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A small circle: The Final Frontier? |
Category: Diary 19 comments 14 Jun 2006 @ 00:55 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : ETEvery child gazing at the sky at night wonders about this at one point or another, they wonder about that vast field of stars and whether there are ET's out there. Are there sentient species out there? Do they know about Earth? Are they like us (self-centric and destructive) or is there some benevolent ET who might make contact or step in and save us before it's too late? 14 Jun 2006 @ 01:00 by i2i : LOL Yes, I am sure that almost every child has - I know I have. My brother used to wonder whether our planet had been set up by some entity or entities and whether they were finding out what it is they wanted to know. If there are such entities out there, methinks they are waiting to see whether we will save ourselves. Do, or do not! There is no try. 14 Jun 2006 @ 01:27 by swanny : Eco Footprints Not sure what more I can do I've got my eco footprint down to about 3 or 4 which is still unsustainable while the average North Americans is about 8 - 13 I use solar power, I attend Church, I volunteer in the community, I support the Green Party, I write letters to the editor, I recycle and pick up trash, I donate excess goods to charity, I design solar homes, I do art activism, I'm part of the world garden movement, I talk and write letters to my members of parliament, I try to get out into nature and preserve it as much as I can, I use energy efficient appliances and try to keep power bills low. I try to buy organic and environmentally friend products and vehicles, I practice naturopathy and meditation and feng shui. I try to build and do art with more natural products. I don't watch much tv or radio, I listen to classical music. I invest in eco and green companies. I try to be constructive and helpful and educate and be kind to others and I do on a below poverty level income. but one only has so much time and energy and I'm afraid I'm getting old. Ecofootprint link = http://www.myfootprint.org/ so what more? and what do you do? ed 14 Jun 2006 @ 06:14 by i2i : No man is an island When I said, "we have the know-how," I didn’t mean any individual person by itself - I don’t think I did - I think I meant humanity as a whole. Mankind is a collective entity. If civilization were to collapse and I were severed from the rest of mankind, I wouldn’t know how to go about generating electricity or any of the devices that run on it, even less a computer. Heck, I am not even sure I would know how to build a fire, Swanny, lol. Our civilization (the way we do things and interact with our environment and with each others) works as a collective, an entity that has taken a life of its own. It is our strength and our weakness, and quite possibly, if things do not improve rapidly, our demise. Although there are forces (financial interests, and various powers, some of them criminal) who exploit the system in very predatory, and often short sighted ways (there are a lot of greed and abuses, and senseless aggression and destructions in the world - and I am sure I don’t need to go over that with you Swanny - and although there will always be individuals who try to do the right thing, not much has changed in that since the feudal times – the rules of the game have changed, the mentalities have remained the same,) I do not believe anyone is really in control of that collective. And the collective (and the logic by which it operates and upon which we have build our societies and our global economy) is greater than the sum of the parts. So the problem is not so much a problem of what each one of us does individually (although living an individual ecologically balanced and socially responsible life is certainly an improvement over living a selfish, shortsighted and irresponsible one,) but a collective problem. How can Humanity find an alternative to serving a system which does no longer serve the future, and which, for all practical purposes, is actually threatening that future? Some people have been expressing some hope that the issue will be addressed through a change of consciousness and that such a change begins with thee and me, a change from the individuals (i.e. the inside, the self) to the collective (i.e. the outside, society, the world.) Which is all well and good (Bless their heart - I have no argument with that) but things are not as simple as that and this kind of osmosis works both ways. {link:http://www.workman.com/catalog/showtoc.cgi?0761109196|Children Learn What They Live} and so do adults. In Maslowian terms, too many people are operating in deficit motivation as opposed to growth motivation. The majority, the great majority of people on the planet, DOES NOT enjoy autonomy, or a relative independence from physical and social needs. They don’t have access to the Internet. And far from being in a position to question the world they live in and resist "enculturation," they are the victim of it. Some of the problem we experience today, like the ruthless, senseless rape of the planet along with the devastation of entire branches of our ecosystem and the destruction of countless living species