Has the regeneracy arrived?

[Mikebert]

(01-10-2017, 04:55 PM)THis SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Are you saying British cotton consumption and pig iron consumption peaked around 1792?  Seriously?  Are you high?

Likewise, the trade in pepper is much larger today that it was in the Dutch Golden Age, and yet it was clearly a leading sector then, and not a leading sector now.

Thanks for the link.  I thought you had gotten the physical book (which gives you quite an advantage as I read it 15 years ago)

I see where you are getting at.  M&T were looking at growth in percentage terms (see chapter 6 for the data).  Maximum growth will always occur early in the growth period because it is off a small base.  Their methods are really identifying the innovation phase of the leading sector growth curve (innovation wave). 

Their cotton measure reflects the textile innovations of the 1760's and they show a peak soon after in the 1780's.   There last date from that table I linked to is 1973, which corresponds to the peak growth for the information economy leading sectors.  If you measure by percentage growth and look as PCs as the fundamental measure the peak probably was in the early 1970's.  The first recognizable PCs came out then.  Output must have grown from zero to positive at this time, generating an infinite growth rate and so a "peak" in the IT leading sector.

What I am getting at is the 2030 K-wave "peak" by this measure will reflect the recent development of a new, as yet  undiscovered, leading sector.  It is based on a future events that have not yet happened. So on what basis are you predicting this innovation at an earlier time?  Your comments so far seem to have been about the IT.   THis sector tha peaked around 1973.  These are irrelevant.  I am not sure you understand the process used to arrive at the 2030 date. There is a difference between understanding the M&T concepts and being able to apply them.  Warren will understand this.  It is the difference between understanding the material in the chapter and being able to do all the problems at the end of the chapter.

In closure, your assessment of the M&T cycle is not based on consideration of any economic indicators (K-waves are economic) but simply on your subjective perception of global politics.  You aren't really applying M&T because you equate preparation for top great power status on the part of China over the 1980's and 1990's as evidence of agenda-setting, while ignoring preparation for top great power status on the part of Russia in the 1920's and 1930's, because it doesn't fit the model.  How does one count but not the other.  M&T resolved this issue using empirical measures.  You have provided none.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:Thanks for the link.  I thought you had gotten the physical book (which gives you quite an advantage as I read it 15 years ago)

I did get the physical book.  Of course, I don't bring it with me to the office and so I sent you a link to the Google Books copy instead.  Why on Earth would I say "Thank you, Amazon" if I only had the GOOGLE book as a reference?  Reading comprehension is apparently not your strong suit, as can be shown again by...

Quote:I see where you are getting at.  M&T were looking at growth in percentage terms (see chapter 6 for the data).  Maximum growth will always occur early in the growth period because it is off a small base.  Their methods are really identifying the innovation phase of the leading sector growth curve (innovation wave). 

No, what they are measuring is the growth generated by a new industry (or rather cluster of industries around a common set of innovations and feeding off each other) servicing new demands (or old demands in a new way) during the exponential phase of the innovation cycle, and the extent to which that growth is concentrated in a particular country at a particular time.  The resulting profits from that are what give the resources for countries to become (or, in the case of Britain II, stay) hegemons.  If you're going to use M & T, actually use what THEY said and not what you think they should have said.

Quote:Their cotton measure reflects the textile innovations of the 1760's and they show a peak soon after in the 1780's.   There last date from that table I linked to is 1973, which corresponds to the peak growth for the information economy leading sectors.  If you measure by percentage growth and look as PCs as the fundamental measure the peak probably was in the early 1970's.  The first recognizable PCs came out then.  Output must have grown from zero to positive at this time, generating an infinite growth rate and so a "peak" in the IT leading sector.

What I am getting at is the 2030 K-wave "peak" by this measure will reflect the recent development of a new, as yet  undiscovered, leading sector.  It is based on a future events that have not yet happened. So on what basis are you predicting this innovation at an earlier time?

This is ridiculous.  No, what THEY said was that the IT sector was the likely focus of the 19th "k-wave", and they show it STARTING around 1973.  They were writing in the mid-90s, and so if they thought that it had peaked in 1973 they would have said so.  Again, you are confusing your pet theories with what someone else said.

Quote:I am not sure you understand the process used to arrive at the 2030 date. There is a difference between understanding the M&T concepts and being able to apply them.  Warren will understand this.  It is the difference between understanding the material in the chapter and being able to do all the problems at the end of the chapter.

