Re: Discussion topic - rewriting (future) history....?

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Beth's historical projection is very interesting but I think it's too
militaristic.
 
War is expensive, it takes a lot out of an economy to wage war and
that's not counting for the potential for damage to the economy the war
is being fought in.
 
The current world ecomony is very interlinked, witness current
economics, Greece threatens to pull down the whole EU and there are
ripple effects around the world. China and Japan have based their
economies on exports to the US. The assumption this is based on is that
the US economy is able to continue to buy the goods. If the US economy
stops the Chinese and Japenese economies will also be severely
impacted.. Factories making goods for the US market can't suddenly make
something else and who would buy it.
 
As the US dollar slips lower, the Chinese policy of pegging the Yuan to
the dollar must be starting to hurt. Everything they buy not in USD must
cost them more and that adds inflation to their economy.
 
So while the timelines are interesting militarily they take money out of
the world economy and at the same time trillions of dollars are getting
invested in theroretical space research.
 
The World economy is a giant confidence trick, if anyone calls in anyone
elses loans the whole house of cards will come crashing down and
everyone loses. A very apocolyptic end just not quite the apocalypse the
church of Cthullu had in mind.
 
I think the future will be full of conflict but it will be by corporate
proxy, and the weapons will be share prices and stock options rather
than tanks and planes.
 
I see near space taken by corporates (Nasa has already given up space)
the only current manned space capsules are 60 year old Russian designs.
Corporates will only do things for profit. So it's science research for
chemicals and materials in orbital labs that will generate the wealth to
fund FTL rather than governments. Governments will become the welfare
and labour management departments for mega corporations.