Climate Change

[Earl Grey]

https://earther.gizmodo.com/its-kids-vs-the-world-in-a-landmark-new-climate-lawsui-1838343565

[voidisyinyang]

2 hours ago, rideforever said:

 

Progress is useless, as every man who arrives here needs to learn how to wield his body emotions and grow.

It should be beautiful.

What is the benefit of arriving in an overpopulated world where machines do all the work and you watch the internet?
This is destructive because it removes possibilities for self-learning and gives you compensations, pills to make you happy.

Disaster and pain that is.

 

You mention many universal forces and their processes ... but humans don't simply follow them, we also intervene due to our semi-conscious power of thought.  In fact it is (imo) the semi-conscious thought that has obscured our sensitivities about the feelings of life ... and so we are easily lead into an anti-life type of world.  We don't feel the harm and unnaturalness of it ... as we are so excited and addicted to this thought.  

Humans have a lopsided development in their thought ...  this is what I have been taught.

We have evolved but in a bad way .. one-sidedly and incompletely.  This gives rise to our unstable societies.

 

Anyway after all these "big ideas" ...the rich and powerful have organised the taking of too much.

 

But perhaps you are right, perhaps we as a species helplessly respond to celestial forces rising and falling in slavery and suffering with little real control.

 

yes the original human culture from which we are all from for 90% of our modern biological history (and yet hardly anyone knows anything about them) the San Bushmen culture - they deliberately have their healing music use gibberish words. So now most people think the words of music are just as important as the music itself. Actually it is the other way around - music developed first. This is called "musilanguage." And some scientists think that the natural harmonics are preferred in bird songs and other animals - mosquitoes use a Perfect Fifth music harmonic for their mating call, for example. And then some scientists even realize this music harmonic principle is the secret ordering of reality (like Alain Connes and Louis de Broglie, etc.)

 

So thinking is limited but it is what we use in relation to right hand tool use - and most people rely on right-handed tool use. A lot of people very skilled with tools are NOT very skilled are articulating how to teach the use of those tools! So they are a kind of visionary craftsmen. But it was female chimpanzees that first learned how to hunt with spears so that they were not dependent on male chimps raping the females. The male chimps demand sex when they bring home the meat. So actually our right-hand technology dominance with left brain dominance as thinking - this derives from the females attempts to prevent rape and war by the males.

 

So the problem is that modern civilization based on technology and left brain dominance still does not address the CAUSE of the problem which is the male psychophysiology of primates. The original human culture was completely centered on ALL the males training in spiritual trance dance (tai chi) as sublimation and purification of the N/om energy of the Universe, that is inherently female. So the universe is female as the Emptiness but there is also an eternal yin-yang dynamic to the Emptiness - so it is a paradox of how our mind as individual egos has to merge back into the Emptiness, just as it does each night when we have deep dreamless sleep.

 

So we can say that the whole physical universe of 4D spacetime is a temporary illusion while only the 5th dimension that we inherently can NOT see is the true reality. This is difficult for us primates to accept since we left the forest as our main living area and in the forest the dominant perception is listening. Just as life came from the oceans and fish rely on a "lateral" full body listening perception. And this perception for electric fish and sharks, etc. - it easily goes into electromagnetic energy just as an electric eel and shock down a standing man!! So the qigong training is precisely the same as our biological ancestry in the fish of the oceans. And it is proven that even fish can feel sadness, say if their own leaves to go on vacation and leaves the fish in the fish bowl, alone. haha.

 

So with the Cambrian Explosion of complex life on Earth - hundreds of millions of years ago - the key factor was the development of the Eye. But the eye relies on "quantum diffraction gradients" to see - this is much the same as the back of a compact disc where you see the rainbow light due to the small diffraction gradients. Only our Eye then based on the inherent complementary opposites of reality - then has the "chirality" or handness - the asymmetry of light. So that left-handed amino acids of light are based on taking in the light as a crystal. So in fact quantum biology has proven that each of us has a "rainbow worm" inside of us - a true GHOST of rainbow coherent biophoton light.

 

So then as each of us will die and this spirit light that is coherent will leave our bodies. The question remains - from where does this light originate? It is not dependent on the EArth but while the light is in our bodies certainly the earth provides power to the light. But as we know from quantum physics now the power of the Universe is from Frequency not classical amplitude. So by increasing the frequency of the light in our bodies then the energy is focused more in our third eye and heart - and this is based on the natural resonance of the Earth, Moon and Sun. So the more we meditate then the more we resonate with the natural cycles, just as now with the Equinox then the energy resonance on Earth is much stronger from the Sun and Moon.

 

So Abrupt Global Warming is really about how modern human civilization has tried to deny the fact that the Moon governs life on Earth. We desperately want to rely on the Sun as the Solar calendar become dominant for monocultural farming using the plow as patriarchy. So the menstruation synchronization that is unique to humans as primates  - the secret of our pineal gland N/om energy from trance dancing - this got lost and instead now we want to fixate on the Solar radiation energy. So this created an imbalance on Earth since the Moon needs to be "fed" spiritual energy from the dominant life on Earth - as Gurdjieff emphasized. In other words to properly use the Sun's energy we FIRST have to properly build up our lunar (jing) energy.

