Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

This is something that has been touched on several times by several people recently but I don't remember seeing any other threads really directly addressing it. I thought it would be interesting to discuss in greater detail. It is fairly central to survival though not only under SHTF scenarios, I thought it fit best here.

It is often much easier to destroy a thing than it is to make it and tis can give the impression of the superiority of the force of destruction. Our culture seems to trive on destruction to a point beyond what is reasonably a part of the natural cycle of death and rebirth.

Densly populated centers of human habitation have long been ravenous maws of destruction, so much so that to offest a massive life-debt like a city a polar oposite of intense creation was required, namely agriculture.

Interestingly enough even agriculture can undue a civilization. The corporate food factories that pass for farms in America today are driven by primarily destructive concerns and have themselves become massive pits of morbidity far removed from the natural cycle of life and death.

Take for instance Monsanto, a herbicide manufacturer which has of late taken over the seed industry. An herbicide in itself is just another tool that can be used or misused like any other and Monsanto could have made respectable money selling life-positive seed to accompany their herbicide. This is not the path they chose however and their course of action is now a serious threat to the continuity of our civilization. They chose a path of destruction, instead of selling solidly developed open polinated crops they focus on anti-life concepts such as seeking patents on the genetic code of crops, terminator crops which can produce no viable seed and even crops which require the application of herbicide to germinate. The ultimate death is the destruction of all other plant life for the creation of a terminator crop, not to mention the human cost in terms of health issues arising from consuming massive quantities of food raised in a toxic environment.

Monsanto will no doubt make a fortune of their choosing the path of destruction. For a time. Their own anti-life practices condemn them to the same fate of famine and disease that have foisted upon civilization. There will simply come a point where they can no longer insulate themselves from what they have done.

If they had instead embraced a path centered on the force of creation, selling seed by improving the breed, promoting health and biodiversity rather than eliminating the competition the could have enjoyed a long and successful reign to the benefit of others.

This story is likely well known to all here but it illustrates an anti-life mentality that is running wild in all the highest spheres of influence in our world today. There are very real situations that call for the use of destructive force, the correct tool should be used for the job. Just try and keep it within the natural cycle of death and rebirth, you have to operate at net creation to survive.

Creation and destruction are not limited to living things. Consuming manufactured goods is a destructive practice. When you are cut of from these goods you may suffer and even die. Being able to make these things for yourself is a creative process that ensures your survival.

It may be necessary to kill an enemy and when or if required one should do so but it is vitally important to longterm survival to also forge mutually beneficial alliances.

It is said that evil men only prevail when good men do nothing, this is partially true but not the whole picture. Evil men will prevail when they think and act further ahead than good men.

Try and master several applications of creative force for every required destructive application. Examine your entire life support system and your social interactions to find points of destruction and creation. For example I recognized the need for stores of food but also that destructive consumption would eventually deplete those stores so I have taken up farming to balance the equation. I have the training and equipment to defend myself with destructive force but I need to create other defenses such as a stronger home and perimeter. This is something we should brainstorm on. This is real survival.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Very interesting picture you paint here, Rev. I've never even thought of that relationship in this way, or even as a relationship at all. The natural way of things doesn't work with huge populations. A city is unnatural and sucks up life and resources, and has to be counter-balanced by something just as unnatural as a dense field of crops, packed into an area much smaller than they'd naturally grow, to make up for/sustain that city... a balance.

Great perspective you put on things... thanks. :beer:

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Rev,
When you decide to write a book, let me know, Id' like to buy it
irregardless of the topic. I like your insight and perspective.

I used to partner with a fellow that had some land and let me grow
vegetables but that was several years ago. I'd like to really get back into it but he no longer has a garden and my joints (back and knee's) aren't in very good health.

The corporate world is stuck on profits, pure and simple.
Any publically held company, seems to focus solely on profit not
the general good of society. I'm not sure why these are considered mutually
exclusive. They don't have to be.

I work in the chemical business, I remember a manager once saying "We are not in business to make chemicals, we are in business to make money"

From economics study I found a definition for the reason of the exsistence
of publically held companies, MSW. That's it. The only reason.

Maximize Shareholders Wealth.

Our world has a terminal illness and it will end in termination sooner or later.

God made us spiritual beings intimately incorporated with our physical nature.
There must be a balance. Our society has lost it's balance, with a predominant focus on the physical nature, this imbalance causes a corruption.

Sex is good if used in a physical and spiritual way,
money, wealth, power, influence and knowledge also are neither
intrinsically good or evil, it is the imbalance that causes the corruption
of the good God intended.

Until mankind recognizes its ultimate purpose and destiny and restores the balance of the spiritual and physical,
it's fate is deterioration, it's goals perverted and it's egocentric doctrines will implode.

God's Peace
TLM

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

.............

