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doomedandstoned · 3 years

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Cave of Swimmers Reach Epic Heights in Infectious New Spinner ‘Aurora’

~Review by Billy Goate~

Album Art by Brian Olson

I've always said that given the right circumstances (say a good set of professional ears lodged in influential places) that CAVE OF SWIMMERS would be a sensation. Why? Because they've got all the right stuff to really connect with people at a time when heavy music has been simmering underground, well-past ready for a fresh outburst. Hamstrung by lockdowns, financial burdens, and fear aplenty, we're ready to dust off our air guitars and party like it's 1987 again (incidentally, the year I first discovered heavy music). I'm not alone in speculating that we're in for another Roaring Twenties, not unlike the carefree days that followed the last global pandemic. And it's precisely this kind of energetic vibe, with its unique Latin-meets-metal flavor, that is ripe and ready to rock 'n' revel to!

Hell, we've not heard a sound this contagious since, well, maybe Sepultura -- and that was another animal entirely. With that said, Cave of Swimmers are very much metal to the core. And oh what a crowd-rousing live show Guillermo Gonzalez (guitar, synth, vox) and Arturo Garcia (drums, backing vox) can put on! I was there when Cave of Swimmers energized a hung-over and droopy mob gathered 'round The Vinyl Stage at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, lo those many years ago at the inaugural Psycho Las Vegas.

Doomed & Stoned · The Doomed & Stoned Show - The Cave Of Swimmers Special

All that and they have an appealing back story: two friends whose families relocated to Florida amidst tumultuous circumstances in Venezuela. As teenagers, Arturo and Guillermo grew up idolizing bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica and now they've crafted a fantastic, original style of their own, with wicked guitar play and grandiose vocals built atop a rhythmic array that is simultaneously feverish and suave, with choruses that are imminently singable. Stream their latest LP at least twice through and I can predict which lines you'll be humming at work and crowing in the shower at the top of your lungs.

When the band burst upon the scene in 2013 with Cave of Swimmers, I remember the community sharing it like mad. From "Materia" onward to their incredible namesake anthem, it was as if the Latin Candlemass had emerged from the salty Atlantic to enthrall crowds like some kind of warbling Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Cave of Swimmers by CAVE OF SWIMMERS

Their music-making only got better from there. 2015 gifted us with a second EP, Reflection, featuring a song I have no doubt will one day be a doom metal standard, "Prince of the Power of the Air". I'm telling you, the Psycho crowd went stompin' nuts when they heard those quasi-Biblical lyrics sung in epic doom fashion accompanied by that stern guitar tone, leading up to an incredible solo, and then a delirious second-half, which made everyone dance (whether we wanted to or not). It's infectious, like I said. I'm telling you, this sound cannot be matched. And I'm convinced it will not be stopped, either.

Reflection by CAVE OF SWIMMERS

2021 is Cave of Swimmer's year to ascend, for thus saith the Prophet that dwelleth atop the Rocks on High! Pandemic or no, it was this duo's time to release the material that had been welling up inside of them for so long. I guess we can call this their first LP, even though every spin so far has felt sufficiently hefty to refer to as a full-length. Six songs clocking in at over 30 minutes -- it's the band's next stepping stone in their journey from the recording studio into your earbuds and mine.

Aurora by CAVE OF SWIMMERS

'Aurora' (2021) plays like the first songbird of spring, if you'll indulge my idyllic wording for a moment. It's just so full of earnestness, life, and yes joy. Three things that we've been longing for in the midst of so much treachery and nihilistic despair. Hell, I consider myself something of a nihilist, but this band melts away my grim pessimism. It's all encapsulated in the thrashy, downtuned attack married to a kind of urgent Latin vibe that says "We've got one night left to live, let's die with a smile!"

After an atmospheric introduction that foreshadows material still to come, we're treated to "The Sun," which the band released as a single awhile back. I remember telling them at the time, "You guys should be huge." I meant it with all my heart, too. Certainly, this isn't watered down pop music fare, yet I think the average heavy music listener will find it wholly accessible. I'd put this Cave of Swimmers neck-and-neck with any Top 50 touring metal act, based on this track alone. Maybe I'm just enamored of their sound and being less than objective. So sue me.

Next up: "Double Rainbow," which is a kind of resurrection of optimism. Hope for a new and better tomorrow. "Forget the hate, forget the scene, forget the life of complacency," Guillermo sings. "A second arc, new scenery, our time is here. Don’t let it go! When I hear it, I too want to believe." It's a message that's especially important for us to convey to the next generation of rockers and metalheads, lest they be weighed down by our own disillusionment and mistakes. This is a song that encourages that that brash, foolhardy youthful joie de vivre and its power to change the status quo.

"My Human" opens up with a burst of syncopated guitar that reminds me of something Tom Morello likes to cook up, but its mere window dressing for a song that develops into something purely Cave of Swimmers. A single melodic line of epic singing accented by a soft layer of synthesizer lays out the verse, followed by one headbanger of a chorus. It's a song about companionship and the consolation that we can have in one another, if we will only open ourselves up long enough to being truly human. To give and in turn receive. It also seems to speak of a hope beyond this life, at least in some ethereal, metaphysical sense.

"Looking Glass'' unloads a spitfire of "Say hello to my little friend!" style riffage that rips open into a chorus I could definitely take with me to salsa lessons, if I were to dare return. Remind me to tell you about the time I accidently cracked a partner's nose with my elbow while trying to pull off one of those fancy turn-and-swing maneuvers. Sigh. Some of us have no rhythm, whatsoever. But I recognize a good slam-dancing song when I hear it!

Which leads me to talk "Dirt." Much more gritty than its predecessors, accompanied by a spooky synth of the kind Rob Zombie or Acid Witch are apt to toy with. Even as the mood turns grim, it's a foot shuffler nonetheless. And there's no denying the power of those soaring, falconesque vocals. Guillermo seems capable of transporting listeners to a higher plane of consciousness. Good thing, too, because the message is that we've all been living in our mental prisons for far too long, reinforced by "pride and ego trips."

Billions of us Where are we going to? Chasing our tails around the sun Bleeding our hearts Divided and conquered, too Buy us for sale at the dollar store Raised like pigs on dirt

It's time to break free. The song ends with a section of flamenco-style guitar executed with deft classical technique. It reminded me a bit of Psychroptic's "Euphorinasia" -- another song that makes brilliant use of acoustic guitar.

"C.S." is Cave of Swimmer's swan song -- a send-back to their earliest work. Their reprisal reminds me of something Metallica would do. There's a certain "Nothing Else Matters" mood about it all. Then out of nowhere, a spurt of volcanic riffage and mad drumming breaks out into a Gojiraesque hoe-down. Oh yes, and there's another celebratory trve metal guitar solo lodged in there juxtaposed with complex rhythmic percussion.

I'm telling you, Cave of Simmers cannot be beat. The game belongs to them. Their time is now. Give ear...

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#D&S Reviews #Cave of Swimmers #Miami #Florida #thrash #metal #doom metal #epic doom #heavy rock #Doomed and Stoned

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the-cyberpunk-zeitgeist · 4 years

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The Cyberpunk Zeitgeist

>>>𝕄𝕜𝕕𝕚𝕣 "𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪"...

>>>ℂ𝕕 "𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪"

>>>𝔻𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕙𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕕.𝕖𝕩𝕖...

>>>𝔻𝕠𝕨𝕟𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕜𝕝𝕖𝕡𝕥.𝕖𝕩𝕖...

>>>ℝ𝕦𝕟 𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪.𝕖𝕩𝕖...

>>>𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 <𝕝𝕠𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘-𝕗𝕒𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕕:

"𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪.𝕙" 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕>

>>>𝔼𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕣 𝕞𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕘𝕖: "ℂ𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪.𝕖𝕩𝕖. 𝕎𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕚𝕥."

>>>...

Flash into the past and look into the future. Recall the early stages of the digital age—the new millennium—and how, at the precipice of a thousand transformations, civilization was defined by its endless climbing innovation. In the 80’s and 90’s, when consumer use of the personal computer was infecting society like a virus, our entire idea of communication changed. The net became a pivotal point in shaping what it meant to be human. Through an ever-expanding web of information, human innovation seemed to spiral until promising “authorship over reality itself”. Those who felt constrained by the world, escaped into a fractal space with infinite possibilities of connecting with others.

Douglas Rushkoff termed it ‘Cyberia’—a dreamlike place offering “a way to crack open our civilization’s closed-mindedness, and to allow for a millennial transition that offered something a lot better than apocalypse: consciously driven evolution”, but the mesmerizing unity in this newfound cyberscape didn’t last. What followed—what we see around us now—may lead us to believe that all is lost, but perhaps there’s something more than war, corporate politics, espionage. Perhaps, there still exist some humans among us interested in a higher cause: unlocking the mysteries.

While the net was first adopted solely by military personnel and groups of scientists across academia who saw fit to interconnect themselves for research and communication purposes, it soon fell into the hands of the geeks using hypertext forums to discuss niche hobbies or send pictures to one another. The net became a mystic place of interlocking minds, where interconnected collections of data contributed to the neural network of humans that composed a global brain. As this paradise aged, however, the desire of investors to monetize and capitalize from the cyberscape arose alongside it. Advertisements flooded the web; businesses sprung up in every forum, website, and chat client. It wasn’t long into the 21st century that the nature of the web was forever molded by a greed to optimize its use for social credit, capital, and leverage for everything from corporate intelligence, to data harvesting, to control and censorship of media. The symbol of freedom and exploration was thus transformed into a stratified market and a subversive survival game. It’s all so… Cyberpunk.

In the 80’s and 90’s, alongside the rise of computers and the net, came the rise of Cyberpunk literature—a sci-fi subgenre defined by its retro aesthetics intermixed with contrasting commentary that showed us the wonders of new technology while simultaneously revealing the deep divide that emerged as a result of inequality. Pioneers like William Gibson in Neuromancer, Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, and Katsuhiro Otomo in Akira revealed the true impact of this divide. In a world where everyone in the streets is chromed up with augmented cybernetic prostheses, but can still hardly afford to eat—a world where cities have been replaced by endlessly sprawling megalopoli—we’re left immersed in the aesthetics of ‘high tech-low life’ people struggling to get by.

