TUESDAY, MAR 26, 2019: NOTE TO FILE
My Predicament
Careful hearing needed; a longage of demand
Eric Lee MEMOIR, A-SOCIATED PRESS
I have nothing to say to modern techno-industrialized humans (who must pass away) that they want to hear, and so I have few readers (and but for a time until they read something they really don’t like). As a modern techno-industrialized human, I don’t like what I see or say and you dear reader won’t either. But I cannot know that what I type is unreadable to all forevermore. I can but endeavor to envision a viable future and type of what I see.
'I have played many roles sometimes with the majority, but more often attempting to shock the scientific establishment into a better view.' — Howard T. Odum, systems ecologist
TOPICS: LOCAL ECCENTRIC, FROM THE WIRES, PLEA FOR HELP
Abstract: The shortest of it: Odum failed. My thoughts are built on his 'better view'. I am much easier to ignore. There is a broad consensus that I am wrong about all 'idiosyncratic' claims/proposals, but that is not the same as being wrong.
Extended Abstract: I have existential concerns for humanity and the biosphere, but my notes about them remain unvetted. In 2015, more or less full-time, I began typing my legacy that no one has yet to give 'a careful hearing'. It does not follow, however, that my failure to say what others want to hear, or saying what may be true but unpleasant, means my offerings are without value. Conjecture: all 'normal' humans find some of Nature's verities dissonant, e.g. Al Bartlett's 'The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.' Perhaps most academics, scientists, pundits, and bloggers cannot understand the implications of this and other dissonant claims as evidenced by our continued service to the growth dynamic we are all products of and serve.
My potential service to humanity (posterity) and the biosphere (if not the growth hegemon) is that as an outlier I can think about 'real solutions' that are unthinkable to others secondary to cognitive dissonance (withdrawal of social approbation) and too narrow an Overton window.
If saying what you see to your spouse, children, grandchildren, and all 'tribal' members leads to being ignored, shunned, marginalized, and judged 'straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain', as has been my experience, then normal primates will not see what they potentially could see (and I see this failure as an existential threat). Or maybe I'm just barking mad. Or maybe 'People would rather believe than know.' —E.O. Wilson
Most (almost all?) humans align with groups and seek consensus within a domain of discourse. Those outside of one's consensus of thinkable thoughts tend to be ignored or dismissed. My POV is such at, while elements are shared and shareable, my narrative of life, the universe and everything soon passes outside everyone's consensus (thinkable) narrative. This strongly suggests that I am wrong or 'not even wrong'. My ability to self-vet is limited and I fail to exclude the possibility that I might be right about some points that matter.
That all demur (don't like what I type, including me), does not mean that I am absolutely for sure wrong. The gift that I seek is for someone, preferably who knows enough to have an opinion, to consider one or more of my 'missives', and, despite any dissonance, give it 'a careful hearing' within tolerance. Then offer criticism that attempts to explicate my errors and failures to understand the world system—as I would rather know than believe.
COOS BAY (A-P) — The short of it: I started writing on 'Sustainability Issues' 1/2011 as I have existential concerns for Nature (and humanity). I may be perceived as a quadruple doomer (Malthusian, Calhounian, Wittgensteinian, and Sunzian), but self-describe as a cornucopian optimist living on an abundant Earth. I have a special interest in 'real solutions' to the planetary predicament and may have memes to offer of potential value if thought about and acted on by perhaps 0.01% of the global population. This note has gotten too long, so a bit of allegorical fiction (one page though the PS is long) may be a better starting point for some.
I have never been an academic nor have I specialized (though in the last few years I've been to six conferences and presented at two). I'm a generalist with no economy-serving specialty. I have concerns, am semiliterate and must speak, but I may as well be living alone in a cabin in Montana.
That industrial society, including its use of science, technology and normalization of urbanization, is doing more harm than good to both humanity and the biosphere is, I am willing to consider, thinkable. I don't believe in political solutions nor religious salvation as I am unable to believe in belief.
At best I may hit what I aim for and my aim is to have my acquired memes vetted and then, if judged correct by enough, those acquiring said memes would work to end the BAU (business-as-usual) dynamic that we are all captured and being dragged along by.
The dynamic is enabled by our belief in its normality and necessity (along with a good deal of fossil energy), and our lack of understanding of it. Ending it will occur by spreading disbelief in belief itself (and in industrial society's belief-based narrative of human exceptionalism/growth/supremacy and everything else belief-based) and transcend the prattleverse to listen to Nature instead, who has all the answers, and question everything (e.g. that growth is good or bad). As Spinoza noted, to understand something is to be delivered from it and as Wittgenstein notes, 'at the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded'. Believing minds iterate towards conclusions. An inquiring mind may iterate towards understanding and deliverance. These are not mere 'fine words'.
If such ideas that have come to me (that have survived self-vetting) have no merit, it is because I have failed as a critical thinker to so judge and dismiss them. While I think that some ideas that have come to me have value, such a claim could be secondary to my cognitive error, ignorance, and illusion. Perhaps I suffer delusions of cogency.
Given the level of error, ignorance, and illusion in the memepool, I must be wrong, either foundationally (as in 'not even wrong'), or with absolute certainty I'm wrong about some things that matter. I'm not in a position to know, however, and need help. I could be a crank offering a perpetual motion machine I built in my barn (like a great-uncle of mine) or not.
