The world’s two wealthiest people are fighting over the moon, which just says so much about where our species is at right now.
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are in a dispute with NASA over whose private space exploration corporation will get the $2.9 billion US government contract to return to the moon. I gleaned this annoying piece of information by way of an obnoxiously sycophantic Atlantic puff piece titled “Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going to Do This Mars Thing”, subtitled “From his private Cape Canaveral, the billionaire is manifesting his own interplanetary reality—whatever the cost.”
The mainstream press cannot get enough of these two unfathomably wealthy plutocrats and their outspoken ambition to colonize space, with Musk advocating Mars colonization and Bezos preferring to ship us all offworld to live in giant Amazon space tubes. They love it for the same reason they love war and status quo politicians: it fits in beautifully with the capitalist world order.
Space colonization is largely a capitalist perception management op promoted by the likes of Musk and Bezos to strengthen the narrative that it’s okay to continue the world-raping global capitalist principle of infinite growth on a finite world because we can escape the catastrophic ecological consequences of that paradigm by fleeing to space.
“Ecocidal capitalism is fine, we’ll just go to space before it kills us!” is the message we’re all meant to absorb. And too many do. A large obstacle to waking people up to the existential crises we are facing as a species is the blind faith that technology will save us from the consequences of our mass-scale behavior, and therefore we don’t need to change. Which suits the world’s richest men perfectly.
But it’s a lie. Humanity will never colonize space. We are not separate or separable from this planet in that way.
Boca Chica, Texas, has changed so much since I visited in 2019. One big difference: Elon Musk has started calling it Starbase. https://t.co/HwGfs84J2U
— Marina Koren (@marinakoren) May 6, 2021
People believe we can just snip humans out of their ecosystemic context to colonize space for the same reason they believe in rugged individualism: they don’t grasp how inseparably interconnected each human is. With our ecosystem, and with our society. Separation is an illusion.
We are not separable from our ecosystem. We are our ecosystem. We’re so inseparably one with our ecosystem that we need to send astronauts into space with a little box full of it or they’ll die. Thinking a human can be snipped out of its ecosystemic context and permanently transported across the desert of space is like thinking you can snip a ripple out of a pond and place that ripple in a teacup on the other side of the world. The ripple is the pond. It’s not separate.
We know how to build rockets, and how to keep a human alive in space for a short time as long as they bring part of their ecosystem with them, but there’s no scientific evidence that we can live separately from our ecosystem, and we’ve barely begun exploring our ignorance here.
Many imagine we’ll have people living independently of Earth’s ecosystem within the next century or two, but there’s literally no basis for this assumption; we essentially know as much about how to keep a human being alive apart from Earth’s ecosystem as we knew ten thousand years ago. Our Biosphere attempts to create a closed-Earth system were as clueless and silly as monkeys poking around at a supercomputer, and that was right here on our home planet.
The myriad ways in which we are connected with the ecosystemic context in which we evolved boggle the mind. Science is barely even beginning to explore those connections. There are tons we know about, but that’s just scratching the surface. We don’t know how much we don’t know. We’re only barely beginning to understand our own gut bacteria, and how those mini-ecosystems relate to our health. Those mini-ecosystems have their own relationships with our greater ecosystem. We know next to nothing about any of this. Most of the picture is missing.
And Elon says he’s going to ship humans to live on Mars?? What, because we have the technology to get there? Our bodies might get there, sure, but the whole staying alive part is a riddle that science is not even the tiniest fraction of a percentile close to solving.
Musk likes to argue that we must become a “multi-planetary species” because if an asteroid strikes Earth or we wipe ourselves out in a nuclear war, that’s it for our species. Our survival as a species, he argues, depends on colonizing other planets.
This is false and toxic thinking, because it will not happen. Our survival does not depend on our becoming a multi-planetary species, our survival depends on collectively waking up and learning to collaborate with each other and with our ecosystem. We’ve got an infinitely better chance of developing the technology to deal with an asteroid than we do of developing technology that will allow us to colonize space, and if we can transcend our self-destructive patterning the threat of nuclear war will be neutralized by our no longer being crazy enough to keep weapons around that make it a possibility.
Some argue for the possibility of terraforming planets like Mars to give them Earth-like ecosystems, but terraforming runs into the same problem: not just humans but all organisms are dependent on Earth’s ecosystem for survival. You couldn’t begin creating an Earth-like ecosystem without snipping out all the organisms which give rise to it. This can’t be done. A tree can’t be snipped out of its unfathomably interconnected ecosystemic context any more than a human can. To terraform you need trees and a near-infinity of other ecosystemic building blocks, none of which are separable from their terrestrial ecosystemic context.
We’re just going to have to make this Earth thing work. People assume space colonization is part of our future primarily because science fiction takes this as a given. But science fiction is just that: fiction, written to entertain and appeal to the same ego which imagines it is separate from the rest of the world. It’s an illusory premise.
People think Capitalism is the best we can do, but I can't think of any other form of society that would intentionally destroy the planet because it was more profitable to do so.
— Existential Comics (find me on bluesky) (@existentialcoms) December 16, 2017
We’re not going to rocket ship our way out of this mess. We’re not going to be able to keep doing things the way we are doing them. The “growth for its own sake” ideology that Musk and Bezos have dedicated their lives to embodying is, as Edward Abbey put it, the ideology of a cancer cell. Such an ideology is unsustainable. We’re going to have to change.
“I must change” is always the first possibility that an ego rules out when evaluating a dilemma, and it’s the same ego which says we are separate individuals, and it’s the same ego which created our dilemma in the first place. But we must change. We must transcend the ego.
