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 By Hal von Luebbert Oct. 31, 2005 Ron reads some good stuff, too. As a matter of fact, Howard Bloom’s book, “the Lucifer Principle,” is in one of the bookcases behind me, one of a very few books I have either managed to protect from IRS thieves, or managed to acquire since they started to leave me alone. I’m staying with a teacher presently, one of several people to whom I’ve entrusted the most precious – almost all books - of my possessions. Bloom, as a matter of fact, is at least in part responsible for some of my opinions, the theory of the meme having coincided with my own conclusions for a very long time. Shortly after “Lucifer” was written, as a matter of fact, I corresponded with Bloom, through a friend Sociology Professor Joel Pickar. I may, as a matter of fact, have been a little ahead of the field on that aspect of the general matter – inasmuch as my own experiments (largely by hypnosis and self-hypnosis) with memes, genetic memory, and related atavistic responses go back to 1965 (when I first met Dr. Pickar). Since Ron seems interested in that particular branch of psychology and sociology, I might suggest “Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind,” by Julian Jaynes, or (and) “The Evolution of Consciousness,” by Robert Ornstein. Having said all that, I ought point out that psychological and sociological studies are largely beside the point here (assuming that I know what it is). That civilization is bout to make a 100 year (or more) retrograde movement industrially, technologically, and societally is inescapable, a fact of physics and hard demographic mathematics. I do, however, concede that the inability of man to escape his mental make-up and condition has and will contribute significantly to what is about to happen. While the subject is far too voluminous for exhaustive discussion here (and I have begun a more complete analysis on my website www.judoknighterrant.com), let me make the following points. First, though, let me point out that few paleontologists, paleontological historians, and evolutionary biologists would disagree that retrograde movements are normal where the evolution and development of man and his civilizations are concerned. Discoveries like the Uldovai Cliff (the papers by Richard Duncan, Ph.D. might prove interesting, Ron - http://dieoff.org) have made that incontrovertible. However. The fact is that my remarks concerning what is about to happen to the United States, our children and grandchildren cannot be rationally considered without inclusion of energy contraposed and related to mentality, psychology, or sociology. The modern and evolved version of the human race has two mental flaws, both ideological, which may prove fatal. We may, in other words, learn the hard way from the cataclysmic reversal of human progress that is currently typified by the pig-headedness of modern capitalism and the military industrialism it has become. Society is currently handicapped – perhaps fatally - because its two most important basic intellectual concepts, those having to do with the science of matter-energy and the historic system of economics and finance, are incompatible. While it might be (I think so, anyway) that a reasonable co-existence would be possible – were both growing at approximately the same rate - current attitudes as reflected by history and events of late make that unlikely. Among the few who have made themselves aware of the condition, there will be some who would point out that that has been happening since the start of the industrial revolution. That is soon going to end because the amount the matter-energy system can grow is limited while money's growth is not. Why (where ignorance is bliss, isn’t it folly to be wise?) will the falsehood become important? Well, when the last Great Depression hit, we had manpower and raw materials out the gazoo. Nevertheless, country shut down. Today, we're doing the same kind of thing (we – government - call it “outsourcing,” we entertain “illegal immigration,” and we refuse to hear the “great, sucking sound” Ross Perot warned about), but with a vastly different material outlook. In 1929-30, the ecosystem, natural resources, and the like made us ready to roll. This time, though, we’re a beached whale, a nation undergoing an extreme in evolution of its human society. What’s happening now is unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can't possibly happen again. You can only use oil once. You can only use metals once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and/or scattered, obviously a scenario of catastrophe. Here is where those “memes,” atavistic ideas, and their ideological children come into play. Man, like my friend Ron, is hopeful. In fact, U.S. man could be the ultimate utopian. “They” (the conservatives, he means – liberals are way too willful and stupid), he says, “will fix it.” We have, he says, all the necessary technology. All we have to do is some scientific tinkering; and, of course find an alternative to money (unfortunately, we think that’s credit, stock, bonds, even “derivatives”). It’s all “memetic,” based on the way nature, evolution – and, just maybe, history – have programmed us. Oh, a non-catastrophic solution might be possible, but that would mean doing something we absolutely will not do, which is make society stable. Like I said, we won’t do it. That would mean abandoning two great axioms of our capitalist