This I Believe (1952)

Excellent points on the intrinsic motivations and qualities absolutely dominating any control system.

But also plenty of places are nothing like Heinlein's hometown so this is far from universal.

(1952).

Heinlein was such an odd fellow. Extremely progressive on one hand and extremely regressive on the other, sometimes in the span of a single paragraph.

In 2026, it is not wise to believe that almost all politicians are honest. It is better to be skeptical of their motivations and hope they are honest enough to do the right thing for the citizens they represent.

Ah, Heinlein. There's not much energy up there, and the energy question is a big one. It's now 2026 and we are still at the point where we can only move a fraction to actual space of what we originally start off with down here. Our fuel is still not anywhere close to what we'd need in terms of energy density and throughput.

The point about politicians is the one I think today most needs. Our public systems don't work when we inherently distrust them. This isn't reason alone to trust, but a bias towards distrust is a pernicious thing for society.

This might be terribly controversial, but I think that even today, even at the highest levels of power, evil is a rare exception, rather than the rule, and we oughta be aware of that.

I’m not sure I believe this anymore. Maybe around 2 years ago, I think.

But the trajectory, of everything it seems, has completely changed. And I have no optimism left.

The world would need to possibly take up arms against its leadership to recover from where it is right now. The problem is, I know the masses are pacifist and reasonable, and it’s the insane few that are either running everything or have all the money. That dreads me, because just as I wouldn’t take up arms, nobody else will either, so who will stop the descent?

The world will definitely keep getting better

I love it and I believe the same as him.

In dark hours I remind myself that humanity must be at least 50.1% good and 49.9% bad. Otherwise we would never have come so far.

Heinlein's preferred title for this essay was "Our Noble, Essential Decency."

THIS IS EDITED by the whoever owns the site. Might be slop generated.

Few paragraphs are taken out to smooth it out.

Damn good.

I believe countries and civilizations die when they stop believing this.

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