Dear friends,
I want to share my article with you. This is about the link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues. The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Thank you,
Sushil Yadav
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.
SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.
Since the article is too long I was unable to post the full article here. To read the complete article please follow any of these links :
PowerSwitch
EnviroLink
StrategyTalk
sushil_yadav
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment]]>
JOHN wrote:
Terrorism is Not a war to be fought, won or lost. Anyone can become a terrorist for any reason. There are no uniforms and there are no identified targets. All must be suspected. The world is the battlefield, and we are all soldiers in our own way. When terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre, the Western World needed a point to focus on. Afghanistan was the logical target. Iraq was then invaded, as many were duped in to believing that this too was linked. I do not think it was, but at the same time, I would like to take a moderate stance. There has been talk on this forum of a certain Austrian dictator. He killed many Jews as we all know and was in general a big douche (most sane individuals agree). Let us forget about our supposed biases against or for President Bush and evaluate what Was happening in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, and he murdered many innocent people. Some of these people were probably funny, smart, gorgeous and thrill-seeking. Some of them I am sure liked chocolate and while they may not have had baseball and bubblegum, I am sure some of them knew and loved some good old fashioned clean non-violent fun. I pose the question: What is the difference between one wrong death and one million wrong deaths. Hitler killed more, with vigour, but why is it seen as so much worse?! Were these 'Muslims' not human? *A better question would be were these humans not considered human* They were, and yet many of us humans can't find it in our hearts to give them that. They don't even exist to us in that way, because we cannot identify with them. It is quite simple though. What's the Muslim word for Pamela Anderson? *She's Canadian, but bear with me* Surely it must be Hoda El Merthi! Surely the latter seems foreign, but if you had not seen the word 'elephant' (or seen a real elephant) in your whole entire life you would be quite surprised and scared and curious and doubtful when you visited the circus. We are led to believe that there is something that the American soldiers are fighting and dying for. Well, there is. It is simply a matter of how you evaluate it. There is something that they are dying for; they die for our ignorance, they die for our mistakes: but they also die fighting injustice, and however wrong one may think the context may be, one cannot deny them that. The victims of 9/11 died for the terrorist's ignorance and mistakes. My heart goes out to all those who die have died and will die for their own or someone else's mistakes.
We are all human. I love everyone. Choose Christ; choose Allah; choose Yahweh; choose Buddha; choose fucking Tom Cruise if you really want to. If you would prefer, choose nothing, or don't even be really all that sure. Don't worry, it's cool... I understand. Choose to be politically incorrect just for kicks. The main thing you must choose is the ability to forgive, to be empathetic, to possess positive regard for the known and unknown alike, and to come together in the name of not God, but in the name of Human Unity. In the name of Fraternity, Kinship and an Optimist's Love.
The solution is not simple, and I am not against a real war if required. What is happening? A whole new generation of terrorists is being born. Either nuke the whole place or find another perhaps more sane way of solving the problem.
The reason why I say that Terrorism is not a War to be Fought is because there is no clear end. There is no parade and there is no victory. There can only be defeat. Someone will always harbour ill will to those who have wronged them, their family, their country, their religion in the past. For the sake of the planet, I pray that the general consensus will change. I do not ask for people to re-program themselves, but please, please think. Think of all and nothing and make your decision. For all the misanthropists out there, Fuck You. I believe that we can overcome Terror. It goes beyond odds of winning and bullshit. I have faith that the Human Race will win and have one jolly old parade. I have to. It's what keeps me going. Nothing anyone can say will deter that faith.
Since there is no clear and present danger, the only palpable targets are ideals. We must teach our children to love those who do us wrong. We can hate their guts on the surface, but we must possess an inner love for humanity. There must be something that is sacred; if not, all must be profane. We must first teach ourselves of this grand old idea that texts and texts and texts have written about at great length. We must fight hate. When hate is truly embodied, then so be it, let us strike, but only as a last resort. Only when we have exhausted our relentless skirmishes upon the values that our misguided neighbours hold dear shall we re-visit that war-torn alley. Embrace Peace, Love and Understanding. If that doesn't work, then pick up your guns and defend your sacred justice.
I do not know whether it was Right or Wrong for President Bush to have gone to war, so I hope I have not led you in any false direction. I do know that there is always a point of return, and that however bad a situation is, it isn't a total loss. Find time to laugh and not worry.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Mark Twain
I have learned to care, and I try not to be sick about it all. I just wanted to share my sometimes-moderate stance on this situation and I thank those who took the time to read this mountain from the top.
I know that we are living in a real world, and some or a lot or all of what I just said might be heavily or only applicable to some distant or never-existent Utopia.
Alas,
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -Mohandas Gandhi.
Sincerely,
John.