The 'or not' is my problem. Ajit Varki, physician-scientist with an interest in human origins and evolution, tells of meeting Danny Brower at a conference who informed him that they [students of human origins] 'were all asking the wrong question'. At first he took Brower to be a 'local eccentric', but 'when I realized he was a well-known professor at the university [of Arizona], I gave him a careful hearing'. If Brower had not been a professor or was mistaken for a local crank, then no 'careful hearing' would have occurred. For over an hour the two talked about Brower's 'contrarian' views.
The ideas simmered in Varki's brain for two years before he wrote Brower of his coming around to thinking Brower was onto something important. He learned Brower had died suddenly leaving an unfinished manuscript. Varki ended up finishing the book as co-author [Denial: Self-deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind, 2013]. If Brower was a local crank, but said exactly what professor Brower said and died leaving a manuscript no one had given a careful reading, then no book would have come forth and ideas that some consider of high value (ironically I don't) would have been lost.
My predicament is that I'm an ignorant know-nothing from the hood who just doesn't get it, whatever 'it' is of special interest to specialists or SYSTEM serving intelligentsia types, and so I am unlikely to receive a 'careful hearing' before or after death (and death would preclude offering clarification). Whether I receive support or someone explains why I'm 'not even wrong' is a small to inconsequential matter.
If, however, ideas of high value happened to have come to me, it could matter if they were lost. If 'real solutions' to the planetary predicament are involved and there is even the slightest chance that a baby of an idea was at risk of being lost with the bathwater (that could enable humanity to understand and learn to live properly with the planet), then that could be a serious misfortune for posterity. Someone's effort in 'careful hearing', and perhaps two years of simmering to decide value, could matter. Finding a Varki (or a Hubbert) seems unlikely, but chance favors the one who fishes the most, one who casts about in likely spots, even if at risk of annoying the ever busy.
I have written on areas of specialist interest with the result that a few (countable on one hand) who know enough to have an opinion have read an offering, with some vetting of content. Charles Hall, biophysical economic's founding/guiding light and originator of the EROI metric read Eco-nomy 101. While researching my topic I realized that 'biophysical economics' was equivalent to what I was calling 'eco-nomy'. Hall did not offer to correct errors, but magnanimously suggested I 'take a broader view of your thoughts: they may be very useful and important in time', which could be taken as encouragement (he added, 'I know what bad is, and its not your stuff'.). He read another article, but again did not offer to correct, which would be expected if I'm 'not even wrong', but perhaps I need to take a broader view. Hall did criticize my style such that as a service to the reader I added abstracts/intros to articles (over 200) even though I am not writing science.
I also wrote about emergy mattering and Mark Brown, H.T. Odum's successor at the University of Florida, read it [Emergy Yield Ratios Matter], but offered only a 'of course I agree', which falls short of begging to explicate my limitations. I appropriated a graphic of his and modified it, used it on the home page and in Down with Democracy, Up with Naturocracy, confessed to taking liberties, but no reply, so no approval implied. George Mobus, co-author of Principles of Systems Science, read one offering and noted it was 'quite a parsing', but no value implied. Eileen Crist, mentioned on home page (author: Abundant Earth 2019), was so informed and did reply, but likely too busy to find time to read/consider the issues of a non-local, to her, crank.
I did hear back from Jeremy Lent (author: The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning 2017), whom I had paraphrased at length, but he admitted to being busy for some unforeseeable time and so reviewing my offering would have to wait. I met Feng Lianyong, University of Petroleum, Beijing, at two conferences and read read about My China Connection 'many times' and perhaps not because I'm so unreadable. If I'm ever in Beijing, I have an invite to be shown around to talk about my ideas. Best offer so far. I would like to visit Mount Huangbo before I die.
Anthropologist Tom Able, at a workshop at the Emergy Society Biennial, listened to some words about why the Kogi might be a people of interest, took the link to my article, said he would look into my claims, but I've not heard back. Garvin Boyle has read several of my 'missives', probably more than anyone else, shares similar concerns, is smarter and knows more than I do, so I have every hope that he may come to correct me should he have some down time and nothing better to do. Everyone who might gift me 'a careful hearing' is insanely busy, bailing furiously to stay afloat in a sea of demands on their time and attention. The pleadings of an outlier are easy to put aside, creating something of a glass ceiling effect.
As I have written a good deal about Haydn Washington and David Suzuki, I tried to contact/confess, but no connection made (David, no known email address, has an executive secretary who filters all incoming letters, and as for Washington, I was the only one to review his book on Amazon [favorably or otherwise], but now that missive is gone. I attempted to contribute to ScientistsWarning.org before I realized it was a political activist site, so my apolitical to anti-political contributions (thoughts about 'real solutions') are anathema to environmentalist ideologues (like founder Scott, whose site doesn't allow endorsements to be removed, so be careful what you endorse) who have better things to do than talk science.
I answered over 100 questions on Quora, 20K 'views' and 80 'upvotes', but no interest apparent, nor correction offered. Perhaps in 15 to 50 years my concerns will be of interest to some if somehow known of. A few of the best and brightest see the current crisis of civilization and are willing to work towards a Plan A to save it. But as I question whether such a plan, however essential, could work, I'm more of a Plan B sort and so am outside the consensus of the Plan A tribe.
