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message 1351:
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Stephanie
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Dec 11, 2012 05:10PM
Huh, I don't remember that part.
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Stephanie wrote: "Huh, I don't remember that part."Funnily enough, that's the only part of Macbeth I remember - that and the first two scenes.
Not I, although we've had a bit of it. You?
Here it's cold enough to snow, but not to stick. Also, there doesn't seem to be any snow clouds. XP
We had just a touch of snow, but sadly it melted the next day and, not only did I not get to build a snowman, I had to go to work too.
All that snow we had in Illinois and we never built a snowman...We didn't down here either and we still had plenty of snow...
We haven't had any. I miss Alaska and the six feet of snow :(
Most of the time I do NOT miss the deep snow of northern BC. Sometimes I miss being able to skate outside on the home made ice rinks.
No snow for me. :( Just cold air.
I can’t imagine living in Alaska. Dad used to live in Fairbanks, and I’ve seen pictures of it. It makes me shiver, just thinking about it.
Cold is actually easier to deal with when snow is involved. I don't know how it works, but a cold winter day in Virginia is about thirty degrees warmer than in Illinois, but it's more bothersome in Virginia.
I was in Williamsburg one December when there was an ice storm. All the power was off in Colonial Williamsburg. It was odd to see those 18th-century buildings closed to the public because there was no electricity to run the computers or the central heat.
Ha, yeah. I once got into a debate about the efficiency of guns during colonial times while there.
And, right after typing the above, I started an episode of Rozzoli & Isles with re-enactments that are supposed to be all authentic. I'm fairly certain those tactics would've actually lost us the war, since those were the tactic of every other country in the world.
M wrote: "I can imagine it. Did you win?"Not exactly. The guy I was talking with missed my point entirely; I was talking about sniping, which was largely impractical at the start of the war. If I remember correctly, we invented rifling during the war, which allowed for snipers, better gurrella tactics, etc. The guns they had there had no rifling.
He kept talking about how guns revolutionized war. Which is true, but not what I was talking about ...
Side note: Before rifling, most bows actually had a better effective range than most guns. However, achieving close to maxium effective range with bows could take a lifetime, while approaching the maxium effective range of a gun only takes weeks. That was the real effect of firearms on warfare at first; it allowed a greater amount of less-well-trained men to participate.
I was interested in flintlocks when I was a kid. My brother-in-law shoots flintlock rifles, and it’s a curious coincidence that a few hours ago he posted photos of his son shooting one.I just caught up on the chat thread. After I read Edward’s posts, I was curious to know whether what I had been told about the role played by Kentucky rifles in the Revolutionary War had been a myth. I didn’t have time to look very long, but I found this:
http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist...
Ah, the Battle of King's Mountain was one of my favorite war stories. No real training, just guys with good guns and a lot of practice, as well as a British commander stupid enough to think a bunch of Scotch-Irish mountain men would be easy to control.
Merry Christmas, pirates, and warmest wishes for a glittering New Year’s!
Merry Christmas, all you wonderful pirates!!!
Arr, and Merry Christmas to you as well-l!!!
So, I finally come back to the world of news and, oh no! We're about to head over a fiscal cliff.Which is bad.
... Right?
...
What is a fiscal cliff? Guy?
Sorry, I can't take it seriously until I find a good cause-and-effect explanation. I've heard fiscal cliff will lead to this, this, and this, but nothing I've found in five stolen minutes actually explains what it is and how it causes disaster.
Defense cuts and raised taxes ... sounds like the last few years.
Edward wrote: "So, I finally come back to the world of news and, oh no! We're about to head over a fiscal cliff.What is a fiscal cliff? Guy?"
http://bonds.about.com/od/Issues-in-t...
Edward, given my place of residence, I haven't followed it in close detail. Given my perspective on economics, which is I confess a perverse one, I see it as high comedic melodrama with a hidden pernicious agenda. It is a media supported, perpetuated and frenzied social red herring designed primarily for the purpose of keeping the American public both alarmed and confused about the state of their economy. H.L. Mencken described it perfectly almost 100 years ago:Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.Okay, I made myself sound like a nut bar, so I'll roll it back. The fiscal cliff is an arbitrary construct, meaning created by the people who are running the society. These people have picked a number and attached social conditions to that number. The number is entirely arbitrary, and the conditions are entirely arbitrary too. Economists, and the media, claim that the number is linked to the state of the economy, and then use that claim to threaten the economy. Seriously, this is little more than an elaborate protectionist scheme. And, if it sounds like the same kind of arguments used to bail out the banks, it is.
