Pissy, Pissy, Pissy

[mallorys_camera]

I continue in my pissy mood. Combination of lingering illness and cabin fever – when temps don’t break 20 degrees, I have very little incentive to want to leave the house.

The lightbox Max gave me for Christmas will get plenty of workout today.

Logjam on the To Do list is dissolving, though through no effort on my part. The creaky rattle of the conveyor belt. Time. Moving forward.

The number of people who are reacting to the Charlie Hebdo slaughters with some thinly veiled variant of, Hey, they had it coming! is just appalling to me. I suppose this is because I’m a writer, and at several points throughout my career, I’ve gotten people pissed off enough at me so that they’ve threatened retributions ranging from acts of physical violence to the loss of my job.

I get it, too, that Islam, as such, is merely a cover for the forces that have been unleashed in the Middle East and elsewhere. That what we’re really looking at it is an economic tsunami of sorts, the shudder and shift of a social gigantic system that’s reacting to globalization with a massive surge toward socioeconomic homeostasis.

In my long-ago high school civics classes, there was always one day a year when the teacher would dole out several strands of seaweed and a cup of boiled brown rice, and tell us, If resources were equitably distributed, this is what we’d all be eating. Once a day.

I don’t like seaweed or brown rice. Hence, I’ve always been cognizant that I’m very, very fortunate to have been born an American so that I have access to far more than my fair share of the world’s resources.

I doubt that these inequities will continue much longer, at least on a nation-by-nation basis. The coming split will be between a tribe of ultra-wealthy pan-nationalists and the 99 percenters with no passive income who can’t figure out a way to get out of that grid. Even as the shopping malls that cater to the middle class continue to go bust (leaving eerie abandoned complexes all along the super-highways), so do the retail establishments that sell toys for the ultra-rich flourish.

This transition will take plus or minus fifty years. I won’t live to see it in my lifetime. My kids certainly will.

In cheerier news, I met up with Summer yesterday, the charming young Mandarin woman whom I will begin tutoring in English next week.

“Summer,” of course, is not her real name. She chose it because it was easier for Americans to pronounce than her real name. Her husband chose “Spring.”

She understands English reasonably well – or, at least, I think she does.

So my emphasis will be on encouraging her to converse more freely, tweaking her pronunciation – Phonics! – and possibly helping her with reading. She has an advanced degree of some sort in China – I’m not sure what in – and it would be nice to help her to a similar level of proficiency in the States so she’s not trapped in a scut job.

Comments

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

socio-economic homeostasis is in fact the conclusion of one david ricardo, (who along with malthus, are the hiers to adam smith's wealth of nations analysis) to cut it short, malthus believed the lack of food for a growing industrial population would lead to a collapse of social order. ricardo, whose economic analysis lead to marx's understanding, had an equally pessimistic view. in this, wealth attains a kind of heat death, where the rich make less and less due to a steady increase in the marginal cost of production (as increasingly less fertile land is used to feed a growing population) until wealth can't increase anymore because the poor can't get any poorer. marx thought this a cause for revolution. what ricardo and marx didn't anticipate was that tech would disrupt both trends and suspend these crisises, which today still loom as possibilities for the future.

while economics and wealth are both dreary subjects, i think given the trend that as of yet we have managed to stave away such forecasts of doom, if we had to bet on the trends that history has provided us, tech would be the best bet. the problem of course, with betting on tech is that we can only imagine the limits of our horizon embodied within the current limits of our tech horizon. given the radical transformation of the last decade, even last two decades, and how in the 80s or even 90s it was near impossible to see what was coming next... i think that blindness is proof of our own current blindness.

this isn't to say the road ahead is smooth. but if you're leaning towards a ricardian heat death of wealth transformation, given the radical and unpredictable changes in social order accompanying at times even expected technological innovation, it seems doubtful that a final "end of history" is looming ahead. we can't know what we can't know.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Have you considered relocating to more temperate climes?

My mother phoned me JUST to tell me that "there should be a law"....and the conversation went decidedly downhill from there. In my growing dotage I am getting better at not reacting. I listened, I tried to bend my mind around the place where she keeps all her fears, and I uttered a few platitudes about free speech, blaming the victim, and a psychological communism. But it was in vain. Of course.

You and I are aging differently - it might be the ten year gap and how I cut my young adult teeth on anarchy/apathy. I simply don't care what the future holds. It will unfold regardless of my intervention. No civilization has lasted too too forever long...this one won't be different. But that being thrown out there, I LOVE reading your thoughts.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Lived in California for most of my adult life. Didn't really stop the SAD -- the marine layer blows pretty far inland, doncha know. From March through November, it's quite lovely here.

I was an economics major at UCB both as an undergrad and graduate student, so economic analysis does tend to be my conceptual lens on to the world. (I was a big fan of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and economics was the closest approach to majoring in psychohistory.) But, yeah, I cut my young adult teeth on rabid political activism so it's fashure a generational difference between us. :-) I wouldn't say I care what the future holds. I'm just interested in where that particular narrative ends up. :-)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't see the end of history looming.

I see a more pronounced division between the have's and have-not's that's uncomplicated by nation affiliations. Even more intense than the one we have now. Also complicated by the fact that we're essentially entering into a new feudalism. Corporations are taking the place of nation states, and in one way or another, we're all vassals. Unless we're CEOs.

A benefit that won't survive the singularity

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

A young friend over on a philosophy page urges me to get my head flash-frozen in order to benefit from an eventual brain (or in my case Brian) upload. As a 20-something and with a decided tech bent, he's convinced this is the way for old folks to go (or not go, actually).

While I have no idea what the next disaster will be, I'm comforted that it will be someone else's opportunity while I return to the elements.

So long suckers. AND GET OFFA MY LAWN!

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

perhaps end of history sounds more grand than it means to be. the phrase here, doesn't mean that one stops recording events, such as whatever corporations are contending with one another. rather, it means that the positions of class are solidified to the point that there can no longer be any contention, which is similar to what you are saying....

the difference though, is that end of history, to use your feudal metaphor, means that we would be in a new feudalism for as long as humankind will ever exist... that future transcriptions will be a non-history because class cannot change anymore. is this permanence something you also mean to include?

[robby.livejournal.com]

I'm reading all sorts of convoluted rationalizations on LJ, like:

"The IRA has killed more Europeans than these North Africans have, and nobody says all Christians are bad!"

Of course, no one is saying all Muslims are bad, but these apologists stretch every which way to minimize the meaning and human horror of these Islamist attacks.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

My degree is in econ - I was a chem major, but then I got pregnant and could not be in the lab, so where else could I use all those math classes?
I will not be totally shocked - unhappy, but not honestly surprised - to see an uprising of some sort in my lifetime.
Stock up on ammo and canned peaches.
Stockpile drinking water and buy a generator.
I think I have a defendable position here - and hopefully I will never need to put it to the test.

[lethe1]

Actually, quite a number of people are saying all Muslims are bad, or at least that Islam is, and not just the ignorant masses, I'm afraid.

[robby.livejournal.com]

I don't see it. People are condemning Islamic militants, but no one I know, or read, has generalized to state: "Muslims are bad".

[robby.livejournal.com]

It could be anything, like a natural disaster such as a gamma ray storm that cripples the electrical grid. People have no idea how quickly society can fall apart.

[lethe1]

Perhaps it is more of a European thing. Europe abounds with political parties that are anti-Islam and anti-immigration (which more or less amounts to the same thing), and they have a huge following.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, never one to mince her words, states in this article that violence is embedded in Islam. I agree with a lot of what she says, but I don't know if Islam is worse in this respect than Christianity and Judaism. The Old Testament is rife with God-ordained violence. That we do not take all that literally anymore may have to do with the fact that here in Europe we've been through the Age of Enlightenment, which the Muslim world hasn't as yet.

ETA: Eh. I've just noticed that when you click on the WSJ link you are asked to subscribe. If you google "Ayaan Hirsi Ali" and "WSJ" you should get the whole article.

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

Muslims are people and thus are entitled to all people's rights. Islam is an idea. It has zero rights. Same goes for any people and any ideas.

[lethe1]

Of course Muslims are people. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here?

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

One can execrate or wish for the extirpation of an idea without being immoral. People and ideas are two different ideas. I don't hate anyone, mostly. I do intensely dislike many ideas, including religions.

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

"Two different entities"

[lethe1]

Oh, I fully agree with you there. Personally, I think that religion is the root of all man-made evil.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think so long as humans are the dominant life form, there will always be contention. There is no static equilibrium.

Re: A benefit that won't survive the singularity

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Ha, ha. In the enchanted universe of the Sims, there's actually a food called "brain freeze."

I always misread that, "brian freeze."

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

_lethe_ writes from Amsterdam.

There's actually quite a few anti-Islam rants on my Facebook feed.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Ummm. You know, my entire life, I've had a recurring dream that involves having a meal disrupted by soldiers at gun-point. Being told, You have five minutes to gather possessions together and then you're leaving.

I invariably tell them, Shoot me now.

I'm not a survivalist. Just not that attached to being alive, I guess.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was in Sarajevo in the 70s. I know how fast society can fall apart.

But if/when that happens, I have no vested interest in surviving.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I like your analysis.

In fact, I was using something like it the other day when I got into an argument with someone about the Charlie Hebdo incident and pointed out that on the Great Religions timeline, we're now approximately 1,400 years after the birth of Mohammad and that 1,400 years after the birth of Christ, the Catholics were implementing their own institutionalized fatwah: It was called the Inquisition.

Maybe religions, like their human creators, go through developmental phases. I dunno.

[lethe1]

I'm sure you're right. Islam simply isn't over its teething troubles yet.

[lethe1]

Another link to Ayaan's article: https://warsclerotic.wordpress.com/category/ayaan-hirsi-ali/

[alexkaufmann]

I use the same analogy regarding the age of religions.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Great minds... :-)

[robby.livejournal.com]

I don't want to go out with a whimper.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

yeah i think so too

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I guess it comes from being raised in an area where "he needed killin' " was considered a valid legal defense, but if they were to burst in MY door, I do not plan to go out quietly...

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Nor do I...

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

The grid is indeed a weak point - invest in a generator.