While most of this has little political relevance, it is filled with the kind of cool stuff that we OUGHT to be discussing... and WILL discuss much more, once civilization resumes its belief in the future.
First, some "Brin-related media" news.
My novel Earth has been nominated for the Stephen T. Colbert Award for the Literary Excellence. You are cordially invited to join the Stephen T. Colbert Award for the Literary Excellence Facebook Group and participate in this magnificently wise and forward-looking endeavor.
Watch your favorite Brin put down his pundit thing on the History Channel (again) on January 21, in a docu-future bit called Life After People... a fun look at what could happen to our cities... and animals... if humanity suddenly disappeared. Just in time for Wil Smith to rock ‘em in the third remake of I AM LEGEND (this time actually keeping to the original story title; but do also look at Charleton Heston’s old OMEGA MAN.) Anyway, feel free to let A&E/History know how much you approve of their choice of talking heads... and that they oughta bring back The Architechs.
Can’t help it. Some of you saw my ARCHITECHS show - the pilot about firefighting technology. But the History Channel never ran our other pilot on brainstorming and designing a practical and vastly improved replacement for the Humvee. Alas, since the Army is growing extremely disenchanted with the alternative that was chosen instead, a truly absurd Frankenstein monster called MRAP. Our design was so so so so so much better.
While we’re at it, are any of you out there interested in a wild ride through an idea-fest, ranging from the Fermi Paradox to existence tests for God, see my speech at the recent conference held at the Salk Institute -- “Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.” There were many other fine presentations on topics ranging from “The end of literary postmodernism” (about time!) to “the myth of pervasive Islamo-terrorism” (a stunning refutation of the entire basis of the so called war on terror.) Alas, a recurring theme at the conference was atheism, in its recent and ironically militant incarnation, featuring some very rich invective from Daniel Dennett, among others. Counter productive proof that incantatory self-righteousness addiction is not limited to deity-believers. Check it out.
Anyway, I thought I knew my “filmography” pretty well. Lots of TV and scripts... but only the Postman was produced, right? Only... what’s this other film that I’m credited as having “produced”? Um, it’s not that I have anything against Val Kilmer... but.
A final ego-and film-related note (phew!) I just dropped into my CD player - after a long hiatus - the soundtrack album from Costner’s movie of The Postman. James Newton Howard’s original score is a stirring and very dramatic symphonic work of art. Followed by a lagniappe of songs by John Coiman and Jono Manson. Give it a listen.
(Have a look at what the CDs are going for! The dawn of a cult following?)
Of course this makes the movie itself all that much more an alas-almost thing, since it was also visually stunning - small surprise since Costner is one of the finest cinematographers around. Many individual scenes were terrific, adrenaline or emotion-rich, and the version of the tale written by Brian Helgeland and reified by KC had a big, big heart. (A vast improvement over the original, truly vile and evil script by Erik Roth.) So, with many senses fed, what went wrong? I mean other than Costner’s confident announcement that “We have nothing to worry about. Our only competition is Jim Cameron’s silly remake of a flick about a sinking boat.”
No. What killed the flick was a few flaws in plotting, in storytelling logic... plus some howler-boner scenes... all of which could have been fixed, if he had simply talked to anybody. The way he talked to folks when making “Dances With Wolves.” The way any decent craftsman does, even after he has chatchkies on the mantelpiece Alas...
... and it suddenly occurs to me why this topic came up! Ah, the subconscious is amazing.
It is exactly ten years since the movie came out. Oh, but one needs a thick skin.
Anyway, try the music-score. Makes a good use of that iTunes gift card.
IS THE ERA OF SCI FI OVER?
Just took the family to see THE GOLDEN COMPASS. In some other era, I would have enjoyed the special effects... while saving for later my inevitable grumbles about cliched talking animals and witches and foretold “chosen ones.” But, as a sign of our times, I instead found myself stirred by a few elements that weren’t tired old fantasy cliches. The previews in the theater showed us THREE upcoming fantasy flicks, each more staggeringly derivative than the last. Two of them about magical books whose characters come to life. Eek! Hence I was drawn to the fact that at least some modernist notions like academic freedom and scholarly curiosity and the importance of pragmatic skill. Still... an illogicality festival.
Want more depression? See Sir Ridley Scott grouse that Sci-fi films are as dead as Westerns.
Oh, we’re still influential on some levels. See a fun New Scientist article about How sci-fi influences today's gadgets. An article rich in ponderable links.
Still, if the signs are valid (e.g. the surge in feudal fantasy), then we may be in big, big trouble, fellow future-lovers and fellow lovers of freedom.
RESEARCH ASSIST?
Any of you out there good at a little quick, online research? I need an estimate of the approximate market size - both gross and net - for the following industries:
* Social networking sites
* Virtual/ avatar worlds
* Business "meetingware"
* Networked online games
???? ;-)
OTHER STUFF... some of it way cool
I think I vaguely recall seeing this vision of "the future" when it was new. Pre Jetsons! Love the punch cards... and no mention of computers. Silly? Perhaps. And yet, not as awful or misguided as our cynical impulse would lead us to judge. Indeed, we could use some of this sense of boundless possibilities, right now.
This one is actually pretty eerily predictive (thanks Dave McCabe):
More from the transparency front. An article that aggressively touts look-back sousveillance, empowering the public to watch the watchers. In Popular Mechanics, no less.
In the long debate over whether it is wealth or democracy that undermine violence, there’s this just sent in -- ”In an analysis of State Department data on terrorism, Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger discovered that ‘countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which have spawned relatively many terrorists, are economically well off yet lacking in civil liberties. Poor countries with a tradition of protecting civil liberties are unlikely to spawn suicide terrorists. Evidently, the freedom to assemble and protest peacefully without interference from the government goes a long way to providing an alternative to terrorism.’”
Oh, I have so much more stored up. But I want to take this chance to wish you all... fellow progress-oriented modernists, fellow citizens, fello humans and earthlings... and all you others who might just happen to be lurking in on all this... a happy new year, filled with ever-rising confidence, tolerance, patience, honest ambition... and love.
With cordial regards,
David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The Relevance of an Old Nemesis - as Even Older Ones Return
Over on the Lifeboat Foundation discussion list, Ben Goertzel, a rising star in artificial intelligence theory, expressed skepticism that we could keep maintaining a "modern large-scale capitalist representative democracy cum welfare state cum corporate oligopoly" for much longer.
Something will have to give, under the weight of contradictions, Ben thought. Indeed, this complex civilization does seem to be under a lot of stress, right now.
You folks might find interest my reply:
* THE UNLIKELINESS OF A POSITIVE SUM SOCIETY
Today’s “modern large-scale capitalist representative democracy cum welfare state cum corporate oligopoly” works largely because the systems envisioned by John Locke and Adam Smith have burgeoned fantastically, producing synergies in highly nonlinear ways that another prominent social philosopher -- Karl Marx -- never imagined. Ways that neither Marx nor the ruling castes of prior cultures even could imagine.
Through processes of competitive creativity and reciprocal accountability, the game long ago stopped being zero-sum (I can only win if you lose) and became prodigiously positive-sum. (We all win, though I'd still like to win a little more than you.) (See Robert Wright's excellent book "Non-Zero".)
Yes, if you read over the previous paragraph, I sound a lot like some of the boosters of FIBM or Faith In Blind Markets... among whom you'll find the very same neocons and conspiratorial kleptocrats who I accuse of ruining markets! Is that a contradiction?
Not at all. Just as soviet commissars recited egalitarian nostrums, while relentlessly quashing freedom in the USSR, many of our own right-wing lords mouth "pro-enterprise" lip service, while doing everything they can to cheat and foil competitive markets. To kill the golden goose that gave them everything.
The problem is that our recent, synergistic system has always had to push uphill against a perilous slope of human nature. The Enlightenment is just a couple of centuries old. Feudalism/tribalism had uncountable millennia longer to work a selfish, predatory logic into our genes, our brains. We are all descended from insatiable men, who found countless excuses for cheating, expropriating the labor of others, or preserving their power against challenges from below. Not even the wisest of us can guarantee we'd be immune from temptation to abuse power, if we had it.
Some, like George Washington, have set a pretty good example. They recognize these backsliding trends in themselves, and collaborate in the establishment of institutions, designed to let accountability flow. Others perform lip-service, then go on to display every dismal trait that Karl Marx attributed to shortsighted bourgeois "exploiters."
Indeed, it seems that every generation must face this ongoing battle, between those who "get" what Washington and many others aimed for -- the positive-sum game -- and rationalizers who are driven by our primitive, zero-sum drives. A great deal is at stake, at a deeper level that mere laws and constitutions. Moreover, if the human behavior traits described by Karl Marx ever do come roaring back, to take hold in big ways, then so might some of the social scenarios that he described.
* SHOULD WE -- SERIOUSLY -- HAVE A FRESH LOOK AT OLD KARL MARX?
Do you, as an educated 21st Century man or woman, know very much about the controversy that transfixed western civilization for close to a century and a half? A furious argument, sparked by a couple of dense books, written by a strange little bearded man? Or do you shrug off Marx as an historical oddity? Perhaps a cousin of Groucho?
Were our ancestors - both those who followed Marx and those who opposed him - stupid to have found him interesting or to have fretted over the scenarios he foretold?
I often refer to Marx as the greatest of all science fiction authors, because -- while his long-range forecasts nearly all failed, and some of his premises (like the labor theory of value) were pure fantasy -- he nevertheless shed heaps of new light and focused the attention of millions upon many basics of both economics and human nature. As a story-spinner, Marx laid down some "if this goes on" thought-experiments that seemed vividly plausible to people of his time, and for a century afterwards. People who weren't stupid. People who were, in fact, far more intimate with the consequences of social stratification than we have been, in the latest, pampered generation.
As virtually the inventor of the term "capitalism," Marx ought to be studied (and criticized) by anyone who wants to understand our way of life.
What's been forgotten, since the fall of communism, is that the USSR's 'experiment' was never even remotely "Marxism." And, hence, we cannot simply watch "The Hunt For Red October" and then shrug off the entire set of mental and historical challenges. By my own estimate, he was only 50% a deluded loon -- a pretty good ratio, actually. (I cannot prove that I'm any better!) The other half was brilliant (ask any economist) and still a powerful caution. Moreover, anyone who claims to be a thinker about our civilization should be able to argue which half was which.
Marx's forecasts seem to have failed not because they were off-base in extrapolating the trends of 19th Century bourgeois capitalism. He extrapolated fine. But what he never imagined was that human beings might intelligently perceive, and act to alter those selfsame powerful trends! While living amid the Anglo Saxon Enlightenment, Marx never grasped its potential for self-criticism, reconfiguration and generating positive-sum alternatives.
A potential for changing or outgrowing patterns that he (Marx) considered locked, in stone.
Far from the image portrayed by simplistic FIBM cultists, we did not escape Marx's scenarios through laissez-faire indolence. In fact, his forecasts failed - ironically - because people read and studied Karl Marx.
* HUMAN NATURE ALWAYS CONSPIRES AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT
This much is basic. We are all descended from rapacious, insatiable cheaters and (far worse) rationalizers. Every generation of aristocrats (by whatever surface definition you use, from soviet nomenklatura, theocrats, or royalty to top CEOs) will come up with marvelous excuses for why they should be allowed to go back to oligarchic rule-by-cabal and “guided allocation of resources” (GAR), instead of allowing open competition/cooperation to put their high status under threat. Indeed, those who most stridently tout faith in blind markets are often among the worst addicts of GAR.
In particular, it is the most natural thing in the world for capital owners and GAR-masters to behave in the way that Karl Marx modeled. His forecast path of an ever-narrowing oligarchy -- followed ultimately by revolution -- had solid historical grounding and seemed well on its way to playing out.
What prevented it from happening - and the phenomenon that would have boggled poor old KM - was for large numbers of western elites and commonfolk to weigh alternatives, to see these natural human failure modes, and to act intelligently against them. He certainly never envisioned a smart society that would extend bourgeois rights and social mobility to the underclasses. Nor that societies might set up institutions that would break entirely from his model, by keeping things open, dynamic, competitive, and reciprocally accountable, allowing the nonlinear fecundity of markets and science and democracy to do their positive-sum thing.
In his contempt for human reasoning ability (except for his own), Marx neglected to consider that smart men and women would actually read his books and decide to remodel society, so that his scenario would not happen. So that revolution, when it came, would be gradual, ongoing, moderate, lawful, and generally non-confiscatory, especially since the positive sum game lets the whole pie grow, while giving bigger slices to all.
In fact, I think the last ninety years may be partly modeled according to how societies responded to the Marxian meme. First, in 1917, came the outrageously stupid Soviet experiment, which simply replaced Czarist monsters with another clade of oppressors, that mouthed different sanctimonious slogans. Then the fascist response, which was a deadly counter-fever, fostered by even more-stupid European elites. Things were looking pretty bleak.
* THE ENLIGHTENMENT STRIKES BACK
Only then this amazing thing that happened - especially in America - where a subset of wealthy people, like FDR, actually read Marx, saw the potential pathway into spirals of crude capital formation, monopolization, oppression and revolution... and decided to do something about it, by reforming the whole scenario away! By following Henry Ford's maxim and giving all classes a stake -- which also meant ceding them a genuine share of power. A profoundly difficult thing for human beings to do,
Those elites who called FDR a “traitor to his class” were fools. The smart ones knew that he saved their class, and enabled them to enjoy wealth in a society that would be vastly more successful, vibrant, fun, fair, stable, safe and fantastically more interesting.
I believe we can now see the recent attempted putsch by a neocon-kleptocrat aristocratic cabal in broad but simple and on-target context. We now have a generation of wealthy elites who (for the most part) have never read Marx! Who haven’t a clue how chillingly plausible his scenarios might be, if enlightenment systems did not provide an alternative to revolution. And who blithely assume that they are in no danger, whatsoever, of those scenarios ever playing out.
Shortsightedly free from any thought or worry about the thing that fretted other aristocracies -- revolution -- they feel no compunction or deterrence from trying to do the old/boring thing... giving in to the ancient habit... using influence and power to gather MORE influence and power at the expense of regular people, all with the aim of diminishing the threat of competition from below. And all without extrapolating where it all might lead, if insatiability should run its course.
What we would call “cheating,” they rationalize as preserving and enhancing a natural social order. Rule by those best suited for the high calling of rulership. Those born to it. Or Platonic philosopher kings. Or believers in the right set of incantations.
* REVENGE OF THE DARKSIDE LORDS
Whatever the rationalizations, it boils down to the same old pyramid that failed the test of governance in nearly 100% of previous civilizations, always and invariably stifling creativity while guiding societies to delusion and ruin. Of course, it also means a return to zero-sum logic, zero-sum economics, zero-sum leadership thinking, a quashing of nonlinear synergies... the death of the Enlightenment.
Mind you! I am describing only a fraction of today’s aristocracy of wealth or corporate power. I know half a dozen billionaires, personally, and I’d wager none of them are in on this klepto-raid thing! They are all lively, energetic, modernistic, competitive and fizzing with enthusiasm for a progressive, dynamic civilization. A civilization that’s (after all) been very good to them.
They may not have read Marx (in this generation, who has?) But self-made guys like Bezos and Musk and Page etc share the basic values of an Enlightenment. One in which some child from a poor family may out-compete overprivileged children of the rich, by delivering better goods, innovations or services. And if that means their own privileged kids will also have to work hard and innovate? That's fine by them! Terrific.
When the chips come down, these better billionaires may wind up on our side, weighing the balance and perceiving that their enlightened, long range self-interest lies with us. With the positive-sum society. Just the way FDR and his smart-elite friends did, in the 1930s... while the dumber half of the aristocracy muttered and fumed.
We can hope that the better-rich will make this choice, when the time comes. But till then, the goodguy (or, at least with-it) billionaires are distracted, busy doing cool things, while the more old-fashioned kind -- our would-be lords -- are clustering together in tight circles, obeying 4,000 years of ingrained instinct, whispering and pulling strings, appointing each other to directorships, awarding unearned golden parachutes, conniving for sweetheart deals, and meddling in national policy...
...doing the same boring thing that human beings will always do -- what you and I would be tempted to do -- whenever you mix un-curbed ego with unaccountable privilege, plus a deficit of brains.
Something will have to give, under the weight of contradictions, Ben thought. Indeed, this complex civilization does seem to be under a lot of stress, right now.
You folks might find interest my reply:
* THE UNLIKELINESS OF A POSITIVE SUM SOCIETY
Today’s “modern large-scale capitalist representative democracy cum welfare state cum corporate oligopoly” works largely because the systems envisioned by John Locke and Adam Smith have burgeoned fantastically, producing synergies in highly nonlinear ways that another prominent social philosopher -- Karl Marx -- never imagined. Ways that neither Marx nor the ruling castes of prior cultures even could imagine.
Through processes of competitive creativity and reciprocal accountability, the game long ago stopped being zero-sum (I can only win if you lose) and became prodigiously positive-sum. (We all win, though I'd still like to win a little more than you.) (See Robert Wright's excellent book "Non-Zero".)
Yes, if you read over the previous paragraph, I sound a lot like some of the boosters of FIBM or Faith In Blind Markets... among whom you'll find the very same neocons and conspiratorial kleptocrats who I accuse of ruining markets! Is that a contradiction?
Not at all. Just as soviet commissars recited egalitarian nostrums, while relentlessly quashing freedom in the USSR, many of our own right-wing lords mouth "pro-enterprise" lip service, while doing everything they can to cheat and foil competitive markets. To kill the golden goose that gave them everything.
The problem is that our recent, synergistic system has always had to push uphill against a perilous slope of human nature. The Enlightenment is just a couple of centuries old. Feudalism/tribalism had uncountable millennia longer to work a selfish, predatory logic into our genes, our brains. We are all descended from insatiable men, who found countless excuses for cheating, expropriating the labor of others, or preserving their power against challenges from below. Not even the wisest of us can guarantee we'd be immune from temptation to abuse power, if we had it.
Some, like George Washington, have set a pretty good example. They recognize these backsliding trends in themselves, and collaborate in the establishment of institutions, designed to let accountability flow. Others perform lip-service, then go on to display every dismal trait that Karl Marx attributed to shortsighted bourgeois "exploiters."
Indeed, it seems that every generation must face this ongoing battle, between those who "get" what Washington and many others aimed for -- the positive-sum game -- and rationalizers who are driven by our primitive, zero-sum drives. A great deal is at stake, at a deeper level that mere laws and constitutions. Moreover, if the human behavior traits described by Karl Marx ever do come roaring back, to take hold in big ways, then so might some of the social scenarios that he described.
