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Guest Post: Why Am I Hopeful
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Why Am I Hopeful
Readers often ask me to post something hopeful, and I understand why: doom-and-gloom gets tiresome. Human beings need hope just as they need oxygen, and the destruction of the Status Quo via over-reach and internal contradictions doesn't leave much to be happy about.
The most hopeful thing in my mind is that the Status Quo is devolving from its internal contradictions and excesses. It is a perverse, intensely destructive system with horrific incentives for predation, exploitation, fraud and complicity and few disincentives.
A more human world lies just beyond the edge of the Status Quo.
I know many smart, well-informed people expect the worst once the Status Quo (the Savior State and its corporatocracy partners) devolves, and there is abundant evidence of the ugliness of human nature under duress.
But we should temper this Id ugliness with the stronger impulses of community and compassion. If greed and rapaciousness were the dominant forces within human nature, then the species would have either died out at its own hand or been limited to small savage populations kept in check by the predation of neighboring groups, none of which could expand much because inner conflict would limit their ability to grow.
The remarkable success of humanity as a species is not simply the result of a big brain, opposable thumbs, year-round sex, innovation or even language; it is also the result of social and cultural associations that act as a "network" for storing knowledge and good will--what we call technical and social capital.
I have devoted significant portions of my books Survival+ and An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times to an explanation of how community and self-reliance have atrophied under the relentless expansion of the dominant Savior State.
The social capital and "return on investment" earned from investing time and energy in community and other social networks has been replaced by a check from the Savior State--a transfer payment that surely beats the troublesome work of investing in community in terms of risk and return.
The net result of the Savior State dominating society and the economy is the rise of a pathological mindset of entitlement and resentment--the two are simply two sides of the same coin. You cannot separate them.
Once self-reliance has been lost, so too has self-confidence been lost, and the Savior State dependent--individual and corporation alike--soon distrusts their ability to function in an open market.
This is a truly sad, self-destructive state of affairs, and deeply, tragically ironic. The calls for "help" quickly lead to dependence on the Savior State, and that dependence quickly breeds complicity and silence in the face of repression and predation by the State and its corporate partners.
In a very real sense, citizens relinquish their citizenship along with their self-reliance and self-worth once they accept dependence on the State.
I often mention that the U.S. has much to learn from so-called Third World countries that are poorer in resources and credit. In many of these countries, the government is the police, the school and the infrastructure of roadways and energy. Many of these countries are systemically corrupt, and the State is the engine of enforcing that corruption.
Rather than something to be embraced and lobbied, involvement with the State is something to be avoided as a risk. In everyday life, people rarely encounter the government except in law enforcement or schooling.
As a result, people depend on their social capital and community for sustenance, support, work and connections.
This is not altruism, it is mutually beneficial.
Once a community dissolves into atomized individuals who each get a payment from the Central State, then they no longer need each other. Rather, other dependents on the State are viewed as competitors for the State's resources.
These atomized, isolated individuals have a perverse relationship with the State and what remains of the community around them: lacking the self-worth earned from work or engagement/investment in a community, then their only outlet for self-identity is consumption: what they wear, eat, drink, etc. as consumers.
This dependence on the State also serves the State's goal, which is a passive, compliant populace of dependents, and distracted, passive workers who pay their taxes. Thus dependence on the State and a hollow consumerism are ontologically bound: one feeds the other.
The era of debt-based consumption as the engine of "growth" and "prosperity" is coming to an end. Adding debt via credit no longer creates growth; it actually takes away from the economy by expanding debt service (interest payments).
The vast majority of developed-world people have had the basics of life since the late 1960s -- transport, food, shelter and utilities. The "growth" since then depended on cheap, abundant oil and a consumerist mentality in which one constantly re-defines and renews one's identity not from social investments in others or the shared community but from consumption.
Not coincidentally, this dominance of consumption as the only metric for "growth" (as opposed to, say, productive activity) has been paralleled by the dominance of the Central State.
The end of credit-based consumption will be a very positive development, as will the devolution of the Savior State. The Savior State is like oil--both are at their peaks and are starting their inevitable slide down the S-curve. The world they created was not as positive for human fulfillment and happiness as we have been told.
Indeed, study after study has found that people with the basics for life, a higher purpose that requires sacrifice and a tight-knit community are far and away happier than isolated, atomized, insecure consumers, regardless of their wealth and consumption.
This potential to re-humanize our economy is why I am hopeful.
These are some of the themes I develop in my new book Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change.
Longtime reader/correspondent Brad L. offered an insightful commentary on why he remains hopeful.
I see the potential for a discontinuous plunge into chaos driven by unsustainable debt every time I read a macroeconomic analysis. But "on the ground" in my own life, I see something different. Every day, in millions of unheralded ways, I see individuals making incremental changes in the direction of sustainability. There are twice the number of farmers' markets that there were 10 years ago, largely because the number of farmers is actually rising for the first time in modern American history. My buddy who owns an electric bike shop can't keep them in stock, because people are dumping their second cars in favor of e-bikes. There's more solar on rooftops every week in my little Tempe suburb. Etc. etc. etc.
It adds up to "damping the discontinuity," and perhaps explains why we are six years into fearing a plunge into horror that never quite seems to materialize. The better society that you envision - I often think as I read your great essays - may be quietly building itself under all of our noses.
The obvious question, of course, is will it happen fast enough? But I am very much an evolutionary theorist. Unlike Mencken, I don't see boobus Americanus when I look around me, tempting as that dismissal may be. The deeper truth about even the most pathetic Americans is that, like all human beings, they are the end product of 250,000 years of homo sapiens selecting for survival and reproduction, which means selecting for problem-solving.
