Saturday, March 23, 2013

Future and Past Mixed

Iron Man Quicked by one. Future and Past mixed, logical segments thrown all over the place, mixed all up, chunks of future and past and present, all stories mixed, all logic upside down, all things unknown and known, all colors showed. Pieces of past, remote past thrown together with pieces of present and far off future, the oldsmobile 98 in ancient rome, the mars computer in New Jersey of 1950,the star man in the year 23444556 comes to you and tells you his news, watch TV: you see your mom when see was young and you are old, but then, it is all mixed up you become young again, or mixed, and all elements of reality mixed disregarding any logic, any story line, all things together all things disjoint, you get the idea, wild and crazy combinations, the brain gets mixed up and mixes up all of its categories, and such then the outside world mixes up, or is it the outside world that observes the brain machine and such, and so on and if 0 is the brain observer and 5666 is the outside world, what is 56 ? what IS WERREMTTN ? what is the mountain and then mixed, segments, logical segments thrown on the ground, in the air, mix past and future, mix it all up, you win become free and happy and crazy, deny logic, and win...


The Ape Thug Machine.

Monday, March 11, 2013

detail or general ?

We are a set of random elements, extreme details that become absolutes, but only to us as life renders absolute that which is random detail and irrelevant and relative and such.
The contrast between details and general,

Anything goes, nothing matters, nobody cares:

From:

http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/fortress-of-lies.html

Anything goes, nothing matters, nobody cares:

Anything goes, nothing matters, nobody cares:

This is the exact description of reality as it is, we try to make things count and be important, we try to create totalizing religions, viewpoints ideologies interpretations, a lens that explains everything, where everything makes sense according to some set of logical segments and so on, we try to superimpose upon reality some totalizing view and filter, some grid where we have an answer to all, a grid that explains all and shows us what is right and wrong: a war, a battle, peak oil, we need economic growth, anything, any of the large scale totalizing ideas pretending to be all, but is in fact just a puny, insignificant way to see things that doesn't matter, that doesn't mean anything that is probably always wrong or irrelevant and so forth.

Look at the pebble on the street, that occupies your mind and thought, that is the entire universe for all time and space for the moment your attention is on that, the next moment it could be a car tire: but such it is, information is how the observer interacts with reality, any new observer will have a new information set and hence a new reality, information is what gives Matter its inertia, its mass, since without information matter is free to be anything and nothing (and create super abstractions, if matter is 0 and information 1 what is 433 or minus 34?), no grid is superimposed upon reality, just like the grid of the laws of physics pretending to be real: it is just a superimposition of a grid on reality that doesn't mean anything: change the observer the laws change or there are no laws at all, the new particle accelerator can be an apple a can and a car tire and so forth.

10 years ago the war in Irak was everything, all attention was on that, it was everything and such, now no one even remembers it, it doesn't even exist anymore, the same will happen with the Economic Growth Myth or Peak Oil or anything else, in a few years people will not even know what the heck all the fuss was about, even because the years of real economic growth of the west occurred between 1955 and 1995 and no one noticed it or talked about or even thought it was operating then, a whole bunch of other things were important: the idea of processes operating in the background, described as being always present, the other minds always present and this other mind aware state of being is always just a moment away from disappearing. Just like when you get tired of reading the same things over and over again, you need a change, in that exact moment you sense that it is all irrelevant, it doesn't matter, anything goes, nothing matters, no one cares.



spark plugs

Buy a House ?

Buy a House ?

To buy a house most kids would need some kind of mortgage, 20 years at 700 dollars a month maybe ? who knows, depends where when how and so forth: but this implies that you will need to have 20 years of a steady job somehow, paying you a steady pay, that not too disruptive things happen, that there are no big changes in 20 years and so forth. Is this reasonable ? is this even possible ? is this reasonable when the economic relgion, the lifestyle, the fashion of the age is to always change and innovate and be competitive, and compete, and change "kinds of jobs every 2 years" and so forth, when everything is in competition with everything else, when all jobs, endeavors can be questioned, are constantly being questioned, are being judged and evaluated by ever changing rules and rulers and standards and so on (since nothing real or concrete is being produce like a washing machine or a TV or a car, since that all belongs to the old fashioned "Industrial Age" and we now live in the more advanced and progressing "Post Industrial Age" the new fangled "Services Age" those services that are full of BS, health care costs rocketing and innovation and education and so forth and so on and such) since most work today is simply much ado about nothing, but since economic growth means that the work and "activity" must increase then that means ever more much ado about nothing must be invented and created, alot of spinning wheels, different wheels, alot of random activity change, emergencies, all kinds of changes, crazy working hours, hires and fires, as change is the only thing that can create increase activity and new jobs and so forth, but especially how to evaluate the worth of all of this useless activity can change instantaneously, is always so very iffy, yesterday that app was worth gold, today it is worh zero as everyone all of a sudden notices how stupid and useless it was in the first place and so forth, all things done can have any value and any judgment, can be hacked and hosed from one moment to another and no one would notice except the crappy worker fired and so forth (especially in banks and the "Financial Industry").

But in a rational world work is not normal but should be the exception, should be perfomed when needed and when necessity, not programmed to last 8 hours a day everyday and so forth and not only that but work, the amount of work needed, the number of jobs created should constantly decrease in a progressive and advancing and evolving society, a scientifically organized society, there should be ever less need for work as things get optimized, automated and so forth, in such a society economic growth would occur through fewer and fewer jobs, less and less activity and the growth would correspond to more and more money to consume more and more but with less and less work needed: but we got this mechanism all upside down: work is expected to generate ever more work and activity to create economic growth: a double contradiction, not only is there a lot of work being perfomed that generates nothing, produces nothing but represents a proxy for power and status relationships, is a proxy for human interaction, as if without work human interaction wouldn't even be necessary at all except for a few random times when something really needed to be done, but the economic growth myth and religion imposes that ever more useless work and activity and much ado about nothing be created and invented, the most non productive possible society ever. Not only is much work not producing anything, but this economic system needs ever more work that doesn't produce anything, go figure and all because they can't simply and honestly distribute cash to all and call it a day with this stone age idea of labor needed and so forth. But there is simple reason for all of these paradoxical contradictions and namely: man cannot simply accept that he needs to labor less and less as science and technology advances, he can't find a way to distribute money, so he imposes a double contradiction, do loads of useless work that creates the appearance of work that creates human interaction so as to make it look like work so as to then finally distribute cash, whcih is the only real thing that counts, not the activity associated to it.

So, in light of this, how can there still be a housing market at all ? how can people load on a 20 year mortgage when no job or activity will ever be steady and sure again ? who will pay for the risk ? the buyer risks losing a lot of cash, the banks get richer through interest and so forth, and the buyer has to start all over again in another state to perform a new fangled new job that all of a sudden popped up and so forth.

And then the pay levels may change, so many variables may change since in a society where the very definition of what is work is no longer even clear (only the amount of time at the job counts, but if you could pull off the same "production" (whatever that means) with only 2 or 3 hours a day of work, no one would pay you for that since that would be like cheating, we still all have this 18th century factory idea that time is equivalent to product when what it really means is the guy paying you is paying to take as much time away from you as possible just because, to punish you, since everyone likes to punish everyone else by taking time away from them and making believe that is work, your time (lost) is your product - but with smartphones always on the time at work can become infinite) anything goes, anything can be invented as work or needed, any game can be played, any new rules can be enforced: but all of these rules are all based on the same old same old power and class structure heirarchy: he who has the cash to pay you is the boss and you must abide end of story, and he decides what is needed or necessary and important all else is irrelevant( only that most of what he decides also is irrelevant and arbitrary).

The entire model of buying homes is so iffy: of course some could say that now that work is so mobile, internet based, is all information based, you could work from home or work anywhere, only the information interaction counts and so forth: but then companies wouldn't impose a constant presence in the premises and homes in NYC and Los Angeles an London would be worth as much as any place else and the prices would all go way down: obviously this won't happen, real estate is a power struggle, is a proxy for a constant fight between who has and who doesn't, large populations are kept out of homes by high rents and high home prices but no one can do anything about this since the amount of cash accumulating everyday worldwide is constantly increasing and this trickles down to incireasing property prices sooner or later (if the NYC family didn't buy that house in London, the Chinese rich will and hike up the values) and so forth.

And you can have millions of empty homes and home prices never going down like in Spain, Italy and China and so forth, and you can have governments tearing down slums and leaving the poor without any homes as happens in africa only to build very high priced homes, as a statement of power, as a status thing, you see I have the thousands of homes you all need but I will keep you out of them to show my power and to keep the prices up by keeping an artificially created home pressure always present and so forth.

