was that a poem? no i'm not going to pc it. never did like sacks, at any rate. remind me of potatos, ergo irish, ergo heaney, ergo a levels. hate sacks. growr.
and therefore to avoid appealing to baser emotions to steal cheap laughs, i shall talk about other stuff. like, for example,
if a historian claims that history is ending, (think fukuyama), it's not an admission of knowledge, but rather an oblique one of ignorance. it just means that he cannot simply conceive what the future may look like, and therefore he's just saying that it'd look like what he can think of now. because fukuyama simply cannot conceive of a different political system from the few that he's experienced (i.e. democracy and communism) he simplifies things for himself by saying that the world will end up with democracy everywhere. why democracy? because he just happens to like it a bit better than communism. (perhaps it's a genetic thing, since he's american.)
in any case historians should have no business speculating about the future because it's a waste of time, and they may actually risk putting science fiction writers out of job. but then again it does seem that science fiction writers may actually be more accurate than historians in envisioning the future. like, for example, if we compare hg wells to marx, i think we'll find that more of hg wells' predictions came true than marx's. (then again, to be fair, how was he to know that the proletariat was too sian to rise up? on the other hand, it's much easier predicting the invention of radio, especially if one has been mucking around scientific journals.)
and though i'm something of a determinist i think the forces determining history don't become clear until on hindsight. or at least, the effects of these forces aren't clear until some time has passed. ergo predicting the future is a dicey business for historians who have an inadequate understanding of the recent past.
and then, just a thought on outsourcing and election year. eventually nothing (effective) will be done against outsourcing. it's all election year antics, and in any case, once they've finished pleasing the common voters the politicians are going to need campaign funds from Big Business.
ok. now i've successfully gotten people to sleep. :)
hah. and nothing about sacks.
and therefore to avoid appealing to baser emotions to steal cheap laughs, i shall talk about other stuff. like, for example,
if a historian claims that history is ending, (think fukuyama), it's not an admission of knowledge, but rather an oblique one of ignorance. it just means that he cannot simply conceive what the future may look like, and therefore he's just saying that it'd look like what he can think of now. because fukuyama simply cannot conceive of a different political system from the few that he's experienced (i.e. democracy and communism) he simplifies things for himself by saying that the world will end up with democracy everywhere. why democracy? because he just happens to like it a bit better than communism. (perhaps it's a genetic thing, since he's american.)
in any case historians should have no business speculating about the future because it's a waste of time, and they may actually risk putting science fiction writers out of job. but then again it does seem that science fiction writers may actually be more accurate than historians in envisioning the future. like, for example, if we compare hg wells to marx, i think we'll find that more of hg wells' predictions came true than marx's. (then again, to be fair, how was he to know that the proletariat was too sian to rise up? on the other hand, it's much easier predicting the invention of radio, especially if one has been mucking around scientific journals.)
and though i'm something of a determinist i think the forces determining history don't become clear until on hindsight. or at least, the effects of these forces aren't clear until some time has passed. ergo predicting the future is a dicey business for historians who have an inadequate understanding of the recent past.
and then, just a thought on outsourcing and election year. eventually nothing (effective) will be done against outsourcing. it's all election year antics, and in any case, once they've finished pleasing the common voters the politicians are going to need campaign funds from Big Business.
ok. now i've successfully gotten people to sleep. :)
hah. and nothing about sacks.
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