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April 26, 2006
Ayahuasca and Human Destiny
Ayahuasca and Human Destiny
Dennis J. McKenna, Ph.D.
My good friend and colleague, Dr. Charles Grob, has extended a kind invitation to submit a contribution to this special edition of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, devoted to the topic of ayahuasca, for which he has been selected as guest editor. I’m pleased to be asked and happy to respond, particularly since I have collaborated for many years with Dr. Grob and other colleagues who are represented here, on various aspects of the scientific study of ayahuasca. For most of the last 33 years, ayahuasca has been one of the major preoccupations of my life.
In that time, I have written extensively on the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca, on its potential therapeutic uses, and on the need for more, and more rigorous, scientific and clinical investigations of this remarkable plant decoction. Working with colleagues such as Dr. Grob, my good friends Jace Callaway and Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna in Finland, my mentor Dr. Neil Towers, my late and beloved brother Terence, Dr. Glaucus de Souza Brito, and others, to investigate the myriad mysteries of ayahuasca, has been as rich and rewarding an experience as any scientist could ever hope for.
Partly as a result of our collective efforts, over the last few decades ayahuasca has become one of the most thoroughly studied of the traditional shamanic plant hallucinogens. We now have a firm understanding of the plant species that are utilized in its preparation, including the diverse pharmacopoeia of ayahuasca admixture plants, a shamanic technology unto itself that begs additional investigation. We understand the chemistry of the active constituents of its primary botanical components, and have better insight into its remarkable synergistic pharmacology.
We have identified potential therapeutic applications for ayahuasca and the role that it may some day find in healing the physical and spiritual wounds of individuals, if it is ever afforded its rightful place in medical practice. Ethnographically, my colleagues and I have made contributions to an understanding of the central role that ayahuasca already has in the context of Amazonian shamanism and ethnomedicine. We have described, and written about, its status as a window into the sacred cosmology of magic, witchcraft, transcendent experience, and healing that permeates and defines the practices of Mestizo ethnomedicine.
The visionary paintings of Peruvian shaman and artist Pablo Amaringo, brought so beautifully to the attention of the world by Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, has helped to make that tradition accessible to many who would otherwise have seen it (if they were aware of it at all) as alien, exotic, and incomprehensible. To an extent, our work has shed some small light on the more contemporary role of ayahuasca as the sacramental vehicle of syncretic religious movements that originated in Brasil and now are reaching out globally, if incrementally, to embrace a sick and wounded world that desperately yearns for the healing that this mind/body/spirit medicine can offer.
The story of ayahuasca, and our evolving understanding of its place in the world, and of its significance for medicine, pharmacology, ethnobotany, and shamanic studies, is far from over, and in fact, it may have just begun. I would like to believe that is the case. But for the purposes of this contribution, rather than submit yet another dense and lengthy review on the botany, chemistry, pharmacology, &c., of ayahuasca, I have chosen to adopt a broader perspective, and to indulge in some reflections, and speculations on the past and future of ayahuasca of the sort that a scientist, probably mercifully, rarely shares with his colleagues or the larger world.
To those readers who may wish for my more usual nuts-and-bolts approach to the subject, I call attention to my recent review in the journal Pharmacology and Therapeutics (McKenna, 2004). In addition, a complete list of all of “my” publications on ayahuasca is appended to the end of this article; and I use the term “my” advisedly because these publications represent the work and creativity of many people with whom I’ve been privileged to collaborate over the years. They would not exist without them.
On a personal level, ayahuasca has been for me both a scientific and professional continuing carrot, and a plant teacher and guide of incomparable wisdom, compassion, and intelligence. My earliest encounters with ayahuasca were experiential; only later did it become an object of scientific curiosity, sparked in part by a desire to understand the mechanism, the machineries, that might underlie the profound experiences that it elicited.
As a young man just getting started in the field of ethnopharmacology, ayahuasca seemed to me more than worthy of a lifetime of scientific study; and so it has proven to be. Pursuing an understanding of ayahuasca has led to many exotic places that I would never have visited otherwise, from the jungles of the Amazon Basin to the laboratory complexes of the National Institute of Mental Health and Stanford; it has led to the formation of warm friendships and fruitful collaborations with many colleagues who have shared my curiosity about the mysteries of this curious plant complex.
These collaborations, and more importantly, these friendships, continue, as does the quest for understanding. Though there have been detours along the way, always, and inevitably, they have led back to the central quest. Often, after the fact, I have seen how those apparent detours were not so far off the path after all, as they supplied some insight, some skill, or some experience, that in hindsight proved necessary to the furtherance of the quest.
Just as ayahuasca has been for me personally something of a Holy Grail, as it has been for many others, I have the intuition that it may have a similar role with respect to our entire species. Anyone who is personally experienced with ayahuasca is aware that it has much to teach us; there is incredible wisdom and intelligence there. And to my mind, one of the most profound and humbling lessons that ayahuasca teaches – one that we thick-headed humans have the hardest time grasping – is the realization that “you monkeys only think you’re running things.”
Though I state it humorously, here and in other talks and writings, it is nonetheless a profound insight on which may depend the very survival of our species, and our planet. Humans are good at nothing if not hubris, arrogance, and self-delusion. We assume that we dominate nature; that we are somehow separate from, and superior to, nature, even as we set about busily undermining and wrecking the very homeostatic global mechanisms that have kept our earth stable and hospitable to life for the last four and a half billion years. We devastate the rainforests of the world; we are responsible for the greatest loss of habitat and the greatest decimation of species since the asteroid impacts of the Permian-Triassic boundary, 250 million years ago; we rip the guts out of the earth and burn them, spewing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere; at the same time we slash and burn the woody forests that may be the only hope for sequestration of the carbon dioxide that is rapidly building to dangerous and possibly uncontrollable levels. For the first time in the history of our species, and indeed of our planet, we are forced to confront the possibility that thoughtless and unsustainable human activity may be posing a real threat to our species’ survival, and possibly the survival of all life on the planet.
And suddenly, and literally, “out of the Amazon,” one of the most impacted parts of our wounded planet, ayahuasca emerges as an emissary of trans-species sentience, to bring this lesson: You monkeys only think you’re running things. In a wider sense, the import of this lesson is that we need to wake up to what is happening to us and to the planet. We need to get with the program, people. We have become spiritually bereft and have been seduced by the delusion that we are somehow important in the scheme of things. We are not.
Our spiritual institutions have devolved into hollow shells, perverted to the agendas of rapacious governments and fanatic fundamentalisms, no longer capable of providing balm to the wounded spirit of our species; and as the world goes up in flames we benumb ourselves with consumerism and mindless entertainment, the decadent distractions of gadgets and gewgaws, the frantic but ultimately meaningless pursuits of a civilization that has lost its compass. And at this cusp in human history, there emerges a gentle emissary, the conduit to a body of profoundly ancient genetic and evolutionary wisdom that has long abided in the cosmologies of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon who have guarded and protected this knowledge for millennia, who learned long ago that the human role is not to be the master of nature, but its stewards, Our destiny, if we are to survive, is to nurture nature and to learn from it how to nurture ourselves and our fellow beings. This is the lesson that we can learn from ayahuasca, if only we pay attention.
