Generational Dynamics
Fourth Turning Forum Archive


Popular links:
Generational Dynamics Web Site
Generational Dynamics Forum
Fourth Turning Archive home page
New Fourth Turning Forum

Thread: Evidence We're in a Third--or Fourth--Turning - Page 129







Post#3201 at 07-15-2002 11:19 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
07-15-2002, 11:19 PM #3201
Guest




Perhaps America just hasn't suffered enough, huh? Like the millions in France of 1918, of Russia of 1935, or the millions in Germany of 1945, in China of 1968, Cambodia and Vietnam of 1976, of Iran/Iraq of 1984, of the Balkins of 1994, of Africa of today.

Maybe 3,000 murdered by a pissant butcher just ain't gonna do it for America this time... Maybe veterans of 1942 have a better vision of America to reveal to us, huh?


In the early months of the year [1942], when the battle was fought, rain poured down almost steadily. The water was contaminated. MacAurthur's men ate roots, leaves, papayas, monkey meat, wild chicken, and wild pigs. They sang, to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic":

<center>Dugout Doug MacAurthur lies ashakin' on the Rock
Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock...
</center>

And one soldier wrote:

<center>We're the battling bastards of Bataan:
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no nephews, no nieces,
No rifles, no planes, or artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn.
</center>

Yet they fought on, with a devotion which would puzzle the generation of the 1980's. More surprising, in many instances it would have baffled the men they themselves were before Pearl Harbor.

Among MacArthur's ardent infantry men were cooks, mechanics, pilots whose planes had been shot down, seamen whose ships had been sunk, and some civilian volunteers. One civilian was a saddle-shoed American youth, a typical Joe College of that era who had been in the Phillippines researching an anthropology paper. A few months earlier he had been an isolationist whose only musical interest was Swing. He had used an accordion to render tunes like "Deep Purple" and "Moonlight Cocktail." Captured and sentenced to be shot, he made a last request. He wanted to die holding his accordion. This was granted, and he went to the wall playing "God Bless America." It was that kind of time.*








* Excerpt from Goodbye Darkness (1980) by William Manchester







Post#3202 at 07-15-2002 11:38 PM by chandalar [at Monroe, WA joined Jun 2002 #posts 25]
---
07-15-2002, 11:38 PM #3202
Join Date
Jun 2002
Location
Monroe, WA
Posts
25

On 2002-07-15 19:37, Croaker'39 wrote:

alan & Dave--

It is no longer impossible to fashion genes in your garage for whatever evil purpose, so long as the knowledge and the resources can be obtained. And now they can. Indeed there will be the ultimate bug and the ulitmate vaccine, one alternating with the other, punctuated by a whole lost of misery in between. It could be more horrific than the Plague. These are possibilities now, clear ones that need some attention. A global nuclear war would be preferred over the ultimate pandemic. There would be survivors, probably, who would wish they were dead.

Oh, sorry for the gloom. Got carried away.
Now *that* was depressing. I just attended a two day class/seminar on weapons of mass destruction. The three discussed were "dirty" nukes, chemical weapons and biologicals. The main point of all three was that their psychological effect was far more effective than the actual damage that they did.

"Dirty" nukes are very easy to clean up because it's easy to detect. The most dangerous chemical weapons are a) very difficult to produce and b) not very persistent. The Aum Shinri Kyo gas attack in Tokyo was done with sarin and very poor quality sarin at that. With 10 million dollars, a quality lab and the exact formula, they still were only able to come up with %30 purity. VX (600 times more toxic than chlorine) is even more difficult to produce. The stuff on the other end of things like mustard gas, chlorine etc. are nasty and painful, but treatable.

The single most effective response to biological attacks is the existence of adequate public health. The anthrax attacks were done by a lone individual (see http://www.fbi.gov/anthrax/amerithrax.htm )that behavioraly is similar to Ted Kazinski (the Unabomber). Without 9-11, the attack would have hardly made a blip.

The single weak link in this is our hospitals which are singularly unprepared for a biological event. Simulations have repeatedly demonstrated comlex or catastrophic failures to effectively respond to an effective biological attack.

The government is very ready for any chemical or "dirty" nuke attack. There are multi-million dollar Guard units ready to respond nation wide. Biological attacks are another matter.

News of the day: the corpses of two North Korean infiltrators were recently autopsied and found to contain smallpox antibodies. The only known samples of smallpox are stored at the Vektor Institute in Western Siberia and the CDC in Atlanta. We haven't been vaccinated against smallpox for 30 years.

Heh, my turn to be gloomy..... :grin:







Post#3203 at 07-16-2002 12:39 AM by Seminomad [at LA joined Nov 2001 #posts 2,379]
---
07-16-2002, 12:39 AM #3203
Join Date
Nov 2001
Location
LA
Posts
2,379

Retaking the test (and not being afraid to use the "not sure" button in certain policy areas :smile:...) yields the following list:
#1 Radical
#2 Liberal
#3 Third Way
#4 Left-libertarian
#5 Centrist
#6 Neoconservative
#7 Libertarian
#8 Paleoconservative
#9 Paleo-libertarian
#10 Conservative

which makes at least a little more sense...
Incidentally, the centrist link was my favorite out of all of them :grin:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Agent 24601984 on 2002-07-15 22:41 ]</font>







Post#3204 at 07-16-2002 01:31 AM by alan [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 268]
---
07-16-2002, 01:31 AM #3204
Join Date
Sep 2001
Posts
268

On 2002-07-15 19:37, Croaker'39 wrote:

alan & Dave--

It is no longer impossible to fashion genes in your garage for whatever evil purpose, so long as the knowledge and the resources can be obtained. And now they can. Indeed there will be the ultimate bug and the ulitmate vaccine, one alternating with the other, punctuated by a whole lost of misery in between. It could be more horrific than the Plague. These are possibilities now, clear ones that need some attention. A global nuclear war would be preferred over the ultimate pandemic. There would be survivors, probably, who would wish they were dead.

Oh, sorry for the gloom. Got carried away.
You definitely win the gloomy award for today. I'm filled with admiration when someone can outgloom me. :lol:







Post#3205 at 07-16-2002 02:07 AM by AlexMnWi [at Minneapolis joined Jun 2002 #posts 1,622]
---
07-16-2002, 02:07 AM #3205
Join Date
Jun 2002
Location
Minneapolis
Posts
1,622

On 2002-07-15 22:39, Agent 24601984 wrote:
Retaking the test (and not being afraid to use the "not sure" button in certain policy areas :smile:...) yields the following list:
#1 Radical
#2 Liberal
#3 Third Way
#4 Left-libertarian
#5 Centrist
#6 Neoconservative
#7 Libertarian
#8 Paleoconservative
#9 Paleo-libertarian
#10 Conservative

which makes at least a little more sense...
Incidentally, the centrist link was my favorite out of all of them :grin:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Agent 24601984 on 2002-07-15 22:41 ]</font>
Wow, I like that one too... If only they wouldn't go on so long a break... site hasn't been updated until June.







Post#3206 at 07-16-2002 08:26 AM by monoghan [at Ohio joined Jun 2002 #posts 1,189]
---
07-16-2002, 08:26 AM #3206
Join Date
Jun 2002
Location
Ohio
Posts
1,189

Chandalar,

You noted that there are Guard units ready to respond to certain types of disasters. Are these the ones that will fence off cities to quarantine the affected population? Presumably they have black helocopters too.

Spread the gloom to the libertarians and survivalists.







Post#3207 at 07-16-2002 08:46 AM by Croakmore [at The hazardous reefs of Silentium joined Nov 2001 #posts 2,426]
---
07-16-2002, 08:46 AM #3207
Join Date
Nov 2001
Location
The hazardous reefs of Silentium
Posts
2,426

The news of a synthetic polio virus is still fresh, and the scientific community is still blinking. Recombinant DNA is nothing new, of course, but designer viruses made from ubiquitous information and supplies is shocking to anyone who understands the implications. Now ANY gene can be slapped together to make almost ANY kind of protein, or to disable that function. NOTHING now will prevent perverse experimentation, as Virgil correctly disdains. This is one cat I wish never got out of the bag, and I blame my own scientific communitity, and not religion, for such portentious mischief.

It was inevitable. I didn't think we could make a pathogenic virus come together so soon by just sequencing DNA snippits. I liken it to the invention of gunpowder emerging in the East and speading to the West: knowledge and resources--misapplied technology--and the course of civilization was profoundly altered.

Chandalar is right: only the Silents and the dwindling GIs know the real FEAR of a pandemic. We don't fear AIDS like we feared the great measles epidemic, smallpox, and polio. I can remeber my mother, and all other mothers of America, marching at night from door to door against polio. Collecting dimes for iron lungs. My mother was sure I would get polio from wading in the Maumee River (Toledo, OH), and she was a rational RN. I didn't get it, though.

This fear factor will be exploited by terrorists, I'm sure, greatly exacerbated now by bio-techology.

And we haven't even reached the stage of designer prions--Mad Cow disease for more than just our Bovine American friends. Lot's fun coming our way. There are a few new things under the sun now more important than human vanity. And the Four Horsemen of Revelation, as I recall, have a rider dedicated to bio-terrorism.

Good morning!








Post#3208 at 07-16-2002 09:03 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
---
07-16-2002, 09:03 AM #3208
Join Date
Jun 2001
Location
'49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains
Posts
7,835

Mr. Jon Cohen has an article, Designer Bugs on the matter of terror and gene engineering in the July/August 2002 number of the Atlantic magazine. Not yet online in the public portion of the website, but on the subscriber side. HTH

_________________
Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at
something which you are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being
shocked. It may be that your grandmother was an extremely
lively and vital animal, and that you are a paralytic. G.K. Chesterton

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-07-16 07:04 ]</font>







Post#3209 at 07-16-2002 09:21 AM by eric cumis [at joined Feb 2002 #posts 441]
---
07-16-2002, 09:21 AM #3209
Join Date
Feb 2002
Posts
441

On 2002-07-16 06:46, Croaker'39 wrote:
The news of a synthetic polio virus is still fresh
Just to harp a little, Croaker, this is old news. The possibility of synthetic diseases has been predicted for decades and has been the subject of works of science fiction I read as a child. For example, "The White Plague", by Frank Herbert.

Your alarm is justified, however, despite your apparent surprise. Welcome to the 21st century.

I have posted a little here and there about the dangers of new technologies that could force us to significantly tighten security.

Some day, the fact that we used to let thousands of shipping containers enter our country every day without checking them out will seem amazing and naive.

Among other things, we must advance detection technologies and methodologies quickly, as well as developing ways to contain outbreaks. We will need ways to detect chemicals and germs in our air and water supplies (which will have beneficial applications to pollution control). The same technologies that allow synthetic germs can and must be used against synthetic germs.

We must do for human society what a person's immune system does for that person's body: detect the threat and eliminate it.

We need an ACTIVE defense: one that is always changing and improving to meet the latest threats.

Raising the alarm is only the start of what needs to be done. Schemes to put the genie back in the bottle are childish and won't work. We cannot argue with what nature makes possible. We must face facts and use our heads.

The additional security will increase costs in our economy, but the alternatives are worse. The additional security will have some cost to personal liberty, but not a neccessarily great cost.

Analogy: Being forced by circumstances to use a condom could be considered a loss of personal liberty, but not a great one.

Another analogy: Being forced by circumstances to use anti-computer-virus software could be argued to be a loss of personal liberty, but not a great one.

Likewise, being forced by circumstances to investigate shipping containers, test water supplies, do some sort of bioscan of people crossing international borders, etc., likewise could be argued to be a loss of personal liberty, but not a neccessarily a great one.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: firemind on 2002-07-16 07:26 ]</font>







Post#3210 at 07-16-2002 09:23 AM by monoghan [at Ohio joined Jun 2002 #posts 1,189]
---
07-16-2002, 09:23 AM #3210
Join Date
Jun 2002
Location
Ohio
Posts
1,189

I never understood why some governments or empires refused to educate certain peoples , but I can now see how fear would drive them to it. If some terrorist releases one of these nasties, how long will our universities accept students of the same terrorist nationality (unless they are Saudis).

Finally the Romans had enough and just salted the fields near Carthage. What would be the modern equivalent?







Post#3211 at 07-16-2002 09:31 AM by eric cumis [at joined Feb 2002 #posts 441]
---
07-16-2002, 09:31 AM #3211
Join Date
Feb 2002
Posts
441

On 2002-07-16 07:23, monoghan wrote:
Finally the Romans had enough and just salted the fields near Carthage. What would be the modern equivalent?
May the terrorists never make us so mad that we are freed of any sense of restraint. The result would be carnage such as the world has never seen. We are the technically advanced ones.