Cyberpunk showed sci-fi fans what it might look like if kleptocratic corporations spiralled further and further into the power vacuum created by advancing technology. If caution and regulation aren’t put in place to protect the people from marvelous creations that humanity could hardly predict outside of science fiction, the people are further exploited and economic classes are further stratified. When this is combined with life-threatening dangers around every corner, the difference between economic class can mean life and death.

While the additional flourishes of weapons-grade cyborgs, sentient and sentimental artificial intelligence, and laser guns can make Cyberpunk seem like a farfetched reach into a future that will never come, I am here to tell you that this is Society, and we are living in it. Around the world, rising sea levels begin to swallow more of the coastline, and megafires consume any shred of nature or infrastructure in their path. Both of these events are spurred by human-driven climate change which is created in large part by first-world corporations churning out fossil fuels or slicing up rainforests for profit. The global hivemind that is the internet has become the limitless communications apparatus we wanted it to be, but it is covered in adverts and subverts its users attempts to harness its power with misinformation, propaganda, and profit-driven exclusive content. Riots over authoritarian state measures have propped up not only in the United States, but in Hong Kong, Belarus, and all across the globe. Pandemic disease and refugee crises displace hundreds of thousands of humans each year, and the rich keep getting richer by the billions.

In more recent Cyberpunk writing like William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Gibson describes the Jackpot:

And first of all that it was no one thing. That is was multicausal, with no particular beginning and no end. More a climate than an event, so not the way apocalypse stories liked to have a big event, after which everybody ran around with guns… or else were eaten alive by something that caused the big event. Not like that.

It was androgenic… that meant because of people. Not that they’d known what they were doing, had meant to make problems, but they’d caused it anyway. And in fact the actual climate, the weather, caused by there being too much carbon, had been the driver for a lot of other things. How that got worse and never better, and was just expected to, ongoing. Because people in the past, clueless as to how that worked, had fucked it all up, then not been able to get it together to do anything about it, even after they knew, and now it was too late.

...it killed 80 percent of every last person alive, over about forty years.

Jackpot. The repercussions of humanity’s actions finally catch up, and those bits of humanity that do remain are saved by an extreme surge in innovation that manages to save society’s elites. As Douglas Rushkoff puts it in his recent essay The Privileged Have Entered Their Escape Pods, more and more of those who have the capital to do so have already begun their plans, whether those plans are to escape to Mars or to set themselves up with a cushy work-from-home job while the lower class workers are forced into the public during the pandemic crisis. The need to automate away positions for the safety of our species is becoming even more prevalent than it once was in the minds of corporate conglomerates, but the cancerous overgrowth of our bureaucracy has become so bloated and tripped up in its own processes that we can no longer look to our political systems to keep up with the exploitation of innovation. Lo and behold, the world’s looking pretty CPAF to me.

Where have the visions of Cyberia gone? What happened to the early stages of internet punks, pushed aside in their desire to surf the datasphere purely for the rush of uncovering swathes of data? Where did visions of “authorship over reality itself” twist to become ‘authorship over reality by those with the capital to control’? It may seem that this explosive spiral of technological innovation in the new millennium is driving us towards extinction and only saving those with enough coins in their pockets to buy a ticket on the ark, but perhaps it’s not too late to change course and save ourselves from the ultimate Jackpot.

United by the global nature of the net, every one of us is connected as a single living entity that is the Earth—a Technogaia. Developments in artificial intelligence promises us exponential increase in information processing capabilities across all fields. Breakthroughs in genetic engineering could allow us to delete diseases from our genomes, and have already shown minor success in the de-extinction of species. With the first cyborg part already installed in each of our pockets, every citizen can extend their minds beyond capacity; each one of us becomes a journalist at a moment’s notice when injustice needs to be documented and challenged. Nuclear, hydrogen, solar, and wind energy lead us towards a cleaner and greener future. The rise of urban ecology shows a path to optimize the use of space to lower humanity’s carbon impact while providing more space for habitat rehabilitation and the reintroduction of lost biodiversity.

In the palm of our hands, humanity has taken control of the world. With science and technology, we’ve become the manipulators, but if we do not recognize what our impact is on the Dao of Earth, we may tip the scales too far into the Chaos. I’ll be honest in saying things look grim, but these same innovations that have paved the way for flying killbots and smoke stacks spewing gases into the sky have given us the power to reshape the world in a beneficial image. Futurist politicians call for universal basic income in a world increasingly run by machines. Transhumanists pave the way for the radical extension of the human lifespan. Technogaians design solarpunk arcologies to house a society ready to save their Earth rather than one intent on consuming it. Cyberians fight for our rights to privacy and the freedom of information. Just as the visions of grim dystopias in the 80's and 90’s saw themselves transformed into modern realities, we can use humanity’s greatest tool—this near-deific domain over innovation—to mold this fractal reality into our vision. But is it chaos, order, or some harmonious Dao in between that we seek?

No matter our choice, it’s going to take a lot of united high tech-low life cyberpunks to get there. This is the Cyberpunk Zeitgeist, and we’re living it.

For more works by The Cyberpunk Zeitgeist, see our Twitter page @CyborgZeitgeist

#cyberpunk #sci-fi #science #environment #technology

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rwmhunt · 3 years

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Leviticus, Chapter 22

1. Lo, for That I cannot prosecute my thoughts; I needst here cultivate caution- Then put a hold unto my options, That I cannot challenge him. Any source of information, That be of an admixture truth, And of an admixture untruth, is of a danger, Did you know that? Humbly needst I move toward diamonds and gold's Otherwise-useless demarkation on worth; My face must stay its specter in clay, For it is my career; That I can say: It is mine.

2. Thus, to Aaron, gold and diamonds Bringeth ignominy and unwarranted power; Strewth, they are only much use for The rings of your finger; So let alone the past, Which you mark As a messed up place, How then, is this the valid Strategy for the future? Lo, let us divide and game.

3. Increase the paywall; Holy things are ringing in changes; You are the visitor here- I'd like to take the time To consciously consider you so, for We have reached besmircher's cutoff. It's me, mark it; and Either I am a negative nebulae Of unimaginable everything, And you are a little golden bull, Or you are a negative nebulae Of unimaginable everything, And I am a little golden bull;

4. But know that I shall not give you the word For the thought-track down which You might draw the line Of asymetry, such, That you wouldst know How to rend a perfect opposition To go between. And whosoever soweth dead seeds Among young female researchers Hath faileth the épreuve- It shalln’t do for thy running issue, Moreover, those women who are of Quite senior position and are doing it Unto the coercive nature of such a power's New destruction of ability to focus, As unto the camp's commander, With how Peleg begat Reu; Well, it might be enough to get you pregnant, But wait, where am I going with this?

5. Worm touchers, Creepy pressers, Come, come, observers, Keep from that strange creature; Don't be giving unto me None of thy screaming abdabs; I think on you, Pig dressed as a clown, Eructing unto, then drawing forth A near-entire white, plastic fork; And know you not how this came to me- Lo, it came up with a sequence of items that appeared Not unlike balls of meat, Furred, wistfully, in a grey cowl of reactionary mucus; A kind of veil, a barrier, in effect, Penetratable, at any point, But equally real as a barrier, Gainst our otherwise passive environs, Such as be the diffusion of inert thoughts, or spores, murky, and maintaining of a human resource, I liked to thrill it- The direct and immediate livid relationship Between a font of funding and a media event, O, harmless dalliance of the stationary cupboard- You are knowingly walking, As against your will, A wrong into the carpet, Within the tent of meaning.

6. Looking up to see God's face in the moon, Or whatever it was That can't be drawn, And I won't be drawn; His hands he filled with moisture and His own was sent for ablution Into the improvised basin. So denieth all such allegation Through the washing of thy soule, Clean off; so sloughed away, Away with the diminishing liquid.

7. Sundown with the unseen Woman's leverage on the situation- if you should find a way to redress balance, So she gaineth a bit more power in some manner, Then so what? it was no loss. A new deal, And the bill shall embolden survivors.

8. Positions of power shall have of a hard time In recognizing the coercive nature of that power Within an unbridled relationship; Things that die 'Of themselves', Or are yet rent by nature's horn, Are defiled; while I, a malign influence, lie with my soul distracted; Oh lord, but I've been swallowed by narrative, And tried to keep it communal, Inside and outside; As you are.

9. Pit stop- The horror is the fact; The horror it unfolds Through legions of would-bes Without a meter, like me, Who have applied, Will apply, in perpetuity; Just do it, Or die; if then, As I am still.

10. The individual is always Hedging toward A private business model. Attention-seeking shalln't be of sin, no! Tis sensible, keep with a forward optioning- That's why i tell you, Soujerners and servents, Who art sent to the concession to collect me my messages- My tutu is a Fendi, And my codpiece is a Bosch. We live unto a roaring attention economy. But you're not up to it. I've given them a tomato one, And also I gave them a spaghetti- We struggle to attune to where I'm compelled- Ourselves, as groups, who feel of themselves As blunted against their lack in deserved attention, Because it is a powerful, a dangerous feeling.

11. So eat souls As paid for with a priest's money, On escrow, attention Has always been currency Though rendered unimaginable Since the falling-away of the gold-standard, As was borne unto the tent of meaning, Where every page has a piece carved out, To house an advert's grab For égards; No space is secure, For security hath put an advert thither.

12. Jade lock, To knock the donald offline, So unto a stranger, Gone off to scavenge, The framers that frame themselves As refuges for free-expression Shall be rent at the fringes, forcing A redirection, away from my personal kingdom.

13. But should she go prodigal, Whosoever you are, Howeverso you might express thyself, You may now have a crack at a global audience, With incentives and disproportionate benefits Offered unto the most shameless, The demand of each to pay what scarce attention Might be rendered unto others, To get some fraction of this nominally limited resource, As unto yourself alone. Such are these poor weapons, An oversharing, That, essayed to the personal, Stretcheth my nancy stories To breaking.

