Yes I agree, in the beginning he called the Democrats portrayal of the virus as a hoax, he didn’t directly say the virus was a hoax. He is very careful with his wording, and of course thrives on the attention it gets, probably thinking about that attention while he is calculating what to say. IMHO.
Additional restrictions on 80% of counties due to increase in CV-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths. Effective immediately: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/13/watch-california-gov-gavin-newsom-on-states-response-to-covid-19-pandemic-july-13/
I find this a really engaging thread - so many things I’d like to respond to/add - I’ll start with reasons to avoid violence. Sandpuppy’s second reason starts off like mine. I make a decision to avoid violence for spiritual reasons (specifically a belief in Karma but not everyone here is interested so I won’t delve into that point).
However, in my vocabulary, “avoid” does not mean “never engage in.” I would call myself a peacenik but not a pacifist. For example, I trained in Taekwondo for some years. I had a great teacher of the “we learn to fight so we don’t have to” school of thought.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with a willingness “to die, be kidnapped, raped, bludgeoned or beaten and see the same done to family and friends without violent response, for spiritual reasons.” As someone else pointed out, self preservation is basic. I’m not going seek to create that kind of “Karmic debt” (a poor but sufficient term here) but if it comes my way, I will deal with it. That’s not a boast. I might deal with it by running away. I have no way of knowing for sure until faced with such a situation.
If I did end up taking a life, I would certainly have a very hard time integrating that experience, as MM wrote about regarding his vet friends.
re: communitarian vs libertarian - in my mind, these are not mutually exclusive. I started with Mutual Aid by Kropotkin. In the US, most people understand “libertarian” to mean something like “right-wing gun nut” and/or “rugged individual.” I am none of those things. I philosophically tend to the libertarian left but I will admit, for me that’s more aspirational than practical and I have no truck with the so-called “anarchists” recently on display in the media. Chaos is not anarchy. Anarchy does not mean “without order”, “without leaders”, or “without rules”. It means “without rulers”. It has nothing to do with wanton destruction. The non-aggression principle is important to me (and I am reflective about the disagreements over same). That certainly does not preclude self defense. I know of mutual aid societies that are pretty well organized on that front.
re: resilience - This discussion made me think of Dimitri Orlov’s book, Communities that Abide. He’s not an economist nor a historian but I have found his writing interesting and useful. I can’t put my hands on it so I’ve probably lent it to someone. I can’t remember all of the case studies but I know he examined the Roma and Anabaptist groups like the Amish and the Hutterites. (He is also designing and plans to produce a “houseboat that sails” for exactly the reasons discussed here - I live a mile above sea level so I’ll have to find someone other than the sea gypsies to take up with).
Also, I do not believe the image of 1000 years of non-stop raiding, rape and pillage following the fall of Rome comports with the modern understanding of history. Did such things happen? yes, quite a lot of it went on. Were there places and periods where/when they did not happen? Apparently so. I understand there were some significant periods of time when villagers were able to go about their business. I know some really horrible stuff went on too but I think the 20th century was probably worse in terms of atrocities toward humanity. A better understanding of this period of history (and world history, not just European history) would serve us all well. I’m a math and engineering teacher so not exactly the go-to on such topics.
Thanks to everyone for all the interesting things to think and read about.
jeff
Jbuck, thank you for the reference to Orlov’s book. I am reading this now and 1/2 the way through (the main portion comprises two large chapters by him and by Peter Kropotkin extolling the virtues of “communism” and the need for each individual to share everything of value (income, tools, property) except personal effects (like a comb, clothing etc). The term “communities that abide” is defined as a community that exists beyond the life of the founders. Orlov proclaims that the number one condition for success is that you must give up all property rights, including rights to fruits of your own labor to the collective (maximum Dunbar size of 150) in order for the community to succeed. This is the most important characteristic of a successful group. Secondly, a prime focus of the successful community seems to be having a system to keep the later generations from wanting to run away or if they do run away to come back. In this respect they recommend separate language customs and a strong sense of in-group vs out group…
The Gypsies are presented as one type of successful community.
I note that they purposely left out monastic communities from their purview. This is important to me for two reasons. One, I dont like the type of community that they proclaim as superior, and two, I think that a community of (rare) reasonable truth seekers (such as the type of personality that came to this CM website) would work out better as a truth seeking monastic community that focused on helping its younger members achieve the highest education possible rather than the Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites and long term persisting Hippy Communes that are upheld as shining examples of successful communities. On the other hand, Jewish Kibbutzes are included in his definition (and said to be mostly atheist and education seekers) and might be acceptable as a role model in my opinion.
There is much very good discussion of how to handle disputes and troublemakers by the use of a federation of Dunbar sized groups where individual members can be exchanged to allow more diversity and more disagreement. This (I have always thought) is a very important structure for any small group to have in order to take care of serious disagreements and merits serious consideration by any sustainable/resilient community.
Of course one can easily say that human nature does not change and that it is misleading to think that “this time it will be different.”
However, I really think that a good blend of modern Roman-based private property rights with American glossed personal freedoms are possible in a “Community that Abides” if two conditions are met: 1. the members are all reasonable personality types (the type that listens to argument and changes their opinion based on reasoned logic): this is only about 5% of the general population albeit most of the people at this CM blogsite; and 2. the community focuses on serious education of its young to a point where the young can out-compete students from the larger society in serious competitions such as spelling, math, physics, biology, new research etc. A community that focuses on this and moreover cooperates to actively help its young adults acquire PhDs in math and science and to start high tech businesses could keep its young generations from moving away and could “abide” long term. This is the kind of community that I would like to support. I dont like Orlov’s/Kropotkin’s idealized romantic communist community. Maybe its because I dont like long hours in the field and want machines and technology to do the work and allow me to use my mind more…
This kindle book cost 7$ but I can lend out if someone asks…
I once took part in a Community building program. It was 9 months. We had 50 people. We met together 4 times during the 9 months and every other week in small groups. My small group was 7 people.
We had a curriculum divided into 4 subjects. The first was The Self. The second was the Self in Relation to Others. Third was Self in Relation to the Environment and finally Leading Inspired Lives.
The group meetings were full weekends and the small meetings were every other week. In the small meetings we would have a new video to watch concerning a specific topic. The fundamental process for all communication was “dialogue”. The common definition is a conversation. We used the Greek meaning of dia - through and logos- word or reason. David Bohm the brilliant physicist developed the idea of dialog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue
This was our main tool. It goes way back in other cultures but Bohm popularized it. One culture to use it was/is the Native American Indigenous peoples. It was called Council. It employs a “talking stick” ie. an item usually a stick that is placed in the center of the circle of participants. No one speaks unless they are holding the stick. I will relate a personal story from when I lived on a reservation. There was an issue that came up in the tribe so a council was called and the elders were to meet. A time and place was set. (I was not there but a friend who was told me about it). No one showed up at the appointed time, they all showed up three hours “late”.(It is Indian time). The meeting started and everyone just sat there in the circle for a long time silently. Finally someone went “huh” . They all got up and left. The decision had been reached w/o a word being spoken. That is the highest level of dialog I have ever heard about.
Some principles need to be adhered to for a successful dialog.
1-Listening is more important than speaking. Deep listening is a very important skill. Deep listening entails not thinking of a response while the other person is speaking. It is active in that you consciously send energy to the person speaking to get out what that person wants to say in the best way possible.
2- Only speak when you have something to say. It is perfectly okay to say nothing.
3- Allow a space for a "container"after the person has spoken to completely assimilate what was said
4- Have a topic and a person assigned to be the “listener” to keep it on topic. It is not necessary to have a goal. It is very good to enter with the idea of learning through exploration in a group.
5- suspend assumptions. Speak honestly. Suspending assumptions has interesting meanings. One is to hold back the other is to hold up for everyone to see. It is important not to have an agenda other than the topic. But if someone has an agenda it is best that the entire group is made aware.
It takes time for most people to slow down enough to learn to do it effectively. The talking stick is useful in the beginning but after awhile you can do w/o it. It took us a few meetings to get the process down
It is pure magic when done well. There is a voice that comes from outside the group that brings new information which no one in the group brought to the dialog. It comes from somewhere in the Universe.
