Future thrills

Life’s complexity is steadily growing. We have more and more of everything. We earn more money all the time so we can buy more and more things. The economic system requires growth every year. With 2% growth the economy doubles in 35 years. Most people now just work in simplistic jobs and we consume all we can lay our hands on.

Modern society is also full of activity – impressions, news, entertainment, advertisements, improvements, repairs, travel, study, things that you feel you must have, do, take part in.

The result is a cluttered existence as we spend time getting, using, repairing, throwing away, storing all the things we feel we must have. Entertainment is everywhere, modern communications are making us busy too.

Life ends up in complications, outside of our control, we are being driven along by a big engine of growth. In the process our time and attention is taken.

We have to start thinking deeply about our lives, and there are many angles from which to start. It is surely advisable to think deeply about these matters, get rid of confusion, raise your consciousness and then let some action follow.

The big challenge is how to set about making changes to your life. Social pressures against are enormous, we often end up dreaming about changes.

Materialism is one angle and contrast that with what you really need. The abundance is overwhelming and temptation is great. Consumers and anticonsumers are adversaries, and the rest are constantly confused. Get rid of confusion, raise your consciousness, find out what you really need from life. From there it is really only about willpower.

It could boil down to preferences, to what you think is important. In our societies work is the most valued aspect of our lives – it is the clear winner. We must work – at least 40 hours a week for 40 years – even more than that. Adding sleep and rest to that and our lives are gone. The need for change should be obvious. You can have it if you put your mind to it.

You want more time to spend on your “likes”, reduce costly living, build conscious consumption, be part of a sustainable world, find new preferences towards simplicity and functionality, work towards conscious reduction of outside pressures, solve the enigma of spirituality.

The time spent working must somehow be reduced. Less buying is necessary, unless you establish alternative streams of income.

Be honest with yourself – be hard and you may succeed. A plan for economising your time, attention, places and money must be developed. You have to consider reduced consumption, the environment, spirituality, social life, sources of inspiration.

The key is consciousness, it is a life project, about making choices and concentrating on them, measuring progress.

It is also about politics. In practice you must withdraw and build on your own values of equality, sharing, individual freedom, reduced power over individuals, resist increased personal interference. Today’s dependence on the 4040 people is too great.

Many people have lived simple lives through the ages, now it  is time for present day methods based on todays situation.

Increasingly the mantras of sustainability,  spiritualism, off grid, environmentalism, anarchism, local control, individual freedom, sharing, equality, permaculture – real and in depth is gaining ground.

Clearly we can have a future simple life, but the big picture must be developed first: Better use of science, acceptance of a cosmos that is above us, a proper information community, voluntary participation, non-violent action, cooperation, equality, freedom.

We need quiet people that work on themselves and their relations to others, deep thinking, action filled creative lives, active spirituality, production based on real needs, an economic system for all. More people must do more for themselves – building, growing food, making things and repairing them.

A huge challenge is people’s ego – previously free people think mostly of themselves – but now a new mentality is needed to balance your ego with that of other people. We need less rules, an anarchy based on principles of voluntary participation, solidarity, equality, simplicity, freedom, non violence – a sweet society for all.

The real simple life is when you fully decide your own life’s action,when you are in harmony with your nearest, living physically, spiritually, economically, politically on your own terms.

So start thinking and doing – the force of many good things is with you. Dreams can come true, it needs a conscious mind.

Do you know who you are? Do you the workings of your own machinery: Your body functions or physiology? Do you know how your behaviour originates? Who are the rulers of your mind – as there must be many?

Humans are complex beings. We do not know what gives us the spark of life, the fire, the element that starts it all. We take it for granted that some time during conception life arises, there is a factor that brings us to life, that starts it all. The creation of the Frankenstein monster was made possible because its creator knew how to ignite life.

This has barely any relevance for humans or other creatures on Earth, but obviously some force or power enters the stage so that life starts.

