100 years ago, the very concept of nuclear weapons was unknown.
75 years ago, nuclear weapons just did not exist and chain reactions were just theorized.
50 years ago, only a few nations had them - and after devoting several years of dedicated development and billions of dollars of outlay.
Today the reason why the Nuclear Club is fairly small is not because of difficulty or cost but because many nations agreed (sometimes with arms behind back or guns to head) not to develop them.

A similar path can be seen for flight (barely exists 100 years ago -> today people build awesome airplanes in their garage as a fun hobby), electronics (today's hackers and circuit benders fart around with more computational power than major universities had at one point within living memory), medicine (kids are doing genetic manipulation at home for fun just a bit over 50 years after our modern understanding of DNA) and more. I hope you see how this curve works....

Gathering Uranium from the ocean now is possible and proven and in just 50 years could be as simple as oceanic harvesting with some custom nanobots or other methods. There ought to be some u235 in there. The rest of the process - and I'm just thinking in 50 years - would be pathetically easy and quite accessible.

If nukes are the big problem in just the next 50 years, I will be surprised and relieved. Even as an NYC resident, I fear the mushroom cloud less than the earnest homebrewer coming up with a "Captain Tripps" or "White Plague" virus and releasing it on purpose or by accident. Why bomb part of a city when one can wipe out an entire population? What, you say? Why that would be dumb - it would kill off everybody. Not if it were targeted towards certain ethnic groups, perhaps not even killing everyone - just the men or the women or maybe just their kids. What is nuking one city compared to the psychological and demographic blow of forcing a nation to bury its children in mass graves via an nearly untraceable method?

Do remember this: The taking up of arms only verifies a man's conviction and not the justness or morality of his cause.

[Looks around]Um, the original thread is days old, actually did not have much to do with the Civil War and I think we're pretty much the last people in the room here. Whaddya say we just walk away, eh? You can give closing words if you like.

Huntred

The Constitution did not say a lot of things right off. I wonder if there's a way to fix that....

As tempting as it would be to let Texas just stop whining and go (I would even consider offering them Oklahoma to take with them as an enticement), I believe it would be best for all involved if a reasonable, clear, agreed upon separation agreement were developed. You know, something that could spell out exactly how and when states can leave and what happens to various properties and interests of both parties as it is foolish to claim that it could be a smooth break. If only there were some way this could some how be...applied to the Constitution to spell out how everyone would agree to settle this matter. I might be tempted to call such a device an "Amendment" or something. Yeah - let's go with that. We'll call them "Amendments". And we will let the member States vote on them so that they can all agree to the terms. And they will not be passed by some simple majority but, I dunno...maybe 2/3rds or so of the states. Yes - this process ought to be established. Are you with me?

[Hint: Why didn't southern states just do this early on? Basically they didn't have the votes in either house of Congress or enough population to elect a President who would be sympathetic to them. Knowing this, they threw a tantrum, reached for their guns and got a lot of people killed.]

Not hardly. The rapid increase in weapon technology that comes in the ensuing decades, backed by the industrialization of the North meant that the those fighting-population-disadvantaged guerrilla's would have found themselves eliminated in short order just by the army. Or, if you want to wrap up the insurrectionists in a hurry, just arm and train the newly-freed slaves whose population often outnumbered the Whites and whose key population of able-bodied young men went basically untouched throughout the Civil War. They would be quite familiar with the infrastructure, the terrain, the culture, the leadership and more and I imagine would be most willing and able to put down any insurrectionists.

Seriously, maintaining a such guerrilla war over time, even without a gross technology disparity, is actually fairly difficult and rarely successful by any measure. It is nothing resembling movie-inspired fantasies of guys who have an AR-15 and a couple clips under the bed.

But do remember, I only spoke to what I felt those people - the civilian and military leadership of the CSA - deserved, and in then context of not having regard for the smooth restitching of the Union. That this didn't happen indicates that the Rebs got off WAY easy.