O Marigold, I was bad At that, in the territories of fandom, As forced to return Unto the track over and again- Such was my leaky comprehension; Only apparent to me in the afterward, And now, I cannot say I am better.

14. Whence, Enroute from the concession Shouldst be eaten of the item Without, thence, So anguished in the relish, Thou giveth a fifth Of the holy thing; So that the leg shall grow A starfish, whole . Then let us bend our dark tubers towards, And look the knot, as in at an eye-

15. What's gold and glitter, But to mock a toom, And maketh of myself A symbolic same, Wrought as an aesthetic echt; Where diplomacy is weak, The aesthetic be yet The sole portal unto The conveyance of meaning; Verily, here, that I keep within The aesthetic of thought Whereby action is always y, You are i, and The antagonist be markated x; Where holy might only Fall down to one's discretion, You should've known That I wouldst be so solid.

16. Or suffer them to bear the enquiry of trespass, Felt as an information glut, Whilst eating of their holy orders, Found relishing within the anguish, And those who want it, Want it as much as they can get it, And there is more access than can be vaunted, For, in an attention economy, one is never not on. Yes, me. O the guilt.

17. Attention is akin to the spirit; That it be vital but conventionally invisible, And thus, think not very much upon it, But unto whom, being unable to share A simple encounter with it, Wouldst soon become an artifice of torture.

18. Tell Aaron et al ensundry, To take up of stock with sarcastic markets, Sarcastic markets and I, impunity; The sacrifice of your own will I hand you freely; or no; T'was never yours to oblate, But sacrifice thy quasi-will, As will thee, Which is mine, against The short hedge, Thus maketh me of a currency exchange.

19. And an haut stud dost thou, unto me, weasels? By your whimsically free-will sacrificing? How charmingly lame. I sense Actors at play, in a very long game Of grooming the disaffected- Call me my boys in- then Send a lie to the long deceiver, To use the ruse, in turn, like poison, For to wish you that which upon may be Enabling unto the benefit of thine enemy.

20. It's no hambone, No hobbling billy- If he tells or interferes I'll fill the well in; its Prophets in stocks and neck-irons time, Else tolerate such increasingly radical agendas Of such gleefully uninhibited platforms as Where followers might laugh At biblical memes and opine such as- 'I'd rather do drama than a play, where, You can't say, really, What you want to say.' Go long, my cowhands, go long.

21. And peace is a sacrifice Of the streaming platform, while Attention has always been currency, Same. Our abilities to pay heed are limited; Not so our abilities to theoretically receive of it; No need to adequately substantiate If you can bamboozle With all the time in the world, Ka-pow-ka, ching-ching, da-da, Badoo-daboo-baday; Trust-modesty, yay, verily. Humility is hard to sustain In an attention economy. I only see me accelerating.

22. Blind, broken, maimed; Cankered, scurvied, wan with the wen, Thus, by my lights, The fault shall be displaced, Be it cleaned or weeping, Tis a no-no, get me another. Such was The schism that fractured the donald, Sent out to extend a tortured metaphor, Became too much of a liability To be held in high office- But if the stranger doesn't come, After all the things I’ve done for him,

23. Well, it's alright for a free-will offering Which you feel compelled to go along with, But it's not good enough for a vow offering As be brought unto online-influencer culture, And it might be enough to get you pregnant But it shan't be enough to stir my interest- I require an extreme case of humility, Whereby a person giveth his all to a presence so completely selfish As to serveth no other purpose. It's me.

24. But the reality is far less complicated than Moses, Hiding his damage behind a veil of linked-up back-channels, Recoiling at what his fellow hardcore moderators attempt to oblate; Too engrossed within the tents to consider anything outwith While hoping the whole doesn’t spin out of control.

25. Corruption is in them, strangers, Bethinks, flooding an affiliated image board So thoroughly that it becometh abomination. Here increaseth the shamelessness of wanton Allegation, terror co-option of a social platform, which struck with the rise of a reality magik-vision, Alike as came unto a mid-80s index of abundance, Shewn running away whilst attempting to make focus On the ever-deterioratingly indistinct Object of the distancing, that It’s only when, at stopping to think about it, That the understand can be ascertained as to quite how rife it is.

26. Here, he left a passing message for Those who might collectively commandeer: Abide by life; that, if, then, I wouldn't be here.

27. Debates about amplification And attention-hijacking form a Siege mentality Of the corrupted Federal Apparatus- For seven days beneath the dam, As then a fire spiralled further Toward a more outlandish means Of unconstitutional civic theatre,

28. Whereby a calfling must be made to last The night and know it's mother As having died before slaughter; So the community Moved in after it went dark, Enjoining, then modulating, then killing off, And now Your complexes are all cooked in, Deeply infringing upon the weirds of others.

29. So must you make sacrifice To your very free will, As to common patriotic causes, Or else be sieged Within the corrupt Federal Apparatus.

30. The fundamental thing is: You cant escape my attention economy; Eat everything now, For nothing shall be saved, And this same day shall be Until tomorrow; when again, it's me.

31. Lo, and you must; it's me, remember? But by now all this blood and all this law Was affecting them, as had long been within their dream, Where they have their own rules, quirks and cultures, Which they ignore at your peril; Where environments play out upon a knife-edge, And attention might simply be a lens Through which to read the events of the moment While running away.

32. Herein, power shall not be trusted To recognize affiliated abuses of power; Yet, check, however, before Redirecting such missives from my personal kingdom, For lo, there shall be nonesuch insubordination, As might mitigate against, for I shall be hallowed; Me me me me, So you;

33. Thus, I lay my notional claim Unto my servant-leadership- as bang, That brought you out of the land, Didn't it? Akhenaten to me. So Leviticus stood at The simply-inflated Size of Capitalism, To whom, hereto, On a bench they'd built Between themselves, Be here, thisway, is addressing- 'Imagine; You have been wrong For a long long time now.'

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argyrocratie · 5 years

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The revolt of life against science

In their existing organisation, monopolising science and remaining thus outside of social life, the savants form a separate caste, in many respects analogous to the priesthood. Scientific abstractions is their God, living and real individuals are their victims, and they are the consecrated and licensed sacrificers.

Science cannot go outside of the sphere of abstractions. In this respect it is infinitely inferior to art, which, in its turn, is peculiarly concerned also with general types and general situations, but which incarnates them by an artifice of its own in forms which, if they are not living in the sense of real life none the less excite in our imagination the memory and sentiment of life; art in a certain sense individualizes the types and situations which it conceives; by means of the individualities without flesh and bone, and consequently permanent and immortal, which it has the power to create, it recalls to our minds the living, real individualities which appear and disappear under our eyes. Art, then, is as it were the return of abstraction to life; science, on the contrary, is the perpetual immolation of life, fugitive, temporary, but real, on the altar of eternal abstractions.

Science is as incapable of grasping the individuality of a man as that of a rabbit, being equally indifferent to both. Not that it is ignorant of the principle of individuality: it conceives it perfectly as a principle, but not as a fact. It knows very well that all the animal species, including the human species, have no real existence outside of an indefinite number of individuals, born and dying to make room for new individuals equally fugitive. It knows that in rising from the animal species to the superior species the principle of individuality becomes more pronounced; the individuals appear freer and more complete. It knows that man, the last and most perfect animal of earth, presents the most complete and most remarkable individuality, because of his power to conceive, concrete, personify, as it were, in his social and private existence, the universal law. It knows, finally, when it is not vitiated by theological or metaphysical, political or judicial doctrinairisme, or even by a narrow scientific pride, when it is not deaf to the instincts and spontaneous aspirations of life-- it knows (and this is its last word) that respect for man is the supreme law of Humanity, and that the great, the real object of history, its only legitimate object is the humanization and emancipation, the real liberty, the prosperity and happiness of each individual living in society. For, if we would not fall back into the liberticidal fiction of the public welfare represented by the State, a fiction always founded on the systematic sacrifice of the people, we must clearly recognize that collective liberty and prosperity exist only so far as they represent the sum of individual liberties and prosperities.

Science knows all these things, but it does not and cannot go beyond them. Abstraction being its very nature, it can well enough conceive the principle of real and living individuality, but it can have no dealings with real and living individuals; it concerns itself with individuals in general, but not with Peter or James, not with such or such a one, who, so far as it is concerned, do not, cannot, have any existence. Its individuals, I repeat, are only abstractions.

Now, history is made, not by abstract individuals, but by acting, living and passing individuals. Abstractions advance only when borne forward by real men. For these beings made, not in idea only, but in reality of flesh and blood, science has no heart: it considers them at most as material for intellectual and social development. What does it care for the particular conditions and chance fate of Peter or James? It would make itself ridiculous, it would abdicate, it would annihilate itself, if it wished to concern itself with them otherwise than as examples in support of its eternal theories. And it would be ridiculous to wish it to do so, for its mission lies not there. It cannot grasp the concrete; it can move only in abstractions. Its mission is to busy itself with the situation and the general conditions of the existence and development, either of the human species in general, or of such a race, such a people, such a class or category of individuals; the general causes of their prosperity, their decline, and the best general methods of securing, their progress in all ways. Provided it accomplishes this task broadly and rationally, it will do its whole duty, and it would be really unjust to expect more of it.

But it would be equally ridiculous, it would be disastrous to entrust it with a mission which it is incapable of fulfilling. Since its own nature forces it to ignore the existence of Peter and James, it must never be permitted, nor must anybody be permitted in its name, to govern Peter and James. For it were capable of treating them almost as it treats rabbits. Or rather, it would continue to ignore them; but its licensed representatives, men not at all abstract, but on the contrary in very active life and having very substantial interests, yielding to the pernicious influence which privilege inevitably exercises upon men, would finally fleece other men in the name of science, just as they have been fleeced hitherto by priests, politicians of all shades, and lawyers, in the name of God, of the State, of judicial Right.

