“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’
‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”― Robert A. Heinlein
Category: Guest Contributors
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 12NOV2025 – Selective Breeding
Nature seems far more experimental at some level than we are used to. Consider for example Felis Catus (nee Felis Domesticus). They have only been hanging out with humans for ~10K years when they apparently self domesticated from Felis Libyca/Felis Sylvestris (it’s all about the mousies). There are SOME early traditional breeds of Asian cat e.g. Siamese cats (first mentioned 14th Century) and Japanese Bobtail (6th century prints) that have been around long times. Specific breeding other than perhaps for mousing ability, really only starts with cat shows the first in England being 1871. So 150 years of specific cat breeding. Currently TICA (one of several Cat fancy organizations) lists 73 breeds ( https://tica.org/ticas-breeds/browse-all-breeds/ ). The variance is not as great as say canines (that we’ve been hanging out with for 50K years and breeding selectively for over 15K years), but its starting to get some of the oddball shapes (e.g. Pixies or Munchkins) that resemble some of the dog breeds (Corgi/Dachshund) we are familiar with in their particulars. I suspect the evolutionary forces on our ancestors and their “kissing” (well this is a family blog so we’ll leave it at that 🙂 ) cousins were far greater than what we impose on show cats. I suspect that another factor that has significantly changed Anthropology (and the study of any set of animal clades) is the ability to map and recognize genes. This let us realize that H. Neanderthalis was the likely source of the M1CR gene that defines human redheads. Not sure if there is any trait that we directly trace to H. denisoviensis but maybe those genes are not quite so showy
Tom’s World – 08NOV2025 – Diversity
I like this quote about diversity being out strength. It’s an image and I’ll show it thus, too lazy to type it out
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 07NOV2025 – FTL Drives
Well at least there is a theoretical model for an FTL drive the Alcubierre drive( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive ) proposed in 1994. At present it has so many reasons we can’t do it (several different flavors of unobtainium, VERY large energies that even Antimatter would struggle to provide, and a likelihood that you can’t really steer the darned thing once you start it) that it is practically unachievable. Depending how all this dark matter/dark energy stuff falls out (and that is beginning to look pretty dodgy) things may get far better or far worse.
That said an antimatter drive (even a pulse antimatter drive, essentially an Orion drive using small matter antimatter/matter explosions) would be a godsend for reaching Mars the Asteroids or any other celestial body outside the Earth/Moon pair. Currently a Hohmann Orbit (minimum energy) to Mars runs 8-9 months of time and the window is only open every two years (26 months I think). At .01 G (a centi-G engine) this takes 64-112 days i.e. 2-4 months and position only affects time. At .1g (a deci-G engine) this drops to 36-76 HOURS (i.e. 1-3 days). The first matches early trips from Europe to the New World (e.g. the Mayflower took 70 days) which were ultimately commercially viable and establishing colonies was possible. The second is like rail trips across the US at rail’s peak in the 40’s and 50’s. That totally changes the relationship between Earth and the colonies.
Ad Astra per Aspera!!!
For Halloween Fans
Tyler over at the Portly Politico has a link to some of his content that would be of interest to all those who get into the spirit of Halloween.
“I did a whole series on my YouTube channel during October about various Halloween and/or horror movies, 31 Days of Halloween:
I think you’ll enjoy it!”
Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 01NOV2025 – Goin’ South
We moved from Burlington, VT, to Charleston, SC, 13 years ago, and never looked back. It took about six months to realize we were spending $1000 LESS per month . House payment (a real HOUSE, not a condo), gas, electricity (we bought an all-electric house and I feared the worst, and was VERY pleasantly surprised). I did a little research and found SC power is around 12.9 cents/kWh, while Vermont is 21.5 Mapped: The Average Cost of Electricity by U.S. State
Groceries, pet supplies, home repairs, etc. were all lower. the Charleston cultural life is as vivid and varied as Boston or NY. And perhaps more culturally balanced. Museums, sport arenas, the Galliard Playhouse, North Charleston Performing Arts Center, are always booked with everything from rock concerts to Broadway plays, The Sound of Music just opened for an 8-day run, and Jeff Dunham will be turning Walter and Achmed loose just before Thanksgiving. The SC Aquarium will be kicking off its annual Christmas program with light shows, music, and yours truly —among others —as SCUBA Santa!
