Futudirection for Humanity? (was Don Davis article)

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Omar E. Vega" wrote:
>
> Hi Don:
>
> > I imagine many smaller wars and a few larger ones. I don't think
> >there
> > will ever be a war with every potential target being nuked, but
> >most
> > major cities of most major countries will one day be destroyed.
> >
> By whom? I don't see doomsday comming.

Civilizations rise and fall, and cities are destroyed, sacked, or
decline in time. Some day Washington DC will be atomised, and all the
things in the museums there as well as the famous landmarks will
become damaged and scattered. The day will come when the largest
collection of space artifacts will be in the Cosmosphere in Kansas.
Most great cities of history have suffered similar fates, along with
the treasures gathered to the capitols of their great empires from
conquered lands.

> What I do see is an
> increasing enphasis is security. Street cameras are just the
> beginning. What is needed to stop terrorism will be more tech:
> nuclear detectors, bomb detectors, face recognition, money tracing,
> etc. If things get worst you'll see security measures to skyrocket.

In lots of ways the quality of life and especially 'the right to be
left alone' is declining in the good old USA. Once atomic terrorism
takes place America will become much more of a mockery of its
'freedom' rhetoric than it is now. One of these days America will be a
place soldiers demand papers at roadblocks, scans of brainwaves and
genetic material will follow the lead of current urine and hair tests
in deciding who is undesirable, and cars will have computer controlled
boxes which automatically register traffic offenses, with major
revenues coming in from minor things like driving over solid lines
while changing lanes. And Fox News will still loudly speak of how
America stands for freedom!
A sub-text to the desirability of leaving the Earth is the need to
start thinking about how human freedom can be rescued from the
'creeping fascism' infecting societies desiring to control their
populace. I don't want to be tracked everywhere I go, I want to be
able to participate in underground economies. Societies are getting
better at repressing their people, and social revolution is being made
more difficult by high tech law enforcement guided by entrenched
interests of the ruling elites and intrusion into peoples private lives.
The'establishment' was shoved aside during the social revolution of
the late 1960's after mass agitation for civil rights, against the
drafting of kids for the Vietnam War, and the reappraisal of outmoded
moral codes frowning on co-habitation and exploration of consiousness
through mental and pharmacological means.
I suspect such fundamental changes in society in the future will be
more difficult due to declining interest in any given thing, a product
of the constant subdivision of peoples interests which make any social
movement more difficult to take hold. Efforts to repress alternative
lifestyles in America also whittle away the nonconformist aspect of
society which can nurture change and hopefully progress. If we end up
with a baldly nazi like government we who are left who care will lack
the ability to do anything about it except leave. If I feel society is
turning into a monster I want to start a new one which is better, not
try the revolutionary route and risk getting shot. This is the vision
of hope I see in Space Migration.

Don Davis

>
> Countries are tired of figthing and does not make sense at all.
> Today, big powers are not very willing to encourage guerrilla wars
> abroad. All the wars that remain today in place are civil wars and
> the "policial" wars that the big powers do, particularly the U.S.

Humanity is compelled to don uniforms and march by the millions
against each other every several decades. We are as lemmings and are
helpless to stop ourselves. Those who fail to develop a commanding war
fighting technology will simply fall to those that do. The USA is far
from the only 'guiding light' of Western Civilization, but it is and
will for another couple decades remain the leading world power,
probably until a massive war with China takes place.
I once read figures to the effect that if the largest 100 US cities
were destroyed that would kill 80 percent of the country, while if
China lost its 100 biggest cities they would only lose something like
15 percent of its people. Enough big cities in the Northern nations
would probably be destroyed to pass the mantle of leading world powers
to the southern hemisphere nations.