That the devious deceptions, threats and prevarications of the Heartless Institute have not — as yet — burst out into the mass media can probably be attributed to the fact that anyone who suggests that there is a conspiracy is, by definition, a conspiracy theorist.

I never could get the hang of the idea of a tautology.

Remember: Growth is goodp. The way out of our economic downspiral is to go shoppingp. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a lousy stinking commie terrist spy: and if they’re not in drag, that’s only because they’re in disguise.

You know, I find something very scary about the attitude of those who would scare us with fears of a left-wing conspiracy to implement a one-world government under the UN. Such people are highly vocal about their ‘freedom’, their ‘right not to be told what to do,’ and how they simply won’t stand for any of it.

The thing that, I think, scares me most about such a view is the possibility that it might hold sway, and we’d end up in a world in which I’m forced to do things that these people want.

Oh, wait, I’m already in their crazy, topsy-turvy, insanity-ruled world. My mistake.

Since nothing much else makes sense, it won’t hurt if I add a picture of a friend of mine (now, sadly, passed away) posing in New York with someone who is, in his world, giving a positive message that, on this side of the Pond, means something entirely different (originally referring, so legend has it, to English bowmen at Agincourt taunting the enemy).

To me, my friend’s grin says it all — even though she later admitted that she didn’t understand what I was whittering on about (but then, she’s Canadian, so go figure)

Communication: “a difficult concept. It is not logical”, as Saavik once said. OK, she was talking about humo(u)r; and I was trying to talk about freedom. So, sue me.

Have a good day.

Find out more about the economics of happiness.

So, here we go with another year that is destined to be filled with doomsday prediction lunacy. The last time this happened (in our society) was 1999; a (perfectly normal) end-of-millennium panic reinforced by Y2K — and I note that our self-proclaimed superior culture hasn’t even learned the lesson from that; many people I know haven’t stopped noting years in two digits (rather than the four they would be using if we, collectively, had learned that particular lesson).

The comment thread on Enviromint’s recent take on the prelude to the end of the world led me (thanks, Martin) to Wikipedia’s article on the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar (AKA ‘the Mayan Calendar’), where, scudding by all the esoterics, I came upon this telling passage (my bold):

Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that “We have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end” in 2012.^[33] “For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Florida.

To render December 21, 2012, as a doomsday event or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”^[33]

“There will be another cycle,” says E. Wyllys Andrews V, director of the Tulane University Middle American Research Institute (MARI). “We know the Maya thought there was one before this, and that implies they were comfortable with the idea of another one after this.“^[34]

Of course, the Maya might have been wrong about another cycle following the current one. (I’d ask one, but, wait, I can’t, because… their civilisation no longer exists).

They could have been wrong, since, after all, they were only human, too.

You must speak… it’s our only hope.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor; that’s not my business.
I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.

I should like to help everyone if possible: Jew, gentile, black man, white.
We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.
We don’t want to hate and despise one another.
In this world there’s room for everyone;
and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.
Greed
has poisoned men’s souls;
has barricaded the world with hate;
has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery, we need humanity.
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities life will be violent — and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together.
The very nature of these inventions
cries out for the goodness in men,
cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world,
millions of despairing men, women and little children,
victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say:

Do not despair.
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed,
the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.
The hate of men will pass and dictators die;
and the power they took from the people will return to the people;
and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers:
Don’t give yourselves to brutes,
men who despise you, enslave you,
who regiment your lives,
tell you what to do — what to think and what to feel;
who drill you, diet you,
treat you like cattle,
use you as cannon fodder!
Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men,
machine men with machine minds and machine hearts.
You are not machines!
You are not cattle!
You are men!
You have the love of humanity in your hearts.
You don’t hate; only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers:
Don’t fight for slavery — fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written:
“The kingdom of God is within man.”
Not one man — nor a group of men — but in all men; in you:
You, the people have the power,
the power to create machines,
the power to create happiness.
You the people have the power
to make this life free and beautiful,
to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then in the name of democracy let us use that power –- let us all unite!
Let us fight
for a new world,
a decent world
that will give men a chance to work,
that will give youth a future, and old age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power:
But they lie; they do not fulfil their promise — they never will.
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.

Now, let us fight to fulfil that promise!
Let us fight
to free the world,
to do away with national barriers,
to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.
Let us fight
for a world of reason,
a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers:
in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

The Great Dictator. 1940.

Yep, that’s right. 1940. And it’s supposed to be… a satire.

You must speak… it’s our only hope.

Revolution

Human
Not human
Freedom
No freedom
Change
No change
Revolution

Employment
No employment
Choice
No choice
Memory
No memory
Revolution

Revolution

Sex
No sex
TV
No TV
Future
No future
Revolution

Computer
No no computer
Sex
No no no sex
Memory
No no no memory
Revolution

Choice
No choice
Freedom
No no freedom
TV
No no no TV
Change
No no change
Revolution

You must speak… it’s our only hope.

Economists have much to learn. The sooner they do so, the better for all of us.

[edit 6Jan2012]
I’m not convinced that WordPress doesn’t have some bugs in its TED embedding code. So: belt+braces link to the horse’s mouth…

Pavan Sukhdev’s TED talk “Put a value on nature!” is at http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/1303
[/edit]

Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
and revolving at 900 miles an hour;
That’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm — at 40,000 miles an hour –
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side;
It bulges in the middle — sixteen thousand light years thick –
But out by us it’s just three thousand light years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point,
We go ’round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute — and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.

Consider the lily,
in the field.

Consider the birds.

Have they got jobs?

The point is:
they do alright, don’t they?
and you’re much more important than they are.*

So, what are you worrying about?

* I’m not.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.

Attack ships on fire
off the shoulder of Orion.

I watched C-beams glitter in the dark
near the Tannhäuser Gate.

All those
moments
will be lost
in time
like
tears
in
rain.

(Time to die.)