[Code]

Man, the hideous.  

Yes, even today

In our very recent history, men inflicted the most horrific torture and death practices imaginable.  Men who were no different from people today.  Many of our icons of human depravity come from the medieval period where the instruments of torture were routine.  That period was only the last page of the book of humanity....a modern period.  Consider that the magna carta,  honoured in the United States as an antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights was penned in 1215.  Architecture from the period still exists of course and is considered the defining centerpiece of many European towns today.

Consider that in 2011, the same year that four nuclear reactors blew up in Fukushima, a Saudi woman was beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'.   A few short years later, Donald Trump made an arms deal with our Saudi Allies for 8 billion dollars of high tech killing machines.

Whether its torture chambers in England,  flamethrowers used in WWII,  or contemporary weapons like the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan,  cluster bombs, land mines and biological warfare,  pain and misery, suffering and death remains the same hideous product of mankind 

[HHD]

Speaking of land mines, Trump just approved their use again in the Middle East. This, after Princess Diana had them outlawed. There are famous pics of her sitting with child victims with missing limbs... The lucky ones...

[Code]

Mankinds culture of kill, murder, rape and pillage has reached an insane level with the invention of the nuclear bomb. It may seem overmuch that King Henry the VIII had 72,000 people executed, or that 10s of thousands of women were burned at the stake, but in our time, the lives of millions are at stake....their necks in the noose of nuclear, their fate hanging on the decisions of this guy.  ....or perhaps the other guys with nuclear bombs.

[Code]

Civilization rests on this concept, still in effect from the cold war; Mutual Assured Destruction.  This is the very idea behind the nuclear deterrent...that nobody would be stupid enough to launch a nuclear strike because then everything would be ruined. 

Mutual Assured Destruction.  Its the guiding principle behind todays super powers.   "Under MAD, each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side. Either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate, irreversible escalation of hostilities resulting in both combatants' mutual, total, and assured destruction. The doctrine requires that neither side construct shelters on a massive scale"


Cold War - 12 - MAD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHayougVqCk

This wikipedia article outlines some of the criticisms of the MAD doctrine.  Its obvious that many factors make this deterrent strategy a failed idea. 

The doctrine of nuclear deterrence depends on several challengeable assumptions;

"Second-strike capability
A first strike must not be capable of preventing a retaliatory second strike or else mutual destruction is not assured." 



"Perfect detection

No false positives (errors) in the equipment and/or procedures that must identify a launch by the other side. The implication of this is that an accident could lead to a full nuclear exchange. During the Cold War there were several instances of false positives, as in the case of Stanislav Petrov."



"Perfect attribution.

 If there is a launch from the Sino-Russian border, it could be difficult to distinguish which nation is responsible—both Russia and China have the capability—and, hence, against which nation retaliation should occur. A launch from a nuclear-armed submarine could also be difficult to attribute."



"Perfect rationality

No rogue commanders will have the ability to corrupt the launch decision process. Such an incident very nearly occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis when an argument broke out aboard a nuclear-armed submarine cut off from radio communication. The second-in-command, Vasili Arkhipov, refused to launch despite an order from Captain Savitsky to do so."



"All leaders with launch capability must care about the survival of their subjects (an extremist leader may welcome Armageddon and launch an unprovoked attack). Winston Churchill warned that any strategy will not "cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dugout."



Inability to defend

No fallout shelter networks of sufficient capacity to protect large segments of the population and/or industry.

No development of anti-missile technology or deployment of remedial protective gear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

You're going to lose it all

[Code]

It was bad.  But its going to be worse.

