A Passage from the Past, Apropos for the Present

I continue re-reading Piper.  I've read Space Viking many times, and have quoted it before.  This time, though, hit me harder.

Description from Standard Ebooks:
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/h-beam-piper/space-viking

Initially serialized in Analog magazine between 1962 and 1963, Space Viking takes place after the events of H. Beam Piper’s earlier serialization, The Cosmic Computer. Space Viking is a classic space opera: what begins as an interstellar tale of revenge turns into a swashbuckling adventure yarn, and finally into a meditation on empire-building and galactic governance with direct allusions to our modern history.

This richness of content makes Space Viking a unique read. The reader begins by expecting a lighter sci-fi adventure, and early on the plot delivers; but as events transpire, the reader is deftly drawn away from action scenes and into a more nuanced discussion on governance and human nature.

Exactly.  Piper is so thought-provoking, which I always appreciate.

Here's the timeless passage for today:

"You've seen decivilized planets. How does it happen?"

"I know how it's happened on a good many: War. Destruction of cities and industries. Survivors among ruins, too busy keeping their own bodies alive to try to keep civilization alive. Then they lose all knowledge of how to be civilized."

"That's catastrophic decivilization. There is also decivilization by erosion, and while it's going on, nobody notices it. Everybody is proud of their civilization, their wealth and culture. But trade is falling off; fewer ships come in each year. So there is boastful talk about planetary self-sufficiency; who needs off-planet trade anyhow? Everybody seems to have money, but the government is always broke. Deficit spending—and always the vital social services for which the government has to spend money. The most vital one, of course, is buying votes to keep the government in power. And it gets harder for the government to get anything done.

"The soldiers are sloppier at drill, and their uniforms and weapons aren't taken care of. The noncoms are insolent. And more and more parts of the city are dangerous at night, and then even in the daytime. And it's been years since a new building went up, and the old ones aren't being repaired any more."

Trask closed his eyes. Again, he could feel the mellow sun of Gram on his back, and hear the laughing voices on the lower terrace, and he was talking to Lothar Ffayle and Rovard Grauffis and Alex Gorram and Cousin Nikkolay and Otto Harkaman. He said:

"And finally, nobody bothers fixing anything up. And the power-reactors stop, and nobody seems to be able to get them started again. It hasn't quite gotten that far on the Sword-Worlds yet."

"It hasn't here, either. Yet." 

A Classic Sf Novel with a Prescient Passage

The Michael Whelan cover isn't the original one…but…Michael Whelan

H. Beam Piper was one of the greats from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and his 1962 novel Little Fuzzy is a classic.  Maybe the first "cute alien" novel, it was nominated for the best novel Hugo (back when the Hugo wasn't as divisive as everything else today).  I've been re-reading Piper, and this passage near the beginning of the novel caught my attention.  Great sf writers tend to see problems in human nature that are true in any time period, and Piper was no exception.  Here is a psychologist speaking:

“If you don’t like the facts, you ignore them, and if you need facts, dream up some you do like,” she said. “That’s typical rejection of reality. Not psychotic, not even psychoneurotic. But certainly not sane.”

Piper understood the problems that have re-arisen today as well as anyone.

Little Fuzzy is public domain now, and you can find the novel at a number of sites to read for free.  It's worth your time, and then some.

Warning: At the same time, though, I have to warn modern readers that Piper took a historian's approach to his work.  He tried to be dispassionate about how a future history might unfold, for better but also worse.  He expected the future would largely repeat the past, given that human nature would be the same.  And so there's colonialism, the rise of a Hitler-analog…but to be fair, the flaws and evils are on full display. 

Proof

"The Best Just Got Better"
-New Coke slogan

Its elegance,
its engines,
its exciting new features,
make other cars
seem ordinary
— Edsel advertisement, 1957

Now you can be as loud as you want with New Doritos Wow! Tortilla Crisps.  They've got all the super loud, break-out-from-the-crowd taste of Doritos.  And because they're made with OLEAN, they've got only 1 gram of fat at 1/3 fewer calories.  So even with less fat, it's still…the loudest taste on earth.  Wow!

"Everybody Needs A Yugo Sometime."

It was "like Pulp Fiction for the year 3000" and "like Star Wars, only better"
- John Travolta, promoting Battlefield Earth

Do you believe any of those?

You could certainly hear or read those words enough, back in the day.  So the message was there, but who was receptive?

I'll put it another way.  Why would anyone believe anyone's unsupported word on anything, especially when it's self-serving?  The above are just examples, though they're infamous ones.  New Coke was massively perceived as worse, Edsel is still a byword for failure, Wow! chips caused "anal leakage" (Wow! indeed), nobody needed a Yugo ever, and Battlefield Earth is on many "worst ever" lists.

And yet so many advertisers, politicians, and influencers expect you to take their word for things.

Since you can find anything on the internet, you can find plenty of claims that won't hold water.  The earth is flat, we never went to the moon, vaccines are dangerous…the list goes on and on.  And just as nonsensical as the ad slogans I started this with.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Your product is best?  Talk is cheap.  Let's see some proof.

I'll talk more about it soon(-ish), but just keep this in mind for now: If someone suffers no penalty for inaccuracy, maybe don't trust their words.  Furthermore, if they benefit from inaccuracy, maybe don't even listen.

There are reputable sources out there.  But the self-serving, self-promoting, and even self-centered ones, not so much.