Bill Issacs from MIT has taken Bohm’s work and gone all over the world using it with world leaders and corporations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acd57U3xO58
He has an excellent book https://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Thinking-Together-William-Isaacs/dp/0385479999.
Good luck and remember it’s not the goal it’s the journey
@sand_puppy I am aware of 2 general belief structures that consciously decide to avoid violence. 1. People who believe that violence will not be necessary. (Several slight variations: A) Others will not enslave, beat, rape, kill, kidnap me or my family. B) Things won't get that bad. C) The inherent goodness in people will prevent others from behaving in those terrible ways. D) God, or spiritual factors, will protect me. E) Believing that they have excellent skills at situational awareness, street smarts --conflict resolution, escape and evasion and will be able to skate out of dangerous situations.) 2. Choice to not meet violence with violence. This is a decision to die, be kidnapped, raped, bludgeoned or beaten and see the same done to family and friends without violent response, for spiritual reasons. Are there others?Those are accurate categorizations I'd say, yeah. It can also be expressed as the non-agression principle (NAP), adherence to which is called voluntaryism, or the principle of the Divine Feminine... which has the correlate of the principle of the Divine Masculine aka the right to self-defense. Discerning who initiated the violence/aggression is always the central issue, and telling children it doesn't matter who initiated the fight is a terrible, destructive idea. The thing about variation A) is that government ends up being that "others" that will seek to enslave everyone -- check out what @VTGothic said in post #49 about James C. Scott and his book about the anarchism of Zomia where to this day voluntaryism/anarchy is maintained, with its pros and cons, but greatly influenced/restricted by the surrounding empires/governments seeking to dominate/control/rule them. Your belief structure #2 is that of a right-brain-imbalanced person, common in 'New Age' circles. But left-brain imbalance is very common also, where you're thinking (dealing with linear processes) all the time without breaks to allow your divine feminine energy (right hemisphere) to balance the male aspect (left hemisphere). A major permission slip to gain balance is meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Jbo3aoEZg There is right now ongoing (July 5-14) a call for a global meditation to bring about a second Harmonic Convergence while inviting friendly ETs to visit or show themselves.
So are we biological or are we more than that? I have been interested in this question since my youth. There is a whole genre of accounts of NDE's, and there are many examples of people who are clinically dead and seem to be able to leave their bodies and see things happening around them from a third party view. What is that about? Like any investigation... these accounts are only one kind of data that can be used in dot connecting.Yes, but/and even more interestingly, if you're a ballsy explorer, there is something you can use that relegates you not to a researcher of other people's studies (such as the myriad accounts of NDEs, OOBEs, channeling, etc etc), but to the center of investigation. It's your very own frequency neuromodulator, produced in the center of the brain by the pineal gland once asleep after melatonin secretion at night, that can easily shatter any physicalist notions/beliefs one may be holding onto: DMT. Allow the great psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna to explain why this may be worth your attention: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=terence+mckenna+dmt - Here's just one I selected at random: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMrSS9FzFa0 It's quite literally not possible to explain or stress enough how true it is what McKenna says when he says it's the "ultimate convincer", and the most powerful experience a human can have "this side of the yawning grave". Sorry if it seems a bit off-topic; my intention is not to flood discussions with metaphysical ideas, but it's really ultimately the most important/relevant aspect of one's research. Ultimately the causal flow of reality is metaphysics -> biophysics -> biochemistry. This was an economics-centered place right, before coronavirus? Now CV is center-stage because it's the most relevant discussion topic. Dean Radin is another pioneering giant indeed. Check out also the HeartMath Institute for the cutting edge of the scientific explanatory thread as to the interaction with the hyperdimensional quantum fabric of reality, which happens through the electromagnetic field of the heart more than the brain. Also, do you know of Dolores Cannon?
