Having written a couple of recent articles advancing an anti-industrialist position, I have been reminded that this viewpoint is very much a minority one, even amongst those with whom I am generally in agreement.
Industrialism is what happened when capitalists got their hands on high density fuels. You know where I'm going with this. Suffice to say, it's better to look forward to the postindistrial future than fear it and try to run. Brighter future for those who make it. I agree with all your points, as usual.
The problem is, there was no golden age of rural bliss before the Industrial Revolution, at least not for thousands of years prior to industrialisation. Life was hard, very hard, for the peasants who worked the land under the system of Medieval feudalism, where the rich land owners were the main beneficiaries and the majority were basically enslaved on plantations. Prior to the emergence of farming and the rural economy, we lived as hunter-gatherers. No doubt we were much more in touch with Nature and our inner beings then, life was more meaningful, but in no sense can we imagine it to be idyllic. We lived on the edge of survival, just like all other creatures, exposed to the harsh elements, vulnerable to attack from other humans and animals.
The Industrial revolution, for all its ugliness, environmental degradation, and rampant exploitation of natural and human resources by the same rich ruling classes who lorded it over us during feudalistic times, eventually set the masses free from the chains of feudalism and granted us a degree of personal autonomy, independence and freedom, where we could at last spare the time to pursue our own goals in life. Of course, real freedom, for those trapped in the 9-5 culture, increasingly reliant upon technology to make their lives supposedly more comfortable and convenient, who increasingly became the prey, the consumed, rather than the consumers; real freedom, after drawing close in the heyday of the industrialised consumer society, then began to rapidly disappear over the horizon once again and here we are today - slaves to the 'new' digital technology. Schwab's Fourth Industrial revolution, aka the Great Reset, aka the Fourth Reich, would have us complete that process so that we are all inescapably enslaved to technology, entirely controlled by our human masters of course, the elite, the globalists, the descendants of the original feudalist landlords.
The way they are going to do this is to reverse the liberating benefits of the Third Industrial Revolution and replace them with the chains of the Fourth. Hence in Britain today, under the guise of 'saving the planet', we are witnessing the destruction of the manufacturing economy and de-industrialisation on a massive scale, which will result in increasing dependence upon imports, the loss of millions of jobs, the impoverishment of the majority in favour of vastly increasing the wealth of a small minority, and the eventual complete loss of the (limited) freedom and personal autonomy which the majority enjoyed as a direct consequence of industrialisation. Steel industry being shuttered, oil refineries closed, fertiliser manufacturing plants closed, vehicle manufacturing industry being destroyed, access to cheap freely available energy to run our economy and power our homes rationed and denied, as a means to achieve control over the masses. This is our dystopian future under the globalists, where once again we live mean, energy deprived and strictly controlled lives, no longer free to travel, to improve our lot in life by choosing our vocation and by working hard in an industrialised free enterprise capitalist society, but reduced to mere slaves of a governing technology completely under the control of the elite.
This is why so many people are wary now of talk of de-industrialisation, because de-industrialisation is THE means by which the elite intend to enslave us.
Don't agree with you there - how can the Fourth Industrial Revolution amount to "de-industrialisation"? How can a governing technocracy ever be anything other than industrial. Your approach is something I mentioned in the article, in fact - the abuse of fake "anti-industrialist" language by industrialists which is then deployed as a criticism of actual anti-industrialists!
Because the 'Fourth Industrial revolution', like everything which issues forth from from the forked tongues and curled lips of the globalists, is a Big Lie. In reality, it is the ascendance of the digital revolution only and the curtailment of all future liberating progress under the actual Industrial revolution - achieved by the abandonment of high density, highly efficient nuclear and fossil fuel derived energy and all associated technologies, in preference for 'clean' Medieval wind power technology and barely credible solar power. That is de-industrialisation on a global scale. The choice of the weasel words 'fourth industrial revolution' belies the reality of the situation; they are, as Sultan Al Jaber said, intent on taking us 'back to living in caves', albeit those caves are the digital prisons of energy poor "15 minute cities". We are to be banished even from the land now, crammed into high tech rabbit hutches, forced to minimise our 'carbon footprints' for the benefit of the planet and its non-human life forms, but really just for the benefit of the controlling elite.
Yes, we are to be forced off the land and into digital prisons - which is why the system's agenda represents the opposite of an anti-industrial vision. The digital "revolution" is totally industrial. Think of all the equipment that will need to be manufactured to create smart prisons everywhere, all the electricity that will need to be generated to power that infrastructure. If you are noticing any localised de-industrialisation, it is because manufacturing has been progressively shifted to China, India and so on as part of the empire's switch to a "BRICS" basis, in which Europe and the USA will become peripheral regions.
