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Inequality Is Cyclical, Skyrocketing Until – Periodically – Revolution Forces Concessions from Those Who Have Grabbed All the $
Preface: Sometimes breakthrough insights come from smart, accomplished people in one expertise who look at a different field with fresh eyes … unencumbered by the dogmas and politics of that field.
Peter Turchin is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and an adjunct professor in the departments of Anthropology and Mathematics at the University of Connecticut.
Turchin’s new research interest is inequality. Specifically, Turchin is now applying the mathematical rigor used in population biology to inequality.
We currently have what is arguably the worst inequality in history. (We’re not talking about the 1% … we’re talking about the real powers-that-be.)
Most Democrats and most Republicans think we have too much inequality. Even the mainstream economists who fought the concept for decades now admit that runaway inequality is destroying our economy.
But we can’t take the current situation in a vacuum …
Peter Turchin notes that inequality is cyclical:
In his book Wealth and Democracy (2002), Kevin Phillips came up with a useful way of thinking about the changing patterns of wealth inequality in the US. He looked at the net wealth of the nation’s median household and compared it with the size of the largest fortune in the US. The ratio of the two figures provided a rough measure of wealth inequality, and that’s what he tracked, touching down every decade or so from the turn of the 19th century all the way to the present. In doing so, he found a striking pattern.
From 1800 to the 1920s, inequality increased more than a hundredfold. Then came the reversal: from the 1920s to 1980, it shrank back to levels not seen since the mid-19th century. Over that time, the top fortunes hardly grew (from one to two billion dollars; a decline in real terms). Yet the wealth of a typical family increased by a multiple of 40. From 1980 to the present, the wealth gap has been on another steep, if erratic, rise. Commentators have called the period from 1920s to 1970s the ‘great compression’. The past 30 years are known as the ‘great divergence’. Bring the 19th century into the picture, however, and one sees not isolated movements so much as a rhythm. In other words, when looked at over a long period, the development of wealth inequality in the US appears to be cyclical. And if it’s cyclical, we can predict what happens next.
***
In our book Secular Cycles (2009), Sergey Nefedov and I applied the Phillips approach to England, France and Russia throughout both the medieval and early modern periods, and also to ancient Rome. All of these societies (and others for which information was patchier) went through recurring ‘secular’ cycles, which is to say, very long ones. Over periods of two to three centuries, we found repeated back-and-forth swings in demographic, economic, social, and political structures. And the cycles of inequality were an integral part of the overall motion.
***
Our historical research on Rome, England, France, Russia and now the US shows that these complex interactions add up to a general rhythm.
***
It looks like the pattern that we see in the US is real. Ours is, of course, a very different society from ancient Rome or medieval England. It is cut off from them by the Industrial Revolution and by innumerable advances in technology since then. Even so, a historically based model might shed light on what has been happening in the US over the past three decades.
So what accounts for the periods of rising equality? Turchin gives a number of factors.
One is revolution, when inequality became too extreme. Turchin writes:
History provides another clue. Unequal societies generally turn a corner once they have passed through a long spell of political instability. Governing elites tire of incessant violence and disorder. They realise that they need to suppress their internal rivalries, and switch to a more co-operative way of governing, if they are to have any hope of preserving the social order. We see this shift in the social mood repeatedly throughout history — towards the end of the Roman civil wars (first century BC), following the English Wars of the Roses (1455-85), and after the Fronde (1648-53), the final great outbreak of violence that had been convulsing France since the Wars of Religion began in the late 16th century. Put simply, it is fear of revolution that restores equality. And my analysis of US history in a forthcoming book suggests that this is precisely what happened in the US around 1920.
Indeed, it is well-documented that runaway inequality leads to unrest and revolution. And as Turchin notes, – unrest and revolution in turn leads the powers-that-be to stop hogging all of the wealth.
The journal Nature writes:
Perhaps revolution is the best, if not the only, remedy for severe social stresses. [Herbert Gintis, a retired economist who is still actively researching the evolution of social complexity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst] points out that he is old enough to have taken part in the most recent period of turbulence in the United States, which helped to secure civil rights for women and black people. Elites have been known to give power back to the majority, he says, but only under duress, to help restore order after a period of turmoil. “I’m not afraid of uprisings,” he says. “That’s why we are where we are.”
We have repeatedly noted that we are opposed to violent revolution. Activists like David DeGraw point out that things are going to dramatically change one way or the other … through a huge change for the better, or a descent into violence and chaos.
John F. Kennedy said:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
Sadly, the government is doing everything it can to crush peaceful change, treating peaceful protesters, whistleblowers and investigative reporters as terrorists. And the big banks are joining in the effort to make peaceful revolution impossible.