And I dispute the notion that the "default" way to solve the survival-reproduction problem is to kill or otherwise tear communities apart. At a deep level, we understand that groups and tribes survive more readily - and allow us to mate and raise young more successfully-- than do individuals. I am confident that the emerging solutions will be rooted in that understanding.
Should the manifesting of problems pick up speed, I guarantee that this generalized, widespread, difficult-to-track-or-quantify problem-solving will speed up accordingly. I am confident that the former won't outpace the later to any vast degree. Ultimately, I admit, that's just a guess, but there is a lot of history behind that guess.
I know the numbers you have cited of the debt that's been taken on to support the Status Quo over the past four years ($6 trillion in new Federal debt plus the $7.7 trillion bailout of the banks) don't come close to being sustainable, and suggest serious, rapid, negative change. But a brilliant thinker once remarked that "Food is wealth, health is wealth, energy is wealth; all else is illusion."
So if the first thing that changes is the internalization of this ethic, the remainder of the changes won't be so difficult. Big if. Possible, though, because it will become necessary. Maybe the best example of "problem solving" that I cited earlier will be the revamping of problematic values...
Also - a huge, overlooked positive enjoyed by Americans is low population density amid vast tracts of arable land in a temperate climate. If sufficient food is the real basis for wealth, we'll need to seriously screw up - via nuclear war that spreads within our borders, for example - to experience the loss of anything we truly need. Any "suffering" rooted in the loss of cheap Chinese crap does not, I think, deserve to the labeled as such, and perhaps many people will come to realize this.
I guess I'll stay hopeful until forced to become otherwise. Have not been forced yet.
Thank you, Dan and Brad for these contributions. I will close this Christmas Eve entry with two favorite quotes:
From the poet Rumi: Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures.
From Leonardo Da Vinci (via Kathy K.):
Don’t underestimate this idea of mine, which calls to mind that it would not be too much of an effort to pause sometimes to look into these stains on walls, the ashes from the fire, the clouds, the mud, or other similar places. If these are well contemplated, you will find fantastic inventions that awaken the genius of the painter to new inventions, such as compositions of battles, animals, and men, as well as diverse composition of landscapes, and monstrous things, as devils and the like. These will do you well because they will awaken genius with this jumble of things.
Best wishes to you for a safe and happy holiday season!
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Silver BITCHEZ...
hope is a four letter word. Tomorrow of course may never even show up. Heck, next moment might bring the last breath to any one of us.
it's no surprise that hope, dope, pope and nope all rhyme.
Because they have no reason.
Cycels turn, regardless of the hope of those involved in the tumbling. Rather than hope, learn to tumble.
ori
/the-plan/
I'm hopeful someone will finally ban the word hope.
We'll think about change after that.
Hope is the opiate of the masses.
Hope was and remains one of the foundation stones of this country - the United States of America.
Happy New Year to you
Thanks Tyler for the thoughts and insights into humanity.
Hope was and remains one of the foundation stones of this country - the United States of America.
Happy New Year to you
No sir.....opportunity was one of the foundation stones of this country.
Have you tried to get a drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico lately? F_CK YOU.
I'm gonna thread jump here. A Grantham seminar, currently at 87 clicks, on why we are completely hosed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_bRyiVaD5M
When he said my fellow Capitalists......I knew every word after was going to be a lie.
Grantham is old school. BTW-I am a capitalists. it's just that they are getting to be rare.
All I want to know is: Who is the Capitalist in your avatar?
She's been driving me nuts for two years and eight weeks...
Tried eating anything from the Gulf of Mexico lately?
Show some self-reliance and go fuck yourself.
Yeah....some shrimp.....even went for a swim.
Turns out the sky is NOT falling. Go buy that Brazilian gas mister self rightous.
Ahhh PetroBras, Obummer knows how to look out for his buddies... who owns a large stake in that company again? The American public can go fuck itself as far as B.O. is concerned.
Hope for the best, Prepare for reality
In case anyone missed your reference: George Soros. Obama made sure he got a few billion in loan guarantees while he was simultaneously shutterring the Gulf for American exploration.
"No sir.....opportunity was one of the foundation stones of this country."
You can't separate the two. They want to destroy both. The destroy opportunity in order to destroy hope, only then will you surrender.
Hope is the opiate of the masses.
Indeed it is!!!
Hope is not a strategy.
But it could give you a reason to stick around long enough to come up with a viable one.
Evidently......it's longer than three years....and it's not in the form of Solendra.
It was powerful enough to get the first black, muslim, junior senator from one of the most politically corrupt regions in America elected president.
o got elected because our choice was between him and caribou barbie...what're you gonna do?
True, but he also had to rise above the other dem candidates, and Hillaryous was the front-runner forever. How did that happen?
Are you kidding? Obama never won anything. After 8 years of Bush a stuffed dummy could have won for the Dems. The electorate didn't vote for Obama they voted against Bush and yes, I know Bush wasn't running but his record was. Everyone knew a vote for McCain was a vote for Bush's policies.
Ironic isn't it that Obama continued all Bush's policies and wars and even kept the same team of assholes.
which left McCain free to push the NDAA agenda.
left cheek, right cheek, same asshole(s).
Anyone but the man who so manifestly despises America. McShame was an embarrasment truly, but he at least does not want to "fundamentally transform America" into Cuba. How about we fundamentally transform our government instead? Caribou Barbie indeed.
Ann Barnhardt would have been a better choice for V.P. or President
ah yes, a pink AK toting, Qur'an burning, Xtian Crusader VP - that will get the ball(s) rollin' - *eye roll*
Crisismode
Never read Pandoras Box eh?
Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology, taken from the myth of Pandora's creation around line 60 of Hesiod's Works and Days. The "box" was actually a large jar (????? pithos) given to Pandora (???????) ("all-gifted"), which contained all the evils of the world. When Pandora opened the jar, all its contents except for one item were released into the world. The one remaining item was Hope.[
Hope inspires. opiates usually make pain bearable, lessen hunger and fatigue and may cause drowsiness in sufficient doses. Television seems way more of an opiate, than hope.
Television is the electric opiate, cheap, widespread and deadens the nerves to placate the masses.
Hope is the currency used to pay for larger tv's to up the dose and enhance the insulation from reality.
Please pass the opiate!
•?•
V-V
Prepare for the worst, but you've got to stay postive and believe in the end, maybe a decade from now things will be much much better. And you also have to believe that maybe you won't need all your preparations, if you do good you're covered, if you don't no problem, better safe than sorry. If you lose faith in the future, you're gonna lose your happiness and sanity.
I think there has to be a vision of something better after the chasm that we have to as a necessity cross.
The positive outcome isn't an economic rebound in 2012. The positive outcome is a market collapse and a second leg down in the depression that causes us as a nation and maybe beyond to reconsider business , stop a lot of criminality we see in banking and politics daily, slow down our chase of wealth, and restructure how we interact.
The negative outcome is to keep pressing our luck by using every tool at government's disposal to keep slow growth going and having a series of accidents going.
It takes a lot of hope that the positive outcome is possible when it's not heading that way right now. Especially when you have to root for a lot of short to mid-term pain to get to the positive outcome on a daily basis.
My concern is something catastropic happens that causes a significant loss of life. I am not debating if the collapse is a good/bad thing or necessary, but merely say that quite a bit of misery is dispensed to us.
America is in a great position long term, we have untapped energy, the ability to generate food, as well as have some nice geographic barriers. Short term might be tough however because we are so specialized.
Getting back to producing and being rewarded will be nice, but also quite a big shift.
The other big concern is the default form of govt for mankind seems to be a dictatorship (or monarchy). Capitalism and Democracy are relatively new and it would be a shame if this is not the most efficient form of govt and dies away. Darwinism :)
Interesting thoughts. It is true that the default arrangement of political structure is some form of stratified system in which those with the monopoly on violence rule. The populace are not citizens but subjects. Their lot is to labor unceasingly for mere subsistence while the management class (new term for the nobility) lives at their expense, interrupting their idleness with intoxicants, social programs and warmaking. Such is the history of mankind. On a few occasions men have organized their political affairs into a situation where the government is limted, and correspondingly, individual lives are less limited. This is the "exception" to the rule, and is what is exceptional about the United States Republic. Obama does not comprehend this, indicating so in a speech where he said that America is only believed to be exceptional, just like any other subject beleives his nation to be exceptional. Sara Palin could explain this to the Harvard trained genius.
This sappy article reminds me of the song that goes "feelings, nothing more than feelings".
Hope is not a plan. Hope is the opposite of a plan. It destroys action. Hope is what TPTB and the media use to lull you into inaction.
"HOPE" is undoubtedly vital...
What pisses me off is that a 2 bit a55wipe like Obama had to go and try and franchize the word for his own personal gain, then proceed to run the car into a ditch...
He has singlehandedly set back "HOPE" for an entire generation (as a thought experiment)...
Perhaps with a little generosity of heart, you might at least allow Obama as least the use of some words from the English language.
After three years......he can use all the words he wants.....but hope is now off the table.
2012 - "You ain't seen nuthin' yet"
There... I'll let him use 5 words... Generous type that I am...
"I hope I have appealed to your greatest hopes and not your worst fears."
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."
"I hope the people on Wall Street will pay attention to the people on Main Street. If they do, they will see there is a rising tide of confidence in the future of America."
"The poet called Miss Liberty's torch 'the lamp beside the golden door.' Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is. And now you really know why we're here tonight. The glistening hope of that lamp is still ours. Every promise, every opportunity, is still golden in this land. And through that golden door our children can walk into tomorrow with the knowledge that no one can be denied the promise that is America. Her heart is full; her torch is still golden, her future bright. She has arms big enough to comfort and strong enough to support, for the strength in her arms is the strength of her people. She will carry on in the '80s unafraid, unashamed, and unsurpassed. In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is."
Hope is one of the three cardinal virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. The essence of Hope is Courage. What Obama is selling as Hope, is actually Optimism, which is not a virtue, it is a weakness. Las Vegas casinos are full of optimists. State Lotteries would never have succeeded without a bottomless supply of optimists.
The virtue Hope, is courage in the face of adversity, which requires work and effort....and should be developed along with Faith and Love.
Oh regional Indian
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
? Lao Tzu
Master Po: [after easily defeating the boy in combat] Ha, ha, never assume because a man has no eyes he cannot see. Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Master Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Young Caine: No.
Master Po: Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?
Young Caine: [looking down and seeing the insect] Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Master Po: Young man, how is it that you do not?
As always, awesome Gully. Thanks :-)
ori
Oh regional Indian
There must be some way out of here Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine Plowmen dig my earth None of them along the line Know what any of it is worth
No reason to get excited The thief, he kindly spoke There are many here among us Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that And this is not our fate So let us not talk falsely now The hour is getting late
All along the watchtower Princes kept the view While all the women came and went Barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance A wildcat did growl Two riders were approaching The wind began to howl
Nice. Very familiar. Source?
ori
Bob Dylan. All along the Watchtower.
