We currently have the resources and technology to turn the world into a paradise for all. By paridise I mean decent food shelter and rewarding jobs for all. Basic living requirements.
We live on a finite planet with finite resources. Sustainable "growth" or "development" is an oxymoron. The population of the planet has gone beyond sustainability and that has occurred because of technology. We are now trapped in a situation where in order to maintain the population society must rely on increased use of technology. All technology is based exclusively on fossil fuel from transportation to manufacturing of goods and food and heating and cooling. Virtually everything you touch or use is fossil fuel related in some manner.
Going back to the early 60s we were warned of the population explosion and it was not heeded. Technology provided the answers for allowing the increase in population. Now we are paying the price for it ignoring the warning.
Since that time the situation has been exacerbated by the economic system which has led to a manufacturing system which is based on disposable goods, planned obsolescence and waste for more profit.
As for the mind shift just changing the thought process is not going to solve our problems. That's wishful thinking. At present the only solution is a severe reduction in population. If people would stop consuming in their present ways immediately it might be possible to maintain the population and gradually reduce it by natural means. Instead, governments world wide, China included are calling for an increase in population to maintain production capacity and economic growth.
I don't believe that there is enough arable land in the world to sustain the current population if the entire current socio economic system were to magically disappear. Cities, economic system reliance on fossil fuel and the like. Depending on the location I would guess that it would take 50 acres of land for survival for a family. That's a slightly educated guess since I grew up in Maine in the 60s and we raised over half our food supplemented with fishing and hunting and heated primarily with wood. The ! Kung bushmen were some of the last known societies to live with nature and completely off what the land provided. In two generations they have completely lost that ability having been forced into an agricultural system. Thousands of years of knowledge lost in a few decades.
If humans are to survive it will be a very few located in the extreme North and south latitudes.
The one thing about the book which I found refreshing is the inclusion of chaos or complexity theory which is a good representation of human society and its effects on the planet. The trouble is that it can never be known how a small change will manifest in the final outcome. That's the definition of complexity theory. Random events with an underlying order. The current underlying order is one which is suitable for humans and other species which we as humans have disrupted to our detriment.
I agree with Prof Fenner though I think it may come much sooner than he predicted. 99 percent of all life on the planet has gone extinct. Why should humans be an exception?
The Mindshift comes into play in the possible circumstance when perhaps as many as 20-25% of the population comes to the realizations that you have described here, then it is possible that that “minority” opinion can spill over into the mainstream. Until then, corporate interests continue to dominate and all life suffers.
The first required steps as I have outlined in other posts, is to set definite limits to “Progress,” such as ending all Space travel and stop commodifying Nature and end the ceaseless technological interventions into biological processes and end air travel: ground all flights now. There is no future in the present path; great changes are required in every system of interactions.
Thanks for the kind reply. I'm glad you liked the comment as it is a bitter truth. Part of the problem people like us face is society has been programmed to receive only "happy" thoughts. Anything negative contrary or difficult is immediately dismissed. It's a great success of the government and Corp propaganda machine. The people who think and believe that they are "awake" are some of the worst indoctrinated. They have been programmed for the past 40 years or their entire life. Psychologically, deprogramming would take years on an individual basis, if at all possible. And as long as the propaganda machine is active the mental state of society will remain the same or get worse. Christian religion in general teaches that in order to be a good Christian you need to suffer. The same belief system has been imposed on all of western civilization by government and corporations. Fascism is defined very simply as a merger of government and corporations. The word doesn't matter. Reaganomics brought that to the forefront but the public never saw it for what it was. The actions are what count. If one reads the US Declaration Of Independence nearly all of the reasons for separation from England are occurring today and many are far worse. Yet people argue over Trump or Biden in the next election. "Intelligent" people. Everything is being carefully orchestrated, election fraud, democracy in jeopardy and so on, when in fact democracy no longer exists and elections haven't been legitimate for decades.
