SUNDAY, SEPT 19, 2021: NOTE TO FILE
The Predicament of Modern Techno-Industrialized Humans
Thinking about not thinking
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: MODERN TECHNO-INDUSTRIAL CULTURE, FROM THE WIRES, WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY
Abstract: We MTI (Modern Techno-Industrial) ones have a problem. We don't listen to Nature (to the nature of things), and, in our belief-based thinking culture, have been conditioned from birth not to.
COOS BAY (A-P) — Basically, humanity got its Huston-we-have-a-problem warning about 50 years ago that was summed up by Catton in 1980 [Overshoot: The ecological basis of revolutionary change]. Some academics and scientists continue to repeat warnings, but they (much less politicians, the public and all the others who serve the system) haven't the slightest interest or apparent capacity to think about real solutions, much less implement any. They inform the politicians, CEOs, thought leaders, other academics and scientists, and the public, but they cannot raise above their pay grade, their prescribed role.
They fail to note that no one is running the MTI show, but merely riding the whirlwind while taking credit for its power and growth. They cannot see that therefore those who have some understanding of the problematique 'must take up arms' or otherwise do something, e.g. design a viable civilization, because nobody else can.
The collective mind is embodied in the media that serves it. Our MTI concerns are not different in kind from those of UK TV whose content in the past year, some 400k programs, indicate our MTI interests.
Arguably the loss of biodiversity, the mass extinction event that we of the Anthropocene are just getting started on by causing a thousand fold increase in the rate of species extinction (soon, by century's end, to be 10k x higher) and conversion of the planet's biomass into livestock, crops, pets, and humans, merits being mentioned 1,688 times in one year. But crazy ideas like 'overshoot' or 'over' population, and certainly 'over' consumption or any questioning of technology, should be unthinkable (and thanks to modern education and media is unthinkable).
There have been some fraction of a percent of mostly science types who have warned us about exponential growth, of our Great Acceleration leading to a Great Contraction, who have expressed concerns, but none who want to be thought well of, who don't want to be canceled or otherwise made to go away, offer any viable solutions (as in solutionatiques that might actually work). Normal hominids (we are the last ones standing so our knowledge of them is quite limited) will kill or die for social approbation.
Being marginalized to a tribe of one member is to avoid. It is written in our genes. No sane human would stray from their domain of discourse (tribal narrative). They will not stray even if they must embrace massive reality denial that leads to the extinction of the human species (Homo s. sapiens var. narrator).
A sapient human might warn and ask, 'And then what?', but that may be why there are few of them. Posterity might thank them, but a mere fanciful possibility does nothing to mitigate being ignored, nor the ridicule/castigation/obfuscation if not. To actually 'take up arms against a sea of troubles' or otherwise do the hard things not in one's short-term self interest, is beyond the purview (pay grade) of we monetized MTIized ones.
So, we are all part of a dynamic we fail to understand, that we are destined to go with right to the final curtain. And the angel's will 'sob at vermin fangs in human gore imbued' or maybe they'll just facepalm.
Of things to come..., I don't know and you don't know either. But we moderns can guess and live the good life as comfortable hyperconsumers, perhaps until untimely death or the transhuman technology we invest in fails to prolong our lives indefinitely (or we fail to upload our minds into a forever vat and who wouldn't want that?).
There are short-term pay-offs for everything we clever apes do. Posterity may not live our privileged lives served by hundreds (for poor MTI ones) or thousands of energy slaves. And we like it like that.
Okay, there are a very few who don't like it enough to remain part of it, and so will walk away from Omelas, or better, work to destroy technoindustrial society and its future. Those who walk away may end up in a cabin in Montana, or camped amid rocks by North Pond in Maine. Or they may be walled in living on the streets of MTI cities, but they do not serve the system because they cannot (at least not intentionally or with any enthusiasm) serve a pathological system they are and are a product of.
