Wednesday, 30 May 2018

Blog 2-61 Homo Fonicus






The Law of Money
Money goes where money is.
               Money

                                                                                   




                                                                       


Homo Fonicus  A,D 3000





 Blog 2-61  The Future Homo Fonicus

Imagine your Friendly Old Blogger at a crowded tourist site, people-watching.  Crowds of tourists, short and tall, male and female, young and old. 

Instead of inventing stories about the individual strangers - your blogger’s usual silent occupation - he was attracted to something different. It was most noticeable in the 14-25 year-olds, particularly in the young ladies. Ohh. So why was your FOB watching young ladies? And wondering…  What was he looking at? 

Well for starters his attention was attracted to an age group that used to have straight backs, flat backs, with heads mounted vertically above square shoulders. Like homo sapiens. Seriously. 

On average these 2018 young people’s backs were more rounded, their heads more extended forward, than would have been the case thirty years ago. The number of girls - and young children - who were wearing glasses seemed higher, too. 

And, of course there were thousands of phones on display. (Ah, of course. That’s what the old fogg is getting at.)

Yes but. This is not a Luddite attack on current technology. It draws attention to a physical threat to the human race in the billions of screens of small devices absorbing human eyes and attentions in 2018. 

Your observer straightened his own shoulders and stood tall in a pose he thought was more erect, and tried to stretch back a pair of shoulders rounded by careless age (and of recent years by a lot of time spent before a computer screen).

Now, I could go on doing a futuristic look at how these changes will affect ideals of human body beauty. Will all round-shouldered young bucks prefer females of the same design?

I digress. A more important concern may be how the human intellect will be affected. Mind matters.

So let’s stretch what mind we have to the distant future of man - the age of the foniacs (3000  A.D) - 

They are recognizable by 
1 - hunched shoulders
2 - head thrust forward
3 - thick reading glasses
4 - hearing aid for hearing destroyed by earbuds
5 - rounded backbones all the way down to short and spindly legs

They will be afflicted by foniasm, a pleasurable mental aberration which excludes all sensations except those emanating from I-fones. Is this the beginning of the end of man” - addiction to his/her dopamine through a tiny screen?

No, I project a population divided, as now: there will be elites who can see, hear, run and think, and foniacs — kept under control by fine-tuned personal messaging. Just as the Roman emperors kept their mobs contained - by bread and circuses.  Bread was an issue of free grain. Circuses were performed in the colosseum where the proles watched the Christians & Lions Show, the Gladiators to the Death Show. and the Imperial Chariot Races. 

Today it is television, and the fone. Lots of circus power there, especially if you don’t mute the commercials


But what about the “bread”? Maybe a guaranteed annual income ?? !!!. 

Maybe, but the fatal disease of elites, the irresistible “MORE AND MORE AND MORE OF THE PIE” syndrome, will finally reach its consummation. No more bread for “them.”                       

That will result in mass foniac demonstrations. 

“The foniacs are revolting, Victor!”
“They’ve always been revolting, Harold.”!

So the elites cut off the foniacs' fone service  The foniacs go into violent withdrawal symptoms starting with rapidly twitching fingers. (Not good, if they happen to have access to assault rifles, which  will still be easy to obtain in America).

Coffee, anyone? Double double? Okay.











                                                                         































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Wednesday, 16 May 2018

BLOG 2 60 Cheeky New Zealand

Blog 2 - 62 Scripted  NAFTA Negotiations?


Okay, let’s take a closer look at President Trump and Canadian PM Trudeau’s curious dance. In one area they are certainly behaving more like dancers, in step, than opposites across a negotiating table.   

We’re looking at two issues: 

1. Canada’s dairy farmers’ marketing practices; and  

2. The dispute resolution procedures.

Now from one point of view, it looks like a set-up for a quid pro quo trade-off. Trudeau sacrifices his dairy farmers and, in return, gets the dispute resolution process into the Agreement.. Trump gets to sell a lot more milk in Canada (to the detriment of the host country’s dairymen (and women). And both claim to their citizens that they won!

Looks good. Except for the widely held understanding - (on which your blogger has already ex[pressed his sharp opinion, (Blogs  45 and 48) - a widely held understanding that 

a. The dispute settlement regime, permits foreign corporations to sue national states for any action that impinges an the corporation’s present profits OR future profits. Examples coming), and

b. Over time, the country with the most and biggest corporations always wins under these dispute resolution treaties. We won’t bore you with the historical evidence.

In this case of the dancing leaders, which is the bigger country with the most corporations,? 
So which is the country whose corporations will routinely sue-and win?  You got that ? Good. I thought it was pretty easy, too.

The only explanation for the Trump-Trudeau’s public stances is that this part of the “negotiation” has been scripted in advance

Canada has the most to lose if the dispute resolution procedures are retained. American firms can continue to thwart Canada legislation, or be well compensated.  

And all Canada has to  do to "achieve" that, is to give away its dairy products management system to help American dairy farmers make more money in Canada.

But that’s not “Quid pro quo“. It looks more like pre-scripted surrender, Mr. Trudeau,

If you have a better explanation, I’m open to hearing it. But I’m pretty smart. And I have been following NAFTA outcomes for quite a long time.

 Never mind, you Canadians. There’s an election on your horizon, too - tho’ it may be too late to revoke NAFTA, if you've signed. Too late.*

*The previous NAFTA could be abrogated with only six month’s notice. Hmmnnn, The President has never mentioned that. He always calls for "tearing it up."