Why is it...?

[kafka47]

This thread has two parts.

(a) Re-reading the description of America in the 24th century reads very much like Canada in the 1970s (and Canada looks like some like some sort of student heaven). Why does it seem like the United States want to emulate Canada of the 1970s?

(b) What is the view of the 1970s? It would seem that it is a Lost World of idealism and unforfilled opportunities, in the context of your [here I invite our international guests to contribute] culture. 1970s, if one follows the history books, and my own living experience dictates that they were anything but?

 

[Arsulon]

Kafka,

1) A lot of the nations of 2300 struck me as lazy-ass excuses for not doing research. I don't think the designers wanted to think much about Canada so they just repeated what they remembered from high school social science: Canada is a vast land with abundant natural resources characterized by a high degree of committment to education and other social programs. Yawn. If they'd thought it out properly postwar Canada should've been a series of nations (it's very regional): if by some miracle it had retained its unity it would've rolled over the civil war wracked (former) United States. Despite the fiction of the "Great Game" I think the designers just had some nations they were interested in (e.g. France) and others they weren't (e.g. Canada.)

2) To me the 70's were a period of anxiety and malaise. The United States was the spiritually wounded giant fresh from the humiliation of Vietnam, OPEC's embargo and the botched Iranian hostage rescue. The Soviets didn't look like they knew what they were doing either but seemed determined to take the world down with them. Here in Canada I guess a lot of people liked Trudeau: I didn't. I respected him because he seemed to believe in what he was doing but didn't agree with his policies: particularly slashing the defence budget and grabbing Alberta's oil.