Topic: Rambling && Daily Info
Well, I just got a sort of breather from my boss on what I need to do for work. I may not have to port this bit of software from Windows to Linux (its got a lot of little Windows-isms). Which would free me up to do a lot of other stuff, which is mainly move into user-interfaces. I mean, I like writing really low-level stuff, but almost four months of it is a pain. And as my boss said, its too much to ask one undergrad to basically rewrite an operating system.
On a more serious note, here's what I think of our brave new world.
I do not fear terrorists any more or any less since before the 11th of September in 2001. Their reasons for hating us are the same now as they were before. My feeling of safety goes like this: as long as there are religious extremists in the world (Christians definitely included, it started with the Crusades and the Inquisition and about a million other things), there will never be peace or understanding. When people view the world through such skewed lenses, the communication and logical breakdown is so fundamental that there is no other parallel in our world for it. Not between Microsoft and Linux, not between relativists and quantum mechanists, not between any combination of groups is there such a fundamental lack of communication and understanding. So, given this total lack of potential communication, I have no presumptions as to my safety. I will state this simply, in my opinion, I have no safety. Not one iota. Never have and likely never will. And neither have any of you out there. Now don't take me as an agnostic here, I believe that everyone should be tempered with a little faith of some sort. It is when this begins to preclude any other viewpoint is when it goes too far.
I know the isolationist viewpoint has cost the world dearly before (WWI and WWII), but there is also a point where involvement constitutes the crime (Vietnam). It is here where we truly need to stand back, as the wiser and cooler heads in Europe suggested. We need to stand apart and let them decide amongst themselves. And if it becomes too bloody, we need to think long and hard and plan very carefully on how to proceed. But this is hard for this nation to understand, a nation that has seen a major war every ten years since its inception through a war. To the less informed in our society, this is seen as a good thing and a point of pride. But it is a dubious honor: it speaks of our will to survive and our passion, but it also speaks of our inability to control our own temper. I'm not saying that the countries of Europe are guiltless, but they can serve as a lesson. Ever since the end of the Pax Romana, Europe has been in conflict. And from their experience we can truly learn what not to do.
It is a strange world we live in. And it seems as if it'll only get stranger from here. Will we ever peacefully get out of the situation we are in now? Or it does it have to happened through some horrible circumstance as envisioned by legions of science-fiction writers? Who knows.
And with that, I'll pack up my little soap-box for the evening.
Later-o.