Notes from Dune

[Dune](http://books.google.com/books?id=gjJzHgAACAAJ) reminded me in many ways of [Anathem](http://ryskamp.org/brain/books/notes-from-anathem), as it is set in a world with 20,000 more years of history. It’s interesting to read stories of intelligent societies that have lived for hundreds of generations, especially since we have just 6000 years of history so far.

What might our world look like with 20,000 years more? I have trouble grasping [the differences from less than a century](http://www.crichton-official.com/NPC-NewVersion_files/image027.jpg)…

The other theme that stuck with me is scarcity. Dune, as a desert planet, demands absolute adherence to strict rations and rules. It’s sustainability with almost nothing to start with. But it gives me hope that as we move to a sustainable culture, we’ll be able to adapt our behaviors and even benefit from the focus that scarcity brings.

The danger of always taking the road most traveled:

> The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation. (472)

The last words of a man who tried to unify the world’s warring religions into one “master” belief system:

> “Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, ‘I am not the kind of person I want to be.’ It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.” (506)