The World Economic Forum is calling for more direct action to end the pending food crisis. Amazing how that is timed with Oregon and Idaho water restrictions and Michigan Avian Flu crisis. Want fries with the grasshopper burger?
Imagine Not Being Able to Look Up Someone on Social Media
Our failures, with jobs, learning, relationships are the milestones and obstacles that ultimately shape of success and happiness in life. But we have traded that for convenience. When you examine the surge in technology, much is indeed for geared for consumerism that has kept us inert.
I was privileged to learn vendor management from our Director of Network Communications who had served on a naval destroyer. He would wait a minute or two while a sales team would begin their spiel, then interrupt with “Excuse me, I am not here to be SOLD something, I am here to BUY something. Do you understand the difference?” It would put us in the driver seat for asking questions that cut to the heart of the value proposition that the service and or product offered, what the cost was, and cut out all the word salad BS in PowerPoint form. We retained the Conn when we gave the commands, as they used to say on Star Trek.
The episode The Return of the Archons is in my view the best example of how consideration for the human soul, when presented logically, demonstrates the strength of employing our agency. This applies to the Bro-ligarchs who presently chant that the AI slop is a sign that AI supremacy is inevitable. While I suggest you view this episode in its entirety to gather all the gems that I’ll miss, here is a brief plot summary. I included the 5 minute segment that is the finale, as well as my favorite scene where Spock expresses surprise over technology which seemingly operates like magic. I’m detailing the elements in that episode that track with our present day concerns regarding our agency, AI run amok, Milgram Experiment style human behavior with respects to the pending superiority and harmony that AI is supposed to offer us. If I simply wrote that Kirk and Spock beam down to a planet with weird people controlled by a computer and have to use logic to defeat it because their phasers won’t work, the alarming parallels between our behavior today with the captive hypnotized population of Beta III would be lost.
Minong Mined Area
The Ojibwe tribe named Isle Royal Minong. This tribe are the Native Americans who the French encountered when Jaques Cartier and others explored the Great Lakes in the New World. But the Ojibwe were no the first to mine in the area.
Isle Royale is 18 Miles from Minnesota and 56 miles from the Keewanau Peninsula.
Mining was conducted throughout the eons. A region would be used, then abandoned. Sometimes it would take up 1000 years for the extraction process to begin in the region. Very little is known about the way of life of these earliest miners, as no habitation sites from the mining period have been definitively located on Isle Royale. This suggests the mining was likely pursued as part of an annual round of hunting, fishing, and collecting berries and plants, rather than a highly organized effort. The identity of who was primarily doing the mining is also a part of the mystery, with the Mound Builders suggested as the most logical candidates due to their extensive trading network. Furthermore, intriguing, though debatable, connections are posited, such as the hypothesis that Michigan copper might have been shipped across the Atlantic during the Bronze Age, based on extremely pure copper found in shipwrecks off Turkey. The presence of ancient petroglyphs (like a ship or a giant handprint) in the area around these mines also adds to the enigmatic nature of the site. The mention of an early archaeologist finding a square temple mound on Isle Royale, associated with the Mound Builders, that is now possibly overgrown and unrecognized, further deepens the mystery of this ancient past.
Legends and Conjecture: Egyptians in The Great Lakes Mining Cooper
Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods, has done amazing work utilizing geology to corroborate or disprove archeological theories. One example is that the patterns of weathering on the Sphynx corresponds with damage done by tropical storms, and not desert sand. One thing that has intrigued many is that with the volume of copper extracted from the Great Lakes, the question remains where did it all go? Another question that up until recently had remained unanswered was what was the source of copper in the Mid East and Europe was unknown. Hancock and others theorized that Egyptians had traveled beyond the Straits of Hercules, crossed the Atlantic, and had mined in the Great Lakes during the time when the indigenous tribes were mining Royal Isle and the Keewenau Peninsula.
- Roy Drier – change of tools = change of people
- .5 billion pounds of copper?
Copper From Great Lakes Has the Purest Content, Does Not Require Smelting
Annealing and Hammering: While termed “cold,” this technique involved heating the copper to approximately 800-900 degrees Fahrenheit (around 400 degrees Celsius), making it more malleable, and then hammering it into shape. This process is likened to how a blacksmith works iron. Evidence also suggests that the copper was annealed, further enhancing its workability.
Copper chosen due to lack of obsidian and quartz
- Reshaping and Resharpening: Unlike stone tools, which often require re-knapping or are discarded when dull or broken, copper tools “can be reshaped and resharpened with ease”. This inherent malleability allowed for repeated use and maintenance, extending the lifespan of a tool.
- Durability and Reusability: Copper projectile points, for instance, were far more durable and reusable than their stone counterparts. While a stone projectile point might only be good for “a couple of hunts,” a copper projectile point “could easily be used dozens of times“. This significantly reduced the need for constant tool replacement.
- Versatility in Shaping and Form: This is identified as “by far the biggest advantage of copper”.
- Copper “can be made much skinnier without sacrificing as much structural integrity” compared to stone. This allowed for designs that were impossible with brittle stone.
- Ancient coppersmiths could craft intricate and functional tools like fishing hooks, needles, and awls, which would have been “very hard or nearly impossible to make with stone”.
- It also facilitated the creation of “wider tools such as knives, cleavers, spear points and Crescent shaped knives”.
- Use in Stone Tool Production: Interestingly, copper itself proved beneficial in working stone. Modern-day flint knappers, for example, “primarily rely on copper tools” for processes like “pressure flaking”. This indicates that copper’s properties made it superior even for the manufacture of stone tools.
- Thinness with Durability: Thin copper tools are described as being “much more durable than thin Stone”, which is a critical characteristic for many cutting and piercing implements.
National Identity or Sense of Where You Derive Your Liberty