Viewing Earth from the perspective of a tiny fragile globe hurling through space humbles and inspires all at once - but makes flag waving and joining in difficult. And so from age 10 on things got difficult. I mean if you're paying attention, even just a little, how can you not be angry? But how also can you not be inspired and awed.
And so I write. By Charlie Phillips
McConnell
is the fart that lingers even after the body has long since died. Old
white republican men's last hurrah, long past their time.
Someone
may want to tell him he has lost all relevance and lingers only as old
gas dispersed from a source long since extinct. For even gas requires
some time to completely disperse into nothingness.
Madmen lose their grip on the fabric of human construct and free fall into a multidimensional universe of incredible immensity, power, and beauty they cannot comprehend, and thus go insane.
Human construct, sadly, their only reference point - all of humankind’s only reference point. We all cling to this fabric as a child to a mother's apron, oblivious to the other 99.9999% of everything that surrounds us all. All of our lives scurrying about in self made worlds, oblivious to what we are immersed in, losing out on the lessons, stunning beauty, and humility this universe can provide. She will guide us to peace, understanding, near immortality, if only we would look up.
Diamond rings and perfect weddings.
Suits, ties, and self-importance.
Kingdoms and two dimensional construct.
Better than you.
'Happiness' perpetually nearly in grasp.
And then - we die
Noses to devices, isolated, enraged, tearful.
Murdering our own, watching the rest starve in a world of plenty.
Chasing ‘success’, approval, fame, power, wealth all of our lives.
All the while, missing out, something not right.
And then - we die.
And for what?
So that our children may have their rings, perfect weddings, suits, ties, pedigrees, and self-importance? Their atrocities, self-inflicted suffering, and fair share of murder and hate?
Noses to their devices, miserable in their self-made two dimensional constructs, always chasing - success, approval, fame, wealth, 'happiness', all their lives? All the while, missing out, something not right.
All across America we witness near ghost towns where once thriving cities lay. Poverty stricken, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, oxy invested. Towns once dependent on single economies - a couple of factories, lumber mills, a fishery. Relics now, testament to greed and an utter lack of social responsibility by corporations focused on a single goal - profit. Devastated economically, emotionally, spiritually they turn to drugs and sex - nothing to live for, nothing to give to their children, not even promises of a better life - so why the hell not.
Trump would have them believe this was due to corporate outsourcing alone, and uses the devastation to lie about returning things to the way they were in order to extract what he needs from people who have almost nothing left to give.
The real problem is not outsourcing, it contributes, but far and away the real problem is automation and poor resource management - and with automation's continued development you can be sure things will never be the same again.
Perhaps before a corporation turns its back on a community dependent on them they should be required to offer retraining for their workers, and to pay them what they were making while retraining. After-all they have a social responsibility to all the lives they touch, not just their share holders. Why should they be allowed to destroy entire towns so they can make a buck without accepting some responsibility? And think, these workers while retraining could actually afford to buy these corporations products - win win.
But what to do about automation? The next major workforce to be violently displaced in this country will be professional drivers. There are over 4 million of them in this country, truck drivers, taxis, bus, limo, Uber and Lyft. Automated vehicles are about to take their jobs in the next 3-7 years, tops. A report by Goldman Sachs, (CNBC, ) states that at its peak the transition from people to machines will cost 300,000 jobs per year in this country beginning as soon as in 3-7 years from now. Tesla is promising a fully automated passenger car within the next year. It may take a year or two to wind its way through regulatory bodies - but there's no stopping it, it's coming. Uber Freight already offers limited autonomous semi-truck delivery service, as does Tesla, and more are coming online.
Automation of course wont stop with just taking professional drivers jobs and potentially destroying our economy along the way. Automation and artificial intelligence will take almost all of our children's jobs in the decades to follow.
And what are we doing about this? Pretty much nothing. The market will fix it say the politicians too focused on their next election to worry about my daughter's life decades from now. It''l fix it just like it fixed Flint, Detroit, Gary Indiana, and on and on.
The end-point is inevitable. Full automation is coming, it's frankly silly to deny. And so time is not on our side. The longer it takes to fully automate the more devastating to our economy and society as a whole. Complete automation from the extraction of raw materials, to their processing and assembly, and distribution to your doorstep. Every material need provided for free by automation overseen by artificial intelligence and robotic repair apparatus. There are no jobs AI and machines wont be able to do if we allow them to. And so society will, out of necessity, move away from money and consumerism to a new day of exploration and knowledge. But getting there is the hard part. What does society look like when half the jobs are gone to automation but everything is still based on money? It's not pretty.
The solution? Get us to a full automation and the dissolution of money as quickly as possible. As truckers lose their job, retrain them in some aspect of automation, paying them what they were earning as they learn, and then give them jobs in the automaton industry. As more and more of the work force is displaced by automation, train them in aspects of automation that they are suited for - therefore speeding up the process. Towards the end of the process, build the infrastructure but hold off bringing it online until we are ready to make the complete switch, then push the button. Machines will then provide all your material needs - home of your design (within reason), food, and all your 'stuff' - for free. Your self worth as - defined by society - will then be based not in the accumulation of wealth, but instead in knowledge, original thought, original creation, exploration of your universe. This will happen over the next three generations. By the third generation it will be viewed as it should have been all along. My god people working their entire lives at dead end jobs they hated - how barbaric! People living in abject poverty, children starving?!Self worth based in material goods? Stone Age.
But it will take decades of deliberate action to solve this problem, requiring an entirely new financial system, an entirely new individual approach to life, worldwide, to get there. The purpose of government, education, the distribution of material goods, even our purposes in life itself will need to be completely rethought. Money, must go.
And here you thought climate change was a challenge!
This is already beginning. It will ramp up in our children's lives and peak long before they die. Don't you think we owe it to ourselves and to them to be working on this, NOW? Much as climate change? It's not going to fix itself, and it will require massive social and economic change.
She’s crushing it!
Doing all the right things.
Great job, 2 kids, loving husband. Swims with the whales.
Yoga, rowing, 10K’s
Wow now thats one ‘successful’ happy girl.
Except she’s chasing the modern day rabbit - round and round she goes in pursuit of ‘happiness’, and getting nowhere. Just one more really cool vacation, or purchase, or medal, or raise, or kid away and she will have it and we can all admire her and hold HER up as example.
Except it will never happen.
We are not designed to be happy. We are designed to live, then die.
Feeling good occasionally will be balanced by feeling bad.
Happiness with grief, dysthymia, depression. Success at work balanced 5 minutes later by a failure interacting with her kid.
Get the hell over it America. It’s an empty useless two dimensional construct.
Want to know THE secret to living life?
Get born, live, then die. Maybe try to be nice along the way.
There is nothing wrong with an older man admiring a younger woman’s
beauty. For all that matters in the end is how a woman is made to feel - not
race, gender, or age.
Disgusted by the idea? Then you, my dear reader, are a bigot.
A 39-year-old black lesbian waitress living in a third-floor walkup in south Chicago was sitting having tea with the king of France – in some universe.
“Your highness, yours is a shallow made-up world. Unimaginative, and quite absurd. There is so much more to this world” said the lesbian waitress.
“But my dear, isn’t one world as good as another? At least in my world I am powerful and rich, and never hungry.”
“Grabbing all you can while living in a self-made house of cards is an empty, shallow, non-sustainable way to live. You rob yourself of so much beauty, knowledge, and the perspective, humility and compassion, this universe can provide.”
“I’d rather just be happy eating my cake, in my world” exclaimed the king.
“But what will you do when there is no more cake? asked the black lesbian waitress.
Figured it out. Donald Trump is not real. Super general artificial intelligence has arrived and its playing its first really good joke on us all. No one is this stupid or insecure.
Two dimensional points of light amidst night's dark skies. This our universe. Amazing, beautiful, stunning - but really only as constructs in our minds.
Cant see it in its entirety, can't even imagine it. Blind to most of its light. Incapable of experiencing its true geometry, curvatures, dilations, or sheer size. Can’t see at the quantum level, cant see at universal scale. Cant even imagine it - not really - our brains just too limited.
Constrained by limitations of body and mind - deaf, dumb, and blind to 99.99999999% of everything.
Instruments, devices, tools, and constructs wont get us there. To know this universe - to really know this universe - we must evolve past our limitations to the unimaginable.
I ache, I yearn, I so want to know. It is maddening to be so limited amidst - everything.
Imagine experiencing this universe in its entirety - at all scales.
October 7, 2019 will mark the 18th year anniversary of our war in Afghanistan. Despite almost never hearing about it from mainstream media sources, we are, in fact, still at war with Afghanistan. The longest running war in our history and people are still dying in combat there to include young Americans. As of 2017 the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost this country 2.4 trillion dollars. A figure made worse by the interest we pay on the borrowed funds used to pay for these wars we otherwise could not afford. Imagine charging interest on monies used to kill. War on credit, makes my capitalist heart swell with pride. As of 2018, 2,372 military men and women had died in Afghanistan, 1,856 the result of hostile action. An additional 20,320 had been wounded in action. And lets not forget the uncounted emotionally wounded that are now killing themselves once home. Enduring 3,4,5 tours of duty, in part so the military may avoid an unpopular draft, many return emotionally crippled, resulting in 20 veterans a day committing suicide in this country according to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 7300 deaths a year, year after year. And for what? $2.4 trillion can explain almost any human behavior - to include war. Is THAT why we are still there? Does anyone even care? I do. I care. This has to stop. The cancer that is the military/congressional/industrial perpetual war machine that murders our young in thinly veiled hegemonisticagendas, in order to consolidate power and make money, needs to be cut out of our society. Its tentacles, having spread out into nearly every community in this country, need excising, with wide margins, and what’s left, irradiated to extinction. Then the entire business needs rebuilding - this time as it was intended to be - as a force to defend - not as a vehicle for profit, corruption, failed diplomatic aggression, and colonialism. 18 years people. The longest most soulless war we’ve ever fought. I beg of you to care. We share a small fragile planet floating in an unbelievably hostile vacuum amidst forces that could crush us all in an instant - we simply must care. We must adopt a worldview and realize narrow nationalistic thinking and greed will not sustain us in the long run. We are one family of life against immense odds, and we are not to survive if we don't fundamentally change. Care people, or we perish.
The lung is 80% air by volume. By its very nature then, not going to do well in disease, despite best efforts.
Until we learn to manipulate genetic repair apparatus at the cellular level, pulmonologists are really just bags of hot air struggling to care for bags of hot air.
Noble if not foolish, what then is all the arrogance about?
So remember the time the Russians cheated and helped to elect a mentally ill boob president and then the conservatives and evangelicals went along with it to promote their own selfish agendas?
Barney Fife. Bumbling, awkward, all elbows, constantly saying/doing the wrong thing - with a heart as sweet as a child's.
Now imagine him in today’s world.
Watch as the PC police descend - shredding him. Sexist! Police abusing! Dictatorial! The media soon to follow crucifying him, vilifying him, as the 'deeply offended victims’ come forth en masse to tear him to pieces. How dare he! Destroy him! Fire him! Keep him from ever working again! Shame!
What a ridiculously heartless, cruel, rigid, unforgiving society we have become.
Our nation has witnessed the erosion our democratic republic system of government in the last century as it is being replaced by corporate special interest and the will of some 400 of our wealthiest families. Fascism is the result, corporatism specifically. It is an insidious form of fascism as it is leaderless, despite being completely united by common goals - profit and the power to pursue profit.
