Bare Bones Biology 318 – In The Beginning

“In the beginning was Logos.* And Logos was God. And Logos was with God.

And the spirit of God was brooding over the waters.” Genesis

 

And then God created the Life system of Earth, the Biosystem.

 

It has taken several billions of years and many false starts — using the Law of Life — to put together a beautifully functional information system that can organize energy from the sun to maintain the Life of the whole Earth, balanced against the force of entropy.

 

But God is patient, and now here we are, living as nodes within the corposystem, which is a subsystem of the Biosystem, and we are in great danger of losing our potential future on Earth because the corposystem is making war against its own environmental system, the Biosystem. And the corposystem cannot win.

 

If the corposystem loses this war and dies, we humans begin again trying to build a new social system that can integrate usefully among the other naturally evolved systems; on the contrary, if the Biosystem dies and must start over again looking for that viable balance – then we all die, probably down to the microbial level.

 

We are not in charge. That is the message of God and all the gods. We have been kicked out of our dominion over the Garden of Eden because, instead of nurturing the creation of the system of Life — we tried to dominate the works of God and use them for our own gain,.

 

We (the corposystem) still are doing this; we have not learned.

 

The corposystem, the current dominant corpo-political social system within which most of us were raised, is a naturally evolved complex adaptive human social system. It has micro-properties and macro-properties. Its macro-property (emergent property) that threatens us all is “growth by domination for gain.” The corposystem has grown by dominating systems that are smaller than itself.   Eating up both their energy and their information to maintain its growth against the disorganizing alternative of entropy.

 

We are not in charge of the Garden of Eden – or the Law of Life — and it is time we take charge of ourselves, instead of trying to bring the whole world to its knees, take charge of our own behaviors that generate the toxic emergent properties of our corposystem — over-growth by domination, for corposystem gain.

 

And now the corposystem is trying to dominate the Biosystem, a larger and more powerful system, and the other half of its own life; the source of all energy for Life of Earth.

 

A subsystem cannot win a war against its own environmental system that is the other half of itself. That is NOT how evolution works.   Better it were that the systems of Life cooperate for the benefit of all. That is the function of evolution. The limiting factors of the environment “talk” to the emergent characteristics of its subsystems so the subsystems know when they are not going with the program.

 

Our corposystem (a subsystem) emergent characteristic is unsustainable because domination is not how evolution works; because our growth is causing irreparable harm to our own environmental system, the other half of our selves; and because our thirst for unilateral human profit of all kinds destroys essential elements of our environment that are not a rightful component of our corposystem.

 

And now the corposystem has reached the end of its growth, just as a cancer on your kidney eventually reaches the end of its growth unless it is stopped. It eats up your energy and your information/complexity, and you die. Unless we can stop the growth of the corposystem, we all die, all the generations of humans, our corposystem and very likely our environmental Biosystem that is already very sick.

 

Perhaps after all we are not the chosen ones for whom God has been so patiently waiting?

 

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy.Wordpress.com.

 

A copy of the podcast can be downloaded from:

___________________

Logos = a Greek word meaning: word, reason, reasoning, intellectual power, understanding

Bare Bones Biology 271 – Wise Choices

Letter to DV – I printed and read your series of comments on Facebook, because I can see a lot of good food for thought in there, and I even read the article by your poor naïve horror-struck author. I say naïve and horror struck because it seems to me that he (and nearly everyone on the web) somehow grew up believing life is supposed to be neat and easy and on track, just the way we want it to be, just because we are humans. This of course is what the corposystem wants us to believe and is basic to its propaganda.

Humans do not, can not, and should not control the Biosystem. However, there is NEVER nothing that we can do. What we can do now is to conform our world view to the needs of a nurturing Biosystem, rather than nurturing the corposystem lie.

I think our human problem on earth is that we are mostly doing the wrong things, because we are thinking the wrong things, because the corposystem has seized control over and is using our media and our politics to brainwash us. That is hard on those who recognize the problem. But nevertheless, just because someone else is doing nothing, or doing the wrong things, is not a good reason for me to do nothing, or to do the wrong things. That’s not the hardest question; the hardest question is how to live, surrounded by toxic propaganda, so that we do more good than harm to the welfare of the Biosystem.

As you pointed out, it is, indeed, too late for the perfect solution. The reality is that there never was a perfect solution. People are not in charge here; we never were, and the “human question” will surely be resolved long before 60 years. The solution for us will depend largely upon our choices during that time. What goes around comes around. That is not a tragedy, it is a fact of life. We caused our own tragedy by ignoring the reality. We have no responsibility to control the Biosystem, because that is not how the universe functions. Our human responsibilities are first to do as little harm as possible and second do the best we can within the reality that we find ourselves in right now, because now is the only time when we have the possibility to make wise choices.

I believe the most important thing we can do right now is to avoid believing the corposystem propaganda, to identify the reality, and to discuss among ourselves what the world looks like from outside the corposystem paradigm. Not to submit to the arrogance of the current corposystem world view, which is essentially growth for profit by domination. I refuse to be dominated, and increasingly larger numbers of people are doing the same.

