Wartime

You know what’s going to be the biggest factor getting in the way of soothing the extent that climate change will have on this blue sphere here?
The international community outside of the Western countries gives a fuck about so-called “green technologies”. They care more about their own development, which had been kept down for centuries by the plundering of the dominant European and North American countries. And that means, cheap energy accessible to the biggest mass of people and local industries carries more importance than making it as exclusive as it can get through applying complex and expensive technologies in the chain, which the bigger parts of the population in the first world countries are able to afford (in whatever way possible to individuals).
The mindset of the Western world and what they think of as “problems” is so far away from those of the rest of the world - literally elevated thousands of kilometers above the ground, figuratively.

So are many other issues such as that of a cultural nature, for example.
The rest of the world literally doesn’t care about the gender-fantasies of twenty-somethings in the US or Europe and their dreams of deconstructing the biological base of the two sexes. Or about rainbow flags, pride months and loudly celebrating LGBT minority rights like they would be a cure against HIV and cancer altogether (rights which quite a chunk of areas in the world don’t have anyway).
There are way more urgent problems to them than such boredom- and living-in-security-driven ergotherapy of emphasizing things that revolve around the aspect of the anthropocentric worldview to overestimate the social ongoings between humans in a society.

To the rest of the world, the classic aspects of the mindset of the anthropocentric worldview are important: Where do humans get a space to live, a roof over their head, food and water for humans, jobs to earn money and chances to procreate - as well as chances to feed that offspring and raise it into an adult.

If you want to get the rest of the world into the same boat as the culturally loony Western part of the planet, then you first rather need to get them to abandon their part of the anthropocentric worldview, in which all natural resources of the planet exist just to serve and be consumed primarily by humans. - Including your own focus where human business and social interaction still also overshadows everything, beside you talking about “wanting to save the world” and “protecting the environment” (inconsequently).

Das neuste begehrte Objekt unter Hamsterkäufern (und allen, die wegen dem irrationalem Hamstern selbst anfangen, von einer Ware etwas mehr zu kaufen als sonst): Senf!
Hier speziell (eventuell regional bedingt): Bautz'ner Senf.

Thinking deeper about it, there is a little aspect to point out which surely won’t be irrelevant to the protests against the Covid vaccinations and the conspiracy theories surrounding them all around the world - and in which, bizarrely, these have something in common with the “Fridays For Future” movement:

It’s that if a civilization reached such technological, scientific and cultural heights and masses of general means and gadgets that it starts to forget the very base it stands on.
It takes the safe bubble it created to live in as self-evident and as the original state of nature.
While actually it’s the most unnatural state of things. And you have to do something for it in order to exist.

For example: The effect of vaccines first becomes noticeable if they weren’t given anymore.
If masses of people didn’t receive them.
As vaccines against the famous diseases you can vaccinate against didn’t exist, people died way earlier than today, they died of way more trivial causes, a lot died before they got 18 years old (high rate of child mortality), and people who survived infections with either a virus or bacteria way more often carried lasting damages away from this (often: early childhood) encounter into their adult lives.
This is still the case in places on the earth where these vaccines aren’t available or too expensive for an average person to get.
So when they were invented and people realized infants as well as themselves stopped getting sick and die from those diseases after they were vaccinated, people became clear of a reason to do this for. - No more getting sick, suffering and dying from crap that can be avoided.

A huge example that people of all ages have a personal benefit from is the tetanus vaccination.
Before that, just a single scratch could lead to this type of infection, which in the end paralyzes the nerve tissue that controls muscles in the body and leads to death.
And it’s barely avoidable as the bacterium that causes it lives in nearly everything. It’s everywhere around you.

So so-called “skepticism” and active refusal and even claims like “vaccination is murder” are actually a call to fall back to these circumstances among the population.
How can anyone be so stupid to want that?
Well, the best answer to this is: Because people aren’t aware of why they can lead such a cozy life. Lack of basic education and a lot of manipulative info from sources that function no better than hocus pocus magical crap made to make money that was sold to people in the Middle Ages are to blame for this.

