I’m sure most people here are already aware that our illustrious Anthony Blinken has declared that Ukraine will join NATO. No word from Putin yet on this, but I’m thinking that he’s probably not gonna find it amusing.
The US isn’t in the businesss of defeating nations, the Neocons are in the business of spoiling, splitting and creating fratricidal conflicts within nations and limiting their strategic outreach.
Iraq and Libya was a success and even Afghanistan may be a success if they managed to penetrate into the Stans in Central Asia.
The question is how internally cohesive is Iran, with enough damage can they isolate it and split it between the Azeris, Balochs and moderates? Seems unlikely.
My drift: there is a reason for the rise in spirituality globally. Cause and effect. The formal cause is because the entire globe is going DIGITAL. This tech is ubiquitous. There has never been such a thing before. how it works: it’s a retrieval system. Literally it is a Memory retrieval tech. a new psychological formation is happening, most importantly among the young.
The prior Paradigm in the West, was TELEVISION. The habitual use of this tech formed us as well: illusion or fantasy. The old line was: suspend your disbelief and be entertained! So in the West and US we are undergoing a rocky transition period. This is the tech of AI. Robots. Artificial souls. Artificial decisions. Artificial doing “work.”
Modernity, died when DIGITAL took over. Modern was a rejection of Nature and the Human. Now everyone wonders about the human in light of the Artificial: what good are the humans? All the rules and “ethics” have been thrown out. We question everything we have ever been taught or told was the direction of the culture. No trust.
What does one do under this radical change? One starts looking for what to attach to (think 1960s, or 1920s or post US Civil War) to give meaning, agency, that which is beyond human. Thus secularism is now obsolete, despite what we are told by some. Every “spiritual” way that has popped up in the West over the last 2000+ years is going to come back with enthusiastic adherents, most importantly the Catholic Church, which never went away.
The rest of the world is way ahead in embracing their “history” or memory or their own spiritual and religious pasts. They take the rise of DIGITAL/AI more seriously than we do, meaning they are attempting to think it through and harness it for their own ends as civilizations. China and India are massive examples of this, as is Russia. They are rising spiritual civilizations and they know it, and they will become more so and more enthusiastic about it as time goes on.
The conflicts we see and those coming, are really spiritual, not geopolitical conflicts: to understand Russia means to see the ROC as the focal point of their culture. Same for Israel, Islam, and everyone else outside of the US and West. Further, few outside of the US wake up thinking about the US or take it seriously anymore. Utterly out of step with what is happening with most of the world’s population. The rise in spirituality is because of AI/DIGITAL and what it is and what it could become, whether one see it as positive or negative, does not matter. It brings a new psyche formation, complete and ubiquitous.
We can either figure this out and what it means for both ourselves and what the rest of the world is doing, or we can be relegated to has been status as time goes by. Imagine our grand and great grandchildren looking to “leaders” or “elites” in other parts of the world because we did not take this seriously, and we did not rebuild the West on a new moral foundation and we kept talking about our politics, as if it really matters today who get elected…we a good at being distracted…but the young in the coming years will not want to be so distracted. They will demand answers about what to do about the humans….in reality, we all intuitively know things have changed, and a new way forward has to be developed.
Unfortunately Jeff the longer your posts get, the less I seem to understand.
In an earlier comment you mentioned that the previous paradigm was ELECTRIC (your caps). What's that?
If we accept the argument proferred by, for example, Neil Postman, childhood was a Western/Capitalist invention. Until a lengthy apprenticeship was deemed necessary to acquire the skills and sophistication for statecraft (for the elite - see Aries: Centuries of Childhood) or to train the professional managerial class (PMC), schooling was never compulsory. And childhood as a distinct phase in life was a nebulous and bourgeoise concept. Most children old enough to stack bundles of wheat did exactly that, like adults but smaller.