But the bottom line of all of this is simply: groups of people, societies, cultures, countries, tribes will do all kinds of irrational things, can organize themselves and create the most irrational rules and behaviors and ways of doing for no reason at all, arbitrarily, totally arbitrarily: as if the logic in one mind can be linear, but the logic of 2 or more minds can be totally flawed and irrational and so forth simply because man ends up always being fight, competition, playing games between each other in who wins or loses who can cheat the other guy, who can gain any upper hand by random situations and forces and configuration of forces appearing from nowhere and going to nowhere and so on.

The reason why the USA has some more rational and cheaper home prices compared to Spain or Italy or Brazil or London and so forth is because the USA is a flexible system in a larger sense: easy hire and fire, a lot of changing and changes and people moving around to other states letting home prices change somewhat (although not very much anymore since these prices tend to remain high, but anyways) whereas most of the rest of the world has a savings mentality, they want to save cash (instead of consumerism like the USA) and the best place to park their cash is in real estate and keep the prices high: and also because most of the rest of the world is not flexible like the USA; hire and fire and change and so forth.

But then again eveything could change in a jiffy, if all of those chinese familes or london families feel their homes aren't worth much anymore the prices could indeed crash, randomly and chaotically, it could happen, everything is based on very subtle fake stabilities and the more we go forward the more unstable everything is and you could have millions of empty homes with ever increasing prices and millions of homeless too, all possible combinations and events are possible.


8 thugs

nameta9
Philosopher
 
Posts: 1765
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 10:42 am

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Party Pooper ?





Re: Lamborghini

Postby nameta9 » Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:34 pm
lizbethrose wrote:
uglypeoplefucking wrote:What i take away from the OP is that people who can afford to spend 3.9 million on a collectible car shouldn't be getting tax breaks. Be wrong and call me envious if you want, but i happen to agree. i also think using money that way is a pretty douchebaggy thing to do, but there's not much anyone else can do about it, except maybe take more money from them. Say state and federal sales taxes on such purchases that would effectively double the price. Make them give back as much as they squander.


This is what I mean by defeatism--There's nothing we can do. Well, six senators are retiring. You can always work toward getting your guy elected. Maybe s/he won't win, but at least you've tried. Not much in the general scheme of things, you say. Probably, but it's a start.

On the other hand, there so much money being spent--frittered away--by the Pentagon and the DOD. Almost $400B has been lost to Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program ([url]washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/f-35s-ability-to-evade-budget-cuts-illustrates-challenge-of-paring-defense-spending/2013/03/09/42a6085a-8776-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html[/url].) The project has never worked as it was proposed--the software developers are working solo (they're not even interconnected with each other.) But the main thing is the plane is in production and has been sold without complete testing. Only 20% of the flight testing has been done, so no one knows for sure if the plane is safe under combat conditions.

I'm sure there are other, very similar, stories hiding in the depths of the darkest closets on 'the Hill.' And I'm sure a lot of people will say--I don't have the time to look into any of them. And it's an arduous job to decide who to vote for. But you'll be voting for the people who create the legislation that determines how your money will be spent. In many ways, voting for the people who'll vote for you is much more important than voting for the President.

Thank you, upf.



Party Pooper ?

Why are you all such party poopers ? why can't I simply enjoy my million dollar car ? isn't this a free country anymore ? why should I feel guilty ? who cares, I can't solve the problems of the world, the world will always have problems, people suck, people are unlucky, this and that, a never ending stream and list, sequence of bits describing this or that or debates, etc. people fight, there are 7 billion turds on earth and so there are 7 billion problems, how on earth can I solve them ? who cares, let me enjoy my cash, end of story. And thousands of factories and industries and jobs are based on enjoying your cash and not worrying about all the problems of the world and such.

So the F35 sucks, who cares, so billions of dollars were "wasted": no they weren't wasted they payed thousands of high paying salaries, the goal is not the fighter plane, the goal is to create an excuse to give out salaries, the end result doesn't count, only paying people counts, get it now ?

Then what excuse would the 2 trillion dollar health care mafia of the USA have, what would they have to show for such a huge amount of money stolen from society ? the really incredible wastes are never noticed! and then how is it ok for the rich to buy homes in cities around the world hiking up prices constantly and punishing all of the average joes with ever higher home prices ok and buying luxury cars a sin ? but no one ever notices this either since everyone is guilty in keeping home prices high, they should crash like crazy everywhere but everyone wants to keep them high (they all feel rich like this) so as to create a barrier and wall to entrance to the future generation that will never be able to buy or rent. such idiots!

1) why shouldn't I buy a 3 million dollar car ? because liz says so ? why should I care what liz wants ? why should I feel guilty ? should I always worry about all the poorer or unlucky turds of the world compared to me ? who gives two c*ks and a d*ck ?

2) why does flanel jesus suck so much ? why can't he respond with more than a one liner and cry about others insulting him ? why can't I openly insult anyone I want and be free to say anything I want, who cares! we are all talking to ghosts, abstract non existent entities and so forth.


liz, you suck, there I said it. Now what ? can you imagine how many people would love to insult wildly and crazily everyone else they could on forums and blogs and so forth but can't because of all of this hypocritical "political correct" things and all: just say, the truth: everyone hates everyone else, everyone is in fighting mode always, everyone is always refraining from beating everyone else up as soon as they could and so on, just be honest and let it all hang out. Don't be like flanel that would love to insult me wildly but wants to pretend to be a good little boy, jakasses! And then all he talks about ever is about other people and never their ideas and such.

There will always be fights, contradictions, you want A, I want B, A fight B and A wins and so on, just deal with it, no problem will ever be solved, man can never solve any problem, he is contrast fight, conflict, he is defined by fight, it will always be like this until you all finally decide to stick wild v8 engines in skulls and change the mind structure.



thug head

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Reply To Flanel Jesus 2 :


From:

http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply-to-gary-north.html


From:

http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=182125

reply to 8 man was:

"So the one time you deviate from your endless repetitive spamming is to be an absolute cunt?
Fantastic contribution you've made..."

8 thugs reply:


Reply To Flanel Jesus 2 :


Well flanel sweater could have at least replied as follows:

"Thank You For Replying To Liz On My Behalf."

Anyways, thug head hits the nail on the head by saying that we need things, we need to saturate the world with things, ever more things, all kinds of things, cars, books, buildings, malls, big box stores, glasses, thoughts, concepts, text, symbols, you name it anything, all things, the craziest things, the most different things imaginable, a number, a concept, a box, plastic glasses you name it, just take any random set of things in a dump, that is so cool, ever more things, different things, so damn cool! I like that the number of things in the world is constantly increasing, the more things are put in the world, the more we all get rich, the more things are available to everyone, sooner or later it will become available to all and it will cost zero, a technological economy has so much economies of scale, produces so much free wealth that the cost of everything will drop to zero sooner or later, build trillions of homes and buildings, finally the cost of a house will become zero, free, build trillions of luxury cars, the cost of them will finally become zero, of course the rich could try to block you away from having that which is essentially free today by using cost as a barrier, as a fence to keep you out, but it will eventually become free. (what is this wishful thinking ? superstition ? a new religion ? a new faith in some new metaphysical mechanism ? is human nature finally different from what it has always been and namely fight, A against B, A wins B loses end of story ?)

So I like things, all kinds of things, disjoint things, totally unrelated things, manufacture trillions of things, I like big numbers, I like that everything is accumulating, is adding up and such. Do you know how many capacitors are in the world today ? trillions now (just cell phones have tens and we sell a billion cell phones a year)! do you know how many resistors are in the world today ? trillions ! that is so cool! I like big numbers, big numbers of things, saturate the worlds with big numbers, make them produce and buy luxury cars, soon we will all have a ferrari, keep on going.

And anyways, the rich deserve it, they worked hard, they risked and played the game and won, all you losers are envious and jealous, fairy tale green protecting, tree huggers are losers and fairies, you lost the game, I won, I win, ha ha I win, !

ON another note, I was calculating that in any population in NYC at least 100,000 families are rich enough to buy million dollar homes, but they don't have to, they already have them, but they can always choose to hike up the values of homes if they go on a frenzy, all of a sudden, something that could happen, or they could just keep their cash and wait, just like a chemical reaction, a small amount of a substance can change and create a reaction, a small amount of cash can hike up prices or keep them steady (they rarely go down, but anyways), but then: this is all very random, just a random bit (chaos, blind forces operating, total random, unpredictable), just if a few families all of a sudden decide to buy you could have a fast chain reaction and hike up prices and such, always punishing the poorer, but anyways: build trillions of homes, saturate the world and then they will cost zero, but even this is iffy, maybe they would all be bought by a few rich people and you would always be at the same spot again, but anyways.

thug head

cars ?

http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply-to-gary-north.html




From:

http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=182125

Re: Lamborghini

Postby nameta9 » Sat Mar 09, 2013 3:24 pm
lizbethrose wrote:Lamborghini has a new car—the Veneno—described as a street-legal race car.


Only three will be made, but all three sold months ago. Two of them were sold to American business men. The price tag? Only $3.9M.