No. I am an American citizen who holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Oh - and that those who would take up arms to defend their practice of denying innocent people of those same rights are scum and yadda yadda yadda...their bodies go in the latrine.

May I offer you any additional clarity about my feelings on the subject?

Your ready (wistful?) willingness to condemn millions of innocent people damned in servitude for "a generation or two" certainly illustrates your true level of remorse.

Had you done so as simply as that, I might have retained my general Slashdot Lurker status and perhaps even agreed with you to some degree. However your claim that the multi-generational-exploiting institution of slavery (with all the murder, mutil...you get the picture) was "equally abhorrent if not more so" with "blackmailing US States", "arresting newspaper editors" and "suspending habeas corpus" was such a shocking display of ignorance, illogic, and/or insensitivity (please choose two) that it compelled me to step forward.

Huntred

First off, the power of the individual in a fixed-system representative democracy will always decline as growth occurs. That's just math. The population of my city is greater than the population of the brand-spanking new States in 1776. My State rep covers more people today than most Federal reps did in 1776. Do I think the solution is to subdivide my state to get the representation ratio back on par with those 1700's? No. That would be incredibly inefficient, impractical and dumb. And so I feel the same about trying to maintain a functioning nation made up of 50 very autonomous states in these modern times. The best metaphor of what that would be like can be found here.

And in either case, Goverment will press laws upon me that I did not pass, that I do not like and that do not hold my values. Laws that will be enforced by a gun, the loss of my freedom, or my wealth. That is inevitable just as soon as one departs from the "Huntred Is The Supreme God-Emperor" system of government.

Upon which part of the Constitution is the expiration date printed?

Soldiers dying due to incompetent leadership in conflicts that are orders of magnitude both greater and lesser than those examples during Wartime is the norm. Welcome to War 101.

Interesting. These few people were living examples of your advocacy for the "strong state" and so presumably they had a great deal of influence in the affairs and direction of their state. This would seem to mean that they bore the responsibility of being active participants against the Union and thus reaped the...benefits of being "on the losing side" of the War. So they deserve little pity for their fates and, as I'll point out now, really fared pretty well.

Here's what I think about those "impinged-upon" rights: That every man, woman, and child throughout the South directly benefiting from the insitution of slavery (owning, trafficking, overseeing, or other such involvement) and/or the formation and support (offered either through financial means, material, labor, or published works) did not have every cent of their wealth stripped away from them to repay the humans they kept in bondage and the larger nation itself is something I consider to be a great injustice. Fear not for their fates at being stripped of everything for there were plenty of people around who could have shared their experiences in how to endure working very hard while living with very little.

I would also ensure that every serving member in the government of the CSA was put on trial as a traitor to the United States of America with severe fines, harsh imprisonment or death by firing squad being the potential sanctions. Along those lines, I believe that every member of the Confederate Army's military command at or above the rank of general along with everyone at the top-tier of the CSA leadership should undergo the same process under charges of treason, with the exception being that their deaths would be brought about by public hanging in the main halls of their various claimed state capitol buildings across the CSA. Their bodies would remain on the rope for full display until decomposition made this impossible - after which the remains could be finally disposed of by feeding to pigs or simply dropped in anonymous latrines.

However in the interests of reconciliation of the Union this would...howdoyousayinenglish this likely would not help. So that President Lincoln did not take any of these justifiable actions as might befit his role as victor in such a war demonstrates to me that he was not some South-punishing tyrant but was simply a US President who wanted to hold the United States together. The South had their little hissy-fit and got smacked down and that was to be the end of it with the greater US finally getting to dump the embarrassing institution of Slavery, it seems. Those actual Rebels got off quite easy by comparison to nearly every historical analogue out there even if their modern-day apologists feel otherwise.

