by Kian Mokhtari
Two and half thousand years ago, the known world was almost identical in its affairs to the world we know today. The main difference was that the Persian Empire ruled over most of the known world. Highly advanced in its workings, administrative model and social management, it was a wonder the likes of which the ancient world had never seen.
On the Western edges of the Empire, dotted along the northern and eastern Mediterranean, existed a number of city states that unhappily and reluctantly paid tributes to the Persian Empire. The Mediterranean-rim city states that contemporary Western historians have bunched together as “Ancient Greece” gave rise to writers, philosophers, scientists, and so on, whose works have become the foundation and the pillars of modern Western culture.
Many of the fine gentlemen in fine white robes took up the mightiest weapon against the Persian Empire: the pen. In their attempts to vent frustration at what they considered an imposition by a foreign power, they began to portray Persia’s world empire as despotic, barbaric, uncivilized, emotional and childlike. In fact, all that was looked down upon in the Athenian social etiquette was relentlessly related to the Persians.
Eventually even the Persian Empire’s Imperial guard, The Immortals, did not prove so immortal in the invasion of Alexander of Macedon. Iran’s first empire was destroyed to the extent that precious few pieces of evidence survive to tell of the Persian take on the affairs of their world.
The greatest blow to the Persians to this day remains the near-total theft of their culture and destruction of their account of history. Precious little to answer the Greek history’s account: other than the Cyrus Cylinder, a universal declaration of human rights which according to the so-called Greek account of things was put together by a “despotic, barbaric empire”!?
The other discrepancy in the Greek journals of history is the role of women in society. The learned gentlemen of Greece almost uniformly represent women as breeding capsules bereft of social standing that seem to exude all kinds of poisonous liquids and grow snakes or some other kind of nastiness from their bodies. This, at a time when the “despotic Persian Empire” exercised equal rights for men and women and indeed bred governesses, priests, warriors and intellectuals from the ranks of its female citizenry.
Ancient Greece had also no qualms about slavery and slave trade, a practice outlawed throughout the Persian Empire that carried severe penalties. The price for a female slave in ancient Greece ranged between 140 to 220 drachmas.
But the point here is not to rekindle ancient rivalries, rather to highlight the arguments that deal with contradictory accounts of history.
The common men and women worldwide were seldom educated enough to leave behind their own views of the world, nor were they financially empowered to the point of hiring their own scribes to chronicle social history. So, whatever we know about history comes from the writings of scribes sponsored by biased third parties in positions of power, their cronies or indeed beneficiaries.
What we know of social history is through architectural studies into urban design and make up of past centers of social interaction. But this has proven a very speculative affair with countless arguments raging over various explanations.
The accounts of history being fed to our children at schools worldwide are primarily the accounts of military, religious or political feats of the elite. Such accounts encourage doctrines of racial, political and military supremacy and serve to steadily provide the rulers with more brainwashed foot soldiers for future adventures in brutal and biased intolerance toward human family’s true aspirations.
Enter journalism in its original form and with its original intent to provide humanity with a reliable source of information about world events. Journalism proved so effective in the mid-19th to early 20th centuries that massive popular revolutions were born from its ability to awaken the masses to their plight at the hands of generations of despotic rulers. Issues that the poorly educated so-called working class had not been aware of were pushed to the forefront of collective social consciousness via efforts of determined journalists and chroniclers eager to shake off the one-sided accounts of history shoved in their faces by undemocratic religious, political or military rulers.
The multi-pronged assault on mumbo jumbo took on the perceived beliefs to defeat superstition, ignorance and bias forced on the human family for thousands of years by the rulers, their lackeys and shamans. Darwinism blew apart the brutally enforced beliefs of Abrahmic religions on the origins of humanity and life on earth. In fact, scientific journals did more to peel away the outer layers of deceit and superstition that had held humanity in bondage than any political chronicles floated to challenge the status quo.
However, the journals of fresh arguments against the despotic political and religious rule also did much to shake the foundations of a decaying world of kings and queens, theocratic overlords and masters to open the way for new systems of governance based on popular consent in the latter parts of the 19th and early 20th century.
This runaway awakening in social consciousness touched almost every community in each and every part of the world. With local populations rising to claim their rights and colonial possessions shrinking, an argument developed over the colonial loot that we have come to know as World War I: Essentially a fight over power among two branches of one European royal household that saw to the back of all advances in social awakening. Free journalism was pigeonholed into war sloganism in the fear of being tagged unpatriotic.
The unchecked rise of the military industrial complex, huge banking corporates and war profiteers out of the ashes of the Great War set the course for where we stand to this very day. The latter culprits’ by now traditions of relentless assaults on free journalism, mass campaigns of misinformation and finally the takeover of media altogether have ensured the artificially induced differences among the human societies that guarantee the rulers’ profits will continue.
The rise of corporate controlled media has meant that the very journalists who would otherwise lend their pens to the causes of environment, society and people, must behave as mercenary scribes of the rulers if only to be able to feed themselves and their families. Some might argue that the internet and social media sites can in time remedy this dire situation but this conclusion is flawed because humanity seeks accuracy, lack of bias and comprehensive accounts in social records of contemporary world affairs that can be accessed within an information bank very much in the popular domain.
To bring about such eventuality free journalism and media must be encouraged to return to the popular domain as experience has clearly demonstrated that information controlled by the ruling elite will exclusively be used to advance their agendas and interests.
In the 21st Century, humanity is yet to wise up to these facts and move to finance its own bank of information to protect the future of its children, the environment and indeed our planet. The implementation of such proposition is long overdue. Humanity’s world view, free of induced prejudices, will be very different to what we are witnessing today. A world constructed with foresight and clarity of vision will be a far cry from the blood-drenched, chemical and biological nightmare that we are about to hand over to the next generation as “our legacy.”
____________________
Kian Nader Mokhtari, managing director of Blazing Kat Productions. Director, producer and writer of OWS Week, and currently producing a documentary in the U.S., Mr. Mokhtari is an independent journalist with 15 years of experience in the field. He is a foreign policy specialist, columnist and political commentator. He has worked as a lecturer in journalism at a number of universities.
____________________
McPherson wrote an essay on request for Blazing Kat last week. It’s here.
McPherson was interviewed by KMO for the C-REALM podcast. The result, which is accessible only to subscribers (even I’ve not heard this one), is here.
March 19th, 2013 at 7:15 am
“..future of its children…”
What children?
March 19th, 2013 at 8:04 am
Kian: thanks for the history of journalism lesson. If only it weren’t too late for the conclusion you’ve reached.
right in line with the premise of this post is this, which many of us will find interesting (in an ugly way)
http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2013/03/owl-creek-asset-management-sandy-hook-massacre/
Meet the Hedge Fund Managers Turning a Profit on the Sandy Hook Massacre
It has been argued that capitalism, if given the opportunity, would devour its own legs and collapse upon itself. Putting all hyperbole aside, what would you do if you learned that a US company was actively monitoring national tragedies like the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, only to develop reflexive investment strategies designed directly to capitalize off the pain, suffering and hysteria, in the wake of those events? Would you be in disbelief of such wanton disregard for life? Would you chalk it up to business as usual, for Wall Street’s most parasitic actors? Or, would you take action to stop it?
Enter, Stage Left — Two of the Worst People in the World…
While some of the nation’s largest hedge funds and money managers have paused in the wake of Sandy Hook to review their portfolios for exposure to gun stocks, and in some cases begin the process of selling off their gun assets, two hedge funds have done just the opposite. Jeffrey Altman, Founder and Portfolio Manager for Owl Creek Asset Management, and Robert Bishop, of Impala Asset Management, each seized an opportunity in the days following the Sandy Hook Shooting, to purchase millions of shares in gun stocks (1,616,300 shares [valued at $13,642,000] and 893,938 shares [valued at $27,787,000], respectively). Notice of Altman’s and Bishop’s purchases only became available when they disclosed their fund’s 4th Quarter 2012 holdings to the SEC, in February [HERE, and HERE]. Altman’s and Bishop’s intentions, as deduced by peers in asset management, are to turn the fears and murmurations of new gun regulations into profits, as a newly fabricated demand for firearms like the Bushmaster .223 Caliber Assault Rifle, the AR-15 and the Ruger Mini-14—each potentially at risk of regulations—outpaces their supply on shelves at retailers.
Jeffrey Altman: Chronically Single, Economically Depraved…
(read the rest of this sickening expose – via journalism – or captialists in their milieu)
March 19th, 2013 at 8:12 am
Wonderful thoughts for the time before when we thought humans would continue to exist. As Pat says “what children”?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/asia/blackout-halts-cooling-system-at-fukushima-plant.html
Meanwhile “Blackout Halts Cooling System at Fukushima Plant
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — Two pools for storing spent nuclear fuel remained without vital cooling systems more than 24 hours after a partial power failure at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan on Tuesday, the operator said. The company said it had restored the flow of cooling water to two other pools also affected by the blackout.”
Per fukushimadiary dot com SFP 4 should boil out if the power is not restored in 3 more days.
We are done for one way or another.
March 19th, 2013 at 8:18 am
Meanwhile “Blackout Halts Cooling System at Fukushima Plant
Not to worry. TEPCO will call the fire department.
March 19th, 2013 at 8:42 am
Kathy the plant is being cooled in reactor 1 & 2. 4 should be back to SNAFU by tonite.
Oh what ya know, no doom porn for the day. Whaa ):
March 19th, 2013 at 9:10 am
@CommanderCaCa
It’s the spent fuel pools that are the concern, not the reactors themselves… You knew that, right? You were just fucking with us? Right?
March 19th, 2013 at 9:32 am
Paul, high likelihood that CommanderCraCra is a troll out of the past, who went by various names, Sean, Sean the Mystic, The Doomist, The Cosmist, The Singulatarian. http://seanthemystic.blogspot.com/ His posts on the last thread are very familiar sounding. Of course there is the possibility of two such personalities….
March 19th, 2013 at 9:40 am
Please do not feed the blabbering idiot troll.
March 19th, 2013 at 10:38 am
@Paul Chefurka
Troll much, LOL!
Entirely irrelevant. What matters is that they will have the situation under control within a matter of hours.
March 19th, 2013 at 10:40 am
@Kathy
Oh yes, I must be a troll if I don’t agree with what is said here.
That’s IDIOTIC!!
I’m presenting facts, and truths, and you are all poo pooing for no good reason.
Freaking retards.
Nope, I’m none of the others mentioned.
I have posted under a different name at least a year ago, but it was none of those.
So this “highly likely” … is BULLSHIT!
Geez, you guys and your mindless assumptions.
March 19th, 2013 at 10:52 am
Alright I calmed down. How about we all chill out and stop flinging our poo at each other?? Yes, we’re crazy hairless apes, but let’s at least pretend we have an inkling of higher development to us.
I went back over the last thread, and really there’s only a few people who are calling me names and what not. A few of the replies were rather civil and supportive to at least the notion. So thanks for that.
Heck, I’m a loser as well. It seems we’ve all done our parts trying to research, and inform others of what seems to be going on, and how we may be able to get through this, to no avail.
Pretty damned depressing attempting to help out over and over again, only to be shutdown by the troglodytes.
Meh, I’m a different shade of grey, that’s for sure, but still a human being all the same.
So this is me extending my hand to the community. If it gets slapped away, so be it.
Up to y’all. <–Texan!
March 19th, 2013 at 11:15 am
I don’t think it matters if you believe in NTE or not, but please recognize that this site is about NTE.
If everyone would just be civil, then we can all get along even if we disagree.
March 19th, 2013 at 11:22 am
Okay guess I should introduce myself in full.
My name is Brandon Ross Chapman. I turned 30 last year. I reside in Frisco, TX, atm, but plan on leaving city life for the lake house an hour south here towards the end of the summer this year.
I exchanged a few emails with Guy about 2 1/2 years ago. He was one of the first guys (lol) that seemed to match up pretty damned well with what I was intuiting. I’ve been on CT forums for many years. When you first start off it’s rather overwhelming, but over time you learn to sift the BS from the pearls of truth. I wouldn’t change anything of my experiences, and lessons learned from searching for truth, overall.
So I’m a funky lefty. After receiving highest marks on standardized tests year after year for mathematics and sciences, I received a letter from Duke Uni and was put on their “gifted and talented” list. Did the extracurricular’s like odyssey of the mind, chess club, went regional for problem solving a couple years in a row…that kinda stuff. I got incredibly bored with school and dropped as soon as I was 17. Tried the local CC, and it was even worse than my high school, so I ditched. Obviously, the institutions have been dumbed down for more than a century. Each generation it gets a bit worse.
So I felt a change in the world around 2000. I was 17, had partied hard through high school, and burned out a bit. I started to notice things that didn’t seem to add up. I would flip the news on and notice big breasted blondes all over, and they seemed not to have a clue WTH they were talking about. That was a tell for me that something wasn’t right. I remember the news as a child. It wasn’t the same.
2001, 9/11 attacks happened, and again something felt very odd. I remember witnessing the insanely disproportional emotional reactions to the horrifying events, and realized this energy was being cultivated and swayed towards hidden agendas. That was the beginning of going on CT boards. I will keep my opinions towards that topic to myself, as they’re irrelevant at this point, and I honestly have not any one understanding of what actually went down. Only that we weren’t told the whole truth, at the very minimum.
Well I was depressed for years. I liked to toke away the pain, but also used it as a meditative way to induce insights and enhance my intuitive abilities. I’m the kind of guy that can seem as if a complete idiot to a group of people, witness something as seemingly meaningless as a ball bouncing down the street, and come to some bizarre realization that will switch the group into thinking I’m now somehow brilliant, and their heads will hurt for a while, haha! We all got our funky processes going on, I’m willing to bet.
It wasn’t until maybe 2005 that I had solidified my initial feeling of DOOM!! into something somewhat concrete. It was enough for me to now be concerned to the extent that I was obsessed with researching …. just about everything. On the CT boards, most everyone believes climate change is a hoax, so I had to deviate from that bunch on this one for a bit. I entertained the notion for a short while, and that actually reinforced just how far gone we seemed to be. I didn’t consciously grasp what profound effects this would have for us all, and what kind of time frame we were looking at. I simply knew it was a key focus that I needed to be aware of.
I had a psychotic breakthrough the next year, in 2006. That was once I realized that society would inevitably collapse. I had a relationship with a woman, and she repeatedly lied to me. I kept attempting to tell her how this impacted me, and how this was immoral. She felt it was “normal”, ie culturally acceptable, and kept with it. I finally went berserk, realizing that a culture which accepts deception, manipulation, and lies as “normal” is doomed beyond repair.
It was within the next year, that I started to extrapolate further, making pretty funky connections between things. I realized it wasn’t simply society which was doomed, it was civilization as a whole. I was fully aware of peak oil by this time, and intuited the climate models were way, way off. I came to conclude that we would continue on in our slumber until the end, and the government would damage control to keep the status quo, instead of being proactive and actually trying to lead us on a sustainable path.
So I’ve been partially insane ever since this realization. For the last six to seven years, I’ve been bobbing back and forth between mania, and depression; hope that SOMETHING could happen… a series of game changers, changes of heart, whatever… to complete despair, not being able to empathize with people’s meaningless, small-minded thoughts and actions…
That’s the story of CommanderCraCra. I’m not a troll, I’m a highly sensitive guy who can be a jerk, because he’s partially insane and terribly upset with the state of the world, and people in general.
That’s the whole shebang… for whatever it’s worth.
Brandon Ross Chapman
March 19th, 2013 at 11:23 am
what is NTE?
March 19th, 2013 at 11:30 am
Ah, that must mean near-term extinction.
No, I don’t think we will become “extinct” I think civilization will collapse, and the vast majority will perish.
I see no good reason to believe we can’t survive in small pockets of communities.
March 19th, 2013 at 11:49 am
Commander, other than being highly intelligent, do you have any practical skills?
March 19th, 2013 at 11:53 am
@pat
Depends on how you qualify the term. I self-taught computer programming, and web design as a teenager. From there I went on to implement basic computer networks for local businesses in exchange for food and drink. I can operate any OS, troubleshoot it with ease, design and build custom computers, networks, etc…but that’s not all too practical for a post-collapse situation.
March 19th, 2013 at 11:59 am
@CommanderCraCra, you do understand that, regardless of the latest emergency, Fukushima continues to dump radioactivity into the sea? That nearby sea life has 1,000 times the permissible level of radiocesium? That at least one reactor has totally breached and has hit groundwater? That the reactor “cooling” is not a proper recirculating system; they’re simply dumping water on it which is running off any which way it can, carrying with it radioactive contimanants?
The referenced NYT article claims that TEPCO is “the only source of information.” So you must work for them, since you seem to have so much information?
Regardless of the latest emergency, if you do the slightest bit of research, it’s clear that Fukushima is an ongoing low-level emergency.
March 19th, 2013 at 12:06 pm
Nope, don’t work for them, but you do show hypocrisy in your statement… unless, of course, YOU work for them, LOL!
Look, it’s a tragedy, no doubt about it. It’s simply no where near an ELE, even at the worst case scenario unfolding.
That’s why I said it would go back to, SNAFU. Because it is all fucked up, but not the doom porn event that some of you seem to be awaiting.
March 19th, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Great way to come clean, Brandon. I like it.
Yes, extending systems thinking to its logical conclusion about the future of the human experiment can drive you crazy. I lived in the belly if the beast for over 50 years, doing software/firmware design. 2001 was a WTF moment for me too, when the existence of hidden agendas was suddenly obvious. I “got” Peak Oil, climate change and the whole interconnect bag of shit in about 2004, and it was a fast, steep downhill ride to a very dark place after that. I wanted to check out regularly over the next few years.
Now I’m 62. I have no practical post-collapse skills except maybe the ability to die with a modicum of dignity. But I’ve come to terms with the knowledge I hold. That took some heavy lifting, and I’m glad I did it.
Like you, I don’t think we’re headed for species extinction, though of course in a situation like this it wouldn’t take much of a black swan to put an end to that forlorn hope. I try to behave as though we’re not, anyway. If humans do continue and I hadn’t done my bit to shape the experience, I’d feel pretty disappointed with myself. I don’t want to die with that in my heart, whether my end is dignified or not.
March 19th, 2013 at 12:23 pm
true, when SHTF, you would be much better served with a background in agriculture! that is, if you can survive long enough to plant and harvest anything.
I am 51, so, my best years are behind me. My levels of rage and frustration are not so high.
March 19th, 2013 at 12:31 pm
@pat
I have been attempting to inform my parents of these intuitions, and the severity of the situation at hand. For the first few years, they believed I had gone berserk. Over the last few, they have realized I may be correct.
The lake house is not my own. My father has informed me that we will have solar panels, water from air device, water pumped from the lake as second alternative from city, and a greenhouse. I plan on stocking up supplies for each of these in the case of a part failing.
I would like to implement an aquaponic setup. Talapi should suffice. Herbs, and veggies up top. I’m going to watch over the house while parents stay in the city for a few more years yet. Will have apartment over the garage. Yep, I’m spoiled. We didn’t start this way. I remember poverty very well. They simply worked very hard, and are bright people.
I keep envisioning various scenarios for the stages of the coming collapse. My hope is that events will occur which show most that we’re close to collapse, yet still order will be maintained. If such a scenario is realized, it would mean I could start to take control of the families resources, and come up with a gameplan to present to the gated community out at the lake for sustainability in the event that the lights go out.
Not sure how this will play out, though. Honestly, I’d kind of like to end up in the southern hemisphere, and start up a small sustainable community in a country like New Zealand. I think getting out of the US, and the northern hemisphere is ideal before collapse. Hope we still have some years left before it really gets cracra.
March 19th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
@Paul Chefurka
Thanks for the reply!
Yes, I do agree that a “black swan” event or two could change the outcome from dwindling, to non-existence. I guess it simply does me no good to entertain the notion. I don’t see a reason in it. If it be the case, okay.
We have had bottlenecks at least a few times in the past already, and thankfully made it through them. I think that if there are rats, and cockroaches, there will be humans. If you see the rats and roaches dying out everywhere, then you can start to think we’re all F’d.. lol!
March 19th, 2013 at 12:53 pm
The learned gentlemen of Greece almost uniformly represent women as breeding capsules bereft of social standing that seem to exude all kinds of poisonous liquids and grow snakes or some other kind of nastiness from their bodies.
haha! The more things change, the more they stay the same. See: U.S. political theatre.
Re: The birth of journalism. I wonder how long it took before people figured out you can’t believe everything you read? Well, I guess many still haven’t made that leap…
March 19th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
After becoming weary of the irrational belligerence here, I’ve been reading other blogs to keep up with the progress of NTE directly, instead of having to wade through the comments of people who are trying to come to grips with the end of life on this planet and having various degrees of success. I’m reading these:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/crack-is-bad-for-you-and-sea-ice.html
http://econnexus.org/the-ice-cap-crack-d-from-side-side/
http://eh2r.blogspot.ca/
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,94.50.html?PHPSESSID=dvacjb79ikmv6n353ap496mgb3
in addition to my daily Desdemona Despair, Zero Hedge, The Automatic Earth, and John Ward’s “The Slog”. Lots of others are less than once a day, but you get the idea.
I’ll check back once in a while.
March 19th, 2013 at 1:40 pm
CCC, I really doubt that you are insane (whatever that really means). You are more likely in great pain from realizing that the whole world is insane. Anyhow, the whole 2000ish time period also resonates with me. I have often mentioned to people that after the 1990s it seems as though I had stepped into another dimension (not that anything was that great before). Suddenly, down was up, up was down, and my highly trained empirical mind completely shorted out leading to my own ‘episode’ and dark night of the soul (which is ongoing).
This was about the time that I really began to feel that nature was in serious peril and us along with it, though I didn’t know all the details. I am not sure what my state of mind would be if I had not connected on the internet with other folks that get it, because NONE where I live(d) have ever gotten it.
March 19th, 2013 at 1:48 pm
BC Nurse Prof,
Thanks for the suggestions. It is very thick in here.
March 19th, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Brandon, just so you have some warning:
http://jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com/
2013-03-17 – Huge wildfire erupts in Sevier County (Tennessee), near Douglas Lake, 59 cabins destroyed:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57574809/35-cabins-torched-by-tennessee-wildfire/
http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/21668033/cabins-going-up-like-dominoes-in-sevier-county-wildfire
http://www.wbir.com/rss/article/260315/2/Massive-Pigeon-Forge-fire-damages-at-least-35-cabins
http://www.local8now.com/news/headlines/Crews-battling-brushfire-structures-destroyed–198698821.html
Quote: “Black Hawk helicopters, loaned by the Tennessee Army National Guard, airlifted water from nearby Douglas Lake to battle the flames. UPDATE: The wildfires in Sevier County near Pigeon Forge prompted state officials to declare a State of Emergency Monday morning.”
Quote: “Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters confirmed that the massive fire at Black Bear Ridge Resort and Trappers Ridge destroyed 59 cabins, damaged 16 others and affected 160 acres.”
(from his hypothesis)
The seas, lakes and oceans are now pluming deadly hydrogen sulfide and suffocating methane. Hydrogen sulfide is a highly toxic water-soluble heavier-than-air gas and will accumulate in low-lying areas. Methane is slightly more buoyant than normal air and so will be all around, but will tend to contaminate our atmosphere from the top down. These gases are sickening and killing oxygen-using life all around the world, including human life, as our atmosphere is increasingly poisoned. Because both gases are highly flammable and because our entire civilization is built around fire and flammable fuels, this is leading to more fires and explosions. This is an extinction level event and will likely decimate both the biosphere and human population and it is debatable whether humankind can survive this event.
Be careful out at the lake . . .
March 19th, 2013 at 2:10 pm
so much for journalism (obedience at home):
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/new-ag-gag-bills-targets-whistleblowers-investigators-journalists/6736/
Big Ag Wants to Rewrite the Law So That You’ll Never See This
Do you have a right to know where that steak on your plate came from?
Should it be legal to photograph chicken farms and dairy cows?
Big Agriculture says you don’t and it shouldn’t. Armies of Big Ag lobbyists are pushing for new state-level laws across the country to keep us all in the dark. Less restrictive versions have been law in some states since the 1980s, but the meat industry has ratcheted up a radical new campaign.
This wave of “ag-gag” bills would criminalize whistleblowers, investigators, and journalists who expose animal welfare abuses at factory farms and slaughterhouses. Ten states considered “ag-gag” bills last year, and Iowa, Missouri, and Utah approved them. Even more are soon to follow.
(oh, there’s more . . . )
March 19th, 2013 at 2:24 pm
CCC sorry I pegged you wrong. You see Sean the mystic kept coming back with a new identity and your bit about going to the moon was classic Sean.
To bring you up to speed on Near Term Extinction
http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html
March 19th, 2013 at 2:27 pm
And CCC when the grid goes down we get 439 nuclear plants melting down and no one to fix them (the ability to pump gasoline and diesel depends on electricity and I bet no one bothered to stock up on a big bunch of hand pumps) Doesn’t matter if it goes down from lack of fuel, lack of infrastructure repair, EMP or solar flare. When it goes the radiation flows.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/7301-400-chernobyls-solar-flares-electromagnetic-pulses-and-nuclear-armageddon
March 19th, 2013 at 2:44 pm
@Bailey
Hey. Yea, I so needed to connect with somewhat like minds on the internet, else I would have … IDK, but not good.
As for the dark night of the soul bit, well I have my own sense of the spiritual, but don’t believe in a God, or afterlife. There are times when I can let it all go because I’m aware that the conditions for life exist all throughout the cosmos, and we’re likely one of many higher forms of life out there. That’s enough for me to be okay with this… for the most part.
The madness comes from not wanting to believe we’ve already crossed the point of no return. Hearing the “I can’t do anything about this”, instead of something more like, “together WE can overcome this”.
March 19th, 2013 at 2:57 pm
@Kathy C
No worries, I can more off as an idiot jerk from time to time. I can be an idiot jerk as well. My apologies.
Yep, those nuclear reactors are going to go kablooey once the lights are off. I still don’t think that’s a reason to think we’re all going to die here in the US. There is something called, “hormesis” which seems to have a little backing to it. Essentially, the notion is that we have always been bathed in radiation from the beginning of life, and we can adapt to fluctuations to a certain degree, within a given time frame.
I think of this like the variations human beings can have to pollution, or food allergies, or specific potentially poisonous chemical substances. We all have different limits of how much we can take in without becoming ill. We also can adapt over time in response to changes of the amount we’re intaking.
Intuitively, I think this exists with radiation exposure. We all likely have different abilities to deal with a set dose. It depends on the exact isotope, as to it’s natural half-life, it’s biological half-life, whether we inhale or swallow it, etc, etc… some of the isotopes we can deal with rather easily.
Basically I think that even if all these reactors melted down, some of us would make it out of it. Some of us would be able to reproduce. Perhaps some of us would evolve out of this mess.
What some people seem to not be taking into consideration, is that are numbers are more than ever before. I believe that unless the conditions truly were oh so severe, and the change so rapid, that some of us would “find a way”.
That’s just my intuition on it. Could be off.
March 19th, 2013 at 2:59 pm
*our
March 19th, 2013 at 4:00 pm
CCC
I agree with your view of the likely future if not with your view of a tech fix. Looking at the geological record, there is no tipping point that we have not set off sometime in the past, the worst being the Permian extinction. Having said that, massive die off is pretty much a given, as you have stated yourself. NTE is still a possibility given the speed at which we are loading the atmosphere with carbon and the difference in the configuration of the continents compared to the Permian.
It seems to me that it is extreme hubris to believe with certainty that we know the final out come. I don’t think anyone can say for sure at this stage of the game that all life or that all human life will go extinct. Nor to I believe that anyone can say for sure at this time that there will be survivors. I can not say for sure that my actions or the actions of others will be able to influence the outcome. I feel that this inherent uncertainty means that I have a responsibility to act.
BTW, 439 Nuclear reactors and their spent fuel melting down will not cause ALL of us to die from radiation poisening. Some of us will die that way but most of us will die early from various forms of radiation related cancers and a few will, at least on the surface, escape all together. The worst effects will be in the industrialized and heavily Nuclear north. Seems like there is some justice in that.
As far as post apocolyptic survivor skills are concerned, you don’t get those by hanging on to the old life style. You get them either from walking away and creating something better, as Guy and I am sure others of you are doing, or resisting, as I and others are doing.
Nobody pays you to resist, so you need to learn the basics. You have to be able to live outside under all conditions, scrounge for food, and cook that food in some novel ways. Becoming nomadic is also a great skill you learn that will be useful in a rapidly changing climate. Also moving under your own power, hiking and biking are all requirements for many resistors. Use of tools, making tools out of wrecked infrastructure.
In my case, part of my resistance took me to New Orleans a week after Katrina and for the next six months. I know what it is like to live in a largely (almost but not totaly) deserted urban area without a functioning grid. I learned from some real experts in post apocolyptic technology while I was there.
In my travels I have learned to purify water, cook with the sun or a rocket stove made from tin cans using very little wood for fuel. How to use junk car batteries, even flood batteries to hold a charge and supply small amounts of electric. Strip cars of their 12 volt lighting, radios, etc and put them to use. (It’s only illegal if the cops happen to need slaves that day to fix up their facilities with people sentenced to “community service”
So, were all going to die sometime. Maybe even by natural causes if we are old enough. Either way, you might as well resist. Some here seem to think the idea of going down fighting is somehow immature, or maybe unenlightened. Sit down and go through your stages of grief until you come to that comfortable do nothing state of acceptance. I think acceptance of total extinction is a cop out, a way to excuse yourself of the responsibility that our knowledge makes incumbent on us. Trust me, resistance feels good. There is nothing more comforting and calming than fighting back.
No one can guarantee that your efforts will be effective, that’s the way it goes, but it’s better than doing nothing.
Find your local resistance in whatever form it is taking and join it. (if you have not already). Get out in the street and yell at someone, or whatever it takes and you can do.
Carpe Noctem
March 19th, 2013 at 4:06 pm
On the topic of media serving the powers that be, another great article by John Stauber:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/15/the-progressive-movement-is-a-pr-front-for-rich-democrats/
and another link coming in the next comment…cause it’s funny:
March 19th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
funny link:
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/03/19/for-anyone-that-ever-wondered-if-our-news-is-scripted/
Commander, I tend to think we are headed for NTE, and it’s too late, for two reasons (among many others, of course):
1. ocean acidification, which is unstoppable, worsening, and destroying whatever’s left that we haven’t eradicated already and
2. a parallel ecosystem collapse on land, primarily from pollution (tropospheric ozone), which is causing a widespread, global dieback of forests and other vegetation.
Oddly, both of these trends are now well-documented in scientific literature, but rarely (especially the latter) discussed.
We simply can’t survive without trees and phytoplankton.
As far as rats and cockroaches…I expect that the population of omnivorous scavengers, like crows and raccoons, will flourish temporarilly, but eventually they will go the way that bees, butterflies, and frogs are already going…going…gone.
March 19th, 2013 at 5:09 pm
This is one and a half minutes of weird:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2iFbH1StEoU
March 19th, 2013 at 5:11 pm
okay, it’s apparently fake, skip it.
