Recommended: animated short film on the current state of tao in the human world

[Taomeow]

 

[zerostao]

I see this as an excellent portrayal of current society and state of humanity. My only refuge from such nihilist thought has been to abide in tao. I think there are many who have an awareness of what's going on around us. I think if more meditated every day even for a short time to cultivate self-awareness it would result in a type of self-defense to the onslaught we're all being bombarded with. I deleted my reference to nowhere to run or hide with the synthesis our brain undergoes when determining to choose fight or flight. At the rate of acceleration society and humanity are continuing down this corporatist path, try and imagine where we'll be in five years, ten years.

Edited November 23, 2017 by zerostao

[9th]

 

 

[Taomeow]

Edit: original response (to zeros)  too gloomy for Thanksgiving.  Will save for later.  

Edited November 23, 2017 by Taomeow

[Gerard]

.

Edited November 24, 2017 by Gerard

[bax44]

On 11/23/2017 at 5:27 PM, Taomeow said:

Edit: original response (to zeros)  too gloomy for Thanksgiving.  Will save for later.  

 

Now I really want to hear!

[Fa Xin]

Really enjoyed the video.

 

What does the ending portray? wondering what others think it represents

[CloudHands]

It pictures well all the modern crap, but only the crap.

 

Now for the record...

in my country someone has 50x less chances to die from violence than in the Roman empire...

In European middle age, 1 on 3 child died before 5 years.

You had very few chances to meet you grand parents but many to have one dead parent.

Simply get cold was a dangerous lethal threat.

I don't even wanna talk about what was considered the "reality" by the average person.

 

Wanna talk about the beginning of the industrial era ?

 

I admit it was possibly a better world in the pre-agriculture era (when our body acquired the ability to fast for 3 months, still for the record...) at least people were not corrupted. Now do they lived in under permanent stress and fear or peaceful being ? No idea. Seems to me that homo kind has always be more chimpanzee than bonobo, I mean we carry our inner violence.

 

So yes, with resources came the craps, been here since... now, nowadays many people see it. That's not comfortable... but that's better. Are you living for comfort ? :D

[cold]

Perspective is always a valuable tool but often overlooked or ignored.

[bax44]

The above two posts are true however I've seen as in sure we all have the affect of the phones and social media. People have the attention spans of fleas and it's only getting worse. That's no way to go through life. I've witnessed it in myself when I'm not aware.

 

now you have twelve yr olds w cell phones who think they know everything, and can't pay attention to anything or anyone for more than 5 seconds at a time.

[gendao]

Quote

12,000 Year Old Forest to be Chopped Down for Coal Mine

In Western Germany, a court has decided that the remaining 10% of an ancient 12,000 year old forest can in fact be cut down to expand one of Europe’s largest coal mines. It is the Hambach Forest.

[Taomeow]

On 11/25/2017 at 6:18 PM, bax44 said:

 

Now I really want to hear!

 

Ack, I thought I saved it, technology tricked me into believing I did...  ;(  

...but I remember the gist of it.  My reasoning went, in response to zerostao's:

  

On 11/22/2017 at 7:31 AM, zerostao said:

  At the rate of acceleration society and humanity are continuing down this corporatist path, try and imagine where we'll be in five years, ten years.

 

 The medical term for the state of the human heart that is undergoing jerky, uncoordinated, irregular acceleration is not "progress."  It is "ventricular fibrillation."  If it is not reversed, cardiac arrest is not so much possible as guaranteed.  Allowed to progress uncontrolled, the condition is fatal. 

 

This is the state of humanity's heart.  Calling it "progress" makes it sound so much nicer though.  

[Taomeow]

On 11/26/2017 at 1:25 PM, Fa Xin said:

Really enjoyed the video.

 

What does the ending portray? wondering what others think it represents

 

I think it portrayed hope for a way out -- in the form of "ascension," "enlightenment," some such.  Rapture.  

 

One of my early gurus used to say, hope is dope.