 

So yes it is not likely that human modern primates will return to a right brain dominant music-based reality relying on intuition from the basic fact that we are FROM Mother Nature and we are dependent on Mother Nature as the Cosmic Mother energy of the Universe. Instead we will keep trying to "control" nature - as even the abrupt global warming activists are calling for increased GeoEngineering "experiments" to try to save our ecology on Earth. So there really is NO OTHER option except for humans to accept the fact that we are not in control and we never were in control. But we can still RESONATE with our Source or choose to LISTEN to the source of the light that we experience every day - with our eyes open or when we are dreaming.

 

 

[Xiao San]

All in all we need solutions that solve our current problems with the help of nature-tech symbiote ideas.

The solutions should focus on how we can become more compatible with nature and use it to our benefits instead of going against it.

[rideforever]

2 hours ago, voidisyinyang said:

original human culture

 

My understanding is that the universe, the ultimate aim of it, is to produce enlightened beings which it is yearning for instinctively ... yearning for self knowledge.  Therefore it cannot go back.  And a sage is not Brahman, but a new entity that is part individual part Brahman.  So it is not the same as going to sleep.  It is a microcosm and difficult to make.  In fact the universe is hunting instinctively like a tiger hunts instinctively ... it does not know what for, but it seeks itself ... through the individual centres ... which we are ... or which we can become.

 

Light and Vision are very interesting.

It is possible that what we call "the mind" is not just any mind.  It is a particular intelligence processing that evolved in human to process Vision.  And so it is the Mind of Vision.  It is the most advanced and most conscious structure in a human being.  In spirituality we use its intelligence but point it back inwardly to generate self-knowledge.  

The State of Consciousness might be directly facilitated by our evolution of Vision ... and the light we see that facilitates awakening.

The Light that we see is alive in some way.

Before Vision there was no possibility to awaken.

 

Humans do not sense themselves inwardly.

They live but do not know why they are like half awake during an operation, part animals but part awake.

It's not very good.  They are quite unhappy.

[voidisyinyang]

7 hours ago, rideforever said:

 

My understanding is that the universe, the ultimate aim of it, is to produce enlightened beings which it is yearning for instinctively ... yearning for self knowledge.  Therefore it cannot go back.  And a sage is not Brahman, but a new entity that is part individual part Brahman. 

So it is not the same as going to sleep.  It is a microcosm and difficult to make.  In fact the universe is hunting instinctively like a tiger hunts instinctively ... it does not know what for, but it seeks itself ... through the individual centres ... which we are ... or which we can become.

 

Light and Vision are very interesting.

It is possible that what we call "the mind" is not just any mind.  It is a particular intelligence processing that evolved in human to process Vision.  And so it is the Mind of Vision.  It is the most advanced and most conscious structure in a human being.  In spirituality we use its intelligence but point it back inwardly to generate self-knowledge.  

The State of Consciousness might be directly facilitated by our evolution of Vision ... and the light we see that facilitates awakening.

The Light that we see is alive in some way.

Before Vision there was no possibility to awaken.

 

Humans do not sense themselves inwardly.

They live but do not know why they are like half awake during an operation, part animals but part awake.

It's not very good.  They are quite unhappy.

thanks for the response. The etymology of Brahman means Bull just as God originates from the Indo-European root meaning as Bull. So the oldest spiritual training is the Eland Bull dance of the San Bushmen culture - by the females at first menstruation. The female transforms into a male bull because the male bull has the strongest N/om due to the most fat around the heart.

 

So with patriarchy - this female Bull connection was lost. At first you had Hathor and the "cow jumping over the Moon" in ancient Zoroastrian or west asia. So then the N/om is the Cosmic Mother energy - this was known as Apopis in Egypt - the root origin of Apocalypse in the West.

 

Quantum biology has proven that for example the sense of smell is "non-local" relying on the 5th dimension. So qigong masters can smell long distance - over the phone even! This is proven from quantum nonlocal reality - so there is a quantum frequency or phase resonance with our neurons. This explains how the same molecules can smell differently due to being left handed or right handed asymmetry. Or different molecules can smell the same due to being the same quantum frequency.

 

So this is called "proprioception" via ultrasound of the microtubules - Dr. Stuart Hameroff goes into this.

In other words ALL our senses arise from quantum nonlocal information that is stored in the 5th dimension - meaning we can access the future even and we can also empty out our past and we can restore new matter.

 

So this is the truth of ecology - for example it is proven that mushrooms communicate with trees via biophotons and plants rely on the non-local entanglement for photosynthesis! So most physicists are still in denial about the truth of quantum biology.

 

The original human culture required ALL males to do spiritual training - to reconnect with the N/om of the Universe as female energy. So this training got lost or just set aside into "secret societies" - yoga or qigong in India or China. Or shamanic training in other indigenous cultures, including Orthodox Pythagorean training.

 

So this training is very strict - way more strict than Westerners can realize. So yes we are now out of touch as instead we rely on right-hand dominant technology to make our lives more "convenient." But we are simply just psychologically PROJECTING our repressed lower emotions - and we project them as the oppressive "externalities" of technology. We are taught that "technology" is "neutral" and that indeed it can "save" us. But technology is not neutral as it is inherently tied to what Abraham SEidenberg exposed as the Ritual Origins of Geometry.

