So Will 2012 Be Just Another Year?

[realpaladin]

Any trading system will eventually become like the current monetary system.

This follows from the fact that the goods, tangible or intangible and/or services that are being traded can not be consumed at trading time.

The effect from that is that there is a 'credit' (as in 'you still can take x amount when you can consume it) system which keeps track of who has how much 'credit'.

The reason we are all talking about 'money' so much is that it was a 'no-brainer' credit system that basically said 'I own x amount of shells, and 1 shell represents y'.

But there is no real difference in that system or just writing down that 'John is allowed to come get a fresh bread every tuesday because he helped building the barn'.

The confusion came with the trading of the trading units and especially when the whole statistics was introduced ("We have not yet built the barn, but since John is going to help us until it is finished, he can already get a bread every tuesday").

What some are calling a problem of 'the system' is rather a problem of the people working that system.

If trading in corrupt or unwilling people for others is called 'world-changing' then darn, we have had that all through history already!

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Perhaps (although maybe I'm being over-optimistic here) it may help if I put this in a context which relates to why I started posting on this board many years ago and how my views of changed since then.

When I first started posting on bulletin boards (12/13 years ago) it was on US Christian sites, where I was debunking creationism, and at the fledgling infidels.org (secular web), where I was the first science and skepticism moderator. At the time I believed religion, or at least the Abrahamic sorts, were the biggest obstacles to human progress and something like the root of all evil. I understand the need for skepticism and the need to defend science all too well.

My views about spirituality then changed. For a while, just like a person who quits smoking or changes their views about other important things, I also thought it was very important to point out why and how my views had changed - to try to get people who still thought like I used to think to understand why I changed my mind.

Since then I have spent three years studying philosophy at university and several more thinking and talking about these subjects with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of agendas. And I have come to the conclusion that science and religion, or skepticism and mysticism, both have a place in a healthy human society. Some religions are dangerous/harmful, but not all of them. It is also harmful to have too strong a belief in the metaphysical stuff that is sometimes associated with science (e.g. materialism, determinism, and also ethics based entirely on those things, etc...) This ends up being just another sort of mind-limiting religious belief, allbeit a negative sort. It still involves having a strong belief in something metaphysical which can't be proven.

I think there are very important and unusual changes happening in the world right now, and I believe it is important to try to get as many people as possible to understand them. I'm still all in favour of debunking anyone who is promoting anti-scientific ideas, regardles of whether they are motivated by religion, politics or plain old insanity. I'm also ready to attack people who believe things which are both non-scientific (i.e. they aren't supported by science but don't contradict it either) and harmful (e.g. contraception is wrong because God says so.) But I do not believe there is any point in getting worked up about people who happen to believe things which are non-scientific and harmless, especially given the very real and immediate problems which our society is facing. Does it really matter if you haven't managed to convince the whole world that hardline skepticism is the only way, when we are faced with the total collapse of our economic/monetary system, the bankruptcy of western democracy and the looming threat of climate and ecological chaos?

 

[realpaladin]

I think there are very important and unusual changes happening in the world right now, and I believe it is important to try to get as many people as possible to understand them.

Can you remember how big and impressive the Sears towers were when you stood at the base?

If you look at them from space they are not even visible.

The same thing goes for the 'changes' and 'difficult times' we are now experiencing.

We notice them because we are in the middle of them; in the view of the next 100 years or so... this year may have 1 or 2 historical markers and that is about it.

What there is, however, is a yearning for 'living in special times'; the 1940's through to 1960's 'changed the world' and brought new and exciting times.
And people stood up and bla bla bla Apple/Coca Cola commercial voice bla bla bla those unique bla bla bla...

And now the people living now also want to be part of 'special times'.

It is temporal pareidolia.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Any trading system will eventually become like the current monetary system.

This follows from the fact that the goods, tangible or intangible and/or services that are being traded can not be consumed at trading time.

The effect from that is that there is a 'credit' (as in 'you still can take x amount when you can consume it) system which keeps track of who has how much 'credit'.

