The Life Span of Empires: 250 Years?

Previously published on abu al-fin


Sir John Glubb was a British author and lecturer, who was decorated for his service in the Royal Engineers in WWI, and was commander of the Jordan Arab Legion from 1939 to 1956. His famous and succinct essay, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (PDF), looks at the lifespan of empires from their origins to their eventual decline.

Glubb estimates that most empires do not last longer than roughly 250 years, with many of them lasting much shorter periods of time. He describes many of the stages of empire, and many of the reasons why they break down and eventually disappear.

Sir John Glubb "Fate of Empires" (PDF)

As seen in Glubb's image above, most of the world's great empires lasted no longer than 250 years. Glubb looks at the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire as two different empires, based upon their distinct forms of government.

One of the reasons for decline of empire described by Glubb is the influx of masses of people from outside cultures, religions, and ethnic groups, who are different from the core populations making up the founders and conquering peoples who brought about the original empire.

Glubb's summary at the end of the essay:

(a) We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced.

(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness.

(c) This average has not varied for 3,000 years. Does it represent ten generations?

(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great nations seem to be:

The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
The Age of Conquests
The Age of Commerce
The Age of Affluence
The Age of Intellect
The Age of Decadence.

(e) Decadence is marked by:

Defensiveness
Pessimism
Materialism
Frivolity
An influx of foreigners
The Welfare State
A weakening of religion.

(f) Decadence is due to:
Too long a period of wealth and power
Selfishness
Love of money
The loss of a sense of duty.

(g) The life histories of great states are amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.

(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external causes.

(i) History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student’s own country. _PDF Download of Sir John Glubb's Essay on Fate of Empires

Useful background reading:

Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler

The Evolution of Civilisations by Carroll Quigley

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. 1 by Edward Gibbon

Historians often disagree over details -- both large and small. That leaves it up to each of us to learn what we can, and to make up our own minds as to the lessons that we can apply from history to more modern times.


Note regarding comments: Glubb considered the "250 year" observation to be interesting, but not something to be made into a dogma. His main point was that empires evolve over time -- and generations of people -- so that the spirit and cohesiveness which brought about their creation tends to dissipate. The decay was observed to take place over roughly 10 generations, but could require much less time if a rival empire was ready to take over at an earlier time.

The study of civilisations is much more interesting than the study of empires, since a civilisation can jump from empire to empire, and evolve in many different population groups -- assuming their cognitive abilities are sufficient to support it, and their genetic / behavioural instincts are compatible with the underlying spirit of the civilisation.

Hey Western Civilisation: What Makes You so Special?

An overwhelming number of the explorers in history have been European. The Concise Encyclopedia of Explorers lists a total of 274 explorers, of which only 15 are non-European, with none listed after the mid-fifteenth century.8 In the urge to explore new regions of the earth and map the nameless, we can detect, in a crystallized way, the “prime-symbol” of Western restlessness. We can also detect the Western mind’s desire – if I may borrow the language of Hegel – to expand its cognitive horizon, to “subdue the outer world to its ends with an energy which has ensured for it the mastery of the world.”9 _Ricardo Duchesne

Age of Exploration

Westerners and Europeans have been at the forefront of most of the important human discoveries and accomplishments in science, philosophy, technology, and the arts since around 800 BC.

It is asserted by historian Ricardo Duchesne that westerners have also been at the forefront of most important human global exploration and discovery (h/t Dennis Mangan).

IN HIS 2003 book, Human Accomplishment: Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950, Charles Murray argued that the great artistic and scientific accomplishments were overwhelmingly European. ”What the human species is today,” he wrote, “it owes in astonishing degree to what was accomplished in just half a dozen centuries by the peoples of one small portion of the northwestern Eurasian land mass.”

