The new spiritual awakening... and poly?

every solution has a downside.... i think thats fair, and the way the whole world works.

you cant create something out of nothing. it all comes from somewhere. whether you make energy in your body by consuming food (the downside generally being for whatever it is you are eating) or you rush a vaccine onto the market because of public pressure (the downside being unexpected side effects) or what, there is always give and take.
 
My thoughts about the world changing, is that the bad always comes before the good. So we may be in for some rough times before everything equals out.
 
Of course you do realize that "sustainable" farming is not synonymous with "organic" farming?

(This discussion will inevitably progress toward the topic of overpopulation so I might as well put that out there right now.)
Yes. I like the goals of a lot of the enviornmentalists. I just may not always agree with the methods.
 
Amen to that, River! We must, each one of us, take the steps we can take RIGHT NOW to reduce our negative ecological impacts. And support one another in the effort to do so.

It can be done. It must be done. Let's get it done! At the very least, let's stop giving the stink-eye to those who are doing it.

Unfortunately, there are a huge number of people who make up this country who are very uneducated, very ignorant, very selfish, and very lazy. I have a name for them that I will not post here as it is very offensive. You can see a lot of these people in the aisles of Walmart, for example, wandering around like zombies: their only goal is to feather their nest with bits of cheap plastic.

They care not where these items come from, the impact the mining, production, and wastes created by these cheap goods have on the environment, not to mention the lives of the people in far-off lands who are actually working to create them - people whose lives are pathetically miserable, who make no money, who are SICK and DIE because of their need to work creating these products that we take for granted.

I was in JCPenney today with my mom (black friday of all days) and I realized how obscene our consumption of cheap crap really is! The one store is filled to the brim with junk, junk, junk and there are tens of thousands of these stores worldwide! When I started to mentally envision the amount of resources being used and abused in the creation of these consumer "goods" my head started to reel.

But as I was saying, there are far too many people who can't seem to stop, or don't see any purpose in stopping, the insane consumption of this Stuff. Many people are so blind to their "need", their "desire" for useless junk that gets inevitably tossed out within months of its purchase....only to cause the "need" to go purchase even more to replace it. Our homes are FILLED with piles of THINGS. To REAL poor people in China, India, Nepal, even the poorest American is wealthy beyond belief. We take our abundance for granted.

Many people are too scared to stop. Many people are addicted, slaves to consumption. Our children are slaves to consumption. It is maddening that people, HUMANS, are trampled to death because everyone was in a rush to purchase the last Playstation in the store.

I have no faith that this attitude will change. I have no faith that everyone will wake up one day and see that the cycle is being caused by our "need" for cheap crap, our "need" to replace our computers every year, our "need" to upgrade to the latest and greatest video game system, our "need" to have the latest fashion jeans. Where do we think this stuff comes from??? And where do we think it GOES??? We are so far removed from the reality of all this that many people don't bother to think about it. And if you try to tell them, inform them, they DO NOT CARE. All they care about is the Stuff. :mad:
 
Unfortunately, there are a huge number of people who make up this country who are very uneducated, very ignorant, very selfish, and very lazy. I have a name for them that I will not post here as it is very offensive. You can see a lot of these people in the aisles of Walmart, for example, wandering around like zombies: their only goal is to feather their nest with bits of cheap plastic.

They care not where these items come from, the impact the mining, production, and wastes created by these cheap goods have on the environment, not to mention the lives of the people in far-off lands who are actually working to create them - people whose lives are pathetically miserable, who make no money, who are SICK and DIE because of their need to work creating these products that we take for granted.

I was in JCPenney today with my mom (black friday of all days) and I realized how obscene our consumption of cheap crap really is! The one store is filled to the brim with junk, junk, junk and there are tens of thousands of these stores worldwide! When I started to mentally envision the amount of resources being used and abused in the creation of these consumer "goods" my head started to reel.

But as I was saying, there are far too many people who can't seem to stop, or don't see any purpose in stopping, the insane consumption of this Stuff. Many people are so blind to their "need", their "desire" for useless junk that gets inevitably tossed out within months of its purchase....only to cause the "need" to go purchase even more to replace it. Our homes are FILLED with piles of THINGS. To REAL poor people in China, India, Nepal, even the poorest American is wealthy beyond belief. We take our abundance for granted.

Many people are too scared to stop. Many people are addicted, slaves to consumption. Our children are slaves to consumption. It is maddening that people, HUMANS, are trampled to death because everyone was in a rush to purchase the last Playstation in the store.

I have no faith that this attitude will change. I have no faith that everyone will wake up one day and see that the cycle is being caused by our "need" for cheap crap, our "need" to replace our computers every year, our "need" to upgrade to the latest and greatest video game system, our "need" to have the latest fashion jeans. Where do we think this stuff comes from??? And where do we think it GOES??? We are so far removed from the reality of all this that many people don't bother to think about it. And if you try to tell them, inform them, they DO NOT CARE. All they care about is the Stuff. :mad:


Nyx, I'm really glad you took the time to make this post because I agree with everything you said, only I didn't have the energy to get into all that by myself. I quoted the whole thing in case something should happen to change your mind and cause you to edit your original post.