H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
In this case, the democrat know-it-alls are claiming that the economy will fail — meaning return to a recession if the conditions are enforced. (Actually, this is a remarkable misstatement because the USA hasn't really left the bank bailout initiated recession.) In this case, the conditions are basically the continued financial exploitation of the middle and lower classes by the continued transfer of wealth from them to the wealthy. And no, that is not me just spouting off, but stating the empirical measures, which can be found on any web search on the changes in the income gap. So, the republicans, who most closely represent the wealthy and their corporations, want the conditions to be enacted, because it leaves them in relatively the same state: rich and getting richer while the remains of labour and the expanding destitute continue to get poorer. The republicans are basically arguing that the democrats' proposed tax and spending changes will hurt them, meaning the rich. They argue that hurting the rich is ultimately hurting labour and the poor, which continues one of the greatest examples of accepted delusion on the planet today.
Anyway, the democrats are arguing that the distribution of wealth in the society is unfair. They argue that the increasing rates of poverty and destitution are proof of that, and that there is a relationship between Reagan's (i.e. Milton Friedman's) trickle down theory and the wealth gap. Reagan broke the unions and transferred the reduced wage wealth into corporate coffers, which means, basically, into the bank accounts of the owners. They have become increasing wealthy, as each generation of government that has decided that to fix poverty in the country can only be done by reducing corporate and wealthy taxes and by enacting more and more draconian anti-labour legislation. The latest example of that being a full scale assault on the last of the unionized workers in country, as those who work for government see their contracts undemocratically torn up. The net effect of these economic and political choices has been the continued decline in all measures of economic well being: health, level of education, rates of poverty, median and mean wages, infant mortality rates, etc. (And from an objective empirical approach, Britain, who made the exact same economic choices that the USA did has suffered the exact same kind of economic and social malaise.)
So, my perversity is that I see the fiscal cliff as a metaphor for a choice that America is facing between that of fully honouring their class system or reconsidering the nature of their democracy. And the 'class' system I am referring to is, fundamentally, the split between the haves and the have-nots. The haves want the have-nots to have less so that they can continue to build their mansions around the world and have access to the best medical facilities, etc. And of course the haves are the ones who have purchased the government and believe that their 'having' sets them apart, above if you will, from the rest of society. The have-nots, who are poorly represented by the democrats, are becoming increasingly poor. The primary American propaganda of the last 100 years has been to convince the have-nots that the aspiration to being a have warrants a society that allows its children to starve, to be denied medical attention and affordable schooling. For now, the propaganda has largely worked, especially amongst the educated. And amazingly enough, this is also an old observation, as George Orwell wrote in the unpublished version of his preface to Animal Farm:
The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news (..) being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact (...). The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady". And Orwell finishes the paragraph: "Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing , either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.For an example in the US, Truman, with the support of the majority of the American population, initiated the process of providing some kind of national medical system. The business community responded with a massive media campaign (propaganda) that reversed that evil, an evil that is regularly re-enforced by massive propaganda campaigns.
Anyway, I've wandered a bit, Edward. The fiscal cliff is an artificial construct, like the emperor's new clothes, that the intelligentsia point to and fully expect the rabble find awe inspiring. Its reality can be made manifest by having everyone act as if it is real.
Stephanie, I read the information at the end of your link. It is typical economic propagandized jargon, in that it sounds interesting and important and is, in a sense, true. It describes the mechanics and time frames of the 'cliff'. But it fails to address the arbitrariness of the numbers. It reminds me of the kind of discussion you might have got at the tables of power in the catholic church about how many angels could fit on the head of pin. Yes, very important stuff, however it completely fails to address the reality that the population around them is facing increasing destitution. These kind of economic discussions are, to perverse me, an artificial discussion of interest only to those who are not, in fact, starving to death or dying for medical care that is available but out of reach.
Now for some perverse anecdotal considerations. Imagine that you are social anthropologist looking at a society. In that society, it is faced with a choice: feed everyone in the society, or allow some to die. That choice has arisen because of a crop failure say, or a lack of killed game. How does that society chose who will die? The old first, who are the biggest burden. Okay. Then, maybe the infertile, because they won't contribute to the long term survival of the society? Then perhaps the very young because they have not yet reached an age that allows them to help farm or hunt: they are a burden, even though they represent the hoped for continuation of the society. Does being forced to chose who will die and who will live make this a brutal society or a humane society?
Now, consider another society. They too are faced with that same choice: feed everyone or not. In this case, that decision is not the result of crop failure, or hunters not finding enough game. That choice is being made by a small number of the population who control who gets what. And that control, that decision making process about who will be granted access to food is based not on hunger, but on whether or not they deserve to access the food, whether or not they have earned the right to partake of the society's production. In that society, to have the right to access the food is governed by who has money. And in turn, who has the money is largely controlled by who has the money. In this society its members have chosen, unconsciously or not, through successful propaganda or not, who will live and who will die based not on the real tangible availability of food and medical care, but on their access to money. In writing your paper, as a social anthropologist, would you describe these choices as those being made by a humane society or a brutal one?
