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Age of Television, Collapse of Industrial Civilization, Cultural Stories, Decline of print-based media, Digital Media, Dystopic Future, Eco-Apocalypse, Garden of Eden, Illiteracy, Inverted Totalitarianism, Qur'an, Tao Te Ching, The Bible, The Matrix, The Medieval Church, The Spiral Staircase, The Terminator
One of the many recurring themes and ideas that appear at The Spiral Staircase is that the essential form taken by consciousness is story or narrative. Story enables us to orient ourselves in the world and make it somewhat intelligible. It should not be overlooked that it is we who tell ourselves stories, narrating life as we go via the inner voice no less than attending to the great stories that inform culture. The Bible is one such story (or collection of stories), though its message is interpreted with a scandalously high degree of controversy. (I’m especially intrigued by Paula Hay’s thesis over at Mythodrome that the story of The Fall is really about the loss of animism, not a literal expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The Tao Te Ching and the Qur’an are similar, one might even say, competing stories from other world cultures.) Story has taken on many forms throughout history, beginning with oral tradition. Setting epics in song and/or verse made them memorable, since fixed written forms came rather late in history (conceived in terms of tens of thousands of years). The appearance of books eroded oral tradition gradually, and the transition of the book into an everyday object after the invention of the printing press eventually helped undermine the authority of the Medieval Church, which housed libraries and trained clerics in the philosophical, ecclesiastical, and scientific (as it was then understood) interpretation of texts. Story continued its development in the Romantic novel and serial fiction, which attracted a mass audience. Today, however, with literacy in decline, cinema and television are the dominant forms of story.
Many categories, types, and genres of story have evolved in fiction. Considering that story arcs typically progress from calm to conflict to resolution, the nature of conflict and the roles we are asked to assume through identification with characters (often archetypal) are a subtly effective vehicle for learning and mind control. Those whose minds have been most deeply and successfully infiltrated are often the same who argue vociferously in defense of a given story, no matter the evidence, with arguments playing out in political spheres and mass media alike. In addition to lighter fare such as RomComs and coming-of-age stories, both of which define not-yet-fully-formed characters through their solidifying relationships, we get hero/antihero/superhero, war, and dystopian tales, where characters tend to be chiseled in place, mostly unchanging as action and events around them take center stage. It is significant that in such tales of conflict, antagonists typically appear from outside: political opponents, foreigners and terrorists, aliens (from space), and faceless, nameless threats such as infectious disease that one might poetically regard as destiny or fate. They threaten to invade, transform, and destroy existing society, which must be defended at all cost even though, ironically, no one believes on a moment’s contemplation it’s really worth saving. Exceptionally, the antagonist is one of us, but an aberrant, outlying example of us, such as a domestic terrorist or serial killer. And while plenty of jokes and memes float around in public that we are often our own worst enemies, becoming the monsters we aim to defeat, stories that identify our full, true threat to ourselves and the rest of creation precisely because of who we are and how we now live are relatively few.
In light of the story of industrial collapse, probably the biggest, baddest story of all time but which is only told and understood in fleeting glimpses, it occurred to me that at least two shows found in cinema and TV have gotten their basic stories mostly correct: The Matrix (predominantly the first film) and The Terminator (the TV show to a greater degree than the movie franchise). In both, a very few possess the truth: knowledge of our enslavement (actual or prospective) to machines of our own invention. Characters in the matrix may feel a sense of unease, of the projected reality being somehow off, but only a few take the notorious red pill and face reality in all its abject despair while most prefer the blue pill (or more accurately, no pill) and the blissful ignorance of illusion. Traveling back and forth between realities (one known to be quite false), the ultrachic glamor and superhero antics of the false reality are far, far more appealing than the dull, cold, grey reality without makeup, costumes, and enhanced fighting skills. Everyone behaves in the false reality with cool, almost emotionless confidence, whereas in the other reality everyone is strained to the breaking point by continuous stress at the threat of annihilation. In Terminator world, time travel enables a few to come back from the future, in the process spilling the beans about what happens after the Singularity, namely, that machines go on a rampage to kill humanity. The dominant emotion of the few initiates is again stress, which manifests as bunker mentality and constant battle readiness. Casualties are not limited to frayed nerves and strained civility, though; plenty of innocent bystanders die alongside those fighting to survive or forestall the future.
