Armenio Pereira
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“[…] although China was exceptional in that it has arisen by its manpower despite its total dependence on the west’s brain power […]” (my emphasis)
With all due respect, you need to diversify your information sources: paper – arguably the most terrific and terrible of the human inventions – was most probably than not invented by the Chinese, who also spearheaded and spread its use (not to mention gunpowder.)
“The world is cyclical […]”
“Some of the problems the west has at the moment are that people are not free […]”
If the world is cyclical – and perhaps it is – then how can people be free?Progress brought us here, to the verge of annihilation and to the society of permanent fear.
By all means enjoy yourself and the shiny gadgetry “progress” entails while it lasts.Human population reduction: needed, irrelevant or psychopathic endeavor?
Everything is required, until it ceases to be.
If you try to elevate people’s virtues, be aware that you will also elevate people’s vices.
Why is this fraught with danger?
Because whilst virtues are open source/public, vices are proprietary/private – you can always estimate what virtues’ may bring, but you will never know what vices’ can hide.65 (excerpt)
Taoist rulers of old did not enlighten people but left them dull.
People are difficult to govern because they are very clever. Therefore, ruling through cleverness leads to rebellion. Not leading through cleverness brings good fortune.
Know these two things and understand the enduring pattern. […]Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo – English version, 1993)
“Portugal has nearly run out of people to vaccinate.
Portugal is still running with highest Covid case count in Europe”The Portuguese are among the most hopelessly clueless people roaming the planet. (I know, I live there.)
Passing blame is the easy way out – the toughest thing is to dismiss blame altogether.
23 – 26 – 27
Spare words; nature’s way. Violent winds do not blow all morning. Sudden rain cannot pour all day.
What causes these things? Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and Earth do not blow and pour for long, How much less should humans? […]
Gravity is the root of lightness, Stillness the master of passion. […]
When a lord of ten thousand chariots Behaves lightly in this world, Lightness loses its root, Passion loses its master.
Good travelers leave no tracks. Good words leave no trace. Good counting needs no markers. […] [T]he good person is the bad person’s teacher, And the bad person Is the good person’s resource.
Not to value the teacher, Not to love the resource, Causes great confusion even for the intelligent. This is called the vital secret.Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo – English version, 1993)
Neither improving nor debasing – part & parcel of Change, we all are.
Let go of your passions (from Church Latin passiō suffering) if you can, carry on with them if you must.
No redemption – no damnation – only acceptance“[…] texting – not talking – could be the key […]” (Herald Sun)
For once, I agree. Let’s then prevent all those who became silent from tweeting, and paradise will be close at hand.
There are no victories or defeats – only transfers of energy.
Since humans have been endowed with large memory units (the brain) – well, a fair amount of them, anyway – they also have been “doomed” with the sense of gradation. That’s why small transfers of energy are usually seen as innocuous or outright ignored (at our own peril), while large ones are treated as defeats/victories, depending on how one is suited to deal with such energy transfers.“How Did America Become Ruled By Its Military-Industrial Complex? (Zuesse)”
The military-industrial complex hired the smartest ones.
A Sisyphean apothegm
Why do humans long for God?
Because humans are perfect questions (questions to which there isn’t a definite answer) and God is the perfect answer (an answer that doesn’t require any question.)(Question/answer pairs are neither answers nor questions – they form a conclusion, and conclusions are unnatural because with their beginnings and endings they don’t respect the cyclical nature of the Universe.)
19
Banish learning, discard knowledge: People will gain a hundredfold.
Banish benevolence, discard righteousness: People will return to duty and compassion.
Banish skill, discard profit: There will be no more thieves.
These three statements are not enough. One more step is necessary.
Look at plain silk; hold uncarved wood. The self dwindles; desires fade.Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo – English version, 1993)
Prisoners of the Body/needs
Prisoners of the Mind/delusions
Prisoners of the Future/expectations
Prisoners of the Past/regrets
Freedom?
Dream on/if that offers some reliefKnowledge:
– transmissible;
– dynamic;
– collective;
– external;
– hosted by the brain;
– transient*;
– (determined by the) here.Wisdom:
– intransmissible;
– static;
– individual;
– internal;
– dwells in the heart;
– eternal;
– (happening) now.* e.g., we forgot how to make concrete (opus caementicium) – namely the water/cement ratio – the way the Romans did (circa 150 BC); we forgot (“misplaced the data”) how to go to the moon.
Carbon-based life forms.
Knowledge: coal fueling the vanity bonfire.
Wisdom, a diamant needed to cut through.
Not enough wisdom going around to avoid ending up
being consumed.“Misinformation is dangerous. Silencing doctors is even more so.”
(Texas “Truth” Foundation)(… two years and millions of jabs later…)
Another Dr. who has started to warn us… He was getting ready to testify against the shots.For the most part, the doctors did a fine job at silencing themselves.
(It’s kinda sickening – pun intended – to see the efforts to whitewash the medical profession role in the present mess.)Accomplished maturity: the mastering of enough lexicon to be able to sustain a plethora of opinions, from the most petty to the most wacky.
I went to bed one night in a more or less sane planet; I woke up the next day only to find myself enmeshed in a full fledged kakistocracy.
How did that happen?
(I have no right to cry wolf.)Truth bombs abound, truth craters all around.
How to navigate our way through such a difficult terrain?@John Day
I do not possess Dr. D’s intellectual acumen – nor your knack at playing thought police.
That the plutocrats, kritocrats, kakistocrats, “democrats”, faucicrats, gate-o-crats and other schwab-o-crats are insufferable SOBs is by now a more than widely agreed upon opinion (in these circles, I mean); eventually we will have to move on from there and do something, or nothing.
