They have probably noticed the French Aristocracy no longer exists---
There is real probability that will die hanging, or worse, and they secret;y know it.
Yep the last thing they want to be is accessable to the great unwashed. If they could meet at a place that's only helicopter-accessible they'd do it. There's probably a reason they're meeting in the winter when the snow's thick on the ground - some protesters know a healthy person can get to some pretty remote places by bicycle as long as the weather's decent.
French Revolution II is definately coming too. Bono and the rest of his ilk are Example #1 of why being rich makes you evil even if you didn't start out that way. Bono was probably a pretty nice guy once upon a time. Ran Prieur has some good observations about this today.
I remember getting free tickets to see U2 at the Park West, Chicago, way back some time in the 80's. Most in the audience were there free too. General opinion was B+ R&R, and where is the money coming from, why should we care? There was never any soul or energy in that band. A little professionalism, a lotta noise, nothing else.
Bono is a ponce. Always.
oldhippy--
That christian U2 think made me a bit nauseous also.
But they always played in the shallow end of the pool.
Bono believes the market will save us.
the_rage----
Not to say U2 is not entertaining sometimes, but please, something a bit more chewy.
A sign of the times I guess. Homogeneous pabulum fed to the entire planet.
Going direct to stardom before ever having a hit record or song or even fans was kinda creepy. Woulda been early 80's when I saw them. Woulda been an empty house if tiks were not being given away and pushed. A good part of the audience walked out. Next tour they're bigtime. What's that about?
I'm going to defend Bono here, because through all his arrogance I think the guy really cares about the world. He tries to use his fame to make other people's lives better. I can think of much less worthy celebrities. He is trying to work the corporate system to his advantage for his causes. Somewhat of a Robin Hood type figure. He plays the game well and uses his "hip" image to draw them in to cooperate with his cause.
Recently, my company (large card co. in KC) started producing (RED) products in conjunction with Bono and Paul Shriver. Bono flew into KC and paid the "boss" and the artists a "surprise" visit. It's finally a product my company makes that goes beyond just making a buck.
Regarding Davos and what to do about the poor, the only reason the global ruling elite is concerned about the issue of the 'wretched of the earth' is that these people can serriously theaten the status quo by creating all manner of chaos and instability.
While all sort of heartfelt concern and noble-sounding proposals will be expressed at Davos, the real unspoken sentiment among most of the world's rulers is that the best thing for the poor to do is to simpy go away and die.
I may be mistaken, but wasn't it none other than Henry Kissinger who once said something ot the effect that it should be the policy of the West to reduce the population of the Third World?
Cynics would say that is part of the reason 'the poor' got the handouts of the 1960's.
Let the wretched forge their own chains, giving then $5k per year beats $30k jail, keep waving in front of 'em the idea that they will get ahead. If they are working and getting $5k in subsidies, odds are they arn't being paid much, so wages say depressed overall.
Well, yes, during the Sixties in the US, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society essentially was geared toward throwing some money in the direction of the 'negroes' in the hope that they wouldn't continue to burn down America's inner cities, as they did in 1966 through 1968.
The whole thing was a good lesson in how power politics works. If the blacks hadn't have gotten into a 'burn, baby, burn!' mode, I think that today they would still be sitting in the back of the bus. A perfect example of the squeaky wheel principle.
However, I think that today, the 'squeaky wheels' in the this country are more likely to find themselves in Halliburton-built detention camps, as 'terrorism' is being increasingly defined as anything that challenges the power establishment or which upsets the status quo.
Take a cup of coffee print and read this one.
I think you are dead on btw, If you know Henry, and you know the 6 billion people Have to be Dealt with, you should read this one.
The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis
It seems very clear that the industrialized nations have no intention of changing the basic path they are on, or of abandoning capitalism. We can expect only more industrial growth, more energy consumption, continued use of energy-intensive agricultural methods, etc. The energy band-aids of a Gore agenda make no significant difference in this picture whatever, they simply affirm the intention to proceed with business as usual.
