Something to Believe In

POSTED BY: Wulfenstar
UPDATED: Saturday, September 12, 2009 03:30
VIEWED: 2951
PAGE 1 of 1

WULFENSTAR

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 6:39 PM

Like the song says, give me something to believe in.

Dems, Libs, Repubs, Conservatives, anarchists...

Prove it.

Whats so great about what you believe? What can I (and others like me) believe in?

(Sorry, I'm just sick of the back and forth.)

WULFENSTAR

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 6:46 PM

.... and I felt like tossing the gauntlet down.

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 7:03 PM

That's kind a central part of part of the whole process Wulf - YOU figuring out what to believe in. You don't really want someone to tell you do you? Say, "No, I don't. I want to be my own watch commander. I will take ownership of my own life."

I'll give you $5 bucks to believe in Obama.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com Now available on your iPhone

WULFENSTAR

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 7:09 PM

No.

I'm saying make your case.

Whats so great about being a liberal? A Democrat? A Republican? A Conservative? An anarchist?

State your case. Prove your point. Make your argument(s) about how what YOUR beliefs will do to make the world better.

Prove it.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 8:40 PM

Quote:
PIZMO
I'll give you $5 bucks to believe in Obama.

lol. This cracked me up

Okay Wulf. Tao Te Ching, about 5000 words.

FREMDFIRMA

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 8:57 PM

Well, get ready to read a lot.

Start HERE

Mutual Aid
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents
.html

ETA: In my opinion, once you really understand Kropotkin, and human nature in general from that aspect, all the rest of this is just candy sprinkles on the sundae - but your mileage may vary.

Dig around HERE to answer most obvious questions.

An Anarchist FAQ Webpage
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html

And finish up HERE for real world application in the modern age.

Stefan Molyneux: Everyday Anarchy
http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/molyneux/molyneux2.html
http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/molyneux/molyneux3.html
http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/molyneux/molyneux4.html
http://www.strike-the-root.com/81/molyneux/molyneux5.html
http://www.strike-the-root.com/82/molyneux/molyneux1.html

Oh yes, and since I tripped over it while digging this out, a cartoon for Siggy, who will no doubt be tremendously amused by it.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

WULFENSTAR

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 9:44 PM

... and Frem is the ONLY one. Wow.

Lol Funny cartoon...

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:03 PM

Tips king,

Frem,

yeah, you definitely win that round, no way Wulf is becoming a Taoist. He'd just want to kill something ;)

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:13 PM

I just got hit with a crunch at work about noon, but if you want a fluffy synopsis instead of Frem's hard links, I can oblige.

Maybe an interpretive dance here and there... (kidding. I'll give this a shot when I get home, though I make no promise about lack of fluff)

SIGNYM

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:35 PM

Busy day.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 11:59 PM

Fluffy synopsis is good. post it here.
Frem, my last email to you or yours to me got bounced. just wondering.

PIZMOBEACH

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 12:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
... and Frem is the ONLY one. Wow.

Lol Funny cartoon...

That's what you were looking for anyway so why BS?

How about: "War is the lesser jihad, resisting temptation and living rightly is the greater jihad."

Not enough? How many words do you need?

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com Now available on your iPhone

RUE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 3:46 AM

If I can figure out how Caral worked, I will let you know.

OTOH, the benefit of such a system is that it's not theoretical - it worked in real life for 1400 years, before it fell to a mega-drought (a 500 year drought). So you don't have to 'believe' it in - as a proven fact, no belief is necessary. Only two questions need be answered - do you like it well enough to want to live that way ? and if you do - how do you get there from here ?

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 4:43 AM

The question is what I believe, so, I'm going to try to explain it. Don't have hard facts, only what I observe and what feels correct.

I'm going to start global, because ultimately, that's where the problem as I see it begins and ends.