So, metaphorically speaking, here's what happens to them (if they don't end up in prison or put to death). They wander the high places alone and naked. It is cold above the tree line, and no one likes wandering alone amid the cold dark mountain crags, but continuing to serve the system is not an option. Sometimes they see others in the distance, but even if they yell and wave, the others rarely see them. If they do, they note your existence, but they carry on along their way as you do and must. Two wrongs don't make a right.
All are looking for real solutions to the human problematique. Each follows their best guess, so paths rarely cross at a time and place where even a few words can be exchanged in passing. This has happened to me once in my life of failed service. So I can imagine I'm not the only one,
But the future is unknown and unknowable apart from trajectories (e.g. 'we're all in a giant car heading towards a brick wall'). Klaatu could come. It is yet possible that one of the highlanders will stumble upon an insight made visible to eyes unclouded by longing. The solutionatique may await the insight of unprejudiced eyes. On the downslope, some humans may have a teachable moment and be able to consider living different lives of enough that select, per new rules of the game, for a different outcome.
Enough could pass through the bottleneck with the knowledge that they are fatally flawed MTI ones whose descendants, in perhaps 8 to 12 generations, could recover their humilitas, their birthright as viable and evolvable organisms among a host of others. They could come to understand this Earth and love the things of it. They could come to live viable lives of quiet obedience to the nature of things, i.e. to live properly with the biosphere as guardian agents (handmaidens anew).
The highlanders are united in one thought: I have met the enemy and s/he is I. They see MTI society as toxic to life on Earth, to those of it or to those who would be of it anew. They see that they are products of and have served the MTI system most of their life, even if without enthusiasm. Complex society has taken 10k years to metastasize into a global hegemon of consummate takers and taking.
A geological era may be named after us, but not by any human. A passing paleontologist from the Omicron system will note the layer of radioactive elements and microplastics. Some ruins may be found, but those who fought to inherit them will be long gone. Or perhaps a remnant population of humans will get right with Mother and call the era that ends with them: Anthropocene, They will stand down and leave room for Nature, to thereby persist, as the millennia and eons pass, to evolve into 'forms most beautiful and most wonderful'.
Assume dawn's early light is the arising of our species 375k years ago, and today is nearing sunset. I was conceived 10 seconds ago and the Industrial Revolution began to empower modern techno-industrial society 38 seconds ago which had begun to self-organize into complex societies (e.g. principalities, city-states) about 2 minutes ago from the rubble of the Roman Empire (a Civ 3.x) that had collapsed 3 minutes 41 seconds ago.
The first overcomplex societies, empowered by agriculture (late Civ 2.x), had emerged about 24 minutes ago to overpulse and collapse in a regionally repeating empire building pattern hundreds of times. For about 12 hours, before humans transitioned to unsustainable, overdensity, overcomplex empire building societies, humans had lived viable lives in bands (Civ 1.x), typically matrilocal/bilocal cultures, as K-strategists without causing significant species extinctions until leaving Africa 2 hours and 20 minutes ago to spread as an invasive species worldwide. With force multiplier technology (e.g. atlatl/Clovis point), megafauna extinctions on five continents began less than an hour ago.
The Watcher assigned to Earth had noted the spread of tool using hominins in Africa and had briefly considered postponing her return to Omicron to reproduce. She would be gone only 3 days (1.8 million human years), just time enough to conjugate and return. All hominins were in Africa knapping stones. None could make fire, though some had toyed with it for a time. She was certain there were no asteroids that cold strike the Earth (she was still on probation for overlooking the one in the late Cretaceous). She was due back by sunset (Omicron time, mid-21st century human time).
That some hominids might spread out of Africa as scavenger-gatherers was possible, but what could go wrong with that? They were all living within environmental limits like everyone else from bacterium to whales. Who would have thought that upon returning she would have to liberally apply humanicide globally and write a report on how she had missed another mass extinction event.
