Marketing and Magic

[Apotheose]

This topic isn’t a specific question to you but, rather, a broad discussion.

 

I’d like to know your insights regarding the (possible) connections between Marketing and Magic — in the broad sense: including every possible concept and method of Marketing and of Magic. And also its implications on free will and ethics.

 

I often notice that marketers implicitly or explicitly choose The Magician (Tarot card) archetype.

 

In addition, I often identify marketing techniques that focus on the human desire of transforming things into another things — “like magic”. “Transform knowledge into power”; “transform your speech into money”… “like magic”.

 

Not to mention all the advertising for unhealthy products such as alcohol and tobacco that, being aware of the impossibility of convincing people of its benefits (that don’t exist), uses another form of persuasion — that of triggering the desire of being socially accepted, adored by the other sex, popular, attractive, charming etc.

 

This discussion may also include the topic of Memetics and the study of human Desire in general.

 

Feel free to add, comment on and report anything related to it that you reckon or that you’ve seen.

 

So, in your opinion, what is the correlation of Marketing and Magic?

[BigSkyDiamond]

what comes to mind that they have in common is deception and illusion.

magic and marketing are about illusions.

 

Edited Thursday at 09:45 PM by BigSkyDiamond

[Nungali]

1 hour ago, Apotheose said:

This topic isn’t a specific question to you but, rather, a broad discussion.

I’d like to know your insights regarding the (possible) connections between Marketing and Magic — in the broad sense: including every possible concept and method of Marketing and of Magic. And also its implications on free will and ethics.

 

Magic, as in 'stage magic'   is about convincing your audience that they have observed what you want them to observe . So I would say it is very much like marketing . 

 

1 hour ago, Apotheose said:

 

I often notice that marketers implicitly or explicitly choose The Magician (Tarot card) archetype.

 

?   What do you mean by that ?   They use a Tarot card for advertising  and marketing , specifically the Magician card  ?   I have never seen that , can you provide examples  ?  

 

1 hour ago, Apotheose said:

 

In addition, I often identify marketing techniques that focus on the human desire of transforming things into another things — “like magic”. “Transform knowledge into power”; “transform your speech into money”… “like magic”.

 

 

With a vizover of swoosh and sparkles ... your laundry will be whiter than ever    

 

People want the easy path  .... they see a stage magician wave a wand and  the desired things simply appears without work or effort ; hence the age old desire  that leads people to magic and away from Magick , which is something else entirely . This dynamic is VERY similar to the dynamic between eastern practices and siddhis .

 

1 hour ago, Apotheose said:

 

Not to mention all the advertising for unhealthy products such as alcohol and tobacco that, being aware of the impossibility of convincing people of its benefits (that don’t exist), uses another form of persuasion — that of triggering the desire of being socially accepted, adored by the other sex, popular, attractive, charming etc.

 

That may well be the form of advertising that the industry uses , but that does not mean those drugs  (tobacco and alcohol )  don't have benefit  - all drugs have both benefits  and depending on usage  can be unhealthy .  It isn't that alcohol  makes one  socially  accepted and sexy  but it does trigger the socio-sexual circuit  ( its initial effect , from a limited intake . Alcohol is interesting in Exo-psychology in that the one drug triggers two of the 8 circuits .... if you have more than a couple or few drinks, it then triggers the anal territorial circuit . 

But greedy evil money  wanters are not going to worry about those details . 

 

1 hour ago, Apotheose said:

 

This discussion may also include the topic of Memetics and the study of human Desire in general.

 

Feel free to add, comment on and report anything related to it that you reckon or that you’ve seen.

 

 

??? Why do I have  a desire for coca-cola just after I come out the supermarket .... I then ignore it and it goes away .   I think  msg (or whatever it is in some food )   does that too . If I go to one shopping center when in the city and have   'sushi'  ... nice .  But if I have it from the one at the south end , seems okay then 15 minutes later I am wanting some drink to 'wash the after taste ' out my mouth . I eventually gave up and now wait until I get home and make my own .  Then I of course, no strange sensations arise ... if anything I feel like then drinking some straight green tea .