In common with “Fridays For Future” this state of the mind has: Also the members and agitprop activists of this movement aren’t aware of what the order they raise their claims on comes together from.
For example, they take for granted that smartphones exist, that the internet and their platforms to communicate on globally exist, that they live a life on earth where they don’t need to mind neither money nor material if they get sick of something and can simply throw it away as they please.
But all that first needed to be invented, then needs to be fabricated constantly and then needs to be maintained constantly.
Electricity isn’t produced by the wall because the wall is kind of bored and doesn’t know what to do with its time. It’s produced in a power plant, that power plant needs any type of “fuel” or gizmo that moves another gizmo, whose movement generates the electric energy in the end that they take from the wall socket at home. And that needs to be done constantly, not just whenever you want. - Or you’ll have to accept that electric energy isn’t constantly ready to use.
Means of saving energy for later aren’t invented yet, and as it it looks it will be like with rechargeable batteries: It ain’t lossless and the energy saved will vanish over time when not using it. - Unless you’d save the energy compressed in something material that you can easily store and backlog (that would be fossil fuels like coal, gas and petrol, for example).
Not to forget: A power plant producing electric energy first needs to be built in order to serve the purpose to supply you with electricity in the wall socket.

The self-evidence of the presence of the internet is another issue of that umbrella.
The internet comes together by thousands of servers (and, in a simple sense, “computers”), interconnected with each other, running 24/7 all around the year. If you think that you can only switch these on when you need them, then most of the time nobody will be able to read your crap.
Because these computers keep masses of data ready to access for whoever wants to read them at any time of the day. - All the viewers that checked your stuff in the meantime you slept, worked or were at school, they could do that because someone else keeps your data ready and accessible all the time.
If your data didn’t lie on someone else’s server, you’d have to keep your own computer plugged to the net all around the clock, even when you’re absent and not at home, or nobody could read the crap that you post and pay attention to you.

Thousands of computers running at the same time, waiting for somebody to seek a connection with them with his personal computer or cell-phone - anyone who isn’t stupid gets an idea what kind of huge effort that is to keep up every day?
The internet isn’t “simply there”, it’s a complex infrastructure, like a net of tarred roads that you can comfortably drive on, and to be “there”, it needs to be made to come into existence.
Another thing that you have to keep ready to use and cannot just switch on and off whenever you want to use it yourself. The effort made in order to keep it up has to be constantly the same at all times or it won’t work as well as you know it.

Not even to get started on the third example: Their own lifestyle and the lifestyle of the family they live in...
Their parents go to work daily, in most cases don’t share a car because they’ve got to go to two completely different places, their parents don’t work near their home but in other towns and commute, they want to make it to buy a nice house, own a big car, save money so each of their kids can have a driver’s license and an own car as soon as the kids are legally permitted to drive, want 1 or 2 family vacations each year at least - and they don’t want their kids to miss any trend in order to not be socially excluded among their peers.
Last but not least, they also try to save up money from anywhere, on top, to send their kids to university (like university wasn’t something which you have to have the brains first and you can’t tell that from the first day of a child’s life).
All that until the kids get “aware” (their “Fridays For Future”-type of getting “aware”).
Anyone of them who pointed it out to themselves how much of an ecological footprint that already is until they reach “awareness”?
And that’s not even counting their own behavior in this calculation...

Reduced and collected in a short summary that is: No, kiddo, you’re not going to save the world now by going vegan, eating meat-replacement made from soybeans, peas and wheat!
Which, by the way, doesn’t reduce your footprint very much if they actually come from Brazil, like the beef steaks you ate before. (Anyone who praises the meat-replacement products asked where the substance they’re made of comes from?)

And, talking about “recycling”, how about that you wear the clothes of your elder siblings that are still alright - like poor people do?
Or that you use a technical gadget for 10 years or more? Repair it? Tinker around with it, so it can still be of service with new technical standards? Use it until it literally falls apart?
“Learn from the poor” is the correct motto in this issue, just as a reminder, not holding big public speeches and claim whatever the heck comes to your mind from adults how they shall behave.

