The Tar Sands are America’s tar heroin. We are junkies in search of a fix. We don’t care if it’s the bottom of the barrel drug or the deadly threat it might pose to our health, we are addicted and we need our fix.
"Addiction is about a lot more than people behaving badly," says Dr Michael Miller of the American Society for Addiction Medicine.
Addiction generally is described by its behavioral symptoms: the highs, the cravings, and the things people will do to achieve one and avoid the other.
Two decades of neuroscience have uncovered how addiction hijacks different parts of the brain, to explain what prompts those behaviors and why they can be so hard to overcome.
http://www.news.com.au/...
I challenge the notion that humans' greatest instinct is self preservation. I believe it is self gratification. We will do anything to get the high, to feel pleasure, to feed our addiction, even to the extent of doing something that would threaten our own well being or that of the world we depend on.
This was the fundamental mistake Greenspan made in regards to self regulated markets. He was sure that those who controlled the markets would not endanger them with fraud or abuse, but he didn’t figure on the overwhelming greedy, self gratifying, addictive need of humans. We would rather have instant gratification than think about long term consequences.
"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," Greenspan said.
Waxman pushed the former Fed chief, who left office in 2006, to clarify his explanation.
"In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working," Waxman said.
"Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan replied. "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
See how we can so easily fool ourselves into thinking everything is fine until it collapses. It also explains how
Anthony Weiner could do something that cost him his career for a few seconds of exposure on twitter.
Never underestimate the power of addiction whether it is drugs, cigarettes, money or oil.
Daniel Akst’s book “We Have Met the Enemy.” It is subtitled “Self-Control in an Age of Excess
So, why do we have such difficulty making the choices we know are in our own best interest?
Akst’s research indicates the future is too often the loser when a pleasant temptation is before us. He calls this “discounting the future.” It’s the human tendency to place excessive value on rewards that are nearer in time. He adds that we don’t just value near more than far; we value it disproportionately.
http://www.svherald.com/...
Look no further than Easter Island for proof of my theory. The people surely had to know that they were close to cutting down the last tree. They had to know that their way of life and what they believed would end when they did. But they did it anyway. And in the end they were left with a bunch of ugly stone monuments to remind them that they destroyed their Island for something they can’t eat. Where was their self preservation instinct? How could they just ignore the signs staring them in the face? Their gratification/addiction instinct took over and consequences be damned.
Humans on a world stage act no differently. Remove the restrictions and regulations on markets and they will become casinos and crash. Make war, even when you have no money, until your empire collapses. Seek out every drop of oil on the planet, no matter how dirty or if it is in the middle of an ocean, or how many trees you have to cut down to get it. Mine every piece of coal even if you have to remove mountains to get it. We are addicted and our craving must be satisfied. Greed is more powerful than self control. Addiction is more powerful than preservation. Fuck the planet.
The only remaining question is: Do we really have a self preservation instinct to save us, or will we kill ourselves and destroy our planet in the pursuit of addiction and self gratification?
2:34 PM PT: The Easter Islanders had to look around themselves and say, “Well, there’s only five trees left, let’s fight over them.” Oops, guess there’s only two trees left, might as well cut em down.” And then, maybe, they thought , “What the hell did we do?” before they started cannibalizing each other. Was there remorse in every bite of flesh? Or hunger? Or both?
We put ourselves above the rest of the animal kingdom, saying we have superior thinking abilities that allow us to think ahead and foresee future consequences and plan accordingly. But do we use it? Or, are our more animal instincts ultimately the rulers over what we do?
We will invest money, energy and effort to squeeze every drop of oil out of the Tar Sands, environment be damned, and anywhere else we can find it, rather than say, “Maybe, it’s time to do something different. Maybe, it’s time to think long term rather than short term. Maybe it’s better to make sacrifices now for the future. Maybe, the environment is more important than profits. Maybe it’s time to withdraw from our addiction before we go cold turkey.” But when you are junkies, you won’t quit till you have hit bottom, and gotten every drop of tar heroin/tar oil you can find, until you can’t find anymore. And then you will start eating each other.