J. M. Verville

I often think about the future and how things will change… Today I felt particularly inspired, for whatever reason, and I have decided to write on the topic. Without further ado…

(Divided into Academia, Religion and Politics)

Changes In Academia

The Archeology of the Internet: all facets of humanities will be affected tremendously by the sheer amount of data storage that started from the ’80s onward. All academics in all humanities fields will look over the late 20th and early 21st centuries with great curiosity and it will prove incredibly insightful. I imagine that there will be great efforts to peer into the individuality of our era, and it will prove a great burden as well as a great boon to all of these fields.

When it comes to sociological, political & historical analysis the blogs of ‘nobodies’ (as well as famous blogs) will be put into massive databases to analyze ‘true public opinion’ of the time. There are errors in the “objective polls” that occur, as pollsters themselves have sometimes admitted…

There will be an entire class of scholar branding themselves as ‘Archeologists of the Internet’ or perhaps ‘Internetologists’ who will strive to classify and order blogs of all types in order to analyze us in all manner of light; they will even do their best to determine biases within this period (e.g. were there more liberal bloggers than conservatives? Were more of the conservatives prone to knee jerk reactionary attitudes, and were the liberal bloggers more prone to more extremist stances than they would hold in real life? etc.). It’ll be an amazing field…

The Arts (particularly music): the study of music and art will change drastically.

I am not qualified to speak on visual arts… But as far as music goes: scholars will look back to our time and dedicate great effort into the analysis of electronic music, hip hop, punk, metal, etc. and all ‘alternative’ forms of music.

The people who will be viewed as our Beethovens, Wagners, Vivaldis?

Naturally famous musicians like John Lennon, Ozzy Osbourne, Bob Dylan will be regarded highly but I predict that scholars will be most interested in the seminal, early works of each genre of music — whether it is stuff like Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin in electronic, or NWA, Tupac, Jurassic 5 in hip hop… And of course, our dear metal music.

As far as my favorite goes, Black Metal, I do believe that the material of Burzum, Mayhem and Darkthrone will be studied, but also the revolutionary and breakthrough works in lo-fi music with ‘unique’ sounds like Eisenwinter, Drowning the Light, Ildjarn, Absurd, Beherit, etc. will be studied for their individual interpretations of lo-fi art. More progressive black metal acts (which I am generally less interested in) will be studied — this will be a particularly difficultl field because the sheer number of quality acts is astronomical.

Music itself cannot progress much further than where we have gotten to — the realm of electronic music, of course, seems to be ‘inexhaustible’ but in reality the human ear is already reaching its limits as we speak. My guess is that there will always be ‘revolutions’ occurring in sound, but these will all be easily compared to what we were developing between the ’40s & today.

We will find professional music scholars who specialize in everything from ‘classical’ to ‘hip hop.’

I imagine there will be people in the year 2090 saying stuff like, “I am a Black Metal fan… Of course, I enjoy the classics like Burzum but I am more of a fan of the 2040s-2060s Latin American lo-fi black metal that experimented with lo-fi EBM mixed in, not dissimilar to some of the Drowning the Light and Eisenwinter albums from the early 2000s.”

People will make bands that focus on the imitation of specific styles… I imagine there will also be bands dedicated to covering the incredibly extensive amount of music from the 1980s - 2090s, and it will be respectable to ‘cover’ and ‘re-interpret’ classics. Just as a school orchestra seldom (if ever) composes their own material, there will not even necessarily be a need to ’song write.’

Artists will be respected for ‘digging out’ gems from this period and putting their own interpretations on them.

Probably by 2030, there will literally be enough of a history of Metal (and other forms) to have musicians specialize in simply ‘rehashing’ old pieces.

There will probably even be people who will gain some recognition for releasing albums that are nothing more than “1990-2030: A Journey through North American Black Metal” that might even ‘mix’ these one into the other. DJing music will be elevated to a higher form of art. There will probably even be DJs for genres like Death Metal who will host little parties and specialize in playing 1-3 minute clips back to back of a mix of well known and unknown tracks from the previous decades of music.

