John Day
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I’m back ON-TOPIC since this is the French reanalysis of Monsanto’s raw data on GM corn from 12 years ago, which may have been seen early by hungary, before they booted Monsanto out.
Misinformed by “Science”,
There are a lot of pictures of deformed albino Sprague-Dawley lab rats popping up over the past 2-3 days. Those kinds of pictures are easy to come by.
What is really going on?
Monsanto had to fund scientific studies to “prove” that it’s GM corn/maize varieties were “safe” for human and animal consumption in OECD member countries.
So firstly, the intent of these studies is clear. The intent of these studies is to find no fault, no metabolic danger to living organisms.
Monsanto has done this dance before, and knows how to do it. It is general knowledge, anyway. It is a very common dance. Industry funds most of this research, and funds the researchers who provide the desired results most reliably. I’m not jaded. I’ve been involved in physiologic research studies on lab rats for years in college and med school. I’ve had long discussions with researchers, often about other researchers, and methodologies used, tossing out a couple of bad data points to get where you need to be, things like that. My critical reading of medical and physiological research has generally led me to conclude that 80-90% of published, peer-reviewed research is totally-biased-crap, meant to prove dome predetermined “fact”.
In order to justify conclusions, researchers are supposed to reveal all raw data and all statistical methods of analysis. This is Greek to most readers.
Let’s look at how Monsanto stacked this data in their own favor.
Yes, this is ALL Monsanto data we are discussing, and it is 12 years old, and it has been kept secret, pried out by Greenpeace lawsuits and such.
We only have Monsanto data to talk about here, but now, after more than a decade, the raw data and methods are available for review.Toxic effects show up more over longer times, with more animals to look at, with higher doses of the toxins, and with more tests, to look at more specific types of acute and chronic change in physiology.
As Monsanto I want studies with shorter time frames, fewer animals fed my corn, animals fed lower doses of my corn (maybe give some of my corn to the control group, by not genetically analyzing their feed, so they are secretly more similar to the test groups), and I don’t want to do very many liver or kidney or sex hormone tests, and I don’t want to do them very often, and I want to end the whole study well before cancer has a chance to start, or “long-term-toxicity” can kick in.
Mission Accomplished!
Monsanto bought study protocols that really only had 10 rats in each group fed specific GM corn products. With 10 rats per group, you just can’t find anything but high frequency effects. They only fed a maximum of 33% GM corn to any group, and the lower dose was 11%. There were very large groups of hundreds of rats used as various sorts of controls, so the study looks better with hundreds of rats, but they were not the ones in the test-groups, so it is fluff. The lack of rigor in defining the diets of some “control group” rats left open the possibility to mix some of the study maize into their feed, while nobody was looking, and that was all the time. Nobody looked. there was no genetic analysis of the feed given to the most general control group.
This information never formally existed, but if I were a crooked researcher, I would have spiked the feed of the control groups at night with the same GM corn that I was giving the experimental groups. Monsanto knows how to get what they pay for, right?
The small groups of test-group rats at low feeding concentrations only got to participate for a maximum of 3 months, then Game Over. Long term toxic effects were specifically excluded from the short term study, but the conclusion was that the GM corn was safe in long term use for billions of humans and animals. “Science”.
Evidence of cancer was excluded by the very short term and by not looking for any cancer or tumor markers. Check!
Evidence of teratogenicity was excluded by strictly avoiding pregnancy and not even looking at any reproductive hormone levels.
The final firewall was the statistical techniques used.
How can you justify a safety conclusion on such a small dose, small cohort, short time study group, which you checked so few things on?
You just say it’s so, and hide all your records.
That worked until Monsanto lost the court cases. Monsanto just lied about the statistics.
If your design gives a 70% chance that you will fail to find major toxicity, and you don’t find it, then you just say you did a careful study, and it wasn’t there and the data is proprietary. Check!What can the very limited raw data reveal about the few rats fed low concentrations of 3 GM corn varieties for 3 months, and tested as little as possible?
The 3 GM corn varieties are prefaced by NK, which is “Roundup Ready” and therefore contains traces of “roundup”, as well as 2 MO (Monsanto) prefaced varieties, containing the Bt toxin and a never-seen-before-in-the-living-world “novel Bt” toxin. These are pesticide toxins derived from Bacillis Thuringiensis, which makes them as part of it’s daily chores in the world.