Those are only stories, reflections of our preoccupations and diversions from the truth available to witness without needing a red pill. But reality is nonetheless a bitter pill to swallow, so few who become aware of the option to square up to it vs. ignore it really want the truth. I judge that most are still blissfully unaware an option exists, though evidence and supporting stories are everywhere to be found. For those of us unable to pretend or unknow what we now know, the appearance of stress, paranoia, self-abnegation, infighting, gallows humor, and nihilism run parallel to character traits in the Matrix and Terminator worlds. Through story, reconfigured as entertainment, we may indeed be working through some of our psychological issues. And we experience some of the same coming together and tearing apart that inevitably accompany the great events of history. But unlike the childish teaser in this CBS News story that the apocalypse has a date, the machinations of history, like death and extinction, are not strictly events but processes. The process we initiated unwittingly but then ignored is beginning its final crescendo. Stories we tell ourselves conventionally end with triumphal resolution, flatly ignoring the destruction left in their wake. I warn: do not look for triumph in the story of industrial collapse except in those tiny, anonymous moments of grace where suffering ends.
A reader writes:
Hi xraymike,
I am writing you because I am in the process of writing a story that involves a revolution of sorts, one in which those who have an anti-capitalist, anti-industrial, anti-imperialist mindset are aiming to take over a city. Seeing as how you seem to have a lot of information regarding this subject, I was wondering if you might be able to direct me to any books, websites or other resources that describe an ideal revolutionary scenario. I’m looking for vivid scenarios that go beyond why revolution is necessary and focus more on how an actual revolution would be organized.
Any suggestions for resource materials is greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much. And thanks again for the enlightening website.
-mjbII
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mjbII,
Have you seen this?
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Mike- I visited the Storm Clouds Rising web site some time ago and came away with the impression of neo-nazi. Did I have a faulty take on that group? Have I got it mixed up with another group? Just wondering…
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I think they are libertarians (which is almost as bad). I saw the guy condemning one of his followers for promoting neo-nazi drivel.
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Yes libertarian, individualist survivalists is my impression; nonetheless I thought the video may be good reference material for the aspiring writer.
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I have watched many of his videos and he does have many things right as to whats being done to ordinary people. Never any mention of the environment being an issue.
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Coincidentally in the news:
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Excellent, Brutus. I think you may have meant the Tao te Ching, rather than the I Ching.
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Absolutely correct: I got them mixed up when drafting this post. Thanks for correcting my error.
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Might like this as a soundtrack, don’t know how to embed it, I’m enjoying it
Feedback Deficiency episode 14 (Featured: Empty Flowers) by Feedback Deficiency on Mixcloud
same as these
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Before throwing the book away, ask yourself: Has anarchism been doing all that well? Should anarchists be satisfied to carry on as they are? Some of the worst things in history have taken place while the anarchist movement has been at work: the Somme, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, man-made famines and attempted genocide. Anarchists have protested, they have explained how the state produces these horrors, they have put forward another way to live. But the troubles continue and the results of anarchist efforts so far give us little reason to expect much improvement.