culture, the work ethic and the idea that growth, economic, scientific, and the rest is the normal state of affairs. Eternal progress. The fact that both are mathematical nonsense bothers no one - we are not a mathematically inclined society. If we were, we would know that the exponential (and it has been that) growth of the last two centuries is the direct opposite of what is normal for civilization. Yeah, yeah, I know – technology. Boy, are we in for a hell of a shock! At the risk of boring all those un-mathematical and illogical heads out there, let me use some indisputable facts. For most of human history the population doubled only once every 32,000 years. Now it's down to 35 years. That is beyond dangerous. No biological population can double more that a few (a couple, in some instances) times without getting seriously out of bounds. There can be no possible solutions to even the world's economic problems that do not involve stabilization of the world's population. If you think that’s heresy, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. The good, old Protestant Work Ethic is as out of date as the bi-plane, becoming, increasingly irrelevant. There are people who think it conceivable that the future work week might be 10 hours or less. That’s not just because we’re lazy, either. The fact is that production will have to be limited on account of increasingly limited mineral resources. Then, too, most employment in the “information society” is mere paper-pushing. The actual work necessary to make society run is a fraction of available manpower. The key to making it all work, of course, is a limitless supply of cheap energy. We have it – solar energy. But we have to build the infrastructure to use that, and we have to do with the energy supply – and the economy – and the science, meaning minds, we have now. There is a cultural problem, in other words. We’ll wait until it’s too late (we have, as a matter of fact – it’s already too late). One example of such cultural difficulty is afforded by the fundamental difference between the properties of money and those of matter and energy upon which the operation of the physical world depends. Money, which is really just a system of accounting, is, in effect, comprised of just records and paper (currency and coin) and so is not constrained by the laws within which material and energy systems must operate. In fact this kind of “money” grows exponentially by the rule of compound interest. If we derive an equation for the growth of the stock of money, the rate of industrial growth and the generalized price level, we see the inevitable. The customary – de rigueur - _expression for generalized price levels states that this level should increase exponentially at a rate equal to the difference between the rate of growth of money and that of industrial production; and, if the industrial growth rate and the average interest rate have the same values, then the ratio of money to what money will buy will remain constant and a stable price level should prevail. But suppose that for physical reasons the industrial growth rate declines while the interest rates hold steady. We should then have a situation where interest rates and return are greater than that of production - with the corresponding price inflation at the rate of interest rates less rate of production. Finally, think about a physical growth rate of production equal to zero, with the interest rate greater than zero. In this case, the rate of price inflation should be the same as the average interest rate, and, conversely, if prices were to remain stable at reduced rates of industrial growth this would require that the average interest rate should be reduced by the same amount. No way, José – ain’t gonna happen. Those “memes,” again. Finally (if that weren’t enough), the maintenance of a constant price level in a non-growing industrial system implies either an interest rate of zero or continuous inflation. Either kills us. And, don’t forget, it’s our national capitalist religion that’s doing it to us. If you doubt the validity of my admittedly abstruse deductions, consider the curves of U.S. energy and, for instance, iron production. Because energy is a common factor in all industrial operation and iron production one of the basic components of heavy industry, the growth in the production of energy and iron is a very good indicator of the total industrial production. From 1850 to 1907 the production of energy doubled every ten years. Then, however, during the three-year period from 1907 to 1910, the growth rate dropped abruptly to where a doubled increase required 40 years. During the same times, iron production also grew exponentially at a rate near percent per year until about 1910, when it, too, broke abruptly to a far lower rate (less that 2 percent per year). That sudden split represents a major event in the industrial history of the United States, yet the nation and public have no idea it happened or what it meant. Too many things like whatever was equivalent to Natalee Holloway then to worry about. Meme-building, I suppose. But we were talking about money, too. Parallel with this industrial growth during most of the 19th century and continuing until 1929, the average monetary interest rate was also six or seven percent per year. Therefore, until 1910, the price level (except for temporary disturbances) should have remained comparatively stable, but following 1910, when the physical growth