The novel Bt is really something to look at closely, but not for Monsanto… Cows abort when eating Bt feed, we now know, but this study stays completely away from that whole realm. A lot of the suspicion rests on these inseparable pesticide contents of these GM corn varieties, but not all of the suspicion, because these are not necessarily the only “improvements”, just the obvious ones.I will not give a blow-by-blow breakdown for each feed group, but there were sex differences and dose differences and time differences in pretty much all groups, despite efforts to ignore them by study design. There were liver and kidney effects all around, sometimes more for males, sometimes females. There were suggestions of reduced cardiac muscle mass, possibly overall muscle decrease (not looked at) in the Roundup Ready group, which could be due to eating a little Roundup. Some of the Bt rats showed some liver changes associated with diabetes, and gained weight, but liver enzyme studies which might show signs of liver inflammation were strictly avoided. there were kidney effects which raised the possibility of renal toxicity, and showed different grouped levels of toxins excreted by the kidneys. These feeds really seemed to have different effects on the kidneys, and on male and female kidneys, but tests for early kidney damage, such as protein leakage into the urine, were avoided.
Some of these groups definitely gained more weigh than others.
Why?
Sorry, beyond the scope of the study. Who cares?
Obviously, a proper statistical analysis of the expertly-constrained data reveals nothing reassuring about even short term effects of these GM corn varieties. It points to differences in metabolic effect from each variety, even with just a few rats to look at for a short time, and totally avoids looking at birth defects, intergenerational issues, different species, and even cancer and long-term toxicity.
Monsanto got what they paid for, even if they had to slide some extra loot under the table.
It is not enough to justify their GM corn existing in the world at all, let alone being fed to any other organism.
In America, you can’t legally find out if it is in your Fritos, tortillas or popcorn.
It’s illegal to tell you that.
It’s probably pretty hard for companies to even know that about the lots they buy.
Don’t ask, don’t tell…Who is going to do the studies that need to be done, which would take over a decade to really do properly?
Nobody?
Will this stuff be taken off the market pending the proper studies, as actually required by regulators, but never done?Here is the reanalysis of Monsanto’s raw data and techniques. It’s dense, but it isn’t bullshit.
It’s French…
https://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htmCorn-Fed
“Atheists can also know the truth” Anam Thubten, Buddhist Lama
this was my teacher’s comment to my information that my teenage (now 21 y/o) son was an atheist.
I have reflected. My son does not believe in an external god, as so often portrayed, nor do I, nor have I ever.
My upbringing in Christianity gave me always the belief that “god” was inside me, not just watching me, else how could my every thought be known? God, therefore experiences all that I, or we experience.
Much later, I learned that everything existing within and of God, is at odds with at least Catholic theology, but it fits well with Shinto.
I am very serious when I say that it was my search for Jesus’ deeper teachings, which first wore me out (they were not retained), then fortuitously led me to the very active practices of Buddhist meditation, reflection and questioning, with the blessings of Jesus, I feel.
Your mileage may vary….Apologies to RWG for such tardiness.
I work 12 hr shifts Friday and Saturday. Pays kid’s tuition…
I dredged through the technical paper, and it was dredging for me, since there is a lot of specific terminology, explained once, then used repeatedly.
The RNA is the controller in this genetic engineering scheme, and it controls other metabolic processes in the targeted enzyme systems within the cells.
human glycogen metabolism is very much like carbohydrate metabolism in the wheat seeds. Nature has preserved many of the important segments of genetic code, which create specific lock and key type interactions in these enzymes and their controllers.
The specific targets of this genetic engineering remain trade secrets, but in computer modeling, many potential sites for such function were identified from general wheat and human genomic information.
there are many ways for a wheat enzyme controller to interact with human enzymes, and for these effects to be genetically carried down in subsequent generations of cells, once one (liver for instance) cell takes up the controller RNA.
That is particularly worrisome, that there is a real potential for these controllers to be carried down in cell generations, providing cumulative metabolic toxicity.
These small loops of RNA are heat stable, and survive gut acids and have been seen to get into cells in animal models. therefore, they can get into human cells through the gut, after surviving cooking. If they existed in bovine cells, consumed as hamburger, it seems that they would still survive cooking and digestion.
This is so very concerning that I broke protocol to put it up.
thank you all for being understanding.Markii, I am unfamiliar with “Certified Biodynamic” products. I’m not sure they exist in the US. I am interested.
Very Sorry for “off topic”.
this better relates to the hungarians ejecting Monsanto story, but this GMO news just hit today. I’m a physician, MD since 1986. This is important food toxicity information (my essay).
Successful Mongrels,We’ve (most of us) come to accept our relation to other apes. It’s pretty obvious to see.
We have discovered that we have a lot in common with rats, and can rely on studies which “sacrifice” them instead of people, to further medical knowledge. (No more Dr. Mengele…)
Of course we’ve heard that we evolved from some primordial spark in the primeval soup kitchen making DNA, which could self replicate and begin this whole fabulous process. That genetic tree did most of it’s branching before multi celled organisms, before plants and animals diverged, and a lot of that early work persists as the foundations of cellular metabolism.
Consider the structures of chlorophyll and hemoglobin:
https://www.pines.net/cgbook/chapter3.htmlFeeling a bit older?
You should.
We have been engineered and re engineered for function and reliability over hundreds of millions of years in the most complex empirical process imaginable, with redundant testing over multiple generations, to study the comparative effectiveness of every little mutation in any single trait. This just exceeds the number of processes we can conceptualize. It’s a googleplex kinda’ number. The stars in the sky…
Monsanto doesn’t have that kind of time. they have quarterly earnings reports. they want to own the global genome in our lifetimes, stuff like that. Think they might hotwire some stuff without testing it?
Carbohydrate metabolism in eukaryotic cells has a lot of inter species similarity, because carbohydrates are one of the building block energy groups that go way, way, way back.
Genetic engineers found that if they blocked a certain carbohydrate metabolic enzyme in wheat, they could stuff the grains with more carbohydrate, more energy, more weight, more profit, more better. They went on ahead and did just that. Big success!
However, they either did not do, or did not reveal the extremely close relationship of the enzymes they were blocking to enzymes in humans and animals, which also regulate pathways of carbohydrate metabolism. It turns out that a lot of the gene sequences are spot-on, and that this wheat modification can directly block carbohydrate metabolic pathways in the human liver and muscle cells. Glycogen, the human form of stored carbohydrate, is regulated by these ancient plug-and-play similar enzymes, much as the oxygen and CO2 carrying and transfer similarities between heme and chlorophyl persist. When nature finds something that works, it is unlikely to be completely replaced in a complex metabolic system.
This metabolic poison is in our bodies as we speak.
Here is the scientific paper, by a Biochemist at the University of Canterbury (nice place) in Christchurch, New Zealand, Jack Heinemann Ph.D.
https://safefoodfoundation.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Heinemann-Expert-Scientific-Opinion.pdf
Here is some information from Natural News, including press announcements from down-under and an oral explanation by Dr. Heinemann. (They misstate the location of the University of Canterbury.)
https://www.naturalnews.com/037170_GM_wheat_liver_failure_GMO.htmlI sure do see a lot of Americans with metabolic problems. Fatty liver is an epidemic. Obesity and diabetes are conditions where the human body stores excess fuel, just like those poor wheat kernels are forced to do. I’m not saying that this one thing is the cause, but Americans didn’t eat or exercise that much differently in the 1970s, and look at the difference now! It is illegal to put any label on any food in America, saying whether it does or doesn’t contain GMOs. It is illegal to distinguish GMO wheat in bulk sales, and it gets mixed. Wheat is wheat, and nobody can say different, at least in the land of the free.
I am extremely concerned about this from a medical viewpoint,and I have found that I feel better with less wheat in recent decades. Damn, it’s hard to even limit it, let alone eliminate it. I’m trying to devise a strategy. We just don’t have that much rice in our food, and rice doesn’t stick together, or have the protein content of wheat.
This is merely an EXAMPLE of the sorcerer’s apprentice at work in the realm of life itself. The US laws mean that the apprentice gets to do all he wants, completely in the dark, completely out of any supervision. All adverse effects are simply mysterious, and may be studied from some other angle, which blames fat, diabetic people for watching TV, and eating the cheap food they can afford, but doesn’t do anything to hurt American business.
Hungary, if you may recall, cast out Monsanto and plowed-under their fields.Is it legal to advertise EXCLUSIVELY HUNGARIAN WHEAT in a product?
https://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/hungary-throws-out-monsanto-and-the-imf.html
I don’t have a solution, which I can enact today.
I need to eat food which has absolutely-certain origins, and that is difficult, expensive and restrictive, very restrictive to do.
