Man has made great strides in understanding his cosmos. Man has made great strides in development of technology. Man has become the world's most successful apex predatory species.

We can understand the processes by which the sun generates energy, and even have gained quite a bit, if not total understanding of how even galaxies and the universe itself were born and what it's possible futures are.

There is however, one area, one critical area, a frontier that has the capability to destroy man, that man knows almost nothing about: his own mind, and his emotional self.

I ask you: what do you know, objectively, about your own emotions? Where do they come from? Are you, or are you not in control of them? What triggers your emotions? Do you know yourself, do you know what you will do under unusual circumstances, or extreme pressures?

I'd say that for 99% of Earth's people, the resounding answer to all those questions is a big fat NO. And that is what will be man's undoing: his inability to comprehend his own motivations and reactions.

Man can understand a lot about nature. But he does not comprehend his own nature.

For example. I give you the single most obvious, most easily scientifically supported statement about man: man is an animal. It's easily provable biologically. Man is an animal. A simple, basic truth of man's existence.

Yet a majority of the world's people refuse to believe this. There is a resistance, and almost insane rejection, of very basic truths about ourselves that we don't want to face.

And that is what will get us. Not the carbon, not the greed, but the most foundational, basic shortcoming of them all - the one Gautama the Buddha called the origin of all man's shortcomings: ignorance.

Technology is growing exponentially. And not just straight-line exponentially, but expanding into new dimensions: bio-tech and nano-technology are going to give us, far beyond the splitting of atoms, fundamental control over how molecules of matter arrange themselves. Think about that. That's a very fundamental leverage to have over one's basic existence. But that is where it's headed. The ability to arrange and recombine molecular structures, to alter and redesign genes, as well as harness energy creation methods that are only theoretical at this time.

Right now, however, we don't have the emotional grounding or the wisdom to handle that level of leverage without destroying our civilization.

So many have projected a glossy high-tech future with all kinds of wonders and gizmos that are only barely imaginable now.

But they fail to take into account the one thing that hasn't changed that much since the days of Cro-magnon Man: human nature.

Human nature hasn't evolved much, and apparently it doesn't evolve very fast. The same selfishness, the same greed, the same drives for sex, food, status, and political power drives us, emotionally and psychologically, as drove the behavior of our forefathers circa one million BC.

And that's a real problem when combined with our technological capabilities.

So I don't predict the destruction of the world. We'll figure it out and save (some) of ourselves at the 11th hour. We always do.

I think the USA, and most of the other European and Asian nations will in fact exist with some minor border qualifications in 30 years. Eastern Europe might be an exception, as nationalities continue to redefine themselves that were once part of the USSR.

But the USA will not be the apex of an empire as it was in the 20th century.

There will be a lot less biodiversity. There could be a smaller population, or at least a slow-down of the expansion rate of population due to a bigger percentage succumbing to the plagues of extreme poverty (mainly curable diseases that they don't have the means to treat because they will be poor).

I still say if you want to see the future of planet Earth look to India and multiply by a factor of 10. We'll have about 10 billion people, about 2/3 of whom will live in extreme poverty, while another two billion eke out a meager existence with some small stable level of economic means, about one billion who actually have what we would call a middle class lifestyle, and of the top one billion, about 800 million of them will be academics, technology experts, and cultural heroes such as celebrities, and just people with inherited old money, and of them about 100 million will be truly wealthy people who wield a vast influence, politically and culturally, over everybody else. Even from those 100 top million, there will only be a tiny fraction, say about 10 million or less, who can truly change the world through the power of their authority alone. Their primary motivation will be, of course, as it has been since 1 million BC, to preserve the status quo with their own clans at the top.

Which is to say, until we somehow make the leap to gaining, at the species level, some emotional and psychological maturity, we are simply going to create a bigger, more exaggerated version of what we have now.

For most of the people, that means a very tough, competitive and brutal existence, while the fortunate few do everything in their power to keep it that way.

Exploring the universe is a great thing no doubt.

But man will not be able to ease his suffering until he also turns his attention onto himself, and starts understanding his own needs, drives, and behavioral realities.

And not only have we not done that yet, even at this late stage, there seems to be no real comprehension that we have to learn who we are in order to break out of the cycles that Don was talking about earlier.

We don't learn, and it only takes a single human lifetime (60-80 years) to completely forget the lessons of the past and repeat, with slight variation, the same horrible mistakes of our ancestors, yet again.

Can we do better? Yes, of course. Will we do better? If the history of civilization is a guide, the answer is no, we won't.

Still, it is our choice. Whether you believe in God or not, the fact is we have free will, and we have the ability to learn and adapt.

Astoundingly, we use our free will and intelligence to choose NOT to. We cling to our old bad habits and wrong beliefs, emotionally, in spite of overwhelming evidence that they don't work.

That is what I find the single most disconcerting thing about human nature.