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Let's agree first that this a logical Survival Prep thread and not a stealth moralizing Faith and Religion thread. Otherwise we start calling each other Evildoers and the vegetarians start preaching against us killing our favorite protein sources.

If you have a lawn then you are just favoring one pretty weed over the indigenous vegetation. Every week you then mow that lawn using an oil-based engine mower. To make all those pretty weeds the exact same precise height. You use dangerous poisons to kill anything that isn't that same pretty weed. You then send the clippings to some landfill. You probably installed an underground sprinkler system with a timer to water that lawn regularly because you can't stand the idea that your neighbor has a greener lawn then you. Rain doesn't even factor in this equation because everybody's sprinkler system comes on even when it is raining. Virtually every single front yard in America has a lawn like this. My oldest brother in California and his young daughter instead grew corn in their front yard. The neighbors revolted.

So...if you are like my brother and actually grow a vegetable garden in your front yard are you really making any real difference in the Big Is? When millions and millions of others are still growing that lawn and then cutting it down every week? Illegal Mexicans are supporting their families on that lawn care gig and sending American dollars back to their villages in Mexico. You want to stop that illegal Mexican family from eating? Where is the humanity?

Complex subject. Is this a topic mostly about Gaia that better belongs in the Faith and Religion Section?

:stickyman work so hard on the lawn and I can't even eat it

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Seems like lawns is drifting off-topic.

Take a white wall. Draw a line down the middle. Now you have a left and right wing. Once you have that division, you can go ahead and have fights, the right vs the left, right vs wrong. But the wall is still a white wall, nothing has changed but the human naming.

What we're doing here is usually divide things up into "useful things" "Money things" "hurting others things" but Rev wants to hold the glass differently for a moment and say +/- "Life" things.

This applies to lawns. You have a lawn. That's life. You mow it. That's death. Ok, so supposing we like the lawn part (life) but not the death part (the work of mowing, gasoline, time, principle of it) what do we do to add more life to this system?

I agree corn might be stretching the paradigm right now, so how about starting an english garden? The more "garden" you have, the less lawn, and the less lawn you need to apply work to.

It is true this is too complex to untangle. Does having many species mean the additions of more "life"? Probably, but why that is, I wouldn't want to have to argue. When you trim them back, dead-head them, ranch them into their corrals, isn't that adding just as much death as you did by mowing the whole lawn? Possibly. It's certainly as much work. I think we could agree that a self-sustaining multi-species system has far more "life" than a monoculture, energy-added lawn though.

...Besides, if you add vegetables, or garden edible flowers and herbs, your neighbors could never tell the difference. By adjusting your stance slightly, you get your way without opposition. Like Jujitsu.

There is a time-factor. Let's play philosophical here: what is the difference between "good" and "evil" ; "life" and "death" anyway? Just this: evil consumes itself. That's why the bad guys in the cartoons are always saying "Stimpy, you EE-diot!" Back-biting and belittling each other is not a safe and stable long-term plan.

Things that are "good" and "life", are sustainable and perpetuating, like a forest. Things that are death or evil need to steal contstant input from another source. The Vikings were not sustainable and had to steal their goods from all other nations. Presently, we get ours from oil, or clever dealings that borrow the wealth of tomorrow, the seed corn of yesterday (like roads and pensions) and consume it today.

The thing is it doesn't "Work." They say evil prevails, etc, but it does not. In a very short time, relatively speaking, it collapses, because stealing is so successful (for a short time) that the number who do it increases geometrically the moment it's allowed. Look at hedge funds. Or an algae bloom. Booms, then crashes because it booms too fast.

Evil cannot prevail, and never has, because it cannot exist without the "good"--those people who make food, do work, and build things.

Yes, there is always death. They borrow death forward, pull the line WAY to the right, and so on, but it always rights itself because mathematically the two halves of the ledger, of the whole, must always match.

Right now the world is over-focused on death, finding new ways to steal their bounty from the few remaining who produce it, including devouring nature herself. You can see this in the proportion of "Defense" vs real spending. This goes on for a season, then falls. Nature hardly notices. But as men, we invest in the contrary things, what is not yet popular and bid up. Creation, health, is at an all-time low and would stand to be invested in, in tools, techniques, etc, to create as much life as we can in gardens and people-groups, because that is most valuable, but under-valued. Both to ourselves, and later, for sale and use.

Ideas like a handful of straws here. Small and randomly picked, but might spark some additon.

TS

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

This is obviously a stealth moralizing Faith and Religion Section thread posing as a Survival Prep topic.

:wavey: Nice try!

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,last night on TV they had a local contravercy over some School kids who went on a field trip to a 3ed world vilage with diferent life stiles and pratices as exibits. At one exibit they had rabbits raised for FOOD and the kids were given a LIFE and DEATH choice for a RABBIT which IF they chose DEATH they would all EAT it. The vote had to be UNANIMUS and it WAS DEATH so the man broke the rabbits neck and decapitated it in front of the kids (I believe they were 15 and 16 year olds). The rabbit was skined and butchered and the meat prepared and the kids all ate the rabbit.

A fiew parents who had signed permission slips got very angry when the kids got home and told them about the experience!

The exibit was called "To LIVE we MUST KILL" and it is a TRUTH that most people are SO removed from that they never even concidered ware all them WHOPPERS came from!

It is the DISTORTION and DISASOCIAN between REALITY and the conveluted way modern life is experienced that allows for and causes DISRESPECT for every thing from FOOD to SLAVERY and MONEY ----- too many links in the chain have been obscured and hidden and too many others AMPLIFIED as in ADVERTISING!

The kids all AGREED that they injoyed the demonstrtion and it HELPED them realise things they had never thought about,it was just a fiew parents that got upset. I got to believe that in trying to protect their kids they are actualy HARMING them and disadvantaging them,it seems a lot of things are THAT WAY!

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Boise teen arrested for reportedly shooting at squirrels in Julia Davis Park with bow and arrow

Patrick Orr - Idaho Statesman - Edition Date: 04/27/07

An 18-year-old Boise man was arrested Thursday night after someone saw him trying to shoot squirrels in Julia Davis Park with a home-made bow and arrow.

Robert L. Downing, 18, is charged with hunting in a public park, a misdemeanor, according to Boise Police reports.

Officers were called to Julia Davis Park around 7:30 Thursday by a witness who saw a man attempting to shoot squirrels in the trees with arrows.

When police got to the area, they found a man hiding in some bushes near the Discovery Center of Idaho, 118 W. Myrtle St., which is in the northern portion of the park.

Downing was arrested and taken to the Ada County Jail, where he posted bond. His court appearance is scheduled for May.

The charge is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,This is the story on "HEFFER INT." and today there are still some angry parents. You can read and see the story and RANTS about it here.

http://www.nwahomepage.com/content/fulltext/?cid=5260

The disconect is extream ----- ware do people THINK food comes from???

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

This thread is meant for people who already have beans, bandaids and bullets. It is meant for people who will actually survive a disruption and emerge on the other side. It isn't meant for hand to mouth Mad Max survivalism. It encompasses philosophy, survival theory and practical sollutions to real world problems. I gave an easy point to begin generating practical and actionable ideas.

If you would like to contribute something constructive then get brainstorming and think of less aparent applications then the two easy examples I gave. That is a large part of the point of this thread.

Your lawn care strawman actually serves as another perfect example of the longterm failure of misapplication of destructive force. Illegal immigrants are parasites on their host civilization and their presence is the result of exploitive and destructive practices on the part of greedy and shortsighted persons in places of power. "Where is the humanity?" Where did you even get that from? Moralizing? GIM is one of the most moral forums I've seen. The primary focus of nearly all discussion here are things like honesty, justice and responsibility.

The disconnects from reality are exactly what I'm talking about here. Too many people see their actions only in isolation, never considering the causes or consequences. Understanding both of these are central to longterm survival. Longterm survival is really the only kind of survival there is, the options are simply falling through a bottomless pit with a parachute. Better than nothing perhaps, but oblivion is still oblivion.

I'll have to take this up again after the weekend.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

You must have missed my serious question about Gaia and how it differs from what you seem to be proposing here. How does it differ?

:wavey:

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,The EARTH is a LIVING THING but on such a large scale that we are even LESS than FLEAS on a DOG.:thinkey: The problem is that WE have become a very BAD INFESTATION and the self regulating system has been over ridden so in a way WE have become a DISEASE or INVECTION much like a VIRUS.:Sorry: :puke:

Six billion is a critical transiston number not exactly but aproximitly at that number of cells a change takes place and a higher level occurs in life forms due to organisation and specilisation. It is at that aproximit number that we see the first primitive EYE and BRAIN in ancient creachers that lived in ancient oceans.:albertein

Six billion is sort of CRITICAL MASS and can be seen agen and agen in nature as a transition point from one level to the next, leaving the old behind and begining a new AWAIRNESS of what was always there but unnoticed and percieved.:stupido2:

What the transition will be or perhaps TRANSFORMATION is a better description,is hard to define but it does seem obvious if one is open to seeing that somthing BIG is happening! :hahaha:

It is not an END nor is it realy a begining but it IS a change that we are becoming awair of more and more each day,an AWAKINING,a DAWNING of a new DAY, a new AGE! :grin:

Many FEAR CHANGE because it means to them, posably losing POWER:afraid: , others PRAY and hope for change because they think they will be GAINING power in and over their lives. :birthday: :elefant: :ARMS1:

The stress of being subliminaly awair of SOMTHING yet not knowing what it may be can be maddening, yet like the rumbeling of the earth beneath your feet it is SO big that it is beyond the capacity of indiviguales to DEFINE and can only be experienced.:wazzup_sg

Like FLEAS on a DOG ware ever IT is GOING we are going with IT and each LIFE on the DOG is an ADVENTURE for each FLEA:favorites21: !