Homogenized humans are easy to control. In establishing a homogenized population, individuals who all think the same, behave the same, work the same, you have no statistical outliers, you have a population that is easy predict. Keep them calm, unconcerned, and why would they resist you? You domesticate them, you tell them the answers you like so that they stop looking for any others.

And then you have a pretty goddamn dumb bunch of morons who can't take care of themselves and rely on YOU to keep them complacent, but you can work them and they won't complain, because they don't know any better. You can rile them as you like, control their emotions, and direct them to accept whatever you decide to do. Little cogs working in a machine, all for the greater glory of mankind.

'Course, if something ever goes wrong, they won't know how to help themselves. And worse, in making all your little robots, you kind of lose their humanity, you make something shallow and meaningless. Because human relationships are complicated too, and make people act in unpredictable ways. So instead, you want people who are selfish and self-centered and infantile in their needs. What new merchandise is popular? I want it, I want that food, I want that person.

And this is where Scary Shit gets in, that ruins these "lovely" little sterile cities, but so long as the CONTROL is maintained, what the hell does anyone care if people want to feel? What does it matter if the desire to feel results in seeking increasingly self-destructive and predatory outlets?

Extreme view, but one that I think describes the globalists and what their desires for a one nation world government would come to. They may think they're acting benevolently, that this way, they can help the entire human race, individually and collectively, but like any group given absolute power, some douchebag is going to abuse, corrupt, and twist it to further their own ends.

And I am NOT talking about the UN when I talk about globalists. If the UN were the real globalists, they'd have a hell of a lot more say-so in world events. No, the UN is just a failed experiment that the real globalists prop up so they can operate in the background. The average citizen feels better if they think they can see what's going on. It's the globalists making deals in the background, selling weapons, working the black markets, manipulating politics in hot areas who are actually driving policy for a number of nations, like Britain and the US.

The globalists are people with a mindset, who want to create a strong central global government to better control the economy and the citizenry. And they don't care if they have to kill to do it, because they believe it'll bring about an end to all wars.

Why would one unified global government create peace? Because one nation means no cultural differences means homogeneity.

I think a much better, and much more reasonable solution is to let (groups of) people be different, and stop the sources of all the aggression we see. Primarily aggression stems from insecurity and from a lack of resources. Given shared technology and none of the little backstabbing ways we try to sabotage certain cultures that don't fit well into the civilized world, I think we might be able to solve the lack of resources problem. And if everyone has the resources they need, there's not a whole lot of reason to invade other people.

Suffice to say, we don't need a world government, and diversity is good. Progress may be slower, but it will be more fulfilling.

Let's shrink it down to a local level. In America, we got our two parties constantly butting heads. These two parties are COMPLETELY ineffective at serving the public. The problem is this: meaningful change is watered down by both infighting and between party fighting until really the onl

KWICKO

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 5:05 AM

I believe in not watching Poison videos.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 5:32 AM

Kathy,

I thought it was more like 600, and it wasn't as if the drought just happened to them, they created the situation, as the Wari would then do on a much larger scale. There was a great exhibit on this evolution and collapse in the Chicago Field Museum this summer.

Byte,

I'll read the novel tomorrow, and try to get back to you on that. Right now, I sleep.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 10:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
I believe in not watching Poison videos.

Meh, matter of taste, I guess - I always liked the hair/glam bands myself, in fact I found White Lion to be extremely inspirational, and have mucho respect for Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, who just absolutely OWNED Al Gore at the PMRC hearings.

"And I am PLAYING these people, like ya know ?
Mentally I'm setting these guys up for the kill.
I've got my speech in my back pocket, which I have worked on for a few weeks, and honed and refined till it's a frickin nuclear weapon.
Folded up, like a gazillion times, and like a bad kid bringin his homework to school, ya know, I open it up and i'm flattening it out on the table, all really deliberate, and they're going 'oh man, this guy, this is a lamb bein brought to the slaughter', and I start reading...."

I got to see that when it went down, before the days of youtube and whatnot, they asked Dee to carry the flag and he took it into battle and shoved it right down their sanctimonious throats, point blank.