Anarchists do a splendid job of smashing the arguments of their opponents; Angles on Anarchism sets out to get them questioning their own ideas, to see whether the reason for the poor response they receive may not lie there. We all find it painful to recognise that our hard-won ideas need changing, but when it hurts it’s doing you good; progress comes out of difficulties, disagreements and conflicts. So this book attacks ideas held by most anarchists, and if they retaliate by showing that they were right all the time, that I need to change my ideas, I shall try to remember that they do so for my benefit.
http://gwiep.net/wp/?p=159
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Pingback: Telling Stories | The Spiral Staircase
By the way, the Matrix movie, itself, is not the original story. If you talk stories, then check the one which actually was the story Matrix took many key elements from – from the greenish symbols “representing” virtuality visually to the very core of Matrix narrative – inability to find out if one is in fact living human, or just a brain trapped inside virtual reality, implanted with false memories. The original story goes even further, demonstrating that even when able to confirm one’s physical presense and one’s complete typically-human mind’s abilities, – it would not nesessarily be possible to determine whether one is a human, or, in fact, a machine. Or, possibly, a melding of both, even.
The original story i am talking about – a full-length animation known in the West under the title “Ghost in the shell”. Matrix is but a weak shadow – in terms of significance of the story told, – to “Ghost in the shell”.
Another note is about so-called “up-rising of the machines”. This is nonsense. This part is completely absent in “Ghost in the shell”, and it is absent in any careful rational consideration of possible observable future.
The stereotype, though, it very massively fed and maintained – because, naturally, human fear of unknown, instinctive fear of any large moving thing which is not familiar, and all the associations most people’s subconsiousness does create between typical weapons and “usual” kinds of robots (which are somehwat dark-colored, usually in tones of gray/metallic, and are made of mainly metal and hydraulic parts where applicable) – all those factors create wrong, yet widespread, “feeling” that machines are “evil”.
You just try to imagine Matrix movie in which all those machines – “hunters”, drilling machines, various manipulators in those “human cells” – being
– not made of metal, but instead, say, made of plastics and wood;
– not being large – all being times less in size than a human being;
– not making any sudden, fast, nor any “strange” movement;
– being functioning in a manner very familiar to a reader (no matter how it’d be possible, even if it wouldn’t – just imagine it).
I wholeheartedly agree with both the need to tell the story of reality, and also with the inevitability of doing massive simplifications and “modelling” in terms which are common for majority. “Ghost in the shell” is definitely one worthy story of the kind, as a whole. Both Matrix and Terminator – are such only in some parts, while in other parts, they lead the viewer exactly away from grasping reality. Whether intentionally or not, is not my point here – i just point out that this is the case.
The one movie which actually infuriated me – was the Avatar. They start with much truth, but after some point, they do 180 and begin to load the mind of the viewer a story which has nothing to do with reality, and worse, one which is implanting seeds of selfishness and hypertrophied ego, false values, primitive thinking and intolerance to different (than oneself) beings. Yet, many people didn’t notice anything like that, at all.
Above all those, though, it the story small part of which is told in the movie “Blade Runner”. The one which is about replicants, i mean. Starring Rutger Hauer, i mean. I’ve read the whole book, twice. It’s worth it. And, by the way, careful reader of the book, with enough attention and thought, can rationally conclude that Deckard himself was, indeed, a replicant.
One thing which definitely make stories told in “Ghost in the Shell” and in the “Blade Runner” closer to reality – is that unlike all other mentioned movies, those two do NOT have a triumphant end. This is just one of many very realistic things present in those two stories – despite both officially being a sort of “fiction”.
P.S. the explanation for this – and for relatively high complexity (lots of allegories, metaphours, etc present in such stories, which makes them difficult to understand in full, at least right away), – is that the existing dominating system, which is de-facto inverted totalitarism (except perhaps 3-4 small countries around the globe; look for Noam Chomsky sayings about inverted totalitarism in USA if you want to know more) – this system supresses (removes, prevents, corrupts, hides, etc) most stories which can let majority of the population to grasp the reality much better than before. Yet, if the story hides its true message behind sci-fi “decorations”, complex and/or long dialogs, incomplete logical chains and other means, – then the system itself has difficulty recognising it as a threat, and even if the system can see the true message – it may decide that the story is complex enough for only a small part of the general population to ever be able to “decode” the true message, and therefore, the system may allow it to be. That’s how some of most important stories end up not on 1st pages of most popular newspapers and websites, nor in publically-available official papers, nor in most influential scientific journals and books – but inside some “strange” and “not really serious” art forms. And before cursing the system, one must actually consider, very carefully, whether it would actually be good if this “censorship” which the system does – would be removed. Me, i do not know the precise answer to this. I just feel it’s not that obvious as it 1st seem to be. Oh, and please do not think i mean any form of intentional censorship; no, i mean that the system – again, inverted totalitarism, – continuosly performs such de-facto censorship as a _whole_; There is nobody who sits somewhere and says: “yes, this film i allow; that one, i do not – destroy it and kill its creators”. No. Nothing like that. Merely, by its education systems, mainstream “culture”, consumerism and security measures, many related laws and many other things – the cumulative effect is that the stories of the kind we talk here – can only become widely known (and not often, with that) in things like sci-fi literature and cinema.
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1-27-2014
Rupert Sanders to direct Hollywood remake of Ghost in the Shell
Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks are set to remake the seminal Japanese anime as a live-action English-language movie
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F.Tnioli: I wrote four paragraphs; you commented with nine. One can obviously pluck from any of these films themes to develop and connect. I’m quite familiar with both Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell but wanted to focus on human response to knowledge and foreknowledge of collapse, which makes a better comparison (IMO) with characters in The Matrix and The Terminator. My intro at The Spiral Staircase says the post is the first of two to deal with truth revealed via storytelling. My intent has always been to bring Ghost in the Shell into the discussion there. Incidentally, Ghost in the Shell is fundamentally about characters struggling with their own identities, which I expect to be watered out of the Hollywood remake. Blade Runner is also secondarily about that but for me plays more like a detective procedural set in a dystopian future. The high-concept stuff gets overwhelmed by the action.
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Yes, with nine (plus a huge P.S. with that). And my english sucks, too. As you certainly know, some subjects can’t be described with a single line or a single paragraph, plus i allow myself to expand on some things.
I am aware great length makes many to skip things. I am completely alright with it myself, though. In fact, i want it, because most people who seriously say “TL;DR!” – are usually ones who can not bring any constructive additions nor healthy discussion.
Foreknowledge of large-scale social collapse is in many regards similar to foreknowledge of one’s imminent “personal” death. Blade Runner is all about it (famous quote: “All those… moments… will be lost in time, like [small cough] tears… in… rain. Time… to die…”). Arguably, this is even stronger stress than one’s foreknowledge about collapse of industrial civilization. No?
Ghost in the shell is also about collapse, one which for some people is indeed crushing: collapse of one’s belief that humans are “special”, that humans have “soul”. Heck, it’s the very title of the thing: _ghost_ in the _shell_. And like one of main characters say, “there is no ghost”. There is no soul. This is the message of the Ghost in the Shell, and not just “message”, but actually well argumented one and supported by logic and observation of reality. Granted, not to many are able to grasp it – but for those who are, the stress caused by this grim realization is much bigger than stress caused by knowledge of incoming catastrophic-for-societies collapse.
I thought that all i said above is quite obvious, but apparently, i’ve mistaken – and apparently, my mistake have led to misunderstanding and to a need to put even more words in an attempt to solve the misunderstanding. Please, accept my apologies about this, Mike.
I just hope that themes i “touch” in here – are important enough to allow quite a few paragraphs – to write and to read, i mean. Those are worthy subjects to think about, no?
Heartily yours, i.
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Your english is fine. Very few Americans can speak a second language.
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F.Tnioli sez: Foreknowledge of large-scale social collapse is in many regards similar to foreknowledge of one’s imminent “personal” death … Arguably, this is even stronger stress than one’s foreknowledge about collapse of industrial civilization. No?
This is just my opinion, but I must disagree. Foreknowledge of death is the essential ingredient of what’s called the human condition and has been a philosophical and existential dilemma for quite a long time. Its riddle has yet to be solved, though many claim to have a fix on it. Foreknowledge of the demise of modern civilization and with it the certain extinction of most forms of life is quite another matter. Man has never faced this before, and the immensity of it makes it nearly impossible to get one’s head around, like very large numbers. Perhaps that’s why you believe the immediacy of the human condition is more stressful.
BTW, I don’t think I’ve misunderstood you so much as chosen to bring different ideas forward. You are more liberal than I am in your interpretation of the loss of the soul in the movies discussed, just to cite one example.
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More specifically, Kristeva associates the abject with the Eruption of the Real into our lives. In particular, she associates such a response with our rejection of death’s insistent materiality. Our reaction to such abject material re-charges what is essentially a pre-lingual response. Kristeva therefore is quite careful to differentiate knowledge of death or the meaning of death (both of which can exist within the symbolic order) from the traumatic experience of being actually confronted with the sort of materiality that traumatically shows you your own death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Horror
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Brutus – i don’t think we disagree here. Please note the word “arguably” in the quote you’ve given. To me, this word means that for _some_ people – and i dare to think, to quite many, – foreknowledge of imminent (and relatively soon) one own’s death – is a stress comparable in strength to one(s) Mike is talking about in the article. For others, it is not. For you, it is not, i guess. For me, it would not be, too. However, we don’t talk about you and me – we talk about “people” in general, i guess, and thus i wrote accordingly.
Also, there is no “loss” of the soul in the movies discussed – how can something which (according to those movies) never existed – how can it be “lost”? Rather, the message is that it never existed in the 1st place.
Please don’t get me wrong, i am not an atheist, with that. The message from these movies is powerful and sobering, and important, – but in the same time, this message is definitely not the “ultimate truth”. Reasonable man (which i am trying to be) says: “yes, i see the meaning, and the message has much truth to it; but, one can still hope that despite all the perception and all the science and all the logic, God exists, and human soul exists, – but it’s just very, very well concealed. After all, string theory and alike postulate additional dimensions, but we can’t really prove or disprove it – thus, we still can’t prove, conclusively, whether human soul exists or not. It is just that so far, for a reasonable man, the “working assumption” is to be that soul, sadly, does not exist”.
This is a fine distinction, but in my opinion, it is quite important.
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Apparently Chinese “scientists” are good at telling stories too…
…it turns out a good chunk of that has been lining the pockets of the most prominent science officials, at least in wealthy Guangdong province. More than 50 of the leading scientists have been implicated in a scheme to embezzle as much as hundreds of millions of yuan from state R&D projects.
It’s a scandal that goes all the way to the top of Guangdong’s government. In January, the Communist Party sacked Li Xinghua, director of the provincial Communist Party science and technology department. Then on Feb. 14, news broke that Wang Kewei, former deputy director of that same department, was accused of skimming funds off the province’s light-emitting diode (LED) industry development project, to which Guangdong had allocated 450 million yuan ($74 million), reports the South China Morning Post (paywall).
This might explain some of the mystery of why China has little to show for its surging spending, says Cao Cong, an expert on Chinese science policy at the University of Nottingham.
“If China spends so much money, why haven’t we achieved more significant accomplishments?” Cao told Science Magazine. “Part of the reason may be that much of the money is stolen.”
There’s reason to suspect the problem isn’t just in Guangdong. In Oct. 2013, Quartz reported that only 40% of China’s $163-billion budget for national experimental research actually went toward research. The rest was spent on business expenses…
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Mike: This article about the Chinese scientists is hilarious! Human nature just SHINNIN’ THROUGH. I used to use this phrase when I was a high schooler, as a harsh criticism of someone’s ineptitude i’d say:
“That guy could fuck-up a Chinese New Year!”
Thanks for restoring my faith in mankind (‘s ability to completely fuck up the gift and pleasure of being alive, ie. conscious, on a life-supporting planet). Scientists here in the U.S. are screaming for research projects, in Canada the powers that be are even closing down science libraries and tossing collected studies in the dust bin, but even our research is (practically) all militarily directed now and just as pointless as wasting the dollars to graft and corruption.
Brutus:
great essay – I really enjoy this site because the consistently high quality writing draws the kind of minds that inform, suggest further study or go on attendant off-shoots, and can both criticize and grow through same. The whole experience of living was supposed to be driven by “learning from one’s mistakes.” We somehow turned that into “there are no limits,” the biggest mistake of all.
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My reaction was the same as yours. Climate change cooperation with China??? LOL. They’re too busy killing themselves and robbing each other.
Pollutants linked to 450 percent increase in risk of birth defects in rural China
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New paper by Wasdell: world headed for 10°C degree rise…
Executive Summary
Let us first summarise the analysis of the basis for a carbon budget embedded in the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC AR5 WG1:
* The adoption of a transient temperature response to cumulative carbon emissions, instead of the full equilibrium impact, allows a higher carbon output before the critical 2°C target is breached. No reference to the substitution is made in the text of the SPM.
* Treating the relationship between temperature response and cumulative carbon emissionsas a linear, straight-line function also inflates the available carbon budget by some 10 years’ worth of emissions at the current rate.
* Removal of all visual representation of the current value of the cumulative carbon emissions, reduces the clarity of the present situation.
* Failure to link the total cumulative carbon emissions to the equivalent concentration of the airborne concentration of CO2 adds to the obfuscation of the presentation.
* Limiting the extent of climatic response to the fast feedback (transient or ‘Charney’) dynamics masks dependency on the function of climate sensitivity. This hides uncertainty in the modelling ensemble at the expense of portraying a grossly underestimated temperature response and a massively inflated carbon budget.
Secondly we note the consequences of applying a robust value for the Earth System Sensitivity:
* The temperature response to the proposed ceiling of allowed carbon emissions is 5.4°C, not the 2°C indicated in the SPM.
* The temperature response to the current set of emission-reduction pledges is c. 10°C, not c. 4°C as indicated in the SPM.
* The temperature response to which we are already committed at the present level of cumulative carbon emission is 3.9°C (+ effect of non-CO2 GHG emissions) not 1.5°C implied in the SPM
* The budget of c. 300GtC of available carbon emission before breaching the 2°C policy target is seen to be an illusion. In reality the carbon account is already overdrawn by c.288GtC.
* All the above figures should be treated as conservative underestimates as we move from the stable conditions of the Holocene into the far-from-equilibrium, rapid change and enhanced sensitivity of the Anthropocene.
* Recognition of the sensitivity of global climate dynamics to small changes in average surface temperature implies that the degree of safety assumed in the policy target of limiting increase to no more than 2°C above the pre-industrial value, is a delusion.
* Avoiding dangerous climate change is no longer possible. Limiting its intensity requires restriction of the target temperature increase to no more than 1°C.
* Achieving that goal requires reduction in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses to around 310 ppm of CO2e (from the current value of some 450 ppm CO2e).
On these grounds the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC AR5 WG1 should be rejected as not fit for the purpose of policy-making. It is a compromise between what is scientifically necessary and what is deemed to be politically and economically feasible. It is a document of appeasement, in active collusion with the global addiction to fossil sources of energy.
Click to access climate.pdf
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Brutus. Thank you for drawing attention to possible interpretations of Genesis narrative. It has bothered me for a long time, and still bothers me.
Yesterday a large, ominous-looking, black truck-and-trailer unit arrived at a popular recreational area near the foreshore. On the outside were images of tyrannosaurus rex.
Impressionable school children were led inside by teachers and parents. Once inside, the impressionable kids were subjected a one-eyed story (propaganda) geared to manufacturing consent for drilling for oil and gas, and ‘development’.
