What's a Hyperobject and Why Can't We Control Them?

 

Playhouse (for the landowners' grandchildren) in Jonesboro, Illinois

Four of my articles over the past couple of years are part of a four-part series titled, "So, What Should We Do?" The first three articles were written, one after the other, back in 2021 after I discovered our lack of free will which condemns us to make choices based upon our biological (see the Maximum Power Principle) and cultural conditioning (see this article). This led me to realize that we truly lack agency to be able to control hyperobjects such as nature, climate change, ecological overshoot, the biosphere, etc. Not only is the predicament of overshoot too difficult for most people to grasp, many people unfortunately place it in the category of problems (with answers or solutions) rather than predicaments (with outcomes). Attempting to reduce issues seen as problems tends to turn those issues into bigger problems and/or predicaments. Often this is due to those working on these issues to break the issues down into parts rather than treating the holistic issue (for instance, trying to "solve" the symptom predicament of climate change by attempting to reduce another symptom predicament of overshoot, emissions, none of which can be reduced without reducing overshoot itself).

What my main aim in the "what should we do?" articles was had to do with pointing towards Living Now. I wanted to demonstrate that human society collectively suffers from the illusion of control and that we've never truly had control over any of these aforementioned hyperobjects, we don't have control over them now, and we will never control them. To think we have agency over them is magical thinking. In other words, I'm offering no solutions nor am I recommending any particular actions to be taken (although I fondly refer to reducing technology use in many of my articles since that is the only way to reduce ecological overshoot). The paradox of reducing ecological overshoot comes in the form of concomitantly reducing the aerosol masking effect, thereby increasing climate change. So, while I see reducing overshoot as being an actual requirement being it is going to happen regardless, I have no agency to make any of that happen beyond my own sphere of influence (and only with folks who actually already wanted to do that anyway!). 

Dave Pollard points this out in a new article written about this topic, and he brought forth clarity to exactly what it means to Live Now by doing the next right thing, quote:

"My instincts, my intellectual analysis, and my emotional responses, all tell me to do what I would have done anyway, which is nothing — pass on voting, and on any involvement with the political process connected to it, which probably means (if as I suspect I’m in good company) that the ideological authoritarian right-wing extremist will prevail over the so-called “lesser evil”. And I refuse to feel bad about this. Instead, I will get on with my life, and do things that bring me joy, and do things for the people I care about, because that brings me joy as well.

And that, I think, is what “the next right thing” and the rest of the aforementioned homilies amount to — an attempt to make us feel better about doing the only thing we could have possibly done anyway. To believe any of these expressions have a deeper meaning is just magical thinking. A form of faith.

What we are going to do, in any situation, is no more or less than what our biological and cultural conditioning makes us do. We have no choice, no ‘free will’ in the matter. If our conditioning drives us to work on some local ecological restoration project, then that’s what we will do. If our conditioning compels us to give money to the homeless and volunteer at a seniors’ home, then that’s what we’ll do. If our conditioning moves us to participate in an insurrection against the government, then that’s what we’ll do. If our conditioning leads us to vote for Biden or Trump or Trudeau or Poilievre or Sunak or Starmer, in the vehement belief that he is the “lesser evil”, then that’s what we’ll do.

So, what should we do? How do we discern “the next right thing”? The questions are moot. The decisions “you” think you are making are already made, and not by “you”.

That’s a lot to come to accept. And because of their conditioning, most people will never accept this. They’ll keep thinking, intuiting, researching, stressing, reacting, hoping, and praying that with the “right” effort, the “right” process, they’ll discover and do what they ‘should’ do — “the next right thing”.

And then they’ll do the only thing they could have done anyway."

I appreciate this analysis as it helps clear up a few things. Hopefully, it offers a slightly different explanation of why I don't bother to come up with some sort of comprehensive "plan" that I would then label as a "solution" to all the various issues we face. This does NOT equate to "giving up," either. I need to make that very clear. For anyone who reads that message into all of this, please read this article.

