The Future Just Ain’t What It Used to Be

Back when I was young (which was probably not before there was dirt; I’m only saying I don’t remember seeing any), I thought that all problems could be solved and everybody could be nice. That was before I decided I shouldn’t be an inventor, because everything had already been invented, and after I decided I could do anything if I just tried hard enough.

You might think I became depressed upon learning that all of these things I’d decided were false. However, being mostly wrong did not dampen my optimism. (Fortunately. I’m wrong about as often as you get heads when you flip a coin an infinite number of times.) (Roughly 50% of the time, I'm told, although I've never checked it.) In fact, it took a lot more than being wrong to depress me. (Unfortunately, the “lot more” has happened, but I digress.) (Again.)

Now that I am older (than dirt, possibly), I no longer think that solutions are easy or that people, given half a chance, are nice. On the other hand, I now think that some solutions are a lot easier than anyone suspects – just not profitable. And that many people are nice even when not given half a chance. Which really says a lot for humanity when you think about it.

Nonetheless, I am still depressed about our future. This is at least in part because I am, and it seems our species is, locked into the notion that profitability is the measure of success. And that it’s a “good” measure. I don’t know much about other religious leaders, but I’m pretty sure that Jesus didn’t think that. Almost as sure as I am that many (most?) Christians do think that. Along with pretty much all of us other believers and non-believers, as near as I can tell.

What if we’re wrong about that? What if there isn't a general lack of things to invent?

What if we’re just suffering from a narrowing of the arterial thought channels?

What could we invent after we invented a different measure of success?

If we just tried hard enough.

Voting and Thinking: Do They Mix?

Seems I have so many thoughts about the upcoming U.S. election and so little talent to do them justice…

Perhaps a look at what’s already out there is best. The following are three perspectives on current politics and the upcoming election:

http://theferrett.livejournal.com/804454.html

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=128588

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1019-25.htm

And a quote, courtesy of A.Word.A.Day
(http://wordsmith.org/awad/):
“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” -Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third US president, architect and author.

So remember, VOTE WITH YOUR VOTE.
(I know, this is yet another sound bite even though, dear readers, both of you were too polite to call me on my anti-sound-bite sound bite. In the words of the immortal Pogo, “I am covered with rue.”)

Speaking of other web pages: In a week when the stock market is reaching new heights, it might be well to look back at a commentary on other changes in the U.S. economic scene:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/08/29/
poverty.health/index.html

And another: To the exhortation for a World Day to End Extreme Poverty, Chuck Levenstein offers: “Perhaps we should ask for a World Day to End Extreme Wealth? Since inequality is linked to health, we should work away at both ends of the problem.”
Now there’s a thought.

And a final few thoughts, mostly my very own, brought to you by the Trailing Edge Dictionary of Modern American, which proudly announces two additions – the Politically Correct Section, 21st Century Bush Era, and the Neo-Conservative Section. (NB: While seeming redundant, these sections are, in fact, wholly and completely similar-but-different.)

The Politically Correct Section, 21st Century Bush Era, offers the following new definitions:

preventive war (idiom, adjective+noun) – war of aggression against a nation that holds an opposing socio-political view

NB: Not to be confused with imperial hegemony, please.

Sample Sentence: Upon reflection, President Bush declared a preventive war against the heinous dictator sitting on top of the most oil available in a non-Christian country.


homeland (noun) – geopolitical territory, constituted as a republic, in which no one may object to any word, activity, or legislation undertaken or contemplated by the Executive Branch on pain of being labeled “pro-terrorist” and/or having all available evidence of one’s free enterprise activity crushed under the wheels of large, low-mileage vehicles.

NB: Not, we trust, to be confused with the Politically Correct Section, Stalin Era, definition of dictatorship of the proletariat in which an entire political party was exempt from objection and more harmful means were used to quiet the citizenry.

Sample Sentence: Having made the homeland safe from an increasingly large number of terrorists and other dissidents abroad, the President, Cabinet, and key advisers moved on to the homeland’s internal issues, giving the same skilled attention to natural disasters, immigration, interpersonal relations, and so on.


The Neo-Conservative Section has the following new definition:

moral high-ground (phrase, adjective+compound noun) – the territory occupied by right thinkers (and far right thinkers), from which vantage point all unlike thinking is seen to be a sign of evil.

Sample Sentence: Having reached the moral high-ground, the pro-Creationists and procreationists determined that “evidence” and “faith” are indeed synonyms.


These additions put us in mind of the much older Missing Positives Section, which brought us the following definition:

munity (noun) – lack of protection, resistance, or exemption; political or legal vulnerability

Sample Sentence: Upon reflection, President Nixon granted munity to his entire staff.


And a final bit of free advice: If your logic isn’t circular, who can follow it?
And worth every penny, too.