Wheat, corn and soy are out, as is anything fattened on them. (Shit!)Conflicted Omnivore
I really enjoyed this post, and there was something that came up on Zero Hedge about the fascists in Greece, which made a good opening for the “Fascist Populists” in Hungary, so I tossed this in there pretty quick.
My (2nd from top) post with link to your story was just an intro to your story.
So far it got 44+ and 0_ arrows, which is really good for that neighborhood. Go Hungary, the new Iceland!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/greek-neo-nazi-party-surges-third-polls-anti-bailout-syriza-back-topFine Work, Theo!
I, for one, do not fault you for tossing up some of the little hopeful tidbits, which do not form a unified prospective worldview. This future, these futures, are yet to be formed by the inspirations and actions of those of us who are paying attention, and everybody else, too. We’ve got the jump, for probably the only time in our lives, so let’s get to work. I propose building relationships and farms and, houses and machines which will be what we need in post-collapse. I also recommend pre-positioning in low population density, with temperate weather and local food and water security prospects. It’s possible. I’m engaged in the task. So are others. Your mileage may vary…The question about what percent of inheritance tax there should be contains way too many embedded assumptions and vagueries to be accepted as such. Accepting that question as posed is failing to look at the complexities of the inheritance of privilege and power over others.
Can humans “own” something which existed before they did, and which will exist after their species is extinct?
Our current civilization answers “Yes, and absolutely”. The logical action is to destroy what is owned as rapidly as possible, for that is the only way to “profit”.
Absolute ownership implies absolute right of transfer.
A toothbrush or a bicycle is the same as all of the mineral rights to a vast aquifer.
The idea of stewardship is better applied, but less well legally explored by our present culture. “Natural rights” is a legal argument which could begin to restore a balance.
Until then the family farmers in the 5th generation will have the same rights of inheritance as the Rothschild banking family. Well in theory they might. In our hearts, we might want to paint this differently.We are becoming more resilient by not replacing family cars when they crap out. We all have bicycles. The pickup has a radiator leak; the van is out of town with the youngest daughter, and the the 1998 Prizm without AC has more and more noise from the valve train, but it’s out of town with eldest son, anyway… Jenny carpooled to work today, but I always bike. It’s good that we live 2 blocks from groceries. I walk over to fill the 5 gallon water jugs sometimes, one at a time, they’re awkward to carry down the street.
Traditionally, there’s a war to cover things up, and make people focus on an enemy who isn’t just a bloodsucking elite.
This war will have other jobs to do, too.
It’s got a whole lot of humans to cull, a significant fraction of the species.
Our masters see that, and culling a lot of the herd will make the survivors more compliant. The tough question is “How?”
A lot of different mechanisms will probably be explored in different locations. The elites must be having a hard time agreeing on the details, dontcha’ think?
Turning off the electricity for a month would probably kill the majority of people where I live, and still preserve most of the infrastructure. Howzit where you are?When democratic institutions have been captured by the oligarchs, and provide only a sham appearance of democracy, the only way to vote is with one’s actions. Massing in the streets is feared by the elites, because when people do this, they gain a new mass identity, and it is in opposition to the vested interests. When people gain a new mass identity, it does create change. There is agreement that the old way is no longer valid, and that the group has defined what has killed it. Some new way which meets the needs of the mass group, must be agreed upon.
At this point, the elites will seek to divide and conquer the group(s). Look at what has become of Nasser’s Pan-Arab-Nationalism. Groups of people fighting each other is more desirable to the elites, than a large group demanding a new deal, which meets their needs.
What the elites really want is a large group of compliant workers. Cheap energy allowed for that to be bought for a period, but parasitism of that system, and increasing scarcity and cost of resources have created a new crisis. Massing in the streets is necessary for change in human societies. It’s a characteristic of the kind of animals we are.Financial Plan B will have to be on a much smaller scale.
This complex financial system will collapse to the lowest level of complexity which is inherently stable.
That won’t be global, and it won’t be homogenous.
Whether you can find yourself in a larger and more stable grain of order, or not, depends on a lot of decisions you have already made.
You have a few left, perhaps.
I hope I do…Financial bubbles are less interesting. The financial fractal appears to me to be a finer fractal upon the coarser fractal pattern of human species resource destruction. All of our creation is based upon destruction, releasing bound energy in the process and harnessing it to a lesser creation, upon which we place higher value. So forests become pulp for disposable newspapers.
