Part 2:
The last key points of Part 1:
Energy has limits on its storage (capacity), use (inertia and mass), and dissipation (friction & resistance).
Other aspects of society and economy have similar structure:
Economics; capital and sunk costs (capacity), production (conductance), use (dissipation & flow)
Political/cultural; power over (capacity), use (influence, change), results (dissipation, wealth transfer)
Notice the aspect of illusion in all the above, when we are taught the appearance of power = real wealth. Long-time readers know my mantra by now; real wealth is healthy relationships, communities, and Nature. Today’s modern world does not want us to know this.
I have also pointed out how profit margins are the goal of any ‘respectable’ CEO. Apple is the classic example, enticing investors with margins approaching 40%. As the costs of raw materials rise, and there is a limit as to how much consumers are willing to shell out for only marginal improvements, the company can only maintain its dream margin by cutting labor costs. Thus the cycle of higher and higher productivity, while research and development of robotics and AI commandeer the salaries paid to workers, and the result is an overall lessening of consumers’ ability to pay the higher prices. Remember when Henry Ford raised the wages of the auto assemblers in his factory, saying he wanted to pay them enough they could afford to buy what they were making. First, that makes outstanding sense if your concern is crafting a healthy community where you live. Second, it was the reason assembly lines became the primary production model for many decades; indeed, the most prosperous for America the world has ever seen. Third, it was the moral thing to do.
Demand also rises and falls in cycles as population, inventory, and greed (hoarding) grows or collapses. During the ‘down times’, the gift of increased consumption, what we used to call welfare’, not only sustains profit margins for the elites, it also builds trust and loyalty among the beneficiaries in the government that provides it. The same principle is used in ‘foreign aid’: Congress and the President ‘grant’ aid, primarily military, to another country; yet the funds pour into American companies to manufacture the war machines and ammo, which are then transferred (for free) to the recipient. IOW, these models create an addiction to the assistance, and to the party or country that provides it. It weakens the recipient; which I argue is the secondary goal, after profit. This is another reason we now have a uniparty government, where it matters not who is President or if the Congress leans blue or red. War still goes on unabated; and both parties offer handouts to keep the population docile and demoralized (no wholesome future in sight).
We face many critical crises, inflation and skyrocketing debt are just two. Politicians practice kicking the can down the road, and have a mindset of ‘I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone’, as they hope this mantra will be true, before the whole thing collapses. Debt slavery and a literal genocide of resource-intense consumers complement the need to control demand and lower consumption.
We claim to be moral, spiritual humans, but fail to see the myriad ways we are controlled and guided to allow or even do immoral and cruel acts. After decades of study, including A/B testing and price inflation testing, those who reap these benefits have identified measurable relationships between the relative prices (of gasoline, for example) and the probability that any number of people might have a headache, want to watch a violent movie, or buy a 6-pack. Changes in behavior are predictable at scale if not quite yet at an individual one. But the tech industry and AI development teams hope to fix that bug sooner rather than later.
I may be old, but if someone speaks to me like I am a 12-year-old, I will likely react unconsciously as a 12-year-old.
What they do: In order to get:
Limit knowledge and understanding Compliance with control mechanisms
Distract Weaker defenses
Attack our families and relationships Control the education of youth
Give less cash, increase credit and doles Debt slaves and data
Attack religions Destroy morals
Use peers to police conformity Predictable behaviors
Limit choices Predictable behaviors
Proper timing Fewer resources wasted
Collapse the currency (inflation) Destroy social coherence
Entertain at a 12-year-old level No sensible resistance
Each class dominates the class below, thus the top is protected. A child learns reliance upon authority for safety and resources; did you learn to care for others, or stay submissive and dependent? Our culture is rife with contradictions and hypocrisy; we insist on humane treatment of animals, then we eat CAFO[1] beef. We pay taxes but complain about wars. We value plastic, instant gratification, and digital ‘assets’ as if these were real wealth. We seem to crave a weak promise of security more than honorable, moral, compassionate behavior even when it carries some amount of risk. We fashion quite a predicament for ourselves when we have children and focus our love on them, offering them dreams and desires for a healthy, productive life that is no longer attainable in this foul culture. Culture has dug this pit by putting us into survival mode, where we must rely upon stranger-provided day care while both parents work, or allow the state to medicate our youth and limit their education to becoming comfortable following directions and learning by rote memorization, not critical thinking skills, and we fail to share the joy of discovering lifelong learning resources with our children.
It is trite to say this is a class war; but it is a class war. It is less obvious to say we are drowning in a toxic chemical soup. The hundred people with the most economic power are largely hidden from view for a reason; they don’t want to be targets, and they want to keep the methods they use to limit and control us obscure. The few you think you know: Musk, Bezos, Gates, Buffet…they are not in that one hundred. They love that you think they are, but they are not. It is nearly incomprehensible that our mechanical worldview, which has been the dominant ‘science’ for several centuries, is quite wrong about how this world thrives or dies. We are electric consciousness, not physical matter. What’s real is immaterial, not solid. To stick to objective ‘facts’ sounds good, seems sensible, but subjective is all that matters. Love, red, sorrow, awe…you can’t create any of it from a shelf of chemicals, completely or accurately. We are part of an undying Universe. We would do well to get right with God; however you might relate to that term. Find that path that leads you back to your eternal Source, when you know that you are not separate from anything that matters.
This is why the next installment, part 3 of 3, is so important. The war against humanity itself has become global these last four years (and you know what I mean). But people exist who can put together disparate data points and paint a more accurate picture of what has been happening out of sight in the deadly struggle to limit consumerism and save the planet’s resources for those who are worthy. It’s not a big club, and you and I aren’t members. If there is any hope that technology might save us, all of us, it most certainly lies in our ability to see the big picture, grasp deeply onto what is true and good and beautiful, and resist the plots and plans of the few. But likely returning to what brought us to this fork in the cultural path: real wealth; healthy relationships, communities, and Nature, is the only way we survive. I am confident that next week I will blow your mind, hopefully wide open, and offer you a glimpse into how we have been, and are being, manipulated, so you can better resist. Please come back.
[1] Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation…industrial grade slaughter of food animals following a short and miserable, unhealthy life