arc of history

    When I think of where I am, I think of where we've been, as a civilization. The arc of human history has been towards progress. However, there have been many, many seismic interruptions in this process.  This is where I see us now as  people.

Covid, the volatile elections are unique to America.  We are being hit like no one else.  Our elections, for better or worse, will determine the stability of the world for the next few years to come.  It won't last.  We won't last.  The blows to our society won't be functionally analyzed for a decade. 

The good thing is we haven't seen a complete dissolution of the workings of the world.  Utilities still function.  The debit card still works.  The internet still functions.  For today.

These things will cease to function, be it tomorrow or 100 years from now.  Already, swaths of California are being deprived of electricity to prevent fires.  The necessary shutdowns of public necessities are still lying in the future.

Most of this still lies in the realm of "what if", the fear of the unknown, the fear that there is a virus, but how far can it go?  Has the virus mutated to the point of resurrecting zombie minks in Europe?  Jesus Christ, let it end, let the ultimate scythe cut us all to the ground, end it sooner than later, just stop the water drip torture of tomorrow.

I mean really, 2020, give me a fucking break.  So far, we have had chimps steal live virus, have their brains grown 2x by human gene implants, and some fucking obelisk in Utah.  Murder hornets, ridiculous numbers of new sarcophagi found in Egypt due to be opened...STOP!!!

If we could only settle one existential crisis at a time, like the election, then we might be able to deal with the reality of where the world is.  Bottom line, until we get past the inauguration, humanity is sailing on its own, in a life raft capable of saving 1/10 of its inhabitants.  

I have to wonder, has our last decade of a dystopian diet had anything to do with our current situation?  Let's review the TV hits of late - Walking Dead, Mr. Robot, Breaking Bad.  Social media has delivered more than a few doozies, which I don't wholesale discard - 9/11, our current election, Trump's sanity, Biden's sanity....

When is it fair to call the US in crisis?  Not by network standards, but by a judgement of shifting global power?  If there is a shift away from the US, what next?  

Then, the question becomes what is the metric by which the crisis is judged?  What is the primary means of warfare by other powers?  The Cold War cloud of nukes has been nutered. Information has been made questionable.  We are beyond an age of transcontinental invasions.  How will we fall as a society?

Truth has died.  As a college professor opened his History of Vietnam class stated: "There is no truth-only fact and opinion."  We now live in a post truth age.  Opinion rules the day.  Fact has been the casualty.

What shall we do?  I'm at a loss.  I don't see any hope, regardless of our incumbent.  Our union is fractured, if not entirely broken, and I have no clue how to fix it.  The verbal conflicts among former friends are tantamount to pre-civil war, brother against brother shit.  

My big question is this - if the US is taken out of the international debate of how to run the world, what then?  I've never been convinced we are the ones to rule the world, but I've been long convinced we are very good at leading the conversation.


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