ralph nader is back... again

first of all, i would like to congratulate barack obama on his 11 caucuses/primaries-in-a-row winning streak. it was 10 the last time i posted here, but it was brought up to 11 because of the “democrats abroad” primary-by-mail. so he has won all 11 contests that happened after super tuesday up until now. on march 4th there are 4 more primaries (none of them caucuses), so 4 chances for hillary clinton to come back from the dead. and here is a weird video of hillary clinton attacking barack obama in cincinnati, ohio, saying “shame on you, barack obama”:



all i have to say to hillary clinton’s tirade is, “WTF?!?!?!?!?” what is with all this bullshit from her attacking obama? barack obama has a health care plan just like hillary clinton does! i call BS on her tirade! and you know who else doesn’t like obama?

ralph nader likes to mock barack obama. that was just a link to an article where ralph nader totally made fun of barack obama and belittled him and completely disrespected him. you can read more articles ralph nader has written at counterpunch.org by looking at these google search results, if you like his type of bullshit.

so what is the deal with ralph nader? he ran for president in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and is running again in 2008 now. earlier in this 2008 campaign, he endorsed john edwards (instead of dennis kucinich). now ralph nader is back to his old spiel that the democrats and republicans are both the same, both run by the same corporations, and only he, an outsider to both major parties, can really change anything. ralph nader is driven by his own ego, and is very self-centered and arrogant, although on most political issues, i agree with him. but i also agree with barack obama on most political issues, and barack obama has a much better chance of winning than ralph nader. in 2004, the green party refused to endorse ralph nader for president, so he ran on the reform party banner, the same party that ran ross perot in 1992 and 1996, and pat buchanan in 2000. who did the green party pick in 2004 as their candidate? david cobb, somebody nobody ever heard of! why? because ralph nader, in his typical egotistical self-centered fashion, had completely snubbed the green party, a party that he had helped to create! and the reform party was basically a train wreck and had nobody else to nominate in 2004. ralph nader got 0.4% of the vote in 2004. basically nothing. anyway, what is my point? ralph nader only cares about one person: himself. he does not care about this country, or about which of the 2 major parties wins elections. he stubbornly refuses to accept the reality of the situation: that we have winner-take-all elections, that we do not use instant runoff voting or any other method that might allow someone like him to have even a remote chance of winning, and that he has never had a snowball’s chance in hell to win an election. if he really gave a damn about the issues he claims to care about, and really wanted to change the country, he would do it inside the existing 2-party system that we already have. that is what dennis kucinich, russ feingold, and other progressive leaders do! if ralph nader doesn’t like the democrats because he is too ultra-liberal and the democrats have gotten too conservative, he ought to join our party and do a hostile takeover! how do you think howard dean got to be chairman of the democratic national committee? it was a hostile takeover of the central party apparatus by an outsider from a tiny state with a small population (vermont)! howard dean had a very good chance of winning the 2004 democratic nomination, up until the iowa caucuses demolishing his chances. why? he had a progressive message that resonated with voters! if ralph nader thinks he has a progressive message that resonates with voters, he ought to run as a democrat! that is the only way he could possibly win... unless ralph nader actually thinks he would do better as a republican. it does not make sense how ralph nader keeps running for president, again and again and again, always as an outsider not in either major party, never getting much of the vote. he keeps making the same mistake again and again and again! people ought to learn from their mistakes! ralph nader is a stubborn old fool, just like arizona senator john mccain and former alaska senator mike gravel. he is well past retirement age. all his candidacy does is siphon votes away from democrats and help the republicans. everybody knows that, even him! so if he actually gave a damn about anything at all, he would just stop running for president, and endorse the democratic nominee once the democrats pick one. of course, it is a free country, and ralph nader can do as he pleases. but please, do not listen to him, because all he does is spout bullshit and denounce the democrats as republican-like, making people turn against the democratic party and helping the republican party win elections. it is true that many democrats are republican-lite and are not true progressives, but there are also many progressive democrats fighting to change that, and this is a battle within the party. but ralph nader is not on the side of us progressive democrats, because his desire is to overturn the 2-party system, which i agree is a noble goal, but it is unachievable unless the laws governing elections are changed to a system such as instant runoff voting, the condorcet method, or proportional representation.

