Coming Crises

[Mr. D.]

Quote Originally Posted by paeng

I have been posting many links to news items about the following problems: 1. global warming 2. food shortages 3. water shortages 4. peak oil 5. epidemic 6. war 7. population increase and effects of these and connections between them. I thought I was the only one concerned until I visited some web logs of fellow admirers of Ligotti and saw the same. I wonder if there is a connection between Ligotti's works and concerns about such a future.

I'm sure that anyone who actually follows news (as opposed to soundbites and tv headlines) is concerned. The grim truth is that, if we have global warming, food shortages, water shortages, peak oil (where it's located we can't get at it anyway so the peak will be sooner than expected), epidemics and war, population increase is not likely to be much of a problem. However, with so many coastal areas unindated or subject to much more erosion, the surviving population will be on the move. Most of the worlds population lives close to the coast of some major body of water. They'll have to go somewhere else.
Also, much of the tropics will no longer be able to produce food. Avove a certain temperature most food items won't grow. The tropical regions of the world will be there soon. (I mean, VERY soon.) Will the governments of the developed countries in their alledged infinite wisdom use nuclear arms to keep the poor, starving masses from coming here? As bad as things are and will be there is no problem in the world that can't be dramatically worsened by someone in some government somewhere.
The solutions are actually very simple. As soon as possible cut out more than half of our coal and gasoline usage. (Coal is actually much worse than gas.) I'm not saying that it will be easy but it is simple and all of us can make a big difference. For example, I live in Los Angeles and I drive about 3,000 miles a year. Most of the folks out here drive 10 times that distance. Things like that add up and it is a personal sacrifice, but I'm still young enough to want a future. If the residents out here would move close to work and quit cruising the freeways our pollution and traffic problems would be solved and the price of gasoline would drop a dollar or so. Does any one out here listen to me? (No comment.)
The future isn't for cowards.

[Odalisque]

I note that the prospective Republican vice president is a creationist who thinks that the earth is only a few thousand years old and dinosaurs and people co-existed. While the One Million Years BC scenario is amusing, it's worrying that an assassin's bullet might elevate the seat of such ignorance to the presidency of the USA.

[Cyril Tourneur]

but pet, you can't deny the striking facts...

Wikipedia (Links)

Ica_stones

[Odalisque]

Those stones would be more convincing if they'd got Ray Harryhausen to do their special effects. ;)

[Mr. D.]

The locals who produce these stones did copy Ray Harryhousen at first, but as more vcrs and satellite dishes made their way into the rural parts of South American they tended more towards Jurassic Park. For a while it was quite a local industry but most people have gotten wise to the scam by now. It's a lot like the crystal skull craze used to be, but the same methods have shown it to be bogus.

[Dr. Bantham]

Quote Originally Posted by Cyril Tourneur

ahhh...a current debate, you know what my guess is in that latest standoff between the US and Russia? 1) i mean it's clear that this moronic georgian president received his orders by the US, and the russian crackdown was a 100% certain (and they were also prepared), though there won't be another cold war as neither the US or Russia can be interested in that...the US should concentrate on a) either China (it's biggest rival) or b) the muslim world...and the russians have problems in the interior, infrastructure and their industry in general; they may have ressources, but have to rely on the West to exploit them... so my assumption here is that the US administration wants to reestablish this illusion of the Russian threat to tie the Eastern European Countries closer to them and to support McCain who is an opponent of Russia (this faux look of Cold War clearly is an advantage for him against Obama) and in World Politics it's a deal between Russia and the US...it was totally clear in the beginning that the Russians would have never allowed Georgia in the NATO (which is senseless anyways)...so Georgia became a trade off, in the next weeks/months the US will set up strangling sanctions against Iran which will lead to a collapse in about 2 months as they totally depend on the outside world( the US Navy sends more and more ships to the Persian Gulf to blockade the coast> check the latest naval movements), and Russia will support these sanctions because they can't be interested in Iran becoming nuclear and the US will keep silent over Georgia, that's the deal...

I am as big a fan of conspiracy theory as the next paranoid delusional, however I feel that you are giving the Bush administration too much credit. They are far too incompetent to string together a cohesive strategy of global manipulation and misdirection. Instead, random fits of foreign policy meddling and overt distortion of reality prevail, sometimes allegedly misguided by the voice of God. Fortunately, my acute embarrassment of our country's performance on the global stage is overwhelmed by the numbing sensation of impending doom. As far as the scourge of existence goes, I honestly feel that we are as decent a batch of Homo sapiens as one could hope to brew from the gene pool of our species, though collectively we are quite spoiled and narrow-minded due to circumstantial conditioning that when given the chance all humans would likely succumb to. However, we do seem to be led by Neanderthals at the moment. Many apologies for that.

