Boredom is a weird thing. All too often I feel bored not when there’s truly nothing to do, but when there’s so much that I’m overwhelmed and can’t work up a proper degree of giving a shit to do a damned thing about it. Today’s been one of those days when my brain’s going thisaways and the rest of me is yawning and replying, “ORLY?” Or something like that.
Part of the lackadaisical attitude of the day is due to the crap I watch on TV lately. I thoroughly enjoy Doctor Who and other nice, shiny escapism. I find Ancient Aliens and such to be interesting in a remote sort of way. I watch HGTV for the truly mindless moments. Ancient Aliens, truth be told, can sometimes be better than a sleeping pill. I do like the premise but they tend toward repetition, which is also my beef with author Graham Hancock (a frequent speaker on the show).
Come to think of it, not quite sure how Hancock fits into the mix. He isn’t necessarily a proponent of alien interactions in the past, just that human civilization has risen and fallen many times along the way. I like his premise, just wish he could streamline it a bit.
Those aren’t at issue. I also, however, record and watch Nostradamus Effect, which reviews modern day people who represent themselves as prophets. The show tends to compare and contrast with the 16th century French seer, whose predictions were based on astrology. The most recent show pulled out a name unfamiliar to me but one apparently VERY well known to governments and powers: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a scholar who developed a computer algorithm to generate his prophecies. Unlike most fortune tellers, Bueno de Mesquita tends to hit the proverbial bullseye with an average of 90% accuracy. That’s a significant jump over my plans to do such-and-such on my nonexistent vacations. Among his predictions were the horrendous events at Tiananmen Square and the underpinnings and aftermath of 9/11. While the government was in a frenzy immediately after the twin towers fell, Bueno de Mesquita shrugged and said the terrorists would be sitting tight for a couple of more years or so – which in essence is what happened.
What Bueno de Mesquita sees for our future is scary as hell, the more so because he doesn’t bother couching it in verse or flowery, mostly-vague language like Nostradamus did several hundred years ago.
Bueno de Mesquita has been around for a while, albeit below the radar. His system predicted the rise of the Islamic religious zealots and their impact on the world’s stability. He’s predicting three probable areas where WWIII is likely to begin within our very, very near future, with the first volley potentially in the next few months. There’s little surprise in any of his elected hot spots: his most volatile sites are the Israeli/Palestinian/Arab conflict and our own uneasy exchanges with Korea, and our own little snit with Iran.
Since Korea DOES now have nuclear armaments and is headed by a bona fide nut-case, Bueno de Mesquita is recommending we step away from our pissing contest with the nut case so he doesn’t feel threatened. If we don’t, said nut case is pretty much guaranteed to pull the nuclear trigger. We fire back with our own volley and at that point China will get into the mix. Adding a few billion Chinese tends to take things to a global level mighty fast.
USA? Meet WWIII.
Fortunately both Nostradamus and Bueno de Mesquita tell us that it’s all avoidable; that in fact, had we been paying attention prior to Hitler’s rise we might have averted that tragedy and saved millions of the lives lost along the way.
The better Korean solution is to give the little dude some space, sign a nice benign peace treaty with him and gradually talk him into disarming his nukes once he’s clear that we really don’t want to take over his country.
The same general rule applies to Iran, where we may already have crossed the line. It’s all well and good if we hand the power back to Iran, the sooner the better. Take (as much as possible) the middle ground there so Iran’s moderates will be satisfied to move ahead and crisis averted. Piss off the moderates and kiss our collective asses goodbye.
The middle eastern fiasco is a bit more complex and obviously out of our immediate control. It’s been a political hotbed for centuries. We can suggest, cajole and otherwise talk with the powers of the area. Ultimately they’re still the ones in charge of making smart or stupid moves. Given we’re talking Arab vs. Jew, the likely trajectory of the moves is at best an uneasy stalemate.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen computers used for prognostication. There was the infamous Web Bot project, which finally all but shut down, essentially because its designer couldn’t shoulder the costs any longer. Bueno de Mesquita’s book-related website is here, which I foresee to be a nice start of entirely too much reading on my part, heh. There is a bit more about the Web Bot project here.
It’s chill worthy that both computer systems pinpoint a pivotal event in 2012. Which happens to coincide with the Mayan calendar and with Bueno de Mesquita and so on, and so on.
Nostradamus predicts some catastrophe but with his prophecies it’s a bit hazy as to dates and particulars. To be fair, Nostradamus lived in an era where the church ruled. For him to have made predictions in straightforward manner would probably have gotten him burned at the stake, doubly so because he did based his prophecies on astrology. The Pope tends not to subscribe to his daily horoscope, or if he does he doesn’t let the world at large in on it
I also encountered something really, really weird in the course of hunting down the Web Bot deal. I visited the original website for Web Bot, halfpasthuman.com. There’s a link from there called The Plan. I won’t link to it because frankly I’m paranoid. That article in turn links to the Anonymous website. Yes, apparently THE Anonymous. I am not crossing into that level of crazy today, thanks.