Such is the lack of critical feedback and correction I have managed to merit so far. My more global concerns and topics have gone unconsidered, so far as I know (e.g. Kogi, proposed Federation of Watersheds, naturocracy, eMigration, the Ecolate Party, info about a new language, Semantography, a new religion, and some notes on the inecolate and therefore failed education system—just one graphic in Past Lives of Humans took two weeks work). Such may be the fate of nobodies who know-nothing in a world of know-a-lots. But maybe hubris man will yet awake.
But to boil some eight years of endeavor down to outline form, a recent note is a starting point:
Design for a Viable Civilization.
Do we share a common ground?
Where I stand:
- Existential concerns for biosphere and humanity (especially posterity), but eschew humancentrism.
- Concerns are evidence-based, not belief-based, faith-based, nor opinion-based, so cornucopian and doomer narratives lack interest.
- Responses to concerns need to focus on 'real solutions' as suggested by best-guess systems science about the nature of things as distinct from political or religious responses/storytelling.
Those who do not share such concerns, methodology (way of finding things out), or who may focus on political solutions (or religious salvation) will be outside an evidence/reason-based metanarrative, or universe of discourse, and may the Force be with them, but in civil discourse (polite society), best to not do the political/religious ideology thing at all, which goes beyond not merely reframing from talking about it. There are no political solutions, per my best-guess. Technocracy excluded politicians and those currently active in politics, and a proposed naturocracy will too for the same reasons. I'm guessing nothing I've typed could be of interest to those who believe in political solutions (or religious salvation), which excludes the 99+% from pressing the 'Like' or 'Share' button if such were offered.
The fault line between our BAU civilization and potential global ecological or ecolate civilization was described by Hubbert in 1981 in terms of the irreconcilable difference between the 'matter-energy system' and the 'monetary culture' worldviews.
Garrett Hardin, his mind big with the idea of a system, offered:
Among the fragments left us by the Greek poet Archilochus there is a line, dark in meaning, that says: "The fox knows many things: the hedgehog knows one big thing."... Ecologists, in my opinion, are hedgehogs [or should be]. The one big thing they know is this: "We can never do merely one thing." This simple sentence imperfectly mirrors the one big thing ecologists know—the idea of a system... It's tough to be a hedgehog. You take a simple little idea—the right one, you hope—and "thinking on't constantly" (as Newton said) you discover it has wide and unexpected ramifications. In the variety and disunity so cherished by foxes [inecolate intelligentsia, clever ape types] the hedgehog finds a unity, knit together by his one big idea. Being the first to feel its power, and alone with his thought, it is not surprising if he doubts his sanity. Darwin, his mind big with the idea of natural selection, suffered grave self-doubts. Writing to a fellow naturalist just after the publication of the Origin of Species he confessed, "When I think of the many cases of men who have studied one subject for many years, and have persuaded themselves of the truth of the foolistest doctrines, I feel sometimes a little frightened, whether I may not be one of these monomaniacs." — Garrett Hardin, Exploring New Ethics for Survival: The Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle, 1972. [Addressed to foxes, who prosper and proliferate during the exuberance of growth and exploitation for its own sake phase, to whom all hedgehogs look like monomaniacs or egomaniacs.]
'A scientist cannot accept the orientation of the first sentence of the book of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."' —Garrett Hardin, human ecologist, 1990, telling the truth to power. Wordsmiths can and must accept to thereby sweetly sing.
What could a scientist accept? 'In the beginning was the world, the world system, the cosmos, and our words reference the what-is and our verbal behavior is a subsystem forming dissipative cognitive structures whose complexity is greater than that of other verbose organisms. Thus opens the memetic gates of error, ignorance, and illusion from among which Nature may select what works if hu-mans persist long enough by developing foresight intelligence enough.'
Of course wordsmiths don't like this story, so they must dissipate. Most books, articles, and rants look like dissipative structures that do not evolve. Science-based storytelling is evolving as Nature is our error corrector. Praise be the Almighty selector of what works whose merest operational parameters we are unworthy [or able] to calculate. Know that it is always 'system over SELF!' [H.T. Odum]
Modern science should indeed arouse in all of us a humility before the immensity of the unexplored and a tolerance for crazy hypotheses. — Martin Gardner
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.... I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. —Mark Twain
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. — Isaac Asimov
The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew. — Voltaire
Knowing that you do not know is the best. Not knowing that you do not know is an illness.... True words are not pleasing. Pleasing words are not true. Those who are right do not argue. Those who argue are not right. Those who know are not learned. Those who are learned do not know. — Laozi
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein
Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
’Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you’re straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -
— Emily Dickinson
'The Intellect should always be the servant of the Heart, and never its slave.' —August Comte (1798-1857). 'Note, however, that the philosopher gave first place to the Heart. Values are paramount: it is the role of the Intellect to find a way of achieving what the Heart desires. But the Heart, by definition, can scarcely be expected to be very intellectual; its uninstructed impulses may, in fact, be counterproductive of its goals. The task of Intellect is to examine these impulses and, in its role of faithful executive officer, restructure them productively. ' —Garrett Hardin (1985)
"Persistence is the most powerful force on earth, it can move mountains." — Albert Einstein [Or the weakest force as my persistence evidences.]
PS A recent (9/11/19) sci-fi story touches on many elements of systems ecology and complex society such as I understand or misunderstand them, and would be a relatively painless overview of ideas being offered: Stand on Unguja: To understand and live properly with the cosmos
[Note: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies a word length of up to 7,500 for a short story, so at 5,757 words 'Stand on Unguja' is longer than average, although the scope of ideas covered is broad, i.e. what I've been writing about for five years and thinking about for fifty. H.G. Wells' The Time Machine view of the future is over 33,000 words. A number of topics that have been covered at essay length get a sentence or two, so I may have erred in being too short or droned on and on too long. For another, if longer, view there is Exploring New Ethics for Survival: The Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle, 1972 by human ecologist Garrett Hardin whom most intelligentsia types came to view as a racist who wanted to kill black babies, which is why no one needs to consider what he had to say about alleged 'overpopulation'. The only review of Exploring New Ethics for Survival I found was from Nov. 1972 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which includes a review of Limits to Growth by Garrett Hardin (p. 23) that merits reading. The reviewer of Exploring New Ethics notes: 'Now that he [mankind] is aware of the [ecological] dilemma, conscious of its implications for his survival, he must figure out what to do about it.' Or not. We now know what 'he' as consensus of the 'learned' did: deny, deny, deny, and if necessary obfuscate or vilify the messengers, e.g. the 'Chicken-Littles with computers'.]
I have presumed to offer an open letter to Greta Thunberg and ilk, but if I am misinforming up and coming humanity, I would want to know, rather than believe I am informing them. Self vetting can only go so far. Correct me before I do more harm. Open Letter to Greta Thunberg.
10/15/2019 I became a pupil seeking a teacher. One asked for nothing, offering only to take away my error, ignorance, and illusion. But I can't say I learned anything as now I clearly know less.
2/20/2020 My predicament remains: all family, friends, acquaintances, and a significant number of high functioning 'top drawer' experts having similar concerns, who have considered one or more of my notes (as have 20.2K 'views' on Quora), have not been able to offer critical feedback. I remain alone in a world of pathologies. How others disassociate themselves varies. Number one, by far, is ignore. If I could get any to say why I am in error, ignorance, and illusion, I would. But no one has attempted to correct my claims so far. So: (1) I'm wrong or 'not even wrong' such that correcting me is clearly impossible, so any effort to do so would be wasted. (2) Denial is not just a river in Egypt, meaning the schooling system failed to educate me, but not the others. (3) Anyone who agreed would be in the same position, one of a loss of social approbation, which is intolerable to normal primates. 'Assent and you are sane...', or not, but to assent to the consensus views of the tribe is the norm.
3/23/2020 Aside from being another discredited (1) Malthusian sort who foresees limits, I'm a (2) Calhounian who foresees our behavioral sink endgame, a (3) Thoreauvian who sees in wildness the restoration of humanity, a B.F. (4) Skinnerian who does not see humans as being different in kind from other animals (though we do differ notably in terms of the complexity of our verbal behavior), an H.T. (5) Odumite who puts system over self, a Garrett (6) Hardinian who foresees tragedy for an unmanaged global commons, a Donella (7) Meadowsian unattached to any paradigm, a Joseph (8) Tainterian who foresees diminishing returns on our investment in complexity to keep our complex society keeping on (for a while longer), an Al (9) Bartlettian who understands the implications of the exponential function, a Haydn (10) Washingtonian who insists on a sense of wonder as part of any restorancy of Nature and human nature, and I'm a Charles (11) Blissian who views a constructed language alternative to natural languages (especially the Indo-European ones that avoids the bewitchment of the human mind) as a need. But as if this were not enough, I'm a Daniel (12) Dennettian who does not believe in belief (as Zhen does not), which excludes all religious and political ideology (belief-based thinking) from being part of any discussion about 'real solutions'. This pretty much puts me outside everyone's Overton window (along with perhaps all viable solutions). But lamentably this doesn't mean I'm wrong about everything, as much as I would like to be.
4/23/2020 Wife Sue suggested I do a graphic for Earth Day, and yesterday I did, using it as part of the Design for a Viable Civilization page. Today I added a less celebratory one to The Bottleneck. But otherwise I sent an email to a bunch of academics again with no response. If I had to call myself something it would be 'designer' as from childhood's hour that is mostly what I have done (without being paid or encouraged). For a time I designed software (and coded it). I've designed stuff too and perhaps my design for a viable civilization is the penultimate design, my life's work or legacy. If it actually served human self interest/wants it might be as celebrated as my software was. Because I seem to be a human having a 'matter-energy systems' worldview, I today realized that from virtually everyone's POV I'm an anti-modernist/postmodernist/metamodernist/ecomodernist/humanist and all other political animals who believe in political solutions. Nothing personal, but I beg to differ with Aristotle, Chomsky, God, et al., which may be going too far. My POV may be coherent, supported by a mountain of evidence, but currently too far outside anyone's Overton window. Sort of like Richard Dawkins going back to twelfth century Oxford to offer his views on the God delusion (or a twelfth century theologian addressing the UN). Maybe when more are actually looking over the energy cliff and are on the way down..., well, it will be too late, so never mind. Have a good Anthropocene.
