Murder Most Foul

[GliderGuider]

[joshcryer]

1. So true.

I admit this ashamedly being a technologist. This is what we're doing to the planet. 10 years ago I would've mocked primitivists or anti-civ people as idiots. I was wrong. This is what is happening. We technologists, the good ones anyway (you gotta admit there are good, well meaning ones), don't have control over it. We might be able to make a philosophical argument as to why technology can be neutral, but that's not what it is currently. We fucking failed. It's a goddamn travesty.

I hate being that idiotic optimist of the late 90s early 2000s.

Wonderful pic, thanks for sharing GG.

[GliderGuider]

2. I have to admit to a certain ambivalence toward technology

Some days I feel like this painting. On other days I feel like it's just what our species does - it's our lion claws, our wolf teeth, our black mamba venom, or the cyanobacterium's oxygen.

A big reason we feel such shame is because we believe we're rational, volitional creatures with free choice and free will. We're really not. We are as much victims of our evolutionary programming as any other species. Our tragedy is that we recognize what we're doing even as we do it, and worse - we recognize that we are largely helpless to change that behaviour.

Ho'oponopono comes in very handy at times like this:
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you."

[joshcryer]

3. As an anti-capitalist I look at this picture and want to punch it.

I want to say, this is nonsense, this is idiocy, this isn't reality. But looking at how globalization functions, I look at this picture and my only response is "fuck." This is the reality. My desire for it not to be true does not change a fucking thing. It is true. It's how things are. And that's the most difficult aspect of it for me. This is not to say that I am against activism or individuals working in their own capacity to effect change (or adapt, as is the more logical approach). It's more that I accept the futility of activism and appreciate those who choose to adapt.

To be sure, absolutely sure, we are "largely helpless to change that behavior." It's a truly sobering and life affirming realization. I'm moving to adaption at this point. I can't get rid of the technologist inclination I have. The scientific drive to do anything much. But I'm not a multibillionare insane dude who could spend their fortune trying (that, btw, is part of the philosophical justification of technology I'm not interested in, since it simply doesn't apply). I'm a regular guy. We're not going to do anything as a species. But some of us might do something individually.

People might mock me. Call me a doomer. But I truly am nothing more than an alarmist at this point. There's plenty of time for countries around the world to magically change their behavior. As an alarmist I want them to know that the behavior must be changed. But it won't be. It will be ignored. Does that make me a doomer? Not necessarily. It makes me a fucking realist. Alarmism? Is there much of a difference between alarmism and doomerism at this point? I honestly don't think so. We're heading in a direction that is going to change the species as we know it. The results I think will not be pretty. And it pains me.

I forgive you. But it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

It's mine.

[GliderGuider]

4. I think recovering from technophilia is like recovering from any addiction.

12 steps, one step at a time.

I guess where I part company from much of the august company on DU (though maybe not so much on this board) is that, as tama said in my other thread, I accept, albeit with some regret, the hopelessness of various instrumental (i.e. political, scientific, engineering etc.) approaches to our predicament. Further, insofar as this would-be Pyrrhonian skeptic "believes" anything, I believe that our only real hope for adapting with least suffering would be a change of our collective consciousness. And while I know that such a transformation is possible on a personal level, I accept that there is no instrumentality that will bring it into the collective, at least before TSHTF.

Which pretty much leaves me with chopping wood, carrying water - and Ho'oponopono for my transgressions.

My accept my insincere apologies for all the woo.

[joshcryer]

5. Sadly, GG...

I don't think you'll be chopping wood without a thick covering of UV reflecting material as you wait for the rains to come or the moisture to hit. I do not say this suggesting I will be better off. I think we're looking at a Mad-Max style environment here.

100 year drought. Are you or your family up for it? I know I'm not.

[GliderGuider]

6. Oh, I'm planning to die whenever it's my time.

It might not take a drought to do it, either. My father came within hours of dying after he scraped his knee on a rock while gardening. Staph-A is a nasty and devious little beast.

The very best quote I took away from Quinn's book "The Story of B" was, "Let destiny take care of itself."