The reason we are all talking about 'money' so much is that it was a 'no-brainer' credit system that basically said 'I own x amount of shells, and 1 shell represents y'.

But there is no real difference in that system or just writing down that 'John is allowed to come get a fresh bread every tuesday because he helped building the barn'.

The confusion came with the trading of the trading units and especially when the whole statistics was introduced ("We have not yet built the barn, but since John is going to help us until it is finished, he can already get a bread every tuesday").

What some are calling a problem of 'the system' is rather a problem of the people working that system.

If trading in corrupt or unwilling people for others is called 'world-changing' then darn, we have had that all through history already!

I think we have both problems. Yes, in some cases it is just down to very unethical decisions by individual humans, most of whom have too much power and money already. But I also believe the system itself is fundamentally flawed and is wide open to certain sorts of abuse.

I agree with you that even "neo-liberal capitalism" could work better than it currently does, by regulating in such a way that corruption or vested self-interests are kept under control better. But I also think that that system is fundamentally flawed in the following very simple way: it is based on the assumption that there are no physical limitations to economic growth, but there are such limitations, and we are finding out what they are right now. That is why this prophecy is coming true but all the others did not. People could always have said "We just can't go on like this" in a spiritual sort of way, but things just kept going on like this anyway. There's still be people saying "we can't go on like this" and yearning for a spiritual revolution in 2012. Nothing has changed in that respect. What has changed is that "we can't go on like this" has now also become true in a physical sort of way. This time some sort of major change is inevitable, because the changes are being forced by physics, not just hoped for by metaphysics.

 

[dafydd]

This is not "the kitchen." It's a kindergarten.

Wrong again. It's a skeptic's forum. 1/10 for insults. You must try harder.

 

[dafydd]

Perhaps (although maybe I'm being over-optimistic here) it may help if I put this in a context which relates to why I started posting on this board many years ago and how my views of changed since then.

When I first started posting on bulletin boards (12/13 years ago) it was on US Christian sites, where I was debunking creationism, and at the fledgling infidels.org (secular web), where I was the first science and skepticism moderator. At the time I believed religion, or at least the Abrahamic sorts, were the biggest obstacles to human progress and something like the root of all evil. I understand the need for skepticism and the need to defend science all too well.

My views about spirituality then changed. For a while, just like a person who quits smoking or changes their views about other important things, I also thought it was very important to point out why and how my views had changed - to try to get people who still thought like I used to think to understand why I changed my mind.

Since then I have spent three years studying philosophy at university and several more thinking and talking about these subjects with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of agendas. And I have come to the conclusion that science and religion, or skepticism and mysticism, both have a place in a healthy human society. Some religions are dangerous/harmful, but not all of them. It is also harmful to have to strong a belief in the metaphysical stuff that is sometimes associated with science (e.g. materialism, determinism, and also ethics based entirely on those things, etc...) This ends up being just another sort of mind-limiting religious belief, allbeit a negative sort. It still involves having a strong belief in something metaphysical which can't be proven.

I think there are very important and unusual changes happening in the world right now, and I believe it is important to try to get as many people as possible to understand them. I'm still all in favour of debunking anyone who is promoting anti-scientific ideas, regardles of whether they are motivated by religion, politics or plain old insanity. I'm also ready to attack people who believe things which are both non-scientific (i.e. they aren't supported by science but don't contradict it either) and harmful (e.g. contraception is wrong because God says so.) But I do not believe there is any point in getting worked up about people who happen to believe things which are non-scientific and harmless, especially given the very real and immediate problems which our society is facing. Does it really matter if you haven't managed to convince the whole world that hardline skepticism is the only way, when we are faced with the total collapse of our economic/monetary system, the bankruptcy of western democracy and the looming threat of climate and ecological chaos?

It never enters your head that you might be wrong about that? Well, not really wrong. Changes always take place. Most people don't like evangelists.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Wrong again. It's a skeptic's forum. 1/10 for insults. You must try harder.

