Hi, Gene asked me to write up a little something about the way the political world looks to me here, in 1685. (He's developed a nice little space-time wormhole that lets us send message back and forth.) It's clear, from the advanced state that society has reached in my time, that we are truly nearing the "end of history." The question of what form of social order is best has been answered with finality: it is a state under an absolute monarch, ruling over a mercantilist economy. The two most advanced nations of Europe, France and Spain, are basically there already, and, of course, in the Orient, China has been showing us the way for centuries, if only we had had eyes to see. Denmark-Norway has already written absolute monarchy into law, and Sweden is rapidly advancing along this same path. And the tsar in Russia ought to be able to make similar gains over the next few decades. Furthermore, one of the last, backward holdouts against this ultimate, rationalized f