KAYMAN wrote:
I find it discomforting that people love life so much they'll kill each other for it, both sides believing that their lives and values are better than the others' lives and values. For in the end, whichever side was the 'most' right and rational will always prevail, because prevalence is the basis for rightness and rationality. That must be the ultimate optimistic standpoint: that whatever happens, things will turn out right, because most people will believe they were right. And it's true, because as soon as everything seems wrong, the system is overthrown, and a new one is created. The 'just' and 'unjust' are largely things that can only apply in retrospect, through the bias of history books. If Hitler won the war, we would all think the allies were bad. Terrorists are merely revolutionaries, and throughout history there have been many 'good' ones. Jesus, Guy Fawkes, Che Guevara,
Martin Luther King, Gandhi--they were all terrorists during their times; now they're heroes.
So who knows who to cheer for? In the end, whoever wins will be right. Maybe we should be cheering both sides on.
JOHN wrote:
heh. I beg to differ: what is seen and believed as rational and good is shaped by far more than simply who has prevailed historically. I personally am for gay marriage, but the majority of Americans are not. To say that history has been written and spun by the winners is one thing, but present and future choice is never solely determined externally. Obviously there are grey areas, but it's foolish to say that killing someone because of the colour of their skin is deemed as wrong because of a few white men with funny white wigs decided that they'd fight over it. Of course there are some good things in the world, and they need to be fought for if they are cherished. I don't believe in utter subjectivity. I don't think any sane person Would think that the Allies were bad, unless they were forced to believe so.
Of course, if Hitler had won, we all would be brainwashed *it's funny, cause he wasn't blonde haired or blue eyed... I guess the rules didn't apply*. But why do you think people wanted to overthrow hitler in the first place?? They opted for sanity and they decided to do what was right in their eyes, and let's face it, in reality's eyes. It is foolish to say that nothing can be measured and that black is white if you want it to be. Things are what they are and although rightness and rationality are by nature more subjective, I am far from believing that hitler had any sort of "morals" whatsoever. There is quite a difference between lunacy and morality.
But who decides what is right? I guess that's the real question... but really, it isn't quite a question as much as it is a general curiosity. No one Decides what is right or wrong, things are right or wrong according to society as a whole. I am glad that most people are not psychotic monsters who wish ill will to those who are different. I think most people are good because that's the only way they really can live. Chaos and injustice is easy, yes, but very scary and far more unknown nowadays. It is impractical to give in to tyrants like Hitler, because people enjoy and need and want comfort. When true tyrants like him come along who threaten people’s comfort, they will die for the comfort of the future and present alike. Comfort can also be translated in to love and/or decency.
KAYMAN wrote:
Lunacy, for one, is just a convenient general legal term to describe a mental condition of a minority. If everyone were schizophrenic, then the non-schizo minority would be the lunatics. If Hitler was a lunatic, and the German not necessarily agreed with him, but created the same effect by obeying him, then anyone in Germany who didn’t was crazy--and they were, because they got killed for disobeying. This idea that whatever prevails will be considered rational (if it isn’t, it will be overthrown until people decide, at least for a while, that it’s rational) is simply a rephrasing of the democratic ideal that you uphold, and more importantly, the underlying principle for human survival. Indeed, if humans could not be empathetic to other subjectivities, and decide on some general reality through which to communicate, then we would never have survived.
But no matter what that general reality [koinos kosmos] is, no matter what that unifying idea of the universe is, whether be it religion, social values, or general interests, and whether the religion be Muslim radicalism or Bush’s Catholicism-injected politics, whether the social values be Canadian gay rights or Nazi anti-Semitism, whether the general interests be playing guitar or shooting ducks, all of these “ideas” work to do the same thing: bring people together, unify them with the same purposes and beliefs. These social groups promote individual survival, but you are hardly able to choose which one you become a part of.
Obviously these groups frequently conflict, and indeed, unless we were globalized, unified as one consciousness, under one purpose (‘peace on earth’), then there will always be conflict. And conflict is good: we like diversity--but with it, we must accept the price. Is everyone equal, or is everyone unique? Surely it is the latter, but in that case, if you believe in free individualistic belief, you must also believe in endless conflict. Conflict is the driving force, and it seems to me that the “right” and “wrong”, “justice” and “injustice” of it are arbitrary terms--terms simply necessary for reassuring oneself that one is right. And since everyone believes they’re right--that’s one of those self-proving logical assurances--they will fight each other: but they can’t all be right, can they?
Yet they will all judge themselves right and the others wrong because their survival demands it, that is what is at hand. They are fighting each other for their right to live they way they want to. Seemingly paradoxically, they are KILLING each other for life. And they mourn death because their survival-driven-programmed brain demands that a human corpse disgusts them, so as to avert them from killing their own kind, and to warn them that predators are nearby. Yet at the same time, they will kill if their own survival, or the survival of their society demands it.
