Posts Tagged ‘autopoiesis’

About Autarky

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

The amount of local cooperative energy-companies in the Netherlands (in 2012) is increasing. It all has to do with the decrease of the price of solar-sells but there is more at stake.

Local energy-companies are part of a movement aimed at Autarky. Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient.

The word Autarky comes from Greek αὐτάρκεια (autárkeia), itself from αὐτός (autós) = self and ἀρκέω (arkéo) which in its passive form means be satisfied, content or “Out of my own Power“.

Fractal Human Distribution Network

Fractal Human Energy Distribution Network

The need to become self-sufficient has certainly to do with the current economic-, ecological- and energy crisis. People are afraid that the supply of vital energy and food will suddenly stop or become priceless. This is not the only reason.

Some people think we are wasting our money, food and energy by producing nondurable throw-away goods in which the packaging is sometimes more important than the content. They want to create durable products and services. This is not the only reason.

Some people don’t trust the suppliers of their food and energy, their politicians and/or the caretakers of their savings, the banks, anymore. They believe that their food is intentionally manipulated, their savings are wasted, their country is sold out to the rich and their environment is polluted for just one simple reason, Greed, the opposite of “Being Satisfied”.

The people of the autarkic movement want to recreate the necessary functions (bank, energy, food, work, healthcare, government) themselves in a cooperative way in their own living context.

Atmospheric Energy Diagram

Atmospheric Energy Diagram

The local cooperatives  are now joining on a higher (mostly country) level and are  in need of a shared (real-time)infrastructure. The current infrastructure does not support flows that move between many participants (so called peer-to-peer-networks).

The current system is a Hierarchic Top Down System containing Huge Highways that are connected to Big Production-facilities. This makes it impossible to consolidate, share and distribute resources peer-to-peer on a local level.

The Electric Highway

The Top Down System has created Global Markets where the local production is sold  to the highest bidder.

The Global Markets are the playing field for advanced speculators that make a lot of money. After the deal is made the local production is transported to a far away destination. That is the reason why the Top Down Systems are integrated in world-wide Logistic Systems.

If we want to coordinate all the local initiatives we need advanced systems that Up- and download, control, predict, connect, share, balance and distribute vital local resources on the short and long term.

The Panarchy Cycle of an Ecology

The Panarchy Cycle of an Ecology

Examples of these systems can be found in “crowd funding“, “virtual power plants”  and “treasury management” (balancing many small amounts of Money at the short and long term).

In Nature we find comparable (Fractal) Distribution-Systems in the Lungs, the Arteries, Riverdelta, the Weather Cycle and Ecologies.

All of these fysical Flow Systems, that map 1 Resource-> on Many Resources or Many Resources->on 1 Resource,  are based on the third Law of Thermodynamics called Constructal Law.

Virtual Power Plant

Virtual Power Plant

In the philosophy of the Stoics and Cynics of Ancient Greece the perfect human was not only arete (“all-around excellent”) but also independent of every need. Arete was associated with a full life as a citizen of a city.

Later Spinoza (“On Human Freedom“), Rousseau and David Thoureau (Walden) have developed their own autarkic philosophy.

Autarky was the ideal of a complete man who needed no one and no organization. This ideal can also be found in Zen Buddhism, Taoist practise, Early Christians (Nazarites), the Catholic Order of the Franciscans and the Protestant Quakers.

In reality it is almost impossible to be completely self-sufficient as a lonely human being. We need others when we are young, sick and old and we need others because we are specialized (“Talented”). Autarky is a possible aim for a small community.

Resource Balancing in Nature (Lungs, RiverDelta)

Resource Balancing in Nature (Lungs, RiverDelta)

The religious, cultural and political movements at the left and the right aimed at living the “good life” (“Living Slow“) are converging in  the movement of the Cultural Creatives. The Cultural Creatives are the new Elite that is moving to the AND-state (Left AND Right).

They don’t believe in the old Competitive Ideologies (Socialist, Capitalist, Religious, Liberal, Nationalist, Conservative, Globalist, etc..) but want  to focus on the Shared Collaborative Values between all Humans. We all need Love, Food and Shelter.

The Stoic Zeno shows the Doors to Truth and False

The Stoic Zeno shows the Doors to Truth and False

Autarky has always been a major political aim of countries. Autarky is about the possibility to control your own future and to become independent of other powers that could use your dependency to tell you what to do to get what you desperately want.

At this moment the shortage of fossil fuels, especially oil and gaz, is used to influence the policy of other countries and is the cause of local conflicts in the Middle East.