as long as we have winner-take-all elections, it is mathematically impossible for there to be more than 2 viable political parties. early in the united states, the 2 parties were the democratic-republicans (later shortened to the democrats) and the federalists. the federalists collapsed and for a while it was just the democrats. then the whigs emerged as the 2nd party alongside the democrats. the whigs collapsed completely. then the republicans were formed as the 2nd party, the 3rd major party to fight opposite the democrats, after the federalists (#1) and the whigs (#2). the republicans went on to dominate politics throughout the latter half of the 19th century, but the democrats were not completely wiped out like the federalists or whigs. and the democrats made a comeback in the late 1800s with grover cleveland, and in the early 1900s with woodrow wilson, and in the 1930s it was franklin delano roosevelt who finally restored the democratic party to its rightful standing. so anyway, we have had a 2-party system ever since the nation was founded, with the democrats founded by thomas jefferson and the federalists founded by alexander hamilton. the republican party is not the “grand old party”: the first republican president, abe lincoln, was elected 60 years after the first democratic president, thomas jefferson. anyway, my point is very simple: 3rd parties do not work unless we completely change the election laws. so, prior to running for president as a 3rd party candidate, ralph nader or any other person wishing to run outside the 2-party system ought to have a big national grassroots campaign to change the election laws to be instant runoff voting, the condorcet method, or proportional representation. if you are a 3rd party candidate, you cannot win the game unless you change the rules. and if, by some miracle, a 3rd party candidate does win, historically what this means is, one of the 2 parties that were previously the main parties will completely fall apart and cease to exist, and we will be back to a 2-party system, just with a different pair of parties. that is what happened when abraham lincoln was elected as a republican: it spelled the final demise of the whig party, and brought us the democrat + republican 2-party system.

or if you want to look at other countries: the united kingdom has 2 main parties: the labour party and the conservative (tory) party. there are other political parties in the united kingdom, such as the liberal democrat party and a number of northern ireland parties, but they are all bit players that only get elected in certain regions and cannot compete nationally, and only have a few members in parliament. only 2 parties in the united kingdom matter, and they are the labour party and the conservative party. even with tremendous dissatisfaction with tony blair’s support for the war in iraq and his centrist policies, the liberal democrat party completely failed to defeat the labour party, because the labour party is still the main left-wing party, and the conservative party is still the main right-wing party. and the green party, or an independent like ralph nader, will fare even worse than the liberal democrat party of the united kingdom. the same also goes for the libertarian party, the reform party, and all the other 3rd parties. ron paul is running as a libertarian inside the republican party this year. he is not doing too well, having lost every single primary and caucus so far, although he came in second in a few. he would do much, much worse if he ran under the libertarian party banner. running as a republican, at least ron paul has some nonzero chance of winning. it is ron paul’s best shot at being president, because we are stuck in a 2-party system, and ron paul understands that 2-party system better than anyone. i think ralph nader could learn a thing or two from ron paul. who knows? if ralph nader had run in the democratic primaries and caucuses in 2008, maybe he would be the one beating hillary clinton, instead of barack obama. but it is too late for that now. now all ralph nader can do is spoil things for the democrats and help the republicans win, because it is a winner-take-all zero-sum game, and the system is rigged to only allow 2 parties to have a chance at winning. and all ralph nader does is discredit the democrats among liberals and progressives, and make people not want to vote for democrats. he does not have the same effect on conservatives, because conservatives love big corporations and they think of ralph nader as a socialist or quasi-communist. do you remember what ross perot did in 1992? he spoiled things for george bush sr., and by getting the conservatives to split their vote, ross perot made bill clinton president. ralph nader played the same role in 2000, spoiling things for al gore and helping george w. bush get elected president. the republicans have no better ally in politics than ralph nader, which is why, in 2004, the republicans helped to lead the effort to get ralph nader’s name on the ballots. so just remember: ralph nader is a spoiler who helps the republicans, just like ross perot was a spoiler who helped the democrats. a vote for ralph nader is one less vote for barack obama or hillary clinton, and helps john mccain win the general election by winning the electoral college.

so, if you want john mccain to be the next president, i urge you to go and support ralph nader! send ralph nader money! raise signatures to get him on the ballots! help him destroy the democratic party by making the liberal/progressive base disillusioned with their own party!

this election is not about “the lesser of two evils”. hillary clinton and barack obama are not evil! they are both good, overall, and barack obama is a little bit better, less of a war hawk. hillary clinton may be surrounded by war hawk advisors, but she is still good, overall. both of them would bring us universal health care, and their disputes over minor details in their health care plans are just silliness. both of them want to end the war in iraq as soon as possible, while john mccain wants the war to go on for 100 years. i think there is a clear difference between democrats and republicans, in fact there are a great many major differences, and every time ralph nader says democrats and republicans are the same, he is a flat-out liar of the worst kind. why on earth would people vote for a self-centered egotistical liar like ralph nader who got disowned by his own party, the green party, for being a complete asshole to them?