For those of you that question where I derive this stuff, I will give you something that either eases your mind or further troubles you. I do not consider myself a large C Christian as such, but I do aspire to follow the teachings of Jesus and I do believe in the God of Abraham.

I believe that modern Chrisitianity is a false religion, a state co-opted version of a real and authentic first century organic movement. That first century movement remains alive, albeit in relatively small numbers of people percentage wise, and the people that adhere to these principles come from every nation, tribe, and race. They also come from differing religious backgrounds and traditions.

I do not believe in authoritarianism. True believers voluntarily adhere to the teachings of Christ and other similar prophets; fairness cannot be forced on people from above. You see, if everyone follows the precepts Jesus promotes, there’s no need for authority figures. No cops, no judges, no jails, etc. Call me a dreamer, but that’s what I believe. Obviously, that won’t happen in the world as we know it. However, when the full consequences of what we are now doing become evident beyond the point of deniability, when you look out and see this planet all but destroyed in a fashion that will take a thousand years to rectify, your thinking and the thinking of those that survive with you is subject to change in a radical way.

A caveat: While I do believe in biblical prophesy, I also consider the bible a flawed document (one of the greater understatements I have pronounced in this life).

The rise of the antichrist doesn’t appear in the piece above. I do believe a ruler will appear—a manifestation of the spirit of the antichrist within the next 30 years, but I am not sure that he will be The Antichrist. That’s because I think that spirit of the antichrist has risen multiple times already (Hitler was probably the last incarnation), and it’s possible that the scenario I predict is off by a hundred years, in which case, we will survive a less serious penultimate crisis period and another round of revival before a mass die-off.

If this crisis period proves the penultimate event of the world at whole (putting off a mass die-off by 80 to 100 years), I suspect the United States as we know it will collapse, nonetheless. It is possible that the war I envision could be another Civil War.

I do not believe the United States will give rise to The Antichrist as in the last of the breed, but it is possible that we could provide fertile ground for a leader of that nature, sparking an event that destroys the Union. Picture a civil war with today’s weapons of war. Give your crazy homicidal Major predator drones, nukes, etc, and a following of like minded cohorts instead of a hand gun.

Should this next war prove to be global in nature, a shift in power will occur at a fairly rapid pace. The Middle East will be the trigger point of the next World War; a polarization is happening as we speak. Notice how countries like Venezuela, Iran and China are coming together, while the US, Europe and Colombia also seem to be aligning. This reminds me of the odd pairings of Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II.

I believe that something happens to the United States to reduce our standing in the world before an Armageddon like event. I’m not sure how it happens, but I am realitvely sure it will happen. Perhaps as Nostradamus seems to suggest, we fall victim to a limited nuclear attack. In a way, that would be poetic justice and fulfill laws of reciprocity: reap what you sow, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I do not forget that we created nuclear weapons and to date, we remain the only country to have used them on another. We own an unpaid debt.

I also consider the possibility that the Strauss Howe formula breaks down in the current time period. That after the US falls from power and the crisis has passed, an authoritarian leader arises, probably from a European country, with what appears to be answers to many of the world’s problems. He will not appear evil, but instead, divine. He’ll probably institute something along the lines of a computer chip that identifies a person, installed in your body, which serves as a tracking device and also is used in similar fashion to a modern day debit card. Cash will be abolished.

Think of the selling points. Any crime committed anywhere will be solved because the government will be able to track people wherever they go. Rapes, murders, robberies, all solved instantly. You won’t be able to buy illegal drugs, sex or stolen goods.

You earn money and it’s deposited into your account by scanning your body. You buy something, it’s paid for by the same method. No more identity theft. No more tax evasion or fraud. All business transactions can and will be monitored. Etc.

The chip may contain your medical history and other identifying information that would be useful to health care providers.

The ulitmate manifestation of authoritarianism, all for our own good.

It will work. For one year. And then the chaos begins.

When?

I don’t know.

But that’s what I think will happen.

Now, you can breathe easier. The dude is insane. Or not.

I did inhale.

I didn't meant to start a big discussion on religion. My intention was more that people of different beliefs, whether they believe in God or not, are going to be thrown into the crises of the future together and they will either have to work together, or become victims of a mass extinction event. If they choose to fight over whose beliefs are the right ones to have, that's effectively choosing the latter.

This mass extinction event is diffeent from previous ones because man is a primary cause of it, and because man does have the intelligence, if he uses it, to successfully navigate the event, preserve hois species in some stable manner, and help restore the biodiversity of the earth.

The question is will man take that option. The point I was making is that man is not psychologically or emotionally prepared for it. That doesn't mean we won't do it.

We are used to overcoming great challenges by amassing huge armies to defeat bad guys, or organizing revolutions to storm the homes of the elites. But that won't work this time.

This is a fundamentally different type of challenge, one that can't be met by just getting bigger, stronger, meaner, and angrier, and trumping the enemy with bigger bombs than the world has ever seen.

This one takes facing ourselves. And big strong mean guys have a habit of crumbling when it is their own selves they have to deal with.