Archive for the 'Rugged Stupidity' Category

Aug 08 2007

Concerning Catastrophes and Cooperation

Published by cyrano2 under Collapse of Civilization, Climate Change, Capitalism, Rugged Stupidity, Hyper-Individualism, Collectivism, Communalism, Environment, War, Corporatism, Consumerism, Savage Capitalism

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“Do we have a sufficient supply of self-control and compassion toward our unknown descendants to curb our boundless desire for ever more merchandise, petrol, electricity and offspring? Can we find some modicum of happiness within deliberately self-proscribed limits?”

By Emily Spence

8/8/07

Until fairly recently, anthropologists and geologists were greatly puzzled by an unusual finding. Their perplexity concerned the almost total disappearance of humankind many years ago. Finally, they were able to put together the various factors related to this happening and came up with the following scenario.

Over much of the Earth, crude stone tools have been found at the geological layer roughly corresponding to 74,000 years ago. Based on the various rock types used, their rate of wear and the number of implements uncovered in each setting, the population could be estimated for many regions of the globe. In addition, migration patterns could be charted based on similarities in tool designs combined with their varying quantities in assorted locales. As the seasons changed and the animal location shifted — so did the hunter-gatherers. The related movement could be mapped for several clans.

Then suddenly, signs of all tools, abruptly and completely, vanished across nearly the entire globe. The disappearance was almost completely universal except, for the most part, in one small region of Eastern Africa. At the same time, there existed, instead of the tools elsewhere, layer upon layer of volcanic ash corresponding to a time period many years in duration.

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May 30 2007

Need is a Nasty Word

Published by cyrano2 under Rugged Stupidity, Hyper-Individualism


By Sally Erickson

5/30/07

Sally Erickson, Producer of the documentary “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire” writes of the extent to which we need each other in the face of collapse and how our programming for “rugged individualism” is not working and will not sustain us—Carolyn Baker

Say hello to the last throes of America’s collective dementia. No amount of medication in the form of alternative therapy, I mean alternative energy, is going to repair the years of abuse to our collective body and spirit by the machinations of Empire. Antidepressants, I mean anti-inflationary economics, are rapidly losing their effectiveness. We’ve reached peak insanity. We’re sunk. Thank the gods. It’s all downhill from here.

We need help.

I come from a quietly dysfunctional, but highly functioning, middle-class American family. My brother and sister have both had incomes way into six figures for decades. I think. It’s not polite to discuss income so I can only presume.

I never had the guts to go there, to make a lot of money. I never felt I had the right to profit wildly from the abusive and exploitative system we call American capitalism. Well before I understood the nature of the crimes that American wealth is based on, I knew something was very wrong.

I traveled to India briefly during college. On my first day there I faced a tiny child who reached out with pleading fingers, still in her mother’s arms. I felt sick inside. What right did I have to live….

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