10 Essential Books for Understanding How the World Works

[Marie Laveau]

on the one hand, the internet is what can save us. on the other hand, it's how they know exactly who we are and where we are.

i keep thinking they might just take it away, but the big brother aspects of it, for them, might be a benefit that outweighs the drawbacks.

you know how salt licks are used to attract animals? certain sites are salt licks for various groups of people.

An old professor of mine said years ago, "The internet has allowed people to find the very things they agree with."

People rarely go outside their comfort zone to learn new things, or things they disagree with.

Me, for example: I am seriously trying to understand A.I. and robotics and cybernetics. I don't like it one bit. I don't really want to live in that kind of world. I know it is very appealing to some people, but I find it incredibly sterile and sad. But, if things continue on, that is exactly where we are headed. There will be human-machine interface, and it's coming up in the not too distant future.

I try to look at it as the evolutionary process, and my daughter tries to explain how cool it is, but it breaks my heart. But it's also a good example of how people find it difficult to go outside their comfort zone.

Extrapolate that to people who read only the moviestar/clothes/etc. news. Or the people who only read sports, or porn, or politics (of their own flavor,) or gardening, or [fill-in-the-blank.]

Yes, if everyone on the internet was seriously using it as a tool for understanding and learning and mind-expansion....well, that would be awesome. But they aren't.

[Saurian Tail]

I'd be happy to discuss some REAL solutions, but ...

... but its hopeless. The future you imagine is filled with raving hordes of starving people. We are passed the tipping point and the future is now set in stone.

Did I miss anything essential or is that pretty much your bottom line?

[Marie Laveau]

Oh, I don't think it's hopeless, but it's going to take something far beyond what we mortals now have at our disposal.

We have no current understanding of how to clean up, control, or dispose of nuclear waste, for example. I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating for the sake of this argument that seems to have caused such consternation here: even if we as a planetary population decided tomorrow that we are done with nuclear- power plants, weapons, what-have-you- we wuold still need to maintain the vast, VAST infrastructure it takes to control it. For the next thousands and thousands of years we won't be able to just wash our hands of it and walk away. How long do you think this current "civilization" will last? Rome lasted a thousand years, and it collapsed because it used up near-by available resources, trees mostly.

Here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit

The world's largest superfund site. No one has a clue what to do about it. It's around 900 feet deep. Only humans would consider it a tourist attraction. This will have to be maintained FOREVER. If the retaining walls fail it will contaminate the water downstream all the way to the Pacific ocean, via the Columbia River drainage.

Now, multiply situations like these two by MILLIONS all over the world. Not to mention just what goes on every single day. This isn't secret news. It's reported on all the time. On the INTERNETS, even. It's just that people focus on mostly what makes them feel good. Stories that give them hope, for example. There's nothing woring with that, per se, but it gives a false sense of the reality that stares us in the face. It's not just as easy as stopping cutting down the rain forests. Which we aren't doing, either, btw.

Now, having said all that, you seem to imply I'm an idiot for pointing these things out, so perhaps you can negate the examples I've given by giving reasonable responses on how to fix these things AND feed almost seven billion people without a massive continued influx of chemical fertilizers- which is destroying our oceans, btw.

[Nordic]

Now, having said all that, you seem to imply I'm an idiot for pointing these things out.

Nobody's implying that you're an idiot for pointing these things out. The things you point out are already known here, they go without saying.

You seem to be very fond of pointing out things that we already know, to the point of belaboring them, as if we're the idiots, assuming that we're not already aware of them.

We are.

So you come across as someone who just sits and complains and has no hope about anything. "We're doomed". Heck, just read what Saurian Tail wrote again, he put it very well.

That's how you come across.

[Marie Laveau]

Well, obviously I'm not trying to point out you are idiots. I'm trying to point out, which I thought was obvious, that people are saying things like living simply or the internets will fix things, when it seems painfully obvious that this is far from the case.

I mean, that is the focus of the discussions where I've mentioned these things. And I've yet to see anyone give a concrete reason where I'm wrong, but certainly have fallen to insinuation (witchcraft- not that there's anything wrong with that ) and belittling.

