Economic Growth Terminated

Economic Growth Terminated

“Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (“Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics.”

Amongst the circus of concepts, ideas, debates, opinions, conflicts, agendas and so forth that the internet and blogs and this blog gets filled up with, one is greatly overlooked: and namely that the entire concept of Economic Development has been a very short story, a one time quirk, not at all a scientific endeavor such as the discovery of laws and patterns according to repetitive patterns and such.

Most of the entire development of a Technological Economy has been an ongoing work in progress that started not even 150 years ago: mind you 150 years is an extremely short time, almost instantaneously compared to the scale of human history, almost like a “Technological Singularity”, a sudden huge change in all procedures, methods, production processes, energy production and use, society organizations and so forth, a huge change in an extremely short time, bar none.

If you want to be picky and want to extend the time span to include the beinning of the Scientific Era and namely Newton (who invented calculus and such) then the time span is from 1650 to 2000 is only 350 years!
350 years is no time at all!

Electricity, Oil, Car Engines and so forth, all came online about the same time, in a few decades, changed everything and the face of the earth in just a few decades of very recent history:

1. “In 1811, John Blenkinsop designed the first successful and practical railway locomotive”

2. "Broadly speaking, electrification was the build out of the electrical generating and distribution systems which occurred in the United States, Britain and other countries from the mid-1880s until around 1940 and is in progress in rural areas in some developing countries. "

3. “1884: British engineer Edward Butler constructed the first petrol (gasoline) internal combustion engine.”

4. “The rise in importance of Petroleum was due to the invention of the internal combustion engine, the rise in commercial aviation, and the importance of petroleum to industrial organic chemistry, particularly the synthesis of plastics, fertilizers, solvents, adhesives and pesticides.”

5. "Edwin Drake’s 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well. "

6. “In 1927, Philo Farnsworth made the world’s first working television system with electronic scanning of both the pickup and display devices,[17] which he first demonstrated to the press on 1 September 1928.[17][18]”

7. "A triode is an electronic amplification device having three active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a vacuum tube (or valve in British English) with three elements: the filament or cathode, the grid, and the plate or anode. The triode vacuum tube was the first electronic amplification device, which propelled the electronics age forward, by enabling amplified radio technology and long-distance telephony. "

8 ) “The first three-element device (mercury-vapor filled with a control grid) was patented on March 4 1906 by the Austrian Robert von Lieben[1][2][3] independent from that, on October 25 1906”

And the list could go on and on starting from 1700 or 1800 and going up to the year 2000.

Just consider 1870 to 1930 and compare that to 1960 to 2010: which era created the most novelties, which era constructed the Modern World ? so obviously we are greatly slowing down in the changes that our technology, science and societies are creating, we probably have peaked in scientific discoveries, technological applications and most of all Economic Development.

This is probably why Economic Growth in the fully developed countries is now so hard to achieve: the USA, EU and JAPAN have finished their growth cycle also because the very growth cycle was a one time quirk, a fluke, just an instant change of so many things all together in such a little amount of time and such. All changes strongly coupled to scientific discoveries and applications, inventions, completely new industries being born out of all of the discoveries and applications, the car industry and energy industry and so forth, a huge number of new industries that came online, hired millions improved the life quality and standards of livings of entire continents and so forth. But it was a one time story, just one huge wave, not destined to continue, hence the story of economic growth is over and done with when a country becomes fully developed. The very evolution and development of a Technological Economy imposes consolidation, optimizations, and so forth, this implies fewer workers needed (productivity increases - consolidation means doing ever more with ever fewer workers and such), automation and so forth.

It is the first time in history that a civilization finds itself in a fully developed and “growth achieved” society, no one has any idea where to go from here (but there is no direction, and no one and no force can really impose any direction, only random forces that will evolve society in any possible random way), no models are available, no clues are available to suggest if there is any direction from here on, the only thing that people keep on noticing and feeling and seeing is the need for less and less work, the concentration of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands, the constant win lose (it was once win win in the 1960s and such) situations, debates, conflicts and all the economy is imposing on everyone, the debts and all the short circuits, disfunctions, insanities like the US health care system and such or the European Union having a single currency not backed by any single nation and so forths.

This is such a unique, and one time situation that we find ourselves in: how will an economically developed society evolve from here on ? and haven’t a clue on how the random, chaotic forces will play out from here on.

