Some Random Thoughts About Planning for Societies
Many people in this world would prefer America to have a more structured, top-down, managed economy, culture, and governmental system.
It's similar to many stories/series in science fiction. And, in most, the 'Smart' people are the ones in charge.
My family and friends are all smart, in different ways.
Most are at least in the 'college material' smart category. Some are in the "Hoo-boy! This guy intimidates me with what he/she knows in a particular field".
A few are almost savants.
And quite a few are smart about people, their jobs/craft, and managing their personal income.
It is the not-top-tier smart guys, or even those the next tier down, who generally have better people skills - at least sufficient to realize they don't have a clue how to talk to people not in their socio-economic strata.
The Elite levels in any society have NO CLUE that the "proles" consider them idiots, and are able to run their own lives without interference or assistance, unless chaos reigns.
The Elite have no clue about the various strategies the proles have developed to side-step the rules and regs their "Betters" have imposed on them. That's where Asimov's 2nd Foundation series fails. It's written under the framework that if the society is structured just right, the proles will fall into step. And, if they don't, the Elite can manipulate them into compliance, with either carrot or stick.
Right.
For that matter, neither Heinlein nor Asimov write credible female characters. They envision either Boys with Boobs, emotionless intellectuals with sexual but not relationship needs, who never show divided loyalties between the children they have born and other aspects of their lives. Or, the women in their books are idiots, incapable of higher level thought, and consumed with their children, often to the detriment of their relationship with a spouse.
For that matter, I can remember few female characters with children, or that show interactions with children, other than shooing them out of the room so adults can talk. Many of their female characters have warmer relationships with robots than people.
Women - the kind of women you and I know, are often a complete mystery to them.
So, from that standpoint, insufficient to predict likely futures.
How does that relate to the Elite of our societies?
They also have limited interactions with others in the working class. Yet that ignorance does not result in hesitating to engineer the lives of those classes. You know, for their own good.
When their planned impositions upon the Non-Elite result in resistance, the Elite immediately assume that there is a nefarious Grey Eminence working behind the scenes to oppose them. It could not be an organic action by people tired of being ruled by idiots.
And, since the Elite have already worked to impose a Better Life on the Non-Elite, anyone who opposes that MUST be Evil and Hate regular people. Probably Nazis/Fascists.
So, extreme measures are perfectly acceptable to destroy the Evil Opposition.
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