tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post6965034617755989503..comments2024-03-27T16:08:30.313-05:00Comments on The Great Change: A Power Zone ManifestoAlbert Bateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627996921976501534noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-18232352003176334262017-01-11T17:55:08.807-06:002017-01-11T17:55:08.807-06:00I think we are pat conservative and part liberal a...I think we are pat conservative and part liberal and to divide that is un-natural. I agree with Gilbert Keith Chesterton; "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."<br />Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14146510259857273001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-42142936645875299442017-01-11T15:44:34.899-06:002017-01-11T15:44:34.899-06:00I guess Yeats has fallen off the pop charts. :)
...I guess Yeats has fallen off the pop charts. :) <br /><br />I be happy to be a conservative or a liberal if either word still meant anything. Instead, I call myself a doomer, knowing that it's now the bottom of the ninth, and the bases are loaded with fat cat billionaires.<br /><br />All my best wishes are with you Albert. I'll be looking forward to the rest of the presecription.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02757250545116691670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-32990013617875885262017-01-10T22:19:37.863-06:002017-01-10T22:19:37.863-06:00Very glad you are doing this Al, much needed I thi...Very glad you are doing this Al, much needed I think. I look forward to seeing more.<br /><br />The religion question for me is answered by noting that religion, defined in my dictionary as "one's relationship with the powers and principles of the whole, universe, God etc." is a matter of one's personal inside life, the realm of psychology and faith etc.. I think it is problematic when used to describe what we call "organized religions." People coming together to celebrate their relationship with the whole is a very a good thing but when instead it becomes an organization seeking to influence others, trying to get them to conform or whatever, then it is politics, "the art and practice of influencing others." <br /><br />I see the eco crisis, "our house" in crisis, as having 2 parts, logic and nomic. <br />Logic is the science, the indisputable physical evidence and physical consequences assessed according to strict principles of validity. Thus scientists can more readily find consensus. Still, there are assumptions made based on beliefs that may impede finding solutions so a willingness to examine these may be important.<br /><br />Nomic, meaning law or rules, is the agreement we must have. Here we get further into the realm of beliefs, human behavior and mass psychology. This is the realm of the sovereign, of politics, governance and most importantly money. <br /><br />The money system is by far the most influential of systems and, with the help of its social management system is being used to control governments, corporations and everything else. Thus we have a considerable political project who's #1 goal should be changing the monetary system from privately issued credit as money, usury based money, to a sovereign money system, a public money system, where money is issued as an asset, instead of a debt, money that continuously circulates doing more instead of being extinguished as a loan is paid off. The sovereign money system was presented in a bill to Congress in 2011-12, The NEED Act, HR 2990. It is basically the Chicago Plan that FDR disastrously passed on, along with some public spending priorities no longer encumbered with scarcity of money, but the big private banks of issue and their networks would no longer be allowed to create money. <br /><br />This would be a change from the Economics of Greed, to the Economics of Care and have profound positive psychological consequences for society then allowing us the freely address the climate issue becasue cost would no longer be a matter of money, instead cost would be a matter of resources, labor, material, know-how etc.. This resource based economy of care will help us repair the metabolic rift, our separation from nature that debt-for-money industrialism created, and help mend the web of life.<br /><br />Monetary science will be good know too if we go into collapse and are faced with organizing self-governence and creating economies that work for people and planet and not against.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14146510259857273001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-58864033668301122622017-01-10T12:15:17.069-06:002017-01-10T12:15:17.069-06:00Albert
The following ideas are still half-baked, b...Albert<br />The following ideas are still half-baked, but since you are going to save the world in 10 or 12 weeks, perhaps now is a good time to unload them on you.<br /><br />I believe it is a true statement that 'minds' have to change. In order to make that statement operational, we have to have some definition of 'mind'. I think that Dan Siegel is closest to giving us a good definition, in his new book Mind: A Journey Into the Heart of Being Human. Dan suggests that a human mind is the result of energy and information flow from not only all our bodily parts but also from our society and from our tools and our ecosystem. The mind is not the brain, but instead an emergent structure (like a whirlpool in a stream). The mind can use the brain as a tool.<br /><br />Health is defined as the state of differentiation and integration. We pay separate attention to each source of information and energy and then integrate them. We know that we are in the 'health zone' when we are avoiding rigidity on the one side and chaos on the other.