SATURDAY, April 16, 2016: NOTE TO FILE
50 Ways to be a 
evolutionary
Revolt is easy and has been done enough already
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: SCIENCE, FROM THE WIRES, WAY DOWN
Abstract: So someone comes up with 50 ways to prepare for revolution filtered through a politics-as-usual lens. But what if the same concerns are filtered through a systems sciency lens based on listening to Nature....who has all the answers? The assumption is that humans are part of Nature, which is not humancentric. The prescription for evolution was written by Dr. John B. Calhoun, not a real Md, whose patient was humankind. He had existential concerns for posterity's persistence. We who are his posterity should too. We rats of NIMH should listen to what his rats had to say to us. Or listen to/read transcript of a feature film, Critical Mass 2012
TUCSON (A-P) — So, you want to be a ....revolutionary? Consider becoming a ℞evolutionary concerned with prescriptions for humanity’s evolution (persistence). The following is a study in political vs evolutionary-biology, systems-ecology views of the human predicament.
50 Ways to Prepare for RevolutionThe people of the United States are currently unprepared to seize a revolutionary moment. We must fix that. |
50 Ways to Prepare for EvolutionAnonymous Humans living in the thin film of habitable space not covered by water on the only known life-bearing planet are currently unprepared to seize an evolutionary moment to persist long term. You probably can't change that given that humans would rather believe than know. Since humans are not born believers, however, there is a hypothetical possibility of raising them to not become believers and of providing belief therapy for those already afflicted. |
| How can we raise our levels of revolutionary consciousness, organization and struggle? | How can we raise our collective level of evolutionary consciousness, organization and struggle? |
| Raise consciousness | Raise consciousness, starting with your own. This is sometimes mistaken for "education" as in “Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.” – H.G. Wells.
No one "knows" the truth, at best we "iterate towards it." The "we" do not iterate towards it, individuals do. We who endeavor to know, who would rather know than believe, are of necessity autodidacts all who put no head higher than our own, not because theirs is highest or best, but because it is the only one they have. |
| 1) Raise consciousness with the purpose of building organization and raising the level of struggle. | 1) Raise consciousness with the purpose of understanding the nature of things. This is non-trivial and involves that sciency thing with assorted areas of evidence-based scholarship added. |
| 2) Investigate before forming opinions. Research how the world and the system function. |
2) Investigate before forming conjectures. Research how the world and the system function per our best guess. "Guess, then test." Question everything. Rethink everything. Listen to Nature who has all the answers. |
| 3) Read foundational and historical works about revolution, by those who have participated in and led them. | 3) Read foundational and historical works about evolution, about how things change, e.g. systems ecology. Change within systems has something to do with energy and flows of materials that depend on it. Others have endeavored to know before you. Consider standing on the shoulders of relative giants. |
| 4) Analyze the system’s current condition and trajectory. | 4) Analyze the planetary system's current condition and trajectory. Understand that current economic, social, legal, political, educational, et al. societal control SYSTEMs are mere asides, social sub-subsystems within the billions of years old planetary eco-energetic-system all life depends on. |
| 5) Learn about the resistance, uprisings and revolutions going on in the world today. | 5) Learn about the resistance, uprisings and revolutions of the past and present so as not to endlessly repeat errors. Learn from history. |
| 6) Read the material that currently active groups are issuing and discussing. | 6) Don't bother to read the material that currently active groups are issuing and discussing. Groups, by definition, do not contain (or listen to) autodidacts. Followers are believers. The believing mind is incapable of (foundational) learning. This is entirely an evidence-based claim. Look around. |
| 7) Continuously develop, elaborate upon and refine principles, theories and strategies for our movement. |
7) Continuously develop, elaborate upon and refine principles, theories and strategies to awaken your mind from dogmatic slumbers. Subject all claims, especially those favored, to the flames of an all consuming doubt. Only thus can a mind be in a state of inquiry opposite a state of belief. |
| 8. Raise our voices. Articulate revolutionary ideas, and give them a public presence. | 8) Allow others to criticize your attempts to know. Subject your claims to their doubt. Consider the claims of others, especially those who feel the most compelled to object to your provisional claims/guesses currently being considered. |
| 9) Listen and speak in the spirit of mutual clarification. |
9) Listen and speak in the spirit of mutual clarification as the endeavor to iterate towards knowing is shared. |
| 10) Participate in discussion, to develop our ideas and hone our skills in expressing them, and to help others do so. | 10) Participate in discussion with those who think outside your box to better consider the possibility that you might be wrong, and to help others to consider the same. |
| 11) Figure out how to use all our various talents, positions, energy and resources as effectively as possible, to expose the system’s evil, irredeemable and unreformable nature. | 11) Figure out how to use all our various talents, positions, energy and resources as effectively as possible to better understand the system and its myriad subsystems. Human subsystems may temporarily work but have species extinction, both of humans and that of families, genera, and species, whose extinction we are presiding over, as the outcome. |