a much better person to listen to than ralph nader would be arianna huffington, who has said similar things about both parties being owned by corporations, but who lives in the real world, not some fantasy world where 3rd-party candidates can win. arianna huffington ran for governor of california as an independent a few years ago, when the main candidate was arnold schwarzenegger, and she went through the whole experience of being a 3rd party candidate who had no chance of winning. and she grew and learned from that experience, and now she supports barack obama. ralph nader, on the other hand, never learns from his experiences, and keeps losing election after election after election, in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and now again, the same thing will happen to him in 2008. will he never learn? is this all just a publicity stunt he does so he can sell books and give speeches and make money? does he even give a damn? if he had any common sense at all, he would just give up. it is pointless for him to even try. ralph nader lives in a fantasy world, and has no understanding of the reality we live in, of how politics works, of how to win elections. all he knows about elections is how to screw them up for people who agree with him on most of the issues, and help people he disagrees with on everything get elected instead.

oh, and one last note: apparently cuba is now led by raul castro, fidel castro’s younger brother. is there going to be any change in cuba? no, of course not. we will probably have to wait for both of the castro brothers to die before communism will ever come to an end on that island near florida. there is nothing we can do to end communism in cuba... our government has been trying to get rid of fidel castro for almost 50 years, and our policies towards cuba have only helped him hold onto power. we should just normalize diplomatic and trade relations with cuba, like we have done with china and vietnam, and like we were with the soviet union back when it existed. we always had diplomatic and trade relations with the soviet union, even at the height of the cold war. embargoes never work. let us treat cuba the way we treat china and vietnam. and if someone from cuba lands on american soil, they should not automatically become a citizen. that is unfair, because mexicans who cross the border do not get citizenship, they get deported or have to stay in the underground economy, while cubans can become citizens and vote and get legitimate high-paying jobs. why do we give preferential treatment to illegal immigrants from cuba? we need to completely change all of our policies towards cuba, since we have had the same policies in place for almost 50 years and they have completely failed in every respect. and you know what? the candidate i support, barack obama, agrees with me that we need to change our failed strategies towards cuba, while hillary clinton and john mccain both agree that we should continue the same strategies that have been failing for 50 years, the strategies that helped the castro regime hold onto power for so long. and as for ralph nader... he just needs to go away. and pretty much everyone agrees with me.