Some Leonard Cohen to go with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnCR8kSSmqw
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you I was one of those
Ah, you loved me as a loser
But now you're worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I don't like your fashion business, mister
And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin
I don't like what happened to my sister
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there movin' through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you I was one of those
And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I am guided
Ah, remember me, I used to live for music
Remember me, I brought your groceries in
Well, it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
ANOTHER ONE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czXrcNZ7h44
"Stranger Song"
It's true that all the men you knew were dealerswho said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter
I know that kind of man
It's hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender,
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.
And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind
you find he did not leave you very much
not even laughter
Like any dealer he was watching for the card
that is so high and wild
he'll never need to deal another
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
And then leaning on your window sill
he'll say one day you caused his will
to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter
And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger.
But now another stranger seems
to want you to ignore his dreams
as though they were the burden of some other
O you've seen that man before
his golden arm dispatching cards
but now it's rusted from the elbows to the finger
And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter
Yes he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter.
Ah you hate to see another tired man
lay down his hand
like he was giving up the holy game of poker
And while he talks his dreams to sleep
you notice there's a highway
that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder.
It is curling just like smoke above his shoulder.
You tell him to come in sit down
but something makes you turn around
The door is open you can't close your shelter
You try the handle of the road
It opens do not be afraid
It's you my love, you who are the stranger
It's you my love, you who are the stranger.
Well, I've been waiting, I was sure
we'd meet between the trains we're waiting for
I think it's time to board another
Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter
When he talks like this
you don't know what he's after
When he speaks like this,
you don't know what he's after.
Let's meet tomorrow if you choose
upon the shore, beneath the bridge
that they are building on some endless river
Then he leaves the platform
for the sleeping car that's warm
You realize, he's only advertising one more shelter
And it comes to you, he never was a stranger
And you say ok the bridge or someplace later.
And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind ...
And leaning on your window sill ...
I told you when I came I was a stranger.
More like Cohen's Avalanche, which we are all about to step into.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-oLmOm9vk0
"All along the watch tower" is best when taken with a dose of Hendricks
Hendrix. As in Jimi.
Had to neg you on that.
Hope is nothing but a desperate last feeling. Action is what is required.
No, hope is for real men who realize their own empowerment to create their own reality. It thus implies, demands action in order to be justified.
The desperate last feeling you mention is not hope. It is a weak, disempowered and despondent form of unjustified optimism. That you believe this is hope only shows how deeply the system has managed to incrust its mind games in you. Real hope, of course, has been distorted (as many other true values were) because its inherent potential for empowerment is too threatening to the structural integrity of the matrix.
"Insight into change teaches us hope. Because change is built into the nature of things, nothing is inherently fixed, not even our own identity. No matter how bad the situation, anything is possible. We can do whatever we want to do, create whatever world we want to live in, and become whatever we want to be.
[...]
You realize that you're in charge of your actions. You're not simply a victim of fate or of the stars or of some other being acting through you. You're the one who's making the choices. That's what gives you hope.
[...]
Even though we may be suffering in our lives, there's a way out through our own actions. We don't have to sit around waiting for somebody else to come and save us. We're not victims of fate. We can make the choices, we can order our priorities so that we can reshape our lives in a positive direction through our thoughts, words, and deeds."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Btw, sorry, but I will spam the comment board with a copy paste of this every chance I have to argue against someone who disses hope.
Remember that 1984's newspeak is already a reality - many concepts, virtues, etc have been so distorted that it becomes impossible to conceive its grandeurs without having to run circles around it. Today I will focus on hope; please argue with me every chance you get so through this discussion you might begin to entertain the thought I am trying to communicate to you.
dumbass comment as usual.
Gold, female dogz!
ORI...and TUMBLE rhymes with BUMBLE... which you seem to do a lot of on here.
Hope is like Masturbation. It feels good til you realize you're fucking yourself.
No, hope is for real men who realize their own empowerment to create their own reality.
The mental masturbation you mention is not hope. It is a weak, disempowered and despondent form of unjustified optimism. That you believe this is hope only shows how deeply the system has managed to incrust its mind games in you. Real hope, of course, has been distorted (as many other true values were) because its inherent potential for empowerment is too threatening to the structural integrity of the matrix.
"Insight into change teaches us hope. Because change is built into the nature of things, nothing is inherently fixed, not even our own identity. No matter how bad the situation, anything is possible. We can do whatever we want to do, create whatever world we want to live in, and become whatever we want to be.
[...]
You realize that you're in charge of your actions. You're not simply a victim of fate or of the stars or of some other being acting through you. You're the one who's making the choices. That's what gives you hope.
[...]
Even though we may be suffering in our lives, there's a way out through our own actions. We don't have to sit around waiting for somebody else to come and save us. We're not victims of fate. We can make the choices, we can order our priorities so that we can reshape our lives in a positive direction through our thoughts, words, and deeds."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
-Saint Paul
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. -- Abraham Lincoln
And with that he launched war against fellow Americans who wanted just that. Fuck Lincoln and the fake history which celebrates him.
Listen
I'm hopeful that it will require an apocalypse for there to be a bit more enlightened interdependance.
Tell them that Case-Shiller comes out at 9am and is likely to show that house price declines are slowing down and mortgage rates are low at 4%.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/a-preview-of-the-case-shiller-home-price-indices-slightly-down/
Gloom and doom not as tiresome as false hope.
Gloom and doom are only negative in the eyes of status quo dopes. The increase in gloom and doom is a herald's call of optomism. Adventures and opportunities await those who are prepared. The rest can follow Darwin.
Fortune, as always, favors the bold.
And those which have established and protected its essence since time immortal.
Fortune always favors those who have rigged the game.
