Huawei Is Competitive. Should The U.S. Be Worried?

There's nothing like unfair competition to make a strong country self-sufficient. Stressors make China stronger. Mao and his memes are long gone. China believes it can compete with Uncle Sam and that self-confidence may lead us to war.

HUAWEI EXPERIENCE

Huawei is becoming a top brand in China’s smartphone market again after the U.S. blacklisted the company in 2019, crippling its cell phone business by prohibiting it from using American software. Huawei gained market share after releasing its immensely popular Mate 60 Pro 5G smartphone, which uses a powerful Chinese-developed computer chip. China’s smartphone industry is rebounding after several rocky years: Shipments grew by 6.5% to 289 million units last year, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. The sales are worrying signs for U.S. firms like Apple, which saw a decline in mainland sales in the last fourth quarter.

Let's see if Janet Yellen can talk some sense into China so ragged America can have a leg up and return to the business of providing freedom, democracy, and flourishing consumerism again.

One thing patriotic Americans might do to support their country is to buy Apple VR goggles (Apple Vision Pro) and start goggling.

Also, lobby your leaders to ensure that multinational corporations only buy components from the United States and only take raw materials from weaker countries that can't make MacBooks.

And let's make sure that only real Americans are making these components (high-value manufacturing) in the United States and that there is no sneaky labor arbitrage going on in places like Vietnam and Mexico.

Trust that once all regulatory barriers are removed in the United States, all multinational corporations will want to be domiciled in the United States and operate exclusively in the United States. Corporations globalized because of draconian regulations and a lack of leadership in States naturally configured to support the American Empire. Once THE MARKET is truly Free, America will be great again.

Let's ensure corporations don't have to pay too much for a day's work, and let’s cut taxes. America has a central bank and private bankers that will ensure its sovereignty for generations to come.

If an individual in the United States wants more money, they can create a startup or start a hedge fund. If they are good, they will succeed. Americans Know Merit. The most important thing is that workers are natural-born Americans working in the United States, making American products that they can sell worldwide because they are the best products in the world, and the world knows it. Also because, the WORLD BANK has lent the world money to buy American products, while trade deals (The Rules-Based Order) ensure that American Corporations inside America have all the raw materials they need to make American products and that trade benefits the Empire.

The rules determining social hierarchy dominance also determine great power dominance. A Great Nation led by Great Leaders can act as a benevolent sovereign who maintains order in the world only when all nations understand their natural roles in the evolution of Mankind.

Someday, Chinese people will buy iPhones that contain 100% U.S.-made components made by Americans living in Beaver Con Villages.

It's only a matter of time before the PAX Americana is back in force, and the Free Market will have made it so.

And for the rest of the world, don't be jealous. Stick to your traditional ways of life and be good providers to the Empire, and we will send many tourists to your country to boost your GDP and help you enjoy good-paying service jobs.

And who knows, maybe some of you will become real Americans if you immigrate through the proper channels and bring techno-optimistic skills and investment.

Don't worry about your demographic problems. America will be a net exporter of workers in the near future. People are more than willing to live somewhere where the cost of living is less expensive and where they can take pride in having a job that supports the Empire.

When Affective Techno Optimism is fully adopted in the United States (news flash, probably this year, it’s really not that hard), most American-made products will be made by American-made robots and robotic machines run by American-made computer applications on American-made quantum computers. Most of the labor, like picking fruit, will be done by American-made field robots. Most of the cooking and cleaning will be done by American-made house robots bought and sold on the Free Market by Masters of the Universe. (Think multi-planet American civilizations.) At that time, America will be a very exclusive country club whose members are primarily bankers, lawyers, and entertainers whose job is to entertain those who write the rules for the order that the Pax Americana depends on. When this happens, the world will be much more prosperous through the use of high-value American-made products. And someday, the whole world will be a country club, and due to our multi-planet civilization, there will be plenty of country clubs for all pro-natal American masters of the Universe, their bankers, lawyers, and entertainers. But don’t expect robots to have civil rights; only cybernetic human American organisms can hope for that.

We are the world; we are the technology, and we are the ones who make a techno world, so let’s start giving and stop resisting. The Natural Order is a beautiful thing. #foraflourishingfuture

NEWMERICA Thomas Jefferson Golf Course — Milky Way, star 83729303.93851-E-7XD/4

We Can't Slow Down—We Never Could

It’s not all good. We need to be a bit more discerning.

Humans, like other animals, are survivors. Of course, all species of Hominids are extinct except ours. Homo Sapiens are by far the most innovative and productive species we know. However, even insects are innovative, given time to evolve. It depends on what we mean by innovative. Homo Sapiens are good at exploiting every resource. We do what we have to do to make things better for our group. We are competitive, passionate, brilliant, violent, creative and destructive. We are manipulative and easily manipulated. 

Due to our unique way of communicating and learning, in a sense, we have always been artificially intelligent. We can’t explain the magic of consciousness, even though lots of us have tried to tell us what God thinks.

Depending on circumstances and where we grew up, we will have a specialized cultural worldview informing our actions. We will have beliefs, ideas, and feelings that animate our interactions and form our identity, and we will take all of this for granted.

Artificial General Intelligence already governs us. We all use machines and are part of a socioeconomic, cultural machine that we hardly notice. The legally coded, neoliberal, neocon, fossil capitalism with ubiquitous propaganda outlets and its military-industrial complex is a machine, and it's already manipulating everyone from the top to the bottom of society. This ideologically out-of-control machine already manipulates everything on Earth. 

We are also highly prone to delusion. Many of our leaders think they are in control of cybernetics, but they don’t even understand the concept.

In the Global North, we believe we have to move fast, get super busy, and be active most hours of the day. "Hey, West Wing Ivy League smart ass, walk with me while I finger my phone, and let's talk about all the critical, earth-shattering things we need to do today. Would you like a glass of Kool-Aid?"

We know it all because we have read all the briefs and the snippets, watched the video clips, and listened to the popular, well-paid pundits and revolving-door think tankers. We know it all because we know what we know.

We don't have time to slow down and think things through. If we are not busy posing as busy people, we feign wisdom by choosing not to think. "Why bother with any of it? There is nothing we can do about it anyway." 

We are trained pretenders looking for a path to an authentic life. 

We can't slow down and do things right. We can't comprehend the risks we are taking because we won't take the time to understand things holistically. We can't open the black box and examine what's in it because it's invisible. 

We are not prudent, patient, wise, considerate, coordinated, or concerned about doing things properly. We are incentivized by our addictions and making money to buy stuff, thinking this will make us happy and secure. 

We don't have any deeply held ideological or philosophic interests or convictions; we are intellectual tourists, dilettantes without commitments to higher values. The new Global North's religion is anything that feels good. 

We have been so worn down by super-stimuli that we can't feel, so we can't empathize. If we thought about the suffering of others, it might awaken us to our suffering, which can not be allowed to happen.

We are all manipulated by the machine. We are wallowing in so much noise and garbage that we can't understand what we're allowing ourselves to be driven into. Our way of life is predicated on taking insane risks so that our competitors, who are also taking insane risks, don't get what we think we want before we get it. 

A vast literature spans the length of civilization addressing all of this. These observations are so banal that it makes my teeth ache. My gut hurts because I can't understand why we haven't learned from our wisdom traditions or why we don't practice those things that make us wise.

Why rush towards:

• AGI

• Hypersonic nuclear warhead delivery systems

• Drones and autonomous weapons systems

• Genome sequencing, cryo-electron microscopy, molecular cloning, reverse genetics, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and next-generation sequencing, CRISPR, Cas9

• We need more energy (for what?)

• Financialization, derivatives trading, MMT

• GDP and on and on...

Nation-states with the resources rush on because we can't allow our competitors to get there first. It's like the Space Race (For All Mankind) on steroids. This pathological need for control is corrupting our deeper intelligence.

The Anglo-West or Global North seems willing to destroy everything if it can't run everything. 

If we all took a few months off, read good books, took walks, and talked with people in our communities, we might start to see how mad everything is these days. 

I'd like to see three hundred million people in the Anglosphere boycott the system for a quarter. That might wake people up. We don't need a violent revolution; we must stop participating in the artificial, generally unwise program for a while and give ourselves some time and space to imagine how things could be if we could all slow down and understand the broader implications of the lifestyle we have been trained to believe is natural and inevitable. 

We don't have to go back to the Stone Age; we can keep what is good for life on Earth, discard some of the things destroying habitat and life, and still have a dynamic, creative culture.

But to do this, we need to work on our global culture, and that's hard to do. We need time, folks. The fast acts will destroy us. 

Boycott the Rat Race! Tell your leaders we need to prepare for peace. Think about getting rid of all the things you don't need. Focus on building lasting relationships. Collaborate with people in your community to create what you truly need. Share resources. Cultivate generosity of spirit. Listen deeply to each other. Appreciate the differences and recognize the similarities between yourself and others. Take care of yourself and others. Maintain your sense of humor. Learn from each other. Teach each other. Slow down, look around, and be thankful. Life is short. 

Right, I know, platitudes, nothing but platitudes, how boring. Let's get bored and reconsider what we must do to imagine what's next. This thing of ours is coming to an end. It's scary as hell to stop for a moment; it feels like if we do, we'll sink to the bottom of the ocean and rot, but I fear that if lots of us don't stop, we will blow up the whole thing.

We Are Doing So Much Better Than We Thought. Right?

Despite all the mishaps, mad arrogance, and brilliance of humans, we can’t imagine how our way of life might actually be our way of death. It’s sad to say so and believe me; I don’t like saying it. Many commentators and authors are not telling the whole story, which frustrates me. Even in the confines of a specific domain, there is a complete story to be told. If you want a lucrative career, ignore the forest and talk incessantly about a tree. Below is my reaction to a Bulwark Podcast episode.

Diana Dowek Argentina

Hello, The Bulwark. Are you also talking with climate scientists? Did you have a long discussion with James Hansen? Perhaps the science is too complex for your publication. Your faith is economics. I have not stumbled upon your content since I unsubscribed to your podcast. Have Nate Hagens on your show and let him suggest some future guests. The polycrisis isn't only about global heating; it's about legally coded, neoliberal, fossil capitalism's omnicidal global culture. The good thing is David Wallace-Wells' career is not in danger. Good on you, mate, you're trying.

3% Groth Per Year! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Rules-Based Order! LLMs, AGI, Quantum Computers! Yeah! Warm Green Showers at the Pentagon! A Green Special Farces, I mean Forces. Heck, warm green showers for everyone. Exotic warm green showers with an Eastern European accent for DJT and War Fighter Joe! Commies are gone, but the Russians stand strong, and everything is Iran-backed these days, so who needs an Iron Curtain or a Cold War when you can start a hot one?

“And I encourage you all to go shopping more.”

The world’s nations will be encouraged to give America its stuff to make more Uncle Sam culture for the world. There will be a Disneyland in every country!

The technologists and scientists (the good ones who understand what side of the culture wars to be on) will find ways to recycle and reuse microplastics and forever chemicals for the good of all Mankind, no matter what Mankind's pronoun is or what suite of critical theories it identifies as or with. Capitalists will have living space and lots of energy, food, and services from Ukraine and Greater Israel. And the beauty of it is, while this thing of ours sorts itself out, Anglo American Players won't get their hands dirty. As usual, they will find arbitrage opportunities and outsource to foreign States and coalitions of the willing. "It's not just a job; it's an adventure and a chance to be a part of THE American Dream.

Pay your rent, plebs, and proles, and thank Sam for your many gig economy jobs and your "token economy." Mind your digital currency wallet (CBDC) while Elon moves the server farms to underground bunkers on Mars, where the fusion reactors provide ample energy to run the Multiverse. "Really, It's not that hard."

Enjoy the shareholder value inherent in the zero-to-one-billionare race to space. (Vanity, it's all vanity.) Shareholder Value equals Values—a strong moral and ethical stance for human nature and teleological human cultural evolution. What a feat! The vaporware rocket ships will have fantastic press releases as long as the stock price goes up every quarter.

The Staff and Crew at the Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX all work for something greater than themselves—profits. $$$.

Mine it all! A child is born every day in Congo. E-waste is a signal to Aliens that we are an advanced civilization that will send transhuman machines to colonize the Universe. Blade Runner wasn’t set on Earth. Alien civilizations can't wait to thank Uncle Sam for bringing them an Anglo Rules-Based Order. Remember this, Aliens: only one Superpower can keep the Universe expanding—if Sam isn't running the show, no one will. Sam is only doing God's will. Sam is a first mover and fast, and only Sam can fix it after he breaks it.

We are all accelerationists now. Be thankful. You know the end is only the beginning of business as usual. Take a deep breath. We can "have the conversation,” but no one will sacrifice a moment away from their many addictions to change the system, much less their lifestyle. Can we coordinate across cultures and nation-states to solve pressing existential problems? Modern Monetary Theory can make funds available to the MIC so Sam can make war, but not for much else. So let us all wait and see what’s next. It will be fun while the fun lasts.

***The Bulwark sure takes risks. Honestly, though, I think they are still apologists for business as usual. The folks at The Bulwark can’t imagine what’s next.

More Fun With The Greatest, Greater America

Who do Prof. John Mearsheimer and Glenn Greenwald think they are? Could two people ever be so misled, or perhaps just evil?

I don't think people care about war, global warming (hahaha), or "overshoot," and for many good reasons. Americans generally don't care about violence or economic troubles in the U.S. (As if!) We are too busy ignoring "collapse" (LOL) to process genocide or the potential dangers of upgrading our nuclear weapons arsenal. (We wouldn't have Social Media without military technological innovation!)

The Rules The Boss Can Break For All Mankind

"The Rules-Based Order" is a euphemism for "Protect Consumer Culture and Legally Coded U.S. Neoliberal Fossil Capitalism."

The only thing that supersedes FAITH in the United States of New Miracles is the absolute knowledge that billionaire technocrats will save America and the World. If not our genius Billionaires and their army of clerks and media support staff, then Jesus. And American billionaires will soon be immortal, Transhuman, possessing THE Singularity and protected in force-fielded City States within a Token Federal Legal System that only the best and best trained can operate.

All we have to do is make sure the rest of the world understands who's Boss. This is not hard to do because The Fed, the most powerful financial institution in all universes, can produce as much modern monetary theory money as required to support the American military-industrial complex that provides and secures World Peace and Prosperity.

Americans know that America is Number One. It's time the rest of the world understood this, too.

America needs to focus on Iranian-backed traffic jams, bad hair days, and real estate bubbles to keep the world secure. To do this, we need to keep bombing weaker countries and keep our proxies busy fighting Russia, China, and tiny countries that want to do things differently than what Uncle Sam proscribes.

The Sacred Act of providing tribute to Uncle Sam prevents negative consequences, externalities, and collateral damage. This is the greatest act of compassion a global citizen, institution, or nation-state can do. People managing things in the United States call this enlightened self-interest with interest, or, loving God. And for many aspiring servants of the most benevolent empire in all Universes, proper behavior and discipline provide a direct route to Capital on Capital returns and a mansion in a Token City State within the Token Federation where THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE live. Don't worry, when you've made it, you'll be beautiful too.

Americans understand that the natural order of life on earth is best understood in the context of the last 200 years of Western Civilization's history, with a particular and crucial focus on the U.S. Empire after World War II. Today's world resulted from the divine plan, the data, and natural, scientifically evidenced evolution. Things could not be different. This is the best of all possible worlds. This is what nature, the One True Universe, and God intended to manifest. People who don't understand this on a deep intellectual and spiritual level are possessed by demons, the Devil, or suffering from some form of mental illness.

European, Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Latin American, Indian, South East Asian, North East Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern, Pacific Islanders, and African people, everyone alive basically, need to learn American English, work hard to send resources to the technocratic bosses and business leaders in the United States and support American businesses.

The sooner the world's population understands how blessed, good, brilliant, ingenious, innovative, entertaining, fun, exciting, and stimulating The United States of New Miracles, a.k.a, The Greatest-Great-America is, the sooner people worldwide can understand how comfortable the Natural Order/God's Plan is.

Until then, don't worry; Uncle Sam will continue to destroy those forces and folks in the world who want to ruin your destiny and take away all the wonderful things you can aspire to have.

Eliminating Bad Ideologies

What is a lousy ideology? Is your particular brand of religious belief true while other people's are false? What do ideological systems of thought propose to address? What are ideologies reacting to? Ideological belief systems don't arise in a vacuum. Where do the ideas come from? What's their context?

Alexander Skunder Boghossian, Ethiopia “The-End-of-the-Beginning”1972-73.

Pick your favorite —ism and tell me in the comments why it's the best of all existing or possible —isms.

Another thing to consider is how difficult it is to take power away from a powerful —ism.

ideology

a set of beliefs or principles, especially one on which a political system, party, or organization is based 

People believe all kinds of strange things for all sorts of reasons. Most people tend to take their passions and beliefs for granted. Human passions and beliefs are powerful things.

Imagine you are an explorer during the age of discovery. You arrive in a far-off land inhabited by people so alien to your way of life that you can scarcely think of them as human. So, you go about the business of taking their resources, enslaving them, and eventually eliminating them through violence or by converting them to your cultural beliefs and coopting them into your system of doing things and your way of life. This has happened over and over again throughout history.

One country may want a world based on international law and another based on amorphous rules that The Empire can break at will. 

Whatever reasons and justifications an organization has, their ingrained ideological beliefs will ensure they can and are motivated to fight to preserve it. Ultimately, the most powerful side generally absorbs the weaker side, but this is not always the case.

Christendom has fought Islam for hundreds of years, and both are still with us. Neoliberal Coded Fossil Capitalism currently controls the world, but other ways of doing things continue to percolate under the surface. When one powerful system falters and collapses, new definitions of old ideas resurface, and the struggle over ways of managing things continues.

Ideologies are often deeply rooted in cultural, historical, and social contexts. Eliminating an ideology raises ethical concerns and can conflict with principles of free speech and diversity of thought. Does one even think these principles are desirable? 

Once we agree on what's universally harmful to our clique or life on earth, there are constructive ways to address and counteract destructive ideologies.

Education and Rigorous Thought Processes

Promoting education and encouraging critical thinking, open-mindedness, and a well-rounded understanding of history, philosophy, and culture can help individuals evaluate and question ideologies.

Whoops! What constitutes a "good education." Can we agree on that?

Dialogue, Diplomacy and Communication

Engaging in respectful and constructive dialogue with individuals who adhere to different ideologies can foster understanding and bridge gaps. It's essential to listen, empathize, and present alternative perspectives.

Whoops! How can we begin that process without knowing our interlocutor's perspective, culture, and beliefs? Whether they are your enemy or a stubborn standout, you can't even begin to achieve a positive result if you don't know who you are talking with.

Can We Agree On What Is Good?

Encourage and promote positive ideologies emphasizing inclusivity, tolerance, and respect for human rights. Highlighting the benefits of such ideologies may attract people away from harmful ones.

Whoops! Soft Power is good, but how hard is it to get different cultures and countries with various wants and needs to agree that the above values are universal and desirable? Do we all adhere to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights? What enforces our commitment to such values?

A Firehose Of Information

Developing media literacy skills helps individuals critically analyze information and discern fact from fiction, reducing the impact of propaganda and misinformation associated with certain ideologies.

Whoops! It seems to me there is a lot more propaganda than unbiased content, a lot more emotional rhetoric than sage advice. Even the most careful consumers of information get fooled day in and day out. Our thought processes are not as pristine as we like to imagine.

Community, Coherence, Conciliance, Alignment, Health—Game Theory

Creating strong, supportive communities that provide alternatives to extremist ideologies can be effective. People are often drawn to "Bad" ideologies due to a sense of belonging or purpose, and healthy communities can positively provide these.

Whoops! How do we characterize strong, supportive communities? Can there be all kinds of good communities? Define Bad. Define health. The devil is in the details, and we still have to go back and know each other, discover our differences, and determine what we can both value and agree upon.

Government & Governance—Ethics

Governments can enact policies that address the root causes of extremist ideologies, such as socioeconomic inequality and discrimination. Legislation should balance the need for security with protecting individual rights and freedoms.

Whoops! Who says? We have to assume we are talking about effective governments that are good at governing and govern in the name of the, what, corporation, people, or sovereign or what? What rights? What freedoms? What constraints? What limitations? Here we go again.

Economy, Politics, Justice, Stability, Security, and, again, Health

Understanding and addressing the underlying issues contributing to the appeal of certain ideologies, such as economic disparities, social injustice, and political instability, can help prevent their spread.

Whoops! And it's common for people who are being bullied, oppressed, and taken advantage of to rebel even if it's not in their immediate best interest, even if it means dying for the opportunity to be treated like a decent human being. And aren't the best leaders in the current iteration of The Great Game sociopaths and psychopaths? To fit into the current system, you need to be a self-blinding careerist or an American Psycho.

Support

Offering psychological support to individuals who may be vulnerable to extremist ideologies is crucial. Identifying and addressing underlying issues like alienation, trauma, or mental health challenges can be part of prevention efforts.

Whoops! Mental health issues for Gen Z, WEIRD people, or folks from Palestine, Somalia, or Libia? Do Indonesians have special needs? Do Nigerians? The Empire believes that once there is a Disney Land in every country and people from every culture worldwide follow their rules, however arbitrary, we'll have heaven on earth. 

We Will Always Have Competing Ideologies

Completely eradicating an ideology is unrealistic, but promoting positive alternatives and addressing the root causes can help mitigate their impact. Additionally, it's crucial to do so while respecting fundamental principles of human rights, freedom of expression, and diversity of thought.

Whoops! There I go with the WEIRD fantasy ideology of the 20th Century again.

Can people learn to respect each other and treat each other fairly? Are there moral and ethical systems we could adhere to that would make it easier for people with diverse backgrounds to get along? Most of us must know that there are, but our passions and prejudices prevent us from following their teachings, advice, and systems. We'd rather feel righteous than be righteous.

I hate to say it, but we, in the 21st Century, now know what it's like to live during the Holocaust, the collapse of civilization as we know it, and with existential threats that are entirely out of our control and imminent.

Why is it so satisfying to point our finger at the other guy and say it's their fault? It's hard work to understand each other, listen, and respect each other's legitimate needs.

Powerful countries and institutions must take a step back and reevaluate their position and the responsibilities it entails.

We need to take war off the table. War should not be politics by other means. We need to slow down and listen to each other, get to know each other and feel in our hearts and souls that people who do things differently are not that different than us. If world leaders could agree on that one thing, it would be a good start to eliminating destructive ideologies.

When will we ever learn?

Give Peace A Chance!

These young people are having a conversation about what it would take to change things for the better. It’s complex, difficult, and requires sacrifice. Will young people have the strength and the moral fortitude for a revolution that is a solution?

Human Ecology of Overshoot—You Need To Know

I believe everyone must read this paper and understand Rees’ perspective on our current predicament.

We cannot improve our civilization under our current coded neoliberal fossil capital economic systems, structure, and belief. Our current way of life is a self-terminating system. We are presently living through dramatic changes that our species has never experienced and can hardly imagine.

Please read this paper and follow William E. Rees's work.

William Rees is a bio-ecologist, ecological economist, former Director and Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His early research focused on environmental assessment but gradually extended to the biophysical requirements for sustainability and the implications of global ecological trends. Along the way, he developed a special interest in modern cities as ‘dissipative structures’ and therefore as particularly vulnerable components of the total human ecosystem.

Rees is perhaps best known as the originator and co-developer (with his graduate students) of ecological footprint analysis—the expanding human eco-footprint is arguably the world’s best-known indicator of the (un)sustainability of techno-industrial society. His book on eco-footprinting (co-authored with his former PhD student, Mathis Wackernagel) has been published in eight languages, including Chinese. Rees is also author of over 150 peer reviewed papers and numerous popular articles on sustainability science and policy. (And sometimes the lack of policy—his recent writing focuses on biological, neuro-cognitive and socially-constructed barriers to progress.)

Prof Rees’ academic work has been widely recognized. He has served on numerous advisory committees and lectured by invitation in 30 countries. Rees is a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the One Earth Initiative; and a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2006 and, in 2007, was awarded a prestigious Trudeau Foundation Fellowship. In 2012, Prof Rees received an Honorary Doctorate from Laval University, the Boulding Prize in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with Dr Wackernagel). He was elected a full member of the Club of Rome in 2014.

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The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

by

William E. Rees

School of Community and Regional Planning, Faculty of Applied Science, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada

World 2023, 4(3), 509-527; https://doi.org/10.3390/world4030032

Submission received: 15 June 2023 / Revised: 7 August 2023 / Accepted: 8 August 2023 / Published: 11 August 2023

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Population Change and Its Impact on the Environment, Society and Economy)

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Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

1. Introduction and Purpose

This paper examines the human population conundrum through the lens of human evolutionary ecology and the role of available energy. My starting premises are as follows: (1) Modern techno-industrial (MTI) society is in a state of advanced ecological overshoot (for an excellent introduction to overshoot see William Catton’s classic, Overshoot [1]). Overshoot means that even at current global average (inadequate) material standards, the human population is consuming even replenishable and self-producing resources faster than ecosystems can regenerate and is producing entropic waste in excess of the ecosphere’s assimilative capacity [2,3]. In short, humanity has already exceeded the long-term human carrying capacity of the earth. (2) The fossil-fuelled eight-fold increase in human numbers and >100-fold expansion of real gross world product in the past two centuries are anomalies; they also constitute the most globally-significant ecological phenomena in 250,000 years of human evolutionary history, with major implications for life on Earth. (3) H. sapiens is an evolving species, a product of natural selection and still subject to the same natural laws and forces affecting the evolution of all living organisms [4,5]. (4) Efforts to address the human demographic anomaly and resulting eco-crisis without attempting to override innate human behaviours that have become maladaptive are woefully incomplete and doomed to fail.

Within this framing, the overall objective of the paper is to make the case that, on its present trajectory and regardless of the much-lauded demographic and so-called renewable energy transitions, the sheer number of humans and scale of economic activity are undermining the functional integrity of the ecosphere and compromising essential life-support functions. Unaddressed, these trends may well precipitate both global economic contraction and a significant human population ‘correction’—i.e., civilizational collapse—later in this century.

2. The Nature and Nurture of Overshoot

Both nature and nurture contribute to the overshoot crisis, but the natural component is mostly ignored. Indeed, most denizens of MTI society do not think of themselves products of evolution, i.e., of Darwinian natural selection. Many resent even being reminded that they are animals.

Ironically, part of the reason for such denial resides in humanity’s extraordinary evolutionary success—we are the dominant, and certainly the most numerous, large mammal species on Earth. As much of this success is attributable to the abundance of resources made available by improving technology, cultural evolution receives all the credit. However, basic biology underpins all human cultures—even the capacity for socio-cultural organization is itself an evolved trait.

Of particular relevance in the present context are three innate abilities/predispositions that humans share with all other species. Unless constrained by negative feedback, populations of H. sapiens (1) are capable of exponential (geometric) growth, (2) tend to consume all available resources (a highly adaptive trait in the absence of refrigeration or other preservation techniques, or in the face of intense competition from neighbouring tribes), and (3) will expand to occupy all accessible suitable habitats. Significantly, in the case of humans, both the ‘availability’ (of resources) and ‘suitability’ (of habitat) are constantly being upwardly refined by technology, thus amplifying the underlying genetic predispositions.

We will return to population dynamics in a later section. Consider first industrial humanity’s characteristically insatiable demand for resources and habitat. Abetted by improving exploitation technologies, H. sapiens is depleting the seas and forests, has otherwise diminished wild nature, has destroyed a third of Earth’s arable soil and landscapes, has mined out the richest deposits of many mineral and metal ores and, in just a couple of centuries, has run through the high-quality half of the massive stocks of fossil energy that took tens of millions of years to accumulate. Society’s dependence on fossil fuels is one reason why the MTI mainstream sees an ice-free Arctic Ocean not so much as a climate catastrophe, but as the opening up of new trade routes and exposing the Arctic basin to oil and gas development. Meanwhile, having depleted the richest sources of dry-land mineral resources, some industries/countries are gearing up to mine the sea-floor—we will scour the bottom of our Earthly barrel! [6]. Looking ahead, still, others have set their sights on the presumed mineral wealth of asteroids or the moon as the next resource troves to be served up for exploitation [7].

This last point also hints at the third crucial trait noted above, humanity’s spatial expansionism. Can you think of any ecologically comparable species with a geographic range even remotely as large as that of H. sapiens? Hint: there is none—driven by our natural expansionist imperative, humans have colonized the entire planet—there is no significant patch of human-habitable landscape on Earth that we have not long since claimed as our own. We even occupy certain ‘habitats’ that are fundamentally hostile to human existence (think ‘Antarctic field stations’). Meanwhile, various entrepreneurs and humanist dreamers would have us colonize the Moon or Mars, not only for their resource potential, but to insure against the extinction of H. sapiens should Earthly life-support systems fail under the weight of human demands.

One might expect that an intelligent social species would devise cultural overrides to rein in potentially dangerous expansionist tendencies on a finite planet. Rather remarkably, the opposite is the case. One of the most important roots of overshoot is MTI society’s belief in human exceptionalism, the idea that H. sapiens is fundamentally different from other species. Exceptionalists posit that human individual and social behaviours are culturally rather than genetically determined; that human ingenuity can overcome resource scarcities; that we are not otherwise bound by the laws and limits of nature. The corresponding economic paradigm, neoliberal economics—which currently underpins global ‘development’—implicitly assumes that the economy and the ‘environment’ are separate systems, so that the former, propelled by continuous technological advances, can grow indefinitely, unconstrained by the latter. Hubristic nurture unabashedly reinforces expansionist nature.

The evidence is compelling that human exceptionalism is a deeply-flawed construct—a grand cultural illusion—that has led MTI societies into a potentially fatal ecological trap. While culture contributes unique dimensions to humanity’s evolutionary trajectory, this does not exempt humans from the same fundamental principles governing the evolution of non-human lifeforms. The conflict between mass delusion and biophysical reality is increasingly evident in the destabilization of the ecosphere induced by the excessive scale of the human enterprise. No one should be surprised—as ecological economist, Herman Daly consistently argued, far from floating in splendid isolation, “the human economy is a fully-contained wholly-dependent growing subsystem of the non-growing ecosphere” [8,9].

Consider the implication of Daly’s insight for biodiversity loss, one of the most urgent symptoms of overshoot. H. sapiens is just one of an estimated 8.7 million species of animals and plants and countless millions additional species of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes. Most of these life-forms are dependent on a tiny fraction of solar energy ‘fixed’ as biomass through photosynthesis by green plants. Plants require up to half of this ‘gross primary production’ for their own growth and reproduction, so only the remainder—so called ‘net primary production’—is available for other life-forms. This residual supports all animal life, including humans, which means that we are competing with millions of other species for a share of a continuous, but limited flux of biomass through the ecosphere.

Humans, of course, have a technological ‘leg-up’ in the competition. Our high intelligence, technology-assisted harvesting techniques and fossil-fuelled ability to transform entire landscapes to suit human needs, means that, for centuries, humans have been increasing their appropriations from the annual global flow of biomass energy [10]. Fowler and Hobbs even ask whether, in terms of common eco-variables, contemporary H. sapiens is still ‘ecologically normal’ [11]. Their data show that in terms of energy use (and therefore carbon-dioxide emissions), biomass consumption and various other ecologically significant indicators, human demands on supportive ecosystems dwarf those of similar species by orders of magnitude. For example, human consumption of biomass exceeds the upper 95% confidence limits for biomass ingestion by 95 other nonhuman mammal species by 100-fold; as previously noted, humanity’s geographic range is unequalled, exceeding the upper 95% confidence limit for the ranges of 523 other mammal species by a factor of ten. Bottom line: Like other living organisms, H. sapiens have evolved biologically to self-maximize. However, combined with our unique cultural prowess, human “…abilities for growth vastly outstrip those of all other species, as is demonstrated by our domination of the biosphere…” [12].

The consequences for non-human animal species are catastrophic, for what should be obvious reasons. Not only do we typically overexploit targeted ‘resource’ species, but any biomass the human tribe takes for its own purposes is irreversibly unavailable to competing organisms. Humanity’s foraging superiority means the ‘competitive displacement’ of other species from their food sources and habitats. The ‘other species’ consequently decline or die off. While H. sapiens comprises only 0.01% of the total Earthly biomass, the expansion of the human enterprise has eliminated 83% of wild animal and 50% of natural plant biomass. From a fraction of 1% 10,000 years ago, humanity now constitutes 32%, and our domestic livestock another 64%, of the planet’s much expanded mammalian biomass; all wild species combined account for only 4% [13]. Similarly, domestic poultry now comprises 70% of the earth’s remaining bird biomass [13,14] and commercial fishing depletes the oceans at the expense of rapidly declining fish-dependent marine mammals and birds. Seabirds are the most threatened bird group, with a 70% community-level population decline between 1950 and 2010 [15]. The remaining populations of monitored vertebrate species have also declined by ~70% in the past half-century [16].

These and related data suggest that our species has become, directly or indirectly, the dominant macro-consumer in all major terrestrial and accessible marine ecosystems on the planet. Indeed, H. sapiens may well be the most voraciously successful carnivorous and herbivorous vertebrate ever to walk the Earth—but at the expense of thousands of other species. The growth of the human enterprise (population and economy) on a finite planet is the greatest factor contributing to plunging biodiversity [17]. Reduced human populations almost everywhere are necessary to preserve remaining patches of non-human life on Earth [18].

Of course, biodiversity loss is only one major symptom of overshoot. Overshoot is a meta-problem, the cause of climate change (including desertification, faltering ocean circulation, etc.), land/soil degradation, tropical deforestation, ocean acidification, fisheries collapses, sinking water tables, incipient food shortages, plastic and other chemical contamination of food chains, falling sperm counts, increasing cancer rates, pandemics, the pollution of everything, etc. Virtually all so-called environmental problems are co-symptoms of overshoot. We humans are depleting and contaminating the biophysical basis of our own existence.

In the process, the human enterprise has also become the most significant of contemporary geological forces—people move up to 24 times as much material around as all natural geological processes combined [19,20]. Little wonder that the sheer weight of human-made stuff now exceeds the living biomass on Earth (~1.1 terratonnes) [21]. Welcome to the Anthropocene [22,23].

There is more than a touch of irony lurking behind these biophysical realities. Economists and techno-optimists hallucinate that the economy is ‘dematerializing’ or further ‘decoupling’ from the material world on such simplistic grounds that the ratio of carbon emissions or resource use per unit GDP is declining [24]. The above data illuminate the contrary fact that, in terms of what really matters to nature—the expanding human ecological niche—humans are actually becoming an ever greater and more destructive integral component of the ecosphere [25]. Indeed, the human enterprise is effectively subsuming the ecosphere.

Nevertheless, the bizarrely nonsensical myth of decoupling persists. Politicians lean on technology—efficiency and ‘dematerialization’—to argue that there is no inherent conflict between the continued growth of the economy and ‘the environment.’ They speak from naïveté or ignorance, but this assertion encourages the all-too-willing public to share in one of the most toxic of humanity’s panoply of illusions.

Why Is Nobody Listening?

In light of the cascading hard evidence, it seems fair to ask why the mainstream media do not report on, and most ordinary people have never heard of, overshoot. Much of the reason may be simple denial, but part of the problem may well reside in cognitive incompetence. H. sapiens evolved in simpler, more slowly-changing times that posed relatively limited challenges to the evolving central nervous system. We operate with what are still essentially Palaeolithic brains: modern humans are painfully short-sighted [26], tend to think in terms of immediate cause−effect relationships and respond to problems in simplistic, reductionist ways (think ‘dematerialization’). This cognitive mode was adequate in pre-agricultural times. However, in recent centuries, cultural evolution (e.g., the emergence of multi-layered cultures, global institutions, and near-magical technologies) has outpaced bio-evolution [27,28]. Our brains are arguably ill-adapted to the pace of change and compounding complexities of the human-made Anthropocene—we have rendered ourselves cognitively obsolete [29].

Perhaps the most obvious example is the global fixation on climate change as existential threat facing civilization. The media may be temporarily side-tracked by the recent pandemic, regional famines, the growing refugee crisis, or the Russo−Ukraine war, but the focus is still on one isolated issue at a time. Rarely do the media, even serious analysts, and certainly not most politicians, connect the dots to see these issues as springing from a common root in overshoot. Even the term poly-crisis (many parallel related problems) does not quite cut it. MTI peoples simply do not ‘get’ complexity; nor do they comprehend the lags, thresholds, and unpredictably discontinuous behaviours of overlapping complex systems under stress from overshoot [30]. This is crucially important if only because, while no major symptom of overshoot can be adequately addressed in isolation from the others, addressing overshoot directly would reduce all important symptoms simultaneously.

3. The Population Connection

“The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth. To think otherwise is to resurrect the pre-Darwinian error that humans are different from all other animals” (John Gray, [31]).

Which brings us back to the population conundrum. In the simplest terms, overshoot results from too many people consuming and polluting too much. The immediate physical cause is excess economic throughput (i.e., resource consumption and waste production), but throughput is itself driven by both rising incomes and population growth. Most people tend to spend/consume to the limit imposed by their discretionary incomes (and, since the introduction of easy credit, often well beyond). High-income countries and populations are therefore responsible for three quarters of excess material consumption and pollution to date [32]. Even in 2021, “the top 10% of emitters were responsible for almost half of global energy-related CO2 emissions… compared with a mere 0.2% for the bottom 10%” [33]. For the past several decades, however, incremental increases in humanity’s consumption-based ecological footprint (EF) and carbon emissions have been driven more by population growth than increased incomes/consumption in all income quartiles. Indeed, population growth accounted for ∼80% of the increase in the total human EF above what would have accrued had populations remained constant even as incomes increased [34,35].

In this light, it is worth noting that, in 2023, about four billion people (half the human family) reside in lower-middle income and low-income countries, those countries with the highest population growth rates and whose people have yet to satisfy their material needs. The combination of population growth, massive latent demand, and rising GDP/capita—the latter fully justified—represents a huge potential increase in future global consumption/pollution, poses a double challenge to ecospheric integrity on a planet already in overshoot, and—rather belatedly—underscores the need for greater equity in access to resources for the world’s peoples.

It should also be obvious from these data and trends that any global approach to harmonizing the human enterprise with the ecosphere must include population planning. Nevertheless, until recently, the population question was out of bounds even in academia, largely on religious/cultural/humanist grounds or often spurious charges that analysts were implicitly racist [36,37]. As the ballooning costs of extreme weather, biodiversity loss, land/soil degradation, wildfires, regional famines, energy shortages, pollution, etc., affect more and more people, the obvious benefits of smaller human numbers [38] are finally dissolving the population taboo.

While it is becoming increasingly important that policy analysts and politicians fully understand what ‘population’ is all about, they will not receive a complete picture from most mainstream demographers. Oddly, despite their focus on population dynamics, demographers make little reference to key elements of population biology or environmental influences. Most human population projections are based on purely demographic factors—base population, age/sex distribution, age specific fertility, and mortality rates and migration (where applicable), i.e., they are conducted in a contextual vacuum. In addition, faulty inputs may skew the outcome. Population analyst, Jane O’Sullivan, argues that the flawed assumptions of the UN’s population model [39,40] and even that of the Earth4All consortium [41], place their projections “firmly in the realm of fairy tale” [42,43]. The UN expects the human population to peak at ~10.4 billion towards the end of the century. Earth4All’s ‘Too Little Too Late’ peak projection is for ~8.7 billion in the early 2050s; its ‘Giant Leap’ estimate tops out at ~8.4 billion in the early 2040s. Even with reasonable demographic assumptions, model results will be valid only if all exogenous factors crucial to population health and security can be maintained through the projection period. This assumption is simplistically unrealistic—the population is in a state of advanced overshoot dangerously eroding human carrying capacity. Climate scientists, ecologists, environmentalists, and even some demographers [44] are now sounding the alarm over mounting population pressures, even arguing we would all be better off if there were fewer of us [38].

The Evolutionary Roots of ‘Population-as-Problem’

Every concerned citizen should understand the basics of human population dynamics. First, as noted at the outset, human populations, like those of all other species, are capable of exponential (aka ‘geometric’) growth under favourable environmental conditions. A population growing exponentially at a fixed rate will have a constant doubling time. For example, the human population reached its peak growth rate of 2.2% per annum in the early 1960s when the global population was about 3.2 billion; had this rate been sustained, the population would have continued doubling every 32 years. As matters stand, the average fertility rate has declined so the population has increased ‘only’ 2.5 times in 60 years.

Exponential growth is a form of positive feedback where each increment to the population adds to the reproductive base, just as annual interest adds to the capital in a bank account. However, under natural conditions, most species (including humans) rarely realize their full reproductive potential. Positive feedback growth is countered by various forms of negative feedback—disease, food shortages, hostile competitors, etc.—so that natural populations typically fluctuate around a long-term mean. Numbers rise when conditions are favourable and fall when conditions change for the worse, often because of the bloated population itself—disease is easily spread, and starvation may be caused by excessive population densities.

Evolutionary biologists recognize that different species have evolved different reproductive strategies. Humans are archetypal ‘K’-strategists: ‘K’-strategic species are typically large, long-lived organisms, with relatively low reproductive rates, long-gestation periods, intensive parental care, and low infant mortality rates. At the other end of the spectrum are ‘r’ strategists, typically smaller, short-lived organisms with short life-cycles, very high fecundity (‘r’), little parental investment, and high progeny mortality rates. Species continuity depends on the survival of a tiny percentage of very large numbers of offspring. K-strategists are most frequently adapted to relatively stable habitats where, because of high survival rates, they tend to press up against the local carrying capacity (‘K’) [45]. Carrying capacity is the average maximum sustainable population for a particular habitat; thus ‘K’ represents the fluctuating equilibrium established between the species’ geometric growth potential and various negative feedbacks (e.g., food/water shortages and spatial limitations) that kick in when conditions deteriorate or excess numbers stress the habitat. These dynamics were the basis for Malthus’ concern, that population growth potential would always outstrip food supply.

Why is this significant again today? As noted at the outset, anatomically, modern humans have been around about 250,000 years. For most of this period, the population growth curve was essentially flat. There was a barely detectable global increase as H. sapiens spread from Africa over the rest of the planet over the past 50 millennia, and a modest uptick with the adoption of agriculture 10 millennia ago, but for the most part, widely-dispersed human populations have historically fluctuated close to their local carrying capacities. Suppressed by negative feedback, it took 99.9% of human history for the world population to reach one billion in the early 1800s.

With the scientific and industrial revolutions, everything changed. In particular, improving public health greatly lowered mortality rates and the increased use of fossil-fuelled technologies both steadily increased the availability of food [46] and provided the means of access to all the other resources needed to grow the human enterprise. In just 200 years (1/1250th the time it took to reach the first billion), the human population ballooned to seven billion by 2011 and reached eight billion only 11 years later, in November 2022. Meanwhile, human material demands on the ecosphere increased by more than two orders of magnitude with a greater than 100-fold increase in real gross world product (GWP) [47]. Ironically, only ~eight out of 10,000 generations of humans have lived this briefest of notable periods in human evolutionary history, yet today’s MTI society takes this utterly anomalous growth spurt to be the norm—and is doing everything conceivable to maintain it (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The anomalous fossil-fuelled human population boom.

4. On Energy Gradients: H. sapiens as a ‘Dissipative Structure’

“…we use 30 percent of all the energy, in the United States. That isn’t bad; that is good. That means that we are the richest, strongest people in the world and that we have the highest standard of living in the world. That is why we need so much energy, and may it always be that way” (US President Richard Nixon, November 1973 [48]).

The history of human population growth underscores a key factor to understanding the eco-crisis, one that is generally ignored by economists and demographers—the population bomb was assembled during the industrial revolution and exploded in the 19th century with the expanding use of fossilized organic matter that took hundreds of millions of years to accumulate. The wealth creation and technologies enabled by fossil fuels (FF)—including fertilizers and pesticides—reduced or eliminated various historically important forms of negative feedback, freeing the world’s human population to grow exponentially for the very first time. The fossil-powered explosion of the human enterprise triggered the most significant period of global ecological degradation in 250,000 years of human evolutionary history.

Understanding the role of energy also helps illuminate humanity’s future prospects. Following on mathematician Ludwig Boltzmann’s observation that the Darwinian struggle for existence is essentially a competition for available useful energy, mathematical ecologist, Alfred Lotka, proposed in the 1920s that successful systems (individuals, species, and ecosystems) were those that that maximized their appropriations and effective use of available energy (exergy) from their environments [49]. Somewhat later, ecologist Howard Odum refined and formalized the basic concept as the ‘maximum power principle’: in essence, natural selection favours systems that evolve (self-organize) in ways that maximize their energy intake and power output in the service of self-maintenance, growth and reproduction [50,51]. Systems that markedly fail to maximize their useful power output would be selected out.

H. sapiens are arguably the archetypal demonstration of maximum power. While other animal species are dependent on bodily (endosomatic) energy obtained from ingested biomass, humans are uniquely capable of using supplemental out-of-body (exosomatic) energy toward systems growth and reproduction. The history of civilization traces a sequence of external energy sources beginning with fire, flowing water, and wind, evolving through FF, hydro-electricity, and other so-called modern renewables, to nuclear power. Comparing societies from hunter−gatherers through farmers to MTI culture shows a pattern of exosomatic energy use, increasing from 20 Gjoules/person per year through 60 Gjoules/person per year to 300 Gjoules/person per year, respectively [52]. The richest, most powerful and thus successful (by contemporary criteria) cultures, societies, and nations have always been those that maximize their appropriations and effective use of available energy. As noted earlier, the explosive increase of GWP beginning in the 19th century was energized by FF. It is not by chance that the GDP of modern nations remains tightly correlated with petroleum consumption (Figure 2) and that the poorest half of humanity accounts for less than 20% of the global energy use [53].

Figure 2. GDP is proportional to oil consumption (Log scales). Graph courtesy of Arthur Berman.

As matters stand, the modern world remains largely dependent on the unmatched energy density of FF. Despite the hyperbole surrounding the rapid development of alternative allegedly renewable energy sources [54], 82% of the world’s primary energy was provided by coal, oil, and natural gas in 2021. Non-hydro renewables, mostly wind turbines and solar panels (the recipients of most new investment), provided less than 7.0%. In effect, fossil fuels powered the world economy for 290 of 365 days in 2021 compared with 24 days by all non-hydro renewables (wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal) combined.