6/23/2020 Tribal (eusocial) animals seek consensus; humans seek a consensus narrative. I do not care what other people think unless they think I'm wrong and offer to correct my errors, ignorance, or illusions, which makes me something of a failed tribal animal. I have come, over the decades, to think from a domain of discourse that is outside, on one or more critical points, everyone's consensus narrative. I would like to be wrong about everything, but fail to understand that I am. This concerns no one but me, naturally.
8/18/2020 I am concerned that the planet posterity will soon enough inherit from us will be one of chaotic collapse. I am 67 and may be alive to bear witness to the collapse of complex society. I may hope that 0.01% of humanity could come together, adopt a better view, and avoid repeating the pattern of the past lives of humans living in unsustainable complex societies as humans of NIMH. Perhaps for the first time in human history, some may be able to weather the coming storm we have created who are not now nor are forced to become survivalists. Likely I am wrong and we will do as the Harappan and Rapa Nui and almost all others before us have done—keep on keeping on until we can't. But I would like to be wrong.
Of interest to me, one of those who may 'know enough to have an opinion', a well known public intellectual, seeks public funding on Patreon. I upped my level of support from a mere Jedi to Seer at $100 per month with added benefits:
'...you get access to me as a consultant and advisor on geopolitical forecasting, strategic trend analysis, strategic communications, media and PR strategy, organisational change, and approaches to personal and institutional growth. I'll give you a day's worth of consultancy every month.'
Personal growth would be of value, but after six months I had heard nothing from him other than the usual offerings to supporters. He was busy saving the world, so he had better things to do. Still, so far as I can determine, I was the only one of maybe one other person on the planet supporting him as this level. If he googled his and my name, he would know who his Seer was. Perhaps no contact was as intended. Or maybe that there were 29 of 30 available spots for Seers doesn't mean what I think it means, and so why would he contact me before investigating? That I don't believe in political solutions is noted on the home page. My guess is that some doubts are toxic to all public intellectuals, sort of like going to 12th century Oxford and saying, 'Hey guys, have you read Dawkin's The God Delusion?' Some thoughts and those who mention them are toxic, though not always as the centuries pass. Or he was going to contact me, but forgot. On good days I think I know shit from apple butter, but I'm usually wrong and I don't know anything. So why should someone who does waste their time?
8/27/2021 Chancing upon a 1936 movie on the Wayback Machine I vaguely recall seeing on TV as a child, I watched it and then read the book, H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come. I was 'jarred' to recognize my own concerns and endeavors in Wells (who tried to formulate a theory of world revolution and foment one), and thought of Hubbert and others who seemed to share my concerns for the biosphere and humanity (if not in that order), AND share my endeavor to find real solutions that might actually work given the nature of things (e.g. complex systems).
What was jarring was the recognition that no one I knew of today (e.g. academics, scientists, thought leaders, doomer dilettantes), shared my life-driven purpose of envisioning (and making so) alternatives to our modern techno-industrial society's trajectory having the outcome some few (e.g. William Rees, Alice Friedman) can foresee. There is a foundational cognitive difference between foreseeing outcomes based on one's endeavor to listen to what Nature is telling us (in which there is no choice to pick and choose) and believing that the system will climax and descend (collapse, or what you will).
I was inducted into a closed group of Degrowthers (about 40 members) with the option to unsubscribe at any time. I created a filter so all emails from the group went directly in the Trash folder. I kept a window, however, open on the group page and started reading posts and comments in chronological order, and it took weeks to catch up. I realized that while the members believed in most of what I foresee, that they merely believed what people like me and those whose endeavor to listen to Nature offer for consideration. It is an activist group united by a sense that we need to do something about the near-term pending wall of biophysical limits we are headed full speed into. They're 'near-term' is a decade and mine is a century, but the real difference is I'm guessing and they are believing with certainty they (and the few scientists they follow) are right.
I also belong to a listserv group (about 40) that invited me to join (the owner of the list did, not the group) about a year ago. They are united in seeking information to better understand our condition of overshoot, humanity's meta-problem. They are mostly professors emeritus types and I have the distinction of being the least (formally) educated member of the group. I had posted topics of special interest to me, but they were ignored. I stopped doing so in January, but occasionally commented (a lesser intrusion) to test the waters to see if any of my offerings might be of interest (e.g. that for a viable civilization, alternative to the non-viable modern techno-industrial society we are all products of and serve, that the absence of a religious control system could create a vacuum within which a religious belief-based movement could arise, one incompatible with a complex society's persistence, and so any viable design for an ecolate civilization should include consideration of religion). I recently stopped commenting as the group's disinterest was clear. They were interested in information, as in peer-reviewed offerings from peers, which excludes me, and not idiosyncratic ideas from a know-nothing from the hood. Of supreme aversion was any comments along the lines of what we humans or individuals 'should' or 'must' do (i.e. any 'preaching') or even mention of what we could do (which could imply a should) to save the world.