JOHN wrote:
I’m not talking linguistic semantics here; they don’t quite apply. Even if everyone decided to rename the colour Red to Turto, that colour would still be the Red that we know. One can hardly affirm that lunacy does not exist as a general construct as opposed to some point of view perspective. We label Megalomaniacs who use prejudice and injustice as lunatics because that is what they Are. Even if everyone in the world were schizophrenic or had some other sort of mental illness, the one person who didn’t have schizophrenia would still of course be mentally stable (perhaps not ‘normal’).
“Bringing people together” is what people need to stop forcing upon the world in a negative way. I agree that religion, etc, is designed to unify, but often this is used negatively. A more positive (perhaps-passive) approach must be used (unless of course there is a metaphorical gun in your face). My thinking is that there might as well not be religion if it’s going to be crammed down your throat.
Your humans as animals analogy is interesting, but far from what is true. The analogy itself is just as simplistic as the subject it seeks to criticize. Of course survival demands disgust, but my human decency is Not based on survival. War is not a very nice occurrence, but it is a necessary price when freedom is at stake. These are not just words I am using; freedom exists, and it’s a great thing when used properly (for improper use of freedom, see the current Iraq War).
Conflict is inevitable, but injustice doesn’t have to be. There are negative and positive forms of conflict. I’m all for the positive conflicts (diversity, etc.), but I do not think that negative conflict (war, prejudice) is a Necessary price. Of course, it always has been, so I can’t really use solid examples to prove that point, but that’s where my faith comes in. Of course everyone thinks that they are right, but it surely does not mean that everyone is, since that would be impossible if one were to believe in a universal set of laws.]]>
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Does the essay draw you in? Is it clear from the outset what I'm trying to say? What points need clarifying more/less?
I'll be finalising it and handing it in on Tuesday. All comments welcome!]]>
1. Man Recovers From Near-Coma After Two DecadesAs 2006 plummets towards its destined death, what stories of the year are you reminded of the most vividly?
For 19 years after a car accident, Terry Wallis lingered speechless...
2. Looks Can Kill
Black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty. It's also how black you look...
3. IQ Linked to Brain Structure
Embryonic stem cells helped rats suffering from Parkinson's-like symptoms...
4. Why We Are Not Chimps
Humans and chimpanzees are about 98 percent alike, yet the human brain is three times bigger and far more complex...
5. Stroke Injury Shows New Way to Kick the Habit
The brain damage caused by certain strokes may eliminate an addiction to nicotine...
6. Source of Empathy Found
Mirror neurons fire when you watch other people act...Cick here for loads more science stories from 2006...
Calling all lingering forum members: Link to your favourite science/sci-fi/philosophy stories right here!]]>
If substantial amounts of polonium 210 were used to poison Alexander V. Litvinenko, whoever did it presumably had access to a high-level nuclear laboratory and put himself at some risk carrying out the assassination, experts said yesterday.Polonium 210 is highly radioactive and very toxic. By weight, it is about 250 million times as toxic as cyanide, so a particle smaller than a dust mote could be fatal. It would also, presumably, be too small to taste.
There is no antidote, and handling it in a laboratory requires special equipment. But to be fatal it must be swallowed, breathed in or injected; the alpha particles it produces cannot penetrate the skin. So it could theoretically be carried safely in a glass vial or paper envelope and sprinkled into food or drink by a killer willing to take the chance that he did not accidentally breathe it in or swallow it.
“This is wild,” said Dr. F. Lee Cantrell, a toxicologist and director of the San Diego division of the California Poison Control System. “To my knowledge, it’s never been employed as a poison before. And it’s such an obscure thing. It’s not easy to get. That’s going to be something like the K.G.B. would have in some secret facility or something.”
In a quick search of medical journals, he could find only one article describing the deliberate use of a radioactive poison to kill. It was from 1994, he said, published in Russian.
Polonium is extremely rare in nature. Named by its discoverer, Marie Curie, after her native Poland, it occurs in trace amounts in uranium ore and has been found in minute quantities in plants like tobacco, as well as in humans who had eaten caribou that ate lichens growing near a uranium mine.
But making the “significant quantities” described in Mr. Litvinenko’s body by the British Health Protection Agency would require a nuclear reactor that could bombard the metallic element bismuth with neutrons.
“To most chemists, this is astonishing,” said Dr. Andrea Sella, a lecturer in inorganic chemistry at London’s University College. “This is not available commercially. It is present in food, but only in the kind of trace quantities that can be detected by ultrasensitive analytical techniques. It is one of the rarest elements on the earth’s crust and also one of the most exotic.”
