From: Samantha Tennison (xytrope@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 10:52:32 MDT
Hi everyone,
Here are some trends that I've been noticing that have
on the whole turned my head upside down from the
direction I perceived things to be going. More and
more I've begun to suspect that I have led an isolated
idealistic life and somehow imagined that liberty and
freedom, on the whole, were increasing around the
world, but instead the opposite has been happening,
even before 9-11.
I think one of the primary reasons is that there is
not new frontiers to explore and live in. As the free
space and wildness of the west got tamed in the last
30 years, peoples hopes looked skyward towards L5 and
beyond. But now, here we sit after 2001, still
grounded. Will nanotubes and sophisticated
sustainable space living technologies arrive in any
remotely timely manner?
In the meantime, all of us grounded to this planet are
continuing to get encroached by increasing regulation
of all aspects of our lives both in physical and
digital space. I see no trends in the opposite
direction. I think it can be safely concluded that
there has been a substantial reduction in overall
liberty in the last 30 years - from political
correctness on the left to conservative
"family" values on the right, and mostly from
a "public safety" standpoint. More people,
less resource = more regulation. A classic result of
a diminishing frontier.
And here is another surprise from Europe: If present
demographic trends continue, Europe will become
muslim. Recently at an Ecunumerical conference in
England, the head of the Anglican Church called for
assistance in assimilating Muslims into the
communities. The leaders of the Muslim church said
that Muslim's *do not* assimilate, and they they will
in fact assimilate Europe, and that the majority of
Europe will be subject to conservative muslim law!
So unless we escape into the space frontier, the world
will continue to become more repressive, not to
mention the increases in one-way surveillance, digital
lock-downs (DRM), biometrics, massive dataveillance
and GPS tracking (i.e. chip implants), and Minority
Report style societies.
Unless New Frontiers are opened - the end result will
be the world becoming a giant hyper-controlled
microprocessor, with ever minutia of our lives being
regulated in the name of public safety and
conservative (muslim and Christian values).
Anyone care to counter any of this?
~Sam
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