I find it both ironic, and hopeful, that within the last 150 years, and particularly in the last half of the 20th century, ayahuasca has begun to assert its presence into human awareness on a global scale. For millennia it was known only to indigenous peoples who have long since understood and integrated what it has to teach us. In the 19th century it first came to the attention of a wider world as an object of curiosity in the reports of Richard Spruce and other intrepid explorers of the primordial rainforests of South America; in the mid-20th century Schultes and others continued to explore this discovery and began to focus the lens of science on the specifics of its botany, chemistry, and pharmacology (and, while necessary, this narrow scrutiny perhaps overlooked some of the larger implications of this ancient symbiosis with humanity). At the same time, ayahuasca escaped from its indigenous habitat and made its influence felt among certain non-indigenous people, representatives of “greater” civilization.
To these few men and women, ayahuasca provided revelations, and they in turn responded (in the way that humans so often do when confronted with a profound mystery) by founding religious sects with a messianic mission; in this case, a mission of hope, a message to the rest of the world that despite its simplicity was far ahead of its time: that we must learn to become the stewards of nature, and by fostering, encouraging, and sustaining the fecundity and diversity of nature, by celebrating and honoring our place as biological beings, as part of the web of life, we may learn to become nurturers of each other. A message quite different, and quite anathema, to the anti-biological obsessions of most of the major world “religions” with their preoccupation with death and suffering and their insistence on the suppression of all spontaneity and joy.
Such a message is perceived as a great threat by entrenched religious and political power structures, and indeed, it is. It is a threat to the continued rape of nature and oppression of peoples that is the foundation of their power. Evidence that they understand this threat and take it seriously is reflected by the unstinting and brutal efforts that “civilized” ecclesiastical, judicial, and political authorities have made to prohibit, demonize, and exterminate the shamanic use of ayahuasca and other sacred plants ever since the Inquisition and even earlier.
But the story is not yet over. Within the last 30 years, ayahuasca, clever little plant intelligence that it is, has escaped from its ancestral home in the Amazon and has found haven in other parts of the world. With the assistance of human helpers who heard the message and heeded it, ayahuasca sent its tendrils forth to encircle the world. It has found new homes, and new friends, in nearly every part of the world where temperatures are warm and where the ancient connections to plant-spirit still thrive, from the islands of Hawaii to the rainforests of South Africa, from gardens in Florida to greenhouses in Japan. The forces of death and dominance have been outwitted; it has escaped them, outrun them.
There is now no way that ayahuasca can ever be eliminated from the earth, short of toxifying the entire planet (which, unfortunately, the death culture is working assiduously to accomplish). Even if the Amazon itself is leveled for cattle pasture or burned for charcoal, ayahuasca, at least, will survive, and will continue to engage in its dialog with humanity. And encouragingly, more and more people are listening.
It may be too late. I have no illusions about this. Given that the curtain is now being rung down on the drunken misadventure that we call human history, the death culture will inevitably become even more brutal and insane, flailing ever more violently as it sinks beneath the quick sands of time. Indeed, it is already happening; all you have to do is turn on the nightly news.
Will ayahuasca survive? I have no doubt that ayahuasca will survive on this planet as long as the planet remains able to sustain life. The human time frame is measured in years, sometimes centuries, rarely, in millennia. Mere blinks when measured against the evolutionary time scales of planetary life, the scale on which ayahuasca wields its influence. It will be here long after the governments, religions, and political power structures that seem today so permanent and so menacing have dissolved into dust. It will be here long after our ephemeral species has been reduced to anomalous sediment in the fossil record. The real question is, will we be here long enough to hear its message, to integrate what it is trying to tell us, and to change in response, before it is too late?
Ayahuasca has the same message for us now that it has always had, since the beginning of its symbiotic relationship with humanity. Are we willing to listen? Only time will tell.
+++++++++++++++
McKenna, Dennis J. (2004) Clinical investigations of the therapeutic potential of Ayahuasca: Rationale and regulatory challenges. Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 102:111-129.
Dennis J. McKenna (1999) Ayahuasca: an ethnopharmacologic history. In: R. Metzner, (ed) Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness, and the Spirit of Nature. Thunder's Mouth Press, New York.
Callaway, J. C., D. J. McKenna, C. S. Grob, G. S. Brito, L. P. Raymon, R.E. Poland, E. N. Andrade, E. O. Andrade, D. C. Mash (1999) Pharmacokinetics of Hoasca alkaloids in Healthy Humans. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 65:243-256.
McKenna, DJ, JC Callaway, CS Grob (1999). The scientific investigation of ayahuasca: A review of past and current research. Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research 1:
Callaway, J. C., L. P. Raymon, W. L. Hearn, D. J. McKenna, C. S. Grob, G. S. Brito, D. C. Mash (1996) Quantitation of N,N-dimethyltryptamine and harmala alkaloids in human plasma after oral dosing with Ayahuasca. Journal of Analytical Toxicology 20: 492-497
C. S. Grob, D. J. McKenna, J. C. Callaway, G. S. Brito, E. S. Neves, G. Oberlender, O. L. Saide, E. Labigalini, C. Tacla, C. T. Miranda, R. J. Strassman, K. B. Boone (1996) Human pharmacology of hoasca, a plant hallucinogen used in ritual context in Brasil: Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease. 184:86-94. McKenna, DJ (1996)
James C. Callaway, M. M. Airaksinen, Dennis J. McKenna, Glacus S. Brito, & Charles S. Grob (1994) Platelet serotonin uptake sites increased in drinkers of ayahuasca. Psychopharmacology 116: 385-387
Dennis J. McKenna, L. E. Luna, & G. H. N. Towers, (1995) Biodynamic constituents in Ayahuasca admixture plants: an uninvestigated folk pharmacopoeia. In: von Reis, S., and R. E. Schultes (eds). Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline. Dioscorides Press, Portland
Dennis J. McKenna, & G. H. N. Towers, (1985) On the comparative ethnopharmacology of the Malpighiaceous and Myristicaceous hallucinogens. J. Psychoactive Drugs, 17:35-39.
Dennis J. McKenna, & G. H. N. Towers, (1984), Biochemistry and pharmacology of tryptamine and ß-carboline derivatives: A minireview. J. Psychoactive Drugs, 16:347-358.
Dennis J. McKenna, G. H. N. Towers, & F. S. Abbott (1984) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants: Tryptamine and ß-carboline constituents of Ayahuasca. J. of Ethnopharmacology 10:195-223.
Dennis J. McKenna, G. H. N. Towers, & F. S. Abbott (1984) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants Pt. II: Constituents of orally active Myristicaceous hallucinogens. J. of Ethnopharmacology 12:179-211.
Dennis J. McKenna & G. H. N. Towers (1981) Ultra-violet mediated cytotoxic activity of ß-carboline alkaloids. Phytochemistry 20:1001-1004
Three cheers for McKenna. Thanks for the post, graffitirun.
Posted by: Helius Croesus at April 26, 2006 08:46 PMHere, here. We must save our Good Earth from the ignorant, the selfish and the weak. If Ayahuasca can infuence heart and mind so drastically in the healing of our natural world, then I say let it thrive and flourish in modern society, until we've accepted an understanding of its ancient wisdom.
Posted by: Luke at April 27, 2006 06:10 AMY'all know my position on this: Anyone who wishes to do Ayahuasca (or the Bwiti Ibogain potion, among others, for that matter) should be able to do so in an optimal set/setting...In terms of personal liberty and Constitutional rights, this would seem to me to be virtually axiomatic...
FNORD....!
Posted by: MCP2012 at April 27, 2006 04:02 PMHi graffiti/upwing/chris/fishy/event jumper/paul and whoever is actually posting.
