of the government for them to be unable to understand what the government is doing wrong, That is why you hear stories where children cannot find the world on the globe but can name every actor or actress who is in the news. It is why public news has so much entertainment news involved. (Fox news is rather liberal for me).

Consider a highly educated alien coming to the planet and finding a society that knows the activities of the entertainment field in detail and can list everything each celebrity has done over the past year, but has no concept that they even have a government.

When I was writing about cleaning up pollution, I was thinking of industry and how in the past thirty years, we have scrubbed our wastes from the air, have increased efficiencies of our factories.
As for efficiency of cars, look at the gas milege of cars of similar size and class over the past thirty years. Also look at the increase of the costs of repairs in any given kind of accident, and also the changes in death tolls in a given accident. There are trade offs. People want safety so they go big. Mass nearly always wins.

consider a society with cars that get a hundred miles to the gallon but are made so light and flimsy that you don't dare lean on them.

I don't consider carbon dioxide a pollutant. If you do, then simply stop breathing and that solves the problem. ::: giggle ::: Plants breathe in CO2.
I also don't believe in MAN MADE global warming, though it is a fun thing to explore in stories. I have seen evidence of previous global warmings and global coolings. I know of three global warmings and two global coolings in the past two thousand years. We did not have factories back then. they were not caused by mankind. There are a number of countries that are growing polluters who were not included in the Keyoto (sp) treaties.That shows that they have nothing to do with the environment.
I will say that the US government is the number one polluter in the country and would love to do something about that....

On property rights, One's labor belongs to oneself. If you are willing to die to prevent another from getting your labor, they cannot force it. From that, all property rights evolves. One exchanges your labor for something of labor of someone else.
Property rights is individual rights. The government, any government not created by conquest, is supposed to exist to solve disputes. Disputes between individuals, between governments, between nations. Anything more that it does is a problem.
The United States Constitution was worded to try to prevent Congress specifically from having the ability to "do good." When they have the power to do good, they have to power to do bad.
When the country was started, English Common law existed to deal with many of the disputes. legislation was intended only to deal with points where English Common law was lacking. A bad court decision in English common law effects only that locality and that case. Court cases involving Legislation, on the other hand, are "global" effecting the whole legal jurisdiction. English Common law is no longer a useful set of laws, having been superseded by Legislation in nearly every case. The courts run the country now, not legislators or law.

Consider where an invasion takes over a land, and the new masters demand the people do work. The people all refuse to work, instead simply curl up in a ball. The masters beat them, prevent them from having water or food in an attempt to get them to work. They are deprived of sleep. The masters are shocked that people are actually dying of their treatment. All the people had to do was to work and they would be treated nicely. What does the masters do when they realize that they could have a land empty of laborers unless they leave?

When government oversteps the limits of solving disputes, you get things like laws that punish anybody from giving the wrong group comfort or business (riding at the back of the bus, separate water fountains, not allowed to go to certain stores. Yo
when Government oversteps the limits of solving disputes, you also get where you are forbidden to refuse to do business or associate with someone you don't want to have around. If you start a business, it might not be to your advantage to refuse business from anybody as you could use their money. But also as a person, you should have a right to refuse to hire someone you are not comfortable with or serve someone you don't like. The question comes down to who's business is it? yours, or the government's?

Consider a story where you start a business. you start to hire people to do work. You pick people you can deal with, who will work, and who can do the job. Suddenly the government officials come in and say that you are exhibiting racism. They drag your workers out, they are forbidden to return.
Then the government brings in people. none of them know anything about the job you are having them do. They come in late, they don't do the work they can do, driving your good customers away, and letting customers in who are stealing you blind. Their only qualification is that the government says they fit the racial makeup of society.
The government officials then forbid you from going to parties you enjoy, functions you consider important or interesting. You are required to go to mixed functions that you have nothing in common with.

In countries where industries purchased up all the lands, One can look at the local governments and their officials for that. The offiicals made their money. It is also likely that the officials had stolen the land from the people in the first place. Stories where corporations control the country are really stories where the government allowed it to happen. Microsoft used marketing to become big.
Until the government took it to court on monopoly charges, the corporation had nearly no interest in what was happening in government. Corporations only pay attention to government only when government messes with businesses. Businesses buy protection from government officials, or they try to buy advantages when not doing so will be too good for competition.