Religion

My guess is that religions like Baha’i will perhaps become more popularized due to the world ‘getting smaller.’

Traditional religions like Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism will probably prosper; scholars will be liberal and more widely allowing, as a general rule. Buddhism and certain sects of Hinduism might become more popular due to their ‘philosophical aspects,’ and Christianity & Islam will also begin emphasizing their respectively large pools of philosophical thought and experience their own sorts of theological renaissances.

Atheism & Agnosticism of course will exist and may even encompass a larger segment of the population but I believe that the friction between ‘nonbelievers’ and ‘believers’ will diminish greatly. The reason being that religion’s more liberalization will give less reason for opposition, and like any movement… When it attains ‘acceptance’ it becomes a shadow of what it once was. In a sense, atheism & agnosticism will be de-fanged by their relative success.

Knee-jerk reaction atheism & agnosticism will disappear for the most part.

The ‘great debate’ that is the existence of Godhead will dwindle down to personal feelings. I think that religion, overall, will ‘gain ground’ as it entirely disentangles itself from the archaic fundamentalism — but we must also understand that ‘fundamentalism’ as we know it is mostly a 19th century reaction to what was perceived as the ‘threat’ of science.

But such a “threat” cannot exist for long as science deals with the observation of the natural world while religion deals with the larger philosophical question of what is beyond the natural world and what is the potential origin of life. Even if the very origin of life is explained in scientific & natural terms, the ‘prime mover’ concept of existence will carry on.

Politics: Resurgence of Populism/Fascism In Its Myriad Forms

It’s been a long time coming.

Democracy is the sacred cow of the 20th century. Democracy implies that ‘the majority of public opinion’ is correct, and should determine our leadership…

But there is a total recognition of many people now, more than ever, that there is something misleading about this. Occupy Wall Street is evidence of it — the Left is pointing out, as usual, that the people are manipulated by media, education and existent power structures.

Meanwhile, the far Right Wing movements have been temporarily silenced in this moment but as the very concept of Democracy is pushed and challenged over the next decade we will see a resurgence of what can only properly be called ‘early Fascist movements.’ Do not think of Nazism… Think merely of the idea of generally autocratic governments run by single parties pushing a singular cause.

Perhaps the continued form of government in many places will be ‘democracy’ but the pointlessness of it will be questioned further, because ‘objectivity’ can only go so far as all societies erect ’sacred cows’ and instill them into their general populace to produce the results that they desire.

“Truth” never has been and never will be determined by what the majority of people think.

If Democracy goes uninterrupted in this period it will be in spite of the fact that of the general realization of this…

There may be movements for the fracturing of nations and more regionalized government.

Moralist Movements & Regionalization Continued

They happen on both the left and the right; Democracy affords a lack of public morality and merely replaces it with the idea of ‘civic consciousness.’ Civic consciousness is not enough to quell the thirst people have for fulfilling right & wrong.

Moralistic movements, whether it is something like environmentalism, socialism/communism, veganism, anti-sexism/racism/homophobia, are already well on their way.

Right wing moralistic movements are under fire more than they ever have been — the mistake in thought is that this is because they will somehow be extinguished and rendered irrelevant.

In reality, these will grow of their own accord. Whether it is of a religious, nationalist, ethnic nationalist, Third Positionist or just a general out & out “fascist policial/sociological system” being advocated, they will grow.

A vacuum is created by ‘pop culture’ and the non-committal nature of democracy — the relentless straddling of the center leaves a bitter taste both in the mouths of the Left & Right Wing…

In a more individualist society we will probably see more honest fracturing of our nations.

What is the purpose of California & Texas being ruled by the same federal government? It seems incredibly relevant that the “Union is preserved!” but the idea of the all-encompassing nation state meant to essentially subjugate regional desires will be rendered archaic as people become more & more conscious of the shortfallings of democracy.

