Young folks have an opportunity to begin thinking 'at first I am human'. Recognize that we now know we're not only related to each other but to the entire DNA based biosphere. That we came out of the dance between earth and it's interrelated solar system, galaxy, universe. Create a new religion based on this realization. Great interview, thanks for your work.
Thanks Patrick, good and interesting and relevant commentary. I've been enjoying a line from a story passed on by Joseph Campbell, in which he quotes the Buddha as saying 'The world is an ever-burning fire.' To which Campbell says, 'And so it is.' The drama will never be resolved. One could say, 'So get used it it,' or 'breathe.'
I only saw your comment after writing mine: "The only constant in nature is change. Jack Fresco from the Venus project spent all of his life offering solutions, yet nothing happened. There's nothing to do. Become as self sufficient as possible and let Nature take care of itself.The only constant in nature is change. Jack Fresco from the Venus project spent all of his life offering solutions, yet nothing happened. There's nothing to do. Become as self sufficient as possible and let Nature take care of itself."
We can all agree that things are going to get a whole lot worse… I say we reduce the suffering of all species by reducing the number of humans on this planet. I suggest forming nonprofits, or even government entities that pay men to get vasectomies. Fewer humans equals less suffering!
You have a better impact if you had tubes tied then vasectomies because one man can have a thousand children with different women as Genghis Khan proved
@@JonathanLoganPDX yes, men can father many more children than women can birth, which is exactly why vasectomies will result in less humans being born. Even better… The best of both worlds would be that both sexes were paid to get sterilized.
But what group do you suggest starting with first? The wealthiest top 10% put about 50% of the emissions into the atmosphere. And if we mutually agree to execute them 1/2 of the population of the US and Europe would be removed and much of our intellectual and technical expertise end up as cremation ash. If we decide to eliminate 4-5 billion of the agrarian poor, who grow the crops in most countries, the cities starve. We could set up some kind of killing lottery system w/ compensation for the family members. It would lead to degrowth and a huge amount of anxiety along with rebellion- but it's probaby the most equitable thing to do. If you participate in a green venture then you would be removed from the lottery temporarily- great incentive to change your values and work. A world government is needed to enforce the policy.
What he's alluding to is a civilization very much like what was depicted in the movie Avatar, which I realise is a bit corny, but it's a handy metaphor for how to exist on your planet sustainably that was widely ingested. Also take into account the unwillingness to even Don a cloth mask during a worldwide pandemic or the hissy fits being thrown over Americans switching from a gas to electric induction stove tops, and you can see how completely futile this all is. A very few will survive the storm, and will have to deal with a slowly healing planet for generations, but maybe THEY will arrive at a better understanding of how to exist here sustainably.
Edited 18:32 "what would an ecologically focused society look like?" As indicated, steady state is no where near good enough until sustainable levels have been achieved. This goes for an exhaustive list of measurables that have exhibited an exponential growth curve for over a century. The implications of this are daunting and can hardly be uttered among polite company. Fundamentally, there's no solution until human greed and will to power can be transcended. Religion and the ideological brush fires of the 20th century have proven inadequate to the task. The original Star Trek had an episode depicting a "sustainable" planetary culture overseen by a quasi deity, AI overlord. Kirk and company, despite the Prime Directive, unshackled the local population so that they may pursue their humanoid will to power and be free to "progress". I wonder if the writers had any appreciation for the irony when writing the script. As typical, the direction and nuances of the production portrayed Kirk's