TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2015: NOTE TO FILE

Sustainer vs Growther

Having enough vs having more

Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS

TOPICS: SUSTAINABLE, TRANSITION, RESILIENCE, FROM THE WIRES, CORPORATOCRACY, GROWTH CULTURE

Abstract: Steady-state living is different form a live to grow/grow to live culture. Growthers want to keep on keeping on and believe in sustainability so long as they don't have to actually understand what it means. Sustainers actually keep on keeping on, it's what they do, so they don't have to believe in sustainability.

wise owlTUCSON (A-P) — Having more and more may seem like the best of all possible worlds, and it is, but only for a time. If the "And then what?" is overshoot and collapse, then what seems unquestionably right and appears utterly good at the time is neither. Wiser owls counsel that "life sustainable is possible" and preferable.

 

 

 

 

To be brief:

 

 

Rich vs Richer
  Sustainer Growther
Energy mandate High efficiency—slow, low, the power of enough High power—faster, bigger, MORE!
Characterized by Low maintenance, rationing, saving/storage High maintenance, hording, overselling
Orientation Sustainability, limits to growth, not-a-zero sum game Growth without limit, zero sum game
Focus Environment/community needs Maximizing power, wealth, wants
Goal Ecosystem/community prosperity Personal wealth
Spatial Live local, support localization, more rural Live global, have more than one home, urban
Temporal concerns 7+ generations Next quarter earnings or next pay check
Transportation Bicycle or LEV if going too far to walk Car, bigger/faster better if flying not possible
Medical system Health care = prevention, palliative care, tx Sick care = aggressive expensive treatmentx
Hierarchy Few levels; generalists serve common interests Complex; elite interests served by specialists
Ethics Focus on community/planetary well being Focus on individual rights and autonomy
Design Open source, shared, copied freely Proprietary, copyrighted, patented
Durability Lifetime+ Planned obsolescence, disposible
Metaphysics System over self Consumer over consumed
Consent Informed, mutually agreed upon by informed Manufactured
Needs Focus on basic needs, self-reliance Focus on wants and turning wants into needs
Social Cooperation, altruism, diversity, harmony Competition, bigger dog eats smaller dogs
Religion Individual quest, inquiry Organized; justifies business as usual
Economy Local sources of energy/resources.
Biophysical economics
Global derivative financial $£€¥$ wealth.
NWE and attention economy
Politics Data-driven by choiceless awareness of what-is Belief-driven serving competing self interests
Production Local, based on shared designs/information Centralized, proprietary, global transport
Technology To enable needs to be met, appropriately To profitably meet manufactured wants
Government Democratic Meritocracy Global Growth Hegemon
Military Shared global military to stifle aggression Military industrial complex for each nation
The world is Dynamic Static
Values Partnership-respect Domination-control
World organization Federation of Watersheds Nation-states of, by, and for the Growthers

To have enough is to be rich (prosperous). To have more than enough is to be richer, and the richer always want to be more rich if not the richest. Transitioning from growth to a steady state of prosperity is no longer an option. Such a transition would have had to be made before overshoot. We are in overshoot, which by definition means decline follows. The greater the overshoot, the harder the fall. We can transition via ordered descent to prosperous sustainability or try to maintain growth and be forced to transition kicking and screaming via chaotic collapse to a lower level of sustainability for fewer survivors on a planet that will have been all used up.



To not have enough is a curse; to have more than enough is also a curse. — Zhuangzi

Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally adversarial relationship with power. —Arundhati Roy


 

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