massornament

The first decade of the twentieth century is one of the most schizophrenic of the modern era I would have to say.

The explosion of finance (taking over the majority of some of the major economies such as the U.S. and U.K.) and the expansion of the middle-class in many countries,  the explosion of communications technology, the (partial) democratization of that technology,  the almost unfathomable extraction and processing of natural (and some finite) natural resources, the advance of science and knowledge and art, travel across the globe and elsewhere on a regular basis, the fact that almost seven billion humans exist, and some in prosperity… is all testament to the marvelous spectacle that the human species has become.

Of course, there was a whole other side to the coin: (in no particular order) the (divided) U.S. Supreme Court intervening in the Florida election, the George W. Bush administration (the entry for an ideology advocating U.S. hegemony and pre-emptive warfare in the world’s hyperpower), dot.com bubble bursting, Sept. 11 and the de-stabilization/radicalization of the Middle East (with lots of help from Western nations), Enron/WorldCom/etc., mindless and mind-boggling consumerism, loose monetary and economic policy (everywhere), graft and corruption (everywhere), financial fraud on a massive scale (or the realization that our modern economy is a Ponzi scheme actually fueled by cheap petroleum energy), the Iraq War, $140/barrel oil, real estate bubbles (everywhere), the seeming rise of xenophobia and divisive politics in many countries, the massive concentration of wealth world-wide, and (the related) massive expansion of the money supply (everywhere), pollution and environmental degradation, Peak Oil/Energy, the “Great Contraction” and financial meltdown world-wide….

I have heard/read many people who say the first decade of the 20th century has been one of the worst in some time and I would have to agree.  And all at the time that we were worried about was if our computers might crash.

(Sent from my old desktop that I am going to convert into a Linux-distro-testing-safe-internet-surfing PC in the coming week…)

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