2011's Progress Report:

There are many sad things about the present, and many sad things awaiting mankind in the future. But does that mean there is nothing good about the present or the future? Does that mean we should just resign as living beings and commit mass suicide and be done with it? The Collapse Chorus that dominates the 'intellectual right' thinks so. They want 9/10 of humanity to die in some vast conflagration, after which point everyone can go back to subsistence farming (I kid you not!). The Collapse Chorus dominates the mindset of Gates of Vienna, Occidental Dissent, Alternative Right, American Renaissance, etc. Every article they post is to prove that the 'Collapse' is approaching. After the Collapse, of course, libertarianism, or Nazism, or something-ism, is supposed to take over and make everything a heaven on Earth. However, they can't point to a single precedent where a collapse has led to anything good before, much less a heaven on Earth. When China collapsed into the Three Kingdoms era, it didn't come out the other side a political masterpiece that gave everyone heaven on Earth. The civil war continued practically non-stop until the whole country was conquered by the Mongols a thousand years later.

When the Mongols conquered the Abbassid caliphate and laid waste to Baghdad, the Islamic World didn't enter a new golden age. It fell apart into political and economic chaos. Everyone in the region became permanently worse off than they had been before.

When the Romans abandoned Britain and it was invaded by a series of barbarians, it lost all urban centers, literacy, engineering, commerce, architecture -- everything. There are poems of Britain's 'collapse,' that speak about mythical giants with magic powers that somehow built the stone structures the British could see around them but couldn't understand. Of course, in Roman times, these buildings were commonplace and far finer structures existed in Rome than anything built in Britain. The Dark Ages weren't a new paradise on Earth. They were dark. They were awful. Romans had working sewers and baths for all. Europe didn't match Roman quality of life until the 1900's. Don't tell me about the glories awaiting mankind after the Collapse.

Humanity can't afford another collapse. This is because we've already used up all of our easily accessible resources. Only super-advanced technology can access the basic commodities we rely upon today -- coal, natural gas, oil, metals, phosphate, clean water, high-yield agriculture, etc. The first industrial revolution was easy. Everything was just sitting there, inches beneath the ground, ready to be picked up by anyone with a shovel. Continued access to the same natural resources now requires we dig ten miles underwater. If there really is a civilizational Collapse, will we be able to access oil that's ten miles underwater anymore?

The other reason we can't afford another Collapse is A) the world has become completely interconnected, if one part goes the whole world goes (As evidenced by the fact that Japan and Russia suffered more from America's housing bubble than America did.) In the past, if the Chinese or Islamic or European civilizations collapsed, some other corner of the globe would continue progressing, and eventually its cultural and technological innovations would defuse into the backwaters of the previously collapsed cultures, and reinvigorate them. Now we are all one, everyone is interdependent, our trade with each other is our lifeblood and no nation is self-sufficient. If America or Europe Collapses, so will China, India, the Middle East and Japan. There is no escape for anyone. B) Total economic collapse followed by worldwide famines will not be peaceful. It will trigger a war for survival never before seen in mankind's history. A global game of musical chairs where only 1/10 of mankind will have enough food to eat because of economic collapse will not end peacefully and quietly. It will turn into a world war. As Einstein said, "I know not what weapons will be used in World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Weapons of Mass Destruction are an evil invention that I wish we had never discovered and I wish we would destroy all traces of, as part of a globally enforced Leviathan effort, even though we have discovered them. Nevertheless, they are reality. The reality of WMD means any Collapse, political, environmental, cultural or otherwise, will immediately lead to Ragnarok, not some happy land of rainbows and honey after a few laws have been rearranged to the benefit of all.

The Collapse Chorus has no idea what it's hoping and cheering for with every article they post every day. They are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

What about a 'Collapse-Lite' theory? One that says, "what cannot go on, will not go on?" Presumably, the daily indignities the future will bring upon us will generate so much political resentment that there will be a peaceful, 'color' revolution of protestors who stake out the nation's capital and demand reform, presumably into a new nation that's perfect for libertarians, Nazis, or whatever the Collapse Chorus website desires.