He added: “This is not the kind of weapon that any kind of amateur could construct. It would require real resources to do it.” - link to full article]]>
Below are my (rather extensive, but accessible) notes
Check out these Ask.MeFi questions to get a broader overview on some of these topics:
The Flâneur Exposed and Dadaist Organic Urban Idealism?
(I have linked a couple of old Forum posts at the end too)
Enjoy!
The Flâneur: Baudelaire, Benjamin and Beyond
Definition of ‘The City’:
"The city is a human habitat that allows people to form relations with others at various levels of intimacy while remaining entirely anonymous." (taken from Wikipedia)
The ideal of 'the city' has stood as the most physically accessible representation of ‘Utopia’ since the days of Plato's Republic; the mental playground from which philosophers and writers have played with the subject of human.
Plato (through Socrates) constructs an ideal "city in speech," a theoretical city of theoretically perfect justice. Yet Plato constructs this theoretical city not only to examine the most just city imaginable, but primarily to discover how individuals themselves should best live.
Yet the meaning of ‘the city’ has changed much since the days of Plato.
Psychogeography:
Guy Debord noted “the pleasing vagueness” of the term psychogeography. He defines it as “the study of the specific effects of the geographic environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals”
Defoe : “the city is momentarily made strange… as its inhabitants are granted a vision of it as it might be heaven or hell”
Debord: “the essential emptiness of modern life is obscured behind an elaborate and spectacular array of commodities which our immersion in… leaves us disconnected from the history and community that might give our lives meaning”
Psychogeography then is an attempt to re-root us in our environments, the define us and re-establish our umbilical connections to the womb of society.
Peter Ackroyd gives the city to the writer : “in our modern technological landscape… dominated by surveillance and hostile to the pedestrian, it is now the novelist and poet, not the theorist, who are uncovering and celebrating these overlooked and forgotten corners of the city”]]>
Adam Curtis, “The Power of Nightmares” Part 3
On line conversations can spin around, going nowhere, at an incredible speed (and with a peculiar sort of ferocity). They can also lead you to strange, quiet places.
Last week – on line – I was discussing the possible meanings of a very old Egyptian statue: a representation of Khafra and Horus. Horus – depicted as a stylized falcon – cradles the back of the Pharaoh's head with his outstretched wings, perhaps whispering celestial mysteries into his ear.
No doubt, egyptologists can offer a more scholarly, evidence supported interpretation.
Beyond the precise political and religious uses to which the statue was put during Khafra's reign, and after, we were (we are) fascinated by the waking dream-state the statue presents.
That is, the after-life and eternity fixated Egyptians carried with them, it seems, a dream of life's purpose that linked the mundane to the supra-mundane. This dream inspired them, during that ancient civilization's most fertile period, to embark on a sort of stone-based space program, an effort to build eternal structures and create a universe of imagery that kept the dream-state alive in people's minds everyday.
I can't know with certainty, but I believe the old civilization, the culture that built immense monuments to cosmic concerns, faded as a dream-world first and then, due to various social/political pressures and time's irresistible damage, crumbled into what came next.
...
Needless to say, America, during the (both on the ground and mind-formed) empire building decades that followed World War Two's end, cannot be compared, at least not flawlessly, to ancient Egypt; still, it (the U.S.) nurtured its own dream-state, one so seductive the world seemed compelled to fall deeply in love with it even as the real U.S. - or at least its strategists in Washington, committed all the old crimes using all the old excuses.
The dream was of a technologically advanced, politically fair-minded, future-oriented civilization, the burning chrome heart of shining modernity, the creator of actual stairways to heaven.
...
In recent years, gathering greater and greater speed with each moment, this dream, this promise actually, has been dying. It's being replaced, as Adam Curtis states, with a nightmare of endlessly increased security, eternal war against shadowy foes (which, Curtis points out, don't exist in the hyperventilating form our governments present to justify their draconian flights of dark fancy).
When your dreams are supplanted by nightmares, is disintegration far behind?
]]>In a [short] letter to The Daily Telegraph, 110 teachers, psychologists, children's authors and other experts call on the Government to act to prevent the death of childhood...
- Link to full article
- Link to the full letterHow do we loosen the 'straitjacket' of modern society?]]>
Consider the following data-storage methods:
Stone lasts for thousands of years - that's why there's still standing remnants of past civilizations and that's why we've been able to discover and interpret ancient inscriptions on stone tablets or hieroglyphics.
Paper lasts for hundreds of years - thus the possibility of existence of the classics (what would we know if no one had ever decided to write down their ideas instead of just pass their stories on by mouth?), etc., and that spicy/musty smell of used bookstores. (Sniff...mmm....)
