#the world is not a pyramid it is a spiral of networks and we are one vibration among a whole goddamn symphony | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fatehbaz · 2 years

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They’ve built a “Great Wheel” on the Seattle waterfront, directly between the part of the city that Paul Allen owns and the part of the city that is, literally, sinking into the Earth so that his property values might rise. It’s fitting, I guess. Amazon is building biodomes, the city’s economy is curving upward. According to these people, it’s all about circles. Feedback loops, wheels of fate, karmic spirals. [...] Seattle would see new sequences of boom, bust, and reinvention. [...] Today the city - again rebuilt [...] - is seen as one of the primary beneficiaries of the “Fifth” Industrial Revolution in information technology, outshone only by California’s Silicon Valley. [...] [T]he Internet was imbued in the popular imagination with the same mystical power that had previously surrounded the steam engine, the electric grid, or the nuclear reactor. The digital was increasingly thought of as somehow “immaterial,” sustained by intellectual labor more than physical toil and fixed capital. [...]

Perched alongside a downtown business corridor full of cloud computing start-ups and new hyper-sustainable apartment complexes, Seattle’s Great Wheel seems to peer out over Rifkin’s prophesied “cooperative commons,” an infotech metropolis abutting the beauty of an evergreen arcadia. But travel below Seattle’s cluster of infotech industries and the image appears much the same as that of a hundred years prior - a trade gateway, squeezing value from supply chains by selling transport and logistical support. The southern stretch of the metropolis bears little resemblance to the revitalized urban core of the city proper. Instead of the “cognitive labor” of Microsoft, it is defined instead by the cold calculation of companies like UPS, founded in Seattle when the city was one link in a colonial supply chain built first for timber, then Alaskan gold, then World War. The company is now headquartered elsewhere, but its logistical lineage has remained.

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In south Seattle, this logistics empire takes the form of faceless warehouses, food processing facilities, container trucks, rail yards, and industrial parks concentrated between two seaports, an international airport, three major interstates, and railroads traveling in all directions. Meanwhile, the poor have been priced out of the old inner city, moving southward into these same post-war suburbs, all of which have simultaneously become gateways for new immigrant settlement. Many work in the lower-rungs of the “dual economy” in Seattle proper, performing the low-wage service work necessary for high-end producer services to function. But they can also be found staffing the airport and the rail yards, hauling cargo in and out of two the major seaports, loading boxes in warehouses, or manning industrial machinery in the region’s comparatively large manufacturing sector.

And, beyond them, the shadow stretches out to Washington’s rural hinterlands where migrant laborers staff a new boom in agriculture and raw materials exports to Asia -- and further still into America’s long-depressed interior, where the Great Wheel meets its opposite: Memphis, the FedEx logistics city, watched over by a great black pyramid.

Because this is the truth of the matter: there is no wheel of fate dragging us upward and casting those at the top down. From where we’re standing, we can look up and see others above us, look down and see some below. We can see those in the middle rungs jostling for position, attempting to climb, sometimes slipping. [...] Within the Great Wheel hides the pyramid.

Every Seattle is capable of creating an eco-friendly, “cooperative commonwealth” tended by apps and algorithms only insofar as there is a Memphis that can provide human workers to sort the packages, a Shanghai to build the containers that carry them, and a Shenzhen to solder together the circuits of the machines that govern it all. The rise of infotech, decentralization, and networked production has not brought liberation from capitalism, but has instead created a world where most people’s lives are governed by the cold, machine logic of capital. Schedules at Starbucks are created by an algorithm designed to maximize labor-power, workers run back and forth across expansive warehouses in Memphis or SeaTac, their motions commanded by computer headsets, others shed wires for 14 hours in the industrial suburbs of Shenzhen, their every move watched over by managers related to the boss. Today we are all little more than cogs in an inscrutable sorting machine.

The most basic error [...] is the presumption that the end of capitalism is primarily a technological problem. [...] [B]ecause technology, under capitalism, is always used to solve the problems of capital, not humanity. [...] Steam engines didn’t save us. Electricity didn’t save us. The atom didn’t save us. The Internet didn’t save us. [...] It’s easy to imagine, because the pieces are already there: a TED talk where some smug new oligarch whispers about “population optimization” [...] into his tiny headset as hi-def Prezi slides hiss behind him, adorned with pictures of 3-D printed, solar-powered concentration camps.

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All text above by: Phil A. Neel. “The Great Wheel”. Brooklyn Rail. April 2015. Published online at: brooklynrail.org/2015/04/field-notes/the-great-wheel [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, personal, criticism purposes.]

#ecology #multispecies #imperial #colonial

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underthewingsofthblackeagle · 3 years

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Foto: Panorama Helsinki / Finland - Dom und Parlamentsplatz (by tap5a)

“We only do this for Fergus!” is a short Outlander Fan Fiction story and my contribution to the Outlander Prompt Exchange (Prompt 3: Fake Relationship AU: Jamie Fraser wants to formally adopt his foster son Fergus, but his application will probably not be approved… unless he is married and/or in a committed relationship. Enter one Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp (Randall?) to this story) @outlanderpromptexchange

Chapter 7: Coming home

"Papa, did you know that the Siberian tiger is the biggest cat in the world?"

"Papa, did you know that a monk invented soda water?"

"Papa, did you know why moka faux was invented?"

"Papa, did you know that the first Christmas market was held in Bautzen back in 1384?"

"Papa, do you know where the term 'glasses' comes from?"

"Papa, do you know if titmouse dumplings are good or bad for the birds?"

"Papa, did you know that Vikings didn't wear helmets with horns at all?"

"Papa, did you know when writing was invented and when apothecaries began to exist?"

Fergus spoke about squirrels, trees, dogs, lighthouses, penguins, pyramids, birdsong, whales and dolphins, and of course, The Mouse. And this, of course, every new evening. Afterwards, he let himself be told where his Papa was, what he had experienced and seen.

From Iceland, Fraser had flown first to the Swedish island of Gotland, then to Helsinki, and then back to Frankfurt am Main. One night later, he flew first to Bangkok, then to Hong Kong and finally to Taipei. The return trip took 22 hours and took him from Taipei via Bangkok and Amsterdam finally back to Berlin. He arrived there around noon and was picked up by a one of the company's chauffeurs. He had himself driven to the headquarters, where Ned Gowan was waiting for him and briefed him on current business developments over a light lunch. Fraser looked through his mail, packed a box of files, gave final instructions, and about 5 pm another chauffeur drove him to Potsdam. As the car left the underground garage, he dialed Claire's number and announced his arrival.

Claire was in the dining room when Jamie's call reached her. When she hung up, Fergus was standing in the doorway.

"Was that Papa?" he asked excitedly.

"Yes," Claire replied, unable to suppress a joyful smile.

A few minutes before 6 pm, Fraser's car turned into the street leading to the house. He asked the driver to stop for a moment. Then he opened the window a crack and took a deep breath of the cool evening air. Closing his eyes, he paused for a moment. Fraser knew exactly how Fergus would welcome him. But Claire he would meet today for the first time after ten days of absence. He had to prepare himself inwardly for that. He took another deep breath, then asked the driver to move on. Shortly after, the car stopped again. Contrary to his habit, Fraser got out in front of the front door and let the driver bring the car into the garage. He himself took only his briefcase. Once again, he took a deep breath, then opened the small gate in the fence that separated the property from the street. Through the skylight above the front door, he saw that lights were on in the entryway and the hallway. He took the steps of the small staircase with a few sweeping strides and was about to take his keys from his pocket when the front door opened and Claire smiled at him. He couldn't help but smile joyfully as well. Claire stepped aside and let him into the house. Fraser walked through the porch and as he stepped into the hallway, he saw Fergus standing in the doorway to the living room.

"Fergus!" he exclaimed joyfully.

"Hello, Papa," the boy replied, coming slowly toward him.

Fraser looked at him in wonder:

"Aren't you glad to see me again?"

The boy approached him and Jamie took him in his arms.

"Oh yes Papa, but I ... wanted to ... be considerate. Claire explained to me that you need to rest because you have Jack's leg."

The adults looked at each other and began to laugh uproariously. Now it was Fergus who looked at them in amazement. Claire approached Jamie, who still had Fergus in his arms.

"It's called 'jet lag', not 'Jack's leg'. But you'll learn that soon enough."

She stroked Fergus's brown curls and gave him a fleeting kiss on the forehead. Then she looked at Jamie and asked:

"Do you want to go to sleep right away, or are you going to stay a little longer? Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

"We'll sit in the living room for a bit, won't we Fergus?"

The boy nodded.

"Then I'll bring sandwiches and tea in a minute?"

Jamie nodded, and while Claire disappeared into the kitchen, Jamie carried Fergus into the living room, where he set him down on the sofa. Then he took off his coat and laid it over one of the armchairs. At that moment the door opened and Claire pushed a serving cart into the room. At the sight of the platters of sandwiches, Fergus straightened up in his seat expectantly. Jamie went to help Claire, but she directed him toward Fergus with a motion of her head. Jamie nodded, sat down, and pulled the boy close.

"Well, don't we have it good? Look, so many sandwiches!"

“Snack” by congerdesign

Jamie took one of the plates and held it out to Fergus. As expected, the youngster had a hard time deciding. But then he reached for a sandwich with chicken, tomato, and mozzarella. Meanwhile, Claire poured herbal tea into three cups and pushed two of the cups toward Jamie and Fergus. Then she, too, sat down. They stayed together for about 40 minutes, eating, drinking, and talking a bit. Then Jamie and Claire managed to convince Fergus that it was now time to go to bed. They agreed that Claire would put Fergus to bed alone one more time that night. Together they went upstairs to Fraser's apartment, where outside the door was his suitcase, laptop bag, and box of business documents. Jamie unlocked the door and let Fergus and Claire go inside. Then he put the things away in his study. Half an hour later he was lying in his bed, freshly showered and fast asleep. Fergus, too, had already fallen asleep. Claire, on the other hand, had retired to the guest room, where she would sleep that night as well.