 

The other thing I want to 'report' is the ever increasing stupidity of  car commercials  ...... get a Kia because you can now talk to it and it can save you in the near future when you get caught in zombie apocalypse    WTF ? 

 

Beware , extreme stupidity enclosed ; 

 

Spoiler

 

 

1 hour ago, Apotheose said:

 

So, in your opinion, what is the correlation of Marketing and Magic?

 

Understanding the way human psychology works and using that to take money off them and put it in your own pocket . 

[Apotheose]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

?   What do you mean by that ?   They use a Tarot card for advertising  and marketing , specifically the Magician card  ?   I have never seen that , can you provide examples 

I remember seeing advertisements where the marketer (who operates in the digital field — social media etc.) would appear in the center of an image, akin to a card, with the title “The Magician” right above his head.

[Nungali]

That reminds me of an 'event'   years back : 

 

I used to be a member of 'Tarot Forum ' .   There was a LOT of commercialism and marketing around that .  Some people  there believed all sorts of silly stuff , and , of course I was unpopular with some there  for pointing it out . 

 

Then they got 'ammunition against me '   ; two of the big names in the business  ( and I do mean business ! )  made this announcement that  they had made a prediction from a reading  and could PROVE it would be true .   I was  " go on then " .   They were not on the forum but were marketing through social media  and similar , their  claims were  cited by members on the forum  .  

 

It was a cheap trick .... they lied . They set up something previously   and then concocted  a reading and dated that and then confirmed it with this supposed 'later' event .   They got busted for it  ( not by me, by a few others ) and it came out  and I said  " Told ya they was lying ! "

 

All sorts of stuff flew out the Pandora's box ;   believing members accused me of saying all this stuff about them that was slanderous ( which means , basically , untrue - I never said anything about them that was not true ) .  I pointed out that what these members were saying I never said and actually , if anything THEY said it about those people , as it never came from me ... they made it up . 

 

Then these professional  Tarot deck makers (marketers )   excused it all by saying it was a marketing ploy ... they had a new deck coming out and used this  ' prank' to create  interest  in it  . People were 'Ohhh , we see ... good one !  Yay there is new deck we can buy from these 'Tarot experts' ! "

 

Eh ?   They seemed to miss the whole point that the 'truth' of Tarot being able to predict what was to happen flopped   , and they finally got this example of proof  ... but it was actually lies and lies designed to boost the sales of their new product . 

 

Just after that the site announced immanent closure  ... it had been around for years . No explanation, no taking up offers  of  selling it  or anything offered by the desperate members  that  were trying to keep it open - sorry , we cant explain,   its closing !   Right on the tail of that site    allowing publication of  slander to them   and attributing it to someone who could prove they never said such a thing . 

 

Curious coincidence ! 

 

So there we had a case of 'magical marketers' using Tarot ( and the position of a magician  .. in both meanings ; claiming divination accuracy and using  using cheap illusory  tricks  )  to sell to sell more tarot . 

 

I tried to look up how many decks are on the market  - impossible to tell , at least many thousand  -  one study suggested the tarot and Oracle industry is predicted to become a $93 million market by 2027

 

That's 'marketing magic'  for ya !  

 

[Surya]

I do have some superficial knowledge of marketing, markets and its history, so would like to participate. But before I do so, I wonder if you could provide me with the definition of magic you are useing in this context 🙏

[Apotheose]

13 minutes ago, Surya said:

I do have some superficial knowledge of marketing, markets and its history, so would like to participate. But before I do so, I wonder if you could provide me with the definition of magic you are useing in this context 🙏

 

For the benefit of the discussion, I prefer not to give any context or meaning for “Magic”, exactly to allow any personal comprehension of it.

 

Feel free to tell us your insights!

[Surya]

WORK IN PROGRESS, under edit

 

Intro 

 

Alright, so I think I have a little thesis going. Ill start by arguing that in the state of nature, human beings are primarily egaliterian and reciprocial. Leaders are chosen by pro-social traits and expertice. Antisocial behavior, greed obviously being one of them, is likewise punished.

 

Then Ill go over to a theory where I have only very superificial knowledge, but Ill try to argue that greed has been dispised even in many agricultural societies for millenia. 

