Rubber bands, Slinkys and Occupy Wall Street...

I am ready to admit that humans are powerless over the world's economic systems and that the world has become unmanageable.

Check this out: (hat tip to http://davidusher.blogspot.com/2011/11/search-cant-scale-without-social-and.html)

" throughout all of human history up until 2003 we created 5 exabytes of data (five billion gigabytes). We now create that much every day. In 2011, we’ll create 1.8 zettabytes of data (a zettabyte is a 1000 exabytes) and we’ll be creating over 20 times that by 2020."

The world has too many moving parts for anyone to understand or manage. So complex that not only can't we figure out the answers to the problems that face us (economic, social, scientific) - there are no answers.

Imagine that the world is made up of rubber bands and slinkys. If you stretch a rubber band and then release it it snaps back to its original length. A slinky once put in motion down a set of stairs will continue down the stairs (In other words some things go back to the way they were and other things once set in motion continue to keep going). Now imagine a bazillion rubber bands and slinkys comprising a giant Rube Goldberg contraption and all the comings and goings and interactions and interrelationships of all these zettabytes. And there behind the curtain stands whoever... Obama, Romney, Berlusconi, Papandreou, Hu Jintao - people - talented people but human (i.e. flawed and imperfect (some more flawed and more imperfect than others). I am not sure any human can even tell which are the rubber bands and which are the slinkys any more.

I think that is what Occupy Wall Street is about. I think it is not just about economic reform (although that is a part of it). It is not just about a political point of view (although that is a part of it). I think it is about a belief that the world has too many moving parts. It is about the kind of community and society people want. It may even be about our existence.

As one Occupier was reported to have said:

"It is not OK for the richest 1%, to make us bend to the will of the financial institutions and the labyrinth of dividends, offshore tax havens, and money making schemes. Stop referring to fair taxation as socialism. Stop telling dishwashers and migrant farmers that you earned your money, that you work hard for what you have, because lots of people work hard and don't have. There are a lot of hard working people who are not rich. Don't look down from your fairy tale and tell us that people get what they deserve. Stop quoting Reagan. Stop telling us that riches beyond imagination breeds innovation. Stop pissing on our leg and calling it rain.

Occupy Wall Street is not a set of demands, it is a statement: We exist."

PS. I read this piece to my wise and now 87 year old Uncle Yoda (who lives in Santa Barbara, CA because he says it is the only place on earth where calling heaven is a local call) and he said that it was "Typical Rough Fractals, lovely, well intentioned, idealistic and full of shit". He did add however that he does think that "the problem with the world is that it is run by humans and that does not bode well for the future of mankind".

It's Good To Know People With Connections...

Dear Penitent: Nice try...but it doesn't work that way...YOU have to feel it in your heart and mind by yourself at first...not try to palm it off on what you would probably consider to be avuncular bullshit.

However...I've had a chat with J. (it's a local call from Santa Barbara) and put in a good word for you...and HE said "knock off the wiseass bullshit and He'll let it go this time."

He said visiting ZBA would go a long way to healing the rift!

Uncle ZBA a/k/a Yoda
"So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job
more than his beginning."
 -- Job, 42.12

One Page At A Time...

A friend recently wrote to me that someone he knew told him that "writing has a positive effect independent of the content, so just the act of writing is healthy."

I think he is onto something and it brings to mind (in some round about, not sure why way) the list of things one learns in drug rehab (and by writing?) that David Foster Wallace wrote that I have copied below.

Or, as Anonymous Yoda might say, "One page at a time, positive and healthy, it is."

"That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most non-addicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.

That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.

That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused.

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it.

That loneliness is not a function of solitude.

That cliquey alliance and exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape.

That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agenda-less kindness.

That 99% of compulsive thinkers' thinking is about themselves. That most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.

That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak.

That you don't have to hit somebody even if you really really want to.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way shape or form trying to get credit for it, it's almost its own form of intoxicating buzz.

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

That AA and NA does not apparently require that you believe in Him/Her/It before He/She/It will help you.

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt."