Quite like this article and especially it’s tone! Struggled periodically over last 5yrs, with the weight of ‘increased awareness’. But your right, keep doing what you can & when you can. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
The world is already a healthy place, otherwise nothing could live here (try living on Venus or Jupiter). What has gone wrong and horribly so at times, is that man in all his over-glorified splendor and extreme arrogance has created a toxic environment...in his physical, mental and spiritual world.
There is really no person on earth with any true power. We perceive human power as that which can control and direct. We always have a choice to not be bullied by those who seek to control others.
A person who thinks he is powerful is nothing without a number of blind (unaware, or mentally asleep) and fearful people that have surrendered their individuality, dignity and sovereignty to become drones in a collective of fools.
"One cannot individuate without being with other human beings. One cannot individuate on top of Mt. Everest, or in a cave where one doesn’t see anyone for seventy-years; one can only individuate with or against something or somebody."
Of all humans, sociopaths are the most attracted to power, and by definition they will do whatever it takes to get power. Looking back, many of the so-called "great leaders" of human history were but glorified sociopaths, pirates, less honest, but with the cloak of religion, race, ideology, nation, and hence, more colorful flags.
The problem is that, because a sociopath is at core selfish, their ability to accomplish anything other than self-aggrandizement is limited. Benefitting society, or even tribe or nation or creed is of secondary importance, if such benefits doesn't benefit the despot accordingly. This is why the tyrants of old built such monumental buildings, monuments memorializing themselves. Napoleon Bonaparte famously remarked that the Code Napoleon was a legacy that would outlast all his military victories, which is why Napoleon made damn sure it was styled the "Code Napoleon".
For the sociopath, everything is a zero-sum winner-takes-all game, putting matters in terms of game theory. Of course, in a zero-sum game there is no increase in the amount at stake or mutually beneficial solution, except at the expense of other players. This is why human wealth really didn't increase all that much throughout history. In many ways, the average frustrated Medieval human peasant lived better than his Renaissance counterpart. For that matter, that poor schnook of a farmer never got to see the frescoes in St. Peter's.
The ideas of democracy and limited government, of checks and balances allowed humanity to mitigate the effects of rule by sociopath, prevent sociopaths from cornering more or less absolute power, which is one reason why the West was able to advance the way it did, because it enabled society to focus on goals other than self-glorification.
Of course, just as salt corrupts iron, that run is coming to an end, with most western institutions being more or less openly sociopathic. The vaunted nature of those institutions, the checks and balances, the limits on power, simply make it that much harder to root the sociopaths out, once they get in. Sort of like a medieval castle. It's designed to keep the invaders out, but once the invaders get in, it's now that much harder to get rid of them.
What we are seeing now is a reversion to the mean.
Patrick Powers: Thanks for the link. Wars are always sad, tragic, and cruel. But when it comes to counting the dead, I'll stick with nominal values, not per capita ones. Killing humans isn't like adjusting monetary numbers for inflation. The dead are the dead.
Rebecca Burch: "Males will evolve to that equilibrium." ROFLMAO! And "Women are there now." Hahahaha.
Men may lose their testosterone (which they are quickly), but then they won't be men. I don't know what they'll be called. Metros?
As for women having equilibrium. Have you ever seen women fighting over a man? I have. And one used a knife. It was bloody. And the funny thing is that the man they were fighting over had to pay all the expenses and fines.
Rebecca B. Yes, it was my beer drinking friend in Belem, Brazil in 1990. He was an American who ran a construction company in Belem with his partner, Moses. Maybe it was because he was an American but he did pay all the hospital, bar, and legal expenses (about $1,000).
I don't "feel this way." I just make observations.
This reminds me of a baby board book I read recently at the dentist. The Little Blue Truck. A big arrogant truck gets stuck in the mud and the little blue truck tried to help push him out. But little blue truck can't do it alone so he calls out for his friends and all come to help push him out. It takes a team: horse and cow and sheep and goat and even little frog to make the change happen.
Caitlin has illustrated one of the very few if indeed any other instances of exponential growth that I can regard as positive in my life. I think we can all agree that exponential growth usually includes cancer, the neutron growth chain reaction (atomic bomb), unchecked population growth. By tackling the narrative problem as an exponentially increasing chain reaction of awareness we will ultimately have access to the workings of really serious problems and their essentially simple remedies and the agency by which to implement them.
Yes, it is vital to believe that good changes can be made: a permanent state of pessimism has no utility whatever.
The first step is being aware of what is wrong and destructive. Honest and ethical people like Caitlin, people who cannot be bought, are instrumental in this effort.
You are one of the best among the private media journalists (bloggers). But you seem to pushing a an abstract rock up a hill with this post. What is "this thing" we can win? What's the strategy? What's your goal? What are the tactics?
