Reply To: Iconography

[Glenn Millam]

We actually think pretty much alike, I just may be a bit more optimistic. To add to the list of problems, I would put in the vast fields of methane clathrates on the Gulf of Mexico, which are heating up and bubbling to the surface as we speak. Talk about runaway greenhouse effects.

To address a few things, if you have vast energy on tap, you can do a few things that are impossible today, such as building towers to sequester and breakdown greenhouse gasses. It can be done today, but its too expensive. If you took energy out of the equation, then suddenly it gets more attractive. Same applies to robotics and other technologies waiting for the last piece to fall into place.

The Middle East is similar, in the sense that a lot of the problem is oil, or more precisely, who controls the oil. Oil money keeps the governments of the Middle East from having to answer to their citizens, because citizens who don’t pay a lot in taxes do not have much leverage. Also, the concept of liberalism doesn’t have many supporters in the Middle East. This is one thing I feel that is wrong with Iran’s democracy. Without liberalism to balance “mob rule,” you have the tyranny of the masses.

In comparison to focus fusion, oil will never be as cheap, as it has to be pumped, refined, and transported in large quantities to compete with the small amounts of decaborane needed for focus fusion, which can be made anywhere, and whose supply is nigh-infinite. The “sudden” impoverishment the oil barons who control the governments in the Middle East will force political change in those countries, but more importantly it will remove the leverage that these countries have had over the West. The West will no longer have to bend its ethics over the fantasies of Middle Eastern oil tyrants. America and Europe can get back in the business of defending and promoting freedom (liberalism) and democracy, insisting that those who seek to trade and prosper with us treat their citizens with due dignity and respect, and do not engage in or tolerate terrorism.

Ask yourself this question: Why doesn’t Saudia Arabia build cars? As a supplier of fuel for vehicles, it would seem a no-brainer to get into the business of making those vehicles. Car manufacture requires lots of other industries, and also requires a society to educate its citizens so that they can take advantage of all the employment opportunities. Is it a lack of natural resources? Japan doesn’t have a lot of natural resources, but they make pretty good cars, so that isn’t an excuse. So why are there no Saudia Arabian cars being sold in the United States and Europe?

Some problems are beyond the purview of this research project. The problem of Israel and Palestine is not solvable directly via the wealth of energy from focus fusion (although a lot of the problem is linked to lack of resources for everyone in the region; just ask Jordan about Israel’s adherence to water-rights agreements). These things fall into the “are we grown up enough” category. I am no Middle Eastern scholar. However, my readings on the subject tend to make me think that one of the problems in the Middle East is that people there tend to value history more than any other set of people on the planet. This may seem like a good thing, but if your thinking is jaded by what one group of people’s ancestors did to to your ancestors, then it is hard to forge a new, better future.

I think it is one of the things that America does pretty well. I hold no animosity towards Britain, Germany, Japan, or Russia. In fact, I want to see all those places do well. There comes a point in time that you need to set aside the past and look at the future. Freedom, once achieved, must be utilized, and old grievances and debts of honor must be written off, and a new future with former enemies must be forged. This is what I speak of when I say whether or not we humans have grown up enough to properly use our new-found power. Adults forgive; children bicker. Adults learn from their mistakes; children fight change. A society’s process of growing up is continuous and painful (look at the lessons America is learning with our current government). Societies which seek to avoid this pain by avoiding change have worse fates, however.

So why doesn’t Saudia Arabia make cars? Because it is ran by a family of rulers who get all they need from oil revenues, and they don’t need the people to do anything but follow orders and help pump the oil. That is why they haven’t looked towards the betterment of their people. They give the people enough to get by, a few choice government subsidies and programs, and they pay for religious training. They seek to maintain a solid-state society, with themselves on top. The decrease in oil revenues may make them start thinking of other ways to make money, ones that require more from, and more given, to the society at-large.

If focus fusion can be a catalyst for this change in humans, well, good. Lets get it started.