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⫸STICKY⫷ The Delphic Oracle- Know Thyself: P&S Social Ampitheatre of Doom
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sigmond
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Im still trying to figure out how much freewill or influence I have pertaining to the events in my life. It often seems as if I am at the mercy of an external power - be it God, The Secret, Karma, or physical law. I keep getting stuck on this problem; If the universe is you experiencing itself, say something similar to Buddhism, what's the point of anything? I guess this is part of the reason monks resort to the bodhi tree. My problem is trying to create art; Why bother making art if the audience is simply a manifestation of your soul or unconscious will?
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Because the point of existence is to embrace the illusion of separation, because without this illusion, we exist as a single point of awareness all alone in an endless, dimensionless moment. If it's all a dream, it doesn't change the perceived reality of it. If I am you, and I see your art, I still react to it and it still makes me feel something. So by making art you're bringing yourself joy and satisfaction in the act of creation, and you're also bringing yourself experiences through your other sets of eyes that happen to see the art.
Basically, though I do believe we are all the same force of awareness, the universe experiencing itself, it's just an abstract concept bringing meaning to existence... it doesn't functionally change anything in terms of this incarnation's point of view and life experience.
sigmond
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Thanks Shadow. After I posted that I took a shower and in there I remembered we're all living our own dreams you might say. We might all be connected to the same source but we are only connected to each other temporarily. So, sharing art isn't much different than sharing a hug, handshake, laugh, or a drink. What matters is what happens in those moments +/- ...
Happy Holidays
If I seem confused its because i am. I still struggle with thoughts of God (more so, Jesus) and human progress. There was a great documentary on netflix a while ago about progress and 'progress traps'. At this time (and ofc i could be wrong) I am of the belief that capitalism (consumerism) is a progress trap. Humanity has gone 'all in' on technology and its at the point now where we no longer want technological progress to make life better, we need technological progress to avoid catastrophe. If you don't believe me go to Manhattan and imagine a day without oil, without garbage trucks, without all the food necessary to feed that population. In the future the trucks and ships are not going to be enough.
(once again i could be wrong, never much of a prophet)Last edited:
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I agree that consumerism (not capitalism specifically, I think it's a good system but it's been corrupted, like all systems eventually are) is a "progress trap". It's not so much because we rely on technology, I think reliance on technology has been a human characteristic since we started using tools (I mean we would die without clothing in the winter, we couldn't hunt and kill much of anything without weapons, etc). But the way consumerism is set up now, people are focusing entirely too much on consuming, and we're on a crash course for destruction because we're being so short-sighted that we refuse to change our course. It seems that other cultures in other points in history have been far better at the long view... it also seems that people were not so self-absorbed and self-interested, either. Our culture teaches us to put our own immediate needs (and those of our families and friends) above everyone else and even above society and a whole. Whereas I think the healthy approach is to put the good of all over the good of the self, at least when it doesn't come to life or death matters.
sigmond
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yeah, but the technology we need now cant be foraged out of readily available materials and put together in a hut. We need a visionary mad scientist to come along and bail us out. I don't really want to get into the 'progress trap' convo. You're definitely right about the dangers of a society of self-absorbed people, sadly, ive become one of them. I remember David Foster Wallace imagining a scenario when entertainment becomes so good that people can no longer put it down long enough to complete the necessary tasks to keep society going. He might not have been that far-off. Ive already seen people in emergency rooms being neglected because the nurse is too busy on facebook.
post getting long..
Foreigner
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Capitalism is actually a major obstacle because it inefficiently redistributes innovations. The technology we need to rescue ourselves and the planet has to be implemented now, but because capitalism operates on affordability and competition, it can't be distributed fast enough. Capitalism operates on price incentives only, which relates to money, and money isn't real. Life and earthly resources are real, but they are not factored into input costs.