...The point I want to make, however, is that Murray pays no attention to accomplishments in other human endeavors such as leadership, exploration, and heroic deeds. The achievements he measures come only in the form of “great books” and “great ideas.” In this respect, Murray’s book is similar to certain older-style Western Civ textbooks where the progression of modern liberal ideals is the central theme. David Gress dubbed this type of historiography the “Grand Narrative.” By teaching Western history in terms of the realization of liberal democratic values, these texts “placed a burden of justification on the West … to explain how the reality differed from the ideal.’3 Gress called upon historians to do away with this idealized image of Western uniqueness and to emphasize the realities of Western geopolitical struggles and mercantile interests. Norman Davies, too, has criticized the way early Western civilization courses tended to “filter out anything that might appear mundane or repulsive.”4

MY VIEW IS that Europeans were not only exceptional in their literary endeavors, but also in their agonistic and expansionist behaviors. Their great books, including their liberal values, were themselves inseparably connected to their aristocratic ethos of competitive individualism. There is no need to concede to multicultural critics, as Davies does, “the sorry catalogue of wars, conflict, and persecutions that have dogged every stage of the [Western] tale.”5 The expansionist dispositions of Europeans as well as their literary and other achievements were similarly driven by an aggressive and individually felt desire for superlative and undemocratic recognition. _Richard Duchesne

It is neither fashionable nor politically correct to acknowledge the leadership of Euro - westerners in any important and beneficial activity. This is particularly true if one is claiming that there is something innate within Euro-westerners which allowed them to provide leadership in multiple areas of human accomplishment which have improved the overall human condition for large numbers of the world's inhabitants.

More politically correct scholars such as Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) have attempted to provide alternative explanations to the idea of western exceptionalism. But few such arguments are able to withstand any degree of scrutiny or critical examination. Which leaves us with the question: What is it about western civilisation which caused it to produce so many exceptional achievers across so many important human fields of study and achievement?

Historian Ricardo Duchesne is also the author of a well researched book on the same topic: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization.

Below is an audio interview with Duchesne, where he discusses his arguments regarding the uniqueness of western civilisation.

Interview w/ Ricardo Duchesne re his book: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization

And so, again, what makes Euro-westerners so special?

It has been claimed that ADHD is far more common among Europeans than in non-Europeans. It is likely that a number of other genetic clusters which influence behaviour are likely to have been divergent in European populations as opposed to non-European populations. As the tools of genetic study improve, we should better understand how different breeding populations diverged in unique ways.

As Duchesne points out, the particular aggressiveness of westerners creates a wide range of problems at the same time that it opens and exploits beneficial opportunities.

Other populations tend to be more aggressive than Europeans in terms of impulsive violent crime -- such as many African populations and a number of South American indigenous populations. But Europeans are more violent in this way than are East Asians. There is a gradient of sorts, in terms of homicide rates: Africans > Europeans > East Asians.

Curiously, a similar gradient of average male testosterone levels appears to exist, with higher levels in Africans, medium levels in Europeans, and lower levels in East Asian males.

Even more interestingly, an IQ gradient exists in the opposite direction, with East Asian average IQs > European average IQs > African average IQs. Taken together, this might suggest that exploration requires at least moderate IQ and moderate testosterone levels -- in combination with other gene clusters which may add particular strengths to an explorer's innate arsenal of grit, gumption, "g", and go-getiveness.

We should note, however, that "he who laughs last, laughs best." If Europeans (and East Asians) allow their numbers to decline below certain levels of influence, they risk being ultimately overwhelmed by more enthusiastic procreators who may unfortunately lack some of the more remarkable qualities of the higher achieving populations, on average.

More Reading: Invention of the Modern World (Alan Macfarlane's Focus on England's role) h/t HBD Chick

Abandoning Western Civilisation: Views of an Evolving Professor

Professor Bruce Charlton is a complex person. Having first trained in medicine and psychiatry, over the years, Charlton has lectured on Theoretical Medicine, Evolutionary Psychiatry, Psychology, Epidemiology, Anatomy, and Physiological Sciences. Charlton has published a large number of articles, several books, has championed some original ideas in the area of "psychological neoteny", and most recently has been involved in controversy as editor of "Medical Hypotheses", a speculative medical journal.

