Sunday, July 08, 2012
  The center holds only too well.



Lately I've been moving my diet away from canned and processed food and toward fresh and home-cooked. Result has been dramatic: My digestive system is working properly for the first time.

The inspiration for this change was one bowl of chili back in 1960. As I wrote before,

I'm pretty sure my mother served canned chili and canned tamales, but she was a terrible cook and everything was the same tasteless mush with different names.

Around 1960 we went out several times to a fairly genuine Mexican restaurant in a little stucco building at Pottawatomie and Manhattan Avenue, next to the Hunter's Island bridge. I'd bet the place had been a just-outside-city-limits roadhouse in earlier times. The interior was dark and grimy, but the food was an absolute epiphany; especially the chili, which was completely unlike anything we had at home. The gustatory equivalent of suddenly seeing in sharp color after a life of blurry B&W.


Why was that one bowl of chili such a revelation? Every ingredient revealed its own taste and texture. Each piece of tomato, each bean, each bit of beef, communicated with my tongue separately, and the pieces combined to make a harmonious whole.

This week I'm trying to get rid of the one remaining canned element, the tomato soup; trying to replace it with fresh tomatoes.

As I was slicing a tomato, I realized that I'm simply following Polistra's main theme. From the start these scribblings have looked at various forms of modern tasteless mush, and pointed out the Pottawatomie Chili alternative. In most cases the mush is a fairly recent development; distinct ingredients were the rule before WW2.

The mushers tell us we can't go back. Nonsense. The old unblended version worked, and the new overcooked puree doesn't work. Humans haven't changed, and Nature hasn't changed. We can go back.

Everything in Nature is highly decentralized. Each cell, each tissue, each organ, each plant and animal, has its own boundaries and its own specific area of expertise and control. The higher levels are happy to let the lower levels run their feedback loops internally.

Engineering and programming teach us the same lesson. Global variables and rigid couplings are bad; keeping the loop, or the stress, or the resonance, inside a module is good.


= = = = =

Start with the Three Horsepersons of the Modern Apocalypse, as embodied in EU above all. Free trade, Die-Versity, and Global Warming pseudoscience.

Free Trade starts with a false assumption that "economic efficiency" is the goal of all economic activity. It then decides that the best way to maximize "efficiency" is to crunch all national economies into one massive economy. Result (and real goal) is massive enrichment of the rich and starvation of the poor.

Die-Versity starts with a wildly false assumption that all humans are identical, then proceeds to mash them together to prove the assumption. This works in a few temporary and unusual situations like a wartime Army, but it leads to chaos in most situations. Result (and real goal) is massive empowerment of the rich and constant violence among the poor.

Global Warming pseudoscience starts with three wildly false assumptions. (1) The earth is one unified blob with one average temperature; (2) This average temperature is solely and rigidly controlled by one minuscule component of the atmosphere; (3) Among the sources of this minuscule component, the only one that counts is industrial output of English-speaking nations. Result (and real goal) is massive enrichment of the rich and starvation of the poor.

And then there's the EU itself, so blazingly obvious that even the mushers are starting to admit it can't work! Rigid coupling makes the whole structure shake and crack when one element moves the wrong way.

= = = = =

Several other specific examples of mush:

Financial system, on many levels. At the institutional level, Too Big To Fail. At the monetary level, securitization. At the regulatory level, rigid coupling of SEC and banks.

Neocon imperialism. All humans are identical, which means they're all identical to the NYC elite. Thus the elite's morals and culture are the ONLY possible set of morals and culture. We must spread them to all benighted nations. We must destroy Afghanistan and Iraq so the identical human units in those identical countries can share the wondrous benefits of Betty Friedan and Manolo Blahnik and Graduate Queer Studies and Kim Kardashian. When Kim loses a fingernail, all must suffer the pain.

Mass media, working in sync with the above two. Every serving of drama, comedy and "news" is the same tasteless mush with different names. The people seen in these servings have different colors and costumes, and they seem to argue, but they all agree on everything important. Gay is good, imperialism is good, The Market is good, EU is good. Everything that tends toward distinct and recognizable pieces (separate sexes, separate religions, bounded trade, separate nations) is bad.