Then a predetermined pattern evolves as we grow into humans. We all go through the same phases with extremely similar patterns of behaviour, we fix our gaze, we move consciously, we walk, we talk, we become obstinate and our independence grows steadily.

All the way grownups – usually parents – are there to guide us, help us feed us. We go to schools, universities etc., and our minds are little by little filled up – often to overflowing.

Gradually what we are born with recedes, and we develop a personality through what we experience, hear, see and learn. First we are children, then we become adolescents, youths and adults.

We become grownups and can then do what we want – we are in principle fully independent. So your life is going full steam? In some ways yes, but most of us end up in square boxes, tied up in rigid conventions, bound by societal mores, taking part as greedy consumers of all the brands, and we follow blindly the majority – until we have forgotten why we are here and who we are. Being obstinate is no longer a proper description of us – we follow all leads blindly, believe all, say nothing.

For most of us it seems that the level of consciousness is low, so low that it seems we are asleep in our doings, automatically responding to all that happens.

Have you ever assessed your situation, who you are, what you have become, what you do, what you use as the basis for your life?

The forces in a modern society are huge. The consumer pressure is constant, buying goods is a necessity, the social pressure is ubiquitous and often unavoidable, there is an enormous amount of information that you feel you must assimilate, sort out, contribute to with your opnion. Your own dreams and uncertainties are often a player in the mixture that is your personality.

In sum the workings of your mind are often boggling, there often seems to be several brains working in there at the same time. The result is confusion or total lack of coordination. It is easy to see that many people often must have calming potions to feed on.

In the end to survive you must play along with it all – letting yourself flow in the stream of society, just being there reacting to everything that happens. You identify with everything that happens in the world, you opinionate wildly, you share your views with anybody, you follow nothing in reality, it is all happening in your mind, you do nothing. All you have is a job that saps you dry.

You have lost track of  why you are here, what your aims are, why you do things. You need not be here, you are just biomass.

So you must act. It is easy to say that your aims must be found, your mind must be observed in some way so you know about yourself, you must eat well, rest sufficiently, keep your body fit.

When that is done,  the rest is really about stopping up for a bit each and every day and look at yourself, gradually taking charge so that your inner self can grow, you can become what you have decided for yourself.  A whole person maybe?

Remember it is hard. It can surely be very satisfactory to have success in this field – becoming your own man!

What did you say your aims are?

16 scientists have signed a declaration about the global warming situation. They claim that we do not need to do anything dramatic to stop global warming.

Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever has publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS). His main concern is the expression that APS uses saying that the evidence of global warming due to human release of CO2 is incontrovertible.

He says that the facts are not in place – we must find the facts. He finds support – wide support – increasing support among scientists.

There is a “warming establishment” – and it is rather inconvenient for them that there is no measurable warming yet. The warming is also smaller than the warming predicted in the 22 years since IPCC issued their first projections. It seems the computer models used have exaggerated how much warming CO2 can cause.

CO2 is not a pollutant – it is exhaled by all of us, it is an important factor in the biosphere’s life cycle. By adding CO2 in greenhouses plants increase their growth.

The number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, but dissent and open factual discussion is still not the order of the day. Dissent is not mainstream, it may even lead to dismissals jobwise.

Why is there such disagreement? Why not a calm and collected discussion? It seems it is about money as alarmism is of great benefit to many in finding funding for causes that are found distressing. Politicians, bureaucracies, organisations all want to save the world, and start working to find the money and get things going.

The conclusion of the scientists are: “There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to “decarbonize” the world’s economy.” A good policy now would be “to allow 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now.”

Maybe more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet? That question should also be looked into.

Scientist should now continue good scientific work – checking, measuring, analysing, building understanding of nature. Science is seldom based on uncotrovertible facts – we gradually find truth, then new truth – it never stops.
We must understand climate to live reasonably well on Earth – dictates are no good. It is sad if climate warming is a hype, and all about money?

Let us find the facts by working well, thouroughly, objectively – and fairly fast so that a common understanding can be developed.

