gold

[Joseph Tracy]

To me the issues around gold and other extractive mining products that emerge in ATD and IV are  morally, and  geo-politically complex but it is hard to find much ambiguity in his attitude toward the hierarchic power structures and slavelike exploitation of humans  that surround that historic approach to the acquisition of treasure hordes. There is something particularly dangerous/odious about fossil fuel wars. On the other hand TRP doesn't seem too keen on pieces of paper with pictures of presidents. 

That said the images of Shambala as a a lively market does not connote to this reader a derision of trade or markets  per se either. I wonder how other p listers reacted to that scene. It seemed to be more about the  pursuit of pleasure than  dominance. Not pure, but not necessarily  birthplace of the root of all evil. Could human economies thrive without economic rape of people and environment ? 

I think P is interested in other properties of Gold and silver which have to do with physics and metaphysics.  The idea of alchemy is not entirely negative but the dangers of unintended consequences  is omnipresent.