Oh yes, indeed, it's only western nations which are to be de-industrialised, plus third world countries are to be prevented from industrialising their economies, because they have aspirations of being liberated from constant daily toil on the land, just like we did, 200 years ago. The Chinese populace are already enslaved by digital technology, controlled by a Communist government, so it's OK to outsource the necessary manufacturing and technology required to keep US in our digital prisons to China, where energy is still very cheap precisely because they have not abandoned the benefits of fossil fuels.
Agreed. I think it is even more extreme than you describe. In the 1950's it was assumed that a Jetson's world was just around the corner. All that hard graft of the industrial age (in factories, mills, mines etc) was about to pay off big time.
Even mainstream newspapers wrote articles about the age of the jet engine and rockets coming to an end within a few years because all the major aerospace corporations were openly developing anti grav technologies. Nobody ridiculed this topic. It was just where technology was heading at the time.
Then at the end of the 1950's the topic fell of the radar, never to be spoken of again.
Then we were given the Apollo program, Shuttle and now Space X ... all of which are just rebranded versions of 1940's rocket tech with a few superficial add ons to make them seem like 'new cutting edge' technologies. Just as Trump's job is to keep people believing in the false left/ right paradigm, Musk's job is to keep people believing rockets are a cutting edge space transport system despite being 80 years old with no significant innovation.
Meanwhile for the last 50 years thousands of people have reported silent black triangles and other advanced craft hovering about the skies.
It should be obvious (but apparently isn't to most people) that energy/ propulsion tech has carried on advancing at the same rate as computer/ communications tech, only it was taken out of the public domain in the 1950's in order to maintain the scarcity paradigm and dependence on oil.
In effect we have a 'breakaway civilisation' sitting above the level of governments who have sequestered all the super duper 'Jetsons' tech that should have been humanity's reward for centuries of hard graft in the mines, factories, mills and steel yards (as well as trillions in taxes).
This technology could liberate humanity (end starvation, increase standards of living for all etc) but they are keeping it for themselves while at the same time pulling the plug on the industrialised world because they no longer need us to serve as their engine of productivity, power or innovation.
This explains why they are trying to regress us back into windmills, electric vehicles, limited transport, 15 minute cities, food and energy rationing, and a greatly reduced population (get your jab!) ..... this will put us back into the 17th century - minus the intimate connection with the land and nature, but with 21st century surveillance tech (so the worst of both worlds).
Most people still assume the ruling class need us as their engine of taxation and productivity. But if their technology already provides them with unlimited power and transport it makes sense that they would want to depopulate ASAP and keep a much reduced population like lab rats inside 15 minute smart cities.
Instead of cheering every time one of Musk's stupid rockets takes off and blows up, people should demand a ride in one of those black triangles - which their taxes paid for.
History has been largely written, curated and disseminated by the Industrialists. Life may have been very different than the picture offered by the Vatican historians.
Yes, indeed. On whose word do we have it that life was "hard" before industrialism? There is plenty of evidence that even under feudalism people worked much fewer hours, had many more feast days and freedom. The same is the case for "primitive" peoples. Humans have a tendency, when left alone, to do the minimum amount of work required to maintain an existence they consider acceptable.
Great article and attitude, and everything else, Sir. Yes, people are conditioned to never question The Science AND Industrialism. It also happened to me to explain that nuclear bombs are not the same as the Sun. Yes, both are manifestations of nuclear fusion but bombs are not meant to shine. So technology is Not neutral.
I have this same feeling that we aren't supposed to live like we are living. I secretly dream of ditching the computer and cutting the electricity and living by daylight with some candles and early to bed...early to rise. To be honest....I can't think of living without a clothes washer! But I like the trajectory you're on.
I love that your reasoning started with a feeling. The feeling that most captures my response to industrialism, and I would think many others as well, is tiredness. I feel tired...physically, emotionally and energetically. 'Tired' is a response to 'too much'.
I would like to reclaim the words 'innovation' and 'inclusivity'. True innovation doesn't move away from life, but with it, supporting and nurturing it. True inclusivity doesn't move away from life, but with it, supporting and nurturing it.
Industrialism as usury is a great insight. Living off-grid and making my house and garden out of straw etc I’ve seen friends get loans for industrial products to make houses and built mine for a quarter cost. I’ve been debt free for a while
Paul - Ignore the morons who can’t or won’t see or just want to argue and make you repeat yourself. Engage w those of us who seek dialogue re the actual contours of the real-world de-industrialization process and process of de-coupling from technocratic modernity that we must facilitate. Thriving in the future will require, I believe, a complete divorce from the babylon borg monster. What exactly - and comprehensively - should that look like? That’s what I’m thinking about. For ex, electricity and plumbing are really useful and need not be industrialized or centrally controlled.
Dec 6, 2023·edited Dec 7, 2023Liked by Paul Cudenec
Usury has always been the problem - governments borrow from the financial elite and then promise to repay that amount with interest which is impossible as it requires another loan to repay the first and the merry go round continues while the financiers end up owning and running government.
The real green agenda was hijacked by the financial elite along the lines of disaster capitalism.
The present economic model of Capitalism is fully dedicated to the pursuit of Perpetual economic growth which is impossible to maintain since this requires ever increasing sacrifices from humanity the environment and farm animals.
Usury is the nemesis of a Socialism, remember what happened to Libya or that a well known biblical figure kicked over the tables of the money changers.
Some of your ideas remind me of Derrick Jensen's book End Civ in which he says human civilization is based on exploitaton/enslavement of animals and people to serve a few, and the various stages of industrialization are just accelerations of that enslavement. He also talks about all the toxic effects of technology gone out of control (or rather "in control" by capitalists and socialists with industrialist agendas). He poses various hypothetical scenarios like what would happen if a dam was blown up and salmon were freed and nature took its course.
One large problem emerges which is that many people today are truly dependent on technology, not just for convenience or making money. Our modern civilization has reached a majority opinion that illness can be fixed and disability should be accommodated and housing/food insecurity should be remedied. Would you throw out that progress despite the problems? What is the alternate path? For example can we get technology and industry under social control so that everyone benefits rather than only a few? Can they be implemented using a precautionary principle so that they are safe?
What I am saying is that, for me, the "progress" presented by industrialism is not a real one. The alternative is to not live in an industrialist system, as our ancestors managed to do for hundreds of thousands of years. And, as I write in the article, industrial Technik is a tool devised for control and exploitation and so can never be good for the people as a whole. Let alone for the natural world that it destroys!
"People will sneer at you, make up insults, tell you to shut up."
Right and Jaime Semprún, whom you recommends, wrote something still extremely valid about that:
"The abolition of history is a kind of horrible freedom for those who have effectively liberated themselves from any debts with respect to the past as well as any responsibilities with respect to the future: the moderns love this freedom, composed of irresponsibility and openness (openness to everything that domination wants to make of them), more than the very apple of their eye, whose extinction they have meekly entrusted to their TV screens. Anyone who criticizes the emptiness of this freedom, by recalling, for example, the existence of history in the form of numerous and terrible debts that are now coming due at this end of the century, as if they comprised the bill that had to be paid for misusing the world, will be accused of harboring a fascistoid nostalgia for a pre-technological harmony, or of displaying tendencies toward religious fundamentalism when not apocalyptic fanaticism."
From The Abyss Repopulates itself, 1997
Peace be upon him, he died in 2011.. I can't tell if it is bad or good, in one side we don't have this vivid spirit in such dire times among us anymore, in other side he didn't live to see the decomposition and deacadence of society advancing at the highest heights.
Prior to capitalist industrialization there was feudalism. Serfs lived on a medieval lords estate, "out in the countryside," however, they were little more than slaves.
Capitalism, transformed serfs into wage slaves, as medieval lords were transformed into oligarchs. To put it simply, the more things change the more they remain the same.
That being said, a knife can be used to stab someone or to butter a slice of bread. So if technology was actually allowed to develop in a way in which it could enhance lives modernization would not be viewed as a threat to humanity.
Nevertheless, if industrialization devoles into fascist totalitarianism then all new developments must be deployed to maximize profits through human and environmental exploitation. Hence, technology must then be utilized in ways to ensure control over those who are being exploited.
The jury is still out as to whether Homo sapiens are capable of maintaining a stable civilization without targeting populations for barbaric abuse.