I don't think you have the least idea what they actually said, and are actually constructing an entirely different theory based on your hazy recollections from 15 years ago.  It is the difference between actually studying for a class versus saying you read the textbook back in freshman year and are just going to try and bullshit your way through instead.

[SomeGuy]

Speaking of annoying habits, please stop adding new material to old posts while I am responding to them, or even worse, after I have responded to them.

Quote:In closure, your assessment of the M&T cycle is not based on consideration of any economic indicators (K-waves are economic) but simply on your subjective perception of global politics.  You aren't really applying M&T because you equate preparation for top great power status on the part of China over the 1980's and 1990's as evidence of agenda-setting, while ignoring preparation for top great power status on the part of Russia in the 1920's and 1930's, because it doesn't fit the model.  How does one count but not the other.  M&T resolved this issue using empirical measures.  You have provided none.

Your assessment of the M & T cycle is flawed because you have no idea what they actually said!  You have the Railroad industry peak in 1792, k-waves based on prices and not production figures, a hegemonic cycle ending in 1991, and an IT industry peaking in 1973.  None of that is in "Leading Sectors and World Powers", which is the only reference for the M & T cycle.  You are just making things up, cobbling together pieces of this and that into a homemade mashup, and borrowing the name and prestige of people who published a book that people actually read in order to give it credibility it wouldn't otherwise have.  If you disagree with LS&WP, that's cool (it's not gospel), if you want to cite things from the book and discuss them, that's cool too, but please don't presume to lecture me on subject matter (LS&WP) you clearly have only a minimal grasp of.

EDIT

Please don't take this to mean that I don't think you should try and come up with your own theories. This would be the place to post them, and I have always enjoyed reading and discussing them. I just wish you would stop mixing them up with things that aren't yours.

[Eric the Green]

(01-10-2017, 10:32 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-10-2017, 05:07 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-10-2017, 10:40 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-10-2017, 12:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I have written before that another round of bailouts of banks too big to fail might spark a revolt by both right and left. That would be very unpopular. But that's where we're headed if Dodd Frank and the Consumer Protection Bureau are thrown away, as the neo-liberals and Tea Party want.

What are you talking about?  It's Dodd-Frank that institutionalizes "too big to fail" and guarantees there will be bailouts next time around too.

It's interesting how you turn the obvious into the obviously opposite, and then call it the same thing. You actually managed to label me a "neo-liberal" because I might support higher taxes on Greek rich people. Are you a gymnast? A yogi who can do all kinds of contortions?

No, Dodd-Frank provides for the break-up of banks that are too big to fail. Republicans want to repeal it so that the financial gamblers can pursue their wrecking-ball schemes without interference.

Dodd-Frank has been around for years now.  How come no big banks have been broken up?  Why are Sanders and Warren saying that additional action is needed to break them up?

Oh right, because Dodd-Frank does nothing of the sort.

Silly; Dodd Frank does not break up banks. It provides legal procedures for breaking up banks. If Sanders had been elected, he would have used them. That's what he promised.

[Eric the Green]

An alternative positive view of today's disaster as the regeneracy.

Why Trump’s Inauguration is Not the Beginning of an Era — but the End
https://medium.com/@peteleyden/https-med....oc7w6jcs2

“We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterized the 19th century is over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of life is now going to slow down — at any rate in Great Britain; that a decline in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in the decade which lies ahead of us.
I believe that this is a wildly mistaken interpretation of what is happening to us. We are suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one economic period and another…”
--John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)

I spent a good chunk of the holiday break in a cabin with a spectacular view of a bay just off the Pacific Ocean outside the tiny town of Inverness north of San Franscisco. It reminds me of the view from the cabin I grew up with in the American heartland, outside the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Looking out over the natural beauty of this amazing country of ours helped me think through the tumultous past year with a big-picture, more timeless perspective. It helped me get clear about what lies ahead.

The Brexit vote in England and then the election of Donald Trump, those two unexpected but consequential convulsions, are going to bring some big changes, many to be feared, but others to be welcomed. To my mind, both were driven by fear of the future and “a wildly mistaken interpretation of what is happening to us.” Both are going to make for some near-term chaos, but in the end I actually think they are going to accelerate changes that finally need to come.