But what about electronic devices - disks, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, and data sticks, etc? These devices have a life span of decades, if that. DVDs, CDs,...despite their obvious advantages, they all degrade quite quickly. And besides that, consider that 30 years ago, if a TV or radio broke down, you'd bring it to a repairman. Nowadays though, it's cheaper (and much to the benefit of the corporation that makes the products) for you to just throw out your TV or computer or car and buy a new one because these devices aren't designed to endure. If there's anything left for future archeaoligists to find, it'll be huge piles of hundreds of thousands of invincibly plastic computer monitors which were responsible for putting so much lead into the ground. There'll be archeaological layers of garbage.
Furthermore, technologies now change at a rapid pace. If I gave you a diskette from 10 or 15 years ago, would you, or more importantly, your computer, know what to with it (or have any use for it)? Which goes to say, in 15 years, if someone gives you a piece of data from 2006, will it be completely foreign and useless to you?
Everything that survives will be virtual. If this Huge Cyber Entity called the Internet continues to evolve, then perhaps the archeaologists (if they haven't died from water poisoning, climate change, or a nuclear meltdown) will discover something of this strange and revolutionary era......a mish mash of millions of porn sites, blogs, strange news reports, and even stranger things, like broadcasts from YouTube.com..."The Scowls" and "The Scowls Part2". (These videos are quite strange, I suggest you check them out.) What else can you find on YouTube or the internet that might make it to the future archaeologists? (Hopefully Vogons will come and destroy the Earth and save us from thinking about all this)]]>
Gastronomic journeyThis has to be the most bizarre dish of the bunch:
Food writer Stefan Gates is on a mission.
Armed with a strong stomach, and equal nerve, he has travelled to China, Afghanistan and South Korea in search of the ultimate edible challenge.
Will he relish his scorpion supper or cast aside his slippery sea slugs?
What's the single weirdest thing you've ever eaten?Braised camel hump
When I saw this on the menu in a Beijing restaurant, I had to try it.
Never in my life did I imagine that I would eat a braised camel hump.
It had been sliced, slowly braised, then battered and deep-fried. I have peeled the batter off this one.
Its taste and texture is disarmingly similar to Spam.
I think slowly stewed Horse Intestine tops my list. Here's a photo I took a year or so ago in a Japanese convenience store:
Mmmmm, bowelicious...]]>
We are approaching a period of perilous geopolitical instability:Are we observing the End of Days? Or perhaps, more likely, a defining period in humanity's future is in the process of unfolding?
- when weapons of mass destruction will be more varied, more deadly, more available, cheaper to obtain, and easier to hide;
- when the strength (and the ambitions) of regional powers will increase rapidly while the stabilizing might of the U.S. could be in decline;
- when new technologies such as genetic engineering, robotics, nanotechnology, and possibly artificial intelligence could enable radical shifts in the balance of power;
- and when global climatic conditions -- including increased frequency and severity of killer storms, droughts, infrastructure damage, crop failures, and even whole ecosystem collapses -- will contribute to growing tensions.
The global situation is becoming a vortex, a maelstrom in which multiple risk factors will swirl and combine to create sudden new crises for which we may not have time to prepare. The act of reaching into the vortex to grab hold of and deal with one problem could send others spinning in new, ever more dangerous directions.
It's a recipe for cataclysmic disaster. How dangerous it actually becomes will depend largely on how fast things happen.
- Will climate change devolve into sudden catastrophic shifts, with ice caps melting, sea levels rising, and populations drowning? Could it occur, as some experts warn, over a span as short as ten years?
- Will the looming peak oil crisis arrive within the next decade, or will new discoveries and techniques give us half a century to transition away from fossil fuels?
- Will nascent world powers like China and India find ways to resolve disputes peacefully, or will growing competition for resources spark into armed conflict?
- Will molecular manufacturing, perhaps the most transformative of all the emerging technologies, burst onto the scene before 2020 -- or even 2015 -- and without international agreements for safe and responsible use? Or will it develop more slowly, and therefore less disruptively?
All these questions await answers... - link
Is it all overblown hype or merely a conservative estimate of the troubles ahead?]]>
Why is it that the United States, which has not suffered a major terrorist attack at home for more than four years, thinks it's at war, while the United Kingdom, which was hit by a major terrorist attack just a year ago, does not?The evocation of war is omnipresent in the US. Turn on Fox News and you find a war veteran recounting his experiences on Hill 805 in Vietnam. At one point he says: "I had the privilege of storming the machine gun". The privilege. Walk into the Stanford University bookstore and you find a special display marked "Salute Our Heroes. 20% Off Select Patriotic Titles". Imagine that in your local Waterstone's.
On Tuesday, to mark the 230th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776, President George Bush addressed troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Insisting that the US would "never accept anything less than complete victory" in Iraq, he informed them "you're winning this war". Telling the story of Captain Chip Eldridge, who lost part of his left leg in Afghanistan but came back to run a mile in less than seven minutes and jump out of planes, he declared: "The spirit of '76 lives on in the courage that you show each day". On Fox News his speech was followed by comments from the neo-conservative editor of the Weekly Standard, William Kristol, who observed that you can't have freedom without fighting for it and that the Declaration of Independence was also a declaration of war.
