The Singularity Cometh: Is Writing Science Fiction Still Possible?

This is a brain spark built on an article in the I09.com site, offering a POV on the anticipated Confluence of new and life-changing technology 25 years or so hence, and the resultant social challenges for us mere humans. The article looks at the problem of the SINGULARITY.

Thesis: how can we now write about the future when the Singularity cometh and will change everything by leaps and bounds?

Is it becoming impossible to write about a relatively near-future that will likely be so different, none or very few current authors (in his or her right mind...hmmm) can even fantasize? By most expectations, this historical threshold of a new human spurt in techno-socio evolution (the Singularity) will happen in a few decades. But apart from literature, what about the real changes themselves? Will our physical bodies become passe’, self-regenerating, unnecessary? So far any changes can only be surmised in terms of magnitude and generality, not specifics. Current writers and thinkers can’t imagine or dream what our lives will be after the Singularity, although some new vocabulary has come to be, e.g. “post-human” and “trans-human”, which suggest ...…what these words try to grapple with, I suppose.

The Singularity? “Wha” you might say? Well, lets educate ourselves broadly. First, to set current context, there are two meanings of “Singularity” floating around the Culture these days and both carry lots of weight, so "Singularity" is a double Meme. For the nerdy-nerds who visit my “other” blog, The Singularity refers to the fearful “Naked Black Hole”, a cosmic-physics predicted artifact in the form of an infinitely small point in space-time with such immense gravity it chug-a-lugs planets, stars and galaxies at a phenomenal rate…and supposedly spits them back out but into a different space-time universe. The NBH has less likelihood of existing in our sector of the universe than a Jack Russell terrier beating all the Vegas and Monte Carlo black jack tables every play, every day for several years…but since the whole universe is so large, such odds are not so bad. Let’s say most scientists are hoping this is one prediction that is not detected in our corner of the universe. Get the point?

But the Singularity about which we speak here is a tamer (maybe)event that is human-significant, tho involving and driven by human technology. This Singularity will affect our culture and how we will live. This Singularity defines and is defined by a sort of threshold in human affairs (cultural history). Human cleverness will finally whole hog get away from us,hopefully just for a while, and we will need all the species intelligence and cooperation we can muster to come out the other side with sanity, though we will be morphed in many ways. But, again maybe we will finally do the Job and just evolve away.

Our Singularity, 20-30 years from now, will be a confluence of several or more major technical advances, already conceptualized and under research, which will pop into being and “presto-whamo” there you are: newness abounding, sentient artificial intelligent machines (AI), DNA tinkering leading to centuries-long life spans, energy surpluses from harnessing fusion, no limits to pretty much everything of consequence even those we can’t now imagine such as a myriad of delightful quantum devices and toys among other things like teleportation (we’ve already demo’d it in the lab over a meter’s distance tho with just molecules).. Our human-made Singularity will challenge us in many exciting and difficult ways.

Our evolved monkey curiosity will have finally confronted us with an unavoidable door opening and consequences of our own making. We will have to step through that door and develop new paradigms for our lives, our social interactions and our vision of the “future”. Our “bodies” will have new meanings in themselves and to us personally. At base level, there will be artificial intelligence (AI): AI will very likely be poly-modal - it will take the forms of being external to us (near- thinking cyber-robots, cyborgs), internal within us (souped up brains, super hearing and vision, etc), and hybrid - e.g., a true organic internet with brain implants, enhanced human bio-traits via more genetic tinkering and further paradigm shifting advances. In short, we might be presented with the choice, for real this time, of keeping, artificially enhancing or just leaving behind our physical bodies. The meaning of being human will change, hence the terms trans-human and post-human.

Perhaps most importantly, what will we do with ourselves? The Hunter-gatherer mode will be gone as a survival need, but it might hang around as a nagging itch. Maybe it will mean we can choose what “life form” suits our fancy. Personalities perhaps can be uploaded into vastly large memory quantum-multibit arrays on a microchip (VLQMA), or confined in a gaseous bubble (possessing infinitely large quantum degeneracies). Anyone for Self-Aware-Plasmoidal-Sentient-Entity? SAPS!!

