  |
|
|
|
Frontier TheoryLarry WinnArticlesIs it nobler in the mind to take the best stock and leave home while we can, or to huddle together on a spent cinder, sharing resources equally and awaiting a spiritual reward?
Frontier theory, population biology and conservative economic theory all agree that demographic shifts in the American population are going to make for interesting times in the early 21st century.
The Golden Age of Atomic Power in Space An interview with Dr. Brian Dunne, chief experimentalist for Project Orion, Part II: General Atomic
The Golden Age of Atomic Power in Space An interview with Dr. Brian Dunne, chief experimentalist for Project Orion, Part I: Jackass Flats
Growing numbers of individuals from Third World countries escape restricted, depleted and abusive environments to make a new life in the United States, perceiving it to be a kind of frontier. Americans resent the intrusion, and feel displaced, because they lack a similar opportunity.
No one believes a true thing unless their heart believes it first. Logic does not define the human condition. Passion does.
The year is 2023. Human beings are obsolete.
American manufacturing may not be able to meet the Japanese quality challenge, but it can transcend it. Here's how.
The cry of a far-off train whistle, the visceral growl of an automotive V-8, the spirit song of a heavy booster headed for deep space, these are the audible icons of American progress.
If you met a race of space explorers, aliens hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ahead of us technologically — If you could ask just one question and get it answered, what would it be?
The ocean floor? Siberia? The Amazon Basin? The Canadian North? Antarctica? What is a frontier, anyway?
If you just follow the trends, the forecast for 2020 is agonizing. So don't follow the trends.
How the absence of frontiers can be a cause of enduring strife.
"I am 15 years old, and I am terrified of the future."
One of the most revealing questions you can ask a candidate at any level of government is "What happens after the space station". The answer will guide you straight to the core of how the candidate thinks. Earth's most grievous symptoms of social decay are the result of having ignored the first and most important of all the Commandments. Every new decade brings with it another challenge to the rights of individuals under the Constitution. It's time to ask why. More than six decades after Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast, and with full knowledge of its history, those news bulletins can still chill the blood. ISO 9000, QS 9000, AS 9000 ... all quality standards purporting to regulate manufacturing for the benefit of the customer, do not, in fact, work. Could they be a passing form of trade war made necessary by the zero-sum-ness of the global economy? Will desperate immigrants, fleeing poverty and despair, overwhelm the social systems of the developed nations? Will armed despots hold the world's resources hostage, break the economies of the industrialized countries, and, in doing so, doom themselves? Only one thing is certain. After thirty years, the adventure of Apollo 11 still resonates in the human soul. Man's view of society perfected turns out to be fatally flawed. If you want to understand genocide, pick up this book at your local (academic) library. Just don't believe the conclusion. In the absence of territorial expansion, you must take what you need from others, or have what others need taken from you. The plan. Well, OK, a plan. Here are Frontier Theory's top predictions for your lifetime. I choose the beginning of a new year to restate the point of Frontier Theory, which is that the absence of physical frontiers is hurtful and eventually fatal for human beings.
Every year at this time, I take in the tale again, each season finding myself more in sympathy with Ebenezer Scrooge. Before the space shuttle, before the giant Saturn rockets, there was a classified program to launch flying cities propelled by atomic bombs. Suppose someone tapped a non-polluting, practically inexhaustible power source with dirt as a raw material. The rodents in John Calhoun's enclosures developed social pathologies similar to the behavior of humans trapped in cities. Frederick Jackson Turner and the Closing of the American Frontier
Frederick Jackson Turner introduced us to the idea that America had become another name for opportunity because of its frontier. There is a reason why life seems harder, competition stiffer, politics sharper. It is not that we have multiplied too much, but that we have gone forth too little. |
|
|
|