Postscript: Turchin notes that another factor which at times reduces inequality is a pandemic. For example, the survivors of the Black Plague could demand higher wages, since labor was scarce.
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Bunny - Disagree with your opinion we are discussing an article about evolutionary biology and looting which the research explains is cyclical which I agree with. I also disagree about the pensions, they tend to not be completely destroyed but after government collapse and restructure paid out between .40-.60 onthe dollar in larger countries. That is where America is rapidly now heading.
Don't ask me to shed a tear for you enforcers of the state when it happens to you for busting my balls for the last fifteen years. And I won't shed a tear for any of the other public union pensioneers either that increased my tax bill while becoming increasingly lazy and full of moronic bad 'tudes in the process.
Don't worry though enforcers, I'll have a stash to protect at collapse and I'll be happy to pay you $10 an hour so you can eat. It is kind of like this working for government at times. You play with the devil, work for the devil, get burned by the devil.
I did want to add a kind word here, there are still some of you enforcers that are good guys, a shame though the majority are now dickweeds.
.40-.60... optimist!
Did an original article on Ginna Nuke plant in NY.
Also owned by Exelon, same evil as the Illinois entity.
I do some investigative reporting, reverse engineer their numbers, and figure out that they will need an 82% increase in sales price in order to "keep running". Check it out.
Put a nail in the coffin of nuke (or a 410 series stainless drywall type screw for more zombie nuke holding ability)
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2014/11/another-nuclear-plant-is-dy...
The only scholarly framework that can possibly grasp the economic destruction manifesting since March 10th 2008 is Quantum Behavioural Economics proper. Only Quantum Mechanical Engineering and Quantum Physics can provide logical understanding of where we are heading in terms of the State, the economy, and the individuals that participate in it.
Our global economic abyss must be analysed and reverse engineered to understand exactly where we came from and where we are undoubtedly going to end up. In terms of existentialism we are collectively watching
our civilization implode before our eyes whilst looking with expectations
of improvement from a failed leadership in the base logic of our existential difficulty presenting itself. In brief, I, for one, think we need to establish a new set of guidelines to guide our collective assessment of destabilized markets and failed academic Economic Theory. We are facing an obvious paradigm shift in Economic Theory when the markets tumble further into waves of quantum economic destruction that even the Z/H community is not analyzing systematically. It is time to form new Economic Theory by systematically testing the validity of the ruling class orthodoxy that is promulgated in schools of Economics today. What failed us collectively since 2008 and what has indeed worked when it comes to central planning models of Economics? Since 2008 nothing has worked to improve economic stability and the institutional Economists are sitting on their hands the whole time. What is most disturbing is that they are still being paid to sit on the hands and provide no clear academic answers or directives to industry in the process, wtf?
Simple. Because there aren't any palatable answers at this point. And the truth cannot be told because it will not be accepted as it challenges the status quo. Collapse in inevitable. The degree of which is variable.
Master - Your very astute. Theory of relativity tends to focus on big more outer space while quantum mechics focuses more on the small, what we should now call innerspace. I certainly learned better forecasting on human behavior studying particle physics (a hobby) than political science.
Start here: Controlled Disintegration
Enlightening piece of work. Puts A next to B.
Otto - Great link, you should all read it. Sums it all up in a few paragraphs.
Ps: I can't stand Malthusians.
Do you believe in fate, boy?
Seasons are cyclical .
King Storm , King Desert and King Lightning .
See the Kings in winter .
Things are actually looking up . See
https://www.academia.edu/9204956/Slingshot_Atmospheric_Rivers
https://www.academia.edu/9304658/Optimal_Deserts
https://www.academia.edu/9306394/Optimal_Lightning_
Paralyzed Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Has Died – Here’s His Final Letter to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
Michael Krieger | Posted Thursday Nov 13, 2014 at 11:25 am
I came across a letter written to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a paralyzed and dying Iraq war vet named Tomas Young. It touched me to such an extent, that I highlighted it on Liberty Blitzkrieg at the time. He died on Monday, the day before Veterans Day. If you really want to honor our nation’s soldiers, you should read the following and share it.
RIP Tomas Young.
Full letter below, from Counterpunch.
My Last Words to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
by TOMAS YOUNG
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole." ...
.... t.y.
.
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/11/13/paralyzed-iraq-war-veteran-tomas...
.
not for a second does it stop at cheney and bush, just follow the
federal reserve money to your own wallet, etc ... and all that hangs
off it. go figure
hmm, there was no draft since the end of the Vietnam war, so this veteran was a volunteer - why did he go to Iraq of his own free will ?????????????????????????
Especially after being trained in combat and armed ??????????????????????
