[SeaGypsy]

Then it gets really interesting.
The paradigm of the industrial revolution has been endless expansion of a seemingly endless resource base. That game is over.
What happens next completes the loop of the Prophets; whether biblical or modern Philosophers like Marx. Post modernism won't be missed much but the conditions which allowed it to emerge as a materialistic enhancement of Zen, or Zen on steroids; will.
Who will be proven right? Marx?/ The proletariat reclaiming bourgeoisie property as commons whilst simultaneously dismantling the State? Barely possible with the lack of political education among 1st world prollies, not to mention lack of revolutionary zeal.
The Bible/ Revelations?/ Only available on DVD or print I'm afraid.
Nietzche?/ the emergence of Zarathustra?/ Things will have to get a lot worse before the modern secular materialistic impersonalists (bourgeoisie) accept a 'personality cult' as leadership.
Or will it be Metaman?/ a machine who decides who lives and dies; who does what to earn their keep?
More likely as the gravy train of global capitalism comes with no brakes to the end of it's tracks; there will be a train wreck. What happens after a train wreck when there is noone to pick up the pieces?
"Pick yourself up, dust yourself off; and start all over again."

[americandream]

Personally I don't believe that human civilisation has the capacity to metamorphose into some dystopian machine vs man nightmare. I suspect that globalisation and our transformation therein will be somewhat less spectacular. True, there will be technological improvements and such like but I have seen nothing to date to suggest that we are on the brink of a major leap into another technology dynamic beyond the one framed by fossil fuels.

I suspect that we will eventually adapt to some agrarian/technology mix with the emphasis on resource and population. That the bigger picture will eventually click in other words. After much turmoil of course...the furnace of experience.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'T')hen it gets really interesting.
The paradigm of the industrial revolution has been endless expansion of a seemingly endless resource base. That game is over.
What happens next completes the loop of the Prophets; whether biblical or modern Philosophers like Marx. Post modernism won't be missed much but the conditions which allowed it to emerge as a materialistic enhancement of Zen, or Zen on steroids; will.
Who will be proven right? Marx?/ The proletariat reclaiming bourgeoisie property as commons whilst simultaneously dismantling the State? Barely possible with the lack of political education among 1st world prollies, not to mention lack of revolutionary zeal.
The Bible/ Revelations?/ Only available on DVD or print I'm afraid.
Nietzche?/ the emergence of Zarathustra?/ Things will have to get a lot worse before the modern secular materialistic impersonalists (bourgeoisie) accept a 'personality cult' as leadership.
Or will it be Metaman?/ a machine who decides who lives and dies; who does what to earn their keep?
More likely as the gravy train of global capitalism comes with no brakes to the end of it's tracks; there will be a train wreck. What happens after a train wreck when there is noone to pick up the pieces?
"Pick yourself up, dust yourself off; and start all over again."

[americandream]

Incidentally Graeme has just posted a forum item that China and the UK have signed agreements with Iraq re: accessing its oil. I've maintained all along that American armour was used to secure access to the Iraq oil fields for ALL of global capital. Iraq was never an American war. These things must come to pass however. We are maturing as a species and these are our growing pangs, dismaying as they are.

[dissident]

The only way we could mature as a species is through evolution. However, evolution for humanity right now consists of selective breeding based on personality characteristics. As expected, entropy rules the day and there is no systematic progression to higher intelligence. Even the potential future die off will not select for some better adapted and less arrogant component of the population. Humanity will not improve through societal development, especially when modern society is facing destruction in the near future. The medieval period demonstrates how transient society is, every newborn starts from scratch and it is quite easy to lose the developmental context that is required to produce a civilized human.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'T')he only way we could mature as a species is through evolution. However, evolution for humanity right now consists of selective breeding based on personality characteristics. As expected, entropy rules the day and there is no systematic progression to higher intelligence. Even the potential future die off will not select for some better adapted and less arrogant component of the population. Humanity will not improve through societal development, especially when modern society is facing destruction in the near future. The medieval period demonstrates how transient society is, every newborn starts from scratch and it is quite easy to lose the developmental context that is required to produce a civilized human.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'e')very newborn starts from scratch and it is quite easy to lose the developmental context that is required to produce a civilized human.

[SeaGypsy]

It is not necessary to create and complete change in 1 lifetime for anyone other than yourself; great movements tend to be cyclical. Such as the need for hard work.

[dissident]

Entropy rules regardless of any wish humans have. You need an anti-entropic process (which is embedded in the larger progression of entropy anyway) to create organized patterns. Evolution is one such process.

