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Guest Post: Social Innovation Will Be More Important Than Technological Innovation
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Social Innovation Will Be More Important Than Technological Innovation
Technological innovations can be helpful, but they won't solve our fundamental problems. For that, we will need social innovations.
The explosive rise and global impact of technological innovation has persuaded us that technology is the ultimate solution to all our problems. This assumption is rarely questioned; it has become like the air, unseen and unexamined.
The solution to the coming energy dislocation between supply and demand is technology: alternative energy, innovations in deep-oil recovery, etc.
The solutions to our epidemics of declining public health (diabesity etc.) is more and better medical technology--more stents, more diagnostics, more medications, etc.
The solutions to our problems in education is more technology: a laptop for every student, etc.
The solution to a no-growth, jobless "recovery" is more technology.
All this boils down to a cargo-cult in which a better battery, a better software package and a better diagnostic tool will enable us to avoid any changes in our lifestyle and culture, which is based on three basic principles:
1. Ever-rising consumption of goods and services
2. Ever-rising levels of credit/debt to fuel that consumption
3. Ever-rising complexity on a systemic, structural level
The notion that technological innovation is intrinsically incapable of "fixing" our problems is not just alien to our collective mindset, it is essentially sacreligious. In the current cargo-cult of technology worship, the basic assumption is better engineering can solve every problem.
This includes social engineering, of course--"nudging" the populace to modify their behavior as deemed appropriate by the Central State, and punishing whatever populace veers away from the chosen path.
Thus we have two powerful cargo-cults influencing the American economy, society and government: the Keynesian "monetary easing," borrow-and-spend your way to permanent prosperity Cult of the Fed and its Keynesian priesthood, and the cult of technological innovation as the fount of all solutions.
The idea that both these cults are the equivalent of the Mayan priesthoods which oversaw the decline and implosion of the Mayan Empire is not just an outlier--it is heresy of the first order.
Ironically, perhaps, it is glaringly obvious that both cults will fail because they do not understand the problems and are automatically applying tools that cannot possibly fix what is broken: the three basic principles undergirding the American economy and society are crumbling, though that devolution is mostly hidden from view.
Frequent contributor Harun I. recently commented on the fundamental blindness of classical economics and engineering, both social and technological:
You wrote: "Here is the ugly truth about the Savior State, welfare state, social welfare state, or whatever you choose to call the Central State: The Savior State displaces and destroys community and social capital. By making individuals dependent on the Central State for free money, free food, free housing, etc., then the State has taken over the natural function of community."
Brilliant!
Something I have noticed is that you are the only blogger who discusses the psychological effects of the current policies -- which are complete failures. Most people, especially young adolescents and young adults are desperately trying to express their independence and grow. The current system of protecting welfare state and monetary system status quo fiefdoms paradoxically depends on their physical participation while ignoring their psychological and emotional needs.
The natural process of individuation is being subverted and its deleterious effects are bubbling to the surface.
Indeed, true wealth is found in vibrant community. Vibrant community exists when the people in the community contribute (probably the most important ingredient in high self-esteem is self-efficacy), and have a sense of social responsibility. More simply, vibrant community exists when its participants feel they matter.
Current policies, however altruistic its adherents and defenders may be, promote polarization (class warfare), and, most importantly, among those at the margin, especially in the young, poor mental health, which spills over in predictably unpredictable behavior.
In short, current policies are anti-community and pro-sociopathic.
Note to economists and social engineers: there is no algorithm that can express or replicate the heartfelt warmth and the bonds that are created and strengthened when a community voluntarily reaches out to help each other during difficult times.
Note to big box corporations: I, and probably many more Americans miss the local bakery, butcher, clothier, grocer, etc. It was never just about stuff. It was more about stopping in and shooting the breeze over coffee, your kids playing on the same teams, it was and is about genuine mutual interest, the emotional context. They not only knew your name but knew you and you knew them. It's about the personal relationship. It's about community.
A group of people without the ingredients of community is known as a mob.
At some point I think we will come to realize that the reasons for a societal collapse are much deeper and more complex than people not buying enough Ford F-150's or assuming sufficient (whatever that means) debt. This is a deeply flawed argument.
The laws of Thermodynamics tell us that we may control the rate of reaction of between finite resources but we cannot make more. If we do not expand beyond the bounds of earth it is inevitable that we will go backward as resources dwindle, but this need not be done so fearfully or chaotically.