But JHK and the greens, environmentalist, the Nature - Tree Hugging thugs want us all to go backwards again, want to go back, want to go in the past are actually still fighting decades old technologies, are so old time and old timers that they are still fighting against Oil and Cars and TVs (but they accept trains, well once even trains were being fought by backwards people): they don’t get it that you can’t rewind this history, you can’t undiscover electricity, you can’t put oil back in the ground and forget that it ever existed and so on.

You can only go forward now, and the only way forward is to dump this old fashion Economic Ideology that expects continous economic growth to go on forever all by itself, when there is no reason to expect such a thing, this constant expectation of better and more and progress when nothing is pointing in that direction and especially the invisible hand of the market certainly will not force this or make this progress happen anymore: now progress must be forced, like what China does, huge government spending (you can print money forever it never runs out, it is only a place holder for political decisions forcing growth and progress and development and such) to construct the future, High Speed Trains, Rockets to Space, Atomic Energy Plants, Skyscrapers, Industries of all kinds, Huge increase of Consumerism, the complete saturation and application of all of the technologies we now have and even more, ever more, forced economic growth through huge public - private projects, millions of projects, large scale projects and such: and millions, billions of people receiving a free salary and cheap rents since the economy by itself will never again be able to hire them for useful work, nay the only useful work is the huge projects huge government spendings and private corporations (along with their rightly deserved huge profits, since at least they are constructing something, doing something serialzed and accumulating wealth in the form of infrastructers and such) can shove down nature’s throat.

And enough of all of this religion of wanting to protect Nature. And esecially enough of all of this envy towards the rich and this morality crap, “you shall not rob” and such: who cares, people and bosses and politicians will always rob money, and so forth, this morality crap is totally irrelevant, a distraction to what we should all be concentrated on (let them rob all the money they can, who cares, it is totally irrelevant and invisible in the larger scheme of things) and that is huge projects and cheap rents and the governments hiring billions of people to do proudly and bluntly and boldly nothing at all and such. Morality and envy and justice will not make anyone better off, only huge projects and cash will make everyone better off and such, let the private corporations hog up all the profits they can, who cares, what is important is that I can get my free salary and cheap rents and Rockets to Mars and such!

APE THUG

From:

instantsingularity1.blogspot.it

and

instantsingularity3.blogspot.it

and

kunstler.com/blog/2013/02/not-so-smart.html

ape

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Industrial Revolution ?

So then maybe the real Technological Singularity is exactly this Technological Economy - Society evolving at a relatively high speed compared to Natural Evolution in the sense that it is not confined to only computers and them evolving but by an ensemble of Machines, Societies and People self interacting and evolving: after all a Singularity is simply Matter (and random but logical internal delimitations creating Observer - Universe Sets within) that is self evolving and self interacting with itself at a very high pace (internal self reinforcing runaway “chemical reactions” and such similar to “Natural Evolution” but at a higher speed and with many more Matter types and Matter configurations and possible organizations, nay, “chemical elements” with the elements being chips and people and brains and computers and networks and oil and thoughts and concepts and books and so forth, all kinds of wicked and random and disjoint “chemical elements” types)), Matter playing with itself and constructing all kinds of Interactions, Contraptions, Information Relationships and Transactions within itself, Events, in a sense Matter discovering its own laws of functioning and applying it to itself, a subset of a ball of matter discovering how to manipulate itself, how to delimit and decompose and construct other subsets of matter that interact and create all kinds of events and Experience Sets and so forth.

But then again maybe it really doesn’t matter if Matter discovers the laws of its own functioning and such, maybe Matter must simply achieve a state within which it can obtain anything it wants, any sensation, experience set, and universe, no matter how far away and disjoint from what we now know and perceive, by creating a manipulable substrate where it can play with itself to no end, up to no possible limitation, maybe a kind of Virtual Reality Achieved where Matter can decide to create all other kinds of realities and so forth in a never ending recursion of realities, relationships, possibilities, sensations, brain types, sense organs and so forth, ever more surprising and exciting, ever more incredible and impossible and so forth.

So we can see the earth and the civilization ( the civilization being a thin liquid acting as an enzyme, as a reaction amplifier and enabler) upon it simply as a contraption that self manipulates itself and creates all kinds of events and evolutions and paths towards all kinds of singularities and such.

And then again the distinction between fake and natural may be non existent also because everything may be alive, the electron may be a living creature, that reproduce themselves or anything else, the electron is in a stable position because it is interacting with the proton but feels sensations, is a brain itself, or some kind of living contraption and so forth all the way down to infinity, even though we can’t feel the sensations the electron is feeling and such.

