Orders of the food-chain to the Sun and the moral issues

Photograph by  Richard A. Whittaker



We all living beings on Earth need energy to power our bodies and there are many ways to get it, but all go to the Sun and some few of us can get it in the Prana, which is even more complex and strange for science because it’s all about cosmic energy. Carnivores eat Sun in meat just like vegetarians eat Sun in vegetables—they are both getting indirect nourishment of the Sun’s energy. Plants are much better equipped for an efficient use of energy from the Sun, they use some minerals and water to get protein (living beings building blocks) but the energy itself comes from the Sun and it’s directly absorbed by chlorophyll in photosynthesis. Plants seem to be smarter than animals at that. We, animals, need to drive energy from the Sun by eating those plants that have stored minerals and the Sun’s energy. Vegetarians are not better than carnivores they are just one step closer to the Sun, it’s a scale thing one might say. Carnivores are two steps further from the Sun if they eat vegetarian animals and they are in exponential steps further from the Sun if they eat carnivore animals.

It’s that simple. If we eat a bunch of spinach we’re getting sunlight in second hand (Sun – spinach - us), if we eat grass fed cow's meat we’re getting sunlight in third hand (Sun – grass – cow - us). If we eat wild duck's meat we may be getting sunlight in forth hand (Sun – grasses – worms – duck - us) but we may be getting it in fifth hand (Sun – algae – larvae – fish – duck - us). And what about a duck that ate a dragonfly? Dragonflies eat mosquitos among other insects and mosquitos, as we all know, feed on animals and love human blood. So in that case it’s an exponential order of food chain… it could be: Sun – grass – cow – human – mosquito – dragonfly – duck – us, but it could be a much bigger food chain and a much bigger distance to the Sun. The advantage of being a carnivore is that carnivores are eating compressed sunlight, they can get a huge amount of Sun energy in just a pound of meat, but they are usually quite far from the original source.

In this order of things the animals that are closer to the Sun—some are almost as close as plants and some even claim they are as close—are sungazers. Successful sungazers claim they are able to drive a big part of their energy needs directly from the Sun and say they eat less and less indirect sunlight energy (from plants and animals) while they get better at sungazing. Sungazing is a very sophisticated technique of feeding (and a lot more than feeding) that if done correctly can be very nutritional but if done wrongly it may harm the eyes, thus there is a strong opposition to it from the common sciences. There are several successful sungazers around the world and some have already been submitted to scientific analyses and have gone through many tests, showing that they are getting proper nutrition without eating either plants or animals, but these tests are usually found to be inconclusive because the results are considered inconceivable by most scientists. And if this is already strange for science imagine those that claim they have been without eating plants or animals and don’t sungaze? There are some few that seem to have developed a special meditation technique to get ‘feeding’ energy from Prana.

After this and only after this, comes the ethical questions of how we should act with other living beings, and in the current general belief system there is a notion that we have accumulated karma and that we can get rid of some of that burden by following some special feeding practices. It’s a bit like the food-chain that leads to the Sun but in this case in a reverse order. If we hurt sentient beings we accumulate bad karma, we all know that, so if we eat a carrot (plants are also sentient beings even if they have no central nervous system like ours) we’re accumulating one order of bad karma in distance to the Sun, if we eat a rabbit we’re accumulating two orders of bad karma in distance to the Sun, and so on. The dragonfly eating duck would mean accumulating a huge order of bad karma because we could even be getting bad karma orders from ourselves. Imagine eating omnivore animals like pork… we never know. But the number of orders on karma accumulated from eating animals is very difficult to access because we don’t even know how these animals have been treated to serve as our food-stock, it’s not only about what they eat any longer… there is a lot of bad karma there. So, the less we get sunlight energy from animals the better our karma will be, and if we can even pass without eating plants the karma will be even better.

 As to the moral issues, something that is very different from the ethical problems of feeding, if we try to enforce our own ideas on how it should be and how others should eat and so on, if we get aggressive and try to domineer carnivores into being vegetarians or ‘converting vegetarians’ into carnivores, we get even more bad karma. Each one of us knows what’s the best way to feed by themselves, and no one is in its right to judge others by what and how they feed themselves. So, as to the moral issues here in question, which are the main reason why carnivores tend to attack vegetarians, there is not really a better way to feed on the Sun’s energy but only different stages of it. And while some vegetarians may be accumulating less bad karma by not eating animals they sure are getting a huge amount of bad karma when they impose their views and think they are better morally just because they don’t eat animals.