We can chose to FEAR the change or greet it happily but the change IS coming and what WILL BE will be no matter how WE chose to PERCIEVE it. :congrats:

It just seems to ME that by chosing to relate to the coming change as an OPERTUNITY, one can be less stressed and fear full and more likely to notice positive and helpfull posabilities. :yes: :love: :s1:

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

I can agree with all that Duck...but what I question is this moralizing stuff about some life being "Evil" in this thread. We all have beneficial bacteria in our digestive tract. Other bacteria can kill us. God or the Big Is probably values all bacteria equally. It matters not if one harms us while another helps us. I don't think God or the Big Is really cares.


Another example: REV127 murders his chicken for dinner. Some red-eyed raccoon murders REV127's other chicken for dinner. Do the chickens consider REV127 good and the raccoon evil? Does God or the Big Is? What about stealing a chicken's unborn child and calling it an Egg McMuffin? How is REV127 and a red-eyed raccoon different in the eyes of God or the Big Is? They both murder chickens for dinner. They both kidnap unborn chickens and eat them.

:dontknow:

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK, There you GO! :smile: GOOD and BAD are mostly SUBJECTIVE depending on PERSPECTIVE! :thinkey:

Fiew people can detach them selves EMOTIONALY from the involvment in their imediate vacinity or time, so THEY shade and color the situation in what ever way they CHOSE, usualy with out any REAL THOUGHT, just what has been TOUGHT to them and become the accepted norm.

Actions based in FEAR and lack of UNDERSTANDING with out TOLERENCE tend to be destructive and lack RESPECT for perspectives other than the emotional one that THEY are having.:stupido2:

To LIVE and stay alive one MUST KILL, it is just that simple BUT because we have conflicts with in us that are UNRESOLVED, we distence our selves from that REALITY. The farther away we get the more RESPECT we lose and the less we FEEL,or TOLERATE on many levels. :grin:

GLUTTENS eat with out the thought of the LIFE lost or REAL apreciation, it is much like GREED, it is that DISTENCE and SEPERATION that makes posable the DEGRADING,devaluing and DEBASMENT of every thing from FOOD to MONEY and PEOPLE too! :albertein

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Agreed. Anybody who murders a chicken and kidnaps their unborn to feed their face has no business preaching about good and evil.

:smile: fact is...everything we eat is a living thing.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,To my way of thinking ,IT is far more IMPORTANT why we DO what we DO than the actual thing or things we DO!:albertein

The THOUGHT,evaluation and the CHOICE making is what COUNTS and makes things or actions BAD or GOOD!:thinkey: :stupid: :stupido2:

I don't like to KILL but I like to EAT,I grew up eating MEAT that came from a store and like every one knew it came from DEAD cows,chickens, etc. but never witnessed the slauter except for fish ocasionaly.

The only thing I ever hunted was PEOPLE and you can't EAT people or at least most people don't except on rare ocasions!:puke:

Here is a hipothetical thought: I am on top my mountain and TSHTF as we all expext some how some way IT WILL. I have prepared as best I can and the dogs and I manage to survive X amount of time but all around me virtualy every living thing is dead and as best I can tell there are no other survivors for say 100 miles or more and the radiation is SO bad that when the food runs out it is still too dangerous to even try to get out. Would I kill and EAT my DOGS? I love THEM every bit as much as PEOPLE, to be honist a LOT more than MOST PEOPLE!:albertein :haha:

I have been clinicly DEAD and REVIVED and injoyed being DEAD and did NOT like being pulled back so I sort of look forward to doing it agen --- just not NOW or real soon!:hahaha: HE HE HE and NOT painfully!:grin:

I don't think I would EAT my DOGS. I would hold out as long as posable then kill them and my self after.

Would YOU eat YOUR dog to KEEP LIVING? :questionm

How about a DEAD person, would YOU eat THEM? :questionm

Would YOU kill them, to EAT them, to stay alive?:questionm

GOOD,BAD,SAD it is all SUBJECTIVE but WHY is what REALY COUNTS!:thinkey: :proud:

When we DISCONECT and DISTANCE our selves from CAUSE and EFFECT in our MINDS and also in physicle DISTANCE too, we loose RESPECT and DEBASMENT becomes the accepted NORM.

( it's DARK in DE- BASMENT -- NO WINDOWS to see OUT -- :banana: :haha: :tongue: :signs14: )

Another reason I like GREEN HOUSES!:bull-smile: :hahaha: :haha:



the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

:smokin: you are A-1 Duck!

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Very interesting concept.
Not at all far fetched. Humanity, or even better, all life as a whole, evolving into a
unified organism that sees and thinks and acts as the earths eyes and mind and hands.