PS: Bush v2 is a supergalactic moron and Cheney is a christian zionist fanatic, BUT the Iraq war veterans ARE VOLUNTEERS, NOT CONSCRIPTS.
And a hearty "Fuck you"....to you.
Have you lost your humanity, Socialismiscancer?
18 year old kids with little information go to war every time.
You support the young going to war and give them appreciation since they may never learn the truth... propaganda is strong.
Yes, propaganda is also dehumanizing the enemy.
Don't like natural rights or Magna Carta?
Every American soldier swears the oath "to defend the CONSTITUTION, against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC".
What does this oath mean ???
1. The oath is to defend the Constitution – NOT the politicians (includes judges & FED)
2. Think about what “domestic enemy” means – it is NOT the criminals that the police & FBI are chartered to eliminate – it means those people outside the government, but especially in positions INSIDE the government, who are undermining, subverting, violating the constitution – got any ideas on who those people may be right now ??????
Until the military takes action to fulfill their oath, I have zero pity or sympathy for any of them getting their bodies crippled, disfigured or killed by stupidly & blindly following orders to fight people in faaaaar away 3rd-world shit-holes who are NO threat to the USA Constitution, while the parasites in WADC who ARE everyday threats to the Constitution, freedom, liberty & rights are EMPOWERED by these idiotic glory-seekers just following orders and marching off to WW1, Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, etc, etc, etc.
The stupid deserve to die, it is natural law.
E) All of the Above inside and outside of the government
PLUS... those that have Diplomatic Immunity
- BIS
- WB
- IMF
- G20
- Federal Reserve
- World Ambassadors
- US Treasury
- US Comptroller of the Currency
- Director CFTC
- FSOC, the placement of Cronys into new oversight committee where a previous committee already existed
Voting Members
The Financial Stability Oversight Council has ten voting members:[5]
- Secretary of the Treasury (chairs the Council)
- Chairman of the Federal Reserve
- Comptroller of the Currency
- Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- Chairperson of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
- Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency
- the Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration Board
- an independent member (with insurance expertise), appointed by the President
"Pubic" school has indoctrinated these youngsters who love their Country yet have not yet learned to fear their Gov't. Perhaps you were a lucky, privileged one, or just older and smarter than this patriotic lad? Either way your incompassionat comment wreaks of ignorance as you have no clue about this lad's socio-economic status - imagine if it was the only job that promised some way out of impoverishment. On top of, or besides all of that, perhaps you forget the patriotic-fervor propaganda bombarding his young mind and the desire to take down the (faux) enemy of his family's home?
Callous remark either way.
18 year old kids with little information go to war every time.
Maybe 30 years ago. But times have changed. The internet makes information readily available to those who seek it.
The 18 year ols that go to war are not known for their intellectual prowess. They are not University material. They have no scholarship offers and their future is bleak without employment prospects.
The internet is also highly manipulated and controlled with large commercial interests that use propaganda as an artform.
In the beginning, right after the WTC Bombings, there was not a plethora of information available as to the facts of the 9-11 Attacks.
The lies were not nearly as exposed and the pro-war propagnda was being spewed at a feverish pitch.
That is statist apologist bullshit which you have posted. You need be ashamed.
He volunteered to fight the people he thought were responsible - al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. His country TOLD him that was who was responsible.
Once you're in, the Army sends you wherever the hell they want. You dont' get to vote on it and you don't get to quit if they send you somewhere else. Nobody joins with any guarantees they will be sent to Afghanistan or they will get a combat/non-combat assignment. It's always been that way.
The reasonable and general assumption when you join is that if you're in a hot war and the 'enemy' just attacked New York City, then you were probably going to be sent somewhere to fight that enemy and not some former U.S. chemical weapons customer that Israel doesn't like any more.
He joined right after 9/11, meaning no Iraq, not WMD threats and no Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline that called for regime change. He might have figured there was a chance he was going to Alaska or Georgia or Germany and never see combat, but he never could have anticipated a war that hadn't even happened yet.
That's the moral hazard of manufacturing enemies to justify an invasion to satisfy Israel. Young, idealistic recruits want to believe they will always be fighting for THEIR country's freedom, not Israel's pipeline. They have little idea when they're in the service if that's the case or not - they just trust that their country respects their sacrifice enough not to throw it away for foreign interests. Everything is always fucked up all the time in any branch of the armed forces. It's impossible to discern whether it's just one's current situation or if the entire cause is completely fucked. You only see that in hindsight after you get out.
Don't blame Young - he isn't guilty of anything besides trusting the USA.
He didn't go to Iraq of his own free will, he enlisted of his own free will.
And once someone enlists, they must follow orders, or be court-martialed, or much worse.