This story came out the same time the sequester was allowed to begin. Okay—So? So no one seems to care. Is not caring the result of apathy, or is it a sense of defeatism?

No one knows what the sequester will mean in the end or how it’ll affect the majority of US citizens. But I’m pretty sure very few of us will ever be able to pay $3.9M on a car we’ll never use—and get tax breaks as well.


Re: Lamborghini

Post by Flannel Jesus » Sat Mar 09, 2013 12:53 pm
I don't understand. What does any of this stuff have to do with people buying expensive cars? What are you talking about?



Reply to Flanel Jesus, Son of Man, King of the Jews:


you could have answered to liz more intelligently in the following ways as*hole:

1) at least they are not inflating property prices in big cities and hurting poor people by buying houses and apartments, at least they are not hiking up prices in London, Los Angeles, New York City and so on and so forth and such with their heavy money;

2) liz is a lazy b*tch, welfare queen, envious of the rich and their hard owned money: they worked hard for their cash, they are not like you, lazy moron, they are not lazy slobs like you liz, welfare queen, envious of the rich and wants a free handout, so let them spend and enjoy their cash;

3) it is good that they buy high class cars, this helps industry and keeps people working and especially it helps to saturate the world with ever more cars and things, the more stuff built the richer we all are.

Now, take your choice, jesus, how do you wish to reply ?



thug head
nameta9
Philosopher
 
Posts: 1759
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:42 am

Rich to Poor

When a society goes from poor to rich, everything is getting better, is growing, there is hope, drive and so forth: when a society goes from rich to poor, everyone gets mad, is nervous, is angry sad wants to find someone else to blame and fights and so forth, dictatorships may come to be, wars, chaos, but no solutions will come. And this is what is happening in Southern Europe, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy etc.

And the modern civilization went from poor to rich from 1850 to 1990 and so, everything was going forward, getting better, a win win situation, you studied for the future, there would be high tech jobs, new money, projects, and so on. Now the developed world is going backwards, fighting each other over the costs of health care, can you believe that ? something so stupid as this ? I can't believe it! and we are wasting money buying cell phones, fancy cell phones. Can you believe that ? incredible, we are doomed, a society that is going from rich to poor, everyone will fight everyone else, everyone wants to find who is to blame, everyone in fighting mode, who on earth is going to hire when everyone hates everyone else and so forth ?

Superstition

Superstition

It is all superstition today, like the greens against Nuclear, this mysterious "bad thing", this "devil", all superstitious, all afraid of ghosts and imaginary boogy mans and such: there has never been an era so full of superstition, knowledge, science and at the same time so religious, irrational, so stupid; science and knowledge didn't really bring anything to the table, for every new scientific fact or data, there is a never ending debate and fight and politics about what it means, who is right, what to do, the more science the more fights and politics and debates and choices and unknowns and so forth, all controversial; like we know everything and we know nothing at the same time; we have everything and we have nothing at the same time; religion went out of the door to come back through the window in the form of science, greens, data and controversial ideas, everything is questioned, everything is unsure, nuclear is obviously the best energy source but pure religion and superstition and so many idiots debating something so obvious has made it go away: we need way more nuclear, the only really clean energy source there is. Just like "innovation" creating millions of jobs is superstition, is a make believe, is an abstract uncontrollable "new fact" that we now "know", or labor reforms will make Spain and Italy "grow again", all make believes, all BS, all hot air just to make believe that they are on top of it, that they are in control that they know what they are doing and talking about: nothing further from the truth, they just repeat all the BS everyone else repeats, like a prayer, like a religion, all copy cats, all the data can be manipulated to show that anything is true or false and so forth, no one knows anything or can control anything (like 300,000 new jobs were created in the USA in february: wow, who would have imagined, but is it true ? what jobs ? can I control that new fact ? and so on), and the real mistake is to take anyone seriously, is to take humanity and this huge civilization as something having value and worthwhile when it is all crap, useless, make believe, irrational, we are all still in the stone ages, we are an ape age animal, nothing more.

But so it is with all, everything is acronyms, new names, new concepts, people selling things based on things that are invisible, like the quad core phones and such: well who ever noticed the difference ? all of these tags and features, all names of invisible, abstract things that you can't measure or know, see or touch, or understand all to sell some imaginary "better thing" this is all superstition, 100,000 apps (apps to do exactly what ? so many different things ? incredible who would have ever imagined, I can't imagine more than 10 different things but these guys invented 100,000 different things, wow!=) ) the multi core PCs haven't improved crap, it is all make believe, it is all a marketing scheme, and then I even doubt the chips have more than one cpu and maybe they only have a few hundred thousand transistors and it is all a hoax, a make believe, but who would ever notice ? how could you ever find out ? and the same with drugs, sicknesses, and all kinds of things, sell invisible things, sell financial products, sell this and that but be sure that it is incomprehensible, invisible, indirect and abstract and people are under the thumb of the experts having "faith" in the experts, the new gurus and so forth, all superstition, all unknown, uncontrollable, unknowable and so on and so forth and such.

The Information Age, everyone can say anything and debate everything to not get anywhere, the more information and knowledge, the more conflicts, debates, politics, fights and so on, nothing that is accumulating and going forward, we are at the end of progress, progress self destroyed by too much information.

spark plug

Was Rich

Was Rich

Beware of formerly rich countries, communities becoming poor again, this is happening in Spain, Italy and other places, they will fight back, they will delude themselves, they will do everything they can to make believe that it is not happening, that a "solution" can be found, that "growth" can restart again: well there is no solution, no one and nothing is in charge, it is all left to its own devices now (in a sense, everything has always been left to its own devices always), it will evolve completely independent of what anyone thinks, any governments do or laws or anything, any debates, any information and trying to figure it our and so on, you can't think away the problems, you can't debate them away or throw ever more debates, theories, ideas, politics, or information at problems, they simply can't be solved because they don't depend on any controlling causes, any linearities, they are intractable problems, like all of economy, no one is in charge, no one and no politics, idea or concepts can change anything, these things simply play out by themselves, no matter how much you try to fool yourself. And the distance between all the the talk and theories and "trying to figure it out" and reality is ever larger. And these people will get angry, violent, frustrated, all kinds of bad things, will do all kinds of irrational things, but will probably simply make things even worse. They will try to hang on to their former wealth without ever doing what should be done:

1) crash all real estate prices radically (3 bedroom home in the center of Madrid or Rome or London should cost no more than 50,000 dollars), huge deflation of all prices - salaries and goods (salaries at 700 dollars a month) - and bring forth cheap rents and build homes by the millions so there is no longer any excuse for high home values and prices;

2) huge public private projects, governments hiring millions (even to do nothing but to give a salary);

3) huge infrastructure projects, rockets, skyscrapers, whatever.

Will this ever happen ? No. the developed economies all have the "invisible hand" religion, they all want things to play out by themselves, there is no strong central government and so forth that can impose all of this. They are all doing the exact opposite, firing public workers, trying to save money and such. And waiting for the startups, innovation myth to hire millions: good luck with that.

But why can they do this when a major war breaks out ? why can they concentrate all of their power and wealth for wars and fighting but not for evolving normal societies to trying to be better off ? only fights justify large government expenditures, but poverty is not a war...

Like the greens that didn't want Nuclear Power: well guess what, now the dominant energy form is carbon, that is dirty, polluting and creates a load of CO2, but for a religious - dogma - ideological idea that Nuclear is the devil they just made things a lot worse for global warming: nuclear is the cleanest and most advanced and best energy, but the greens think that it is the devil, go figure.



spark plug
nameta9
Philosopher
 
Posts: 1756
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:42 am

Friday, March 8, 2013

Progress Terminated




Progress Terminated

Postby nameta9 » Fri Mar 08, 2013 11:43 pm
 
Progress Terminated

It used to be easy to recognize progress: cars got better between 1950 and 1980 or so, planes went from propeller to jets and so forth, TV went color, you could easily feel and enjoy and see progress. Now the progress is so indirect, vague, hard to pinpoint down (it is all based on invisibles like "air bags" or "electronic stability" and any other hosts of acronyms that are hard to see or feel or pinpoint down and so forth (if they are even present, if it is not all a hoax), the very idea that I have to know what operating system a smartphone has is so indirect, vague, abstract: who the heck cares! I just need some functions, end of story) all software, rituals, people based, fashion based things, I don't know, I am not convinced.

SO I was looking at Windows 8 and Word 8 and comparing it to what MS put out 15 years ago, Windows 95 and the old Word program: the older ones are way better, faster, clearer to understand, the menus are easy to spot, intuitive and so forth (in the newer Words menus can "disappear" and such, who the heck that idea ! so stupid!). Anyways the theory seems to go that if you can't go forward, if you cannot progress, than go backwards, regress technology. Really, how the heck is it possible that MS with all their cash and high tech brightest students hired have mostly gone backwards, have made no improvements at all but have worsened everything and gone way backwards in all of this technology and not forward ? it is beyond bold ! or is it exactly because they have the brightest, and they are all working hard, so hard that they go backwards instead of forwards, that they go in the opposite direction in the end. So maybe MS needs a lot fewer programmers, smaller programs and so forth, too many people just botch up everything.

