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Charles chips away the bargaining efforts of us idealist (speaking for myself) with today's OfTwoMinds essay:  Why the Status Quo is Doomed.
Efforts to save the status quo might focus on:

  1. Get money out of politics
  2. Re-impose the Glass-Steagall Act on banking
  3. Close the tax loopholes exploited by corporations and the wealthy
  4. Overturn the Supreme Court decision giving corporations personhood
  5. Restrict the Imperial War Powers of the president
  6. Restore the civil liberties stripped by post-9/11 legislation
    and so on.

All good-governance, all prudent, all necessary.

The Problem:  This is a world optimized for growth
The world optimized for growth begins with little or no debt. Debt, as we know, is a way to consume future earnings today. If $1 in income can be leveraged into $10 of debt, the worker earning the $1 can consume $10 of goods and services today, or buy $10 of assets.

The world optimized for growth is also optimized for banks and central states.  Banks earn money as debt expands, and government tax revenues explode higher as population, earnings, productivity, commerce and profits all expand.

 

  •  Once the number of workers starts declining, the social security/old-age pension system implodes.
  • Once households and enterprises stop borrowing more and start defaulting on existing debt, the banking sector implodes.
  • Once household consumption starts declining, the retail sector implodes.
  • Once tax revenues plummet and nation-states destroy their currencies with excessive borrowing and/or money-printing, nation-states implode.

The problem is the Status Quo only works in a world with plenty of room to expand.

None of this will work.  We are heading into a period of great change.  I cannot imagine any way that this will not be absolute chaos.  Can you?

How is the garden doing?  The chickens?  Any thoughts on expanding efforts to neighbors so that they all become allies?   Once collapse is visibly present, denial will falter.  Sooner or later.  Maybe much later…  How do we support neighbors get started gardening?

 

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mare settled!!!

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She’s hard to settle…

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 is there a PP community 'tween us?

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Garden yourself.  They see you doing it, then then wonder why that guy is so busy out in the garden. Then summer and fall comes. They see you picking fresh lettuce/tomatoes/zucchini/etc, and every so often you hand them some. The kick comes in when they are looking through the produce section and see the prices going up.

Then for some odd reason…the think of you .

(Oh, I know, zombie hordes an all. Head's up, they are coming either way…)

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Had an up-close look at one of these myself.  Much better suited as a place to house and protect from than to intern. Can't see much of anything that happens inside from the towers. But, you'd have a defensible position with hard exterior walls, built in shelter, 360 degree long distance observation, a cafeteria and electrical/plumbing facilities with backup power generation. Just throw some barbed wire loops around the thing and you are good to go.  That being said, the big open parking lot in front of the towers is anyone's guess…

Think I'll try to avoid going "shopping" if things go sideways.

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.I will start with a statement from the terminator:
“If you are listening to this (and understands it), you are the resistance”.

It is just mind boggling to see lucid people with eclectic wisdom (as many people on this site are) unable to funnel their grave frustration into productive measures in order to abort this inner-planetary suicide mission, which is led by insane representatives of an insane population.

I think that the late Professor Albert Allen Bartlett’s, famous statement: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." is a perfect example of the fundamental cognitive dissonance that is shared among the Professor Albert Allen Bartlett’s flock, which may result in the “greatest shortcoming of the human race”

Prof. Bartlett’s statement is missing one overlooked fundamental factor that must be included in the statement in order to turn it valid:

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race, is Professor’s Albert Allen Bartlett (and similar individuals) inability to comprehend that they belong to one group of humans (~5% of the population) with a brain setup for System Thinking, while the majority of the human race are another group with a brain setup for Categorical Thinking and these all share the inability to understand the exponential function and it is an inherent pathological and clinical condition."

It is the past failure of individuals such as Professor Albert Allen Bartlett’s to understand this fact may result in the annihilation of all the planet’s life forms.

The main thing to understand is that we are facing an imminent situation, of a major cluster-fuck, because we the people, who are similar to Prof. Bartlett, have failed to recognize one very important factor:

There are two types of humans which coexist in the world population, and the differences between these two groups are as profound as those which might exist between any two separate species that share the same ecosystem but do not share the same level in the food chain, such as - lions and zebras.

But unlike the example above, the differences between the two type of humans are not external or visually apparent and they emerge in all ethnic groups – irrespective to race, color, culture, nationality or gender, these differences are an inherent brain tendency which inhabit two different types of cognition which come with a whole different set of traits and behaviors, much more distinctive then the difference between the bonobo and the common chimpanzee.

