Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Thursday, June 15, 2006
It's the end of the world as we know it...
Good post. But whaddya think about this: maybe the end of the world isn’t approaching, but it happened already, and this is the result.
PS: That first image, for those who don’t know, is from here.
PPS: Here’s a little something for all you New-Luddites out there.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 06/15 at 06:29 AMit could just as easily be GM foods that do it. Want to be scared? then check this out…
it has the lovely title of
“geneticaly modified food may produce herbicides INSIDE our intestines”
Posted by michael on from exile 06/15 at 07:00 AMWorld’s been ending since we got busy and changed it to suit us 8000 years ago at the invention of agriculture. Was ending before that too, as we exhausted the game and clean water in places we hunted. It’s all very nice to say the hunter-gatherers knew the game would replenish itself, but you and I have no way to know that because they left only material traces behind, no words and precious few pictures.
So I think, and no one can tell me I’m wrong with any authority whatever, that those Lascaux cave pictures http://tinyurl.com/pea2e were the hysterical petitions of Og and Skur and Flem to the God who visited the current, unprecedented, hideous disaster that afflicts the God’s faithful, kind, and decent servants along with those unclean, disgusting guys across the creek as a way of cleansing the world of their evil.
Hogwash. We’re killing ourselves, it’s true, and there are (IMHO) too many of us anyway, but this is not unprecendented. Agriculture itself was a holocaust for the plant species not selected and therefore not manipulated to suit human needs. Competition got a lot harder for those plants when fields of one thing were selected and tended by Og’s great-grankids.
The current passage will end in many deaths. And it should be different because...? All passages in history end in massive die-offs, because we all die. Rich ones later than poor ones. Always.
This present hysteria over the evil, horrible manipulations of our foodstocks by corporate coprophages are exxactly like the hysterical petitions of Og and company. Too many people means no way for each of us to grow enough food on our own to sustain this lifestyle. Someone figured out how to gorw enough food to support us. That someone charges us a lot of money for the food. The profits are the problem here, IMO.
I argue that it’s the ethics of distribution, not production, that need re-envisioning.
As to nuclear holocausts and suchlike, oh for gods’ sake. If it was that bad, would Nagasaki and Hiroshima be inhabited again? Would Chernobyl not be unvisitable? Please.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin, Texas 06/15 at 07:33 AMGood morning Mickey, Keir, michael, and Mudge. I could not open your links, Keir. I will try again.
Michael, thanks for the great article. It contains some important info that I had missed and GMO’s are a favorite topic.
Mudge, I think that the ethics of distribution and also the current methods of production with GMO’s need re-envisioning. The likes of companies such as Monsanto might be the end of all of us. That gets us back to the root of the problem, Capitalism. GMO’s enhance the bottom line. It’s all about greed and money. The same reason that the pharmaceutical companies put thimerosal into the bodies of newborns. I am not so ready to blame over population. The way I see it, over consumption of unnecessary consumer goods is a bigger problem. BUT, the root of almost all our problems seems to be Capitalism. The world is ending and all of us are in the process of dying but in the meantime maybe we should not give the corporations such an unresisted path toward the rush to doomsday.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 06/15 at 07:57 AMDon’t even get me started on this subject...I’ll get all apocalyptic on your ass.
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 06/15 at 08:17 AMTop of the morn to RMJ, Keir, JOS, michael & Mudge.
@MZ: Good post today. It inspired me to start it off with a bit of REM.
@ Mudge: You’ve written too much for me to reply to for now, but maybe later…
@ RMJ: I’m right with you re: your comments.
Anyway, off to do mundane peasant work soon, so must go for now.
captcha = third (as in world)
Posted by RT on from The Buyou City 06/15 at 08:56 AM>>...we should not give the corporations such an unresisted path toward the rush to doomsday.<<
Sing it, Sister Rosemarie. The root of our problems is human nature, though, since capitalisn is popular among humans for a reason.
