Libya - 2011 pt 3: INEVITABLE DOWNFALL

NATO has gotten involved now, including contingents from Europe and the USA. A question you may ask is “why is NATO concerned with a civil war in Libya?”
I will make this clear in my next post, along with the goals and motivations of the Libyan Rebellion.

Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. This morning sees a development in northern Africa that has been a long time coming, but inevitable just the same.
A quick recap:
Part 1: "WHAT IS LIBYA?" explained and clarified the geographic, historical, and cultural background of Libya, in order to give us a firm-enough grounding in the subject to speak about it. I wish, one day, to be able to research and present the same subject matter properly... one day...
Part 2: "DICTATORIAL DISASTER" explained, as the title suggests, the rise and beginning of the Fall of the Dictator of modern Libya - Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. I left you at the end of this post with the phrase: "And that brings us to the present day, where the civil war in Libya still rages." I also promised you that I will explain why NATO has gotten itself involved in what is essentially an internal civil war in Libya.
And now I will deliver on my promise.


So, it is a civil war. The Dictator Gadaffi has grown crazier and crazier over his 41 year rule of the country, and if you want details, refer to the previous "Libya - 2011" posts.
Korea was a civil war back in the 195os, and still remains in a technical state of war.
Vietnam was also a civil war in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Gulf War of 1991 was not a civil war, it was a battle between Iraq and Kuwait, with Iraqi intentions to move it on to Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East Arab world, if they did not comply with threats and demands from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Without any argument, the USA, along with its allies, has insinuated itself into each of these notable (if not pivotal) wars of the 20th Century. The reasons are far too many and too complex to discuss here, and will take away from the current topic. Please browse through my posts, I'm sure I've written about at least one of them in the last two years. If not, tell me, and I'll post a Uni essay that I wrote on the matter you want.

Prior to September 11, 2001 (the tenth anniversary of which is less than one month away today), the USA found itself temporarily without any major threats or military targets. If you can even remember that time, we were at peace, and only small conflicts were waging in eastern Europe and other regular hotspots.
But then, of course, the infamous "War On Terror" began, and to open it for us all we went to war in Afghanistan. The goal was to hunt down the alleged perpetrators of 9/11. 9 years later, Osama bin Laden was captured and killed by US forces. The fact that it didn't even occur in Afghanistan has ruffled more than a few feathers - it happened in neighbouring Pakistan, a supposed ally of the USA. THAT, too, is a subject for discussion at another time. (Oh, so much to discuss, and so little time and resources to furnish myself with the details!!!! - my constant lament!!!!)

Afghanistan spelled, as it did for the Soviet Union, a turning point for the worse for the USA. After ten long, fruitless years of fighting, with US and allied soldiers on the ground and dug in, in the firing line and dying daily, the war in Afghanistan has been a shamozzle.
The coninciding War in Iraq ("Gulf War II") took just as bad and heavy a toll on the USA, its prestige, and its credence as any kind of protector of justice.

Where it hurts the most for the USA today is that, as the largest and most powerful economy in the world, it is bringing down the rest of the global system as it falters and crashes.

Needless to say, with the details I've just given you, the USA had no intention of getting involved in yet ANOTHER war, the Libyan Civil War of 2011.

Europe ("once great, now bait") sits on Libya's doorstep, and, try as it might, it could not ignore goings-on in Libya any longer at the start of this year (2011AD). The preceding years saw great fluctuations in relationship temperatures between Libya and Europe. It turned out that the fluctuations were the result of Gadaffi's insanity becoming more apparent. Oh well, live and learn.

But the world could not stand back and do nothing.
As selfish as our economic preoccupations make us seem, there is still generally a tipping point when the outside world can be aware of a conflict that contains atrocities. If we are AWARE, there will always be a voice calling to stop it.
Sadly, just as our economic preoccupations suggest, Europe only galvanised itself into action once it began to realise the economic fallout potential of a prolonged and unresolved war in Libya.
People often take notice of things when MONEY is involved. They take even greater notice when it is THEIR money.

I don't wish to go through the list of potentialities right now, but suffice it to say that another Afghanistan just across the Mediterranean from Europe would NOT be conducive to good trade and travel.