The problem with this theory is that it has been shown over and over again that no amount of degradation, no amount of indignities, will ever propel whites to get off their rumps and do something. If fifty years of indignities and affronts and suffering hasn't generated any backlash, why would another fifty years?

"But," the Collapse-Liters will say, "The next fifty years will be much worse!"

Gentlemen, I give you South Africa. Neither America nor Europe will be worse than South Africa is for the whites living there. However, South African whites have not engaged in a peaceful color revolution where they staked out the capital, Pretoria, and demanded new laws and a change of government. They have never organized to do anything. They haven't made a peep. The whites of South Africa are our future. No matter how bad things get, whites will take it, like abused children, they'll even blame themselves for whatever happens to them. What do you think the education system is for? To get whites to blame themselves for all the abuses arrayed against them, so that they never utter a peep or organize into any form of resistance. If 'Collapse-Lite' could occur, it already would have in South Africa. If becoming a minority helps, it would have helped in South Africa. If being crushingly poor helped, then it would have helped the millions of white Boers in South Africa who live in absolute poverty, no different from Afghans or the like. If high crime could spark a resistance movement, then South Africa, with the highest crime rate on Earth, would have already sparked a resistance. Instead, nothing has happened. Open calls for the genocide of white South Africans by government officials, corruption, poverty, crime, nothing has stirred white South Africans in the least to get off their rumps and do something. They are like brain-dead cows who walk meekly into the slaughter house trusting that nothing could possibly go wrong, no matter how much evidence says otherwise.

The Big Collapse theory is more possible than Collapse Lite. The Big Collapse theory says that whites won't have to do anything, the world will simply fall apart due to circumstances outside anyone's control. This allows whites to lazily sit on their rumps and chew their cud, which is the only thing whites will ever do politically, and the world can still be completely reformed from scratch. The Collapse Lite theory is magical thinking. Magically, whites will wake up and realize their predicament. Magically, they'll organize into a credible resistance. Magically, they'll throw off all of their PC education brainwashing and agree with the radical philosophies of the Collapse Chorus. All because we'll be making $20,000 a year per capita instead of $40,000 a year per capita fifty years from now. Sure. Good luck with that.

The Big Collapse theory is ruinous, the Collapse Lite theory is ridiculous. Pick your poison.

Or you can cross the river to the other side. The side that's part of the solution instead of part of the problem. The side that says 2010 was the best year in human history and the 21st century will be the best century in human history -- if we'll even be human anymore by the end. Not only is this side full of hope and energy about the future, they are actively changing the facts on the ground to make this hope reality. It's been half a year since I wrote my article, 2010, Best Year Ever? We're halfway through 2011 already. What's new? What progress have we made since then? What facts on the ground have changed for the better, instead of for the worse?

For starters, on June 24th, Key's new visual novel, Rewrite, will be released. It's sure to be wonderful beyond belief, like all of Key's works. Any year Key publishes anything is a year of heavenly trumpets and choirs of angels singing "Rejoice, Rejoice, Glory to God Most High!" I am absolutely certain God has pre-ordered a copy of Rewrite and is looking forward to it just like everyone else down here on Earth. Because Key has the most fundamentally Good moral message, moral education, moral philosophy, moral perception to ever grace the Earth. Anyone who watched Clannad could see that. Anyone who read Planetarian could see that. So God must know it too.

Next, five new series entered the anime top 100 that were made in 2011: Moshidora, Gosick, Ano Hana, Hanasaku Iroha, and most importantly Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Madoka alone would have made 2011 an incredible year in human history. The others are just gravy. Madoka has broken all records with its first and second blu-ray disk sales in Japan, which is indicative of what a phenomena the series truly was. Many other anime series were extended during this half year of 2011 to great result.