Just like when the internet crosses forests and towns and information goes from one point to another, it ignores all the stuff in between, the pebble on the ground in that backyard has nothing to do with the information transmitting through that space at that moment and such, and yet maybe we are like that information unaware of the pebble and so forth, all kinds of, all kinds of possibilities and such, and maybe a new kind of information can use all of the stuff that is irrelevant and in between and create new worlds, the transmission line picks up the pebble and picks up a car and a car tire and creates a new chunk of information to transmit to the sun and so forth, incredible, crazy, make believe, be a little baby and such.

Electricity is an enabling technology: from that point on, all kinds of contraptions have been invented and applied by building on top of electricity and in the end the Internet and Computer have been built on top of that: but also the Internet and Computer are a second stage of enabling technology, all kinds of things will be built on top of this new substrate and so forth, everything being built on top of everything else, a first enabling technology, then a second (the Internet) and then a third (maybe blogs and blocks of texts ?) and then other substrates, ever more levels until Matter reaches total freedom to do all it wants, maybe the levels can extend to trillions maybe, make believe and baby is just the third level, who knows how many more are waiting to be executed and discovered and brought to life and such.

THUS SPOKE THE 8 MAN

Economic growth is impossible when that growth is predicated on cheap oil, and now there’s no more cheap oil.

Tell me, are you paid to post this stuff? Because you seem to post it over and over, always saying the same things, always ignoring responses, always spamming the same links to the same blog, endlessly.

Short History ?

False, we have an infinite amount of energy, just split the sun and grab all of its energy just like we split the atom and such. And if we split all of the stars we can get even more, we have a glut of energy, natural gas costs a few cents now, we have solar, wind, ethanol, you name it, a never ending list of energies and so forth.

The reason why we can’t grow anymore is much more subtle: the entire techno-science adventure of this civilization has been around only 300 years, so there is no way you can establish automatic laws of growth as all the economists imply, heck even simply the high standard of living achieved in the USA, EU and JAPAN has really only been around not more than 80 years, a very short amount of time, way too short to make believe that that is normal, or growth, the entire concept of growth is normal and so forth, there is no possible science of economics that can be built upon such a short time span and such.

What we really have is that all of the novelties are wearing off, they are rubbing off, wear off, now there are too few new sectors (hence the constant chant for more innovation and startups and research hoping to discover new sectors and industries when this is all terminated now, the novelties are finished, now we are left with boredom), and especially people themselves are all old (sick and needing ever more costly health care), bored, have done it all, we live in developed societies made up of old people who don’t have the drive (and the young ones have even less drive, are spoiled, have grown up in rich societies taking for granted something that has only been around a few decades, it is not normal to live in rich societies, all of history has been poor and crappy and such, and now they couldn’t even adapt to societies getting poorer, they just give up and such) and find themselves in a situation of too few real innovative novelties, markets, inventions, too few incentives to do anything, there are too few possible chances to do things, to work, to put effort into anything when it has all been done and it is all old now with no possibility of making a profit or gain (and then the technological economy is eliminating work by the boatloads by consolidation, mergers, automation, optimizations and such and the technological economy generates free wealth without the need to work and such and most sectors now are dominated by huge monopolies like samsung, intel and wealth is getting concentrated in fewer and fewer hands etc.), such that an economy can kick in again in growth mode.

But we need wild growth forced upon by governments spending, we need wild growth mode by governments printing trillions and hiring billions and building things and such, huge government expenditures, huge government projects and plans forcing growth like China does, shoving growth down society’s throat, shoving growth down nature’s throat and such (but the governments worldwide are doing the exact opposite firing workers and trying to spend less, what idiots, just print and spend like crazy assholes!), the invisible hand of the market won’t do anything anymore, since it all has been done, there is no incentive and profit to gain in any sector anymore, it is all old hat, saturated, old, very little real possibility of new growth, very real few new gains and advantages a company can get by robbing it from someone else, since all of profit is simply robbing money from someone else one way or another, just like Apple robs money from idiots buying their iphones and such.

Everything has been done, now the growth mode that has been the rule from 1950s to maybe up to 2000 and such can’t come back unless you force it.

The very fact that this high standard of living is so recent, has been around for only a few decades makes it all an exception, an experiment, all an unknown, it is the farthest thing from the linear laws the economists impose upon it all, it is all an experiment, now the only real growth is coming from poor countries becoming rich, simply repeating and imitating what the USA and JAPAN and the EU did from the 1950s to 2000, they are just imitating and repeating the same growth pattern of increasing consumption and such, and hence they have growth, but that will end soon for them too, it is not a given, it is not automatic unless you force it and the only way to force it is by governments forcing it by huge projects and hiring billions of people and such.

And just look at how many other things have changed from 1900 to today, families have completely changed their structure from when they had many kids to having no kids or only childs (and many couples having problems having kids and such) to such crappy perversions like queer couples adapting kids (kids growing up with only 2 daddies and no mommy, what crap or test tube babies) and so many other things (now couples in JAPAN don’t even get married and seldom even have children or at most one and such, huge changes in such a short time compared to a few decades ago), all of the family structures, environments, ways of doing have changed radically in 100 years and such, it is all an experiment, an unknown (with wild new viruses in the air, all kinds of new and wicked chemicals playing tricks on humanity and such, all kinds of cool pollution, as I love pollution, it mixes things up again, I like to mix everything up and experiment like a mad scientist), we don’t notice how short the time is, just like 10 years seem a lot to a little child but seem a short time for an 80 year old man, so we have always a distorted view of time and events and what is normal and not normal and such-

But the more conflicts and debates and new situations, the more information will be generated, we will throw an ever more increasing number of thoughts, debates and and ideas and blocks of texts and information to problems, the more they can’t be solved, the more we will throw information at them hoping to solve them and such.

And we will have planets, trillions of planets with all kinds of fossils made up of trillions of crystallized thoughts, and events and cars and things, all kinds of things all mixes of things, concepts, ideas events, all broken down and merged into each other, all barriers broke down, all new hybrids, insane and crazy hybrids and such, things impossible to understand and conceive like a thought and a chair and an emotion and a history all mixed up and put into a new thing and such, mixed and all splashing into stars and mixing with other civilizations, aliens, all kinds of new contraptions made up of symbols and electrons and car tires and thoughts and memories and emotions all mixed up all converted one into another and all, we will have the wildest-

CLOWN THUG

thug

And the same progression of science and technology then passed on to the economy and the industrial revolution created the faith and myth in science, logic, reasoning, on trying to research and figure out things, sociology and economists exist in terms of trying to understand these events and figure them out and use theory, logic and reasoning to overcome problems and such, but it is all in vain, you cannot figure out conflicts, you can’t think away conflicts, nay the more the conflicts the more the theories and attempts to figure them out and overcome them but they can never be overcome because the basis of man is conflict, fight, his very existence, definition, operating system is in terms of conflicts and fights and winners and losers and so forth and then the laws of conservation of conflicts is always operating, even if you solve one conflict and fight a new one will pop up somewhere else and such.

The positivism idea, illuminism, the success of science and logic and reasoning and such then made the cultural climate and environment believe in simple laws, linearity, the economy will always grow, we can solve problems if only we think them out hard enough and so, ever more thought and blocks of texts and debates and politics and research and technology but in the end it is all in vain, you cannot linearize that which is random and undiscoverable, you cannot figure problems out in the end, this plan is doomed and such. What we do have is a conflict to thought converter, a conflict to information converter, ever more conflicts, fights and debates generate ever more information and theories and so forth but bring no result, the project of science and logic and reasoning and illuminism and positivism is now failed now we are all spinning our wheels and running in circles: now the only solutions are forced solutions, shove it down everyone’s throat, free salaries, free rents and such.

And this huge amount of information, knowledge, everyone is educated now and such (and of course now they don’t want to do high precision labor in manufacturing, well if you needed those people then you should have trained them in such and you should have left them uneducated so that they wouldn’t realize that their activity is so puny and such and the same problem is happening in china, too many educated kids don’t want to slave labor in factories but the uneducated farmers are willing to since their expectations and cultural level do not make them notice the differences and such: leave them all ignorant then and make them work in factories or put in robots and end of story) all this fake knowledge lends themselves to so many false and make believe reasons that are hiding a hidden agenda, everyone believing in the myth of logic, and the hidden agendas are hiding a win lose situation like when they want to blame labor laws for low growth in europe and such, a make believe cause to make a very real gain in a win lose situation and such, and the more conflicts and information the more room there is to make up all kinds of theories all kinds of imaginary causes and effects and try to brainwash everyone but in the end really hiding a hidden agenda and such.