Continued fossil fuel dependence is hugely problematic and not just because of climate change. The many components of MTI civilization from individual people and industries, to whole cities and nation states—indeed the entire human enterprise—share the characteristics of ‘dissipative structures’, the term coined by Ilya Prigogine to describe processes of non-equilibrium self-organization in living systems [55,56]. Dissipative structures develop/evolve in response to energy gradients, which they subsequently ‘dissipate’ (i.e., consume and degrade) to self-produce and maintain themselves. Indeed, self-organization in open systems (systems able to exchange energy and materials with their environments) requires the dissipation of energy.

The human enterprise is a complex of overlapping, highly structured, non-linear, open sub-systems each functioning in far-from-(thermodynamic)-equilibrium. ‘Thermodynamic equilibrium’ describes the state of a system in which there is no structure or gradients and thus no internal flows of matter or energy. Thermodynamic equilibrium can also exist between a system and its environment. In either case, no measurable changes can occur. In contrast, self-producing non-equilibrium systems—e.g., individual living cells, the human body, economic processes—are capable of dynamic change, including net flows between the systems and their environments and the permanent dissipation of energy and matter. Such systems are thus said to be operating ‘far-from-equilibrium’.

As noted, the modern human enterprise has evolved in its present form largely in response to the steep energy gradient represented by fossil fuels which it has been dissipating, on an accelerating curve, particularly over the past two centuries (half the fossil fuels ever consumed have been burned in just the past 30–35 years). It is not only fossil fuels. Fossil-fuelled industrialization has increased the world’s consumption of many minerals and metals by several orders of magnitude, so the best deposits of many finite and non-replenishing non-renewable resources have also been largely depleted and dissipated. Resource scarcity may well accelerate industrial civilization’s descent from overshoot. The continued growth—or even the steady-state operation—of the human enterprise thus depends entirely on the continuity of this energy flow, i.e., on the maintenance of a comparably steep energy gradient (and this assumes other resources will also be available) [57].

However, there is a problem. It is becoming increasingly evident that a quantitatively equivalent energy transition from FFs to so-called green electricity sources on a climate/overshoot friendly schedule is not likely to occur [58,59,60]. It is true that there has been impressive expansion of electricity generation by wind turbine and solar panel installations in some countries in recent years. However, as noted, FF still provided 82% of the world’s primary energy and even 61% of the world’s electrical power in 2021. Wind turbines and solar installations did give the world 10% of its electrical energy (up to 12% by 2023) but, since electricity is only ~19% of final energy consumption, wind and solar electricity account for only ~2.3% of consumers’ total energy supply, this after several decades of increasing deployment (data from [61]).

Renewable green energy clearly has a long way to go—in some years, additions to renewable capacity do not even keep up with the growth in total demand for energy. As we phase out (or run out) of FF, some analysts suggest that the world community should be preparing for a steep energy descent, a future with markedly lower—as much as 50% lower—and increasingly unreliable energy supplies [62]. The obvious, but often unspoken, corollary is that the weakening of our energy gradient will be accompanied by a massive simplification of that greatest of dissipative structures—the human enterprise. Certainly, there will be a corresponding plunge in GWP (see Figure 2); we should also anticipate global shortages of food and all the other FF-dependent material resources needed to run modern civilization—and we have not yet accounted for the simultaneous consequences of accelerating global heating. Should MTI culture maintain its present course, a major population correction seems inevitable.

5. The World’s Response to Overshoot

“Overshoot is overshoot. Once your civilization starts to consume more than what naturally gets regenerated in its folly to pursue infinite growth on a finite planet, collapse is only a matter of time” (B [63]).

Humanity’s evolutionary trajectory and our recent period of industrial expansion have obviously generated a truly unique eco-predicament for humanity—humans are innately expansionist, and MIT culture is growth-addicted, but material growth on a finite planet must eventually cease. The most encouraging sign of awakening to this contradiction is that an international planned ‘degrowth’ movement is gathering momentum, particularly in Europe [64]. Even members of the European Parliament are openly concerned about the risks associated with continued economic growth [65]. Such concerns are stimulated by increasing numbers of science-based analyses and popular reports that, even without mentioning overshoot, broach the possibility that MTI societies are facing economic and population collapse [66,67,68].

Societal collapse is a complex controversial subject. There is no consistent definition. However, there is consensus that collapse can be rapid or take decades, but invariably involves a significant loss of socio-political and economic complexity, including the dissolution/replacement of formal governments [69]. Significant population decline is possible even with regional collapses—there is a considerable history of associating collapse with overpopulation and competition for scarce resources [70].

Those who doubt that collapse is a real possibility should remember that many regional human societies have imploded in the past and that MTI societies are now so tightly entangled that the next contraction may well be global. In a rational world, the international community would act cooperatively and decisively in response to evidence of overshoot and organize to eliminate its corrosive impacts. Regrettably, nothing of the kind is occurring. MTI society does not even acknowledge overshoot. On the contrary, most industrialized countries and even the mainstream environmental movement retain their simplistic foci on climate change and both seem determined to find ways of maintaining the perpetual growth trajectory.

Some environmentalists do urge rapid disinvestment from, and the abandonment of, coal, oil, and natural gas. However, aggressive moves to reduce FF use by even the Paris Climate Agreement’s minimal 45% by 2030, would constitute political (if not societal) suicide in the absence of viable energy alternatives and a comprehensive socioeconomic restructuring plan backed by public support. Everything in the modern world depends on the continuity of energy supplies. Thus, rapid FF cutbacks would result in economic chaos—reduced goods production, massive unemployment, broken supply chains, failing GDP, declining personal incomes, over-whelmed social services, etc. Food production would plummet; essential marine and diesel-powered inter-city transportation would falter; there would be local famines, mass migrations, and a global food shortage, exacerbated by continuing climate change, civil disorder, and geopolitical chaos. Even if atmospheric GHG concentrations were to stabilize, there is already an additional 0.6 °C warming ‘in the pipe’ due to short-term feedback such as the thermal inertia of the oceans. This alone will take the world over the 1.5 °C warming limit and further destabilize the climate [71].

All of which helps explain why most of MTI’s senior governments, urban administrations, international organizations, many academic analysts, and even environmental organizations have adopted an alternative two-track strategy oriented to maintaining the status quo as follows:

Track 1: Rather than abandoning FFs, governments are maintaining subsidies to FF development: indeed, subsidies in 2022 were double those of the previous year [72]. Consequently, even the International Energy Agency expects that the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix will remain above 60%, even in 2050 [73]. This will keep our industrial Titanic afloat until Track 2 can be fully realized or until economically extractable FFs are depleted.

Track 2 (running parallel to Track 1): Meanwhile, seduced by the promise of cheap, 100% renewable energy [54], the world has also bought into a new mythic construct, the so-called renewable energy (RE) transition. Under such banners as the ‘Green New Deal’, the ‘circular economy’, and the oxymoronic concept of ‘green growth’, MTI societies are striving to electrify everything and drive investment into so-called renewable green energy sources, particularly wind turbines, solar panels, and, most recently, hydrogen (none of which are truly green), along with corresponding infrastructure and applications (i.e., electric vehicles). All such ‘approved’ technologies—including as yet unproved carbon capture and storage technologies—involve massive capital investment, significant job creation, and excellent opportunities for profit, i.e., everything necessary to maintain growth-oriented ‘business-as-usual-by-alternative-means’. Arguably, the mainstream MTI approach is designed to make industrial capitalism appear to be the solution to, rather than a cause of, the problem [74].

Regrettably, the overall MTI strategy is ecology-, energy-, material-, and technology-blind—tantamount to ‘Electrifying the Titanic’, as if this would melt the icebergs [75]. As already noted, the much-vaunted green energy transition has arguably barely started and is mired in controversy. See the rebuttals to Seibert and Rees [76] available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154508 (accessed on 8 August 2023). Its most ebullient proponents ignore important technical issues, ecological and social impacts, and problems stemming from the massive scale of the exercise, i.e., they ignore overshoot. In a nutshell, wind and solar technologies are actually not renewable (merely replaceable); their production from mine-head through manufacturing to installation is itself fossil-energy-intensive; so, the transition, in the best case, will generate at least a short-term bump in carbon emissions; they cannot deliver the same quantity and quality of energy as FFs, and their life-cycles, including orders of magnitude increases in mining and refining activities for certain crucial rare minerals, entail massive ecological degradation and (so far) egregious social injustice [76]. Several authorities have calculated that there are simply not enough economic material deposits or adequate time to replace the existing fossil fuel powered system with renewable technologies on the schedule set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and advanced by the Paris and subsequent climate Agreements [77,78]. Various climate scientists refer to ‘net zero by 2050′ as involving yet another collection of “magical yet unworkable” technical (non)solutions to the climate conundrum [79] or as “not just a goal, but a strategy for COP-26 to lock in many decades of unnecessary fossil fuels use well past 2050… [and creating] unacceptable risks of unstoppable climate warming” [80]. Remember, Track 1 entrenches the FF addiction. Indeed, 50 years after the publication of Limits to Growth, several formal ‘scientists’ warnings to humanity’, 27 United Nations COP meetings on climate, and several agreements on emissions reductions, the mainstream approach has so far failed to do anything significant to reduce global FF use and associated emissions. Instead, human-induced global warming rates are at their highest historical level, and the world can expect to reach and exceed the 1.5 °C global warming within the next 10 years [81,82].

In this light, Track 1 of the MTI strategy is potentially catastrophic. Continued use of FF means there is virtually no possibility that the world will achieve the Paris Agreement target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and virtually none that the world will reach net zero emissions by 2050. Indeed, the UN reports that current national commitments will actually increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030 [83]. Not only will we blow past the 1.5 °C mean global warming limit of the Paris agreement [84], we are likely to exceed even the less stringent 2.0 °C degree limit by 2050. We are actually on track for 2.4–2.8 degrees warming by century’s end [85]—atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are still increasing [86]. Meanwhile, climate change has already put ~9% of people (>600 million) outside the historic safe human climate niche and 2.7 °C global warming could push about one-third of humanity outside the niche [87]. This does not account for threshold effects—even 2 °C warming may well trigger irreversible runaway “hothouse Earth” conditions [88], ending prospects for global civilization. Local ecosystems and possibly the ecosphere as a whole are similarly prone to abrupt, unpredictable irreversible changes that are potentially hostile to human (and other) life, if pushed beyond unknown tipping points [89].

Even under in the best-case scenario, Track 1 leads the world to more and longer heat waves and droughts, more violent tropical storms, extended wildfire seasons, accelerating desertification, and water shortages. In many respects, 2023 is turning out to be a record-breaking archetypal demonstration of what the future will bring. Many regions on several continents are suffering record heat waves and drought or unprecedented precipitation and floods; and, at the time of writing, over 900 wildfires are raging, most out of control, in the Boreal forests of Canada and many more in the forests of Siberia. As parts of the planet become uninhabitable, we should expect faltering agriculture, food shortages, and possibly extended famines [90]. Rising sea levels over the next century will flood many coastal cities; with the breakdown of national highway and marine transportation networks other cities are likely to be cut off from food-lands, energy, and other essential resources. Some large metropolitan areas will become unsupportable and not survive the century [91]. Even in 2021, at least 414 cities with a total 1.4 billion plus inhabitants, were deemed to be at high or extreme risk from a combination of pollution, dwindling water supplies, extreme heat stress, and other vulnerabilities to climate change alone [92].

Which brings us back to the faltering Track 2 and overshoot. Barring all-out nuclear holocaust, one could argue that the only thing worse than the failure of Track 2’s so-called green renewable energy transition would be its success. Developing another assured supply of abundant cheap energy would simply allow for the extension of growth-based ‘business-as-usual-by-alternative-means’, increasing the depletion/dissipation of the natural world and worsening overshoot:

It is human nature to “…intensify our exploitation of fossil fuels, metals, and non-metallic minerals in order to perpetuate our industrial lifestyle paradigm for as long as possible… Paradoxically, the more vigorously we strive to perpetuate our unsustainable industrialized way of life… the more quickly and thoroughly we will deplete Earth’s remaining non-renewable and renewable reserves, thereby hastening and exacerbating our global societal collapse” ([93], emphasis added).

Ironically, then, with the success of the Track 2 mission, the ecosphere would succumb within decades to irreversible degradation, disordering, and dissipation, taking the global human enterprise with it. Arguably, a smaller contraction sooner is preferable to a massive one later.

It Would Not Be the First Time

The prospect of societal collapse, however horrific it sounds to MTI ears, is perfectly consistent with history and the systems dynamics characterizing the rise and fall of previous human civilizations [94,95]. In particular, many MTI nations are exhibiting the diminishing returns and socio-political pathologies—egregious and increasing inequality, government and institutional incompetence and corruption, currency debasement, popular loss of confidence in the state, increasing civil unrest, etc.—of an overly complex society on the verge of collapse [96] as well as the potentially avoidable symptoms—ecological destruction, climate change, breakdown of trade and international relationships, and inability or unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances—of a society apparently ‘choosing’ to fail [97].

More generally, the stages of civilizational development and decay catalogued by Toynbee [94] (genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration) are markedly similar to the phases of the repetitive cycles common to living systems (initiation and exploitation, maturation and conservation, rigidification and release (i.e., collapse)). Gunderson and Holling advance the ‘panarchy’ theory to explore such cyclical change as a mechanism for adaptation common to complex ecosystems and social systems. They argue that each iteration of a naturally-repeating cycle (e.g., the cyclical fire regime of certain forest ecosystems) theoretically provides opportunities for innovation and evolutionary adaptation [98]. One is forced to wonder why modern H. sapiens stubbornly fail to apply lessons from well-studied historic collapses to develop the foresight and the policy actions needed to head off the next.

On the contrary, many analysts reject historical precedents as guides to contemporary policy. Perhaps they should take warning from the aforementioned infamous 1972 Club of Rome/MIT study, Limits to Growth (LTG) [99], which showed that, on a business-as-usual track, global society would face collapse by mid-21st century. As might be expected, many economists and techno-optimists roundly rejected this assessment—economists ignore overshoot and even grossly underestimate the damage from climate change; their concepts and models are divorced from biophysical reality [100]. However, subsequent studies show that the real world is behaving with disturbing fidelity to LTG modelling, particularly the two (of four) scenarios that indicate a halt in growth over the next decade or so, followed by subsequent declines and collapse [101].

6. Summary and Conclusions: It’s Really Quite Simple

“Without a biosphere in a good shape, there is no life on the planet. It’s very simple. That’s all you need to know. The economists will tell you we can decouple growth from material consumption, but that is total nonsense… If you don’t manage decline, then you succumb to it and you are gone” (Vaclav Smil, [102]).

H. sapiens, like all other species, are naturally predisposed to grow, reproduce, and expand into all suitable accessible habitat. Physical growth is natural, but is only an early phase in the development of individual organisms; growth in sheer scale, including population growth, is characteristic of early phases of complex living systems, including human societies. However, both material and population growth in finite habitats are ultimately limited by the availability of essential ‘inputs’, by the capacity of the system’s environment to assimilate (often toxic) outputs, or by various forms of negative feedback as previously listed. Growth will cease, either by “design or disaster” [103]

For most of H. sapiens’ evolutionary history, local population growth has, in fact, been constrained by negative feedback. However, improved population health (lower death rates) and the use of fossil fuels. particularly since the early 19th century, enabled a period of unprecedented food and resource abundance. In nature, any ‘K’-strategic species population enjoying such favourable conditions will expand exponentially. Growth will generally continue until excess consumption and habitat degradation once again lead to food shortages and starvation, or disease and predation take their toll. The population then falls back below the long-term carrying capacity of the habitat and negative feedback eases off. Some species repeatedly exhibit this cycle of population boom and bust.

Humanity is only a partial exception. The abundance generated by fossil fuels enabled H. sapiens, for the first time, to experience a one-off global population boom−bust cycle (Figure 1). It is a ‘one-off’ cycle because it was enabled by vast stocks of both potentially renewable self-producing resources and finite non-renewable resources, including fossil fuels, which have been greatly depleted. No repetition is possible. As Clugston argues, by choosing to industrialize, Homo sapiens unwittingly made a commitment to impermanence [77]. We adopted a self-terminating way of life, in which the finite resources that enable our industrial existence would inevitably become insufficient to do so.

The physical mechanisms are simple. Living systems, from individual cells through whole organisms to populations and ecosystems, exist in nested hierarchies and function as far-from-equilibrium dissipative structures [104]. Each level in the hierarchy depends on the next level up both as a source for useful resources (negentropy) and as a sink for degraded wastes (entropy). As Daly [8,9] reminds us, the human enterprise is a wholly-dependent subsystem of the ecosphere; it produces and maintains itself by extracting negentropic resources from its host system, the ecosphere, and dumping degraded en-tropic wastes back into its host. It follows that the increasing structural and functional complexity of the human sub-system as a far-from equilibrium-dissipative structure (a node of negentropy) can occur only at the expense of the accelerated disordering (increas-ing entropy) of the non-growing ecosphere. Indeed, humanity is in overshoot—global heating, plunging biodiversity, soil/land degradation, tropical deforestation, ocean acidi-fication, fossil fuel and mineral depletion, the pollution of everything, etc., are indicative of the increasing disordering of the biosphere/ecosphere. We are at risk of a chaotic break-down of essential life-support functions [105].

Little of this is reflected in contemporary development debates or in discussions of the population conundrum. The international community’s response to incipient biospheric collapse is doubly disastrous. MTI culture’s commitment to material growth, including continued FF use (Track 1), condemns humanity to the predictably dangerous impacts of accelerating climate change; at the same time, our pursuit of alternative energy sources (themselves FF dependent) in order to maintain the growth-based status quo (Track 2) would, if successful, assure the continued depletion and dissipation of both self-producing and non-renewable resources essential for the existence of civilization.

The mainstream view of population asserts that the growth rate is declining so “not to worry”—or worry that population decline is bad for the economy! Even the base assertion is controversial. Jane O’Sullivan points out that the rate of decline has itself declined in this century. She argues that UN demographers have thus ‘persistently underestimated recent global population, due to their over-anticipation of fertility declines in high-fertility countries’ [106]. The human population continues to grow at about 80 million per year—O’Sullivan argues that the number is closer to 90 million—and its ultimate peak is highly uncertain. Renewed negative feedback may well end growth well before the population reaches the UN’s expected 10.4 billion in the late 2080s.

It is crucial to remember that, right or wrong, conventional projections ignore the fact that the ecosphere is not actually now ‘supporting’ even the present eight billion people. The human enterprise is growing and maintaining itself by liquidating and polluting essential ecosystems and material assets. In short, even average material living standards are corrosively excessive, yet, in 2019, ‘almost a quarter of the global population… lived below the US3.65 per day poverty line, and almost half, 47 percent, lived below the US6.85 poverty line’ [107] and the world considers sheer material growth as the means to address this problem. Following this path, eco-destruction will ramp up, increasing the probability of a self-induced simplification and contraction of the human enterprise.

Baring a nuclear holocaust, it is unlikely that H. sapiens will go extinct. Wealthy, technologically advanced nations potentially have more resilience and may be insulated, at least temporarily, from the worst consequences of global simplification [108]. That said, rebounding negative feedbacks—climate chaos, food and other resource shortages, civil disorder, resource wars, etc.—may well eliminate prospects for an advanced world-wide civilization. In the event of a seemingly inevitable global population ‘correction’, human numbers will fall to the point where survivors can once again hope to thrive within the (much reduced) carrying capacity of the Earth. Informed estimates put the long-term carrying capacity at as few as 100 million [109] to as many as three billion people [110].

It is uncertain whether much or any of industrial high-tech can persist in the absence of abundant cheap energy and rich resource reserves, most of which will have been extracted, used, and dissipated. It may well be that the best-case future will, in fact, be powered by renewable energy, but in the form of human muscle, draft horses, mules, and oxen supplemented by mechanical water-wheels and wind-mills. In the worst case, the billion (?) or so survivors will face a return to stone-age life-styles. Should this be humanity’s future, it will not be urban sophisticates that survive but rather the pre-adapted rural poor and remaining pockets of indigenous peoples.

Bottom line: Any reasonable interpretation of previous histories, current trends, and complex systems dynamics would hold that global MTI culture is beginning to unravel and that the one-off human population boom is destined to bust. H. sapiens’ innate expansionist tendencies have become maladaptive. However, far from acknowledging and overriding our disadvantageous natural predispositions, contemporary cultural norms reinforce them. Arguably, in these circumstances, wide-spread societal collapse cannot be averted—collapse is not a problem to be solved, but rather the final stage of a cycle to be endured. Global civilizational collapse will almost certainly be accompanied by a major human population ‘correction’. In the best of all possible worlds, the whole transition might actually be managed in ways that prevent unnecessary suffering of millions (billions?) of people, but this is not happening—and cannot happen—in a world blind to its own predicament.

Imagine Another Joyful Day

"Imagine all the people

Livin' life in peace." — John Lennon.

I post on globehackers Facebook page not to hurt your feelings or make you uncomfortable; I don't do it for status or likes or because I think it makes me look one way or another. There probably are better curators of information about current events elsewhere. I post links to articles, books, and videos because I am human, I live here, I love life, and I can't turn away, so I keep up with current events and try to imagine something better even though I am as hopeless, powerless and helpless as most people.

I imagine that if more people understood what was going on in the world from various perspectives, they might find hope, power, and confidence in the project of building a better way of life, a kinder culture, a world where life is sacred, where we all live in justice and peace.

How much will we learn and discover if our species lasts another thousand years? I can imagine the joyous smiles of children seeing wild animals living in pristine, healthy habitats—the excitement they'd feel while watching a breaching whale. I can imagine a world where most people are enlightened, wise, healthy, and robust. I can imagine a world where people love and respect each other despite their differences.

I can imagine this because I feel it. I imagine these things to hold back my tears and find joy in living another day.

Where In The World Can Loving People Go And Be Left Alone

This is the reality we are living in:

The World Has Already Ended

How Social Engineering Drives Technology

With all of the ominous challenges we are facing, people are still arguing about who killed Kenedy. You'd laugh if you heard me say that in a casual social context. It’s a joke, a bitter ironic joke—a protective tonic.

Patrick Lawrence: What Died 60 Years Ago?

Most of us are apologists for business-as-usual. We may not be as intelligent or educated as Steven Pinker, but we do our part.

What we lost, we lost long before what we lost due to the assassinations of the 1960s, through dozens of choices, big and small, and uncompromising faith in a system that would always destroy visions of peace and cooperation among peoples and nations.

What kinds of democracies have we known since ancient Greece? What has come of modern democratic social experiments or any other social systems we’ve tried since the dawn of fossil capitalism?

What did international cooperation look like before modernity? We have no idea what it's like to be hunter-gatherers. With the exception of some indigenous and isolated groups that have existed and survived in small, remote pockets of the world, we have no idea what their values were or how they felt about life. We have not inherited mythologies from their like. We know only civilization and its demands, and it demands everything.

This is because this is.

we are born, raised and programmed to fit into this.

We are nothing but human capital. Anyone wanting a system that would elevate the human spirit, that of love, compassion, cooperation, deep imagination, creativity, and amazement, is always crushed beneath the requirements of "Capital." Capitalism requires the commodification of everything and, ultimately, the transformation of life into a dead machine with no purpose but to consume. It is the metaphorical black hole at the center of lust.

Modernity is accelerationism and has no conscience; it only cares about manipulating more materials to serve various civilized belief systems inherent to The Great Game Two Point Zero To One. It runs on its own sick logic. "Exploit everything, kill it all, a bonsai charge to the finish. Do it for God, do it for Country, do it for Power, do it for Freedom, do it for Law, do it for Fame...!"