Then ill try to argue that this mentality gradually changed as a result of industrilisation. Reason being that industrilisation allowed for mass production and  explotation of workers. The so called neoclassical theorists, made up a bunch of (in my not so humble opinion) bs rationalisations, economic models and theories in order to justify this model and feed their greed, however. These theories, are however built on extremly dubious assumptions. Sadly, we much of our economic policies are still built upon them, even tho they are obviously faulty. 

So what do you (the economic elite) do when they have an abundance of goods, but the demand is lacking? They manufacture demand. That is the very point of marketing: manipulating you into believing you want something that you do not. These techniques has also been used for social engineering. Alright, lets go.

Leadership - from prehistory till today

@Nungali Feel free to come with input here, as this is something you are more knowledgeable of than me.

 

In the study ‘Leadership in Prehistory’ (Pierce and Lewis-Williams, 2019), the authors investigated which characteristics correlated with leadership in prehistoric times. The findings suggest that leaders were chosen on the basis of pro-social behaviour, high expertise and respect within the group. Furthermore, they only had the power they were given. Once the problem was solved, the leader stepped down. In the book ‘Hierarchy of the Forest’ (1999), Christoffer Boehm characterises traditional tribal societies as egalitarian. He describes how dominant and selfish behaviour is collectively counteracted through, among other things, ridicule and ostracism. In more extreme cases, the situation can escalate to violence or expulsion. A sense of justice, the spread of rumours and long-term ‘tracking’ of behaviour and character help to maintain an egalitarian structure and social harmony.

Today, the situation is somewhat more complex. In the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar conducted a study comparing the size of the neocortex and the social group of 38 different species of primates. Based on this relationship, he found that humans are capable of relating to around 150 individuals. This is known as Dunbar's number, and has been shown to explain the size of organisations, the number of friends on social media and more.

 As society grew in size and complexity, it became possible for individuals who traditionally had not been suitable or chosen as leaders to use language and other forms of manipulation to ‘hijack’ the leadership role. In a review of leadership literature, the authors take a rather harsh stance:

‘The increase in social complexity of societies that took place after the agricultural revolution produced the need for more powerful and formal leaders to manage complex intra- and intergroup relations — the chiefs, kings, presidents, and CEOs — who at best provide important public services and at worst abuse their position of power to dominate and exploit followers [60].’

 

Agrarian societies attitude to greed

The Midas touch

Spoiler

 

Quote

The story often begins with Midas finding the satyr Silenus, Dionysus' teacher and companion, who has lost his way or fallen asleep in Midas' gardens. Midas treats Silenus hospitably for ten days before returning him to Dionysus. As a reward, Dionysus offers Midas one wish, whatever he desires.

Without thinking twice, Midas asks that everything he touches be turned into pure gold. Dionysus grants his wish, but warns him of the consequences. At first, Midas is overjoyed with his new ability. He touches a twig, and it turns to gold. He touches a stone, and it turns to gold. He imagines a future of endless wealth.

But his joy quickly turns to despair. When Midas tries to eat, the food turns to gold in his mouth. The water he tries to drink also turns to gold. The real shock comes when his beloved daughter (some versions say his wife) comes to comfort him, and as he embraces her, she is transformed into a lifeless golden statue. Midas then realises the terrible curse he has brought upon himself and his loved ones.

Desperate, Midas begs Dionysus to take back his gift. Dionysus, seeing Midas' genuine remorse, tells him to wash himself in the source of the river Pactolus. Midas does as he is told, and as he washes himself, the golden touch runs off him and into the river. From that day on, it is said that the sand in the river Pactolus was full of gold.

 

 

 

 

Epictetus on greed:

Spoiler

Epictetus:

Nay, what a price the rich themselves, and those who hold office, and who live with beautiful wives, would give to despise wealth and office and the very women whom they love and win! Do you not know what the thirst of a man in a fever is like, how different from the thirst of a man in health? The healthy man drinks and his thirst is gone: the other is delighted for a moment and then grows giddy, the water turns to gall, and he vomits and has colic, and is more exceeding thirsty. Such is the condition of the man who is haunted by desire in wealth or in office, and in wedlock with a lovely woman: jealousy clings to him, fear of loss, shameful words, shameful thoughts, unseemly deeds.