Everything human begins and ends in the mind. Wealth and poverty, both relative terms, are neither measure nor predictor of love and decency.
I believe your background in philosophy better suits you to this discussion than many of the other bloggers out there. Most of them are basically quants and are predilected to thinking everything is solvable through an equation. But you seem to understand that human interaction is much more subtle and cannot be neatly packaged into a finite equation. If it is an equation at all, its variables change every few fractions of a second.
Thank you, Harun. Yes, technological innovation can help solve some specific problems. But to believe that all problems can be distilled down to a technical solution is quasi-religious and ultimately self-destructive. For example, the skyrocketing cost of healthcare (sickcare) "innovations" will bankrupt the nation within this decade. That is not the view of some fringe, it is the conclusion dictated by the data. Meanwhile, the health of the populace arguably declines every year even as spending driven by technological innovation leaps up by hundreds of billions of dollars.
I will be addressing some of the intrinsic limitations in the "engineering/tech is always the answer" mindset/religion in the next week, for it seems self-evident that while technological innovations could smooth the transition to a new economy and social order, the mere faith in technology is insufficient. We need new models for understanding our situation, and social innovations to match the technological innovations that are already in the works.
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No. It simply sounds like a typical US citizen who want to extend the result of the Unique Experiment known as US Americanism(citizenism) to all humanity and make it human nature.
A conundrum for sure, but who cares?
US citizens want the comfort of their propaganda and the very fact that the current state of the world is the result, not of human nature, but of US citizenism, the predominant ideology in the US world order, is not one comforting thought for people who cant face the negative consequences of their actions.
The US is not the solution, the US is the problem.
Agree in principal to some of what you are saying. To what specifically are you saying "No"?
Last sentence (as expected by the way), sounding like a Borg locustus.
No, it sounds like your typical US Citizen attempt to deflect blame of the US ideology on human nature.
Technology of the past perhaps.
I'd take a still for drink and fuel, good soil, a forge, slaked lime, handsaws, windmills, and common sense over iCrap, adsense, long fuel lines, and empty shelves anyday....
The problem with both Capitalism and various forms of Socialism is that they both assume the key to fixing what ails Mankind is material. The fact is that our problems are spiritual, and it is only in the Spirit that we will find what we are looking for.
"Mayan priesthoods which oversaw the decline and implosion of the Mayan Empire" The Mayan Empire partially imploded when the conquistadores infected a large portion of the American natives with smallpox. The rest of the implosion occurred when many of the the survivors committed mass suicides rather than be enslaved to the Spanish and their Social Innovation. Slavery, bitchez!
The Mayan civilization was well into decline by the time of the Conquistadores.... but the Spanish did hammer the last nails in the coffin..
Lol
I think CHS has a point here. Zerohedge is not successful simply because it has good content (thanks TD et al.) or runs on good servers with high bandwidth, although these things are important. What adds greatly to this site is the social innovation, the shared intelligence and the liberty of self expression. Combining these things here, and elsewhere, can help build a richer society. Bet they haven't got ZH equivalent in the far east...
central planners have forced tons of intellectual property & tons of our time into stuff that doesn't improve our lives (bombs, the tax code, administering government, the drug war, public indoctrination, the automobile, central energy production, central food production, roads to nowhere). when we are free of this insanity, it will not take long for the US to emerge as a great decentralized republic, as it was intended.
I agree. Crash the system, crash it now. The sooner we do, the sooner compensation will find it's way back to people who are actually worth a shit. If "joe six pack" really had faith in America, he would welcome the collapse. Unfortunately, Joe is retarded.
Thats right, embrace the collapse...its the only hope for survival of the people.
Bloomberg going CNBS?
Bloomberg's Marge Brennan reporting just now that Vermont is getting pounded by Irene, here is a current webcam shot of the devastation near Burlington
http://wwc.instacam.com/instacamimg/CHRVT/CHRVT_s.jpg?
and Keene's guest at noon will be Jim (Wells Cap) Paulson who ranks right up there with Biggs. Byirini, Bove and Kass
Fox News caught 'green screening' reporters out in the midst of terrible storm conditions....bunch of total hype and dry run for conditioning people to mass evacuations and roundups. One of the segments was particularly hillarious as the reporter standing by a road was suddenly dwarfed by a black SUV driving by which was easily 3x as tall as he was, making him either about 2 feet tall or the vehicle about 30 feet tall.
