Megalomania – The Perfect Recipe for Commiting Suicide
Take too much power...
Friedrich Nietzsche
One pays heavily for coming to power: power makes stupid.
add to this some Hollywood-actors...
Superman or Bruce Willis, stopping a comet with bare hands or Tommy Lee Jones, stopping lava flows with water flows from helicopters...
look at Schwarzenegger or Willis – then you know that they truly believe what they play. They act as if they are unbeaten heroes...
just some actors, supported by the divine power over the story – by the scriptwriters...
and an audience, not caring about reality...
megalomania...
Bush set for climate change U-turn:
However, Stern warned: 'The US will work it out for itself. Nobody will be telling them what to do, and nobody should.'
Again – who or what gives the US the right to decide about the future of the whole humankind?
Dollars? Nukes? Or “Superiority”? The American, the new Herrenmensch?
The Lord, Who Has All Power In Heaven And On Earth?
Remember the reply of China?
Megalomania...
kills the last bit of intelligence...
Oh yes, America will not permit Gaia to threaten profits and shareholders!
The Superpower will send Supermen, millions of them, with nukes and high tech and the infinite american invincibility to stop Global Warming!
Build some mirrors to reflect the sun!
Spread dust in the atmosphere!
Cover the sea with plastics!
Spray the water of the oceans into the air!
Push more and more uncontrolled force to Gaia! Bring her to her knees! Fight Satan with Beelzebub!
Don’t care about the laws of physics, of the fact, that chaotic systems seem to ignore changes for a while...
and then suddenly break down with no warning.
We are in trouble because of our interventions into a myriad of intertwined cycles – Gaia – we don’t understand.
And now we are stupid enough to believe, we could control the result by more powerful interventions?
Worked out by “scientists”, paid to know, but who always, always have to admit “oh, THAT we didn’t know, THAT we couldn’t foresee” – when the next doomsday messages of Gaia hit them like masters hit their dogs?
Bertrands Paradox
The more you know about a system, the better you know, how that system will behave...
To be able to better foresee the future.
Simply means: The more you know, the better your decisions are, the more the results of your actions change the world in the way you envision.
Yes – and vice versa...
the less you know about the system, the worse are your decisions – but alas, that doesn’t only mean, that your actions change the world less...
it only means, that your uninformed decisions change the world less in the way you want – but the power you invest by your actions is put into the world...
against you.
Remember the Killer Bees? The Cane Toads? Human interventions to "solve problems" - of so-called "scientists", of men without respect for interdependencies...
Global Warming shows that to us, proves us, that you can't put force into a system without changing it – but like the Chinese firing of a satellite-destroying missile, it is just a warning shot.
Be careful.
Be intelligent.
Act informed.
Act wise.
And the first step of the realization, that our uncontrolled, uninformed impact on nature will destroy everything...
has to be – STOP IT! Stop the uncontrolled powers, start to be more precise in your actions!
Stop to cut the Gordian Knot with the sword, when you don’t know, which monsters are bound by the threads!
Start to follow the way, Mother Nature showed us!
Oh yes, but it is more fun to play Superman...
who cares if you kill your own children with your megalomania! As long...
as you have fun...
and maybe you can make some profits! More and more interventions, more and more disturbed cycles of Gaia – maybe America can blind the other nations and demand money for the “protection” – to disturb more, to destroy more...
to “bring Gaia on her knees”.
Subdue the Earth!
Reject the gift of intelligence!
Holy Megalomania, protect us from wisdom...
and survival...
posted by Again at 4:03 AM
4 Comments:
Now you are a little more on point here. I think you hit the problem squarely this time. I hope you don't mind a little story here.
A couple of weeks ago I was at my dermatologist's office for a visit, old guy like me and still having acne troubles but I digress, and we were having a conversation about taking care of oneself and the consequences of not doing so in a world where life expectencies are ever increasing. The good doctor was, of course, lecturing on the virtues of caring for oneself for long life and how he believes that in the not so distant future humans will live productive lives into the 100+ year range typically. My response to this claim was not one of disbelief, but I mentioned that if that were the case we would have to make a conscious effort to control and reduce the human population very soon lest we be confronted with a very real 'tragedy of the commons' situation. I guess I was hoping for a slightly more enlightened reply to this remark than what came next.
The good doctor looked at me and replied that I must be joking, we in fact must produce more children, and our population is aging; ergo, the overall population would dwindle if steps are not taken to increase the human population.
