Month: December 2016

Democracy has been under pressure for as long as it exists. This is simply because allowing a majority vote to rule is not the desire of the majority. Some people want to dictate what happens, some want to take what belongs to others and some want to experience total victory over people of opposing views. But we are now approaching a world in which the infiltration of people that advocate views because they get payed for it, and influence people because they get payed for it is becoming overwhelming. The problem being that pulic health, wealth and safety can not be ensured if leaders are serving specific commercial interests.

The common factor weakening democracy is distance, discretion. What people don’t know won’t hurt them you’d think, not so in politics. Research on lobbying in Holland shows that politicians are desperate to do the bidding of businesses, sometimes competitively. The difference between the left and the right then becomes between politicians that apply conscience and social considerations to serving those commecial interests and those that don’t. The line between unfair advantage and just supporting entrepeneurs is hard to draw. What should be the question is what makes a person a good politician? Responsiveness to these kinds of requests? Ability to maintain an ethical role while serving those requests?

Increasingly the question arises whether any person is ever able to persue laws that secure the health and happyness of people, since all politicians, except those born rich, depend on their financial security and are thus sensitive to financial rewards (be it now or promised in the future). People ‘coming up through the ranks’ can be vetted, supported, advised for years and given all the support to become the desired servant. Because of the vetting the person with the least moral objection to selling out will most easily attain the political role. Most people never think of the ones that don’t make it.

If all people are constantly exposed to messages that influence their feelings about issues, and if they are so easily persuaded to chase financial rewards (because really don’t think those laws they promote, written by businesses, do not come with some), then why should we use such people in politics. It’s the quality of the lie (I am like you) and the promise of protection (I represent you) which are the only reason why a politician should be a known individual, why democracy works. But if a constituency has a person that just wants to make money he can use his origin and promise improvement and gain the position of power from which to commecially serve anyone with a cash. There is no way to rely this doesn’t happen. Politicians and lobbyists do everything they can to hide it as it does (not if, it happens, that is for sure).

So this builds a case for appointed politicians who’s income is limited. Open elections and controlled representation in the media. Money has to get out of the game. Lies and pretense can’t matter. You can select a politician on their view, but you can also give him/her the experiences she needs to develop those views. This is almost a call for a new elite, a new well educated experienced group we know has the sensibility to make the right decisions because they have been able to practice in their life. Not based on a struggle to gain financial freedom or weight.

Dealmakers are out, we don’t need polticians to make deals because we don’t want industry and businesses to assert themselves through our laws. Laws are there to keep us safe, happy, healthy and prosperous, all of us, with no exception. To represent is an honour, not a job. Anyone doing it will need to sustain a reasonable lifestyle, and should be prevented from accepting delayed bribes  (speeches, commisariats, symbolic roles in industry) at all times. They should also share the lives of all groups of society, so they don’t lack empathy that then drives division and suffering.

 

 

 

 

Some may have learned about the singularity, the point at which computers become so intelligent they will be able to take over and grow in power out of our control. It is near some say, as a doomoptimistic prophecy we frankly think is bogus. The evangelist of this line of thinking never considered what AI really has to be, but that’s another post.

Rather than distracting us with the threat of machine intelligence, maybe we should be more concerned with growing human ignorance. If we allow leaders, even in the highly educated West, to empower the lowest instincts in our society, we will see what we are seeing now, a rise in populism.

Those who don’t earn that much, have to work hard and live in socially challenged neigborhoods are extra vulnerable for the wash of slick media, on radio, television, internet. Those media are commecial and seem to be always serving an agenda, now mainly the republican, neocon agenda.

We see McCain lamenting the hacking of Hillary’s emails, as if he is a democrat. No he wants war to start now. We are not seeming Trump bungle, he is surrounded by ex military who all seem to want war. How do you get war? By being extremely stupid. We are not talking resource wars as far as I can see, so any fight other than for resources is stupid. To start them you need a stupid population, or a distracted one.

Those that want power can do two things : Outperform everyone else, or weaken everyone else

The risk of creating a stupid population, something that the right has tried to make true for decades now by undermining the education system, only viewing it as a possible place to sink lucrative credit into, is the loss of communication. You can take a highly educated person on a walk through an imaginary world, one that you suggest would be better for them, one without fossil fuels, for instance. You can’t do that with poorly educated people. They won’t see it. They are mired in all kind of trouble. They don’t make it far into businesses (except simple ones) because they are poor decision makers.

