If you describe it like this then "government" sounds like a giant entity that
wants to crush and suppress us or wants to take away our freedom. IMHO it is
helpful to think in systems and subsystems. The military certainly tries to
force people to align their behavior in order to make them well oiled cogs in
its war machine. Parties and religions try to convince their members to follow
their core ideas and ideals. Corporations try to convince people to conform
their behavior and their beliefs to there world view to buy more of their
products.To me it looks like the world as a whole has come to a turning point.
If I travel by train through the country, the world here in Europe looks
largely like the world 40 or 50 years ago. But if I look more closely then most
factories are gone, the coal mines have closed and the oil fields in the North
Sea are exploited.There are giant terminals in our ports and harbors where the
container ships from China and the oil tankers from Saudi Arabia arrive. We
seem to have reached peak oil now, which means we have consumed half of all oil
reserves in the ground. Coal reserves might last a few decades longer. The
problem is if we consume the other half of all fossil fuels then large parts of
the world could become inhabitable and the other half will drown in plastic
waste. I fear Mr. Trump is unable to comprehend the magnitude of the crisis.
How could he if he spends his time on Golf courses and doesn't even listen to
his intelligence briefings. Destroying the economy based on exponential growth
might be good if it is replaced by something more sustainable which does not
ruin the environment, but this is not what he is trying to do. He is clinging
to an illusion, to an abstract idea of greatness and glory, to a broken dream.
The coal mines and factories will not come back. And they were never great in
the first place. My great grandfather worked in a coal mine and fought in the
trenches of WWI, and both places were hell on Earth.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm>
Date: 4/21/25 4:05 PM (GMT+01:00) To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM]
The broken American Dream Jochen,re: 'broken American dream'Speaking as a
disillusioned hippie-radical-revolutionary: this famous fragment from Yeat's
poem, The Second Coming, feels very relevant.Things fall apart; the centre
cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is
loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all
conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.I was a hippie
first, naively believing in the possibility of an life affirming society.
Inspired by fiction as varied as The Harrad Experiment and Stranger in a
Strange Land (actually all of Heinlein).Vietnam was a roundhouse to the jaw.
How and why could government be so evil and misguided? (A, perhaps, secondary
trigger was the demonization of Timothy Leary and proscription of
psychedelics.) I became a radical and revolutionary (still have my copy of
Mao's Little Red Book) and did make bombs (literally). Statute of Limitations
applies to my other activities, but will only mention there were many.For me
and my cohort, the forces that malformed government, and thereby society,
began, in earnest, in the mid-1930s. Government became an instrument for
forcing people to conform their behavior and their beliefs in accordance with
the ideals of whoever was in power. Did not matter what "side" (democrat,
republican, plutocrat) the power brokers belonged to, all had the same basic
goal, control everyone else. (And get rich of course)"Anarchy was loosed upon
the world," here in the US around 100 years ago and the wasteland we inhabit is
vast. Trump is a mere dust devil disturbing bits of detritus.davewOn Mon, Apr
21, 2025, at 12:48 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:Marcus, your reply makes me wonder if
you have voted for the orange guy in the White House. If yes, would you do it
again? Here from Europe it looks as if the orange menace leaves a trail of
destruction on his way between the Golf Club in West Palm Beach and Washington
and back. To use a meteorological metaphor for Nick: the guy who is wearing
orange makeup acts like a tornado out of control that destroys everything in
his path - the economy, the retirement savings, and the last remains of the
American dream.-J.-------- Original message --------From: Marcus Daniels
<mar...@snoutfarm.com>Date: 4/20/25 6:58 PM (GMT+01:00)To: The Friday Morning
Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The
broken American DreamIt seems to me to be a little more scale free than that.
I just paid my quarterly taxes. The thing that bothers me is not that it a
significant cost, but that it is not a responsible spending plan. I am pouring
money into a Medicare program that is becoming insolvent and creating
increasing deficit spending. It seems to me that if my taxes are 5% higher,
that’s fine if it fixes the problem. But many won’t step up to that 5%, so my
reaction to those people is: Let’s let this thing fail. Private insurance it
is. I am now much more inclined to aggressively write off business expenses
than see my productivity go a losing enterprise. I am sick of cheap people.
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Jochen Fromm
<j...@cas-group.net>Date: Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 7:47 AMTo: The Friday
Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com>Subject: [FRIAM] The
broken American DreamStephen Marche's article about the state of America leaves
me with the impression that the only thing that all Americans still have in
common is the feeling that the country is broken. Stephen writes: "The country
clubs are rife with men and women, in incredible luxury, complaining bitterly
about the state of the country. The richest and most powerful, the Americans
who have won, who have everything, are still not happy, and why? Their answer
is that the American dream must be
broken."https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada
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