A recent article in The Register reads: LastFM Oopsed over by Apple .. and they go on to discuss the 30 percent subscription tax Apple are levying on content producers. However, this is not new news... Apple also levy a 30 percent sort of 'tax' on publishers selling their books though their electronic market place. Their 30 percent is more than the producer/creators share of the content that the creators created and the producers produced...
Why would any of this come as a shock? Why would people be so surprised? We live in a mega-gross, mega-rich, mega-size, mega-hungry too-big-to-survive corporate system. Even India and China [who should know better due to thousands of years of Sun Tzu and high culture], even they are drowning in the illusion of bigger profits from bigger corporations. I call it 'greed', Taoists would call it 'out-of-balance'.
To understand what I am talking about, look at nature. Go look at an oak tree or a beech tree - find a big tree .. how about a Sequoia? All of nature and all trees, mountains, lakes, oceans, flowers and volcanoes grow in proportion.
You might ask, "In proportion to what?"
That is simple to observe... If a giant volcano became even more giant it would destroy the world and if a colony of dandelions grew as high as mountains or if a sun flare grew as big as the Solar System... that is a basic way to understand 'proportions'.
For example, mankind in most activities grows and lives outside his and the Earth's proportions. Humans are greedy and so we fish the oceans dry, we cannot have enough of what we have, we always have to have more... and this is one example of out-of-proportion growth.
In today's corporate climate bigger is plus and smaller is minus. You don't want to go to smaller, you want to go to bigger. The problem is bigger than bigger is 'out-of-proportion' to nature's laws.
The cancer tumor is equal to its growth [a subtle piece of Zen that takes some thinking about]. Imagine a Dinosaur - the biggest that there is - and double its size every four months. There you have your 'corporations' and their appetite for greed.
The reality is, a big crash is coming equal to the size of the monster created. Human behaviour seems to be immune to the laws of nature; but we are not immune. The same laws apply and living according to those laws creates wealth (balanced wealth), good fortune and well-being. Disobey those laws and the monster you create will, at some point, collapse on you.
Small Is Great & Great Is Small
When I was a child I had an experience where my mind entered the universe on its own (as mind's are probably supposed to do). In the universe big was small and small was big. This is classic Zen .. the most distant largest planets were magnified but small, and the smallest particles were far away and bigger than the planets.
If human beings could understand or experience this truth then they would not break the laws of nature; but they would co-operate with these laws and would prosper, in a state of well-being and good health. That which is small is great and that which is great is small.
Our collective insanity to grow ever larger and to prosper ever more, to increase and never decrease and to expand and never contract is leading to 'disaster'.
Balance would be when the people in Egypt create, develop and produce their own technology. Balance would be when small is beautiful .. where the people in China, Indonesia and India create and produce their own technology for the local community rather than rely on a too-big-to-survive technology tumor spreading across the face of the Earth.
I see a future where local 'technology' creations are as unique and as beautiful as hand forged Japanese knives or Japanese blades. I see a time coming where local technology groups create and produce regional Japanese blade technologies .. collectors items .. and not this mass produce crap people know today. Technology can be created and recycled locally, where the work benefits the local community.
The I-Ching
If I was a regional leader today or a corporate personality .. I would be reading and studying the I-Ching as a way to lead the raging waters of humanity back into balance. I would not be creating too-big-to-fail mega corporations. I would not be pushing against the laws of nature. I would be seeking to understand that the laws of nature have VALUE and that so-called 'restrictions' are really INTELLIGENT GROWTH.
I was a kid, still at school, when I began to study the I-Ching. I did not totally understand it - but I 'understood' it without knowing how. I would read the I-Ching because I could not figure it out. I now realise that studying the I-Ching is like drinking water.
You drink water and you do not know or understand how it affects you; but this lack of understanding does not stop you drinking water. Drinking the water makes you feel good. You do not understand why it makes you feel good - but you keep drinking.
That is called: The Balance of Nature ...
I Ching: Book of Changes, by Richard Wilhelm
Why would any of this come as a shock? Why would people be so surprised? We live in a mega-gross, mega-rich, mega-size, mega-hungry too-big-to-survive corporate system. Even India and China [who should know better due to thousands of years of Sun Tzu and high culture], even they are drowning in the illusion of bigger profits from bigger corporations. I call it 'greed', Taoists would call it 'out-of-balance'.
To understand what I am talking about, look at nature. Go look at an oak tree or a beech tree - find a big tree .. how about a Sequoia? All of nature and all trees, mountains, lakes, oceans, flowers and volcanoes grow in proportion.
You might ask, "In proportion to what?"
That is simple to observe... If a giant volcano became even more giant it would destroy the world and if a colony of dandelions grew as high as mountains or if a sun flare grew as big as the Solar System... that is a basic way to understand 'proportions'.
For example, mankind in most activities grows and lives outside his and the Earth's proportions. Humans are greedy and so we fish the oceans dry, we cannot have enough of what we have, we always have to have more... and this is one example of out-of-proportion growth.
In today's corporate climate bigger is plus and smaller is minus. You don't want to go to smaller, you want to go to bigger. The problem is bigger than bigger is 'out-of-proportion' to nature's laws.
The cancer tumor is equal to its growth [a subtle piece of Zen that takes some thinking about]. Imagine a Dinosaur - the biggest that there is - and double its size every four months. There you have your 'corporations' and their appetite for greed.
The reality is, a big crash is coming equal to the size of the monster created. Human behaviour seems to be immune to the laws of nature; but we are not immune. The same laws apply and living according to those laws creates wealth (balanced wealth), good fortune and well-being. Disobey those laws and the monster you create will, at some point, collapse on you.
Small Is Great & Great Is Small
When I was a child I had an experience where my mind entered the universe on its own (as mind's are probably supposed to do). In the universe big was small and small was big. This is classic Zen .. the most distant largest planets were magnified but small, and the smallest particles were far away and bigger than the planets.
If human beings could understand or experience this truth then they would not break the laws of nature; but they would co-operate with these laws and would prosper, in a state of well-being and good health. That which is small is great and that which is great is small.
Our collective insanity to grow ever larger and to prosper ever more, to increase and never decrease and to expand and never contract is leading to 'disaster'.
Balance would be when the people in Egypt create, develop and produce their own technology. Balance would be when small is beautiful .. where the people in China, Indonesia and India create and produce their own technology for the local community rather than rely on a too-big-to-survive technology tumor spreading across the face of the Earth.
I see a future where local 'technology' creations are as unique and as beautiful as hand forged Japanese knives or Japanese blades. I see a time coming where local technology groups create and produce regional Japanese blade technologies .. collectors items .. and not this mass produce crap people know today. Technology can be created and recycled locally, where the work benefits the local community.
The I-Ching
If I was a regional leader today or a corporate personality .. I would be reading and studying the I-Ching as a way to lead the raging waters of humanity back into balance. I would not be creating too-big-to-fail mega corporations. I would not be pushing against the laws of nature. I would be seeking to understand that the laws of nature have VALUE and that so-called 'restrictions' are really INTELLIGENT GROWTH.
I was a kid, still at school, when I began to study the I-Ching. I did not totally understand it - but I 'understood' it without knowing how. I would read the I-Ching because I could not figure it out. I now realise that studying the I-Ching is like drinking water.
You drink water and you do not know or understand how it affects you; but this lack of understanding does not stop you drinking water. Drinking the water makes you feel good. You do not understand why it makes you feel good - but you keep drinking.
That is called: The Balance of Nature ...
I Ching: Book of Changes, by Richard Wilhelm