Although it's argued that since we can't imagine life after The Singularity, it's almost impossible to write about it. On the other hand, some posit, with good reason, that you could bring Socrates forward in time and show him the Singularity World and he would understand!?!?! But then again, imho so would Phillip K. Dick (1968, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which was made into the movie “Blade Runner”, 1982). Is it truly becoming impossible to write about the future? The recent sci-fi/cultural-commentary movie, “District 9”, presents an alternative view that ultra-advanced technology might co-exist with unsolved human-life trivialities such as slums, unsolved garbage disposal, prejudice, etc. Message? The road to Nirvana is long and winding. [more recent authors on this topic: C.Stross, The Glasshouse (2006)and Singularity Sky (2003); J.McDevitt is another post singularity thinker.

Post script. For further interest and reading, Forbes presents coverage of the October 3-4,2009, 4th Annual Transhumanist Summit in NYC ("Calling All Transhumanists", Courtney Boyd Meyers). Here is a brief taste of the thinking of the Summit president, Michael Vassar:

Michael Vassar, the president of the institute, gives the Singularity just under a 25% chance of happening by 2040 and a 70% chance by 2060. When we do cross that line, Vassar says nothing will be the same. "Humans living in the post-Singularity world will be as powerless as jellyfish are in today's world," he says. His odds don't take into account the chances of the world plunging into rapid technological decline due to a nuclear war or a worldwide collapse into barbarism.

Vassar's six staffers at the Singularity Institute, including Kurzweil, publish papers with titles such as, "Uncertain Future Project," "Global Catastrophic Risk Project" and "Economics and Machine Intelligence," and have developed software that supposedly predicts technology's trajectories and generates odds on the occurrences of global catastrophes like nuclear war and global warming.

We can expect a flurry of Singularity discussions and conferences as time moves along.

The Personal Lives of Our Kultural Icons - Politicians, Make Us Believe, Please

There is a kultural monster shading us all with its shadow as we "discuss" (gossip, criticise, etc) the extra-marital antics of our political icons. This Golluminous entity is America's idealized personal standards which a politician must appear to meet to get elected (and which no mere human can satisfy). Then of course, we are a most manipulatable people who appear to love to be deceived. We are addicted to the stroking and wooing from our political candidates who belong only to us. Their wives and families we allow to exist as long as they know who's first in the line of favorites of the candidates, and of course the winner of our affections. Further, despite the continued past failures of our political heroes to live up to our standards, and by all reasonable thought processes will continue to fail in the future, we so love the experience of a moment's (maybe the first 100 days) feeling that the One has finally arrived. I am not a psychologist but isn't this kultural neurosis? It's a wonder that the very warped (or at best, disguising) individuals who, naturally, gain our approval to live in the White House or governors' mansions, haven't long ago ruined the nation and states. On the other hand, since America comes close to ruin in predictable cycles, a realistic explanation must link up a matrix of factors including the our American innocence (a tired act), our gullibility and lastly our desire to to be seduced.

Anti-Abortion, American Style: A Full (and Humane) Anti-Abortion Program Might Cost $100 Billion Per Year And Add A Million New People, Annually

Preface: This blogger believes that not long from now global population pressures on our non-renewable resources, and our renewable ones as well, will motivate our leaders to move towards global population planning or a less emotional attitude towards abortion (especially here in America). Along with this will have to come a change in positions of some world religions who currently act as if nothing has changed since several hundred years ago and place strong taboos on abortion, birth control and even sex education; and symbolically diminish the equality of women by excluding women from their priesthood.

Meanwhile, our global population is reaching a level that may soon exceed the capacity of our resources to feed and shelter us; and further, will not allow our resources to renew. This picture is ominously progressing in increasing clarity. For example the global demand on drinkable water is becoming felt and, for the benefit of doubters, there are now even "water" stocks traded globally. Yet, there are those who seemingly don't see the warning signs or for ulterior motives - political opportunism and even cynical monetary gain - furiously deny there is any need to change our habits.

The American anti-abortion position appears to be such a movement of denial. The anti-abortion movement makes no sense because it is incomplete, short-sighted and underneath everything there appears to be an accusative and punitive sentiment borne perhaps of an unhappy and poor childhood; there is a thinly-disguised hate of females and sex and there seems to also be a spirit of unforgiveness and a desire to prove that sex is bad by seeking to ban the tools and techniques and services that make for responible sex. In brief, the anti-abortion movement proposes no abortions but also denies women of their right to avoid unwanted pregnancy, because the same group is also against sex education, birth control and expanded aid to children of working mothers.

As a side note of debate against the anti-abortionist position, there is a growing examination of our social dynamics that indicate allowing abortion appears to solve or certainly provide relief to other of our social problems.