@jbuck re: communitarian vs libertarian - in my mind, these are not mutually exclusive. I started with Mutual Aid by Kropotkin. In the US, most people understand "libertarian" to mean something like "right-wing gun nut" and/or "rugged individual." I am none of those things. I philosophically tend to the libertarian left but I will admit, for me that's more aspirational than practical and I have no truck with the so-called "anarchists" recently on display in the media. Chaos is not anarchy. Anarchy does not mean "without order", "without leaders", or "without rules". It means "without rulers". It has nothing to do with wanton destruction. The non-aggression principle is important to me (and I am reflective about the disagreements over same). That certainly does not preclude self defense. I know of mutual aid societies that are pretty well organized on that front.Yep, and private security is already bigger than state security / law enforcement -- it's a $350 billion industry booming since 2010 (see this link but you'll have to paste it together as for some reason it's another site censored on PP: https://www.firstsecurity services .com/the-growth-development-of-the-private-security-industry/ ) The "anarchist" rioters of BLM/antifa are "anarchist" only in the sense that they want to replace the current quasi-democratic (or even quite-democratic when compared to the more faux Western democracies) government with a Deep State Communist dictatorship. They are as opposite of voluntaryism as you can get. One of my favorite anarchists is Mark Passio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_gX2ivZuLY A fitting name, I appreciate the passion with which he speaks. :D
Say hypothetically someone has zero savings to convert into recession-proof/resistant assets… what in the world can that person do?
Say hypothetically someone has zero savings to convert into recession-proof/resistant assets.... what in the world can that person do?I think this someone would do the same things as everyone else. Take action. Do something every day. Establish new habits. New eating habits. Reach out into their community for help, say starting a garden. Is it possible to plant tomato seeds from a tomato on hand had or someone shares some seeds? Can one get their hands on some potatoes? And plant them? Any food one can grow means money saved and money saved is savings. One step at a time. Soon, there could be some savings. Mostly all one has to do is decide to do something. The human mind can be very powerful once it has a clear goal. This someone would take time for an assessment and do something about their financial situation. Begin by setting aside one dollar a day, paying oneself; beginning a savings account if you will. If there is zero income, this is where to begin, perhaps. Make an income stream. If one has none, any amount would be a big difference. https://peakprosperity.com/take-action/
I first became aware of Sylvan Hart (Buckskin Bill) in the early 70’s when I was living in the Mtns. He was a hero of mine but never got to meet him. He left the oil patch and headed to one of the remotest places you could live. He lived alone and as self sufficiently as anyone i have heard about.
I think we have a long ways to go to catch up to him. RIP Buckskin Bill
Here is an old video that is very well worth the watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K75sQ37hibg&feature=emb_err_woyt
There are at least 20 million renters who will be unable to make rent payments between now and the coming November electoral circus.
They have no savings. Unless the Government pays their rent the vast majority will become homeless.
There will then be three classes of people:
1- The ultra-rich hiding in their bunkers or behind razor wire private enclaves.
2- Roving armies of armed bandits
3- The unarmed sheep who thought that raising chickens and a vegetable garden would see them through the coming conflict.
No savings and no alternatives? Buy an AR15 and join the armies of sub-human barbarians raiding the sheep fold.
I will say that I coated my post with the exact opposite of sugar! The US has the most heavily armed civilian population in the world, but thus far has shown little inclination to use them except by high school psychopaths. The scenario of pitched battles between bandit armies and chicken farmers over who gets the last morsel of food is one that will only occur if the last remnants of society collapse, but it is not out of the realm of possibility. Twenty million starving homeless before November? Hardly likely when all the current administration has to do is open the floodgates to helicopter money for renters as they did for billionaires and the problem will be kicked down the street for long enough for the sham election to take place.
What I find amazing about the BLM movement----if it is indeed a movement rather than an organized provocation----is the extent to which it completely diverts attention from the real problem. That would be the collapse of a dysfunctional economic system controlled by and for a handful of billionaires and psychopathic War Hawks. Where are the angry mobs attacking Bill Gates’ fortified underground mansion on Mercer Island? Where are the drone swarms armed with C4 flying into the path of Bezos’ private jet as it takes off? But in America race hatred is always easier to whip into flames than class consciousness.
All Lives Matter—It’s just that some like Gates, Bezos, Clinton, and Epstein are better spent behind bars for life.
You really should not sugar coat things
- This sounds very much like a Quaker meeting. Quakers sit in silence, usually in a circle, and only speak when “moved” by the Spirit to say something. The idea is to listen for “the still, small Voice of God.” Whole hour-long meetings can pass in complete silence; others can be amazingly powerful as different participants speak as moved and discover a gradually emergent message. They see it as coming from God.