And don't get me started that it is controversial: if something is better or worse according to taste, preferences, artistic choices, then there is no discernible progress, progress is terminated, is over, undefined, it is all choices, decisions, software and people stuff, the soft stuff, politics, office politics, legal fights, standards, all kinds of complicated where progress is no longer the issue, now it is all politics and fights and such, you can't really see distinct and clear progress anymore, it is all so indirect, abstract, requires so many extra thought paths and such: it used to be so easy, you saw better right way, it was obviously better, things really progressed and went forward, not anymore, it was not all political like today.

Anyways, the rant is not only directed to MS, but I see this happening in so many things and areas, we go backwards instead of forwards, if you can't go forwards, go backwards, if you can't progress anymore go backwards. Like working so hard that you actual break things, you actually unwork what was previously achieved, going backwards, not only diminishing returns but negative returns, the more you work hard, the more you change and "innovate" and "research" the more everything becomes worse, breaks, goes backwards (and don't even get me started on medicine, health care and so forth, now everyone is considered "autistic", is sick , has a sickness, needs a drug, needs a test, needs to pay huge amounts of money to the health care mob and so on), we're headed towards the stone age through all of this new fangled innovation and research and fake "progress". Progress Terminated.

8 thugs 8 man
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Models ?

All models of reality end up being false, so nothing new about GDP.

So why are you worshiping your pain ? your expectations didn't happen ? your model and model of the future has been denied, has been demolished ? well then you are fighting your own mind and your own models, the mind tortures itself with expectations of the future, how things will be, all kinds of dreams and movies of the future, plans, projects, this and that, when it is only random chaos reality deciding what will be, and then you are angry, or sad and mourn and worried and you worship your own pain, you worship the fact that your model was false, was denied, was contrasted, contradicted and such. But we are hard wired to be like this, maybe it has something to do with religion, nay, with logic and language, the moment you saw that you could control little things, you started to believe you could control larger things, things that extend in space and time, the future, other people and their behaviors, health, what other people do, that you could control other people's will power, have influence on them, convince them to do this or that and then you fought people and you hoped, hoped for the future, but it is all in vain, sooner or later your models will be demolished, any model, any hope and future, no matter how sure you think you are and such. But then exactly because so many models work out to be and work, that you get carried away believing that all your ideas and hopes and models and expectations and plans and so forth will play out like you think, and when they don't you just fight yourself, you worship your pain. The mind tortures itself thinking about it over and over again, the logic denied, always looking for a reason, why, why, who is to blame, I'll get back at you or something in the end and so forth, the expectations denied like a son who died in a war and all kinds of similar things. So hose this architecture of man brain, design a new one...

8 thugs, 8 MAN

Reply to Daktoria

From:

http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply- ... north.html

"OK, so what do you want to discuss? It sounds like you're just elaborated a lot on stating the obvious.

I'd give you an A for a paper, but there's not much room for expansion."

Just glut the internet with information, fill up all the memory of the internet with a never ending stream of concepts, ideas, be a hog, who cares, what is there to discuss anyways ? I am 100 % right on everything, I win always, I am always right, I always win, I am always wrong, I always lose, I can say anything and the opposite, who cares, I am god, the ultra god, I am the winner, what else can I say, how can god discuss anything ? he made eveything so...


Writing on blogs, forums is the closest thing to talking to yourself: the strangest thing, you are talking to yourself essentially and everyone else is also talking to themselves and replying to ghosts and such. The information is thrown in the wind, who knows where it goes, what mind it can influence or not, what intractable cause and effect it can generate, the most abstract thing, almost invisible.

What happened to joanne ? what else did she do ? you have permission to scribble on JHK's blog, keep on writing your book, at least we can read something...

ape thug

Normal 2


ape head
nameta9
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Re: Normal ?

Postby nameta9 » Fri Mar 08, 2013 1:19 pm
Normal 2


So then anything is normal or nothing is normal, like a fork wanting the whole world for all time and space to be like itself, but then is surprised to see a pebble, something different and unexpected and so it is with all, all details, random, quirks, flukes trying to impose themselves as normal, as laws, as things how they are supposed to be instead of them being just random configurations having no cause and lasting any amount of time, just because for no reason at all. And all of the models that pretend and impose a normality upon reality are really just wishful thinking, expectations, expectations destined to be betrayed by reality doing anything it wants, no one is in control of reality in the end no matter how hard you try to brainwash yourself of it, there is no theory of reality, no science or theory at all.

So then what is normal ? well, normal doesn't exist, only details exist, only point like random, casual chaotic details that don't mean anything exist, like a configuration of pebbles on the ground, such are societies and economies, just a random configuration that can last a day, a year or a million years, it doesn't matter it doesn't imply any large scale theories or plans or any deep natural laws and so on. Everything is an absolute truth, every quirk detail is a master plan absolute truth (all human lives are just a sequence of casual and random details not meaning anything, but meaning some kinds of absolute truths for the life in question) or a meaningless quirk, take your choice: the economists took the time frame of 1870 to 1940 and considered that time in the space (place) of the USA as an absolute truth, as an invariant pattern as a repetitive pattern that becomes a scientifc law of truth, when they were just making it all up, it was just a random invention not meaning anything but becoming this absolute - almost religious truth of "Economic Growth" as the measurement of all things economical and political and so on.

Don't take anything seriously, everyone is taking everyone else for a ride. And people struggle to abide to false truths invented by others but never really analyzed since any analysis will unmask how inconsistent all of these truths are.

As if anyone really knows anything, anyone really has a real scientific theory of the economy, society or politics: what a joke don't take anything or anyone says seriously, no one knows anything, they just make believe that some causes and causes and effects exist and that some large scale models are operating in reality (simply repeating what they always heard others repeat, all copy cats), when it is all a commad language, all hiding hidden agendas to pass some laws, or to make people behave and do things and believe in things (like the faith in college education landing you a good job forcing you to take the student loan that you will find in the end that you can't pay back) and so on.

And all the models and scientific - economic truths are all based on a few decades of a particular society (the USA) in such a particular time (the 19, 20th century when technology was advancing hugely) and assigning them as economic laws, laws of nature, economies naturally grow by 2 or 3 percent a year, forever (when then in the end most growth was probably due to population increases more than anything else, and life spans increasing because of advances in medicine, and better sanitation and mass produced food by mechanized agriculture making food cheap and so forth).

we are just a sequence of details without any cause or effects or models or truths and so are societies...

Now generate ever more information and concepts and ideas, glut the internet with more blocks of texts, the memory is free...



ape spark

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correction 2


Correction 2:

"More precisely: the mistake was in thinking that that lifestyle was normal, would continue forever (no one seemed to notice how new it was, that it was only around for a few decades, that is was all very iffy, given how many things could change and happen and given the history of humanity), when it was due to a set of converging forces and a configuration of forces, technology, international division of labor situation (the only industrialized areas were the USA and then the EU and JAPAN) that made that lifestyle possible; thinking and planning and expecting - the expectations - that the future will be like the present and even better (hence you can make all the debts you want, the future will go forward, things will always improve, I will get a raise and a better job and so forth), that lifestyle was eternal, it was always going to be like this, we will always need to go to college, land a steady job (only to hear corporations and economists and politicians start chanting and complaining that you need to change type of jobs every 2 years, you will need constant training and ever more education, you will need to "hone" your skill set, and change your skill set constantly given all the new fangled technology that will come online and so forth: but all of these excuses were a kind of rationalization to try to explain why jobs weren't be created at the rate the economist, the optimistic economists expected (it was always the workers fault), as if having full employment is a given, is natural and normal, is even necessary (it should be the other way around, a progressing society that is going towards the future should really need less and less work and jobs and such: many jobs needed means many problems needing to be solved, means we are not "pregressing" but going backwards, we're not being "productive" or "efficient" and such), there will always be so many jobs, all based on innovation and new tecnhology and new things and opportunities and so forth. Nothing further from the truth. Actually the truth is always nothing further from the truth."

But the powers that be, the economists, corporations and so forth can actually force the truth to be what they want, can program the truth, create the truth by forcing things to abide to models no matter what, to go in a certain direction according to the model they always chant about and such by sheer force: if they say the economy will need a million programmers and then they all agree to hire them just to make the model become true, just to actually instantiate the truth, invent and create a truth, then as usual, there is no truth, only truths and models and expectations that are arbitrarily chosen and then forced to be without any justification: a language that becomes a command language, from describing something, from saying what the objective truths are to actually programming that truth to become such in reality, also by brainwshing everyone of this truth, and then making the truth become real and such. And this can be done in so many areas, issues, politics, governments, choices and so forth, without anyone noticing, but who cares, if it works, it doesn't matter if you notice, a truth that comes about through a command language, programmed by a command language (or even by customs, behaviors, rituals, whatever) is indistinguishable from an objective truth revealed externally from the system, but since society and man and such is the system looking at itself, describing itself, programming itself, it is also the system programming itself, inventing itself, creating and reinforcing its own truths.