Which, of course, are two fabulous rewards we've reaped from the internet.

Now, for the sake of intellectual honesty, tell me where I'm wrong in my points, and exactly how you (or humanity) might go about avoiding these critical issues.

And, just for the sake of shits and giggles, let's say this:

So you come across as someone who just sits and complains

is true.

How is that any different from someone who sits on internet chat forums (as do I) and thinks that will change anything? Or that sits and lives in radical simplicity and thinks that will somehow fix the nuclear problem? Or fix their massive ununderstanding of exactly how we are feeding six billion people right now?

For all of Cuba's success after the "fall" of the USSR, they have come to know one thing with absolutely certainty: caloric intake drops precipitously when you take away the oil.

[Marie Laveau]

And I want to tell you this: I am talking to myself just as much as I am talking to anyone of you. Believe me when I tell you, I have studied this stuff, participated in community projects, grown my own food, etc. etc. etc. for years.

Individually, I don't think this is an issue.

INDIVIDUALLY. But the thing that got me questioning my own self-righteous living simply and what-not, was looking around at all the people I know personally (and in my neighborhood) who don't have clue one about how precarious our situation is.

It wouldn't just take peak oil - which I now believe to be somewhat dubious, given the massive amounts we waste of worthless shit- but the massively interconnected economic structure that has been created, and what its sudden demise would mean for everyone, even in the third world, now that we've destroyed their real means of living. Or how precarious our infrastructure is.

And people talk about how they'd just go to the woods and live. Would they really? Do they know how to get water? How to purify it? What do they do if the stream dries up? Do they know how much food they'd need to get themselves (not to mention anyone else with them) through the winter? Do they know the plants that would get them through an illness, like pneumonia? What about shelter, etc.

What about the cold? Few people understand what COLD really means, day-in-and-day-out. Or waking up morning after morning after morning with no heat and knowing you have to get out and build a fire. It's not that it can't be done, it's just that very few people understand anything about it. You can't go out and decide in December with snow on the ground that you are going to cut wood because you miscalculated and you are almost out. And if a person lives anywhere near a populated area, how long do you suppose the trees would last? Even fruit trees?

The point I'm trying to make is, that to maintain the population levels we have now, it takes a massively complex infrastructure. Just as we have now. And just as we must maintain to continue these population levels.

So "radical simplicity" won't cut it, and neither will talking about it on the internet. We either maintain the massively complex system we have now (and all its attendant problems) or we.....don't.

And I will remind everyone who is dissing what I'm saying, that the internet is part of the massively complex ssytem. Indeed, REQUIRES it.

Fire away.

[Marie Laveau]

Hey, since this is a thread on ten esstential books on understanding how the world works, might I suggest, for those so inclined to be curious about how the world works when the infrastructure we are so dependent upon fails:

'Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book'

And even that takes for granted that some means of the old world will continue: wells to water gardens for example and its attendant electricity. Although she does give examples of people who water their gardens by buckets from streams. Streams that are REALLY CLOSE to their gardens.

Nonetheless, it's a good example of the work it takes to stay alive, even under optimum condtions.

[Wombaticus Rex]

And, for the record, technology IS hopeless. I'd read some Ran Prieur to get a good idea on that. Or Derrick Jensen.

read a lot of Ran Prieur which is how I got to meet him -- if I hadn't recognized the name, I would have ignored the opportunity. He was on a couch-surfing tour of the country that he organized on the internet, which brought him around the country to meet people who read his stuff, on the internet, and had gotten in touch with him on the internet to offer their hospitality. He was both injured and sick at the time so I didn't get to pick his brain much, and his bad mood gave his whole doom speech kind of a comic angle. I can't help it - pessimism is so cute, you know?

Derrick Jensen is another person who relies on the internet for their livelihood.

Both of them are also men who started out with the exact same thesis they wound up with. For a much more interesting anti-technology take, I'd highly recommend the work of Nicholas Carr, author of "The Shallows" -- and more generally, his book "The Big Switch" is one of the most fascinating histories of modern tech I've read.