I did not see Trump coming. I was one of those who could not believe that the America I knew, a country of decent, common-sense people, could elect a person like him. I was despondent on election night and disoriented for weeks. I’ve spent the last couple months listening, reading, thinking, and staying open to what is really happening, and what now needs to be done. On the eve of his inauguration, here’s my positive reframe of what I think is really going on:

Trump Begins The End

Trump is a symptom of something much bigger and more fundamental going on in the world. So are the people behind Brexit in Great Britain. They are not driving the change, they are reacting to the change. They are not showing the way forward, they are making desperate attempts to cling to the past, a past that is gone forever.

The world is in the relatively early stages of an almost inevitable transition to what can be best understood as a new 21st-century civilization. Relatively early — meaning roughly one-third of the way through. And almost inevitable — meaning it can be derailed if we make some catastrophic political choices.

There are three fundamentally different characteristics of this civilization: One, it will be run totally on digital technologies, smarter and smarter, more and more interconnected computers. Two, it will be totally global and operate on a planetary scale. And three, it will have to be sustainable, in its energy usage and its impact on the planet.

All three of these shifts are well underway and can be tracked and explained by pointing to investments, the morphing of the advanced economy, the positioning of leading companies, and just following what innovative people are doing. In many ways, these developments are happening despite what governments do. Governments can make things better, and accelerate changes, or slow down changes, but they can’t stop them at this macro level.

That said, politics can really screw things up. Changes of this magnitude can be very scary. New digital technologies allow totally new ways to do almost everything so they are very disruptive to old industries. The newest developments arriving just now are especially scary — self-driving cars, advanced robots, artificial intelligence. The globalization of everything is unleashing floods of cheap goods as well as waves of migrants.

It’s easy for politicians to whip up public fears against these changes and rally people to go back to the old ways, to make America great again. This is the standard playbook for right-wing nationalism. In the 1930s, when Keynes wrote the prescient passage above, that era’s right wing took those fears and drove a good chunk of the world into fascism and a world war. Today Trump is heading down that path — but he won’t get far.

I think Trump ultimately is going to do America and the world a service by becoming the vehicle that will finally take down right-wing conservative politics for a generation or two. He is getting the entire Republican conservative establishment to buy into his regime. He is creating an administration that is blatantly all about rule by — and for — billionaires, sold out to the oil and carbon industries, and celebrating an out-of-control corporate capitalism. It will be a caricature of conservative policies. In short order he will completely and irrevocably alienate all the growing political constituencies of the 21st century: the Millennial Generation, people of color, educated professionals, women. He’ll eventually do the same for a significant number of more moderate Republicans. And does anyone out there really think Trump will do anything for the white working class that got him elected? Watch as repealing Obamacare blows up in his face.

I think the backlash will be fast and furious. And it won’t just be Trump that goes down — it will be large swaths of conservative Republicans who will be almost helpless to stop Trump or distance themselves from him. They will pay the price for creating the conditions that created him. I think the next 4 to 8 years are going to see a serious sea change in politics — to the left, not the right. The analogy is closer to what happened to the conservative Republicans coming out of the 1930s — they were out of power for the next 50 years.

A Hillary Clinton win would not have brought about that kind of political transformation. She would have ground out some progress through trench warfare and built somewhat on Obama’s legacy— but the Republicans would have locked her down worse than they did with Obama. Hillary would not have been able to finally bring down the conservative movement and its archaic ideology. The conservatives arguably brought a healthy revitalization to Western politics in the Reagan/Thatcher era. But that vitality is long gone and the movement has been running on the same old out-moded ideas for decades now. The world needs to move on.

Hillary would not have been the transformational leader that America needs right now either. We need leadershp to help take the world to the next level, making the full transition to digital technologies, reshaping capitalism to rebalance massive inequalities, and making big progress on climate change.

California is the Future

Where do we look for that leadership? Without outsiders taking much notice, California has gone through that political transformation, as usual, early. We were trapped in the polarized politics that paralyzed government in the 1990s and 2000s. We had the high numbers of immigrants who were scapegoated. We had a frustrated electorate elect a Hollywood celebrity with no government experience with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Been there, done that.

Today California is totally run by a new generation of progressive Democrats. Every single state-wide office. Super majorities in both Houses. There are no conservative Republican elected officials to speak of in California right now. The conservative ideology, those policies, are dead.

I’ve long been thumping the idea that California is the future. The San Francisco Bay Area is obviously ground zero for Silicon Valley and tech. It’s about as good a melting pot of global influences as anywhere on the planet. And it’s on the front lip of clean energy and sustainability. So that would be a good place to look for how those three massive 21st-century shifts will play out.