What concerns me most is whether these increasing numbers of people will choose viable, sustainable alternatives to the corposystem paradigm, or if they have swallowed the corposystem myth of human omnipotence and will try to create something that satisfies a different set of human values but is equally as harmful to the Life of our Biosystem. The Biosystem does not have human values or needs, only Biosystem needs.

We do need models for our choices. Lots of them. We especially need models that demonstrate the corposystem lie — the failure of the corposystem paradigm — so that we can stop killing the Biosystem and begin to heal. Discussion and publication of negative models is not failure – it is wisdom.

Do you see how the corposystem domination has prevented you recognizing the value of your work?

It does the same to me. That is our challenge. Because whatever happens, not you nor I nor the corposystem have the option to dictate outcomes for the whole world. If that is your goal, then failure is a certainty, for the same reason that failure of the corposystem is a certainty. Humans cannot control the Biosystem. We must learn to conform to its needs or we will be replaced by some other species that will do a better job.

The corposystem has taught us that we must be winners or losers. I reject that concept; I think winners is a losing paradigm. What we can do in this biological crisis is make a success of our individual opportunities by making decisions that benefit the Biosystem, based on good factual research and wise human compassion. And to discuss these decisions with other people who understand the problem and have expertise outside our own in the areas of Biosystem facts and wise compassion.

Our choice in now time is whether to contribute to the welfare of the corposystem or of the Biosystem, because we can’t do both at the same time. If your goal is to save the corposystem you are right – you have no chance — and you would do more good by just giving up. My goal is to benefit the future welfare of the Biosystem.

What we do not and cannot know is when and how the corposystem will crash, and whether or not you and I can help to develop a new system out of the ashes that can support the factual needs of the Biosystem.

So – are we to pout because we are not omnipotent and omniscient Gods? Or are we to accept that as wisdom, and do the best we can to make good choices based in hard biological facts and wise human compassion

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy.Wordpress.com and KEOS 89.1 FM in Bryan, Texas.

A copy of this podcast can be downloaded at:  http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/Bare_Bones_Biology_271_-_Wise_Choices.mp3

Sections in green were omitted from the podcast because of time constraints.

Bare Bones Biology 268 – Systems

I capitalize Life to represent the emergent property of the Biosystem. And life is used represent individual living things.

 The green bits were edited out of the podcast because of time restraints.

 

How to say it, that’s the problem, and in five minutes or less, it’s difficult. So today I will need to strain my brain and yours, because I want to talk about systems – real natural systems. I will reference a “A Systems View of Life,” co-written by one of the speakers at a previous Bioneers, that I have not yet read, and a book entitled “Linked” that I have listened to about 5 times and benefited every time.

 

A naturally evolving/evolved system is a set of objects /nodes/things linked together in all or nearly all dimensions by processes or other manifestations of energy. The nodes and links of an  evolved system work together to generate a unitary emergent property (properties/characteristics/phenotypes) that is/are useful to the environment within which the  system evolved/evolves by natural selection.

Implications of this definition follow:

 

1. 1. Every kind of system has unique characteristics (emergent properties) that were of value to the environment within which the system evolved. For example, you are a system that consists of subsystems, your emergent properties are Homo sapien. You are a subsystem of our current social system, the corposystem, that is a subsystem of the Biosystem. The defining emergent properties of the corposystem are growth by domination for profit. The corposystem is a subset of the Biosystem, whose defining emergent property is Life.

 

2. Every kind of system is unique because its unique emergent properties permit the system to fill or define a new and useful niche within the environment of its origin. If there were no unique niche available that contributes to the welfare of the parent system, then there would not be that subsystem. For example, your kidneys evolved as a subsystem of you because they are necessary for your survival. Your brain also.

3. In this modern world we need to use that brain – all of it — both the logical, critical faculties and the emotional, instinctual understandings — if we are to survive. That’s what it’s for.

For example, if we reject basic science in favor of humanities – or if we reject humanities in favor of basic science (which is NOT engineering), then we are not using all of our brain power in the effort to survive within the Biosystem.

4. Each system interacts with its environment through its emergent characteristics.   The emergent characteristics of our corposystem as it has evolved, no longer align with or enhance the welfare of the Biosystem. This means the corposystem is in competition with the Biosystem. Competition is not the natural order of success. Competition leads to extinction of one or other of the partners. Success in the Biosystem requires balance among the parts (think again of your kidney).

Because the corposystem and the Biosystem are not aligned, and in fact are in competition, therefore they cannot both survive unless we decide to use our brain to force a change in the emergent properties (the behaviors) of the corposystem.

5 – The function of a system is to perpetuate itself. If it can’t do this, it will die. One implication of this reality is — if you have been raised within the corposystem — then you have been trained to behave in ways that benefit the corposystem, and our evolved human social system will induce or force you, in many and subtle ways, to behave in ways that promote growth by domination for money.