I haven't read your limits to progress yet but I've realized the need since the 80s. Virtually every job I had was a grievous rape of the environment or to human life, from making bombs (experimental cluster munitions courtesy of AVCO systems) to commercial fishing (draggers) destroying the ocean seabed and overfishing. And jobs being outsourced overseas where pollution controls are non-existent. One of the people I worked for was a top executive at BBN in Boston. A government think tank who developed the SOSUS NETWORK for Russian submarine tracking and internet development. His particular job was presidential communication systems for the secret service and airline networking. He was easily one of the most bigoted, racist, sexist people I've ever met. In the mid 80s he told me that manufacturing was going to be outsourced overseas and the economy was being replaced with a service based economy. I asked him what people were going to do for jobs and his reply was "Fuck 'em, they can go on welfare". And here we are. Tourism and fast food with lots of airline tickets. The governor of Hawaii is an MD and praising the increased tourism. Not surprised because most doctors I've dealt with are idiots. The first thing to go should be tourism.
If the definition of fascism is "... the merger of government and corporations with belligerent nationalism" and Reaganomics promoted privatization of government duties and responsibilities to corporate America and then after 9/11 the Patriot Act defined an endless war on Terror what do we have?
Great comment, thank you! Truth resides in the light so is exempt from features of taste, i.e., bitter, saline, sweet, etc. Yes, truth can bite if it upsets your cocoon of comfort, dropping you into unexplored pathways of understanding. Of course, people who don’t exude happiness are deemed “negative,” and become yet another individual to be “othered.” “Deprogramming” or trying to educate people already set in their ways is not possible, they are past teachable moments. If they have not learned some intellectual discipline and/or musical training in their youth, just consider that to be yet another lost and wasted brain. All religions (that which binds) are invalid; that medieval thought-control system should have long ago (in The Enlightenment) been relegated to the dust-bin of history, rather than the continued revival of it by various ideologues. As for “democracy,” Chris Hedges got it right in his Sermon for Gaza, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/sermon-for-gaza
in which he said: “And the great 19th century populist Mary Elizabeth Lease, who thundered: 'Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.'”
As for exporting jobs and the remaining “service industry,” yes, that’s all we are left with now, just jobs that can’t be exported, such as selling to each other flowers, insurance and pizza.
We currently have the resources and technology to turn the world into a paradise for all. By paridise I mean decent food shelter and rewarding jobs for all. Basic living requirements.
We live on a finite planet with finite resources. Sustainable "growth" or "development" is an oxymoron. The population of the planet has gone beyond sustainability and that has occurred because of technology. We are now trapped in a situation where in order to maintain the population society must rely on increased use of technology. All technology is based exclusively on fossil fuel from transportation to manufacturing of goods and food and heating and cooling. Virtually everything you touch or use is fossil fuel related in some manner.
Going back to the early 60s we were warned of the population explosion and it was not heeded. Technology provided the answers for allowing the increase in population. Now we are paying the price for it ignoring the warning.
Since that time the situation has been exacerbated by the economic system which has led to a manufacturing system which is based on disposable goods, planned obsolescence and waste for more profit.
As for the mind shift just changing the thought process is not going to solve our problems. That's wishful thinking. At present the only solution is a severe reduction in population. If people would stop consuming in their present ways immediately it might be possible to maintain the population and gradually reduce it by natural means. Instead, governments world wide, China included are calling for an increase in population to maintain production capacity and economic growth.
I don't believe that there is enough arable land in the world to sustain the current population if the entire current socio economic system were to magically disappear. Cities, economic system reliance on fossil fuel and the like. Depending on the location I would guess that it would take 50 acres of land for survival for a family. That's a slightly educated guess since I grew up in Maine in the 60s and we raised over half our food supplemented with fishing and hunting and heated primarily with wood. The ! Kung bushmen were some of the last known societies to live with nature and completely off what the land provided. In two generations they have completely lost that ability having been forced into an agricultural system. Thousands of years of knowledge lost in a few decades.
If humans are to survive it will be a very few located in the extreme North and south latitudes.
The one thing about the book which I found refreshing is the inclusion of chaos or complexity theory which is a good representation of human society and its effects on the planet. The trouble is that it can never be known how a small change will manifest in the final outcome. That's the definition of complexity theory. Random events with an underlying order. The current underlying order is one which is suitable for humans and other species which we as humans have disrupted to our detriment.
I agree with Prof Fenner though I think it may come much sooner than he predicted. 99 percent of all life on the planet has gone extinct. Why should humans be an exception?