Post#3212 at 07-16-2002 10:02 AM by Croakmore [at The hazardous reefs of Silentium joined Nov 2001 #posts 2,426]
---
07-16-2002, 10:02 AM #3212
Join Date
Nov 2001
Location
The hazardous reefs of Silentium
Posts
2,426


On 2002-07-16 07:21, firemind wrote:

Just to harp a little, Croaker, this is old news. The possibility of synthetic diseases has been predicted for decades and has been the subject of works of science fiction...


Beg to differ, firemind. This is something altogether new, in real life. Polio from scratch! It may have been predicted--so was the lunar landing--but that precarious biological threshold hadn?t yet been crossed in any way resembling designer organisms. Viruses are not true organisms, of course, but they are alive, and they are the obvious bridge to designing FROM SCRATCH any awful creature you can imagine.

A very significant bridge is crossed when DNA sequences actually cause a living engine to kick over. As Virgil says, Mary Shelley?s ghost is a daunting apparition.







Post#3213 at 07-16-2002 10:23 AM by jds1958xg [at joined Jan 2002 #posts 1,002]
---
07-16-2002, 10:23 AM #3213
Join Date
Jan 2002
Posts
1,002

On 2002-07-16 07:31, firemind wrote:
On 2002-07-16 07:23, monoghan wrote:
Finally the Romans had enough and just salted the fields near Carthage. What would be the modern equivalent?
May the terrorists never make us so mad that we are freed of any sense of restraint. The result would be carnage such as the world has never seen. We are the technically advanced ones.
In fact, someone on another thread suggested that we might yet blunder into a full scale civilizational war with Islam, which he then predicted would eventually become at least as bloody as the Thirty Years' War in the 1600s. The predicted outcome was the virtual total annihilation of the Islamic World after a 20 to 25 - year bloodletting, due in large part to what he saw as that civilization's total contempt for any manifestation of the human instinct for self-preservation. In other words, the 'Invasion of Japan' nightmare scenario that some have claimed was only averted by the use of those two nukes.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jds1958xg on 2002-07-16 08:24 ]</font>







Post#3214 at 07-16-2002 10:24 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
---
07-16-2002, 10:24 AM #3214
Join Date
Sep 2001
Location
Meh.
Posts
12,182



WRT genetic engineering, plagues, and biowarfare, I have to say that I fall into the category of 'not particularly concerned'. People drawing parallels to Spanish Influenza, polio, smallpox, etc epidemics in the past are overlooking one significant piece of context. The same technology and know-how that makes the creation and delivery of man-made plagues possible today also makes people more able than ever before to fight (or at least mitigate the effects of) any epidemics down the pipe. All in all, I'd say the balance between man and bug is tipped much further to the side of humanity (or at least less heavily away) than ever before.


*yawn* Pass the nachos :wink:


"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#3215 at 07-16-2002 12:36 PM by Chris Loyd '82 [at Land of no Zones joined Jul 2001 #posts 402]
---
07-16-2002, 12:36 PM #3215
Join Date
Jul 2001
Location
Land of no Zones
Posts
402

He's finally finished with his great Plan. Oh well. Texas Driver License cards were never inspiring to begin with. In fact, you can read the whole thing. For now.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chris Loyd '82 on 2002-07-16 10:37 ]</font>







Post#3216 at 07-16-2002 02:18 PM by Max [at Left Coast joined Jun 2002 #posts 1,038]
---
07-16-2002, 02:18 PM #3216
Join Date
Jun 2002
Location
Left Coast
Posts
1,038

On 2002-07-15 19:37, Croaker'39 wrote:

alan & Dave--

It is no longer impossible to fashion genes in your garage for whatever evil purpose, so long as the knowledge and the resources can be obtained. And now they can. Indeed there will be the ultimate bug and the ulitmate vaccine, one alternating with the other, punctuated by a whole lost of misery in between. It could be more horrific than the Plague. These are possibilities now, clear ones that need some attention. A global nuclear war would be preferred over the ultimate pandemic. There would be survivors, probably, who would wish they were dead.

Oh, sorry for the gloom. Got carried away.
Humm.....Croaker, are you the grey champion/prophet?

Revelation chap 9:

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth: and the key of the bottomless pit was
given to him.
And he opened the bottomless pit; and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a grey furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.
And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earh have power. And they were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but, only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; and they will long to die and death flees from them.