in other news, there is a new survey on religion in the united states. apparently 78.4% of americans are christian, 16.1% do not belong to any religion, 4.7% belong to religions other than christianity, and 0.8% were unwilling or unable to answer the survey. and 44% of americans have switched their religious affiliation at least once in life, either switching from one religion to another, joining a religion, or leaving religion altogether. 25% of americans in the 18-29 age bracket are unaffiliated with any religion. there are more than three times as many people leaving religion completely as there are people joining religion. and the denomination suffering the greatest losses is catholicism. protestants are also having losses too, and now the percentage of americans who are members of protestant denominations is down to 51%. but oddly enough, more than half of people who were raised unaffiliated with any religion ended up joining a religion, despite the fact that more than 3 times as many people are leaving religion altogether as people joining it for the first time. now only 1.6% of americans call themselves atheists, and only 2.4% call themselves agnostics. compare that to the 6.3% of americans who do not belong to any religion and are completely nonreligious, but do not call themselves atheists or agnostics. apparently people are afraid of calling themselves one of those 2 “a-words”, because people do not seem to know what those words mean. an atheist is anyone who is not completely convinced that god exists, and an agnostic is a subtype of atheist who thinks it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god. so an agnostic is someone who boldly claims that it is impossible for anyone to know the truth, no matter how hard we try. an atheist is just anyone who is not 100% sure that god exists, and there are many different types of atheists. unfortunately, people do not know the meaning of the word “atheist” and think that it means someone who is 100% sure that god does not exist. if you are only 99.9% sure that god exists, you are an atheist, according to the dictionary definition of “atheist”. true faith in god is always 100%. if people actually knew the meaning of the word “atheist”, and the word were destigmatized, the majority of people would probably call themselves atheists, because even if you go to church every sunday and are a member of your church and go through all the rituals, if you do not have complete faith in god, then you are an atheist, according to the dictionary definition. i am an atheist, and proud of it. and i belong to the minority among atheists who actively deny the existence of god, and claim it to be impossible. most atheists are nowhere near as bold as to make a claim like that. now, if someone did a poll asking people if they were 100% sure that god exists, we would find out the true answer of how many people are atheists. if you are not 100% sure in your faith in god, you are an atheist. an atheist is defined as “a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings”. disbelieve is defined as “to withhold or reject belief”. so, by simply withholding belief in the existence of a supreme being or beings, someone automatically becomes an atheist, whether they want to be called an atheist or not. trying to claim not to be an atheist when you don’t have complete faith in god is like trying to claim to be one gender when you are the opposite gender, or trying to claim you are an alien from another planet when you are just a human like everyone else. it is a lie. if you do not have faith, if you are a closet atheist who does not want to be called an atheist, you need to “come out of the closet” already, and if anyone asks you if you are an atheist, tell the truth, and say “yes!” lying about it is dishonorable and immoral, if you believe in honor and/or morality. now i am sure there are plenty of people who wish they could believe in god but just can’t convince themselves of god’s existence, and those people are atheists even though they don’t want to be. i used to be like that, and i went to church every sunday, to quaker meetings, to a protestant christian denomination. i did not really believe in all the “god” stuff, but most of quakerism is not about this “god” character or his son “jesus”, but rather about how people ought to live their lives and treat each other. and that secular, non-superstitious aspect of quakerism is the aspect that i fully accepted and believed in, and continue to accept and believe in. but i am no longer affiliated with quakerism and no longer call myself a quaker, because i cannot bring myself to endorse any religion that has supernatural beliefs, much less one that considers the bible a holy book. i have read some of the bible, and been completely horrified and disgusted at what i read in that book, about how god carried out genocides (sodom and gomorrah, the great flood, the jews killing all the indigenous tribes of the land of canaan and renaming it israel) and did all sorts of horrible things, about all sorts of minor offenses that people need to be executed for (having sex with the wrong people, or eating the wrong type of food). i read it from the beginning of genesis all the way up to somewhere in numbers or somewhere around there, where it got from being a horrifying book to an incredibly boring book. and reading the bible convinced me that any religion that considers that book holy is a completely false religion, since no loving/righteous/good/noble god would ever do all the horrible things it says in the bible. and as to the question of whether god exists, disbelief in the bible does not necessarily mean you do not believe in god. but i came to realize that there are many ways to logically prove the nonexistence of god, if god is defined in the traditional way that religious people define him. then i realized that the word “god” means different things to different people, and that going by the dictionary definition does not seem to work, since many people disagree with that definition. so then we have a situation where nobody can agree on what the word “god” means, and there is such disagreement on this issue that basically i have concluded that “god” is a completely meaningless word. so, if i were to accept that the word “god” is completely meaningless, i would have to be an agnostic as well as an atheist, since it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of something that cannot even be defined. but, i have decided to remain true to the dictionary definition of “god” and the way christian fundamentalists define “god”, so that i can prove that god does not exist, once and for all. my favorite proof is quite simple: god is defined as all-knowing, so he knows everything that will happen in the future. but god is also defined as all-powerful, so he can change things so they happen differently from the way he predicted. therefore, things can happen completely differently from the way god predicted they would happen, meaning