What I preach then is, to a certain extent, the revolt of life against science, or rather against the government of science, not to destroy science-that would be high treason to humanity-but to remand it to its place so that it can never leave it again. Until now all human history has been only a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstraction-God, country, power of State, national honor, historical rights, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare. Such has been up to today the natural, spontaneous, and inevitable movement of human societies. We cannot undo it; we must submit to it so far as the past is concerned, as we submit to all natural fatalities. We must believe that that was the only possible way, to educate the human race. For we must not deceive ourselves: even in attributing the larger part to the Machiavellian wiles of the governing classes, we have to recognize that no minority would have been powerful enough to impose all these horrible sacrifices upon the masses if there had not been in the masses themselves a dizzy spontaneous movement which pushed them on to continual self-sacrifice, now to one, now to another of these devouring abstractions the vampires of history ever nourished upon human blood.

We readily understand that this is very gratifying, to the theologians, politicians, and jurists. Priests of these abstractions, they live only by the continual immolation of the people. Nor is it more surprising that metaphysics too, should give its consent. Its only mission is to justify and rationalize as far as possible the iniquitous and absurd. But that positive science itself should have shown the same tendencies is a fact which we must deplore while we establish it. That it has done so is due to two reasons: in the first place, because, constituted outside of life, it is represented by a privileged body; and in the second place, because thus far it has posited itself as an absolute and final object of all human development. By a judicious criticism, which it can and finally will be forced to pass upon itself, it would understand, on the contrary, that it is only a means for the realization of a much higher object-that of the complete humanization of the real situation of all the real individuals who are born, who live, and who die, on earth.

The immense advantage of positive science over theology, metaphysics, politics, and judicial right consists in this-that, in place of the false and fatal abstractions set up by these doctrines, it posits true abstractions which express the general nature and logic of things, their general relations, and the general laws of their development. This separates it profoundly from all preceding doctrines, and will assure it for ever a great position in society: it will constitute in a certain sense society's collective consciousness. But there is one aspect in which it resembles all these doctrines: its only possible object being abstractions, it is forced by its very nature to ignore real men, outside of whom the truest abstractions have no existence. To remedy this radical defect positive science will have to proceed by a different method from that followed by the doctrines of the past. The latter have taken advantage of the ignorance of the masses to sacrifice them with delight to their abstractions, which by the way, are always very lucrative to those who represent them in flesh and bone. Positive science, recognizing its absolute inability to conceive real individuals and interest itself in their lot, must definitely and absolutely renounce all claim to the government of societies; for if it should meddle therein, it would only sacrifice continually the living men whom it ignores to the abstractions which constitute the sole object of its legitimate preoccupations.

The true science of history, for instance, does not yet exist; scarcely do we begin today to catch a glimpse of its extremely complicated conditions. But suppose it were definitely developed, what could it give us? It would exhibit a faithful and rational picture of the natural development of the general conditions-material and ideal, economical, political and social, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and scientific-of the societies which have a history. But this universal picture of human civilization, however detailed it might be, would never show anything beyond general and consequently abstract estimates. The milliards of individuals who have furnished the living and suffering materials of this history at once triumphant and dismal-triumphant by its general results, dismal by the immense hecatomb of human victims "crushed under its car"-those milliards of obscure individuals without whom none of the great abstract results of history would have been obtained-and who, bear in mind, have never benefited by any of these results-will find no place, not even the slightest in our annals. They have lived and been sacrificed, crushed for the good of abstract humanity, that is all.

Shall we blame the science of history. That would be unjust and ridiculous. Individuals cannot be grasped by thought, by reflection, or even by human speech, which is capable of expressing abstractions only; they cannot be grasped in the present day any more than in the past. Therefore social science itself, the science of the future, will necessarily continue to ignore them. All that, we have a right to demand of it is that it shall point us with faithful and sure hand to the general causes of individual suffering- among these causes it will not forget the immolation and subordination (still too frequent, alas!) of living individuals to abstract generalities-at the same time showing us the general conditions necessary to the real emancipation of the individuals living in society. That is its mission; those are its limits, beyond which the action of social science can be only impotent and fatal. Beyond those limits being the doctrinaire and governmental pretentious of its licensed representatives, its priests. It is time to have done with all popes and priests; we want them no longer, even if they call themselves Social Democrats.

Once more, the sole mission of science is to light the road. Only Life, delivered from all its governmental and doctrinaire barriers, and given full liberty of action, can create.

(...)

- God and the State by Michael Bakunin (1870)

#Mikhail Bakunin #anarchism #science #long post

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voicesfromthelight · 5 years

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On Different Frequencies in The Spirit World (And Why They Matter)

Today, I’d like to explore some useful concepts regarding the nature and structure of the spirit world, how they reflect on the work of a medium, as well as why it’s so important to be aware of what you are tuning into.

If you have read my blog on a regular basis, you may have noticed that a lot of the lessons that my guides bring through are not focused so much on training the senses to perceive psychic information as they are on helping us hit a certain emotional pitch of love, gratitude, trust, joy and excitement. While working from a mindset of love, respect and serene receptivity is something many evidential mediums talk about, there is, I think, somewhat more of an emphasis on emotion in channeling work. I have come to the conclusion that the reason for this is not based on one method being “better” than the other, but rooted in the nature of the spirit world as a spectrum of frequencies, and how they resonate with human consciousness. The frequency a medium is able to resonate with, and therefore receive, is set by an amalgamation of their emotional and physical vibrations. Spirit guides such as Natalie and Salvador dwell most comfortably, I think, in a slightly different “frequency band” than our departed loved ones do when they approach our physical plane in order to communicate. Therefore, lifting the emotional vibration of the medium to a certain pitch is perhaps even more important when channeling the former. If the psychic mind were a radio, our departed loved ones and our spirit guides would be broadcasting on slightly different channels. In mediumistic work, by expanding our vibrational resonance through “stretching” ourselves emotionally and thus, energetically, our range of perception/reception expands. Our guides and loved ones also have this capacity. The channel of communication is forged where our respective vibrations meet.

A good analogy to the structure of the spirit world can be drawn from how we perceive light and sound. Different frequencies within their spectrums produce different colors and timbres. Some of them are perceptible to the human eye and ear, others are not. Our physical senses are limited in what they can perceive, hitting mostly a middle ground within the full range of the spectrums. For example: The sound of a guitar string is produced by vibrating it at a specific frequency. We hear the sound, because within our ears, we have hairs that will resonate with that particular pitch when the string is plucked within hearing distance of us. Play a note that is high enough - i.e. vibrating fast enough - however, and we will no longer have the compatible receptors within our ears to perceive the sound.

The spirit world, and how we perceive it, operates in a similar way to this. Different types of entities exist within different “frequency bands” in the spirit realm, and can be perceived by attuning our energies to those frequencies. We humans, in our physical bodies, inhabit the very dense frequency of the earthly plane, and therefore perceive things within it most easily. One level up from that, closest to it, is what is widely known as the Astral Plane, which is where a lot of phenomena such as our energy bodies, most dream realities, and ghostly manifestations, exist. This is the realm of the mind and thought forms - including not only benevolent beings, but some that are caught in patterns of fear, confusion, victimization, addiction, ego and anxiety. As you move further up in frequency from that, you reach other, increasingly finely vibrating levels, such as the Ethereal, Angelic and Celestial realms, where the corresponding, lighter entities and environments can be experienced. Different mystical traditions ascribe different names to these levels, and can describe them with varying detail, but what is most helpful to understand is that there is not one dimension of Spirit that we can reach for through psychic or mediumistic work, but many - perhaps countless ones. This is why no two psychics are exactly the same in their abilities or perceptions.

Because the world of Spirit is so diverse, people coming from all different kinds of traditions, religions and understandings can have very different experiences of its many manifestations, and they will be equally “real.” They are not mutually exclusive. They coexist. Especially within the realm of the Astral, which is very susceptible to thought and emotion, it is very easy for spiritual energy to take on forms and behaviors that are familiar to us from our pre-existing beliefs. So, not only are there several different levels of the spirit world, but different “niches” exist within them, populated by energies that have been molded and shaped by tradition, thought, history, and emotion. Accordingly, one should always remember that we are free to choose which spiritual realities we buy into. Don't let anyone else's beliefs throw off your inner compass!

The intention and attunement of an individual determines which frequency of the spirit world they will be most prone to communicate with. This is why it is important for the developing medium to clearly articulate for themselves what kind of spiritual energy they wish to bring through. If you leave this ill-defined, it is easier to get confused about the value of the communicated information, what exactly you are tuning into, and what technique will best serve you. You will also be more vulnerable to interference.

Part of the reason people get drawn into darker aspects of the occult, and the associated denser frequencies of the spirit world, is because as human beings operating in the physical realm, we are easily impressed with what we can see, hear and perceive with our physical senses. When we are caught in a negative energetic pattern of fear-based emotions, we will be more likely to resonate with the lower spectrum of the Astral Plane and the fear-based entities that inhabit it. The denser the frequency, the more easily it can tangibly manipulate the physical plane. This can result in some of the spookier experiences people have with the supernatural, including hauntings, energetic depletion, bad experiences with spirit boards, etc.. These can be compelling in all their unpleasantness, because they are much harder to miss than the more subtle communications that take place with the realms existing in higher frequencies. This is why some darkly inclined magicians seem to have better success rates in their spell work than lightworkers, and why some paranormal researchers prefer to rely on “blunter” instruments such as EMF readers and audio recorders over mediumistic evidence. The sad thing is, some people then end up mistaking this spectrum of experience for the only reality of Spirit, when in fact, it is generally much more beneficial, enlightening and rewarding for us to engage with finer spiritual realities existing beyond the dense ones fear-based entities inhabit.

Practice discernment here. You have no reason to choose anything but the very best for yourself, in accordance with your highest good - and that of all creation.