- I am reminded of my young adulthood when, during my 20s, my now-wife and I lived in several communal houses. House business was conducted in topic-based meetings where the kind of dialog you describe took place - not necessarily with a talisman, but with a concern for the same process, and in some settings with a “timekeeper” who also kept the conversation on topic. I can tell you it can be awfully time consuming. (This was my experience the one time I participated in a Native American council, too.) If you’ve got lots of time with little else to do - or if you have decided that interpersonal communication is the most important agenda for one’s day (or life) - that’s great. But I finally got tired of it. It can be incredibly inefficient.
We used this same kind of process, including with a talking stick, when I lived in Maine and participated in annual gatherings for men (called Mainely Men) back in the 1980s. It’s really an old Quaker model, popularized (if not developed) in the 1960s counterculture, and used at group events like the anti-nuclear energy protests and occupations of the 70s. The Philadelphia-based “Movement for a New Society,” among whom we lived for a year, taught the process, along with methods for nonviolent protest, conflict resolution, and strategies for isolating agent provocateurs. In those days, nonviolent protestors and occupiers belonged to cell groups that knew one another and trained together; I saw evidence of such cell groups in the Occupy Wall Street movement videos and news reports, and see it more recently in Antifa actions (except they don’t practice the nonviolent element).
I don’t know any chicken-raising vegetable farmers without guns. And I’m in Vermont, a likely place for such to show up. I expect they’re even more rare in the Great Redoubt.
I am pretty sure there are 2nd homeowners, seasonal retirees, and recent escapees from urban areas around here who are unarmed; some of whom garden or raise chickens. They might be your 3rd category, ripe for your 2nd. But I would not recommend they or their urban neighbors assume that chicken raisers and vegetable farmers have no ideas about property defense or how to use guns. After all, if you’ve got livestock you’ve got predators and if you want to keep your livestock you learn to hunt the hunters. I know some pretty darned good hunters. Who also grow vegetables.
The philosopher Alan Watts (circa 1970s) taught me that what looks like chaos at one level of magnification, can be in perfect harmony at another level. He uses the example of a newspaper photograph under a microscope. One pixel means nothing, but when you step back, you see order that is the photograph. (“We as Organism” lecture)
As I scan the daily headlines (pixels), sometimes it is helpful (though not comforting) to step back and look at the big picture. The human race is in overshoot. The earth is about to get a fever (global warming) and this and other viruses will thin the herd. In the long cycles of time, what we are experiencing is normal. Humanity has outgrown the resource base that sustains it and our population must decrease. That’s just the way nature works - both for yeast in a wine vat or people on Easter Island.
In the words of Jim Morrison, no one gets out of here alive. Understand that there are forces at play much larger than us. Accept your mortality and enjoy the day. Me, I’m off to take my dog for a walk.
Going into the close stocks are doing quite well for an earnings season expected to disappoint. Nasdaq was quite weak and now it’s sporting a healthy gain! What if that is the plan - the only way to keep up with what is going to happen before it happens is to own stocks? - and just keep on buying them.
As for the spiritual side expressed by some - I’m not sure if I really understand. Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s.
And you can’t serve two masters … Mt 6, 24
I don’t know why we got off topic here?
Unless we think that our current predicament is somehow related to our (here I am sustituting for you as I do not live in the States) lack of thanksgiving - meaning a happy kindful recognition maybe there is a higher order that we should be paying attention to?
Don’t blame me for these words - someone in a greenhouse threw a stone or two.
As for the stocks - at this point I will be very happy to eat crow for awhile, biding my time until this artificial Humpty Dumpty falls down.
Have a good evening.
Couple of things I want to add but will come back later when I have time.
Right now I wanted to offer this: https://unloosethegoose.com/2020/07/10/the-gaggle/
I occasionally listen to Jack Spirko (The Survival Podcast). I’m mostly interested in his application of Permaculture at his place down in TX. He’s put together a “supergroup” of podcasters related to liberty/anarchism/agorism/etc. and having adult conversations about hard problems. Scroll down the link to see who’s in. Curtis Stone (an urban farmer) is another guy I have listened to quite a bit. I’ve heard of a couple of the others but don’t know much about them. The link is to “episode 0” describing what he has in mind.
jeff
First I would like to thank you for your response. It is refreshing to find someone with experience with dialog.