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And all of the problems

Yeah, I can see ‘splitting the sun’ replacing pumping oil out of the ground… ooh… any day now…

THERE IS NO MORE GROWTH.

From:

kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply- … north.html

Reply

"The next time that you go to the local emergency room and you get examined with an imaging machine think about how the machine got there. Do you have any idea? No? Did you build it? No? "

But that item is the result of research, study, the accumulation of knowledge and engineering to bring about a result, the accumulation of effort for a single result, the serialization of work (done probably by a handful of workers) to obtain an accumulated result, the serialization of labor for an end goal or product that benifits all, that contributes to the common good, that remains, that is achieved forever, that will be used over and over again (like information ? but we are all generating a never ending stream of information ? so that means there is a glut of information and all information workers are filling up a space already overflowing with information, but then how much constant and future work can there be if so much information is constantly being generated and is reusable ? (just write down all the combinations of symbols…) like a factory that is building trillions of cars constantly, since information occupies all space and time and more occupies the same metaphysical space, but how much work can there be for information workers when they are all wrting on the same page, the same things, all redundant and such, we have excess capacity in this kind of work…), the very concept of progress as the serialization of effort, the accumulation of work to obtain a clear result, and a clear “common good” for everyone, the common good, the accumulation of work and labor, large scale accumulations of labor, like large public private projects like space travel, the moon progam, skyscraper constructions, high speed train lines and so forth (and also we need to bring back trillions of ocean liners across the sea, all kinds of trans pacific and trans atlantic ocean liners, even through the indian ocean, huge ocean liners operating on nuclear engines travelling 300 km an hour and all such things and such). But that kind of work is being performed by a small percentage of workers, most work is the make believe of work, most work is redundant, most is just a make believe work that must simply reproduce power structures, heirarchies, bosses and workers and all such things, most is just make believe activities that only reinforce the very real status - power - office politics - winners - losers - inequality structures of all human relationships and such.

There are 100 million workers in the USA, maybe only 100,000 are building long lasting accumulated results like imaging machines and such, the rest are spinning their wheels. And being brainwashed that their labor is accumulative and serializable and for the common good when it is simply dispersion, waste, not building anything and such, just puny office politics, and fights.

As such most work is not accumulative or serializable, does not accumulate into common good results but are disjoint redundant power plays, the same power structures and human relationship fights over and over again all over the place but doesn’t generate any output, any result, they just serve themselves and reproduce themselves to justify heirarchies, inequalities, winners and losers and such, most work is make believe activity used to reinforce rituals, behaviors, customs and such.

BUt if all those workers and efforts were focused on serializable results, accumulation of results we could have colonized the solar system and such. That is the meaning of excess capacity and why this non serialized work that now dominates the developed economies is obsolete, not needed, optional, and the reason why so little real work is being created: it is not needed, it just serves to reproduce itself, it serves to reinforce and impose behaviors and rituals that don’t produce anything and such.

And all of these debates are vain in the end, we are all like lawyers, always finding a way to contradict and demonstrate the other message as wrong, we can keep on debating everything forever, and always find a loophole in some blocks of texts, contradict them, always find a new interpretation, a new fact, just like so many lawyers, finding all kinds of ways to justify one position against another, a never ending game where everyone is right and everyone is wrong and such: big box stores are good or bad ? take your choice, construct your arguments, you will always be able to find a million valid arguments in favor of them and a million valid arguments against them, but in the end it is only a fight, A against B, A wins B loses, end of story, and anyone can pretend to be A or B or take positions in the “war” in favor of A or B.

I like Big Box stores, we need to construct like crazy (and create excess real estate capacity so the value and cost of renting real estate becomes zero, free rents and such, free housing, crash real estate values by saturating the world with real estate), we need huge consumerism, we need to build like crazy, build and do things, and make ever bigger things, we need to go forward and increase activity like crazy, skyscrapers, trillions of big box stores, trillions of rockets, trillions of all things, I like that the amount of things keeps on increasing, fill the world up with things, saturate all with all kinds of things and then explode them, nuke it all, and mix them all up, muix up pictures and TV shows and TV sets and books and thoughts and emotions and pebbles and planets and formulas and concepts and points and square root symbols and mix things up like crazy, be crazy. AMEN.

