Seeing oneself as not at the edge of the not-there cliff

Can't one have "Civilized Debate"?

What is wrong with those "others"?

How can they refuse "civilized" debate?

Indeed "one" oft wonders what in God's forsaken heaven possibly could be churning within the minds of those "others".
Especially where those others are of the non-XYZ mindset.

Here "XYZ", if you so mind,
represents "conservative"
or "liberal" or
some other such well defined
and trust-able circle of pigeon-holing.


As it so happens (click on image at right to see video)
"conservative" thinker Melanie Phillips
has shared with us her views of "one's"
place in the Universe.

One is forced you see, to live in a world
most unfortunately delineated as between the clearly rational (those who know how to engage in truth-seeking and "civilized" debate) and the "others", those who hang their hats on an "-ism", Environmentalism for example, but are not able to debate the objective facts.

Consider "Climate Change". It is a buggers' con-trick.
Surely and indeed.
All those "bio-feedbacks" in the climate will set things right
This is an "objective truth" (according to Ms. Phillips)

It is "lonely" at the top according to Ms. Phillips, to be the only journalist at her news organization still telling the "truth" in a world turned upside down.
It is lonely to be stuck there surrounded by the distortional consensus fabricated in secret cabal by the others (the Climate-Gaters), including by the gullible and unfortunately "liberal" journalists.
But be brave oh rational one. For you are not lonely among the majority of "Middle Britain", within the group that is grounded in true "reality".

Cliff?
What cliff?
I (speaking as Ms. Phillips or other conservatives) see no cliff.
But surely if there was one, "we" would see it and do the sensible thing ...

Dumbo's Feather, Inception and Collapse

"Inception" is a movie about dreams within dreams.

In Inception, a token totem spins and spins and
seems always on the edge of falling over.
What does it mean?
More importantly, in the end, the main character (Cobb) no longer hold's on to that totem.
What does that mean?

Has he let go?

"Dumbo" is a movie about a cartoon baby elephant endowed with an X-Men like mutational power which allows him to convert his flesh and blood ear flaps (used for cooling) into airplane wings (airfoils) of sufficient lift power to overcome gravity's pull on his elephant's body.

"The Feather" which Dumbo grasps

is an example of yet another held-onto totem
that has been the subject of extended focus.
What does it represent?


Before answering though ...
A first question is whether we are allowed
in a first place to ask questions or is the mere asking ...
of questions taboo? (Forbidden, Blasphemy?)

Let's assume yes ... we are allowed to ask

And then to investigate possible answers ....

In one sense, "Dumbo's Feather" represents a dream (psycho-suggestive powers) within a dream (of fly-capable elephants) within yet another dream (that of a cartoon world reflecting our reality) just as in the movie "Inception" the ploy is that of getting an audience to suspend its disbelief mechanisms to the point that they allow the movie to implant in their minds an acceptance of unreality becoming reality (of dreams seeming to come true). The notion to be grasped is that a "symbol", a "token" such as a mere feather (Dumbo's feather) can overcome the "psychological barriers" which are the only things holding us back from our "true potential" --for example, the potential of a gravity bound body (i.e. an elephant's body) to otherwise take off and fly to unlimited heights

--If only we believe hard enough. (When you wish upon a star ...)


Let's think real hard.

Where else have we been asked to hold on to tokens of belief and wish hard enough for our dreams (American dreams), for our "true potentials", to come true or to wish that those above us (our job-creationist leaders) will come to our rescue? To the rescue of Greece? To the rescue of Cyprus?

Where else have we been told
that belief alone (high self-esteem) will make us soar?


Where have we also been told ...

YES WE CAN ?  That all we need is "ingenuity"?

What manner of MAGIC FEATHER is used in each such situation?

At what points in our lives did we each mutate into being a Dumbo?


(jump forward to Table of Contents)

Run the gauntlet boy and you will be a "champ".

Peak Sapience, The Dumb-beats

Forget Peak Oil and the "Drumbeats"

We are reaching for new heights in "sound" logic used by humans --call it the 'dumb-beats'.

This is an investigatory area of unlimited scope.

Big within the taxonomical mapping of dumb-beats is the part covering our notions of "money", "debt" and "value".

How Dumbo can we be?

No number is too small.

Dare we think in the Trillions?
As in dollars?
Sure. Why not?
How about quadrillions? Only a few more zeroes!

The faster we flap (our ears,
or our mouths,
or our 'financial' and 'fiscal' neurons, etc.),
the higher we go.
Wee. This is fun!

