Jeremiah Donaldson's Blog: This and That - Posts Tagged "time"
Things to Do
Some would call me pessimistic. They’re the people who see a bright shiny future, sparking with wealth they think human beings will amass in the years to come. Clean, safe, and unbridled from the limits that have brought all things before to the ground, they see the human race’s coming accomplishments as the upmost of achievements.
Some would call me optimistic. War or gradual breakdown of government are their most promising futures. They wait for something to happen, not understanding they're frogs in hot water that'll barely beat anyone else's survival rate as they find out people don't die like in movies and clean water isn't easy to find.
History says that both are wrong. Utopia has never existed. Who wouldn’t get bored in such a place anyway? But neither can chaos rule for very long, for knowledge needs stability to prosper. Finding order in disorder is something man has done throughout history, and they will continue to do as long as the ability to plan for the future is available. Human beings are clearly self-organizing creatures despite their neurotic tendencies that occasionally indicate otherwise.
Pessimistic.
Optimistic.
They’re states of mind resulting from how you perceive the crises that we are all rushing towards. The middle ground is looking at reality and nothing else in a cold, clinical way as the by product of a century of failed social and economic ideals. Socialism and the 'fight' against it alone has caused mass calamity during that time, setting the human race back decades worth of development by wasting finite resources.
People feel reassured when they are told that this or that calamity will occur so many years from now. But why? Global warming is a prime example. Many people are putting forth the effort to make a change in how they adversely affect the climate by using more efficient light bulbs and using less gas. Those who aren’t feel comforted when they’re told that any impact from global warming is decades in the future, and possibly as much as one hundred years in the future! I know I can rest easy now that I know the damage we’ve been doing to the planet won’t become apparent for another whole century. By that same logic, I can rest easy now that I know some sucker in the future will pay for our nearsightedness. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will have to worry about chaos caused by WW3. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will starve when everything is dead and poisoned. I can rest easy now that I know fiat money won't collapse until it's someone else holding the useless wad of paper currency. I can rest easy now that I know Medicare and Social Security won't implode until someone else is 90.
Or will I?
It’s easy for the human mind to think that one hundred years is a long time and be lured into complacency. After all, it's fair to guess no one reading this has reached the age of triple digits. But how many will see this who are over eighty? Seventy? Sixty? Fifty? Even if global warming has a milder effect than many believe most of us under fifty will live long enough to see some very interesting things indeed. We will see the collapse of one of the world's great economic systems. We will see a large scale war between first class belligerents. We will see the final collapse of nature and its replacement with the full scale intrusion of robotic systems. The exact specifics of what we'll see is uncertain, and will remain such until the events happen, but we’ll see memorable things.
And it won't be as long as we like to believe in relative terms. Sure, years are years, but they have a habit of compressing themselves when looked back on. How long ago did we worry about Y2K? Almost 20 years. How long ago was it in a relative sense? A few blinks of the eye.
My life will, with a little luck, carry me halfway through this century. My offspring will live longer, possibly close to the turn of the next century. A century may seem like a long time, but children born now may well see that day, and our grandchildren surely will. One hundred years is a long time when counted by the day, but short indeed when measured against the generations to come and what we have to do.
And the clock is ticking...
Some would call me optimistic. War or gradual breakdown of government are their most promising futures. They wait for something to happen, not understanding they're frogs in hot water that'll barely beat anyone else's survival rate as they find out people don't die like in movies and clean water isn't easy to find.
History says that both are wrong. Utopia has never existed. Who wouldn’t get bored in such a place anyway? But neither can chaos rule for very long, for knowledge needs stability to prosper. Finding order in disorder is something man has done throughout history, and they will continue to do as long as the ability to plan for the future is available. Human beings are clearly self-organizing creatures despite their neurotic tendencies that occasionally indicate otherwise.
Pessimistic.
Optimistic.
They’re states of mind resulting from how you perceive the crises that we are all rushing towards. The middle ground is looking at reality and nothing else in a cold, clinical way as the by product of a century of failed social and economic ideals. Socialism and the 'fight' against it alone has caused mass calamity during that time, setting the human race back decades worth of development by wasting finite resources.
People feel reassured when they are told that this or that calamity will occur so many years from now. But why? Global warming is a prime example. Many people are putting forth the effort to make a change in how they adversely affect the climate by using more efficient light bulbs and using less gas. Those who aren’t feel comforted when they’re told that any impact from global warming is decades in the future, and possibly as much as one hundred years in the future! I know I can rest easy now that I know the damage we’ve been doing to the planet won’t become apparent for another whole century. By that same logic, I can rest easy now that I know some sucker in the future will pay for our nearsightedness. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will have to worry about chaos caused by WW3. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will starve when everything is dead and poisoned. I can rest easy now that I know fiat money won't collapse until it's someone else holding the useless wad of paper currency. I can rest easy now that I know Medicare and Social Security won't implode until someone else is 90.
Or will I?
It’s easy for the human mind to think that one hundred years is a long time and be lured into complacency. After all, it's fair to guess no one reading this has reached the age of triple digits. But how many will see this who are over eighty? Seventy? Sixty? Fifty? Even if global warming has a milder effect than many believe most of us under fifty will live long enough to see some very interesting things indeed. We will see the collapse of one of the world's great economic systems. We will see a large scale war between first class belligerents. We will see the final collapse of nature and its replacement with the full scale intrusion of robotic systems. The exact specifics of what we'll see is uncertain, and will remain such until the events happen, but we’ll see memorable things.
And it won't be as long as we like to believe in relative terms. Sure, years are years, but they have a habit of compressing themselves when looked back on. How long ago did we worry about Y2K? Almost 20 years. How long ago was it in a relative sense? A few blinks of the eye.
My life will, with a little luck, carry me halfway through this century. My offspring will live longer, possibly close to the turn of the next century. A century may seem like a long time, but children born now may well see that day, and our grandchildren surely will. One hundred years is a long time when counted by the day, but short indeed when measured against the generations to come and what we have to do.
And the clock is ticking...
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