Whatever comes next (WCN)... and our global future.

Okay, last posting was a science update. And politics is in hiatus to see what drops in Chicago.... So how about we turn to issues on a global perspective? Starting near term:

Now that India has surpassed China in population, Beijing is issuing dire directives.

'As China's population has begun to decline and fears rise of a looming demographic crisis, China's leaders are putting pressure on women to curtail their career and educational ambitions and return to traditional roles in the home. 

President Xi says: "Doing a good job in women's work is not only related to women's own development, but also related to the harmony of families and society, as well as national development and progress." '

In its early decades, the Chinese Communist Party bolstered its revolutionary credentials by emphasizing women's equality both inside and outside the home. But the CCP's own top ranks have long been male-dominated.  Well, well. I've been saving up a posting about the goals and aspirations... and mistakes... of the Central Kingdom. 

Only now let's focus on a question of the longer term. What if we succeed in winning this wretched phase 8 of the US Civil War... and strengthening the 80 year 'pax' that gave humanity by far its best era of (relative, per capita) peace and progress?

Does this mean that the American Pax will last forever? 

Of course not. But then... what?

==  Whatever Comes Next? ==

I’ve long asked a difficult question about the future. One that can be disturbing to some USA citizens, especially that wing who might be called American Imperialists (e.g. the Bushite neocons, now a nearly extinct species, since the oligarchs betrayed and flushed them all away, to be replaced by MAGA isolationism). 

The question: “So how long do you envision a world with the USA calling all shots?…

Decades? A century? A thousand years? A million?” 

I’m used to peering across those time ranges via sci fi. And in SF there’s a clear trend for dealing with this extrapolation. Go beyond 100 years or so… even half a dozen decades… and the governing entity coping with Earthly dilemmas, or the solar system, or aliens, or even the galaxy, is always some kind of Earth Gov or Earth Union or… some federated something. 

Except for the movie Aliens, of course, with its 23^rd Century warp drive troopship of U.S. Marines! (Ain’t Cameron a hoot? LOVE that flick!;-)  

Indeed, I think this is one reason that some of our neighbors here in USA desperately pray for the gruesome reification of that nasty, sadistic culmination-trip, the Book of Revelation… so they won’t have to envision even one generation ahead, or do anything to build a healthy posterity.

Not you, though? 

You are one of those far-looking sci-fi folks? All right, then. So, what’s your notion of WCN?  Whatever Comes Next?

Let’s be clear, I regularly defend the last 80 years of the “American Pax.” Since 1945, guided by several principles cast by the person of the 20th Century - George Marshall -- we've experienced, by any metric, the best era of general peace and progress and increasing justice ever. Especially after 6000 years of wretched (and world ubiquitous) macho feudalism. Despite some nasty acts and mistakes and even bloody crimes, no other nation that was ever tempted by great power ever handled it so… um… less-terribly. (Go on. name an exception, in comments. I'd love to be shown a past empire or kingdom or 'pax' that you think did much better.)

Yeah, sure it’s been a tense and immature ride – sometimes a hellhole, compared to what oughta-be!  Pax Americana was so very far from perfect and often hideous!  Merely vastly better than any other era … or all other human eras, combined. 

Across the last eight decades, poverty plummeted worldwide. Today, 95% of kids on this planet have never starved and are in school. Sure, the ongoing chain of wretched violent wars is horrifying! (Especially lately.)  But step back a minute and realize a historically amazing fact -- that over 90% of living adults have never witnessed war with their own eyes. Something that’d be deemed a freaking miracle, by any of our ancestors. 

So yeah, our standards are rising. As they must! But pause now and then for perspective. I go into this elsewhere. And before you stalk off in rage, consider your own reaction! 

Your very concept of how things oughta-be would have been deemed utterly dreamy, even psychotically delusional by those ancestors. Especially, your reflex to question authority - your own society and its tribal elders. Find me another example - across all cultures and eras – of an empire that taught Suspicion of Authority as a central moral reflex to generations of its youth. And yes, it was relentless Hollywood memes that taught you those reflexes.

 In pointing that out, I am not dissing you or those memes!  Dig it: I was raised by them, too! They are part of the secret of our success! As I show thoroughly in Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.

Still, one has to ask – returning to the core question of this posting - what’s your notion of a Whatever Comes Next to govern this fractious globe and nearby worlds? 