By the way, skipping school to march on a rally - do these kids have any idea what kind of privilege they throw away thoughtlessly for just a little stomp on the ground of their inconsistent minds?
Kids in Africa and India and whatever places on earth not as rich as the first world dream of going to school instead of having to go to work and already earn some, so the family, including them, has something to eat and doesn’t need to freeze.
School is like the key to a better life, to more life quality and to a better job - and these kids take it so much for granted that they think they can spare it!!
Not even to speak of that they seem to think school without paying hundreds of bucks for it is a world standard!
If their rallies had a connection to something that went wrong in school, but no... it’s about “pointing the adults at doing something to stop climate change”.
Like - next time they go on a strike because the pocket money is too low...

This is social relations, making a plea, not doing something for a certain objective.
And then formulating one’s plea on a pretty high niveau of prosperity. Leaving one’s own role aside, acting like one doesn’t exist and does nothing wrong, but only all other people.

...You see how both have a similarity here?
Avoiding to mind one’s own base of a living, sect-like structures that want to make everyone convert, but they have very few to really say if you check them in the details.
If you fact-check them or check for doability, you find them two live in a dreamy world made of soap bubbles. Harboring an image of the world that doesn’t correspond with the reality.

When do you encounter such phenomena?
Mostly when a civilization is almost at its end. When people forget what their life as they know it is based on and take it for granted that they can eat grapes all day long (figuratively). And, on the other hand, can afford to dive deep down into their human interactions all day long. Be busy with the “he says, she says” and what is the correct way to worship and appreciate whatever the heck.
Act like their human quarrels are the most important thing in the world, like someone is watching and only waiting to interfere and deliver them from their anger towards each other.

(Someone discovers similarities in this description too?)

These days it’s ringing one year with Covid-19 being globally around - and, thinking realistically, the end still can not be foreseen. Although, admittedly, the means against the disease that this new coronavirus causes have grown from that status of “zero” last year.

So, let’s forge a summarization what there could be learned through the course of this year past...

One thing that, for sure, could be very clearly learned, wherever you lived on this planet: Capitalism is on its last legs. Or better say: It’s not the economy form anymore which can seemingly supply everyone with everything he/she needs. Also, it’s not the capitalism anymore that people used to know from glorious and wealthy times.
Why is that?
It’s because of the globalized economy that is around there now, that it has formed over decades, and the “development plan” of “let’s develop the world and bring supply and goods to the most difficult areas of the world” has shifted to “let’s make money with the least amount of work and investment” - which in practice means “minimal setup for everything, so that the circle of making money is still being kept up, but don’t think about the future or possible disturbances of that one setup for achieving something”. A wobbly base for supply with necessary goods.

As the virus went around the globe and other states than China and its East Asian neighbors realized that this is a topic that affects them also, this should have become very visible as nearly all countries of the world suddenly charged the market of face masks, disposable gloves and protection suits and found themselves getting way too few than needed because most of the production worldwide had been outsourced to China. - Here not the Middle Kingdom is to blame, but just greed, first world arrogance and a slightly racist mindset of Western enterprises which think like “things that have become minor activities which get paid just a few pennies - these can very well be done by some primitive people; for us this is beyond our standards”.
Enterprises and the big economy never wasted a thought about “What if there could suddenly be a spike in need?”, they didn’t care for a home-brew supply just in case whatever happens.
The only thing they cared about was their profit and about exploiting some folks in a country far away from their headquarters. And they have assured themselves of that never anything is going to happen which may break their concept how they had arranged the supply chains.

As the first countries had to operate with national lockdowns because of infection rates spiking, supply chains being more dominated by greed and thoughtlessness than anything else could be witnessed with food items.
At that time, and still it is so, some countries literally “had the task” to produce ware X and none else did that.
Why? Because of “planned economy”. “Planned economy” that doesn’t serve peoples’ needs and keeping up a public order, but just big enterprises and corporations making the most in profit with the least amount of bet - which had been arranged this way by corrupt politicians which realized the laws and legislature for that over decades.
Simultaneously, it became noticeable how many food items of particular types nationally were produced merely for exporting them to some other nation(s) - because then, these wares once remained in their countries of origin because the international trade and border traffic strongly reduced all by themselves.
So actually there’s a strong overproduction in particular goods just in favor of export in each country because some circumstances for creating them seemingly or factually fit advantageously for those who draw the most gain from the price of them and the separate national economies have been shifted to incredibly monocultures, leading to strong dependence on each other and therefore to fragile supply chains that break down as soon as anything on a larger scale strikes and disturbs their functionality. (Besides: Also leading to incredible one-sided ecological burdens).

