Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 47 — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION millions of years into the future. And the paradox is this: that if one of the present political systems were sud- denly to start planning for the remote future of mankind—or if a new system came into existence with that aim—it would be completely useless. Its terms of reference, so to speak, would be based on conditions so far removed from present-day conditions that it would have hardly any points of contact with the world as it is today, and would be quite unable to deal with the problems that face us now. We seem to be confronted with a problem that is insol- uble. It is no good saying that the contemporary political _ systems will gradually change as the years go by, just as they have changed in the past. We cannot compare the future that we are discussing with the past. Recorded history is but a tiny fraction of the time-span we are considering. Conditions today are not really fundamentally different from those that obtained to- wards the beginning of man’s 45 rise to the self-annihilating position. Conditions today are different by degree only from those of the past. In the future they will be different in kind. By this we mean, for in- stance, that where minerals are concerned, the present world has more available than it had in the past, but that in the remote future it will have none. The difference between having a lot and having a little does not have such fundamental consequences as the difference between having some and having none. In one case, your processes are geared to the amount avail- able; in the other case your processes just don’t exist! Every single political system of the present day is based upon the assumption that the raw materials of living will become more and more plenti- ful. And, of course, that is true—for a limited period. No political system of the present day takes account of the fact that eventually the raw materials of living will be. non existent. Quite pro- perly too. Since all political. systems are ultimately re- lated to economics rather than comicloooks.conn