“ the mark of our time is it’s revulsion against impose patterns. We are suddenly eager to have things and people express their beings totally. There’s a deep faith to be found in this new attitude - a faith that concerns the ultimate harmony of all beings. We live mythically and integrally.”
I would say this captures Caitlin’s argument herein: knowledge has been enhanced an order of magnitude,and to our great benefit, by, electricity’s usurpation of time and space. The internet. The medium is the message.
But concomitant with this 8 billion connected brains, our global village, there is a very very ominous reality, again, as per McLuhan:
“ World War III is a guerrilla information war with no distinction between civilian and military participation”.
Please notice he chose to use the present tense, in 1964: WWW 111, “is” information war.
McLuhan reckoned we are at war 60 years ago, I wonder what he would think today? What would he think of the awesome tools being developed to control our thoughts?
That said, it is nice to see our leader, Caitlin, in a positive frame of mind.
I needed this right now--I'm feeling very hopeless. Two points: I read a book some years ago called Hands on the Plow, about the women of the SNCC, both black and white but only the women. It struck me that at least two of the interviewees, black ones, said that what galvanized them, made them willing to risk being kicked out of the black colleges that were afraid of trouble, risk arrest, risk violence, was seeing the photo of Emmet Till on a magazine cover.
The other point is a pair of novels I read that had a big effect on me, making the point Caitlin makes here more succinctly--Blackout and All Clear by Connie Lewis, in which time-traveling historical researchers from the 2060s get stuck in WW II England
Quite like this article and especially it’s tone! Struggled periodically over last 5yrs, with the weight of ‘increased awareness’. But your right, keep doing what you can & when you can. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
This was a good dose of optimism. I usually hover around the idea that things will get worse with tiny pockets of resistance scattered throughout.
But regardless of what the future may bring we need to continue to be a light in the darkness.
The world is already a healthy place, otherwise nothing could live here (try living on Venus or Jupiter). What has gone wrong and horribly so at times, is that man in all his over-glorified splendor and extreme arrogance has created a toxic environment...in his physical, mental and spiritual world.
There is really no person on earth with any true power. We perceive human power as that which can control and direct. We always have a choice to not be bullied by those who seek to control others.
A person who thinks he is powerful is nothing without a number of blind (unaware, or mentally asleep) and fearful people that have surrendered their individuality, dignity and sovereignty to become drones in a collective of fools.
"One cannot individuate without being with other human beings. One cannot individuate on top of Mt. Everest, or in a cave where one doesn’t see anyone for seventy-years; one can only individuate with or against something or somebody."
~Carl Jung #NietzscheZarathustra #p102
Of all humans, sociopaths are the most attracted to power, and by definition they will do whatever it takes to get power. Looking back, many of the so-called "great leaders" of human history were but glorified sociopaths, pirates, less honest, but with the cloak of religion, race, ideology, nation, and hence, more colorful flags.
The problem is that, because a sociopath is at core selfish, their ability to accomplish anything other than self-aggrandizement is limited. Benefitting society, or even tribe or nation or creed is of secondary importance, if such benefits doesn't benefit the despot accordingly. This is why the tyrants of old built such monumental buildings, monuments memorializing themselves. Napoleon Bonaparte famously remarked that the Code Napoleon was a legacy that would outlast all his military victories, which is why Napoleon made damn sure it was styled the "Code Napoleon".
For the sociopath, everything is a zero-sum winner-takes-all game, putting matters in terms of game theory. Of course, in a zero-sum game there is no increase in the amount at stake or mutually beneficial solution, except at the expense of other players. This is why human wealth really didn't increase all that much throughout history. In many ways, the average frustrated Medieval human peasant lived better than his Renaissance counterpart. For that matter, that poor schnook of a farmer never got to see the frescoes in St. Peter's.
The ideas of democracy and limited government, of checks and balances allowed humanity to mitigate the effects of rule by sociopath, prevent sociopaths from cornering more or less absolute power, which is one reason why the West was able to advance the way it did, because it enabled society to focus on goals other than self-glorification.
Of course, just as salt corrupts iron, that run is coming to an end, with most western institutions being more or less openly sociopathic. The vaunted nature of those institutions, the checks and balances, the limits on power, simply make it that much harder to root the sociopaths out, once they get in. Sort of like a medieval castle. It's designed to keep the invaders out, but once the invaders get in, it's now that much harder to get rid of them.
What we are seeing now is a reversion to the mean.
Systems, my friend, systems and collectives. Not individuals and pathologies.
Systems and collectives are made up of individuals.
"It looks ugly, it moves in a sloppy, clumsy, two-steps-forward-one-step-back shamble, but human consciousness is undeniably expanding." CJ
If human consciousness is "undeniably" expanding, why did humans kill many more of each other in the past 120 years than in all of human history?
I wish I could share CJ's optimism.