Off to work now. Benisons upon all who view these pages.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin, Texas 06/15 at 09:15 AMMudge (#7) sorry but I don’t believe that at all. “Capitalism” is nowhere near popular with humans and the human nature explanation is always a cop out. So-called capitalists are criminally aggressive, yes, but they be few. The Many---taken, I mean, en masse---demonstrate a different type of human nature: that of turning the other cheek too damn often. Capitalism is popular among all us humans like poison gas was popular among Jewish humans at Auschwitz or big dam projects are popular among Indian farmer humans.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 06/15 at 09:56 AMHi all ... absolutely keir, I really believe that about human nature and I know capatalism certainly aint popular, thats why it won’t last.
Posted by Uncle Joe on from in-ger-land 06/15 at 10:15 AMI guess I’ll join in against you, Mudge...though I have a feeling you enjoy it.
Like you said that many of the problems we have today started with mass production agriculture around 8,000 years ago.
If humans are somehow born flawed...how did we survive for so long before this new way of living?
How long have humans been on Earth? In some form or another I suspect several million years. OK, modern man has been around for AT LEAST 250,000 years...right?
We managed to live for a long time without causing so much damage.
Posted by JOS on from Downtown Chicago 06/15 at 10:37 AMis the world ending? no.
let me make this clear…
when people get pompous ideas about ‘saving the planet’ they have got the wrong idea entirely. the planet has been through several mass extinctions and survived them all, the planet has been through several massive asteroid and/or comet impacts and survived them all.
In other words...THE PLANET IS FINE
after each of these mass extinctions the planet has been fine and new forms of life have regenerated.
it is US and the other species on this planet that we have to be saving. THE PLANET IS FINE.
we have somethign that seperates us. I know it is a popular idea that we are just animals driven by our most basic instincts and while that is certainly true, whatever genetic freakery encouraged the cycle to begin does not affect us in the way it affects other species.
we have effectively found ways to isolate ourselves from our environment. example… if people live in a place where it is too cold to live a naturist lifestyle all the people don’t die out.
what happens with animals in that situation is speciation whereby the animals that end up in the colder place.... after a few generations, the ones with the thicker coats tend to survive..come back a few hundred year later and there is a new subspecies all with thicker coats. this process no longer applies to humans (or at least not in the same basic way)humans just find an animal with an appropiate piece of clothing (ie fur) and think “right, we’ll have it off him”. we don’t actually even have to do that anymore.
the only other forms of life (that we know of) that do something similar are bacteria and viruses(maybe bill hicks was right when he said “we are a virus with shoes, nothing more, get it into your heads"). incidentally, bacteria, by any scientific standard at all are the most succesful forms of life on this planet.
oh and mudge...i know a guy who runs a charity that brings children from the chernobyl region born with debilitating cancers to ireland for one year. even this short term reduction in the time of their exposure ccan result in adding an extra two or three years to their lives. a visit? maybe.
try living there.
Posted by michael on from exile 06/15 at 11:07 AMwith the above post i am not suggesting that global warming and capitalism are natural or anything of that sort.
each of the mass extinctions was brought about by major geological upheaval and/or massive impacts.
the temperatures and conditions on earth altered radically but life reestablished itself in different forms.
we are probably killing ourselves and most of the other forms of life that were suited tothe world before rampant capitalism, whichi s the root of global warming and so on. however, the likelihood is that new forms of life will establish themselves. it has happened before.
however, the other likelihood is that we won’t be part of it all. which is why i said the planet is fine, its us and the other things that are around now that we have to be looking out for.
Posted by michael on from exile 06/15 at 11:19 AMAs always, I’d gang up on Mudge, but I’d only want to do so if I could in person. And he wouldn’t have it any other way either. Instead I’ll just ask if eating venison on the highway like in the mainn post would help me get built like Brad Pitt in the photo shown there. What was his secret back then? Or have I already asked this?
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 06/15 at 12:03 PMi am not trying to gang up on mudge at all. i agree with him to a point, but i also think that we are both capable, and to add to keirs point, willing, to getout of the big capitalist gangbang that we are all involved in and save ourselves and a few other species while we are about it.