Final observations: An estimated 15 million children in the world will have died of malnutrition or related diseases in 2012 despite the world having created enough food to feed everyone. The American presidential election is estimated to have cost about $6 Billion, which is roughly equivalent to $400 per dead child. In 2012, the estimated money that will be spent on pets in the USA will be over $52 billion. Most astounding is that in American an estimated 17 million children do not know for sure where their next meal will come from. These are societal choices that we have allowed economic ideology to make for us. We pretend that that is not a choice, that we are a victim of economic 'truths'. But the reality is that economics is about how the society chooses to respond to the needs and wants of its members. The fiscal cliff is similarly, a choice about how to deal with the distribution of a society's wealth. And it is, in my opinion, a very peculiar way to do things, and one that makes very little rational sense until you consider that the choice is being predicated on the class distinction between who deserves and who doesn't full access to the fruits of the society.
That's an exhaustive explanation. For me, it boils down to: Is it important? Maybe. Do I care? Not really.Seriously, the decision is being made by others, and the estimates are largely guesswork, so all I have to work with is whatever happens directly in front of me when it does happen - everything else is just worrying.
Yup. Which is why I haven't paid it too much attention. As the economist Keynes said, in the long run we're dead. Or, as my grade 10 math teacher liked to say, 'Don't sweat the small stuff. Everything is small.'
I just rewatched that economics rap video I posted some time ago (for those who weren't there or don't remember, the whole hilarious thing can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnar... ). I think my favorite line is, "Economics isn't a class you can master in college/ To suggest otherwise is the pretense of knowledge."
We're really chatty, aren't we?Here's what you might call round one of that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERT...
And to you too, and everyone in the WSS.
The question #1796 leaves me with is, if there’s no rise in the consciousness of the collective (and, as far as I can tell, there’s no reason to assume that there will be), how can the situation change other than in its particulars, remaining in essence one in which humanity sleepwalks through life? If there’s no appreciable change in the awareness of the collective, does it really matter what the particulars of the situation are?
I did a reportage on the 15-m Indignants movement in Spain a year back and there is hope, everywhere you went in Madrid there was people of all ages and classes sitting in groups discussing how to change the politics and them system never seen a more purposeful and awake population of a country any place and it is spreading.
It would be nice if something like that would happen here. It appears that the foundations of our doom have been laid by a chronic case of voter apathy.
What the Spanish pointed out was that the two major parties in Spain had complete control of the media and alternative parties was not given airtime of course it helps when electorate system is set up in a fashion where the smaller parties needs 9 votes for every 1 vote of the two larger ones - eg. if Spain had been a two party state and the smaller party got 80% of the votes and the larger party got 20% of the votes the 20% party would win the election.
M wrote: "It would be nice if something like that would happen here. It appears that the foundations of our doom have been laid by a chronic case of voter apathy."I don't see much voter apathy to be honest, except from people like my best friend who have an annoying air of superiority from how dismissive they are of voting (or maybe that's just him). The problem is that beyond voting there isn't much we can actually do.
I suppose chronicaling this whole fiscal cliff business will help sort out the bad politicians from the less-bad politicians come next election cycle, but for now the knowledge isn't really all that useful. It's not about lack of interest; it's how little interest actually matters. Not until the next election, anyway.
This particular issue is especially irritating since the subject practically requires a life study to really understand, meaning that all those different opinions are based in half-formed ideas.
Mostly, I find keeping track of things far too exhausting not only because of the amount of information that's apparently important all the time, but also because there's always something that is talked about as though it means the collapse of our society that's it's like trying to take a forties comic book seriously.
I'm actually quite lucky; I have a filter through a bunch of family and friends. I can just talk about the subjects with them normally. If it has a concrete effect on our lives, we take precautions; if it doesn't, then we move on.
I just tried reading news reports myself recently and immediately wore myself out. Again, I'm lucky I know people who seem to enjoy slogging through that stuff, much like I enjoy games that require textbooks to play.
You can try to change the politicians all you want but that's only going to do so much. If you really want to change the direction of an economy, etc. you have to go back to individuals and the families. Individuals have to be willing to go without and (for example) not get the next new toy when they know they really can't afford it. And families need to get their acts together and discipline their children.One of the biggest problems (in my point of view) in the American economy today is that individuals aren't ready or willing to tell themselves no, so they elect leaders and politicians that reflect that attitude.
