Archive for the ‘ The state of the world ’ Category
Craig Hill Note the rifles on these Chinese soldiers – they have bayonets on them! They are clearly intended for internal use, – bayonets are of no use in modern warfare, and have long since been abandoned. I subscribe to Craig Hill’s blog, but I almost wish I hadn’t – he floods my inbox with postings every [ READ MORE ]
This is not a new condition at all, we have always been this way: impossible to understand. And indeed this is part of what it means to be human, part of the human condition. Once people become capable of being understood they are doomed – because they can then be easily manipulated. I will explain. [ READ MORE ]
I am listening to To End All Wars, a history of WWI, and I am astonished at the idiocy that went on there. I had previously listened to 1861, about the American Civil War, and had the same feeling about that war. If I ever become a historian, I will write about how humans became idiots in [ READ MORE ]
This, it seems to me, is our main preoccupation – or occupation, if you prefer. Making everyone the same. We are not conscious of this, and will even deny it. But any visitor from another planet could see it, easily enough – and speculate on its ultimate outcome. Which is our ultimate destruction by one [ READ MORE ]
A new kind of power now rules the world. It is powerful because it is not readily identifiable. This would not have made any sense to the old form of power that was based on brute force. It ruled because the people it ruled could easily see it and fear it. It made its superior [ READ MORE ]
Power, in the sense I use it here, is power over other people. This is now our collective obsession. We used to think money was, before we realized that power is more basic. If you have the power, you can always make all the money you want. The reason for this is simple – wealth [ READ MORE ]
People exist in two ways – as individuals and as groups of individuals. The power struggle between the two is a necessary part of our existence. We exist as individuals first because we exist in individual bodies – bodies with highly-developed nervous systems – that are perhaps over-developed. We exist as groups because we are [ READ MORE ]
What we should be doing is fixing our world, and making it work right. But we cannot do this, because it is just too much. As a result, we have decided to destroy it – out of frustration. We are not consciously aware of any of this – and are determined to not become aware of it. [ READ MORE ]
Human activities can be organized two different ways – doing it right, or doing it wrong; making it work, or making it not work; construction or destruction. Or even being or not being. They tend towards either one of these extremes. Consider the rise and fall of nearly anything – the favorite example being the [ READ MORE ]
People can decide to not be. The most drastic form of this decision is suicide, which is relatively uncommon, but the decision to be less than fully alive in difficult social situations is not only common, but normal. We have decided not to be is the right way of being, if that makes any sense – [ READ MORE ]
I used to be a technical writer in Silicon Valley in California. Now I live on my Social Security in a beautiful valley in Costa Rica.
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