What’s your recommended replacement for the lumbering, sometimes crazed, if generally good-natured Pax Americana?  

The United Nations? Are you freaking kidding me?

== Is an end-to-nations possible ==

Which bring us to the reason that I raise this topic. In this Noema essay, Nathan Gardels made a strong argument that the European Union (EU) is a much better model for gradually evolving sovereignty. 

Ponder: The UN grew out of those infamous Westphalian notions, establishing that separated national sovereignties must be viewed as the sacred thing. A notion that only got reinforced by the prickly 80 new nations that emerged from colonialism.  

The EU, in contrast, is about layering of negotiated sub-national, national, and supra national responsibilities, all of them (so far imperfectly) accountable to the ultimate authority of citizens. An approach necessitating calm reasonableness and negotiation at levels that – again – those fractious ancestors would have found boggling.

I recommend giving Nathan’s missive about this a look. 

BTW… it’s a general notion I’ve dealt with before. In Earth, for example, I speak of the “EU” several times, allowing readers to assume that it means “European Union”… until the book reveals that in the year 2038 “EU” now stands for Earth Union. A nascent but not-yet world government that still relies on the old pax to keep things together, while it matures.

Care to entertain a standing wager across the next two decades? Assuming we get past the current crises, incited by an attempted worldwide putsch of cabals of powerful but unsapient oligarchs, united in shared desperation to end the Enlightenment Experiment and re-impose 6000 years of utterly imbecilic feudalism… supposing we get past all that… 

… in which case, what is to prevent say the Maldives, or Costa Rica, or Ghana from some fine day sending an envelope to Brussels, containing their accession application to join the EU? 

Are you telling me those Brussels factotums would refuse even to consider it, because of a defined word?

Play it out in your head. Then consider how confident you are that “It’ll never happen!” 

Okay then. Are you so confident that you’ll give me odds?

Comments welcome.

== And some important miscellany ==

A while back I posted outrage over the Trump Administration’s fire sale of the US national helium reserves to cronies at well under market prices, allowing them to jack-up and corner the market for this element that’s rare on Earth and essential for many (including medical) uses. Ah, but Adam Smith comes to the rescue!  Wildcats drilling in Minnesota appear to have found a new trove of this vital resource! Maybe this will help keep helium prices down. Although that will depend on who owns it and how big it is. 

"Important"?  Well, I think so. Because indicates the right path to neutralize villains. By creatively leaving all their schemes behind us in a soft cloud of our progress that even benefits them, galling them terribly! It is certainly how to best deal with the mad/idiotic 'prepper' lords in their zillion dollar bunkers, salivating over an "Event" that would not go as well as they think.

And more...  ‘With little fanfare, researchers from Apple and Columbia University released an open source multimodal LLM, called Ferret, in October 2023.’  

Well…. In 1989 - in my novel Earth - I showed software geniuses releasing 'ferrets' into the (then largely theoretical) Web.

So is the Great Big AI Crisis of 23-24 starting to fade? Not a bit of it. Even today's primitive versions will likely wreak great harm via political misinformation and manipulation. (More on that soon.) But it’s also swamping its way into science too. 

“It is not always so easy to spot the use of AI. But one clue is that ChatGPT tends to favor certain words… such as meticulous, intricate or commendable.” But all such detection cues are temporary. 

Only one thing will even possibly work - either in politics or science or anywhere else that unaccountable AI is used to cheat. That approach is the same one that allowed us to get some constraints on all kinds of human cheaters... and that approach is to sic AI programs onto each other, competitively, with incentives to tattle on misinformation...

...as I describe here.

And more vividly detailed? My Keynote at the huge, May 2024 RSA Conference in San Francisco – is now available online.   “Anticipation, Resilience and Reliability: Three ways that AI will change us… if we do it right.”  

Enemies so desperately want a US Civil War

I'll slip in some interesting misc. items below that you won't see elsewhere... but first there's the most obvious potential failure mode for our entire civilization, that's being pushed hard by vile men...

You've heard and seen me raise this topic for years. Lately, others have issued both warnings and science fiction exploring that most-chilling topic - worse than zombies or alien invasion. That of a new, hot phase of the recurring, 240 year American Civil War. 