M said: "The question #1796 leaves me with is, if there’s no rise in the consciousness of the collective (and, as far as I can tell, there’s no reason to assume that there will be), how can the situation change other than in its particulars, remaining in essence one in which humanity sleepwalks through life? If there’s no appreciable change in the awareness of the collective, does it really matter what the particulars of the situation are?"M, as always, you go right to the heart of the matter. Jung, Chomsky, Epictetus, Chuang-Tzu, Robert Pirsig and all the other philosophers I love address this 'problem' in one way or another. My take on it is that consciousness, becoming aware, is basically antithetical to the natural state of being. Awareness, at its most fundamental development, is something vague and diffuse and collective. Individual awareness is exceptional and extraordinary, and in our age is often mistakenly associated with the ego. The ego is perhaps the most easily deluded element of human psychology because it believes in the truths of what it can see and what it can logical deduce. It denies, generally, that truth is outside of its ability to comprehend, and that logic cannot exist outside of belief systems that arise from the unconscious. The development of an ego is mistaken to be the acme of enlightenment, and yet is perhaps the greatest delusion of all. M.L. von Franz explores this in Puer Aeternus, in her examination of the myth of Oedipus.
In nature, it would seem that the human animal, for what ever reason, has one of the strongest movements towards individual awareness. But at our core is the human gene pool and the collective archetypes upon which consciousness rests; and those collective components, like a strange attractor, 'want' us to remain un-individuated, to remain in or return us to, the undifferentiated whole. It is as instinctual a part of the human animal as is sexuality. The well observed and documented problem of how a crowd of individuals becomes a singular mob is well know. See, for example, Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. And to a lesser extent, it is the common patriotic feelings generated when a sports team achieves something, or the common feeling generated at a musical concert or during high oratory: at such events we can 'lose our self' to the moment, become one, again, with the collective. And with that oneness all loneliness goes away, as does the need for personal responsibility and integrity.
However, Chomsky and Jung both argue that progress is being made. Human consciousness is developing and evolving, even if it cannot be seen except across generations. The Jungian writer Erich Neumann explores this in his brilliant and challenging book The Origins and History of Consciousness. It is his examination through myth and psychology of the movement from an undifferentiated to a differentiated state in human consciousness. Chomsky comments that there has been noticeable changes in America. He observed that at one time the 50th Anniversary of America's invasion of Vietnam would have been publicly celebrated as a great victory. It was not because, in his opinion, the majority of Americans (not the intelligentsia or its leaders who still hold the party line) understand that Vietnam was an amoral action, and not just a military blunder. At first I kind of dismissed that as a small change, but actually it isn't: to understand morality requires at least the beginning of wisdom. Chomsky also points out that before the invasion of Iraq, the American population protested, which was a first. Again, that shows an awareness. And I will add my own observation that the Wall Street occupations were also expressions of an increase in individualized awareness, mostly because of how they were done and the failure of the media to be able to completely dismiss them as lunatics and ne'er do wells despite their efforts to do so.
Change, real change happens, but it happens slowly. Oddly enough, the social anthropologist and economic critic David Graeber makes an interesting observation about the history of slavery in Debt: The First 5,000 Years. He notes that at one time Roman society was comprised of an estimated 20-30% slaves. And that practice was almost wholly accepted by everyone, including the great philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus. But something changed in the collective awareness of humanity and slavery was eventually rejected. (Credit perhaps goes to the notions of individuality that comprise some of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism and Christianity.)
Graeber then observes that the intelligentsia, aristocracy and economic leaders tried to re-instate slavery for the benefit of the newly expanding mercantile class in the 17th and 18th centuries in order to maximize their profitability and their level of personal comfort. However, those efforts largely failed and so slavery was not re-instated as a fundamental construct within 'proper' European society, but was instead exported to the colonies. Amazingly enough, this is an exact parallel of what has happened today: the mercantile class of today, with an eye to maximizing profits have been trying to remake the slavery system by branding it as outsourcing to export processing zones and by calling indebted wage earners free.
Sounds depressing, but the point is that there has been a change of consciousness. Will I live to see corporate thievery become utopia for either the environment or labour? Not likely. Will I see militarized greed continue to expand America's invasions around the world? Well, for a while, anyway. But the USA is no longer in a position where it's militarization is being allowed to enrich labour at the same time as those who own the means of military production, and this has bankrupted the middle class and with it accelerated the decay of the much of its physical and educational infrastructures. These tangible realities will in time tangibly change our notions of where economic truth are lies, and from that a change in understanding. That change will naturally promote changes in awareness and with that expansion of wisdom. Of course I'll be dead long before then, and as such my observations mean nothing. Regardless, change is happening.
Wow really deep stuff there guys. I'm going to change the subject due to having nothing to add, but please feel free to ignore me and go back t it :DThe point is, I am going to Las Vegas next week and was wondering if any of the mates and been, what they thought of it and anything I simply must do while I am there?
Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company!
Books mentioned in this topic
Falling Worlds (other topics)Worlds with Ruby (other topics)
Worlds with Ruby (other topics)
Falling Worlds (other topics)
Your God Is Too Small (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Elias Canetti (other topics)Morris Berman (other topics)
Noam Chomsky (other topics)
Jane Jacobs (other topics)
Marshall Sahlins (other topics)
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