So you're saying that someone who signed up voluntarily to one of the most warmongering nations in history is free of guilt?
I'm sorry - but I'm sick of the aggrandizement of any of these soldiers. After Vietnam there is no excuse.
Notice how there was no mention of the multitude of ongoing birth defects and deaths from depleted uranium in Iraq, nor the *million* odd iraqis that died because of the bombing of essential infrastructure (water/gas/powe lines - an abhorrent international crime) but that's ok because they're just brown people living in some far away desert place.
Most warmongering nations in history?! Ha! Have you ever read ANY history? The US has got involved in some nonsense conflicts, for sure, especially since the progressives took over in 1913, but I think if you spend a full five minutes looking, you'll find other examples of warmongering in the history of mankind.
Forgive me, I should probably have said Humanity instead of mankind. damned patriarchy....
The rest of the letter is worth quoting as well. Tomas Young would have considered it fair use. RIP, solder...
"...Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness..."
-Tomas Young
Nov. 30, 1979 – Nov. 10, 2014
[Edit: In case anyone is confused, these are not my words - these are Tomas Young's words directly from the remainder of the letter he wrote. The original post only quoted the first half - it would have been too long to quote the letter it's entirety]
TY: 'I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens."
'Revenge is Mine, sayeth the Lord".
I took the time to smoke a joint and 'think about it', 'it' being 'Nam,,,back in the day. It changed my life, and I decided No.
I really don't care what others decide. To each their karma. Maybe you have the courage to see for yourself. Good luck.
Systemic Abuse & Misuse of Veterans is the best way to say this.
US.gov, US Banking, US politicians, US Auditing, US Constitution can be considered "Systems". All systems are under Attack. The people are under attack, but also governments as they are corporations with debt & assets, and US Businesses as they have debt & assets.
Repost
Look this is about Empire & Dynasty Building.
Look at the Roman Empire or British Empire.
#1 they have to take resources and use human labor either for production or military service, Empires must find ways to manipulate the system to come out on top, accounting fraud, theft, use of debt to force government officials to grant lands or monopolies
#2 there are many kinds of debt that can be brought up, our understanding of economics was that banks too in deposits, lent out dollars from the local economy to create capital, originally we thought this was debt free money being used to stimulate the economy
#3 Fractional Reserve Debt takes Fiat and create debt and money out of thin air for loans & investments, not only does this inflate the dollar (devalue USD), it means if the bank takes over the assets due to failure... the bank becomes richer since it now owns the assets that it created from thin air!!!
This is Financial War against Government, Households, and Businesses.
QE has enabled this process, ZIRP is Oppression, TARP is Oppression as they bailed out the Irresponsible Elite Bankers... but deeper you see the Banks don't serve the people or the government. Banks are disconnected from the Country, Government Ideals, Accounting Integrity... they only have to turn over financial transaction or create securities, buy stocks, buy bonds, buy and encourage buying of Real Estate... and they get promotions & bonuses.
Wealth has shift from Creating Capital (the old way)... now wealth is created through financializing real estate, stocks, bonds, derivatives.
Decapitalization of Industry is Key to understanding this, but also wage declines also indicate... we shifted from Industrial Capital Wealth to Bull Shit.
Michael Hudson: Finances vs Economy, Credit vs Money [3/18 ENG] ...Sounds like lots of ZH people agree with him on Greece & Financialization of Debt & Government in order to steal the assets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZQqrxHGcoQ Whole thing is good!
Integrity matters. That is all it takes. We could just do the thing right. All psyco bullshit aside. All that is needed is integrity. We have none look around. RM I like your stuff but you over analize it. Its like trying to figure out women you cant. You might be able to figure out one. Treat her right and its all good. Treat her wrong it goes the other way.
The force/murder thing is nessasary it is here to stay. The lies on the other hand are optional.
speaking of digital monkey vote counting and
the death of civilized governance and debate,
there is this, monopolized vote counting,
how can this be validated? it can not.
.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/108384
Guns and Butter
"Voting Machines: Computerized Election Theft" with Dr. Jonathan Simon
I admire attempts at applying insights from "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology," however, in my opinion those continue to still be way too superficial, because they are not based on going through deeper intellectual revolutions in the basic philosophy of science. In my view, doing that is becoming more and more IMPERATIVE because all of the previous "cycles" were within overall upward spirals of human civilizations, being able to strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet, which opportunities did not require more radical forms of evolutionary ecologies. However, the inequalities that we are running into now are far worse than anything in previous human history, because we are running into the limits of being able to rape the whole planet, without being forced to face the final consequences from doing that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=6_ZGloqmJIc
Foster Gamble: Is the Value of your Money About to Change
That raised some nice to day dream about political miracles ... However, I doubt that enough people understand enough to be able to avoid the BIGGER problems getting way worse, faster. As far as I can tell, banksters will go for broke, and start more wars, and democidal martial law, rather than allow other outcomes to ever happen!
