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Category Archives: fear
Belief in magical transformations! Or the “X factor is for peasants.”
The obsession with fame is an interesting phenomenon. In a lazy kinda ill-thought-out speculative way I will say that now that the dream of salvation by God or Marx is gone (in Europe, if not everywhere else!), then the only … Continue reading
The Roy Batty Principle, or the “Empathectomy for fun and profit”
In this life, you are rewarded for not having integrity, compassion, empathy etc. If you defend your underlings (and the broader population they are supposed to serve – pupils, prisoners etc) against some stupid and damaging scheme that your boss … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, bureaucracy, fear
Tagged Dilbert Principle, empathectomy, Peter Principle
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Despair as the “suicide of the imagination”
Hat-tip to Sam (not Smith) To view our times as decadent and dangerous, to mistrust the government, to imagine that those in power as not concerned with our best interests is not paranoid but perceptive; to be depressed, angry or … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, activism, apocalypse, fear
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Plenty more fish not in the sea
This is very very interesting and depressing stuff. http://www.hogsalt.com/wp-hogsalt/2013/04/the-stades-last-stand/ The tl;dr. We trash the joint. Then invent new technologies to trash new joints. See also Marvin Harris’ “Cannibals and Kings“. And Charles Tilly’s “Coercion, Capital and European States 990 to … Continue reading
Posted in apocalypse, death, economics, fear, natural world
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Entering the bargaining phase – “guided transition” #climate #kublerross #wearetoast
There’s this tiny moment in film The Bourne Ultimatum that keeps echoing in my head. Bourne has met up with a journalist (played by Paddy Considine). He gets vital information. The journalist is a bit clueless. Bourne says “You have … Continue reading
Posted in apocalypse, death, fear
Tagged bourne, climate, disasturbation, keeling curve, Seventh Seal
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Of Gods and monstrous supermarkets #Barthes #FT #HarryEyres #Fetishes
“I’ve always thought, and argued from time to time, that the appeal of supermarkets was largely mystical, or, in the sense used by Roland Barthes, mythological. The mystique or mythology is a combination of unlimited material abundance and modernity: these … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, death, economics, fear, Financial Times
Tagged Fetishism, Financial Times, Harry Eyres, supermarkets
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Right said Said – (on the habits of mind of the intellectual)
From Chris Hedges, who is a dude (and an Arabic-speaking one at that) “Nothing in my view is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, activism, fear, politics
Tagged Chris Hedges, Edward Said
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Will the wolf survive? Depends if you feed it. Sort of.
An old Cherokee [NOT! - see below] chief took his grandchildren into the forest and sat them down and said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. This is a terrible fight and it is a fight between … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, fear, framing
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China crisis – 38% reduction in food production at 2C temp rise #climate #china #food #doomed
Hat-tip to Sam. Emphasis added.
The media, Iraq and the melting Arctic
Ten years on from the murderous and illegal invasion of Iraq, and none of the perpetrators have been punished. Cheney, Bush, Blair, Howard etc. all walk free. And now, in one of those cheap-to-produce retrospective (Ctrl C + V on … Continue reading
Posted in apocalypse, climate, death, fear
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