March 19th, 2013 at 5:23 pm
CCC and others – just a note – we have not seen a nuclear plant melt down without huge remediation. At Chernobyl they used 500,000 people in the all out effort to prevent it from melting through to the ground water, which if it had occured some say would have been death for Western Europe – see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKKz45ORPQQ The battle for Chernobyl – start about about 32 mins, although I would recommend watching the whole program – if the heat managed to crack the cement slab a new explosion could be set off, comparable to a giagantic atomic bomb, experts concluded the explosion would have had a force of 3 to 5 megatons, Minsk would have be razed and Europe rendered uninhabitable. 439 is the number of nuclear plants in the world, I believe the total of the reactors is about 700, and then there are all the spent fuel pools. 700 time 3 is 2100 megatons if they all blow like Chernobyl would have with out the huge efforts to contain it. The largest nuclear weapon ever exploded was 50 megatons. Heck the planet might even break up, earthquakes all over for sure.
Likewise huge numbers of people and equipment are being used in Fukushima.
After the grid is down there will be no remediation for forest fires either, they will burn uncontained – no planes dropping water and chemicals, no fire trucks, nothing. They will burn until they run out of fuel.
All this has to be survived in a world in chaos from peak oil, collapse of the grid, and increasing warming.
CCC I am sorry, but this is a good time to be old. You who are younger, I feel for. I have two grandkids…..
March 19th, 2013 at 6:52 pm
This spells bad news for the Arctic sea ice, which may well disappear altogether this summer.http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/huge-patches-of-warm-air-over-the-arctic.html
March 19th, 2013 at 6:55 pm
BTW when the grid fails another thing that won’t happen is that active deep sea well will not be plugged and plugged wells will not be maintained.
More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.
California State Lands Commission / The Associated Press
An older nearshore wellhead is shown off the coast of California in this undated photo. In state waters, California has resealed scores of its abandoned wells since the 1980s, but in federal waters, the official policy is out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Neither industry nor government checks for leaks at the more than 27,000 oil and gas wells abandoned in the Gulf of Mexico since the late 1940s. Abandoned wells are known sometimes to fail both on land and offshore. It happens so often that a technical term has been coined for the repair job: “re-abandonment.”
The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.
The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”
Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s — eveb though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures.
As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data.
There’s ample reason for worry about all permanently and temporarily abandoned wells — history shows that at least on land, they often leak. Wells are sealed underwater much as they are on land. And wells on land and in water face similar risk of failure. Plus, records reviewed by the AP show that some offshore wells have failed.
Experts say such wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken.
“You can have changing geological conditions where a well could be repressurized,” said Andy Radford, a petroleum engineer for the American Petroleum Institute trade group.
Whether a well is permanently or temporarily abandoned, improperly applied or aging cement can crack or shrink, independent petroleum engineers say. “It ages, just like it does on buildings and highways,” said Roger Anderson, a Columbia University petroleum geophysicist who has conducted research on commercial wells.
Despite the likelihood of leaks large and small, though, abandoned wells are typically not inspected by industry or government.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/27000_abandoned_oil_and_gas_we.html
March 19th, 2013 at 7:45 pm
As a family physician, I treat more mental health issues than almost anything else – primarily depression and anxiety. While these aren’t textbook definitions of insane, I find that the following are good enough for me:
1) if you think that everything in our modern world is going just fine, then you’re probably crazy (or in a coma);
2) if you see everything going on around you – really “see” it – peak oil, climate change, etc., and aren’t flipping out, then you’re probably crazy;
3) if you think God is in control and “He” is going to fix it or that everything is just part of “His” plan, then you’re probably crazy.
I could probably come up with a few more, but I suspect you get the idea.
March 19th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
Is anyone else watching the Arctic ice crack, crumble and dissolve in real time today?
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/03/crack-is-bad-for-you-and-sea-ice/comments/page/2/#comments
Sample comments:
Yeah, the cracking from Morris Jesup is basically merging with that coming across the Lincoln Sea. I had hoped the MYI around Lincoln would hold faster than this.
this is truly amazing to watch in real time. kinda horriying, but amazing nonetheless.
and
For the record; I do not think that any sea ice will survive this summer. An event unprecedented in human history is today, this very moment, transpiring in the Arctic Ocean. The cracks in the sea ice that I reported on my Sierra Club Canada blog and elsewhere over the last several days have spread and at this moment the entire sea ice sheet (or about 99% of it) covering the Arctic Ocean is on the move. Clockwise. The ice is thin, and slushy, and breaking apart. This is abrupt climate change in real-time. Humans have benefited greatly from a stable climate for the last 11,000 years or roughly 400 generations. Not any more….
March 19th, 2013 at 8:31 pm
@The REAL Dr. House
A craze is a bout of emotional instability. So crazy would be something along the lines of continuous bouts of emotional instability. I have this, but only in response to an insane culture. One that keeps doing the same things over and over again, expecting “progress” as the only result.
So within the confines of an insane culture, I am somewhat crazy. Better to be sane and crazy, than insane and dim-witted.
@Paul Chefurka
No. I haven’t seen this yet, but will check it out momentarily. I have been feeling unusually depressed for the last 48 hours. Have been trying to do everything to push it off, but it’s a pretty horrible feeling, atm. I get these before, and during great world events.
March 19th, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Looks like the Southwest hasn’t seen the worst of it yet, not by a long-shot… -Hamlet
===
Monsoon failure key to long droughts in Southwest:
…researchers used samples from 50 to 100 trees at each of 53 different sites throughout southwestern North America. The team’s climate analyses focused on NAM2, which covers most of Arizona, western New Mexico and northern parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
Griffin said, “It was a massive undertaking — we employed about 15 undergraduates over a four-year period to measure almost 1 million tree rings.”
The results surprised him because rain gauge records for the Southwest from 1950-2000 show dry seasons alternated with wet ones.
However, the team’s new multi-century record going back to 1539 shows that the wet/dry pattern of the latter part of the 20th century is not the norm — either prior to the 20th century or now, he said.
Griffin said, “Before I moved to the Southwest, I didn’t realize how critically important the summer rains are to the ecosystems here. The summer monsoon rains have allowed humans to survive in the Southwest for at least 4,000 years.”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uoa-mfk030813.php
March 19th, 2013 at 8:53 pm
Deception IS normal. We evolved deception as an adaptation. Mama birds will feint a broken wing to draw a predator away from her nest, a lizard will change color to blend into it’s local environment, a fish dangles a fleshy lure to ensnare prey.
And when humans move their lips, it’s almost always a deceitful narrative of socially acceptable rationalizations for behavior.
“I had a relationship with a woman, and she repeatedly lied to me. I kept attempting to tell her how this impacted me, and how this was immoral. She felt it was “normal”, ie culturally acceptable, and kept with it. I finally went berserk, realizing that a culture which accepts deception, manipulation, and lies as “normal” is doomed beyond repair.”
March 19th, 2013 at 9:11 pm
@Hamlet Jones
We’re human beings, not lizards or mama birds. They don’t have complex systems of morality. They’re operating far more instinctively than we do. It’s a false comparison.
What is natural is for us to be compassionate, and altruistic. Honestly would naturally flow from this. It is the culture which corrupts our nature.
March 19th, 2013 at 9:39 pm
@ Hamlet J.
And when humans move their lips, it’s almost always a deceitful narrative of socially acceptable rationalizations for behavior.
@ CommanderCC
What is natural is for us to be compassionate, and altruistic. Honestly would naturally flow from this. It is the culture which corrupts our nature.
Hahahaha, I think there is truth in both those statements, but they both VASTLY oversimplify.
March 19th, 2013 at 11:51 pm
The Commander instructs: “What is natural is for us to be compassionate, and altruistic. Honestly would naturally flow from this. It is the culture which corrupts our nature.”
You are being facetious, right?
It will be said that mankind was ultimately a failed experiment. Although endowed with great technical prowess, the species was entirely lacking in wisdom and long-term thinking.
March 19th, 2013 at 11:59 pm
@ Friedrich K.
I’d say SOME ofthe species was entirely lacking in wisdom and long-term thinking.
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/03/let-me-bequeath/#comment-64281
March 20th, 2013 at 12:45 am
Hmmm. Regarding spent fuel rod storage in the US: “… Each Fukushima spent fuel pool holds about 100 metric tons, he says, while each US pool holds from 500-700 metric tons. A single pool fire would release catastrophic amounts of radioactivity, rendering 17-22,000 square miles of area uninhabitable. That’s about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont – from one pool fire. … The atomic bomb that exploded at Hiroshima created about 2000 curies of radioactivity. The spent fuel pools at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant (U.S.) are said to hold about 75 million curies. … And that’s just one US nuclear plant, out of 104 …” http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/26/us-stores-spent-nuclear-fuel-rods-at-4-t
What world will we leave for the future generations? A dead one.
March 20th, 2013 at 2:01 am
Thanks Makati1. Only a few thousand activists know those kind of details about nuclear power, which is probably about the same number who knew about them in the 1970′s when I read Barry Commoner, and people, like California Gov Jerry Brown opposed nuke power even before the first meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. But Fukushima is already out of sight and out of mind thanks to the corporate media, and those kinds of horrific facts which weren’t revealed to the public even at the height of the crisis, will, of course, continue to be hidden. But at least the corporate media gives people constant updates about Kim Kardashian, so the citizenry can remain well informed on some vital issues.
March 20th, 2013 at 3:19 am
another day, more evidence of species die-offs:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2013/03/16/hamilton-monarch-follow.html
Monarch butterfly numbers drop by ‘ominous’ 59%
The number of Monarch butterflies making it to their winter refuge in Mexico dropped 59 per cent this year, falling to the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began 20 years ago, scientists reported Wednesday.
It was the third straight year of declines for the orange-and-black butterflies that migrate from the United States and Canada to spend the winter sheltering in mountaintop fir forests in central Mexico. Six of the last seven years have shown drops, and there are now only one-fifteenth as many butterflies as there were in 1997.
In the Hamilton region, Monarchs have been faced with a loss of habitat for many years said Jen Baker, Head-of-the-Lake Land Trust Program co-ordinator for the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club. Milkweed, the Monarchs’ main food source as well as where they lay their eggs, has been decreasing in the region.
“Milkweed can’t necessarily grow in fields that are sprayed for weeds. It might be good for crops, but it’s bad for milkweed,” she said, adding that invasive species also pose a risk.
“Dog Strangling Vine is an invasive plant that is a cousin of the milkweed. We’ve found some females will lay their eggs on the vine and the babies die because that’s not their food.”
Both planting milkweed and trying to control the Dog Strangling Vine population are both efforts the Naturalists’ Club encourages, Baker added.
The decline in the Monarch population now marks a statistical long-term trend and can no longer be seen as a combination of yearly or seasonal events, the experts said.
(there’s more)
Once the pollinators are gone, who’s going to do that job?
March 20th, 2013 at 3:45 am
Monday night, a power outage at the Main Anti-Earthquake Building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station suspended operations at three spent fuel pool cooling systems and other critical plant facilities. TEPCO was later criticized for a three hour delay between the power outage and their notification of the event to the press.
After further investigation, TEPCO announced that the switch gear in the process building, common fuel pool, and Unit 3 and Unit 4 switchgear had been found to be not operable. Workers were unable to determine what caused the boards to stop functioning, as no visible damage was found. They later repaired two of the boards, but are currently using an emergency power generator to restore cooling for the Unit 4 spent fuel pool while the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and common fuel pool are still not restored….The Unit 4 spent fuel pool (1,533 spent fuel assemblies) and the Common fuel pool (6,377 spent fuel assemblies) both house enough spent fuel pool assemblies that the decay heat still given off is capable of heating up over 40 degrees in less than a week. The Unit 4 spent fuel pool has the highest temperature increase rate, due to the full core offloaded in the already over-packed fuel pool, two to four times faster than that Unit 1 and Unit 3 spent fuel pools. http://tinyurl.com/d7bcm42
March 20th, 2013 at 3:47 am
Per Fukushima Diary however the cause has been found – a mouse
http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/03/the-blackout-was-caused-by-a-mouse-in-the-panel-board-the-board-has-been-left-on-the-truck-since-3182011/
A mouse might have caused Tokoyo to be evacuated … irony abounds.
March 20th, 2013 at 3:58 am
http://enenews.com/scientists-find-fukushima-cesium-turtles-whales-fish
U.S. scientists find Fukushima cesium in turtles, whales, fish
and they’re using that to track migration patterns (so no worries)!
March 20th, 2013 at 4:00 am
but this is closer to home and more disturbing:
http://enenews.com/experts-oil-blizzard-in-gulf-from-bp-disaster-it-just-sucked-everything-out-of-the-surface-red-layer-fell-on-seafloor-nobody-knew-what-it-was-could-cause-significant-damage-to-ecosys
Experts: Oil ‘blizzard’ in Gulf from BP disaster — “It just sucked everything out of the surface” — Red layer fell on seafloor, nobody knew what it was — Could cause significant damage to ecosystems (AUDIO)
Oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill acted as a catalyst for plankton and other surface materials to clump together and fall to the sea floor in a massive sedimentation event that researchers are calling a “dirty blizzard.” [...]
The consortium, which includes researchers from FSU, Eckerd College, the University of South Florida and Georgia Institute of Technology, confirmed the never before observed dirty blizzard hypothesis by using thorium, lead and radiocarbon isotopes in addition to DNA analyses of sediments. [...]
The oily sediments deposited on the sea floor could cause significant damage to ecosystems and may affect commercial fisheries in the future, [Jeff Chanton, Professor of Oceanography at Florida State University] said.
The dirty blizzard hypothesis explains why layers of water that would normally be cloudy with suspended plankton instead appeared transparent during the spill, except for strings of particles falling to the bottom.
“The oil just sucked everything out of the surface,” Chanton said.
(listen to the 3 and a half minute audio)
March 20th, 2013 at 4:03 am
Meanwhile in Cyprus In a radical departure from previous aid packages — and one that gave rise to incredulity and anger across the country — euro zone finance ministers forced Cyprus’ savers to pay up to 10 percent of their deposits to raise almost 6 billion euros. Parliament was due to meet today to vote on the measure, and approval was far from assured. The decision prompted a run on cash points, most of which were depleted by mid afternoon, and cooperative credit societies closed to prevent angry savers withdrawing deposits.
Guy maybe your economic collapse prediction is coming – 6 months late
Several links concerning it here including one with comments from Paul Roberts http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/cyprus-moves-closer-to-financial-collapse-as-bailout-talks-falter/
Disclaimer I don’t agree with the basic worldview (religious) of the extinction protocol but he’s a good source for certain types of events going on in the world. And by posting the link to his site I avoid the dreaded one link only or your are put into comment moderated mode
March 20th, 2013 at 4:24 am
The Threat of Nuclear War in an Age of Eco-Collapse and Peak Everything
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/
(from a quoted source in the above article)
We’re all potentially crazy…
Consider the high level of tension between nuclear nations now, and add the fear, chaos, and madness societies will feel as ecological collapse from energy shortages cuts off access to water, energy, food, and recovery from natural disasters. Many nation(s) might be driven to threaten or actually drop the first nuclear bomb. All nations are vulnerable to unpredictable social and political movements generated by a terrified populace past the carrying capacity of their natural resources The only nuclear power within carrying-capacity after peak oil is Russia. The USA has a carrying capacity of 100-250 million without fossil fuels (Pimentel, Smil).
March 20th, 2013 at 5:22 am
http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/planet-reeling-from-spasm-of-quakes-seismic-stress-could-be-building-towards-an-event/
Planet reeling from spasm of quakes: seismic stress could be building towards an event
The planet is currently reeling from a dense spectrum of moderate to light tremors, which have struck along major tectonic plate boundaries over the last 18 hours. As a precursor to this seismic dynamism; we have seen elevated activity at many of the world’s volcanoes, including hotspots in Hawaii, Etna, and the Canary Islands. The latest spat of seismic activity across the globe has every indication of being a precursor to a major seismic stress release, which I have forecasted since last week. This event could be hours, or even days away. The window of elevated hazard risk, at present, extends through March 23, and is annunciated by the spring equinox.
Just more warnings of even more problems besides Peak everything, economic collapse, disease and pestilence spread, drought, flooding, societal breakdown, nuclear radiation, species extinction, ocean acidification, early and complete Arctic ice melt (probably this summer), methane and hydrogen sulfide release, vegetation death from tropospheric ozone contamination (among other things like nanoparticles of toxic cloud seeding materials) . . . .
This may be the year it all falls apart (though i predicted it would be a bit further on). Stay tuned.
March 20th, 2013 at 5:25 am
“We’re human beings, not lizards or mama birds. They don’t have complex systems of morality. They’re operating far more instinctively than we do. It’s a false comparison…What is natural is for us to be compassionate, and altruistic. Honestly would naturally flow from this. It is the culture which corrupts our nature.”
Since “WE” created the culture, it’s impossible to blame “culture” for our corrupted nature. If you wanted to create a list of all the compassioate, altruistic social movements across history and stack that up against all the wars, conquests, genocide, slavery and injustice I have a feeling our complex system of morality isn’t going to dominate.
Paul C., you don’t need to go to the Arctic to watch disintegration (although it’s quite riveting, I agree). You can just go to your nearest park, suburban yard, or woodland, and do an inventory of broken branches, splitting, peeling, oozing bark, holes and cankers to watch ecosytem collapse in real time.
March 20th, 2013 at 5:45 am
@ Gail
Since “WE” created the culture, it’s impossible to blame “culture” for our corrupted nature.
Culture created US. Culture came FIRST. Proto-hominids had culture before Homo evolved.
March 20th, 2013 at 6:20 am
Just to document the effect economic problems have on society (including, among many more: furthering breakdown in standards of living, code enforcement and inspections, response to municipal problems like fire, water main breaks, gas leaks and in this case the effect on courts and police – and therefore crime rates)
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/20/detroit-prosecutor-pulls-prosecutors-out-of-hundreds-of-cases-while-suing-the-state-over-budget-cuts/
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has pulled prosecutors out of all traffic court and domestic violence cases after her office laid off 22 prosecutors due to budget cuts. Now, with Detroit cutting its police force to a dangerous level, the chances of getting caught in a crime is much lower in the city and, if that does occur, the case may be dismissed due to a lack of a prosecutor.
(concludes with)
This week, Worthy has pulled out prosecutors in traffic and domestic abuse cases, which have been dropped for lack of prosecution. That could pose a serious danger for abused citizens in domestic cases where the alleged abusers are being given an effective pass. However, Worthy insists that “my prosecutors … are overworked, underpaid, [and] have too much to do” after budget cuts to her staff.
Worthy, however, does have time to sue the county executive on the grounds that the budget for her office does not allow her to fulfill her constitutional duties. Such budgetary decisions are viewed as a political question generally. For a court to order the spending of more money would raise significant questions under the separation of powers doctrine and the political question doctrine.
Detroit’s fall into an urban nightmare is the result of decades of poor leadership, including scandals involving its police chief, that has now resulted in a fire department asking to allow buildings to buildings to burn, street lights turned off at night, and the termination of other basic services.
coming to a town near you
March 20th, 2013 at 6:23 am
Meanwhile…
An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-costs-of-us-wars-have-lingered-for-more-than-100-years-2013-3
March 20th, 2013 at 6:24 am
ulvfugi modifies: I’d say SOME ofthe species was entirely lacking in wisdom and long-term thinking.
What do you mean by “SOME”?
I suppose we find ourselves in the present situation due to an outpouring of selflessness and strategic planning?
March 20th, 2013 at 6:38 am
@Tom
“The Threat of Nuclear War in an Age of Eco-Collapse and Peak Everything.”
Even one of the leaders within the FBI believes there is a 100% chance of an WMD launched in the U.S. Couldn’t get any crazier, or could it?
“The probability that the U.S. will be hit with a weapons of mass destruction attack at some point is 100 percent, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, tells Newsmax.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/zawahiri-weapons-mass-destruction/2011/02/14/id/386055?s=al&promo_code=BAC8-1#ixzz1E349Krq6
March 20th, 2013 at 6:58 am
the problem was that “the some” were the big guys with the big sticks.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:03 am
@ Friedrich K.
I mean ‘some’.
A sweeping generalisation, that says that all individual humans, or all human cultures, or all human groups, are, or have been, equally lacking in wisdom and long-term thinking, is obviously incorrect.
@ pat
Yes.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:07 am
@ Carmen
Even if he believes that to be true, it’s a completely different matter to make it a public statement and crank up the paranoia, which, I am certain, is being done for a reason.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:16 am
http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/the-truth-about-radiation-and-the-fukushima-meltdowns/#more-15851
March 20th, 2013 at 7:32 am
@ Gail Since “WE” created the culture, it’s impossible to blame “culture” for our corrupted nature.
@ U Culture created US. Culture came FIRST. Proto-hominids had culture before Homo evolved.
Some say the chicken came before the egg, some say the egg came before the chicken, however eggs make chickens and chickens make eggs.
Unless you want to posit aliens creating a culture for us slave humans to work in, we humans are responsible for our culture and we humans are affected by the culture we created.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:46 am
@ Kathy C.
Why do you want to make nonsense out what is established science ?
March 20th, 2013 at 7:53 am
I personally don’t see any point in the blame game. Unless I’m missing something, I have some choices to make:
If I believe that this is all really happening, that Guy is right and there is NOTHING that can be done to stop it, and that it is going to happen in the NEAR TERM, then I have make a choice between several options:
1) stay put, and even though I believe it all, act like nothing is happening and go to work every day, pay my bills, and enjoy whatever time I have left.
2) fight, and, like Jesse Schultz, resist the Machine as best I can wherever I can.
3) withdraw, escape the US and find somewhere with low population and no nuclear power plants.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:54 am
U: IMO, all she is saying is that it doesn’t really matter, and I agree.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:54 am
more on the economic collapse point
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=51306
COMPLACENCY BUBBLE (short intro by admin)
in which an featured article by Paul Farrell concludes with this:
Bond crash dead ahead: tick, tick … boom!
Do the ticking math … tick … tick … tick … boom!
Osterland relies on some solid numbers to make his point that the market’s turning has already begun and will spiral down and out of control: “The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond, just under 2%, is up more than 35% from the record low in July. Investors are almost certainly going to see negative real returns on their Treasury portfolios in the first quarter, a rare event that many feel has the potential to trigger a wider selloff in the market.”
And adding to the selloff risk, we’re coming into federal tax season and a couple more debt ceiling cliffs: “With the Federal Reserve keeping short-term rates near zero and long-term rates near historic lows with its bond-buying program, there’s little room for further price appreciation. That means … interest rates have nowhere to go but up.”
And unfortunately, he warns that “a rapid rise in interest rates would bludgeon many existing bond portfolios. Simple bond math holds that a 1-percentage-point rise in interest rates would result in a roughly 1% decline in prices for every year of a bond’s duration.” Yes, “bludgeon” your portfolio once rates start ratcheting up.
InvestmentNews takes its responsibility to America’s 90,000 professional financial advisers seriously and in this “Special Report: Tick, Tick … Boom!” it’s painfully clear it sees enormous danger ahead for a millions of complacent investors who “have no idea what’s about to happen to them. … Tick … Tick … Boom!”
March 20th, 2013 at 7:58 am
@ wildwoman
interesting link – the crazy part is that the anti-nuclear movement is no further along than it was in the 70s.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:14 am
@ Tom
your posts on this thread ALONE make the case for complete despair
we truly have created “Hell on Earth.”
plenty of people on this site have posted that there is nothing left to do, it’s over, just live each day as if it was your last and love the people around you as much as you can
March 20th, 2013 at 8:24 am
@ pat
IMO, all she is saying is that it doesn’t really matter, and I agree.
Yet you still think these matter ?
1) stay put, and even though I believe it all, act like nothing is happening and go to work every day, pay my bills, and enjoy whatever time I have left.
2) fight, and, like Jesse Schultz, resist the Machine as best I can wherever I can.
3) withdraw, escape the US and find somewhere with low population and no nuclear power plants.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:34 am
it doesn’t matter to me if culture came first or not, that’s all.
I guess I left out an option:
4) blow my brains out
March 20th, 2013 at 8:49 am
@ pat
I suppose I have been on the Beach of Doom rather longer than you have, I’m way past pondering those options. I don’t think comments here are confined to what matters to you or to Kathy C. ?
She, and others, often complain if comments stray from a scientific or factual basis.
The well-established scientific consensus, in this instance, is that the appearance culture preceded the evolution of human beings, and indeed, influenced the evolution of human beings. That’s something that anybody interested in understanding human beings really ought to be aware of, imho.
We might not be able to do anything about this mess that we are in, although that’s no reason to give up. But, personally, I still find it interesting to think about and discuss how we got into this mess. Culture is central. Sorry that it doesn’t interest you.
As part of a series of US nuclear weapon tests known as Operation Crossroads in 1946, a 23-kilotun nuke called Baker was blasted at about 90 feet underwater at Bikini Atoll and caused a tidal wave that reached over 2 miles high. The images that resulted from the test are breathtaking, both in the beautiful and terrifying sense. The vertical movement of such an immense body of water, shape-shifting from a dome to a mushroom cloud, is somewhat operatic. However, zooming in closer and seeing the naval ships being lifted by an unruly mass of nature like a few fragile toys is a frightening sight.
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/operation-crossroads-baker-photography
March 20th, 2013 at 8:54 am
Pat exactly. You seem to have a good deal of good sense.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:57 am
But not to worry a new culture is coming http://www.zengardner.com/the-vaticans-secret-plan-for-the-arrival-of-an-alien-god/ The Vatican is going to announce that aliens are real and set the stage for one world government. No doubt the aliens are used to warmer climates and acid oceans.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:12 am
The National Snow and Ice Data Center, on their webpage Greenland Ice Sheet Today http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ showed surface melt on the east side of the land mass nearly every day in January, February and early March. Then about a week ago, all that information was removed, and the site now shows zero surface melt for the entire year.
So forget what you saw. It’s all good now.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:26 am
U: The well-established scientific consensus…
good, now we know. I’ll spread the word.
Can we put together a compendium of “well-established scientific consensus” that we may consult on a regular basis so as not to burden ourselves with tiresome debates over matters already decided?
March 20th, 2013 at 9:57 am
@ pat
Well, I’ll disregard the silly facetious tone, and just say that if you wanted to fix the mess, you’d first need to understand it and what caused it, otherwise you’ll likely just make things worse. Like treating a sick patient, first diagnose the illness correctly. You seem to be another who thinks ignorance is a virtue.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:17 am
@ulvfugl
I have a book recommendation for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Saharasia-Origins-Sex-Repression-Warfare-Violence/dp/0980231647
March 20th, 2013 at 10:26 am
U “You seem to be another who thinks ignorance is a virtue”
You wouldn’t be slipping back into calling people names again would you?
March 20th, 2013 at 10:30 am
Tom, I have become so calloused to the economic collapse prospect after hearing it repeatedly for decades, that I am left with the conclusion that it will not happen (except for these consistent little bumps) until the environment is shot. Why? Because energy + technology = economy.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:32 am
Oh, and you can add ‘advanced civilization’ into that equation above.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:36 am
..and resources.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:38 am
@ Bailey
And technology + economy = energy. Energy = civilization.
Civilization will crash either when energy supplies begin to dwindle or the economy collapses from over-complexity, thereby causing energy supplies to be curtailed. To a first approximation, the whole house of cards depends on energy.
Food is a particular form of energy that could dwindle pretty fast if the global temperature spikes or goes chaotic over the next couple of decades.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:40 am
@ Commander
Thanks. I’m familiar with it.
@ Kathy C.
I shall disregard that sill facetious remark. Grow up.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:02 am
@Paul Chefurka
“Food is a particular form of energy that could dwindle pretty fast if the global temperature spikes or goes chaotic over the next couple of decades.”
I agree and that is when the die-off begins in earnest. With the way trends are appearing within the global climate model that may happen sooner rather than later.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:03 am
U – that remark was to remind you that you have a history of falling into really nasty name calling. Don’t get started again. You are the one who needs to grow up. You think that you are the expert on everything, and insult anyone who has a different opinion. When you dismiss another’s opinion with a wave of your almighty hand you provoke people, probably intentionally if not consciously. I thought the Near Term Extinction blog was where you were supposed to shoot your mouth off so we could have a discussion not dominated by your insistence that you are the expert on everything. Like BC nurse I am “becoming weary of the irrational belligerence here” and will take a vacation from this site.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:06 am
The equation is incomplete. You’re forgetting about the cultural and social aspects of civilization. One could make an argument that it will naturally spring out of such abundance in energy due to technological advancements, but I think it’s more likely to create a tension towards it’s development.
The reverse could be applied, in that a decline in energy would bring about a tension towards a lack of civility; however, the social, political, and cultural terrain would factor in to an extent.
It depends on all above factors combined, AND the rate of decline over time. If but a slight to moderate decline were realized, the tension would likely swing more towards innovation, rather than incivility, overall.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:10 am
“We’re human beings, not lizards or mama birds. They don’t have complex systems of morality. They’re operating far more instinctively than we do. It’s a false comparison.”
Bullshit. ALL behavior is/was at the service of reproductive fitness, however complex. Abstractions, such as concepts of “morality” are excellent examples of the complex adaptations of apes, some monkeys, dolphins, etc. Hydrocarbon-industrial-culture is a completely different environment than that which we are optimized for. Evolution has been left far behind. In the current context, many behaviors that served our ancestors well are now fitness detractors. Eating too much fat is but one example. These aberrations often throw-off students, and for some, provide a rational for flushing evolutionary science in favor of religion/politics. (Reproductive fitness, again!)
“What is natural is for us to be compassionate, and altruistic. Honestly would naturally flow from this. It is the culture which corrupts our nature.”
We ARE compassionate, and this emotion developed to serve fitness. Tribal members who could neither express compassion nor fake compassion were ostracized. They got fewer genes into the next generation. Honestly is a modality that also serves fitness. Yet, deception is one of the animal worlds most effective adaptions for increasing reproductive fitness.
True-altruism is a myth. Everyone expects a benefit or return on investment (usually subconsciously). Just because YOU can’t instantly recognize YOUR selfish motivations, doesn’t mean that your genes are clueless too.
You need to stop being arrogant and start reading some evolutionary psychology. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, would be a great start.
You have potential, don’t blow it. Many of the best minds were drop-outs.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:14 am
@ Kathy C.
You also have a history. One of provoking unnecessary discord.
I do not think I am an expert on everything. I know for absolute certain that I am not.
I’m interested in getting better understanding of everything.
Gail stated that ‘we invented culture’. That is not supportable.
You then reduced the discussion to nonsense.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:20 am
@Hamlet Jones
I don’t disagree. It was an oversimplified response, in a state of dark depression, at the end of the night.
We are in flux between opposing forces at all times. It can’t be correctly ascertained or simplified as to us all being entirely selfish, or entirely selfless. The truth, as usual, tends to lie with a synthesis between the two extremes.