Each person is a whole universe in itself and no one can be the measure for all.

Even if it may be biologically and karmically better to be closer to the Sun's energy in our feeding, it will never be better morally. No one should judge others by the way they feed, just like no one should judge others for what they believe in. One should only judge him/herself.

Portugal’s Unnecessary Bailout

Ilustração de João Fazenda

South Bend, Ind.

PORTUGAL’S plea for help with its debts from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union last week should be a warning to democracies everywhere.

The crisis that began with the bailouts of Greece and Ireland last year has taken an ugly turn. However, this third national request for a bailout is not really about debt. Portugal had strong economic performance in the 1990s and was managing its recovery from the global recession better than several other countries in Europe, but it has come under unfair and arbitrary pressure from bond traders, speculators and credit rating analysts who, for short-sighted or ideological reasons, have now managed to drive out one democratically elected administration and potentially tie the hands of the next one.

If left unregulated, these market forces threaten to eclipse the capacity of democratic governments — perhaps even America’s — to make their own choices about taxes and spending.

Portugal’s difficulties admittedly resemble those of Greece and Ireland: for all three countries, adoption of the euro a decade ago meant they had to cede control over their monetary policy, and a sudden increase in the risk premiums that bond markets assigned to their sovereign debt was the immediate trigger for the bailout requests.

But in Greece and Ireland the verdict of the markets reflected deep and easily identifiable economic problems. Portugal’s crisis is thoroughly different; there was not a genuine underlying crisis. The economic institutions and policies in Portugal that some financial analysts see as hopelessly flawed had achieved notable successes before this Iberian nation of 10 million was subjected to successive waves of attack by bond traders.

Market contagion and rating downgrades, starting when the magnitude of Greece’s difficulties surfaced in early 2010, have become a self-fulfilling prophecy: by raising Portugal’s borrowing costs to unsustainable levels, the rating agencies forced it to seek a bailout. The bailout has empowered those “rescuing” Portugal to push for unpopular austerity policies affecting recipients of student loans, retirement pensions, poverty relief and public salaries of all kinds.

The crisis is not of Portugal’s doing. Its accumulated debt is well below the level of nations like Italy that have not been subject to such devastating assessments. Its budget deficit is lower than that of several other European countries and has been falling quickly as a result of government efforts.

And what of the country’s growth prospects, which analysts conventionally assume to be dismal? In the first quarter of 2010, before markets pushed the interest rates on Portuguese bonds upward, the country had one of the best rates of economic recovery in the European Union. On a number of measures — industrial orders, entrepreneurial innovation, high-school achievement and export growth — Portugal has matched or even outpaced its neighbors in Southern and even Western Europe.

Why, then, has Portugal’s debt been downgraded and its economy pushed to the brink? There are two possible explanations. One is ideological skepticism of Portugal’s mixed-economy model, with its publicly supported loans to small businesses, alongside a few big state-owned companies and a robust welfare state. Market fundamentalists detest the Keynesian-style interventions in areas from Portugal’s housing policy — which averted a bubble and preserved the availability of low-cost urban rentals — to its income assistance for the poor.

A lack of historical perspective is another explanation. Portuguese living standards increased greatly in the 25 years after the democratic revolution of April 1974. In the 1990s labor productivity increased rapidly, private enterprises deepened capital investment with help from the government, and parties from both the center-right and center-left supported increases in social spending. By the century’s end the country had one of Europe’s lowest unemployment rates.

In fairness, the optimism of the 1990s gave rise to economic imbalances and excessive spending; skeptics of Portugal’s economic health point to its relative stagnation from 2000 to 2006. Even so, by the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007, the economy was again growing and joblessness was falling. The recession ended that recovery, but growth resumed in the second quarter of 2009, earlier than in other countries.

Domestic politics are not to blame. Prime Minister José Sócrates and the governing Socialists moved to cut the deficit while promoting competitiveness and maintaining social spending; the opposition insisted it could do better and forced out Mr. Sócrates this month, setting the stage for new elections in June. This is the stuff of normal politics, not a sign of disarray or incompetence as some critics of Portugal have portrayed it.