* SHOULD WE -- SERIOUSLY -- HAVE A FRESH LOOK AT OLD KARL MARX?
Do you, as an educated 21st Century man or woman, know very much about the controversy that transfixed western civilization for close to a century and a half? A furious argument, sparked by a couple of dense books, written by a strange little bearded man? Or do you shrug off Marx as an historical oddity? Perhaps a cousin of Groucho?
Were our ancestors - both those who followed Marx and those who opposed him - stupid to have found him interesting or to have fretted over the scenarios he foretold?
I often refer to Marx as the greatest of all science fiction authors, because -- while his long-range forecasts nearly all failed, and some of his premises (like the labor theory of value) were pure fantasy -- he nevertheless shed heaps of new light and focused the attention of millions upon many basics of both economics and human nature. As a story-spinner, Marx laid down some "if this goes on" thought-experiments that seemed vividly plausible to people of his time, and for a century afterwards. People who weren't stupid. People who were, in fact, far more intimate with the consequences of social stratification than we have been, in the latest, pampered generation.
As virtually the inventor of the term "capitalism," Marx ought to be studied (and criticized) by anyone who wants to understand our way of life.
What's been forgotten, since the fall of communism, is that the USSR's 'experiment' was never even remotely "Marxism." And, hence, we cannot simply watch "The Hunt For Red October" and then shrug off the entire set of mental and historical challenges. By my own estimate, he was only 50% a deluded loon -- a pretty good ratio, actually. (I cannot prove that I'm any better!) The other half was brilliant (ask any economist) and still a powerful caution. Moreover, anyone who claims to be a thinker about our civilization should be able to argue which half was which.
Marx's forecasts seem to have failed not because they were off-base in extrapolating the trends of 19th Century bourgeois capitalism. He extrapolated fine. But what he never imagined was that human beings might intelligently perceive, and act to alter those selfsame powerful trends! While living amid the Anglo Saxon Enlightenment, Marx never grasped its potential for self-criticism, reconfiguration and generating positive-sum alternatives.
A potential for changing or outgrowing patterns that he (Marx) considered locked, in stone.
Far from the image portrayed by simplistic FIBM cultists, we did not escape Marx's scenarios through laissez-faire indolence. In fact, his forecasts failed - ironically - because people read and studied Karl Marx.
* HUMAN NATURE ALWAYS CONSPIRES AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT
This much is basic. We are all descended from rapacious, insatiable cheaters and (far worse) rationalizers. Every generation of aristocrats (by whatever surface definition you use, from soviet nomenklatura, theocrats, or royalty to top CEOs) will come up with marvelous excuses for why they should be allowed to go back to oligarchic rule-by-cabal and “guided allocation of resources” (GAR), instead of allowing open competition/cooperation to put their high status under threat. Indeed, those who most stridently tout faith in blind markets are often among the worst addicts of GAR.
In particular, it is the most natural thing in the world for capital owners and GAR-masters to behave in the way that Karl Marx modeled. His forecast path of an ever-narrowing oligarchy -- followed ultimately by revolution -- had solid historical grounding and seemed well on its way to playing out.
What prevented it from happening - and the phenomenon that would have boggled poor old KM - was for large numbers of western elites and commonfolk to weigh alternatives, to see these natural human failure modes, and to act intelligently against them. He certainly never envisioned a smart society that would extend bourgeois rights and social mobility to the underclasses. Nor that societies might set up institutions that would break entirely from his model, by keeping things open, dynamic, competitive, and reciprocally accountable, allowing the nonlinear fecundity of markets and science and democracy to do their positive-sum thing.
In his contempt for human reasoning ability (except for his own), Marx neglected to consider that smart men and women would actually read his books and decide to remodel society, so that his scenario would not happen. So that revolution, when it came, would be gradual, ongoing, moderate, lawful, and generally non-confiscatory, especially since the positive sum game lets the whole pie grow, while giving bigger slices to all.
In fact, I think the last ninety years may be partly modeled according to how societies responded to the Marxian meme. First, in 1917, came the outrageously stupid Soviet experiment, which simply replaced Czarist monsters with another clade of oppressors, that mouthed different sanctimonious slogans. Then the fascist response, which was a deadly counter-fever, fostered by even more-stupid European elites. Things were looking pretty bleak.
* THE ENLIGHTENMENT STRIKES BACK
Only then this amazing thing that happened - especially in America - where a subset of wealthy people, like FDR, actually read Marx, saw the potential pathway into spirals of crude capital formation, monopolization, oppression and revolution... and decided to do something about it, by reforming the whole scenario away! By following Henry Ford's maxim and giving all classes a stake -- which also meant ceding them a genuine share of power. A profoundly difficult thing for human beings to do,
Those elites who called FDR a “traitor to his class” were fools. The smart ones knew that he saved their class, and enabled them to enjoy wealth in a society that would be vastly more successful, vibrant, fun, fair, stable, safe and fantastically more interesting.
I believe we can now see the recent attempted putsch by a neocon-kleptocrat aristocratic cabal in broad but simple and on-target context. We now have a generation of wealthy elites who (for the most part) have never read Marx! Who haven’t a clue how chillingly plausible his scenarios might be, if enlightenment systems did not provide an alternative to revolution. And who blithely assume that they are in no danger, whatsoever, of those scenarios ever playing out.
Shortsightedly free from any thought or worry about the thing that fretted other aristocracies -- revolution -- they feel no compunction or deterrence from trying to do the old/boring thing... giving in to the ancient habit... using influence and power to gather MORE influence and power at the expense of regular people, all with the aim of diminishing the threat of competition from below. And all without extrapolating where it all might lead, if insatiability should run its course.
What we would call “cheating,” they rationalize as preserving and enhancing a natural social order. Rule by those best suited for the high calling of rulership. Those born to it. Or Platonic philosopher kings. Or believers in the right set of incantations.
* REVENGE OF THE DARKSIDE LORDS
Whatever the rationalizations, it boils down to the same old pyramid that failed the test of governance in nearly 100% of previous civilizations, always and invariably stifling creativity while guiding societies to delusion and ruin. Of course, it also means a return to zero-sum logic, zero-sum economics, zero-sum leadership thinking, a quashing of nonlinear synergies... the death of the Enlightenment.
Mind you! I am describing only a fraction of today’s aristocracy of wealth or corporate power. I know half a dozen billionaires, personally, and I’d wager none of them are in on this klepto-raid thing! They are all lively, energetic, modernistic, competitive and fizzing with enthusiasm for a progressive, dynamic civilization. A civilization that’s (after all) been very good to them.
They may not have read Marx (in this generation, who has?) But self-made guys like Bezos and Musk and Page etc share the basic values of an Enlightenment. One in which some child from a poor family may out-compete overprivileged children of the rich, by delivering better goods, innovations or services. And if that means their own privileged kids will also have to work hard and innovate? That's fine by them! Terrific.
When the chips come down, these better billionaires may wind up on our side, weighing the balance and perceiving that their enlightened, long range self-interest lies with us. With the positive-sum society. Just the way FDR and his smart-elite friends did, in the 1930s... while the dumber half of the aristocracy muttered and fumed.
We can hope that the better-rich will make this choice, when the time comes. But till then, the goodguy (or, at least with-it) billionaires are distracted, busy doing cool things, while the more old-fashioned kind -- our would-be lords -- are clustering together in tight circles, obeying 4,000 years of ingrained instinct, whispering and pulling strings, appointing each other to directorships, awarding unearned golden parachutes, conniving for sweetheart deals, and meddling in national policy...
...doing the same boring thing that human beings will always do -- what you and I would be tempted to do -- whenever you mix un-curbed ego with unaccountable privilege, plus a deficit of brains.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Your Little Holiday Assignment
As folks prepare for coming days of joyful and (full-bellied) reunion with family members from across the continent, another tradition looms -- old-fashioned encounters between loving relatives who happen to despise each others’ political views.
Yes, many families wisely ban talking politics during holidays... or at the dinner table. By all means, keep peace in the clan.
Yet, there’s another side to all this. The election of 2008 is crucial. It must not be a squeaker - which only guarantees more “culture war.” Only a landslide will do. And, for that to happen, we need millions of basically decent “ostrich” conservatives.
We need them to wake up and get mad at the crooks who’ve hijacked their party. Decent conservatives like that sweet uncle of yours, who stays glued to Fox, desperately keeping head-in sand to ignore what’s happened to the GOP. To America.
The holidays are your chance to say to that uncle or aunt:
”This country that we both love is in trouble. If I’m right, then a lot more trouble than you realize. For America’s sake... and out of respect for me... would you come with me on a long walk? Away from the house? (We’ll drop all political talk, after we get back.)
“There are some facts I want to show you. About how our nation has been betrayed.”
What can you say, to convince an ostrich who is in frantic denial? Well, for starters, not all “nice conservatives” are ostriches. Many will cling fanatically to party and cult loyalties, countering with catechisms from Rush Limbaugh. But others might be roused. And if you rouse just one, to get angry at the gang of thieves who hijacked the GOP, then he or she may spread that anger to others.
It seems worth a try. Firmly, though also with tact and love. Difficult, but still...
(A suggestion. These are more effective read aloud! Asking an ostrich to read such a list inevitably lets them skim and dismiss.) Make him or her see that the list is composed entirely of conservative issues! Thus, by their very own standards, decent conservatives should help rid us of these awful people. And the, rebuild their movement into one they can again be proud of.
Here is the super-condensed version.
Which president would be the logical choice for a patriotic and logical "decent conservative?"
Which president would be a "strong" commander in chief, in the eyes of any "decent conservative"?
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a core hero of conservatism for thirty years. So --
* Which president does Greenspan praise as the smartest, most openminded, most focused on long term economic health and best for the economy?
...vs the next one, who scores the “very worst” on every count, including basic honesty?
Which president was the "sleaze" subjected to a $2 billion witch hunt?
Oh, I give up. There is no way to summarize in such a small space. Because ostriches will squirm and struggle to keep their heads in the sand. Brevity is no virtue when isolated points can be deflected with glib Fox-sophomorisms.
No, it must be relentless and overwhelming, like an intervention with an alcoholic.
The only way to do this is to go to those pages I cite above and go through the whole thing (or at least this page) with your chosen victim... er, I mean ostrich.
Over and over again, aloud, until the hypnotic neocon spell shatters and the slumbering ones -- our beloved cousins and neighbors and fellow citizens -- finally wake up.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and God bless -- America, civilization, us all.
PS...Some others are also on this trail! For example, William Frey, M.D. has a website titled Repentant Republicans. Here's one of his first essays, reprinted at Consortium News. http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2005/111705a.html
And another. http://www.spingola.com/proud_to_be_an_ex_republican_by.htm
Yes, many families wisely ban talking politics during holidays... or at the dinner table. By all means, keep peace in the clan.
Yet, there’s another side to all this. The election of 2008 is crucial. It must not be a squeaker - which only guarantees more “culture war.” Only a landslide will do. And, for that to happen, we need millions of basically decent “ostrich” conservatives.
We need them to wake up and get mad at the crooks who’ve hijacked their party. Decent conservatives like that sweet uncle of yours, who stays glued to Fox, desperately keeping head-in sand to ignore what’s happened to the GOP. To America.
The holidays are your chance to say to that uncle or aunt:
”This country that we both love is in trouble. If I’m right, then a lot more trouble than you realize. For America’s sake... and out of respect for me... would you come with me on a long walk? Away from the house? (We’ll drop all political talk, after we get back.)
“There are some facts I want to show you. About how our nation has been betrayed.”
What can you say, to convince an ostrich who is in frantic denial? Well, for starters, not all “nice conservatives” are ostriches. Many will cling fanatically to party and cult loyalties, countering with catechisms from Rush Limbaugh. But others might be roused. And if you rouse just one, to get angry at the gang of thieves who hijacked the GOP, then he or she may spread that anger to others.
It seems worth a try. Firmly, though also with tact and love. Difficult, but still...
For more on this, see my “Ostrich Papers”
And if you decide to proceed, here’s a whole tsunami of challenges you might print out to confront him or her with.
And a smaller-capsule “Cheat Sheet.”
(A suggestion. These are more effective read aloud! Asking an ostrich to read such a list inevitably lets them skim and dismiss.) Make him or her see that the list is composed entirely of conservative issues! Thus, by their very own standards, decent conservatives should help rid us of these awful people. And the, rebuild their movement into one they can again be proud of.
Here is the super-condensed version.
Which president would be the logical choice for a patriotic and logical "decent conservative?"
* One balanced budgets...
...and the other bankrupted us.
* One enhanced government efficiency (according to neutral auditing companies) by increasing competitive bidding for contracts...
...while the other gave $300+ billions in no-bid contracts directly to friends, while losing more than ten billions in raw cash, then appointed known crooks to be the inspectors and auditors.
* One oversaw the nation’s greatest boom in small business creation...
...and the other a surge of monopolies, while small businesses floundered.
* One cut government secrecy way down, even while being investigated...
...while the other sent secrecy rocketing to levels never seen even in the Cold War.
* One worked with governors to enhance experimentation at the state level...
...and the other asserted federal authority more than any other president in history, bringing states’ rights to a new low.
* One helped all society to prosper spectacularly...
...and the other helped only aristocrats.
Which president would be a "strong" commander in chief, in the eyes of any "decent conservative"?
* One earned respect from the U.S. Officer Corps...
...and the other one betrayed the military at every turn, driving officers to flee the service at a rate never before seen.
* One maintained military readiness, including thirty fully ready combat brigades...
...and the other stripped us bare, exhausting our brave troops and leaving us with at most two ready brigades.
* One handled his war with fierce, surgical precision and blazing speed, costing no American lives and transforming an entire continent for the better, while boosting our popularity and alliances...
...and the other president drove away nearly all of our allies, made us more hated than ever, left our states defenseless, and devastated our state of readiness, while accomplishing almost nothing at all.
* One doubles the Border Patrol ...
...and the other shatters it.
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a core hero of conservatism for thirty years. So --
* Which president does Greenspan praise as the smartest, most openminded, most focused on long term economic health and best for the economy?
...vs the next one, who scores the “very worst” on every count, including basic honesty?
Which president was the "sleaze" subjected to a $2 billion witch hunt?
* The one who left office without a single administration appointee indicted for official duties? (Not one. Not even one.) ...
...or the next president, who (despite bullying the FBI) loses comrades to jail or ignominy almost every week.
Oh, I give up. There is no way to summarize in such a small space. Because ostriches will squirm and struggle to keep their heads in the sand. Brevity is no virtue when isolated points can be deflected with glib Fox-sophomorisms.
No, it must be relentless and overwhelming, like an intervention with an alcoholic.
The only way to do this is to go to those pages I cite above and go through the whole thing (or at least this page) with your chosen victim... er, I mean ostrich.
Over and over again, aloud, until the hypnotic neocon spell shatters and the slumbering ones -- our beloved cousins and neighbors and fellow citizens -- finally wake up.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and God bless -- America, civilization, us all.
PS...Some others are also on this trail! For example, William Frey, M.D. has a website titled Repentant Republicans. Here's one of his first essays, reprinted at Consortium News. http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2005/111705a.html
And another. http://www.spingola.com/proud_to_be_an_ex_republican_by.htm
Thursday, December 20, 2007
This blog "blacklisted"... for demanding we respect the professionals...
One of our beleaguered senior federal professionals - who happens to be a fan - wrote in: "One of my employees tried to check out your blog on his government computer. Red flags went off declaring your site ‘contains inappropriate material.’"
Who... me?
I admit there’s an occasional "dang" or "golly". And, amid word tsunamis from many commenters, the rare #!$*#! That sort of thing makes a tiny fraction of "Contrary Brin," compared to masses of cutting-edge-interesting stuff about astronomy, high-technology, SETI, political theory, popular culture and ruminations about human destiny.
Anyway, I know the reason orders came down, banning government employees from access to any of this.
Mea culpa... I have called upon the professionals of the civil service, the intelligence services, the many agencies of law and accountability, the scientific community and the U.S. military officer corps, to remember their oaths -- to protect the people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That’s it, really. My “inappropriate” sin. Pointing out that our professionals - both in and out of government - have been the top victims of the neoconservative putsch. I have praised the skilled men and women who dedicate their lives to public service, and made it clear - in bold but meticulously legal terms - that they do not have to put up with being bullied by incompetent, dogmatic hacks, who have oppressed them in a concerted campaign of intimidation, ever since the Bush Administration began.
All right, I did more than that. I also called upon Democrats - and decent conservatives who remember true patriotism - to make this a centerpiece issue, not only because it is just and right, but because no other accusation (backed by proof) could damage the current GOP ruling cabal more than this one.
-------
IS IT IRONIC for the fellow who coined the term “Age of Amateurs” -- suggesting that educated and assertive citizens will play a bigger role in the 21st Century -- to also be so up-front and aggressive in demanding respect for the professionals? I see no contradiction. We are in this civilization together. And when the pros aren’t harassed by fanatics and thieves from above, they may gain enough calm and perspective to realize how badly they need help from the rest of us. From the great mass of citizens, during the decades ahead.
We can start this process, if citizens stand up and help! If we step up to defend the people who we’ve hired to defend us.
-------
A PERFECTLY LEGAL REBELLION
All right, the case has been made - and proved - and proved again and again - that the professionals of the U.S. civil, law, intelligence, science and military communities are the Bushites’ number one target. So, what’s the upshot? Am I asking the professionals to rebel? To break the law? To commit mutiny?
That is what Bill O’Reilly said about me, some months ago, claiming that I was fomenting insurrection and treason! But close examination shows that no such words or meanings were ever written or uttered by me. Not ever. In fact, I accept that the position of our civil servants, professionals and -- especially -- military officers is difficult and not without ambiguities. Their response to neocon bullying will call for great care. Indeed, there are many ways that the present political leadership of the US Executive Branch must continue to be treated with deference, as if it were still legitimate. To do otherwise might do far more harm than good.
Certainly, I am in no place to prescribe the manner by which these professionals choose to resist an infamous kleptocrat-putsch, though one method comes to mind -- for the pros simply to do their jobs, in strict accordance to law. And for them to remember that the protections of law, that were erected by great leaders, from Teddy Roosevelt onward, are still on the books.