I did manage to bring to the attention of the team that there was an important part missing from their story, the part about escalating carbon dioxide emissions that result from burning of oil and gas (and coal) leading to Near Term Human Extinction, almost certainly by 2050; in other words, by promoting the extraction of oil and gas the [relatively young] team were promoting their own demise, along with the demise of the children they were supposedly educating.
It has to be that way in the kind of society we live in, of course, since the road show is sponsored by oil and gas looting-and-polluting companies, and looting and polluting get the full endorsement of central and local government.
I also brought to the team’s attention that black is the ‘colour’ associated with death, ignorance and evil. Black seems to increasingly be the colour chosen by both organisations and individual people around here, as we descend into world characterised by death, ignorance and evil.
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Brutus- I can’t count the times, when involved in in some interchange with someone, that I have said, “I can’t un- know what I know.” At times it would be so much easier if I could unknow some distressing piece of information or some bit of knowledge. It would certainly make it easier to get along in social situations at times.
One word at a time our personal stories change.
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I’ll lighten the weight of reality when I get a chance.
Skip 0:55 to 3:15 & then return to listen to the song.
What’s the saying? “Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.”
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2-20-2014
Old Arctic Ice Is Disappearing and Taking the Rest of the Ice With It
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently released a video that shows compellingly just how bad things are getting at the top of the world. The animation displays Arctic ice over time not just by how much area it covers, but also by age, with white being the oldest ice (nine years or older):
It’s not hard to see that over the past few years, the oldest ice has melted away, and over time the ice gets younger. That’s not good: Older ice is thicker and tends to hang around longer; young ice is generally thinner and melts away every summer. That means that the year-round amount of ice is dropping, and dropping rapidly. As the Arctic warms, its ability not just to form ice but to keep it wanes….
…It’s not just area, either, it’s volume. Yes, the ice is covering less area of the sea, but it’s also thinning. That means it will melt even faster in the summer. This is very bad, because as far as we can tell this is a runaway process. Ice is white and reflective, while the water under it is darker. When the ice goes away it exposes the darker water which absorbs sunlight more efficiently, raising the temperature further. That’s one of the reasons we’re seeing the ice dwindling in the Arctic with alarming rapidity.
This is fact, pure and simple…
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Several interesting references, Merthyr Tydfil, something called capitalism, and if you make it to the bottom, zebra-human hybrids.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/shipping-container-elephant-park-dan-hancox
http://www.metafilter.com/136845/Economic-Ephemera#5430738
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The UK slave camp becomes ever more ghastly and ever more toxic. Humans have a remarkable capacity to survive in ghastly, toxic environments.
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The Math That Predicted The Revolutions Sweeping The Globe Right Now
2-19-2014
It’s happening in Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, Syria, and beyond. Revolutions, unrest, and riots are sweeping the globe. The near-simultaneous eruption of violent protest can seem random and chaotic; inevitable symptoms of an unstable world. But there’s at least one common thread between the disparate nations, cultures, and people in conflict, one element that has demonstrably proven to make these uprisings more likely: high global food prices. …
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I have not seem anything about this. I actually learned something.
A conclusion one could make might be: When people get hungry,they get pissed.
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The variation in meaning is sometimes amusing, sometimes confusing.
UK/NZ pissed = intoxicated by drinking too much alcohol. Get pissed = deliberately consume excess alcohol until intoxicated.
Pissed off = extremely annoyed.
US pissed = extremely annoyed.
UK/NZ already = before now.
I’m never really sure what US ‘already’ means, despite having listened to quite a lot of Stan Freberg.
‘He’s already pissed’; does that mean the same as ‘He’s pissed already.’ . ….. drunk, annoyed, emptied his bladder, before now?
No wonder we have such difficulty conveying abstract concepts to others.
