X-Message-Number: 4689 From: Date: Sun, 30 Jul 1995 14:59:04 -0400 Subject: history Even though the work level is several fathoms over my head, I can't resist a few more words about the sweep of history. While some rough categories of events often recur--or have done so in certain time frames--the cyclical view of history is basically naive, primitive, and superficial. Taken to extremes, it produces such market-theory absurdities as "Elliott waves" or even"Kondratieff waves." (I won't add now to my past comments on these, R.I.P.) There are many examples of essentially irreversible watersheds in history, or ratchets, since the emergence of homo sap. Once we had metals, stone tools and weapons were essentially done, period. Once we had agriculture and domesticated animals, hunting for a living was essentially done, period. And now that we have modern research and organizational methods, they (or improvements) will continue to be applied--simply because they produce results and overwhelm the competition, period. Obviously, none of this means that calamities can't occur. In particular, we know that modern technology and organization can coexist with brutal polities and psychopathic societies. But at least we can be very sure that, barring the collapse of civilization, technology will continue to advance, and its fruits will include just about everything we have imagined, as well as a great many things we have not imagined. Again, this leaves open many hazards to particular individuals and organizations in local spacetime, but the sweep is undeniable. Even some of the truly pessimistic aspects of recent history may be overdone. A notable example is the unrestrained breeding of the lower classes and the backward countries. These women will not submit indefinitely to being used as baby machines and household drudges; they are learning to want & demand a better life, and the numbers are beginning to tell the story. Human stupidity is formidable but not invincible. People and institutions--if they survive long enough--do eventually learn. Masochists and ideologues to the contrary notwithstanding, the general rule is that people want pleasure & security, defined in simple and natural ways--and this implies a long, healthy life in a stable and reasonably free society. I am not a short term optimist, as I have often repeated. I remember all too well the failed predictions of the past--including suspended animation being "just around the corner" every ten years or so. Keep your guard up, circle the wagons, save your money, support your organization and its research--do as much as you can to shift the odds in our favor, until you reach the point where you think you are sacrificing too much for an uncertain future at the expense of life in the present. But if you have to choose between the cyclical view of history and the millennial, the former choice is both wrong and counterproductive. Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4689