And not a bottle of hot sauce in sight!
We’ve had snow twice since we moved down here, the first time literally a year to the day we moved in. We played it smart and stayed home until it melted off. The way you drive in snow in Carolina is YOU DON’T! We Damnyankees may know how, but the locals have not got a clue!
Overall, I will take Southern Living over Vermont. We don’t get Leaf Peeper Season here on the coast, but a short drive up towards Clemson gets you into some nice color. And I definitely do not miss having to dig my car out of a snowdrift at 5AM in double-digit-below-zero temperatures. I saw it as a sure sign of civilization when I drove past Lowes and Home Depot in November, and there was not a single snow-blower or even shovel on display!
Stay warm, my friend!
Tom’s World – 01NOV2025 – Something for the Soul
There are a large number of performances of Pachelbel’s Canon by various musicians using various instruments but this one is the peak by my estimation. When I’m in a mood to just totally reject humanity due to the insanity, violence, cruelty, stupidity and seeming lack of any redeeming quality, something like this performance will recenter me.
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 16OCT2025 – Something for the Pot
May I offer up this the 1985 SciFi Enemy Mine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_Mine_(film) )? It is an excellent adaptation of Barry B. Longyear’s novella of the same name, Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (of Das Boot fame). It had a low budget (40 Million) and its special effects are well, dated even for 1985. Excellent acting by Dennis Quaid and Louis Gosset as the principals. Bombed at the box office as it was Neither Star Wars, Dune, nor Wrath of Khan.
I would also like to add in the war film department the 1969 film Battle Of Britain . To say the storyline is weak is an understatement (although it is briefly redeemed by Susannah York prancing about in her knickers). The killer here is the aerial fight scenes. These involve LARGE numbers of actual Spitfires, Me109 and Heinkel 111 aircraft (Me109 and Heinkels being part of the Spanish Air Force). They are well scripted and had input from Douglass Baeder and Air Marshall Dowding. It has a G rating but some scenes are almost too realistic and freaked out the 8-year-old me, who dunned my dad into taking me to the movie.
Tom’s World – 10OCT2025 – Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata
It’s Beethoven for me, especially Movement 1 of Moonlight Sonata. it is brilliant, minimalist, and pure beauty. I want this played at my funeral.
Update:
Bach Oboe and Violin, mesmerizing
Update:
And now, for something completely different—
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 10OCT2025 – SF Longevity
There have been several SciFi takes on this. Three stick out to me beyond Heinlein’s tales of Lazarus Long. These are Niven’s Boosterspice in Known Space, Blish’s antiagathics in the Cities In Flight, and Weber’s Prolong in the Honorverse.
My memory on Cities In Flight is poor, but I think the antiagathics were rare and kept only to the upper class so it has limited effect on it’s society other than envy of the upper classes.
In both Known Space and the Honorverse there is a tendency for careers to be MUCH longer. What would have been generational wealth tends to be personal wealth over time. Prolong gets you 200-300 years in very good shape.
Boosterspice is unlimited, Louis Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday at the start of Ringworld and hangs around MUCH longer(potential spoiler for a 30-50 year old series 🙂 ). There is a hint in a later Known Space story that, over time, Boosterspice also makes Humans VERY risk averse (though not quite Puppeteer risk averse).
In the Honorverse Prolong also seems to extend the period of fertility so 100+ year old couples can be seen having children much later in life. I do not know about boosterspice.
At the time of Ringworld, Earth is still run by the UN and the birthrights system, but little is said otherwise. That said Teela Brown had not yet had boosterspice when she (presumably 20 something) heads off to the Ringworld(again potential spoiler). This might suggest that although extending life the effect on fertility is either negative or irrelevant so reproduction is limited by the normal span of ~ 40 years.