 

I am addicted to this kind of dope myself, that's why I'm a taoist.  A taoist's hope is based on the natural order of things -- hope for extreme yang flipping into yin is realistic, the process is unstoppable and inevitable, and the challenge is to gain control of it, not just sit and hope.  The film ending's hope, however, is that extreme yang will generate still more extreme yang as the way out.  I don't think so... 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Taomeow

[Taomeow]

On 11/27/2017 at 11:52 AM, CloudHands said:

It pictures well all the modern crap, but only the crap.

 

Now for the record...

in my country someone has 50x less chances to die from violence than in the Roman empire...

In European middle age, 1 on 3 child died before 5 years.

You had very few chances to meet you grand parents but many to have one dead parent.

Simply get cold was a dangerous lethal threat.

I don't even wanna talk about what was considered the "reality" by the average person.

 

Wanna talk about the beginning of the industrial era ?

 

I admit it was possibly a better world in the pre-agriculture era (when our body acquired the ability to fast for 3 months, still for the record...) at least people were not corrupted. Now do they lived in under permanent stress and fear or peaceful being ? No idea. Seems to me that homo kind has always be more chimpanzee than bonobo, I mean we carry our inner violence.

 

So yes, with resources came the craps, been here since... now, nowadays many people see it. That's not comfortable... but that's better. Are you living for comfort ?

 

The problem with comparing flavors of shit and choosing one over the other is, it's still shit, and the eater of a higher grade of shit proclaiming his superiority to the eater of the lower grade still eats shit.  Ironically both seem to be appalled by the non-eater of any shit.    

 

"We" don't carry violence inside, and neither do chimpanzees until displaced from their natural habitat and stressed out into living something else, which inevitably turns them into something else.  "We" have been stressed out into something else and taught to count our blessings, so your argument is perfectly compliant with what trauma-conditioned mind control predicts: the Stockholm syndrome.  A very popular modern stance of vast mass appeal.  Love thy abuser, because he purportedly saved you from a bigger, worse abuser -- yourself, with your "inner violence."

 

It is pointless to compare industrial to pre-industrial brands of evil.  The only valid comparison is between humans before they had an owner and after. 

 

The owner wears many masks.  The current mask is called "technological progress."  The previous one was "divine right to rule."  The current one hides a machine gun under the pile of red tape, the earlier one hid a musket or a sword under the "sacred scriptures," but the difference is merely stylistic.

[CloudHands]

2 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

The problem with comparing flavors of shit and choosing one over the other is, it's still shit, and the eater of a higher grade of shit proclaiming his superiority to the eater of the lower grade still eats shit.  Ironically both seem to be appalled by the non-eater of any shit.    

 

"We" don't carry violence inside, and neither do chimpanzees until displaced from their natural habitat and stressed out into living something else, which inevitably turns them into something else.  "We" have been stressed out into something else and taught to count our blessings, so your argument is perfectly compliant with what trauma-conditioned mind control predicts: the Stockholm syndrome.  A very popular modern stance of vast mass appeal.  Love thy abuser, because he purportedly saved you from a bigger, worse abuser -- yourself, with your "inner violence."

 

It is pointless to compare industrial to pre-industrial brands of evil.  The only valid comparison is between humans before they had an owner and after. 

 

The owner wears many masks.  The current mask is called "technological progress."  The previous one was "divine right to rule."  The current one hides a machine gun under the pile of red tape, the earlier one hid a musket or a sword under the "sacred scriptures," but the difference is merely stylistic.

 

I agree on many things but...  I know you believe in a prehistorical matriarchal peacefully aware balanced human, you believe we are trapped by an other kind. Maybe so, and it could explain many things but I see no solid ground to let these ideas grow. Everything points me the opposite direction (ability to follow authority, large and powerful emotional spectrum, history and prehistory of violence even ability to enjoy it, and I won't enter the chapter direct observations) maybe it's shit maybe not  maybe there is no reason to blame shit cause it will turn gold, human maturation is slow it is said.