I'm an antiques buff, by the way :cool:
 
Oh-yeah! There are certainly a lot of sleepwalkers among us -- and a huge wake up call is brewing ... as this present "economic downturn" is PERMANENT, not temporary. We've arrived at peak net energy and peak oil ... and lots of other peaks ... and global warming.... And still far too many are sleepwalking.

But still I have hope that we can transition to a better world. I have to have such hope, and I also have to help make it happen.

Please, people, educate yourselves on the backstory of what's going on. The links in my signature will help with that, and offer guidance on where to turn for more. Do not despair, join the efforts of transformation instead.
 
Nyx, I agree with a lot of what you are saying. I think we should learn to be happy with what we have. Sustainable happiness comes from appreciating the life you have, not the life you wish you had. You can't buy your way into happiness.

Now that being said, we need to be careful about picking on Walmart customers and Walmart itself. They used goods and services from very poor countries which could involve child labor and sweat shops. But that is not necessarily bad. When industrial countries have closed down or tried to stop sweat shops, it is really the children and poor that suffer from this effort. A lot of the time, the choice for a child is sweat shop or prostitution. I see it as the lesser of the evils. Plus over time, the country gains wealth and may eventually prosper. I am not saying that I like sweat shops, but I don't want to cause more harm by shutting them down.

River, I have been very interested in the energy problems facing the world. I got my degree in nuclear engineering & health physics. From my perspective, we need to invest in better and cleaner energy sources. It will take some time to go from fossil fuels to cleaner energy. Oil production ispeaking, so we will probably start using tar (twice the carbon emissions) or liquified coal (also bad on carbon emissions).

I think solar, nuclear and conservation will be the longer term solutions to energy production. They both can use more R&D. For example, one proposal that my lab is working on is using fusion and fission to burn fuel. It is designed to get rid of high level waste. Not real sure if it will work, but so far there are no show stoppers.

I think we are all hoping for a better world where we are happier and are getting our needs and desires met.
 
When industrial countries have closed down or tried to stop sweat shops, it is really the children and poor that suffer from this effort. A lot of the time, the choice for a child is sweat shop or prostitution. I see it as the lesser of the evils. Plus over time, the country gains wealth and may eventually prosper. I am not saying that I like sweat shops, but I don't want to cause more harm by shutting them down.

.

I could not have said that better. Great perspective.
 
River, I have been very interested in the energy problems facing the world. I got my degree in nuclear engineering & health physics. From my perspective, we need to invest in better and cleaner energy sources. It will take some time to go from fossil fuels to cleaner energy.

I'm of the opinion that diligent study reveals that peaking oil and gas production represents a far more precarious, even dangerous, situation than most of us realize. Precarious and dangerous because our present economy livelihoods are utterly dependent on the immediate availability of cheap oil and gas, which -- I think -- will not and cannot remain cheap enough for very long before we have serious and permanent infrastructure failure.

Careful study reveals that alternatives (including and beyond renewables) of various kinds will almost certainly take, at least, decades before going fully "on line". And that means that we will be seeing TEOTWAWKI (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/TEOTWAWKI) before we see an energy renaissance or "technofix".

Nuclear is a bad idea for myriad reasons which shouldn't need spelling out: insurance companies won't touch it, governments would have to "insure"; no safe and effective waste-disposal solutions; uranium availability limits when in high global demand... on and on and on....

We're at peak net energy -- never again will we have the quantity and quality of energy we've had for the last hundred years. Capitalist industrialism will and must gradually put itself out of business -- and that leaves one available option, a return to much higher levels of LPLC (local production for local use) and a more or less agrarian way of life for future humans.

It will have to be a lifeway in which the baubles of consumerism are few -- but it may be a very good quality of life, nevertheless. Gardening, after all, can be fun -- as is riding a bicycle.
 
Careful study reveals that alternatives (including and beyond renewables) of various kinds will almost certainly take, at least, decades before going fully "on line".
I think a lot of the alternatives don't become attractive until gas is over $4 a gallon. Luckily people are starting to get use to the idea that gas is going up and slowly changing their lifestyles (less SUVs and living closer to work). If gas keeps rising, new plants will open up once they become economical. But they need to feel certain that gas will stay high before companies invest in these alternatives. This will also push the market to go more for battery powered cars (but they still have a ways to goin R&D).

Nuclear is a bad idea for myriad reasons which shouldn't need spelling out: insurance companies won't touch it, governments would have to "insure"; no safe and effective waste-disposal solutions; uranium availability limits when in high global demand... on and on and on....
I have to disagree with this point. The problems with nuclear power are the result of misinformation and politics. They government needs to work out a policy to protect electricity companies from endless lawsuits. They also need to work on carbon emission taxes to push for cleaner fuels.

