Bread and games!

[sen-no-sen]

This analogy with physical phenomena is very interesting, even if it does not seem completely convincing to me.
At a certain time "the choice of fire" *, that is to say the use of thermodynamic forward flight was made, others were possible ...

I admit I do not understand?
Can you develop?

(...) we are less threatened by the atomic bomb, a visible but potential danger, than by the daily and apparently harmless use of our mechanical slaves (harmless taken individually, deadly considered as a whole).

The atomic bomb is a weapon, so you have to compare it with other weapons ...
History shows us that we are flint, then with swords, axes, crossbow, gunpowder, dynamite, TNT, nuclear bomb then thermonuclear then improvement of this one (bomb N, then research on pure fusion, antimatter ...).
From the point of view of thermodynamics we see that all his murderous inventions clearly respond to the 3rd principles of thermodynamics, here adapted to the number of deaths caused which can be summarily stated as follows:"The manufacture of weapons is improving, bringing into play ever greater sources of energy and those in order to maximize the number of victims".

It is therefore not a question here of comparing the military nuclear risk with the industrial risk in its long-term consequences,but to underline that thermodynamic processes are at work in all structures - a fortiori human - and that this pushes the systems in a direction that can be determined, which includes the need for such awareness in any serious policy.


Janic wrote::

it all depends on the reading grid chosen. Thus the end of time can be interpreted as that of the end of a time, therefore cyclical or DES time as the end of a single necessary cycle. For example, some Eastern philosophies see a succession of life cycles through reincarnations, in Western philosophy and more particularly monotheistic which is the most widespread, the life cycle is unique.

Yes quite!
However, to stay with "history", we can clearly see that such cycles were at work: Roman Empire, Persia, Egyptians etc ... all fell!

the why and how of this explosion of discoveries in all the so-called scientific and especially technical fields (foundation of the materialism of science) as never happened in previous civilizations, at the same time as this demographic explosion.

Here too, we can answer!
The technical explosion goes back to the light period (even if humanity had a lot of knowledge before!).
This period is reflected in the appearance of a "collective brain", allowing the exchange of information in a retroactive way, in particular thanks to the printing press.

Other historical periods have had an "explosion" of knowledge and have given empires, but the lights have coincided with an accumulation of knowledge allowing the appearance of so-called modern sciences.
Remember that it is the mastery of thermodynamics that propelled our society towards the industrial revolution.

Inevitable suicidal behavior?

Not really, because suicide requires ill-being and a desire to end one's life.
Overall human beings, even if they sometimes live in very harsh conditions do not want such an outcome.
In reality we are trapped by our own inventions, by ignorance of the universal laws!

[Janic]

Quote:
Inevitable suicidal behavior?

Not really, because suicide requires ill-being and a desire to end one's life.
Overall human beings, even if they sometimes live in very harsh conditions do not want such an outcome.

•Indirect suicidal behaviors or self-destructive behaviors
Self-destructive behaviors or indirect suicidal behaviors are characterized by potentially fatal risk-taking without the intention to die, so these are all human behaviors that increase the probability of death in the medium term but do not precipitate death in the short term or that do not cause physical trauma in the immediate future. These behaviors can be drug addiction, sexual risk-taking, or excessive driving on the road or in sports.
http://www.preventionsuicide.info/conna ... itions.php
Our society, however, fits well with this self-destructive behavior.

[sen-no-sen]

•Indirect suicidal behaviors or self-destructive behaviors

We also find these ways of acting in ordinal behavior.
However, I do not think that this is the process at work in humanity.
On the other hand, it clearly takes on the attributes!
Do people when they go to work have the idea (including me!) Of ending life on earth in one way or another?

This humorous drawing from the monthly "the decrease" seems to me very revealing of the processes that trap us:



Bossuet where are you?