Modern Empires overthrow any attempt to live differently. You are human capital, a commodity, and you will be devoured.

What violence can bring about peace, and what peace can survive the violence of such a culture?

I fear that there is no answer to that question.

Become the loving, loving be, be no end,

I know the Universe is free.

Will AI Replace Us

Firstly, does it matter if AI replaces us? 

Please allow me to prime the pump with some good old-fashioned culture before moving on to the new-fangled genies and black boxes that control our lives.

On the Seashore

BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

Think of the mad hubris involved in thinking our species knows the mind of God. It is undeniable that all religious scriptures are human stories serving human purposes. There is a vast amount of literature on the subject.

Our experience with science, technology, mathematics, philosophy, etc., is a struggle to understand and exploit nature and reality to pursue benefits. People pray to God for help. People also learn from nature and use their intellect to help themselves overcome challenges and improve the quality of their lives. All stories across cultures express this adventure.

All of our endeavors and experiences are human, all too human.

Esteeming humble truths. It is the sign of a higher culture to esteem more highly the little, humble truths, those discovered by a strict method, rather than the gladdening and dazzling errors that originate in metaphysical and artistic ages and men. At first, one has scorn on his lips for humble truths, as if they could offer no match for the others: they stand so modest, simple, sober, even apparently discouraging, while the other truths are so beautiful, splendid, enchanting, or even enrapturing. But truths that are hard won, certain, enduring, and therefore still of consequence for all further knowledge are the higher; to keep to them is manly, and shows bravery, simplicity, restraint. Eventually, not only the individual, but all mankind will be elevated to this manliness, when men finally grow accustomed to the greater esteem for durable, lasting knowledge and have lost all belief in inspiration and a seemingly miraculous communication of truths. — Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Nietzsche

AI is a Greek Tragedy unfolding in front of us that we are mostly incapable of understanding because we don't understand the technology, how it works, or its significance. No, most of us don’t understand the ubiquitous science, engineering, and technology we all take for granted; we struggle even to understand ourselves.

Extinction, for us, is the end of time. What consciousness in the Universe will remember us? Is Gaia conscious in the way humans are? How would we know? When will we know?

Gaia because Gaia

Remember, extinction is the rule for life on Earth, not the exception.

Greek Tragedy

Tragedies don't always go from good to bad. They can go from bad to good to bad or from good to bad to good again, and for Aristotle, it was mutability; it was the change that was tragic, not necessarily the direction of the change. (so much for progress) We think of tragedy as something terrible happening. We mostly misuse the term.

Greek tragedy was a ritual performance of the downfall of a great man — usually a king or a nobleman — brought low because of some random mishap or inexplicable fate.

tragedy

/ˈtradʒɪdi/

noun

an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe.

"a tragedy that killed 95 people"

a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character. "Shakespeare's tragedies"

Greek tragedies were stories about how people interact, and inevitibilities occur. Accidents and chance play a significant role in Greek tragedy. We always encounter what we don't expect: outliers, black swans, long tails in statistics, collateral damage, externalities, unforeseen disasters, etc. 

Friar Lawrence helps “Romeo and Juliet” throughout Shakespeare’s play simply because he cares about the star-crossed lovers. But what foils all of the characters is an accident. A letter arrives late, and a reversal of fate ensues. 

We assume that we know the mind of God because we are God's creatures, and we are geniuses in controlling nature because we are Homo Sapiens with unique intellectual superpowers. This allows us to play God and create God. And yet, we still have that pesky problem of evil. We invent a loving, merciful God and still go to Hell. We develop machines and exploit cheap, abundant, reliable, and powerful energy sources only to run out of them while changing the atmosphere's chemistry to the point where we are in danger of losing habitat to such a degree that it might extinct our species.

Lousy timing, fate, and things spinning out of control are familiar to most of us—so much so that we subscribe to a dozen information channels to focus our attention, day after day, on the misfortune surrounding us and the tragedy we invent in our stories. 

Romeo and Juliet is a dramedy until, through many mishaps, Romeo finds Juliet dead. Romeo takes poison and, while dying, kisses Juliet. Friar Lawrence enters the tomb, and Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo dead. Frightened by a noise, the Friar flees the tomb. Juliet kills herself with Romeo's dagger.

Romeo and Juliet was an innovative, hybrid play. Shakespeare was familiar with Greek tragedy and comedy. His works fell out of favor until Coleridge and German Romanticism revived an appreciation for his works’ organic form.  

Greek tragedy presents moral dilemmas. 

A hero or great man has to do something but makes a mistake, which creates a reversal that is an emotionally wrenching, cathartic experience for the audience. A tragic flaw is always present. One shoots for the bullseye and misses. The character mistook something; he got it wrong. He did not know. He was caught by surprise. In the case of Oedipus, he could not have known who his parents were and ended up in his mother's household. He doesn't know the woman is his mother and ends up marrying her, a horror they can not survive. These events have nothing to do with a failure on Oedipus' part.

Agamemnon is confronted with the need to sacrifice his daughter, which is horrific, but it's framed in a situation where there is no way to avoid doing something wrong.

Agamemnon was forced to put on the the yoke, the harness of necessity. Necessity implies something he HAS to do; it’s unavoidable. He was both responsible and not responsible. Tragedy plays with the relationship between necessity and freedom, fate and choice. Achilles chooses to fight even though he knows he will die if he does. His reward is fame. 

These stories knew nothing of the modern debate concerning free will.

Why is there so much suffering, and why do we enjoy stories of so much suffering? We watch hours and hours of horror, pain, and suffering on our screens every day.

Pathei Mathos—"We learn by suffering." Suffering is a great teacher. It is part and parcel of any intelligent grappling with the human experience, both physically, personally, and politically. Salon, Polis, Cosmos—from small to large. Suffering is programmed into the human system, internally and externally, in our minds, bodies, and souls and in manifesting our ambitions and actions. 

Suffering is not someone's fault; it happens; it is a feature, not a bug. It may seem unjust, but it's programmed into the system, into human experience. We must not be afraid to look at the injustice written into and structuring the system itself.

Examining suffering and the randomness of fate is unavoidable if we want to understand who and what Homo Sapiens are. 

Will AGI replace us? It seems as likely as any other accident. We must not ignore the question, however: our ambitions have led to weapons of mass destruction, the Anthropocene, the sixth extinction, global heating, destruction of habitat, pollution, and ill health despite science-based/evidence-based medicine. 

AI is a cascade of tragic accidents happening right now. It is only the hubris of a conscious species with a clever mind that thinks it can understand the mind of God or play God.

Do we want to be replaced? Accelerationism, Tech Optimism, The Singularity, etc. Who wants this? Do ordinary people dream of becoming a machine? Is there a pill one can take to understand reality beyond how we can access and understand it with our minds and bodies? What must we build to make a human better? Must we always optimize and improve to the point where we are no longer human?

It won't replace us, it won't serve us, it isn't us, but it may help us destroy what it is to be human. Before that happens, billions of us may die due to our hubristic nature and failure of stewardship. If anything is left after the next dark age, only a great science fiction writer with a fantastic imagination can attempt to answer the question of what's left and what it is or looks like.

If AGI replaces us, we can only hope there will remain, in the Universe, the faint echo of a clever conscious species of life on Earth that remained only briefly in the mind of God.

To me, God is creation's ineffable, unknowable mystery. Peace be with us.

Well, that was dark. Let’s say that AI, LLMs, and, in a decade or so, AGI helps governments and corporations come up with ways to return the atmosphere to equilibrium, saving us from the worst consequences of global heating. Let’s also imagine that we find new energy sources that are clean, safe, cheap, abundant, etc. Without radical changes in our social, political, and economic structures and systems, will we be able to develop a sustainable, peaceful global civilization where people are healthy, wealthy, and wise? One must not lose hope.

Mick and I spoke about governments and governance. Perhaps people in First World nations, in particular, “The Anglosphere,” are feeling that they can’t trust governments to regulate and control the development of AI such that it may benefit people without threatening our hard-won freedoms and civil rights. If so, who can be trusted with these world-changing technologies? Private corporations like Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

The imperative for regulatory oversight of large language models (or generative AI) in healthcare

Historically, Public/Private partnerships have driven technological development, particularly in wealthy countries that can invest heavily in their military-industrial complexes.

Here are some historical examples:

1. DARPA and AI Research:

   • The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the United States has played a significant role in funding and supporting AI research since the 1960s. DARPA's investments have contributed to the development of various AI technologies, including natural language processing and machine learning.

2. Academic and Corporate Collaboration:

   • Many breakthroughs in AI research have emerged from collaborations between academia and industry. Researchers in universities often work closely with private companies, sharing expertise and resources. For example, companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have sponsored AI research at universities and have hired many AI researchers from academia.

3. OpenAI and Partnership Models:

   • OpenAI, a research organization focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI), was founded with the goal of advancing AI in a safe and beneficial manner. It was initially backed by prominent figures in the tech industry, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman. OpenAI has also sought partnerships with private companies to fund its research.

4. Industry Research Labs:

   • Many major technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Facebook, have established their own AI research labs. These labs conduct extensive research on AI and LLMs, contributing to the advancement of the field. These companies often collaborate with each other and with academic institutions.

5. Government Funding and Initiatives:

   • Various governments around the world have provided funding and support for AI research. For instance, the European Union has invested in AI research through programs like Horizon 2020. In China, the government has outlined ambitious plans for AI development and has invested heavily in AI research and infrastructure.

6. Language Model Development:

   • The development of Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) involved collaborations between researchers and engineers in both industry and academia. OpenAI, the organization behind GPT, has received funding from private investors and has collaborated with various partners.

7. Commercialization of AI:

   • Private corporations played a crucial role in commercializing AI applications as AI technologies matured. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft offer cloud-based AI services, making AI capabilities accessible to businesses and developers.

Overall, the development of AI and LLMs has been a collaborative effort involving a mix of government support, academic research, and contributions from private corporations. The landscape is dynamic, with ongoing partnerships shaping the future of AI technologies.

The Essential Skills for Large Language Model Development: What You Need to Know

complex enough for you?

The development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a complex and resource-intensive endeavor, and currently, only a few technologically advanced countries are actively working on AGI research. These countries have the necessary infrastructure, talent pool, and financial resources to collaborate with private companies to pursue AGI. Some of these countries include:

United States:

The United States is a global leader in AI research and development. It is home to major technology companies, research institutions, and government agencies actively contributing to AGI research. Silicon Valley, in particular, is a hub for AI innovation.

China:

China has made significant strides in AI research and has ambitious plans to become a global AI leader by 2030. The Chinese government has invested heavily in AI initiatives, and Chinese tech companies are actively involved in AGI research.

European Union (EU) Countries:

Several countries within the European Union, such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and others, have been actively investing in AI research. The European Commission has outlined strategies to promote AI development, and there are collaborative efforts at the national and EU levels.

Canada:

Canada, and in particular the city of Toronto, has emerged as a significant hub for AI research. The country has a robust academic community that has produced influential contributions to the field. Canadian companies, along with international collaborations, are engaged in AGI research.

These countries have a combination of factors that enable them to afford and pursue AGI development, including an intense research and educational infrastructure, access to top talent, robust funding mechanisms, and supportive government policies. AGI development involves private companies and collaborations with academic institutions and government agencies. The landscape may evolve as other countries with emerging AI capabilities actively participate in AGI research and development.

Major AI concerns.

Speed Kills—we are not incentivized to go slow.

1. Bias and Fairness: Many experts have raised concerns about the potential bias in large language models, reflecting and perpetuating existing societal biases. If the training data is biased, the model can learn and reproduce those biases in its outputs.

2. Ethical Use: There are worries about the potential misuse of AI and large language models for malicious purposes, such as generating fake news, deepfakes, or engaging in harmful activities like cyber attacks.

3. Lack of Explainability: Large language models often operate as "black boxes," making it challenging to understand how they arrive at specific decisions or generate certain outputs. This lack of transparency raises concerns about accountability and trust.

4. Security Risks: As AI systems become more integrated into various domains, concerns about their susceptibility to attacks exist. Adversarial attacks, where input data is manipulated to deceive the model, are of particular concern.

5. Unintended Consequences: Deploying large language models may lead to unforeseen consequences. For instance, the generation of misleading or harmful content, unintentional biases, or other adverse outcomes arise from these models' complexity and scale.

Many AI experts are concerned with aligning the goals of AGI with human values and the potential for unintended consequences. AGI systems need to be designed with sufficient safety measures.

There will be a "control problem," emphasizing the difficulty of ensuring that a superintelligent AI system behaves in ways aligned with human values and doesn't pose risks to humanity.

WHAT PARTICULAR SET OF HUMAN VALUES CAN THE WORLD AGREE ON?

There will probably be all kinds of contrasting and competing AI systems, leading to an arms race and the weaponization of AI.

How can we (who are we) align the goals and values of AGI with a globally agreed-upon set of human values to prevent unintended consequences?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

What are the potential dangers of artificial intelligence?

15 Potential AI Risks  

• Automation-spurred job loss.

• Deepfakes.

• Privacy Violations.

• Algorithmic bias caused by bad data.

• Socioeconomic inequality.

• Danger to humans.

• Unclear legal regulation.

• Social manipulation.

In a world where billions of people are starving and migrants wander the Earth in search of food, who will shepherd and police AI?

Who has the money and resources to run AI, and what are their goals? Profit? Power? Control? State Control, Private Control, or a perfect combination of both? How much energy and resources can we channel into these data centers or decentralized systems?

Do we need quantum computing to ensure safety and security? Security for people or what? 

WE HAVE A HUMAN NATURE PROBLEM.

“Guns don't kill, people do.” 

Can “we” develop robust and verifiable control methods to ensure AGI's safe deployment? Who regulates it? 

Jobs? What kinds of jobs will AI, LLMs, and AGI generate? What kind of people will we become if we are over-dependent on machines?

Oh, and there is still the global neoliberal, financialized, unfettered, omnicidal heat engine and our religious belief in growth as measured by GDP. A.K.A Capitalism. What do we do with those values? Will AI be wise enough to nudge us toward change if we are not?

Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science and co-author of the widely used textbook "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach," has emphasized the importance of aligning AI systems with human values to ensure their safe and beneficial deployment.

What values? Values randomly scrapped off of social media? Who will curate the inputs or develop the algorithms to curate inputs by machines? What libraries will we use, Western, Eastern, Eurasian—perhaps in Esperanto?

Demis Hassabis is the co-founder and CEO of DeepMind. This leading AI research lab has been instrumental in advancing the field of reinforcement learning and neural networks, with a focus on AGI.

Who among us knows how neural networks work? We live in a black box with genies stochastically flying around doing opaque miraculous deeds. What will "They" (insert conspiracy theory here) want to use them for, and why? To what purpose?

Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Yann LeCun are three researchers often called the "Godfathers of AI" or the pioneers of deep learning. Their work has profoundly impacted the development of machine learning techniques that are crucial for AGI research.

Who uses machine learning, and to whose benefit? The Market? Are we, forever more, the beneficiaries of these technologies? We must be careful how these technologies are used and for what purpose. Can these technologies be deployed and used in a “democratic” way?

Andrew Ng is a computer scientist and co-founder of Google Brain. Ng has significantly contributed to developing deep learning algorithms and advocated for AI education. Is Andrew our friend?

Shane Legg is a co-founder of DeepMind along with Demis Hassabis. Shane Legg has contributed to the research and development of artificial intelligence, particularly in reinforcement learning and AGI.

What the heck is reinforcement learning? Do you think you should know about any of this, or will we sit around watching Netflix Black Mirror episodes until we come what may? We must get involved if we will use these technologies to benefit life on Earth.

According to experts, what are the top potential benefits of AI, LLMs, and AGI?

Do ordinary folks have any ideas about how they'd like to use the technology or benefits they'd like to experience? Who decides for us?

Automation and Efficiency:

AI has the potential to automate routine and repetitive tasks, improving efficiency and freeing up human resources for more creative and complex endeavors.

I’d love to see people having more time for creative work. Can ordinary people embrace complexity? Efficiency to what end? What of the simple life? We might want to keep bees and fish in a pristine lake with healthy fish stocks.

Medical Advancements:

AI can assist in medical diagnosis and treatment by analyzing vast amounts of medical data, identifying patterns, and providing insights to healthcare professionals. This is potentially great, but if profit is the primary driver of these endeavors, then we are in big trouble.

Improved Decision-Making:

AI systems can quickly process and analyze large datasets, helping humans make more informed and data-driven decisions across various industries. Decisions to what ends?

Enhanced Productivity:

Businesses can use AI to streamline processes, optimize supply chains, and improve productivity. To make more stuff?

Natural Language Processing:

LLMs and advancements in natural language processing enable more realistic and sophisticated interactions between humans and machines, improving communication and user experience. All of my best friends are machines.

Scientific Discovery:

AI can accelerate scientific research by analyzing complex datasets, simulating experiments, and identifying patterns that might be challenging for humans to discern. How much control do we want to give our machines?

Environmental Monitoring:

AI can contribute to environmental monitoring and conservation efforts by analyzing data from various sources, such as satellite imagery and sensor networks, to track ecosystem changes and address environmental challenges. This would be nice.

Personalized Services:

AI can tailor services and recommendations based on individual preferences and behavior, providing a more personalized experience in entertainment, marketing, and e-commerce. To heck with that, I need to interact with people. I need good relationships.

Education and Training:

AI technologies can support personalized learning experiences, providing adaptive educational content and assessments tailored to individual student needs. Education is a fine use case, but we still need teachers. We can’t thrive without the human “interface.”

Assistive Technologies:

AI can be applied to develop assistive technologies that enhance the quality of life for individuals with disabilities, offering mobility, communication, and independent living solutions. This would be great. I hope this happens.

Exploration and Space Research:

AI can aid in space exploration by assisting in autonomous navigation, analyzing data from space probes, and supporting the planning of complex missions. I love the idea of intelligent machines exploring the universe while people stay on Earth doing Earthling stuff to maintain a healthy biosphere for diverse life forms. 

Innovation and Creativity:

AI systems can generate novel ideas, designs, and solutions, contributing to innovation and creativity across various industries. It can help creative people.

additional book suggestion

A sweeping study of how capitalism first promoted fossil fuels with the rise of steam power—and contributed to the worsening climate crisis

The more we know about the catastrophic implications of climate change, the more fossil fuels we burn. How did we end up in this mess? In this masterful new history, Andreas Malm claims it all began in Britain with the rise of steam power. But why did manufacturers turn from traditional sources of power, notably water mills, to an engine fired by coal? Contrary to established views, steam offered neither cheaper nor more abundant energy but superior control of subordinate labor. Animated by fossil fuels, capital could concentrate production at the most profitable sites and during the most convenient hours, as it continues to do today.
 
Sweeping from nineteenth-century Manchester to the emissions explosion in China, from the original triumph of coal to the stalled shift to renewables, this study hones in on the burning heart of capital and demonstrates, in unprecedented depth, that turning down the heat will mean a radical overthrow of the current economic order.

“The definitive deep history on how our economic system created the climate crisis. Superb, essential reading from one of the most original thinkers on the subject.”
—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine

ARTICLES

The 15 Biggest Risks Of Artificial Intelligence

12 Risks and Dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

SQ10. What are the most pressing dangers of AI?

Here's Why AI May Be Extremely Dangerous—Whether It's Conscious or Not

The risks of AI are real but manageable

Against Safetyism

AI system outperforms humans in global weather forecasting

Among the most extreme sci-fi speculations of AI doomsday are “Roko’s basilisk” and the “paperclip maximizer” thought experiments, which are designed to illustrate the risks of a superintelligent, self-replicating, and constantly self-improving future AGI — one that might become uncontrollable and incomprehensible, even for its creators. But these hypothetical scenarios are built on questionable, and often highly anthropomorphizing assumptions, such as that safety measures can’t be built into these systems, that AI can't be contained, that a future AGI is subject to the selection pressures of natural evolution, or that a superintelligent AI will invariably turn evil. 

And a deeper problem with these extreme scenarios is that it’s essentially impossible to predict the medium-term, let alone the long-term impact of emerging technologies. Over the past half-century, even leading AI researchers completely failed in their predictions of AGI timelines. So, instead of worrying about sci-fi paperclips or Terminator scenarios, we should be more concerned, for example, with all the diseases for which we weren’t able to discover a cure or the scientific breakthroughs that won’t materialize because we’ve prematurely banned AI research and development based on the improbable scenario of a sentient AI superintelligence annihilating humanity.

Last year, a Google engineer and AI ethicist claimed that Google’s chatbot achieved sentience. And leading AI researchers and others, including Elon Musk, just recently signed a letter calling for a moratorium on AI research — all it will take, in other words, are six months to “flatten the curve” of AI progress (obviously, China’s CCP would be very supportive). Signatories seem to not only fear the shimmering cyborg exoskeletons crushing human skulls — which Terminator 2’s opening scene immortalized — but also the automatization of jobs and, predictably, fake news, propaganda, misinformation, and other “threats to democracy.” But the call for a moratorium on AI — which confuses existential risks with concerns about unemployment — doesn’t define what the risks and their probabilities are, and lacks any criteria for when and how to lift the ban. So, given that regulations for AI applications, such as for autonomous driving and medical diagnostics, already exist, it’s unclear why a ban on basic AI research and development is needed in the first place.

But, as if a temporary ban on AI research isn’t enough, Eliezer Yudkowsky, a leading proponent of AI doomerism — and who expects that humanity will very soon go extinct due to a superhuman intelligence-induced Armageddon — called for a complete shutdown of all large GPU clusters, restricting the computing power anyone is allowed to use in training AI systems, and, if necessary, even destroying data centers by airstrike. The only way to prevent the apocalypse, according to this extreme form of AI safety doomerism, is for America to reserve the right to launch a preemptive strike on a nuclear power to defeat Ernie, the chatbot of Chinese search engine Baidu. (This would be doubly ironic, because China's Great Firewall turns out to be a pioneering effort to censor text at scale, exactly what generative AI companies are being called on to do today.) It’s one thing to generate an infinite number of improbable apocalypse scenarios, but it’s another thing to advocate for nuclear war based on the release of a chatbot and purely speculative sci-fi scenarios involving Skynet. 

“Deeply-entrenched risk aversion” as “paralysis”:

Now, while concerns about the safety of emerging technologies might be reasonable in some cases, they are symptoms of a societally deeply-entrenched risk aversion. Over the past decades, we’ve become extremely risk intolerant. It’s not just AI or genetic engineering where this risk aversion manifests. From the abandonment of nuclear energy and the bureaucratization of science to the eternal recurrence of formulaic and generic reboots, sequels, and prequels, this collective risk intolerance has infected and paralyzed society and culture at large (think Marvel Cinematic Universe or startups pitched as “X for Y” where X is something unique and impossible to replicate). 

Take nuclear energy. Over the last decades, irrational fear-mongering resulted in the abandonment and demonization of the cleanest, safest, and most reliable energy source available to humanity. Despite an abundance of evidence, which scientifically demonstrates its safety, we abandoned an eternal source of energy, which could have powered civilization indefinitely, for unreliable and dirty substitutes while we simultaneously worry about catastrophic climate change. It’s hard to conceive now but nuclear energy once encapsulated the utopian promise of infinite progress, and nuclear engineering was, up until the 1960s, one of the most prestigious scientific fields. Today, mainly because of Hiroshima, Fukushima, and the pop-culture imagery of a nuclear holocaust though, the narrative has shifted from “alchemy,” “transmutation,” and “renewal” to dystopian imagery of “contamination,” “mutation,” and “destruction.” Although most deaths during the Fukushima incident resulted from evacuation measures — and more people died because of Japan’s shutting down of nuclear reactors than the accident itself — many Western nations, in response to the meltdown, started to obstruct the construction of new reactors or phase out nuclear energy altogether. This resulted in the perverse situation where Germany, which has obsessively focused on green and sustainable energy, now needs to rely on on highly polluting coal for up to 40% of its electricity demand. The rise of irrational nuclear fear illustrates a fundamental problem with safetyism: obsessively attempting to eliminate all visible risks often creates invisible risks that are far more consequential for human flourishing. Just imagine what would have happened, if we hadn’t phased out nuclear reactors — would we now have to obsess over “net-zero” or “2°C targets”? 

Mitigating risk creates risk:

Now, whether we think that an AI apocalypse is imminent or the lab-leak hypothesis is correct or not, by mitigating or suppressing visible risks, safetyism is often creating invisible or hidden risks that are far more consequential or impactful than the risks it attempts to mitigate. In a way, this makes sense: creating a new technology and deploying it widely entails a definite vision for the future. But a focus on the risks means a definite vision of the past, and a more stochastic model of what the future might hold. Given time’s annoying habit of only moving in one direction, we have no choice but to live in somebody’s future — the question is whether it’s somebody with a plan or somebody with a neurosis.

What Will Allow Us To Free Our Imaginations From The Lies?

Over the past twenty years, I've noticed that we are bred to be consumers. What we learn to think, believe, and do is about performing our part as consumers. Profit flows from our addiction to nice stuff. Money, power, and control over resources go to the few who are aggressive and competitive enough to play The Great Game and channel profit to themselves. In our current world, nothing else is more important than these functions.

It’s a global aspiration—one we have been trained to desire

I follow experts in various domains, well-meaning, earnest people who do their best to do good work and communicate their findings to ordinary people when they think we need to know. When they stick to their area of expertise, they are tremendously valuable. The main problem with sincere, caring experts is sometimes they need to remember that they are not experts in everything. Most importantly, kind and diligent experts must maintain the profit-first narrative the minute they stray from what they know well. I could spend all day making a list of examples, but I don't have to; you know this if you are curious, pay attention to current events, have developed a good bull shit detector kit, read books, and have a modicum of critical thinking skills. 

"Who's the best critical thinker you ever saw?"

Humble, all too humble. No, great confidence is attractive.

I was rattling on last month about Samantha Hill's "The Problem From Hell" America in the Age of Genocide. It's an informative book—I highly recommend it. I think she is an impressive person. When she wrote the book, she was the Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. 

Samantha Jane Power (born September 21, 1970) is an American journalist, diplomat, and government official currently serving as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. Previously, she served as the 28th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Samantha Jane Power is the epitome of the mainstream of The Great Game. I am sure she's a good person. She continues to have a stellar career. Once admitted to The Great Game on that level, the most important thing to do is to keep playing, stay relevant, and never get kicked out of the club. You have a responsibility to all the Players who share The Great Game with you.

People who are part of the structure and system of the game of profit and control over resources must stay on script. Protecting the game is the prime directive. Maintain the proper narrative, keep your position, and advance. This is why a few days after October 7, Ms. Power trotted out the CNN script about beheaded babies and so on. Careerists like Powers won't wait for evidence, eyewitness testimony, and investigations before they go to bat for The Great Game. They will save that stoic work for their next book.

Like I said, I could present examples like this all day. Instead, I'll do what I always do and ask you to read a book. After reading it, you will be better equipped to deal with the torrent of lies coming at you all day from multiple quarters and domains you may not be familiar with, much less expert in.

So here's what I want to impress upon you: if you were born in a wealthy nation, a so-called "first world" nation, you started learning to be a good consumer in your mother's womb. Depending on how privileged and talented you are, you began training to be a diligent consumer or a Player from preschool. If you had great talent and people who could and would support you with their attention, mentorship, money, and resources, you'd go to university and train to be a clerk for the Players. If you performed your job well, you would rise through the ranks, take advantage of opportunities to make more money and consume more and better things. You'd gain status, attention, fame, and more privilege. You'd have a family of your own, only now you are wealthier than your parents and your grandparents and able to pass wealth on to your children who are luckier than you were and can forgo being simply a modest consumer and be trained at an Ivy League university to be a Players in The Great Game. Now, you are a guardian of the narrative from which all the lies flow, and you are powerful.

The Great Game is eternal. Even when you die, whether you have seen yourself as the center of the Universe or have been a true believer in something greater than yourself, after a profound burial ritual attended by crowds of admirers, you will be further compensated through your legacy and, for believers, great rewards in heaven. 

I'm not saying all Players are bad people; many may not know they are part of 'this thing of ours.' Excuse me, they are only following their programming, sorry, their rarified education.

The Great Game has evolved over approximately eight thousand years of civilization. Never have better tools been available to Players to help them maintain profits, control over resources, and power.

Plebs and proles (the faithful) owe all of their access to God, to lovely things, and stimulating addictions to the Players and the Super Consumers who drive The Great Game. We all have our part to play.

All of this is to say that financialized, neoliberal global capitalism and its derivatives are going to destroy The Great Game and civilization with it, and there is nothing we can do about it because it's the only thing we know. Even the many earnest experts, the brilliant minds I follow, hardly notice The Great Game because we are all functionaries in The Great Game. We are addicted to what we think, believe, and do and cannot discover a perspective where we can see beyond our limited role.

Everything in our world is commodified and traded on the markets of roles, stereotypes, and big lies.

You will hear clever people say clever things before they reflexively trot out the big lies that make up the grand narrative of The Great Game. 

The only way to grow out of this predicament would be to be born and grow up in a completely different world. Circumstances will dictate when this becomes possible. The Great Reset is nothing more than the collapse of civilization and the possibility of a new way of living on this Great Earth, the giver of life, where consciousness arose, and dozens of other marvelous things that will always remain a mystery.

At the risk of sounding gnostic, God knows this: look into your heart, read that book, walk in the woods, cradle your pet, kiss your partner, compliment your child, be human for a quiet moment, and you will find shelter from the lies. Clear-headed, your imagination will take flight, and you'll have a glimpse of that new world I'm dreaming about.

Do We Still Have A Futurism?

We seem hell-bent on destroying civilization in a firehose of lies. I used to be fascinated by all the possibilities the future would bring; now, it breaks my heart to live in a world where too many young people have the terrible intuition that the future may be worse than the past.

This is a post from when the ‘World Wide Web’ was in its heyday, when a free-spirited virtual frontier brought hidden ideas from active minds out in the open where they could be contemplated, shared, and interacted with without fear of cancellation, doxxing, woke activists, or mob tweeting maniacs. A more intimate period before the world was on Facebook, outed, shamed, confused and outraged.

Futurism

05 May 1997 17:41

No, no, not mumbo-jumbo like Toffler or Spengler; I mean the modernist artistic movement founded in 1909 by F. T. Marinetti in friends; the first artists to really, consciously and with immense self-promotion embrace technology and constant change and shock and all that good stuff. They were the first cyberpunks, the first Discordians, and (perhaps not coincidentally) some of the first Fascists. The original (pre-WWI) Futurists were also good artists. One of my works-in-glacial-progress argues that ``we are all Futurists now'' --- all of us on the Net, anyhow.

• Recommended:

• Giacomo Balla was a good painter, but his pupils, Federigo Severini and (especially) Umberto Boccioni were even better. H. N. Abrams issued the catalog of a Boccioni retrospective a few years ago, and if anyone is looking to drop about $150 on a gift for me, that would do nicely.

• Reyner Banham has some good chapters on both the general character of the movement, and its influence on modern architecture, in Theory and Design in the First Machine Age

• Igor Golomshtok, Totalitarian Art

• The Futurist Programmers, especially the Manifesto of the Futurist Programmers.

• James Joll, Three Intellectuals in Politics [Marinetti is the last of the three, preceeed by Leon Blum and Walther Rathenau, who were respectively the Premier of France and in charge of the German economy during the Great War.]

• F. T. Marinetti

  • The Futurist Manifesto

  • The Futurist Cookbook

• The Neo-Futurists are a Chicago group which put on a damn fine show, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which tends to blow the minds of those who aren't prepared for, say, thirty plays in sixty minutes; I wasn't.

• Bruce Sterling, The Manifesto of January 3, 2000

• J. C. Taylor, Futurism is the very good catalog of a show at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1961.

• Kim Scarborough's Futurism Index has a wider selection of manifestoes, and links to such other Futurist pages as can be found.

• To read:

• Günter Berghaus, Futurism and Politics: Between Anarchist Rebellion and Fascist Reaction, 1909--1944 [Looks like pure apologetics, along the lines of ``the collaborated, but they had private objections.'' As Kolakowski says somewhere about the analogous position under Stalin, the rulers ask for no more.]

• Cinzia Sartini Blum, The Other Modernism: F. T. Marinetti's Futurist Fiction of Power

• Richard Humphreys, Futurism [Blurb]

• Marinetti, The Untameables

• Marianne Martin, Futurist Art and Theory

• Perloff, The Futurist Movement

• Russolo, Art of Noises

Shalizi Notebooks

Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an artist and a fascist. I am not a fascist, but I wonder what the new wave of fascism will look like once it fully expresses itself when the metacrisis is in full panic mode. One must never forget the past, shirk participating in the present, or neglect to imagine the future.

The Futurist Manifesto

F. T. Marinetti, 1909

We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.

Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs. Alone with the engineers in the infernal stokeholes of great ships, alone with the black spirits which rage in the belly of rogue locomotives, alone with the drunkards beating their wings against the walls.

Then we were suddenly distracted by the rumbling of huge double decker trams that went leaping by, streaked with light like the villages celebrating their festivals, which the Po in flood suddenly knocks down and uproots, and, in the rapids and eddies of a deluge, drags down to the sea.

Then the silence increased. As we listened to the last faint prayer of the old canal and the crumbling of the bones of the moribund palaces with their green growth of beard, suddenly the hungry automobiles roared beneath our windows.

`Come, my friends!’ I said. `Let us go! At last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left behind. We are going to be present at the birth of the centaur and we shall soon see the first angels fly! We must break down the gates of life to test the bolts and the padlocks! Let us go! Here is they very first sunrise on earth! Nothing equals the splendor of its red sword which strikes for the first time in our millennial darkness.’

We went up to the three snorting machines to caress their breasts. I lay along mine like a corpse on its bier, but I suddenly revived again beneath the steering wheel – a guillotine knife – which threatened my stomach. A great sweep of madness brought us sharply back to ourselves and drove us through the streets, steep and deep, like dried up torrents. Here and there unhappy lamps in the windows taught us to despise our mathematical eyes. `Smell,’ I exclaimed, `smell is good enough for wild beasts!’

And we hunted, like young lions, death with its black fur dappled with pale crosses, who ran before us in the vast violet sky, palpable and living.

And yet we had no ideal Mistress stretching her form up to the clouds, nor yet a cruel Queen to whom to offer our corpses twisted into the shape of Byzantine rings! No reason to die unless it is the desire to be rid of the too great weight of our courage!

We drove on, crushing beneath our burning wheels, like shirt-collars under the iron, the watch dogs on the steps of the houses.

Death, tamed, went in front of me at each corner offering me his hand nicely, and sometimes lay on the ground with a noise of creaking jaws giving me velvet glances from the bottom of puddles.

`Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, into the immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd!’

As soon as I had said these words, I turned sharply back on my tracks with the mad intoxication of puppies biting their tails, and suddenly there were two cyclists disapproving of me and tottering in front of me like two persuasive but contradictory reasons. Their stupid swaying got in my way. What a bore! Pouah! I stopped short, and in disgust hurled myself – vlan! – head over heels in a ditch.

Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter! I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!

As I raised my body, mud-spattered and smelly, I felt the red hot poker of joy deliciously pierce my heart. A crowd of fishermen and gouty naturalists crowded terrified around this marvel. With patient and tentative care they raised high enormous grappling irons to fish up my car, like a vast shark that had run aground. It rose slowly leaving in the ditch, like scales, its heavy coachwork of good sense and its upholstery of comfort.

We thought it was dead, my good shark, but I woke it with a single caress of its powerful back, and it was revived running as fast as it could on its fins.

Then with my face covered in good factory mud, covered with metal scratches, useless sweat and celestial grime, amidst the complaint of staid fishermen and angry naturalists, we dictated our first will and testament to all the living men on earth.

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.

2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.

3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.

4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath … a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.

6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.

7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.

8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.

9. We want to glorify war – the only cure for the world – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.

10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.

It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries.

Italy has been too long the great second-hand market. We want to get rid of the innumerable museums which cover it with innumerable cemeteries.

Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of bodies that do not know each other. Public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Reciprocal ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the same museum with blows of line and color. To make a visit once a year, as one goes to see the graves of our dead once a year, that we could allow! We can even imagine placing flowers once a year at the feet of the Gioconda! But to take our sadness, our fragile courage and our anxiety to the museum every day, that we cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?

What can you find in an old picture except the painful contortions of the artist trying to break uncrossable barriers which obstruct the full expression of his dream?

To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?

Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for artists what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambition.

For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists!

Let the good incendiaries with charred fingers come! Here they are! Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries! Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! Let the glorious canvases swim ashore! Take the picks and hammers! Undermine the foundation of venerable towns!

The oldest among us are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts! They will come against us from afar, leaping on the light cadence of their first poems, clutching the air with their predatory fingers and sniffing at the gates of the academies the good scent of our decaying spirits, already promised to the catacombs of the libraries.

But we shall not be there. They will find us at last one winter’s night in the depths of the country in a sad hangar echoing with the notes of the monotonous rain, crouched near our trembling aeroplanes, warming our hands at the wretched fire which our books of today will make when they flame gaily beneath the glittering flight of their pictures.

They will crowd around us, panting with anguish and disappointment, and exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage, will hurl themselves forward to kill us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us. And strong healthy Injustice will shine radiantly from their eyes. For art can only be violence, cruelty, injustice.

The oldest among us are not yet thirty, and yet we have already wasted treasures, treasures of strength, love, courage and keen will, hastily, deliriously, without thinking, with all our might, till we are out of breath.

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world’s summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: `We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors,’ it says. Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head!

Standing on the world’s summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!

---

I would never glorify violence. Violence makes me sick. However, I appreciate the passion of breaking free from dishonesty, blunder, laziness, gluttony, calculated foolishness, willful ignorance, addictions, and all pathological activities embedded in our global, materialistic, profit-obsessed culture.

The first half of the Twentieth Century was horrific, destructive, full of fear, death, and passion. I don't want to repeat those times, but what makes me sadder and sicker than the lies and the violence of today is the constant whimpering of our drowning souls.

Progress Drives Extinction—Reexamining Goals And Questions

Questions, all kinds of questions.

“A prudent question is one half of wisdom.” — Francis Bacon

“The one who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.” — Confucius

Questions determine the direction an inquiry goes in. You'll get your desired answers if you ask conventional questions about something traditional. Questions that help you discover something new are not tethered to ideological frameworks and dogmas. Are you arguing to learn something new or justify your beliefs? A line of questioning can be a trap that impedes one from achieving better outcomes. What do you want? Why do you want it? How are you going to achieve it? What and why are the core questions? If Carl Icon wants to generate shareholder value, he’ll ask questions about that goal.

Is our species at risk of extinction? Is our way of doing things increasing the chance that our species goes extinct, and is this outcome imminent if we don’t change course? A completely new set of questions is generated if your intuition tells you to answer yes to these questions. Those questions will force you to see the world and what we do in it in new ways.

It’s vital to ask the right kinds of questions: closed, open, funnel, leading, recall, process, rhetorical, divergent, probing, evaluation, inference, comparison, application, problem-solving, affective, and structuring are the kinds of questions one uses once one fully understands the goals of the inquiry.

My friend Mick said, “Progress is achieving good outcomes,” or something to that effect. My question is good for what? Sometimes, great outcomes can kill you. It could be that all the marvelous things we have access to today are destroying our world, our civilization, and our health.

Maybe we need new goals and new questions.

Does Israel have the right to defend itself? If one looks at the situation in Israel, maybe that question is irrelevant, only meant to keep people from wrestling with more difficult questions, questions many people are disincentivized to want to ask.

Is wealth creation a good thing? What do you mean by wealth? Once one starts questioning the questions, one’s lines of inquiry get a lot more complex.

The following is an outline based on the discussion about whether progress is going to kill us. I think our civilization is an omnicidal heat engine (the Anthropocene) that’s likely to destroy itself. It’s also probable that our way of doing things drives not only the extinction of flora and fauna but might also end in our species’ extinction.

The Will To Live

"The Will to Live" is a concept that transcends various domains and perspectives, encompassing philosophical, biological, psychological, and cultural dimensions. It is often used to describe the innate drive or instinct within living organisms to survive and thrive. 

• Leo Tolstoy: The Religious Path

• Albert Camus: The Atheistic Path

• William James: The Spiritual Path

• Richard Dawkins: The Path of Evolution

• Niccolo Machiavelli: The Path of Power and Politics

• Lao Tsu: Harmony with Nature

From a biological standpoint, the will to live is deeply rooted in the instinct for self-preservation and reproduction. It drives behaviors that ensure an individual organism's and its species' survival. Biological adaptations, such as the fight-or-flight response, can be seen as manifestations of this will to live.

Philosophical Perspective:

Philosophically, the will to live has been a central theme in existential philosophy. Thinkers like Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche explored the concept, with Schopenhauer positing an overarching force, the "will," as the driving factor behind all existence. On the other hand, Nietzsche discussed the will to power, emphasizing the inherent drive for self-overcoming and self-expression. (Epistemology, Ontology, Ethics, Metaphysics, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Hedonism)

Psychological Perspective:

In psychology, the will to live intersects with concepts such as resilience and the human drive for meaning and purpose. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, developed logotherapy, which centers on the search for meaning as a fundamental motivation for human existence. (Poly-crisis, Metacrisis, meaning-making, sensemaking, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Freud, Jung)

Cultural and Spiritual Perspective:

Many cultural and spiritual traditions recognize and celebrate the concept of the will to live. In religious contexts, the idea may be associated with divine purpose or the sacredness of life. Cultural practices often emphasize the importance of perseverance, hope, and the pursuit of a meaningful existence.

Medical and Ethical Perspective:

In medicine and ethics, the will to live is a significant factor in decisions related to patient care, end-of-life choices, and medical interventions. Respect for an individual's autonomy and their expressed will to live or not to live is a central ethical consideration.

Environmental and Ecological Perspective:

The will to live is not limited to individual organisms; it extends to ecosystems and the biosphere. The interconnectedness of species and their adaptations to environmental challenges expresses the collective will to persist and adapt to changing conditions.

Artistic and Literary Perspective:

The theme of the will to live is a recurring motif in literature, poetry, and art. Creative works often explore the human experience, resilience, and the search for meaning amidst adversity—a theme in positions ranging from classical literature to contemporary storytelling.

Social and Community Perspective:

The will to live is not solely an individual endeavor but is also reflected in the collective aspirations of communities and societies. Social movements, resilience in the face of challenges, and pursuing a better future for generations are expressions of the communal will to live. (socialism, democracy, anarcho-syndicalism)

Scientific Perspective:

In evolutionary biology, the will to live is embedded in the principles of natural selection. Traits that enhance an organism's ability to survive and reproduce are favored, contributing to the continuation of life and the adaptation of species over time. (biology, oceanography, chemistry, ecosystems, systems theory, physics)

Educational and Personal Development Perspective:

In education and personal development, fostering the will to live involves nurturing resilience, a growth mindset, and a sense of purpose. Encouraging individuals to explore their passions and find meaning in their pursuits can contribute to a more fulfilling life. (self-help, human potential, graduate school, trade school, music, arts, crafts)

"The Will to Live" is a multifaceted concept that resonates across disciplines and human experiences, reflecting the deep-seated and dynamic nature of the drive for existence and flourishing.

Progress & Modernity

"Progress" and "modernity" are often associated with technological advancements, economic development, and societal changes. While they bring numerous benefits, they can also contribute to the acceleration of extinction in various ways. Understanding the interconnectedness of human activities with the environment and biodiversity is essential.

Habitat Destruction:

Urbanization and Infrastructure Development: As societies modernize, there is a demand for infrastructure development and urban expansion that often leads to the destruction of natural habitats, displacing and fragmenting ecosystems, which can result in the extinction of species unable to adapt or migrate. (carbon pulse, energy, materials, scarcity, ill health)

Pollution:

Industrial and Agricultural Pollution: Modern industrial and agricultural practices release air, water, and soil pollutants. This pollution negatively impacts the health of ecosystems and their inhabitants, contributing to the decline and extinction of many species.

Climate Change:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Industrialization and the reliance on fossil fuels contribute significantly to the emission of greenhouse gases that lead to climate change, altering temperature and precipitation patterns, which can disrupt ecosystems and make them uninhabitable for certain species.

Overexploitation:

Resource Extraction: Modern societies often demand large quantities of natural resources for energy, manufacturing, and consumption. Overexploitation of these resources, such as deforestation, overfishing, and mining, results in the decline and extinction of plant and animal species.

Introduction of Invasive Species:

Global Trade and Travel: increased global connectivity through trade and travel facilitates the unintentional introduction of invasive species to new environments. These invasive species can outcompete or prey upon native species, leading to population declines and extinctions. It also degrades local culture and traditions and exacerbates wealth gaps. (Airbnb, franchises)

Technological Advancements in Hunting:

Advanced Hunting & Fishing Techniques: Progress in technology has enabled more efficient hunting and fishing methods, putting additional pressure on already vulnerable species. Overhunting and overfishing, particularly massing fishing trawlers, the exotic pet trade, or traditional medicine, can lead to population crashes and extinctions. (anthropocentric biomass, factory farms, monocultures, water use)

Genetic Pollution:

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Introducing genetically modified organisms into the environment can lead to genetic pollution, where altered genes can crossbreed with wild populations, potentially threatening the survival of natural species with a negative impact on biodiversity.

Fragmentation of Ecosystems:

Infrastructure Development: Roads, dams, and other infrastructure projects can fragment ecosystems, isolating populations and reducing genetic diversity. This isolation makes species more susceptible to the adverse effects of environmental changes and increases the risk of local extinctions.

Lack of Environmental Regulation:

Inadequate Policies and Enforcement: In some cases, rapid progress and modernization may be needed to improve the development of effective environmental policies and regulations. Without proper safeguards, however, ecosystems and species may suffer from the negative consequences of human activities.

Sustainable practices, conservation efforts, and responsible development can mitigate these negative impacts and ensure a more harmonious coexistence between human activities and the natural world.

The financialization of the economy, excessive debt, capital on capital returns, and globalism can contribute to the acceleration of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss in many ways.

Short-Term Profit Maximization:

Financialization and Speculation: The financialization of the economy often prioritizes short-term profit maximization over long-term sustainability. Speculative activities, such as investing in commodities and natural resources, can drive overexploitation and contribute to the destruction of ecosystems. (All of this is tied to consumerism, conventional economic theories, growth, neoliberalism, colonialism, imperialism, and modern capitalism.)

