Endeesea

Altered States

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:43:46 +1000

Those of us who are old enough to remember William Hurt's acting debut in the film, "Altered States" may also have been lucky enough to have experienced something of what the movie was about. No, not the regression to a primal state of mind, let alone physical being, as Hurt portrayed in the 1980 sci-fi, suspense flick. Although, if you've indulged in some recreational hallucinogens while experiencing sensory deprivation, you're a braver person than I am, Gungadin!

I'm referring to the kind of sensory deprivation, or as I find it, sensory enlightenment, one can experience in a floatation tank. Counting the experience this afternoon - courtesy of a very enlightened employer, no less - I've floated 5 times since 1986. I wish I could afford to do so more often, but one indulges in what one can, when one can. Today's was a Christmas gift. I find the experience is simply something remarkable. I've never been very good at meditation probably because my mind simply isn't very disciplined. It wants to keep right on exploring, talking, contradicting and judging regardless of what I might want. Inside the totally dark, body temperature encapsulation of a floatation tank, it panics. I don't panic, but the voice I carry with me, and which I believe we all carry with us, starts to 'thrash around'. My senses, which feed my mind, radically reach out within minutes of turning out the room light, entering the 500 litres of magnesium sulphate saturated water, closing the lid on the tank and settling into a supine position. You're buck naked, of course, no jewellery, you shower before entering the tank, and again afterwards to remove the salts.

It's a strange feeling at first. How to hold or place one's arms? Legs are fine, they just stick out of the end of the torso, but arms? Floating by the side doesn't feel right to me. I've interlinked fingers across my chest, supported my head in my hands, even used the 'dead pose' of wrists crossed on the chest. Today, I found the correct position for me. Arms 'above' my head. The tank is plenty big enough and I'm a short-arse anyway.

I'm not claustrophobic so being in a small space in the dark doesn't phase me and besides, it's warm and comfortable. Earplugs in to keep all noise out, eyes closed to keep the salty water out, the very first sensation is one of rotation. That's your senses reaching out for points of reference. You're horizontal, that much is known, but we live in a 3D world and a float tank is very much 2 dimensional. A watery plane to which you are held by gravity and buoyancy. You couldn't sink if you tried. So, rotation. Nothing dizzying, just a feeling of turning around your belly-button. In the first few minutes you'll find that a toe or a finger or elbow might touch a wall as any movement of your body in the water settles out, returning a sense of place to the mind that's calling for orientation. You may also find that condensed humidity will drip on you irregularly. You're inside a 100% humidity environment so that much is inescapable. It's not annoying if you know it's there and it stops after a few minutes anyway as the humidity returns to 100% from that which escaped when you opened the lid to get in. These are initial bugbears which are unavoidable and soon go away.

So there you are, held in a womb-like embrace on a two dimensional plane. Most float centres use 'relaxation music' to help you settle in, and also to bring you back at the end of your time. It helps at the start and without it at the end, I'd still be there. The music fades away after ten or so minutes and you find yourself listening to your own breathing, your heart-beat, your stomach gurgling....any sound your senses can detect, you'll listen. It's just more reaching out by a mind deprived. I know the experience is taking me when my sight sense begins to 'see' something. For me, it's light. It's been a psychedelic light show, geometric patterns, dreamscapes where people or places appear always brightly lit. Today it was a bluish plasma ball which moved in and around a massive, organic internally lit sphere held against a black background by what 'looked' like veins or sinew. Remember, this is my mind working, not my eyes. My eyes couldn't see squat because they were closed. That's how it began. I lost time today, just like the last time I floated. I know the music at the beginning went for 5 or 10 minutes, the odd drip was annoying, the rotation passed quickly and toes only touched a couple of times. My breathing settled after a couple of seemingly overly deep breaths, and then the lights came along. I chased the plasma ball, weaved in & around the organic sphere, 'watched' the lights and enjoyed being held by the warmth and security of my own mind as it quietened and 'listened' to itself, and then....the music.