[Janic]

Do people when they go to work have the idea (including me!) Of ending life on earth in one way or another?

at one time: no; today: yes more and more; but we are like insects caught in a spider's web and the more we fidget, the more we sausage ourselves in this web. This company, "we" wished, we take advantage of it by hoping that the bill will not be presented to us because to apply the symbol of the monkeys "see nothing, say nothing, hear nothing"It's still more comfortable than feeling" guilty "and therefore complicit in this system.

[sen-no-sen]

(...) but we are like insects caught in a spider's web and the more we are agitated and the more we get sausage in this web. (...)

This comparison is interesting: the insect and the canvas.
As far as we are concerned, we should say the spider trapped in its own web!
We have to differentiate two things: the individual and the system that he composes on a larger scale: human society.

Human societies are like domains of Ising, they have a fractal character reproducing similar structures whatever the scale.
Scale all the greater as the amount of energy it uses increases.
First family, then tribes, they went from village to city then to megalopolis ...
Everything in the Universe corresponding to a level of organization, and those from the atom to the super-clusters, so this is completely logical!

However, they must be differentiated from them.
If the individual follows his own logic, it should be admitted that the society which is made up of it ends up acquiring his own logic also.

It is therefore necessary to differentiate the individual suicidal character, possibly generalizable to the group, consequence of a pathology, of a suicidal outcome for society.
This nuance is very important, because in one case there is an explanation of a psychiatric nature, which does not seem at all relevant (the Indians of the Amazon have they decided to see their forests go up in smoke, I don't think!) on the other, an encompassing and totalizing logic deciding for us and through us, towards a fatal outcome.

This thesis evacuates THE conspiracy theory (even if historically there have always been conspiracies) as well as scapegoats of all kinds (immigrant, big business etc ... etc ... according to the reading grids on the left or right).

We come back to a theological analysis or fictional science, the system can be compared to the Beast of the Apocalypse or to a gigantic matrix ... created by us!

[Ahmed]

Sen-no-sen, you write;

This thesis evacuates THE conspiracy theory (even if historically there have always been conspiracies) as well as scapegoats of all kinds (immigrant, big business etc ... etc ... according to the grids on the left or right).

I fully subscribe to this formulation!
Even if we can consider things according to the angle of the fractals, we should not underestimate the heterogeneity of the replication of the levels: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (in the sense that its meaning is different ).
This brings us back to the violence inherent in our (all) society; banality of evil (as seen well Hannah Arendt, an evil so common that it becomes invisible; it is now in the economic sphere since it is this which is predominant.
If, tomorrow, these structures collapse, other forms of domination, therefore of violence will be put in place, in the same unconsciousness of the primary causes * ...

To follow up on your questioning, I think that, on the one hand, there have been discoveries in various civilizations that make it possible to achieve amazing things with very rudimentary means, therefore not impacting nature (things that we are unable to to do that with a very large deployment of forces and, sometimes, that we are unable to imitate).
A form of intelligence is lost when a mediocre process works, however, devoting enormous resources to it.
Many of the civilizations on which we are well documented have voluntarily given up or limited the use of certain possibilities. Thus, the Chinese who knew about black powder and its destructive potential never wanted to make it a weapon; similarly they mined coal, but only on the surface. Prohibitions preserved to explore the too dangerous ways.
In France, wind and hydraulic energies developed continuously under the Ancien Régime with good results, but a bifurcation ** then occurred, probably by imitation of the currents from England.
I don't remember if A. Bold is very clear on this point, but I think that capitalism across the Channel was not born from machinery, but rather the reverse: it was necessary to increase the production of value by any means and, in this context, technical innovations were welcomed by industrial castes.
If you will, it is the choice of capitalism as a form of social organization which implies "the choice of fire", as capitalism has never been a historical fatality, that other forms of domination and violence preexisted or could happen, this development was not fatal.

The illustration published above is directly inspired by a famous text of Ivan Illitch.

* If the root causes appeared in full consciousness, they would no longer have any operating capacity.
** See on this subject the work of Karl Polanyi: "The great transformation".

