Notes From My Knapsack 3-25-07
Jeff Gill

Making Predictions, Taking Chances

Of course, the wisdom of Yogi Berra says it all: "Predictions are difficult, especially about the future."

Ask Bill Gates, who said in the early days of Microsoft: “No one will need more than 637Kb of memory for a personal computer.”

He ended up doing OK, considering he was competing against the brilliant forecasters of IBM, who had told management in the 1960’s “The total requirements for computing in the United States can be satisfied by fewer than 100 IBM mainframe computers.”

Many of you recall growing up under the assumption that the US would always be in a state of near-war with the Soviet Union, which would dominate Olympic gymnastics, if not the world, pretty much always.

Through college, we all worried about the inevitable bloody end the everyone could see coming quite clearly for South Africa, what with Mandela still a prisoner and the white minority never letting go of control other than through a violent revolution by the majority.

And you may need to be a bit older to know who the Rev. Ian Paisley is, but for me it was a double shock to learn a) he’s still alive (soon to be 81, in fact), and b) about to meet with the Archbishop of Armagh, the Roman Catholic primate of Ireland. Apparently the peace negotiations have progressed to the point where “Rev. No” (among other things, he denounced Pope John Paul II to his face as the Antichrist) is saying yes to joining a government along with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the militant Catholic minority.

Nope, I didn’t see that one coming.

What’s going to happen in Iraq? I have not the faintest idea.

Donald Trump – sorry, The Donald – has no such hesitation. He said over last weekend that anyone can see how the whole place will turn into a bloodbath the moment we leave no matter what we do, so we should just leave now, the sooner to let them carnage it out.
Aside from the fact that Mr. Trump is making all the usual noises of a possible Democratic candidate for President (he almost did it once before, recall), I’m thinking he’s right in the one thing that he doesn’t realize is true.

Whatever the next major change is, in the land around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, steps to greater peace and everyday prosperity won’t come at the commands of armed men.

The sooner there are more leaders counting on their own quiet, future retirement than current riches and power; when business people are trying to plan for expansion rather than destruction as a tool for competition; once there are internet connections in villages and home improvement stores in towns and yes, Starbucks in the cities . . .

For all the wars and rumors of wars in the last century of this world, the sucker bet is still pessimism. A hundred years ago, the norm for a human being on planet Earth was actual or effective slavery (see “serfdom”), death by disease in the first three years, or around age 40 if you survived childhood, and fair measure of pain and discomfort through wars, harsh working conditions, and social viciousness (Google “lynching” and then come on back).

Today, we’ve seen some amazing things in the last twenty years that are still bearing fruit, such as in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t that long ago that the Palestinian problem and Northern Ireland were always mentioned in one breath as the intractable, unsolvable problems of now and forever.

Hamas and Syria and Hezbollah all keep me nervous about the likely near term outcomes for the Middle East, and the history of the Fertile Crescent justifies more wariness than the current administration seems to have used in planning their Iraq venture. But the desire of people, given half a chance, to nudge their leaders to less killing, more freedom, and general stability, is stronger than pessimism.

Here’s a crazy, wild-eyed prediction made in 1816: "Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a colossus we shall be." That’s just the thought of a gentleman farmer who was not himself so clear-eyed about slavery, but had a sense of what freedom might accomplish for his fellow Americans. Thomas Jefferson made a more outrageous forecast than Bill Gates and IBM put together, and all of them were looking at what was known, what had always been true, and what most people thought would be likely in the future.

It was the fellow from Monticello who added a small, measured dose of confidence, in people given a taste of freedom, who saw what might be done with that liberty, even beyond what he could see himself.

If I have to bet between The Donald and The Thomas, I don’t have to think long. As for the NCAA tournament, I’m for Butler…so don’t follow my brackets!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your tale of the unexpected at knapsack77@gmail.com.