2012 Election Season

[Callie]

Edit: Sorta sniped

 

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

If the two-party system is really standing in the way of any given policy, then it can only be because neither of the two parties, each representing about half of the voting population, can be persuaded to adopt the policy. If you can't convince a majority of half the people to believe in your policy, why would you expect to convince a majority of all the people to believe in it, if only the two-party system weren't there?

If someone wished to convince half the population to hold a certain viewpoint, it would be necessary to openly discuss that view and assess the benefits of adopting said policy. I think there are many issues for which a majority of people could quite easily be convinced to agree with a certain viewpoint. It's just that some issues aren't discussed to begin with. The two-party system often results in rhetoric which makes it appear that the parties are diametrically opposed on issues, leading to an form of government where a reasonable idea is suppressed because it conflicts with the interests of the one party whose view is more strongly favored in regards to a certain topic.

 

For example, public school teachers are generally granted tenure in the US, so much so that firing teachers who've committed crimes might be a boondoggle in some jurisdictions. I think that, if the issue was frequently discussed, a majority of people would oppose such tenure. In my experience, a lot of people aren't even aware that public school teachers are granted tenure. Tenure for school teachers is supported by the Teacher's Union, which overwhelmingly supports the Democratic Party. If someone suggests that we should eliminate that tenure the union will loudly oppose it and so will Democrats, because Democrats receive campaign contributions from them. Yet, if a Republican makes that suggestion, even people who would normally agree with that suggestion will oppose it as a result of the prevailing political dichotomy. Republicans are more likely to advocate cuts to education budgets, and almost everyone who espouses the teaching of creationism or school prayer is Republican. So the dichotomy is that Republicans are "anti-education" and Democrats are "pro-education," even though that kind of dichotomy doesn't accurately apply to all candidates of both parties. The Republican candidate who wants to eliminate tenure will immediately be labelled by the opposing Democrat as being detrimental to education, and that kind of argument will generally win.

 

If there were, say, four or five parties it'd be more difficult for such a situation to occur. There might be one party with supporters who espouse creationism and education cuts, but that wouldn't be the case for the other parties. There would still be a anti/pro kind of dichotomy (as a result of coalitions especially), but different parties will reflect different interests, apply different rhetoric, and have varying degrees of views. I don't think it will eliminate the problem, but it would certainly help.

 

(As for the incarceration issue, there is a similar situation. A Republican candidate can use the "tough on crime" argument to great effect.)

 

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

I'm not so sure about this. If you can change people's minds enough to get them to change the system in ways that will not only bring about universal health care, but will also bring an undetermined number of unknown future changes, then why can't you change their minds about universal health care alone?

Constitutional amendments can, and have been, passed without a consensus among the general population, and I think this could very well apply to the electoral college (not with the current political atmosphere, though). If people oppose a perceived improvement, it's not entirely impossible for some branch of government to take initiative. Opposition to gay marriage in the US has declined noticeably, yet no legalization of gay marriage has occurred by means of popular referendum.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Khoth

I like the thread running through this that's treating universal healthcare as some mad impossible fairlyland dream rather than something that's practically a basic requirement for a country to call itself first-world.

What on earth is wrong with your country?

The Republican party came up with most of the features of ObamaCare as a reply to the Clinton health plan. When the Democrats started endorsing it, the Republicans almost declared that it was the work of the devil.

Most large companies are pushing for universal healthcare so they can get out from paying for it for their employees. Wal-Mart and the big 3 auto companies are leading the push to lower their own costs.

[Alorael at Large]

I'll just throw out that the electoral college is actually relatively easy to fix. It doesn't require a constitutional amendment; it requires only that half of the electors ignore the state votes and go with the popular vote. There's even a potentially effective effort to make this happen.

 

The electoral college can cause wackiness, but it's relatively rare for the popular vote and the electoral vote to go opposite ways. Instead, I'd lay a lot of the blame at the feet of the two-party system. I, and many others here, would vote to the left of the Democrats, but there's no real option to do that so I vote for Democrats. Even if I don't agree with them on anything, I almost always disagree with the Republican candidates even more. If one party is hijacked by a lunatic fringe, as can be argued for the Republicans, anyone who supports moderate right policies is out of luck, because that's no longer an option. It's a system that only works if the two sides both take reasonable views and can cooperate even when they disagree.

 

—Alorael, whose fear is that American government could quickly cease being reasonably competent. If both parties have under 60% of the Senate, everything requires a supermajority, no one will cooperate with the opposing party, and demonization takes priority over efficiency, it's not too hard to lock the government down. The budget crises are giving a taste of that, and political showmanship occupies too much time while real legislation languishes. There's no ideal solution, but right now American democracy isn't functioning all that well.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: ξ

Income more equitably distributed? You're nuts. Our Gini coefficient is middling at best.

Um, no, you're wrong? Among OECD counties, the US Gini coefficient ranks towards the bottom of the list, sure, but it's only 0.003 higher than France, and it's lower than both Israel and Germany, both of which are usually thought of as countries with pretty good income distributions.

I mean, it seems to me that the real issue with income inequality is that, although averages wages have tracked productivity growth, median wages have not, because the bulk of profits due to these increases have gone to the top 5% or so- implying that the median wage should be somewhere around 40% higher, IIRC. That's a big gap, but it's certainly not at the level of, say, India, where a few people are billionaires and hundreds of millions starve.

Originally Posted By: ξ

More peaceful? If you mean that we haven't had a war on our territory since the 1860's, sure, but we just got out of one prolonged war of aggression and are winding down another. There are a lot of other countries that have done better.

That was exactly what I mean. A US citizen who does not enlist in the military has pretty much a zero chance of being killed in a war, and even members of the military have pretty low odds, too. There's no chance whatsoever that the US will be invaded, ad the odds of US citizens dying in military action will remain astonishingly small far into the future, which is more than can be said for lots of people.

Originally Posted By: ξ

Less corrupt? Maybe, but it depends on your definition. I think that a lot of what is legal in the U.S. is corruption, even though it's not officially so.

I'm not able to bribe judges or police officers to get off criminal charges. I don't pay protection money to the state or else risk being attacked. I don't have to bribe regulatory officers or governmental officials to run a business. It's not expected that I fear so much for my personal safety that I hire mercenaries as bodyguards for myself or my property.

