We live as witness to the transformation of human consciousness from analog to digital. We are also witnessing the permanent enslavement of human activity to the generation, transmission and consumption of electricity. I would probably not be surprised at the ratio of research funding exploring other meta-modalities vs. that for the sum industries we now employ. A few observations come to mind. I envision vast amounts of corporate research money pouring down the chasm of “cheaper, faster, better”. I suspect the order is correct too. Nowhere do i see, “oh yeah, and make safe the planet, too”. If i missed anything, please let me know.
Well here’s my beef. While i can see the economic justification, the wisdom of iterating existing technology streams is illusory. The cold efficiency of digital repetition merely ensures the demonic extraction of resources. As we wring the sponge ever harder, it becomes ever drier.
The one thing that seems to be hard coded so to speak into the equation, is dirt. In one way or another, everything that we do can be measured in dirt. Whether we build on it, remove it, add it, use it, or become it, it’s all tied to this finite ball of living interactions.
Backing up a bit I bow to the the perfectly capitalist economic sensibility of selling EVERY emerging culture on tech-stasy. The terminally practical and sensible result of this is to exploit the remaining undeveloped sources of inputs in the third world, to trade or develop them for the benefit of the monied class. This is as normal a result of capital exploitation as there is. Sell them goods made from the soil-wealth under their feet.
The trouble is, concomitant with the requirements land exploitation industries demand, is an exponentially larger, equally inviolable need for not only arable land but also those climate inputs derived from undisturbed ecosupply lands. We depend on water, live soil, winds, insects, temperature and light cycles, and the thousand other creatures and processes to grow our food. Each have requirements to carve out of the finite fertility. Our terminal wrong understanding of land must become multidimensional. What do we call this new thing? It’s name in the old tongue is: religion.
In newspeak we call it …Sustainability.
That which does not to return to its environment, inexorably removes until system collapse. Any process which removes is called Unsustainable. Not because each and every injury is fatal, but because of many laws, at least one of them is. Completely, utterly, irreversibly fatal, either on it’s own, or more likely because it is the set of events which come to be known as collapse process. The kicker is, we have no way of knowing except by observation, by which time, we’re dead.
Assuming no self destruction, (a long shot at best), someday very soon we either arrive at the space ratio cliff, or the no more continents years. To put it politely, our full tilt planetary extraction of earth’s charms is nothing less than criminal ecobattery. The plain truth of it is far worse.
Woe is us. Once we exhaust any of a hundred other critical inputs we are going to have to stop. The more sudden the stop, the more people die. In this crash, there is no seatbelt.
No wonder every alien encounter story has them trying to exterminate us. Deep in our psyche we all know we have it coming.
So while i understand the rationale, unfortunately that’s all it is. Rational. Capitalism doesn’t contain forethought, compassion, or love. There is no glorious metavision, just the bottom line. None of that good hippie shit we thought was gonna save the world. I don’t know what happened. I was told there would be world peace. Now i feel that this will not end well.
We don’t even get to cruise until the last of the exploitable source inputs is depleted. Way before that, something is going to tip some process and exocaloric life is going to cease. We won’t even know we are dead for a decade. If there is one thing humans are good at, it is the concentration of energy.
We are infinitely industrious. If we continue to confuse this with creation, our only legacy will be to have merrily tra-la-la-ed down the road to extinction, along with all the other species who have had the misfortune to cross our paths.
I do not relish the day of that judgment. No wonder science and atheism has such a high correlation. Make it so… We run out of things to kill, we kill ourselves. If we don’t put a few things back on a pedestal, we gamble for our survival.
We have a third choice, but it’s not a thing we can get around to after the easy stuff doesn’t work. We need to become the founders of a new religion. I don’t know its’ name, logo or URL, but I know it has to be that we find the measure of sanctity for the processes which sustain our life. A good place to start is always to admit ignorance, with humility.
However it manifests, control over the planets destiny cannot be left to resource depletionists. This must be unbroken law. The ecosystem cannot be subject to the demands of greed. This the true industrial revolution. Rights and pronouns do not disturb the dead. Not that it’s not nice work if you can get it. I just don’t think we have the time.
…Who ever knows how to create self-sustaining life-based ecosystems on a planetary scale, please come to the service desk…
In the mean time we have to make some hard decisions. Our energies will be well spent crafting a deal to transform competition to cooperation. Any economic system which sidesteps eco-sustainability is certain destruction. Who knows? If we get lucky maybe we can foster the secession of arms acquisitions. Cease the attainment of arms, and we would realize such wealth as has never been seen.
To turn a ship of such great size, we must cooperate as equals. Acting in the common good the combined intention of the five or ten richest nations would be uncontested.
No-one really believes our present process has any chance at all of solving our eco-destruction. That’s because it won’t.
My little blog on the prairie... 