I've touted two SF novels - Tears of Abraham and Our War - that tried for a multi-spectral view of this potential tragedy, if our current simmering Phase 8 boils over (as some seek) into a volcanic Phase 9. And this year we had a theatrical film, Civil War (from Alex Garland). Even the trailer is scarier n' shit. And do you doubt the very same social forces that ignited those earlier phases will start, sometime in 2024, perhaps with a flood of would-be McVeighs? 

Pay attention when Kremlin-lackey traitors like Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon rave about violence being the next step, if they don't win it all. 

The closer we come to ending this madness at the ballot box, the more desperate will be those who see this as their only way out.

== Better late than never? ==

Gen. John Kelly, former chief of staff for Donald Trump, offered his harshest criticism yet of the former president with on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors, attacking U.S. service members and veterans. 

“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

Kelly continues: “A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.”

It isn't just Trump dismissing those heroes buried at a D-Day/Normandy cemetrery as "suckers and losers of course. In fact, the entire modern Republican Party now wages all-out war vs ALL fact-using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.  

Still, thanks, Gen. Kelly. Better late than never, I guess. But is it all that helpful? 

Nah. Our gone-brownshirt neighbors will shrug off any one... or two, or ten... such fellows as traitors.  As Defectors from righteousness who fooled their saintly former casino mafioso boss and betrayed him. 

So? Then make that the issue!  How easily he was fooled.

Show your MAGA the long, long list of appointees - each of whom Trump formerly called "a great, terrific guy!!"  - who later joined the long list of those denouncing him.  At least a hundred former 'great guys,' who DT now call "terrible!"  

It's a list far longer than ALL previous U.S. presidents... combined. He himself says so "No one was ever betrayed as much as me!"

Agree with that!. Then follow up with this killer:

"Completely aside from all policies and party loyalties, and all the rest... 

...doesn't that long list of those he appointed and later denounced prove one thing with absolute perfection?  

"That Donald Trump is a lousy judge of character?"

== Reid Hoffman dishes on Rich Fools ==

Some rich dopes recently raised millions of dollars in support of Donald Trump, helping a known monster under the theory that somehow it will work out for them personally.  Tech maven and brilliant investor/speaker Reid Hoffman wrote a by-invitation essay in The Economist explaining their error. 

 “American business should not empower a criminal, says Reid Hoffman: No rational CEO would want a capricious strongman in the White House, argues the entrepreneur.”

 

Reid’s denunciation of such rich fools is cogent, incisive and worth your time! It is also far more polite than I would be. 

In fact, I have observed that fanatics of the entire Mad Right (and the loopy farthest Left) are all effectively immunized against mere argument. They are immune because the trend in lobotomizing modern cultism is to dismiss ALL assertions as equivalent. All assertions are just battling incantations that bear no relationship to objective reality.

 

In other words: 

“You assert something and I assert something… and those incantation assertions cancel each other out!  I believe you are delusional… and you think that of me. 

"Hence we are left undisturbed – both of us – in our beloved smug assurance, while nothing at all can ever be disproved.”

Read that again. It is exactly the deal, the arrangement between left and right, screaming at each other, while leaving in place a tacit arrangement of reciprocal sanctimony addiction. 

Alas, we can’t afford this deal, anymore. Especially since allowing political polemic to be left in that condition gives the Putinist/fascist/commie/confederate cult an advantage that they should be denied. (And also the far smaller and less harmful, but still-noxious loopies of the very-far-left.)

 

There must be a way to FORCE comparison of the factual verifiability/falsifiability of assertions! 


== One method works... and no one will try it ==

Of course… you all know that I have pushed (in utter futility) just such a technique, one that worked well for our ancestors, for centuries.  Anchoring fact-checkability in actual CONSEQUENCES that blowhards fear most. And here I am referring specifically to the aristocratic fools addressed by Reid Hoffman.

What'd work, making them flee in shame, is to demand actual cash wagers over explicitly verifiable/falsifiable facts!  Truly explicit true-or-false assertions, like:

 

Which party has better economic outcomes across the last 40 years of administrations.  

Which party has a record of being far more fiscally responsible re debt. 

Which party supports US science. 

Which party has forty times the rate of high officials indicted and convicted for felonies, including child predation. 

Which party wages all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. 

 

This list goes on and on... assertions that are absolutely fact-checkable with utter explicitness. (In 1st comment, below, I will append a further list of fact verifiable wager demands.)

 Moreover, the cash wager aspect is crucial! Because it focuses on actual consequences, instead of blowhard incantations. 