With that said I am left with some questions and assumptions.
I assume your attempts at community were failures and you are not part of a community now. It appears you are a kinesthetic learner, ie. a doer. Your preference would be to talk less and do more. It is preferable for you to make a snap decision and do something that may not work out rather than dialog about something and make a decision with a better chance of success. I assume in line with that your idea of “efficiency " is speed. You would rather go alone fast than slow with a group.
I assume you are an Amerikan. Reason for that assumption is as I have posted here Amerikans are the only people who would stand in front of a microwave yelling at it because it takes too long. I assume you are an extremely intelligent person, who is well read. You know a lot of stuff. I assume you are more comfortable with digital communication rather than “interpersonal communication”
My questions are : do you interrupt people in the middle of a sentence? Do you see no value whatsoever in a community for dialog? Since we clearly live in a Patriarchal, racist, polarized society trained on 10 second sound bytes , it is not surprising for people to not be comfortable with a different style of communication. Speaking of race do you think it is valuable to use dialog for those who are marginalized, like minorities (not an issue in Vt. I know since it is 95% white) and women? I ask as it seems that minorities and women tend to be left out of discussions where it is predominantly white and male.
Yes it is an old Quaker model or similar as many indigenous cultures employ it. The Quakers actually employ a number of different methods in their meetings. There are a number of different ways to approach dialog. It is up to the participants to decide what works for them. I was not in anyway saying there was one way to dialog or even that one should. I merely posited to someone here that since they are building a community dialog is a powerful and useful tool. Personally I have experienced a great deal of “magic” and been opened up to all kinds of new information. Too bad it didn’t work for you, but we all operate on different frequencies.
I hope you don’t take this as a personal attack but I like to be as clear as possible with the people I communicate with. I will leave you with one of my favorite stories that might be apt.
One day there was an old bull and a young bull on top of a hill. They were looking out at the herd of cows in the valley. The young bull says to the old bull " let’s run down the hill and love a cow” The old bull just stands there for a minute chewing on some grass and then says " Let’s just walk down and love them all"
The PP group that has community (real or virtual), gardens, chickens, and ammo. That’s the value of this forum… There is a functional practicality here…The far left and the far right don’t find their accustomed echo chambers here. Nuance and balance are boring for the ignorant.
This thread is getting long in the tooth but I still want to toss a couple of ideas out there.
I share Mots’ reaction regarding “Orlov’s/Kropotkin’s idealized romantic communist community”. Kropotkin was a natural scientist and his thought emerged from his observations of non-human animals in their natural environment. Other animals don’t have any concept of property, or rights, for that matter. I see promoting that state to the level of solution as nostalgia for something long gone - that was the Garden of Eden. We do have those concepts and, as they say, you can’t un-ring a bell.
Still, I find much to admire in his work. Here’s a passage from the introduction to Mutual Aid, “They all endeavoured to prove that Man, owing to his higher intelligence and knowledge, may mitigate the harshness of the struggle for life between men; but they all recognized at the same time that the struggle for the means of existence, of every animal against all its congeners, and of every man against all other men, was “a law of Nature.” This view, however, I could not accept, because I was persuaded that to admit a pitiless inner war for life within each species, and to see in that war a condition of progress, was to admit something which not only had not yet been proved, but also lacked confirmation from direct observation.”
Dialectic has become a dirty word in many circles these days, but I still find it useful. I see this stage of our evolution as a dialectic between the primacy of the group and the primacy of the individual. (it’s not an elite manufactured crisis for which there is a prepared “synthesis”, it’s just where we’re at) IMHO, the American cult of the individual has pushed things WAY too far, and some have made a boat load of money as a result. I believe we will find a middle way.
I also believe the human race is but one of myriad “tissues” or “organs” of planet Earth, which I understand as a living thing. If the organs function optimally and in concert, health of the whole will manifest. So we need to get our shit together.
Related - Imagine the human race as an individual in a community made up of individual species. David Orr has characterized us as autistic - we do not pick up or appropriately respond to the social queues from the other members of our planetary community. I think about that a lot.
jeff