- it would be a very great help to me if you wrote a short, concise precis of the central arguments. — karl stone

That is exactly what @Bitter Crank did, if you recall.

Disagree. Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT! — karl stone

Huh? Now who is “doodling” on the thread? Care for some brandy? :snicker:

This is a problem we've been aware of for many years. We just can't help ourselves. We can't stop just taking more and more and more.... There's a brick wall ahead, and we should be braking. But we're still accelerating. In some instances, our acceleration is still increasing! Doodling? I hope not. Terrified? Yes, frankly. :fear: — Pattern-chaser

:up: Amen! Agreed. And well-said.

My manners are appalling, and I'd apologize, but I have something to say that's difficult for people to hear. I can't apologize for the tactics employed to put that idea across, but at the same time it's absolutely not my intent or desire to hurt anybody. I'm sure it's a wonderful book! With a dreadful conclusion!! — karl stone

“You are passionate Herr Mozart, but... you do not... persuade.” :wink:

(Just a joke). Seriously though, no problem. I just think you might actually appreciate Kunstler’s writing. I haven’t read the book @Bitter Crank was referring to, but i was impressed and inspired by an earlier book of his, The Geography of Nowhere.

Ahhh, the Malthusians - they are persistently gloomy. Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. He's famous for pointing out the discrepency between the geometric rate of population growth 2,4,8,16 etc, against the arithmetic rate 1, 2, 3, 4, etc, at which agricultural land could be increased. He predicted this would inevitably lead to mass starvation. He was wrong. Clearly, people are problem solvers. They multiply resources with knowledge and technological innovation. I don't need to read Knustler's book to know he's wrong. I can see the arithmetic of his argument a mile away - and while seemingly logical, it just doesn't model reality. — karl stone

Thanks for starting this interesting thread with your original post. You do make some good points on what is both an important yet often overlooked topic.

But imho, dismissing a book by its cover like you practically did with Kunstler’s book is sawing off the branch you’re sitting on because you happen to be in a tidying mood. In general, thoughts that are overly dismissive can and probably will be dismissed. But whatever! Carry onward. :blush:

Mass mobilization, causally speaking, requires a conjunction of opportunities which I feel is not within the reach of many of us. Add to that the fact that most people with the right number of audience aren't bothered by environmental issues. I'm talking about celebrities.

So, it seems to me, those of us who are concerned about the world are left with no choice but to do our stuff at a much lower social stratum e.g. we can raise te awareness of our family or friends or community. We then hope that our efforts spread out from their. — TheMadFool

:up: Yes, agree. There can be no change in outcome until there is change in action. There will not be a change in actions until there is a change in thinking.

Perhaps the problem is that people simply dismiss the most obvious sources how changes happen: through the market mechanism and through technical development. If we can produce energy far cheaper than we get from fossil fuels, we simply won't use those fuels as we earlier did. It surely isn't a political correct idea, relying on the market, but we should think about it.

Let me give a historical example: whale oil.

Early industrial societies used whale oil for oil lamps, lubrication, soap, margarine etc. During the 19th Century this lead nearly to the extinction of whales in the seas and fewer whales meant that the rise the price of whale oil went up. By technological advances the role of whale oil was taken over by the modern petroleum industry and also vegetable oils, which could provide far more oil with a far cheaper price than the whaling industry could. Kerosene and petroleum were far more reliable and became more popular than whale oil and basically could provide energy to the combustion engine revolution, which never could be supplied by whaling. And the whales? Their numbers actually bounced back by an unintensional act of environmental protection by the World's most famous vegetarian: Adolf Hitler. By starting WW2 and by unleashing the German Kriegsmarien in an all-out war on the Atlantic, Hitler (and the Japanese) unintensionally saved the whales as this stopped whaling for a few years and gave the whales a well needed chance rebound in numbers even before banning of whaling was introduced. That a lot of countries have banned whaling simply shows the marginal importance of whale oil and whale meat in these countries.