that he is not all-knowing at all, and actually has zero knowledge of the future. conversely, one can make the claim that god would never do things differently than the way he predicted, which restores his all-knowing property and means he can predict the future infallibly after all. but, there is a catch. since god already knows everything that is going to happen in the future, he is incapable of doing things any differently than how he predicted. he is controlled by fate, all his actions are predetermined, and he has no free will whatsoever, absolutely zero power over his actions. and thus the all-knowing god is not all-powerful, but rather has no power whatsoever, all his actions predetermined by fate, by his predictions in the past. now some religious people claim “god exists outside of time”. what does that even mean? how can a god who exists outside of time interact with things going on in our universe, a universe where time exists, and goes from the past to the present to the future continuously? and anyway, if god is all-knowing and all-powerful, if we assume for the time being that such a scenario is even possible, and god created everything, does this not mean that god created everything in the universe, and each and every one of us human beings? and that he knew the future in advance, so everything is predetermined, nobody has any free will, and we all behave in exactly the way that god pre-programmed us to behave when he designed us? think about computers for a minute... computers only do what they are programmed to do; they have no free will. they were designed by human beings. the only way a computer can defy the will of its designer is if the design is flawed and it malfunctioned. but if “intelligent design” is true and god knew what he was doing when he designed us and did not make us defective on purpose, why is it that some people go astray and do not believe in evangelical protestant fundamentalist christianity, thereby condemning themselves to eternal hellfire? obviously there is a flaw in the design, if god made us so we could turn evil or reject his rigidly stated christian dogma and thereby end up in hell. if god were righteous and good, he would have designed us so that we would also be righteous and good, and never do anything evil, and all have the same correct beliefs, and all end up in heaven with him for eternity. but god created evil, he created satan, knowing full well in advance that satan would turn evil, and creating a scenario whereby billions of innocent victims would be sent to hell through no fault of their own, in a predetermined scheme that they had no control over. religious people counter by claiming that god had to create satan and evil so that human beings could have free will, but that is utter bullshit. if god is all-knowing and knows the future, he knows how a person will behave and what they will believe, and everything about them, before he even creates that person. an all-powerful, all-knowing god that created the universe by definition has complete control over everything going on in the entire universe, at all times. in such a situation, free will is impossible for a human being, and free will is also impossible for god himself. and why is god male? does he have a penis and testicles? if so, why? is there a female goddess for him to have sex with? or does he sit around with his penis and testicles, moping around miserably because he has nobody to have sex with? is that why he is always so angry and always massacring large numbers of innocent people, out of jealousy that they get to have sex and he doesn’t? and what is with the doctrine of “trinity”, that god is 3 separate entities but also 1 single unified entity? why did jesus cry out and ask his father god why god abandoned him? that would be impossible if jesus and god are one and the same, and are all the same entity. if god is the father, then why did the holy spirit, not the father, impregnate the virgin mary? and why doesn’t that count as sex, and why is she still considered a virgin after being knocked up by the holy spirit? it seems like the holy spirit is the real father, and the so-called “father” is just a father in name only. none of this makes any sense at all. and so, i think if people carefully and objectively considered these points i have brought up, in an open-minded fashion, the vast majority of americans would end up concluding that all judeo-christian religions are false, god does not exist, and atheism is correct. even if you just look at the old testament and judaism, the god of the old testament is such an evil genocidal maniac, he is far worse than adolf hitler, josef stalin, or any other evil mass-murderer of modern times. and since christians and muslims both accept the old testament as literal truth, christianity and islam are also wrong, just like judaism. and as for all the other religions of the world, like hinduism, buddhism, etc., those are all based on silly superstitions and belief in imaginary friends known as “gods”, despite a complete lack of any evidence justifying such a belief, and despite the fact that every religion in the world contradicts the teachings of science. and science is based on logic and reason, and on empirical study of the results of experiments, experiments which can be duplicated by other researchers skeptical of the results. it is impossible for the experimental results found in science to be wrong, since anyone can duplicate the experiments and see for themselves. sometimes someone does an experiment wrong or fakes a result, but later someone else will read about that experiment, do the exact same experiment, get the correct result, and prove the original result to be wrong, as a result of human error. science also has theories to explain the results of experiments, and these are not always true like the experimental results themselves. and theories can never be 100% proven. but if i were to tell you that gravity does not exist, you would not believe me. if i told you the world is flat, is shaped like a square, and has 4 corners, and you can fall off the edges, you would not believe me. so why do so many people find it necessary to deny the validity of science and instead propose that everyone believe in unproven ancient superstitions? luckily, many people in the united states and in other countries are turning away from religion, and this is a very good development. religions like quakerism might have a lot of good teachings about the right way to live your life and treat people, but why must we include the superstition? why can we not simply have them as secular philosophies, like the political philosophies of liberalism and conservatism? the chinese belief system of confucianism is sometimes thought of as a religion, but from what i heard, confucianism makes no claims about anything supernatural, and is simply a set of rules and guidelines for how people should behave while they are still alive. i think the dalai lama may have made similar