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Marvin Dansie
I’d like to rant (to complain or talk loudly and angrily for a long time, sometimes saying unreasonable things) about the current situation our country (planet) is in.
How does that Billy Idol song go? “The worlds gone crazy and everything’s hazy --”
It is pretty obvious that the political system in the US, the government of the most powerful nation (currently) in the world, is broken. We have lost our way as a nation and we don’t know what the hell we are doing or where we are going. Is this the way you pictured the future?
I find it ironic that with all that information at our fingertips, that so few of government officials (all those people that we elected) bother to actually research any of the issues they pass laws to address. I guess that most of our elected officials are just like a majority of the rest of the general population - they really don’t understand the time-value of money, let alone how the national and international economic systems work. They are probably above average if they can still do long division. They were elected to help solve the problems we face but they are basically under informed (or ideologically biased) on every issue, and all the big money that is available to elect our officials has corrupted their desire to do what they know is right.
With the advent of the internet, the knowledge of the world became instantly available. Imagine that, a tool that could give you the answer for almost any question you could ask. The problem is that that answer may not be true - in fact there is far more misinformation out there than there are hardcore facts and data. There is so much information out there that it is beyond comprehension - it is information overload, so you have to make sure that the information you use is true. It is easy to be deceived if you are not careful.
The problems are many. The planet’s resources are limited (and so far mankind has been extremely efficient at converting them to garbage and industrial waste). The world population is nearly seven billion and growing. The ecosystem has been significantly degraded, and changes in the mix of atmospheric gases is changing the climate. We have allowed the introduction of genetically modified plants (like corn that has had a gene for insecticide production from a bacteria spliced into its DNA) to be released in the environment without fully understanding how they are going to affect the other living organisms on the planet (like us) and there is no way to recall them.
Our government is not only not addressing the real problems, they are busy creating make-believe problems to keep us all distracted and quarreling with one another. And that wonderful tool (the internet) has morphed into the virtual world, where people (myself included) can spend all their time distracted and avoiding dealing with the screwed up real world. All is not lost yet, but we are definitely headed in the wrong direction (globally) and time is running out.
The world has become so complex and is changing so fast that if we don’t start addressing the real problems of the planet - then what?
It kind of makes me glad I am not any younger than I am, because I think the future is going to be a very intense and challenging place to live. I fear for my children and grandchildren.
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