Again, says the person for whom slavery was not a potential fate for either you or your family, yes? How easy then it must be to damn 1, 2, or even 3 generations of an innocent people to forced, uncompensated servitude. To wish that the murders, beatings, multilations, rapes, forced separations could have contined just even one more year, one more day or even just a minute longer that it did is abhorrent and defies all human decency. How lofty your comfy chair must be so that you do not feel any remorse for those who underwent pretty much every indignity and deprivation conceived of by Man without any justice, compensation, or retribution. And for what? All so a few people can relax for a few dozen years and avoid the comeuppance that they so richly deserved by this unabashed exploitation? I would advise that you please cease using terms such as "rights" and especially "human rights" because you are clearly not versed in the underlying concepts and your continued usage of them is a public embarrassment.

Huntred

Perhaps a pleasant thought but in reality, this is no longer practical. The general organization of successful societies in the world has transitioned through time from families to tribes to townships to city-states and so-on. This has proven both convenient and even necessary as the costs and limits of critical barriers like transportation and communication have fallen. Basically, the world has moved on since many of the structures and policies initially set up in 1776.

Just in general, where this romanticized falsehood of "state rule" being intrinsically so much more benevolent or honest than "federal rule" comes from is unclear. No matter if it is a State Trooper or a Federal Agent, both of them will enforce laws that your did not have a direct hand in passing by picking your pocket, depriving you of your freedom through incarceration, putting a gun in your face, or some combination of all three.

You are quibbling. The Constitution was ratified by the initial States at kickoff and later by all other States as they joined and is the document that binds together the United States of America. One does not exist without the other and that which threatens one, threatens the other.

First of all, in believing that you have torn down anything, you appear to have missed much. I tried to come at your argument from an angle that would illustrate that your noble South might also have interests that compromised their morality but if you got any sort of moral sense of equivalence out of that exercise then allow me to correct:

For starters, ignoring the *vast* gulf of difference in treatment and legal status between the experiences of the Black slave in the South vs. the free Black in the North represents at best a willful disregard of history and at worst determined ignorance. However I suppose the benefit in being unburdened by real knowledge on the subject is that one can then claim that the North/South difference was 6 of one, half a dozen of the other and base one's thoughts accordingly.

A further consequence of just skimming history is that one would fail to recognize that the birth of this conflict was inevitable since the 3/5ths Compromise and only increased with each often contested admittance to the Union of additional slave/free states in balance along with plenty of other legal and moral gymnastics that were required to keep the slavery machine going lest the practice be immediately outvoted by Congress in 1776. Not recognizing the Civil War as the release of nearly 100 years of built up stresses on this philosophical and economic fault line clearly indicates that more deeper reading/instruction is required.

It can only be a result of such gaps in your personal knowledgebase can explain claims such as "are we not now all slaves?", "slavery was dying", and, had the aggressive North not pushed the issue, it would have done so "without the decades of resentment afterwards." without grossly undervaluing the lives, perspectives, and basic human rights of literally millions of people. At minimum, the highlighting as a negative that the arrow of resentment ended up pointed towards the multi-generaltional victims of exploitation through slavery betrays a level of bias and immorality that really has no place here. In this context, earnest words about the trodden upon rights of those who unashamedly denied those same (and more!) rights to others every single day of their lives ring hollow with hypocrisy.

Huntred

By doing so, the state struck against the Union. As a personal exercise, try seceding your own private land plot from your town/county/state and see how your local authorities react.

Just for giggles, let's show a bit more of Mr. Lincoln's letter to Mr. Greeley...you know, for context:
"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."

So basically we have a president who will do whatever it takes (or not) to protect and preserve the Union that he swore to lead despite his personal convictions. This is not the worst thing I have heard of today, but let's carry on...

Can I just ask a few quick questions? You assert here and elsewhere that the North simply wanted to drain the South dry of their juicy revenues (and perhaps precious bodily fluids). If we presume that there were indeed some fantastic revenues at stake, do you think it is possible that the South was most interested in preserving the mechanisms by which they gained these profits? And if so, why would you disagree that the institution of slavery would continue unabated for as long as it served their purposes? And finally, confronted with a growing national population that was increasingly less tolerant of slavery, do you see any reason why some key people who benefited greatly from slavery would not try to form the CSA and make lofty and perhaps more palatable claims of "state's rights" (with one of the key "rights" being the right to deprive other humans of their own rights for our own economic purposes) in order to try to preserve the system which sustained their fortunes? I can find no lofty nobility in this and I am curious to know if you can and how.