 For example, one of the ways the corposystem exerts this pressure is to start an argument over some issue of great importance, and then refuse to pemit us to discuss it because it is “controversial.” Especially if it is NOT controversial but factual, the corposystem is afraid of it. If we don’t discuss it, then we cannot align it with the needs of the Biosystem, and our behaviors will support the corposystem world view rather than sustain the Biosystem. It would be like the kidney competing with the rest of your body.

 Take climate change for example. There is no doubt about climate change. It’s a fact. The only doubt is what we will do about it. To defend itself from this fact (that would require the corposystem to shrink rather than grow), the corposystem first created a fake controversy. But facts always trump propaganda in the long run, and now the corposystem has been forced to take that issue seriously. So the new corposystem propaganda seems to be revolving around schemes intended to make money by promoting climate-change-related growth of businesses and charitable organizations.   The corposystem is based in growth. The growth of the corposystem destroys the Biosystem as we know it.

The Biosystem is changing in effort to maintain its viable balance, and as a result the productivity of the Biosystem is falling and will continue to fall, no matter what we do. Unless we can stop corposystem growth. That is how the Biosystem stays balanced. It is now out of balance and changing to a different climatic form. That’s how the Biosystem gets rid of problem subsystems.

My goal is to help grow a NEW human social SYSTEM to replace the corposystem. The emergent properties of the new system must be sustainability and resilience (at least). This can only be accomplished if we align our behaviors (not our emotions or our beliefs, but our behaviors) with the needs of the Biosystem.

And that is what basic science (not technology) is for. As for systems, our understanding of systems will not save us any more than our understanding of gravity or thermodynamics can save us, nor can technology within the corposystem, because technology serves the emergent characteristics of whatever system is using it.

Systems is just another fact of Life. It can help us align our behaviors – that’s what basic science (not technology) is for.

The corposystem will die in any case, because it is dedicated to overcome the Biosystem using domination and growth. The questions now are: 1) Will the corposystem damage our Biosystem to the extent humans cannot survive in it? And 2) Will we be able to step outside the corposystem world view and grow a new human social system that is sustainable?

 

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy.wordpress.com and KEOS radio, 89.1 FM in Bryan, Texas.

 

A copy of this podcast can be downloaded at:http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/Bare_Bones_Biology_267_-_Systems.mp3

 

References

The Systems View of Life, by Fritjof Capra and Peter Luigi Luisi, Cambridge University Press. 2014.

Linked by Albert-László Barabási. Perseus, Cambridge, MA, 2002

Bare Bones Biology 278 – Tower of Babel

Probably I haven’t talked before about the Tower of Babel method. Some people use this method to win arguments by changing the subject, and the corposystem has raised it to an art form to make money and to prevent us from taking control over our own choices. For example, I just looked at the TV screen that said the explosion of the shuttle the other day caused “no environmental effects.” Do people really believe this garbage? If there was no effect we could not have photographs. So how do they define effects? They just change the definitions of things they don’t want to talk about.

The second reason I think this is a technique used to confuse us is because it is one of the ploys to the increase profits in a supermarket. Move things around, change the definitions, change the subject. So, I don’t want to waste my time looking for things in the supermarket that I already knew where they were, but the corposystem knows if they change things around people will probably buy something they didn’t intend to buy. Creating confusion stirs things up, while at the same time maintaining the balance of power. It’s a good ploy if your goal is to maintain your power, but it doesn’t accomplish anything. Just stirs the pot.

Generally, when this is happening, I simply refocus on my own goals, which in fact does at least give me power over my own goals, and is the first and most important step toward accomplishing them, because I will never accomplish my own goals by just jumping into the ocean of options that are provided by my opponent. The corposystem understands all of its goals better than I do and is prepared with a response. That reaction simply empowers my opponent’s goals.

So, in brief. These are the questions I ask myself to reconfirm my goals, in order of their importance.

First question. What do you want to succeed at? Very precisely define your one primary goal. I’ve been told that a goal is not a mission and a mission is not a goal. If that’s true, which it was not in my day, but if it is true now, then describe your mission. A mission is not required to be possible, but of course you can’t succeed at accomplishing a big mission, so the primary value of a mission is that you don’t end up confused and fulfilling some mission that is different from what you really want to do.

Second Question. Which is more important to you – making a name for yourself, or changing the culture? If you only got one choice?

a) Do you primarily want to be important, a leader, or do you primarily want to create uproar, whether or not the uproar is the most effective way to change the culture? Because it isn’t. Uproar empowers the corposystem, the system will join you in playing the game of make-believe change, and you will both be happy. It’s relatively easy, but it won’t change the corposystem, because that’s already the ethic of our corposystem. We always start a war whenever we want people to believe we are trying to change something, but war in our corposystem is routine; therefore it does not change anything. Just different wars against different things. You will not change the social system using uproar — because that is the social system we already have. But you might get more power for yourself within the system as it already exists.

b) On the other hand, do you genuinely want to create a new social breakthrough? Then you must be able to visualize a SUSTAINABLE society that is different from the one we have, and to do that you will need to understand HOW the corposystem uses 20th century ideals to empower itself (for example, why did the Tar Sands issue disappear instantly from the agenda of the internet. Where is Occupy? Who pulled Obama’s teeth?) What happened is the corposystem was and is ready to deal with 20th century ideals, that are really the ideals that grew out of the original axial age. If you really want to change our societies in this new axial age (an enormous mission), you will have to learn HOW the corposystem controls us, and you will have to then work against the weak points of the corposystem model – not its strengths. This will require hard work to learn the differences between facts, corposystem power, and weaknesses that the corposystem tries hard to prevent you studying.