You just gotta give him props for it, cause when it comes to music and free expression, Dee is eighteen wheels of heavy rolling thunder no matter what, and even on stuff where you might not agree with him, comes off very coherently and articulately, and it's STILL like gettin run over by a truck, meh.

And jeepers, ain't it kinda freaky that Tippers outfit is almost identical to Star Trek/TNG command uniforms ?
Weirdness.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

SIGNYM

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 12:31 PM

DT; Apparently the longer timespan is correct. While Caral is the largest city of the Supe Valley complex, the oldest (unnamed) city in the Supe Valley is dated to 3500 BC, Caballete at 3100 BC, Porvenir and Upaca at 2700 BC. Since Caral (and presumably the rest of the valley) was abandoned 2100 BC, the total timespan is 1400 years.
www.philipcoppens.com/caral.html

SIGNYM

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 12:38 PM

Wulf- I give you nothing to believe in.

How's that?

But FWIW my goal is the long-term survival of the human species, and so far it doesn't look like we're gonna make it. Because up to now we've done no better- shown no more wisdom - than bacteria in a petri dish: We've reproduced up to and beyond the carrying capacity of our environment despite the fact that we have technology to do otherwise and are about to drown in our own shit.

We've also shown no more insight than insects because we have no more control over our social memes than the nearest beehive. Its not looking too hopeful.

So if you want to find something to believe in, you ain't gonna find it here. Sorry dude.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 3:21 PM

Sig,

Interesting.

There's a cultural continuity that can be seen in Peru that leads from Caral to the Inca and everyone in between. The social and agricultural schemes can be seen pretty clearly in the latter empires, and while more evolved undoubtedly than their predecessors, they suffered the same fate.

This is one of the societies I use in my utopian plans, minus, of course, the agricultural structure, though they were big GMO people, which I respect, you see how it ended. (I'd opt for something more like the Mayan agro scheme.)

The descendents are, not surprisingly, now mixed between remoted farmers and hunter-gatherers. Often collapsing civilizations will feed on an evolutionary trend towards their opposites (look at the romans intentionally fleeing to become barbarians. And Rome didn't collapse anywhere near the way the Andes civilizations did.)

WULFENSTAR

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 4:49 PM

Well, this has been informative.

RUE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 5:29 PM

Caral

ScienceDaily (Jan. 20, 2009) — First came the earthquakes, then the torrential rains. But the relentless march of sand across once fertile fields and bays, a process set in motion by the quakes and flooding, is probably what did in America's earliest civilization.

So concludes a group of anthropologists in a new assessment of the demise of the coastal Peruvian people who built the earliest, largest structures in North or South America before disappearing in the space of a few generations more than 3,600 years ago.

"This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, 'boom,'" said Mike Moseley, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Florida. "They just got the props knocked out from under them."

Moseley is one of five authors of a paper set to appear next week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The people of the Supe Valley along the central Peruvian coast did not use pottery or weave cloth in the settlements they founded as far back as 5,800 years ago. But they flourished in the arid desert plain adjacent to productive bays and estuaries. They fished with nets, irrigated fruit orchards, and grew cotton and a variety of vegetables, according to evidence in the region unearthed by Ruth Shady, a Peruvian archaeologist and co-author of the paper. As director of the Caral-Supe Special Archaeological Project, Shady currently has seven sites in the region under excavation.

Most impressively, the Supe built extremely large, elaborate, stone pyramid temples -- thousands of years before the better-known pyramids crafted by the Maya.

"They're impressive, enormous monuments," Moseley said.

The largest so far excavated, the Pirámide Mayor at inland settlement Caral, measured more than 550 feet long, nearly 500 feet wide and rose in a series of steps nearly 100 feet high. Walled courts, rooms and corridors covered the flat summit.

