A Civilization Built on Sand

         The familiar metaphor that one should place the foundation of a house upon a rock rather than sand is usually used in reference to religions but it also applies to modern technology.  The, so called, civilized world of man began with the use of stone tools, weapons and building  materials, advanced with the addition of bronze implements and weapons, took another step into the age of iron and steel, and with the help of mortar and concrete, has brought us to our present state of solid roads and structures all carefully placed on solid foundations. Unfortunately we found a secondary use for sand that may be making our modern civilized world fragile in spite of it's apparent solidity.. 
     Silica, (sand), is the second most common element on Earth and we have used it as an abrasive, have turned it into glass, and combine it with many other elements to our advantage. Very recently we discovered another use for silica. By turning it into tiny chips we can use sand to store and process information, allowing us to create thinking self directed machines. The stuff we let our children play in and walk on next to ocean waves now has a memory, lands airplanes, directs factory robots, guides bombs, directs the flow of electricity to our factories, monitors our water distribution systems, provides vendors and wholesalers the tools that keep track of sales and inventory, is integral to Wall Street and every other world stock exchange and is central to our communications and navigation. We have replaced direct control of nearly every essential operation of our complex civilization with chips of sand and become dependent on their reliability. We have created a fragile interface between ourselves and the systems that sustain us. In just a few decades we have replaced a civilization built on rock and steel with human hands on the levers of control to a civilization built on sand susceptible to gamma ray bursts and computer virus.
     When sand shifts under the foundation of a building the building sinks and the foundation cracks but, with the exception of an earth quake, a sinking building seldom effects a neighboring building. Our new silica chip civilization however is networked into interlocking operations communicating with individuals and each other and a crack in one foundation quickly spreads. Some of this is accidental as was the case of the great power grid failure in 2002 and some is intentional as in the case of the Iranian nuclear development center computer crash in 2010. The most dangerous of these was the Iranian incident. Even though shielded and isolated from the Internet the security of the computer systems running the uranium enrichment program crashed when a powerful virus designed to interrupt program directives for complex machine operations was introduced internally by the insertion of a simple thumb drive. What makes this incident noteworthy is that the destructive virus escaped the secure facility and has since infected thousands of critical operations in many sectors.
     The implications of these incidents and many others should make it clear that our advanced technologically based civilization, dependent on traces for electron movements etched in silica chips and continuous communications, has moved the foundation of human survival onto soft ground.
Ironically, it may be the inherent uncertainty of the quantum world that moves us back to a rock solid foundation as quantum computing makes intrusions and errors nearly impossible.

Militant Evangelism

       To be an evangelical one needs to have been made privy to a truth, a truth that is self evident and beyond question. These absolute truths can be religious revelations, ideological constructs,  narcissistic impositions, or simply an elaborate falsehood designed to seduce large numbers of people to a cause. Nearly all evangelical efforts are based on an emotional appeal and are made directly
to individuals from the pulpit, in a conversation or on social media by tapping into latent paranoia or hatreds, or by promising a reward.
      Evangelical causes vary from the acceptance of Gods or Prophets, methods of worship or ritual, the proper relationship of a subject to a pharaoh, king or dictator, the economics of nation states, the state verses individual freedoms, correct moral behavior and many more. All start by drawing a line in the sand separating a cause from those who either reject the evangelical beliefs or who have not yet been informed and recruited.
      Evangelism can be Passive; as exemplified by the Gideon's placing Bibles in every hotel and motel room, Direct; as exemplified by Mormon youth knocking on doors and leaving pamphlets, or Confrontational; as exemplified by the Crusades, and now by ISIL. There are sixty thousand evangelical Christians in the United States and over thirty thousand militant Muslim extremist now engaged in an effort to convert the world to their absolute truths their capsulized perspectives and their narrow views.
      Militant evangelism takes place at small and large scales. The bombing of abortion clinics and murder of abortion workers is extreme evangelism using elimination and intimidation to change society to fit within their circle of beliefs. The Crusades, using the recovery of holy relics as an excuse, eliminated an entire civilization of "non believers".  Shiites kill Sunnies over minor differences as have Catholics and Protestants. I personally have been attacked by a frustrated Baptist evangelist with a machete when I refused his gift of eternal life and his demand that I commit to his beliefs. Militant evangelism recruits and controls a following by promoting paranoia and hate using emotionally charged words and measured interpretations of ancient "holy" writings and by limiting information and narrowly focusing educational curricula.
      Evangelistic movements solicit funding by appealing to basic tribal emotions, once of value in a pre-civilized world but now a dangerous vestige of evolution out of sync with nation states and a global economy. There are many potential donors and recruits among those who feel displaced by technology and society and these individuals are easy prey. A cause that reinforces their paranoia and justifies their hate,and simplifies the complex modern world of science and technology by substituting the word of god or ancient prophets empowers them and has great appeal. Give them a gun to make them feel even more powerful and surround them other like minded recruits and you have an army. Use funding from evangelistic groups to select and support political candidates with extreme views and render rational deliberative government bodies impotent.
      Even if one of these extreme militant evangelistic movements were to succeed, it would soon splinter and the new norm established would be confronted by another extreme cause. Those who hope to save us from ourselves may be the most dangerous among us.