Have a nice day :smile:







Post#3217 at 07-16-2002 02:57 PM by Croakmore [at The hazardous reefs of Silentium joined Nov 2001 #posts 2,426]
---
07-16-2002, 02:57 PM #3217
Join Date
Nov 2001
Location
The hazardous reefs of Silentium
Posts
2,426


justmom--

Grey, yes, but only a green champion in my pond. I'm also a Silent, cusping with incipient Prophets, but not in any class with Saint John The Divine:

?These have the power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophesy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.? (Revelation 11:6)

He may not have been very optimistic, but he got in the last word.









Post#3218 at 07-16-2002 03:05 PM by DOC 62 [at Western Kentucky joined Sep 2001 #posts 85]
---
07-16-2002, 03:05 PM #3218
Join Date
Sep 2001
Location
Western Kentucky
Posts
85

It is one thing to piece together a polio virus from "scratch" knowing the required DNA sequence. It is quite another to make a unique virus of bacteria to use as a weapon. Using a known biological agent, especially ones which are treatable, does not present a new threat. The new danger comes from custom-made agents designed to be hard to treat.
From a design standpoint, if the agent is fast acting it reduces the potential to spread. However, if it is slow to manifest it would give more time for treatment and would probably be less lethal.
I think the threat is more as as psychological weapon of terror than as a weapon of mass destruction.







Post#3219 at 07-16-2002 03:53 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
07-16-2002, 03:53 PM #3219
Guest



I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, folks, but every person posting at this website is gonna die.










Post#3220 at 07-16-2002 04:02 PM by Croakmore [at The hazardous reefs of Silentium joined Nov 2001 #posts 2,426]
---
07-16-2002, 04:02 PM #3220
Join Date
Nov 2001
Location
The hazardous reefs of Silentium
Posts
2,426


Yes, but some of us will die more than others.







Post#3221 at 07-16-2002 04:14 PM by takascar2 [at North Side, Chi-Town, 1962 joined Jan 2002 #posts 563]
---
07-16-2002, 04:14 PM #3221
Join Date
Jan 2002
Location
North Side, Chi-Town, 1962
Posts
563

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ?Edmund Burke

Anybody but Bush in '04!
The only thing neccessary for the liberals to ruin the country is for the Real Americans to stay home on election day - Taka

No one BUT Bush in '04!







Post#3222 at 07-16-2002 04:22 PM by Child of Socrates [at Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort joined Sep 2001 #posts 14,092]
---
07-16-2002, 04:22 PM #3222
Join Date
Sep 2001
Location
Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort
Posts
14,092

On 2002-07-16 14:14, takascar2 wrote:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ?Edmund Burke

Anybody but Bush in '04!
The only thing neccessary for the liberals to ruin the country is for the Real Americans to stay home on election day - Taka

No one BUT Bush in '04!
Oh, that's helpful in finding some common ground here.







Post#3223 at 07-16-2002 04:54 PM by monoghan [at Ohio joined Jun 2002 #posts 1,189]
---
07-16-2002, 04:54 PM #3223
Join Date
Jun 2002
Location
Ohio
Posts
1,189

Stonewall,

This may be old news, but I don't know.

Does the "Anybody" include Hillary?







Post#3224 at 07-16-2002 05:05 PM by takascar2 [at North Side, Chi-Town, 1962 joined Jan 2002 #posts 563]
---
07-16-2002, 05:05 PM #3224
Join Date
Jan 2002
Location
North Side, Chi-Town, 1962
Posts
563

On 2002-07-16 14:22, Kiff '61 wrote:
On 2002-07-16 14:14, takascar2 wrote:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ?Edmund Burke

Anybody but Bush in '04!
The only thing neccessary for the liberals to ruin the country is for the Real Americans to stay home on election day - Taka

No one BUT Bush in '04!
Oh, that's helpful in finding some common ground here.
Just telling the truth.







Post#3225 at 07-16-2002 05:06 PM by takascar2 [at North Side, Chi-Town, 1962 joined Jan 2002 #posts 563]
---
07-16-2002, 05:06 PM #3225
Join Date
Jan 2002
Location
North Side, Chi-Town, 1962
Posts
563

On 2002-07-16 14:22, Kiff '61 wrote:
On 2002-07-16 14:14, takascar2 wrote:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ?Edmund Burke

Anybody but Bush in '04!
The only thing neccessary for the liberals to ruin the country is for the Real Americans to stay home on election day - Taka

No one BUT Bush in '04!
Oh, that's helpful in finding some common ground here.
Just telling the truth
-----------------------------------------