The Earth is bigger than man in the sense that the world has run itself for a long time, lately we could say it has been going in spite of human activity.

It is now becoming obvious that human activity is hurting the Earth, hurting humans, animals, plantlife and may even damage the larger mechanisms of the Earth: the selfadjusting closed loop systems of the the planet.

Our activity is clearly not sustainable, and thanks to the coming peak and gradual ending of oil a transition must come. The end of oil will also make the question of climate warming less relevant – the global warming will just not happen when we stop burning oil on the scale we do now. The huge coal reserves of the world is another matter that nobody talks about at the moment. When oil will definitely find its end is uncertain – there could still be oil in surprising places! In a hundred years everything will be clear.

The recent tar and sand projects are examples of a thinking gone wrong – we are destroying wast landscapes to scrounge the last drops of oil from the Earth. Ref. the ongoing scandal of Canadian Athabasca where permanent damage is being done, 141.000 sq. km. of it.

We have altered the flow of large waterways causing large problems in the deltas of the world.

The world has been – long term – in motion with continents moving, glaciers forming and going, sea-levels changing.

There are a number of cycles taking place on the Earth: carbon, nitrogen including also many processes not fully understood. This lack of understanding, of knowledge, should make us careful in deciding what to do on Earth. Man does not yet fully understand these processes and we should for that reason alone not try to control them. The age of man is not here nor will it ever be. Remember also that we develop with the system – we follow the good development that is taking place over the thousands of years. Respect the vastness of it all – do not tinker. It would be beneficial to man to see himself as part of the natural world and build on its inherent principles.

Humans have changed the world’s plant activity making new monoculture ecosystems based on fertilizer from oil, with hard labour, huge amounts of water, aggravated by raising huge herds of animals that we eat. Large scale artificial production of fish etc. in the waters of the Earth is also taking place. The quality and efficiency of these methods are in doubt, the ethics also.

New thinking in the form of permaculture, sustainability will re-introduce diversity in farming, enhancing yields so that the world can be fed. In about 2070 the world will have about 15 billion people on present trends, and all can be adequately fed using local and natural methods. Large scale agriculture is not sustainable, the food is homogenous, of few varieties and dull. The food cycle is grossly wasteful as it goes through large scale farming of animals to produce food.

All creatures are needed, and man should not willfully let diversity in plants and animals disappear.

Human activity must not let the world tip into instability. Geoengineering is is a prime example of human idiocy. Tinkering with huge systems that we do not fully understand, with no scientific authority, no democratic decision making processes is pure folly.

The action to take now is to build understanding, let the natural systems work as intended, support changes into sustainability. When we have done that we will be on our way to a good future.

15 billion humans can manage quite well by themselves with the help of the good Earth if we let them. Add sound principles of participation, service and sharing and we are moving.

In the last centuries we have built a deep divide between work and the rest of our life. We get a job, we make money and that is what we do. Work dominates life totally for most of us. Work is also becoming increasingly boring for most of us – we are just tools in a well designed system where costs must be kept down. And as company size and efficiency grows the boredom increases, and there is less and less need for manpower, that is you and me.

The idea of self employment has largely disappeared as this is deemed unsafe, tough, difficult. The idea of small scale business is slowly disappearing, we shall soon all work for the mighty global corporations. Some of them now have several million employees. You are just an ant in the system, and they do all they can to get rid of you so that costs are kept low.

Large scale joblessness is looming, especially youth unemployment, and especially people with no skills or newly educated people with no experience. Youth unemployment in many countries is high long term. We all wait for the politicians to do something.

The need to change is obvious, and the solution is obvious. We must go back to basics, become self employed, or start small companies with some few people. This was how it was done long ago, it worked well and it will work well again. The starting point is the need for work in your own town, place, community, that is the local needs.

There are in fact many opportunities. A new area is coming up in the culture sector where many countries have shown a remarkable increase in the number of one man companies. These are mostly strong, creative persons working in their local communities, artists and support functions creating a new arena for work and making the money we all need.

