Iraq in 40 years...

[Universal Mind]

What will it be like? Let's come back to this thread in 40 years and talk about it. I hope this site and this thread will still be up then. Please don't argue about whether the war should have ever begun or turn this into a thread about how much you think Bush sucks. The topic of this thread is the future of Iraq, not the past. Hopefully I will be able to restrain myself from getting caught up in any debates. I mainly just want to see what people think about the long term future of Iraq and how it will affect the rest of the Middle East.

[Invader]

It can go either way at this point, really. I don't really think Iraq is going to be a strong country for a very long time now, but it's possible they might at least stabilize. And it's possible they might not. What are your opinions on it, Universal Mind?

[Original Poster]

I agree, as history is dawning upon us I now see the light as we speak. In our old, narrow-minded perspective, we did not give George W Bush the respect he truly deserved for the noble cause he was fighting. I feel ashamed for being apart of such a barbaric paradigm. Luckily, with history's brilliant gift of retrospection I can look back at Bush's era and see how glorious and clever a human being he truly was and how wise and forward thinking he was to bankrupt our nation in unwinnable foreign wars.

[Universal Mind]

What are your opinions on it, Universal Mind? I think Baghdad will have a skyline that looks like Hong Kong's and Iraq will have excellent cities with stock exchanges everywhere. Iraq will be the third richest nation in the world, after the U.S. and Japan (another country whose constitution we rewrote). The yuppie and MTV lifestyles will exist everywhere, Islam will be on the edge of being considered mythology, and the few suicide bombers living there will be mocked by smart ass Iraqis on the country's most popular lucid dreaming website in the way hardcore Christian fundamentalists are ragged on this site. I think the Iraqi government will be opening cans of whip ass on the surrounding governments that still haven't gotten their acts together, if there are any by then. George W. Bush's picture will be all over the place, and he will be celebrated as the man who liberated Iraq and began the great historical revolution of the Middle East. He will be what George Washington is to Americans. People like Omnis Dei will be saying stuff like, "What, me? No no, that was my roommate posting under my name. My computer had an automatic password." Michael Moore will be living in a dumpster in the French Quarter and trying to get money by betting random strangers a dollar that he knows where they "got" (have) their shoes. The Hollywood actors of today who think that because they have a talent for acting like other people they understand how the world works will just be faces shown in the early a.m. hours on channel 976 and stuff and nobody will any longer give a damn what they ever thought. The government of Iraq will be helping us and Britain liberate the remaining dictatorships in the world, if there are any. I see good things. Then again, there is some possibility Iraq will just be a backward ass Hell hole where ignorant retards blow up buses because they think it makes the creator of the universe happy. We'll see...

[tkdyo]

Im pretty sure it will be a stable country in 40 years and we will have most troops removed from the region. I will have a slowly growing economy by the time and hopefully terrorists will be laughed out of town. On the other hand, another revolution could overthrough the government and we return to square one. Im rooting for the former~~

[Invader]

So just out of curiosity then, U.M., do you believe Bush's intention for the war was for the liberation of Iraqis?

[Alric]

I think it will be more or less similar to how it is now, which mostly minor changes.

[Universal Mind]

So just out of curiosity then, U.M., do you believe Bush's intention for the war was for the liberation of Iraqis? It was one of them, mainly because of how it would advance the cultural climate of the heart of the Middle East. I would rather not get into a discussion about Bush's intentions, though. As I said, I don't want this thread to turn into a debate about what the point of the war was in the beginning. We have about fifty of those threads already. I am very curious about what people think the long term future of Iraq is, and a debate about Bush could wreck that cause.

[Original Poster]

Lol yeah Iraq will have a skyline and the US will have the world's biggest homeless population.

[Universal Mind]

Lol yeah Iraq will have a skyline and the US will have the world's biggest homeless population. And you will have finally answered the question.

