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laodan

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laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA

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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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  • Culture Change - Time To Decide What Matters

    Rated Sep 14 • 1 review • environment, change, books, globalization • culturechange.org

    Time To Decide What Matters
    by Keith Farnish for Culture Change (the author has just come out with his excellent book Time's Up!, joining the Chelsea Green stable of works on sustainability.)

    Community is the antithesis of civilization for civilization thrives on the division of humanity into tiny, atomized, competing parts; but community is the form in which humans have always survived best. The choice is simple now: Civilization or Community; Progress or Humanity; Death or Life.

    Time To Decide What Matters
    Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis FREE 281 Pages PDF ebook



    Some more goods words. But reality remains the same. Change will only materialize when humanity will be confronted with the necessity to change its ways. This means when humanity will be confronted with massive dislocation of its societal ways leading to barbarity, violence and death.




    7 views
    Culture Change - Time To Decide What Matters

  • Worldchanging: Bright Green: Living In The Age Of Stupid

    Rated Mar 17 2009 • 4 reviews • environment, change, society, late modernity • worldchanging.com

    Living In The Age Of Stupid


    The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didnu2019t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

    Postlethwaite's final monologue then really drives the message home:

    We wouldn't be the first life form to wipe itself out. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say about us?

    The question I've been asking is: why didn't we save ourselves when we had the chance? Is the answer because on some level we weren't sure if we were worth saving?

    Living In The Age Of Stupid commentary on WorldChanging
    The Age of Stupid the film
    video clips



    "... on some level we weren't sure if we were worth saving".

    This comment is devastating. Does it denote stupidity? I don't think so. Think about it. Are you really so sure that humanity is worth saving?

    From whichever viewpoint we look at this question the fact is that modernity and mostly late modernity are projecting a very ugly image of humanity. Late modernity acts as the most abject form of totalitarianism. Under the guise of rationality we justify the extinction of all non-modern societies. But our hypocritical consciousness only seems to know about Tibet. Why only Tibet and not the entire tapestry of cultures the world over? The same is true of languages.
    But there is more. Observe our own daily lives. We work always more hours and have always less time for ourselves. Industrialization took away our self-sufficiency, our gardens and livestock breeding, our house building and decoration, our clothes making and all that is necessary in our daily lives. While all this was taken away from us we discovered that we now were obligated to purchase all those same things...

    But the most abject, to me at least, is the latest scientific foray into the field of terra-forming. Now that we discover the potential threat of extinction some scientists and some ecologists want to impose on all human beings the idea of changing the configuration of the earth. Studies are already being undertaken financed with public money and the solutions arrived at will one day in the not so distant future be put in practice without any of us having been asked for our opinion. Totalitarianism in its most ultimate form.

    I absolutely believe that humanity in its late-modern societal form is not worth saving. Some believe that a collapse of late-modernity is the chance to foment the emergence of something societally new. But I think that the formation of the future is largely out of our own hands...




    2,891 views
    Worldchanging: Bright Green: Living In The Age Of Stupid

  • Technology Trends - How new technologies are modifying...

    Rated Dec 27 2008 • 2 reviews • environment, energy industry, energy, economy • primidi.com

    Is the LED revolution coming?
    in Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

    According to two professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and smart lighting could save trillions of dollars worldwide in the next ten years. They claim that innovations in photonics and solid state lighting could also lead to 'a massive reduction in the amount of energy required to light homes and businesses around the globe.

    The team added that LEDs require 20 times less power than today's conventional light bulbs, and five times less power than 'green' compact fluorescent bulbs. According to them and "if all of the world's light bulbs were replaced with LEDs for a period of 10 years," we could save $1.83 trillion and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 10.68 gigatons.

    Is the LED revolution coming?
    Transcending the replacement paradigm of solid-state lighting 8 pages pdf scientific presentation.



    From passive architecture to LEDs.
    What is not mentioned here is that China is already well ahead of the pack in the field of LEDs.




    67 views
    Technology Trends - How new technologies are modifying our way of life

  • The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in...

    Rated Dec 27 2008 • 1 review • environment, science, energy, economy • nytimes.com

    No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in 'Passive Houses'
    in the NYT by ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

    The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants' bodies.

    And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.

    ... The European Commission is promoting passive-house building, and the European Parliament has proposed that new buildings meet passive-house standards by 2011.

    ... The courses and literature were mostly in German, and even now the components are mass-produced only in this part of the world.

    No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in 'Passive Houses"
    Passive House Institute



    Is there an impact on the technological approach of countries that have green parties in power for prolonged periods of time? This article covers an anecdote that seems to indicate just that.
    Germany had a green party in power for some years and because of the popularity of its ideas all other parties have been integrating the same ideas in their own platforms. This also explains how innovation and entrepreneurialism thrived along the same lines.
    Result: Germany today is the uncontested world leader in:
    - passive building technologies
    - solar and wind technologies
    - the manufacturing and application of those technologies in real life.