Its very easy to see this;  no matter how small the chance of nuclear war, as long as there IS A CHANCE, given enough time, nuclear war is inevitable. Its a statistical certainty.  And the chance is not small.  We have come very, very close to nuclear armageddon already.  The people at ground zero will be the lucky ones.   The others will suffer like the people in medieval torture chambers.

nuclear war is inevitable

Nuclear War: Inevitable or Preventable?
Martin E. Hellman
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

https://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakth...llman.html

[Code]

During the great plague,  doctors roamed the dead strewn streets in this garb.   It was in fact a kind of hazmat suit.  The beak was filled with herbs which were hoped to purify the bad airs.  The eyes were covered with glass,  the staff was used so they could touch the victims remotely.   Now the nuclear industry,  the military industry, chemical industries, they make a new plague. They deal in super poisons.  As we write this, men in different sacrifice zones around the world must wear modern versions of this hideous death mask hazmat outfit

Doctors wore these during the Black Plague




below, a Russian style gas mask.  Man, in his quest of total domination, has brought hell to the world

[Code]

in 1554, Lady Jane is about to have her head chopped off.   I see an allegory.   The public, and the biosphere, have their heads on the chopping block of elite rich men on a power trip.   But they are blind to it.   Look at the painting below and let Lady Jane, dressed in pure white beautiful garments represent pristine nature, indigenous people, innocent people and animals of all kinds around the world.  

The European Committee on Radiation Risk has estimated, based on epidemiology studies of Chernobyl, that 50 million people may have died because of the bomb test era.  More, and probably the worst nuclear disasters are still to come for mankind, who are blind to the hideous fate that awaits them.   The power elite always have henchmen that are willing to carry out their wishes.  See the stance of the executioner....this is his normalcy bias.  

The public of today vote with great patriotic fervor for their favorite commander in chief.  That commander has the keys and codes for nuclear armageddon.  The wars are continuous, the suffering beyond comprehension.  Is it really that much better now than it was in King Henry the VIII's time?     

The public and the leaders of today...they are all part of a hideous deadly cloud that hangs over us....the spectre of nuclear,  the toxic currency of corporations,  the suppression and exploitation of peoples,  the poisoning of the biosphere.   No, in some ways its even worse today than ever.   The word hideous is appropriate, and all the more so because people dont see it.

[Code]

Slavery

well....is it hideous today or is it not hideous?   Most people believe that compared to our barbaric past, we are now civilized.   We are constantly told how greatly advanced our civilization is.   There are planes, cars, incredible scientific achievements.   But those products alone do not mean things arent hideous.    

Its important to know, to realize,  how good or how bad things are, otherwise we are deluded.

Experts have calculated that roughly 13 million people were captured and sold as slaves between the 15th and 19th centuries;

Today, at the highest peak of civilization there are over 40 million slaves. 

151.6 MILLION

The number of children 5 to 17 years old who are in forced labor, according to International Labor Organization findings. By international standards, child labor is defined as "work that is hazardous, demands too many hours, or is performed by children who are too young,"

"A person today is considered enslaved if they are forced to work against their will; are owned or controlled by an exploiter; have limited freedom of movement; or are dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as property"

Slavery is hideous 

There are more slaves now than any time in human history 

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/slaves-time-human-history-article-1.3506975

"The practices of slavery and human trafficking are still prevalent in modern America with estimated 17,500 foreign nationals and 400,000 Americans being trafficked into and within the United States  every year with 80% of those being women and children.Human trafficking in the United States can be divided into the two major categories of labor and sex trafficking, with sex trafficking accounting for a majority of case"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempora...ted_States

[Code]

Certainly, by our modern civilized standards, war is hideous.  Forcing the public to fund it must also be somehow hideous.   Especially if you can convince them their forced payment is good

Total Cost of U.S. Wars Since 2001

$5,009,874,494,161

five trillion is beyond comprehension.  Imagine,...and we cant...piles of a billion dollars.  Five thousand piles of a billion dollars in each pile.    All going toward some kind of misery

Is that civilized?  Is that the peak of humanities evolution? Is it better than any time in history?

And  many times that amount have just been 'lost', unaccounted for by the Pentagon

You dont think thats a little hideous?

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq = 1,455,590

Total deaths in the Vietnam War

Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: As many as 2 million civilians on both sides and  1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters

WWII can certainly be considered modern times, and WWI was only back a page.  This is the era of world wars, unending wars, super weapons of mass destruction.  If that isnt hideous, what is?