The only way the industrialized North can continue on this path is by taking over more and more of the third world’s land, water, and resources for its own use. As the industrial appetite for resources continues to grow at a rapid rate, and as our global resources are increasingly stressed, we are going to see a very rapid expansion of third world hunger and starvation -- the globalization of African-scale famines. This is inevitable while the North stays on this basic path, whether we have Gore-like policies or some other set of policies is of little consequence.
This ‘inevitability’ of mass die-offs in the third world is well known to those who run the industrial nations. From the perspective of the heights of power, the question becomes, “How can we manage these die-offs so that they cause the least disruption in the global economy, and so that they don’t arouse too much public outcry?”
Of course once you begin managing die-offs, you are then engaging in genocide, ie, arranging for particular populations to die in preference to others.
There can be little doubt that the elite is totally indifferent to the fate of billions -- except insofar as they represent a threat. There have been times when they wanted large populations, for their labor and for markets. Even the Nazis dealt with their concentration camp victims that way -- extermination was preceded by slave labor: slavery when needed, extermination when not.
But none of this takes away from the reality of overpopulation on a global basis. Gigantic devastation and suffering lies ahead if it is not dealt with globally through reproductive planning (e.g. providing for the elderly) and much else. One way or another the human population and the (declining) carrying capacity of the planet have to eventually match up. The elite will be content to let nature take her course (or even lend an assisting hand). But it's in the interest of the common folk (us) to deal with it realistically.
Yes the preferred method of the rich to deal with the poor would be to work 'em to death then compost their bodies or something.
Maybe this is the reason for the whole pipe dream that is high tech - it keeps the smartest of the poor busy and theoretically some good robot slaves will result that won't develop any uppity ideas, then the poor (yes, you, myself, we of the 99% of the earth's population who are not rich) can be done away with.
One thing really REALLY scares the rich - squalor. They hate squalor. They hate patches and irregularities and weeds and having to substitute something for caviar because some doofus among their ranks killed off all the professional fish-squeezers before their robot replacements were come up with.
So, that's what to fight them with. Look at the most recent Joe Bageant letter, the fellow talking about the people back in Appelacia (sp?) where his family's roots are - people who won't notice if there's a recession or Depression because it won't change their lives a bit. Get used to living without electricity etc for a bit, get used to chaos and good old fashioned squalor, that way when you along with the rest of us kill off the world of the rich by a million cuts, the terror for them will be gleeful fun for us. It's time we all started playing hookey and TP'ing the lavatories of the world of the rich.
And the author of this piece is one "Richard K. Moore". Moore tells that in this article:
..the U.S. is essentially owned and managed by a small clique of wealthy families—the ones who own and control the Federal Reserve. The Rockefellers are the obvious and well-known members of this clique, but there are others less well-known, not all American, and some whose identity remains to this day a carefully guarded secret.
Well imagine that, the Rockefellers and a few others of this small wealthy clique owns and manages the United States of America! Now where have I heard such rhetoric before? At any rate Moore tells, in this article:
A Gore agenda is simply genocidal imperialism hiding under a new mask, a new show. Instead of killing off the Indians by killing their buffalo, it kills off populations by removing their access to food in other ways.
How about that, Gore's agenda is simply to kill people. All this Global Warming crap is just a cover. He wants to kill people by cutting off their food supply.
After looking into various reform alternatives, and at popular movements (past and present), he (Moore) came to the conclusion that only one thing can save humanity from the devastations of rampant hyper-capitalism: a radical, global grassroots movement.
A grass movement to do what? To expose the sneaky genocidal conspiracy of Al Gore to kill the poor third world people by cutting of their food supply in the guise of fighting global warming? Well, let's get going.