[Black_Eagle]

UM does make a point about how we re-wrote the Japanese constitution. Without American influence, the Japanese would be nowhere near as glorious as they are today. Though I'm not sure, didn't we also do something similar with Germany? Now both of these countries are right behind the U.S. in GDP. What you fail to recognize, UM, is that Iraq is in a much different situation than Japan and Germany. It's got enemies of America within and terrorist nations as its neighbors that may very well influence its path for the worse. I still don't think this is any reason to have started the war. After all, there are all those 3rd-world African countries we could have helped instead. We could have created an African bastion of peace and love that would stand as an example to all the other African nations. Who knows, maybe eventually they'd sync up with this superior form. It could go either way. I'm hoping for the better, but who knows. If it does turn out that Iraq rises up, I most certainly wouldn't attribute it to the Bush Administration.

[Universal Mind]

What you fail to recognize, UM, is that Iraq is in a much different situation than Japan and Germany. It's got enemies of America within and terrorist nations as its neighbors that may very well influence its path for the worse. I have more belief in the power of capitalism than that. The superstitious mentality within Iraq at the present and the surrounding countries might very well be no match for the cognitive expansion that comes with advancement. We nuked Japan, and they still became the second wealthiest nation in the world due to a constitution written by Americans. I probably shouldn't have answered Invader Tech's question. Everybody, forget what my prediction is. Just say what yours are. Make sure you say what Iraq will be before you say what it won't be.

[Xaqaria]

Any tower built in Babylon is doomed to fall. Edit; on a less poetic note; Iraq will never be a blossoming metropolis. The only thing they have right now is oil, which will be virtually worthless in 10 years, if anyone can even find any by then. Dubai was built on oil, but they managed to get many other valuable industries up and running on the oil profits well before the downfall of oil happened. There just isn't enough life left in oil to push Iraq past its dependency on it.

[Xei]

Who knows? The world will be completely different in 40 years. Potentially every nation on Earth could be in ruins by then. Whenever anybody makes a half-century 'prediction', you can trust that that person is talking rubbish. Like all these 'we will reduce CO2 emissions by 50% in 2050!!!' promises... fucking duh. There won't be any oil to burn by then.

[ninja9578]

In 40 years Iraq will look like it did 10 years ago. The Democracy that the US has set up will collapse in a matter of years, taken over by an Iraqi oil tycoon who will turn into a Saddam Hussien.

[O'nus]

In 40 years, it will be covered in the rotting remains of the planets greed. The terrains will be lacerated by torrential winds interacting with an ominous and blinding sky. Too bad. So sad. Vindication is the ostensibly motivating force behind nations wide searching for methodical peace. Cowards and the ignorant will point the dirty finger towards God. The shameful ought not to be around to point any grubby fingers. ~

[Universal Mind]

In 40 years Iraq will look like it did 10 years ago. The Democracy that the US has set up will collapse in a matter of years, taken over by an Iraqi oil tycoon who will turn into a Saddam Hussien. That would be very tragic. If it happens, I will never support liberation of another nation again. It's a sucky thought.

[Original Poster]

Glad to know you decided NOW to pay attention to history. I will admit capitalism represents a tier, like a benchmark in the evolution of human consciousness, but it's not the end. Evolution continues, always. Communism has failed through struggle because it represents a new paradigm beyond the old, barbaric ways of human kind where the will of the strongest became law. It represents a transformation much like a single-celled organism becoming multi-celled. People say capitalism is just Darwinism, but evolution has two parts like I always say. First things compete, then they unite. So communism will not win as a force attempting to compete with capitalism, it is simply the inevitable result of humanity united. It'll happen slowly at first, as local governments become more and more communal through a democratic means. The federal government will always be behind the great masses of cities and other institutions enacting these changes because over-centralized power is not the purpose of communism. Just as were are a mass of communicating cells with no centralized "self" such will be the shape of communism as it evolves. We now have the power to feed every human being on the planet for nothing, to clothe them and house them for nothing, all human necessities can be automated. All we're awaiting now is the shift in consciousness.

[ninja9578]

...or, it will be like it is right now. The problem with Iraqi democracy is that the people there are uneducated and religious zealots. They will elect more and more Islamic right rulers and eventually the us will have another George Bush who decides that it's our job to take down the government that we put up and start all over again.