 

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, CloudHands said:

 

I agree on many things but...  I know you believe in a prehistorical matriarchal peacefully aware balanced human, you believe we are trapped by an other kind. Maybe so, and it could explain many things but I see no solid ground to let these ideas grow.

 

 

Me neither.  I turned our situation as a life form (dragging along all other life forms on the planet) this way and that way, socially, politically, economically, philosophically and mathematically, and have come to the conclusion that we are dealing with a structure that does not allow for invertible transformations.  Anisomorphic (if you go to the real meaning of the word rather than online dictionary's ridiculous example).*

 

The fact that nothing can be done about it doesn't mean I am going to deny the fact.  Having a problem doesn't mean there's a solution.  But the absence of a solution may be a temporary situation (even though the time frame for the solution to show up may far exceed the lifespan of any life form on the planet we might relate to in any way), whereas the denial of a problem drives the situation deeper into the problem's maw and can speed up the most destructive trends while delaying any hope for any solution by who knows how long. 

 

Here's an example of what I mean.  Before 1945, cesium 137 particles did not exist in nature, "we" created them when we started exploding atomic bombs and having nuclear accidents.  So now they are part of our environment, and the implications are permanent, because everything has been changed, not just the future (due to genetic mutations) but also the past.  To wit, all pre-1945 stuff ever in existence is now sharply cut off everything that came after by this one marker.  Our collective past, all the way back to the source, is now a past that at this one point (as well as billions of other, unaccounted for points) ceased to be related to what came after -- it may well have been the past of a different planet, galaxy, universe -- we are not directly descended from it anymore.  Cesium 137 is what they will test a bottle of wine for to determine if it's a pre-1945 collector's rarity to be sold for hundreds of thousands or even a couple million dollars, or a fake.  If it doesn't have cesium 137, it's real.  It is impossible to create a fake pre-1945 wine that will pass the cesium 137 test, because no matter who, where, and how might want to fake it, it will have those telltale particles. 

 

But this is not the situation with a bottle of expensive wine alone.  It's the situation with our world.  If it's pre-transmogrification, it's coming from the source, it's real...  If it has a billion artificially created features, it's coming from elsewhere.  And is not related to anything real that originated from the source.  

 

So to go back to the real world, we would have to...

 

...well... 

 

...un-red the light blue (see the asterisk entry). 

 

* Online dictionary asserts that an example of "anisomorphic" terms is that, unlike English, Russian treats dark and light shades of blue as "unrelated."  What nonsense.  There's two different words in Russian for dark blue and light blue, it's true, but nothing about having two words for shades of a color implies that the speaker considers them unrelated.  In English (as in Russian too), there's a similar situation with, e.g., "red" and "pink" -- two different words do not, by their mere existence, imply that the speaker considers the colors they describe unrelated.  Now "red" and "light blue" are indeed anisomorphic.  Meaning, if you paint something that was light blue red, you can't revert it to light blue by adding less, more, or an equal amount of red.  And if you are dealing with a material that is absorbent, and a color that is permanent, you can't "un-red" what you've painted by reversing your steps and mopping it up.  

Edited November 30, 2017 by Taomeow

[CloudHands]

8 hours ago, Taomeow said:

...un-red the light blue (see the asterisk entry).

 

What made you think that before we (as a specie) created cesium 137 particles time or transformations were reversible, why would it be ?

 

Before one makes a choice one can imagine there are several possibilities. So there would be liberty and free will we can apply.

Now, once it happened we have time to understand that some "thing" determined that choice, there were logical or illogical reasons : it was caused.

So one acted the way he was already going to act before he knew. That event will in its turn have consequences that will determinate reactions or other "choices" because... yes, it happened, whatever it is.

 

All that to say, problems are for the optimists.

Edited December 1, 2017 by CloudHands

[Gerard]

Where I originally grew up:

 

Everything Hurts and I Don’t Know Why?

 

Please use Google translate if you like to read the entire article.

 

Very worrying.

 

I stated this early this year:

 

This planet won’t see the turn of this century.