Hence when we try to make up legislation and create complex mechanisms which the industry and the consumer has to adapt to, perhaps we should first look at how we can steer market forces in the right direction that they themselves can make the change. And this steering can be done by technical innovation. Oil companies do understand that they are in the energy business and if fossil fuels cannot compete with other energy sources, that's it. Then there simply is no future for them in the oil and coal business. If they don't make the change, they'll go the path as Kodak. Hence oil companies can even themselves make the hop to alternative energies. They have already changed from the conventional oil fields for example to shale oil, which basically is a totally different operation. Let's not forget that Peak Conventional Oil has already happened.

Above all, once there are far cheaper energy sources than fossil fuels and the recycling of plastics is done on a massive scale, then indeed can the last remnants of fossil fuel reserves be left underground. Then the eco-friendly policy is quite easy to adapt. — ssu

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing it. Hopefully, it won’t take complete disaster to rouse us from our slumber. Disasters have a strange effect of making us act like humans. But what will open our minds, thaw our heart, and energize our bodies?

Take a larger view. in the years of WWII 1939-1945, horses were indispensable. Why? For one, they don't use oil. For two, they are strong. For three, they can be used flexibly. Four, Germany and the USSR still used horses for various purposes in 1938, and horses were part of military planning.

Spot the horse!
Spot the tanks! — Bitter Crank

:up: Thanks for adding some interesting historical context and insights to this thread, imho. Spot on as usual. Great photos too!

Hydrogen is simply not a good energy carrier for a few reasons. First, it's not a liquid or solid at ambient temperature, which is a big inconvenience. Second, hydrogen is so small it diffuses through most metals causing micro-fractures leading to failure; solving these problems to power a rocket or in industrial processes can be solved ... but scaling to a transport infrastructure this problem is essentially unsolvable. Third liquid hydrogen boils off and easily slips through the tiniest cracks between parts making it extremely difficult to make a hermetic sealed hydrogen system at a lab level and simply impossible at an infrastructure scale. Hydrogen floats to the top of the atmosphere where it acts as a potent green house gas. — boethius

:up: Interesting. Thank you for the hydrogen fuel explanation. As you know... as far as vehicles go, the century old Diesel engine can be made to run on vegetable oil, only needing additives to prevent viscosity in cold weather. And newer engines which can run on several different fuels, including ethanol, are an encouraging presence. The fact that this doesn’t seem to be a national priority is certainly NOT encouraging. Oil companies, auto manufacturers... blah blah blah. It makes me think of the recent situation with stevia being labeled as dangerous by soft drink manufacturers. That is, until they were ready to offer some stevia products of their own. I understand industries want to succeed, but when they sabotage progress the results are predictable.

Other technologies that are more energy efficient are happening of course. The recent explosion is the availability of cheap LED light bulbs for personal and commercial use is amazing. Less energy used, longer life of bulb. I just bought a four-pack of study plastic, very bright bulbs at MallMart for about $3.
Nice to see a potential beginning of the end of planned obsolescence.

The amounts of energy consumed by the typical western lifestyle (and that must continuously grow in energy and resource consumption!) is just so enormous that it's simply impractical to live the western lifestyle if convenient energy and minerals are not simply lying in the ground to be dug or pumped out. But if you get rid of waste you get rid or (most) mining, (most) personal large vehicle transport, (most) road construction and maintenance, (most) meat consumption, (most) of suburbia, (most) of the airplane transport and (most) industrial mono-culture farming as (most) people just have a garden and community farm they participate in on the same land area they are currently wasting on lawns and roads (solving many problems). Sure, some of all these things can make sense when needed, but if you look at the numbers there's simply no economic reason to make solar power to make jet fuel to fly people to New Zealand to visit the sets of the Lord of the Rings; so, if you mandated a renewable jet-fuel (through a fossil tax internalizing the true cost of fossil jet fuel into it's price) ... only actually useful flying would tend get done, which if you think about is a very small amount. Likewise, you could mandate less meat consumption overnight (i.e. again, internalizing the real cost into the price people pay for meat) and so people could still eat meat ... they'd just eat a lot less. And so on for every climate or otherwise environmental problem. Nearly every problem can be solved essentially overnight by internalizing it's real cost, people would consume it less or organize their lives to do things for themselves as it just saves too much money not to do it (like a personal garden). Of course, what the true cost is can be debated, but assuming we get it right, then by definition the problem is solved through internalizing the true cost.