I posit our “nature” is rather fluid, and that we are all seemingly similar, yet genetically, and epigenetically expressed, unique beings. Overall, we are selfish to the extent that we must be fit to survive, naturally. This fitness depends on the current terrain, whether that be environmental, cultural, or social.
I guess all I was attempting to transmit was that it’s a bit more fluid than being merely selfish, or selfless, though I failed miserably. It’s basically both at the same time, depending on a variety of factors. I was trying to say that the ruling class has tools which culture us against each other, and for their benefit. This culture which has evolved over time makes the average person MORE selfish than is best for the species, overall.
Not sure if any of that makes sense. I’m aware of my selfishness, and battle myself on what seems to be best, every moment of my life.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:22 am
@ Hamlet Jones
Beg to differ. Selfish Gene is mostly bullshit.
Genetically we have scarcely changed for millennia, other than minor things, it’s all been cultural. Dawkins genetic determinism lasted about a decade, along with all the nonsense about ‘junk DNA’.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:23 am
@CCC,
The reverse could be applied, in that a decline in energy would bring about a tension towards a lack of civility; however, the social, political, and cultural terrain would factor in to an extent.
True, but note in there that the decline in energy must happen first (which is built into the equation). While we are seeing a decline in energy, we are seeing a huge increase in technology towards maximizing what little there is left. Also, because of the energy density of fossil fuels, solar will never be a suitable replacement for the level of civilization we currently experience (not to mention the other resources from fossil fuels – namely, FERTILIZER to feed the billions.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:26 am
“we invented culture”
That’s an interesting proposition!
I guess much depends on the definition of “culture”.
The first instruction that Socrates always gave to a new student was, “if you would speak with me – you must define your terms”.
So, sock it to me!
March 20th, 2013 at 11:31 am
@ulvfugl
Can I just agree with everyone, even if they seem to have opposing views, LOL!
Nobody has the complete story, but you both have valid arguments, though I don’t take them as absolutes.
The truth is that I do MANY things which are selfless, and MANY things which are selfish, that have NOTHING to do with my personal reproductive fitness.
These “selfless” acts are selfish to the extent that I act in accordance with my conscience, and therefore feel better for doing so; HOWEVER, truly selfless acts do occur within myself and others. These are instinctual, and help for group survival.
So then we’re dealing with selfishness as a group, or species, rather than at an individual level. At some point these terms must be properly qualified, else we’re arguing semantics.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:38 am
@ Hamlet J.
It’s not easy. The word, as used by the general public, meaning painting, theatre, the arts, is not at all the meaning intended.
I mean, as defined by biologists. It’s the one distinction between humans and all other species, although some other species do have it, no other species has it to such a highly developed degree.
It’s the ability to pass on ideas and knowledge across generations, other than by genetic transmission. In other words, one generation learns how to make stone tools, and teaches their children, and they pass on the knowledge, and so this is what has produced what we have today, the end result of that process.
This discussion began with Gail’s statement that ‘we invented culture’, which is the opposite of the truth. Culture invented us. Culture began with pre-hominids, and their behaviour and evolution, which produced us, was the result of their culture.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:43 am
…humans are the only animals to pass down cumulative cultural knowledge to their offspring. While chimpanzees can learn to use tools by watching other chimps around them, but humans are able to pool their cognitive resources to create increasingly more complex solutions to problems and more complex ways of interacting with their environments.
The diversity of cultures points to the idea that humans are shaped by their environments, and also interact with environments to shape them as well. Cultural diversity arises from different human adaptations to different environmental factors, which in turn shapes the environment, which in turn again shapes human behavior. This cycle results in diverse cultural representations that ultimately add to the survival of the human species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_ethology
March 20th, 2013 at 11:46 am
@ Commander
That’s because you are a human being
March 20th, 2013 at 11:47 am
@ulvfugl
Exactly!
This is what I meant by “culture”. I see the world as a giant petri dish. We are all cultured as a mad experiment by forces which choose to remain hidden. Basically the ruling class. No one individual. They die out, rise, and fall.
Still, what I see is people taking culture as a virtue in and of itself, regardless of the content, or context of the current day. As in, whatever seemed to work well for us in the past, may no longer be so, yet we continue on assuming that it must be so, because it has got us where we are, and oh look… smartphones, sex toys, we’re all good! LOL!
So you have this tendency within people to be…. dull minded, and manipulative. To go with the flow of current ideas, and shun the most novel ones which may actually be best.
Those in best position to continue with, else introduce new cultural memes, are the ruling class and their minions.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:48 am
* manipulative = manipulated
March 20th, 2013 at 12:05 pm
Ah, the invective, “genetic determinism”. Dawkins doesn’t support that straw-man. I expect you espouse some variation of “The Blank Slate” (the politics, not the book by Pinker). If one were to read Pinker’s book of the same name, it thoroughly disproves Blank-slate-ism. Blank-Slate proponents have now been discredited, just as climate deniers are buried under a mountain of data and science proving anthropomorphic climate change.
When I first encountered it, I was bewildered by the term “genetic determinism.” Later, I discovered it was an insult. Again, I first thought it was cast out of fear, and rejection, of the available science. Now, I understand it is the opening of a political attack.
If anybody wants to really understand the politics of the Blank-Slate assholes, and how they fucked-up evolutionary science for 50 years, please read Steven Pinkers, The Blank Slate.
Although today Dawkins is showing evidence of senility, his past works are a great introduction into the subject. I stand by my recommendation. E.O. Wilson is also a giant, as is Steven Pinker.
The most important point I want to make is this: animals (homo included) are a product of genes + environment. I define culture as information/custom that is passed from one to another, or generation to generation. Culture in this example is just another environmental influence. There are feed-backs between DNA and environment. It is a complex organization, and in reality, it is the Blank-Slate proponents that want to simplify the discussion into child-like terms so they can maximize their agendas by re-writing the science to favor their politics.
Hey, reproductive fitness again! It’s insidious, it’s deceptive, it’s plant, it’s animal, and it’s HUMAN.
===
Beg to differ. Selfish Gene is mostly bullshit.
Genetically we have scarcely changed for millennia, other than minor things, it’s all been cultural. Dawkins genetic determinism lasted about a decade, along with all the nonsense about ‘junk DNA’.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:07 pm
I need to qualify some of that. ‘Culture invented us’ is an exaggeration, to balance Gails use of words, we are biological animals, mostly made of water and a lot of bacteria, and the genetic component is very significant, along with epigenetics, so it’s a big complicated mixture, but culture, imo is the major factor, and we’ve domesticated ourselves, so we have, like our dogs and farmed animals a strange mix of remnants of a wild population, distorted by the demands of captivity. And although I’ve quoted from that website, and think there is much of value in the work done by the ethologists, I don’t fully endorse evolutionary psychology and sociobiology in the way that some people do.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:15 pm
TED TV: Steven Pinker: Human nature and the blank slate
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_blank_slate.html
Enjoying!
March 20th, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Emotions (feeling BETTER) are programed by our genes to modify our behavior in ways that, in the past paleo history, tended to increase our reproductive fitness. That’s it! It’s that simple.
BTW, this list deserves better. I know there is a NTE forum, but the geniuses on this here ‘comments page’ have yet to migrate…
Great sharing idea’s with ya all today. I have to be getting busy with chores, so, see you around soon!
===
“These “selfless” acts are selfish to the extent that I act in accordance with my conscience, and therefore feel better for doing so”
March 20th, 2013 at 12:29 pm
@ Hamlet J.
No, don’t support blank slate, it’s obvious nonsense. Don’t support Pinker either, can’t stand him. Read his book.
Dawkins’ neo-darwinism is dead as far as I’m concerned. A gene for this and a gene for that, it just isn’t like that.
I’m a fan of Wilson. Sociobiology, not so much
The most important point I want to make is this: animals (homo included) are a product of genes + environment. I define culture as information/custom that is passed from one to another, or generation to generation. Culture in this example is just another environmental influence. There are feed-backs between DNA and environment. It is a complex organization, and in reality, it is the Blank-Slate proponents that want to simplify the discussion into child-like terms so they can maximize their agendas by re-writing the science to favor their politics.
Yes, well, to my mind, that simply doesn’t work. You have to explain how we went from sitting in the sand under the stars around a campfire with stone tools, 200,000 years later, today’s mass urban streams of traffic and satellites and nuclear power plants, etc, when the DNA hasn’t changed. So what changed ?
Elephants are the same, lions, iguanas, dolphins, all the rest, they all much the same, they all rely upon genetic evolution to drive change. We are quite different. We are driven by cultural evolution. Blank slate has nothing to do with it. Afaik, nobody serious ever even said or believed we were a blank slate, Pinker’s whole thing was a straw man, but he has to churn out a book every year or two to keep his face in the public arena.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:35 pm
@ Hamlet Jones
Emotions (feeling BETTER) are programed by our genes to modify our behavior in ways that, in the past paleo history, tended to increase our reproductive fitness. That’s it! It’s that simple.
Except its not. You can’t explain Shakespeare or Martin Luther King or Ghandi or Bach or Vincent Van Gogh by this shabby low brow third rate Monsanto-esque pseudo-science.
March 20th, 2013 at 12:51 pm
U:
may I suggest changing:
“Except its not. You can’t explain Shakespeare or Martin Luther King or Ghandi or Bach or Vincent Van Gogh by this shabby low brow third rate Monsanto-esque pseudo-science.”
to:
“Except, with all due respect, I don’t think so. How then do you explain Shakespeare or Martin Luther King or Ghandi or Bach or Vincent Van Gogh?”
simple, respectful, and non-provoking.
March 20th, 2013 at 1:14 pm
@ pat
Yesterday you were playing amateur psychiatrist, today you want to be my mother teaching me manners ?
Why don’t you stick to the topic and try and explain human behaviour, yours, mine, CommanderCraCra’s, everybody’s, the crazy behaviour of the human species, that is threatening us all with NTE, as to whether it is genetically determined, culturally determined, or… possibly, something else entirely ?
Or you think my manners matters more ?
March 20th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
@ulvfugl
@ Hamlet Jones
Emotions (feeling BETTER) are programed by our genes to modify our behavior in ways that, in the past paleo history, tended to increase our reproductive fitness. That’s it! It’s that simple.
Except its not. You can’t explain Shakespeare or Martin Luther King or Ghandi or Bach or Vincent Van Gogh by this shabby low brow third rate Monsanto-esque
^^^^^^^^^^
Okay, so ulvfugl wins the debate as far as I’m concerned. There are too many exceptions which don’t fall in line with the notion that we’re all acting, and emoting, for the best chances to procreate and survive as individuals.
I once reasoned the through the origins of the concept of “god”, and how it once helped our species. Two groups of people, relatively same environment, different locations. One has a few “shamans” , schizo’s, or what have you that introduce the notion of “god”. The other is without these funky mutations within their gene pool.
So along comes some sort of apocalypse. Let’s just stick with a collapse of resources in general. Each group is equally effected, yet differently affected. Why? The belief in “god” and an “afterlife”. We know that stress is good for us up to a point, in the long run, but once a threshold is breached, it leads to accelerated aging, and untimely death.
So everything else being equal, the ability to calm your group more than the next, because of these funky perceptions/experiences, which ultimately lead to these beliefs, would lead these people into a position of influence, considering the circumstances at hand. It would mean the group with these beliefs has a better chance to survive. Rinse and repeat over several millenia, and more than a few comparable events/circumstances, and you would get a lasting gene-pool, and culture, that sees value, and holds onto, these general beliefs.
I think the same type of reasoning can be applied to the Ghandis of the world. There is likely a genetic component, that is best expressed in particular environments/circumstances, that leads to an overall fitness of the group, which then can be seen as fitness of individuals within the group.
So it’s kinda both, but you are more correct.
Does that make any sense?
March 20th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
I’m just sayin’, it’s easier to catch bees with honey…
March 20th, 2013 at 1:55 pm
@ulvfugl
“…the crazy behaviour of the human species, that is threatening us all with NTE, as to whether it is genetically determined, culturally determined, or… possibly, something else entirely ?
You have genetic propensities interacting with environmental circumstances. That’s the easiest way to interpret it.
The culture and environment create the foundation for the gene pool to become more “crazy” over time. It is the rise of “patriarchy”, originally necessitated by the environmental extremities of that age, which lead the way for what may be called in recent times “psychopaths” to become rulers, and change the evolutionary path of our species.
While we may not have changed much genetically, on the whole, the quality, or rather, quantity, of individuals with genes which lead to the propensity for what most deem “good” traits, seems to have declined.
The times changed, yet the culture “patriarchy” stayed the same. What once seemed necessary, is now done because of laziness of mind. Then you have this culture, adapting to the industrial revolution, and all the excess of energy that came with it.
So I think that this excess in energy afforded people to be more selfish than in previous generations. We didn’t have to band together in a community, simply obey the rule of law. We also didn’t need to be as clever as in previous generations, hence a dysgenic force was introduced.
I could be wrong on pretty much all of these thoughts, but do enjoy discussing them, if you’d like.
March 20th, 2013 at 2:01 pm
yeah, we’re fuckin’ great:
http://news.sky.com/story/1067266/seal-abuse-causes-beach-shutdown-cctv
Seal Abuse Causes Beach Shutdown: CCTV
The CCTV system was set up to allow the public to monitor mothers and their pups.
However at least two women were filmed kicking, punching and sitting on top of the animals.
The 24-hour “seal-cam” was introduced in January and equipped with night vision so researchers could watch the seals give birth during the pupping season.
Wildlife campaigner Andrea Hahn told the KFMB news station that the seal abuse has been a problem for years.
“We’ve had reports of poaching. We’ve had shootings here at night. We’ve had seal mutilations at night,” she said.
March 20th, 2013 at 2:15 pm
Regarding culture, read Derrick Jensen: The Culture of Make Believe, please.
Steven Pinker thinks feminists have rape all wrong. He’s a moron. A shill for the dominant culture.
There is a difference between society and culture.
Tom, now I’ve got those images in my brain. Kicking seals. Jesuschristonthecross, there is no end to the fucking insanity!
March 20th, 2013 at 3:30 pm
@ wildwoman
Steven Pinker thinks feminists have rape all wrong. He’s a moron. A shill for the dominant culture.
Something we agree about at last !
I heard that Dawkins compared the way OWS treated the banks, to the way the Nazis treated the jews, so that shows where he stands, another shill for the 1%
And E. O. Wilson has stated publicly that Dawkins is ‘Not a scientist’.
@ Commander
….but do enjoy discussing them, if you’d like.
Thanks, I’m sure we could have a good conversation, but people here get pissed off because I post too many comments
March 20th, 2013 at 3:57 pm
Just got home, spent the day driving to White Plains New York to protest at a TD bank for their investments in the tar sands with some students from SUNY and Earth First.
Personally, I think it’s all stupid and pointless because we can’t possibly change anything – but then again, sitting around and just letting the earth be destroyed for the sake of cheap electronic toys and fast travel bothers me so much that I get an itch to at least make a little noise about it.
I’m just trying to get caught up on all the comments and I have to say, I wonder about the readers of NBL as I do about the activists I spent the day with – why the fuck is everyone so worked up about arctic ice, polar bears, tar sands extraction in Canada, and tropical rainforests in Madagascar, when RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU cars are burning fuel and coal plants for electricity are releasing poisonous gases, and:
everything is dying? Monarch butterflies, bees, birds, trees, wildflowers, even the goddam lawns in suburbia are turning brown! I wrote:
“Paul C., you don’t need to go to the Arctic to watch disintegration (although it’s quite riveting, I agree). You can just go to your nearest park, suburban yard, or woodland, and do an inventory of broken branches, splitting, peeling, oozing bark, holes and cankers to watch ecosytem collapse in real time.”
And unless I missed something (forgive me if I did, I just am catching up)
WHAT THE FUCK??
March 20th, 2013 at 3:59 pm
well then we should take our discussion off this board.
i have an idea that you may be into (that may help out a lot!) .
please e^mail me.
March 20th, 2013 at 4:11 pm
Hahahaha
Well, once upon a time, many a long year gone by, I read Richard Dawkins, and was very depressed, because if human behaviour was genetically determined, then there was no chance of fixing the mess, because we were all just meat robots following an algorithm in our selfish genes.
But then, I learned, it just ain’t so, and began smiling again, because if it’s mostly cultural, culture can be changed, indeed, culture changes all the time, so maybe we could fix the mess, so I worked away at that…
Except everybody else wanted to change culture in the wrong, bad, direction, so, in the end, last year, NTE was obvious, so I was gloomy again…
And then, this year I discovered LMEP. Which is even more determined determinism than anybody ever thought possible…
Ain’t life just full of ups and downs…
March 20th, 2013 at 4:14 pm
@ Commander
Start a thread on NTE
http://neartermextinction.ning.com/
March 20th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
C-Realm with KMO: that was good, if good is an appropriate word for tidings so drear. Thank you, again if thanks can here be considered appropriate
March 20th, 2013 C-Realm Podcast #354:
Rapid, Unpredictable & Non-linear Responses
(The C-Realm podcast is open to all; the C-Realm Vault podcast is for subscribers-only.)
March 20th, 2013 at 4:57 pm
I’m awaiting confirmation from the staff of that site, but already contacted my $100 millionaire philanthropist buddy from the local bar. Will know if he is on board, tomorrow. It will likely take some convincing from a mind greater than my own.
March 20th, 2013 at 5:01 pm
Solar Char Toilet
http://www.forum.susana.org/forum/categories/105-processing-technologies-for-excreta-or-faecal-sludge/3960-sol-char-toilet-using-concentrated-solar-energy-to-treat-fecal-waste-and-produce-a-valuable-soil-amendment-colorado
March 20th, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Arctic sea ice nosediving
March 20th, 2013 at 6:15 pm
http://neartermextinction.ning.com/forum/topics/with-the-political-will-must-nte-be-the-case
March 20th, 2013 at 6:16 pm
whoops! that was me. at a different location, and a different set of info was auto loaded.
March 20th, 2013 at 6:45 pm
Gail, you are absolutely right. The destruction is all around us and we are all part of the problem (I know that some don’t agree with that portion of my statement, so hopefully my acknowledgement of that now will nip the disagreement in the bud and we can skip the dissenting comments.)
Every day as I drive my gas guzzling pickup truck to the clinic I am stunned by the trash on the sides of the road. Arkansas is supposedly “the natural state” but you can’t tell it by looking at how we treat our environment. In the six miles to my office through the rural countryside, there is a piece of trash of some sort about every 25 feet on both sides of the road. Many of the ditches look like trash cans. When there’s a “gully-washer” some of the ditches will be 3-4 feet deep in trash. It’s absolutely amazing.
Even when I’m walking on our private 1/2 mile long road, with only 6 families living on it, I find discarded soda cans, plastic shopping bags, styrofoam drink cups, and more. Pretty much every walk I take I come home with more than a couple pieces of trash.
It’s as if everyone’s filter for protecting the environment has been switched off.
March 20th, 2013 at 6:50 pm
On the other hand, the past two evenings when I’ve come home from work there have been two young deer feeding at the base of my driveway. They are so graceful and beautiful that I want to just sit and watch them for hours. Unfortunately, they dart off into the woods not long after seeing me. Scenes such as those are the balm for the destruction I witness the rest of the time.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:28 pm
@Gail why the fuck is everyone so worked up about arctic ice, polar bears, tar sands extraction in Canada, and tropical rainforests in Madagascar, when RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU cars are burning fuel and coal plants for electricity are releasing poisonous gases, and: everything is dying? Monarch butterflies, bees, birds, trees, wildflowers, even the goddam lawns in suburbia are turning brown! I wrote: “Paul C., you don’t need to go to the Arctic to watch disintegration (although it’s quite riveting, I agree). You can just go to your nearest park, suburban yard, or woodland, and do an inventory of broken branches, splitting, peeling, oozing bark, holes and cankers to watch ecosytem collapse in real time.”
I only have to look out my window to see the writing on the wall. World climate events are riveting and disturbing, but I find I am far more disturbed when I take the kids out to play in our own back yard. All those things you mention are evidenced there, if you can get past the dust. I’ve seen more than one person mention New Zealand as an ideal place to retreat to once things go bad in the US. All you have to do is check the weather to see the entire north island of NZ is having the worst drought they have seen in 30 years. (I would totally choose NZ, too, but really, I don’t think there’s anywhere to escape to.) Now, I don’t know a lot about drought having lived most of my life in Alaska, but here in SD we are still in exceptional (!) drought, since last summer.
What does that look like? It looks like death. It looks dirty. I think about dust nearly every waking moment, due to my son’s asthma, my own asthma, and the racking coughs the two younger girls have. We all suffer from allergies now. You mention grass and suburban lawns. I say, “What grass!? Ours is gone. (The positive side: summer 2012 we only had to mow the lawn once, just to even out the weeds. Summer 2011, we had to mow twice a week. Remember all the rain and flooding from 2011? That was the summer they opened the dams on the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers.) We only worry about the grass because we rent a house & though we could spend $500 to re-do the lawn, that’s money down the drain if we are facing another dry summer.
I have lived here about 7 years, in 3 different parts of the state, so I’m not sure what’s normal, but this is the place of the Children’s Blizzard, 1888, which killed 235 people, mainly children walking home from school. (Makes me very appreciative of those storm warnings from the weather channel.) I’ve been in some impressive blizzards here, but this winter has been dry and dusty, with only a dusting of snow once in a great while. Traveling through the high plains in winter drought, one discovers endless shades of gray and tan. It’s stark and beautiful, but haunting.
Spring is here now, it’s 30 degrees colder than a week ago, and I am trying to be enthusiastic about planting veggies and flowers with the kids in the near future, because that’s what they want to do. It’s very unlikely we will get much to grow, but we can experiment with things like amaranth, which a local gardener had good luck with in the drought last summer, even though most other plants didn’t make it. We’ll just have to make our best guess and throw caution to the wind. My 3 year old thinks there is a flower doctor (a potted flower she picked out for me just died), so I’m sure we will be calling on him/her eventually.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Time to go out and look at the stars. Wherever I am, I like to pick out the Big Dipper if the sky allows it. Makes me feel tiny and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things…
March 20th, 2013 at 9:00 pm
One more reply while I have a moment.
@CommanderCraCra If we be doomed, so be it. Until that existence is realized, we have a moral imperative to dream a way out.
Keep the ideas coming. And don’t censor them. You may find fertile ground in collaboration with others, and I don’t mean the usual suspects. Look for creative types. There is so much human brilliance out there that it seems wasteful to leave the problem solving to the experts, because I think what’s going on now, and what’s to come, well, there are no experts any more. Go find a theoretical physicist and drag him/her out of theory and go for a nature walk after reading a few posts at Wit’s End.
Information and ideas are moving so fast now that many people are unbalanced by the errant energies, but I believe younger people that are coming of age now have an advantage, as long as they can keep the balance. I refuse to give up and mourn for the future suffering of my children, at least in totality, because I don’t know their futures, their paths, their gifts, or what their world will be. From here it looks pretty shitty, but that’s within the paradigm of my own functioning. For all the horribleness, there is completely life-altering awe and wonder to be witnessed and experienced.
Even here in SD, they have converted the old Homestake gold mine into the Sanford Underground Research Facility, a deep underground neutrino and dark matter laboratory. When I read about these projects, I wish some of the brilliance dedicated to them could magically shape-shift into real-world solutions for the colossal mess we’re in. But then I remind myself, “What do I know? Who knows where that path leads. Life is a series of surprises, as long as ‘I’ get out of the way.” I just hope there is enough time.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:11 pm
I knew a guy years ago who was into dream interpretation, (the only guy I met who admitted he also had freak out dreams with real world correlates in future time and space), and he was reading ‘The Lord of The Rings’ by J.R.R. Tolkein.
This guy knew the book(s) pretty well, but he was re-reading it/them again from an ‘Ecology’ POV. He felt that there was enough there in the book(s) to assert that Tolkein was writing about human destruction of the natural world.
I took that on advisement, and thought about it over the intervening years.
Even though it is a piece of pure fiction, a few things in it come to mind when looking at human character, how we got here and collapse.
If you haven’t seen or read the ending, sorry for what I say next…
The last scenes at Mount Doom, where Frodo, the last ring bearer, tries to throw the ring into the lava pit, that will finally destroy it, are a nice piece of dramatic irony. How to resolve the thing. Frodo just can’t do it, he can’t deliberately let the ring of power go.
It only goes by way of Golem, trying to snatch it back.
So Tolkein is saying it is well nigh impossible to give up power when we have it.
I think that is so if you think it is so. Dramatically it works well, kinda proves we are seduced by all that comes from our privelaged life, and we would not give it up even if we wanted to.
So if I follow that, it is inevitable we will cut down all the trees etc, and that is when we may stop.
The other interesting point is that Golem was a Hobbit named Smaegle, who killed his brother to get the ring. This begun his endless neurotic relationship with the ring, and as others have pointed out, Golem
becomes a kind of symbol of the collective shadow, not as Sauron is in the alpha dimentions, but as a small scale nobody given over to the persuit of the ‘precious’. The twisted and deformed figure Golemn has become, almost unrecognisable as a hobbit, is testament to his transformation into all that is dark, schitziod and also childish.
This is to me what we are becoming, Golems.
So deformed by the regulations of commerce, and laws that take as much of our hearts that we don’t even feel we need.
There will come a time soon where we will lose the town square to either cockroach riod squads, dromes, new brownshirts, or armoured vehicles, and we will be done. The town centre, and the people power that once commanded it will be extinguished, and because of the digital revolution, it will only take one decisive victory of a populace to demonstrate to all the consequences of fighting for the commons- the right of people to determine their fate in the time and place they presently live in.
I also think we here use the term TPTB as if they have some responsibility for this mess. TPTB have such a long history of getting it in writing so that it is all blame free, ‘just a bisiness transaction’. Their consciences are clear, because it is all done with reference to some law or other.
The last tree, that is what it will come to.
I’m betting on some satelite skullduggery will begin the flashpoint and then we are done from above. The missiles will fly. Not hoping for it mind you.
Collapse? ….. probably be a grinding!
March 20th, 2013 at 9:14 pm
This won’t be popular, but here goes my latest assessment..
“You cannot fix a problem via a fix from the species that brought about the problem.”
March 20th, 2013 at 9:16 pm
humanity is yet to wise up to these facts and move to finance its own bank of information to protect the future of its children
One helluva job to protect anything from Near Term Extinction.
reflexive investment strategies designed directly to capitalize off the pain, suffering and hysteria, in the wake of those events
Nature tends towards avoiding waste, recycling everything. One organism’s waste is another organism’s feast. The “Good Lord” even “created” dung beetles.
CommanderCraCra: You should follow Dmitry Orlov’s advice to you.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
Warning to all & sundry:
CommanderCraCra’s site
http://quirkets@gmail.com/
Is tagged by AppleMail as a possible phishing site.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:03 pm
For those harbouring hopes of harnessing heavy hydrogen (3H) from the moon, a wisp of reality:
Do the Math blog—by Tom Murphy:
Nuclear Fusion
March 20th, 2013 at 10:04 pm
@ robin
Lol!
Context!!
March 20th, 2013 at 10:25 pm
@Robin Datta
BTW, one source does not an intellectual make. . . billions of minds out there, might want to enlighten yourself a bit more. it’s not only possible, but will be done.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:58 pm
KathyC:
– that remark was to remind you that you have a history of falling into really nasty name calling.
That is a manifestation of an unbalanced practice. Exercising some of one’s faculties through meditation, while neglecting other aspects will lead to a supercharged set of characteristics, at times manifesting in glints of great insight, but sadly contrasting with its background. That is why Mr. J. Christ said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. Note that he did not say “Blessed are the meditative ….”. Likewise, of the eightfold path prescribed by Mr. S. Gautama, meditation is the last item on the menu, although all too many serve it as the first course.
March 21st, 2013 at 12:07 am
what is NTE?
Indeed!
The madness comes from not wanting to believe we’ve already crossed the point of no return.
There is no return. Dissolution is inherent in creation: one is free to choose the narrative in which it is told. The story of the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the Universe is one, and then there are umpteen variations to the stories of Cosmic Cycle in the Vedic & Buddhist tradition. And then again there is the option to make a remix or write one’s own.
Hearing the “I can’t do anything about this”, instead of something more like, “together WE can overcome this”.
There ain’t nuthin’ to “overcome”. As Abraham Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural Address, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”
Incidentally, Dmitry Orlov’s advice was to the Sean mentioned by KathyC, at a book review site reviewing one of Dmitry’s books: as the conversation evolved, Dmitry suggested that Sean should have kinky sex with chickens on alfalfa roofs for gold bullion. That advice transfers only to Sean’s alter egos.
March 21st, 2013 at 12:23 am
@ Robin D.
This is to remind you that I am neither a Christian nor a classical Buddhist. You are like a backseat passenger in a car who cannot drive, telling the driver how he ought to be doing his job.
March 21st, 2013 at 1:34 am
The final line says it all really…
A couple of decades ago, any one one of the items on, say, Desdemona Despair, or the other enviro news feeds, would have been worldwide media headline. Now there are so many, and so frequent, it’s impossible to keep up with the relentless deluge, and the corporate MSM suppresses most of it, and spins the rest as if it was ‘normal’.
The Tohoku Shinkansen or bullet train that links Tokyo with Northern Honsu has been found to collect dust that is well above the already extremely lax industrial limit of 8,000 Bq/Kg (before the catastrophe it was 100Bq/kg), so it cannot be disposed by regular means, reports Fukushima Diary.
The train collects this dust most likely as it goes through Fukushima prefecture (map at right), which should be off limits to all normal human activities, in my not-so-humble opinion (following Chernobyl and most basic common-sense criteria).
We live in times of absolute madness. And Japanese even more so.
http://forwhatwearetheywillbe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/token-example-of-how-radioactive-is.html
March 21st, 2013 at 1:47 am
Eco Hamlets UK seeking supporters
http://www.eco-hamlets.org.uk/enterprise_wiki/doku.php
March 21st, 2013 at 2:14 am
resistance feels good
That is not any reason for action.
BG 11.34: Droṇa, Bhīṣma, Jayadratha, Karṇa and the other great warriors have already been destroyed by Me. Therefore, kill them and do not be disturbed.
Action rationally should be guided by anticipated results. But when motivated by expectations, with anticipation conflated with expectation, it can become the monkey trap. A monkey trap in not just a gross sense, but “hand” that is “caught” may be the subtlest of the subtle.
Because energy + technology = economy.
Technology = techniques to expedite the use of energy.
Energy Consumption
Resources======>Product=========>Trash
Primary economy Secondary economy
$$$$$Tertiary$$$$$$$Economy$$$$$$
Bullshit. ALL behavior is/was at the service of reproductive fitness, however complex. Abstractions, such as concepts of “morality” are excellent examples of the complex adaptations of apes, some monkeys, dolphins, etc.
Amen. They are all meat robots, each and every one of them: inanimate automatons. There is no way in which they can show me even the faintest trace of any awareness on their parts. “I” am and can be aware only of my awareness.
What they label emotion is just another programmed response in a very complex programming.