The best way to control which realm of the spirit world we communicate with is by learning to control our emotional frequency, especially during psychic and mediumistic work itself. We also need to learn to keep our psychic boundaries intact through protective visualization work, and our energy bodies clear and strong through self-care, keeping away from influences not in line with our chosen frequency, focusing on things that are in emotional alignment with it. Like attracts alike. Natalie and Salvador are very adamant about discipline in this respect, and will quickly shoo me away from any spiritual practices, practitioners or environments they deem detrimental. Any spiritual work I do as a channel needs to operate in an energetic vibration that is high enough to keep me above a frequency compatible with Astral interference. The best way I have learned to ensure this, so far, is to conduct such work from a loving, enthusiastic state, and to take time to prepare through meditation, intention, visualization and prayer.

It is also important to recognize that what our minds focus on becomes energized. The more attention you give to a thought or entity, the more lively it becomes. This is why Natalie's technique for crossing over earth-bound spirits minimizes engagement, and why any frightening visions encountered during psychic work should be quickly released with gratitude before simply being ignored. It’s also why anyone wishing to learn how to channel should train themselves to shift their emotional pitch and awareness to one of love and trust at will. It’s OK to still have human emotions, of course - we all have our day-to-day struggles - but our energy is our psychic currency, and the higher our vibration, the richer we are. When we have established a strong working relationship with our high-vibration spirit guides, they will help to protect us even when we are not operating at our very best.

How do you attune your frequency to your spirit guides? Do you find it easy to switch between “channels”? How do you keep yourself at a high vibration? Think about the ways in which you can grow and progress in your energetic discipline to reach your goals as a medium!

#psychicdevelopment #mediumship #psychic #psychicmedium #spirit world #spirit #channeling #psychicsafety #psychicprotection #spirit guides #ascension

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cinnabarb · 4 years

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MID-WEEK MINDFULNESS DIVINATION

Having planned being in an 8-week Meditation Retreat before our current Covid-19 situation, I thought that “sheltering-in-place” would make it much easier to stay within and practice. Well, having no expectations being a primary rule of mine and being sensitive and human, I have felt the undercurrents of our pandemic like the rest of humanity. Outside of my retreat, I try to take a few hours a day to catch up, continue my writing, and unfortunately, like many of you, am inundated with tons of data from this Coronavirus situation which leaves my head spinning and my heart distressed. I couldn't sleep and I decided to ask the Oracle what was really behind the scene of the pandemic, regarding the overall situation in the world and what we are being told. I was surprised, yet almost relieved when I pulled KEY 15 – THE DEMON, as it explains so succinctly what I believe we are all sensing within and without.

The DEMON in the image has a serpent tail, bat wings outstretched; in Renaissance Europe, bats were associated with darkness, demons, but also intelligence. In Biblical mythos, the bat is the enemy of the Light…sleeping upside down; the bat also came to symbolize disruption of the natural order. What a perfect correlation to the coronavirus’s beginnings – serpents, bats & tails – as the origin of the virus as of this date is attributed to bats and pangolins. The card speaks to the use of unbalanced forces and the awful trade & destruction of this species which was unknown to many of us before this pandemic. Yet it is a serious worldwide issue where thousands upon thousands of these poor animals have been torn from their natural habitat, tortured or killed for medicinal purposes and are nearly extinct and have now been linked as the cause. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oFalhPrdUs Bats, as symbolically stated above, are a metaphor for the disruption in the natural order of our world today. Nothing is as it was. But our constant fast paced and invasive movement around the world – was that really natural? Bats in their environmental habitat are a wonderful part of nature’s ecosystem. I remember each year at my home in France, when the little bats would arrive in early summer, make their homes behind our high windowed shutters and once sundown arrived, fly above us in the air and feast on the summer bugs and mosquitos nightly. And then one day, poof, they were gone. We were grateful for their yearly presence. Another name for The DEMON is MELANCHOLIA. MELANCHOLIA is severe depression characterized especially by profound sadness and despair. Many around the world are feeling deep gloom being separated from loved ones, confined to small spaces not allowed connection, losing their employment, seeing their towns shut down with businesses and the local and global economy disrupted. The DEMON is Exalted Creativity. Yet we are also seeing others finding amazingly creative ways to meet friends, families, do yoga and exercise on all sorts of platforms. It’s becoming a weekly ritual, the new normal. People are sharing recipes, and as parents have been forced to work at home ideas for teaching and creating projects with the kids. And working at home is taking on new forms and timing – businesses are realising that families are as important as the company, and if these families are thriving then their employees and the business will thrive as well. Restaurants and private chefs are delivering and have whole meals ready for pickup. Food Banks and other services are working overtime as well and need our support. All the above keeps these small and local businesses alive and we as the detainees well fed. Plus many, like myself, are choosing to do some deep inquiry, contemplation and meditation with others around the world. I sense that some of these ideas will continue after the crisis is over and even more creative means will evolve. The appearance of The DEMON means you must now battle The Typhon, with the careful, protective watch of the previous card, KEY 14 - The ANGEL, attributed to Equanimity and the ability to Harmonize. She is not close enough in presence because you have pushed Her away, so She watches from a distance. This is a battle in the greater war that you must confront with only the personal knowledge and tools attained thus far…

The Typhon was a monstrous serpentine giant and one of the deadliest creatures in Greek mythology. This is a battle between ourselves, the human race, how we have been, how we have treated other species, and who we can become. With our societies we have really pushed away our Holy Guardians, our Protectors and Gaia and as many of us continue to joke, She has sent us all to our rooms. As described in the divination, The ANGEL is there, waiting, and GAIA, even though we have trampled and destroyed parts of her living eco-structure. Even now we have plans to bombard the angelic atmosphere above with thousands of satellites, and just as we have done with our oceans, we have left tons of debris out in space that circulates our beautiful globe. We have no idea of the health impact on the atmosphere, nature and our own bodies. But there is hope seen from the wonderful images circulating through our feeds as the Earth heals from our FULL STOP. Can we learn, can we change? Who is The DEMON and who created this virus? In Buddhist mythos, when the Buddha defied the Mara, or demons, he closed the defeat of the Mara with bended right knee, left knee up, his left hand upon the left knee, palm facing upward to the heavens, and his right hand clasped around his right knee, with the fingertips touching the earth. This posture is the Earth Witness Mudra, representing steadfastness, which a practitioner can utilize now as a means of receiving divine power from above, powers of the Earth and nature spirits from below, and fortified, face The DEMON and defeat The Typhon.

So back to spiritual practice, it's the only way to slay our inner and outer demons, to create a whole new pristine view, a whole new paradigm and it doesn't matter what path - one just has to choose. We have been given the gift of time for creating a new vision, using what has been passed down from the indigenous elders’ vision, which sees Mother Nature as sanctified with Her Sacred Lands and Holy Waters. She’s showing us clearly what we have to do as the air clears, the waters clarify, and the animals take back their habitats – how much more of a sign, a lesson do we need? It is time to turn to the Mother, "the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom" the Prajñāpāramitā, the perfected way of seeing the nature of reality. The lesson to learn from The DEMON is this: the Mystery of Sorrow; the Mystery of Change; and the Mystery of Selflessness. (Liber B vel Magi). This text is very close to the Four Preliminaries/Precepts/Thoughts of the Dharma: “There are four thoughts that turn the mind to the Dharma: Thinking about appreciating the precious human lifeThinking about death and impermanence, that the opportunities that we have now with this precious existence are not going to lastThinking about the laws of karma and cause and effect, in other words how our behavior affects what we experienceThinking about the disadvantages of samsara, of uncontrollably recurring rebirth. If we appreciate the opportunities that we have now with this precious human life and if we recognize and acknowledge the fact that this life is not going to last and that we are going to die sometime, if we recognize that our behavior is going to shape our experience in this life and also after we die in future lives, and if we realize that no matter what we experience in the future, because it will arise from behaving from confusion, will have a lot of difficulties and troubles, then we will turn our minds to the Dharma.” KEY 15 as Capricorn is both the Great Builder and the Great Destroyer. The DEMON is the corruption of KEY 6: The LOVERS. What The LOVERS and The DEMON together reveal is that the notion of good and evil, right and wrong exists within each of these two paths. Either can lead to divinity or to damnation...There can be no life when the Light and the Dark are extract from one another and separated. The two must coexist for there to be Life. As Humanity moves forward we have a chance to rebuild constructively with consciousness and awareness, incorporating and addressing the Shadow that is so overwhelmingly omnipresent in today's world. In the YIN YANG symbol of the TAO, each half contains a point of the Light and the Dark. It is our choice which path we take, moment by moment, day by day, year by year. Can you face your demons? Which path will you choose?

The divination of the week was from the wonderful Spirit Keepers Tarot. Read the full article

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gegen-kapital-und-nation · 7 years