The bubble is our lives, all of our many human lives. The peripheral depletion we have harnessed to drive this magnificent bubble of human population growth is oil. Look at the correlation over the past century.
At this point, the population will be dropped by drastic global warming if we use the known reserves of oil, and it will be dropped by lack of food, fuel, transport, AC, water, complexity if we don’t. This is really a case where we can have it both ways, and drop the human population deeper and longer. A non-bubble population is approaching, and it will be a big surprise to those raised on oil, with a very few exceptions.Nice work, Ilargi. this is exactly the kind of European update/summary I was looking for, and it is an excellent follow-on to Stoneleigh’s essay. I might add that Charles Hugh Smith has an excellent essay up today about deflation being just lovely, if you are holding a lot of asset-backed debt. (I think Stoneleigh’s mention of “conflict” is important. Financial elites need the “conflict” to remain controlled, more like WW-1 and WW-2 than the French Revolution, for instance.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly12/deflation7-12.htmlLovely Stoneleigh!
This is another case of perfect clarity on your part.
I really liked the line about expansions being resource driven, and contractions being financially driven.
There will be no resource to drive an expansion after the coming 2 decades of “conflict”, I fear.Bravo, A.G.!
Emulating biological systems is an advanced skill, compared to mechanical and electrical systems, however being part of a biological ecosystem is not such an advanced skill.
We have indeed been suckled from infancy with a particular view of how things “must” be, “or else”. I’m sure working towards “or else”, but I do find an extremely long way to go, having been deprived of almost all practical knowledge of basic human-critter survival. I’m a zoo animal, taught to make fun of all the animals too unfortunate to live in a zoo.
I will learn. It is possible. I’ve made progress, and there are things I saw when I was much younger that are of use. There are others who want to adapt, and there are still settings where such steps can be made, which will be touched lightly by the “selection event” coming our way. Personally, I’m going to die, and that’s OK, but I don’t want to die serving the “system”, now that I see it.What can the Han do now? At home, their massive pressure for population expansion is contained by the one child policy. there are just limited resources in the Middle Kingdom for more people. The Chinese themselves like moving to places where they can make a comfortable living and have families without restriction, places with fewer people, more resources, less history, places like Vancouver. The Chinese government would like to send a few hundred million Han to Africa, to colonize it, not with soldiers, as the Europeans tried, but with real industrious, homesteading, hard-working, boss-obeying Chinese nationals.
This would all be good for the Chinese economy. Chinese expats provide external buyers for Chinese products and important global business networking, like inside lines on all those necessary natural resources.Economic growth is certainly possible in regional and global economies, even with $90+/bbl oil.
However, it is only possible after vast systemic restructuring, which usually takes a couple of decades, as these things go.
The clock hasn’t really started yet…
John Michael Greer (Archdruid Report) says “Collapse Now and Avoid The Rush”
https://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2012/06/collapse-now-and-avoid-rush.html@ Jack
Damon Vickers, in this interview, is very careful to promote the conservative investment strategy of his company. The book is several years old now, and the concerns in 2008-2009 have taken a bit of a turn since then.
The problem with the dollar is not unique, but is shared by all electronic fiat currencies. The problem is that there is a very slippery connection between the electronic assessment of money, and the real physical economy value, which it used to represent. Once that slippery connection takes a big-enough slip, then there will be nobody willing to trust that system. This could happen along our current central banking trajectory, or with cyber warfare eliminating ownership databases like MERS, or with disconnects inherent in MERS-type arrangements. We could get a really big solar-storm “Carrington Event” knock out the electricity and burn-out data storage in New York or London, and that would crash the system (I speculate).
The question of what could then replace the current system is widely debated. Expect military to play a dominant role. Throughout history there has been one currency, which was always accepted as payment from anybody, even when they were losing a war. Can you name it? (Hint: It was not heroin.)Hey El G. You’re right!
It was “Sunshine” that jumped me on that Anne Frank issue of TAE, which I guess was back in 2009. I was some kind of “hater” for saying that genocide is the same in Cambodia or Western Europe, or Israel/Palestine.
For the record again, I took my 4 kids to Anne Frank’s House, Dachau and Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh to teach them what to look out for in our species, and even themselves, when times get really tough.Please consider the reference to “Jews” as a single entity.
It is a fundamental flaw, in whatever logic proceeds from that point.