But what do we do? How do we expose this conspiracy? Is global warming a hoax? A hoax perpetuated by Gore and other of his ilk just to kill people? Then by all means let's expose this hoax! Let's all join this grassroots movement to expose this grandest of all hoaxes.
And while we are at it, let's expose this Peak Oil hoax as well. A hoax perpetuated by people like Matthew Simmons, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes and other such ilk. They are all part of a genocidal conspiracy designed to kill poor third world people.
Okay, all the above was sarcasm, just in case a few people could not tell. But Dear God when are we going to stop paying attention to such bull crap as these Gore and Rockefeller conspiracy theories. There is no giant conspiracy theory to kill people. People may, nay people will, wind up dying because of peak oil. And people will also die because grain and other food products are transferred from people's tables to more wealthy people's cars. But that is just because of callousness and ignorance. There is no giant conspiracy to kill people in that manner.
There may be ways a grassroots movement could mitigate the situation. But calling it a giant conspiracy by Gore or Rockefeller or whomever will not assist anyone in any such grassroots movement. It will only mark you as a conspiracy theory wing nut and no one will pay any attention to you.
Thanks Ron...For a time I was on the fence about which camp to join...the nieve wing nuts or the conspiracy wing nuts. Of course, the conspiracy wing nuts believe that the nieve wing nuts are working for one government organization or another...Meanwhile the nieve wing nuts believe that the conspiracy wing nuts are just visiting this planet. I would like to tell all which group I have decided to join...but then I would have to terminate all. :)
River and Francois, could either of you give me your opinion of the piece rather than just making sarcastic remarks about my post? Start with these quotes from the article in question:
It’s more than a campaign by Gore, we’re seeing a campaign being supported by the mass media, by the powers that be. We are clearly being prepared for a ‘new show’, after the ‘Bush show’, and the ‘new show’ is going to be about carbon taxes and credits, new energy sources, more efficient cars, biofuels, and all those other things that are allegedly related to climate change and peak oil.
And:
The primary mission of the Hillary administration, under the banners of ‘doing something about climate change and peak oil’, will evidently be to undertake a massive resource grab in the global South, leading to the selective and massive elimination of certain populations through starvation.
Now River and Francois, is all this peak oil crap just a hoax to "selective and massive eliminate certain populations through starvation"?
This is your chance to either come down on the side of reality and say that peak oil and global warming are real, or to agree with this this guy that it is all a hoax, a giant conspiracy, engineered to massive eliminate certain populations through starvation.
Do either of you have the courage to give us an answer or would you rather straddle the fence, meaning that you think peak oil and global warming just might be a hoax, a conspiracy by the powers that be, by only replying with sarcasm about my post as both of you have already done.
Ron...there are as many realities as there are organisims that reason...or, rationalize.
BTW, I was not being saracastic but merely musing about my rationalization concerning which camp I should enter. Now, after the passage of some time, I have decided to put off my decision for a while.
I dont see why you should be upset by my answer...politicians make a living doing what I do for free.
"...there are as many realities as there are organisims that reason...or, rationalize."
With all due respect, I disagree utterly. There is one reality, and reality is what happens whether you believe in it or not. However, there are certainly many perceptions and models of reality, as you say. But I think it's critical to make the distinction between "reality" and "model of reality".
None of these models are completely accurate, obviously (where is it written that talking monkeys should understand the Universe in all its complexity and glory), but some are way more congruent to "the way things work" than others.
It doesn't matter what your "reality" is, or what you believe, or how you were brought up, or your cultural baggage, or whatever - if you jump off a cliff, you go *splat* at the bottom.
SGAGE...I believe that there are alternate realities based purely on my own experiences in 'this' life. I have lived through three seperate accidents in which one aircraft and two autos were torn asunder. After the accidents one could not determine what sort of mechanical contrivance had existed prior to the accidents. In one of the accidents I was thrown over 200 feet through large pine trees. I received not a single broken bone or cut and only one minor abrasion in these accidents. In one of the accidents I was involved in a state cop told me that 'I have never seen anyone walk away from something like this'...Yet three of us walked away without a scratch. The auto was a new '66 Chevy SS 396 Impala and it was in 6-8 different pieces after the crash. Nothing on the car was salvageable, not even the engine block...it was cracked as was the transmission case. The rear end and axles were twisted like a pretzel. None of us was wearing a seat belt. These are my realities.