Posted by michael on from exile 06/15 at 12:22 PMMaybe that’s the problem, Michael… *We* are, but several Expendables just isn’t enough. Besides, I’m not even really, with the places I work to pay rent, the whole Churchill Eichmann thing. But then, there’s cool stuff like this:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19475841-2703,00.html
Well, they failed, sure but man, that Daryl Hannah…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 06/15 at 12:30 PMTalk about failure…
“Washington’s diplomatic efforts rated 1.8 out of 10.”
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 06/15 at 12:44 PMi am going to take a depressing position on that story and say that plenty of people do these things every day, a few celebs get involved for a few days and everyone thinks its cool. the celebs risk so much less than other people do.
check this out every friday for examples…
Posted by michael on from exile 06/15 at 12:45 PMCapitalism at its best? Real US UNemployment rate is 13.3%:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/6/15/8143/68629
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 06/15 at 12:52 PMGreat group here today as usual. I have been working outside so might have missed something here. The weather has finally changed. The sky is incredible. If you haven’t seen a “Vermont Sky” you’re missing something very special. The color is iridescent turquoise. Kind of makes up for the endless winters.
Anyway back on topic. Michael says that the planet is fine. I agree. Our life form might end but the planet will go on and on, maybe. I am surprised that no one has mentioned this (or did I just miss it).
http://tinyurl.com/n7g3gPosted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 06/15 at 01:29 PMJOS I’ve been to a town in Poland with an unemployment rate of 40 percent. I’ve been to one in South Africa with 80 percent unemployment. Not some tribal village either, a real town with churches and a university and Mercedes dealerships and shit.
Fortunately you’ll never get those numbers in the States unless they find a way to mechanize the work force in the booming prison-industrial complex.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 06/15 at 01:30 PMHello Expendables...from an increasingly warm Astoria. Over 80 degrees, I think.
Plenty to chew on here so let me clarify. My post addressed “the world as we know it.” I wasn’t implying that human behavior would threaten the literal existence of a planet that’s been around for billions of years. However, the changes set into motion by human behavior in the past century are threatening all forms of life on this globe and I’d hardly equate that to previous mass extinctions. For example, no one could have stopped the comet that crashed into the Yucatan some 65 million years ago...wiping out the dinosaurs. Humans, however, did not have to despoil every inch of the planet. They had a choice and it could have been stopped.
None of this debating lessens my concern that human behavior is going to result in catastrophic changes in the coming decades.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 06/15 at 01:31 PMKeir...no doubt there are many places in much worse shape than the US. My point was more about the lie that is the US’s supposed under 5% unemploment rate…
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 06/15 at 01:35 PMI think that Michael is referring to the distinction between damage to humanity’s “interests”, and once again, this sort of thing, which is discussed as being much harder to cause than people often assume… whatever, anyway I was partly serious before. Fight Club’s often confused me as it’s making these anti-consumerism statements, but then presenting images of Brad Pitt in this shape that’s virtually impossible for regular people to get into w/o the benefit of constant personal training and unrealistic hours in the gym… or maybe I’m just rationalizing how lazy I get. Well, off to another long night shift soon, which certainly won’t help either my physique or my literary progress, but will obviously will help my rent check…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 06/15 at 01:37 PMsome of what i said is actually richard dawkins via douglas adams. some of it was me.
however, i couldn’t be happier! for the first time in my life RMJ agreed with me. yippee.
i will use the confidence boost to refer to my new 22 second short which has had no expendable comment yet
its 22 seconds…
Posted by michael on from exile 06/15 at 01:44 PMawesome vid, michael.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 06/15 at 01:59 PMMichael...I often agree with you. And I like your graphic today about consumerism. I could not see the video. With slow dial-up I miss a lot.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 06/15 at 02:01 PMVery good post, Mickey! And how things have changed over the last few decades. Last night I heard that the ‘turning point’ in the melting of the polar caps due to global warming is going to be in 2060 - that means neither Mr nor Mrs Helga will be around. People with kids should pay attention, though ..
Hi, Keir, Michael, Mudge, Rosemarie, RT, Uncle Joe and James - hope I have not forgotten anyone. If so, I apologise.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 06/15 at 03:20 PMOh, in #23 I was referring to this-- http://qntm.org/destroy... sorry, can’t open the video here…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 06/15 at 05:09 PMmichael, on second thought, I ALWAYS agree with you.