[Cyril Tourneur]

you know what's so fascinating about Neanderthals, in fact they had a bigger brain than the direct human ancestor (It’s somehow 'entertaining' to picture a group of people with big brains and poor communication skills living alongside another group that’s chattering away all the time with nonsense). Somewhere I read that they became extinct in the last glacial age, because they needed more nutrients for their bigger brain capacity than the Homo Sapiens:

Research by UK and American scientists has struck another blow to the theory that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) became extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens). The research team has shown that early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals. Published today (26 August) in the Journal of Human Evolution, their discovery debunks a textbook belief held by archaeologists for more than 60 years.
The team from the University of Exeter, Southern Methodist University, Texas State University, and the Think Computer Corporation, spent three years flintknapping (producing stone tools). They recreated stone tools known as 'flakes,' which were wider tools originally used by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and 'blades,' a narrower stone tool later adopted by Homo sapiens. Archaeologists often use the development of stone blades and their assumed efficiency as proof of Homo sapiens' superior intellect. To test this, the team analysed the data to compare the number of tools produced, how much cutting-edge was created, the efficiency in consuming raw material and how long tools lasted.


Blades were first produced by Homo sapiens during their colonization of Europe from Africa approximately 40,000 years ago. This has traditionally been thought to be a dramatic technological advance, helping Homo sapiens out-compete, and eventually eradicate, their Stone Age cousins. Yet when the research team analysed their data there was no statistical difference between the efficiency of the two technologies. In fact, their findings showed that in some respects the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were more efficient than the blades adopted by Homo sapiens.

The Neanderthals, believed to be a different species from Homo sapiens, evolved in Ice Age Europe, while the latter evolved in Africa before spreading out to the rest of the world around 50-40,000 years ago. Neanderthals are thought to have died out around 28,000 years ago, suggesting at least 10,000 years of overlap and possible interaction between the two species in Europe.

Many long-held beliefs suggesting why the Neanderthals went extinct have been debunked in recent years. Research has already shown that Neanderthals were as good at hunting as Homo sapiens and had no clear disadvantage in their ability to communicate. Now, these latest findings add to the growing evidence that Neanderthals were no less intelligent than our ancestors.

Metin Eren, an MA Experimental Archaeology student at the University of Exeter and lead author on the paper comments: "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens were more advanced than Neanderthals. It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived. Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other. When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' and more in terms of 'different.'"

Now that it is established that there is no technical advantage to blades, why did Homo sapiens adopt this technology during their colonization of Europe? The researchers suggest that the reason for this shift may be more cultural or symbolic. Eren explains: "Colonizing a continent isn't easy. Colonizing a continent during the Ice Age is even harder. So, for early Homo sapiens colonizing Ice Age Europe, a new shared and flashy-looking technology might serve as one form of social glue by which larger social networks were bonded. Thus, during hard times and resource droughts these larger social networks might act like a type of 'life insurance,' ensuring exchange and trade among members on the same 'team.'"

The University of Exeter is the only university in the world to offer a degree course in Experimental Archaeology. This strand of archaeology focuses on understanding how people lived in the past by recreating their activities and replicating their technologies. Eren says: "It was only by spending three years in the lab learning how to physically make these tools that we were able to finally replicate them accurately enough to come up with our findings."

Citation: Are Upper Paleolithic blade cores more productive than Middle Paleolithic discoidal cores? A replication experiment is published by Elsevier, in the Journal of Human Evolution. Authors: Metin I. Eren, Aaron Greenspan, C. Garth Sampson.

Source: University of Exeter

[SwansSoilMe/SwansSaveMe]

I'm very interested to know what if anything TL has to say about conspiracy theories or facts. Say, about the ever-beloved Illuminati, to go right to the top. Or would the top be Reptilian masters in charge of bloodlines and such, as per David Icke? Dr. Beter's robotoids? As mundane as the Fed (Money Masters)?

Tom's Conspiracy-- book and the fact he's written on spec for X Files leads me to think he might have an opinion worth sharing. Dr. Bantham, could you invite some statement from him? Philosophically speaking...? Psychologically...?

[G. S. Carnivals]

Quote Originally Posted by Cyril Tourneur

I rode a triceratops before I mastered balance and learned to ride a two-horned beast. Considering the accelerating pace of my recent drinking regimen, I may revert to riding a rhinoceros with training wheels - but only if the horn works. Look out! Look out! Get out of my way!

Arrested for driving while blind,
Phil

...

[Dr. Bantham]

Quote Originally Posted by SwansSoilMe/SwansSaveMe

I'm very interested to know what if anything TL has to say about conspiracy theories or facts. Say, about the ever-beloved Illuminati, to go right to the top. Or would the top be Reptilian masters in charge of bloodlines and such, as per David Icke? Dr. Beter's robotoids? As mundane as the Fed (Money Masters)? Tom's Conspiracy-- book and the fact he's written on spec for X Files leads me to think he might have an opinion worth sharing. Dr. Bantham, could you invite some statement from him? Philosophically speaking...? Psychologically...?

I have not communicated with Tom for some time now, but do plan on doing so over the coming holiday. I will make a mental note to bring this subject up in the correspondence. Anyone care to wager their public speculation on what his response might be?