Civilization seen by Col. Landis

Andrew Targowski

Col. Landis criticizes my 750 word long entry to the 2014 ISCSC Newsletter for the lack of broader support of my statements.  It is not a scientific paper, just a very short sketch on a very broad topic. More “substance” on that topic is in my book, The Limits of Civilizations (144 pages).  This sketch is my opinion, since the subject matter is based on predicting the future of civilization which is always based on many “ifs.”
The Polemists insist that other intelligence did not visit our Planet for the same reason our SETI system cannot cross the light speed barrier. Einstein said it is impossible, but as Jennifer Ouellette explains some scientists are still trying to break the cosmic speed limit – even if it means bending the laws of physics. Same Einstein asked what is more in God’s basket besides the four laws of physics?  It means that he was wondering whether, perhaps this barrier is only for us leaving on Earth?
Col. Landis asks me why I did not explain what does it mean “survival of the fittest.” I did not do it since our Members know it. Perhaps millions of people know that it is the essence of Darwin’s theory which is the base in all scientific disciplines and common sense disputes.
The Colonel does not like my line “In the 21st century, the progress of the civilized man reached its climax, as illustrated by the …large scale use of the internet.”  He claims that this is totally unsubstantiated. In my view the Internet leads to the strong globalization, decline of Western civilization due to minimalization of the middle class (through outsourcing), replacing Christian values by business values, growth of global stateless corporations, unsustainable growth of production by cheap labor and mass volume of resources, glory of super-consumerism, and population growth, ignition of the ecological bomb, depletion of strategic resources, vulgarization of culture, and so forth.
“Why the use of mobile phones leads to the contraction of the human brain?” Smiles the Colonel.  Because, users of those phones use not full words but short symbols and acronyms, leaving memorization to electronics. This is the reversal of the development of the human brain, which took place about 50,000 years ago when we began to use a developed language constantly growing in the number of words, which led to the development of our vast vocabulary and our brain as well in terms of capacity as in complexity of meanings and their syntax and  semantic relations. The declining use of F2F communication and short acronyms will eventually shrink the human brain. Wait a few centuries for the first statistics. I do not need to produce statistics in 750 word long sketch for a Newsletter. You may find more in my recent book, Virtual Civilization in the 21st Century.
Dear Col. Landis, you are right, Western civilization used to westernize the world. However, in the 21st century, such civilizations as Islamic, Buddhist, Chinese, even Eastern (Russia) want to modernize by not being westernized. Eventually Western civilization will be swallowed by Global civilization. The Colonel is right that Western civilization created Global civilization but now the former is eaten by the later. According to the rule that “a revolution eats its children.” Please read my book Global Civilization in the 21st Century.
Dear Col. Landis, I did not say that 100% of politicians are corrupted. I am not so stupid.
Thank you Col. Landis for providing me so many “fighting arguments” that I could use my “cannons.”
With respect
Andrew Targowski