So, you continue to believe there is only one reality because for you maybe there is only one. I will continue to believe that there are multiple realities for me...and I suspect but cannot prove that there are multiple realities for all creatures that have imagination.
Jumping off a cliff? No thanks. I do believe its possible to seal ones fate if one really wants to do the deed. It doesnt interest me.
Google "quantum immortality".... but don't count on it. As posed by Tegmark, it's much too simplistic. Still, if it were true, that's how you'd detect it - surviving an increasingly unlikely series of fatal happenstances.
Though QI is speculative, a quantum multiverse is less so, and in most 'parallel' realities you're dead.
This has nothing to do with the different subjective experience of reality by different people/critters, just the way the universe seems to actually work.
Well, It might not be QI but my neatest experience was going through a speed trap on a moderatly travelled quasi-rural road with a 35 mph speed limit at 106 - on my way to 110mph. The cops never tired to flag me down :). I took a round about way back home.
Yeah, sure, 200 feet through the pine trees, not a scratch. And testimony from a state cop seals it. I give up.
Look, I am _very_ very glad that you were lucky in surviving your accidents. And surely I would be the last person on Earth to say that strange shit doesn't happen - believe me, I've been around for over 5 decades, some of them rather, shall we say, interesting, and I could tell some stories that would make your hair curl. It all means nothing, though, to what constitutes actual (vs. virtual) reality.
But in the end, it's just semantics, so let's don't worry about it. I like your style, and your posts, and I for one hold my beliefs fairly provisionally.
Just because it's true for "splat", doesn't mean it's true for anything else. (Or, should I say, "for everything else".) Or...I should say, could be true to some degree or in some respect for everything else, but we need to qualify.
River, you cannot have it both ways. Either Peak Oil and Global Warming is real or they are a hoax, a conspiracy by Gore, Clinton, Bush, Simmons and others designed to "selective and massive eliminate certain populations through starvation".
If you even think it possible that Peak Oil and Global Warming are a hoax designed to selectively kill massive numbers of people then methinks you are on the wrong list. I would guess that 99 percent of the people on this list believe that peak oil is real, and perhaps 95 percent believe that global warming is real. And I would there are no one on this list who believes both are a hoax created just to kill people. Well, perhaps no one except you and Francios who are both on the fence, trying to decide which side to come down on. Then there is Samsara who posted the link to the article and suggested that Joule read it so he could really understand what is going on. I am not sure which side they come down on but perhaps they think Peak Oil and Global Warming is a hoax also.
One more point. I have no doubt that Kissinger could have mentioned reducing the population of desperately overcrowded countries. China is trying to do this via birth control. But the very idea he or anyone else in the US Government is engaged in a massive conspiracy to deliberately kill billions of people is absurd beyond belief. I know some people, like Moore, may believe that. But then some people believe that we are secretly controlled by aliens on other planets. Those people wear tin foil hats. The people who believe that there is a secret government conspiracy to kill billions of people, via some kind of peak oil or global warming hoax, are not far from becoming part of that tin foil hat brigade.
Well Ron... there's always the issue of the 9,200 nuclear weapons we're decided to keep at-the-ready, the weaponized anthrax, the assorted viruses, the robotic warplanes, etc...
So we really don't need a conspiracy theory. Do we? The die-off tools exist. It's just a question of who pushes the status quo too hard and gets offed.
Chalmers Johnson has been writing about military-and-empire for several years. Worth reading, in my view.