Could Europe have averted this bailout? The European Central Bank could have bought Portuguese bonds aggressively and headed off the latest panic. Regulation by the European Union and the United States of the process used by credit rating agencies to assess the creditworthiness of a country’s debt is also essential. By distorting market perceptions of Portugal’s stability, the rating agencies — whose role in fostering the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States has been amply documented — have undermined both its economic recovery and its political freedom.

In Portugal’s fate there lies a clear warning for other countries, the United States included. Portugal’s 1974 revolution inaugurated a wave of democratization that swept the globe. It is quite possible that 2011 will mark the start of a wave of encroachment on democracy by unregulated markets, with Spain, Italy or Belgium as the next potential victims.

Americans wouldn’t much like it if international institutions tried to tell New York City, or any other American municipality, to jettison rent-control laws. But that is precisely the sort of interference now befalling Portugal — just as it has Ireland and Greece, though they bore more responsibility for their fate.

Only elected governments and their leaders can ensure that this crisis does not end up undermining democratic processes. So far they seem to have left everything up to the vagaries of bond markets and rating agencies.

By ROBERT M. FISHMAN in the New Your Times

Robert M. Fishman, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, is the co-editor of “The Year of the Euro: The Cultural, Social and Political Import of Europe’s Common Currency.”

Quando é que isto vai acabar???

...a little bit better

An interesting view in how to make the world a little bit better...

The dark side of chocolate

Miki Mistrati e U. Roberto Romano, The Dark Side of Chocolate, 2010.


The Dark Side of Chocolate é um documentário sobre alegações feitas acerca do tráfico de crianças e trabalho infantil, pela indústria internacional do chocolate.

«Enquanto apreciamos o doce sabor do chocolate, a realidade é completamente diferente para as crianças africanas.»

Consumidores de chocolate por todo o mundo ficaram escandalizados em 2001, ao descobrir que a escravatura, o trabalho infantil e outros abusos, estavam em uso nas roças de cacau da Costa do Marfim, país onde se produz quase metade do cacau para todo o mundo. Cedo se seguiu uma avalanche de publicidade negativa e consumidores à procura de respostas.

Dois membros do Congresso dos Estados Unidos, o Senador Tom Harkin do Iowa e o Legislador Eliot Engel de Nova York, adereçaram a questão propondo uma lei ao Sistema Federal para certificar e etiquetar produtos de chocolate como "slave free" (sem escravatura). A medida passou à Casa dos Representantes e criou um potencial desastre económico para a Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Mars, Hershey’s, Nestle, Barry Callebaut, Saf-Cacao e outros produtores de chocolate. Para evitar uma legislação que iria obrigar as companhias do chocolate a marcar os seus produtos com etiquetas "no child labor" (sem trabalho infantil) (para a qual muitos produtores não chegariam a poder certificar-se), a indústria defendeu-se e acabou por ter de aceitar um protocolo voluntário, a implementar até 2005, para terminar com o abuso e o trabalho infantil forçado nas roças do cacau.

Em 2005 a indústria do cacau não foi capaz de cumprir com o protocolo e estabeleceu-se uma nova data para 2008. Em 2008 os princípios do protocolo continuavam sem resposta e levantou-se ainda uma outra data limite para 2010.

E em 2010?

Quase uma década depois e milhões de dólares gastos na tentativa para erradicar o tráfico de crianças e o trabalho infantil do negócio do cacau, será que alguma coisa mudou?

Miki Mistrati e U. Roberto Romano iniciaram uma investigação discreta, para averiguar se estas alegações de trabalho infantil na indústria do cacau ainda eram pertinentes na actualidade.


Março, 2010
Miki Mistrati & U. Roberto Romano



A exibir brevemente na SIC


Tradução do Skapsis

Economic hit man

John Perkins in Talking Stick about his 2004 book
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, September 21, 2007.

Caríssimos junkies, a globalização tem os dias contados

Ontem no Público online:

Estudo da Universidade do Minho

Silva Pereira reafirma linha do TGV para Porto e Vigo apesar da falta de retorno

01.02.2010 - 14:15 Por Maria Lopes

O ministro da Presidência reafirmou hoje a intenção do Governo em construir as linhas de alta velocidade Lisboa-Porto e Porto-Vigo, apesar de um estudo encomendado pelo ministério das Finanças concluir que estas terão pouco retorno ou até mesmo prejuízo.