The other problem is that the wealthy account for the world's largest amount of waste. They squander huge amounts of resources on luxuries and their personal lifestyle. There's no concept of conservation. The bottom 70% of humanity produces less waste than the top 30% of the wealthy elite. They spend their money trying to obfuscate this point with media propaganda, but the truth is becoming apparent. The people causing most of the world's problems are a minority. They are human beings with addresses. The only thing protecting them from a mob is that they have everyone convinced that the problem is something else. These are the fruits of capitalism. The goal is to build capital at the expense of everything else, even the future of life itself. Then you horde and the game is won.
We basically need a resource based economy now, but it's not going to happen "because socialism". We also have the baby boomer generation clinging to power and still trying to convince everyone that the current economic model is OK even though the house is burning down. They won't ease up, they just need to die already. Only then can solutions be implemented.
I have hope for future generations. The young people today are bright and can see what's wrong. They just have no agency. That will change once their dysfunctional elders die out. The problem is that the world's ecology won't last that long. We have 20-30 years max, if that.
Safety 1st
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What a shame The Venus Project will never happen. Capitalism is bad to begin with I feel but what we see today is seriously toxic Captialism which I suppose is where all forms have to eventually end up in. This toxic wasteland needs our best intentions so I will not say I feel there will be doom in 20 to 30 years myself.
Safety 1st
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Seeing as I can no longer take drugs responsibly, I am doing great.
Glad to be a resident of this section now.
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Hey there glad to have you.
I'm not great at using drugs responsibly either, well, I'm perfectly responsible with marijuana and psychedelics/dissociatives but none of the others.
I actually think capitalism in its ideal form is a pretty good system, and it seems to be able to function well for a time better than some others. I think communism in its ideal form is a better idea, but it seems to be very difficult if not impossible to successfully implement. But you're right, our current implementation of capitalism is incredibly destructive. The problem with any system is that humanity is flawed. A certain percentage of us are sociopathic power mongers who are addicted to having power over others. These people will find a way to corrupt any system. This is why all civilizations implode, and why we're in the situation we're in today. For the first time in history, our technology is advanced enough that we actually threaten our very existence and even the existence of the rest of life on Earth. I hope that we can somehow evolve past this genetic flaw, but I'm not sure if we will.
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Nixiam
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happy holidays everyone
I use marijuana incredibly responsibly~ so the only chemical characteristic observable of my brain is a THC molecule
this whole capitalism thing throws me through a loop every time I think about it. I figured it works well enough to create (generally) wealthy societies (generally speaking), and at some point we just have to, as a polite and advanced and wealthy society, get together and take care of the people who are disaffected by the system. That right there I think is the left's biggest gripe~ we don't satisfy the seriously disaffected people.
I've not yet been convinced by anyone that the alternative "isms" are more useful or efficacious to the cause of the endgame, though, am willing to change my mind.Happy holidays, indeed I agree completely with you regarding capitalism but unlike an ex-smoker I'm still seeing the carrot incentive of capitalism works much better then the higher average of socialism. What we truly need is a much simpler system that has both aspects.
The current generation is the smartest we have ever had in recorded history, I think it's a great time to make vast changes to the way the world runs. Capitalism works wonders at massive projects but becomes a nightmare when it attempts to massively profit off of its clients or drop services to markets that aren't lucrative enough. We do business today for profit not for prestige or even the betterment of our community (with a few rare exceptions). The result of pure profit driven economies is fast food and low quality everything.
Socialism doesn't seem a lot better, neither system puts the needs of the people at the forefront.
And happy holidays, here's to another year of figuring out how to get along just a bit better then last.
tokezu
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Of course incentives work, the problem is imo that capitalism incentivizes exactly the wrong kind of behaviour. Planned obsolescence for example, it makes more economical sense to sell people a shit product that they will have to replace within one year than to sell them a good product that will last ten years. Apologists of capitalism will tell you that only happens in a monopoly or oligopoly and healthy competition will solve that. But when we look at reality today, e.g. Amazon, does it look like we are heading towards healthy competition or towards monopoly? Or look at the fossil fuel industry, capitalism incentivizes them to fight tooth and nail against much needed environmental protection, because it threatens their profit margins. Is that really a sensible system, where people gain lots of money from doing the wrong thing?