The Supe seemed to thrive in the valley for about 2,000 years. But around 3,600 years ago, an enormous earthquake -- Moseley estimates its magnitude at 8 or higher -- or series of earthquakes struck Caral and a nearby coastal settlement, Aspero, the archaeologist found. With two major plates scraping together not far offshore, the region remains one of the most seismically active in the world.

The earthquake collapsed walls and floors atop the Pirámide Mayor and caused part of it to crumble into a landslide of rocks, mud and construction materials. Smaller temples at Aspero were also heavily damaged, and there was also significant flooding there, an event recorded in thin layers of silt unearthed by the archaeologists.

But the flooding and temples' physical destruction was just the dramatic opening scene in what proved to be a much more devastating series of events, Moseley said.

The earthquake destabilized the barren mountain ranges surrounding the valley, sending massive amounts of debris crashing into the foothills. Subsequent El Niños brought huge rains, washing the debris into the ocean. There, a strong current flowing parallel to the shore re-deposited the sand and silt in the form of a large ridge known today as the Medio Mundo. The ridge sealed off the formerly rich coastal bays, which rapidly filled with sand.

Strong ever-present onshore winds resulted in "massive sand sheets that blew inland on the constant, strong, onshore breeze and swamped the irrigation systems and agricultural fields," the paper says. Not only that, but the windblown sand had a blasting effect that would have made daily life all but impossible, Moseley said.

The bottom line: What had for centuries been a productive, if arid, region became all but uninhabitable in the span of just a handful of generations. The Supe society withered and eventually collapsed, replaced only gradually later on -- by societies that relied on the much more modern arts of pottery and weaving, Moseley said.

With much of the world's population centers built

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 9:23 PM

Spain also has a long history with autonomous and anarchist collectives, although Catalonia is the most notorious example, the MCC is a pretty decent take on the same concepts in a modern era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n_Cooperative_Corporation

While more voluntaryist than anarchist, the basic principle is there and what I see in it is Family of Choice or "Tribe" - something which we really should bring back as a social unit in order to allow overlapping personal contact zones (monkeyspheres) to grow and adapt.

-F

RUE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 10:04 PM

"We've also shown no more insight than insects because we have no more control over our social memes than the nearest beehive."

Which is why I keep going back to the three flourishing civilizations that seemed to have got it right - they were large, thriving, vibrant, peaceful --- and indefinitely sustainable.

What did they tell themselves ? How were they organized ?

What made them peaceful baboons enjoying the abundance human invention gave them, rather than violent ones fighting for ever-increasing status in the hierarchy ?

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

WHODIED

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 11:00 PM

Perhaps like you, Wulfenstar, (at least in this way,) I'm seeking something to believe in. Something in the world to serve or assist that parallels the thoughts I've thunk in my cave, lo, these many years. Or something. Anyway...

I don't believe I'm an eco-terrorist as so much, but I've been reading Endgame by Derrick Jensen and I find it difficult to dismiss a number of his premises--including some of the more, er, volatile ones.

Here are his first four of that book:

Premises of Endgame

Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.

Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

and a link for anyone interested:

http://www.endgamethebook.org/index.html

I hope to start the second volume in a week or two.

Good luck with whatever, unless your whatever sucks!

--WhoDied

_______________________

I can feel it, Buffy.

What?

My soul. It’s really there. It kind of stings.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 11:19 PM

Kathy,

Nice theory, but I'm afraid it's too simple. A good parallel would be the destruction of the forests of the everglades in a hurricane half a century ago. The reality is closer to the construction of the Tamiami trail, which cut off the groundwater, dried out the soil, and caused the trees to fall to a hurricane only a few years later, after standing there for millenia, and yes, I do mean the same actual trees.

My cousin has spent decades researching and analyzing the collapse of Tikal, which is probably more of a mystery than the collapse of Caral. She's an expert in the field, and she would say now that Tikal fell to politics, which resulted in a change in agricultural practices, and a rapid decline.