March 21st, 2013 at 2:25 am
This is to remind you that I am neither a Christian nor a classical Buddhist. You are like a backseat passenger in a car who cannot drive, telling the driver how he ought to be doing his job
It is not for me to pontificate to others on what they should or should not do, nor on how they should or should not drive. Nor do I do so by my response to KathyC.
March 21st, 2013 at 2:35 am
Everything we do, must contribute to the ever increasing demands of the 1%. No higher societal priority, or even ANY other societal priority can be allowed to exist. This is the cultural information, the prime directive, that all the 1%’s organs of propaganda instill in you and in your children, from the moment you are born. Getting you to believe that your genes are telling you that the entire planet should be given over to the 1%, is a big part of that propaganda. They need people to come out of elite corporately owned universities and tell those who are still permitted to think, that ceo’s are the pinnacle of evolution, so that you and your children will want to become one of them and keep the system going. We have all been taught to believe that if we don’t continue to feed an ever increasing amount of wealth to the 1%, our world will come to an end, just as the Aztecs believed that the sun wouldn’t come up unless an ever increasing number of human hearts were cut out and sacrificed to their God. You may think you are acting to fulfill your own personal agenda, and to some extent you are, but you are only allowed to do so if you contribute and do not interfere with the continuous flow of resources spiraling towards the 1% like a black-hole. Nukes, wars, plastics, Arctic ice melt, genetic engineering, old growth forest destruction, species extinction, etc., all contribute to help the wealth of the 1% grow, that’s what makes all those things GOOD things, not bad things. These are the things that CREATED the 1%, these thing ARE the 1%. By opposing these things you ARE opposing the 1% whether you admit it or not. This will also help you to understand why your opposition has no effect.
Financial crises are just as much a part of the system that made the 1% wealthy as the so called boom times. They are only the fart or burp of the 1% trying to digest the enormous profits they took in too fast, they are not a sign of collapse or even distress. You can try to read the tea leaves of the system and see collapse if you want, but as long as the idea persists that everything we do must contribute to the ever increasing demands of the 1%, the system is safe. The current system is just an idea, one very simple and incredibly stupid and incredibly destructive idea, unlike the Aztec system though, its scale is planetary. It’s culture. An idea is put into your head, and you are told from birth that the idea comes from God or your genes. But if you pay close attention you notice there’s always some guy there pushing the idea on you, a guy with an agenda, wearing an impressive headdress or an Armani suit, isn’t there? That’s culture, it’s an idea in your head, if people stop believing the idea, the culture dies. We always come back to the same thing in the end, don’t we?
March 21st, 2013 at 3:09 am
@ Robin D.
It is not for me to pontificate to others on what they should or should not do, nor on how they should or should not drive.
Sure. As you insist, you’re just a meat robot following an algorithm.
March 21st, 2013 at 3:40 am
Rip,
That is a great rant. A lot there.
Resistance is fertile.
I believe we can do better than this miserable example of human culture encapsulated in the words “conform, consume, die”.
March 21st, 2013 at 3:53 am
@ Ripley, Anthony
Yes, indeed, excellent rant.
When the first wave if environmental concerns built up, the industry bosses were troubled, and considered how to defuse the pressure. So the CEOs put their heads together and came up with the brilliant strategy, transfer the burden of guilt onto the consumers ! So, it wouldn’t be the fault of the corporations and the factories dumping the pollution into the rivers and air, it would be the fault of the people buying the products. All the customers fault !
Next thing, everybody starts taking their bottles to bottle banks and recycling their old washing machines, which doesn’t make the slightest difference to the pollution, but eases the feelings of guilt, and does no harm to corporate profit margins, because, in effect, they are working for the corporations for free.
March 21st, 2013 at 5:23 am
good morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0PnVx1mO0U&feature=player_embedded
prawns, anyone?
March 21st, 2013 at 5:30 am
@Ripley
Fuck the 1%
If you want to strategically place gravel into where the gears of the machine mesh then do it anonymously and individually.
March 21st, 2013 at 6:06 am
@Ripley
You are the 1%, are you not? I sure as hell am. As I said not too long ago, in a galaxy not so far away:
I’m not dismissing greed as a phenomenon. It exists and it’s generally unpleasant. But let me ask you – do you consider yourself greedy, to the extent that you would participate in murdering your own species for personal gain? If you don’t, that’s why I don’t want to use the concept of “greed” in any kind of explanatory context – it always seems to be a quality that is exhibited by others, not oneself. Because you are, in fact, greedy in just the way I described. So am I. Maybe we can own that, but most people disown it. It’s not a helpful explanatory concept because of that.
The whole concept of the 1% is bullshit – it’s just projection and disowning.
March 21st, 2013 at 6:12 am
The title of this post is called The Muzzling. Who is doing this “muzzling?” Who is it that makes sure there is no debate, no questioning of their idea that they must have ever more wealth at any cost? To them, infinite wealth on a finite planet is not up for debate. Hence we have “the muzzling” of one of the most important ideas–that the 1% and the machine are the same thing. The 1% is a wealth extraction machine. You must make sure you hit the main gear or your strategy will fail.
Paul, you just described yourself as a major psychopath. I don’t really know what to say to that.
March 21st, 2013 at 6:17 am
@RD
Warning to all & sundry: CommanderCraCra’s site
Exactly. Multi millionaire friends who ‘believe in me’
March 21st, 2013 at 6:39 am
@Ripley,
Does your label really say anything about me, or does it speak to the way we’ve learned to see the world: as “us” and “them”, “psychopathic” and “sane”? Any speculation on whether such a worldview might be part of the problem? I’m actually trying to make a serious point here. Can you can do better than just recoiling in pain at words on a screen?
March 21st, 2013 at 6:52 am
anyone notice that there are people on here that post throughout the day and through the night, as if they never sleep?
March 21st, 2013 at 6:55 am
@ Ripley,
Regarding who is doing this muzzling – I would argue that We Are. Us, its supposed victims. Poor Us, beset and bedevilled by the nefarious Them.
Nobody wants to be poor and powerless. Ironically, that’s why we allow – even encourage – strong people to lead us . To lead us into prosperity, technology, mastery, comfort, the bright and shining future. We are quite willing to pay the price. At first. Then we realize it would be more fun to be one of Them, and we rail against the fact that their clubhouse door is closed for an executive meeting.
‘Scuse me for saying, but we need to grow the fuck up.
March 21st, 2013 at 7:23 am
I have a few chill pills here, take one if you need to.
Now that’s better.
Now what were we saying?
March 21st, 2013 at 7:29 am
thank you OzMan!
Not sure what we were saying – the comments are all over the place!
March 21st, 2013 at 7:47 am
What do you see as un-chill, OzMan?
March 21st, 2013 at 8:44 am
What do polar ice caps, guinea worm disease and wildfires have in common? All are being modeled with cutting-edge mathematics. Mathematical societies and institutes around the world are participating in “Mathematics of Planet Earth,” or MPE, this year. They aim to study the math that underpins geologic and biological processes on our planet as well as encourage more math researchers to tackle these problems. Events are planned for the year 2013, but the organizers hope that the initiative will have lasting effects.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:47 am
Speaking of math, why does Tom Murphy from “Do The Math” not get NTE? Is it ego?
March 21st, 2013 at 8:54 am
what exactly is “cutting-edge” math?
March 21st, 2013 at 9:06 am
The mathematics used to model Occam’s Razor…
March 21st, 2013 at 9:17 am
cute
March 21st, 2013 at 9:55 am
Three items to address, and then I’m out of here, as a single word to the wise should be sufficient:
I’m only concerned with INFORMED debate. Anything else is politics.
“Okay, so ulvfugl wins the debate as far as I’m concerned.”
==
Feminists do have rape all wrong, and their arguments stem from POLITICS, not informed by science. Rape IS a reproductive strategy.
Feminists are doing their fellow sisters a great dis-service by couching the motivations for rape as purely violence motivated act.
With rape, violence is the proximate tactic, reproduction is the ultimate driver. Beta males chose rape as a reproductive tactic because socially acceptable avenues for reproduction have been closed for them.
“Steven Pinker thinks feminists have rape all wrong. He’s a moron. A shill for the dominant culture,”
==
Well, we ARE meat robots. Individuals can change their programming, but it is rare that it is done in the service of truth. That is why there are so few philosophers. We’re an aberration, and thus, fail to get many genes into the next generation. If one choses to avoid the science because it makes you depressed, this is again another example of the genes guiding your behavior thru the manipulation of your emotions. Those suffering depression make for a lousy date.
“Well, once upon a time, many a long year gone by, I read Richard Dawkins, and was very depressed, because if human behaviour was genetically determined, then there was no chance of fixing the mess, because we were all just meat robots following an algorithm in our selfish genes. But then, I learned, it just ain’t so, and began smiling again,”
March 21st, 2013 at 10:10 am
@ Hamlet J.
That’s not INFORMED. It’s ideological posturing pretending to be backed by science.
YOU (and Robin Datta and Dawkins) may well prefer being meat robots. I am not, I am a human being. I choose to view other people as human beings.
I love genuine good science. I hate it when people use junk science to support their personal prejudices and rather nasty ideological viewpoints, which is what you appear to be doing.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:10 am
Pinker is a scientist, but much of his writing is for laypersons, a synthesis of latest from scientific journals.
You need to read Thornhill & Thornhill, A Natural History of Rape.
This should be mandatory for every college student.
“Steven Pinker thinks feminists have rape all wrong. He’s a moron. A shill for the dominant culture,”
March 21st, 2013 at 10:20 am
Again, another example of political debate. By asserting that your argument is the truth, then by default, I must be a non-human?
I DO NOT prefer being a meat-robot, but it’s what it is.
I can accept that your dopamine/serotonin profile disqualifies you from seeking truth. However, do not despair, I think you are exceptionally optimized for politics!
==
“YOU (and Robin Datta and Dawkins) may well prefer being meat robots. I am not, I am a human being. I choose to view other people as human beings.”
March 21st, 2013 at 10:22 am
Pinker is a shill and his book on violence is one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
If anyone is seriously interested, here’s 14 voices, at least as well qualified as Dawkins, several I’d consider considerably more so. As E. O. Wilson said Dawkins is not a scientist, he’s an author of popular books.
Does Evolution Explain Human Nature ?
http://www.templeton.org/evolution/
March 21st, 2013 at 10:25 am
Fuck you Hamlet Jones.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:25 am
@ Hamlet J.
I think it is YOU who are asserting that YOU have the truth, second hand, via R. Dawkins and S. Pinker.
Do you actually have anything of your own to say, or are you just a mouthpiece for their propaganda ?
March 21st, 2013 at 10:31 am
An example of Pinker’s work :
Questionable claims about long-term and recent trends have been made by a number of U.S. academics, including Steven Pinker in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Pinker minimizes the death and destruction of OIL in order to boost his contention that war is almost gone from the earth. He does so as part of an approach that views war as something done by nations other than the United States, and something supposedly done more by “uncivilized” tribes.
Perhaps Pinker is still rebelling against Noam Chomsky, whose linguistic Platonism he debunked in his earlier book The Language Instinct. For whatever reason, Pinker avoids any serious criticism of the one country that now spends roughly as much on war as the rest of the world combined. Pinker repeatedly examines statistics on the history of large numbers of nations, ignoring the existence of our own very exceptional state. Democratic, free-trading nations with membership in international bodies are unlikely war makers, Pinker finds — only by ignoring that one particular nation that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously called the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.
Poor nations and Muslim nations are more likely locations for wars, Pinker notes without indicating any awareness that wealthy nations sometimes attack them and other times arm and fund their dictators. Also likely countries to make war are those with ideologies, Pinker tells us. (As everyone knows, the United States has no ideology.) “The three deadliest postwar conflicts,” Pinker writes, “were fueled by Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese communist regimes that had a fanatical dedication to outlasting their opponents.” Pinker goes on to blame the high death rate in Vietnam on the willingness of the Vietnamese to die in large numbers rather than surrender.
The current U.S. war on Iraq ended, in Pinker’s view, when President George W. Bush declared “mission accomplished,” since which point it has been a civil war, and therefore the causes of that civil war can be analyzed in terms of the shortcomings of Iraqi society. “[I]t is so hard,” Pinker complains, “to impose liberal democracy on countries in the developing world that have not outgrown their superstitions, warlords, and feuding tribes.” Indeed it may be, but where is the evidence that the United States government has been attempting it? Or the evidence that the United States has such democracy itself?
Early in the book, Pinker presents a pair of charts aimed at showing that, proportionate to population, wars have killed more prehistoric and hunter-gatherer people than people in modern states. None of the prehistoric tribes listed go back earlier than 14,000 BCE, meaning that the vast majority of human existence is left out. And these charts list individual tribes and states, not pairs or groups of them that fought in wars. The absence of war through most of human history is left out of the equation,[l] dubious statistics are cited for earlier wars,[li] those statistics are compared to the global population rather than the population of the tribes involved, and the deaths counted from recent U.S. wars are only U.S. deaths.
See more, if you can bear it without puking.
http://warisacrime.org/iraq
March 21st, 2013 at 10:44 am
The last time a woman said this to me was when I expressed to a native american lady that indigenous peoples are not necessarily imbued with a sustainable gene. As an example, I pointed out that when given a chainsaw, natives were cutting down the triple-canopy. It was a this point that she dropped the f-bomb and hung up.
In my experience, the seeking truth can be a painful exorcise, but the alternative of self-deception is worse.
==
“Fuck you Hamlet Jones.”
March 21st, 2013 at 10:55 am
I’m not 100% in tune with John Gray, but fwiw, here’s his take on Pinker
The irony is compounded when we recall that Pinker achieved notoriety through his attempt to reinstate the idea that the human mind is fixed and limited. His bestseller The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002), an assault on the idea that human behaviour is indefinitely malleable, was controversial for several reasons—not least for its attack on the belief that pre-agricultural cultures were inherently peaceable. The book provoked a storm of criticism from liberal humanists who sensed—rightly—that this emphasis on the constancy of human nature limited the scope of future human advance. Pinker seems to have come to share this anxiety, and the present volume is the result. The decline of violence posited in The Better Angels of Our Nature is a progressive transformation of precisely the kind his earlier book seemed to preclude. But the contradiction in which Pinker is stuck is not his alone. It afflicts anyone who tries to combine rigorous Darwinism with a belief in moral progress. Darwinism is unlikely to be the last word on evolution and, rather than identifying universal laws of natural selection, it may only apply in our corner of the universe. But if Darwin’s theory is even approximately right, there can be no rational basis for expecting any revolution in human behaviour.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/john-gray-steven-pinker-violence-review/
March 21st, 2013 at 10:58 am
@ Hamlet J.
You claim to have some idea what you are talking about here ?
…not necessarily imbued with a sustainable gene.
Wtf is that supposed to mean ?
March 21st, 2013 at 11:06 am
I think he means they didn’t have a gene that made them live in a sustainable manner…
March 21st, 2013 at 11:06 am
Most scientists would agree that Darwin is APPROXIMATELY RIGHT. Thus, we’re screwed. Doesn’t stop me from trying (because it feels good, not because I am “morally” superior in any way) However, I ain’t fooling myself that such resistance will make one whiff of difference in the face of the overwhelming majority of naked-ape meat robots practicing reproductive-politics.
It’s all right there in the last line! No RATIONAL BASIS for expecting a different outcome than environmental collapse and WWIII.
==
“But if Darwin’s theory is even approximately right, there can be no rational basis for expecting any revolution in human behaviour.”
March 21st, 2013 at 11:14 am
Right. The idea of a “sustainable” gene sprouts from politics, not science, zero evidence. There has never been a sustainable people/culture/society. If there were, where are they today?? Evolution does not allow it. Maximum Power Principle only. Dumb breeding violent neighboring tribes, reproducing with zeel, ran out of local resources, and made war on their smart, sustainable hippy neighbors, killed them all, and stole their resources.
==
“I think he means they didn’t have a gene that made them live in a sustainable manner…”
March 21st, 2013 at 11:18 am
Hey ulvfugi, you were instructed to take the invective to an alternative blog site, so do it. Many of us are tired of your wise-guy, cock-sure attitude. Too bad you never served in the military; otherwise, these prickly problems of yours would have been quickly exorcised by means of an old fashioned ass whooping.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:27 am
@ Hamlet J., pat
The idea that ‘there is a gene for….’ anything, is nonsense. No reputable scientist today would make any such statement. The way that genes influence our bodies and behaviour is far more complicated than ‘a gene for..’
You are quoting John Gray. If you want to argue that point, argue it with him, that’s not MY view.
APPROXIMATELY RIGHT ? The devil is in the detail.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:30 am
Yes, F. Kling, I agree! Ulvfugl seems to have worn out his welcome (does he ever sleep?).
March 21st, 2013 at 11:36 am
@ Friedrich K., pat,
Why don’t you two bring something constructive to the discussion ?
March 21st, 2013 at 11:47 am
Ulvfugl:
whatever constructive input you bring is ignored by most because of your delivery. Why can’t you see that? You seem to be a fairly intelligent person, but you are not very good at getting along with others.
I know, for me, the reason I come to NBL is because of the fellowship of like-minded folks. I can’t have these discussions in my “real life.”
It’s disturbing to read your comments. And, I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. It would be so simple for you to take a few teeth out of your comments and the fact that you won’t seems to indicate that it is your intention to be disturbing.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:55 am
@ pat
Is telling me what you think is wrong with me ( once again ) bringing something constructive to the discussion ?
March 21st, 2013 at 12:16 pm
@ Ulvfugl
yes, it is, because if you listen to the advice and implement the suggestion, then the discussion will have a better chance of including everyone and lessen the tension and that would be constructive. Do you not agree?
March 21st, 2013 at 12:21 pm
Here’s something constructive: Friedrich K. and pat, I look forward to your comments.
And Thanks, U, for chasing away KathyC and BCNurseProf. You sure showed them what’s what, eh!? The comment threads will thus have much more pissing room for piss-fests among little-boys. You can regain your previous quota of 75 % of the comments on a given NBL thread. The future is indeed looking bright!
March 21st, 2013 at 12:23 pm
@ pat
Lessen the tension ?
This blog is about the imminent end of life on Earth.
March 21st, 2013 at 12:39 pm
@ Ulvfugl
forget it, you obviously are not interested in getting along.
March 21st, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Local TV station CYBC reports that police in the Cyprus’ capital are scuffling with protesters (including employees of Cyprus Popular Bank) outside the nation’s parliament:
*CYPRUS POLICE CLASH WITH BANK EMPLOYEES OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT
*CYPRUS SCUFFLES BROADCAST LIVE ON STATE-RUN CYBC
CYBC says more protesters gathering at Parliament House
March 21st, 2013 at 1:10 pm
@Lidia,
“The comment threads will thus have much more pissing room for piss-fests among little-boys.”
LOL, there is actually some pretty interesting discussion taking place there. Come on over, as I promise there is no urine anywhere.
Seriously though folks, I have been involved in internet forums for a long time and was even an admin for a popular forum. It is an absolute circus of human nature and conflict.
On an unmoderated discussion, you really have to learn to be thick skinned, stick to the topic, and not react to folks that you experience as caustic or abrasive (you are not going to make them understand).
March 21st, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Bailey, I know, I know. It’s just frustrating to see bullies take over the playground and chase away the other kids. At Kunstler’s joint, not only is it a testosterone fest, but a couple of Stormfront types pee in that punchbowl so often you need galoshes just to walk in the door, and I expect some of it is intentional sabotage. It really is a pity.
March 21st, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Nine Acres!
A collapsing salt mine has caused a nine-acre sinkhole in Louisiana, one that is threatening an entire neighborhood. Residents are being evacuated, and the company that owns the mine, Texas Brine, is paying them $875 a week for temporary housing costs. The Lord of the Sinkholes appeared Aug. 3 and is still growing. Scientists monitoring it say a second cavern may be collapsing. “They caused this damage, and certainly we’ll be aggressive in making sure that they pay their bills,” Gov. Bobby Jindal says of Texas Brine.
March 21st, 2013 at 4:38 pm
Another article debunking Pinker: “Steven Pinker and the Depoliticization of Rape”.
http://dgrnewsservice.org/2013/03/19/owen-lloyd-steven-pinker-and-the-depoliticization-of-rape/
March 21st, 2013 at 4:55 pm
Meet the love child of the thermo LMEP God..
Calvin Beisner, Evangelical Christian, Claims Environmentalism Great Threat To Civilization
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/calvin-beisner-environmentalism-greatest-threat-civilization_n_2919756.html
March 21st, 2013 at 5:03 pm
..How wonderful if only it were true that environmentalism could truly pose a threat to civilization!!
March 21st, 2013 at 6:14 pm
Meet the Flintstones – a review of Steven Pinker’s ‘Blank Slate: A Modern Denial of Human Nature’ by Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Pinker.htm
March 21st, 2013 at 6:16 pm
Culture is very low at this time. An incivility reigns on streets and Internet forums, the anonymity of the screen and the armor of automobile allow flipping off and foul mouthery. Delaying a car behind you for one second will get you damned to burning hell. rope a doping arguments and oroboros spins of never changing minds in argument are hallmarks of blog commentary everywhere. The music is repetitive, banal and infested with style memes, the best selling books are crap; tv is hideous mind control and a celebration of coarseness and voyeurism. Manners are missing, compassion is qualified and the decorations of tats and piercing are ideal markings and false rebellions for a slave class.
I am reminded of the civil right protestors in suits, inspiring hearts and minds with gorgeous language and quiet fortitude. I look around and the total disrespect for ourselves is apparent in the now so causal attire that it is slovenly and the deplorable conditions of the temple body. How can you push back against anything from such a pitiable state ?
The part about NTE that I love reading about here is how one decides to behave on “the beach of doom” I am not a scholar, I don’t know why we destroyed ourselves or if it was predetermined in the Big Bang or what. I said before its no ones fault and everyone’s fault. I still hAve to move through each day with the heartbreaking awareness of loss, epic permanent loss, and still interact witht my husband who is business as usual and thinks I should go back to some dopey pointless job to earn money for retirement. Retirement?!
@gail: I have been looking at your website. I am certain that the forest I live in is very very sick. There is so much lichen and frilly moss stuff colonizing the trees the limbs break off from the weight. Broken and oozing like you said, bark peeling at the bottoms, it just doesn’t look healthy. I am in the worlds largest remaining deciduous broadleaf forest chain in the southern Appalachians and I agree with you: I don’t need sea ice to prove to me that this is not what it is supposed to be, and there’s nothing I can do. How to live with that, to me, is the question.
March 21st, 2013 at 6:47 pm
There is no evidence whatsoever that we began as mistrustful, selfish, fearful and violent barbarians. And it is not necessary for any society to behave in such a manner in order to survive. If the evidence I’ve been presenting here is credible, the line from HBP to the Pygmies and Bushmen of today is as long as any in human history — and throughout the length of that line we see, in generation after generation, essentially the same picture: an image of survival through cooperation, equality, sharing, independence, mutual respect and non-violence, all the values we so cherish today, but have such a difficult time achieving.
http://soundingthedepths.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/chapter-six-interlude-utopia-then-and.html
March 21st, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Today Hobbes is the hero of numerous prominent intellectuals who crusade to represent humanity as naturally wicked, aggressive, destructive, wasteful, deceitful, manipulative, depraved. They’ve enlisted the modern sciences and social sciences, especially genetics, to support the modern neo-Hobbesianism. The direct goal is always to claim that only political elitism, only the State, can organize any kind of constructive endeavor. At least implicitly it’s always a cry of the heart for economic elitism. Only capitalism and especially corporatism can organize any kind of productive endeavor. Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Napoleon Chagnon and others have been prominent in this campaign. The goal is always the same, to render the class war and kleptocracy on a biological/racist basis, but in a pro-capitalist, pro-state way. The latest, much-hyped installment is Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature. Here the claim is that the level of violence has declined with the rise of the modern state and capitalism. Once again the nasty, brutish primal humanity has to be tamed and put to work by the state, capital, elites.
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/corporate-tribalism-part-2-steven-pinker-and-sublimated-violence/
March 21st, 2013 at 7:04 pm
Adding to what U posted above, I would like to add this interesting read that Paul posted on the other forum..
Preconquest Consciousness
http://rewild.info/anthropik/vault/sorenson-preconquest/index.html
March 21st, 2013 at 7:40 pm
But if you pay close attention you notice there’s always some guy there pushing the idea on you, a guy with an agenda, wearing an impressive headdress or an Armani suit, isn’t there?
That guy is not what’s important. It is the wielding of the gun no matter how heavily it is cloaked in specious justification. It is the exception made to the universality of moral rules, in this case, the morality of the non-initiation of force. If it is morally wrong to initiate force against peaceful non-compliers, then the morality of that rule applies everywhere. A person in a blue, green or camouflage costume who claims that acting on behalf of some reified apparition called the state constitutes a moral exception must be denied the sanction of one’s moral acceptance. Likewise, all those others who lend their moral sanction to that initiation of force must also be denied one’s own moral acceptance.
Even persons such as Charles Eisenstein, David Korten and John Zerzan do not lay down the gun. It is critically important not to take one’s eyes off the gun, they all have multifarious nefarious ways of hiding the gun.
Sure. As you insist, you’re just a meat robot following an algorithm.
Indeed. Now if only it can be transformed from platitude to reality: if the “I” could grok that there is no “I” – an oxymoron perhaps, with some non-existent thing grasping that it does not exist. What grasps, and what is grasped: another koan in the Rinzai tradition?
March 21st, 2013 at 7:50 pm
My mother and I had to endure another visit from the palliative care doctor, ostensibly a very nice woman, intelligent and caring, who—however—wants my mother to go on Zoloft and Ritalin so she won’t be “depressed”. At 82, with pulmonary fibrosis, on O2 24/7, she can’t go from her bed to the bathroom without a mini-respiratory crisis. Mom has made her peace with the situation; the doctor less so.
When did depression become a societal disease and not a healthy reaction to real-world circumstances?? I certainly have not laid most of my NTE learnings on mom—her own extinction looms sooner than mine—but I see her reactions (“it’s over”) as sane, not a pathological disease to be treated along with the fibrosis.
On a related note, I read that the #3 cause of teen death in VT is suicide. Our state, like others, is embroiled in the debate over the legality of extreme weaponry. What I learned is that, out of something like 130 firearm deaths this past year in the state, all but six were suicides. 6 murders or accidental deaths vs. 124 suicides, roughly speaking, if I am not mistaken.
===
I understand my mom, because I would be even less engaged than she is if I were in her shoes.
The more I try to close down her various “enterprises” [as well as my own] to reduce complexity the more they “PULL ME BACK IN” (Michael Corleone character in The Godfather III).
Try to change an address? Sorry, you have to fill out many notarized forms. Try to close a brokerage account? Sorry, that is a proprietary investment that you can’t devolve. Try to wrest a trust away from a bank that has devoured half the funds in fees? Not possible, apparently. Corleone laments, “I need more lawyers!” Me, too!
All the lawyers in the world cannot disentangle all the legal commitments that need to be disentangled even if the developed world collectively displayed the DESIRE to begin to address economic and energetic contraction. This is the sad truth. We will spend more in lawyers’ and other “professional” fees to keep the empty husk of the dead “economy” afloat for another few years than the amount of money it would take to transition to a lower-energy state (even if that state were too little, too late, to avert a fatal near-term crisis).
The doctor’s offer of Zoloft and Ritalin was tempting… to ME!!! GACK!!!
March 21st, 2013 at 7:56 pm
Thanks for the link on Pinker’s book. I was appalled when I read it. It is utterly devoid of any concept of economics whatsoever, as if these sorts of social relations do not exist. ‘Better Angels’ sounds like a “Bell Curve” apology for US economic hegemony and manifest destiny. I got angry and had to skewer him on amazon:
“My opinion is that Pinker is more than a bit naive. He obviously lives and works in the USA in a position of privilege and comfort and reflects the American perspective to a great degree. He therefore propounds many wonderful and lovely thoughts that many less well-placed humans on the planet would find hopelessly credulous. My biggest gripe is that the economic foundation of current society receives short shrift. By definition, our capitalist order rips away as much of the productivity of human labor as is possible for profit. To discount the violence to individuals and communities in this context of current affairs is a little bit naive. If you ask a Bahraini, Iraqi, or Congolese scholar about violence, my guess is you’ll get a quite different take. Ask a Haitain or Chinese sweatshop worker about the violence of being paid $3-$4 for a 14 hour work day. Ask Indian farmers about the violence of debt slavery that leads to suicide plagues. Ask Filipinos and Cambodians about the decline in sex slavery. Ask a Chilean, Bolivian or Indonesian economist about having your country’s future sold off into debt at outrageously inflated prices for the benefit of dictators and multinational corporations and sent to offshore bank accounts. Just because they don’t go in an beat the workers and citizens over the head with clubs on a daily basis doesn’t mean it’s not violence, and to make generalizations implying otherwise is a blinkered analysis.”
John Perkins and Chalmers Johnson’s books put the lie to Mr. Pinker’s ivory tower Havard perspective. Amazing to me that faculty at the so-called top university in the US propounds this kind of crude ideology. On second thought, it is not surprising at all.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:01 pm
Red Eft: “I still have to move through each day with the heartbreaking awareness of loss, epic permanent loss, and still interact witht my husband who is business as usual and thinks I should go back to some dopey pointless job to earn money for retirement. Retirement?!”
Yes, this is the meat of the matter, is it not? What I find astounding is not the fact that we may personally suffer privation or loss, but that to Know that we are not only the last generation to enjoy the enormous societal privileges energy exploitation has given us, but—largely because of that privilege— we will be the last generation to have seen healthy trees, to have eaten uncontaminated fish, to have breathed air that’s relatively clean, to have known wild animals, and so forth.
Every other human generation has faced political and even environmental upheaval, but they’ve never experienced The Real End Of the Line as we shall.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:04 pm
Pinker is just a craven mouthpiece for the 1%, as all Harvard-ites are. Why does anyone give him the time of day? There is so much excessive mental masturbation going on at that campus, there should be some sort of First Aid available to those who evince blisters from it.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:13 pm
Who is doing this “muzzling?”
The muzzling started when our original lungfish ancestor first crawled out of the swamp. It was the beginning of the end of aquatic respiration for terrestrial vertebrates. The muzzling was done by the lungfish, for itself, and all of us, its descendants.
You are the 1%, are you not?
Actually, uniquely, unanimously, exclusively, the one and only aware being in the universe of meat robots, insentient automatons. They may aver that they are aware, but they cannot share even the faintest glimmer of any such awareness with me. I am aware and aware that I am aware.
Paul, you just described yourself as a major psychopath.
Let’s promote him to Colonel psychopath?
March 21st, 2013 at 8:15 pm
@Robin: “Even persons such as Charles Eisenstein, David Korten and John Zerzan do not lay down the gun. It is critically important not to take one’s eyes off the gun, they all have multifarious nefarious ways of hiding the gun.”
What do you mean by this? I’m familiar with C.E., (not the other two) and I appreciate his writings. What do you mean by his “hiding the gun”?