I came back with something of a start. I wasn't ready and unlike waking from a deep sleep, wakefulness is instant. 'What? It's over? I'm not ready! I was......dunno....' and that's the honest truth. I really don't know where my mind was at the end, but I do know the plasma ball & organic sphere were a long time ago. I gently and slowly emerged from the tank, flicked on the room light and leaned against the tank. It's like coming down from something like pethidine but much more gentle, no drug-induced fogginess, no detrimental hangover. Just a quiet sense of peace & return. I checked my watch on the sidetable and a full hour had passed, yet to me it felt like 20 minutes. Even now, four & a half hours later, I'm still enraptured by the experience. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking to quieten their mind, relax and find some inner peace. Thank you, Alex. A much needed and enjoyed experience. The journey you take without going anywhere.

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Nirvana Doesn't Exist....Ask Kurt

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:57:04 +1000

Karl Marx was a brilliant man and a deep thinker, but sadly, didn't recognise the principal flaw in his philosophy, as defined by himself. Marx believed that capitalism was simply a societal system of class divisions, which would eventually destroy itself through it's innate inequity. Other systems of societal structures - feudalism, socialism, communism as examples, are all fatally flawed just as is capitalism, due to one over-riding, inevitable, non-programmable factor. People.

More succinctly, human beings or Homo Sapiens sapiens. Marx in his Communist Manifesto - which by the way his benefactor Friedrich Engels admired enormously but believed the concept to be just too much of a perfect nirvana to truly exist - stated "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Consider that statement for a moment. All hitherto existing society. It's not as if other forms of social structure hadn't been tried, right from the adaptation from hunter-gatherer to agrarian. None have worked because we, the Homo Sapiens sapiens, keep changing whichever model happens to be the status quo. Why? Because there's always something better. Something wiser....as if humanity is wise enough to decide for itself what was good for it as a collective. Clearly an anachronism or contradiction. If we could decide what was good for us, we wouldn't keep changing whatever it is we're unhappy with. Clearly, there is no nirvana, so why would a profound but obviously confused thinker like Marx believe that there could be?

Now consider the balance of Marx's statement....the history of class struggles. Now I put it to you, reader, and I know who you are, haven't there always been class struggles? Won't there always be class struggles? The only rational response is 'yes' and 'yes', and why is that so? Because of what we are! Homo Sapiens sapiens. We are competitive by our very nature. Competitiveness exists within our genes, right down to our DNA. Evolutionary change within our DNA, or indeed any DNA on this planet, only occurs when the forces resisting change fail to recognise the change. We resist change, yet desire it because nothing is ever as we would want it as an overall collective, or society; or even as individuals. Were the truth otherwise, depression would not exist as an illness in the species Homo Sapiens sapiens.

In Australian society, we operate under a Parliamentary Democracy, which is market-driven as an economy. Two entirely different concepts. One a means of government, the other an economic model. Neither is an expression of societal culture. In that vein, we are a secular libertarian society. We value our freedom, our rights to chose and to be independent. We value the 'fair go' or to be more precise, egalitarianism. As the linked text states, "It is considered by some to be the natural state of society." I certainly consider it to be so. Do unto others, etcetera.

So to summarise, Marx believed that Communism - the socio-political model where property is commonly controlled - is the ultimate (r)evolutionary form of human society. He was wrong and has since been proven wrong some would say with the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1990. Such an estimation is absurdly simplistic and fails to take into account that Soviet Communism was not pure Communism because the state's property was not commonly controlled. The Soviet Union collapsed not because of Ronald Reagan, as 'some' would like to fantasise, but through the challenge of class against class, just as Marx himself stated. Marxism IS Communism. The two are inseparable. One is a belief in the other. Capitalism is a belief in self. Self above all other considerations. Is that a basis for a productive, tolerant, communicative, balanced society where all benefit from the efforts of all? I think not. Some say that Socialism is the key, in fact my father would espouse 'the greatest good for the greatest number', which, reader, is Socialism. The differential between Socialism and Communism/Marxism is a vast, yawning chasm in philosophical terms. I like to think my own father had the world's better interests at heart, but frankly, the greatest good for the greatest number still requires that a lesser number miss out on that greatest good. Hardly egalitarian.