Quote

What I preach then is, to a certain extent, the revolt of life against science, or rather against the government of science, not to destroy science — that would be high treason to humanity — but to remand it to its place so that it can never leave it again. Until now all human history has been only a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstraction — God, country, power of State, national honor, historical rights, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare. Such has been up to today the natural, spontaneous, and inevitable movement of human societies. We cannot undo it; we must submit to it so far as the past is concerned, as we submit to all natural fatalities. We must believe that that was the only possible way, to educate the human race. For we must not deceive ourselves: even in attributing the larger part to the Machiavellian wiles of the governing classes, we have to recognize that no minority would have been powerful enough to impose all these horrible sacrifices upon the masses if there had not been in the masses themselves a dizzy spontaneous movement which pushed them on to continual self-sacrifice, now to one, now to another of these devouring abstractions the vampires of history ever nourished upon human blood. - We readily understand that this is very gratifying, to the theologians, politicians, and jurists. Priests of these abstractions, they live only by the continual immolation of the people. Nor is it more surprising that metaphysics too, should give its consent. Its only mission is to justify and rationalize as far as possible the iniquitous and absurd. But that positive science itself should have shown the same tendencies is a fact which we must deplore while we establish it. That it has done so is due to two reasons: in the first place, because, constituted outside of life, it is represented by a privileged body; and in the second place, because thus far it has posited itself as an absolute and final object of all human development. By a judicious criticism, which it can and finally will be forced to pass upon itself, it would understand, on the contrary, that it is only a means for the realization of a much higher object — that of the complete humanization of the real situation of all the real individuals who are born, who live, and who die, on earth. - The immense advantage of positive science over theology, metaphysics, politics, and judicial right consists in this — that, in place of the false and fatal abstractions set up by these doctrines, it posits true abstractions which express the general nature and logic of things, their general relations, and the general laws of their development. This separates it profoundly from all preceding doctrines, and will assure it for ever a great position in society: it will constitute in a certain sense society’s collective consciousness. But there is one aspect in which it resembles all these doctrines: its only possible object being abstractions, it is forced by its very nature to ignore real men, outside of whom the truest abstractions have no existence. To remedy this radical defect positive science will have to proceed by a different method from that followed by the doctrines of the past. The latter have taken advantage of the ignorance of the masses to sacrifice them with delight to their abstractions, which by the way, are always very lucrative to those who represent them in flesh and bone. Positive science, recognizing its absolute inability to conceive real individuals and interest itself in their lot, must definitely and absolutely renounce all claim to the government of societies; for if it should meddle therein, it would only sacrifice continually the living men whom it ignores to the abstractions which constitute the sole object of its legitimate preoccupations. - The true science of history, for instance, does not yet exist; scarcely do we begin today to catch a glimpse of its extremely complicated conditions. But suppose it were definitely developed, what could it give us? It would exhibit a faithful and rational picture of the natural development of the general conditions — material and ideal, economical, political and social, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and scientific — of the societies which have a history. But this universal picture of human civilization, however detailed it might be, would never show anything beyond general and consequently abstract estimates. The milliards of individuals who have furnished the living and suffering materials of this history at once triumphant and dismal — triumphant by its general results, dismal by the immense hecatomb of human victims “crushed under its car” — those milliards of obscure individuals without whom none of the great abstract results of history would have been obtained — and who, bear in mind, have never benefited by any of these results — will find no place, not even the slightest in our annals. They have lived and been sacrificed, crushed for the good of abstract humanity, that is all. - Shall we blame the science of history. That would be unjust and ridiculous. Individuals cannot be grasped by thought, by reflection, or even by human speech, which is capable of expressing abstractions only; they cannot be grasped in the present day any more than in the past. Therefore social science itself, the science of the future, will necessarily continue to ignore them. All that, we have a right to demand of it is that it shall point us with faithful and sure hand to the general causes of individual suffering — among these causes it will not forget the immolation and subordination (still too frequent, alas!) of living individuals to abstract generalities — at the same time showing us the general conditions necessary to the real emancipation of the individuals living in society. That is its mission; those are its limits, beyond which the action of social science can be only impotent and fatal. Beyond those limits being the doctrinaire and governmental pretentious of its licensed representatives, its priests. It is time to have done with all popes and priests; we want them no longer, even if they call themselves Social Democrats. - Once more, the sole mission of science is to light the road. Only Life, delivered from all its governmental and doctrinaire barriers, and given full liberty of action, can create.

God and the State - Bakunin

#anarchism #god and the state #bakunin #life #science #reason #god #idealism #abstraction

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oovitus · 6 years

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Can We Have an Honest Conversation About Advertisements?

By Joshua Fields Millburn · Follow: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+

If the following screed were a peer-reviewed journal article, its abstract would be brief: advertisements suck.

Well, at least most of them do.

That’s not to say that all advertising is inherently evil, or even bad, because not all advertisements are created equal—they run the gamut from informative to downright destructive.

To understand the inherent problems with advertisements, it’s important to first point out that advertising isn’t the same thing as marketing. Though these two terms are often used interchangeably, they are different in practice.

Advertisements

Advertisements are paid announcements via a public medium—mattress commercials, “infomercials” for the latest exercise fad, and seemingly harmless adverts for harmful prescription drugs—and they are generally not an endorsement by the platform on which they are displayed.

In Latin, advertere means “to turn toward,” and that’s the exact aim of today’s ad agencies: they’re willing to pay heaps of money to turn your eyes toward their products and services. And if the demand for a product isn’t as high as the supply, no problem! Advertising can create a false demand if the budget is high enough.

In recent years, worldwide spending on advertising has topped half a trillion dollars a year. Even writing the full number—500,000,000,000.00, commas and all—doesn’t come close to truly understanding its depth.

So let’s put it into perspective: If you leave your home today and begin spending one dollar every single second, it will take you more than 15,000 years to spend half a trillion dollars. In fact, if you’d’ve spent a million dollars every single day since the fall of Rome, you still wouldn’t’ve spent half a trillion dollars by now.

And we’re spending more than that every year on advertising. Which isn’t so bad in and of itself. After all, it’s just money being spent on informing people about useful stuff, right?

Yes, that sort of used to be true.

A Brief History of Modern Advertising

Before the twentieth century, advertising largely connected the producers of goods with consumers who genuinely needed those goods.

But then, as Stuart Ewen describes in his book Captains of Consciousness, “Advertising increased dramatically in the United States as industrialization expanded the supply of manufactured products. In order to profit from this higher rate of production, industry needed to recruit workers as consumers of factory products. It did so through the invention of [advertising] designed to influence the population’s economic behavior on a larger scale.”

By the Roaring Twenties, thanks to Edward Bernays, who’s sometimes referred to as the founder of modern advertising and public relations, advertisers in the U.S. adopted the doctrine that “human instincts could be targeted and harnessed.”

Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, realized that appealing to the rational minds of customers, which had been the mainstream method advertisers had used to sell products, was far less effective than selling products based on the unconscious desires that he felt were the “true motivators of human action.” Since then, we’ve witnessed ten decades of advertising agencies reaching—and overreaching—into the depths of the human psyche.

Overreach of Advertisers

Fast forward to the present day.

One of the most obvious examples of advertisers’ rapacious (over)reach in recent years is the drug Sildenafil, which was created as a treatment for hypertension. When clinical trials revealed the drug wasn’t effective, that should have been the end of its life cycle.

But then advertisers stepped in.

After discovering several male test subjects experienced prolonged erections during clinical trials, the makers of Sildenafil had a solution that desperately needed a problem. So they hired an ad agency who coined the term “erectile dysfunction,” and Viagra was born. This campaign took a relatively flaccid problem and created a ragging $2-billion-per-year blue pill.

Of course, Viagra is a rather anodyne example. There are many pharmaceuticals whose side effects are so expansive that their commercials are forced to use gratuitous green pastures, yearbook smiles, and handholding actors to conceal the terror of “rectal bleeding,” “amnesia,” and “suicidal ideation.”

In a sane world, misleadingly selling harmful prescription drugs would be a criminal act. Actually, it is: it’s illegal in every country in the world—except the United States and New Zealand—to advertise drugs to consumers.

But we let the almighty dollar get in the way.

In 1976, Henry Gadsden, then CEO of Merck & Co., told Fortune magazine that he’d rather sell drugs to healthy people because that’s where the most money was.

We’ve been sold new “cures” ever since.

But please don’t think this is an anti-boner-pill diatribe. According to the research, Viagra seems to be a relatively benign drug. Thereby, there’s little wrong with the pill itself. It’s the paid advertisements that are troublesome.

Many ad agencies employ writers, demographers, statisticians, analysts, and even psychologists in an effort to divorce us from the money in our checking accounts. With the help of a fine-tuned agency, even the “disclaimer” is part of the sales pitch: ��Consult your doctor if your erection lasts longer than four hours.” I don’t know about you, but I’d rather consult my partner with my everlasting hard-on.

Viagra isn’t the only product pushed beyond its initial conception. Did you know Listerine was previously used as a floor cleaner, Coca-Cola was invented as an alternative to morphine, and the graham cracker was created to stop you from masturbating?

Hmm. If at first your product doesn’t succeed, hire an ad agency!

Selling Insecurity

Making men believe their erections aren’t firm enough isn’t the first time corporations have capitalized on human insecurity.

For decades, women have been sold an inferiority complex. Our glowing screens would have the average female believe her waist isn’t skinny enough, her breasts aren’t big enough, and her eyelashes aren’t lush enough. Don’t worry, though, whatever your ailment, consumerism has the cure.

In Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk prophesied of a dystopia in which a cunning con man could sell our own fat back to us after extracting it from our bodies. He was only half right, however.

In the book, the fat is repackaged as soap—a metaphor for cleansing ourselves by way of consumerism—but in the real world we’re sold our fat in the form of autologous-fat transfer (butt injections) so we can look like our favorite reality-television stars.

In a Kafkaesque bait-and-switch, advertisers sell us the food that makes us obese because we “deserve a treat,” and then they sell us the diet plans and exercise equipment to combat our gluttony.

The sleight of hand doesn’t end with “male enhancers” and weight-loss remedies. Advertisers go much further, capitalizing on our fear (and greed) with radically overpriced timeshare properties, precious metals, and end-times survival kits. You may not’ve known the world was ending, but now that you do, there’s a product you can purchase to prepare.

Selling Scarcity

Speaking of the end of the world, why does it seem like the ads we experience are always taking place in a state of perpetual emergency?

Act now! Limited time only! While supplies last!

These advertiser-induced artificial limits are almost always imaginary. The truth is that if you “miss out” on a so-called sale, you’ll be just fine because corporations are always looking for a new opportunity to sell you something today. I mean, what’s the alternative? “Sorry, Mrs. Customer, you’re screwed—you waited an extra day to make your decision, so we no longer want your money!”

Why, then, does almost every company inject urgency into their ads? Because, as Bernays recognized a century ago, this tactic takes advantage of our primal nature: humans make quick—often rash—decisions in times of perceived scarcity.

This made sense when our number one concern was starvation; it makes much less sense when we think we’ll never be able to own that big-screen television, video-game console, or clutch purse unless we get in on this weekend’s doorbuster bonanza.

Selling Nonessentials

Advertisers have gotten so skilled that they can even sell us trash and tell us it’s good for us. Literally.

Since American farmers are faced with unprecedented hoards of soybean and corn crops, and thus unprecedented waste products from those crops, advertisers have found a way not to safely dispose of that waste but to repackage it and sell it to you as hydrogenated oil, a supposed “alternative” to healthier oils from olives, avocados, and almonds.