Historically there were lots of small companies that needed a new hand or more, that could give you an apprenticeship, teach you a trade.. This is no longer so as huge factories are the norm, chains, big corporations run everything. As efficiency and systems thinking develop relatively speaking less and less manpower is needed. Fundamental uncertainty about the future is the result.

But there is renewed and increasing interest in the crafts and trades, small scale production, handicrafts for local users, small scale agriculture and fisheries, new products, innovative products.

Sucking up to big companies doing slave like work is not the way out of joblessness. We must all do it ourselves. Making shoes for people as they want them, be a tailor with a small collection maybe, build 4 boats a year, start a blacksmiths shop, be a carpenter, a gardener, do some software that the locals need…Surely somebody needs you where you live.

The jobs of the future are clearly there, but the overly dependence upon big greedy investors for everything must go. The result is large scale dehumanising, we become non creative servants and the result is massive joblessness, destruction of local communities, unhappy people moving about. The social consequences of what we now do is emerging, and large scale work, large scale production must be reduced. Money must be more evenly distributed so that people can finance their own – with some help from friends – businesses, money concentrations are not good for society.

So try to create your own little safe job based on local needs, be creative, live reasonably well and be happy, take part in the activities of your local community, have time for some interesting hobbies. The future is self employment or small scale employment in a place of your own choice. It is a bit back to basics  as you will be working in a small company in your local community producing what your local customers need. That story is also about us and how we can shape our own lives.

The solution therefore is to go personal, take charge yourself, go local, go small scale, to do your own jobmaking. Build independence and do not wait for others as it is all your own thing. It sure is hard, but you may be well rewarded.

Recession is looming – say the media. Where do they get their information and how can they be so sure, or is it just  guesswork or preconceived notions…..

Companies are reporting fair results, even very good, as the quarters roll by. Their cash piles are growing bigger and bigger. At the same time the rate of unemployment in many countries is alarmingly high.

The economies of a number of countries are in crisis as the ability to handle debt is no longer there, budgets are severely unbalanced.

The central bankers are using their tools which are interest rate setting, keeping rates near zero, buying bad bonds. This is clearly not enough.

The budget deficits will not go away by themselves, and action is required. The politicians are scared stiff of what they must do, as reelections become unsure.

And the stockmarket is jumping about, going here or there for many reasons, all of which are founded on uncertainty and fear. Bondmarket yields are going down.

So companies are not doing so bad, but finance and money are going bust as there is too much debt, too little liquidity. Where have all the money gone ? Surely they are somewhere? We now see a system gone awry.

So we must have more investment, central banks must buy bonds with freshly printed money.

But the money are not staying where they are most needed, they move in search of profit, across borders, speculation is rife, weaknesses are there to be made money from. Capital movements are not controlled by politicians, the investors have the money and their search for profit is unceasing. The capital movements of investors may be bigger  than what politicians can find for their purposes.

So a huge agenda is coming up in order to solve this as we need taxes up or down, sufficient social benefits, budget balancing, voters attention, investor happiness, new financial and monetary mechanisms and all of this must be coordinated.

It is simple really. Just establish programs to stabilize debt and make state finances robust, then keep economic activity up and going by investing in the private sector, and establish mechanisms/loans to reduce short term insecurity and imbalances. Easy, is it not?

This agenda is obviously too big as the solution is supposed to be provided by a few nations or perhaps many nations fixing other people´s problems. A single nation can no longer fix its own problem as all is intertwined.

So the good solution will not be found, and we lumber on.

The only real solution is to let the defaults begin, we must have the crashes so that strict and proper practices can be developed. Those who have done wrong must suffer now, and leave the rest out of it. The lending without risk must stop, the borrowing without limits must stop. We must build accountability, responsibility regimes in all places so that trouble can be pinpointed and solved where it is found.

