18 July 2022 - Save Ourselves

Is civilization doomed? We have to save ourselves from climate change, capitalism's nefarious outcomes, pandemics, and nuclear obliteration. We must leave Earth before an astronomical calamity returns us all to dust.

However, it is a weird thing to say, "We must save ourselves." To fix the problems we must do something! Together! We need to have a mass action (voting, lobbying, migrating, fighting, whatever) to put the right people in charge of the right system!

However, every evidence I have from history says that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Any nifty new system would work well for a few years - maybe. By the second crises or so, the system will seem corrupt enough that people will try to bring it down. We will return to a cracked and breaking system, rife with petty feuds, before the new foundation is dry.

The US ratified a new constitution in 1788. The Whisky Rebellion happened by 1794. From the point of view of the losers of that rebellion, the US government was corrupt. From the point of view of women, blacks, new immigrants from the wrong places, and Native Americans the system was always corrupt.

The US Constitution is almost right in its design. It has the ability to renew itself and the civilization it governs without bloodshed. But, the limits of this constitution may have been reached. It was not right at the start. A patchwork of amendments and federalism allowed compromises to hold us together, mostly, a handful of internal wars aside^1.

If smart people were put into a room and told to make a new and improved system to hold us together, would it come out right? Would we unify our vision and accelerate into the opportunities? Maybe! At least for a while! I would endorse it, if it were the right system. But, if it were the wrong system, then I would fight to keep what we have instead of succumbing to something worse.

And there is the catch-22. It may not be possible to get to the next and better version of ourselves without a war. In and of itself, modern war is ridiculously efficient at killing people. Worse, the systems we rely on for our daily bread would be interrupted by a large conflict. Mega-millions would suffer and die without being near combat. Smart people know this, and try to find a path to correct the system without combat. It is going to require leadership like we have rarely seen to save us from ourselves.

Our system is doomed, but I hold out hope that civilization will renew itself as a better version of the parent. Maybe we will be wise enough to do it without the four horsemen running wild amongst us during the transition.

----------------------------

PS ^1: The obvious conflicts within the USA killed plenty of people, but those are not the nefarious conflicts I had in mind. I was thinking of the fights for women's rights & suffrage, the bloody conflict to topple Jim Crow, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the labor movements, and the many strifes over whom may love & create families with whom. The many fights of people to be recognized as humans with volition over their own lives - just an even chance to pursue happiness - have killed more people than we can know or count.