A Peek into the Clouded Future
Let’s see what pundits see in their 2013 Seeing-Stones.
Nouriel Roubini @Nouriel tweets a really upbeat message. “Main 2013 global tails risks: US cliff, EZ crisis, China hard landing, war between Israel & Iran, Asia islands disputes causing conflict”.
What did he miss? Well Syria for one. But the New York Times has that covered. “U.N. Seeks New Aid for Syria Crisis and Predicts 1 Million Refugees by Mid-2013″.
He missed Africa for another. “France sees military intervention in Mali in six months.” But they don’t see France doing it.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Monday expected a possible military intervention to quash Islamist terrorists in northern Mali during the first six months of 2013…. Le Drian reiterated Paris’ refusal to send French combat forces to the conflict-torn African country but it will provide technical support to African troops to retake northern Malian region from Islamist insurgents.
And there’s Pakistan. Bruce Reidel of Brookings sees America continuing in the “deadly embrace” of Islamabad. His book “Deadly Embrace” now out on Amazon, describes how in the words of one reviewer, America is “paying rent to fight the roaches”. And the Financial Times thinks Pakistan is going to need more rent. “Power shortages are only the most visible of a plethora of financial, social and political crises that threaten the viability of the feeble economy.”
But not everyone sees gloom and doom. Neil Irwin at the Washington Post thinks a new golden age is dawning. He writes, “the stars are aligning for 2013 to be the beginning of a period of above-par growth.” The debt has been paid down. Housing is back. Construction may boom. The finances of state and local governments are healthy again. [corrections thanks to Josh] It’s morning in America, without the “u”.
My own guess is that 2013 will be a mix of good and bad. No span of 365 days is ever all one thing or the other. The only trouble is that it will probably take till 2014 to figure out which things were good and which were bad.
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
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Anyone notice “Apple Google” = 666 in English Gematria? {6 96 96 72 30 42 90 90 42 72 30}
I don’t think it counts though, since nobody spoke English in Bible days. They could have just made up the word “Google” to reach that figure. It was a nonsense word originally.
http://www.gematrix.org/?word=apple+google
Another way to look at it: “Google Apple” means “search for knowledge”, sort of. Whatever.
Ezra Klein at the Washington Post thinks a new golden age is dawning. He writes, “the stars are aligning for 2013 to be the beginning of a period of above-par growth.”
……..
The feds are going to skim off any real growth with their new taxes. Growth will remain just above stall speed.
The debt has been paid off? In what universe is that?
wretchard, that link is to something by one “Neil Irwin” not Ezra Klein, and the debt that has been paid *down* (not off) is household debt – OBVIOUSLY not the national debt, certainly not California debt, nor corporate debt.
And this is more mathematical booshwah, iff we keep on sucking down Bernankebucks then it *looks* like we are not in recession because the dollars are being devalued but we keep getting more of them, just not enough more to keep up. Presumably iff we go off the cliff this will have some (negative) effects though why that should be I can hardly say, Bernanke can just pluck his magic twanger and spew yet another trillion into the economy. Anyway any whiff of actual growth is taken as great progress from on high, even if the economic growth is less than the population growth so we continue to LOSE mean income, the liars and idiots that now make up both Washington and the MSM will celebrate it and the low income voter doesn’t know their pockets are being picked, they think it’s the rich who are being hit – which is also the case, but hey they CAN afford it, and the average guys can’t.
But, I guess, we are so rich as a culture now, people can lose a few percent per year now and never know it. Classic boiled frog, I guess.
My personal opinion: Things are very, very, very, very, very, VERY bad – and they are going to get a lot worse.
Internationally:
1. Civil war in Syria becomes Balkans-on-the-Med with warlords and loose Sarin.
2. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran versus Israel. Conventional war if we are lucky, gas and nukes if not.
3. Egypt will implode absent massive foreign aid. Same for Afghanistan. Same for Pakistan.
4. Even odds of Saudi Arabia facing its own Shiite uprising courtesy of Iran. What that will do to the price of oil I leave to your imagination.
5. North Korea will test nuclear weapons, sell nuclerar technology to Iran – and continue to practice extortion for aid. There will be more military provocations.
6. China will stake out her claims to the sea lanes and resources she wants. The USA has neither the ability nor the will to stop her. If Japan, Taiwan and South Korea value their freedom they will develop their own nuclear weapons as fast as they can. The Phillipines should ally with Japan. The USA is a pacific power in name only.
7. Al Qaida will come back in Mali. No one has the will to stop them. Even odds on antoher act of mega-terrorism next year.
Domestically:
1. Obama care will raise taxes and increase government regulations – stifling private business and raising unemployment.
2. The fiscal cliff will cause Republicans who care about defense to surrender on taxes. The money will be spent on new stimulur programs which will serve only to enrich Obama cronies. Unemployment will go to 20% or more, counting the people who give up on looking for work.
3. The lack of seriousness on debt reduction will cause the USA credit rating to be downgraded. Again.
4. As the government prints more money for stimulus, inflation will come back. Look for a real inflation rate of at least 5% or more.
5. Worst of all, the combination of debt, inflation, unemployment, and runaway government will put the USA on track to become a larger Greece in a few years time.
Of course, things can always be worse.
I wonder if Oboomba will resurrect the “Crowbar” concept. If I recall correctly the basic idea was to put purely kinetic “rods” into orbit and on command, retro fire them out of orbit and kill armored vehicles. If I remember correctly the concept died because the left didn’t want weapons in space and the right questioned its cost effectiveness. Given the current trend in assassination from on high,smaller GPS/inertial guided weaponry, and the improvements in guidance tech, I could see his Majesty ignoring the “you mustn’t put weapons into space crowd” and launching a cloud of “crowbars” to center punch skulls and destroy infrastructure.
Yesterday I woke up to my not-quite 2 year old singing her rendition of “Angels We Have Heard In High”. Is there anything better, more joyful and hopeful than that? Without diminishing the pain, suffering and even evil that come with these “wars and rumors of wars”, I like to remember that those sorts of moments still happen countless times, every day, and will continue to do so. True, the reason we fight some of these wars (whether real or metaphorical) is to preserve the freedom of our children to live in innocent joy, but I think we give more credit to the power of evil than it deserves. Yes, we must be vigilant, but let us never lose hope and fall into despair.
The wealth generated by cheap energy feeds the cancer. For 60 years it fed Salafism and going forward it will support Obamaism. We need a better word for the semi-socialist system of entrenched crony Capitalism backed by thuggery and bigotry and currency manipulation. How about Fascism?
1. Baobo
You were asking me on another thread if I thought you should read my ebook.
Probably a better idea would be to read “The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” by Julian Jaynes.
I heard about that book on Wretchard’s site here a year or two ago and read it.
I highly recommend the book.
http://bit.ly/VCqvWa
I frankly don’t care how many Middle Easterners or Africans get wasted in all their local power struggles or food crises or whatever. What I do worry about is that Obama will use the turmoil as an excuse to open the “refugee” floodgates, allowing millions into the country. Supine Republicans will do nothing to stop it.
My only prediction for 2013 — other than a generic “it will get worse” — is that we are going to see a new mass immigration wave into both America and Europe from Africa and the ME.
“U.N. Seeks New Aid for Syria Crisis and Predicts 1 Million Refugees by Mid-2013″
We’ll have to get gun confiscation done before the US can hope to offer refuge to so many of our fellow freedom fighters.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.
When a system is breaking down — e.g., due to the unsustainable enbiggenment of ‘government’ around the world — Expect the Unexpected!
Chavez drops dead, plunging Venezuela into chaos and reminding everyone in the US where the gasoline they use really comes from. Europeans return to form, and civil war breaks out in Spain when Catalans & Basques try to secede. English soccer holligans go on a bigger-than-usual rampage in Brussels, leading to the breakdown of the European Union. Russia reclaims the Crimea, sparking a new war with NATO member Turkey. That virus mutating in a Chinese pig finally gets its act together. The San Andreas fault takes a giant step forward, and the volcano under Yellowstone Park blasts through.
