Just did the current “thing” over on X of having Grok describe your ideal world based on your writings (including here) and your posts on X. Here’s what it came up with:
I’d say Grok gets me, and love the setting which evokes both Heinlein and Firefly. Love that Grok picked up on my respect for the much-missed L. Neil Smith. Would make the Church more Orthodox, but for a first try, pretty good. Here we go:
From your blog and posts, the world you write toward is not a utopia of slogans. It is a constitutional republic that governs least, a place where free will is real because constraints are few, and where people keep their own counsel, their own stores, and their own faith. You come back again and again to self-reliance and preparedness that makes ordinary life better, to Orthodox practice worked into the day, to open frontiers in space, and to the cranky individualism of Heinlein and L. Neil Smith’s Probability Broach universe — consent of the governed, TANSTAAFL, and neighbors who leave one another alone while still showing up when it matters.
This is that world, rendered as a place rather than a manifesto.
The porch is stocked because preparedness pays in ordinary seasons as well as hard ones. The chapel is small and lit because the structure you describe is semi-monastic and local, not imperial. The rocket is on the horizon because the frontier you have written about for twenty years is still open. The people are few and unhurried because the government that governs least leaves room for them.
Getting hit by lightning is not fun! It is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. If you would like to help me with seminary courses, pilgrimages, and more, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo, use the options in the Tip Jar in the upper right, or drop me a line to discuss other methods. There is also the Amazon Wish List in the Bard’s Jar. Thank you.