I’m a tree hugger. I climb mountains. And I love Nikola Tesla. Among Tesla’s great discoveries is the principle of Environmental Energy - the Discovery of a new physical Truth that “there is no energy in matter other than that received from the environment.” 

So… When was the last time you hugged a tree? When was the last time you planted one? When you hug trees, they hug you back with invisible arms that envelop you with lots of good energy. 

Japanese researchers have recently shown that “forest bathing,” taking long walks among trees, helps stimulate the immune system and leads to greater health. ”It is regarded as being similar to natural aromatherapy,” say the researchers.

Other than trees, there are plants like hemp which absorb four times more carbon dioxide than trees. Hemp is the miracle plant of our time. Trees take 20 years to mature versus 4 months for Industrial Hemp. Our forests are being cut down 3x faster than they can grow. One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees. (Dewey & Merrill. Bulletin #404. U.S. Dept. of Age. 1916) 

SO WHAT LINKS THE LEGALISATION OF CANNABIS OR INDUSTRIAL HEMP (iHemp), AND REAL CAPITALISM THAT IS IN HARMONY WITH THE ENVIRONMENT? And what does my love for Tesla have to do with inspiring all these thoughts?

Cannabis has not been grown for sale in a number of countries, including Philippines and the United States, for most of the past 100 years (except as a manila hemp substitute during World War II) because of concerns that the non-industrial type would also become available and be processed for drug use. 

DID-YOU-KNOW STUFF:

Henry Ford’s first Model-T  was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONSTRUCTED FROM HEMP. On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, ‘grown from the soil,’ had plastic panels made from a mixture of 70% cellulose fibers from hemp whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel at 2/3rd’s the weight for better economy (Popular Mechanics, 1941) Alcohol prohibition prevented Mr. Ford from powering his fleet with “plant-power”.

Consider a few more facts about hemp:
• Hemp does not require herbicides or pesticides.
• Hemp can be grown in a wide range of latitudes and altitudes.
• Hemp replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen, making it  an excellent rotational crop.
• Hemp controls erosion of the topsoil.
• Hemp converts CO2 to oxygen better than trees.
• Hemp produces more oil than any other crop, which can be  used for food, fuel, lubricants, soaps, etc.
• Hemp nut is a very healthy food, being the highest   protein  crop (after soybean) and high in omega oils.
• Hemp can be used for making plastics, including car parts.
• Hemp makes paper more efficiently and ecologically than  wood, requiring no chemical glues.
• Hemp can be used to make fiberboard.
• Hemp can be used to make paint.
• Hemp can produce bio-fuel and ethanol (better than corn).
• Hemp can be grown more than once per year.
• Hemp fibers can make very strong rope and textiles.

Now, with so much use for hemp, why is cannabis illegal in most countries? Simple. Because government and military control production and distribution. :P Government does NOT like competition.

Junkies & Hippies Who Cry for Peace

The moment you smoke a joint, make music and works of art that spread good vibes to end hatred and violence, and then maybe even join rallies and parties for peace, seriously, don’t expect me to applaud you for awesomeness. It’s RIDICULOUS. You get hippie and all that, you say you hate wars waged by governments, and yet - 90% of the time (unless you plant your own without fear of getting raided and arrested) - YOU FUND THOSE WARS.

If you take it as food, as medicine, and if you plant your own cannabis, well, I applaud you. :P Use it, don’t abuse it. In part, it’s the hippies who smoke it as a drug that make it so much harder to get it legalised for industrial and truly medicinal purposes that will benefit both humankind and the environment.

I know I have friends who love to smoke weed, and this entry is not meant to offend you or judge you. I merely ask you to consider the implications of your Mary Jane addiction to the cause of legalising this miracle plant for industrial and medicinal use. I ask you to reflect on how sincerely you stand for world peace. The more sober you are, the more actively you can follow and critically analyse things that happen around you. Ergo, the more impact you can have in making this world truly a better place to live in…for real. AND NOT JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE HIGH. 

Think about it.

Now… My thoughts on government, and corporations cannot be summed up in one blog entry. More than a decade into studying and partaking in politics, business, media and leadership, I still believe in the free market idea proposed by Ayn Rand. I also believe that spiritual solutions are needed to effectively address the economic problems of our time. Now, by spiritual, obviously, I don’t mean empowering the church. (Don’t even get me started with the Vatican Business Conglomerate’s financial holdings in the manufacturing of condoms and weapons of mass destruction.)

By “spiritual solutions to economic problems”, in part, I refer to the our generation’s need to see ourselves as part of the problem. We cannot be self-righteous brats, attacking and protesting how governments put more money in war than education; while smoking weed, getting wasted, partying like animals, polluting our minds with senseless television shows, buying everything advertisers say we N-E-E-D, getting addicted and lost in virtual realities of games that take our minds off what is real.

