War! Good God Y'all!
War! Good God Y'all!
Contents
The Tipping Point
Choices
Manifest Risk
Are We At A Brink?
Picking A Better Game
Our Sandbox
Competition vs Conflict
The Founding Directive
How About This Scenario Instead?
United We Stand
Space
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When it comes to space, where do we cross the line?
Where do we, as a civilization, cross without question into the realm of the spacefaring?
When do we reach and go beyond the point where we become a global, cohesive force toward the conquest of space?
And what does that mean in terms of lost autonomy?
The Tipping Point
Do we sacrifice too much if all of us are engaged in the same pursuit? Can we truly work shoulder to shoulder, as a planet?
Where do those of us who don’t agree turn?
What if we don’t want to be part of a space future?
If the whole world is doing it … how does that work?
Globalism is often a swear word. We’re not advocating globalism, but bringing all of us together toward a common cause leads in that direction. Philosophical debates about this crazy, mixed-up world unifying toward a common cause might rage.
Is the risk of homogeny (and yes, global homogeny without options could be a risk) – even if only temporary – worth the reward of brave new worlds?
We’ll leave that thought to ponder.
Choices
Another way forward would be to battle our way into space, fighting against each other even as we innovate independently, in a sort of winner-take-all scenario.
That might be the way it goes.
Truthfully, there’s a good chance that will be the way it goes.
It might also not be the way we want.
On the positive side – if there is a positive side to such a scenario – there’s the possibility that, in an intensely combative, competitive environment, we’d accomplish some of those bigger goals faster.
Maybe.
Or we could just blow the whole thing up.
Swing the pendulum the other way.
Give up.
Whatever.
Might be a while before we find another world like this, though. And when we do, it would be a long haul to get it back to where we are now.
Manifest Risk
Of course that’s assuming you believe in a life continuum. One where we could annihilate ourselves here, then pop up on some far-distant world in some far-distant future.
Seems not only a risk but a waste.
And if that’s not the case, if we truly are glorified mud, if it’s dust to dust after all, if death is the absolute end and all that, well … we wipe the playing field here and that’s it.
Game over, man.
So maybe annihilation isn’t the best option?
In either of those realities.
Being open, however – which is what we’re trying to do – does require considering all possibilities, grim or otherwise.
Fighting is in our nature.
Are We At A Brink?
It’s been a long time since the last truly global conflict and the world is getting antsy.
If there was ever a time to turn our attention outward it’s now.
Doubly so because now, unlike at any other point in history, we actually have something external to all of us on which we can legitimately focus. A very real, very attainable goal (space, in case you forgot) that can become part of our shared objectives worldwide.
Absent such shared focus we might slip further, to a brink we’ll regret.
Wars, some thinking goes, are the real foundation of our political systems. Of our world, our history. Which means it might not be as easy to “make love not war” as we’d hope. A larger war might be inevitable.
We humans love our army stuff.
We really do.
Don’t try to mess with someone’s right to wage war, it seems. Nuh-uh. Most other things are fair game; that one’s off limits. Shadow players, nefarious bad guys, ne’er-do-wells and creepy, dark figures at the highest levels that supposedly run our world, if real, do so through the fabrication and manipulation of wars (and us) and the weapons that power them.
That certainly seems possible.
Maybe even likely?
If it’s true, how do we change it?
Those last few sentences are probably wrong on many levels.
Picking A Better Game
Point is, even if true, even if war does underpin our entire existence, that’s about the dumbest agreement we could make as a species, don’t you think? Especially at this stage. Wars here on Earth are tiny games on an average planet in an average galaxy in a tiny corner of what may, truthfully, be a tiny (and possibly only one of many) universe.
Nothing games on a nothing world.
Yet those games have the ability to end us.
Or at least slow us down.
Yes, these ‘games’ are in our face. Not just wars, but all the petty obstacles to progress we invent day in and day out. Large and ponderous systems that seem quite complex, filled with overwhelming inertia, quite serious, seemingly intractable ways of doing things that drive us to anger, despair.
Yet they’re games of our own creation.
Any system thwarting us on this planet is here because we put it here. Don’t send for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for us. We’re the architects of any and all conditions befalling us, good or bad.
Meaning we’re subject to obstacles of our own creation.
The idea of viewing the sociopolitical machinery of our world as petty games may seem crazy, but isn’t it more crazy to keep playing them? Didn’t we decide to play them in the first place? Could not we, as a group, decide to play different games? Maybe at least one different game? Perhaps the pursuit of space?
As Plato said, only the dead have seen the end of war, and that may be true. Yet … a little break might do us some good.
Hm.
At its core that oversimplified idea may not be as naïve as it sounds.
Our Sandbox
This is our playground.
Us humans, here, on Earth.
It belongs to us.
Children get fussy, yes – it happens, even to the best among us – but the playground has gotten pretty crowded and if we want more places to play we need to work together.
