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Economics as Religion |
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Essays
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 |
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Usually this section of the site is reserved for my essays, but this one had to be included here since I wish I'd written it.
Religion and Economics deftly frames neo-liberal economics as a modern religion. Framing is an extremely important cognitive tool that allows us to see through the haze of habit and get a clearer vision of the world as it is, not as we've become habituated to see it.
If there was something on this planet that stands in need re-framing above all else, it is neoliberalism, a system of economics that concentrates massive wealth, steals the resources of the global poor, caused the current economic crisis and is directly responsible for most of the world's ecological disasters.
John B. Cobb Jr.'s essay, while a bit long-winded, point by point compares the phenomenon of neoliberalism that bears a striking resemblance to the world's religions in the "glorious" principles it espouses, the commitment it requires of its believers and the worship of its deity above all else.
This is an extremely useful re-framing of the economics of unregulated growth, not just because we're all feeling the disastrous effects of its methodology, but that we assists in a complete paradigm shift of its essence, in order to help us break free from the spell it has so thoroughly cast on this planet.
Simply put, economics is a religion we need to stop worshiping before its too late. Reading Cobb's essay helps realize we're in a temple of someone else's making and its time to walk out.
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Finally Someone Explains the Money System |
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Paradigm Shifts
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Monday, 23 November 2009 |
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This is the best article I've seen that clearly explains the Federal Reserve System, the understanding of which requires a MAJOR paradigm shift.
Simply put, if you're pissed off at how the economy was trashed and want an explanation (and likely a target to focus your rage on) then these essays will help. Its impossible to understand the mess without understanding the root of it -- the money system. If you've never read anything about this before, I highly recommend diving down this particular rabbit hole, because otherwise, its all a lot of shadow boxing.
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Peak Oil as a River in Egypt |
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TEOTWAWKI
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Monday, 23 November 2009 |
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I love the old teenage taunt about traveling down a river in Egypt (da nile) and it would be funny in this context except, well, its just not. Peak Oil is a real deal when it comes to TEOTWAKI. And finally we've got a decent whistleblower:
At last we know...sort of. An article in the UK newspaper The Guardian for November 9, titled “Key Oil Figures Were Distorted by US Pressure, Says Whistleblower,”
reveals what hundreds of analysts have been trying to convey to world
leaders for years: The global oil supply situation is critical and
getting worse, and vested interests are playing key roles in covering
up this devastatingly inconvenient truth.
That post was from a blog on the Post Carbon Institute's website. They are a fantastic organization tirelessly working to promote alternatives to a carbon based civilization. Mainly it boils down to local, local, local. Very worth checking out if you need some ideas about how to rebuild society once the cheap oil runs out.
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A New Way of Looking at Drinking Water |
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Paradigm Shifts
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Monday, 23 November 2009 |
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We're living through such an amazing era... intense problems birthing radical solutions. Case in point:
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Buh Bye iLike |
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Music Blog
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Sunday, 22 November 2009 |
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Just learned today that MySpace bought out iLike which was a music sharing service that I, er, used to like.
But since Rupert Murdoch is the anti-christ (he owns MySpace along with Fox "News") I'm sure that I'd lose sleep (or my lunch) knowing that his slimy little gollum fingers were all over my music.
So sayonara iLike. So sorry you had to sell out and make yourself all icky.
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Angst, Time and Gothic Music |
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Essays
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Saturday, 31 October 2009 |
Boy, that title could be rewritten so many different ways, with so many different combinations of words... suffering, youth, pain, torment, adolescent, new wave, headphones.
The other night I did something unusual. A ritual from distant, deep memory -- I turned out the lights, put on some headphones and listened to an album straight through. Truth be told, I've done that countless times listening to my own albums, but usually as part of the process of analyzing, proofing, etc. Its been a much longer time since I put on one of those albums. You know the ones. The kind that pull you in to your heart-wrenched pain, providing catalyst for tears and release.
In this case, it was Tones on Tail's Night Music. But there were others through the years. Roxy Music's Avalon, The Cure's Disintegration, any of the first three Smiths' albums. Ohh how the Brits are capable of concretizing the pangs of adolescence.
The album itself is stunning. A masterwork anchored in the goth/new wave era, yet somehow completely untethered by the usual constraints of genre. It feels liberated from its time and place, which was an odd sensation, since its also how I felt, listening to it for the first time in perhaps 15 years.
Liberated, because there were no painful tears, no gut-wrenching agonies that had been embedded in that music when I first heard it so long ago. They were gone, only to be replaced with the still regrets that time brings.
The irony of adolescent angst is it's freedom. As teenagers, whether our suffering is real or imagined (which I must admit I was victim of both), the incongruity lies in how liberated we are to feel, regardless of how many of our emotions center around feeling trapped. We're teenagers -- having no control of our own destiny, assailed on all sides, tormented by a thousand different pangs. But we're free to feel these things. Never in one of those "late night with headphones" would I have conceived that the real feelings of being trapped would come later. Trapped by survival. The need to keep going, regardless of how you feel because life demands it. Work, love, money, pressure.
In many ways I was relieved to find, listening to that exquisite album after such a long absence, that so many of my adolescent torments had long-since dissolved. But at the same time, I missed the catharsis that was so easy to come by in my youth. Instead, the feeling of dull, locked away caverns of regret and remorse, still with me but still inaccessible by the pressures of time. Maybe to be opened once again, if the emotional "liberation of youth" that I took for granted is allowed, by time, to make another grand entrance.
As the album reached its end, there was no mourning for the last note, no tears to wipe from salty cheeks. Just an odd feeling for their absence and the lingering feeling that I should probably get to bed. To be prepared for the demands a new day would bring.
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The future of philanthropy |
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Paradigm Shifts
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009 |
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Interview on Net Radio |
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Paradigm Shifts
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009 |
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Hey all,
I was interviewed a few weeks ago on a net radio show called "All Things Health" on the subject of one of my latest passions -- biodegradable plastics. I recently started doing sales for the Beijing-based startup BDP Green Technology which produces compostable bags that safely dissolve back into the earth. Usable for shopping, trash, packaging and a variety of other uses, this technology is completely safe for the environment!
Click here for the archived show.
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