Pollywogs!

I have to wear //a lot of sunscreen//…

Sorry for not posting up much recently, here is a recent blast from the past that probably could have been its own blog post but I used it as a comment instead:

http://www.garrettsocling.com/2006/11/17/dumbfuckistan/#comment-315

I can’t help but think that it is an unstable system doomed to some type of collapse to a more stable state. People can’t continue reproducing ad infinitum, can’t continue consuming resources ad nauseum, can’t continue on the track we are currently taking without everything hitting a way. The closer we get, the more people close their eyes and hum, because there is simply a limit to everything. The industrial revolution brought about an amazing change, but unless a brand new technological revolution comes about quickly that completely changes the paradigm, a collapse is inevitable.

I’m hoping for unlimited free energy, myself. Something that will allow for a near complete reduction in the massive pollution caused by current energy production systems. Hopefully it will have the added benefit of reducing stress and competition between groups of people, lower poverty and hunger, and in general increase the base living condition for all people…

The problem with something like that is you have to sneak it out from the powers that be. How do you monetize something that needs to be free and equally available to the poorest person in the most abject nation? You don’t…and that is going to be a hard sell to todays multinational corporations. They’d much rather ride this into the ground, milking it as they can. They see the writing on the wall, but how do you change horses when your stockholders are expecting your horse to win day after day with ever increasing profits, market share and stock value? How are you supposed to say ‘what we’ve been doing is bad for the planet, bad for the future, here is what we are going to do, it will cost our company $5 billion over the next twenty years and have no positive impact on our profits, it will simply be good for the planet’? Exxon is going to do that? When they take tax subsidies (a tax burden on those millions who make minimum wage to $40,000 a year and pay their taxes like good citizens should) from our government during record profits?

I don’t have much hope. I have some hope, but it is a realistic hope. The future won’t look like today. No one cares (or, no one cares enough to actually do anything). It won’t be “Nature’s End”, perhaps, but if we are lucky it won’t be entirely a uniform, bland, enormous farm/factory feeding the mouths and megastores of a population gigantically ballooned…

If we are lucky a common mans revolution will have brought limitless, clean energy into the hands of every man, woman and child on Earth, removing one of the greatest contentions in existence today. The reduced strain on resources and the reduced output of pollution will allow people to realize they can re-prioritize while there is still something to conserve…

If we are not lucky, corporations will continue to rule the day, money will continue to be the end-all be-all of existence, and the entire world will be turned into the sterile, highly productive factory which ensures the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.

…or, if we are really not lucky, the shit will hit the fan, huge chunks of the economy will go belly up, countries will go bankrupt, governments will scramble for power and/or collapse, military coups will break out worldwide, nuclear war will eventually unfold with some crazed dictator in some crazed Balkan republic in some crazed corner of Iowa, and a terrible thousand years of pain, suffering and despoiling of anything beautiful will be the legacy of our times…

I've been pretty busy playing with Linux:

http://pcspecialties.dyndns.org

Did you notice I added a Wiki?  You can deface the wiki if you don't like me:

http://www.garrettsocling.com/wiki/ 

I've been using it to keep notes of things I read and do, and then promptly forget.  Sorta of a 'howto' by myself for my future self as I do it, you might say: http://www.garrettsocling.com/wiki/doku.php?id=php-json I did get the PHP-JSON module installed and working, I didn't notice an improvement in SugarCRM but 'they' said it is the bomb.

I found this entertaining.

ANY time you come here and there isn't anything new, feel free to go to reddit.com.  Reddit is fucking awesome.  Fuck digg.com, seriously, fuck them and their Wii-ball sucking PS3 hating punk-ass bitch bullshit.  I mean, check this out: http://www.knitemare.org/cats/