In the last hour things haven't been going well for Homo s. sapiens var. narrator, especially the last 24 minutes of empire after empire, after empire, after.... And the last 38 seconds of fossil fueled nation-state building has been facepalming, but current events are a distraction. Little more than background noise. Yes, the clothed apes are nearing the climax of their one-off global succession. They may go extinct as part of their Anthropocene mass extinction event. But even Omicrons can't foresee what could go wrong or right beyond a few minutes into the future. A second passes and humans get all discombobulated in stunned disbelief. Doing something unforeseeable that goes right (Civ 4.x) may be improbable but would not violate any known laws of the cosmos.
Humans, as complex systems, are unpredictable. They could, in less than an Omicron heartbeat (6 years in hu-man time), realize that their educational system has failed. This one institution could collapse if disbelieved in. Its replacement could auto-organize amid the dissolution of the modern techno-industrial society serving Old Education system to become the New Education system H.G. Wells envisioned in 1933. The existence of a foundationally different education system, formal and informal, could, in perhaps only 8 to 20 generations, replace MTI society/culture with one our ancestors, who lived during the first 12 hours, would recognize as adaptive and evolvable (i.e. sane as in again listening to Nature who has all the answers). A New culture could arise (Civ 5.0, one such that, as Earth Guardians, would allow the Watcher to relax her apprehension a bit during her next vacation).
[The early ecolate came to be called the 'E.O. ones', mindless followers of the eco-fascist anti-human E.O. Wilson who advocated for merely a Half Earth for humanity. The EOs came to accept the term but translated it as 'ecolate ones'.
Civ 4.x would be transitional, likely taking 8-20 generations by following the prime directive:
each generation must objectively become more functional than the last to become Civ 5.0
containing humans who can understand the planet and live with it properly (to persist).
It's been a long way up as it will be down, see full graph.]
SUBNOTE TO FILE 8/24/2022 Jack Alpert's 120 words [with more added just because]
The human predicament can be understood using four words: Energy delivery equals population. [One energy source is vital: food energy, and turning fossil fuels into food is short-termism that selects for failure of the system long term.]
The energy delivery making food for hunter-gatherers on earth supported only a few million people. [But that was then, so on a massively degraded planet on the downslope for 8 to 20 generations, figure less.]
Energy delivery making food using agriculture before fossil fuels fed only 600 million people. [Assuming all primary productivity, in so far as possible, is diverted to support humans, crops, livestock, and pets (leaving no intended room for Nature), which selects for long term failure.]
Energy delivery making food using agriculture supported by fossil fuel feeds 8 billion people. [The rate of converting a planet into industrialized aqua and terraculture production has exceeded population growth rates, for a time, which Malthus and the Ehrlichs failed to foresee (but they did foresee the outcome, sans details, with temporal scale a bit off).]
If fossil fuel deliveries decrease to near zero this century and cannot be replaced, energy delivery, used to produce food, will decrease the fed population to 600 million. [We may fail to extract the last barrel of oil or shovel of coal that provides net energy, leaving the remainder in the ground by decree of thermodynamic law; we will fall short of exploiting all fossil fuel reserves. Three hundred years of growth was not caused by men in smoke-filled rooms, but by converting a planetary larder of fossil fuels into a small army of energy slaves serving each person, and when descent cometh, all the politicians, thought leaders, and men in smoke-filled rooms will not alter the trajectory/outcome other than by likely making it worse than it need be due to the law of unintended consequences.]
8-10 billion will die from starvation and conflict. [Likely conflict comes first, increasing the death rate, increasing what is left of available food (while decreasing production), especially if thine enemies taste like chicken, but any sane humans left will prefer to starve to death the old fashioned way to maybe make room for posterity].
