Today I learned +

[Bedrockgames]

If you mean "Space Cadet", which is the only similar story that immediately comes to mind, then it came about a decade before "Starship Troopers."

I haven't read Space Cadet, but based on your post that reminds me a little of how Against the Fall of Night paved the way for City and the Stars with Clarke

 

[Ryujin]

I haven't read Space Cadet, but based on your post that reminds me a little of how Against the Fall of Night paved the way for City and the Stars with Clarke

It's been decades since I read it but the fact that The Patrol was basically a Sword of Damocles hanging over Earth really stuck out to me.

 

[trappedslider]

Things I just now learned

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think it does, and I've explained why.

I'll be honest, I think all you've done is prove my point at some length. Incredible stretching and it's still not remotely believable.

Admittedly, its an injured veteran, but he's still right there.

Macho double-standards on ableism have existed as long as ableism (as has hypocrisy even on that - some people with war wounds aren't treated as well as others). But my point was that the book wasn't deeply ableist in goals - a distinction from Nazi-type fascism (more similar to "straight" fascism).

That might very well be--the point was that the job was supposed to be a sacrifice for the person in one fashion or another.

Quite. Which flatly wouldn't be the case if he'd really intended to include civil service etc. as he later attempted to retcon.

(As an aside, I think that whilst the book meets the best-standard tests for fascism, i.e. Eco's, I do suspect it's mostly "accidental fascism" because I think about 80% of what's going on in the book is flippant and ill-conceived ideas being tossed off without much thought, and that had he not been so well-respected later in his career, people would be more real about that.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'll be honest, I think all you've done is prove my point at some length. Incredible stretching and it's still not remotely believable.

Then our perspective on this is so different we probably can't talk about it usefully.

Quite. Which flatly wouldn't be the case if he'd really intended to include civil service etc. as he later attempted to retcon.

If you think there aren't plenty of civil service jobs you can give to someone that are a sacrifice for them, I don't know what to tell you. As I said, just being forced to do some of them at all can be pretty unpleasant, so all you have to do is aim people who could have more pleasant and well paying jobs in the civilian sector at them.

Again, this doesn't assume the system at hand always succeeded, but that's true of most systems, but that was pretty clearly what part of the intent was.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

so all you have to do is aim people who could have more pleasant and well paying jobs in the civilian sector at them

There isn't even the slightest hint that this is going on in the book. There's a ton that suggests no civil service jobs are involved.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There isn't even the slightest hint that this is going on in the book. There's a ton that suggests no civil service jobs are involved.

And again, I disagree. I think you see it that way because they make no distinction between them. All government work is done by the military. I mean, technically speaking, a fair bit of what military office and administrative work was historically done was done by enlisted personnel (a bit less so in the modern period as I understand), so if that's applied to everything the government is done, there'd be no had line of distinction.

 

[Umbran]

Hey, @Ruin Explorer and @Thomas Shey ...

You two don't seem to be talking about stuff you learned today. You are arguing about a book. Please come back to the thread topic. Thanks.

 

[Mercurius]

Today I learned that Qwen is quite pleasant to use, and helpful to work a problem or get guidance. It is rather striking how responsive it is, even towards conversational discussion. I'm very leery of AI in general, but had a quite positive experience exploring various topics.

 

[jian]

TIL that Terence Stamp considered Superman (1978) his comeback film after a decade, almost regarding it as divine intervention.

After his early successes with The Collector (1965) and Far From The Madding Crowd (1967) Stamp had started to feel he was getting nowhere with acting and had even taken refuge for a year in an ashram in India, growing his hair and beard long (and apparently having a lot of tantric sex). It was when he was at the ashram that he got a postcard from his agent asking him to audition for General Zod, and he basically thought, “Eh, why not, I don’t really care either way.” The rest is history.