Schooling was extended (comparatively recently) in Western countries and the places they colonized to (1) buoy up the notion that even kids from modest backgrounds could "succeed" (get a desk and a PC all their very own), and (2) to keep the scalliwags occupied for at least part of the day while their parent/s put in their ten hours at the factory, the coalface, or the mill.
In the current/coming era, a great deal of cognitive offloading (to software, apps, AI, etc) means that the lengthy apprenticeships may again be limited to the PMC (but in lesser numbers most likely). The arguments in favour of learning algebra and how to spell are going to be difficult to sustain, but there aren't or won't be jobs available for stacking wheat, spinning textiles, or digging coal. Piloting attack drones maybe..?
I'm guessing this is what you mean Jeff by the need arising to decide "what to do about the humans"? So what do you suggest?
The prevailing view seems to be to subtly or otherwise cull us and achieve sustainability that way.
Not quarreling at all. Much could be said and a comment section may not be the place. So just a couple of points. I would look to McLuhan, not Poston, who did not understand McLuhan. We are shaped, formed, by the psycho environment. Think Aristotle’s Inner Senses. We are constantly sensing and being formed. This is very subconscious. We don’t have a choice about this. Habitual used of the communication tech forms us. So a question is: what is DIGITAL (caps means paradigm) or AI doing to us? Not what kind of tool is it.
I do not think of education as Poston framed it: he blamed humans for making poor decisions. Our education is based on prior communication paradigms, so fantasy. We are not yet educating kids about what it means to live with artificial souls and what it means to be a human: we have not taken this up since the Medieval era. But we will have to.
Cognition: our brains are not like computers, so this is not the way to think about it. Not even close. Another fantasy that humans are limited. Think biology and psychology. There is much about humans we have buried and will have to unpack again. We don’t think in terms of Aristotle’s Formal Cause, or the Inner Senses, but we will have to. Nor do we pay attention to how other civilizations are dealing with this.
I don't know Aristotle, but much of the Greek philosophy canon was ripped off from India and what you're describing seems to be dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda). Teaching this to everyone, but especially children, would indeed be a good idea. Cognition is merely one cog in the system, as are feelings, sense-impressions, and so on. Let's leave it there but I'm more than happy to discuss off-forum. Peace.
1 of 13. The ODNI has accused "foreign actors" of trying to interfere in our 2020 election, naming China, Russia, and Iran as prime offenders. Given the events of 2016, we should probably keep an eye on the British as well.
Hello Mr. Wauk, thanks for sharing your thoughts !
I was thinking about the fate of Biden and the mainstream view that he is the democrat candidate and therefore every decisions of his administration is influenced by it.
Let's contemplate the view that the forces that control the Dems know that he will not win. However the war/power/money agenda can be salvaged regardless of the next president or representatives (which optically translates to the notion of the "Uni-Party").
For this, support against Russia and her allies must be maintained, at least at the top. Knowing this, the current election cycle echoes the 1968 election cycle. In this period, Israel relationship with the Arab Nations started to turn very bad but not as dramatic as today.
Then candidate Kennedy who opposed the Vietnam war, was assassinated by a 24 years old Palestinian. Nixon won and the wars continued.
There is a War Party running the show that has demonstrated that the life of a president can be used to fund its goal of perpetual existence.
Responsibility? That goes against the Modern/Post-Modern ELECTRIC paradigms formation: we were all brought up to NOT be responsible. No more Cause or recognizing the effects of how we were all formed throughout the West. Full rejection of Nature and Human: thus all the nuttiness about Salvation/End Times: Nature and Humans are to be overcome. There will be no taking responsibility. What will happen is that in the next 25 years, the youngest amongst us, those not brought up under fantasy conditions will go against all the media and advertising: lawsuits following Nuremburg for psychological abuse.
New Paradigm: DIGITAL, thus new challenges: Enthusiasm! Is anyone talking about this?