Noted conspiracy nut Alex Jones believes this, that global warming and peak oil are just scams come up with by the "illuminati" to rationalize killing off 75%-90% of the earth's human population. And Alex Jones' various web sites are very popular, he's also on shortwave.
No unwashed masses allowed. No protesters either.
Davos is where TPTB meet to share insider information.
Bono looks kind of scruffy.
And that says it all.
The pretend poor. Like 1788 Versailles Games.
They have probably noticed the French Aristocracy no longer exists---
There is real probability that will die hanging, or worse, and they secret;y know it.
Yep the last thing they want to be is accessable to the great unwashed. If they could meet at a place that's only helicopter-accessible they'd do it. There's probably a reason they're meeting in the winter when the snow's thick on the ground - some protesters know a healthy person can get to some pretty remote places by bicycle as long as the weather's decent.
French Revolution II is definately coming too. Bono and the rest of his ilk are Example #1 of why being rich makes you evil even if you didn't start out that way. Bono was probably a pretty nice guy once upon a time. Ran Prieur has some good observations about this today.
I remember getting free tickets to see U2 at the Park West, Chicago, way back some time in the 80's. Most in the audience were there free too. General opinion was B+ R&R, and where is the money coming from, why should we care? There was never any soul or energy in that band. A little professionalism, a lotta noise, nothing else.
Bono is a ponce. Always.
oldhippy--
That christian U2 think made me a bit nauseous also.
But they always played in the shallow end of the pool.
Bono believes the market will save us.
No soul or energy? Watch the Red Rocks video from 1983 ;).
the_rage----
Not to say U2 is not entertaining sometimes, but please, something a bit more chewy.
A sign of the times I guess. Homogeneous pabulum fed to the entire planet.
Going direct to stardom before ever having a hit record or song or even fans was kinda creepy. Woulda been early 80's when I saw them. Woulda been an empty house if tiks were not being given away and pushed. A good part of the audience walked out. Next tour they're bigtime. What's that about?
I suggested to a carpenter friend a good post-peak, non-discretionary job: building guillotines.
cfm in Gray, ME
I'm going to defend Bono here, because through all his arrogance I think the guy really cares about the world. He tries to use his fame to make other people's lives better. I can think of much less worthy celebrities. He is trying to work the corporate system to his advantage for his causes. Somewhat of a Robin Hood type figure. He plays the game well and uses his "hip" image to draw them in to cooperate with his cause.
Recently, my company (large card co. in KC) started producing (RED) products in conjunction with Bono and Paul Shriver. Bono flew into KC and paid the "boss" and the artists a "surprise" visit. It's finally a product my company makes that goes beyond just making a buck.
Regarding Davos and what to do about the poor, the only reason the global ruling elite is concerned about the issue of the 'wretched of the earth' is that these people can serriously theaten the status quo by creating all manner of chaos and instability.
While all sort of heartfelt concern and noble-sounding proposals will be expressed at Davos, the real unspoken sentiment among most of the world's rulers is that the best thing for the poor to do is to simpy go away and die.
I may be mistaken, but wasn't it none other than Henry Kissinger who once said something ot the effect that it should be the policy of the West to reduce the population of the Third World?
creating all manner of chaos and instability.
Cynics would say that is part of the reason 'the poor' got the handouts of the 1960's.
Let the wretched forge their own chains, giving then $5k per year beats $30k jail, keep waving in front of 'em the idea that they will get ahead. If they are working and getting $5k in subsidies, odds are they arn't being paid much, so wages say depressed overall.
Kissinger who once said something
Dr. Kissinger has said many popular things.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=quotes+dr.+kissinger&btnG=Google+Se...
I was surprised there was no 'collection of quotes' in the top 10.
eric blair -
Well, yes, during the Sixties in the US, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society essentially was geared toward throwing some money in the direction of the 'negroes' in the hope that they wouldn't continue to burn down America's inner cities, as they did in 1966 through 1968.