We're not all that in the dark about Andean civilizations as I said, since the same ideas resurface. Natural disasters are rare, humans make them worse:

Remember the earthquake on the india/pakistan border? More people on the indian side of the blast radius, but 100 times the number of deaths on the paistani side. Reason? Pancake construction.

So it's never as simple as this...

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 11:21 PM

Sounds a bit like bioregionalism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioregionalism

RUE

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 11:29 PM

DT

I suspect the 'theory' you are so dismissive of has a lot of actual archeological data to back it up, rather than a layman's analogy to another civilization of another place, time, and circumstance.

***************************************************************

Heuristics are a bitch.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, September 10, 2009 3:01 AM

Nah, Kathy, I read a lot about it. As I said, my cousin is an expert on early mezoamerican civilizations. It's hard to avoid.

Academics can be wrong, you should see how she tears into some of her colleagues in the field for this sort of thing.

It's Gaia mythos, and part of the whole idea that somewhere we'll find evidence of idyllic peaceful human existence and the supremacy of mother nature, etc. etc.

Reality is that we're a pack of rats, and we just can't bring ourselves to face up to it. The problem is that those who do embrace the rat are more rat than the rest of us, and they end up in charge.

If you want an idyllic future, it's gonna have to be part rat.

Byte is closer.

It's not quite bioregionalism, because the Andean cultures spread over multiple ecosystems. The thing is that they're such advanced bioengineers themselves that they do kind of turn everywhere they go into a bioregion.

BTW, I have to strongly oppose the idea that a social-political boundry match an eco-boundry. That's a recipe for disaster. Think of all of the species that would now be completely extinct if the recent policy in Haiti had been imposed on the whole island of Hispanola.

It's better if an eco-region has multiple cultures, better for the earth.

On the off chance of climate change, it's also better for a society to have separate eco regions.

But if you mean that this is an example of some sort of symbiotic ecological relationship, then yes, the disconnect between the Andean civilizations and nature did lead to their collapse, and the same in the SW. Some C. America civs. were much more stable because they had very strict eco-balance rules, which only held under a certain population level. When those rules were abandoned, things fell apart.

I don't know enough about Caral to say whether it was gradual decay due to slow destructive forces of ag like the wari, or a radical shift in ag policy like the maya, but yes, here is where you're going to find your answer.

No, I'm not shooting in the dark on this one, and you should know the amount of deference I give to academics in general. A year spent studying a subject under the auspices of official institutional academia is the same as any other year, with the added minus that you're likely to be surrounded by people who either agree with you or defer to you. My cousin didn't end up in a radical opposition until she left the nest and started researching for a museum, and then going down and doing the excavations herself, etc.

But her analysis is very sound, imho, fits what I see. Like everything else, you can carry this one 1/10th of a mile, it's all pieces of the puzzle.

No theory is going to create or reflect the comprehensive picture of humanity of the sort that the authoritarian e-book attempts.

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, September 10, 2009 4:57 PM

And you see, that is what Anarchism offers that underneath the shiny gloss, other political beliefs do not.

While they bait you by offering a potential utopia, it's obvious to the followers as well as the leaders that no one ever intends to deliver.

Anarchists don't do that, we take the world as it is, the good the bad, the ugly, warts and all, and by assuming personal responsibility by free choice for the things we CAN have an effect on, individually or collectively, then CHOOSE to make the world a better place, every bit of it we can reach.

Right leaning ideologies steal your donut, eat it themselves while blaming you for not defending it, all the while complaining you didn't have more to steal.

Left leaning ideologies take your donut, give it to someone else, who might or might not need it, but for damned sure YOU never seem to wind up with any of it.

Anarchists break their donut in half and offer you some, cause THAT IS THE WAY THEY ARE, and if you happen to be doing ok, and wanna break yours in half and offer some back, all the better, you might make a friend, experience a new flavor, and learn that humanity is perhaps not the vile pack of beasts you've been lead to believe.