In fact, there are signs that this process is underway, and has been for some time. Take the growing independence of Defense Secretary Gates -- already called the “adult” in an administration that seems very much like Lord of the Flies. Or the crucial appointment of Admiral Mike Mullen to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. (Any time you see the Navy ascendant, feel a surge of joy. They are the service least despoilt by this decade’s American fever dream.) Or, see a citation I’ll offer below, where it seems that our law agencies are finally starting to gather the goods on corrupt, inept and simply ruinous “inspectors general,” who were appointed to many agencies, strictly for the purpose of allowing or abetting graft.
DO WE EVEN NEED “RESCUE” BY THE DEMOCRATS?
Can the professionals wake up, stand up, and do their jobs? And will it matter?
I have an unconventional theory, that runs counter to the fervent hope that so many millions are placing at the feet of Democratic political candidates. Yes, that wing of our counter-attack to restore civilization is important. Even libertarians and decent conservatives now realize, they must make temporary alliance with liberals, in order to help save America.
And yet, I believe that a rising by our professionals - along strictly legal lines - could, all by itself, be what really turns the tide. If only these skilled men and women do what they are paid to do. What they swore to do.
Of course, these two paths - political and professional - intersect. Because any Democrat (Clinton, Obama, Chris Dodd oreven a yellow dog) who enters the White House, in January 2009, will do one crucial thing. He or she will fire 5,000 Bushite political appointees and take their boot heels off of the pros’ necks. He or she will then replace the petty hacks, to a large extent, by promoting from within the services. (While rooting out the neocon shills who “burrow in” by transferring to the Civil Service.) And that one action -- just enforcing the laws we already have -- may restore America.
Can you see, now, why the political satraps have put my blog and website on an "improper" list, banished from access by government computers? From access by members of the civil service and officer corps?
Again, since very little happens on my websites that is notably rude or markedly offensive -- mostly intellectual ruminations about civilization and science and society -- there can be no other explanation. And, I’ll take it as a compliment. A badge of honor --suggesting that I am (in my small way) fighting with some effectiveness for my country and my civilization.
----------
SOME DETAIL: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE OFFICER CORPS: WORSE THAN EVEN I HAD IMAGINED
Want an example of why I’ve been blacklisted?
Nobody spoke up publicly, about the Bush Administration’s devastation of the U.S. Officer Corps, before I did. Now, at long last, some in the media are catching on. But will anybody have the brains and courage to make this the scandal that it ought to be? Something to rouse every decent “ostrich” conservative in America?
For the latest, see: “Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving the armed services.” And “The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers.”
Read and realize. Saving the US Army should be a top Democratic campaign issue. It would slice the Rove Big Tent wide open and tear their unholy coalition to shreds.
Quoting from the first of these: ”Since the conflict began, around 40 percent of the Army and Marine Corps' large-scale equipment has been used, worn out, or destroyed. Last year, the Army had to grant waivers to nearly one in five recruits because they had criminal records. There are no more combat-ready brigades left on standby should a new conflict flare.”
That, by the way, makes me a cockeyed pollyanna! Because I actually gave today’s Army the benefit of the doubt and counted two brigades in Korea as ready for national-level land war. But even so, even leaning over backward to be fair, I can only point out a stark comparison. Supposedly “wimpy” Bill Clinton managed to utterly transform the continent of Europe, achieving all Balkan War objectives in quicktime, while losing zero US lives and leaving our state of readiness intact. When Clinton left office, we had thirty brigades, ready for almost anything. George W. Bush inherited a force that he could then use - instantly - to topple the entire Taliban regime and then slice through Saddam’s elite armored forces... a feat entirely beyond the ability of the army now, in the state that he has put it.
But this article concentrates on an even deeper problem, attrition of the bright young officers on whom the future depends. ”In the last four years, the exodus of junior officers from the Army has accelerated. In 2003, around 8 percent of junior officers with between four and nine years of experience left for other careers. Last year, the attrition rate leapt to 13 percent. "A five percent change could potentially be a serious problem," said James Hosek, an expert in military retention at the RAND Corporation.” Above all, the losses seem to be top-heavy, among the most gifted and promising.
What is not discussed in the article -- as it was ignored during the US Attorney firings scandal -- is the ghost at the banquet. The question nobody asks. The mirror image question.
What about those left behind?
Regarding the US Attorneys, the picture is simple and chilling. Nine US Attorneys were sacked for being insufficiently political and pliant. But that means more than eighty had been deemed “satisfactory” by an administration dedicated to utter political bias and dogmatism as a basic job requirement. An aspect to this scandal that (to my knowledge) not a single pundit or journalist has raised.
Regarding those young officers who remain in the military, the situation is far less simple. Most are probably dedicated Marshallian citizen soldiers, holding on out of patriotism, duty and tenacity. But, we all know there is an element that has been funneled into the Officer Corps by more than a hundred radical-reactionary Congressmen, and by an administration bent on promoting for reasons other than competence. An element with standards and loyalties that would have made Washington or Marshall shiver. Just watch “Seven Days In May” to grasp what I mean.
Read the article. More important, make your favorite “decent conservative” ostriches read it!
-------------
SOME MORE READINGS... PLEASE LOOK AT THESE!
First the inimitable Arianna Huffington (my second-favorite Ariana). Dang but the Republicans made a mistake when their lemming veer into neofascism drove her out of their party! Read this commentary on how the Huckabelievers are getting the secretive lords of the GOP in a sweat. And make sure it is read by your favorite ostriches
Then see: "How America Lost the War on Drugs” from Rolling Stone. Funny how the hypocrites have let this slip off their radar screen.
Also the QuestionAuthority Project, which has completed a timeline of violations of civil and constitutional rights that have occurred during the Bush Administration. http://mondoglobo.ning.com/group/questionauthority/forum/topic/show?id=1509099%3ATopic%3A2937"
Enough for now. Go hence. Convert another ostrich over the holidays. Reach out to a civil servant or military person. Forge alliances across party lines. This has got to be a rout.
Who... me?
I admit there’s an occasional "dang" or "golly". And, amid word tsunamis from many commenters, the rare #!$*#! That sort of thing makes a tiny fraction of "Contrary Brin," compared to masses of cutting-edge-interesting stuff about astronomy, high-technology, SETI, political theory, popular culture and ruminations about human destiny.
Anyway, I know the reason orders came down, banning government employees from access to any of this.
Mea culpa... I have called upon the professionals of the civil service, the intelligence services, the many agencies of law and accountability, the scientific community and the U.S. military officer corps, to remember their oaths -- to protect the people from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That’s it, really. My “inappropriate” sin. Pointing out that our professionals - both in and out of government - have been the top victims of the neoconservative putsch. I have praised the skilled men and women who dedicate their lives to public service, and made it clear - in bold but meticulously legal terms - that they do not have to put up with being bullied by incompetent, dogmatic hacks, who have oppressed them in a concerted campaign of intimidation, ever since the Bush Administration began.
All right, I did more than that. I also called upon Democrats - and decent conservatives who remember true patriotism - to make this a centerpiece issue, not only because it is just and right, but because no other accusation (backed by proof) could damage the current GOP ruling cabal more than this one.
-------
IS IT IRONIC for the fellow who coined the term “Age of Amateurs” -- suggesting that educated and assertive citizens will play a bigger role in the 21st Century -- to also be so up-front and aggressive in demanding respect for the professionals? I see no contradiction. We are in this civilization together. And when the pros aren’t harassed by fanatics and thieves from above, they may gain enough calm and perspective to realize how badly they need help from the rest of us. From the great mass of citizens, during the decades ahead.
We can start this process, if citizens stand up and help! If we step up to defend the people who we’ve hired to defend us.
-------
A PERFECTLY LEGAL REBELLION
All right, the case has been made - and proved - and proved again and again - that the professionals of the U.S. civil, law, intelligence, science and military communities are the Bushites’ number one target. So, what’s the upshot? Am I asking the professionals to rebel? To break the law? To commit mutiny?
That is what Bill O’Reilly said about me, some months ago, claiming that I was fomenting insurrection and treason! But close examination shows that no such words or meanings were ever written or uttered by me. Not ever. In fact, I accept that the position of our civil servants, professionals and -- especially -- military officers is difficult and not without ambiguities. Their response to neocon bullying will call for great care. Indeed, there are many ways that the present political leadership of the US Executive Branch must continue to be treated with deference, as if it were still legitimate. To do otherwise might do far more harm than good.
Certainly, I am in no place to prescribe the manner by which these professionals choose to resist an infamous kleptocrat-putsch, though one method comes to mind -- for the pros simply to do their jobs, in strict accordance to law. And for them to remember that the protections of law, that were erected by great leaders, from Teddy Roosevelt onward, are still on the books.
In fact, there are signs that this process is underway, and has been for some time. Take the growing independence of Defense Secretary Gates -- already called the “adult” in an administration that seems very much like Lord of the Flies. Or the crucial appointment of Admiral Mike Mullen to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. (Any time you see the Navy ascendant, feel a surge of joy. They are the service least despoilt by this decade’s American fever dream.) Or, see a citation I’ll offer below, where it seems that our law agencies are finally starting to gather the goods on corrupt, inept and simply ruinous “inspectors general,” who were appointed to many agencies, strictly for the purpose of allowing or abetting graft.
DO WE EVEN NEED “RESCUE” BY THE DEMOCRATS?
Can the professionals wake up, stand up, and do their jobs? And will it matter?
I have an unconventional theory, that runs counter to the fervent hope that so many millions are placing at the feet of Democratic political candidates. Yes, that wing of our counter-attack to restore civilization is important. Even libertarians and decent conservatives now realize, they must make temporary alliance with liberals, in order to help save America.
And yet, I believe that a rising by our professionals - along strictly legal lines - could, all by itself, be what really turns the tide. If only these skilled men and women do what they are paid to do. What they swore to do.
Of course, these two paths - political and professional - intersect. Because any Democrat (Clinton, Obama, Chris Dodd oreven a yellow dog) who enters the White House, in January 2009, will do one crucial thing. He or she will fire 5,000 Bushite political appointees and take their boot heels off of the pros’ necks. He or she will then replace the petty hacks, to a large extent, by promoting from within the services. (While rooting out the neocon shills who “burrow in” by transferring to the Civil Service.) And that one action -- just enforcing the laws we already have -- may restore America.
Can you see, now, why the political satraps have put my blog and website on an "improper" list, banished from access by government computers? From access by members of the civil service and officer corps?
Again, since very little happens on my websites that is notably rude or markedly offensive -- mostly intellectual ruminations about civilization and science and society -- there can be no other explanation. And, I’ll take it as a compliment. A badge of honor --suggesting that I am (in my small way) fighting with some effectiveness for my country and my civilization.
----------
SOME DETAIL: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE OFFICER CORPS: WORSE THAN EVEN I HAD IMAGINED
Want an example of why I’ve been blacklisted?
Nobody spoke up publicly, about the Bush Administration’s devastation of the U.S. Officer Corps, before I did. Now, at long last, some in the media are catching on. But will anybody have the brains and courage to make this the scandal that it ought to be? Something to rouse every decent “ostrich” conservative in America?
For the latest, see: “Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving the armed services.” And “The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers.”
Read and realize. Saving the US Army should be a top Democratic campaign issue. It would slice the Rove Big Tent wide open and tear their unholy coalition to shreds.
Quoting from the first of these: ”Since the conflict began, around 40 percent of the Army and Marine Corps' large-scale equipment has been used, worn out, or destroyed. Last year, the Army had to grant waivers to nearly one in five recruits because they had criminal records. There are no more combat-ready brigades left on standby should a new conflict flare.”
That, by the way, makes me a cockeyed pollyanna! Because I actually gave today’s Army the benefit of the doubt and counted two brigades in Korea as ready for national-level land war. But even so, even leaning over backward to be fair, I can only point out a stark comparison. Supposedly “wimpy” Bill Clinton managed to utterly transform the continent of Europe, achieving all Balkan War objectives in quicktime, while losing zero US lives and leaving our state of readiness intact. When Clinton left office, we had thirty brigades, ready for almost anything. George W. Bush inherited a force that he could then use - instantly - to topple the entire Taliban regime and then slice through Saddam’s elite armored forces... a feat entirely beyond the ability of the army now, in the state that he has put it.
But this article concentrates on an even deeper problem, attrition of the bright young officers on whom the future depends. ”In the last four years, the exodus of junior officers from the Army has accelerated. In 2003, around 8 percent of junior officers with between four and nine years of experience left for other careers. Last year, the attrition rate leapt to 13 percent. "A five percent change could potentially be a serious problem," said James Hosek, an expert in military retention at the RAND Corporation.” Above all, the losses seem to be top-heavy, among the most gifted and promising.
What is not discussed in the article -- as it was ignored during the US Attorney firings scandal -- is the ghost at the banquet. The question nobody asks. The mirror image question.
What about those left behind?
Regarding the US Attorneys, the picture is simple and chilling. Nine US Attorneys were sacked for being insufficiently political and pliant. But that means more than eighty had been deemed “satisfactory” by an administration dedicated to utter political bias and dogmatism as a basic job requirement. An aspect to this scandal that (to my knowledge) not a single pundit or journalist has raised.
Regarding those young officers who remain in the military, the situation is far less simple. Most are probably dedicated Marshallian citizen soldiers, holding on out of patriotism, duty and tenacity. But, we all know there is an element that has been funneled into the Officer Corps by more than a hundred radical-reactionary Congressmen, and by an administration bent on promoting for reasons other than competence. An element with standards and loyalties that would have made Washington or Marshall shiver. Just watch “Seven Days In May” to grasp what I mean.
Read the article. More important, make your favorite “decent conservative” ostriches read it!
-------------
SOME MORE READINGS... PLEASE LOOK AT THESE!
First the inimitable Arianna Huffington (my second-favorite Ariana). Dang but the Republicans made a mistake when their lemming veer into neofascism drove her out of their party! Read this commentary on how the Huckabelievers are getting the secretive lords of the GOP in a sweat. And make sure it is read by your favorite ostriches
Then see: "How America Lost the War on Drugs” from Rolling Stone. Funny how the hypocrites have let this slip off their radar screen.
Also the QuestionAuthority Project, which has completed a timeline of violations of civil and constitutional rights that have occurred during the Bush Administration. http://mondoglobo.ning.com/group/questionauthority/forum/topic/show?id=1509099%3ATopic%3A2937"
Enough for now. Go hence. Convert another ostrich over the holidays. Reach out to a civil servant or military person. Forge alliances across party lines. This has got to be a rout.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Earth's "foreign policy"
Here is a remise of one of my many distracting side ventures...
For those of you who haven't been following... the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has taken a strange veer, of late. So here's another informative little rant about the kind of topic that calls for a far more intelligent and far-seeing leadership class -- if we are to deal with a bewildering array of 21st Century quandaries.
SHOULD HUMANITY ANNOUNCE ITS PRESENCE TO THE COSMOS? For you neos in this topic, you might want to start elsewhere then come back here. My own expose on this topic (ignore the lurid illustrations), can be found at:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/shouting.at.the.cosmos
One person who has expressed views on this is Britain's own prominent astronomer David Whitehouse:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2702529.ece
THE LATEST SALVO
Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute recently posted a short essay, once again laying down what should be called the “Standard SETI position” on the likelihood of interstellar travel... and hence any conceivable physical danger that might arise from first contact with Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent Civilizations (ETICs). I invite you all to have a look, hear him out, then come back here.
Essentially, Shostak seeks to dismiss the notion that interstellar contact can occur in any way that might prove dangerous to either side of such an encounter. This need has grown more pressing, as some members of the SETI community, in Russia and Argentina and Canada, for example, have sought to expand the process, from its traditional mode of passive listening or “searching” for ETI to a far more assertive program of actively transmitting Yoohoo Calls into the cosmos, multiplying Earth’s radio detectability signature by many orders of magnitude in “METI” or “Message to ETI”. Also called “Active SETI.”
Those who have been pushing this new approach (once dismissed as unwise, even by SETI pioneers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan) have been doing so without ever consulting the wider scientific community, or even their own governments, seeking to create a fait accompli that might suddenly and irrevocably alter human destiny, based upon a series of unproved assumptions.
What assumptions? Elsewhere, one finds a pervasive and almost religious belief that advanced alien civilizations must automatically and by-definition be peaceful/altruistic. Even though true altruism, in nature, appears to be about as rare as hens’ teeth. (Under Stalinist Lysenkoism, this notion of universal altruism was also tied to an expectation that all advanced life forms would be socialist! A dogmatic element that no longer seems to be part of the standard catechism.)
But Shostak and the Silicon Valley based SETI Institute -- managers of the new Paul Allen radio telescope listening array -- do not appeal to this fundamental underpinning of METI. In this essay, he instead begs the other one. The article of faith that interstellar travel is virtually impossible. And, therefore, there is virtually no chance at all, of deleterious consequences from drawing attention to ourselves
(For the sake of argument, we’ll put aside the large variety of conceivable danger modes -- however far-fetched -- that might arise from purely remote contact, involving no physical interaction at all. Even if we accepted the no travel premise, there are things to worry about. But another time. For broader discussion see: http://lifeboat.com/ex/shouting.at.the.cosmos)
For now, let us stay focused on Shostak’s essay contending that interstellar physical contact between cultures has to be negligible. He goes farther, by using polemical tricks to plant a further assumption -- that any conceivable physical harm from contact must come from a cliched strawman -- invasion and conquest by a cohesive and aggressive galactic empire.
Let’s take these one at a time.
THE (KNOWN) OBSTACLES TO INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL
Let's put aside fanciful ones, like my "Crystal Spheres." The list of known impediments is pretty tough.
1. Interstellar Travel - and hence physical contact - can’t happen.
There is a vast literature on this. The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society has been the principal locale for much of it, across the last thirty years. If you live near a university library that has it... or if they've digitized... the topic is fascinating! And, without a doubt, the prospect is a daunting challenge, at best. Essentially, there are three demons blocking us from the stars, and Seth only mentions one of them.
1a) The vast distances involved. In some ways, this one is actually the simplest to overcome. I’ll get back to it.
The other two are:
1b) The Rocket Equation - which shows that you must carry fuel to accelerate the mass of more fuel, just to carry enough fuel to accelerate your cargo, an especially burdensome fact when you figure you need to carry fuel to decelerate, as well. It’s non-linear and really harsh. But --
I once saw the late Barney Oliver (a fierce partisan of the Standard SETI Model) try to use the Rocket Equation to "prove" that interstellar flight - even with perfect antimatter engines - would be prohibitively costly, effectively bankrupting even a wealthy home civilization that tried to send such an expedition. He did this at a conference in Brighton, England in 1987. Oliver started by assuming that the vehicle must carry all the fuel needed to accelerate away from home, then decelerate to its destination... then to accelerate and decelerate home again.