In other words, to use the Keynes framework that started this piece, California is already living in the next economic period — and it’s booming. The next economy is working here — and working for the vast majority. Even the white working class is on board. Trump lost to Hillary in California by 4 million votes.

Now add to that a state and local political environment where progressives have no meaningful opposition and an open field ahead of them. I think we’re going to see an explosion of innovation that roughs out a new way forward for the center-left in America and even has implications for Europe and the world.

My company Reinvent is really fortunate to be in the middle of that swirl of possibilities. We bring together top innovators in deep conversations about how to solve complex challenges — and then make media about the ideas to emerge. We partner with forward-thinking organizations who want to generate new ideas and drive more innovation in a field. We also host What’s Now: San Francisco that each month focuses on the latest developments in one of the many fields exploding in innovation across the region.

Look for innovation to now move into hyper-drive in the realms of government and politics throughout California — and particularly in the San Franicsco Bay Area. I know our company is working on ways to catalyze these kinds of conversations and do our part to reinvent political grand strategy along the lines of what I’ve been laying out here. But there are already many efforts popping up to move this next-generation politics forward.

The Real Beginning is Still Obama

Now it’s possible that this whole analysis I have laid out is wrong. After all, I predicted that Hillary was going to win this last election. (Though who didn’t?) But it’s certainly worth seriously considering a scenario like this. Republicans clapping at Trump’s Inauguration should be very careful about what they wish for. Democrats wringing their hands in anguish should pause too.

Stay open to counter-intuitive, out-of-the-box interpretations. Too few of us did last year. Be ready to make hard choices when unexpected new options open up quickly. We all may be faced with them soon. Brace for the big changes to come. They’re coming.

Most of all, for those who supported President Obama, stay hopeful. I truly believe that the politics and policies that President Obama helped usher in will prevail in the end. In the big-picture view of history, the brief Trump reign will be seen as a difficult but necessary step in the massive transition between one economic period to another.
Obama’s decade of work will be seen, in the decades to come, as the truly enduring foundation. He laid the groundwork for what will certainly become the all-digital, fully global, sustainable civilization of the 21st century.

Peter Leyden
Founder & CEO of Reinvent, a media company; Tech & Future Trends Speaker; Author 2 Books; former Wired ME, journalist, politico. Reinvent.net & PeterLeyden.com

[Eric the Green]

(01-20-2017, 05:31 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The believers in Thomas L. Friedman's "Flat World" just refuse to give up their idiotic utopian notions. Stop! Please! Stop poking the hornet's nest! If Trump is not a wake up call for you fools, I don't know what is!!!!!!

I don't go along with Friedman on many points, but I didn't disagree with this author's points. So there must be a difference there. I doubt Leyden would cop to being a devotee of Thomas Friedman.

I think it's that he recognizes the inevitable globalization; noone can deny that. But he also recognizes the massive inequalities that capitalism unhinged has created, and it is this, in the form of corporate cabal control, that is the demon in globalization.

I don't see nations as sacred in the way you might do, and it's hard to see the multi-ethnic USA as so unique as it used to be a beacon for the world for principles of universal rights and democratic-republican governance. But I do recognize the need for borders as checks on globalized reduction of everything to the same low level. Maybe I'm not with Peter Leyden on this, but he didn't specify his views on trade or international relations.

We've had a swipe at Davos posted here, so Leyden's analysis of the misguided attempts of the elites clustered there to deal with inequality and the Trump/Brexit rebellion are interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/busin...share&_r=0

I am not that familiar with Leyden, and not being a techie like him I don't identify with him, but if anyone is up to it, here's his long analysis of his futurism for America from 2012:

[Eric the Green]

He's not tone deaf. He may be too wrapped up in tech, but he gets inequality and the needs of the middle class.

Globalism (I agree with Leyden as you know) is the inevitable reality. The question is not if, but how. The main key is taking political power back from the 1% and the corporate world, as we the people did in the last 4T. It must happen again, and then we can balance globalism and the middle class. Whether Leyden is up on what all needs to happen in this regard, or that would satisfy you, I don't know.

