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Ibon wrote:

Pops wrote:
The overshoot predator in my mind is just a metaphor to talk about a change to a more naturalistic religion, mythology, whatever; one that is based more on natural laws, science and our objective place in the universe than the current flavors that put man at the center and the universe at our disposal.

Yes......The worship of something that will kill and destroy seems like a death wish. It is not. There is a long history of human mythology through many cultures that incorporate the natural phenomena of life and death with their respective deities.

Yes...as I mentioned above the imaginary "Overshoot Predator" god could be seen as another manifestation of the imaginary Hindu god Shiva the destroyer. The imaginary overshoot predator god is not merely a death god----the premise of the imaginary overshoot predator god is that some or all of modern human society is at risk due to ecological overshoot. This requires an imaginary god greater than typical mythological death gods----and Shiva the Destroyer fits the bill nicely.

Nicely put, e2.

On the mythology thing, another function that specifically relates here is what is known as the 'psychopomp,' or the leader of the souls of the dead to the other world. In classical mythology, this is delegated to Hermes/Mercury, not otherwise a particularly scary or 'bad' guy--in fact, essentially Zeus/Juppiter's right-hand man.

But later in the west, things go very dualistic, so Satan or 'the angel of death' became a very frightening type of character. Much of early church writings strike me as essentially centering around a hyperactive fear of death.

When ecologist and others talk about Industrial Society being a culture of death, I think that is off a bit. It is a culture of denial of death. And in the process it becomes a culture of something deeper than mere death--it's really a culture of annihilation.

dohboi wrote:
When ecologist and others talk about Industrial Society being a culture of death, I think that is off a bit. It is a culture of denial of death. And in the process it becomes a culture of something deeper than mere death--it's really a culture of annihilation.

Very well said. That which you deny and suppress has a way of raising its ugly head.
I am just thinking about our modern cultures glorification of youth, how we hide death and sickness, tuck away the mentally ill, institutionalize the aged, sanitize our bodies and homes with all kinds of perfumed products, manicure our lawns.

And let's not forget to put on our seat belts and safety helmets on the way to the annihilation!

I will share a small story. My family had a notorious reputation in our neighborhood when our daughters were growing up. Every Halloween we created a display that was so horrifying that most of the little kids under 5 started crying and never made it to the front door out of terror. We hung spanish moss forming an archway to the door, took old Barby dolls and dismembered them and hung the heads arms and legs from strings and stuck forks and knives in them and added ketchup. Half buried baby dolls in the mulch. Old cattle bones on the pathway. A fan was blowing this gargoyle wooden carved head that had real horse teeth and hair. Speakers were placed in the bushes playing gregorian chants. Everything was dark except the torches we lit.

Most of the houses in the neighborhood just went to walmart and hung up a flat pumpkin picture on their windows, just a sanitized cartoon version of halloween.

The day of halloween all the kids in the neighborhood came over and helped us set up the display. There was so much pumped up energy and creative ideas about how to amp up the horror.

It was very cathartic. And this was a south florida suburban neighborhood, about the most artificial sanitize living arrangement you can find in America.

Some of our neighbors hated us

I wanted to post Greer's most recent blog entry on this thread as it touches on some of the themes that came up here.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ ... -wind.html

I think a big part of gauging how close we are to more disruptive consequences around overshoot is to see how the media and other sources are treating this topic.

Let's remember we are socially a collective and in spite of how hermetically sealed our denial seems to be I actually think this denial at the moment is on the thinnest of ice.

dohboi wrote:But later in the west, things go very dualistic, so Satan or 'the angel of death' became a very frightening type of character. Much of early church writings strike me as essentially centering around a hyperactive fear of death.

There's a very good and entertaining BBC documentary on this subject called "How The Devil Got His Horns". It explains how the current christian idea of the Devil originated in the times of the Black Plague and how it is radically different from the descriptions and images of Satan before. It's not on youtube unfortunately, but you can find it on the torrents. It's a really fascinating insight on how the apocalyptic times of the plague shaped european culture and thinking.

Unless massive resources are committed to that task soon—as in before the end of this year—the possibility exists that when the pandemic finally winds down a few years from now, two to three billion people could be dead.

Come on.

Pops wrote:

Unless massive resources are committed to that task soon—as in before the end of this year—the possibility exists that when the pandemic finally winds down a few years from now, two to three billion people could be dead.

Come on.

So maybe we change the fairy tale to "the druid who called ebola"????

Or maybe the "druid who said I told you so" with a sea of ebola corpses piled hundreds of feet deep carried by climate change floods....

I'm not a fan of everything greer. But it's hard to know what to call hyperbolic with a disease that is probably growing at something like actual hyperbolic rates.

Does anyone think that this one Liberian is going to be the only one carrying the disease into this and other countries? The laws of chance would say that the number of people bringing ebola to the us will be rising at an exponential (at least) rates along with the rates of infection in West Africa. Maybe we'll get this one under control. But will we do so every time equally successfully as they come on ever faster and more frequently?

"we can’t make the risk zero while there’s an outbreak in West Africa.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola- ... ak-n217116

dohboi wrote:

Does anyone think that this one Liberian is going to be the only one carrying the disease into this and other countries? The laws of chance would say that the number of people bringing ebola to the us will be rising at an exponential (at least) rates along with the rates of infection in West Africa. Maybe we'll get this one under control. But will we do so every time equally successfully as they come on ever faster and more frequently?