Robert Forward, in the audience, stood up, incensed at this example of put-up, tendentious reasoning, pointing out the obvious. That the fuel for the return trip would be made at the destination site and not have to be carried there. And, since all that return trip fuel didn’t have to be transported on the FIRST leg, that leg would need a couple of orders of magnitude less fuel to start with. With just a little common sense, the rocket equation then appears much friendlier.
As it does if you ponder a myriad alternatives like "star-wisp" self-replicators that could mass very little, require little fuel, yet make copies of themselves -- or anything else -- upon reaching their destination. Such things could easily have pervaded the galaxy, by now. At least with tiny observers.
The important point here is not only that a wealthy, solar-system-wide civilization could easily afford such expeditions, but an even more important lesson -- that intellectual tendentiousness can make liars of any of us. Because of inherent human self-deception, reciprocal criticism is key! And you’ll only get that in an eclectic and open discussion, not a closed-access circle jerk among like-minded True Believers.
c) The relativistic mass effect -- where the faster you go - in effect - the more you weigh and the harder it is to accelerate faster-still. This last problem only becomes important if you get past 50% of c. Above 0.9 c it really hurts. (Alas, that is the realm where you start to benefit from time dilation.) The crux? We are behooved to try and see if travel at below half of light speed can do the job.
Those are the three classic “demons of relativistic starflight.” Though, striving for honesty, I’d have to add a fourth.
d) Radiation shielding. It is possible that travelling at high speeds through interstellar space is really tough on you and your ship, if you hit anything at all, along the way, even cosmic gas. You may need a bulky arrangement of mass in front of you, to absorb the punishment or turn particles into harmless scatter. That will be a burden, all right... though our back-of-the-envelope calculations don’t seem impossible.
Note, all of this assumes we don’t get hyperdrive or other sci fi marvels. For reasons seen below, I have to doubt such is possible, since it would worsen, not solve, the Fermi Paradox. (And this from the sci fi author who included DOZENS of such drives in the Uplift Universe! Hey. What I find plausible is one thing. Imagination and fun are another matter. ;-)
Working through it all, here are some basic responses:
1) The distances involved are (strangely) the part that worries me the least! They are only daunting if you figure you have to stay awake -- or alive -- in transit. Or if you ever want to come home again. Assuming you can go frozen, or as downloadable code stored by a loyal contstructor probe, or if you go AS a self-replicating probe, or any of a dozen variations, and you aren't in a hurry, then distance is not the worst part...
...so long as you can feed the rocket equation enough to coast at 10% to 50% of c.
Yes! Those possible methods of ignoring time and distance are in no way yet proved. But the sheer number of them suggest that travel should not be dismissed. (Note, even if humans cannot hibernate or code-replicate, it seems incredible to say that some other species out there wouldn’t be able to.)
2) The rocket equation is a bitch. But if you only accelerate and then decelerate once, an antimatter-fueled vessel should be able to leave the solar system, coast at quarter of c, and arrive at another star without bankrupting the home economy. Wish I had the papers at hand for you. Look up Robert Forward. Or the first half of Barney Oliver's paper, not the egregious second half. (Alas, both have passed away.)
Indeed, though, light sails are the thing! Especially if the home system can be counted on to beam laser or microwave impulses at you for a long time. Then you totally evade the cruel Rocket Equation. (Jim and Greg Benford are actually experts on this.) Yes, without this push, the time scales are slow. But either way, you can get there. And those that do it, and make copies, and do it again, will inherit the galaxy. (Note, by that time they may have lost all interest in planets! So it may even have happened. Except we haven't seen the lasers. Is this getting complicated enough?)
Note that long ago, at a conference I attended in Los Alamos, Jones and Finney calculated that a 10% c ship speed, combined with colonization and needing three generations to send more ships, would still let an assertively expanding race fill the galaxy in just 60 million years. If it were done by Von Neumann probes, who can set right to work making more probes out of asteroidal material, then the figure is three million years. Just three million, with a ship speed of 0.1 c.
(See “Lungfish” at: http://www.davidbrin.com/shortstories.html)
No, this is not a classic "empire". No coordinated fleets bearing down on this or that enemy world! (The absurd strawman erected by Seth Shostak, in order to “prove” his point.)
Imagine a diffusion that’s much more like rabbits, spreading through Australia. Ask the farmers down there if they are enjoying that First Contact. Ask the wallabies.
IS INTERSTELLAR POSSIBLE?
Frankly, I find all four impediments to interstellar travel to be daunting, with a possibility that one or all of them might -- despite current calculations -- finally turn out to be prohibitive.
But so far, there is nothing to convincingly force us to pre-conclude they are prohibitive. Moreover, to do so, without exposing the subject to eclectic enquiry, is simply the height of dishonesty.
No, the thing that makes me start to doubt Interstellar Travel is not derived from any of Seth's arguments, but rather the current condition of the solar system, with our asteroids apparently never touched, and the Earth, with only one episode of sudden life change etched into the rocks. (The eukariotic boom), across the vast two billion year epoch when our planet was “prime real estate.”
The Earth has been a photographic plate, a SETI instrument. And it seems to have detected nothing. Nor have the asteroids been extensively exploited by some voracious wave of self-replication or industry. That certainly puts a real burden on the travel-is-possible guys. Oh, it can be overcome in any number of ways. But it is a worse burden than any of the nonsense Seth Shostak keeps raising. (He is welcome to switch to this track, instead. It is far more logical.)
AM I REALLY AFRAID OF FIRST CONTACT?
Do I think that METI will bring down some horrid devastation upon us? Not really. At least I think the odds are low.
But I do think it is time for us to start applying good habits to low-probability events that might have devastating outcomes. There are a great many of these, apparently, in the pipeline. Smart guys like Bill Joy and Michael Crichton and Jared Diamond are already out there, calling for renunciation and paternalistic control, in order to evade these catastrophes.
In fact, I share the renunciators’ worries... while disliking their proposed methodology. Given that paternalism has seldom worked, or delivered wisdom, in the human past. Like most of my fellow catastrophe specialists, at the Lifeboat Foundation, I prefer enlightenment processes of discovery, debate, reciprocal criticism and deliberation/negotiation. (The one process that Michael Crichton never portrays as even possible, let alone happening, in any of his plot scenarios.)
Which is why I find Seth SHostak's unwillingness to discuss any of this collegially, in open fora, deeply disturbing. It has riled up the contrarian in me. (And others.) Even if I accept that the odds of harm from First Contact are low, I want to see this thrashed in the open. And so do a growing number of dissenters.
A LIKELY SCENARIO
What do I REALLY believe? Of all the Fermi theories I've catalogued, the one I like best is (naturally) my own. It is based on the one clear trait of our planet that violates the Copernican mediocrity principle... the fact that Earth skates the very inner edge of the sun's continuously habitable zone or chz.
(If Mars had been much larger, say Earth size, it would likely have had vast oceans, kept in Gaia-balance by a dense CO2 atmosphere.)
Because of this anomalous trait, Earth is probably very unusual for a life world. The need to bleed off almost all of its incoming solar heat has necessitated an almost negligible greenhouse effect, with only trace amounts of C02. Hence making us especially fragile to the slightest manmade increase.
Does this translate into an abnormally rich Oxygen content and perhaps more land surface than most life-worlds? Unclear. But if one result were an Earth with exceptionally large continents and energetic air, then the implied galactic situation would be amazing! There might be intelligence elsewhere, but vigorous, fire-using land creatures would be rare.
Hence most ETICS could be sea beings, perhaps smart, even great artists and philosophers... but inherently unable to build starships or radio telescopes. Isolated on their ocean worlds, they all could be waiting for someone like us to bring the first starships. To give them the gift of contact. And then to learn from their minds.
And, here’s the crux: it would pretty much have to be done physically. In person. A sudden switch from one steady state -- isolation -- to a new equilibrium of chatter and trade. What a terrifically optimistic explanation for the Great Silence.
That is, optimistic compared to most of the others. It still depends on one thing. Us, getting our act together.
I like this theory for another reason. It offers, by far, the nicest potential destiny for our descendants. We'll be the postmen, the envoys, the ship captains, the explorers... the cops. With plenty of others to befriend, but nobody to push us around.
It also offers a way for the galaxy to seem so empty, without actually being so.
Oh, if only...
PS... catch your latest edition of Armageddon Buffet! http://www.armageddonbuffet.com/religion.html
For those of you who haven't been following... the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has taken a strange veer, of late. So here's another informative little rant about the kind of topic that calls for a far more intelligent and far-seeing leadership class -- if we are to deal with a bewildering array of 21st Century quandaries.
SHOULD HUMANITY ANNOUNCE ITS PRESENCE TO THE COSMOS? For you neos in this topic, you might want to start elsewhere then come back here. My own expose on this topic (ignore the lurid illustrations), can be found at:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/shouting.at.the.cosmos
One person who has expressed views on this is Britain's own prominent astronomer David Whitehouse:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2702529.ece
THE LATEST SALVO
Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute recently posted a short essay, once again laying down what should be called the “Standard SETI position” on the likelihood of interstellar travel... and hence any conceivable physical danger that might arise from first contact with Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent Civilizations (ETICs). I invite you all to have a look, hear him out, then come back here.
Essentially, Shostak seeks to dismiss the notion that interstellar contact can occur in any way that might prove dangerous to either side of such an encounter. This need has grown more pressing, as some members of the SETI community, in Russia and Argentina and Canada, for example, have sought to expand the process, from its traditional mode of passive listening or “searching” for ETI to a far more assertive program of actively transmitting Yoohoo Calls into the cosmos, multiplying Earth’s radio detectability signature by many orders of magnitude in “METI” or “Message to ETI”. Also called “Active SETI.”
Those who have been pushing this new approach (once dismissed as unwise, even by SETI pioneers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan) have been doing so without ever consulting the wider scientific community, or even their own governments, seeking to create a fait accompli that might suddenly and irrevocably alter human destiny, based upon a series of unproved assumptions.
What assumptions? Elsewhere, one finds a pervasive and almost religious belief that advanced alien civilizations must automatically and by-definition be peaceful/altruistic. Even though true altruism, in nature, appears to be about as rare as hens’ teeth. (Under Stalinist Lysenkoism, this notion of universal altruism was also tied to an expectation that all advanced life forms would be socialist! A dogmatic element that no longer seems to be part of the standard catechism.)
But Shostak and the Silicon Valley based SETI Institute -- managers of the new Paul Allen radio telescope listening array -- do not appeal to this fundamental underpinning of METI. In this essay, he instead begs the other one. The article of faith that interstellar travel is virtually impossible. And, therefore, there is virtually no chance at all, of deleterious consequences from drawing attention to ourselves
(For the sake of argument, we’ll put aside the large variety of conceivable danger modes -- however far-fetched -- that might arise from purely remote contact, involving no physical interaction at all. Even if we accepted the no travel premise, there are things to worry about. But another time. For broader discussion see: http://lifeboat.com/ex/shouting.at.the.cosmos)
For now, let us stay focused on Shostak’s essay contending that interstellar physical contact between cultures has to be negligible. He goes farther, by using polemical tricks to plant a further assumption -- that any conceivable physical harm from contact must come from a cliched strawman -- invasion and conquest by a cohesive and aggressive galactic empire.
Let’s take these one at a time.
THE (KNOWN) OBSTACLES TO INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL
Let's put aside fanciful ones, like my "Crystal Spheres." The list of known impediments is pretty tough.
1. Interstellar Travel - and hence physical contact - can’t happen.
There is a vast literature on this. The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society has been the principal locale for much of it, across the last thirty years. If you live near a university library that has it... or if they've digitized... the topic is fascinating! And, without a doubt, the prospect is a daunting challenge, at best. Essentially, there are three demons blocking us from the stars, and Seth only mentions one of them.
1a) The vast distances involved. In some ways, this one is actually the simplest to overcome. I’ll get back to it.
The other two are:
1b) The Rocket Equation - which shows that you must carry fuel to accelerate the mass of more fuel, just to carry enough fuel to accelerate your cargo, an especially burdensome fact when you figure you need to carry fuel to decelerate, as well. It’s non-linear and really harsh. But --
I once saw the late Barney Oliver (a fierce partisan of the Standard SETI Model) try to use the Rocket Equation to "prove" that interstellar flight - even with perfect antimatter engines - would be prohibitively costly, effectively bankrupting even a wealthy home civilization that tried to send such an expedition. He did this at a conference in Brighton, England in 1987. Oliver started by assuming that the vehicle must carry all the fuel needed to accelerate away from home, then decelerate to its destination... then to accelerate and decelerate home again.
Robert Forward, in the audience, stood up, incensed at this example of put-up, tendentious reasoning, pointing out the obvious. That the fuel for the return trip would be made at the destination site and not have to be carried there. And, since all that return trip fuel didn’t have to be transported on the FIRST leg, that leg would need a couple of orders of magnitude less fuel to start with. With just a little common sense, the rocket equation then appears much friendlier.
As it does if you ponder a myriad alternatives like "star-wisp" self-replicators that could mass very little, require little fuel, yet make copies of themselves -- or anything else -- upon reaching their destination. Such things could easily have pervaded the galaxy, by now. At least with tiny observers.
The important point here is not only that a wealthy, solar-system-wide civilization could easily afford such expeditions, but an even more important lesson -- that intellectual tendentiousness can make liars of any of us. Because of inherent human self-deception, reciprocal criticism is key! And you’ll only get that in an eclectic and open discussion, not a closed-access circle jerk among like-minded True Believers.
c) The relativistic mass effect -- where the faster you go - in effect - the more you weigh and the harder it is to accelerate faster-still. This last problem only becomes important if you get past 50% of c. Above 0.9 c it really hurts. (Alas, that is the realm where you start to benefit from time dilation.) The crux? We are behooved to try and see if travel at below half of light speed can do the job.
Those are the three classic “demons of relativistic starflight.” Though, striving for honesty, I’d have to add a fourth.
d) Radiation shielding. It is possible that travelling at high speeds through interstellar space is really tough on you and your ship, if you hit anything at all, along the way, even cosmic gas. You may need a bulky arrangement of mass in front of you, to absorb the punishment or turn particles into harmless scatter. That will be a burden, all right... though our back-of-the-envelope calculations don’t seem impossible.
Note, all of this assumes we don’t get hyperdrive or other sci fi marvels. For reasons seen below, I have to doubt such is possible, since it would worsen, not solve, the Fermi Paradox. (And this from the sci fi author who included DOZENS of such drives in the Uplift Universe! Hey. What I find plausible is one thing. Imagination and fun are another matter. ;-)
Working through it all, here are some basic responses:
1) The distances involved are (strangely) the part that worries me the least! They are only daunting if you figure you have to stay awake -- or alive -- in transit. Or if you ever want to come home again. Assuming you can go frozen, or as downloadable code stored by a loyal contstructor probe, or if you go AS a self-replicating probe, or any of a dozen variations, and you aren't in a hurry, then distance is not the worst part...
...so long as you can feed the rocket equation enough to coast at 10% to 50% of c.
Yes! Those possible methods of ignoring time and distance are in no way yet proved. But the sheer number of them suggest that travel should not be dismissed. (Note, even if humans cannot hibernate or code-replicate, it seems incredible to say that some other species out there wouldn’t be able to.)
2) The rocket equation is a bitch. But if you only accelerate and then decelerate once, an antimatter-fueled vessel should be able to leave the solar system, coast at quarter of c, and arrive at another star without bankrupting the home economy. Wish I had the papers at hand for you. Look up Robert Forward. Or the first half of Barney Oliver's paper, not the egregious second half. (Alas, both have passed away.)
Indeed, though, light sails are the thing! Especially if the home system can be counted on to beam laser or microwave impulses at you for a long time. Then you totally evade the cruel Rocket Equation. (Jim and Greg Benford are actually experts on this.) Yes, without this push, the time scales are slow. But either way, you can get there. And those that do it, and make copies, and do it again, will inherit the galaxy. (Note, by that time they may have lost all interest in planets! So it may even have happened. Except we haven't seen the lasers. Is this getting complicated enough?)
Note that long ago, at a conference I attended in Los Alamos, Jones and Finney calculated that a 10% c ship speed, combined with colonization and needing three generations to send more ships, would still let an assertively expanding race fill the galaxy in just 60 million years. If it were done by Von Neumann probes, who can set right to work making more probes out of asteroidal material, then the figure is three million years. Just three million, with a ship speed of 0.1 c.
(See “Lungfish” at: http://www.davidbrin.com/shortstories.html)
No, this is not a classic "empire". No coordinated fleets bearing down on this or that enemy world! (The absurd strawman erected by Seth Shostak, in order to “prove” his point.)
Imagine a diffusion that’s much more like rabbits, spreading through Australia. Ask the farmers down there if they are enjoying that First Contact. Ask the wallabies.
IS INTERSTELLAR POSSIBLE?
Frankly, I find all four impediments to interstellar travel to be daunting, with a possibility that one or all of them might -- despite current calculations -- finally turn out to be prohibitive.
But so far, there is nothing to convincingly force us to pre-conclude they are prohibitive. Moreover, to do so, without exposing the subject to eclectic enquiry, is simply the height of dishonesty.
No, the thing that makes me start to doubt Interstellar Travel is not derived from any of Seth's arguments, but rather the current condition of the solar system, with our asteroids apparently never touched, and the Earth, with only one episode of sudden life change etched into the rocks. (The eukariotic boom), across the vast two billion year epoch when our planet was “prime real estate.”
The Earth has been a photographic plate, a SETI instrument. And it seems to have detected nothing. Nor have the asteroids been extensively exploited by some voracious wave of self-replication or industry. That certainly puts a real burden on the travel-is-possible guys. Oh, it can be overcome in any number of ways. But it is a worse burden than any of the nonsense Seth Shostak keeps raising. (He is welcome to switch to this track, instead. It is far more logical.)
AM I REALLY AFRAID OF FIRST CONTACT?
Do I think that METI will bring down some horrid devastation upon us? Not really. At least I think the odds are low.
But I do think it is time for us to start applying good habits to low-probability events that might have devastating outcomes. There are a great many of these, apparently, in the pipeline. Smart guys like Bill Joy and Michael Crichton and Jared Diamond are already out there, calling for renunciation and paternalistic control, in order to evade these catastrophes.
In fact, I share the renunciators’ worries... while disliking their proposed methodology. Given that paternalism has seldom worked, or delivered wisdom, in the human past. Like most of my fellow catastrophe specialists, at the Lifeboat Foundation, I prefer enlightenment processes of discovery, debate, reciprocal criticism and deliberation/negotiation. (The one process that Michael Crichton never portrays as even possible, let alone happening, in any of his plot scenarios.)
