SUNDAY, FEB 26, 2017: NOTE TO FILE
The High-stakes Endgame
To think or not to think
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: THERE IS NO LIFE WITHOUT THOUGHT, FROM THE WIRES, FUTURE, POSTERITY
"For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame. Humanity's grasp on the planet is not strong. It is growing weaker. Our population is too large...." — Edward O. Wilson, Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life 2016
TUCSON (A-P) — A global endgame suggests high stakes, which raises the question: how high is high? If how we play the endgame is of interest, some consideration of the stakes involved is worth considering for clarity's sake.
Species extinction may seem the height of concerns. We of the Anthropocene are presiding over the greatest mass extinction since the late Cretaceous. Some concern themselves with global warming. Others with next quarter's profits. All are concerned with how the deck chairs are arranged, who gets to sit in them, for how long, and when. Some seats are better than others, and concerns for fairness, justice, freedom, dignity, equity, for the rights of passengers and crew..., dominate our social primate concerns. And where's the lattè I ordered?
The rate of species extinction is now about one thousand times higher than it was prior to the beginnings of human empire-building in the neolithic and is rarely mentioned. That by the end of the twenty-first century, the rate could well be ten thousand times higher, is of no concern to the masses of clothed primates currently infesting the globe (if the Galactic Park Ranger assigned to Earth were to return from a 50,000 year vacation...WTF?....).
That hu-mans could be among the extinct is clinically unthinkable. 'Human extinction' are words that can be uttered but not 'believed' in. We can no more understand the actuality of human extinction as existential threat in the near future (coming century) than growthers can understand the implications of the exponential function. The number of 'Anthropocene enthusiasts' is growing as Nature is being subsumed.
So another mass extinction event. It happens (six or nine times so far depending on who's counting). As for humans going extinct, why should they? Some may want to join the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, but the rest will become Masters of the Universe. After Sol's Dyson Sphere is complete, a galaxy of other stellar systems await the subsuming, and there are at least two trillion more galaxies after the Milky Way becomes an infrared emitter. Those worried about what happens when the universe blinks out due to all the Dyson Spheres shouldn't worry so much — it's multiverses all the way down so illimitable growth is possible.
Should human extinction be our greatest concern? What if Earth is transformed into a Trantor orbiting within Sol's Dyson Sphere? If the human descendants who inhabit the Anthropocene home world develop into a Borg-like collective that goes forth to subsume all other worlds, inhabited or not, doing unto other systems what they have done to their ecosystem by assimilating it into their SYSTEM, then human extinction becomes not only thinkable, but something devoutly to be wished for.
Wishing doesn't count, however. Alternative is to destroy the incipient SYSTEM before it destroys Earth's life-support system and all organisms other than those deemed of value as pets, industrial products, or valued for amusement potential. That Industrial Society might collapse with hyper-consumers/shoppers ending up eating each other in a zombie apocalypse is a lesser concern to the ecolate than that it won't collapse.
Alternative to our descendants becoming Borg or Morlocks or going extinct would be voluntary degrowth, collective self-restraint, a managed descent to a life of enough dependent on ecosystem services while leaving room for Nature and working to restore and repair damage done. To lord over Nature (or try to) is the intent of empire-building and believers in empire engage in Borg-like conquest by intent or species extinction (or zombie apocalypse with maybe a remnant human population) as unintended consequence. To live within limits as part of Earth's life supporting system, compliant with Nature's Laws, as agents of Earth is the Federation alternative more likely to allow humans to live long and prosper than if we continue to go Borg. Look around. Do you see Borg in the making or Kogi in the making?
Which way humans will tip will be affected by how we of the twenty-first century, each individual, tip. We will tip according to our sort of mind, to our understanding of the nature of things. Individuals who listen (the ecolate) to Mother are on a different path than Anthropocene enthusiasts. Humans are the axis about which the universe spins..., or maybe not. Which fork in humanity's road each of us goes down has consequences.
The stakes are high, therefore endeavor to think well and 'to love that well which thou must leave ere long', to love this Earth and the things of it, including five-year-olds with machetes and a vote.
3/30/22 SUBNOTE TO FILE:
'Extinction debt' is looking like a facepalming omission of the obvious, that humans are a dominate species rapidly incurring what looks like an extinction debt (or overshoot debt if extinction is not the outcome). Humans could, per history of post climax societies, spend 8 to 20 generations on the downslope (200 to 500 years) as there is no one out there that we know of to come in and conquer a weakened humanity on the downslope before we fad away. If humans are as exceptional as we think, we may have to prove it by finding an alternative to paying our debt by intentionally (aforethought) becoming some other form of society that is not a form of modern techno-industrial monetary culture.
This could involve some humans (enough) transitioning/mutating memetically into a Civ 4.x transitional people who work to recover from 8 to 12 generations on the upslope over the likely 8 plus generations on the coming downslope to somehow actually become a human who understands Gaia, the planet, and manages to live with her properly. Civ 4.x would itself not be a viable endpoint, but might iterate towards, as intended, a Civ 5.x that is viable.
Underestimating the challenge may have our extinction as outcome. Until recently, I would have dismissed human extinction as a likely outcome (possible, but not likely) and even envisioned a relatively near-term recovery even if it meant we merely went on to repeat the pattern of regional overshoot. The change is as forced by new evidence and reason. Damn it, I hate it when that happens.