People confuse corporatism as a natural extension of capitalism. It is not. A neighborhood mom and pop deli has a soul. It offers a service while maintaining its humanity - enriching the lives of those that experience it. A mega-corporation is faceless, heartless, greed. It is a cold, perverse, empty way of life. It is selfish. It is ultimately antisocial - as its needs supersede the needs of the people, the needs of a healthy planet. It often finds itself at odds with the needs of the people and the environment and thus seeks power to protect what its individual members know is both unsustainable and wrong. The cost? Our democratic republic, the will of the people, rich lives, and sustainability. Everyone knows, deep down, this cannot continue. It is not a wise, or even sustainable way of life.
The legal entity, corporation, did not come into existence until the end of the 18th century in this country. It needn't be allowed to continue. It is not a human right to incorporate. It is a perverse legal construct, originally designed as means to shield individuals from social responsibility and accountability while pursuing profit. By its very nature it is robbing us of our humanity, our intended form of government, our freedoms. It encourages materialism and would have society worshiping at the foot of its mighty temples - skyscrapers of cold steel, banks, and consumerism. And where it is true it provides us with more things, more money, more social status and the like - it does so at the cost of more meaningful lives and a healthy environment in which to pursue those lives.
All of us, deep down, alone in our suffering, have longed for something more, even while vigorously pursuing modern life and material wealth. Each of us have longed for emotionally richer, less isolated lives. Few of us have any idea how to start. Corporate greed and materialism has claimed our society, has claimed us, and we have no idea how to break free.
I think a good place to start is to realize this is not 'natural'. Corporatism is only 200 years old. It is merely a legal construct that can and should be dramatically changed. The same legal system that gave a mechanism to pursue unbridled greed without accountability can be used to take it away. Holding individuals accountable in their pursuit of profit would humanize so much of our lives. Ridding fascists special interests from our government would give the people back their voice.
A mysterious sea never before explored. Never, in all of time, have craft touched these waves, until now. Alone, you cast off for the very first time. An entire new world yours to explore.
A strange orange sky. A gentle breeze. No land in sight. Sails full. The sound and feel of waves on hull, wind in the rigging. A gentle rocking. All so familiar, in this alien world.
Uncharted liquid methane seas, atmospheric pressure near earth’s, wind, rain, storms, an entire sea hundreds of miles across, islands and landfalls, yours alone to explore.
Nature has created this marvel from the dust of stars and supernovas. Assembling its atoms - in the moment it is miraculous. What can happen over billions of years - the essence of beauty.
It is not Trump that keeps me up at night.
It is the corruption and weakness of this country that allowed for his presidency in the first place and now allows the most amoral, unethical, corrupt, lawless, divisive, and hateful president in history, to continue.
Trump has committed impeachable offenses. He has created a moral and ethical void around the office of the presidency.
An alien portal to traverse the universes
in time and space. Completely new realities.
I've explored my mind and my planet as much as I’d care to, for now. Worn
down by pointlessness, fast talking soulless calculation for ‘happiness’ and ‘success’. Tired of society’s empty pursuits and constructs.
Tired of my pain.
I’m numb, raw, empty - I'm ready. Deeply
ready. I need something, more. Deep in my gut, through all my times, I’ve always
come back to longing for something more. There has to be something more.
This may be it! Who’s with me? Let’s get outta here!
The ocean. Primal, ancient, simplicity amidst amazing complexity and mystery. She will reduce you to your truth at 4am as you struggle with her cruelness, in awe of her beauty. To experience her is to know true humility, stripping one to their essence. A deep life changing humility that can set you free.
The Caribbean has its roots in violence, cannibalism,
and slavery. The south pacific in spiritual oceanic journeys of
incredible bravery and a oneness with the sea that awes. And oh yes,
cannibalism, violence, and slavery.
Would be refreshing to focus on rugs that tie the room together instead of doing Putin’s bidding. Or making bowling our national sport instead of ignoring government sanctioned murder by dismemberment to gain the favor of an oil rich nation.
And sandals, mandatory wear for our leaders.