This is a little off thread but it's something I'd like to see as a post:
One of the Post-Neo-Fuller types said It is the principal function of the designer to solve problems. I'd Like to know what you all think are the ten most critical problems facing the human species (or you can extend this to include all Earthians if you want) and what are, in your opinions, at least one if not a couple solutions to those problems.
Posted by: Kerry Tynan Fraser at April 29, 2006 02:29 PMKerry discussing those points doesnt seem to be on-topic enough for wildly opposing views to be allowed to remain, even though a large part of the McKenna article deals entirely with this issue.
Anyway... the first and most overpowering of all problems facing the human species today in my opinion is the fact that opinions on the problems and the solutions are tied to individual motivations and outlooks, and as such will be subject to discussion, and implimentation at the individuals own desire.
In other words problems will be seen and unseen depending on the individual in question, and all solutions will be a matter of opinion, and subject to personal motivations.
This is the biggest threat facing our species today. It is not pollution, starvation, social breakdown, population explosion, resource depletion or whatever other problems you can find to add to this list. The biggest problem facing our species is getting messages through every opposition to particular messages an individual may have. You could say that the biggest problem we have is to stop bitching and arguing long enough to actually address issues, as well as 'somehow' ripping (and I use that word on purpose) peoples heads out of the sand of their own views on life, (that it is a one time only chance to get all they can, that it is blindingly glorious and we should bask in it, that it is harsh and brutal and we should just take whatever we can and fuck anyone else) to actually attempt to see things in a vagually similar way. By this I just mean agreeing on basic principles and basic facts, and deciding on basic plans and basic actions, in a species wide altruistic fashion. Otherwise what? We have 6 billion ruthless entreprenuers, broken and scared individuals, and unrealistic and deluded maniacs, hacking away at the world in their own little way.
The most obvious example would be convincing people to give up combustion and oil based transport, it will NEVER happen, no matter what the concensus turns out to be on this issue. Which also leads to another point, that a Government that is Democraticly elected out of several parties will always do whatever it takes to keep the anonymous voter happy. The minute they stand up and take away your toys, is the minute they get booted out of office. It is a fact that a government cannot always make the fundamentally correct decision, especially across long timescales, and especially if it is opposed, in a system where the happiness of the population directly affects the chance of policies going through. But this is the system we all FOUGHT for, and will fight for in the future, you cant really blame them. Its not a complete disaster, but it does have flaws, whether they work like I have illustrated, like I have surmised, would take someone who works in government to confirm I guess.
This same 'you cant be serious, your dreaming' is manifest in many ways throughout all levels of these issues. I happen to hold the view that much of the 'happy happy' craze is simply this that I have just discussed at a different level, but that goes down like a lead balloon here.
The point is that fundamentally the way we govern ourselves, and the way people across the world are thinking now, we have 6 Billion individual worlds of varying degrees of perfection/disaster, and each of those individuals is going to tailor their actions and their direction and their entire philosophy of life based upon how they experiance things.
I know that means my experiances colour how I interpret the world, but time and time again I bring this point up for discussion, and it gets rejected and ignored. It is a deep and fundamental observation, in my opinion, of some of the true dangers facing our species, and egos and agendas and blatantly 'happy happy' types make sure it is never ever discussed.
We can all have our opinions, but for the sake of just about everything we should get rid of them, and look to the facts.
The facts are that the world is a grossly unbalanced and unfair place. Each individual has the chance, the choice, and the desire to take what they can from it. Mortality means at any one point in time the average future planning by any individual is rarely beyond their own forseeable deaths. And the memes of freedom serve to allow us to try our best to take what we can, within the code of law of our particular state.
You could add to this that some people are really nice, and even altruistic, and there is a lot of love and hope and beauty in the world, but that is not sufficient excuse, in my opinion, for allowing ourselves to continually act and behave the way we do now and always have done.
Our species needs to grow up, and because we keep dying, at some point whoever is alive is going to have to take that responsibility upon themselves. If we just keep going on like we are, we are always going to live in a world that is basiclly class society and greed in action.
If you delete this post I dont come back here.
Posted by: eventhorizen at April 29, 2006 04:57 PMeventhorizon, that is such a powerful post. Though I keep pretty quiet around FH, your posts just give me this sense of, "Yes! I know! Finally!" You get it, whatever "it" may be, and I relate so fully to your words, and the way you express yourself. I think you offer something important to FH as much as Paul has, though in your own way.
There is a nail you drove straight to the head, right here: "In other words problems will be seen and unseen depending on the individual in question, and all solutions will be a matter of opinion, and subject to personal motivations. This is the biggest threat facing our species today."
This is something that strikes me, again and again and again, day after day, every day and through much of the day. When I go out, I notice other people, and they notice me only in an animal and instinctual way of procreation/potential threat/potential food, and nothing more. People will stare, but only at my body. I walk down empty streets, and think that I don't walk right, I walk strange and unlike other people, until I remember that I have never seen another human being walking down the street since I was twelve years old. Car after car passes me, each with one or two (never more, little raven) occupants blasting their own kind of music in their own kind of world. I want to scream at them, rip them out of their safe little armor just to show them this beautiful fucking world they are denying all around them. I go someplace filled with people, a grocery store, a restaurant, a bar, a club, a bookstore; for the most part, people stick in groups. Friends stay with friends, and never do their little social bubbles ever meet or cross or burst. People aren't interested. You're weird if you talk to people, you're damaged if you feel anything at all. It takes a special kind of person to speak to a stranger, and you can spot them from miles away. Like a lighthouse in a world of darkness, there they are, and you can know: they’re real.
I also think this is a serious problem for our species. We would rather nit pick over semantics than speak in plain, common English. We don't speak, any longer. We argue and we bicker and we debate and question and whine and cajole and insult and at the end of the day just give up. But those others, the little bookstore lighthouses, I see them growing, too. I see more and more of them, and watch as myself and others who used to live in our own little worlds of meaningless entertainment and prepackaged thought start to struggle out like caterpillars hatching into butterflies.
I had a friend in high school who described to me a dream he’d had, in which he was and was looking at a massive, epic caterpillar. It was the world and universe itself, it was titanic, large beyond words. And it was hatching into a butterfly, very, very soon. We’ll have to hatch. We’ll have to grow up, and it’ll be painful and no Utopia’s going to be waiting for us just yet. But in all likelihood Hell isn't either; this sense of urgency, that we're on the brink of something, the crossroads to Heaven and Hell, these are growing pains the sensitive among us are feeling as we start to break out of our cocoons. We’ll live, we’ll die, and we’ll live. But we have to accept these things, and grow up.
And I'm still going down the road I spoke of in my last (and first!) post. I’m no butterfly but I’m trying to grow and grow up and be that change I wish to see in the world. I'm opening myself up to this planet, and feeling it on its own level. I'm speaking to strangers and helping people doing simple work outside while their collegian children gawk on and do nothing. I clean up garbage other people tossed into the forest. And I go mad from it. It opens me. I speak my mind and my heart fully, and most people are uncomfortable around that. No one wants their bubble burst, no one wants to step out of the movie theatre and into the REAL sunlight. But I keep speaking, feeling, and doing, though some days I can do nothing at all; I feel too much or am too sensitive to those feelings. Words from the mouths of other hurt me, but I keep listening.
I keep moving, because if I don't no one else ever will. And I see others doing the same.
