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This is part two in a series of three articles. Part one of the series is here.
Earlier today I posted:
There is a reasonable question regarding how civilization is supposed to survive a century or two from now, when weapons like this will be much smaller and could fall into the hands of terrorists. On the plus side, things could easily change so much by then that such a question could be irrelevant.
After all, things have changed quite that much in the past 100 years.
Imagine Orville and Wilbur at Kitty Hawk in 1903, waiting for a break in the weather to try out their plane.
Wilbur: Orville?
Orville: Yes, old sport.
Wilbur: Supposing this works, all right?
Orville: Yes, right right. Well?
Wilbur: Well, supposing 100 years from now, there are super-powered planes, and someone flies them into a giant building and destroys it.
Orville: Seems quite absurd.
Wilbur: Well, but why do you say that, old man?
Orville: Well, it’s just so damned inefficient, isn’t it? I mean, why a plane? I suppose by that time if they have super-planes, they’ll have super-weapons of all sorts. I mean to say, if someone did that to us, we’d just blast their whole country to bits, wouldn’t we?
Wilbur: I suppose you’ve got something there, old bean.
The point being that 100 years ago, the notion that we’d be attacked as we were on 9-11, and wouldn’t respond by devastating the country or countries that threatened further such attacks, if it were in our power to do so, would have been unthinkable. All the way through World War II, war always included devastation of civilian populations. Today’s thinking in Western nations, that civilian casualties are to be avoided wherever possible, is surely to our credit.
If the world can change that much in 100 years, by 2105 the world may change again so much as to make the whole current question of terrorism utterly irrelevant. I even think that it’s likely to change so much. For the reason why, tune in to part three of this series, posting later today.
For a video of the Wright Brother’s first glider flight, click here.
For Orville Wright’s article, “How We Made the First Flight,” click here.
