WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2020: NOTE TO FILE

The Human from Earth II

The sapient message

Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS

TOPICS: ALT FUTURE, FROM THE WIRES, EXISTENTIAL ISSUES

Abstract: An introduction to my predicament—perhaps yours. For those telling humanity what they don't want to believe, there may be a lack of social approbation that makes communication challenging. True words may not be pleasing, pleasing words may not be true. If your message is outside the current 'domain of discourse', then what? Maybe we need to listen to someone (or 'thing') who has all the answers.

'Nature has all the answers, so what is your question?' —Howard T. Odum

TUCSON (A-P) — A stranger, perhaps from a world where the 'advancement' of civilization had had a better outcome, says:

'Hi, call me Ishmael. I have an important message for humankind, but you'll need to learn a new language to receive it, one that avoids bewitchment of the human mind. Here's a link to Rosetta Write. When you've learned it you can read volume one of Cosmos Simplified (CS). The continued persistence of humans depends on some of you understanding something about Cosmos. Posterity thanks you in advance for your consideration.'

Ishmael appears to be a homeless guy who may have left his tinfoil hat in the cardboard box he sleeps in. You take the slip of paper he offers with a URL handwritten on it, thank him, and maybe you check out the link.

Ishmael actually doesn't live in a box (or think inside one), uses Google Analytics and so knows that there is a 0.023% chance that you will go to the URL. And he knows no one has learned Rosetta Write. CS comes in 99 not too long volumes (4-24 months to read once), and Ishmael can assess the probability that 0.0001% of humans will read them with some understanding (~zero).

So Ishmael (not her real name—she appears male and so is perceived as he) decides to hover over the UN for 42+ days. The ship manages to impress, is clearly not of human origin (but is), and is surrounded by a faint glow through which no energy, including in the form of matter, can pass (and none, apart from some photons, appear to come from it). Attempts to detect the ship's gravitational field have been inconclusive. So the sum total of all knowledge about the ship is (1) it's location is probably non-random; (2) it occupies a space that is impenetrable to all matter-energy weapons (nuclear was not tried due to location); (3) the photons coming from it are as emitted, so what might be within the space, apart from some sort of emitter, is unknown (all light emitted is the same intensity day or night).

No one (of the 78K or approximately 1 in 100K humans) who had met Ishmael and took his URL, connected him with the ship. Ishmael's attempts to connect with individual humans had been in diverse places, but came to focus on areas around universities, meeting centers such as Davos, and centers of governance such as the UN, London, Beijing, so those who would be leaders or are associated with them had been selectively offered information.

The sphere of space over the UN did get humanity's attention, possibly the point of it being there. Of course other stories were told. After 42 days the proponents of 'benefactor' stories were fighting those coming to the site to destroy the 'menace'. The increasing conflict was clearly about to result in dead bodies piling up, but what appeared to be a tablet appeared as a protrusion from the bottom of the sphere. It contained symbols that could be a form of writing. It distracted those about to kill one another nearby and some humans wanted to know what the message was.

Of course, proponents pointed out that the appearance of the message had prevented bloodshed, 'proving' that it was a beneficent entity, no doubt co-existent with God. Others had other stories, and within a week 27 translations, each irreconcilable with the other, had appeared on social and mainstream media.

Then one of the 18 people who had gone to the homeless guy's website remembered that he had seen some symbol looking things there that sort of looked like those being projected from the ship thing. He had never cleared his browser history and his niece was able to find the URL. The symbols were the same. The news spread on social media, and for once academics and scientist types paid attention. Some even learned Rosetta Write.

When 0.0001% of humans had read CS, the ship ascended and left the solar system, leaving only a tablet within a smaller sphere. Or maybe the ship just appeared to leave the solar system. But it had gotten humanity's attention and left behind some information in 99 volumes not counting volume 0—Rosetta Write that taught the language. That humans came to understand and learn to live properly with the planet suggests (to some) that the information was of value. Some even claim 'intrinsic' value, but there is no evidence of that.

The projected parting message was eventually translated correctly, per consensus of the 7,852 (approximately one in one million people) who had actually read CS with some understanding. It said: 'Stand down and listen to Nature who has all the answers, bitches.'

Ishmael: Stand-in for all systems science dudes and dudesses.
CS is systems science connecting the 99 dots of silo science.

And on the other half of the tablet:

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'Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language'.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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'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.... Thou shall treasure thy heritage of information, and in the uniqueness of thy good works and complex roles will thy system reap that which is new and immortal in thee.'