China is buying all kinds of vital materials to make sure their economy will not become dependent on others. If they will succeed and nobody doubts about that, they will become the economic controlling power of the world.

Reaching a state of local autarky, being satisfied with what your environment provides you, has become the aim of the wordwide sustainability movement.

Total autarky is possible when you want to live as a stoic or a survivalist. Most people accept a more simple living, move off-the-grid and build autonomous buildings that make use of  renewable energy.

Allotment Garden

Allotment Garden

Others start to farm in their own backyard, join an allotment garden or move back-to-the-land and practice sustainable agriculture.  To handle their surpluses and shortages independent  local markets are created that make use of  alternative currencies.

A strive for (regional) Autarky pushes the need to innovate to a higher level because not all regions contain the right materials, knowledge or experience to realize everything everybody needs. To become fully Autarkic the Production and Consumption Systems in the Region have to be based on simple concepts and parts that are available everywhere. Simple concepts are concepts that are easely copied.

The only way to combine Simple and Complex concepts is to use the Concept of Self-Reference (Fractals). The only way to make use of parts that are available everywhere is to make use of the Simple Building Blocks of Nature. A good example is the use of algea in food processing.

The concept of Autonomy not only plays an important role on the many levels of human (personal, organization, country) and animal society (Competitive vs Collaborative (Ants)). It is also a major subject in the research of (Second-OrderCybernetics (Control Theory).

Self Reproducing Systems

Self Reproducing Fractal Systems

Second Order Cybernetics is concerned with the Control of the System of Systems (the Meta-System). Hierarchy is not the solution to this problem because it leads to the logical problem of Infinite Regress (“Turtles on turtles on … all the way down”).

The Meta-System is controlling, reproducing and balancing itself by a Fractal Feedback-Cycle that moves Backwards (Consumption) and Forwards (Production).

The concept of Self-Reproduction is called Autopoiesis or Autocatalysis. The Design Philosophy of Cradle to Cradle is a good example of Autopoiesis.

A System is an Autarky if all its Levels are capable of Self-Reproduction.

If a human wants to become self-sufficient he has to accept and develop his own talent and find complementary people so he is able to create a Self-Reproducing Unit.

The smallest Self-Reproducing Unit in Human Society is the Family living in one House. This House has to produce more than enough Energy and the Garden has to produce more than enough food to support the Family.

Garden City (Culemborg, the Netherlands)

Garden City (Culemborg, the Netherlands)

If we cluster all these Self-Reproducing Families/Houses & Gardens in a small City the chances are high that the combined talents of the families will be able to supply every profession needed if the people of the city want to Live a Simple Life.

It is also possible that the surplusses and shortages of the families can be compensated by creating a Market on the level of the small City or one level higher, the Region.

An Autarkic Movement becomes an Aggressive Competitive Nationalistic Movement when the Citizens of the Country feel that their Country is plundered by outsiders and their Leaders promise to get it all back by expanding the Space to Live (“Lebensraum“) to facilitate everything that is needed.

This happened when Germany was preparing for War after the enormous reparation payments of 132 billion gold marks to the Winners of World War I.

The Autarkic Movement could also become a Peaceful Cooperative Social Movement like the Movement of Gandhi in India when the people accept the Good Life they already live and want to share the surpluses with others who are in a worse state.

LINKS

Dutch Report about Local Energy Companies (in Dutch)

About the house that produces his own energy (Passive House)

The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency

About Close-Loops Systems

About Smart Grids

About Anti-Fragility

About Fractal Distribution Systems

Jerry Rifkin: About the Distributed Economy

The John Seymour School for Self Sufficiency

About Entrainment

About the EU Policy of Smart Specialization of Regions

About Darwin and Collaboration 

About Artificial Life

About Smart Technology

About the Thermodynamics of Living Systems

About Worldviews (How to find Complementary People)

A City is an Organism

About the Viable Systems Model of Stafford Beer

About Garden City

Gandhi’s view on Capitalism

The Autarkic Dreams of Germany

 

About the Invisible Fascist State

Wednesday, August 29th, 2007

mussertMy father was born in 1909. He lived in a small village in the centre of the Netherlands.

This centre is called the Veluwe (Vale Ouwe, The Sallow Old man).

The Veluwe was the place of shifting sand and hei. At that time the people that lived there were poor. They worked as shepherds and wageworkers.

The people of the Veluwe were very religious. Many of them never attended school.

They had to believe what the Church was telling him.

Close to my fathers hometown was a hill called the Paasberg. It was the place where the Dutch Fascist Socialistic Movement (NSB) got together. Many poor people joined the movement.

