THE BREAKDOWN OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
SUBJECT HAFLINGER NICHOLAS KENTON SELECTED PROPOSE FACTORS TO ACCOUNT FOR SUBJECTS INFATUATION WITH P A COMMUNITY PRECIPICE CA A) FUNCTIONALITY (B) OBJECTIVITY (C) STABILITY AMPLIFY RESPONSE (A) (A) IN MOST TOWNS OF SIMILAR SIZE ON THIS CONTINENT DECISIONS CONCERNING COMMUNAL SERVICES CAN NO LONGER BE TAKEN BY POPULAR VOTE OWING TO EXTREME MOBILITY OF POPULATION AND UNWILLINGNESS OF VOTERS TO PAY FOR FACILITIES THAT WILL BE ENJOYED ONLY BY THE SUCCEDENT GROUP E G BOND LEVIES TO FINANCE SCHOOLS SEWAGE SYSTEMS AND HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE HAVE BEEN REPLACED IN 93% OF CASES BY PATERNALIST LEVIES ON THE DOMINANT EMPLOYER ***REFERENCE BARKER PAVLOVSKI & QUAINT THE RESURRECTION OF FEUDAL OBLIGATIONS J ANTHROPOL SOC VOL XXXIX PP 2267-2274 AMPLIFY RESPONSE (B) (B) INTENSIVE INTERACTION BETWEEN CITIZENS DEEVEES INCIDENTAL ATTRIBUTES E G STATUS TYPE OF JOB RELATIVE WEALTH/POVERTY EMPHASIZES CHARACTER SOCIABILITY TRUSTWORTHINESS ***REFERENCE ANON NEW ROLES FOR OLD AN ANALYSIS OF STATUS CHANGES AMONG A GROUP OF VICTIMS OF THE GREAT BAY QUAKE MONOGRAPH #14 DISASTERVILLE USA SERIES AMPLIFY RESPONSE (C) (C) POPULATION TURNOVER IN PRECIPICE DESPITE NEAR AVERAGE VACATION TIME MOBILITY IS LOWEST ON THE CONTINENT AND HAS NEVER EXCEEDED 1% PER ANNUM ***REFERENCE U S CONTINUOUS SAMPLE CENSUS THANK YOU YOU ARE WELCOME
AND THE LIKABILITY OF LODGING The place took possession of them both so rapidly he could only just believe it.
Tongue-tangled, he—and Kate, who was equally affected—strove to identify the reasons.
Perhaps most important, there was more going on here than in other places. There was a sense of time being filled, used, taken advantage of. At G2S, at UMKC, it was more a matter of time being divided up for you; if the ordained segments were too short, you got little done, while if they were too long, you got less done than you could have. Not here. And yet the Precipicians knew how to idle.
Paradox.
There were so many people to meet, not in the way one met them when taking on a new job or joining a new class, but by being passed on, as it were, from one to another. From Josh and Lorna (he, power engineer and sculptor; she, one of Precipice’s two medical doctors, organist and notary public) to Doc Squibbs (veterinarian and glass-blower) on to Ferdie Squibbs, his son (electronics maintenance and amateur plant genetics), and his girlfriend Patricia Kallikian (computer programing and anything to do with textiles) on again to…
It was giddying. And the most spectacular possible proof of how genuinely economical it was to run on a maximum-utilization basis. Everyone they met seemed to be pursuing at least two occupations, not moonlighting, not scuffling to make ends meet, but because here they had the chance to indulge more than one preference without worrying about the next hike in utilities charges. Accustomed to a routine five percent increase in the cost of electricity, and ten or twelve in any year when a nuclear reactor melted down—because such installations had long ago ceased to be insurable and the cost of failure could only be recouped from the consumer—the strangers were astonished at the cheapness of energy in this self-reliant community.
Wandering about, they discovered how ingeniously the town had been structured, right from the beginning: its main nucleus at Root Mean Square being echoed by subnuclei that acted as a focus for between three and four hundred people, but neither isolated nor inward-looking, and each with some unique attraction designed to draw occasional visitors from other parts of the town. One had a games area, another a swimming pool, another a constantly changing art exhibition, another a children’s zoo with scores of tame, cuddly animals, another a view down a vista flanked by unbelievably gorgeous flowering trees… and so forth. All, Suzy Dellinger admitted cheerfully, “of malice aforethought”—the founders of the town had tabulated what was known to help a community run pleasantly, then allotted elements of it to suitable sectors of what had then been a settlement of rickety hovels, battered trailer homes and many tents.
For the first year and a half, they were informed, the builders used nothing but scrap. Plus a great deal of imagination, to compensate for a near-total absence of money.