Thursday, November 13, 2008

All Systems Down

You know in Star Trek when suddenly you all the lights on the Enterprise have gone out, the ship is shaking violently and there's a red alert. Yeah, that's us right now. And by us I mean Planet Earth.  Unfortunately there's no script that tells us things are going to be resolved in the 45 minutes by some stroke of technical genius (Data) or brilliant leadership (Captain Piccard). I'm not sure why I'm using a Star Trek analogy..I haven't watched that show in at least 12 years. But, well, we have been boldly going where no man has gone before in the past hundred years and, as it turns out while we may have gone boldly, even brazenly, we've not gone wisely.  And so, all the systems that have kept our ship going are failing. Each one so dependent on the next that they seem to be in a crumbling competition.   Every where I turn I see another system with red alert lights flashing - Wall Street, Maple Leaf Foods/centralized food system, educational institutions (no one fails and no one thinks critically), ecosystems, healthcare systems (superbugs).....oh dear me.   What are we to do? NOTHING that any leader is proposing as a solution to any one of these problems addresses the root of all these system shutdowns which is that they were never built properly in the first place.  These systems we've constructed, they are the problem and so long as we try to save the day by plugging solutions into this system, we might as well start counting down.   

I could rant much more poetically and coherently but I'm tired and need rest.  I'll get back to this when I have time...maybe over Christmas.....

 

1 comment:

Rob said...

You are so right S - no help out there but belief in miracles

See you soon
R