We cannot call the older generation of leaders hypocrites when we ourselves suffer from our own contradictions. Every fault we see in them touches a denied weakness within ourselves. 

I find it funny how some socialists attack capitalism, and corporations as if they were one and the same. AS IF, real capitalism ever existed. The reason corporations today are so big and powerful is not because of a free market, unlike what many socialists claim. It is because of government.

Government alters the market and gets in bed with the companies they want and it creates monopolies. (Think: Ferdinand Marcos, Ayalas, Lopezes, Aquinos, Cojuangcos, Juan Ponce Enrile, Fidel Valdez Ramos, Lucio Tan, Henry Sy, Manny Villar, etc. ~  What do they have in common here in Philippines? CONTROL IN GOVERNMENT, INFLUENCE IN THE MEDIA & MONOPOLY OF VARIOUS INDUSTRIES.) In a truly free market, monopolist individuals and corporations would lose all the power they have through government, and there would be a level playing field.

There are people who argue for government, yet government is the reason we are not allowed to farm industrial hemp. Industrial hemp is a cheaper, more sustainable way to produce many things that we currently produce by chopping down trees. In a truly free market, deforestation would be slowed down immensely because we would have the freedom to produce and buy alternatives, and evil practices that are killing the planet would not be subsidised as they are now.

Socialism and Oligopoly (Oligarch Monopoly) are basically what we have now. You see, corporations abhor free markets. Corporations, like government, loathe competition. Monopoly cannot co-exist with real capitalism. Real capitalism is not driven by monetary profits alone, but by the holistic concept of VALUE.

Value includes healthy competition, respect for human dignity, sustainable production, and innovations that benefit both humans and the environment.  

Corporations and corporate slaves use “capitalism” to describe what they do, but all they are are philosophically confused socialists disguised in corporate suits, sipping latté, eating sushi, loving tofu, maybe smoking pot, and spending three times more for the products of “fair trade” and “organic” markets - but know NOTHING about how small-scale farmers continue to get exploited by most of these so-called “green industries”.

Fair trade is NOT fair. 

Fair trade is neither fair nor good for trade. It transpires that a very small number of farmers are getting a subsidised fixed price for their produce under Fairtrade franchises and that this is at the expense of most other farmers in their regions, who are actually worse off as a result.

Nikola Tesla, often attempted to introduce, into our society, totally new ways of producing electrical power – steering us away from long term dependency on oil; however his new ideas were not accepted in his own time. In spite of this, Tesla did not allow himself to become a bitter, resentful, nor a negative person! Because of his advanced Inner Perception and spiritual nature, he often remarked that his ideas—not readily accepted—would be taken up by future generations. He said:

“The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of a planter—for the future. His duty is to lay foundation of those who are to come and point the way.”

With the help of the hemp plant, we, as a society, could eliminate smog from current fuels, create a cleaner energy source that can replace nuclear power, remove radioactive waste from the soil, and significantly eliminate smog from our skies in more industrialised areas.

The hemp plant could assist in eliminating non-biodegradable plastics and cars by reintroducing Henry Ford’s 100 year old dream of building cars made from hemp with a plastic hemp car body that can withstand a blow 10 times as great as steel without denting, weighs 1 thousand pounds less than steel, hence improving gas mileage, can run on a vegetable oil based all natural hemp fuel, and has a completely biodegradable body.

Nationwide hemp production could eliminate deforestation by converting current paper to hemp paper which can be recycled up to 8 times where as our current wood pulp is only recyclable up to 3 times, and we could thrive from eating hemp seeds and feeding it to our animals and livestock.

Remember: there was a great deal of opposition to Tesla’s ideas; his spirit was one of a discoverer and inventor—not a materialist interested in huge profits. Against tremendous odds, Nikola Tesla dedicated his life to the task of designing and improving technology for the service and spiritual advancement of all humanity. In a truly free market, Tesla’s inventions, like free wireless electricity, would have long served to uplift humanity from extreme poverty.

In the same manner, in a truly free market, among the hemp plant’s estimated 50,000 uses and benefits, industrial hemp’s biomass can be converted into gasoline, methanol, and methane at a fraction of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy.

Cannabis Hemp can replace any of the products made from timber. No more forests would be needlessly wasted. This would save precious resources and renew the ecosystems. More importantly, it would mean more beautiful heritage to grow for our children.

Until such time that we can all finally cheer “iHemp iHemp Hurray!”, let us continue doing our part to plant all kinds of illegal trees in our own backyard, and organise/join reforestation projects in our own local communities. 

