Title: Mcgowanjm Wire 2012 Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Feb 26, 2012 Author:Various Post Date:2012-02-26 09:15:13 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:1305195 Comments:2390
Thanx Robin, for your remarks yesterday on religion.
I can tell when folks, like you, hit a big MEME (bigger than a paradigm;).
My peeps across the internet hit on the same one. At the same time.
Like the light bulb was invented simultaneously across the globe.
or the plane was invented at the same time.
The Big Ideas are grasped simultaneously/instantly across the globe.
Just so religion & problem solving taxonomies:
"Try to imagine for a moment the likes of Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper or the vacuous Brian Williams going on the air and directly defying the President and the whole American military establishment like that. It is simply not conceivable.
The same is true for peak oil. It’s an abstract study of many interrelated, complex factors which cannot be seen firsthand, and lots of unfamiliar data. Understanding it fully requires spending tens of thousands of hours in taxing, System 2-type thinking. (And having spent tens of thousands of hours on it, I can also tell you that for the most part, it’s deeply unpleasant.) The implications of it conflict immediately and directly with most of our experience, especially for those who aren’t old enough to remember the gasoline shortages of the ’70s. It doesn’t have the same ring as “Drill, baby, drill,” and it doesn’t rhyme. And then, if you’re one of those odd autodidactic birds who’s gone far out of your way to become literate in the subject, you’ll find yourself virtually alone with the knowledge, and most people you know will think you’ve lost your mind, your sense of humor, and your “optimism.” Tribal tendencies
"The late, great author and blogger Joe Bageant used to refer to the media as the American Hologram, a term that I have borrowed to employ frequently on this blog because it so perfectly describes what it has become, especially on television. It must be said, however, that this was not always the case. There was a quaint time in America, oh say about 44 years ago, when anchorman Walter Cronkite could effectively spell the doom of yet another American mindless military adventure by uttering the following words on the air: We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.
