FishbellykanakaDude wrote:
> The necessity of something happening can't be determined before it
> happens, though many things are utterly inevitable.
> We will all die. That is inevitable. When any one person will die
> is "a mystery". Being "saved" by a "miracle" is neither inevitable
> nor a necessity,.. unless the miracle happens, and then it was a
> necessity.
> The tautology that "what is is" is a tautology, but it's also the
> truth.
> If it happened, it had to happen, because it did happen.
The concept that if something happened then it had to happen
is fascinating, and is something that I believe is mostly true.
In my own personal life. there have been some "pivot points" where, if
I'd asked out such-and-such a girl or if I'd gone on such-and-such a
job interview, then my life would have changed direction in some
aspects. But outside of a few dozen such pivot points, I see my life
as almost preordained.
This is also a Greek concept. I've written many times about
Greek tragedy.
John wrote:
> The Greeks invented tragedy, and three of four great tragic
> artists of all time were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides of
> ancient Greece, with the fourth being Shakespeare. As a Greek, I
> understand tragedy very well. The essence of Greek tragedy is
> that the tragic event it not random, but is inevitable, because of
> the nature, the personality, the character of the protagonists. A
> true tragedy cannot be prevented, even by those who foresee it,
> because the forces bringing about the tragedy are too powerful for
> anyone to stop.
This captures the idea that if a tragedy happened, then it had
to happen.
This is also related to the basic Generational Dynamics principles.
As I've written many times, it's a core principle of Generational
Dynamics that, even in a dictatorship, major decisions are made by
masses of people, by generations of people. The attitudes of
politicians are irrelevant, except insofar as they represent the
attitudes of the people. Generational Dynamics cannot predict what
any individual or small group of individuals will do, but it does
predict that great masses of people or entire generations will do.
Therefore, whatever happens had to happen, and Generational Dynamics
tries to figure out what has to happen BEFORE it happens.
Tom Mazanec wrote:
> What if it turns out that there is no technological solution? Some
> very smart people say that there isn't. Rome had a barbarian
> problem. It became so bad that a solution had to be found for
> civilization to continue. No solution was found. It would be a
> millennium before the Renaissance finally came.
The solution isn't necessarily technological.
There's another saying: If something can't go on forever, then it
won't.
This statement is usually invoked in the context of global finance.
The US and other countries have exponentially growing levels of
government and private debate, creating enormous distortions.
Politicians always say "we have to do something about this, blah,
blah, blah" as they vote to spend more money. This cannot go on
forever, so it won't. It has no technological solution, but it does
have a financial solution: a massive global deleveraging crisis.
Other things that can't go on forever are resolved by war.
Some things that can't go on forever have a technological solution.
Horse manure is one of them. Is carbon emissions one of those? There
are scientists who say that this problem will take care of itself with
no human intervention, because the earth will adapt to the higher
carbon emissions. But if that doesn't happen, then there are still
other solutions, as I've described -- world war and technology. But,
one way or another, if it can't go on forever, then it won't.