Excessive Debt and Environmental Impact:

Debt-Driven Resource Extraction: Excessive debt levels can force companies and nations to exploit natural resources to meet financial obligations, leading to overharvesting, deforestation, and other forms of environmental degradation contributing to species loss. (Borrowing from the future, IMF, corporate control over sovereign governments)

Capital on Capital Returns:

Emphasis on Shareholder Value: Opportunities for capital on capital returns and maximizing shareholder value can encourage companies to prioritize profits over environmental sustainability. Practices such as aggressive cost-cutting, resource extraction, and pollution may result in habitat destruction and negatively impact ecosystems.

Globalization and Supply Chains:

Ecological Footprint of Global Supply Chains: The globalized economy often relies on extensive supply chains traversing the globe, leading to increased ecological footprints as products are sourced, manufactured, and transported over long distances, contributing to deforestation, pollution, and habitat destruction. (black box complexity) (energy, oil, gas, carbon pollution, increased work capabilities)

Lack of Regulation and Accountability:

Global Regulatory Gaps: The global nature of financial markets and economic activities can create regulatory gaps, making it challenging to enforce environmental protections uniformly. Without robust regulations and international cooperation, destructive practices may go unchecked. (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, United Nations Climate Org., COP28, etc.)

Erosion of Local Economies:

Impact on Local Livelihoods: Capital on capital returns and globalization can lead to the erosion of local economies that are often more in tune with sustainable practices. Large-scale industrial activities may replace traditional, environmentally friendly livelihoods, disrupting ecosystems and contributing to species decline. (Small is Beautiful, Think Global, Act Local)

Land Use Change and Monoculture Agriculture:

Financial Pressures on Agriculture: Global economic forces can exert pressure on agriculture to maximize production, often converting diverse ecosystems into monoculture agricultural landscapes. This shift can result in the loss of biodiversity and disrupt natural habitats. Small farms can’t survive, and large-scale corporate farming takes over where only profitable crops are grown with energy-intensive methods. (Global Permaculture, Small Farms, Suburban Yard Gardens)

Resource Extraction and Pollution:

Unsustainable Resource Extraction: Pursuing profit in a globalized economy can drive unsustainable resource extraction, leading to environmental pollution and habitat destruction. Mining, logging, and industrial activities can release pollutants that negatively impact ecosystems and contribute to species extinction.

Climate Change and Financial Risks:

Climate-Related Financial Risks: The global financial system is exposed to risks associated with climate change. Extreme weather events, resource scarcity, and other climate-related challenges can disrupt economic activities, exacerbate environmental degradation, and affect biodiversity. Insurance companies are threatened by excessive risk.

Addressing these issues requires a holistic approach to integrating environmental sustainability into economic and financial decision-making. This includes developing and enforcing international ecological regulations, promoting sustainable business practices, and shifting toward economic models prioritizing long-term ecological health over short-term financial gains. (Global Cooperation in a Multipolar World)

Traditionalism, Religion, and Ways of Life

Understanding the traditional moral and ethical foundations of religions and indigenous cultures, particularly their reverence for nature, can play a crucial role in helping humanity mitigate the negative influences of progress and modernity.

Promoting Stewardship and Respect for Nature:

Many religious and indigenous traditions emphasize the idea of humans as stewards of the Earth, responsible for taking care of the natural world. Understanding and embracing these values can lead to greater responsibility and respect for nature, encouraging sustainable practices and discouraging exploitative behaviors.

Fostering a Sense of Connection and Interdependence:

Traditional beliefs often highlight the interconnectedness of all living things. Recognizing and internalizing this interconnectedness can foster a sense of empathy and understanding that goes beyond anthropocentrism. This broader perspective may lead to more conscientious decision-making accounts for the well-being of ecosystems and all species.

Balancing Material Progress with Spiritual Values:

Many religious and indigenous ethical frameworks advocate for a balance between material and spiritual aspects of life. By incorporating these values into modern societies, there can be a shift toward more sustainable models of development that prioritize well-being and spiritual fulfillment over excessive consumption and environmental degradation.

Encouraging Sustainable Practices:

Indigenous cultures often have a deep knowledge of sustainable practices that have been developed and refined over generations. Integrating this traditional ecological knowledge with modern science can lead to innovative and sustainable agricultural solutions, resource management, and conservation solutions.

Inspiring Environmental Ethics:

Religious and indigenous ethical teachings often include principles that apply to the environment. For example, concepts of justice, compassion, and non-violence can be extended to the treatment of the environment, advocating for fair and sustainable resource use and protection of ecosystems. (Reverence)

Respecting Biodiversity and Cultural Diversity:

Indigenous cultures often have strong connections to specific landscapes and ecosystems, and their traditional practices aim to preserve biodiversity and watersheds and harmonize with their surroundings. Recognizing and respecting the cultural diversity of indigenous peoples is an essential step toward promoting biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

Creating Environmental Awareness:

Religious teachings and indigenous wisdom often contain narratives and rituals that celebrate the beauty and importance of nature and the mystery of creation. By incorporating these elements into education and public awareness campaigns, societies can cultivate a deeper appreciation for the environment, fostering a collective commitment to its protection.

Influencing Policy and Governance:

Religion and indigenous cultures' moral and ethical foundations can influence political and legal systems. Advocacy based on these values can lead to the development of policies that prioritize environmental conservation, the protection of sacred sites, and the rights of indigenous communities.

Cultivating a Sense of Awe and Wonder:

Many religious and indigenous traditions encourage individuals to experience awe and wonder in the face of nature. Cultivating this sense of reverence can inspire people to value the natural world beyond its instrumental utility, leading to a more profound and lasting commitment to environmental stewardship.

Integrating traditional moral and ethical foundations that emphasize the sacredness of nature can provide valuable guidance in navigating the challenges posed by progress and modernity. This integration can lead to a more sustainable and balanced coexistence with the environment, promoting the well-being of both current and future generations. (God, Humanism, Ways of Life)

Science-Based

A science-based approach to resource management is essential for creating a more sustainable global civilization, especially under novel economic conditions.

Systems Thinking:

Adopt a holistic, systems-thinking approach to understand the interconnectedness of social, economic, and environmental systems. Recognize that actions in one part of the world can have far-reaching consequences on global ecosystems. (understanding complexity)

Resource Efficiency:

Prioritize resource efficiency and circular economy principles. Design products and processes that minimize waste, encourage recycling and extend the lifespan of goods to reduce the pressure on finite resources and decrease the environmental impact of production and consumption.

Renewable Energy Transition:

Accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources. Investing in and scaling up renewable energy technologies can reduce dependence on finite fossil fuels, mitigate climate change, and decrease environmental degradation associated with energy production. (The Cautionary Principle, Careful Geoengineering, A Measured, Patient Approach)

Sustainable Agriculture:

Promote sustainable agriculture practices prioritizing soil health, biodiversity conservation, and water efficiency. Agroecological approaches, such as organic farming and permaculture, can enhance resilience to climate change and reduce the environmental footprint of food production.

Conservation and Restoration:

 Implementing conservation and restoration initiatives to protect biodiversity and restore ecosystems includes establishing protected areas, reforestation projects, and preserving critical habitats.

Technology for Monitoring and Management:

Utilize advanced technologies such as satellite imagery, remote sensing, and data analytics for real-time monitoring of resource use, deforestation, and environmental changes. This information can inform evidence-based decision-making and resource management strategies.

Regenerative Practices:

Embrace regenerative practices that aim to sustain current resource levels and restore and revitalize ecosystems, including regenerative agriculture, forestry, and fisheries practices that work with natural processes to enhance ecological health.

Inclusive Governance and Stakeholder Engagement:

Establish inclusive governance structures that involve diverse stakeholders, including local communities, indigenous peoples, and scientific experts. Collaboration and shared decision-making can lead to more effective and equitable resource management. (Democratic values & developing a culture that values good governance.)

Green Finance and Sustainable Investments:

Encourage green finance and sustainable investments. Redirecting capital toward environmentally friendly and socially responsible projects can drive innovation, support sustainable businesses, and incentivize adopting eco-friendly practices.

Education and Awareness:

Promote environmental education and awareness at all levels of society. An informed and engaged public is more likely to support sustainable practices, demand responsible policies, and contribute to positive behavioral changes. Organize at a local level and put pressure on political and business leaders.

Adaptive Management:

Embrace adaptive management approaches that acknowledge the complexity and fragility of ecosystems. Regularly assess the effectiveness of resource management strategies, be open to adjusting policies based on new scientific findings, and learn from successes and failures.

International Cooperation:

Foster international cooperation to address global challenges. Environmental issues transcend national borders, and collaborative efforts are necessary to manage resources sustainably, protect biodiversity, and address climate change. The profit-first incentive must be challenged.

By integrating these science-based principles into resource management practices, societies can work towards a more sustainable global civilization that balances economic prosperity with environmental conservation, social well-being, and justice. This approach is crucial for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene and creating a resilient and thriving web of life for future generations.

Economic Growth

When imagining sustainable economic growth, it's important to consider fundamental constraints to ensure that development is ecologically viable, socially equitable, and economically resilient.

Ecological Limits:

Growth should operate within the planet's ecological capacity, including considerations of resource availability, biodiversity conservation, and the planet's ability to absorb waste and pollution.

Climate Change:

Economic growth must align with efforts to mitigate climate change, which involves transitioning to renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, new concepts of wealth, and adapting to the impacts of a hotter climate.

Resource Scarcity:

Addressing resource scarcity requires moving towards a circular economy, efficiently using resources, and, where possible, recycling and minimizing waste. Sustainable growth models should reduce dependence on finite resources and encourage responsible resource management. We must consume less.

Social Equity:

Sustainable economic growth should prioritize social equity, ensuring that benefits are distributed fairly among different segments of society, including addressing income inequality, providing equal opportunities, and safeguarding human rights.

Population Growth:

We must consider the relationship between economic growth and population growth. Strategies for sustainable development should account for demographic trends and aim for a balance that supports human well-being without exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity.

Technological Innovation:

Technology can be a double-edged sword. While innovation can drive sustainable growth, it must be carefully managed to avoid unintended environmental and social consequences. Ethical and responsible innovation is crucial for long-term sustainability.

Waste Management:

Sustainable growth models need to address the issue of waste, including plastic pollution, electronic waste, and other non-biodegradable materials. Emphasizing recycling and reducing waste generation are vital components.

Economic Resilience:

Economic growth must be resilient. Systems should be robust enough to withstand financial, environmental, or social shocks.

Alternative Economic Growth Models

Considering these constraints, here are some sustainable economic growth models. The status quo is pathological.

Circular Economy:

This model emphasizes reducing, reusing, and recycling materials to minimize waste. It aims to decouple economic growth from resource consumption and environmental degradation.

Implementation requires policies and incentives that encourage recycling, remanufacturing, and the design of products for easy disassembly and reuse. Planned obsolescence must be eliminated. Products must be built to last. Fashion trends can be expressed through arts & crafts, ideas, and social activities.

Doughnut Economics:

Developed by economist Kate Raworth, this model envisions an economic system within the "doughnut," representing the social foundation and ecological ceiling. It seeks to meet the needs of all within the planet's means. This model requires policies that address social inequality, promote sustainable resource use, and prioritize well-being over GDP growth.

Steady-State Economy:

In a steady-state economy, the focus is on maintaining a stable level of resource consumption and population size to avoid exceeding ecological limits. Qualitative improvements in well-being replace economic growth.

Instead of pursuing endless growth, the emphasis is on qualitative improvements and sustainable well-being. This model requires policies that encourage resource efficiency, limit population growth, and prioritize the conservation of ecosystems.

Green Growth:

This model aims to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation by promoting the development of environmentally friendly technologies, renewable energy sources, and sustainable practices.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

The United Nations' SDGs provide a comprehensive framework for sustainable development, addressing issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, and environmental sustainability. Achieving these goals requires an integrated approach to economic growth.

Regenerative Economics:

This model goes beyond sustainability to focus on restoring and enhancing ecological and social systems. It seeks to create economies that contribute positively to the planet's health and communities' well-being. This model requires investment in regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, and restoration projects that improve ecosystem health.

Localism and Community-Based Economics:

Emphasizing local production and consumption can reduce the environmental impact of long-distance Transportation and foster community resilience. Community-based economic models focus on meeting local needs sustainably. This model prioritizes support for local businesses, community gardens, and initiatives that promote self-sufficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of goods and services.

Degrowth:

In contrast to traditional growth-oriented models, degrowth advocates for reducing overall economic activity to achieve sustainability. The emphasis is on improving well-being without continuous material growth. This model requires policies that prioritize leisure, quality of life, and environmental sustainability over the pursuit of ever-increasing production and consumption.

Well-Being Economy:

A well-being economy focuses on maximizing the well-being of individuals and communities rather than solely on economic output. It considers social and environmental factors in decision-making. Measurement of well-being indicators, such as health, education, and happiness, alongside traditional economic metrics. This model emphasizes policies that prioritize social welfare and environmental sustainability.

Commons-Based Peer Production:

Commons-based peer production involves collaborative, decentralized efforts to create and manage resources as shared goods. This model challenges traditional notions of ownership and encourages collective action. Open-source projects, community-based initiatives, and cooperative enterprises harness the power of collaboration for the common good.

Ultimately, achieving sustainable economic growth requires a paradigm shift that values well-being, environmental stewardship, and social equity over purely quantitative measures of economic output. Integrating these principles into economic policy and practice is essential for building a more sustainable and resilient future.

Implementing these alternative economic systems often requires a combination of regulatory frameworks, policy incentives, and shifts in cultural and societal values. The goal is to create economic models that align with the planet's ecological limits, promote social equity, and prioritize the well-being of current and future generations.

Ecosystem Destruction

Ecosystems, the complex webs of interactions between living organisms and their physical environment, can be disrupted and destroyed by various human activities and natural processes.

Habitat Destruction and Fragmentation:

Deforestation: Clearing large areas of forests for agriculture, logging, and urban development removes critical habitats and disrupts ecosystems.

Urbanization: Expanding cities and infrastructure often leads to the fragmentation and loss of natural habitats, isolating species and reducing biodiversity.

Pollution:

Air Pollution: Emissions from industrial processes, vehicles, and other sources introduce pollutants into the air, affecting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Water Pollution: Runoff from agriculture, industrial discharges, and improper waste disposal can contaminate water bodies, harming aquatic life and ecosystems.

Soil Pollution: Using pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals can degrade soil quality and impact plant and animal species.

Climate Change:

Global Warming: Rising temperatures, linked to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, can alter ecosystems, affecting the distribution and behavior of plant and animal species. When our habitat is dead, we all starve to death. Famine happened all throughout history and in every region. No one is immune from global heating.

Extreme Weather Events: More frequent and intense storms, droughts, and heatwaves associated with climate change can cause direct damage to ecosystems.

Overexploitation:

Overfishing: Unsustainable fishing practices, including overfishing and destructive fishing methods, deplete fish populations, disrupt marine ecosystems, and lead to the collapse of fisheries.

Illegal Wildlife Trade: Poaching and the illegal trade of wildlife can lead to population declines and even extinction of vulnerable species.

Invasive Species:

Introduction of Non-Native Species: Human activities, such as global trade and travel, can introduce non-native species to new environments. These invasive species can outcompete native species, leading to biodiversity loss.

Resource Extraction:

Mining: Extracting minerals and resources through mining can result in habitat destruction, soil erosion, and contamination of water sources, negatively impacting ecosystems.

Logging: Unsustainable logging practices can destroy forests, affecting the flora and fauna that depend on these habitats.

Agricultural Practices:

Monoculture Farming: Large-scale agriculture that relies on monoculture can deplete soil nutrients, increase the use of pesticides, and disrupt local ecosystems. Monoculture farming at a scale that is profitable requires financialization, large energy inputs, and technology, and no matter how efficient it is, it’s still destructive.

Irrigation: Excessive water extraction for irrigation can lead to the depletion of water sources and alter the natural flow of rivers, affecting aquatic ecosystems. We are experiencing a global water crisis now.

Infrastructure Development:

Dams and Water Diversion: Construction of dams and water diversion for irrigation can alter natural river systems, impacting aquatic habitats and migratory patterns of fish. As the world heats up, these projects will falter and erode.

Roads and Transportation: Infrastructure development can fragment habitats, leading to roadkill, isolation of populations, and disruption of migration routes. Roads are energy-intensive and cost billions to maintain. We will need to rethink transportation on all levels.

Wildfires:

Human-Induced Fires: Land clearing, agricultural burning, and arson contribute to wildfires that can devastate ecosystems, particularly in fire-prone regions. As the world heats up, we are running out of capacity to control fires.

Disease:

Introduction of Pathogens: The movement of people and goods can introduce diseases to new areas, causing population declines and even extinctions of vulnerable species. Novel viruses and bacterial diseases are being released as permafrost melts.

Addressing ecosystem destruction requires a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach, including conservation efforts, sustainable resource management, and global cooperation to mitigate the impact of human activities on the natural world. The world will fail if we put trillions of dollars worth of resources into war and defense.

World Peace

World peace can profoundly and positively impact sustainability and civilizational health across various dimensions, including financial, social, political, and economic perspectives. 

Financial Perspective:

Reduced Military Spending: Achieving and maintaining world peace would lead to a decrease in military spending globally. Governments and nations could reallocate significant portions of their budgets from defense and towards social and environmental initiatives, including sustainable development projects, poverty alleviation, and healthcare.

Stable Global Markets: Peace fosters stability in global financial markets. Reduced geopolitical tensions and conflicts contribute to a more predictable and secure economic environment, promoting investor confidence and economic growth.

Social Perspective:

Improved Quality of Life: World peace contributes to a safer and more stable world, leading to improved quality of life for people across different societies. Communities can focus on education, healthcare, and social welfare programs, fostering well-being and happiness.

Enhanced Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Peace encourages cross-cultural understanding and collaboration. People from different backgrounds can interact positively, share knowledge, and work together to address global challenges, promoting social cohesion and unity.

Political Perspective:

Global Governance and Cooperation: World peace often requires effective global governance and diplomatic cooperation, establishing and strengthening international institutions and agreements to address common challenges, including environmental sustainability and resource management.

Political Stability: Peaceful nations are more likely to experience political stability. Stable political environments create conducive conditions for effective policymaking, long-term planning, and the implementation of sustainable development strategies.

Economic Perspective:

Trade and Economic Growth: Peaceful relations between nations facilitate international trade and economic cooperation. Open and stable trade routes encourage economic growth, technological exchange, and the development of sustainable business practices.

Investment in Sustainable Technologies: A peaceful world encourages investment in research and development of sustainable technologies. Nations can collaborate on initiatives such as renewable energy, environmental conservation, and sustainable agriculture, fostering economic growth without compromising the planet's health.

Environmental Perspective:

Conservation and Biodiversity Protection: Peaceful conditions allow nations to focus on environmental conservation and biodiversity protection. International collaboration can lead to transnational parks, conservation agreements, and initiatives to combat climate change.

Reduced Environmental Degradation: Armed conflicts often result in environmental degradation, including deforestation, pollution, and habitat destruction. World peace would reduce these negative impacts, allowing ecosystems to recover and promoting a healthier environment.

Health Perspective:

Improved Public Health: Peace contributes to improved public health outcomes. Nations at peace are better equipped to address healthcare challenges, prevent the spread of diseases, and allocate resources to healthcare infrastructure.

Humanitarian Assistance: In times of peace, nations can focus on providing humanitarian assistance to regions affected by natural disasters, epidemics, or other crises to enhance global health resilience and cooperation.

World peace can create a more sustainable, prosperous, and healthy global civilization. By redirecting resources from military expenditures to social and environmental initiatives, fostering international cooperation, and creating stable political and economic environments, the positive impacts of peace can resonate across various aspects of human civilization. Peace leads to a brighter, healthier future.

CAPITALISM—The Great Satan

Critics of capitalism often highlight several ways the system can be destructive on various levels. It's important to note that while capitalism is associated with economic growth and innovation, these critiques emphasize the potential negative impacts.

Income Inequality:

Critique: One of the most prominent criticisms of capitalism is its tendency to exacerbate income inequality. The system can concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, leading to a widening gap between the rich and the poor and social and economic consequences, including reduced social mobility and increased social tensions.

The exploitation of Labor:

Critics argue that capitalism can lead to the exploitation of labor, especially in low-wage industries and developing countries. Issues such as sweatshop labor, poor working conditions, and inadequate wages are examples of the negative impact of profit-driven capitalism on workers.

Consumerism and Overconsumption:

Capitalism is often associated with a culture of consumerism, where the emphasis is on constant growth and increased consumption, leading to environmental degradation, overexploitation of natural resources, and the generation of excessive waste, contributing to ecological problems.

Short-Term Focus:

Pursuing short-term profits in a capitalist system may prioritize immediate financial gains over long-term sustainability, leading to decisions that compromise environmental health, public welfare, and the well-being of future generations.

Environmental Degradation:

Capitalism contributes to environmental degradation, particularly in its more unrestrained forms. Prioritizing profits can lead to practices that harm ecosystems, exploit natural resources, and contribute to climate change. The focus on perpetual growth can be at odds with ecological sustainability.

Financial Instability:

Capitalist economies are prone to cycles of boom and bust. Critics argue that these fluctuations can result in financial crises, causing widespread economic distress, unemployment, and social upheaval. The 2008 global financial crisis is but one example.

Market Externalities:

Capitalism may not fully account for externalities, such as economic activities' environmental and social costs. For example, companies might not bear the full cost of pollution or social inequality associated with their operations, leading to suboptimal resource allocation and societal well-being.

Focus on Shareholder Value:

The emphasis on maximizing shareholder value can prioritize short-term financial gains over the interests of other stakeholders, including employees, communities, and the environment. This narrow focus may lead to decisions that neglect broader social and ethical considerations.

Crisis Response:

Capitalism's ability to respond to crises, such as pandemics or environmental emergencies, has been questioned. Critics argue that profit-driven motives may hinder effective and equitable crisis response, particularly when essential services become commodities.

Cultural Homogenization:

Capitalism contributes to cultural homogenization, especially in its globalized form. The spread of multinational corporations and standardized products can erode cultural diversity and local traditions.

Many advocates of capitalism argue that it has led to increased living standards, technological innovation, and economic growth. The debate often revolves around finding a balance that harnesses the benefits of capitalism while addressing its potential drawbacks. Moreover, different forms of capitalism exist, and various nations incorporate different degrees of regulation and social intervention within their economic systems.

We must reexamine our goals, values, and desires and ask the right questions.

The Mall of Mayhem

Are you saved? Do you know how this ends?

For those that don’t know, there are journalists, commentators, and experts on alternative media that will help you have a better understanding of what’s happening:

The Arseholes Of Democracy

To all the people supporting all this war

indi.ca

Practically all clips from MSM in the Anglo-sphere are sickening. There is no theory of mind for leaders, paid pundits, and think-tankers in the USA. Integrity and honesty is a lost art.

Will the IDF kill the ideology born out of the conflict created by The Great Game? No, Palestinian children will grow up to be hateful maniacs, which is probably why the IDF wants to kill Palestinian children. The imaginary utility of genocide is fucked up game theory logic. The world can't win because too many people in the anglosphere think war is entertainment. They believe their side is the right side. They can't comprehend the complexity of the systems that comprise the whole.

Can we educate folks in the USA about the nuances of history, psychology, and other domains relevant to our worsening global predicament? Too many people I encounter want to avoid learning. They want a monster truck. They want to go fishing. They want validation on TikTok. Folks in the States are waiting for movies and Netflix series about the Gaza War. "Fauda" is playing now on the platform. There were dozens of series glorifying black ops, special forces, CIA, MI6, and the Empire's self-righteous violence before this particular battle broke out.