There is absolutely no reason why liberal Tehran should have the same government as the conservative areas around Shiraz; there is absolutely no reason why  we shouldn’t be more regionally deterministic.

As the biting dialogue between left & right are fanned further & further by media organizations there will be no ‘winner’ in the conventional sense… But a mere movement towards separation.

Even if “one side” were to re-assert a dictatorial control of public education, media, etc. and opinion manipulation this will be seen for what it is: the fascist seed that exists within democracy.

We’ll all realize that we don’t have to compete for control of a Federal government, but instead that we can all win on our own with more regional governments being implemented.

All governments based on subjugating a liberal or conservative opinion of a region by their own will find themselves on more tenuous ground as the  Sacred Cow of “democracy” (as we know it) is sacrificed.

We all make the mistake of thinking “Our Conservative values will always triumph” or “Liberal ideals are the inescapable path of the future,” but politics is incredibly complex; not even the Right or the Left are even unified in their opinions…

And there is no reason why 300 million people have to be joined together at the hip and all be generally unhappy together.

The Moralists in all of their stripes want to see their ideas propagated, and there’s no reason why 100 million+ people should be subjugated by 200 million+ people’s interpretation of it.

The speed of this process will depend on the economy.

In fact, all of this depends on the economy…

But it does seem clear: our conventional notion of democracy is dated by 200+ years of idealism and is unsustainable unless these ‘democratic’ governing bodies decide to literally assert themselves just as a Fascist would and crush under their heel their opponents through propaganda campaigns.

(We’re already seeing these seminal propaganda campaigns on a thousand fronts and they will only grow.)

Of course, this is not surprising to anyone here:

SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) — North Korea has channeled key resources to its showcase capital city of Pyongyang over the past decades, deepening social polarization in the isolated country, a report showed Thursday.

Citizens in Pyongyang enjoy privileges compared with those in other regions in such areas as food distribution, industrial assistance and leisure facilities, according to the report by the Seoul-based economic research institute affiliated with South Korea’s SK Group.

North Korea does not allow the disabled and those with a bad family background to move into the capital, home to about 2.5 million out of the country’s 24 million people, according to the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.

Oh, and north Korea has increased the food aid that it is giving to others but…

Still, the North did not properly mete out food rations to people outside Pyongyang, according to South Korean private relief agencies.

연합뉴스

This is something that has always been ’surprising’ at first glance about Communism but a veritable testament to human nature: that we are, in fact, incapable of creating an egalitarian society due to some of the most basic personal preferences that we have… We will  reward people for certain behavior and condemn others for certain behaviors… This is essentially the principle that all authority and that the Capitalist market operates off of.

When goods and rations, and when privileges are handed out by the government to select, certain people it simply mimics the Capitalist system by mimicking the system of rewards, incentives and punishments. It functions to create a new upper class (the Party Members) while others are left with less… In a sense, when there is no Capitalism they find a way to basically manufacture themselves a Capitalist reality.

Where there is man there are power structures; and where there are power structures there is inequality.

There is always a lot of talk as to what is going on in north Korea — that little dictatorship of a nation that has brutalized its people for decades who, after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, were able to assume the title of most twisted place on Earth… And of course, the starvation continues:

 

The powerful posts seemingly rule out any near-term challenges to young Kim’s ascension, though few analysts in Seoul expect the unusual third-generation dynastic succession to succeed. The hunger challenge facing the failed, isolated nation of 24 million is too formidable to ignore.

The regime has managed to develop a small nuclear arsenal at the expense of feeding its people – a nuclear-first policy that led to some 2 million people dying from hunger during the 1990s.

Thus the rise of Kim Jong Un is overshadowed by the long-running scourge of food shortage, as the country prepares to commemorate the February 16 birthday of his father, a national holiday, and the April 15 centennial birthday anniversary of his grandfather Kim Il Sung, the state founder who died in 1994. In the opinion of many North Korea watchers, it would be unwise for young Kim to launch his mandate without provision of special holiday rations.

