theory of humanistic futility - Feb 2009

Humanity is headed for a population correction.

As members of a closed ecosystem (the earth) we are bound by the same natural vectors of population control as all living things are on this planet. When humanity tries to escape natural selection through technology or other means we are just compounding problems for ourselves in the future.

Our humanistic efforts to flourish as a species by fighting disease, war and poverty are a mockery of Darwinism that will catch up with us in time.

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We have reached a point in our exististence where we are no longer sustainable. In earlier times life expectancy was low and mortality was high. Now our population is growing at an unprecidented rate and our technology keeps us alive longer. Advances in medicine are helping to stave off mortality. How long can we stave off natural selection?

These are not new concepts. Apocalyptic destruction from war, epidemics, euthanisia and overpopulation have been explored in epic movies of the 60s and 70s like the Planet of the Apes series, Omega Man, Soylent Green, Logan's Run and others, several of which are sampled in this album.

Only now we are begining to see the effects of our careless expansion with the discussions of global warming, carbon footprints and so on. Our water tables continue to become more and more polluted. Regardless of climate change it should be obvious that the wanton release of pollutants and chemicals into the atmosphere that we breathe and the water we rely on for survival is a bad idea.

We are seemingly on a an immutable path to unavoidable death, destruction and calamity.

 
Soft Rains  
 

soft rains

This song's main sample is from an old time radio broadcast known as Dimension X of Ray Bradbury's August 2026: There will come soft rains. The short story is about a automated home of the future that has long outlived it's former occupants after a nuclear holocost. Bradbury was inspired to write this short story by the wonderful poem of the same name by Sara Teasdale originally written in 1922. Both the story and the poem are an inspiration for this collection of songs.

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
--Sara Teasdale 1922

shim

 
Greed  
 

Greed is the desire for the pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others. It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism. The sample in this song is from the classic line by Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street.

Clearly unrestrained greed is not good and the days of unregulated capitalism are numbered. In late 2008 when this track was being written banks and financial institutions worldwide were collapsing as a result of greed on the part of the banking system. The bailout could reach many trillions of dollars.

How it is permissable to allow lending institutions and Wall Street barons to make bad business decisions and have citizens and taxpayers across the world foot the bill is beyond comprehension.

 

 
Plague of the Earth  
 

Mankind is a plague of the earth. You are a plague of the earth.

 

 
hubris  
 

"Seest thou how God with his lightning smites always the bigger animals, and will not suffer them to wax insolent, while those of a lesser bulk chafe him not? How likewise his bolts fall ever on the highest houses and the tallest trees? So plainly does He love to bring down everything that exalts itself. Thus ofttimes a mighty host is discomfited by a few men, when God in his jealousy sends fear or storm from heaven, and they perish in a way unworthy of them. For God allows no one to have high thoughts but Himself." -- Herodotus

 

 
judgement  
 

Judgement ( capitalized ) is: the final judging of humankind by God (b): a divine sentence or decision ; specifically : a calamity held to be sent by God. If you believe in God you probably believe in some kind of ultimate Judgement of mankind by God. You probably also believe it is coming soon. Perhaps it is, we will see.

 

 
war  
 

As civilized intellectuals our urge is to resist war. Unfortunately there are cases where war is unnavoidable, where it is natural. You can see it small scale in the insect world with ants or termites or you can watch it unfold globally on TV as nations and nationalities compete for territory and resources.

As an ecosystem becomes stressed organisms will compete for resources and conflict is inevitable. Man is not exempt from this natural phenomenon, unfortunately our technology has given us the capability for unprecedented destruction on a massive and global scale. Globally we are reaching a point where the ecosystem is becoming stressed or depending on who's report you read is stressed already.

Competion for territory and resources is heating up, war on a large scale may be inevitable.

 

 
propaganda  
 

The sample in the song is one of the great Bushisms by George W. Bush Jr. talking about propaganda, but it may as well be any world leader today. In today's society it can be difficult to ascertain what is real and what is fabrication. In general there is an information overload and I think people have difficulty filtering though it all.