    What more needs to be said?
    Imagine the application of such passive technologies generalized in a country as the US. The result would be a drastic reduction of its national energy consumption, a drastic reduction of its energy imports that eventually would result in its balance of payment entering positive territory, If the country had mastered the technology before others it would also have an export opportunity that would result in pushing its balance of payment further into positive territory. And lastly a reduction on the scale that passive technologies could allow would also drastically reduce the emission of CO2 and other gases responsible for the present man induced climate change.

    We can only observe that such a scenario did not originate in the US but in the countries composing the Germanic area of the EU. So it seems to me that some conclusions...




    5 views
    The Energy Challenge - No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’ - Series - NYTimes.com

  • Sex-Changing Chemicals Make Male Starlings Sing Sweet...

    Rated Dec 26 2008 • 3 reviews • environment, modernity, evolution • wired.com

    Sex-Changing Chemicals Make Male Starlings Sing Sweet Songs
    in Wired Science by Brandon Keim

    Pollutants that turn male fish into females have an unexpected effect on starlings: they cause the guys to sing sweet songs that lady starlings find irresistible.

    In a study published this week in Public Library of Science ONE, researchers from Cardiff University studied starlings feeding on earthworms at a sewage treatment plant.

    Sex-Changing Chemicals Make Male Starlings Sing Sweet Songs article in Wired Science
    Pollutants Increase Song Complexity and the Volume of the Brain Area HVC in a Songbird article in Plosone



    Hm... See the References to the article in Plos. This is something that seems to be going on among all living species. What could be a better example of the side-effect of modernity?




    618 views
    Sex-Changing Chemicals Make Male Starlings Sing Sweet Songs | Wired Science | Wired.com

  • The Disappearing Male - Doc Zone | CBC-TV

    Rated Nov 22 2008 • 4 reviews • environment, modernity, life, worldviews • cbc.ca

    The Disappearing Male
    in CBC documentaries, video on Google Video

    "The Disappearing Male" is a one-hour documentary about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system.

    The Disappearing Male

    video.google.com/videoplay [video.google.com/videoplay]

    What to say?

    The side-effects of modernity are to be found everywhere around us. This system that was based on:
    - a worldview centering on individualism unleashing an orgy of greed that unleashed the totalitarianism of private ownership and the market.
    - out of private ownership and the market emerged the rationality of capital that pushed humanity on the infernal path of "economic growth" that had to guarantee a relentless growth of profits...

    Modernity has shut off the working of our minds and after a few centuries of mechanical application of the logic of capital we come now to realize that we are on the brink of a catastrophe. The principle of life itself is at risk.




    552 views
    The Disappearing Male - Doc Zone | CBC-TV

  • California Academy of Sciences designs sustainability --...

    Rated Sep 29 2008 • 1 review • architecture, environment • latimes.com

    California Academy of Sciences designs sustainability
    in LA Times by Christopher Hawthorne

    RENZO PIANO'S original concept for the new California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park was elegantly simple: Slice out a huge, rectangular section of the park landscape, lift it 36 feet into the air and slide a new piece of architecture underneath. The floor of the park would become a green roof atop the facility -- a feature Piano dubbed "the flying carpet."


    California Academy of Sciences designs sustainability
    San Francisco's new California Academy of Sciences a natural wonder
    The Renzo Piano-designed facility will house an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum and classrooms.





    While finance and the economy are teetering on the brink it is encouraging to see that some institutions start to use their investments to build a smarter future for themselves and the public.

    Renzo Piano is digging in Hundertwasser's legacy of "under the ground building"...




    416 views
    California Academy of Sciences designs sustainability -- latimes.com

  • http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/top-0-amazing-...

    Rated Mar 11 2008 • 4 reviews • environment, science, art • wired.com

    Kinetic Sculptures
    in Wired by Aaron Rowe

    Kinetic sculptures are simply breathtaking.

    Drawing green engineering and art together, they give a glimpse at what great beauty can emerge from an unconstrained mind.

    Perhaps the world will overflow with these spectacles in a time of better education and less strife.

    Amazing Kinetic Sculpture Videos

    youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]


    Always amazing to see Theo Jansen's works.
    He succeeds in showing us that something else than the mechanical logic of capital is possible in shaping our daily lives: openness to nature and creativity. "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds" says Jansen.

    There are 30 videos available on YouTube presently about Kinetic Sculptures. Check here:
    Theo Jansen - Kinetic Sculptor




    1 view
    http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/top-0-amazing-k.html

  • The Archdruid Report: Back Up The Rabbit Hole

    Rated Feb 07 2008 • 1 review • environment, economy • blogspot.com

    Back Up The Rabbit Hole
    in The Archdruid Report by John Michael Greer

    As the world closes in on the end of the 21st century's first decade, its industrial societies are leaving behind a period in which just such a temporary set of conditions held sway. Until we recognize the blind alley down which those conditions led the developed world, we will be hard put to respond to a future that has begun to move in a very different direction.
    ...
    During the quarter century of ultracheap energy, transportation costs were so low that they became a negligible fraction of the cost of goods. This allowed manufacturers to arbitrage the difference in labor costs between industrial and nonindustrial countries without having to take shipping costs into account.
    ...
    Another result, at least as dramatic as globalization though less ballyhooed then or now, was the rise of a throwaway economy all through the industrial world.