One such examination is the apparent, and unexpected, but after-the-fact common sense consequence that permitting abortion reduces the numbers of children who grow up unwanted, economically disadvantaged, undereducated, undernourished or diet-disadvantaged, i.e. children who are prone to crime. This insight on the subtle aspects of how current econmomics work in abortion and other areas is detailed by the authors of the two -book "Freakonomics" series - Freakonomics, and Super-Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, who write convincingly (Freakonomics, Harper Perennial, New York, 2009, Chapter 4, principally pages 136-45) that:

"in other words, the very factors that drove millions of Americn women to have an abortion also seem to predict that their children, had they been born would have led unhappy and possibly criminal lives" - Freakonomics, page 139.

With "Freakonomics in mind, in the face of our national dilemma over abortion, there is an easy answer: either we permit counseled abortion after providing access to birth control and sex education , or we have a humane, non-abortion national program with all the attendant costs and support programs for the mothers and children. The American anti-abortionists seem not to have not considered either of these aspects of their preference - they do not have not an idea what is a full and humane program because they neither want nor have proposed any full program. Nor have they considered the cost of a humane program, perhaps $100 Billion annually by estimate here. The prevalent American anti-abortion notion is ultra-simplistic and one expects much more from a modern, ethical and responsible society.

Anti-abortion can't be a simple matter of just outlawing abortion. A "full and humane" abortion program, the only appropriate kind for a modern developed America as explained below, must care for the health of the child from conception through, perhaps, early teens and preferably until "maturity, 18 years old. Costs of a humane anti-abortion program have not been placed before the public. Probably because the costs are formidable, but perhaps the real reason is the anti-abortionists are simply opprotunists who are using a billboard phrase at the expense of unwanted and unsupported children whose lives will have misery and want.

This blogger calculates that the cost of a mature, humane anti-abortion program that nurtures the non-aborted child only through age 8 would add almost a mllion new people to the population each year and entail new expenditures starting from a base of $63 Billion annually, not including secondary infrastructures such as schools, medical facilities and new administration which all could bring the full anti-abortion cost to $85-100 Billion annually at program maturity....permanently! Or, roughly $1 Trillion over 10 years. Or, near 2 Trillion over 18 years. This is a big addition to national expenditures from family and government which I don't feel has been understood, or admitted to, by the anti-abortion, "pro-life" supporters.

This blogger's views on abortion have evolved through various perosnal and media-influenced phases to a current viewpoint that American anti-abortionists have only a limited grasp of the full meaning of their objective. The greatest reason for this incompleteness of their position, it is apparent that many agree with this viewpoint, is that America's views on abortion are dragged to and fro in a religious-political-race-gender tug of war often with little regard for the mother-to-be or the child-to-be, or the child-after-birth. The focus seems instead to be on some kind of idealized icon of the (virgin) mother and child, and a deep fear of preventing a second coming. Consequently, this single focus on the mother-and-babe icon, prevents the pro-life movement from to extending its political concern beyond superficial image (of the pregnant mother, or at best the mother-with-nursing babe) to the reality of child rearing, health care, etc. THe pro-lifers seem not to care what the child's life is to be, quality wise, after birth: there is no agenda how the pro-lifers want to make the child's life one of joy and maximum attainment of potential. There is no follow up to just stopping abortion. No nurturing love is shown for the babe once born. No inclination, nor idea even, of what comes next after committing to birth. No support program to assure a quality of life fitting a highest-echelon developed nation.

American pro-life thinking seems to think the child's care (early childhood nutrition, follow on education and well being through adolescence) is an extraneous, automatic given, i.e., to be taken care of by someone else. Thus the anti-abortion agenda is an idealized, iconized picture where once the child is born, society has done its job ....and instead of nurturing, a kind of predatory, laissez-faire, Darwinian coldness (abandonment?) sets in. Once birth occurs, the anti-abortion view turns nasty and judgmental: the more than probable unsuccessful performance of the mother (because the mother is usually too young, too undereducated, too unemployable) is judged and loaded down with finger pointing and guilt-building because self-sufficency is also the American way. As for the child, it rather immediately has become one of "them" - the poor, the disenfranchised, the non-mainstream racial group, etc. In other words, true love for the child as a social asset to be nurtured into a contributing, well-adjusted adult, is just not there. Shame and blame, the American neurosis.

The anti-abortion movement seems to expect the new child to not only breathe but to take accountability for itself (share in the guilt trap)as if it were an instant adult needing no "special" treatment or services, and deserving none. The new child is expected to survive as best as it can in an overcrowded American society where everyone is increasingly focused on their own survival.

