Category: Geopolitics

Is Knowledge Important ?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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“ The knowledge economy, or knowledge-based economy, is an economic system in which the production of goods and services is primarily driven by knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to the advancement of technical and scientific innovation. The key element of value in this paradigm lies in the increased reliance on human capital and intellectual property as primary sources of innovative ideas, information, and practices. Organizations are called upon to leverage this “knowledge” in their production processes to stimulate and consolidate their business development. This approach is characterized by reduced dependence on physical inputs and natural resources. A knowledge-based economy is founded on the crucial role of intangible assets within organisations as an enabler of modern economic growth.”

Excerpted from Wikipedia

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There are various schools of thought which suggest that in modern times knowledge is a key factor in economic success. That knowledge must be commercially exploitable and can include skills and artisanal know-how. As recent world events suggest, access to natural resources remains of high geo-political importance. Venezuelan oil being an obvious marker.

In my view this schematic is a tad idealistic, it does not mention socio-political barriers and vested interests. One might say that recent changes in US policy have moved away from the notion of a knowledge economy back towards gun boat aircraft carrier diplomacy.

Just like AI has been shown to hallucinate it is a moot point as to whether the so-called AI investment boom is also a group or herd like hallucination among humans. FOMO investments can have bubble-bursts.

The knowledge which has pecuniary value relates only to profit. There is little attention paid to altruistic knowledge. To live only for profit and gain is unbalanced. In the eyes of some there may be more to life and living than that. Not everyone agrees.

One could argue that I am an example of how the so-called knowledge economy failed to make use of a resource. It failed. I failed. Either way I am now retired and doing gardening and DIY.

“You lose what you do not use.”

Is an axiom which has perhaps wide applicability. Knowledge which is not applied and practised can no longer be recalled. The edge of its blade becomes blunted by rust. Slowly like an untended path in the woods it becomes overgrown, deserted and before long nobody remembers that it is there or ever was there. As an older person I have seen how scientific knowledge from many decades ago has to be reinvented because people cannot find it so easily in online search engines. Because search engines are now biased to the fee paying advertiser, much knowledge is now lost in far flung unvisited corners of the internet, there to gather spiders and webs.

It is reasonable to assume that whatever knowledge I may have will die with me. That may not be a great loss but it is an example, of how people may talk a good game. But when push comes to shove knowledge is rarely as important as self-promotion. There is nobody queuing up to learn from me. And by now I am too hermit-like to converse.

There is a danger that human evolution, despite all the advances in technology, is taking a backward step towards a new dark age. An age where image and sound-byte becomes a new Goebbels-reality. An age where short snappy mind numbing mantra replace thought and consideration. An age in which metrics and graphs bury substance and worth in cold clammy tombs. Bullet point thinking is not knowledge and not wisdom.

I think popularity and fame have removed knowledge and wisdom from the mantelpiece above our hearths. Shiny, flashy and chav dominate; viral despite COVID remains a term indicative of success.

It may seem strange but I think that the pool of available knowledge is actually shrinking, it is becoming more standardised and subject to peer approval. Loss of diversity is generally bad for ecosystem; it is an indicator of environmental decline.

I think that genuine knowledge is becoming much less important than claimed or asserted knowledge. The tendency is away from the unfathomable and profound towards the safety of the shallows and the common. I suspect that reputation has become more important than knowledge.

Once diversity has been lost it is very hard to replace. Same is not often best. Clone-think tends to be counter-evolutionary.

Once knowledge has been lost it is not easily restored. Value for money seems to be the main arbiter of which knowledge survives and is nurtured. There is a very short term outlook.

Sometimes we are so stubborn, adamant and omniscient that we can only learn through loss.

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“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Native American Proverb

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They Paved Paradise, Put Up A Parking Lot

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Don’t it always seem to go

You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone

Joni Mitchell             

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The human ability to look at the shiny, the immediate, the trendy, the popular, the short term and the otherwise glamorous is well developed. People can fail to think things through. They can be petty and reactive.

Right now people are being persuaded that climate change is a bit of a con. This by people who want profit and personal gain. There is greenwashing and sportswashing. The popularist may claim net zero as a loony ultra-far-left ideology from their soap box.

“Vote for me, fuck the planet.” Seems to be one of the new mantra.

There are a lot of babies thrown out with the bathwater.