That’s always the last thing anyone wants to hear, that we need to change, but it’s true. We’ll either collectively change our minds in a way that enables us to drastically shift the way we operate on this planet, or we’ll go extinct. It is evolve or die time. We’ll either make it or we won’t.
Space will not save us, and we will never colonize it. We can explore space, but it will be done via satellites and other tech, not by living organisms. Our astronauts have up until this point been nothing more than glorified scuba divers, entirely dependent on boxes of Earth’s ecosystem, no more independent from that ecosystem than someone holding their breath. This will remain the case.
Hell, forget colonizing space, try colonizing part of the Sahara Desert. Get everything you need, then seal yourselves in a bubble completely separate from the rest of the ecosystem. Even on Earth, with many of the terrestrial connection factors still intact, you will fail relatively quickly.
Such a project isn’t even on Musk’s radar, which shows his pet space project is really about making money and justifying an economic/political paradigm which will necessarily destroy our ecosystem. It’s justifying his cancer cell ideology, proving Robert Heinlein correct when he said, “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”
They work to make it appear that we’ve got some other option than to end our ecocidal trajectory and all the systems which feed into it, because otherwise it just looks like they’re a bunch of psychopaths burning an entire world and throwing its ashes into a gaping hole their hearts that can never be filled. If space colonization isn’t possible, then the people who are destroying our environment for money are just deranged lunatics who must be stopped at all cost.
But they are. And we must.
This is our home. It is our only home. I really, really wish we could stop treating it like a womb we plan on leaving or our parents’ house we plan on moving out of. There is nowhere else to go. This is it.
The earth is not some temporary transit station. We are the earth. We are inseparable from it. We are all indigenous terrestrials. We need to stop trying to move out, and start moving in.
It’s so, so beautiful here. We should be willing to change to keep it alive, like we would if a loved one’s life depended on our changing our behavior. Because that really is the case. I hope we see this before it’s too late.
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98 responses to “Space Colonization Is A Capitalist Perception Management Op”
OK Caitlin, I like your views and your writing but I’m an aerospace engineer and you’re not.
“We essentially know as much about how to keep a human being alive apart from Earth’s ecosystem as we knew ten thousand years ago.” Really? They had LiO canisters and closed loop water systems and photovoltaics and redundant partial pressure monitoring in ancient Mesopotamia? Who knew? You think there’s no basis to assume humans can live off world 200 years from now? I myself can barely speculate what we’ll be capable of in 200 years. Try to imagine someone in 1821 imagining the world we live in now. And the change over the next 200 years will be greater. 200 years from now there could be humans across the galaxy. Humans in LEO and on Mars are a matter of course.
Yes humans are rapacious, avaricious monkeys probably doomed to die in their own self made holocaust, but if Elon wants to expand off planet, and in particular if he wants to do it with his own funding, I’m all for it. Impossible? Do the math. Start with the rocket equation. Tsiolkovsky put it best- “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”
Seriously, Caitlin, you never heard of the blue marble shot? You’ve never read an astronaut’s account of the fragility of Earth? You’ve never counted up all the nationalities on the ISS? Yes, going into space is expensive, but we’re making it steadily cheaper. Soon a lot of people will be able to look down on Earth, or peer at it from a distance, and it has never made anyone appreciate it less. You need to widen your perspective.
Yea sayers masturbating to future porn and nay sayers decrying the act while watching all the action. To be against foolishness or to be for foolishness still regards foolishness as worthy of consideration.
🙂
These fat cats are afraid that an asteroid will destroy civilization on earth but they overlook and completely ignore the fact that a very small asteroid could break the glass houses they propose in their fantasies. They also overlook the profound amounts of materials which would need to be transported to the moon or Mars at very great expense per pound, all producing that *nasty* carbon dioxide they pretend to hate and fear through ignorance and lies.
The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage is a book (published in 1992 and reprinted in 1994 with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) in the field of Exploratory engineering that gives a series of concrete stages the author believes will lead to interstellar colonization. Many specific scientific and engineering details are presented, as are numerous issues involved in Space colonization.
You really should read this book before writing off Space exploration as a futile waste
They’re great misanthropists, believing that the rest of us humans are going to wreck our Earth’s life support system anyway, and planning to do their bit of wrecking too. Maybe we’re already committed to 2 or 3 or more degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century, but sensible educators will tell us that our planet would support only 1 to 3 Billion people in that case, and as humans we’d much better off to swallow ambitions of pointless wealth and set our hearts on making Earth worth living on.
As far as I’m concerned, interplanetary humans can go there and stay there, and leave us alone to live in peace and frugality. Love and community, y’all
As a kid Elon Musk was a huge fan of the Thunderbirds, and now he has enough money to reenact his childhood fantasies in real life. The Thunderbirds had “Zero X”, Elon has “SpaceX”. The Thunderbirds 1 rocket could land nose up, now Elon is attempting to do the same.
“The Thunderbirds 1 rocket could land nose up, now Elon is attempting to do the same.”
Attempting? You do know SpaceX has done it repeatedly right?
Over a long enough timeframe, the gradual extension of Earth’s biosystem throughout the solar system is a real possibility. As long as the technology of space travel exists, it requires a deliberate effort to prevent Terran life from spreading. That’s why it’s necessary to carefully sterilize space probes, in order to prevent Terran microorganisms from “colonizing” other worlds. Spreading life would be a complicated process, but if technological civilization survives for even a few more centuries, life is likely to spread much, much faster than, for example, the colonization of Earth’s continents by formerly aquatic lifeforms.
Even if the spread of human life into the solar system turns out to be impractical on a large scale over the next few centuries, that wouldn’t by itself necessarily rule out the economic exploitation of space resources. It would just mean a lot more of the work of expansion would need to be done by machines.