Anti-industrialist, yes of course. Anyone with enough education (purposely withheld) to look with unbiased eyes at the long view of human history -- meaning through hundreds of thousands of years -- will know that with the Industrial Revolution, whatever good it's given us is far outweighed by the endless suffering, toxicity, poisoning the planet it has caused. It has resulted in galloping paranoia and neurosis as the steady state individually and between people. But saying one is anti-industrialist is not enough. Check out the sane life ways, culture, and behavior of the Australian aborigines, for example, as demonstrated in Voices of the First Day by Robert Lawlor. You will see what we have lost. Of course, the precursor to industrialism-- the underpinning -- is capitalism. Without getting rid of that which has almost become a primal urge, we don't stand a chance
The problem with most systems is that they are easily corrupted. There will always be a few who will try and take advantage of the many for profit...until we get to a different mindset.
I agree that industrialization has led to control over humanity in ways never before seen or expected. Humans are so easily driven to live in fear and thus become highly subjected to indoctrination.
Not to be a pessimist, alarmist or conspiracy freak, but we appear to be headed into the abyss where the powers that be want to destroy 80-90% of humanity, again for personal gain, power and simply to soothe their supreme arrogance.
While I can't appreciably disagree with any of your reasons, as they all seem so sane and sensible, the seventh appears almost irresistible from any right-minded perspective, which is to say, to anyone aware of the threats posed by the New World Order's Hararian/Schwabian vision.
That being said, an Errol-Flynn-in-tights future is hard to picture. And doing without electricity is something almost no one wishes for, let alone can or dares to imagine.
Personally, I find it very easy to imagine a world without electricity! I mean, it was the reality for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence... But then you did say "almost" no one.
"I mean, it was the reality for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence". Indisputably true. And so was an almost unimaginably precarious existence hounded by, among other things, the constant threat of starvation.
As we all know, imagining something and living something are two very different things. It is worth pondering that even the Amish — who deliberately shun most modern conveniences, and consciously live a lifestyle that, because of its self-imposed hardships, virtually no one would voluntarily adopt — use electricity/generators/batteries for many things.
Serious question: would not a world sans industry automatically lead to one of the New World Order's prime objectives, namely a vastly reduced global human population?
The answer to your last question is yes. Overshoot is a very well understood phenomenon. Denial as a psychological defence against this looming catastrophe is also understandable. The claim that prehistoric people lived precarious lives always on the brink of starvation is presumably backed up by good anthropological and archaeological evidence. Since everybody knows, I assume everybody can find that evidence quite easily. If so, can someone show it to me?
You're right, I may well have overstated, even vastly overstated, the precariousness of pre-industrial life. And yes, I do not speak as an anthropologist or archaeologist, but I do have a very good sense of how difficult it is to survive in the wilderness, or "on the land" as they say, even with the latest modern gear.
I am merely extrapolating the degree of difficulty in surviving without this modern gear, in the wild, in northern climes. The level of ingenuity and ability to read nature that prehistoric/stone-age (as recently as a handful of generations ago in some places) people had, would be off-the charts by today's standards.
While nature is beauty personified and our Source and provides our physical and spiritual sustenance, it is also true that nature could not care less whether we live or die. That is its duality. That is its paradox. This of course, is not so apparent in the shires of England's green and pleasant land, where it is easily idealized.
Roger, while I appreciate your answer, I was hoping our host would offer any thoughts he might have regarding the question I posed, i.e., the possible alignment of the effects of de-industrialization with the NWO's goal of massive population reduction.
There won't be any de-industrialisation if those behind the NWO remain dominant, because their plan is to accelerate industrialism, as I have pointed out. Their population reduction, if that is indeed what they are planning on a global level, will go hand in hand with the manufacture of a worldwide digital prison under the Fourth Industrial Revolution. There can be no "alignment" because the NWO/41R future is not the same as a de-industrialising one - these are completely opposing scenarios and cannot possibly co-exist.
Bravo! I really needed this essay right about now to help me realise there are still some kindred spirits in the world. All of a sudden I am not so alone.
Whenever I talk like you did here I am accused of being a Luddite. First I point out that luddites are not totally against all technology, they just ask, who is to benefit from this new technology which our labor has payed for? and then they demanded an answer ...or else.
Regardless of what happens in the near future of one thing I can be certain...the future is all about LESS! There are many different ways it can come about, some good, and some very bad. I advocate for consciously, intelligently, wisely, managing our way there so it can be the best possible outcome. Less.... the absolute easiest thing people can do but also nearly impossible.
Industrialism is what happened when capitalists got their hands on high density fuels. You know where I'm going with this. Suffice to say, it's better to look forward to the postindistrial future than fear it and try to run. Brighter future for those who make it. I agree with all your points, as usual.
