The Maelstrom of Violence

[David Horn]

(10-04-2017, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: ... Judging from the past, a lot will be surprised by the future.  If the problem is to be too great a production, is the answer to seek ever higher productivity?

As an alleged Whig, I do not anticipate perfection.  You might take out one problem at a time though.  For America, it has bee Royalty, a land and people owning elite in the south, and robber barons too close to fascism.  There are some who have not studied where man came from who allege we might return to Utopia.  I'll leave that to the Marxist Leninist contingent.  I anticipate going forward, not back.  The answer lies with figuring out the post scarcity pattern, not daydreams of a past which never existed.

I do see the problem being an elite class wielding too much influence through both economic a political means.  They have fooled the people by various means.  A general distrust of the establishment by populists is a good sign.  The readiness of the blue to fight the red and vice versa is less good.

This is a good analysis of the problem, but what then?  We can't know what the future will bring, since it will be a state that has never existed in the past.  In he past, humans have expanded to meet the available supplies, so a greater global population is virtually certain.  Beyond that, there is the issue of distribution.  How are future needs met, and what will determine how equitably that will occur?  We don't know. 

More to the point, the future will arrive much sooner than our systems of governance can easily adjust.  It would be nice to see forward looking leaders start to prepare, but I see zero evidence of that.  At most, the problems are being discussed and debated in academe and inside other non-academic think tanks.  If that breaks through to the general consciousness reasonably soon, we may find a non-violent path to a solution.  If not, then the future may well be bleak.  I see the window to that AH-HA moment as 50 years at most -- an eye-blink in history.