Please read Pt.1 and Pt.2

If you are on a sinking ship what do you do ?!?

You build an Ark !?!

What is an Ark ?!?

An Ark is an ensemble.

An ensemble is a collection of knowledge, instrumentality, skills, and resources which together generate a synergy, it makes something larger possible.

This is the key, and I will repeat it many times.

An Ark is an ensemble with the goal of trying to make sure humanity has a future.

The oldest ensemble of humanity is neolithic civilization.

The wisdom of this ensemble is contained in The sacred law of survival of aboriginal peoples of earth: shelter, water, fire, food, and others.

Without shelter you can die in hours from exposure.

Without water you can die in days of dehydration.

Without fire most food is marginally assimilable to unassimilable, and you can die from malnutrition.

Without food you can die in weeks from starvation.

Without others you will die in years from loneliness and insanity.

Without others you can not be fully human and humanity does not exist, humanity is a collection of others.

Humans are social animals and civilization as we know it requires others to form ensembles.

An ensemble is a collection of knowledge, instrumentality, skills, and resources which together generate a synergy, it makes something larger possible.

All of the game of humanities future exists in ensembles.  The ensembles we are interested in are generated out of the humans present in any given location.  These ensembles will confer adaptive vigor on those groups as the civilization they are embedded in degenerates around them.

What follows will be the beginning of a five part conversation concerning the future of humanity within global environmental catastrophea.

If you have not read the first piece SOC Power Politics and Economics the view from the sand box……….Pt. 1), I would encourage you to do so.  It introduces the notion of SOC  and catastrophea and why it is important and real.

Let us step into the way back machine and take a journey with me.  The year is 1973.  In this year I was a senior in high school getting ready to graduate.  In this year two pivotal events occurred which shaped the soul that I am.  The first was the publication of a book, “The Limits to Growth”.  The second was an article in the Wall Street Journal.

SOC or self organizing criticality is a property of the natural world.  It is everywhere around us and is a part of most of what we experience in our world. It can be seen from the patterns of landscapes and evolution to the behavior of most complex systems in our social, economic and political lives.

It is not necessary to understand the mathematical properties and descriptions of this reality.  It is however beneficial to comprehend the ubiquitous nature and implications of this fact of existence.  SOC is present in everything from the behavior of piles of sand to stock market crashes and the disappearance of glaciers.

cross posted at Firefly-dreaming

My partner in life turned me on to the Dog Whisperer……..

and it has become my favorite program on the whispering box…….

and I acknowledge Ceasar Millan for being one of my primary inspirations for growth today….

from the moment I laid eyes on him I realized I had been gifted a teacher…..

a soul to make visible something I had not found yet in life……

a teacher of balanced male energy…….

and now I have set out on a journey to embody something other than angry dominant male energy……

every program has two domains……

bringing the dog(s) into present time so that they can enact different behavior in the present….

and then bringing the humans into the present so they can enact calm assertive leadership for their dog(s)……..

and from where I stand there is a deep possibility in the work he does for all of us……

because there is something we seek in the process of politics…..

and it is not there…….

yet…

There are many styles/forms of communication……….

lately I have been trying to look at four…

these are by no means the only ones which exist…

just a parsing of my own mind along the the conversations I have had……

I always begin with the notion that a conversation requires more than one participant……

at least 2 participants………….

and it is always an extension of scope to have a conversation amongst many…….

what if more than two could have an intentional conversation…..

a conversation whose intention was to seek the solution to the survival of life……

or more specifically a conversation whose intention was to seek the optimal path for life through the changes to come whatever they may be…….

crawl, walk, run, a progression of integration……

beginning with two since a conversation with your self is boring…….

it is also potentially degenerate and a path to psychosis……

you need another to find the path to life….

it takes a minimum of two to have a conversation which is a path to life……

and if either participant leaves the conversation….

then the exchange ceases to be a conversation which leads to the survival of life…….

a majority of the conversations I have fall into these four categories…..

lecturing, argument, discussions, dialogue…..

and these categories are not absolute, nor all inclusive, just convenient……

they exist by declaration only not in any absolute way…..

so you can parse conversation any way you wish, these categories do not in any way limit any other conversation……

the conversations which I am referring to share certain characteristics…..

the continuums of symmetry,listening, purpose/goals…..

I am not sure how many here at Docudharma are familiar with Saul D. Alinsky.

He was an organizer in the middle of the last century.. he organized communities predominantly.   He was considered one of the best.  A great deal of what he said is pertinant to todays struggle…..

I am going to share parts from a book I have been reading and rereading lately…..

I do not offer this as some sort of truth rather as a point of diparture…

I think many of us r coming to the conclusion that to get the change we want we are going to have to do something different….

become uncomfortable……

so I offer this as food for thought…..

we all remember the game of musical chairs…..

I was introduced to it at the age of 4 or 5…..

in what used to be called kindergarten…..

u know the teacher counts the number of kids and places a chair for every one except one in a circle in the room…..

instilling that this a fair exercise…….

then we all go around the chairs to the beat of some retarded feel good music……

when the music stops we must all seek to sit in a chair…

and of course by design one is left without…..

a chair is removed and the exercise continues…

until there is only one person left with a chair….

and the message is clear they fought for and earned that chair….

little did we realize we were being told the nature of the social agreement in no uncertain terms…..

when I reached about 7 years of age the message had been driven home….

what does this have to do with the myth of modernity u might ask……

let us make the game a little more honest and it might become apparent….

first lets us take a little journey and slowly evolve the game as we go……

the first game seemed accurate to the world of the early sixties when I learned it….

now let us move to the early seventies….

to play the game in the seventies we would have to add a couple of changes…..

the new game would look like this…

every turn u add 1 chair and remove 2…….

the early seventies 1973 to be accurate was the year that each graduating class would on average do worse than its parents generation……

that the opportunity space in our culture would no longer on average support the myth of endless upward mobility for all…..

at about 3 billion people…..

forward to the nineties….

at around 5 billion people…..

we would have to remove an increasing number of chairs for the crowded class room…..

the solution is of course the generation of a “reason” for declaring that a portion of the class would not get to play today because we just did not have enough chairs….

so they would be required to sit on the sidelines and hope for a day when we would…

but do not worry because we r clever and smart so we will be able to create more opportunity soon…..

just be patient…..

the brilliance of the human race will solve this temporary dilemma…..

meanwhile do not disturb the game for everyone else….

cause they r the source of the chairs so do not complain…..

today…..

at over 6 billion people….

the chairs come with the people who r acknowledged as the meritorious….

the rest sit on the floor and watch…..

there is a guard in the room….

and the teacher has a badge…..

they no longer add chairs….

they just take them away….

tomorrow…..

what do make of this…..

comments and thoughts…..

Here we go again.

I would love to have a discussion about the notion of change itself.

The one caveate is no argueing,name calling or other disrespect period.

This is a discussion, and most likely will be a failure, but I will try one more time.

Change is not what u folks think it is.

Years ago I put forth the question what happens if our guys win and nothing changes.

From my perspective that has occured, so it is time for this conversation again.

What is change and how does one achieve it.

Any aspect of change is admissable as a piece of this topic but I would like to stay in the notion itself not a particular change.

I will say this tho I have changed and changed a great deal.

My world has not. What do we make of that.