It's not easy to wrap my single cell cognition around such a big thought.

Fear of oblivion is the big bugaboo, the evil that walks among us.
No fortification, no fence, no weapon, no defensive measure is sufficient to keep the fear of oblivion away. There's no running from it or escaping it.

Except through faith perhaps. Here's where god comes to the rescue.

Morality itself is something of a first line of defense against the fear of oblivion.
The fence between good and evil, so to speak.

It's said that to die in battle is the most satisfactory death. To die fighting.
It's said to increase endorphins in the brain, creating an ecstatic energy field, allowing the fear of oblivion, pain and suffering to fall away.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Do not go easy into that good night."

What good are beans and bullets while one suffers the existential fear of oblivion...
Building fortresses and fences and armor may keep you safe for a few more minutes, but they also contain and imprison.

The concept that each of us are separate, distinct, and all alone in the universe is another way to describe ultimate evil.

Money itself, or the worship thereof, "Mammon" is essentially the weighing and measuring, counting, hoarding and objectifying, the energy known as life.

Huddling in fear around a pile of beans, bullets and gold is not survival, it is sure and certain death. Death before life, counting on Life after death.

The thing that keeps me going (surviving) isn't really a thing at all. And that's why it's so hard to get a grip on. Some people call it truth, some call it love, some call it god, and I won't argue. Whatever it's called it gives meaning and purpose and enough grace to continue, to survive.

Faith itself is the prerequisite to survival.

Thus faith in god IS gods law.

I live on a windy hill with very little tree cover. Wind and the scorching sun beat this little hill mercilessly. The sand under my feet dries out faster than the sweat on my brow. To the south and east lies a huge swamp called a saw grass preserve. Just to the north and west is a national forest. Not far, inside the forest, is a U.S. Navy test bombing range. Every so often the earth shudders and shakes, and I shake my fist at it. It makes me sick. It scares me. It scares the dogs. It scares everything. But then again, so does thunder and lightning.
Sitting here huddled at this monitor, I am totally exposed to the potential brutality of nature and of man. There is no fence that I'm aware of that's high enough or impenetrable enough, and no weapon powerful enough or fast enough to stop that brutality. It is an endless exercise in futility attempting to build taller fences and bigger guns.

I have a Winchester 1300 20 gauge shotgun that I hope to hell I never have to use on another living thing ever again.



The way I see it, from my point of view, I'm here to give the earth around me what it is calling out for. A little shade from the sun, a little compost so the soil holds moisture, some ground cover, things to attract other creatures to contribute to what the earth is calling out for.
To water and to tend and to have the faith that
I feed the earth and the earth feeds me... That's pretty much it. Nothing fancy, nothing glorious, just tending the garden.

Mans law is material law. The law of the body. The corporeal body.
The Institutions of Religion, all of them together, represent the first Corporation of mans law. Man is falling. Falling for corporatism. Falling for materialism. Falling for the man made scam that "I" am separate from "You." That's the essence of the huge wallowing, corpulent body called bureaucracy and the shadowy elite monsters hiding behind it.

I don't follow mans law, I follow gods law, or try to anyway. Having faith in god above all else, means the same thing as "IAMTHOU"

If I have faith in god, why would I ever want to kill anything, when I know I'm only killing myself.

What I'd like is to live comfortably, and I have, and in order to do so I feel rather obligated to make the earth, (the world around me) more comfortable, more verdant, more lovely, more alive.
Not just my family. Not just my friends. Not just my pets. The world around me, all that I can comprehend, from my tiny limited point of view, or from points of view that empathy has been so kind to grace me with.

I have been graced with empathy and I have faith that YOU have too.

Faith and morality and survival are all entwined and interdependent.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

I knew from the start that this thread belonged in the Faith and Religion Section and not here in the Beans, Bullets, and Band-aid Section. Maybe the Mods will move it.

:wavey:

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,Kahlil Gibran,I don't exactly know how to take that comment.:dontknow:

Do you mean this DUCK would TAIST good, smuthered in A1 steak sauce?:questionm :haha:

I guess once I don't need this body no more that would be OK with me ----- SOILENT GREEN is DUCK TOO! :laugh: :hahaha: I'm kind of old and tough so perhaps I would make good "DUCK JURKIE"?:questionm

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Good for us to have a laugh at ourselves every once in awhile Duck. Otherwise, this Doom and Gloom stuff gets too depressing.

:beer:

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

KG, I'm glad you said that. Bon appetite, blow fly. Please don't choke on Ducks carcass.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,We are ALL somthing elses FOOD and when they are DONE with us, we find our selves at "THE END of the RAINBOW" ---- sort of!:hahaha: :haha: :banana:

http://209.173.128.201/pictures/3563.jpg

Got to keep MOVING or you get EATEN!:getdown: :signs1:

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK, It is NEVER realy OVER --- Things just CHANGE! This time --- I'm a DUCK! :proud: :hahaha: :haha:

Artist/Band: Nelson Willie
Lyrics for Song: Highwayman
Lyrics for Album: Essential Willie Nelson

I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..

