<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#954F72;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We used to write a lot in this forum on conflict technology, but now we do not for it seems to persistently devolve into political chaos.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I offer a challenge to our small technology-oriented forum. Write about this topic if you will, but without mentioning the name of any political leader, party, nation, anything that is not a universally-applicable meta-concept. Recent historical events are fair game of course, and relevant, but who did what is not.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Twenty years ago on this forum we wrote a lot about future warfare, which would do away with marching columns of young men with rifles on their shoulders, desperate hungry refugees, destroyed cities, generally do away with the horrors of warfare. We thought of how much better it would be if warfare was a battle of technology, or at least better from the point of view of technology-enabled societies. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Recently we saw a fulfilment of a dream. We saw persistent conflict between two nations. The more advanced nation fired one missile and took out one military leader and his staff. The enraged victim nation very carefully fired back 15 missiles but hit nothing. Intense but very localized destruction, low loss of life, few of the traditional well-known horrors of war.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The reason I prefaced this discussion on requesting we leave off with politics and focus on technology and the future: we don’t live in the real world. We don’t. Look at us. The closest to a real-world person here might be BillW, for he is a retired college professor who has seen it all, but we haven’t. But consider the rest of us. Good chance no one here suffers poverty or real hunger, no one here is desperate or addicted, everyone here at least has a computer and an internet connection. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I look at myself: I grew up in a rural area, went to a small college, studied engineering, worked for a company surrounded by people who had never done anything wrong more serious than ripping a tag off an old pillow, and could strap on a polygraph and prove it. That isn’t the real world. I have some second cousins who live in the real world. I am horrified by the vague descriptions I hear from them. We live on the same planet, different worlds. However… they vote, and there are more of them than there are of us.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So… I urge that we focus on what we know best: science and technology.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>By some mysterious means the other guy does not have, a tech-advanced society reached in with one missile that came from some unseen radar-invisible source, guided by some undetectable technology of some kind, achieved the result the tech-enabled society wanted with little of the traditional horrors of war. If we look back 20 yrs in the ExI archives, we had a demonstration of the dream we wrote about and vaguely envisioned.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>