Happy holidays!Totally agree with you Tokezu.
The ideal system should be a combination of both socialism and capitalism. We need a co operative world where everyone chooses which goals we are progressing toward as a society of humans. I fear this insane competition as it is driven by money, there is no need ever to do agood job under this monetary system. Often the worst job is done when we agree to the lowest bid. Under our current monetary system the larger the project the greater the loss. Monetarily we have managed to just begin mega projects but they take decades and cost billions which we take out of the same money pool as food, clothing and shelter.
Instead of creating a fictional currency and injecting it into the government and pretending it will trickle down, we need to simply realize our currency is our time. We are all given 24 hours a day to create tear down or just sit and contemplate. How time is spent individually drives our economy. Currently we are struggling because people are not working and our economy is running lower on goods compared to the amount of money we are injecting. Prices on things become higher as more and more of the money being used to buy goods is not being paid for creation of things but just for services. If you have good basic math skills and can look at money for a while you can see interest, in any form, is lowering your dollars value. As simple as it is to see, most people can't see it and I don't understand why.
In a nut shell all interest paid for all loans, public or private, is the cause of your dollar devaluing. In case you don't notice how much it devalued use house values as a guide. Where I live homes have increased in cost by a factor of 20 over the last 50 years. These homes once worth 25 to 50k are now 500k to a million. They aren't bigger they didn't grow porches or new floors, in fact a lot are just getting old and still worth 20 times more in my life. The house is exactly the same use as it ever was the only real change is the lower value of money. In this economy poverty and death are necessary and loss is constant. We spend more energy watching our fictional money then we do living our lives.
It's truly time for a new economy not based on fictional imaginary ideas but on reality. It's easy to see solutions but people are living in fear of everything and those fears are what hold us back as a species.
The current generation is our best chance at our future.
Foreigner
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It doesn't matter which system we use, as long as there aren't rules in place to stop human greed from compromising the entire system and causing major impacts to all life.
Secular humanism has brought us secular democracy. We used the philosophy to build in mechanisms to stop infringements on innate human rights.
The problem is, nobody has really transferred this methodology to the economy. If someone could invent an "economic constitution" that basically limits what humans can do to one another in the pursuit of prosperity, I think we could have a relatively idyllic society with in-tact ecology.
Capitalism itself is coming to its natural conclusion because we have already overcome our material burdens as a species. We have more than enough to survive now. The survival instincts must now be reckoned with in a system that is overabundant because the overabundance is still carried out through inequity. There's no reason for it anymore. We have "all the things" now.
We need to transition to a resource based economy or at least factors in the environment as part of input costs. It doesn't matter what the system is, capitalism, socialism, or something else; but it needs to look beyond human ideology which is, frankly, artificial and has nothing to do with natural philosophy.
I personally feel that capitalism as it currently looks is an utterly inefficient way of distributing innovation and knowledge. It's why I'm so thankful for the internet. The internet is the first real example of decentralized expertise, knowledge, and access. It can be used to solve inequity. But first capitalism has to burn itself out on a global scale because, as we have seen, any country that tries to limit the human greed beyond it gets bypassed through globalization. It keeps countries stuck in the greed game if they want to participate. Europe and the U.S. really perpetuated this through colonialism and imperialism.
You know you're in the end game when one person is about to become the world's first trillionaire (the CEO of Amazon) while 60 million Americans are on food stamps. Makes no sense whatsoever. In the Great Depression, you had farm storehouses full of harvested produce ready for market but cities full of people starving and getting in line for soup and bread, so the produce just rotted. It's utterly illogical, which more and more people are waking up to.
Money isn't even fucking real and the ultimate pursuit of it is utterly delusional. The fiduciary responsibility of business must be reframed, by force. It doesn't mean socialism and communes, it means that our society is not working toward monetary "productivity" anymore, but the betterment of the planet. We need an Economic Constitution.
Good luck though. The old money people will cause war and hell on earth before that day ever happens.Last edited:
