24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
mps92
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by mps92 »

John, that's one of the most brilliant arguments I've ever heard. Is that an original argument that you came up with yourself?

There is a tacit understanding among people who've studied history or biology - that disease is one of the natural mechanisms to avoid overpopulation. That's why there was no disease in America until the Euros arrived - the population density on this continent was too low to support an epidemic. Therefore, vaccinating and attempting to defeat disease is going against mother nature, and perhaps letting disease kill people is actually the moral solution. Frankly, I'm surprised that the first world hasn't had another epidemic (I guess the last one was HIV?). It's badly needed.

And perhaps mass suicide is necessary for the same reason. Although, I would add that wild animals do not commit suicide. Suicide hasn't always been one of nature's "tools" to reduce the population, just something that has emerged recently. But for every person that chooses to commit suicide, perhaps that saves one person from starving to death in the next famine. So in a way, suicide is actually the most reasonable way to reduce the population.

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Tom Mazanec
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by Tom Mazanec »

AFAIK, only the War of the Triple Alliance and the Thirty Years War significantly reduced population on even a national scale.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

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Tom Mazanec
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by Tom Mazanec »

John wrote:** 16-Jul-2019 Time
Tom Mazanec wrote: > Are things at least looking up enough that you think you might
> have more than a month or two, John?
I endured two new big humiliations in the last couple of weeks. I
won't whine about the details, since it's just more of the same.

So there's no hope of employment as a software engineer, no hope of
employment as a journalist/analyst, no hope of any book sales, no hope
of any funding, and no hope for recognition. So nothing has changed.
However, I have reduced some expenses, so I would expect to run out of
money in five or six months. As I've said before, it be nice for me
to write a book on Russia or India, similar to my books on Iran and
China which I think are groundbreaking, but I don't have time for
anything like that before I run out of money and can't buy groceries
or pay the rent. So I'm just using the time I have left to produce
some materials for the few people who might be interested, and leave
it at that.

Do you think you can at least have one more Christmas on Earth, John? And three more months where I can read your analysis?
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

OldLurker

Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by OldLurker »

Hey John,

I won't pretend to understand your situation. I know you probably don't care, but you have been an incredible gift to my life. I love you man and thank you for your work.

Sincerely,
That pesky troll

John
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by John »

** 01-Oct-2019 Pesky troll
OldLurker wrote: > Hey John, I won't pretend to understand your situation. I know you
> probably don't care, but you have been an incredible gift to my
> life. I love you man and thank you for your work.

> Sincerely, That pesky troll

Actually, I care quite a bit.

As you know, most people shun me or treat me abusively. And it's true
that I have several thousand regular readers, but for most of them
what I write is just a comic strip. One person told me that he
considers what I write to raise "significant issues," so apparently he
considers what I write to be at the level of a Peanuts comic strip.

So I keep asking myself -- why do I do this? Why do I subject myself
to this abuse? I ask myself that question every day -- several times
a day. If I dropped dead tomorrow, I'd be forgotten by the end of the
week. Obviously ego plays a big part, since I know that Generational
Dynamics is a historic advance in historical and geopolitical
analysis. But so what? Nobody cares, so why do I put myself through
this?

But a few people over time have written to me to tell me that my work
has changed their lives, so I care very much when someone tells me
that.

Thank you for your message.

P.S.: If you know anyone who'd be willing to pay me a regular salary
for doing this, please ask them to contact me.

Trevor
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by Trevor »

I happen to think your work is worth it; been following your site for several years. Found it by chance when reading up on "Generation Zero", I found your extension of Strauss and Howe's work to be fascinating, and here I am.

FishbellykanakaDude
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by FishbellykanakaDude »

John wrote:** 12-Sep-2019 World View: Suicide rate
Tom Mazanec wrote: > John, read this article about suicide:
> http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... uch-higher
The suicide issue is a lot more complicated than the "Life is an
absolutely incredible gift" simplistic moralizing approach.

For Generational Dynamics, I've written thousands of articles on
things like war, torture, rape, genocide, ethnic cleansing, poverty,
starvation and suicide. What I've learned is that "Life is absolutely
incredibly worthless." And life is particularly absolutely incredibly
worthless for old people, who are worth less than garbage.