Poverty

in 2020, one in six children live below the official poverty line, which is a paltry $25,701 for a family of four with two kids.  38.1 million Americans are classified as poor and 70% of them have at least one working parent

Starvation

795 million people in the world do not have enough food. 25,000 starve to death every day. That adds up to roughly 9.1 million people who die of starvation each year.  The wealth of just one person, Bezos, is enough to end starvation.   Im not saying its his fault.   The point here is that mans world is full of horrors...for all of its accomplishments, there is a dark, insidious hideousness about it.

https://www.creditdonkey.com/world-hunge...stics.html

[Code]

One could go on with examples, but the point is made.   War, torture, slavery, exploitation, sexual domination and exploitation, theft, lies, crime.  Its here, its part of the fabric of civilization.  A big part.   

Theres a whole other sector of this low life of men;  business as usual.  This is in a way more insidious because business as usual is hailed as a good thing.  A thing of pride,  high standing and admiration in society.   This cause of suffering you will almost never see in the news.   

In 2016 Brazil police arrest 19 in Eletrobras nuke-plant bribe probe.  A nuclear power plant owned by state-led utility Eletrobras  paid out more than $60 million in bribes. In return, executives allegedly let construction companies such as Andrade Guitierrez inflate the cost of the project, with kickbacks to politicians.  Some companies pulled out of the project, such as Odebrecht S.A. 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazi...SKCN0ZM13N

Thats business as usual.   That company that pulled out, Odebrecht, they are themselves involved in criminal activity, and the scandal has erupted in civil protest and violence. 

What is the Odebrecht scandal?

"Odebrecht S.A. is the biggest engineering and contracting company in Latin America, and the company has thrown politics in Latin America into chaos like no other before it."

"Using a complex network of shell companies, off-book transactions and offshore bank accounts, and a dedicated bribery division, Odebrecht paid hundreds of millions to government officials, their representatives and political parties in countries across Latin America and the Caribbean."

Odebrecht created an entire division – the Division of Structured Operations –  primarily dedicated to making corrupt bribery payments.

“largest foreign bribery case in history,” it set off a wave of political scandals across Latin America.

Governments toppled. Former presidents and other senior officials,  went from the halls of power to prison cells.

"In Brazil, the epicenter of the scandal, former two-term president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, once described by Barack Obama as “the most popular politician on earth,” sits in prison serving a lengthy sentence for corruption and graft, including Odebrecht-related offenses"

https://www.icij.org/investigations/brib...s-scandal/

Odebrecht made more than nuclear power plants.  Massive projects with huge safety implications,  subways, gas pipelines.  Well...they got caught.  What about the corporations and leaders who arent caught?  

In the CafeRadLab thread 'politics of nuclear energy'  http://caferadlab.com/thread-3660.html   a seemingly endless run of suspicious activity and corruption is documented. 

As asserted by the World Bank, corruption is “the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development."
http://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/files/d...lume-I.pdf

So besides sexual predation, endless war, inequality with its poverty and starvation, slavery....we can definitely add corruption.   Man is corrupt.  

Bribery is just the tip of the iceberg.  If one defines hideous behavior by its impact on the living world...the biosphere, the purity of water, land and air,  then nearly the entire  international capitalist machine is called out.

The nuclear industries....both the bombs and the nuke plants, have a special place in the capitalist machinery;  they can wipe out civilization.  Yet it is nuclear which is hailed as the savior of the climate....    Its hideous

[Code]

Criminals,  criminals everywhere!

We have criminal culture

Criminal culture and punishment go back.  How much change are we making, from the torture chamber days of medieval times?

The 7th Century BC Draconian Code of Athens made death the penalty for every crime committed.  Yes, no longer will you get the death penalty for stealing a chicken.   

 In the 5th Century BC, the Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets codified the death penalty. The death penalty was different for nobility, freemen and slaves. There was punishment for crimes such as the publication of libels and insulting songs, the cutting or grazing of crops planted by a farmer, making disturbances at night in the city,  theft by a slave.

 Death was often cruel and included crucifixion, drowning at sea, burial alive, beating to death, and impalement (often used by Nero). The Romans had a curious punishment for parricides (murder of a parent): the condemned was submersed in water in a sack, which also contained a dog, a rooster, a viper and an ape.    Mankind....an interesting species indeed

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/artic...h-penalty/

===========

Fast forward 20 centuries and the torturous punishment continues.  

