by NorthView » Fri Nov 04, 2005 9:32 am
From the other side of the pond...
Please remember, I don't wish to offend anyone by sticking my nose into a post about what's happening in the US, but "when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold", so here goes.
I have to agree with the thrust of what CJ's saying, and I've been quite down about it for a few years. Shortly after 11th September it became clear that governments would use the enormous fear generated by that catastrophe to leverage both anti-freedom laws onto their subjects and illegal wars onto foreign nations.
A few decades ago, when contemplating the future things were comparatively nice and simple - the future would be an economic battle between capitalism and communism (or more accurately, the West and the USSR). Nowadays, when weighing up what the future may bring we have to take into account the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, the dwindling of oil reserves, the emergence of another superpower in China, the effect on populations of global warming, the application of ever-increasing computer power, the outsourcing of manual labour to developing countries, genetic engineering, the internet, increased surveillance via ID cards/satellites, and other factors I can't even think of right now.
So, from one old timer (42) to another, CJ, I'm afraid my take on it is this...the future is unremittingly bleak.
The end of the battle between the West and the USSR has allowed the Right, particularly in the US and Britain, to claim victory: hence the move of the UK Labour Party to occupy political terrain more commonly associated with the Conservative Party. A bland conformity has spread throughout the West, and there's no sign of it changing.
An inevitable consequence of this is the growth of (what I'll generically call) religious fundamentalism - the religion of absolute certainty, of a Day of Judgement (I'm referring to both Christian and Islamic extremism). It's deeply scary: we read reports of Creationism replacing Evolution in biology lessons in secondary schools, both here and the US. Invasions that kill tens of thousands of civilians are part-justified by an insistence that democracy will prevail anywhere in the world, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary (I've lived in Africa, and I know this isn't so).
Meanwhile, people in the US and Britain keep turning out (albeit in apathy-driven ever-dwindling numbers) to vote for the incumbents because the opposition don't offer anything different. To quote Fukuyama (a Right winger!), it's the end of history.
Factor in what's obviously happening to the world's climate (obvious, that is, to anyone with open eyes, ears and minds) and how much worse that will become when China and India become fully industrialised, and the outlook is very grim.
We know two things that may help us to predict the future. Computer speeds are predicted to keep doubling every 18 months or so until about 2015 (and way beyond if quantum machines are workable), meaning that in 10 years time computers will be about 500 times faster than today's equivalents. The need continually to invent/improve/explore is so deeply embedded in our genetic makeup that, from the spear to the mobile phone, mankind has always embraced and implemented technological innovation. In short, if we’ve got it, we’ll implement it.
In conclusion, I think we'll take one of two paths: technologically-advanced societies where electorates, driven fearful of terrorism by both terrorists and governments alike, give their consent to increasingly wide-ranging freedom-restricting measures eg satellite tracking, chip implants, ID cards, biometrics, even genetic engineering (winners - governments and terrorists; losers - us); or a concerted multi-national effort to combat the terrible threats posed by global warming also resulting in integrated action addressing the underlying causes of terrorism (ie poverty) (winners - us).
Call me a cynical old sod, but I know which I think is the more likely outcome. As kenny hints, I consider the future of my family and I to be abroad. It's just that I haven't figured out the wheres and hows of it yet.