Huntred

Well excepting the formation of another state within the existing Union, raising an army to support it, printing currency, etc...

Ah - I see the problem here. You see, I am from Earth Prime. Our histories are going to differ here and in other places.

Hey - how did WWII fare on your end? Did Japan still hit the US in the Pacific or did they invade Russia in 41?

You would have a much stronger case if the writings and histories of key figures in the CSA did not directly contradict your sentiments. Also, if the aforementioned distinction in the differences in legal and cultural attitudes towards Blacks in America in the North and South were not so very broad.

Huntred

History clearly shows that the South was so committed to their cause that they were willing to take up arms against the Federal Government/North. The North did not invade the South on a whim - they responded to insurrectionist activity.

The Underground Railroad only moved people in one direction.

Huntred

Slavery was not dying - it was central to the South's economic model. A lot of people sold out their souls to maintain the system of a nearly free labor force and there is nothing to suggest that the population in the South was about to have a moral crisis and determine the error of their ways. In fact, so entrenched was their idea that their way was correct and just that they....

HAD A CIVIL WAR OVER IT!

Using the "everywhere else in the world..." argument in a situation involving the United States falls rather flat when it comes to the metric system, healthcare coverage or records of nuclear weapon usage. I fail to see why it would apply to slavery.

But let's say you're right. Let's say in 1870 (somehow), slavery ends. What next for those who suffered under that system? Another 140 years of apartheid? When do you think Mississippi approves citizenship? Voter rights? Considering that over 100 years after the Civil War, the National Guard could not even be trusted not to mutiny in Alabama should they be asked to enforce civil rights laws, I don't think those populations were the ones to trust with regards to affording rights to everyone.

I always find it remarkable to watch those who would speak loudly and nobly of the importance of rights and liberty and then dare to then leap at the chance to defend a system whose very foundation rested on depriving millions of other humans of those same rights.

No - and you are a dining room table if you cannot tell the difference between your life today and that of someone serving as a slave in the 1800's.

Bullshit. (And yes, I did consider other ways to put that that could express the point as well yet appear to be more polite in tone.)

Huntred

Much of the United States of America's brochureware - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc - all proclaim and laud the rights and freedom of the individual to go forth and determine their own destiny. Therefore to rise up in arms to defend the system of slavery - that is clearly deprives those same rights from other men and women - is an act that can only be called anti-American.

Of course one could say that those serving as slaves were not legally considered Americans (or even humans, really), but I believe that on deeper thought, pointing that out only proves my point even more.

Huntred

I do. The Confederacy was by the most part made up of anti-American (at least in spirit) insurgents and terrorists who were (mis)led by amoral (at best) opportunists. At least (most) Germans have the decency to be ashamed of their history when their great/grand/parents dropped the morality ball.

Psst - You forgot to print the emoticon that indicates you know nothing about either the Civil War or American slavery.

Right up there with the threat of being murdered, raped, mutilated, and/or beaten at the whim of your owners (or their friends...or really, anybody White) with absolutely no consequence or punishment while being force to work without real compensation from sunrise to sunset, every day, for your entire life, yes? There's actually more, but as one of your lead "go-tos" involved newspaper editors doing a little jail time, I don't want to totally blow your mind

Let me take a wild guess and say that your family members had neither the history of being enslaved or were in no danger of being forced into that station.

Huntred

The first step towards your understanding, if you are really interested, should be to consider the idea that other people have different priorities than you instead of just writing them off as stupid.

To start, you may want to read some of the comments around yours to see some of the clear, well-reasoned and easy to understand points posted by authors as to why the Kindle works well for them.