Sorry you still have space dreams, when the best place we know was, and could be, Earth
Nobody knows so many things. There are so many things none of us know.
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So when somebody says something isn’t possible makes me wonder if they know less than they think they do.
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Personally, I think just about anything is possible. If it can be imagined it can be.
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BK
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OK, lets see what the re-captcha has in store this time…..sometimes I get a free pass, but I don’t think I will this time…..
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Oh, it was easy, traffic lights in the middle panels. 4 selected out of 8 possible. What is the probability distribution on that – hmm….I could figure it out, but by the time I did, I’d have to prove I ain’t a robot again, so figure it out for yourselves. Ope – took too long, now I have to do it again….hold on a moment please.
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OK, back to the crosswalks again. All 4 on the bottom plus another one row up to the far right. Easy and annoying.
While I agree that we do need to take care of our Earth and native ecosystem, I see no evidence offered in this article that bringing our ecosystem (in small parts) into space isn’t scientifically feasible. The reasoning offered by Musk and many other non-billionaires is valid as well–if an asteroid hit or nuclear war resulted in wiping out 99% (or 100%) of our species, it’d be nice (if you believe that our species is capable of wonderful things and is worth saving) that we have at least a few thousand people “up there” somewhere that are self sufficient and able to wait out the fallout on the Earth and return to our native ecosystem some day. Are we going to turn the Moon or Mars into the Earth? Definitely not, and nobody expects that. Can we create “colonies” with a few thousand people and learn to make then self sustaining over time? There is absolutely zero scientific evidence that says it’s impossible (quite the opposite, in fact).
Also, it is within the realm of possibility that we *do* find another planet out there that has atmospherics similar to ours and can support human life. Then we get down to the discussion of whether we go there or not, and there are troublesome answers to that whichever way you lean. Is it ethical for us to keep our species (or even other species here) confined to a single planet if others are available? (This dooms all species to certain short-term extinction in universal time schemes.) Is it ethical for us to exploit other ecosystems to ensure our survival? (Seems like a crappy thing to do.)
I’d rather have people spending resources on this type of stuff than on war machinery. I side with space. Our native world will never, ever be 100% perfect–too many brains thinking in self-centered ways. Good luck with overcoming that–I think your goals of making this world perfect is a fool’s errand. Improve things here, sure. But going to space won’t detract from that in any material way, and could end up making things better.
“I see no evidence offered in this article that bringing our ecosystem (in small parts) into space isn’t scientifically feasible…Can we create “colonies” with a few thousand people and learn to make then self sustaining over time? There is absolutely zero scientific evidence that says it’s impossible (quite the opposite, in fact).”
ffs did you watch the linked video (or do any independent reading) on Biosphere 2?? That is a brilliant real world, scientific experiment lasting years and costing hundreds of millions of dollars that conclusively demonstrated the magnitude of the difficulties in any attempt to recreate a self sustaining environment sufficient to keep humans alive for an indefinite period.
Your ignorance of the material linked to in the article you’re criticizing suggests that you haven’t read it, or thought about it, carefully. Your naive optimism is not a sensible substitute.
Your force of habit is a pain in the ass.
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BK
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ps – two crosswalks on the upper right and one tricky one on the bottom left.
Biosphere 2 is not comparable to what I’m talking about. There is no doubt it would take more than “years” to be self sufficient for a Mars colony. I’m rather talking about a century or more. You need time to work it all out, set up the farms, etc. Biosphere was also limited in size, which made it very difficult to achieve its goals. There is no reason on Mars not to expand as needed until you have enough crop area to become sustainable. I’m also not saying it won’t be expensive. But, what price do you put on the existence of humanity?
What you’re saying is something like “We can’t sail across the ocean because we tried it in this little rowboat and it didn’t work.” We tried being self sufficient in a tiny area for the first time and we failed. So, what? Try again until you succeed.
” Biosphere was also limited in size, which made it very difficult to achieve its goals. ”
So we tried on a small scale, identified a bunch of problems none of which we know yet how to solve, and yet you claim that the problem is the small scale of the original scientific experiment??
I guess that sort of blinkered perspective is consistent with your claim that there is “Absolutely zero scientific evidence…”
Having read your articles for some time, I realize that you are fixated on making America the bad guy and the remainder of the world, especially Russia and China, as targeted by our political class. Many of the things you have pointed out are true, but how you describe them makes us the only evil people in the world. I don’t believe that you are in the employ of our adversaries, but your fixation and fear of nuclear war closes your eyes to the realities of the actions taken by other actors.
The above article is another example of your fixation and is an insult to the intelligence of your readers. When you state, “Humanity will never colonize space.”, you are ignoring history. The past is littered with such pronouncements concerning things that will never happen. Anyone who will take the time to read about the history of science will find many examples of ‘learned’ men making such statements. They have always been proven wrong.
Several other potential disasters could wipe out humanity or at least severely cripple us, besides an asteroid hitting the earth. A series of volcanic eruptions or one large one could put us into another ice age. A large increase in sunspots coming simultaneously the magnetic poles are reversing could spell disaster for our civilization.
You minimize the possibility of an asteroid strike, but at this time, we have no means of deterring such an event. The time to prepare is now, not when we see the asteroid approaching. I refer you to the ‘Black Swan’ theory, which our financial ‘experts’ ignored and almost brought down the world’s economy.
“We are not separable from our ecosystem.” This statement is true today, but tomorrow with genetic manipulation, things could be very different. No one knows what new things will be discovered on the moon or Mars that would open up new possibilities for humanity.