The readers can decide for themselves who is trying to have a serious debate in this thread, and who isn't.

 

[Humes fork]

Since then I have spent three years studying philosophy at university and several more thinking and talking about these subjects with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of agendas.

When talking about economic matters as you like to do, perhaps it would benefit you to read up on economics, perhaps by reading some basic textbooks on economics, particularly macroeconomics as thye subject of money is a central part in your doomsday scenario. Philosophy doesn't really cut the ice for this subject.

Does it really matter if you haven't managed to convince the whole world that hardline skepticism is the only way, when we are faced with the total collapse of our economic/monetary system, the bankruptcy of western democracy and the looming threat of climate and ecological chaos?

We are still waiting for evidence for this idea.

And why is Western democracy bankrupt? If you think so, there are literally millions of people who would like to switch place with you.

 

[Agatha]

You keep asserting that the economic/monetary system is on the brink of collapse, but despite carefully reading around your repeated insults, I have yet to find any evidence that you have supplied for this, or any evidence for the imminent bankruptcy of democracy (whatever that means).

Instead of linking to a film, perhaps you could set out why you believe this collapse is imminent, and why 2012 is so important? Given that we are almost a quarter of the way through the year already.

 

[dafydd]

The readers can decide for themselves who is trying to have a serious debate in this thread, and who isn't.

Insulting us is your idea of a serious debate? Some evidence from you would be welcome. I'm right and you are wrong and you are all idiots because you don't agree with me is not a debate.

 

[dafydd]

You keep asserting that the economic/monetary system is on the brink of collapse, but despite carefully reading around your repeated insults, I have yet to find any evidence that you have supplied for this, or any evidence for the imminent bankruptcy of democracy (whatever that means).

Instead of linking to a film, perhaps you could set out why you believe this collapse is imminent, and why 2012 is so important? Given that we are almost a quarter of the way through the year already.

The smart money says that he will respond to that with more insults, as he seems to know nothing about economics.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Can you remember how big and impressive the Sears towers were when you stood at the base?

I'm English. The last time I was in the US, Nixon was the President and I was 3.

If you look at them from space they are not even visible.

The same thing goes for the 'changes' and 'difficult times' we are now experiencing.

We notice them because we are in the middle of them; in the view of the next 100 years or so... this year may have 1 or 2 historical markers and that is about it.

I don't agree. I think that 2012 will be looked back upon by the whole world in the sort of way that the people of north-west Europe now look back on 1066. The events of that year totally changed the course of British history, and in doing so also changed the course of world history.


I think what is happening now dwarfs even 1066 in historical significance. We have a converging set of crises which are all part of the same system crisis, and they are leading us to the point where that system collapses, either partially or totally. But to describe it as an economic/monetary crisis is to do it an injustice, because it's actually much bigger than that. I could describe it as a crisis of our civilisation and it would still be an understatement, because other civilisations have collapsed before and humanity in general could just keep on going like before. That's not true this time, because this time we've trashed the planet and used up half the non-renewable resources. So to do it justice maybe I could describe it as a unique turning point for the human species. That's far bigger than 1066, but it still doesn't quite accurately describe the scale of the problem.

If we think about the whole history of life on Earth, and the current state of the global ecosystem, then what is happening is really a crisis on an evolutionary scale. What has happened is that evolution has produced a creature which has a completely new sort of survival strategy: pure brainpower. Never before in evolutionary history has a creature depended entirely on using its massive brain to dominate the rest of the ecosystem, and as a result of this we have ended up in a position of total dominance over everything else that lives on this planet. The crisis we currently face is the end result of this strategy being employed in a sort of "total war" by humans against the rest of the ecosystem. That's what nature designed us to do, but we have become too good at it.

