[americandream]

Two refuges of the loser. Angry opportunism or the shopping mall.

SL

I hate to have to tell you the sad news, but capitalists no longer have need for nationalist opportunists. They are cosmopolitan money makers these days so you will have to spend the rest of your days slinging mud at your poor neighbour whilst blubbering over what might have been. Skol!

[StarvingLion]

"London is in firm control" of its cattle (citizens)..LOL.

New book: 'How Corrupt is Britain' by David Whyte @ 2015

"As the contributors to this book collectively explore,
the watchdogs that are supposed to guard against corruption have been
fatally weakened as a result of the slow and pernicious onward march of
a neoliberal political economy."

"...the cynical use of mass public disorientation to impose new economic settlements
that ultimately transfer power from the populace to elites is a common
neoliberal strategy. "

I am shocked. I would never have guessed this is happening in that wonderful democracy called London.

[onlooker]

This topic is the most important topic of any that we can ever discuss. The changed that must occur on this planet for the human species to have a chance to continue must involve pretty much every person on this planet. It has to be a change in conscious and priorities. Even if the elites could or would change it would not matter because everyone must recognize the need to change. Waiting for those in power to change is useless, these elites are the worst of us, the most greedy, selfish and corrupt. People power is about everyone being on board. Do I have optimism about this. Honestly, no but then again maybe a tipping point will be reached when all will recognize this need to change almost simultaneously.

[americandream]

@SL

The greatest imperial machine history has seen. One that even surpasses Islam in terms of its seduction and assimilative qualities and its ability to act with guile. The US is merely its aircraft carrier.

Would you expect otherwise of such a well ensconced elite?

[vtsnowedin]

This topic is the most important topic of any that we can ever discuss. The changed that must occur on this planet for the human species to have a chance to continue must involve pretty much every person on this planet. It has to be a change in conscious and priorities.

Your expecting the student body at Stanford to move in unison with goat herders in the mountains of Afghanistan?? Never going to happen.

[onlooker]

Vts, I stated I am not optimistic but not impossible. Student body and goat herders have something in common, they are both humans !

[Outcast_Searcher]

I read on one site yesterday that these days the American POLICE have more firepower per person than the United Kingdoms ARMY !!!!!!!!!!!

The US police, especially in the big cities is, no doubt, a paramilitary organization, and armed to match that mission.

1). Part of this is due to the stupid "war on drugs" that turns some big cities like L.A. into war zones or Baltimore into crime waves.

2). Part of this is due to the even more stupid "Civil Asset Forfeiture" laws, where police can take people's property, if they fill out a form claiming they have "probable cause" that a crime was committed. (And the bulk of these seizures is for suspected drug trafficking. NO evidence required, no court oversight, and no trial. The police just take the "evidence".) And here's the kicker -- the police often get to keep part of the money for the sale of the property -- to use for their own equipment, etc. So .... more and fancier guns.

Oh, if you're rich enough to hire a lawyer and brave enough to stand up to the paramilitary police, you can take them to court and try to get your property back.

Bottom line, Americans are no longer free to carry much cash, or the police may steal it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

(This piece is priceless. Search on John Oliver Civil Asset Forfeiture on youtube).

Americans who think they are remotely "free" are delusional.

[americandream]

This topic is the most important topic of any that we can ever discuss. The changed that must occur on this planet for the human species to have a chance to continue must involve pretty much every person on this planet. It has to be a change in conscious and priorities.

Your expecting the student body at Stanford to move in unison with goat herders in the mountains of Afghanistan?? Never going to happen.

Neither is in a position to contemplate the issues involved. The student at Stanford is more likely however as a consequence of his upbringing in modernity, to have a less obstructed access to such capacity.

The task however is to assist in the raising of consciousness from the current brute levels which are not sustainable in the animal man is, to the levels that evolution contemplates.

[Newfie]

What will the masses arise to?

Considering the emigrant flood into Europe, one wonders of the locals will "rise up" against the new comers.

[americandream]

What will the masses arise to?

Considering the emigrant flood into Europe, one wonders of the locals will "rise up" against the new comers.

Are you expressing a hardwired preference?

[ralfy]

Also,

"The rise of the global middle class"

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-22956470

[Newfie]

What will the masses arise to?

Considering the emigrant flood into Europe, one wonders of the locals will "rise up" against the new comers.

Are you expressing a hardwired preference?

You might find this book a good read but also E.O. Wilson "The Social Conquest of Earth."

In short, we all have hardwired preferences, even if the preference is only to turn a blind eye inward.

While I don't have the citation at hand I've read a trait of intrinsically insightful and self aware folks is that they admit to having had murderous and other nasty fantasies about their loved ones. To do so is only normal, it's also normal to block off and repress those memories and to then deny they ever existed.

Of course, most folks will disagree, some violently.

Riskin uses the term "meat robot" to describe just how driven we are by our internal genetic masters, which is mostly, with only tiny shreds of true self direction.

On some level it seems self evident. How else to explain humanities history of horrendous poor decisions?

Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You
- Dan Riskin

We are all meat robots, nothing but transfer systems for our DNA, whose only goal is to replicate itself. That drives the actions of all living creatures and it can result in some utterly ruthless behaviour. Humans, despite our opposable thumbs and self-awareness, are not above this drive.

That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Dan Riskin's book. It's a rollicking good read, especially if you are fascinated (like I am) by all the wonderfully gory and ruthless methods that creatures use to stay alive and stay ahead of the competition.

Riskin - the co-host of Daily Planet (my favourite televised science show) - is an evolutionary biologist who grew up in Edmonton and who is bat-shit crazy about bats. He did his doctorate research on the mechanics of bat locomotion. Essentially, a man after my own heart.

In Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You, Riskin mines much of his own life for examples of the ways in which ... well, mother nature is trying to kill you. He begins the book with the cheery little tale of the time he came home from a bat-studying expedition in Belize with a botfly maggot lodged in his head. For two weeks, the maggot (which his friends named Georgia) provided Riskin with a neat little party trick with which to amaze and gross-out his friends before he finally had it removed. Riskin uses this tale to demonstrate the cool life-cycle of the botfly and the complex strategy (using mosquitoes as carrier systems) that it uses to propagate itself.

And that's merely the introduction. The body of the book is divided into chapters named for the Seven Deadly Sins, chock-full of examples of ways in which nature is greedy, lustful, slothful, envious .. well, you get it. Riskin provides fascinating examples of the ingenious and often deadly ways in which living creatures commit these sins in order to make sure that their own DNA is passed on to the next generation. Riskin, being a meat robot for DNA just like every other creature, even questions his own motives behind the love he feels for his young son. Is this fraternal emotion merely a technique utilized by his DNA to ensure that Sam (the recipient of Riskin's DNA) survives to propagate and pass that DNA to the next generation?

Not afraid to court controversy, Riskin occasionally editorializes, using his innate sensibility and scientific understanding to take the piss (sometimes gently, sometimes less so) out of delusional zealots, like the man who claims to have subsisted on nothing but sunlight since 1940 or the waitress with whom he used to work who would only take drugs that "came from nature". His thoughts on GMO crops were so sensible that I wanted to hug this well-spoken and thoughtful meat robot.

Meat robot or not, Dan Riskin has written a highly readable and fascinating treatise. From cannibal spiders to gang-raping ducks to fire-ants to parasites in all their clever guises, Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You gleefully covers all the good stuff.

[americandream]

@ newfie

Mans hardwired functions sit uneasily with his consciousness but this is no more than an effect of mans condition which is essentially that of being an evolutionary WIP. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that man is a complex mix of the immediate and the contemplated.

It should also come as no surprise in that in granting us the tool of contemplation, this is also an evolutionary pathway out of the challenges that arise. In other words, the tool, second tier software to borrow a cyber space analogy, is there to be used in conjunction with the core software, instinct.

However, defaulting to the core software in pursuit of the noble savage is a pipedream. Man either continues evolutions pathway designated for us to the logical domain of material equilibrium or he fails. That failure may well be the corruption of reason to the illogical as you seem to think (where you get such bizarre notions such as sustainable infinity of the kind proposed by Graeme), but that will only be as a consequence of OUR failure.

We have the keys to contemplate our preferred futures. We are not pristinely subjective as our animal brethren. Even you, in your confused understanding of material dialecticism senses this in your calls to ethics.

[onlooker]

If I may add something I read once about Plato's thoughts. Basically he said that the human is divided into three tiers. The first being the animalistic or primitive desires , the second the mind and reason and the third being associated with lofty and high spirited aspirations or emotions. According to Plato the second must always be dominant and in control. This because the first and third were unreliable and led to errors in judgment and reckless behavior. So basically Man must always above all be guided by reason or the objective. So in that sense I think it is similar to what Marx is saying about material dialecticism

[Newfie]

What is a WIP?

There is no "noble savage", or rather the noble savage is simply us, as we are.

It's funny how much folks read to others posts. I see it all the time, not just mine but others.

For example this concept of the " noble savage" never crossed my mind. Yet my words caused it to come to AD's mind, and it then got attached to my ideas.

I suppose I do the same thing at times. Although I try not to.

In any case I don't see us any more savage than say a soldier ant or honey bee. I don't see us, when operating in a collective, as much smarter either.

Old argument, I doubt I'll change any minds.

[americandream]

@newfie

When one contemplates hardwired instinct with an ethical capacity, one can reasonably be said to be contemplating the noble savage. In truth one is contemplating pristine subjectivity which is a no starter with conscious man. Hence the obvious confusion.

[americandream]

If I may add something I read once about Plato's thoughts. Basically he said that the human is divided into three tiers. The first being the animalistic or primitive desires , the second the mind and reason and the third being associated with lofty and high spirited aspirations or emotions. According to Plato the second must always be dominant and in control. This because the first and third were unreliable and led to errors in judgment and reckless behavior. So basically Man must always above all be guided by reason or the objective. So in that sense I think it is similar to what Marx is saying about material dialecticism

Exactly, OL!

[Plantagenet]

Waiting for the masses to rise up is like waiting for Godot.

Those of the Christian Marxist faith are content to sit and wait patiently.

Those who don't share their Christian Marxist faith see how absurd it is.


Waiting for Godot the masses to rise up

[SeaGypsy]

That, & just on numbers alone it is going to be total chaos when it does happen. Those crazies with dugouts in the mountains & a few sea gypsies might be the only survivors in a lot of places. I totally doubt people generally have a clue how dependent on vast & efficient delivery of essentials they are. Also I would think being the only person in your street who's kids don't skeletise in a few weeks makes you a zombie magnet. Bleh. An organised meaningful revolution is a pipe dream. The elites intend to ride the horse right into the ground at full gallop & screw the consequences. The revolution this time will be the great bottlenecking of our population, & it will not be pretty. Meanwhile, timing is everything.

[americandream]

It is quite educational to watch conservative socio economists on this forum, dealing as it does with core systemic issues, issues flowing from global accumulation...........characterise circular communism as an absurd belief akin to religion in contrast to, infinite accumulation ( on a finite plane one should add).

Of course, in the event of a failing in the infinity project, theres the other favourite nugget of these people....the inevitability of natural selection and triumph of the superior brute.

How simple are these minds.