These elites get bashed, but when they talk like that I know they are paying attention.
So what is the powerful idea? I have had my red wine, and shall opine:
Lately I have been obsessed, OBSESSED with this math thing called the Fourier Transform. Through it, any linear function can be expressed as infinite sum of sine waves of increasing frequency, with the phase and amplitude of each dependent on the original function. Its totally universal, so even a function depicting a square can be expressed this way. (see the Wikipedia page for graphic of this) But the powerful idea is that a point in any function has two lives: one of them is local, as that one point, and one of them is non local, as a sum of sines that also define every other point in that function. So if you change one point in a function, it changes every point in its alternative identity, its Fourier Transform. And if you change one point in the Fourier transform, it changes every other point in the function. so each thing has a local existence and a non-local existence so a change on one point in either domain always effects the whole.
This would all be beautiful math, an intellectual exercise, except that the universe cares deeply about beautiful math:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform#Uncertainty_principle
The above link expresses the uncertainty principle from quantum mechanics as a link between a function and its Fourier Transform. I think the position-space and momentum-space wave functions are fts of each other. So yes, the universe cares about this.
Anyway, I can't pretend to understand the details of all that higher level math and physics, but what I do understand that I think is worth distilling out or that is this idea of existing both locally and non-locally. So there are two lenses with which to see any entity: the first is to see the thing in itself, in its nakedness and separation from all things, the second is to see the thing as an inseparable sum of all things, the universe reflected in a drop like Indra's net(2), an expression of the whole as much as it is of itself, where changes to it manifest in time as changes to the universe as a whole. (3)
So in terms of capitalism, we see the role perception plays in the concept of "enlightened self interest". Which self? And how enlightened are we? To me it seems that truly enlightened self interest transcends the local concept of self and embraces a non-local one as well, through which we can see one's self manifesting all over the world and in different forms into the distant future. So profitable action means not just profit for the doomed mortal local self, but for the eternal non-local one as well. But what I'm talking about here is a shift in perception. Is it a shift in a spiritual direction? To say it is spiritual and not scientific is to admit that we are too fucking dumb to notice the links between citations 2 and 3 below, and thus to push it into woo woo land, competing with things like the dumbass forms evangelical Christianity. But at the same time 90%-95% of us are pretty dumb. There are Christians now focused on being stewards of the creation, living lives that profit future generations environmentally, economically, and the rest. But for every one of them, there are ten or twenty who have committed themselves to the idea that they have no such obligation, and if they shit their pants long enough Jesus will return to clean up the mess, conveniently timing end times to prevent them from facing the ramifications for their own sinful actions that are destructive to future generations. Its time for the focus to change.
Truth is powerful. When those who fight in its name fight half as hard as those who lie, they win. Those perceptions that see the non-local self, that care for others and future generations, are we we call moral. A careful eye sees that the moral is harmonious with the truthful. Truth means seeing a self that does not die, but lives on in others. Profitable action for such a self is also moral action. The disease inflicting the world right now is a lack of enlightenment.
PEace
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra's_net
(3)
(yes, the universe cares about this)
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