That includes all of us. The “stoppers” (people who obsessively stop things from happening), the bullies, the bad guys, the doers (god bless them), the saints and the sinners. The good, the bad and the ugly. All of us.
No one else is going to call a timeout.
No one else makes the rules. We do. Anything happens on this planet, when it comes to human affairs, happens because we say so. Because we allowed it to. Either because we wanted it, or because someone with mal intent wanted it and we failed to stop them.
Good thing is, it’s never too late to change our minds.
If we want better, let’s make better. Competition, not conflict.
Maybe we start there.
A little shift.
Healthy competition rather than hostile conflict.
Competition vs Conflict
Both can strengthen a system. The fallout from conflict, however, means damage that must be undone. Setbacks. In competition, on the other hand, even the losers are part of the overall win.
Sports examples: Rugby typically has a “third half”, where opposing teams get schnockered together after battling for blood in a game of sport. Most MMA fighters embrace after the fight. Football players shake hands.
There’s no reason that spirit can’t scale.
No reason global institutions can’t benefit from the exertions of high-level competition, deriving camaraderie from that very effort.
The contemplation of such a thing is not missing the bigger picture. In many ways it is the bigger picture. Honestly, that’s what the world needs more than anything right now: Less complexity, not more.
It is simple.
Be nice.
Have a care for your fellow humans.
Apply the Golden Rule.
The Founding Directive
Did you know that’s the one tenet common to all religions, beliefs, betterment doctrines and anything else with an eye toward guiding man toward cooperation and success? That one message.
The Golden Rule.
Around the world, throughout human history. A principle so common, so sane, it is us. No single wise man dreamed that one up. It’s woven into the very fiber of our being; the basic impulse behind our existence since before the beginning, coming forward with us throughout time.
We ignore it at our peril.
Worded differently in some cases, the message is the same:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Simple.
It takes only a decision.
Ideologies and other made-up stuff be damned.
We’re human first.
An ideology or a political belief should never stand in the way of getting along. Of cooperating.
How About This Scenario Instead?
Rather than acting like it’s a big deal, maybe we just politely ask some of the important people, where they exist – you know, the ones we’ve agreed to let be important (they’re only important because we say they are) – to give it a rest long enough to let us open up more playing fields?
To look out, not in.
While at the same time the rest of us agree to be more civil to each other.
More decent.
At least long enough to become extraplanetary.
After that we can go back to blowing things up. Being mean, if we choose. Waging wars. Imagine our own future version of Atreides versus Harkonnen (warring Houses in Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic, Dune), with vendettas spawned over disputes involving entire planets.
Now that’s a game.
For that to happen we have to get there.
Our current war-hawks may be big shots (again, because we let them be), but the truth is they’re just kids on the same playground as us. For them we have a simple message:
Knock it off.
Let’s hold them accountable or get rid of them.
The decision to make change is one of our super powers.
United We Stand
We mention these things only to draw attention to the fact that increasing global collaboration will bring with it resistance and debates, none of it likely grounded in anything other than the reactions of special interests that are being threatened.
In the same way there are negative people among us, there are larger, vested interests scurrying through the halls of power that might not share our enthusiasm.
Remember, there are advantages for some to keep us divided. To sow division.
Others win when they keep us fighting among ourselves.
For them it’s better to pick at scabs and not let old wounds heal.
For them, it’s better that we fight.
For them, it’s better that we bleed.
Such conflict raises no one.
Those people are not our friends.
We’re a world of problem solvers.
Fact:
There are a lot more of us than there are of them.
Space
What about when it comes to the subject at hand?
“Why would anyone want to stop us from going to space?” you ask. “That would be stupid,” you say.
Indeed.
It’s one thing to simply not pay attention or just not care. That’s bad enough. But to actively oppose the betterment of humanity as a species? That, friends, is the true face of the enemy, no matter how “reasoned” their arguments might seem.
Again, though they may hold power (in certain cases), we outnumber them a hundred to one. That figure isn’t entirely random; it’s pretty accurate. More often than not the ones you encounter who seem to be of that ilk have, in fact, simply bought into the assertions of one of the few, truly negative people.
They themselves are not truly the enemy.
Cleared of that negative influence their own hope is restored.
Meaning, if we decide to make it so, there’s nothing the small minority that would truly thwart us can do. Meaning it’s up to us to ignore them and move forward.
Those who would stop us can easily be steamrolled. If we’re united.
We only fail when we stop to listen to reasons why we “shouldn’t” and why we “can’t”.
Speaking of that, and to leave you with a bit of a cliffhanger, stay tuned for our next blog on the Can-Do spirit.
Until then, remember:
Space is the answer.
Want to hear from us Friday mornings?
Every Friday our chief correspondent, Tai Rade (you’ll love her take on things), sends a recap of the week in space.
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