Frightening

[poliphilo]

I'm so tired of being told these are frightening times.

I lived through the Cold War. Now those were frightening times.

Or not.

Every generation thinks it lives in frightening times. What that means is it doesn't feel entirely in control.

What's the worst that can happen? We all die. Well that's going to happen no matter what. Get used to it.

Don't let the media scare you.  Remember they make their money by creeping up behind your chair and going, "Boo!"

There's more to life than politics.

Come off that news site.  Take a walk. Annoy the cat. Have a nice cup of tea.

Comments

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

Being a huge fan of the Star Trek idea of the Federation of Planets, I'm all for bigger and bigger super-national (super-galactic?) institutions. And as for control at the local level, yes, why not have some more of that (take a temporary step backward on free movement of people, for example) as a temporary stop-gap while all countries/cultures equalizes?

Globalization has been like plumbing hundreds of bathtubs together, all containing water at different temperatures, and being surprised when the people in the hot tubs get upset that their warm water is draining away. Globalization needs a system of locks to control that process, until we're all bathing comfortably at the same temperature, at which point what do we need local control for? Everywhere will be local.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like that image of the bathtubs.

But someone has got to control the system of locks and who's that going to be? The global elite? No, they want all the hot water for themselves.

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

There's surely only one way to manage anything- and that's with a manager. Which would be the global elites. What we need is stronger institutions and rules to cut down corruption as much as possible. And those rules evolve continuously- so I believe we're getting better at global-management continuously.

Either that or an AI. But can you trust an AI?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

H G Wells envisaged a global elite made up of people he called Samurai who were basically all the cool people- and they didn't receive any reward except for a universal recognition of their extreme coolness.

[softtargettime.livejournal.com]

H G Wells was the man. Let's do it.