The 100,000 Year Project.
The goal? Human survival for starters? Not that we deserve it. Part of the goal is to somehow ennoble our species enough that we do deserve to survive. Not fucking up the planet more than we have might be a start.
I know. I know. George Carlin is right.
The planet doesn't need to be saved. The Earth wanted plastic. And maybe now we are done.
If you like your cake without sprinkles, take the sprinkles off, and you still have plenty of cake and frosting. Those sprinkles are multicellular life. All the animals and plants including us. We should save ourselves first. Learn to behave like adults, like, well, not like the We Are Wall Street asshole, who, honestly, makes the idea of a project for developing a vaster-than-empires-and-more-slow hypercomputer that can upload a human mind, and then torture the uploaded mind in a surrealistic virtual Hell, kind of like the splatter genre of Superjail, sounds like not such a bad waste of taxpayer monies.
In any case, we are, as a species, approaching or already at a force of nature. We move as much earth as a quarter of all the Earth's rivers. We use more than 30% of the fresh water resources. As just one example, we have deforested 16% of the Amazon basin in a mere 30 years. As fire ants go, we're doing pretty good at disturbing habitats. If we want to survive as a species, we need to work on our domestic habits.
Problem: I don't know about you, but too often, I get absorbed into my life and start to think the whole fucking universe revolves around me, when, in fact, even the the briefest check outside my tiny little head would reveal that there's a hardly even a trace of a virtual particle to my existence. And that's not even counting the wasted time. Me? I can't go much more than twenty minutes without getting distracted by something. When you work it out, that twenty minute granularity comes out to just a little over 1% OF A DAY. Twenty minutes out of 100,000 years is .0000000380518 percent.
That doesn't even mean anything to me. I don't think there is even a term for 100,000 years. Centumillenium? In any case, what I'm saying here is, if someone gonna get this project going, it will have to be someone with a lot of patience - in other words, someone female.
(Have we had any female saviors? And no need to sacrifice them. No. Maybe we should try it out, because, The White Goddess notwithstanding, I don't think we've ever had a female centric culture outside the immortal obsession for pussy. I'm not saying we should have a female run culture, because we all know they are even more vicious than men. I'm saying maybe we try out a less pastoral horses and bronze swords basis for civilization).
But wait a minute. There are cave paintings that span at least 50,000 years, with handprints five thousand years apart. You telling me we can't start a tradition that our ancestors kept going for half the project length?
Another problem: Religion. Look, it's not religion per se that is the problem. That's one of my beefs with that bonehead Richard Dawkins. It's not religion. It's the ideological abuse that's the problem. Religion is neither necessary nor sufficient for shitty behaviors of people against each other. If we can figure out some system of fidelity, some way that the message and the goal can avoid mission creep, we might stand a chance at coming up with a strong and robust, self-correcting philosophy, or a heuristic, or an aesthetic, that can last 100,000 years.
In that area? Um. I got nothing. Save the Barbarian Aesthetic. Regardless of whether you Believe or not, you can still hold things sacred. You don't need to believe in God. But you do need to get back to the Indo-European root of belief: leubh-, which is loving, caring, and desiring all at once. And coveting. And holding things sacred.
Stil another problem: Lifestyle changes. I suspect, in order to get everyone over the hump, some people will live less lavishly, others much , much more so, and probably, at the start a little Hobbesian persuasion will be in order. But if it means a free Harvard or Stanford or technical education via tablets to all of the world's youth, unlocking the potential of all those brains, I don't see how that can be a bad thing.
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ReplyDeleteDeserve? whether we deserve it or not will be decided entirely on whether we can accomplish it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not smart enough to develop the 100,000 year plan. Or the 10,000 year plan. Which makes me sad. But a 145 IQ only gets you so far; we'll need some smarter people than that, who are also charming leaders--they're fairly rare.
But a thousand year plan...our little sewing circle can come up with that.
We can also develop a mythology and Paladin's code for it. Oh sure, you have to wear a hair shirt, but the armor is beautiful, and the ladies want to get in your pants despite your vows of chastity (cue Monty Python's Holy Grail.)
I used to pick cyanescens at the beach by the quarter-pound(an advantage of living in rural, coastal California,) and they are far superior to cubensis. But I, respectfully, don't think that's the answer.
Let's worry about the long-term ecumenical scriptures later. What, specifically, is our 1,000 year plan?
edited for punctuation
But a thousand year plan...our little sewing circle can come up with that.
ReplyDeleterotflmbao...,
surely you understand that random coastal california youngsters tripping on shrooms without supervision and with only popular American culture as an initiatory content guide, is not the eucharistic mystery undergirding millenial civilizations that Rucker, Wasson, et al were on about DD?
The elite establishment's deep-state minders of the federal government in this country have managed to plan and administer an approximate 200 year empire that has lasted through the industrial revolution and is now globe spanning. By comparison - the membership of the sewing circle doesn't have a definite personal plan for the next decade.
The most awe-inspiring spectacle and revelation around which you can melt and reforge a human collective IS the entheogenic spectacle. To even fix your mouth to try and talk about "morality" - short of that communal direct experience - is a naive artifact of protestant "temperance" and forty years of prohibitionist propaganda.
Task number one: Acquire access to and mindshare among primary consumer influencers (PCI's) - that'd be children - tell me how you'd propose to proceed on that front?
ReplyDeleteTask number two: Establish and cultivate frameworks conducive to shared communities of interest among the children whose mindshare you've now tapped - please, tell me how you'd propose to proceed on that front?
Task number three: Shape those communities of interest into vocationally useful ($/food/goods generating) communities where cultures of competency can thrive - please, tell me what those vocationally useful communities of interest ought to be?
Task number four: Cultural reformation is mostly indistinguishable from cultural revolution and you know how that's always been received by the cultural mainstream - please, tell me how the sewing circle can innocently mask and mute the underlying agenda of its cultural reformation activities?
Well shit headmaster, you rap knuckles all day here and elsewhere (assume I linked to dozens of demostrative smackdowns across the internet, I figure it's unnecessary) across the blogosphere, and while I never was one to shy away from a good ass-whoopin', I'd sure like some edumacation to go with my regularly scheduled beatings.
DeleteI think I've plainly stated the framework for a solution, and you're the sore thumb sticking out of our little clique. I'm going to defer to you sensei; what's the plan, man?
I'm not rapping knuckles and the last thing in the world I want you to do is to defer or disengage.
DeleteEngage DD.
John has pointed in the direction of some specific - and I believe very important - matters which bear further careful consideration;
But wait a minute. There are cave paintings that span at least 50,000 years, with handprints five thousand years apart. You telling me we can't start a tradition that our ancestors kept going for half the project length?
If we can figure out some system of fidelity, some way that the message and the goal can avoid mission creep, we might stand a chance at coming up with a strong and robust, self-correcting philosophy, or a heuristic, or an aesthetic, that can last 100,000 years.
In that area? Um. I got nothing. Save the Barbarian Aesthetic. Regardless of whether you Believe or not, you can still hold things sacred. You don't need to believe in God. But you do need to get back to the Indo-European root of belief: leubh-, which is loving, caring, and desiring all at once. And coveting. And holding things sacred.
Both of you check your email, I've shared a pdf of the book to which I referred via youtube video at squeezing the hourglass. I don't know what if any file sharing capabilities microsoft is giving away nowadays, but it may be helpful for you to either turn on or disclose a gmail account to the sewing circle so that we can kick this can around a little more aggressively.
if it means a free Harvard or Stanford or technical education via tablets to all of the world's youth, unlocking the potential of all those brains, I don't see how that can be a bad thing.
This is the part I'm working on, and you'd be astonished at how much there's left to do just in order to make this an effective and successful jump away from the 19th century educational model.
Best believe those textbook publishers don't want to part with their IMMENSELY.PROFITABLE gig - and are a primary barrier at this juncture to wholesale and effective transition. Lots of schools have devices, no schools have coherent content/curricular/instructional programs on those devices - and there is a severe generational gap and divide among teachers who are 95%+ unprepared to make the transition to a technology-enabled instructional model.
I'm curious to know more about the message and medium that have gone into the formation of your notions expressed thus;
DeleteTo make a cohesive, cross-cultural value set take hold, it needs to be rooted in a great and powerful vision. With a moral framework in mind (i.e. we are colonizing space and building a stable biosphere and feeder system on Earth, social status is defined by a merit based system with these goals as the measuring stick,) you can justify lopping the heads off of loafers, liars and losers.
and thus;
We can also develop a mythology and Paladin's code for it. Oh sure, you have to wear a hair shirt, but the armor is beautiful, and the ladies want to get in your pants despite your vows of chastity (cue Monty Python's Holy Grail.)
What are some examples of the great and powerful vision?
Where did it come from, who put it forth, how is it currently being proliferated and maintained?
What competes with it for mindshare?
Is it winning or losing that popular cultural race?
I'd say that we should focus on a subset of children, specifically, functional neuroatypicals. Protect them from M0 and focus them on this project much like a monastic order. Theurgical esoteric practices using serotoninergic stimulators for shared consciousness and moral praxis. Externally, thaumaturgical praxis focused on disrupting M0 both for destroying it and recruiting into the order.
DeleteWhy you talking about drug-induced-kiddie-centric miracles man? It sounds great, but you are several centuries down the timeline or they're gonna electrocute your ass for being a weirdo. Do you have kids Dale? Jesus Christ man.
DeleteLet's be clear--the goal for the posse is to develop a text, not fulfill it's proscription. That would be nice, but let's eat this elephant one bite at a time please. Smart thinkers tend to be shitty at practical steps. Be logical on the 4th dimension please. We're not drugging children in our "monastery" for geniuses. Not this millennia.
As to relevant examples: The King James, maybe the DSM, maybe even a well-crafted meme on Reddit. If you're lucky, you get a kissing-cousin political party in 15 years, if not an analog with the "religious" movement. More likely in our era, a website a la The Archdruid, coupled with a targeted ad campaign aimed at the various elaborated and restricted code members who are willing to hear the message and take steps towards its reality. #OWS has done a great job, and morphed to suit their particular environment admirably. They should have done some TV and direct mail, as well as outside sales though. Plenty of smart/powerful people want to hear the message that their great^10 grandkids are going to be living across the cosmos if they sign up.
While I'm all for being rational, a religious component is 100% needed at this stage of our cultural development.
Also, I didn't get the email, hit me up at freebeatings@hushmail.com
In your email inbox now.
DeleteDale - the programmer's stone vernacular needs to be translated for ordinary civilian consumption. (just kidding)
As for drug-induced anything, I have no earthly idea what you boys are talking about. What I have in mind is implementation of an urban agricultural vocational thread focusing on the use of surplus sea containers a la pod ponics http://www.podponics.com/
What is cultivated in this infrastructure will be determined by local market requirements and demand. The knowledge, skill and ability to cultivate boutique herbs and mycological produce will be highly valuable, period.
My goal has little to do with preparation of a text, that's just mental masturbation. Hell, I've already gotten the deployment of hundreds of devices, content, and associated salaries funded pursuant to educational reform aims, for me, this is one helluva lot more than idle conversation.
Oh, I'm also disinclined toward monastic anything. I simply want to nurture the development of economically self-sustaining communities of vocational interest, i.e., communities of competence. What results therefrom should be very interesting in and of itself.