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Define hope.
The status quo was going to slide anyway, is sliding already (Post-colonial EuroAmerican Domination or some such...but remember that the Moors held Spain for seven hundred years; it has only been six hundred since they were shaken loose. And the European conquest of the America's started only in the year the Moors were sent south).
We as a species will muddle through, we as a dominant world power will remain so only so long as it suits other world powers and the most militant populations.
posted by
majroj
on June 4, 2006 at 8:39 AM
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Maj, I do catch your drift, and unfortunately I also agree
with your world view. It's tough to bite the bullet and recognize that based on the data, evolutionary data about the rise and fall of civilizations, there isn't much real hope.
posted by
Cynthia
on June 3, 2006 at 8:48 AM
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Cynthia a recent aviation magazine says NASA chief stops spin on data
The globvasl warming etc data is supposedly not being massaged by non-scientists anymore.
posted by
majroj
on June 2, 2006 at 12:38 PM
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cynthia sorry I didn't sdee your reply til now
No, it's too late. We are seeing balancing forces at work (AIDS, war, warlordism, rejection of science for mysticism, more infighting as density increases)...all predictable and inescapable.
We see the world as an extension of ourselves, but it isn't. There is no real immediate incentive for poor people to stop having babies, or even for rich ones either. As for curtailing sexual promiscuity (including rape, on the initiator's part) to curtail the spread of AIDS, I swear people would have sex with strangers if you had a gun in their ear. And if people don't see a way to make a living that's easier, more certain (and for young men more exciting) than raiding and looting, that will not stop. Given the choice between sitting in a refugee camp or hot/dirty dead-end village, or riding around with a Kalishnikov with your mates, which would YOU rather do?
China...how do you tell them to stop using more oil? How do you tell Iran to stop making The Bomb, or maybe ask Pakistan to give theirs up?
And how do WE get off the petroleum pony?
There's no "tipping point", things just have begun to slide here and there, and there...and then HERE.
posted by
majroj
on May 31, 2006 at 1:18 PM
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Maj, we've always had the answers to this problem.
See Al gores movie on gobal warming which he's been talking about for years. The problem is we have a government that won't even ask the questions, much less provide answers.
posted by
Cynthia
on May 24, 2006 at 3:35 AM
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The answers are at hand..the horsemen of the apocalypse.
posted by
majroj
on May 21, 2006 at 8:38 PM
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