Here’s an example that is based on what we know already about the weak spot of the corposystem. The weakness of the corposystem is that it requires growth of human populations to maintain its power over us. This is a weakness because growth is not sustainable beyond the available resources. Therefore the corposystem will crash sooner or later. Sooner would be better for the welfare of Life on earth. What is the most effective way to bring this about with the least suffering?

If you want to change the corposystem, what is the most effective conceivable way to do so?
(A) Devote your life to trying to feed the people who are suffering from hunger (for example); or

(B) Devote your life to reducing and rebalancing the populations of people on earth, so that there will be enough food for all the organisms required to maintain life in reasonable comfort on earth (including the other species that are required to grow the food and generate and maintain the air and water cycles); or

(C) Both

(A) will not change the corposystem ethic, which is based on growing the human population in order to make more money. The corposystem does not care whether or not the money it makes (that is, the money you spend) is created by human suffering. Therefore, your efforts to comfort/feed suffering people will be reinforcing the goals of the corposystem rather than changing the corposystem. And because the growth will continue – therefore the suffering will be increased by your efforts. Because caring for more people makes money for the corposystem. Thus your work will cause more harm than good (assuming you believe unnecessary suffering is harmful). (A) will not change the corposystem. On the contrary, it will make the corposystem more powerful. And of course, you will be rewarded.

(B), by reducing the population rather than permitting it to grow, will FORCE the corposystem to change its goals, or at least it’s methods of making money. You will not be rewarded, because the function of any system is to maintain itself, not to reward people who are effectively changing it.

(C), Both would be nice, but if you can’t do both, I claim that changing the corposystem is more important, clearly more likely to lead to a sustainable human life style. SUSTAINABLE means FOREVER — less suffering forever, and will reduce more suffering even in the short run than (A). The corposystem rewards its “heroes” because they are benefiting the corposystem – even the activists are benefiting the corposystem, with extremely few exceptions. Even if that is not their intent.

(A) makes other people treat me like a hero, but (B) is far the more noble aspiration.

To download the podcast of the first part of this blog go to:

Net Neutrality has a lot in common with Citizen’s United. Both have to do with equality of citizens’ rights. We were not paying attention to our monopoly laws that were on the books to protect our rights, and the corporations took over all the media except the net and they took over our citizens’ voting right to one vote for one person (and they evidently took over the supreme court that claims corporations are individual voting persons). Now they are trying for control of the internet on the basis of money, which is more or less along the same lines.   My blog, for example, will not be treated equally with the advertisements of those same corporations.

I suggest if we lose our right to speak out on the internet we might as well pack it up and stop pretending that we care about the principles on which this country was founded. I follow the issues that I believe are most important to the futures of our children. Not everything that’s wrong, but the three or four or five issues without which we cannot grow a decent future for the children.   If we make it past those major issues, I trust that everyone else will be working on the other problems that are also important. But of course if there is no future – NOBODY can work on the “lesser” issues.

Net neutrality is in the top three, about third on my list. If you want to hear the President’s statement on that issue got to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmZ_WLqSw2Y#t=3992 and start listening at 1 hour 6 minutes when a blond woman asks a question about equal access. He sounds political of course, but he does have an opinion, which is refreshing.

140922 – Diary – Climate March

Sometimes I wonder. Actually most of the time I wonder why we-the-people try so hard to get someone else to take care of the problem that we haven’t tried to understand the cause of so we can take care of it ourselves. What is the point of begging our leaders to deal with climate change when we at the same time require our leaders to give us everything else that we want, and the other things we want always involve growth of the human “imprint” on the earth that unbalances the miracle of the Life that is our Earth.

The Law of Life is not only the Law of Life on Earth – it is also the real bottom line of human existence. Life must stay in balance to stay alive. If it can’t stay the way we like it — it will change so that it can stay in a different balance. It does this by several mechanisms that are biological. By flowing energy through the living system; by recycling the materials of which it is made, and by interacting with the environmental conditions of now. To do this job of staying alive, the Living Earth changes in response to WHAT WE DO TO IT NOW.

Fracking, for example, is largely illegal, and we do have laws of humans that were meant to protect us from ourselves, and we could be out there enforcing them, in addition to marching. And teaching ourselves how the laws of nature REALLY do function to maintain Life. How they really do function, not the fairy stories about cornucopias or survival of the fittest.

And devising new ways to make laws for humans that will support the Law of Life.