One tactic used by leaders is simply to repeat things over and over to try to alter the perception of reality by the populace. WMDs anyone? Another good example of this is the current recession. The Bush administration, the average news media, and others have been saying since 2007 that the US is not in a recession but when banks and Wall Street began to collapse the government eventually admitted we have been in a deepening recession since early 2007.

 

 
the most beautiful sight ever seen by man  
 

"Watched from a safe distance, this explosion is one of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man." is from an old army training film I found on archive.org. "Duck and Cover" is sampled from the Atomic Cafe documentary of 40s and 50s era propaganda films designed to convince the masses that atomic weapons are not a threat.

If you haven't seen the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists you should. They maintain a magazine that informs the public about threats to the survival and development of humanity from nuclear weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in the life sciences. They also are the keepers of the Doomsday Clock, designed simply to display the minutes from midnight, with midnight being the apocalypse. Many members of the Bulletin's board of Directors believe we are embarking on a second more volatile nuclear age.

If climate change persists as warned some scientists are predicting mass migration of populations that could lead to war. From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "Global warming poses a dire threat to human civilization that is second only to nuclear weapons. Through flooding and desertification, climate change threatens the habitats and agricultural resources that societies depend upon for survival. As such, climate change is also likely to contribute to mass migrations and even to wars over arable land, water, and other natural resources."

 

 
happy?  
 

The samples and vocals in this track are from an old time radio broadcast of Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The story is about a dystopian society where books are banned because they are too thought provoking in favor of mindless tv entertainment and regimented overmedication. According to wikipedia, Bradbury states that Fahrenheit 451 is a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of "factoids", partial information devoid of context, e.g., Napoleon's birth date alone, without an indication of who he was.

I get almost all of my news from the internet and news feeds. I do this simply because all I ever see when I switch to the news on TV is sensational tabloid material. When I contrast that with what I see in my google news filters the contrast is truly impressive. In terms of information that is relevant to the human condition, it simply does not exist on broadcast national or local news shows.

 

 
disease  
 

Disease is one of natures favorite tools for population correction. As our planet becomes more populated the liklihood that diseases will mutate into more resistant forms goes up. In addition our own advances in bio technology and gene science have made it possible to create more leathal pathogens and virulent organisms.

 

 
wake up  
 

The sample in this track "I need something stonger" is from Lucas's THX 1138. This movie is another sci fi dystopian cult classic. From Wikipedia....THX 1138 depicts a dystopian futuristic society in which conformity, collectivism, and commerce are mandatory and love and emotion are forbidden. The mandatory sedatives taken by the populace in THX 1138 neutralize and prevent deviant behavior and reinforce conformity. The drugs promote and maintain social control.

This track is a reaction to an ever increasing relationship developing between state governments and large pharmacutical companies.

 

 
big boy boomeroo  
 

The name of this track is taken from the Butter Battle Book by Dr. Suess. From Wikipedia...The Butter Battle Book tells the story of a land where two hostile cultures, the Yooks and the Zooks, live on opposite sides of a long curving wall. The Yooks wear blue clothes; the Zooks wear orange. The main dispute between the two cultures is that the Yooks, who live on one side of the wall, eat their bread with the butter-side up, while the Zooks, who live on the other side, eat their bread with the butter-side down. The conflict between the two sides leads to an arms race, each competing to make bigger and better weapons to outdo the other, which results in the threat of mutual assured destruction.

Although the cold war of my childhood is more or less over the threat to mankind from nuclear war is not. In fact the landscape is more complex and treacherous today than it was in the days mutual assured destruction.

 

 
dubpocalypse  
 

"All the cities of the world are being destroyed one by one". The samples used in this track are from "Destroy all Monsters".

 

 
monstrosities  
  From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sir Martin Rees, said, "Nuclear weapons still pose the most catastrophic and immediate threat to humanity, but climate change and emerging technologies in the life sciences also have the potential to end civilization as we know it."

 

 
bad spirits  
  This track has big 808 drops. The sample is about how people with mental disorders are misunderstood.  
fade to a blacker black  
  I always include an eplilogue type track at the end of my albums and this one is it.