Where did this short focus, this callousness toward children, come from? This blogger, from exposure to studies in european history, from medieval throgh the industrial revolution, believes the "Huddled Masses" that emigrated to America were indeed huddling...from fear, abuse, massacre and murder by autocratic, totalitarian European governments, and from plagues and famine and drought. Given the grimness of these nightmare pasts (and instances of babes on hooks hanging in butcher shops during the Russian and east european famines and political turmoil)it is no wonder the at some core level, America's attitude toward its children is far behind that of an evolved Europe. Mix this history of the American people with the knee-jerk worship of laissez-faire self-sufficiency, the literal angry-deity biblical images, and there we have it - the single-focused, incomplete, abusive anti-abortionist agenda.

IMHO, Anti-abortion agendas must include a full system of pre-and-post-birth child care, society-provided sex education, pre-natal care, free birthing, post birth child care and education. If we are not prepared to provide all these aspects of loving care for the child, we are then indulging in the highest, most sinful, hypocrisy at the expense of the child and mother (who is usually young or teen, kept-innocent by lack of proper sex education, deprived of birth-control mechanisms for religio-political reasons, etc).

What would be the cost of a "full and humane" abortion program? First, there are about 850,000 American abortions annually, 25% of American deaths in 2007. Average American pre-natal costs in 2004 were $7600 (US Dept of Health and Human Services, Agency for Health Care and Quality,CQ HealthBeat): costs for hospital visits, prenatal office visits, prescription medicines and other pre-natal and birth services. The cost of raising the child from birth to age 8 is a little over $9000 annually for a moderate income family(US Dept of Agriculture, Child Raising Calculator, 2007). Supporting a child from birth through age 18 totals around $200,000. On the other hand, a first term abortion averages about $400 which is a minor offset from the $7600 average cost of birthing cited previously.

With these official figures in mind, in a full and humane anti-abortion program at maturity (year 8 say, minimally), the annual cost of birthing 800,000 non-abortions will be $6.3 Billion less the "saved" abortion costs of $320 million, or roughly $6 Billion net cost of birthing the non-abortions. At the 8th year of program operation (maturity), there will be 8 cohort groups with a steady state population of 6.4 million children each requiring an annual $9,000 support, or $57.6 Billion annually for each year thereafter. After adding the annual $6 Billion net birthing cost in the eith year, the annual anti-abortion cost at program maturity onward for birthing and nurturing the close to a million non-aborted children through age 8 will be about $64 Billion. Even with the minor saved expenditure of banned birth control products, the annual cost of a humane anti-abortion agenda would still approach $64 Billion! But, this figure would have to be substantially increased because of the additional children conceived and born if birth control was also banned. Likewise, to be picky, there will be an increment from multiple births, 3% (+25,000 or so); but this will be lessened by mortality rates for infants (-5,600 annually: 0.7%, 7 per 1000) and for children to age 19 (-2300 assuming linear mortality: officially to age 19, 0.065%, or 66 per 100,000). These tend to cancel out or at least contrinnute in the net a minimal change in steady state estimations above. Overall, a picture of approximately A $64 Billion-plus permanent annual expenditure seems reasonable and merits serious thought. Can we bear this? What about additional, and probably substantial, costs - e.g., added child care facilities, schools, health care, etc.? Maybe another 20-40 Billion will be required! So, a possible real figure for a anti-abortion program that covers child nurturing only to age 8 would be $85-100 Billion annually. Can the already stretched resources of the nation meet this challenge? And what if the program were extended to nurture through a more humane 18 years of age? The 18 year, steady state non-aborted child population of nearly 14 million, would cost nearly $150 Billion annually? What about the planet’s capability to sustain the demands of so many more top-consuming Americans? What about a future of severely depleted resources as the global population increases - will all nations have to plan births carefully? The anti-abortion movement does not appear reasoned out or reasonable.

Though this blogger strongly criticises American anti-abortion thinking, he also believes abortion is not simply a female right or self-choice, although a woman's right to her body is paramount. The mother-to-be's decision to abort is vitally important to society and should be exercised after appropriate and unbiased counseling, free from dogma. The saved-from-abortion child is society's child, a national investment and responsibility to care for. But American culture seems to put a twist on things. Our anti-abortion attitude is also shaped by a male-dominated, non-involvement with the physical birth process. Males have never felt, nor ever will feel, the birthing pain, so to American males - clergy, politicians and the just interested - who are so obsessed with preventing abortion, the birth process, and after care, is a distant matter, a non-physical event, a rarely seen video. So what's the big deal, he might say.