I think he is correct in his analysis up to the point where he expects humanity to “mature” from a taking adolescence into a more circumspect adulthood. It’s a wonderful meme/STORY, but not one which I believe will play out, for the most part. That it may succeed in small pockets of understanding is the best we can hope for.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:31 pm
YOU (and Robin Datta and Dawkins) may well prefer being meat robots. I am not, I am a human being.
Prove it. EVERYTHING you say, write and do is just the output of algorithms in an insentient automaton of a meat robot: prove that it is not so.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:34 pm
@Ripley, re. calling Paul a psychopath. I think you are out of line. I would dare assert that all of us here are in the global 1%. We have computers, smartphones, iPads and what-have-you and pay monthly for that access. We speak English, the language of the current empire and we have more than we absolutely need to live.
If we live a conventional life, even a modest non-luxurious one by American standards, that’s in the top 1% (or 2% or 5% or however we might rationalize it) globally-speaking.
Paul is doing a yeoman’s job of coming to grips with “our” (wealthy Western) issues on the frontlines of collapse. I don’t see that it makes sense to malign him.
March 21st, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Re. “The Muzzling”. This is the topic of the post, but I have a hard time assimilating it. Its meaning seems superannuated.
I think that the era wherein public commentary had been distributed and shared in a lavish, apparently-meaningful, fashion is ending, due less to political constraints than to energetic ones. “The Muzzling” up until now has been political; much remaining muzzling will occur due to sheer lack of resources.
This is where I have issues with anyone on the left who is still waiting for some sort of liberation on whatever level. I’d argue that liberation is a luxury, the so-called “free press” is a luxury, etc. We’ve reached Peak Liberation to the extent that it ever existed. We’ve reached Peak Free Press to the extent that it ever existed. This is not my DESIRE, but merely my OBSERVATION. The closest point to reaching complete freedom from now on shall be that period most proximate to our demise, imo.
March 21st, 2013 at 9:04 pm
Friedrich Kling Says:
you were instructed to take the invective to an alternative blog site, so do it. Many of us are tired of your wise-guy, cock-sure attitude.
F.K.: That is what one gets with the practices promoted ill-advisedly: a supercharged ego – a wolf in sheep’s (professedly bird’s) clothing. With the mountain of the stuff swept under the rug still there. All the while completely oblivious of what is obvious to others.
March 21st, 2013 at 9:21 pm
What do you mean by his “hiding the gun”?
Once he has a quorum hewing to his pronouncements, he harbours no qualms about exerting coercive force to exact compliance from the rest.
March 21st, 2013 at 9:46 pm
“coercive force to exact compliance”
Robin, seeing as this person offers his opinions up essentially for free on the Internet, I fail to identify A.) coercion or B.) compliance as regards his ideas. If you can assist in this identification please do so, otherwise your comments re. C.E. are meaningless.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:16 pm
seeing as this person offers his opinions up essentially for free on the Internet, I fail to identify A.) coercion or B.) compliance as regards his ideas. If you can assist in this identification please do so
That an opinion is offered for free does not absolve one from culpability. He has clearly indicated that when the quorum hewing to his pronouncements is attained, there will be no non-compliance. Universal compliance necessitates coercive enforcement.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:55 pm
@ Robin D.
Prove it. EVERYTHING you say, write and do is just the output of algorithms in an insentient automaton of a meat robot: prove that it is not so.
Hahahahaha,
I have no need to prove or disprove, there’s no one who is trying.
Whether I raise Shakyamuni’s eyebrow, or not, it’s all the same,
You, Robin Datta, wouldn’t notice the difference.
March 22nd, 2013 at 12:23 am
I have no need to prove or disprove, there’s no one who is trying.
Sad, but true.
March 22nd, 2013 at 12:23 am
@ Robin D.
That is what one gets with the practices promoted ill-advisedly: a supercharged ego – a wolf in sheep’s (professedly bird’s) clothing. With the mountain of the stuff swept under the rug still there. All the while completely oblivious of what is obvious to others.
Well then, I don’t need to concern myself, do I, because you’ll be there to take care of everyone’s spiritual needs, whether Christian, Buddhist, or Atheist, you’ll guide them on their path towards NTE, whether they applaud the supporters of rape and violence and war and killing, or ignorance and lies and misinformation and propaganda, you’ll give the same spiel, a second hand story from the Vedas mixed up with some Skinnerian Behaviourism and neo-Darwinism and Kurzweillian bullshit that makes it all sound terribly wise. A meat robot guiding meat robots to nowhere.
I am proud to be a man, I am proud to be a human being.
While Friedrich K. was killing gooks and selling insurance so he could have ‘the good life’, I’ve been fighting ALL of my life to try and stop this NTE from ever happening.
Lidia discovers permaculture. I’ve been trying to explain permaculture to people for 30 years, Lidia. Too late now.
Now some of you are waking up, and calling me names and criticising my manners ? It hasn’t sunk in for you yet, has it. The ending of life on Earth.
That forest reserve and the Yellow Parrot, the permaculture in Vermont, the children’s future, the story of Evolution, the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment, all the stories get broken….
March 22nd, 2013 at 12:31 am
@ Lidia
…otherwise your comments re. C.E. are meaningless.
Yes. Absurd sophistry. Like claiming that horses and cows obviously intend violence because they gather in groups, therefore they must be concealing guns.
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:47 am
Well then, I don’t need to concern myself, do I
Correct. You don’t. It was addressed to F.K.
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:52 am
@ Robin D.
No doubt F. K. will benefit from your preaching.
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:53 am
The images captured by a space telescope show the universe is 13.8 billion years old, 100 million years older than previously estimated. The results also reinforce a key theory scientists have about how the universe was formed, exploding from subatomic size to its current expanse in what one scientist described as “one nano-nano-nano-nano second after the Big Bang.” And they also revise estimates of how much matter and mysterious dark energy make up the universe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/big-bangs-afterglow-reveals-older-universe/2013/03/21/88d3e788-9249-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:54 am
u., well apparently it was too late 30 fucking years ago, as well! Wasn’t it!? Back when many commenters here were children. The dying trees Gail documents weren’t done in just last year or the year before. Your unceasing holier-than-thou attitude is profoundly unhelpful and uninteresting.
The fate of humanity and your ill-manneredness have little to do with one another. That’s a lame excuse. Most people here manage to comment under the same circumstances without driving away other commenters with pointed attacks, amazingly enough!
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:56 am
No doubt F. K. will benefit from your preaching.
Thanks.
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:11 am
Most people here manage to comment under the same circumstances without driving away other commenters with pointed attacks, amazingly enough!
lidia: Most people don’t have the necessary training. You can see how powerful practices can shape powerful mischief.
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:20 am
Incidentally, regarding the various insults and abuse hurled at me ( and the nasty words I say to some people in return ) and Bailey’s advice about having thick skin.
Many years ago, the otter in GB, was almost extinct. But people were still hunting them with hounds as a recreational sport. So myself and another guy decided that was unacceptable, and decided to try and stop it.
I was a rather shy, sensitive young man at that stage in my life, can you believe that ?
There’s nothing like receiving regular death threats in the post, anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night, threatening to rape your wife, burn down your house, pet rabbit killed and left on the doorstep, stuff like that, for months and months, seeing an old lady crippled with from polio get punched and kicked and held under water by huntsmen, while the police stood by and watched and laughed, etc, etc, etc, to develop a thick skin.
We won that battle, the hunting got stopped, the otters increased. I’ve paid my dues.
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:27 am
Well, one of the better qualified posters (research papers cited 10,000x in 10 years) on Neven’s site has stated that with the entire Arctic ice cap now cracked/cracking and moving clockwise that we have left the Anthropocene and entered the Endocene. That is pretty darn good, eh?
Being able to view the distintegration of the ice cap, what is in fact an ecosystem, in near real time and understand the causes and implications fills me with profound awe.
The last time the Arctic was ice-free was 3 million years ago. Well before us, and will be ice-free well after us apparently.
Not a word about it in the MSM though. Go figure.
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:33 am
@ Lidia
That’s a lame excuse.
It’s not an excuse ! I’m not making any excuses. I am what I am.
You think my attitude is unhelpful and uninteresting. What the heck would be helpful and interesting, then ? Under the circumstances ?
You post something that everybody can discuss. Go ahead.
As far as I recall, this present round began because Gail said that ‘We invented culture’, which is typical humano-centric conceit and vanity, of course, because WE must have done every damn thing….
and then I pointed out that that statement was not correct… Culture came first.
Then Kathy C. made the discussion into nonsense, and pat joined in, and acrimony grew…
Same re Hamlet J. and Pinker.
Don’t like my comments ? Fine. Post interesting comments of your own.
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:41 am
Yes. The Endocene. Brilliant !
So what is there, to say, that is ‘helpful and interesting’ ? Have a nice fucking day ?
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:51 am
@ Lidia
well apparently it was too late 30 fucking years ago, as well! Wasn’t it!?
No, that was the tipping point when something could still be done to avoid this present situation and save the Arctic, thirty year time lag. Nobody wanted to listen. Not even activists.
March 22nd, 2013 at 3:19 am
Here come the food shortages (and flooding, forest fires and economic loss, among other troubles due to climate change):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/21/noaa-outlook-drought-worse-2013
The historic drought that laid waste to America’s grain and corn belt is unlikely to ease before the middle of this year, a government forecast warned on Thursday.
The annual spring outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted hotter, drier conditions across much of the US, including parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, where farmers have been fighting to hang on to crops of winter wheat.
The three-month forecast noted an additional hazard, however, for the midwest: with heavy, late snows setting up conditions for flooding along the Red and Souris rivers in North Dakota.
“It’s a mixed bag of flooding, drought and warm weather,” Laura Furgione, the deputy director of Noaa’s weather service told a conference call with reporters.
Last year produced the hottest year since record keeping began more than a century ago, with several weeks in a row of 100+degree days. It also brought drought to close to 65% of the country by summer’s end.
The cost of the drought is estimated at above $50bn, greater than the economic damage caused by hurricane Sandy
The drought area has now fallen back somewhat to 51% of the country. But even the heavy snowfalls some parts of the country have seen were not enough to recharge the soil, the Noaa scientists said.
The agency was forecasting above-normal temperatures in the south-west and other parts of the country, with only the Pacific north-west expected to experience below-normal temperatures.
It said drought conditions were likely to remain in the central and western parts of the country, and could expand in California, the south-west, the southern Rockies and Texas. The Florida panhandle should also anticipate drought conditions, according to the forecast.
Scientists warned of an increased risk of wildfires, because of the dry conditions, for parts of Minnesota and northern Iowa.
Other areas of the country however were in line for floods, with the most significant along the Red and Souris Rivers in North Dakota. Noaa said it was also expecting some 20,000 acres of farm land to be flooded in the Devil’s Lake area of North Dakota.
Some flooding was also expected along the upper Mississippi into southern Wisconsin, northern Missouri and parts of South Dakota and Iowa.
Meanwhile, a poor snowpack suggests the drought will persist in the Rocky Mountain states and California.
“The drought that we accumulated over the last five or six years in the middle part of the country and also the south-west is going to take a long time to remove,” said Furgione. “The deficits in the soil and very unlarged, and it is very unlikely the seasonal mean precipitation will ameliorate that.”
Farmers had been anticipating a poor start to the growing season, especially in the south-west and areas such as Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, where the drought has not relaxed its grip.
Farmers in some areas did not even bother to plant winter wheat this year.
The prospect of another dry year caused concern along the Mississippi where low levels held up barge traffic last year. A coalition of mayors from towns along the river visited Washington this week to press for funds to keep the waterway open.
“If the river is shut out, that’s $300m a day that is affected by that in economic losses because you can not shift the traffic up and down the river,” said Hyram Copeland, mayor of Vidalia, Louisiana.
Communities across the wheat and corn-growing areas, that took the brunt of last year’s drought, had been looking for heavy snows and rains this winter to prime the land for the next planting season.
“The bottom line is we need a big spring because we do not have the buffer or carryover we did coming into 2012,” Mark Svoboda, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center, told a forum on Wednesday.
However, the forecast suggests that big spring will not materialise.
The scientists also note a growing demand for water – for cities, for agriculture – is leaving the country even more exposed to hotter, drier years like 2012.
“We have seen changes to our vulnerability to drought,” Svoboda said. “More straws in the drink is putting more demand on a finite water resource.”
March 22nd, 2013 at 3:48 am
ancient history
….politicians, advertisers and businessmen are not stupid. They know what I was too naive to realise until the revelations of the quota made it inescapable. They understand the depth of hypocrisy lying behind all the environmentalist’s accusations. They know that virtually no one, not even the environmentalists themselves, is actually willing to live sustainably. No one really wants the world saved, not if it will significantly restrict their gluttony. All anyone really wants is someone else to blame.
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/blame.html
March 22nd, 2013 at 4:34 am
I’d like to just say I think a number of commenters here are displaying how we got here, while mulling over how we got here.
We got here by doing the competative thing rather than the cooperative thing – overall. A lot more to than that I agree, but it boils down to these two options perhaps from now on.
If it is all done and dusted, why the hell does anyone’s opinion, or viewpoint matter so much.
Plenty more chill pills if anyone wants some.
They are the oval ones. On one side is the letters NBL, and on the other NTE.
5 at a time are recommended, with lots of water.
Gails tale of how the trees are deteriorating due to Ozone toxicity, caused by industrial polution and burning Fossil fuels was the game changer for me, if I am really honest.
The Ents in ‘The Lord of The Rings’, the sentient, but slow, tree beings are all we have left of the power of living things. I can’t begin to imagine what this Earth must have been like with so many trees, and forrests so big it is so easy to understand how Grims fairy tales have the miraculous and dark occurring all within that ancient world of its own.
My unconscious idea was that in time at least the trees could come back, regrow their ancient stands and breath again for all the lifeforms.
But hearing that trees are both starving themselves when temperatures are much higher than normal. and the Ozone thing, I have been ready to throw in the towel any day now since I became aware of that.
Such big things going on. When looked at by comparison with an overwhelmingly blind, or distracted, or just too busy world population, most of the commenters here are in a position to see what is at stake, what we may be in our own sweet and aweful ways are saying goodby to, and it deeply saddens me, that it just keeps coming back to fighting with each other, and bickering about …well just shit really. Someones definition of a horsefly would be enough to get it going.
Does anyone else see what I am saying.
Clean up all out acts and fucking start really giving to each other, because it all gets that much closer to happening – the real collapse -if ‘we’ just fuck this space up like every other thing.
I have been working in a primary school since January this year, and I can tell you, those 10-12 year olds I see every day could probably do a better job of being kind, respectful, and have good cheer than what passes for ‘exchange of ideas and well informed debate’.
Piss it away, or love each other, those are the options in the coming time ahead, get if right here, and we have a chance.
Fluff it and we will all lose the great potential we can harness from valueing each other.
It is just looking a little too much Triblinka death camp 2013 to me…..
I feel we can do better.
Praise well meant is a start.
Thanks Guy for thaopportunity to take part in what is still, IMHO, by far a great discussion forum, uncensored for the most part, and packed full of views and links to peer reviewed reports on lots of issues mostly, but not exclusively, bearing on climate change, and humans responseability and responses to that great challenge.
Many others here, some frequent commenters and also occasionals, have my heartfelt thanks for sharing views, links, and of greater personal significance to me, their characters and bits of biography, for that is what we need above and beyond the clean air and water, the fresh healthy foods, and the warmth of a fire( poetic), we need each other, or others in general.
So thank you all for helping me grow, and understand what is going down, what can make us tick, and what humans are capable of, bith great and small, I mean the acts we do, not the status thing).
It is not really that hard to be kind to others. You ust have to want to, that’s all.
March 22nd, 2013 at 4:59 am
This is astounding information:
Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima w/ Leuren Moret part 1
Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima w/ Leuren Moret part 2
Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima w/ Leuren Moret part 3
Nuked: 2 yrs of Fukushima w/ Leuren Moret part 4
Not only was Fukushima DELIBERATE but the radiation is being directed and monitored all over the world by complicit governments and the UN in order to depopulate the earth. Listen to these exposes and decide for yourself what’s really going on here at the end of the line.
March 22nd, 2013 at 5:01 am
The links are easy to find by searching for the above titles; here’s the first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34cWeAP1Dc
March 22nd, 2013 at 5:11 am
Here’s a free book (349 pgs) you can read on-line about Chernobyl written by a Russian scientist:
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf
March 22nd, 2013 at 5:24 am
Great links Tom. According to the author Fukushima is 300 times worse than Chernobyl. I’d like to see that figure corroborated before I put too much faith in it. It’s not that I doubt the author. I just have an affinity towards the scientific method.
March 22nd, 2013 at 6:19 am
@ U,
There’s nothing like receiving regular death threats in the post, anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night, threatening to rape your wife, burn down your house, pet rabbit killed and left on the doorstep, stuff like that, for months and months, seeing an old lady crippled with from polio get punched and kicked and held under water by huntsmen, while the police stood by and watched and laughed, etc, etc, etc, to develop a thick skin.
Holy crap! I knew under that thick skin, there was a soft caring heart.
March 22nd, 2013 at 6:47 am
Helen Caldicott – The Truth About Fukushima – Nsearch Radio
In this video Dr. Caldicott indicates that Fukushima is approximately 2.5 to 3 times worse than Chernobyl (about 45 minutes into the video) which is bad enough I reckon.
March 22nd, 2013 at 6:59 am
@Bailey
Yes. Woofie is harmless. A bit brash at times but who isn’t?
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:03 am
@ OzMan
Re: doing the cooperative vs. competitive thing
Looking at the situation through thermodynamic lenses, here’s what I see. The degree of cooperation that a society shows is inversely proportional to the amount of energy it uses per capita. Early, low-energy hunter-gatherer societies were quite cooperative – you needed all hands on deck just to survive. As energy levels improved, so did the level competition. Jared Diamond documents such a situation in GG&S when he describes the Polynesian societies of the Maori (agriculturalists) and Moriori (H-G), with the expectable tragic results when they collided. Of course today’s industrial society is the apex of competition so far, due to its massive energy consumption.
The other situation where one sees the cooperation-competition spectrum in action is as one ascends the pyramid in hierarchic organizations. The lowest levels tend to be far more cooperative than the top levels. This has to do with the increasing degree of concentration of power (energy) at each higher level.
Low-energy communes and hierarchy-free anarchist groups like Occupy tend to be far more cooperative than society in general because of this.
We will regain cooperative societies when we have to (i.e. when the energy begins to go away). If we have the time, that is.
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:15 am
@OzMan
Good morning, and thank you so much for your kind sentiments. Gail’s blog is what led me to NBL last summer, and I’m grateful to have access to real views from people about what is going on all over the world. It has been a long hard winter watching the trees, without much of the actual ‘winter’ part, and some of the sick trees in my area have taken their last breaths over the past few months. Very painful to be awake these days.
Please don’t throw in the towel. Keep up the good fight, and know you are appreciated and not alone in your struggles, though some struggles we must face in solitude.
I want to wish much love and light to you and your family. That goes for everyone else, as well.
“I think the tree is an element of regeneration which itself is a concept of time.” -Joseph Beuys
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:19 am
@ ogardener
Harmless ? Brash ? BRASH ? Are you trying to taunt me ? Take care, good sir, lest you go too far… I feel I’ve been more than reasonable, all things considered….
http://youtu.be/A8yjNbcKkNY
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:28 am
@ ogardener
Thank you for that link to Helen Caldicott. I certainly won’t eat any fish from the Pacific.
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:36 am
ulvfugl
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled like elderberries!
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:38 am
@pat
The pleasure is all mine.
March 22nd, 2013 at 7:47 am
There has been a lot of skull-scratching over the last 10 years about what the level of sustainable human population might be over the long haul. Sometimes people wonder about “optimum” population levels, which is an obfuscatory, bullshit way of asking, “How much of our modern high-energy lifestyle can we hang onto as TSHTF?”
My recent work on Thermodynamic Footprints prompted me to go back and re-visit the question, from the view of global average population density.
There are about 20 million square miles (50 million km^2) of habitable land on the planet. The other 2/3 is covered by snow, mountains or deserts, or has little to no topsoil.
An average population density for a non-energy-assisted society of hunter-forager-gardeners is around 1 person per square kilometer, down to 1 person per square mile. That pegs the upper bound for a sustainable world population at 20 to 50 million people. Based on that number, our current population is at least 150 times too big to be sustainable. Put another way, we are now about 1500% into overshoot.
However, the story is even worse than that. Our use of technological energy gives each of us the average planetary impact of about 20 hunter-foragers (and the comparable number for the USA alone is about 1:60). This means that the world’s “thermodynamic equivalent population” is about 140 billion, or 20 times our actual numbers.
The implication is that if we wanted to keep on with the average level of per-capita consumption in today’s world, we would run into an overshoot situation at a global population of about 2.5 million people.
By this measure our population is about 3,000 times too big and active for sustainability. In other words, by this measure we are we are now 30,000% into overshoot.
Maintaining an average American lifestyle would permit a world population of only about 0.5 to 1 million people – clearly not enough to sustain a modern global civilization.
For the sake of comparison, it is estimated that the world population just after the dawn of agriculture was about 4 million, and in Year 1 was about 200 million.
I’m just sayin’ …
March 22nd, 2013 at 8:11 am
@ ogardener
Go and boil your bottom !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSs6yrn-pr0&feature=share&list=RD02X4uJP6atMP8
March 22nd, 2013 at 9:01 am
To Whom It May Concern:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTsg_kvPZQk
March 22nd, 2013 at 9:20 am
That is very interesting Paul. Nature is long overdue for a bipedal hair cut.
March 22nd, 2013 at 12:51 pm
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2011/04/overpopulation-here-is-the-solution.html
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:13 pm
@pat
That is a brilliant article by Mobus. One of his best, IMHO.
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:40 pm
http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/stupid-right-wing-tweets-steve-stockman
Something to ponder as you bask in the mind-blowing stupidity of Stockman: he’s one of the Republicans on the House’s Space, Science and Technology Committee.
We are so doomed.
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:42 pm
it’s the classic nightmare scenario, a lot of people gotta’ die for any of us to have any chance to live (and, by the way, we need them to help us shut down the nuclear power plants and somehow safely store the nuclear materials before making their exit!)
in the movies there’s always the hero characters (think Shirley Winters and Gene Hackman in The Poseidon Adventure) willing to give their lives so that the others may live. I guess we need 4.9 billion such heros.
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:47 pm
that’s why one has to figure that TPTB have this figured out and they probably have a plan… and i’m pretty sure it doesn’t include me!
March 22nd, 2013 at 1:52 pm
@Paul Chefurka Says “That is a brilliant article by Mobus. One of his best, IMHO.”
Yep – I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why, when you finally **really** get it, you just want to enjoy living another day. Tomorrow should be really nice – perhaps a bike ride is in order. Or, we need to plant our hybrid tomatoes (from seeds kept over from last year) in the freshly turned beds.
I think it’s a terrible mistake to believe that those who run the show don’t well understand everything that is discussed here & elsewhere. However, since they are geared to the excitement of competition & control, pending disaster is not really a concern.
In fact, it’s a brand new opportunity, as in, who will survive? Imagine the game playing scenarios being sketched out, not as personal musings, but policy directives? And the power & prestige being aligned with others of prominence also slated to survive? It’s enough to make one a workaholic all over again – weekends were meant to really get ahead. LOL
That’s why it’s a waste of time to fight the machine – these guys are playing for keeps. Silly little protests do nothing than perhaps make one feel better, so perhaps it’s like gardening. It’s a much better strategy to simply retreat and create local connections. Keep mum, keeping working, understand the score, and stay happy.
March 22nd, 2013 at 2:31 pm
RE: Pat’s linked article. A very good article, and I feel the whole subject of sapience addresses the issues of why there are so many intelligent people in the world that cannot get it, while others of us do. I have believed for some time that the energy and resources bonanza (even prior agricultural) has disrupted natural selection such that we have an extreme amount of undesirable traits floating around in the human gene-pool (undesirable relevant to our current crises). I suspect that in pre civilized times, traits like sapience would have been favored, but there is no reason why they continue to be. It helps explain the WTF? of why so many damn people cannot get it.
March 22nd, 2013 at 4:47 pm
i don’t think anyone is going to survive for very long either way. If TPTB can’t do EVERYTHING themselves including maintainance, growing their own food year round, adapting to increasingly harsh climate and temperatures, storms, volcanic and tornadic activity, and dealing with a dead ocean, no electricity, increasing amounts of noxious gases in the atmosphere and all manner of radiation and disease, they ain’t gonna last long. Same goes for the uber-sapient that Mobus dreams about (i think there are maybe 10 people who fit the bill on the entire planet), Ghengis Khan and his army, the roaming gangs or zombie hordes. Nobody is going to survive when all the trappings of civilization we take for granted – like medicine and dentistry – are gone. If we go into run-away greenhouse mode (a distinct possibility) it’s even more certain that not only will no human survive – no other species will either.
Just my two cents.
March 22nd, 2013 at 5:22 pm
OzMan,
“It is not really that hard to be kind to others. You just have to want to, that’s all.”
Last sentence of the best comment I’ve seen here in a long time. Thank you.
March 22nd, 2013 at 5:26 pm
Correction–Last two sentences of the best comment I’ve seen here in a long time. Thank you.
March 22nd, 2013 at 6:15 pm
“The time has come,” the OzMan said,
“To talk of many things:
NTE may be our fate
but let’s see what kindness brings.”
March 22nd, 2013 at 6:37 pm
An oldie, modified a bit, from the past:
Inconceivable
A
way of
life, inconceivable,
to those from not long ago.
The fact it was taken for granted,
would have made it seem doubly so.
Since the dawn of time, muscle and sweat,
was the currency of power. Then something
magical came along, and all the old ways scoured.
Those in the late industrial age, those of at least modest means,
could travel at thirty-thousand feet, and eat food from three thousand miles. Fresh water on tap, at every temp., from icy cold to hot; heating and cooling and so much more, common in most domiciles. Travel was fast and comfortable, but still thought of as a chore. The Green Revolution increased food supply, by several-fold or more. Advances, up
and down the line, in every part of their lives, added to their life spans, as their living standards soared.
Few realized all this came from something buried deep below. Fossil fuels were ancient plants; Sun’s energy made them grow. Extracted and consumed by fire, this energy released; creating never-
ending power, at least, that’s how it seemed. Two trillion barrels of oil, seventy-six cubic miles; half was gone by two thousand five and gone were all their dreams.
Fossil fuels had enabled them, to draw-down and deplete, resources they relied upon, for all their basic needs. Using up these resources, more quickly than they formed, every day their numbers rose; two hundred thousand more to feed. Financial systems crashed as fossil fuel supplies fell short. Global warming came on hard, reducing earth’s support. This gigantic house of cards was built because of closed eyes. The ending, when it finally came, caught most of them by surprise.
We could have had a better world, life cherished
and supreme. The road not taken, could
have led, beyond our fondest dream.
But all that’s left is deep despair,
we wonder why it’s so. We
could have had a better
world. Perhaps.
We’ll never
know.
March 22nd, 2013 at 10:31 pm
Anonymous hacks Mossad and publishes list of 35,000 spies
March 22nd, 2013 at 11:01 pm
From tamino. Global climate change : the big picture
This graph has been dubbed the “wheelchair.” Compared to the past, what’s happening in the present is scary. The future is scary as hell.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/global-temperature-change-the-big-picture/
March 22nd, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Related to the video that Tom posted
Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.
As shocking as these statistics are, due to a lack of adequate documentation, research, and reporting of cases, the actual rate of cancer and other diseases is likely to be much higher than even these figures suggest.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/2013315171951838638.html
I don’t really understand the statements that L. Moret makes, about HAARP being used to direct the flow of weather patterns, to cities, etc, as part of policy to reduce population, and this being agreed internationally.
The chemtrail guys also make this claim. If it was right, why would there be the obvious hostility between Russia, China, and Japan, Britain, USA, ?
March 22nd, 2013 at 11:57 pm
A view of Sandy Hook. I think I still reserve my personal judgement. There’s still a judicial gagging order in place. I want to see what happens when that runs out. I have not seen any evidence that contradicts this lady’s conclusions, although I find some of here inferences far fetched, and some of here co-investigators have batty world views, but that’s always the case among fringe groups.
People who take the opposite view, who believe the account as relayed by the MSM, have the burden of supporting their case, which is not easy, given the absence of any evidence. ALL that they have is assertions by talking heads. That’s not good enough. That’s not evidence.
http://sandyhooktruth.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/indications-that-sandy-hook-shooting-was-a-manufactured-event-summary/
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:11 am
Further proof in my mind that humanity is ultra doomed is that on a board proporting to raise awareness of and any possible solutions to our dire situation, most all that comes across is sniping and catting, just like on the board at free republic and little green footballs of old. OK – now I get it, sectarianism wins. Sectarianism rules. We will all happily digest the hemlock in unison because we’ll be proving this or that point to the wanker across the room who I agree with on 40-60% of issues but who sticks in my craw over X, Y, and/or Z.
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:15 am
Guy or anyone.
Several sourses have asserted that our brains are smaller now than in the near past, and I wanted to know if anyone can point me to a (few) credable citations or even authors ( Paleo or Anthro ) who have some dates for this decline. I have a hunch about what FUBARed s and I need to check a few boxes first.
Any directions would be most helpfull.
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:48 am
Paul Chefurka
I welcome your further discussion on the tangent I mentioned of Competition and Cooperation. I always get a lot from what you put up. I follow most of it, and see where the ideas of thermodynamics play a part in long scale analysis of human and other ways of existance.
Can I rely by saying that I personally don’t underappreciate the angle you use to analyse and understand some of the underlying principles somewhere embedded in our worldly rounds. I have a slightly different entry point to these issues of how did we get here and all the FUBAR we have created.
I have the view that at this time and place in human development we have a system (with a lot of previously local and national ways that are from many cultures) that has taken away Feeling as a primary human emotion and relational mode.
(Only very late in the piece now do we have ‘educatioanalists’ emphasising empathic learning, and emotional intellegence. I ask you..? What a crock. The only reason these things are now promulgated is that they have already dwindled and the decline is (almost) looking terminal.)
So because I have that experience, or premise if you like, I have been looking for how that took place.
So I am interested in cooperation and competition in the main because to cooperate, and not just via internet, but as adults humans one needs to have a good sense of respect and trust if it is to be either ‘productive’, if you prefer econo-speak, or honourable and happy if you prefer English.
Happy and loving feelings are what we have between friends and trusted others, and conversly unhappy and difficult feelings we have between untrusting, violent abusive people.
In short it takes a lot of social cohesion through actual reciprocity of encounter to make for a social life which is truely human. What we have now are hugly disfunctional social groupings that are trained to feed of the suffering of others, and it is all transacted without feelings – or in a netral zombie like situation. I am referring largely to the ‘economics’ of social life.
This is dawning in my awareness what the older European philosophers meant when they wrote of the rise of materialism. Consonant with the rise of Scientific views of the universe and life, Materialism is a supposition that that is all there is.
