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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever. - George Orwel
AnaThemaX
Member Posts: 24
With the worlds future locked into a unending neo-feudalistic nightmare downward spiral, how are you feeling? Hopeful? Personally, I find it hard to be optimistic when there's a boot stomping on my face. But then, I'm the kind of guy that doesn't like a boot on my face. How about you?
We Are Change
Comments
There has always and will always be people claiming the world is going down the shitter as well as people telling them that the new way is better.
Who is right?
And FYI I would love to see the day we can have a democratic world government. Won't happen in my lifetime, but when it does it will be beautiful.
The Official God FAQ
Hari Seldon would have to disagree with Orwell's theory.
Through the use of mathmatical analysis Seldon was able to predict when human civilization would reach a critical period in which the cumulative human psychology would force a crisis in human history. This period of crisis would be the catalyst of change. Human history, because of human psychology, always remains in flux, it's progress cannot be suspended in time. That is Orwell's error, he thought human developement could reach a point and be frozen in time, neither progressing, or regressing. It cannot, as human psychology is always changing, human societies will both progress and regress.
Change is inevitable, as pressure within a human society cannot be suppressed indefinately. It always builds, thus, no government, or dictator, has retained power, or can retain power, for any duration. No matter what totalitarian action they may take to psychologically control their population, they evoke a psychological counter reaction. Seldon used human historical events to prove mathmatically that the stronger the action which is taken to suppress change, the stronger the counter reaction, and thus the change, will ultimately be. Think of it as Einstein's formula applied to human history. It measures the psychological action to predict the force of the psychological counter reaction.
If a human society applies minimal action to it's human population, the result is minimal counter reaction. These type of governments tend to last longer, as they stabilize around a norm. think of this as less kinetic energy is stored up, so less kinetic energy will be released.
In short, even if human society was united in a new world order characterized by a boot stamping on a human face, ultimately the counter reaction removing that boot would occur in just as violent a manner. It would also occur faster than if the new world order applied minimal force to the population.
What you are living through right now is one of those periods of crisis, that is why you feel things are hopeless. However, the action generating this period of crisis is mathmatically mild, so the reaction will be mathmatically mild. It will only escalate if the political leadership chooses to escalate the actions, in which case our social adjustment can become very violent.
Steering a steady ship, and not making waves in passing, is always the best course in approaching change.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
WOW! Amazing post, very interesting, informative, and thought provoking. We are in a period of transition (or change), and there is resistance. Whether that resistance is proportional to the change being effected, however, I am not sure.
We are witnessing all sorts of changes and reforms that will have profound long-term repercussion; we have reconstituted our entire federal bureaucracy under Homeland Security; we have added at least THREE wars (terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan); we have bailed-out Wall Street; we have entered (emerged from?) a Great Recession (some countries such as Latvia and Iceland are in a Depression in terms GDP decreases, unemployment, and so forth); and we are "reforming" health care.
I am amazed by the amount of economic, financial, political, military, social, and foreign policy changes that have taken place; and there is always resistance when any system changes. Many people, probably correctly, feel they are not a part of this transitional period (or change) and therefore fear it because they do not understand it or will (likely true) have to pay for it. Explain to me how I can explain to a Sixpack or Plumber that YOU --yes, Mr. Average Joe-- are the economic rescuer and not the economic rescuee?
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction book written by one of the preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Clark created the character in the 1950's as a way to express his theory on what the long term direction the human race would take using a mathmatical equation. With the advancements in psychology that have been made since the 1950's, the possibility of someone making Hari Seldon's psycho-history a reality is much greater now than when Clark wrote Foundation 50 years ago.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction book written by one of the preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Clark created the character in the 1950's as a way to express his theory on what the long term direction the human race would take using a mathmatical equation. With the advancements in psychology that have been made since the 1950's, the possibility of someone making Hari Seldon's psycho-history a reality is much greater now than when Clark wrote Foundation 50 years ago.
Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation.
Rule of the day: if you don't know what's going on, ask or keep quiet.
As for the future of mankind, without Oil, i predict invasion of Europe by North Africa, invasion of Middle East by China, great migration from north to south america, and the population of the world to be divided by half because without oil, modern agriculture is doomed.
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
......and George Orwell's theory as presented in the book 1984, is more valid because his book was nonfiction?
Hari Seldon would have pointed out to you that you have failed to take into consideration technological advances in your equation. When confronted by a crisis, humans do tend to turn to technology. New flu strains are met with new drugs, for example.
Another example, the new GM Volt will get between 100-200 miles per gallon. Given a societies commitment to the creation of abundant electrical energy, and the economies of scale if the battery in the Volt were to be placed in every car produced worldwide (thereby reducing battery cost), it is possible to stretch out the current oil reserves, buying additional time for research and developement into alternative energy sources.
I highly doubt that any alien societies in the universe power space ships using fossilized fuel. It is just too inefficient. Therefore, I surmise, for space flight to exist, some other source of power must exist. Our society needs only to discover that source.
Just because we do not know about it now, doesn't mean it can't exist. To think that we have achieved total knowledge is like assuming the Mayans, people that didn't even know what guns and horses were, would be all knowing in predicting a great event of change on December 21, 2012.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction book written by one of the preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Clark created the character in the 1950's as a way to express his theory on what the long term direction the human race would take using a mathmatical equation. With the advancements in psychology that have been made since the 1950's, the possibility of someone making Hari Seldon's psycho-history a reality is much greater now than when Clark wrote Foundation 50 years ago.
Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation.
And I love the series, Asimov is very thought provoking as he tells his story.
His basic premise is that human history is created by the psychological movement of masses of people. Humans are herd animals, once the herd gets moving in a certain direction the momentum/energy builds. All it takes is measuring that momentum/energy to determine when it will reach critical mass. Up until the point of critical mass the direction can be altered, after that, the movement becomes part of human history.
Orwell, on the other hand, believed that the energy of the herd could be suspended indefinately, thereby suspending change, and human history, into an inalterable state. He erred in leaving human psychology out of his theory.
Take now, for example. Obama, like Bush, wishes to initiate change in our society. The harder he pushes for that change, the harder the push back is. The herd is not moving, and, as an attorney, rather than a pscychologist, Obama doesn't have the answer as to how to move the herd. He pushes wrong, and the herd pushes back.
Bush pushed with creating Homeland Security, and the herd pushed back. However, after creation, Homeland Security didn't push the herd, but rather applied less energy to the herd. Now, there is a part of the herd that still resnts Homeland security, but without the application of energy to action, no energy can be generated for re-action. Imagine the reaction had Homeland security started dragging people out of their beds in the early hours of the morning to a detention camp? More energy applied to the action, more energy appplied to the counter reaction.
That is all Asimov was saying in his theory.
If any of you are bored, read the Foundation series again. It really is a classic, much under rated I feel.
EDIT: The Foundation series was written after Orwell wrote 1984. I have often wondered if it was written in response to Orwell's theory, as it runs so counter to Orwell. I can only assume that, given the recognition of Orwell's work, Asimov would have read Orwell, and possibly disagreed with Orwell's view of mankind's future.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction book written by one of the preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Clark created the character in the 1950's as a way to express his theory on what the long term direction the human race would take using a mathmatical equation. With the advancements in psychology that have been made since the 1950's, the possibility of someone making Hari Seldon's psycho-history a reality is much greater now than when Clark wrote Foundation 50 years ago.
Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation.
I stand corrected. It's been a long time since I read the books.
edit
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction book written by one of the preeminent thinkers and writers of the 20th century. Asimov created the character in the 1950's as a way to express his theory on what the long term direction the human race would take using a mathmatical equation. With the advancements in psychology that have been made since the 1950's, the possibility of someone making Hari Seldon's psycho-history a reality is much greater now than when Asimov wrote Foundation 50 years ago.