Here's a quote that captures the concept:
Man of La Mancha wrote: > "'Life as it is.' I have lived for over forty years
> and I've seen 'life as it is'. Pain. Misery.
> Cruelty beyond belief. I've heard all the voices of
> God's noblest creature -- moans from bundles of filth
> in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave. I've
> seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly
> under the lash in Africa. I've held them at the last
> moment. These were men who saw 'life as it is,' but
> they died despairing.

> No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes,
> filled with confusion, questioning, 'Why?'

> I do not think they were asking why they were dying,
> but why they had ever lived.

> When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where
> madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness.
> To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek
> treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity
> may be madness. But maddest of all -- to see life as
> it is, and not as it should be!
"
All animals (and in fact all negentropic entities) "know" inherently, within their very being, that their existence is a part of a "game",.. that they are committed to "play" only as long as they want to play.

But, as the last line of the above suggests, while one chooses to remain in the game, the game should be seen for what it "should be", and not exclusively as what it actually is, because that IS the "maddest" thing (choice) of all,.. where "madness" means "angry infliction of unnecessary suffering" to, in this case, oneself.
For every species of animal, the population grows faster than the
food supply. The same is true for humans.

If the population grows faster than the food supply, as it does for
every animal species, then there have to be ways to get rid of people
-- through war, disease, famine, genocide, ethnic cleansing, suicide.
One can prove mathematically that these things must occur.

If you believe that God created the world, then it's God's fault that
war, disease, famine, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and suicide occur.
If God didn't want these things to occur, then he should have created
a world where the population and the food supply grow at the same
rate. But they don't, and that's God's fault.
My theology informs me that the world was created as a "perfect thing" (organism or machine), and that it was "later" made imperfect, or rather "later noticed to be imperfect", by and for "man" ("man" being whatever "planetary apex lifeform" existed at any particular time).

But why would "we" do that?

Because "we" were bored, and life can not abide boredom.

God gives us precisely what we need, when we "state" what we want.

The question that occurred to "us" to "solve" our boredom was: Are we more than this?

..and thus began the game, with it's rules and side-effects, that would most precisely give us what we need. Thus before and after, here and there, and more and less were "allowed".

One either believes that we are moving toward "more than this", or not.

To not believe that is the madness that allows the infliction of unnecessary suffering, and the unnecessary relief of necessary suffering.
The need for war, genocide and suicide becomes more and more apparent
during decades of peace, as each decade passes, there is less food per
person than the previous decade. Everything falls into place during
generational crisis wars, where this imbalance is fixed.

If you believe that God created the world, then you can see all of
God's tools come into place to fix the problem that he created -- war,
disease, famine, genocide, ethnic cleansing, suicide are all the
"absolutely incredible gifts" that God provided as tools to kill
enough worthless people so that the rest of the worthless people have
enough to eat. God makes sure that, sooner or later, every nation
throws out its garbage.
Tools are used by those who need tools. God has no need of tools.

We use tools. We use them freely by choice.

Disease is a rather special case, as it and storms (and the like) are not human directed (excepting bio-warfare),.. but the use of human created "useful" tools is not God's fault.

But once a human created system has "ground itself up" sufficiently, it WILL indeed be "cleansed" in one way or another.
Everybody's heard of the "Baby Boom" that followed World War II.
But few people mention the "Baby Bust" that precedes a generational
crisis war. We're seeing it today as young people postpone
marriage and children, and the suicide rate has been going up
for almost 20 years.

There's less food per person today than there was in the 1990s, and
that translates into poverty, and so in America we're seeing more
suicides by people who can't pay for groceries, and also more suicides
by teenagers who love their parents enough to want to spare them the
enormous costs of raising children. If you or your parents can't
pay for groceries, then killing yourself is perfectly reasonable.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person

Not sure where your data is (are?) coming from, but I won't quibble. :)

But, I can certainly respect someone who is so thoroughly convinced that they are more worthy as a dead person than as a living person that they go all the way to eliminating themselves from "the game".

THAT is a true believer!
... Here's one nugget from the article that I found particularly
interesting: "The suicide rate remained higher than normal throughout
the remainder of the Great Depression and was then drastically reduced
when World War II began in Europe."

I interpret this to mean that when someone who can't afford to buy
groceries might commit suicide during times of peace, but might join
the army during times of war. That way, you become a hero rather than
a coward.

People who commit suicide are viewed by other people as cowards,
heroes or martyrs. If you're going to commit suicide, then you might
commit suicide by joining the army so you can be a hero. Or you might
commit suicide in the name of the Pope, so that you'll be a martyr and
-- who knows? You might even be rewarded for committing suicide by
becoming a Saint.