We are uncomfortably close to a one world economic system, a global system where all is connected and which surely is too dangerous to have. A global solution should never come because that will fry us all in the end. The investors can save us as they have the money but the strings attached are heavy, so we must not let them do it. What country wants be the first colony of a new world government? Let us all think and act like the Icelanders!

A good future requires that we start all over  and that is a mighty task.

People in large numbers can be made to do things. Tell us and we do it. The world of business and politics is full successful ploys and spins to make you do what others want you to do. Your focus can be changed – you are easy to deal with. You are polite – you are accommodating and nice, you are well-mannered.

This is a fact – many or most people are told stories, shown objects, asked questions in a way that make them want to believe, to buy, to do, to behave in ways that are very consciously designed to influence you. Others tell you – you do it. It is felt to bebest

How come? We have free will, we are independent, we have analytical ability, we can pick and choose, decide for ourselves.

But alas, this is not so: campaigns are aimed at you, marketing is sent your way, grand schemes and small schemes all.

The choice is obviously ours in principle, but in practice very many of us do what “they” want us to do.

It has to do with our subconscious mind, our lack of willingness to find out for ourselves, laziness, the obvious benefit of the message you receive, …

The method of axiology – the teaching of how to establish a value – is about this: what is a thing or service to you, what does it in fact do, what is it made or put together from, what do you think of it. By evaluating these together we arrive at a value that is irresisistible to you – you must have it, you will follow, you accept a message. This it how it works most of the time in a modern society.

Other techniques are also used – they are aiming at us -firing at us – influencing what we think and do.

Or are we becoming more critical, are we our own decision centers, independent souls that can decide for ourselves? What is value – your own values, society’s values?

Take back the powers of your mind – they are yours. Think it through – then do what is  right.

People are being left out, many are no longer needed. Our material goals have been fulfilled to such an extent that we can make do with fewer and fewer people – efficiency is great, supply is rich, prices are low, everybody have been happy for a long while. But now we have to start thinking about what the future system shall be – what kind of societies we really want.

This is a harsh statement: we are in deep trouble – already. The huge forces of greed and technology is carrying us in the wrong direction. Humans are becoming dehumanized, societies suffer.

It is all too easy and soon the only activity we will have is to consume mass produced goods from large scale factories all over the world. The food we eat is produced by large scale industry all over the world. And it must go on and on, because there must be growth for ever. Distribution systems move goods back and forth in a huge setup called logistics. Your own work is like that too or will be – large scale. Unchecked we will have a catastrophe on our hands.

Ownership is in the hands of large scale investors. Everything is gradually becoming large scale and in the hands of a few. 1% of the people own 80% of all values. Big money are being made, but only by some, The rest is managing reasonably or worse. To many are in the latter category. It is all very efficient, cheap, exciting, entertaining: we all do it – we are consumers.

But the strain is showing in many ways: resources depletion, finance system weaknesses and perhaps most telling: Seen from a people view this can not go on. We are starting to suffer. We are losing ourselves, this can surely not be the ultimate goal for humanity.

People who are no longer needed become lost, they lose their respectability, they have economic troubles, social relations suffer, they become restless, they make trouble. They start roaming, from rural areas to cities, from poor countries to rich ones. The economic refugee is a reality.

So the system must be changed. Local communities and local production must be rebuilt, the real costs of what we do must be put into the calculations: transport, environment, human degradation, resource depletion, social losses. We must have new arrangements of ownership with sharing and fair distribution of wealth and profits among all participants, local influence on all companies, introduction of measures to establish small scale agriculture, industry and services. The use of capital should be reduced and the use of manpower should be increased. Global thinking without checks is good only for profits, humans are becoming mere tools or wage earning slaves.

The ethics should be brushed up so that we see what we really are doing. The greed, rough competition should be given a milder form so that all people can thrive. Harsh business practices should end. We should also look into what we make and consume, start thinking long term about what is sensible.

This is not a detailed future world view, but the signs are on the wall – we must start the transition into something better – a humanized future for all – long before people become desperate.

We can all do our little part in this big change that must come.