Under the reign of Henry VIII, the numbers of those put to death are estimated as high as 72,000. Boiling to death was another penalty approved in 1531, and there are records to show some people boiled for up to two hours before death took them.

 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/artic...h-penalty/

The rule of law...

In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700’s when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death. These included stealing from a house in the amount of forty shillings, stealing from a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps.  Meanwhile Isaac Newton was doing calculous.   The intellect of man was developed...but the criminal culture, in these example suggests that the peasants were hungry, and they were put to death for it.   Has any king gone to prison for collecting taxes?

Hanged, drawn and quartered – not a death to aspire to
https://www.annabelfrage.com/2017/04/13/...aspire-to/

===========

Fast forward another four or five centuries and ....wallah

Criminals everywhere, more than ever!

"70 million Americans have a criminal record — that’s one in three adults."
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/20...al-record/

The number of people in the U.S. with a criminal record is equal to the total population of europe in the year 1200, 

"as of 2010, 3 percent of the total U.S. population and 15 percent of the African-American male population have served time in prison. People with felony convictions more broadly account for 8 percent of the overall population and 33 percent of the African-American male population."

Its interesting that a third of the African Americans are felons....but you're a felon too

In his book Three Felonies a Day, civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate estimates that

 the average person unknowingly breaks 

at least three federal criminal laws every day. 

This toll does not count an avalanche of other laws 

Now thats what I call Criminal Culture!  What is the implication...what are we to make of it?

I cant help but think this criminal culture....the good guys vs the bad guys, the cowboys and indians, the 'democracies' and the Commies,  the overlords vs the plebeians....remember, you broke a federal law today and probably know someone who went to prison....this is infused into the subconscious ethos of civilization.  In many cases, such as marijuana laws, the government creates the criminal.  But the fabric of society, for example wealth inequality can create the criminal. Patriotic fervor foments wars between countries.

To cure disease, you have to remove the cause of the disease.  I suggest the cause of the nuclear debacle is rooted deeply into the fabric of civilization

History tells me.....we wont cure the disease

[Code]

Global Arms Trade and Corruption

Violence is in the business model of the global arms industry

The global arms  industry fuels violent conflict, "not only by providing means but also cause for violence, by distorting diplomatic and democratizing processes. Corruption within the industry is often treated in terms of isolated incidents, when it is, in fact, representative of the business model for the industry."

https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/global-arms-...orruption/

[Horse]

WAR ~ The World Is A Ghetto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKKMdmPBWRk

It's so hideous that people quit listening to how bad it is.

[Felibi]

And yet here we are still, us humans, still alive, still smiling. Sharing, reading, learning and thinking.
We're the light, We're the love. We are.
Great read and great pics. Thank you Code
We'll keep listening!

[Code]

Felibi,  yes, I pondered if it was too negative to judge mankind categorically as hideous.  Probably we all know someone,...likely a dog or cat,  that is very loving.   Hey, dogs and cats are people too....at least in my book.   

We can aspire to be fountains of love.   When we are betrayed,....say the hoards come and ransack the village, stealing or raping our loved ones....this is a difficult moment to feel love.

Some pretty strong thinkers believe in the multiverse.   Each microsecond branching off in a new cause and effect line....an infinite number of parallel universes. Others speculate that what seems to be 'out there', the universe of our perception, is really 'in here',  a kind of mental projection.  Certainly,  even if the universe is sort of how we think it is, with an external reality,  it is all experienced within...withing the modelling of the brain.   

The universe is, in any case, nearly or totally beyond our ability to grasp correctly, short of infinite consciousness expansion. We are lost...or helpless before it.  The infinite expanse of space and time.  Is it unfolding only because we are on a perceptive journey?  Like a movie that exists in its entirely on the reel or disk but becomes a story by virtue of the projection device?

We can only hope to be the source of the love or understanding that we wish to see in our little world.  Perhaps its all we can hope for;  that we are the source and witness of grace, love etc.  The overwhelming universe has us in its hand,  brought forth and then rubbed out, certainly on the physical level.   So that gives us a humble starting point.  We might feel grateful.  At least overwhelmed,  which is a kind of humility I think.