Hari Seldon would have pointed out to you that you have failed to take into consideration technological advances in your equation. When confronted by a crisis, humans do tend to turn to technology. New flu strains are met with new drugs, for example.
Another example, the new GM Volt will get between 100-200 miles per gallon. Given a societies commitment to the creation of abundant electrical energy, and the economies of scale if the battery in the Volt were to be placed in every car produced worldwide (thereby reducing battery cost), it is possible to stretch out the current oil reserves, buying additional time for research and developement into alternative energy sources.
I highly doubt that any alien societies in the universe power space ships using fossilized fuel. It is just too inefficient. Therefore, I surmise, for space flight to exist, some other source of power must exist. Our society needs only to discover that source.
Just because we do not know about it now, doesn't mean it can't exist. To think that we have achieved total knowledge is like assuming the Mayans, people that didn't even know what guns and horses were, would be all knowing in predicting a great event of change on December 21, 2012.
The argument that technology never cease to develop is true; but to develop it needs ressoruces, and nowadays it has become a consensus that we to sustain the "western" way of life for the entire planet... we need a second planet.
Sooner or later this equation will need to be resolved; the only solution the US govermenent of China came up with is not eletric vehicle, it is the necessity to develop space-travel and reach new planets.
A countdown is running down: will we be able to reach an earth-like planet before we emptied ours? Hopefully, i won't be there to know.
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
Hari Seldon would have pointed out to you that you have failed to take into consideration technological advances in your equation. When confronted by a crisis, humans do tend to turn to technology. New flu strains are met with new drugs, for example.
Another example, the new GM Volt will get between 100-200 miles per gallon. Given a societies commitment to the creation of abundant electrical energy, and the economies of scale if the battery in the Volt were to be placed in every car produced worldwide (thereby reducing battery cost), it is possible to stretch out the current oil reserves, buying additional time for research and developement into alternative energy sources.
I highly doubt that any alien societies in the universe power space ships using fossilized fuel. It is just too inefficient. Therefore, I surmise, for space flight to exist, some other source of power must exist. Our society needs only to discover that source.
Just because we do not know about it now, doesn't mean it can't exist. To think that we have achieved total knowledge is like assuming the Mayans, people that didn't even know what guns and horses were, would be all knowing in predicting a great event of change on December 21, 2012.
The argument that technology never cease to develop is true; but to develop it needs ressoruces, and nowadays it has become a consensus that we to sustain the "western" way of life for the entire planet... we need a second planet.
Sooner or later this equation will need to be resolved; the only solution the US govermenent of China came up with is not eletric vehicle, it is the necessity to develop space-travel and reach new planets.
A countdown is running down: will we be able to reach an earth-like planet before we emptied ours? Hopefully, i won't be there to know.
Count a dissenting voice to the so called consensus. We can sustain a western way of life but we have to get our population growth under control.
Large scale colonization of other planets is way off in the future. Better to solve the one problem that just about everyone has ignored. Population growth can't continue indefinitely.
Most of our major problems could be solved (Energy, water, food, environment and even universal health care) if we get the will to tackle population growth.
Glad I'll die before I see one vision of future. Too bad in a way always wonder what people taste like.
Sorry to get off topic. But Orwell looks like a prophet and it scares me.
"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."
- George Orwell, 1984
"People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word."
- George Orwell, 1984
"Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death."
- George Orwell, 1984
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
- George Orwell, 1984
"From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."
- George Orwell, 1984
"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
- George Orwell, 1984
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction novel though.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in a science fiction book written by one of the preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Clark created the character in the 1950's as a way to express his theory on what the long term direction the human race would take using a mathmatical equation. With the advancements in psychology that have been made since the 1950's, the possibility of someone making Hari Seldon's psycho-history a reality is much greater now than when Clark wrote Foundation 50 years ago.
Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation.
And I love the series, Asimov is very thought provoking as he tells his story.
His basic premise is that human history is created by the psychological movement of masses of people. Humans are herd animals, once the herd gets moving in a certain direction the momentum/energy builds. All it takes is measuring that momentum/energy to determine when it will reach critical mass. Up until the point of critical mass the direction can be altered, after that, the movement becomes part of human history.
Orwell, on the other hand, believed that the energy of the herd could be suspended indefinately, thereby suspending change, and human history, into an inalterable state. He erred in leaving human psychology out of his theory.
Take now, for example. Obama, like Bush, wishes to initiate change in our society. The harder he pushes for that change, the harder the push back is. The herd is not moving, and, as an attorney, rather than a pscychologist, Obama doesn't have the answer as to how to move the herd. He pushes wrong, and the herd pushes back.
Bush pushed with creating Homeland Security, and the herd pushed back. However, after creation, Homeland Security didn't push the herd, but rather applied less energy to the herd. Now, there is a part of the herd that still resnts Homeland security, but without the application of energy to action, no energy can be generated for re-action. Imagine the reaction had Homeland security started dragging people out of their beds in the early hours of the morning to a detention camp? More energy applied to the action, more energy appplied to the counter reaction.
That is all Asimov was saying in his theory.
If any of you are bored, read the Foundation series again. It really is a classic, much under rated I feel.
EDIT: The Foundation series was written after Orwell wrote 1984. I have often wondered if it was written in response to Orwell's theory, as it runs so counter to Orwell. I can only assume that, given the recognition of Orwell's work, Asimov would have read Orwell, and possibly disagreed with Orwell's view of mankind's future.
Everyone should read the above post. Just brilliant. It is fitting that so many people in lofty positions of power --economics, politics, and so forth-- model themselves or see themselves as a Hari Seldon and try to shift the center of gravity in the world.
The argument that technology never cease to develop is true; but to develop it needs ressoruces, and nowadays it has become a consensus that we to sustain the "western" way of life for the entire planet... we need a second planet.
Sooner or later this equation will need to be resolved; the only solution the US govermenent of China came up with is not eletric vehicle, it is the necessity to develop space-travel and reach new planets.
A countdown is running down: will we be able to reach an earth-like planet before we emptied ours? Hopefully, i won't be there to know.
Count a dissenting voice to the so called consensus. We can sustain a western way of life but we have to get our population growth under control.
Large scale colonization of other planets is way off in the future. Better to solve the one problem that just about everyone has ignored. Population growth can't continue indefinitely.
Most of our major problems could be solved (Energy, water, food, environment and even universal health care) if we get the will to tackle population growth.
Glad I'll die before I see one vision of future. Too bad in a way always wonder what people taste like.
Sorry to get off topic. But Orwell looks like a prophet and it scares me.
The actual political consensus about growth is : the more the better, because young people must pay for the old one's retirement; whenever have you seen a politician rejoice about growth rate under 2.0?.
You just can't stop people from making children, and you can't kill retired people. Controlling population growth is pure theory in our modern times.
Even China who enforced a strict birth policy (1 children per family) saw its population rise, especially in the countryside.
So i'm sorry to say, the growth of mankind will stop and decrease when lack of oil and overusing of biological fuel will reduce available food supplies; at that time it's probably going to mean global civil war, or global war.
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
You have a voice and the ability to refuse. Contact your congress man if you disagree with a bill they are drafting.
Where is this boot you're talking about?
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
......and George Orwell's theory as presented in the book 1984, is more valid because his book was nonfiction?
That quote is not from his book "1984", unless I'm mistaken. And Orwell worked for British Intelligence before becoming a writer. He wasn't making this shit up, he saw the plans and worked on the implementation. That's how he managed to predict the future so accurately... It wasn't really a work of fiction so much as the revelation of the endgame of his former employers.