[drewmandan]

So communism will not win as a force attempting to compete with capitalism, it is simply the inevitable result of humanity united. It'll happen slowly at first, as local governments become more and more communal through a democratic means. The federal government will always be behind the great masses of cities and other institutions enacting these changes because over-centralized power is not the purpose of communism. Just as were are a mass of communicating cells with no centralized "self" such will be the shape of communism as it evolves. We now have the power to feed every human being on the planet for nothing, to clothe them and house them for nothing, all human necessities can be automated. All we're awaiting now is the shift in consciousness. Same question I ask all your kind of people: What happens if someone doesn't want to participate in the communism?

[Universal Mind]

Glad to know you decided NOW to pay attention to history. I will admit capitalism represents a tier, like a benchmark in the evolution of human consciousness, but it's not the end. Evolution continues, always. Communism has failed through struggle because it represents a new paradigm beyond the old, barbaric ways of human kind where the will of the strongest became law. It represents a transformation much like a single-celled organism becoming multi-celled. People say capitalism is just Darwinism, but evolution has two parts like I always say. First things compete, then they unite. So communism will not win as a force attempting to compete with capitalism, it is simply the inevitable result of humanity united. It'll happen slowly at first, as local governments become more and more communal through a democratic means. The federal government will always be behind the great masses of cities and other institutions enacting these changes because over-centralized power is not the purpose of communism. Just as were are a mass of communicating cells with no centralized "self" such will be the shape of communism as it evolves. We now have the power to feed every human being on the planet for nothing, to clothe them and house them for nothing, all human necessities can be automated. All we're awaiting now is the shift in consciousness. So, what will Iraq be like in 40 years?

[Original Poster]

Same question I ask all your kind of people: What happens if someone doesn't want to participate in the communism? What is my type of person? That kind of mentality is not part of this progression. This is something that's worked out naturally, so there wont be anti-communists, just people who fight against ideologies out of a petty refusal to be wrong. This is not an ideology, it's a way of life. You have no idea what type of person I am. But I'll try to answer your question anyway, by showing you what I mean. Think of capitalism as a "separate but equal" standard. It needed to emerge before integration could emerge, society evolves in steps. Then MLK came along and started uniting people together and there were plenty of people who fought this issue. But the strongest didn't win the struggle, those most closely aligned with the new ethical paradigm did, and as such violence was an ineffective tool in order to enforce integration, and only caused people to fall farther apart. To this day, there are still racists, but they're left to darkened bar rooms where they're forced to whisper amongst each other because the consciousness of society has become intolerant to it. Just the same, after this integration begins taking hold on a wider scale, there will be supporters of a monetary system left to lodge their gold up their buttholes and whisper amongst each other, but they'll have no power. They'll have their food and their shelter for free, so the trinkets they stuff up their ani will be worthless. So, what will Iraq be like in 40 years? I can't tell you, irregardless the reason I'm against the war is not because it wasn't good for Iraq but because this nation didn't have the resources to commit to it. When 56 cents out of every tax dollar goes into the military, we're all paying for something we see absolutely no benefit from, and in the end, along with other disasterous political decisions, we hit a recession. So maybe, if the Iraqis play their cards right, they will achieve 1st world status, but this nation will lose such status without drastic policy changes.

[ninja9578]

irregardless

[drewmandan]

To this day, there are still racists, but they're left to darkened bar rooms where they're forced to whisper amongst each other because the consciousness of society has become intolerant to it. Racists cannot come out in the open because there's a de facto standard in law that beating up a racist isn't considered a crime. Or in other words, anti-racists have the effective legal right to initiate violence against racists. Of course, this only goes one way. Now, you seem to be comparing capitalists to racists, which is a ridiculous comparison, considering racists are usually just violent people and capitalists* are usually brilliant, non-violent, proponents of societal integration, as you put it. But nevertheless, even a racist does have the right to his ideas. Moreover, he has the right to express those ideas to all that would listen. Speaking against the current status quo of society is not a crime. Otherwise, the law itself would be a crime, because at one time speaking of laws was heretical. But to come back to capitalists, if you're comparing them to racists, then it sounds like you're saying that communists should have the effective legal right to initiate violence against them. And if I questioned you even further, I suspect you would admit that if a capitalist existed in such a society, then not only would the other members of that society be allowed to harass him at will, but the government itself (which there certainly must be, and on a massive scale) would also harass said capitalist. Is that right? *Capitalists refers to those who support free, voluntary trade between individuals. I just wanted to preempt your inevitable tirade against the "evil corporations" by saying that the current corporations get their power from the governments, and so are not examples of capitalism at all. So maybe, if the Iraqis play their cards right, they will achieve 1st world status, but this nation will lose such status without drastic policy changes. If I had a nickel for every time someone didn't know the meaning of "first world"....