Specialists suggest that North faces a 700,000-ton grain shortage, leaving the government unable to feed a third of its populace. After depending on China’s handouts for many years, Kim’s new team is evidently turning to the US, with North Korean diplomats in New York discreetly asking US officials for food in the midst of the official mourning period. They asked for 320,000 metric tons of grains in a proposed deal: North Korea could suspend its clandestine uranium-enrichment programme for food. Washington appears noncommittal, reportedly offering an unspecified shipment of “nutrients,” not grains, which it fears may go to feeding the North Korean army. How Kim Jong Un chooses to deal with this crucial problem of economic reform could potentially turn into a flashpoint in relations with the military establishment. He must walk a tightrope between feeding people and paying fealty to son’gun, the military-first policy of his father.

 Khaleej Times

The real question rests in whether we are willing to withhold food aid in order to mount pressure on the regime and hope to bring about the natural revolution that has been waiting for years to show its face. A revolution that, under normal circumstances without our interference in the form of food aid would, indeed, have occurred.

One of the ironies here is the idea that we are keeping our own opponents alive and their fate is our choice. We merely have to calculate what would be worse: another few years (or decades) of brutal repression, lack of freedom and, of course, executions and starvation unto death for the north Koreans… Or a year or two of lack of aid, starvation, and brutal conditions that will perhaps lead to the inevitable revolution?

We cannot know the future. Only analysts can look at what is out there and come to conclusions on what is the most utilitarian choice — in a way, the Americans, the South Koreans and all those nations involved in any way are stuck between a rock and a hard place. No decision is exactly right, and the results of either cannot be seen.

I am certainly not envious of our decision makers but I would think that with the now unprecedented weakness of the new leadership it would certainly be a good time for us to withhold the aid and see what, exactly, will occur. Now would be the ideal time to see if we can force revolution through lack of aid, and that if the masses are not appeased that they would rise.

Obama appears to be walking the middle road — and you know what Mr. Miyagi says about middle roads. We’ll see what results this yields…

Very intriguing development that must surely make us look closer at the ‘Arab Spring:’

The military-appointed prime minister vowed Wednesday that Egypt would defy Washington’s pressure to halt criminal prosecutions of 19 Americans as investigating judges accused them of manipulating the Egyptian political process and improperly collecting information to send home to the United States.

…

In a televised news conference, the Egyptian judges overseeing the investigation only added to the confrontational tone surrounding the case. Judge Sameh Abu Zaid declared that the groups did not qualify as “civil society” organizations because their purpose was purely political, to influence the political situation in Egypt.

The groups include the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, federally financed American groups with close ties to Congressional leaders that are chartered to promote democracy abroad. Adding to the political sensitivity, the Egypt chief of the Republican Institute is Sam LaHood, the son of Ray LaHood, secretary of transportation and a former Republican representative.

NY Times

Pretty amazing when you think about it — these groups essentially exist for the promotion of transparent democracy. I highly doubt they are at such a stage where they are trying to ‘manipulate’ anything yet except for attempting to facilitate the creation of elections. Say & think what you like, but the American government really has no dog in this fight until democratic elections and a just future are insured.

Furthermore… The nature of democracy is to be allowing even of foreign influences to be present. Perhaps not necessarily by any means ‘buying an election,’ but allowing them to have some sort of encouraging towards democracy cannot be a bad thing…

Unless it is your express goal to keep your country as autocratic, beaten down and totalitarian as possible.

This looks quite hopeful:

BEIJING—

In 1985, Xi Jinping led a delegation to Muscatine, Iowa, to study advanced hog-raising techniques. He returns next week, preparing to lead the world’s most populous nation.

China’s vice president, who will take over the presidency from Hu Jintao next year, will be in the U.S. to meet President Barack Obama and other leaders and introduce himself to a U.S. audience. His decision to also visit the families who hosted him years ago is a rare personal touch for a Chinese leader, one that feeds his reputation as a new type of official who dares to step away from the traditional aloofness of Chinese high office.