Hey, did you expect anything else out of FOX?
Goebbels would be impressed by the stuff FOX has done.
He sure would be... Fox is the most trusted news source!
"We need new models for understanding our situation, and social innovations to match the technological innovations that are already in the works."
What a pile of utopian social engineering hogwash. What we need is smaller government, a return to the Freedom Documents, the rule of law, real money, end the nanny state, prosecute the criminals and traitors, and bring our troops home. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11)
“I believe your background in philosophy better suits you to this discussion than many of the other bloggers out there. Most of them are basically quants and are predilected to thinking everything is solvable through an equation.” Puke.
Oh the naivety, oh the blinkered, lopsided, politically tainted reductionist naivety. Burn your ipads and Blackberries everyone, because technology is not the answer! Math is evil and totally useless! Ha ha ha, madness man, madness. Assume that society has fostered a hard-line technological determinism then proceed to lecture everyone about how wrong they all are, of course leaving the backdoor open to slip in some rightwing moralistic family values propagandised sermon of purity! Fabulous! I feel like dancing!
I have a better idea - life is fucking boring, why not make it interesting with little flashing trinkets and interwebs! What’s the damage? Trying to blame societies ills on a misguided faith in technology is just the most bonkers and backwards thing I have heard all year.
"Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity."
Thorstein Veblen
"Past performance does not guarantee future results."
I love how we all ignore these obviously true pithy statements when we want to believe something different.
I also love the tone of some of the comments that blame it all on "them". Yeah, it's all Exxon's fault I like to drive fast cars. They just dug up all that oil because no one was buying it, right? Then forced it on us, correct? Puleese. No coal is burned except for customers -- them is us -- get over your denial of your part in all this, and quite blaming on some nebulous "them" if you want to move forward -- financially AND spiritually. It's a cheap cop out.
Yeah, we deliberately de-industrialized, sure, we just felt like throwing away all that investment in capex. Riiiiight. How about looking at the real drivers of it instead? Does being a nation of the obese really fit in with being a nation of hard workers? Sure, I'd like to see someone make that connection in a believable way.
Even here, people can't tell loose from lose, affect from effect and so forth. Can't even speak their native language (and I do cut slack to those for whom English isn't native).
Gimme a break. "The galactic empire is crumbling" and it's time for a few to start those "foundations" re Asimov. ZH is a step on that path, at times.
And, "buy low, sell high" people. The rest is noise.
Its Exxon's fault that the oil patch was run by its likes called 'the seven sisters' who decided what was good what was bad for humanity, and their own profits, in total Oligarchy play, in the queen commodity of the day. It spawned a similar Oligarchy to face it called OPEC. Until the great big white chief called Dubya's father, GHB himself, skull n boner, scion of oil, successor to great american caesar, smoked the peace pipe with the king of Saud, having proclaimed the NWO and its prize diamond the great american oil patch. And then was born as consequence the current OIL MONOPOLY, a global Oligarchy called the USA-Saud connection, epitomised by GWB/Cheney + the 3000 princes of Saud.
Its hidden face the nebulous Private fund which was jointly run by Bush people and Ben laden participants. Many british personalities were key directors as well for services well done as are prominent french elitist family members.
The Exxon strain is the same as the MIC pain 'the best and the brightest' since 1949, now the financial kabal of WS, Oligarchy play à la USA since NWO. Galactic Empire indeed; crumbling is what you said...House of Atreus is what I would humbly submit.
What "we need", Charles, is for officious a-holes to stop "fixing society". Your liberal usage of the collective first person imperatives tells me you fall squarely into that category.
so archimedes, socrates, jesus, buddha, voltaire et al. were all ass holes. Superior hubris of individual mediocrity rules the waves!
Debate never hurt a fly except the ego bumble bee.
Yeah, another inconvenient truth for some here is that the Founding Fathers of the US were for the most part, the Liberal Intelligensia of the time....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrCfCFzvC-c
Australian GT Championship 2011
http://www.moslerauto.com/street-gallery.php
Palm Beach Mosler Wins!!
Buy Physical! Mosler! LOL!!
The volatility of the world stock markets is fueling more uncertainty about the prospect of another global recession. With politicians squabbling over how to reduce debt, the mood in the US is decidedly edgy.