If I walks like a DUCK and I QWAKS like a DUCK. Does that mean I will always BE a DUCK? :questionm :dontknow: :goodnight

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Ah, so this and your follow-ups make plain your agenda. It is also clear you still have no idea what I'm talking about and have no interest in remedying that situation.

To set the facts straight the coons eyes reflected yellow and they were never evil.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

We won't know until you post it. Go for it REV!

:yippee:

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

It would be folly to try and consider survival without considering life and it would be a gross error of omission to consider life without considering spirituality. Nevertheless this concept is not really spiritual in nature and applies with full force to even mechanical engineering.

Consider the case of perpetual motion. Many have worked on this theoretical impossibility, some have even claimed success. That isn't really the heart of the matter though, not from the way I look at it. What I see as being the central argument against the design of perpetual motion machines is the very fact that machines as we know them must consume more power than they output. They are out of balance, destroying more energy than they create. Our dependence on such out of balance technology increases the number of risks we are exposed to and the severity of their effects.

There are many interesting technologies that have certain aspects of their operation that seem to possibly create as much or more energy than they destroy. Heat pumps are one of them and something I would like to spend a lot more time studying and experimenting with. Barring any special discoveries there just isn't really a clear way right now to build a machine that generates more energy than it uses but there are existing cycles of energy that from our perspective can seem almost limitless. The cycle of birth and death here on our planet is one of them and it can be harnessed through many relatively simple processes. One that has my attention at the momment is the prospect of using the heat generated by compost as a power source. This is a seemingly renewable source of energy but it in fact draws energy from the Sun.

The Sun outputs energy because it is being burned up, destroyed, someday it will be gone. Heat harnessed from compost will be a sustainable source of energy for as long as you can continue growing plants and thereby tapping into the cycle of death and rebirth but it cannot survive the death of the Sun. Better qualified men than I have suggested that someday, no matter what you do, the universe will be uninhabbitable because all the suns and other sources of energy will be exhausted, cosmic heat death.

If this is true then it becomes clear that if we survive long enough we will eventually need machines capable of producing more energy than they use or we will have simply reached the end of our existence. Some people will merley point to a text on thermodynamics and accept the expiration date. While it is effectively hypothetical as far as I am concerned because the universe will live quite a long time after I have died I do find the problem interesting enough to ponder and experiment with possible solutions. After all, if no one had considered how to cross water our species wouldn't be nearly so widely dispersed as we are now.

Eternity and over unity devices are worthy areas of study but still deeply embedded in mystery. Implementable solutions to practical problems are much more directly applicable to the circumstances we and our heirs will face. While we don't have to worry about our star burning out from a human perspective we very definately should make efforts to not become dependent on more easily depleted energy sources. I see this as encompassing two paths, one of controling your own renewable energy sources and the other would be understanding how to harness other possible energy sources.

If you consider photovoltaics from this angle you see that they are really a method of directly tapping into the Sun's energy rather than trying make use of more traditional forms of energy that are indirectly dependent on the Sun such as burning firewood. There are definately advantages to cutting out the middleman but limitations as well. It may take a long time but new trees will grow whereas solar panels must be manufactured at considerable cost in terms of energy input and exotic materials.

Because trees grow slowly and photovoltaics necessarily involve infrastructure far beyond what one person or even a family can really do for themselves I see both as imperfect solutions. I do very much like the concept of tapping the Sun's energy directly, however. Things like fresnel lenses, parabolic mirrors, solar ovens and others can harness solar radiation and focus into points of great heat. Technologies like the icy-ball and Stirling engine can convert that heat energy into other useful forms.

I will very likely be using a solar heated Stirling engine for off grid electricity. Considering how much more harmonious the operation of the Stirling engine is over other technologies such as internal combustion engines I'm really not suprised that they turn out to be about 80% efficient. They are nearly in balance. It is interesting to note that the major "waste product" of a Stirling engine's operation is the heat it must dissipate to continue its cycle. Why allow this energy to be destroyed through radiation, conduction or convection when these same processes can be harnessed to put it toward useful ends?

When people consider saving energy they most often think of conserving electricity. Quite a lot of heat and kinetic energy goes to waste every day.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Very good ideas throughout your post but I'll take them in sections to make things easier.

I used the word "force" rather than anything else because I feel it is fairly universal, as is the idea I'm trying to talk about. It isn't just life, but also energy, social interactions, strategy, as alluded to in my response to TLM it is about trying to make more than you take. Everything I ever could agree with in HyperTiger's posts revolved around this concept.