What happens the next day? All these industries contract, the capitalist system is thrown into chaos, people's identifies as car riding, suburban house owning, rapacious meat eaters with a job in one of these industries that fly across the globe for a few selfies ... gone. This is the core of the ecological problem and why no politician has done anything about it. Huge push back from existing entrenched industries on one side and on the other identity crisis for a large part of their constituents.

Why (should have) a politician do something given the social upheaval it implies? Because the problems don't go away, and a bunch of social upheaval is far better to live through than the collapse of ecosystems and prolonged global conflicts it will induce (is inducing) and both these factors simply getting continuously worse and worse over time (not some switch that we then adapt to).

The light at the end of the mine shaft is that the system isn't sustainable and so will end. — boethius

:up: Agree 100%. Intelligently and clearly written. Thank you!

The issue of “true cost” is vital. If people wet their pants when someone suggests regulations for corporations because “the economy is too big and fragile to let fail!”, then we will continue to be stuck in this loop. No, excuse me. Not “loop”... downward spiral rather.

Thanks for your reply. That seems to be a clear example of the mindset. It seems like you are resisting it and trying to be aware, which is about the best one can do. We seem surrounded by this thing which is like the tip of the capitalist spear. The theory of Risk Society is relevant, I agree.

:up: Yep, advertising is the front-line attack on our minds. We are so used to it that it is nearly omnipresent and invisible, thus increasing its effectiveness. But when one sees how it changes a child from happy and content to grasping and worried, the twisted machine is evident. It is like having an anorexic body image, except it is about every aspect of your life.

And like you say, schools in general just follow the program. Winning is the carrot on a stick that is forever out of reach. Endless competition turns a game into propaganda and mind control. The “losers”, aka the greater majority, are primed for feeling bad, are at the unmercy of advertisers. Just another day at the offense.

Sometimes, even despite your better instincts, you just get the urge to merge.

The mental clouds are slowly lifting... seems brain fog prevents one from realizing that they have brain fog. Before, I thought the whole Atkins diet thing of eating proteins instead of carbs was a little imbalanced. Now, with slight modifications, I see there is something to it. Adding essential fats while reducing sugars and starches seems to reduce inflammation, toxicity, and insulin-imbalance, among many other benefits. I mistakenly thought cholesterol was the enemy and the body needed a constant supply of carbohydrates for energy and to prevent getting “hangry”. Not so when it has been switched into “fat-burning” mode, which it can be, strangely enough, by eating more fat while cutting starchy foods. Others can explain it better:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/04/24/burning-fat-for-fuel.aspx

Dang, that’s it! To me, that seems like a clear description of the practical benefits of being aware of how we identify ourselves. And how other people sometimes can overly influence us because they know what buttons to push. That’s in addition to the way we confuse and stress ourselves. It reminds me of the old Seinfeld episode where George’s hands receive a complement for being attractive. He becomes a hand model, and his whole identity is changed. Hilarity ensues.

Reading the many recent threads about a/theism makes me wonder if there is a correlation between our self identities and our “god” conceptions. It gets very personal quickly. Which is not a problem until the personal feelings, wishes, and needs are (mostly) unconsciously projected upon the rest of life and the world.

I don’t think the goal is to become a non-feeling robot, of course. Pain and sadness are still possible. Reducing self-sabotage can help accept feelings because they are in the tolerable level, instead of being unbearable.

I had several paranormal experiences. — bahman

Thanks for sharing your interesting experiences. I would not have guessed people experienced such things. Unless they were ... umm.. err... ya know, under psychological stress or something, lol. I have had only one paranormal experience. Very unsettling to say the least. It’s difficult to describe. It started shortly before I was born, I think. And as far as I know it is still going on. Kind of a chronic paranormal experience. :starstruck:

(I do realize that this is a zombie thread :death: from months ago, and the poster is forum-deceased. But it’s appropriate for this thread, plus it’s almost Halloween.)

The next time I meet someone who is either completely perfect or absolutely worthless will be the first time.

Do what you can... and can the doo-doo.

Mono-culture is the death of culture. Simplicity can be beautiful, but nature’s strength is its complexity.