We are explorers, and sending a machine is not as rewarding as our actually going to new places. Robots have their uses, and these uses will expand as we learn more, but at this time, our urge to explore in person must be nurtured and strengthened, not choked off by the fear of the unknown.
Nice comment. I agree.
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Plus, I ain’t no freaking robot – Gotcha reCAPTCHA….you are mine. I own you…..
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in my dreams
BK
Caitlin is correct — humans can’t survive if they don’t live on the Earth. I remember a couple/few years ago when Chris Hadfield (Canadian astronaut) returned from 6 mths on the Space Station. They had to carry him off the shuttle because his muscles had atrophied, and after testing they found he had aged several years physiologically.
Steve Bannon’s involvement with Biosphere 2 seems to have made him batshit crazy, can we send him to Mars too?
The whole billionaire space race thing has to be one of the most sociopathic things that Musk and Bezos have been trying to do. They will never colonize Mars, and I predict that they will only send rich people into low orbit for exorbitant fees, and that will come to an abrupt halt when one of their rockets blows up with rich people on board.
You are correct Caitlin. Earth is the only place humans will ever be able to live, and they better not screw it up. A large scale examination of our galaxy done recently has found no signs whatsoever that there is any other intelligent life anywhere in this part of our galaxy. Conditions needed for life are very rare in the Universe, and we better get that through our heads. It took billions of years to terraform the Earth and that could only happen because there were vast oceans for the photosynthetic bacteria to thrive in. You can’t do that on Mars, and who is going to wait billions of years even if you could do it?
People actually start believing the crap they see on TV. Not sure how that works with some people.
Very good & in total agreement.
The only “trigger” for me, is the last paragraph where you describe this planet as being beautiful. I suppose that is a matter of perception, but to me, nature has always seemed like a horror show and a thing that likely needs wiping out, to bring peace / order to the universe.
Wow! Nature is a horror show that needs wiping out.
Methinks you are much more in alignment with Bezos and Musk than you think.
I wrote about this exact same thing on the same day as Caitlin. Read Pioneer Days Are Over at https://aninjusticemag.com/pioneer-days-are-over-45a1b5360810
Medium non-members go to https://aninjusticemag.com/pioneer-days-are-over-45a1b5360810?sk=8993247121f3d9efbf93f68eb8911e90 or
The Inn by the Healing Path http://davidsperorn.com/blog/?p=1130
You might like it. I hope Caitlin gets to read it.
Any “space” explorations humans have done, in the history of humanity, has always been within the confines of earth’s magnetic field. At no time, in our history, has any human traveled further in space outside earth’s magnetic field, which incidentally protects humans from radiation which would normally KILL them. I call on Bezos and Musk to be the first humans on board any space craft, to exceed the outer limits of earth’s magnetic field and demonstrate to all us earth bound earthlings, that such space travel is actually viable. Chances of that happening in our lifetimes ? L.O.L. Buckley’s and none.
Yeah – imagine the labour required to set up shop on Mars. But I suppose Elon & crew, whilst smoking their high grade weed, have visions of androids performing these necessary tasks and laying down the infrastructure.
It would be a monumental effort and is completely out of the question at this time.
Behind this story what I find interesting is the implication that there may be a more powerful way to travel around out in space: anti-gravity technology. Because for frequent trips, rockets are awkward – but may be necessary as a mere side show ($$$!) only to protect the energy cartels’ oil dependence and the income therefrom (and keep disruptive technologies out of the hands of the déplorables/peasants (def: anyone with assets of less than 1 B U$D).
Anyone doubting … familiarize yourself minimally as follows:
— The Hunt for Zero Point by Nick Cook
— The Truth About the Wunderwaffe by Igor Witkowski
What is sad is that our solar system and well beyond may be littered with archaeological marvels – and it would be a pity if terrestrial militaries and merchant pirates had first look and access to them. Sort of like the feeling one gets at the end of Indiana Jones when the Ark of the Covnent disappears into a bottomless US government pit.
“It truly is a revelation when one begins to realise how our sensory perceptions misperceive our everyday reality”
Lynn Reher
Well, humans will apparently go extinct someday if we don’t get off of this planet. The sun is going to blow up in a few billion years and earth will be consumed by the fireball. It’s still a ways off, but we won’t be alive here forever.
Yes, and it could be sooner than we think?
Maybe not for some of us gathered here, but give it a few decades perhaps.
“You do not know how crafty they are. You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch.”
Caitlin
I wish your articles were required reading all over the planet. You’ve got more common sense in the tip of your little finger than I’ve accrued in 77 years of existence. Please keep on beating the drum. Maybe the world will get lucky and the right people will read some of the articles you’ve written and will, hopefully, have an OMG moment.
James Lovelock has proven that the conditions required to support Life on Earth are so explicit, that Life anywhere else is almost impossible.
These two self absorbed clowns are just boys with their phallic toys.
Musk may get some people to Mars but he won’t get them back. Radiation and many other factors will finish them off. This will probably not be enough to stop people from trying again.
Just $2.9 billion to go and come back? it does not cover the cost to keep the logistic of one aircraft carrier traveling around the world I wonder how could we take so long to do that again. Luckily the moon has no habitants. Another fine mess slaughtering native habitants and evicting survivors will not happen. UN Aliens Rights will not happen for now. But we all know it’s just propaganda. We cannot create or terraform a small backyard in another planet. Let’s export our troubles to the universe while our Wikipedia experts are trying to figure out how to make you believe in all this thing. For now we still trying to forget how we used to live without lockdowns and masks. Maybe one day our descendants will study a world without lockdowns and mask in mythology.
