Fiddling While Rome Burns

Nero Being Lectured By Seneca

(note: Nero has his fingers in his ears and is singing aloud

"Tinniti! Tinniti!

non te nihil audivi!"

which could be translated as "La-la! Can't hear you!")

Our popular representation of Nero is actually a pretty good symbol, a metaphor for the inability to focus on real dangers and problem - i.e., the fire - while occupying oneself with non-essentials - i.e., rosin the bow, lads!

If you read my post Oil Answers, it is clear that we could be in a position like being in that fabulous creek of popular proverb, without a paddle... without a canoe, actually, just plodding and mucking about in the creek.

We Are At Peak Oil Now
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/12/21/we-are-at-peak-oil-now-we-need-very-low-cost-energy-to-fix-it/#more-40445

It is a marvelous presentation outlining the many mistakes in our understanding of Peak Oil, and how that scenario will play out in the real world.

One would think the choice of future leadership would be very important and that a good deal of  focus would be on the economic theories of the various contenders for the presidency...

Not quite yet, however. It has been more like Madea Runs For Office.

There have been other issues, too, such as human rights; these are real and important issues, but they have been pretty much addressed by routine party lines.
Human rights, Black Lives, Abortion, Immigration, Guns; a lot of sound and fury, but the discussion is on the level of bar room political debates. That is OK for a while, I suppose, but we really should be aware that the louder noise level is a defense mechanism we use to avoid the anxiety of actually dealing with things...
Dealing with them before everything falls apart...

Or burns down around us.
Good metaphor.

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