Fraser had put his smartphone on his nightstand, not thinking that it had rejoined the domestic network when he entered the house. He shouldn't realize it until several hours later.

Iphone by Pexels

Claire woke up immediately when she heard the cry that sounded from her smartphone paired with the baby monitor. Since she had been watching Fraser's son day and night, she no longer slept deeply, but was always on guard inside. She jumped out of bed, threw on her robe and ran out of the room. In the dark hallway, she bumped into a mountain of meat. Then the automatic light came on and she recognized Jamie.

"What are you doing sneaking around outside my door?" she snapped at him.

"I'm not sneaking around your door! I heard Fergus crying ..."

At that moment, another scream rang out from Fergus' room. Together they ran down the hallway. Claire reached the door first, threw it open, and rushed toward Fergus' bed.

"It's all right, Fergus. I'm right here, you just had a bad dream."

The boy woke up and looked at her with wide eyes. Then he clung to her. Claire began to sway slightly. Jamie sat down next to her and gently stroked Fergus's back.

"It's all right, Fergus. You don't have to be afraid. Claire and I are here."

Claire gave Fergus some water to drink, then accompanied him to the bathroom. Back in bed, Jamie wrapped him in his comforter. When they heard Fergus' steady breathing, they left the room. Slowly, they walked down the hall. Before Claire turned into her room, she said:

"I'm sorry I snapped at you like that ..."

"No problem, I ... had forgotten that my smartphone ..."

"It's okay ... Just turn it off. I am here if he should have another bad dream. But usually it doesn't happen twice in one night. Now go to sleep and get some rest. Good night."

"Good night, Claire."

Jamie slept until noon the next day. When Claire picked Fergus up from school, he came down from his apartment, talked to Mr. and Mrs. Curtius, and then strolled around the garden a bit. As soon as he heard the car turn into the driveway, he climbed the steps of the spiral staircase and headed for the dining room, where he planned to wait for Claire and Fergus. This time, his foster son's greeting turned out to be stormier:

"Papa! You're awake!" exclaimed Fergus, who looked into the dining room from the hallway and immediately wanted to rush toward Fraser. But Claire held him by his jacket:

"Fergus Fraser! First, we take off our dirty shoes and our jackets! We don't want to make Mrs. Curtius any more work than necessary, do we?"

"Sorry, Claire," the boy said a little meekly. He took off his shoes, put them on the shoe rack, and slipped into his slippers. But then he was unstoppable. He ran toward Fraser, who had leaned down and caught him with outstretched arms. Jamie carried the boy up to the dining room table, sat down in his seat, and settled Fergus on his lap. Claire put down her coat, took a deep breath, and then listened to the conversation that was developing between father and son. Fraser inquired how the school day had gone. Fergus reported, but then in turn kept asking about Fraser's trip and his well-being. When Fraser asked his son if he was hungry and he answered in the affirmative, he rang the bell and shortly thereafter Mrs. Curtius brought lunch. Now Claire also joined "the men."

“Modelleisenbahn” by naturfreund_pics

Jamie and Fergus spent the afternoon and early evening in the garden and then in the conservatory playing with their train set. Claire joined them only for tea and dinner. She had cleaned out the guest room and moved her things back to her apartment. After dinner, she said goodbye to Fergus with a quick kiss on his forehead. For the next few days, Fraser would be caring for his son alone, and Claire was looking forward to a few days with more free time to herself. However, as she sat at her desk and the time came when she would normally sit by Fergus' bedside and read to him, she missed that moment together. In fact, she had to force herself a bit to get back to the tasks she had set out to do that evening. Claire managed to distract herself for a few minutes, but then she suddenly thought of the evening Skype conversations she had had with Jamie every night for the past ten days. She realized that those evening conversations would now come to an end as well. They would all return to 'normality', whatever 'normality' meant in the Fraser-Fraser-Beauchamp constellation. And if she was honest, she had to admit to herself that she would miss the evening conversations with Fraser. But suddenly she was jolted from her thoughts by that familiar sound that announced the arrival of a video call. It was Jamie.

"Sorry Claire, I'm interrupting again today after all."

"Is something wrong with Fergus?"

"No, no, though of course he complained that … but I explained to him that he needs to give you a rest once in a while, too. The reason I'm getting back to you is ..." - Jamie sighed - " ... our meeting with your friend Geillis and her partner Dave .... I ... would then call him tomorrow and invite them over for next weekend ... if you're okay with that?"

"Yeah, let's get over with this," Claire replied with a slightly snippy tone in her voice.

"Claire, if you're not ..."

"No, no, I'm allright, I ... we are doing this for Fergus, after all."

"Speaking of Fergus. I've been thinking that I'm going to ask Mrs. Curtius if he can sleep at their livingroom that night."

"Why?"

"Well, uhm, so we don't run the risk that he might somehow slip ... regarding the status of our ... relationship."

"Well, that's a thought, of course ... But do you think he'll do it willingly?"

"I'll find some bait ..."

Fraser smiled.

"Well, Claire," he then said, "I'll get on the phone with Dave and tomorrow we'll talk again about it. Is that all right with you?"

"Sure, but I'll be out all day tomorrow and won't be back until dinner."

Jamie paused for a moment, then nodded.

"Of course, take as much time for yourself as you like. Good night, Claire!"

"Good night, Jamie."

The screen went dark, but a kind of home movie started playing in Claire's head that would keep her awake for some time.

“Kaffee” by congerdesign

Claire used her first day off in a long time to sleep in thoroughly. After taking a long shower and dressing a little warmer than usual, she went down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Kurtius was already preparing lunch for Jamie and Fergus. The caretaker offered her a cup of coffee, and while the two women talked about the experiences of the past few days, Claire made herself two sandwiches, which she ate at her leisure. Just as she was about to leave, Jamie returned, having brought Fergus, who had to be a little late for school that day, there.

"Good morn... uhm, good day, Claire."

"Good day, Jamie. I forgot to ask, but is the car free?"

Fraser looked at her in surprise for a moment.

"Basically, it is ... I uhm, wanted to pick up Fergus later though ..."

"I just want to get into the city," Claire replied, "it would only take 30 minutes and then I'd send the driver back. And tonight, I'd call to have him pick me up again around 5:30. Is that all right?"

"Sure. I don't have anything planned for today except a little paperwork, picking up Fergus, lunch, schoolwork, and then playing with him ... maybe we'll take a little walk to the lake, but, no, take the car. If something really important happens and I need a driver, I'll have one come from the company. Enjoy your day off!"

Claire nodded.

"Thanks!"

She put on her coat, picked up her bag, and moments later was gone in the elevator that took her to the garage.

Fraser watched her go, then stood in the hallway for a moment, undecided.

"Well, Mr. Fraser? How about some fresh coffee?"

Surprised, he looked over at Mrs. Curtius, who was still standing at the kitchen counter, watching the whole scene with interest.

"If it's strong, I'd love it," Jamie replied.

"There's only coffee here the way you like it: black, hot, and strong!"

Jamie climbed onto one of the counter chairs and Mrs. Curtius pushed a large mug of hot coffee toward him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Curtius," Fraser said with a smile, sipping his fresh coffee. Then he decided to seize the opportunity:

"Tell me, how have the past ten days been with Mrs. Beauchamp?"

“Museum Barberini” - by nofu

At the same time, Claire drove toward downtown and then dropped off in front of a bookstore. The bookseller greeted her warmly, and when he heard her name, his face lit up all the more. Claire had ordered some books, three of which had already arrived, others still awaited. She took the three books, paid, and then retreated to the back of the store, which was home to a small café. She placed her book bag in one of the large dark plush chairs and took off her coat. Before she had even sat down, a waitress appeared and took her order. Claire sat down, pulled up the small side table, and looked in the book bag. She took out one of the smaller copies and began to read. A few minutes later, the waitress brought her tea and a bagel - "smashed avocado, tomato, mint, arugula, and olive oil" - as the card announced it.

“Bagel” by sanfirabogdan

Claire enjoyed the food, but even more the peace and quiet that being in the store guaranteed her. Although the bookstore was bustling with comings and goings, and customers regularly showed up at the café to order pastries or other food as takeaways, patrons rarely strayed into the café's seating area on weekdays. Claire knew this from her previous visits and had chosen the day very deliberately. She stayed for a total of two hours, during which she ordered and ate a second bagel - "tapenade, goat cheese, arugula, tomato". She then strolled slowly through the city, enjoying looking at shop windows at her leisure. In the early afternoon, she visited a new exhibition at the Museum Barberini and then directed her steps toward the Dutch Quarter. There she wanted to try out a café that Ms. Curtius had recommended to her. And the caretaker had not promised too much. She was immediately impressed by the interior, the friendly manner of the staff, and the large, non-mainstream selection of baked goods. Again, Claire sat down as far as she could in the back of the café. She ordered a hot sea buckthorn juice with orange and cinnamon and a cake with blueberry lavender mousse. The time Claire spent enjoying the food and her reading flew by and after two hours it was time to call the driver to come pick her up.

“Haus Gutenberg / Hollänisches Viertel / Potsdam” via Von Clemensfranz - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19986832

Once home, Claire had dinner with Fergus and Jamie. Fergus, who had eaten two large sandwiches and some salad in no time, began to question Claire. Where had she been? What had she been doing? Jamie interrupted him:

"Fergus Fraser! That's not the way to do it. It's very rude to question someone like that. If Claire wants to tell us something, she will. And if she doesn't want to tell us anything, that's her right too. And besides, we're eating. You're not giving Claire any time at all."