There were no revolutionaries in the group, no one was interested in developing a theory of world revolution or effecting revolutionary change (i.e. actually 'saving' the world). No one was paid to think about the peer-reviewed information or news of world conditions, but that is what all academics and scientists ARE PAID to do and old habits resist fading away. In the monetary culture, the best and brightest are paid to serve the system as idiot savants to offer those who run the show (or think they do, e.g. politicians, CEOs, policy makers, courts, the public) good information which they can, per BAU system, choose to ignore. The assumption is that if you do that and do it well, then your job is done (and so it is thereby). That in succeeding in serving the system one fails humanity and as a human being is unthinkable, and so isn't a consensus narrative because that one should work to destroy/depower modern techno-industrial society would be implied. Those whom the leaders-that-be fail to listened to console themselves by consuming intellectual entertainment that confirms that the story they've been telling is right, and so they can die knowing (believing) that they did their job right and well. The know-a-lot members can't get what they want by watching Fox or Democracy NOW!, but a daily offering of articles and chat about the human predicament makes it seem like they are still performing a service of high value. There are two members who might be proto=revolutionaries by thought and inclination (and a couple others by inclination), but they have to adapt by self-moderating their views and concerns to remain within tolerable limits they can but push on occasion.
There are proto-revolutionaries in the other group of activists who at least recognize the need for a paradigm shift of the greatest magnitude (i.e. revolutionary change), but end up settling for calls to action to change the UN SDGs or author another Declaration (when not rioting during street theater events). I find calls to action as invaluable as the information offered by the other group. Alas, a viable revolution may depend on both types being the same person who acts based on listening to Nature who has all the answers (as distinct from the prattle of other humans or one's own). Belief-based revolution may bring about change, but chaos/disorder is always the most likely change (outcome), and fighting to see who inherits the rubble is not the revolutionary paradigm-shift change needed. Envisioning a viable civilization and making it so is above everyone's pay grade in the monetary culture, including those who may voluntarily serve without monetary payment (who work for social approbation).
So, jarring indeed, is the realization that Wells' race between education, maturation, and catastrophe was lost in the early twentieth century despite the likes of R. Buckminster Fuller who railed against over-specialization/compartmentalization in his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth 1969 too few evidentially read or understood. Wells' vision of a New Education system that was science-based (based on listening to Nature and so naturcentric) never arose. Sputnik 1 created a perceived value for more and better science (for the milk and cheese and profit it brings), but the Old Education system (and culture) remained firmly non-sciency if not overtly anti-science/systems thinking in its woke endeavors and studied human centrism, i.e. error, ignorance, and illusion.
We are all products of that schooling system. Having less formal education may be beneficial. Theoretically, as some like to note, we could save ourselves and something of the world as biosphere from us modern techno-industrialized ones, but we won't because we can't dream the impossible dream (think politically unthinkable thoughts). If in a millennium or so, there are archaeologists and historians enough to tell a plausible story of our times, they will, being tribal animals like us, wonder why, and who or what was the cause or enabler (i.e. who to blame). Will they blame great leaders or failed mass movements? I'm guessing they will blame our so-called educational system, i.e. they will agree that Wells was right and we lost the race. They will agree with Hubbert that we knew enough, but failed to use such understanding as we had iterated towards.
So, as a one-man band wearing a tinfoil hat, I add a 'failed educational system' insturment to my panoply of issues to bang on. But no one listens, so few humans (excluding posterity) harmed by our pursuit of short-term self interest. If any were, I'd have to be canceled, but, what, me worry? I'm perfectly free to type what I see.
9/30/2022 A final featured offering. That I do not like what I think, but yet think it, may be a chance mutation, a failure of the schooling system, both formal and informal, to normalize me.
Subnotes:
1). I gave the following article and associated books 'a careful hearing' as suggested by someone who knows far more than I do: 'The Need for Ecological Ethics in a New Ecological Economics' 2019 (Elsevier, paywalled)
Word usage in 7.7K word article:
'ecocentrism', 18
'ecocentric', 2
'anthropocentrism', 19
'anthropocentric', 18
'ecojustice', 20
'ecological ethics', 27
'intrinsic value', 16
My domain of discourse differs: my usage of '-ism' as belief in... and 'ist' for one who believes is used mainly to reference the views of others. I'm a fideist before breakfast, however, which is about the only 'ism' I admit to.
Existential Concerns website: 200+ articles. I'm an evidentialist after breakfast.
Word usage on website:
'fideist', 26
'fideism', 3
'evidentialist', 1
'evidentialism', 0
'growthism', 7
'humanist', 25, though I am not one
'humanism', 9
'naturism', 0
'naturist', 0
'naturcentric', 19, preferred to 'ecocentric'
'naturcentrism', 0 or '-ist', 0, as I have no belief in naturcentrism
'humancentrism', 7, as it is out there
'humancentric', 56 as in most humans are—
'ecocentrism', 2 (quoting/paraphrasing Haydn Washington)
'ecocentric', 10, acceptable alternative to 'naturcentric'
'anthropocentrism', 17
'anthropocentric', 4
'ecojustice', 0
'ecological ethics', 0
'ecodemocracy', 0
Interpretation: Some people self-identify as ecocentrists who believe in the intrinsic value of Nature and Rights of Nature, i.e. are environmentalists who politicize environmental issues secondary to their belief in political solutions. I am 'naturcentric', for the power of evidence choicelessly compels me. The concept 'naturism' or naturist', however, is appalling, as is 'humanist' if I think about it. Your mileage may vary. The 'matter-energy systems' worldview/paradigm is inquiry-based which means humility-based and is foundationally different from the prevailing hegemon which environmentalists serve by moderating its excessive enthusiasm (e.g. as EPA does) so it can keep on keeping on. Meanwhile....
