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Is the United Snakes government too big to fail?
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 7:28 am
by stilltrucking
How Is America Going To End?
Slate's "Choose Your Own Apocalypse" lets you map out the death of the United States.
By Josh Levin
Updated Friday, Aug. 7, 2009, at 7:00 AM ET
If and when America expires, we probably won't agree on the cause of death. For proof that autopsies of empires are inconclusive, consider the case of Alexander Demandt, the German historian who set out in the 1980s to collect every theory ever given for why Rome fell. The final tally: 210, including attacks by nomads on horseback, blood poisoning, decline of Nordic character, homosexuality, outflow of gold, and vaingloriousness.
In tribute to Demandt, I've gone looking for every possible reason why America could fall. I've paged through the work of scholars who have studied the characteristics of declining and failed societies. I also collected theories from futurists, doomsayers, separatists, economists, political scientists, national security experts, climatologists, geologists, astronomers, and a few miscellaneous crazy people. The result: a collection of 144 potential causes of America's future death.
Slate dot com
How Is America Going To End?
The top 144 scenarios.
Choose Your Own Apacalypse
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 4:39 pm
by mtmynd
When America fails, the tests were not taken seriously. Combine all 144 scenarios into one and that could very well spell the end of an America we grew to love. But I think an end to America will be an end to many others globally. And let's think of who would be King then... China? too big already, population wise and therefore a bit tipsy with so many to console.
But you and I, amigo, should not worry... our time is coming so much sooner than it ever has before.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 8:13 pm
by stilltrucking
We might still be here in 2012.
The USA is just this country. So my social security retirement check might bounce. But what if the Mayans were right?
Where were you July 20, 1969?
One World Under God
I will never forget how I felt the day I saw that picture.
An interesting book Called
The Evolution of God. I been thinking how my own belief in God has evolved over the years. From atheist to Jesus Freak to quantum mystic.
You know I used to have so many opinions Cecil. Like surely God would not create the world and all the fishes in the sea just destroy it someday.
I have got so vain I even wonder if Einstein was wrong about God. Maybe god does shoot craps with the universe.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 8:38 pm
by mtmynd
god doesn't need to do anything but observe everything. what else do we expect from him? like do something about what he created? once something is created there's not much you need to do about it 'cept look at it and maybe get some ideas about next time.. maybe god is considering what he'll create next after all this matter returns to the silence from where it came. it's there in that wholly silence, amigo, where god observes every thing and doesn't need to do anything about it... it's all his to do with as he pleases and what pleases him is far beyond what you and i and those other folks think he should be doing about some things. that's a cosmic joke he laffs about when he hears us chatting about him... we're so full of shit. and he know it. he knows every thing. at least i think that.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 8:45 pm
by stilltrucking
I don't know nothing Cecil. Well I used to know everything but it seems like the longer I live the less I know. I used to know what an electron is for example.
http://evolutionofgod.net/excerpts_afterword/
Einstein was not a proud papa they say. Quantum Physics was his red headed step child. They used to call it quantum mechanis but nothing mechanical about it. Just plain weird
I think about this bit a lot
"Blessed is he that was not born, or that was born and has died
But as for us who live, woe unto us"
maybe I confuse my own end with the end of the world
I have heard that even the Buddha is still working on himself.
I find that a comfort.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 9:09 pm
by mtmynd
I don't know nothing Cecil. Well I used to know everything but it seems like the longer I live the less I know. I used to know what an electron is for example.
We all know something... it may not be much, but it's something. that something gets us by until it doesn't. But knowing nothing is special... not everybody knows nothing... i mean not even zero - that's something, right? but no thing... shhh... that silence where no thing is... the void it's been called... the womb of all things... where every thing came and where every thing goes... when it's all over and erased and forgotten... even no universe as we know it... clean slate... black board with not even chalk dust... all over. what then? who can say? it's bigger than us all together. that's no thing and that's good to know. knowing nothing is worth nothing and that's worth it.
"Blessed is he that was not born, or that was born and has died
But as for us who live, woe unto us"
That is an extension of the first of Four Noble Truths set down by teh Buddha - 1) Life means suffering.
I have heard that even the Buddha is still working on himself.
I find that a comfort.
Sure. Why not? Why knot it all up so you get tangled up in something like a web or net and you can't get free?
Free.. that's the thing... 'free' in all it's meanings, all its definitions, free from anything and everything. like god... just observes... non-attachment to it all.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 10:11 pm
by stilltrucking
I do not feel free. The awareness of that is liberating for me.
Sorry about all the links. Evolution is such a seductive concept. Or is it a construct? I will have to look that up That guy who wrote the book says there may be an
evolving moral order.
It would be pretty to think so..
I been listening to a Zen tape at night when I go to sleep. Beginners Mind. That is me, my journey of one step and a thousand false starts.
Good night amigo, thank you for taking the time.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 10:19 pm
by stilltrucking
TO answer my question:
Concepts are abstract ideas which have been "defined" according to particular characteristics or generalizations (constructs) about them. A construct is based on concepts, or can be thought of as a conceptual model that has measurable aspects.This will allow the researcher to "measure" the concept and have a common acceptable platform when other researches do a similar research.
Got dam gravity, they say it is just a theory like evolution.
I would be doing so much better without gravity. Sorry I am beat tired and goofy.
Posted: August 7th, 2009, 10:34 pm
by Nazz
Truck, that's my favorite photo.
Thanks.
Posted: August 9th, 2009, 10:25 am
by gypsyjoker
So hard for me to find the words
To say what changed in me the day I saw that picture on live television. A long day, thirty six hours, glued to the TV watching Uncle Walter.
glad you liked it too.