Afraid of facing up to a reality there can be a tendency for head in the sand cross fingers and hope “strategies”. People do not wish to see that which may be inconvenient to them or for them.

This form of put off today and maybe pay later thinking, is debt based. Tomorrow may never come so let’s make hay…anyone who disagrees is a fun sponge. Debt is however karmically bad.

The decision not to act is an action. A decision to prevaricate and procrastinate is a decision, nevertheless. This may be the path of least resistance. It seems less risky. When in fact it is very risky indeed. Procrastination is a risky endeavour. One whose risks are often ignored or downgraded in importance. Procrastination seems convenient.

More often than not the time for anything is now or much closer to now than many are willing to accept. One day tomorrow never comes…

What we value may change with the benefit of retrospect and hindsight. Yet the easy is more often chosen than the “difficult” even after hindsight has offered us lessons.

Learning by and through loss is something that can occur. The lessons of loss may not be accepted readily. Repetition may be needed. People can be slow learners.

It takes a while to understand that the overtly shiny bauble, the overtly enticing power, the seemingly offered advantage may not be all that it is first cracked up to be. Temptation by the shiny can lead to the loss of that which holds much deeper value and perhaps import. Fickle are humans. A quick fix, a sticking plaster is rarely a sound solution.

Humans are perhaps more primitive than they might like to admit. Shiny…

This time of year with the festivities in full swing can bring with it the metaphorical ghosts of Christmas past. They may rattle their chains in the psyche. Stuff can come out of the woodwork…

It is a weird time of year.

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Don’t it always seem to go

You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone

Joni Mitchell             

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EUV Jobs in China?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This morning I came upon this article on Reuters:

“Exclusive: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

SINGAPORE, Dec 17 (Reuters) – In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned.

Completed in early 2025 and now undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or EUVs, according to two people with knowledge of the project.”

Click here for full article

It seems the semiconductor industry in China is offering good salaries, monthly housing allowances and accelerated visa clearances. It is trying to attract inward highly technological immigration. It is not trying to stop or limit talent from other countries.

As someone who designed an EUV prototype it makes me wonder what took them so long. Maybe I might be employable after all…

The article goes on to suggest that there has been recent Chinese patent filing in EUV. Huawei are involved as is the state. ASML have literally hundreds of EUV related patents, which cannot easily be enforced globally.

They aim to produce chips in a few years – no mean feat!!

two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

Pink Floyd

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The {western} world lacks courage to even begin to question the way it “lives”. It is largely comfortable, though bored. It is comfortably numb. It goes through the motions of life; it exists as opposed to lives. Life is repetitive. There is not enough entertainment generated by {AI} algorithm on Netflix and the like. Net-fix can be had from the data pushers at around ten euros a month. There is a repetitive mediocrity similar to the 1970s middle of the road, which at least gave painful birth to punk. The world is in a “safe” doldrum numbed by the opiates of social media and endless trite imagery. It slices itself with plastic surgery, fills itself with chemicals and scars with tattoo. Allegedly mental health is in decline. The notion of being offended and entitled is pervasive. Complaint is all around us. And all we hear about these days upon the high altar is “deal” none of which are permanent, nor worth the paper upon which they are written. The insidious mantra percolates. A deal is professed as the answer.

The fear of being cancelled is a new 21st century one. Incorrect usage of Newspeak has the baying mob of vigilante thought police at the door. A polished glossy fake mediocrity is the ticket to fame and fortune. We have grey as a pervasive life tone. Table turning, upsetting the apple cart or boat rocking, are taboo. Against this the quasi-fascist nationalist right wing grows more vocal and separative.

Remember folks we tried nationalist fascism last century and it did not go so well…

People who are generally comfortable are very risk averse. They fear missing out on the latest trend or fad. They dread being shunned by whichever tribe they imagine a belonging to. It seems human folly is more addictive than ever. They will not twist; they stick with the cards they have. Because the erroneous notions of guarantee and proof beforehand, have taken hold. No bodhisattva has ever given a Tripadvisor five star rating for their journey. Click on to the next web page. There is no proof it will work. There are no “reliable” ratings.

I’ll speculate that humanity is indeed lost and directionless. While comfortable there is no compulsion to do anything whatsoever. We can sit on the sofa with our home delivered food clicking through hundreds of channels of shit on the TV and internet. Maybe we find something that piques our interest for the first series. We watch the second series knowing well that it will not be as good. Like a coke-head, the subsequent lines do not give the same hit. The novelty has worn off.