 
Daniel Rocha

O estudo encomendado pelo ministério de Teixeira dos Santos a um professor da Universidade do Minho debruça-se sobre o pacote de grandes obras públicas projectadas pelo Governo. E conclui que os investimentos necessários para as duas linhas de TGV para Norte só a longo prazo poderão ter algum retorno no caso do troço Lisboa-Porto e que o as contas do lanço Porto-Vigo deverão mesmo ser sempre negativas. A excepção a este cenário cinzento é a linha Lisboa-Madrid.

Questionado pelos jornalistas na conferência de imprensa sobre a reunião extraordinária do Conselho de Ministros, Pedro Silva Pereira desvalorizou as conclusões do estudo e lembrou que “todos os investimentos implicam, numa primeira fase, um endividamento”. No caso do TGV, vincou, “são investimentos que promovem, a prazo, o retorno para a economia”, e “as análises de custo-benefício são favoráveis a esses investimentos”.

“Não podemos confundir as lógicas de curto prazo com as lógicas estruturais. E o país está numa fase em que precisa de fazer escolhas estruturais”, afirmou. E avisou que Portugal “não pode demorar décadas a discutir os investimentos”, como “os 50 anos para discutir o Alqueva, 40 para o novo aeroporto, e 20 para a alta velocidade”.

“O estudo confirma que estes investimentos são úteis e modernizadores da economia portuguesa”, reiterou o ministro.

um comentário interessante:

Jorge Matias, Lisboa, Portugal. 02.02.2010 00:17

Necessidade do TGV

Já alguém pensou como vamos transportar mercadorias de/para a Europa quando já não houver petróleo, ou quando este estiver demasiado caro para ser rentável? Certamente não será com nenhum meio de transporte que consuma um derivado do combustível fóssil. Pois bem, é preciso criar linhas de comboio novas para transportar as pessoas, uma vez que as actuais farão falta para o transporte das mercadorias. (Sim, eu sei que as auto-motoras trabalham a gasóleo. Será preciso fazer também alguma coisa acerca disto) Espero que vejam as pessoas tenham a capacidade de ver as necessidades do País a longo prazo. É que para construir infra-estruturas, a nossa indsútria também se alimenta de petróleo. E se este líquido precioso não existir, a construção de uma linha férrea será muito mais cara. Nessa altura Portugal ficará definitivamente isolado da Europa e do Mundo à espera de uma alternativa energética. A propósito, Portugal não tem necessariamente que comprar comboios. Desde que hava linhas de TGV, os espanhóis e os franceses podem explorá-las. Alguém que me corriga se eu estiver errado no que disse.

 Pois é, já nos pusemos a pensar sobre um futuro relativamente próximo sem petróleo? Sem aviões, sem carros, sem máquinas agrícolas, sem transportes baratos ou rápidos, com uma redução esmagadora na produção de todo o sector industrial do mundo... uma lista infindável de itens que actualmente temos como de absoluta necessidade. Estamos de tal modo viciados numa economia de consumo dos combustíveis fosseis (para não falar dos outros consumos que nos tornaram autênticos junkies) que já não somos capazes de ver o buraco em que nos metemos.

Concordamos com a construção do TGV? Hummm. A resposta imediata é não... claro! Caríssimo, pouco rentável, para minorias, etc, etc, etc. Mas se nos pusermos a pensar nas implicações de um futuro próximo sem petróleo ou energia alternativa que o substitua, a reposta já não pode ser tão leve ou superficial.

Um mundo sem petróleo... ora aí está uma matéria interessante a dar muito que pensar.

Internet

S.G.Collins, The Internet Revealed, 2008.

Vencedor do concurso Euro-IX Film Competition.

Freedom of sharing cultural ideas...

Peter Sunde e Fredrik Neij numa intervista
de 2007 para o Dayrobber.com.

No curso deste mês, a empresa de publicidade GGF (Global Gaming Factory) levará a cabo a aquisição da página de partilha via BitTorrent através de P2P, The Pirate Bay. Hans Pandeya, CEO da GGF, diz-nos que...

"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site. The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."