PS I'm not usually so intense, but when I feel it, I embrace it and let go and just write write write. (And to eventhorizon personally, and anyone else actually, feel free to email me (ventrex at gmail dot com) any time. I'm very nice. Promise!)
Posted by: mars still doesn't have a clever name at April 30, 2006 03:23 AMGraffitirun posted about FutureHi not being 'CommentHi', I assume being a community instead.
If all and any concerns regarding aspects of this community, by people who wish to be a part of this community, continually get deleted because they are 'offtopic', then what you have IS CommentHi, and an enforced, selective community.
The forums are rarely visited, even before the attack by 'Hacked by Islam'. Comment were rarely one per week, compared to the often vigorous, meandering, and really quite good good discussions that were often a weekly occurance on the front page.
I can understand why some of my posts were deleted, as usual I was fairly scathing, and seeing them deleted I decided not to make a noise about it. I may not be totally pleased, but as a rather 'strong' voice speaking things which were, to say the least, uncomfortable for more than a few people, I accepted the decision.
However if FutureHi will not allow ANY comments on the community that raise any concerns, or any points that are not totally positive in their content, then this site is going to fail as a community seeking to do things beyond and above the feelings and views of a few core members.
A community is a place where people of all views and all circumstances and all 'creeds' and 'types' exist together. If certain views, beyond individuals, will not be tolerated then it is not a community, but a group of friends running a controlled enviroment.
There IS a difference, in some nations you will get stoned to death for being unfaithful. If some people, i.e me, do not show respect then by all means moderate me. But if some people raise points or views that you are not comfortable with, then running or moderating this site does not give you the right to silence them, unless you do not hold your supposed values.
Moderate me if I rant too much, or dont show respect, by all means. But do not silence views even if they are 'off-topic', as off-topic discussions has probably been the core success of this website in all the time I have been here.
If people are leaving this 'community' because they feel they have had their valid opinions silenced, then trully this is not a place of the Future we all strive towards.
I would ask Brian not to leave, but to stay and contribute, and help us all work towards what collectivly, amongst even the silent readers, wish to see and wish to create.
I have to stand up and say that in all fairness it was the manner and atmosphere of my posts that has probably 'inspired' this recent 'no off-topic comments' stance, but any community must look inwards as much as outwards, and at the end of the day this website is supposed to be about much much more than any number of individuals, about the creation of a better future for all people, and it is up to the members of the community to do all they can to achieve this, to follow this path, to put themselves and each other behind this ONLY path a true man can walk.
I hope this is a one off occurance, but the fact remains that if this is where we speak, if the front page is where the community exists, then that is where it exists. Moderation should be kept to the disrespectful, the insulting, and nothing more.
This is my view, this is the community of everyone who participates either actively or passivly, this is the FUTURE OF OUR SPECIES. So it is up to us, you, me to make this what it must be. In all seriousness, this is not about positive comments on the psychadelic culture, this is about the Future, the time after today, the dreams in our minds, and the change that can be made. Otherwise yes, many of us are trully in the wrong place.
Posted by: eventhorizen at April 30, 2006 05:31 PMDennis surely knows that the terrestrial troubles he describes are the usual troubles that accompany a species about to depart for the stars. More at http://www.starlarvae.org/Space_Brains_Space_Migration.html
Posted by: Heresiarch at April 30, 2006 06:53 PMFor what it's worth, posting an email exchange between myself and graffitirun which I was encouraged to post, lets hope this doesn't get deleted by someone else now heh:
Graffitirun:
"again, I deleted my comments as well, Im not playing favorites
tell me what this you find so worthwhile in this particular comment (not really a post is it?) and Ill keep it up
do you have something constructive to say? or just complaints?"
My response:
"Complaints are constructive. If you can't see this and you're just going to squash any dissent, then it's too late for you. I think the fact that you had to ask that question in the first place means you will never understand the answer. What do you have to hide? As for email, I didn't know who the hell was deleting posts so how could I email the person doing so? Of course my post wasn't going to be cheery and loved (though I'd prefer the word "doped") up. I was offended and yes, angry, that my post in addition to others' posts that presented VALID opinions on the nature of the site were just simply deleted. I'm also 18, it's my nature to be contrarian, hell it's my duty. I'll end this response with a quote from Shulgin, someone who you can surely identify with:
'Oh there will surely be some event, some factor, some symbol of something that will define the "mass scene" but it need not be another "Ecstasy" and it need not even be another drug. As all of us get older, year by year, we tend to assume that the human animal, everywhere, is getting older and older. Not so! There has always been, and there will always be, a segment of the population that is at the rebellious age. They will search for, and discover a way of saying, "We are who we are. We are immortal. We will not march to our parent's drum." Time will move each individual towards old age and mortality. But at any given time, there is a real and exciting rebellious population who will use some prohibited drug, or explore some disallowed sexual things, or become devoted to some gung-ho musical phenomenon that the elders disapprove of. It is in the nature of youth to define itself in some new and preferably offensive way (at least as seen by the adults of the moment). It is an expression of defiance. I have been there and I have survived it. But I also remember it and very much respect it.'
I fail to see how stifling discussion in the comments section (which is FutureHi's main attraction currently IMO, just experiencing the opinions of others from all walks of life) is constructive."
Cheers,
Brian
Appropo of the comments here (particularly EventHorizon's) I heartily suggest my colleagues here read & absorb this: http://www.the-dissident.com/reality%20check.shtml. It is an excellent intro to the both the economics & politics of pervasive *ignorance*.
Keep HOPE alive, folks; we'll make it...
Posted by: MCP2012 at May 1, 2006 12:45 PMcursed spam bot!
Posted by: vegenaut at May 4, 2006 12:16 PMI have read quite a bit on Ayahuasca and profoundly desire to try it. I want to "open that door" and walk through it.
However, I don't believe that one requires a guide, but only a strong spirit, clear intention and courage. It seems to me, from what I've read, that the Ayahuasca is your guide and teacher.
Who did such great explorers like Crick have for a guide when exploring with LSD for instance?
I live here in the U.S., and will welcome any information that could lead to this experience...
Posted by: EP at May 5, 2006 08:13 PMThe biggest problem facing humanity Government, and war which are one and the same thing..
Oh and eventhorizen when you say convincing people to give up combustion and oil based transport, it will NEVER happen you make that real...don;t beleive me....ask the vine.....please.
The biggest 10 problems facing humanity are all in some way related to goverbnment that has everstepped it's bounds..government has a legitimate role in ensuring peace, tranuility and conserving resources for future generations, we have a long way to go, but I think if humanity is healed it will be a 100th monkey sort of instntaneous awakening, and not a gradual process if not we're all toast anyway, it would be hopeless, so it's rational to get yours while you can....but some of us know better. I will know it's hopeless the day the plants no longer speak to me....as long as they are speaking they must have a reason.
Bodhi
Government and war are not one and the same thing.
Multiple Factions governing growing/desiring populations is what equals war.
A single government controlling everything does not go to war, unless it desires Civil War. See Rome.
I dont make the reluctance to give up Oil Based transport true, I myself do not and will never drive. It is the contentment of the people carrying "get yours while you can" mentality that makes this so.
There are 6 Billion people and rising on this Earth. It is their actions that determine today and tomorrow. You cannot blame anyone, anything, but the mindset of the human population, if things are so terrible and bleak and simply wrong, and are not changed.
