I watch/read/hear the stories lately about government and about science/thought/philosophy. I find the direction of the sciences seems almost opposite to that of our current government situation. The sciences are in largely a state of flow, meanwhile government (both in the U.S.A. and elsewhere) appears to be in more of a state of ebb. Not in the sense that there is less of it, more in the sense that we’re moving backwards instead of forwards.
I see things happen in the sciences, such as the “teleportation” of atoms, and various other things in society that are aligned with philosophical thought (which itself could be considered a science of sort, though not a “hard” science) such as the open source movement which is quickly growing (thanks largely to proprietary software’s failings). Also taking into account United Kingdom’s recent review of it’s IP laws and ways to improve them – an amazing and interesting development in and of itself. We can see the move forward in sciences and thought, towards a better way of being where knowledge is shared and not owned, and science continues on par with imagination. Sharing knowledge, and imagination – these are some of the best human traits.
It is in one of the other great human traits that our governments are failing miserably: compassion. I hate to focus purely on one government, but with the current media system in the U.S.A. it’s the one I see the most – ours, of course! Various tactics for suppressing voters including the now near-infamous robo-calls which may result in lawsuits. The death of Habeas Corpus is a great example, and soon getting out of the country might be a little harder – not that it wasn’t already. This all seems like a move backwards to me, and that’s just the short list. We’re polarized in the U.S.A., because both of our political parties are too busy fighting with each other like a bunch of 5 year olds to actually do the right thing, which is quite simply to stop messing with foreign countries and fix our own problems. We attack Iraq – lying to the world about evidence we truly never had. Our own government is full of scandal and corruption – any group of people who watches passively and covers up while one of their buddies sexually harasses teenage boys deserves to be removed from any seat of power. Such characters can not be trusted. Any person who allows our rights to be slowly eroded away does not deserve to have any power. I don’t care what party you’re in, if you do any of those things you do not deserve to be making decisions for this country. We’re moving backwards as a country, because we don’t care, because most of our citizens sit by and stare blanking at a TV screen full of crap. It’s today’s coliseum – keeping us distracted.
We move forward in one area but backwards in the other, why? Because too many people have stopped caring. The few that still care are the ones taking action and changing things, but the rest of us sit still. I’m guilty of this as much as anyone else.
