Ok - my take on it is that "old, degenerate" refers to the institutions of the culture, not the biology of the race, and that those institutions strangle the energy and desire to innovate of most bright people in the cradle.
First of all, there would be widespread corruption, and probably absolutist government if there was government at all. Second, the rulers would have been strip-mining the economy from time immemorial, and the tech level would show it. Why innovate when anything you have can be taken from you because somebody wants it? Far better to focus on your own safety. Finally, there would be wdespread fatalism, probably backed up by popular religion - and believe me, it would be popular because it would offer an explanation of the way things were. Priesthoods preaching and enforcing this fatalism would be a bonus. Cultures like this have been known throughout history, and they often appear brilliant as long as there is anything to steal, and fall back into the pattern above when the loot runs out, so add in a sense of a bygone golden age that they are living in the ruins of. Is this not the description of these "old and degenerate races" so beloved of the writers you mention? Picked apart here with an eye to political science? Certainly it describes a lot of the ones so described by Western explorers in our own 17th-19th centuries. > Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:17:58 +0100 > From: k...@stock-consulting.com > To: brin-l@mccmedia.com > Subject: Degeneration? Re: Where to now? > > Okay, back to my discussion with myself ;-) > > > This, of course, a tendency only. But it's sufficient and it surely > > kills innovation. I wonder how much further this tendency will go. > > I always found it hard to swallow when SciFi authors wrote about "old > degenerate races". Not only Dr. Brin; it also appeared in the Perry > Rhodan pulp. I always wondered why there was no single brilliant, > energetic, innovative member of this "degenerate species" who would > turn the tide. > > Yup, that's naive. Probably read too many stories and/or watched too > many movies where the hero would save the world/universe/everything, > either singlehandely or with (or despite) the help of his/her idiotic > sidekick. > > But now I wonder if we haven't already reached the goal of becoming a > "degenerate race". Progress mainly happens in marketing, not in > research and development. And while we have a lot of "hero material" > in our population, none of them is apparently able to make a > difference. > > - Klaus > > > _______________________________________________ > http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com >
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