I Once Read A Book…

…by Robert Heinlein. It was appallingly bad. I don’t remember anything about it, actually, except that people were going around “groking” things. But this dialogue between Glenn Reynolds and his readers on the subject of energy, electrical, nuclear and otherwise, is characteristically intelligent.

The only connection between these observations is that Glenn offers this quote from Heinlein, which I like. Glenn introduces it:

[I]ntelligent power management is key. And as for vilifying and taxing success — that’s what government is for. Otherwise the rest of the citizenry might develop self esteem problems. This was all addressed by Robert Heinlein, natch:

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.”

Must have been from a different book.

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