 

So Brahman is originated from the Ritual Origins of Geometry in the patriarchy. DNA science now proves that the Vedic culture did indeed "invade" India via chariot warriors and priests. So as Seidenberg detailed - the altar for the male sun energy became dominant so that the female lunar circular altar was supposed to have the same area as the square altar. This "centering" of the circle became the basis for centering the chariot wheels.

 

[gendao]

On 9/24/2019 at 7:11 AM, rideforever said:

And as for Christianity ... it is not logical to blame them in an era where they are barely present.  How can they be responsible for this destruction when they aren't here.

Go back to when they were powerful ... I am not expert but I heard that when Calvin was speaking in a city in Switzerland 80% of the population was in the cathedral.  What kind of a world can you have when 80% of the people are moving in one direction?
No this one that's for sure.

And as for all the "values" plumbed into your mind ... all these people explaining away cancer and autism and all that.

Uhhh...come again???

Quote

The most popular religion in the U.S. is Christianity, comprising the majority of the population (73.7% of adults in 2016).

Remember, Christian colonialism FORCIBLY replaced global aboriginalism.  And here are the degenerative effects of switching those lifestyles on just the human body, much less the whole planetary macrocosm...

Edited September 29, 2019 by gendao

[rideforever]

5 hours ago, gendao said:

 

 

If Christianity was still the dominant force the loving God with all your might and your neighbour as your self would be dominant.  Instead young children are taught that surgically removing their genitals is a fun choice and mental health is degenerating throughout society and pills are the 'answer'.  No we live in a fallen world.

The dominant current is slavery, consumer slavery so that a few people can become billionaires.

For that to happen anything with truth or goodness has to be attacked so that the public are weakened, then they can be exploited in 50 ways. 

That is why family and identity are systematically corrupted, because it weakens people; then they will not complain at being born into ill health and poverty.

 

People are unhappy and do complain; but those complaints are never pointed to those responsible.

Instead they are re-routed into attacking the things that made them strong, or into meaningless internet campaigns.
The billionaires are safe, hidden in the background.

It's an old and boring story.

 

As for the destruction of primitive traditions peoples and spirituality it is very sad, but at the same time it was just a matter of time, since 15,000 years ago changes have been happening.  Those people are not conscious they live in a dreamtime close to animal life.  There is power there and you can experience it in shamanism and other traditions but inevitably conscious life and intelligence will grow and then the trouble begins.

 

As for India, during the Mughal Empire the way of dealing with rebellious Indian people was to create a pile of Indian heads that were cut off their necks ... that's how things were during that invasion of India, so let's not think that the Western approach to India was worse ... it was worse only in some ways. 

I would be more worried about what is happening to India now, money has arrived and this will totally destroy all its spirituality ... (it will retreat to the mountains).

 

Edited September 29, 2019 by rideforever

[ralis]

As predicted and commented on by Void Arctic permafrost is melting at a rapid rate. 
 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/04/report-shows-stunning-and-dramatic-scenes-thawing-permafrost-siberia-leaves-millions

 

 

 

 

[voidisyinyang]

On 9/29/2019 at 2:35 AM, rideforever said:

As for India, during the Mughal Empire the way of dealing with rebellious Indian people was to create a pile of Indian heads that were cut off their necks ... that's how things were during that invasion of India,

Do you have any sources for your claim? I find a Professor stating the opposite:

Quote

I should say that there is a misconception arising out of Orientalist literature on Islam in India that the people of India converted in large numbers to Islam as a result of coercion: "Islam is spread by the sword." This is an incorrect impression. The spread of Islam in the subcontinent is the work of the Sufis, who preached by their example. By and large, they were not proselytizers. They were people who went and lived in the community, Hindu and Muslim, and served it. They lived by service and by setting an example of treating people equally without discrimination. Since India was divided so rigidly by caste, they appealed particularly to the untouchables,  the lowest Hindu caste. The Sufis offered social mobility, as well as dignity and equality to the poor. You find in the subcontinent a great deal of Sufi worship. Nearly every part of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh has a shrine. My village had one. Typically members of both communities, Hindus and Muslims, will celebrate the birth or the death anniversary of that particular saint whose shrine it is.

https://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/hampshire/mah007.html#ser5

Eqbal Ahmad as a professor at Hampshire College.

 

[rideforever]

2 hours ago, voidisyinyang said:

Do you have any sources for your claim? I find a Professor stating the opposite:

 

A Professor !  Well that's different isn't it !!!

 

I believe (not certain) it was in the video attached below, you will have to watch it to find out where it is.

If you look at Ahmad's life you will see that he was a defender of Muslim culture in India Pakistan Palestine and elsewhere, someone who would explain away the nasty things about Muslims .. when he was very young his family was pushed out of India first by the British then by the Hindus and settled in the US .. or course later on he comes back to fight back for the Muslims.

He was also a man who took up a Sufi-like lifestyle and appearance and read Sufi poetry.

All in all he is as partisan and stupid as anyone can be.

Not that he is a bad person, just that people are so stupid they are always saying "my people are good, yours are bad".