The Abrahamic lineage consisted of 12 tribes, 10 were “lost”?
Genetic analysis makes it clear that there is a group of Jewish and Palestinian people, who are the traditional inhabitants of that area, who are genetically indistinguishable from “each other”, sort of like Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
The Ashkenazi Jews from the Southern Russian/Georgian area, are a very distinct genetic group, and have numerous genetic disease syndromes which are only in their lineage.Reverse Engineer
You might reconsider your analysis of thousands of years of global banking cartels in this light. What about the Rockefellers?@KGB
For the record: Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish of the Abrahamic lineage (Mizrahic, not Ashkenazi or Sephardic).
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the ITALIANS (AKA “Romans”) for “troublemaking”, same crime as the 2 “thieves” he was crucified with.@ Babble
Cynthia McKinney was the best choice in the 2008 US Presidential election. Did you overlook her? She was certainly the most honest and had stood up against Bush/Cheney enough to be very seriously attacked, but not quite as seriously attacked as Paul Wellstone was…
Good standing of your ground, El G.
I have drifted away from the site for awhile, since the new format. I found myself missing the “regulars”.
I return today and see your guest post, which seems to be a Rorschach test for the readers, or at least for the respondents.
There are a lot of folks with very firmly fixed views, which they are always primed to vigorously defend at the drop of a hat.
I’m not so much like that but I did teach my kids that it is wrong to take pleasure in the suffering of another.
That’s as doctrinaire as I get.
There are a lot of things I don’t know yet, but many of the possibilities are intriguing.
I have certainly thought about the herd behaviors of our species, as have those who “ranch” us. I don’t want to control the herd for my profit, at the expense of many members of the herd, but I do want to stay out of stampedes, and try to contribute to self awareness. I think that knowing the truth can set you “free”, but it will mean that you can’t go with the herd, and that is hard on a body.
The first self awareness I need to work on is my own. (Of course I have a strong streak of wanting to straighten everybody else out when I notice their glaring mistakes.)
I spent the tax overpayments on an off-grid solar rig with nickel-iron “Edison cells” and 1.2 kW of panels. That’s my most recent investment, and it should be aone timer. Now, where to install it? Well, I’ve got the area, but not the location…Enjoying your input Ilargi!
We, who are reading this, need to look at what is at hand, and how to create little living seeds to plant deeply as the forest fire roars in the distance. We have lots of resources, some under-appreciated, and some to undergo deep discounts in the near future as stages of economic withdrawal-convulsions sweep over our human world. Maybe we are in the fortunate position to be out of debt, and valued, with some resources as a result. It has been a long time since I bought a new car, but I just spent $11k in overpaid taxes on a 1.2 kW solar PV set up with 10 kWHr of nickel iron battery storage. This is not for immediate deployment, but when we settle into our longer term situation, the seed we hope will grow after the fire.This is very nice. I’m glad this exploration of new and useful directions is taking place. this presentation of earthships is more practical for someone considering such a home, than what I have seen before.
Good work!
I’m sending some of these links out to friends with today’s news-picks.Steve B
The process of change in monetary system will certainly be violent, and will go first into deflation, as it is doing in the middle East, Europe and the US. There is a necessary destruction of the old regime, which is translted into humans being destructive and violent, in an effort to survive.
That’s where the copper wires get pulled out.
It is possible to trade through computerized electronic creditd, even in a complex marketplace, like the Pacific rim. Some of that is happening. It is like electronic money. It requires something like the internet and lots of computing power, a central heirarchy.
People will choose, naturally, to enrich themselves or an ally, even if it means somebody they don’t know gets killed. It’s human nature.
Any system has to work with this.
The question of how something is organized must arise at the outset, because there are people who have a skillset to selfishly use any system. We see that with money. It is less in a cash system, and more in a centrally controlled electronic monetary system, such as we are moving into.
Let’s look at a realistic scenario for any monetary system, which is arising in a self-organizing fashion after a 90% die off of the species, and destruction of vast swthes of habitat. There will be trust for one’s own small clan, and little else. Within the small clan, money will not be essential, but money, or specialized trade items, like wine, cheese or tools, will be necessary for external trade.
Living systems go through overgrowth and die-back. Bacteria and deer herds behave the same within their respective closed systems. I think we are about there.
