Anarchy in the USA?

Signs of a super dad: A super dad dances with his kids every day.

Over the weekend my best friend showed up for a surprise visit. We went out to the local upscale bar. I had my water and he had an 8 dollar glass of Korsendonk(sp?) Winter Ale. (Eight dollars seems like a lot but according to my wife Korsendonk (sp?)Ale from Belgium is the best beer in the world.) Anyway, my buddy and I sat around for a couple of hours discussing a range of topics from making fun of a guy wearing pink pants to a deep philosophical discussion of the meaning of death. We don’t go out much but I always deeply enjoy it when we do.

I am bringing this up because over that night’s conversation my buddy said something extremely interesting. We were discussing how he enjoyed reading this blog and a question relating to an earlier post popped into my head. I asked him if anarchy was ever possible. His point of view is that humans want to be led. They will naturally gravitate towards some form of organized government. He came up with a simple example: Garbage collection. Think about it, how long would it take for riots to break out if garbage collection stopped across the nation? If no one did any organization to clean it up. What would happen if our garbage just started to pile up? How the burbs would go ballistic with piles of garbage laying around on their yards stinking up their houses? People would probably just start burning it; filling our cities and suburbs with black, toxic, choking smoke. Would you just bury it in the back yard? Well I don’t have a back yard. Let us not forget the diseases that would be spread if we wallowed in our own waste. It would take 6 months to a year before our country would choke to death on its own filth.

Of course this would never happen. We as a society would never let it. We would hire, appoint, and do whatever needs to be done so our garbage is taken away, but it does raise an interesting idea. How something we take for granted would destroy our civilization the moment it is gone. Roads? It’s pretty easy to see how things would shut down if we stopped taking care of roads. It would only take a winter or two before all the roads in the Northeast would be undrivable. Shipping would cease, commerce would end. Ever see the show Dirty Jobs on the Discovery channel? Just picture our society if people decided to stop doing some of those jobs. Its funny how many “little things” would bring down a civilization if they suddenly disappeared.

The things I have pointed out are easy to understand. What about the little things that aren’t so clear? Aren’t so easily seen? Twenty years ago few people believed or even knew what Global Warming was, but now it is a significant threat to our existence. Most people thought warmer temperatures were a good thing. Fifty years ago if you told someone our population would be in serious trouble because of being too fat they would have laughed in your face. Pretty pitiful eh? What seemly insignificant “thing” will we being worrying about 20 or 30 years from now? Something that now seems silly or stupid to worry about.

Things that seem just seem Science fiction. Cyborgs, for instance cyborgs. Robots that act and look human. Will we be seeing a significant population decline because of robot sex? That’s right, men and woman who don’t want to waste time on a real human and just buy their perceived perfect mate. Seems pretty silly, but is it? As virtual reality technology increase will we start seeing people forgo their real lives? Living instead inside a machine? What new disorders revolving around virtual reality will be born? It’s hard to say what the next threat to humanity is going to be. But, I am sure it will be something we didn’t see coming. I am just looking forward to chatting with my buddy over a 20 dollar beer about how they just outlawed robot sex.