 

Of course there’s another thing Reid could demand of his delusionally GOP-supporting peers. Have them watch the last 5 minutes of the movie CABARET and then ask the following question (uttered by Michael York in the film) about today's aristocratic fools, supporting brownshirt MAGAS: 

 

"So, you still think you can control them?"

== What happens if the masters grow desperate? ==

And finally...  Vladimir Putin appears eager to rewrite the past. Recently, he... signed a decree rendering the sale of Alaska to the U.S. illegal! 

Like declaring void all treaties guaranteeing Ukrainian independence... or merging Soviet flags and emblems with the Czarist escutcheons that his younger self ritualistically spat on, back when he was an 'idealistic' Leninist KGB agent. Only now he and his fellow 5000 "ex" commissars wear different lapel pins and raise statues to Nicholas II, whom Lenin 'righteously' murdered. 

And you wonder where Orwell got his ideas for the Ministry of Truth?

It's all very chuckle-worthy. Till tou wonder... what happens when Vlad starts getting desperate?  Faced with astonishing and devastating losses at the battlefront and plummeting morale. he speaks often and with passion about the Soldier's Revolt of 1917 that toppled the Czar and brought Lenin to power. And he speaks of that event with a rising sense of dread, now frantic to evade the same fate.

He has one great hope.... the November US election. Hence, it must be with horror and dismay that he sees his favorite tool, Donald Trump, rapidly deteriorate, before the world's eyes.

No one is talking about what the secret masters of the gone-undead Republican Party might do about Donald Trump, if it looks like their asset is dragging down down their prospects in 2024. But we must consider what they might do, in order to salvage their situation... by eliminating the liability in such a way that advances their central goal. Their core goal of dissolving the United States into chaos and self-immolation.

One approach would be the "Howard Beale Option"... referring to the last 5 minutes of another great film... NETWORK.  In other words, martyrdom... get rid of your asset-turned-liability and blame the dems, inciting a volcano of McVeighs, burning and destroying across the land. A win-win for Putin and the casino mafiosi and others in that anti-enlightenment Cabal. 

Hence I recite this mantra, again and again: 

“God bless the United States Secret Service. Stay on your toes, guys.

"Keep him safe.”

THE NEXT IMPERIUM: part 1

First a warning: This is yet another of my infrequent, extravagantly speculative appraisals, guaranteed to poke-in-the-eye assumptions that are held dear by partisans along the entire length of the hoary old Left Right political axis. That axis, inherited from the French Assembly of 1789, is unworthy of 21st Century minds. It is an impediment to clear thinking... and especially about the current topic at hand.

THE NEXT IMPERIUM:
Or How World Governance May Come About by Surprise

­ by David Brin

Part 1. AMERICAN AMBIVALENCE TOWARD HISTORY

Americans tend to feel uncomfortable when they are asked to look at the vast sweep of world history.

Part of this discomfort may arise from a sense -- nurtured ever since the Revolution -- that everything was supposed to change with the establishment of our "city on a hill." All those tedious cycles of imperial conquest and oppression... of civilizations rising only to collapse, a sullen litany stretching from Gilgamesh to Napoleon... had been rendered obsolete. Right?

Generally following the tradition of the Enlightenment philosopher, Rousseau, many utopian idealists -- both liberal and libertarian -- have nursed a firm belief that just the right social tweaking might release inherent human creativity and goodness, ending all types of oppression forever. The exact nature of this tweaking can be a matter of great dissension; for example, liberals and libertarians wrangle over the role of government in achieving this grand transformation. Caught up in disputed details, they tend to ignore a deeper, shared assumption... that social transformation possible at all! That simple prescriptions and straightforward measures might help propel everybody into a new and better civilization.

No wonder most branches of American idealism share a common distaste for history's primary lesson -- that human nature is inherently a tough and resisting nut to crack. Obdurate tendencies toward dogmatism, cheating, and rationalization-of-force are not only features of Western Civilization, but of every people and era.

Persistent and relentless patterns of imperial, feudal or tribal abuse has worked against individual freedom everywhere, in a trend that spanned all continents and centuries. This inconvenient historical fact frustrates and confuses the central liberal -- and libertarian -- notion, that society can be quickly reformed, by following a simple road map. (If it were that simple, would not somebody have done it, by now?)

Hence, the past must either be romanticized or ignored. Interestingly, history gets no friendlier a reception on the other, grouchier side of the personality aisle.

American cynics generally ascribe to Rousseau's competitor, Hobbes, who maintained that traditional values and hierarchy-imposed order are essential, in order to prevent inherent human nastiness from running riot. In other words, devilish human nature does not need to be unleached. Civilized life depends utterly upon proper supervision and control.

Traditionally, America's homegrown variety of conservative cynics have tended to push isolationism, disengagement, and distrust of foreigners. This central theme was most recently expressed in the nineties by critics of the Clinton Administration who decried the "...naive, discredited and utopian fantasy of so-called nation building."

(A position that soon became bitterly ironic, as the Bush Administration suddenly veered into its own set of quasi-utopian rationalizations, pouring more time, blood and treasure into "nation building"... attempting to plant democracy, in Iraq's rocky soil... than all previous efforts combined. A flip into almost transcendentalist, missionary zeal that seems to have much more in common with Trotsky than Taft.)

And still, history gets ignored, except as a source of isolated anecdotes. Because, if you take in its vast sweep, there is plenty of evidence to support both cynical and idealistic interpretations of America's role in the world, during the last 200 years.

Can the monumental national sacrifice of the Civil War -- when tens of thousands died to make others free -- help to balance sins committed against Native Americans? Was the Monroe Doctrine a utopian endeavor to keep European powers from dominating the Western Hemisphere, or a realpolitik grab, to preserve a US sphere of influence? After the Spanish American War, public hand-wringing kept Cuba and the Philippines from becoming "colonies," though the practical difference in outcome was hardly black-and-white.

History may be murky, but it is not ambivalent about the basic lesson.

What it boils down to is not a disagreement between cynicism and idealism, at all. Both the far right and far-left are rife with dour and grouchy folks who -- at the same time -- lay claim to the purest mores and scruples. Indeed, that very purity of goal and spirit is their common, underlying theme.

Both extremes share an especially bitter spite toward their true opposite -- a pragmatic temperament that found its greatest incubator in the American experience.

The pragmatic wing of the Enlightenment was originally inspired by John Locke, who (in effect) told both Hobbes and Rousseau that they were romantic, oversimplifying fools! Human nature is not inherently devilish or angelic, but a complex mixture of the two.

Any reasonable person, who has not become a slave of ideology, will tell you this. Just have a look at your neighbors. Or in a mirror. Some traits we inherit from dismal caves or rapacious kings. Others aim for what would be the most noble aspirations. Both themes come woven together, in such a complex way that no simplistic dogma can adequately describe or separate the threads. At least, not without killing all the good parts.

According to Locke, it does not matter if you are a follower of Karl Marx or Ayn Rand, or any other would-be social programmer. No purist dogma can ever chart a course through the morass of human nature. Rather, dealing with this muddle requires a step-by-step process of incremental discovery. Learning -- by hard experience -- what methods work and which ones do not. These methods include everything from higher levels of education to institutional compromises that blend market regulation with citizen empowerment. Moreover, because would-be cheaters will adapt to any environment, only constant innovation will continue to thwart our inner devils -- the parts that eagerly find any excuse to exploit others -- while leaving our creative angels free to thrive, in both cooperative efforts and zestful competition.

This process -- experimenting and gradually finding out what works -- has involved thinkers and doers, as diverse as Adam Smith and James Madison, Roosevelt and Hayek, Marshall and King. A melange, as diverse as their methodologies. But all of them displaying the same trait that makes for successful science. A willingness to doubt and test your own theories.

Does history support the incrementalist approach of Locke and the pragmatic modernists? One that takes a little truth from idealists, and some from cynics?

The notion that human betterment is achievable…

...but the road will not be simple or easy.

Despite the murkiness of history, the distilled pattern seems to support Locke and the pragmatists. Indeed, when you focus close to home, measuring the American Experiment against the dour litany of four millennia, the glass appears to be at least half-full. Especially comparing it to Rome or Babylon, or any other empire of the bloody human past.

It is also half-empty, when you contrast the progress so-far against our vague dreams of how-things-ought-to be.

Of course, all of this relates to the over-arching topic of how best to defend the pragmatic-modernist enlightenment, at a time when it is under attack from every end of the so-called- political "spectrum"... from every style of dogmatic romanticism. But it has to do with much more than the study (or ignoring) of history.

It also has great bearing on where we go next. Specifically, how will this current cycle of history come to an end?