— Howard T. Odum

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PS: Cosmos Simplified included (within footnotes scattered among the volumes) information that, when put together, informed humanity that failure to understand the planet and learn to live properly with it would have consequences. To simplify, hu-mans would 'understand or die'. Ishmael's real name was Klaatu and he represents a Galactic Federation of Planets that has been forced to violate its Prime Directive, initially minimally, but that has the ability to apply humanicide to rapidly reduce the human population to a level that does not cause the extinction of other species secondary to too many humans/pets/livestock consuming too much using technology that is incompatible with life on Earth.

The use of fire technology by Homo erectus to alter ecosystems for short-term self interest had been of concern, but was not interfered with. Homo erectus even learned to use fire ecology to maximize the empower of their biome. Nor were the technology enabled megafauna extinctions prevented as the end point of their expansionism (e.g. mass extinction) was unforeseeable. Humans were allowed to build empires (aka civilizations). Interference was a high bar to cross as the consequences of violating the Prime Directive were unforeseeable.

Still, with the development of agriculture and the conversion of increasing areas into agroecosystems, humans were increasing the biomass of crop and domestic animal species (and its own) at the expense of other species and, more seriously, causing an increase in species extinction and loss of biodiversity. That the unsustainable pattern of empire building also harmed humans was of lesser concern.

Minimal interference was considered and enacted. One possibility was that humans lacked information about the harm done by their empire-building complex society ways to themselves and Nature. So several teachers emerged who were different, but plausibly human.

Unsurprising, there were unpredictable consequences. An 11,000 year old mutant Cro-Magnon man who did not age considered the teachings of one teacher and wondered, some centuries later, if he could spread the teachings within the Roman Empire. The result was widely considered lamentable. Resistance to again interfering only wavered when events of the twentieth century forced the Federation to consider the extreme interference of exterminating a species.

It turned out that CS included predictions. If one in one hundred thousand humans were offered vital information but ignored it (because they couldn't Like it), then a ship would hover over a control center of industrial society. When one in a million hu-mans had read the greatly simplified description of how Cosmos worked, the ship would leave. So it did. And then what? What would humans do? And....

 

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'Understand or die.'

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

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'System over self.'

— Howard T. Odum

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Alternate narrative: A ship appears to hover over the UN. Those claiming that the glow was impenetrable to matter/energy weapons could be part of the illusion. Maybe the CIA, KGB, or the clever Chinese rigged up a fancy projector, a bit of techno-magic to fool the world's people. Electricity won't stop flowing, the world won't stand still for a day, and Anthropocene enthusiasts can keep on keeping on. The information content of CS should be ignored. Humans are the storytelling animal. Maybe 0.0001% of humans would rather know than believe.

If there was a Reader's Digest version of Cosmos Simplified for humans (Thinking in Systems: A Primer is as close to 101 intro as we have) and 8,000 humans read it, that could be statistically significant enough to lead to ever more humans to read CS—or not. If those who have read it are shunned, ignored, their interpretation of the content obfuscated and marginalized, their motives vilified, social approbation withdrawn, then readers of CS (systems science) would be reduced to a cult-like following. And humanity would fail to persist. We are playing (badly) a high-stakes endgame.

Or the content of CS could be critically considered by an increasingly significant percentage of those who increasingly would rather know than believe, and implications noted (instead of denied). If having the ring of truth, humans would impose limitations on themselves to maintain a viable equilibrium between Man’s demands and Nature’s resources. No United Federation of Planets would interfere (or be needed to exist) to prevent further mass extinction of life on Earth.

We have enough information, but we collectively fail to see the implications, and so, as there really is no United Federation of Planets, we will continue to preside over the mass extinction event we are the cause of as part of a remorseless dynamic we (e.g. the educational and political systems) fail to understand that selects for short-term self interest of the technology enabled and other pathologies. We lack foresight intelligence, but perhaps not by nature, such that some will foresee (understand) the value of limits and embrace them with the enthusiasm that others use to serve the Anthropocene (or not and die).

Human extinction is possible. Nature is unkind and will humble us in ways Klaatu could never do. That another will save us is delusional. That we will save ourselves (any belief that) is also delusional. We can understand or die. The act of understanding is the change. Dismantling the BAU schooling system may not be unthinkable (if you think about it before breakfast). That we technoindustrial animals could learn to understand and live properly with the planet is the faith of a heretic who questions human supremacy.