One recent article in Charlton's blog, Bruce Charlton's Miscellany, caught my eye: Should Western Civilization be Saved? In the article, Charlton expresses the view that since western civilisation contains the seeds to its own destruction, it can probably not be saved regardless of what is done.

Since much of the Al Fin enterprise is devoted to saving just enough of western civilisation to jump-start "the next level," Charlton's warnings of the impending demise of the west are not taken lightly in the planning offices of the Al Fin Consolidated Syndicates.

Charlton is not the first thinker to declare that the west is doomed. And he will not be the last. But he is a thinker and blogger of considerable depth, and his ideas should be taken seriously.

The self-destroying aspects of the West have always been there, and they permeate or are woven-into the whole.

Western Civilization has always been changing - not merely superficially, but deeply. It has never been stable - not even for two generations in a row.

The West is continually becoming more abstract, more specialized, less Christian.

There is no evidence that The West ever could be stable - and everything suggests the opposite. _BCM

Notice the reference to Christianity. Such thoughts will prove important to understanding his meanings. Charlton was once an atheist, and his change of heart to religious belief casts his ideas under a fascinating lighting scheme. All the same it is best to take a person's words at "face value" (as you interpret the term), and shade the meanings appropriately as you learn more.

The West is perpetually in transition: it has no essence: it is evolutionary.

Those who set out their stall on defending 'Western Civilization' are therefore either defending a process (markets, democracy, 'the Open Society'), and an evolutionary process which might lead anywhere, including to self-destruction of Western Civilization (as, in my opinion, it already has)....

Or else they are really defending some other bottom line entity that is not Western Civilization and would quite likely dispense with Western Civilization at some point in the future: e.g. a nation or group of nations, a race, a ruling lineage (e.g. of monarchs, or castes)... the preservation of which might well necessitate at some point dispensing with what are currently 'Western values'.

In other words, if you favour a process (like democracy, sexual freedom) you must be prepared to sacrifice an entity (like a nation or a race): if you favour an entity you must be prepared to dispense with processes.

So, I am saying that it is strictly nonsense - and destructive nonsense - to claim to be defending Western Civilization.

...The West cannot be saved.

There is nothing to save; and anyway The West has self-destruction built-in, woven-in, pervasive.

How can you save something which so much wants to kill itself?

Take your eye off Western Civilization for just a moment and it will be swinging from the rafters with its own belt around its neck... _BCM

The suicidal references, coming from a psychiatrist who has himself suffered considerable recent tumult, are no doubt very meaningful.

The west is certainly full of contradictions and mutually destructive movements of variable and cyclic vitality. But is it true that "there is no there, there?" Certainly the west can be quite difficult to define and pin down in a comprehensive way. Is the modern west, for example, similar enough to the civilisations of ancient Greece, Rome, and middle ages Christianity, to consider it the same civilisation that is a bit futher along in evolutionary time? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Can you not ask the same questions about any particular human mind? We are full of contradictions, and we all carry the seeds of our own destruction. Each living human is evolving in both constructive and destructive ways.

Civilisations can survive the deaths of any number of its members, of course, so the evolutionary stream of a civilisation is much more interesting to observe.

It is true that a civilisation can destroy itself, or evolve "away from itself." But there are particular essences within a civilisation which can be worth saving, even if such essences are capable of creating instabilities within the system. If you try to remove all sources of instability from a civilisational system, you are left with a stagnant system which will choke on its own offal. At that point, competing civilisations will take over the territory, or a new civilisation will rise from the grave of the old.

The urge for stability can be taken too far, with fatal results for dynamic systems of all kinds -- from human brains to civilisations.

