Enjoyed your take, Clif.
And I do agree with your assessments.
It is probable at this point the U.S. will be severely, ahem, "trimmed
back." The bridge has been crossed, and the country is doing its damndest to
burn it.
Because of that, I have doubts that nanotechnology will play that big a deal
in the lives of Americans, post-nuclear, "incidents." It will be down to
survival, all the while with inane news programs covering it...
But, one can't tell..... For sure, nanotechnology will be abused. Just to
what extent, here in the good 'ol U.S.A., as in near future...
"The President's Analyst," was a ride, with corporate desires for control
coupled with an early take on nanotechnology... a hoot from the 60s.
Now that IT jobs have been going overseas, there are and will be cries of
indignation.... that should have been raised long ago when it was the
manufacturing guy that went from a living wage to a living hovel, crammed
into it with folks he wouldn't have been caught dead with, let alone alive,
30 years ago.
Killing prisoners as object lessons to others that are in a pipeline slated
for torture, humiliation.... This has been covered in Nuremburg, with regard
to personal responsibility, from the line to up the line... all the way to
the top.
A kid with his arms blown off for an oil grab.... Don't see the folks with
faces blown off, forever to grope.
Personal responsibility for what is going on, every tax payer, and every
person that is out of work and can't pay taxes if they wanted to.....
I'm not quiet, not rolling over.
It is disgusting to see so many devote so much energy to what amounts to
brainless, soulless diversions, when so much is at stake.
When drug cops with helmets patterned after Nazi Germany and goose stepping
boots started breaking into homes and brutalizing innocents for the sake of
a, "war on drugs," that should have been the call to arms right then and
there. Speaking of which, I remember some administration official, when
pegged on the question of eliminating drug crops with the, "victory, " in
Afghanistan... and declining to commit to such, as it was a matter of
economics and survival for the people who lived there....
Sickening, absurd. And the silent sheeple. The loud mouthed, brain pan is
kinda' tiny patriots.... "True Patriots," would have been raising hell a
long time ago with the selling out of livelihoods and security.
This thing is gonna' get it unless there is a real upheaval.. something most
folks don't have the appetite for...... Right now there is a huge sign on
the American Backside.... all those containers coming in.... that doesn't
say, "kick me." It says, "nuke me."
If anybody doesn't like what I've said, I couldn't care less... and won't
bother responding to flames.
Maybe one or two frogs formerly content to while away with diversions while
being slowly boiled to death will say, Hell, this water is sure getting
hot.....
Post by JurupariPost by Joey GoldsteinI think that in order for democracy
to work not only do you need to divide church and state but you need to
divide big business and state as well.
Oddly, that used to be 'conservative'.
The first premise is based in all our law descended from English common law -
the most basic principle is that you can't serve two masters. That's the real
reason for needing to separate church and state.
Post by Joey GoldsteinAmerican style
democracy/capitalism has been controlled by big corporations for at
least a century now.
more by one party than the other as I'm sure you know. We have some safeguards
with the Sherman Act, and other stuff, but it's not really enough. I've
wondered about the Japanese Zaibatsu concept, and whether that will evolve into
the new kind of state.
What scares me is that corporate agendas have rarely ever displayed much
foresight, so any consequenses of their actions that's five years down the
road is off the radar.
It also scares me that during the Reagan years and again now, business ethics
have regressed to Victorian standards here.
Post by Joey GoldsteinThe environment is finite. Soon there will be nothing
left to consume.
True, and moreover, unless something happens to our trade laws, the whole thing
could collapse even before then.
Our trade deficits and outsourcing proclivities have already displaced security
and patriotism with corporate profit.
Also we outsource to third world polluters who who aren't accountable for
waste, and therefore can let their services go for fractions of what it would
cost to be globally responsible.
We outsource the very infrastructure we'd need to defend ourselves in a global
war to the countries we'd need to defend ourselves against, and are paying
possible future enemy soldiers to do work seized from american vets and others.
Moreover, China, for example is flooding our market with scrap steel after
we've exported our manufacturing, and is also knocking off our designs and
other intellectual property, a lose lose lose situation.
It's kind of like trying to make a career out of donating blood, and expecting
annual raises in productivity. And, your banker is Vlad Tepes...
Soon there will be nothing
true.
Post by Joey GoldsteinI also think that religion is the biggest danger to man's survival as a
species
I've been afraid to say that out loud myself, but when I hear it, for thousands
of reasons, I'd have to concur. You would have enjoyed hearing Bill Maher his
last time on Larry King on the same topic.
Post by Joey GoldsteinThe Reagan/Bush camp is governed by religous
issues and a large part of their constituency are these born-again Christians.
These people's views are a considerable threat to constitutional government and
our concept of democracy.
As a political body, they do not favor two party government, and it is
necessary for them to be both socialists and totalitarians in order to
perpetrate their agenda.
It would die in a truly free state as fundamentalist morality can only be
enforced via huge governments, massive behavior modification programs and
Khrushchev-like secret police and informer networks. And gulags for the
infidel, of course.
I read the rest of your post too, and would like to interject something that
At this time, it may be a short time before human beings can actually become
discorporate - the technology is starting to line up now with nanotech machines
- imagine molecular computers that document every synapse, can change dna and
create new complex molecules by simultaneous reactions of nanomachines
controlled by nanocomputers and store what they need in many easily replicated
loci.
In any case, the conventional threats of physical destruction might not apply
if we had options as to states of existence that didn't depend on physical
bodies, or a single one, at least.
But the same technology in the hands of one miscreant could destroy everything
material.
Real deep, and sort of funny colored too.
I'll close with an allegorical thought - if the ship of state is guided by
'moral compass', and its True North is representational government, continual
Pretty soon you're headed South...at that point left meets right.
Clif Kuplen