Contact my congressman? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Maybe you haven't been keeping up with current events, but Congressmen work for the people who keep them in that comfy job. Who's that? The major shareholders of the mega-corps. The voters get lies and manipulation. You choose to make yourself believe the lies or you accept that you have no voice & no choice.
The 3 most significant things that have happened sense Obama took office.
1. on April 15, 2009. Over 700 anti-tax rallies and “Tea Parties” erupted nationwide.Which has been down played an ridiculed both protests and protesters.
2 . on the Fourth of July, when throngs of citizens across the nation gathered to again protest “taxation without representation.” And as before, the demonstrations were branded mischief and dismissed.
3 .In early August, was aimed point blank at Senators and House members pitching President Obama’s health care reform package to constituents. In fiery town hall meetings, enraged citizens shouted down their elected representatives. It took a strong police presence and/or burly bodyguards to preserve a safe physical space between the politicians and irate townspeople.
Rightly or wrongly, the legislation is regarded as yet another straw on the already overloaded camel’s back. A series of gigantic, unpopular government-imposed but taxpayer-financed bailouts, buyouts, rescue and stimulus packages have been stuffed down the gullet of Americans. With no public platform to voice their opposition, options for citizens have been limited to fruitless petitions, e-mails and phone calls to Congress all fielded by anonymous staff underlings.<-- we consider this to be the BOOT.
Now, with Congress in recess and elected representatives less than a stone’s throw away, the public is exploding. The devil is not in the details of the heath care reform, the devil is the government mandating health care.
Conditions will continue to deteriorate.As the lost in faith in Governance is upon us.Nevertheless, Washington will continue to intervene, tax and exert control. Protests will escalate and riots will follow.If they don't change course soon,while there are many wild cards that could light the fuse,That card hasn't been played yet.
The power of the Internet and new technologies is inexorably fermenting the problem.We have had these types of protest before but in the past people didn't have as much power as they do now.Now, with the camera-equipped cell phone, universal access to YouTube, and millions of twitters and tweets, the uprisings cannot be ignored, contained, managed, spun or edited down. This revolutionary fervor will prove contagious.
Can anything stop it? No for one it feels good and it feels right,those two combinations are vary contagious as we can see for our selfs.With the growth of the great unwashed getting involved.Look for the calling for rolling back of the unspent stimulus monies next.
it could be derailed through some false flag event designed to deceive the public, or a genuine event or crisis capable of rallying the entire nation behind the President. In a worst-case scenario, “Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war.”
A false flag attempt, a genuine crisis, or a declaration of war, may slow the momentum of the this but nothing will stop it.
Trade in material assumptions for spiritual facts and make permanent progress.
Contact my congressman? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Maybe you haven't been keeping up with current events, but Congressmen work for the people who keep them in that comfy job. Who's that? The major shareholders of the mega-corps. The voters get lies and manipulation. You choose to make yourself believe the lies or you accept that you have no voice & no choice.
What sort of government do you expect to have with your attitude?
If you give those you put into power no direction, no purpose, and a long leash then you'll need to accept what you get.
What would you think of a farmer that plants carrots with the expectation of growing a corn field?
You reap what you sow.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
Books eight and nine of Plato's Republic describe the rise and downfall of tyranny. Suffice it to say that, after considering the matter, I believe a world tyranny wouldn't last very long.
See, what Plato discovered is that tyrannies aren't overthrown as much as they implode from the inside. That's because a tyrant who wants absolute power is a flawed man: a man whose inordinate ambition is fueled by inordinate desires.
There's no such thing as a "smart tyranny." And the tyrant soon discovers how very dumb he is rather soon after taking office. Because he can cite no lasting moral justification for his rule, and his enemies grow by the day.
My biggest fear isn't world tyranny. My fear is what will happen when the tyranny implodes. Perhaps not fear, but uncertainty. Because assuming that everything we have come to expect is no longer guaranteed, how will we face life? It would be interesting to find out.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE