Three possibilities await our children in the future.
1. There could be a wonderful, technological Utopia, with the problems of pollution, lethal weaponry and political corruption all solved, with a spirit of brotherhood distributed widely amongst all the nations of Earth.
2. There could be a repressive, authoritarian police-state that commits ever greater atrocities on the citizens of the nations they rule. Problems with pollution, overpopulation, health care, pandemics, locally destructive warfare and possible widely destructive "preemptive defense operations" lay waste to large swatches of Earth's habitable surfaces, and technology is turned into a service for the survival of those who hoard the most.
3. There could be a difficult, barely hanging on of a few human settlements amongst a widely denuded and arid land, ruined by climate chaos, where water either never comes or comes in destructive deluges. Food is scarce, either unable to grow in the parched, eroded lands, or destroyed by pests, desperately hungry animals and roaming bands of humans. Armies, nations, dictatorships -- all gone, all impossible to maintain in a planet-wide breakdown of life-support and where no technological solutions are adequate.
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Somehow I feel that option 1 is pretty much right out. No Utopian ideas ever come to anything. Brotherhood only has spotty application, even in areas where fundamentalist insanity is not in control, which means that Dixie and Islam are right out, too. Militants and terrorists will be able to wreak havoc on the human condition as easily as a swarm of bees can ruin a picnic. And I doubt that anything truly sensible will ever come of environmental protection, it doesn't fit the quarterly profit-loss portfolios and conservation just isn't conservative enough for the right-wing nuts of the world.
I hope I'm wrong, but, so far, some combination of options 2 and 3 seems the most likely. I guess it really won't effect me unless I live to be 3 hundred years old or something. I'm 250 now, and don't feel like I have 40-50 more years in me. Maybe 10 or 15 if I'm lucky. And that's if there is no holocausts, nuclear exchanges or biochemical attacks during my ebbing years. But I'm not concerned for me, it's my grandchild, and yours, that will have to suffer the longest in that dubious future.
1. There could be a wonderful, technological Utopia, with the problems of pollution, lethal weaponry and political corruption all solved, with a spirit of brotherhood distributed widely amongst all the nations of Earth.
2. There could be a repressive, authoritarian police-state that commits ever greater atrocities on the citizens of the nations they rule. Problems with pollution, overpopulation, health care, pandemics, locally destructive warfare and possible widely destructive "preemptive defense operations" lay waste to large swatches of Earth's habitable surfaces, and technology is turned into a service for the survival of those who hoard the most.
3. There could be a difficult, barely hanging on of a few human settlements amongst a widely denuded and arid land, ruined by climate chaos, where water either never comes or comes in destructive deluges. Food is scarce, either unable to grow in the parched, eroded lands, or destroyed by pests, desperately hungry animals and roaming bands of humans. Armies, nations, dictatorships -- all gone, all impossible to maintain in a planet-wide breakdown of life-support and where no technological solutions are adequate.
--
Somehow I feel that option 1 is pretty much right out. No Utopian ideas ever come to anything. Brotherhood only has spotty application, even in areas where fundamentalist insanity is not in control, which means that Dixie and Islam are right out, too. Militants and terrorists will be able to wreak havoc on the human condition as easily as a swarm of bees can ruin a picnic. And I doubt that anything truly sensible will ever come of environmental protection, it doesn't fit the quarterly profit-loss portfolios and conservation just isn't conservative enough for the right-wing nuts of the world.
I hope I'm wrong, but, so far, some combination of options 2 and 3 seems the most likely. I guess it really won't effect me unless I live to be 3 hundred years old or something. I'm 250 now, and don't feel like I have 40-50 more years in me. Maybe 10 or 15 if I'm lucky. And that's if there is no holocausts, nuclear exchanges or biochemical attacks during my ebbing years. But I'm not concerned for me, it's my grandchild, and yours, that will have to suffer the longest in that dubious future.
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