Taleb says you can only supress volatility in complex systems for so long before it squirts out from an unexpected source
Hope is for pussies and sheeple. That's why Obama was elected.
No doubt.
You would be rubbing sticks together and eating carrion without hope and collective human efforts.
It's supremely amusing that the essence on what makes you monkeys worth slightly more than your own excrement, is being happily poisoned from within.
Maximum Liberty is zero (live) humans. Who among you loves liberty enough to begin?
No, hope is for real men who realize their own empowerment to create their own reality.
The Obama-fuel you are mentionning is not hope. It is a weak, disempowered and despondent form of unjustified optimism. That you believe this is hope only shows how deeply the system has managed to incrust its mind games in you. Real hope, of course, has been distorted (as many other true values were) because its inherent potential for empowerment is too threatening to the structural integrity of the matrix.
"Insight into change teaches us hope. Because change is built into the nature of things, nothing is inherently fixed, not even our own identity. No matter how bad the situation, anything is possible. We can do whatever we want to do, create whatever world we want to live in, and become whatever we want to be.
[...]
You realize that you're in charge of your actions. You're not simply a victim of fate or of the stars or of some other being acting through you. You're the one who's making the choices. That's what gives you hope.
[...]
Even though we may be suffering in our lives, there's a way out through our own actions. We don't have to sit around waiting for somebody else to come and save us. We're not victims of fate. We can make the choices, we can order our priorities so that we can reshape our lives in a positive direction through our thoughts, words, and deeds."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
nice post, but I will keep my hope shorts in place..
Actually, I find your reporting style to give very little regard to "doom and gloom", or any emotion at all, which I very much appreciate- I can turn on CNBC if I want to be filled with lollypop dreams and giggly cheerleaders;
These are the facts, ma'am, interperate them as you will- carry on.......
Doom and gloom dominates in recessions and depressions. Sugar dreams dominate during economic expansions. That's how it works.
I often like to think about how the Kings and Queens used to live in the Middle Ages. Although, they had the best of the best, they did not have central heat, they did not have running water or bathrooms. They did not have the overabundance of foods from all over the World. They did not have out of season fruits and vegtables all year long. They did not have heated carrages or the ability to travel all over the World in a few hours.
I often wonder what a King or Queen would say or think if they went into a Grocery store today. They probably would be speachless with all of the plenty.
When you think about it all of us, including the poor live better than any King or Queen ever would.
There are also updated versions of serfs in the US, living in boxes or on the streets. The guillotine was invented for a very good reason.
Waterfallsparkles
Dude just imagine what someone from 1911 would think.
Please never start a sentence with the word Dude.
Waterfallsparkles
"the poor live better than any King or Queen ever would."
14th century Kings and Queens and even their servants, didn't have to dirve to their stinking jobs for stinking low pay.
I used to do this thought experiment alot too. But then I think about the need for most people to dominate others. Meaning if you took a fuedal lord and asked them to "trading spaces" with a typical modern western subject. They might be tempted, until they realized they would be the dominated instead of dominating other peoples lives.
I'd let them have my spot as long as the timeline was consistant. Meaning the swap took them (dominator) out of my new medievil existance. Mutton, Venison, carrots, onions, mead, salt and dried fruits have been around for long time. Only thing I'd miss is ZH. But would we need it?
The kings of old also had servants, concubines and wenches
The wenches and concubines and power would all be good until you got your first toothache or infection.
The cure: more concubines and wenches
There is every reason not to feel hopeful about the future. Looking at the 20th century is sobering enough. The 21st century will be rosier? Highly improbable. The future is a grim 'wasteland'. Happy New Year, bitchez.
The last few years my father's family has gathered at my uncles McMansion to have Christmas dinner. This year because my aunt was sick we did it at my grandmother's much smaller house. It was crouded, but this year the TV didn't get turned on once, conversation abounded, and it was unanimously considered a much better time than previous years. Devolution doesn't necessarily mean an unhappier future. Happy New Year, bitchez.
"When you think about it all of us, including the poor live better than any King or Queen ever would."
That's one of the dumbest things I've ever read...
So you equate "living better" as having an indoor place to shit & a 99 cent sawdust burger at a drivethru... Others think "living better" is the freedom of NOT being born a debt slave... I suppose it's all relative...
francis_sawyer
"Others think "living better" is the freedom of NOT being born a debt slave... I suppose it's all relative..."
No one is born a 'debt slave" both debt and slavery are CHOICES made by individuals.
The problem is you want all the bennies of todays society without buying in. It doesn't work that way.
Freedom is a really easy thing, pick a nice sunny space in the wilderness where there is fish/produce/small game. Live off the land. Many peoples still do that.
Don't buy shit on credit and you aren't in debt.
But when you CHOOSE to buy into this world you have ni right to bitch. You played the game and lost. No one forced you.
Those that are debt slaves are constantly hounding those that are not to get them to fall to the level of existance enjoyed by the debt slave. So don't say its choice exclusively. The system is huge and uses law (govt) to force compliance (auto insurance is an example). You must pay the system or be an enemy of the system and be subject to all that that entails. If you are a loner noncompliance may work but if your 8yr olds appendix bursts then its a different story.
@Gully
So I take it you think Lysander Spooner was FOS... (or, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, or Neil Peart ~ for that matter)...
Reminds me of the scene on the train (with Klaus Kinsky) in 'Dr. Zhivago', where he called himself the only FREE MAN on the train (which, of course, was transporting him to the Gulag)...
I understand you message about trying to avoid debt as much as possible especially debt that is frivolous and wasteful (e.g., credit card debt) but it doesn't mean that all debt is bad and unproductive either.