'Logical inference: if every child born today will die from starvation or conflict — a person who wants to birth a child is either a fool or a psychopath' [or a neoclassical economist]. —Jack Alpert
SUBNOTE TO FILE 11/16/2022
The Human Eco-predicament
Overshoot and the population conundrum
William E. Rees
Abstract: The human enterprise is in overshoot, depleting essential ecosystems faster than they can regenerate and polluting the ecosphere beyond nature’s assimilative capacity. Overshoot is a meta-problem that is the cause of most symptoms of eco-crisis, including climate change, landscape degradation and biodiversity loss. The proximate driver of overshoot is excessive energy and material ‘throughput’ to serve the global economy. Both rising incomes (consumption) and population growth contribute to the growing human eco-footprint, but increasing throughput due to population growth is the larger factor at the margin. (Egregious and widening inequality is a separate socio-political problem.) Mainstream approaches to alleviating various symptoms of overshoot merely reinforce the status quo. This is counter-productive, as overshoot is ultimately a terminal condition. The continuity of civilisation will require a cooperative, planned contraction of both the material economy and human populations, beginning with a personal to civilisational transformation of the fundamental values, beliefs, assumptions and attitudes underpinning neoliberal/capitalist industrial society.
Keywords: overshoot; eco-footprint; carrying capacity; sustainability; population; contraction
I was singing along until: 'The continuity of civilisation will require a cooperative, planned contraction of both the material economy and human populations, beginning with a personal to civilisational transformation of the fundamental values, beliefs, assumptions and attitudes underpinning neoliberal/capitalist industrial society.'
Okay, but add that continuity (persistence of a metastatic expansionist overshoot engine) is not required nor possible long term, and would be the worse possible outcome if it persisted (long term as an expansionist form of human). Contraction cometh, but Nature does not require 'a cooperative, planned contraction...', so who does? The better angels of our nature? Anthropocene enthusiasts? Klaatu? How about telling a different (better?) story: 'The first thing you have to realize is that you are an animal' —David Suzuki. Clarify the endpoint: save MTI society in some form, or humanity in some form? We expansionist builders-of-empire form of human may be foundationally dysfunctional, unable to transfom to a different form enmass (billions may not be able to change), so the needed change may involve very few (or none if extinction is the solution) who over centuries replace the old paradigm.
'In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called.' —R. Buckminster Fuller
But if overshoot is ultimately a terminal condition (the condition of overshoot ends), inquiring minds want to know if 'terminal' means 'extinction'. The risk of extinction may well be vastly greater than any human knows or can know. We of the Anthropocene have incurred an awesome overshoot debt that posterity will pay (and the biosphere too, perhaps greater than the Permian mass extinction event).
But near-term extinction of humans may not be the only outcome. Given that there is zero evidence or reason to suppose modern techno-industrialized humans will make 'a personal to civilisational transformation of the fundamental values, beliefs, assumptions and attitudes underpinning neoliberal/capitalist industrial society' to sidestep extinction (or worse, we persist to become Borg-like expansionists endeavoring to turn the universe into transhuman mass at the expense of any other life in it), a question of interest may relate to alternatives, if any, to extinction (or worse).
"If society does not succeed in changing attitudes and institutions for a harmonious descent, the alternative is to prepare information packages for the contingency of restart after crashing.... What is the general answer? Eject economic expansionism, stop growth, use available energies for cultural conversion to steady state, seek out the condition now that will come anyway, but by our service be our biosphere's handmaiden anew." —Howard T. Odum, Energy, Ecology, & Economics, 1973
What if information packages included humans who could access information, perhaps add to it, and pass it on? What if the information excluded (through error correction mechanisms such as DNA transcription involves) misinformation and disinformation, and a viable form of civilization (complex, but not overcomplex, society) trafficked (memetically) in information need to persist long term via a New Education System that, within a pocket of viable humans (who agree to a new social contract, perhaps as many as 0.01% of MTIed humans) are able to pass through the foreseeable bottleneck that the 99+% do not pass through. Not having a plan for 8 billion humans to make 'a personal to civilisational transformation of the fundamental values, beliefs, assumptions and attitudes underpinning neoliberal/capitalist industrial society' may not result in human extinction, a terminal outcome, if 0.01% could transition.