I am against our current implementation of nuclear power where we use a tiny fraction (1%) of the fuel and encase the rest in glass for long term storage. We should be using breeder reactors which can in theory burn all the fuel. We currently have about 230 years of uranium fuel at the current burn rate. With breeders, we can extend that to 30,000 years. Or if we don't, we can use salt water extraction for 60,000 years. The problem with breeders is they produce plutonium as they generate fuel. We have to protect the plutonium because it is chemically easier to use to make bombs than enriching uranium.

We're at peak net energy -- never again will we have the quantity and quality of energy we've had for the last hundred years. Capitalist industrialism will and must gradually put itself out of business -- and that leaves one available option, a return to much higher levels of LPLC (local production for local use) and a more or less agrarian way of life for future humans.
Local production is sometimes not the best solution. It may take more energy to grow locally than it would be to grow in another country and ship across the seas. For efficiency sake, local producetions evolve into a warehouse model over time, which is what we currently have in a global market.

It will have to be a lifeway in which the baubles of consumerism are few -- but it may be a very good quality of life, nevertheless. Gardening, after all, can be fun -- as is riding a bicycle.
I agree that we will probably have to cut back on what we consume today. A lot of the wealth in the US comes from cheap labor in other countries. However, buying the cheap labor makes them more prosperious until they are no longer cheap labor. I think this is good, but it also means that productivity growth may not stay at the same level (about 1 to 2.2% based on different definitions).
 
River, Mono and I looked at your threads here.

http://transition-times.com

http://transitionculture.org

Very interesting, what is your involvement?

My involvement is that I'm a serious student of the subject matter. I was very much interested in this sort of thing even before lots of folks said we'd arrived at "peak net energy" / peak oil.... Burning a lot less fossil fuels also, of course, helps to address the climate change problem.

I've been "green" and "ecological" in my thinking and lifestyle since I was a kid, pretty near. I've been reading myriad subject areas all my adult life which relate to this sort of thing. Remember Schumacher's "Small Is Beautiful"? Well, I read it as a kid -- really. (You may have never heard of the book. Sigh.)

I'm working on a blog post -- though I'm not sure where I'm gonna publish it quite yet. I could post it on the Transition US site, or maybe I'll create my own little blog...? In any case, I'm going to be rolling out some writing projects. I'm about to hit 44!--and it's overdue for me to start singing in public.

===

Quath, I'll respond to your reply as soon as time allows.
 
Reading material

I see some good stuff here from different people regarding our "hope" for change. Myself, I'm afraid I've become pretty skeptical for some time that any solution short of large scale annihilation won't happen in time. Just start over. Atlantis revisited <chuckle>
On the other hand - I try to foster hope.
For anyone interested you might find this book interesting. Although it's got a lot of material regarding capitalistic marketing etc the "concept" is there and leads you to wonder if the momentum is building in a direction that may soon "tip" in favor of survival'


The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell,

GS
 
collective unconscious

I believe in the collective unconscious. I believe that, in the last hundred or so years, we have begun the slow, painful process of becoming a truly global society. With technology at our fingertips, we are beginning to evolve into something the human race has never had the opportunity to become. A global village. Our interconnectedness is becoming more of a known reality everyday, but I don't think we're anywhere near the precipice of global enlightenment. In fact, I don't think this will happen for a few more centuries, but I do believe it will happen.

I am, at heart, an optimist. I believe in the innate goodness of all people, but I am not naive enough to think that goodness and technological advances are enough to bring us into a new age of spiritual awakening. That, in my experience, comes from trauma. We must make our mistakes fully to understand what is at stake. In this context, that means wars, ecological disasters, human rights atrocities and the like must all be fully experienced for the collective unconscious to shift to a place where we are one connected, enlightened community.

These are heady concepts, to be sure, but even the most ignorant Walmart shopper; even the most impoverished laboring child; even the most power hungry war-monger is subject to influence by a collective wave of mass empathy. Is this tsunami upon us? No. Is it building? I sure as Hell hope so.

I am not a religious man by any means, but I consider myself very spiritual. I have faith that every human has the capacity to look beyond how their society has taught them to act and to see what their true nature is. The more love we give to the world, the more love will be received.

Spiritual awakening? Not yet, I think. We're still dreaming.
 
Our interconnectedness is becoming more of a known reality everyday, but I don't think we're anywhere near the precipice of global enlightenment. In fact, I don't think this will happen for a few more centuries, but I do believe it will happen.


According to Star Trek, it's not supposed to happen until we AT LEAST invent the Warp Drive (Faster-Than-Light travel, for those of you who don't speak Star Trek).
 
According to Star Trek, it's not supposed to happen until we AT LEAST invent the Warp Drive (Faster-Than-Light travel, for those of you who don't speak Star Trek).

Large Hadron Collider?
 
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