It is absolutely crucial that humans who are capable of doing so should learn to think "one level up" from Charlton's fascinating discussion. I am certain that Charlton is capable of such meta-thought. But many people who choose an orthodox ideology later in life (or at any time in life) can be resistant to lines of thought which may compel change.

Suffice it to say that Al Fin Futurologists conceive of a next level civilisation which owes a great deal to modern western civilisation -- particularly to western thought, from the European renaissance through the writing of the US Constitution.

Given the significant changes in the human substrate of the next level, the resulting civilisation will "feel" different, and will derive much of its stability from the underlying agreed-upon principles of outlook. But the next level as conceived by the Al Fin Syndicates contains far more dynamism than conventional western thinkers can typically imagine.

You must have that tension between stability and dynamism.

More from Charlton's blog later.


More: This short essay by French Philosopher Andre Glucksmann should be read alongside the short article by Charlton. By looking at "the original birth of freedom" in Athens, it is perhaps possible to see more clearly some of the strengths and weaknesses of western civilisation. Glucksmann admits the instability inherent in freedom, but accepts the risk:

Athens did not perfectly succeed, and it eventually collapsed—just as our own democracies may someday collapse. I do not believe in the eternity of systems, even our own. Those founded on the attempted negation of chaos and the suppression of freedom will, I hope, collapse sooner. But those founded on freedom may be destroyed by the imbalance inherent in their constitutions, an imbalance that animates and sometimes consumes them. _CityJournal

Clearly Superior

Westerners are not supposed to recognise that they are living in a civilisation that is superior to other civilisations. But the smarter ones have trouble not seeing it, and in their more honest moments they admit the superiority of western civilisation, at least to themselves.

The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing.___CityJournal

One could characterize the difference between the West and the Rest as a difference in epistemological principles. The desire for knowledge, no matter where it leads, inherited from the Greeks, has led to an institution unequaled—or very rarely equaled—outside the West: the university. Along with research institutes and libraries, universities are, at least ideally, independent academies that enshrine these epistemological norms, where we can pursue truth in a spirit of disinterested inquiry, free from political pressures. In other words, behind the success of modern Western societies, with their science and technology and open institutions, lies a distinct way of looking at the world, interpreting it, and recognizing and rectifying problems.

...A culture that gave the world the novel; the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert; and the paintings of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Rembrandt does not need lessons from societies whose idea of heaven, peopled with female virgins, resembles a cosmic brothel. Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.

Western civilisation has worked its way through periods of monarchy, world colonialism, battles of totalitarian ideologies that took themselves too seriously--and has mostly come out on the side of facilitating the healing of the world's sick, feeding of the world's hungry, and helping to enable the impoverished of the world to acquire a measure of comfort. All of that, and much more typifies the prevailing spirit of the achieving west.

The suicidal west is another matter, but I suspect we can deal with them. All the doomseekers, holy warmers, lefty dieoff.orgies, and the like. But we cannot allow the suicidal insiders to sabotage us in our resistance to the bloody outsiders who would take our freedom and our lives.

Never Be the Same Again

Technology empowers those who master its use. The more advanced the technology, the greater the power granted to its masters. Nanotech, biotech, robotics, and advanced electronics bring the costs of widespread violence, mayhem, and terror down within the reach of a lot more people.

Professor Sharkey, who is famously known for his roles as chief judge on the TV series Robot Wars and as onscreen expert for the BBC´s TechnoGames, said: "The trouble is that we can't really put the genie back in the bottle. Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy. How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act?"

"With the current prices of robot construction falling dramatically and the availability of ready-made components for the amateur market, it wouldn't require a lot of skill to make autonomous robot weapons."___Source

Image Source

Biotech terror will likewise grow from the bioweapons programs of nations such as Russia, China, Iran, etc., and become more widely available as the tools of biotechnology become less expensive and more easily obtained. The same is true for chemical weapons and nanotech weapons.