All of this boils down to America's sometimes immature, distant, male-dominated, religio-mythologizing of pregnancy and birth-at-whatever-the-consequences. You say this is not about what the anti-abortion movement is for? Well then, we would have to then admit that caring for, rearing, and educating the child afterwards just miraculously occurs.... doesn't it?.

Of course, a full and humane anti-abortion program would be a tremendous social commitment. But can it really be done? Realistically it can't be done humanely because real-world budget constraints would constantly exert pressures on legislators to trim the the program's funding.

GOP redux: Palin, Bachman, LimbicGuy, (Sanford et al), are Posited as Post Moderns? (That and More, I fear)

RJ Eskow wrote July 6, 2009, a very stimulating and enlightening piece for HuffingtonPost re the most recent of Sarah Palin's feints, dukes, swerves, and dives into empty swimming pools which, if one thinks not very hard about, usually results in instant if not very painful death. Eskow makes a nice case for describing Palin's resignation from Alaska governorship as a post-modern piece of recent, GOP political theater events and utterances where all is acted out with outrageous flair, and nothing is taken seriously - as if the Alaska voters' wish and expectation (not implied but by actual vote count)that Palin serve as governor for a full term is taken in the same way Boston drivers regard red traffic lights as some kind of annoying advisory. CIGA ("Can I get an Amen!", for future ref.).

I like Eskow's treatment of Palin's, and the rest of the GOP menagery's actions. Yes, in my opinion, "Post-modern" seems to fit just as well or better than any descriptor proposed to date to describe what appears to be going on with GOP. Plus, it seems every week, GOP shows us one more better-than-before move. Like restless leg syndrome, GOP can't keep itself under control. The strangest feeling one gets, me for sure, is we observors aren't the only ones laughing. GOP is also laughing as if they are in the next theater seats with tears-rolling-down, watching their own antics - giggling (Bachman), slithering-scales-dragging (Limbofoisteduponus), strange gurgling (Beck), verbal-diarhetic (Sanford). Sometimes it seems they in the audience are being watched and laughed at by their very own watched-stage-dopplegangs...so on and on in mind bending iterations. What a show...in the round. Adolescent boys the world over have a very apt term for this kind of inanity,..begins with "circle..". CIGA.

W... is going ON!!! One idea... Clue - recall how it feels when the walls have closed in and there is no way out? The brain gives up, then the body follows and all is serene and eventually everything has turned into such a hoot...there is nothing more to fret, "Dont worry..MON". Ever been at the bottom of a eight guy football pile on and heard the bursting forth of escatic laughter and shouting, by everyone, when the tangle can't be untangled quickly..you just have to wait it out??!!! QED.

Even as an indie-demo (post-modern political analogy of a lo-cal, Cap, one spritz caramel, half-americano....etc), I feel drawn to the Nuvo-Greek comic-tragedy that GOP is putting on. The troubling but fascinating aspect of this GOP theater is how delightedly GOP play all parts - audience and actors, hero and tyrant, miscreant and judge, buffoon and king, winners and losers, booers and cheerers, dead and survivors...all with equal joviality and dont-give-a-damn self-applause. Agree with Eskow - this is sure some kind of quirky drama. Palin-Bachmann as the post-modern, post-material 80's Madonna twins? But GOP has taken it further...GOP seem to reach such peaks of delight at self immolation (e.g.,the smiling not-enigmatic, I-sure-am-nutty-Ha Bachmann, Limbaugh, Beck, even smirky-half-leer-smack-lip Palin, et al). Ahhh, got it! Is GOP en masse turning to performance Zen?

Are we all at a BYO cookout where most of us bring franks and beans and similar stuff, while GOP with great gusto and guffaws offer up their souls, self respect and futures?

We dont exactly know, but from stage rear, do we hear faint but dark strains of "...what's troubling you is the nature of my game?"

Yes, "troubling" sure comes to mind, but, see, it looks like there actually is no "game", as a sane person might understand. GOP looks more to be a random walk under a full moon. Loony tunes. And Betcha more GOP 'fun n games' comes a'shufflin along. Yup, troubling but its your rear-end, GOP

GOP Tales from the Other Side: SC Gov. Sanford - 2

Well, couldn't even dream up this one - a long-term mistress in Argentina? A tearful press conference-confessional - however, one that started out with the Appalachian Trail lie but segued into the truth (confession)? Regarding the publication of his and her personal love-emails to each other, this is my opinion about reading them, based on my Huffington Post comment from June 25, 2009 (there will be more - hard to leave this issue):

Will not read Sanford's emails. Crosses the boundary between news and just plain nosiness.

Rather, am very concerned about what might be the real tragedy: how did an adult (man) who appeared to be presidential material fall so tragically and so far from a beginning with just emails? Isn't this a juvenile syndrome? And he appeared so contrite and guiless about it. The man began this folly by falling in love with words!

A bigger picture: isn't Sanford's fall another warning about our disassociated culture? Angst in a disassociated, power-worshipping but kulturally-unempowering age? And what about male-delayed-maturing syndrome under a rich mama-wife. Probably a big "Yes" to both.

The whole pain is his, but each of us owns a piece of it. Leave the emails to those who need to feed on another's failure, no matter how bloody. Tho I feel his pain, I hope Sanford will not relapse from his newly found confessional liberation and become another Rethug, McCain-clone loser...sorry, user...sorry, just sorry. Aaah! Sad. Sincerely hope the family, especially the kids, come out of this ok.

Sagas of the Real GOP: Governor Sanford (SC) in Argentina

So he EVENTUALLY wound up, or stopped off, in Argentina (media should verify this)..on his way to...from..where again? Hmmmm....anonymous departure....anonymous return (attempted)? A subtle, wafting, aroma. Toto?

Just saying, but ya know former presidents carry weight with quick fix visa approval.

Passport at hand, just for whimsy of course. Visa? No luggage? Don't all airport customs offices have American and foreign VIP lists and wouldn't a sitting US governor be on that list...and be logged in... or should be..under normal conditions?

Well, Gov.Sanford just had his dead dogma belief system ripped apart when the SC legislature and supreme court over-ruled his refusal of Stimulus finds, but is that his excuse? Is he really expected to spend Fathers' Day in the company of a warm and caring family? Then go back to work with a bunch of good ole boys who just want to get along and go huntin and fishin? Are you kidding? Buenos Aires bound (to tune of "Alabamy Bound").

GOP : A Lesson of Non-Survival from the Past - the Ruin of the Roman Empire because of Too Much Looking Back for Answers to the Present

James J. O'Donnell (Provost, Georgetown University) writes that in the sixth century the Roman Empire failed largely by not being able to keep up with change both inside the empire and in the world outside. Instead of coming up with new ideas and policies, Rome adopted a conservative outlook and blindly held on to beliefs and policies (ideologies) of the past (James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire: HarperCollins e-books, 2008). Professor O'Donnell describes, in Rome's moment of crisis, the empire's leaders desparately needed to understand how Rome was changing and how Rome might adapt to new nations and rivals. Instead, Rome chose to be true to its past ambitions and accomplishments, with catastropic consequences and the end of the empire. Dr. O'Donnell writes:

Old errors are easy to reenact—as fading empires, bereft of self-awareness,struggle again to use their old power to preserve themselves, and in so doing risk weakening beyond repair; as religious communities mistake their faith for destiny and find pretexts for behavior that goes beyond even the unconscionable and the imaginable...[and generate] a noisy anxiety of those who would transform — that is, ruin — what they do not understand.

Dr. O'Donnell advises a current path for America: calmness, pragmatism and putting aside fear of the future.

However, the GOP appears to be repeating the demise of 500AD Rome. GOP is so out of touch it can only dig in its heels at every intellectual or policy challenge facing America that calls out for change and say "No".

To be sure, the world and America are undergoing rapid changes. But to many Americans, the quickened pace and new directions are exciting challenges because they point to welcomed "Change" by providing opportunities for new ideas and policies. While the majority of Americans and the world are putting their shoulders to the wheel and helping to dig out solutions, the GOP seems without a clue except to vainly, desparately do absolutely nothing and to block all forward movement. The best the GOP seems capable of is to plaintively invoke the old shibboleth of "Reaganism".

The plight of GOP spokespersons is clear: they appear empty-minded and lacking new ideas that are appropriate for current times. Sadly, also, the GOP have perfected the art of embarassingly bad-behavior such as making adolescent, racist jokes at awkward and ill-timed moments(Limbaugh, Beck, Bachman, Hannity, et al). The GOP show is so ragged it is hard to look at. Are GOP truly that bereft of ideas, honor, maturity, self-respect? 'Fraid so. But,.... the tickets are free to those of us watching the clown in center ring.