All like lawyers, problems will never be solved since everything is always a problem, we will always have problems no matter what, we are problems, we are the problem. But this is simply all reciprocal information relationships, actions and reactions, an automatic reaction, you say A I will say B and contradict you, a mathematical function we execute constantly generating loads of blocks of texts, we are a fuction, a reply to a reply to a forever…

And Matter can be combined in so many different ways, we have a lot of disjoint chunks of matter combined in so many different ways on this planet thanks to Man Brains organizing it for functions in certain ways and such (or is it matter that organizes itself in certain ways through man brains by using brains as enzymes, reaction amplifiers ?) but imagine how many combinations of matter are possible near stars, inside other suns, on other planets, in the universe, so many different worlds and environments, in the center of planets having superfluid nucleus and such.

We have varied items apparently on our planet, but maybe the items can be even more varied even if they appear monolithic like a plasma in a star if the information relationships, the self reinforcing runaway informational reactions and relationships becoming repetitive patterns and such are even richer, way richer than what we experience by some kinds of observer types, other reciprocal plasmas, as all is a play of forces between observers, their functions and mental models and their environments and such, just like a computer sees a world as rich as ours when it looks at a movie, but the movie is only a sequence of bits and such.
And the computer can see and experience a much wilder and incredible and richer world by mixing up all the bits, making it totally unintelligible, but finding a way to read those new incredible worlds and movies and stories and such.

spark plug

From:

kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply- … north.html

Stick em, stick em, cram it down their throats, cram it down nature’s throat, force growth, build the big boxes like crazy, do it man, stick it, stick it to them, cram growth down society’s throat, cram it to them, forced growth, build, nuke, be crazy, do it all, build trillions of things waste like crazy, pollute, punish nature, stick em.

I am so sick and tired of this Nature protection, environment protection, green economy, what a boatload of crap, what copy cats everyone is, oh, you are all “so good”, what crap, I hate their guts, they think they are all so good with this nature loving crap: why isn’t there an anti green movement sticking it to them and everyone else ? we want global devastation and warming, we hate nature, we wan to punish nature, and all these fairy good nature lovers, enough, I am sick and tired.

spark plug

Locked in a Box

So big box stores are better or worse ? good or bad ? trains are good or bad ? and so forth ? no they are nothing at all, neither or both or anything else since they are just invariant bits in the mind and such. They are just bits in the mind, just a picture, a design, a painting in the mind associated to good or bad, feeling good or bad, to winning or losing, but the bits are all the same, it doesn’t matter what picture you put in the mind, what result, what sequence of events and such, only the connection to that set of bits and what it means, what it feels, who loses and who wins, and the denotations associated to them, the knowledge that some other mind is losing and winning counts, only the hard coded circuits connecting goals, results, wars, and fights and so forth and meanings to feelings create difference, create variations on a substrate that is invariant and meaningless and such. SO anything goes, anything can be better or worse than anything else, it is all irrelevant, meaningless, kill meaning and kill the circuits connecting events, pictures and designs to winning or losing, to good or bad, connect all the circuits and all designs to always winning, to winning no matter what design is in the mind, what set of bits, so you in always, you win, I win forever, no matter what anything will always make me win and such.

But all these debates, all the knowledge, all the information is just so many little logical blocks in the mind, just so many exercises of logic and language on concepts pretending to be achieving something and such, everyone showing off how they can reason and put toegether words too, words representing fights and goals and tasks and so forth and such, but it is like always being still, like being locked in a box, no matter how much more knowledge information, debates, words, concepts, no matter how many more blocks of texts and debates you throw at “problems” (another correlary of the idea that some bits are better than others and therefore must be changed into something else, no big box and yes to trains means the problems is the big box and the solution trains and such, but these are just bits and paths that you want the configuration of bits to follow and such, but it is jut a design, there is no better or worse and such) nothing changes (or you can invent that everything changes, who cares, lie to yourself, others and to god and the universe who cares, lying is ok, kill truth, kill any truth and such), just so many texts and logical segments, and so forth, and debates and fights and A against B, and replies to replies and so forth forever.

But it is as if one mind can conceive any blocks of texts and logical segments associated to a society or economy, but in the end the random, chaotic, contrasting forces of a society and economy can never be solved by one mind or any number of minds or any number of logical segments since any logic is not applicable to complex (nay, simple, simply a set of contrasting forces that minds want to group as a coherent entity when it is totally incoherent, not analyzable, not reducible to anything, not connected to any possible logic or an possible number of logical segments or debates no matter what and such) systems, so just give up, or keep on throwing information to problems and logical segments to problems forever and such, nothing will change, it is a mind locked in a box.

