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Threading Together
I feel compelled sometimes to step back and assess what I’m currently doing. In particular, with my writing and research on and off this site. I guess I almost want to remind myself of all the balls I have in the air conceptually and personally, and take all these various threads and start weaving them together into a bigger shape.
So this is a little inventory for myself about the topics which are really driving me internally right now. Make of it what you will:
- This idea of an ecology of the self - that we are made up of our surroundings, essentially.
- From that, stepping more and more into understanding and engaging communities - or “ecosystems of selves” you could maybe say (if you wanted to be needlessly complex, that is)
- Voyeurism as a sort of botched attempt at having community or intimacy but not being willing to engage or accept enough so as to have true versions of those things. Along with how to get over these types of blocks and walls
- Figuring out how to focus and concentrate better - turning down the noise on things that are unimportant, and applying yourself more fully to that which is - whatever that may be…
- What the hell is money? I don’t understand it, although everyone else seems to think they do. This idea of “social currency,” and Rushkoff’s ideas about money being a form of media. These thoughts are heavily percolating in my mind right now
- Understanding the changes that seem to be happening in our culture - especially what could be described as the rise of a police state, and what I see ever-more-clearly as a fully-fledged technocracy developing (see also military-industrial complex).
- Also hooked into that are some ideas swirling around in my head since last night about the monopoly which the state holds over one’s official identity and how that may be it’s only real power.
- And hooked into that are a bunch of things about surveillance and the future of law enforcement and the entertainment industry.
- Also really want to start hooking in some concepts from agriculture into our study of regular culture, such as monoculture farming practices, versus polyculture, the need for biodiversity (also some stuff on sustainability). I want to start applying these to other subjects we have covered about how business and government work
- And there is a connection point in there somewhere to media iconoclasm, the idea that one’s religion is an ecological response to a unique set of circumstances and only meant for the now.
Putting those all together in a list is actually really helpful for me, I think. Because their juxtaposition helps me see different connection points and how they could be broken down into various sub-areas. Maybe this will be interesting to other people too to see me sort of chart out the course of where my writing will be going next. Various things jump out at me - what about you?
Today I bought a whiteboard at OfficeMax to start getting some serious project planning done. I’m excited. Good things are in the works!
- Prev: On Sharing Chocolate Bars
- Next: Ted Haggard, Meth Hero!
November 6th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
money, as i see it is a way to barter our efforts. we excange our life essense for bits of paper that have a consensus value, so that we can have products and services that others provide. the more effective we are at getting these bits of paper the more we can control the efforts of others………meanwhile aquiring products and services.
a question here though is, are the products and services secondary to the power attained through monitary wealth, the power to make people do things…..?
the social security number is another form of money in that it represents the lifetime of productivity of the person linked to that number.
November 6th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Very interesting witch`s brew of thoughts and ideas Tim, and I do like the open way that you are looking at this manifold amount of things.
While alistairs comment here is honest in feeling , I see the money issue in a huge context of price system control.
I see that context as a negative one, and one that is not life affirming or humanitarian.
As a promoter of Technocracy, I see that alternative culture as a way to bring all the best of our culture together, and then go on to bigger and better things.
I do indeed believe that we are doomed in the present culture as it does not address the things you have brought up here , and actually sweeps them under the rug.
These things having been swept under the rug will ignite to burn this house down.
A thoughtful , free, creative , life enhancing culture that is based on dealing with the reality of the problems we have is possible.
November 6th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Well, of course you do: you have determined your current identity based on a philosophical platform which demands that you see it that way
If these things have been swept under the rug and we are seeing them, then does that make us the rug?
