120. Nasruddin’s Donkey for Sale
“That wretched donkey of mine ran away again,” said Nasruddin. “If he ever comes back, I’ll sell him for a single copper coin!”
The donkey came back, and Nasruddin regretted his reckless oath.
So, he took the cat, who was the donkey’s playmate, and put the cat in the donkey’s saddlebag. Then he went to the market.
“Buy this fine donkey for just one copper coin!” Nasruddin shouted. “But you must buy the cat too; the donkey would be heartbroken without him.”
“How much for the cat?” someone asked.
“The cat will cost you one hundred silver coins,” Nasruddin replied.
This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-202The2 Laura Gibbs
There was light rain during New Year Eve with a lot of clouds and a forecast of more rain to come yesterday. I didn’t walk in the afternoon of New Year Eve because I had been cold during the morning walk and it didn’t warm up much during the day — the high temp for the day was 52. So starting the year off by staying close to the Wave 6 inside Desperado.
It is just as well, I needed to get my month end household chores done. setting up my futon bed cut into the time I would usually be doing that. The sleeping arrangement has worked out fine so far. When it gets below freezing I’ll find out how well it is then. HA
I have not quoted from Forecast 2026: In the Vortex of the Whirl which is James Howard Kunstler’s annual predictions for what is coming in the new year. It is very long but worth your time to read what he has to say.
These are the facts about cell phones which almost every corporation and government body requires you have and provide the telephone number before you can get buy anything or get service from them. At the same time they require you to jump through multiple hoops to access you account on their website.
The bewildering truth behind human technological enslavement is that it is impossible without the voluntary participation of the intended slaves. People must welcome technocracy into their lives in order for it to succeed. The populace has to believe, blindly, that they cannot live without it, or that authoritarianism by algorithmic consensus is “inevitable.”For example, the average person living in a first world economy voluntarily carries a cell phone everywhere they go at all times without fail. To be without it, in their minds, is to be naked, at risk, unprepared and disconnected from civilization. I grew up in the 1980s and we did just fine without having a phone on our hip every moment of the day. Even now, I refuse to carry one.
Why? First, as most people should be aware of by now (the Edward Snowden revelations left no doubt), a cell phone is a perfect technocratic device. It has multilayered tracking, using GPS, WiFi routers, and cell tower triangulation to track your every step. Not only that, but it can be used to record your daily patterns, your habits, who your friends are, where you were on any given day many months or years ago.
Then there’s the backdoor functions hidden in app software that allows governments and corporations to to access your cell’s microphone and camera, even when you think the device is shut off. The private details of your life could be recorded and collated. In a world where privacy is being declared “dead” by boasting technocrats, why help them out by carrying something that listens to everything you say and chronicles everything you do? — Is Global Technocracy Inevitable Or Dangerously Delusional? by Brandon Smith