While the banks and fossil companies still do the best they can to increase stress on society, if not where you live in many other places, the people become more and more restless. They are protesting in Poland, Venezuela, India. They are suffering in Alleppo, Turkey, etc. To create opportunity for people with money the first step is to make sure your potential victims don’t have any. But a human being can’t create money, so where does that stress go? Not into repurposing resources, because you need to buy those first, with a loan from a bank. If you are poor you are stuck in an economic straightjacket and you can only escape through the kindness that has just been tortured out of you, or through ‘crime’.

Telling these frustrated people, as Trump does with blacks in the US, ‘what do you have to lose’, is giving them a license to put order at risk. The only reason why this isn’t happening is that even these burdened, badly educated people have descency, most if not all of them. The idea that poor people are not decent is as dumb as the idea that rich people are. They just don’t look it perhaps. But some of these poor uneducacted will simply feel empowered. They will be given the role of policing this new order, dictated by slogans not goals like freedom, peace and democracy. They want to feel their own actions with strength. Be strong, how can you be strong if you doubt yourself. Say this slogan, you will sound powerfull. “Pay for the wall!”

So you will find that society reorganizes along new lines. The most intimidating or mean advocates of the slogans du jour shut up anybody and build their profile by terrorizing anyone that seems the weakest. Typical bullying behaviour for idiots stuck in that phase of their lives. This agitation reduces the ability of people to think clearly, in turn forcing them to be either with or agianst the new order. This is a process we have seen in world history over and over again. Lists with ‘dissidents’ you can score points with. The heart of the organization being a mental desert scorched by wielded hatred.

The downwards spiral of antisocial psychology is clearly driven by the media, and is an illusion to which solutions are numerous. 

Its only funny as long as you can rewind. But you lose the abiity to rewind after a while. Pleas sound weak, reason is to rational, to elitist. You can’t be tough about lettng go of your anger. You target muslims, you where strong about it, you have to follow through or seem weak and become a target yourself. Even if you have a thought process like this you will not be able to stop the idiots who don’t realize they are chanting lies, nonsense and courting selfdestruction.

Meanwhile who thinks a society like ours, so highly tuned and financialized, so dependent on fuel trucked in (with a 5 day buffer usually), run by computers and experts can even sustain a temporary parlysis of the mind. Are those not the elite, the people that are supressing the poor? Those Wall Street rats will burn, and then the do, and then where will the ships with goods go?

You’d think this is all a bit crazy, but the question one should ask is : When does the audience for wishfull and hatefull nonsense grow so large that it can not be convinced of any alternative except the one you used to create it. When do people say “Ok, I know enough, its time for action!”. What if you have poisoned the channels of communication so much that they can no longer be reached. You have installed a mass psychosis that has become self sustaining.

Idiolarity : The point where the idiots in society can no longer be reasoned with or forced into submission

The point you may reach we can call the idiolarity, the singularity where ignorance has grown so large that the actions and momentum of the idiots makes it impossible to pull them back to a reasonable, fact based, solution oriented narrative. We are coursing towards the idiolarity by the nature of our world : It is not organized, disciplined or  cooperative, that was only an illusion that leaders worked very hard to create and maintain. Once that magic is broken and all realize their dependence, and then idiots instead of reducing it and neutralizing it start hating it, you can’t go back.

After the Idiolarity, because goals set are nonsensical and imaginary, a better world wil not emerge. The result will be suffering until enough of the idiots have destroyed themselves or are destroyed by external factors

So many of us are opportunistic and reason with a short horizon, and chaos only motivates us to be more short sighted and opportunistic. We will all participate in the direction we feel is inevitable, one we don’t want to be seen to counter for fear of punishment when things get worse. “You traitor, you where one of those lefties!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Trump camp clearly does not care about good relations with China. Trump does not yet understand that there is a reason business went to China and there is a reason why it can’t be retrieved by boycotting or antigonizing the country. He doesn’t seem to see the man behind him, military, have a harsh agenda that will be devestating for the USA and China, even though he appoints Mad Dog Mattis, his ‘Patton’ as his defence secretary.