Which is why I find Seth SHostak's unwillingness to discuss any of this collegially, in open fora, deeply disturbing. It has riled up the contrarian in me. (And others.) Even if I accept that the odds of harm from First Contact are low, I want to see this thrashed in the open. And so do a growing number of dissenters.
A LIKELY SCENARIO
What do I REALLY believe? Of all the Fermi theories I've catalogued, the one I like best is (naturally) my own. It is based on the one clear trait of our planet that violates the Copernican mediocrity principle... the fact that Earth skates the very inner edge of the sun's continuously habitable zone or chz.
(If Mars had been much larger, say Earth size, it would likely have had vast oceans, kept in Gaia-balance by a dense CO2 atmosphere.)
Because of this anomalous trait, Earth is probably very unusual for a life world. The need to bleed off almost all of its incoming solar heat has necessitated an almost negligible greenhouse effect, with only trace amounts of C02. Hence making us especially fragile to the slightest manmade increase.
Does this translate into an abnormally rich Oxygen content and perhaps more land surface than most life-worlds? Unclear. But if one result were an Earth with exceptionally large continents and energetic air, then the implied galactic situation would be amazing! There might be intelligence elsewhere, but vigorous, fire-using land creatures would be rare.
Hence most ETICS could be sea beings, perhaps smart, even great artists and philosophers... but inherently unable to build starships or radio telescopes. Isolated on their ocean worlds, they all could be waiting for someone like us to bring the first starships. To give them the gift of contact. And then to learn from their minds.
And, here’s the crux: it would pretty much have to be done physically. In person. A sudden switch from one steady state -- isolation -- to a new equilibrium of chatter and trade. What a terrifically optimistic explanation for the Great Silence.
That is, optimistic compared to most of the others. It still depends on one thing. Us, getting our act together.
I like this theory for another reason. It offers, by far, the nicest potential destiny for our descendants. We'll be the postmen, the envoys, the ship captains, the explorers... the cops. With plenty of others to befriend, but nobody to push us around.
It also offers a way for the galaxy to seem so empty, without actually being so.
Oh, if only...
PS... catch your latest edition of Armageddon Buffet! http://www.armageddonbuffet.com/religion.html
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Misc Fun With Science... While there's still an Enlightenment...
Well, I cannot let despair over civilization's plummet into a dark age keep me all gloomy. The Enlightenment is still kicking... and I prove it, now and then, by posting barrages of really cool stuff!
Starting with...
First - that article in SEED is now available online. A good piece of science reporting about the SETI/METI controversy. Or whether a very small number of people should make huge, irreversible decisions on behalf of all humankind. (Anyone have a link to the Wall Street Journal followup?)
See a cool lecture by my friend, futurist and media/alternate-reality pundit Jamais Cascio, about VR.
Here’s a YouTube item that’s a must, a deeply-moving ballet of two amputees. Amazing.
The nonprofit Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) -- of which I am a founding member -- released a series of scenarios depicting various versions of a near-future world into which transformative manufacturing concepts may emerge. Across eight separate storylines, an international team of policy, technology, and economic specialists organized by CRN imagined in detail a range of plausible, challenging events -- from pandemics to climate crises to international conflicts -- to see how they might affect the development of advanced nanotechnology over the next 15 years.
.
See one of the best predictive news services in the world -- and host of the annual “Future in Review” or FiRe Conference.
Stefan Jones suggests this funny one... though it hurts too. I’ve spent ten years trying to get anyone at all to notice huge, gaping gaps in our dismal online experience. Hey, I don’t need to be rich as Sergey. I just want to see this stuff happen!
Along related lines, see DemocracyLab which appears to aim at improving the level of discourse and debate within an Enlightenment civilization that desperately needs better tools. My own take on this is a bit heavy. But it shows the Web is NOT living up to its potential as a helper in problem solving discourse.
Is this true? That the side of your car that your gas filler cap is on is indicated by the “facing” of the little gas pump symbol on your dashboard?
I’d also be interested in reactions to the Presidential Climate Action Project of the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs headed up by former senator Gary Hart and industrialist Ray Anderson. The Potomac Institute calls it “ the finest systems approach to climate change that we have seen. The principles are highly adaptable to corporations and countries other than the U.S.” Thoughts welcome. http://www.climateactionproject.com/
See a speech on this topic, by my friend, acclaimed author, unleashed thinker, neurobiologist and climate pundit, William Calvin, delivered at the Chinese Great Hall of the People.
For those of you who missed it, here’s a link to the study indicating that human evolution has sped up, perhaps even a thousand-fold, during the last 10,000 years of civilization. See also Chris Wills’s CHILDREN OF PROMETHEUS. Though nobody mentions one driver that I feel must have been huge. Beer. It provided a highly storable liquid bread, enabling people to bridge famines. When populations rose, water became polluted, so beer became necessary. It affected behavior, often in ways that culled out those with little self control. Resulting (I bet) in populations an average less intemperate or prone to addiction or rage. Though, we are still lamentably addiction prone. As in my rant about indignation junkies. Speaking of which...
Want a reminder that the Left can be loony, too? Here’s a cheery stocking-stuffer:
Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar
Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence—-rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should—-they presume that they do them no harm. Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm... The author shows that there are a number of well-documented features of human psychology that explain why people systematically overestimate the quality of their lives and why they are thus resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence. The author then argues for the 'anti-natal' view—-that it is always wrong to have children—-and he shows that combining the anti-natal view with common pro-choice views about foetal moral status yield a 'pro-death' view about abortion (at the earlier stages of gestation). Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct. Although counter-intuitive for many, that implication is defended, not least by showing that it solves many conundrums of moral theory about population.
Comments a National Review fellow “The author is a professor at the University of Cape Town. That's on the Cape of Good Hope, though evidently not in this case.”
To be fair, hasn’t the greatest question always been “To be, or not to be”? Ah, but if those who CAN be persuaded by these arguments then act upon them, won’t the chief result be the evolution of a species that laughs itself silly at these ideas? Talk about selection... (Actually, this stuff figures in my next novel!)
Over the past four years, in partnership with Google, the Bodleian and a number of other great libraries have gradually been transferring their holdings into digital, searchable form. By next year, the Bodleian will have put half a million books online. According to one estimate, Google is digitising books at the rate of ten million a year, and it is not alone. Microsoft, Yahoo! and Amazon are all taking part in what amounts to a digital-literary gold-rush.
Scientists at the University of Oxford have built a device to beam waves of ultrasound into the body, generating bubbles at the site of a tumor. When these bubbles "pop", they release energy as heat - killing rogue cells.
"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," said artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.
The company Hyperion Power Generation was formed last month to develop the nuclear fission reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory and take it into the private sector. The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors. It’s self contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn’t require a human operator.
For the majority of Americans who do not travel abroad, the only visible effect so far of the dollar’s steep fall has been higher fuel prices at the pump. The Chinese imports that fill the big-box stores still cost the same, because the Chinese yuan is still pegged to the American dollar. But that may be about to change, along with many other things. Three of the world’s biggest oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than dollars. Recently a Chinese central bank vice director, Xu Jian, gave voice to the suspicion of many others, saying that the dollar was “losing its status as the world currency.”
AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.
Something is stirring deep below the legendary hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone, the first and most famous national park in America -- and home to a huge volcanic caldron. Parts of the park have been rising the past three years at a rate never before observed by scientists. They believe that magma -- molten rock -- is filling pores in the Earth's crust and causing a large swath of Yellowstone to rise like a pie in the oven.
Note: If the Yellowstone hot spot ever does blow... or the one under Mammoth Lakes... then every other news items becomes insignificant.
See some alarming statistics about American reading habits. Do have a (depressing) glance. (Do NOT use this as an excuse for contempt for the masses! It is a sickness of the left, as well as the right.)
Final bit. Apparently the titanically talented and pioneering web artist/cartoonist Patrick Farley, has lost his Electric Sheep web site e sheep.com. I mourn.
Starting with...
First - that article in SEED is now available online. A good piece of science reporting about the SETI/METI controversy. Or whether a very small number of people should make huge, irreversible decisions on behalf of all humankind. (Anyone have a link to the Wall Street Journal followup?)
See a cool lecture by my friend, futurist and media/alternate-reality pundit Jamais Cascio, about VR.
Here’s a YouTube item that’s a must, a deeply-moving ballet of two amputees. Amazing.
The nonprofit Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) -- of which I am a founding member -- released a series of scenarios depicting various versions of a near-future world into which transformative manufacturing concepts may emerge. Across eight separate storylines, an international team of policy, technology, and economic specialists organized by CRN imagined in detail a range of plausible, challenging events -- from pandemics to climate crises to international conflicts -- to see how they might affect the development of advanced nanotechnology over the next 15 years.
.
See one of the best predictive news services in the world -- and host of the annual “Future in Review” or FiRe Conference.
Stefan Jones suggests this funny one... though it hurts too. I’ve spent ten years trying to get anyone at all to notice huge, gaping gaps in our dismal online experience. Hey, I don’t need to be rich as Sergey. I just want to see this stuff happen!
Along related lines, see DemocracyLab which appears to aim at improving the level of discourse and debate within an Enlightenment civilization that desperately needs better tools. My own take on this is a bit heavy. But it shows the Web is NOT living up to its potential as a helper in problem solving discourse.
Is this true? That the side of your car that your gas filler cap is on is indicated by the “facing” of the little gas pump symbol on your dashboard?
I’d also be interested in reactions to the Presidential Climate Action Project of the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs headed up by former senator Gary Hart and industrialist Ray Anderson. The Potomac Institute calls it “ the finest systems approach to climate change that we have seen. The principles are highly adaptable to corporations and countries other than the U.S.” Thoughts welcome. http://www.climateactionproject.com/
See a speech on this topic, by my friend, acclaimed author, unleashed thinker, neurobiologist and climate pundit, William Calvin, delivered at the Chinese Great Hall of the People.
For those of you who missed it, here’s a link to the study indicating that human evolution has sped up, perhaps even a thousand-fold, during the last 10,000 years of civilization. See also Chris Wills’s CHILDREN OF PROMETHEUS. Though nobody mentions one driver that I feel must have been huge. Beer. It provided a highly storable liquid bread, enabling people to bridge famines. When populations rose, water became polluted, so beer became necessary. It affected behavior, often in ways that culled out those with little self control. Resulting (I bet) in populations an average less intemperate or prone to addiction or rage. Though, we are still lamentably addiction prone. As in my rant about indignation junkies. Speaking of which...
Want a reminder that the Left can be loony, too? Here’s a cheery stocking-stuffer:
Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar
Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence—-rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should—-they presume that they do them no harm. Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm... The author shows that there are a number of well-documented features of human psychology that explain why people systematically overestimate the quality of their lives and why they are thus resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence. The author then argues for the 'anti-natal' view—-that it is always wrong to have children—-and he shows that combining the anti-natal view with common pro-choice views about foetal moral status yield a 'pro-death' view about abortion (at the earlier stages of gestation). Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct. Although counter-intuitive for many, that implication is defended, not least by showing that it solves many conundrums of moral theory about population.
Comments a National Review fellow “The author is a professor at the University of Cape Town. That's on the Cape of Good Hope, though evidently not in this case.”
To be fair, hasn’t the greatest question always been “To be, or not to be”? Ah, but if those who CAN be persuaded by these arguments then act upon them, won’t the chief result be the evolution of a species that laughs itself silly at these ideas? Talk about selection... (Actually, this stuff figures in my next novel!)
Over the past four years, in partnership with Google, the Bodleian and a number of other great libraries have gradually been transferring their holdings into digital, searchable form. By next year, the Bodleian will have put half a million books online. According to one estimate, Google is digitising books at the rate of ten million a year, and it is not alone. Microsoft, Yahoo! and Amazon are all taking part in what amounts to a digital-literary gold-rush.
Scientists at the University of Oxford have built a device to beam waves of ultrasound into the body, generating bubbles at the site of a tumor. When these bubbles "pop", they release energy as heat - killing rogue cells.
"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," said artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.
The company Hyperion Power Generation was formed last month to develop the nuclear fission reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory and take it into the private sector. The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors. It’s self contained, involves no moving parts and, therefore, doesn’t require a human operator.
For the majority of Americans who do not travel abroad, the only visible effect so far of the dollar’s steep fall has been higher fuel prices at the pump. The Chinese imports that fill the big-box stores still cost the same, because the Chinese yuan is still pegged to the American dollar. But that may be about to change, along with many other things. Three of the world’s biggest oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than dollars. Recently a Chinese central bank vice director, Xu Jian, gave voice to the suspicion of many others, saying that the dollar was “losing its status as the world currency.”
AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.
Something is stirring deep below the legendary hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone, the first and most famous national park in America -- and home to a huge volcanic caldron. Parts of the park have been rising the past three years at a rate never before observed by scientists. They believe that magma -- molten rock -- is filling pores in the Earth's crust and causing a large swath of Yellowstone to rise like a pie in the oven.
Note: If the Yellowstone hot spot ever does blow... or the one under Mammoth Lakes... then every other news items becomes insignificant.
See some alarming statistics about American reading habits. Do have a (depressing) glance. (Do NOT use this as an excuse for contempt for the masses! It is a sickness of the left, as well as the right.)
Final bit. Apparently the titanically talented and pioneering web artist/cartoonist Patrick Farley, has lost his Electric Sheep web site e sheep.com. I mourn.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
World Cultures Compete (as memes) Over Human Destiny
MEME WAR REDUX
This will be one of my super-wide perspectives on cultures in conflict, comparing confrontations of the past (the Cold War) to our present North-South crises, and continuing through what may be (I predicted, long ago) the final, East-West struggle over the ultimate shape of human governance, across the centuries to come.
But it all begins with something much closer to home. Please be patient, because it will all tie together, I promise!
“SOCIAL MOBILITY” AS A WAY TO ENSURE THE DISCOVERY AND GOOD USE OF TALENT
One of my ongoing themes has dealt with the plight of our professional castes, as they are harried from above by incompetent but super-empowered politicians...while also worrying about competition from below, amid a rising Age of Amateurs. In a period of transition that appears to have gone completely unnoticed by any other pundits or commentators, it appears that those who most benefitted from the 20th Century -- the professionals -- now seem to be caught in a squeeze of transforming proportions.
One has to sympathize with these skilled men and women, especially, in government service, who have slowly come to realize their quandary. For example, those in the intelligence services, who seem to finally have found the courage, in their recent National Intelligence Estimate about Iran, to stand up and tell the truth, instead of what they were ordered to say. Why have they obeyed - till now - political masters who were clearly stupid and monomaniacal, if not outright mad? Recent years have re-taught a valuable lesson -- that people are people. Though sworn to protect constitutional law and an open society, each member of the civil service can be expected to do the human thing, drifting toward some comfortable or safe path. Toward safe or reassuring assumptions. Especially protecting his or her career. This can affect not only their actions, but what they are able to perceive.
It’s not a new phenomenon. So, it might be a good time to do one of our trademark “step-backs” in order to seek perspective... from the land where the entire concept of meritocracy was invented, more than a thousand years ago.
Indeed, it seems time to link this topic to another theme of mine -- that of “meme war”.
To start off, have a look at an excellent op-ed piece by David Brooks - “The Dictatorship of Talent” - which illustrates how the present leadership caste in China tries to blend the needs of a modern industrial state with the traditions of merit-based professionalism, all under a pyramidal hierarchical system of authority, with a heavy gloss of Confucian tradition. The article is fascinating...
... and, of course, only scratches the surface of what will surely be the major, determining conflict of the middle decades of the 21st Century. A rivalry not only of two cultures and two models of governance, but of entirely contradictory visions of how to run an advanced civilization.
It can be hard to see the forest for the trees. So let’s do that step-back for perspective.
PHASE ONE OF MEME WAR: THE LONG, PATIENT “THERAPY” OF PARANOIA
During the Cold War, people found it difficult to look below superficial layers of communist rhetoric, to understand something basic -- that the Soviet Union was never really all that much about communism at all! Historians could tell that, underneath the change of name and nomenclature, that “evil empire” was essentially just another manifestation of old-fashioned Russian hedgemonism, propelled by a paranoid tradition that stretched all the way back to Mongol and Tatar invasions of long ago. (If anything, communist ideology probably softened, rather than hardened, the ferocity of the Cold War standoff, since it preached against calling adversaries inhuman, a habit that the czars indulged in, all the time.)
Was the Communist Revolution of 1917 much more than a cosmetic change of surfaces, a shift from one paranoid Russian clique to another oligarchy of obsessive overcompensation? A nomenklatura that touted a different catechism, but behaved almost exactly the same as the one it replaced? Indeed, well before the revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville, H.G. Wells, and several others had predicted that the latter 20th Century would revolve around two poles, in a tense rivalry between a pragmatic-open Enlightenment America and a despotic-romantic Imperial Russia.
In a 1989 speech and article, I predicted the shattering of the USSR and the fall of the Iron Curtain, because of a partial but significant shift in this psychological rigor. I forecast that it would happen when -- for the first time in centuries -- a new top clade of Russian leaders took command, who had never known desperate privation or a struggle against foreign invaders.
Coaxed, also, by an increasingly open world culture and the questioning attitudes of science, the paranoid fever would finally break, at least enough to let satellite nations split off without brutal repression -- thus proving the wisdom of George Marshall’s long term strategy of “patient strength.”
There was a lot more to the Meme War concept, but a key point was that our Cold War enemy had never been communism, per se (which was always a bit goofy and earnest, for a militant-imperial religion), but rather, the psychological state of mind that lay beneath. One that used communism as a convenient and pliant surface rationalization, just as the Czars would have kept using traditionalism and religion to push the very same aggressive policies, if they had stayed in power.
Paranoia has many forms, but on a national scale it can manifest in a perpetual yearning for the Strong Leader. In clear, xenophobic divisions of us-vs-them. In a fierce and prickly inferiority complex and in an insatiable need to demonstrate strength. As a cultural frame of mind, paranoia is utterly incompatible with enlightenment thinking. And crucially, over the long run, any solution would have to be as much psychological as based on military or economic strength.
Let’s not be rosy-viewed. Back when Francis Fukayama was calling the fall of the USSR the “End of History,” I said that Russian Paranoia had not finished its long and tenacious run, nor would a swing from communism back to older Russian incantations ensure profound change. Culture is dogged and there will be a yearning for strong leaders over there, for a long time to come. Witness Vladimir Putin. Who could have been worse.