The problem is, there was no golden age of rural bliss before the Industrial Revolution, at least not for thousands of years prior to industrialisation. Life was hard, very hard, for the peasants who worked the land under the system of Medieval feudalism, where the rich land owners were the main beneficiaries and the majority were basically enslaved on plantations. Prior to the emergence of farming and the rural economy, we lived as hunter-gatherers. No doubt we were much more in touch with Nature and our inner beings then, life was more meaningful, but in no sense can we imagine it to be idyllic. We lived on the edge of survival, just like all other creatures, exposed to the harsh elements, vulnerable to attack from other humans and animals.
The Industrial revolution, for all its ugliness, environmental degradation, and rampant exploitation of natural and human resources by the same rich ruling classes who lorded it over us during feudalistic times, eventually set the masses free from the chains of feudalism and granted us a degree of personal autonomy, independence and freedom, where we could at last spare the time to pursue our own goals in life. Of course, real freedom, for those trapped in the 9-5 culture, increasingly reliant upon technology to make their lives supposedly more comfortable and convenient, who increasingly became the prey, the consumed, rather than the consumers; real freedom, after drawing close in the heyday of the industrialised consumer society, then began to rapidly disappear over the horizon once again and here we are today - slaves to the 'new' digital technology. Schwab's Fourth Industrial revolution, aka the Great Reset, aka the Fourth Reich, would have us complete that process so that we are all inescapably enslaved to technology, entirely controlled by our human masters of course, the elite, the globalists, the descendants of the original feudalist landlords.
The way they are going to do this is to reverse the liberating benefits of the Third Industrial Revolution and replace them with the chains of the Fourth. Hence in Britain today, under the guise of 'saving the planet', we are witnessing the destruction of the manufacturing economy and de-industrialisation on a massive scale, which will result in increasing dependence upon imports, the loss of millions of jobs, the impoverishment of the majority in favour of vastly increasing the wealth of a small minority, and the eventual complete loss of the (limited) freedom and personal autonomy which the majority enjoyed as a direct consequence of industrialisation. Steel industry being shuttered, oil refineries closed, fertiliser manufacturing plants closed, vehicle manufacturing industry being destroyed, access to cheap freely available energy to run our economy and power our homes rationed and denied, as a means to achieve control over the masses. This is our dystopian future under the globalists, where once again we live mean, energy deprived and strictly controlled lives, no longer free to travel, to improve our lot in life by choosing our vocation and by working hard in an industrialised free enterprise capitalist society, but reduced to mere slaves of a governing technology completely under the control of the elite.
This is why so many people are wary now of talk of de-industrialisation, because de-industrialisation is THE means by which the elite intend to enslave us.
Don't agree with you there - how can the Fourth Industrial Revolution amount to "de-industrialisation"? How can a governing technocracy ever be anything other than industrial. Your approach is something I mentioned in the article, in fact - the abuse of fake "anti-industrialist" language by industrialists which is then deployed as a criticism of actual anti-industrialists!
Because the 'Fourth Industrial revolution', like everything which issues forth from from the forked tongues and curled lips of the globalists, is a Big Lie. In reality, it is the ascendance of the digital revolution only and the curtailment of all future liberating progress under the actual Industrial revolution - achieved by the abandonment of high density, highly efficient nuclear and fossil fuel derived energy and all associated technologies, in preference for 'clean' Medieval wind power technology and barely credible solar power. That is de-industrialisation on a global scale. The choice of the weasel words 'fourth industrial revolution' belies the reality of the situation; they are, as Sultan Al Jaber said, intent on taking us 'back to living in caves', albeit those caves are the digital prisons of energy poor "15 minute cities". We are to be banished even from the land now, crammed into high tech rabbit hutches, forced to minimise our 'carbon footprints' for the benefit of the planet and its non-human life forms, but really just for the benefit of the controlling elite.
Yes, we are to be forced off the land and into digital prisons - which is why the system's agenda represents the opposite of an anti-industrial vision. The digital "revolution" is totally industrial. Think of all the equipment that will need to be manufactured to create smart prisons everywhere, all the electricity that will need to be generated to power that infrastructure. If you are noticing any localised de-industrialisation, it is because manufacturing has been progressively shifted to China, India and so on as part of the empire's switch to a "BRICS" basis, in which Europe and the USA will become peripheral regions.
Oh yes, indeed, it's only western nations which are to be de-industrialised, plus third world countries are to be prevented from industrialising their economies, because they have aspirations of being liberated from constant daily toil on the land, just like we did, 200 years ago. The Chinese populace are already enslaved by digital technology, controlled by a Communist government, so it's OK to outsource the necessary manufacturing and technology required to keep US in our digital prisons to China, where energy is still very cheap precisely because they have not abandoned the benefits of fossil fuels.