is not just the result of the frantic careless activity and over-exploitation of powerful soulless mega-industries, but also the result of all those left behind, the action of throve of landless people who live in utter poverty, people whose traditional ways have been destroyed and who live by any mean they can, often at the expense of what remains of the environment, desperate people (poachers, or people who burn trees in the rain forest to create lands for themselves, or people whose sheep herds contributes to the desertification of the Sahelian and Sudanian zones of West Africa, Warlords in Somalia, etc.) It doesn’t have to be that way. Humanity has the collective intelligence to do better than that. Ming the Mechanic has somewhere on his newslog a post about "collective intelligence", the article is called {link:http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001647.htm|Key Concept} (and, ah, I see you must have read it, as you took the time of leaving a comment there.) I liked the post a lot better than you did, one section in particular held my attention, as it sums it all up in a nutshell: "As it is right now, humankind is a schizophrenic moron. Or manic-depressive, maybe. Sometimes brilliant and productive, mostly lethargic, largely criminally destructive. Despite that many members of the human race are well-meaning, knowledgeable and resourceful. We desperately need to be connected in a manner that is constructively complex, so as to awaken our collective intelligence. Maybe that is something we can do on the internet, maybe it is a different way of doing a few key things. It appears that none of us are smart enough to solve the puzzle. But we might be smart enough to discover patterns that allow something bigger to emerge. We might not be clever enough to know exactly how to do it, but we might know how to start something that triggers the emergence of a bigger level of intelligence." 14 Jun 2006 @ 16:45 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Japan - 1600 Jared Diamond had an article in the New York Times (01/01/05) {link:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/opinion/01diamond.html|link}, in which he speaks of Japan during the 17th century: In the 1600's, Japan faced its own crisis of deforestation, paradoxically brought on by the peace and prosperity following the Tokugawa shoguns' military triumph that ended 150 years of civil war. The subsequent explosion of Japan's population and economy set off rampant logging for construction of palaces and cities, and for fuel and fertilizer. The shoguns responded with both negative and positive measures. They reduced wood consumption by turning to light-timbered construction, to fuel-efficient stoves and heaters, and to coal as a source of energy. At the same time, they increased wood production by developing and carefully managing plantation forests. Both the shoguns and the Japanese peasants took a LONG-TERM VIEW: the former expected to pass on their power to their children, and the latter expected to pass on their land. Japan's isolation at the time made it obvious that the country would have to depend on its own resources and couldn't meet its needs by pillaging and plundering other countries [or colonizing Space]. Today, despite having the highest human population density of any large developed country, Japan is more than 70 percent forested. 14 Jun 2006 @ 17:12 by i2i : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Jared Diamond's book, {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v408/__show_article/_a000408-000067.htm|Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed}, is very relevant indeed. I did see the exhibit that the book inspired, last year, at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Good article too, in the NY Times - thank you, Hanae. The article comes with this challenging and inspiring conclusion: "Do we have cause for hope? Many of my friends are pessimistic when they contemplate the world's growing population and human demands colliding with shrinking resources. But I draw hope from the knowledge that humanity's biggest problems today are ones entirely of our own making. Asteroids hurtling at us beyond our control don't figure high on our list of imminent dangers. To save ourselves, we don't need new technology [though, new technology would be nice too]: we just need the political will to face up to our problems of population and the environment. I also draw hope from a unique advantage that we enjoy. Unlike any previous society in history, our global society today is the first with the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of societies remote from us in space and in time. When the Maya and Mangarevans were cutting down their trees, there were no historians or archaeologists, no newspapers or television, to warn them of the consequences of their actions. We, on the other hand, have a detailed chronicle of human successes and failures at our disposal. Will we choose to use it?" 14 Jun 2006 @ 18:08 by jerryvest : I don't think outer space is an escape route for our abuse and neglect issues. Once we recognize and accept that we are all in total interaction on the planet and what affects us affects everything and every one. Those of us in the Newciv know that improvement for one is improvement for all. While our elected officials continue to rant and rave about solutions to these global problems, they still get caught up in misusing or misadministering our human and natural resources while thinking only of themselves and their corporate greed machines. Our Earth is our mother and we need to nourish and support her and commit ourselves to using our knowledge and skills to protect and preserve her and all of her inhabitants. Way to go Swanny...and, all of you loving creatures. 14 Jun 2006 @ 18:15 by swanny : Change Thanks Jerry and for the parts we all play. Problem is though as long as most peoples livlihood is dependant upon exploiting, destroying and abusing the planet and each other then not much can change. This philosophical idea or work and "right work" has to be thus more emphasied and we have to look at the holistic and big picture and not just the short term bottom line. Most of our current attention span is not very long term either. We have to consider thus the holistic and long term implications if we can. We will never totally succeed mind you but we have to try to factor in as much as we can as best we can. As well in this new "GLOBAL REALITY" we need a major shift in our thinking ability and capacity. A global reality and paradigm requires us to think globally rather than the normal "linear" thinking. Unfortuneately 80 to 90 % are naturally linear thinkers and only 10 % are global. Whether we can learn to think global would perhaps require a major overhaul of the education systems of the world. 14 Jun 2006 @ 18:41 by swanny : Profit As well in a global and "connectedness" sense the concept of profit has to be revisited. In a global or connected world profit takes on a different meaning as undo profits in one area mean undo losses in another. With all things connected then there is no real profit but as well there is no real loss. Win win win if it can achieved is only achieved by looking at the "whole cost or global account or accounting." And then profit is rare unless it is on a "global" scale of achievement ie: Man on the moon. In an interconnected world thus profit and loss become somewhat moot and the true measure becomes ????? well something which requires more parity than the world of the present. 14 Jun 2006 @ 19:55 by i2i : Meditation XVII: No man is an island... "All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all... No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." ---John Donne (from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions) The idea that people are not isolated from one another, but that mankind is interconnected is famously expressed in the well known meditation of Donne, 1624 - it is representative of the Renaissance era in which it was written. 14 Jun 2006 @ 21:18 by swanny : Thanks Thanks for that... Tis a nice piece from a renaissance of the past which was itself perhaps an outgrowth of the "reformation" of 1480s or so that preceded it, although I think too that the Renaissance was highly a product of France and Italy and perhaps Spain. I was not familar with Donne the author of these noteable phrases, will have to give him a gander. I'd paraphrase and update it as this perhaps.... "All humankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one human dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all... No human is an island, entire of itself...any human's death diminishes me, because I am involved in humankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Revised John Donne June 14, 2006 Earth thanks again ed 17 Jun 2006 @ 01:27 by Hanae @68.164.65.16 : Fundamental unity in shared evolution We are what we see, our behaviors, responses and feelings co-evolved with our perceptions of the world outside ourselves. More than language, it is our shared evolution, and shared sapience, that is at the base of that communion we experience as a species and recognize in those other species with whom we share that same evolution. Making the jump from intelligence to sapience is that moment when the intelligence looks outside itself to see beauty in its own fundamental unity with the environment in which it evolved. 4 Jul 2006 @ 00:30 by i2i : Moderator intervention Blueboy's comment [3 Jul 2006 @ 05:35] has been moved to {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v506/__show_article/_a000506-000001.htm|TrollXing} 4 Jul 2006 @ 04:33 by jobrown : These Government people -- throughout the Ages-- have "always" been "The One Group" who thought that The Outer Space; "Final Frontier" is theirs at a whim -or with a little swing of a Magic Wand. But that is not the case!....has never been so...I dare to say. Of course, I can not prove my statement to the satisfaction of Mainstream 'Scientists' -but on other hand; nor can they prove me wrong!... I don't recall one single such Group/Government, not among any of the Ancient Civililazations, nor in any more Modern, that would have had access to the Final/Last Frontier, meaning free coming and going, coming & going. They might come -once, and then became trapped (?) here -or maybe they were able to go, but did they really come ack and then repeat these Trips freely, at will???... I doubt! It certainly hasn't happened in Modern History! What ever little we know about for instance the Harappa Civilazation in India; they were able to fly Saucers, but how far? And why did they disaapear and not continue? What about the Lemurians and the Atlanteans? What I can gather is that since Human psychology is Human psychology and people with most fear and need to control others in order to abusively exploit the/ir own Peoples; each and every Government in every Civilization, they did not access their own Inner Skills to the level of consiousness, that would have made Star Trek living / "ways" to THEIR EveryDay experience. Today is no different from those Ancient Civilzations. Like I already mentioned:"that one group" is the one made up of such fearfilled, insecure people that all they were able to do was live a life filled with brutality and crime stealing LIFE Energy from others; none of these groupd' "the One group"; the Insecure and overly fearfilled Ones, NEVER made it anywhere!... They all perished eventually in and through their own destructivness, while pretending to be their brother's Keeper!...Cain exploiting and then -eventually- killing Abel. History repeating Itself -again! What else is new,huh? I personally do see every Human as their own "Island" and our task is to (re-)connect with others ("all the rest of the Islands) by relating to eachother with compassion and feel compassion for those who suffer; that makes us relate! In other words: It goes bothways! I do like both your Subjects/Concepts here; the one about Cain& Abel and \the final Frontier and I hope more people would join and share their thoughts (and not just to batter down an other member m but truly from genuine interest and get a good exchange of thoughts/ideas going here! That would be very cool! : ) ( It usually takes me a few days of honing; re-writing, correcting/ediditing a comment as long as the one I posted last night on your blog... Sorry... My brains go to sleep no later than 10-ish every night!...sigh... Then the next few days the editing work begins and the eventually 'you' can read the final result; the comment I really had in mind in the first place!...hehehehe... well, that is how it seems to work for me. You are welcome to keep my comment in trollxing, though I would have preffered that you had asked for clarification or something, like showed some interest -instead of despice and need to ever so descretly belittle and invalidate -to show your own sharpness!... this is how your handling the comment comes across to others -or at least to me!... I don't know to what extent that was your intention. One more thing; right now I have very little time... in the middle of a big Move; from one end of the country to the other... so... but I still would steal some time to follow the thread, as it is kinda vital to Humankind today to touch these issues. I like your comment: No Man Is An Island, even if I see it a little different! (I do believe Life/"God" made us all to an In-divido: Un-divided; not born 'with' or 'to' double standars, anymore than swallowing other peoples thoughts/ideas unquestioned whter they resonate with our own Inner Truth or not. this way of seeing us Humans make Every Man his/her own Island, who then builds their Rainbow bridges to all rest of Islands as they re-cover their Divinty. So, The Rainbow Bridge become the real connecting factor: How we relate and share and respond!... Has everything to do with our frequencies... the Rainbow Colours and the Sound emanating from each colour, makes up the Music of the Spheres, I think... both here on Earth and in the most Faraway Galaxies! Thanks i2i! / Astrid 5 Jul 2006 @ 09:50 by i2i : blueboy Thanks for the feedback and thank you for your time. Non-sequiturs often appear under the form of unintentional (sophomoric), of deliberate (trolling) disconnected comments, or changes in subject. The comment to which you are referring was removed either for its lack of clarity as to its purpose (because of style or content) or because of its apparent lack of relevance to the topic at hand from the thread on which it was posted. My "intention" is clear: I understand that not all such comments are sophomoric in nature, nor the result of trolling, so your comment was posted in TrollXing so as to offer an avenue for those interested in the topic or style contained in the said comment independently of the context in which the comment was posted. I think you will agree that it is more civilized than to just delete a comment outright, or even to block a poster. It has been a long tradition of this Blog to try and keep wide latitude when it comes to the style and content of the comments that appear on this thread. And it will continue to be so...within reason. Point in case: Your last comment (above) on this post ("These Government people...") and {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v119/__show_article/_a000119-000061.htm#com71735|here} on this other post ("I see most all governments throughout the Ages...") seem to be mostly focused on your feelings about government and how we should (I quote) "put an end to OUR OWN participation in it..." and how "Nothing