Technological change unchecked by government or justice won't end well.

David von Drehle (Searching for a certain something, Washington Post 3-21-18) hits on several profound concepts that have actually been known for decades, some for millennia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-live-in-a-world-of-uncertainty-tech-is-making-it-worse/2018/03/20/7d269cc2-2c64-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html?utm_term=.8dc9ba016a0f

But pundits, policy makers, and the general public persistently ignore them in favor of retaining long held unexamined assumptions – even when they kill millions.

The exponential pace of technological change was self-evident at least 25 years ago. Our human mind’s resistance to change is Neolithic.  Resistance to changing government is American. It was written into our Constitution and will likely be our undoing as China’s government now changes on a dime.

Mr. Von Drehle glossed over another ‘self-evident’ concept in his description of Ford’s production line evolution. Going from the one car choice (a black model T) to the countless variations of “the F-150 pickup truck” that “The factory’s computers brought…together in perfect sequence” was significant. But the ignored concept that enabled that mass perfection in variety was their engineer’s expertise in designing systems and structures.  They stuck firmly to fundamental principles.  The recent “950-ton bridge span” that pancaked cars in Florida was not an act of God.  Someone in the manufacturing or construction process failed in adhering to one or more fundamental principles.

 

To understand the craziness in politics and the world today we need look no further than the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence which offered us all fundamental principles as “Self-evident” “truths” based on the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.   Tragically, the champions of the Declaration then ignored these in engineering the U.S. Constitution. They created and followed ‘alternative’ principles instead. That failure to codify self-evident fundamental principles into our nation’s new governing system and structures resulted in more American deaths than all the wars we have fought in since then -- combined. 

Insanely since then politicians have invented and codified other alternative principles (peace through strength, unenforceable international law, supremacy of national sovereignty over human rights) to achieve their own unique political agendas.  These alternative principles have given us the increasingly chaotic and lethal world we have today.

Almost every American has pledged “liberty and justice for all” yet our Justice ‘system’ is profoundly unjust.  Even more unjust is our war policy.  It continues to kill countless innocent men, women and children without trail and then believe terrorists “hate our freedoms”.  Ignoring fundamental principles never ends well.  The exponential growth of technology cannot be controlled.  It fuels the evolution of weaponry which will not stop while our vulnerabilities grow.    

Reality dictates that we all “depend” on many things for our life, liberty and our pursuit of happiness. Yet our government is based on the mental construct of independence.  Something that exists no where in nature.  Freedom is real.  We are all free to do anything we want. And, the only thing we can be “certain” of is that we will never be free of the lethal consequences if we as individuals or a nation make irresponsible choices. Things change.  Can we?