On this particular issue I would see growing crops as one potential way to up the creative force. The lawnmower itself is very likely a large net destroyer of non-renewable energy unless you're using a reel mower or an electric model and you have a sustainable means of generating your own electricity. I would be just as likely to make use of other living things such as herbivores like my tortoise or omnivores like my chickens to solve the problem of out of control grass.

It is not very profitable to eat a tortoise as they take a very long time to grow to any size. Mine may weigh 200lbs+ when fully grown 15 years from now. However if my tortoise proves to be female I can eventually expect 90 edible eggs per year. Regardless of sex giant tortoises are immensely strong and intelligent enough to be trainable, it will make a drought-hardy draft animal. Chickens are able to convert large quantities of weeds and grass into meat and eggs over much shorter spaces of time while supplying much useful fertilizer and other products in the process.


The morality of deaths within a given species is more of an ethical discussion. I believe that morality necessarily plays a role in personal and group survival, certainly in the survival of civilizations, but it isn't really central to this specific thread at the momment. The death of entire species and ecosystems on the other hand is much less ambiguous and when I speak of death in this thread I mean it in this greater sense.

I keep other animals and I encourage certain species while discouraging others on my property but at the momment chickens are the primary livestock I raise. I eat eggs and I will kill individual birds for meat creating death on a small scale but so long as I have anything to do with it my chickens will always have living descendents. On the large scale my chicken farming operation nets positive on the creation of life. This will be increasingly true as feed produced on my own land by means of sustainable organic agriculture replaces storebought feed entirely. It is the unsustainable practices of big agribiz that cause them to net death.

Exactly! Strategies such as geurilla gardening are applications of the concept I'm talking about. Anyone can fight, they may be more or less effective than another but they can do it. That is no trick. It takes real ability to avoid altogether the need for direct confrontation but if you can make it happen you will operate at a distinct advantage compared to others who have only a hammer and see ever problem as a nail. Many creatures in nature use camoflage, distraction and threat displays for defense because it is much less expensive than a committed battle.

I don't have much I could really add at the momment, but I feel those are top quality insights. I believe that Ayn Rand has successfully demonstrated that selflessness can indeed be a great evil but it is also worth noting that the polar opposite, selfishness, is also considered an evil by the greater portion of the world's belief systems. When I was a child my parents encouraged me to share my toys, not necessarily give them away.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

When it comes to cities I think the crucial questions are what kind of technology are they using and what is the population density like?

When it comes to technology efficient, sustainable, renewable and non-poluting technologies should always be preffered. In my experience you can get just about anything to work if you need to when it comes to how much or what kind of energy you are using. I may not be able to generate as much electricity on my property as a nuclear powerplant, but I don't need to, either. Depending on what technologies I rely on I might not need any at all. The icy-ball again comes to mind, as does an alchohol powered fan I saw in a pioneer museum recently.

Along these lines I've become aware of the "approrpiate technology" movement. I'm not so much interested in the politics surrounding the issue but many of the technologies themselves are very promising.

At any rate we could start a whole nother thread on a theoretical society that runs off sustainable technologies.

Population density is much easier to understand. Like any other living thing, humans need a minimum ammount of territory in order to survive. Humans are to my knowledge unique in the way that they can allocate a very large ammount of that territory to a place they will never see or visit. That was the original pact between farmer and city; the citizen gives up territory for advantages in commerce and trade, a portion of his earnings are then exchanged with farmers who maintain by proxy some or all of the territory he requires for his needs.

I do believe that a city could transform itself into a sustainable community on a massive scale, but not at current population densities and not with currently employed technology.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

I respectfully withdraw my use of the word "evil". It was simply an interesting insight that sustainability and morality are related.

That is less of a problem because no human action is divorced from morality. You can't have a discussion on "correct" balance or anything else without introducing moral judgement in some form any more than you can talk investment without introducing politics and the related risks.

I'm curious if you're just yanking everybody's chain or if you really have some stake in making life non-moral and non-religious? As far as I see, nothing humans do are devoid of this, or can be.

To add this, Ayn Rand question of "selflessness" and the obvious opposite of Smith's "Selfishness" are both in error of blindness because they both assume the concept of "self" as a starting point. As I said about the white wall, this is incorrect. There is no "self" apart from our environment and others. It's an illusion we work hard to purpetuate, especially in the West. The madness of the west is due to our schizophrena regarding our separateness, that when I change one factor, nothing else changes, that what I do does not effect the rest of creation. Then when I dump my garbage somewhere, I don't have to think about how its creation is my responsibility, and the harm to the "dumpees" will come back to me. ...Say if you extracted resources or rigged elections and governments worldwide for 100 years that that would never get back to you, or if it did, it would not be your fault.