Agreed. I think it is even more extreme than you describe. In the 1950's it was assumed that a Jetson's world was just around the corner. All that hard graft of the industrial age (in factories, mills, mines etc) was about to pay off big time.
Even mainstream newspapers wrote articles about the age of the jet engine and rockets coming to an end within a few years because all the major aerospace corporations were openly developing anti grav technologies. Nobody ridiculed this topic. It was just where technology was heading at the time.
Then at the end of the 1950's the topic fell of the radar, never to be spoken of again.
Then we were given the Apollo program, Shuttle and now Space X ... all of which are just rebranded versions of 1940's rocket tech with a few superficial add ons to make them seem like 'new cutting edge' technologies. Just as Trump's job is to keep people believing in the false left/ right paradigm, Musk's job is to keep people believing rockets are a cutting edge space transport system despite being 80 years old with no significant innovation.
Meanwhile for the last 50 years thousands of people have reported silent black triangles and other advanced craft hovering about the skies.
It should be obvious (but apparently isn't to most people) that energy/ propulsion tech has carried on advancing at the same rate as computer/ communications tech, only it was taken out of the public domain in the 1950's in order to maintain the scarcity paradigm and dependence on oil.
In effect we have a 'breakaway civilisation' sitting above the level of governments who have sequestered all the super duper 'Jetsons' tech that should have been humanity's reward for centuries of hard graft in the mines, factories, mills and steel yards (as well as trillions in taxes).
This technology could liberate humanity (end starvation, increase standards of living for all etc) but they are keeping it for themselves while at the same time pulling the plug on the industrialised world because they no longer need us to serve as their engine of productivity, power or innovation.
This explains why they are trying to regress us back into windmills, electric vehicles, limited transport, 15 minute cities, food and energy rationing, and a greatly reduced population (get your jab!) ..... this will put us back into the 17th century - minus the intimate connection with the land and nature, but with 21st century surveillance tech (so the worst of both worlds).
Most people still assume the ruling class need us as their engine of taxation and productivity. But if their technology already provides them with unlimited power and transport it makes sense that they would want to depopulate ASAP and keep a much reduced population like lab rats inside 15 minute smart cities.
Instead of cheering every time one of Musk's stupid rockets takes off and blows up, people should demand a ride in one of those black triangles - which their taxes paid for.
History has been largely written, curated and disseminated by the Industrialists. Life may have been very different than the picture offered by the Vatican historians.
Yes, indeed. On whose word do we have it that life was "hard" before industrialism? There is plenty of evidence that even under feudalism people worked much fewer hours, had many more feast days and freedom. The same is the case for "primitive" peoples. Humans have a tendency, when left alone, to do the minimum amount of work required to maintain an existence they consider acceptable.
I think Chaucer would have been in full agreement.
Great article and attitude, and everything else, Sir. Yes, people are conditioned to never question The Science AND Industrialism. It also happened to me to explain that nuclear bombs are not the same as the Sun. Yes, both are manifestations of nuclear fusion but bombs are not meant to shine. So technology is Not neutral.
I have this same feeling that we aren't supposed to live like we are living. I secretly dream of ditching the computer and cutting the electricity and living by daylight with some candles and early to bed...early to rise. To be honest....I can't think of living without a clothes washer! But I like the trajectory you're on.
I love that your reasoning started with a feeling. The feeling that most captures my response to industrialism, and I would think many others as well, is tiredness. I feel tired...physically, emotionally and energetically. 'Tired' is a response to 'too much'.
I would like to reclaim the words 'innovation' and 'inclusivity'. True innovation doesn't move away from life, but with it, supporting and nurturing it. True inclusivity doesn't move away from life, but with it, supporting and nurturing it.
Yes, the system always takes good words and turns them into bad ones!
Industrialism as usury is a great insight. Living off-grid and making my house and garden out of straw etc I’ve seen friends get loans for industrial products to make houses and built mine for a quarter cost. I’ve been debt free for a while
Paul - Ignore the morons who can’t or won’t see or just want to argue and make you repeat yourself. Engage w those of us who seek dialogue re the actual contours of the real-world de-industrialization process and process of de-coupling from technocratic modernity that we must facilitate. Thriving in the future will require, I believe, a complete divorce from the babylon borg monster. What exactly - and comprehensively - should that look like? That’s what I’m thinking about. For ex, electricity and plumbing are really useful and need not be industrialized or centrally controlled.