The whole thing was a good lesson in how power politics works. If the blacks hadn't have gotten into a 'burn, baby, burn!' mode, I think that today they would still be sitting in the back of the bus. A perfect example of the squeaky wheel principle.
However, I think that today, the 'squeaky wheels' in the this country are more likely to find themselves in Halliburton-built detention camps, as 'terrorism' is being increasingly defined as anything that challenges the power establishment or which upsets the status quo.
I just learned today that a rather famous fellow was born with the name Eric Arthur Blair:
http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/georgeorwell.html
Wow. What kind of DailyKoz posting Peaknik hasn't read their 1984 and Animal Farm?
"Is our children learning?" You should try George Sand, that guy could really write.
Even I have my limits when it comes to absorbing minutia :-)
Ahhh, but it is the tiny details that make life worth living.
And sometimes are the difference between being alive or dead.
Joule
Take a cup of coffee print and read this one.
I think you are dead on btw, If you know Henry, and you know the 6 billion people Have to be Dealt with, you should read this one.
There can be little doubt that the elite is totally indifferent to the fate of billions -- except insofar as they represent a threat. There have been times when they wanted large populations, for their labor and for markets. Even the Nazis dealt with their concentration camp victims that way -- extermination was preceded by slave labor: slavery when needed, extermination when not.
But none of this takes away from the reality of overpopulation on a global basis. Gigantic devastation and suffering lies ahead if it is not dealt with globally through reproductive planning (e.g. providing for the elderly) and much else. One way or another the human population and the (declining) carrying capacity of the planet have to eventually match up. The elite will be content to let nature take her course (or even lend an assisting hand). But it's in the interest of the common folk (us) to deal with it realistically.
Yes the preferred method of the rich to deal with the poor would be to work 'em to death then compost their bodies or something.
Maybe this is the reason for the whole pipe dream that is high tech - it keeps the smartest of the poor busy and theoretically some good robot slaves will result that won't develop any uppity ideas, then the poor (yes, you, myself, we of the 99% of the earth's population who are not rich) can be done away with.
One thing really REALLY scares the rich - squalor. They hate squalor. They hate patches and irregularities and weeds and having to substitute something for caviar because some doofus among their ranks killed off all the professional fish-squeezers before their robot replacements were come up with.
So, that's what to fight them with. Look at the most recent Joe Bageant letter, the fellow talking about the people back in Appelacia (sp?) where his family's roots are - people who won't notice if there's a recession or Depression because it won't change their lives a bit. Get used to living without electricity etc for a bit, get used to chaos and good old fashioned squalor, that way when you along with the rest of us kill off the world of the rich by a million cuts, the terror for them will be gleeful fun for us. It's time we all started playing hookey and TP'ing the lavatories of the world of the rich.
It's time we all started playing hookey and TP'ing the lavatories of the world of the rich.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955
Re: The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis
And the author of this piece is one "Richard K. Moore". Moore tells that in this article:
Well imagine that, the Rockefellers and a few others of this small wealthy clique owns and manages the United States of America! Now where have I heard such rhetoric before? At any rate Moore tells, in this article:
How about that, Gore's agenda is simply to kill people. All this Global Warming crap is just a cover. He wants to kill people by cutting off their food supply.
From Moore's Mini-Bio we learn what must be done:
A grass movement to do what? To expose the sneaky genocidal conspiracy of Al Gore to kill the poor third world people by cutting of their food supply in the guise of fighting global warming? Well, let's get going.
But what do we do? How do we expose this conspiracy? Is global warming a hoax? A hoax perpetuated by Gore and other of his ilk just to kill people? Then by all means let's expose this hoax! Let's all join this grassroots movement to expose this grandest of all hoaxes.
And while we are at it, let's expose this Peak Oil hoax as well. A hoax perpetuated by people like Matthew Simmons, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes and other such ilk. They are all part of a genocidal conspiracy designed to kill poor third world people.
