SUNDAY, JAN 24, 2021: NOTE TO FILE
My Last Post?
Enough said
The world needs a ‘survival revolution’ on a scale far larger than the ‘industrial revolution’ —Delivering the Human Future 2021
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: SPREADING MEMES, FROM THE WIRES, OUTCOME UNFORESEEABLE
Abstract: For nearly five months I've been a member of a small list-serv (30+) of mostly retired academics/scientists having overshoot concerns. The group is not an echo chamber and I wouldn't waste my time on it if it were. I tried to be a source of information and links of interest, even if some of the links were links to my stuff. No serious push back and feedback was supportive and appreciative of my offerings. Only one member has Calhounian concerns, and one who hasn't such concerns noted that Calhoun's experiments put rats in an 'arbitrary and unnatural context' so I immediately undated the Calhoun article abstract to make this point front and center. I did not quibble by noting that from a pre-agrarian ancestral human POV our urban life would appear arbitrary and unnatural. I had early on posted a link to my 'Design for a Viable Civilization' that several attempted to read and one had given it a good scanning over with positive impression. With this post my position is stated and if not of interest, no further attention to my work will be drawn. I may comment or post a link to another source, but I'm guessing my other missives will not be of interest. Few have revolutionary interests. Compassionate revolutionaries would follow the four links below after considering my likely last post.
COOS BAY (A-P) — Just saying:
- I view MTI/BAU (modern techno-industrial/business-as-usual) civilization as not remotely sustainable (it's an evidence thing and I hope I'm wrong).
- The current Civilization 3.x will select for a non-viable endgame.
- There will likely be remnant populations of humans, livestock, pets and flora/fauna post-Anthropocene.
- Those who pass through the bottleneck may be so dysfunctional that rebuilding (even if we leave information packages behind unlike numerous prior complex societies historians could name) will not occur.
- Any complex society emerging from the rubble, as claimed by those who fought to inherit it, may not be viable long-term (i.e. the same as what happened to the Indus Valley Civilization but on a global instead of regional level).
Civilisation 3.x in context:
So I seem to have existential concerns:
To avoid 'death squared' may involve a 'compassionate revolution' that John B. Calhoun envisioned, i.e. 'prescriptions for our continued evolution'.
There are few sane revolutionaries out there, but they are out there and they invite others to consider sanity even if it means walking alone (away from Omelas). I'm beyond dreams of reform (truth to tell I never had them) and have become a full-on full-time revolutionary (when not kayaking, hiking or walking the dog and a few other things). I once considered, as a high school senior, joining the counter-culture, but they were not counter enough. I've read Ted Kaczynski's books and have corresponded with him via the Supermax Penitentiary housing him, but as a revolutionary I consider him a wannabe pretender. He correctly saw the need for revolution, but every solution looked like political revolution to him.
Thanks to all the memes offered here [the list-serv], I have come (while plotting revolution) to consider that the reason that I have failed to get anyone to consider my design for a viable civilization (or elements thereof, except Steve, thx, and G--- B---- and C---- H----- read a few earlier missives) in six years, is that I don't speak the consensus narrative because I use a foundationally different, at one or more points, mind map.
I presented at the first North-South Degrowth Conference in Mexico City 2018 (everyone ignored what I said) and for five days I listened to people speak from within a private domain of discourse. Two of the featured presenters used elements of Odum's diagram language (which I can read) as an affectation to illustrate their social justice concepts.
This was stunningly surreal as everyone offered concepts that referenced only other concepts (sometimes even those of science) that created a vast conceptual house of mirrors (echoes) everyone seemed to enthusiastically live in and for. Each offered their finest words (Garrett Hardin's 'mere eloquence') for the approbation of other over-schooled clothed apes.
I actually wondered if I had suffered a stroke that impaired my ability to understand normal language, but the ISEE (International Society of Ecological Economics) met nearby a week later and some of the speakers (two token scientists) spoke science to the degrowthers, which I seemed to follow perfectly (I'm guessing that to most of the others they seemed to be speaking from a different domain of discourse that could be tolerated insofar as it supported their anti-right conclusions).
Back to the mind map. I had a graphic someone had made with 'mind-map' in the filename that I then modified a bit and reposted here [the list-serv] a couple of weeks ago. Feedback allowed for corrections, so thanks.
I mentioned the graphic did not actually reflect my mind map, and that I had done one in outline form four years ago without thinking to call it a mind map.
