Re: "To Sail beyond the Sunset" by Robert A. Heinlein

On 01/05/2024 08:04, John Savard wrote:

On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 21:51:45 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
 

On 4/30/2024 5:15 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 4/30/2024 8:54 AM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-04-29, Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>

The book is also an in depth examination on how society in the USA
changed from 1880 to 1980.  Technology changed radically in that time
and so did societal morals about sex and drugs, not for the better.

>
So you are in favor of criminalizing sex and liberalizing drugs?

>
I did not comment on laws, I commented on societal morals.
>

Which are generally what determine and drive laws.

 True, but it is an entirely possible position to take, for example,
that a society ought to _practice_ chastity, as that would be better
for it, without trying to impose it by law, by criminalizing
homosexuality, adultery, and so on.

I'm not sure what you'd like to prevent,
if not teenage pregnancy and overpopulation
in general.  Or sexually transmitted diseases.
But we don't need /chastity/ to avoid all that.

Similarly, we would be better off if we didn't need laws against
psychoactive substances since there were very few people around who
felt any temptation to abuse them.

There are people who use them on other people.
Substance abuse is popular - alcohol and tobacco
included.  I do foresee successfully stopping
smoking of tobacco and probably other materials.
I wonder if tobacco would fall out of use if
smoking is eliminated and there isn't anything
else really satisfactory to do with it unless
you're addicted.  Taken orally, hideous diseases
are risked.  Some people commend smoking for
weight loss.

So if negative social attitudes towards wrong use of sex and drugs
were *widely enough shared* that would be great.
 What would be terrible, on the other hand, is if hardly anyone took
avoiding drugs or responsible sexuality seriously, but they very
cheerfully used the full force of the law to enforce virtuous
conduct... on people in other groups who were vulnerable, but not on
themselves.
 So he made a very important distinction in his point.

Well, we have that.
The Conservative British government means to
proscribe diverse sex education.  Again.