Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On Tue, 28 May 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>
Well, I do like Rands Atlas Shrugged and We the living, but that is of
course not SF.

>
I'd call Atlas Shrugged more fantasy than SF, but the deus ex machina of
the free power technology has some SF elements.  I have to admit that I
liked the book even though it was totally unrealistic.  However, it has a
bad reputation because of the number of people who believe it could come
true and that miraculous technologies just drop from the sky.

If I would say anything against Atlas shrugged I think it was too long. For me the most "fun" was the "fight" against the state and then of course imagining if it would work, and if not, how they would get crushed and how I would do it etc. It does induce daydreaming. ;)

Although, now that I think about it, I think that for most people, they
have the general perception that miraculous technologies DO drop from the
sky because they never see the enormous effort in developing them and only
see them when they arrive complete and functional on the market.

Oh yes... I always found it most enlightening to interact with the engineers and scientists at all the IT companies I worked with. Mostly I was involved on the hardware side, so that's where my conceptual "home" tends to be.

In terms of SF, Neal Stephenson I appreciate, the early stuff, and
Heinlein as well. The moon is a harsh mistress is good.
>
Ohh... and then there was another one... Poul Andersons Nicholas van Rijn
books, those are quite nice as well. =)
>
Anything else, based on that, you could recommend?

>
Ever read the Gateway series by Pohl?
--scott

Never did, but I'll definitely add it to the list to check out! =)