Time out. What is going on?  We first have to select a reality we want to make sense in, because there are a few depending on where your moral compas runs out of steam. For some it is the US economy. For others it is world peace, for others it is the survival of our species, and then there is the neocons that want hegemony of the USA.

The drone wars?

We would say that Trumps thoughts don’t extend beyond making sure the US economy thrives. He likes to be popular. He got way to much control, he should be crowned and given a castle, he is showing all the signs of royalty including trying to present his daughter Ivanka as first lady and preparing for a nepotist onslaught in government.

But Mad Dog Mattis’es mind goes beyond that. He wants to protect the US from an invasion of China, the world from Chinese expansion, the US from energy shortages. You would think his moral compas has to do with US sovereignty, and also align with the Neocon agenda.

The Neocons prefer a big war and US coming out on top over some kind of multilateral process. This is why they where so clearly against Iran having nuclear weapons. ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran’ as maverick John McCain sang. This group has been in power since Reagan, in different positions. Clearly they made Clinton their puppet.

I am not even talking about the people that, given they live in remote or unintersting areas themselves, or are financially secure enough to hid quickly in case of trouble, say “There are too many people” “Why not get rid of some chinese?”. We see a resurgence of the concept of utility just like before WOII again. Don’t underestimate the number of people that think your life is not worth saving or protecting.

Meanwhile China is preparing for war with the US, it has done so more than 20 years. 20 years ago I read a piece in a diplomatic magazine ‘Foreign Affairs’ about this. It is not a joke. China is vulnerable. It needs world trade to keep its population from becoming restless. Economic growth has been a stabilizing factor. It has been a way for US bankers and intermediaries to get rich, to escape environmental concerns, it has had benefits for all to produce in China and consume in the US, but now China depends on it.

Is the new world map with China controlling the Pacific fake news, it is at least war propaganda

Then there is an angle you might not expect. The Pentagon wants to act against climate change, it can’t because of a law that prohibits it from doing so. If war broke out with Iran that would cut logistics and emissions seriously. As with a conflict with China it would devestate trade and force the US to rebuild its manufacturing base, all a lot greener. Any war throws a region back to its own resources. With todays technology that would drive an acceleration towards autonomy. At least, if the war was not to devastating.

Natl. Security Advisr Flynn hinted of helping the Middle East regaining wealth by building renewable energy sources. Duh!

Global trade and globalization was a way to sell and empower the fossil industry and its brokers and intermediaries, the banks. It is not a logical thing at all for a person in Europe to compete with one in China, only if they both eat from the same fossil fuel trough. Renewables are local and by nature antiglobalist. The people supporting and profiting from the globalists agenda know that if their agenda finally fails (because the environment or fossil fuels is no longer able to support it), they can blend back and evaporate just like bankers after a banking crisis, they can say ‘nobody saw this coming’, ‘I was only doing my job’. This is what makes their high risk games so low risk : opague responsibility.

For one with a moral horizon of protecting the survival of humanity, a war with China and Russia, even a nuclear world war, would be welcome. Not for the loss of life and suffering that would result, but for the hard break on consumption and destruction of resources we see at the moment. If emissions would be halted or seriously reduced now that would be exactly the right time. The need for forcefull reorganization of society is increasing, either because of climate calamities or to prevent them.

We can peacefully dissipate the population and resource problems by working extraeconomically and roboeconomically

Sadly it is nearly impossible to make out the mindset of the Trump team. It is quite clear that Trump is racheting up sentiments for a war with China. It may be just because the US can not wait for China to become more powerfull. It may be just because Trump wants to create US jobs. It may be the Neocon agenda or it may be the spanner thrown into the global emissions wheel we desperately need right now. One thing seems certain. It is happening.

 

 

 

The below image is presented to us :

This is a map of opportunity in Africa. We don’t have to think long to understand that a lack of water is a problem we can overcome. We just need to use means that do not perpetually require our attention and effort, so no fossil fuels, or manual labour, to solve it. We also should not fix this to benefit the economy, because that never helps to fight climate change, and arid deserts have very little to offer. Instead we can think extraeconomically, roboeconomically.

An electric railroad that transports water to the center of Africa. Maybe a road system with autonomous trucks that do the same?