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Correction:


Correction:

" ... And at the same time the parents of kids expected and expecting them to follow their same path, go to college, get married, have two kids, work for a large company at a steady job, mom at home and so forth, when this model only lasted at most 30 years and was due to such a particular moment in history when the USA was a manufacturing giant, mom could stay at home since dad got paid enough to support them and so on: compare that to today, when jobs are not only unsecure, but no one even knows what jobs must be done, the future is all uncertain, the 1950s and 1960s model broke forever and so forth.
The mistake is that of thinking that changes are normal ..."

More precisely: the mistake was in thinking that that lifestyle was normal, would continue forever (no one seemed to notice how new it was, that it was only around for a few decades, that is was all very iffy, given how many things could change and happen and given the history of humanity), when it was due to a set of converging forces and a configuration of forces, technology, international division of labor situation (the only industrialized areas were the USA and then the EU and JAPAN) that made that lifestyle possible; thinking and planning and expecting - the expectations - that the future will be like the present and even better (hence you can make all the debts you want, the future will go forward, things will always improve, I will get a raise and a better job and so forth), that lifestyle was eternal, it was always going to be like this, we will always need to go to college, land a steady job (only to hear corporations and economists and politicians start chanting and complaining that you need to change type of jobs every 2 years, you will need constant training and ever more education, you will need to "hone" your skill set, and change your skill set constantly given all the new fangled technology that will come online and so forth: but all of these excuses were a kind of rationalization to try to explain why jobs weren't be created at the rate the economist, the optimistic economists expected (it was always the workers fault), as if having full employment is a given, is natural and normal, is even necessary (it should be the other way around, a progressing society that is going towards the future should really need less and less work and jobs and such: many jobs needed means many problems needing to be solved, means we are not "pregressing" but going backwards, we're not being "productive" or "efficient" and such), there will always be so many jobs, all based on innovation and new tecnhology and new things and opportunities and so forth. Nothing further from the truth. Actually  the truth is always nothing further from the truth.
But actually it is no jobs and not working that is the normal situation, jobs and the need to work is the exception, most of humanity has always been unemployed so to say, jobs were few since jobs and the need to do something was and really still is an exception, although everyone has this model believing that having millions of people going to work everyday is normal, when it is another exceptional quirk, another of those truly exceptional situations that paradoxically the technological economy enforced first by producing them in manufacturing, then by eliminating them, but societies had to invent the services sector to create the appearance of jobs (and so many jobs are mostly appearances, rituals, customs, make it look like you are working but not really producing anything (financial gimmicks are a product ?) and such) in order to distribute cash that wouldn't be distributed since there would be no reason to distribute it: bottom line, jobs are mostly make believe, it is not normal for societies to have millions of workers and jobs, societies probably need very few workers in only a few sectors end of story, this is another fairy tale of expectations, the job creation myth, the full employment myth and so forth, all based on some magical "economic law" that the economists discovered in the last few decades, when there is no such law (and even women started to enter the workforce, go figure).


spark plug

Normal ?

Normal ?

Postby nameta9 » Fri Mar 08, 2013 10:10 am
Normal ?

Look at how many changes have occurred in only 100 years: the family structure is completely different (especially in the EU and JAPAN!), many have only one child, others have none at all, many couples can't even conceive, sometimes the only child has so many aunts and uncles (so to say) that never had kids, so they grow up in such a special - particular environment: compare this to 100 years ago when the families (mostly farmers) were way larger, mom stayed at home, babies died earlier, moms died fast when expecting and so many other changes in just the family structure, such as so many divorces, or many people marry many times in a lifetime, or don't marry at all, and then some kids may have many moms, 2 dads, queer dads, no moms and dads, and all kinds of crazy combinations and so forth, all changing, all a flux, nothing stable, single parents, everything out of control or unknown or like a continuous experiment, how to experiment with all kinds of "family" structures, if the word "family" can even be used and such.

BUt even this was due to that very "Not Normal" time when technology and the modern era started kicking in and changing everything, eveything got changed very quickly, in only a few decades, people went from farming to office jobs and such, studying became common place, so many changes in such a short time is not normal, entire industries hiring millions in cars and jets and TVs and so forth, all of a sudden in such a short time along with all the other corresponding changes, we went from backwards to forwards in a jiffy: and this is not normal. We are still trying to catch up psychologically with all of these rapid changes (and JHK and his freinds are still fighting TV and cars, still fighting technologies that came out 60 years ago), we still can't even figure out what happened, work disappearing and we still use the factory model of 8 hours a day, something totally ridiculous, the entire idea of steady marriage and family and normal mom and dad is no longer even present - sure, it is always being criticized by all of the queers and such.

And don't even get me started on all of the other deep changes, atom bombs, relativity, quantum mechanics discovered, freud, a never ending array of theories, science, ideas, research in so many areas, the information society (or age ?) with a glut of never ending information and so forth (and then the counterculture, rock, hippies, drugs), everyone had to get a college degree, the past was done and over with, now we were all headed towards the future, space exploration and so forth. And at the same time the parents of kids expected and expecting them to follow their same path, go to college, get married, have two kids, work for a large company at a steady job, mom at home and so forth, when this model only lasted at most 30 years and was due to such a particular moment in history when the USA was a manufacturing giant, mom could stay at home since dad got paid enough to support them and so on: compare that to today, when jobs are not only unsecure, but no one even knows what jobs must be done, the future is all uncertain, the 1950s and 1960s model broke forever and so forth.

The mistake is that of thinking that changes are normal (hence all the emphasis on innovation and research, they expect a constant stream of life changing technologies to keep on coming online forever, hiring millions when this was a truly unique, exceptional time in history, a one time quirk that has expired is finished, has lost its drive and can't happen again all over): it was not normal, it is not normal, it was a one time quirk with all of the changes happening simultaneously, changing everything, the very first time a consumerist cvilization and society appeared on earth, the USA was and still is the only real consumerist society, and the model of the USA was supposed to be imitated by other countries, but no one ever really matched and imitated the USA, other countries all ended up wanting to export their goods instead of consuming them, and then the USA was a new experiment, the first time factory workers and normal workers were actually paid a decent salary exactly to make them consume all the goods being produced, and the entire structure of the USA was (and still is) geared to consuming and buying, big box stores, malls, large homes, 2 car garages, wide open spaces and so forth, all things that no other country could ever create: but especially the USA was the very first society to completely change the culture and pyschology and mentality of millions of people away from a scarcity, poverty, save your cash and poverty - insecurity model (still operating in most of the world - and why home prices are so high in the rest of the world, all insecure people saving and loading up home prices as a storage for money instead of consuming, just look at how little JAPAN and Germany consume, they all want to export, they all have puny little homes and don't want to consume like crazy with 2 car garages, big box stores, malls and so forth) to a happy go lucky, the future will always be better consumption model.

BUt none of this was and is normal, it was just a lucky break, an exception: and now we are at the end of the road of this great illusion, now we are at the end of this growth model, but there never was a model in the first place, something that has happened in only the last few decades can't be considered a model at all, can't be expected in the future, a past play of forces - configuration of forces and effects can't be expected to keep on playing out in the future, you can't invent "economic laws" based on such a short period of time, especially considering how many effects and changes occured in that period, the mistake and idea that that short time was normal, was a given, the taking for granted that modern was achieved, is achieved forever, can only keep on going up, the entire idea of GDP as a new law, a fundamental law, when the entire phenomea the economists were looking at was a one time experiment, that never happened in the past and will never happen again the future: it is not normal to live in workless societies and rich societies, none of this is normal, and it is all something that has been around for only a few decades.

Stagnation is normal, poverty is normal, or very slow and little changes is normal, and in fact most of humanity and civilization has lived in slowly changing stagnating societies (but the mistake is calling something normal "stagnating", when in all truth it is growth that is not normal and stagnation is just the normal ways of things, slow changes and little changes is the normal way of things, bored societies that need some action every now in then in the form of wars, or dictators or violence o whatever to break the monotony).

We will probably enter a long period of Stagnation, slow changes, some places will keep on getting richer up to a certain point (like China) but only up to the point that they can change their mentality into a consumerist mentality which I doubt will happen, these are deep cultural - psychological changes needed, only happened once in history and in the USA from 1930 to 1970, I doubt that it can happen again anywhere else, other places like Southern Europe will become poor again, India will remain the crap it is, and so forth, this expectation and hope that the emerging BRICS can really pull off a society like the USA is doomed, won't happen, they will increasingly buy cell phone and cars and other things, but they won't get any further than Spain and will find themselves as Spain is today in the end.

