Mirror on the Moon

[Pluto]

If only it was that simple.

[Pluto]

Then how do you know it even exists?

I know in the same way that you know there is a blackness of space that surrounds the earth.

Then you are saying the system is now to give you independence, wealth and success?

No I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, there are people who have to think where its going, and who are the people going to be to make it work, and that democracy is or already has moved into something else.

I have and overall I see people taking advantage of situations not conspiring to produce them.

Exactly, but then, you can also see, that it's not a long walk to where you say, why not create it ourselves, instead of waiting. You see that. And I think that is where we are. But of course it's not new, I think of the nazis burning a building and blaming their opposition.

[Pluto]

If you can only be insulting, stop posting.

I just posted a comedy sketch.

If you've lost your sense of humour then I suggest you use reason.

Reason can only take us so far. The world we live in is more like unreason, no? Reason is a model we've taken onboard which beats the mediaeval models of yesteryear. The uk sketch stays within the parimeters of reason that's why it works. Yet those who create reality would naturally go beyond reason, so as not be confined, but also to make something beyond the comprehension of most. If they wanted it hidden.

[Pluto]

Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men.

Edwin Louis Cole

[Arising_uk]

I know in the same way that you know there is a blackness of space that surrounds the earth.

You have pictures of them?

No I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, there are people who have to think where its going, ...

Why?

and who are the people going to be to make it work, and that democracy is or already has moved into something else.

What did you think it was?

Exactly, but then, you can also see, that it's not a long walk to where you say, why not create it ourselves, instead of waiting. You see that. And I think that is where we are. But of course it's not new, I think of the nazis burning a building and blaming their opposition.

I think history too complex for such simple plots. I think the great-man view of history a myth although agree that at certain points in the great tide of man that people can step-up and make an impact.

[Pluto]

No, no pictures. But they are there.

So that society has a direction, a destination, a plan. You think societies are just plodding on like a ship adrift?

What did I think what was?

I don't think creating a disaster is a simple plot. Not sure why you say 'the great man view', like Blair you mean. Institutions, agencies, working collectively, not one stalin, but twenty, in a room.

[Hobbes' Choice]

No, no pictures. But they are there.

So that society has a direction, a destination, a plan. You think societies are just plodding on like a ship adrift?

What did I think what was?

I don't think creating a disaster is a simple plot. Not sure why you say 'the great man view', like Blair you mean. Institutions, agencies, working collectively, not one stalin, but twenty, in a room.

I don't think "societies" have a plan - not one that you can easily shake a stick at. People have plans, associations have plans, and governments have plans. Sometimes these coincide to a more or less definable object that historians are like to identify post hoc. But generally we all just mush along with our own interests, and find other people's plans resist our own. That goes for all levels and aspects of society.

Plans are for the historians, and they are wrong; as prone to belief as religious people.

For example, David Hume is one of my favourite philosophers. In recent years he has been identified with a thing called the "Scottish Enlightenment". In which he is supposed to be a key actor, along with Adam Smith, Reid, and a few others. Despite him being an atheist, the SE, has been colonised by protestant historians and spun into a "movement". "THE ENLIGHTENMENT" was not invented until the 1930s, however. Then it was a collective terms for mainly French philosophes, who were challenging the status quo. As an idea it has grown into a many headed hydra.
But when you look at Hume's work you find that "enlightenment" was not even part of his vocabulary - and I mean that literally. There is little that specifically identifies him with a 'movement', thought he knew the other actors, especially Smith, but there is not much specifically that he shares with these people philosophically, nothing that amounts to a plan.
Moreover, NOTHING in his work of the others is identifiably or recognisably "Scottish". So what the fuck is the "Scottish Enlightenment"?

What this is all about is the human need to; want to create a coherent story like narrative of their history and their lives; the want to believe is something that gives meaning to their short lives; the idea that their lives are contributing to a thing beyond their short years; and the yearning to rebel against something.

To these ends, plans and tends and geists are identified in the past and into the present. Sometimes that are made real by genuine, and definable 'movements' such as "socialism", Islam etc.. But any analysis of even these carefully designed projects shows that people have different ideas, aims and aspirations.

[Pluto]

This was written in '56:

"The ‘loose cliques’ now head institutions of a scale and power not then existing and, especially since World War I, the loose cliques have tightened up. We are well beyond the era of romantic pluralism."