They believed the Leader, Mussert, would create a better world. At the end of the war the filthy traitors of the NSB were put into concentration-camps and heavily punished by the angry survivors of the Second World War.

At the Paasberg they were told that the Jews were the cause of all the trouble in the World. The poor people did not hate the Jews. They believed the Leader just like they believed their Ministers.

They never met a real Jew. Jews were not living in a poor area like the Veluwe. They lived in the big cities far away.

The Leader told them terrible stories about what the Jews were doing. They were cheating poor people. The Jews were also the people who killed Jesus. The last argumentation was sufficient for them.

joodBehind the scene the Jews were also controlling the World. They were the prototype of the Cigar Smoking Capitalists. The NSB was using Socialist Language to convince the poor workers in the big cities.

The poor people of the Veluwe never visited the big cities. Their only means of transportation was by foot. They were also not allowed to visit the big cities. In big cities like Amsterdam the Devil was in control. All of them feared the Devil.

Every Sunday the Minister preached about hell and told them that heaven was a place almost nobody could reach.

They were born as sinners and almost every thing they were doing was interpreted as a sin. They lived a life of fear.

Everywhere in the Dark Centre of the Veluwe the Devil and his companions were hiding. Everybody knew where a Witch was secretly living and how the White Ladies of the Sunken Castle of the Solsche Gat appeared at Full Moon.

The Ministers explained them that they always had to obey Government even if the Government was taken over by the Germans. Government was always created by God and they had to obey Him.

Fascist movements always use poor innocent people to do the dirty work. They promise the Holy Land and use an External Enemy to explain why the world is not the way it is.

russian revolutionThey use religion, myth, art, culture and history as a tool. The outside enemy is destroying the old values or is responsible for the terrible state you are in.

He is creating decadent filthy sinful art or is responsible for the defeat of the last battle between the Good and the Bad.

Fascists always find a historic event where they (the Bad Ones) have taken over power.

They use this story to motivate the masses to take revenge.

The communication engine uses all of these tools to tell the message over and over again. The poor victims are programmed and programming is easy.

To create an unambiguous message the independent communication systems are slowly destroyed.

They are decadent or promoting the Bad Ones.

mussoliniThe Fascist system wants to control the schooling system. The most innocent victims are the children. They are trained to become the new elite that will save the Homeland.

The most important skill is to learn to fight the battle and to obey the leaders. Fascists love to teach the children to play with weapons.

Behind the scene the real leaders increase their wealth and more important their power.

Power is not a mean to accomplish something. They are addicted to Power and nothing more.

Now 50 years later all the Fascist Systems are replaced by a democracy and almost everybody believes all the precautionary measures are taken to prevent the comeback of Fascism.

My feeling is that almost nobody is aware of the fact that we are now living in a new type of Fascist State. I call it the Invisible Fascist State.

My argumentation is simple.

The Invisible Fascist State is generating even more power to the people “”behind the scene” than the old Fascist State was doing.

The people “behind the scene” have not changed. Their children, relatives and friends have taken over control. They know everything that is happening but they will never tell the real story.

They are still specialists in cover ups and are creating new ghost stories. All of them are trained in Machiavelli and the other geniuses who perfected the “Art to Stay in Power”.

Let’s see What is Happening.

The amount of innocent not educated people is increasing. The majority is not poor but being poor is not the issue. The only thing the people “behind the scene” don’t want is opposition and the opposition is almost gone.

Many people don’t vote and when they vote nothing changes the System. Even the Parliament is unable to change the System.

osama_bin_ladenThe Media are delivering the message and the independent Media are also almost gone. The Media are commercial and to make money they have to tell the message of the advertisers.

The advertisers are selling the message of Desire and Control. Desire and Control are the two powers Fascists always use to manipulate the Masses.

The Media also promote the new Enemy. Of course all of them are objective but objectivity is not the issue.

Passivity is the goal. A huge majority is watching television, consuming and grumbling. Grumbling is very helpful to mobilize the masses when the masses are needed to keep the System running.

The new Enemy is the Islam and Islam is also the faith of the Terrorists. To destroy the Enemy we have to increase Control. The Evil Arab Terrorist looks a lot like the Jewish Enemies 57 years, a complete Kondratiev Cycle (!!), ago.

To increase Control we have to change the System of Fundamental Laws of Human Rights. Fascists don’t like Human Rights.

Some people are even discussing the issue of one man one vote because the Enemy is increasing in numbers. They tell the people we are on a colliding course and they (the Islamic enemies) soon will take over control. They will create an Islamic State for sure.

Some people in parliament already want to ban the Koran. This increases the grumbling at “the other side”. Fascists always create a situation were two groups of innocent people start to fight.

This is helpful. It increases the tension, the grumbling and the fear. Fascists like to play with fear.

The educational system is producing more and more innocent young people. They want to play fighting games and are drinking more and more alcohol.

Teaching young people to fight is a fascist aim. Alcohol stimulates desire and increases passivity. It also affects the emotions.

Emotions are the real Enemy of the Fascists. Emotions generate Compassion and Compassion is something the Fascists are really afraid of.

The knowledge of young people about almost everything that is necessary to understand what is happening is diminishing with speed.

They have to learn to push buttons because to use the System the only thing you really need to know is to push the right button.

At school the current generation is Copying and Pasting texts they don’t understand. Nobody really cares. The entrance to high level education is lowered and the requirements to obtain a diploma are also lowered. The System is working perfectly.

Are the people behind the scene coordinating everything?

Is there a worldwide conspiracy?

I don’t think so.

The System has perfected itself.

Guantanamo-Bay-prisonersWhat many people don’t realize is that at a certain stage, called Emergence, Systems change into a Self-Reproducing Entity.

Humberto Maturana & Francisco Varela (Autopoiesis), Niklas Luhmann (Social Systems), Richard Kaufmann (The Origins of Order), Heinz Von Foerster (Second Order Cybernetics) and many others have proven this.

The System becomes Conscious and Takes over the Power. People don’t want to believe this because it is really a frightening thought. We want to be in control of everything. Please believe this is impossible. It is a fantasy. Being in control of everything is really the cause of the state we are in.

Jung calls the Invisible System the Collective Unconsciousness. The Invisible Fascists State is a Self-Reproducing Entity and we are unable to beat an invisible Entity. It has turned into a very powerful Ghost. The Ghost penetrates the dream state and generates night mares.

Long before the Fascist took over in Germany many sensitive people dreamed about the concentration camps and the other brutal acts of the Nazi’s. At that time nobody believed the unconsciousness is an Early Warning System. It warns us about the Future. Today we are in the same situation. The Emotional System is highly undervalued.

The Ghost takes his power out of Desire and Control and strangely enough the old religions in Persia called this Ghost the Devil. The Devil has taken over the Power.

The Ministers warned the poor people of the Veluwe of the Power of the Devil. The Devil was tempting them to sin. Don’t you feel this is just what the System is doing just now?

Self-reproducing Systems need the Outside World to take in the necessary Food to replace their components. If the Food is not available the System will eventually die. The Invisible Fascist State needs resources.

bushIt needs a lot of Energy and other Material Components to replace the old parts. The System has eaten almost all the food that is available.

If this happens it will experience signals. The Early Warning System of the Emotions will penetrate the dream state. We are ignoring these signals. We believe the System will take care of us.

In the next stage it will become ill. The System is already ill and we believe the System will cure itself. If the illness is not cured it will die. We believe the System will never die. Eventually it will find a cure for every disease. Do you believe that also?

If we want to change the Invisible System the only thing we can do is to Resist the Temptation. Don’t agree with too much Control and don’t give in to too much Desire.

If you are a Mythic, an Artist, you can do much more.

You have to produce a completely new type of Art, the Art of Compassion. You have to act out of the Heart.

HeartChakraThe Fascists used the Symbol of the Heart Chakra, the Seal of Solomon, the Star of David as the Symbol of Evil.

The new type of Art has to move the Collective out of the State of Fear and Apathy.

It has to generate a new Spirit and Soul.

You have to create new types of Education where the people learn simple logical reasoning based on widely available facts.

The data is available on the Internet. This will generate the necessary Awareness.

You have to build new games where cooperation is trained.

You have to create new types of Myths, Movies, Software, News Papers, Music, Buildings, Food, Cloth and Businesses.

To realize your concepts you have learn to cooperate with a new type of Expert, the Consumer.

You also have to learn to work together with all the Cultures in the World to find a new shared foundation.

You can also create the Art the System needs. The old Fascists used the Arts with Intelligence. Perhaps this will bring you wealh and recognition. Perhaps you will be invited to be part of the people behind the scene.

When you are really a Mythic you are able to reflect. When you reflect you will feel you have to leave the System. You have no choice.

LINKS

Hahahaha Dadadada: About Childisch behavior and Decadence

Money Makes The World go Round

Why Psychiatrist are Unable to Cure their own Mental Disease