For the Bush administration and its conservative supporters, there's no question about it: America is at war.
- from The Guardian
- in related news a video of London bomber is aired on al-JazeeraWe use the terms WWI and WWII as though the 'World' their name encompasses is all we ever need acknowledge. Could we be now locked in the beginnings of WWIV (with The Cold War being III)? As civilisation has grown in complexity so the way in which wars manifest themselves has changed. A hands-on war between Western powers, such as those carried out in WWI and II, is surely unthinkable with today's devastating technology and modern population sizes. The internal battle we now fight is symbolic of a planet of shifting identities. Where one expresses oneself not by the colours of a national flag but by the ideologies and rhetoric used by one's peers. Living in a society where boundaries become drawn by modern global communications as easily as ancient global religions, we must realise that the greatest juxta positions of our time are also its greatest threat.
Is the distinction between US and UK viewpoints an innate one or one spun by media, policies and rhetoric? Is humanity destined to lock itself into permanent, self perpetuated states of ever evolving war? How do you see the 'War on Terror' ending?
Shop affronts
Jun 29th 2006 | GUANGZHOU
Chinese consumers are ganging up on their retailers
ON AN otherwise quiet Friday afternoon in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, 500 shoppers gather outside a Gome electrical superstore in the downtown district. They arrive en masse at the designated time—June 16th at 4pm—that they had previously agreed online. Several hours later, they emerge clutching boxes, having secured 10-30% discounts on cameras, DVD players and flat-screen televisions. “It was great,” says Fairy Zhang. “We just bought an apartment and this way we can afford nice things for it.” The previous weekend, over 100 locals visited Meizhu Central, a well known furniture outlet, to haggle over the prices of kitchen cabinets and dining-room furniture.
Tuangou, or team buying, aims to drive unprecedented bargains by combining the reach of the internet with the power of the mob. It is spreading through China like wildfire. The practice originated in online chat-rooms but has quickly inspired several specialist websites, such as 51tuangou.com and www.teambuy.com.cn. Zhang Wei, who helped to set up teambuy less than six months ago, says the site has 10,000 registered members. The company plans to expand into Beijing and Shanghai.
The first team buyers found each other by accident as they chatted online about buying everything from electronics to cars and even apartments—and realised they could get a better price if they went shopping together. Getting a discount is also a sort of insurance policy against ending up with badly made or fake goods from Chinese shops. Some shoppers just show up at a store unannounced to see if they can bargain their way to a discount, says Chen Shu, a 32-year old from Shanghai: “Sometimes we call the shop, but often we just surprise them. Shopkeepers argue, but in the end they want the business.” Others are using websites like Ms Zhang's, which work with shops to organise team-buying sessions where discounts are guaranteed without much confrontation.
[...]
link]]>
ONE of Britain's most senior military strategists has warned that western civilisation faces a threat on a par with the barbarian invasions that destroyed the Roman empire.
In an apocalyptic vision of security dangers, Rear Admiral Chris Parry said future migrations would be comparable to the Goths and Vandals while north African "barbary" pirates could be attacking yachts and beaches in the Mediterranean within 10 years....
...Parry pointed to the mass migration which disaster in the Third World could unleash. "The diaspora issue is one of my biggest current concerns," he said. "Globalisation makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned . . . [the process] acts as a sort of reverse colonisation, where groups of people are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the internet."...
...He pinpoints 2012 to 2018 as the time when the current global power structure is likely to crumble. Rising nations such as China, India, Brazil and Iran will challenge America’s sole superpower status.This will come as "irregular activity" such as terrorism, organised crime and "white companies" of mercenaries burgeon in lawless areas.
The effects will be magnified as borders become more porous and some areas sink beyond effective government control.
Parry expects the world population to grow to about 8.4 billion in 2035, compared with 6.4 billion today. By then some 68% of the population will be urban, with some giant metropolises becoming ungovernable. He warns that Mexico City could be an example.
In an effort to control population growth, some countries may be tempted to copy China’s "one child" policy. This, with the widespread preference for male children, could lead to a ratio of boys to girls of as much as 150 to 100 in some countries. This will produce dangerous surpluses of young men with few economic prospects and no female company.
"When you combine the lower prospects for communal life with macho youth and economic deprivation you tend to get trouble, typified by gangs and organised criminal activity," said Parry. "When one thinks of 20,000 so-called jihadists currently fly-papered in Iraq, one shudders to think where they might go next."
The competition for resources, Parry argues, may lead to a return to "industrial warfare" as countries with large and growing male populations mobilise armies, even including cavalry, while acquiring high-technology weaponry from the West....
