On Thu, 22 May 2008 17:17:39 -0700, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:
snip
If John and George are right, we are still in the foreplay stage.
I expect wham, bam, thank you ma'am to start any second.
Scary...
Richard,
This "conversation" is one that the three of us have been having for years
and it's all been public.
At least my partipation has been, and pretty much of the cuff.
Ed's view is heavily influenced by his career in journalism and his
concomitant ability to ferret out numbers and infer fact.IOW, Econ.
George is an educator, regardless his career, it's what he likes and is good
at. He's a gatherer.
You can't figure all of this out rationally.
I've made the point more than once that this entire situation only computes
as cultural anthropology.
The "foreplay stage" began in 1974 as ERISA.
That statement assumes that you want a start date certain as a reference.
We have reached the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end, of
foreplay phase.
It's an important distinction.
--
John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com
============
Your observation about cultural anthropology offering much better
insight into the current socio-economic conditions appears to be
dead on.
Currently the US economy appears to be organized as some sort of
"cargo cult," where goods just appear as a gift from the gods to
individuals who have proven themselves "worthy."
"Cargo Cults" historically have been most noticeable when
traditional society come into contact with more technically
advanced ones, and both the creation and delivery/payment of the
new "magic" goods are seen as a gift of the gods, as no one is
ever seen creating or working to pay for these goods.
There are over 190k google references to "cargo cults."
Note that the "modern" western societies appear to be doing
everything they can to deindustralize and eliminate any general
knowledge of such basic knowledge as where does food come from,
where does electricity come from, where does gasoline come from,
where do clothes come from, etc.
There also appears to have been a huge upsurge in fetishism, at
least in the United States, where certain goods such as a Rolex
watch or Gucci shoes [even better a platinum American Express
card] are seen as emblems that one of the elite and chosen to
received the "magic" goods when the ship comes in or the airplane
lands and off-loads.
one reference for "cargo cults" is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult which observes
"The most widely known period of cargo cult activity, however,
was in the years during and after World War II. First the
Japanese arrived with a great deal of unknown equipment and later
Allied forces also used the islands in the same way. The vast
amounts of war materiel that were airdropped onto these islands
during the Pacific campaign against the Empire of Japan
necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the
islanders, many of whom had never seen Westerners or Japanese
before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents,
weapons, and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to
equip soldiers. Some of it was shared with the islanders who were
their guides and hosts. With the end of the war the air bases
were abandoned, and "cargo" was no longer being dropped.
In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes
or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had
seen the soldiers, sailors, and airmen use. They carved
headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated
control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on
the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up
runways and lighthouses. The cult members thought that the
foreigners had some special connection to the deities and
ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful
enough to produce such riches.
In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of
airplanes out of straw and created new military-style landing
strips, hoping to attract more airplanes. Ultimately, although
these practices did not bring about the return of the airplanes
that brought such marvelous cargo during the war, they did have
the effect of eradicating most of the religious practices that
had existed prior to the war."
===========
I am struck by how closely these practices parallel much of the
current economic and industrial development activities in the
United States.
As an educator, I must plead guilty to
reinforcing/indoctriniating many of my students in ritual,
repetitive, and irrational behaviors that support/promote such
"sympathetic magic.".
Other very inteligent individuals have also noticed the huge
growth of the |American and norther European national cargo cults
such as Richard Feynman at least as far back as 1974
http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html
Other URLs to get you started if you are interested in the new
national "cargo cult" include
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/john.html
http://www.afa.org/magazine/1991/0191cargo.asp
http://www.apts.edu/jam/99-2/M-McDowell.pdf
also see
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/005450.html
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).