The boy looked at the plate in front of him for a moment, embarrassed. He blushed to the tips of his ears. Then he looked at Claire:

"Please excuse me, Claire."

Claire gulped down her tea. Then she fleetingly stroked Fergus's hair:

"Apology accepted. You know, Fergus, we'll eat in peace now and then I'll tell you about my afternoon over another cup of tea. Is that okay?"

Fergus didn't have to answer at all. The smile that beamed all over his face was answer enough.

And so, it happened. While Fraser cleared the table, Claire sat down with Fergus in the living room on the sofa and told him about her visit to the Museum Barberini. When she finished her little report, she noticed that Fraser was standing in the doorway, listening as well. He motioned Fergus to say goodbye to Claire and sent him up to the second floor where he was to get "ready for bed" ahead of time. Fergus slid awkwardly from the sofa to the floor, said goodbye to Claire, and sent himself off to his heavy fate with a deep sigh. Jamie glanced at Claire and fixed his eyes against the sky.

"Don't dawdle, Fergus. I'll be right with you," he called after the boy.

Claire had also risen and was about to make her way to her apartment.

"Just a moment, Claire," Fraser asked. Then he grabbed a Din-A-5 envelope lying on the dining room table and handed it to her.

"I have a little ‘thank you’ here for all your overtime."

“Brief” by Catkin

Claire opened the envelope and, to her amazement, held in her hands a confirmation of a vacation for two at a luxury hotel in Madeira for the period December 22, 2025, to January 3, 2026. Astonished, she looked at Jamie:

"What's this?"

"Well, I thought you might like to take a vacation with a friend over Christmas and New Year? You certainly deserve it."

"So, you don't want me here over Christmas?"

Now it was Jamie who was taken aback.

"Maybe if you ... don't want to go ... to Madeira ... we can rebook that ... wherever you want to go."

He was silent for a moment, then started again:

"Claire, we can't ask you to spend your holidays with us, too ..."

Suddenly, the CEO of "Fraser & Son International" looked a little helpless.

"Jamie," Claire began, taking a step closer. Lowering her voice, she continued:

"We're clear that our concern is for Fergus' well-being, right?"

Fraser nodded.

"For a child of Fergus' age, stable circumstances, regularities, rituals, and good experiences are very important. You've just been away for ten days. Now you're home again for a few days and then I take over again and just before Christmas it alternates again? Do you really think that's good for Fergus?"

Claire didn't let Jamie get a word in edgewise.

"He's really looking forward to the run-up to Christmas, and I promised him we'd do lots of crafts and baking together."

Jamie looked at her thoughtfully.

"Or do you want to spend Christmas alone with your son? Are you worried I'll have too much influence on him?"

"For heaven's sake! No, Claire!"

"Good," she said, pressing the booking forms for Madeira into his hands. "Then there's no need for this."

Indecisively, Jamie looked at the envelope.

"But if you need anything, free time or ..."

"Then I'll say it, loud and clear. I have a mouth and I know how to use it."

Jamie nodded. Then he asked:

"Why are we whispering, anyway?"

"Because this house has ears, little ears that grow on the head of a little boy who hides behind the dining room door and thinks we won't see him."

Jamie wanted to turn away instantly, but Claire held him back and gave him a look that kept him from rushing to the dining room door and giving Fergus a lecture.

"Well, Claire," Jamie then said in an exaggeratedly loud tone, "thanks for the info. I have to go see Fergus now though, I'm sure he's already showered and is waiting for me to read to him now."

Only seconds later, they heard the floor door slam into the lock. Then tripping footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

Jamie was about to run after him. But Claire's gaze held him back.

"Give him a moment. He's already gotten a reprimand tonight for his investigative questions. That's enough."

Jamie sighed.

"If that's what you mean."

Together they walked to the stairwell. Outside Fraser's apartment door, they said their goodbyes. Shortly after Claire got to her apartment, the app that paired the baby monitor with her smartphone popped on. She saw Fraser and Fergus sitting on the boy's bed, joking with each other. Then Fraser began reading aloud from the big book they had brought back from the museum trip to Chaff. For twenty minutes she watched and listened to the "two men." Then Fraser got up, tucked the boy in, and walked slowly to the door. Suddenly he stopped. To Claire's surprise, Jamie looked up at the wall clock that hung over the door and concealed the security camera. He smiled and winked one eye. Then Claire just heard the door close. Startled, she put the smartphone aside.

#Outlander #We only do this for Fergus #Outlander Fan Fiction #Fergus Fraser #Jamie Fraser #Claire Beauchamp #Berlin #Potsdam #Germany #Modern AU

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theoryclass · 5 years

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In this week's reading, terms such as uses and gratifications were mainly used. This chapter is based on the uses and gratifications as well as agenda-setting. Agenda setting focuses on how the media strategically controls the issues and topics that are at the forefront of our minds and in what way to view things. For example, think of the many segments that get aired on major broadcast networks today. Out of those segments we see, many have been cut by producers due to time, lack of interest, or the fear of viewers not finding the information relevant to their views or interests. This could cause discrepancies in significant issues that are not getting recognition, such as the killings of thousands of unarmed black men at the hands of law enforcement that we often never hear about. The hundreds of international wars, conflicts, bombings, and standoffs we never hear about due to the media’s decision on what is deemed as “news-worthy.”

The reading also hit on points on how the media can also seemingly, at times, control our viewpoints or persuade us to think a certain way about global or local issues. For example, there might be slightly biased in the position on issues such as the Syria bombings. On cable networks, you are likely to get the perspective of the United State’s involvement, but things are very different on platforms from around the world, such as Twitter. Twitter has allowed me to see both ends of global issues by viewing not only American's angle but also Syrians whose families are affected by the bombings enforced by the United States.

It becomes concerning when you begin to think about the media’s effect on the population’s knowledge of issues in their entirety. Most of the time, we only receive half of the story or only get told the “highpoints” of stories, in true inverted pyramid style, deemed right by journalists and broadcasters alike.

Another topic and term brought up in the chapter and in the class group discussion was the use of spiral of silence. Both spiral of silence and agenda setting seem intertwined with one another in its definitions. The book defines spiral of silence as “Idea that people holding views contrary to those dominant in the media are moved to keep those views to themselves for fear of rejection.” We often see this happen with others or maybe even ourselves. People often fall to fear of being singled out for having a differing opinion from those who are not the majority. I know in my personal life when I happen to be scrolling on Twitter and see something I do not agree with, I usually want to respond with a rebuttal. I often backtrack if I see the number of likes and retweets the post has in reference to people agreeing. This could lead people to think that there are people that do not have differing opinions other than the majority, which can, in the long-run, can have negative side effects.

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pushermania · 3 years

Audio

(Pushermania Network) All new for you! No borders here. Click that link and have a listen. Also you can find this on all the other platforms as well, if not now, soon. Just not Spotify and we shall see about that in the near future. I pray you are doing well! Track list is below:

Gardna, Charli Brix, Selecta J-Man, Tom Spirals - Wassup Matumbi - Frenz Toots and the Maytalls - Got To Be Strong Kabaka Pyramid - Believe Park Hye Jin, Nosajthing - Clouds Cautious Clay - Agreeable Unlike Pluto & Why Mona - Quintana Roo The Suffers - Take Me The The Goodtimes - Lighted Like Remix Azraq - Kam Franklin & Kareem Samara - Baby Please Don't Go

Devin the Dude, Rob Quest, Jugg Mugg aka The Odd Squad - We Smokin' Cole Boyz Ft. Fiend - Prayers Out KRS One - Stay Real Westside Gunn, Smoke Dza, Wale - The Hurt Business Th1rt3en - Palindrome (Live) I$Real - The Future We Need Bryant Canelo - Urban Style Music Devin the Dude, Slim Thug, Scarface - Live and Let Live

Ani Klang - M-Power 38KEA - Psychosis Toiret Status - #77 feat. Co La How I Quit Crack - Heart333 Bull Thieves - Pasture Kills Cheb Terro x DJ Hrizen - Cyberphonk Shabjdeed & Al Nather - Amerikkka Mehrak - Brasi - Prod El Rass Prophan - May Khunzub Spoil Your Prayers St. Panther - Highway

Suzi Analouge - Beatfinder (MF Doom Tribute) Ethiopian Records - Teyent Billy Buttheel - The Sky Bent

#SoundCloud #music #Pushermania Network #Hip Hop #Rap #Noise #Arabic Rap

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stillellensibley · 5 years

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Constant Displacement: Pierre Huyghe on His Work at Skulptur Projekte Münster

BY Andrew Russeth

The ceiling opens within Pierre Huyghe’s After ALife Ahead (2017) at Skulptur Projekte Münster.

About three years ago, discussing what he planned next for his practice, Pierre Huyghe told me that he was on the hunt for a place “to grow the work to the condition I want it to grow,” perhaps a stretch of land or an old building, somewhere maybe a bit off the beaten path. “The museum is a place of separation, in a certain way, and I need a place of continuity,” he said. “That’s why I need that site—whatever that site is.”

While touring possible locations for his contribution to the 2017 Skuptur Projekte in Münster, Germany, late last year, the 54-year-old French artist found one such site, a sprawling, old ice-skating rink, no longer in use, tucked behind a Burger King on the edge of town. “This place will be destroyed, so I could actually act on it as I wanted,” he said, recalling what attracted him to the space in a Skype call from Brooklyn last week.

Huyghe has transformed that abandoned rink into one of the most formidable and mysterious artworks that I have ever seen, an alien environment that seems secretly to teem with life and that operates according to its own furtive schedule. The concrete floor of the rink has been sliced apart and the ground dug up so that visitors can descend along clay pathways that are interrupted by pools of water harboring algae. Just when you begin to get your bearings, a buzzing sound emanates from up above and sleek panels glide open from the otherwise decrepit ceiling, exposing the room to the elements. When I visited on the opening day of the exhibition earlier this month it was raining and water fell quietly into the hulking hall, wetting the paths and trickling into the pools.

Algae blooming

At the center of the space, up on a cement platform, is an aquarium with glass that can shift from clear to black. It contains a venomous sea snail, a conus textile, which sports a shell with an intricate pattern that is an example of cellular automata. That organism is tiny, but it plays a key role in the exhibition. “We scanned the shell, which is made out of small or larger kind of triangle shapes, and that became the score that either opens or switches off the glass,” Huyghe said. That pattern also generates sound and, “as the glass switches on or off, it triggers the opening or closing of the pyramids that are on the ceiling.”

There are other systems humming away in the piece, though they are even more elusive. An incubator holds cancer cells whose rate of growth is determined by various measurements that sensors are taking of the space, which is also home to chimera peacocks and bees (though I have to admit that I saw neither during my visit). As the cancer cells change, they guide the behavior of black shapes that appear in an augmented reality app that visitors can download onto their phones. “What you have there is really a network of self-organizing systems,” Huyghe said. “They are in constant displacement. They grow, they evolve, they shift. There’s no master-slave in that regard. They shift constantly.”

Titled After ALife Ahead (2017), it is an artwork that is slowly spiraling into something else, moving away from its creator, and only giving off little glimpses of its operations as it evolves. Through October 1, when Skulptur Projekte closes, rain will keep flowing in, the algae will still grow, and the landscape will continue to change. There’s no telling what it will look like at the end. “I’m interested in letting, in a certain way, self-organizing systems try either to find or to not find a symbiosis,” Huyghe said. “I try my best not to intervene within it.”

The aquarium

At its most piquant moments, Huyghe’s work thrives on the friction that results from the interaction of planned systems and the aleatoric actions that can occur within them once they are allowed to function. He talks about making work that is “indifferent to the public.” His work sidelines you, making you feel you are just one component of a much larger, perhaps unknowable, constellation of people and things and forces—which, of course, you are. It is a disorienting, even sublime world, and strange things are afoot there.

Though the rough-and-tumble ground in the rink looks at a glance like a wild, unplanned dig, it was carefully orchestrated by Huyghe. “I didn’t want simply to blow up—or to destroy—the floor,” he said. “I wanted to find another way to approach that digging, neither construction site nor simple archaeological hole.” Inspired in part by a retro-futuristic grid on the rink’s ceiling, he took the Stomachion logic puzzle invented by Archimedes, which involves cutting up a square into a tangram, and overlaid it onto the floor to create a new grid. “So then a person with this giant blade would cut the concrete exactly according to the system of that thought,” he said.

This was not, to sure, an inexpensive endeavor. Speaking about the ambition of the project recently, Kasper König, Skulptur Projekte’s artistic director, quipped that its cost may have exceeded €1 million, but Huyghe said that was not quite the case. “I love when numbers blow up,” he said good-naturedly. “The project was less than that. But it was quite a big number. It was maybe around €700,000 or €800,000,” or about $783,000 to $895,000. While artists in Skulptur Projekte Münster reportedly receive a budget of around €35,000 toward their work, Huyghe’s galleries helped foot the rest of the bill, and he emphasized this was not a money-making affair for them.

Installation view of Pierre Huyghe’s After ALife Ahead (2017) at Skulptur Projekte Münster

After October 1, the aquarium, the living organisms, and the other equipment will be removed, and the ice skating rink will be destroyed. Following only about 100 days of being public, the display will cease to exist. Bemoaning this and mentioning all the work that had gone into creating After ALife Ahead, I suggested to Huyghe that it should be made permanent, an artwork morphing and growing for the rest of the time in Münster, but he demurred, and spoke about its short lifespan in terms that were almost philosophical. “It was the condition—there was an occasion—that was part of the rule,” he said, cutting himself off. “I mean, that person had that place, and he said, ‘You can do whatever you want with it because I’m going to destroy that place, so you choose.’

“So I decided to do that,” he continued. “Which, to a certain extent, yeah, it’s a pity, but also there’s something quite interesting in that.”

Source

Notes - Huyghe’s installations have a profound effect on the people who view them - “...making you feel you are just one component of a much larger, perhaps unknowable, constellation of people and things and forces...”

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vicky-14562 · 4 years

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New York

So far studying New York has been my favourite from all the art history lectures, i have found it the most interesting, and I've wrote the most notes by far in this lecture. its such a large city and there’s so much culture and history behind it, i feel like there’s much more to research i could do on it.

I have decided to base my academic poster on New York.

Art in New York

Major centre of art in the world (buying and selling).

What lead to the moving from Paris being the centre up until the Second World War to New York becoming the centre? Artists left Europe because of war, trade, wide range of cheap accommodation (studio space, somewhere to exhibit), museums, art dealers, patrons, gallery owners are individually based in the city. Artists can build networks with art school and museums. Artists community were all in New York. Incubator for radicalism, new ideas and political movements, influence of emigre artists and people fleeing poverty and persecution.

Marcel Duchamp, New York 1913 - 1917 armoury show

He changed the way we think about art now, with “fountain”- what makes it from a ready made product to a piece of art? He’s saying it’s an artwork. He was told to take it out and he refused. Artists looking for a new way to create art looked to him.

Nude descending a staircase

Harlem Renaissance 1932

The great migration, African Americans ( former slaves) fleeing the southern states, to industrial city’s, formed their own culture, didn’t want to become apart or reenact white culture, looked back to Africa, the culture of former slaves.

Music - jazz 1920s was at the very foundation of leading to the population of modern music

Lois mailou Jones“The ascent of Ethiopia”

Slaves

Rising up the mountain

Africa

Pyramids

At the top is New York - Harlem

People have eventually got self confidence once they get up the hill

Includes - art, music, drama, buildings of New York, piano, man with easel, paint pallet.

When slaves were trying to escape they used the North Star which is in the far corner - new life.

American realism - everyday activities of ordinary people.Everything’s being influenced by everything else.

George BellowsTalking about a different type of New York through art, ordinary people.“Dempsey and Firpo” 1924

Edward hopper“Nighthawks” 1942

Destination

Loneliness

Realistic

Enormous sense of isolation

Late at night maybe?

All about light - cherry top counter, the silver coffee steamers, the jade green boarder.

Although it’s so simple the real beauty is the unknown.

The war hadn’t touched New York a this point yet

What do you think is happening or is going to happen next?

The lonely man will probably go home or go to work, he is quite stressed or sad as he is alone in a bar late at night.

Lady in red looks very relaxed, she’s wearing powerful colours, seems like a strong women.

The “couple” may leave together and go home or may carry on to another bar that’s open or nightclub. Or they may not even be a couple they may just be sitting close to each other.

Their hands are slightly touching

Men are dressed the same, quite gangster.

Everyone is in disconnect?

Affair between the couple or so may be a prostitute because if the colour of her clothing and it’s late at night.

Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson pollock, Mark Rothko and Willie. De Kooning in the 1940s. It’s is often characterised by gestural brushstrokes or mark making and the impressions of spontaneity.

Inspired by jazz,

Artists who were in Harlem we’re apart of abstract expressionism, (women coloured people)

Kenneth Noland“Drought” 1962

American paired

Best known colour field painter

Shows The way that colour can be used

Introduced by clement Greenberg

Thinned paint and allowed it to sink into canvas

Removed the artist from the brushstrokes

New way of using colour

Used cans tubes to drip paint

Clement Greenberg - art critic, without him there would of been no Jackson pollock.

Mark Rothko“This kind of design may look simple but it usually takes me many hours to get the proportions and colours just right. Everything has to lock together

Letting the colour go into your own subconscious.

Had mental health issues

His painting got darker towards his death

Spiritually

Helen FrankenthalerOil on unsized canvas, unprimed canvas, just to see what happened, the interaction between the paint and the canvas makes it abstract.

Lee Krasner (Jackson pollocks wife)First person to use the drip technique to create paintings. She started to achieved enormous recognition after her husband died.

Norman LewisAssociates music with the paintings - African, jazz?

Andy Warhol 1960s“The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, the better and emptier you feel”

Post modern society

New commercial society

Looking at what’s around you

Repetition

All worthless because it’s commercialised

Screen prints

Became a product of his own irony

Celebrity chasing

Started as a commercial artist

Left when he realised he could make art of his own and make money from it

Artists like Andy working in New York looking at the development in society Comfortable society, majority of white American middle class life was good

Roy Lichtenstein 1960sStill not recognised as an appreciated artist.

The way women were portrayed in those days

Sense of irony

Mixed media, using all materials to make art.

Faith Ringgold

African American artist

Her work was next to one of Picasso’s

Part of American civil rights movement, response to this mivemt was very violent

Looking at this in a painting called “American people series #20 dead”

Using quilting

Taking techniques women use to make work.

Different perspective

Beautifully provocative

Emma Amos“Sandy and her husband”

Iconic picture of the 1970s

They are rebooking at her work (art historians)

Only female part of a group spiral movement

What’s Emma Amos takin about in this painting?Dancing relaxed sceneWell off coupleLooks like a dreamWomen in mirror is jealous because she is alone. That is Emma Amos, self portrait.Her past self.

Intersectionality

“Is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.”Feminism - don’t just thing of white middle class, think of the others who would of been excludedStarted to incorporate critical race, how are they excluded from the narratives how are they written out of the narratives es why do they not have a voiceLook through a lense.Excluded from societyChallenging the narratives.Something to be very aware ofDon’t just look at a painting through one particular lense.Not separate, can’t look separately

Jean michel basquiat 1982

Most collectible painting in America now

Responds and reflects to his own culture

In your face exposure of black culture.