All eras, cycles and historical epochs do end, after all. Even if the United States manages to cling to its position of world leadership -- bringing about a second "American Century" -- is there even a remote possibility that this will happen using old methods and old ways? Can Pax Americana (or the "American Peace") truly do a better job of error avoidance than the great powers that came before?

After all, Pax Brittanica and Pax Romana seemed all-enduring and most brilliant just before they fell.
In the next section, we will talk about the new mania for an "American Empire" and the psychological trap this represents. And yet, I am not totally opposed to all versions of "Pax Americana." Unlike all others, this imperium has earned substantial credits, on the plus side of its historical ledger. Not enough to merit endless world domination... but perhaps enough to deserve some residual leadership and respect during the coming age of transition.

As transition to Whatever Comes Next.


-----

Pax Americana as midwife for ... Whatever Comes Next

See a very interesting article, Mirage of Empire, in the New York Review of Books, where John Gray, Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics, reviews two books that promote the notion of an America as Imperium:

--Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond,  by Robert D. Kaplan and

--The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century, by Michael Mandelbaum.

Kaplan is one of the most profoundly weird thinkers of our time. I find him to be bizarrely attracted to really, really bad ideas. Like this idea that America has any business modeling its “Pax Americana” after any imperial periods from the human past.

Let there be no doubt, this is exactly what was preached by Leo Strauss, that ungrateful wretch of a fugitive from devastated Europe, who had the nerve to lecture at happy, progressive, pragmatic and successful America, that we really oughta copy all the wretched philosophical errors that had made his home continent a debacle and a festering sore. Of course today’s neocon adventurists ate it up, especially the platonist rationalizations about “philosopher kings” who needn’t answer to those they rule, have no need for accountability, and who are duty bound to lie like mad, whenever the mood strikes them. Again, read about a guy named Alcibiades.

And yet, as usual, I take a position that does not fit either left or right. Just because the neocons are flipping loony for wanting anything like a traditional “empire”, so is the left for refusing to recognize that we are still in an imperial age... and the for the near-term, anything other than some kind of Pax Americana is simply unthinkable. The alternatives are simply unthinkable. In his review, Gray rightfully points out many flaws in the notion of an American Imperium that is at all comparable to those of Britain and Rome.

But he does no better than Kaplan and Mandelbaum at addressing the key role of Pax Americana as midwife for Whatever Comes Next. (WCN)

We have maybe a decade, at best. The technological and military superiority that America now clutches desperately can be hoarded, it can be squandered, it can be thrown around in “imperial” bluster...

...influence to help design WCN... a version that will remain forever loose, according to American tastes, rather than a bureaucratic “world government” in the EU style.


A WCN in which individuals have standing, instead of the present “international order” in which only states and corporations have any voice at all. A WCN which can safeguard the Earth and our children, without becoming a bossy nanny, from which there is no escape. Even now, despite the quasi-deliberate way that the Bushites have torched esteem for the US, all over the world, America still has the influence to help guide WCN in the right directions. But will it?
..or it can be carefully spent, using force judiciously to maintain peace while using

Not while the left refuses to recognize a duty. Or while the right is obsessed with adolescent thumping.


==On Accountability and Government==

And finally, the following gem about accountability and human nature:

“Government ought to be all outside and no inside . . . Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety."
           - Woodrow Wilson

If we could create a panel of all of our past presidents and put them on TV, I bet most would be fuming right now,especially Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ike. But two of them would be giddy and happy. James Buchanan and Warren G. Harding. Can any of you guess why?

Come on. It’s easy.


==Miscellaneous Items ==


Your phone records are for sale Chicago Sun-Times January 5, 2006
 The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone -- for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts. To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent's cell...

 Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists applefritter Jan. 4, 2006
An individual with access to the Internet can develop a fairly sophisticated profile of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens by using data mining of free and publicly available resources, such as Amazon.com's vast database of wishlists, as programmer Tom Owad has proved. He extracted names and cities for readers of "dangerous books" to show...

'Robot agents' to help settle disputes The Register Jan. 6, 2006
The e-Dispute system provides fast online arbitration, mediation and conciliation services to help organizations quickly resolve disputes. e-Dispute's online collaboration tools include video, audio, live-chat, e-forum, text and transcript capabilities with full case management, fact assessment, analysis, and weighted issue/interesting...