I am far more perplexed that we have managed the last 50 years going from 2 to 7 billion without any major pandemics. Are we right there with cockroaches and rats in resiliency as a species or are we about to eat some humble ebola pie?

Pops wrote:

Unless massive resources are committed to that task soon—as in before the end of this year—the possibility exists that when the pandemic finally winds down a few years from now, two to three billion people could be dead.

Come on.

Why not Pops? It is doubling case load every twenty days and no agency is doubling it's efforts to stop it in twenty days or less. Air traffic connects all of the third world's overpopulated slums and none of them have even a fraction of the supplies on hand to stop an outbreak after it gets to a dozen cases or so.
I'm quite pessimistic about our ability to bring this under control anytime soon.

Because it is not airborne. It doesn't spread through casual contact. It spreads vis "frequent contact with blood, sweat, feces, vomit, semen and spit." If you don't get any on ya you don't get sick which is exactly why docs, nurses, family, etc are getting sick - they are in frequent close contact.

If/when it mutates to become infectious before symptoms are apparent or is persistent in air rather than only in liquids, then I'll get skeered.

Pops,
I know that is the CDC line, but there seems to be an abundance of circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

I've seen it Newfie. Scepticism is good, but constant conspiracy is really not very practical, if it were, paranoia would be considered a virtue rather than a disability.

It's like everything else talked about around here, if a person plans to do anything more than sit and fret while posting the latest drama, they should try to base their plans on the best info they can get, not just the most dramatic.

But whatever, LOL, maybe this is the dreamed of slate wiper, at least it would lower the cost of unleaded.

Pops wrote:Because it is not airborne. It doesn't spread through casual contact. It spreads vis "frequent contact with blood, sweat, feces, vomit, semen and spit." If you don't get any on ya you don't get sick which is exactly why docs, nurses, family, etc are getting sick - they are in frequent close contact.

If/when it mutates to become infectious before symptoms are apparent or is persistent in air rather than only in liquids, then I'll get skeered.

But Pops that doubling rate every twenty days is the result of how easily it does in fact spread.

Doubling every 20 days - even in Africa, is what makes me confident this is not a worry without mutation. I've read the Spanish flu would have doubled every 1-2 days without prior exposure to influenza.

Any transmissibility means there is the possibility of an epidemic, the fact that ebola is scary and rare means it will be dealt with post haste. Eventually even scientifically innocent populations get the hint that they should not continue doing things that cause them to die and they change habits. If transmissibility is low and not casual and mortality is high, like ebola, I'm pretty sure the lessons get learned quicker. Learning not to mop up blood barehanded is easier than learning to not breath around other people or touch anything they've touched.

In the US where one of our big problems is overuse of antibiotics and kids with underdeveloped immune systems who never play outside and the "dirtiest" thing they do is online porn, I'm pretty sure the freak out is just beginning. Last night all the news programs ran headlines shocked at the fact napalm wasn't called in on the apartment of the guy in texas.

Pops wrote:Doubling every 20 days - even in Africa, is what makes me confident this is not a worry without mutation. I've read the Spanish flu would have doubled every 1-2 days without prior exposure to influenza.

Any transmissibility means there is the possibility of an epidemic, the fact that ebola is scary and rare means it will be dealt with post haste.

I don't think Ebola much cares what people think about it and being scared of it does not give people any means of fighting it.

Eventually even scientifically innocent populations get the hint that they should not continue doing things that cause them to die and they change habits. If transmissibility is low and not casual and mortality is high, like ebola, I'm pretty sure the lessons get learned quicker. Learning not to mop up blood barehanded is easier than learning to not breath around other people or touch anything they've touched.

Information about how to avoid being infected will undoubtedly help in the US and other developed countries but it is the overcrowed cities in Africa and Asia that worry me. Some three billion people that are poor, illiterate and live in horribly unsanitary conditions. Consider the Muslim population that meet several times a day and pray kneeling shoulder to shoulder in mosques. Will the clerics preaching the sermon give them the right information or rail against the "Great Satin USA"? The Haji pilgrimage to Mecca is going on as I write this with 1.4 million visitors from all over the world. I'd estimate the chances of some of those visitors having and transmitting Ebola while they preform the rituals to be a lot higher then zero. [/quote]

In the US where one of our big problems is overuse of antibiotics and kids with underdeveloped immune systems who never play outside and the "dirtiest" thing they do is online porn, I'm pretty sure the freak out is just beginning. ......[/quote]
That we can agree on.

vtsnowedin wrote: being scared of it does not give people any means of fighting it.

You can't fight it.

The only way to fight when you can't win is to avoid the fight altogether, that is what fear is made for. It is called the fight or flight response for a reason. You don't think only panty-waist libruls experience fear do ya? LOL

Yes the flight response has a lot of people taking a flight out of west Africa to somewhere with good hospitals. I hope they don't get overwhelmed.

" the flight response has a lot of people taking a flight out of west Africa to somewhere with good hospitals"

Nice point!

(Now I have to scurry off and get my waist pantied, whatever that means exactly.)