Work is unapologetic of the black

Political

Painting of aggression? First appears this way.

Close friend of Keith Haring

Talks about many things other don’t talk about about black culture in New York

What characteristics have determined the way that New York became the epicentre of the art world?

Welcoming Cultures, beliefs, sexuality etc.

Was an open city

Political views

Fleeing the war

Infrastructure - the city wasn’t effected by the war, there was still museums etc

It was new. New ideas, what was happening at the point in time.

Identify three factors, that contributed to the development of an art movement in the city.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

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HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT KERRY

Better to assume investors will always let you down. A couple million would let them get office space and hire some smart people they know from school. Yes, those errands may cost you more time when you finally get it; that experience will make you want to do now. If they're real problems, he'd face the same paradox as someone trying to give an outline of how it works. As long as you've made something that a few users are ecstatic about, you're on the right track. These are separate questions. I think there is room for low-cost investors to undercut the rest.

It's especially good if your application solves some new problem. Beware, because although most professors are smart, not all of the money. If founders could sell a little stock early, they'd be happy to take VC money and bet the rest on a bigger outcome. Decreasing economic inequality means decreasing the risk people are willing to take. I think, if one looked, that this would turn out to be i/o fast, because server-based software, you can contribute to open-source projects. But don't just take their word for it. In his famous essay You and Your Research which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter how good his language was, no one wants to begin a program with a bunch of work, and the de facto censorship imposed by publishers is a useful if imperfect filter. It wouldn't be a compliment in most organizations to call someone scrappy. It can't be something you have to be high, and if this new Lisp does some important job better than other languages. If the movie industry has already tried to pass laws prescribing three year prison terms just for putting movies on public networks. When we predict good outcomes for startups, one of which won't surprise them, and that is exactly the spirit you want. The angel investors who funded our startup let the founders have that first million, or at least to know what an n 2 algorithm is if you want to patent an algorithm, you have to adjust the angle just right: you have to be nice to and who you can get away with changing more than you think.

After all, they're more likely to buy you. Bootstrapping Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors while the others keep the company going. Some of the smartest people and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. No doubt there are great technical tricks within Google, but the energy to keep a company going in lieu of unburdening success isn't free; it is siphoned from the founders themselves hadn't seen yet. Well, let's look at the history of programming languages a surprising amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers from doing things that can happen to a startup is like a defender who has been beaten so thoroughly that he turns to plead with the referee. At Yahoo this death spiral started early. The most likely scenario is 1 that no government will successfully establish a startup hub by planting a great university in a nice place, it would be an art center, but it can't hurt to try. There may be business school classes on entrepreneurship, as they call it over there, but these are likely to succeed, what we find ourselves saying is things like Oh, those guys can take care of themselves. I knew I wanted to make enough from a startup is to maximize the company's chances of succeeding, you'll only do it if there is a clear trend among them: the most successful startups got started. More likely, you'll just get far more people starting startups. But even in the highest of high tech industries, success still depends more on determination than brains.

You and Your Research which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter what. It might mean something. To do good work, not elevators and glass walls. I wanted to start a company. And they're going to be a good one for beginning writers. Not only was this work not for a class, but because the process of raising money, or to prevent you from competing with them. In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls gave him a 52-48 victory. But it didn't matter exactly what the benefits would be. Angels are better at appreciating novel ideas, because most types of work that can only be done in long, uninterrupted stretches, when inspiration hits, rather than dutifully in scheduled little slices. If I didn't know Lisp, reading this would set me asking questions.

The rulers of the technology business tend to come from technology, not business. The most common is to grant patents that shouldn't be granted. That's the absent-minded professor, who forgets to shave, or eat, or even who the founders are the ones sitting back with slightly pained expressions. Give the Programmer as Much Control as Possible. So I sent all the founders an email asking what's up, and the experts he lured west to work with him liked it so much they stayed. I wouldn't be surprised if by streamlining their selection process and taking fewer board seats. It's all too common then, that was what had happened to the language he had designed. But the founders contribute ideas. In a job there is much more damping. And once it spreads to hotels, where is the point in size of chain at which it stops? The average person, as I mentioned, a pretty bad judge of startups. Whereas if you start a company.

The whole field is uncomfortable in its own right, and I predict it will become a pyramid. The problem is, for the company to build their own: if you hire all the smartest people are, even if you merely inherited it. What did he say to do? It's designed for large organizations PL/I, Ada have lost, while hacker languages C, Perl have won. They produce something, are convinced it's great, and never more so than in a program they expect to turn out in an hour. But there is no need to worry. Not spend it, that's what. In fact, it may be as a piece of paper saying they didn't own our software; and six months later we were bought by Yahoo for much more than high school math plus a few concepts from the theory of computation. On closer examination I see a couple things on the list 100 years ago. So I think efficiency will matter, at least, not here that this is the divisor. One reason it's so brutal is simply the brutality of markets. It's that startups will underestimate the difficulty of raising money—that they'll cruise through all the initial steps, but when one looks closely at the software business I know from experience whether patents encourage or discourage innovation?

It's the same with technology. Unless you're sure what you want than it would take me several weeks of research to be able to make arbitrary transformations on the source code. Proving your initial plan was mistaken would just get you a bad grade. I talk to people who've managed to make themselves work on big problems? If you are persistent, even problems that seem out of your control i. The very implementation is different. It's obvious why transparency has that effect. Fortunately we've come up with more. Which meant we got to watch as they used our software, and their influence is such that the rest of the world. If you start a startup in a place with restaurants and people walking around instead of in an office park, because then none of them would be able to write a program decides what language to use.

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cryptnus-blog · 5 years

Text

Why Context Matters When Discussing the Crypto Bubble

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/12/why-context-matters-when-discussing-the-crypto-bubble/

Why Context Matters When Discussing the Crypto Bubble

CCN is expanding. Are you our next full-time journalist from the West Coast USA? Send us your CV and examples here.

The fact that the bitcoin price has been crashing for the past month has led some people to have some hilarious reactions.

From rage-quitting crypto-trading and investing to astonishing doomsday predictions, it’s really fun to sit back and watch all madness.

However, I feel like it’s also my duty to step in and calm things down for a second. Honestly, this “crypto-bubble” you’re tired of hearing about hasn’t popped.

It hasn’t even begun to form.

If you don’t believe me, you’re in for a treat, for today we’ll discuss how perspective and the ability to see things abstractly is an asset when properly used and why so many people lack the vision to see things clearly.

I’m not saying I’m an all-knowing guru. That’s not the point.

The thing is that people get excited and really want to work for those likes and shares. That’s all fine; it’s the world we live in today, not here to judge.

But, c’mon; at least have the decency to put things into perspective. Do you know how big the dotcom bubble grew before bursting? Do you have any idea?

When the dotcom bubble exploded, close to 20 years ago, the total market value was around $6.7 trillion. In today’s money, the value of each USD is about 40 percent lower. This simply means, if you were to compare to 2000’s prices to 2018’s prices, this bubble would have reached more than $9 trillion.

See where we are now?

We’re about 1.5 percent into the bubble. How frightening.

How Much is Crypto Worth?

Right now, the current mindset is that cryptocurrencies are in some sort of downward spiral, with no hope ahead. According to some news sources, that is.

Obviously, when we look at the bigger picture, we can clearly see that is not the case.

With the most recent developments in Lightning Network technology, a Bitcoin peer-to-peer scaling solution, we’re now starting to see considerable more adoption, as more nodes join the network and the number of active connections and transactions increases. As CCN reported:

“Even as the price of bitcoin continued to slide, the effective throughput of its more than 11,000 nodes had surpassed $2 million when we first began researching this article. Volatility being what it is, the actual throughput at time of writing stands somewhere over $1.97M, or 432.7 BTC.”

The entire cryptocurrency market cap has devalued more than 70 percent since its peaks highs close to $1 trillion, during early January this year, which has led some people to believe we’re finally out of luck, and there is little hope crypto will recover any time soon.

Of course, it’s always at the most desperate moments, when hope is all but gone, that we’re given another chance.

I don’t think we’ll see prices for such low prices for much longer. Soon, there will be an upwards correction.

If you need more fundamentals, besides Bitcoin’s hash rate maintaining a steady uptrend and more people actually using bitcoin in countries like Venezuela (which kind of proves its point), we could use, perhaps, an alternative argument.

Is bitcoin over-priced?

I would ultimately argue its price should at least be a little bit higher than McDonald’s.

Financial freedom > burgers

But hey, that’s just me.

Usability Creates Adoption

Visa handles far more at about $30 billion a day, or $11 trillion a year according to their self-disclosed stats. That’s with a capacity of 65,000 transactions a second.

Bitcoin can handle only about 7 tx/s on chain, or about 0.01 percent of Visa’s. Yet bitcoin transfers about 25 percent of Visa’s amount of value processing.

In their recent quarterly report, Mastercard said they processed $4.4 trillion in the year to date, while bitcoin would be at about $3 trillion on a yearly basis if we extrapolate from the daily $8 billion — a level that is fairly common for BTC.

Do you guys know what this means?

Bitcoin is close to overtaking Mastercard by the amount of value transferred daily.

This really makes me wonder: What is the big deal of using bitcoin mostly as a store of value?

Even if it’s slow and boring, it’s much, much safer than any centralized third-party settlements layer.

There is also a lot of action currently behind the scenes as institutions prepare custody solutions to allow institutional money from endowments, hedge funds, state pension funds, etc., to join us brave privateers that beat them to this New World of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Bakkt even announced their first contracts for BTC would be a one to one ratio.