"It has been a roller-coaster ride this year, it really has.The market has lost 2.9 trillion dollars within the last three weeks", says one trader. Although Wall St has recovered many of the losses from the last month, no one denies that the cost has been high; tarnished credentials, scarcity of jobs and the repercussions of spending cuts that will be felt around the world. Some inside Wall St say that the debt ceiling negotiations and the subsequent downgrading of the US credit rating is completely absurd, serving only as a distraction to the deeper problems."I think it is like Wiley Coyote walking off the side of a cliff. Eventually we will look down and realise we are not standing on anything." But others have faith in the US dollar, convinced that as the world's reserve currency it will always survive and be accepted. The question is; who will pay the price?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmTGOi_BCB0
You Tube! Social Media Content..
You tell me whether or Not! People are moved by this??
Wow what a great read.
What a bunch of straw-man drivel. Lumping humanity into two categories, as he does, undoes every ounce of sagacity in his arguments. His title:
says it all. Broad categorizations are self-defeating and lead to Russell's Paradox. They curtail discussion and harm societies.
Good clickbait though...
If by 'social innovation' you mean dismembering our current system of world destruction through government by an insane global elite (psychopathocracy), then...yes.
If not, then...no.
I suspect CHS gets that ever more common and increasing feeling that he is on the wrong planet.
"They" say that from a social and community perspective, the optimal tribe size is about 150 members. It does not appear that there can be a huge amount of specialization in a tribe of 150. Specialization can only increase as the size of the community increases. And a byproduct of specialization is increased dependence (as opposed to independence). Rocket scientists and bankers don't spend a lot of time making clothes, building shelter and growing food.
The most stable environment may very well be one with the greatest generalization, independence and competition. Why then do we strive for greater specialization and reduced competion. Are we drawn to instability like a moth to a flame? Maybe we cannot advance technology past a certain yet-to-be-determined theshhold without increases in specialization, given our limited lifespans and motivation. Maybe we need 7 billion massively interconnected people to create the specialized solution required to meet a certain goal. Not sure what it is though ...
But does that contribute to human life? I recall the Chinese official when posed the question as to why China does not do more to become more efficient at farming. The Chinese official replied rhetorically:"then what would we do with all of the farmers?". Because of our degree of specialization, have we replaced labor that could be replaced by automation with video games, social networks, Dancing with the Stars" and the NBA? And
I like the reference to the cargo cult. My assumption is that as humans we are all members of something like a "cargo cult" because we understand so little and take so much for granted.
A system that is too stable cannot react to changes and dies.
A system that is too chaotic cannot maintain its structure and dies.
Thus, the border between order and chaos is where all complex systems live. Your and my brains included.
The Tibetans (to take one example) had a couple of thousand years to think this over. They found a lot of demons, and a lot of dieties, inside...and they told us all about it. You can pick other labels, of course.
Human nature: IT DEPENDS.
The trick, is on what exactly does it depend? We play games these days without heed to the fragility of the markets, or of society. The undermining of all these systems by massive corruption risks catastrophe.
Oddly, between 3% and 50% of the neural mass in your brain is inhibitory. The brain would simply go bonkers without a constant and watchful supression of uncontrolled activity.
The average ZHer's percentage is on the low side of that spread. Closer to 3% than 50% for sure! I count myself in that elite group.
Necessary social innovations.
Greater efficiencies in education.
Lowering of structural impediments to employment
A sense of personal responsibility and community stewardship
A return of normative expectations that people be responsible in their reproductive choices and not have children if they cant provide for them.
Ah the fabled past... How US citizens love it.
Normative expectations that people be responsibile in their reproductive choices... So funny. If that had been the case, never America would have flooded with such a number of immigrants whose descent is now responsible for the current state of the world, US world order.
Cut working hours.
We've long ago crossed the productivity barrier, and yet we're sticking with these old world models of 40 hour weeks despite mobilising the other half of the workforce.
Average individual productivity > average individidual consumption = inevitable unemployment.
Full time workers = not much time for socialising, excercising, caring for their family.
Unemplyoment + poor socialising = social cohesion issues.
Sure, it looks like a quant's perspective, but here's a fact: People will mostly sort themselves out if they have the time and energy to do so.
>We've long ago crossed the productivity barrier
No. There is always more work to be done. There is always more landscaping to be done on my yard. There are always more material factors of production waiting to be transformed into economic goods.
It's government interventions like food stamps, minimum wage, laws protecting unions, licensing requirements, taxation, regulatory uncertainty, etc. that hamper the market and keep unemployment abnormally high.