claims that buddhism does not make any claims about anything supernatural and is only a set of guidelines and practices for how to live your life, and does not conflict with anything at all in science. and he said that if anything in buddhism is found to conflict with science, it should be thrown out and replaced with the scientific view. this is, of course, revisionist history, since buddhism is based on hinduism, a polytheistic religion, early buddhists were polytheists, and most buddhists today are polytheists. now a remarkable phenomenon in the united states is the prominence of superstitions that have absolutely nothing to do with christianity, or are even condemned by it. these include horoscopes, chinese fortune cookies (which are actually an american invention), psychics, fortune tellers, ouija boards, magic 8-balls, and lucky talismans that people carry around with them for good luck. a large percentage of christians in this country actually buy into these other non-christian superstitions, superstitions that are actually condemned in the bible. this shows that these so-called “christians” do not really believe in the bible, they are just attracted to all types of superstition, whether they are christian or not. only a small percentage of americans are what i would refer to as “real christians”, and the majority of americans are what i call “fake christians”. i listen to christian talk radio sometimes (the local csn international station), and those people are real christians, because they believe in 100% of the bible as literal truth, and do not question any of it. they completely believe in all of the superstitious nonsense in the bible, and completely reject all other superstitious nonsense that is either not mentioned in the bible or specifically forbidden in the bible. when it comes to religion, it is either all or nothing. if someone only believes in religion in a half-assed way, they ought to just give it up and become an atheist, because there is no way they are going to believe 100% of the nonsense in their religion’s fundamentalist dogma, so they might as well call it quits. i see no point in half-assed religion. people like that need to just quit the habit of religion (although it may be habit forming and possibly addictive and they may be emotionally and psychologically dependent upon reassurance that some higher power is looking out for them and everything will turn out fine in the end). religion should be reserved for those few fanatics who believe it wholeheartedly, and they should be isolated from the rest of society and looked down upon as backwards, insane, and emotionally dependent upon an imaginary friend. then we can peacefully, nonviolently eradicate religion from the world, by convincing people that it is wrong, through the power of logic and reason. and then all the wars and conflict and violence and killing done in the name of religion, all the jihads and crusades and fatwas and holy wars and intifadas, they will all be over and done with, never to happen again. people around the world will live together peacefully, no longer divided by their differing beliefs in supernatural things, everyone believing in reality, science, logic, and reason, so whenever there is a disagreement, people can negotiate logically and not behave unreasonably. of course, there will always be some people who are criminals, who resort to violence, so we will continue to have police to arrest them, courts to prosecute them, and jails to put them in. but just imagine a world where we were no longer divided by differing supernatural beliefs. and we could also have one world government, a new world order. john lennon wrote and sang a song describing just such an outcome, called “imagine”. and it is a very catchy tune. and i find the words to that song very inspirational, although possibly a bit naive and idealistic. but on christian talk radio, they talk all the time about how the antichrist will come and make atheism the new world religion and create a new world order of one world government. and you know what? it seems like a good idea to me. with only one government ruling the entire world, there will be nobody for them to fight wars against, so no need for war. no other countries to nuke, so no need for nuclear weapons. only one currency, making finance and trade and all sorts of economic transactions much more efficient. and no more borders between nations, since there would be no nations. people would be free to go wherever they want, without an oppressive government stopping them from having freedom of movement. and, as an added bonus, how about we throw in having everyone speak the same language, to eliminate all the problems of miscommunication between people from different parts of the world? and after many generations of mixed-race couples having children, imagine if everyone ended up being the same mixed-race shade of light brown, and there were no more racial divisions either. also, why don’t we give everyone a pony, and pave the streets with gold? every man a king and every woman a queen! a central world bank to manage 1 world currency, and due to inflation, everyone would be a billionaire, even the beggars on the gold-plated streets! just imagine that! now of course, in reality, none of that will ever happen. we will always have religions, we will always have nations, there will always be wars, and no, you do not get a pony. well technically, religions, nations, and wars will all cease to exist when humanity goes extinct. but we could still pave the streets with gold... but not real gold. fool’s gold, or bronze that looks like gold, or some sort of alternative that looks similar to gold. that can still be done. and then after humanity dies out, thousands of years from now, aliens in a faraway part of the galaxy may pick up a radio broadcast from earth, and decide to come visit us, and find our planet deserted and devoid of life, but with fake-gold-plated streets! at least the aliens will have something interesting to discover, when our radio broadcasts finally reach a distant alien civilization that is listening for civilizations like ours, with a project similar to the s.e.t.i. project, and then they decide to come here and check out earth. we ought to leave them some presents, like how kids leave milk and cookies for santa claus on christmas eve. what would be a nice gift to leave to space aliens that come to earth thousands or even millions of years from now after receiving our radio broadcasts through the vast reaches of space? i am thinking, maybe they would like some candy. but maybe the aliens have diabetes and can’t have sugar. or maybe they are not even carbon-based life forms, and are actually made of circuits and wires like robots except they are alive and have free will like people. or maybe the aliens are made of plastic and highly flammable. or they could be made of glass and shatter easily. i am hoping they are actually plutonium-based life forms. now that would be cool.