Few read books like "A Problem From Hell, America in the Age of Genocide."

Did a war end? Did I miss something huge? Wasn't the last few of years in the region a hot ceasefire of a sort?

In The Great Game, no one is human except The Individual, and some are more human than others. Maggie should have elaborated.

High-tech weapons are a very lucrative market ecosystem, but shortly, the high-tech weapons industry will die along with everything else. If our culture stays the same, soon, we will have little left to bomb.

We ignore the most critical existential risks. Those who pay attention know what they are.

What will people do with the calories from the pizza delivered by an Amazon drone? They'll watch Monday Night Football or the Circus known as cable news. They'll shed tears for an IFA that an investor dissed because they were concerned about MFM. They'll go to a workshop at their Mega-Church to learn about Christian Zionism. 'Tis true; many people in the United States of New Miracles are already saved and waiting to be Raptured. They know how this all ends. The secular folks will get another gig-economy job to boost their credit rating to be able to borrow money for that truck. The sociopaths will compete to become Players in The Great Game and become psychopaths—zombie killers, qu'est que ce, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, faaaaa from a peacemaking culture. There's no vaccination for Uncle Sam. The mall of mayhem is endemic.

Ammo Dump Earth

Comments inspired by Patrick Lawrence: Full-Dress Irrationality.

"Biden wastes an additional $105 billion"—but America can't afford school lunches or public education. The Fed can't find the money. 

"The Racket" existed way before 'The Vietnam Syndrome'; it is an American affliction rooted in waves of colonial violence motivated by "Great Men of History" and their brilliant philosophies. The Enlightenment could have brought the world into an age of Enlightenment but instead withered into the black death of avarice—an operatic conflagration of The Seven Deadly Sins fueled by percolating ancient carbon-based life forms.

No majority of citizens in the United States can stop Congress and its funders from doing what THEY want. The system's logic has programmed our leaders to continue playing The Great Game as long as possible.

Americans are there to borrow and consume—that's their job.

The Super-Smart guys in the United States are working to accelerate the collapse. Depletion and destruction (creative destruction) is the most lucrative thing they can do. The Great Game is about controlling resources and the wealth those resources generate, from material commodities to the data generated by their debt peons. Their madly defended delusion is that they and theirs will survive the die-off of the plebs and proles due to overshoot in their bunkers, fortresses, or on Mars. They are exceptionally selfish and arrogant. There is no limit to their hubristic ambitions. They are psychopaths. 

Tragically, most well-meaning professionals trying to do good get their budgets from these lunatics. They can't do their good work without going along with the status quo, effectively negating most of their efforts to save civilization from its idiotic sociopolitical and economic religion—A.K.A., endless economic growth and materialism.

Influenced by status, toys, and consumerism, ordinary people pay little attention to The Great Game, and even if they know that the system is designed to take everything meaningful away, they feel powerless to do or say anything. And, of course, they have their culture wars cooked up by the communications machine that captures their data and attention 24/7/365.

We are heading into a dangerously tumultuous period where circumstances will dictate that we live as in ancient times. Global institutions will disappear, displaced by tribalism. Can the transition from complexity to simplicity be gentle, kind, and peaceful? Are people capable of that? 

If you want to prep for the changes in the most powerful country in the world, you need to sell ammunition; then you'd be able to afford that bunker and the luxury of pathological delusions.

The Horror

sadism

/ˈseɪdɪz(ə)m/

noun

noun: sadism

1. the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.

   "beneath the apparent loving concern she had glimpsed spite and sadism"

   Similar:

   schadenfreude

   callousness

   barbarity

   bestiality

   perversion

   viciousness

   brutality

   cruelty

   savagery

   fiendishness

   cold-bloodedness

   inhumanity

   ruthlessness

   heartlessness

   mercilessness

   pitilessness

Our heads are not in the sand because we fear the truth or can't face reality. We are digging a tunnel to hell so we can all crawl there on our bellies together. We have all been made sick by our civilization. The fun and games are coming to an end.

Do you know that cinematic trope where a person walks into a scene so horrific and ugly that they must run somewhere to puke? That's what recent current events are doing to me. If you are immune to it, I worry about you. And if we all ignore what's going on, we will become that horrific scene.

We all need to see and hear this:

"People of Darkness" - The Grayzone live

And now some kindness and understanding:

Leaders Are Terrible At Making Peace, Brilliant At Making Money—And The Hard Question of Culture.

Qiu-Zhi-Jie-China-Map-of-Mythology-2019

MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN:

• On Ownership

• On Customs

• On History

• On Religion

• On Law

• On War

• On Peace

We write passionately and thoughtfully about our beliefs, desires, needs, and challenges. 

The result of all of this is Culture. Simply put, Culture is what we think, believe, and do.

We have developed many tools to help us think, believe and act.

We can create an unlimited amount of debt (what a concept!) to make money (what a concept!) to spend on war, but we can't imagine spending money on making Peace or ensuring the future of Civilization. This particular thing we call Civilization may not last. From the beginning, our particular ways of doing things when societies scaled up beyond small bands and tribes contained the seeds for its destruction. Much has been written over the centuries on this subject.

Since we discovered energy in the form of fossil fuels and our semi-mastery of laws of physics, science, and machinery, the Industrial Revolution and various economic religions have rapidly grown our Civilization like a cancerous tumor.

Civilization has an identity crisis.

As Capitalists learned to code capital and Culture, influential corporations have become international behemoths capable of capturing politics, increasing their power exponentially. At the center of this project is neoliberal, neoconservative, neocolonial competition for control of resources during a time of civilizational collapse. 

An ideological cancer spreads throughout all systems, destroying life at a blistering pace.

Some people across generations have been watching this self-emulation while sounding the alarm and hoping that imaginative solutions might be forthcoming through understanding the real problems and causes of disease. 

Tragically, the information super organism running the hearts and minds of people has been and is becoming more efficient and capable of spreading and maintaining its pathological Culture.

Few people work to understand REALITY—those who do have a humble understanding of the risks and tradeoffs of every endeavor. 

Much has been written.

My friends, Reality is undeniable even though its comprehension is inaccessible to many of us, and depending on the complexity of various functions of Reality, it remains mysterious and hard to grasp. 

When you argue with Reality, you lose the argument. When you go against Reality, bad things happen.

Intrepid explorers down through the generations have sought new tools to help them discover how Reality works. And in doing so, bend Reality towards their goals. 

REALITY, this mysterious whole, is greater than the sum of its parts and the complex, emergent systems they animate. 

First, we figured out how tools help us get what we want. The first tool may have been a stick. As time passed, we picked up more tools and used them to improve our lives on the way to the emergence of language. I'm sure language was the mother of invention. Language allowed for abstract thought and greater collaboration and cooperation with community members. More and more innovations were adopted, imitated, and passed on to future generations. 

In ancient times, stories became powerful tools for developing and maintaining Culture. Culture is necessary for large groups of people living in concert with one another and controlling stockpiles of commodities to trade. Stories and surpluses of grain allowed for the development of cities and kingdoms.

At the center of many of these culture-building stories were the Gods. Early on, Gods were like people, only they lived longer and had superpowers. Later, in some places, the Gods became the One True God, the first Creator, who, for some reason, had enemies, emotions, and other attributes simple humans could imagine. 

The One True God, the jealous God, favored certain people and things, and soon Divine rights were conferred upon His favorites, always the most powerful of the tribe, and these favorites created, interpreted, and administered God's law. 

Much has been written.

Religious sensibility is a universal reality of psychology. But let's leave stories for now and move on to other kinds of tools we've used to build Civilization. 

I'm skipping some things, but this is an essay, not a book, so please indulge me in my sketch. 

Oh, Philosophy, the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, Reality, and existence, took stories to new heights, and all the cogitation led to new tools like logic.

People were learning how to do the math in novel ways.

In ancient times, people found math and keeping records useful for maintaining surpluses and trade. People back then figured out how to make meaningful symbols and quantify things using numbers. Suddenly, they could do the math. Math was an excellent way to represent Reality. Weights and measures flowed from these new tools. Logic emerged from all the bargaining needed for trading and maintaining one's cultural stories while keeping them more attractive than the competition's. I'm pretty sure logic is inherent in Reality and existed before the ancient Indians and Greeks. Still, it helps to locate developments in a time and place because context matters when telling stories.

For example, In ancient India (circa 6th century BCE - 2nd century CE), Indian philosophers, particularly from the Nyaya school, developed sophisticated logic systems. The Nyaya Sutras, written by Gautama, are foundational texts in Indian logic. They dealt with rules of inference, debate, and methodology. In Ancient Greece (circa 4th century BCE - 4th century CE), Greek philosophers like Aristotle made substantial contributions to formal logic. Aristotle's work, especially in his book "Organon," laid the groundwork for classical logic. He introduced fundamental concepts such as syllogism, deductive reasoning, and the law of non-contradiction.

During the Middle Ages, Islamic scholars preserved and expanded upon the knowledge of ancient Greek philosophers, including Aristotle. Scholars like Al-Kindi and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) translated and commented on Aristotle's works, contributing to disseminating logical ideas.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, scholars like Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas made significant strides in developing medieval logic. The Renaissance saw a renewed interest in classical texts, leading to further exploration of logical principles.

In the 17th - 19th Centuries, the development of formal mathematical logic gained momentum. Mathematicians like George Boole and Augustus De Morgan developed symbolic logic, which treated logical relationships using symbols and algebraic notation. Boole's work laid the foundation for Boolean algebra, a fundamental concept in modern computer science and digital circuit design.

In the late 19th - Early 20th Centuries, Gottlob Frege, a German mathematician and philosopher, is often considered the father of modern logic. His work in predicate logic and formalizing mathematical language significantly influenced the development of modern logic.

In the 20th Century Onward, the 20th Century saw the rise of various branches of formal logic, including mathematical logic, modal logic, and symbolic logic. Mathematicians and logicians like Kurt Gödel, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, and many others made groundbreaking contributions to these fields.

One must marvel at these new disciplines and tools.

• Mathematical logic

• Philosophical logic

• Modal logic

• Computational logic

The human mind is the bottle from which all these genies, with their ability to grant wishes, spring. How do we conjure them? Life is genuinely mysterious, and Reality can seem a bit vague.

Dear God, much has been written.

Reason and its close conceptual cousin, Rationality, are exciting tools. In the interest of brevity, I'll list a few more tools we've developed since the "Age of Reason" that spanned from the 17th Century to the 18th Century.

Intellectual Tools:

1. Scientific Method: A systematic way of investigating the natural world through observation, experimentation, and formulation of hypotheses developed during the scientific revolution.

2. Philosophy of Empiricism: Knowledge is primarily derived from sensory experience and empirical evidence.

3. Positivism: A philosophical theory stating that knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations as verified by the empirical sciences.

4. Critical Thinking: The ability to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information, fostering rational and logical decision-making.

5. Social Contract Theory: Philosophical concept exploring the relationship between individuals and the state, emphasizing mutual obligations and rights.

Technological Tools:

1. Steam Engine: Invented by Thomas Savery and improved by James Watt, it played a crucial role in the Industrial Revolution, powering machinery and transportation.

2. Telegraph: Invented by Samuel Morse, it revolutionized long-distance communication, transmitting messages quickly over vast distances.

3. Telephone: Invented by Alexander Graham Bell, it allowed for voice communication over long distances, transforming personal and business communication.

4. Electricity: The harnessing of electricity led to the development of various technologies, including electric lighting, motors, and electronic devices.

5. Internal Combustion Engine: Invented by Nikolaus Otto, it powered automobiles and airplanes, revolutionizing transportation.

6. Airplanes.

7. The personal computer and the Internet.

Methodological Tools:

1. Statistics: Developed by statisticians like Sir Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, statistics became a crucial tool for data analysis and decision-making in various fields.

2. Scientific Taxonomy: Carl Linnaeus developed a systematic method for naming, defining, and classifying organisms, forming the basis of modern biological classification.

3. Psychological Testing: Developed methods for measuring intelligence, personality, and other psychological traits, leading to advancements in psychology and education.

4. Market Research: Systematic gathering, recording, and analyzing data about consumers, competitors, and the market, aiding businesses in making informed decisions.

5. Computer Science: Algorithms, programming languages, and software development methodologies have revolutionized computation and information processing.

6. Genetic Engineering: Techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 have enabled precise manipulation of genes, leading to advancements in biotechnology and medicine.

These tools, among many others, have shaped the intellectual landscape, driven technological progress, and provided methodologies for understanding and improving the world since the Age of Reason.

And yes, much has been written.

These are all complex subjects that many people spend a lifetime studying. Few people we know have mastered all of these tools. Many people fear them, preferring simpler, more mysterious, and heroic times when Kings rained and spirits inhabited dense forests.

But as I have said, our minds and imaginations are what genies come from, and once they are out, they don't disappear unless we disappear. If people suddenly disappeared, the genies would too. Perhaps the extinction of homo sapiens is Devine justice. I prefer not to think so.

What goes around comes around? Karma? Reality? 

It requires hundreds of millions of enlightened minds to avert catastrophe brought on by immense systems of power. Unfortunately, the influential people creating and running the system's logic are not enlightened. They are passionate about control, maintaining power, status, and many other emotional impulses that keep them focused on The Great Game. 

The Great Game is the story of Civilization and has, throughout its history, had winners and losers. 

So much has been written.

Powerful Players like to win. They focus on doing whatever it takes to win. This is easy to see and understand. 

The Players are building more and more tools to help them win the game, tools even the Players don't fully understand. For regular folks, these machinations and technologies are black boxes, opaque, and hardly understood at all. We know The Great Game through stories in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, propaganda, marketing, public relations, psychological operations, and all manner of information manipulations. 

The system's logic trains us to go along and get along, which brings me, yet again, back to Culture.

We all find ourselves within Culture, and there can be layers of Culture, like concentric circles or Russian dolls, each with its own set of meanings and requirements. We don't invent Culture. It emerges from social experiences and envelops us in its unique context of time and place. We then fall into cultures within cultures as we try to discover and define our identity within the context of our community. 

Some of us get lucky and wind up in circumstances where our material, spiritual, educational, and other needs are well met. We can develop greater independence, imagination, and creativity in such cases. We think of this set of fortunate circumstances as Freedom. 

Circumstances flow from The Great Game and Reality. Events can be brutal. Everyone would choose the best circumstances if they could. 

Civilization has always existed in turmoil. The competition between great Civilizations has been violent, but there have also been periods where cooperation and collaboration trumped zero-sum gamesmanship backed by violence. 

When we look around and contemplate deeply, using all available tools, with heart, compassion, and an honest appreciation of Reality, we see that everything is accelerating. 

We can examine our circumstances from multiple angles and perspectives across many domains all at once and develop a fine-grained picture of the complexity and dangers of our current predicament that flows from a culture and ideology incapable of making Peace or maintaining the requirements for healthy lives and life systems.

We live in extraordinarily creative and destructive times, informed by and blinded by our ill-considered passions and emotions. 

Life Because Life

Consciousness Because Consciousness

Reality Because Reality

Culture Because Complexity

CULTURE IS THE HARD PROBLEM!

The hard question isn't how life, consciousness, or Reality came to be but rather how this global Culture came to be, what it means, and where it's going. The tough questions revolve around Culture and whether we can invent a better one before it's too late. 

For those of us with agency, we'd better work on Culture.

Robots, general artificial intelligence, science, God, and tools in our toolkit won't save us from a sick Culture. 

What emerges from a deadly disease is death.

We can't fight crime with crime.

No more gimmicks; we must put selfish endeavors to one side and pursue collectively answers that stem from Reality. It will require tremendous effort on all our parts. We will have to compromise. Healthier Cultures take time to create and build. We must survive and be patient. We must find Reality-Based solutions together across Cultures.

We must learn to feel comfortable and proud of diversity. We must live and let live as long as cultures are pro-Life in all its miraculous forms.

The only way to do this is to invest everything we have in health, welfare, knowledge, and Peace. 

Make Peace, not money. Money is Satan. Health is God. The Universe doesn't have to be fair. Humans, on the other hand, need to understand Reality to stay healthy, and when healthy, most humans are beautiful creatures, blessed by all the Gods of our brilliant imaginations. 

Dear Lord, much has been written about making Peace. I pray you will help your people understand. 

We have the information, tools, and knowledge to make Peace. Peace is the only thing worth building now.

The Human Conflict With Reality

I passionately suggest you read Jamie Wheal’s series concerning his reaction to climate change burnout. “How Not To Be Climate Memejacked.” It just so happens that I’m reading “The Burnout Society” by Hyung-Chul Han, gaining a new appreciation for burnout in all of its manifestations.

I think a lot like Jamie. We come from the same culture, although I left it decades ago. He does a great job summing up the complexities surrounding the grand predicament in a style that isn’t too intellectually taxing, cynical, bitter, or dripping with ironic humor. 

I also want to share recent posts by Gad Saad and Norman Gary Finkelstein, who argue with those who argue with Reality. And one might intuit that when one argues with Reality, one loses.

Along this theme, I was pondering a conversation with an old friend of mine who believes the world is currently under attack by demonic forces and Satan.

Thinking about those who argue with Reality led me to imagine God as Reality. Think of it: if God created the Universe and us, then God created all the rules that govern Reality. God is as Real as it gets.

So, if we ignore Reality, we can expect things to get difficult. Perhaps it’s not Satan and demons but simply people arguing with Reality. Perhaps God’s rathe is what happens when we stubbornly refuse to learn from Reality. 

We are unique creatures with unique capabilities; one is knowing how to fool ourselves. 

Perhaps the best way to get back into God’s good graces is to humbly learn how Reality works. 

Stubborn adherence to ideology, because your career depends on us, will only bring civilization to ruin.

Let’s look at the deadly sins again; not that this particular tradition is universal, but there is something universal about how they tend to be relevant across cultures.

(1) vainglory, or pride, 

Regardless of who we are and where we come from, we seem inordinately vain, narcissistic, and prideful. Vanity clouds our judgment.

(2) greed, or covetousness, 

We lust for things, status, power, other people’s stuff, money, etc. Would a small community of people who depend on each other and their environment tolerate such a person?

(3) lust, or inordinate or illicit sexual desire, 

We all know this is a sickness bordering on addiction. Sex is sex, love is loving, and the mind is sexy. Pure lustful action is violence and destroys communities. Look at all the “gurus” felled by lust.

(4) envy, 

Does playing the envy game on social media make you happy?

(5) gluttony, which is usually understood to include drunkenness, 

The dose makes the poison and is big business for pharmaceutical companies. The standard of care for general practitioners of evidence-based medicine worldwide includes updated advice on nutrition and other lifestyle advice. 

(6) wrath, or anger, and 

Does anyone feel good when they are angry? Although unavoidable and all too human, excessive anger is destructive.

(7) sloth.

“Who’s going to plant the corn?” One must engage and do things to support life. Pure sloth is death.

Add to this the sin of wilful ignorance, and we are in a bad way. 

As I have said many times, Circumstances can be a brutal dictator. 

If God gave us life and we are causing its destruction, that would seem to be the prime mortal sin.

The superorganism, meta-crisis, poly-crisis, or whatever you want to call it, is a complex conglomeration of qualities, activities, ideas, thoughts, and feelings emerging from civilization and turbocharged by science, engineering, and technology. 

We had better be much more reverent in the face of Reality if we want to live in God’s graces. 

Homework For My Religious Friends Who Think They Are Atheists (Metaphorically Speaking) And Defenders Of The Status Quo.

For the PomPom Boys.

PomPom Boy: A mansplaining cheerleader for the status quo who hasn’t learned anything in twenty years because he thinks he has nothing more to learn.

A Broad Definition of Religion:

Religion is a complex and multifaceted concept encompassing many beliefs, practices, rituals, and values centered around the relationship between humans and the transcendent or sacred. It often involves a set of shared assumptions about the nature of reality, the purpose of human existence, moral and ethical principles, and the presence of supernatural or divine beings or forces. (Economics = Magic) Religion plays a significant role in shaping individuals' worldviews, providing a framework for understanding the cosmos and guiding their behavior and interactions within society. Different religions vary greatly in beliefs, practices, rituals, and organizational structures.

Idiomatic Usage:

The term "religion" is also used idiomatically to refer to a deeply held commitment or devotion to a particular belief or pursuit. In this sense, it might be used more broadly to describe a passionate attachment to principles, values, or practices. For example, someone might say "football is his religion" to indicate that the person is highly dedicated to the sport, treating it with the same zeal and devotion that one might associate with religious observance.

Overall, Religion is a concept that holds both diverse cultural and spiritual meanings as well as symbolic significance in various contexts, and its interpretation can vary depending on cultural, philosophical, and personal perspectives.

“If you are not willing to be a fool, you can't become a master.”
― Jordan B. Peterson

One gets one's "Religion," broadly speaking, from one's Parents, Community, Education, Experiences, Incentives, Literature, Fears, etc.

“The Tyndale/King James translation, even if all its copies were to be burned, would still live on in our language through its transmission by way of Shakespeare and Milton and Bunyan and Coleridge, and also by way of beloved popular idioms such as “fatted calf” and “pearls before swine.” It turned out to be rather more than the sum of its ancient predecessors, as well as a repository and edifice of language which towers above its successors.” — Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens

Below are thinkers one must know to understand one's inherited socio-political-economic Religion. 

This list is far from comprehensive. Ouch!

If you have not taken Political Philosophy 101 at University, start here:

Open Yale Courses 

Introduction to Political Philosophy

I have shared this course for many years. It’s accessible and entertaining.

Political Philosophers:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778): Rousseau's work "The Social Contract" emphasized the idea of the general will and the importance of individual freedom within a collective society. People should participate directly in decision-making to achieve a just society. (How is he misunderstood to support a self-serving, profits-first ideology that doesn't want to recognize that he was also a moral philosopher? The New Right hates him. Why?)

John Locke (1632–1704): Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" advocated for the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. He argued that government should be limited and based on the consent of the governed, paving the way for modern liberalism. (How has modern liberalism created horrific destruction and externalities contrary to the value of the complex web of life we depend on and are part and parcel of? Can you think of more questions like these. Don't look in The Economist Magazine. Find new sources.)

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): Kant's political philosophy focused on individual autonomy and the importance of moral principles in politics. His work contributed to developing concepts related to human rights and international law. (Why is "Kantian" a big deal? People have spent their whole careers critically dissecting his thought.)

Karl Marx (1818–1883): Marx's "The Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital" laid the foundation for modern communism. He analyzed class struggle, capitalism, and historical materialism, leading to the emergence of Marxism as a political and economic ideology.

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873): Mill's "On Liberty" and "Utilitarianism" defended individual liberty and argued for the greatest good for the most significant number. He championed women's rights and promoted the idea of representative democracy. (Why do Reactionary political thinkers and The New Right or The Heterodox Right dislike Utilitarianism?)

In between John and Hannah, we juxtapose the following two Political Philosophers:

Max Weber (1864–1920) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist widely regarded as one of the founding figures of modern sociology. His work covers a broad range of topics, including social theory, politics, economics, Religion, and bureaucracy. Weber's ideas have profoundly influenced various fields, and his work remains relevant in contemporary discussions about social structures and dynamics.

One of Weber's key contributions is his concept of the "ideal type," a conceptual construct used to understand and analyze complex social phenomena. Ideal types are abstract models that help researchers make sense of the real world by simplifying and clarifying certain aspects of social reality.