The Wiley Coyote moment
is far away in an unfathomable future

What goes up must ....
surely keep going up.

The trend lines say so.
Trend lines never lie.
They just "inflect" every so often.

Oh no! The magic feather. The magic feather. It's disappeared. It was a mirage.

Winning is Losing, Victory is Defeat

Right? It sounds like something straight out of Orwell's "1984". Pure Double-speak.
But is it? Not so fast.
There may be truth in them there title words.

Some say, Win at "all costs".
What if "all costs" ultimately means sure-fire defeat?

A few examples
below ...

Consider the victory parade of an infectious disease (e.g. the Ebola virus).
If it wins too fast, it loses.
Because the host dies too fast.
Because the host does not then aid in proliferation of the disease.
"Total" and swift victory actually becomes defeat.

The same can apply to human endeavors ...

Consider the Industrial Age ... (the Industrial Revolution)
Yes it has "globalized" itself (taken over, infected the world)

It's victory is near total and unquestioned

And yet,we (the
victorious viral species)
begin to have a
worrisome feeling
among our ranks
that our Big Win
may be the harbinger of
Collapse (the Big Lose)

Consider sports ...
and winning at all costs

The short term gain is
... crossing the man-made
and thus artificial
"finish" line

But getting there on unsustainable
steroids?
Is that truly a "win"?

For whom?

Pour Fahvor Seniore, Excusae Whilst Mammal I Become

Republo-Captain's Log, Stardate: 2013 State of the Grand Old Party Address (SOGOPA 2013)

Yes, for one brief,
mirror-scuffing moment,
the tall and proud Latino Republican,
Marcus Biblethumpper Rubio
had to stoop low,
drop face, and drink the
de-polluted aqua
out of a Mini-Me Mousekateire bottle.

It was almost as if
he too (etu Rubio-con?)
was a lowly mammal
and not the above-it all
self-made Republocrat.

Yes, whilst bragging about how,
in a time of rising economic tides
his mother and father had raised
the family boat all by themselves
(Si Seniore, WE built it, --alone)
and how he, the Rubio-con
had crossed over
to the wealthy side of the shores,
all on his own merits;

it was then that he had to stoop low
and become an animal.
And for one humiliating moment, drink, drink
a bottle full of aqua as would any lowly Democrat.

Oh the right-winged humanity!

Now the right wing talking point pundits
stand like deer in the headlights;
not understanding why The New Water-Sip Gate
is being made such a viral media event.

What? Superman must pause and drink the ordinary man's aqua??

(If I drink anything at all, I drink Liquid Poland. Be thirsty my friend. Be the most interesting man in the world.)

In the Land of the Money Heads, The One Eyed Man is ...

It is said that
In the Land of the Money Heads,
The One-eyed man is ...
fiscally irresponsible.

What do we mean by
One-eyed man?

He is the one who can see
when all around him are blind.

He sees what?

(1) He sees that ...
Money is a man-made delusion.

(2) He sees that ...
Money can represent a set of unfull-fillable
promises made by nobody in particular
to a set of other, nobody in particular persons

(3) He sees that ...
Years of irrationally formed habits
can delude the human brain into believing that:
Money is power;
Money is a chain which binds us;
Money alone can truly solve problems;
Money can make the laws of nature go away.

Actually, No, it can't.

Quantum Mc-easing in the economics plane
does not transform into thermodyanamic
law observances in the reality plane.

2013: We number our races round the roiled sun

A new day.
A new year.

Let us count and account for our
conceptual trespasses.

We who live by the "numbers"
may yet die for having misunderstood
the essence, direction and sum of our numbers.

"Numbers" make us feel clever; sapient. Perhaps too clever.

On this day we proclaim the end of our 2013'th race bout our sun. Two thousand, zero hundreds and thirteen times since we started to count. The common era, 2013 CE. We now begin our 214'th cycle. Even the Mayans flipped over to a new cycle.

What will we accomplish in this coming loop?

Will we fall over a fantasized fiscal "cliff"?
Butt our heads against a deficit "ceiling"?
Will we build more such artificial edifices?
And then count them as real?
In our mind's eye?

Will we continue to eschew
that which is real?

Realities Check List

(1) We are biological bugs (yeast-like) consuming the finite resources of our spherical Petri dish

(2) We can't keep this up forever

(3) We can't use mental gymnastics or oral incantations to make our problems go away

(4) Evolution is not on our side

(5) ...