Originally Posted By: ξ

Less criminal? I think not, unless you have a weird definition of it. Quick Googling yields that our intentional homicide rate is lower than in a fair number of countries, but it's many times typical rates in Europe. I rather suspect that most other crimes follow the same pattern.

Ahem.

Originally Posted By: ξ

More democratic? This, too, depends on your definition, but I think it's fair to say that democracy could be viewed as equality of political power, and again there we lag behind a variety of other countries.

Oooor instead of using that definition, we could use the actual one, which according to Wikipedia is "Liberal democracy is a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism. It is characterized by fair, free, and competitive elections between multiple distinct political parties, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, and the protection of human rights and civil liberties for all persons.", which I'd say is a pretty fair descriptor of the US.

...

I think you may be misinterpreting my points, though. I am not claiming "Here is a list of categories, the US is the best in the world in all of them."; but rather "Here is a list of categories in which the US does quite well, and it's impressive that we're able to do so well across the board if our country apparently sucks so much due to being [racist/classist/politically oligarchical/economically immobile/generally unfair], so maybe we aren't those things."

Oh, and there are still other things I could add to the list, which is by no means exhaustive- stuff like women's rights, literacy, life expectancy, general quality of life indices, and so on.

[The Ratt]

I think many of the issues in America could be resolved if the American mentality was changed. Using the metaphor of climbing a slippery slope, the stereotypical American is focused on individually getting to the top, and it is possible because a few smart, talented, or lucky people got there, but, with everyone taking that mentality, the situation just ends up with everyone pulling each other down and climbing over each other. It would be great if we could change the mentality to helping each other up, so everyone benefits; if you slip someone will catch your hand, assuming that you would do the same thing. Basically people acting for the benefit of the collective whole, rather than themselves with the expectation that as the whole improves, they will be pulled up along with it.

 

I understand that even if we did have this attitude of helping each other we would still have problems with deciding what is the best way to solve the problems of the collective whole, but, perhaps, politicians would be more willing to consider the thoughts of the other side instead of just condemning opposing thoughts.

 

Other thoughts. The media sucks, from FOX news to NBC, all they care about is profits, viewers, and ratings, which means stories that will inflame or captivate the most number of people are shown and exaggerated, while other stories with comparative impact are pushed to the side because they might not be agreeable (particularly race related stuff).

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: The Ratt

Using the metaphor of climbing a slippery slope... the situation just ends up with everyone pulling each other down and climbing over each other.

You probably want the crabs in the bucket metaphor, not a slippery slope metaphor.

Dikiyoba.

[Alorael at Large]

If you compare after-tax Gini, though, America falls farther. If you compare American homicides, they're much improved, and still well over twice the median rate. But largely, yes, America is a good country. People want to live there, and none of us urgently need to go elsewhere. It's just baffling to accept the failures and inefficiencies when we know they're avoidable. Other countries avoid them!

 

—Alorael, who is aware that other countries have their own problems, and it's not simple to transplant others' solutions into another country. Still, there's something disquieting about politics that stop even really convincingly pretending to be about competing visions for a better future. Acknowledging that there are problems is treasonous.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: Future Wonderbolt

Where are you getting the idea of what the collective will of the Americans is? Polls, what people say, the cannonmouths on the news?

I just don't see how the current American system could fail to conform to the wishes of a majority of the American people, if they really wanted whatever they wanted. Maybe I'm missing some subtle voting paradox, but failing that, the elections are accurate polls, at least about as often as you could reasonably expect of any system. Tight races like Bush-Gore are always going to be hard to call.

Blaming the American political system for American social problems is blaming the messenger.

[Alorael at Large]

Conservatives will vote for Republicans. Liberals will vote for Democrats. The parties don't really need to drum up support from their bases, so what the really need is the support of moderates. If conservatives and liberals both support a proposition but the small but politically essential moderates don't, it's politically expedient to take the odd position or rejecting the proposition. (Liberal, conservative and moderate are used in the American senses here, corresponding entirely to American parties.)

 

This paradox doesn't happen often, if ever, but it could!

 

—Alorael, who thinks the bigger problems is the subtler issue of lack of coalition building. Substantial pluralities within a party's base don't matter; they're not going to vote otherwise, so no one really needs to court them. There's a least common political denominator effect, which is an accurate representation of the median that entirely ignores what happens on the long tails.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

If someone wished to convince half the population to hold a certain viewpoint, it would be necessary to openly discuss that view and assess the benefits of adopting said policy. I think there are many issues for which a majority of people could quite easily be convinced to agree with a certain viewpoint. It's just that some issues aren't discussed to begin with ... [because of the two-party system].

But just how does the two-party system prevent any ideas from being discussed? Why can't you discuss them within one of the parties, for example in primary races? Sure, the other party is going to attack them; but it's going to attack any ideas proposed by its opponent, no matter what they are. So the first party has nothing to lose in discussing any particular idea it wants.

The situation I can see where a two-party system may seem to suppress discussion is this. Suppose a small group supports an idea, and the neutral majority could be persuaded by the supporting group if it had the chance, but there is another small group of hard-core opponents. The hard-core opponents of the idea get joined in knee-jerk opposition by all their fellow party members, and this amplified opposition shouts the idea down.

But this scenario is begging too big a question. Why don't the neutral people in the same party as the idea's supporters join in on the supporters' side?

Maybe it's understandable that party loyalty alone isn't enough to make neutral party members support their enthusiast compatriots, even though it was enough to make the neutrals in the other party support their enthusiast wing. It's always easier to oppose something than to support it.

But why isn't party loyalty at least enough to make the neutrals listen to their enthusiast compatriots long enough to be won over to enthusiasm themselves? The premise, after all, was that this was an idea about which the neutral majority could be persuaded. If they are so persuadable, how come they don't actually get persuaded, even when they have the added incentive of party loyalty?

It seems to me that people who think they could persuade the neutral majority, if only they weren't being stifled by the knee-jerk opposition of the other big party, are kidding themselves. If they could really persuade the neutral majority of the whole country, they could surely persuade the neutral majority of their own party, who have a prior commitment to listen to them, and to ignore the ranting of the other side.

If the persuaders could then get their idea into their party's platform, the two-party system would start working in their favor, by lifting their minority proposal into a major national debate. So if people are getting their ideas stifled, it seems to me that it must be because the neutral majority is just not as persuadable as they'd like to think it is. The two-party system is just the messenger bearing this uncomfortable news.

