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Daniel Pinchbeck doesn’t seem to think so. In the article about him in the 
August edition of Rolling Stone, Vanessa Grigoriadis reports the author saying the following about 2012:
“But there is no escape,” his eyes burning into mine. “We have to fix this situation right fucking now, or there’s going to be nuclear wars and mass death, and it’s not going to be very interesting. There’s not going to be a United States in five years, OK?”
However, when I spoke to Daniel Pinchbeck, he asked me what came next. As an integral theoriest, speaking to Quetzocoatl, I was able to figure out the answer in about five seconds. In fact, Daniel Pinchbeck just asked me what was next?Was just speaking to Daniel pinchbeck about the new system. His works are on the singularity (of 2012), and as an integral theorist in my own right, I drew on the massive works of Ken Wilbur to offered a synthesis with History (and posterity, based on the works of Ken Wilber). Mr. Pinchbeck is afraid of the point we are at in history because he doesn’t see beyond it. However, it is only useful to associate points with history so we can discuss the greatness of its arcs and sweeps with more precision.
As Gorgias says,
“For if all men on all subjects had both memory of things past and awareness of things present and foreknowledge of the future, speech would not be similarly similar, since as things are now it is not easy for them to recall the past nor to consider the present nor to predict the future. “So that on most subjects most men take opinion as counselor to their soul, but since opinion is slippery and insecure it casts those employing it into slippery and insecure successes.”
Gorgias tells us. To understand the sweep of history, so that we get a better perspective of the singularity and 2012 with it.
According to the following diagram of Wilber’s integral theory of consciousness, evolutionarily we should be progressing from an agrarian, republican state to one on a global, informational level. <strong>Why then is the republic only now becoming possible?</strong>
In part, this could be because of the loss of the Republic until the 19th century, when it was discovered that Augustine had written his City of God over the Cicero’s manuscript of The Republic, pillaging both his framework and the constitution for his own construction. Although the manuscript now is (oh!) much more fragmented because of this, once again thanks go out to the Catholic Church for preserving civilization through the dark ages.
<strong>What should we be planning for after the singularity? Is there a right answer? </strong>As a keeper of the platonic keys, I can tell you there is a correct thing to be planning for after the singularity, and (and not bogus Burner culture in some faux 60’s revolution, because we all saw how far that went. The 60’s, psychedelics, that’s where we get our afterculture, but not our model.
According to Ken Wilber’s diagram, the afterculture should be a global information one :). This actually fits well into the republic, which is necessarily more democratic (by modern standards) than a democracy, and should include (literally) universal suffrage. To a rebirth of knowledge!
For those of us who see clearly, it clear that those who scratched their heads when Hegel said history had ended need to rethink the nature of history. What is history?
For Baudrilliard, who wrote on the simulacrum in 1923, histories’ Baudrillard’s time was perhaps a bit more depressing,
“Politicians on both Left andnd Right are equaly useless. But those onn the Left wear themselves out in finding a moral angle for their depression; they ha not quite the measure of their real corruption. Whereas all out free market liberalism provides those on the Right with an insight that is fully equal to this depressed situation.”
From his standpoint in history, both his views and and his theories on the simulacrum seemed a little more fatalistic. But this is a Renaissance, a time of rebirth and rediscovery of the gods and their works. Whereas from his point of view, it seemed that history was ending, now we see that it is beginning anew.
When one has a linear view of time, it is very difficult to get back to point A from point B. However, if one has a cyclical view of time, they bend all time to their dimension. Geometry and tautology and trigenometry carry us through.
If we have hte key to understanding history, then the mystery of its knowledge will be revealed.
What is the simulacrum? [can hypertext to thesis] When Cicero envisioned the future from the standpoint of a Rome in crisis from agrarian legislation
Integral Theory of Consciousness
For ie have failed to take advantage of the alignment of events heralding the existence of the informational planetary ___, thus plunging consciousness back to the agrarian nation-state status, at seems wt say [poss. in 129], such a time as when Rome faced that first agrarian law that brought the whole republic tumbling down.
Moreover, it seems we have also failed to reach the state of that Republic in its height in 63 BC. If we cannot even achieve the ideal state of governing a nation, how do we propose to organize a (community[much less lead an offense] on the global scale)?
He predicted at that time that agrarian legislation was the state of affairs that threatened both the position of the people in society (most land was owned by the wealthy, who kept a large number of slaves, leaving citizens landless) and to corrupt the republic. If senators could sell of land as gold, if the republic was just gold, then . Likewise, black gold, and corrupt interests of major officials of our government seeking
How come the thing which was possible before is only manifesting now? Was it because the works of Cicero were hidden for so long?
Let’s turn to our most integral thinker to date to report to us thinking since then. Accordingn to the bottom left quadrant of his theory, the evolution of consciousness, society (how does he define this quadrant?) shows that we proceed from ann a
which validates our research.
Now what does this tell us? This tells us that the people are now once again poised to take their place at the base of the republic, sweeping the mat out from under certain officials feet, taking back their rightful place at the basee, thus making an ideal republic, which is a mixed constitutional system. Thus the people are as an important part of a republic as elected officials, as it is their duty to vote upon the laws.
Likewise, if this is now possible, two thousand years after we progressed passed the agrarian state in Wilber’s diagram (thus ascribing points 129 BC and 2012 - simply so that we can have a discussion, and to this point we can ascribe not only the end of the galactic cycle as bespoken by the myans, but the end of a cycle of the simulacrum of history as we move to the next phase of our evolutionary history and it is convenient to begin talking about how to go about the future now that it has arrived. Thus it become now and it is our duty to project the future for the next epoch.
Thus the singularity is a useful denomination for this transition. It refers to the acceleration of communication, thus accelerating the plans of history to their zentith as events and communication begin to happen instantaneously, opening out onto new possibilites. Just as the fall did for Rome can be modeled upon the diagramn for facollapse of the wave theory in quantum physics, the singularity can likewise be a physical and historical phenomenon. As a poinnt in flux, it is a time of possibility.
Lest we fritter it away on Burning Man like the hippies did with the Civil Rights Movement, living in the moment and forgetting the glorious lessons of the past. This is where acquire our afterculture, but should we let that be our model? it is important that we do not go forth blindly but bearing our ideals, carrying the wisdom of ancient philosophers who taught us the meaning of truth and justice with us. Lest we be disillusioned, Plato wrote a Republic, and Cicero wrote a Republic as well, and it is important that we use their words to understand the agrarian state, and our political system, as we move into a global era of information.
Even as with the internnet we sweep the mat out from under the feet of the administration that attempted to usurp our republic, we have access to the knowledge to preventing such a thing from happening again. This is rightly a Renaissance and the launch of a golden age. As we rediscover the beauty of the ancient authors, our new ability to understand them will balance our fall, preserve our state from collapse, saving our civilization, an important stepping stone in our further quest for meaning.
In them is preserved all the ancient knowledge to steer the ship of state in the right direction, and the knowledge to usher in an alchemical age for us. Rather than be disillusioned by the cylcle of decay affecting our history, government, and philosophers, like Baudrillard, let us remember that even by Zarathustra’s “God is dead” didn’t mean that God was truly dead; in a Dionysian spate Nietzsche said we killed him. Nor was he sacrificed with Quizalcoatlean grizzliness. Like history, he is only being reborn!
Nor do we have to manifest the next epoch before its time, but allow it to grow organically. Rather than having a specific plan for this age, let us remember the ideals of our forefathers. This is the plan we have to set in motion to prevent corruption of our government and gaps in our knowledge in the future.