Kindle announced that it is now selling more kindle books than softcover or hardcover books. Mankind has switched away from expensive printing methods to computer tablets that have free access to all the libraries of the world. Now if you want to read Schiller or Schopenhauer you don't have to pay 100 dollars for some antique copy of some 1850's translation. You can just download it onto your kindle for free. This is one of the greatest cultural enrichments in human history. The Kindle and its cousins, the Ipad etc, is nearly as important as the printing press. It is another degree of freedom, of access to all the world's literature, that is just as enormous a gap as the gap between writing a book by hand and printing it with a machine. Cheaper Kindles and Ipads, with better features and higher resolution displays, are all currently in the works. The pace of progress on this front has been a full-bore sprint. I wouldn't be surprised if schools soon replaced the entire textbook industry with nothing but ipads and kindles. It's about time.

Natural gas has emerged as THE alternative energy. Because of a new innovative 'fracking' technique, we have gained access to centuries' worth of new cheap energy, that burns perfectly clean, emits less CO2 per unit of useful energy, and can be modulated to serve any role. Obviously this trend has been going on for years but 2011 reached a new high point when GE announced the invention of a new natural gas engine (the central piece of a new power plant design), that has much higher efficiency than any previous version, which can turn on or off on a dime, and thus can be used as the mainstay, the anchor, of a renewable energy economy that has intermittent solar and wind power running every which way. So 2011 is the year we did it. We invented a viable replacement for our dirty and scarce fuels -- coal, oil, and uranium. We now have non-polluting, cheap energy for at least the next 100 years. That's a lot of progress in just half a year. It's also pretty nice that the USA and Europe happens to be sitting on vast natural gas reserves. We will no longer be hostage to the political and religious nonsense of the 3rd world. Our power can all be generated here at home, at competitive prices, and create jobs for our own people who will be working hard to exploit all these new opportunities -- wind, solar, and natural gas plants, plus the service sector for all the workers making and maintaining said wind, solar, and natural gas plants -- all in America. We're talking about an influx of trillions of dollars into the economy. A Texas style oil boom, or a California gold rush, is incoming.

But wait, there's more! Intel announced that it has perfected a 3d chip fabrication technique that can be implemented using current factories. These chips are 20% faster and 50% more energy efficient. They will become the new standard chip starting in 2012. Computers are energy-hounds, they now form a large component of our total electricity costs and our cost in doing business. When intel finds a way to halve those costs overnight, that's another trillion dollars in our pockets. The extra speed is also part of the ongoing process to make truly sentient AI -- sort of like the Watson computer that won Jeopardy against the two best humans on Earth, (did I mention this happened in the first half of 2011?) and is now being adjusted to work as a doctor and a lawyer for pennies instead of millions like human doctors and lawyers cost.

Faster computers are being matched by a faster internet. Recently an invention was made that allowed multiple terabytes per second to be passed through the same old fiber optic cables we've already installed across the world. Google has also been working on the software side to optimize speed and efficiency during searches and the loading of webpages. Like the golden spike that met in Utah to complete our first transcontinental railroad, these two sources of internet speed are being worked on as we speak in the first half of 2011, giving everyone a more enjoyable, more powerful internet connection, which is now one of the most vital resources in life, and described by the UN as a 'human right' it's so essential.

2011 also saw the completion of the International Space Station. The Alpha Spectrometer that cost two billion dollars to make was finally installed on the Space Station, where it will be allowed to collect all sorts of useful data on the nature of the universe. The ISS finally has a reason for being. As the capstone of the entire project, we couldn't have asked for more. Perhaps in the future we'll find more things to do with our shiny new space station that has all of its features in place, the extra robot arms and solar panel wings and experiment racks etc. Now that the construction part of the ISS is done, the scientific part can begin. We can now start to reap the benefits instead of just pay the costs, a turning point we reached only a few weeks ago. When the LHC completes its revamp a couple years from now and gains enough power to make massive particle collisions, a similar turning point will have been reached with that experiment. But for now we can celebrate the completion of the ISS.

Magic finished off its Scars of Mirrodin set with a bang with New Phyrexia. Phyrexian mana, which allows you to cast spells for life instead of mana, was immediately useful in a vast variety of legacy tournament decks. The entire Mirrodin block has been a stupendous success, dripping in flavor and chock full of fun and powerful cards people could use anywhere, in any deck they wanted.

