Dull Drums _ Anne McCaffrey

Waaay back when computer memory demanded massive space, the Original Dragon Queen of Pern was writing short stories. This one looks at how the future will see our growing trust  in computers. We trust them with our lives. Blindly. Confidently..

Escaping America

We all have a ringside seat for the fall of the American Empire. It has already occurred, much like the Imperial Empire of Asimov's "Foundation."  Unlike the Foundation gathering and preserving knowledge against barbarism, America is the decadent Empire clinging to scraps of memory of a heroic past while contemplating their own demise..
Our failure to educate our people in civics and Liberal Arts has denied them their right to be competent citizens. Democracy is a rejection of Theocracy. It values the human over the divine. As the Writers knew, there is no reasoning with religious sentiment. A wall is required to protect each from the other.
I highly recommend that millennial and Gen Z dig up the stories of my grandparents. The great Influenza pandemic of 1918. The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. My grandparents were in their 20s.
The Dust Bowl and mass migration.The survivors of WWI and their PTSD. Prohibition and the bootleg economy. Labor and housing riots. It's a proud history of people who insist on defending their children's heritage from corporate vampirism..