Kind of a false choice that you must either avoid all debt and 'live off the land' or load yourself up with so much debt that it limits what you can choose to do in life.
What about modern medicine, vast improvements in sanitation & hygiene, etc? People absolutely live better than they did 500 years ago in the developed world. Besides using life span (which is really heavily influenced by the much lower infant/child mortality rates), look at the height of people today.
Modern medicine that benefits only those who can afford to pay for it is not a vast improvement. It's sobering to reflect that the life span of someone making less than the poverty line most of their life is perhaps 60% of those that have access, and infant mortality rates are considerably higher.
Wealth is relative. If I have one apartment that I rent for myself and my family, am being hassled by collection agencies and drive a twelve year old car, and the guy over there has twelve McMansions located worldwide, a fleet of luxury cars to choose from, can jet to Paris or Milan for an afternoon shopping trip and employs a small army of security professionals, then I'd say that improvements in general welfare do not quite make up for the vastly reduced degree of power.
Overall, I think societal mobility did improve for a while in the middle part of the twentieth century, but it's been on the decline since about 1975.
Understnad what you are saying. Even if access is limited due to the piecemeal US healthcare system, almost all people still have readily available access to antibiotics and other basic medicines. If you got a staph infection 100 years ago from a simple wound, it was likely 'game over.' Also discounting immunizations too which have been one of the best 'bang for the buck' innovations in medicine too the past 100 years.
"people still have readily available access to antibiotics and other basic medicines"
Fuck that... That's more bullshit that you've devoured to make you think "HALLALEUJAH! We've ARRIVED"... More "Humans are at the top of the food chain" crap to cuddle your milquetoast existence...
ANTIBIOTICS??? - We're barely staying ahead in that game (and not for long)... Microbial mutations are rendering a great deal of antibiotics useless as we speak... Furthermore, we're only barely staying ahead due to an ability to mass produce (which is being strained due to economic debt issues)... We could flip a switch and back in the DARK AGES... WORSE... Probably a great deal of humans who have relied on these 'cures', lack the internal 'disease fighting' capacities AS RESULT of their reliance on such agents... My great aunt used to say "You gotta eat a peck of dirt before you die"... I never knew WTF she was talking about... Now I do...
BASIC MEDICINES??? - We're a goddamed culture that is 'hooked' on drugs... Come on Man!... It's not that hard!... Every fucking commercial on TV is some AD for a drug that gives you a laundry list of harmful side effects, & then makes it seem like the new drug is going to solve your candy ass problem... "Side effects may be nausea, thoughts of suicide, skin irritation, your penis may fall off, tounge turn black, give you diaharea... BUT IT WILL CURE YOUR FUCKING SNIVLES!!!"...
I don't know the stats, but my guess is that at least half the population over 50 is popping 10+ pills a day for something or another (& half of those are to counteract the symptoms of something else)... Yeah... We're real fucking evolved...
During the Civil War, there weren't really any 'antibiotics'... But they had 'MORE THAN' ample supplies of morphine... Looking back... I'm thinking that they might have been a little more clever than we are today...
In a free country with private property, poverty is a temporary condition. In a dependency state it is the inescapable status quo. Even in the U.S. where private property and economic liberty at their lowest ebb, poverty is generally a product of bad decisions, or bad luck, both of which can usually be remedied by learning from failure, where one is allowed to fail and to own up to failure. Life spans track these realites very closely, meaning that infant mortality is associated with habitual intoxication of parents, failure to marry, unemployment, criminality, etc. In the U.S. the chances for an infant surviving is the best in history absent these "social" pathologies.
"vast improvements in sanitation & hygiene, etc?"
---
BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Have you looked at 'food labels' lately? Rats in restaurants?
Oh well... Since you seem to want to believe so much... I'll order the house special for you... "WAITER - Kindly bring this gentleman a bowl of the lobster bisque"...
And you point is? You really think that modern sanitation has not proved over the last 100 years? Even the last 50 years? When do we have dysentary/cholera outbreaks due to contaminated water in the US anymore?
Processed food has become much more 'industrialized' but that started in the 1940s/1950s. It isn't some recent trend.
Most restaurants (worked in restaurants for a while in college and right after while in grad school) do keep a pretty good sanitary/hygiene practice in place by ordering food supplies from quality purveyors, maintaing a clean walk-in and salf food storage practices, and cleaning sufficiently. Weakest link in the chain at most restaurants was staff was adequately washing hands. Inspection process in most cities/states also works fairly well too.
Oooooooo, hopey-changey!
Nope, sorry. It does not matter whether you have hope and faith in the intelligence and goodness of individuals, or whether your ideals are perfection made reality. The majority of humanity are stupid, violent, easily provoked, easily led, and will always choose the easy option that satisfies their animal instincts. We might have higher maths, evolved language, and machines that augment our brains, but the loudest monkeys always rise to the top of any group.
You can give "People" the most wonderful ideas, the highest paradigms of virtue, the most efficient ways to live with each other, and they will always manage to subvert it and fuck it all up.
then lie down and enjoy it. You are a social darwinian who hates the law of the jungle.
+1 That sounds about right, although I think you might be confusing Darwin with Malthus. If anyone liked the laws of the jungle, they should just go and live there instead of bothering us homosapien-sapiens with their backward ideas.
lol, happy new yar ti ya! anyways
60 minutes with jane goodall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5Q6-hh49mU
I have not made it through the entire clip, but one thing she did capture on film was a chimp who found a couple of empty fuel cans. He beat them together, creating loud noise, and instantly became the alpha of the tribe.