Dynasty Warriors 7 finally released a dynasty warriors game with ps3 level graphics. It also included ten new characters and extended the romance of the three kingdoms to the actual end of the book, with the victory of the Jin, ending the story at the same place it historically ended instead of at an arbitrary and unsatisfactory Wu Zhang Plains battle. It's beyond question the best game in the series, which was already one of the best gaming series of all time.

Much of the Middle East has risen up in rebellion against their backwards dictators and demanded freedom and democracy. The revolutions were totally unexpected, and have already succeeded in Egypt and Tunisia. I suspect Libya will fall soon, with the helping hands of NATO, just like we defeated Milosevic and turned Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia into free and democratic states with the helping hands of a few bombers. Now not only Montenegro and Kosovo, but Serbia is a much happier, freer, safer and more prosperous place to live in. The entire region will eventually be folded into the EU, where it will gain undreamed of economic opportunities and political security that the Balkans haven't had since the fall of the Roman empire. The capture of Mladic, a war criminal whose escape from justice had precluded any negotiations for Serbia to join the EU, was a pivotal success in 2011 because of its ability to finally heal that region of our precious race/homeland.

Speaking of catching the war criminal Mladic, did I mention we killed Osama Bin Laden in the first half of 2011? :). That would make 2011 a success on its own.

Clannad After Story came out in blu-ray, which looks much better than it has ever looked before, making it the perfect version of the perfect story, the greatest story ever told. This would also make 2011 a worthy year all on its own.

The Kepler telescope, and other telescopes, have identified nearby, Earth sized planets in temperate orbits around their suns. They have proven that the conditions that brought about life on Earth are not an anomaly, but are commonplace all across the galaxy. The potential for meeting alien civilizations, or at least having 'shovel-ready' planets to colonize, has increased dramatically. Meanwhile, SpaceX successfully tested its Falcon 9 rocket, marking the first commercial space flight company to reach this technological level of sophistication. Space Colonization might not be as far away as people think.

No doubt more good things happened in the first half of 2011, but sadly I've forgotten them. There's simply too many good things happening for any one person to catalog them all. The good things are everywhere, happening everyday, one after the other, like a starshower after the passing of a comet. And this is just the first half of 2011. In the next half, so many wonderful things are slated to occur. The conclusion of the epic Harry Potter series will finally air, bringing to a close the work of an entire decade. There's a Negima movie, and a Hayate movie, and a Sora no Otoshimono movie, which are all bound to be amazing, all coming out this summer. There's still a summer, fall, and winter anime season to come in 2011, holding who knows what surprises. Magic will release its new expansion, Innistrad, in the fall. E3 just previewed two new powerful gaming consoles, joining the 3ds that was released this year, the PSVita and the Wii U. The college football season will have a completely new look with the shakeup between the conferences and new good teams competing head to head for the first time. Good things are coming our way! By the end of 2011, no doubt I'll have many more reasons to praise 2011. But isn't the first half enough to prove my point?

There are people making art and science as we speak that is visibly improving the world. There are also political events making the world a better place, and however bad the economy, it's still growing from last year. In China, it's still growing at 10%. I doubt Chinese mind our economic 'slump.' I don't think anyone has a right to complain when life is getting better for everyone everywhere economically. At least wait until there's a recession to get out the pitchforks.

The world is far from collapsing. Whatever problems await us in the future, we'll overcome them, just like we overcame World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil War, the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2009. This is because Good is stronger than Evil and history is the study of mankind's progress, not its collapse, across time. If entropy is the arrow of time, progress is the arrow of history. It's simply an undeniable fact that we're better off than our ancestors. Therefore, it would take a cataclysm of never-before-seen proportions to make our descendants worse off than ourselves. Is it possible? Sure. But it isn't likely. Things have a way of working themselves out. The fact that a cataclysm that would actually reverse human progress has never before occurred is pretty good insurance that it never will occur, either. Worrying about it won't help, and it won't change anything, anyway, so we're all better off assuming the opposite. This side of the river is so much better.