 

Edit: Deleted first post because I thought that’s the way this planet is evolving to. Leave little or no footprint of your presence here. Physical life on Earth will eventually move on somewhere else in the Tao as it happens anywhere else too.

Edited December 4, 2017 by Gerard

[dawei]

unapologetically brilliant 

[Gerard]

There are pockets of resistance:

 

1. The Tao Bums

2. Even in crazy modern China there are still those who still embrace a contemplative lifestyle.

 

[atrus]

-----------------------

Edited November 15, 2022 by atrus

[3bob]

We joyfully fly in awe through her peaceful silver forests,

everywhere we look, feel and breathe is of depth-less purity...

 

She was hurt but but not broken,

for her unbreakable and subtle song and children prevailed. 

 

...and now not a single unclean thing can burrow below with infectious plot,

for her ancient yet ever new truth and beauty has healed all ugly wounds, overcoming the undone.  

 

 

 

 

 

[CloudHands]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/humans-are-unusually-violent-mammals-but-averagely-violent-primates/501935/

[CloudHands]

Extract from a recent Nature article :

 

Gómez’s team showed that by poring through statistical yearbooks, archaeological sites, and more, to work out causes of death in 600 human populations between 50,000 BC to the present day. They concluded that rates of lethal violence originally ranged from 3.4 to 3.9 percent during Paleolithic times, making us only slightly more violent than you’d expect for a primate of our evolutionary past.

 

What we did not had in paleo times, was war. True that but we had cannibalism instead. Does it qualify as a shit?

[CloudHands]

I have been questioning and searching for datas about the past nature of the human kind.

We don't know much about the prehistorical human.

 

 

 

Things that are rather sure :

 

Among primates Human is specific in the fact it kills adults of his kind. Primates generally kill youth. (cf the atlantic article)

 

Cannibalism happened. Endogenous, exogenous, ritual, opportunist, well many kind.

 

Farmers from Anatolia supplanted European early groups of Homo Sapiens.

 

Agriculture happened all over the world on distinct cereals at different times from - 7000 to - 3000.

 

Even at paleo times you won't find your "natural" Human, there was already diversity of behavior among the world and communities. There were already culture.

 

In the whole Europe, during paleolithic era there were few thousands of human. Estimation are in the range of 5 000 to 30 000. So no war but they were in very small numbers on vast areas.

 

Demographic started rising during Mesolithic so when climate went warmer but before agriculture.

 

Agriculture has its root in Mesolithic climate change.

 

Massacres of woman and children find during late Meso then Neolithic.

 

Even in prehistorical times, even in recent living primitive hunter-gatherer group there are traces of women de-valorization (ie Yaghan, Patagonia whose daily activities are qualified pejoratively), and "bad" treatment (violence).

 

Several kinds of Humans have cohabited (ie sapiens and neandertal in Europe, sapiens and Red Deer Cave people in China).

 

 

 

Probably true :

 

Women of earth being generally on the side of the plants (gatherer) are most likely the inventors of agriculture.

 

Painters were most likely women (women's hand draw).

 

 

 

Seems like the idea of a true human nature is to bury, we are multiple and versatile and we were not -as a specie- peaceful accomplished masters of nature. Maybe some were... but not the whole pack.

I maintain our specific distinction are violence* and sex* ! The apple is not so far from the tree and its ok. There is no "problem" but a possibly lethal imbalanced balance, just as it were yesterday and the day before.

 

So I'm not sure we lost our innocence, we were not. We are going where the path leads. It's like these idea of choices, you don't. If something "new" has a chance to happen, it will over the time. So it has to happen.

 

 

 

 

*Unlike other primates women don't have a marked reproduction period, so it appears to men that it can be anytime.

 

Feel free to check... my sources includes :

Claudine Cohen, directrice d'Etude à l 'EHESS et à l'EPHE, où elle enseigne l'histoire et la philosophie des sciences. Femmes de la Préhistoire (Belin, octobre 2016)

 

Jean Guilaine a été successivement Directeur de Recherche au CNRS, Directeur d'Etudes à l'École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, professeur au Collège de France