CHOICES, THE HISTORY OF THE FUTURE
60The History of the Future
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - A team of U.S. and Ethiopian scientists has discovered the fossilized remains of what they believe is humankind’s first walking ancestor, a hominid that lived in the wooded grasslands of the Horn of Africa nearly 4 million years ago.
Making a Stand
Walking the Walk
Earliest Human Ancestors Discovered In Ethiopia; Discovery Of Bones And Teeth Date Fossils Back More Than 5.2 Million Years
— Anthropologists have discovered the remains of the earliest known human ancestor in Ethiopia, dating to between 5.2 and 5.8 million years ago and which predate the previously oldest-known fossils by almost a million years.
Our earliest human ancestors may have walked upright 6 million years ago
Washington, Mar 21 (ANI): A six million year old fossil has anthropologists suggesting that the species may have been the earliest known hominin to walk upright.
The fossil, belonging to the species called Orrorin tugenensis, was discovered in the hills of northwest Kenya in 2000.
To Be Or Not To Be
I created the graphic and verse below perhaps thirty or forty years ago. I’m not very good at keeping track of time. They are both remnants of my childhood, which was heavily overshadowed by the immanent threat of global nuclear war.
Although that threat isn’t much in the news these days, the “War On Terror” being a much more immediate source of profit, it is probably a greater risk now than it was during the once and future Cold War.
At least back then the game was apparently only being played by two “super powers”, mostly for political/financial purposes. Although there was nearly one terminal error that we actually know of, the players back then were really more interested in posturing and saber rattling. It was a game of nuclear chicken for control, rather than annihilation, of all Life on Earth.
In spite of various test ban and non-proliferation treaties and promises to reduce stockpiles there are still thousands of nuclear missiles, armed and ready to launch at a moments notice, aimed at major cities all over the world.
There is today the additional pressure of the “War On Terrorism”, created by the Bush administration. This is not actually a war ON anything but rather a war FOR the spread of absolutely unfettered capitalist globalization. An unfortunate consequence of this ill considered attempt at global plutocracy has been to considerably swell the ranks of radical fundamentalists that were previously in a very insignificant minority. Among this lunatic fringe, no more or less fanatic than the ownership zealots that fostered them, are doubtless individuals who would not hesitate to use a nuclear device should one chance to fall into their hands. This fact and the general awareness of the possibility create the very real opportunity for another false flag episode of a magnitude that would make 911 pale in omparison.
We have been making choices throughout our brief existence as a species. It would seem most of them have been made to ensure our history remains brief.
CHOICES
Destroyer of Worlds
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Comments
Discovering that mankind existed more than 5 million is really astonishing but interesting! I like your poem CWB.
Still here for now Gypsy Willow. Tomorrow is another day.
Not exactly mankind shamelabboush, but our earliest ancestors. Pre-human primates that paved the way for what we have become. Now that's a sad story.
Hope we can survive but it does seem we are letting the capitalist machine continue with its parasitic ways.
Possibly, but hopefully not. Where do you reakon is the safest place on the planet?
If only a few survive the coming financial/ecological/climate/political holocaust, goldentoad, maybe they'll move forward again, working together to build a better society.
Australia... no one nukes Australia because everyone plans to escape there to live maybe a another 20 years before the toxic clouds and poisoned water over run the whole ecosystem.
God not the mushroom cloud argument I was over this in 2002. Only cowards and bullies resort to whipping out their Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile and waving it around and only fools pay attention to them. I have as much power to stop some crazy in Af-Pak from grabbing an under-guarded fission reaction devise as I do stopping some over-stressed bureaucrat with more security clearance then sanity from setting one off here. I am not going to worry about nukes dammit. Its way too ominous for me.
Once we can stop waging conventional wars for school yard bullshit and profit then we can figure out what to do with all the symbols of our past insecurities. I mean there has to be some way to harness and project the force of a nuclear explosion in space so as to power long distance space travel. I mean its not rock- I guess it is rocket science, but we got people to work on that sort of thing right?
Of course hopefully not Writer Rider.
Safest place? Do you mean in the event of a global nuclear conflagration?
If it were truly global, involving all the players, there probably wouldn't be anyplace really safe.