November 6th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
money is part of the price system of control. control of people, much as the theocracies of the middle ages controlled people, where the currency was guilt and fear, modern governments control the means of production via cash. those who control the means of production control life it`s self.
communism/capitalism…….same thing. all after controlling production. if production is controlled technologically then what`s to control? people.
persoonally, i think the money system is way of controlling people more than it is about production. skip is correct in that there are technologies in place to replicate things automatically.
it`s the people that are the concern.
what to do with all those darn people………………………
November 6th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Something else I have been thinking a bit about lately. In the game/online VR world SecondLife, supposedly the makers of the game added in currency because people got bored without it being in there. Not sure where I read that. Will have to go back and look
November 6th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
If I understand you, Tim, you’re mostly thinking about life in a society, and how a large part of that is a shared fiction. (Including, of course, the dystopian fictions that are typical of the counter-culture: items 6 thru 8, and perhaps also number 5.)
But what’s interesting — to me at least — about your list are the places where notions of transcendent truth and real goodness seem to be inserting themselves.
November 6th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Hm, I don’t know about the shared fiction part. I will have to think about that more!
November 6th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Thank you alistair as to your analysis , and I appreciate your clear detail as to the mechanism we are using to value things.
I see also that from some past stuff this whole question of the coming question of how to deal with the flurry of even more mechanization is on your mind also now. Also the idea of Nano technology which is very real , and in effect replicator technology also down the road only a short way from here.
What to do with all those people when in the past their role has been so stylized and now that role no longer makes sense in a work for money way, or if it does only in a class system sense.
This class system being doled out in money only gets worse , as more wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands , which is happening due to our use of exponential numbers in our banking system . This will end in class warfare , which does not sound good .
Tim I didn`t really determine my current identity based on what I advocate now. It is just one of many things that I like , and I like the fact that it ties a lot of other things that I have thought about together in a very practical way.
As far as these things being swept under the rug , a post like this is trying to shine a light on every corner , and under rugs and in closets just to examine what is there. We have to know what the aspects of our society are to understand why it is that it is so dysfunctional. This leads the way to thoughtful change. We are desperate for change. This type of society will do us in as a group .
November 6th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Skip, I think you’ll be happy to know that I have struck on a term that I like better than “technocracy” to describe what I am after in terms of the systematic scientific growth and management of human beings: humaniculture.
Farming people!
In that reading (which I’ll post more on tomorrow), technocracy becomes one of several possible methods of humaniculture, each of which yields a different type of “crop” and a different experience of life for the person living under such a system.
Thanks for being a counter-point to my explorations of these ideas for so long! I appreciate it
November 6th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
i have no doubt there all manner of flying carpets and magic wands but humans need hierachies and will naturally push up leaders, money or not. the currency of your technocracy skip, will be charisma…………….the the most valuable asset of the cult.
you and i and tim have a certain charisma, each one different in it`s hue. but it is charisma nonetheless and it is the commodity of choice the world over. it`s why we rise up while others don`t.
November 7th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Money is a way to hide reality. It is a representation of wealth, but a poor one. As a representation rather than a thing, ‘worship’ of money is then clearly a form of idolatry… but money actively obscures the real world.
My question is this: where does all the money come from? The number of dollars in all the bank accounts in the world is clearly increasing… where’s it coming from? (and can I have some? ;-D )
November 7th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Good point ,
One of the terrible problems that we have had in the technocracy movement has been not enough good leaders.
Leaders are important in any movement.
In the beginning we had Howard Scott who was an overall genius , and also a very tough minded but fair person that did not molly coddle any one’s fanciful ideas within the movement.
Howard Scott died in 1970 and since then a really transcendent leader has not appeared.
My personal role has been to look for and encourage young technocrats to thinking about this leadership role. This along with making technocracy more known to the public is my mission.
Technocracy incorporated itself , has no will to power in a coming technate.
We are only an educational/research group.
Our plan is what we want to be put into effect, it has nothing to do with us running anything as people.
Our organizations mission will have been accomplished if technocracy is established here and our group will then disband.
Interestingly we have been on the job and working toward this goal since the late teens of the last century, and formulated our overall conversion plan in 1934 after many years of intensive research. That document is the 1934 Technocracy Study Course , last published in 1948.
Aside from some very minor changes that plan is still the plan that we endorse. The changes are slight in nature , and do not affect the hard science of our social proposal.