It is that simple. You wish to make a change but its against the law, then you suffer the consequences or do not make that change.
"my life is my message" - Ghandi, is one of the most profound statement of the 20th century, if not the most profound uttered in those times, indeed all times.
People can say what they like, and generally do, but if it does not lead to change then it is pointless, useless, and a waste of a life. The merits of the various 'good, bad, whatever its the way things are' camps will be revealed in the coming years and decades, but if change is not what is aimed for, or is not what will be carried out by your words, then what?
The point here is that massive waste, destruction, and misery CAN be justified IF the future that stems from this trouble is trully glorious beyond beleif, but certain things can never be tolerated, such as ongoing 'it will be beyond imagination, or we will crash and burn totally and utterly, and we cannot tell you on which path we are headed'.
This is where we, as a species, have absolutly no clue, and leave it up to the individual 'revolutionaries, visionaries, prophets' to show us the way, and history explains to us all YET AGAIN the dangers of this path. This is the path we will continually walk untill all the basic ideals of the human race are met.
Again its not hard to understand, but yes difficult to find a way to there from here. But we can only watch the future open up and deliver its surprises and wait and see of our minds can untangle/fathom/work out/create/preach truer, better paths, untill we finally, if ever, get there.
Forget hope, give thanks, and see what can be made. We are here now.
Posted by: eventhorizen at May 13, 2006 08:06 PMWell this place dies a rapid death.
Hey MCP2012, Rev Tom, Paul and others, how is your phone calls and get togethers going? I'm sure there is more than just me dying to know what has been happening since and beyond the discussions of the last few months, and I know I have been waiting to ask Rev. Tom a whole heap of questions since the topic he commented on last got locked, such as the obvious implication between infinate ontological depth, existance 'being consistant' and a self creating entity,
For sure, I have been to wanting to find out how that is so obvious and factual for weeks now.
Self creation? Defies everything I am aware of that is commonly held as true. I could not be hungrier for enlightenment.
Or perhaps you have said nothing, done nothing, and dissapeared up your own dogma, or perhaps you have simply vanished back into 'modern life'.
Wake up people, stop the bullshit people, you either mean what you say or you dont. If this stops here, then so be it, if you think you can do it alone you wont.
So many voices, saying so much,
becoming the breeze, rustling the trees, and utlimatly being nothing at all.
Those among us with fire, a new dawn desire, gaze for only a second upon your fall.
Nothing more to say except it rocks or we must change it? I hear ya.
Posted by: eventhorizen at May 13, 2006 11:50 PMArthur Dobrin
A Humanist Code of Ethics:
Do no harm to the earth, she is your mother.
Being is more important than having.
Never promote yourself at another's expense.
Hold life sacred; treat it with reverence.
Allow each person the dignity of his or her labor.
Open your home to the wayfarer.
Be ready to receive your deepest dreams;
sometimes they are the speech of unblighted conscience.
Always make restitutions to the ones you have harmed.
Never think less of yourself than you are.
Never think that you are more than another
John Lennon:
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.
Kahlil Gibran:
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Peace, love and joy to all at Future Hi
Keep the torch burning, especially you eventhorizon. We are in the dark night of the soul and yearning for the dawn.
i'll post this one here, since the new pinchbeck book thread got closed down or something.
to make this post related to this thread, what if i say "eh, yeah the data i am here relating has been transmitted to me by plant teachers".
to event.
the mayans used a few calendars. in some, the high priest actually purposelly changed dates around in order to accomodate their "prediction/omens" and other crytal balls future seing type deals.
the mayans had their own calendars as most other people who developped ways of understanding time and the world they lived in.
i dont see their system as any more relevant than any other poeple around the globe with creation myth. creation myth involves a begining and an ending which is usually a new form of begining.
so they had some ok math, and also some crap one as well as crooked high priest...no diferent than any other folks who had developped a mathematical system.
basically all that 2012 stuff is based on some trippy hippie dude who ate one too many shrooms, a dude who had a high level of imagination and loved telling stories. the data he based his math on was partly inacurate, and the dude was talented and business minded enough to know that folks love stories of this kind. funnily enough, he said himself that: "if nothing else, this would make a great mathematical program".
its called FANTAZY!!!!
if i had to listen to and take serioulsy all the tripers stories out there, i'd never get anything done.
thanx event for keeping it real round here... i always enjoy reading your points of views. cutting through the fluff is a nescessary thing indeed:) even if its rarely welcomed with high praises.. dont blow my bubble man!!!!;)
also, to alex on the pinchbeck entry.
cool, if anything happens out of the ordinary that day, besides usual human mayhem, lets have a cup of tea and watch the morons jumping out of building then.
you say the "earth might get off its axis and dive into the sun". cool, thatd save us the few million years we got left on this planet before the sun fries it like a pancake.
but, for funs sake, lets go into that little fantazy of yours a little deeper, shall we? lets say it happens? i then ask:
SO WHAT?
so what if the earth takes a dive into the sun?
frankly i dont see how this would change anything in my life, besides a hot death.
i wouldnt change anything in my life if i knew this for sure; i enjoy my life, i feel at peace with the moral choices i make, i feel in tune with my spiritual side, i live the exact way i'd like to live. ie, i dont waste crap, i am a totally failed consumer of goods, i love the poeple around me, i have seen a bit of this world, i love my family, and all in all i enjoy things. therefore this consideration of the earth going funky on us doesnt affect me a bit. if the earth has to do some funny stuff, well, i and us as a species i doubt can do anything against such huge factors as planets doing their planets stuff.
if its earth quakes and other natural shaking of the crust of this planet that you think of, i again ask:
SO WHAT?
personally, if all gets destructed tomorrow, oh well, its called, clean the shit up and start all over again. hopefully, this time around, with a better sense of community and educting kids early about respect for ones environment instead of turning them into more consumer whores and stupid or lack of brain capacities.
um, maybe it always starts like this, and then some decide "i want mmmoorreee and fuck you if you dont agreeeee! i'll just built my own little army of soldiers and we'll kick your ass to get your stuff man!!"...but thats a whole another subject matter.
when the earth goes funky on you, maybe you could go on some military or privately founded space ship by then, and live in some box floating round space, but frankly, seing how slow space travel goes, and how the little human ego still doesnt want to work together on real space exploration (we're russians lets keep our data!! we're euros lets keep our data!! we're yankees lets keep our data!! we're idiots, lets keep our finances!!!), well, i doubt that by then we'll have more than a fancy tin cans floating up there amongst the other space trash we been sending up there.
if the tin can option doesnt suit you, you could go cryogenic and shoot yourself into space, like a can of pickels..why not? worth that can happen is that some mutant aliens pick you up, wake you up into your worth nightmare and torture you for the rest of your life. or you could wake up while in the middle of space and stare at space until your life support stops...a long, painfull and extremely lonely death..maybe you'll even see god then if you get bored enough?
anyhows. had a great week end here. we do psy parties out in the woods, dance the sunrise and chill for breakfast, communing with nature, talking to plants and going on trance. a japanese dj came to play, couple locals. things dont change that much if we can still do what has been done since the mammel known as monkey who became man started spiritual gatherings. thats just fine like that.
peace and happy plant talks.
ps: for a so called technology interested forum, cant you guys get your shit together and take the time to get rid of those stupid bots?
also, to EP asking about aya. anyone who truly wants this plant teacher to come to you, will come across it when the plant wants you. i am not sure if asking on such a forum as here is the way to go, but hey, you tried and maybe got some private answers.
good luck on your search.
are you saying you a bot too;)
hey i've met some bots i liked...some are extremely well programmed and fascinating little pieces of fun.
i just find those ones here of no relative interest. if i want porn, i know where to find it; its called 90% of the internet.
for your info, "fuzz" is female.
i occasionaly take the time to read/post here, cause i still think there are some people with some ok ideas, and ok intentions. also, i been coming round here for quite a while, and it takes me a while to completely leave a community, must be the romantic part in me.
i just get bored, and loose interest, when people are just spitting out data, without truly having processed it..for that, i can ask a machine or a stupid human. i enjoy actual discussion and not mere data copy/paste.
also, i think paying some attention to humans fantazies can be a nice thing to do. i do love to study human mythology systems, it is one of my greatest interests, with art (which myth creation is a form of art). humans are creative, and yes it is fun. but yeah, i think its important to keep ones priorities. those fantazies are fun stuff i am into studying some of them, but they are not my priorities, as i also enjoy actual research by not so fluffy characters.
hope this cleared out my position a bit.