As such, this situation is comparable to previous episodes in evolutionary history when some "evolutionary technology" came along which was so important that it caused an enormous, irreversible change to the global ecosystem. Good examples of this are the first photosynthetic organisms which produced oxygen, or the arrival of the first predators. So long as human brainpower is part of the ecosystem of this planet, that ecosystem can't go back to the way it was before. Some people have been pointing this out, one way or another, for a long time, but not many people were willing to listen to them. Now they must listen, because we've reached the point where "this isn't going to be sustainable for much longer" turns into "this is no longer sustainable."

 

[tsig]

Perhaps (although maybe I'm being over-optimistic here) it may help if I put this in a context which relates to why I started posting on this board many years ago and how my views of changed since then.

When I first started posting on bulletin boards (12/13 years ago) it was on US Christian sites, where I was debunking creationism, and at the fledgling infidels.org (secular web), where I was the first science and skepticism moderator. At the time I believed religion, or at least the Abrahamic sorts, were the biggest obstacles to human progress and something like the root of all evil. I understand the need for skepticism and the need to defend science all too well.

My views about spirituality then changed. For a while, just like a person who quits smoking or changes their views about other important things, I also thought it was very important to point out why and how my views had changed - to try to get people who still thought like I used to think to understand why I changed my mind.

Since then I have spent three years studying philosophy at university and several more thinking and talking about these subjects with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of agendas. And I have come to the conclusion that science and religion, or skepticism and mysticism, both have a place in a healthy human society. Some religions are dangerous/harmful, but not all of them. It is also harmful to have too strong a belief in the metaphysical stuff that is sometimes associated with science (e.g. materialism, determinism, and also ethics based entirely on those things, etc...) This ends up being just another sort of mind-limiting religious belief, allbeit a negative sort. It still involves having a strong belief in something metaphysical which can't be proven.

I think there are very important and unusual changes happening in the world right now, and I believe it is important to try to get as many people as possible to understand them. I'm still all in favour of debunking anyone who is promoting anti-scientific ideas, regardles of whether they are motivated by religion, politics or plain old insanity. I'm also ready to attack people who believe things which are both non-scientific (i.e. they aren't supported by science but don't contradict it either) and harmful (e.g. contraception is wrong because God says so.) But I do not believe there is any point in getting worked up about people who happen to believe things which are non-scientific and harmless, especially given the very real and immediate problems which our society is facing. Does it really matter if you haven't managed to convince the whole world that hardline skepticism is the only way, when we are faced with the total collapse of our economic/monetary system, the bankruptcy of western democracy and the looming threat of climate and ecological chaos?

You saw the light?

 

[tsig]

The readers can decide for themselves who is trying to have a serious debate in this thread, and who isn't.

And who's preaching and who isn't.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

When talking about economic matters as you like to do, perhaps it would benefit you to read up on economics, perhaps by reading some basic textbooks on economics, particularly macroeconomics as thye subject of money is a central part in your doomsday scenario. Philosophy doesn't really cut the ice for this subject.

When you can point to me to some economics or macroeconomics which starts with this:

Premise #1: There are physical limits to economic growth.

...then I'll bother reading it. Otherwise, it would be a total waste of my time.

And why is Western democracy bankrupt?

The politicians are powerless to control the banks or the international corporations, and everything they do is based on short-term plans to get themselves re-elected rather than trying to fix the real problems.

If you think so, there are literally millions of people who would like to switch place with you.

That doesn't follow. Just because all the other systems we know of are even worse, it doesn't mean western democracy isn't bankrupt. It just means we are in very serious trouble indeed.

 

[tsig]

The smart money says that he will respond to that with more insults, as he seems to know nothing about economics.

What I know about economics is never send a philosophy major on a beer run.

 

[Darat]

...snip...
And now the people living now also want to be part of 'special times'.

It is temporal pareidolia.

Great way of summing it up - just throw in a little bit of everyone's belief that "I am unique" and you have the explanation for the thousands of years people have been predicting "the end times".

 

[dafydd]

When you can point to me to some economics or macroeconomics which starts with this:

Premise #1: There are physical limits to economic growth.

...then I'll bother reading it. Otherwise, it would be a total waste of my time.