I suppose the pendulum may swing back in the future, but I fervently hope it is not a signal of the demise of all we have learned in this long diversion into ‘mind’, (after Shoppenhauer and Jung and Campbell).
(I put mind in invertet comars mostly for Robbin Datta, as I am acknowledging it as as much a construct as anything else.)
I am interested in how this process of losing the animate feeling tone of cultural life came about, but I am also more of a pragmatist in that we may never know for sure, so it is more important to me to know how to get it back, and not just for me, but for everyone.
I think it has something to do with living in small groups, and looking out for others you know and are your neighbours. Working on such issues now somewhat.
Cheers
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:54 am
BadlandsAK
Thanks a bunch for your very kind sentiments. I agree some struggles must be faced alone, and indeed can only be faced alone. Others can be shared. I spoke about the trees because trees actually have a strange way of making everyone at ease. They make themselves literally from thin air, and are there right back in our stories of early culture and folk tales.
We used to climb in them I think 2 -3 million years ago and we need them.
Where are the ‘BadlandsAK’ ?
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:59 am
John Stassek
Thaks also for your praise of my last two sentences in an earlier comment.
My high school poetry teacher use to emphasise that when you write poetry, while trying to be conservative with words, but still formulating images, ideas and meanings you often stop the poem when you say what you wanted to say. The last lines usually carry the central idea of a poem, but I guess this is debatable and not so in many cases, but I have found it to be true for me in the main. So also to have a limerick penned with my name in it is way cool, (Well… my ‘handle’ at least)
That made my day, thanks again.
March 23rd, 2013 at 2:10 am
@ Wester
With all due respect, people do have very strong opinions about matters, that they feel passionately about. That’s not going to change, is it. You can’t wish it away.
Like, for example the Dawkins versus the Fundamentalists war. Science versus religion.
Each side is equally convinced that they have the answer. It doesn’t matter what the other side says to ‘raise awareness’ or what logical rebuttals they offer, both sides will remain absolutely unmoved. All they hear, is further confirmation that their opponents are completely misguided.
I, personally, can resolve the conflict, there’s a simple easy resolution, via mythos / logos, right brain / left brain. But nobody, on either side wants a resolution, do they. They want to obliterate the opposition, and have their side prevail.
I don’t know why anybody would expect agreement, when there’s such a diverse mix of people here from so many different backgrounds, discussing the most emotive topics available, politics, religion, the end of the world, etc…
jeez, pat gave her examples of the pleasure v. pain polarity as ice cream and the cattle prod. I have NEVER liked ice cream. I can’t help that. Do I have to PRETEND to like ice cream so as not to offend anyone ? Someone offers me ice cream and assumes I’ll see that as a friendly, generous gesture, and is hurt when I say, no thanks, and so next time they bring the cattle prod… silly people…
Look, if we were sane, and real, not virtual, we’d be like those Amazon people, Shuar ( I think ? ) who gather for an hour in the morning and discuss their dreams, so they are all bonded, at a level that is integrated deep in their psyches, that ties their world, their community, and their individual, existence into a harmonious trajectory through time.
But we don’t have that luxury. We’re isolated, hurt, fractured, injured, breaking on what we have to witness…. and all we have is this text box… as symbolic of a human being.
March 23rd, 2013 at 2:29 am
Robin Datta Says:
Ripley says: But if you pay close attention you notice there’s always some guy there pushing the idea on you, a guy with an agenda, wearing an impressive headdress or an Armani suit, isn’t there?
—–
That guy is not what’s important. It is the wielding of the gun no matter how heavily it is cloaked in specious justification. It is critically important not to take one’s eyes off the gun, they all have multifarious nefarious ways of hiding the gun.
——
But if I’m one of the 1%, isn’t it much easier for me, much less traumatic and disruptive, to just buy up every media outlet and every professor and fill them with my message, than it is to go around pointing a gun in someone’s face every time I want to get something done? Isn’t it much easier to repeatedly broadcast the message in as many varied ways as possible: “Everything that brings more wealth to me is good, and everything that hinders it is bad. And if I need to destroy the natural environment, exterminate species, go to war, or degrade people to get more wealth, it’s good, and it’s good for you. Biologists say it’s natural, geneticists say your genes want it, economists say there is no alternative to obeying me, psychologists say it’s futile to try and stop me, popes and preachers say God wants you to obey me or you’ll go to hell, or the world will end…everything that brings more wealth to me is good, and everything that hinders it is bad. Rinse and repeat.” Isn’t this the much easier way–just get all the people to believe THE IDEA that I should own and run everything? You have to admit this appears to be an effective and successful strategy, since quite a few people, even here, on a blog like this, seem to have embraced and internalized this idea.
March 23rd, 2013 at 3:22 am
I have been scanning the link put up by Pat from Mobus titled:
‘Overpopulation: Here is the Solution -
A Follow Up on My Paper: Past the Point of No Return’
A few quotes:
“….Measuring Sapience and Correlation with Genetics
Sapience is, right now, just a hypothetical construct based on brain science and the psychology of wisdom. But there are a number of threads of recent research that are giving me hope that soon the concept will come to dominate our thinking about human intelligence and decision making. If that happens it should become clear that anything that promotes higher sapience would be a collective good for the species. In other words, if we could somehow encourage the reproduction of more sapient individuals as compared to the less sapient (or if my conjecture about the distribution of sapience is correct, this means the average sapient) then our species would be better off in the far future in terms of the efficacies of decision making…..
Then imagine a completely different approach. Suppose we make a choice to protect and support a small population of highly sapient individuals while also choosing total sterilization of every other individual. If we have identified the genetic markers mentioned above this may be feasible to do chemically rather than with mechanical means (e.g. mass vasectomies and tube ligations). It is at least possible in principle to use the genetic markers to deactivate an agent that would otherwise be active in shutting down the spermatogenesis or oogenesis (egg development) processes thus rendering anyone not in possession of those markers effectively sterile. Assume the vector would be some form of viral infection spread deliberately and that included a sleeper time so as to allow it to be spread globally before activation, say five years. This is admittedly not a democratic or informed consent approach. It is covert and without regard to individual rights (though those rights include destroying the Earth!) At least it is not coercive. No one need be threatened with sanction, such as loss of life, if they do not comply.”
Look, it is a long article, but this is very suspect in my view.
Identifying Sapeince as a genetic trait… what a crock, who gets to decide, and by what actual rubrik would anyone apply in this case?
This looks as wobbly as the old ‘Intellegence’ eugenic shit of the last century, IMO.
In many many many indigenous cultures a council of elders got together regularly and ‘debated’ or otherwise had thier say about what should be decided for thier tribe or kin group. There were and are probably many differing actual processes of how they arrived at a consensus or plan of action, or a new law or whatever.
That said I want to make two not unrelated points perhaps 3 if I get onto a rant…(?)
1. Perhaps this Mobus never considdered that getting together and discussing the various views on something was the Sapience coming to the for ? Duh! A single individual is never going to be accross all portfolios and may devolve to bias, both functional or factional, and perhaps by long experience Hunter Gatherers and early settlements worked this out. A central group of elders is likely to have far more accumulated experience and wizdom and knowledge of kinship links to neighbouring tribes, and all these factors would need to come into play.
2. I have read accounts of how Australian Aborigenies( not a single group, they ‘had’ several hundred language groups pre Euro-cidal invasion in 1788), would accept practical wizdom from their dead ancestors. An example to illustrate is that when an animal or edible plant variety that they relied on in a region dwindled for a time, they had a type of scarcity, and they noticed. Some of this is just seasonal and natural ups and downs of ecology. When these issues became of significance for them they may have intentionally (or otherwise spontaeneously) recieved a dream or vision by one in their group. It may be part of ceremony, or just as it comes to an individual or a number of them in a short space of time. The dream or vision would be a visit from a dead ancestor telling them to go look in a particular area of their ancestral ‘counrty’ and there they will find the foods they need. Ther has been some debate about the idea of Australian Aboriginals having some form of wlid aggricultural process. Nothing like the complete reworking of designated areas like in other places, but a sublte management of selective foods. I heard once of an account of a wild Buckwheat variety that early settlers saw Aborigines deliberately scattering and distributing as seed in coastal Northern NSW. The report was that these were a long practice for there peoples.
I am not sure if the dreams were an indication of where to initiate these practices, or if they were to just find more plentiful amounts of the animals or plants they traditionally needed.
I cannot vouch for the truth of how this dreaming worked in the case of the Aboriginals, but as I have had dreams of (albeit cryptic in places ) events that took place many years later ( some in this period now too ), of which I could have no effective influence upon. All I can say is I just take this process as authentic. I use this example as one where the Intuituon function is well understood, and a highly valued mature survival ‘tool’-function-practice-ritual, used in almost every indigenous culture pre-Euro-cidal colonisation.
Some cultures use trance induced by powerful halucinogens and others prioritised the place of Shamans, if not in the civic geographic centre of culture, certainly in the living centre of the culture.
Is this not Sapient?
3. I don’t know where to start on the silliness of all this genetic markers and its in the genes stuff. Why educate if it is plain some are not up for it and others are. I’m feeling a rant coming on so I will leave it there….
Sapient means Self Aware – or Aware of Self. I think a culture can let such a fine thing as Self Awareness atrophy, because in my view the very human capacity to love is the seat of Self Awareness. I mean when was the last time you saw a Blue whale mother put her calf in a parking lot for 6 hours and go play at the casino? We call ourselves self aware…? Could this be the hubris the Greeks of old wrote about?
IMO you have to have a culture that ‘really’ demonstrates Love to the little ones, and indeed all. Love in all the gentle nourishing ways and also in the fiercly protective and wize ways which limits exposure to violence, abuse or just plain misadventiure( radiation, and carcinogens in foods…?). This is what is going out in our culture now, and from as far back as meaterialism began I suppose.
We are losing the capacity to really love.
Now we have a ‘society’ where no welfare payments go to single parents whose youngest chid is under 7, unless they do 15-20 hours of (even lowpaid) work per week. Who is going to look after the kid?
Some years ago I checked with our regulatiry body here in NSW, Australia, as to the age a parent could be accused of neglect because they had to work, leaving the kid at home. The woman at the office smiled at me upon seeing the point of admittedly an obscure left field enquiry. She informed me in reply the federal govenment changed the child neglect laws a month before they changed the welfare payments ammendments laws I just spoke of, (in 2005 I think here), to read, “… parents are responsible to arrange care for all children considdered minors”
Don’t just read ‘Grandma’ there, read ‘payed childcare’.
So let me be very clear here. What was previously a social markr of neglect used in many cases as one of several in a rubrik to take children from their parents, and put them in foster care or declair them state wards, overnight became not an issue bwcause it had to be paid care(in loco). And all to get the welfare bill down by 80$ of what it was and to get some taxes back.
But what a loss to the culture. Who does all the social support now…..when no one is permitted to…. whoo is doing all the emotional rapair, and sapient human help…? Possibly only (well meaning but still economically constrained) paid workers.
I am not maligning those using whatever agency they have to live the way they choose. Individuals will chose the best they can, but the system of UN-LOVE is now plainly obvious.
Care for little ones is there in daycare and after school care, but it is subject to the economic imperative of profit, and that is not a good enough standard for me.
So sapience may be many things, but Love and listening to measured wizdom of others is for me very likely there in the mix.
(I said I would not do a rant…?)
But I wouldn’t want to precicely (over)define Sapeience either….
Just sayin.
March 23rd, 2013 at 3:35 am
OzMan Says:
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:48 am
“(Only very late in the piece now do we have ‘educatioanalists’ emphasising empathic learning, and emotional intellegence. I ask you..? What a crock. The only reason these things are now promulgated is that they have already dwindled and the decline is (almost) looking terminal.)”
Oz,
I would add that the above has morphed from the Civics classes of yesteryear. It is a scam perpetrated onto the masses to dupe them into following the laws the 1% have put in place to ensure that they win the game. laws that they have ignored and trampled while privitizing the profits and socializing the losses and environmental costs.
Globalization, international mindedness, etc. . . . same shit different day.
March 23rd, 2013 at 5:26 am
ulvfugl
I didn’t see this bit you wrote while I was writing my last comment.
“Look, if we were sane, and real, not virtual, we’d be like those Amazon people, Shuar ( I think ? ) who gather for an hour in the morning and discuss their dreams, so they are all bonded, at a level that is integrated deep in their psyches, that ties their world, their community, and their individual, existence into a harmonious trajectory through time.
But we don’t have that luxury. We’re isolated, hurt, fractured, injured, breaking on what we have to witness…. and all we have is this text box… as symbolic of a human being.”
I feel for you, and suppose that you are living, (by the bits you tell about here), an exceptional life full of passion, intensity and an uncompromising way that reveals truth to you.
Most of everyone else are not really up for that, and I think on balance the isolation is both needed to live sanely in an insane world, but also can reveal how much we are social (or cultural) beings, at least for our time here on this Earth we are, and you ‘seem’ to embody and express some of the greatness of what is good about living your life ‘with a forrest to care for’, (BTW what a great privelage), and some of the social graces having probably being burnt away by the fires of your youthfull confrontations with real endemic corruption.
Consequently, ‘it appears’ you do not feel obliged to guild any lillies nor suffer fools much.
But ulvfugl, people are soft and sensitive as well as cool and rational, they need to feel trusted and appreciated, and need I add, not in any strategic psychphantic way, they need it to feel ok, at least with the simple things like sharing their views.
You rubbed me up the wrong way with a back scratcher several times, and I let it go eventually because I realise it is your way. Others do not get off so easy, or don’t want to let go, but of them I can’t say. I just know your heart is in a good place, but maybe we all can’t get ‘there’ and fully ‘wake up’ yet, or have to at our own pace, that’s all. If that is too slow, well it is too slow, simple.
I am boggled by some of the great links and views you put up.
I grew up in a poor family situation, which I now see was a failed middle class family because my father left only a few years after I was born, and my mother worked hard at providing, and at that time a ‘balanced’, ‘adequite’ middle class public education could still be had.( 1960-70′s ) I grew up around some tough kids, some scammers, but I never considdered myself either of those types. I was in shock, deep emotional shock – family, Empire, lack of decent culture etc. But at high school because of circumstances, (another story) I got to know a range of kids from many backgrounds, and developed relations with the a lot of kids. Not many real friends, but some. I got to know the academicaly smart, but what looked like adjusted trusting/gullable, high achievers – well fed, safe, housed and clothed every night etc, and the kids who literaly grew up in gararges next to(1.5 Meters) the train tracks, and ‘gubs’ – Govenment boys, fostered out or orphaned state wards – who lived no end of abuses at times, some died while at school or soon after leaving. (And plenty in between.)
I never identified with these kids, in that I was not in either camp, but I saw how thier experiences both created them, and how they could also be happy just the same in relaxed moments and times – thier needs were the same – and in many ways simple ones, to be trusted, liked for slefness, and honoured fairly.
From this and other experiences I can understand how it is to want everyone to ‘wake up’ to the corruption, manipulation and literal violence of ‘Empire’ at work in that these are, ever more clearly, a central function going on in our modern way of life, and also, at the same time not want to deal with all the maladaption and fucked up thinking and self conceptions people actually have.
So I say to you, essentially, people are good in thier hearts, and by ‘good’ (poor choice, very loaded I realise…but hey, I’ll take it on), I mean will choose to be kind and fair and civil and concerned for strangers if there is the space and context to do so.
This is what I feel real spiritual power actually is… a capacity to create the context for the heart to emerge in all who are ready. (many other functions of spiritual power ….) So I have found that even if you don’t know someone, or even if you do, it helps to extend trust and hopeful kindness as if it were so, as if it already existed from previous relations, if it were real. That helps to create a small(and certainly extinguishable all the same) bubble of free space that people are usually happy to step into, and go from there. Even if there have been issues or troubles before.
I don’t like being contradicted, and on occasions it is irksome, but that is the price for expressing views and ideas, some not always clearly worked through, in forums like here. Most adults can cope with that.
Can I say that although others have pegged you as abrupt, condescending and even rude, I think if there is any real truth to that, you have got that way of dealing with both wooly mindedness(Hopium embedded homolies etc) and short term thinking(can also be cultural biases and homolies), largely from the type of Zen training you live by. It is designed to correct ignorance, and mostly the hard/direct way. True?
A Zen master has your consent to berate you for your stupidity and unclear thinking and practice, does he/she not? In some Zen schools/traditions there is even a real switch stick pain inflicted, (to wake you up!), and I can see and accept that all of that is a particular spiritual discipline and approach to getting the practitioner to let go of the useless stuff, and grow into something entirely greater. I get that. However, that is a very specific kind of relation, and context to living and learning, and not typical of life in the ‘ordinary’ commons.
What is somehow problematic here is that that is not the nature or desired tone of enquiry and communication that most people come to ‘here’ for. The actual precise reasons are unclear so it could be said that it is moot as to what others come here for, expecting, wanting… but essentialy people come to share, to understand, yes, and some of that is to undo some of the misinfomation and propoganda put out for a long time by all sorts of ‘Authorities’, ‘vested interests’ and ‘Empire’ etc. Some come here and don’t comment, just read and follow some links etc.
I am saying, the whole project of this life is to actually get to be human, and part of that is to negotiate and accept some of the necessity to help put others in ease. That will never be acceptable if it is all there is, and tere needs to be more ‘stuff’ to communicate in reality. I obviously do not mean to mollycoddle others nor to psychophantically indulge others, I mean that to sign for the good feelings, the trust, the acceptance and give and take them with ease and gratitude, is a forunner to valuing what you say and read/hear from others. It doesn’t change the content, just the context.
People have a simple need to be valued, and not in any calibrated way, just as a human, an individual, a being. If you habitually respond to others as a (nevertheless good humoured) zen master tasked with straightening others out, they will only come to the party if that is what they are after, and it seems quite a few have no objections to others using their sovereinty and free will to explore those ways, but nevertheless aren’t seeking it here for the most part.
Maybe that is overstating it a little, we could all do with a little appropriate straightening out at times. Once a cop told me that ‘the law’ was not there to limit my freedom, just for my protection. I know that is a minefield, but I had not been aware of that side of it, but he had, because he was in the business of intervening in situations where people needed protection, ( not just the assets of the wealthy).
So I guess I’m just saying what is the point of all this if not to ultimately be kind and compassionate beings, and part of that might simply be to pass around good feelings ?
How hard is it to sign for good relations…?… even in the process of criticism on occasions ?
And if it were a spiritual discipline needed for the coming age, ( if any exists in real terms for us and other life forms), how much easier or harder would it be if you tried ?
Although very necessary, clear mindedness in disposition, intention, thought and deed is not the same as feeling, appreciating and loving others – both are human needs, even universal, just the same.
Siddhartha, the central character in Herman Hess’s book of the same name, takes a long time to understand that the river is the divine he ardently sought after. The river carried all things and provided all things needed.
In the same way human feelings, both simple and profound, may ‘carry’ what we need.
March 23rd, 2013 at 5:36 am
good morning. Today it’s beavers:
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/environment/2013-03-17/environmental-almanac-tularemia-suspected-beaver-deaths.html
A beaver die-off at Urbana’s Meadowbrook Park, thought to have been caused by tularemia, has emphasized the importance of keeping pets indoors or on a leash, for their own safety and that of wildlife.
It also has raised questions about the impact of drought, overpopulation and habitat destruction on wildlife. Officials say there are no reports of human illness.
What is known for sure is that seven of the beavers that thrived in and along McCullough Creek in the park died in the last year. The cause is less certain.
“There is no conclusive evidence,” researcher Nohra Mateus-Pinilla said, “but it appears that the only thing that could have caused the die-off is an outbreak of tularemia.”
She emphasized that tularemia bacteria are common.
“They are present in rabbits and squirrels,” she said. “They are part of the natural ecosystem.”
Mateus-Pinilla, a wildlife veterinary epidemiologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, said it is possible that severe drought exacerbated the outbreak, with low water levels forcing beavers and other animals to live in closer quarters. Continuing destruction of wildlife habitat has a similar effect, she said.
Derek Liebert, project manager at the Urbana Park District, said a wildlife biologist suggested to him that if tularemia is in fact the cause, the die-off may be a corrective measure for a population that grew too large.
March 23rd, 2013 at 5:43 am
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2013/03/22/the-bozos-amongst-us/
March 23rd, 2013 at 5:49 am
As Cyprus Collapses, It’s A Race To The Mediterranean Gas Finish Line
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/22/2013 19:09 -0400
European Central Bank European Union France Israel Italy Natural Gas Turkey
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-22/cyprus-collapses-its-race-mediterranean-gas-finish-line
Submitted by Jen Alic of OilPrice.com,
Cyprus is preparing for total financial collapse as the European Central Bank turns its back on the island after its parliament rejected a scheme to make Cypriot citizens pay a levy on savings deposits in return for a share in potential gas futures to fund a bailout.
On Wednesday, the Greek-Cypriot government voted against asking its citizens to bank on the future of gas exports by paying a 3-15% levy on bank deposits in return for a stake in potential gas sales. The scheme would have partly funded a $13 billion EU bailout.
It would have been a major gamble that had Cypriots asking how much gas the island actually has and whether it will prove commercially viable any time soon.
In the end, not even the parliament was willing to take the gamble, forcing Cypriots to look elsewhere for cash, hitting up Russia in desperate talks this week, but to no avail.
The bank deposit levy would not have gone down well in Russia, whose citizens use Cypriot banks to store their “offshore” cash. Some of the largest accounts belong to Russians and other foreigners, and the levy scheme would have targeted accounts with over 20,000 euros. So it made sense that Cyprus would then turn to Russia for help, but so far Moscow hasn’t put any concrete offers on the table.
Plan A (the levy scheme) has been rejected. Plan B (Russia) has been ineffective. Plan C has yet to reveal itself. And without a Plan C, the banks can’t reopen. The minute they open their doors there will be a withdrawal rush that will force their collapse.
In the meantime, cashing in on the island’s major gas potential is more urgent than ever—but these are still very early days.
In the end, it’s all about gas and the race to the finish line to develop massive Mediterranean discoveries. Cyprus has found itself right in the middle of this geopolitical game in which its gas potential is a tool in a showdown between Russia and the European Union.
The EU favored the Cypriot bank deposit levy but it would have hit at the massive accounts of Russian oligarchs. Without the promise of Levant Basin gas, the EU wouldn’t have had the bravado for such a move because Russia holds too much power over Europe’s gas supply.
Cypriot Gas Potential
The Greek Cypriot government believes it is sitting on an amazing 60 trillion cubic feet of gas, but these are early days—these aren’t proven reserves and commercial viability could be years away. In the best-case scenario, production could feasibly begin in five years. Exports are even further afield, with some analysts suggesting 2020 as a start date.
In 2011, the first (and only) gas was discovered offshore Cyprus, in Block 12, which is licensed to Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. (NBL). The block holds an estimated 8 trillion cubic feet of gas.
To date, the Greek Cypriots have awarded licenses for six offshore exploration blocks that could contain up to 40 trillion cubic feet of gas. Aside from Noble, these licenses have gone to Total SA of France and a joint venture between Eni SpA (ENI) of Italy and Korea Gas Corp.
But the process of exploring, developing, extracting, processing and getting gas to market is a long one. Getting the gas extracted offshore and then pumped onshore could take at least five years and some very expensive infrastructure that does not presently exist. The gas would have to be liquefied so it could be transported by seaborne tankers.
The potential is there: Cyprus’ gas discoveries adjoin Israeli territorial waters where the discovery of the massive Leviathan gasfield (425 billion cubic meters or 16 trillion cubic feet) and smaller Tamar gasfield (250 billion cubic meters or 9 trillion cubic feet) have foreign companies in a rush to cash in on this.
There are myriad problems to extracting Cypriot gas—not the least of which is the fact that some of this offshore exploration territory is disputed by Turkey, which has controlled part of the island since 1974.
Gas exploration has taken this dispute to a new level, with Turkey sending in warships to halt drilling in 2011, and threatening to bar foreign companies exploring in Cyprus from any license opportunities in Turkey. The situation is likely to intensify as Noble prepares to begin exploratory drilling later this year in Block 12.
In the meantime, there is no shortage of competition on this arena. Cyprus will have to vie with Israel, Lebanon and Syria—all of which have made offshore gas discoveries of late in the Mediterranean’s Levant Basin, which has an estimated total of 122 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.7 billion barrels of oil.
Blackmailing Cyprus?
While Greek Cypriot citizens are not willing to gamble away their savings on gas futures, Russia and the European Union are certainly less hesitant.
This is both a negotiating point for Cyprus and a convenient tool of blackmail for Russia and the EU. Essentially, the bailout is the prop on a stage that will determine who gets control of these assets.
Theoretically, Cyprus could guarantee Russia exploration rights in return for assistance. As much as this is possible, the EU could ease its bailout negotiations if it becomes clear that a Russian bailout of sorts is imminent.
Gas finds in the Mediterranean and particularly across the Levant Basin—home to Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar fields—could be the answer to Russian gas hegemony in Europe. The question is: How much does Cyprus count in this equation? A lot.
Though only half of the estimated resources in the Levant Basin, Cyprus’ potential 60 trillion cubic feet of gas could equal 40% of the EU’s gas supplies and be worth a whopping $400 billion if commercial viability is proven.
Russia is keen to keep Cyprus and Israel from cooperating too much toward the goal of loosening Russia’s grip on Europe before Moscow manages to gain a greater share of the Asian market.
Russia is also not keen on Israel’s plan to lay an undersea natural gas pipeline to Turkey’s south coast to sell its gas from the Leviathan field to Europe. Turkey hasn’t agreed to this deal yet, but it is certainly considering it. This is fraught with all kinds of political problems at home, so for now Ankara is keeping it as low profile as possible.
With all of this in mind, Russia is doing its best to get in on the Levant largesse itself. While it’s also courting Lebanon and Syria, dating Israel is already in full force. Gazprom has signed a deal with Israel that would give it control of Tamar’s gas and access to the Asian market for its liquefied natural gas (LNG). Tamar will probably begin producing already in April at a 1 billion cubic feet/day capacity.
In accordance with this deal, which Israel has yet to approve, Gazprom will provide financial support for the development of the Tamar Floating LNG Project. In return, Gazprom will get exclusive rights to purchase and export Tamar LNG. It is also significant because Tamar is a US-Israeli joint venture—so essentially the plan is to help Russia diversify from the European market.
What does this mean for Cyprus? The chess pieces are still being put on the board, and both fortunately and unfortunately, Cyprus’ gas potential will be intricately linked to its bailout potential.
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:02 am
Hey Kathy, good to hear from you again!
So on top of the ~ 16,000 dead pigs, we now have an additional 1000 dead ducks in China.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/16000-dead-pigs-1000-dead-ducks-found-china-rivers
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:06 am
@ulvfugl
Anonymous hacks Mossad and publishes list of 35,000 spies
If that is true then it’s a great day for the planet.
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:27 am
Re: Sapience – nurture, nature etc.
I think traits like this are both of the above. Recent experiments show that attitudes and behaviors (even fears) can even have a strong immediate hereditary component. One recent experiment (on a pregnant spider) involved a traumatized stimulus coincident with the presence of certain insect. These spiders have no natural fear whatsoever towards this insect, but lo and behold, all the offspring displayed fear avoidance towards this insect later on.
I live in an area of Fl which has a high ‘cracker’ history, and the attitude and behaviors are so entrenched, there is no getting around both a nature and nurture component. I still maintain that with the advent of abundant energy, resources, medicines, technology, yada yada..that natural selection got thwarted in filtering certain undesirable traits from the gene pool – which are now costing us dearly.
Here is more food for thought regarding an hereditary component of traits, behaviors, etc..
Life Experiences Put Their Stamp On the Next Generation: New Insights from Epigenetics
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130214075539.htm
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:28 am
@ Ozman
You’ll have to sort all that stuff out, in your own head.
Spiritual paths, spiritual guidance, as they have been taught and practiced for the last thousands of years, have no relevance anymore. Neither does most human philosophy.
It’s over. It IS the Endocene. From now on, it’s going to be nothing but disaster after disaster, ever faster change, constant catastrophe. There are no teachings or stories from the past that can make sense of this situation.
Ffs, I’m not interested in being liked, or popular, or having fans, or a following, or being a leader, or having a power base, or selling a message, or any of that stuff.
I’ve devoted most of my life to serving nature, the biosphere, the wildlife, trying to live in harmony with the Universe. The struggle is lost. The bad guys won. For half the people here, the reality hasn’t sunk in yet. I can’t help that. Everybody has to come to terms with it in their own way. There isn’t anywhere to run to.
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:52 am
ulvfugl
I was under the impression you had not made that rekoning that it was all over.
I am not so convinced. But I hear you, and while still living, can only await the ‘evidence’ as it rolls over us. Cold comfort…. but,
peace brother.
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:59 am
..Adding to the above I wrote last; Think of the amount of energy (medicines, technology, man power, etc etc) that goes into keeping folks alive today which natural selection, the environment, and predators would have taken care of long ago. These same traits (sicknesses, non sapience, mental defects) get pulled right back into the gene pool and even amplified.
Is nature ‘humane’? Hell no, but the point remains.
March 23rd, 2013 at 7:13 am
@U,
Ffs, I’m not interested in being liked, or popular, or having fans, or a following, or being a leader, or having a power base, or selling a message, or any of that stuff.
I am so disappointed! I could have sworn I saw you on a billboard recently (motivational speaker comes to town) :^)
March 23rd, 2013 at 7:34 am
@ Ozman
I was under the impression you had not made that rekoning that it was all over.
Eh ? Since the middle of last year. Same sort of time that Daniel wrote his famous comment.
Look, if you don’t understand, it’s no surprise that the 99.99% don’t understand. And the dreamers coming on to NTE don’t get it. Transition. Transition to WHAT ?
Whatever we do now, even if we crash civilisation, cut all emissions, declare global emergency, whatever, we do NOT go back to what we had, the stable Holocene. That’s gone. We’ve destabilised the system. The Arctic will melt, the feedbacks are irreversible, the climate is becoming ever more chaotic.
It will eventually stabilise, but nobody knows what it will be like before then, or how long it will take, centuries anyway.
But we are NOT crashing civilisation or declaring global emergency or cutting emissions, Gvts and corporations are pretending there’s no problem and stamping the pedal down hard on the floor to get more speed. So what does that do ?
There’s a time lag. The CO2 we release today doesn’t produce an effect tomorrow morning, It takes roughly thirty years to appear in the average global temperature.
So the effects we are seeing NOW, in the Arctic and the permafrost and the ocean acidification, are from what we WERE doing thirty years ago – ish.
Emissions have NEVER stopped going up since then. They are still going up. Along with methane, etc. There is NO serious international plan or intention to stop them going up. Is there ?
So, what do we expect ?
The people still talking about keeping to ‘the safe limit of 2 deg.C’ are LIARS.
The people who say we can stay under 4 deg. C. before 2050, are probably deluding themselves
But it’s not just the climate, is it. That’s just the worst part of the picture. As Kathy keeps reminding us, the Fukes, as Tom keeps reminding us, the dying animals, the insane Gvt. chemtrail stuff, the epidemics and resource depletion, as Gail keeps reminding us, the dying trees, as Guy keeps reminding us, the irreversible non-linear ecosystem damage, the whole biosphere is collapsing….