Extraeconomical thinking is thinking in terms of adding resources without arranging their consumption or tying into the economy. Just adding them for the sake of adding them, just like nature does if conditions are favourable. Right now nature is losing and we are the ones that need to step in. Large projects have been executed to this effect, for instance large reforestation projects in China. We can make the desert thrive and live by adding water, we can do that without promising profits, just by spending money on the necessary infrastructure and doing so in a clever way. Not part of the desert, but all of it.

Shaping the land can totally change its ability to catch rainwater and support life

Roboeconomic thinking is thinking beyond fossil fuels, thinking with all the avialable tools we have today. We don’t need to be there when a tree gets planted, a ditch gets dug. We don’t need to use fossil fuels to do it. We just need electricity, some storage, and electrical equipment, robotic, drones and we can have lots of those and get the job done. Not in one place but in many places at the same time. The roboeconomy will be what we have after fossil fuels are finally killed off. Maybe that will involve a real struggle, the way fossil interests are guiding us to a global conflict testament to that.

Renewables are an economically independent way to get things done over long periods of time

Why not keep it simple : We build a trans african railroad, we build solar ionic desalination plants on the coasts of Mauritania and elsewhere, and we ship water to the dry regions. We can also use aquifers to grow tree plantations, dig trenches to capture rain into undersoil. And then there are more complicated methods. We build solar panel factories to supply the panels to the arid regions, using solar energy, so at a low cost. We build the robotics that will irrigate and manage the landscape where there’s only a few uneducated souls or terrorists. we take on this challenge and we do it without looking for profit, we consider the density and variety of life our key performance indicator.

Nature is oppertunistic, its life can’t shape the landscape like humans can, so humans can be a tremendous force for good when it comes to supporting and maximizing life, which will be essential for human survivial and that of other species in the next 100 years.

 

 

We have probably written about this before, but here we will try to outline the true duality of our existence in as much depth and breath as needed : That between our individual identities and our systemic roles.

Human beings are mostly identical. We have races but we are one species. Still we can vary a lot, in fact we are all perfectly unique. Our parents will know us in and out and will never mistake us for some other child. To employers or anyone we sell to or who we buy from the picture looks very different. We are just workers, suppliers, customers. Who or what we are as individuals doesn’t matter at all, as long as we behave in a certain way, as long as we assume a certain role.

This duality of our lives, on the one hand our identities and qualities and on the other our roles, this is what is interesting, because we could not be just identities, and we could not be just performing a role to achieve the society we are in. I want to explore why that is the case and what the consequences are. Is our society, in order to conform us to the best possible consumer, pressuring us into roles? How do we retain control over our destiny if we allow our individuality to be ignored? How can we get satifaction from being unique, but also from having a meaningfull role ?

An individual human being can be man or woman, or something inbetween. The variation of individual traits is endless. Hair color, figure, skincolor, with musical sense, with language skills, temperament. Then once we develop a personal taste what that ends up being is completely unpredictable. This makes us a better fit for one lifestyle or another, and attracts us and makes us attractive to different kinds of other people.

A role an individual can have is actually a set of specific skills and qualities that if the individual posesses them, they can perform the role. This can be ‘ability to fry a burger’ or ‘ability to model rocket combustion processes’ or ‘ability to sing and play the piano’. Every person has a set of skills and qualities that would be minimal to optimal for a certain role. Eveyone that fits the requirements could have a shot at peforming the role, and our society is ultimatly a system of roles, not so much a system of identities..

We know role systems as companies, bands, footbal teams, as soon as individuals have to perform in a certain way to make the system work, to make the company thrive, band produce palatable music, footbal team compete, then the members of the system have a role. The result is impossible to create as a single individual, only the system, the organization, can produce it.

There is in fact a gap between roles we could play and roles we play, even though some roles we can play, as for instance a member of a band, is a joy. We could give care to someone or train a football team. Those roles are fun and fulfilling. But also systems, organizations or companies that would emply some people, don’t exist even though perhaps the people that would be needed are available.

For instance, in some places one could create a bakery, get some people that like to bake bread in the morning to work there, not get the bread from the megafactory or from beyond the horizon. But the people of the bakery don’t know they’d like to, or that they could (of course the economy tries to tie them to costs and debt so they have to look for paying jobs). In this sense there is a definite gap between what people can do, and what they actually do.