An earlier entry on our Musings page contains this sentence: "Through it all, the Trump machine advances, moving the world closer and closer to the abyss." It is now time to explore that thought in greater detail.

This link reveals how Merriam-Webster defines "abyss". The interesting word, here, however, is not "abyss"; it is "world". It is within the power of convicted felon Trump to set in motion (if he has not already done so) events that will obliterate civilization, or mankind entirely. Would military personnel carry out such orders?

For starters, we remind readers of the willingness of American military personnel to, over and over, launch missiles at small craft in waters off the coast of South America. Over two hundred human beings aboard those boats have been summarily murdered. Human rights organizations, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ACLU, and other legal commentators have sharply criticized the Trump Administration's campaign of missile strikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. These murders are carried out outside any recognized armed conflict.

Clear is the duty of personnel in the entire chain of command to refuse to carry out these immoral and illegal activities. Yet the killings continue. In like manner, radicalLeft.site envisions a world where military personnel, upon command, push the proverbial button that unleashes the atomic apocalypse. Or this chain of events initiates even without human instigation. This is essentially the scenario portrayed in The Terminator movie series.

History is replete with instances of unjustified death and destruction meted out by persons "just following orders". In like manner can persons "just following orders" push the buttons and launch the nuclear missiles that will destroy the world. It is in this context that we circle back to the question, what is the "world"?

A Wikipedia article gives an anthropocentric answer. What its answer boils down to is a planet on which no members of what we call "higher forms of life" survive. The planet itself, however, lives on. The earth continues to rotate about its axis; it continues to revolve about the sun every (approximately) three hundred sixty-five days. There just will be nobody around to understand or appreciate those cycles.

Is such a turn of events "bad"? In human terms, probably yes. In deeper philosophical terms, not at all. The universe, the galaxy of which our solar system is a part, our solar system, and the earth, all lack sentience. These inanimate (in the sense in which we conceive of animate or inanimate) objects and collections of objects have no ability to know, or to care, what humanity does to itself and to other life on the planet. So, in deeper philosophical terms, no, it is not bad. Nor is it good. It simply is.

One final depressing note: We referred above to the power of convicted felon Trump. But Trump is almost certainly not the exclusive holder of these keys of destruction. On the American side, Whiskey Pete Hegseth could possibly accomplish this feat without participation by Trump. Maybe J.D. Vance, too. Outside the United States, seven or eight other nations possess nuclear weaponry. Those nations are Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and, possibly, Israel. How secure is their weaponry? How secure from maniacal leadership, or from the mania of those who might seize power there?

Perhaps those seeking answers must satisfy themselves with just the words of the late Gertrude Stein: "There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer."