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After listening to many discourses and theories on predictions for the future, the most flawed concepts and predictions surround the idea of barter and bartering. Ask anyone who has engaged in barter, from a child at recess, to a scientist trading information with another scientist, or a computer gamer in a virtual environment, or a person living in a tribal system with limited technology, barter is fun. And there are few things that rival the pleasure of a good trade.

Barter is a social act that is different from purchasing something with a currency intermediary, and it is significantly different from borrowing or rotating items.

The first difference is when you own something, there can be an emotional attachment to the item. And the person who is bartering often has an attachment to the items he or she is offering to barter with. So when you make a trade, and even in the process of he barter, actual adrenaline and other physical chemicals can be released into the bloodstream as a result of the anticipation, anxiety, and completion of a good bartering session. So this makes the experience of bartering very interactive and enjoyable for some people.

Bartering can make someone reinforce his or her individuality and or capability to conform to social standards and norms. And that is a fun and entertaining process. Being a human being is more than just simply having needs met and leisure time. We like to simultaneously fit in with the greater community, as well as differentiate ourselves either through, persona, style, personality, influence, knowledge and a myriad of other attributes.

When I think of people who suggest a system of minimal suffering and maximum abundance of optimally created products that are distributed by a centralized authority, I can see how they are attempting to alleviate suffering through thought experiment and alternative systems theory. But the road to a migraine is paved with good intentions. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the very proponents of these systems that intentionally limit choice in the name of resource security eventually become the very champions of reverting such oppressive systems back to the freedom inherent in bartering.

In actuality, barter is the most widely used form of transaction, even in today’s market economy. This may seem counter-intuitive, but think about you and your friends and family. You actually trade goods and services every day without a second thought. Think about car pools, or household chores, or websites that disseminate information freely in exchange for visitors that improve the site’s popularity and Alexa ranking. Technically speaking, the most widely bartered item in he world economy today is quite simply, your time.

Bartering one’s free time is an often unconscious and sublimated act that is the basis of strong friendships and healthy familial relationships. And regardless of how plentiful and abundant a system can create goods for use and rotation, some people and their respective personalities and insights will be appreciated by their community and they will be compensated.

The interaction that people have with one another is one of the principle factors that make us feel human. And any excuse to come together and exchange is often pretense for a greater longing for companionship and comradeship. Being a human being has much less to do with the amount of food on the table, as it does with he people we share it with.

-Tyler

Possible Unicorn origins

With all this current interest in unicorns lately, I decided to shed some light into my own research into the subject. I read an article on Wikipedia that talks about the possible origins of unicorns. They discuss that in the Indus valley there are cylinder seals that have images of an ancient creature that resembles a unicorn. Although this is interesting, the actual books that I’ve read on ancient Sumer and the few chapters I’ve read on Indo-Sumerian seals suggest a much more plausible origin for the mythological beasts. In very ancient times, many depictions of animals were done in 2D. The artists for the Sumerian civilization didn’t use isometric drawing for animals. So even though they made sculptures of animals in three dimensions, the engravings, carvings, and etchings, were primarily done in two dimensional profiles.

One such animal that was of primary importance for the Ancient Sumerians was the bull. The bulls back then were the primary form of useful currency. In many ways, bulls were valued more than gold.

The reason why bulls were depicted so often in tablets and cylinder seals, was because the keeping of financial records was extremely important. These transactions were the basis of tracking wealth and organizing one’s inventory of their most important resources.

As we all know, bulls have two horns. So at first glance, they couldn’t possibly be the origin of unicorns. But in fact if you look at how bulls were portrayed in 2D profile, they look like they only have one horn. This is because the artists most likely felt that since the bulls’ horns were symmetrical, and everyone knew bulls had two horns. So people could determine that the cylinder seal was depicting a bull even if they only drew one horn.

There are many instances of Sumerian artists actually doing the opposite and carving both horns into the pictures. But these pictures look kind of funny. I can see why some artists chose to omit the second horn.

Well, if you take a look at these bull images, it definitely is easy to see how some people who may have never seen a bull before may have gotten the idea that some animals only had one horn that protruded from their foreheads.

So what may have happened is that someone or a group of people with active imaginations took the image of a single horned bull, and applied the concept of the horn from the forehead to a horse. This concept may have been already reinforced by perhaps a sighting of a Narwhal in the ocean. But I think Wikipedia overstates this possibility in the origins of the Unicorn. The reason for my speculation on this is because Narwhals usually live in the arctic regions, and so ancient peoples didn’t live near them. So the Sumerians were too far away from Narwhals to let them enter their collective unconscious.

