Seriously Thorny Issues
Kure Beach Pier, North Carolina
How often do you develop a theory about something or hear about one and then try to prove that theory wrong? I keep trying to prove my theories wrong but instead keep finding proof that they are actually correct (highly disappointingly, I might add). I'm constantly asking WHY we haven't come to realize and accept the facts and then actually ACT upon those facts collectively. For instance, why aren't we working on reducing technology use? The Degrowth Movement recognizes that energy and resource throughput must be reduced either by design or by disaster, and that as such, this necessarily dictates a reduction of technology use. One cannot keep introducing new technologies which require the infrastructural platforms which already exist and magically expect the energy and resources to build, power, and maintain these devices to appear out of nowhere. Furthermore, the energy to power and maintain the infrastructural platforms we ALREADY have is being reduced slowly but steadily and this is precisely what is causing collapse. Yet, there is not much (if any) discussion about reducing technology use or an abandonment of civilization.
Granted, these are seriously thorny issues that almost instantaneously lead to cognitive dissonance right off the bat. Most people simply refuse to discuss the situation any further as if not discussing it will actually make it go away. Most people choose denial of reality because it is easier than coming up with a way to deal with the inconvenient facts I am constantly bringing up. What's interesting to note is that when I bring up these inconvenient facts regarding a particular idea, rather than discuss their ideas on how those issues might be dealt with effectively, they accuse me of "giving up" which is, of course, false. I've simply thought things through further than they have and pointed this out and they don't have an effective response, so shooting the messenger is then what they choose to do. I've been labeled as "Malthusian" and a "fatalist" and a "nihilist" as well as the favorite one, "doomer." I fail to see how this helps. It is this common mechanism of denial preventing the acceptance that what we are facing is a predicament with an outcome, not a problem with a solution.
I still support degrowth because it truly is the only option available (as I highlighted here a couple years ago), but I do have questions about how people think certain scenarios will play out. In example, I often see folks discussing "cleaning up" the environment. How are we going to clean up the environment when the very reason (technology use) the environment needs to be cleaned up in the first place is still ongoing? Take a look at this article. Mercury is constantly being washed into the oceans from rivers, especially near the poles where mercury from burning coal was deposited and buried in snow and ice and is now being released in large amounts. It then goes from the oceans into the atmosphere where it is redeposited all over the planet. Pollutants such as microplastics, aerosols, particulates, PFAS, and PFOS (aka "forever chemicals") are also endemic in the environment. These and other chemicals and compounds are in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil which grows the plants and trees that feed us and the animals we eat. The idea that we are just going to magically "clean everything up" just doesn't hold any water as long as we continue using the technology creating this toxic mess.
I've brought up the situation with trees several times and the insect apocalypse. Then this article about monarch butterflies caught my eye. Maybe with the insects and trees we won't have to worry about cleaning them up because they're slowly dying off.
I've been sounding off about methane for many years and am still constantly told that it isn't a threat. I guess studies like these just don't mean much to many folks.
Today I came across an article that discusses the "hidden" psychological elements that are at the root of our unsustainability. There's quite a bit of really great observations within the article, but just like practically every article out there about the predicament of ecological overshoot, this one also labels it as a "problem with a solution" rather than as a predicament with an outcome. No differently than with degrowth, it attempts to simplify the situation into a set of goals in which a reduction of technology use is rarely if ever mentioned or discussed; nor is an abandonment of civilization. It never ceases to amaze me how people keep coming up with their own unique brands of ideas on how to tackle these predicaments and yet the BEST ideas are rarely or never mentioned! Obviously, most of society is not ready to actually do what is actually truly required to reduce ecological overshoot. There is a sequel to the article with this one on how he proposes to overcome ecological overshoot and it is strangely similar to much of the hype I have revealed about emergence, expansion of consciousness, global unity, and similar themes. While these are all good ideas, we lack agency [also see this article] in being able to implement them globally in unity, just like practically every other great idea out there. If global unity was actually possible, wouldn't the world be making some actual progress on these issues? This link demonstrates that nobody is really even close with regard to climate change, despite the Paris Agreement.
Then there's this article from Richard Heinberg on why we haven't reduced carbon emissions. He doesn't mention this, but I've said it many, many times - it is because we are focused on climate change and carbon emissions instead of ecological overshoot. Carbon emissions and climate change are both SYMPTOM PREDICAMENTS. As long as we continue treating the symptoms instead of the root predicament, the overall disease will continue unabated. In order to reduce ecological overshoot, reduced technology use is REQUIRED. People are always looking for an easier way, but there is none. We can either let go of our addiction to technology use or it will kill our species (and millions upon millions of others).
This is from Andrew Beck, and it's rather long but quite poignant, quote:
"If you look at all the spiritual 'red-pillers' of the last half-century - the ones who saw through the lies of Western Christianity and went off seeking the truth from all the popularly available alternatives. What do you see? A bunch of enlightened, wise, happy beings, each and every one?
Nope. Far from it. For every one person who got their enlightenment, there are hundreds who got diddled, taken for a ride, abused, extorted, gaslit, and generally left none the wiser than they went in. Some were so badly treated they want nothing to do with anything 'spiritual' ever again.
It took maybe 50 years for people of that ilk to really start absorbing the insightful criticism they were given all along, which of course they dismissed as 'negative vibes'. It's taken that long to realize that psychology, 'shadow work' etc. is actually a necessary prerequisite - that no real sage pours the milk of wisdom into a leaky or contaminated vessel. Only the fake ones do that. The real ones know the way that leads to a tangible result, and work in such a way that, one day, their job will become obsolete. The fake ones simply want an endless supply of profitable customers chasing some carrot in the distance.
Both the real and the fake teachers came West decades ago, and also set up shop at home in the East to catch all the spiritual tourists. To this day the fake ones greatly outnumber the real ones among seekers after truth. What does this signify? It signifies that we in the West have developed, and continue to develop, a taste for the false over the real.
(Also: Remember when we swapped our saturated fat intake for transfats, our sugar for aspartame, because we were told they were healthy alternatives - were they? Nope, turns out these alternatives were even worse for us than the original poisons! This is where binary thinking combined with empty credulity gets you - from the frying pan into the fire - or the Sun's corona, in some cases).
Which gets me to wondering - how long will political red-pillers need to grasp the - very similar - criticism some of us are offering about their choices. A lot of the criticism is simply an admonition not to get too credulous about anything that isn't the thing you are seeing through as fake. It's a warning about the vultures just waiting for you flee the safety of the nest so they can pounce, who know exactly how vulnerable you are to persuasion in that early post-red-pilling phase. How long before the penny drops that 'buyer beware' warnings are valid in any field, be it retail, religion, or politics. That they exist to help seekers out for reals, they're not there just to 'harsh your mellow' or even put you off seeking.
We live in a time when it is unnecessary for future generations to keep reliving all the traumas and mistakes of the past; when a better collective wisdom awaits the global hive mind. Maybe this is why some of us still bang on about these issues. It's almost too late to grab the opportunity, but not quite. When it really is too late, I'll shut up. Maybe this is my own version of a foolish, delusional dream and I'm not willing to watch it die without a fight.
There is a wisdom that requires humanity to take a collective step into the maturity required to support it. But it would mean leaving behind these either/or binary simplicities, the addictions to oppositional thinking and tribalism, the need to keep finding replacements for the Sky Daddy we lost during the Enlightenment, or the ideals of 'progress' we are losing to the Anthropocene; our loss of belief in Western media in the post-9/11 era, and any of the other broken dreams that awakening may cost us along the way.
And if we need replacements for these crutches and supports, we need to be honest enough to face that for what it is, and find ways to accommodate such needs honestly, and not dress them up as something else or reify them as some noble cause.
The last few years have shown certain trends and patterns, and one of the most striking is the number of hard and fast beliefs that have died a death. Painfully, slowly - but die they did. Try putting yourself back more than 10 years into the past and just imagine explaining to anyone the world we've lived through since Brexit, Trump, COVID lockdowns, reversal of Roe vs. Wade - nobody from then would believe you.
Most of what you see trending today in popular culture is just the last dance on the Titanic. It's not real, it won't last. Most of it is a recycling of things that were known as scams and pyramid schemes when I was a kid. If you really need to believe something, believe this - this era is shaping up to be a Golden Age for bullshit, maybe THE Golden Age for it, and the dreams out there are just the same old recycling. Bankrupt in every sense of the word, and functionally extinct.
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