The long-term prognosis for the human race remains very good. But the next few decades are going to be tough sledding. Happy New Year!
There’s still time to put Obama’s picture on the gazillion dollar bill….
I’m not going to offer any predictions, just one observation. The media is best at turning the volume to 11 on a given issue and pumping hype and hysteria; it’s what they do in order to (in newspaperspeak) “put eyes on pages.” For that reason, I don’t think the fiscal cliff is going to be quite as bad as they make it out to be. Yes, it’ll be unpleasant in some parts of the economy, but overall, America will do what it does best: muddle through.
I do agree with the trend already identified by several folks above: America’ withdrawal from its unspoken role as world policeman will result in some unpleasant actors taking advantage. I just won’t offer precise scenarios. There are too many unpleasant actors out there who have been waiting for such an opportunity.
Apparently the future may just be “Brighter than a full moon”…
Obama’s Hammer anyone?
What is the future?
I firmly believe that no matter who addresses that question, the correct answer is; “I Don’t Know.”
Never the less, I will spin an allegory of the future. It is worth what it cost.
‘A great train; A thousand cars; passenger cars, boxcars, gondolas of coal- gravel-scrap iron, grain cars of wheat-oats-corn, tankers filled with oil-corn syrup-asphalt, flatcars of timber- milled lumber-pipe-steel beams; everything under the American sun; pulled by a dozen or more powerfull locomotives, thundering across a vast level plain at a hundred miles an hour.
When it passes you the ground shakes and the air throbs with the overwhelming force of its power. It feels as though the whole world is in motion.
But, the crew has run mad. They are shutting down the diesals, one by one.
When the last of the drivers goes silent, the train still thunders along; millions of tons of Iron Horse and all that its pulling still shakes the ground and whips the air as it passes.
But its coasting.
Slowly, gradually the momentum is deminishing.The rythym of the wheels clicking on the rails slows, minute by minute.
The passengers lean out the windows and look to the front of the train. They notice that there’s no smoke coming from the engines. And on down the track they see foothills, and beyond the hills, mountains.’
Folks:
Regarding the “fiscal cliff”, even if all of the CBO’s assumptions regarding economic behavior are correct, i.e. that taxpayers will not alter their economic decisions based on the higher taxes, the deficit for this coming year will be reduced by about half. Which is still unsustainable.
Also,(and this does not affect me personally, I have stuff but little income), raising taxes on only a small percentage of high bracket taxpayers is not only ineffective but morally suspect. Mr. Heinlein referred to the draft as “passengers on a fleeing sleigh throwing some of their number off to briefly slow down the pursuing wolves” (sorry, clumsy paraphrase).
If in fact, it is the will of the American electorate to continue spending at present rates, which the recent election indicates is the case, then we are all in the same boat and there should be a surtax on individual and corporate income taxes to spread the pain around proportionately. Do not expect this reality based proposal to appear any time soon in Congress.
By definition, unsustainable equals “cannot be sustained”. We see practices and trends in our economy and our society that are clearly not sustainable. So, the change is inevitable, we are only waiting and speculating on the process and the tipping points.
And, yes, I would propose that it a blog comment roll goes long enough, the possibility that someone will quote Heinlein approaches unity.
Guilty as charged, but unrepentant. (And, I respectfully note the Niven/Pournelle reference above.)
It’s a beautiful clear sunny day in the SF Bay area, all the crud washed from the air by the recent rains. Various forms of salmon are recolonizing our local streams and rivers, the Dungeness crab fisherman’s strike is over.
Good will to men of good will. / erc
It is the Age of Obama. All is well. That’s what we are told.
One thing for certain, as has been said by Mr. Fernandez and others numerous times; the design margin is shrinking, if not gone. A myriad of small crises are always afoot, but now there is no will or strength to solve them in a reasonable manner. Al Qaeda in Mali? Who does this hurt? French commercial interests in Africa – and a mighty “so what?”. Separatist movements in Spain? So what – I don’t live there. Economic disaster in Pakistan? So what – I don’t live there either.
But all these apparently small and seemingly unrelated events indicate the ever growing social entropy overtaking the world. There is no political or economic energy to set anything right or create order, so the chaos will continue to grow. It is, afterall, the Age of Obama.
Prediction for 2013: Chaos will increase. And it sells news media outputs, whatever form they take. So we’ve got that going for us (buy CNN?). Wretchard will have lots to write about next year.
The GOP needs to say no to the Democrats driving off the fiscal cliff…
Of course Bonehead Boehner needs to be far smarter about explaining why the GOP opposes this, but the blame needs to be directed to where it belongs: Barack and Harry.
People of Belmont Club! Heed this warning. Twisted tail! A thousand eyes! Trapped forever!!
Beware! Beware! Time is short. Eeepa! Eeepa! Eeeeeeepaaaaa!
Believe me! Believe me!
Thanks for listening!
1. Baobo
In the Kexqi numerology system (A=1, B=2 C=3, etc.), Baobo is 2-1-15-2-15. If you subtract 2-1-15-2-15 (Baobo) from 11-5-24-17-35 (Kexqi), you get 9-4-9-15-20. The Universe speaks to those who will hear.
Waltradamus has seen his reflection in the Mall wishing well, and now knows what will happen in 2013.
MALI
Will the French go into Mali?
One can only think what folly
It is Indochine without a mountain view
But the Frenchmen they will rally
In some Atlas Mountain valley
And will hope it’s not again Dien Bien Phu
FINANCIAL CLIFF
Had the cliff been any higher
We’d have gone from pot to fryer
But the landing was as soft as it could be
The economy was roaring
With Obama’s rating soaring
And the only drawback we’re no longer free
EURO CRISIS
Yes the Euro is in crisis
And the rolling of the dice is
All that’s left for them to try to stave off gloom
If the Germans close the spigot
And if Merkel tells them friggit
Then there’s nothing left to save them from their doom
2013
2013 will be over
In twelve months of rolling clover
And we’ll all be happy that Obama won
With inflation we’re all wealthy
With ObamaCare we’re healthy
Nonetheless I’m glad I went and bought that gun
@21 That’s my point. Any 9491520 can make a code to scare people like 3811812519.
20. A.M. You speak Greek? (Σας) είπα! I told (you)!
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Another good way to predict the future is to discover it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brighter-than-a-full-moon-the-biggest-star-of-2013-could-be-ison–the-comet-of-the-century-8431443.html
‘Brighter than a full moon’: The biggest star of 2013… could be Ison – the comet of the century
A comet discovered by two Russian astronomers will be visible from Earth next year. Get ready for a once-in-a lifetime light show, says David Whitehouse
David Whitehouse
Thursday 27 December 2012
Since at least the demise of Newt as House Speaker and definitely since the beginning of the reign of Dubya, the GOP Leadership has treated the truth as something too vulgar to grace their lips. This inexplicable avoidance of the truth has allowed the traitorous far Left to gain control of nearly every important institution in our society. That is why everything has gone to crap.
The American public need to be seriously educated as to the fix we are in. The time has come for a full court press education offensive by conservatives. Anything less will not create the backing for a sufficiently significant turnaround of our fortunes.
And it really is not that hard to do.
All the Pubs have to do is actively, and aggressively play the role they are supposed to play – that of the Loyal Opposition ( loyal to the American Republic that is).
All the Pubs have is to describe the gaping chasm between what should be happening and what is. And then ask ‘What the hell is going on? But the key is to properly and fully educate what should be happening over and over so there is no doubt in even the the most dense low info voter what the proper course of action on a myriad of subject is.
Charles/26
A big time giant comet
Is enough to make me vomit
It can only be the death star on its way
It is surely Armageddon
Based upon the way it’s headin’
But I’m sure ‘twill look just great o’er Galway Bay
I predict that trends over the past 4 years will continue and in some cases, probably most cases, accelerate.
The federal government will be a growth industry – increased welfare rolls, more food stamps. State and local government will shrink as pensions swallow up all operating expenses. Gay marriage will become the most important thing just before amnesty for illegals.
As long as there is no voter ID and gov unions practiced ballot stuffing via absentee ballots, I am not going to engage in the belief that this is what the American people voted for.
8. Charles
I am not sure why you are so enamored by the book. It contains so many unsupported assumptions an fallacies that it is hard to decide where to start.
But 2 points may suffice.
1. The author uses the fact that in pre-classical Greek literature (or in the oral tradition later transcribed), the hero speaks of himself in third person and uses this as a proof that there was no concept of “I” in ancient times. It’s almost as saying that there is something unusual (meaning deficient) with a German brain, because when Germans address someone formally, they use “they/them” article. By the same token, the Greek form was simply a grammatical device. To put it in a context, the Sumerian literature, 2 millenia prior to Homeric tomes, clearly uses “I” in their mythological tales. So do the inscription in Umas’ pyramid, many centuries before Homer. In both cultures, a “He” article was also used, mainly when decrees/laws were issued–e.g. when a pharaoh was dictating a decree to a scribe, he used the name or “he” article. Also, in some cultures, in narratives, the article “he” or name reference was used as a formal device to distinguish the fact that it is a recollection from the past and in that particular context. The speaker would not use that form in a normal conversation in present tense. You can find this form still in use amongst some Amazonian tribes.
2. Jaycen assumes that the ancient human brain differed from ours, to support his notion of bicameral mind. There is simply no evidence for any such difference. Furthermore, 3 most archaic human groups–Australian Aborigines, P&NG Aborigines and African Bushmen–have the same brain morphology as we do, and furthermore, they have the concept of “I” clearly present. That was even the case before any influences from more modern (= diverged) human representatives could have been departed. The most archaic group was the Tasmanians, and again, despite of their very primitive character, they haven’t displayed any of the presumed characteristics Jaycen would need for his assumptions to work.
u @ 27: The American public need to be seriously educated as to the fix we are in.
Marketing 101 says no.
If you have to educate the consumer before they will buy your product, save time and give up now.
walter adams @ 16: Excellent. I had previously imagined an aircraft, losing fuel or engines and degrading into a glide (toward those same mountains, I guess) but your train image works so much better. Thanks.
Jaynes argues that the bicameral mind started breaking down as social organization in the late Bronze Age descended into dark ages. This led to further introspect and consciousness of consciousness. The argument for this is flimsy at best and rubbish at its worst. It does nothing to suggest what was the state of consciousness during any preceding epics or whether this trait held for millennia when the social organization was the tribe or the family unit.
But if the theory holds any water at all then perhaps we are reverting to an earlier bicameral call for a constant and thorough authority, spanning from statism to Islamism. There is at least some evidence to support that.
Defense and medicine will lead the charge down the financial toilet.
A distant comet flyby is one thing. A closer call with an asteroid is another. Let’s hope that they (NASA) has their calculations right, otherwise 2/15/2013 could be an interesting day indeed. There is a 60 meter wide asteroid on its way that according to the latest calcs will pass between the geo stat satellites and the Earth.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46647666/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/mid-size-asteroid-wont-hit-earth-nasa/
The position of the moon in the diagram has me wondering if a slight gravitational pull from it could be enough to change the asteroid’s trajectory so that the Earth’s own gravity well would pull in it. If that happened it could be a very, very bad day for some folks, especially if it is a nickel-iron asteroid. Meteor Crater in northern Arizona, (4,000 feet in diameter and 600 feet deep) was created 50,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteorite thought to be the same size as the one currently heading toward Earth. Depending on its speed, the possible impact explosion would be in the 10-15 Megaton range which equates to the following effects:
Fireball radius: 1 mile
See Firestorm
Air blast radius: 4 miles
20 psi overpressure; heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished; fatalities approach 100%.
Air blast radius: 11 miles
4.6 psi overpressure; most buildings collapse; injuries universal, fatalities widespread.
Thermal radiation radius: 22 miles
Third-degree burns to all exposed skin; starts fires in flammable materials, contributes to the firestorm.
This lands anywhere near an inhabited area….. And everyone was worried about the Mayan calendar.
#4 Battle of the Pyramids:
If I’m a random Islamist crazy and I lay my hands on a supply of sarin, what do I do with it? It depends on who I am, who I hate most, and what transportation/ distribution options I have:
1) Ship it to my Chechen friends for use in the Moscow subway
2) Try the same in Londonistan
3) Hit the Shiite infidels in Teheran
4) Hit the Sunni/Wahhabi infidels in Riyadh or Mecca. (The Hajj makes a great target)
5) Kill lots of Hindus in Mumbai
6) The little Satan: Tel Aviv
7) The great Satan: NYC or DC Metro
Decisions, decisions. Probably best to use it quickly before someone else takes it away. So I lob it back at Assad’s people. Screw the collateral damage.
34: Chances are it would land in the ocean. Big tsunami.
My own guess is that 2013 will be a mix of good and bad.
Don’t forget the ugly. We’ll have some of that too. Or should I say, some of that, Tuco…
No span of 365 days is ever all one thing or the other.
I agree, but I suspect most, if not all, of the good will be local, personal, and on a small-scale. I see little optimism for anything large-scale to be anything other than bad in the near future. The feedback loops on pretty much all of our large-scale institutions are far too laggy and compromised to provide any stability or control, and the folks at the controls are the equivalent of Saddaam’s dead-enders. They have nothing else to fall back on if they lose their rentier positions, so they will use every ounce of their power to block corrections as long as they can.
I think anything beyond the small-scale needs to crack up first (e.g. get very bad) before the dead-enders can be removed from positions of influence and new functional institutions can be built to replace them.
Well, I suppose from that angle, there may be some good after all, since I guess after this much dithering and can-kicking, the only thing left is collapse, destruction, and rebirth.
So, yeah. Optimistic pessimism. Every gut-wrenching disaster is a chance to clear away the deadwood. Too bad so many lives are tied up with it.
O/T:
Again the criminals (Fed/PPT) who control our stock market are without shame. All the news was terrible with the DJIA rightly plunging to below 13,000. But again, right on queue, the Fed printed up a few hundred billion in paper money and goosed the markets to almost positive. It was a perfect bear trap. Too bad all of the bears died along with any legitimacy our markets had back in 2009.
When this sucker crashes, it will crash so hard that it will take a century to recover. All that is keeping it up are lies and worthless paper money.
6. Jonathan
They sang similar songs in the Soviet Union, too.
Thanks, Jonathan, you just made me feel a whole lot better about Utopia.
10. MSO
We’ll have to get gun confiscation done before the US can hope to offer refuge to so many of our fellow freedom fighters.
From your mouth to God’s ears:
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/assault-weapons
My forecast is that 2013 will last a full year. We will know things are really bad if the Bernanke runs out of paper, can’t print any more money and has to apply to the IMF for a loan, subject to the IMF’s conditions.
To be serious for a moment, U.S. domestic economic events in 2013 will depend on the American people. If they wake up, see sense and insist that politicians do the same, then 2013 will be a turning point. If the American people stay in their aimless dream world, 2013 will turn into a nightmare.
Here in Canada during 2013, things will turn on the success of environmental groups in wrecking our economic prospects by demonizing new oil and gas pipelines and robbing us of the huge long term wealth creation from these enterprises.
4. BattleofthePyramids
Did you miss the Feinstein “gun grab” on purpose?
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/assault-weapons
Or did you just brush it away as not having any impact at all.
If congress “decides” to eliminate the Bill of Rights (and for that matter, the Constitution) is that considered a benign “imperial entanglement?”
What if the crazies, er, go crazy?
What are America’s prospects if there are random uprisings dealt with like “Wack-a-Mole?”
What if only one state becomes Syria?
How we gonna do with Martial Law?
I’m damned worried about it in Georgia – I don’t want “foreign troops” being bivouacked in my house no matter if they come from the gubmint “to help” or the Blackwater contractors hired by who knows who to do who knows what.
FWIW:
Here are my predictions for 2012/2013 and onward.
As long as professional Republicans keep getting their cut of the Democrat fascists’ trough, all the noise will remain as mere price negotiation. It provides an odd sort of stability, unaccounted for by economic theory.
The wholesale global pilferage will continue to expand above and beyond borders.
It’s a New Normal- still a form of stability. Classical economics predicts collapse and just keeps getting it wrong. It’s assumptions are based on relatively closed borders. Lots left to rob in a world.
> My forecast is that 2013 will last a full year.
I’ll up you to four years.
If you feel glum about the future, then heres the prediction for you;
[sorry about the add, youtube seems to have put them in every video]
http://youtu.be/rWmbuKSWLDE?t=31s
39. Sgian Dubh
I’m not entirely sure how to interpret your comment, so I won’t try to read too much into it one way or the other. My point, however, wasn’t to try to make anyone “feel” better, but that we should always keep hope and faith alive.
The Soviet Union is gone, and Christmas carols were sung before it existed, and are still sung even to this very day. (Well, perhaps not right this very moment, as Russian Christmas isn’t until Jan. 7th)
47. Jonathan
Sorry Jonathon, you caught me in perhaps the most cynical Christmas of my lifetime. My point was life can pretty much totally suck even though one has the private ability to sing Christmas carols, even all the while your country is being driven like a giant wedge into the rock floor of a deep ocean, or that your country is headed into, God knows what.
Ask Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn about the Progressive Utopia we are now crawling into.
What are you hoping for Johnathan?
It’s utterly futile trying to predict future events. Refer to the following:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=215356
Karl Denninger is a pretty sharp guy. I don’t agree with his Libertarian politics or how he manages his discussion forum but he is very perceptive about economic policy. He was one of the few guys who were smart enough to make a pile of money during the Dot Com ***AND*** bail out before the Dot Com imploded (he saw through the Dot Com’s implicit fraud while making his money). Despite Denninger’s intelligence and market experience, most of his predictions for 2012 were dead wrong.
Why was Denninger wrong?
Mainly because he believed the market place is driven by mathematics when in fact it is driven by fraud and political corruption. Ultimately, Denninger will be proven correct because in the end mathematics (truth) always wins. However before truth has its day, there is about a century’s worth of ethical behavior and honest dealing that will have to be eroded away by criminal corruption. It’s like the ocean tide pounding away at a block of granite. The granite is strong but ultimately the ocean wins.
The really bad news is it took several generations to build up those ethical systems that are currently being eroded away (their intrinsic value is beyond price). When the current corrupt system finally falls, it will take a long time to reconstruct something to replace it. Obama, Bernanke and the MSM are the symptoms of a dying political/economic process.
@ 49 “Karl Denninger is a pretty sharp guy. I don’t agree with his Libertarian politics or how he manages his discussion forum…” You mean it’s like PJM cerca January 2012 when all the comments against the hated ‘Paulbots’ and ‘Ronulans’ were pushed to the top? How’d that work out for PJM? Sorry mainline Repubs but there’s gonna be some score settling in 2016 if we have an election. It might be the ‘Randians’ who kick out the Romneylikes and not the other way around next time. It happened between 1968 and 1972 in the Democratic Party, the kids on the outside became the organizers on the inside. Paul brought in the young people. Romney couldn’t even bring in the ‘get off my lawn’ crowd of aging white voters (unless you believe the Obamanistas deleted all their votes with the voting machines, of course).
48. Sgian Dubh
My hope:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’” (Rev 21:1-4 NIV 1984)
One can also look at things like this: One can still sing Christmas carols even when life pretty much totally sucks. More importantly, one can sing Easter hymns:
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
I certainly hope (in the everyday sense of the word) that our political, economic, etc. situation will improve, and that poverty, persecution and wars will cease, but I do not expect that to happen in this present world — rather, I expect things to get worse, until the above passage is fulfilled.
Re:”The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”
30. Twobyfour
But 2 points may suffice.
1. The author uses the fact that in pre-classical Greek literature (or in the oral tradition later transcribed), the hero speaks of himself in third person and uses this as a proof that there was no concept of “I” in ancient times.
2. Jaycen assumes that the ancient human brain differed from ours, to support his notion of bicameral mind. There is simply no evidence for any such difference. Furthermore, 3 most archaic human groups–Australian Aborigines, P&NG Aborigines and African Bushmen–have the same brain morphology as we do,
…………….
Agree on both points. Further there are a lot other fuzzy things in Jaynes work. And I disagree with Jaynes about the nature of information itself. (He thinks information as in language/math/computer language is invented Ex nihilo from nothing. That information exists only in our heads. I think rather that information as in language/math/computer language is discovered–like gold or a great fishing hole or the New World or the double helix. That for example the information that prescribes–as opposed to describes–the conversion of energy to matter E=MC2 is as much a part of nature as the conversion itself. Only God is outside of nature.
That said, neither of the points you mention are central to Jaynes work. First of all Jaynes is not talking about primitive man. Historically he’s only talking about a period of time between roughly 9000 BC and 1000 BC –and only in the “advanced” civilizations with the transition time from the bicameral mind to the modern mind in the Mediterranean basin running from 1000 BC to about the beginning of CE or 0 AD. And in the New World and Oceania in the Years after the Spanish arrived after 1500. “Advanced” here means only that they had temples of one stripe or another. The central question addressed by Jaynes is “What is the intellectual reason for the temples.” Jaynes says that these temples came about because people heard a second voice in their head depending on the muse or place they were at. Unlike today where people recognize that they are only talking to themselves–”advanced” civilizations thought the other voices in their heads were coming from the gods. The purpose of the temples was to amplify the other voice or the voice belonging god of the temple. The reason the temples kept getting bigger and bigger was that the the increasing size and complexity of civilization required ever larger works to inspire the wonder and awe that would provoke the second voice.
To understand how thoroughly undermined this system was by the time of Jesus all over the Roman world–its helpful to understand the greatest of the Greek scientists of the age were usually engaged in developing little water hydrological or heat & cooling powered parlor tricks for the temples–which inspired the people to wonder at the power of their gods–and generated a great deal of income for the temple priests.
The temples themselves were very big business. The chief reason that St Paul was often driven out of town was because the local temple merchants feared he would interfere with their business.
Herod’s temple was a bit more sophisticated in its business practices. They made their money with extortionist/rapacious currency exchanges because the people were required by law to make pilgrimages to the temple and make sacrifices. Jesus recognized that turning a temple into an extortion racket interfered with its chief purpose–which is prayer.
Matthew 21:13
English Standard Version (ESV)
13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
Now what is so precious about prayer. So lets be jewish about this. Lets answer a question with a question. What do you think of schizophrenia? Answer. I’m of two minds about the matter.
What’s so precious about prayer is that prayer addresses the Maker of the Universe, Ultimate Reality. Address your thoughts in truth to Ultimate Reality/God/The Maker of the Universe because God has power.
22. Walt
Mali isn’t Viet Nam, it’s even not Algeria, it’s some kind of African conflict, that we can’t handle alone, otherwise we would be accused of neo-colonialism. First by Algeria, though as the franco-algerian relations seem to improve since Hollande’s travel there, Mali solution will pass through a Algeria monitoring… so far Algeria was reluctant to interven there… so Hollande will have to wait for his moment.
Now, just remember that Algeria war was won Militarily, (politically it was another business, that de Gaulle understood, hence the referendum for the Independance) “quadrillage” anyone? that Petraeus adopted for Irak !