But maybe a graphic would work as a leverage point to foment revolution. Maybe no one is going to come up with viable solutions to our problematique unless we reconsider our existing mind map, the MTI one we took in with our mother's milk, followed by a decade or two of schooling and continued media (mainstream and social) schooling daily if not hourly. Maybe it would be possible to spread a 'mind map' meme that included considering alternative ones.
So I spent four days trying to save the world by putting the outline in graphic form. I want humans to question everything and rethink everything while they're at it, because how's not doing so been working for us? Maybe 'mind map' could be the leverage point (or not and I wasted some days of endeavor).
That there could be more than one map, maybe even a viable one, is seemingly not topical among the currently schooled (all of us). As R---N-- envisions, there could be a form of civilization beyond MTI Civ 3.x that could select for a different outcome to our global endgame that no one wants to play other than to pretend play (e.g. by protesting, demanding reform, voting, writing calls to action like me...).
Of course all mind maps should be relentlessly vetted. I can only hope I'm in the right place as 'academy vetted' is part of my mind map.
Okay, enough said to get me canceled. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
To see latest version, on a big screen only, go to http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/design-viable-civilization.html#I-iii (or not).
The 'Ecolate' (a Garrett Hardinism) Message is a one-screen attempt to sum up one possible message which has a long timeline the mind map is based on, so also consider and correct: http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/system-the-ecolate-message.html
Viewing by link and in context would be best, but for a glance:
PS: No comments offered. Conjecture: No human differs in kind from any other human and humans are not different in kind from all other animals. An online group of academics differs from the common Facebook echo chambers, more doubt and disputation is embraced, but some consensus boundaries exist for both, for each member, such that once you are viewed as being outside the consensus narrative, first you are ignored, then marginalized, and so on up to full cancel if need be. Doubting one's consensus narrative beyond limits verges on impossible for normal people. Doing so leads to idiosyncratic narratives that go unconsidered. How could it be otherwise?
I had recently shared a link to my systems science fiction story about reindeer that was ignored as had an earlier offering related to my vision of higher education in a low energy future. The links were part of comments, so I decided to offer my last post featuring my idiosyncratic concerns.
Through no fault of my own, I once monitored numerous Bernie Sander's Facebook pages (ca. 2015) offered by supporters. When claims were made that might matter if true, I looked into them and zero checked out. One source of verities being devoutly followed did frequent 55 minute offerings on YouTube of rapid-fire claims. I once picked one and spent five days following all links referenced and vetting all claims. Due to limited comment length on YouTube, I ended up sharing my research as 'just the facts, Ma'am' in multiple posts. About 30% of claims were not extraordinary and checked out. All such comments remained. The other 70% called into question sources and/or claims made with references to semi-credible sources like Wikipedia. All such comments were deleted by the oracle.
I occasionally posted to the FB pages links that were relevant with perhaps a few words in summary and let readers figure out if the evidence was confirming to the consensus narrative or not. These were, with the exception of one member, ignored (the one person who had asked questions soon stopped). My last post was a link to Bernie stating that he would support Hillary Clinton as candidate given that his loosing the California primary meant he was not going to win the primary (all FB Sanders' supporters knew that the primary was rigged and stolen from him, and that among many other things Hillary was personally responsible for the murder of 53 people who could have blown the whistle on her for pimping babies and whatnot, so that Sanders could be supporting Clinton was like evangelicals hearing Jesus say he was gay and going to marry Satan).
I merely posted the link to the video of Sanders stating his support without comment. The video was soon declared a fake. I was reviled as messenger and had to be canceled as a Clinton troll. So before exiting the echo chambers I deleted all prior posts before unsubscribing. Domains of discourse have boundaries.
At the Degrowth Conference I merely mentioned 'population' without the 'over' during lunch conversation and... it was as if I'd said, 'I'm a racist who wants to kill Black babies, and I've been thinking...'.
4/22/2021 Subnote to File
I observe that all groups share a consensus narrative, and views that are viewed as outside are resisted. If having Malthusian concerns are within, having Calhounian concerns may not be. Refining or even questioning elements of the concepts of 'carrying capacity' or 'overshoot' may be of interest, but questioning 'democracy' or 'human rights' may not be. Opining that schooling systems do not educate may not be within any academic's domain of discourse. Some groups may fully believe in questioning everything, but fail to recognize limits.