[Khoth]

Here's the other reason why neither party seems particularly interested in touching universal health care:

[Kelandon]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Um, no, you're wrong? Among OECD counties, the US Gini coefficient ranks towards the bottom of the list, sure, but it's only 0.003 higher than France, and it's lower than both Israel and Germany, both of which are usually thought of as countries with pretty good income distributions.

You said that the U.S. "is better of [sic] than just about any other government on the planet." You have now admitted that it "ranks towards the bottom of the list" among a group of countries. That was my point.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

A US citizen who does not enlist in the military has pretty much a zero chance of being killed in a war, and even members of the military have pretty low odds, too. There's no chance whatsoever that the US will be invaded, ad the odds of US citizens dying in military action will remain astonishingly small far into the future, which is more than can be said for lots of people.

Okay, but that's kind of really different from saying that the U.S. government is "peaceful," which is what you said before.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I'm not able to bribe judges or police officers to get off criminal charges. I don't pay protection money to the state or else risk being attacked. I don't have to bribe regulatory officers or governmental officials to run a business. It's not expected that I fear so much for my personal safety that I hire mercenaries as bodyguards for myself or my property.

Maybe not, but you can make campaign donations to prevent something from becoming illegal in the first place, even if it ought to be. That seems like corruption to me.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: ξ

Less criminal? I think not, unless you have a weird definition of it. Quick Googling yields that our intentional homicide rate is lower than in a fair number of countries, but it's many times typical rates in Europe. I rather suspect that most other crimes follow the same pattern.

Ahem.

Your statement was that the U.S. "is better of [sic] than just about any other government on the planet" in terms of crime, and you just linked to a graph that shows that the crime rate in the U.S. (while going down) is higher than the crime rate elsewhere in the world. Again, that proves my point.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Oooor instead of using that definition, we could use the actual one, which according to Wikipedia is "Liberal democracy is a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism. It is characterized by fair, free, and competitive elections between multiple distinct political parties, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, and the protection of human rights and civil liberties for all persons.", which I'd say is a pretty fair descriptor of the US.

I like how you pretend that there's one agreed-upon definition of democracy. That's cute.

That definition may describe the U.S. to some degree, but you would still have to prove that it matches the U.S. better than it does most other countries in order for your point to stand, and that is not very amenable to quantitative analysis. I'm willing to dismiss this point as unverifiable (like the fairness one) rather than statistically wrong, though.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

II think you may be misinterpreting my points, though. I am not claiming "Here is a list of categories, the US is the best in the world in all of them."

Your exact words were that the U.S. "is better of than just about any other government on the planet" in those categories. You appear now to have amended that statement to something more accurate, so I have no further beef with that post.

The U.S. is a great place to live. We have vast economic resources, incredible opportunities (though not distributed as evenly as they should be), and lots of other great things. Our ideals, while not always lived up to, are worth striving for. But it's important to bear in mind what does actually make us great and where we lag behind. If we don't know where we're failing, we stand no chance of improving. And there are a bunch of places where we're failing.

[keira]

Someone better give Dantius CPR, he just got Kelled.

[Callie]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

But why isn't party loyalty at least enough to make the neutrals listen to their enthusiast compatriots long enough to be won over to enthusiasm themselves? The premise, after all, was that this was an idea about which the neutral majority could be persuaded. If they are so persuadable, how come they don't actually get persuaded, even when they have the added incentive of party loyalty?

If a Democratic candidate has views to the left of the party establishment then said candidate is unlikely to gain any traction. Opposing establishment ideas makes it difficult to raise funds or garner a necessary level of attention. Yet, if a view is too far to the left of the one party, it's certainly too far to the left of what's considered the right-wing party. But the view doesn't even have to be outside of the party's nook in the political spectrum: it just has to be in conflict with financial interests of the establishment party members.

A candidate might come along who can rally a support base that agrees with the candidate's pet issue (a bad way of putting it though). But the establishment is going to shut that out: no money, no media attention, and a pitiful debate presence. Then the issue will be forgotten about, not because it was disagreeable, but that the people who espoused it are ignored out of expediency. Or it might not be forgotten about, the candidate will just make populist speeches to appeal to it, but not actually encourage real debate.

Not to pick on the Democratic party, but its politicians are generally just as corporatist as their Republican counterparts. I'm not convinced that a majority of people support a system in which a business exists largely upon its ability to lobby politicians. It's going to happen regardless of how many political parties there are, but throw in more parties and you're going to have parties whose interests conflict a lot more often.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: ξ

You said that the U.S. "is better of [sic] than just about any other government on the planet." You have now admitted that it "ranks towards the bottom of the list" among a group of countries. That was my point.

Yeah, it ranks towards the bottom of a list of OECD countries in ONE metric, countries which are orders of magnitude more advanced and developed than most countries around the planet. Hell, "OECD members" is practically the definition of modern, first-world advanced economies, all of which are vastly better off than the non-OECD member states. The US ranking towards the bottom of a list of the most developed economist does not mean it's bad in general- that would be like claiming that a person scoring in the 20th percentile of an exam administered only to those scoring above the 95th percentile on another exam is stupid- yeah, they did poorly relative to the competition, but the competition was pretty fierce.

Originally Posted By: ξ

Your statement was that the U.S. "is better of [sic] than just about any other government on the planet" in terms of crime, and you just linked to a graph that shows that the crime rate in the U.S. (while going down) is higher than the crime rate elsewhere in the world. Again, that proves my point.

Again, those are OECD countries (see above point), and as the graph shows, the US's crime rates are not terribly higher (our assault frequency is 0.00003 higher per person than in other OECD countries, and is trending heavily downward) than they would be expected to be, especially given the vastly larger population and correspondingly higher urban populations (The US has 250,000,000 people living in or around cities. That's a lot of opportunities for violent crime).

Originally Posted By: ξ

I like how you pretend that there's one agreed-upon definition of democracy. That's cute.

Look, it's not my fault other professions can't be bothered to stringently define their terms. If polsci people can't even agree on what the basic definition of democracy or liberal democracy is, then that's a failing on their part and not an excuse to invoke the courtier's defense in order to dismiss my point.

Also, it does make rather more sense to use a neutral, third-party definition of terms, rather than you define them in such a manner as to automatically win the argument and vice versa. Wikipedia certainly seems like an acceptable source for what the general scholarly consensus is, if only because since it's on such a high-visibility article the sources will have been ruthlessly vetted.

Originally Posted By: ξ

Your exact words were that the U.S. "is better of than just about any other government on the planet" in those categories. You appear now to have amended that statement to something more accurate, so I have no further beef with that post.

You are getting really hung up on my exact wording, and again fail to see the point. "Just about" can mean a lot of different things, and in this circumstance I used it to mean better than 80-90% of the alternatives. The number of governments that can seriously compete with the US across the board on most or all metrics is probably only around a dozen or two, and out of the two hundred-ish nation states on the planet, placing in the top 10% does, in fact, put you better off than "just about" everybody else, especially when the vast majority of the world's population is not contained within the US's competitors.

Originally Posted By: ξ

The U.S. is a great place to live. We have vast economic resources, incredible opportunities (though not distributed as evenly as they should be), and lots of other great things. Our ideals, while not always lived up to, are worth striving for. But it's important to bear in mind what does actually make us great and where we lag behind. If we don't know where we're failing, we stand no chance of improving. And there are a bunch of places where we're failing.

I agree with you totally. We are only discussing this in the first place because I was trying to make this exact statement to Dikiyoba. Yes, the US has its fair share of problems; and it is certainly better that they be dealt with in a effective and timely manner than that we stick our heads in the sands. But, it is still important to recognize that our problems tend to be rather small compared to the problems faced elsewhere (healthcare management vs. obtaining clean water to not die), and the US government is basically competent and effective in delivering all of the things specified in the US's social contract.

[Alorael at Large]

That graph of homicides is normalized by population. Urban population is somewhat irrelevant; you can say that the US can be expected to have higher crime, and it does. But should it?

 

I think that's the point Kel is trying to make. Comparing the US to the OECD is the closest to an apples to apples comparison. Every country has its own unique historical circumstances, and someone has to be last in the rankings, but it raises questions. Why does the US have such high rates of violent crime (and yes, it does). Why are incarceration rates so high? Why is education poor? Other countries are developed and are doing better by some metrics, sometimes dramatically so. That's a lesson.

 

—Alorael, who believes the basic functionality of the US is something of a historical lucky accident. It's reasonable to assert that for what it is, a basically good government, the US is actually pretty bad. (Of course someone will assert this for every government. But it's still worth evaluating the claims.)

[Student of Trinity]

In my confusion about American society I have sometimes wondered whether it could even be relevant that the American frontier only closed a few generations ago. Like maybe what, five or six? I can't seem to pin down a precise date, but I think maybe people were still settling western land as homesteaders near the end of the 19th century.

 

I think that social attitudes and expectations often maintain momentum for a generation after their original practical basis has gone, because they are what kids grow up hearing about. So my grandfather's generation would have grown up thinking of America as a place where new immigrants headed west to carve farms out of the wilderness.

 

Could it still make a difference, that we're only a couple of generations removed from that world? Does it count, as well, that the mythical frontier of Davy Crockett and Matt Dillon dominated TV and movies into the 1950's? That small boys still played 'cowboys and indians' in the 1970's?

 

In comparison with European culture, American culture has always seemed strikingly individualistic and anti-intellectual. In a frontier era, those traits are probably advantages. On the one hand it just seems ridiculous to think that the 19th century is still shaping the 21st, after so much intervening history and change. On the other hand, though, maybe it's a basic fact of history, that culture changes much more slowly than technology, because the cultural product cycle is, after all, twenty times longer.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

In my confusion about American society I have sometimes wondered whether it could even be relevant that the American frontier only closed a few generations ago. Like maybe what, five or six? I can't seem to pin down a precise date, but I think maybe people were still settling western land as homesteaders near the end of the 19th century.

In 1890, the Census Bureau declared the frontier closed. That had more to do with the ending of serious armed conflict with the Indians; conflict of course continued in non-martial ways, and later in martial ways revived by the American Indian Movement, but the frontier was deemed "safe" at this point and thus not so much a frontier. Migration onto occupied territory continued for some time, of course, but the colonization was in essence completed.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

In comparison with European culture, American culture has always seemed strikingly individualistic and anti-intellectual. In a frontier era, those traits are probably advantages. On the one hand it just seems ridiculous to think that the 19th century is still shaping the 21st, after so much intervening history and change. On the other hand, though, maybe it's a basic fact of history, that culture changes much more slowly than technology, because the cultural product cycle is, after all, twenty times longer.

The metaphor of the frontier has been vastly more important than just that of the 'cowboys and Indians' mystique that held America at bay. If I may bring up a period far more recent than the closing of the frontier in 1890, I may prove why. The 1960's saw JFK's "New Frontier" rhetoric, but more importantly saw the moon landing and the so-called "Final Frontier" in space.

I'm glad that the United States hasn't done too much since then - no colonization, just cautious exploration, mostly by means of robotics. I think the frontier metaphor in American history needs serious evaluation before any serious ventures in space exploration and development can be committed in good conscience. We're seeing the result of the frontier metaphor, I think, in the environmental strain that expansion has caused. Do we need to do the same to even more environments out there?

[Student of Trinity]

Huh. Thanks for the date from the Census Bureau. And the 'New Frontier' is a good point. The fact that Kennedy picked that particular term to sell his grand project shows that 'frontier' still resonated with Americans in the 1960s.

 

But I think the frontier metaphor for space exploration, let alone colonization, is seriously wrong. The whole point of the American western frontier was that the land was hospitable. A family could show up with a horse-drawn wagon, and set up a farm straight away. Outer space isn't like that.

 

I once led a college seminar about colonizing Mars, and when I asked what the most important things were that humans would need to bring to live on Mars, I got all kinds of suggestions about water and energy, but nobody even realized that the Martian atmosphere is far too thin to breathe. A Conestoga wagon is not going to cut it when there's no air.

 

Maybe all it will take will be a couple more generations of technological progress, and moving to a self-sufficient arcology on Mars will be doable on an average family budget. I'm skeptical, though. I think that humans will eventually colonize other planets and moons, but very slowly. It will likely be several centuries before there are more than a few hundred permanent non-residents of Earth. It's never going to seem much like a settlement frontier.

[Cairo Jim]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

I once led a college seminar about colonizing Mars, and when I asked what the most important things were that humans would need to bring to live on Mars, I got all kinds of suggestions about water and energy, but nobody even realized that the Martian atmosphere is far too thin to breathe. A Conestoga wagon is not going to cut it when there's no air.

