Denial is NOT a River in Egypt
Back when I was a small child, everyone lied to me. One by one, I discovered that there ain't no Santa Claus, there ain't no Tooth Fairy, the bible ain't the literal word of any God, the pope ain't infallable.
When I went to school, the lies continued. The US is not a democracy, the US is run by the very rich corporate elite. All men sure ain't equal in a court of law. The US sure ain't "the good guys" and the wars we have fought are sure not "noble causes".
The presedents and other politicians we build monuments to are war crimnals, not heros.
I
was both bewildered and angered by all these lies. I began to realize that many (if not most) adults actually believe many of these lies. WTF!!! I often find myself in the position of the little kid who shouted that the emperor ain't got no fucking clothes!
Then we have the savior complex. Folks beieve "our space brothers" will come to save our assess. Or the Harmonic Convergence will make the world a better place. Or maybe the end of the Mayan calendar. Or the second coming of Christ will make everything all better. Or new (as of yet undiscovered) technology will save our asses.
I do not believe any of that. Had we acted sooner (maybe a few centuries sooner) we might hav pulled ourselves out of our IMPENDING DOOM..
But that was then and this is now.
I really do not enjoy being Mister Gloom-&-Doom. People I know, like Big Gay Al, feel he can save up some $$ and buy a car with which to dash up to the northern woods while people in cities kill themselves off.
Survivalists are (in my not-so-humble opinion)in a state of denial about how bad things are going to get. Not next week. Maybe not for a decade. But probably within most of our lifetimes.
I honestly believe that when Noah Linden states below, "there will be very few people left." he is sugar coating what is to come. No humans. No mammals. No life more evolved than bacteria, lichens, molds, etc.
By the time higher lifeforms re-evolve, there will be no statues of Ozymandias extant to greet them.
So paractice your yoga while ou can, so you will be prepared when the time comes to kiss your ass goodbye.
nebris posted a quote of the day which insprd me to write this post. I checked out the referencig link and have posted the entire essay here. Below that I am postng a comment from that dame website. [Let's see if I have mastered the lj-cut function here on this LJ update page.]
"When old institutions and habits break down or consume themselves, new experimental shoots begin to appear, and people explore and test and share new and better ways to survive together.
"We live in the declining years of what is still the biggest economy in the world, where a looter elite has fastened itself upon the decaying carcass of the empire.
"The U.S., which has a long history of violent plutocratic rule unknown to the textbook-fed, will stand out as the best-armed Third World country, its population ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-educated, ill-cared for in health, and increasingly poverty-stricken: even Social Security may be whittled down, impoverishing tens of millions of the elderly.
"As empires decline, their leaders become increasingly incompetent -- petulant, ignorant, gifted only with PR skills of posturing and spinning, and prone to the appointment of loyal idiots to important government positions. Comedy thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.
"No futurist can foresee the possibilities. As empires decay, their civilian leaderships become increasingly crazed, corrupt, and incompetent, and often the military (which is after all a parasite of the whole nation, and has no independent financial base like the looter class) takes over. Another possible scenario is that if the theocratic red center of the country prevails in Washington, the relatively progressive and prosperous coastal areas will secede in self-defense.
"So I look to a long-term process of 'succession,' as the biological concept has it, where 'disturbances' kill off an ecosystem, but little by little new plants colonize the devastated area, prepare the soil for larger and more complex plants (and the other beings who depend on them), and finally the process achieves a flourishing, resilient, complex state -- not necessarily what was there before, but durable and richly productive. In a similar way, experiments under way now, all over the world, are exploring how sustainability can in fact be achieved locally. Technically, socially, economically -- since it is quite true, as ecologists know, that everything is connected to everything else, and you can never just do one thing by itself.
"That is the way empires crumble: they are taken over by looter elites, who sooner or later cause collapse. But then new games become possible, and with luck Ecotopia might be among them.
"All things 'go' somewhere: they evolve, with or without us, into new forms. So as the decades pass, we should try not always to futilely fight these transformations. As the Japanese know, there is much unnoticed beauty in wabi-sabi -- the old, the worn, the tumble-down, those things beginning their transformation into something else. We can embrace this process of devolution: embellish it when strength avails, learn to love it.
"There is beauty in weathered and unpainted wood, in orchards overgrown, even in abandoned cars being incorporated into the earth. Let us learn, like the Forest Service sometimes does, to put unwise or unneeded roads 'to bed,' help a little in the healing of the natural contours, the re-vegetation by native plants. Let us embrace decay, for it is the source of all new life and growth."
--- Ernest Callenbach (1929-2012)
http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2012/08/ernest-callenbach-1929-2012.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Noah Linden said...
Well, I certainly hope that something might arise out of the coming calamity. But I think that's probably several hundred years away, at best. As people continue to become increasingly ignorant and violent, it's all but guaranteed that all cultural traditions, everywhere, will be stamped out and replaced by carbon-copy totalitarian systems that will destroy what's left of the Earth's ecosystem with increasing speed and ferocity. In the end, there will be very few people left.
And that, I think, is where hope really lies: a drastic reduction of the human population, so that people finally have the space to think, ponder, and contemplate without being fed lies and propaganda on a daily basis by huge, electronic media webs. Instead of huge, corrupt bureaucracies, small villages will once again predominate, along with firm local traditions, mysticism and animism, and a new respect for the Earth.
The problem with this scenario is that global warming will not be reversed. Indeed, it might be just as climate scientists predict: several million years before the climate returns to a normal state.
When I went to school, the lies continued. The US is not a democracy, the US is run by the very rich corporate elite. All men sure ain't equal in a court of law. The US sure ain't "the good guys" and the wars we have fought are sure not "noble causes".
The presedents and other politicians we build monuments to are war crimnals, not heros.
I
was both bewildered and angered by all these lies. I began to realize that many (if not most) adults actually believe many of these lies. WTF!!! I often find myself in the position of the little kid who shouted that the emperor ain't got no fucking clothes!
Then we have the savior complex. Folks beieve "our space brothers" will come to save our assess. Or the Harmonic Convergence will make the world a better place. Or maybe the end of the Mayan calendar. Or the second coming of Christ will make everything all better. Or new (as of yet undiscovered) technology will save our asses.
I do not believe any of that. Had we acted sooner (maybe a few centuries sooner) we might hav pulled ourselves out of our IMPENDING DOOM..
But that was then and this is now.
I really do not enjoy being Mister Gloom-&-Doom. People I know, like Big Gay Al, feel he can save up some $$ and buy a car with which to dash up to the northern woods while people in cities kill themselves off.
Survivalists are (in my not-so-humble opinion)in a state of denial about how bad things are going to get. Not next week. Maybe not for a decade. But probably within most of our lifetimes.
I honestly believe that when Noah Linden states below, "there will be very few people left." he is sugar coating what is to come. No humans. No mammals. No life more evolved than bacteria, lichens, molds, etc.
By the time higher lifeforms re-evolve, there will be no statues of Ozymandias extant to greet them.
So paractice your yoga while ou can, so you will be prepared when the time comes to kiss your ass goodbye.
nebris posted a quote of the day which insprd me to write this post. I checked out the referencig link and have posted the entire essay here. Below that I am postng a comment from that dame website. [Let's see if I have mastered the lj-cut function here on this LJ update page.]
"When old institutions and habits break down or consume themselves, new experimental shoots begin to appear, and people explore and test and share new and better ways to survive together.
"We live in the declining years of what is still the biggest economy in the world, where a looter elite has fastened itself upon the decaying carcass of the empire.
"The U.S., which has a long history of violent plutocratic rule unknown to the textbook-fed, will stand out as the best-armed Third World country, its population ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-educated, ill-cared for in health, and increasingly poverty-stricken: even Social Security may be whittled down, impoverishing tens of millions of the elderly.
"As empires decline, their leaders become increasingly incompetent -- petulant, ignorant, gifted only with PR skills of posturing and spinning, and prone to the appointment of loyal idiots to important government positions. Comedy thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.
"No futurist can foresee the possibilities. As empires decay, their civilian leaderships become increasingly crazed, corrupt, and incompetent, and often the military (which is after all a parasite of the whole nation, and has no independent financial base like the looter class) takes over. Another possible scenario is that if the theocratic red center of the country prevails in Washington, the relatively progressive and prosperous coastal areas will secede in self-defense.
"So I look to a long-term process of 'succession,' as the biological concept has it, where 'disturbances' kill off an ecosystem, but little by little new plants colonize the devastated area, prepare the soil for larger and more complex plants (and the other beings who depend on them), and finally the process achieves a flourishing, resilient, complex state -- not necessarily what was there before, but durable and richly productive. In a similar way, experiments under way now, all over the world, are exploring how sustainability can in fact be achieved locally. Technically, socially, economically -- since it is quite true, as ecologists know, that everything is connected to everything else, and you can never just do one thing by itself.
"That is the way empires crumble: they are taken over by looter elites, who sooner or later cause collapse. But then new games become possible, and with luck Ecotopia might be among them.
"All things 'go' somewhere: they evolve, with or without us, into new forms. So as the decades pass, we should try not always to futilely fight these transformations. As the Japanese know, there is much unnoticed beauty in wabi-sabi -- the old, the worn, the tumble-down, those things beginning their transformation into something else. We can embrace this process of devolution: embellish it when strength avails, learn to love it.
"There is beauty in weathered and unpainted wood, in orchards overgrown, even in abandoned cars being incorporated into the earth. Let us learn, like the Forest Service sometimes does, to put unwise or unneeded roads 'to bed,' help a little in the healing of the natural contours, the re-vegetation by native plants. Let us embrace decay, for it is the source of all new life and growth."
--- Ernest Callenbach (1929-2012)
http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2012/08/ernest-callenbach-1929-2012.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Noah Linden said...
Well, I certainly hope that something might arise out of the coming calamity. But I think that's probably several hundred years away, at best. As people continue to become increasingly ignorant and violent, it's all but guaranteed that all cultural traditions, everywhere, will be stamped out and replaced by carbon-copy totalitarian systems that will destroy what's left of the Earth's ecosystem with increasing speed and ferocity. In the end, there will be very few people left.
And that, I think, is where hope really lies: a drastic reduction of the human population, so that people finally have the space to think, ponder, and contemplate without being fed lies and propaganda on a daily basis by huge, electronic media webs. Instead of huge, corrupt bureaucracies, small villages will once again predominate, along with firm local traditions, mysticism and animism, and a new respect for the Earth.
The problem with this scenario is that global warming will not be reversed. Indeed, it might be just as climate scientists predict: several million years before the climate returns to a normal state.