After all: Like war, committing suicide is God's Will.
Suicide, by definition, is the will of the person doing it.

Some choose to believe that everything that occurs happened BECAUSE God willed it. That is not the case in my theology.

We are not puppets. :)

The cause of suicide is the conviction that not-being-alive is better than being-alive. Suicide by Wartime Enemy is a rather nifty tactic, I suppose!
P.S.: If you're religious and you want to commit suicide without
"going to hell," then you have an easy solution. Just jump off the
roof of a ten story building and, on the way down, pray to God,
repent, and ask God for forgiveness. By the time you go splat, you'll
be forgiven and ready to go to heaven. Easy peasy.
That most likely is precisely what happens 98% of the time. I'd pick a higher building, myself, 'cause gravitational acceleration is WAY quicker than you'd think.

..'though, that would have you spending some SIGNIFICANT amount of "suffering time" in purgatory, according to my theology. :)

Aloha gangies! <shaka nui!>

FishbellykanakaDude
Posts: 1313
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:07 pm

Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by FishbellykanakaDude »

John wrote:** 01-Oct-2019 Pesky troll
OldLurker wrote: > Hey John, I won't pretend to understand your situation. I know you
> probably don't care, but you have been an incredible gift to my
> life. I love you man and thank you for your work.

> Sincerely, That pesky troll

Actually, I care quite a bit.

... So I keep asking myself -- why do I do this? Why do I subject myself
to this abuse? I ask myself that question every day -- several times
a day. If I dropped dead tomorrow, I'd be forgotten by the end of the
week. Obviously ego plays a big part, since I know that Generational
Dynamics is a historic advance in historical and geopolitical
analysis. But so what? Nobody cares, so why do I put myself through
this?
You put yourself through it because you like doing it, even though it's annoying to do.

That you can't quite figure out how to "capitalize" or "monetize" on your work tells me nothing about the value of your work. There probably are ways to do that, but your "investment" in finding them doesn't SEEM to be quite enough to make it happen.

Oh well. No problem. Certainly not MY problem. I hope you're not into unnecessarily glomming onto other people's problems, and I doubt you're too surprised that I'm not into glomming onto yours.

But, that said, I know for a fact that I'll be using the "open source" parts of your theory to inform ANY fictional writing I'll ever do, just like I use the various theories of physics and the observable quirks of human interaction as "background" world-building.
But a few people over time have written to me to tell me that my work
has changed their lives, so I care very much when someone tells me
that.

Thank you for your message.

P.S.: If you know anyone who'd be willing to pay me a regular salary
for doing this, please ask them to contact me.
Pay you for what?

"This" isn't much of a description.

..oh,.. and keeping within the spirit of the "open source" system, I will certainly give you a written credit for your contributions within any writing.

Also, I see you as a very fun person to interact with, and enjoy watching you interact with others.

..you're not the most "whimsical" person, as I especially like whimsical people, but that's OK,.. there's gotta be a straight man in their somewhere, don'tcha know!? :)

Aloha dude! <shaka!>

John
Posts: 11479
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Location: Cambridge, MA USA
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Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by John »

** 17-Nov-2019 FishbellykanakaDude's theology
FishbellykanakaDude wrote: > My theology informs me that the world was created as a "perfect
> thing" (organism or machine), and that it was "later" made
> imperfect, or rather "later noticed to be imperfect", by and for
> "man" ("man" being whatever "planetary apex lifeform" existed at
> any particular time).

> But why would "we" do that?

> Because "we" were bored, and life can not abide boredom.

> God gives us precisely what we need, when we "state" what we
> want.
Wow! Your vacation from the Generational Dynamics forum has made you
more philosophical than ever.

I don't think that your theology is as you say or, if it is, then your
theology contains some inconsistencies.

If an omnipotent omniscient God created the universe and everything in
it, and then unintended consequences occur, then the unintended
consequences are his fault.

If I write a computer program, and the program has a bug in it, then I
have to fix the bug. I cannot say, "Oh, the computer didn't do what I
really, really wanted it to do." In fact, the computer did exactly
what I programmed it to do. The bug is my fault, and I have to fix
the computer program.

If God's universe contains awful human beings who are messing up his
universe, and he created those awful human beings, then he's
responsible for what they do, since they're only doing what he
programmed them to do. (This is much debated today in the context of
who's at fault when an autonomous self-driving car kills a pedestrian.
The one thing that everyone agrees with is that you can't blame the
car.)