[Janic]

ahmed hello

I do not remember if A. Gras is very clear on this point, but I think that capitalism across the Channel was not born from machinery, but rather the reverse: it was necessary to increase the production of value by any means and, in this context, technical innovations were welcomed by industrial castes.

the two go hand in hand! Capitalism is as old as human civilization, machinery has only amplified an already existing situation and this amplification could not have been done without the discovery of easy energy by so-called fossil energies. the ships which plied the seas with the force of the wind were replaced by steam engines, then by diesel without which international trade would not have grown as large as it currently (and it is valid for all other energy-intensive sectors) and therefore the hyper-enrichment of a few.

[Ahmed]

Capitalism is as old as human civilization ...

Did you, oh Janic!
We must not confuse, as we too often do, greed and capitalism: the second accommodates well with the first, but the first does not imply the second!
Capitalism is a fairly recent phenomenon (say around 250 years) and yet old enough for many, who only knew this period (sic), to carry out an anachronistic rear projection and raise it to the rank of trans reality historical.

[Grelinette]

Gambling is often assimilated to a "hidden tax", a kind of "tax without knowing it of your own accord" as the other would say!

I think that there is a very original and undoubtedly very interesting solution to make accept by all, and the games and the tax simultaneously:

The State should set up a tax-based lottery: the National Tax Lotto (LNF) !

Imagine that each year, right after its tax declaration, the State draws a lot of random tax declarations (say 1000) among all those that the French have filed, and reimburses its happy taxpayers 100 times the amount they declared!

Can you imagine the consequences (psychological and positive) of this National Tax Loto?

1 °) all French people would be more motivated to pay tax, or less reluctant, because all would say to themselves:
"Sure, I pay ... but I can win the jackpot! ..."

2 °) all French people would say to themselves:
"I will declare EVERYTHING because if I win the draw, I will win even more!"

It's "Winner Winner"!

No more concealment, no more tax exodus to avoid tax, no more protest when the tax arrives, and conversely we will wait impatiently for the National Fiscal Loto draw by saying to ourselves: "Thanks to the tax, if I win, my life will change! ".

(Let's make a petition or a demo in front of the Ministry of Economy and Finance to obtain a National Tax Loto!
)

[Janic]

ahmed hello

Quote:
Capitalism is as old as human civilization ...

You say, O Janic!
We must not confuse, as we too often do, greed and capitalism: the second accommodates well with the first, but the first does not imply the second!

Everything is therefore the nuances and perception of terms. Capitalism is the accumulation of "goods" beyond the necessary (what is the necessary ???) therefore any accumulation of capital is linked to a greed, perceived or not as such (it's like comparing selfishness and self-centeredness); after it is a question of scale between the one who plays the games of money in the hope of getting rich on the back of all the losers and the player on the stock market who does it in the same frame of mind: get rich easily!

greed, female name
Meaning 1 Excessive desire for gain, for money.
Meaning 2 The love of gain, of wealth.

Capitalism is a fairly recent phenomenon (say around 250 years) and yet old enough for many, who only knew this period (sic), to carry out an anachronistic rear projection and raise it to the rank of trans reality historical.

Capitalism is an economic, sociological and political concept. Characterizing a system based on the private ownership of the means of production, its definition gives rise to variations in space and in time, and according to the political sensitivities of the people who use the term. However, one of its basic components is, via the search for profit, the accumulation of capital, whether it is accompanied by "the exploitation of man by man" according to Karl Marx, or that 'it results from the ethics of the first entrepreneurs refusing luxury and consumption according to Max Weber.

wikipedia
So where we refer to a “modern” notion of it (often linked to the market economy) or of its real meaning and therefore of its historical application which, as indicated above, can be the exploitation individuals as with slavery (or that of the serfs and our modern serfs / slaves called workers) without whom the capital of the slavers would not have been what it was.
But we are all, in hope and therefore in power, capitalists who ignore each other, but would also like to play in the big leagues.