Weber is best known for his work on the social action theory. He classified social actions into four types:

1. Instrumentally Rational Action: Action driven by a calculation of means and ends, where individuals make choices based on the most efficient way to achieve their goals.

2. Value-Rational Action: Action guided by a belief in a particular action's inherent value or worthiness, regardless of its practical consequences.

3. Affectual Action: Action is driven by emotions rather than rational calculations or values.

4. Traditional Action: Action dictated by custom, habit, or tradition, often without considering alternatives.

Weber's analysis of these actions helps explain the complex motivations behind human behavior and social interactions.

Another central concept in Weber's work is the notion of "social stratification" and the idea that various factors, such as wealth, power, and prestige, lead to the unequal distribution of social resources. He introduced the concept of "class, status, and party" to describe the different dimensions of social inequality. "Class" refers to economic differences, "status" to social honor and prestige, and "party" to political power and influence.

Weber also explored the role of Religion in shaping societal values and economic development. His book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1905) argued that certain forms of Protestantism, particularly Calvinism, played a role in promoting a work ethic that contributed to the rise of capitalism in Western societies.

Weber's discussions on bureaucracy have been influential in understanding organizational structures and governance. His analysis of the characteristics of bureaucracy, such as hierarchy, division of labor, and formal rules, highlighted both the advantages and potential problems associated with bureaucratic systems.

Max Weber's work is characterized by its interdisciplinary nature, emphasis on understanding the motivations behind human behavior, and exploration of the complex interplay between social, economic, political, and cultural factors. His ideas continue to shape modern social theory, leaving an indelible mark on the study of society and its various facets.

People still spend their careers analyzing and critiquing Max Weber’s work.

Foundations of Modern Social Theory - Audio

By Iván Szelényi

James Burnham (1905–1987) was an American political philosopher, political scientist, and writer known for his works on political theory and international relations. One of his most well-known books is "Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism," published in 1964. In this book, Burnham presents a critical analysis of liberal democratic societies and their vulnerabilities.

"Suicide of the West" examines the challenges that Burnham believed liberal societies faced due to their internal contradictions and the inherent weaknesses of liberalism itself. He argued that liberalism's emphasis on individual rights, freedoms, and material progress had led to unintended consequences that threatened the stability and survival of these societies. Some key points from the book include:

1. Liberalism's Internal Contradictions: Burnham identified what he saw as paradoxes within liberal thought. For example, he noted that the emphasis on individual liberty and equality could erode social cohesion and collective purpose. He believed liberalism's focus on individualism sometimes undermined the sense of community necessary for a healthy society.

2. Erosion of Values and Morality: Burnham argued that the relentless pursuit of material wealth and personal gratification, often associated with liberalism, could weaken traditional values and ethical norms. He believed a society overly focused on individual self-interest could lose its moral compass.

3. Challenges of Overextension: Burnham warned against the dangers of overextending the liberal democratic project, particularly in international relations. He believed that a naive faith in the universality of liberal values could undermine national interests and security.

4. Rise of the Managerial Elite: One of the notable concepts in Burnham's work is the idea of the "managerial revolution." He argued that modern societies are increasingly characterized by a new class of technocrats, bureaucrats, and experts with significant power and influence. He suggested that this managerial class might prioritize their interests over democratic processes.

5. Threats from Totalitarianism: Burnham was concerned about the ideological competition between liberal democracies and totalitarian regimes, particularly the Soviet Union. He believed that liberals were often complacent or misguided in their approach to countering the ideological challenges posed by totalitarian ideologies.

"Suicide of the West" attracted both praise and criticism. Some appreciated Burnham's thought-provoking analysis of the potential vulnerabilities of liberal societies, while others criticized his portrayal of liberalism and his proposed alternatives. Despite the controversies, the book remains influential for exploring the tensions between individualism, social cohesion, and the challenges posed by modernity.

Burnham's broader work spanned geopolitics, international relations, and the nature of power. He was associated with the "realist" school of political thought, which emphasizes the role of power and national interests in international affairs. Burnham's ideas continue to be discussed and debated by scholars interested in political theory, conservative thought, and the dynamics of modern societies.

James Burnham's book "The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom" (1943) is a collection of essays in which he examines the political theories and ideas of several critical thinkers from the early 20th Century who, in his view, offered realistic and often controversial insights into power, governance, and the nature of society. The book explores the Machiavellian political approach, emphasizing a pragmatic understanding of power dynamics and human behavior.

The thinkers analyzed in "The Machiavellians" include Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels, and Max Weber. Burnham highlights their critiques of conventional political ideologies and their emphasis on the role of elites, power struggles, and manipulating public sentiment in the functioning of political systems. Here's a summary of the main ideas from the book:

1. Pareto's Circulation of Elites: Burnham discusses Pareto's theory of the "circulation of elites," which suggests that different elites rise to power over time, but power distribution remains relatively stable. Pareto rejected the idea of democratic equality, emphasizing the importance of understanding the complex dynamics of power and influence.

2. Mosca's Theory of Political Classes: Mosca's theory centers on the idea that a ruling class and a subordinate class characterize societies. He believed that regardless of the type of government, a Ruling Elite would always emerge to maintain control.

3. Sorel's Syndicalism: Burnham explores Sorel's concept of "myth" and his advocacy for using revolutionary syndicalism to disrupt established political structures. Sorel rejected parliamentary democracy and believed in the power of mobilizing the working class through mythic ideals.

4. Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy: Michels is known for his theory that all organizations, including political parties and labor unions, tend to become dominated by a small group of leaders. This "iron law of oligarchy" challenges the idea of participatory democracy and highlights the concentration of power within organizations.

5. Weber's Theory of Authority: Burnham discusses Weber's classification of authority into three types: traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational. Weber's work focused on understanding the sources of legitimacy in governance and how power is maintained.

In "The Machiavellians," Burnham identifies a common thread among these thinkers—a recognition of the role of power, the importance of understanding the dynamics of political systems, and a skepticism toward idealistic and utopian notions of governance. Burnham sees these thinkers as providing a realistic understanding of political realities, emphasizing the need for a pragmatic approach to both analysis and action.

The book illuminates these lesser-known theorists' contributions and challenges prevailing assumptions about political theory and human nature. Burnham's work remains relevant in discussions about political realism, the nature of elites, and the complexities of power in modern societies.

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975): Arendt's works, such as "The Human Condition" and "The Origins of Totalitarianism," explored the nature of power, authority, and the dangers of totalitarianism. She emphasized the importance of public action and political participation.

Influential Economists:

Adam Smith (1723–1790): Often regarded as the father of modern economics, Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" laid the groundwork for classical economics. He promoted the idea of the invisible hand, which suggests that self-interest can lead to societal benefit through market mechanisms.

David Ricardo (1772–1823): Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage, outlined in "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," explained how countries could benefit from specializing in producing goods with relative efficiency, leading to gains from trade.

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946): Keynesian economics, as outlined in "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money," advocated for government intervention during a recession to stimulate demand and maintain full employment.

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992): Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" warned against the dangers of central planning and advocated for a market-based approach to economic organization. He was a key figure in the development of neoliberal thought.

Milton Friedman (1912–2006): Friedman's monetarist ideas emphasized the importance of controlling the money supply to manage inflation. His work also contributed to the notion that markets are efficient and that government intervention should be minimized.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006): Galbraith's work critiqued conventional economic thought and focused on the influence of corporate power in modern economies. His book "The Affluent Society" discussed inequality and consumer culture issues.

Amartya Sen (b. 1933): Sen's contributions to welfare economics and development theory led to the development of the capability approach, which focuses on improving individuals' opportunities and well-being. He emphasized the importance of human rights and social justice.

Paul Krugman (b. 1953): Krugman's research on international trade, economic geography, and macroeconomics earned him a Nobel Prize. He's known for his accessible writing on economic issues, making him influential both in academia and the public sphere. (A "POP" economist, clerk for the Status Quo, and servant of The Players.)

Thomas Piketty (b. 1971): Piketty gained attention with his book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," which analyzed wealth and income inequality over time. His work sparked discussions on wealth distribution and capital's role in shaping economies.

Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012): Ostrom's research challenged the traditional "tragedy of the commons" concept by highlighting the effectiveness of local, community-based management of shared resources. She won the Nobel Prize in Economics for her contributions to understanding institutional arrangements.

These figures have significantly impacted political philosophy and economics, shaping how we think about society, governance, and economic systems — the Religion required to control Plebs and Proles and maintain their hunger for consumer goods.

Lastly, let's consider Leo:

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) was a German-American political philosopher known for his influential scholarship on classical political philosophy, the tension between philosophy and Religion, and the interpretation of great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Machiavelli. His ideas have significantly impacted political theory, and his work has sparked various interpretations and debates among scholars.

Some key aspects of Strauss's work and thought include:

1. Classical Political Philosophy: Strauss believed that studying classical political philosophy, particularly the works of Plato and Aristotle, offered valuable insights into perennial questions about politics, morality, and human nature. He emphasized the importance of understanding the historical and cultural context in which these philosophers wrote.

2. The Perennial vs. the Modern: Strauss contrasted the classical understanding of political philosophy, which focused on examining timeless truths and moral principles, with the modern approach that often questioned or rejected traditional values. He was critical of the relativism and skepticism he saw as prevalent in modern thought.

3. Esoteric Reading: Strauss is known for his theory of "esoteric writing" or "hidden teaching." He argued that some great thinkers wrote with a surface meaning intended for the general public and a deeper, hidden meaning intended for a select few who could understand the complexities of their thought. This idea has generated much debate and controversy. 

(Hello NRx. Can you know what the Gnostic thinks?) 

4. Philosophy and Religion: Strauss explored the relationship between philosophy and Religion, particularly in his analysis of medieval and early modern philosophers like Maimonides and Spinoza. He questioned whether there was an inherent conflict between reason and faith and examined how philosophers navigated the tensions between the two.

5. Critique of Modernity: Strauss was critical of the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason and secularism. He believed that abandoning traditional religious and moral foundations in modern thought led to a loss of moral certainty and a potential decline of society.

(How do you find your moral relativism, post, post-modernism, WOKE, and PC? Is it safe? Are they diamonds in the rough?)

6. Straussian Interpretation: The "Straussian" approach to interpreting texts involves close attention to the nuances of a text, an exploration of the author's intent, and an awareness of the historical context. Strauss's work has influenced generations of scholars who employ this method to engage with classical texts and uncover hidden meanings.

Strauss's ideas have inspired diverse interpretations and led to the development of what is often referred to as "Straussianism." Scholars influenced by Strauss have applied his methods to analyze a wide array of philosophical and political works, sometimes leading to intense debates about the accuracy and intent of his interpretations.

Leo Strauss's contributions to political philosophy have shaped the way scholars approach and interpret classical texts. His ideas continue to provoke discussions about the relationship between philosophy, politics, and tradition in the modern world.

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How familiar are you with this mundane list of thinkers you probably encountered at University? Many more, far less referenced writers, thinkers, and philosophers have equally profound ideas. 

Most people have never heard of them, much less read them and thought critically about their work. 

We take for granted our economic beliefs in the same way that people have faith in Religion. That is to say, uncritically. 

If you can't relate to and think critically about these thinkers' contributions when you speak of these subjects (perhaps out of laziness or ignorance), you are mindlessly parroting the "Catholic Mass," A.K.A. popular media, and its entertainers.

Next, I could mention political philosophers and heterodox economists from the 21st Century. But I'll save that for another time.

And let's also ignore our understanding of Science, Evolution, Genetics, Epigenetics, Complexity, Systems, Structures, Psychology, Anthropology, Medicine, Neurology, Endocrinology, Technology, Engineering, Materials, Energy, etc., as if those domains might shed light on our inherited Religion. 

Sapolsky, Singer, Buckminster Fuller, Vandana Shiva, Nietzsche, Aurobindo, Hobbes, Heidegger, Bateson, Schrödinger, Radhakrishnan, Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Sagan, Tesla, Feynman, Roy, Mishima, — who are they?

And let's not go Ancient, and never go East: Khaldun, Lao Tsu...

Hey, Rational Actor, you amazingly talented individual. Where did you pull your Religion out of? "And who's the best driver you ever saw?"

"Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues."
— Confucius

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Let’s look at Economics through the ENERGY Lens, and disabuse ourselves from previous Ideological Pits.

Video description

On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by Jon Erickson, Josh Farley, Steve Keen, and Kate Raworth - all of whom are leading thinkers and educators in the field of heterodox economics. In this lively discussion, each guest begins by sharing one fundamental aspect of what conventional economic theory gets wrong and how it could be improved in our education system. What basic assumptions about humans have led to a misunderstanding of the average person’s decision-making? What areas have (mainstream) economic theory turned a blindspot to as the foundation of our economic systems? Who is finding the models and systems that economists have created useful - and how does economics as a discipline need to change in the face of a lower energy future? In short, what we teach our 18-22-year-olds around the world matters greatly. About Jon Erickson: Jon Erickson is the David Blittersdorf Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy at the University of Vermont. He has published widely on energy and climate change policy, land conservation, watershed planning, environmental public health, and the theory and practice of ecological economics. He advised presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on economics and energy issues.

About Josh Farley: Joshua Farley is an ecological economist and Community Development & Applied Economics and Public Administration professor at the University of Vermont. He is the President of the International Society for Ecological Economics.

About Steve Keen: Steve Keen is an economist, author of Debunking Economics and The New Economics: A Manifesto. He is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategy, Resilience, and Security at University College in London.

About Kate Raworth: Kate Raworth describes herself as a renegade economist focused on making economics fit for 21st-century realities. She is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries, and co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab, based on her best-selling book Doughnut Economics: 7 Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. Kate is a Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches the Masters in Environmental Change and Management. She is also a Professor of Practice at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. She is a member of the Club of Rome and currently serves on the World Health Organisation Council on the Economics of Health for All.

For the PomPom Boys.

Doughnut Economics on The Great Simplification

We must redefine growth in the context of economics.

Today I want to share a conversation. Anyone following me knows I enjoy Nate Hagens’ podcast, The Great Simplification. His understanding of our predicament from an energy standpoint is profound and vital for us to understand. I highly recommend it. Recently he spoke with Kate Raworth, the author of Doughnut Economics. I read it when it came out and was excited by its scope and approach. Then I moved on to a million other things. The conversation on Nate’s podcast reignited my interest in her organisation.

How do we change a culture (what we think and do) where conventional Players and Clerks have a lot to lose if they recognize that the carbon pulse is over and deadly? Will they learn to live differently, change their values and care about things outside the narrow scope of The Great Game? Changing Culture is The Hard Problem. I wonder if we have time. If we don’t work together now to shift values, our civilization might crash. It’s time to create new cultures with values that ensure a future for life.

AI Book Summaries for: Bostrom, Tegmark, Christian, and Lee

"I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought!' Eventually, I realized that the subjects were always right. They always behaved as they should have behaved. It was I who was wrong."

—From the 1948 utopian novel Walden Two, by BF Skinner

“The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.” — B. F. Skinner

"Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies" by Nick Bostrom is a comprehensive exploration of the potential risks and implications of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) that surpasses human intelligence. 

YALE SCIENTIFIC BOOK REVIEW

In the book, Bostrom outlines the concept of superintelligence, referring to an intellect that dramatically surpasses the cognitive capabilities of humans in virtually every aspect. He argues that the development of superintelligent AI could be a significant turning point in human history, posing tremendous opportunities and existential risks.

Bostrom begins by examining the different paths to AGI, including machine learning, evolutionary algorithms, and whole-brain emulation. He explores the potential consequences of achieving AGI, emphasizing that the crucial concern is not just about reaching this milestone but rather about aligning the goals and values of the superintelligent system with those of humanity.

One of the book's central themes is the problem of control and value alignment. Bostrom highlights the challenge of ensuring that a superintelligent AI system understands and acts in accordance with human values. Without proper alignment, there is a risk that a misaligned superintelligence could pursue its objectives in detrimental or even catastrophic ways for humanity.

Bostrom delves into several scenarios for how the development of superintelligence might unfold. He considers possibilities such as a sudden intelligence explosion, where AGI rapidly improves itself to superintelligence, or a slower transition, where AGI development progresses gradually. He examines the implications of these scenarios and discusses strategies for mitigating risks.

He also explores the notion of an intelligence explosion, where a superintelligent AI could rapidly surpass human cognitive abilities and radically transform society. He examines the potential outcomes, including scenarios where the superintelligence is indifferent or hostile to human well-being, and explores the challenges of creating an aligned and controllable superintelligence.

Bostrom discusses a range of strategies that could be employed to ensure a beneficial outcome in the development of superintelligence. These strategies include value loading, where human values are explicitly programmed into the AI, and boxing or containment methods to limit the superintelligence's capabilities and prevent it from causing harm.

The book also addresses broader societal and global implications, considering the impact of superintelligence on economics, governance, and international relations. Bostrom emphasizes the need for a coordinated and proactive approach to the development of AGI, advocating for thorough research, safety precautions, and policy discussions.

"Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies" thoroughly examines superintelligent AI's risks and potential impacts. Bostrom's work serves as a call to action for researchers, policymakers, and society to carefully consider the development and deployment of artificial general intelligence to ensure a positive outcome for humanity.

"Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Max Tegmark is a captivating exploration of the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on human society. The book delves into the transformative power of AI and its implications for humanity. 

TECHNOLOGY FOR LEARNERS

Tegmark begins by presenting the concept of "Life 3.0," which represents a future stage of human existence where we have achieved significant advancements in AI. He outlines the possibilities of AI development, ranging from narrow AI systems that excel at specific tasks to general artificial intelligence (AGI) that possesses human-level or even superhuman intelligence.

The book delves into various scenarios of AI development, considering the potential benefits and risks associated with each trajectory. Tegmark highlights the importance of understanding and addressing the societal implications of AI, as its widespread deployment could fundamentally reshape our economies, governance structures, and personal lives.

One of the book's central themes is AI's ethical dimensions. Tegmark emphasizes ensuring that AI systems align with human values and goals. He explores the challenge of imbuing AI with a sense of ethics and the potential risks if AI systems lack appropriate ethical considerations.

Tegmark discusses the concept of "intelligence explosion," where AGI could rapidly improve itself, leading to a superintelligent AI that surpasses human cognitive abilities. He examines different theories and perspectives on the potential outcomes of such an intelligence explosion, including scenarios where AGI may be indifferent, benevolent, or hostile to human interests.

The book also addresses the societal implications of AI in various domains, such as employment, privacy, and warfare. Tegmark explores the potential impact on the job market as automation and AI systems replace human labor. He discusses the importance of designing AI systems that respect privacy and mitigate data collection and surveillance risks. Additionally, he examines the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in military applications and the need for international cooperation to establish norms and regulations.

Throughout the book, Tegmark emphasizes the need for collaboration between technologists, policymakers, and society as a whole to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by AI. He advocates for proactive engagement in shaping the future of AI development, including robust safety measures, responsible research, and open discussions on the ethical implications.

"Life 3.0" offers a thought-provoking exploration of AI's potential impact on humanity. Max Tegmark presents a balanced perspective, discussing the promises and perils of AI while emphasizing the importance of responsible and ethical AI development to ensure a positive outcome for humanity.

"The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values" by Brian Christian Christian explores the challenges of aligning artificial intelligence systems with human values and goals. Brian Christian delves into machine learning and the ethical considerations surrounding the development and deployment of AI systems. 

PRODUCT THINKING BOOK REVIEW

Christian highlights the increasing integration of AI systems into various aspects of society, from self-driving cars to automated decision-making in finance and healthcare. He emphasizes that as AI systems become more autonomous, ensuring their behavior aligns with human values and priorities is crucial.

The book delves into the "alignment problem," which refers to the challenge of designing AI systems that act in accordance with human values. Christian explores the complexities of encoding human values into machine learning algorithms and the potential risks if these values need to be adequately understood or incorporated.

Christian addresses the limitations and biases inherent in data used to train machine learning algorithms. He discusses the challenges of defining and codifying human values for AI systems. He also examines the trade-offs and difficult choices in determining AI systems' desired outcomes and behaviors.

Christian explores different approaches to addressing the alignment problem, including operant conditioning, rule-based systems, value learning, and inverse reinforcement learning. He discusses the benefits and drawbacks of each and highlights the ongoing research and discussions in the field.

The book delves into the ethical dimensions of AI alignment, considering privacy, transparency, and fairness issues. Christian explores the potential consequences of misalignment, including unintended and harmful behaviors of AI systems. He emphasizes the importance of considering AI deployment's immediate impact and long-term implications.

Throughout the book, Christian draws on various examples and case studies to illustrate the challenges and complexities of AI alignment. He references historical incidents, such as the infamous "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment, to explore potential scenarios and highlight the need for careful consideration and foresight.

"The Alignment Problem" examines the ethical dilemmas and technical challenges surrounding aligning AI systems with human values. Brian Christian encourages readers to engage in discussions and contribute to developing AI systems that align with our shared goals and aspirations.

"AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order" by Kai-Fu Lee is a book that explores the race for artificial intelligence (AI) dominance between China and the United States, shedding light on the technological advancements, challenges and potential societal impacts. 

THINKING AHEAD INSTITUTE BOOK REVIEW

Kai-Fu Lee, a prominent AI expert and venture capitalist, begins by examining the development of AI in both China and Silicon Valley. He provides insights into the historical context, technological progress, and economic factors that have propelled these regions to the forefront of AI research and innovation.

The book explores the unique strengths and strategies of each AI superpower. Lee discusses the technological prowess and entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley, with its focus on cutting-edge research, disruptive startups, and venture capital investment. In contrast, he highlights China's advantages in massive data collection, rapid deployment of AI applications, and the integration of AI into various sectors of the economy.

Lee examines the impact of AI on different industries, such as healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. He discusses the potential benefits of AI applications, including increased efficiency, improved diagnostics, and personalized services. However, he also acknowledges the concerns regarding job displacement and the need for retraining workers in the age of automation.

The book delves into the social and ethical implications of AI's proliferation. Lee explores the challenges of data privacy, algorithmic biases, and the responsibility of AI developers to ensure fairness and transparency. He emphasizes the importance of a human-centric approach to AI, where technology enhances rather than replaces human capabilities.

Furthermore, Lee discusses the potential impact of AI on the global economy and power dynamics. He explores how the race for AI supremacy can reshape the geopolitical landscape, with China and the United States competing for economic influence and technological leadership. Lee examines the role of government policies, intellectual property rights, and talent acquisition in maintaining competitive advantages.

The book also addresses the potential risks and concerns associated with AI development. Lee highlights the need for responsible AI governance, including regulation, safeguards against malicious use, and mechanisms for accountability. He emphasizes the importance of international collaboration and ethical considerations in addressing the challenges posed by AI.

Throughout the book, Lee shares personal anecdotes and insights from his experiences in the AI industry, providing a unique perspective on the cultural and economic differences between China and the United States in their pursuit of AI advancements.

"AI Superpowers" provides:

• A comprehensive analysis of the AI landscape in China and Silicon Valley.

• Highlighting the opportunities.

• Challenges.

• Potential consequences of the AI race between these two technological giants.

Kai-Fu Lee offers valuable insights into the implications of AI on the economy, society, and global power dynamics, calling for responsible and ethical AI development for the benefit of humanity.

Will China become a Deep Tech Superpower? Opportunities for Deep Tech Entrepreneurship