Recall that money has co-arisen with all that our species has been through, over eons. Like language, something like money (salt, for instance) is archetypal. We have evolved species characteristics into a world, in which it is an integral part.Steve B
Perhaps I should have said that I can only REALISTICALLY imagine living without money in a small agrarian community.
I read lots of science fiction in my younger years, and found all those scenarios easy to imagine within the context presented.
You present no context, yet you feel free to speak down to me, for failing to mentally create a context, which you cannot apparently create yourself.
Why do you think the infrastructure, which is now present, will survive the end of money? Iraq got all the copper wiring stripped out of the buildings and power plants. This is happening in America now. It is only one example of the difficulties involved in major transitions.
90% of the population of the world is about to die-off.
Get back to me in 20 years.Steve B
Yes, I think that historically all transitions of large groups of people are based within fear.
That is the only thing which changes how people live their everyday lives.
This is common knowledge, certainly among those who control our species.
I can only imagine myself living without money in a very small, agrarian community, where these things commonly work. This is no frills existence. A wound gets infected and you die of gangrene. 50% of children die before puberty, etc.
I have visited such a community in the Laotian jungle. They still travel for a day to take the pigs to the nearst market, to sell, so that they may wear Chinese manufactured clothing. They catch and eat rats, other jungle-meat.The bigger question is where you will be part of a functioning community with food, water, shelter, some fuel, all the things to keep living. Functioning community AND all those things. This is a much more complex and difficult question than whether the government will confiscate your solar panels, inverter and Edison cells. The government is mostly going to collapse at some time. I hear those bunkers under the Denver airport are well stocked, but I’m not invited, and wouldn’t want to go.
MR 166
Bullets as local currency and government taking productive land from farmers are easily grasped and well-worn paradigms.
This is common fare, part of an uneasy transition period between more stable arrangements.Steve B,
I am an imaginative and innovative person, yet your words are not painting any picture which I can realistically envision. That makes your idea a non-starter for the 95% of humans who have less imagination than I do, not to mention the whole, vested intersts with power killing anything they can’t control, aspect…
Hi Steve B
There is a “time share” group here in Austin, but their time sharing is suspect, so that small groups that already know and trust each other, are setting up their own limited time share arrangements to avoid rip-offs.
I am OK with a world without money or heirarchy/oligarchy, but I cannot envision how it would realistically operate, let alone how to make the transition.
I like gift economy. It is easy, but it only goes as far as the excess ripe fruit coming off your trees. It cannot pay for advanced medical training, or support specialists.Steve B.
Money is necessary for lots of things, like flying somewhere, or having your infected appendix out.
I have needed both, and so did my Mom, and my eldest son.
Money saved our lives. We come from an appendicitis prone family.
No money = no surgeons.
I’m sure you can think of other examples.
Money allows a complexity of economy, which is otherwise not obtained in history.
I’m not a fan of money or oligarchy or economic change, just a participating observer in the whole process.How does a nice global financial oligarchy change the financial paradigm from debt-based-exponentially-growing money supply to something which does not grow, as dictated by the economic fundamentals of Peak Oil?
It appears that little collapses, zero interest, and war in the oil-places are part of the step-down experiment. All the little collapses, and taking one then another oil-supplier offline are testing how this may be accomplished short of WW-3.
At some point, the big transfer of monetary definition will be necessary. Gold would be easiest at that point.
Until then, it’s year after year of squeezing those who have the least power to resist, and watching their behavior closely, to further refine techniques.Hi Ashvin,
Here’s what I did, trying to treat the new system, somewhat like the old system:
I went down to the bottom of your article about “Who killed the money…”
I looked under “Discuss This Article”
There was a space with my name, and an empty “Message” box under it for prose.
I wrote a message and hit the “Submit” button.
There was no “captcha” as there is here.
My prose disappeared and couldn’t be retrieved.
I got a message that I had entered the wrong captcha.
I hope this helps.
JohnAloha Y’all,
Russia blames Ukraine, and Ukraine blames Russia for gas shortages to Austria and Italy over aged pipeline in the bitterest part of Winter, when all parties are using more (“fungible”) natural gas, and nobody wants to be blamed…
I don’t think Putin has anybody over a barrel. It’s just how things go.
Russian strategic interest is in building a better relationship with neighbors (Europe and China). Europe may have a stressed relationship with “Anglo-American banking” very soon, and Russia will serve strategic intersts best by being a friend through that harsh time.
Putin is no dope. This is a time to feed Europe more rope, not jerk it back hard.