I left his office that day irritated and more than a little confused. I was irritated because I expected an educated man of his calibre to appreciate the serious overpopulation problems that our childrens/grandchildrens generations will face because of our carelessness and confused about how I can attack such an insurmountable problem. If even the educated can get it so wrong, how can we make the common man understand the consequences of following his biological urges without restraint? How do we manage to prove such a counterintuitive argument?
Essentially, we are fighting an uphill battle against the powers of self-interested perception management. The proximate cause of my doctor's concern, I am convinced, is that given our paradigm of free market capitalism, we must have an ever increasing, youthful workforce to replace and support the generation expecting to leave the workforce with decades of life left to enjoy, those 'golden years' if you will. This is exactly the problem that is being swept under the rug unfortunately. How can we expect the go on living for decades beyond our productive years? If we could avoid the issues of finite resources and limited space along with global climate change, increase disease due to larger population densities, and less privacy I would argue that maybe we could learn to get along. Perhaps with more minds in the world working on the world's problems, we would solve many of the perplexing issues that seem to point us to our own demise as a species. But in good conscience I cannot.
Maybe this is not megalomania, but perhaps we could label it mega-megalomania. Call it a collective delusion of grandeur if you will. It all keeps coming back to the addage that you cannot fix anything with the same thinking that caused the problem in the first place. What we need is something new. Not a larger megaphone than the blowhards bent on shortsighted gain because they will not be around to reap what they sow, no what we need is something completely different. Lately I have been reading John Rawls "A Theory of Justice" looking for clues. It feels as though there is something there, I just can't put my finger on it yet. I will say that you are correct in pointing out that we don't need anymore supermen. What we need is more kryptonite ASAP.
But more on this later...when I come up with a good idea.
hi jason, fine to read you (and again, sorry to be a little late)
I hope you don't mind a little story here.
oh, no never! Thanks for sharing...
so in a world where life expectencies are ever increasing.
but you are an American - in America it is already decreasing - you know, the greed-philosophy of "the winner takes it all" is really lethal - for the millions of "losers"....
Growing wealth gap rates an 'orange alert', Thomas Kostigen, CBS.MarketWatch.com, June 1, 2004 Tuesday 11:27 AM
"The biggest indicator of a healthy society -- average life expectancy -- has dropped. People in the U.S. now don't live even as long as people in Costa Rica"
If even the educated can get it so wrong, how can we make the common man understand the consequences of following his biological urges without restraint?
today i watched a dog, playfully running around his human masters...
they also don't care about the future - they don't care about Global Warming, don't care about behaving responsible to protect the future for themselves or their offspring - they are just animals!
and the same is with those people - i often discuss with people, not WANTING to see what's going on - Qui sera, sera, what will be, will be and we will enjoy our life as long is it is possible - follow our leaders and never think on our own, because the paradise is the place without the apple of knowledge!!!
they are the best proof for Darwin, demonstrating the undeniable relationship between the species, the fact, that humans are also just animals - and the best proof against Intelligent Design, because where there is no intelligence, there can't be a designer of that intelligence, isn't it???
and they are the best proof for my hypothesis, based on the cost-gain-function of intelligence - supported by the success of humankind after invention of the language and the inability of the DNA to differ much between men and mice - and the period between invention of language and our now "very likely" demise
the evolution has gone as far as it could go - regarding high intelligent, but isolated objects. It is a physical barrier for any life system and will be threatening any high active intelligent organisms in any universe ever - because high intelligence destroys information it has to develop strategies to protect it - like language
and we have gone that way, language allowed us, nearly to the end - either we follow the way Mother Nature shows us or we'll die out
global warming is just a symptom, not the disease - the disease is that we are (at least as species) too intelligent to behave like animals, like isolated objects...
a dog is allowed to care just for himself - if he is too stupid - he'll die and his masters buy another one, but he can't destroy the Earth with his behavior...
our way is the way, language showed us, the psychologic programming showed us, Mother Nature implemented in us to prepare us for the next step: we are "more egalitarian" and "less dominant" programmed as other species - easy to see the trend: we have to go the way nature went once: from the unicellular to the multicellular organism - oh, we won't do it exactly like the cells because active information processing is too different from the passive, the respect for the individual knowledge must be preserved to preserve that knowledge...
but the way is clear: we have to learn to live together in a much more dense way - we have to enhance communication (the second step: the first step was language, the first evolutionary advance in information processing/communication nearly only BETWEEN the individuals, not just inside a body/individual) - and because the "density of communication" defines systems and a jump in the density always shows borders, limits, outlines of systems, it is clear, that we have to build an uber-body. What is our culture has to be expanded
we have to accept that we only can survive together - a selfish, spoiled philosophy like the "winner takes it all" is just the thinking of the dogs - lethal for high active intelligence, which needs to work together to protect information...