Everyone in the world (see China, India, Japan, Russia, etc) is embracing some version of Spirituality, and basing their economics, politics and civilization on this, and since there are no worldwide rules (globalism never actually happened and it’s obsolete now) everyone will take their spirituality very seriously as their salvation depends upon it. Everywhere in the world, AI and spirituality are being embraced, enthusiastically! Does anyone take this seriously?
My view, following Aristotle and Marshall McLuhan, is that the habitual use of the dominant communication, forms or shapes us. Think internal senses and cause and effect. The current paradigm is now DIGITAL, which is a memory based technology. Think retrieval. What does DIGITAL retrieve? Our memories of our own past, particularly that which came before Modernity, which we have rejected. That is Scribal. Every culture is doing the same thing: retrieving their Scribal or Medieval history: Russia, China, India, Japan and so on. That time period for everyone was religious or spiritual. Reject the modern in favor of and try out what came before. Further everyone will do it enthusiastically, meaning potential for lots of conflict as we mover from the obsolete Modern/Globalism, which brought people together, though it never fully worked, to one that divides. Interesting times indeed.
All great stuff. I almost feel sorry for the sheep who still follow the MSM. They are missing out on so much great commentary and analysis. In fact, the alternative media IS the MSM now. Just a side note on the political scene in the US as we run towards November. There are reports of Voter registration of millions of new "voters" without proper ID in key swing states and even solid red areas. Looks like the Dems are going to steal another election in November. Which, if it succeeds (and why not? The GOP doesn't care), will mean more of the same afterwards where the GAE is concerned.
I’m sure most people here are already aware that our illustrious Anthony Blinken has declared that Ukraine will join NATO. No word from Putin yet on this, but I’m thinking that he’s probably not gonna find it amusing.
Might even piss him off!
I'm listening to Mercouris right now: **Shoigu Steamrolls French MoD in Tense Call,** Macron Upset; Rus Restates Demand; Ukr Crisis Chasov Yar
The US isn’t in the businesss of defeating nations, the Neocons are in the business of spoiling, splitting and creating fratricidal conflicts within nations and limiting their strategic outreach.
Iraq and Libya was a success and even Afghanistan may be a success if they managed to penetrate into the Stans in Central Asia.
The question is how internally cohesive is Iran, with enough damage can they isolate it and split it between the Azeris, Balochs and moderates? Seems unlikely.
Good question.
My drift: there is a reason for the rise in spirituality globally. Cause and effect. The formal cause is because the entire globe is going DIGITAL. This tech is ubiquitous. There has never been such a thing before. how it works: it’s a retrieval system. Literally it is a Memory retrieval tech. a new psychological formation is happening, most importantly among the young.
The prior Paradigm in the West, was TELEVISION. The habitual use of this tech formed us as well: illusion or fantasy. The old line was: suspend your disbelief and be entertained! So in the West and US we are undergoing a rocky transition period. This is the tech of AI. Robots. Artificial souls. Artificial decisions. Artificial doing “work.”
Modernity, died when DIGITAL took over. Modern was a rejection of Nature and the Human. Now everyone wonders about the human in light of the Artificial: what good are the humans? All the rules and “ethics” have been thrown out. We question everything we have ever been taught or told was the direction of the culture. No trust.
What does one do under this radical change? One starts looking for what to attach to (think 1960s, or 1920s or post US Civil War) to give meaning, agency, that which is beyond human. Thus secularism is now obsolete, despite what we are told by some. Every “spiritual” way that has popped up in the West over the last 2000+ years is going to come back with enthusiastic adherents, most importantly the Catholic Church, which never went away.
The rest of the world is way ahead in embracing their “history” or memory or their own spiritual and religious pasts. They take the rise of DIGITAL/AI more seriously than we do, meaning they are attempting to think it through and harness it for their own ends as civilizations. China and India are massive examples of this, as is Russia. They are rising spiritual civilizations and they know it, and they will become more so and more enthusiastic about it as time goes on.