 

General roman attitude:

Spoiler

Officially, greed was seen as a vice that undermined the ideals of the Roman Republic and later the stability of the Empire. Roman morality was strongly linked to concepts such as:

Virtus: This encompassed manliness, bravery, duty and moral integrity. Greed was in direct opposition to this.

Frugalitas: Simplicity, moderation and frugality. Greed was the definition of the opposite.

Gravitas: Dignity, seriousness and responsibility. A greedy person often lacked gravitas.

Pietas: Duty to the gods, the fatherland and the family. Greed could lead to these duties being neglected in favour of personal gain.

Philosophers such as Cicero and historians such as Sallust often condemned greed as a dangerous force that corrupted politics and undermined the republic. Sallust, particularly in his work The Conspiracy of Catiline, depicts greed as a major driving force behind moral decay and civil discord. He believed that after the destruction of Carthage (which removed Rome's greatest external threat), the Romans became corrupt and driven by a desire for wealth and power.

 

Verses from Havamal (somewhat related to greed):

Spoiler

2.
Hail, ye Givers! a guest is come;
say! where shall he sit within?
Much pressed is he who fain on the hearth
would seek for warmth and weal.

20.
A greedy man, if he be not mindful,
eats to his own life's hurt:
oft the belly of the fool will bring him to scorn
when he seeks the circle of the wise.

41.
With raiment and arms shall friends gladden each other,
so has one proved oneself;
for friends last longest, if fate be fair
who give and give again.

 

42.
To his friend a man should bear him as friend,
and gift for gift bestow,
laughter for laughter let him exchange,
but leasing pay for a lie.

 

75.
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
fair fame of one who has earned.

 

76.
Cattle die and kinsmen die,
thyself too soon must die,
but one thing never, I ween, will die, --
the doom on each one dead.

 

I was planning on writing on medival christendom as well, but this is getting to long. I guess most here is familiar with it anyway.

 

The Marginal Revolution and Neoclassical Theory

The Marginal Revolution, spearheaded by William Jevons, paved the way for neoclassical theory towards the end of the 19th century. Economics took on a more mathematical character, with the relationship between consumption and demand becoming central. They rejected the idea of objective value, instead viewing utility as a personal assessment, and humans as perfectly rational, utility-maximizing machines. Alfred Marshall and his demand curve are among several key contributors.

Smith and Ricardo defined three factors of production: labor, capital, and land (Sandmo, 2006, p. 70). However, only one of them, the amount of labor input, determined the price of a good (the labor theory of value).

Furthermore, Say's Law states that supply creates its own demand. Consumption is a consequence of production, and overproduction is an impossibility. For the neoclassicists, the distinction between supply and demand made no sense. Price was a result of the interaction between utility-maximizing consumers and suppliers.

William Jevons introduced the concept of marginal utility. Marginal utility was diminishing: the more you have of a good, the less utility an additional unit provides. The rational, utility-maximizing individual will consume as long as the perceived utility is greater than or equal to the price of the good. Similarly, firms would produce as long as marginal revenue is greater than or equal to marginal cost. Alfred Marshall further described how the interplay between the consumer and the producer—supply and demand—determined the price of a good.

If the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied, the highest bidder will get the good, and the price will be pushed up. A high price makes production profitable, and supply will increase. Similarly, a higher supply than demand will cause the price to fall. Only the point where demand meets supply is stable. The market is in equilibrium. It is this point that determines the price of a good.

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Here's the English translation of your text, maintaining the academic tone and content:

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Assumptions for Perfect Competition

 

In the previous assignment, we looked at the neoclassical idea of pricing. Alfred Marshall described how markets tend to move towards equilibrium, the point where supply meets demand (Kishtainy, 2017, p. 64). At this point, marginal revenue will equal marginal cost, and marginal utility will equal marginal price. If the market is in perfect competition, the price of the good will be the same everywhere, and this is thus the equilibrium point.