Today there was a rally in town to protest TPPA. About 30 people showed up out of 73,000 living in the region; most passers-by were more interested in ice creams than their futures.
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Let me change part of my comment. When people get hungry,they might get angry enough to kill for food or kill just because they are angry & they may not care about anyone’s value system.
I really think Gerald Celente could have a point. “When people lose everything & have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”
Let’s don’t piss off anybody. ROFL
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“An army marches on its stomach.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
So do the proles.
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TR: the _might_ get angry enough – yes. Some, will. Others, won’t. People are different. There is very real example of extreme hunger in a large city, – worst i know of, up to date, – which you can be interested to learn details about. It took live of nearly 1.5 million people, most of them citizens of this city, most of them civilians, and most of them died to famine. More info – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad#Effect_on_the_city .
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it was quite staggering that most of Europe got through the summer of 2013 without rioting in the streets, despite extraordinarily high levels of youth unemployment. They’re obviously not suffering enough yet.
Since practically everything is now manipulated, presumably TPTB can manipulate food prices downwards and keep printing money to keep the lid on revolution for a while longer……in fact until they can’t.
That’s why California is so interesting at the moment.
Probably not very appropriate;
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The Christmas story (1958 I believe).
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Is it any wonder that the “American Dream” always seems to be tethered to the ball and chain of debt? Madison Ave. sells us and the rest of the world the “dream” and gives us financial credit for instant gratification. Instant gratification equals instant debt slavery. We pay and pay and pay, funneling money upwards in a financial ponzi that will only end when the last sucker signs on the dotted line. We buy homes, cars, educations and medical care with debt. The average homeowner (anchor of the American Dream) moves every seven years and refinances with little accumulation of equity. The American Dream is an extraction operation. And when the insatiable high priests of finance have bled the landscape dry of most of its resources, the jackals will foreclose on what remains of the broken dream. The Trail of Fears will begin as drones and gestapo insure an orderly procession into a chaotic and hopeless future. Look around you, it has begun.
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Charles Bukowski on the human race:
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CHARLES BUKOWSKI 1991 UNDISCOVERED POEM – AN ANSWER
February 7, 2014
“Within the past six years there have been four different rumors that I have died. I don’t know who begins these rumors or why. and certainly humans do worse things than this. yet I always feel strange when I must tell people, usually over the telephone, that I am not yet dead. somebody out there or perhaps several people evidently get some satisfaction in announcing that I am no longer around.
Some day, some night the announcement will be true. to put it mildly, I am no longer young. but these death-wishers are an unsavoury group, these hyenas, these vultures, these failed writers, will also some day be dead, their petty bitterness, their lying gutless beings gone into the dark. but for the moment, I am here and these last lines are for them: your cowardice will not be missed. even the roaches lived with more honour and you were always dead before me without rumour.”
http://www.examiner.com/article/la-poetry-examiner-s-friday-pick-2-undiscovered-poems-by-charles-bukowski
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“Dinosaur, We”…
excerpted from “Born Into This”…
“In sum, the poem Dinosauria, We discusses elements of corruption and the human fate, as well as dystopian themes found in postmodern literature. The poem is different than most of Bukowski’s normal poetry as it discusses topics such as politics and the end of the world, which Bukowski does not really cover in his other works. Because the poem was written in 1993, as Bukowski was severely ill for a good portion of that year, it could have been his last time to say something about humanity instead of himself for once.”…
http://psuedobukowski.blogspot.com/p/dinosauria-we-born-like-this-into-this.html
Thanks Mike…really takes me back
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Great stuff. Gets me in the mood to write again.
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LOL.
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Good Ole Rex
Exxon CEO Joins Lawsuit Against Fracking Project Because It Will Devalue His $5 Million Property
http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/21/exxon-ceo-joins-lawsuit-concerned-fracking-devalues-property/
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Just posted a cartoon I did on that….
https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2014/02/22/business-ethics/
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