In my view, there is only one perfect societal model and that's not to have a society. I'll call it Hermitism. It involves spurning ones fellow human beings, packing up what few essentials an individual requires to exist on a shady mountain top and setting off for that mountain top to establish a permanent residence where no other Homo Sapiens sapiens can, or would want to, bother one. I'll leave you with that thought, in conjunction with the results of this study released today, summarised by this report. Capitalism? Communism? Marxism? Socialism? I call bullshit!

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I'm Shocked!!

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:18:42 +1000

I'd decided to give Archangel IV it's service today, before I head off on a camping trip next weekend. All of my cars since the 1988 Bluebird have been named Archangel. It's an inside joke. Anyway, initially intended to be an oil and filter change, remove plugs & clean and general check over of fluids, I discovered when removing the plugs that I was facing an original equipment issue. The plugs were extremely difficult to remove, in fact, I very nearly destroyed a plug spanner and pair of multi-grips in the process but out they all came with gentle but firm persuasion. I took pics of these rare birds, which you'll find below and on my Flickr site.

These plugs have performed, obviously without any hiccough, for 232,932 kilometers. I am quite honestly astounded that over a period of 15 years since manufacture, no-one in the interim - qualified mechanic or otherwise - had either thought to, or bothered to change the plugs. Should I be concerned about what else hasn't been bothered with, or simply grateful for the tenacity and indestructibility of a Toyota engine?

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Who's Up For An Experiment?

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:41:58 +1000

I have six invites to Google Wave, which appears to be Google's entry into the live chat/Twitter/discussion forum format, but with much greater expansion capacity & broader useability. Being the geek that I am, I asked a friend for an invite and today was awarded 8 more myself. I've invited my wife and step-daughter, so there's six left. The platform is currently in Beta preview mode, which means it's still being worked on and might show the odd glitch. Those of us who were Vox Beta testers will understand the growing pains a new platform undergoes in Beta.

I'd thought to use Google Wave as a discussion forum format for starters, among those who'd like to experiment with it. If you get on board now, the odds are you too will be awarded invites which you can use to expand a collective into something which might prove both entertaining and fruitful for all. Waves - or if you like, threads - can be ongoing as long as someone wants to keep adding to it, either with live text, video, photos, and doubtless down the track elements like drawing, voice and so on. Wave allows you to upload and download files, pics, video, stay in touch with anyone, anywhere through a browser. Everything is stored in the Cloud, as we geeks know it. Nothing needs to be installed and nothing saved onto your own computer. Your Wave account is accessible anywhere, anytime through any computer.

If you'd like to join the Beta preview and be in on the ground floor, send me a message & I'll add you to the invite list until they run out. Only six, so think & act quick if you'd like one.

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New World Order

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:45:41 +1000

The Copenhagen Climate Change talks were always destined to be little more than a talk-fest. If anything genuinely inspiring comes from it, I for one will be much surprised. My feeling is that what we're witnessing, even after a couple of days, is the arising of a new world order where the industrial giants, the so-called 'first world' nations, will call the tune on climate change mitigation. Second & third-world nations will simply be the lesser players. The oceanic island states will lose their sovereignty ultimately because in the grand global scheme in which the tune is called by the major industrial nations, their concerns are transitory. I'd even go so far as to state that arguments of climate change deniers will be utilised by the first world nations such that claims of inevitability will be aired by the first world in a bid to belittle the outcries of the the smaller island states. In my view, it is inevitable that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) will lose out in global climate change negotiations simply because their voices, their contributions to the global picture simply aren't loud enough or of high enough concern to the first world. There is no appeasing going on. There is only overt collaboration, collusion occurring between the major players in much the same way as the major powers in pre-world war two Europe made decisions about what could and couldn't be sacrificed in a bid to stave off war. Some might like to call that 'appeasement' but in reality, the only parties being appeased are those who are apparently conducting the 'appeasement'. There is no third party. In my view, humanity being the pathetic species it truly is, will use events like Copenhagen to pave the path to its own destruction. The atmospheric carbon 'tipping point' used to be 350 ppm. Copenhagen is all about limiting atmospheric poisoning to 450 ppm. In ten years or less, the target will be 550 ppm, by which time the oceans will be exhibiting conclusive symptoms of acidification, polar ice will have vanished for the foreseeable geological future during the northern summer and continental ice shelves in Antarctica will have reduced by at least 20%. It's what we do, we human beings. Habitat destruction is our forte. We lose more species every day, week and month than we realise, and most of us don't care a fig, nor have the least understanding of what it is we do. Last night on the ABC's 7:30 Report there featured an article on farmed Atlantic Salmon in Tasmania. I was struck by the words of David Suzuki addressing the National Press Club in October 2006...