But what may have happened is that when European peoples encountered Narwhals literally thousands of years after Sumerian civilization ended, the sight of the single horned sea creatures could have reinforced their conceptions and mythologies of the Unicorn.

The transition of a Unicorn from a bull to a horse may not be as big a stretch of the imagination as one may think. Bulls and horses are both large and powerful animals that have tremendous value even to this day. Both mammals have hooves. And they both have strong and muscled necks. So it makes sense that the Unicorn transitioned to the body of a horse in more modern culture.

A possible origin of the magical power attributed to the unicorn horn has a quite simple hypothesis. The horns of bulls had tremendous value. They could be for both financial and/or agricultural purposes. This doesn’t even mention the possible military application or decorative functions the bull horns could have had. So to think that the horn of a Unicorn was magical, could have been an evolved embellishment of the horn’s actual value in more ancient times. Remember a horn, or a head, or how many “heads” of bar (bulls) a landowner had, was  a shorthand description of his wealth. And wealth and magic go hand in hand.

-Tyler

Sources:

Indo-Sumerians Seal Deciphered, PG: 15,  L. Austine Waddell (Author), Kessinger Publishing, LLC

Wikipedia: Unicorn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn#Unicorn_seals_of_the_Indus_Valley_Civilization

The Sumerians, C. Leonard Woolley (Author), W. W. Norton & Company (September 17, 1965),

Iron Man, stigmata and Number Four

Iron Man, I am Number Four have something in common besides being action-packed Science Fiction films. Both movies have their respective main character send forth light and energy from the palms of their hands. In Iron Man, the character, Tony Stark who wears the Iron Man suit of armor, uses “Repulsor Beams” in order to either fly, push opponents, or destroy large targets. Quite similarly, the main character in, “I am Number Four” named John Smith is an alien who can send a tremendous amount of energy from his hands. John’s palms can act as flashlights, fire lasers, and can be used in his form of telekinesis (among other things). What is interesting is that both characters send energy from the palms of their hands as opposed to a shoulder cannon like a “Predator” or from their eyes like Superman or Cyclops. There is a correlation between these movies, the palms of the hands are symbolic of the Stigmata of suffering.

Whether or not if you believe in the suffering of Jesus, the crucifixion is deeply ingrained into the conscious and subconscious minds of most moviegoers. So it happens quite often that Christian stories and morals are portrayed in films either directly or indirectly. But in the case of Iron Man and I am Number Four, the role of the stigmata is reversed. Instead of the hands being a badge of suffering and ascendancy, the palms are a source of offensive power.

The physical characteristics of the palms of Iron Man and John Smith are quite striking. Both are circular shapes in the palm of the hand. Both emit energy, (especially light). And both have the ability to be activated and deactivated. This latter aspect is extremely important because it directly relates to the concept of control which is becoming a central theme in modern media consciousness. This is probably because the masses feel so out-of-control with the economy and unfolding events in the Middle East and other regions.

Yet the physical characteristics of the palms are no-way near as poignant as how these abilities were acquired. In Tony Stark’s case, his hands are able to emit energy when he wears the Iron Man suit, because he experienced a great deal of suffering. The reason for this is because if it was not for the damage he endured to his heart when he was attacked, then he would not have needed a way to protect his heart from the shrapnel. It was the suffering that he experienced that forced Mr. Stark to innovate and create his energy source in order to free himself from having to carry a heavy battery around everywhere he went. Thus it was the suffering itself that eventually became Tony Stark’s greatest catalyst to become powerful.

In, I am Number Four, John Smith was an alien from a world that was destroyed by enemies. And his special abilities were passed down to him from his “father” (this is according to his bodyguard about half-way through the movie). So John Smith’s suffering is quite different from Tony Stark’s. His suffering was primarily based on his feeling of loss toward a family he never got to fully know, the isolation from his fellow alien kindred, and his lack of a true identity. Instead of using his palm powers in order to redeem himself for past corporate mistakes like Iron Man did in the first film, John Smith uses his palms to protect Earth from experiencing the same fate as his home world.

The palms as being instruments of power is indicative of subconscious Christianity-based archetypes, resurfacing in modern media in order to create an aggressive savior-complex.