It's interesting that you lay the blame at "boredom." If it's boredom
that's causing God's created humans to mess up his world, then it's
his fault that he didn't provide more interesting things for the
humans to do.

For example, it would be God's fault that the Garden of Eden was so
boring that Adam and Eve had nothing to do but eat apples. If God had
only just stocked the Garden of Eden with video games, then we'd all
still be living in Paradise, according to your theology.

(Having written this, I now suddenly realize that Elon Musk is a
theologian. Who would have thought it.)

FishbellykanakaDude
Posts: 1313
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:07 pm

Re: 24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

Post by FishbellykanakaDude »

John wrote:** 17-Nov-2019 FishbellykanakaDude's theology
FishbellykanakaDude wrote: > My theology informs me that the world was created as a "perfect
> thing" (organism or machine), and that it was "later" made
> imperfect, or rather "later noticed to be imperfect", by and for
> "man" ("man" being whatever "planetary apex lifeform" existed at
> any particular time).

> But why would "we" do that?

> Because "we" were bored, and life can not abide boredom.

> God gives us precisely what we need, when we "state" what we
> want.
Wow! Your vacation from the Generational Dynamics forum has made you
more philosophical than ever.
Not "more so", just slightly more comfortable in exposing it, 'cuz we just watched the last season of "The Man in the High Tower" (on Amazon), and though they REALLY blew the ending (watch until the last episode where the Bullet Train crashes then turn it off and make up your own ending,.. it's MUCH more satisfying that way!), it got the old "philosophical juices" flowing.
I don't think that your theology is as you say or, if it is, then your
theology contains some inconsistencies.

If an omnipotent omniscient God created the universe and everything in
it, and then unintended consequences occur, then the unintended
consequences are his fault.
That, of course, is the age old question of "The Nature of Good and Evil" in a nutshell.

The tricky bit is understanding what the words "omnipotent" and "omniscient" means.

..as well as "unintended", of course. And possibly "fault", too. :)

The simple way of describing the problem with those words (meanings) is the flippant statement: "Them things don't mean what you THINK they mean, Bunky..!!!"
If I write a computer program, and the program has a bug in it, then I
have to fix the bug. I cannot say, "Oh, the computer didn't do what I
really, really wanted it to do." In fact, the computer did exactly
what I programmed it to do. The bug is my fault, and I have to fix
the computer program.
The universe isn't a "program" and God isn't a programmer.

There are no "bugs" in the universe. There are only "features".

One doesn't fix features.

"So, evil is a feature!?"

Yes. But it is a requested feature.

"Evil was REQUESTED...!!? Who the flippin' hell would REQUEST EVIL?"

Yes,.. and it was requested by the other "persons" in the universe at the time. God has never been the only set of persons in the universe.

"Why would they request the awfulness that is EVIL?"

Because they were bored with the blandness of perfection, and didn't have the capability to "fully" consider the consequences of their request. "Evil" had no meaning for them. They knew only "perfection", and wanted "the (singular) alternative". The opposite of "perfection" is not "evil". It is "imperfection".

They received the gift of the opposite of perfection

..and under the cosmic rule of "No take backsies!!", we have to play the game out.
If God's universe contains awful human beings who are messing up his
universe, and he created those awful human beings, then he's
responsible for what they do, since they're only doing what he
programmed them to do. (This is much debated today in the context of
who's at fault when an autonomous self-driving car kills a pedestrian.
The one thing that everyone agrees with is that you can't blame the
car.)
There have been/will be universes where everyone is happy to play out the beauty of perfection, as opposed to beauty becoming.

Human beings, the present Planetary Apex Lifeform, aren't messing up anything.

They are doing there "job" (Job). This is not God's universe. This is everyone's universe. You get what you ask for in the best manner possible.
It's interesting that you lay the blame at "boredom." If it's boredom
that's causing God's created humans to mess up his world, then it's
his fault that he didn't provide more interesting things for the
humans to do.
"Persons" are not synonymous with "humans".

"Persons" are ... more on this shortly, as it's time to watch The Walking Dead. :)
For example, it would be God's fault that the Garden of Eden was so
boring that Adam and Eve had nothing to do but eat apples. If God had
only just stocked the Garden of Eden with video games, then we'd all
still be living in Paradise, according to your theology.

(Having written this, I now suddenly realize that Elon Musk is a
theologian. Who would have thought it.)

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