Working for the good is always in order. Fighting for what one perceives to be right is best when it is not the first option. Some things are worth fighting for. But some things are too valuable and fragile to fight over. There are no winners when the “fight for what is right” becomes the “fight to be right”.

The exchange of data is not necessarily communication. There is occasionally an accidental overlap, however.

Assuming that someone has changed is risky. Assuming they can NEVER change is riskier.

To neither get ahead nor behind of yourself is to be in rhythm. To be in rhythm is to be ready.

Cutting the clutter is usually helpful, both physically and mentally. Not confusing motion with progress, preference with quality, opinion with fact, cliche with truth, novelty with originality, and appearances with reality, clears the table to get down to business. The wrong answers are usually louder, larger, and more numerous than the right one. Yet sometimes sweeping statements clean the room. Other times, they kick up a lot of dust. At times, they manage to do both!

Wisdom occasionally feels like “Aha!” Sometimes it is “Oh...”. Most often it seems to be “Ouch”.

A person may sometimes speak a truth, or express a drop of wisdom. Matter and energy, the Earth and the life around us never stops churning its torrent of truth, its waterfall of wisdom. Dare we swim in those waters?

Try not to let progress slow you down...

Yes. One doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry, recoil, clap, boo, or just walk out of this movie. Oh wait,
the doors have been sealed for our protection... guess we’ll stay.

To continue the drama metaphor of clowns and the world stage... the mask has fallen off the presidency. It slipped after the invasion of Iraq, and now it’s on the ground. The head of the leading imperial power in the past might have tried to appear dignified, cultured, educated and ethical. But that was the costume for the part. Raw power and expansion was and is the goal of empire. Culture, thought, and ethics grow elsewhere in the territories as a provisional crop for export. This is becoming such a shockingly naked truth that it’s almost pornographic. How can anyone keep anything hidden, covered, or secret for more than 5 minutes nowadays?

:lol: — Baden

Why does everyone laugh at our fearless leader? Is he a clown? Does he amuse you? :yum:

Thread title: Donald Trump (All General Trump conversations here)

I wasn’t aware that he started referring to himself as General Trump. Not surprising, though. Only a matter of time before he is wearing military outfits like some banana republic dictator. :grimace:

If the Democrats nominate HRC again, they deserve to lose again. I doubt Bernie will even try next time.

One wonders if Mr. Prez will even make it to the next election. Even if he’s not removed, his health seems questionable. Judging from appearances, he seems like the most physically unfit POTUS since maybe Reagan toward the end of his second term, imho. Gobble those grease burgers, baby! :sweat:

Between play and work is somewhat of a “order from chaos” relationship. Not to idealize or dismiss one side or the other. The finished piece of furniture comes from the raw wood, which of course was first a tree. The raw, the young, the primative, and the chaos... this has the potential and the energy. The civilized, the experienced, the cultured has the finished product and the material. It seems to be some kind of yin and yang balance and cycle to them. The dark Dionysus and the golden Apollo. From a day to a project to a career to a lifetime, each seems to begin with potential and end with some (hopefully) tangible results, knowledge, and experiences. And then begins all over, building on what came before...

It seems tempting sometimes to over-value the civilized and the the processed over the primative and unprocessed. Too much culture and civilization can seem stifling, dusty, and inflexible. Maybe this is because of time. If the result is order out of chaos, then is order “better” than chaos? Is “chaos” even the best word to use, or is it too loaded with baggage? Like mentioned before, “potential” or “energy” might more accurately reflect the dynamics of the situation, and not favor one side over the other. But likewise, too much rawness and chaos can be a confusing mire.

The transformational nature is reflected in the plants: from seed to harvest. How can one apprehend and use this dynamic flow of energy and matter?

Sports... kind of a large subject of its own, but I thought it relates here.

Are sports more play, work, or competition? Is there some kind of ideal balance? How about exercise, fitness, overall health? That seems to be part of the picture, as athletes tend to want to be functioning at the highest physical levels. But one wonders about the damaging effects the more “physical” or “violent” sports have on the participants. If speed, strength, and skill are extolled in a particular sport, what if playing it causes the athlete to almost certainly be damaged and injured? Is reaching for the highest of highs worth it overall if there is a serious toll on the body?