Nanotechnology will be widely used by both legitimate authorities and criminal/terror groups for multiple purposes. As both stationary and mobile stealth sensor networks, nano-devices offer unprecedented information gathering capability. Molecular assemblers, once available, would allow rapid assembly of nano-weapon devices as well as larger weapons systems and devices.

Currently, westerners enjoy freedoms of movement and action unprecedented in the history of the Earth. At this time, significant violence and oppression are geographically limited to specific areas of the third world, or to specific cities or sections of cities in the advanced world. Most westerners feel free to travel anywhere from cross town to cross planet, without feeling too concerned about their personal safety.

Such a situation cannot last much longer. Within every western country, significant minorities of people nurse feelings of victimisation, along with violent revenge fantasies. The fact that such disturbed individuals have heretofore lacked the means to perpetrate their vengeance upon the majority has done nothing to dampen the intensity of these violent urges. As technologies which can easily be perverted to violent ends become more readily available, such malcontents will more often carry out their dreams of revenge.

Currently, individuals can carry weapons into the workplace, the school building, the shopping mall--and kill a handful or two of unfortunate victims. In the near future, such aggrieved individuals will be able to use more advanced technologies to cause the deaths of dozens, or hundreds of individuals--with less risk to themselves.

Consider all the computer hackers of the world (mostly Russia and China, but also in your hometown), who would do so much more damage if they only had greater reach. Consider the breakdown of government and commerce due to widespread failure of computer networks, financial networks, utility control networks, flight control networks, and so forth. Soon, the advantage may shift from the defense to the offense, with a simple breakthrough or two.

There is no need for Peak Oil, no need for Catastrophic Climate Change, no need for Islamic Nuclear Terror. Just a few advanced computing algorithms operating on some custom hardware. Or a suitcase full of stealth nano-weapons released into a water supply or skyscrapers' air supply.

The US is the world leader in scientific and technological research, but US labs are full of spies and potential spies. Secrets are difficult to keep in the US, with most other nations of the world--including putative allies of the US--trying to snatch whatever secrets they can. But as more technology and science originates within labs in China, and other emerging powers, the US and Europe have no analogous spy networks set up to warn them of potentially dangerous breakthroughs. The first hint of a problem may be the abrupt collapse of every building in NYC more than three stories tall.

The point is that informed individuals should be prepared for such a shift in reality well before it occurs. Just as Californians need to be prepared for earthquakes, Kansans and Oklahomans should be prepared for tornadoes, Alaskans should be prepared for blizzards and extreme cold, and individuals living along the Gulf of Mexico or the southern US Atlantic coast need to be prepared for hurricanes.

Civilisation rests upon the organisation of civil affairs, basic infrastructure. But nothing is easier to disrupt in the new era of tech-enabled terrorism, than basic civil infrastructure. There is no need for a hurricane, earthquake, or other natural disaster. Infrastructure breakdown can be its own disaster.

Think about it. Expect it. Count on it. And be prepared.

Sponsored by the Society for Creative Apocalyptology®

Running From the Fire, But Carrying the Fire Along

Demographic change is coming to Europe, and one of the questions asked is: will the newcomers bring a new civilisation to replace "old Europe," or are they merely fleeing the fire, while carrying the fire with them?

Demography best told the story: where more than 40 percent of the world population was “under the political control” of Western civilization in the year 1900, that share had declined to about 15 percent in 1990, and is set to come down to 10 percent by the year 2025. Conversely, Islam’s share had risen from 4 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 1990, and could be as high as 19 percent by 2025.

It is not pretty at the frontiers between societies with dwindling populations — Western Europe being one example, Russia another — and those with young people making claims on the world. Huntington saw this gathering storm. Those young people of the densely populated North African states who have been risking all for a journey across the Strait of Gibraltar walk right out of his pages.

