I was first eligible to vote in a US presidential election forty-eight years ago. At that time the world faced one widely acknowledged existential threat, nuclear war, and the US was engaged in one undeclared war of aggression.
Forty-eight years later humans now face at least five existential threats by my count, one a largely unacknowledged crisis: nuclear war, climate destabilization, species extinctions, pandemics and the artificial intelligence humans increasingly rely on to keep their affairs in order. In recent years the US has been engaged in at least seven undeclared wars of aggression, several proxy wars and more if one considers economic sanctions acts of war.
We now face the most insurmountable problems in human history and in its dotage the moldering US political system offers two potential leaders, two addlepated septuagenarians, one of whom has spent his life reaping the rewards of the bloodsucking rapacious system the other one did everything he could to expand over the past forty-eight years!
This year the planet has been 1.3ºC warmer since 1890 and there is no way humans can keep it from continuing to warm far more than 1.5ºC.
This is probably my last presidential election and I think I have finally come to terms with the futility of voting. I leave it to others to do what they will. They'll be the ones to live with it.
Good luck y'all.