Not only can't you breathe it, water boils ferociously from the lack of atmospheric pressure. Which makes it particularly hostile to people without proper protection.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

But I think the frontier metaphor for space exploration, let alone colonization, is seriously wrong. The whole point of the American western frontier was that the land was hospitable. A family could show up with a horse-drawn wagon, and set up a farm straight away. Outer space isn't like that.

Oh, I'm fully aware. The harsh environment in space is a blessing, I believe, in a weird way. For us to be able to rapidly expand into space would almost certainly yield negative results.

This article which is unfortunately not free to view outlines why quite well. The rhetoric of expansion, frontier, colonization, etc. is all mired in a very imperialistic viewpoint. Another article, which can be accessed easily from Project Muse, is entitled "Pity the Indians of Outer Space" and that is a fitting summary of my opinion on the current space ventures. The last time America had a frontier that we explored and colonized, we committed massacres and wars of conquest. Even if there are no indigenous inhabitants of outer space, no ecosystems to destroy, the fact that the last time we had this rhetorical technique employed we caused a lot of damage means that we need to spend some time with the history books and reevaluate how we go on.

That NASA and the scientists who lead it are generally not polluted by this mindset is good. Private companies getting into the venture of space worries me somewhat - they are geared by their nature to take advantage of opportunities - but space is still so insurmountable a barrier that I have no worries.

Of course, I don't know enough about the history of other nations to be able to leverage any sort of cultural critique against their space programs. Russia, China, India, the European Union's ESA... all of these are very different cultures that don't have the same colonial, frontier history as the United States. I'd be curious if anyone could provide analysis of these space programs.

[Alorael at Large]

I haven't paid for the article, but I'm skeptical. You've already pointed out that without natives or ecosystems, there's not much to be harmed in space. Pristine research environments, maybe. Potential life, if it's overlooked in the rapid scramble of land grabs. The damage of colonialism was to the colonized, though. There's nothing out there worth protecting, as far as we know.

 

—Alorael, who suspects that the novel Accelerando anticipates a major problem of space exploration: latency. The internet is right here. Who wants to put up with several minutes of lag for terrestrial websites? Who wants to be cut off from where all the people are and are likely to stay? It worked in earlier centuries because the new homes were relatively hospitable and delays a part of life. Selling frontiersmanship to the first world now would be tough.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

*snip*

Um, what? Your point makes no sense at all. The reason that westward expansion is considered "bad" is that it killed a bunch of people and degraded the environment. It was only able to kill people that were already on the land - hence the "indigenous" bit. You seem to be a pretty smart guy, so I'm not quite sure what you don't get about the whole "there are no indigenous people living in space because there are no people living in space period" point. By definition, it is impossible to run roughshod over people's rights and murder them if there are no people there! At absolute most, there might... might be a few microbes under ice sheets out past the Asteroid belt, which, despite being a fascinating insight into the origins of life and evolution, also happen to be nonsentient and therefore not genocide-able. Furthermore, basic Physics 101 prevents us from colonizing anywhere outside the solar system, so even if there are other sentient life forms out there in the neighborhood of Betelgeuse, they are so far away as to be impossible to reach.

And environmental degradation? Really? There's no environment to degrade! Strip-mining the asteroid belt is not morally equivalent to strip-mining Yellowstone- it's literally nothing but a field of rocks filled with valuable minerals floating in space! It cannot get any worse that is already is, and I can think of a lot better uses for them than floating a quarter billion miles away doing nothing. We destroy literally nothing- there is no risk of causing a species to go extinct, polluting the atmosphere, poisoning the groundwater, or all the other things that are bad that are associated with environmental degradation.

(Oh, and claiming that Europe lacks the same colonial history as the US is a claim that demonstrates stunning lack of knowledge of even the most fundamental basics of history. I can let ignorance of Chinese, Russian, Indian, or Arabian imperialism (which did all exist and were quite brutal) slide a little bit, but does the phrase "The sun never sets on the British Empire" not mean anything to you?)

[Alorael at Large]

There have been many different forms of colonialism. American colonialism was unusual in having little desire to subjugate indigenous people. We just wanted the land. The British Empire was less interested in slaughter and displacement than in control. Spain wanted resources, and settlement was mostly secondary to that.

 

—Alorael, who thinks it's worth pointing out that this means America had a limited colonial history as such. Settlement, displacement, and racist warfare and resettlement tinged with genocide, yes; desire for real colonial imperialism besides space for military bases, less so.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

And environmental degradation? Really? There's no environment to degrade! Strip-mining the asteroid belt is not morally equivalent to strip-mining Yellowstone- it's literally nothing but a field of rocks filled with valuable minerals floating in space! It cannot get any worse that is already is, and I can think of a lot better uses for them than floating a quarter billion miles away doing nothing. We destroy literally nothing- there is no risk of causing a species to go extinct, polluting the atmosphere, poisoning the groundwater, or all the other things that are bad that are associated with environmental degradation.

The exclusion of non-living nature from considerations of space exploration is my main concern. Just as sodbusting by US colonists on the frontier later contributed to the Dust Bowl that magnified the effects of the Great Depression, so too could reckless mining of rare earth minerals from asteroids, Helium-3 from the Moon, whatever resources from Mars, etc. have unforeseen consequences. As was mentioned, Mars does not even have a hospitable environment currently for terrestrial inhabitants. We should try not to aggravate that situation.

Another concern with imperial ventures is the possibility for conflict between nations. We've already seen this to some degree a few years ago with the saber-rattling between the United States and China concerning anti-satellite technology. If expansion into space is for exploitative purposes, conflicting interests could escalate - it wouldn't be the first time nations expanding into terra nullius space have fought over resources. The only difference is that this time, it actually is terra nullius, to the best of our knowledge.

Originally Posted By: Dantius

(Oh, and claiming that Europe lacks the same colonial history as the US is a claim that demonstrates stunning lack of knowledge of even the most fundamental basics of history. I can let ignorance of Chinese, Russian, Indian, or Arabian imperialism, which did exist and was quite brutal, slide a little bit, but does the phrase "The sun never sets on the British Empire" not mean anything to you?)

My statement there was a lot more literal than you're interpreting - they literally do not have the same colonial history as the United States. I'm fully aware of Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Arabian imperialism and experiences being the objects of imperial subjugation, as well as many of the individual nations within the European Union. However, the United States' specific experience with settler colonialism is different than the overseas empires that Britain or France set up, which are different than the Russian expansion eastward into Siberia or westward into Europe, which is different than the interplay of Muslim-Hindu politics during the various Indian empires, etc.

My point was more fundamentally that since each of these empires emerged in different cultural contexts and with different rhetoric behind them, I cannot make the analysis transfer as easily for how space relates to their colonizing, imperialist pasts(/presents).

[Student of Trinity]

I'm afraid I'm with Dantius on the environmental protection of space rocks. There's no-one there to harm, and just as he says, the environment out there can't really get any worse than it already is. Sure, in principle it could somehow be that mining the asteroid belt would lead to terrible unforeseen consequences. But there could also be terrible unforeseen consquences from not mining the asteroid belt.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

The exclusion of non-living nature from considerations of space exploration is my main concern. Just as sodbusting by US colonists on the frontier later contributed to the Dust Bowl that magnified the effects of the Great Depression, so too could reckless mining of rare earth minerals from asteroids, Helium-3 from the Moon, whatever resources from Mars, etc. have unforeseen consequences. As was mentioned, Mars does not even have a hospitable environment currently for terrestrial inhabitants. We should try not to aggravate that situation.

Again, why does that matter? Mars is a planet with a third of Earth's gravity, no oxygen to speak of, less than 1% of an atmosphere of pressure, no liquid water, -50 C surface temperatures, and sunlight intensities between a quarter and half that of Earth. From a human perspective, it can't get any worse- there's no danger in "aggravating" damage to an ecosystem that cannot support life in the first place.

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

Another concern with imperial ventures is the possibility for conflict between nations. We've already seen this to some degree a few years ago with the saber-rattling between the United States and China concerning anti-satellite technology. If expansion into space is for exploitative purposes, conflicting interests could escalate - it wouldn't be the first time nations expanding into terra nullius space have fought over resources. The only difference is that this time, it actually is terra nullius, to the best of our knowledge.

Yes, and if nation states stayed on earth, they would never possibly get into conflict over anything and we'd all join hands and sing Kumbaya. The fact that conflict "might" occur if we do something that is in our interests is relevant, yes, but conflict over resources is endemic to all life everywhere, and is hardly a reason in and of itself to discourage exploration.

And, actually, there is a good deal of empirical evidence to suggest that competition in space would be less brutal than competitions for resources on Earth- I don't recall Columbus placing a plaque that read "We came in peace for all mankind" when he landed in the Dominican Republic in 1492, nor do I recall a bunch of European nations banding together and spending billions of dollars on a big ship to collectively investigate the Spice Islands in the 1600's.

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

My statement there was a lot more literal than you're interpreting - they literally do not have the same colonial history as the United States. I'm fully aware of Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Arabian imperialism and experiences being the objects of imperial subjugation, as well as many of the individual nations within the European Union. However, the United States' specific experience with settler colonialism is different than the overseas empires that Britain or France set up, which are different than the Russian expansion eastward into Siberia or westward into Europe, which is different than the interplay of Muslim-Hindu politics during the various Indian empires, etc.

Although I don't have my copy of Colossus handy, there is one interesting part where Ferguson list a sort of "menu" for imperialism- for each empire you would select the type of domestic rule, the type of control over colonies, the reasons given for imperial rule, the reasons why imperial rule actually happened, etc. One of the things he mentions is that, although the social and political reasons for imperialism are superficially different, they really boil down to a few key reasons- desire for resources/markets and conquering/missionary zeal being the chief two, with desire for security running fairly close behind. So while yes, specificity in history can be useful, it's not as if the US bears some sort of unique burden brought on by the nature of our imperial past that makes us specifically disqualified or specifically needing to be extra-cautious for space exploration, when the fundamental reasons why imperialism happens are so constant over time.

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

My point was more fundamentally that since each of these empires emerged in different cultural contexts and with different rhetoric behind them, I cannot make the analysis transfer as easily for how space relates to their colonizing, imperialist pasts(/presents).

Have you considered the fact that perhaps this is possibly because colonizing, imperialist pasts, which spring mainly out of desires for resources/security/expansion, and have negative effects characterized by indigenous oppression and environmental degradation currently have exactly zero bearing on space exploration, which places an emphasis on multinational cooperation and bring economic benefits to its investors not in the form of resources or raw materials but in technological tools and knowledge in general; and which is not an inherently exploitative effort due to the fact that there are neither indigenous people nor environments up in space?

[Harehunter]

"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"

Robert Heinlein.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"
Robert Heinlein.

The next Australia or Georgia, US.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"
Robert Heinlein.

The next Australia or Georgia, US.

Psh. Sending convicts and criminals to a nice cushy life on the moon? Why not just stick them mining rare earth minerals in the asteroid belt for the rest of their lives? I mean, then they're far enough away they can't just wipe out cities and military bases by tossing rocks down the gravity well </spoiler>, AND you get something more useful than just grain out of the deal.

[Lilith]

i have been told by people whose job it is to put thought into this sort of thing that colonising the moon or mars is actually less practical in the long run than colonising the asteroid belt; they have enough gravity to be inconvenient but not enough to be useful

[Randomizer]

The pro to colonizing the moon was the possibility of finding usable water and other raw materials. Asteroids have the advantage of being low mass so they could be repositioned to a more useful location.

 

As for convict labor, you still need guards to make them work. Threatening to cut off supplies only works if the labor force cares about living.

[Jerakeen]

If the labor force doesn't care about living, then guards won't do much good either. But threatening to cut off supplies is a bad idea mainly because it's evil.

[Jerakeen]

...

[BMA]

If people can even eat each other to survive, they'll probably willingly suffer the inconveniences of living on the moon too.

 

Besides, even honest hardworking citizens will probably be tempted to commit a crime, just for the novelty of living in outer space.

[keira]

[Alex]

Regarding colonialism and the environment:

 

Well, even if those noble savages hadn't been the object of colonialism, they would probably have found out at a later date that other people have cars and refrigerators, and wanted to have them, too.

 

My point is that development, whether spread peacefully or not, is the underlying issue here. I suppose that the polar bears were better off in the Stone Age, but were humans better off? If you want to go "back to nature", you're free to do so. There ought to be some nice little uninhabited island in the Arctic where you can live like an archaic hunter - and hope the polar bears don't get you.

