Afghanistan 2050: Tribes vs. Networks, cont. & cont.

Here is another speculative scenario for the Afghanistan 2050 roundtable. It reflects themes in my August 13 post and is not inconsistent with my August 22 post:

The Black-Flag Wars of the 20s and 30s were so fraught with religious strife and devastation that by the 40s many people in the region were ready for new ways to look at the world. That’s one reason why the New Theory of Prophecy (NTP) and the movement that formed around it, the New Word Network (NWN), suddenly spread faster there than anywhere before.

 

NTP rested on a reaction in the Teens that too many people from too many religions, mostly in the Middle East, were claiming to act in God’s name, as His chosen people. NTP reaffirmed that Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammad were God’s prophets. What it rethought was why they all appeared in the Middle East, when God could have placed them anywhere in the world.

 

NTP hypothesized that if God had sent a prophet elsewhere, his Word might not have spread into the Middle East in due time, because its peoples were so extraordinarily tribal. Yet, this area was a crucial crossroads of world civilizations. Wiser, then, to put a prophet there, and have the Word spread out to the rest of the world. But with the first prophet, only his own tribe got the Word; it didn’t spread beyond them. With the second, the Word spread far outside, but not much more within the Middle East. With the third, the Word spread across the Middle East and farther around the world. But then, once again, too many people turned to claim they’d been chosen by this version of the Word and its prophet; they reverted to being extremely tribal, in ways that disparaged not only other peoples but even the first two prophets.

 

Against this background, NTP counseled all believers against taking God’s name in vain and claiming to be His singularly chosen people, while NWN developed a noöpolitik* strategy to ameliorate the tribalization of religion. To its credit, NWN helped undermine the appeal of Al Qaeda’s narrative in North America and Europe, and motivate the accords between Israel and Palestine in the Teens. But for the next two decades, conditions in South Asia fell prey to the millenarian Black Flag Momentum (BFM) and its belief that a new prophet was imminent.

 

BFM’s leaders disdained NWN and twisted the NTP to claim it meant a new prophet was bound to arise, this time for them. They’ve been wrong, and done wrong, for a quarter century — like past millenarian movements that provoked apocalyptic violence and always ended up losing. Now, conditions are finally too disastrous for even BFM and its allies to rationalize. NWN is fast gaining adherents in the region, helping people recover and reorganize. Rumors are still circulating about an imminent new prophet, but lately of one quite unlike what BFM and others had predicted — and that too is calming the region.

 

[Excerpt from Dawgo Skatts, “Chronicles of the New Word Network,” draft (last revised 02/30/50). Accepted for inclusion in NoöSpherica Quarterly (probably the Spring 2050 special issue on trends in religion). Still being edited for sensitivity.]

* For clarification of this information-strategy concept, see here.

I’m in for National School Choice Week

As a long time member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, I’m big on preventing Teachers Unions from destroying western civilization. Therefore, let me just say that I’m in for scrapping the entire overpriced, corrupt, and union-driven money laundering scheme we call public education. You should be in too.

Join Us! National School Choice Week from National School Choice Week on Vimeo.

Malinvestment and the Higher-Ed Bubble

Workers with specialized skills like electricians, carpenters and welders are in critically short supply in many large economies, a shortfall that marks another obstacle to the global economic recovery, according to a research paper by Manpower Inc. The study mentions an Ohio shipbuilder that had to bring in experienced workers from Mexico and Croatia and a French metal-parts maker that hired Manpower to find welders in Poland.

The paper blames the shortage in part on the “social stigma” assigned to skilled blue-collar work, and cites a poll finding that only one in 10 American teenagers see themselves in a blue-collar job as adults. (The proportion was even lower in Japan.)

Read more

Worth Reading: Richelieu and Olivares

This guy you know:

Richelieu

He’s the winner. Through the efforts of Dumas, he found an unforeseen afterlife as a major literary and film villain who constantly twirled his mustache and plotted against a pesky Gascon and his indomitable friends.

This guy you don’t know:

Count-Duke of Olivares

He’s the loser. No Dumas or even his cheap Spanish equivalent found him worthy of commemoration.

Read more

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
 
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
 
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.
 
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.
 
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.
 
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
 
The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.
 
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
 
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
 

August 26, 2010 is the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s birth