This is the key question of the day. Bulldozers are coming in on all sides. There is little enough nature left to extract from, few nations left to steal from, so much that we are now cannibalizing our own middle class as the only remaining targets. This action can be seen a moral way, but that's not very relevant to me. What's real is that a system that depends on extracting resources from elsewhere eventually runs out of resources to plunder and ends. Usually badly. A system that is in balance creates the resources it consumes and has no need to end.

Perhaps the point is not "more life" or "less life"--a sort of shorthand--but that you can either be balanced or unbalanced? Balance would roughly state life and death are matched. Imbalance would mean either life (in overconsumption) or death (in overextraction) are exaggerated. They are really the same thing, after all. It's just more convenient to say that adding species gives "more life"--really, it's just that additional species add layers of robustness to the system, keeping the balance closer to a centerpoint. Lovelock's "Daisyworld" highlights this, but you could take the same lesson from the arctic, where there are 4 major species and boom-bust vs temporate areas where there are hundreds and no noticable boom-busts.

Life and death are always balanced? But the fluctuation from the centerpoint over time is what we call "imbalance" and "destruction"? Because humans experience time and we judge "good" and "bad" in ways nature and animals (and arguably "reality" itself) do not experience?

Does that make it easier to pick which events or items we want to promote and which should be minimized? More species, more self-righting failsafe backup sytems and more evenness and certainty of return over time shows the system is one of "creation"? If not, it's a heck of a good idea in any case.

TS

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

:smile: Excellent.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Great thread. I think there is much in here similiar to what Derrick Jensen has written. http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=132157

Jensen also makes a good case for the use of psychopaths/abusers as the personality driving the leading destroyers, instead of the over-loaded word evil.

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

QWAK,"Want to see the NEW PEEPERS?" :questionm :questionm :grin:

http://eshare.hpphoto.com/FilmStripH...k&st=0&issku=#

The REASON I post the pictures is because I got to perhaps DECIDE if I let them DIE!

Each year for a long time the WREN family has been building a nest in the rotten wood of the roof (a big job for me this summer rebuilding it) this year they MOVED up town to better DIGS and that is in my STONE HOT TUB room. Each year when the chicks all leave the nest there is BEDLUM in my greenhouse bath and I try to resque as many as I can from drounding or geting traped in bad places or from one of the dogs trying to HELP (?) me catch them.

Not 1/2 hour after I took thoes pictures a BIG black KING snake fell from the rafters, IT was HUNTING, perhaps PEEPERS or perhaps a MATE? :questionm

Last year not 6' away from the NEW WREN nest, TWO big black KING snakes were actualy making HOT SNAKE LOVE in the AIR! (no fooling I got pictures)

http://eshare.hpphoto.com/FilmStripHome.aspx?JobID={FCDB598C-140B-4720-BF20-FC9AD51786BB}&IDKey=0&SKU=HP&isflag=ExternalLink&s t=0&issku=#

IF the SNAKE finds the NEST do I let it EAT the PEEPERS or stop it? :questionm :questionm

In the passed I actualy climbed down my well with my SNAKE STICK and resqued a big black KING snake thinking IT had a problem IT could NOT solve,when I let it go, IT crawled BACK in agen! :dontknow: Actualy IT got down there and BACK out climbing the rocks sticking out and I have seen IT or others clime right up a trunk of a tree.

Any way I have resqued both SNAKES and BIRDS but the question THEN becomes AM I doing it for THEM or am I doing it for MY SELF and WHY?

I LOVE ALL ,I try to HELP ALL, when ever I can, BUT WHO am I realy HELPING :questionm :thinkey: :dontknow:

I'm realy HELPING ME :grin:

I guess IF the snake finds the nest I will INTERVEAN and the snake will go HUNGRY BUT IF it finds its MATE it is WELCOME to INJOY making WILD SNAKE LOVE, up in the rafters! :signs1: :thumbs up :marchmell :cooler: :yippee: :s9::getdown:

BTW: The other pictures are of how I do EXCAVATING using a garden hose with HP nozzel washing away the dirt to a SUMP in the bed rock ware an EJECTOR pump moves it to ware I need more dirt. The small rocks go in my drive way and the big ones in the WALLS! :proud: It is SLOW and dirty but also ZEN like in that it CLENSES my mind as I use natural forces to clear away the acumulated dirt down to BED ROCK and reveal what has been there and NOT seen day light for millions if not billions of years!

By using the natural fearures of the bed rock I have a water fall in to a 3' deep 18" wide stream that flows over to my bath tub and in to a natural stone SUMP for the pump that will circulate and filter the waterfall/stream water!

In the pictures that is all the way at the front of my green house bath ware I am still moving MUD now.

The greenhouse bath is 46' x 16', the HOT TUB room (ware the nest is) comes off the wast side of the GHB and is 16'x16'

the DUCK

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction
 

Sounds like a community: You're getting in their business, and they're getting in yours.

TS

Re: Balancing The Forces Of Creation And Destruction