The hideous is a relative thing.   That death sentence of being in a bag with a monkey, snake and rooster, all drowned in a nightmare....that is only good news for the microbes and other life that might feast on the nutrients thus liberated. The division of viewpoints,  or individuated incarnations, each with a life and death stake in the game, is what gives rise to the hideous.   I dont think the universe cares....a super nova is just fine.

Well, its in that context that I think about the hideous.  We can shake ourselves out of the delusion that mankind is somehow "good" or mainly good, which is a common idea.  This is a start,  a step in the direction of knowing ourselves, our species, and hopefully toward walking a gentle path, a minimalist path on earth.  Doing the least harm, rather than ransacking everything for personal gains, which is the current business as usual motive

The source of love, they say, is within

My two cents worth...

[DUDe]

" hideous is a relative thing. That death sentence of being in a bag with a monkey, snake and rooster, all drowned in a nightmare....that is only good news for the microbes and other life that might feast on the nutrients thus liberated. The division of viewpoints, or individuated incarnations, each with a life and death stake in the game, is what gives rise to the hideous. I dont think the universe cares....a super nova is just fine."

Hi Code and all , thanks for letting me chime in from endtime to times.. I think the hideous is a consequence of extreme and rather sudden inequality ..in the balance . between us, ourselfes and all other species..and the balance/life-resonance/symbiotic-coherence of a self-regulating whole Unity-of-balances got torn, then falling, apart faster and faster when one species planetary role was no longer shaped by the self-aware resonance of the symbiotic composition of the whole.but by its own "smartness/imagination" and its limits! .in numbers for example..thus the resources it preffered also..out of balance..like deforestation.. 


We welcomed our "succes" and stroke our emerging micro ego/cultures, some more then others....,with glowing self admirisation wanting more..the wanting became its own and sometimes only self-awareness fractaling, without realising it was in fact a catastrophic disconnection of the whole humming paradise etc.. 

Small twitch in the disconnected fractal aka us, some sub-cultures/bubbles disconnected faster, more possesed/inevitable, and we went further to mass murder, non-bio-degradable-waste, unphanthomable wealth and power from war/WMD profiting, etc..event horizon face first eyes closed/inwards..stroking something very lonely by now..inventing/forcing hormesis and other bs to make ways, dead space, to postpone waking up from the rush/high of a omnicidal, shared without consent, mortal overdose of artificial self-importance.. 

The more one has..the more one wants..psychological dynamics statistic fact in the capitalistic sub_culture..within selfsubstainable other subcultures.. but consuming/dragging down with ourselfes..create hell for..
IT ALL...as if it was an object.. 

Full blown psychopathy..

The bacteria, microbes, and all other brothers and sisters..prey and predator... also fractaling in their own life/choice/time/space perception..are somehow mostly cooperating/resonating/balancing to chew, gather gnaw or photosynthèse whatever, with a plus everything back in to the biomass/symbiotic resonation fractaling/hum/love/light..humble as it were.. 

As above so below..interconnected..

[Code]

I enjoyed your post DUDe

[DUDe]

Thank you Code , I hope it's not over the top funny in the sense of becoming a distraction.. I appreciate your and others informative work very much..please continue.. 

DUDe

[rthsmth]

Condition

It is hideous, oh how can masses remain oblivious
The world has become more insidious in its imperiousness
Can't even find my way to a little giddiness
The creatures big and small, short and tall from us they run
Ingesting to succumb, limbs left numb
Why, why must human do what it's done
Cry, cry the spirit of life shunned
Mocked as if the trigger of a gun
Children as pawns in adult games of porn
The sickness of the ickness barely scratches the wickedness
Still one must carry on with the stun
Adrift in prairies of lies, its pollen stuck in my eyes
The bungles of our existence, the stench runs high
Still I try to find light within the human blight
My hope for all is all that keeps me right

[Code]

first, the good news;  Humans account for just 0.01% of biomass

and now, the sci-fi nightmare; humans dominated space ship earth and displaced, ate and killed everything. 

once upon a time not everything was about humans and the animals they slaughtered to eat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpLrjifXT1w

Homo Sapiens Megalomania.   Let me ask you other monkey men out there; are you OK with this?

earth animal biomass;   humans, livestock and wild animals