Okay, all the above was sarcasm, just in case a few people could not tell. But Dear God when are we going to stop paying attention to such bull crap as these Gore and Rockefeller conspiracy theories. There is no giant conspiracy theory to kill people. People may, nay people will, wind up dying because of peak oil. And people will also die because grain and other food products are transferred from people's tables to more wealthy people's cars. But that is just because of callousness and ignorance. There is no giant conspiracy to kill people in that manner.
There may be ways a grassroots movement could mitigate the situation. But calling it a giant conspiracy by Gore or Rockefeller or whomever will not assist anyone in any such grassroots movement. It will only mark you as a conspiracy theory wing nut and no one will pay any attention to you.
Ron Patterson
Thank God you put this to rest. I was worried for minute.
Francois
Thanks Ron...For a time I was on the fence about which camp to join...the nieve wing nuts or the conspiracy wing nuts. Of course, the conspiracy wing nuts believe that the nieve wing nuts are working for one government organization or another...Meanwhile the nieve wing nuts believe that the conspiracy wing nuts are just visiting this planet. I would like to tell all which group I have decided to join...but then I would have to terminate all. :)
River and Francois, could either of you give me your opinion of the piece rather than just making sarcastic remarks about my post? Start with these quotes from the article in question:
And:
Now River and Francois, is all this peak oil crap just a hoax to "selective and massive eliminate certain populations through starvation"?
This is your chance to either come down on the side of reality and say that peak oil and global warming are real, or to agree with this this guy that it is all a hoax, a giant conspiracy, engineered to massive eliminate certain populations through starvation.
Do either of you have the courage to give us an answer or would you rather straddle the fence, meaning that you think peak oil and global warming just might be a hoax, a conspiracy by the powers that be, by only replying with sarcasm about my post as both of you have already done.
Ron Patterson
Ron...there are as many realities as there are organisims that reason...or, rationalize.
BTW, I was not being saracastic but merely musing about my rationalization concerning which camp I should enter. Now, after the passage of some time, I have decided to put off my decision for a while.
I dont see why you should be upset by my answer...politicians make a living doing what I do for free.
"...there are as many realities as there are organisims that reason...or, rationalize."
With all due respect, I disagree utterly. There is one reality, and reality is what happens whether you believe in it or not. However, there are certainly many perceptions and models of reality, as you say. But I think it's critical to make the distinction between "reality" and "model of reality".
None of these models are completely accurate, obviously (where is it written that talking monkeys should understand the Universe in all its complexity and glory), but some are way more congruent to "the way things work" than others.
It doesn't matter what your "reality" is, or what you believe, or how you were brought up, or your cultural baggage, or whatever - if you jump off a cliff, you go *splat* at the bottom.
SGAGE...I believe that there are alternate realities based purely on my own experiences in 'this' life. I have lived through three seperate accidents in which one aircraft and two autos were torn asunder. After the accidents one could not determine what sort of mechanical contrivance had existed prior to the accidents. In one of the accidents I was thrown over 200 feet through large pine trees. I received not a single broken bone or cut and only one minor abrasion in these accidents. In one of the accidents I was involved in a state cop told me that 'I have never seen anyone walk away from something like this'...Yet three of us walked away without a scratch. The auto was a new '66 Chevy SS 396 Impala and it was in 6-8 different pieces after the crash. Nothing on the car was salvageable, not even the engine block...it was cracked as was the transmission case. The rear end and axles were twisted like a pretzel. None of us was wearing a seat belt. These are my realities.
So, you continue to believe there is only one reality because for you maybe there is only one. I will continue to believe that there are multiple realities for me...and I suspect but cannot prove that there are multiple realities for all creatures that have imagination.
Jumping off a cliff? No thanks. I do believe its possible to seal ones fate if one really wants to do the deed. It doesnt interest me.
Google "quantum immortality".... but don't count on it. As posed by Tegmark, it's much too simplistic. Still, if it were true, that's how you'd detect it - surviving an increasingly unlikely series of fatal happenstances.