2). To do:
- Find a Hubbert to instigate a naturocracy, as M. King Hubbert did with Technocracy Inc., as a Naturocracy Alliance, informed by systems science, will differ—will be updated for the 21st century, and could be a 'real solution'.
- Get my design for a viable civilization properly vetted, as I have limits.
- Get the proposed Kogi Project considered, perhaps by China with a stated interest in ecological civilization.
- Instigate the continued development of Semantography to mitigate the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
- Get Zhen to tell humanity to stand down, humilitas being alternative to hubris, not that she would do anything because I demand it.
- Become a god among the devils of the land... never mind, already been done by enough hollow men already.
3). 'Ascent and you are sane.' But I persist in not ascenting, so I am a dead man walking while dreaming dreams.
4). Why I'm an extreme cornucopian optimist living on an abundant Earth:
On Sun, May 2, 2021 at 05:57 PM, Steve Kurtz wrote:
Hard to believe that you are seriously an optimist, Eric.The 'abundant Earth' meme is Eileen Crist and yes, compared to Mars, Earth, even in its current sad condition, is VASTLY more abundant. It alone offers everything an earthling needs. So I absolutely for sure live on an abundant Earth as will those, if any, who pass through the coming bottleneck and find themselves living on a vastly more degraded Earth.
The doomer dudes foresee likely extinction or a remnant population living lives of not at all quiet desperation forever. My view is that we MTI (modern techno-industrial) ones are the first empires-are-us kludged together consortium to form a global empire (which will need a name, I suggest Euro-Sino Empire to rhyme with Greco-Roman). Our MTI future may well resemble that of the Indus Valley Civilization whose loss of information (e.g. all literate citizens) was such that, despite having been 'greater' than the contemporary Egyptian or Mesopotamian empires, its existence became suspected/known only to archeologists in the 1920s.
A 100 percent loss of MTI information, apart from such ruins as persist, even if a remnant population persists, to repeat the pattern after centuries of environmental restoration rebuilds soils and forests, to again be plundered rapaciously because their Sky Daddy again wants them to, is not the only future I foresee.
MTI culture utterly fails to select for foresight intelligence. which exists (still), but, apart from the stock market where foresight is valued, those who foresee that the current socio-political economic system is not remotely sustainable fail to serve the system with any enthusiasm (e.g. Nate Hagens) and gradually self-select out until eventually the only remaining question or concern is: 'And then what?'
That MTI society will falter and fail (or 'fade away' as some future historians will prefer to 'collapse'), is likely at a near 100 percent level of confidence (the when is not). But in 500 years, some remnant of MTI society could yet persist. My guess is that the pattern, like that of metastatic cancer (MEGACANCER) fails to maximize empower long term, and Gaia will select against our best laid empire building ways despite the short term success of self interested and technology/exergy enabled growthers.
Nature alone determines what works. I'm guessing that empire building complex societies will be selected against. At best they could persist as relatively benign tumors that are adaptive but not evolvable. I hope I'm not wrong as a Borg-like expansionism is the alternative. My vision is that the metastatic pattern of empire building ends. Perhaps instead of things being in the saddle and riding mankind, foresight intelligence/sapience could be in the saddle to manage human demands on Nature's resources.
Despite our collective complex society's failures of the past 10k years, I view humans as 'a most promising species' as did perhaps the most advanced civilization encountered by the USS Enterprise of Star Trek lore that suggested that in only a few thousand years of further development the Federation might become of interest to them.
'There have been seven [climate change] disasters since humans came on the earth, very similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly. That's the source of my optimism.' —James Lovelock 2008At risk of being a dittohead, I too firmly guess that maybe we have a 5 percent max chance of getting right with Gaia (0% for us MTI ones). My position (and Lovelock's) is that of a fideist, one having a 'need to believe', a condition that even the most fervent abeliever (e.g. myself) can admit to. The fideist view is that faith (e.g. The Faith of a Heretic) is independent of reason, that reason and faith may be but are not necessarily hostile to each other, and that faith (some) is superior to reason (reasoned narratives, social constructs).
That there could be a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly is the basis of my life-driven purpose (as distinct from purpose-driven life serving 'the economy, stupid' or other short-term posterity blind self interests) that, as it did for our pre-empire building ancestors, was what works to keep on keeping on becoming more functional as distinct from less (i.e. our overdensity behavioral sink condition).
My enthusiasm for a world language (e.g. sematography) enabling average autodidacts to teach themselves to read the Encyclopedia Bliss (impact printed on aluminum pages diverted from beer can production), or a rapid birth-off, or for hundreds of WMUs (watershed management units) passing through the likely bottleneck with information (and some literate, numerate, ecolate humans) intact to form a global United Federation of Watersheds, is undimmed by the fact that 100 percent of humans currently lack enough interest in my design for a viable civilization to give it 'a careful hearing'. The lack of interest has always been so for me. Will the lack always be so? I don't know. I don't mind, and soon enough it won't matter to me. My only concern is that it could matter to posterity if we don't play a better global endgame.