Still, my point is that the paranoid fever did break, largely for the reason I forecast, at least enough for that most dangerous phase of that confrontation to pass. Just in time for the ensuing one.
THE SECOND PHASE: A STRUGGLE BETWEEN WEST AND SOUTH
Likewise, today we are transfixed with what I forecast in 1989 to be our next major adversary -- not so much a particular nation or superficial dogma, but one brand or another of cultural machismo. One of the hot-belt cultures, that have long revolved around male-dominated memes, tribal loyalties, deeply suspicious religiosity and prickly, short-tempered pride.
Back in that 1989 speech and essay, I predicted that one of these memic realms would have to dig in and resist - often violently - the cultural changes threatened by Western influence. Especially the influence that our culture might have on their womenfolk.
I suggested, then, that it would likely be some of the Islamic macho nationalities, that led a violent and angry rejection of neo-western values. But I left open the possibility that Latin or Hindi versions of machismo might lead the way, instead. In any event, we do seem to be in the full flux of that era, exacerbated by our own leadership’s counter-productive strategy of pouring gasoline on every fire.
Among all of my successful “predictive hits,” this is probably the biggest... and one where I’d most like to have been wrong.
Our long range hope? Shall we wage physical and confrontational “war” against something as slippery and massive as a cultural meme? And who shall we bomb, then? Shall we kill faster than doing so will recruit even more angry young men, filling the pipeline until some of them really get their act together? Isn’t that, well, imitating the macho bluster of the enemy?
How fortunate that we were much wiser, less rash and more patient (despite lapses like Vietnam), during the Cold War!
No, George Marshall’s wisdom still applies. Strength and assertiveness are vital, but only when combined with savvy, stamina, and a willingness to study the arts of cultural jiu jitsu. Those cultures that are now opposing us will change when a generation of women arises among them that is able to assert themselves. (And, if we help, subtly, how could they not?)
THE FINAL CONFRONTATION OVER HUMAN GOVERNANCE AND CULTURE: WEST VS EAST
What does all of this have to do with David Brooks’s excellent article about Chinese meritocracy?
Well, assuming that we do succeed in weathering the present storm and thriving, somehow regaining our confidence and pragmatic common sense, enough to help lead a vivid and confident Enlightenment West... and assuming that the Macho Belt calms down enough to accept modernity’s inevitable progress... then (according to my model) we would see a final, mid-century tussle over which model of human governance should gain favor among future generations.
How will Earthlings, who are eager to get on with planetary -- and interplanetary -- life, settle their issues, allocate resources, and generally handle the problems of running a complex civilization?
The crux: with the fading of both the empires of paranoia and male frenzy, we’ll be left with an East-West dichotomy ... one that ought to be settled peacefully, since both of these final “sides” recognize the inefficiency and cost and inherent uncertainty of violence.
Non-violence sounds great, for a change. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a struggle. Because a whole lot will be at stake. In fact, just about everything.
Elsewhere, I talk at length about the essential difference between two fundamental modes of governance. One of these dominated the vast majority of past human societies -- at least those that achieved metals and agriculture -- traditional, pyramidal human cultures ruled by hierarchies of fiercely-protected privilege. Under these ruling oligarchies, wealth and investment and ownership were all controlled under the notion of GAR, or Guided Allocation of Resources.
Despite operating under diverse superficial mythologies and doctrines, from theocracies to feudal kingdoms to empires to nomenklaturas, the deeper system has tended to be the same, as if arising out of basic human nature.
Indeed, the emerging Chinese pattern that Brooks describes would appear to be among the most flexible and fair versions of pyramidal authoritarianism ever produced! One that was first crafted in postwar Japan, then refined into a high art, in Singapore, by the ingenious Lee Kwan Yew. On a much more vast scale, the rulers in Beijing are trying to combine Chinese traditions of civil service meritocracy, plus Confucian notions of noblesse oblige, with carefully unleashed market forces... along with some dollops of residual Communist-egalitarian catechism ... toward a single bold ambition. Making their emerging power-pyramid about as well-run and decent as any structured oligarchy can be.
There is even a strong likelihood that the top ruling clades in China see - with intelligent clarity -- the advantages offered by freedom of speech and open criticism! At least, as these corrective forces might apply to lower and more local administration levels. They know that only transparent, enlightenment processes can reliably staunch systemic corruption among corporations, provincial and urban chiefs, or the civil service. You can expect experiments in local investigative journalism and civic activism to continue. But these tools-of-light will be carefully limited and prevented from focusing upon society’s top tiers. There will be no more Tienanmen Square democracy festivals.
Without any doubt, this plan is an ambitious, complex and difficult arrangement. That is, assuming they can succeed at making such a blending work, at all. Can an increasingly educated and technologically-empowered citizenry be prevented from eventually turning their gaze -- skeptically and critically -- upward, at the top elites? Forever?
We in the West would tend to answer, no. But we are not imbued with some powerfully tenacious cultural memes -- of conformity, group loyalty, and tradition reverence -- that (let’s admit) have the momentum of both human history and human nature on their side. (And, even without those cultural influences, a drift back toward elite/command leadership is always possible here; there are forces always pushing in that direction.)
If the Chinese leadership clade does succeed at translating Lee Kwan Yew’s method into a successfully stable mode for a billion and a half Chinese, then humanity will be offered a genuinely interesting choice, by mid-century. On the one hand, the very best version of oldstyle, oligarchy-led governance possible.
On the other hand, Earth citizens will be offered an updated version of the Western Enlightenment. One that has weathered the trials of a Cold War, a Machismo Meme War, and (we can hope) a successful self renewal, after years of despoliation by the recent Neoconservative Putsch.
THE NEOCONFUCIAN PYRAMID HAS SOME ADVANTAGES
Let’s take a closer look at the neoconfucian governance model, and see how it attempts, with great agility, to incorporate many Western tools, while maintaining a core fidelity to older ways.
Within the great pyramid of authority, there will be countless small sub pyramids of authority, nested together, some of them based on corporate structure and others representing a myriad layers or sub agencies of government. But all of them constantly on the lookout for talent. Whenever some anomalous son or daughter of peasants displays real promise, he or she will be found, nurtured, taught the right combination of assertion and obeisance and then put to work. Because skill and talent in an underling can help to make the lord of any local pyramid more successful.
Note that one of the great failings of past feudal societies was their incredible waste of human resources, by consigning women, minorities, under-castes, and the children of the poor into predestined subservience, with cauterized opportunities to get education or show what they could do. Oligarchs and lords did this in order to prevent competition from below. It happened on nearly all continents, in nearly all eras. But, significantly, the invention of civil service process did offer up a primitive counter current. An incentive for oligarchs and elites to foster talent, rather than repress it. Only in a manner that remained under tight supervision and control.
Yes, it remained inefficient and unfair, all through the centuries of Chinese Imperium -- only a partial improvement over other nations. But now ponder a system of nested pyramidal fiefdoms, in which this process is given fresh vigor by universal education, technology and a rapid modern economy. Not only would any local lord keep looking for the next “find” to nurture, he may even pass this talented one upward, to the next layer, to his own equivalent of a feudal overlord, thus helping the next-larger pyramid and receiving credit for the find.
Thus, a form of social mobility will be possible, even encouraged, under this advanced form of neoconfucionism. Though not of a kind that most of us in the West would like. Not one that rewards truly bold or revolutionary ideas. Never individuals or ideas that are outright rebellious, or pushy, or disrespectful. But when did that ever happen?
Well, it did happen, once. In the Enlightenment West, where the ideal version of “Horatio Alger” social mobility often rewarded the delivery of goods, services or ideas in proportion to their startling, forward stepping value. At least, that was the idea, honored at least often enough to make us feel disappointed, when it wasn’t. Even more important than the inherent justice provided by social mobility, this new mode offered dramatically non-linear benefits, whenever markets, science, and democracy managed to stay open, filled with both spontaneous cooperation and vibrantly fair competition.
Culturally, this Western Enlightenment process focused on the individual, a fixation that other cultures have accused of fostering anomie, selfishness, greed, alienation and even a sense of cruel, solipsistic detachment from the needs of others. On the other hand, those other cultures had few linguistic or conceptual correlates with our word “fun.”
(A fresh note that I hadn’t thought of, before: the civil service concept appears to have begun in China at about the same time as democracy glimmered, in pre Periclean Athens. Different responses to the same essential need? To overcome the problem of wasted talent, in cruder oligarchies? If so, both of them only improved social mobility by a nudge, not a leap.)
THE ULTIMATE CONFRONTATION
Imagine a possibility -- that the forward movement of the Enlightenment West were to resume, after its dismal, turn-of-the century hiatus. Picture our democracy, markets, science, law and knowledge-empowered citizenry improving once again, perhaps by as much as they did in the Progressive Era, or during the fecund, egalitarian and reform-minded time after World War II. If we tuned up this Great Experiment by one more big notch, by as ambitious a degree as the Chinese seem to be tuning up their ultimate version of pyramidal oligarch, then what a choice the people of this planet will be offered!
A choice between the best of the East and the best of the West.
Let there be no doubt. The alternative, to be set before the world, is either-or. A dichotomy that can only be resolved in favor of one governance mode, or the other.
I am not saying there cannot be compromises! Or that each side cannot learn from the other. Indeed, from Lee Kwan Yew to Deng Xiaopeng, all the way back to the earlier master planners of the Japanese Ministry of Industry and Trade, the founders of Neo-Confucian governance have striven assiduously to study and incorporate every Western process that might be of use...
...so long as it does not threaten their fundamentals. Fundamentals that include an emphasis on respect rather than impudence, on communal serenity over individual exuberance, on predictability over risk-taking, on hierarchical permission-seeking, on some degree of inherited privilege, and on the right of revered elders to pick their own heirs. These things are basic. And they take precedence, even when tools of democracy and capitalism are incorporated at the surface level.
Likewise, the Enlightenment West, especially in its most-brash American form, has also shown a willingness to incorporate and absorb good things from elsewhere -- such as art and music and cultural forms that enter a fermenting stew, providing raw materials for individuals to combine and re-mix at will. This stewpot method has its faults, producing a much lower ratio of good things to utter crap... but it also produces more brilliance, more creativity, more nonlinear leaps, by far. A fact that leaders of the East readily acknowledge.
If the matter were to be settled simply on the basis of fun, or appeal to individual desires, there would be no question of an ultimate outcome. In an open choice, arrived-at calmly by world citizens who have relaxed access to every factor, without fear or pressure or tension, I believe people will drift toward demanding ever-greater personal autonomy. The gradualist-libertarian option (Which, to be honest, resembles the ultimate, utopian Marxist destination!)
On the other hand, if our next century proves rife with innumerable dangers -- as some of our own best and brightest predict -- including potentially awful technological breakthroughs that might empower small groups, or even individuals, to wreak great devastation, then one could see the people seeking comfort and protection in communal attitudes, and, especially, opting for a system that revolves around a core, paternalistic elite. Not a new idea, in fact, but a prescription as old as Plato.
A persuasive argument, indeed... though probably also mistaken. Because, inherent in this choice that I have laid out, is an incentive for one side to foster feelings of fear. Clouding the argument over future-dangers, by exaggerating them, and thus offering rationalizations for power.
A HAZY CRYSTAL BALL
In any event, that is how I see it, as one who tries to show the yin-yang advantages and faults of each side...
...while admitting that I believe passionately in the further potential of the Enlightenment. Not because it is “good” so much as because it, and it alone, ever found a methodology for dealing with humanity’s worst fault - rationalized self deception.
In theory, there is no limit to the power of open, reciprocal accountability to ensure both the benefits of freedom and the safety of early error discovery... far better than protective, paternalistic groups could ever manage. It is a win-win phenomenon that explains all the success of the West, so far. The very notion that we can rise up from zero-sum games and forge into a civilization that is prodigiously positive-sum.
Of course, past performance is no indicator of future success. Indeed, the Enlightenment West -- and the American great experiment - have shown signs, lately, that its citizenries lack the maturity to take things forward the next notch, and then the next. The swing away from delegated legislatures toward executive power. The widening wealth gap. The plunge away from discourse and negotiation, toward dogmatic positions, all of these are danger signs.
There have been falterings before. They were overcome through rising education, satiation, perspective and awareness. Citizens clambered up and adapted, from illiteracy to crude newspapers, to urban libraries, to mass media, to internet mediated access to all the world’s knowledge in an instant. May our neighbors rise to the present challenge, as well.
Still, if the Enlightenment has reached genuine limits, if humans simply aren’t up to the task, or if on-off calamities can only be stayed by paternalistic power, then maybe the Eastern Model would be best. At least, then, our great-great grandchildren will exist. They would survive. I expect this will be the rationalization. Indeed, we are already hearing it from many quarters.
But I will not, cannot, swallow it. Across at least 400 years, the citizens of the Enlightenment have surprised every doubter and surpassed every declared limit to human powers of self-governance. As de Tocqueville pointed out, midway through that span of time, the process is not elegant or serene, or dignified, or efficient... it simply performs miracles. Bona fide, unquestionable, overwhelming and astounding miracles.
For a people to doubt this, having learned to race faster than cheetahs, to fly faster than birds, to walk on the Moon, to peer at atoms and singularities, to cure themselves of bigotries, to begin tending creation...
...to have done all those things and so many more, and fail in confidence? Well, that would be the strangest and most tragic accomplishment of all.
.
This will be one of my super-wide perspectives on cultures in conflict, comparing confrontations of the past (the Cold War) to our present North-South crises, and continuing through what may be (I predicted, long ago) the final, East-West struggle over the ultimate shape of human governance, across the centuries to come.
But it all begins with something much closer to home. Please be patient, because it will all tie together, I promise!
“SOCIAL MOBILITY” AS A WAY TO ENSURE THE DISCOVERY AND GOOD USE OF TALENT
One of my ongoing themes has dealt with the plight of our professional castes, as they are harried from above by incompetent but super-empowered politicians...while also worrying about competition from below, amid a rising Age of Amateurs. In a period of transition that appears to have gone completely unnoticed by any other pundits or commentators, it appears that those who most benefitted from the 20th Century -- the professionals -- now seem to be caught in a squeeze of transforming proportions.
One has to sympathize with these skilled men and women, especially, in government service, who have slowly come to realize their quandary. For example, those in the intelligence services, who seem to finally have found the courage, in their recent National Intelligence Estimate about Iran, to stand up and tell the truth, instead of what they were ordered to say. Why have they obeyed - till now - political masters who were clearly stupid and monomaniacal, if not outright mad? Recent years have re-taught a valuable lesson -- that people are people. Though sworn to protect constitutional law and an open society, each member of the civil service can be expected to do the human thing, drifting toward some comfortable or safe path. Toward safe or reassuring assumptions. Especially protecting his or her career. This can affect not only their actions, but what they are able to perceive.
It’s not a new phenomenon. So, it might be a good time to do one of our trademark “step-backs” in order to seek perspective... from the land where the entire concept of meritocracy was invented, more than a thousand years ago.
Indeed, it seems time to link this topic to another theme of mine -- that of “meme war”.
To start off, have a look at an excellent op-ed piece by David Brooks - “The Dictatorship of Talent” - which illustrates how the present leadership caste in China tries to blend the needs of a modern industrial state with the traditions of merit-based professionalism, all under a pyramidal hierarchical system of authority, with a heavy gloss of Confucian tradition. The article is fascinating...
... and, of course, only scratches the surface of what will surely be the major, determining conflict of the middle decades of the 21st Century. A rivalry not only of two cultures and two models of governance, but of entirely contradictory visions of how to run an advanced civilization.
It can be hard to see the forest for the trees. So let’s do that step-back for perspective.
PHASE ONE OF MEME WAR: THE LONG, PATIENT “THERAPY” OF PARANOIA
During the Cold War, people found it difficult to look below superficial layers of communist rhetoric, to understand something basic -- that the Soviet Union was never really all that much about communism at all! Historians could tell that, underneath the change of name and nomenclature, that “evil empire” was essentially just another manifestation of old-fashioned Russian hedgemonism, propelled by a paranoid tradition that stretched all the way back to Mongol and Tatar invasions of long ago. (If anything, communist ideology probably softened, rather than hardened, the ferocity of the Cold War standoff, since it preached against calling adversaries inhuman, a habit that the czars indulged in, all the time.)
Was the Communist Revolution of 1917 much more than a cosmetic change of surfaces, a shift from one paranoid Russian clique to another oligarchy of obsessive overcompensation? A nomenklatura that touted a different catechism, but behaved almost exactly the same as the one it replaced? Indeed, well before the revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville, H.G. Wells, and several others had predicted that the latter 20th Century would revolve around two poles, in a tense rivalry between a pragmatic-open Enlightenment America and a despotic-romantic Imperial Russia.
In a 1989 speech and article, I predicted the shattering of the USSR and the fall of the Iron Curtain, because of a partial but significant shift in this psychological rigor. I forecast that it would happen when -- for the first time in centuries -- a new top clade of Russian leaders took command, who had never known desperate privation or a struggle against foreign invaders.
Coaxed, also, by an increasingly open world culture and the questioning attitudes of science, the paranoid fever would finally break, at least enough to let satellite nations split off without brutal repression -- thus proving the wisdom of George Marshall’s long term strategy of “patient strength.”
There was a lot more to the Meme War concept, but a key point was that our Cold War enemy had never been communism, per se (which was always a bit goofy and earnest, for a militant-imperial religion), but rather, the psychological state of mind that lay beneath. One that used communism as a convenient and pliant surface rationalization, just as the Czars would have kept using traditionalism and religion to push the very same aggressive policies, if they had stayed in power.
Paranoia has many forms, but on a national scale it can manifest in a perpetual yearning for the Strong Leader. In clear, xenophobic divisions of us-vs-them. In a fierce and prickly inferiority complex and in an insatiable need to demonstrate strength. As a cultural frame of mind, paranoia is utterly incompatible with enlightenment thinking. And crucially, over the long run, any solution would have to be as much psychological as based on military or economic strength.
Let’s not be rosy-viewed. Back when Francis Fukayama was calling the fall of the USSR the “End of History,” I said that Russian Paranoia had not finished its long and tenacious run, nor would a swing from communism back to older Russian incantations ensure profound change. Culture is dogged and there will be a yearning for strong leaders over there, for a long time to come. Witness Vladimir Putin. Who could have been worse.
Still, my point is that the paranoid fever did break, largely for the reason I forecast, at least enough for that most dangerous phase of that confrontation to pass. Just in time for the ensuing one.