"You all sat here and chowed down on farmed salmon and obviously you don't give a shit about what you're putting into your body. You know what a farmed salmon is? It's filled with toxic chemicals."

It's worthwhile recalling Suzuki's words in regard to the performance of the media, national & international, in regard to the pressures humanity places on this planet daily. He calls himself 'second-rate', but I'm afraid I prefer to listen to him than any self-interested politician colluding with other self-interested politicians when it comes to the future of my species.

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All the Finesse of a Runaway B-Double

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:28:41 +1000

How is Tony Abbott's style? He understands diplomatic sensibilities and he understands how disappointed people may be because the PM can't meet the Dalai Lama. His Holiness makes many trips to this country, so perhaps Kevin Rudd should appoint Tony Abbott as the government's official greeter? Lords know, Abbott could do with exposure to the Buddhist perception of life, the universe & everything.

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QotD: Rockin' around the Christmas Tree

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:10:03 +1000

The holidays are in full effect, so tell us: What's your favorite holiday song? Bonus points if you share it with us!

That's easy!!! "Hey Santa Claus" by Kevin Bloody Wilson. For all you non-Aussies, I'd caution clicking on the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEe55NxFSSU

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Open Email to Joe Hockey

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:17:34 +1000

I'm still not on Joe Hockey's 'friends' list on Facebook, so I can't comment in response to his plea to his 'followers' (he uses Twitter almost exclusively which repeats to Facebook) for opinions on the CPRS/ETS, as some of you may have seen on the evening news. I can, however, email him via Facebook and amusingly enough, always get a response. So I thought, what the hell.

As a Climate Change response, 5% to 15% over a ten year period is pathetic. As a political tool, the CPRS has been masterful and will continue to be so UNLESS those opposing it as an ideological stalking horse get out of the way and allow those with the party's best interests at heart to step up, avoid the embarrassment of a double dissolution election loss, and deny the government any further political points.
The CPRS, as I understand it, is little more than a cash cow for the government coffers, purpose designed to eradicate government debt through carbon taxation. Consumers (voters) will not be adequately compensated for the costs of a measly 5%-15% cut in emissions. There's already been a concessional cut in consumer compensation of $914m in order to secure the support of conservatives. Now they've reneged. Government is already clawing back its $900 cash handouts through covert cuts to medicare. Why should we - who will bear the brunt of government feeding itself - blithely allow the government to secure itself at least two more terms because of troglodyte conservative ideologues who do not understand true Liberalism, and don't support it.
Without a viable, concerted and united Opposition, keeping government in check and holding it to the hard light of public inspection, democracy fades away leaving Australia as a one-party state. We're very close to that now. If you, as a potential leader, allow the conservative side of the party to take the stance of opposing government because opposing is what they feel they need to do, without actively and constructively contributing to the process of parliamentary democracy, then the Liberal Party ceases to be what Menzies created, is not what your stated mentor - John Stuart Mill - defined as Liberalism.
Stand up, Joe!! Grab your gonads and take the party down the road you know it needs to tread. CPRS/ETS is a mere bump in the road and one neither you, Turnbull, Minchin, Abbott or indeed any other member of the coalition parties can avoid or defeat. A Double Dissolution election loss will consign the coalition parties to the wilderness for two terms, minimum. Lords only know how government will grow in that time, how it will lose touch in that time, and how Australians in general will suffer from the inevitable arrogance and ignorance. Stand up and be counted!!

