And in this conflict, certainly, you need to think in terms of not only keeping our interactions as non confrontational as possible, but also of realizing that prevailing your best interests, in the long run, depends on having better ideas than the other guy in the first place. Because, ultimately, how we all perceive things, especially relative to each other, determines a great deal of how much difficulty we're going to have with each other.

And in this, unfortunately, is the fulcrum at the base of the balance between still talking, and outright violence. Still talking, though definite in its need for a certain forbearance of beliefs, and rhetoric, we find distasteful, does have the beneficial tradeoff of allowing for both keeping the killing and dieing to a minimum, but also allowing us the luxury of being better able to find solutions to other pressing problems; problems, shockingly enough, it would be well for us to have the resources at hand with... You know, the stuff with which to actually apply effort in solving same?

Of course, the other thing about talking is that you might, eventually, be able to find enough common ground to work with that tolerating each other, at least for a while, might actually be better than that "politics by other means".

So, bottom line, what we're really talking about here is "thinking our way through problems" 101. Something that ought not be a game of Ad Libs at a mental institution (because that's how extra deep the new administration seems to be not thinking their way through most of government policy now).

In this you need to always be looking for better ideas because, in the end, the only true way to fight a bad idea is with a better one. You also need to keep in mind that, though unavoidable at times, letting confrontation come to harsh, physical interactions, makes continued thinking very difficult. It also takes options away for doing much of anything else, on an always crowded list of priorities; and at rates that can increase more than you ever seem to realize beforehand.

One last thing to reiterate, though. There actually could be common ground for which the West and the East (to use the simplest of ideological divides) could come to that might have a chance to provide the tolerance we need, and the time frame to be useful. And that is the safety valve that the means for all people, with the mind to, could move again. Could find the literal, and figurative, sense of "frontier" once more.

I say this because I believe that a big part of the problem we face now in the clash of cultures is that we have each other's manifestation "in our faces" as it were. All of the time. We have it there so much, in fact, that in quite literally drives a good number of us mad with revulsion. A revulsion that can sometimes come from world views so divergent that there is simply little hope of reconciling them.

The world, you see, is not only too small for certain numbers of people, as an outright physical problem. It is also too small for people to live in cognitive harmony when other people's vision of reality splashes over them so readily, in and out of the Infosphere. What is needed is an assurance that all cultures of the planet will have not only the opportunity to go forth into the cosmos, to find their own worlds, they will have their own path outward that will be their's alone; so that their worlds will be given an ever increasing cushion between them and the rest of us, as they progress outwards.

This means, in case you're not paying attention, is a grand commitment by humanity to provide collective infrastructure to both overcome earth's immediate gravity well, but also to have the productive capability, based from the moon initially (I would think), to build habitat ships we've only begun to imagine now. Habitat ships that might be allocated on a combination of schemes: some via a direct relationship to resource input, but others more in line with a lottery. A compromise, in other words, between inclusivity, and the right of commensurate return.

In doing this, we would then have, by that time, the quite sensible realization that the home planet, and it's solar system, must be made a mandatory no conflict zone. A collective protectorate of both a hatchery, and a living legacy. Something those that remained would dedicate themselves to not only because it's a viable way forward while we struggle to grow up more, but also because great combinations of culture would come forth to help preserve at least some sense of the power of diversity.

This is the kind of dreaming you can do if you can keep promise with both mind and soul. Keep promise with the idea that humanity no longer needs to play the never ending game of an economy of scarcity. Any more than war is the only way to hoard, and to keep that hoard.

Think about these things. Ask questions. Become better informed. Find your path and take action.