Fascinating NASA Study

Report today of a study by NASA on civilizations.

NASA claims: Dozens of advanced ancient civilizations collapsed before us

I know, right? I thought they just studied the stars.

Anyway, they studied why civilizations collapse, what takes them down. You'll find the entire study at the link below.

The study came to the conclusion there are two key social features that contributed to the collapse of every single advanced civilization from the past:

“...the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”;

and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]”

These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”

So I ask you, does any of this sound familiar, folks?

Link to original study: 

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality

Quote of the day

"Western civilization is a loaded gun pointed at the head of this planet."

--Terence McKenna

And they were the "uncivilized"? The "savages"?

Click on picture for better, easier viewing.

Quote III: on where we are today

From the same, earlier article today:

We are swept by an impetuous current. Indeed, a cultural death is evident not only in our loss of values and in the degradation of wisdom into mere information, but also in the generalized devaluation of our earlier points of reference. Thus, a great part of the Western world's population is now disenchanted with governments, authorities, experts, ideologies, and even with science and philosophy, not to mention religions. "It is unforgivable that so many problems from the past are still with us, absorbing vast energies and resources desperately needed for nobler purposes," said U Thant -- then Secretary-General of the United Nations -- as early as 1970, on the occasion of the organization's anniversary. After proceeding to review some of these problems from the past, such as the armaments race, racism, violations of human rights, and "dreams of power and domination instead of fraternal coexistence," Secretary-General U Thant observed:


"While these antiquated concepts and attitudes persist, the rapid pace of change around us breeds new problems which cry for the world's collective attention and care: the increasing discrepancy between rich and poor nations, the scientific and technological gap, the population explosion, the deterioration of the environment, the urban proliferation, the drug problem, the alienation of youth, the excessive consumption of resources by insatiable societies and institutions. The very survival of a civilized and humane society seems to be at stake."
____________________________________________

What's fascinating about this all, to me, is that, first of all, it's "bigger picture" thinking.  It's taking in the whole world and noting the conditions we're in instead of localizing problems to just us in the United States.  Second, it emphasizes, instead of just the problems, that there is a way for growth--that all this is--or could be, anyway--"growing pains", of a sort.  Things we have to go through in order to become something new and--forgive me--improved.  It's a bigger picture thinking that encompasses both all of us on the planet and humankind through time.

We'll come out on the "other side" but the question is, will we have learned and improved from the experiences?

Here's hoping.

Get out there and enjoy the day and weather.

Link to original post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jean-houston/beyond-the-pathology-of-h_b_721610.html?ref=fb&src=sp

A weekend observation on Western civilization

One of the absolute best values for the money in the current Western world has to be the ability to purchase an entire toilet for $80.00.


Just sayin'...




Have a great weekend, y'all.

I'm back!

After just getting back from a vacation and, as good fortune and hard work would have it, my first cruise on a cruise ship, it naturally gave a great deal of food for thought, so to speak.

Stopping, day after day, in different ports of call and cities, towns, countries and cultures, it helps give a little bit bigger viewpoint of the world. It may not be Europe or Africa or the former Soviet Union or anything more global--it was the Western Caribbean, after all and only 8 days--it was still a bit of a larger picture of the hemisphere, its current situation and some of its history.

The question I'm left with, after seeing these current civilizations and the remains of ancient ones like the Mayans, it seems clear, given our current world situations, that we just don't have the whole successful, supportive culture and civilization down yet.

What I mean is, after all these thousands of years of human kind's living and the lessons we can and should take from them, we still don't have sensible, intelligent, successful, working plan for a society down yet.

Think about it.

We don't.

Too much greed, surely.

You would think we could come up with some reasonable ways to educate, clothe, employ, feed and tend to the health care of all our citizens and society.

You would think.

I do.

It seems that with all the scientists, doctors, teachers, sociologists, historians and more--all the educated people, worldwide--we could set up a working,
simple and, again, intelligent society.

And in examples large and small, across the globe, it seems we're breaking down right now.

Things and places aren't working and aren't working well or right.

Russia fell apart and became the "Former Soviet Union".

South and Central America never have been coherent and working--or haven't been for years, since the Mayan or Aztec civilizations.

Africa is in pieces and has been for hundreds of years, I believe.

China is not a working, sustainable society as it exists today.

The examples go on.

It would seem Denmark and some other Scandinavian countries come closest to truly be successful, supportable and functioning for all, though who knows? I could be proven wrong there.

In the current world situation, it seems wealth, as always, rules.

And that's not supportable and able to work in the long run.

It doesn't make one very hopeful for us.

It brings up the same old, simple, possibly funny but also possibly poignant question from years ago:

Why can't we all just get along?


(The first thing we should all do is outlaw war).