Consider a story where a intergalactic corporation arrives, and they buy the government of a planet. They give every government official and worker a small fortune and sometimes a big one, and moves them off the planet. the corporation then goes in and strip mines the planets, ripping up entire cities to get to the minerals. The people find they cannot do anything since the government had sold the land from under them. They have to run for shelter to avoid the earth moving equipment, watching everything they need to live get eaten up and shipped off planet.

Sorry for the long note.

We sound just like them. Not the good parts, but the fighting parts.

Also, in the Share World Grant, Patrick, Iscott, and umm...someone else (sorry for forgetting who you are!), we have been working on the politics. Every time we had a rough idea we would start asking ideas and challenging each other, because its how you get somewhere.

I really hope no one on here really thinks that you can grow in wisdom or understanding by ignoring something.

That said, the problem isn't government. It's us. Count the wrong things you do in a day, and it may shock you. I'm talking from any religious point of view, but merely a "the world should be a better place" point of view.

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I'll admit it. The problem is me.

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I like the observation that one of the "Men in Black" made, something like: as individuals the human race are quite intelligent--but when they form groups, they seem to go collectively stupid.

Some random additions to the pool of thoughts above:

I agree that some understanding of how our societies evolve is valuable in writing stories with credible backgrounds. Some rich areas are how nationalism, and inability to understand other nations and cultures, creates conflict--and how that ignorance can be exploited by ruthless greedy politicians and terrorists.

When I returned from several years in the USA to England I was profoundly disappointed to realise that the BBC has changed its mission from "Inform, educate and entertain" to "Maximise audiences by exploiting human conflict".

If it's true that a significant motivation for the American-UK-led invasion of Iraq was to liberate its people from tyranny, why do we leave Zimbabwe, Darfur and Burma to name but a few in their deathly tyrannies? This was more about oil than anything else; "liberation" was a veneer.

It's also fascinating that despite the best intentions of its writers, the American Constitution appears to have stifled debate on important issues like abortion and gun law. Since it's argued that the Constitution enshrines certain aspects of these issues, the only way abortion and gun laws can be changed is by changing the Constitution, and that's deliberately made difficult to preserve stability. So the debate has moved from Senate and Congress to the selection process for members of the Supreme Court, for by packing it with those who agree with your stance on abortion and gun law, you can keep things as they are (or, if you're on the other side, push change).

Recycling waste does not make a nation resource-efficient: not generating the waste in the first place is more efficient. So for example, it might be more efficient to put drinks in bottles (not cans that are recycled) and reuse the bottles--not recycle, reuse--as in, send them back to the factory and refill them, as the Germans do their wonderful beer bottles.

Also, that global warming happened before without human intervention does not mean that current global warming too was not aided by us individually-bright-but-collectively-dumb human beings. And anyway, how do we know that previous global warming wasn't caused by the dinosaurs, hence their demise?!

Cheers,
Pat

I really respect your point of view, I think it's facinating. I happen to disagree--almost completely, but respectfully, because I think it's merely an issue of separate perspectives. But thanks very much for elaborating on those points. I feel that this new perspective you have shared is refreshing, and it's helping me to open up my mind to alternative thinking, even if I don't agree with it, to help me design and development a better balanced cast of characters. So, thank you. And perhaps I will think of a few more questions to send your way.

Igwiz's comments on Sierra Leon were extremely fascinating, thank you. Actually I'm using wikipedia to read about it and you're right I'd never heard of the place. But it so perfectly fits one of the environments of my new WIP that I am currently developing. So thank you very much for sharing.

Talespinner and tnwilz, I found both of your comments especially helpful, the UK perspective specifically. I might have questions for you when I think of them, but I absolutely appreciate the imput, and find it very valuable. This post is giving me a lot of perspective, thanks!

Just think, all of this time we've had a community of people from all around the world, and perspectives from all around the world. And we haven't really cashed in on that, to share that variety of views as much as we could have. I've been operating under the false notion that everybody here thinks, roughly, the same way I do. That everyone notices the same details, forms the same opinions, and follows the same paths to reaching their conclusions. And guess what else! I have been criticized (my old WIP) for creating characters who think too much like I do.

It's like OSC's latest essay about Hillary Clinton, agree with it or not, he makes the case that people's mental processes are something unique, like fingerprints, which should be assessed. Encountering your various points of view is invaluable, thanks again everyone.

And to those who seem interested in getting this topic shut down, I really don't see why that would be beneficial. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but it seems that the simplest solution to me is--if you find the thread useless or irrelevant for your projects--to simply ignore it. There are a few people who are finding this useful for what they are currently working on, and I am one. It's not very enjoyable to see people trying to shut down a thread which, to you, is useful.