THE SECOND PHASE: A STRUGGLE BETWEEN WEST AND SOUTH
Likewise, today we are transfixed with what I forecast in 1989 to be our next major adversary -- not so much a particular nation or superficial dogma, but one brand or another of cultural machismo. One of the hot-belt cultures, that have long revolved around male-dominated memes, tribal loyalties, deeply suspicious religiosity and prickly, short-tempered pride.
Back in that 1989 speech and essay, I predicted that one of these memic realms would have to dig in and resist - often violently - the cultural changes threatened by Western influence. Especially the influence that our culture might have on their womenfolk.
I suggested, then, that it would likely be some of the Islamic macho nationalities, that led a violent and angry rejection of neo-western values. But I left open the possibility that Latin or Hindi versions of machismo might lead the way, instead. In any event, we do seem to be in the full flux of that era, exacerbated by our own leadership’s counter-productive strategy of pouring gasoline on every fire.
Among all of my successful “predictive hits,” this is probably the biggest... and one where I’d most like to have been wrong.
Our long range hope? Shall we wage physical and confrontational “war” against something as slippery and massive as a cultural meme? And who shall we bomb, then? Shall we kill faster than doing so will recruit even more angry young men, filling the pipeline until some of them really get their act together? Isn’t that, well, imitating the macho bluster of the enemy?
How fortunate that we were much wiser, less rash and more patient (despite lapses like Vietnam), during the Cold War!
No, George Marshall’s wisdom still applies. Strength and assertiveness are vital, but only when combined with savvy, stamina, and a willingness to study the arts of cultural jiu jitsu. Those cultures that are now opposing us will change when a generation of women arises among them that is able to assert themselves. (And, if we help, subtly, how could they not?)
THE FINAL CONFRONTATION OVER HUMAN GOVERNANCE AND CULTURE: WEST VS EAST
What does all of this have to do with David Brooks’s excellent article about Chinese meritocracy?
Well, assuming that we do succeed in weathering the present storm and thriving, somehow regaining our confidence and pragmatic common sense, enough to help lead a vivid and confident Enlightenment West... and assuming that the Macho Belt calms down enough to accept modernity’s inevitable progress... then (according to my model) we would see a final, mid-century tussle over which model of human governance should gain favor among future generations.
How will Earthlings, who are eager to get on with planetary -- and interplanetary -- life, settle their issues, allocate resources, and generally handle the problems of running a complex civilization?
The crux: with the fading of both the empires of paranoia and male frenzy, we’ll be left with an East-West dichotomy ... one that ought to be settled peacefully, since both of these final “sides” recognize the inefficiency and cost and inherent uncertainty of violence.
Non-violence sounds great, for a change. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a struggle. Because a whole lot will be at stake. In fact, just about everything.
Elsewhere, I talk at length about the essential difference between two fundamental modes of governance. One of these dominated the vast majority of past human societies -- at least those that achieved metals and agriculture -- traditional, pyramidal human cultures ruled by hierarchies of fiercely-protected privilege. Under these ruling oligarchies, wealth and investment and ownership were all controlled under the notion of GAR, or Guided Allocation of Resources.
Despite operating under diverse superficial mythologies and doctrines, from theocracies to feudal kingdoms to empires to nomenklaturas, the deeper system has tended to be the same, as if arising out of basic human nature.
Indeed, the emerging Chinese pattern that Brooks describes would appear to be among the most flexible and fair versions of pyramidal authoritarianism ever produced! One that was first crafted in postwar Japan, then refined into a high art, in Singapore, by the ingenious Lee Kwan Yew. On a much more vast scale, the rulers in Beijing are trying to combine Chinese traditions of civil service meritocracy, plus Confucian notions of noblesse oblige, with carefully unleashed market forces... along with some dollops of residual Communist-egalitarian catechism ... toward a single bold ambition. Making their emerging power-pyramid about as well-run and decent as any structured oligarchy can be.
There is even a strong likelihood that the top ruling clades in China see - with intelligent clarity -- the advantages offered by freedom of speech and open criticism! At least, as these corrective forces might apply to lower and more local administration levels. They know that only transparent, enlightenment processes can reliably staunch systemic corruption among corporations, provincial and urban chiefs, or the civil service. You can expect experiments in local investigative journalism and civic activism to continue. But these tools-of-light will be carefully limited and prevented from focusing upon society’s top tiers. There will be no more Tienanmen Square democracy festivals.
Without any doubt, this plan is an ambitious, complex and difficult arrangement. That is, assuming they can succeed at making such a blending work, at all. Can an increasingly educated and technologically-empowered citizenry be prevented from eventually turning their gaze -- skeptically and critically -- upward, at the top elites? Forever?
We in the West would tend to answer, no. But we are not imbued with some powerfully tenacious cultural memes -- of conformity, group loyalty, and tradition reverence -- that (let’s admit) have the momentum of both human history and human nature on their side. (And, even without those cultural influences, a drift back toward elite/command leadership is always possible here; there are forces always pushing in that direction.)
If the Chinese leadership clade does succeed at translating Lee Kwan Yew’s method into a successfully stable mode for a billion and a half Chinese, then humanity will be offered a genuinely interesting choice, by mid-century. On the one hand, the very best version of oldstyle, oligarchy-led governance possible.
On the other hand, Earth citizens will be offered an updated version of the Western Enlightenment. One that has weathered the trials of a Cold War, a Machismo Meme War, and (we can hope) a successful self renewal, after years of despoliation by the recent Neoconservative Putsch.
THE NEOCONFUCIAN PYRAMID HAS SOME ADVANTAGES
Let’s take a closer look at the neoconfucian governance model, and see how it attempts, with great agility, to incorporate many Western tools, while maintaining a core fidelity to older ways.
Within the great pyramid of authority, there will be countless small sub pyramids of authority, nested together, some of them based on corporate structure and others representing a myriad layers or sub agencies of government. But all of them constantly on the lookout for talent. Whenever some anomalous son or daughter of peasants displays real promise, he or she will be found, nurtured, taught the right combination of assertion and obeisance and then put to work. Because skill and talent in an underling can help to make the lord of any local pyramid more successful.
Note that one of the great failings of past feudal societies was their incredible waste of human resources, by consigning women, minorities, under-castes, and the children of the poor into predestined subservience, with cauterized opportunities to get education or show what they could do. Oligarchs and lords did this in order to prevent competition from below. It happened on nearly all continents, in nearly all eras. But, significantly, the invention of civil service process did offer up a primitive counter current. An incentive for oligarchs and elites to foster talent, rather than repress it. Only in a manner that remained under tight supervision and control.
Yes, it remained inefficient and unfair, all through the centuries of Chinese Imperium -- only a partial improvement over other nations. But now ponder a system of nested pyramidal fiefdoms, in which this process is given fresh vigor by universal education, technology and a rapid modern economy. Not only would any local lord keep looking for the next “find” to nurture, he may even pass this talented one upward, to the next layer, to his own equivalent of a feudal overlord, thus helping the next-larger pyramid and receiving credit for the find.
Thus, a form of social mobility will be possible, even encouraged, under this advanced form of neoconfucionism. Though not of a kind that most of us in the West would like. Not one that rewards truly bold or revolutionary ideas. Never individuals or ideas that are outright rebellious, or pushy, or disrespectful. But when did that ever happen?
Well, it did happen, once. In the Enlightenment West, where the ideal version of “Horatio Alger” social mobility often rewarded the delivery of goods, services or ideas in proportion to their startling, forward stepping value. At least, that was the idea, honored at least often enough to make us feel disappointed, when it wasn’t. Even more important than the inherent justice provided by social mobility, this new mode offered dramatically non-linear benefits, whenever markets, science, and democracy managed to stay open, filled with both spontaneous cooperation and vibrantly fair competition.
Culturally, this Western Enlightenment process focused on the individual, a fixation that other cultures have accused of fostering anomie, selfishness, greed, alienation and even a sense of cruel, solipsistic detachment from the needs of others. On the other hand, those other cultures had few linguistic or conceptual correlates with our word “fun.”
(A fresh note that I hadn’t thought of, before: the civil service concept appears to have begun in China at about the same time as democracy glimmered, in pre Periclean Athens. Different responses to the same essential need? To overcome the problem of wasted talent, in cruder oligarchies? If so, both of them only improved social mobility by a nudge, not a leap.)
THE ULTIMATE CONFRONTATION
Imagine a possibility -- that the forward movement of the Enlightenment West were to resume, after its dismal, turn-of-the century hiatus. Picture our democracy, markets, science, law and knowledge-empowered citizenry improving once again, perhaps by as much as they did in the Progressive Era, or during the fecund, egalitarian and reform-minded time after World War II. If we tuned up this Great Experiment by one more big notch, by as ambitious a degree as the Chinese seem to be tuning up their ultimate version of pyramidal oligarch, then what a choice the people of this planet will be offered!
A choice between the best of the East and the best of the West.
Let there be no doubt. The alternative, to be set before the world, is either-or. A dichotomy that can only be resolved in favor of one governance mode, or the other.
I am not saying there cannot be compromises! Or that each side cannot learn from the other. Indeed, from Lee Kwan Yew to Deng Xiaopeng, all the way back to the earlier master planners of the Japanese Ministry of Industry and Trade, the founders of Neo-Confucian governance have striven assiduously to study and incorporate every Western process that might be of use...
...so long as it does not threaten their fundamentals. Fundamentals that include an emphasis on respect rather than impudence, on communal serenity over individual exuberance, on predictability over risk-taking, on hierarchical permission-seeking, on some degree of inherited privilege, and on the right of revered elders to pick their own heirs. These things are basic. And they take precedence, even when tools of democracy and capitalism are incorporated at the surface level.
Likewise, the Enlightenment West, especially in its most-brash American form, has also shown a willingness to incorporate and absorb good things from elsewhere -- such as art and music and cultural forms that enter a fermenting stew, providing raw materials for individuals to combine and re-mix at will. This stewpot method has its faults, producing a much lower ratio of good things to utter crap... but it also produces more brilliance, more creativity, more nonlinear leaps, by far. A fact that leaders of the East readily acknowledge.
If the matter were to be settled simply on the basis of fun, or appeal to individual desires, there would be no question of an ultimate outcome. In an open choice, arrived-at calmly by world citizens who have relaxed access to every factor, without fear or pressure or tension, I believe people will drift toward demanding ever-greater personal autonomy. The gradualist-libertarian option (Which, to be honest, resembles the ultimate, utopian Marxist destination!)
On the other hand, if our next century proves rife with innumerable dangers -- as some of our own best and brightest predict -- including potentially awful technological breakthroughs that might empower small groups, or even individuals, to wreak great devastation, then one could see the people seeking comfort and protection in communal attitudes, and, especially, opting for a system that revolves around a core, paternalistic elite. Not a new idea, in fact, but a prescription as old as Plato.
A persuasive argument, indeed... though probably also mistaken. Because, inherent in this choice that I have laid out, is an incentive for one side to foster feelings of fear. Clouding the argument over future-dangers, by exaggerating them, and thus offering rationalizations for power.
A HAZY CRYSTAL BALL
In any event, that is how I see it, as one who tries to show the yin-yang advantages and faults of each side...
...while admitting that I believe passionately in the further potential of the Enlightenment. Not because it is “good” so much as because it, and it alone, ever found a methodology for dealing with humanity’s worst fault - rationalized self deception.
In theory, there is no limit to the power of open, reciprocal accountability to ensure both the benefits of freedom and the safety of early error discovery... far better than protective, paternalistic groups could ever manage. It is a win-win phenomenon that explains all the success of the West, so far. The very notion that we can rise up from zero-sum games and forge into a civilization that is prodigiously positive-sum.
Of course, past performance is no indicator of future success. Indeed, the Enlightenment West -- and the American great experiment - have shown signs, lately, that its citizenries lack the maturity to take things forward the next notch, and then the next. The swing away from delegated legislatures toward executive power. The widening wealth gap. The plunge away from discourse and negotiation, toward dogmatic positions, all of these are danger signs.
There have been falterings before. They were overcome through rising education, satiation, perspective and awareness. Citizens clambered up and adapted, from illiteracy to crude newspapers, to urban libraries, to mass media, to internet mediated access to all the world’s knowledge in an instant. May our neighbors rise to the present challenge, as well.
Still, if the Enlightenment has reached genuine limits, if humans simply aren’t up to the task, or if on-off calamities can only be stayed by paternalistic power, then maybe the Eastern Model would be best. At least, then, our great-great grandchildren will exist. They would survive. I expect this will be the rationalization. Indeed, we are already hearing it from many quarters.
But I will not, cannot, swallow it. Across at least 400 years, the citizens of the Enlightenment have surprised every doubter and surpassed every declared limit to human powers of self-governance. As de Tocqueville pointed out, midway through that span of time, the process is not elegant or serene, or dignified, or efficient... it simply performs miracles. Bona fide, unquestionable, overwhelming and astounding miracles.
For a people to doubt this, having learned to race faster than cheetahs, to fly faster than birds, to walk on the Moon, to peer at atoms and singularities, to cure themselves of bigotries, to begin tending creation...
...to have done all those things and so many more, and fail in confidence? Well, that would be the strangest and most tragic accomplishment of all.
.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Proof of "Uplift"... or at least intelligence...
I just want to hurry a post in order to mention some miscellaneous scientific items...
...and to thank the skilled professionals of the U.S. intelligence services, who appear (at long last) to have found the spine to stand up to Bush Administration hysterics, by downgrading the danger of nuclear weaponry, developed by Iran. You’ve read about it in the papers. At a stroke, the professionals have undercut the drive to foment yet another Middle Eastern war, sucking in (and possibly destroying) the last American military strength and finalizing the demolition of U.S. moral leadership in the world.
That is not to say that we are out of the woods. The option of a schoolyard bully to use the peremptory powers of Commander in Chief - plus the apparent compliant docility of the Air Force - make the next year dangerous as hell.
But at least there are indications of what I have long called-for, a rising by the professionals to start doing their jobs - protecting the people and the Constitution from a danger within. We’ve now seen the Navy and the Cia begin to stand up. Now, will we get what we need from the FBI? Will the subornation protocols be invoked, at last?
This is where we’ll be saved, or not. The elections, a year from now, will only ratify a counter-revolution that must first be pushed forward (perhaps quietly) by the men and women who swore us oaths. Who offered to put their lives between us and danger. Who have the skills and knowledge to stand up for the law, for the Constitution, and for our civilization.
--- Get SEED! ---
If you haven’t yet seen SEED Magazine, go get a copy. It’s like a mix of DISCOVER and WIRED, only better. On target and cool.
Oh, and they have an article - by Daviud Grinspoon - about the SETI/METI imbroglio, in their next issue. (And yes, mentioning me.) An article so well-written that I saw not a single cringe-worthy minsinterpretation or exaggeration or unfairness. A real rarity in science policy reporting
--- Other cool stuff --
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9825378-39.html GPS locator technology in cameras will let each digital photo taken get geotagged as it's taken. Another service http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Fi-Card-Wireless-2GB-Memory/dp/B000X27XDC has the capability of uploading those geotagged pictures to public websites as soon as an Internet connection is detected... .and you get a spankin' everyman's surveillance tool.
http://videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?14167 See "The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future - John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live, and how those beings are discovering their history.”
Keep eyes open for a familiar face in "Life after People" - a Discovery Channel show based on an October 2006 New Scientist article. The show is about a theoretical "future world" without people, where only animals are left.
Oh, did I mention you'll see a familiar face being interviewed?
One of their topics touches on the whole Message to Aliens thing. For a relevant article about how hard it is to be detected... now... see But some fellows plan to change that.
Some of you have seen this. Are chimpanzees closer to human intelligence than we thought? One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, and a dozen human volunteers.They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster. (Thanks Zechariah!) This is relevant to “uplift” of course. And also to my new novel... and the fact that autistic people, sometimes with savant powers, appear to process more like animals.
And, as if that weren't big enough "uplift-related" news, check out this one! I am so glad I am on record having been a friend of dolphins and chimps!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28315
And, finally, this for the eco-minded: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/conservation_group_condemns
...and to thank the skilled professionals of the U.S. intelligence services, who appear (at long last) to have found the spine to stand up to Bush Administration hysterics, by downgrading the danger of nuclear weaponry, developed by Iran. You’ve read about it in the papers. At a stroke, the professionals have undercut the drive to foment yet another Middle Eastern war, sucking in (and possibly destroying) the last American military strength and finalizing the demolition of U.S. moral leadership in the world.
That is not to say that we are out of the woods. The option of a schoolyard bully to use the peremptory powers of Commander in Chief - plus the apparent compliant docility of the Air Force - make the next year dangerous as hell.
But at least there are indications of what I have long called-for, a rising by the professionals to start doing their jobs - protecting the people and the Constitution from a danger within. We’ve now seen the Navy and the Cia begin to stand up. Now, will we get what we need from the FBI? Will the subornation protocols be invoked, at last?
This is where we’ll be saved, or not. The elections, a year from now, will only ratify a counter-revolution that must first be pushed forward (perhaps quietly) by the men and women who swore us oaths. Who offered to put their lives between us and danger. Who have the skills and knowledge to stand up for the law, for the Constitution, and for our civilization.
--- Get SEED! ---
If you haven’t yet seen SEED Magazine, go get a copy. It’s like a mix of DISCOVER and WIRED, only better. On target and cool.
Oh, and they have an article - by Daviud Grinspoon - about the SETI/METI imbroglio, in their next issue. (And yes, mentioning me.) An article so well-written that I saw not a single cringe-worthy minsinterpretation or exaggeration or unfairness. A real rarity in science policy reporting
--- Other cool stuff --
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9825378-39.html GPS locator technology in cameras will let each digital photo taken get geotagged as it's taken. Another service http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Fi-Card-Wireless-2GB-Memory/dp/B000X27XDC has the capability of uploading those geotagged pictures to public websites as soon as an Internet connection is detected... .and you get a spankin' everyman's surveillance tool.
http://videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?14167 See "The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future - John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live, and how those beings are discovering their history.”
Keep eyes open for a familiar face in "Life after People" - a Discovery Channel show based on an October 2006 New Scientist article. The show is about a theoretical "future world" without people, where only animals are left.
Oh, did I mention you'll see a familiar face being interviewed?
One of their topics touches on the whole Message to Aliens thing. For a relevant article about how hard it is to be detected... now... see But some fellows plan to change that.
Some of you have seen this. Are chimpanzees closer to human intelligence than we thought? One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, and a dozen human volunteers.They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster. (Thanks Zechariah!) This is relevant to “uplift” of course. And also to my new novel... and the fact that autistic people, sometimes with savant powers, appear to process more like animals.
