Agreed, but it makes me wonder in a philosophical way... if we are supposed to be. I know it sounds insane, but just read a moment. Humanity, as a whole, reaches for the stars, and we have since time immemorial. Humans, according to NASA, cannot interstellar travel currently without it being a death sentence, and they (NASA) needs astronauts that are genetically predisposed to fight cancer due to the cosmic rays of the universe constantly bombarding the human genome, and mutating it & making malignant cancer. Currently anyone who goes to Mars WILL die of cancer if they make it back to earth. Given that knowledge, and a quick look around the current biosphere I have to wonder if humans are collectively, unconsciously doing this to themselves to increase cancer resistance in preparation for interstellar travel. Then again, I am into my dodgy science. Seriously, just a thought I have been mulling with in the last few weeks because no rational being, from ant to whale would do this to their home, but humans are.
I don't think "humans" are, as a species, but our culture is. The Sentinalese and a lot of other folks aren't doing it at all. And they are just as human as we are. Humans managed to live on the planet for 100,000 years without damaging it significantly more than similar animals, and then civilization came along and things changed. Most human cultures have not been civilizations. And not all civilizations have been quite like ours. More about these ideas: https://rewild.info/anthropik/thirty/index.html
And there's this speech by Toby Hemenway: "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nLKHYHmPbo
Does the Zeitgeist addendum explain in detail how offshore bankers have used loans and a private monetary "printing" press to put the world economy in debt and then present themselves as the savior under the guise of world government? I saw freedom to fascism a long time ago, as well as Zeitgeist, and some infowars films, however, I'm sure one out of all those explains what I want to relearn. I just can't remember, which documentary does it....or does it most effectively. Thanks for your suggestions. Thank you for helping pull people's heads out of the sand. Everyone must take into consideration the warning message presented in the following video, as that same warning applies to any of those other videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLpWpxJl648&feature=watch_response_rev I would also go so far as to say it applies to everything that's not mainstream media (i.e. media outlets paid for by the bankers and fortune 500). Recently Hillary Clinton videos have surfaced on youtube mentioning how she is losing the info war to alternative media outlets. Many people whose messages of warning that aren't the typical "everything's ok, and if you think otherwise, you're a conspiracy nutjob" have recently come under attack as the mainstream media gears up its "info war." Just like the 2008 crisis they want to pump up our hopes just long enough so we put more money into the system before it comes crashing down. According to Gerald Celente, that will be after Christmas.
Actually it can be, and there's been a lot of effort put into it. Like - Authentic Happiness - Seligman is the founder of the Happiness Psychology movement. There's a validated Happiness questionnaire on this website (and a whole bunch of other really useful stuff too. If you are a book person (Hi MA!) then his book Flourish was published earlier this year and is a really good read. Bhutan has based its economy on Gross National Happiness for many years. Britain is about to start measuring it as well. More on Economics and Happiness.(PDF) Beyond Money - also by Seligman - this is the abstract only. You'll need to have online library access to get the original. (Or PM me and I'll see if I can get it on my library account.) I find it a really interesting concept to explore. Money doesn't make you happy!
For what it's worth, I'd just like to add that Gerald Celente has predicted that we are going to see an orchestrated collapse after Christmas. He says so at about 8 or 9 minutes into the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RV-lb1Hc0g&feature=BFa&list=SPB9E36695DDA9CBDA&lf=list_related
Okay, Zeitgeist addendum explains in detail how offshore bankers have used loans and a private monetary "printing" press to put the world economy in debt and then present themselves as the savior under the guise of world government. That's the movie I was talking about. The segment I refer to starts at about 6:30. Before watching this documentary, please also note that that law enforcement blacklists this film and those who promote it, just as they profile people with "don't tread on me!" flags and people who promote the U.S. constitution for their rights. https://www.prisonplanet.com/police...formed-americans-are-domestic-terrorists.html (Scroll down for an actual document, which proves my point.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewGMBOB4Gg
The causality in this statement is academically and historically broken. Sorry. There is no reason for anything to stay the same. It never has, and never will, constant change is the only constant. Either you're reading the best stuff, using selective memory, or using the word doomer losely. There's a difference between predicting debt induced recession, and claiming it's the end of economic structure as we know it. Ignoring several popular doomer theories that haven't come to pass (Y2k, Nostradum post September 11, Fukushima's Clash of Civilisations, 2012, asteroids destroying the Earth, etc) it's disingenious to suggest doomer is accurate, which is what your paragraph does. Titles, please! See, but you contradict yourself, you say 'the' party is over, then say we can write our future, so a new or different party can begin. This idea that there's one preferred, special way of living is silly, and has never been concrete, at any point in history.