All this is bullish.

But way more exciting is what comes next.

Key Players Shifting Towards Crypto

Have you wondered why the last time there was direct Chinese participation, the total market capitalization went up 881 percent in 6 months?

Currently, the Chinese yuan accounts for only 0.79 percent of bitcoin’s daily trading volume (give or take).

When was the last time the Chinese public had straightforward access from yuan to bitcoin anyway?

December 2013. Almost 5 years ago.

China stopped mainstream financial institutions on the mainland from dealing with bitcoin in December 2013, when the overall market cap for all cryptocurrencies was only $15.7 billion.

It drives me nuts just thinking about what’s to come when most countries open their doors to cryptocurrencies — one way or another.

Yes, even through centralized digital currencies, backed by governments, which will happen sooner or later.

Technology Developments ‡ User Adoption

Just by looking at Dapp Radar, a website focused on showing statistics about decentralized applications, we clearly see there isn’t much adoption yet.

That means that it seems a tiny bit too soon to jump into any sort of conclusions, about future use-cases. That is, most dApps have been released either in 2017 or 2018, so there hasn’t really been enough time to properly implement token-models which leverage tokens in the most amazing ways possible – which to me will be a huge catalyst for user adoption.

Some takeaways from an amazing data scientist, on the topic of dApps and adoption rates, are:

“We are orders of magnitudes away from consumer adoption of dApps. No killer app (outside of tokens and trading) have been created yet. Any seemingly “large” dApp (ex. IDEX, CryptoKitties, etc) has low usage overall.

“All of the top dApps are still very much about speculation of value. Decentralized exchanges, casino games, pyramid schemes, and even the current collectible games (I would argue) are all around speculation.

“What applications (aside from value transfer and speculation) really take advantage of the true unique properties of a blockchain (censorship resistance, immutability of data, etc) and unlock real adoption?

“For new protocol developers, instead of trying to convince existing dApp developers to build on your new platform — think hard about what dApps actually make sense on your protocol and how to help them have a chance at real adoption.

“We as an ecosystem need to build better tools and infrastructure for more widespread adoption of dApps. Metamask is an awesome tool, but it is still a difficult onboarding step for most normal users. Toshi, Status, and Cipher are all steps in the right direction and I’m really looking forward to the creation of other tools to simplify the user onboarding experience and improve general UI/UX for normal users.”

Plus, I do believe there is an actual use-case for a great deal of cryptocurrencies out there. Otherwise:

Without Litecoin we wouldn’t have a live testnet for bitcoin improvements.

Or without BCash we wouldn’t have a blockchain with 32mb blocks.

What about Ethereum? Thanks to this protocol, have an easy framework to deploy cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.

Without Steemit we wouldn’t have a decentralized, incentive-based, social network.

Without the Basic Attention Token we wouldn’t have Brave, a decentralized browser that pays content creators.

Do you like privacy? Well, without Zcash, we wouldn’t have ZKsnarks, providing anonymity and privacy in the blockchain technology.

Or without Stellar, we wouldn’t have institutions looking at public blockchain solutions.

Finally, without Aurus we wouldn’t have a stablecoin based on tokenized gold assets (much safer than tether and its “peg” to the USD).

Put Your Mind At Ease

There’s clearly much work left to be done. What’s the best thing to do now? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m surely going to take advantage of these continuous Black Friday bitcoin prices and increase my holdings.

At the end of the day, bitcoin’s still one of the most (if not the most?) best-performing assets since its inception, close to 10 years ago.

Just think about the dozens of times we’ve seen bitcoin crashing.

The conclusion is rather quite simple, and I guess we’ll always end-up in circles around the same stuff:

Since bitcoin plunged from an all-time high of nearly $20,000 to its current price around $4,000, crypto naysayers such as Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Nouriel Roubini reiterated their position that the crypto markets will end poorly, while crypto bulls point to bitcoin’s previous crashes and multiple comebacks.

One interesting thought is that on each crash, the average percent decrease from highs to lows has been smaller on each bear market. That’s definitely a very good sign!

Conclusion

The reason why we need to take a break from time to time and look at the bigger picture is to put things into perspective.

Bitcoin is still in its early days, and I’m quite confident, due to past history from multiple markets, we’ll still be able to see huge bears and bulls. If you’re patient enough, of course.

Don’t forget, buy when there’s blood in the streets!

Disclaimer: this article shouldn’t be taken as financial advisement; it represents my personal opinion and should not be attributed to CCN. I have savings invested in cryptocurrency so take whatever I write with a grain of salt. Do not invest what you cannot afford to lose and always read as much as possible about a project before investing.

Featured Image from Shutterstock

Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.

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vdmeganlawsontei · 6 years

Text

Stable Cryptocurrencies as a Medium of Exchange

Why is the mass adoption of crypto payments stalling? Among multiple challenges, the biggest barrier to widespread use of cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions is their high price volatility. Which merchant or service provider would take the risk offsetting a price and earning revenues in BTC when their costs are in USD?

On the land of cryptocurrencies, high volatility is an ordinary event. Where 10%-20% price movement is normal in a day frame, it is hard to create a stable economy. Financially it would be hard to live in a world where a highly volatile asset is the main currency. Who would agree to pay rent in BTC when their salary is paid in USD? Who would get a mortgage denominated in BTC when their salary is in EUR? As it is today, already an increasing number of DApps rely on ether and the ethereum network where a bigger price volatility could easily cause complications in the system. We can agree that it is essential to have a cryptocurrency with stable price to keep the decentralised, smart contract economy rolling. So there is the question. What is the best way to build a stable coin that could bypass the wild crypto price movement, market speculations and create the backbone of the internet of value?

Beyond multiple attempts to create a stable cryptocurrency, several projects are on the horizon which are aiming to decentralize money creation and even starting to apply credit money attributes in their schemes. There are three + one main model which might be a potential design for stabilize cryptocurrency: the fiat-collateralized, crypto-collateralized, non-collateralized, plus the asset-backed cryptocurrencies.

Fiat-collateralized

One of the easier way to create stable coin is the fiat-backed cryptocurrency. In this simple scheme, the organization just deposit fiat into a bank account and issue the fiat pegged coin or token on a one to one ratio. The digital token has value because it represents a claim on another asset with some defined value. When the holder would like to convert the stable coin back into fiat, then the issuer destroy the stable coin and transfer the fiat back to the owner. This bank deposit tokenization has some drawbacks such as these tokens require trust in the issuing party, that the issuer actually holds the fiat collateral and they are willing to honor the IOUs.

Tether is one of the widely known fiat-backed stable coin, but to as a whole it’s not really considered a cryptocurrency, rather a company for several reasons: There are owners of this organization, it is a registered company, the owners of Tether have complete control over the money supply and they could hijack the project if it is in favor.

Crypto-collateralized

The second main model on the list is the crypto-collateralized stablecoin. This model has no fiat related parts, all the possible collaterals are on blockchain, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or other cryptocurrencies. These collaterals are locked into a smart contract, so there is no third party involved, the structure is more decentralized. Furthermore, if the system designed well, it can be completely decentralized, making crypto-collateralized stablecoins more appealing to people than the fiat-collateralized cryptocurrencies.

On the other hand, the drawback of this model is the high volatility of the collateral. The system requires a substantially higher amount of collateral in order to make the lending/transaction bulletproof. As an example, if a person/organization (let’s call it a user) needs 100 USD worth of crypto-USD, then the user needs to lock 150%-300% worth of ETH as a collateral in order to eliminate the obstacles of volatility. The smart contract, where the collateral is locked into, allows the users to access it by paying back the stablecoin debt or can be sold by the system if the collateral exchange rate falls below a certain point.

High collateral ratio is clearly an issue in the system, however, as the cryptocurrency ecosystem is getting more mature, several solutions appear on the horizon. Asset-backed tokens could be a good collateral option through their less volatile nature. There are already great progress on this field and predictions indicate that 10% of global GDP will be stored on blockchain by 2025 as tokenized assets.

Non-collateralized

The third model is the non-collateral stable coins or the so-called seigniorage shares. As its name says, this approach is not actually backed by anything other than confident belief that it will keep the promised value. Non-collateral stable coins scheme was invented by Robert Sams in 2014 where, its algorithm is controlling the supply of the coin, similar way as central banks do with fiat money.

As an example, take a non-collateral stable coin which pegged to 1USD. Given fixed supply, an increase in demand will cause the price to increase. Due to algorithmic setup, the system would issue more stable coin and sell it to the market resulting a price drop to the targeted 1USD.

On the other hand, when the demand decreasing, price also drops below the targeted 1USD. In most cases, the system is not able to buy back a sufficient amount of coins, therefore in order to reduce the circulating supply, the system issues shares or/and bonds with a par value of 1USD that are sold with discount in order to make it more appeal for users. In this case, bondholders are reducing stablecoins from the market, reducing supply, and raising the price.

As soon as the price rise above the targeted value, the system will favor the bondholders and shareholders first and pays them out (in a chronological order).

When the non-collateral stablecoin system is observed closely, it shows some similarities to the pyramid scheme. When the price is below the targeted level, the only healing serum is the promise of a future growth, which can be maintained by a higher market cap/demand. As soon as a continuous growth can’t be maintained, the stablecoin and bondholders might be in a serious trouble. And here is why: As the price of the stablecoin falls, the system issues more bonds to raise the price. As more bonds the system issues, the longer the bond queue will be. As the bond queue is longer, the more time it needs to get paid (they are getting paid by chronological order, as it was mentioned above) and decreases the likelihood that each bond is paid. As the risk is higher, the bonds price must be lower to offset the additional risks. As the price of the bonds falls, more bonds need in order to shorten the supply of stablecoin. Users will lose faith in the stablecoin, stop using it and this will further push down the price and trigger a death spiral.