1 Introduction: Contrasting approaches to population. My thesis in this paper is that modern techno-industrial (MTI) society is in a state of dangerous ecological overshoot—i.e., that there are too many people consuming and polluting too much on a finite planet. It is not too late.... Hardly anyone has ever heard of Tikopia, but its history should be known by everyone who cares about the future of Earth. [The Human Eco-predicament]
Yes, Tikopians 'have practiced as many as seven forms of birth control and employed other means of harmonising their life-styles with local ecosystems', but as K-strategists our hominin ancestors did too for millions of years, if not by seven forms of population controls. They did so as evidenced by their persistence. What is remarkable about the Tikopians, part of the Southeast Asia Islands/Melanesian/Micronesian/Polynesian Austronesian Expansion, is that they, or more likely one of them, e.g. the leader of one voyaging canoe, after arrival on a small island lacking trees large enough to make voyaging canoes, had the foresight intelligence to realize that the small group's descendants would have to effect a personal to civilizational transformation (cease to be expansionists) and renormalize as K-strategists as forced to to persist for a time. What they did not do was acquire a cultural immunity to expansion, growth for its own sake, such that when they were faced with assimilation by the monetary culture of true believers, they succumbed. When they could become expansionists again, they did, a failure to transform (renormalize). When the Māori expansionists couldn't beat the Indo-European expansionists, they joined them. The Tikopians revived their expansionist ways with apparent enthusiasm.
This pattern has been going on for over 50k years, ever since, from a small expansionist group of Homo sapiens sapiens, a form of human (Homo sapiens insapient) arose in East Africa to expand as omniscient conquerors, within Africa and without to rapidly spread throughout Eurasia to Australia. The Polynesians were the last of the expansion, enabled by advanced voyaging canoe technology and navigational know-how.
The expansionist culture worked, but only on the leading edge of expansion (e.g. Māori). Once an island or region is taken, the expansionist culture selects for failure, and so everywhere the descendant's of expansionists have had to renormalize somewhat to persist. A possibly remarkable thing about the Tikopians is that they (perhaps starting with one leader who changed the culture) attempted to renormalize in a conscious, intensional, meta-reflexive way, with partial success, enough to persist (avoid dissolution/local extinction). The more typical pattern has been to renormalize somewhat, minimally, while retaining as much of one's expansionist culture for as long as possible.
The Polynesians (Moriori) who expanded from New Zealand to the Chatham Islands also renormalized as their leader consciously realized was needed after reaching islands too cool for their Polynesian crops and that expanding further south was not an option for further expansion, so renormalize or die was the situation and doiing so intensionally was adaptive, the same situation we face now. The last island, the planet has been taken. Could small groups again renormalize? Likely, but as long as life on the downslope will select for other forms of expansionists (likely for centuries on the downslope as a 'marauding horde' culture), those endeavoring to renormalize will be resources for the taking until the expansionists dissipate.
The persistence of any groups like the Tikopians (e.g. the people on Cortes Island, 28 times larger than Tikopia) may have a no more viable outcome than it did for the Tikopians. As I noted in 2011; 'Today, there are still 1,200 people living on the island (Tikopia).
Ships come and go. Things come and people go. There are now more Aipokitans living off the island than on it (they export population to other islands). And of the 1,200, half may be under fifteen'). So the story MTIed Tikopians today tell is as delusional as the stories their MTIed brothers tell. They were contacted by an expansionist form of human (Indo-European). They were assimilated. If on the downslope marauding horde cultures are selected for, who see remnant populations as resources for the taking (e.g. Late Bronze Age collapse), then human extinction could be the outcome.
To contrast Tikopia with the modern global community, just as the expansionist form of humans arose from a small population 50k-60k years ago (to be selected for as a technology/culture, e.g. patriarchy, enabled invasive species, for a time), those who renormalize have, to such extent as they can renormalize as the centuries and millennia pass, did so as small groups that were selected for (or post-expansion, the population descends to local extinction, e.g. Malta, a perhaps better object lesson than Tikopia). The future persistence of humans must repeat the pattern of renormalizing, but in such a way as to be selected for as the millennia pass, i.e. by preventing future expansionist forms of humans, their cultures, and the expansionist form of civilization that is insapient long term. Underestimating the challenge of renormalizing and persisting will select for a non-viable outcome, i.e. posterity will not persist.