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On The Dotted Line

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:15:58 +1000

Political theatre aside, there is a plethora of confused opinion buzzing around in the ether regarding the government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. There's the economists view as reported by Robert Gottliebsen on Business Spectator this morning which has all the overtones of the sky falling, then there's the government spin touting the $49b package for consumers over ten years to accommodate low to middle income earners. Bearing in mind that government spin is predicated upon getting the CPRS legislation passed in the Senate this afternoon, thanks to a deal with the Liberal Party (or some of the Liberal Party, anyway) which includes a $914m decrease in consumer funding to better grease the palms of business and industry, thereby making the free market capitalists feel better about helping the planet. And that's what a CPRS or Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) if you prefer that acronym. Helping the planet. Not that the planet cares either way whether we pathetic human beings pay attention to the environment we live in. If we shit in our nest, we'll die off and the planet will recover over an eye-blink in cosmic time scales. The planet will be as if we've never existed, life will recover, evolve and move on. I find myself asking whether "a reduction of between 5 and 15 per cent in carbon emissions from 2000 to 2020" is going to have any effect whatsoever in the grand scheme, in light of the proposed cost to you & me, the consumer (and voter) here in Australia? Even the United States is seriously looking at a target in excess of ours, and given that nation's previously recalcitrant attitude to climate change, that's a huge step forward. Five to fifteen percent? Are we in any way serious? It certainly doesn't look that way. Then there's the economics of the CPRS. If you care to take the time to read the governments latest release on the proposed changes to the CPRS currently before the senate, you'll note that forward budget estimates are predicated upon a carbon price per tonne of emmission of $26/tonne. The current world carbon price is hovering around $15/tonne. Then there's the inevitable profiteering which will occur when emission permits are handed out, which if the world carbon price stays the same, will immediately attract a post-Kyoto bargain basement sell off of the freebies by those who have them to those who don't at an exorbitant price over the world mark, leading to a drop in the value of said freebies similar to what occurred in Europe in the latter part of last century. This whole issue is so complex, so convoluted, that it's little wonder the Business Council of Australia is staying quiet, preferring to be inside the political tent closer to the action, than outside complaining with no leverage when it's needed. I strongly suspect, as Gottliebsen writes, that a CPRS for Australia, when viewed through the prism of maximum 15% emissions cuts by 2020, is little more than a cash cow for government, and a damn fat one at that. Will voters be swayed by the inevitable back pocket injections come election time? We all know they will. History proves the point. I'd suggest that one way or another - either through the Senate @ 3:45pm this afternoon, or via a double dissolution early in the new year, Australia will have a carbon trading regime in place which will net the government coffers multiple millions if not billions of surplus budget dollars, clearing the GFC-inspired spending deficit in no time flat. Rudd et al will appear as Little Jack Horner on a number of fronts, the anti-Labor parties will still be wandering in the political wilderness, we'll all be grumbling about the 30% increase in our power bills and wondering when the handout subsidies promised as a part of the CPRS will arrive. But will we have achieved something momentus in response to climate change? Will this era's generations be remembered in 2079 as those who took a stand, or those who simply said, "ok, where do I sign?"

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Currently Posturing, Rudely Sneering

nobody@vox.com(Endeesea) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:45:53 +1000

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or in political parlance, CPRS. The operative word in the phrase being 'Scheme' because there's absolutely nothing in emissions trading which reduces carbon pollution. So much for the pre-Copenhagen hooplah, what with freebie hand-outs to all major polluting industries to keep them politically on side, giving the federal opposition nothing to wield in the ever-running battle to 'hold the government to account'. Of course, the consumer will still bear the brunt of any cost factors which happen to sneak through, and there's no freebie handouts to 22 million Australians.

I wonder how many Australians have woken up to the reality of the federal Labor government with the highest popularity ratings of all time, having lied to the electorate which put them into power? CPRS is better considered an acronym of Completely Political Road Show. Either way the so-called negotiations go, Rudd wins, Turnbull loses and the status quo insofar as industry is concerned, remains unchanged. Then it's off to Copenhagen for another bun fight to produce even less than the Kyoto bun fight eventually produced.

We're a sad & sorry species. Too gutless to make the big decisions. Too motivated by the pretence of power to think beyond the electoral cycle.

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