Dear Kim Stanley Robinson,
you will likely not see this, seeing as your probably being bombarded by a million other fans, however, I have, in my utter excitement, forgotten such nonsense and written you anyway. Because, while reading Red Mars, which i´ve currently not yet finished, there suddendly you presented a topic I found extremely interesting to read on, that is to say, your so-called eco-economics. And while reading, I got evermore intriguided, which in the end resulted in me reading on it several times. Now, I got a thought which I wanted to share to you, and which I would like, that if you are ever to read, and oh my, even answer to my message, to know what you think of it!

In your eco-economics, you mention the idea of measuring ones contribution to society according to ones output to society (which is measured by putting together what one gives, what one consumes times 100 to get a percentage point). In turn, you marked our dear loving capitalists as parasites and predators, consuming immensly while output remains at 0. I have found myself intriguided by exactly this, by the idea of measuring economic value by a sort of "real" value, and so I have come up with a question: You talk of nutrition and calories, however, my question is wether this should really be the real value we use. Because think of it! There are many supposed real values besides energy, like space, in the sense of room-intake. But there is something much more fundamental than that, I think. 

Lets look at an example. Imagine two workers. The first in our example works 1 hour and spends the energy of working 10. Meanwhile, our second worker works for 10 hours, but only spends the energy of 1 hour. So, the question then poses itself, which work is more valuable? Or to be direct, what is more valuable, time, or energy? Thats the question I have posed myself, and that is the question I hope you to think about, just like I have do so and will continue to. 

For practicality, lets call worker 1 The Industrial, and worker 2 The Artist. 

If we only look at the work, it is quite obviously a dilemma, on wether the Artist or the Industrial deserve more compensation. Based on your model of eco-economics, the Industrial would most obviously earn more, as he has spent much more energy on his work. Yet, the Artist on his terms has contributed much more of his time to society, and in a way, has been robbed from such lifetime. Lifetime is as I see it a much more prescious ressource than energy. It is similar to space, only that even if we had only space, we could do nothing with it. Time however is a basic ressource than even enables us to us energy upon space, and in this way, should be more prescious to us as a ressource. It is simply the basis of everything we do. 

Going back to the example, and trying to answer my question, we ought to take into account, that our Industrial, who now has kept 9 hours of his lifetime, well, what will he do with it? We could suppose that he is to use this time to rest and gather renewed energies. However, how much time is that, actually? Mathematically speaking it could in theory be all those 9 hours, as they would compensate for the 9 hours he practially worked energy-wise. However, it that were to be the case, that would make the work of The Industrial and The Artist equal. Yet, it is not. The reason for this is, that just because our first worker needs to rest for 9, doesn´t mean he wont rest longer, as humans like doing. So, then there exists an inequality between our two workers in how much time they can use to rest! Our Industrial will always have rested 9 hours more than our Artist, independently of the reason, and in the end, he will have received more time for his efforts for personal pleasure. This is just to note, that looking at the work by itself doesnt give a full picture. 

And so what is my ultimate answer? I dont know, actually. Because, while time shows itself to be fundamentally more important, it has shown itself that in our example, that by taking in the account of rest, energy does change the fairness that time provides. In addition, this is still an example, and many scenarios bring with them many different circumstances. What I could potentially imagine then, in conclusion, could possibly be a merging together of time-economics and eco-economics, maybe even using space somehow, and then with this gobbled up mess make some grand and humane. 

Thanks for reading & good evening,
an anonymous German student

Hey everyone! 

Just finished the Mars trilogy. Can your boy stop punctuating every chapter with a stereotype about Arabs?

As an arab myself, I'm tired of every white person (wherever they stands on the political spectrum) giving their unsollicited two cents about my people.

I'm equally irritated at both positive stereotypes (ahah the arabs seem like savages but once you get to know them you might be surprised) to negative ones (ahah the women staying in the kitchen ohlala...). It doesn't produce any kind of relfexion or observation. It's just sport for white people. I say that because for every arab or POC of color who intervenes on a forum to say what I just said there is a torrent of negative reactions from white ppl getting irritated at any mention of racism. So at the end of the day, by doing this, your boy just created a bone for racist dogs to chew at at the expense of arabs.

This, in itself, is a form of cultural imperialism.  Please tell you boy to shut the F up. Thanks