Having no group identity, no identity politics or religion, may enable idiosyncratic thoughts that are not shareable. It may be that modern techno-industrial (MTI) society will collapse even though real solutions, more than one, exist. The inability to think them may be fatal. Consensus narratives may be the death of the storytelling animal.
'Creating a shared vision of a sustainable and desirable future is the most critical task facing humanity today. This vision must be of a world that we all want, a world that provides permanent prosperity within the Earth’s biophysical constraints in a fair and equitable way to all of humanity, to other species, and to future generations.'
Forty-five global thought leaders agree. But they might all be wrong as their consensus thinking thereby enables the pace of planetary destruction to continue without slowing. Alas, poor human, they told a good story, for a time.
I told a story of a possibly viable future, but no one thought it was desirable even if sustainable. Stand on Unguja, a pretentious, merely derivative title, well outside the consensus narrative.
8/2/2021 Subnote to File
The group consensus is that Earth could sustainably support 2 billion humans. This assumes that as a plague species, modern techno-industrialized humans, by exploiting all environmental productivity, all arable land and diverting all aquatic productivity (e.g. fish in the sea) to human and livestock feed, could support 2 billion humans. I argue that if humans are to 'understand the planet and learn to live with it properly' [James Lovelock], then we will again live on the planet as K-strategists in a population within the range of 7-35 million to avoid exceeding carry capacity and overpulsing into overshoot repeatedly. Comments, this and others, all arguably on topic (our problematique), have been ignored. The most lauded and laureled member thinks 2 billion humans is sustainable and the topic had been discussed long before I came along. If I were a professor emeritus and argued that maybe only 1.5 billion could be supported sustainably (or maybe only 200 million if all humans needed to live like Americans), then maybe some would not be dismissive.
Comments that are within the consensus narrative of overpopulation/overshoot are acceptable, but the group is dominated by one person who makes over half of the posts (and similar number of comments). Any comment that uses the words 'religion', 'spiritual', 'higher power' or 'metaphysical' evoke extreme reactivity, short rapid-fire bickering, to cancel the thought unless the words are used in a sentence to be dismissive or express contempt for being religious after some fashion. Otherwise they are 'off topic' and the commentator must be canceled/threatened by the human-centric atheist on a mission to protect the tribal elders from Homo superstitious. The de facto alpha male threatens to leave the listserv if he is opposed/criticized for stopping members from going off topic. I repeatedly commented in support of those threatened with withdrawal of social approbation by being 'moderated' to go away if they failed to heed the first warning. I stopped posting in January, and will no longer comment as I have nothing further to say to the group. Information of interest is posted and I would not have become aware of it otherwise, so I'll continue to read but not annoy. If I have something to say/ask a member, I can PM them and perhaps remain a member in good standing if I appear to assent to seem sane and avoid demurring.
The last lines of H.G. Wells' book The Shape of Things to Come, 1933, is that the book is 'a theory of world revolution. Plainly the thesis is that history must now continue to be a string of accidents with an increasingly disastrous trend until a comprehensive faith in the modernized World-State, socialistic, cosmopolitan and creative, takes hold of the human imagination. When the existing governments and ruling theories of life, the decaying religious and the decaying political forms of to-day, have sufficiently lost prestige through failure and catastrophe, then and then only will world-wide reconstruction be possible. And it must needs be the work, first of all, of an aggressive order of religiously devoted men and women who will try out and establish and impose a new pattern of living upon our race.'
Wells 'correctly' disparages the old religious orders (social control systems), but suggests that 'religiously devoted men and women' (to Nature who has all the answers?) were essential for imposing (perhaps ever so benignly) a new world order or system of governance upon the human race so it could finally come to live properly with Gaia. But within some tribal groups Wells would not have been allowed to be so off topic.
'I believe in intuitions and inspirations.' [A.E. from 1929 interview] 'At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.' ― Albert Einstein, On Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms 1931
'The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.... This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.' ― Albert Einstein, The World As I See It 1931.
10/26/2021 Subnote to File
I am now expressing my concerns parenthetically in run-on sentence format [Two on home page]. I also shared them as both were inspired by group offerings. One got a reply that consisted only of two quotes. I approve both, but fail to interpret whether they where offered in support or disagreement or what as I clearly fool myself:
'We must be careful not to believe things simply because we want them to be true. No one can fool you as easily as you can fool yourself.' R. Feynman Nobel Prize in Physics 1965
'Do you want to believe in human agency as a force for climate change mitigation?' T. Garrett 2021 Professor, Atmospheric Science, University of Utah