So what do we do? Maybe a little more retail therapy? Perhaps some more inane social media posts? Or we can eat drink and shag ourselves stupid. The NHS will clear up the mess…

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We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

Pink Floyd

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Are Prophecies Powerful?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Insofar as they have a huge hold on the wish-life of human consciousness, yes. They also add spice to the narratives in fiction and cinema. Who has not heard of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? The prophet Higgs foretold a boson which now bears his name, billions of dollars later. The newspaper red tops like to quote the utterings of a blind eastern European woman. We may need to excise and inspect the entrails of an ox. The tea leaves foretold a dark handsome stranger though they did not mention his HIV status.

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People can look to prophetic fulfilment and imagine that they are acting in accord with a pre-ordained destiny if they strive to manifest what they think a prophecy means. How they try to manifest  prophecy may suit their preferences and biases. They may refer to their holy books and say, “God ordained that this was our land”. This as if a human authored text is binding in a court of international law. Proof of authorship my Lord? We can get into arguments as to whose God is bigger, harder, more omniscient and more important. Whose God has shares in Lockheed Martin. Many people have died according to human interpretation as to what God is alleged to have said, wished and desired. One could say that it comes down to whose imaginary friend is the more potent. One may seek to precipitate Armageddon because it was written. One has no idea as to which prophecies people are trying to enact or are perhaps beholden to.

The notion of prophecy and things foretold runs through human history, human imagination and human religion. Were it not for the dreams of the pharaoh and Joseph, the Egyptians would have starved. Foretelling is an attractive notion. People hold prophecies in their religious texts as gospel, literally. There is something otherworldly about prophecy and even the ardent sceptic senses something, a hint of it, wafting on the breeze. Prophecy around the campfire and by candlelight enraptures more, a sophisticated ritual oracle becomes near definitive. The shaman says and so it will be. People may resist the prophecy only for it to manifest verbatim in a totally unlikely and perhaps infeasible way. To doubt prophecy is to spit arrogantly in the eyes of the Fates, to defy the will of Olympus.

Humans may not be as scientific and rational as they profess. Some things run primordial in our veins.

Of course the most powerful prophecies are the secret ones, hidden, far from the eyes of the profane. These secret prophecies are only for the adepts, the in-crowd and the big cheeses. They are written in arcane runic script by the Bards for eyes of their Kings. They are etched in stone and jewel. And these prophecies are often about power and things of global import. They speak to the fate of the planet, of kingdoms and of mankind. The prophecies of climate change are discounted because they lack the shaman’s hocus pocus. They have spectacles and beards, simulations and error bars. They are cold and graphical. Time will tell on the incoming disasters wrought by human folly, the belief that there is always tomorrow. If true the foretold will come around no matter what the nay-sayers wish. It was written and prophesised thus and in peer reviewed journals.

A flavour of the enticing nature of prophecy can be found in The Secret Doctrine.

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Yet this secrecy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening, since they alone – the Initiates of India and Tibet – could thoroughly dissipate the thick mists hanging over the history of Occultism, and force its claims to be recognized. The Delphic injunction “Know Thyself”, seems for few in this age. But the fault ought not be laid at the door of the Adepts, who have done all that could be done, and have gone as far as Their rules permitted, to open the eyes of the world. Only while the European shrinks from public obloquy and the ridicule unsparingly thrown on Occultsists, the Asiatic is being discouraged by his own Pandits. These profess to labour under the gloomy impression that no Bija Vidyǎ, no Arhatship (Adeptship), is possible during the Kali Yuga ( the “Black Age”) we are now passing through. Even the Buddhists are taught that the Lord Buddha is alleged to have prophesised that the power would die out in “one millennium after His death”.  But this is an entire mistake. In the Digha Nikǎya the Buddha says:

Hear, Subhadra; The world will never be without Rahats, if the ascetics in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts.

