Will M.A.D. Bring us Closer to Worldwide Perfection?
…IT SEEMS ODD TO SAY THIS IN LIGHT OF RUSSO-CHINESE AGGRESSION AND GLOBAL WARMING, but the world may be about 30 years away from a kind of golden age, possibly due to the strangely cooperative elements of Mutual Assured Destruction (M.A.D.). The signs are rather subtle but telling…is it indeed darkest before the dawn?
In many ways, the news of today is dark, and few people believe that things will get better. As a for instance, global warming, pandemic disease, and war between nations are thought to be getting much worse. However, contrarian that I am, I am about to make a compelling case that things in the world will get much better, and sooner than we all think! Let’s look at some examples:
WORLD WAR: Of course Putin’s Ukraine invasion is front and center in the news, and China’s support for Putin implies that Taiwan and other nations are next. Everyone remembers World Wars I and II, and sees World War III shaping up, with Russia, China, and possibly Iran and Pakistan against everyone else. However, much has changed since WW II (especially in the areas of weaponry and economies), which may create a stalemate followed by peace. First, everyone knows about “mutual assured destruction” (MAD) involving nuclear weapons (especially true now with tech improvements in guidance, etc) so that the one foolish enough to launch a nuclear weapon will almost assuredly be nuked themselves. How smart would it be for Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to nuke Kiev or Guam, let’s say, when it would be so easy to take out Moscow and Pyongyang in retaliation? What few people know is that satellite and space tech present similar MAD scenarios, as the perpetrator could easily invite a devastating retaliation, which might bring down all the world’s communications (and infrastructure). There is an evolving MAD-averse concept, given the interdependence of economies (made popular by free trade). Though criticized by nationalists and isolationists, free trade more or less created many MAD-averse scenarios. In the future, tech may actually create a kind of perfect missile shield based upon space lasers (I can’t help the aside that it may be invented by rogue Jews in a nod to M. Taylor-Greene?). This missile shield might be extensive, with no country willing to take on the task of disabling another’s for fear of MAD (not to mention a massive disruption of any country’s way of life).
GLOBAL WARMING: I’ve written about this before, but we seem to be on a course for a combination of renewables (mostly solar, less wind) and fossil-fuels scrubbed of CO2, via carbon capture tech (if not nuclear fusion power in about 30 years). This is all happening rather quickly, not just because of worldwide government regulations, incentives and subsidies, but also because its getting cheaper and more efficient (while fossil fuels are getting more scarce). In the near future, batteries will likely be much more efficient, cheaper, and recyclable, helping this cause. With the realization that methane is as much a problem as CO2, and with natural methane releases with receding polar ice, methane will increasingly be “mined” for energy and methane release prevention (with CO2 removed via carbon capture, possibly converted to Hydrogen fuel). Scrubbed methane/natural gas is actually a great companion to renewables, which are great for cars, homes, and businesses, but bad for portable applications such as large trucks, planes, and ships (not to mention military equipment). The big thing is that since methane occurs naturally, it may be worse if we DON’T mine and scrub. It even makes sense to keep the natural gas infrastructure (a vast collection of pipes and engines) and replace it with “green gas” (methane or natural gas scrubbed of CO2, with perhaps some biofuel added). Plastics may be regulated so that there are less varieties and thus about 95% recyclable. People’s diets are already changing away from meat/grain and towards fruits/veggies given recent health information, and this will help the transition. Will this solve the global warming problem? Not entirely, we will still need to move to higher and cooler ground and plant more vegetation, but hey, Canada, Scandinavia, Patagonia, and Siberia might be nice places once we get used to them!
TRANSPORTATION: After the Covid pandemic, it struck me how about half the trips we were taking in our cars were relatively unnecessary. It would seem that a world of at least partial online education, dating, grocery, restaurant, hardware, and dry-good delivery would be possible. It also seems that trains may soon be the limited domain of large cities, while ever larger, cleaner, and more efficient aircraft take over mass-transit on longer trips (and smaller, cleaner, automated cars take over shorter trips). Virtual reality may become so good that many prefer “virtual vacations”
HEALTH: When all is known (and we are getting there fast), a rather optimal combination of exercise, diet, lifestyle, and medicine may have many living into their 90s (and having fewer kids). This may not exactly be a good thing for humanity, but its amazing how quickly this is happening. As such, the world’s population may be in decline by 2050, while growing food for humanity may be less of a problem by then (which might allow more room for much-needed habitat and greenery).
PANDEMICS: It should be scary to everyone how the world increasingly shares germs and unleashes new pathogens from jungles and wild animals. But it is also increasingly reassuring that science is able to create rapid antidotes for these pathogens, using an ever-larger toolkit which includes mRNA vaccines, CRISPR-CAS, CAR-T, and other emerging therapies. In fact, “anti-vaxxers” are going to look very silly in history, when it turns out they were making noise in the middle of this medical renaissance. Bioweapons? Well certainly they are something to fear, but historically a) They are difficult to launch and have potential to waft back upon the launchers and b) They may follow the rules of MAD, and c) Science may soon prove to have quick antidotes.
ECONOMICS: This is a hard one to solve, as when given the chance, all Nations will create funny-money to create the illusion of prosperity. But the saving grace is that eventually these economies collapse under the weight of inevitable debt and inflation, become the monkeys of creditor Nations or people (who are often forced to give easy terms, hoping to get 50 cents on every dollar owed). Everyone suffers comeuppance and belt-tightening, and then the cycle starts all over again, a kind of giant “reset” button. But the interesting thing is that the economic interdependence of Nations (a new thing that’s never really happened before in history) means that if some of us go down economically, we all suffer. Its like in 3rd grade when the teacher says “If the rest of you don’t help Johnny and Mary behave, you’ll all be punished”. Yet again, the laws of MAD are at work, which will make us all behave in the future, finally restoring a kind of Star Wars “Balance to the Force”.
POLITICS AND FINAL NOTE: Very soon, politicians such as Trump and Putin may go the way of flat-earthers who hated Columbus’ globe-sailing or religious authorities who feared Galileo’s telescope, as in “what the hell were they thinking?”