That video was similar to the optimism which was stated by guys like Ben Fulford, and David Wilcock. However, my view continues that they are pleasantly delusional. There would have to be ASTONISHING SERIES of some technological and political MIRACLES
to prevent overshooting through to Peak Insanities!
Electronic monkey money backed by apes with atomic bombs ... an experiment happening within the lifetime of one generation, while there was nothing whatsoever in known human history to compare it to! In the real world, money was always measurement backed by murder. Cryptocurrencies are merely parasites added on top of parasites inside of that situation. Backing up money with any possible commodity merely changes the basic ways that money is measurement backed by murder to become the measurement of that commodity backed by murder. The crucial feature of our current system is that death controls based on the maximum possible deceits enabled debt controls based on the maximum possible frauds. THAT IS THE CONTEXT INSIDE OF WHICH THOSE WHO PROPOSE "ALTERNATIVES" TEND TO DELIBERATELY IGNORE THE CENTRAL SOCIAL FACTS, WHICH ARE THE DEATH CONTROLS.
Those who think that some return to privacy through cryptocurrencies, or honest money based on being backed by the conservations of matter, exemplified in gold or silver, etc., are indulging in nostalgic nonsense. However, of course, doing that is sufficiently satisfying for many people, within their own individual circumstances. The established systems are based on deliberately ignoring the necessary connections between backing up measurements with murders in order to finally make those meaningful. Different people specialized into different cultural groups that do the various things whereby the murder system backs up the money system, which pays for the murder system in return. Those who believe that commodity backed money, and/or cryptocurrencies, are any kind of genuinely better resolutions of the real problems are indulging in deliberate ignorance ... But, hey, that has worked well enough for the pyramidion people in social pyramid systems for thousands of years, while there are no effective ways that exist now to prevent people from continuing to be like that as long as they could ...
From a sublime point of view, its quite possible for people to have notions running through their minds which are absurd bullshit, and yet, for that entangled mess to nevertheless enable them to navigate their way through the established social systems in personally successful ways, since everyone else they associated with was basically similar. Our civilization operates State Religions, its monetary system and national security, without having to think through the basic problems due to their amplification trillions of times by electronics and atomic energy. Nobody actually has to resolve those problems, to still get on with their own lives. They can just continue to cruise on autopilot, doing their personal best to take advantage of that emerging situation, without personally needing any more coherent overview. Indeed, since the vast majority of people are going to continue to be deliberately ignorant, and the ruling classes are going to continue to work hard to maintain that social situation, there is paradoxically no practical point to worry about the long-term consequences of creating systems of globalized electronic fiat money frauds, backed by an abundance of weapons of mass destruction.
The most taboo topics are still taboo for almost everyone who proposes "solutions" to our problems which are NOT scientific, because they deliberately disregard the imperatives to become more scientific about the death controls. What we have existing today is an oxymoronic "scientific dictatorship" where science and technology is employed as much as possible INSIDE of the established social pyramid systems, while the alleged "alternatives" continue to mostly operate within the same frame of reference, of taking for granted the fundamentally fraudulent nature of the debt slavery systems, which are backed by extremely deceitful death controls.
Remember, one of the first scientific studies of social facts was about the regular patterns of suicides among large numbers of people. THERE ARE SOCIAL FACTS, AND THEY CAN BE STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY. However, the results of doing that reveals the ways that the established monetary systems developed through their feedback with the established military systems. The refusal to fully face the facts that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, makes a mockery out of proposing what are actually still silly, superficial "paradigm shifts" through alternatives which continue to deliberately discount the inherent difficulties regarding enforcing an idealized rule of law, given the paradoxes surrounding enforcement, that nobody guards the guardians, other than perhaps the longer term natural selection pressures upon those systems of artificial selection.
Even IF there were some technological miracles, of some new energy sources, to take us beyond the use of depleting fossil fuels, the deeper dilemmas are going to continue to be the need for even greater political miracles, which essentially must be better death controls, done through greater use of information enabling higher consciousness. In my view, almost everyone who proposes their own preferred sets of shallow paradigm shifts and systems of alternatives, tends to maintain a willful blindness towards the central issue of the death controls. The most that they tend to do in that regard is uphold some magical view of free markets, which presumes upon some rule of law, which continues to be able to side-step the paradoxes in enforcing any rule of law.
By and large, my opinion is that the majority of people are mainstream morons, who take the established money/murder systems for granted, without understanding, nor wanting to understand those. Meanwhile, the controlled opposition to those established systems are reactionary revolutionaries, who continue to promote idealized solutions, which pretend to resolve the core problems by magically waving their hands over them, by basing their bogus solutions upon impossible ideals, that pretend to make the real problems disappear. In order words, their magical thinking enables them to propose magical solutions. Real solutions would have to deal with the real problems, which manifest most importantly as the murder systems doing death controls, that are the force that backs up the frauds of the current monetary systems being able to prevail, in ways which have been triumphant so much, for so long, that almost everyone takes them for granted, without thinking about those.
Maybe there could be some technological miracles, to give us some more time to adapt to the limits of diminishing returns from strip-mining the planet's natural resources. However, that time ought to be used to develop better integrated human, industrial and natural ecologies, the core concerns of which would have to be their death controls. The greatest of realistic political miracles would be human beings negotiating better death controls. Without that, then we are still on the path towards death insanities, because our basic attitudes towards the real death controls are increasingly psychotic social insanities, which developed due to the history of successful warfare based on deceits and spies, which then morphed to become the political economy built on top of enforced frauds.
At the present time, of course, political miracles such as enough people facing the full facts about electronic frauds backed by atomic power, in order to think differently about how to operate those money systems backed by murder systems, whereby the debt controls were more rationally operated overall by better death controls, appears practically impossible, (or very improbable, like winning multiple lottery jackpots). Instead, the actual path we are on is for the established debt slavery systems, driving debt insanities, to provoke correspondingly caused death insanities, while almost nobody involved with that shall go through enough of the necessary genuine paradigm shifts to better understand those problems, in order to be able to negotiate better solutions. The existing systems are operated by the established enforced frauds, whose opposition tends to be controlled to stay within the same frame of reference. There is barely any public admission of the core social facts, while what little there is of those radical truths still then tends to be followed by bullshit solutions which are not based on better death controls at the core of the real situation, but rather, based on impossible ideals which continue to find nebulous ways to avoid taboo topics.
In my view the genuine solutions ought to be found through intellectual scientific revolutions, which are inspired by the ways there were paradigm shifts in mathematical physics, that made things like electronics and atomic energy possible to understand and use. Those kinds of genuine paradigm shifts ought to be applied to political science, but that takes understanding the degree to which the biggest bullies' bullshit dominated the philosophy of science, the same as all other social enterprises. Evolutionary ecologies are about how general energy systems work. However, we now take for granted the ways that our understanding of entropy was reversed, while we do not take seriously enough the ways that physics has proven our common sense presumptions about time and space were wrong and backwards, which relates to the ways that our understanding of entropy is wrong and backwards.
The article above still tends to looks towards the patterns in the past to try to understand the future. However, there is nothing in human history to compare to the potential of the future enabled by profound progress in science and technology. The only thing that we know about that compares was the development of photosynthesis long ago, and the revolutionary series of changes and adaptations that photosynthesis then drove.
You remind me of that Gruber character.
I may be seen as a sort of mirror image of a lot of other more mainstream intellectuals.
+1 RM. Always enjoy your posts. Have been saying for years that we are squarely in uncharted waters here and there is no turning back either.
I agree, centerline, that "there is no turning back either!"
More and more energy has been pumped into the established social pyramid systems, which may be seen as similar to the way that cyclones or hurricanes start. Many of us are still sitting in relative comfort on the beach, while we can imagine the satellite images of what is developing. Some of us may be able to see those storm clouds brewing on the horizon of history. (Some, further out on the periphery of the established systems are already in those storms.)
It is almost impossible to imagine being inside of social storms, analogous to being in a hurricane, when that blows through. It is especially difficult to imagine being at the wrong time and place when some sort of social equivalent to a social tornado touches down! However, there is no intellectual doubts regarding how the energy being pumped and pumped, by order of magnitude after order or magnitude, into the potential to blow up unprecedented social storms IS HAPPENING.
The basic social pyramid systems were DEBT SLAVERY BACKED BY WARS BASED ON DECEITS, which have already generated debt insanity numbers. Those were always on an exponential growth curve, because that was built into the structure of those systems from their beginning. Hence, those orders of magnitude are surely "uncharted waters."
Various people have developed various personal strategies for how they may hope to survive through the possible social storms blowing through. I do NOT know which of those might be better than others. However, I AGREE THERE IS NO TURNING BACK!
Excellent analysis RM - most eloquent. I'm almost embarrassed to share my two-cents' worth, but here goes. IF there was a evolutionary "photosynthesis" type leap in spirituality, we wouldn't all be chasing the same thing, and I'm thinking about the material aspirations of such groups as the Mennonites and Buddhist monks. But that is hardly likely given the base instincts of the nuclear-armed ape.
What I can provide as perhaps a naive but practical solution by way of anecdotal evidence is the comparison of the lives of both sets of my grandparents and how they survived the great depression. One set lived on Euclid Ave. in Cleveland and partied amongst those of the 'Rockefeller' type, while the other set were essentially self sufficient ranchers in S. Texas. When the Great Depression rolled through, the wealthier set (millionaires at the time) lost more than they had and went millions into debt while the other set never noticed.
This doesn't solve the "psycho-apes with better death controls" problem but does illustrate how to survive a temporary economic storm. Unfortunately, in just a few generations many have lost the necessary skill sets to actually survive off-grid. Many couldn't even if they wanted. But, are we really better off with more monetary wealth?
The root cause is self-evident even amongst stackers - gold absorbs light while silver reflects but gold is seemingly "worth" more so gold is more highly admired. Extrapolating to one's soul (if the former proposition holds water) means the psycho-apes will always dominate the system, because once one set is removed "faction 'B'" will step in - same as it ever was. Few will accept less if more looks likely - a simple fact of the light within, mostly non-existant.
My naive hope knowing that spiritually is also cyclical and tied to the solar system travelling through the houses of the zodiac is that we are moving towards some sort of divine intervention (a photosynthesis-type evolutionary leap) before I am forced to confront tyranny-at-the-door with a welcome gift of lead.
Since as Zerohedge points out (a long enough timeline - zero), perhaps this is our lesson, and as history has shown, we'll never evolve past the better-armed psyco-ape so perhaps we should just take note of such spiritual lesson as we pass through this classroom of hell as there really is no "solution." I'm not saying I wouldn't oppose tyranny (leader/martyr in waiting), but historically, apparently, we always end up back where we started.
Indeed, WarPony, there are chronic political problems inherent in the nature of life, and so, "we always end up back where we started."
It is impossible to predict the possible time-line and severity of the crises. As long as those are not too hard and too fast, then some people could become prepared. However, it is possible that things could get worse, faster, to a degree that nobody could prepare for.
Many people have also pointed out what you did, that during the Great Depression, a lot of people still lived on the land and had skills, while today, most people live in cities, and are totally dependent upon the established systems (which tragedy I think was deliberately driven by the successes of the monopolists.)
In my opinion, since only about 1% of the people are somewhat prepared, while 99% are not prepared, that tiny minority that have tried to become prepared were not really able to ... because they would be outnumbered 100 to 1 by the otherwise unprepared, if things got bad, quick! Moreover, the prepared could find that the government agencies became their overall worst enemy, if things were deteriorating to the degree that martial law was imposed.
If there was democidal martial law, then that would probably not work in the longer term, since it would tend toward "end up back where we started." ...
However, there can be no good generalizations that would apply to everyone, since different places and times could experience the possible range of social storms very differently!
aka "we're there" ?
Ah, the ever-oscillating gyre of history -- widening, widening, widening and finally collapsing "over and over and over again. Because that's what Hell is all about, ... REPETITION. I think in our hearts, most of us know that ...." *
* from "Storm of the Century"
Gee. It's not even 5 o'clock and I'm already waxing maudlin.
Sounds more like you are waxing your dolphin....
Clowns - That was a cheap insult but was funny nonetheless.
"Despite the huge power of this system, anything that is fed from a growing inequality is doomed to collapse, and this system relies on the growing inequality which brings dangerous imbalance. It looks like this system is trapped into a spiral trajectory towards destruction."
Revolution, Evolution or Revolutionary Evolution?no more banksters, I like to regard REVOLUTION AS RE-EVOLUTION, in the sense that ordinary evolution tends to be adaptive radiants, while rarely, but very significantly, different adapting radiants CONVERGE to form a new beginning, for a new basis to return to normal evolution as adaptive radiations out from that new revolutionary, converged source. Of course, that was a very abstract view ... In the human cases, discussed in the article you linked, I would say that both the Russian and French Revolutions were ways that we saw the phenomena of controlled opposition prevail. The chaos finally ended up with the new groups of worst criminals emerging to take over. Most of that article you linked correctly predicts that most of what we now falsely regard as "revolution" will not be much more than stupider violence, which will probably end up being even stupider than previous eras of history.
For several decades I have indulged in the political fantasy that there would emerge a transnational scientific community, an aristocracy of the "workers," to provide for an emerging new elite, to eventually take the place of the current kinds of elites, the banksters and their buddies. Of course, that view is based on the currently implausible presumption that the human species is going to survive through the development of science and technologies that became trillions of times more powerful, and capable, which will require almost unimaginable transformations to develop a more genuinely scientific society.