and because information is the one and only foundation of life - any disrespect for information/communication is simply lethal - and the aristocratic nonsense, that some few "leaders" are enough to think for all the people...
is just that - nonsense, simply because Mother Nature spreads intelligence not within the limits of classes or genders or regions and brains, each brain, is much too precious for Nature to be neglected with the (biologically) programmed goal to support the OWN interests not the interests of the aristocrats: IOW: aristocracy dissipates and so binds energy - look at wars! How many intelligence and energy - just to destroy!! Imagine, where humankind could be, when this energy and intelligence would have been used to CONSTRUCT
aristocracy, leaders, wilful stupidity and wimpy readiness for obedience, for being only a slave - is nothing else than betrayal of the most precious gift of Mother Nature: your brain and your competence to think and decide on your own - to protect yourself and your children...
global warming, the blind killing of Mother Nature - the foundation of our existence - is just an inevitable result of that "applied betrayal" of our intelligence...
intelligence is the conquest of the future - but who wants to know the future, when this demands to act responsible and disciplined, who wants to be intelligent when it is so "exhausting"??
so global warming isn't a problem in itself - it is just an inevitable result of our weakness, of our inability to accept that intelligence is not just a gift, but a duty
and maybe, maybe it is even a chance - to get rid off people like Bush, Cheney, Stalin and Hitler and all the other more or less evil alpha-chimps pretending to be "our leaders" - we have to learn that there is a big difference between decision makers and bosses - and the most obvious difference is: a decision maker is able to resist power, to leave: the aristocrats aren't - look at the mighty families of America, they might buy presidents, which may leave the power - but THEY themselves never let power go, they, preaching free market and the "divine dollar", waste dollars without hesitation, billions and billions - just to stay in power
each system like that is doomed to fail - because we need any portion of intelligence we can have...
in the next decades to come...
Ok, you got me on the age thing. But then, this is only average age which is also sadly skewed by all those pesky poor, non-white types that do all the nasty work that the slim majority of us fine upstanding white folks wouldn't do. (sarcastic emphasis added)
But that is not entirely my point here. What I am mostly trying to get at here is the sad reality that there is no bridge for communicating what the real problem is. I am afraid, much like you if I can paraphrase your response, that we homo sapiens' are the victims of our own success. Perhaps it is a definitional problem that we tend to equate knowledge with wisdom when they are not equitable terms. Perhaps it is just a natural course of events.
I recently read a good book on the evolution of language by a linguist named Guy Deutscher and one interesting claim that was made in this book was that civilizations' risings and falls can be somewhat predictably tracked by their 'perfection' of a language. Now this was not the central theme of this book so I do not want to come across as saying the sky is falling but it was, nevertheless, interesting from the perspective we are speaking about. It is interesting because there seems to be a season for everything; and perhaps we are seeing our season coming to a rapid end.
I guess I have mixed feelings about such a bleak sounding conclusion. What I am torn over is the biological urge to leave a legacy, both personally and as a species, and the damage that this legacy will inflict on the other living creatures here as well. Some will argue that the very notion of our influence on climate is inviting the label of megalomaniac, that we could not possibly be so important in the overall scheme of the planet's ecological system, but I wonder how those people explain the rapid extinction of large animal species virtually everywhere on the planet following the spread of our forebearers. I think the archeological records speak for themselves in this case. So I believe it is clear that we do have it in our power to change the global landscape based on our presence or lack thereof; but in the 'grand scheme' of the universe who cares other than us. Certainly it is bad news for us but to refer back to the notion of megalomania, it is not the end of the universe. Indeed, life on this very planet has proven remarkably resilient, beating out numerous mass-extinction events. Organic life will most likely continue to prosper once we have met our demise and the last man standing falls. Unfortunately for you and I, we will not be around to see what becomes of our home after this bittersweet epoch occurs.
In this light, I think I fully understand what you are saying about the ongoing battle between information and intelligence. Everything in the universe is information. Indeed, it would seem that information is the only eternal thing in the universe. I'm not sure that we are intelligent enough to ever extract a mathematical theory to uncover the hidden meaning of the universe. Stated this way almost sounds something of a religious pandering, but what I am trying to coax out is a predictable pattern of how events occur in the universe in a way that could tell us 'well, how did I get here?' in a way more elaborate than the Talking Heads song had in mind. What I am talking about is a bullet-proof version of a mechanistic approach to life and consciousness.
So where are we at so far?
What is most important in all this is there are far too many people on planet Earth. There are not enough resources renewable or non-renewable to sustain the current population into the future. Any increase in this population will just exasperate this problem. As I hinted at before, it is counterintuitive to believe that the human animal that has succeeded in the past due to reproductive efficiency and mental ability to outsmart the competition can be willing to voluntarily decrease the population and thus reduce their geneological success for the good of the planet and all its creatures. We would have as much luck asking everyone not to breathe so much. So what are our alternatives? Nature provides what she can with diseases and climate events, and certainly we seem to be fully capable of the wholesale distruction of entire races of our fellow man; but of course these are rather draconian choices. It would seem that as far as we are concerned, our population prblem is intractible. This is my underlying theme here. This is the raison d'etre. We must find a way to convincethe world that we cannot accept the status quo and for the future of everyone we will have to find an egalitarian approach to negative population growth.
A tall order in a world of 'proud christian soldiers' looking to do 'God's' duty and out populate the heathen peoples of the world.
sorry, i guess, i'd digressed
I am afraid, much like you if I can paraphrase your response, that we homo sapiens' are the victims of our own success.
great "translation"!!
It is interesting because there seems to be a season for everything
exactly - Life Cycles, nowadays so perfectly "managed" (LCM);-)
I guess I have mixed feelings about such a bleak sounding conclusion.
who has not? Read recently, that Lovelack gives us no hope - and tells us to use nuclear power plants to "prettify" our final days at least for a while...
that's nonsense - you never will beat devil with beelzebub - and the randomness and infinity of the universe IS a chance to survive, because in good times, random change means mostly risk, but in bad times, random changes means mostly hope
and IF humankind survives it MUST have methods and strategies for cylic/renewable ways of energy production
so you see - as far as the todays willful blindness goes, i'm a pessimist - but regarding Mother Nature, i'm a true optimist ;-)
that we could not possibly be so important in the overall scheme of the planet's ecological system, but I wonder how those people explain the rapid extinction of large animal species virtually everywhere on the planet following the spread of our forebearers.
how? Not a bit, i guess - those people don't think on their own, they go to church or to their bosses to think for them and then, they just have to repeat like parrots. Very easy, not that hard...
and they avoid learning! As if it would be devils work to "know" (you know "to believe is better than to know", told them religion and they happily obey)
because even plants are that "powerful/important" - the first real "catastrophe" for life was created by plants, they "poisoned" the air with oxygen - and it seemed (at that time), that life could end (life as it was known then) - but what happens? Mother Nature invented the "moving life", the animals, using the high-energetic oxygen and eating the plants ;-)
In this light, I think I fully understand what you are saying about the ongoing battle between information and intelligence.
thank you for your understanding - you know, it's good for a brain not to feel alone ;-)
Everything in the universe is information.
perfectly - except, for sure, the quantum noise (just kidding ;-) )
I'm not sure that we are intelligent enough to ever extract a mathematical theory to uncover the hidden meaning of the universe.
oh, i AM sure - that we (and each and every possible information processing system in each and every possible univers) will never do that - Gödels Theorem tells us, that a given set of mathematic rules/axioms is not even able to describe just the natural numbers - so no well-defined set of rules (and nothing else is mathematics) will be able to describe the infinite universe - especially when you consider, that time is the primary "driver", not space - information is the foundation of determinism, but information is just a subset of all actions - and i guess, not the biggest subset - so it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to describe the universe fully by mathematics
Stated this way almost sounds something of a religious pandering
sure it sounds like that - because to understand universe is the fundamental need to survive for any information processing system (at least to understand an important part of the universe ;-) )
so it is hardly surprising that humans try to understand things and try to understand where they come from - because that is the precondition for the knowledge, where they will go and what may happen => the foundation of good decisions => the precondition for survival
that religion occupied this thinking is just because - as you've said - humans became victims of their own success, so most of them didn't understand the growing complexity created by intelligence - like the invention of big cities with thousands of peoples, when Mother Nature programmed us just for about 100-150 persons...
so humans start to block out complexity, start to avoid responsibility and looked first for Big Mummy, then for Big Daddy to lead them and to think for them - and (most important!) to bear responsibility: if they decided something wrong, even if they acted mean and greedy - HE is responsible, God told us to do so, WE are just children and have to obey...
easy life - the bill for some thousand years of cowardice seems to come now - because nearly each "high culture" had killed its environment because of that regression into chimp-behavior: the leading alpha and the obeying betas, gammas, deltas and breeding cattle...