Another technology apostate (rather than outsider critic) is Evgeny Morozov, who has been tearing apart the social media hype like a hawk for years, but he's really hit his stride in the aftermath of the so-called "Facebook Revolutions" and the "Arab Spring."

http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/blog/5386

As someone on both sides of the fence (raised activist Catholic liberal, converted to feral anarcho-primitivism, converted to post-everything cynicism, baptized into something far stranger) I find the critiques of Ran and Derrick to be pretty shallow, but that's a direct reflection of their knowledge and experience in the tech field. For instance, Jensen's book "Welcome to the Machine" was among the worst abortions I've read by anyone, and I am a certified Jensen fan.

If you're going to shit on the internet, you need experts.

[Saurian Tail]

I'm trying to point out, which I thought was obvious, that people are saying things like living simply or the internets will fix things, when it seems painfully obvious that this is far from the case.

Didn't Nordic say a couple posts ago that we all understand this? It is a specific rhetorical technique to state something that everyone agrees with and then create a false dilemma to force people to choose your particular conclusion.

Step 1: State something obvious

Step 2: Create a false dilemma (often unstated)

Step 3: State the conclusion that you want people to accept

Technology can't save us ... the only two choices we have is either technology can save us or it can't ... therefore since technology can't save us, people who pursue technological solutions to problems are wasting their time.

When someone points out your error in Step 2, it does nothing to strengthen your argument to simply keep repeating Step 1 over and over again. Is that clear enough?

Furthermore, when you simply ignore the error and bounce back and forth between premise and conclusion (cutting out the justification), you are using circular reasoning.

In a more rational world, I could point out the false dilemma error in Step 2 and you would either withdraw your point or find a way to restate it that is not a logical fallacy. But in this bizarro world that we live in people just continue on repeating "but technology can't save us ... can't you see that!!!" over and over until the other person gives up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

-ST

[Marie Laveau]

Create a false dilemma (often unstated)

Honestly. First of all I DID NOT "create a FALSE dilemma." It's a straight-up REAL dilemma, dude.

Secondly, the dilemma (not false) IS STATED!

Third: You have yet to directly addressed any of the CONCRETE DILEMMAS I have mentioned.

I know this plagerizing of the definition of logical deduction is intended to make you sound brilliant, but, since none of the things you are talking about applies to the REAL things I"m talking about, it does exactly the opposite.

And I don't give a shit if you accept my conclusion in the least. You are free to think the fairies are going to come and remove nuclear waste from the planet if you wish.

Or take care of any of the other issues confronting us that simple living won't solve in the least.

Not only that, you are totally free to continue to believe that some sort of technology will pop up to save the planet. But we're geting pretty close to needing it to pop up, you know?

Look, I'll say this again: I've lived for many years thinking my buying less and "living simply" and all the rest of the nice but pointless things we are TOLD will save the planet, WOULD save the planet. While at the same time ignoring the bulls in the china closet that those ridiculously simplistic things don't addresss in the least.

And to believe that scientists who are beholden to the system...oh, forget it...good grief. I can't believe I'm arguing about this.

[MinM]

.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity by Timothy Mitchell

JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power by John Newman

JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L Fletcher Prouty

One of the many not to get:

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

[operator kos]

The Shock Doctrine might about cover this, but does anyone have suggestions for an academic/well-researched book that explains well the crimes of the banking system? A critique of the Federal Reserve that doesn't come from a far-right libertarian perspective would be wonderful. As would the written equivalent of the movie "Inside Job".

[brekin]

This is a favorite. I've always considered it the
anti-Fountainhead. And if I were high school English
teacher I would have students read The Fountainhead
and then Captains and the Kings. It is definitely
a bit of an iconoclastic "How the World Really Works" entry.
A fat, pulpy, romantic relationship based view of
how "the system" creates certain people and they in
turn create it. I typed up her foreward below which would
probably sink any novel today but I guess back in the 70's
it was a bestseller and they even made a mini-series on
television from it that was very popular I guess.