Hence, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, got involved.
Still red and smarting from the lessons of Afghanistan, neither the USA nor Europe were willing to put troops on the ground in Libya. The last thing anybody in the Western world needs is another "War in ....." in the media headlines.
To the West's delight, that didn't seem totally necessary. Whereas the people of Iraq were too demoralised after the first Gulf War to act in the second, and whereas the people of Afghanistan have not known order or government for so long that they could not organise themselves effectively at all, the people of Libya were different.
Please see Part 2 for more details: Gadaffi's crucial mistakes during his dictatorship have centered on his eagerness to engage with the rest of the world in some way. The allowance of communcations, new technologies, education - all this led directly to the awakening that the Libyans felt earlier this year and said "It doesn't HAVE TO be this way!", and also allowed them to organise themselves into effective fighting forces - effective enough to rival Gadaffi's standing military structure.
There is still no one man named as the head of this Rebellion, and I hope that there never really is - but they have somehow managed to organise themselves on the ground.
We may or may not learn ten years from now that CIA advisers were helping the Rebels... it's always possible. Then again, we never hear about the CIA's accomplishments (if any), just its failures.
Capable as the Rebels have been, they did not command the same military hardware that Gadaffi had. Tanks, fighters, bombers - all the big toys that we like to use in computer games. Especially AIR POWER is important in these sorts of scuffles. Hitler himself realised the importance of air superiority, and with it he took Libya back in the 1940s, and the rest of the Mediterranean. he never achieved it over Britain, and so Operation Sea Lion was a bust. And the Allies of WWII gained air superiorty over both Japan and Germany in WWII, and so won the war.
Gadaffi held air superiorty for ever so long. But if there is one thing that NATO is capable of, with its US aircraft carriers and fighter pilot veterans from many previous engagements, and the lessons of WWII and every other damn war, it is the establishment of firm air superiority.
And Libya happens to be perched on the northern coast of the Sahara. All NATO really needed to do was park a few aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, with some support craft, and they could launch unchallenged airstrikes on Gadaffi's forces, drop supplies to the Rebels.
And that is exactly what NATO is doing.
Co-ordination with Rebels on the ground has seen NATO pulverise Gadaffi's tanks and planes while they are still on the ground. The Rebels have been able to move into areas that were previously totally inaccessible. This general strategy has continued for the last 4 months or so, and today we see it is working.
The length of time it has taken has given the press a few scraps with which to build animosity against the campaign, but the story could never trump stories like celebrity babies, royal weddings, and , oh yeah, the global economic meltdown.

Notice that somewhere near the start of this post I seemlessly transition from past tense to present tense. Grammar-barons around the world will tell you that this is incorrect, but I have done so to reflect the primacy of the NOW-ness of this matter. It is literally happening right now!
TODAY:
A news report I have just seen has told us that the Anti-Gadaffi Rebel forces have actually moved into the capitol of Tripoli, and are flooding Green Square, a symbolic heart of the city.
To make the picture clear, this would be like a force moving into George Street in Sydney, Times Square in New York, Westminster in London, or through the Arc de Triomphe and around the Eiffel Tower in Paris (which many have done in the past!).

Through air support by NATO, and endless tenacity by the Rebels, the news is telling us that Gadaffi's sons are arrested or dead, his wife and daughter have fled to Tunisia, and Gadaffi himself is missing in action.
All of Gadaffi's cohort are called to face charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague (South Holland).
There are even reports that the Presidential Guard, who were supposed to do Gadaffi's dirty work for him as the Rebels approached his palaces, are turning around to join the advancing Rebels.

I think it is safe to say at this point that Gadaffi does not have a snowball's chance in hell of regaining his power any time soon.
If he is hanged for his crimes, or even just for being a dickhead, he will never rise again.
Personally, I think his mental state is beyond the point of return, and he is just too crazy to rule ever again, let alone claw it all back.

I could write a Part 4 for this series on Libya - 2011, but it would have be titled "LIBYA'S FUTURE?", and as the title suggests, I can't predict that.

There are, however, some certain pathways, down which Libya, as a country, is most likely to travel.

The Libyans need to rebuild their shattered country. Economics, evil as it is, is the only way to do that. We happen to be in the middle of an on-again-off-again Recession right now, so the difficulties will soon mount against the fledgeling Libyan Republic.
Libya HAS got OIL, however, and the rest of the world, the West and China, still has an insatiable appetite for the stuff. If sold, and the profits handled with due diligence, Libya could rebound from the ashes with remarkable speed and dexterity. This cannot be assured however, because we have seen, SOOOO MANY TIMES, the leaders of oil-rich countries squander such resources and leave their country mired in corruption. Gadaffi himself was guilty of this.
I am sure that Europe will be more than happy to help the re-shaping of Libya, but can the leaders of the new state be altruistic for long enough not to steal their peoples' future again?