Most of our leaders are a good bit more clueless than we are, so getting their attention may not help.

Oh, yes. That’s why we try so hard to get their attention.

Well, I would say the Climate March was a good try, and I wish it good luck.

Much rather I would like to see the people actually learn to understand the reality of the miracle that is the Biosystem so we can participate in it with love and joy, rather than duking it out with our leaders AND WITH THE BIOSYSTEM, trying to force them both to give us whatever we want without regard to the consequences to the Biosystem and therefore to ourselves.

Much rather I would like to see these marches also accessible to the poor people, many of whom may have no computers and no iThings and therefore don’t even hear about the march or can’t get there or are more worried about their own children than about ours. I wonder how many of the young people who participated in this march can even imagine such a thing as poor. The poor are after all in the trenches of the corposystem war against the Biosystem. Without them there would not be the success stories of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
that we try to emulate.

There are more poor on earth today than ever in the history of human kind and the only way to reverse that trend is to ALL cooperate with, rather than WAGE WAR against the efforts of our living earth as she tries to keep all her living parts functional and balanced in the way that WE want them to be balanced. We do not care to learn about her real need for balance, what Life on Earth requires to stay alive — and then we complain to our leaders for not giving us what we want, which mostly is more of everything.

More is not balance.

And I was very, very tired.

And I cannot stay in motels any more because they are using more and more of cleaning products and pesticides and chemicals that kill you sense of smell so you don’t realize you are being poisoned, as you sleep, by the cleaning products and pesticides. So I started on home, but about by the time I got to Abiquiu I was too tired to drive, and so I stopped at the Abiquiu Inn.

I have told you about the Abiquiu Inn before, and I will tell you again because it is an oasis in a sea of toxic motels. It is a) quite lovely, b) clean, but cleaned with non-toxic products, c) pet friendly, d) people friendly, e) not over priced, on the low end, for an occasional treat, f) environmentally friendly, as best they can, which of course is not perfect, but I love that all the big beautiful old trees are helping to clean the air. Imagine all the motels in this country how many trees they wiped out in favor of ugly concrete. How much more sickness among the people who stay in toxic motels, and especially the people who work in those places, many of whom do not speak English. How much water and pesticides and toxic air and toxic cleaning compounds they altogether produce and imagine how much less they could be producing. Especially the chain motels that dictate the conditions according to their bottom line and without regard to the natural Law of Balance.

Well, so I thought I would tell you that again, because I don’t suppose the Abiquiu Inn was at the march, but they are nevertheless contributing every day to a better way of doing what they do.

Bare Bones Biology 186 – Freedom

My 2013 was akin to an out-of-body experience with an equivocal ending, neither moving forward to a born-again future nor trudging back in defeat to the septic valley that spit me out.

The quest began the year before, when I finally followed my own advice and faced up to a couple of unpleasant realities, one of which I have known most of my life, I am chemically sensitive, and getting older does not make it better. But I carry on trying to prove to myself that it isn’t so. On the “special problems,” portion of the questionnaire, I always answer “none,” and end up trying to meditate in a cloud of incense; or trying to enjoy a party, or a job, or a lecture or rally, while engulfed in perfume or cigarette smoke, or breathing the air in an airplane, or an elevator, or in Houston, or Northern France, or Southern California.

I tried again in 2012 to prove that it isn’t so. And again I failed. So of course in 2013, I set out once again to disprove the reality and discovered, alas, that I am still me. Such is the weakness of woman. Finally, now, I am very sadly moving myself to a place where I don’t have to feel sick unless I really am sick.

It doesn’t help, trying to discuss chemical sensitivity with physicians or friends or colleagues, because they don’t want to believe it either. We all would much rather attribute the symptoms to stress or some kind of mental pathology. We want to see a straight line relationship between some chemical and me puking in the bathroom, or wiping my bloody nose, or – but I won’t bore you with individual symptoms because the symptoms of chemical sensitivities can be extraordinarily subtle at the lower levels of expression, possibly because it IS stress, the stress of toxic compounds coursing through one’s system. You probably have experienced some yourself and don’t know it: the dreadful draggies; food cravings I have well documented at least for my own body.

The cause of chemical sensitivities, according to one theory, is that our livers remove toxic chemicals from our blood stream; and some livers, mine for example, do not do a good job of it.

If this theory is correct, it explains, in part, the variability of symptoms, because the many unattural toxins that the liver has been unable to break down for excretion, will instead be carried throughout the body by the blood, and the resulting symptoms will tend to be generalized, diverse, cumulative and easy to blame on the victim rather than on the air she is trying to breath; and – ☺ – for the most part they go away when she removes herself from the source, unless the damage is permanent;but — ☹ — I have been able to find only one location with joyfully clean air.

On the up side, in this one place, after about 6 weeks of breathing clean air in the canyon, I did indeed feel born again. Like when I first moved to Maine; like when I first moved to Texas to escape the toxins of NYC. But because it is very cold there in the winter, and the place is off the grid and not always accessible, it’s not a good winter home.