Important assumptions for perfect competition are:

1. All goods are normal. This means that demand changes in line with income.

2. Goods are homogeneous.

3. Large number of producers and consumers. No one has market power (no one can influence the market price).

4. Rational actors. Producers aim to maximize profit, consumers utility.

5. Perfect information. All actors have equal and necessary knowledge about the goods and the market.

6. No entry barriers.

(Snl, perfect competition) (Riis and Moen, 2016, p. 204)

A market in perfect competition will be Pareto optimal. This implies that it will not be possible to improve one actor's situation without negatively affecting another (Kishtainy, 2017, p. 149). This entails equilibrium, efficiency, and maximum social surplus.

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Criticism

 

Thorstein Veblen is the man behind the theory of conspicuous consumption. Here, he points out people's tendency to buy expensive goods. He believes this happens because people try to buy their way to status. This is relevant considering the assumptions about normal goods and rational actors. He believed these assumptions were based on an unrealistic view of human nature. Humans are largely driven by habits and instincts, and the desire for recognition, belonging, and status (PowerPoint from a lecture by Geir Knutsen). The Veblen effect refers to how demand for certain goods increases with price. These are thus not normal goods, nor do they indicate particularly rational behavior.

For Joan Robinson, the presentation of a market as either a monopoly or perfect competition was, at best, overly simplistic. More often, it was an intermediate state, which she described as imperfect competition. This is a market consisting of a few large players all offering close substitutes. An important distinguishing factor for products is, among other things, the brand (PowerPoint from a lecture by Geir Knutsen). And since actors can have market power and the model is therefore flawed, regulations would also be necessary to avoid crises (Rethinking Economics Norge, 2019, Joan Violet Robinson – an economist for the 20th century).

Finally, I want to look at Akerlof's "lemon theory," which concerns the assumption of perfect information. In Cassidy (2009), the used car market is used to illustrate the problem. Why do people generally prefer new cars when there can be a lot to save by buying used? This stems at least partly from imperfect and asymmetric information. The risk of buying a "lemon" increases if you buy used. This, in turn, will cause more serious actors to withdraw, and the efficiency of the industry to fall. Incomplete information is a pervasive problem in many markets and can, for example, lead to overpricing of stocks or the best candidate being overlooked.

 

Industralisation, marketing and consumerism

 

- industralisation and greed made production far exceed demand

- Marketing was used as a tool to manufacture demand. This has also been used for social engineering. There are countless examples, but let me start with one of the more infamous:
 

Edward Bernays: The "Torches of Freedom" Campaign

 

Edward Bernays, often considered the "father of public relations," was Sigmund Freud's nephew (Freud's sister Anna was Bernays' mother, and Bernays' father was the brother of Freud's wife Martha). Bernays famously applied psychological principles, inspired in part by his uncle's theories, to manipulate public opinion for commercial gain.

In the late 1920s, the American Tobacco Company hired Bernays to overcome the social taboo against women smoking in public. At the time, smoking by women was largely considered unladylike, even a sign of "loose morals." Bernays saw an opportunity to associate smoking with the burgeoning women's rights movement.

He consulted with a psychoanalyst, A. A. Brill (a former student of Freud's), who suggested that cigarettes could symbolize male power and independence. Brill's reasoning was that the emancipation of women had led many to suppress "feminine desires," and that cigarettes, equated with men, could become "torches of freedom."

Bernays seized on this idea. In 1929, he orchestrated a publicity stunt during New York's Easter Parade. He hired a group of young women, including debutantes, to light up cigarettes openly as they walked, portraying it as an act of feminist defiance. This event, widely covered by the press, became known as the "Torches of Freedom" campaign.

The campaign successfully reframed smoking for women from a vulgar habit to a symbol of emancipation, rebellion, and equality. It capitalized on the aspirations of first-wave feminism, linking a consumer product to a powerful social movement. This initiative dramatically increased smoking rates among women in the subsequent decades, with significant long-term public health consequences.