We MTIed humans, over 8 billion strong, will likely keep on keeping on doing what has worked for over 50k years impelled by both cultural and genetic (50k years of expansionism selected for change in gene frequency, e.g. those that select for alpha-male behavior). Dreams of renormalizing billions of humans are to awaken from. Foresee that the Great Acceleration will result in a Great Selection... maybe.
To avoid posterity paying our overshoot debt by extinction (or they become Borg-like expansionists), some need to renormalize and persist. Renormalizing will have to occur within band-sized groups (20 to 50 maximum as more than 50 is for expert K-strategists only).
Band-sized groups must live in association with 20 to 50 other communities (exogamy is a need), each endeavoring to renormalize, if possible, over a likely 8 to 20 generation downslope period (200 to 500 years). The association of 20 to 50 communities must live well within the environmental productivity of a defined region (e.g. a watershed or subwatershed area) that leaves significant (e.g. 80%) room for Nature (an area not used to support humans and mutualists). Renormalizing will mean that many (perhaps most) communities fail, and many (but fewer) watershed management units (learning from the failure of others) will also fail. In just a few centuries, humans could (a Pollyannaish eutopian vision fueled by hopium) transition to a viable form of civilization (a complex, but not too complex, social system able to manage human demands on Nature's resources and prevent expansionism).
Earth might support 25k watershed management units averaging 35 communities of 35 renormalizing humans as a transitional form of complex society (civilization) provided that all 25k watershed management units agree to cooperate (form an alliance) to prevent future (metastatic) empire building. For a few hundred years, Earth might also support three mega-cities empowered by hydroelectric dams.
Yes, the explosion of the human enterprise is truly an unprecedented phenomenon, both 50+k years ago (out of and within Africa expansion), 7+k years ago (Indo-European expansion), 3k years ago (Pacific Island expansion), 1k years ago (MTI expansion), and 300+k years ago (fossil-fueled Industrial Revolution expansion). Renormalizing will not involve going back 300 years or 1k or 50k. Humans must not merely renormalize as adaptive and evolvable K-strategists living within limits, but as we have 'stolen fire from the gods' themselves, we must prevent any future success of expansionist (metastatic) humans (who will emerge, assume it).
As a memetic form of life, error correction and an immune system needs to be added to be viable, which implies a form of complex society (that doesn't select for collapse). Hasn't been done yet. No laws of the universe violated, however, if we too clever by half and not nearly smart enough usually clothed ape get a bit smarter, on average, during the Great Selection.
Of course, my bias is obvious to me, I'm mostly singing along as a mindless fan boy. Some notes are to repeat, to sing with more enthusiasm, for example: 'Thus, population growth accounted for ∼80% of the increase in the total human EF above what would have accrued had populations remained constant while income/consumption and per capita EFs increased'. On Nov. 15 I read dozens of articles on the '8 Billion Strong' story, and even in the hard science news sources, the yes-population-matters-but-overconsumption-in-developed-countries-is-the-real-problem story was being sung by the left-leaning MTI chorus.
The scientific evidence tells us that some form of contraction of the human enterprise is a biophysical necessity if we are to maintain the functional integrity of the ecosphere. Context and history therefore present us with a choice: either we accept biophysical reality, rise to our full human potential and ‘engineer’ an orderly way down; or we challenge the evidence and do everything we can to maintain the status quo. The former option would require the world community to plan and execute a dramatic but controlled down-sizing of the human enterprise; the latter option would ultimately force nature to impose its own contraction; humanity would suffer the ugly consequences of a chaotic implosion condemning billions to suffering and death.
The evidence in front of my pug-nosed face is that over 99% of MTI society denizens can 'choose' denial, i.e. reject alleged biophysical reality, and believe what they want to (it's in the Bible and Constitution and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on CNN, NPR, FOX, BBC,,,). Those who are products of and serve the 'system' (MTI growth dynamic) cannot choose to think outside the MTI box.
