Becoming Space-Man

Pursuits for oil as a consumable resource and the use of automobiles was the
fulfillment of a transition between microcosmic consciousness to a systematic
society. In this essay I will define what microcosmic consciousness is, how the
automobile symbolized the completion of the transition, and how it is used to
systemize society. The period of sixty years between 1900-1960 was the capping of
an epoch of consciousness. This span of time is the gate of traditional thought
for classical man. For some westerners, these traditions are still revered.

Primeval man was a ranging creature, in service to no place of residence,

always alert in his senses to drive off some hostile situation. The first
transition of human consciousness occurred with the artificial idea of
agriculture. Men who plough do not seek plunder, but to change nature. Planting
does not imply taking from nature, but producing or creating nature. The causality
is man becomes nature. He roots in the ground that he tends.

These men found a soul in the hills, grass, and trees. Nature provided them
with nourishment as they gardened her. With this act, mans consciousness changed
from a mind controlled by the reptilian lower brain into a microcosmic existence.
He is now conscious of nature, so it becomes mother nature, and thus a womb.

Man now working shoulder to shoulder, laboring on tasks directly related to

survival created kinship and community. This culture was dominated by expressions
which cannot be analyzed or explained, nor can they be perceived intuitively. They
felt direction from a source unknown. The ability to judge or interpret sensitive
direction from mans’ soul or nature is termed physiognomic tact “physis” meaning
nature “gnomn” meaning judge or interpreter “tact” meaning sensitivity.

Mans first attempt at realizing these rhythms was the defining of number as
measure. Mathematics in the initial idea defined number as the essence of all
things perceivable to the senses. Classical man traced the heavenly bodies, found
mathematic formula in the smallest of visible creatures, and notes of sound. He
calculated the cyclical rhythms of Earths seasonal transitions. Thus man applied
systematic reasoning to his existence in accordance to physiognomic tact.

A changing of consciousness symbolized by the understanding of mathematics

occurred with the idea of irrational numbers. Thus number changed from things
perceived by sense to things perceived by mind. Man realized his destiny, not in
accordance to natures rhythm, but in accordance to his own will. At this moment
man started a long transitional period of systematic reasoning out side of
physiognomic tact. This shockwave of thought would disrupt social kinship, and
cause confusion of individual destiny for many years.

In this confusion a singular soul realized order through the use of

mathematics. His name was Adam Smith. He observed man, while pursuing his own
destiny, still had direction. Adam Smith understood physiognomic tact to be the
roots of human consciousness, and systematic reasoning as the unconscious personal
interpretation from the souls direction. He called this direction the “invisible
hand.”

Adam Smith was an economist. Economics can be defined as an energy science.

Energy is seen as the key to all activity on Earth. Social science, expressed as
economics, is the study of the sources and control of social energy. Mathematics
is the primary language of economic systems. Economics will be an important factor
in understanding how the automobile is used to systemize society in the years
1900-1960.
 Southern California’s oil boom created great wealth, and drew a large
consumer base. The population grew 300% between the years 1900-1910. In 1900 oil
output was 4 million barrels per year, in 1910 the output had jumped to 77 million
barrels per year. While oil production was increasing swiftly, population growth
dwarfed all expectations.

(notice the growth rate between 1920-1960)

Southern California was a mass settlement scheme which dwarfed most in

American history. The motor car was used as a marketing devise that promoted
freedom to affluent persons, hoping to generate a large consumer base in the
region. Ten auto enthusiasts founded a nonprofit service organization called
Automobile Club of Southern California in the year 1900. The use of automobiles as
they are acclimated into Southern California’s population growth can be symbolized
by the growth of the Automobile Club of Sothern California. Just twenty five years
later license renewals numbered 700,000. Sothern California in the years to come
will serve as a beta test for a systematic society.

The modern systematic economy is constantly in danger, if the farmers fail

to produce enough crops, if the cooks decide to practice law or if any one of a
thousand interconnected tasks should not get done society will face the
possibility of disintegration. Not from the calamities of nature, but from human
unpredictability. A culture dominated by the industry of machines can only survive
if man can predict or eliminate unpredictable behavior. The ability to predict
behavior had a breakthrough during the 1940‘s.

The aviation field provided the greatest evolution in economic systemization

by the mathematical theory of shock testing. In this process, a projectile is
fired from an airframe on the ground and the impulse of the recoil is monitored by
vibration transducers connected to the airframe and wired to chart recorders. By
studying the echoes of the recoil impulse in the airframe, it is possible to
discover critical vibrations in the structure of the airframe which either
vibrations of the engine or vibrations of the wings, or a combination of the two,
might result in self-destruction of the airframe in flight. From the standpoint of
engineering, this means that the strengths and weaknesses of the structure of the
airframe can be discovered and manipulated.

To use this method of airframe shock testing in economic systemization, the

prices of commodities are shocked artificially low or high, and the public
consumer reaction is monitored. The resulting echoes of the shock are interpreted
theoretically by quantifying changes in consumer behavior. The psycho-economic
structure is thus discovered, and the response of the economy to future shocks can
be predicted and systemized. The effectiveness of this theory however requires
that the chosen shocked commodity needs to play a central role in the consumers
economic existence.

Between the years 1900-1960 the use of the automobile in Sothern California
changed from a marketing scheme to a necessity as the city stretched out across
the landscape. The industry of machines now stood in the center, as the
automobile, of life. An individual living in Sothern California has no choice but
to drive an automobile. Needs such as food, schooling, banking, and even work
compensation require the use of automobiles. Sothern California’s economy provided
the automobile as a central role in its economic existence, and a shock testing
devise covertly used by artificial gas pricing. Thus the idea of freedom that
automobiles represent is used to prevent the disintegration of a systematic
society.

The modern economy, with the automobile as its center, has men who become
unsubjectable to Earths weather patterns. Relationships can be seen between the
modern economy and space travel. The term space-man economy describes this
correlation.

The use of transportation as the basis of an economy is exclusively a

western dynamic, and is anything but an expression of nature. A man looses touch
while gliding along our utopian roads. Driving along he peers through the
automobiles glass cabin as if the land about him is a depiction of something which
was, and now needs to be preserved. Land generates an abstract idea of a lower
creature on the evolutionary timeline, who had intimate relations with its
cyclical transitions, and used them to his advantage. Impressions of this kind
change land, from a fertile womb amongst limitless chaos, to something impersonal
as expressed by the word, scenery.

Transportation now creates the boarders in our experience, setting

boundaries of sight and boundaries of relations. The automobile unconsciously
dominates our perspectives, and is an expression of its owners characteristics. A
soft family man can now become a hardened rebel with a quick process of entering
his sports car, and is seen as such. The space-man existence is an expression of
our systematic reasoning. It has men as predictive parts of situations and knows
nothing of his history shaping will

The use of automobiles and the pursuit of oil was the fulfillment of a transition
between microcosmic consciousness to a systematic society. Our space-man economy
seems with objectiveness to be its own creature on the back of Earth. This
creature has men as nuclei, automobiles as cells, tar as veins and the urban
complex as its organs.

Our ancestors rode Earth as their vehicle. Destiny was regarded to Earths’
rotations around the sun, which were celebrated. Man now is stuck on the outer
crust of Earths sphere, and aspires to a vehicle of manifest destiny. Man will
someday look down at his feet close his eyes and feel the foreign Earth beneath
him began to shift, taking on a character, stemming into a rediscovery of mind.