Hoc
momento[i]
Mark van Vuuren (2015)
It
was a fascinating time,[ii] watching
the world grow. At first there was no oxygen,[iii]
but later seeing the fauna and flora develop, I was filled with awe and hope.
The first extinction event was disturbing but necessary;[iv]
one wondered if there would be life again. By the fourth event, well, one has
to have faith.[v]
The fifth was the last, for a while. Back then the night sky was so clear. A veritable Eden. I miss that.
So much diversity, yet such commonality; all life forms thriving and surviving.
Darwin was right in hypothesising the Universal Common Ancestor, and the
details are fascinating.[vi]
Please
Consider Our Sacrosanct Distinction:
How these mnemonics stay with one![vii]
Anyway,
fast-forward to the Quaternary Period, specifically the Pleistocene epoch. So,
about 200 000 years ago, by your calendar, that was when the trouble started.
A
certain type of 46 chromosome hominid was introduced. Things became very
interesting, for a while, then they became … ‘interesting’. It was a welcome
change to see art created.[viii]
What followed was the big migration: travelling, suffering, mating, and killing.
The introduction of the floating raft[ix]
was a big help, as was twisted rope.[x] It
would follow that tying items together, like branches, and domesticating the
wild animals benefitted survival; no small wonder agriculture became more
established.[xi]
They
say it was the wheel that started it all.[xii] I
say it was controlling fire,[xiii]
and then religion. Fire meant light and it was warmth, and here people[xiv]
spoke, danced, shared, planned and plotted. This would not have happened if
there was no fire.
Then
came religion. The tribe, unified around the fireside, strengthened by the
shared singular warm glow, found in this idle time the idle pursuit of the
What: what is the self, what is purpose, what is life; then the Why: why are we
alive, why does moon come and go; then the How: how to live better, eat better,
and kill more efficiently. And all the
time the quality of brain power improved and with it came animism, shamanism,
ancestor worship: call it what you wish but it was a metaphysical construct in
a newly-formed cerebral capacity which made for a stronger tribe.
In
700 BC[xv] metaphysical
complexity matched the creature’s mental complexity. In the First Great Irony Man
became a slave to the metaphysical monster he created. There was a god and a
hierarchy of gods in the metaphysical realm, and they were to be served. Gods
differed between groups, and this difference was resolved, largely, through …
killing. It’s not as though this killing was food for the table: to kill merely
for a principle; fascinating. And to appease the gods? Human sacrifice.
That
was when the pattern started: Fear, Control and Avarice,[xvi]
the three legs of the unconscious that held the cauldron of consciousness. It
had different names in different times, like Justice, Freedom, and Luxury,[xvii]
and the State manifested Fear, Control and Avarice through formal structures comprising
Law, Taxes, and Conquest.
Yes,
it was a pleasure to behold the fruits of what was called civilisation.[xviii]
Such short lives, such capricious loyalties, so much death.
There
were also rules that governed general happiness and longevity.[xix]
Well-meaning, but not enough: To avoid
cruelty to animals should’ve been included, but human consciousness insisted
it had qualities animal consciousness had not.
That
Jesus episode, that was notable. He opened a door to a new type of thinking,
and to abuse. It’s regrettable that it took so much death for the species to
realise equality amongst themselves: the idea that love could transcend the
family and become a basis for mass social cohesion is admirable. A symbolic death
was necessary.[xx]
The accepted history hereof is not accurate.[xxi]
Cedo
Pax Teneo et Jugis: How these mnemonics
stay with one![xxii]
Then
almost 2000 years passed, a blink in the greater picture: the Earth changed,
became populated, and Fear, Control and Avarice ran riot.
Groups
became larger, interests grew: Wars and rebellions were common, over 600.[xxiii]
Some revolutions were also notable: the Christian revolution, the Renaissance,[xxiv]
the Medical revolution,[xxv]
the Industrial revolution; most notably the Commercial revolution.[xxvi]
It
was a time of much invention, the benefits are noteworthy:
· Before
the Common Era was the knife, rope, boat, the abacus (and later the number zero,
introduced to the West c. AD 1200[xxvii]),
the lever, nail, alphabetization, cement, Archimedes’ screw
· In
the early years of Anno Domini there came paper, gunpowder, paper money, the
compass, optical lenses, the printing press, the mechanized clock, the
Gregorian calendar, the first dictionary
· Then
in the 18th century: the mouldboard plough, the steam engine, the
first encyclopaedia, the sextant, the cotton gin, vaccination
· The
19th century: photography, the telegraph, anaesthesia, oil refining,
refrigeration, sanitation systems, oil drilling, refrigeration, pasteurization,
industrial steelmaking, the telephone, the steam turbine, the internal combustion
engine, electricity, the automobile
· The
20th century: television, air-conditioning, the airplane, radio, the
assembly line, nitrogen fixation, scientific plant breeding, moon landing, the
combine harvester, nuclear fission, semiconductor electronics, the contraceptive
pill, the Internet, the personal computer
Such
endeavour! What a time to be alive! The emotional latitude of the species was astounding:
Poetry, drama, literature amplified
cohesion, sorrow, goodwill. It was beautiful … until it became a tool for other
purposes, for there was also dynamite, chlorine gas, mustard gas, conscription,
Agent Orange, organised warfare, and unprecedented glorious killing. One
wonders which caused more deaths in this brief time: age, illness or war.[xxviii]
[xxix]
The
Commercial revolution was to be expected, and its consequence: with greater wealth
the fear of death, the need for supernatural assistance, became less. The pews
emptied. Out went dogma, but more importantly, out went a sense of moral
authority. Man was free in his choice but not his design, and here lay the Second
Great Irony: The removal of religion did not remove the disposition to serve a
metaphysical master; the master was merely replaced. Whereas religion required
compliance and humility, and the promise of a happy afterlife, money promised
comfort and happiness in the now. Value replaced meaning.
There
were certain casualties in this pecuniary quest: minimum wage meant the poor
stayed poor. Limited shareholder liability created value but the loss was
carried by the investor. Political incompetence was perhaps the worst offender:
First profits had to be made and then legislation against environmental
pollution or health risks followed, if any.[xxx]
Motivated
by the myth of progress, with bowed head and floating iris the eco-slave laboured
each day: profit, or lose your job. The workforce was large and much activity
followed: advertising, lawyers, multiple
markets, food chains, carbon credits, efficient techniques for the annual slaughter
of 150 billion animals[xxxi]
[xxxii]
to feed the 7 billion,[xxxiii]
and effective processes to manage 30 million abortions per year.[xxxiv]
The press reported first to shareholders, then to advertisers, then to readers.
Rather let 10 guilty men go free than to incarcerate an innocent man, while the
innocent citizens were slaughtered by the same freed guilty. Every item made was
sold and was taxed. Every need had a value, which received payment, which was
taxed. Each of the 1 billion websites[xxxv]
incurred a cost, the payment of which was taxed. Each of the 2 million book
titles per year generated sales, and was taxed.[xxxvi]
And each individual, registered by the State, was taxed. And taxes largely paid
inefficiency.
Man’s
reach had exceeded his grasp.
There
were consequences of this abnormal exertion, like depression,[xxxvii]
like First-World countries defined not by their economic strength but by the
psychotropic drugs they ingested,[xxxviii]
like the First World incarceration rate.[xxxix]
There
were 3 material events which were not prioritised:
· Although
the threat of war gave employment to many, the extent of weapons testing was
unacceptably high. Nuclear explosions in the 20th century exceeded
2053[xl]
· The
increase in cancers.[xli] [xlii]
There were many deaths, and the treatment was good business, but the causal agent was not publicly identified
nor restricted
· In
2015 Global assets approximately equalled global debt: $263 trillion.[xliii]
The world entered Permanent Debt
The
interesting anomaly with 46 chromosomes had become prodigious, even becoming an
agent-of-change when it was not necessary, and had then become a parasite. The
few owned the many; the many were not represented but were lead. Poverty
abounded.
Then
global warming, warming sea temperatures, drought, tectonic instability, sink
holes, volcanic eruptions. Glorious culling; mea culpa.
The
survivors, tucked in a cave, unified around the fireside, strengthened by the
shared singular warm glow, penitent, admitted
the planet got destroyed, but, added proudly, for a brief moment a lot of value
was created for shareholders.[xliv]
And
then back to the beginning again; the sentient organism with limited
consciousness thrived and survived, and ensured its existence by adapting to its
surroundings.
Countries,
Provinces, Nations in Quandary: How these
mnemonics stay with one![xlv]
- end -
[iv] Ordovician-Silurian
mass extinction, 443 million years ago
[v] Triassic-Jurassic
mass extinction, 200 million years ago
[vii] Precambrian,
Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian Periods
[xi] 10 000 BC
[xii] 5 000 BC
[xvi] Fear of
invaders, even loss of social dignity; the anticipation of loss/ death. Fear as
a tool to conscript soldiers. Control over assets, over one’s household and
slaves; control is linked to compliance. Avarice is gain, in vanity, more land,
or more territories. Non-compliance puts assets at risk (Fear). Avarice is
gain, leading to more assets, enhanced social status, which placates any
feelings of inferiority (Fear). Efficient avarice requires compliance from all
players, and non-compliance means failure, which amplifies fear of loss.
[xix] Code of Ur-Nammu,
Sumeria c. 2100–2050 BC. Code of Hammurabi, Babylonian c. 1754 BC
[xxii] Carboniferous,
Permian, Triassic and Jurassic Periods. Latin:
Grant peace enduringly and ceaselessly
[xxv] Vaccines
created for Smallpox (1798), Anthrax (1881), Rinderpest (1897), Bacteria
(Penicillin) 1943, Polio (1952)
[xxviii] I’m quite
comfortable including in War the deaths incurred by the working classes,
struggling to survive in an Economic war (A) either at point of labour, or
subsequently, e.g. miners and pneumoconiosis; and (B) as a consequence of the
State’s disdain for urban- and town
planning and hygiene wrt the cheap-labour classes, contributing to deaths
through inter alia pneumonia,
tuberculosis, diarrhea, cholera
[xxix] More
notable massacres: Leopold II’s Congo genocide, Armenian genocide, WW2
genocide, Stalin’s Holodomor, and Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
[xxx] Cellular
phones, SAR (Specific Absorption Rates); global increase in glioma.
Radiofrequency energy, unlike ionizing radiation, does not cause DNA damage in
cells. Only the gamma ray, X-ray and UV photons carry enough energy to damage
DNA and cause mutations. That is the known mechanism by which radiation
increases cancer risk. http://tiny.cc/1jcpyx And yet
the deaths continued: blame the cellphone tower http://tiny.cc/bocpyx
[xxxii] http://tiny.cc/hptoyx 10,000 representative
populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined by
52% since 1970.
[xl] Pakistan
(4), India (2), Britain (45), France (210), USSR (715), USA (1032), China (45) excl.
Vela incident 1979 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_lLhBt8Vg
[xliii] Total global wealth
2014 $263 trillion http://tiny.cc/jluoyx; total global debt
2013 $223 trillion (313% of global GDP) http://tiny.cc/9qspyx
[xlv] Cretaceous,
Paleogene, Neogene and Quaternary Periods