So the greens want to go back to the stone ages and such thinking that that is good, that that will make life better: what idiots, nothing further from the truth, either you have constant economical growth (we need wild growth, crazy growth!), constantly increasing consumerism, production, ever more things ever more of everything or you have poverty, and starvation, there is no alternative, there is no hippy land where you can just play in your little garden worshipping trees and such: either it is up or down, either economies become ever more large, complex, ever more energy consuming ever more bigger, ever more things, bigger and bigger projects, more and more production, trillions of ocean liners and rockets and skyscrapers and trillions of chips and so forth or you go backwards into having nothing at all, like africa, total starvation and wars and crap and such.

They are still hoping for the woodstock nation to become reality and such, they are still worshipping nature and such (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-the-land), they still want to try to live in communes and common property things and such, totally out of time and space, that story failed 40 years ago, now we must produce like crazy, build like crazy, go towards the future, get rid of nature all together, nay punish nature, stick it to nature and the greens, stick em stick em, you win, do it, be a hog, show nature what a hog you are, show how to do what you want as you want, don’t be under the thumbs of any morality, just do it, force it, force yourself to what you want, help yourself, don’t let the fairy little greens stop you, just do it… either you are part of the problem or part of the solution…

spark plug

From:

kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/reply- … north.html

Very Small World

"The general idea is to stay happy by keeping your world very small, and not asking any deep questions, and maintaining the worldview of one’s immediate “friends”. "

Is there a difference between a big world and a small world ? they are just transacting information with another set of random bits made important by what others say are important. They are just interacting through any random set of customs, rituals and behaviors, any at all with any amount of people at all from zero to a million (a million friends on facebook?) and so forth.

We just convince ourselves that we are talking about about “deep” or general or important or big world ideas and questions, but it is all the same size and importance, it is all equal, there is no big world or little world, no deep or shallow, it is all the same, we simply assign something as deep or shallow or big or small in our mind arbitrarily, just according to customs, rituals, being copy cats (all of this nature loving crap), rituals and behaviors, culture, what others do and think, ways of thinking and doing which can be any at all.

And anyways, if they were to think and discuss and talk about big issues like the economy or global warming or anything else, would it make any difference ? they would just be putting together a string of symbols and sentences and ideas declaring what is right or wrong, what should be done, what is a problem and a solution but with absolutely zero power to force anything in any direction anyways, totally impotent to do anything no matter what, no matter how much you talk about it since the controlling causes of global warming, the economy, “peak oil” are so many, so abstract, so indirect, so global, so intractable, so debateatable, so controvertial, so unsure and so forth and such (events having no causes, problems having no solutions, non linearities, if there are no solutions to problems, there are no problems in the first place, since there are no causes and effects in the first place, like trying to force “economic growth” which is a process that kicks in automatically under certain very uncertain conditions and forces operating within a very narrow window of forces and possibilities and such) causes having no events, that it would be useless to waste time talking about these problems, studying them imaginig a solution and such especially when it all boils down to power struggles, fights, who is more powerful, who will do whatever they want anyways like china in africa and such.

And then it just makes you feel superior that you are talking about something important when you talk of super global abstractions and such, but in essence, all of these big and deep issues are puny, worthless and meaningless just like all the puny little things all the kids talk about or the puny phone games like angry birds the kids play and such.

Does writing on this blog or anyplace on the internet (or anyplace else TV, books, newspapers and such) have any possiblility to change anything anyways ? is it intractable ? (maybe that old block of text I wrote last year had a huge effect somewhere on the history of our civilization but I will never know ?) and in which direction do you want to change things, because I want to change it in the exact opposite direction you want to…

ape

8

Up or Down

Either the economy grows, everything increases constantly, more cars sold worldwide, more energy use, more buildings, more everything and we go towards the future with ever larger, huge public private projects creating wealth, creating infrastructure for Man, creating the future like rockets and malls and consumerism, super consumerism, infinite growth, never ending growth, or we will go down, and become poor, dirt poor, sick and in pain and reach the stone ages in a few years if you are lucky.

There is no alternative: either it is this system of life, this techno-science system using ever more energy and using nature, as nature must be used, must be a tool for our needs, end of story, no more crying over fairy tale Nature ghosts as gods and such, no more imaginary good nature being there punishing us for our sins and such, nature is ours to use and punish and abuse as much as we want, we are the boss, there is no other boss, we are god, end of story, deal with it, give up and abide to the powers that be, to the powers that are stronger than you, that are letting you live, abide to the Man.