[joshcryer]

7. You're Canadian, right?

I think you have a better chance, on the scheme of things. I mean, at least better than myself. You got years before the fires destroy your forests and the hardy zones (zones where certain species of agriculturally viable plants grow) move northward. I think the US is in store for another dust bowl. 15 years is the number I've been throwing out lately. Speculation, of course, but it can't be much longer than that. Just physics and all.

In many ways I hope you don't live to see it.

In others, I hope you live to document it.

Guys like me won't have time to document the history of our downfall. But we'd damn sure be glad to find someone who did.

[GliderGuider]

8. Yes.

Last edited Wed Jan 23, 2013, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)

I used to think that gave us a slightly better chance than some other nations, but since I learned about Rossby waves I'm not so sure. It doesn't help much to have the ag zones move north if all they find when they get here is Canadian Shield, melting permafrost and sub-arctic storms.

Although maybe we'll be able to grow our own oranges in Edmonton... I try to look on the bright side - at least that would make scurvy a thing of the past. On the other hand, there's always malaria...

[NoOneMan]

32. Its too tough to predict what might happen anywhere

I moved up to gulf islands a few years ago, which seems like a very resilient area. 2 of the last 4 summers (2009 & 2012) we faced drastic droughts that had major impacts on agriculture and salmon spawning. It didn't rain a drop for almost 4 months this last summer, in an area just north of the Puget Sound. Its very difficult to know exactly how every climate is going to be hit.

To make matters worse, the Crown owns a vast amount of the land here, so you have to be fairly well off to even have your own food security (or invest in groups). The real estate market here is currently ridiculous.

Between unpredictable rain, tough winters, and land availability, Canadians are not guaranteed a walk in the park IMO

[joshcryer]

34. The models predict that mid and equatorial latitude areas will be drier.

So while I agree it'll be difficult to predict longitudinal regions, we can get an idea latitudinally. This is why I give Canada a better chance at adaptation. Some areas in Canada may fair better than others, but on a whole it'll be a lot better off than the grainbelt. We're already seeing a massive movement of hardy zones, and northern forest fires are more prevalent. Canada's west will probably do worse in that regard.

I don't think in the end anyone is going to have a walk in the park, but I do thing some latitudinal regions will fare better than others and I expect mass migrations to those ends.

[dbackjon]

10. Burning wood for heat, etc is the most destructive form of energy

Pollution, denudes landscape.

Look at Haiti to see what wide-spread application of this does.

[GliderGuider]

13. But how will we ever get the songbirds out of the trees to eat

if we don't chop the trees down first? After that, we might as well burn them...

[NickB79]

35. Done properly, it is very sustainable

Research coppicing. It was a method used successfully in Europe for hundreds of years to maintain woodlands for wildlife and firewood through rotational logging and selective regeneration. It's also carbon-neutral, something that very few other home heating options can say.

And yes, it can be hard on the air, what with all the smoke put out by inefficient woodfires, but modern woodstoves with catalytic converters on them can get amazing results. My Vermont Castings Encore woodstove burns so cleanly with the catalytic converter engaged, you can barely see any smoke coming out of the chimney.

[dbackjon]

36. Wood can be sustainable for very small populations

That allow for selective harvesting.

It works in rural areas. But the cumulative effect of even a little wood smoke from many houses in an urban area is bad for health.

[The2ndWheel]

14. Thousands of years of history, momentum, and complexity

Tough to change.

In a way it's like a lion's claw, but it's also not anything like it. We seem to be so in love with the idea of evolution as progress that we want to force it. Just another step on the ladder in the upward direction on the diagonal line going to the right on the graph.

[BanzaiBonnie]

23. Thank you GG for the Ho'oponopono

If we use it often, I firmly believe (as firmly as I believe anything) it will swing us into right relationship.

[GliderGuider]

25. You're welcome.

It's magic.

[tama]

9. Great post josh

Technology, like writing etc., is "farmakon", both poison and medicine. And you are correct to point that philosophically the real problem is not technology but false sense of control over nature, as our relation with nature (in the sense of whole of being) is not external observer and controller, but participatory and dependent.

And our mistake is not reason to give up and declare doom falling in self-pity, but to abandon our delusion of control, open our hearts and proceed with courage and wisdom and compassion.

[NoOneMan]

31. Technophilia is becoming a religious movement

And not a helpful one at that...

We have a track record of watching technology correlate to increased energy consumption, but I don't think anyone can objectively prove this comes with a measurable amount of increased aggregate happiness.

Yet the technophile always believes we are on some linear path to some greater Good (like Singularity), which technology will bestow upon us if we keep trotting down the same path of consumption. To a technophile, all technology is good, and brings happiness, and to some extent, justifies the necessary ecological breakdown it requires. Technology has become a benevolent deity surrounded by fantasy.

Technophilia also creates theodicies. It isn't lifestyle or consumption that is the problem and reason for our plight, but rich anti-progress people who are the problem. Technophilia convinces people they do not have to change their habits, but only have faith technology will fix them and bring social change to fix society once the anti-progress people are eliminated.

Its alluring, because it offers distracting toys and hope of a better world without any modification of behavior; it fits perfectly in a growingly secular cultural narrative. It suggests we are on some great path, at a very far point, right next to imminent global salvation. And all we have to do to obtain it is nothing...except buy more iPhones and buy technology so developers keep innovating for profit.

Technophilia is a lesser religion IMO. Its a fabrication by the followers of Money. They've created to give to the people to keep them consuming blindly, and happily. In any case, it convinces us to be passive in the fight and have faith. It is the enemy of the earth.

[GliderGuider]

33. It's a salvation theology.

There is scant difference between a Singularity and a Rapture.

I've given up trying to solve the chick-and-egg conundrum of technology and money. However, it's clear that they have an incestuous feedback relationship, and they are both fundamentally alienating - technology alienates us from the world we live in, and money alienates us from the value of what we do.

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Ok

but why does it have to be a woman's face?

[GliderGuider]

12. Tradition.

It goes back over 10,000 years. Mother Earth, Father Sky...

If a message is not in a language that people understand it kind of loses its impact, yes?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Gaia

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Very serious, but we are stuck with it and will find the balance. How hard we make it on ourselves

The situation is very serious but we have technology and there is no going back. Technology is too good, too much fun.

The issue is to find the balance. The balance does not belong with the people who want to send everybody back to the land and "re-educate" them like Maoists. Nor does it belong to the "pave the earth" crowd.

How hard we make it on ourselves getting to the balance point is the issue. Wars, political fights, corporate greed, fat cats getting richer at the expense of middle class and working poor, water fights, the rat race, extinction of species, ....

Mother nature could care less. Though I applaud the picture, Nature will win in the end. Humankind can't kill nature, but nature can kill humankind. The only other outcome is a harmonious balance. I'm confident we will find it, eventually, but not confident about the process.

Nature doesn't have a memory, but humankind does and will not forget how certain segments of the economy sacrificed habitat and species for short-term gain.

How to get to the balance? Less trading in of last year's iPod for this year's iPod. Make things last. Repair them. Buy quality that will last.

[font size = +1]Reduce, Reuse, Recycle[/font] is more than a slogan.

It means think before buying. Buy for the long term. Repair. Hand down good equipment if you must upgrade. Think about how a product will be recycled (easily or with difficulty, heaven forbid not recycled at all) before buying. Use composting.

Climate change may require massive efforts like spreading high altitude sulfates to reduce insolation. That's technology, as a short-run fix, that will allow the climate to slow down while we get our carbon cycle better organized.

The balance is there. Our grandchildren will get there. It's up to us to make it easier for our children to achieve it.

[GliderGuider]

18. Yes, the answer is in the balance.

But I don't think it will be some mythical lasting harmonious balance. It will instead be a chaotic, constantly shifting dynamic balance. Sometimes more harmonious, other times much less so. It's becoming more evident that natural forces will have (have always had) the most to say in the periodic resetting of the balance point. Our best bet is to recognize where the balance point is at any moment, and adapt ourselves to it. But we're not real good at that - it seems undignified and degrading to kneel before "mere" nature.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Yes, but kneeling is not required ...

Here follows an idealistic poem, but the kernel of truth in it is that the balance (dynamic as you say) will have to be arm in arm, not obeisance or worship:



"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace"
by Richard Brautigan


I'd like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.


I like to think

(right now, please!)

of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.


I like to think

(it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

[GliderGuider]

21. Hmm - not exactly my vision of paradise.

My degree is in Computer Science. I know who programs those machines. No thanks, I even feel nervous on glass-cockpit airliners.

Kneeling is in fact required. To go one further, full surrender is required - surrender of the ego, surrender of the illusion of being exceptional, humility in the face of powers we can't control - powers both "out there" in the universe, and within our own genome. We may not be required to worship, but an attitude of gratitude, surrender, interdependence and humility goes a long way towards taming the Shadow within.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

26. I agree, overly idealistic. Surrender of the ego is required, but not kneeling.

I too have a degree in computer science. I program machines. I know the limititations. The poem is obviously overly idealistic, but cybernetics is a cornerstone of our future technologies (along with nanotech materials science and genetic manipulation). Those who eschew it or would like to wish it away are even more hopelessly idealistic than Brautigan's poem.

Gratitude, humility, and interdependence are indispensable.

[GliderGuider]

27. The pride that keeps us from kneeling is what will do us in.

In the face of that, all our good intentions come to nothing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. The pride of making showy gestures like kneeling is equally destructive.

I think the essence of buddhism eschews worship.

Humility does not require kneeling.

We kneel every time a hurricane knocks us off our feet. We say "Okay" and get up and start picking up the pieces.

I knelt today to put on the dog's coat for his walk.

[GliderGuider]

29. OK, so let's just agree that we need to dump all our pride.

It helps some people to have a kinesthetic component to their behaviour (I think it's a Neuro-linguistic Programming thing). If you know of some other action that physically signifies acknowledgement and surrender to forces larger than oneself, let's use that instead. I'm not very attached to forms

BTW, Surrender != Worship, right?

[NoOneMan]

30. Hey, we are equally useless!

I ran towards computer science from childhood, witnessing most of the modern shift; quite an exciting field as it was unfolding. Globalization has rendered me a bit of a remnant (not to mention technological applications of the trivial). Climate change will render many more of us completely useless--I can't skin a deer but I can write a 3D graphics library.

And I agree...I've seen who and what produces the software that runs our lives. Its frightening if you dig too deep. Frankly, there are a lot more cost-effective ways to finish a product than hire talented programmers.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Adapting to a chaotic, constantly shifting dynamic

Almost everything we do is an attempt to no longer have to do that. You can't constantly grow if you're having to adapt. We've built a civilization on constant growth. Even if we could build some steady state economy, that's still trying to control the uncontrollable, the constantly shifting dynamic balance.

In my mind, what we're trying to do with this gargantuan human experiment is to basically stop evolution. Control life. Because it is messy.

[GliderGuider]

24. That's why the coming reset of the balance point is going to be such a doozy.

Yes, that's what we're trying to do. That's why Buddhism has become so popular in ecological circles. Buddhism makes it clear that the all suffering comes from trying to cling to a reality that is inherently impermanent. In our desire to control nature, to "stop the flow of time" as it were, we suffer. In our attempt to quell that suffering (by trying harder and harder to control the uncontrollable) we cause all life around us to suffer along with us.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Inherit or Borrow?

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.

-- Native North American / First Nations proverb

It's often attributed to the Haida and Lakota Sioux and a number of Chiefs.

"We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Native American Saying

“We don’t inherit land from our parents; we borrow it from our children.”
a Lakota proverb

"We do not inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children." Chief Seattle

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."
-- Chief Seattle - from the Cherokee of Georgia web site
-- Santana, Kiowa Chief
-- Chief Crazy Horse

[GliderGuider]

19. We borrow it not just from our children, but from all life.

If we are to fancy ourselves as stewards, we must share that key insight.