phil scott <phil@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
[...]
>Those living comfortably today on a modest income, will almost over
>night not be living at all comfortably as fuel, food, rent cross the
>budget threshold...then these stop buying and the rest of the economic
>decline accelerates.
>
>We are beyond the range of 'economic cycles'...we are well beyond the
>range of recession/ depression cycles...we are at the end of a life
>cycle... or end of empire cycle, (mapped by the Russian
>economist, kondratiev, analysed by Prof Ravi Batra..in his book 'the
>coming depression 1990)
We are not only at the end of a business-cycle + end of an empire
cycle, we are also at the end of a larger technology/culture cycle.
If a business cycle lasts years, a national cycle lasts centuries,
the technological cycle has lasted many tens of thousands of years,
even hundreds of thousands or maybe millions. But it is a cycle with
a defined crunch-point, which is where we are at for some decades right
now. To really pin it down: 1947 we got technical superiority over all
animals in the hands of ordinary people (AK-47 machine gun), and about
1967 humanity set up its own high-tech nuclear suicide mechanism,
helped tremendously by the American attempt to build the atom-bomb,
which dramatically shortened the time-frame 1947-1967. Those 20
years were more or less a golden age in theory, in which humanity
could have realized that it was all powerful over all former natural
enemies, yet did not have to fear total destruction from its own kind.
Had that time-frame lasted 200 years and not 20, it might have gone
down differently entirely. But the Americans wanted their bomb, and
hence spread a big panic around the world IMHO, and the focus quickly
****fted even further from human-on-animal violence to human-on-human
violence. The nuclear bomb is much more complicated to the AK-47, so
it is somewhat unnatural I guess that the atom-bomb mutual slaughter
of humanity came so close to superiority over animals in the field.
This technology cycle has a moral direction: once a species starts
to use technology, fighting within the species disappears because
natural evolution increasingly stops favoring it more and more,
depending on the state of that technology (unless the species is
over-aggressive, actively out to destroy its non-violent individuals,
such as humanity).
The only goal of survival of a technical species is to become
peaceful, or else it will not live past a point in the technology
cycle, but it will either: self-destruct, or turn itself into a
"high tech hell world." This high-tech hell world seems to be the
to be expected course of action for humanity if nothing is done.
Humanity is a dim and violent species, which also happens to be
dexterous enough to play with technology and develop that quickly.
Thus allowing little time for natural evolution to catch on.
This means basically the deck is stacked against humanity to make
it through this technology/culture cycle alive. The human body
seems, comparative other animals, objectively more dexterous.
Apes also seem objectively one of the more violent species. Even
lions spend most of the day laying around doing nothing while apes
obsess about their position in the hierarchy all day long. Both
apes and lions kill their own kind in power struggles, and children
not theirs.
Humanity is like a crazed ape driving a racing car straight into a
brick wall with a stone on the gas, while sitting on the spoiler
and sma****ng the lifeless body of another racer caught from its car
unto the track, pounding its chest and screaming out how grand and
superior it is. The bend that this ape is missing is the bend toward
peace, the wall is total destruction and/or setting up of high-tech
hell turning this world into an actual physical hell from which escape
could prove difficult. That is where we are now: the technology cycle
starts to make significant demands, or problems will occur. The end
of the American empire is comparatively a sideshow. But there are
some aspects that factor in the larger cycle, such as the build-up
of weaponry that primarily the USA and also Europe have done, and
some elitist in the world that want to set up the negative side of
the technology / culture cycle (high tech micro-chipped hell). Those
people want the technology cycle to fail and think they can profit from
that.
The public seems to think the USA is having a business cycle
depression, some people believe USA is imploding from corruption
(and capitalism), even fewer are aware that we are at the end of a
multi-million year technology cycle ! But the most im****tant decisions
always emanate from the longest term issues. The USA business cycles
are a ripple on the larger more im****tant wave of the USA empire rise
and fall. One business up/down cycle can not do or undo the rise and
fall of the Nation, its effect is too small. Similarly the fall of
the USA and the possible rise of new corrupt empires the EU, and other
rise/fall of Nations in the world, does only marginally impact what
happens with the largest technology wave, which is like a total rise or
sinking in sea level. A business cycle, a good or bad administration,
is like a wave on the surface of the ocean; the rise and fall of
Nations is like the ebb and flood caused by the moon; the rise of
technology is like the average sea level on Earth. These cycles are
decoupled to some extend, as they are so different in scale. What will
happen in the furthest future is determined by the cycle that lasts
longest and is most fundamental: the technology cycle. Its present day
demand is simple: world peace, or prepare for unparalleled catastrophe.
The waters have risen, technology has improved, either we swim for
peace or we drown in our own violence. Both can still occur, perhaps
both will occur at the same time, as it is also a historical process.
Even if the ocean levels rise or fall, doesn't mean there is no ebb and
flood, or no waves on the surface.
The technology cycle has gone through these phases: bare single
objects, multiple objects, objects crafted with increasing perfection,
contraptions and tool like stuff, then using external power like wind
and animal, using machine power, electronics, etc. On the upside:
the time scale of the technology wave is so long that it can take a
long time for the actual catastrophe to happen, allowing more time to
still try to make it, also with the help of that same technology. As
usual it is only a minority who messes things up for the rest of us.
The rules that allow rent-seeking put this minority in power, and
that will probably have implications for the technology cycle because
rent seeking is such a long standing and fundamental effect which is
allowed in almost all Nations. It may eventually cause humanity to
self destruct. That would be a sad accident over such a comparatively
minor oversight, wouldn't it. On the other hand, making this oversight
implies only dim half unconscious life exists in humanity, thus humanity
really does belong between animals and plants, undeserving of high tech
and incapable of operating it. That's why this long-term technology
cycle is one of those perfect things that exist in the Universe. Back
to animal life to sharpen those individual wits some more. One cycle
feeds into another, auto-generating the necessary stimuli.
--
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