Three random thoughts...

That I needed to jot down

Some random thoughts that have been rattling around:

--I think we may be wrong about space travel. I have been reading science fiction for as long as I can remember and been fascinated by the movies and television shows—Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dune, and on and on. I dreamed of the day when humanity would toss off the shackles of gravity and travel among the stars.

Now, I don’t think it is going to happen, ever. Here’s why.

For most of my life I’ve labored under a common, deep, and ancient delusion. Once upon a time, I believed that humanity is the Other on Earth, apart from the warp and weave of nature. This is simply not true. From the biomass of bacteria we all carry in our bodies to our mitochondria, we are completely enmeshed in the natural order. We are part of the planet, not tenants who can move on when we choose, any more than a Petri dish of cells can decide to leave the lab, move to another town, and take up the guitar.

So the problem inherent in space travel is not only the enormous distances and the constraints of light speed and time, as science fiction writers have imagined, but rather the bone-deep connection humans have with the Earth’s biosphere. We have the capacity to duplicate some of the variables involved—food, water, light, atmosphere—and have done so. And in the future we may well be able to mimic other facets of our Earthbound lives, like gravity, and defeat time through cryogenic sleep or somesuch, but the number of variables we understand are the tiniest fraction of what appears an infinite set.

This is something I’ll have to think and read about more before I am able to actually express this as a cogent theory, but the long and short of it is everything—you, me, birds, bacteria, mosquitoes, slime mold...everything alive—is part of a co-dependent system, all parts are interdependent, and no single species is able to go it alone, no matter how much brain power is possessed. Humans may one day be capable of leaving Earth, but it will be for a period of time and not permanent. Humanity will forever be tourists anywhere but here.

--It feels like the government has moved well past incompetence and into the realm of the malicious. I see no other explanation. Why else close pipelines during an energy crisis, fire health care workers during a pandemic, empty prisons and cut police budgets during a crime wave, and on and on and on?

Some of the columnists I read who are further right have said for some time that progressives (liberals, Democrats) genuinely dislike the country, and though I don’t wholeheartedly agree I have to admit that they have a point. Some progressives certainly seem to, and they appear to hold sway in the Biden administration. What other explanation can there be for actively making things worse?

Politically, this is pretty much the dumbest thing I’ve ever witnessed. The blow back is going to be enormous. Younger people won’t remember this, but not so very long ago the Democratic Party was the party of the working class. Blue collar workers backed the Democrats and the GOP was seen, rightly or wrongly, as the party of the rich and entrenched. This has been completely turned around by the “Woke”. The GOP is now the party of the working class, parents, cops and firemen and small business owners, and the Democrats the party of American oligarchs, millionaire “journalists”, tenured college professors, and the wacky kids in college sporting green hair and confused about their gender. They are, quite literally, destroying the Democratic Party. I think the mid-terms next year will be something we have never seen in the past. An absolute ass kicking. A refutation of all of the double standards, crazy characterizations, and outright lies the Democrats have leaned so heavily upon since 2016.

You can claim the nation is systemically racist, lie about Trump and Russia, politicize education, and change your positions day by day, and no one will really give a rip so long as they can afford to put gas in their car and get a coffee on the way to work. When your policies make doing these simple things difficult, however, the gloves will come off, and your days of calling the shots are numbered.

--I’ve never used Twitter. When it started and the size of a post was limited to something like 140 characters, I assumed it would be nothing more than people shouting bumper stickers at one another and left it alone. When it became a cesspit of censorship and narrative shaping, I was glad I stayed away.

This morning I was speaking with someone I know to be a caring and good person, passionate about fairness and freedom, but who gets her news primarily via Twitter (though she is there mostly for animal rights and cat memes). Without batting an eye she commented on two trials currently underway. Ahmaud Arbery, she told me, was a “young athlete” out jogging, and was “gunned down for no reason”; and Kyle Rittenhouse is guilty, whatever the jury decides, because “he had no reason to be there with a gun.” I didn’t argue at all, because though I’ve watched portions of the Rittenhouse trial I know very little about the Arbery case.

In my opinion, Kyle Rittenhouse was defending himself from armed lunatics, his attorneys have proven this beyond any reasonable doubt, and the prosecution was entirely political. This, I gathered by watching the trial. The killing of Ahmaud Arbery is different. I haven’t watched the trial at all, and barely followed the case in the media. That said, I’m pretty sure it is way, way more nuanced than three racists visiting from 1960 out hunting for a young black man to murder. This, I surmised without even looking. He may have been murdered. He was certainly killed. Was this justified? I have no idea. Let’s hear the evidence. Archetypes (white men in a pickup truck armed with shotguns) are just cliches tossed out to appeal to the most base prejudices, no more relevant than assuming a young black man must be up to no good. I’ll wait to see the entire story.

The point is, though, that this person who I speak of believes the narrative (in both cases) that was assembled by the media and curated by Twitter, without any consideration for the facts. A group can curate the news and shape a story, but reality will not conform to anyone’s wishes. People who believe a narrative without regard for reality are a grave danger to our system of governance. In ignoring facts and staking out what they consider to be the moral high ground, a stage is set where anyone who dares question that narrative is less than good and probably bad. History tells us that that way lies madness. Did they not pay attention during “To Kill a Mockingbird”? The mob is not trustworthy, and only morons join them.

And that’s my two cents today. Be smart. Pay attention. Oppose the mob.

Peace.