Which, in the end, leads to countries producing some particular stuff in such large quantities that they could barely use them up themselves to supply their own people, and other stuff being produced in such few or no quantities that they’re literally fucked if they’re on their own for once.

This is not optimization of production and international “division of labor” according to the concept of David Ricardo. This is abuse of currency exchange courses for the sake of making dead substance called “money”, exploiting one people - the one that manages to be cheaper than all other -, playing multiple ends against the middle for no practical use of human society as a whole, destroying and ruining nature along the way, and even endangering the prosperity that mankind has made it to over centuries (because infrastructure already erected is being left to decay or to reduction due to costs, but which also results in decrease of performance, safety and stability). Including preventing other people from the 2nd or 3rd world countries getting to comparable levels of prosperity - because infrastructure in their countries sees no real development and investment into it anymore, other than if it is for broadening the circle of generating money for some far-away-living already wealthy person in a skyscraper.

During the year with Covid-19 around, witnessing time episodes through the natural seasons with more or lesser restrictions in each country, the overall global economy has a little adapted to the circumstances given - even though, noticeable in many spots and situations, against its will. Actually the big economy wanted to go on and act like nothing is wrong, like the virus and the disease doesn’t exist.
Supply chains have a little adapted through the course too because the countries and their national economies individually realized that this isn’t going to be over so soon and they are going to have to adapt if they want to evade chaos, bottlenecks and public panic - all, additionally, to their own personal disfavor too.

But, one point still remains as it was before: Protection clothes, masks and corona test kits still are being mostly produced and China and other East Asian countries. - The most important goods in order to actually manage and decrease this pandemic.
And the (capitalistically-organized) world economy doesn’t seem to see a problem with that. Forgotten are the troubles of the past spring in which the self-declared “wealthiest countries of the world” were running around like scared chicken and panicked over their lack of supply with basic medical goods for hygiene.
All progresses according to habit meanwhile... With nothing really learned from it.

That is why there is to say that capitalism is at its end.
That is why there is to say that the capitalism that people knew, which once helped developing the world, is no more.
Now it is just an economic system rooted down on fragile legs, existing mostly for making a few dozen people in the world rich (rich with something that has no meaning in nature and that can’t feed you if there are no food items to buy with it), and even these big partakers actually just wish for getting well through the breakdown if it happens. Because they somehow know that this stripped down machinery isn’t gonna last forever anymore.
But changing the concept or coming down from their “standards” of greed, how much this shall be supposed to bring them in “gain”, is like blasphemy to them - like they’re going to break a leg if they once be content with their amounted mass of money and sacrifice some in order to keep their own base for a living upright.

So it is either up to you and me to come up with something else in time, to shift structures back or erect new ones as best as possible under that reign in order to secure our own well-being - because the people currently sitting at the levers that make the world go around won’t be willing to make that happen. They just sit and watch and try to figure out how much juice the lemon still exudes.
All the while not really caring for human life, animal life, plant life, civilization, health of the masses or mankind being still alive in a hundred years and in good shape, not degenerated.

So - what could be witnessed in the past year with Covid-19 is the expectation of what can be seen in the coming year. Maybe milder, probably rather worse...
‘Cause it cannot be forgotten that also vaccine manufacturers are just subjects interested in making money. - Guess what they do if someone else discovers or engineers are way better and more easier vaccine or treatment for the disease?
Of course, they’ll try to shut that one down and ruin that person... Even if it’s factually correct with what it has found/engineered.
The laws of a corrupted market full of predators are still intact, even though there is a plague out there.