To flee l’ennui – that’s the name of the game
We do it – the Universe does it
You can elaborate – there’s no need to complicate
The Everlasting Dissatisfaction keeps things in motion
That’s all there is to it – it’s all we ever need to know.(to be forgotten is to be forgiven)
@D Benton Smith
Theories can be extended to the infinite, limited only by the boundaries of one’s own imagination.
I can advance theories as long as I keep the faculties to do so and you can keep on refuting them to your heart’s content.
Couldn’t avoid to notice the conspicuous absence of any refutation regarding volition and change.
Best regards.@D Benton Smith
Do your body change by your own volition? Or regardless?
Oswald Spengler postulated that civilizations are akin to organisms, I take this idea a step further by saying that events are also akin to organisms.
As always has been the case, the current mess will inflate, reach a peak and then subside, regardless of any individual or collective “volition”. (Just how many humans will remain in the aftermath and, if any, how will they recouple & reorganize is another issue altogether, one that, to be tackled in a serious fashion, needs to consider a profound shift in the ways humans behave – that shift is the underlying motif of my comments.)
The best proof that even the more “rational” people are deeply superstitious is the deeply entrenched belief that the behaviors, procedures, methods and thought processes which brought us into this mess will somehow get us out of it.
As always has been the case, the current mess will inflate, reach a peak and then subside, regardless of any individual or collective “volition”.
Very few are able to detach themselves from the hysteria & depression considered to be de rigueur in such occasions – my salute to them.
Producing any assertion or “serious” analysis about Joe Biden (the actual Joseph Robinette, not the puppet masters handling him) and his deeds and ways is even more ludicrous than the man himself.
(not our merit , nor our fault)
Being born human, it’s not easy to relinquish one of the foremost – if not the foremost – human trait: to have prejudices.
Everything humans do is transient – I don’t know why the things we do which are destructive leave a longer lasting impression than the constructive ones.
(Or maybe I do know: in general, the human brain has a yin slant.)
To spice things up, let me add that the human brain has been shifting: the masculine brain is turning increasingly yin, while the females’ brains are becoming increasingly yang (the I Ching rules!)
(Please spare me: if you are a regular here then you do have a “negative” bias brain.)
And then you might ask, “so what?” To which my reply would be: have you ever considered why the slant, why the drift?
If humans are a chaotic feature then we couldn’t be more dumber.
(That’s why I believe in The Everlasting Dissatisfaction, aka God; I’m able to derive some comfort from being part of a major purpose, none whatsoever from being part of an obtuse random figment of the Chaos.)@TAE Summary
“Justice” and “ethics” are just useful components of the human internecine, and each one of us use those to the best possible extent of our perceived interests and our real capabilities; to be considered inimputable isn’t only a matter of insanity, but it can also be a means to rig the “justice” by the usual suspects.You don’t use a nail clipper to cut down a tree; God wants to apply a major overhaul on the planet: other than a meteorite, humans seem like a rather adequate tool for the purpose.
On one hand, living entities – including human beings – are hardwired with preservation instinct; on the other hand, “free will” proponents contend that said instinct can be overruled by free will (criminals and martyrs would then be among the most evolved human beings, if “free will” is to be considered the main human trait.) The question is: why would anyone equipped with free will would choose to continuously override his/her survival instinct by consistently engaging in extreme sociopathic behaviour?
My answer: they don’t choose, because there’s no free will; they – and all of us – are servants to The Everlasting Dissatisfaction.@John Day
Acceptance & Denial, and you don’t even know why.
(no hard feelings; deny you must, accept I will.)No “good” vs. “evil”, only “good POV#1” vs. “good POV#2” vs. “good POV#n…” and in the end, as history gets written by the victor, “good” always win, right?
That’s why, in the end, everything will always be “fine”.
When all you need to remain alive is to ingurgitate some edible food from time to time, philosophy is as useful as a “smartphone”, a book or a car (well, with a car there’s always the roadkill as a putative source of proteins.)
What do you call a truth no one believes in? A lie?
(Yep, Cassandra – those pesky Greeks had it all figured out a couple thousand years ago, without resorting to the ironically named devices… I wonder how they did it.)
Those who recklessly took the shots.
Those who suspected there was something fishy, and did nothing effective (i.e., using brute force) to stop the former.
Humans do not compute.
(not our merit : not our fault)
Why am I doing the things I do? Because God wants me to. Why are you?
Protons & Electrons, Good & Evil, Acceptance & Denial: there isn’t One without The Other. You didn’t create them, it’s not up to you to chose: God makes the choice for you; freedom is an illusion – God made that one too.A blessing, a curse & a million paths to and fro: The Everlasting Dissatisfaction is here, is now, is all.
(Are you free to born when you wish? Will you die when you chose? If so, congratulations then – and my sympathies too: you are God – how does it feel?
… fair enough: reality has this penchant to hit us like a ton of bricks.)(Bonus) Religious trinities laid bare:
– Denial (The Father/Contraction/Thesis/Yang)
– Acceptance (The Son/Expansion/Antithesis/Yin)
– A million paths to and fro (The Holy Ghost/Limit/Synthesis/Change)Contraction – Expansion – Limit : The Heart
We’re all servants of the Heart – accept it if you can, deny it if you must.I remember when infections were transmitted by small critters: fleas, mosquitoes, the sort. Then came the bats, pangolins, and now monkeys. What’s next? Giraffe herpes? Whale mumps?