Deep underground with lots of supplies to last until the radiation falls to safe levels would be my best guess.
That's problematic though, because different forms of radiation produced by nukes have half-lifes ranging from days to millennia.
I think people are starting to kind of go numb on the impending catastrophe end of things, which is too bad, because we are facing all these serious issues. But think about it: For the past eight or nine years it's been one "Run For Your Lives!" thing after another, and at this point, even I'm tired. I'm to the point of just feeling like, oh fine, whatever, we're all gonna die, yeah, yeah, yeah...Just do it, just get it over with.
I'm not blaming you CWB--I always agree with you and I agree with you here too, but it's unsustainable, the level of alarm and horror. A person still has to do the laundry, wash the dishes, pay the electric bill. I just get overwhelmed.
And now hurricane season is starting...
Good poem. Nice hub as always.
Well Horatio, I get the impression that things aren’t going real well in the outback these days. I once thought about relocating there. Daydreams I guess.
Like I said at the top, this was stuff I came up with back around 1980. I'm just talkin bout the glory days.
The fact that these weapons are still around, costing us millions every year to keep in tip-top shape while we can’t manage to provide health care or a decent education system, really pisses me off.
We can wipe out the human race in fifteen minutes but we can’t manage to teach our kids how to add without using a calculator.
We should have sent them all into the sun a long time ago. Would’ve given NASA something to do between shuttle launches.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s just one more demand on a long list of responsibilities our “representatives” have failed to fulfill.
Not to worry though. Once you and I are in control it won’t be a problem. Ours will be a NIKE kind of administration. When something needs to get done, we’ll just do it.
I wish I could just go comfortably numb myself pgrundy. I suppose I could crawl into a bottle or something but I don’t think it would help much.
I guess I feel like as long as I can keep ranting about this shit, maybe there’s still a chance something can be done. My life has already been sufficiently screwed up but I’d really like my grandchildren to have a chance at something better.
You’re right. It is overwhelming. I just can’t leave it alone.
Thanks.
Very good Richard, I'll be trying to cross link this somewhere in 3100...
I am reminded of the kids movie Ice Age where the DoDo birds advance with that crazy look in their eyes chanting "doom on you, doom on you." LOL
It really irks my goat that my kids could be sitting in a field blissfully contimplating a butterfly and Whomp! The whole S* house goes up in flames.
Religious prophosies aside (who am I kidding, some of those fanatics want to fullfill the prophocey) just look at the state of the world. Put two and two together. I would write a book on it, but I suck at diologue and it wouldnt get published till after the fact. LOL
I read a hub from deep in the "Evil Terrorists" part of the world and got inspired to try something.
Check out
I'll have a look but I generally avoid the forums like the plague. Far too contentious for my taste.
Horatio, that would be possible. I'm just afraid of the faultline which was was inches away from a tschunami in 2004. Lucky for Australia, the ground moved in favor of SouthEast Asia and we know the result of that. I agree with everything else you've written. As for space travel, from what I've been researching, they use wormholes instead...cuts time in half.
Coldwar, that's an Idea! I wonder how many people can live underground with artificial oxygen, though. I hope nothing happens but I have a sneaking suspicion that something will.
There are monster underground facilities left over from the cold war Writer Rider. NORAD. Cheyenne Mountain comes to mind. Who knows what the hell these maniacs have buried under mountains or the desert?
"Who knows what the hell these maniacs have buried under mountains or the desert?"
I'd give my right arm to find out.
I heard they were doing genetic experimentations on humans and animals.
If you haven't seen this you might find it interesting MindlessBrute.
I think those sorts of experiments are going on a lot more openly than that Write Rider. They're just not being publicized.
I think you are absolutely correct there CWB.....those experiments ARE happening all over the world! It's only the US that sanctions science - the rest of the world actively moves forward in discovering just how much control is available, they just don't write about it.
Although I'm a big fan of science Jmell, I'm very concerned with the implications of some things that are pursued without a lot of thought given to the possible consequences.
Jeff Goldblum has a line in Jurassic Park I paraphrase all the time, we're so preoccupied with whether we can do something we don't stop to consider if we should.
Gypsy Willow says:
7 months ago
Sad, sad poem. We are still here to tell the tale (just)