Rainer Wahnsinn hat Ausgang bekommen: Leere Regale und Lücken in allen Geschäften, insbesondere bei Toilettenpapier, Dosensuppen, Reis, Nudeln, H-Milch, Seife, haltbare verarbeitete Tomatenprodukte und Papiertaschentüchern.
Anfang der Woche war auch noch Gemüse, speziell Kartoffeln, ein Problem, es zu bekommen.
Bei etwa einem halben Dutzend Geschäften der Supermarktketten in der Stadt muss man alle besuchen, um sich systematisch durchzukaufen, um das zu bekommen, was man haben will, weil in jedem Geschäft annähernd etwas anderes fehlt beziehungsweise wenigstens ein Geschäft in den genannten Sektionen Ware bekommen hat.
(Beim dänischen Netto waren die Kühltruhen so vollgefüllt wie sie bestimmt noch nie waren, als hätten die Ware bestellt für die nächsten 2 Wochen.)
Seltsamerweise, Produkte, die hochgradig importiert werden müssen, solche z. B. wie Kaffee, werden dagegen gar nicht von den Hamsterkäufern in den Fokus genommen...
Wenn man an einer Versorgungsarmut in diesen Tagen auch nicht sterben wird, dann ist es im Punkt "Süßigkeiten" oder Yogurt.

Als man zum letzten Mal solche Lücken in den Geschäften und auch solches Einkaufsverhalten gesehen hat, das war bestimmt kurz nach der Wende, als die Menschen, als der erste Aldi und Netto in der Gegend aufgemacht haben, palettenweise Zeug aus den Läden getragen haben - sogar mit Anhänger zum Einkaufen angereist sind.

Wie soll das die nächsten Wochen noch weitergehen...?

Einzig sehr interessanter Aspekt, der dabei zum Tragen kommt: Man bemerkt wie viele doch in der Region hergestellte und beziehbare Lebensmittel eigentlich existieren, die man sonst aber nicht zu sehen bekommt, weil sie wohlmöglich komplett in den Export gehen. (Zum Beispiel Kartoffeln, bei denen man feststellt, die müssen aus der Region stammen, deren Etiketten und Markenlogos einem aber völlig unbekannt sind.)
Auch hatte man den Eindruck, als wenn kurzfristig Artikel mit ins Sortiment aufgenommen wurden, die eine Kette sonst nicht führt, deren Hersteller aber zur Zeit liefern kann, im Gegensatz zu anderen.
Und dass Kapazitäten, die sonst exportiert werden, als Belieferung für die Engpässe hierzulande verwendet werden - wann hat man sonst das letzte Mal H-Milch-Kartons erstanden, die eine Ecke zum Anschneiden haben? Das ist sehr lang her als das zum Auslaufmodell wurde...

Zusätzlich dazu: Die Benzinpreise sind auch noch im Keller. Wann hat man das letzte Mal Super-Benzin für 1,16 € pro Liter tanken können, fast gleichauf mit Erdgas?

Ein klein wenig merkt man, dass eine Komplettlegalisierung von Hanf der Konsumgüterindustrie sehr in den Kram passen würde.
Selbst begegnet ist einem schon Hanf-Schinken, Hanftee, Hanföl (Speiseöl) - CBD-Produkte noch nicht, aber im Rahmen von "Nahrungsergänzungsmitteln" sollen die auch schon legal im Umlauf sein. Wer weiß, was nicht eventuell noch...
Und das ist erst seit vergleichbar kurzer Zeit der Fall.
Hanfseile in der Schifffahrt oder Hanfschnüre im Klempnerhandwerk (um Gewinde und Verschraubungen abzudichten) sind dagegen regelrecht ein alter Hut...

Also, wenn das nächste Mal eine Diskussion über das Thema losgehen sollte, leider wird es den Beigeschmack nicht los, dass es hierbei weniger um "wir wollen den Leuten etwas gutes tun" (was bestimmte Bestandteile des Hanfs, abseits von THC, durchaus tun) als um potentielles Geschäft geht.

The time period of drought starts up again in Central Europe this year... Just for the note.

It's that time of the year again.
Somebody noticed?

Trying to do healthy nutrition with eating tofu meat analogue as cold cuts?
Well, just take a look at your ingredient list. Lots of stuff in there (like in the regular product) that should make you worried over your weight and metabolism...

Can somebody explain me the price craze about salmon explicitly bred in aquaculture in Norway this year?
Over a year, the price for that kind of fish from that source has made quite an increase - and it seems to apply only to this source, as the same fish species caught in the wild isn't affected by it (the frozen food department also can offer you some not from Norway and it is quite a puzzle if you see two times the same packages with the same content (250 grams) only with different layout and different origin declared and the price of one of them is about twice the sum of the other).