I dont nessecarily understand/agree with Peak Oil. But I do hope part of this awakening involves taking away the rational for global violence based on Oil supply lines. Neo-Cons justify Iraq because of oil. Limosene Libs justify Lybia and Iran based on Oil. Terrorism to both types is not having private jets fueled up to attend Kyoto, or pick up a Nobel prize....Ron Paul 2012.
+1 Yep.
Happy New Year Falak & Wisefool, and to all who read this. May the new year bring you peace, prosperity and keep you from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. :)
Yes, we are approaching the end of fiat currency which leaves an increased likelihood of world war, but if central planning stops and resources are once again allocated productively, there will be a boom like has never before occurred. Today's technology is amazing and its true potential could be unleashed.
TheSilverJournal.com
True to a degree but there simply aren't nearly enough resources on this planet for a large middle class in the BRICs to consume energy and food on the scale that is consumed in W. Europe and especially the US.
Man is going to go back in the 21st century to waging wars for not only oil but also arable farm land and especially fresh water.
Perhaps, though I don't think we're quite there timewise yet ... I think the resource wars will become most acute in 2050-2100. Oil demand globally contines to drop and wars for arable land are kind of a last resort only because modern wars tend to have disastrous effects upon land fertility. Water may not be the issue that many are predicting, at least for a while, because I believe we have now entered into a global cooling trend that will trough around 2040 and last until 2075 or so. Global cooling = more glaciation = more productive watersheds. Of course, if global warming is in fact an established long term trend, then you may be right.
The truth can't hurt you if you know it. Good, bad, or whatever.
Hmmm... let's imagine. An asteroid will hit the earth in a week and it turns out Bruce Willis doesn't really have what it takes to blow it up. You have terminal cancer and will die in a month. Nuclear war will start in a year and half the population of the earth will die including many friends and family. I'm pretty sure that truth can hurt.
For you, ignorance is bliss. For me, knowledge is a way to improve the lives of myself and the ones I love. I guess it all depends on how much you value yourself.
Who said I'd rather be ignorant? My point is simply that the truth can hurt. I'd still rather know so I can prepare accordingly and make the best of the situation.
It's the event that hurts, not the truth. Even without truth, the event still hurts.
Truth usually hurts. It's why it's always in short supply in a society fixated upon media.
She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still”
? E.E. Cummings
As long as we have a non-replaceable fossil fuel based economy, the finreg-welfare-warfare status quo will continue.
Nice try thought!
hope is what animated siddhartha and jesus and galileo. And Sister Emanuelle of Fustat. Only the 'dead already' die without hope. All others die to be reborn. I believe in Botticelli. Also in CHianti.
Prepare for new year's eve, whatever the new year abrings.
Good post. I was watching bloomberg this morning and two things stood out. They had the "architect" of the Euro saying "now would be a great time for the USA to help Europe, and Berlesconi should come back" (a.k.a buy the dip with somebody elses' ....) They also had the typical ex-congress congress criter with "the most impresive resume of working from BOTH houses of congress before taking over a washington think tank (read: Me and my 501c dont pay taxes to sit around and pontificate)"
Where it got good was when this "esteemed potentate" was grading US leadership. Obama=C-. Romney=D, Perry Gingrich = D-,F. All because their policies can not fix the economy/deficits on any reasonable time table. Specifically calling out that their solutions are all set to be completed "at the end of their second terms" which means they will not be implemented, or reverted by the next dude. (which is correct)
The reporter asks about Ron Paul. Actually lead in with "Ron Paul knows the economy". Our 501c magistrate says "He gets a D- minus. he might know economics but he does not understand politics. He wants to eliminate the income tax and drastically cut defense, but does not address entitlements"
The reason this is important is that the tax code essentially is an entitlement for 70% of the population. 51% pay no income tax. 20% of the GDP is for people like him and direct government workers who get paid to wonk about "politics". The 1% like Romney pay absurdly low rates relative to the boon they get from the services in tact. "But, But all people pay payroll taxes!" Right. That is the violently enforced ponzi scheme of entitlements not the violently enforced Federal Income Tax. Two different things require two different solutions.
I am probably not being as clear as I should be. But I am aghast at how easily the popluation is fooled into thinking Ron Paul is a radical or incompetent. But as this article describes, there are reasons to believe that the population is waking up.
I can not wait for people in my area (poor, poluted, all the social ills) to find out that the IMF is going to take their tax dollars to bailout Europe. "The IMF is an institution that takes money from poor people in america and gives it ro rich people in poor countries" -Ron Paul. I would say that the IRS/tax code does the same thing domestically.
Ron Paul is our last hope for peaceful reform, quite frankly. And Ron Paul is not going to get elected because we only have the illusion of choice, not acual choice.
That is what is so sad about this. Just the simple bright line distinction of payroll tax vs. income tax is beyond the mental capabilites of most people. Its is scary how weak the majority of the illusions are, yet how easily they stupify almost everyone.
If the TPTB implemented a 1% consumption or income tax on all citizens "To pay for military adventurism and/or pay the interest on Federal debt" Ron Paul would win in a landslide and we'd have radically different (better) society. I truly hope when Fitch does get around to downgrading the USA they re-iterate this point as they intimated during the S&P downgrade this summer.
Yeah. Almost no one I know readily knows what their marginal tax rate was last year and are challenged to give a fairly concise explanation of what it is.
I would love a VAT that would be implemented 'to only fund overseas military expenditures for wars' because our military adventurism would largely come to a halt within one Congressional election cycle.
Would optimism have been a more satisfactory word to use than hope?
Anyway, I enjoyed the read.
I think "hopeful", by definition, implies the quantitative maxim of fullness: "full (fool?) of hope"; whereas, optimism leaves room for qualification.