 

Paul Lafargue

The Right To Be Lazy

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Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy. – Lessing

 

Chapter I
A Disastrous Dogma

 

Spoiler

 

A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway. This delusion drags in its train the individual and social woes which for two centuries have tortured sad humanity. This delusion is the love of work, the furious passion for work, pushed even to the exhaustion of the vital force of the individual and his progeny. Instead of opposing this mental aberration, the priests, the economists and the moralists have cast a sacred halo over work. Blind and finite men, they have wished to be wiser than their God; weak and contemptible men, they have presumed to rehabilitate what their God had cursed. I, who do not profess to be a Christian, an economist or a moralist, I appeal from their judgement to that of their God; from the preachings of their religious, economics or free thought ethics, to the frightful consequences of work in capitalist society.

In capitalist society work is the cause of all intellectual degeneracy, of all organic deformity. Compare the thorough-bred in Rothschild’s stables, served by a retinue of bipeds, with the heavy brute of the Norman farms which plows the earth, carts the manure, hauls the crops. Look at the noble savage whom the missionaries of trade and the traders of religion have not yet corrupted with Christianity, syphilis and the dogma of work, and then look at our miserable slaves of machines. [1]

When, in our civilized Europe, we would find a trace of the native beauty of man, we must go seek it in the nations where economic prejudices have not vet uprooted the hatred of work. Spain, which, alas, is degenerating, may still boast of possessing fewer factories than we have of prisons and barracks; but the artist rejoices in his admiration of the hardy Andalusian, brown as his native chestnuts, straight and flexible as a steel rod; and the heart leaps at hearing the beggar, superbly draped in his ragged capa, parleying on terms of equality with the duke of Ossuna. For the Spaniard, in whom the primitive animal has not been atrophied, work is the worst sort of slavery. [2] The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew only exercises for the body and mind. And so it was in this era that men like Aristotle, Phidias, Aristophanes moved and breathed among the people; it was the time when a handful of heroes at Marathon crushed the hordes of Asia, soon to be subdued by Alexander. The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods:

O Melibae Deus nobis haec otia fecit.

Jesus, in his sermon on the Mount, preached idleness: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Jehovah the bearded and angry god, gave his worshipers the supreme example of ideal laziness; after six days of work, he rests for all eternity.

On the other hand, what are the races for which work is an organic necessity? The Auvergnians; the Scotch, those Auvergnians of the British Isles; the Galicians, those Auvergnians of Spain; the Pomeranians, those Auvergnians of Germany; the Chinese, those Auvergnians of Asia. In our society which are the classes that love work for work’s sake. The peasant proprietors, the little shopkeepers; the former bent double over their fields, the latter crouched in their shops, burrow like the mole in his subterranean passage and never stand up to look at nature leisurely.

And meanwhile the proletariat, the great class embracing all the producers of civilized nations, the class which in freeing itself will free humanity from servile toil and will make of the human animal a free being, – the proletariat, betraying its instincts, despising its historic mission, has let itself be perverted by the dogma of work. Rude and terrible has been its punishment. All its individual and social woes are born of its passion for work.

 

Footnotes

[1] European explorers pause in wonder before the physical beauty and the proud bearing of the men of primitive races, not soiled by what Paeppig calls “the poisonous breath of civilization.” Speaking of the aborigines of the oceanic Islands, Lord George Campbell writes: “There is not a people in the world which strikes one more favorably at first sight. Their smooth skin of a light copper tint, their hair golden and curly, their beautiful and happy faces, in a word. their whole person formed a new and splendid specimen of the ‘genus homo’; their physical appearance gave the impression of a race superior to ours.” The civilized men of ancient Rome, witness Caesar and Tacitus, regarded with the same admiration the Germans of the communist tribes which invaded the Roman empire. Following Tacitus, Salvien, the priest of the fifth century who received the surname of master of the Bishops, held up the barbarians as an example to civilized Christians: “We are immodest before the barbarians, who are more chaste than we. Even more, the barbarians are wounded at our lack of modesty; the Goths do not permit debauchees of their own nation to remain among them; alone in the midst of them, by the sad privilege of their nationality and their name, the Romans have the right to be impure. (Pederasty was then the height of the fashion among both pagans and Christians.) The oppressed fly to the barbarians to seek for mercy and a shelter.” (De Gubernatione Dei) The old civilization and the rising Christianity corrupted the barbarians of the ancient world, as the old Christianity and the modern capitalist civilization are corrupting the savages of the new world.