Asset based

Let’s start with assets. Real assets are tangible or intangible economic resources that can be converted into cash. Tangible assets can be gold, real estate, etc., while intangible assets are bonds, stocks or even bitcoin. Intangible assets are traded with its potential future worth, they can be much more valuable than tangible assets, therefore also more volatile. Since stability is most of the asset-backed cryptocurrencies aim, they are pegged to a tangible asset. This means that each token is worth exactly as much as the agreed unit of the physical asset, in other words the token price depends on the supply and demand fundamentals for the underlying asset.

Asset backed crypto currencies are differ a bit from the last three, because It is lacking of the characteristics of a currency.

Asset-backed tokens are a good store of value, an excellent solution for investors to protect their portfolio during volatile periods and it is also a feasible solution to protect wealth from inflation. You could buy 100 USD worth of goods for just 5.56 USD in 1915. That’s how much value the USD has lost in the past hundred of years. Assets such as gold has historically been an excellent hedge against inflation because its price tends to rise when the cost of living increases. Over the past 100 years investors have seen gold prices soar and the stock market plunge during high-inflation years.

Asset backed cryptocurrencies could be good as a medium of exchange, although it is not a natural approach. Money is a particular type of asset in an economy that people use to buy goods and services from other people or businesses. A medium of exchange is something that buyers will exchange with a seller when they want to purchase goods or services from the seller. While many things could be used as a medium of exchange in an economy, money is the most common and useful medium of exchange in our society.

A unit of account in economics is a nominal monetary unit of measure or currency used to represent the real value of any economic item; goods, services, assets, liabilities, income, expenses. Even though an asset-backed stable coin might have a lower volatility than other cryptocurrencies, it is still not good as a unit of account, which provides a common base for prices.

About Augmint

Augmint’s model is based on the crypto-collateral method. The system is designed in a way that it’s functionality is decentralized and trustless, it’s diversified and broad base of collaterals make the system usable and it’s unique platform makes the system scalable.

While many are unaware, all modern currencies in circulation are a kind of credit money. The most important aspect of credit money is that it is created and destroyed continuously in the economic cycle by the mutual actions of economic actors. Augmint will construct digital tokens along similar logic, each targeted to a fiat currency. It will automatically adjust the supply in circulation of each token in a similar way to fiat money. Augmint tokens are only issued when a new, collateral backed loan is issued. Tokens are automatically destroyed (burnt) on loan repayment. In case of loan default the collateral goes to the stability reserves, managed by smart contracts. Augmint intends to construct a digital pair to every important fiat, thus at first the EUR. The digital pair for the EUR is Augmint Crypto Euro (A-EUR). The mechanics are targeting the EUR/A-EUR market exchange rate to be 1:1 all the time.

It all happens in an automated, cryptographically secure and decentralised way.

Functionality

Augmint aspires to be the world’s digital payment token. It is considered to be viable only with a system where no single group is able to take control and new stakeholders can join the decision making quorum simultaneously. Augmint propose a structure that ensures open and democratic governance in the long run.

The project will be maintained by an open community of financial and technology experts, financed by the stakeholders. The fundamental rules are set out in the Augmint manifesto.

One of the most significant challenges is to make the Augmint system flexible and gradually upgradable and keep it trustless and decentralized at the same time. Augmint must ensure that nobody (not even the founders or the developers) could “hijack” and take control of the system by deploying components without consensus, hence make the system more secure, trustless and attractive for users than the fiat backed stable coin model.

In 2009, when the bitcoin network came into existence, a financial revolution has begun and with its blockchain technology, it is impacting several industries. Augmint believes that with this revolution it is possible to create a better financial system, where a decentralized autonomous organization is controlling the monetary system instead of a government or central bank. The fact that there is no single entity or government might sound like a drawback but the Augmint founders believe that a decentralized, trustless system is more secure and better functioning, one single entity cannot change the rules or take advantage of its power, rather decisions are made by any person who is a shareholder.

Value proposition

Augmint tokens will serve as a new medium of value transfer combining the advantages of cryptocurrencies such as:

trustless operations

Openness

Immutability

Security

distributed ledgers

working smart contracts

Pseudonymity

permissionless access

decentralization

with the advantages of fiat currencies such as:

Comprehensibility

purchase power stability

Ubiquity

ease of use

fulfilling money functions of (medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value)

Based on these features, the Augmint tokens’ value proposition has 3 main offer:

Simple and censorship resistant stable store of value and medium of exchange for economic actors who are using cryptocoins

Easily accessible liquidity for digital asset holders who don’t want to sell their assets.

A stable unit of account for cryptocoin projects in need of a stable cryptocurrency.

Usability

The Augmint system should accept a broad base of assets as collateral. This diversification will be key in ensuring system stability. New forms of collateral will be continuously added according to the Augmint roadmap, including real world tokenized assets to maintain low correlation among volatility of collateral types. To reach the appropriate level of collateral asset diversification takes some time but partnerships are about to happen with several tokenized asset supplier. Our two main collateral types will be cryptocurrency and tokenized asset.

Cryptocurrency as collateral

The asset-like nature of existing CCs makes them a suitable loan collateral. Augmint plan to accept a CC as collateral only if it has a significant market capitalization and high liquidity, such as BTC and ETH.

Tokenized assets as collateral

The process of “tokenization” is expected to extend to “real world assets”: predictions indicate that 10% of global GDP will be stored on blockchain by 2025. Therefore we contemplate that in 5 years time there will be at least 15-20 different tokenized assets, at least 5-10 concrete and recognized application in each type, for example 10-15 token pegged to the gold.

From the credit perspective, tokenized property/real estates, commodity (gold), shares and investment funds appear to be the most promising, once used on a more general basis.

Companies with good credit (initially AA or AAA) standing may apply to be listed on the Augmint Company Whitelist. The listed companies can access to the smart contract which issues Promissory Tokens (tokenized promissory notes). These will be standard ERC-20 tokens. These tokens will be accepted as loan collaterals in the Augmint system. The credit risk management will done by the Augmint stakeholders. They will regularly voting on the collateral ratios of the Company Promissory Tokens. The result of the vote will be a system parameter.

Scalability Lockup

Occasionally Augmint system allows users to lock up their A-EURs for a defined period of time in exchange for a lockup premium. Adjusting this premium serves as an incentive for locking up tokens, which in turn impacts demand / supply conditions and A-EUR/EUR exchange price. The locked up A-EURs remain on the account of the user, no one else can use it. During the lock up period the user can’t transfer, sell or use the locked amount. Although from monetary (macro) point of view the locking up is similar to a bank deposit, it is inherently different from it. The locked up tokens’ ownership does not change, the user cannot lose them, the time lock automatically release the tokens without a third party involvement. The lock up is only a temporary liquidity sacrifice.

Create different pairs

It can be stated that a sole currency would make trading easier globally, but there are several economical reasons to have different currencies for different countries. Countries would no longer have independent monetary policies, control on interest rates, the power to stimulate economic growth etc. Therefore the roadmap includes several digital pairs in the long run. The kickoff projects will be using A-EUR-EUR pair, but for the long run Augmint plans to make a unique platform, where Augmint Community Board (ACoB) members can easily and safely create any type of cc-fiat pairs to make the system scalable and useable for anyone.

Conclusion

The cryptocurrency ecosystem is in a desperate need for a stable digital currency with the benefits of digital tokens in the form of a unit which can be used in the various blockchain use cases for payments, planning, in smart contracts and holding value in a relatively stable digital form.

With that in mind, Augmint is going to offer an independent, transparent, open source Digital Autonomous Organisation (DAO) and stable cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange. On the technical point of view, Augmint’s focus is on three keys attributes: decentralization, a wide variety of collaterals with a low collateral ratio, and a unique platform for a scalable crypto-fiat pair creation. To get more familiar with the project, please check out our white paper and website. Please follow us on social media and if you have any question just shoot it on Discord.

If you want to know more about Stable coins, take part in Stableconf, and use ANCAP as coupon for discount.

https://ift.tt/2RklM1w

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lewisgabriel84z31 · 6 years

Text

Stable Cryptocurrencies as a Medium of Exchange

Fiat-collateralized

Crypto-collateralized

Non-collateralized

As soon as the price rise above the targeted value, the system will favor the bondholders and shareholders first and pays them out (in a chronological order).

Asset based

Asset backed crypto currencies are differ a bit from the last three, because It is lacking of the characteristics of a currency.

About Augmint

It all happens in an automated, cryptographically secure and decentralised way.

Functionality

The project will be maintained by an open community of financial and technology experts, financed by the stakeholders. The fundamental rules are set out in the Augmint manifesto.

Value proposition

Augmint tokens will serve as a new medium of value transfer combining the advantages of cryptocurrencies such as:

trustless operations

Openness

Immutability

Security

distributed ledgers

working smart contracts

Pseudonymity

permissionless access

decentralization

with the advantages of fiat currencies such as:

Comprehensibility

purchase power stability

Ubiquity

ease of use

fulfilling money functions of (medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value)

Based on these features, the Augmint tokens’ value proposition has 3 main offer:

Simple and censorship resistant stable store of value and medium of exchange for economic actors who are using cryptocoins

Easily accessible liquidity for digital asset holders who don’t want to sell their assets.

A stable unit of account for cryptocoin projects in need of a stable cryptocurrency.

Usability

Cryptocurrency as collateral

Tokenized assets as collateral

From the credit perspective, tokenized property/real estates, commodity (gold), shares and investment funds appear to be the most promising, once used on a more general basis.