Also on a personal note but consistent with today’s topic....I am constantly amazed at how different everything is from the way we all were told it would be when I was young. In my opinion, now life is much more difficult and the REAL quality of life has been drastically reduced. Think about it---when I was young, one person, working a 40 hour week, with or without a high school education, could support a family, buy a car, take a couple weeks vacation every year, have health and dental care, etc. Life was better before student loans, HMO’s, GMO’s, mad cow disease, and on and on…
Any comments on the quote below?
“... We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society....” T. Kaczynski
My captcha word is “JUSTICE” !!!
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 06/15 at 05:54 PMHello everyone. Nice discussion. On the topic of nuclear war: anyone see that John Trudell biofilm aptly titled Trudell. I don’t remember the exact quote but Trudell said something along the lines of people wondering what if there is a nuclear war. He then points out that nuclear war is already here he points to the exploration of uranium on Native American reservations and the impact it has on them. http://www.trudellthemovie.com/
(ahh! so fustrating I can’t remember the exact quote it was brilliant. Can anyone help me out?) We can extend this to the tons of depleted uranium dropped in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all the nuclear accidents like Chernobyl.
Bombs Over Baghdad
John TrudellBombs over Baghdad, Bombs over Baghdad
Bombs over Baghdad, Dancers of Death
Murder in the air, with the next breath
Macho Queens selling war-makers toys
Raining Destruction, Good Old Boys
Death bringer In Queen George’s Eyes
Read his lips, war-maker lies
Religious Rights revenging sword
Thou shalt kill in the name of the Lord
The Sheep and the Cattle can’t keep from milling
Some are more than ready some aren’t willing
Volunteering in what they’re not dying for
The Young Republican Guard crying for war.
Free speech as free as its thought
Controlled behavior reacts as its taught
Fighting for Peace can’t comprehend
Hate out of love is violent pretendsBombs Over Baghdad, Bombs Over Baghdad
Bombs Over Baghdad, Bombs Over BaghdadVampires drinking blood and oil cocktails
Their violence works it hardly ever fails
When blind man can’t see he believes blind
Blind obedience is the child of mindless mindsNew world order is an old world lie.
Fighting for peace, see how they die.
Dragging in God, as they turn violent.
God says nothing, he just remains silent.Stop madmen from running loose.
Mother earth woman cant take the abuse
living right now is living for tomorrow
Time is saying there’s no more time tomorrowVampires drinking blood and oil cocktails
Their violence works it hardly ever fails
Bombs over Baghdad Dancers of Death
Murder in the air with the next breathMacho Queen war-maker toys
Raining destruction Good Old Boys
New world order is a whole world lie.
Fighting for peace, watch them all die.
Dragging in God, as they turn violent.
God says nothing, he just remains silent.Bombs over Baghdad, Dancers of Death
Bombs over Baghdad, Dancers of Death
Bombs over Baghdad, Dancers of Death
Bombs over Baghdad, Dancers of Death
Bombs over BaghdadPosted by TM on from 06/15 at 07:01 PMHello again, friends. So much to respond to...but not enough time. RMJ: I like the Kaczynski quote and think it’s accurate.
TM: Great links, as always. I do not know the quote you speak of but now I really wanna see Trudell.
Everyone: Thanks for a great day of comments, links, and discussions.
Captcha sez: Freedom (as if)
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 06/15 at 08:31 PMI believe that the current state of affairs will have to play itself out. We can speak out for change but no one is really listening. The majority of people will only take action when the shit hits the fan. Those of us who see it coming can only do the best we can to be prepared for it. So get in shape, Learn as much as you can about living off the land and actually practice doing it. Store some food and water, First aid supplies, and anything else you may think of that you will need. The way we live in industrial countries is making most people soft and when the shit does hit the fan many people will die. Try not to be one of them.
Posted by David on from Louisville KY 06/17 at 10:26 PM
Next entry: We're all "potential criminals"
Previous entry: Would a book have changed Hitler?
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
