How "Limbic" Capitalism Weaponized Human Vices
The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the midbrain.[1] WIKIPEDIA
How ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains (May 2019)
QUILLETTE.COM............. I propose that the main source of the problem has been what I call limbic capitalism. This refers to a technologically advanced but socially regressive business system in which global industries, often with the help of complicit governments and criminal organizations, encourage excessive consumption and addiction.
EARTH CUSTODIANS: These 3 lines encapsulate our ordeal quite efficiently. Limbic capitalism is of a criminal nature. Artificial demand induced by compulsive advertising is what keeps the limbic market afloat. Yes, and it is regressive because any form of addiction prevents from being oneself.
They do so by targeting the limbic system, the part of the brain responsible for feeling and for quick reaction, as distinct from dispassionate thinking. The limbic system’s pathways of networked neurons make possible pleasure, motivation, long-term memory and other emotionally linked functions crucial for survival.
I spend therefore I am.
The dead end of materialism is to associate oneself with one's belongings, but since there is nothing rewarding in such a superficial approach, the need to buy endlessly occurs as a result to fill the void. Man is, without a doubt, conditioned to project into purchases his own self-esteem but the pleasure taken in buying is very short lived because the left and right brain hemispheres are not wired for consumerism at all but creativity mainly.
Since those who cannot -- or do not want -- to compete are left behind in a capitalistic system, it is easy to see why its main feature fosters emotional survival. Being continually in "fight or flight mode" and the ability to go through each day create the reward system, which becomes the motivation. Capitalism praises hero-like behaviors but the latter paradoxically go against society. The various ongoing ecocides evidence this. Society has lauded genius inventors and financiers like never before, but what for in the end?
Limbic capitalism was itself a product of cultural evolution. It was a late development in a long historical process that saw the accelerating spread of novel pleasures and their twinned companions of vice and addiction. The pleasures, vices and addictions most conspicuously associated with limbic capitalism were those of intoxication.
Earth Custodians beg to differ, would not say that it is the product of cultural evolution, "economic serfdom" has existed almost since ever after all. The only evolution we see here rather lies in the means to implement this very servitude.
Talking of intoxication, we have to add that intoxication is the symptom of a deep systemic inefficiency. It is the feudal structure that mainly perpetuates the latter. While exceptions do exist, in the broad sense a lack of freedom is at the very core of our social self-destructiveness.
Considerations of private profit and state revenue encouraged alcohol and drug consumption until rising social costs forced governments to restrict or prohibit at least some drugs.
Debt induced consumerism is bringing the whole planet onto its knees. And this time will be different because we have long passed the very last threshold of this current paradigm. Time for new model and without monetarism!
In brief, civilized inventiveness weaponized pleasurable products and pastimes. The more rapid and intense the brain reward they imparted, the likelier they were to foster pathological learning and craving, particularly among socially and genetically vulnerable consumers.
Correct, pleasurable products and pastimes are weaponized. Self-destructiveness is a downward spiral. It is like people suffering from bulimia, the buying gluttony has required to max out our lifestyle. Earth Custodians don't think that it has to do with vulnerability per se but rather the fact that the doctrine of the system is hazardous as it encourages risk taking and the unfettered pursuit of materialism, while those at the very top just wait for the right conjectures to stretch out their tentacles.
Meanwhile, globalization, industrialization and urbanization made these seductive commodities and services more accessible and affordable, often in anonymous environments conducive to anomie and saturated with advertising.
For those who don't know, anomie refers to social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values.
Earth Custodians wouldn't say that services are more accessible and affordable. Perhaps accessible because credit cards fuel the demand. Affordability alone is really a subjective factor. Typically the buying addiction makes one buy what one cannot really afford. Hence the whole system spiraling down.
After the Cold War, their enterprises became increasingly varied, legitimate, and global. They created, not merely an age of addiction, but an age of “addiction by design” that is both the hallmark of limbic capitalism and the clearest demonstration of its inversion of the forces of reason and science that made it possible.
The role of science is as much important as which of the "dark market forces", they are very likely 2 sides of the same coin. And a previous blog of ours validates this take: While UN Scientists Prepare For The End Of Capitalism. Clearly science is as much as guilty for its own laissez-faire attitidues evolving in sync with the planetary pillage by corporations.
The strength of the 1% is that they have understood the "limbic" seduction of materialism, and have made sure that it gets implemented in every fashion possible.
This article is an interesting read, written like a novel, but definitely attempts to blur the lines, as if those who claim to work for humanity had no responsibility whatsoever. Of course "we the people" are too to blame. The only difference is that we'll end up footing the bill while the 1% will make sure that their "safe havens" are heavily protected.... unless we completely reverse the game by declaring money obsolete!
While UN Scientists Prepare For The End Of Capitalism
https://earthcustodians.net/blog/2019/02/26/while-un-scientists-prepare-for-the-end-of-capitalism/
The Elites Announce The Downfall Of Capitalism
This is a 10min video based on the previous blog and segments of an interview of Aldous Huxley by Mike Wallace, along with earthcustodians’ input.
Your posts are so dead on! I think we have hit peak consumerism as you described and we are quite possibly at a crossroads, after 2008 which I reference like a broken record, was a major game changer and changed the whole dynamic of generations chasing the American Dream, because that event murdered that illusion and people especially younger generations are no longer chasing that mirage. I think that's one reason for the current hysteria over Socialism, It's not that people want Socialism, they know the truth about what our current Crony Capitalist economic system is all about and see it for how unethical it really is, and no longer chase dreams built on lies.
You are correct, many are seeing how unethical the system is, unfortunately UBI and other incentives will not work either. But I for one thinks that crony capitalism is built in any monetary structure... we defintely have challenging times ahead of us. Tnx for dropping by @natepower
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