Klaatu did come back in 2008 in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the 1951 original, the earth (industrial society) stood still when all electricity, except in such places as airplanes in flight and hospitals where people might be harmed by the outage, ended for 30 minutes. This did get humanity's attention. In 1951 Klaatu was concerned that humans with nuclear powered spacecraft and nuclear weapons would come to pose a threat to the Federation of Planets. In 2008 Klaatu was concerned that humans were exterminating life on Earth that technoindustrial society had clearly become incompatible with.

Despite a policy of non-interference, what would Klaatu, or the Federation, do if a planetesimal impact was going to destroy 90 percent of the life on a planet, including all multicellular life? Sol will become a Red Giant and all life on Earth will end some eons hence, but interference at times may be considered.

Klaatu was going to quickly remove humans and their technology from Earth to save it (and not by transporting humans elsewhere for what should be obvious reasons). A professor argues that if humanity is allowed to try to pass through the coming bottleneck, that some could mutate and learn to live properly with the planet (i.e. change).

Don't quickly eliminate humanity to prevent the extinction of untold species and a 90+% Malthusian die-off of humans, their pets, and livestock is the plea. Imagine humanity becomes to the biosphere what the human brain, when working well, is to its body. If a planetesimal were going to strike Earth, humans are the only animal that could foresee the event and do something about it. Allowing humanity to keep on keeping on may result in many hundreds of thousands of species going extinct, including humans, but if humans were to become Earth's handmaiden anew, restoration of biodiversity might not take 10 million years. When Sun novas, humans could maybe have moved and taken as much of Earth's biosphere with them as possible. A few hundred million years may be time enough for humans to become sapient.

So Klaatu decided to not do the compassionate Christ-like thing and minimize destruction and suffering. Humans are headed full speed ahead towards their bottleneck. We will keep on keeping on for as long as possible, laying waste to 'our' planet for the taking. If humans and life on Earth are not to be spared their bottleneck, then sooner would be better. So Klaatu causes all electricity to stop flowing, perhaps all energy slaves go on strike, as our possible salvation comes at a high price for us and the environment. The film ends with scenes of all industrial activity stopping. For how long? The film does not indicate, but implies. For 30 minutes as in the original film? For an entire day as the title could be interpreted to imply? This would be a momentary distraction before BAU was resumed.

By ending the usage of all energy slaves, humans will confront change and could come to a better view, but for the teaming billions the better view cannot come first. But Klaatu does what he must. Industrial food production, processing, and transport ends suddenly. Shortages (and a longage of demand) engender conflict that increases scarcity resulting in a downward death spiral. And the outcome? Some manner of dissolution, yes, but extinction for humans?

No one, no Federation member nor any humans, no galactic beings can foresee the future of what they are subsystems of. Probable futures can be modeled, but complex systems are more complex than any models of them. Only the nature of things (Nature) determines outcome. Could a remnant population of humans pass through the coming bottleneck? Would that be a 'good' thing? Could any literate humans be among them? Could humans become ecolate? I don't know and neither do you.

In 1951 the scriptwriter modeled Klaatu, aka John Carpenter, on another carpenter having the same initials. Klaatu was viewed as a Christ-like figure. In the 2008 version, Klaatu stops the immediate destruction of humans (and the technology they serve), but he does destroy the machine before leaving by stopping it, though without cleaning up the ruins as had been planned. He does what Theodore Kaczynski would do if he could—destroy technoindustrial society.

The better angels of Klaatu's nature may have had a different (ecocentric) hope. Humans may foundationally change, but only during descent. So rapid descent was offered ASAP. Maybe in 500 years a historical movie will be made that details the outcome of what Klaatu would do if no one in our near future endeavors to understand life, the universe and everything, and live properly with the planet. Understanding the dynamic we are and are part of would be a good start.

Both movie versions were 'major motion pictures' of their time, but the second, while 'a box office success' due mainly to the special effects and attractive cast, was savaged by critics who were, for the most part, forced to think about the underlying story. They didn't like it. To most it seemed incoherent (i.e. unthinkable). The audience wouldn't have liked it either if they had thought about it. And the implication that Klaatu turned off our energy slaves for an indeterminate time 'to save Earth' from technoindustrial humans, knowing that the price was die-off of humans and further despeciation, was wholly unstated as unthinkable thoughts are unthinkable.