...I still harbor doubts about whether the radical Islamists knocking at the gates of Europe, or assaulting it from within, are the bearers of a whole civilization. They flee the burning grounds of Islam, but carry the fire with them. They are “nowhere men,” children of the frontier between Islam and the West, belonging to neither. If anything, they are a testament to the failure of modern Islam to provide for its own and to hold the fidelities of the young.

NYTimes

If modern Islam can be called a civilisation, it is just barely that. Looking at Malaysia and Indonesia--countries that would be hopelessly backward if not for an ethnic Chinese market dominant minority--suggests that Islam has only survived by parasitising more advanced civilisations. The basis of the modern "Islamic Renaissance"--Persian Gulf oil--was developed by outsiders, and is still maintained by outsiders.

Perhaps Islam is not capable of building, but can only destroy. We have the example of Islam's "Golden Age", fondly looked back upon by Muslims everywhere as the example of a "dominant Islam", blessed by Allah. Unfortunately for those dreams, the reality was somewhat different. But that was then, and this is now.

After Islamic immigrants sweep across Europe, using Europe's multicultural democratic institutions as tools of Europe's own destruction, what will they build to replace the civilisation they destroyed?

Will Communist China Survive to 2014?

An astute analyst must always look beneath the surface of a culture, society, nation, civilisation. Pay attention not to what the ruling class is claiming, but rather to the underlying reality they may be attempting to obscure.

Take the case of mainland China. On the surface, the economy is booming and destined to surpass that of the US within the next decade. But what is really happening, behind the curtain?

China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed.

What happened to $4 trillion in Chinese gross domestic product?....Statistics.

Fall of China

AP writes that “The World Bank said the economies of China and India are about 40 percent smaller than earlier estimates after it revised calculations using consumers' relative purchasing power to measure economic might.

The new figures released by the World Bank on Monday differ from conventional GDP figures, which are calculated by simply converting local statistics into US dollars - but don't take into account the wide variations in the purchasing power of a dollar from country to country. …

Under the new estimates, the number of Chinese living on less than $1 a day …is nearly 300 million. The earlier estimates put that figure at 100 million. …”

Source

It is a matter of playing with numbers. But regardless of how you calculate relative purchasing power, you absolutely must pay attention to the ominous signs of impending collapse within China's corrupt and hastily constructed infrastructure.

A recent Nanowerk scenario projected the Chinese Communist government collapsing in the year 2014, from inner turmoil. It is difficult to predict such catastrophic dissolutions. During the 20th century, most communist governments collapsed of their own incompetence and corruption. China has moved away from central planning--to some extent--which is one reason why so much foreign investment has flooded into the country. But that investment could easily dry up as quickly as it began.

The widespread poverty, pollution, corruption, incompetence, and unresponsiveness to the average persons' concerns, suggest a dark future for China's current regime. If China is to collapse, it will not be the way the Nanowerk scenario projects.

China's long history of warlordism--competing governments situated on the mainland--suggests that China will schism into several pieces. Each piece will be controlled by strongman rule. The piece of China closest to Siberia will almost certainly move to annex a large piece of Russian East Siberia. The table is already set for such a move Other warlords will likely move to assert dominance wherever they can.

When the dissolution of China occurs, a similar dissolution of Russia is almost inevitable. Russia lacks the manpower and conventional military might to prevent it.

Which is where the danger of apocalypse truly begins. Lacking a conventional deterrent to prevent its Siberian treasure chest from being taken by warlords from China and central Asia, Russia will be tempted to execute nuclear strikes--tactical at first--to stop the land-grab. If tactical strikes are ineffective, strategic missiles targeted to the population centers for the invading forces would follow. Then Pandora's box would open completely.

Putin believes he is being clever by upgrading his nuclear force, to back up his global power plays. He is clearly not a discerning student of history and historical forces that drive mass human action.

The scenario will continue--perhaps sooner than any of us wish.