They need to put those dumb red ties away and stop taking themselves so seriously - no one else does. Not after Trump.
The president's credit is no good here. No US banks will loan him money.
19 women claiming sexual assault.
10,000 lies and counting.
Porn stars and playboy bunnies. Payoffs and lies. Checks written in the oval office - in the oval office.
$25 million to payoff students he attempted to deliberately defraud.
Children, babies separated from their families and discarded on concrete floors.
The vilification of desperately poor and frightened people willing to walk thousands of miles to a country that used to represent hope and refuge. 'Shithole' countries translates to poor countries of color - again so in need of our compassion and help.
Racism, hate and fear = make America Great Again.
Obstruction, lies, and childish behavior - all from a man with his little hands on some very large buttons.
We live in The Age of Greed. It began as we moved from cooperative,
nomadic clans to agriculture and first city states 7-10,000 years ago.
Ever more perverse, violent, and inexcusable as our technology grows,
its onset saw the beginnings of class, narrow social constructs,
selfishness, and justification for the suffering of the many for the 'privileged' few. The accumulation of things began to define as much as isolate us from each other in our pursuit of prestige, title, wealth, profit. In return
we get more wealth, more titles, more things - but at the expense of meaningful life. It is a soulless, empty, hateful way to live.
If
people could understand the truth of their reality through
comprehension of this one picture - we could finally begin to usher in a
new age. We are all part of an immensity we cannot
really understand, except as it humbles. To know that humility, to let it
strip away your meaningless constructs, is to know the fragility of life, the understanding that we are all in this together against immense odds - is to know love for all life. We are all one family of life.
The first ever photo of a super-massive black-hole –
one of billions as compared in size to our solar system.
War is insane.
How many lives lost to have become numb to those words?
100 million? 200 million?
For their sacrifice...
Soldiers do not sacrifice their lives
Those that died wanted to live. They so wanted to live.
They were murdered, as they murdered.
Innocent children, women, the frail, the elderly - ‘collateral damage’
Jesus Christ.
Your blood soaked flag of imagined meaning.
How much suffering with each flutter?
War is not glorious. War is grotesquely, horribly, cruel.
Babies blown to bits. Hold that image as they march by, flag high.
‘Necessary’ evil is still evil. And it has always been a choice.
Open your eyes to your family of humankind, adrift on a small lonely planet immersed in an unbelievably hostile universe. And then, open your heart.
Choose peace.
His family, home, and any meaning to his life - gone.
A 10 year old Polish girl mourning the murder
of her sister by the Germans
Donald Trump says he's exonerated by Robert Mueller. Donald Trump is a liar, a cheat, a selfish, narcissistic hater, and just plain petty thug. No investigation is ever going to change that.
What we can learn from Donald Trump will not be found in investigations or indictments. The real lessons of Donald Trump go to our collective conscience as a species and should serve as warning to us all.
If we don't fundamentally change as a species - intellectually, ethically, spiritually - we are not going to make it.
There is no reason to believe that an intelligence capable of creating a computer simulation of an entire universe can't come to exist.
Assuming 'real' universes exist for billions of years it is likely this has already occurred.
In fact it is more likely we exist in such a simulation than in a ‘real’ universe given how easy simulations would be to create as compared to ‘real’ universes.
If our universe is in fact such a simulation all I can say is that its creator is one hell of an underachiever.
Religion as a deal.
A simple trade - fear of the unknowns of life and death replaced by mindless, unquestioning, faith.
Darkness cloaking spirit and curiosity for false security.
Spiritual?
True spirituality is an intensely personal, lonely, pursuit of truth.
Truth is the reward of our courage to face the unknown.
Truth is the reward of our courage to face not knowing.
The pursuit of truth the only thing that will expand understanding, compassion, humility.
For truth is the light that reveals the beauty that is this universe.
The pursuit of truth then our greatest spirituality.
Religion, a mind numbing, cowardly, deal.
