...You have a fine revewrse optimism that stretches back... 
Goes to show what Machiavelli can do for you....  :-} 
  
   Would you ...could you, think beyond your "now-life" presence. 
   It might be easy to say yes, but history is not fat with those 
   in power to do so (with any clarity of benefit). Even with Alexander, 
   we have no way of knowing if the world might have been better off had 
   he been a farmer or even never born. We still might entertain ... 
Actually, now that you mention it, my life seems to be constantly 
switching between a Zen be-here-now, and various versions of the 
past and future.  Machiavelli, for instance, provides a lotta good 
insight into the current global political situation.  Take his 
comment that the only time the Italian city states had any peace 
was when the French king threatened to invade... and extend that 
into some proposal to use US military might... 
 
None of which relates to the question of whether it is time to put 
potatos into the ground because the global warming and El Nino has 
moved the season up, or whether the forcasters are no better now 
than they were when they worked with chicken entrails. 
 
Although I may expound on the motivations of Alexander or Marcus 
Aurelius, I have to admit that they too, lived and worked within 
a fog of uncertainty, and the reasons I put forth are but a small 
part of what was going on. 
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 * OFFLINE 1.58 
--- Maximus 3.01
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