Inferior cooking oils are just the start of the garbage that’s sold by the food industry. The amount of junk food that is peddled to us is so immense and so dangerous that there isn’t room in this essay to meaningfully explore the sugar and processed foods vended by America’s largest corporations, but it can be summed up in a single stat: in 2018, you are more likely to die from obesity than of a violent crime, terrorism, war, starvation, or a car crash.

Junk foods aren’t the only junk we buy. Unbeknown to us, advertisers have helped turn our homes into mausoleums of trash. To justify our clinging, we’ve invented cute nicknames for our junk—trinket, knickknack, novelty, doohickey, tchotchke, collector’s item, memento—as if what we call our trash increases its importance.

But in the real world, the cheap plastic things we purchase at gift shops aren’t of importance, which might be fine if they made us happier or improved our lives, but they don’t.

Instead, we experience a dull high that wears off soon after the cash register dings its quiet victory, and we sit in the aftermath of consumption with an unusable artifact. Then, in time, we feel icky because we’re too ashamed to let go, so we purchase plastic storage containers to hide—ahem, organize—our past mistakes.

Each year, Americans spend $1.2 trillion on nonessential goods. In contrast, we contribute less than $200 billion to charities every year. In other words, we spend a trillion dollars more on shit we don’t need than on helping people in need.

Advertising to Children

Advertisers have found perhaps the easiest way to flood our homes with nonessentials: by advertising to our children. Not only do kids lack the critical thinking skills to say no to the foods that are killing us, but if they develop brand loyalty early, then Ronald McDonald has a lifetime customer.

According to the American Psychology Association, commercial appeals to children became commonplace with the advent and widespread adoption of television, and they grew exponentially with the proliferation of cable television, which allowed programmers to develop entire channels of child-oriented programming and advertising.

It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billion each year to reach the youth, and children view more than 40,000 television commercials each year—an exponential increase from decades past.

The American Academy of Pediatrics believes this targeting occurs because advertising in the U.S. alone is a $250 billion a year industry with 900,000 brands to sell, and children and adolescents are attractive consumers: teenagers spend $155 billion each year, children younger than 12 spend another $25 billion, and both groups influence another $200 billion of their parents’ spending every year.

Perhaps the solution is to follow Sweden, Norway, and Quebec, and completely bar advertising to children under the age of 12. But more than likely it’s up to us as parents to develop the systems and communities that will better influence our kids’ viewing habits.

The Upside of Advertising

When done carefully, however, as rare as that might be, advertising can help fulfill an existing need. In fact, a hundred years ago, many ads did just that: they connected potential customers with a product that would improve their lives.

I myself have benefited from informative advertisements. Living in Los Angeles, I’m exposed to more billboards than most of the world’s population. Even though they’re a horrendous eyesore, I can honestly say that I’m more informed about the available media—movies, music, television series—than if these advertisements didn’t exist.

The same is true for the tailored ads of the Internet. Google does a great job matching their content with my perceived needs. If a website is going to clutter their sidebar with banner ads, I would rather be served messages that are geared toward my interests: the bookshelf I’ve been considering instead of a cosmetics display, the socks I need instead of an automobile pitch, the concert I want to attend instead of a beer commercial.

It would be hard for me to claim that ads don’t occasionally provide some quantifiable good to my life. I’m simply not sure whether the pros outweigh the cons.

True, the ads are “better” than ever, but maybe I’m more likely to spend my money irresponsibly when I’m constantly presented ads that match my precise interests. And while L.A.’s billboards are more informative than, say, the ambulance chasers who fill the outdoor displays in most American cities, they’re still intrusive, and I’d prefer they didn’t exist at all—and I’m not alone.

The People’s Preference

While I was driving from Burlington to Boston last year, something felt off. The rolling emerald landscape was unsullied, not unlike a tranquil screensaver, and I felt an unnameable calm as the mile markers ticked away.

Then I crossed the Massachusetts state line, and it became obvious: the trip’s serenity was produced largely by its lack of billboards, which are illegal in the state of Vermont.

Currently, four states—Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont—prohibit billboards. And more than 1,500 cities and towns have banned them throughout the world, including one of the largest cities on Earth—Sao Paulo.

When Sao Paulo introduced its “Clean City Law” in 2007, more than 15,000 billboards were taken down. To boot, an additional 300,000 intrusive signs—pylons, posters, bus and taxi ads—had to go.

The strangest result of ridding the world’s third largest city of these advertisements? In a poll done after the removal, a majority of Paulistanos actually preferred the change. What a novel idea: ask people what they like instead of letting profitability dictate the cityview.

From Good to Great Profit

If all ads were unobtrusive and informative, it would be hard to have anything bad to say about them. But many twenty-first century advertisers have figured out how to manipulate the system for maximum profit.

In the era of mass media and Internet spamming, they’ve crossed a line: we went from connecting people with products they need; to creating a false desire for objects that add little value to our lives; to selling objects that get in the way of a richer, more fulfilling life.

Many of the things advertisements make us think we need are actually the source of our discontent. You see, the easiest way to sell us happiness is to first make us unhappy. It’s a painful cycle for us; it’s big business for them.

Unfortunately, we’ve accepted ads as part of our everyday life; we’ve been conditioned to think they are a regular part of “content delivery.” After all, advertisements are how we get all those TV shows, radio programs, online articles, and podcasts for free, right?

Alternatives to Advertisements

There’s no free lunch. Every hour of network television is peppered with nearly 20 minutes of interruptions, and the same is true for most other mediums, which one could argue is more costly than the “free” price tag because we’re giving up our two most precious resources—our time and attention—to receive the product.

If we don’t want ads storming our attention (or our children’s attention), then we must be willing to pay for the things we associate as “free.”

Netflix, Apple Music, and similar services are able to sidestep the traditional advertising model by providing a service people value. Other businesses and individuals—Wikipedia and Sam Harris come to mind—follow a variation of this ad-free model, frequently called a “freemium” model, where creators provide content for free, and a small portion of their audience supports their work monetarily. (By the way, this model is what keeps The Minimalists Podcast advertisement-free.)

When asked why he chooses not to run ads on his popular Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris responded, “I don’t feel I can credibly run ads on my podcast, even for products and services I love and use myself. The one ad I read for a while was for Audible, which I do use, but even in that case, I don’t feel entirely comfortable telling you that you should subscribe to Audible. I mean, should you? Perhaps you shouldn’t. I have no idea. And that would go down as the worst Audible ad ever.

“In any case, I’ve discovered that I don’t feel comfortable selling ads, which is fine because I hate what ads have done to digital media. The advertising model is responsible for almost everything that is wrong online. But not running ads puts me in a position of asking my audience for support. This is something I approached with real trepidation in the beginning. However, having done it, I’ve discovered it’s actually the most straightforward relationship I can have with my audience.”

No matter your feelings about Netflix, Apple Music, Wikipedia, Sam Harris, or similar companies and individuals, their approach undoubtedly improves their creations by making them interruption-free, and it increases trust since their audience knows these creators aren’t beholden to the desires of advertisers, which allows them to communicate directly with their audience in a way that strengthens the relationship because the customers are in control, not the ad buyers.

Moreover, as consumers, our willingness to exchange money for creations forces us to be more deliberate about what we consume. If we’re paying for it, we want to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth. It’s a mystery why we don’t do the same for so-called “free” programming, where we pay no money, but we rarely get our attention’s worth.

Whether your time is worth $10, $100, or $1,000 per hour, you likely spend tens of thousands of dollars every year consuming messages from advertisers. Think about that: in a very real way, you’re paying to be advertised to. And there are no refunds on your misspent attention.

Marketing

The flipside of advertising isn’t the absence of communication—it’s marketing.

In his book, The Mindset of Marketing Your Music, Derek Sivers writes, “Don’t confuse the word marketing with advertising, announcing, spamming, or giving away branded crap. Really, marketing just means being considerate. Marketing means making it easy for people to notice you, relate to you, remember you, and tell their friends about you.”

What Sivers is describing here is the most honest form of marketing: informing people without manipulating or bothering them. At its ethical zenith, marketing considers the needs and points of view of an audience and works hard to meet those needs by connecting the creators with consumers in an authentic way.

In neutral terms, marketing is an unpaid endorsement, often by the creator herself, communicated directly to an audience who’s eager to learn more about the product or service. When done well, this is what Seth Godin describes as Permission Marketing: “the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.”

It is possible to engage in world-class marketing without spending a penny on advertising. True, both advertising and marketing are forms of promotion—both allow creators to present their goods and services to a group of people—and when executed poorly, even well-intended marketing can be overkill. Like advertisements, not all marketing messages are created equal.

Bastardized Marketing

Unfortunately, not every marketer is a paragon of integrity. Just like the advertising world, marketing messages can be laced with misinformation, exaggerations, and propaganda.

When creators stray from their audience’s preferences—when they stop providing value and abuse their permission with over-marketing—they fail; they fall victim to vapid self-promotions, the most egregious examples of which include spam emails, website pop-ups, clickbait headlines, begging for followers, searching for “Likes.”

As “The Minimalists,” we provide loads of high-quality free creations—essays, podcasts, and quotes—and we occasionally use our platforms to promote a book, event, or service. And if we’re being forthright, even though we attempt to market with integrity, even we struggle to walk the line between informative and overkill.

While Ryan & I refuse spam, pop-ups, and salacious titles, and we strive to add value, we, too, have fallen victim to the “look at me” Internet culture—occasionally putting our preferences above our audience’s best interests. Whenever we catch ourselves straying, we course correct, and we work diligently to improve.

Marketing as Part of the Creation

Regardless of how you feel about marketing, it is the final step in the creative process. Marketing helps creators get their creations in front of people, and when approached delicately, it benefits their audience. But when creators focus more on promoting the creation than the act of creating, the product suffers and so does the audience, and trust is eroded.

Until recently, the only way a creator could effectively market her product was to plaster her message across television, radio, print, and billboards. Using jargon like “GRPs,” “TRPs,” and “frequency,” advertisers could guarantee their product would reach a particular audience via a robust advertising plan. Even though this shotgun approach was imprecise, it was the only way to get to a mass audience.