As I have routinely pointed out here, my efforts aren't designed to find solutions because predicaments don't have them; my efforts are at coming to certain conclusions about where we've been, where we are, and where we are going and using that knowledge to help us make wiser (and realistic, or at least more realistic) conclusions about what to do. 

This means that there are a number of different ideas that anyone can do, as Dave pointed out Derrick Jensen's idea here: "to find some local activist/restoration project that interests you where you can make a difference, and focus on that. Small, direct actions that immediately and obviously make things better." Facing reality means to accept the probability that few if any of these changes will make much difference in the overall hyperobjects they are designed to help, meaning that severing attachment to outcome is a very necessary part of all of this. By simply doing these things (whatever it is that one chooses to do) out of the love and enjoyment of doing it, one has no need to witness any particular outcome. As I pointed out in The Cycle of Life, I still plant trees, but I don't do it because I hope that they will help reduce climate change or improve the soil or any other purpose other than the sheer joy of planting them and helping to beautify the area being planted.

Another primary reason I don't spend my time trying to formulate solutions is because I think the obsession with solutions is partially responsible for the pickle we find ourselves in. Since Derrick Jensen was mentioned, now is a good time to bring this page back up, which explains so many things about life today within industrial civilization. Especially important is this, Premise Six, quote: 

"Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time."

Noting this means that no way exists to transform today's set of living arrangements for most of Western civilization into something workable for the long term. All efforts to make today's way of living "sustainable" is truly illusory because the entire system still rests upon the foundation of technology use. In other words, unless and until humans realize that our behavior of using technology is the root of our unsustainability, no true progress can be made. Looking at Premises 3, 4, and 5, we see that widespread violence is conducted on our behalf and this starts with the very foundation of what civilization rests upon - the technology of agriculture. I see not one idea marketed as a "solution" that does away with any of this - NOT ONE. So, the idea of coming up with a solution is really just a way to deny reality that these ideas are nothing more than bargaining to maintain civilization. Earth is not a machine that can be engineered like a car or computer. 

Premises 10, 11, 18, 19, and 20 point out wetiko almost precisely. Knowing all of this and comprehending that in order to continue civilization, this violence is required makes coming up with an alternative lifestyle that abandons advanced technology use also requires one to realize that a subsistence lifestyle based on hunting and gathering will not support 8 billion humans and most people cannot fathom living in such a manner (meaning that such a "solution" will never appeal to 99.9% of people living within civilization today). Being unable to sell people on any "real" type of solution means continuing civilization as outlined in Premise 7. So, here we are.

Lots of people are jockeying for all kinds of different ideas to "make a better life" or "develop a more sustainable civilization" along with demands for politicians and/or scientists to "tell the truth" and yet these same people appear to deny the reality of the above premises. The above premises make "telling the truth" and the rest of the ideas of a better life and a more sustainable civilization nothing more than complete malarkey. Of course, I realize that most people discount facts brought up which negate their worldview, and this allows those people to utilize optimism bias to think that none of the above premises apply to them. At the end of the day, sadly, this means that very few people will come to realize and admit that all the systems we've built to maintain our living arrangements are unsustainable and that building itself is part of the predicament we face. We can't innovate our way out of this because it is innovation itself that has brought us to this point. Instead, the only way to properly deal with these predicaments we face is to admit to ourselves that nature already built the perfect systems for a balanced system. Once we do this, we come to the realization that technology use must be abandoned if we are to continue as a species. Alas, I see little cognition of that simple fact. It appears that a large portion of society has instead chosen bargaining and embraced doubling down on technology use through AI (Artificial Intelligence) and even more extreme/intense modes of extraction and energy use.

Perhaps this is the trajectory we are supposed to take, as awful as that sounds. Any species so successful that they wipe out their source of sustenance must meet up with this reality sooner or later. I intend on exploring this topic further in my next article. Until then, do the next right thing...Live Now!