Although this is an ongoing experiment of worldwide industrialization, no one knows what climate change effects all the pollution and activity can have and will have (along with antibiotics, viruses and so forth), no one is sure of anything like peak oil and such, I don't expect extremes, I don't expect neither collapse like JHK hopes or rockets to mars either, we will probably have something in the middle, some places going up some going down, the statistical flukes will average out to a middle ground of low middle class life across most of the world, like 700 dollars a month salary, most jobs will disappear, most people won't be in pain but won't be in great pleasure either, most of the world will "stagnate" even though this concept is wrong: most of the world will return to normal again, and we better hope so otherwise probably more crazy and worst things could happen: wars, dictators, violence, who knows. Technology may or may not go forward, I am not at all sure of this.



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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Statistics and Numbers (GDP)

Statistics and Numbers (GDP)

 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Statistics and Numbers (GDP)

  • Re: Economic Growth Terminated

    Postby nameta9 » Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:23 pm
    Statistics and Numbers (GDP)


    Models, models, language itself, all abstractions, all abstract language creations pretending to correspond to reality, condensing reality into a few logical segments and debating these segments and pretending that you can actually influence reality by talking about it, debating it, by politics and choices and new laws and so forth.

    Aggregations, putting things together and adding them up and making a number that is supposed to imply something, mean somthing, like there are 1 million empty homes in china that means they are headed for a crash and housing bubble. Really ? not really, the numbers can imply anything according to any linear model, models and models all conveniently located within the controlled and comforting environment of your mind, the little world that your mind thinks the world actually corresponds to: nothing further from the truth, those houses are being used as a "Money Store", are just a "symbol" are just a make believe kind of wealth, most likely they will never be used at all, the most important thing is that the value of those houses remain high, actually, those houses and building exist only as a function of the value they represent, this is something completely different from a housing bubble or price bubble as imagined operating in the EU and USA (and even in these 2 places, houses are mostly proxies for value, for imagined value, are a money store, are simply dollar bills written in bricks, and rarely do the prices go down much, always just a little, especially in the EU). China won't crash because of this. And then these numbers always overlook all the little details, but it is all of the little details, all of the little decisions each person makes, what each person actually does that creates reality, always a very little reality that doesn't extend much in space and time and doesn't ever imply laws, trends or general laws, actually, it is all of the little quirk, random, arbitrary decisions of people doing whatever that breaks down the validity of all numbers and statistics in economics, that breaks down all trends and all theories, macro economic theories always.

    But the mistake is in the numbers adding things up and then using the numbers to mean something else: GDP is the best example, this number was invented in the 1930s, a very short time ago, way too short for the economists to be so Presumptuous to believe that is actually anything more than a little invention, a little make believe device useful to create other imaginary numbers and creations, a new creation, a new construction, a true metaphysical construction mixing the most different things and putting them all in one bag and then dealing with the bag as if it was something real, represented something real and such, and then this new fangled measurement, GDP was invented for the USA and in the 1930s a very specific place and specific time, it is hard to believe that it is valid and can apply for everyplace and all time as they all want to make you believe: this number, GDP, is the result of the huge advances technology made in creating ever higher production levels, jobs, standards of living all happening only in the last 200 years or so, way too little time to be sure that it is a law of nature that will always operate, way too unsure to extrapolate into any future and into any trends.

    Aggregatons, numbers are used constantly in all economic endeavors to then pass as true imaginary trends and laws and making believe that numbers can be converted into other numbers, like for example, the rich have become richer, they now have 80 billion dollars more wealth as compared to a year ago, with that wealth you could hire 400,000 people for 10 years and give them a salary: but you can't convert one number into another like that even though poltical economy always pretends you can, no one will hire people to do no one knows what, since today the real problem is that no one has any idea what real actual work people should do, is worth doing, what gives any return, what is necessary and all in order to give them a salary, no one has the faintest idea of how to let 400,000 people pass 8 hours a day and how that should correspond to a salary, what manipulations, what input -> manipulation -> output is necessary, brings a profit, brings a return for society or even for other individuals, since very few activities really produce much value anymore, much profit, much gain, the diminishing returns of work and labor in general no matter what. That is maybe why real estate becomes a store for value, keeps its values high, its prices high, it is something everyone could need, it is something that remains, that you can actually use, it is not invisible information that doesn't make any difference at all, if it is there or not, that can have any value at all arbitrarily according to how you want to value it, artistically, aesthetically, and so forth. And that is why Health Care costs so much: something you could need, something that forces you to use it, hence health care has now become the dominant economic sector of the USA; since all other things obviously have such little value compared to health care, and "education" but education only because you can make believe anything has any value since your education "will make you land that good job" (and then always based on the faith in the future, the hope of the future, you will be hired and get steady raises in the future, this also created all of the debts, since everyone thought that this system of life was a given, something that happend only in the last few decades became a law of nature, something that was an exception and a quirk, a one time fluke of history, and very uncertain if it could continue, became a certainty and created a faith in the future (and student loan debts) that was never really justified).

    Or you could use those 80 billion dollars to build 400,000 houses with cheap rents: but no one will do this since you build to make a profit. But then again, if nothing makes a profit then the rich are better off just keeping that cash, what they actually do, and tell society to go fly a kite, who cares. All of political economy, economists, all politics is always in this mode of adding up billions of dollars here, cutting here, deciding to do something else with those billions of dollars there, constantly converting one thing into another, only tied between eah other through numbers, these numbers are truly fantastic metaphysical devices, converting everything into everything else, connecting everything into everything else, anything can be converted into anything else by their dollar value and such.

    And notice the whole deal with banks, money, billions of dollars here, trillions of dollars there, trillion of dollars of debts and so forth, all of these aggregations, all of these numbers, the unemployment rate, is always the same trick: add up things coming from different sources and things and situations, from so many different people, make it become one number, and then talk on behalf of all of those people using one number, make your personal view and will power correspond to that of millions of people, when this is not true at all: all those people putting money in banks and creating large numbers for banks, creating the billions of dollars, all have different lifestyles, choices, different jobs or no jobs at all, all kinds of disjoint unrelated ways of thinking and doing things, and choices, and decisions, and instantaneous random decisions: this trick of using a single number to represent a complex, infinitely complex reality is what generates debts, and political economies and such. And even the debts, all added up really means adding up so many unrelated, disjoint costs and activities, always adding everything up and putting it into one number.

    We have all been brainwashed by this mode of operation, I have used it millions of times myself: if the US spends a billion here, that money could be used for this or that, if JAPAN now has 1 million people less in population then that corresponds to 300,000 extra homes available, the mode is simple: take any number and convert the value into anytihng else that adds up to the same value: the FED is printing 80 billion dollars a month, you could do anything else worth 80 billion dollars instead of giving it to the banks and so on. But this mode of reasoning is deeply flawed even though hard to see where: take the JAPAN example, yes there are the equivalent of 300,000 homes of extra floor space in the country since the population went down in the last few years, but the floor space is invisible and cannot be aggregated all together, it may be one room on one house, antother bed from a hospital and so many other completely unrelated, disjoint places and items, that there is no way to add them up, to aggregate them in reality, it is just an imaginary construction adding things up pretending that they can be added up and put together, pretending that a trend is going on and that it could represent another excess real estate bubble, when this is impossible (it may even play out in the end as excess real estate and a price crash, but I wouldn't bet on it).

    But the real reason why all of these additions, aggregations, equivalencies, economic policies are flawed is even simpler: they all suppose that there are no other will powers opposing the aggregations, wanting to do things differently, choosing different aggregations, doing all kinds of things disrupting any kinds of aggregations: so the JAPAN has more rooms available, well guess what now dad can use the new room to put a new fangled stereo in it and so forth, these kinds of things are never considered in economy, in aggregations, in political economy and such.

    Anyways, the bottom line is this: GDP has been around for only a few decades, it is an invention, it doesn't correspond to any law or truth, it is just a quirk trend that played out in the very recent history of civilization due to huge technological changes and huge advances of standards of living and so forth. We have been in a high standard of living society for not even 80 years, such a short time that no extrapolation is possible at all, we are at the very beginning of a trend or economic development, if there even is a trend or if this "economic growth" trend (or myth?) even continues. It is not normal to live in rich societies, humanity has always lived in poverty, we are in an exceptional situation, a real quirk, a real work in progress without any possible clue of how it will play out, not only in the USA, EU and JAPAN but also in China or Indonesia or Brazil.

    We all got spoiled, we all thought that our present (1970s, 80s, 90s, 2000s ?) standard of living and lifestyle was a given, an absolute, was an established law (and hence we created debts to be paid back for in the future expecting the economy to keep on growing forever, to offer always so many new jobs and possibilities and advances and opportunities and so forth (the idea of having to change the kind of job you do every two years has recently gone out of style, obviously the economists finally saw how absurd such an idea was when most people can't even figure out what their "first" job type can possibly be!)), but it seemed so only for a few decades of exceptional stability and wealth after the second world war, then so many other disruptive forces started to influence everything, other countries gaining manufacturing capacity, other workers in other countries, technologies disrupting everything, economies of scale, energy prices and changes, and so forth.