And when someone is down on the floor, be it a football team, a religion, an empire, a business or whatever ... they you see all sorts of creeps coming out of the woodwork to give whoever is on the floor a kick in the back and then run back into their mousehole.

That's how people are.

Truth be told, people are all the same, dumb and violent.

 

 

[ralis]

43 minutes ago, rideforever said:

 

A Professor !  Well that's different isn't it !!!

 

I believe (not certain) it was in the video attached below, you will have to watch it to find out where it is.

If you look at Ahmad's life you will see that he was a defender of Muslim culture in India Pakistan Palestine and elsewhere, someone who would explain away the nasty things about Muslims .. when he was very young his family was pushed out of India first by the British then by the Hindus and settled in the US .. or course later on he comes back to fight back for the Muslims.

He was also a man who took up a Sufi-like lifestyle and appearance and read Sufi poetry.

All in all he is as partisan and stupid as anyone can be.

Not that he is a bad person, just that people are so stupid they are always saying "my people are good, yours are bad".

And when someone is down on the floor, be it a football team, a religion, an empire, a business or whatever ... they you see all sorts of creeps coming out of the woodwork to give whoever is on the floor a kick in the back and then run back into their mousehole.

That's how people are.

Truth be told, people are all the same, dumb and violent.

 

 

Your post is off topic and derailing this thread. Please stay on topic or take it elsewhere!

Edited October 5, 2019 by ralis

[Earl Grey]

9 hours ago, ralis said:

Your post is off topic and derailing this thread. Please stay on topic or take it elsewhere!

 

The three people above tend to derail often but thankfully in this case Drew is very on topic and has significant contributions as climate change relates to his interest and research.

[voidisyinyang]

Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered in Siberia: 'No One Has Ever Recorded Anything like This Before'

Wow even corporate-state CIA rag Newsweek is in on the Progressive Liberal Conspiracy Lie of Global Warming!

https://www.newsweek.com/methane-boiling-sea-discovered-siberia-1463766

Actually the article doesn't mention what the ESAS methane bomb "means" for abrupt global warming overall - as in a spiking of global warming temps - about doubling. So this could be happening within - who knows? A year or two.

 

 

[Walker]

I have long found George Monbiot's writings insightful. What do you all think of the final four paragraphs? 

 

Quote

Let’s stop calling this the Sixth Great Extinction. Let’s start calling it what it is: the “first great extermination”. A recent essay by the environmental historian Justin McBrien argues that describing the current eradication of living systems (including human societies) as an extinction event makes this catastrophe sound like a passive accident.

 

While we are all participants in the first great extermination, our responsibility is not evenly shared. The impacts of most of the world’s people are minimal. Even middle-class people in the rich world, whose effects are significant, are guided by a system of thought and action that is shaped in large part by corporations.

 

The Guardian’s polluters series reports that just 20 fossil fuel companies, some owned by states, some by shareholders, have produced 35% of the carbon dioxide and methane released by human activities since 1965. This was the year in which the president of the American Petroleum Institute told his members that the carbon dioxide they produced could cause “marked changes in climate” by the year 2000. They knew what they were doing.

 

Even as their own scientists warned that the continued extraction of fossil fuels could cause “catastrophic” consequences, the oil companies pumped billions of dollars into thwarting government action. They funded thinktanks and paid retired scientists and fake grassroots organisations to pour doubt and scorn on climate science. They sponsored politicians, particularly in the US Congress, to block international attempts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. They invested heavily in greenwashing their public image.

 

These efforts continue today, with advertisements by Shell and Exxon that create the misleading impression that they’re switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy. In reality, Shell’s annual report reveals that it invested $25bn in oil and gas last year. But it provides no figure for its much-trumpeted investments in low-carbon technologies. Nor was the company able to do so when I challenged it.

 

A paper published in Nature shows that we have little chance of preventing more than 1.5C of global heating unless existing fossil fuel infrastructure is retired. Instead the industry intends to accelerate production, spending nearly $5tn in the next 10 years on developing new reserves. It is committed to ecocide.

 

But the biggest and most successful lie it tells is this: that the first great extermination is a matter of consumer choice. In response to the Guardian’s questions, some of the oil companies argued that they are not responsible for our decisions to use their products. But we are embedded in a system of their creation – a political, economic and physical infrastructure that creates an illusion of choice while, in reality, closing it down.

 

We are guided by an ideology so familiar and pervasive that we do not even recognise it as an ideology. It is called consumerism. It has been crafted with the help of skilful advertisers and marketers, by corporate celebrity culture, and by a media that casts us as the recipients of goods and services rather than the creators of political reality. It is locked in by transport, town planning and energy systems that make good choices all but impossible. It spreads like a stain through political systems, which have been systematically captured by lobbying and campaign finance, until political leaders cease to represent us, and work instead for the pollutocrats who fund them.

 

In such a system, individual choices are lost in the noise. Attempts to organise boycotts are notoriously difficult, and tend to work only when there is a narrow and immediate aim. The ideology of consumerism is highly effective at shifting blame: witness the current ranting in the billionaire press about the alleged hypocrisy of environmental activists. Everywhere I see rich westerners blaming planetary destruction on the birth rates of much poorer people, or on “the Chinese”. This individuation of responsibility, intrinsic to consumerism, blinds us to the real drivers of destruction.

 

The power of consumerism is that it renders us powerless. It traps us within a narrow circle of decision-making, in which we mistake insignificant choices between different varieties of destruction for effective change. It is, we must admit, a brilliant con.

 

It’s the system we need to change, rather than the products of the system. It is as citizens that we must act, rather than as consumers. But how? Part of the answer is provided in a short book published by one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion, Roger Hallam, called Common Sense for the 21st Century. I don’t agree with everything it says, but the rigour and sweep of its analysis will, I think, ensure that it becomes a classic of political theory.

 

It begins with the premise that gradualist campaigns making small demands cannot prevent the gathering catastrophes of climate and ecological breakdown. Only mass political disruption, out of which can be built new and more responsive democratic structures, can deliver the necessary transformation.

 

By studying successful mobilisations, such as the Children’s March in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 (which played a critical role in ending racial segregation in the US), the Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig in 1989 (which snowballed until they helped bring down the East German regime), and the Jana Andolan movement in Nepal in 2006 (which brought down the absolute power of the monarchy and helped end the armed insurgency), Hallam has developed a formula for effective “dilemma actions”. A dilemma action is one that puts the authorities in an awkward position. Either the police allow civil disobedience to continue, thereby encouraging more people to join, or they attack the protesters, creating a powerful “symbolism of fearless sacrifice”, thereby encouraging more people to join. If you get it right, the authorities can’t win.

 

Among the crucial common elements, he found, are assembling thousands of people in the centre of the capital city, maintaining a strictly nonviolent discipline, focusing on the government and continuing for days or weeks at a time. Radical change, his research reveals, “is primarily a numbers game. Ten thousand people breaking the law has historically had more impact than small-scale, high-risk activism.” The key challenge is to organise actions that encourage as many people as possible to join. This means they should be openly planned, inclusive, entertaining, peaceful and actively respectful. You can join such an action today, convened by Extinction Rebellion in central London.

 

Hallam’s research suggests that this approach offers at least a possibility of breaking the infrastructure of lies the fossil fuel companies have created, and developing a politics matched to the scale of the challenges we face. It is difficult and uncertain of success. But, he points out, the chances that politics as usual will meet our massive predicament with effective action are zero. Mass dilemma actions could be our last, best chance of preventing the great extermination.

 

• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

 

 

[Walker]

 

2:1000 is a mind boggling ratio. 

[Walker]

I did not plan on sharing the following with anybody at first, and when the idea came to mind, my first thought was something along the lines of, "don't go patting yourself on the back in public." But then it crossed my mind last night that maybe we need to share stories like this more often (and I would be very interested in hearing others' stories and reactions), so here goes:

 

About three weeks ago when I was in China for work an old friend there sent me an email and asked me to give her a call. We caught for awhile up having not spoken in a year, and after she told me she is now the manager of a traditional medicine spa of sorts in a luxury hotel surrounded by old growth forest in the foothills of the Himalayas, she asked if I would be willing to come teach Daoist abdominal acupressure (道家臟腑點穴) and myofascial release, both of which I've studied for some time and which I've done on her in Shanghai. This would be a job, with the air travel covered, free room and board in the hotel while I was there, and payment for my teaching. Quite a nice offer, especially since the mountains in Yunnan are utterly spectacular and this friend is somebody I trust and respect. She also wanted me to lead them on some forest bathing activities. Sounded like a great way to earn a few yuan!

 

I told her I needed some time to think about it, and finally last week I sent her an email turning down the job. I gave two reasons. The first is that I am not sure that the possible benefits of me teaching these techniques in short seminars justifies the large amount of jet fuel I'd have to burn to make it out to Yunnan, which would likely require two flights in each direction. The second reason sealed the deal. I am tired of working in China, where money comes easily to somebody with my skill set but where I have to live according to a totalitarian government's script or else risk losing my visa or--if I were to truly speak my mind--going to jail. The first reason alone might not have stopped me, as I could make the argument that teaching people how to do a form of "natural healing" justifies increasing my carbon footprint. But I feel that authoritarianism and the environmental crisis are two intimately linked problems, and we have no hopes of progress in the latter area if the world continues to be run by groups like the CCP, who jail, torture, and murder vast numbers of people who simply want what most of us on this website want (and, if we live in freer countries, already have and possibly take for granted). Thus, I walked away from the money. I plan to tie off all of my loose ends in China (which includes lucrative, easy interpretation work as well as a years long teacher-student relationship with a Daoist master) by the end of 2019 and close that chapter in my life. I do not plan to return to the PRC unless I can freely express myself and take part in society there. 

 

I do not think I am special or deserving of plaudits for my choice. I do not want congratulations at all, especially as my decision feels more like a kind of failure than a success. I share this because I wonder who else has faced similar dilemmas or made similar choices (perhaps choices with far weightier consequences--heck there might people who've walked away from Exxon or Monsanto jobs on this forum, never know...), or if anybody is currently facing similar dilemmas. We should talk about them; this is what community is for. While it is absolutely true that the lion's share of the responsibility for many of the problems in this world lies with a small-ish group of people who clutch vast amounts of wealth and influence in their hands, I do not think that absolves us of the responsibility to make small changes. For instance, this mindset one of the primary reasons I have not been a meat eater for ten years, have never owned a motor vehicle, did not turn on my AC once all summer, and try to use electronic devices till they're more or less dead (although, to be certain, I have burned huge amounts of carbon with my jet set ways in that time).

[Earl Grey]

1 hour ago, Walker said:

I did not plan on sharing the following with anybody at first, and when the idea came to mind, my first thought was something along the lines of, "don't go patting yourself on the back in public." But then it crossed my mind last night that maybe we need to share stories like this more often (and I would be very interested in hearing others' stories and reactions), so here goes:

 

About three weeks ago when I was in China for work an old friend there sent me an email and asked me to give her a call. We caught for awhile up having not spoken in a year, and after she told me she is now the manager of a traditional medicine spa of sorts in a luxury hotel surrounded by old growth forest in the foothills of the Himalayas, she asked if I would be willing to come teach Daoist abdominal acupressure (道家臟腑點穴) and myofascial release, both of which I've studied for some time and which I've done on her in Shanghai. This would be a job, with the air travel covered, free room and board in the hotel while I was there, and payment for my teaching. Quite a nice offer, especially since the mountains in Yunnan are utterly spectacular and this friend is somebody I trust and respect. She also wanted me to lead them on some forest bathing activities. Sounded like a great way to earn a few yuan!

 

I told her I needed some time to think about it, and finally last week I sent her an email turning down the job. I gave two reasons. The first is that I am not sure that the possible benefits of me teaching these techniques in short seminars justifies the large amount of jet fuel I'd have to burn to make it out to Yunnan, which would likely require two flights in each direction. The second reason sealed the deal. I am tired of working in China, where money comes easily to somebody with my skill set but where I have to live according to a totalitarian government's script or else risk losing my visa or--if I were to truly speak my mind--going to jail. The first reason alone might not have stopped me, as I could make the argument that teaching people how to do a form of "natural healing" justifies increasing my carbon footprint. But I feel that authoritarianism and the environmental crisis are two intimately linked problems, and we have no hopes of progress in the latter area if the world continues to be run by groups like the CCP, who jail, torture, and murder vast numbers of people who simply want what most of us on this website want (and, if we live in freer countries, already have and possibly take for granted). Thus, I walked away from the money. I plan to tie off all of my loose ends in China (which includes lucrative, easy interpretation work as well as a years long teacher-student relationship with a Daoist master) by the end of 2019 and close that chapter in my life. I do not plan to return to the PRC unless I can freely express myself and take part in society there. 

 

I do not think I am special or deserving of plaudits for my choice. I do not want congratulations at all, especially as my decision feels more like a kind of failure than a success. I share this because I wonder who else has faced similar dilemmas or made similar choices (perhaps choices with far weightier consequences--heck there might people who've walked away from Exxon or Monsanto jobs on this forum, never know...), or if anybody is currently facing similar dilemmas. We should talk about them; this is what community is for. While it is absolutely true that the lion's share of the responsibility for many of the problems in this world lies with a small-ish group of people who clutch vast amounts of wealth and influence in their hands, I do not think that absolves us of the responsibility to make small changes. For instance, this mindset one of the primary reasons I have not been a meat eater for ten years, have never owned a motor vehicle, did not turn on my AC once all summer, and try to use electronic devices till they're more or less dead (although, to be certain, I have burned huge amounts of carbon with my jet set ways in that time).

What is fantastic is that you spoke to the spirit of the OP rather than the debate this thread devolved into!

[gendao]

12 hours ago, Walker said:

I do not think I am special or deserving of plaudits for my choice. I do not want congratulations at all, especially as my decision feels more like a kind of failure than a success. I share this because I wonder who else has faced similar dilemmas or made similar choices (perhaps choices with far weightier consequences--heck there might people who've walked away from Exxon or Monsanto jobs on this forum, never know...), or if anybody is currently facing similar dilemmas. We should talk about them; this is what community is for. While it is absolutely true that the lion's share of the responsibility for many of the problems in this world lies with a small-ish group of people who clutch vast amounts of wealth and influence in their hands, I do not think that absolves us of the responsibility to make small changes. For instance, this mindset one of the primary reasons I have not been a meat eater for ten years, have never owned a motor vehicle, did not turn on my AC once all summer, and try to use electronic devices till they're more or less dead (although, to be certain, I have burned huge amounts of carbon with my jet set ways in that time).

Well, when the entire culture is at fault...then it falls to each individual to consciously choose not to follow that default.  An aboriginal doesn't have to do this, since their lifestyles are wholly sustainable and healthy to themselves and the environment to begin with.  So everyone in their tribe can simply follow along, and all is well.

 

But in the BROKE colonialist matrix...yes, almost everything must be slowly unlearned by WOKE contrarians.  And this goes down to the finest details of your lives, like sitting down to take a sh*t into 3-5 gallons of potable freshwater...vs squatting over a dry, vermicomposting pile on-site.  Choosing one of the other is no different than Rosa Parks simply refusing to get up!  Because every tiny detail then gets multiplied tens of millions of times daily by our huge populations...and bucking the system in even the slightest will be met with resistance even in your own backyard!

 

That said, this technological weaning process is a long, slowww one...and quitting cold turkey would be incredibly difficult.  So, what if you took an electric high-speed rail there, instead of plane?  Obviously still lays down a huge footprint, but would at least be fairly better than flying?

 

Edited October 13, 2019 by gendao

[Walker]

4 minutes ago, gendao said:

That said, this technological weaning process is a long, slowww one...and quitting cold turkey would be incredibly difficult.  So, what if you took an electric high-speed rail there, instead of plane?  Obviously still lays down a huge footprint, but would at least be fairly better than flying?

 

I would still have to fly to the PRC, as sea travel is not at all practical for me. While there, I would have to--as always--refrain from offering my opinions about: Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, Falun Gong, the Nine-Dash Line, persecution of human rights lawyers, persecution of feminist activists, persecution of religious people, and indeed persecution of environmental activists (which I mentioned here). Thus my decision. 

[Walker]

1 hour ago, gendao said:

Well, when the entire culture is at fault...then it falls to each individual to consciously choose not to follow that default.  An aboriginal doesn't have to do this, since their lifestyles are wholly sustainable and healthy to themselves and the environment to begin with.  So everyone in their tribe can simply follow along, and all is well.

 

There is much that we can and should learn from so-called "aboriginal" peoples, without idealizing them and forgetting that ancient lifestyles were not perfect and certainly do not hold all of the answers to the future. After all it was ancient peoples who:

• Hunted countless animals to extinction
• Gave birth to modern people

 

1 hour ago, gendao said:

But in the BROKE colonialist matrix...yes, almost everything must be slowly unlearned by WOKE contrarians.  And this goes down to the finest details of your lives, like sitting down to take a sh*t into 3-5 gallons of potable freshwater...vs squatting over a dry, vermicomposting pile on-site.  Choosing one of the other is no different than Rosa Parks simply refusing to get up!  Because every tiny detail then gets multiplied tens of millions of times daily by our huge populations...and bucking the system will be met with resistance even in your own backyard!

 

This is a very general prescription. Why don't you share with us some of the changes you have made and the experiences/challenges/rewards/outcomes/surprises/etc involved in your process? For instance, what do you do with your poop? 

[gendao]

^^  Oh, I thought you were still in China...NVM!

On 10/13/2019 at 3:31 AM, Walker said:

There is much that we can and should learn from so-called "aboriginal" peoples, without idealizing them and forgetting that ancient lifestyles were not perfect and certainly do not hold all of the answers to the future. After all it was ancient peoples who:

• Hunted countless animals to extinction
• Gave birth to modern people

This is a very general prescription. Why don't you share with us some of the changes you have made and the experiences/challenges/rewards/outcomes/surprises/etc involved in your process? For instance, what do you do with your poop? 

Well, there's only a few cases where aborigines directly hunted animals into extinction - and that was generally out on small, remote islands.

The huge Younger Dryas megafauna extinction 12,900-11,800 years ago was caused by a sudden cold snap. 

Now, some scientists have speculated that THAT Heinrich Event might have been exacerbated by aboriginal hunters killing off enough megafauna to reduce their digestive methane emissions?

 

But, other hypotheses include meteorite or Taurid comet impact, or some combination of causes...

Quote

The Younger Dryas (YD) was a sudden period of rapid cooling inferred from oxygen isotopic ratios (18O/16O) in the Greenland Ice Core (GISP2) beginning 12,834 ± 20 years ago and lasting approximately 1,300 years . It followed a 5,000 year period of global warming after the last glacial period. It is widely accepted that the YD was caused by the shutdown of the North Atlantic current that circulates warm tropical waters northward. This is proposed to be due to the sudden influx of fresh water from the deglaciation of North America. In the 1990s William Topping discovered that the Gainey Clovis site in Michigan, dating to the onset of the YD, contained copious amounts of iron spherules and particles consistent with an impact event. This evidence has subsequently been extended to scores of additional Clovis age sites where a layer of magnetic particles and microspherules, rich in platinum group elements (PGE), and containing nanodiamonds and other high-temperature carbon materials is found often covered by an organic-rich back mat that forms a demarcation line above which no megafauna fossils exist. Simultaneous evidence of major biomass burning is seen in 152 lakes, sediments, marine and ice cores over a wide geographical area. These data provide direct evidence of a comet or meteorite impact event that is referred to as the Younger Dryas Impact.

This jury is still out though, and no one knows for sure, yet...

Quote

Extinctions do not need a single cause. They can have many, direct and indirect. Direct causes that reduce populations by destroying many individuals might indeed include over-hunting - or in the case of an impact, a big enough one, removing populations on a regional to continental or even global scale - whilst indirect causes are responses to environmental change leading to stress in population, perhaps due to the poor availability of grazing leading to increased vulnerability to disease or reduced reproductive rates. So in this case, as yet poorly-understood ecological changes were followed, or were then accompanied by, the Clovis hunters; a possible but disputed extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago may have been one of the factors leading to a significant climatic cooling yet the megafauna hung on until after the end of the Younger Dryas when conditions once again warmed up. Within a few centuries, the North American megafauna were then gone for good.