Humans are currently dominate and degrading habitat (a planetary life-support system mainly by using fossil fuels to turn all arable land into agriculturally productive land and forests into tree farms (for a time while seining fresh and saltwaters for food resources for humans/pets/livestock). Modern humans are causing habitat loss for all species globally (except for a few, e.g. jellyfish and pigeons). Habitat destruction is the major cause of species extinctions. The dominate species causing the destruction incurs an extinction debt. The dominate species may seem to be thriving because, for a time, it is, but delayed reaction to habitat loss (whose consumption results in temporary thriving, e.g. the last 300 years of industrial growth) may lock in the outcome: extinction after centuries on the downslope of the dominate species (and others).
The initial collapse may occur over a 20 to 50 year period, but without conquest, figure on a long downslope leading sometimes to recovery or, more commonly, self-extinction. 
Dozens of complex societies too isolated to be conquered by outlaying empire builders collapsed to self-extinction. Extinction debts may be incurred by any dominate species able to degrade habitat, but human ecologists, for some reason (many articles on extinction debt, but I found none focusing on humans, so cited view seems rare), rarely can consider the possibility that humans are not exceptions. We may 'already be a dead species walking'. Maybe. And so maybe we should be able to think the thought if humans are to persist. What fraction of a fraction of one percent of humans can? Oh, but what, why should I worry even if I'm not 13 anymore?
There is no substitute for energy. The whole edifice of modern society is built upon it. It is not "just another commodity" but the precondition of all commodities, a basic factor equal with air, water and earth. —E. F. Schumacher
It will be a race toward either paradise or oblivion, right to the last moment. —R. Buckminster Fuller
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. —H.G. Wells, The Outline of History
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. —Mark Twain
I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.” —Mark Twain
'Industrial Society' = 'Planet for the taking'.
'Borg' = 'Universe for the taking'.
'Kogi' = 'Planet for the knowing and loving'.
'Federation' = 'Universe for the knowing and loving'.
The Hominid’s Prayer: The Dominate Male is My Shepherd
Australopithecus afarensis, subject to atavistic temptations, evolved from patrifocal ancestors.
A hominid prayer: The Alpha Male is my leader; I’ll be okay. He helps me get food and water. He leadeth me to the best and safest places. He eases my anxiety. He tells me what to do to avoid getting into trouble, especially with Him. Yea, even though the savanna is full of dangers, I will fear no competitors, for Thou art in charge. Thy strength and Thy vigor they comfort me. Thou protecteth me from other animals (and from Thyself). Thou helpeth me out. I’m doing pretty well… considering. I feel safe in Thy territory and among friends and relatives as long as I am in Thy troop; and I submit and accept Thy dominance forever (or until someone replaces Thee.)
— David Barash, in all due bias, as suggested by Jay Glass’ proposed reworking of the 23rd Psalm as if told by Pan troglodytes.
Note that our forest dwelling hominid (Great Ape) ancestors where likely alpha male dominated (hominid biological norm), but for over six million years our hominin ancestors, whose persistence required males to cooperate on the savanna, evolved away from harem keeping alpha-male dominated society.
Promiscuity gave way to serial monogamy among Australopithecines having only one dependent offspring at a time (provisioned by mother’s devoted male she favored sexually), and as childhood became extended more than 3-4 years, as more complex brains and things to learn increased the time needed to grow up, mothers came to care for multiple dependent offspring, and males were more likely to favor all her offspring if they were likely all his spawn (she mostly, if not 100%, mated only with him, which genetic testing confirms is far more common (about 98%) than the polyamorists believe fidelity (which they view as abnormal) to be.
But old ways persist, and although promiscuous alpha male wannabes became fewer, when the expansionist form of human arose 50k to 60k years ago, aggressive expansionism selected for the anthropological atavism of alpha male dominated groups, which has in recent times (last 50k years) become more common among empire builder Anthropocene enthusiasts, so much in the last 5k years as to have become normalized to such an extent that some view promiscuous alpha males as the most natural and normal form of humans, with others (e.g. perverted monogamous sissy men) as having been corrupted, detached from their true nature, by socialization, especially religious indoctrination/conditioning to deny their true nature. This storyline is special pleading by wordsmiths serving those whose bread they eat (and perhaps justify their own proclivities).
A renormalized form of human would live in a matrifocal culture, as distinct from the recently normalized patrifocal culture of omniscient conquerors.
A hominin’s prayer: The Alpha Male was my leader; but I bid Him adieu. He helped me get food and water. He ledeth me to the best and safest places. He eased my anxiety. He told me what to do to avoid getting into trouble, especially with Him. Yea, even though the forest was full of dangers, I feared no competitors, for Thou wert in charge. Thy strength and Thy vigor they comforted me. Thou protectethed me from other animals (and from Thyself by telling me what to do). Thou helpethed me out. I did pretty well… considering. I felt safe in Thy territory and among friends and relatives as long as I was in Thy troop; and I submitted and accepted Thy dominance forever (or until another replaced Thee).
But that was then and this is now, and Gaia is my Goddess. I have replaced Him, the Omniscient One, and have learned to listen to Mother (and to the Mothers who never really believed in Him).
Though my Progeny have come to again celebrate Him, they do so only for a time, for Gaia selects for what works long term or will remove Us from Her System.
