The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 12, Thread 7.

1. How do we survive the coming millenium?
Fri, Jan 1, 1999 - 5:46 PM/EST
kumabear

I'm not even sure what I mean by this title. I have a lot of unease about the coming decades. The mean-spiritdness of the managers of Monica-Gate has, to a great extent, restored my faith in the American people. When confronted by, to quote Alan Dershowitz, "Sexual McCarthyism", Joe Blue Collar, Jane White Collar declared that Bill Clinton was to be greatly admired. For his acts with an intern? Of course not... For lying about it? Of course not... More importantly, for not stooping to the level of the accusers.

I didn't start this thread to be one more impeachment thread. This is about the future. What worries me most is that despite the resliency of the American public, we are a minority in the world. There is more hatred, anger, and blood outside our borders than I can deal with in a rational frame. How are we going to get past that? How are we going to bring about an environment, world-wide, where our children and grand-children can survive and thrive? How do we heal the pain in so many souls? How do we heal the planet itself before it becomes uninhabitable? How do we heal ourselves?

4. magnificent
Fri, Jan 1, 1999 - 11:13 PM/EST
tbob

the future is full of more than we can imagine -- just like the present-- and if we can live in more levels than the media/news level, most of what there is is magnificent.
There is more worthwhile poetry on the Web than one person can absorb, or even get to -- and then -- all that other stuff.
The tenth grader in this group writes and thinks magnificently well -- and I know other tenth graders who aren't slouches, either.

5. Survival in the Coming Millenium
Sat, Jan 2, 1999 - 1:22 PM/EST
Milt

kumabear,

You've opened up a big topic, and an important one.

It seems to me that survival consists in coping successfully with challenges. The trouble is that we don't always know what challenges to expect. Consider someone looking ahead from January 1, 1900, they would have had a tough time envisioning the challenges this century would bring, e.g., nuclear weapons, biological weapons, ozone depletion, organ transplants and problems with respect to who gets what and when, the globalization of politics, war, and economics, and stock markets beset with "irrational exuberance."

Then consider someone looking ahead for not a century, but a millenium from January 1, 1000. From the middle of the Dark Ages the Twentieth Century would seem them as Star Trek does to us today.

The only way to survive will be, as the Boy Scouts say, "Be Prepared." Or as Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the prepared mind." And that means most fundamentally educating our children. They need to be taught the skills of communication (how to read with understanding and how to speak and write clearly), critical thinking (how to tackle problems by carefully analyzing the components and creatively synthesizing solutions from existing knowledge).

But there is more to education than skills, there is also a necessary minumum of substantive knowledge--the basics of math, science, technology, history, politics, literature and the arts. Without some foundational knowledge we would not have much to communicate or think about. The idea is to make our children competent and able to cope with whatever challenges arise.

John Stuart Mill said, "Men are men before they are lawyers, physicians, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians."

The trouble is that our public education system is not getting the job done. And this, I think, is the single greatest problem we have in facing the coming millenium.

Milt

12. To Survive, One Must Keep Dreams Alive
Mon, Jan 4, 1999 - 11:32 AM/EST
rightbrain

The original challenge of this thread was how to survive in the new millenium. I believe that challenge begins within each of us. If we are to have a better educated populous, then we our selves need to be better educated. If we are to have a kinder and gentler world, then we need to begin the process in our own hearts. Start by selected a mantra of promise- one that provides great support and direction for yourself. Say it each day, and begin to live out its promise. The new millenium will unfold just as you believe it will. The problem will not be in achieving but in choosing your direction.

13. The nature of the future.
Mon, Jan 4, 1999 - 4:43 PM/EST
Jager

The way we will survive in the coming millenium is to each of us do our part, however small, to improve the quality of the future.

It's not as hard as it sounds. We have some teachers here, or former teachers, at the very least. Teach! Instill a love of learning in the future! For my part, I'm bringing technology and the internet to people who have never had access to it before. That ushers in the future, too.

It isn't the big things. It isn't the politicians and the policy makers who decide the future. _We_ create it with our every action. We mold reality the way we want it to be.

14. Survival
Tue, Jan 5, 1999 - 2:35 PM/EST
Twang

Lots of good ideas from a very broad-minded group! Unfortunately, America remains essentially where she has been for at least the past 100 years. Our government is still dominated by the monied interests at the direct expense of the people. When the people say they want a national health-insurance program (75% say they do), and when we tell our elected representatives not to impeach our President (also 70%+), they ignore us.

If we realize nothing else as we enter the 21st Century, we had better recognize that unbridled capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with our democratic institutions. Capitalists have no use for democracy, because it's too unpredictable. They want to control the political process and mold it to the demands of profit. Their money can and does buy politicians and elections. Right now, capitalism is clearly winning the battle with democracy, and I believe Kumabear is right that Americans are smart enough to realize what is happening. We should never forget that the freedom to buy whatever we can afford, or to make any deal we can swing (i.e. "free enterprise") does not equate with civil liberty.

We still have political choice, but not for long if we don't participate in politics. Apathy and despair with the political process is the lifeblood of tyrants. Politics is about who gets to do what to whom. Pretty important stuff I'd say.

24. Surviving the coming millenium
Thu, Jan 7, 1999 - 3:09 PM/EST
Sash

It doesn't matter what we say, the next millenium (at least at the beginning) will be exactly, precisely like the end of this one, so all our "survival" skills will still apply. In the long run, when things do start to change (START to, they won't change quickly), everything will come out in the wash. Hell, everything worked out OK from the first to the second millenium, and what kind of state was the world in then? Of course, maybe they'll be saying that 2999.
- Sash