Bacon's Rebellion

OBSESSED WITH ONE IDEA?

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Ugo Betti is right. ‘Mad’ IS a term used to describe a person who is obsessed with one idea and nothing else.

We believe strongly in the economic, social and physical imperative of evolving functional human settlement patterns.

On the other hand, we also believe strongly in the need to avoid large falling objects and toxic substances, the need to Balance nutrition and exercise, that the Earth is not flat and revolves around the Sun as well as the Periodic Table of Elements, the Electromagnetic Spectrum, the dynamics of complex organic structures. We believe these and most of the other science based theories and facts humans have articulated over the past 2.8 million years.

The difference between these things and the exploration of functional and dysfunctional human settlement patterns is that there are many advocates and supporters of those facts, theories and realities.

Many agree with EMR. The reason that it appears that many disagree is not the validity of attacks by those that disagree, it is the failure of those who agree to make that point, especially in the Blog context. Among other things they say:

“EMR is (or may be) right about functional and dysfunctional human settlement patterns. However,

• His ideas upset some of our key donors;

• I could not get reelected if I took forceful stands on human settlement pattern issues;

• My employer would fire me if I supported these ideas;

• He is years ahead of us and we need short-term fixes;

• We do not have to go as far as Fundamental Transformation, just implement this idea of mine and we will be fine, for now.

• He said negative things about New Urbanists or ______ so we cannot support him;

• He is holding his own, why risk having to catch spears aimed at him?

• We will not make as much money if we change from Business-As-Usual so just ignore him.

• If we endorse what he says, that means we have been wrong for years.

EMR

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

Comments

9 responses to “OBSESSED WITH ONE IDEA?”

  1. Rabbit Avatar
    Rabbit

    Hey, you forgot:

    * EMR talks about himself in 3rd person, and that creeps me out

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Yeah, it makes it sound as if someone is listening.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Once again EMR blows his credibility: fully develoed human speech anatomy first appears in the fossil record in the Upper Paleolithic (about 50,000 years ago) and is absent in both Neanderthals and earlier humans.

    What exactly were the scientific theories “humans” were articulating 2.8 million years ago? I imagine they were at least as good at it as EMR is about human settlement patterns.

    RH

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Well, hey.

    At least they lived in the right size shelter (a skin) near where they worked (clubbed some baby animal to death). They lived at one with the environment.

    And how do we know about them?

    From all the trash they left behind.

    RH

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The difference between these things and the exploration of functional and dysfunctional human settlement patterns is that there are many advocates and supporters of those facts, theories and realities.”

    And you haven”t figured out yet that Maybe there is a reason for this?

    RH

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    EMR you are one pompous guy you know that

    Stick me under this bullet point if you must

    He is years ahead of us and we need short-term fixes;

    Wake up to reality dude

    Or are you willing to pony up the billions to implement your “vision” which as we all know does not exist ANYWHERE therefore it is impossible to argue with you about whether or not it would work at all.

    NMM

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    NMM is right.

    Any big plan is going to be implemented incrementally. Short term fixes and short term profits are how you go about getting big things done.

    It is too bad, really. EMR does have one or two salient ideas under all that garbage. But he blows any credibility he mght have had with his constant 1960’s era, aging hippie tirades, Chicken Little Doom and Gloom, and utter lack of economic sense.

    No wonder PEC pulled the plug.

    RH

  8. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    If EMR were a professor and you a student.. and you got a 67 on a paper.. and you had no clue why – you would only make the mistake of asking him why you got the 67 – one time …..

    after that.. you’d running full tilt to fill out the course-drop paperwork….

    🙂

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    If EMR were a profesor and I a student, I would drop after the first lecture.

    At one time there was a megalomaniac professor at GW, who was in fact, not a professor at all, yet he heldt positions at TEN universities.

    I had signed up for one of his classes and after the first lecture it was clear to me that he was nutty as a fruit cake. How he pulled the wool over the eyes of so many is beyond me.

    I dropped the class after the first meeting.

    RH

Leave a Reply

ADVERTISEMENT