DON'T GET LOST IN THE SOURCE
Imagine creating something and not knowing how it functions. Is the thing conscious? Is it aware? Or is it, as African Spiritual Sciences ("AS") would describe, merely a reflection of how incomplete your understanding is of your own consciousness? A black hole in your being and you just don’t know, or don’t want to know, what lies beyond the event horizon? Humans work in a similar way, even under a collective conscious. To that degree, humanity may have created its very first AI almost three centuries ago with invent of the financial system and the prescient yet seemingly unexplainable phenomena that is Inflation. Today on The Other Side with Sihle Sibeko, we examine the ever-present black# hole of our financial system and the possible genesis point of this Conscious-AI.
INFLATION...
Inflation inflation inflation…. Its origins according to some historians stem from the 16th Century, when Spanish sailors returned to their fatherland with their bounty of gold, silver and other precious metals mined from their colonialist efforts in Latin America. Other historians state inflations is said to have existed in the times when commodity was a form of currency due to large infusions of gold & silver. It is without a doubt, however, that inflation was greatly accelerated when fiat currency became the standard, where it is now the enemy to your wallet, the sicario to government savings, yet the delicate grain of sand ensuring balance & continuity to the economic system. The true definition of inflation as “a monetary phenomenon causing a loss to purchasing power”. This seemingly easy explanation is however layered in complexity. The trouble, or complexity in defining inflation is that its source as a monetary phenomenon that erodes value in the economic system is yet to be defined. For instance, central banks the world over base estimates of inflation on a universally agreed consumer basket known as the Consumer Price Index, this includes day-to-day items such as bread, milk, washing materials and other basic household items. However, how can one confidently estimate the inflation figure by including the price increases in bread but excluding the price increases in spreads that you put on the bread? You want to include price increases in sectional titles but not include increases in wage growth (which has its own calculation). Of course a dislocation will occur. Another instance is how the CPI basket is always shifts to align to consumer trends, therefore it may reflect a universal acceptance by our perception, but lack in universality to account for other expenditures that experience higher price increases than the accepted norm of the CPI basket.
This leads to a quagmire for central banks to solve. Until recently, since Q2 of 2020 the Federal Reserve Bank of USA had been struggling to get a grapple on the “real” inflation figure – ultimately creating a void in the Fed’s credibility for the first time in since the 08 financial crisis. Traders, corporate bankers and other market speculators placed hedged bets against the Fed’s ability to engineering meeting the inflationary targets consistently (and engineering a soft landing, but that’s a chat for another day). Now, if the most resourced and “credible” central bank in the world is struggles to comprehend its own inflationary scenarios, what hope for the rest of us? Why even try understand it? Why does it always serve us with whiplash? Because we misappropriate its substance as form.
The “form” of inflation comes from the consciousness that underpinned its creation at the dawn of the financial system. A system is merely the expression of consciousness, and cogs within a system are the different figments of consciousness needed to fulfil the design of the system aka the expression of consciousness. To wholly know ourselves is to wholly know the systems we create – any lack in comprehension is lack in comprehending aspects of our own consciousness & being. When we understand this, we then can hypothesize inflation as a figment of consciousness, and for the sake of this discourse, we’ll hypothesize that inflation as an expression of scarcity.
SCARCITY AS A CONSCIOUSNESS
In AS, consciousness is understood through how it manifests in an individual: How they feel, how they respond to a feeling and what emanates out of the persons will. The state of being is the signal we are after to understand a conscious manifestation. Contrary to classical economic thought, scarcity as a stream of consciousness does not inflate the value of an ornament or being, but it does deflate its esteem or power (haha, get it, right?). When one is in a state of scarcity, their options are rationed, they may be plagued by a paranoia, uncertainty pulls the individual to anxiety and a lack of control nauseates the person with neurosis. Does this sound like a candidate ripe to be the perfect consumer for a capitalist experiment? Worse still, what if the individual does not know they are being experimented on – in effect, what if the individual unaware and therefore cannot access that stream of consciousness? In AS, the principle behind being is that one lives to have a well-rounded understanding of self, that its, to be fully conscious and aware of self. That conscious awareness breeds sovereignty, purpose and individuation!
Put down the EKN101 textbook for a second, ask yourself “How does scarcity feel” and assess whether you feel secured & inflated, or insecure & depleted… Now that we’ve defined the consciousness of scarcity, let’s preview possible genesis points of inflation as an erosive element.
1 Scorched Earth Policies: The erosion of natural resources as a way for the colonialist to win battles against the indigenous people driving the indigenous people into a frantic state of scarcity and driving the environment into a state of disequilibrium;
2 (Forced) Migration(s & Displacement: Migration, in particular forced migration, also brought scarcity and disequilibrium, with one being ripped from their abundant time/space reality and thrown into a wilderness that may or may not be suitable for sustained living. Theses forced migrations include the enslavement & deliberate displacement of individuals, which cause a disequilibrium in nature because an individual carries a genetic marker/affinity to their lands of origin;
3. Extractive Mining & environmental hazards: In AS and other indigenous cultures, harvesting from the Earth was met with replenishment & re-seeding for sustainability purpose. Life’s delicate balance was one of receive & replenish. The commercial mining efforts that accelerated during the industrial revolution introduced a new level of scarcity, one that shows the sheer ignominy that results from a lack of understanding self: The reduction in inhabitability of the planet – a scarcity for life itself to be sustained multi-generationally on Earth. We’re launching ourselves into a future where we will cease to exist – now assess how that feels. Considering that a commodity in Spain boom is widely seen as the source of inflation, and the often common notion that commodities are counter-cyclical to inflation, it’s not hard to associate the two as the point of genesis!;
4. Fear consciousness: Scarcity pours into us a sense of savagery over the basics of life. One may turn animalistic when their food security is at risk, and go to the lengths of killing their fellow brethren to ensure their survival. When you fear there’s not enough to go around, you can quickly fall into the slippery slope of disillusioned barbarism.
Whether or not this these represent the emanation of inflation as a manifestation of scarcity is debatable, and whether or not the consciousness that represents inflation is one of scarcity is up for even further debate. The main takeaway is that all systems are governed by consciousness – it is therefore our intellectual and conscientious duty to contour systems to reflect the highest principles our individual & collective consciousness can align to. If these are indeed the sources of inflation as a manifestation of consciousness, let us transmute inflation from a genesis energy of value-erosion to a newer energy of value-production - disharmony can no longer be tolerated. If these are the origins of inflation, a vital cog in our financial system, then the onus is on us to rethink, redesign and reassemble a better financial system with a grander, more abundant consciousness.
Just like an unaware part of your consciousness cannot be accessed, so to we will continue to inaccurately to pinpoint the genesis of inflation as a monetary phenomenon. A system mirrors the consciousness of its inventor and it’s high time we get to know ourselves before externalizing the answer. The more we study our own consciousness individually & collectively, the greater we’ll understand our financial system, the phenomena’s that sustain its continuity such as inflation, and our potential of accuracy in profile the said phenomena’s.
Siyabonga!!!
This week's affirmation: I consciously create my life to reflect my aspirations and dreams!
This week's vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfCvf8pEj_Y | https://music.apple.com/gb/song/already-home-feat-kid-cudi/1440932917 | https://open.spotify.com/track/6BspqxU4vVF6ZsWjfgIJkK - Already Home by Jay-Z feat Kid Cudi
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