Although, there is some tantalizing archaeological evidence that those who built many of the ancient stone megalithic observatories after the Younger Dryas extinction attributed it to Earth passing through (Taurid's) comet tail.

Quote

Ancient Carvings in Turkey Show a Comet Swarm Hitting Earth Right Around The Time Civilisation Changed Forever
Researchers have translated famous ancient symbols in a temple in Turkey, and they tell the story of a devastating comet impact more than 13,000 years ago. Cross-checking the event with computer simulations of the Solar System around that time, researchers suggested that the carvings could describe a comet impact that occurred around 10,950 BCE - about the same time a mini ice age started that changed civilisation forever. 
This mini ice age, known as the Younger Dryas, lasted around 1,000 years, and it's considered a crucial period for humanity because it was around that time agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations arose - potentially in response to the new colder climates. The period has also been linked to the extinction of the woolly mammoth.
The team from the University of Edinburgh in the UK say these carvings, found in what's believed to be the world's oldest known temple, Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey, show further evidence that a comet triggered the Younger Dryas.  "I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent virtually seal the case in favour of [a Younger Dryas comet impact]," lead researcher Martin Sweatman told Sarah Knapton from The Telegraph.
The translation of the symbols also suggests that Gobekli Tepe wasn't just another temple, as long assumed - it might have also been an ancient observatory. 
"It appears Gobekli Tepe was, among other things, an observatory for monitoring the night sky," Sweatman told the Press Association. 
"One of its pillars seems to have served as a memorial to this devastating event – probably the worst day in history since the end of the Ice Age." 
The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. 
The carvings were found on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone (pictured below) and show different animals in specific positions around the stone.

The symbols had long puzzled scientists, but Sweatman and his team of engineers discovered that they actually corresponded to astronomical constellations, and showed a swarm of comet fragments hitting the Earth.

An image of a headless man on the stone is also thought to symbolise human disaster and extensive loss of life following the impact. 

The carvings show signs of being cared for by the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, which indicates that the event they describe might have had long-lasting impacts on civilisation.

To try to figure out whether that comet strike actually happened or not, the researchers used computer models to match the patterns of the stars detailed on the Vulture Stone to a specific date - and they found evidence that the event in question would have occurred about 10,950 BCE, give or take 250 years.
The dating of these carvings also matches an ice core taken from Greenland, which pinpoints the Younger Dryas period as beginning around 10,890 BCE.

Were these ancient megaliths durably built to last millenia as memorial observatories to keep track of the Taurid comet tail and other existential, astronomical threats?

Quote

The Younger Dryas was a pivotal moment in human civilization. Previously, humans were largely nomadic hunters that harvested wild grains without establishing permanent locations. The onset of the global cooling led groups of people to begin cultivating crops to endure a harder climate. This gave rise to farming and livestock breeding that we still employ today.

Now as far as proper waste management, for example...let's just say that babies' full diapers can be dumped into sheets of newspaper/junk mail ads and folded and rolled up into "pooritos."  These packets can then be left to compost outside in suitable areas away from walkways, crops, or bodies of water.  This helps to contain the odor and pathogens and doesn't attract flies (which would actually help decompose it, but may attract unwanted complaints).   And as the waste paper wrapper slowly biodegrades, its stinky payload filling also does as well with it...  Of course this may also be scaled up for adult poop...but then you're really testing the limits of civil disobedience (unless you have your own land).   Also, I would only do any of this if you are eating organically and not on any pharmaceutical meds...otherwise you will just be contaminating your locale with them, as well!
 

But speaking of poop, I also got my local complex to switch to using biodegradable plastic bags to pick up dog poop, rather than the nonbiodegradable ones.  Again, this may seem trivial, but when you consider how the US has 90 million pet dogs that all poop daily...if you individually wrap each dump in plastic - you are quickly filling the planet with billions of plastic time capsules full of dogsh*t that then take eons to break down!  Which is a prime case of how colonialist cultural squeamishness can have VERY SEVERE ecological consequences!

 

Anyways, decolonizing lifestyle changes is certainly a great topic that I would love to dive more into!

 

Also, I would love to hear more about your Daoist abdominal acupressure (道家臟腑點穴) and myofascial release!  Especially the former...as myofascial release is basically just slow strokes allowing the muscle to release itself, no?

Edited October 14, 2019 by gendao

[sean]

 

[d4rr3n]

All the planets in the solar system are experiencing planetary warming, meditate on that!

 

When you have finished meditating on that you can meditate on the tropical rain forest frozen under the ice of Greenland!

 

There are five types of war, psychological warfare is one of them...your country is at war, just you haven't noticed it yet because the battlefield looks different!

[ralis]

26 minutes ago, d4rr3n said:

All the planets in the solar system are experiencing planetary warming, meditate on that!

 

When you have finished meditating on that you can meditate on the tropical rain forest frozen under the ice of Greenland!

 

There are five types of war, psychological warfare is one of them...your country is at war, just you haven't noticed it yet because the battlefield looks different!

Are you denying human activity as the primary cause of AGW?

[sean]