Partly it was because there are more humans. Ancient China had two wars that were worse on a per capita basis. The whole sad story can be read at https://science1arts2and3politics.substack.com/p/a-richter-scale-of-catastrophes
Patrick Powers: Thanks for the link. Wars are always sad, tragic, and cruel. But when it comes to counting the dead, I'll stick with nominal values, not per capita ones. Killing humans isn't like adjusting monetary numbers for inflation. The dead are the dead.
Rebecca Burch: The feminists can have the Earth. But will they reproduce?
Rebecca Burch: "Males will evolve to that equilibrium." ROFLMAO! And "Women are there now." Hahahaha.
Men may lose their testosterone (which they are quickly), but then they won't be men. I don't know what they'll be called. Metros?
As for women having equilibrium. Have you ever seen women fighting over a man? I have. And one used a knife. It was bloody. And the funny thing is that the man they were fighting over had to pay all the expenses and fines.
Rebecca B. Yes, it was my beer drinking friend in Belem, Brazil in 1990. He was an American who ran a construction company in Belem with his partner, Moses. Maybe it was because he was an American but he did pay all the hospital, bar, and legal expenses (about $1,000).
I don't "feel this way." I just make observations.
The only way too "win" is to prevent CBDCs from taking root.
Once they take root, we lose, forever.
Anyone not understanding that, which is most, sadly, fails to understand and realize what we're up against.
what are CBDCs?
I call it Criminal Bankers Destroying Civilization.
They've already done that as you know. Began in earnest in 1913.
Central Bank Digital Currency. No more cash.
This reminds me of a baby board book I read recently at the dentist. The Little Blue Truck. A big arrogant truck gets stuck in the mud and the little blue truck tried to help push him out. But little blue truck can't do it alone so he calls out for his friends and all come to help push him out. It takes a team: horse and cow and sheep and goat and even little frog to make the change happen.
Caitlin has illustrated one of the very few if indeed any other instances of exponential growth that I can regard as positive in my life. I think we can all agree that exponential growth usually includes cancer, the neutron growth chain reaction (atomic bomb), unchecked population growth. By tackling the narrative problem as an exponentially increasing chain reaction of awareness we will ultimately have access to the workings of really serious problems and their essentially simple remedies and the agency by which to implement them.
Power to your elbow, Caitlin.
I call this The Great Awakening and am writing extensively about it on social media. Eventually, we will all choose the Red Pill, I am confident.
Thanks for spreading awareness!
Sadly, most people aren't interested in being "aware". They just want to watch Tiger King, Desperate Housewives, and play video games.
I don't think "we" can win "this thing".
Yes, it is vital to believe that good changes can be made: a permanent state of pessimism has no utility whatever.
The first step is being aware of what is wrong and destructive. Honest and ethical people like Caitlin, people who cannot be bought, are instrumental in this effort.
...the LGBTQ movement making people more aware of contrived mental illness...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)
You are one of the best among the private media journalists (bloggers). But you seem to pushing a an abstract rock up a hill with this post. What is "this thing" we can win? What's the strategy? What's your goal? What are the tactics?
Just make your best guess as for what to do, then do it.
What to do about what? Your reply tells me that I should suggest that you remove the word science when telling people what you write about.
Here's what Scott Ritter has to say about it. https://youtu.be/i-XUJVxhFiU
I cannot resist:
Marshall McLuhan,
“ the mark of our time is it’s revulsion against impose patterns. We are suddenly eager to have things and people express their beings totally. There’s a deep faith to be found in this new attitude - a faith that concerns the ultimate harmony of all beings. We live mythically and integrally.”
I would say this captures Caitlin’s argument herein: knowledge has been enhanced an order of magnitude,and to our great benefit, by, electricity’s usurpation of time and space. The internet. The medium is the message.
But concomitant with this 8 billion connected brains, our global village, there is a very very ominous reality, again, as per McLuhan:
“ World War III is a guerrilla information war with no distinction between civilian and military participation”.
Please notice he chose to use the present tense, in 1964: WWW 111, “is” information war.
McLuhan reckoned we are at war 60 years ago, I wonder what he would think today? What would he think of the awesome tools being developed to control our thoughts?
That said, it is nice to see our leader, Caitlin, in a positive frame of mind.
I needed this right now--I'm feeling very hopeless. Two points: I read a book some years ago called Hands on the Plow, about the women of the SNCC, both black and white but only the women. It struck me that at least two of the interviewees, black ones, said that what galvanized them, made them willing to risk being kicked out of the black colleges that were afraid of trouble, risk arrest, risk violence, was seeing the photo of Emmet Till on a magazine cover.
The other point is a pair of novels I read that had a big effect on me, making the point Caitlin makes here more succinctly--Blackout and All Clear by Connie Lewis, in which time-traveling historical researchers from the 2060s get stuck in WW II England