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-20-2017, 05:57 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: <snip>

I am not that familiar with Leyden, and not being a techie like him I don't identify with him, but if anyone is up to it, here's his long analysis of his futurism for America from 2012:

Wow, I must say I've  rarely seen such an obnoxious display of big words strung together in such an incoherent manner. I obviously don't identify with him either. I might if I had some weed around though.
Word: Technonarcissism

[Eric the Green]

ha ha, Rags. Incoherent he's not, but he goes pretty fast and not very deep. I don't think people can deny the reality of the three trends that will transform our times though.

From my point of view, he's obviously no new ager or hippie, and he didn't make much of the sixties. So we all have our interests. But I think he's right that we need to be open-minded to new ideas. The regeneracy will revolve around the challenges and changes he mentions.

And regarding the Boomers, and how much we need them, remember that it won't be the whole boomer generation or all their passions and culture wars we need. It will only take some visionaries like him to provide some leadership to the 4T. It will have to include the new agers and hippie visionaries that emerged in the sixties and seventies, because that shift in consciousness was huge. And the Bay Area was the hub of this, and yet he doesn't see it as far as I know. Imagine the change of discovering that our consciousness is the center of our reality, and rediscovering the resources and significance of the heart as well as the mind, and the whole dimensions of our being through all the other chakras that our techno society had just ignored. And our new millennial generation is largely ignoring it again, and Xers often scorn it; but it's still there and available, and was very widespread in many places, and is essential if we are to "reinvent" an America and a world in which we can be fully human instead of just technocrats in cubicles and skyping on mobile phones. New gismos are not as innovative as he thinks; it's not the instruments, but the new cultural and spiritual ideas and social arrangements that really make our world anew.

And he suggests as some here have done that just preserving social security and medicare is passe, but unless you embrace what he himself has rejected as the old libertarian Reagan paradigm, then the only new ideas I see coming in this field will be to expand on those programs to a guaranteed income and single payer systems.

There will be many points of view, but we will need to work together. As we are saying here, the Left and liberals have a tendency to concentrate on their own causes. That won't work, and we will need to join together with folks around basic common values and ideas instead of fighting ourselves if we are to win. And to win is essential; progress and survival will not come from the other side; it's ideas are too locked into the interests of a few elites and what benefits them.

And I see some opening in Leyden's approach, since I noticed the first innovator he mentions as highlighting in his venture, is Mr. Pollack who has a very counter-cultural and holistic approach to food. So who knows, Rupert Sheldrake and Deepak Chopra might find a home in this diverse realm of innovators too. And the idea may be voiced that innovation and transformation comes out of spiritual awakenings, and is inner as well as outer-focused.

At the same time, I know that in this 4T, I am getting impatient as I mentioned with just meditating and praying for unity and peace. We can restore our consciousness, but then we need to move out and apply that energy to real change and innovation, and the real contest for the future in a divided country.

[David Horn]

(01-20-2017, 06:35 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Be that as it may, I can tell from many of his comments he is totally in "the bubble." Heck, I could have been there too. It's tempting when one is wrapped constantly in the excitement of tech, start ups, etc. In any case, this is precisely the tone deafness that has so enraged the "not coasts" against the coasts. Globalism and middle class health are mutually incompatible.

I don't think that's true, but it is hard.  Everyone wants the Easy Button, so the globalists push for open borders and free trade, the nativists prefer to slam the door shut.  Neither can succeed, because neither is adequate.  The real solution will take decades to complete, but it starts with future-first infrastructure, education and training, and a restructuring of the economy away from capital friendly tax and subsidy policies to something that involves a transfer from the ownership class to everyone else.  How and to what extent is TBD ... but it will either happen or chaos will make an appearance first.

[disasterzone]

Based on what's happening now and the current trends, the 1T is gonna be horrible.

[David Horn]

(01-20-2017, 07:02 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: He's not tone deaf. He may be too wrapped up in tech, but he gets inequality and the needs of the middle class.

Globalism (I agree with Leyden as you know) is the inevitable reality. The question is not if, but how. The main key is taking political power back from the 1% and the corporate world, as we the people did in the last 4T. It must happen again, and then we can balance globalism and the middle class. Whether Leyden is up on what all needs to happen in this regard, or that would satisfy you, I don't know.

Most techies I know, and I worked for decades in tech, are neoliberal idealists.  I wouldn't invite them to lead the parade.  Tech is miraculous, as Arthur C. Clarke noted many times, but it is only accessible to the tech-savvy.  It's not a full answer, just a sliver.