The politicians are powerless to control the banks or the international corporations, and everything they do is based on short-term plans to get themselves re-elected rather than trying to fix the real problems.




That doesn't follow. Just because all the other systems we know of are even worse, it doesn't mean western democracy isn't bankrupt. It just means we are in very serious trouble indeed.

Another evidence-free post.

 

[dafydd]

I'm English. The last time I was in the US, Nixon was the President and I was 3.



I don't agree. I think that 2012 will be looked back upon by the whole world in the sort of way that the people of north-west Europe now look back on 1066. The events of that year totally changed the course of British history, and in doing so also changed the course of world history.


I think what is happening now dwarfs even 1066 in historical significance. We have a converging set of crises which are all part of the same system crisis, and they are leading us to the point where that system collapses, either partially or totally. But to describe it as an economic/monetary crisis is to do it an injustice, because it's actually much bigger than that. I could describe it as a crisis of our civilisation and it would still be an understatement, because other civilisations have collapsed before and humanity in general could just keep on going like before. That's not true this time, because this time we've trashed the planet and used up half the non-renewable resources. So to do it justice maybe I could describe it as a unique turning point for the human species. That's far bigger than 1066, but it still doesn't quite accurately describe the scale of the problem.

If we think about the whole history of life on Earth, and the current state of the global ecosystem, then what is happening is really a crisis on an evolutionary scale. What has happened is that evolution has produced a creature which has a completely new sort of survival strategy: pure brainpower. Never before in evolutionary history has a creature depended entirely on using its massive brain to dominate the rest of the ecosystem, and as a result of this we have ended up in a position of total dominance over everything else that lives on this planet. The crisis we currently face is the end result of this strategy being employed in a sort of "total war" by humans against the rest of the ecosystem. That's what nature designed us to do, but we have become too good at it.

As such, this situation is comparable to previous episodes in evolutionary history when some "evolutionary technology" came along which was so important that it caused an enormous, irreversible change to the global ecosystem. Good examples of this are the first photosynthetic organisms which produced oxygen, or the arrival of the first predators. So long as human brainpower is part of the ecosystem of this planet, that ecosystem can't go back to the way it was before. Some people have been pointing this out, one way or another, for a long time, but not many people were willing to listen to them. Now they must listen, because we've reached the point where "this isn't going to be sustainable for much longer" turns into "this is no longer sustainable."

We know what you think. My Mam used to say 'Do you know what Thought did? He stuck a feather in the ground and thought that it would grow.' What about some evidence?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You keep asserting that the economic/monetary system is on the brink of collapse, but despite carefully reading around your repeated insults, I have yet to find any evidence that you have supplied for this,

Do you watch the news, Agatha?

Haven't you noticed a little DEBT PROBLEM or two?

The politicians of the world are currently claiming that if they go on printing money, the global economy is going to get growing again and we can pay off all those mountains of debt. They are wrong, twice over. Firstly the level of the debts in most places, including the UK and the US, is already so high that we have no hope of ever being able to pay them off, even if we could get growth going again. Secondly, the era of global growth is nearly over and the reason for this is that the era of cheap oil/energy is over.

It follows that there are only two possible ways that the current economic/monetary crisis can end.

The first is a hard default of the sort Greece needs to do, but is being prevented from doing because it is not in the interests of the banks or other indebted nations - you just say "I'm not paying", and take the consequences. Can you imagine the United States doing this? If they did, then it is the end of the era of the US dollar being the world's reserve currency, and all the other countries with fiat currencies and massive debts would also default. This would result in the total destruction of most people's savings and pensions, and we'd have to start again with a new sort of currency.

The second is continuing to print money whilst wages stay down, and allowing your currency to inflate. Greece can't do this either, because it doesn't have its own currency. But the UK and US can, and probably will. This will result in normal people becoming increasingly unable to afford the things they need to survive (even in the west), and for people's savings and pensions to inflate away to nothing at the same time the debts inflate away to nothing. The end result is the same: most people lose everything and we have to start again with some new currencies.