[americandream]

Intelligence does not figure in the analytical paradigm of Marxist dialectics. It concerns itself solely with socio-economic systems. The elements therein may be of varying capacity, but they act within specific limits.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'T')he only way we could mature as a species is through evolution. However, evolution for humanity right now consists of selective breeding based on personality characteristics. As expected, entropy rules the day and there is no systematic progression to higher intelligence. Even the potential future die off will not select for some better adapted and less arrogant component of the population. Humanity will not improve through societal development, especially when modern society is facing destruction in the near future. The medieval period demonstrates how transient society is, every newborn starts from scratch and it is quite easy to lose the developmental context that is required to produce a civilized human.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I')ntelligence does not figure in the analytical paradigm of Marxist dialectics. It concerns itself solely with socio-economic systems. The elements therein may be of varying capacity, but they act within specific limits.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'T')he only way we could mature as a species is through evolution. However, evolution for humanity right now consists of selective breeding based on personality characteristics. As expected, entropy rules the day and there is no systematic progression to higher intelligence. Even the potential future die off will not select for some better adapted and less arrogant component of the population. Humanity will not improve through societal development, especially when modern society is facing destruction in the near future. The medieval period demonstrates how transient society is, every newborn starts from scratch and it is quite easy to lose the developmental context that is required to produce a civilized human.

[SeaGypsy]

Another point on the dominance of entropy.
Look at entropic people (those willing to go slower and slower) they fail miserably. The same can be said of entropic nations.
Entropy is not found in the animal kingdom or in bacteriology.
Activity and the will to thrive and replicate are the driving forces of humanity and nature. Entropy is a bystander.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')nother point on the dominance of entropy.
Look at entropic people (those willing to go slower and slower) they fail miserably. The same can be said of entropic nations.
Entropy is not found in the animal kingdom or in bacteriology.
Activity and the will to thrive and replicate are the driving forces of humanity and nature. Entropy is a bystander.

[americandream]

That Pretorian is the beauty of dialectic economy. Effortless.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')nother point on the dominance of entropy.
Look at entropic people (those willing to go slower and slower) they fail miserably. The same can be said of entropic nations.
Entropy is not found in the animal kingdom or in bacteriology.
Activity and the will to thrive and replicate are the driving forces of humanity and nature. Entropy is a bystander.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')nother point on the dominance of entropy.
Look at entropic people (those willing to go slower and slower) they fail miserably. The same can be said of entropic nations.
Entropy is not found in the animal kingdom or in bacteriology.
Activity and the will to thrive and replicate are the driving forces of humanity and nature. Entropy is a bystander.

[americandream]

The entropy contemplated here is of a magnitude that really should not be bothering us at this stage in our evolution when we haven't has yet learnt to even dispose of our sewage sustainably. When we as a civilisation are able to look into the future and see it's cosmically entropic culmination, I suspect that these epically mindboggling issues then arise for consideration. Everything in proportion I say, even counter arguments.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')nother point on the dominance of entropy.
Look at entropic people (those willing to go slower and slower) they fail miserably. The same can be said of entropic nations.
Entropy is not found in the animal kingdom or in bacteriology.
Activity and the will to thrive and replicate are the driving forces of humanity and nature. Entropy is a bystander.

[SeaGypsy]

By then entropy will be seen as limited in it's dimensionality while humanity is not.

[americandream]

That paragraph really captures all I believe in, very succinctly.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I')s Humanity just too Lazy to Save Itself? Yes.

But not because he doesn't read his nietzsche but because he has allowed himself (since time and memorial) to be driven off the land into little ghettos, domesticated and taught to concern himself with immortality and (quite recently) competitive shopping.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')If entropy is really the dominant force; what the hell are we doing here?

There is a force of equal opposition to entropy; call it god or creativity or the will to power. Nature tends to have it's day in terms of bottlenecking gene pools. That will be part of what happens next.

[americandream]

There are some use it in trading. To what success, I don't know. The whole notion that seemingly random paradigms have an underlying order. The Marxist idea of dialectics mirrors the notion of identifiable trends in apparent randomness. In this case, human systems which I suppose are less eclectic than chaos theory per se.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rangerone314', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')If entropy is really the dominant force; what the hell are we doing here?

There is a force of equal opposition to entropy; call it god or creativity or the will to power. Nature tends to have it's day in terms of bottlenecking gene pools. That will be part of what happens next.