November 21, 2008

DEMOCRAPY

November 21, 2008/ Doug.E.Barr

Anyone who has given humanity the critical thought we deserve should realize if humanity could reach consensus on our common purpose, we wouldn't have elections. We would just get on with it. "Common good" and 'democratic' election are as oxymoronic as "military intelligence". "Democracy" as it is being defined through practice is the way of governing designed to accommodate our shared inability to see common purpose at any level of organization. It involves allowing those persons looking for an individual sense of purpose in 'leadership' to participate in formal crap throwing contests to decide who looks best in front of a group of people who can't agree on where it is going.

These contests can vary in length and cost. The recent US presidential contest for instance, lasted an agonizing two years and cost $2.4 billion. Mercifully local elections last only about two weeks and cost around $2.40. Regardless of the cost or the length of time, contests are decided by "the people" who vote for the persons who at the end have the least amount of crap on them. The unlucky winners then discover their purpose is to be a target for the informal crap throwing that lasts until the next contest. Poor George Bush will never be able to crawl out from under the pile of crap that has been thrown on him during the last 2 years not to mention the previous 6; and it wasn't even his fault he 'won'.

Such is the degradation of our so called democracy, my sense is unless we become enlightened en masse by an event such as the impending economic collapse, certainly in my lifetime lexicographers will be forced to change the spelling and definition of the word we assign to our system of government. The word will become "democrapy" (de mo' crapy) from the Greek word "demo" meaning people and the refined English word "crap" meaning shit. The definition of "democrapy" will be: "a self-destructive system of organizing people who for lacking knowledge of common purpose, throw shit at each other." The consequence will be a society polluted to the point it will be unable to sustain life.

DEMOCRATIC SELF-DESTRUCTION

THE LAST WHY

The explanation of life and related writings.

02/02/24

INTRODUCTION
Like everyone, I inherited an existence. Mine collapsed circa 1970 while I was at McMaster U, Hamilton, ON, Canada, getting a BA(math) and B. Phys Ed, so I could teach. While sorting through the rubble of my life I noticed, though not as pervasive as it is today, a continuum of varied and increasing conflict permeating our existence. I wondered why.

Though wondering for myself I thought I should find the reason for conflict before a student I might teach asked me. I couldn’t deduce the reason with math; nor did I think I found it in the 5 major religions and their thousands of offspring, or in the 11 volume history of philosophy I skimmed for electives.

So besides my formal degrees, I graduated with a major degree of motivation to find before I taught, the reason for conflict. I never taught. By the time I discovered the answer to why increasing conflict pervades our existence, I’d become, with the help of my brother, a self-employed carpenter.

I tried and failed to share the answer at least three times and each time I vowed to quit trying. The last was in 1998 when a friend of a friend, a philosophy professor, wished me good luck on other projects. To help keep my last vow I started an addition to my house. I received even more help in 2000 when I began caring for my parents.

But then, when my father died in 2004 I was motivated to try sharing my analysis one more time before I died. I was still thinking of a hard copy when a friend suggested I publish on a website. I’d never heard of websites nor could I type but with more help from my Mother I bought a computer, learned to type, and with expert help, created a website.

I first thought I’d bury the reason for conflict in an essay. But having already experienced web attention deficit disorder I decided to highlight the essence of it in my website logo and add context with blog posts.

Since there is no answer to “Why am I?”, attempts to answer it, such as the myriad religions and philosophies I skimmed, and a variety of other responses I found, are tries to fill the void. Though we can mix them, some may be similar and even have identical names, because we direct them to the void within us, our tries are all opposed and so cause conflict to the extent of our belief in them.

But, conflict is not inevitable. We can diminish it and resulting death to the degree we empty the void. Now, if we choose to empty the void, our lives are not then devoid of activity, on the contrary! Because it is essential, we each possess some remnant of “reaching out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to Nature’s God”, the natural activity that creates and tries to maintain all life.

So, even though in the 200k years since the birth of humanity we have replaced almost all our inherited natural activity with the human made unnatural, self-destructive activity of trying to fill the void, if we choose to empty the void, the remnants of our natural, self-creative activity will at least refill our lives and possibly answer “Why am I?”

I have been trying share these basic facts of life for a few years by advertising. Last year (2023) I bought 8 million page views with half the value of my home, without effect; but this time I won’t quit. The warnings about fatal climate change by hundreds of climate scientists over many more years have also been ignored.

However, I do have to reduce my advertising. If it is too late to prevent it, I’ll need a place to live where I can watch the increasing conflict within us, between us and with Nature, causing at least the death of us and maybe all of Nature, possibly even before I’d have died in peace.

If you feel moved to help me share these facts you can by using the share icon at the end of any post, notably my most recent piece of rhymed reason, “Analyzing Conflict”, or any other way of sharing. If you also click on the like icon you will see an explosion of hearts, an expression of my gratitude. 🙏 Doug E Barr.

Read: Nature’s Nutritional Ideal

Part 1. Nature’s ideal diet: It protected our predecessors from disease from conception to the birth of humanity when they realized the capacity to choose. It can still protect us but over the millennia increasing numbers of individuals chose to ignore ’Her’ ideal and thus, our increasing disease.

Part 2. Nature’s ideal life: It protected our predecessors from conflict until the birth of humanity. It can still protect us but over the millennia increasing numbers of individuals chose to ignore ‘Her’ ideal and thus, our increasing conflict.

Part 3. The integration of parts 1 and 2

Part 4. Existential risks: They are the result of our ancestors increasingly choosing to ignore Nature’s nutritional ideal. They may be reduced by expanding our mental capacity beyond what was realized at the birth of humanity. It would only take an instant, but the time we have to make the necessary choice is quickly running out.

Part 5. Appendix: Mostly diet related math that may have caused the mathematically challenged to quit reading in the middle of Part 1.