17 June 1987, 17:53
I have entered a new adventure in learning (for which my wife and I have given one hundred and seventy-seven American dollars). This adventure is entitled Sociology 480 – Society of the Future. The other members of this adventure will share the ideas we bring to the class and the ideas of the members of the Worldwatch Institute who have issued “A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society,” entitled State of the World 1987.
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17 June 1987
Dr. Donald Tarter, instructor, Sociology of the Future
- For the next 25 years, NOBODY CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE!!!
- Doesn’t stop us from asking, “What if…?” “What can happen?”
- Some have made bold predictions in science, literature and behavioural studies:
- Carl Sagan
- Arthur Clarke
- B.F. Skinner
- For instance, Sagan predicts that survival over the next 100 years for endangered species is less than 10%.
Analyzing the Pressures of Population, especially ours:
- Population factors such as growth rates, supply and demand for resources
- Energy alternatives — availability of supplies
- Mineral resources
- Agricultural resources — can we grow enough?
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29 June 1987 20:20
A visit by Dr. Carl Sagan to Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss “Star Wars or Mars.”
Leaving this planet
- Application of rocketry
– developed by Chinese
– developed into instruments of death and destruction by Europeans
60,000 nuclear weapons
1 submarine can destroy 192 cities
“A central exchange” – ~200 million to 2 billion killed on tight nuclear winter — destruction of agriculture; starvation, destruction of ozone layer would bring about equivalent of large-scale AIDS
You cannot trust estimates of probability of failure when the stakes are high
- Solutions
“Star Wars” a/k/a SDI (strategic defense initiative)
Render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete” — President Reagan
If simultaneous deployment by both sides were possible then the shield would be feasible
- Cons
Porosity — one Senate group predicts 16% of Soviet weapons destroy
10% getting through means 1000 Soviet weapons which would wipe out America
U.S. is invaded daily by small aircraft carrying the weight but not the density of nuclear weapons
Decoys and penetration aids, low flying (depressed) flight paths, increased number of warheads built by Soviets
Computer program “battle management system” to detect and destroy the nuclear warheads would be too complex to design and debug
If U.S. had first strike then Stars Wars could wipe out remaining Soviet nuclear weapons
Would cost $2 trillion U.S. dollars
Some scientists refusing to be involved in SDI — ~10,000 in number
Estimated that $600M spent on SDI in Huntsville
Not worth the cost even if money was available
National security should be measured by wealth of economy, not by money spent on national defense
Children should look forward to growing up
- Alternative — bilateral decrease in strategic arms
Rocketry
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TWENTY-FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THESE SHIP’S LOG ENTRIES WERE WRITTEN…
Where are the ideas discussed in today’s “sociology of the future” class going to take us another 25 years hence?
- Will computer modeling look as quaint as some of Sagan’s ideas look today?
- Will our integration with electronic technology so blur the line between a body and machine, we stop paying attention to the distinction?
- Will space exploration and planetary settlement make us no longer an Earth-based lifeform?
Rick wants to come back and share with you the future 1000 years from now but he promised himself he’d retire from active management of our species and fulfill his destiny to become one with nature, whatever that means. Don’t make him come out of retirement and tell you what he already knows you’re going to do. Trust that words like “recession” and “depression” are purely labels used to reinforce our species’ overprocessed development of social engagement we call economics and has nothing to do with how well our species will adapt to ecological changes currently in progress, such as planetary warming that goes against what should be a cooling period. The planet transforms, individual species dying away as species always do, ours doomed to eventually disappear in the grand scale of planetary history — doesn’t matter if it’s in thousands, millions or billions of years, does it? Keep on keeping on.
treetrunkdings 