And if a particular leader of this 2011 Rebellion surfaces, and Name is proclaimed, he or she will very likely become the new President. The Libyans will need to decide on a foundation and form for their new government - Republic, Constitutional Monarchy, something democratic hopefully. But any one personality that is strong enough, charismatic enough, could plunge the nation back into Dictatorship again.

I want to say that there are high hopes for the future of Libya, and the world at large, but I cannot say it honestly. I could offer you platitudes, but they bore me.
I know that most of what I say goes in one ear of my good listeners, and straight out the other. It is the same human concept that is now Libya's greatest potential foe - the need to learn, and relearn again and again and again, its lessons for itself.
There are enough racial divides in Libya to guarantee that the first crack in the new system will be fatal.
Centuries of mistreatment and/or ignorance by Europe has instilled fear and mistrust in the collective Libyan psyche that will never, ever truly be washed away.

Ultimately, Libya's future is in its own hands. Whether the USA, or Europe, set up programs and start funneling endless amounts of cash into it or not, the key decisions will still be held by the Libyan people living out their lives there.

I can never expect that my honesty on a matter like this will ever be taken seriously. I have never, myself, been taken seriously when I have attempted to offer honesty to people who really need a dose of it. I find it hard to swallow myself sometimes, but I have, of late, managed to take advice when it has been given to me. My own Desert Exile has not been a waste by any means.
The people of Libya have been in a spiritual and political Exile in the Sahara. Will they come out of it enlightened, even the tiniest bit?
Oh well, here are your platitudes, and I tell them to you only because they will be what you remember from this post if you have read this far:
(I say them with somewhat of a hint of irony. See if you can spot it)

"Libya's future is bright!"
"Libya, as a people, will never forget the trials and suffering under Gadaffi, and never again allow themselves to be ruled by a crazy dictator."
"The USA and Europe will do all they can, in the spirit of good will, to re-establish Libya as a viable nation-state, bring it into the UN, and take it seriously - not because of its resources and strategic value, but because the people have earned it, and because it is just the right thing to do!"


Ladies and Gentlemen, one thing IS perfectly clear, and I say this with NO irony whatsoever:
CHINA is going to do FUCK ALL about Libya. Just as it has done everywhere else in the world where other states have gotten involved, for better or for worse. China is ruled be a sniveling lot of hypocrites and fat-cats, sitting in their ivory towers in Beijing and Shanghai, still calling themselves socialist while reaping in enormous profits off the backs of its countless peasants and workers. China has refused, for no good reason at all, to engage with the rest of the world, except for where selfish profit could be made. In many ways like this, China has been far worse than the USA or Europe.
I welcome any kind of debate about China, as I have just inspired myself to write something about the modern Dragon stay tuned for that one soon.

As for Libya, let's watch, let's scrutinise, and then let's have a drinking game or something, where we all take a shot each time another dicatator rises and then falls at the hands of his pissed off denizens.

From The Tominator.

Yularan Relationships

I thought for a few seconds if I could find a catchy, edgy heading to give this post. But almost instantly swatted that idea away, because the subject matter of this particular post is so foten mired in mystery and unnecessary guessing-games that I thought I'd do you a favour and be direct for once.
Or, at least, as direct as I can be.

"Yulara" is the name of the 'town' I live in here in my Desert Exile. The term "town" should be used loosely, because this place ONLY resembles a town in its physical appearance. For all meaningful intents and purposes, it is not a town at all.
All of that will be explained in my upcoming essay "Yulara: Corporate Paradise", so I will say, just for now:
Yulara is not a real town, it is a corporate-controlled resort. The residents here are not citizens, or even civilians. So few places on Earth can have their populations divided so cleanly between only two classes: worker and visitor. But that is the way it is here in Yulara. You'll be enlightened soon enough, rest assured.

