From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Thu Jul 31 2003 - 21:51:58 MDT
> Further in the future, a lot depends on the course of world politics.
Interesting possibility. It might depend more on technology than world
politics. At some point, it will become feasible for anyone with a
high-school diploma to build a high-yield weapon and for a small number
of not-very-smart people to position them worldwide in an attempt to
take over the world by force. The Dr. Evil scenario. There will
likely be multiple such groups and they will be competing. I expect
what we're seeing today is the beginnings of this scenario.
> A
> world that becomes substantially less free seems inevitably to lead to
> a
> crippled fight against aging, which means we are all dead.
It's truly sad that our ability to kill each other is growing more
quickly than our ability to heal each other, however, if some or
several Dr. Evil's do take over the world, they're likely to want to
make rapid progress in the field of preserving their own power, and by
extension lives, indefinitely. If this happens, they're likely to both
be able to acquire the resources and recognize the value of the
endeavor. I'd like to be there when Dr. Evil does and I can just take
a bag full of his life-extension pills from his office and slip away
unnoticed.
Either way, though, you're right. We're all dead. Either in 10 or
10,000,000,000 years, everyone will die eventually. Even if we
possessed the technology to create limitless health-regeneration, it's
likely we won't ever possess the power not to make mistakes or to make
peace.
As for terrorism, one friend of mine had a dual experience - once was
in a hotel in Kuwait in 1991 when the Iraqi's walked in and told him he
was dead meat. One "nice soldier" let him get away - a two hour walk
through the desert. The same man was living in NYC in 2001 when the
WTC went down 2-blocks or so from his office. "Affected" is a broad
term. My daughter was born Sept. 11, 2001, so it wasn't such a bad day
after all, if you ask me.
I am mostly unconcerned about terrorism. I remember when going to
Ireland from England was a walk past 30 machine-gun carrying brits, and
I remember thinking that the Irish were much nicer than the soldiers
who searched my bags because I looked like I might have been carrying
drugs (I wasn't and didn't). But I remember the same year the bombing
of victoria station, and thinking that the Irish weren't necessarily
all as nice as the ones I'd met in the pubs. In any case, I second
the notion that the greater fear is that our freedoms will be further
eroded by our government in the wake of terrorism-phobia.
Safety is a religious notion. In that respect, I feel safe.
Robbie Lindauer
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