Perspective & Context

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Wade Hampton III
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Perspective & Context

Post by Wade Hampton III » Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:44 pm

Sort of puts the Jewish problem into perspective, yes? I would think so. Our Caucasian ancestors endured far more than what we are now going thru in the current epoch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMLPJqeW78Q

For instance, imagine if the Jews DO defeat us and the planet collapses into a Dark Age many times darker than which followed the collapse of Rome. The Evolutionary process begins all over again. The survival of the fittest. Hitler himself said, “The struggle for world domination will be fought entirely between us, between Germans (Caucasians) and Jews. All else is facade and illusion. Behind England stands Israel, and behind France, and behind the United States. Even when we have driven the Jew out of Germany, he remains our world enemy.

- Rauschning,Hitler Speaks,p. 234

Imagine such a world in which Vega has become the North Star.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega

Precession of the axis of our planet....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession

...brings us to "The Winter Of The World,"
as described by Poul Anderson:
Set on Earth several thousand years in the future during a
glacial period, The Winter of the World uses a relatively
conventional adventure story to present
a clever idea about human evolution. The clever idea is the
development of a new hominid species. Anderson suggests a mechanism
of geographic isolation of a small population followed by intense
selection to produce a new species. This is a straightforward
extension of Mayr's allopatric model of specialization, now accepted as
the predominant mode of specialization. Much of the book is devoted to
describing the nature of these new hominids. The behavior of these
alternative hominids is that of a romanticized and modernized noble
savage. The plot is clunky; Anderson had some difficulties in
melding his adventure story with the revelation that principal
characters are a different kind of hominid. The quality of writing,
like much of Anderson's work, is competent rather than good. There
is a substantial element of wish fulfillment in this book. Anderson
was a politically conservative individual with a pronounced
libertarian bent. At the same time, he had strong reservations about
the nature of capitalism. Many of his books present a longing for an
'organic society' based on strong individualism but with society
based on strong personal ties and respect for the natural world. In
this book, he achieves his wish by altering human biology.

The Winter of the World portrays a far-future earth in which the
Northerners have evolved just enough to have their differences show
what is lacking in the future medieval-human civilization. Donya of
Hervar meets a human bent on espionage, in an action-packed,
wonderfully war tale and love story. The differences in the two ures
bring ecstacy but ultimately sadness to the human half of the love
affair. Women are depicted as strong, independent, and thoughtful,
somewhat unusual in a medieval tale. Highly recommended for all but
the most ardent warrior-types.

Much of The Winter of the World has to do with what appears to be a far-future New Orleans, several thousand years in the future, after a lengthy Ice Age has scoured much of the planet. Three (or possibly four) of the world's powers are in conflict in the general area, including the Northlanders, who are the most unusual of the groups in terms of their political structure, gender relations, and ecological role. It takes the novel a long time to get to what the blurb promises, and there's a fair bit of action along the way there (swashbuckling! promiscuity! learning new languages!) that'd suit most science fiction of this period. Eventually, though, we end up somewhere kind of unique: an ancient city that was saved from the glaciers, possibly Chicago, whose towers remain standing but are being gradually quarried for their metal.
Upon first seeing this huge, abandoned city, a minor character remarks, "I never really appreciated till now ... what a lot the ancestors grabbed. They left us mighty lean mines and oil wells, didn't they?... As is, nobody will make anything like this city again" (p.151). One of the main characters thinks to himself, in reply, that this theory would explain why the world's most productive mines were along coastlines, which would have been underwater before the ice came and hence not available for exploitation. More than that, though: "Was that why the ancients died? Had they spent so much of the earth that, when the Ice overcrawled a great part of it, not enough of remained for them to live the only way they knew how?" (p.150) Presumably, yeah: much like in The Road, not enough survives the catastrophe for civilization to rebuild itself the way it was, and in The Winter of the World, it takes thousands of years for much of anything to happen, in terms of what we might call civilization. From the abandoned city of Roong (Chicago), the novel moves on to some seriously interesting speculations on human evolution going forward, with natural selection favoring those who'd rather live in small groups without rulers, rather than in large groups under someone's direction, and favoring those who'd rather spend a lot of time in nature, being natural. It turns out in the end that the novel's oddly 70s gender politics (women able to think themselves into non-fertile states! shared sexual partners! open marriages!) might be part of the way forward, once civilization collapses. This doesn't make it more likely you won't roll your eyes at much of it, mind you, but at least there's a reason for it.

Fascinating stuff. Thousands of years from now, after a new Ice Age has reduced our world to frozen ruins, new civilizations and cultures arise from the Ice. But as the people of tomorrow slowly uncover the lost technology of the past, they also rediscover war, conquest, diplomacy...and betrayal.

For those interested, this interesting portal into a possible future can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Winter-World- ... 0812523113

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Wade Hampton III
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Re: Perspective & Context

Post by Wade Hampton III » Mon Sep 12, 2016 5:02 pm

Donya of Hervar's night sky. A fascinating look at a potential far future!
donya's-world
donya's-world
futureworld.JPG (26.73 KiB) Viewed 7541 times
What we do today will make tomorrow!

http://poulandersonappreciation.blogspo ... ld-ii.html

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Wade Hampton III
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Re: Perspective & Context

Post by Wade Hampton III » Tue Sep 27, 2016 11:35 pm

It is a tale of Earth's far future - set in a time of the next Ice Age
- I estimate anywhere from 20 to 100,000 years hence. Our world and
everything we knew has long since gone - relegated to vague and distant
memories. North America is now 'Andalan' and what I guess to be New
Orleans is now 'Arvanneth' although nowhere does it say such. The same
can be said for 'Roong,' which I estimate to be the remains of Chicago.

From inside the book cover published in 1976:

A corpse in Arvanneth was nothing except food for stray dogs. That is why
adventurer Josserek Derrain of Orenstane was so cautious as he slipped
across the city's limits under cover of darkness. By now even the lowliest
guard in the Southern empire was looking to slit his throat for the reward.
Josserek's intention was to see that no one ever collected that money!

As he moved quickly onward looking for shelter, the wary traveler saw a naked
child at play in the street. The boy was rolling a human skull around for
sport. How Arvanneth (New Orleans) had changed since the days of its great
glory -- before the ice came! Those were the times -- many tens of thousands
of years past -- when men could fly, when myth says they went to the Moon
and beyond, and this city, under whatever name, stood as a shining monument
to a long-forgotten civilization (not unlike as how we Moderns remember Rome).

There is a passage in the book that refers to Vega as the North Star. Isn't
this something that is really supposed to happen in the far future, due to
the precession of the Earth's axis? I believe the precession carves an arc
in the Northern sky that completes one circuit in many thousands of years.
Do I recall reading somewhere that Vega is due for that distinction in 97
thousand years?

It's fascinating to look at the familiar outlines of what we know as North
America and see such strange names as 'Dolphin Gulf' for the Gulf of Mexico,
'Idis Mountains' for the Appalachians, and "Jugular River' for the Mississippi.
However, equally fascinating to think that maybe some 100,000 thousand years
ago there were folks upon this same land calling it names that we today would
find alien.

An extraordinary book, indeed!
aranneth & environs.JPG
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donya's world-92000CE.JPG
donya's world-92000CE.JPG (72.52 KiB) Viewed 7426 times

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