Love and Light,

Drei ze Geek Goddess.

One of the best letters I’ve ever read.

Foxconn, the leading manufacturer of electronics in the world — which makes Apples iPhones and iPads, among other products — plans to build 500,000 robots over the next three years to either replace or augment the company’s human workforce…  In one regard, this investment will help the company’s labor relations. After all, robots don’t hurl themselves out of windows when overworked. Human employees at Foxconn, however, have not faired so well. Fourteen committed suicide in 2010. Labor rights groups have described Foxconn’s factories in very harsh terms, as 21st century gulags, “labor camps” with “military-style drills.” Since the suicides in its factories mostly involved workers jumping from the top floors of buildings in Foxconn’s Shenzhen-based plants, the company installed suicide-prevention nets.

What’s the Big Idea?

Foxconn has annual revenues of over $60 billion, and the company has put up an astounding compound annual growth rate of over 50 percent for the last decade. In order to maintain that level of growth, and to meet extraordinary global demand for tech electronics, Foxconn is making an ambitious push to automate.

This could be a step in the right direction from both a business and humanitarian perspective. After all, freeing humans from conditions that resemble slave labor can’t be such a bad thing. According to a company statement, Foxconn will be able to move humans “up the value chain” to more skilled fields such as research. Robots, on the other hand, don’t need higher wages, improved workplace conditions or suicide safety nets, all of which cut into Foxconn’s bottom line. 

[Read the complete article by clicking on the URL].

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So, to all ye my fellow Earthlings: What are the philosophical & practical implications of this kind of revolution?

Personally, as an educator, an objectivist and a humanist, I do support the transition of giving certain mind-dulling, cubicle-confined, arduous, repetitive and thus depressing tasks to robots. 

Moreover, I deeply resonate with this beautiful insight from one of the readers of Big Think:

“So…robots could make sense. As for moving people up the value chain, there is certainly plenty of demand for that - perhaps robotization of the labor force will provide opportunities for greater human capital accumulation and optimization, reducing the gap between demand for and supply of skilled labor. If childrearing was performed in a way that elevated the likelihood of self-actualization, instead of debilitating traumatization and low self-worth, that would help too.”

- Marshall Kirkpatrick CEO, Plexus Engine  

Every industry, from agriculture, to the military, will be impacted by robot labor. And advances in robotics are happening rapidly. As companies like Foxconn lead the way in our transition to a robot economy, the question remains how painful this transition will be, and how can the pain best be mitigated? As far as I’m concerned, the pain will be all well worth it. Creativity is usually born out of pain anyway; and our generation can finally focus on endeavours that shall catapult humanity to the Age of Art and Heart. 

Another useful guideline worth deliberating on is from Big Think reader Eugene C:

Like any other subject affecting the lives of countless others, sensible legislation regarding the licensing and application of robotic systems needs to be introduced in countries employing robots.  The blanket replacement of human labor with robots is indiscriminate. Legislators need to look closely as there may currently be violations in the immigration laws and policies perpetrated by companies employing such “systems” at the cost of basic human rights regarding welfare and access to gainful employment.  Allowing for the proper evolution of robotic systems that do not threaten those basic rights is the path responsible companies should adopt voluntarily.  However, companies skirt labor rights in the name of efficiency and need to be checked with a supervisory structure on this subject.

Some people fear that such robotisation of labour will lead to the extinction of the great engine of progress and innovation - the middle class. To a certain extent, this fear is legitimate. With all kinds of paradigm shift, however, the cycle of destruction and reconstruction is always a given. Sometimes, I refer to this as Creative Destruction. A great example of this is personal computers. The industry, led by Microsoft and Intel, destroyed many mainframe computer companies, but in doing so, entrepreneurs created one of the most important inventions of this century. 

While there will be clear resistance from most human workers themselves, they will eventually realise that such resistance is futile… They shall be forced by circumstance to finally exercise their own FREE WILL, which has probably atrophied in the past few years of working in a dreadful factory. The middle class can finally outdo themselves and break away from the shackles they have placed upon themselves, generation after generation… We all have different chains that keep us from stepping out of our comfort zones. And clearly, like caterpillars breaking away from the cocoon, transformation will take time; and change is predictably painful. But in the end, to those who choose to go through the entire process without seeking shortcuts, life will be beautiful…precisely because it will be more meaningful. And getting a little push from robots shouldn’t hurt more than your first heartbreak. LOL :))

But then again, that’s just me… for all I know, I could be a masochist. So, as a human being, what are your thoughts on this matter? I would love to read your comments below~ ^_^ 

Love and Light,

Drei ze Dork Lord ƸӜƷ