On numerous occasions, I have repeated this experiment, in keeping with the scientific method. I have obtained the same null result as Carlin obtained, each and every time.
George Carlin, on Change
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Tag Archives: change
Is This What’s Going On? A Set of Questions of Global Concern.
I have a set of conjectures, and want input from my friends and blog-followers about them. How much of this has actually happened over the past months, weeks, and days?
1. The Chinese have been buying huge amounts of silver, thus driving up its price, because…
2. The political and business leaders in Greater China are, themselves, sick of living in an environmental nightmare based on decades of high consumption of oil and dirty coal, and are working on building enormous numbers of solar panels to get away from fossil fuel consumption, using lots of silver, which has the highest reflectivity of any element. China’s silver buying-spree is being misinterpreted, globally, because China is not well-understood, outside China.
3. These leaders of China have to breathe the same air, for one thing, as many Chinese people with much less power, and going green is the pragmatic thing to do. It is quite Chinese to be pragmatic. Living in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, or other population centers, air quality is a major issue, as is global warming and other environmental concerns — all issues which many Americans are in the habit of ignoring.
4. As the Chinese phase themselves out of the human addiction to fossil fuels, total global oil consumption drops. Evidence: gasoline prices fell. I was buying for under $2 a gallon a week ago.
5. Falling oil prices have led to severe economic problems in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East. Higher-than-usual amounts of political stability have rippled through the Middle East through the last five years, and this has intensified further in recent months. The latest such development has been in Turkey, often seen as the most politically stable country in the Muslim world, is going through an attempted(?) coup, on the far side of the Middle East from China.
6. In the USA, one of the people running for president is a reactionary xenophobe, as well as a populist demagogue, and is running against an opponent with little to no ethical principles who is winning by default because she’s running against Trump. Donald Trump and his people (and he has a lot of people) have been spewing Islamophobia and Sinophobia, and they’ve been doing it loudly.
7. Many people all over the world are reacting to the Trump Trumpet o’ Hate, and freaking out. Various end-of-the-world scenarios are been floated publicly, especially in cyberspace. People are getting “off the grid” if they can, either because it’s a good idea, or because they’re panicked. In some places, efforts are actually being made to use the force of government to stop people from weaning themselves off the services of utility companies.
8. Few people realize that a lot of this is a set of unintended consequences of China (of all nations) leading the charge to do the right thing regarding oil addiction, from an environmental and ecological point of view, plus having a lunatic run for the White House.
9. The rising price of silver, panic-in-advance about a widely-expected coming collapse of fiat currencies, and the pronouncements and predictions of Ron Paul and his ilk, are all feeding off each other, in an accelerating spiral. In the meantime, the political instability in Turkey is capping off a slight rise in gas prices over recent lows, just in the last week.
10. Most Americans don’t know much about a lot of this because we’re at a point in the current, nasty election cycle that America as a people has simply forgotten (again) that the world outside the United States actually exists. Ignorance about the Middle East, economics, environmental science, and Greater China is widespread in the best of times. Thanks to (a) the “Donald and Hillary Show” playing 24/7 on cable news, (b) civil unrest at home (brutality on the part of some, but not all, police), and (c) a backlash against Black Lives Matter, with horrible behavior from some, but not all, of the protesters on all sides, and (d) an anti-or re-backlash against BLM is in “full throttle” right now, and (e) unrest abroad (Turkey, etc.), these certainly aren’t the best of times.
I invite anyone to weigh in on the subject of which of the above conjectures are valid, and which are invalid. I have deliberately cited no sources, yet, because I am asking for independent peer review, and so do not wish to suggest sources at this point. In addition to “Which of these statements are correct, and which are wrong?” I am also asking, “What am I missing?”
Yoko Ono Explains How to Change the World
Atheists Change
(Originally published June 9, 2012, on a Tumblr-blog — reposted here with some minor editing, for clarity.)
Change is a fundamental part of the human condition. We change until we die, whether or not we have religious beliefs, so, of course, atheists change, just as everyone does.
One can change for the better, or one can change for the worse. I am trying to change for the better.
As you may know, I’m in the middle of a huge political fight, with powerful opponents. I also have a lot of allies in this fight: teachers, union people, our families, sympathetic people all over the place (including some in the local media), angry taxpayers — and this is all going on in Arkansas. A majority of Arkansans are Baptists, with the bulk of the non-Baptists being Christians of other denominations.
Many of my allies are, therefore, people with sincere religious beliefs. How could it be otherwise, here? To offend them, I now see, by being the stereotypical “angry atheist,” would simply be stupid. On the other hand, I am not ashamed of my lack of belief. My “show me the evidence” skepticism is not a secret — and has even been useful in this struggle. “Show me the evidence” is a good response, for example, when claims about a superintendent’s salary are disputed. Arkansas has a strong FOI (Freedom of Information) Act, so I have the means of getting the evidence I need.
We have lawyers to fight in court, we have people taking petitions door-to-door, and it makes sense to do those things one can do well. I spend most of my time on this, therefore, as an Internet activist, since I am accustomed to functioning in cyberspace. This is my preferred environment; it now feels as if I was born here, in fact, although I obviously was not.
It isn’t hard to find past posts of mine about religion which were quite hostile. I don’t intend to delete them, but I am changing my approach — turning into a different type of atheist. Working on a common cause with many religious people naturally has that effect, for I would be useless for this fight if I went around bashing religion constantly. If our opponents “creep” my Tumblr-blogs, they’ll simply find evidence of this transformation. I am not ashamed of it.
Here’s an example of this transformation. I have allies who find prayer helpful, and I used to be the sort of atheist who would instantly ridicule such an idea. This is not true any more, for I have realized now that I was simply incorrect, before, about sincere prayer being a useless activity. Prayer really does help these people keep their spirits up, in this situation, through boosting morale, and I have my own, secular ways to keep my own morale high. There is no need for me to pretend to pray with anyone (which is all I could possibly do, of course). I only need to respect their right to pray, which I believe they do sincerely, alone and in groups. Of course, these allies talk about prayer at times, post about it on Facebook, etc. — and when they do, I have learned, after many years, something important: how to shut up. This is something I needed to learn, anyway. I have developed such respect, to a greater degree than I had it before — out of political necessity, at first, I admit. As this goes on, though, I’m simply changing because I want to. I think these are changes for the better, and, since I like the way this is going, there is no reason for me to try to fight these changes — only to understand them.
This struggle is changing me, and it certainly is not easy to go through this, for any of us. I am certain it is changing all of us, not just me. While I am learning to work cooperatively with religious people, by setting aside differences which have become irrelevant, some of them are probably experiencing a similar phenomenon, from the other direction. It is no secret here that I am an atheist, and, yes, that has rubbed some people the wrong way in the past. Some of those people are now among my closest allies. I never saw this situation coming. Neither did they. My guess is that some of them are as surprised to be working cooperatively with an open and unashamed atheist as I am by the changes I have described.
This is Arkansas. My Tumblr co-blogger is in Utah. Unless we move, we’re not escaping religious people in these two highly-conservative, very religious parts of the United States. This isn’t California, nor is it Europe. These are facts, and facts are ignored at great peril. Where we live, peaceful co-existence of the religious with the non-religious is a goal that makes sense, and we have found a way to do it, in the middle of a storm. Yes, the atheists among us can, to use John Lennon’s phrase, “imagine no religion” all we want … and, at times, I do. In our areas, however, it would be delusional to forget that this is merely a fantasy, at least in our lifetimes. Should I ever want to escape religion in my environment, I have accepted that I will need to move, for I can’t get all these churches around here to move, nor do I have the right to expect them to. I am grateful that the world now has highly-secular areas I can move to, of course. This was not always the case.
I’m walking carefully, along a very thin line, but my eyes are wide open, and I can see clearly.
RobertLovesPi.net 