"hey event horizon
what is your point?"
My point is that reading through MCP2012s posted article, it concludes with the observation that unrestricted capitalism will ultimatly slow improve the situation of those worst off.
And I wonder just how restricted and tunneled are peoples views, and most importantly of all, ideas.
It seems to me that the last attempt to try something radically new across many fields and scales resulted in the techno/eugenic/political/social/economic freak that was Nazi Germany and Herr Hitler. Now while ofcourse we are all aware of the lies, atrocities, fantasies and slave labour it was constructed upon, and how it could never have been as strong as it appeared, what remains is the fact that Hitler did try/take advantage, and this attempted reroute of the entirety of what it means to be human did occur. It is almost without parallel throughout most of history.
The point surely then must be that either we are afraid of such 'things', or we are unable to supply trully alternate ideas.
I feel that we have gone two hundred years or more with simply evolving and reacting methods and systems of 'being nations and ruling ourselves'. Many of the ideas here, if not all if I am honest, seem to be fairly unrealistic OR they simply do not go further than scraping the surface of a massivly complex, interwoven issue.
My point is that while unrestricted capitalism might slowly pull those of us worst off to ever increasing levels of quality of life, we must never stop searching and preaching for equality, justice and the impossible dream.
My point is a single Government, broad and communicative interpretations of justice, radical observation and taxation/redistribution of wealth, and the proper arenas/forums/halls for providing philosophical discourse to drive anonymous and equal discussion and spread of ideas, for the whole of our future as a thinking species.
Nothing else makes the remotest form of sense, to me.
Posted by: eventhorizen at May 15, 2006 06:25 AM>"fuzz" is female
aahh... sorry bout that :)
anyway
yes, thankyou both fuzz and event horizon for that
I just wonder why it takes so much arm wrestling, petty nit-picks, attacks on the site (what it should be, what its not, what it is etc etc )
to come to, what I feel are- good points and some heart-felt honesty in these two posts of yours
-----------
Many of the ideas here, if not all if I am honest, seem to be fairly unrealistic OR they simply do not go further than scraping the surface of a massivly complex, interwoven issue.
----------------
does that include yours then?
since you probably have logged the most miles here
(not an attack, simply a logical question)
>spread of ideas, for the whole of our future as a thinking species
well, that has been history/the previous 200+ - years you speak of no?
Posted by: translucent at May 15, 2006 07:34 AMBTW, EventHorizon (and others): I don't necessarily agree with every jot-&-tittle of Jeff Friedman's article on pervasive political and economic ignorance (though, for the most part, I do), but, at the very least, the issues he very-well articulates need to be carefully taken-into-account. And as far as discussion of *ANY* "government" goes, whether world or regional or whatever, one must always keep Public Choice Theory and Constitutional Economic Theory firmly in mind. Two excellent intros to this are James D. Gwartney, Richard E. Wagner (Editor), *Public Choice and Constitutional Economics*, Jai Pr March 1988 ISBN#0892329351; and David W. Barnes, Lynn A. Stout (editors), *Economics of Constitutional Law and Public Choice*, West Group July 1992 ISBN#0314011188.
Any sort of "world government", unless VERY carefully designed & implemented, could very easily turn into a global Orwellian Leviathan. Some sort of Global Parliment, however, a global Town Hall, if you will, along the lines envisioned by EventHorizon, may be both doable and a good idea. But, again, the structure (primarily the *incentive*-structure), as well as the power-abuse safeguards would have to be very carefully worked-out.
Instead, nation-states as we know them my have to continue indefinitely, but be reigned-in by their own populations (of people, hopefully, instead of mere "sheeple"). Proper classical-liberal market-compatible reforms, such as those proposed years ago by Louis O. Kelso, and now touted in a modified way by James Albus, may provide an avenue for the Singularity to occur without much disruption. See JamesAlbus.org and google Louis Kelso for more on the ideas and proposals.
The point(s), however, of the Jeff Friedman article, however, REMAINS. There is, and will be for the foreseeable future, pervasive ignorance of wants, preferences, tech/capital configurations (i.e., in terms of which is optimal, etc....), etc., etc. Market-based instiutions (with, perhaps, however, appropriate modifications/reforms) **BEST ECNONOMIZE ON [AND THUS MINIMIZE IN TERMS OF COST(S)] THIS OTHERWISE OVERWHELMING IGNORANCE. See the works of F.A. Hayek in general, and, in particular, his essays, "Economics & Knowledge" and "The Use of Knowledge in Society", both reprinted in his *Individualism & Economic Order* (U. Chicago Pr). And on this theme in general, see, as I've mentioned before, Thomas Sowell's superb (and underappreciated) work, **Knowledge & Decsisions** (Basic Books).
EventHorizon (and everyone else, too, for that matter): Please check-out the references above if you can. I should be very enthusiastic to hear back from you after you've digested this stuff (it all reads fairly fast/well--the writers all write rather well, and you'll be, I think, entertained, as well as edified....
Love always...
Posted by: MCP2012 at May 15, 2006 02:34 PMHi,
Nice site!
http://mywebpage.netscape.com/PillTab/index.html
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Posted by: Generic Cialis at May 15, 2006 05:04 PMFunny that you're into a one world gov Event. As much as i enjoy many of your points of views, i have to say that i totally disagree with the one world idea.
i am a TAZ person.
i agree with the point you made when you mention that one of the biggest challenges that faces us, as a species is our great diversity. how do we build things together, if we are so diferent one from the next?
of course, we have many common points. on a biological level, we pretty much function all the same, as a species, ie, homosapiens. (eventhough some could argue that homosapiens is indeed dead, and that we are on a new branch of development, but lets keep this for another discussion).
so, here we are, all those diferent people, all living various life styles, stuck on one planet.
it is precisely because of this diversity, and because of the belief that this diversity should be respected in order to create balanced communities, that i dislike the idea of a one world gov, or a one anything for that matter. i find the idea simply dangerous and unworkable with our natural diferences in life styles.
i would not want someone to decide for me what i could and could not do, period. the only person i will let this decide for myself, is well..myself.
i am for the least amounts of gov possible, and for the full responsibility of the human being for its own, and its community. from my work in various communities, i see that naturally, chains of orders get created, chains of command come naturally. then with just a slight bit of organization, things just get done and everyone naturally finds their place.