But you've quoted and cited different studies using vastly different ways of measuring and attaining happiness. That in of itself proves there's no objective way to view happiness. Admitting that, I'm not suggesting there's no point trying, or that such studies are worthless, or that I am unstoppably correct - just that, at the moment, there's no agreed upon, definitive, conrete way to define and discuss happiness - ergo saying people were more or less happy in the past, or whatever, is predicated on the subjective, and hence, absurd.
Let paraphrase you - "You've quoted and cited different studies using vastly different ways of measuring and attaining wealth. That in itself proves there's no objective way to view wealth." Maybe there's just different ways to measure the same thing...
You can substitute what you want (substitute being what you've done, paraphrasing being no where close to what was done, as an aside!) - wealth has a commonly agreed upon definition in several fields its used as a category (just as death, life, average bloodpressure, psi, meter, humidity, etc, do) and happiness has yet to attain a parameter that is common. I'm not even sure objectively qualifying happiness would be productive, and might actually harm things in certain ways (qualifying happiness as a certain set of criteria makes it less individual and more perscriptive, by function, since that is a definition's function). This tangent isn't achieving anything, at all, apart from making a vague debate more so. Don't mistake different tools to measure something agreed upon (we can use a ruler or a tape measure to see how tall a seedling is) with using vastly different criteria to measure something not agreed upon. Not a semantic difference at all.
We've reached 3/4 of a QUADRILLiON $US in totally unregulated gambling bets on the balance sheets of banks, governments and institutional investors (pension funds, endowments, insurance pools, etc, etc.) Total amount is 10 times global GDP.
Isnt that just completely insane. I dont know whether to laugh at the sheer stupidity of it or just sit down in my compost bin and cry.
I have a theory. Without checks and balances, any system will go on until it is obvious what is the fatal flaw. (I was a software architect for a few decades, so I lived that). By the time the flaw shows up to most, the system will be so large and so expensive and so entrenched, that in most situations, one has to wait for a total collapse before replacing it with something else. Which will also have a fatal flaw. lol
Oh no! https://www.infowars.com/rand-paul-americans-could-be-sent-to-gitmo-under-indefinite-detention-bill/ This is it. The bubble is so close to popping now.
I think the Judicial system is going to be working over time soon... ..I have a feeling the ACLU and others will have a say about that. https://www.infowars.com/senate-rejects-amendment-to-indefinite-detention-bill/ It still has to pass congress, and since this is the same crap as McCarthyism, I do not see this even making it to the desk of our President, however, if it does pass, then the US has become the same as WWII Germany, pre-war.
Well, the safest place for my sheep is locked up in the fold... perhaps that is what they are thinking. Instead of locking up the criminals, lock up the law abiding people, and let the criminals have the rest of the planet. Works for domesticated animals, right? After all, it is the coyotes who live free... So, is the goal to domesticate us? Glad I am where I am.
Great thought-provoking post. My random thoughts: So, how does a permaculture system differ from such tragically flawed systems? How do we avoid designs with fatal flaws? - built-in redundancy (multiple elements each supporting multiple functions) - simplicity in design?? While diversity generally supports resiliency, too much complexity can become unmanageable - keeping things human-scaled, to avoid 'titanic' errors... - To me, natural systems are self-repairing and self-balancing...so biomimicry is key - plan for disaster How do we build in feedback systems to identify and correct the inevitable fatal flaws before collapse? - Holmgren's principles: 'observe and interact' and 'apply self regulation and accept feedback' - Holistic Management seeks to identify ahead of time the first evidence to look for that tells us things are going well or badly with any plan we've developed. What are your thoughts?
