Comments for samadhisoft.com

Comment on Emotional non-negotiables by Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:05:03 +0000

There are new voices being raised pointing out the problems with civilization as it is currently configured. James Gustave Speth, author of “Red Sky at Morning” and a major environmental force for decades, has decided to step outside the system after working within it for most of his professional life. He’s written a new book, “The Bridge at the End of the World”, and in it he basically acknowledges that the environmental movement, to date, has been ineffective and is likely to continue to be so. He’s shifted from trying to work within the system to stepping outside and pointing the finger directly at consumerism and the out of control corporations.

There’s another new book which I’ve yet to get a copy of called, “The Dominant Animal” by the Ehrlichs. From the reviews I read, it seems that they’ve picked up an association that I’ve long thought was badly under appreciated and that is the highly causal link between the evolutionary forces that shaped us as animals and our current aberrant behaviors as residents of the planet.

If voices like these keep stepping forward, then when the inevitable crash comes and people are finally driven into accepting that we (those who survive) need to change, then they will a least have a reasonable idea where the real problems lie and hopefully will turn their new-born willingness to change towards those culprits.

Comment on Soul According to Tom Robbins by auntiegrav

auntiegrav — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:02:48 +0000

Anytime someone says, “It’s the question that cannot be answered.” it means they are selling something to you that doesn’t exist. I am a genius. In the words of my friend, “a f…king genius”. There are NO paradoxes in the real universe, only our misunderstandings and imaginary theories about what is going on. The idea of a ’soul’ is a paradox. God is a paradox. I’m not saying that some energy-based pattern of usefulness cannot exist in the universe, just that it cannot be what we hope it is. If there is a heaven where our patterns go, and there is some ’switch’ we have to hit to get there, then anyone can get there, and the most important lesson from life is learning to live with other people’s faults:”forgive those who trespass against us”, because you won’t be going to heaven just with the people you want, but with anyone and everyone who figures out the magic switch. Most likely, we just stop, but our brains are wired to ‘believe’ things, like that there may be a tiger hiding in the tall grass. Believing something is there that is not is a survival trait. Not believing in something that IS there is not. The real question about ourselves is “What are people FOR?” (see Wendell Berry) I think humans have at least the same amount of ‘purpose’ as any living thing: to create future usefulness over and above what we consume in resources. Our brains give us great power over other life, but with that power comes great responsibility if we are to pretend that we are actually ‘thinkers’ and not just ‘reactionaries’ to the environment and our emotions. So far, I have only seen the latter as a general rule. Humanity sold its soul for comfortable thoughts, as your example of religion illustrates.

Comment on Soul According to Tom Robbins by pookie

pookie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:59:08 +0000

And then there’s what Bart Simpson said about the subject:

“There’s no such thing as a soul. It’s just something they made up to scare kids, like the boogeyman or Michael Jackson.”

Comment on Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes by auntiegrav

auntiegrav — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:54:15 +0000

One more reason for a comprehensive consumption tax as the only way to tax people. We need government because we buy stuff. Government should be paid for, directly proportional to what we buy, not based on our monetary value, which they determine through bribes and schemes. All monetary purchases put a demand for resources on the ecosystem.
Not to mention the anonymity of sales taxes….
Corporations get away with this stuff because the system is designed by them. Obfuscation is the rule. Imagine what it would be like to work at a company where the engineers really got to decide something at the top level, instead of tax fraud specialists (accountants) always making the calls. How much profit is eaten up in recalls and ‘creating markets’ that never materialize, just because advertising is a deductible expense? How many insurance companies would be building $500,000 flagpoles (search “sheboygan acuity flag”) if they didn’t get to claim it was a ‘business’ expense? How about lobbying and PAC’s? How many ‘non’-profit agencies that pay exhorbitant salaries sucking up grant money to ’study’ the effects of sex education would still exist without an income-tax scheme?
Transparency is the key: in other words, honesty.

Comment on Emotional non-negotiables by auntiegrav

auntiegrav — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:41:49 +0000

Very good. Next step: the feedback systems that have been designed to PREVENT humans as a group from contemplating Sinclair’s concept. It’s all well and good for you and I or even college environment protected groups to consider the futility and self-destructiveness of civilization, but anyone taking action against the status quo is going to be breaking some societal law, either statutorily or politically. Ever noticed the dead zone around a large thistle plant or burdock bush? Once the power of suppression is in place, it is hard for anything less than total annihilation by a more powerful force or depletion of resources (dieoff) to change the dominant structure. Corporations have eliminated the ‘diseases’ of unionization and popular control (government) by outsourcing labor and bribing government wholesale.
They are just one example of ‘civilization’s facets of dominating the ecosphere which we ourselves are dependent upon to be broadly distributed and diverse, not living in homogenous ’spikes’ of ‘normality’ where the uncomfortable parts of life that make life robust are isolated from our experience. Wendell Berry described the modern automobile or tractor as a coffin: simulating death to provide us with perfect isolation from the ‘jolts and bumps’ of the fields and life. I submit that humanity has built itself into a societal coffin called ‘civilization’ , and the only way out is for the coffin to rot, but if anyone survives, it won’t be us. Nature has handily provided disasters over the eons to prove that the fringe is just as important as the 3 Sigma in the middle.
“Drive like an Arab got your cash.”