What I am talking about is a bullet-proof version of a mechanistic approach to life and consciousness
information is such a bullet-proof version - but actually it is not mechanistic, because it is rule-based, at least the active kind of information processing - and it is highly, perfectly individual, at least the high intelligent information processing systems - because the knowledge, the "production of information" used by this systems is dependent on the individual time-space-path, this system "went" through its life
and because of the wishful thinking of the wannabe-children, because of the "value" of faith over knowledge - together with this "indirect" rule-based physical behavior of information, which might look very complicated on the surface, so that many lower intelligences are not able to reconstruct the information/rules behind the overwhelming details/datas/events - i guess, it is not possible to have a "bullet-proof" knowledge for those brain-kiddies - they will deny it by closing the eyes like the priest near Galileo Galilei, just not looking through the telescope, which for him was enough to deny what could be seen through it...
What is most important in all this is there are far too many people on planet Earth.
alas, perfectly right alas - and using our brains would have avoid it since decades. So we will need wars and Global Warming to reduce what our Chimp-Behavior told us to do, because Chimps behave not that intelligent - and i guess we must have to pay the price for our willingness to betray the gift of Mother Nature to be humans. We preferred to go back in "the paradise without the apple of knowledge", we preferred to be chimps when we should be thinking, speaking, intelligent humans...
we must be punished for a crime like that, i fear - but yes, sure, it's not a punishment, it's just the course of time, the chain of actions - Mother Nature gave us the brain to detect, interprete, evaluate and understand this course of time, but we denied - "too hard for us", we said, we want to be chimps, just sex and food and dung is good enough for us, we want to enjoy life and we don't want to care for (and fear) the future! So we have to pay the price, it's just physics, the laws of cause and effect...
but we will FEEL it as punishment - because we will know that it is our own fault
As I hinted at before, it is counterintuitive to believe that the human animal that has succeeded in the past due to reproductive efficiency and mental ability to outsmart the competition can be willing to voluntarily decrease the population and thus reduce their geneological success for the good of the planet and all its creatures.
hmmmm - but Mother Nature did some programming regarding that problem. In overcrowded populations birth rate decreases - and educated women don't "breed" like rats. Look at the "cry for children" in all the industrial countries
or look at homosexuality - i don't know if it is rising but i know it is a perfect tool for Nature to control population
and you should never ever underestimate the power of intelligence - yes, most humans are not really much more intelligent as chimps (IQ 100 is just a few points above the bonobos, who are also able to learn something like speaking - and even teach this new skills to others of their groups)...
the more educated (and trained) brains are, the better their prognosis and decisions will be - that's the reason why the people of the industrial countries reduce their birth rates - and that's the reason, why religious countries hate education, especially education of the "breeding cattle" - the less educated, the more children...
for breeding you don't need brains - actually, the more capable the brain the harder it is for Mother Nature to "get what she needs", to make the "hard wired programming" work, because brains task IS to control the programming to react individually in individual environments - but breeding is just a programmed task of the body, so the more brain, the harder the reproduction is (not only because the head of the babies is growing ;-) )
We must find a way to convincethe world that we cannot accept the status quo and for the future of everyone we will have to find an egalitarian approach to negative population growth.
perfectly right - andthe only way is to educate people, especially the women - the "critical resource" of reproducation - it seems that most religions on Earth are nothing else than the occupation of this resource by avoiding the brains "on top of that resource" to work properly - and the less the brains, originally responsible for the "reproduction resource", are able to decide what's best for them and their children, the more "products" are "made" to be used or thrown away by someone else (not programmed by Mother Nature to care for the offspring)
- think of Kissingers words regarding soldiers! "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy"
it's the same with our industry, isn't it? The less the employees have to say regarding the work they have to do, the more often "management mistakes" happen, producing too much or too little or in the wrong quality
A tall order in a world of 'proud christian soldiers' looking to do 'God's' duty and out populate the heathen peoples of the world.
a tall order, yes
but it's the order of Mother Nature, the job, physics gave us - and WE are the deciders
we can do what we want! We can play the non-thinking, obeying children, following the Uber-Alpha-Chimp in Heaven, hoping for some small crumps of the Uber-big heap of bananas (called Earth) this "God" is thought to sit on top and to declare its own
or we think and act on our own - it's our decision
right or wrong, it's our decision: life or death is in our hands...
i'm optimistic in so far, that i guess, Mother Nature will always try to help us - as long as we act "natural", using our brains, accepting our own responsibilities and considering, that all has its price. Because as long as we accept that, we can control the price...
but if we run away from reality, crying for Big Daddy in Church, Government or Work, we can run as far as we want and as quick as we can - we will not be able to run away from paying - it's just, that someone/thing else decides the price...
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