In another message, I talked about a Eurasian Alliance, one consisting
of France, Germany, Russia, central Asian countries, China, India,
Iran, perhaps other Middle Eastern oil producers, and perhaps other
Eurasian countries.
I mentioned that the United States could counter such an alliance by
supporting governments in central Asia, Georgia, and the Ukraine that
favor the US, as it does.
However, I do not think such US strategy will survive in the long run.
The smaller countries will be influenced by the combined power of the
big continental European powers, China, and India.
Consequently, other than a major change in US politics, the two big
possibilities for the US are technological, science fictionally
technological:
* to advance alternative sources of energy enough so that use of coal,
oil, and natural gas drops rapidly; and,
* to advance manufacturing dramatically.
`Alternative sources of energy' may well include currently impossible
hydrogen-boron fusion. Other options, such as bio-fuels, provide too
little energy for countries like the US, unless genetic engineering
increases the efficiency of photosynthesis by a factor of ten or more.
(Many do no realize just how much energy is used by an industrial or
post-industrial country. They think only in terms of their house and
an office.)
Manufacturing might leap forward if companies developed and used
inexpensive `droplet jet' or `ink jet' technologies for metal and
plastic. (I think this is called `microtechnology'.)
Nanotechnology looks to me to be more in the future, although a fast
nano-technological self-replicator, like a `big' Von Neumann machine,
would change everything. (As far as I can figure out, a `big' Von
Neumann machine is possible, but expensive. The US could afford its
design and building, but will not.)
Clearly, not long after one fast, industrial self-replicator is built,
manufactured goods that use metals and plastics become cheap, energy
becomes cheap because solar collectors are cheap to make, status goods
become hand made, and the environmental impacts of mining become
important to the powers that be. But I do not think any one is going
to fund a fast, industrial self-replicator in the near future, even
though it could benefit many.
Can the US develop and innovate such technologies? This is a question.
Over the past generation, many in the US became powerful by `gaming
the system'. They honed their skills on bamboozlement, rather than on
engineering. We see this in the derisive term for managers as
`suits'. The Dilbert comics depend on this theme, that the `powers
that be' cannot make and sell what others need, but they do know how
to pretend.
Will the `powers that be' in the United States, political and
otherwise, see the need for huge amounts of improved education,
research, and investment?
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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