'Hoptimism' bitchez.........!
Try capitalism and industrialization.
He makes a solid basic point. I have seen others right a lot more on this topic about how private social/charitable organizations without a religious-backing in the U.S. have generally atrophied since the advent of the 'Great Society' in the early 60s.
Also explained by a lack of cash flow and spare time ("two-earner family" == 1 less volunteer).
Contrary to right-wing doctrine, that shift was less cultural than of economic necessity.
Mommy didn't get a job because she wanted to be empowered, she just wanted to make rent.
Who needs hope when the system is already devouring itself? Nothing left to do but enjoy the carnage and be prepared for the rebuild.
If true, that is good news! I'm watching Europe for clues about what lies next. Their welfare state is more total than ours and is unwinding with much violence. I hope to live to experience the end of socialism.
Going to buy more silver today. Saw this site on TFM over the weekend....comparesilverprices.com......looks like a good resource...fyi.
Wow..., just like Yahoo message boards!
Better, but still lacking in practical solution-making ideas. I realize we are the end-product of human evolution, but I disagree that we homo sapiens have achieved some sort of perfection from that. It's more of a random walk. Two things happened yesterday that dinged my "hope"--one was, I was in the Mall of America (a large expression of that empty consumption) when a group of teens of a certain ethnicity decided to terrorize everyone in the place. It was pandemonium and all you could do was try to get away from it. For you Concealed Carry afionados--there wasn't a damn thing a gun could have done to solve anything, at least not that time.
My second observation is something I read: The TSA is inevitably expanding outward from the airports. It is a move I predicted years ago, but has taken longer to materialize than I expected. Unless we get our government back under control, expect internal checkpoints and travel passes, much like the old Soviet Union had, but with a technological twist.
Anyhow, my point is that I think that any road back to self-sufficiency and community is fraught with danger and difficulty and that most of the personnel we have in roles of authority are not the kind of "evolved" thinkers that put the human race on the moon.
I am a super nonviolent type. But I also often shrug when I hear concealed carry advocates get going. I think open carry is much more effective as a deterent and is legal in many places. As long as you have locking holsters and/or biometric trigger gaurds.
Along those same lines, you'd have a lot more Americans advocating against military adventurism if they knew that their specific tax dollars directly supported it.
The road has dangers as you mentioned, but we gotta take it.
Quote:
"For you Concealed Carry afionados--there wasn't a damn thing a gun could have done to solve anything,"
Is this becuase concealed carry is banned in the mall of amerfica, right? I am sure you know this, you can't just be a stupid trol, right?
I am not the OP or trolling you. But considering the thread is about post collectivism. I am interested in your opinion about Open vs. Concealed carry. I am all for Open carry. I think concealed carry just sets up a bunch of buerocracy which is always open to corruption. Permits granted based on subjective criteria, like party affiliations.
I would not partake in either, thats cause I dont have anything worth shooting or getting shot over. But I think concealed carry is rabbit hole that even gun advocates should not try to go down.
I like open carry, I concealed carry becuase it is now the only option available to us. However, I think that concealed carry protects people that don't choose to carry weapons, since a criminal in a CC area would never know who is armed and who is un-armed.
... it's callled usery . get rid of usery & we have hope, hope for a life for our precious young people.
"Hope is not necessary to perserve" - Dutch after being beat to crap by the Spanish Empire for 50 years. Netherlands became empire after.
I think I have come first circle on what that statement means though, I believe that statement truly can't be 100% correct. Attempting to survive is hope. Hope that you live through it to when things will the quality of life will improve. If 1/3 perish in the next decade, 2/3rd carry on. There's my opinion on survival.
What I do believe we are really discussing is when the quality of life will improve. If we go on the Central Bank model of the pyramid, 40 up years, 40 down years then that brings us to 2018. Ben Bernanke gave an opinion of 2015. But I believe he is incorrect not on his own model he works for but the geopolitical shifts caused by mandraking wealth from West to East, scale of it this time around, rate of business compared to 1930's etc. But the main thing is that Asia looks to be big hotspot in 2015. If this is the epicenter of WWIII as I expect, then my forecast is 2021.
Case-Shiller Down More Than Expected: -3.40% YoY, But Stabilizing
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/case-shiller-down-mor...
I hope for a more studious population, one that is applied enough to use its country's language properly, so we can better compete with the studious populations of other countries.
We have ZH.....there is indeed hope
My take is that the expectation of drastic change leads to stress and to the ill effects of experiencing this over a long period of time. My solution is to expect the worst, prepare and then be optimistic about the future. But acceptance of the inevitable is the key. To think there is a way out or a different outcome (say for instance, based on an election cycle) is not an option. Acceptance-preparartion-execution-desired outcome. Expectations of a world 5-10 years from now must also be adjusted based on acceptance of the inevitable.
This is not hope, it is an expectation based on preparation and timing. Hope is akin to winning the lottery. Nice when it happens, can't plan for the future though.
Starong strong, stay diligent, stay prepared. Find time to relax and enjoy being on this side of the dirt.
And on the 8th day god took a shit and out came the pollittion a steamy stinky pile of self serving shit. I "hope" the toilet doesn't plug.
Hope for the javascript handicap.
http://www.youtube.com/social/blog/zerohedge
Ah shoot, I just saw a Reggie video listed there.
All hope is lost now.
Desire is the cause of all suffering.
"There's no such thing as adventure. There's no such thing as romance. There's only trouble and desire."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105411/trivia
So is this 1992 newsletter thing going to take down Ron Paul? Have they succeeded? I have to admit while I don't think he said any of this it does not look good for him.