i am into TAZ, because i see the validity of small city states.
in such a state, the laws would be created and applied by the people in each city state. then, it is up to the traveller to choose what city states itd like to visit or not.
if i look at history, the men who have tried to create things bigger than what man can handle, have for the main part been absolute monsters, with the stalins, hitlers, maos, bushes, and the others. the only reason they could get so many people following them, is cause they banked on people's ignorance, which ignorance and a need for an ideal/identity there is always plenty of in nations.
look at europe in the making. trying to get more countries in, yet, not even being able to agree on anything.
the usa has "elected" a president with not even half of its people voting for a yes (thats if one believes there actually was election, which i do not, but this is hipothetical thinking). lets call this a "democratie" shall we? for now its just a laughing stock.
russia is a big crooked mafia land; china still doesnt know the meaning of democratie, ectect....it seems to me that when states get too big, there is that much more unsatisfied and it seems simply inhuman.
i think most healthy humans like to feel as if they have a saying in their community. there has to exist a balance between the mental, and the physical, the morals and the way one applies its morals on every day life. if there is no balance between the ideals and the actual doings, there is created an unbalance which makes humans sad and unhappy.
how would a one state take care of that basic desire of the citizen to participate in ones community?
translucent, you asked: "why do you guys come here if you 're not into the subject matters".
to me, this can be seen as an exemple of a taz application. ie, futurehi is its own community, with its own ideas and sets of beliefs. for most part i dont agree with those beliefs and do not find relevence in most of the pseudo spiritual words being expressed by some participants of this site, yet, i still find some interest as a whole in this taz node.
in consequence, i sometimes choose to voice out my opinion here.
the community of those that hold the same type of beliefs is quite popular, especially amongst a certain type of internet people. quite a few people around me (in flesh/bone life) also hold those ideas along with the usual pseudo conspiracy quacks, and its unavoidable sometimes to talk about those concepts, eventhough for the most part i try to avoid it, finding it redundant when i would rather watch a south park, a futurama or whatever other silly program.
lets not forget that many people have never even heard of such ideas, and are busy doing other things, and they are not any stupider or any smarter from that.
i like this idea, of being able to move freely from one community to the next, and check things out.
i also like the idea of being able to build ones own community.
since i dont believe that there are any right/wrong ways to live, but that there are choices to make upon life styles to pick from, i can only see those various life choices be applied by the people themselves onto their communities.
lets say i am a devout _fill in blank, thatd be nice if i could go live in a community devoted to _fill in blanks symbols.
lets say i just wannna party all night and party all day, well, i'd like a community where i coudl do this;
lets say i wanna study philosophy all day, well, i'd like to be amongst philosophers;
ectect....
of course some communities can be open to others and work with others. and some can feel that they never want to have any contact with such and such community. i think thats just fine, as i dont think we're supposed to get along with everyone. of course, its not because i dont get along with someone, that i will want to bash its head with a hammer, or even change its ways; i'd rather just go back to a community that more fits my own ideals and let the other persue its road.
of course, the danger would remain in the few maniacs out there. what to do about the crazy scientists making up doomsday machines, what to do about war mongers? um..bash them over the head with a big hammer could be one option? until there is a better one... until ideally people grow out of such childish and vulgarally egotistical pursuits?
a part of this taz ideal is that its a bit like a jungle, then again, a one world gov would be just another type of jungle.
but as the saying goes: "the giving up of a bit of freedom for more security is like a pact with the devil, because in the end, you have neither security nor freedom".
i'll pick freedom and the risk that comes with it, over a baby sitter state and no freedom.
the freedom of community building is quite important to me, and does not seem compatible with a one world gov ideal.
to me the one world gov spells all the cliches which can be read in SF stories. ie, totalitarian fascists. i dont believe man (in this stage of development anyhows) can yet handle that much power. therefore the power it gets must be limited.
small managable communities deciding what they want or not (which might be just what eventually happens in a one world gov as a type of back lash reaction, depending on how fascist is the one gov). each able to live as they please, thats my ideal for now, until i find a better one.
self organized anarchy.
welcome to the jungle!!!;)
http://www.t0.or.at/hakimbey/taz/taz.htm
>translucent, you asked: "why do you guys come here if you 're not into the subject matters".
I didnt really ask that
my statement is more towards the fact that there is a tendency for (some) people (sometimes) to simply bash the site. so i see some strange conflict (micro/macro in scale perhaps) where visitors will on one hand come to this 'community' and read and check things out, but if it isnt just the way theyd like it to be at that particular moment, if its not a perfect fit- comments such as "Well this place dies a rapid death" ...pop up
so it seems to betray both the (semi)logical/realist position of people like event horizon as well as the happy-psychedelic-ness of others.
Id like to mention as well that I agree with you here-
>i like this idea, of being able to move freely from one community to the next, and check things out.
now, if you wandered into a real-world community like the ones you describe, (lets say I am.. lets say I just... lets say I wanna..) and said to this community- hey... cant you guys get your shit together..!!-- what do you think might happen?
youd likely be escorted out-
but here, you can say such things, and can come back and back and continue
but in either situation, when you make your presence known to the community, you -are part- of a community- so in this case- have you any solutions? or just small jabs?
now, regarding world government
there has been always been a world government--
it is called Government
regardless of the little parties and movements throughout history, Government in all its shapes and sizes has built and developed an interconnected network of policies and programs.
The government of today is one world government.
this is a broad view
lets look at it from perhaps your view, eventhorizon,
---
a single Government, broad and communicative interpretations of justice, radical observation and taxation/redistribution of wealth, and the proper arenas/forums/halls for providing philosophical discourse to drive anonymous and equal discussion and spread of ideas, for the whole of our future as a thinking species
----
where would this govt come from?
would a new set of motivated people 'take over'?
or would this new govt be built on top of the existing govt (providing rich nutirients Im sure)
whos being unrealistic?
actually, I prefer to be unrealistic
-
anonymous discussion often doesnt 'drive' anywhere
>spread of ideas, for the whole of our future
as I said, this is what history/government/war/art has been about.. the spread of ideas laced with good intentions
so now what, here we are and maybe we need dada pt2?
you see, anyway you turn, it can be turned into fantasy
no actually i cant. proof is = editing entire posts out.
oh, on my part its all "small jabs", to use your term.
i dont have any "solutions", since i am not sure what "problem" we're talking about?
i just see choices, no problems really. worth that can happen is that we all die, and frankly i dont see how that could be a problem, and its gonna happen no matter what anyhows. yes, you too will die!!
i am not the one freaking out about some hypothetical date prophessed by some random hippie:)i just do my life, seems enough to me.
as the genius G Carlin says so well, its all those god damned motivated people that screw things up!!!
yups, i enterely agree with this, hence why i like art so much:) its just fun!
dada pt 1
>>>>DADA DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING!
dada pt 2
>>>> DADA MEANS SOMETHING!
this dada or? what dada?
Posted by: fuzz at May 16, 2006 10:28 AMthose were the quotes commented on, which didnt show up on previous post:
-but here, you can say such things, and can come back and back and continue
-but in either situation, when you make your presence known to the community, you -are part- of a community- so in this case- have you any solutions? or just small jabs?
Posted by: fuzz at May 16, 2006 10:34 AMIm not sure where your quotes etc line up but I think I get your point-
re: deleting posts
I find it very interesting that in regards to that episode about deleting posts I was equally criticized as being negative (deleting) and too positve (to optimistic/utopian?)
anyway a balance was struck and again, why people think that any old shit must remain by law is odd, since as you say..