But since someone else has put my feelings on the matter in much better words than I could, almost poetically so, I will steal from a post above. These are our sentiments about this thread:

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Also, I believe one of the keys to learning to develop quality characters and effectively utilize dialogue for those characters is to hear different, heart-felt opinions from disparate voices.

While I might vociferously disagree with many of the opinions stated here, they are providing me with a certain sense... a cadence, that allows me to better see how a character of the same convictions would argue similar points.

I think it's easy to forget how diverse opinions can run on both sides of any issue, and one (specifically ME) can easily get lulled into the perspective that, "everybody thinks like I do..."

So, I think this has a lot to do with writing. It's just not the mechanics of the craft. It's the flavor, the approach, the shadings. And, in my humble opinion, those shadings are what make good writing...

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I believe that post to be absolutely correct. At least, it says not just what the author feels but what I feel as well, and probably several others.

Consider that, please.

I have the same problem with where the US gets its oil.
I hear how we buy it from the middle east then the next authority says, NO. The US buys most of its oil from Venezuela. And another says, heaven no, we buy it from Canada and Mexico. Then where does all that crude in the Alaska pipeline go? Another authority told me (part of his audience years ago) we sell that all to Japan.

It is hard to exist/live/be part of a democracy or a republic when you can't trust the information coming in to base your opinions on. And the Internet isn't a great help. You find support for almost any theory there.

In the future, with so much information both true and false and all of it probably with spin on it flooding people, how are people going to make decisions? Back to word-of-mouth and someone-I-know????

First, regardless of your stand on global warming, I think that you will find very few sources now that argue that is isn't happening. I think it's a phyrric victory at best to spend a lot of time arguing over who's fault it is. I think that there is time better spent discussing how to solve the problem. If this ins't a conflict set-up that has potential to explore in setting, characterization, and plot, I don't know what is!

As to democracy, Congress, and other aspects, I think it is extremely important for we Americans to realize that our current government structure is the second, albeit more successful child of a burgeoning family of "Democracies." You see, the Federalist Republic that we now enjoy had an an older brother. It had the same name, "The United States of America," but it died in its youth, at the young age of 6 years.

From 1777 to 1781, as the US was concluding the Revolutionary War, the founders were developing the Articles of Confederation. At that time, the States were seen as the predominant implementers, with the Federalist model and a Federal Congress only as the collector of "dues," used to regulate certain international trade activities and raise a standing, Federal Army. The first "United States" was then governed under those Articles of Confederation from 1781 to 1787. The US Constitution wasn't put into place until 1787 (and wasn't officially ratified by all the States until June of 1788).

However, the "Confederacy" didn't work (either time, actually...). Even by the early 1780s, our first Confederacy was failing, the bonds between the states were fraying, and relations were failing. This had some to do with "rich states" and "poor state" issues, escpecially since each state had it's own currency, and where the value of money varied significantly from one state to the next.

The key problem was, the Congress of the Confederacy (it's actual name) wasn't empowered to pass appropriations bills, levy equal taxes across the states to fund "national" activities like Defense, or to require consistent implementation of certain laws, treaties, and other "national" policies.

What kept us together? The willingness of the Congress of the Confederation to hold a Constitutional Convention, recognize where things weren't working, and create the US Constitution. There's a reason that the preamble of the US Constitution reads, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The recognized that they were in the process of "form[ing] a more perfect Union...," because the first attempt didn't work (was an abject failure, actually).

Now, what does this all have to do with writing (those of you ask...).

What would have happened if the US hadn't held a Constitutional Convention in 1787? Specfically, what would have happened to the United States that we know during the War of 1812, if our recognition of "our mistakes" hadn't happened?

Great premise for a novel, or even a series, of historical fiction novels. And everything that we have argued about here (States Rights vs. Federalism) are key attributes of those issues.

Further, I would posit, for those who oft point out the failures of our current Federalist Republic, lobby for supremacy in States rights, and who often turn back to the "Founders" as though they were infallable; that the real wisdom of the Founders wasn't creating a system that worked the first time (it didn't), but their willingness to realize it was broken, and to fix it, all the while leaving room for additional fixes in the future (i.e., Constitutional Amendments).

Just food for thought...

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And to those who seem interested in getting this topic shut down, I really don't see why that would be beneficial. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but it seems that the simplest solution to me is--if you find the thread useless or irrelevant for your projects--to simply ignore it. There are a few people who are finding this useful for what they are currently working on, and I am one. It's not very enjoyable to see people trying to shut down a thread which, to you, is useful.