<br /><br />Please note that the 'mind' as defined by Siegel, can operate under consciousness or without consciousness. Even if we first decide to do something and only then enlist our brain to come up with a rationalization, Siegel's definition of mind still makes sense.<br /><br />I want to build on Siegel's Wheel of Awareness...which you can find described on his website. Briefly, the patient (he is a psychiatrist) sits at a table and makes contact with each of their bodily senses and the exosomatic influences by directing their attention to each in turn. Finally, the patient turns their attention inward toward the person who is paying attention. The mind is the emergent structure which then integrates the flows of information and energy.<br /><br />Now suppose that we expand the Wheel of Awareness to include additional concerns. For example, the carbon cycle and desertification and the other items you list in this post. As more illustration, suppose we add dietary concerns for example. We would meditate on the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and detoxification properties of the food we are about to eat (as opposed to giving a sky-god thanks for creating the universe). In short, we can take the Wheel of Awareness practice and expand the subjects of concern to cover all the bases you will be describing over the next dozen weeks or so.<br /><br />Now one might object that concerns for the carbon cycle is not the same as checking in with one's sensory apparatus. I agree, but I don't think the extension is impossible. Humans can definitely study subjects which are not immediately intuitive. For example, we can study the carbon cycle, the causes of desertification, and which food and life style practices are anti-inflammatory, provide antioxidants, and foster detoxification. A Wheel of Awareness type practice, or using a Rosary, or some other mechanism can be used to keep the circuits in the mind active. If the circuits in the mind are exercised enough and consistently enough, then the mind will include those concerns when it goes about its differentiation and integration work.<br /><br />The goal is not to have someone make a scientific deduction that desertification or eating sugar is bad...but to change the behavior by systematically building the necessary pathways in the mind. The goal should be that the behaviors tend to become automatic.<br /><br />For what it is worth....Don StewartDon Stewarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05449201744675390686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-43205660769015037202017-01-10T10:21:08.209-06:002017-01-10T10:21:08.209-06:00Thanks for the good point Jennie. Population facto...Thanks for the good point Jennie. Population factors large in my manifesto and you are prompting me now to devote a whole chapter to that. We are still in the problem statement part of the manifesto but we'll plenty to say about population when we get to solutions.<br /><br />Ian I see religion like Bill Maher, as more an impediment to change than an aid, although there are pockets of enlightened views within the sector. Bhutan or Haudeneshaunee, for instance. I guess my problems are mainly with the Eastern Mediterranean desert religions that started a few thousand years ago, with the mores and restrictions of that time and place. If we get stuck in those now, the future is not bright. Oh, and as for the broken links, those were all the science journal references and paywall issues. If you google the articles, you may find some in the open literature. Try Google Scholar. Albert Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17627996921976501534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-878247000582320572017-01-10T06:14:11.291-06:002017-01-10T06:14:11.291-06:00Climate change is a symptom of overshoot, as is th...Climate change is a symptom of overshoot, as is this, the sixth extinction of species. Radical solutions are required and that must include an end to population growth. Climate change is mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, but deforestation for agriculture to feed ever more mouths, and agriculture itself, contribute significantly to the problem. We have to get global population back down to under two billion people and that may require a global one-child policy, hopefully voluntary, but the greater the overshoot, the greater the likelihood of coercive, authoritarian, solutions. Jenny Goldiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15247955812054173571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-55951282589158322102017-01-09T20:57:25.220-06:002017-01-09T20:57:25.220-06:00Why the reference to laws on stone tablets from g...Why the reference to laws on stone tablets from g-o-d? <br />Who wrote the 'rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem'? that sure looks like an allusion to the new religious coin minted out of judaism. <br />What place does religion find in your post-energy apocalypso!<br /><br />(All rhetorical, since I've yet to see any post from AB here in the commentaries, meager as they are.)Ian Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02975374352244687491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-73230082855212799582017-01-08T23:09:23.739-06:002017-01-08T23:09:23.739-06:00Thank you for the encouragement. I need it.
BTW, ...Thank you for the encouragement. I need it.<br /><br />BTW, the first link (about exceeding limits) is broken.dex3703https://www.blogger.com/profile/05045018928899315754noreply@blogger.com