You and the Atomic Bomb

Here is a particularly brilliant, and yet obvious, extract from G. Orwell's essay You and the Atomic bomb:

"...I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons."

The subject matter of this essay was, as you might have guessed or already known, a prediction of what was going to happen in the post second world war period. Orwell concluded that we might find ourselves back in the Stone Age but that it was more probable that we would see the emergence of a world governed by a select few nations who lived in a state of "peace that is no peace".

What’s shocking is how accurate of a predication that was. But does this mean we live and will continue to live in a "horribly stable" world where the individual is left powerless? Maybe a fresh start back from zero would have been a better fate for mankind.

Then again, we have a history of not learning from our mistakes...