What matters is that it means that only the worthy people get good health care, and the unworthy get inferior health care (or none at all). Because they are hard working people who paid for their Medicare and Social Security though their payroll taxes, which means it totally not a social benefit or welfare or any of those Bad Programs the government uses to waste money on lazy slackers.
]]>Yes, it is very unlikely, but the consequences could be quite severe.
]]>Now I am imagining some science fiction story set centuries in the future where the button gets pushed as part of some complicated legal technicality. Like in Poul Anderson's The Star Fox where some tortured legal logic leads France to issue a letter of marque and reprisal In Spaace!
]]>Can the PM just send a letter saying "I activate Article 50" to the appropriate EU official?
Or does Parliament have to pass a law saying they activate it, or telling the PM to send a letter as above?
Does the letter technically have to be from the Queen and signed by her?
Does the EU official have to sign a receipt?
Or is the answer "No one is sure, exactly"?
]]>But the novel did have a planet with a preexistence human-compatible biosphere, unlike the case being discussed here.
]]>It has the basic infrastructure:
A Very Evil interstellar Empire in a millennia-old war with a Not That Bad interstellar Empire.
Protagonists who are major figures in their empires and who may effect their ultimate destinies.
Uniform cultured planets.
Exploding space ships.
But the group at that con said it didn't count because of the central element of really twisted sexual politics and psychology.
Also, can it be a Space Opera when the Good Empire is shown as not that great, except in comparison to the enemy?
]]>But on the other hand he is very heavy into re-purposing old wars and weaponry into SF-nal retreads.
]]>This reminds me of my observation about Cherryh's science fiction, that a lot of it is built around losing your family and getting a new one.
This can be bit obscured because:
The families may be metaphorical instead of literal. Also the matrilineal system (without marriage*) of the merchanters, which is unfamilar to most readers.
The new family is often kinda sucky, because of the high general suckiness level in her science fiction. But you still need one.
(We will now start the flame war with the fools who say it is replaced with the letter 13 characters earlier in the alphabet.)
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