    In hindsight, I suspect, the entire period from 1980 to 2005 will be seen as one of history's supreme blind alleys.
    ...
    The possibility that the only way forward out of the present blind alley may require going back to less convenient and more costly ways of doing things is nowhere on our collective radar screens just now.

    Back Up The Rabbit Hole

    This idea of progress as being the direction forward on the line of history is typically a story derived out of the religions of the word. This is nowhere to be seen in China and the greater Confucian area nor in any area where animism is still in practice.

    The Western idea of progress starts with the religions of the word being imposed on all citizens as the societal glue of early kingdoms and empires. That moment is also considered to be the beginning of Western civilization moment that Toynbee spent his life studying.

    Civilization is like a house. The FOUNDATIONS OF CIVILIZATION are not made of bricks but of AXIOMS of a model of perception of reality that is shared by all the citizens. Culture, understood as epochal behavior within society, is then added to the axioms to grow the house of civilization. Each particular snapshot of epochal behavior acts thus like a CULTURAL ADD-ON. A civilization is then the sum of its axioms + its cultural add-ons.

    So how do the axioms of our Western and Christian civilization compare with the axioms of the Chinese civilization? It's the story of dualism in the West versus the polarities of unity in China.
    - dualism: God versus devil, beginning versus end, good versus evil, love versus hate, "you are with us or you are against us", progress versus regress, and so on. Under dualism it is implied that you are on the side of God and good and that the road of history is made of progress. The logical behavior in such an axiomatic setting is thus to believe that everything is fine because we are on the road of progress towards reaching God (ultimate good). As a consequence Westerners experience an utter inability to recognize reality as it is and tend to reject the idea that what they do could be wrong, or even less, counterproductive to their own interests.
    - polarities of unity: the contact between polarities generates a burst of energy fueling changes and transformations that are as the seconds on the ticking clock of evolution. In that axiomatic setting there is no beginning and end, no all and nothing, no progress and regress. Reality is perceived indeed as a continuum of change. And the logical behavior is then to surf on the realities of the moment in order to position oneself to be able to size the best opportunities at hand in the present.

    In light of this I'm afraid that John's assertion that "The challenge before us now is to climb back out of the rabbit hole and deal with the world we will have to face when the extravagant Wonderland of the brief era of ultra-cheap energy dissolves into windblown leaves and the shreds of a departed dream" is wishful thinking, for, as Toynbee observed (in a Western civilizational environment) it's NECESSITY that powers change and not the willpower of men.




    4 views
    The Archdruid Report: Back Up The Rabbit Hole

  • BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Society depends on more for less

    Rated Feb 05 2008 • 1 review • economics, environment, society • bbc.co.uk

    Society depends on more for less
    in BBC News Online by Sir Mark Moody-Stuart Sir Mark Moody-Stuart is non-executive chairman of Anglo American, and is a member of the UN Global Compact and chairman of the Global Compact Foundation

    So what of the market? It is an unsurpassed mechanism for allocating resources to deliver better things. Through competition, technologies are optimised or discarded, opening the field for creativity and choice. I believe in the power and value of markets.

    But like most things, they have a failing. Without regulation to channel their power, markets will not deliver things which are of no immediate benefit to the individual making his or her choice, even though they may be beneficial to society.

    Society depends on more for less


    "Consumer opinion and choice is important, but it will not do the trick on its own"

    It seems a recalibration of the relation between market and State is well underway. But what Mark Moody-Stuart envisions is more or less a continuation of our present unsustainable way of life through a reduction in the market's footprint compensated by an increased role of the State in economics.

    This is a good beginning but it is still so far from the kind of solution that is needed for addressing successfully the inter-connectedness between a cascading number of crisis happening simultaneously. See my earlier comments

    The news is confirming on a daily basis my assessment about a cascading number of crisis happening simultaneously:
    Worldwide Peak Oil May Already Be Here - Now What? resource collapse
    Ice Melt Accelerates Around the World side-effects of modernity
    Fragile Dollar Hegemony: Iran's Oil Bourse could Topple the Dollar globalization of the logic of capital + resource collapse

    Revised version of an economic rebalancing between private and public

    1. public-private investment in energy R&D targeting national energetic autonomy that would re-balancing national balance of payment and eliminate the emission of CO2 responsible for climate change.

    2. public investment in, long haul and urban, public transportation complementing a decentralized system of rural local roads

    3. subsidized higher education in exchange of a societal service giving the man-power to a permanent education system for the advancement of culture, the arts, and science.

    4. finance for the national well-being. Finance is what powers the formation of capital and should thus be guided and regulated to serve the national well-being in order to avoid bubbles of greed




    3 views
    BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Society depends on more for less