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Hey now, don't accuse me of trying to stife discussion. I'm just saying, I've seen conversations less potentially flammable than this explode into bitterness and anger. The level of mature discourse on the internet is appallingly low, and Hatrack is at times no different.

That being said, I'll take your advice and het the he-ho-ha out of here. I'm well-enough versed in history, politics, the economy, the environment, and the American sense of entitlement as is.

Yes, but I hear lots and lots of climatologists who say the factor is the sun. Now what do we do about the sun? Put up a big planetary umbrella? Everything humans do is a pittance in comparison.

On the other hand, I have heard some scientists in the field say that the overall temp is declining slightly the last year or so. And how in England (or was it in Europe?) that movie by what's his name, an inconvenient truth, had to be shown with a big warning that it contained numerous errors and misstatements.

Of course the news seems to pick and choose the experts to interview and not necessarily by their competance or background.

This is what I mean. For SF, how you pick the information you allow characters to have can turn stuff that is absolutely true, false, and vice versa. A good way to have irony.

The sf part of this is that it seems to me that we're now at the stage in the global warming argument, for example, where X can match Y argument for argument and expert for expert and get nowhere in figuring out that elusive matter, "Truth." Especially when there is a political component driving the argument.

Will "the media" as we have viewed through most of the last century endure when there are thousands of competing voices? If you read blogs from people on the spot at the disaster in favor of the "Official Media," how can you discern what is factual and what is spin and what is downright lying? Or does no one on the internet lie?

Imagine a world in which every piece of information has -- let's be kind and say -- spin? We might except math, but then again, statistics are famous for lying. You are inundated with facts all designed by experts to convince you of what they want you to believe. How would people react? Turn cynical? Hunker down and shut out all information? Find a few sources they trust until those prove corrupt? I imagine there would be an elite who at least think they know what's going on. But anything could be buried under that mass of information. All sorts of things evil, even good. Orwell had it right.

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And how in England (or was it in Europe?) that movie by what's his name, an inconvenient truth, had to be shown with a big warning that it contained numerous errors and misstatements.

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A British High Court Judge reviewed Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" because someone objected to it being shown in schools.

Quotes from Times article on the Judge's findings on the movie, having reviewed the scientific evidence upon which it was based:

"He agreed that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration”."

"Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.

"In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”

"The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts. "

Full article at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate_law/article2633838.ece

Cheers,
Pat

I think, for the record, that the trend of a warming planet has been objectively measured and isn't, truthfully, up for dispute. But the exact causes are (and probably will be for some time) the source of controversy.

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would you set up the political atmosphere to resemble our world, with arguments on every side despite general consent among the academic community, or would you make the people more uniform in their thinking? Consider that.

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As for the causes of global warming... yes, we can't prove that humans are responsible. We can't prove the humans _aren't_ responsible, either. To do either we'd need a whole slew of Earth-like planets to experiment on, and millennia to do it in.

But the _preponderance_ of evidence, in my opinion, is pretty damn convincing, in my opinion. Enough for me to advocate a serious analysis of our lifestyle and the niche we've carved out for ourselves.

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I'm curious how this judge is so versed in science knowledge to be the authority on the matter.

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Honestly, in a world where we can't agree on whether or not caffeine is bad for us. How can anyone say with any form of certainty that the world is going to end in 20 years and the world will burn up? Follow the money and you will see the new "carbon credit" payout goes directly into Gore's pocket...well, if you buy them from his company.

You know, I think I put more thought into my characters than most people put into what they hear on the news. If CNN says it...it must be true. "Al Gore made a movie, and everyone agrees it is true." Except the scientist that disagree, and they are all excluded from being heard and removed from their jobs because they didn't blindly follow the hype.

Wow, if it weren't for the fact that this is happening, it would make for some excellent scifi stories.

I suggest thinking, and doing some research that does not include your favorite site that always says what you wish to hear, before making decisions for me and the rest of the world. Another study has determined the heavy forestation in the far north has helped raise the temperature by causing more sunlight to be absorbed and kept on the surface than being bounced off back into the atmosphere. Another study looked at the cattle population as producing waste that is equivalent to a large number of cars...I forget the exact numbers.

No one problem is the problem, no one solution is the solution. So how does this all tie into writing? Nothing in a world is as simplistic as we usually write it. Once we rise above the very narrow view our stories tend to portray, everything is far more complex than we anticipated. Governments in large are corrupt. Anyone who is speaking loudly on behalf of someone else usually will have some motivation that will be self beneficial in some way...and usually it is monetary. Individuals are nice, while large groups are continually on the edge of exploding. As writers, we should try and make our worlds more complex, and the result will be they are more believable as well.

LORD DARKSTORM

Welcome back to the light lol.
Insightful comments BTW

So, this is where I'm jumping off the turnip truck.

Well lets go back in history a bit. Now I am going on some fading memory here but I believe that A C Clarke himself came to the US in the earlier 80's (Don't remember the date) and tried to elicit his fellow writers on denouncing the threatening escalation of the Cold War. He wanted all the Sci-Fi writers to denounce the West's "continual provication" (I am paraphrasing here) What he didn't expect was the backlash from his colleagues. I mean some of them were pissed off. What is true then is true now. Americans don't like to be viewed as 'the major problem with the world'. Be it aggression, enviromental irresponsibility's, or captilist insensibilty's. Regardless what your nationality or your political persuasion let me point out what should be important to the people on this site.
Most of the publications for what we are trying to market are in the U.S.A. You can look up all the facts you want but that doesn't change. Americans buy more books than anyone else as well. Maybe thats because Americans have more disposable income (something to be said for their standard of living). Maybe its because of the loose restrictions of what is exceptable for public consumption (something to be said for their ideas of liberty). Maybe its because of all the talented and thought out works of literature (something to be said for their educational system). What ever the reason is you can't change the fact that if you want to make it big, you'll need to do well under the Stars and Stripes.

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I'm curious how this judge is so versed in science knowledge to be the authority on the matter.

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It was a court case. Both sides had to present evidence. The Judge's decision was based on the evidence--not opinions, evidence--provided.

Interestingly, in his judgement he called them "errors", not errors, meaning that we would only know the truth of some of the film's claims some while in the future. But of course the newspapers and broadcast news ignored that, concentrating as usual on conflict rather than fact. I think it's a real shame our communicators can't communicate, makes it real hard for the rest of us to make up our minds on complex issues.

More behind this story at http://www.celsias.com/2007/10/24/the-dirt-behind-the-recent-uk-inconvenient-truth-ruling/

I think there certainly are stories to write with global warming as a theme.

Getting scientists to agree about anything is hard. They'll argue ad infinitum over the tiniest of detail. I like to imagine that very few agree the sky is blue, because "blue" is an imprecise description of light at wavelengths of anywhere between 450 and 490 nanometers.

So when an international panel of scientists agree there's a 90% chance the Earth is indeed warming up I think we ought to take notice.

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The panel said the long-term outlook for all regions was for trouble should temperatures rise by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius, or 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, with consequences ranging from the likely extinction of perhaps a fourth of the world's species to eventual inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people.

The worst outcomes faced regions that are mainly poor and already facing dangers from existing climate and coastal hazards, let alone what might be worsened by human-caused warming, authors said.

"It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the panel and an energy expert from India.

'People who are poor are least equipped to be able to adapt to the impacts of climate change and therefore in some sense this does become a global responsibility in my view."

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More at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/06/healthscience/web-0406climate.php

Suppose the scientists are wrong but we listen to them anyhow. The worst that happens is we invest in cleaning our world up and it smells nicer. It also looks bright and inviting from outer space and aliens say to themselves, "Hey look, that looks like a nice place, let's drop in for tea."

Suppose the scientists are right, and we ignore them and continue to warm our world. Worst that happens is we condemn millions of the world's poorest to floods, famine and global conflict over mass migrations. And passing aliens say, "Yech. What a mucky place. Let's move on and leave them to rot in their own filth."

I agree with Anne, it's not worth the risk. Now if only I could capture all that in a story that wasn't dystopianly depressing, or naively optimistic ...

From http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2266521,00.html

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He was bitterly critical of the 1980s concept of Star Wars and, well before this emerged as US policy, sent a personal message of appeal from his Physics and Space Institute in Sri Lanka to the US Congress. His video statement A Martian Odyssey, which was read into the congressional record, argued that money being spent on intercontinental ballistic missiles could, to everyone's benefit, be imaginatively channelled into an international space voyage to Mars to mark the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Columbus in search of the Americas in 1492. He did not predict an end to the cold war, but he always sought and fought for new bridges between cultures.

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And from http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/04/arthur-c-clarke-on-s.html

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I have only recently learned, from his long-time secretary Carol Rosin, that Wernher von Braun used my 1952 book, The Exploration of Space, to convince President Kennedy that it was possible to go to the Moon.

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