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SH20-The Seeds of Destruction (Part 3)
01/08/2007 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
Mark been talking about SH20 (pronounced S-H-2-O), the second half of the 20th century. Specifically he has been saying that improvements in the fortunes of the average person during those years may have been self-limiting and brought about many of the problems of the 21st century. Previously I was talking about how during SH20 the cost of healthcare increased, but workers in corporations had security because their companies were footing much of the bill. But that worked for the American worker only so long as they were employed. Workers from other countries could live more cheaply and were paid less, but they were far away and did not compete in the same job market.
There were geographical barriers to prevent corporations from using the less expensive labor from lower- powered economies than our own. The telecommunications that allowed the individual better and better access to information first from families (with things like long distance calling) and then from strangers (over the Internet) were rarely seen as a threat to the workers' security, but they were. A little better foreseen was that computer software could also be competition for the worker. The computer, a much more indefatigable worker, could eliminate many jobs. These days the American worker has much more competition from the computer and from labor abroad.
There can be little job security for anybody whose output can be moved from another country to ours over a wire. With more international some competition prices are coming down, but that includes the price of labor.
When I was in high school and college we had the devastating Vietnam War. That made lives very bad for some people I knew. We presumably even lost that war. (I say "presumably" because I was to Vietnam in 2001 and found I could walk down the streets of Hanoi and see shops with boxes that said Sony and Panasonic and hundreds of international brands for sale. You see Internet cafes that fill up with high school students as soon as school lets out. Creating an ideal Communist state is not really what the younger generation wants these days. Who actually won that war is a moot point that could be a subject for another article.)
There is a reason that the enemy we fought in Vietnam was particularly difficult to fight. That was the way the enemy was structured. Really what we were fighting was fairly new. We were fighting an enemy made of little groups of dedicated fighters. Destroy one group and you have just taken out one group, you have not significantly damaged the network. It is the same reason that the Internet would be so hard to destroy--if you take out part the rest just routes around it. It is the same reason that crabgrass and cancer are so hard to get rid of. (These are all called "semi-autonomous networks.") With the Vietnam War the fighting was limited to one country.
The public saw an untenable war, but it was still a war that was "over there." In the 21st century we face global terrorism that is structured the same way, a semi- autonomous network, and it may not be just "over there." We are fighting an enemy that includes cells that are over here. Recent attempted attacks on New York and New Jersey demonstrate that some of the conflict may be within our borders. I think that fact should not be trivialized. And the terrorist forces are structured like a network where taking out pieces will not significantly impact the network. I don't think that many of us have realized that fact and considered its implications, and it is probably going to have a powerful negative impact on all our futures. Fighting an insurgent network on our own soil could be much more nightmarish than many of us realize.
I think we are seeing the quality of life degrading little by little. And the big slide may be ahead. Previously we lived in times when there were a lot of doomsday predictions. I remember being told that there would be no elephants left in the year 2000 due to poaching. We were told that the plankton were dying and that would destroy the food chain. I myself was convinced that the Y2K bug was going to have very dangerous consequences.
Many of these predictions were exaggerations well intentioned but intentional nonetheless by people anxious to get action on their particular cause. Some were just selfish lies from people making money. Some may have been valid concerns but are taking longer than expected. But the predictions bred and fueled a counter- movement of skeptics. Some people were reassured that the status quo was pretty firmly in place. But many of these scenarios are based on well-founded fears. It takes only one of two of the predictions to be realized and our stable society may prove to be not so stable and not so pleasant. I cannot help believing there is a good chance of that.
It may well be true that every generation as it ages its people feel they have reached a period of unprecedented threat or just that they have lived through the best of times. Perhaps faced with the then new threats of nuclear warfare your grandparents felt that the 60s and 70s were a particularly threatening time.
Their parents saw the rise of Nazism in Europe was bringing the possible end to civilization. I know I am now in my fifties and I see us headed for what I think may be unpleasant times. They seem to be much less agreeable than the times I lived the majority of my life. With all that was wrong with the second half of the 20th century, it may well prove to have been the best of times. Whether that is true or not we all shall see.
Mark Leeper
(c) Mark R Leeper 2007
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