“He appreciated learning about America on that level, and he is signaling by going there that he is going to be a different kind of leader,” said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an author and a longtime adviser to the Chinese government who has met with Xi for private talks. “He is going to be open. He is going to be appreciative.”

Xi’s ability to make personal connections and his unassuming confidence will be in much demand as he takes over the leadership of the ruling Communist Party this year, a step toward assuming the presidency.

The 58-year-old faces the tricky task of advancing China’s development against the tides of global financial insecurity, resource scarcity, environmental crises and simmering social unrest, particularly in the western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet.

Chicago Tribune

As China continues its amazing march towards global power, they need a man who is receptive to what has become more global norms over the last hundred years and it appears as if Xi Jinping has what it takes. His visits abroad and economic interests are what the Chinese need and I am confident that he could have a positive influence on the development of China.

We are all most interested to see how someone who has lived a bit in America interprets democracy for China, and what this could mean.

The Chinese Communist Party seems to be calculating their future well — either that, or Xi Jinping truly is quite a great man that rose of his own prowess.

Exciting times we live in. 

The KOSPI was able to rally due to foreign investors seeing a greater future in Korean stocks via the potentials of the FTA:

Sentiment on the automobile industry was further lifted after local media reports cited a South Korean trade official as saying the US-South Korea free trade agreement may be implemented in early March, potentially boosting exports.

Reuters

Of course — good news for all of us who enjoy having free trade agreements undoubtedly beneficial for both parties.

There are many people who act as if this will harm the farmers… And of course, the potential is there for harm but no one talks about alternative solutions such as subsidies and merely are freaking out as if this is going to cause the ‘end of the entire Korean agricultural market’ in spite of the fact that the propaganda machines are in full swing throughout Korea for the Hanu industry.

It should be noted… Hanu is terrific. Of course. It is good meat — just as most fresh beef tastes delightful.

There is merely a disturbing trend of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I have always enjoyed little quips of entertainment news… Simply because I have never seen the full point of it. It is also amazing how these things can be the most sought after pieces of information even though there are major scandals going on such as the alleged election rigging that happened on the 10.26 election coming into the full light.

It has been an insane year in Korean politics but still, these are apparently what we have the average Korean people demonstrating their interests in:

Google Korea revealed that IU was the most searched singer on the website for the past year, as confirmed by their current statistics. Last Friday, Google Korea revealed that they have made categories per country of the most searched keywords.

According to Google’s Zeitgeist, IU was the most searched keyword for 2011, which was followed by “Nonghyup internet banking” and Samsung’s Galaxy S in second and third respectively. Other keywords making it onto their list were the dramas “Secret Garden” and “Dream High.” Girls’ Generation and popular program ” I Am a Singer” also made it on the list.

kpopmusic.om

Not cool… People should not invest so much attention in that which is trite.

Furthermore, “I Am A Singer” is a literal translation of 나는 가수다.However, it does not strike me as being a great translation as, in English, it seems to have almost a juvenile sounding name based off of the mere way we use our language. It would probably be best if it remained untranslated and was merely referend to by its Korean name, and then perhaps described.

For whatever Korean Korean media has a rich history of poorly choosing their words and their presentation in English.

The Chinese government is apparently taking a bit different stance these days on some of the issues facing China — and also sluffing their responsibility off onto the local governments:

(Reuters) - The senior Chinese official who helped defuse a standoff with protesting villagers has told officials to get used to citizens who are increasingly assertive about their rights and likened erring local governments to red apples with rotten cores.

Zhu Mingguo, a deputy Communist Party secretary of southern Guangdong province, last week helped broker a compromise between the government and residents of Wukan village. Ten days of protests over confiscated farmland and the death of a protest organizer drew widespread attention as a rebuff to the stability-before-all government.

Speaking to officials about Wukan and other protests, Zhu said these were not isolated flare-ups, the Guangzhou Daily, the official paper of the provincial capital, reported on Tuesday.