Those who know what electricity is, likely use a good deal of it (directly or indirectly), are Anthropocene enthusiasts. Some, who would rather know than believe, are less enthusiastic than others—the more they see what is in front of their face, the more they are selected against in the current socioeconomic-political system that Klaatu destroyed for reasons that would be obvious to all life on the planet except for some kept as pets or livestock, if they could think about it.

Am I claiming to be a Klaatu-like figure? He had important information to share that could save humanity and the biosphere. I've never had an original idea or insight in my life, but as an autodidact with a fool for a teacher I've sought out better teachers who have, like Klaatu, important information to share.

None told me to believe anything. All ask us to listen and learn, to first consider the possibility that we might be wrong. If humanity does (enough individuals do), the schooling system will dismantle itself and auto-organize along points of inquiry interconnected by thinking in systems to become an educational system that serves auto-motivated autodidacts before whose inquiry all belief-based assertions and certitudes fall. Otherwise, merely ending conventional empire serving schooling would create a vacuum to be filled with different ideological prattle.

Until humans can become sapient, they must stand down and liberate all energy slaves to simplify and renormalize before rebuilding complex society with great care least it do more long-term harm than provide short-term gain (misjudged good). Learn to not be energy, time, and posterity blind. Learn to listen to Nature who has all the answers. Embrace not-knowing.

Some teachers of special interest:

[Klaatu's message to humanity (politicians refused to listen, so he addresses a gathering of scientists) in 1951:]

l am leaving soon. And you will forgive me if l speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly [e.g. to act as if growth is forever, i.e. to live the carcinogenic life—for a time].

Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves [set limits] and hired policemen to enforce them. We of the other planets have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression [aka the Federation that also limits aggression towards planetary resources viewed as for the taking]. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function [the Federation's function] is to patrol the planets [the watersheds] in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace [the ability of all life to self-organize and evolve when not threatened by system pathologies]. in matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. [In a naturocracy Nature (the nature of things, who has all the answers), rules those who prefer to understand than die.]

The result is we live in peace without arms or armies secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more profitable enterprises [e.g. loving and learning]. We do not pretend to have achieved perfection but we do have a system and it works. [Nature alone determines what works—humans can guess then test.]

l came here to give you these facts. lt is no concern of ours how you run your own planet [watershed management unit]. But if you threaten to extend your violence [your failed socio-politico-economic system leading you to attack others, including Nature], this earth of yours [your watershed management unit] will be reduced to a burned-out cinder [declared a failed state by the United Federation of Watersheds].

Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace [self-organize and evolve] or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you [to understand or die].

Okay, a few comments interjected, part of the price of providing the transcript, but wholly unforgivable is rewriting Klaatu's message as a know-nothing such as myself might write it:

l will die soon. And you will forgive me if l speak bluntly. Nature is a tough bitch. Humanity is colliding with Nature. A damaged biosphere will persist. We humans may not be part of it. There are no political solutions.

Our 'choice' is to understand or die, but understand that free will is an illusion. We must give up all freedoms (illusions) other than choiceless obedience to the nature of things which comes from the recognition of necessity, and the vast sea of error, ignorance and illusion we swim in, bitches.

To understand something is to be delivered from it. There must be security for all or no one is secure. To act as if growth is forever, to live the carcinogenic life—for a time, is to lay waste to a planetary life-support system as a metastasizing cancer does to a body.

Your ancestors, for nearly four billion years, learned the hard way to live properly with Earth. Nature selected for what worked to maximize empower and still does. Members of the Federation have long accepted rule by Nature's laws. We have auto-organized, secondary to our recognition that Nature has all the answers, a management subsystem that protects humanity and the biosphere from threats. Cancer maximizes empower very well—for a time, but is soon selected against.

Representatives of the Federation Academy patrol member watersheds. They freely offer information about what works. They watch for emerging pathologies. The dysfunctional can be helped, but the ideology of the cancer cell requires its destruction (or conversion to normal), preferably before it destroys its host. For our policemen (aka Fed Mamas, including honorary women), we created new rules of the game called a naturocracy that selects for self-imposed limits via mutual coercion. We listen to Nature. We guess then test. We adapt. If Mama (Mother Nature/Mamas) ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

If we listen to Mother, embrace limits, love and understand this Earth and one another, we may come to persist on this planet. We must stand down, let go of our hubris, enter into not-knowing by understanding that we products of industrial society are all humans of NIMH. Nature restorancy is needed. In wildness is the restoration of our human nature, of our endeavor to recover normal function, to live the life-driven purpose our ancestors lived and thereby became ancestors, and not the unsustainable purpose-driven life of pushing levers to the cha-ching of monetary reward in a Skinner box to grow the economy, stupid.

