I am a very poor witness because I do not believe in God or spiritual stuff, I am to the core of my being an empiricist. Sartre, Camus and R. M. Persig are the cornerstones of my philosophy.
But yet....
You have tagged exactly what she believes. If you asked her the question she would look at you in that special way that makes you wonder if you really are educated and explain that it is only our poor perceptual skills that keeps us setting up these dichotomous choices.
It is not nature or God, there is no real difference. Evolution is little more than creation in action.
I miss her and the days we spent under the tree by the lake at her cabin in Tahoe.
But the work is mine and it what it is.
“Oh I get the thought process...a highly mutagenic virus already spread in diverse populations, consisting of a certain generation of said given virii which will, upon reaching a certain reproductive cycle within the hosts’ cells, hit that same mutagenic change point seemingly randomally yet mutually at the same time, whereupon they become dangerously pathological in many folks all at once, in many locations all at once.”
Yes that is it. But MA would explain to you, as she did to me, that in our short history as a species such events are not rare at all, but simply part of the rhythm of evolution/creation.
I do understand what she means when she explains that all our recent evolution has been in the realm of perception.
Hard to argue with that fact. But to her each population bottleneck is simply a choosing. I am at a loss to explain where we are headed but MA clearly sees that this coming wave is targeted at perception.
It is just weird. Now on the TV I see these people all preparing to survive after some horrific event (fill in the blank on your favorite disaster) and I just wonder.
I have read all her works, and it impresses the hell out of me. So what do I believe - is she lucky or gifted.
You pay your money and take your choice.
I apologize for ranting a bit but you are the first poster to truly pinpoint her exact prediction and it raises all the old conflicts in my gin soaked brain.
I appreciate your post very much.
James - can you please add me to your list? I always find the interviews interesting.
What I see happening is a multiple break-out of plague, war, famine, and economic collapse which leaves the developed world severely stricken at all levels and all within a very short space. Ironically the folks already living in areas of the world on a subsistance level may do better and have more freedoms for a time then those who are barely surviving in such places as NYC or London. Governments will become brutal and any pretences of civil rights will disappear. Religious freedoms will be curtailed accept for those “religious” movements that support a “conformist” philosophy for conformity and “cooperative team spirit” will be seen as the only way to survive the horrors that have fallen upon the world.
As for “prepper” types, who have stocked up for the coming “black swans”,the only way they’ll get to keep what they have and not have what they have stored up “confiscated” ( in the name of the people) from them is by banding together in defensible regions and/ or secreting themselves in such remote locations that it will not be worth the effort of regional rulers, who would be barely holding things together as it is, to get at such “survivalists”.
The U.S. may very well break up into regional countries unless strong force, even the threats of limited use of tactical nuclear devices, could be brought to bear against such balky populaces.(an 1860’s style civil war couldn’t happen now, a modern President Lincoln equivalent with control of limited nuclear weapons such as neutron bombs could strangle a rebellion quickly).
Given simultaneous multilevel (and geopolitical in scope) black swan events however, even forming basic limited government in many regions may be months in reconstituting. Hence the U.S.A. break up may occur anyway, simply as a means for the survival of newly disorganized and isolated people groups.
(and as the bible says...”and the living will envy the dead”)