Comment on ‘Major discovery’ from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution by MD

MD — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:43:37 +0000

Dennis,

I had seen some information about this a while back and found it very exciting. The bit I say was on the incredible efficiency of plants/trees in use of solar energy in the photosynthesis process. The idea was to try and find a way to replicate what plants did for the purpose of producing energy. The way plants do this is deep down at the molecular level. Seems that the scientists are on the verge of success.

Regarding big oil, I think they will be happy about this. The large US oil companies such as Mobil have been, for some time now, migrating from oil exploration and development towards becoming full blown energy providers. They are into solar, wind, coal, oil, natural gas, etc. Not sure about nuclear but that is even possible.

Hay good buddy, the world actually consists of colors beyond black and white. So, kick back, relax, chill down a bottle of chardonnay and let the good times role.

Comment on For the good of who? by Citizen K

Citizen K — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:25:55 +0000

A hearty “Amen!”

The problems of the airline industry aside (economic reality may simply cause it to contract, transforming airline travel into a niche luxury, like owning a Hummer), it’s very pertinent that it has been under Republican presidencies and their policies that the country has dug deepest into its trade deficit hole.

I am currently reading Peter Schiff’s Crash Proof. He spends an entire chapter trying to explain the old school, nuts-and-bolts economic reasons why our epically gi-normous trade deficit will likely cause the dollar to implode.

Although I’m a political independent (none of the current parties truly reflect my perspective), I’ve voted mostly “liberal” since I came of age. And I am sick and tired of hearing “tax-and-spend liberal”. Hey, should the new mantra be “no-tax-but-spend-anyway conservative”? I thought Republicans were supposed to be fiscal conservatives? What happened? Oh right — that war in Iraq. The one that is supposedly about beating the terrorists on their home turf (nevermind that the 9/11 terrorists were mostly from Saudi Arabia), but which is really a historically large transfer of taxpayer money to the coffers of Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.

The Bush tax stimulus of last year was a joke. For those who got money back, it all went into their gas tanks or grocery bills.

As those legendary songsters the Temptations would say,

Eve of destruction, tax deduction,
city inspectors, bill collectors,
Mod clothes in demand, population out of hand,
suicide, too many bills,
Hippies moving to the hills.
People all over the world are shouting, ‘End the war.’
…And the band played on.

Comment on Tough Choices: How Making Decisions Tires Your Brain by Bruce

Bruce — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:00:37 +0000

That’s cool… I have been saying for a while that human focussed attention is the most valuable commodity (at least to humans).

Comment on How’s that work again? by Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:28:24 +0000

Yes, there is an element of bitterness in my piece. And yes, I am aware that I can choose how to “invest” my money; in a secured fashion or in an unsecured fashion. Indeed, my great aunt and her husband lived most of their adult lives as private “bankers” making loans to people who wanted to buy property. All of these loans were secured by liens on the properties involved.

I suppose all of this has to do with contracts as well? When I sign a contract for a credit card, the only collateral I offer is the presumption that I will pay back any money I may owe them. But, if I fail to pay, they can come after me on the strength of that contract. There is, for most “investors” like those who invested in Hanover Finance, no such contract - just an unsecured presumption of good faith.

Knowledge/information is power. And most folks have not thought through the consequences of these distinctions. It looks to me like many times those who have thought the logic through and understand it, use their knowledge against those who haven’t understood it to separate them from their money.

This begins to get at the deep distinctions between unconstrained Capitalism (that we have the right to profit from our fellows regardless of the consequences) and the core ideas of Socialism (that our governing organizations should be about creating and maintaining a decent quality of life for all of us).

Is it too much compassion to protect the less intelligent against the consequences of their lack of knowledge and intellect? We teach our children that bullying is bad on the playground. But when we grow up, in some of our societies, it becomes the ’smart’ thing to do - to use our extra intelligence, knowledge, information and understanding against our fellow citizens to separate them from their money?

I know I am an over-the-top idealist. But when I see the credit card companies camped out on college campuses handing out credit cards to the students knowing full-well that many, if not most, of the recipients are going to crash and burn from not really getting how these cards work (in spite of supposedly being smart in that they are going to college), I find that I am disappointed in the predatory nature of some of my fellow human beings.

We are not created equal. And I believe that those of us gifted with more intelligence have some responsibility to use this extra capacity compassionately with respect to our fellows rather than as a bludgeon to increase the economic disparity between them and ourselves.

Comment on How’s that work again? by john k.

john k. — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:16:59 +0000

That’s not an entirely accurate depiction of the markets. If I “invest,” I do so–if I am aware at all of what I do–with the knowledge that I am not a creditor, that my investment is subject to the vicissitudes of the marketplace, and that if the company I have invested in goes belly-up, I am typically at the back of the repayment line. And, as a general rule, when I invest I am not putting my money in the balance sheet of the company; I am, however, lining the pockets of the brokers and traders of the underlying share. If you can structure your investment as an honest-to-goodness loan, then you have become a creditor and would have some recourse.