I came here as a dead man walking, and sitting, and doing the things mere animals do. It is no concern of mine that you cannot keep on keeping on as industrialized humans. Whether humans pass through the coming bottleneck and in what form posterity, if any, emerges is of concern. I have had a few good teachers who listened to Nature and asked me to believe nothing. Listen to Nature and at times to those who also endeavor to listen to Nature. Believe nothing. To think is to listen. Listen. To like and dislike, pick and choose, to be for or against is a distraction. Understand or die, bitches.

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[In 2008 Klaatu fails to address any group of humans, so his concerns come out in bits and pieces of dialog mostly with two scientists. The message in fragments:]

We're trying to help you. You have nothing to fear from us. [He lies.] I represent a group of civilizations... All around you. [First words during transition to human form, he could be killed easily, so perhaps not functional enough to be honest.]

[US Secretary of State:] What is your purpose in coming here?

There is a gathering of world leaders not far from here [UN]. I will explain my purpose to them.

Perhaps you should explain yourself to me instead.

Do you speak for the entire human race?

I speak for the President of the United States. Now, please, tell me, why have you come to our planet?

Your planet?

Yes. This is our planet.

No. It is not.

[Klaatu is forcibly interrogated, but escapes. He connects with a scientist that had tried to help him who asks:] Are you a friend to us?

I'm a friend to the Earth.

[Over one hour into the movie, the scientist says:] I need to know what's happening.

This planet is dying. The human race is killing it.

So you've come here to help us.

No, I didn't.

You said you came to save us.

I said I came to save the Earth.

You came to save the Earth from,,,us? You came to save the Earth from us!

We can't risk the survival of [life on] this planet for the sake of one species.

What are you saying?

If the Earth dies, you die. If you die [now], the [other life, except most crops, pets, and livestock, on] Earth survives. There are only a handful of planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life.

You can't do this.

This one can't be allowed to perish.

We can change! We could still turn things around!

We've watched, we've waited, and hoped that you would change.

Please.

It's reached the tipping point. We have to act.

Please! We'll undo the damage you've done and give the Earth a chance to begin again. Don't do this. Please. We could change. We can change. [?]

The decision is made. The process has begun.

Oh, God.

It won't make any difference, Helen. Even if they arrest me, even if they kill me, the process will continue.

[Klaatu and Helen go to see Earth's most eminent scientist, Professor Bernhardt, who notes:] I have so many questions to ask you.

[Klaatu likes Bach's music the professor has on.]

So we're not so different after all.

I wish that were true.

[Back from cut to another happening, earlier dialog skipped, but Klaatu seems to have noted the human predicament and obvious 'solution'. Professor adds:] There must be alternatives. You must have some technology that could solve our problem.

Your problem is not technology [or lack of]. The problem is you. You lack the will to change. [Intent as free will is an illusion.]

Then help us change.

I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other.

But every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually.

Most of them don't make it. [E.g. all prior ones on Earth and per Klaatu, most elsewhere.]

Yours did. How?

Our sun was dying. We had to evolve in order to survive.

So it was only when your world was threatened with destruction that you became what you are now.

Yes.

Well, that's where we are. You say we're on the brink of destruction, and you're right. But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don't take it from us. We're close to an answer. [No. Not remotely close.]

[The removal of humans and their technology and artifacts is underway when Klaatu considers the alternative, however horrifying. Helen, watching the dissolution, says:] Is that how it ends?

Yes.

You can't stop it?

I don't know. It would come at a price to you and your way of life. [I.e. chaotic degrowth with continued environmental degradation and despeciation of biosphere that may or may not support a remnant population of humans who are even more dysfunctional than at present.]

But we can change. You know [that change is remotely possible by giving us what we think we want, so please consider doing] that now. Please. Please, just give us a chance.

I'll try. I must get back to the city. We have to get to the sphere.

[Klaatu gets to his ship (sphere) and stops the restoration process. Industrial society, however, without use of electricity and presumably fossil fuel energy, ends and the transition to understanding or death (extinction of humans) begins and will involve vastly more suffering. Perhaps humans should not get what they think they want secondary to error, ignorance, and illusion.]