A similar contradiction of the view brought forward by the Brahmans is made my Krishna in the Bhagavd Gita, and there is further actual appearance of many Saddhus and miracle-workers in the past, and even in the present age. The same holds good for China and Tibet. Among the commandments of Tsong-Kha-pa there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats) to make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the “white barbarians”, every century, at a certain specified period of the cycle. Up to the present day none of these attempts have been very successful. Failure has followed failure. Have we to explain the fact by the light of a certain prophecy? It is said that up to the time when Pban-chhen-rin-po-chhe (The Great Jewel of Wisdom) condescends to be reborn in the land of the P’helings (Westerners) and appearing as Spiritual Conqueror (Chom-den-da), destroys the errors and ignorance of the ages, it will be of little use to try to uproot the misconceptions of P’heling Pa (Europe): her sons will listen to no one. Another prophecy declares that the Secret Doctrine shall remain in all its purity in Bhod-yul (Tibet), only to the day that is kept free from foreign invasion. The very visits of Western natives, however friendly, would be baneful to the Tibetan populations. This is the true key to Tibetan exclusiveness.

Page 396, The Secret Doctrine, Volume V, Adyar Edition, (1950), H.P.Blavatsky,

The Theosophical Publishing House, London UK.

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Written long ago she writes of Tsongkhapa and the Panchen Lama. The succession in Tibet now of political import after the invasion decades after her writing. Now there are “two” Panchen Lamas and an ageing Dalai Lama.

The problem with prophecy is that political narrative can be adapted to fit and thereby claim provenance. Human resourcefulness remains. The desire to spin and use propaganda is strong and a prophetic belief in supremacy can fuel war and destruction. The crusader set sail to the {un} Holy Land to claim some turf in the name of his God. Imagined Divine right fertilises the soil with blood, bone and sinew. The cleavage of body by sword and munition seems justified in the minds and perhaps hearts of the brutal, punitive and primitive.

Not a lot changes. Humans do the same thing over and over. They may even cite the supposed glory of victorious precedent. It is not very evolved.

The impact of prophecy on human doings and history is profound. So yes, prophecy is powerful. It is also very weird in the magical sense of the word weird. Prophecy is a harbinger of portent. It is a messenger of sorts. Of course all good prophecies need to be vague and to an extent open to interpretation.

These ones always comes true.

Interesting Concepts – Spiritual Hierarchy

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

The dream previous points to a real life tricky situation.

I had  visions going on with me having “om mane padme hum” tattooed on my forearms and the sensation of monastic robes. I had these walking down Brixton Hill, on the Victoria Line and sometimes whilst giving lectures on Chemical Reaction Kinetics. What to do? Should I tell my line manager? Should I pop over to human resources? I doubt they had a precedent or a protocol.{ Yes we do! Filed here under B for Buddhist visions, what to do , how to manage them and legal precedents.} Should I tell my GP doctor and risk getting sectioned? At the time I was not reading Buddhist literature nor in any contact with any sangha. So I decided to keep these things to myself. I was 95% certain what these visions inferred to me and for me.

This was a part and parcel of my journey into things non bog standard, esoteric even. Some of the science experiments I did at the time were fairly fancy tending to arcane.

From time to time an idea or concept captures my imagination. In the blue books opus by Kuhl and Bailey there is significant mention of “The Externalisation of the Hierarchy”. This is clearly an archaic terminology. But I liked the idea. People who were evolved had taken a back seat in human affairs. Now there was to be a mass incarnation event whereby all the “good guys” started arriving en masse with a view to changing the world. This effort was to be headed up by highly evolved beings known as masters who had ashrams under their tutelage. Slowly over an unspecified time all these beings would take their place as and among humanity. There would be disciples in training and initiates of various degree. There would be a stage of the forerunner and an externalisation proper.

If you do an image search for ascended masters you will get a lot of “glowing” images pastel in hue with aura / haloes and sparkly eyes. There will be a predominance of males and white caucasians as masters. They will look a bit chavvy and kitsch, dependent on your personal taste. The images are not to my preference. They hint at bias in the portrayers.

In the opus the outline of the externalisation is sketchy in detail. When I read it for the first time my initial reaction was that the scale was small, there were far too few people to have a global impact. Since it was written the global human number has rocketed towards the ten billion mark. My reason suggests that were this indeed happening seriously then the scope outlined in public and in writing would only be the merest tip of an iceberg. The opus suggests that people may not be aware if they are a disciple or an initiate at first. They may develop an inkling even a knowing in due course.