There are elements within our planet that were never meant to be brought together as their mixture is capable of destroying the planet. After viewing the supposed planet Mars, it looks like the Martians figured out the recipe before we did.
I would assume that once this Pandora’s box has been opened, the ending is inevitable.
Now that you have said the word capitalist so many times in the most vitriolic manner, it is time for you to leave the womb of it and propose your preferred socio/economic set up.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/21/rugged-individualism-cannot-save-us-only-enlightened-collectivism-can/
We will not achieve “enlightened collectivism” by knocking capitalism. Most of your readers get off on knocking capitalism, and maybe catering to your base is your intent.
No, you must show us the way to collective behavior that is better than that proposed by capitalists.
Also, you do not recognize fascism as a system that is different than capitalism. Many of the former capitalists you denigrate are actually partners with the force of government. You will have tbat same challenge with socialism as it thwarts your efforts to enlighten the populace with virtuous behavior. At least Jim Otteson shows us the path toward virtue with his book “Honorable Business”. Maybe it’s your turn to write the book on “Honorable Collectivism”?
I don’t agree with Caitlin when she seems to say propaganda is all that holds us down, but she is fairly consistent in saying consciousness of our predicament and potential is the way forward.
For example, “Every positive change in human behavior, individually or collectively, has been preceded by an increase in awareness. Anything you can do toward this end makes a difference, whether it’s spreading awareness through a conversation, a tweet, or street graffiti. Your efforts matter.
One doesn’t end an addiction or self-destructive behavior until they become conscious of the inner dynamics feeding into it. Societal illnesses don’t end until people become conscious of how wrong they are. Dysfunction and consciousness can’t coexist. Your efforts matter.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/06/actually-that-was-america-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
You may not agree this is “the way to collective behavior that is better than that proposed by capitalists,” but Caitlin appears to me very clear and straightforward in saying she thinks it is.
I never know how to respond to grown men who cry about my saying mean things about capitalism like I just slapped their mother.
Mme. Caitlin – can you provide a time stamp (YTC/GMT pref.) for comments?
I asked for this as well on a post many months ago. It would be helpful to understand better the flow of the conversation.
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A respectful request it is. From both us and others I suspect.
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Peace,
BK
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ps – 3 bicycles in the first reCAPTCHA and I got them on the first try.
Any economic system can be, and has been, weaponized by the Psychopaths In Charge. Socialism included. The Psychopaths being in charge is the problem, not the system used to tally resources and allocate them. The bigger the state, the more Psychopaths In Charge, and the more parasitic they are.
Apparently you do know how to respond. By accusing them of “crying” because they state their case, and associating their crying to having their mother slapped.
I hope you both find a way to survive the horrible act of violence I have inflicted upon you.
If anybody ever slapped my Mother, I doubt she would have deserved it, and then I would do all I could to kill them assuming they were a stranger.
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Happy Mother’s Day mom. You know I love you.
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Ken
ps – 3 fire hydrants on the diagonal across the middle – super easy…
OK Marty, here you go.
https://johnmoffett.substack.com/p/capitalisms-good-versus-evil-dilemma
In case you missed it Caitlin:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/05/07/chris-hedges-on-the-ruling-class-revenge-against-julian-assange/
I personally shudder at the potential intrusiveness and administrative mechanisms (possibly worse psychological invasions of privacy [‘good fences make good neighbors]) that are entailed in the phrase ‘enlightened collectivism.’ — the recent few thousand years doesn’t give us much to go on outside of ~tribe-sized exemplars.
I personally like the idea of forward advances (novelties, improvements …) in any culture or society – and I fear the too-well-known herd effect in holding down/back the individual who excels/deviates from the mass.
I rather think that evolution can also imply enlightened individualism rather than heading towards the insect-like society that ‘enlightened collectivism’ conjures for me.
Enlightened is the key word, whether individualist or collectivist. How does the entire population achieve such while gangs of psychopaths with armed goons, aka governments, assume the authority to kill you if you don’t comply with THEIR “enlightened” solution? Be it collectivist or individualist, the threat of violence is key to its implementation. Such is not conducive to enlightenment.
I am not even sure they have been on the moon…
It is diversion.
This way you do not talk about real problems.
Real problems are always about rich and poor. But we live in a society that will find anything to avoid the topic of wealth sharing… for example a pandemic.
There is a reason why wealthy people are so much in favor of abortion. It is because they do not want to pay for the children of the poor.
Decadence is everywhere. No doubt, the end of the world is near.
Keeping my Rosary on hand!
To repeat myself cause I don’t know how much time I have, without peace there will be no colonization of any other place besides the current place we reside upon.
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How about we colonize this place peacefully before we try to go anywhere else.
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Cause if we don’t, then it is obvious, we will get our asses kicked back to planet earth if we are lucky. Could be though, and there would be justice in this, we will get eliminated due to our offensive attributes.
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Simple in the life of intelligent beings that want to have future generations.
~
Simple as could be but there are some fools who have way more than they deserve and they think they are pulling the strings but they couldn’t be more wrong. Time for a hard lesson is what I think. We all could use a hard lesson. One that really sinks in and is memorable. One you can’t forget.
~
Let it be.
Is Jeff Bezos the twin of Mini-me – Or are they the same person?
Is Dr. Evil their/his father?
Don’t insult mini-me!!!!! Pretty sure he’s Dr. Eeee-veeeel!
Are billionaires, by definition, war-loving, and anti-environmentalists? If you have an idea that makes you extravagantly wealthy and you parlay that wealth in the economic format you are born into to even greater absurd wealth, does that make you intrinsically evil? Are entrepreneurs playing the game that is given, victims of their own success?
Some billionaires that own munitions factories and promote aggression will fit that category but perhaps we should examine them on an individual basis. ‘Seems like you have come down a little hard on your ax-grinding for embellishment purposes. The gyrations of John Bolton and Elon Musk are not the same…..
Agreed. Lets be discriminate in judging those who have so much more than one individual deserves.
You realize though ascribing to the possibility of having this much means you are part of the problem. You realize that don’t you.
~
So what is to discriminate amongst the billionaires on the planet. What is to differentiate between one or the other. The mere fact they have acquired this much is damn near enough to make them guilty in the first place of continuing the systems that perpetuate the suffering of innocence. So seems to me they are on a tight rope and as Jesus would say, they would be better off if they gave it all up.
~
Bezos should relinquish every bit of money he has for the sake of his own future and Musk is a lost cause if there ever was one. He is a worse asshole than Nixon.
~
Meanwhile, the clock ticks, and the probability of us not having the same fate as T-Rex diminishes as each moment passes without justice.
~
So simple it could make you sick.
~
You get what you give.
Why does TSLA have a market capitalization of 646 B versus F at 46?
~
I’m sorry, Elon Musk might be an effing genius in his own mind, but TSLA is NOT worth effing 14 times or thereabouts versus F. The infrastructure between the two companies is not even comparable. F has so much more. TSLA is based on nothing but leverage and selling credits for some potential future reduction in emissions that may or may not happen and lets consider all the energy it takes to make those batteries and charging stations not less the energy it takes for mega-factories to even exist in the first place. It is all bad science based on propaganda being pushed upon the susceptible young.
~
Just like everything else these days a bunch of dimwits are so confused they will listen to the the circus clown just before he gets trampled by a bunch of mad elephants who have had enough with theatrics. I say trample the whole show down and trample it down into dust.
~
Nobody deserves to have so much more than their neighbor because nobody is any better than anybody else in the eyes of justice.
~
Elon Musk can shove it up his leveraging ass. If I was on the see-saw with him, I’d jump off.
~
BK
“and lets consider all the energy it takes to make those batteries and charging stations not less the energy it takes for mega-factories to even exist in the first place.”
But let us also consider the energy it takes to make those Fords, and to extract petroleum, transport it, refine it, ship the petroleum distillates, “recharge” the vehicles outfitted with internal combustion engines (fill the gas tank) and build out the petroleum distillate recharging (gas) stations to allow for future geometric growth of demand.
Perhaps the trade-off is not so wildly inefficient after all.
Frank,
~
To be honest and to be frank for a moment, I admit I haven’t done the analysis, but many ascribe to simple thinking when it comes to green energy and I don’t think it is as simple as that.
~
With respect to Ford and Tesla, I have a problem that so many believe Tesla is the next coming. How many cars did they actually sell, and how much of their income was based on the “future credits”.
~
Tesla is so full of derivative leverage it could all come crashing down faster even than a heartbeat.
~
Tesla and bitcoin are where money goes to die if you want my opinion. Good riddance to both of them. They contribute very little for the betterment of society at large.
~
With respect to the Ford, it is more complicated than that, but I’d rather have an electric vehicle from Ford than one from Tesla.
~
Regards,
BK
I agree that billionaires are not the problem, so much as the system that produces them, but Musk did say, regarding events in Bolivia, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it,” which doesn’t seem that far removed from Bolton’s attitude.
https://twitter.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752/photo/1
Indeed. Musk and Bolten must be one and the same.
~
String them up is what I think.
~
Its been imagined, so it
~
could be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still, not only would I jump off the see-saw with Elon the annoying on the other end, I would advise all others to do likewise and them possibly this big flare up can be kept to a minimum. Otherwise, all the leverage that he has created will result in a conflagration that none of use will live to see the end and we will go the the way of the T-Rex only it will be worse for us cause if not for outside influences the T-Rex would have survived. Us, on the other hand, so to speak, we will have killed ourselves and if that is not a failed species then I don’t know the difference between zero and infinity.
~
Not playing around. There were two snakes and I killed them both.
BK
Obviously those two men and many others don’t even exist, although, it may seem otherwise to some.
“The world’s two wealthiest people are fighting over the moon”
–
Can they both go and live there so we don’t have to ?
The world would be a better place if Gates Soros Bezos Musk and a few others left this place for parts unknown never to return
Myself, I doubt the world would be any different without them, if the system that produced them remains.
I dunno. I think GatesSorosBezosMusk is just the inevitable fruit of the society we built based on the stories we tell. I think Caitlin is correct: if we don’t change the stories we tell, even if we get rid of GatesSorosBezosMusk, they will just be replaced by an equally pernicious foursome, and the trajectory of our future will not change a whit.
hopefully we can find a way to send Dr. No and Goldfinger to Mars on a one way ticket.
then charter a rocket bus for the next WEF convention: together, with most of the money on Earth they could start over any way they want!
i would send Mars a big thank you missile with balloons and a box of candy bars.
meanwhile, no more burning! ok?
I agree almost completely, except I think we can and should colonize space. For lots of reasons, not including replacing the Earth.
In response, a poem done correct:
Awesome thinking except maybe Earth will never need to be replaced.
~
Maybe Earth will once and always be our home base.
~
The place we were born – the place we grew up in.
~
Somebody else might of planted the seed,
~
but we will never know, so why not
~
believe this is our place to
~
treasure and love.
~
One that we
~
belong
~
to.
~
And come to think of it, what difference does it make how the seed was planted?
Once the seed is planted, does it matter where it came from?
*
A bit of afterthought….
~
I think there are some lessons that are so primal that if we learn them our chances of getting off our own planet increase exponentially.
~
I think the ideas being pushed out there today are sending us in the wrong direction and we will never get off our planet if these ideas prevail. That is why I oppose them.
~
God knows what is going to happen. She might have a trick up her blouse.
~
Regardless, if you think you are always gonna kick ass eventually you will discover elsewise. Ask T-Rex what he thought when the big rock from space landed on the planet. Of course, without that, none of us would be typing any of this shit, so consider that if you want to get off.
~
So says the voice whispering in my head after the whole village was killed off for no reason whatsoever and nobody knew the travesty of it.
~
Innocence holds POWER reminiscent.
~
The power is so strong it will wipe us all out in a heartbeat.
~
Best to be humble if we want to go on.
~
BK
Will not happen.
I hope you’re wrong because, as far as I can tell, the only thing that could prevent humans from colonizing space would be something so truly and permanently catastrophic that it would prevent everything else too. Otherwise we’ll surely do it.
No we won’t. You only think we will because you fundamentally misunderstand what a human is. You think it’s a separate entity which can be snipped out of its ecosystemic context, when you have no evidence for this belief. Nothing remotely like it has ever happened before.
Just because something haven’t happened yet don’t mean it ain’t gonna happen.
~
Have a little humility is my advice and best for all us if we learn something every day.
~
Today I learned, and I’m not even in the top 50 when it comes to playing bridge, but the season is coming to an end and the thing about me is I get better day by day and if you play a game with me don’t expect me to play the same after you beat my ass.
~
I like when my ass gets beat cause then I have something to strive for….assuming I’m alive to do it of course.
~
Getting off the planet will be easy if we figure out peace, which won’t be. But if we do, then we may, because it is has been imagined, and so it could be.
~
Simple as anything and that was what I said to Sally as I departed her lonely body, but she went cold on me when she lost sight of the journey, but ain’t that how it goes sometimes?
~
Peace,
BK
This is fantastic, Caitlin. I wish I could say you inspire me to write; I would say the same things practically verbatim. Fortunately, the world has YOU to do the writing. I’m going to try to stick to painting and expressing myself artistically through visual mediums. I love you. You are helping awaken people everywhere. Thank you!!
Death phobia is real
It is called Thanatophobia
~
Personally, my head will rest easy.
Selfishly I just want to die
naturally.
~
Peace,
BK
Dear Caitlin,
***
Thought some of your readers might “enjoy” rediscovering the haunting, poignant film based on the Neville Shute novel ON THE BEACH (’59), which speaks directly to the nuclear madness we’re facing today and should be a warning to anyone who sees it. Please find link pasted below (don’t let the title BEACH fool you).
***
Best,
***
Horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan (including of the horror/paranormal nuclear saga ALPHIA)
***
https://youtu.be/HusewgIe_1k
“Video unavailable
This video contains content from mgm, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”
But you’ll find it on BitTorrent easily enough.
I’d no more want to live in space than I’d want to live in a fallout shelter.
We have all been in a practice fallout shelter of sorts during the so-called COVID emergency that tugged on so many’s fear that resides just at the surface of the conscious.
~
What a sad state of affairs it all has become.
~
There must be a way to unwind all the harm of the past so that we can start afresh.
~
I vote we do it the hard way and learn incrementally without too much indiscriminate harm.
~
If there is anything calculus has taught us is if we differentiate we can navigate the tricky pathway to fruit and bounty, and let me tell ya, it would be heaven on earth.
~
It is not far away. I can feel it.
But, sadly it is only a possibility
and who amongst us know what the future holds?
~
Not I.
~
Even though I like my crystal ball, and I like to gaze into it, sometimes I know it is full of shit.
~
Oh well, I plan on living on planet earth in all it’s splendidness out in the sunshine for as long as I can.
~
Direct Action – It is time!
BK
Spot on Caitlin. Yes, yes, yes, yes, we are the Earth and the Earth is us. We are inseparable and it is delusional to think otherwise.
And yes, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are psychopaths.
Mars does not have a magnetosphere or atmosphere like Earth. Cosmic particles like iron nuclei slam onto the surface of mars at near the speed of light, which would rip human DNA to shreds if humans were stand on Mars. On Earth, our magnetosphere guides those near light-speed nano bullets around the Earth and what few that get through are significantly slowed, before they reach the ground, by our atmosphere. What 99% of people don’t understand is that Earth is a very, very special place, unlike any other in this solar system and as far as anyone knows unlike any other in our region of the Milk Way galaxy.
It is folly to think that we can even travel to Mars in the first place because those same Cosmic Particles would be slamming into any space ship while transiting to Mars, a 6 month voyage. Humans got away with this when going to the Moon, because they were only out there for a few days, and still, they needed to be intensely shielded. Even then the astronauts described flashes of light going off inside their cabin, which weren’t flashes of light going off in the cabin, but rather inside their brains when those cosmic particles passed through the neurons inside their brains.
To get a good idea of how Elon Musk thinks, watch his comments in this film, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV_IZye14vs Watch where Elon Musk says, as the old adage goes, if we can’t beat them, them we must join them.
Yes ladies and gentleman, Caitlin is absolutely correct in her assessment here. We can’t let these psychopaths continue to destroy our home, which is our Earth. We are inseparable from the Earth and it is folly to think otherwise. It took billions of years for life to perfect itself on Earth, you cannot terraform a planet in a human life time or even a few human lifetimes. And even then, the conditions of gravity, magnetosphere, chemical composition, huge iron core like on Earth, just the right distance from the Sun, all have to be in place to begin with before terraforming will even have a chance of succeeding over a period of billions of years.
Cailin, I am so happy that you wrote this article, because what you described hear is the challenge of our time.
Your point deserves much better coverage. To travel to Mars and not arrive dead would require so much shielding that the ship could never get into orbit (or consume so much iron ore that it would never be feasible to construct).
Even ignoring all this, watch that Amazon Prime show The Expanse to see how shitty life will be like for most of us, even if the all the fever dreams of Bezos and Musk were true.
That is the very reason I believe Musk and Bezos need to display some back bone, and be the first to travel in space OUTSIDE the effects of earth’s magnetic field. After all, they’re asking others to volunteer and sacrifice their lives, shouldn’t they themselves first demonstrate the feasability of what they are proposing ? They need to put their money where their mouths are. C’mon guys, let’s see you do it.
A recent Nature paper and articles about it in the scientific press suggest we are predisposed to solve problems by doing more, not less.
“Have you ever noticed how we usually try and solve problems by adding more, rather than taking away? More meetings, more forms, more buttons, more shelves, more systems, more code, and so on. Now scientists think they might know the reason why.
A study of 1,585 people across 8 different experiments showed that our brains tend to default to addition rather than subtraction when it comes to finding solutions – in many cases, it seems we just don’t consider the strategy of taking something away at all.
…
“The first thing that comes to our minds is, what can we add to make it better? Our paper shows we do this to our detriment, even when the only right answer is to subtract. Even with financial incentive, we still don’t think to take away.”
…
The researchers have a few ideas about what might be going on. Our brains might find additive changes easier to process perhaps, or we might be associating adding with ideas of something that’s bigger and therefore better in our subconscious.
There might also be associations in our minds with the status quo being something that needs to be maintained as much as possible – and taking something away is arguably more destructive to the status quo than adding something new.
…
“Over time, the habit of looking for additive ideas may get stronger and stronger, and in the long run, we end up missing out on many opportunities to improve the world by subtraction.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-why-our-brains-always-want-to-solve-problems-by-adding-not-taking-away
(Not long or difficult, and includes a few videos which make the point rather convincingly!)
Seems long and difficult to me Ian and full of unnecessary speculation.
Who needs conversation ad infinitum.
~
Do you want to learn the hard way or the easy way?
~
Can you feel the call of REVOLUTION in the air……holy crap it is flowing.
Watch the six-minute video, and see if you’d have fallen for the additive approach!
https://youtu.be/1y32OpI2_LM
And I find it highly pertinent to issues often discussed here. Do we want a world with more things, assuming they’ll improve our lives and solve our problems, or do we need more empathy and solidarity, with less in the way of GDP growth for nations already drowning in consumer crap? Most economists and politicians, and maybe most people, of most political persuasions, automatically go for the former, and this research, while somewhat speculative and inconclusive, suggests a reason why.
And yes, I’m well aware Caitlin usually says propaganda is the reason why, but I’m unconvinced that’s the whole story.
Maybe so, but seems like common sense to me that empathy is the way to go and if that prevails, then imagine the fruit and bounty that will flourish.
~
We would all be so rich we wouldn’t know what to do with the gift of the blessed life we have been bestowed. We would treat that gift reverently and treat others accordingly.
~
And guess what, this is what most peasants want even if their minds have been confused by propaganda.
~
If you want my opinion Ian, you are too smart for your own good. Besides a few psychopaths, who think they pull the strings of the future, we would already be there and so it is obvious these psychopaths are approaching a hard lesson. It will be swift. Soon they will all be diminished. Ruthlessly is how I reckon it must go down.
_
Oh yeah, I found a bridge app that will teach you the game. “Tricky Bridge” is the name, and that might be a good way for you to spend your time. Try to accomplish something worthwhile. Your mother was a master, or so you have said, so why not you?
~
Learning how to play bridge is time will spent.
~
BK
Seems like common sense to you, maybe, but to most people? True, many peasants aren’t enamoured of ever increasing quantities of things, but as they’re forced off the land and into employment and urban life, their outlook often changes.
Get with the game Ian.
~
Ain’t nobody so smart that they have nothing left to learn.
~
Done talking. The debate is over.
~
I give a non-trivial probability that Jack pegged you. I could be wrong or I could be correct, but really I don’t give a flip.
~
Learn the hard way or the easy way, but one way or the other, learn or die.
~
BK
Excellent link. Thanks.
We won’t colonize shit until there is peace.
So obviously simple it is pathetic
how stupid the psychopaths
have gotten while they
wind their time in
the unending
maze of
their misguided perceptions and struggle for satisfactions that never last.
Temporary ecstasy can rapidly turn into strings that form into ropes.
Eff them – lets get rid of their stupidity in the collective conscious.
~
Then maybe, we can colonize something and last beyond
our wonderful blue-green planet that some seem to hate.
They must live miserable lives all around.
Glad to be a peasant.
~
BK
Space colonization: modern version of building the Tower of Babel.
Return to the moon?
.
von Braun was an exhibitionist [most assuredly a high-ranking freemason] fixated with the concept of travelling to the moon. His mentor Hermann Oberth was a technical advisor on “Woman on the Moon” produced by Fritz Lang.
.
• Trailer – FRAU IM MOND 1929
.
https://youtu.be/lDnqSc1T3k0?t=12
.
Don Pettit would return to the moon in a nanosecond … if only …
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2Qj8HsMK8&t=581s
.
Anyway, if Musk cannot get us to Mars, we could always go to Devon Island
.
https://youtu.be/qReLq96oNQ4?t=300
.
Who knows what we might find there
.
The fact that apparently smart people believe we can colonize outer space really shows how dumb smart people can be. Its an obvious impossibility.