    Nothing points to how things will play out, the problem isn't oil or peak oil or resource scarcity, the problem is much deeper and general: no one knows what work is needed or will be needed and how to organize a society for little work, or how to distribute wealth when so little work is necessary and the only channel to distribute wealth is through work; no one knows how other countries will evolve, like China (building millions of empty homes as a form of cash, instead of dollar bills, buildings ?) no one knows how poor the developed economies can become, how will technology influence all of this and so forth. There is no clue, no one has any answers.

    And then you have the examples of Germany and Scandinavia where "you are not allowed to not work" and the welfare state finds you jobs no matter what, so everyone is employed, but these places are so particular, with such a particular culture, kind of "work ethic" or whatever, and then it would be interesting to see exactly how much of the labor done in these countries really produces anything, any real output given that the standard of living of these very rich northern european countries is only twice as high as the poorer southern countries like Spain and Italy, but anyways, another study of these countries is necessary (and then, if you can even apply these models to cultures and countries and societies with such different customs and ways of doing and mentalities and such, Italy is not Denmark for example no matter what).

    The bottom line is the conflicts, fights, political fights, this constnat drone of information, new information creating debates, controversies, contrasts, conflicts, confrontations, worries, new problems, debates and so forth, but mainly the fights and conflicts are making all of our societies so much poorer than what they really are and could be.

    Will we reach an Infinte Resource Society and colonize the Solar System ? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it, the peak oil doomsters may even be right in the end, who knows...


    spark plug
  • Skyscrapers

    From_

    http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply-to-gary-north.html

    From:

    http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=175880

    BUILD SKYSCRAPERS.

    Please, oh, pretty please, build skyscrapers, build like crazy! I was reading that in China they are building like crazy, they have "Forests of Empty Skyscrapers". That is so damn cool, I can't believe it! I can just imagine the blocks of texts that will be written about it in a few years, when their "housing bubble", NAY, "real estate bubble" bursts : "The Disasters of a Planned Economy".
    You see, what they are doing is applying logic, common sense, the thought process, the simple linear cause and effect mechanism to a real simple need: Real Estate is a need, it shouldn't be a "scarcity", so the more you build, the better, the more skyscrapers, the more "room to grow", you have. Can you imagine how many chunks of furniture will be needed to fill them all up ? Can you imagine how many computers and TV sets will be put in all of those skyscrapers ? Between offices and houses, they are set to produce an infinite amount of consumer goods for all of that real estate, something never seen in the history of Man: the USA consumption of the 20th century will look so puny, it won't even be on the radar of the future history books.

    So they are achieving Mind over Matter, the thought process dominates reality, they are planning it out, they are building their needs outright without waiting for that oh, so fickle, and oh so vague and mostly phony "invisible hand of the market" theory. That is so cool, the Planned Economy, where what I want and decide is being achieved, they are doing what I want, my will power is being respected in China, good for them, good little puppies, keep up the good work!
    Now it takes 100 workers a year to make one skyscraper, so to make a million skyscrapers they can easily use 100 million workers, it is completely doable, the workers all come from puny agricultural towns starving to death, they got nothing to lose but their chains. So with 1 million skyscrapers you can put up 50 million homes and offices, each about 100 sqm (no feet system here jose', this is globalization stuff, not your puny Kansas City hillbillies, but anyways that is around 1,100 sq feet). So that can house 250 million people. But I fathom they could hike it up to 400 million workers and make 4 million skyscrapers, so in a couple of years have made enough real estate to house a billion people: NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL EXCESS CAPACITY PUT TO GOOD USE, THE TECHNOLOGICAL ECONOMY ACHIEVING ITS REAL POTENTIAL.

    But you say, what about Nature ? Well who gives two c*cks and a d*ck about Nature ? What matters is to achieve, to express yourself, to build, to show that you are dominating, the Mind over Matter is working and producing and achieving real value for your money. We will mine the earth and planets to build skyscrapers, we will make Iron and Steel and Cement in particle accelerators building them atom by atom, we will win and succeed.

    I can't stand these Greens and Environmentalists and scaredy cats all afraid of manipulating the living daylights out of Nature, always finding something poisonous and bad in every process, you can't build atomic energy reactors, you can't build high speed trains, you can't do this or that and this or that. What c*cks! all in the name of Nature, this phony "False Religion" if I ever saw one (give us back the Catholics and the old Christ, or even the old Christian Fundamentalists with their hell and punishment and all, but please don't introduce yet another fake religion, another belief system, another set of crappy values). It is their fault we have the economic crisis, we should consume and build like there is no tomorrow, we should build trillions of Skyscrapers, Rockets to Mars, trillions of Malls, buy and throw away like crazy, every 3 years change all furniture and cars, wild crazy consumption, and hose nature, use nature until it no longer exists, since then we will use Mars, and the Sun itself, go on, do it, you can do it, go on.

    The Disasters of a Planned Economy

    I was looking at some of China on google maps and photos and such. It is "beyond pale", as someone said, they are really building like there is only tomorrow! You can estimate how much excess real estate inventory they already have by a simple thought experiment: the USA has 300 million people, so just imagine to add four extra floors to all homes in the USA to host 1.5 billion. Now look at their towns and cities, most of their buildings have 4 or more floors, but also thousands upon thousands of various high rises, no way they can pull off the excuse of "population", it just doesn't hold, they simply have huge excess capacity with no end in sight. And they have so many smaller towns on the outskirts, probably mostly abandoned. Anyways, I guess they will end up hosting the entire world population for free, they already got the Cheap Rents part licked, that is for sure. And they will also give you a free salary since their money and economy is all make believe anyways (but aren't all economies a fake ?).

    Maybe the Chinese government should start paying itself some serious property tax, can you imagine how much cash they could obtain by printing it and giving it to themselves in the form of property taxes and then flooding the world with their cash ? And also, they will fill all those buildings with literally TRILLIONS OF TVS AND COMPUTERS AND CHUNKS OF FURNITURE!. Wow, the have their "Economic Growth" cut out for themselves for a few hundred years. Also they are building developments in Angola and elsewhere, the whole world will become saturated with high rises and skyscrapers: now that is so cool!

    At least Spain (and USA) had some market economy still going for it, it eventually had to really deal with the invisible hand of the market and they had to stop building (of course they now have an unknown number of empty apartment buildings and homes, maybe a few million ? unknown for now), but in China there is no feedback loop, no invisible hand of the market that will catch up with them, they will just keep on building until they fill the entire country up with buildings, so cool!
    Of course, I fathom most buildings will simply decay and are probably built hastily or whatever, so they build, keep them empty and then they decay all by themselves after a few years, but the cycle can repeat forever.

    Anyways I practically already wrote here the future article of The "Disasters of a Planned Economy". Talk about Real Estate Bubble..

    Then again, what else can they do ? you got millions of farmers, uneducated, so the only thing they can do is build and build some more. Give them a function they will be happy. So they got nothing better to do but build skyscrapers and buildings and highways and trains, you name it. So this will keep them employed and busy for years on end, we need thousands of trillions of people, to build trillions of skyscrapers first all across the earth and then on Mars and so on. So you all got your work cut out for you, all HARD WORK BABY, build those skyscrapers with your bare hands, build them by the trillions for 24 hours a day for trillions of years.

    Why is Man such a Turd ? Why is he based on such a low class technology like carbon chemistry, DNA and all, so quirky and all wrong, inefficient, hose this technology, change the brain mind, shove wild symbols and chemicals and signals inside new circuits, create a new world a new experience.
    On another note, even with millions educated like in the EU and USA there is little work for them all to do, so imagine without education, but anyways, even in the USA and EU, even the educated should get down to HARD WORK, BABY, and build trillions of skyscrapers with your bare hands, etc. Enough brainy stuff, Information Technology, fluff, services and such, now only real hard concrete stuff with real concrete!


    Statistics and Numbers (GDP)

  • Re: Economic Growth Terminated

    Postby nameta9 » Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:23 pm
    Statistics and Numbers (GDP)


    Models, models, language itself, all abstractions, all abstract language creations pretending to correspond to reality, condensing reality into a few logical segments and debating these segments and pretending that you can actually influence reality by talking about it, debating it, by politics and choices and new laws and so forth.

