“Let me be frank with you. Earth has lost its nerve.” “What does that mean?” “Well, what would you call it? Just about the time the Lunar colony was being established, Earth went through the Great Crisis. I don’t have to tell you about that.” “No, you don’t,” said Gottstein, with distaste. “The population is two billion now from its six billion peak.” “Earth is much better for that, isn’t it?” “Oh, undoubtedly, though I wish there had been a better way of achieving the drop.… But it’s left behind a permanent distrust of technology; a vast inertia; a lack of desire to risk change because of the
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