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Memories of the 28th Century

Marching Morons

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In the early 1950’s the great author Cyril M. Kornbluth wrote Marching Morons, a novella about a future society where the overwhelming majority of humans are morons, high end, but morons nonetheless. The world was actually run by the small percent of people of great intelligence and patience who ran everything and gave the morons the illusion that they were doing things.

The people who ran things eventually decided to make life easier and reduce the population by sending the plebeians to Venus on rockets without any ability to land; thus killing the passengers. The elite used marketing techniques to sell the idea of moving to Venus, things like doctored photos, faked letters sent back by early explorers and other big lies. The plebeians are only too happy to buy that; they sign up in huge numbers.

Not only was the novella interesting, but it is a wonderful plan. Considering how easily the plebeians are persuaded by marketing to buy things that are trash. We could make those trips to Venus look wonderful, especially after there were praises from famous movie stars who had gone there. we could push it as an excellent and inexpensive alternative to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break. We could get people from either side of the political divide to endorse the colonialization of Venus. We could even borrow Trump's name for a settlement just for his supporters. For his political opponents we could have a settlement on the opposite side of the planet. There'd be something for everyone. We would disembark everyone through the door at about 40,000 feet, or the ships could simply fall apart on impact.

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While many of those who follow a political orthodoxy are of low intelligence, there are others who are creating the propaganda, and some of those are intelligent enough to admit defeat when presented with the actual facts, but some adamantly hold onto the pseudo-facts in the hope that obstinacy will sway someone who knows the facts. It has even been claimed that by asserting something long enough and loud enough will make it true to the hearer.

Remember: If you insist on actual facts and valid logic you will infuriate people pushing on believing propaganda, but some will accept facts, if they are provided with enough evidence.

And remember that the plebeians' political parties have many of the characteristics of sports teams: you back your team, because they are your team, even though the composition of the team may change dramatically from year to year. And the political parties will change positions as they see fit.

Here in the real world, the hoi polloi are plotting, or they think they are plotting. In fact, that's what they do bet. Nearly all conspiracy theories were created by the hoi polloi (that's less politically incorrect than morons), or the theories were created for the hoi polloi to scare them in some way. Some of the conspiracy theories may even be preparing the hoi pollloi for their demise.

The author, Cyril M. Kornbluth was a science fiction writer primarily of the early 1950’s, who died prematurely. He wrote satirical and social comment. His most notable novels were: The Syndic, Space Merchants, Not This August, and Gladiator at Law. I couldn’t think of any of the novels except Not This August, because that is a great piece of writing that I regularly think of. It is about the after a war in which the U.S.A. was conquered by Red China and the USSR, and the people reconquer the country. The characters are great, and it has one of the best endings I have read. Kornbluth co-wrote several novels with Frederick Pohl, but his most notable novel was Space Merchants, which is about marketing taking over everything else, so it is relevant. Kornbluth was ahead of his time.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
free download of the eBook version
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5123...-h/51233-h.htm
"In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man, of
course, is king. But how about a live wire, a smart
businessman, in a civilization of 100% pure chumps?" a snippet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_...h#Bibliography
Tags: kornbluth, satire
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