The Art Neuro Weblog

200 Years
As Poofter's Froth Wyoming goes to the polls to decide which puppet of the Military Industry Complex will get to show off his peacock suit, we should consider that civilisation as we know it, specifically that which guzzles oil and spurts out Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, has got a sunset clause. Put bluntly, this isn't going to last forever because either we're going to give out or the Earth is going to give out, or both are going to give out.

This topic has been discussed to death everywhere, and while there are folks who remain adamant that human ingenuity will get us through this death trap. Schumpeter, a very important economist called this process the dynamic destruction and recreation of value. This is fine. However, the planet is actually a finite resource. No matter how efficient humanity becomes in utilising its resources, it's eventually going to eat through all of it. Now this might be 50-100 years away depending on which brand of apocalyptic Greenie you ask. But let's say it's 200 years off. What the hell are we doing about it? Right now, we're quibbling over who gets to use up the main energy resource first and by how much.

Now, here's the thing. By definition (supplied to us by our very own trenchant critic Mr. Conservative Weasel), a conservative person would say, "this is fine, leave it alone, it's a thing of beauty, it's always worked don't change a thing."
Now, in most instances of history, this was an okay thing to say. Because many problems can be just put off to be solved by future generations. The meta-problem if you will, with sending off to tomorrow, the problems that ought to be solved today is that with our 200 year crunch-time time limit, it's eventually going to catch up with your great grand kids. Of course the powers that be in power today don't think that future people vote today so they are happy to sell them down the river.

Right now, we have two major parties paying lip-service to this issue, but both of them put in such a feeble attempt to address these issues. Things are not getting done. Neither the traditional Left nor the Right have a plan. (BTW We have a plan - go to space). Which is to day, the tradition of Left-Right politics is not going to serve us one jot, going into the last 200 years of our civilisation. It's only going to get uglier and pretty soon, it's going to be blame=throwers at 10 paces. It is against this back drop that the two US presidential candidates consist of two multi-millionaires, one who IS the oil company front man, and the in the other corner is somebody who is clearly the main man for the Industrialists of the US North East.

And then there are people who find this 2 horse race compelling and significant.
The future of our world never looked so bleak as it does today.

- Art Neuro