actions as unambiguously heroic and exalting of human (or humanoid sentient life form) preeminence to "be fruitful and multiply, to subdue nature and reign over it." The paradigm was that it's better that humanoids reign over themselves, do or die, rather than have their wills reined in and ambitions undermined by an AI governance facility programed to enforce ecological homeostasis. If these humanoid aliens are not released from the AI "play pen" their ancestors apparently designed and confined them within, how else will this population of somatic beings progress technologically (and surpass that of their ancestors who designed the AI and subjected their progeny to it's governance) so that they may be free to go on.. "To explore strange new worlds." (and in so doing, destroy the one small fragile jewel of a life supporting planet in an endless ocean of hostile, cold, unnavigable space.) "To seek out new life" (and in so doing, disrespect and drive to extinction life forms, and even more tragically, severly damage whole ecological wild "systems" on the home planet. This is compounded by the incalculable tragedy that the home planet may perhaps be the only planet in the universe with any sort of life at all, with much less likelihood of other multicellular, sentient, civilizational, advanced technological, or trans-somatic life. After a eons of evolution, a feverish century or two and the prognosis is grim. The emergence of mega technical civilization may be as devastating to the biosphere as meteor bombardment or super volcanic eruption. "And (seek out) new civilizations" (With the naive implicit assumption that the home civilization could survive the degree of ecological destruction inherent in ultra mega technological socio economic imperatives prerequisite to pursuance of sophomoric fantasies of somatic interstellar space travel.) "To boldly go where no man has gone before". (As Dr. Ophuls point out, even primitive ancient migrating tribes, with no more than language, fire, sticks and stones, quicky drove myriad mega fauna to extinction.) Like yeast in a bottle of syrup our destiny is clear. Humans say to yeast, hold my beer. As George Carlin stated, "In the long run, nature will be just fine." What happens to the progeny of the super elite when they emerge from their bunkers, frail and pale, malnourished and inbred, eyes straining to take in their first glimpse of what remains of the surface world? Will they become the morlocks or eloi? Will they envy the dead? Will they damn their elite progenitors who added to the destruction, who accelerated the ship into the perilous path, to create bunkers and life rafts for themselves, rather than set an example of treading lightly? What does it look like? A Big Rock Candy Mountain? And Mr Fusion powered hover cars, Dymaxion houses, where robots do all the work and we frolick endlessly in the Mataverse? Or something more down to earth? Chop wood. Carry water. Tend your garden... and livestock. Sing and dance around the campfire. Tell stories. And following a day of real physical work, sleep well under a sky so filled with stars you feel you could reach out and touch them. And teach well the AI governed, reproductive budgeted progeny allocated to your local sustenance cooperative. Take your Soma, and never ever unplug from the matrix. Resistance is futile. Like other domesticated beasts, tax cattle shall be branded, penned, neutered, chipped, graded, selected, then shipped off to the next phase of the process. ...."For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected." Chief Seattle
I've been thinking about the whole "I can't drive 55" reaction to the 70's. That alone might be why we have had to sufferer through Reaganomics. Just looking at the 18 to date comments, nothing has changed. We are adverse to perceived loss. Part of the problem with electric cars is we are expecting them to act like petroleum vehicles. The majority of our transportation needs are less than 30 mile at speeds under 35 mph. Why not design light weigh vehicles based on bike technology. Once a month I have to travel to the big city 40 miles away. I would lose one hour if I could drive a "Buggy" (If Walmart can sell bikes for under $100.00 an electric buggy could be sold for under a $1000.00) What would happen if we put our effort into living with less rater than increasing GDP.