Therefore Bitsy and I left the lovely valley of good health before we could be snowed in, and spent the rest of 2013 driving around the West, first to southern California and then north, up the coast to the middle of Oregon, and then across the mountains and high plains back to the formerly lovely Texas valley that contains my “permanent” home that is now a focal point of Tar Sands pipelines, Gulf Oil disasters, GMO crops with their heavy loads of fertilizer and plant poisons, coal fired power plants, thousands of oil wells and, more recently, fracking. When we returned “home” in December, the symptoms also returned and progressed.

So, we will be out of here ASAP, healthier but much the sadder for it, and will look for winter quarters with access to electricity and internet, for next year, near our clean-air canyon. There we will relax, enjoy doing one thing at a time, and submit to the God of Life, if not to Man and not to the corposystem.

Wishing the same for your year,

Lynn

“It is with the coming of man that a vast hole seems to open in nature, a vast black whirlpool spinning faster and faster, consuming flesh, stones, soil, minerals, sucking down the lightning, wrenching power from the atom, until the ancient sounds of nature are drowned out in the cacophony of something which is no longer nature, something instead which is loose and knocking at the world’s heart, something demonic and no longer planned – escaped it may be – spewed out of nature, contending in a final giant’s game against its master.” Loren Eiseley, The Firmament of Time (1960)

http://gguzman38.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/chemical-madness-part-1
“I am now fully aware of what multiple chemical sensitivity, or MCS, is and how it is affecting my life and the lives of my children. I wish with all my heart that I had known 20 years ago so that I could have prevented some of the harm that has come to myself and my family. But how could I have? MCS is a hidden disorder. It is a much maligned and misunderstood disorder. To understand it, one must understand the whole evil underpinnings of our greedy commercial system. Who wants to think about that? Who wants to acknowledge that our entire way of living is toxic, built on lies and greed? That’s a real downer, right?” Quote from blog, Sound as a Crystal

And how many of you who are reading this just don’t feel very good and you don’t even know what it feels like to feel good? So you can’t compare, and you believe it’s something wrong with yourself because nearly the entire medical community – both chemical and “naturopathic” says it is, but all you really need is real air to breath.

Read also: Poisoning our Children, Surviving in a toxic world. By Nancy Sokol Green, The Noble Press Inc.

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy.com and KEOS radio, 89.1 FM, in Bryan, Texas. For a podcast of this week’s program go to BareBonesBiology.com or click on the link below.

Bare Bones Biology 183 – Hail Ponzi

Yes I do use Facebook, as little as possible because it is one of the more enormous of the corposystem’s methods of keeping us occupied with trivia, rather than helping our communities to grow a sustainable, reasonably pleasant life-style for the next generation. But, then, even Facebook can be used to do something worthwhile.

For example, to understand opinions of people different from ourselves. I accidentally stubbed my toe on one world-view that is so far from mine I didn’t believe it could exist in a human mind:

The statement: “No I don’t want to know more.” (about the function of the Biosystem) represents the ultimate baby-bird philosophy (feed me, I’m happy to believe whatever makes me feel good).

“Baby bird” is only one in a panel of the unproductive games (https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/3677bbb072) the corposystem uses to maintain its control over a formerly more or less democratic society.

As we already know (https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/the-real-answer/), the function of a system is to perpetuate itself. As one way to protect itself from changing, the corposystem (defined in the same ref) encourages us to spend as much of our time as possible playing unproductive human games. When we are playing these games, we are not contributing to the most important work we could be doing for the future of humans on earth, and that is to dismantle or change the corposystem and replace it with a sustainable, nurturing environment for the generations ahead.

And what a pleasure it is to chat with like-minded folks about the evils of the corposystem that has taken over our culture. But so long as we waste time talking about how bad the corposystem is, or why other people aren’t doing what they should be doing, or how impotent (or how important) we are as individuals – so long as we are engrossed in this “aintitawful” game, we aren’t doing what WE should be doing. We are not contributing to any kind of change. The corposystem games eat up our time, our lives, without producing anything worthwhile.

But then you ask: “what can we do?” Oh yes. That’s another corposystem game. “What Can We Do?” It cycles around endlessly, because we don’t like the answer and so we ask some other person – and another, and another — rather than evaluate the answers we are given. And the answer is – ta dah — We could instead be spending this very moment talking, thinking and/or discussing how to stop wasting our time playing corposystem games.

The history of human success/progress/survival is based in the effort to understand the FACTS of life. A fact is something humans cannot change – both historical facts and functional facts, such as the laws of nature — so we don’t waste our time trying to change the unchangeable, or redoing what has already failed, in our never-ending efforts to survive. The corposystem, to save itself from changing, teaches us that there is no difference between a fact and an opinion; and the baby-birds believe it. So, again, what’s a person to do?

