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This Robert Heinlein quote is perhaps overplayed, but I'm gonna paste it in here anyway in case someone hasn't heard it or just needs a reminder: "Throughout h
by hugh3 15y ago
This Robert Heinlein quote is perhaps overplayed, but I'm gonna paste it in here anyway in case someone hasn't heard it or just needs a reminder:
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.""
- arethuza 15y agoCare to list some societies that have failed for those reasons and in that way? [Edit: Heinlein died in '88 so he can't have been talking about the Soviet Union and its empire, which anyway I don't think falls into that category].
- aselene 15y agoSpain forced all jews to convert or to be exiled in 15th century, although they were the most succesfull bankers and merchants (perhaps because of that). When all the gold from America arrive to Spain in the next century there were no one to use it wisely, so the Spanish Empire turn into an economic disaster.