The ship is sinking, the train is going over the cliff, there is no happy ending to the story…
March 23rd, 2013 at 7:39 am
@ Bailey
Hahahaha
No, I was the one with the demonic red eyes, Wanted Dead or Alive, dangerous anarchist maniac spreading doom, gloom, and despair, do not approach
March 23rd, 2013 at 7:46 am
Paul C.’s latest work
http://paulchefurka.ca/TF.html
March 23rd, 2013 at 7:49 am
@Kathy C Says “As Cyprus Collapses, It’s A Race To The Mediterranean Gas Finish Line”
The easy way to understand global finances, economics & politics in the early 21st century is to merely utilize Maslow’s hierarchy. But, instead of air, water, and food, simply substitute gas, oil & coal for humankind’s core physiological needs.
It’s all one really needs to know. Everything else is just noise; entertaining perhaps, but ultimately confusing if your end goal is to maximize the utility of each living day. And by that, I mean whatever floats your boat: happiness, agitation, activism, depression, pastoralism, etc, etc.
Exponents are a bitch. It’s not sufficient to supplement current proven reserves/production rates on a per capita basis. No, the entire money-debt system requires that it **increases** with each new iteration. Good luck with that.
As news events accelerate on both environmental and economic fronts, remember that the top dogs already know the outcome. That means at least 99% of the information flow will be nothing more than a smokescreen to camouflage their exit point(s).
If you too know the score, than you can plan your own private exit, even if it only resides in your head. Knowledge, instead of confusion, can lead to daily peace.
March 23rd, 2013 at 8:56 am
ulvfugl
Menge Obuku from Cameroon?
March 23rd, 2013 at 9:01 am
Hey all,
I thought most of you would enjoy this, the author certainly has a knack…
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/03/fortunes-fools-individual-calling-at-the-cusp-of-ecological-catastrophe/
Fortune’s Fools: Individual Calling at the Cusp of Ecological Catastrophe
by Phil Rockstroh / March 22nd, 2013
Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
— Miles Davis
As a general rule, musicians, artists, and writers, as well as those possessed of an ardor for self-awareness and a commitment to political activism have been advised to avoid a habitual retreat to comfort zones, to take note of the criteria that causes one’s pulse to quicken, brings flop sweat to the brow, causes sphincters to seize up, and delivers mortification to the mind. In order to quicken imagination and avoid banality, it is imperative to explore the fears that cause one to awaken in the darkest of night to stare bug-eyed at the ceiling until dawn; to embrace discomfort; to shun crackpot complacency; to wander through the teeming polis of the psyche, and, in so doing, to not only stray and mingle among the outcasts, demimonde and mad, but proceed to the locked-down wards of the region’s lunatic asylum, and make an exhausting inquest into the nature of the hopeless cases that have been hidden from public view.
As of late, my darkest thoughts and angst-engendered imaginings have involved the following: The ecological debasement of the earth, the ongoing degradation of daily life within U.S. society, and the attenuated destiny of the individual under the yoke of late stage, global capitalism. My ruminations have been, in large measure, engendered and inflamed by the following: On Tuesday, Feb. 26, of this year, a son was born to my wife, Angela, and myself.
August Franklin Rockstroh came into this world at a time when the planet he will inhabit is warmer than it has been in 11,000 years, a condition caused by the industrial production of man-made greenhouse gasses.
He arrives into an age wherein it is imperative that we as a species re-imagine nearly all we know. Thus far, from the halls of power to the floors of minimarts, our avidity for avoidance of the realities at hand does not augur well for humankind’s chances.
Two weeks before the Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Well “spill” (what a dishonest word for that noxious, bleeding gash) into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I dreamed of a badly injured fish who had had half his face torn off by some brutal method employed by the practitioners of industrial scale fishing operations to exploit the world’s oceans … The fish had worked himself upon a rock on a craggy shoreline. Holding an eternity of suffering in his remaining eye, the fish turned to face me … Ever since, this dream image has lived within me. I carry the fish’s suffering and I bear his dark rage regarding what our species has done to his/our home — this complex, mysterious, beguiling, dangerous, sublime, monstrous, and magnificent world we were cast into. My sense of sorrow, at times, seems unbearable; my rage … bottomless. Who will speak for the voiceless — who will make amends for their suffering?
This much is clear: The means that sustain the present economic order not only defies moral justification (i.e., a culture dependent on the enforced misery of the multitudes and the wanton exploitation of nature) but the order has proven anathema to the balance of the earth’s life-enabling forces — a balance of forces mandatory to the continuance of the human species on the planet. The fate of the earth is inexorably linked to our personal destiny.
Deep down we know this to be true, but the atomizing nature of late capitalism inflicts learned helplessness. Social and political change seems impossible. Personal transformation is relegated to the realm of New Age snake oil. Human longing is deracinated. The Tree of Knowledge rendered a Chia Pet. The unruly call of destiny is bowdlerized into sterile careerism.
Yet, my newly arrived son, as we all do, will long to embrace his own authentic destiny.
The alienation at the mechanized heart of the corporate/consumer state’s structure will present a daunting challenge to him, for it is difficult to live a life imbued with depth and resonance without meaningful human engagement. Abiding bonds that bring the depth of oneself deep into life must be formed. A social milieu must be in place that allows for love and friendship, for coming upon mentors, for grappling with antagonists, whereby one is destroyed by catastrophic victories and enlarged by propitious failures.
Although every individual arrives at a fate uniquely his/her own, soul-making is a collaborative effort. Destiny only appears to be a solo act.
My character, like yours, is a composite of all the events, happenstance, and circumstances that transpired before, and after, I arrived in this world. It is resultant from the accumulation of my choices — and the choices of those in positions of power and authority, over which, I am, all too often, powerless.
But if you discern what I yearn for, you will know who I am.
One’s destiny awaits just over the crest of the horizon. It is glimpsed in sublime snatches like a beautiful stranger who catches your gaze from a passing train. Yes, it sleeps within, but must be roused into being by interaction with the outer world. It awaits you in the vastness of life. The truth of your being is honeycombed into life’s intricacies. As a general rule (Emily Dickinson accepted) one’s destiny does not make house calls.
If character is destiny, the soul of the world is the catalyzing agent that conjures manifestation. While, to some degree, all who live are imprisoned by the past, it is best to be aware of what criteria brought about your incarceration to habit and circumstance.
It is essential to become aware of the contours of your cage…to be in possession of a blue print of the prison. In this way, your odds of escape are greatly enhanced.
Are you weighted down by feelings of powerlessness…nettled by feelings of helpless rage? Good. Your feelings are appropriate to the tone and tenor of the times.
Use the feeling of being weighted down to your advantage: Descend deep into the deepest recesses of your being and listen to the garrulous silence therein.
Appropriate your blessed rage as well: What admonitions cry out from the heart of light ensconced within your darker places.
What is it that is essential about your deepest nature that needs to find its way into Animus Mundi — the soul of the world must seek out collaboration with even the most mundane moments of the breath of day.
This is how the creative spirit flourishes, how every moment is made holy.
And remember: Your life is a question that you live your way into. Any attempt to coerce an answer amounts to vivisection, not art.
Conversely, and anathema to the process, the guiding principle of the neoliberal economic order reduces the things of the world to mere economic entities. At this point, this much is, or, at least, should be grimly obvious: Existence within a system that defines all things by their ability to enrich the fortunes of a predatory class of elites starves the soul and blights the landscape; it has come to exist…as a thief, defiler, and squanderer. Exploited and demeaned, the populace grows callow and empty. Desperate to sate the hollowing emptiness within, the citizens of the corporate/consumer state have internalized the noxious mythos of endless growth, peddled by their exploiters, and have been driven to devour their seed crop.
In doing so, all concerned will condemn their society to the landfill of history. Yet, even in this age of corporate despotism, political duopoly, communal atomization, ecocide and the attendant alienation and ennui, life can be lived with passion and grace, and, as individuals, we can take measures to promote a transformation of the prevailing order.
There are simply too many hidden variables involved to predict and control the future. Consequently, this is what we can do: resist the present, corrupt order; organize to bring it down; and strive to create more viable alternatives.
All of which exist within the spectrum of the doable.
At the end of the day, it is a far better choice to err on the side of your inner calling, than to languish as a simulacrum of yourself…evincing a counterfeit consciousness that demands you spend your days compliant to the demeaning dictates of a ruthless few. As a general rule, one stands powerless before the sweep of history and the caprice of the ruling elite. Regardless, you must choose to slouch in the direction of your destiny, or else your life will consist of a litany of thwarted longings — an agonizing death within life that is absent death’s release and resists the warmth and proffered consolation borne of the living.
All the world may be a stage, but don’t allow yourself to be miscast as an expendable, one dimensional character, conceived by miserable hacks.
Deep down, your life’s calling is encoded within you. Throughout your lifetime, it will arise as inchoate yearnings, reveal itself as implausible daydreams, or as dream-borne symbols that seem, in regard to your daytime exigencies, abstruse or useless. You may know it as a hollow ache in your chest. Or a nettling voice, in the recesses of your awareness, that asks, “how did it come to this?”
Ignore destiny’s entreaties at your own risk. Although, your soul will stay at you; it will implore you to pay attention…even if it must pummel you with nightmares or conjure a state of depression that brings on a darkness at noon.
“We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.” — Philip Pullman
To paraphrase Rilke, if you ignore the beckoning call of your own uniqueness, your soul will serenely disdain to annihilate the false notions that propel you through the harried hours of meaning-denuded day. When shunted aside or blocked by barriers of calcified habit, the soul’s inexorable agency will be experienced as a kindly cataclysm. At times, becoming ensnared in the dark night of the soul will allow a lodestar to reveal itself.
Withal, on a cultural basis, the nature-decimating, soul-shredding agendas of the neoliberal enterprise are propelling us collectively towards economic and ecological cataclysm.
When questioned by the youth of future generations, those born into the world created by our myopic choices, about how you responded when the earth was burning, will you reply that you went to the mall, sat in public places staring at a glowing electronic box, engaged in cretinous palaver about the private lives of sub-cretinous celebrities and the dim machinations of reality show jerk-rockets?
At this critical juncture, one’s individual calling will be interwoven with the fate of the earth and the collective destiny of all of humankind. The age of elitist narcissists is drawing to a close. The time for dreamers, visionaries and activist has arrived, and their time of arrival is long past due.
“The world is full of magic things,
patiently waiting
for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at phil@philrockstroh.com and FaceBook. Read other articles by Phil, or visit Phil’s website.
This article was posted on Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at 8:00am and is filed under Environment, General, Opinion.
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March 23rd, 2013 at 9:15 am
Kathy C says: Some say the chicken came before the egg, some say the egg came before the chicken….
An old chestnut, now widely dispersed:
Is the chick first, or is it reversed?
DNA real chicken
(Mmm, finger lickin’)
Means the egg (with new genes) came first.
But doom, by which we’re now stricken,
Means the last of its species to sicken
And die (we’re now versed),
After worse comes to worst,
Won’t be the egg, but the chicken.
March 23rd, 2013 at 9:32 am
Btd unless of course just before the last chicken dies, she lays an egg.
March 23rd, 2013 at 9:34 am
http://fairewinds.com/content/nrc-plays-keep-away
how the NRC plays keep away….
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:06 am
@OzMan re: where are the BadlandsAK?
Well, the ‘Badlands’ are here in South Dakota, a vast area eroded out of the grasslands. You know Harney Peak, where Black Elk gave his ‘Hoop of Nations’ talk after his vision? That’s west of the Badlands, in the Black Hills, which also have the Crazy Horse monument, (and Mt. Rushmore). Here’s a link that gives a decent overview of the area.
http://www.blackhillsbadlands.com/home/thingstodo/parksmonuments/nationalparks/badlandsnationalpark
We live in Rapid City, which is in the foothills of the Black Hills. ‘AK’ is just Alaska, where I’m from. I could always go home, but there is a lot of power here, and I have made some connections to that power, which is a little hard to describe. Maybe I will try to do so (describe the connection I have made to a place I didn’t know existed 8 years ago.) at a later time. Anyway, I posted a few pictures I took of the area when I drove here from Alaska in 2005 over on the NTE ning site, if you want to take a look. Thanks for asking, hope I answered your question!
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:35 am
Kathy C says: Btd unless of course just before the last chicken dies, she lays an egg.
Dammit.
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:40 am
Ripley says: Biologists say it’s natural….
Shit always downhill doth pour:
Being alpha’s a goal at our core;
Fangs and chits keep the score,
Earning goodies galore—
We’re wired to always want more.
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:47 am
Why the US is so cold
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/23/1766011/ice-breaking-news-2013-arctic-freezing-season-not-what-its-cracked-up-to-be-literally/
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:49 am
But I stand by the first verse:
A simple view is that at whatever point the threshold was crossed and the first chicken was hatched, it had to hatch from an egg. The type of bird that laid that egg, by definition, was on the other side of the threshold and therefore not a chicken—it may be viewed as a proto-chicken or ancestral chicken of some sort, from which a genetic variation or mutation occurred that resulted in the egg being laid containing the embryo of the first chicken. In this light the argument is settled and the egg had to have come first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:33 am
Btd
Which came first then, the first egg layer of any sort or the first egg of that egg layer.
There had to be life, before life could replicate by any means. At some point it was replicated in a way that made further replication be by some sort of egg (spore, seed) rather than by division. Thus the first egg layer came before the first egg.
March 23rd, 2013 at 12:13 pm
But Kathy, the first genetic Homo sapiens came into being when a fertilized egg with changed genetics was formed inside a Homo justbeforesapiens.
March 23rd, 2013 at 12:21 pm
Can’t resist a little mutant humor.
Y’all keep rasslin’ with which came first.
The important thing is that they’re here…
and they plan to stay and take over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYHqr0YaYsQ
March 23rd, 2013 at 12:40 pm
Kathy C,
You mentioned previously that you had read Benatar’s “Better Never to Have Been.” Have you taken a look at Thomas Ligotti’s “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race”? It’s an antinatalist masterpiece that introduced the concepts of Peter Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher and early environmentalist. If you Google Zapffe’s “The Last Messiah,” it’s quite interesting. And of course, Ligotti is a dark master who wrote a labyrinthine book well worth reading for his pessimism alone.
I decided to remain child-free at 14 (I’m 57 now) because I didn’t want to inflict this world on another being, and I loved my children so much that I prevented their birth.
Here’s a haunting quote from Marilynne Robinson’s “Housekeeping” that describes my perceptions: “Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting. I (and that slenderest word is too gross for the rare thing I was then) walked forever through reachless oblivion, in the mood of one smelling night-blooming flowers, and suddenly–My ravishers left their traces in me, male and female, and over the months I rounded, grew heavy, until the scandal could no longer be concealed and oblivion expelled me. But this I have in common with all my kind. By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it. So they seal the door against our returning.”
I’m not an expert in science or philosophy, and I’m certainly not traditionally religious. I have never looked to a guru or specific “teachings.” I have simply observed the arrogance of the human race and have helped animals as much as I could.
I enjoy your comments. Thank you for putting yourself out there.
March 23rd, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Pym,
+ one
March 23rd, 2013 at 2:08 pm
@OzMan, thanks for the needed attitude check.
I am interested in how this process of losing the animate feeling tone of cultural life came about
I have put it down to INTERMEDIATION which is an unalienable component of the modern industrial/capitalist system and its associated interest-/debt-money scheme.
If I do something for a family member or a friend, not only does it not show up as part of our Gross Domestic Product, there’s no “vig”… there’s no way to skim a profit off of that for a third party, or to tax it. So the trend has been for everything in life to be inexorably given over to pseudo-professionals and middle-men.
One MIGHT see this as a cultural choice, but I regard it on a par with the thermodynamic imperative Paul has been exploring: the forced growth of debt-money in turn forces money to become increasingly the main means of human interaction (for some people it is the sole basis of interaction).
As with water or air, it has been quite difficult to keep this growing money pressure out of the cracks of everyday life. From Big Picture items (health care, education), to domestic chores people now outsource in one way or another (house-cleaning, food-preparation, baby-sitting), to things few people even think about, like buying a birthday card… when did that become a normal thing to do? It used to be normal for people to have a wake at home for their dead relatives and then bury them in the backyard family cemetary if not the churchyard. Now it requires various paid licensed officials and in some cases tons of poured concrete. (There’s an interesting book, “Grave Matters” on after-death options currently available in the US. “Natural” burial is making a tiny comeback, but remains illegal in most states!)
Anyway, Ivan Illich talks a lot about these processes (although not the fact that the forced-exponential money system may be behind it all, I don’t believe). For anyone who wants to check out his work, much of it is posted on the Internet for free.
http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich.html
http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/
So we’ve increasingly undergone the process of atomization, of dis-empowerment and mediation, which distances people from each other and from the effects and output of their work as well as distancing them from non-monetary rewards of work.
The diminishing returns of this process are making themselves sorely felt: a little cafe’ in our town has had to quit having live music because such a small venue could not afford to pay the live performance royalty fees. Even artists who played their own songs were, paradoxically, affected… sometimes they would pay out of their own pocket the fees to play their own music!! I looked into selling food or crafts at a local farmer’s market, but it’s just not worth the business licensing, caterer’s license, tax collection license and what have you. In a world of increasing resource extraction, this “vig” could be borne, but in a world of resource contraction, it will become ever more impossible to support all the layers of societal complexity that put people at a remove from one another’s direct helping potential.
Nicole Foss has talked about something she calls the “trust horizon”. We put lots of faith in global financial transactions that allow global goods to arrive at our doorstep, but that trust horizon is shrinking. We’ll have an increasing preference for relying on people we can meet with face-to-face.
March 23rd, 2013 at 3:18 pm
@OzMan, I read that population-control piece yesterday and thought it was a load of crap. To correlate “sapience” (whatever that is) with IQ is nonsense.
I went to a school where everyone had a high IQ, and the vast majority of people I encountered were all dedicated to maximum extraction, not “sapience”. A very popular T-shirt was, as I told Gail, “He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins”. A good number of my friends and colleagues there were (as I now recognize in hindsight) high-functioning autistics. They had no empathy. Empathy generally was seen as a hindrance, something “illogical” (as Dr. Spock would say with a raised brow). Being illogical was just about the worst condemnation going in that environment.
One guy I knew went so far as to refer to people as you would to a robot. When he couldn’t get the answer he wanted from a poor secretary somewhere out in the Real World, he fumed “She is SO BROKEN!”
Girls who seemed perfectly “normal” to me in affect would go off to evil places like Bain (of Mitt Romney fame) or Lockheed-Martin. They knew that they could get paid well to work on “really cool” switches—it didn’t matter that the switch might trigger a bomb. Total Compartmentalization. I got into an argument with one friend who was downright cheery about her consulting work “saving companies money”. I didn’t know the word “externality” at the time, but I knew it was impossible to change her view that—for example—things should be shipped by truck instead of ship or rail because “trucks cost less”. She could have had an IQ of 160, but what good did that do anybody, when she couldn’t distinguish a measure of anything outside of money? Bill Gates, rocking back and forth in his chair like my autistic buddies, is single-handedly responsible for more wasted paper, energy, plastic and materials and ruined human spirit than anyone could ever calculate. I’d say he’s up there with the Koch Brothers (other high-IQ folks) on the pollution scale.
In the long run, though, that’s just my most superficial criticism of that piece. On a deeper level I’d say it comes back once again to the illusion of control—the “protagonism” I’ve brought up before: it’s not stated WHY it’s so important to execute a master plan to save a handful of Homo sapiens in particular or (the bizarre Plan B) a more “evolved” species of the genus Homo. This is just assumed to be desirable.
March 23rd, 2013 at 3:27 pm
@B9K9 “the top dogs already know the outcome.”
And they’re starting to show how much they’ve abandoned even the pretense of caring. One of the articles in the local paper was about the NRC unilaterally deciding that, nah!… they didn’t need some multi-million dollar safety feature or other that their own agency said needed be installed.
Eh, why bother!?
March 23rd, 2013 at 4:01 pm
Pam, you are blessed among women for you will not have to see your children die an untimely death. I wish I had been as wise back then.
Just before I read your comment I watched this http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34392.htm?utm_source=ICH%3A+Capitol+Hill%2C+Calls+for+Attack+On+Syria&utm_campaign=FIRST&utm_medium=email about the DU children – the rate of birth defects in Fallujah is 14 times higher than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have heard that Drs. there are telling the women to not have children.
Thanks for the book suggestion. Put it on my too read list. And I found the essay to read later.
March 23rd, 2013 at 5:47 pm
I read Mobus’s post about how he was trying to resolve “problems associated with overshoot and deficient human cognition.”
Peter Zapffe, for example, thought our miseries are derived from too much awareness, not too little. “Man is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world.”
Wikipedia gives a quick rundown of his thoughts:
“After placing the source of anguish in human intellect, he concluded humanity ‘performs…a more or less self-conscious repression of its damaging surplus of consciousness.’
He provided four mechanisms of defense that allowed an individual to overcome his/her burden of intellect:
Isolation–’a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling.’
Anchoring–’the fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness.’ For example, ‘God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future’ are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.
Distraction–’one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions.’
Sublimation–the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets toward positive ones.” [e.g., writing or producing art/music]
People in general do not want to confront the painful issues; they want to escape them.
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:29 pm
Thank you Patrick O’Leary.
u and B9k9 I share your general fatalism and have more or less adopted what B9K9 says about dropping out staying way local and savor and treasure what’s alive now.
Kathy c I loved your comment about what you’ve observed with the chickens.. do you have a blog? I look forward to the parts in your commentary where you draw analogies from your life
ozMan thanks for your reminder to try a little tenderness. We’re all crispy and heartbroke’
Tom you are the blackbird of dark tidings but apparently I can’t look away
Pat is funny
March 23rd, 2013 at 6:47 pm
OzMan:
Keep in mind that there is a gulf of difference between not caring about being liked or not liked and rank disregard for others. Bridging such a chasm to make the world look better to oneself is not just one coping mechanism; it is said “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God”.
Also remember that for people like Adi Da, and those aware like him, there never was nor is nor ever will be a “from” or a “to” or movement from one to the other.
But if I’m one of the 1%, isn’t it much easier for me, much less traumatic and disruptive, to just buy up every media outlet and every professor and fill them with my message,
To create the 1% requires the enforcement of the corporatocratic oligopoly by the gun of the state. No gun, no corporations, no oligopolies, no 1%.
By this measure our population is about 3,000 times too big and active for sustainability. In other words, by this measure we are we are now 30,000% into overshoot.
Thanks (if thanks are appropriate for such ghastly facts) for pointing that out, Bodhi!
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:58 pm
To Tom,
Let me first say that I am a true believer in “Climate Chaos” and the impending “Shit that’s going to hit the fan.” I love this blog and love all of you all. But, (not to be the Devil’s Advocate) I just must say that the photo by “Tom” of the pigs in the boat…well… is it me or do they look “alive and well”? Their flesh is pink and healthy. I don’t mean to offend anyone. Believe me… we are done for… I just thought that that photo was mis-interpreted. Let me know if I’m wrong. Honestly… did I overlook something? Do tell!
A TRUE CLIMATE COLLAPSE GUY……
Pilot
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:14 pm
@Robin
To create the 1% requires the enforcement of the corporatocratic oligopoly by the gun of the state. No gun, no corporations, no oligopolies, no 1%
—
Well Robin, you’re right of course, the 1% is ultimately supported by guns. But there are guns and then there are guns, look at at Americans, they have a 100 million guns and what good has it done them? But if I’m a member of the 1%, and I just phoned in a clear-cut of an ancient rainforest from my 400 foot yacht in the Caribbean, it really helps me if everyone thinks I did it because of “entropy” or “genes”, and that it was not the result merely of my desire to accumulate infinite wealth on a finite planet. Just like the Aztecs needed the guys with scary impressive headdress, I need these professors with their scary impressive theories to help me continue to accumulate infinite wealth on a finite planet. These professors are truly the most powerful gun it my arsenal.
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:39 pm
@ Pym
Thanks so much for that Marilynne Robinson quote, a remarkable piece of writing, I hadn’t come across before, and also Peter Zapffe, very interesting, I must investigate further.
March 23rd, 2013 at 11:59 pm
“Mass extinctions due to rapidly escalating levels of CO2 are recorded since as long as 580 million years ago. As our anthropogenic global emissions of CO2 are rising, at a rate for which no precedence is known from the geological record with the exception of asteroid impacts, another wave of extinctions is unfolding.
Throughout the Phanerozoic (from 542 million years ago), major mass extinctions of species closely coincided with abrupt rises of atmospheric carbon dioxide and ocean acidity. These increases took place at rates to which many species could not adapt. These events – triggered by asteroid impacts, massive volcanic activity, eruption of methane, ocean anoxia and extreme rates of glaciation (see Figures 1 and 2) – have direct implications for the effects of the current rise of CO2.
In February 2013, CO2 levels had risen to near 396.80ppm at Mauna Loa Atmospheric Observatory, compared to 393.54ppm in February 2012. This rise – 3.26ppm per year – is at the highest rate yet recorded.
The rapid opening of the Arctic Sea ice, melting of Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, and rising spate of floods, heat waves, fires and other extreme weather events may signify a shift in state of the climate, crossing tipping points.
Continuing emissions contravene international laws regarding crimes against humanity and related International and Australian covenants. In the absence of an effective global mitigation effort, governments world-wide are now presiding over the demise of future generations and of nature, tracking toward one of the greatest mass extinction events nature has seen.”
Link: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-link-co2-mass-extinctions-species.html
March 24th, 2013 at 12:22 am
@ Ripley
Tremendous point.
There’s a fortified Iron Age camp here. For the sake of the argument, the chieftain lived inside with his families and retainers, and every few months they went raiding. They ransacked a peasant village, stole whatever was valuable, killed anyone who tried to stop them, and retreated behind their high walls.
Nobody could do anything about it, unless they could get a more powerful force to overwhelm the battlements. But who was going to do that, if the same pattern prevailed across the country ? All those warlord chieftains had an interest in keeping the status quo, unless they happened to fall out among themselves. They were the equivalent of modern corporations and banks.
Fast forward fifteen hundred years, the peasants are still getting robbed, but now it’s by taxes, tithes and tolls, and the divine decree of the King. ‘The law says you have to pay, the King makes the laws, God puts the King there, so you gotta pay, if you don’t, we beat the shit out of you and take your stuff anyway, to please God’.
Fast forward another fifteen hundred years, and we have what you just described, and what Lidia described above, there’s the IMF, World Bank, NAFTA, neoliberalism and neoclassical economics, Milton Friedman, Pinker, Dawkins, the commodification of everything…
In UK, the gun is mostly kept hidden, because it’s been the hub of the Empire, behind the fortified walls, but when times get hard, the people soon discover what happens if they try to interfere with the machinery.
The arguments to explain why the peasants get robbed are much more subtle, devious and cunning, but the robbery is exactly the same.
March 24th, 2013 at 12:30 am
@lidia & pat:
If you would like to start a group over at NTE ning, you have a discussion forum and other features built in to the group that are separate from the larger site. The group creator decides who will be in the group and is able to moderate and control membership to achieve the balance they want.
March 24th, 2013 at 3:40 am
Snippet of Zappfe, some of you may, erm, enjoy, if that’s the right term, such a desolate perspective and bitter humour. ( Hat tip to Pym )
Zapffe’s main argument and world-view was, roughly, this: Like all living species, humans are endowed with a certain number of physiological and social needs; the need for food, rest, security and so on. These needs are quite easily satisfied. However, we humans have an additional need, lacking in all other species, for an overarching meaning of life. This need, according to Zapffe, can never be satisfied unless we deceive ourselves. We can thus either delude ourselves into belief in a false meaning of life, or we can remain honest and realise that life is meaningless. Unlike Sartre’s existentialism, which was ultimately an optimistic doctrine, Zapffe’s existential view was bleak. His great survey of tragedy in literature, politics and the arts indicated that all human endeavour was ultimately futile. He was a worthy heir to the great German pessimist Schopenhauer, and his view on the human destiny was simply that we ought to stop procreation immediately.
Others have tried to “out-Zapffe Zapffe”, most eloquently another Norwegian mountaineer and philosopher, Herman Tønnessen, the author of “Happiness is for the pigs”. Tønnessen argued, against Zapffe’s view that life is meaningless, that life is not even meaningless.
Zapffe was a complex man with a great, if dark, sense of humour. One of his most admired books was a collection of essays on the outdoor life, Barske glæder (“Rough Pleasures”), and he even published a collection of stories and jokes from his home region. His passion for mountaineering was tantamount to a passion for teasing the God whose existence he denied. Upon hearing of the tragic death of a fellow philosopher, who had been rammed in the chest by a freak boulder during climbing, he reputedly wrote, after expressing his regrets: “I am given to understand that the boulder changed its direction and came after him. That’s God!”
http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Zapffe.html
March 24th, 2013 at 3:57 am
Pym, I read the Zapffe article – I think he is right, we have to seek ways to avoid the awful knowledge our consciousness give us – the worst part being that our extended consciousness, the part that knows we know, knows we are mortal. I think the fruitless search for meaning in a meaningless world is in a way the last grasp at immortality. For our lives to have meaning means that some part of our lives extends through time even if our bodies don’t. We are programmed like other mammals to find meaning in small thing – ie why did that branch move – does its movement mean there is a lion crouched over there, or just my wife gathering mushrooms. Those meanings are real. Even thinking, well I will build up this farm and leave it to my child, is a beneficial way to achieve some sense of building up meaning in your life – leaving something you perceive will be useful for the packet of genes you left in your child.
Extinction smashes all such future meanings. We are not only mortal, our genes are mortal. Not only the ones shared with our family, but also those only slightly less similar with all humans, apes (95%), mammals and even zebra fish (85%).
We remain meaning seekers in a meaningless world, and perhaps the best way to deal with that for those who don’t seek denial by various means, is to find the meaning in the moments – the hug, the smile, the beauty that still exists, the taste of a fresh tomato….
March 24th, 2013 at 4:00 am
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/23/1766011/ice-breaking-news-2013-arctic-freezing-season-not-what-its-cracked-up-to-be-literally/
March 24th, 2013 at 4:14 am
Igor Sechin ( cute photo ! ) head of what’s now the world’s biggest oil and gas company, Rosneft, announces biggest Arctic drilling project, invites Halliburton and Schlaumburger to bid to supply equipment, etc, etc.
Anybody think we won’t get to 4 deg. C before 2050 ?
http://barentsobserver.com/en/energy/2013/03/sechin-worlds-biggest-oil-22-03
March 24th, 2013 at 4:23 am
Wow, from the comments linked at Kathy’s link above :
Melting of white Arctic ice, currently at its lowest level in recent history, is causing more absorption.