| 12) Analyze and explain the many ways the system dominates and exploits. | 12) Analyze and explain the many ways humans fail to understand the system of which we are indivisibly part. |
| 13) Stand with the dominated, exploited, invaded, colonized, threatened and oppressed. | 13) Stand with the long-term interests of life on Earth based on the given that we are the environment. |
| 14) Display a revolutionary spirit and celebrate it in others. | 14) Display an evolutionary spirit and celebrate the evolutionary way of life on Earth. Failure, extinction, is an option, and if we don't march to a different drummer soon, sooner may be better. |
| 15) Exercise patience in winning over reluctant potential allies and supporters. | 15) Understand that winning over reluctant potential allies and supporters may not be possible, and as you could be fundamentally wrong, the worst possible outcome. Instead, tell the truth to power starting with yourself. |
| 16) Ridicule and discredit the enemy. | 16) Ridicule and discredit your most deeply held beliefs. Know thy enemy, the one Pogo spoke of. This above all else, to thine own self be known. |
| 17) Create revolutionary culture. Make videos and art, speak, sing, and write blogs, books, comments, leaflets, rhymes, stories, and articles about the enemy’s crimes and the people’s resistance. | 17) Create an evolutionary culture. Make art, sing and dance to trance (no drugs needed), and type so as to share thoughts with others, but expect no response as few, less numerous than humans with six fingers on each hand, would rather know than believe. |
| 18) Exchange ideas locally, nationally and (within the law or safe channels) globally. | 18) Exchange information locally, nationally, globally and without legal impediment or constraint using bittorrent freely. |
| 19) Encourage others to participate in the revolutionary process. | 19) Tolerate the endeavors of others to participate in the evolutionary process, even if they seem mistaken as failure is an option. Praise be the evolutionary way. |
| Organize
20) Organize as a way to raise consciousness more broadly and to build struggle. |
20) To self-organize as a complex, adaptive, evolvable system is the evolutionary way to maximize eMpower. Submit not to outside elite controls without making them your own as self-control, hence no longer outside. |
| 21) Start with people we know. | 21) Start with people you know and live with as humans can live functional social lives in relationship with those they interact with frequently in hadronic space (screen time is a social illusion), limited to less than 150 others (Dunbar's number). |
| 22) If our friends discourage us, make new friends. | 22) If our friends discourage us, spend more time with them trying to understand why. Our enemies may be our best friends for they will be more likely to tell us the truth about ourselves. |
| 23) Network sensibly with people online. Find local people online who express similar ideas, and meet with them. | 23) Network sensibly with people online as well as locally. Remember that beyond Dunbar's number the relationships become meaningless and that virtual relationships are limited. Avoid those who think as you do (though not all) to guard against becoming another dittohead. |
| 24) Find a group that we basically agree with. Work with it. | 24) If you find an ideological group that basically agrees with you, who would have you as a member, run for your life. |
| 25) If there’s no local group we want to work with, start one. | 25) If there’s no local group you want to work with, start one provided that it is reality-based and concerned with real biophysical issues, i.e. is non-ideological. |
| 26) Write a leaflet with contact info. Pass it out in public to find potential comrades. | 26) Write online to save paper, or on leaflets if need be. Include contact info so others may correct and educate you. Wear a mask in public so as to not prejudice others for or against should you have to speak in public. Only what you say should matter. |
| 27) When we meet people, assess our points of agreement. If we agree on basic essentials, decide how to work together. If not, say goodbye for now. | 27) When you meet people, assess for points of disagreement. If there are none apparent, move on. If you disagree on basic essentials with someone who appears cogent, celebrate your good fortune and endeavor to listen. |
| 28) Build strong ties locally and nationally, and build solidarity globally. | 28) Build strong ties locally and nationally, like, you know, do the live-local and think-global thing. |
| 29) Define allies according to overall outlook and goals. | 29) Define allies according to overall outlook and goals. As none will likely disagree, due to similar background and POV, take turns playing devil's advocate, or all can do so at once. If you have issues with the global hegemon, confirmation bias is far worse, a far greater evil. |
| 30) Don’t let secondary differences prevent cooperation. Handle differences between allies non-antagonistically. | 30) Don’t let secondary differences prevent cooperation as there are always differences. Get over it. You might be wrong, and if there are 10 different views, you most likely are wrong. You might be the only one in a group of a thousand to beg to differ, and might be the only one right as subsequent events confirm. Don't argue matters of opinion. Don't bother having opinions. Seek data instead and endeavor to interpret it. |
| 31) Do not tolerate oppressive (sexist, racist, homophobic etc.) dynamics within the movement. Confront their expression and put a stop to it. | 31) Do not waste much time considering the opinions of others (sexist, racist, homophobic etc.) Life is short enough, so walk away. “Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.” – Seng-ts’an. |