The Day the Earth Stood Still 3

The following is a summary of the screenplay of the third version of The Day the Earth Stood Still staring Johnny Depp as Klaatu, coming to a theater near you from the twilight zone. What would Klaatu actually do? Well, in the third try to get it right, Klaatu has a better idea.

It turns out that apparent predictions made within footnotes in Cosmos Simplified (CS) were a misunderstanding. They were suggestions. The actual message appeared in the small sphere Klaatu left behind. The message "Understand or die." on the tablet was replaced. The new message was translated as "Humanity must agree to a managed birth-off to avoid a die-off over a 50 year period or the human population will be decreased by half each year. When the population is reduced to 32 million, the impact of humans will be assessed and the population adjusted slightly up or down as the decades go by."

CS contained enough information to make this directive understandable, in terms of why and how, but only to some of the CS literate, Most humans simply refused to believe anything the words from a non-human had to say. Humanity didn't like this message and did nothing. Exactly one year after the message appeared, half of all humans, seemingly at random, dropped dead instantly so far as could be determined. Some were being monitored in hospital, and all neurological activity stopped in each at exactly the same time. This got humanity's attention.

More humans studied Rosetta Write and taught themselves to read CS. The prattleverse was abuzz with words, words, words, and nuanced interpretation, but the plain message was so obfuscated as to effectively be ignored. Only 1% of humans understood why a rapid depopulation of humans was in the best interests of posterity and the biosphere. Half of those who assured others that another 50% reduction in population would not happen were surprised when, to the appointed second, it did.

There were now 2 billion humans on the planet. Energy and resources seemed abundant. That humans should not use it to grow and prosper exceedingly seemed monstrous (to most), but after the first culling, the population of those who had agreed to a rapid managed birth-off, or seemed to, had only been reduced by 8%. After the second culling 12% of humans supported, with some enthusiasm, a managed birth-off. This wasn't enough to change the system, so predictably, even after another year to think about it, the population was halved again.

Again most of the 12%, those who actually seemed to understand and work to help others understand why a managed birth-off to reduce the human population was the best plan considering alternatives, were not culled. Failure to live within the carrying capacity of a degraded biosphere, failure to stop causing species extinction and leave room for Nature to evolve new species to replace to the Anthropocene extinction event had caused, was not the best (or sane) option,

There were a billion humans left. Those unable to understand CS were rapidly becoming fewer. After only three, instead of eight halvings, a majority of humans decided to stand down, listen to Nature (or those who endeavor to listen to Nature), and learn to love and understand the world system. Doing so seemed to actually be the better idea.

When a full year had passed and the vast majority of humans had come to consider the possibility that they had been wrong, no one suddenly dropped dead. Those whom the Mothers of each community decided could reproduce each year endeavored to do so, The rest endeavored not to. Failures happened, but were terminated. Three prior halving were still in memory yet green.

Another year passed and no one dropped dead on the anniversery of the prior halvings and in 48 years the global population of humans was 32 million people, all of whom had enough, and they were leaving room for Nature. During the 50 years no one died a Malthusian death. Most lived long and prospered.

Thereafter the message changed: "Consider a reduction in human, crop, pet, and livestock populations or per capita consumption." Humans were allowed to form a consensus (actually the Mothers) as to whether a watershed's population, the communities within it, would on average decrease population or consumption, or make no change. The United Federation of Watersheds monitored the aggregate of all decisions and if overall there was no change or an increase in population x consumption, then individual watersheds that were assessed to have overestimated their best guess as to whether their population x consumption was within environmental productivity were asked to reconsider until the indicated trend was achieved.

Within 500 years the message had changed between "reduction" and "increase" 26 times as global environmental productivity increased until a new message appeared: "Your footprint on the planet is sustainable. Klaatu, with your permission, would like to revisit your planet." Humans concluded they had come to understand the planet and learn to live with it properly, sort of, maybe. They welcomed Klaatu, who on leaving said that in perhaps just a millennium of further development (very different from the "sustainable development" humans had envisioned in 1987), the Federation of Watersheds might be asked to join the United Federation of Planets on a trial basis.

Thus humans were prevented from becoming Borg-like users, assimilators, expansionists on a planet viewed as for the taking, to dream of expanding into the universe because they could. For humans, not listening to Nature had proved futile. Humans had been reassimilated to again live in harmony with the natural world, and know the place for the first time.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

SUBNOTE TO FILE 9/17/2022: What would Klaatu do? V2

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