Ah jeez, you were doing so well and then you went all dogmatic on us...
Unemployment is high because to first order we bought all the useless shit we were told to buy and nobody can figure out how to pay the bill... The US growth paradigm has been to get a bigger house and fill it with more shit, well, it just went splat....
Another aspect is that there are lot of people out there that simply cannot be made more productive, i.e. they've maxed out their mental or physical capacity....You would be amazed at the morons working the back offices in the Fin Services industry that are making a solid 6 figures. I would not trust most of them with a burnt out match.
----
Not even suggesting this is a solution, but if putting people to work was necessary, we could ship 10,000,000 unemployed to the Powder River Basin and dig the coal out by hand.... It would be just like the good old days, we could set 'em up in company towns. You get the drift....
People will mostly sort themselves out if they have the time and energy to do so.
Wrong.
Get government out of the "I'll take care of you" business - and THEN people will sort themselves out. Necessity is the mother of invention - not desire. Reducing working hours from the pathetic 40 hours a week (23%) overall doesn't give anyone who had a work ethic to begin with any more time than they had before - EXCEPT more time to watch television and jack-off. Ask any small-business owner out there if he would love to work 40 hours and he'll laugh at you and say he's over 40 by Wednesday each week.
Full time workers = not much time for socialising, excercising, caring for their family.
Wrong again.
The most cohesive, family-oriented generation EVER was made so by the ubiquitous, hard-working dad, and stay-at-home mom - who didn't depend on the government for ANYTHING.
77% of your week if you actually work 40 hours, is left for socializing with your friends and family, sleeping, and whatever else you want to do. If you sleep 8 hours every night (ideal world) that shaves 56 hours off of the 128 you had left after your work week and still leaves you an AMAZING 72 hours EVERY WEEK to do whatever the hell you want to do.
Not much time for socializing...?!?!?!?!?!? Are you retarded?
72 hours
-10 commuting
-5 getting ready for work
-7 on cooking+eating dinner
-1 shopping
44 hours left.
On a work day, that's a 12 hour day easily. 8 hours sleeping leaves 4 hours for kids, tv, excercise, hobbies, spouse.
A rich life that.
Explains why so many people are eating takeaway regularly.
Richness can be had in any and all of those activities. Get ready for work and talk about your day with family or listen to news programs. Cook and eat with the family and get to know them again. Commute if you must, but listen to books on tape or some real music that has value. Shop? Make a pleasant experience out of it. Shopping for its own sake is one of the symptoms of our social problems. Take someone with you, or be friendly and helpful to the other shoppers, whether they want it or not. Your life sounds drab -- only because you allow it to be that way.
Let me sum this up for you because I have spent a lot of thought on this issue:
Humans view world history as a progression of incremental changes over time. Humans breed to fill their ecological niche until a population crash occurs, usually through war, to disabuse everyone of the notion that history moves incrementally and disaster can always be averted. Technology facilitates the breeding process and holds off the day of reckoning. In doing so, it creates ever more complex systems which make that day of reckoning increasingly unavoidable and disasterous. In other words, technology hides the point of no return from our consciousness. After the longest and most successful delaying action in human history, we have 7 billion lives dependant upon Just in Time Delivery, and Zero Inventory practices, most of them living nowhere near a farm. In this non-sustainable world, billions are soon to lose their lives.
There, did I miss anything? Good.
And they all lived happily ever after to the end of their days. (3 or 4 years from now for most).
As one of these retarded Americans,
I must come to the defence of some of the Nicest and most Caring people I have ever had the joy of knowing by saying that the nationalist generalizing spewed here shows much ignorance.
What I see is a bunch of foreign agents, mostly bankers and elete gamblers who have spent generations enslaving us by keeping us ignorant of the prison we live in. TPTB are raping most of the world...USA, India, Europe, etc. while pretending to try to save us from our own folly. The folly is the system. The folly is letting corporations breathe free while we choke on the corporate dung.
Go ahead and spew your hatred. It does no good.
I have lived in the USA all my 40 years and am just now peeking thru the veil. The Constitution's 2nd ammendment (right to arm bears!) is the only think keeping the system from another war of 1812 where the banks forced central planning and the fake business cycle on us to squeeze us till we are dry husks.
Who knew? lead really is a precious metal.
Look at how we define "technology" today, as it relates to consumerism.
Ipads and social networking websites. Information technological systems, that end up serving more of a diversionary purpose than a tangible one.