This is quite different from old heroes that primarily use swords, firearms, or closed fists. The open palm symbolizes spiritual strength over physical ability. And even though both Iron Man and John Smith demonstrated that there were at least semi-capable fighters, their preferred method to confront evil was their palms.

The parallel between stigmata and John Smith in I am Number Four is illuminated in the middle of the film. At one point John is walking around a dark corridor with his friends/allies and they are having trouble seeing. So John uses his palms as virtual flash lights to not only brighten the path for himself, but for his friends as well. Just as the stigmata for Christian Savior was proof that he was in fact who he said he was after his biblical Resurrection, John Smith’s palms are proof if his identity as the son of another world…and the protector of this one.

What was the first thing that Iron Man did after he acquired his palm, repulsor technology? He learned how to fly and then flew over to the Middle East and then laid the smack down. There is a lot more going on here than a vehicle to get Robert Downey Jr. back on the map.

In ages of old, History, Mythology and Religion were the primary forms of indoctrination for young people. But today, Western Youth are more inclined to listen to stories that are completely fanciful than believe time-honored traditions. So the rise of the super-hero has been directed and modified in order to become a teaching tool. This is made obvious by the Disney acquisition of Marvel. The company, Marvel, which owns the X-Men franchise and Iron Man, started to affect the minds of young people and some adults from secondary media outlets like comic books, and computer games, and into MASS MEDIA outlets like, Television and Movies. Disney must have realized that in order to maintain its position of teacher for young males, it needed to have access to this larger-than-life set of archetypes, that have already been established as profitable for the past 30 years.

The subliminal suggestion being made is: Through your suffering, you shall find strength. And that strength, is something that you must use.

This theme seems more like a cry for help, than a forceful indoctrination or ultimatum.

The stigmatic correlation is not to cheapen the message of these two films. It is simply an observation that the symbolic programming of young minds is changing. The open palm vs. the closed fist. The sufferer vs. the vengeance seeking.

Think of the producers and executives that choose what types of films and television to fund, support, and spotlight. They are presented with a myriad of choices and they must choose what they think and feel will be the most profitable in both the long and short term. A film with good imagery may or may not be a box office hit opening night, but it may achieve a following that is overwhelming in DVD sales and/or merchandising. So the bigger the budget of the film, the more thought that goes into the themes and imagery. The reason for this, is because themes are what encourage long term DVD and blue ray sales. That’s why people re-watch films, it is because of the lessons and themes, as opposed to plots and even characters.

All this being said, I’d like to leave you with a joke:

What did the Network Executive say to the rebellious Producer?

“Get with the program.”

-Tyler

If you enjoyed this article, read this one on Avatar and Legion by clicking HERE

Surprise!

There are a lot of inside jokes in this world. But some ways of telling inside jokes are more malicious than others. There is one technique of telling an inside joke privately to friends. And then there is telling an inside joke maliciously at someone else who doesn’t know the joke while in public. Then there is telling an inside joke on the public news feeds on Facebook where tons of people don’t know what the inside joke is. That is kind of like getting some free billboards near the freeway and painting an inside joke that only about 12 people understand the punchline to. So before you tell an inside joke as an status update, think of the hundreds of people who you will be hurting…because they want to know.

A possible solution to this problem could go like this. Let’s say, Lacy has an inside joke that she tells on her facebook news feed status update. It is something like: “Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream…2012 ain’t got nothing on me.”

Now some of her friends are a little confused by this update. Is she talking about eating Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream while watching the 2012 action film that was made by the same dudes who did The Day After Tomorrow? Or other friends may be wondering if by eating ice cream, Lacy is protecting herself from the 2012 Armageddon pseudo-science prophesy.

But what only a small group of friends, (5 to be exact) is that her ex boyfriend Cedric is allergic to mint flavour. And whenever he inhales mint, Cedric starts to swear. So to get revenge on Cedric when he took her out on an “Apology get-back together date” she purchased a small container of mint chocolate chip ice cream and opened the lid and put it in the back seat. And so Cedric kept swearing, and cussing the whole night uncontrollably after they saw their play on the downfall of Rome. And it just all happens, that “2012LUV” is Cedric’s license plate.

So by saying, “Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream…2012 ain’t got nothing on me,” her five friends got some good laughs but everyone else who commented looked dumb.

Well, we’ve been working on a solution. The trick is, whenever you tell an inside joke on facebook public news feed area…include a link in the comments section that will direct people who don’t get the joke to a color Power Point presentation that explains IN-DETAIL the funniness of the inside joke.

-Tyler