Anybody up for 'a "survival revolution" on a scale far larger than the "industrial revolution"'? [Paul Ehrlich 2021]
5). In 2019 I changed the site's title from 'Sustainability Concerns' and added the subtitle 'Towards real solutions' as that had become my focus. From 'the human predicament' that some are concerned with and can think about, I moved into a much smaller realm of the thinkable. Ted Trainer has the 'live in small communities' solution, and Jack Alpert has modern humans, with knowledge and high culture (e.g. symphonies, advanced medical care, science, and some needed high tech but no cars) living in a 'three mega-cities' solution as the most modern techno-industrialized (MTIed) humans could hope for given energy constraints.
Academics and those they educate don't, it seems, traffic in real solutions. Paul Chefurka, Ruben Nelson and Michael Dowd realize that MTI society is not remotely sustainable (or good for humans), but view religious society/solutions as our best/only alternative. Others can think about humans persisting in some form of 'ecological civilization' (e.g. Jeremy Lent, Eileen Crist, John B. Cobb, Jr., President Xi), but are not willing/able to walk away from our MTI Omelas.
We do not have full knowledge of our near-term future. Some have foresight intelligence and enough information to understand that we MTI ones are well into a one-off plague-phase overshoot event. Will our trajectory climax and likely descend rapidly? How could it not (given that 1-2 centuries could be 'rapid')? Perhaps the Hidden Imam will intervene in our trajectory, but I doubt it.
What if you woke up and found yourself in a First Class room on the outbound Titanic with full knowledge of things to come? Would you, on the night of April 14, 1912, perhaps after attempting to share your concerns with all who would listen, dress warm, bring extra blankets for others, and climb into one of the lifeboats? Would you single handedly storm the bridge to take the helm to change course? If you merely had a concern that the Titanic could hit an iceberg, and you were sane, you wouldn't. But you might sit alone in a lifeboat that night. What if your as-good-as-it-gets information was that the Titanic had a 98% chance of sinking on its maiden voyage with no knowledge of 'and then what?' What if the fate of the Titanic was of no matter, but that of the MTI society that produced it was? What if the only viable fate of MTI society was its ending?
That there could be 'real solutions' is my assumption. Doomers seem legion and deny any solution is possible. They may have the better view, but what I now suspect is that too few can think of 'real solutions' and if they do, they are limited to their envisioned solution, whether viable communities, cities, or civilization. There are ever growing ranks of 'collapsologists' writing books/blog posts, but not enough 'persistologists' to bother counting on one hand.
Those who can think about our non-viable MTI trajectory and think about viable solutions cannot do more than occasionally notice that there are also a few others wandering alone above the treeline sucking thin cold air. But the few can do little more than wave as they continue on their meander. I have envisioned a 'Malta solution', but literally zero others have considered it so far. And if one or two eventually do, proving me wrong again, it won't matter. Among billions, zero or two are the same—too few. I offered The Malta Solution to three listservs of the well educated and one Quora answer alone, featuring a link to The Malta Solution, had over 10k views, but ZERO indication anyone read the article or could take an interest in it if they did. Conjecture: if someone of low status on Easter Island at the height of their monument building had pointed out that there might be a viable alternative to their trajectory, that we don't know of it as no literate Rapa-Nuian listened/survived to pass on information that an alternative to keeping on keeping on had been suggested (someone living in the Indus Valley Civilization at its climax may have suggested doing something that might work long term, but thinking outside the consensus narrative may have had no appeal—but no literate Harappan survived, so we don't know).
Conjecture restated: Few humans are not part of a consensus narrative. Some (e.g. academics, scientists, and 'thought leaders') attempt to tweak the shared narrative (e.g. longtermism), but all are hypervigilant in assessing a stranger's narrative as being in or out of the consensus narrative of their tribal identity group, e.g. an atheist's or Islamist's primate brain will assess a newcomer to be in or out, and if out, then disconnect immediately follows. An individual whose narrative, despite broad overlap with that of others (e.g. science) that differs in any way deemed important, will be automatically viewed as an existential threat and out grouped (ignored on up to being exterminated/canceled with extreme prejudice). If the consensus narrative is that Earth could support 1-2 billion humans, and an outlier knocking at the door thinks 7-35 million, then no one opens their door (there being no 'the door'). I know of no atheists (I've known many) who could give an Islamist a careful hearing. I would find giving Joel Osteen (Frances Collins would be easier), if sitting next to him on a long flight, a careful hearing challenging, but I would have to try.
Conjecture restated 2: Empirically, all human groups have a consensus (tribal) narrative (e.g. Copenhagen interpretation vs ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics). To speak outside the narrative is like speaking a language no one understands, e.g. Rapanui or Greek converted into Pig-Latin. The most likely response is no response even if the strange one seems civil enough and of potential interest. Seems to be a tribal thing. When a stranger is encountered or one intrudes, the primate brain works remorselessly to place the potential threat into a 'looks like one of us' recognition, or a 'one of them pretenders' categorgy. I'm outside all ingroups; I can fool no one nor do I seek to. I fall in a forest and no one hears.