Today, the opposite is true. As a creator, you are your own marketing department; you can find an enthusiastic audience without the need to advertise. And because our tools are better than ever, your efforts can be more precise than the traditional approach of yesteryear, so you needn’t cast a wide net to be effective. In fact, a thousand true fans are enough.

Spending time marketing your creation doesn’t need to be tedious, either; it can be creative, artistic, and even fun. That’s why the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing: it feels like a conversation or entertainment or something the audience anticipates. Above all, it feels considerate—not salesy or forced.

Unavoidable Advertisements

All of this poses an interesting and prickly dilemma for us as “The Minimalists.” Because we don’t want to add to the noise, we personally don’t allow ads on our website, podcast, or any other medium we directly control.

However, we appear regularly on television and radio shows, as well as in newspapers and magazines, in which advertisements appear. And we’re honestly conflicted about this.

Even companies we respect and have partnered with—our tour promoter, Live Nation; our primary bookselling platform, Amazon; and the company behind our travel-bag project, Pakt—engage in various forms of advertising.

We could, of course, choose not to appear anywhere that participates in advertising in any form, but because ads are virtually everywhere—Americans see upwards of 5,000 each day—that would greatly limit the amount of people our message reaches.

So we’ve instead decided to ride the line: no, we won’t incorporate ads into our platforms, and we’ll continue to speak out against the innate problems with advertising, but we won’t hide in a cave to shield ourselves from every billboard.

Now maybe you don’t think advertisements are a big deal, but I believe they are one of the worst things to happen to our culture: they are the largest contributing factor toward rampant consumerism in the developed world, and they’re the biggest reason our political climate is where it is today.

Advertisements are much like the islands of plastic haunting our oceans—a giant problem people rarely think about. That doesn’t mean ads (or plastic) shouldn’t exist; I simply don’t feel good about producing either unless they contribute to the greater good.

Values over Money

That said, I’m not allergic to money. And this commentary isn’t meant to be a judgment on other people.

Many of my close friends incorporate advertisements into their creations, and I don’t necessary begrudge them for that. It likely wouldn’t do much good anyway because, as Upton Sinclair once wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

The way I understand it, though, is simple: my values trump my ability to make money. And advertisements don’t align with my personal values.

Do I want to earn a living? Yes, of course I do. But I want to live a life that’s congruent with my values, and thus I don’t want money to be the primary driver of my creations. Just because I can advertise, that doesn’t mean I should.

True, money will always be an important part of the equation (everybody has to pay the bills, right?), but if we put creativity and our values first, then we can determine the role of money further down the line.

Conclusion

Suffice it to say, this disquisition wouldn’t see the light of day in any of today’s ad-driven organs. Nor would it find its way into a scholarly journal, because this isn’t a peer-reviewed article; it’s just one guy’s loosely connected thoughts about advertising.

It’s my hope that these musings start a conversation about the oft-ignored pernicious aspects of advertisements. And maybe—just maybe—our society can find a way to make advertisements that don’t suck.

Let’s not hold our breath, though. If we want to produce meaningful creations, we must rely on ourselves. Or, as the historian Yuval Noah Harari once wrote, “You cannot unite humanity by selling advertisements.” This is true even if those ads are for dick pills.

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Can We Have an Honest Conversation About Advertisements? published first on

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herkingmentality-shesunbreakable · 7 years

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My name is Cathleen (Cathy) Ann O'Brien, born 12/4/57 in Muskegon, Michigan. I have prepared this book for your review and edification concerning a little known tool that "our" United States Government is covertly, illegally, and un-constitutionally using to implement the New World Order (One World Government). This well documented tool is a sophisticated and advanced form of behavior modification (brainwashing) most commonly known as MIND CONTROL. My first hand knowledge of this TOF SECRET U.S. Government Psychological Warfare technique is drawn from my personal experience as a White House "Presidential Model" mind-control slave. Much of the information enclosed herein has been corroborated and validated through brave and courageous "clean" members of the law enforcement, scientific, and Intelligence communities familiar with this case These individuals' efforts helped me to understand and corroborate what happened after a lifetime of systematic physical and psychological torture orchestrated to modify my behavior through totally controlling my mind. Some of these courageous individuals are employed by the very system that controlled me and live in fear of losing their jobs, their families, or their lives. They have gone as far as they dare towards publicly exposing this tool of the engineers of the New World Order-to no avail. This book is a grassroots effort to solicit and enlist the public and private support of Human Rights advocates, the recognized, respected doers in America to expose this invisible personal and social menace. This can be done by well organised, cooperative citizens with a passion for justice, who have expressed interest in restoring our Constitution and taking back America. This copy you hold is for your edification and action. While these pages have been condensed for your quick perusal, there ane literally thousands of files of documentation that support much of what I am reporting. Thanks to those dedicated individuals who found a means of manipulating the system more cleverly than the perpetrators, the documents referred to were declassified for release right at the source! It is my patriotic respect for the principles of truth, justice, and ultimately that freedom on which America was founded that compels me to expose the world domination motivations of those in control of our government, commonly referred to as the Shadow Government. By taking back America NOW, we can maintain the integrity of our country's history and future by detaining its destined course of being recognized world wide for the mind-control atrocities unleashed on humanity that literally begin where Adolph Hitler left off. Hitler's version of world domination that he termed in 1939 the "New World Order" is currently being implemented through advanced technologies in, among others, genetic mind-control engineering by those in control of America. Senator Daniel Inouye, (D. HI) commented about the operations of this secret government before a Senate Subcommittee and described it well as "...a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fund raising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of 'national interest', free from all checks and balances and free from the law itself." The expertise of my primary advocate and skilled deprogrammer, Mark Phillips, developed through his U.S. Defense Department knowledge of "Top Secret" mind-control research and researchers, was responsible for the restoration of my mind to normal functioning. As a result, I have recovered the memories related in this text, and having survived the ordeal, have reached this point of enormous frustration. In 1988, through a series of brilliantly orchestrated events, Mark Phillips rescued me and my 8-year-old daughter, Kelly, from our mind-controlled existence and took us to the safety of Alaska for rehabilitation. It was there that we began the tedious process of untangling my amnesic mind to consciously recall what I was supposed to forget, Many U,S. and foreign government secrets and personal reputations were staked on the belief that I could not be deprogrammed and rehabilitated to accurately reveal the criminal covert activities and perversions in which Kelly and I were forced to participate, particularly during the Reagan/Bush Administrations. Now that I have gained control of my own mind, I view it as my duty as a mother and American patriot to exercise my gained free will to expose the mind-control atrocities that my daughter and I endured at the hands of those in control of our government. This personal view of inside Pandora's Box includes a keen perception of how mind control is being used to apparently implement the New World Order, and a personal knowledge of WHO some of the so-called "masterminds" are behind this world and mind dominance effort. Most Americans old enough to remember recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when President John F. Kennedy was shot. His assassination traumatized the nation and provides an example of how the human mind photographically records events surrounding trauma. The traumas I routinely endured during my mind-controlled victimization provided me the latitude to recover my memory in the photographic detail in which it was recorded. The direct quotes 1 have included in the following pages depicting carefully selected events, are verbatim. I apologize for any obscenities quoted, but this was necessary to maintain the integrity of the statements and accurately reflect the character of the speaker(s). While I am free to speak my mind, Kelly, now 17, is not so fortunate. Kelly has yet to receive rehabilitation for her shattered personality and programmed young mind. The high tech sophistication of the Project Monarch trauma-based mind-control procedures she endured, literally since birth, reportedly requires highly specialized, qualified care to aid her in eventually gaining control of her mind and life. Due to the political power of our abusers, all efforts to obtain her inalienable right to rehabilitation and seek justice have been blocked under the guise of so-called "National Security". As a result, Kelly remains untreated in the custody of the State of Tennessee-a victim of the system — a system controlled and manipulated by our abusive government "leaders" - a system where State Forms make no allowances to report military TOP SECRET abuses - a system which exists due to federal funding directed by our perverse, corrupt abusers in Washington, D.C. She remains a political prisoner in the custody of the State of Tennessee to this moment, waiting and hurting! Violations of laws and rights, Psychological Warfare intimidation tactics, threats to our lives, and various other forms of CIA Damage Containment practices thus far have remained unhindered and unchecked due to the National Security Act of 1947 AND the 1986 Reagan Amendment to same which allows those in control of our government to censor and/or cover-up anything they choose. Now, with our country free from outside threats as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, our "free press" is reportedly no longer encumbered by censorship. This fact alone should free us to pursue justice, but it has not. Please ask why. Hence the purpose of releasing this book at this time. After seven long years of being unjustly and painfully seperated from my daughter, while our abusers have had full access to her through a corrupt and manipulated system, it is my fervent hope and intent to solicit help from you in the form of advice, expertise, and public outcry concerning this very solvable problem. I could not prevent the traumatic mind-control abuses Kelly endured due to my own victimization, yet she is depending on me now to expose the truth and enlist the help that the Juvenile Court has restrained her from seeking. I dedicate this book to Kelly, and all others like her, and to every American unaware of the mind-control atrocities prevailing in this country. What Americans don't know is destroying them from the inside out. Knowledge is our only defense against mind control. It is time to WAKE UP and arm ourselves with the truth, restore the constitutional values of freedom and justice for all, to retroactively enforce the 13th Amendment, and take back America! https://archive.org/stream/TranceformationOfAmerica/tranceformation_america_djvu.txt

https://archive.org/stream/TranceformationOfAmerica/tranceformation_america_djvu.txt

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oovitus · 6 years

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Can We Have an Honest Conversation About Advertisements?

By Joshua Fields Millburn · Follow: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+

If the following screed were a peer-reviewed journal article, its abstract would be brief: advertisements suck.

Well, at least most of them do.

That’s not to say that all advertising is inherently evil, or even bad, because not all advertisements are created equal—they run the gamut from informative to downright destructive.