It sure appears to me that "technology" is being used more to keep people locked up in a fantasy world, than actually making their lives better...
Real technological advances... ones that really matter... like alternative energy.. are being suppressed. Anytime evolution is stopped, it is usually on purpose, by those who are in power and want to maintain their monopolies... by suppressing technology and social innovation.
The trend is clear, thats why we've seen no advances over oil based vehicles, or alternative power sources. We havent seen any REAL advances in computers either, thanks to suppression. Same thing is occuring in currency and metals markets.
Evolutionary Suppression benefits the status quo, dominant corporations and governments.
This will eventually be corrected, simply by the human mass mind and will to advance beyond the boundaries impressed upon us. We will eventually rise above the religion, currency, state, and educational suppression tactics, much like an octopus can get into a sealed bottle to eat.
Human cognitive evolution is happening NOW... and cannot be suppressed further.
Technology does not create consumption, it preserves it.
Technology does not create employment, it replaces it.
Technology does not create "liquidity", it replaces the need.
Consumption requires Human Resources to be efficiently employed and liquidity requires a turn over of money in exchange for the goods and services required to keep these Human Resources functioning properly.
In 1932, 3 years after the start of the Great Depression, roughly the same place we find ourselves now after the events of 2008, the storm of technological advancements were identified as a major cause of the economic problems and Roosevelt's election mandate of that year attempted to combat it with the NIRA, the National Industrial Recovery Act. Sadly, it was not only unsuccessful but further harmed the economy through it's attempt to find ways to employ Human Resources that had been replaced by technological advancements and the changes these advancements brought about in society.
It seems rather out of place to try to pin the great depression on technological innvoation. It seems like a deflection attempt to me. Greedy banker leeches are more likely to blame then and now.
One thing technology does do for us is to make old processes more efficient. When you squeeze more out of the resources you have, you can consume more. It's not magic. Whether there is some hard limit to that, I don't know, but we are only barely scratching the surface of nanotechnology and if innovation can continue in that area, it will unlock many heretofore unusable energy resources. I wouldn't say it is a lost cause by any means. Baby Boomer (Doomers) will disagree, of course. To them, it's all about couching their own sense of mortality within a larger, more comfortable "end of the world" meme. The Doomers have surrendered to failure and are now lining up to be added to the dustbin of history out of sheer necessity by the rest of us who still have more days ahead of us than behind us.
LOL nice one, you got it in one, a lot of moth-eaten decrepit moronic naysayer’s, moralising and dictating with fear and doom, the decline of family values(What family? The Walton’s? what kind of selfish idiots have kids anyway?), nationalistic purity, fascism and economic jibber jabber, community sprit etc(I‘d rather give the money to the government, if my neighbour is broke he can go ask them for handouts, I don’t want him round my door asking for food, humiliating for the both of us). They want to go back to fucking "windmills!” and buying jam from their nosey interfering neighbours, making bread and reading bible to the kids in candle light. Like this world is not going to shake us all off one day like fleas, like the raping parasite that we are, floating in infinite space time, these crazy fucks want to fall into a time warp and create a fantasy world from the 18th century and pretend that nothing is happening.
They obviosly dont have a taste for what they have created...the writer states "social innovation", what he really has in mind is social retardation.
what I've learned here---- technology imbodies change and so is inline with nature--as the only thing constant is change----------- social change is revolving- being always a return to a point on its circular path-a small picture of the cosmos-and so is inline with nature--------- markets have alway been with us and are perminent -- as time seems to have no begining or ending though it must -and so are inline with nature. So life's a bitch and then you die---- ,but I've got stuff! --and If I'm elected I promise to make sure everyone does what they're going to do and that there is lots of good dope out there for the middle class.
It is all fine and dandy till someone or some event turns off the electricity. Now there is your messiah, Mr. Electricity.
America is too diverse at this point to win a majority, too polarized and selfish too agree on anything, not to mention being intentionally dumbed-down to boot.
The big boys will simply overwhelm the system, by letting it overwhelm itself, until it crashes. Then they will rush in during the ensuing chaos as the saviours of change, "change you can believe in" (this time).
The writing's on the wall.
Yes, prosperity and collapse are the lessons of history.
Neil Ferguson, in the conclusion of When Money Dies, an examination of Weimar German, Austria, and Hungary, wrote that a some point the situtuation reached a tipping point at which there was no political support for change. At this point, the inevitable collapse was a foregone conclusion. Yes there are pains associated with a collapse, but does anyone want to live the rest of their lives under these conditions?