“Going for the glory/gold” seems to be more of a gambling frame of mind than some kind of sustainable lifestyle. Economics play an undeniable aspect, as the sport is made into a product and entertainment. It is somewhat of a cliche to note the pay discrepancy between a professional athlete and a professor. If there is an imbalance, where and when did things go wrong? Is this the fault of the Ancient Greeks and their idealism and Olympics? :grin: Too much emphasis on winning or money? Are sports the mirror of our culture’s soul?

Never listen to what others tell you to do. But don’t take my advice...

Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything.
Something is part of everything. Everything is part of each thing.
(or something like that! :wink: )

Most of the time, the evidence and facts one has are much closer to 1% than 100%.

All the world’s a stage... which one day it’ll grow out of.

Life is a little game of “doing what you can with what you have, for as long as possible... while taking what you need, and giving what you can” Hopefully, while ever learning and discarding the ineffective and wasteful.

Even a blind squirrel can find his nuts.
:blush:

:sweat:
Wait, I don’t get... oh. ewww! :rofl:

It is what it is. — Posty McPostface

... until it isn’t anymore. Change is the only constant. Well... besides death and taxes. :sweat:

Whatever gets your monkey funky? :monkey:

What say for the process of picking Justices for the SCOTUS, we just institute something like the NBA’s draft lottery? Top picks in a bowl, only slightly weighted toward the party currently in power. Silly, but only slightly less strange than the process now, imho...

The whole system, top to bottom and left to right, is most likely beyond repair. It is a broken down, rusted-out car. We can either fix it, get a new one, or toddle along until it dies by the side of the road in a blizzard. (I’m guessing the third choice).

We’re locked in a tailspin. Those that can make a change, won’t. Those that want a change, can’t.
So we wait...

:up: Definitely. Whatever seems to be working, and going in a “good direction” (however you’d define such). Whatever gets you through the night, and whatever makes you want to get out of bed in the morning...

I stopped trying to disidentify with depression... — Posty McPostface

Wait a sec... maybe you have something there!

How many nihilists does it take to change a light bulb? :chin:

“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.” ― Dogen

I wonder if this reflects what was the general point of the thread... But how to forget the self, and still be functional. Maybe one would possibly be even more functional in some ways.

Er. I just made that up. :nerd: — Baden

No worries. You’re safe here since very few ever visits page two. What happens in The Lounge stays in The Lounge, baby! :cool: < swigs a martini >

Because the distances involved are staggeringly enormous. Don’t forget that a ‘light year’ is the distance light travels in a year which is roughly nine and a half trillion km. And interstellar travel talks in multiples of that. The amounts of time - millions of years - and energy involved to traverse such distances put it forever out of reach. I think we’ve been deluded by the popular Star Wars images of Star Wars and so on [Lawrence Krauss published a great book years ago called The Physics of Star Trek which discusses what would be physically required to replicate some of those technologies.]

My view is that the earth is the spaceship, the only one we’ve got, the only one we’ll ever have. See Spaceship Earth — Wayfarer

:up: Definitely. Whenever I hear space travel and colonization (a word which already has its own troublesome baggage) I think of the military and huge expenditures of taxpayers money. There’s a lot of fantasy built up over it, some of it due to Star Wars/Trek as you mentioned. I am glad that space travel is more difficult than flying some super-plane. Humans have done enough damage to the earth. For now the rest of the galaxy is safe from us. Humans are children, and the earth is our enclosed playpen.

Evolution operates through breeding, whether it's kind of choosy or a free-for-all (my favorite kind). I haven't read Quinn; is he a rivetingly good author?

The only conceivable way we could remove ourselves from the process of evolution is IF a) we had a complete understanding of which genes did what (understood the entire genome) AND b) tightly controlled breeding was directed toward precise goals (such as achieving the ideal human physical form along with brilliant intelligence and laid back personal affect).

Were we, a la Brave New World, to carefully redefine our species from one that evolved randomly to one that changed according to a very specific plan) we could say evolution (as it is understood, at least, had ceased to operate. Fortunately for us, we don't have anything even remotely resembling complete understanding of the human genome, and thus we do not have the information needed to precisely direct our future condition. In addition to not having highly detailed genetic knowledge, we also do not have a clear understanding of what our future in the cosmos should be. Our ideal physical form and intelligence would presumably be suited for a particular role.