Kuhl does not discuss the difficulties inherent in the manifestation of such a thing. It is pretty obvious that there would be resistance to such a putative series of events. People of power and high socio-political status are unlikely to want to listen to some whacko who may or may not be  an adept of wisdom. In the early stages of such a process, failure would be very common indeed. Slowly, very slowly, after many failures, the collective bastions against might start to weaken. Those obsessed in materiality will resist fiercely, even if it were to offer a form of salvation for them.

Kuhl offers no timescale no Microsoft Planner or Gant chart.

It is well known in military circles that no plan EVER survives first contact.

In his outline he mentions the second ray love-wisdom effort, to which it seems I pertain in that context. This means that I should perhaps resonate with Kuhl and Koot Humi as my “spiritual generals” of sorts. We would be on a similar wavelength so to speak. In principle I might be able to establish contact with them. Though by mundane biological chronology they would be very old indeed, well past Guiness Book of Records scale. I could say that we “met” in triangulation last night and nobody could prove me right or wrong. I could make umpteen non substantiable claims. There may be the simply impressionable misguided and those taking advantage among us.

One of the key themes in the opus is Goodwill to ALL of Humanity. At the moment we see an upsurge in xenophobic hatred. The flames are fanned by the so called right wing using a point of grievance to stir up bile and anger. Like a mob at the Roman Colosseum they bay for the blood of the foreigner, the immigrant, especially the differently coloured.

This primitive group-mind savagery is easily stirred. It seems things might/must get much much worse.

In the vein of esoteric thought the incarnation of the “good guys” will precipitate more action by the “bad guys” the hateful, the vengeful and the separative. One could see the rise in nasty separative isolationist ME thinking as being an indicator that the externalisation mentioned by Kuhl is underway.

In and around now Kuhl mooted that the age of the forerunner will be drawing to a close. Although this might offer hope it also points at things getting worse before that hope can take seed and bear fruit. Those of a calm persuasion will note that the deterioration is  first necessary and may even be seen as an auspicious sign that all is in hand.

It is an interesting notion that of a timed mass incarnation. Timed to occur when the need grows as humanity has forgotten the brutal lessons of the 1914-1945 global conflict. We see slaughter of the defenceless by state of the art American munitions in Gaza. The rock in the sling is no match for a Lockheed Martin F35. It is brutal bullying plain and simple. The invasion of Ukraine has invented a new twist in human conflict a new form of war, drone war.

If humans turned their ingenuity to goodwill instead of violence who knows what that ingenuity might achieve…

The world needs one massive wakeup call as is sleepwalks deeper into climate crisis overcome with petty squabbles and quibbles. It is time for humanity to get out of the sandpit and take responsibility. It is time to grow up.

Maybe the notion put forward by Kuhl is exactly what the world needs in and around now!!

Humanity Needs a Reboot – Probably a Cataclysm

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

As the end of one earth birth year comes and another starts, I tend to reflect and have a guess at what may be to come. The most obvious for me (us) might be a pair of replacement hips which offer the possibility of reduced pain and enhanced mobility. There is no guarantee, I could also cark it. Physical plane life looks relatively simple with little deviation from the current trajectory on compound, though with reduced gardening.

What is so obvious to me is that humanity is not focussed on the big climate elephant in the room. Running lemming like into its orgy of acquisitional hedonistic show-and-tell materialism it is distracted and complacent. It allows the petroleum industry to sports wash and sabotage plastics conferences. It has cheerleaders in the USA. AI won’t be much use as the reservoirs empty; the forests burn and the cities flood. The crocodiles can feed on corpses. But let’s hype the hype and feed the energy-vampire water-sucking server farms, it is good for the wallets of the mega-rich. It keeps humanity distracted with robot Olympics and more energy voracious ‘phones and the endless petabytes of vacuous images.

Were anyone to ask me what humanity needs, I would say a complete reboot. I don’t mean this in the sense of flogging a dead horse movie franchise further to death. I mean a complete and utter reboot, a new operating system and a complete new age. I can see no way of this happening without a massive and global scale cataclysm. The old ways will need wiped out. People will need to think again and learn from their wastrel past. It seems that it cannot be a slowly stepwise process. In needs shock and awe to wake humanity from its slumber. The scale of the cataclysm needs to match the scale of the problem. It needs to be big. I have mentioned before that a nuclear winter is possibly a solution for global warming. Humanity is currently calling forth cataclysm. It is sleepwalking into it and gobbing off all the while.

Were anyone to ask me what humanity needs this would be my reply and my advice.