For now, I want to tell you a bit about human relationships here.
Firstly, know that this is one place in the world where there are absolutely NO secrets. It is a community, and it is a tight-knit one - not because all are close and will defend each other, but because he knows him, who knows her, who knows that guy, who knows this person, and everyone is connected by far less than the customary 6 degrees of separation.
And everyone knows it, too. It's not a secret. ;)

the demographs are as follows:
Yulara is arguably the homosexual capital of the world. Not in sheer numbers, no - that would be Sydney or San Francisco (from what I've seen in the former, and what I've heard about the latter). But in "per capita" terms, this is Gay-Town. Alice Springs is the main competitor, I hear, and I would not be surprised!
The other side of dempgraphs is the background of the people - this is no more relevant than anywhere else in the world, as Yulara is a microcosm to the extreme - we've got people here from all sorts of countries. All with their own reasons to come, and most eventually subscribing to the same existence not long after arriving.

So, demographs aside, I can tell you that there are only TWO kinds of relationships here in Yulara. they would best be described in meat-packing and agricultural terms, and those terms would be "import" and "home-grown". Be warned here and now, "Import" does not refer to the nationality or background of the people involved. Nor does "Home-Grown". I utilise these terms for their functional value - "Import" means it has come from outside. "Home-grown" means it has been born and fostered in the zone.
"Imports" generally consist of people who have arrived here, as a couple, and move in together, as a couple, and play house together, as a happy little couple. Generally these people are headed for one of two destinies: 1) will get married because they've been together so long (and can't do better), 2) will split up if and when reality hits, and one decides to stay and that other wants the hell OUT! I generalise, yes, but this is, after all, generally speaking.

Homebakes are almost exclusively the product of a drunken night out at one of the two watering holes - The Rez or the Outie. Regardless of which setting, the outcome is always the same.

Just as there are no Secrets in Yulara, there are also no "One-Night Stands" here. And this is because there are no secrets.
Being as succinct as possible: boy meets girl, boy and girl get drunk off their faces, boy and girl screw each other in a stupor. One wakes up in the other's bed the next morning (really early!) and takes the walk of shame back to their place. The other, already being in their hovel, proceeds to tell everyone and anyone they can about it, and by 10am that morning after, the whole town knows (unless if you happen to be out of town that weekend).
What the guy (admittedly) may have wished to be a one-night stand becomes common knowledge all over, and it usually takes no more than one solid day of teasing and taunting from everyone else before both parties to the fling have made up their minds that they are in a relationship. And BANG! there goes your one-night stand of drunken fun!
Only exempting the Red-Lights of the area, all people in this Home-Grown situation end up in a relationship like this. It may only last a few days, but it is officially on the public opinion-record as "in a relationship". There is no need for Facebook's "relationship status" feature here, as everyone else decides for you. The members of relationships that last for only a short time almost always jump right back into the same pool they just swam in, and end up doing it all over again. And after three or four in rapid succession, one gets to earn the title of a Red Light.

I have to be honest with you - Thinking normally, I cannot fathom how some of the relationships around here last. I am sure that some, a small percentage, are deep and meaningful, we'll-be-together-forever love matches. Sure. Why not? But the rest are matters of convenience and/or comfort. Convenience can be a case of a foreign national seeking PR or Visa status, or just because their last partner kicked them out, and they would quite literally have nowhere to live.
Comfort is the deadlier type, which discloses that the parties to the relationship haven't really put any thought into their lives, their futures, or even their pasts at all, and merely exist from day to day. Being with someone else, having the occasional physical contact, can take the edge off of that (believe me, I know from hard experience!). But it is all just because it is more comfortable.

Once in a blue moon you will come across a third type of relationship - the Perpetual Single. This certainly describes me. It also describes one or two others I know of, but I'm sure their reasons are different to mine.

You see, I play the game differently to other men. I don't drink, and I don't smoke. Instantly that wipes out two very lucrative ways of interacting with other people.
My personal interests are, by my own assessment, of a higher calibre than the majority, and that means I cannot maintain conversations with any interest, and I have difficulty feigning it, too.
Also, I've been told by one or two people whom I thought were close to me here, that my personality is such that it is very difficult to attract others to me. Apparently I am non-serious, or too light-hearted, or perhaps boring, or whatever the fuck you want to say about me. At differing times of men and womens' hormonal cycles, and depending on whichever prevailing thought exists in their minds, I am a good friend or just an idiot.
Alas, this part gets vague, even for me, here. I can admit that I know I seem arrogant or the like sometimes, and I can certainly admit that I am liable to misread either the situation or my role in it. But in the end, Hell really is just Other People.

The Perpetual Single has made the choice to be single, and stays that way actively. The original reason/s may be forced upon you, but you end up facing reality soon enough. Before too long, you realise the nature of all Relationships here - the Imports and the HomeGrowns - and you see that things tend to STICK really, really badly together. People Stick to others, and relationships almost always form (in the Home-Grown cases) because outside pressure and internal weakness has allowed two people to stick to each other.

It is actually a sad state of affairs, but isn't it always?

Yularan Relationships represent just another area of life here in the Corporate Paradise whereby freedom and liberty are squandered and squashed, and not by any outside, 1984 Big Brother entity at all. It's just the aura of the place.

Happily single, thought lacking physical attachment for the carnal outcomes,

From The Tominator.

RENAISSANCE MAN

The worst of my Desert Exile is now over. For me personally, the last year (or so), encompassing both my time in the Desert and the 6 months that led up to it in Sydney, I have undergone a Dark Age. Now, I can see the light, and what was once dark and unknown, and uncomfortable for me a year ago, is now no longer cloistered in shadows and uncertainty.
To be clear, uncertainty is an essential part of life, and I would never be so dumb as to say I am certain of everything (or indeed, anything in particular). But what I am certain of is this: The Dark Age is approaching its end. This End is inexorable, undeniable, and inevitable. I believe those are all synonymous with one another, but the multiplicity in use gives is a certain flavour, don't you think?
I find myself approaching a new Dawn in life in general, and it is only possible because of the long Night that has preceded it. More Dark Ages are to come, without a doubt, but although each appears as a shadowy abyss, they really cannot be crosses until I get to them.

It is a Renaissance.

I believe it important to refresh your memory, because this word "Renaissance" is not a common one these days (and for a solid reason).
THE Renaissance is the period referred to in human history when thought, imagination, and science finally began to supercede dogmatic religion. In broad terms, the DARK AGES can be said to have begun with the fall of the Roman Empire. Europe fell into political chaos when that behemoth died, and after some special, yet abortive attempts to bring it back together, Christianity ended up forming the glue of society in the West. In the as-yet-undiscovered "New World", indigenous populations at this time continued doing what they had been doing for centuries already - enjoying their fertile land and lack of Europeans and Asians, and praying to their heathen gods. And not much else in the way of Advancement.
In Asia, Empires rose and fell, and civil wars began disrupting what had once been the greatest pace of human development ever. The Human World fell into a Darkness, that is defined by a general and suffocating lack of knowledge, learning, exploration, and advancement. It is arguable how long the Dark Ages lasted, but I personally like to say it went from around 400AD to about the 1500s AD. Around one thousand years.
I look at my life now, and what has been accomplished in the last 500 years, or even just in the 20th century alone, and I often get frustrated that this all could have happened 100 years sooner, and I could have been born on the Moon or Mars, flying spaceships between the Worlds!

But just like my personal Dark Age, the historical Dark Age had to happen for a reason: namely, we didn't know any better. It was inevitable.

But one the likes of Leonardo DaVinci started designing flying machines, cutting up cadavers, building scuba gear, and everything short of re-inventing the wheel, things in the Human world really started to pick up. "Renaissance" is a French term, and like all French terms, it sounds really nice. But the English term (when not stealing the sweet French term) is "The Enlightenment". And truer than any other time, the Enlightenment was a philosophical age of light! Things were being learnt, new things were being known! People were discovering, exploring, and creating and advancing!
But before you, too, feel the frustration I sometimes feel, you should remember the key point:
One cannot know light without darkness.
Equally fundamental to our world, one cannot know darkness without light!
As modern Homo Sapiens, we like to catalogue our existence so that we needn't use any more than the 10% of our brain that we are comfortable with using. As a direct result of this, we see times of sadness and depression as "darkness", and continue the metaphor for the good times - the "light". Because we have capabilities that are painfully latent and ignored, more often than not we find ourselves dwelling on the Darkness. The trend sticks with us, and we come to expect the good things as granted, whilst focusing on our problems. This is all good and well for self-improvement enthusiasts, but it is a one-way street to depressive breakdown! If the positive things in our lives are 'expected', and the only surprises are the negative ones, then I GUARANTEE you that your life will be a cold, grey, and miserable existence.

The Renaissance is the light. The classical interpretation of it is that from somewhere unseen a great light washes over the Darkness in our world. This WRONG, and I'll tell you why:
Light of this sort only comes from one place, and that place is not a God, not another planet, and not a drug or anything like that. It is Within ourselves. When Shakespeare said, in "Julius Caesar", that we must not look to the Stars, but to ourselves, he wasn't just trying to be witty.
If you, too, find yourself in a Dark Age, then you, too, will eventually find yourself clawing your way out of it all on your own. You will switch on a light that was always there, using a switch that was always within your reach. You just didn't know any better.

I didn't know any better. Others told me better, but I wasn't prepared to listen. (See one of the many previous blog-posts for background on this- sorry, can't remember which one).

The Dark Age I am coming out of now is being lit by candles that I have fired up myself. The materials to do it have come from multiple sources, and to these sources I give the moniker: "lessons" (usually "life-lessons").

The Renaissance Man is a man who has opened his own eyes, and lit his own light. Doesn;t really matter how he lit it, just that he remembers the key points. If a man doesn't light his own darkness, and allows someone else to do it for him, he is robbed of that crucial fundamentality of the exercise - and once the external helper goes away (which it must, eventually) he will be in Darkness yet again.

In practical terms, the Renaissance Man seeks to broaden his knowledge base as wide as possible. It is all good and well, and even economically viable to have just one speciality; but knowing a lot about one thing gets you only one thing. Indeed, knowing a little about many things won't get you far, either. But the Renaissance Man knows more than a little. He has a grounding in as many surfaces of knowledge as possible. He seeks the connections between his spheres of interest, and soon enough he realises that Golden Truth: EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED!

My personal Dark Age is nearing its end - sooner than I ever anticipated, I can happily say to myself.

But the outside world is still in a Dark Age. God is back, just in a different form. Economics and Money are the modern religion. The Bailout Panic of 2009 is the economic and monetary equivalent of the great Inquisition of the Dark Ages - a whole lot has occurred, and Nothing has been achieved.
Even now, as I write, global stock markets are rising and falling like a choppy ocean. There is absolutely NO control being exercised. Corruption is everywhere, and ineptitude has infiltrated the highest levels of business and government. We have seen all this before, in all the same Functional ways, with the Inquisition.

The Renaissance Man is the man who will weather this storm of artificial making - because he will be the first and only to understand that it IS, all of it, artificial.
Everything is connected. Artificiality is the birth-mother of both corruption and the artistic humanities. Corruption of the bank account leads to bankruptcy. Corruption of the soul (excuse the biblical phrasing) leads to personal weakness. Those who are not Renaissance Men find themselves focusing all their attention, all the limitless potential of their wonderful Human minds, on finicky details, useless statistics, and tedious numbers.
When once the United States of America had its greatest minds working on the race to the Moon, it now employs all its greatest minds in Finance and number crunching and paper-money snafooing.
What could we do if only we sought the limits of our Potential?

When The Bombs Fall, and Humanity is wiped off the face of the Earth, aliens will beheaded this way. Coming from so far away, they will be able to pick up all the electro-magnetic radiation that our species has put out into the Universe - radio waves, TV signals, Internet transmissions. (It is kind of humbling to think that an ET somewhere thousands of light-years away could be reading my blog one day!).
Those aliens will be able to see the entire broadcast history of our civilisation. They will pick up the Documentaries, and be impressed by how far we came. They won't be impressed by our Dark Ages, but they will quickly note that it was all necessary. They will hear radio shows from the early 20th century, and all the TV shows we have ever produced - even cable. They will, again, not be impressed by a lot of the shit that we make these days, but at the same time they will have more opportunities to see all of our Human Spectrum. And when they get here, they will be disappointed. Bot because the Earth was turned into a lump of radioactive slag by the nukes, no - they will be disappointed because however long their million-light-year journey took, they will form the same impression as I am trying to give to you now:
They will define us, right up until our fiery, green-tinted end, as a Tragic Race, a species of essentially limitless potential, but never willing to explore it.

But they may spot one or two Renaissance Men among the seething mass of Humanity, and note to themselves that there are always exceptions. The Renaissance Men were not tied down by one vocation in life, not told things like: "you can't do that", or "you'll never be able to make it!".
The Renaissance Man will be the one to break the bonds of society and artificiality that hold him back, and then turn around and use the nature of those bonds, artificiality, to his advantage. Renaissance Man will take the state of his race as he sees it, build on it, and make his life as eventful and adventurous as he can muster the power to do.

I will be a Renaissance Man, to the best of my ability.
How about you? Care to find out what the Best of Your Ability may be?

From The Tominator.