The big Boyz are buying gold and using up the fiat resources of the current system to feather thier nests under the new system. I believe they won't let the USD go to zero before they pull the plug. I predict they will portray themselves as heroes when they announce the new system. Even though they were the ones who wrecked the old system, the Boyz write the history books.
So, it's all about managing the looking glass...which is an aggregate function of individual participation relative to the gravity of social constructs...eh.
Chicken Itchy…, I mean Little, couldn't have said it better.
2012, beetchez! /sarc
So how do we go about creating ”community”?
If you try to say what you really think,(as we do anonymously on blogs) to you neighbors or coworkers, what happens? Either they do not understand you, or much more pervasively and ominously, use that information against you at a later time in order to gain a small advantage over you. So most people have learned to keep their mouths shut about anything other than platitudes.
And dealing with small business owners that one is friendly with is all peaches and cream until something goes wrong with the goods or services that you have purchased from them. Then they are typically much more difficult to deal with than wading through the worst customer service policies that big corporations have ever implemented. Plus there are hurt feelings from being treated badly by someone that was considered to be a friend, and one feels like an idiot afterwards for ever trusting that person.
While I am not a fan of big corporations and do not like our current economy, the bottom line is there is no cheery utopia when dealing with people, particularly when money is involved. So creating community may be as elusive as creating a free market economy.
A lot of local grocers lost their businesses extending credit to their neighbors who otherwise would not have eaten during the Great Depression. My grandfather was one of them. Good luck begging for food from Wallmart. The manager of the big food chains doesn't have the authority to feed you, or to accept barter from you so your kids can eat. I have to disagree with you. The corporatization of American industry, especially the farm industry, means that we are at peril of starving if anything at all upsets the delicate dance that brings food to your table. Specialization and efficiency has made for a very sensitive and fragile system.
"So how do we go about creating ”community”?"
Buy locally.
Employ locally.
Market and sell locally.
And raise taxes by selling hunting licenses to shoot banksters, senators and congressional critters, and the occasional federal judge.
In the Depression my grandfather had a small string of local corner shops. He accepted barter for goods, whatever people could give, including labour and even musical instruments. We still have an old zither in the cupboard from those times.
Excuse me, but that guy from two minds has his blog closed? What kind of idiot does that? Any "insight" from this guy should be taken with a pound of salt.
US$5 subscription. I guess he never heard of marketing information goods and services. Have you ever ask yourself why Amazon let you peak at the books' contents?
Or one could just read some Wendell Berry to understand the limits of technology.
"..the Keynesian "monetary easing," borrow-and-spend your way to permanent prosperity Cult of the Fed and its Keynesian priesthood, and the cult of technological innovation as the fount of all solutions."
The problem with the above sentence is it is out-of-context and doesn't match the American reality (or matrix) we exist in.
There is little of anything "Keynesian" in so-called QE whatever when it is solely directed in favor of the bankster class. So too is there nothing Keynesian in rigged markets, currency based upon mortgages, etc., etc.
So too is that "tech innovation" phrase simply repetition of the nonsensical US Chamber of Commerce talking point: we must innovate our way out of this economic crises.
What pure crapola, when they are doing mass offshoring of jobs (offshored 15 million over past 11 years, and instead of creating new ones in the USA, corporate multinationals created approximately 22 million news --- OFFSHORE!!!
And they are continuing on with their design to defund education, destroy the American tax base, and continuing to securitize EVERYTHING, all in the haste to steal every bloody last cent from us.
Some interesting comments.
A quotation attributed in the following paper is one that struck me, especially in terms of ZH readership -
If we are to reduce the culture of suspicion, many changes will be needed. We will need to give up childish fantasies that we can have total guarantees of others’ performance. We will need to free professionals and the public service to serve the public. We will need to work towards more intelligent forms of accountability. We will need to rethink a media culture in which spreading suspicion has become a routine activity, and to move towards a robust configuration of press freedom that is appropriate to twenty first century communications technology. This won’t be easy. We have placed formidable obstacles in our own path: it is time to start removing them.Onara O'Neill
http://www.zyen.com/index.php/knowledge/books/26.html
Written in 2009, might be worth a historical look to see how it fared as an idea generator in the last two years.
[note for readers - best do some due diligence on the authors to see the angles, and their career paths - hint, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Club]
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