“In terms of society, the public’s awareness of democracy, equality and rights is constantly strengthening, and their corresponding demands are growing,” Zhu told a meeting on Monday about preserving social stability, the paper said.

“Public consciousness of rights defense is growing, and the means used to defend rights are increasingly intense,” said Zhu. “Their channels for voicing grievances are diverse, and there is a tendency for conflicts to become more intense.”

Reuters

It is interesting to certainly hear them recognizing the idea that democracy and the demands for it have increased. Standards go up — naturally, as the people become more used to a certain idea of how they would like to be treated and how they would like to live.

Perhaps this also goes up with the prominence of the internet — the idea of democracy takes root more, when the average person has access to more information and the notion of people in other parts of the nation or abroad having certain guaranteed things.

Regardless… It seems as if they are recognizing that they cannot go back to something else;  yet at the same time this is only one man within the government speaking, and who knows how possibly sincere it could be? If there actually will be some sort of progress.

But hearing a Chinese official speak in this manner is exciting.

I am impressed with the path that it appears the Chinese will take — it is becoming more obvious that at some point we will have to at least consider a transition to the electric car (or some other alternatively powered form of transportation). I merely hope that the electric car will come at a time when we have not totally wasted a lot of resources or massacred the landscape.

Some intriguing facts came up to be highlighted:

But it would be shortsighted to count out China’s electric car efforts just yet. Only a few months ago Prime Minister Wen Jiabao called for Beijing to create a new “road map” for energy-saving vehicles.

Unlike in other nations, where automakers are leading the push for electric vehicles, in China the effort is being led largely by one of the country’s most powerful industries — the state-run electric companies that operate the national power grid. With China expected to surpass the United States in the number of all vehicles on the road by as early as 2020, the government-run utilities see it as their job to provide an alternative to imported oil as a way to power several hundred million cars, trucks and buses.

This month in this sprawling southern industrial city, for example, the giant China Southern Power Grid company opened a sales and service center for electric cars.

The new three-story building, resembling a giant lizard egg of lime-green glass, is a showcase for technology supplied by Better Place, a start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif. Under the Better Place business model, customers do not recharge their electric cars but instead periodically stop at an electric filling station to swap their nearly depleted batteries for freshly charged ones.

And just because there are no customers kicking the tires now doesn’t mean China Southern Grid, as it is commonly known, isn’t in the electric-vehicle game for the long haul. The power company and Better Place are in talks to sell electric cars to the Guangzhou municipal government and to taxi fleets, according to Shai Agassi, Better Place’s founder and chief executive.

New York Times

It is good that they are looking towards taxi companies and public transportation as these vehicles are the ones driven most into the ground and furthermore represent people perceiving them as viable;  if they get a smooth ride in a taxi powered by electricity it will help take away what lingering skepticism may exist that these are not great vehicles for them to ride.

On the eve of a fun, Battlefield Online party, I woke up and saw the most ridiculous thing I possibly could imagine. Apparently, the PC Brigade no longer desires to distinguish between ‘game’ and ‘real life,’ between ‘fiction’ and ‘reality.’ Everyone loves pointing fingers at the moral conservatives as being overbearing in some way, but talk about killing fun? Conservatives just don’t want schools to give your kids condoms and don’t want to legally sanction gay marriage…

These guys want to ban violent video games and investigate it as a violation of international humanitarian law. LOL?

Earlier this year, game maker Activision counted up that 62 billion people had been ‘killed’ virtually in online games of Call of Duty: Black Ops - including 242 million stabbed to death at close range.

That’s just one title among hundreds of modern war games - most of which lack any kind of ’surrender’ button bar switching the machine off.

Now, a committee of the Red Cross is debating if gamers might be violating the International Humanitarian Law as they slaughter each other online.

Daily Mail  – thanks Zagadka on PoliticsForum.org for introducing me to this article.

I would like to get these guys on a map on Battlefield Online and shoot them with my digital gun 100 times, and they can watch their digital character die over and over again… And realize… It’s quite boring if you suck and have no chance, and isn’t any outrage.