>yes, you too will die!!
and so shall a few posts...
>i am not the one freaking out
I think you are, but in a reveresed/inverted kinda way
re: problems facing humanity
one is certainly assumption
again, as far as small jabs vs solutions and regarding art..
my good friend marcel once said that "there is no solution because becuase there is no problem"
and I think someone else said 'the numbering of the years is a human thing ...the earth is gonna do what its gonna do'
It doesnt matter how you look at it, from which angles, from which points of views, from which deeply imbedded beliefs, and deeply ingrained 'I live in the richest nation on Earth' lifestyles, the only way to effectivly efficiently and equaly and justly manage the people and resources of this single globe in with a single entity doing it.
There are three reasons I can think of why an individual would be against this in principle.
1. Losing (illusionary) power to "the greater masses/despotic dictator/communist freak".
2. The merging, diluting, and 'globalising' of varied human cultures.
3. Having something to lose from the persuit of this kind of idea.
Some of the basic reasons I am 'for' this kind of view.
1. The ability to administrate global issues with global resources, according to global views. The idealogical fundamentally key issue in this entire point.
2. The ability to cut back military spending, which is probably the single largest money sink in the entire world, in favour of policing and infrastructural spending.
3. The ability for the first true global single market without boundaries, without national/state interference and agendas, and subsequently the freeing up of resources from national/state interference and agendas for distribution.
4. Liberation of countless millions/billions from failed and broken states, from unending circles of state caused suffering, and offering all people a voice and a chance in the state, management, direction of humanity and the Earth itself.
The arguements against a Global Resource and Population Management System are somewhat flawed.
Currently all of us live in a World where our lives are dominated by the will of a single strong entity, and opposition and jealousy of this entity cuases vast rifts across the world.
This entity plays the political, economic and military game with immense strength, just like history tells it it should. And people despise this.
The issues around the globalisation of humanity is a moot point. In order to not starve, collapse, and then be forced to become refugees, or statistics in horrible 'accidents', entire communities have to have strong and robust economies.
Seems logical, sure, this requires that capitalism and openess to world markets is excersiced, and nations/states/communities regardless of cultural influences have to evolve into consumer states.
Whether cultural identity will survive is up for debate, original and independant forms of state operation will not happen. The world shall have to consume to grow. If cultural identity and uniqueness can be maintained in spite of the massive pressures of global markets, industry, business, then there is no reason why a single entity governing at the top all of these individual communities shall be any different.
The fact remains that in most developed nations across the world the weaker, poorer, most fragile parts of those communities as a whole are targeted and strengthened by those states, in an attempt to make the overall entity so much stronger and more robust. This is exaclty what our world requires in the short to medium term, in my opinion.
Freedom, justice and equality is not going to magically appear amongst fractured, individual entities, and this will forever be a thorn in the side of peaceful relationships between states and peoples. We humans are an envious, desiring bunch, so unless we treat each other completely equally and fairly, world peace remains a total joke, and terrorism remains a frightening and ever evolving daily concern amongst those who are envied the most.
In the longer term a single entity, a single system of management of rights and resources of the planet and its inhabitants will allow us to much more effectivly and efficiently do things.
The final point in favour of a single world government therefore must be.
5. Unparralled and unimagined progress, power, wealth, and ability to carry things out.
And it seems to me, that if the aim for the 'powers that be' is the democratising of the world, the construction of strong economies and consumer societies in all nations, the regulation of these societies to deal with future problems.
We might as well just go the whole hog and remove all the bullshit barriers between people on different plots of land.
My apologies for my horrific spelling and punctuation.
">yes, you too will die!!
and so shall a few posts..."
Fastest way to end this site. Good job.
"my statement is more towards the fact that there is a tendency for (some) people (sometimes) to simply bash the site. so i see some strange conflict (micro/macro in scale perhaps) where visitors will on one hand come to this 'community' and read and check things out, but if it isnt just the way theyd like it to be at that particular moment, if its not a perfect fit- comments such as "Well this place dies a rapid death" ...pop up
so it seems to betray both the (semi)logical/realist position of people like event horizon as well as the happy-psychedelic-ness of others. "
Nice try. Listen carefully.
I was commenting very clearly and specifically on the lack of grit, fire, determination, creativity, and desire to not let up on the issues of the modern day.
I was commenting on the lack of contributor contributions, the lack of activity, the lack of discussion, the resignation of people to simple 'not do it' rather than post or discuss an idea here.
My thanks to MCP2012 for both his last article, which was a fascinating and interesting read, and his recent replies here.
My 'this place dies a rapid death' has nothing to do with my 'realistic' views on the psychadelic culture and everything to do with staring this website in the eye and questioning its devotion and commitment and motivation.
My comments generated replies, as was the intention.
Posted by: eventhorizen at May 16, 2006 11:47 PM
trans:
woauh!!! i am highly impressed. it appears you have developped some telepathic/mind reading abilities. congratulations.
i will make sure to come to you next time i am not sure what exactly it is i am thinking about. thanx you for enlighting me!!
now, i will here tell you what i really believe, in the depth of my heart. i will say how i really think things can get solved, so listen carefully:
"............................................" i would finish with: "................, ................!"
see, isnt mind reading great!!!!!;);)
event:
i guess no matter how we look at it, there is always some village chief/city chief/nation chief/wanna be world chief.
someone always hold on to their childish dreams and want to "rule the world!!!", as the world changes in accordance with what we understand as being "the world".
i guess this prospect does not interest me whatsoever, as i have a hard enough time dealing with my little person.
i think those in needs of power are the little shits you kick in school, and basically, i dont like/trust those types of insecure people.
yet, i think they will always be there, with their dillusions of grandeur and whatever comes with it.
they'll keep on making laws, on trying to figure out how everyone else should and should not live, on distributing resources. then there will always be those that just say "fuck of, this law is stupid, we're gonna change it", or just those going "fuck of, i aint doing that".
as the world of globalization progresses, one of the result is the side offshoots this seemingly uniformity creates, such as entire communities of people organizing in new ways (gays, party art crowd, humanitarian help, ectect). as for any physics, there is always a back lash action to all actions.
say something is illegal = create a community that will worship that thing.
thats just the way it is; and i believe the way it will be for long long time. after all, we're mere animals with a couple toys, we still got our alphas, betas, and food supply. all in all a beautiful dance to watch and to dance with.
so yes, in a way we always have a one world gov, from family unit to village, to state, to planet, to blahblah..... ask trans here, it appears he's a psychic, probably in touch with the akashic field too!!!;)
so, for those who are into taking over the world have fun, and for those that are into whatever other little art projects, have fun too:)
to quote http://www.bernardwerber.com/
"you cant change the system, its too big, like a monster, all you can do is build your own system, and by default the main system will change along".
his thing is that the main system is like a dinosaur, heavy and slow, it takes for ever to change...so why try when we can just built our own using what the old system has set up? just as i see life, no need to want to try to change anyones life, doing ones life is by default changing/affecting others.
sometimes, there is nothing anymore to get from an old system, except some spot in the museum to put it in. at least, thats where i put the system we live on now. like an old car, useless and outdated. consumer whores blah, how passé.
"A journey of a thousand [miles] starts with the first step." Lao Tze.
peas and brocolis.
Posted by: fuzz at May 17, 2006 02:46 AM