Almost all 'world rather believe than know' [E.O. Wilson], and the few exceptions are vastly too few to matter until the collective belief in the MTI narrative falters (is grossly disconfirmed by events). A likely story is that the MTIed will not choose to stop push the levers that have worked so well for 300 years. They will 'choose' to pursue short-term self interests.
Overshoot debt is already locked in. That the 8 billion strong will keep on keeping on is likely (foreseeable unless Klaatu, Jesus, or the Hidden Imam comes out of his well). If one or more demagogues arise, don't expect them to call for a prosperous way down. Perhaps the outcome to consider is, should there be a remnant population post bottleneck, will it come to repeat the pattern of overshoot on a regional level (as humans did for 10k years prior to the one-off fossil-fueled plague-phase global overshoot event), or is there a pathway that some few could (choicelessly as determined by their understanding) select for, leading to a conscious, intensional, social contract by design, a transitional form of civilization focused on renormalization potentially leading to a viable form of civilization?
The world must also formally acknowledge that (un)sustainability is a collective problem requiring collective solutions; the present individualistic competitive race to mutual destruction must give way to unprecedented international cooperation in developing an inclusive survival plan.
Calling upon the world, the leaders, citizens, and the intelligentsia (the educated by MTI society to serve it) to take action may be a fatal distraction.
What if we, the MTI collective, as an expansionist form of humans, 'have no more practical intelligence or conscious moral agency when it comes to its own inclusive survival than does any other species in overshoot at the brink of collapse'. What if some huimans (some fraction of one percent) could manifest some (enough) foresight intelligence and self-organize as conscious better-thinking agents to learn to understand the earth (enough) to live with it properly as the millennia pass?
Calling upon individuals, e.g. 15 to 19 year olds not yet fully committed to serve the MTI system, could have a different outcome. Perhaps 0.001% would consider voting, not for a Real Green New Deal, but to 'walk away from Omelas' by voting with their feet to form (self-organize) a New Education system, with elder help, focused on renomalizing humans starting with themselves.
A Union of Concerned Elders could be of assistance. If one learning community (academe watershed management unit) formed, perhaps 30 worldwide could. How to live viably, long term with the planet, would be topical (not how to grow the economy, make money, or make the monetary culture work). Other watershed management units could form about the academe watershed management unit. Post collapse, there could be humans eager/willing to learn. If one (or even more) of 30 potential pockets of viable complex society (with information packages intact) were among the remnant population, a viable form of civilization could, in perhaps in only a millennium, emerge.
David Suzuki has summarized the ancestral view as 'we are the environment'. Add 'we are posterity', too. Thinking of ('to think is to listen') and living for 'the 100th generation' (and the biosphere) may be both natural and normal (potentially evolvable), unlike life in our MTI Skinner Box society where each of us expects to be served by hundreds of energy slaves by spending money. A we-are-the-environment/posterity worldview, culture — form of civilization — is the paradigm shift that makes the short-term-self-interest form of expansionist civilization obsolete.
If a form of civilization is designed to renormalize modern, literate, industrialized humans by focusing on one goal: each generation needs to be more functional than their parents. If the endeavor to renormalize is reiterated for 8 to 20 generations, a viable form of civilization (a transitional civilization cannot claim to be viable, merely would-be viable) may arise. Underestimating the challenge of renormalizing will be fatal. Humans may or may not come to understand the planet enough to live properly with it long term. We are playing a global endgame. The outcome is indeterminate. Therefore endeavor to think (listen) well.
"If society does not succeed in changing attitudes and institutions for a harmonious descent, the alternative is to prepare information packages for the contingency of restart after crashing... [assume humans don't reboot merely to repeat the pattern]. What is the general answer? Eject economic expansionism, stop growth, use available energies for cultural conversion to steady state, seek out the condition [renormalization as K-strategists] now that will come anyway [if humans sidestep extinction], but by our service be our biosphere's handmaiden anew." —Howard T. Odum, Energy, Ecology, & Economics, 1973