[TnT]

(01-21-2017, 09:28 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-20-2017, 06:35 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Be that as it may, I can tell from many of his comments he is totally in "the bubble." Heck, I could have been there too. It's tempting when one is wrapped constantly in the excitement of tech, start ups, etc. In any case, this is precisely the tone deafness that has so enraged the "not coasts" against the coasts. Globalism and middle class health are mutually incompatible.

I don't think that's true, but it is hard.  Everyone wants the Easy Button, so the globalists push for open borders and free trade, the nativists prefer to slam the door shut.  Neither can succeed, because neither is adequate.  The real solution will take decades to complete, but it starts with future-first infrastructure, education and training, and a restructuring of the economy away from capital friendly tax and subsidy policies to something that involves a transfer from the ownership class to everyone else.  How and to what extent is TBD ... but it will either happen or chaos will make an appearance first.

Do you think any of this is possible without a substantial and sustainable and dramatic decrease in the population of our dreadful species?

[Eric the Green]

That's a good question TnT. I myself think it MAY be possible for our population to co-exist with Nature, if we use energy sources wisely (phase out fossil fuels) and restrain ourselves from using up all the land other species need to survive.

We are the outcome of natural evolution (which I think is a creative and spiritual and not merely mechanical process; a growth from the inside out, all together with organisms and environment together). So although our behavior has been dreadful in many cases, I prefer to think we are a species relatively young and going through a learning process.

I certainly think a social and economic system which favors the population in general and not a few rich people is more compatible with Nature than the oligarchy we now have. What benefits the general welfare of the people is more compatible with Nature than allowing a few greedy robber barons to exploit Nature ruthlessly, as Trump seems to prefer.

So, we grow and I hope we learn sustainable behavior without too much destruction along the way. I'm sure there will be some.

[Eric the Green]

(01-21-2017, 09:33 AM)disasterzone Wrote: Based on what's happening now and the current trends, the 1T is gonna be horrible.

Yes, but what's also clear is that in the middle of previous 4Ts, it was anything but guaranteed that we would come out of them and into a good 1T successfully. We did though, more or less. If you like 1Ts, that is. And made possible a 2T that I liked.

[TnT]

(01-22-2017, 11:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: That's a good question TnT. I myself think it MAY be possible for our population to co-exist with Nature, if we use energy sources wisely (phase out fossil fuels) and restrain ourselves from using up all the land other species need to survive.

We are the outcome of natural evolution (which I think is a creative and spiritual and not merely mechanical process; a growth from the inside out, all together with organisms and environment together). So although our behavior has been dreadful in many cases, I prefer to think we are a species relatively young and going through a learning process.

I certainly think a social and economic system which favors the population in general and not a few rich people is more compatible with Nature than the oligarchy we now have. What benefits the general welfare of the people is more compatible with Nature than allowing a few greedy robber barons to exploit Nature ruthlessly, as Trump seems to prefer.

So, we grow and I hope we learn sustainable behavior without too much destruction along the way. I'm sure there will be some.

As history buffs here on this site, we can look back over the known history of our species, its behavior towards others of its kind, towards other species and toward the earth which gave us all life and conclude that there is precious little of any admirable creative and/or spiritual processes at work that we can take credit for.

I'm reminded of a horrible anecdote I ran across some years ago ... it is said that as sunlight shines through the teardrops of a dead infant whose brains were dashed out by a Nazi concentration camp guard - that the rainbow formed is the same kind as that which we judge to be beautiful in the east after a late afternoon thunderstorm.  

There's a mechanistic thought for you to ponder, Eric.  A bit of a philosophical conundrum?

[Marypoza]

The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-23-2017, 12:31 AM)Marypoza Wrote: The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

The above also has a pretty good post mortem.

[Marypoza]

(01-23-2017, 12:44 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:31 AM)Marypoza Wrote: The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

The above also has a pretty good post mortem.

----- yup

[pbrower2a]

The Women's March on Washington is the first sign of a regeneracy. This is how America rightly deals with a leader grossly out of touch with reality and even such values as integrity and inclusion. This is how Americans will deal with attempts to gut Social Security or Medicare; this is how Americans will deal with any attempt to gut civil liberties or start a war for profit. This is the model for what happens should Donald Trump not complete his elected term of office, and Mike pence try to dedicate America to a Fundamentalist agenda that includes destruction of LGBT rights.

It's the Tea Party with objectivity and decency.