Hi Karen,
I much enjoyed your description of Bush and his origins. For the
delectation of FWers who might have missed this previously I append it below.
Over here, we know little about Texas apart from the fact that their
window-cleaners have trucks the size of our fire-engines and that the males
of the species wear strange metallic devices round their necks instead of
historically-validated neckties.
One of the most fascinating questions of today is just how long will
America remain at the top of the heap? The writer who discusses this
directly is Kennedy ("The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers") but Fukuyama
(in "Trust") and Landes "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations") also contain
more than a few hints that it might be thumbs-down sometime soon.
With a navy four times larger than all the rest of the world's, and with a
quarter of the world's surface under its control, there cannot have been a
more powerful nation than England four generations ago. That's only
yesterday. Perhaps we're more sensitive than most about the fugacity of
power and maybe I'm betraying some sort of lurking Schadenfreude in
suggesting that America has probably already topped it. But, let's be
honest, there must be something badly wrong with a nation that can elect
such an intellectually handicapped, and very possibly criminal, president
as Bush.
As suggested in my recent reply to Ed Weick, a predominant empire loses its
power when other nations take innovation and technology further. In the old
days when nations actually fought one another this was mainly military
technology but, in the last collapse of a great empire, the Soviet Union,
it was because it couldn't match up to the fecundity of America's
consumer-based innovations.
So, in this view of history, what technology will be the cause of America's
decline? As I see it there are only three leading candidates at present:
nanotechnology, solar technology and biogenetics. The first two -- for
which there is no pressing market need at present -- are bubbling quite
nicely in the retorts of R&D labs in several parts of the world, but with
no clear lead anywhere as far as I can judge.
It is biotechnology which is the really interesting one. I've already given
sufficient evidence (16 July and previously) that the Chinese are several
years ahead of any other nation and that the name of Lu Guangxiu will be as
well known to our grandchildren's grandchildren as Newton, Darwin or Einstein.
There can be very little doubt that within about five years -- and ten
years at the very most -- Lu Guangxiu's techniques will be able to offer
unrejectable organ-tissue replacements to anybody who can afford it.
Bearing in mind that there are about 40 million individuals in the world
who have wealth in excess of $1million (that is, loose cash in addition to
their property and incomes), and that, probably, about a fifth of these
could already do with a better heart, liver, kidneys, what-have-you, then
it's likely that at least a million will be queuing up for treatment in
Beijing when the doors open.
I don't know what proportion of health spending will be devoted to tissue
replacement in the coming years, but we already know that the cost of
health in America is already approaching 15% of income, and nudging over
10% elsewhere. I will simply make the judgement that, in 20 or 30 years,
organ replacement will likely be the most expensive item in health care and
the largest single item in a (middle-class) consumer's lifetime shopping list.
Now then: what are the practicalities? As I see it, there are two
constraints. One is the legislative permission to practise human cell
cloning (which is absolutely necessary in order to match tissue precisely),
and the other is the training of the surgeons and technicians able to carry
out the operations.
In the case of the first, Chinese legislation is already allowing the
cultivation of cloned cells in foetuses (though not allowing them to
develop further into 'individuals') but in America and other developed
countries (though I'm not sure of the position in Japan) there is
legislation preventing present research to be taken much further and,
what's more, opposition to more liberal legislation appears to be growing
rapidly (from the reactionary right in the US and, ironically, from the
liberal left in Europe). Thus, I cannot see any country other than China
having the freedom to develop the new technology within at least the next
five to ten years.
The other constraint is: how quickly can the Chinese train sufficient
numbers of doctors and technicians. There is already evidence that they can
turn them out in large numbers if necessary. They have long practised the
idea of differential medical training, so that millions of 'barefoot
doctors' were able to fan out across the whole extent of China in the early
decades after the Communist Revolution in 1949. More recently, after the
Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, when medical schools were
resuscitated after being shut down for years, high quality training of
surgeons was telescoped into about three years instead of seven.
For the most part, tissue replacement technology will probably be able to
be automated on a large scale. Patients who need a new heart or lungs will
be able to send a blood sample to China, where the appropriate tissue will
be grown in vitro or in animals such as pigs. Then, when the organ is large
enough some months later, the patient will need to go to China (unless
America opens its doors to Chinese businesses) and the organ is merely
inserted in standard operations with absolutely no problems due to rejection.
In short, I think we can take it that if the Chinese research of the next
five to ten years goes forward without meeting insuperable problems, then
they will be able to supply the infrastructure that is able to cope with
consumer demand on a considerable scale.
On any pan balance, tissue replacement will outweigh in money value all
other normal consumer products added together. If America or Europe are not
able to develop tissue replacement technology in the next five to ten years
and catch up with China's lead, then China is going to wipe the floor with
America and the rest of the world.
By the way, I'll make an intermediate forecast. All those American
corporations who've been pushing for stricter intellectual copyright laws
within and without the WTO's rules, will before long, change their tack
completely when they realise that the Chinese are already patenting many
vital aspects of tissue replacement technology. If there are going to be
charges of intellectual piracy and plagiarism then it will be American
businesses, not Chinese ones, in the dock. But, probably, unless the
American politicians can get their fundamentalist voters off their backs,
and legislate accordingly, America is going to miss the next boat.
Keith
At 08:01 16/07/02 -0700, you wrote:
(KWC)
<<<<
Keith, this Texas Tale has a message, just as most good stories do. In
hindsight, it might have been a good idea if Texans had been able to look
beyond that old time homeboy pride and famous name recognition when Poppy
and Bab's firstborn decided to run for governor. I can't decide if this
chapter of a family's history and the nations' is more of a tale from a
banana republic or Shakespeare.
But you can't really blame the Texas voters for this. You have to look at
the money people who saw an advantage in having a well-connected native son
with poor training, limited experience and dubious motives advanced in
national politics and furthermore, the people who have become his Troika of
Power advisors.
>>>>
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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