I got a bit confused. He wasn't up to date on a few things. I lived in Tokyo and they have cleaned up a lot of the pollution in the air and water. So, the kinds of blackout smog he encountered back in the day is less obvious, although Fuji-San is still mostly invisible from most places in town for most of the year. Throughout this discussion, it might have helped to focus on defining terms at the outset and maybe also questioning them. The prognosis of doom and gloom is very much a cliché now that even the WEF is using it as a pretext to move us along into its technofascist utopia. We should be asking more piercing questions..! Is 'scarcity' true..? How so? Does it take decades for attitudes to change..? The contraceptive pill was adopted within two years of its discovery. (see also Rupert Sheldrake's experiments on shifting consciousness en masse rapidly) Re: (manmade) Climate Change. While we lament nation-states not taking enough action, the WEF and Bill Gates are, even if only cynically. I would argue that these elites are the prime reasons why there's been little action but action on every other front to steer us into thinking the WEF will take care of all of it (reducing 'our' carbon footprint rhetoric / initiatives). A Social Credit system, for instance, rivalling China's totalitarian surveillance system, intends, if we see the signs, to distribute carbon points to every individual, punishing individuals for using more than their 'fair share'. Of course, it makes eminent sense for the prime polluters to offset any fingers pointing at them. Oh no..! That wouldn't do..! So, like the way financial crises caused by the banks ends up being paid for by the people who had no hand in them, these big players are shifting the blame of their own hubris onto us. Now, that will not do, will it..! At least, not anywhere I know where justice actually means something. Turns out, Gates also believes that people are the problem and that there's too many of us. By the way, as a longtime Buddhist meditator myself, I believe it is antithetical to the Buddha's teaching to think that any animal is to blame for anything. That is to say, it is inimical to self-inquiry if we begin with the foregone conclusion that humanity is evil since it has brought us to this planetary self-destructive point. The idea of a manmade Climate Change is a hoax or at the least exaggerated. To the extent we believe in this exaggeration, we will be hard on ourselves as a species. Indeed, it's a circular argument. People are bad, ruining the planet, and so it goes...in an apparently fatalistic way. But this is neither a sound way of analyzing the self nor does it offer a charitable view of humanity. Ipso facto, it is unconducive to hope. Turns out, the WEF, having invested hundreds of billions on biotech, and on the idea of hybridizing the human with the machine are extremely optimistic. In other words, the future we envisage is only as hopeful as the time and effort we invest in its realization. Gregory Bateson's notion of feedback is something George Soros took to heart and he attributes his success on the currency market to this very idea. Bateson's idea of schismogenesis was used during the Cold War, for instance, and it is being used now in the war on the global population to get the jab (and endless boosters). So, while 'we' may not know or have used Bateson's ideas ourselves, the military-industrial-complex has been using them all along, and at our expense. If it weren't for the ongoing censorship on social media we'd be in a much better place to address issues like the exploitation of nature and we'd also be able to better address the issue of the change in consciousness needed so we could live more sustainably. The idea of reducing the global population so that the remaining few can 'live the (sustainability) dream' is also quite a ways off, as you might have guessed, to how I see things. Gates has been buying up, alongside the CCP, most of the agricultural land in the US..? Why do think a computer geek would do that..? It's kind of obvious really. All you need is a bit of research and a lot of empathy for people quite unlike ourselves. But to drink the Kool Aid..? Made by corporate America, to internalize self-hate and then cave in to our self-made delusion of a magnificently negative monster..? No. I beg to differ with Patrick that that is what Buddhism says. Hinduism, yes. Buddhism, no. Hinduism permits multiple incarnations of variously nurturant, strong and destructive gods eternally recycling themselves to whose whims we must fatalistically bow. Buddhist meditators, by contrast, suggest we have the power to transcend godliness to finally find out who we really are...that is to say, to realize that we are the eternally changing universe and that it is essentially benign.
The world is in great shape, population is leveling off and soon to be dropping quite dramatically. We have virtually unlimited energy that is pollution free and requires no new mining. Between uranium and thorium, we have enough fissile fuel to last all of humanity for 4 billion years. We will survive stupid politics eventually.
@@timeenoughforart Or the best, unlimited energy that requires zero mining with zero dangerous waste using minimal resource inputs including land inputs. Virtually everything could be recycled economically. No energy wars, and no one gets left out because the fuel is available to everyone equally. The future's so bright, ya gotta wear shades.
@@chapter4travels "Could" is the problem. Technology has given us wonderful tools to diminish the damage we cause. Instead of building Microwaves that last decades we build ones that last a year. We could do better.
@@chapter4travels Right we could build microwaves that last for just about the same money. When we built them in America they would last decades. We were able to afford those. Planned obsolescence might be good for the economy, but sucks for the planet.