The conflicts we see and those coming, are really spiritual, not geopolitical conflicts: to understand Russia means to see the ROC as the focal point of their culture. Same for Israel, Islam, and everyone else outside of the US and West. Further, few outside of the US wake up thinking about the US or take it seriously anymore. Utterly out of step with what is happening with most of the world’s population. The rise in spirituality is because of AI/DIGITAL and what it is and what it could become, whether one see it as positive or negative, does not matter. It brings a new psyche formation, complete and ubiquitous.
We can either figure this out and what it means for both ourselves and what the rest of the world is doing, or we can be relegated to has been status as time goes by. Imagine our grand and great grandchildren looking to “leaders” or “elites” in other parts of the world because we did not take this seriously, and we did not rebuild the West on a new moral foundation and we kept talking about our politics, as if it really matters today who get elected…we a good at being distracted…but the young in the coming years will not want to be so distracted. They will demand answers about what to do about the humans….in reality, we all intuitively know things have changed, and a new way forward has to be developed.
Unfortunately Jeff the longer your posts get, the less I seem to understand.
In an earlier comment you mentioned that the previous paradigm was ELECTRIC (your caps). What's that?
If we accept the argument proferred by, for example, Neil Postman, childhood was a Western/Capitalist invention. Until a lengthy apprenticeship was deemed necessary to acquire the skills and sophistication for statecraft (for the elite - see Aries: Centuries of Childhood) or to train the professional managerial class (PMC), schooling was never compulsory. And childhood as a distinct phase in life was a nebulous and bourgeoise concept. Most children old enough to stack bundles of wheat did exactly that, like adults but smaller.
Schooling was extended (comparatively recently) in Western countries and the places they colonized to (1) buoy up the notion that even kids from modest backgrounds could "succeed" (get a desk and a PC all their very own), and (2) to keep the scalliwags occupied for at least part of the day while their parent/s put in their ten hours at the factory, the coalface, or the mill.
In the current/coming era, a great deal of cognitive offloading (to software, apps, AI, etc) means that the lengthy apprenticeships may again be limited to the PMC (but in lesser numbers most likely). The arguments in favour of learning algebra and how to spell are going to be difficult to sustain, but there aren't or won't be jobs available for stacking wheat, spinning textiles, or digging coal. Piloting attack drones maybe..?
I'm guessing this is what you mean Jeff by the need arising to decide "what to do about the humans"? So what do you suggest?
The prevailing view seems to be to subtly or otherwise cull us and achieve sustainability that way.
Forgive me if this seems quarrelsome!
Not quarreling at all. Much could be said and a comment section may not be the place. So just a couple of points. I would look to McLuhan, not Poston, who did not understand McLuhan. We are shaped, formed, by the psycho environment. Think Aristotle’s Inner Senses. We are constantly sensing and being formed. This is very subconscious. We don’t have a choice about this. Habitual used of the communication tech forms us. So a question is: what is DIGITAL (caps means paradigm) or AI doing to us? Not what kind of tool is it.
I do not think of education as Poston framed it: he blamed humans for making poor decisions. Our education is based on prior communication paradigms, so fantasy. We are not yet educating kids about what it means to live with artificial souls and what it means to be a human: we have not taken this up since the Medieval era. But we will have to.
Cognition: our brains are not like computers, so this is not the way to think about it. Not even close. Another fantasy that humans are limited. Think biology and psychology. There is much about humans we have buried and will have to unpack again. We don’t think in terms of Aristotle’s Formal Cause, or the Inner Senses, but we will have to. Nor do we pay attention to how other civilizations are dealing with this.