I guess that I am still a sucker for political science fiction and fantasy, that results in the ability to imagine some future which is possibly better than that genre's horror stories, which are the kinds of nightmares that currently appear to be the kinds of previous science fiction that are becoming facts ... At this point is time, it is impossible to image how human beings can survive their development of sciences and technologies which have made them trillions of times more powerful, while apparently overall not the slightest bit wiser about how to use those powers, other than to continue to become even more dishonest, and back that up with more violence, except now on as ASTRONOMICALLY AMPLIFIED SCALE!
The current runaway social polarization, in the form of INEQUALITY, is relatively trivial compared to the simultaneous destruction of the natural world. Both trace back to the paradox of social successes based on deceits and frauds working best in the short-term, despite those enabling evil deliberate ignorance towards to longer term. Right now, any violent revolution that was merely another overdose of that would not be a good thing, and certainly not something that I would want to participate in!
The basic problem is the structure of Neolithic Civilization, being based on systems of lies backed by violence, in which the minority that specializes in that makes sure that the majority is ignorant and afraid. I like to imagine that we could go through that phase of human history to develop some Translithic Civilization. However, at the present time, the only thing that seems believable is for the irreconcilable social polarization, and irreparable destruction of the natural world, to get much worse, faster ...
In my view, the vast majority of people who indulge in fantasies about "revolution" are old-fashioned goofballs, who are not providing anything that could be better than the established systems. Any real, radical revolution would have to change the basic combined money/murder systems, to develop different debt and death controls. Ideally, those should be better integrated evolutionary ecologies. However, since the existing systems were based on the history of backing up lies with violence, in which the ruling classes operate by doing that, while those they rule over adapt by becoming so ignorant that they feel afraid to become less ignorant, and do not want to understand their own situation, the overall prospects look extremely dismal!
Of course, energy will continue to be conserved, and there will develop some new evolutionary ecologies amongst the survivors ... However, for that to become based on greater uses of information, and higher consciousness, rather than crazy collapses into chaos and related psychotic breakdowns, as severe social storms blow through, seems very unlikely. The main obstacle is that the established systems are deeply entrenched ways of backing up lies with violence, that have an enormous inertia in the majority of people who have adapted to generation after generation of that by becoming ignorant and afraid, especially since those who developed to be the most dishonest and violent continue to be so, and therefore, are actually driving history at the present time, with BIGGER enforced frauds, and wars based on deceits, so that human beings are mostly serving the criminally insane agenda of the banksters and their buddies, WHICH IS PRIMARILY WHY "it looks like this system is trapped into a spiral trajectory towards destruction."
Very interesting analysis. In other words, we could say that, as societies we didn't manage really to evolve in a sociocultural level yet. In essence, the function of societies is still primitive. This brings a dangerous self-destructive imbalance because technology evolved rapidly. In reality, it is a class-war, it has always been, but this time I doubt that we have the luxury of time to restart the system. We need another type of evolution to get us out of the primitive stage and we need it fast. Could this happen? I think that is very difficult but not impossible.
I completely agreed with your reply, no more banksters!
Should the Federal Government (Executive Office) elect to relocate citizens against their will, take possession of citizens' property against their will without fair compensation, take control of the national infrastructure and lastly, attempt to relieve citizens of their weapons, we will have a classic, blood in the streets revolution.
I do not see all those thing coming to pass. At least, not all at once.
One theory as to why we dont see the universe teeming with life so far is that most civilizations do not outgrow thier adolescence... either kill themselves off, or exhaust resources and reach the same conclusion.
Some of the greatest scientists of our time have also said that if we dont get off this planet in the near future, we are more likely than not screwed.
Your link states:
"French Revolution brought the nation-state as a carrier of majority's rights, while Russian Revolution was a first attempt to erase the class structure of the society."
The next revolution (actually, collapse and ensuing chaos) will fix the blame squarely on the bankers and the justice system that protected them. It will be about revenge, not change.
If people were stocks, I would short bankers and judges. They are both headed for the woodchippers when the shit hits the fan. The DHS was built to protect them, but the government built the DHS so it's ultimately doomed to failure. People will want dead judges and bankers. Not me personally - just sayin'.
Once the internet and cable netwroks go dark, it's all over but the crying.
Well the majority conveniently are mostly living in Conneticut and long Island so it won't be too complicated when the rabble starts rousing.
"The next revolution (actually, collapse and ensuing chaos) will fix the blame squarely on the bankers and the justice system that protected them. It will be about revenge, not change."
I sure hope so. I am not so inclined to believe the people have it in them.
.... and here I thought I was the only one with a fondness for woodchippers.... ;)