Thank you Toma, for the thoughtful comment!
The Mindshift comes into play in the possible circumstance when perhaps as many as 20-25% of the population comes to the realizations that you have described here, then it is possible that that “minority” opinion can spill over into the mainstream. Until then, corporate interests continue to dominate and all life suffers.
The first required steps as I have outlined in other posts, is to set definite limits to “Progress,” such as ending all Space travel and stop commodifying Nature and end the ceaseless technological interventions into biological processes and end air travel: ground all flights now. There is no future in the present path; great changes are required in every system of interactions.
Thank you for subscribing!
Thanks for the kind reply. I'm glad you liked the comment as it is a bitter truth. Part of the problem people like us face is society has been programmed to receive only "happy" thoughts. Anything negative contrary or difficult is immediately dismissed. It's a great success of the government and Corp propaganda machine. The people who think and believe that they are "awake" are some of the worst indoctrinated. They have been programmed for the past 40 years or their entire life. Psychologically, deprogramming would take years on an individual basis, if at all possible. And as long as the propaganda machine is active the mental state of society will remain the same or get worse. Christian religion in general teaches that in order to be a good Christian you need to suffer. The same belief system has been imposed on all of western civilization by government and corporations. Fascism is defined very simply as a merger of government and corporations. The word doesn't matter. Reaganomics brought that to the forefront but the public never saw it for what it was. The actions are what count. If one reads the US Declaration Of Independence nearly all of the reasons for separation from England are occurring today and many are far worse. Yet people argue over Trump or Biden in the next election. "Intelligent" people. Everything is being carefully orchestrated, election fraud, democracy in jeopardy and so on, when in fact democracy no longer exists and elections haven't been legitimate for decades.
I haven't read your limits to progress yet but I've realized the need since the 80s. Virtually every job I had was a grievous rape of the environment or to human life, from making bombs (experimental cluster munitions courtesy of AVCO systems) to commercial fishing (draggers) destroying the ocean seabed and overfishing. And jobs being outsourced overseas where pollution controls are non-existent. One of the people I worked for was a top executive at BBN in Boston. A government think tank who developed the SOSUS NETWORK for Russian submarine tracking and internet development. His particular job was presidential communication systems for the secret service and airline networking. He was easily one of the most bigoted, racist, sexist people I've ever met. In the mid 80s he told me that manufacturing was going to be outsourced overseas and the economy was being replaced with a service based economy. I asked him what people were going to do for jobs and his reply was "Fuck 'em, they can go on welfare". And here we are. Tourism and fast food with lots of airline tickets. The governor of Hawaii is an MD and praising the increased tourism. Not surprised because most doctors I've dealt with are idiots. The first thing to go should be tourism.
If the definition of fascism is "... the merger of government and corporations with belligerent nationalism" and Reaganomics promoted privatization of government duties and responsibilities to corporate America and then after 9/11 the Patriot Act defined an endless war on Terror what do we have?
Looking forward to your next post.
Great comment, thank you! Truth resides in the light so is exempt from features of taste, i.e., bitter, saline, sweet, etc. Yes, truth can bite if it upsets your cocoon of comfort, dropping you into unexplored pathways of understanding. Of course, people who don’t exude happiness are deemed “negative,” and become yet another individual to be “othered.” “Deprogramming” or trying to educate people already set in their ways is not possible, they are past teachable moments. If they have not learned some intellectual discipline and/or musical training in their youth, just consider that to be yet another lost and wasted brain. All religions (that which binds) are invalid; that medieval thought-control system should have long ago (in The Enlightenment) been relegated to the dust-bin of history, rather than the continued revival of it by various ideologues. As for “democracy,” Chris Hedges got it right in his Sermon for Gaza, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/sermon-for-gaza
in which he said: “And the great 19th century populist Mary Elizabeth Lease, who thundered: 'Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.'”
As for exporting jobs and the remaining “service industry,” yes, that’s all we are left with now, just jobs that can’t be exported, such as selling to each other flowers, insurance and pizza.
Yes, do read the “Limits to Progress” https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/limits-to-progress
that is what got this all started, and it is not a time-sensitive post, unfortunately it still applies - this is a rogue species.