I don't know Aristotle, but much of the Greek philosophy canon was ripped off from India and what you're describing seems to be dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda). Teaching this to everyone, but especially children, would indeed be a good idea. Cognition is merely one cog in the system, as are feelings, sense-impressions, and so on. Let's leave it there but I'm more than happy to discuss off-forum. Peace.
https://twitter.com/RealRichardPoe/status/1292200025850773509
Thirteen tweet thread from August 2020:
Richard Poe @RealRichardPoe
Aug 8, 2020
1 of 13. The ODNI has accused "foreign actors" of trying to interfere in our 2020 election, naming China, Russia, and Iran as prime offenders. Given the events of 2016, we should probably keep an eye on the British as well.
Hello Mr. Wauk, thanks for sharing your thoughts !
I was thinking about the fate of Biden and the mainstream view that he is the democrat candidate and therefore every decisions of his administration is influenced by it.
Let's contemplate the view that the forces that control the Dems know that he will not win. However the war/power/money agenda can be salvaged regardless of the next president or representatives (which optically translates to the notion of the "Uni-Party").
For this, support against Russia and her allies must be maintained, at least at the top. Knowing this, the current election cycle echoes the 1968 election cycle. In this period, Israel relationship with the Arab Nations started to turn very bad but not as dramatic as today.
Then candidate Kennedy who opposed the Vietnam war, was assassinated by a 24 years old Palestinian. Nixon won and the wars continued.
There is a War Party running the show that has demonstrated that the life of a president can be used to fund its goal of perpetual existence.
Responsibility? That goes against the Modern/Post-Modern ELECTRIC paradigms formation: we were all brought up to NOT be responsible. No more Cause or recognizing the effects of how we were all formed throughout the West. Full rejection of Nature and Human: thus all the nuttiness about Salvation/End Times: Nature and Humans are to be overcome. There will be no taking responsibility. What will happen is that in the next 25 years, the youngest amongst us, those not brought up under fantasy conditions will go against all the media and advertising: lawsuits following Nuremburg for psychological abuse.
New Paradigm: DIGITAL, thus new challenges: Enthusiasm! Is anyone talking about this?
Everyone in the world (see China, India, Japan, Russia, etc) is embracing some version of Spirituality, and basing their economics, politics and civilization on this, and since there are no worldwide rules (globalism never actually happened and it’s obsolete now) everyone will take their spirituality very seriously as their salvation depends upon it. Everywhere in the world, AI and spirituality are being embraced, enthusiastically! Does anyone take this seriously?
Many, but I'm not sure I get your drift. IMO , AI and spirituality are inimical to each other.
My view, following Aristotle and Marshall McLuhan, is that the habitual use of the dominant communication, forms or shapes us. Think internal senses and cause and effect. The current paradigm is now DIGITAL, which is a memory based technology. Think retrieval. What does DIGITAL retrieve? Our memories of our own past, particularly that which came before Modernity, which we have rejected. That is Scribal. Every culture is doing the same thing: retrieving their Scribal or Medieval history: Russia, China, India, Japan and so on. That time period for everyone was religious or spiritual. Reject the modern in favor of and try out what came before. Further everyone will do it enthusiastically, meaning potential for lots of conflict as we mover from the obsolete Modern/Globalism, which brought people together, though it never fully worked, to one that divides. Interesting times indeed.
All great stuff. I almost feel sorry for the sheep who still follow the MSM. They are missing out on so much great commentary and analysis. In fact, the alternative media IS the MSM now. Just a side note on the political scene in the US as we run towards November. There are reports of Voter registration of millions of new "voters" without proper ID in key swing states and even solid red areas. Looks like the Dems are going to steal another election in November. Which, if it succeeds (and why not? The GOP doesn't care), will mean more of the same afterwards where the GAE is concerned.
‘The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election’ by Molly Ball. Time Magazine. What has changed since then?
Per Molly Ball Time Magazine article. Why wouldn’t they?
So everyone can just go out and register as many times as they want?
I'm a Euro but I visited Disneyworld in 1983, so I'm sure I can vote too.
I'm British but got married in Vegas so I'm expecting my ballot papers any day now..