Though QI is speculative, a quantum multiverse is less so, and in most 'parallel' realities you're dead.
This has nothing to do with the different subjective experience of reality by different people/critters, just the way the universe seems to actually work.
Well, It might not be QI but my neatest experience was going through a speed trap on a moderatly travelled quasi-rural road with a 35 mph speed limit at 106 - on my way to 110mph. The cops never tired to flag me down :). I took a round about way back home.
Yeah, sure, 200 feet through the pine trees, not a scratch. And testimony from a state cop seals it. I give up.
Look, I am _very_ very glad that you were lucky in surviving your accidents. And surely I would be the last person on Earth to say that strange shit doesn't happen - believe me, I've been around for over 5 decades, some of them rather, shall we say, interesting, and I could tell some stories that would make your hair curl. It all means nothing, though, to what constitutes actual (vs. virtual) reality.
But in the end, it's just semantics, so let's don't worry about it. I like your style, and your posts, and I for one hold my beliefs fairly provisionally.
Fair enough. BTW, I am over 60 and have been, ah...very active. Still am.
I think we're probably pretty much on the same page. Like I said, semantics...
All best,
sgage
Of course, not posting here are the thousands of people who have failed to survive equally catastrophic accidents.
No far how far out you go on the tail of a probability curve, you never run out of tail.
Hi s,
Just because it's true for "splat", doesn't mean it's true for anything else. (Or, should I say, "for everything else".) Or...I should say, could be true to some degree or in some respect for everything else, but we need to qualify.
re: "the way things work" (double quotes).
It depends on what "things" one is talking about.
A difficult conversation to have.
River, you cannot have it both ways. Either Peak Oil and Global Warming is real or they are a hoax, a conspiracy by Gore, Clinton, Bush, Simmons and others designed to "selective and massive eliminate certain populations through starvation".
If you even think it possible that Peak Oil and Global Warming are a hoax designed to selectively kill massive numbers of people then methinks you are on the wrong list. I would guess that 99 percent of the people on this list believe that peak oil is real, and perhaps 95 percent believe that global warming is real. And I would there are no one on this list who believes both are a hoax created just to kill people. Well, perhaps no one except you and Francios who are both on the fence, trying to decide which side to come down on. Then there is Samsara who posted the link to the article and suggested that Joule read it so he could really understand what is going on. I am not sure which side they come down on but perhaps they think Peak Oil and Global Warming is a hoax also.
One more point. I have no doubt that Kissinger could have mentioned reducing the population of desperately overcrowded countries. China is trying to do this via birth control. But the very idea he or anyone else in the US Government is engaged in a massive conspiracy to deliberately kill billions of people is absurd beyond belief. I know some people, like Moore, may believe that. But then some people believe that we are secretly controlled by aliens on other planets. Those people wear tin foil hats. The people who believe that there is a secret government conspiracy to kill billions of people, via some kind of peak oil or global warming hoax, are not far from becoming part of that tin foil hat brigade.
Ron Patterson
Well Ron... there's always the issue of the 9,200 nuclear weapons we're decided to keep at-the-ready, the weaponized anthrax, the assorted viruses, the robotic warplanes, etc...
So we really don't need a conspiracy theory. Do we? The die-off tools exist. It's just a question of who pushes the status quo too hard and gets offed.
Chalmers Johnson has been writing about military-and-empire for several years. Worth reading, in my view.
Noted conspiracy nut Alex Jones believes this, that global warming and peak oil are just scams come up with by the "illuminati" to rationalize killing off 75%-90% of the earth's human population. And Alex Jones' various web sites are very popular, he's also on shortwave.
Foilheads or not, these people exist.
Foilheads or not, these people exist.
And, be they right or not, will act as a regulator on any change which might be 'positive' WRT either peak oil or global warming.
The best you can hope for is to channel their rage away from you.