= = = = =

Admittedly, there are a handful of notable counterexamples, situations where more centrality would help. But these exceptions work toward the same overriding goal of chaos and collapse. In today's news, we have England's inability to cope with shortages and excesses of rain. Cause: Privatized water systems. Government has been wasting its money on Die-Versity and Free Trade and Global Warming when it should have been building dams and canals, should have been improving pumps and pipes.

Labels: ,

 


<< Home

blogger hit counter
My Photo
Name:
Location: Spokane

The current icon shows Polistra using a Personal Equation Machine.

My graphics products:

Free stuff at ShareCG

And some leftovers here.

ARCHIVES
March 2005 / April 2005 / May 2005 / June 2005 / July 2005 / August 2005 / September 2005 / October 2005 / November 2005 / December 2005 / January 2006 / February 2006 / March 2006 / April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / October 2006 / November 2006 / December 2006 / January 2007 / February 2007 / March 2007 / April 2007 / May 2007 / June 2007 / July 2007 / August 2007 / September 2007 / October 2007 / November 2007 / December 2007 / January 2008 / February 2008 / March 2008 / April 2008 / May 2008 / June 2008 / July 2008 / August 2008 / September 2008 / October 2008 / November 2008 / December 2008 / January 2009 / February 2009 / March 2009 / April 2009 / May 2009 / June 2009 / July 2009 / August 2009 / September 2009 / October 2009 / November 2009 / December 2009 / January 2010 / February 2010 / March 2010 / April 2010 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / August 2010 / September 2010 / October 2010 / November 2010 / December 2010 / January 2011 / February 2011 / March 2011 / April 2011 / May 2011 / June 2011 / July 2011 / August 2011 / September 2011 / October 2011 / November 2011 / December 2011 / January 2012 / February 2012 / March 2012 / April 2012 / May 2012 / June 2012 / July 2012 / August 2012 / September 2012 / October 2012 / November 2012 / December 2012 / January 2013 / February 2013 / March 2013 / April 2013 / May 2013 / June 2013 / July 2013 / August 2013 / September 2013 / October 2013 / November 2013 / December 2013 / January 2014 / February 2014 / March 2014 / April 2014 / May 2014 / June 2014 / July 2014 / August 2014 / September 2014 / October 2014 / November 2014 / December 2014 / January 2015 / February 2015 / March 2015 / April 2015 / May 2015 / June 2015 / July 2015 / August 2015 / September 2015 / October 2015 / November 2015 / December 2015 / January 2016 / February 2016 / March 2016 / April 2016 / May 2016 / June 2016 / July 2016 / August 2016 / September 2016 / October 2016 / November 2016 / December 2016 / January 2017 / February 2017 / March 2017 / April 2017 / May 2017 / June 2017 / July 2017 / August 2017 / September 2017 / October 2017 / November 2017 / December 2017 / January 2018 / February 2018 / March 2018 / April 2018 / May 2018 / June 2018 / July 2018 / August 2018 / September 2018 / October 2018 / November 2018 / December 2018 / January 2019 / February 2019 / March 2019 / April 2019 / May 2019 / June 2019 / July 2019 / August 2019 / September 2019 / October 2019 / November 2019 / December 2019 / January 2020 / February 2020 / March 2020 / April 2020 / May 2020 / June 2020 / July 2020 / August 2020 / September 2020 / October 2020 / November 2020 / December 2020 / January 2021 / February 2021 / March 2021 / April 2021 / May 2021 / June 2021 / July 2021 / August 2021 / September 2021 / October 2021 / November 2021 /


Major tags or subjects:

2000 = 1000
Carbon Cult
Carver
Constants and variables
Defensible Cases
Defensible Times
Defensible Spaces
Equipoise
Experiential education
From rights to duties
Grand Blueprint
Metrology
Natural law = Sharia law
Natural law = Soviet law
Shared Lie
Skill-estate
Trinity House
#Whole-of-society

Powered by Blogger