"In so far as the structural clue to the power elite today lies in the economic order, that clue is the fact that the economy is at once a permanent-war economy and a private-corporation economy. American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capitalism, and the most important relation of the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interests between military and corporate needs, as defined by warlords and corporate rich. Within the elite as a whole, this coincidence of interest between the high military and the corporate chieftains strengthens both of them and further subordinates the role of the merely political men. Not politicians, but corporate executives, sit with the military and plan the organization of war effort."

https://www.marxists.org/subject/humani ... -elite.htm

[Hobbes' Choice]

This was written in '56:

"The ‘loose cliques’ now head institutions of a scale and power not then existing and, especially since World War I, the loose cliques have tightened up. We are well beyond the era of romantic pluralism."

"In so far as the structural clue to the power elite today lies in the economic order, that clue is the fact that the economy is at once a permanent-war economy and a private-corporation economy. American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capitalism, and the most important relation of the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interests between military and corporate needs, as defined by warlords and corporate rich. Within the elite as a whole, this coincidence of interest between the high military and the corporate chieftains strengthens both of them and further subordinates the role of the merely political men. Not politicians, but corporate executives, sit with the military and plan the organization of war effort."

https://www.marxists.org/subject/humani ... -elite.htm

`so what?

[Pluto]

I don't think "societies" have a plan - not one that you can easily shake a stick at. People have plans, associations have plans, and governments have plans. Sometimes these coincide to a more or less definable object that historians are like to identify post hoc. But generally we all just mush along with our own interests, and find other people's plans resist our own. That goes for all levels and aspects of society.

The Bilderberg group have plans, perhaps. In a corporation, it would be financial suicide not to look ahead and plan, 20, 50, even 100 years ahead. Governments are now run as corporations. So I think they have a direction for society. The New World Order is a plan, and direction in which we are rolling along into. It has been decided that we must have a world government, that that would be a logical progression going forward. Countries would lose their sovereignty in the process, and we can see that happening today. There are plans now for what society will be in the future, near and far. A society of control, perhaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=720Kx3NdDig

[Pluto]

This was written in '56:

"The ‘loose cliques’ now head institutions of a scale and power not then existing and, especially since World War I, the loose cliques have tightened up. We are well beyond the era of romantic pluralism."

"In so far as the structural clue to the power elite today lies in the economic order, that clue is the fact that the economy is at once a permanent-war economy and a private-corporation economy. American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capitalism, and the most important relation of the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interests between military and corporate needs, as defined by warlords and corporate rich. Within the elite as a whole, this coincidence of interest between the high military and the corporate chieftains strengthens both of them and further subordinates the role of the merely political men. Not politicians, but corporate executives, sit with the military and plan the organization of war effort."

https://www.marxists.org/subject/humani ... -elite.htm

`so what?

I imagine how it has developed in the last 50 years or more.

[Arising_uk]

No, no pictures. But they are there.

Are they? How do you know?

So that society has a direction, a destination, a plan. You think societies are just plodding on like a ship adrift?

I think they are pretty much the product of whatever forces of production are in operation at the time.

What did I think what was?

Democracy, what did you think it was before what you describe?

I don't think creating a disaster is a simple plot. Not sure why you say 'the great man view', like Blair you mean. Institutions, agencies, working collectively, not one stalin, but twenty, in a room.

No chance, institutions hate working with each other and actively sabotage each other if they can, cock-up theory remember.

[Pluto]

There is no point debating this. Power exists and is running a show that we know little if anything about. You have your idea I mine. If yours works for you then maybe it is all you can wish for.

[Hobbes' Choice]

This was written in '56:

"The ‘loose cliques’ now head institutions of a scale and power not then existing and, especially since World War I, the loose cliques have tightened up. We are well beyond the era of romantic pluralism."

"In so far as the structural clue to the power elite today lies in the economic order, that clue is the fact that the economy is at once a permanent-war economy and a private-corporation economy. American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capitalism, and the most important relation of the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interests between military and corporate needs, as defined by warlords and corporate rich. Within the elite as a whole, this coincidence of interest between the high military and the corporate chieftains strengthens both of them and further subordinates the role of the merely political men. Not politicians, but corporate executives, sit with the military and plan the organization of war effort."

https://www.marxists.org/subject/humani ... -elite.htm

`so what?

I imagine how it has developed in the last 50 years or more.

Some people think that what they imagine is true: it is not.

[Hobbes' Choice]

There is no point debating this. Power exists and is running a show that we know little if anything about. You have your idea I mine. If yours works for you then maybe it is all you can wish for.

Power does exist but your understanding of it is woefully childish.

Power is not a monolithic conspiracy, that is your delusion. It is complex, multifaceted, and capricious. Those in power are not characterised by joined up thinking.