And yes, there's gonna be trouble between folk who disagree, there's always GOING to be that, no government, no law, no amount of guns and goons and dog-n-pony show "justice" systems is ever going to change that, and trying is every bit as foolish, counterproductive, and dangerous as trying to outlaw stupidity, cause you're always gonna have that too!

But really, why violence ?
Unless in direct need for personal self defense, ain't much purpose to it, just a damn cycle of bomb-me-bomb-you where each side accuses and excuses the other via their own conduct and the only winner is the grim reaper.

Nothin says you have to agree with or mutually support folks you don't want to, there's no LAW forcing you to - and yet, if you CHOOSE to do it, maybe cause you wanna see a darwin award, or maybe cause you wanna show em a way to get it done without getting hurt, that's UP TO YOU.

Personal responsibility, Wulf - isn't that what your ire at the rest of the world has at it's core, that folk are trained to not have any, to listen to fools and warlords, rather than their own hearts ?

But the voice of ones own heart, that's NATURE, and her will shall not be brooked no more than a sidewalk brooks a tree root, the tree ALWAYS wins, mano, always.

Look at yourself, your questions, your rage, misplaced as it often is, and it has lead you HERE, this place, this time, these words, and they ring true, do they not ?

What Anarchism offers is HOPE - that we can better our lives and those of people around us cause we WANT TO, not because some asshole with a gun is forcing us to, that doing right isn't so very bloody hard that no one will do it without a lash at their back - that this belief is BULLSHIT, a cauldron of lies fed to us by those offering to control us "for our own good" and look where it has lead ?

War, starvation, abuse, when we live on a world of plenty!

Fuck them, their time is DONE, their ideologies have FAILED - and while the unknown is perhaps a little scary, and there is always the temptation to take comfort in the familiar, however awful, isn't it really worth it to let go of what you KNOW has failed you, in hopes of a brighter future ?

You can always change your mind, if you like, no one is gonna MAKE you do anything, so long as your actions level harm on none, that's the beauty of it all.

Here, have some of this donut, think it over.

-Frem

PS - Guess what I had for breakfast, eh ?
*munch munch*

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, September 10, 2009 6:36 PM

Forgive me, bumping this for Wulf so he doesn't miss it, wouldn't do so if I thought it unimportant.
(I have an aversion to the whole concept of thread bumping, mind, you might have noticed.)

-F

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 6:48 PM

Yes, Frem, I read it. lol

Give me some time to digest it.

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:26 PM

Frem,

I'm all for anarchy, at least in the way you've laid it out.

But. You still have to account for the strong vs. weak. Darfur, Detroit, Newark (NJ)....

I don't believe that those who win, because they were stronger (more men, guns, ect), are always the right ones. Granted, guns even things out....

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 8:07 PM

Lol sorry. Thought this video was funny.

BYTEMITE

Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:10 PM

The thing about Anarchy is, we have some damn staying power.

Even if we are taken over and defeated, eventually the powers that be go "Oh holy fuck, FINE!", throw up their hands, and pass legislation to give back local control to the region.

That's what happened with Catalonia, anyway.

So long as you're not dead, you can still fight, and it doesn't have to be with a gun. :D

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:23 PM

Damn right.

As long as you can draw a breath you can still scream.

Or, pull a trigger.

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:32 PM

WULFENSTAR

Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:33 PM

hehehehhehehehehehehehehehehehehe

SIGNYM

Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:27 PM

Wulf, I think you spend too much time looking in faux- agonistic music for something to believe in.

But when you get old like me and stop believing in belief, you also stop being cynical. Because cynicism is nothing more than pre-emptive disappointment

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, September 11, 2009 12:14 AM

Bah, if you want musical inspiration for this whole theme, you don't get better than this.

Consider well just how perfectly it and it's gently haunting tone dovetails both with what imma sayin here, and with the root of the problems in how we treat our kids.

First time I heard it was over the car radio en route to one of our "rescues", and it's the only time in my whole life I've ever been physically overcome with emotion, I literally had to pull over so I didn't wreck.

