IN THE MIDDLE OF TEN THOUSAND YEARS

During only about twenty generations, so many new developments have occurred that the entire temporal order of the Earth was restructured. Increasingly clear distinctions are now made between the past and the future, in terms of increasingly longer spans of time. The history of civilization is much better resolved and a consistent version of that history is being provided by historians all over the world. Not only is it better coordinated between different civilizations and nations, but it extends back farther in time.

Recent archaeological discoveries in Peru and other parts of South America up to five thousand years ago now appear to be consistent with events in Old World for a similar time. This consistency makes it possible to have an equivalent meaningful time sense for human destiny. Whereas once it was necessary either to limit predictions to about one century, or else cast predictions in unimaginable futures such as millions of years, having a consistent 5,000 year history provides a more sensible basis for consciousness that the future, too, is to surely extend into a 5,000 year destiny.

Of course that number is not rigidly set by anything. It has to do with the discovery of many archaeological remnants everywhere in the world, that when radioisotope dated, range to about five thousand years ago. The time that passed from the beginning of human civilization to the attainment of footsteps on the Moon was just a hand of millennia. It is neither unnoticed, nor noticed by all things. One wonders if there is a six and seven attached, those numbers being fundamental atomic numbers in the element carbon, vital to life, and nitrogen, main constituent of the atmosphere and the medium of matters of the spirit.

To have five thousand sensible years in the recent past, and another five thousand years in the future, places the world in the middle of ten thousand years. It makes the idea of planning the world's destiny in terms of the future five thousand years more than merely inviting, convenient, or interesting. The critical issues - nuclear weapons, severity of the human population, destruction of earth's living species, and pollution of the small ecological system of this only planet we have to live on, utterly vital, and five thousand years is neither too long to be impossible to plan for, nor too brief to be a challenging and valuable period of concern.

It is no longer necessary to struggle with ideas like "The God of Millions of Years". To be sure, there probably is a god of such vast reaches of time, because if spirit emerged with life, and life adapts to advantage, then life has evolved god for at least half a billion years. Satellites like LAGEOS, ETALON, STARLETTE and AJISAI are certain to span a hundred thousand years to eternity. Five thousand years is only urban planning for some cities already.

Mankind set out to construct the path to the Moon five thousand years ago, after it was probably devolved on the human species for one or two millennia. Mankind did not know much about the heavens nor the spirits, but knew it had no choice, knew only that it obeyed. Human beings, simply close to stock in understanding, simply began trying to reach the Moon by constructing mountains.

Of course the results were both magnificent for their times, and yet tragic in ways that remain to this day. Especially after the first peaceful, trading civilizations changed into more formally strict civilizations that, though still trading, also imposed more stringent requirements on their peoples - often with force. It happened all over the world - in Egypt, in the Middle East, India, South America, and people toiled and struggled and were broken. Worse, they did not know who compelled them except that those who led them told them, and were probably telling the truth or what they believed was the truth, that the Gods made them do it.

Worse yet were decisions that groups, classes or religions of people who were not contributing to whatever the Gods at the time seemed to want, rapidly enough, were expendable and should be eliminated. That was probably when human beings began to reproduce rapidly, probably by offsetting annual mating cycles and requiring that love was to be a pleasant and enjoyable happy time after work any time of year so that children could be born. The only goal was to reach the Moon and often that goal was obscured by temporal and sometimes brutal causes.

Animal nature is not very bright, and underlies much of that which passes for intelligence in the human species. Believe me, I know.

Now, now a decade into this twenty first century, no excuses remain. There is no need to relegate human beings to brutal toil in order to reach the Moon. There is no need for subhuman or degrading conditions of existence. There is an awful need for prolonged and sustained peace, a peace to which human beings can become accustomed, and a peace during which they can rest and grow confident after five thousand years of war and bloody plunder.

Here is a problem:

If human beings do not prove to the Gods that comprise the half billion and more years of instincts of the Planet,

Who invested the planet's monkeys and men into a ferocious struggle to reach the Moon these past five thousand years,

That the Moon is already attained and that Project Apollo actually took place and the Orion Project is already attained

(Of course it did, we know that for certain in literate rationality, but the instincts of the planet do not know that for certain.)

then,

With the huge payload of nuclear and thermonuclear, bacteriological and chemical warheads waiting and ready in the arsenals,

Some Brutus is likely to end up obeying his interpretation of the Gods, and

The Gods are likely to find the brutes who will obey them, and

Together they will launch another destruction of the world so that

The Gods can make the planet's Monkeys try it again.

That Brutus would make Dr. Strangelove look like a civilized man, even a tree hugger.

To be sure, optimism is optimal, and it is worth appreciating that every state in the world seems to share concern for eliminating all weapons of mass destruction. The recent coming into phase and coherence of world history has made the attainment of space flight so much a signal that the time has come for peace for the entire world, and relief from the ignorant striving for the Moon, that the peace making activity can itself take on a more determined, confident, and stronger role.

Complete nuclear disarmament has not only mercy and justice to recommend it. Right, truth, and the concerted opinions of thousands of workers in every field of work and in every country on the planet are also on the side of disarmament. Only a few profit-seeking groups exploiting and exploited by the imperfections of capitalism which has made money into a false god, remain. They do not have the bulk of good sense, nor even the money, on their side.

No longer shall we wage war amongst ourselves for the unresolved but commanding Heavens, Spirits, Gods and instincts of billions of years for nothing more than flying to the Moon.

Let's all settle down and get several nations onto the Moon in the next few
decades and put an end to war.