M.F. LePlay, whose talent for observation must be recognized, even if we reject his sociological conclusions, tainted with philanthropic and Christian pharisaism, says in his hook Les Ouvriers Europeans (1885): “The Propensity of the Bachkirs for laziness (the Bachkirs are semi-nomadic shepherds of the Asiatic slope of the Ural mountains); the leisure of nomadic life, the habit of meditation which this engenders in the best endowed individuals – all this often gives them a distinction of manner, a fineness of intelligence and judgement which is rarely to be observed on the same social level in a more developed civilization ... The thing most repugnant to them is agricultural labor: they will do anything rather than accept the trade of a farmer.” Agriculture is in fact the first example of servile labor in the history of man. According to biblical tradition, the first criminal, Cain, is a farmer.

[2] The Spanish proverb says: Descanzar es salud. (Rest is healthful.)

 

 

 

Edited 16 hours ago by Surya

[Surya]

Alright, this turned out to be a mess. It needs a lot of work, obviously, I might work on it tommorow... but it is three at night. Ill leave you with this wonderfull docu in the meantime:

 

[Surya]

 

 
What a world 😂

[Nungali]

I'll comment on two things here ( since you asked )   ;

 

You note the importance of greed (or actually 'not being greedy' )  in primitive society .   The Gumbaynggirr  have a main story about 'The Muurrbay Tree'  , a giant colossal white fig , by the coast  near here . The related tribes used to meet there once a year for a big feast . One time , one tribe got there first and started  climbing up in the tree and eating the fruit before the others arrived . When they did " Hey ! What are you mob doing ? You have eaten all the best figs ?  "  Anyway a fight breaks out and now the peaceful community  celebration has turned into a brawl . All of a sudden a big arm  comes down out the sky , grabs it and pulls it out the ground, roots and all and up into the sky .... people in the tree are falling off and then ..... gone    .... forever . 

 

I have a painting of that crucial moment  done by a local chap, it hangs on my wall . 

 

 Coincidentally in an  entirely different traditions , again all the best figs are eaten ,  in Greek myth , by the raven  ( did you know that before this he used to have a pleasant song and white plumage  ?  )  .  

 

And the South Park vid about earth being 'sealed off'   .   A claim in the Urantia Book ... we are under planetary quarantine .

 

'They' have ' flagged us'  . . .   with the 'Yellow Jack ' .  

[Surya]

6 hours ago, Nungali said:

I'll comment on two things here ( since you asked )   ;

 

You note the importance of greed (or actually 'not being greedy' )  in primitive society .   The Gumbaynggirr  have a main story about 'The Muurrbay Tree'  , a giant colossal white fig , by the coast  near here . The related tribes used to meet there once a year for a big feast . One time , one tribe got there first and started  climbing up in the tree and eating the fruit before the others arrived . When they did " Hey ! What are you mob doing ? You have eaten all the best figs ?  "  Anyway a fight breaks out and now the peaceful community  celebration has turned into a brawl . All of a sudden a big arm  comes down out the sky , grabs it and pulls it out the ground, roots and all and up into the sky .... people in the tree are falling off and then ..... gone    .... forever . 

 

I have a painting of that crucial moment  done by a local chap, it hangs on my wall . 

 

 Coincidentally in an  entirely different traditions , again all the best figs are eaten ,  in Greek myth , by the raven  ( did you know that before this he used to have a pleasant song and white plumage  ?  )  .  

 

And the South Park vid about earth being 'sealed off'   .   A claim in the Urantia Book ... we are under planetary quarantine .

 

'They' have ' flagged us'  . . .   with the 'Yellow Jack ' .  

I would love to see that painting, and also dwelve deeper into the concept of "planetary quarantine," either in a seperate thread or on PM

Allow me to share a related anecdote:
I have heard it said that the indians of the amazon has a very interresting way of catching/hunting monkeys. They construct a box and fill it with some sort of fruit desirable for monkeys. They than make a hole in the cage, just large enough for a monkey to put his hand in, but to small for him to take the fruit out. The monkey than hangs there, refusing to let go of the fruit, until the hunters return with their bow and arrows.