Sent to Subdue the World, With Minds Full of Hate

Islam is not, strictly speaking, a "religion" as we in the west define religion. It is a totalitarian socio-religio-political system from the middle ages--with grand ambitions of world conquest. The Muslim Council of Britain--financed by UK government grants and contributions from Saudi Arabian Wahabists etc.--is considered a "mainstream" religious organisation, and attempts to maintain a public face of peace and tolerance. But what is really going on behind the benign public face of the MCB, inside the UK's mosques?

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.

Some of the fundamentalist works were found at the bookshop in the London Central mosque in Regent’s Park, which is funded by the Saudi regime and is regularly visited by government ministers. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, is also a Saudi diplomat and was among those greeting King Abdullah when he arrived in Britain last night for his official state visit.

Extremist literature, including passages supporting the stoning of adulterers and waging violent jihad, was also found on sale at many other mosques regarded as mainstream institutions.

Times Online

While some scholars claim that Wahabism is marginalised as a force within Islam, the Wahabi money trail tells a different story. It is not only in Britain and Australia that Saudi oil money is used to finance the warping of young minds toward fanatical violence and destruction. The trail of blood leads back to the primitive sands from virtually every western and third world country with an appreciable population or strategic location.

Islam has bloody borders, and the responsibility for that blood lies mainly with Wahabi supporters in the Sunni gulf states, and with the oil sponsored theocracy of Iran.

When otherwise intelligent people attack non-violent Christianity and Judaism, while giving the bloody, violent Islamist movement a free pass, the message sent to Islamist fanatics is that the west is so involved in attacking its own weakened belief systems that it has no time or energy to defend itself from an outside attack.

When Osama bin Laden confidently predicted that the Americans would be quick and easy to defeat in Afghanistan, should the US ever think to attack Al Qaeda in its Taliban protected stronghold, he was expressing the timeless view of the primitive and vital toward the sophisticated and decadent. When a more advanced nation or civilisation becomes so decadent as to continuously attack itself without regard for dangers from the outside, it makes itself appear to be easy prey.

The western world has achieved a momentum in world affairs that cannot be completely explained by natural resources, geography, national cultures, relative intelligence, exploitation of the primitive world, tropical diseases, or just luck. The pre-eminence of the western world can certainly not be explained by divine guidance, genocidal mania, or alien intervention.

Just a few more decades and humans will have the keys to significantly longer and healthier lives. We will stand at the doorway of augmented minds and senses. The universe itself appears to wait on the decisions of humans, for the future. Can we hold off the wolves that are nipping at our heels (from within and without) long enough to achieve the level that allows us to begin our long journey?

Too Stupid To Know When Someone Is Trying To Kill You--Reprise

I could not let the month of April go by without returning to the April 2006 message from award-winning SF/Horror writer Dan Simmons.

Analogous to the neurologic phenomenon of "face blindness" or "emotion blindness," is the broader social pathology of civilisation danger blindness. While the sufferer of emotion blindness is unable to read the emotions of others around her--so she cannot anticipate when someone is likely to cause her harm--the sufferer of civilisation danger blindness is unable to recognise people and groups of people who represent a mortal danger to their freedoms and civilisation.

With that fashionable sociopathology in mind, I offer once again Dan Simmons' April 2006 message.


Science fiction authors have the ability to place themselves out of the context of current reality, into possible realities that could occur. "Constraint propagation" is a concept useful in certain types of computer programming. It is also useful in predicting future events.

Some science fiction authors are better than others at this. In my humble opinion, Dan Simmons and Orson Scott Card are two of the best at projecting the future based upon current events. They have suffered untold flak from their fans and others, but have taken the honourable course of risking a loss of readership to tell what they believe to be the true danger we face.

Contrast that courage with the cowardice of hip hop artists who state that even if they knowingly lived next door to a mass murderer, they would never inform authorities of a killer's whereabouts--not even to save lives. The explanation they give, is that it would be bad for business!