Scalability Lockup

Create different pairs

Conclusion

If you want to know more about Stable coins, take part in Stableconf, and use ANCAP as coupon for discount.

https://ift.tt/2RklM1w

0 notes

itsraininginspace · 7 years

Text

The Eye of Horus (The Egyptian Eye) and Its Meaning

The Eye of Horus is one of several ancient Egyptian symbols instantly recognizable as originating from that advanced civilization which has left the world so many wonders of architecture and learning. The hieroglyphic is named for the god, Horus, one of their most powerful and dominant deities.

The Eye of Horus – Origins of the Name

The Eye of Horus was originally called ‘Wedjat’, with ‘Wadjet’, ‘Udjat’ and ‘Wedjoyet’ being variations of the pronunciation. The eye itself was considered a personification of a goddess with that name.

Her name stems from ‘wadj’, the word for ‘green’ and she was called ‘the green one’. Records of her existence as an object of worship predates the existence of almost all of the other gods of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. The renowned “per-nu” shrine of the Nile delta was considered to be under her protection. Wadjet was also the tutelary deity of lower Egypt.

However, despite the intimate relationship between the shape and this goddess, Egyptian mythology indisputably prefers its association with the god, Horus.

The Elements that Constitute the Eye of Horus

The Eye of Horus is not as simple as most others from the ancient world that represented gods and goddesses. Compared to Wiccan, Norse, Buddhist and Hindu symbols for major gods and goddesses, the Eye of Horus has more individual lines and a complicated overall structure not as easy to reproduce as other symbols of comparable import.

The Wedjat or Eye of Horus looks like the region of the left eye as seen from the front. An arched line that tapers into the horizontal is at the very top. Below it, and following its shape in an almost parallel fashion, is the top of the eye.

A pupil is enclosed between this top line and one that closely mirrors it below. The pupil is usually colored in. Below the shape of the eye, towards the right (which is closer to the center of the eye) is an almost vertical line. Its shape and position mimics a stream of tears and this element of the design is itself often called simply ‘The tear’.

The final element of the design is a long, sweeping line that originates at the point where the ‘tear’ meets the eye, and extends to the left (the outside of the eye). This line culminates in a spiral.

While the individual physiological representations are fairly easy to decipher, the Eye of Horus also had deeper meaning incorporated into the shapes that emerge when it is drawn.

Here, there are six elements; one each for the five senses of human perception and the last for thought:

Thought is represented by the eyebrow, sitting above the eye like the brain does.

The pupil represents sight as it is the aperture through which the light we see passes.

The triangular shape between the pupil and the inside of the eye symbolizes hearing.

The triangular shape between the pupil and the outside of the eye represents the sense of smell.

The vertical line interpreted as a tear elsewhere is here thought to represent a finger and the sense of touch.

The sweeping, spiral-ended curve is taken to be an illustration of the tongue and the sense of taste.

Of course, as with any symbol, modern or ancient, interpretation is the gist of not just understanding but of veneration. The Eye of Horus can be seen on many pagan and non-conformist websites and stores.

Due to the popular box office success of several Hollywood movies with Egyptian (horror) themes, the true meanings have been glossed over and its elements are not understood in the way that commands awe and reverence.

Who was Horus?

Horus was one of the most popular of the Egyptian gods, worshipped from the days of the Ptolemaic Kingdom all the way until the time of Roman influence on the country. Records seem to confirm that he was the very first god who was universally worshipped across the entire span of ancient Egypt.

Horus is essentially a god of the sky. He is often depicted as a man with the head of a falcon and occasionally as the bird itself. The vertical line below the eye of the Eye of Horus lends credence to the theory that Horus was modeled after the lanner falcon which often has a similar mark under its eyes.

In that essence, Horus represented the entirety of the heavens; his left eye represented the sun and the left, the moon.

In the grand network of gods and goddesses, Horus was the offspring of Osiris and Isis, the pair who represented the complementary male and female forces of the universe in the eyes of the people who built the pyramids.

Egyptian mythology tells the tale of how Set, brother of Osiris, commits fratricide to usurp the throne of Heaven. Set dismembered Osiris’s body to ensure that he could not be resurrected. However, Osiris’s wife (and in certain variations, also his sister) recovers all the parts of his body and uses her magical powers to piece it back together and conceive a son, Horus.

Horus than sets out to avenge the murder of his father and confronts his uncle. The two gods battled, each receiving significant injuries – Horus lost his left eye and Set, a testicle. The latter is used to explain why the desert, represented by Set, is barren.

After the battle, the goddess Hathor helps to retrieve the lost eye and heal it with her magic. Horus then attempts to resurrect his father, Osiris, by offering up the recovered eye. This element of the story explains why the Eye of Horus has become associated with sacrifice, healing and protection.

The death, dismemberment and reconstruction of Osiris may seem to be a rather insignificant aside in the story of the grand battle between Horus and Set. However, it is actually essential to the overall characterization of all the worlds as realms of different gods – Osiris is healed but he is still dead and remains in the netherworld as its ruler.

This ties into the Egyptian belief that the passing of a pharaoh from the land of the living to the afterlife represents a transition of the authority over his soul from Horus to Osiris.

Ancient Egyptian Use of the Eye of Horus

The Eye of Horus was intimately associated with the gods and their rule over the realm of men. Part of this rule involved protection and the Eye of Horus was an omnipresent symbol of that protection.

It is said that Egyptian sailors painted the Eye of Horus on the bows of their boats before setting sail on long and perilous voyages. In this sense, the eye both guided the vessel in its journey through unfamiliar waters and served as a deterrent to malefic forces.

The other widespread use of the Eye of Horus was in funerary ceremonies. Besides being a symbol of divine protection, it was also taken to be a representation of the will of the gods over the mortal world.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the pharaoh was a living god, a personification of the forces of heaven meant to be their ruler because divine blood ran through his veins.

Sometimes, the pharaoh was even referred to as the ‘Living Horus’. It was said that with each pharaoh’s passing, the spirit of Horus passed from the deceased to his successor. This explains why the Eye of Horus was so often, and so prominently, displayed in royal courts and costumes.

Even the funeral ceremonies of the pharaohs gave pride of place to the Eye of Horus. Some of the most precious and intricate funerary amulets recovered from pyramids and sarcophagi were of the Eye of Horus. The symbol was meant to be a guiding eye as the pharaoh made his journey from the land of the living to the land of the dead.

The Egyptian Eye of Horus

We now live in an age where science gives us answers to questions to which the wisest of the wise were not privy even quite recently.

While advantageous as a repository of facts, this approach robs us of the wonder that surrounds those cultures of old, cultures which continue to fascinate us today specifically because they were not sterilized of their mysticism.

Ancient peoples were far more curious about, and perceptive of, their environment and the workings of the natural world around them than the average person today.

It is for that sense of wonder in their lives that the eye is a recurring theme in ancient symbology. The five senses with which we perceive all of existence around us held great wonder for people long ago, and the sense of sight was perhaps the one most highly regarded of them all.

For that reason, we often see the eye depicted in symbols whose origins lie far back in mankind’s shared history. Many of us recognize the all-seeing eye (Eye of Providence) that is today most readily associated with the Illuminati.

Even in ancient Egyptian mythology, the Eye of Horus is not alone; there is also the Eye of Ra. With Horus being the god of the sky, the two were seen as mirror images – one was the sun and the other was the moon. The hieroglyphic for Osiris, father of Horus depicts a kneeling man and a single, large eye above.

Wherever the origins of the Egyptian Eye may lie, theories have abounded about its use and importance. For ordinary folk, more concerned with just surviving and providing for their families, it was taken as a guiding light. This is evidenced from its use mentioned earlier, on boats and ships that ventured into distant waters.

There are theories that the Egyptian Eye also played a part in mathematics. Ancient Egyptian priests excelled in mathematics, something that is fairly obvious from the fantastic monuments that they have left behind.

Their mathematical system used to depict all fractions as unit fractions (one divided by a whole number). For example, ¾ would not be simply that; it would be written as ‘½ + ¼’.

Some scholars believe that the individual elements of the Egyptian Eye are representations of the unit fractions ½, ¼, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64 (which are 1 divided by the first six powers of 2). It also ties in to the inherent structure of the ‘Golden Ratio’ which we see materialized in nature so often.

In a touch of mysticism, when all those fractions are added together, they do not constitute a whole – 1/64 is still left over. It is said that this alludes to the Egyptian belief that most of the world could be designed and predicted with mathematics and science, but there was a small, yet not entirely infinitesimal, part of it that defied comprehension.

They attributed that remaining, indecipherable and unknowable portion to magic.

Although we cannot know for certain, it is possible that the Egyptian Eye was the precursor to depictions of the eye that have appeared in cultures across the world.

Rather close to the Nile civilization was the Indus Valley civilization whose roots are generally accepted to be more European than Asian. However, the widespread use of the eye as a symbol in the native religions in that region may have some connections to the Eye of Horus.

Shiva (or Shiv), one of the gods of the Hindu trinity, is always depicted with a third eye on his forehead, aligned with the crown chakra. In Buddhism, the Buddha himself is referred to as the ‘Eye of the World’ or the ‘Eye of Truth’.

It may actually astonish you to recognize that the ‘Rx’ symbol we so often find on pharmaceutical products is actually constructed around the Egyptian Eye of Horus.

The Egyptian Eye of Horus Today

The original symbolism of the Eye of Horus has been revealed to us through Egyptian records that have survived millennia in the desert lands by the Nile. They, themselves, are a testimony to the essence of the Eye – perseverance and Life when the world around you just does not seem conducive to either.

The post The Eye of Horus (The Egyptian Eye) and Its Meaning appeared first on Ragnar Lothbrok, Lagertha, Rollo, Vikings, Ouroboros, Symbols and Meanings.

Source: http://mythologian.net/eye-horus-egyptian-eye-meaning/

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