    Aggregations, putting things together and adding them up and making a number that is supposed to imply something, mean somthing, like there are 1 million empty homes in china that means they are headed for a crash and housing bubble. Really ? not really, the numbers can imply anything according to any linear model, models and models all conveniently located within the controlled and comforting environment of your mind, the little world that your mind thinks the world actually corresponds to: nothing further from the truth, those houses are being used as a "Money Store", are just a "symbol" are just a make believe kind of wealth, most likely they will never be used at all, the most important thing is that the value of those houses remain high, actually, those houses and building exist only as a function of the value they represent, this is something completely different from a housing bubble or price bubble as imagined operating in the EU and USA (and even in these 2 places, houses are mostly proxies for value, for imagined value, are a money store, are simply dollar bills written in bricks, and rarely do the prices go down much, always just a little, especially in the EU). China won't crash because of this. And then these numbers always overlook all the little details, but it is all of the little details, all of the little decisions each person makes, what each person actually does that creates reality, always a very little reality that doesn't extend much in space and time and doesn't ever imply laws, trends or general laws, actually, it is all of the little quirk, random, arbitrary decisions of people doing whatever that breaks down the validity of all numbers and statistics in economics, that breaks down all trends and all theories, macro economic theories always.

    But the mistake is in the numbers adding things up and then using the numbers to mean something else: GDP is the best example, this number was invented in the 1930s, a very short time ago, way too short for the economists to be so Presumptuous to believe that is actually anything more than a little invention, a little make believe device useful to create other imaginary numbers and creations, a new creation, a new construction, a true metaphysical construction mixing the most different things and putting them all in one bag and then dealing with the bag as if it was something real, represented something real and such, and then this new fangled measurement, GDP was invented for the USA and in the 1930s a very specific place and specific time, it is hard to believe that it is valid and can apply for everyplace and all time as they all want to make you believe: this number, GDP, is the result of the huge advances technology made in creating ever higher production levels, jobs, standards of living all happening only in the last 200 years or so, way too little time to be sure that it is a law of nature that will always operate, way too unsure to extrapolate into any future and into any trends.

    Aggregatons, numbers are used constantly in all economic endeavors to then pass as true imaginary trends and laws and making believe that numbers can be converted into other numbers, like for example, the rich have become richer, they now have 80 billion dollars more wealth as compared to a year ago, with that wealth you could hire 400,000 people for 10 years and give them a salary: but you can't convert one number into another like that even though poltical economy always pretends you can, no one will hire people to do no one knows what, since today the real problem is that no one has any idea what real actual work people should do, is worth doing, what gives any return, what is necessary and all in order to give them a salary, no one has the faintest idea of how to let 400,000 people pass 8 hours a day and how that should correspond to a salary, what manipulations, what input -> manipulation -> output is necessary, brings a profit, brings a return for society or even for other individuals, since very few activities really produce much value anymore, much profit, much gain, the diminishing returns of work and labor in general no matter what. That is maybe why real estate becomes a store for value, keeps its values high, its prices high, it is something everyone could need, it is something that remains, that you can actually use, it is not invisible information that doesn't make any difference at all, if it is there or not, that can have any value at all arbitrarily according to how you want to value it, artistically, aesthetically, and so forth. And that is why Health Care costs so much: something you could need, something that forces you to use it, hence health care has now become the dominant economic sector of the USA; since all other things obviously have such little value compared to health care, and "education" but education only because you can make believe anything has any value since your education "will make you land that good job" (and then always based on the faith in the future, the hope of the future, you will be hired and get steady raises in the future, this also created all of the debts, since everyone thought that this system of life was a given, something that happend only in the last few decades became a law of nature, something that was an exception and a quirk, a one time fluke of history, and very uncertain if it could continue, became a certainty and created a faith in the future (and student loan debts) that was never really justified).

    Or you could use those 80 billion dollars to build 400,000 houses with cheap rents: but no one will do this since you build to make a profit. But then again, if nothing makes a profit then the rich are better off just keeping that cash, what they actually do, and tell society to go fly a kite, who cares. All of political economy, economists, all politics is always in this mode of adding up billions of dollars here, cutting here, deciding to do something else with those billions of dollars there, constantly converting one thing into another, only tied between eah other through numbers, these numbers are truly fantastic metaphysical devices, converting everything into everything else, connecting everything into everything else, anything can be converted into anything else by their dollar value and such.

    And notice the whole deal with banks, money, billions of dollars here, trillions of dollars there, trillion of dollars of debts and so forth, all of these aggregations, all of these numbers, the unemployment rate, is always the same trick: add up things coming from different sources and things and situations, from so many different people, make it become one number, and then talk on behalf of all of those people using one number, make your personal view and will power correspond to that of millions of people, when this is not true at all: all those people putting money in banks and creating large numbers for banks, creating the billions of dollars, all have different lifestyles, choices, different jobs or no jobs at all, all kinds of disjoint unrelated ways of thinking and doing things, and choices, and decisions, and instantaneous random decisions: this trick of using a single number to represent a complex, infinitely complex reality is what generates debts, and political economies and such. And even the debts, all added up really means adding up so many unrelated, disjoint costs and activities, always adding everything up and putting it into one number.

    We have all been brainwashed by this mode of operation, I have used it millions of times myself: if the US spends a billion here, that money could be used for this or that, if JAPAN now has 1 million people less in population then that corresponds to 300,000 extra homes available, the mode is simple: take any number and convert the value into anytihng else that adds up to the same value: the FED is printing 80 billion dollars a month, you could do anything else worth 80 billion dollars instead of giving it to the banks and so on. But this mode of reasoning is deeply flawed even though hard to see where: take the JAPAN example, yes there are the equivalent of 300,000 homes of extra floor space in the country since the population went down in the last few years, but the floor space is invisible and cannot be aggregated all together, it may be one room on one house, antother bed from a hospital and so many other completely unrelated, disjoint places and items, that there is no way to add them up, to aggregate them in reality, it is just an imaginary construction adding things up pretending that they can be added up and put together, pretending that a trend is going on and that it could represent another excess real estate bubble, when this is impossible (it may even play out in the end as excess real estate and a price crash, but I wouldn't bet on it).

    But the real reason why all of these additions, aggregations, equivalencies, economic policies are flawed is even simpler: they all suppose that there are no other will powers opposing the aggregations, wanting to do things differently, choosing different aggregations, doing all kinds of things disrupting any kinds of aggregations: so the JAPAN has more rooms available, well guess what now dad can use the new room to put a new fangled stereo in it and so forth, these kinds of things are never considered in economy, in aggregations, in political economy and such.

    Anyways, the bottom line is this: GDP has been around for only a few decades, it is an invention, it doesn't correspond to any law or truth, it is just a quirk trend that played out in the very recent history of civilization due to huge technological changes and huge advances of standards of living and so forth. We have been in a high standard of living society for not even 80 years, such a short time that no extrapolation is possible at all, we are at the very beginning of a trend or economic development, if there even is a trend or if this "economic growth" trend (or myth?) even continues. It is not normal to live in rich societies, humanity has always lived in poverty, we are in an exceptional situation, a real quirk, a real work in progress without any possible clue of how it will play out, not only in the USA, EU and JAPAN but also in China or Indonesia or Brazil.

    We all got spoiled, we all thought that our present (1970s, 80s, 90s, 2000s ?) standard of living and lifestyle was a given, an absolute, was an established law (and hence we created debts to be paid back for in the future expecting the economy to keep on growing forever, to offer always so many new jobs and possibilities and advances and opportunities and so forth (the idea of having to change the kind of job you do every two years has recently gone out of style, obviously the economists finally saw how absurd such an idea was when most people can't even figure out what their "first" job type can possibly be!)), but it seemed so only for a few decades of exceptional stability and wealth after the second world war, then so many other disruptive forces started to influence everything, other countries gaining manufacturing capacity, other workers in other countries, technologies disrupting everything, economies of scale, energy prices and changes, and so forth.

    Nothing points to how things will play out, the problem isn't oil or peak oil or resource scarcity, the problem is much deeper and general: no one knows what work is needed or will be needed and how to organize a society for little work, or how to distribute wealth when so little work is necessary and the only channel to distribute wealth is through work; no one knows how other countries will evolve, like China (building millions of empty homes as a form of cash, instead of dollar bills, buildings ?) no one knows how poor the developed economies can become, how will technology influence all of this and so forth. There is no clue, no one has any answers.

    And then you have the examples of Germany and Scandinavia where "you are not allowed to not work" and the welfare state finds you jobs no matter what, so everyone is employed, but these places are so particular, with such a particular culture, kind of "work ethic" or whatever, and then it would be interesting to see exactly how much of the labor done in these countries really produces anything, any real output given that the standard of living of these very rich northern european countries is only twice as high as the poorer southern countries like Spain and Italy, but anyways, another study of these countries is necessary (and then, if you can even apply these models to cultures and countries and societies with such different customs and ways of doing and mentalities and such, Italy is not Denmark for example no matter what).

    The bottom line is the conflicts, fights, political fights, this constnat drone of information, new information creating debates, controversies, contrasts, conflicts, confrontations, worries, new problems, debates and so forth, but mainly the fights and conflicts are making all of our societies so much poorer than what they really are and could be.

    Will we reach an Infinte Resource Society and colonize the Solar System ? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it, the peak oil doomsters may even be right in the end, who knows...


    spark plug