-F

KPO

Friday, September 11, 2009 12:39 AM

Quote:
Because cynicism is nothing more than pre-emptive disappointment

Nice line but cynicism has its own rewards, along the lines of intellectual smugness.

As for what to believe in: pragmatism. Because truth is complex, and nobody's friend: therefore the best solutions are compromise, ideologically impure solutions.

Try to believe in what works the best for humanity - don't look for a belief that warm your heart, that's self-indulgent, and when acted out sometimes even damaging to humanity.

Heads should roll

WULFENSTAR

Friday, September 11, 2009 2:42 AM

Lol Sorry Frem, I got pulled off topic.

Like I said tho, I do understand your points... and actually agree with them. Its just that you need an end game. Sure, you dont promise a Utopia, but you don't show how it wouldn't degenerate into a hell either.

BYTEMITE

Friday, September 11, 2009 2:52 AM

All societies have a potential for one person taking advantage and declaring themselves grand master leader whatever.

The good thing about Anarchy is that the leader doesn't have any pre-existing social structure to help him/her take over and cement his/her rule. And, Anarchists tend to be very aware of abuses and power grabs and do not stand for that kind of crap.

WULFENSTAR

Friday, September 11, 2009 2:52 AM

I've been thinking about an idea, and one that most will probably dismiss out of hand... but...

Alot of the problems that we have in the world are simply because there are too many people.

When you pile humans on top of one another it creates a frenzy. Look at NY, Bangladesh, hell... most cities.

The places where things are most serene, are usually where there are few people.

When there arn't a ton of folks around, you tend to cherish your neighbor, to count on them. Children are a blessing, not a burden. And when you need time to collect yourself, you can.

When you don't have someone in your face 24/7 you take the time to converse, you care about how you act.

I don't know. I just think its easier to get along, to be a better person, when you don't have people in your face all the time.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:07 AM

(sorry, been busy)

There's something to that, Wulf - but again, people are individuals, and some people like being close with others in their little hive...

And some don't.

The difference is that in the inner city, folks don't get a choice in it, and it does drive em a bit wacky, especially when you add in some heat, it's a well known fact that the moment the temperature in Baltimore clears 90F degrees, the murder rate doubles on the spot.

And there's some right nasty places that are actually quite low in population, small towns full of old generational grudges, petty politics, and nastiness, like Jericho, and for reference, Wakarusa Indiana - hell, I got a damn warrant set out for me by an ex's nasty relative who was drinkin buddies with a judge, for something I not only didn't do, but was two states away in front of fifty witnesses at the time!

I don't think it's so much a matter of population density as it is a matter of choice, being left alone when you wanna be together, or being together when you wanna be alone, these things are over time damaging to the psyche.

Me, I dislike people, and live in a mid-density populated area, and work in one with a high density - but due to my schedule, it's functionally desolate of humans and my interaction with em is quite limited.

Hell, I can go to the freakin Meijers at 4:10am, shop for groceries, check out at the U-scan, and come home, and never come within 30 feet of another human the whole damn time, if I want, and sometimes I do.

So it's not about density as much as it is about choice.

-F

RUE

Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:30 AM

"It's Gaia mythos, and part of the whole idea that somewhere we'll find evidence of idyllic peaceful human existence and the supremacy of mother nature, etc. etc."

There are three civilizations that didn't have battlements, weapons, slums or evidence of war - no mass graves, no evidence of fires, no evidence of violent overthrow. Kinda' hard to miss those things if they are there. Of course, you COULD just close you eyes, plug your ears and hum really, really loudly. Though, I have to warn you, that won't make facts go away. And they will overtake the body of knowledge you claim, and leave you behind - and irrelevant.

"Reality is that we're a pack of rats, and we just can't bring ourselves to face up to it."

Reality is we can be different if we chose our circumstances and mindset intelligently.

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Silence is consent.