...Some of the consequences would be beyond human imagination to tackle. The examples he gave, tongue-in-cheek, include: "No wind on land and sea; third of population dies instantly; perpetual darkness; sores; Euphrates dries up ‘to clear way for kings from the east’; earth's core opens."
- from The Times OnlineWow. Talk about fodder for another 200 Hollywood Disaster Movies...
I like worst case scenarios (some more fodder here), they make ignoring the impending realistic dangers all the more easy. What over the top, but still believable, 'worst case scenarios' can you come up with? Pictures outlining the destruction would be lovely...]]>
"Motorola has patented a
Feng Shui detector
The device houses a camera that checks the colour of the property, a microphone that listens for noise from nearby roads and factories and a compass to find north – a crucial factor for Feng Shui enthusiasts. It can also measure the strength of AM and FM radio signals from local radio transmitters and connect to the nearest mobile phone base station to check for indications of cellphone signal strength."
Read the patent application here.
Perhaps coming soon: a field unit, designed for landscapes
– gardens, campsites, caverns... Attachable to airplanes,
so the flight can adapt in progress to the most psychologically
calming path...
Or, Feng Shui for Machine Gun Nests".
My recent post on the ideal city has got me a thinkin' about utopia, and more specifically, what I would perceive as utopia. The subject has come up more than a few times on here already...
from the Independent
'Robin Hood' Gang Rob Gourmet Stores in Bid to Feed Hamburg's Poor
by Tony Paterson
They dress up in pink catsuits, have names like "Spider Mum" and feel
a social obligation to plunder the most expensive restaurants and
gourmet delicatessens in town as part of a campaign to help the poor.
Last week the well-heeled citizens of Hamburg's Altona district got a
taste of their antics when 30 of them marched into the city's luxury
"Fresh Paradise Goedeken" supermarket and walked out five minutes
later with €15,000 (£10,000) worth of stolen goods.
The gang's booty included magnums of Champagne at €99 a bottle, filets
of Japanese Kobe beef at €108 a kilogram, legs of venison, a salmon
and several boxes of Valrhona chocolate.
Before leaving, gang members thrust a bouquet of flowers into the
hands of a shop assistant. Attached was a handwritten note which
proclaimed: "Survival in the city of millionaires would be impossible
without us!" It was signed by "Spider Mum", "Santa Guevara" and
"Multiflex".
Another note later released by the gang insisted that the haul had
been distributed to Hamburg's needy, to the "social workers, cleaning
ladies and minimum-wage earners". It added: "The places of wealth in
this town are as numerous as the opportunities to take it."
"It was a well-planned robbery," Carsten Sievers, the store's manager,
said on Friday last week. "Somebody had obviously been in the shop
before the main contingent arrived and had already filled up several
shopping trolleys."
Fourteen squad cars and a police helicopter scoured the Altona
district for more than an hour after the robbery, but failed to find
the perpetrators.
"The gang covered its tracks completely. They act like professionals,"
Bodo Franz, the head of a Hamburg police unit investigating the
robbery, said.
[...]
]]>
If every human on the Earth, right now, on this day, vanished… how long would it take for all human structures; items, building, anything we’ve physically created (skyscrapers, homes, phones, televisions, all of it) – in how many years will it take for these things to crumble into dust? 1,000 years? 2,000? I figure nature will pull apart things fairly quickly, but a more scientific answer would be great.
Thanks.]]>
Bush: I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.- E&P - Washington Post
- Crooks and Liars link (with videos of speech)
Interesting how Bush's definition of spiritual significance only stretches as far as:
- 'What you look like' - obviously skin colour / ethnicity
- 'Where you live' - political boundaries
i.e. 'America vs everywhere that isn't America'
The vast conflicts inherent in various systems of 'belief' are not accounted for here. Neither are persons of differing sexual persuasion, or those members of society with no religious convictions whatsoever. Because we know Bush's stance on these issues, and because his world, and his word, are so black / white defined should we liberal types consider ourselves outside of Bush's universe completely?
The black / white world drawn by mainstream politics tends to heat my blood to boiling point, but throw religion into the mix and you have nothing but my explosive attention.
Perhaps Bush really believes that people who inhabit the grey areas in his world view have no spiritual desire, and therefore no right 'to be free' at all... What do you think?
(Mirrored on main site)]]>
So here's some text from the FAQ:
What is HEL LOOKS?
HEL LOOKS is selected street fashion from Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The pictures are taken in the streets and clubs of Helsinki from July 2005 onwards.
Who made this?
HEL LOOKS is a hobby project of Liisa Jokinen and Sampo Karjalainen. You can contact us at info(at)hel-looks.com.
Why do you do this?
