IVIV (12): 195-197

[David Morris]

OK, but TRP in REAL LIFE lives in the 21st Century, and must have
thoughts about the value of rail travel today.  Do you think he might
view the power and karmic dynamics of rail travel today as having
changed from the era of rail-barons?  If not, then he's a crack-pot.

Was the 20's killing of LA's intra and interurban rail system a good
thing?  No?  Why not?  Cars are, after all, more liberating of the
individual, until they cause global warming...  The power dynamics,
not the technology is the more fruitful subject, and they are
constantly in flux.

I've kept out of this discussion until now because the arguments that
"TRP is against technology" have been so literal-minded and sophomoric
that I didn't want to touch this thread.  Oh well...  Flame away.

David Morris

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:14 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Reading the different posts on technology, I thought of how TRP handles trains in  ATD; trains do have practical consequences that are helpful , convenient, fast etc.for characters in the story, but basically they are a declaration of ownership  of the land  the people, the watershed and the minerals of an area,  a tool of capitalist expansion, instrument of theft. There is even a kind of fascist element in that they are often a collaboration between corporate and government interests. Because they are huge investments of capital they automatically rearrange power. In P's world they also disturb and release bad spirits , evil Karma which falls on the layers of tracks and diggers of tunnels. Thy are also featured as engines of war that presage a darker kind of warfare, the anonymous violence of the power machinery of empire.