Would a laid-back personality be a good thing? Not if in the future we had to fight alien species from "out there in space". Aggressive personalities would be more important. Whether ideal bodies would matter would depend on how we had to fight. Hand to hand combat? Quality bodies would be important. Robotic and death ray weapons? Intelligence would matter much more than muscle. — Bitter Crank

Since the other thread on evolution was closed, I thought I would respond to you (and to @bloodninja) here if anyone wanted to continue the discussion. (Hopefully without the eugenics. :wink: )

I would agree though, evolution can’t be stopped. Whether we live in cities, villages, forests, or savannahs, it goes on like some kind of meta-reproduction. Evolution is an odd thing since it affects us absolutely, and it is almostly completely out of our control. And talking about something stretching back millions, no... billions of years into the past, and perhaps even longer into the future makes me feel a bit dizzy. It’s science, to be sure. But it has a mythic quality to it. Which is the aspect Daniel Quinn writes about with such insight and grace, in my opinion. Jared Diamond covers similar ground, but in a more traditionally anthropological way. The two writers complement each other’s work, I think. Here’s the part from Ishmael concerning evolution. It’s long, but gives a rather poetic view:

Novels and literature will continue to exist as long as there is paper and pencil, or keyboard and ROM.

The cinema is the modern community novel. It takes more people to make it, and a wider audience experiences it (usually). A movie is like a multi-dimensional novel, including actual humans, real sound and color. Although they aren’t directly comparable, a good movie is better than a poor novel. And vice verse, because many movies are more product than art. But the potential is there. When a film “gets it right”, it is almost transcendent.

I don’t know if @bloodninja or @Andrew4Handel are referring specifically to it, but there are similar theories espoused by Daniel Quinn and others. That put basically posits that human evolution slowed dramatically with the advent of “totalitarian” agriculture, the process of turning all land into human food, and thus more humans. This would be more applicable the more absolute the agriculture in the area was. Quinn discusses it at the end of his novel Ishmael. His ideas kind of build to a point, so it’s a little difficult to “cherry-pick” one of his conclusions without his reasoned arguments.

But in a nutshell, he says that when humans remove themselves from the conditions in which they evolved, they cease to evolve. Or perhaps the evolution is greatly hampered. Maybe now humans are not so much evolving as selectively breeding, kind of like with dogs. :wink:

(Quinn’s ideas were discussed in this thread.)

Ha! You’re too kind and gentle with the OP and thread! For it appears to be a theoretical question and philosophical proposition in roughly the same way that a tweed jacket, reading glasses, and a pipe placed on a fire hydrant appears to be a professor. Both are apt to be urinated on by passing dogs. I refute it thus: woof!

After reading this particular thread’s OP, and the arguments in favor of it, I do believe that these may be an excellent example of what you were describing in your Transcendental Stupidity thread.

But I will propose that we start weeding out the weak, the sick, and the failures by deleting this thread. However, I am very firmly in favor of letting all who suffer from mental illness, even those with the apparent type of paranoid schizophrenia seemingly demonstrated in the OP live comfortably on government assistance.

Interesting article on Aeon about loneliness.

Makes me think about the difference between just being alone, and being lonely. Sometimes I’ve felt very lonely in a middle of a party, and sometimes felt very connected while in complete solitude. One could probably make an XY graph of the feeling of loneliness vs simply being alone.

Thanks for mentioning that. Good point. The lower gut is like our physical foundation. Years ago, an undiagnosed gluten allergy zapped my physical and mental energy and I felt like a flooded house caught in a mudslide. And you are right about antibiotics best being only used if necessary. They won’t help colds and flu which are viruses. :mask:

As you know, a strong immune system can survive a lot. A weakened system will topple in a strong breeze. Immunity can be life or death. But things that are interests or enjoyable hobbies can strengthen immunity. So TPF can be good for the body as well as the mind! :strong: :nerd:

But if it ain't broke, don't fix it? — Baden

Exactly. Glad to hear we haven’t driven you to donuts dunked in whiskey! :lol: