<< So what? You say you lack vision. Fortunately for the human race (and SF fans!), not everyone does. >>
Again, you have completely missed the point. This thread is about the notion proposed a decade or so ago by Francis Fukuyama that the defeat of communism by liberal capitalist democracy somehow constituted "the end of history" because, according to Fukuyama, there could never be a successful alternative to liberal capitalist democracy that could challenge and replace it. I said that just because Fukuyama couldn't conceive of such an alternative, such a potentially successful challenge, didn't mean there would never be one. To demonstrate Fukuyama's fallacious reasoning, I pointed out that there are plenty of historical examples of similar flawed thinking, of groups who never even questioned that their system could possibly ever be dislodged. It doesn't mean that at other times there were not people with vision or imagination, people who saw alternatives. If there weren't, there'd never be any change. This is about the vast majority of people who DON'T have vision or imagination. This is about anyone who believes that the dominant social/cultural/political/economic force of his own particular time is destined to ALWAYS REMAIN the dominant social/cultural/political/economic force forever and ever. Which is most people. See, I'm actually on your side. Fukuyama was wrong, and so are people who have thought like him in the past. I'm just pointing out that he's only the latest in a long series of people who were similarly wrong. Tom Beck "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I didn't realize I'd also see the last." - Jerry Pournelle