Prof Wadhams calculates this absorption of the sun’s rays is having an effect “the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man”.
and
“Just the melting of all the floating ice in the arctic ocean, will add as much heat to the earth, as all the Co-2 we put in the atmosphere to date.” Prof. James Lovelock
March 24th, 2013 at 5:11 am
Re Zapffe. We are story-telling animals. We can tell a story that says that life, the world, existence, has no meaning. Or we can tell any number of other kinds of stories. What makes one story better, or one claim to truth superior ?
They are all on an equal footing, other than those that science tells which have to be attached to empirical evidence and a logically arguable case that other scientists accept into the overall scientific project. So, in that sense, scientific stories are special.
( As are the stories told in courts of law, which are also supposed to be attached to evidence ).
All the rest, mythos, philosophy, religion, belief in whatever you want to believe, Joseph Campbell’s Hero With Thousand Faces, are, as Zapffe says, a fundamental human need. I have not read enough Zapffe to real understand the development of his position. But all peoples, at all times, have their mythologies. You can’t avoid stories. As soon as you speak, it is a story.
Modern western secular people are not different to anceint people. They just adopt rather crappy commercialised figures from movies and Disney and pop culture. Zombies, Dracula, Werewolves, Robocops, Lady Gaga, Superman, Aliens, etc, are no different to the mythical fantasy figures of earlier times. It’s projecting archetypes.
http://vimeo.com/27134970
The only other option, afaik, is zen, which dispenses with all stories and beliefs, but, imo, also avoids the pessimism of Zappf and Schopenhauer and the sense of being completely lost in a pointless existence, of Sarte.
March 24th, 2013 at 5:27 am
Pilot: Looks can be deceiving and, beyond that, they pulled upwards of 16,000 dead pigs from the river according to the article (perhaps a few were still alive among all the dead ones?). It’s like the video of all the (quoted as thousands and the next day millions) of dead prawns – a few were still wriggling around on the beach but most were dead.
towards the current discussion:
http://www.naturalnews.com/039608_emotions_literature_culture.html
Society of droids: Startling new research suggests humans are losing ability to process emotions
Amazing new research suggests that human beings have devolved emotionally during the last 100 years.
If the sad emotional decline continues, we’ll be left with nothing but a bunch of automaton droids running around without a feeling sense.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have done an impressive analysis of literature published during the last 100 years. The data shows a very strong decline in emotionality overall, and highlights a distinct rise in fear since in the 1970′s.
March 24th, 2013 at 5:48 am
Another really good one from xraymike:
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2013/03/23/the-destroyer-of-worlds/
with lots of links, about nuclear proliferation in the US and (former)USSR, and the legacy left behind.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:04 am
Tom, there is a difference between emoting and emotion IMHO. My sister emotes all over the place, going on and on about how she can’t stand the thought that her dear Daddy is going to die. I go visit and help his wife out. I accept death. I see my Dad’s wife as suffering under a very difficult load. I respect how good she has been to him and what a fine caregiver she is and try to do my part to make it a bit easier for her.
When a dog is feeble and in pain, I ask the vet to remove that pain even though that removes a loved pet from my life. Others go on and on about their dear pet while letting it live on in pain. I don’t cry when a dog dies, but I take damn good care of them while they live. Took me a long while to figure that out. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I didn’t cry when pets died and my sis was boohooing all over the place. Finally I realized that she never cared for any of our pets.
People can use excessive emoting to in fact draw attention and caring to themselves. It can be a very selfish sort of display.
Real compassion is not the excesses of Victorian style emoting. Real Compassion is doing something to help ease the pain for someone else.
So I wouldn’t trust the literature to reveal anything about true emotion if it is just cataloging literary expressions. I would look to the kind of response that comes after a natural disaster. If that is less, then yes we are less emotive. If it is still strong, well #$%@ the literature. Actions matter.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:15 am
Red Eft, thanks for your kind comments. Nope no blog. I sent an e-mail to Guy to forward to you in case you wish to talk one on one. Anyone who knows and loves red efts is an admirable person IMO.
One of the delights of nature! http://muwww-new.marshall.edu/herp/Salamanders/newt.htm they were part of the best parts of my childhood.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:19 am
The meaning of meaning: Drop a ball. It bounces. What is the meaning of that bounce?
Just another wrong question.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:22 am
With thanks to Kian for his excellent essay, I’ve written and posted a new essay. It’s here.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:22 am
Kathy: point taken. Yet i think the researchers may be correct, though their study may be a bit obtuse or tangential, in that we’ve become inured to the steady demise of other non-human creatures, our environment, and other suffering humans (by and large, of course, not in every case). We’ve long since lost our connection to our sources of food, our consciousness of anything other than our own situations and any sense of “spriritual” being at all (even if it’s a made-up human phenomenon).
i too give my two dogs a wonderful life (i even sleep with them next to me). When i lost my beagle of 16 yrs and a rescued abused toy-poodle with a heart of gold of 11 years a few summers back i’m not shy about saying i felt like when my dad died – devastated – and i cried too. i know you aren’t a “cold” person (devoid of emotion) because you’ve gone beyond it to the heart of the matter – action, and i too have gotten back up off the floor and got back to living and caring for what’s left. Once people start seeing their living world dying off around them as the years roll on (and coming to the logical conclusion that they’re next) – trees and vegetation withering, birds and insects vanishing, the soil becoming barren and unusable – i’m sure a LOT of emotion (from panic to anger to demands to DO SOMETHING – of course way too late) will ensue.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:30 am
Lastly,
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=51534
“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“No one can give a definition of the soul. But we know what it feels like. The soul is the sense of something higher than ourselves, something that stirs in us thoughts, hopes, and aspirations which go out to the world of goodness, truth and beauty. The soul is a burning desire to breathe in this world of light and never to lose it–to remain children of light.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“Soldiers’ graves are the greatest preachers of peace.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.”
― Albert Schweitzer
March 24th, 2013 at 6:43 am
Bailey, …Think of the amount of energy (medicines, technology, man power, etc etc) that goes into keeping folks alive today which natural selection, the environment, and predators would have taken care of long ago. These same traits (sicknesses, non sapience, mental defects) get pulled right back into the gene pool and even amplified.
Continuing with your line of discussion:
There have been many arguments in the past about whether or not we weaken the gene pool when we save someone of breeding age from sickness (past breeding age has no affect on genetic transfer). For example, those who survived the plague in medieval Europe likely had a gene which conferred immunity or allow them to survive and develop immunity. If the victims had all been treated and saved and allowed to have offspring, then the genes which made them susceptible in the first place would have persisted and the plague would still be a raging epidemic today.*
Unfortunately, there are huge sums of money to be made in keeping people alive so that they get sick again. The flu virus is a perfect example. Billions of dollars are made each year administering the flu vaccine. While it’s somewhat effective, because it includes only a few serotypes of the virus, immunity is good only for a season, if that.
If the virus was allowed to run unchecked, then eventually, all the people that could die from the virus would be wiped out and the survivors would have immunity, presumably. Of course, if you or I were included in the group who would die in this way, we probably wouldn’t be so keen on the idea.
Simply letting people die from disease when we know how we can save them contravenes our cultural mores, not to mention our sense of financial opportunity (or have those two things become the same?).
*Despite one’s immunity, bacteria, viruses, etc., can mutate and override our natural defenses putting us back to square one.
March 24th, 2013 at 6:55 am
Robin Datta
“People like Adi Da…” ???
Robin, do you understand Adi Da has realised the Self .. Not done in human form ever untill his emergence ? I am not asking here if you agree, or disagree, just that that is what he claimed.
How could there be ‘others’ like him?
Devotees mature to realise that same condition, through the identical process of ego surrender and all consuming love-bliss, (sahaja samadhi), however, the entire complete demonstration and ordeal of devine emergence is only necessary once, as Adi Da has revealed.
It is now all manifest, to be responded to, if that is how anyone feels inclined to.
Or in older phrasiology, all the heavy lifting has been done, as a pure sacrificial Gift.
I hope it is plain I only intend to honour that significant gift by being clear about what I say or write about Adi Da.
“For those who would embrace a life based on heart-breaking Freedom —
I am here.”– Avatar Adi Da
“You are just beginning to Awaken.
I am like the sunlight in the morning. I intensify the light of morning until you Awaken.
Until the Light Awakens you, even the Light of Consciousness Itself, you continue to dream, try to survive within the dream, manipulate yourself within the dream, pursue all kinds of goals, searches — none of which Awaken you.
Those who are Awakening in Truth begin to notice something. They begin to recognize the signs. They begin to recognize the activity of dreaming. They begin to sense something very unusual about Me.
I Am your own True Self-Nature Appearing within the dream to Awaken you. I Am your Awakening, and your Always Already Conscious State.
— Avatar Adi Da Samraj
The Ancient Walk-About Way ”
http://www.adidam.org/
It always helps me when I recall that I first encountered Adi Da in a dream…A dream within a dream…very funny TMWOT.
March 24th, 2013 at 7:21 am
.
I’m not ready yet to renege;
My argument stands on this leg:
As defined by its genes,
Changed DNA means
The first chicken was—an egg!
March 24th, 2013 at 7:26 am
@ dmd
The meaning of meaning: Drop a ball. It bounces. What is the meaning of that bounce?
Depends whether you are a footballer or a physicist. I think a philosopher would first have to ask how language is constructed, how an intelligent inquiry into the nature of things might be made, and so forth.
But even that is not easy, because philosophers cannot even agree amongst themselves what philosophy is, e.g. whether it is a method, or a goal, or a strategy, or a set of principles, etc, so mostly it’s just one guy who plunges in and says what he or she thinks, and if enough other people are impressed, the name gets added to the hall of fame… much like rock musicians really.
It’s a very tricky business, this meaning thing. If you lose all hope, and meaning, and get suicidally depressed, and the only story is nihilism, everything becomes totally pointless. I do know what that is like. I have been there, although it was a long time ago. Hard to recall now, because my life is too full of ‘meaningfulness’, for want of a better word.
I think it has a lot to do with what you put IN. Start putting in. Nothing much happens, but after a while, you get results. Whether its growing plants, or learning an instrument, or making something… a few minutes each day, and suddenly there’s a reward, and the ball starts to bounce
Kinda magic, doesn’t need analytical thinking, does that sound right ?
March 24th, 2013 at 7:42 am
ulvfugl
I understand where you are with all of that stuff. I am worried and very freaked out too. I just believe in the fat lady, and I learned in playing pool, never let your feelings of defeat cheat you out of a win by letting your energy drop as the opponent approaches sinking the black. Admittedly, this is no game and it is not adversarial, but the lesson i drew from those arguably wasted days playing pool, is that you can be convinced it is all over, and ones attitude effects the outcome, even with the strangely ‘Newtonian’ game of pool.
I mean, your links on your website on Quamtum physics and uncertainly virtually endorse that older Buddhist dictum , “With our thoughts we make the world”.
So I am never stupid enogh to say we are in for some very heavy caotic conditions, and extreme temps. etc. I just don’t feel it is appropriate to call it before it is actually done. Science or no science.
Just Sayin…
March 24th, 2013 at 7:45 am
That should have read…
“So I am never stupid enough deny or downplay that we are in for some very heavy caotic conditions, and extreme temps. etc….” Sorry.
March 24th, 2013 at 7:46 am
BTD has got it all wrong
Despite his argument strong
Until something made
A thing like an egg
The egg did not come along
But as for the chicken I will yield, but until something stop reproducing by dividing off part of itself and began reproducing sexually there was no egg.
Of course an egg is a chicken so the whole argument is null and void.
March 24th, 2013 at 8:02 am
Tom, sorry I should have been more explicit. Emoting if coupled with true caring emotion is an expression of that emotion. In many cases it becomes and end in itself, and so the extent of the emoting is not the indicator of emotion IMO, but rather as in the case of a pet, the extent of the relationship and caring is the indicator of emotion.
I am sure people are tired of me plugging the book Blindsight. However it does a really good job of looking at emotions, and also extended consciousness. The main character has had 1/2 his brain removed to stop crippling seizures (and the remaining half upgraded – this is science fiction). But the thing that he loses the most is the ability to feel emotions. So he uses past memories and stories he reads to try to find out how he should act in social situations. Needless to say when he has a girlfriend he fails miserably. But he really tries to understand how he should act if he had emotions. The book suggests that the elite by selective inbreeding are becoming sociopaths or psychopaths, people who can mimic emotions but don’t have them, and becoming less conscious (self aware) by the same mechanism -acting as if they are conscious. The alien species encountered is in the end deemed to be highly intelligent but not self aware – its a hard concept for us intensely self aware humans to even conceive of. Its a fascinating read – it even has a vampire and Watts makes the vampire work to the end of what he is exploring – why are we conscious.
Always a danger to use the word conscious because it means so many different things to people – I use it in the sense that Antonio Damasio uses it – we don’t just know things, we know that we know. Which is basically being self aware. http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
March 24th, 2013 at 8:38 am
@ Ozman
Quamtum physics and uncertainly virtually endorse that older Buddhist dictum , “With our thoughts we make the world”.
So I am never stupid enogh to say we are in for some very heavy caotic conditions, and extreme temps. etc. I just don’t feel it is appropriate to call it before it is actually done. Science or no science.
Hmmm. The quantum physics stuff, and the buddhist stuff, well, I’d see that as being to do with epistemology, how we perceive what is ‘out there’ and how we construct a mental model of what is ‘out there’ in our brains. And, of course, what consciousness is, and where it is located, and so forth. All of which i find fascinating. I went into Tom Campbell’s ideas in some depth. I have reservations. This isn’t the place to discuss them though.
But all of that is ongoing, speculative, open to debate, uncertain. Nobody can say for sure where the quantum research will lead or what it means, same goes for consciousness.
But the actual planet, the climate, the continents, the oceans, these things are far better understood. If you have not got the message yet, after all Guy’s lectures and all the other info over the last couple of years, then nothing I say is going to convince you, is it.
Look, regarding your comment above re Adi Da, and you earlier comment re my zen thing, etc. I have no wish to hurt your feelings. We are obviously very different kinds of people. I find your adoration for Adi Da demeaning. It puts you in the position of a child.
That’s not intended to be nasty. Or unkind, just how I see it.
I had a lady friend whose elderly maiden aunt had been a missionary in China, a nun, presumably a virgin at her advanced age, who would tell with happy glittering eyes how excited she was about the prospect of death, because she would be meeting Jesus. She believed absolutely, that as soon as she died, on the ‘other side’ would be that figure with the halo and long hair and robes, who would call out her name and embrace her to his bosom for eternity, and she’d be the happiest creature for ever more.
I can’t laugh or sneer at that, it’s sort of amazing, but look, I’m a big hairy biker, if I die, and meet that fucker, wanting to embrace me, I’m going to heave to tell him to get out of my way, I don’t want or need no embracing, same goes for your guru. I’m an adult MAN. Not a child.
You ( and Robin Datta ) are welcome to your stories drawn from vedanta or the bible or wherever else. But it is ridiculous ( and actually quite offensive ) to measure me, or my conduct, against those stories, or against morals or values taken from those stories.
It’s like judging a cat because it’s not being like a fish or a mouse. I’m not teaching zen here. Zen can’t be taught, let alone over the internet. People have to do the work themselves. I know I go on about it a lot, because I’ve been into it for most of my life, and its the best thing I ever found. But it has nothing to do with being nice, or kind, or good, or holy, or morally upright, or anything like that. It has nothing to do with being unpleasant, or unkind or bad or wicked or immoral either.
Unfortunately, your faith in Adi Da, people’s faith in Jesus, Robin’s faith in the Eightfold Path, none of these things are of any use in our present predicament, they don’t stop the ice melting, they don’t stop the results, they won’t prevent NTE. It’s physics. It doesn’t care what you think or believe, it doesn’t care whether you are awake or asleep, nor whether you are good or bad or enlightened.
Yes, people can be kind, generous, towards one another, they can be however they want to be, i suppose. I am true to myself.
March 24th, 2013 at 9:03 am
Kathy C says:
BTD has got it all wrong
Despite his argument strong
Until something made
A thing like an egg
The egg did not come along
But as for the chicken I will yield, but until something stop reproducing by dividing off part of itself and began reproducing sexually there was no egg.
The saying is used to expose
How circularity goes,
But it doesn’t disclose
(As if anyone knows)
How sexed reproduction arose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sexual_reproduction#Origin_of_sexual_reproduction
March 24th, 2013 at 3:21 pm
ulvfugl
Thanks for you kind reply.
Re this you wrote:
“Look, regarding your comment above re Adi Da, and you earlier comment re my zen thing, etc. I have no wish to hurt your feelings. We are obviously very different kinds of people. I find your adoration for Adi Da demeaning. It puts you in the position of a child.”
Look ths is a perfectly reasonable thing to assert. Adi Da himself admonished his devotees for trying to turn him into all those previous messiahs and make it all heirarchical, in the old religion business way. I agree that many of there binary formulations of high priests and ordinary folk do devolve or even get defined as parent child. That is my basic criticism of Christianity, BTW.
I understand your interest in Zen, and it works for you,. I am elated it does.
When you mention the child relation, BTW, I once viewed a discouse by Adi Da that spoke to much the same issue . Because he had many devotees from Abrahamic religios traditions, or families, he had to deal with a lot of Jesus stuff they brought with them. In one of these discussions he quoted Jesus and pointed out that in all the surviving references of Jesus’s words it is clear he never assumed that child relation to God(Old Testament /New teastament). He would speak to his disciples as though they were children spiritually, but never in a way that indicated he wanted them to remain so.
Anyhow, I am fuly with you on not needing any of that. I don’t need any of that. I can only attest to the ‘miraculous’ and extraordinary things I have encountered.
I think the crucial point for me is this is not purely a material existance-world-damain we inhabit. Many can assert that, not least economists, and bingo. we end up acting as if it is and look at the consequences. That is not a water tight proof I achnowledge…
It is in my view, and my experience a psych/physical domain, and many things come into effect when that is understood. They are coming into effect weather you or I understand that actually, but the point is I have had those minor awakening experiences written about in all the sacred texts, and what Adi Da says in the last quote I put up here by him. I am not going to ignore what comes my way when my intention from a very early age has been to nderstand what is real and what is unreal.
I would not try here to evangelise to you or others, not at all. I have only advocated what is backed up by my highly trained scientific tending mind(from a well rounded middle class education and some ability to be logical)and my good fortune to have encountered many small scale contradictory evidence of a subjective nature as well.
What you criticise is a worthy and proper problem, but not in this actual case, because when one actually reads or now watches Adi Da when discoursing and discussing spiritual matters with devotees, He is addressing these many concerns.
Look, you were the one who told me the experience of the screwdriver in the lonly isolated road. No?
Are you going to ignore that evidence?
So I am not a believer, though like everyone, I have a tendency to want to understand and have poor training from a FUBARed culture on how to recognise truth.
That is one reason I am interested in the truth, or reality.
Science, although a powerful and excellent too and system for understanding the physical world, is a ver poor tool to understanding the rest, which many many people assert does not exist.
Deconditioning the mind is an indispensible part of human growth, and in the case of Adi Da I have only seen this as a baseline of early practice he advocates, but communicating to everyone, all beings, on every level or chanel is what he was up for. Much of his siddhi is transmitted silently and is registered in different functional way depending on the recipient. ut once the connection is firmly established, it is a relationship of love and my own experience I can olny describe as like a river in flood pouring ‘through’ the heart. That is pure bliss. When that is encountered, it redifines the self in experietial terms, it sets the bar to what happiness can be in this form very very high. That bliss is what most people who are refered to by Adi Da as ‘dreaming’ are ‘seeking’ but never strategically arive at.
I have written a bit more here than perhaps otherwise because you last comments about all of this stuff having no bearing on the facts of catastrophic climate change is an assertion you have no way of knowing. You are jst presuming they are not related because you are applying the Scientific materialist model to the data we see here repeatedly amd are also preuming that ther is no other greater coincident process of equal import or power unfolding.
It semems you want to pidgeon hole Adi Da as a messsiah redeemer dude, and put all tha tin the obviously childish religion-business category, and ignore what may be also going on in the ‘Psycho’ aspect of this domain. Not an acusation of anything other than I don’t see you investigating His teachins as avidly as all the other ideas floating about about entropy, thermodynamica and what not. Why exclude all the other stuff? perhaps it is because it is a minefield of subjectivity to negotiate. I think that is exptremly revealing, as does scientists like Sheldrake etc.
Anyhow, you havebeen very helpful to me personally by all that you have given out here, and via direct comments to me. Your way works for you.
I only wish that it we a simple thing to give you and others a clear idea of how spiritual matters, (not hopium dressed up in priestly garb), are related to the great things going on on the planet. I am not pretending I have all these ‘answers’ at my fingertips. I just understand enough of the objective claims of Science as a cultural force, and subjective spiritual awakening issues to see I cannot ignore either if I want to understand what is reality. I will not settle for an inanimate univers containing mysterious animate carbon packets not explained and in some ways contradictictory to so caled entropy ‘laws’ by the philosophy of the said inanimate universe.
It does not explain sufficiently for my satisfaction feeling bliss is. It is not a neuronal trick to experience your utter existance as a field of expanding existinf love-bliss. It is not just neuro transmitters and endorphins fooling the animal brain into chocolate heaven. It is real to be transcendent of tha local ego consciouness, and locate the self outside of time and space, just not a common experience for many.
Thanks for you comments ulvfugl, fellow traveler and finder of screwdrivers when a wrench would just not do the trick!
March 24th, 2013 at 6:11 pm
@ Ozman
Well, if “Adi Da himself admonished his devotees for trying to turn him into all those previous messiahs ” then why are you doing it ?
I mean that’s my point. In your previous post ” Adi Da has realised the Self .. Not done in human form ever untill his emergence ? ”
It’s you put him onto a platform, and yourself at his feet, as a child, isn’t it ?
I have no idea what ‘realised the Self’ is supposed to mean, but I don’t for one moment believe that, whatever it is, it’s never been achieved or or accomplished by any of the other innumerable spiritual folks around the world throughout history,
But if you want to believe Adi Da is unique, well, that’s your choice and privilege.
But regardless, all this spiritual stuff, siddhis, miracles, strange mysteries that nobody understands, we are still all living on this little ball of rock in Space and wrecking the climate, and that’s hard physical reality.
Igor Sechin and Rosneft and oil drilling platforms in the Arctic and melting glaciers. All that is well understood. The siddhis are anomalous Fortean weirdness awaiting an explanation. The effects that Dean Radin finds are important to anyone interested in true nature things, but so small as to be almost undetectable. Same goes for Sheldrake’s research. All fascinating, but not going to make any difference to the CO2 emissions and rising sea levels.
Once it happened that Bankei was working in his garden. Somebody came, a seeker, a man in search of a master, and he asked Bankei, “Gardener, where is the master?”
Bankei laughed and said, “Wait. Come from that door, inside you will find the master.”
So the man went round and came inside. He saw Bankei sitting on a throne, the same man who was the gardener outside. The seeker said, “Are you kidding? Get down from this throne. This is sacrilegious, you don’t pay any respect to the master.”
Bankei got down, sat on the ground, and said, “Now then, it is difficult. Now you will not find the master here because I am the master.”
It was difficult for that man to see that a great master could work in the garden, could be just ordinary. He left. He couldn’t believe that this man was the master; he missed. We are all in search of the extraordinary. But why are you in search of the extraordinary? It is because you also long to be extraordinary. With an ordinary master, how can you become extraordinary, exceptional?
http://www.oshoteachings.com/osho-on-bankei-zen-master-bankei/
March 24th, 2013 at 6:37 pm
Kathy C Says:
At sea on a sinking ship
We soon feel our sanity slip
So we plan and we plot
To change things we cannot
Until the whole thing starts to flip
We fear that we’re losing our brain
Upon boarding the doomer train,
But reducing delusion
Means less confusion
And seeing past views as insane.
March 24th, 2013 at 9:25 pm
ulvfugl
When you write:
“Well, if “Adi Da himself admonished his devotees for trying to turn him into all those previous messiahs ” then why are you doing it ? ”
I have been clear that is not my intention nor my understanding of what is going on. If you insist it is, that is you view.
To acknowledge someone as a unique spiritual master, is of course surrendering to the greater realisation and human maturity of that spiritual master. I am not childlike in this relation. I am merely respectful and ‘see’ the greater humanity there, greater than I am presently. That is real respect, not childlike supplication.
I can’t be clearer about that but I will leave it all there.
Thanks.
March 24th, 2013 at 9:34 pm
ulvfugl
Additionally, I would just say that in real terms my view is that Adi Da is a fully mature human, nothing more. The words ‘devine’ tend to invoke a swathe of traditions, but to me such terms are denoting the difference between that humanity realised by the Avatar, and ordinary human first three stages of realisation. I would locate myself there too BTW, and just putting the views of what defines ‘human’, which should not be accepted as the average of all ordinary abilities and functions. I can accept the term ‘Devine’ in that it is what is really human, which just may be transcending in nature. And perhaps what connects one to beyond this bald rock you speak of.
I’m grateful for your thoughts, even if they differ from mine on this and othere issues.
Cheers.
March 25th, 2013 at 1:37 am
@ Ozman
The way I see it, Oz, I’m quite happy to accept that there are extraordinary individuals who should be revered and respected, people with great insights, great teachers. Also, total scumbags, who are a disgrace to humanity and who should be treated with contempt.
Kids look up to heros and role models. I’m not a kid anymore.
There is a divine, magical, mysterious aspect to existence that nobody understands. I fully acknowledge that. I’ve been interested all my life, you know, telepathy, and all the other ESP stuff, and I see the same ‘merging with the divine’ type of experience described in cultures all around the world in all historical periods, and I don’t myself see any conflict AT ALL between such experiences and science.
But mystical experiences are no help regarding NTE, they don’t effect the emissions or the loss of biodiversity or the ocean acidification. All the spiritual stuff can do is to help a person cope with their own existence as they witness all these dreadful events.
March 25th, 2013 at 3:41 am
@ ogardener
Hey, I couldn’t watch that video at the time, thanks for it. Don’t we all get on well here !
http://youtu.be/jxJFnv9yaVw
March 25th, 2013 at 9:40 am
Kathy C, thank you for your responses. Even nihilists like Peter Zapffe would agree that we need to appreciate what we can, such as the fresh tomato. Since he loved nature and had a great black humor, he thrived enough to live to 90 and pass along some good advice. It’s too bad that people didn’t listen to the part about stopping procreation when he wrote it in 1933.
March 25th, 2013 at 10:30 am
ulvfugl, I appreciate your comments! One point I want to make is that not all pessimists/nihilists are depressed and suicidal. Yes, we have some bad moments/years (who doesn’t?), but there is a sense of freedom when you know you have literally nothing to lose. Even Schopenhauer lived to an old age enjoying his poodles, daily walks, and some early love affairs.
I believe in two things: humans in general will always be dominated by their egos (thus, our extinction would be a blessing), and suffering in various forms will always be a part of life (despite what nutcases like Kurzweil think).
I have much more to add but have to drive a squirrel with tumors to the vet.
March 25th, 2013 at 10:36 am
And wildwoman, thanks for the thumbs up!
March 25th, 2013 at 11:45 am
@ Pym
I think I first encountered this line of thought during my teens, reading Dostoevsky and Sartre and Camus, and all the fuss about how, if you have no faith in God, and life has no meaning, nothing is left but nihilism, and they all sit in their cafes in Paris getting blind drunk, and making such a big deal about it all, and then I discovered zen, and learned that thinkers in the Far East had covered this ground a thousand years ago, and got everything sorted.
So, personally, I don’t have a problem, but of course, as a formula for the wider soceity, it is very difficult to see any solution that can work. Over the last century, so many ideas were proposed, and it was the bloodiest and messiest ever. A few years back, everyone was upset about the famine in Ethiopia, and wanted effective action to end that suffering. But now we are faced with something many orders of magnitude greater, so terrible it’s almost unimaginable. Nobody is equipped for this. Not emotionally or intellectually or spiritually, because it has never happened before in history.
Yes, I agree, Kurzweil is a nutcase.
March 25th, 2013 at 3:41 pm
ulvfugl,
Dang, I never got a memo for all those drunken cafe meetings, hee!
Reverse the order of progress for me: I delved into Eastern thought as a teen, discovered it to be another dead-end human construct, and then found antinatalism.
Humans are drawn to belief systems that satisfy their own egos, that make them feel comfortable in their own skins. And that is why the human race ultimately sucks, because even in our drive to discern “reality,” it’s still all about us. But accidentally, good comes from our beliefs sometimes.
Antinatalism appeals to me because it is concerned with the prevention of suffering for all sentient life. The best way to stop some of this suffering? Stop birth. Easy access to contraception, abortion, and sterilization; animal neutering; promotion of child-free living–all these methods help block misery. Margaret Sanger and her ilk were the genuine saints.
Buddhism is insular, involved in soothing the main practitioner alone, with too many pretending to be compassionately detached (a ridiculous concept). Well, let’s see. A couple of monks navel-gazing in a cloister striving toward personal Nirvana over here versus millions of sentient lives blocked from conception over there. Guess which belief system I’ll devote my time to with guaranteed results until we’re all annihilated.
“…thinkers in the Far East had covered this ground…and got everything sorted”–huh? Nothing has ever been “sorted,” and it never will be.
March 25th, 2013 at 9:24 pm
ulvfugl
‘Kids look up to heros and role models. I’m not a kid anymore.’
Neither am I.
I think adults look up to elders too, and to me Adi Da is a world ‘elder’. There are others too. Ramana Maharshi, who advocated asking the question, “who am I?’ repeated ly as a true self enqury.
There is no hero worship involved, in my own case.
Admiration and heart-felt awe are not channelled via the child mind. Though I agree all those traps are there when going through the process of relations to a spiritual master.
Cheers
March 25th, 2013 at 9:55 pm
@ Pym
“…thinkers in the Far East had covered this ground…and got everything sorted”–huh? Nothing has ever been “sorted,” and it never will be.
I meant the problems of nihilism that Dostoevsky and the existentialists thought they found when their philosophical analysis appeared to remove all meaning from existence.
That had happened before. And had been resolved before.
Anyway, yes, for me, everything is sorted. For you, it will never be sorted.
For others, they are trying to find if there is an answer, or whatever.
Guess which belief system I’ll devote my time to with guaranteed results until we’re all annihilated.
You see, the teaching which I follow, or which I subscribe to, is unique, in the sense that it is directed towards liberation from ALL belief systems.
Of course, that itself, IS a belief system, of a minimal and rudimentary sort, but nothing like the vast labyrinthine cathedrals of the mind offered by other religions and philosophies.
Really, it’s just a sign which says ‘Here is a teaching which teaches how to get free from teachings’. So, it’s a bit like Wittgenstein’s ladder, that you use to climb to look above all the obstacles, the clutter, the obstructions, that human thinking has put in the way over the millennia.
I have not heard of Margaret Sanger. I don’t have any children, and don’t regret that, but I don’t think the antinatalism would appeal to me much, because I’d be constantly in conflict with everyone and all animals and birds, they are all so strongly compelled to breed, the fields here are full of lambs and foals, and the birds are singing their territorial songs. It’s a fountain of life.