Indeed it is true that one person is very unlikely to single-handedly make a big change in a big social system. Does that mean we should give up and go with the flow? Or might it be better for those of us who believe the corposystem is an unethical, illegal, immoral Ponzi scheme, to REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CORPOSYSTEM GAMES, as the few did in Hitler’s Germany. That’s one of the things I find so impossible to believe; I remember Hitler’s generation. That we are no different boggles my mind. But — No, says the corposystem game. What’s the point of trying if you can’t win?

To which I answer, what’s the point of living by supporting an unethical illegal, immoral Ponzi scheme.

What we CAN do is stop playing the corposystem games. We can spend our time doing the fact-based research, and the behaviors, that are required to grow a sustainable, reasonably comfortable environment as our nurturing goal for the generations yet to come, rather than participate in the games that are set for us by an unethical, illegal, immoral Ponzi system.

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy and KEOS FM radio, 89.1, Bryan Texas. A podcast can be obtained at:

Bare Bones Biology 178 – Do Something

So much for the glass is three-quarters empty. Most people do not want to sit around watching it fade away. They want to DO SOMETHING,

What we need to do, in order to achieve our goal of developing a viable, sustainable, reasonably comfortable human presence within the Life system of earth — is to change the human corposystem from a destructive force to a constructive force for Life. I have defined system and Biosystem and corposystem in https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/the-real-answer/ toward the end of the post.

We humans have grown the corposystem. All of us are part of this corposystem. Thus we can change the corposystem. It won’t be easy, because one of the functions of a system, any system, is to maintain itself. (https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/)

But it is possible. We can change the corposystem from a competition-based growth machine into a Life-nurturing maintenance system. Simply by deciding what we all want, and discussing among ourselves how to get it, we can change the system.

I believe what we all want is not “happiness” (undefined and undefinable), nor is it peace defined as absence of war, nor any of the things we are touting that divide us. I believe what we all want is to develop a viable, sustainable, reasonably comfortable human system.

To be viable, sustainable and reasonably comfortable, our corposystem must be changed from what it is now, because now it is not viable long term, and it is based on a competition-and-growth model that is biologically unsustainable and humanly unethical. To be biologically sustainable, the corposystem must stop trying to get what it wants by competing with the Biosystem; to be humanly ethical, we must develop a nurturing model that compassionately supports the needs of the Biosystem, some of which conflict with our own desires. That’s it – we must all (or at least the majority of us) cooperate in that effort, discuss it, evaluate it and stop letting the corposystem tell us what we can and cannot talk about — and it will happen.

If we all have the same goal, and I think we do, then we need to discuss that goal among ourselves rationally, compassionately, realistically, and we will get there. Of course we will also need to learn how to interact in a rational compassionate realistic manner, but I trust us to learn these skills when we finally realize the current corposystem competition (war) model will end in a fight to the death between the corposystem and the Biosystem.

Most of us are not really interested in promoting a fight to the death, especially when we cannot win.

Most people know these things, at least intuitively, and a great many people are working hard or at least contributing by their daily behaviors, such as recycling, to the welfare of the whole community of the Biosystem. But many of the people who are working hard are, in fact, working at cross purposes. Why? Mostly because we do not define and discuss our goals in terms of compatibility with the needs of both of the human community and of the Biological community (defined in https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/
bare-bones-bio…-community-iii/)

Where to begin? Start talking cooperatively about our common goals on our mastheads, letterheads, in our meetings and mission statements. Avoid competing against or dis-respecting the efforts of others who have the same goals and missions. Everyone. No matter what is your individual talent and/or life mission. Everyone can do this.

Systems evolve, and we can evolve this one if we recognize that it IS a system, and it will inevitably try to protect itself from change. How does the corposystem protect itself?

In our culture at this time, the corposystem protects itself primarily by PREVENTING us humans from engaging in honest, ethical, constructive, fact-based communication that engages all the three parts of our brains (https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/
bare-bones-bio…a-quarter-full/).

And what I see the most is defensive rather than constructive responses.

How to change the corposystem? Talk about it.

(https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/

https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/ bare-bones-bio…a-quarter-full/)

Facts are real; learn about them; individual “heroism” does not grow communal “happiness;” the glass is not half full, and we need to learn about the things that are wrong so we can intelligently deal with them; our behaviors today absolutely affect the quality of life of our grandchildren; blame-placing does not solve problems; speculation should be relevant to the facts on the ground or it won’t solve the problems on the ground; anger and hatred that are used to dominate others do not solve either our own problems or theirs; and even in the most benevolent conditions, focusing on the small picture without regard to the overall Facts of Life only tends to perpetuate the system we already have.

How to change the corposystem? Stop being controlled by the corposystem mantras, either the pie-in-the-sky fairy tales or.the claims that there is nothing we can do. They are all excuses to avoid positive change. If our corposystem tells us that we must not think about positive change, or it tells us to believe in magic, or it tells us we can’t talk rationally about hard issues such as population or climate change (https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/) — then –

the way to change our system is to talk — reasonably, rationally and constructively about these problems as they relate to our common goal — to develop a viable, sustainable, reasonably comfortable human presence within the Life of Earth.

Please don’t tell me you can’t think, or that you have more important things to do than to talk.

