Know Yourself Whilst You Can

  This cartoon is from the mid-1970s and is either a tame satire on the ease of corner shop shopping out-of-daytime-business-hours where 'instant coffee' etc seemed new, a satire on the title of the John Lennon song 'Instant Karma', or a satire on the slow collapse of the values and cogency of the then Labour government. Any values that you had to 'just add water' to could not taste of much in the longer term. 

But I put this cartoon here because with the internet we have, fifty years since it made cynical young readers laugh, because in the 2020s our media is caught up in the midst of its own ever shifting fever dreams, where it focuses on one idea then another so fast that readers can't keep up with what is presently promoted as the next trend/the next leader, as the latest dream is paid for by advertisers seeking to sell the latest wares as if they were created - instantly! 

There is a better life to be had by knowing your own mind and knowing where, and what, it should not be led to accept. No product or idea is instant, particularly when we trace how it was developed. Yes, information is relative, and the relativity that informs it tells me that space/time gives us a choice of which space/time from the past to recognise. But space/time cannot be sure of the future: do your best to live in the present, as near as you are able.      

The Ignorance Economy

Is as popular as it possible to be,
just ask advertisers selling products
that are as familiar to consumers
as to make advertising rhetorical,
then view the progress of the gaslighting industry
as it eats through the media - where interviewers
on old media lob softball questions at leaders
who need to hide how old and tired they are,
along with their wealth and where it comes from,
as they seek to sideline all the questions
about popular on-line fraud, 'media influencers', 
cronyisn, spreaders of invisible crypto currencies, 
and popular white collar criminality that the public
endure as new gov't policy becomes, effectively, inaction.

How far does each of us have to go
to reach the bottom of this rabbit hole,
before we getting lost in our search?

Before we give up seeking
what we once thought, and reverse
our journey to where our bearings
were firmer, and we knew where we were?

How else are we to set a safe distance from the ignorance economy?

Picture Set Of The Month - June - Landscapes By Stanley Soencer

'Landscape, Gloucestershire', painted in 1940
by Englsih Sir Stanley Spencer (1891 - 1959).

'Beacon Hill near Burghclere' painted in 1927
as painted by English painter Sir Stanley Spencer
(1891 - 1959).

"Panorama, Wangford Marsh near Southwold, Suffolk"
by English painter Stanley Spencer (1891 - 1959).

'The Cottages at Burghclere' painted between 1927
and 1930 by Stanley Spencer (1891 - 1959).

 

Moon Of The Month (2) - The Blue Moon

Is the moon that gives it's name to a lot of human activity,
films, songs, the names humans give to brands of beer,
and much more besides. Last but not least this moon
givies its name to that favourite human activity,
repetition. When within this calendar month,
it is the second time a full moon appears. 

 

How Did Hope Become Hubris?

The new First World hyper-Capitalism
has been confirmed as a form of gambling,
built on long-suspected insider trading,
markets rigged for the benfit of the 1%:
who's wealth is greater than the banks,
and who's power is greater than the courts
in which they fight each other.

In courts the main point of the wealth
being fought over is the dispay of entitlement
which the rich want the poor to see as 'entertainment'.
where oaths mean little to lawyers who in court
will argue that black is white and vice versa,
whilst rich rub the noses of the poor in the debts
they havce to run up to watch the spectacle.

The wealth of the 1% is above all accurate examination.

Commentators fight shy of reversing the equation,
and suggesting that gambling is Capitalism run amok. 

It is easy to see why. Present day Capitalism
bets on future technologies controlled by the few,
particularly through AI, where before the tech
have been tested as 'safe for the public to adopt',
the few use it to maximum conrol and profit
making government pay for with public money
that is more than the riches Croesus* ever dreamed of.

Meanwhile the public get used to not trusting
their own senses whilst being used as human loss leaders
to work out how best test to sustain the use such technology.

*The legend of Croesus (595 - 546 BC) king of Lydia, was that his wealth
was beyond countng. Croesus was the first ruler in the world to mint gold and silver coins.

  

'Be Yourself Everyone Else Is Taken'

Was a fine aphorism, and a bold expression
of the idea of individuality, in Oscar Wilde's times.
Not that anyone has yet found the quote in his writings.
And as Oscar proved, being yourself could lead
to folly and loss of liberty, depending on the company.

But nowadays being yourself online requires security
that is double, triple, lock and with that a knowledge
of how your security works where you have to believe
your expertise is superior to that of other people,
for you to feel secure enough for you to be happy
in seeking the online life of your choice.

Because, to be clear about this, there is a trade
for material gain in stolen online identities,
where the value of the identity stolen is personal,
but the value of the contraband that can be extracted
through the identity being misused, in this modern,
highly value brand aware society is a lot more
than we can confidently ask. Where the brand
that has the highest value is going to be the trashiest,
and the money it sells at has to be seen to be disbelieved.

More thieves, blackmailers,
and other criminal ne'r do wells
find their vocations online,
than anywhere else in the world. 

It is a good job nobody lives there,
though we may admire how those
with the tightest security make it
the right place to leave the remains
of themselves, for others to find.

Miseducation, Miseducation, Miseducation.....

And he would have been vomiting up all
the homophobia, the racisn and both combined,
along with all the short term coping mechanisms
he ever had to rely upon to keep on writing
until he could stand, talk and trust that he knew
his listener believed him and took him at face value.