[Original Poster]

Racists cannot come out in the open because there's a de facto standard in law that beating up a racist isn't considered a crime. Or in other words, anti-racists have the effective legal right to initiate violence against racists. Of course, this only goes one way. Now, you seem to be comparing capitalists to racists, which is a ridiculous comparison, considering racists are usually just violent people and capitalists* are usually brilliant, non-violent, proponents of societal integration, as you put it. But nevertheless, even a racist does have the right to his ideas. Moreover, he has the right to express those ideas to all that would listen. Speaking against the current status quo of society is not a crime. Otherwise, the law itself would be a crime, because at one time speaking of laws was heretical. I was comparing paradigm shifts because you have the wrong idea of what I'm talking about. Obviously, instead of trying to use this example to understand me, you just decided to poke holes through the insignificant aspects that don't fit perfectly. But to come back to capitalists, if you're comparing them to racists, then it sounds like you're saying that communists should have the effective legal right to initiate violence against them. And if I questioned you even further, I suspect you would admit that if a capitalist existed in such a society, then not only would the other members of that society be allowed to harass him at will, but the government itself (which there certainly must be, and on a massive scale) would also harass said capitalist. Is that right? Brilliant use of a strawman there, you make the claim that the only reason racism isn't tolerated is because someone won't be punished for attacking a racist, then insinuate this is what I meant when I was comparing the paradigm shifts. Granted, this required you ignore all of history of what actually transpired and caused the transformation in society but what difference does that make? To understand my point, all you really have to do is reread my argument, but you don't really care to understand what I'm saying, do you? Your only interest is to prove me wrong, even if you have absolutely no clue what I'm actually saying. How awesome of you. I'll give you one more try. Currently, we have the technology to feed all of mankind, for free. We can give everyone shelter, food and clothing... for free. No man power is necessary, all of our needs can be automated. The only jobs left will be police officers, repairmen, engineers and city planners and what not. Currently, we also have a system of scarcity, meaning that the people who own all these products that could be free need to keep them scarce so there's still a demand on them, so that the owners of these products can maintain power and leverage. This is completely unnecessary, except to maintain these people in power, but it keeps people competing against each other for more hours and less pay so essentially we're all slaves to the monetary system. What I'm saying is, once society comes around and starts providing everyone the necessities to life... for free, then they're free to pursue what they love. There's no anti-communism initiative possible save grumbling old people whsipering in darkened bar rooms about how much they wish the gold tooth stuck up their ass still gave them leverage. They'll have nothing to complain about, because food is free and shelter is free. *Capitalists refers to those who support free, voluntary trade between individuals. I just wanted to preempt your inevitable tirade against the "evil corporations" by saying that the current corporations get their power from the governments, and so are not examples of capitalism at all. Where are you quoting "evil corporations" from? Capitalism was a necessary step in social development, but it enables the exploitation of man by man. Some people own a product, a product which initially needed to be sold for social leverage in order to inspire competition and advance technology. Now, all the products that are still realistically "scarce" are purely meant for entertainment and everything necessary for life is in abundance far outweighing the demand. Herego, it's inevitable that we shift from that system, and I'm not talking about capitalism, I'm talking about money in the first place. If I had a nickel for every time someone didn't know the meaning of "first world"... One more piece of evidence that arguing with you is completely useless as you don't care at all what I have to say, as long as you can criticize some arbitrary detail to make yourself feel better. I wasn't even going to use that word, I just used it to highlight a point I was making about the transformation of civilization. But... whatever, I hope I made your day by allowing you to bicker over petty details to prove your internet superiority.