Global Perspective

In general, I try to avoid political themes on this site... though it can sometimes be exceedingly difficult to bite my tongue, given the utter madness afoot and my general tendency to hold forth about abuse of power, curtailment of freedom, and other things that trigger a visceral antibody reaction in my brain. But still, the Microship project (remember the Microship? This song's about the Microship...) appeals to a broad spectrum of fellow geeks, dreamers, and adventurers. It's counterproductive for me to alienate folks who would otherwise enjoy and contribute to these technomadic dreams, just because we happen to hold sharply opposing political views. I used to rant quite a bit in the old "live page," but have since decided to keep this forum focused primarily on gonzo engineering and quixotic expeditions (along with the endlessly distracting infrastructure that supports them).

But in the run-up to this scary election, we all need to step back a little and look at the global big picture... which is changing faster than it has at any time in our lives. There is a tendency for Americans to extrapolate from the comfort of our idyllic past and rationalize from only a few decades of perspective that hey, even though there may be some economic and military skirmishes afoot out there, it won't really affect us here at home all that much... will it? I mean, things have always been more or less OK, and there's some sort of natural system of checks and balances to keep the world from going to hell, right?

Wrong... not in a newly unipolar world that happens to be contemporaneous with the crossing of the curves in oil production and demand. We've let ourselves get distracted by fear and the rhetoric of abstract "-isms," in the process overlooking much more fundamental issues that define the geopolitical landscape.

This article presents a disturbingly cogent global perspective without even a hint of partisan politics (itself a rather refreshing phenomenon in 2004, which is the first time in my personal history when differing political perspectives have become bitter enough to end friendships). I won't attempt to summarize the piece; I wouldn't do it justice. But I do recommend it highly.