<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=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> spike@rainier66.com <spike@rainier66.com> <br><br><b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><b>>…</b>The benefits are subjective, theoretical and generally invisible to us. The risk is objective as hell, concrete, painfully visible…spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>With the following essay I hope to outline a vision for the most optimistic estimate of my own lifetime, about 50 years, which assumes I make it well past 100 (unlikely I know but theoretically possible.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We in USA live in times where we are fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, but we know that it very well could spill over into Poland at which time there is a very real risk of escalation: the planet’s two most heavily armed nations could duke it out with their most sincere and horrifying weapons. This gives a whole new meaning to the term “Duke Nukem.” This is of course a grim vision indeed and I predict (and hope like hell) it does not happen. But it might.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In the event that Russia and NATO nuke it out, Africa will be sitting down there below the line of fire, watching missiles going back and forth but being hit by none. There isn’t much on that continent anyone would want to destroy. When all the radioactive dust settles and the corpses buried, Africa is still sitting there, inviting technologically-advanced survivors. You saw that map showing that the land area of Africa is equivalent to a hundred other nations. There is plenty of room there to go back to where we started and build from there outward.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A nuclear holocaust doesn’t kill everyone on the planet. It would kill billions, and perhaps billions more would starve in the nuclear winter described by Carl Sagan. But a billion or two would survive, many of these in Africa. In the nuclear winter scenario, sub-Saharan Africa is in relatively good shape. If some tech-advanced society has a good solid toehold in lower Africa (or even the Sahara) then we could get a hundred years head start on getting back to where we were a month ago.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>