[Goldengirl]

Re:space

 

I fear my point is getting muddled in the possible scenarios of what may happen, delusions about a "noble savage", etc. All that I'm trying to say is that the last time Americans rushed off to settle the frontier, we committed (arguably) genocide or (inarguably) conquest of widespread cultures and peoples, as well as causing long term ecological disasters. Thus, space is something that needs to be approached with more caution than that, lest we in some form recreate the mistakes of the past or aggravate current issues.

 

I'm not saying that space exploration and development is bad, nor am I trying to propagate the ideal of the "noble Savage" (I don't know how that idea was drawn from my text. I merely support the sovereignty of all people, and therefore condemn roughshod imperialistic violence by the United States against the various Indian tribes. It's a false dichotomy to assume that the Indians would either be conquered or remain isolationist - trade flourished in times of peace without the need for warfare to 'facilitate' relations). Mostly, I'm in support of current space efforts, though private companies getting into the act makes me a little uneasy, because efforts in space have basically been deliberate, cosmopolitan, and scientific. The environment of space has aided that process by making the same sort of rapid expansionism implausible, if not impossible.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

the last time Americans rushed off to settle the frontier, we committed (arguably) genocide or (inarguably) conquest of widespread cultures and peoples, as well as causing long term ecological disasters.

Please Touch the things that we could commit genocide against.
Please Touch the peoples that we would conquer.
Please Touch how we would cause ecological disasters in space.

[BMA]

Originally Posted By: Alex

Well, even if those noble savages hadn't been the object of colonialism, they would probably have found out at a later date that other people have cars and refrigerators, and wanted to have them, too.

While it's a fact that the colonists did bring with them some technological advancements, it would be unfair to assume that the colonies would otherwise, even now, be backward and leaf-clad.

(I hope I understood what you meant, correctly)

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

All that I'm trying to say is that the last time Americans rushed off to settle the frontier, we committed (arguably) genocide or (inarguably) conquest of widespread cultures and peoples, as well as causing long term ecological disasters. Thus, space is something that needs to be approached with more caution than that, lest we in some form recreate the mistakes of the past or aggravate current issues.

And we're all trying to point out that it is physically impossible to repeat those mistakes. There are no people, noble savages or not, in space period. Therefor, genocide is impossible. Space not only has no environment, being mostly hard vacuum, but the parts that do have "environments" are already so hostile to life that they can't be made any worse, therefore ecological disasters are impossible.

Originally Posted By: BMA

While it's a fact that the colonists did bring with them some technological advancements, it would be unfair to assume that the colonies would otherwise, even now, be backward and leaf-clad.

I dunno, it seems fair to me. Progress in the technological sense is by no means a sure thing, and almost all of the time it requires a civilization to latch onto. Considering that a.) most North American natives were migrant, and therefore did not have the prerequisite stability to form one, and b.) with the noticeable exception of the Inca, most civilizations in South America tended towards spectacular self-destruction in a manner that Eurasian civilizations didn't, cf. things like mass human sacrifice on the scale of hundreds of thousands for the Aztec. It seems perfectly possible to me that they could stumble along for another 500 years to the present day with no significant technological advancements- after all, even Eurasian civilizations had long dead periods with little or no advancement- Europe had one for a millennia, and China often had periods of centuries of stagnation in the middle of dynasties, and they had all the benefits that made such advancement possible.

I mean, there certainly would have been technological development and advancement had peaceful interaction with colonists occurred, that's practically indisputable. But if colonization never happened in the first place, I see no reason why thousands of years of essentially no major development whatsoever would somehow explode into a technological renaissance that would bring them up to the standards of the rest of the world.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: BMA

While it's a fact that the colonists did bring with them some technological advancements, it would be unfair to assume that the colonies would otherwise, even now, be backward and leaf-clad.

It wouldn't be unfair. It's almost certain. 'Some technological advancements' is a radical misunderstanding of the situation.

At the time of European contact, the native Americans were, literally, in the Stone Age. The most advanced cultures had maybe reached about the stage of the middle eastern civilizations of two thousand BC, but a lot of others were really back at prehistoric levels. Nobody on the American continents had metal tools, wheels, or horses.

There was simple few-crop agriculture in a few places, but a lot of native Americans were still hunter-gatherers. The larger meso-American empires may perhaps have been starting to develop a bit more quickly, but the hunter-gatherer groups had been living that way for millennia, without any sign that they were about to shift to agriculture any time soon.

Probably the reason for the big American lag was just that the ancestors of the native Americans had spent millennia slowly wandering over from Asia, while the people that stayed in Asia were instead slowly learning to build cities and stuff. But nobody really knows how technology develops over the long term. Maybe there are a lot of little bottlenecks that have a very low chance of being crossed each century, but when things do click then change happens fast. In between these lucky jumps there may, as Dantius observes in his snipe, be long periods of stasis. Nobody really knows how long these stases might typically last, because the Europeans somehow suddenly got several jumps in while everybody else was having a stasis, and then sailed around the world with their guns and steel.

So maybe the native Americans could have caught up with the Europeans, at least a bit, if they'd been left alone and gotten lucky. Or maybe they'd have had bad luck, and taken ten more millennia. Or maybe it was the Europeans who were exceptionally lucky, and ten millennia to go from stone to bronze is par for the course. There are some interesting books about this kind of stuff, but it's all pretty hypothetical.

Any way you slice it, though, it seems essentially impossible that any native American group could have caught up to modern technology on their own, without European contact, for at least another thousand years or two. Getting here from the Stone Age is bound to take a long time even in the best case.

[Alorael at Large]

Guns, Germs, and Steel goes into the details of why American civilizations didn't develop the way Eurasian civilizations did. There are bold hypotheses there I'm not qualified to reproduce, let alone critique.

 

—Alorael, who thinks it's also worth going over again the fact that the rush to the American frontier happened because the frontier was hospitable and there for the taking. Space is certainly there, but taking it is a long, hard, grueling process. No one is going to do it on a lark and just see what they can do. It's too expensive for that.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Alorael

Guns, Germs, and Steel goes into the details of why American civilizations didn't develop the way Eurasian civilizations did. There are bold hypotheses there I'm not qualified to reproduce, let alone critique.

That might be a good thing. I've heard enough hearsay about Diamond having sloppy research methods (once as a tangent in a scientific paper) to be suspicious of his conclusions.

---

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Nobody on the American continents had... horses.

No definition of technological progress that relies on horses as a milestone can possibly be valid. They're a resource, not a technology. What, did the people of Europe and Asia go out and evolve the horse out of thin air?

