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BS ‘n’ About…
Moratoriums
Evolution is out of control: Not the biological evolution written about by Darwin, but the social evolution of the human species as a whole. We entered the 20th Century on horseback and left it in a spaceship. We entered it using leeches and left it messing with our DNA. We entered it masters of steam technology and left masters of a nuclear universe. All these advances have given us a false sense of our own importance, a false sense that we are worthy of the wonders we fiddle with on a daily basis. We are not.
Humanity needs to put the brakes on science before we hand over a nuclear information society to the next Hitler who comes along. Because he’s coming. History is proof of that. We’ve certainly spawned enough of his type to know that we’ll surely spawn some more. If anything, hatred is even more prevalent in today’s world than it was in the one that gave rise to him. Scary. The only good news in all of this, if you can call it that, is that in all likelihood we’ll only spawn one more.
Can any of us even imagine the nightmare that would have been the Third Reich given today’s technology? Start with surveillance capabilities, then factor DNA and the human genome project into fine-tuning the Master Race. Give Joe Goebbels access to TV, GPS technology, and the internet. Firebomb London with unmanned drones. Throw in some biological, chemical and nuclear stockpiles, then let’s write us some history. No wonder Einstein said that World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones.
Look at the police state America has become, supposedly in response to a few nutjobs with boxcutters and airline tickets. And, if the bumbling underpants bomber proved anything, it’s that the government won’t be able to stop the crazies next time either. For all the security invading our lives, we are not one bit safer than we were on 9/10.
Humanity is being held hostage by its own advances. The crazies didn’t invent or develop any of the things with which they keep us paralyzed in fear. We did. In the future, the only way to win will be to have nothing to lose. Are we willing to play by those rules? If not, we sure as hell need to change the game we’re playing.
We need to quit developing, producing, and proliferating the crap the crazies are using against us, at least until we remove the moral high ground from which they attack us. Nothing we do will stop their attacks on us until they have something to lose.
America used to be the world’s Good Guy. We need to figure out when and why that changed, then go back and pick up the trail we lost. It is probably somewhere about the time our government started lying to us and shipping our jobs overseas to save a buck. …Probably somewhere about the time Washington got bought by Wall Street, doing what was best for Big Business, regardless of the implications for the rest of us or the rest of the world.
Our politicians don’t even pretend they’re acting in our best interests anymore. We ought to be insulted as we sit underemployed, underpaid, or out of work while the politicians point to the stock market and talk of recovery. Wall Street might be “recovering”, (probably by laying us off!), but we sure as hell aren’t.
Did you happen to notice that the ‘Axis of Evil’ was comprised of the few nations left on the face of the earth that weren’t littered with Coke machines and Mickey D’s? Did you happen to notice that we never unleash the bombers on the countries beholden to capitalism? Saudi Arabia? Pakistan? China?
When the terrorists strike at America, do you really think they’re striking at your under-employed, over-mortgaged, food stamp collecting way of life? Are you the “Great Satan” they hate so much? Are you part of the solution or part of the problem? If it weren’t for the West’s oil greed and arms contractors, the Middle East would be existing on a barter economy and settling its disputes with rocks. The evil we face in our world is an evil of our own making. Until we come to terms with that, we will continue to hand our enemies the means, method, and opportunity for our own destruction. They have nothing to lose. Unless we change our ways soon, neither will we.
It has been said that insanity is continuing to do the same things while hoping for different results. As we sit here with the 21st century looming before us, we seem to be repeating the same old mistakes that made the 20th one of mankind’s bloodiest and most ruthless.
Progress for the sake of progress isn’t always a good thing. As we rush headlong into the future, driven by politicians, businessmen, generals, and scientists with no vision beyond their own tomorrow, we are in grave peril. We are messing with forces of unprecedented power, yet are still fighting the same old Stone Age battles, driven by the same old animal hatreds.
The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. Weapons grade viruses are being perfected. We are messing with our DNA. Yet it is only a matter of time before history produces the next Attila, Genghis, or Adolf.
Mankind goes through periods of enlightenment and barbarity. For all of our so-called modern progress, ours is an extremely barbaric age. We torture with impunity, drop bombs on kids, and rape, pillage, and plunder with a joyous excess that would have done a Biblical despot proud. We are messing with things we shouldn’t be messing with: Things that threaten the very survival of our species.
Some of the dangers we face are obvious, others less so. It should be obvious that humanity already has more nuclear weapons than it could ever possibly need. It should be obvious that developing an Ebola strain with a 100% kill rate is probably a bad idea. It should be obvious that messing with our DNA is going to lead to some idiot with dreams of a Master Race.
However, it is the less obvious stuff, when taken to its logical conclusion, that poses the even greater danger. We already chain our kids to so much technology that their muscles atrophy, their waistlines bulge, and their very lives are at risk. Their concept of “self”, with full-blown virtual reality just around the corner, has become so distorted that they are in danger of losing touch with their very humanity. And what’s to become of the babies who stare at the ceiling while their parents’ attention is devoted to their Blackberries?
We are less than a generation away from locking ourselves in a room with an IV drip, a diaper, and a virtual reality helmet. We are less than a generation away from being able to navigate through life with virtually no real human contact whatsoever. No way can this be a good thing, yet the scariest thing about it is that our young seem to accept it as a given and look forward to it enthusiastically.
It is not going to be a good thing for government to be able to GPS our every movement, monitor our every keystroke, or overhear our every conversation. Even now, in the early days of these capabilities, government has proved itself unworthy of wielding such power. We are already on the threshold of losing our individual freedom and personal dignity. The Constitution lies in tatters. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Everything America stands for is at risk. Our military budget is as big as that of the rest of the world combined. The black ops budget would probably have us storming the Bastille were it made known. It is in our labs that the worst of the biological and chemical excesses are being committed. It is our businesses that are leading the efforts to enslave humanity to the technologies we’ve created.
As we rush headlong into the 21st century, we need to do so with a nobler purpose than the fact it will make someone rich. The things we are messing with are just way too powerful to be left to the greedy whims of a free market. Look at how it messed up TV.
We are not that far removed from taking that step from which there will be no turning back. We are negotiating a minefield with dangers in every direction. We can’t go backward, but we certainly shouldn’t be stumbling blindly forward without a plan. We are one false step away from having history blow up in our face.
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