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of FactFictionFancy and KEOS 89.1 FM radio in Bryan, Texas. A copy of this podcast can be downloaded at:

Bare Bones Biology 165 – Power

OK, I have to talk fast today, and even so there is more on the blog page. In the last blog https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/ I got cranky, because nice speak https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/ doesn’t work in the face of factual problems, and people do need to understand what choices we are making as we each in our own way try to do what is best for ourselves, our communities, our countries and for Life itself.

The choices are difficult, but they are becoming more simple over time as the generations of humans have made bad decisions that leave us very few — in fact — one choice in this generation . Either we are committed to the survival of humans on this earth, or – we would rather do something else.

Life or death for humans depends upon the services provided by the Biosystem; therefore, if we want to work for the welfare of humans within the Biosystem, then we must ALSO work for the welfare of the Biosystem itself — as we know it. All of us. That’s not our choice. Just a basic fact. We can’t change the basic biological systems that function to maintain a balanced environment. If we want to support human life unto the seventh generation and beyond, then we must study these life support systems. And behave accordingly. If we were raised in the past 30 years or so, or if we assume without studying that we DO understand what the Biosystem needs, then our first obligation is to study, for example the old Curtis Biology textbook or an older Basic Biology text or minimally Bare Bones Ecology.

Either we learn what the Biosystem needs, and provide it, or we will fail to accomplish our chosen goal (aka mission) to support human life into the future. Either we study outside our personal and social world view — or we will be, unawares, working for the entrained goals of our culture of birth that is destroying our human participation within the Biosystem.

I suggest we also learn how to tell the difference between real facts and Corposystem propaganda or we will waste a lot of time being confused (https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/bare-bones-biology-064-corposystem-power/).

If we study wisely, t hen we can make wise choices that involve our own human behaviors. That’s a full-time job that can occupy anyone for a lifetime, and that too, as I see it, is oddly simple. It seems that most people in our culture understand one of two general life styles: 1) how to be a “winner” — or 2) how to get along without being a “winner.” One or the other, but not both. They are different skill sets. Winner power or loser power; war or peace; debate or discussion; male power or female power; powers of the strong or Powers of the Weak (http://www.amazon.com/Powers-Weak-Elizabeth-Janeway/dp/0394406966/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325785263&sr=1-1). Whatever you want to call them. There seem to be two general approaches to obtaining our goals or pursuing our mission in life.

The powerful, dominant, macho people seem to believe that war (in it’s many manifestations, from passive-aggressive through competition, debate and physical combat) defines power. More usefully, I have observed that the powerful (dominant, macho) people usually do not understand any other form of power than the power of winning. That’s why they keep on losing, year after year, generation after generation, century after century, warriors ultimately lose their wars because they only understand one kind of power, and that is “winning.” So they can be relatively easily toppled by any number of other kinds of power.

Those people who actually achieve sustainable success of their goal (aka mission) are most often those who: a) study the facts, because basic facts don’t change; and b) who fit the solution to the challenge in such a way that the challengers don’t understand they are being manipulated (that’s easy, the only thing warriors seem to understand is winning) and don’t understand the goal/mission of the people who are manipulating them (also easy, because strong people generally only understand domination).

And indeed right now we humans are losing our place in the body of Life on Earth because ALL the major players, good guys and bad guys, conform so resolutely to the macho Corposystem ethic that very few have time to research the problem factually and face the reality of our situation with an unshakeable commitment to our goal (aka mission) that is greater than our commitment to winning whatever we individually want to win. But anyone can work for the welfare of the Biosystem, any time, all the time. And make Life better, rather than worse for the privilege of being alive – if we are willing to really study what the Biosystem needs rather than what we think it should need.

Witness the T party that propounded so many really silly opinions that had nothing to do with real solutions — they could only make themselves foolish in the long run. They would have done better to analyze the problem than to expound their opinions without benefit of input. Because in the end they did more harm than good.

On the other side, many “progressive” activists today are in the very odd position of admiring the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi, whose efforts were NOT based in war but in resistance, while at the same time PROMOTING the methods of the Corposystem – which is all about war and winning at all levels from passive-aggressive, to competition to debate to active conflict. We don’t need “sides.” What we do need is well-informed communities that can discuss problems and reach rational conclusions.

How many scores or hundreds of times have I been told that I am “doing it wrong,” because I choose not to promote or collaborate with the modern Corposystem society whenever my participation would undermine the Biosystem. And yet, the only possible way that we can nurture the Biosystem is to NOT collude with the Corposystem methods of domination (war), but instead to resort to some combination of powers of the weak, beginning with a discussion of the problem and the parts of it that humans cannot change — because neither we nor the Corposystem can possibly dominate the Biosystem. The more we try, the more it will evolve to accommodate its own needs – not ours.

This is Bare Bones Biology, a production of http://FactFictionFancy.Wordpress.com and KEOS radio, 89.1 FM, Bryan, Texas. A podcast of this program is available at:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/fff/Bare_Bones_Biology_165_-_Power.mp3