Dikiyoba.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

No definition of technological progress that relies on horses as a milestone can possibly be valid. They're a resource, not a technology. What, did the people of Europe and Asia go out and evolve the horse out of thin air?

It's actualy very valid. SoT would be more correct to state that the people of the Americas did not have large beasts of burden that they could domesticate- a point that Diamond makes to great effect. While the people of Eurasia and Africa had things like horses, cows, oxen, donkeys, camels, and so on, the only large, domesticated animals that the Americas had were the llama the alpaca, and that was only in a small region of South America.

And while this may seem like a small thing, it really isn't. While you can still get meat and such from wild animals (like bison), with domesticated animals you can use them for farming purposes like plowing, heavy work and excavation, transportation of people and goods over long distances, rapid communication, easy milk, a steadier supply of meat and other animal byproducts than could be provided by wild animals, and a bunch of other things that really help civilization not only get started, but continue to function smoothly.

And of course they didn't evolve them out of thin air. One of the points that Diamond makes is that the people of Eurasia didn't get civilization because they were so much smarter than everybody else, but because they got lucky and got beasts of burden, crops, climates not hospitable to disease, and natural barriers. Any people that got those resources would have hit the world-historical jackpot and wound up ruling the place.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

SoT would be more correct to state that the people of the Americas did not have large beasts of burden that they could domesticate-

Right.

Quote:

One of the points that Diamond makes is that the people of Eurasia didn't get civilization because they were so much smarter than everybody else, but because they got lucky and got beasts of burden, crops, climates not hospitable to disease, and natural barriers. Any people that got those resources would have hit the world-historical jackpot and wound up ruling the place.

Right. But that's not what SoT seems to be saying.

(Also, dogs aren't very big, but they were used as beasts of burden, especially by Great Plains tribes. Edit: And in the Arctic, duh.)

Dikiyoba.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

(Also, dogs aren't very big, but they were used as beasts of burden, especially by Great Plains tribes. Edit: And in the Arctic, duh.)

Well, that may be true, but I'd imagine it's significantly easier to plow a field with horses than it is with dogs, which is the most critical function they would have provided. Plus you can't ride dogs. Or milk them. I guess you could eat them, though they would seem to be more useful to be bred for hunting purposes than to be bred for food.

Still, the general point stands.

[BMA]

Originally Posted By: Dantius & SoT

Originally Posted By: BMA

While it's a fact that the colonists did bring with them some technological advancements, it would be unfair to assume that the colonies would otherwise, even now, be backward and leaf-clad.

Nope. *snip*

I was looking at it from the Indian perspective. Back when India was a British colony, the only advancements of note that the English introduced were the railways, canals and the telegraph system. Some religious superstitions were banned, but they were part of ordinary Hinduism at the time. And while these factors definitely ushered the Indians in to development, it must be noted that they weren't club-wielding cave dwellers to begin with, and they were reasonably well off, though of course not 'booming'. Will India not even have been a 'developing' country if not for the British invasion ? Maybe.

But what really riled me was the reference to 'savages' and the apparent implication that the colonies of old should, far from sulking, be actually grateful enough to thank their 'benefactors' for having been colonized, or even that the two were on equal terms and had a mutually beneficial "We give you this (technology) and you give us that (resources, manpower)" agreement which was satisfactory to both parties. Because we know that it wasn't anything like that all; the colonists always had the upper hand and muscled their less luckier counterparts into submission.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Right. But that's not what SoT seems to be saying.

Could you say why that didn't seem to you to be what I was saying? What the heck did I write, that gave you some other impression?

Anyway, horses didn't evolve out of thin air, but that's part of the point, too. Horses were actively bred for human use, probably for millennia, in Europe and Asia and the Middle East. I don't know what the original wild horses were like. Presumably they were better than alpacas to start with. But they probably weren't nearly as useful as the escaped Spanish horses, and their descendants, that the American plains aboriginals found wandering west to them, and quickly learned to capture and ride.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: BMA

I was looking at it from the [east] Indian perspective.

Ah — that's a big difference. Sorry, I just assumed you were talking about the invasion of the Americas. Subcontinental India was indeed far beyond the Stone Age at the time European colonization began, and had been for many centuries. I guess you're right, that the contributions of the British Empire to India amounted mainly to a few particular technologies, like the railroad.

On the other hand, though, the railroad took a couple of centuries to develop in Europe, starting from the first steam engines. Developing a railway isn't easy when you don't have an advanced one to look at, to see what it can do. It took an awful lot of individual technological advances in order to make railroads work.

And I'm not sure how much pre-contact India had of the things that made steam engines take off quickly in Europe. Were there coal mines in India? Did they need to be drained? Was there extensive use of windmills and watermills to power machinery, so that there would have been an immediate economic role for a new power source?

In case Dikiyoba reads this, and leaps to the conclusion that I'm some kind of racist apologist for the Raj, I should perhaps state the obvious facts that none of this means that Indians were or are any less intelligent or deserving than Europeans, or that the British Empire came to rule India as a fair and mutually agreeable tech transfer deal. I'm not actually trying to say anything about Europeans or anybody else, as groups of people. I'm trying to explain something really huge and important about technology: it's really complicated and takes a lot of time to develop in the first place, even though once it's developed, it seems obvious and one easily takes it for granted.

I happen to be really interested in the early development of industrial technology. It really wasn't easy. All kinds of things had to be already in place, or it wouldn't have worked. To think that either subcontinental or American Indians could have independently reached modern technology in a comparable time frame, starting from at least several centuries behind, is to miss the enormous and fascinating story of all it took to get here, from there.

About the history of India, before the Raj: This is in one way a huge subject, because archaeological evidence shows that there have been advanced, urban civilizations at various sites in India for a very long time. But in another way Indian history is astonishingly less huge as a subject than one would think. There are practically no surviving written records of anything, even though Indian societies have been literate for millennia, and a lot of non-historical literature has been preserved very well. Apart from a handful of isolated texts from religious communities, somehow it just was not the custom, anywhere in India, at any point, to compose and preserve accounts of current events. So almost all of Indian history is archaeology. The dates at which large kingdoms flourished are uncertain by centuries. That's why you've probably never seen a popular book of the history of India on any library or bookstore shelves. I find this tremendously frustrating. So much human history just seems to have been lost in India. Gah.