And of course, who cares how much profit the huge private corporations hog up minning the earth, building dams, building airports and high speed trains and highways and weapons, enough with this envy towards the winners and the rich, let them hog up as much profit and cash as possible by building and doing, yes we need trillions of fighter planes and warships and atom bombs and nuclear energy plants and particle accelerators, let the private corporations hog up all the profit they can, who cares, (I don’t gain either way, but at least there will be loads of things built and such) this will trickle down to all in the form of huge number of jobs, wealth, free cash, cheap rents and so forth, so much real estate that it becomes free, it doesn’t matter, technology will make us all super rich, this is the truth, the truth you all hate to hear, you all want to hear how everything is peaked, is dying, is ending, there is no more water, oil, energy, we are all doomed, this doom religion: well it is the exact opposite, we will go forward like crazy whether you like it or not, assholes.

And growth may be uneven, some countries will go down, others go up, but the end result, the accumulated and serialized result as in effort - work - labor accumulating result and such is that the worldwide economy will and must keep on growing, will keep on growing no matter what, it must, either that or nothing, or a stone age ape society made of little dictators, tyrants, poverty, violence, you name, societies as has been the norm for all of human history except the last 100 to 200 years thanks to the tehcnological economy freeing man from need, creating huge wealth for all with no corresponding labor needed but thanks to energy use, networks, highways, electronics, etc. huge economies of scale and such.

The average growth will continue, some countries will go down, some up, but the average will tend to some middle ground: the USA, EU and JAPAN will lose their wealth, some of it, maybe even 50 % in a few years, but China, India Brazil will gain that wealth, and it may even out, the world finally an even playing ground all with similar levels of wealth, a flat playing ground in a few years of such. The pattern is simple: the pay levels worldwide now fall in four windows, from 30 dollars a month in Somalia, to 100 in Vietnam to 300 in China to 800 in the EU and USA, end of story, 4 stages, 4 phases, 4 steps, so this will even out to a middle 600 dollars a month or so.

And growth may be choppy, it may be all over the place (and sometimes no place, all random chaotic), sometimes high sometimes low (some 3 % a year for 10 years in some places and times and then maybe -2 % for 10 years in that same place, all kinds of numbers and statistics, very nonlinear and such), chaotic, some places becoming dirt poor again like Europe, other places becoming hugely rich, all the statisical flukes cancel out in the end, it doesn’t matter how choppy the lines are of growth worldwide and according to where, when and how, the end result will be forward, towards the future, towards the colonization of the solar system, towards saturating all of the earth with structures, buildings, malls, cars, ocean liners, jets, high speed trains, a completely sauturated earth, as it should be, thou shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. AMEN.

These green tree huggers are still hoping in some kind of alternative, some kind of fairy tale land of the hippies all stoned and all peace love and music and all nature loving when that was possible exactly because machines, cars, oil, the techno-science structure of society in the 1960s allowed so many young kids to idle on finally free from need, the first time in history where people were free from need (although the hippies mostly belonged to the upper middle classes, “radical chick” stuff but anyways): and that is their mistake and the mistake of all the greens and the old timers: they don’t get it that that techno-science, the plastic society is the only society possible, that will free you from need, from hard work, free to goof around and such, and they are goofing around because if they ever worked in the farm fields like the chinese did until a few years ago, they would hate nature with all of their guts, as any normal person should, and in fact I am so glad china is building like crazy, polluting their air like crazy, they are going forwards, they will solve their problems because they haven’t been poisoned by the nature loving thugs, the green thugs in the USA and EU, like the idiotic germans wanting to get off nuclear energy: what crazy thugs, what craps, the cleanest, best energy in the world and now for some religious ideological reason they want to shut them down, what clowns, thugs, idiots, stick em!

SO either it is this society or no society, this economy (with ever increasing consumerism and waste and energy use, pollution (is so cool!) and all) or no economy at all, this or nothing, this or poverty, extreme poverty and starvation, there is no middle ground, either all or nothing, either plastic society or pain and the third world stone age crap, go to the poorest in africa to see how nice it is to live without the creature comforts and consumerisms jackasses!

Now either you are part of the problem or part of the solution: be part of the solution, build and waste and consume like crazy!

ape thug

Demand create supply.

Culture inspires technology.

If society doesn’t have heritage, people won’t have a reason to exist, work, invest, or consume.

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…

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