Because we want to document Finnish looks. Because we want to encourage people to dress individually and create their own styles. Because we want to promote emerging Finnish designers. Because we like fashion, clothing, young people and photography. And most of all - because you look great
[...]
site URI...
http://www.hel-looks.com/faq.html]]>
It produces about 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year, consuming millions of birch, poplar and bamboo trees.
The move came as China said it would raise some consumption taxes next month in a bid to help the environment and narrow the gap between rich and poor.
- more on this story here...It's always the little things that make the biggest difference and where China is concerned ALL the little things are big things...
I just finished reading Jared Diamond's Collapse, in which mankind's burden on our environment is outlined as the major cause of societal collapse since time immemorial. One of the most striking conclusions he comes to is that if China managed to bring up its national living standards to first world standards the world's consumption of major resources would DOUBLE....
And that's just with the population they have at the moment...
Japan, where I currently live, love their disposable chopsticks. Maybe they should take a leaf out of the book of their much more enormous neighbour.]]>
A Nation of Guinea Pigs
There's a new outsourcing boom in South Asia - and a billion people are jockeying for the jobs. How India became the global hot spot for drug trials.
By Jennifer Kahn
The town of Sevagram in central India has long been known for three things: its heat, which is oppressive even by Indian standards; its snakes, which are abundant; and its ashram, a derelict and increasingly malarial retreat preserved as a tribute to Mohandas Gandhi, who lived here and was known for tenderly relocating the poisonous vipers that slithered into his shack.
Despite this intemperate setting, Sevagram's hospital has a good reputation. Though the power fails often, forcing medics to use the backlit screens of their cell phones for illumination, the standard of care is higher than at many of the country's public hospitals, and the facilities are comparatively plush. At the nearby government medical center in Nagpur, for instance, patients sometimes have to sleep on mattresses on the floor.
Last year, Sevagram began garnering even more cachet. A German pharmaceutical company called Boehringer Ingelheim, whose latest stroke-prevention drug was making its way through the clinical pipeline, approved the town's hospital as a trial site - one of 28 in India recruiting stroke victims to round out the company's 18,500-person study.
The drug regimen, known as Aggrenox, was being tested for its ability to forestall a second stroke. S. P. Kalantri, the doctor tapped to lead the trial in Sevagram, quickly grasped the offer's appeal. Patients in Sevagram are poor enough that the benefits of taking part in the study would amount to a health care windfall; among other things, Boehringer Ingelheim guaranteed participants two physicals during each of the three years that the trial would run. For each person enrolled, moreover, the hospital would receive 30,000 rupees (about $665) - no small amount, given the puny budget of the center's stroke ward, a single room of eight pallet beds. Kalantri talked the matter over with the chair of the hospital's ethics committee, and the two concluded that the trial drug itself, with its possible side effects and limited efficacy, would provide little benefit to their patients. Then they went ahead and signed up.
[...]
full here
]]>Now, im no religious zealout, in fact im an atheist, but there are similarities to story in the world today. The Bible, whilst mostly a load of tripe, does have some stuff within its vast pages that ring true. In the story of Noah, the world was corrupt, full of evil and generally a pretty bad place to be. Out of the context of my own life, I think this is an assertion that could be widely recognised today, especially by the 90% (or so) of people who live on about $1 a day.
In the story of Noah the world flooded and wiped it all out - a clean slate if you like. Now the very same thing is happening today - its almost the worlds self defense mechanism - when populated by twats, flood yourself and start again. In a sense therefore, if we were really thinking about the world long term then we would encourage global warming, recognising it as a force for good - much like the body rids itself of a virus, the world is casting aside its own infection. No doubt Microsoft would build a bloody big barge and weather the storm, but the world can but try.]]>
Sun Mar 26, 2006
By Krittivas Mukherjee
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Think Bollywood, and what usually comes to mind are
kitschy, megawatt musicals with lavish song-and-dance sequences
largely disconnected from the plot.
In a three-hour film -- it could even be a grisly thriller -- there
may be as many as 10 songs with leading men and women strutting their
stuff in settings as diverse as idyllic mountain meadows and grimy
city streets.
And every time the music starts, the storyline comes to a halt as the
hero and heroine dance in gaudy attires that change with dizzying
frequency.
The sophisticated decry them and Western audiences hardly know them,
but for the vast crowds who pack the cinemas in India's teeming towns
and cities, and the travelling screens that take the country's dream
factory to its villages, the songs are the chief attraction.
But change is in the air for the country which leads the world in
movie production, with a growing band of filmmakers replacing
"interruptive music" with a soundtrack that blends with the plot
rather than dominates it.
"New directors are now making shorter films where heroes and heroines
don't lip-sync songs," said Shankar Mahadevan of the popular Bollywood
music director trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.
"Music happens in these films as background tracks."
[...]
full at Reuters
]]>