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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NightOwl who wrote (125713)	3/7/2004 2:04:45 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<we got tossed from the Garden of Eden so long ago that you've forgotten that it only had room for two.> In the 20th Century, for the first time in human existence, the possibility existed, to create a planet-wide Garden of Eden. The material prosperity was possible, as a result of the Enlightenment's science, rationality, and a vast increase in human productivity. If we had combined that, with Gandhian pacifism, an unconditional reverence for all life, we could have gotten within 2 standard deviations of Heaven on Earth. For all of us. But, instead, we chose to worship Tribal War Gods, who demand constant blood sacrifices of vast numbers of our children. In the 20th Century, about 100 million people died in wars. That was a choice. You say it is an inevitable choice, because we are hardwired (in our DNA and hormones and the neural connections of our hypothalamus) to worship Kali and the God of Joshua. I say, we have Free Will, and we can choose anything we can imagine. And we can imagine far, far better (can't we?). Once upon a time, all educated Realists thought the only stable form of government was Absolute Monarchy. Jefferson imagined better, and made it happen. Once upon a time, all educated Realists thought slavery was a universal part of all human societies. All nations, at all times, had had one form or another, of slavery. The Quakers, crazy utopian fanatic dreamers, imagined better. (http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=19727587 and following post). They, too, made it happen. Today, all educated Realists (such as you) think war is a necessary and inevitable way for nations to solve problems. The idea of abolishing war, today, is as absurd and utopian, as saying in 1750 that slavery or Absolute Monarchy should be abolished. War will be tossed on the ash-heap of history, just as slavery and Absolute Monarchy have. Your great-great-grandchildren will have trouble imagining how you could have been such a barbarian, as to advocate solving any problems by killing people. The other possibility is, some astronaut on SpaceShip Earth will pull the pin on their grenade, and none of us will have any great-great-grandchildren.