http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003226851_fragile26.html

And not just the U.S.; here, too, infrastructure is rotting. Adventageous [sic].

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it's unclear how we are going to deal with this challenge as we fall further and further behind in addressing these problems," Hagel said in a speech last year. "We need to think creatively."

Don't worry, the "market" will take care of it.

Yeah, that good ole market...

Such as the monopolized train traffic market here. The Railway Corporation (formerly a well-operating state company, now a decrepit "market player" (the only one)) announced a new schedule a while ago. Today's paper says that there'll be a great shortage of both personnel (laid off) and trains (no investment in that department, despite a profit growth of millions of euros). Do I need to mention that ticket prices will once again be increased?

It's all just normal adjustment, in the end, the "market" knows best. No need to worry our pretty little heads.

Indeed; for if there's supply, who are we not to demand?

As does the infant... until the milk runs out. Then it's just demand without supply, or something. Demand just, well, dies. All will adjust to the market in the end. It's perfect.

It'll simply be a market without the wobbly supply and demand bit. Imagine the glory this will bring us all!

hm?

Wobbly.

ah.

subtle

Sorry!

So how is s'Agir? Busy as ever, I take it?

We never stop doubting.

There's a lot of matters and issues to be dealt with, of course. As questionable an atmosphere as in the old days then?

Oh yes, a questionable atmosphere is always present. There is no time factor. Life is just that, matters and issues to be dealt with, and how.

What say you just leave it to the "market" then?

Ah, sadly, in my village, the village of doubt, we even doubt the "awesome" power of the market. We live on the razor's edge of doubt. Perpetual inconclusiveness -- or wonder, if you want to see it with a positive word. It's doubt that cleans the windshield of the bus so we can watch the road ahead on the mountain and not drive off a cliff. We do not trust the bus to find the way on its own, though undoubtedly the bus would find it's way, it's just we all may be at the bottom of the cliff in a crushed mass of twisted metal, since that's the adjustment the bus might make to the lack of a road to drive on.

We don't let on to the location of our village, because there are those freedom of the market lovers who would bomb our simple houses to smithereens if they heard of anyone with such doubts about their freedom.

Not to change the subject but did you ever see the film: The Razors Edge?

The one with Bill Murray, Chris? Recommended?

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We don't let on to the location of our village, because there are those freedom of the market lovers who would bomb our simple houses to smithereens if they heard of anyone with such doubts about their freedom.

"Tolerate insecurity." -- Erich Fromm

So you're not, say, obstructing infrastructure from deteriorating?

Or Tyrone Power, 1946?

Somerset Maugham's 1944 book is worth the read, I thought.

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So you're not, say, obstructing infrastructure from deteriorating?

I'm not, no. Neither are my village mates.

"Tolerate insecurity." -- Erich Fromm

We embrace it. It's the fountain of life.

Is it for sale on the market?

The best things in life are free.

Andger, yeah, the Bill Murray film.

Speaking of Fromm, Escape From Freedom is a classic that goes a long way in understanding the sociological/psychological reasons why people cling to the status quo. And the reason is they abhor freedom.

At Amazon.

The book sits on my shelf, Chris; I'll see if I can get the movie. Thanks!

shamus,

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The best things in life are free.

The fact that so many people abhor freedom explains why so many people seem to think that if it's free it can't be good. Which is why there is a market.

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The fact that so many people abhor freedom explains why so many people seem to think that if it's free it can't be good. Which is why there is a market.

I see the structure in what you are saying and to say many people "abhor" freedom is to extrapolate thought from behavior -- and that extrapolation could be accurate, though probably not something they would recognize in themselves. Their use of the word "freedom" would then be what you might call "Orwellian."

I agree, if I accurately see the implications you draw in their fullest expansion. The market would be the result of giving up their freedom to achieve security through the mechanism of supply and demand. The supply would be the answer to their demands for security and a world made "stable" through the ownership and trading of things, otherwise known as property.

False demands, one might add.

I do not demand xboxes, color TV's, designer interiors, Levi Jeans, what have you. Nore do I need them.

Unfortunately this world stability does not exist, possibly because of the forceful and violent extraction of "resources" and the also forceful pushing onto the market of these life-converted-to-death resources - as products. Products unnecessary for survival (whereas the "resources" these products used to be were that for the place these resources used to be).

This conversion & transportation is likely to be the last bit of infrastructure that will be protected.

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Unfortunately this world stability does not exist, possibly because of the forceful and violent extraction of "resources" and the also forceful pushing onto the market of these life-converted-to-death resources - as products. Products unnecessary for survival (whereas the "resources" these products used to be were that for the place these resources used to be).

Gregory Bateson:

"To want control is the pathology! Not that the person can get control, because of course you never do... Man is only a part of larger systems, and the part can never control the whole..."

"The problem of how to transmit our ecological reasoning to those whom we wish to influence in what seems to us to be an ecologically good direction is (thus) itself an ecological problem".

"The whole of our thinking about what we are and what other people are has got to be restructured. This is not funny, and I do not know how long we have to do it in. If we continue to operate on the premises that were fashionable during the Pre-Cybernetic era, and which were especially underlined during the Industrial Revolution, which seemed to validate the Darwinian unit of survival, we may have twenty or thirty years before the logical reductio ad absurdum of our old positions destroys us. Nobody knows how long we have, under the present system, before some disaster strikes us, more serious than the destruction of any group of nations. The most important task today is, perhaps, to learn to think in the new way."

