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a deep physics of finance

The global economic crisis that started in 2008 has summoned a deeper skepticism of the economic mainstream with its corresponding prognostications for endless growth and prosperity. Individuals are starting to question the need to play on the giant wheels of churning money that represented the retirement funds and investments of the past. While I’ve been [...]

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the aliens we’ve been looking for might just be inside us

Graham Hancock is the king of speculation. His books will either convince you there’s a lot more to human history or make you scoff at his possibly outlandish ideas. Regardless, it is damn entertaining. One of the first books I ever bought was his Fingerprints of the Gods (1996) which discussed how anomalies associated with [...]

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living through a superpower’s collapse

If there’s one thing about the inevitable decline of the United States that gives me some bit of deeper comfort, its that people like Dmitry Orlov have been writing about it for a long time. His article, Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century was first released in 2005 and clearly Orlov had been thinking about [...]

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change everything you think in two hours

This is the one track of audio to rule them all. In it, bard and sage and storyteller and author Terence McKenna speaks on the origin of human consciousness in a talk titled, Evolving Times. Terence McKenna has had a tremendous influence on the way I’ve developed since I first discovered him back in 2004. [...]

confronting collapse

I first learned of Mike Ruppert through a chilling trailer for his then upcoming movie, Collapse. Ruppert has a long history as an investigative journalist that began when he broke away from the mainstream after his excellence in the LA police  led him to be actively recruited by the CIA for running cocaine through South-Central [...]

Asides

• An upcoming documentary, Transcendent Man, details the story of Ray Kurzweil's Singularity: the idea that machines will gain consciousness as a true AI will be developed. At that point, the machines will either help us reach our potential among the stars or enslave us and torture us for fun (more...) #
• In addition to the many other reasons to maintain ancient forests, perhaps their greatest value to us is that they instill a sense of humility in the human experience. (more...) #
• I'm intrigued by the notion that Stanford Research Institute members were engaged in the design of Disneyland to harness secret technologies. An upcoming book by Walter Bosley will supposedly cover this in detail. But a recent post over on Disinfo covers some of the claims: (more...) #
• We all seem to acknowledge that money isn't going to make us happy but Jonah Lehrer covers the evidence of why: Taken together, our findings provide evidence for the provocative notion that having access to the best things in life may actually undermine one’s ability to reap enjoyment from life’s small pleasures. Our research demonstrates that a simple reminder of wealth produces the same deleterious effects as actual wealth on an individual’s ability to savor, suggesting that perceived access to pleasurable experiences may be sufficient to impair everyday savoring. In other words, one need not actually visit the pyramids of Egypt or spend a week at the legendary Banff spas in Canada for one’s savoring ability to be impaired—simply knowing that these peak experiences are readily available may increase one’s tendency to take the small pleasures of daily life for granted. [Read the full article at The Frontal Cortex] #
• [via Flavorwire] #
• Ten years ago, energy expert Amory Lovins predicted that by 2010 hybrid and fuel cell cars would make up between half and 2/3rds of all the vehicles in the US. Today, no fuel-cell are on the U.S. market, hybrids are well under 5% and the efficiency of the US transportation fleet isn‘t much higher in 2009 than it was in 1989. Lovins has long been respected as one of the most optimistic proponents of technological solutions to the crisis of industrial civilization: the idea that we'll innovate our way out of this mess and continue our extractive economy, just with shiny solar panels to pay homage to the notion that we value the environment. (more...) #
• Even though this blog is all about not being a robot, maybe being a robot isn't all that bad, (more...) #
• Unicorns aren't that outlandish are they? Comedian John Ramsey explains, (more...) #
• Much goes unsaid about momentum. So much so that two supposedly polar opposite politicians can take the helm of the Global Empire and still get stuck supporting the same decision infrastructure. There's only one way this ship is headed, and it isn't towards anything positive. John Pilger sums up my feelings about the current United States President quite well and the corporatocracy that is politics in modern America. (more...) #
• This week's Deconstructing Dinner podcast featured a fantastic talk by Toby Hemenway on agriculture systems and permaculture. While we speak about sustainability as an alternative to the currently implemented degenerative systems, what we really need to talk about are regenerative systems. Toby says, "If you ask how a marriage is going and you answer that it is being sustained, that's not what you're aiming for." (a rough paraphrase on my part) Toby goes on to speak about evidence regarding the hunter gatherer lifestyle vs. the sedentary agriculturalists lifestyle and presents the usual evidence that our ancestors were in better health than we thought. Well worth a listen even if you are familiar with many of the cases for permaculture. (more...) #
• I'm looking forward to the latest book from Gary Lachman on the mystical works of Carl Jung. But while it is on its way via Amazon.ca, I've been enjoying his recent article for Fortean Times which begins by detailing a seminal mystical experience in Jung's life, On 11 February 1944, the 68-year-old Carl Gustav Jung – then the world’s most renowned living psychologist – slipped on some ice and broke his fibula. Ten days later, in hospital, he suffered a myocardial infarction caused by embolisms from his immobilised leg. Treated with oxygen and camphor, he lost consciousness and had what seems to have been a near-death and out-of-the-body experience – or, depending on your perspective, delirium. He found himself floating 1,000 miles above the Earth. Seas and continents shimmered in blue light and Jung could make out the Arabian desert and snow-tipped Himalayas. He felt he was about to leave orbit, but then, turning to the south, a huge black monolith came into view. It was a kind of temple, and at the entrance Jung saw a Hindu sitting in a lotus pos­ition. Within, innumerable candles flickered, and he felt that the “whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence” was being stripped away. It wasn’t pleasant, and what remained was an “essential Jung”, the core of his experiences. He knew that inside the temple the mystery of his existence, of his purpose in life, would be answered. He was about to cross the threshold when he saw, rising up from Europe far below, the image of his doctor in the archetypal form of the King of Kos, the island site of the temple of Asclepius, Greek god of medicine. He told Jung that his departure was premature; many were demanding his return and he, the King, was there to ferry him back. When Jung heard this, he was immensely disappointed, and almost immediately the vision ended. He experienced the reluctance to live that many who have been ‘brought back’ encounter, but what troubled him most was seeing his doctor in his archetypal form. He knew this meant that the physician had sacrificed his own life to save Jung’s. On 4 April 1944 – a date numerologists can delight in – Jung sat up in bed for the first time since his heart attack. On the same day, his doctor came down with septicæmia and took to his bed. He never left it, and died a few days later. #
• Yes. I am married now, for what that means. Jane and I have been together for almost six years now and things have never been better, but they don't seem that different because we are "married". Here's one take on matrimony by the bittersweet and poignant Daniel Clowes. #