And, as if that weren't big enough "uplift-related" news, check out this one! I am so glad I am on record having been a friend of dolphins and chimps!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28315
And, finally, this for the eco-minded: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/conservation_group_condemns
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Credible defectors... and war with Iran?
There are some insights I'd like to share, first on the elections in Russia ...
...and then on cogent criticism of the U.S> administration by former supporters.
In particular, nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since. A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. (God bless contrarian curmugeons.)
I'll quote extensively below, from a recent interview with Ritter... while diagreeing with him in dour ways. But, by all means, go read it yourself.
I refer folks to THE GLOBALIST whenever they have interesting articles. This time: ahead of Russia's parliamentary elections, it explores Vladimir Putin's bizarre crackdown. And, against the backdrop of the Annapolis summit this past week, they explore the Bush Admin’s innovation: a diplomacy-free foreign policy that relies almost exclusively on military means. Alas, a subtitle - “What will it take for the United States to become as skilled at diplomacy as it is at waging war?” - exposes a flawed premise, since we have (alas) also become very, very bad at waging war.
Excerpt: “One disappointing development is that optimism about the democratizing influence of the Internet is increasingly coming into question. In their report former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Reporters sans Frontières concluded that “all authoritarian regimes are now working to censor the Internet.””
(Addendum: While I share the widespread worry about Putin’s authoritarian moves, which have been even more blatant and anti-freedom than the neocon putsch in America, I do want to remind folks of one thing - that Putin quashed moves to amend the Russian constitution to allow unlimited presidential terms. Thus, he must leave office and attempt the role of “leader” behind the scenes. Still autocratic, yes, and deeply disturbing. And yet, the public acceptance - and precedent - of cyclical reversion of official power is a terribly important thing. Symbolically, at least. Even if hypocritical, it pays homage to the virtues of law, in a land where political instincts still reflexively turn toward the Man. We can hope.)
In the continuing tragicomedy of former Bush henchmen standing up... former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan will publish a memoir in April titled “What Happened.” In an excerpt by his publisher, McClellan in the Valerie Plame scandal: “The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. There was one problem. It was not true.
“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.”
And another once-friendly (and highly credible) critic weighs in.
See “Bombs Away?” - an important article in the Detroit Metro-Times, interviewing an irascible but devastatingly on-target intelligence analyst who worked for the Bush Administration, zeroing in on the momentum that is building, for a U.S. attack upon Iran.
(Now that most daily papers and TV outlets are consolidated in a few hands, we must look beyond daily papers - from Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker to articles in The Nation - and the picture emerges of an administration that is determined to attack Iran. John H. Richardson's "The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know" in the November issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson, using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration is "headed straight for war with Iran" and that "it had been set on this course for years."”
Nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since. A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter loudly disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. He portrays himself as the straight-shooting analyst unconcerned by who supports him or whom he offends.
In the interview, Ritter addresses the Bush Administration’s run-up toward war with Iran, adding that: “there's nothing that has occurred that leads me to believe the Bush administration has changed its policy direction. In fact there has been much that's occurred that reinforces the earlier conclusions that were based on good sources of information. We take a look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy bombers to carry bunker busting bombs on a specific time frame, the massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by April 2008. Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some criticality. It also matches my analysis that the Bush administration will want to carry this out prior to the crazy political season of the summer of 2008.”
(DB note: I had not known about the filling of the Strategic Reserve. Yes, it disturbingly suggests preparations for war. But there’s another interpretation. Some years ago, when oil was much cheaper, the Bushadmin sold oil from the SR. Now they are buying, when prices are high. (Helping thus to keep them high.) This is the exact opposite of what governments are supposed to do. But just fine, if (say, hypothetically) you are an agent of the oilcos and certain petro-powers.)
It is a very important article, offering us hope that the alternative press will step in, where mainstream journalism has let democracy down. Still, where Ritter utterly collapses is in answering the question why?
Why are Bush-Cheney and the Neocons pushing this agenda. Here’s his appraisal: ”It's not just supporting Israel. It's not just taking down Saddam. It's about geopolitics. It's about looking down the road toward China and India, the world's two largest developing economies, especially the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration.”
Sorry, but I just don’t get this. It’s back to the old “get the oil” explanation, reflexively touted by Michael Moore and others, as a left wing catechism of lazy thinking. It doesn’t hold up, when you examine the net outcome of our Alcibiadean foray into Iraq -- a trillion wasted taxpayer dollars, depletion and demoralization of the U.S. Army, expenditure of nearly all our international goodwill... all in order to achieve absolutely zero increase in our control over the oil supplies of the Middle East. Let alone any augmentation of American leadership in a unipolar world.
Yes, the standard answer to this failure, on the left, is to say “They meant to get oil, but the neocons proved incompetent!” A facile explanation that ignores just how competent the Bush Cabal has been , at achieving other goals. Like whipping their domestic opponents from pillar to post.
Indeed, ponder just how preposterous it is, to maintain the standard illusion of Neocon goals --say that their aim has been to augment American power, wealth, and leadership in a unipolar, U.S.-led world. Unipolar U.S. leadership was precisely the situation that George W. Bush inherited when he entered office. Only Russia, China, France and the Saudis seemed to grumble at that situation, and rather impotently.
In fact, the overall effect of the last seven years has been diametrically opposite to the goals that Ritter ascribes to the Bush team, and that Neocon philosophers have claimed. Not only has American influence and popularity plummeted, and our dependence upon irascible sources of foreign petroleum increased, but the destruction of the U.S. military (and its turn-of-the-century reputation for invincibility) has helped foster the rise of new “poles” of influence, far more willing to challenge America than at any time since the Cold War.
Indeed, I kept hoping Ritter would be asked this question about the coming War with Iran. With what forces are we supposed to fight this large, regional power, many times the size of Iraq and vastly better organized?
With only two or so heavy combat brigades left, that are at any level of readiness for national land war, the Army and Marines are in no position to take on anything new, or even to keep going under current burdens. The Navy, still potent and professional, simmers with resentment toward the this administration, a loathing rumored to be so actinic that there is talk of “work-to-rule” passive resistance, especially if very much of the Fleet is sent - as sitting ducks - into the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf.
Only the Air Force appears to be both ready and willing - perhaps even eager - to do the administration’s bidding.
And, yes, at the sole whim of the Commander in Chief, the bombers may fly. A plethora of pinprick shocks may rain upon Persia, under the age-old delusion that a proud nation will thus be cowed into submission. Even though history - along with our own reaction to the horror of 9/11 - teaches us that air assaults, all by themselves, tend to strengthen national cohesion and resolve, rather that weaken it.
Now add to this another likely outcome of such an attack - the engendering of rage and sympathy throughout the Muslim world. What about the much-touted Sunni-Shiite rift? Right now, the press makes much of this division within Islam, and it does seem fierce at the ground level, in Iraq. But I have never been convinced that this schism is all that bilious at the higher reaches of national and clerical power. Anyway, it will vanish when America starts raining bombs on yet another Muslim nation.
The chief effect of this attack will be to unite Islamic peoples under a common banner. Something that is never mentioned, even as a possibility, by the press, or the State Department or even the administration’s critics. (Not to mention some of our regional “friends” who may be urging Bush to attack, but for very different reasons than they speak aloud.) So, shall we fight to thwart the nuclear ambitions of Iran, only to see Pakistan’s arsenal of nukes fall under control of the Wahhabis and the Ayatollahs?
Still, Ritter is a voice of sanity, promoting an idea that I proposed at the CIA in 2002... reaching out to the Iranian people. Making nice. Depriving the Ayatollahs of an outside enemy, so that the natural fractures in Iranian society will again start pushing that great nation toward what the young people and middle class and educated folk all want. Freedom and peace. (Why, if Bush wanted to reverse ideology and suddenly support nation-building and regional transformation in that region, did they choose not to support democracy in the one large Middle Eastern nation that already had some? Along with a deep tradition of friendliness to America? The choice of the least likely ground (Iraq) to try planting these seeds should be re-examined with a cynical, even paranoid eye.)
Ritter continues: “The same can be said in Afghanistan and the entire central Asian region. We keep putting our hopes on allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, which produced 14 of the hijackers who slaughtered Americans on 9/11. Pakistan, which was the political sponsor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to have ties to radical Islamic terror organizations. These are our allies? And we call Iran the enemy? We've got it backward. The Iranians are actually the ones we should be working with to oppose dictatorships like Pakistan and irresponsible governments like Saudi Arabia's.”
About Bush himself, Ritter worries: “Here's a man who speaks of World War III and the apocalypse and he has his hand on the button and he talks to God. I don't know, if it's a show, its a dangerous show, if its real, we should all be scared to death.”
Go read the whole article, then cram it in front of your Ostrich friends. I’ll leave off with his comment on an especially worrisome question. If we go about attacking Iran... would larger powers intervene?
“I don't think the Russians or the Chinese would become involved. They don't need to. All they have to do is sit back and wait and pick up the pieces - because it is the end of the United States as a global superpower. That's one thing I try to tell everybody. The danger of going after Iran is that it is just not worth it. What we can lose is everything, and what we gain is nothing. So why do it?”
.
...and then on cogent criticism of the U.S> administration by former supporters.
In particular, nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since. A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. (God bless contrarian curmugeons.)
I'll quote extensively below, from a recent interview with Ritter... while diagreeing with him in dour ways. But, by all means, go read it yourself.
I refer folks to THE GLOBALIST whenever they have interesting articles. This time: ahead of Russia's parliamentary elections, it explores Vladimir Putin's bizarre crackdown. And, against the backdrop of the Annapolis summit this past week, they explore the Bush Admin’s innovation: a diplomacy-free foreign policy that relies almost exclusively on military means. Alas, a subtitle - “What will it take for the United States to become as skilled at diplomacy as it is at waging war?” - exposes a flawed premise, since we have (alas) also become very, very bad at waging war.
Excerpt: “One disappointing development is that optimism about the democratizing influence of the Internet is increasingly coming into question. In their report former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Reporters sans Frontières concluded that “all authoritarian regimes are now working to censor the Internet.””
(Addendum: While I share the widespread worry about Putin’s authoritarian moves, which have been even more blatant and anti-freedom than the neocon putsch in America, I do want to remind folks of one thing - that Putin quashed moves to amend the Russian constitution to allow unlimited presidential terms. Thus, he must leave office and attempt the role of “leader” behind the scenes. Still autocratic, yes, and deeply disturbing. And yet, the public acceptance - and precedent - of cyclical reversion of official power is a terribly important thing. Symbolically, at least. Even if hypocritical, it pays homage to the virtues of law, in a land where political instincts still reflexively turn toward the Man. We can hope.)
In the continuing tragicomedy of former Bush henchmen standing up... former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan will publish a memoir in April titled “What Happened.” In an excerpt by his publisher, McClellan in the Valerie Plame scandal: “The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. There was one problem. It was not true.
“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.”
And another once-friendly (and highly credible) critic weighs in.
See “Bombs Away?” - an important article in the Detroit Metro-Times, interviewing an irascible but devastatingly on-target intelligence analyst who worked for the Bush Administration, zeroing in on the momentum that is building, for a U.S. attack upon Iran.
(Now that most daily papers and TV outlets are consolidated in a few hands, we must look beyond daily papers - from Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker to articles in The Nation - and the picture emerges of an administration that is determined to attack Iran. John H. Richardson's "The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know" in the November issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson, using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration is "headed straight for war with Iran" and that "it had been set on this course for years."”
Nearly a year ago, Scott Ritter's Target Iran was published, and he's been sounding the claxon of impending war ever since. A former Marine Corps intelligence officer, Ritter served as chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 when he left as a pointed critic of the Clinton administration's commitment to weapons inspection and its Iraq policy. Before the United States' 2003 invasion, Ritter loudly disputed the Bush administration's claims regarding weapons of mass destruction under Saddam's control and predicted that, instead of the quick and easy war being promised, Iraq would turn into a quagmire, though not necessarily of the type he envisioned. His analyses have been embraced by both the right and the left at various points. He portrays himself as the straight-shooting analyst unconcerned by who supports him or whom he offends.
In the interview, Ritter addresses the Bush Administration’s run-up toward war with Iran, adding that: “there's nothing that has occurred that leads me to believe the Bush administration has changed its policy direction. In fact there has been much that's occurred that reinforces the earlier conclusions that were based on good sources of information. We take a look at items in the defense budget, the rapid conversion of heavy bombers to carry bunker busting bombs on a specific time frame, the massive purchasing of oil to fill up the strategic oil reserve by April 2008. Everything points to April 2008 to being a month of some criticality. It also matches my analysis that the Bush administration will want to carry this out prior to the crazy political season of the summer of 2008.”
(DB note: I had not known about the filling of the Strategic Reserve. Yes, it disturbingly suggests preparations for war. But there’s another interpretation. Some years ago, when oil was much cheaper, the Bushadmin sold oil from the SR. Now they are buying, when prices are high. (Helping thus to keep them high.) This is the exact opposite of what governments are supposed to do. But just fine, if (say, hypothetically) you are an agent of the oilcos and certain petro-powers.)
It is a very important article, offering us hope that the alternative press will step in, where mainstream journalism has let democracy down. Still, where Ritter utterly collapses is in answering the question why?
Why are Bush-Cheney and the Neocons pushing this agenda. Here’s his appraisal: ”It's not just supporting Israel. It's not just taking down Saddam. It's about geopolitics. It's about looking down the road toward China and India, the world's two largest developing economies, especially the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration.”
Sorry, but I just don’t get this. It’s back to the old “get the oil” explanation, reflexively touted by Michael Moore and others, as a left wing catechism of lazy thinking. It doesn’t hold up, when you examine the net outcome of our Alcibiadean foray into Iraq -- a trillion wasted taxpayer dollars, depletion and demoralization of the U.S. Army, expenditure of nearly all our international goodwill... all in order to achieve absolutely zero increase in our control over the oil supplies of the Middle East. Let alone any augmentation of American leadership in a unipolar world.
Yes, the standard answer to this failure, on the left, is to say “They meant to get oil, but the neocons proved incompetent!” A facile explanation that ignores just how competent the Bush Cabal has been , at achieving other goals. Like whipping their domestic opponents from pillar to post.
Indeed, ponder just how preposterous it is, to maintain the standard illusion of Neocon goals --say that their aim has been to augment American power, wealth, and leadership in a unipolar, U.S.-led world. Unipolar U.S. leadership was precisely the situation that George W. Bush inherited when he entered office. Only Russia, China, France and the Saudis seemed to grumble at that situation, and rather impotently.
In fact, the overall effect of the last seven years has been diametrically opposite to the goals that Ritter ascribes to the Bush team, and that Neocon philosophers have claimed. Not only has American influence and popularity plummeted, and our dependence upon irascible sources of foreign petroleum increased, but the destruction of the U.S. military (and its turn-of-the-century reputation for invincibility) has helped foster the rise of new “poles” of influence, far more willing to challenge America than at any time since the Cold War.
Indeed, I kept hoping Ritter would be asked this question about the coming War with Iran. With what forces are we supposed to fight this large, regional power, many times the size of Iraq and vastly better organized?
With only two or so heavy combat brigades left, that are at any level of readiness for national land war, the Army and Marines are in no position to take on anything new, or even to keep going under current burdens. The Navy, still potent and professional, simmers with resentment toward the this administration, a loathing rumored to be so actinic that there is talk of “work-to-rule” passive resistance, especially if very much of the Fleet is sent - as sitting ducks - into the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf.
Only the Air Force appears to be both ready and willing - perhaps even eager - to do the administration’s bidding.
And, yes, at the sole whim of the Commander in Chief, the bombers may fly. A plethora of pinprick shocks may rain upon Persia, under the age-old delusion that a proud nation will thus be cowed into submission. Even though history - along with our own reaction to the horror of 9/11 - teaches us that air assaults, all by themselves, tend to strengthen national cohesion and resolve, rather that weaken it.
Now add to this another likely outcome of such an attack - the engendering of rage and sympathy throughout the Muslim world. What about the much-touted Sunni-Shiite rift? Right now, the press makes much of this division within Islam, and it does seem fierce at the ground level, in Iraq. But I have never been convinced that this schism is all that bilious at the higher reaches of national and clerical power. Anyway, it will vanish when America starts raining bombs on yet another Muslim nation.
The chief effect of this attack will be to unite Islamic peoples under a common banner. Something that is never mentioned, even as a possibility, by the press, or the State Department or even the administration’s critics. (Not to mention some of our regional “friends” who may be urging Bush to attack, but for very different reasons than they speak aloud.) So, shall we fight to thwart the nuclear ambitions of Iran, only to see Pakistan’s arsenal of nukes fall under control of the Wahhabis and the Ayatollahs?
Still, Ritter is a voice of sanity, promoting an idea that I proposed at the CIA in 2002... reaching out to the Iranian people. Making nice. Depriving the Ayatollahs of an outside enemy, so that the natural fractures in Iranian society will again start pushing that great nation toward what the young people and middle class and educated folk all want. Freedom and peace. (Why, if Bush wanted to reverse ideology and suddenly support nation-building and regional transformation in that region, did they choose not to support democracy in the one large Middle Eastern nation that already had some? Along with a deep tradition of friendliness to America? The choice of the least likely ground (Iraq) to try planting these seeds should be re-examined with a cynical, even paranoid eye.)
Ritter continues: “The same can be said in Afghanistan and the entire central Asian region. We keep putting our hopes on allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, which produced 14 of the hijackers who slaughtered Americans on 9/11. Pakistan, which was the political sponsor of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to have ties to radical Islamic terror organizations. These are our allies? And we call Iran the enemy? We've got it backward. The Iranians are actually the ones we should be working with to oppose dictatorships like Pakistan and irresponsible governments like Saudi Arabia's.”
About Bush himself, Ritter worries: “Here's a man who speaks of World War III and the apocalypse and he has his hand on the button and he talks to God. I don't know, if it's a show, its a dangerous show, if its real, we should all be scared to death.”
Go read the whole article, then cram it in front of your Ostrich friends. I’ll leave off with his comment on an especially worrisome question. If we go about attacking Iran... would larger powers intervene?
“I don't think the Russians or the Chinese would become involved. They don't need to. All they have to do is sit back and wait and pick up the pieces - because it is the end of the United States as a global superpower. That's one thing I try to tell everybody. The danger of going after Iran is that it is just not worth it. What we can lose is everything, and what we gain is nothing. So why do it?”
.
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