Andger,

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Unfortunately this world stability does not exist, possibly because of the forceful and violent extraction of "resources" and the also forceful pushing onto the market of these life-converted-to-death resources - as products. Products unnecessary for survival (whereas the "resources" these products used to be were that for the place these resources used to be).

For certainty this world's stability is in danger because of the covering over and denial of what is:


"Saddam Hussein's former southern regional Commander, Gen. Al-Tikriti, gave the first videotaped testimony confirming that Iraq had WMDs up to the American invasion in 2003 and that Russia helped remove them prior to the war.

His testimony confirms numerous other sources that have pointed to Russia's secret alliance with Iraq and the co-ordinated moving of WMDs before the American liberation.. . .

It has been confirmed that Iraq sent nuclear scientists and technology to Libya in the mid-1990s to continue WMD programs, and that Syria is the holding place for Iraqi WMD today.. . .

All the pieces fit, the Russians threw sand in our eyes. They moved the WMD across the border while we went digging holes in the desert. Nice allies.. . .

taken from the Symposium: Iraq, WMDs and Troubling Revelations
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 29, 2006

GG,

That is not what this thread is about. Please post your article on a thread where it might have some relevance, on a new thread, or not at all.

Moreover, I no longer have any interest in online communication with people who firmly believe in the grand games of make believe of this culture. And don't worry, by "make believe" I am not referring to God or Christianity.

Either way I kindly ask you to stop addressing me here and anywhere on this forum, and I thank you cordially in advance for adhering to that request.

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we may have twenty or thirty years before the logical reductio ad absurdum of our old positions destroys us. Nobody knows how long we have, under the present system, before some disaster strikes us, more serious than the destruction of any group of nations."

My guess: perhaps 5-6 years of nasty incremental decline, then a (nastier) final plunge. Apparently Mr Bateson was a bit of an optimist.

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The most important task today is, perhaps, to learn to think in the new way.

Some 34 years later, this is still very true. Or maybe it should be "learn to live in a new way" - which will probably be a blend of really old and really new.

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My guess: perhaps 5-6 years of nasty incremental decline, then a (nastier) final plunge. Apparently Mr Bateson was a bit of an optimist.

I apologize, I suspect it is appropriate to cite references for such quotes. I do not know when the actual utterance occurred, I have it jotted in the back of a diary. But Mr. Bateson died in 1980, I believe, so perhaps he was only prescient, though I find him to be an optimistic person in his writings about human potential, even though I personally have grave doubts in that regard. Maybe he would too, now, seeing as what's transpired in the last 26 years. But that's what we do in my village -- doubt.

Steps To An Ecology Of Mind, 1972. Prescient he was.

I'm optimistic about human potential as well; it's just that civilization will inevitably collapse soon (since it sure ain't gonna stop itself). Its globalized economy is already as good as dead - as illustrated by the already declining infrastructure.

As healthy as doubt may be, I don't have any about that. But of course I'm not from your village.

Ah yes, the collapse of complex societies, they all have, it seems. A difficult principle to remain doubtful about. This particular one, especially, should collapse. Energy is the key to all living systems, and this global economic system is now overly dependent on cheap energy, all the way down to the production of food. In the process it is under aware of the importance of reciprocating energy with the natural ecosystems, which can be traced to the over dependence on a false source of energy -- false in the sense that it is nonrenewable within the natural cycles life requires for survival. But the inevitable collapse when the systems driven by that energy begin to fail is not necessarily total human annhilation but a breakdown of large hierarchical global and even national models into smaller independent self sustaining parts.

I fear for those who do not doubt the current system is vulnerable to failure and thereby fail to begin preparations for less specialization in their own skills by a broadening of new survival practices. These are reasons why we doubt, in my village.

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and this global economic system is now overly dependent on cheap energy, all the way down to the production of food.

Oh yes. And its transportation - which is by definition required by civilized societies.
In fact, pretty much every thing the civilized world is used to (and prides itself for) is made of oil, or its production depends on oil, and its distribution certainly depends on oil. There is no substitute, and Peak Oil is here (or it was yesterday). That's all, folks.

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But the inevitable collapse when the systems driven by that energy begin to fail is not necessarily total human annihilation but a breakdown of large hierarchical global and even national models into smaller independent self sustaining parts.

Yes: local is the only scale that works. And nobody knows exactly what will happen. Indeed it needn't be a complete extinction of the human race, but still many will die in the crash.

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I fear for those who do not doubt the current system is vulnerable to failure and thereby fail to begin preparations for less specialization in their own skills by a broadening of new survival practices.

The Undivision of Labor.

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These are reasons why we doubt, in my village.

Rightly so. I reckon you also doubt that all those people can be "reached". And don't you doubt that you cannot save lives locally by preparation, knowledge of the land, diversity and cooperation... in your village?

Murphy was an optimist.

GG, if you scroll up, you will see the following message addressed to you. Since your response was to post a repeat of your message which gave rise to the request, I have deleted the duplicate. Please be more considerate when posting in future.

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That is not what this thread is about. Please post your article on a thread where it might have some relevance, on a new thread, or not at all.

Moreover, I no longer have any interest in online communication with people who firmly believe in the grand games of make believe of this culture. And don't worry, by "make believe" I am not referring to God or Christianity.

Either way I kindly ask you to stop addressing me here and anywhere on this forum, and I thank you cordially in advance for adhering to that request.