more complicated needs to be discussed -and even less continued to partake in!!!" It is your opinion and you have a right to it. (I personally believe that things are a bit more complicated than you think they are.) BUT, the present post, "The Final Frontier," was not really about government per se. If talking about how we should refuse to participate in the current system and reject government is a topic that is of interest to you, there are many avenues available for you to do so (TrollXing is just yet one more avenue I just made available) other than hijacking a thread on an unrelated post. I did read your new comment however, and I can see how some of the things you talk about relate to the topic at hand. I especially like this part: "I personally do see every Human as their own 'Island' and our task is to (re-)connect with others ("all the rest of the Islands) by relating to eachother with compassion and feel compassion for those who suffer; that makes us relate! In other words: It goes bothways!" It goes both ways! I think Hanae would agree with that. She just posted a comment {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v119/__show_article/_a000119-000061.htm#com71780|here} about false dichotomies, that should be of interest to you. She does also address the government issue which seems to be of interest to you and which also happens to be more relevant to the post on which her comment is posted. I do take an interest in everything anyone posts on my blog, I apologize if I do not always show it, or if I do not always demonstrate the kind of care and consideration that Hanae, who is an angel, and other like her on NCN, seem to be capable of. Thanks Astrid, and good luck with the big move. 8 Jul 2006 @ 15:24 by Jodell @24.185.134.42 : at least stephen is not in denial... At least Stephen is admitting that Global Warming is an Issue even if he is saying, "sudden" as if Al Gore did not travel around the world with graphs showing steady and increasing global temperatures warming. I am curious how much the human genome has in common with the cock roach. Humans with our really weak body structures as compared to insects and other animals really are quite adept at survival. It is amazing that humans can survive in all terrains unlike other animals that go extinct. I rather like the message in the book Microcosm, co-authored by Carl Sagans' own symbiotic progenerates: that all beings organic are symbiotic, interconnected, sharing information. "Just how interconnected are we? The work of biologist Lynn Margulis and writer Dorion Sagan indicates we're interconnected in ways few of us have probably ever considered. In fact, instead of viewing ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution, it may be more accurate to think of ourselves as a colony of closely associated bacteria." Thus for instance, those people who have claimed that there are these alien cricket/grasshopper-like beings who appeared to them and communicated with them, well maybe those are similar to the evolutionary prototypes of beings who might leave this planet to "spread out" much like a hybrid between Planet of the Apes wherein humans have destroyed their domain to evolve into an intellectual species of apes and Alien. All jests aside: where is Stephen when human activists are showing images and films of children living in the garbage dumps of various countries? Did he miss out on the carnage of WWII G.I.s who were guiny pigs for Atomics testing? Who is he fooling? He got was knighted by the Pope. For what? He agreed that there is a Big Bang? If there is a Big Bang then there will be another one, and if humans spread out then it makes no difference because eventually we will be Banged out of existence! Why not Bang it Out on Earth? Contradictions of Reason - there is nothing new under the sun Chicken Little. So, on a Serius Note, we shoud all send Stephen donations of DVDs of our favorite human tradgedies that can be solved with a little compassionate reasoning. 29 Apr 2016 @ 09:03 by Bandar Togel @103.12.162.4 : brilliant! I would like to share this ar Togel Online Singapore Togel Online Hongkong Bandar Togel Singapore Bandar Togel Togel Online Terpercaya Bandar Togel Online Terpercaya Togel Online Agen Togel Online Terpercaya Agen Togel Online 11 Feb 2017 @ 14:42 by Writing junction @175.110.106.10 : http://www.writingjunction.com/ To wipe out such risks, we need to rip the racism out of our communities. Everyone thinks that other religion is wrong, while I believe that religion spreads the knowledge & always teaches the right path. People should stop forcing their religion on others & live happily together. 11 Feb 2017 @ 14:43 by sdf @175.110.106.10 : dadasdasd asdasdasdasd Other entries in Diary 4 Mar 2006 @ 07:17: The Age of disinformation 20 Feb 2006 @ 08:21: Political Fiction---or is it? 10 Nov 2004 @ 03:22: "Family Values" 18 Oct 2004 @ 21:58: One Nation Under God 23 Aug 2004 @ 01:24: The Planet is Fine... 27 Apr 2004 @ 15:23: 54% 24 Apr 2004 @ 14:32: The Schmürz 5 Apr 2004 @ 16:54: Does the end justify the means? 20 Sep 2003 @ 15:42: The American Way 18 Sep 2002 @ 12:52: Where is Away?
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13 Jun 2006 @ 23:54, by D
