Memories of the 28th Century

A number of years ago, I read about the relocation of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Old River Control Structure, and related matters, and I concluded that the Mississippi would relocate someday, and it would have huge economic effects on the U.S.A., especially the great Plains and agriculture commodities. It hasn't happened, yet, but it is inevitable. With a huge amount of money could be invested in constructions that would minimize the dislocations and economic problems, but that investment ...

I don't like the term “nihilism”, but recently I have found myself using that on a few occasions; although it may have been misplaced. I have used it in reference to people who use their own set of pseudo-facts in place of history. People like the ones who tore down the statue of U.S. Grant, ostensibly because he owned a slave for a time. In that case, they were also ignoring the matter of him leading the North to victory over the Confederate States of America. Grant wasn't the nicest person around, ...

I ran across another article about the probability of finding other intelligent life forms in the universe. Alas, it is behind a pay wall, and I do not wish to sign up for something else. But the abstract does not mention mitochondria nor does the article from which I learned of it, so I would guess that it did not consider how difficult it might be for a single cell lifeforms to take mitochondria, or some similar bacteria, and make it symbiotic.

I think that the ideas about how ...

I might have heard of Junteenth is the past, but I do not recall it. Today I heard, or read, of it several times, so I looked it up. It appears to be the anniversary of when a military officer announced the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. Apparently, some people got the impression that it was the end of slavery in the U.S.A.. Alas, they were mistaken. Slavery ended in the U.S.A. On December 5, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.

There ...

Over the decades I have had various thoughts about the concept of the eternal soul. I like the idea, and I find it horrible that I might someday become nothing. On the other hand, the ideas of Heaven and Hell are downright silly. The ideas expressed in “Thanatopsis”. By William Cullen Bryant seem to be reasonable and logical. My personal preference was for the ancient Indo-European concept of reincarnation after 49 days in the Underworld.

The matter of reincarnation seemed very ...