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I have asked a couple of horse-people friends and we know that it has to do with getting a female horse impregnated.
But what do you mean by this?

Dust off you keyboard and explain please.

:slight_smile:

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The end of Empires has always been the toxic mix of politics and debt in excess. Denial is alive and well in the shale fields as it is alive and well at the recent televised Republican Debate. The brainwashing in DC is extremely evident as the only viable Republican candidates who had a smidgen dose of reality were the ones who never held public office. The epitome of DENIAL came when Jeb defended his brother W as a US president who made America safe. Did history just get re-written at that debate or did the WTC collapse on W's watch? More Americans died on US soil in 2001 than died in 1941 at Pearl Harbor and even the Hawaiians will debate that Pearl Harbor was not US soil in 1941. The invaders in 2001 were not a well equipped highly trained military from a developed Nation with a long standing army like Japan. It was 13 religious kooks who took last minute flying lessons and took advantage of a super lax security system in a country with a $1T annual military budget. How in God's name then did W keep America safe in 2001? Nobody in that debate challenged Jeb on that fact. It was as if 11 future president wanna-bes suddenly were hit with a huge dose of complete amnesia.
 

Thank you for reminding us all of the TRUTH that George W. Bush did NOT keep us safe.  This canard has been repeated enough that it has become conventional wisdom.

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Ram D, thank you so much for pointing out that most people are incapable of think with one of their two brain halves.
I never realised that there were not one, but two kinds of people fundamentally different from me. I had assumed that people – including yourself – were capable of categorizing when categorizing was called for, and ALSO capable of logical thought, when logical thought was called for.
So… I suppose I needs must ask myself which you yourself are. I believe you just categorzed everyone into two groups, without any logical reasoning whatsoever.
So I take it, you are a zebra?

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Sand_Puppy,
Thanks for asking how are my chickens doing. I have no chickens, and I plan to have a few probably next year. However… I looked at the municipal laws last week and this is what I found (Please don't laugh, not yet).

  • We have the right to raise chickens (Yipeee!)

  • All domestic animals are measured by "Animal unit". This is to keep fairness among species.

  • Examples:
         A Horse unit = 1 horse.
         A laying hens unit = 125 hens
         A chicken for roasting unit = 250 chickens.

  •  I am allowed to raise:
         - 2 horse-unit = 2 horses.
         - 0.05 (Yes, 0.05) chicken-unit = 6.25 hens or 12.5 chickens for roasting.

6 hens should be ok (6 eggs a day for a household of two is not that bad). But 12 chickens is definitely not enough. This is like eating 1 chicken a month during one year. We need more than that.

This is the result of HOA lobbying. This is how some people are very active to impose their view of neighborhood (No noise, no smell, polished lawn, etc…). Of course, the rest (including me) just don't bother until they (and me) find themselves prisoners of some stupid municipal rules.

This is also an example of a city that wants to raise its brand image to attract more families and raise more taxes, etc… The cost being less resilience.

Anyway, I just wanted to post an example of something that makes preparation a bit more challenging than it should be. May be the coming chaos will help obsoletes this kind of laws?

Now you can laugh!

JM

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has a replacement within her, and, in the draft world, means you've a commitment to a relationship which includes real solar power. with grass and hay a team can do quite a lot.
my relationship with Kelsey, oddly more since conception, is very co-dependent. alot of conversation and behavioral influence runs 'tween us. at the risk of anthropomorphisation… when all is in order, life is good. When the farms solar power is "settled" all will be OK. therefore its a metaphor for all being right in the world. i will take care of Kelsey…she will take care of me and mine. she hasn't the prescience to plan for a future longer than an hour. i plan her feed and care for a year or more (foal included) she can pull ayears firewood out of the wood in an afternoon. she and Drew, her brother, mowed 8 acres of hay in two days, teddered the same and(diesel powered tractors will bale). if necessary all could have been horse powered/solar powered.

ie. if the mare(progenitor)is settled(happy) all are happy and secure

 

a good ar10 or several help

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has a replacement within her, and, in the draft world, means you've a commitment to a relationship which includes real solar power. with grass and hay a team can do quite a lot.
my relationship with Kelsey, oddly more since conception, is very co-dependent. alot of conversation and behavioral influence runs 'tween us. at the risk of anthropomorphisation… when all is in order, life is good. When the farms solar power is "settled" all will be OK. therefore its a metaphor for all being right in the world. i will take care of Kelsey…she will take care of me and mine. she hasn't the prescience to plan for a future longer than an hour. i plan her feed and care for a year or more (foal included) she can pull ayears firewood out of the wood in an afternoon. she and Drew, her brother, mowed 8 acres of hay in two days, teddered the same and(diesel powered tractors will bale). if necessary all could have been horse powered/solar powered.

ie. if the mare(progenitor)is settled(happy) all are happy and secure

 

a good ar10 or several help

34

has a replacement within her, and, in the draft world, means you've a commitment to a relationship which includes real solar power. with grass and hay a team can do quite a lot.
my relationship with Kelsey, oddly more since conception, is very co-dependent. alot of conversation and behavioral influence runs 'tween us. at the risk of anthropomorphisation… when all is in order, life is good. When the farms solar power is "settled" all will be OK. therefore its a metaphor for all being right in the world. i will take care of Kelsey…she will take care of me and mine. she hasn't the prescience to plan for a future longer than an hour. i plan her feed and care for a year or more (foal included) she can pull ayears firewood out of the wood in an afternoon. she and Drew, her brother, mowed 8 acres of hay in two days, teddered the same and(diesel powered tractors will bale). if necessary all could have been horse powered/solar powered.

ie. if the mare(progenitor)is settled(happy) all are happy and secure

 

a good ar10 or several help

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mare

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might enjoy a week end at draft animal power field days.
 

http://www.draftanimalpower.org/

 

 

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I think I understand now.  :slight_smile:
 

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Interesting post Ram_d. I agree that recognition of the distinction between System Thinking and Categorical thinking is highly germane to our predicament. But it's just part of the picture.
Most people seem to be  totally unable to integrate multiple threads of information into their 'internal map of reality'.I have long suspected  this to be related to an unwillingness or inability to modify core beliefs. ie. if the information conflicts with a core belief it will simply be ignored.

Patterns of thinking are also fundamentally important. I recall previous comments suggesting the Myers Briggs type INTJ is likely the prevalent behavioural style of PP members. (Guilty as charged in my case). INTJ's tend to be system thinkers I suppose.

Also relevant and related is the characteristic of autodidacticism ie.engaging in self directed learning and following strands of information wherever they lead.  Probably this is another trait of systems thinkers.

Now I'm going to disagree

'It is the past failure of individuals such as Professor Albert Allen Bartlett’s to understand this fact may result in the annihilation of all the planet’s life forms.'

There's no way I can buy that. It is not Albert Bartlett's fault or your or mine. This is just the way we are as a species. In order to communicate effectively with others it is certainly useful to understand their behaviour style, dominant modalities, world view, levels of development etc etc. But it's hardly anyones fault that most of the worlds population can't see what's blindingly obvious to most of us here. It's just how they are.

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David Allen, I agree with your post. My problem – at which I MUST take offense, is that Ram D is saying that 95% of the people are absolutely incapable of system thinking, and therefore will destroy the human race.
What he is implying and pressing toward is that we need to stop thinking, and start exterminating, and we need to do it with categorical thinking.
Do you see massive evil in this? I do. I also see the same extreme illogic of the Nazi myths; I also foresee the same eventual implosion, and the same final disposition “we failed, therefore we must be unfit, therefore we must destroy ourselves”.
So I find it very important to gut such a viewpoint NOW, when it is first presented.
I really do think, based on experience, that all humans – including retarded children – are capable of both categorical and systemic thinking. Moreover, we are all capable of neurotic thought, and being trapped into one, wrong mode of thinking, for some time.
So it is entirely possible that Ram_D’s views could take hold, and cause an implosion here from “trust yourself” into a political cult.
I don’t want that to happen.

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Michael
I didn't take such an extreme interpretation as you from Dam_d's comments. Actually I thought they may have been born out of frustration with the majority that don't / won't get it.

Terms like System Thinker are just labels as are categories like Myers Briggs behavioural types. They describe tendancies and preferred styles and can be useful guidelines - we shouldn't take them as gospel - the map is not the territory. As you say, pretty much everyone has some system thinking ability. However it seems to me that those of us with strong system-thinking bias are most likely to see through the 'consensus trance'