Captains and the Kings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captains_and_the_Kings

Captains and the Kings is a 1972 historical novel by Taylor Caldwell chronicling the rise to wealth
and power of an Irish immigrant, Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh, who arrives penniless as a teenager in
the United States of America. An inter-generational saga focusing on the themes of the American dream,
discrimination and bigotry in American life, and of history as made by a cabal of the rich and powerful, it
was one of the top 10 best-sellers of 1972, as ranked by the New York Times Best Seller List. Caldwell
drew heavily on aspects of the Kennedy family, John D. Rockefeller and Howard Hughes.

The book was adapted into an eight part television miniseries by NBC in the 1976 broadcast season, starring
Richard Jordan, Charles Durning, Blair Brown, David Huffman, Patty Duke and a star laden supporting cast.
Duke won an Emmy Award for her performance. Jordan won a Golden Globe award and an Emmy nomination
for his performance. Burning was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Beverly D'Angelo made her debut.

From the 1972 foreword:

"This book is dedicated to the young people of America, who are rebelling because they know something is very
wrong in their country, but do not know just what it is. I hope this book will help to enlighten them.
There is not, to my knowledge any family like the "Armagh Family" in America, nor has there ever been, and all
characters, except those obviously historical, are my own invention. However, the historical background and the
political background of this novel are authentic. The "Committee for Foreign Studies" does indeed exist, today
as of yesterday, and so does the "Scardo Society," but not by these names.

There is indeed a "plot against the people," and probably always will be, for government has always been hostile
towards the governed. It is not a new story, and the conspirators and conspiracies have varied from era to era,
depending on the political and economic situation in their various countries.

But it was not until the era of the League of Just Men and Karl Marx that conspirators and conspiracies became
one, with one aim, one objective, and one determination. This has nothing to do with any "ideology" or form
of government, or ideals or "materialism" or any other catchphrases generously fed to the unthinking
masses. It has absolutely nothing to do with races or religions, for the conspirators are beyond what they
call "such trivialities." They are also beyond good and evil. The Caesars they put into power are their
creatures, whether they know it or not, and the peoples of all nations are helpless, whether they live
in America, Europe, Russia, China, Africa, or South America. They will always be helpless until they are
aware of their real enemy.

President John F. Kennedy knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the "Gnomes of Zurich."
Perhaps he knew too much! Coups d'etat are an old story, but they are now growing too numerous.
This is probably the last hour for mankind as a rational species, before it becomes the slave of a
"planned society." A bibliography ends this book, and I hope many of my readers will avail themselves
of the facts. That is all the hope I have.

Taylor Caldwell

[Elihu]

I think there's a small group of elite, most of whom we haven't a clue who they are, that are able to carry their wealth forward in secret.

Another hit for my latest bugaboo about Fascism being boring. It's really not that hard to sit down and make a list of these people. It's just boring. No aliens, no secrets...unsexy. Security through obscurity really does work despite Schneier's eloquent essays to the contrary.

http://thedailybell.com/3155/Break-up-t ... he-Vatican

The Rothschilds, for instance, along with other central banking families evidently and obviously run the BIS and other central banking paraphernalia. The Rothschilds virtually created Israel and built its Knesset and Supreme Court building, with all its Illuminati symbolism.

We are supposed to believe this family and others like them are mere bystanders – puppets of the corporations in which they actually hold massive private interests and actively run? Of course, our paradigm doesn't just include Jewish families. As many have noted (not always kindly) we believe that Jewish banking families are only part of the problem. There is industry and military involvement, too.

We have regularly noted religious involvement in the power elite as well. By religious involvement we mean the Black Church – the Jesuit-influenced movement toward one world government that is clearly part of the Church's current makeup.

The conspiracy to control the world, in fact, is housed in Rome, Israel, Washington, DC and most of all, London's City. Not surprisingly, three of these locations are in areas immune to the larger countries' laws and enforcement thereof. They are indeed a law unto themselves. contd...

[MinM]

http://www.amazon.com/Battling-Wall-Str ... 1879823101