The WEF's lie that its agenda is "green" serves a sneaky dual purpose:
1. It tricks environmentalists into supporting the Great Reset & Fourth Industrial Revolution.
2. It tricks opponents of the WEF into hating environmentalists for apparently siding with the Great Reset.
Usury has always been the problem - governments borrow from the financial elite and then promise to repay that amount with interest which is impossible as it requires another loan to repay the first and the merry go round continues while the financiers end up owning and running government.
The real green agenda was hijacked by the financial elite along the lines of disaster capitalism.
The present economic model of Capitalism is fully dedicated to the pursuit of Perpetual economic growth which is impossible to maintain since this requires ever increasing sacrifices from humanity the environment and farm animals.
Usury is the nemesis of a Socialism, remember what happened to Libya or that a well known biblical figure kicked over the tables of the money changers.
Usury makes slaves out of everyone.
Some of your ideas remind me of Derrick Jensen's book End Civ in which he says human civilization is based on exploitaton/enslavement of animals and people to serve a few, and the various stages of industrialization are just accelerations of that enslavement. He also talks about all the toxic effects of technology gone out of control (or rather "in control" by capitalists and socialists with industrialist agendas). He poses various hypothetical scenarios like what would happen if a dam was blown up and salmon were freed and nature took its course.
One large problem emerges which is that many people today are truly dependent on technology, not just for convenience or making money. Our modern civilization has reached a majority opinion that illness can be fixed and disability should be accommodated and housing/food insecurity should be remedied. Would you throw out that progress despite the problems? What is the alternate path? For example can we get technology and industry under social control so that everyone benefits rather than only a few? Can they be implemented using a precautionary principle so that they are safe?
What I am saying is that, for me, the "progress" presented by industrialism is not a real one. The alternative is to not live in an industrialist system, as our ancestors managed to do for hundreds of thousands of years. And, as I write in the article, industrial Technik is a tool devised for control and exploitation and so can never be good for the people as a whole. Let alone for the natural world that it destroys!
"People will sneer at you, make up insults, tell you to shut up."
Right and Jaime Semprún, whom you recommends, wrote something still extremely valid about that:
"The abolition of history is a kind of horrible freedom for those who have effectively liberated themselves from any debts with respect to the past as well as any responsibilities with respect to the future: the moderns love this freedom, composed of irresponsibility and openness (openness to everything that domination wants to make of them), more than the very apple of their eye, whose extinction they have meekly entrusted to their TV screens. Anyone who criticizes the emptiness of this freedom, by recalling, for example, the existence of history in the form of numerous and terrible debts that are now coming due at this end of the century, as if they comprised the bill that had to be paid for misusing the world, will be accused of harboring a fascistoid nostalgia for a pre-technological harmony, or of displaying tendencies toward religious fundamentalism when not apocalyptic fanaticism."
From The Abyss Repopulates itself, 1997
Peace be upon him, he died in 2011.. I can't tell if it is bad or good, in one side we don't have this vivid spirit in such dire times among us anymore, in other side he didn't live to see the decomposition and deacadence of society advancing at the highest heights.
Thanks - nice passage from Semprun. He was excellent. Here's the link to the short profile on the orgrad site for anyone who doesn't know him. https://orgrad.wordpress.com/a-z-of-thinkers/jaime-semprun/
Prior to capitalist industrialization there was feudalism. Serfs lived on a medieval lords estate, "out in the countryside," however, they were little more than slaves.
Capitalism, transformed serfs into wage slaves, as medieval lords were transformed into oligarchs. To put it simply, the more things change the more they remain the same.
That being said, a knife can be used to stab someone or to butter a slice of bread. So if technology was actually allowed to develop in a way in which it could enhance lives modernization would not be viewed as a threat to humanity.
Nevertheless, if industrialization devoles into fascist totalitarianism then all new developments must be deployed to maximize profits through human and environmental exploitation. Hence, technology must then be utilized in ways to ensure control over those who are being exploited.
The jury is still out as to whether Homo sapiens are capable of maintaining a stable civilization without targeting populations for barbaric abuse.
Anti-industrialist, yes of course. Anyone with enough education (purposely withheld) to look with unbiased eyes at the long view of human history -- meaning through hundreds of thousands of years -- will know that with the Industrial Revolution, whatever good it's given us is far outweighed by the endless suffering, toxicity, poisoning the planet it has caused. It has resulted in galloping paranoia and neurosis as the steady state individually and between people. But saying one is anti-industrialist is not enough. Check out the sane life ways, culture, and behavior of the Australian aborigines, for example, as demonstrated in Voices of the First Day by Robert Lawlor. You will see what we have lost. Of course, the precursor to industrialism-- the underpinning -- is capitalism. Without getting rid of that which has almost become a primal urge, we don't stand a chance
Natural forces might kick us back to a pre-industrial lifestyle within the next 10-20 years. Beyond this, even more global upheaval.
https://youtu.be/j635Cv2aOlA?feature=shared
The problem with most systems is that they are easily corrupted. There will always be a few who will try and take advantage of the many for profit...until we get to a different mindset.
I agree that industrialization has led to control over humanity in ways never before seen or expected. Humans are so easily driven to live in fear and thus become highly subjected to indoctrination.
Not to be a pessimist, alarmist or conspiracy freak, but we appear to be headed into the abyss where the powers that be want to destroy 80-90% of humanity, again for personal gain, power and simply to soothe their supreme arrogance.
While I can't appreciably disagree with any of your reasons, as they all seem so sane and sensible, the seventh appears almost irresistible from any right-minded perspective, which is to say, to anyone aware of the threats posed by the New World Order's Hararian/Schwabian vision.
That being said, an Errol-Flynn-in-tights future is hard to picture. And doing without electricity is something almost no one wishes for, let alone can or dares to imagine.
A pleasure reading, as always.
Personally, I find it very easy to imagine a world without electricity! I mean, it was the reality for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence... But then you did say "almost" no one.
"I mean, it was the reality for hundreds of thousands of years of human existence". Indisputably true. And so was an almost unimaginably precarious existence hounded by, among other things, the constant threat of starvation.
As we all know, imagining something and living something are two very different things. It is worth pondering that even the Amish — who deliberately shun most modern conveniences, and consciously live a lifestyle that, because of its self-imposed hardships, virtually no one would voluntarily adopt — use electricity/generators/batteries for many things.
Serious question: would not a world sans industry automatically lead to one of the New World Order's prime objectives, namely a vastly reduced global human population?
The answer to your last question is yes. Overshoot is a very well understood phenomenon. Denial as a psychological defence against this looming catastrophe is also understandable. The claim that prehistoric people lived precarious lives always on the brink of starvation is presumably backed up by good anthropological and archaeological evidence. Since everybody knows, I assume everybody can find that evidence quite easily. If so, can someone show it to me?
Thanks for the answer Roger.
You're right, I may well have overstated, even vastly overstated, the precariousness of pre-industrial life. And yes, I do not speak as an anthropologist or archaeologist, but I do have a very good sense of how difficult it is to survive in the wilderness, or "on the land" as they say, even with the latest modern gear.
I am merely extrapolating the degree of difficulty in surviving without this modern gear, in the wild, in northern climes. The level of ingenuity and ability to read nature that prehistoric/stone-age (as recently as a handful of generations ago in some places) people had, would be off-the charts by today's standards.
While nature is beauty personified and our Source and provides our physical and spiritual sustenance, it is also true that nature could not care less whether we live or die. That is its duality. That is its paradox. This of course, is not so apparent in the shires of England's green and pleasant land, where it is easily idealized.
Roger, while I appreciate your answer, I was hoping our host would offer any thoughts he might have regarding the question I posed, i.e., the possible alignment of the effects of de-industrialization with the NWO's goal of massive population reduction.
There won't be any de-industrialisation if those behind the NWO remain dominant, because their plan is to accelerate industrialism, as I have pointed out. Their population reduction, if that is indeed what they are planning on a global level, will go hand in hand with the manufacture of a worldwide digital prison under the Fourth Industrial Revolution. There can be no "alignment" because the NWO/41R future is not the same as a de-industrialising one - these are completely opposing scenarios and cannot possibly co-exist.
Well stated. Thanks!
Bravo! I really needed this essay right about now to help me realise there are still some kindred spirits in the world. All of a sudden I am not so alone.
Whenever I talk like you did here I am accused of being a Luddite. First I point out that luddites are not totally against all technology, they just ask, who is to benefit from this new technology which our labor has payed for? and then they demanded an answer ...or else.
Regardless of what happens in the near future of one thing I can be certain...the future is all about LESS! There are many different ways it can come about, some good, and some very bad. I advocate for consciously, intelligently, wisely, managing our way there so it can be the best possible outcome. Less.... the absolute easiest thing people can do but also nearly impossible.
Cheers! jef
https://medium.com/@jefjelten/less-is-beautiful-36c6adfb04c