Later I honed my thinking with Socrates, Plato especially and the mystery school; (one of the reasons I married my ex-wife is that she had been at and experienced the oracle at Delphi); Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations), with necessary excursions into the land of Gurdjieff - Ouspenskii, and started my/our own Forest Philosophers group along the Uspenskii parameters. In fact I have enjoyed working with the Gurdjieff Organization in brevo, and indeed today I own land in Georgia along the footpath where Gurdjieff travelled in Armenia-Kurdistan-Georgia - Russia before "Madame Revolution quietly came in..." (1914-1924).
Well.
The
Well.
The
essential
ambiguity
of the human condition.
Ever love an Escher engraving, whereby the edge of the painting-etching trickles - issues - feeds OFF the edges of the canvas? Or - the wet technique Bob Ross (American) school where the artist was almost obsessed with extending trees and things off the surface of the canvas?
Ever savour the work of James Joyce - in particular Ulysses where the last word feeds back to the first word of the novel ( ... back to the... riverrun ...)?
Such works are like Moebius strips, dimension 1 and a half, or say three and a half... Cups with 1/2 a handle, Klein bottles which cannot hold water because they exist inside out.
.. Art imitates the essential unfinished business of all human life. In reality things come apart at the edges all and everywhere like a Dali painting! As the great Rabbie Burns (sadly died in 1796) said,
"The best laid plans
of mice and men
gang aft agley."
You just cannot miss it.
Ambiguity here
And over there
Enough ambiguity
for everyone everywhere.
Good news is, we come by ambiguity honestly. In simpler terms we came to call it human condition at Montgomery Bell Academy - last century; literary. In fact I understand they still teach the boys the terminology and context. Gaudeamus igitur iuvenes dum sumus!
For those desiring more rigorous definition, the ambiguity of life is from A thru Z an extension of quantum - meaning that the best we all can do, at any time, from the beginning of time, spacetime as we know it - through the end of time - is to tolerate ambiguity. It is built into the hardware of spacetime. If and when we get to the high energies of black holes and supersymmetry violating particle physics, we can talk there about things in different dimensions and parallel universes. Until then, we are stuck with oddsmaking.
In fact read most high energy physics papers - the grist for my typical workday (with particular emphasis on Los Alamos) - and you will see PDFs - meaning Probability Density Functions - permeating the basis of most of the physics, or at least much -i.e. significant parts.
So what have you done for me lately, you ask?
This actually means that the ambiguity of "food prices doubling" - is quite normal - given the lack of free market economy; whether prices double or not is sort of moot because - I can tell you that overseas food prices in:
- Mongolia
- Kazakhstan
- PRC - China
- Azerbaijan
- Russia
- Georgia
...have each already doubled from say 5 years ago for key commodities including bread, rice, beans, and meat... well, meat is actually thru the roof in places like Mongolia. (I forgot to mention that I have other data -- also worked in Europe for quite a long time as well; sort of a different case from free market there as well but with socialistic sorts government subsidies; we can take the doubling price scenario just in third world countries for the present).
Anyway all of this leads up to address the simplistic "Walt" posting to the forum at borganic.net. He says, about borganic.net claims that food will "double" in price:
I’m all about growing my own food, and I did plant a garden in my backyard last summer that produced quite a bit of food. However, I have to take issue with your statement that “food prices are expected double.”
Really? I think you’re engaging in extreme hyperbole. Inflation for food is not 100%. Check your facts and come in with a realistic statement and I’ll become a fan.
What? Have you ever lived in another country Walt? How about a developing country? Underdeveloped country? Would you like to see prices I have from the shelves of China from the early 2000s? Would you like to talk to a stall owner / bazaar owning friend of mine in Mongolia? There the prices are already easily triple from 2000-2005 time frame.
Walt, America does not have a free market economy. It is an economy of bubbles, each controlled by large advertisers and brand making bloodsucking telemarketeers. You know, the democracy hating banksters and market shysters who make things cheap if you buy twn thousand widgets and if you want to buy oine item you pay 70 poercent more on the average. In central Asia the rule is no крышa, no work. крышa means the guy you pay - like the mob boss in New Jersey - to keep your business "protected", from competition. You no pay, you no work.
I have done the math. You will see that prices here are carefully being widgeted up - like the price for gas - so that over a year or two it seems like a small increment but over 5 - 10 years it is way more than what had been experienced in say the previous 10 0r 20 year period.
In the states I remember lentils for 30 cents a pound in the 1990s, last week I paid 1.99 for a 1 pound bag.
So, WALT, I have good news for you. Your need to dissuade yourself from a healthy cynicism at what you see about claims for "prices doubling" at borganic.net - you do not need to have such fear.
WE ARE SEEING 5 TO TEN TIMES the price for many things we paid say 2 decades ago. Check it out. And join the majority who get it right.
Ain't democracy great?
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