| 32) Refrain from saying anything aloud, on the phone or electronically that we wouldn’t want to hear played back in court. | 32) Refrain from saying anything aloud, on the phone or by typing that you wouldn’t want others to consider as we are awash in verbiage, too many competing to get their sound bite out there. If the NSA shouldn't consider what you have to say, it may not be worth saying. |
| 33) Keep illegal drugs away from our political life. | 33) Keep psychoactive drugs away from your brain if your brain seems to be functioning without them. If you think you need them, legal (e.g. ethyl alcohol) or illegal, you may be self-medicating at some risk and have a fool for a physician. |
| 34) Research and practice good security culture. | 34) Research and practice good security measures if engaged in antisocial activities that invite counter-control by those judged to be on the wrong side for good reason (and evidence). |
| 35) Prioritize the wellbeing of our organizations over personal benefit. | 35) Prioritize your endeavor to think and live well over studied self interest. System over self. |
| 36) Ready our ranks to seize on any breaks in the legitimacy of the system. | 36) If the world socioeconomic-political system is judged fundamentally flawed per best guess, such that reform is not possible, then work to destroy it or wait for it to collapse on it's own (the evidence it is fundamentally flawed) as all past empires have, then be prepared to offer information packages should there be a teachable moment that may allow for sustainable prosperity without repeating the pattern. |
| Struggle
37) Use struggle to spread revolutionary consciousness and build organization. |
37) Use ever ongoing endeavor to spread evolutionary system consciousness and build adaptive organization. |
| 38) Collectively determine what we want, and declare our demands. | 38) Collectively determine what is needed based on best guess methods (science) as what is collectively wanted or demanded (politics as usual) may merely result in having an epoch named after us. |
| 39) Act as far as possible within our capacity, not either beyond or below our capacity. | 39) Act as far as possible to live within local and planetary carrying capacity, as failure is an option few would knowingly embrace, but which virtually all humans, qua believers, will likely continue to enthusiastically embrace until well into overshoot. |
| 40) Continuously strive to expand and consolidate our capacity and strength. | 40) Continuously strive to expand and consolidate our collective capacity to live within limits. |
| 41) Assert our rights and our responsibilities. | 41) Understand that all demands for "rights" are competing demands for power, the basis of politics as usual, and that our responsibilities are to live within limits and to know which is more important. |
| 42) Bring our revolutionary perspective into struggles already occurring. | 42) Bring the evolutionary perspective into our attempts to consider every issue, as our collective grasp of reality is fragile enough. We need all the help we can get. |
| 43) Defend, support, and encourage our allies. | 43) Defend, support, work to restore the planetary life-support system all organisms depend on. If elites colonize Mars, don't assume you will be among them as a servant. They are building robots for a reason. |
| 44) As opportunities arise, weaken the enemy and its ability to rule. | 44) As the growth culture cannot embrace descent, it will "stay the course" at "full speed ahead" as all prior empires have (hasn't started down yet, so may not, but if you throw a rock up it will likely come down and not be caught by an eagle who flies into the mountains with it). There is no external empire to conquer today's first global empire, at least not on this planet. As the door rots, outliers (Global Caliphate enthusiasts?) may move in to kick it in as this is a common pattern, or the empire will fall to internal self-styled revolutionaries who will work tirelessly to rebuild and put their rhetoric on display in the People's Museum as they sort things out among themselves to see who will become the new elites. An old f-ing story (the Iron F-ing Law of Oligarchy). |
| 45) Obey the small laws. Don’t get taken out of the game for something unworthy. | 45) Obey or not the small laws of Empire as it is the laws of Nature you need to be concerned about. You can't fuck with Mother Nature. This is to put it in terms a political ideologue might understand, but it is not a political claim. The laws of thermodynamics are real. Denialism is delusion. |
| 46) For illegal acts, make sure you can trust your comrades with your life and the lives of everyone connected to you. | 46) For illegal acts, make sure you can take what comes. Kaczynski is doing eight life sentences as a model prisoner, but it was worth it. |
| 47) Avoid being distracted and diverted into symbolic action-for-action’s sake. | 47) Avoid being distracted and diverted into symbolic action-for-action’s sake. |
| 48) Don’t expect the enemy to act against its nature. It has no mercy and can not be reasoned with. | 48) Don’t expect the enemy to act against its nature. It has no mercy and cannot be reasoned with. All believers, for or against, by definition, cannot be reasoned with and will mercilessly work to impose their ideological certitudes universally on all. See History 101. |
| 49) Turn every attack by the enemy into an opportunity to speak out, organize, and grow more powerful. | 49) Turn every attack by the enemy into an opportunity to consider the possibility that they might be right, and should you fail to see wherein you are wrong, consider speaking out while avoiding hubris. Organize and grow more powerful if supported by the best evidence and reason available. Or die quietly. |
| 50) Be willing to work hard. Be smart. Be brave. Remember we are all in this together. | 50) Be willing to work hard. Assume others are smarter than you are. Be brave. Remember, in the long run, no lives matter, or, equivalently, all lives matter. The life you take or waste may be your own. |
We need prescriptions for our continued evolution.
Critical Mass