rate dropped to about 2 percent per year, the interest rate remained at about 7 percent. That meant a price inflation of about 5 percent per year should have begun. What did happen? Well, despite fluctuations, the interest rate has remained consistently higher than the physical growth rate from 1910 to the present. A graph (everybody likes graphs, but I can’t do one here) of the consumer price index as computed for each year from 1800 to 1971 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the math and equations I use. Three principal distortions coincide with the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War 1. If we disregard these, and draw a smooth curve under the bases of each, we get a very informative result, namely that for the period from 1800 to 1910 the consumer price level remained remarkably stable. Beginning about 1910, at the time of the abrupt drop in the rate of industrial growth, prices began to inflate and they have continued to do so to the present time. What does the gobbled-gook mean? If means that since the tenets of our exponential-growth culture (such as a non zero interest rate) are incompatible with a state of no growth, the government will bust its butt to avoid a cessation of growth. They’re doing that now, and the volume of lie and virtual reality creation going on in the media and education is truly Brobdingnagian. Inexorably, however, physical and biological constraints must prevail and appropriate cultural adjustments will have to be made. That means we have to get back in the real world. There is only one righteous way to put that. What has been going on is absolutely unequivocal, as is what it means for the future, and if we are to prevent cataclysm we have to accept it. I don’t think there’s snowball’s chance in Hell. During my lifetime, since about 1910, as a matter of fact, we have seen both the government and business – now that has come to mean the same thing - indulge in the curtailment of food production and its wholesale destruction at a time of the greatest human need in U.S. history. Farmers were ordered to destroy their crops in order to raise the price, while millions went hungry. We’ve have seen factories closed at a time when a large fraction of the population was in the most extreme want of industry’s products and at a time when millions were willing and anxious to work. What was – is – so damned difficult about the problem? What is it that has to be done in order to solve it? Well, we have to get over a couple of obsolete – impotent - ideas. All that would be necessary is for the totality of the continent and nation to be operated at maximum efficiency (an ideal of judo, you know) with a maximum conservation of resources for the maximum production and distribution of physical wealth. That would result in a standard of living greater than has ever been obtained before on the North American Continent. To do that would require a distributive mechanism that would deliver the products of industry to the consuming public at whatever rate was required. I do not mean “profit” (and neither do the people who fling that word about so extravagantly know what it really means, either). Of what use is more money to a man who already has billions? But that would mean some would be getting something for nothing. Anathema. So, distributing to the public the products of industry, the failure of the present system (40,000,000 in poverty – to say nothing of the rest) is the direct result of the faulty ideology upon which it is based, the ideology that says that somehow a man must be able by his personal services to render to society the equivalent of what he receives. From that, it follows that the distribution to each will be in accordance with the services rendered and that those who do not work must not eat. This is what our cynical and conniving propagandists call “the impossibility of getting something for nothing.” For some reason perhaps only Howard Bloom and the rest could explain, on the basis those who do nothing at all frequently receive the largest shares of the national income. The simple fact is that it is impossible for any man to contribute to the social system the physical equivalent of what it costs the system to maintain him form birth till death; and the higher the physical standard of living - i.e., the more wealth he has, the greater is this discrepancy. That (I keep wanting to say “of course” – but that’s ridiculous; by now, damned few of the few still reading have any idea what I’m talking about) is because man is an engine operating under the limitations of the same physical laws as any other engine. Huh? Well, the energy that it takes to operate him is several times as much as any amount of work he can possibly perform. If, in addition to his food, he also receives the products of industry, that is due to fact that material and energy resources happen to be available and, as compared with any contribution he can make, in fact amount to gift from heaven. To put it more mathematically, it costs the social system the energy equivalent to nearly ten tons of coal per year to maintain one man at the average present standard of living, and no contribution he can possibly make in terms of the energy conversion of his individual effort will ever repay the social system the cost of his societal maintenance. It is hardly a wonder that an economy and distribution mechanism based upon so nonsensical a fallacy is failing (40,000,000 – oh, never mind). It’s a damned miracle – meaning a continent plentiful as the Garden of Eden - that it ever worked Since any human being, regardless of his personal contribution, is a societal dependent where the energy resources upon which society operates are concerned, and since every operation within a given society is effected at the cost of a degradation of an available supply of energy, this energy degradation, measured in appropriate physical units such as kilowatt-hours, constitutes the common physical cost of any and all social operations. Since also the energy-cost of maintaining a human being exceeds by a large amount his ability to repay, we can abandon the fiction that what one is to receive is in payment for what one has done, and recognize that what we are really doing is using up what nature has provided us. Under these circumstances, we recognize that we are ALL getting something for nothing, and the simplest way of effecting distribution is on a basis of equality, especially so when it is shown that production can be set so that it is equal to the limit of our capacity to consume, commensurate with adequate conservation of our physical resources. There’s more, but I’ll put it on my website. Like I said, I’ve probably lost most readers, anyway. Memes, you know. Let it suffice to say that we get control of ourselves, our goofy and outdated ideologies and mantras, and our nitwit government, or we die. Point by point, this is what I just said means: We are never again going to be able to get sufficient growth of the economy to eliminate or even markedly reduced unemployment. There is no way – industry wants those illegal aliens, the reason government run by industry is dragging its feet on the closing the borders. The promise of competing in the global economy is still another cynical hoax perpetrated upon working and unemployed wage-earners. That’s so simple a child could understand, and it’s because over time a nation needs to buy from and sell to nations overseas in roughly equivalent amounts. The steady state (“heat death”) economy into which we are being inexorably forced implies an interest rate of zero. How long do you think an economy designed by bankers to enrich bankers – i.e., based on credit – will stand for that? An interest rate of zero means the end of their creation, the money system. Unless we rethink (a national head-shrinker, maybe?) our ideological and cultural nostrums having to do with organization of our economy, unless we find a way to re-distribute purchasing power, somebody is going to leave, or somebody is going to starve. There’s going to be a hell of a fight, meaning that increasingly desperate means will be used by those who think we can continue to have business as usual. With the plane going down, somebody will have to go overboard. The government - the corporations who ARE government, that is – will kill as many people as they have to in order to do that. One right-wing commentator, Neil Boortz, is already getting the public conscious ready for what will inevitably come. He wants the rich saved by law. I should think it obvious as the freaking Rockies by now, but all attempts to reduce the deficit, balance the budget or pay off the national debt are futile. On the off chance that the reader understands enough of economics to know and appreciate what I’m saying, the deficit and the national debt represent the subsidy the government has paid in its attempt (like $350,000,000,000 in the last eleven years to the oil companies who are now gouging us blind) to keep “growth” - meaning corporate; you don’t think they count individual and family paychecks, do you? - together with unemployment at the level of social tolerance. I trust I don’t have to say that the idea of zero population growth – also necessary if we are to save the ship that is our nation – is stillborn in a nation that can’t even control illegal immigration by the millions. As one of the Huxley’s - Aldous, I think - once said, “The great tragedy of science– a beautiful ideology (he actually said, “theory”) slain by an ugly fact.” ------------ About the author: Hal von Luebbert is a retired soldier, private detective, bodyguard, and - recently - high school teacher. In 1978, the US government in its IRS avatar destroyed his business and family. In 1985, when he had recovered and remarried, they did it all again, this time driving a teenage son to three attempts at suicide. A war ensued, and when von Luebbert counterattacked federal murder attempts with electronic and personal surveillance proving massive governmental crime, a US District Court protected their federal empoyers by ruling his records exempted under the Freedom of Information Act by the national secrets exemption. US Senators and national media forwarded proof of federal crime like mayhem, murder, rape, and extortion to commit rape protected their masters by concealment of the evidence and personal silence. Protected still by evidence of federal crime, together with the fact of large numbers of remaining witnesses available for subpoena, von Luebbert lives mostly in the wild in Texas and states where concealed handgun laws make it possible for him to defend himself with lethal force. He is also a sixth degree black belt and three time national judo champion. His new website is www.judoknighterrant.com Email: judoknighterrant@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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