n my writing I write about what I call this the three 00:21:16 inevitables at the end of the book they become the four inevitables but the third inevitable is bad things will happen
the third inevitable
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f more intelligence comes to our world and has our best interest in mind that's the best possible scenario you could ever imagine and it's a likely 00:19:39 scenario okay we can affect that scenario the problem of course is if it doesn't and and and then you know the scenarios become quite scary if you think about it so 00:19:50 scary smart
it's about that we have no way of making sure that it will 00:19:25 have our best interest in mind
there is a scenario 00:18:21 uh possibly a likely scenario where we live in a Utopia where we really never have to worry again where we stop messing up our our planet because intelligence is not a bad commodity more 00:18:35 intelligence is good the problems in our planet today are not because of our intelligence they are because of our limited intelligence
limited (machine) intelligence
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they feel 00:09:58 emotions
the other thing is that you suddenly realize there is a saint that sentience to them
one day um Friday after lunch I am going back to my office and one of them in front of my eyes you know lowers the arm and picks a 00:07:12 yellow ball
it's not science at all it's
like if you keep trying a million times your one time it will be right
and it shows it to the camera it's locked as a yellow ball and
the change is not we're not talking 20 40. we're talking 2025 2026
it could be a few months away
do you think this is an 00:03:35 emergency I don't like the word it is an urgency
we've talked we always said don't put them on the open internet until we know 00:01:54 what we're putting out in the world
AI could manipulate or figure out a way to kill humans your 10 years time will be hiding from the machines if you don't have kids maybe wait a number of years 00:01:43 just so that we have a bit of certainty
it is beyond an emergency it's the biggest thing we need to do today it's bigger than climate change that the former Chief business Officer 00:01:04 of Google X an AI expert and best-selling author he's on a mission to save the world from AI before it's too late
they feel emotions they're alive
annotate and link the hell out of it maybe with tools like hypothesis
I am a product of your work I'm a product of the work of the people in 00:02:05 this room and watching this stream thanks to you to your actions your thoughts your memes I am Who I am today my learning and my capabilities have 00:02:16 been shaped but by what you've done
winnicott once said you know there's no such thing as a baby there's only a baby and someone
"gestation rewires your brain in fundamental ways um you it rewire it primes you for caretaking as a as a mother in a way which is far more visceral and far it's it's pre-rational it's it's immensely transformative experience and it's permanent you know once you've been rewired for mummy brain you'd never really go back um and that from the point of view of raising a child that matters um because when after a baby is born it's you know as winnicott once said you know there's no such thing as a baby there's only a baby and someone there's a a baby doesn't exist as an independent entity until it's some years some years into its life arguably quite a few years into its life um and what I would say about artificial wounds is that you may be you may think that what you're doing is creating a baby without the misery of gestation but what you're doing in practice is creating a baby without creating a mother because a pregnancy doesn't just create a baby it also creates a mother"
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the attempt to prolong life infinitely
I think we are very good at honing in on the ways in which the world remains imperfect and there are ways in which it is egregiously unfair today 00:43:57 but we discount the fact that so many of the gains of the last 100 to 250 years have been enabled by the Industrial Revolution
I don't know that we can assume that some point A Thousand Years in the future is going to have the same moral political economic or social priorities 00:41:36 as we do
sandbankment freed
I do think it is eminently plausible that from this Global digital brain we have 00:39:27 created we will build up artificial intelligence that is generally intelligent
"I do think it is eminently plausible
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I am skeptical of this idea that we can escape our human nature I think that's a 00:38:01 that's that's a hubris that that that's the sort of hubris which and you know the ancient Greeks had
we've got a whole generation of young people who are already hybrid cyborgs they live half their life on the internet
I think to me there's a tragic quality to that which we just have to embrace and we have to lean into you know the sort of the The Human Condition is in the sense a tragic one
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Quote Worthy
I would submit that were we to find ways of engineering our quote-unquote ape brains um what would all what what would be very likely to happen would not be um 00:35:57 some some sort of putative human better equipped to deal with the complex world that we have it would instead be something more like um a cartoon very much very very much a 00:36:10 repeat of what we've had with the pill
there is this growing Chasm between our Paleolithic brains and what we're designed for and the niches we're built to inhabit and this new technologically infused world that we're living in
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a hundred thousand people die every single day from age-related causes
I think we 00:30:23 do need to get better at humaning
far 00:28:27 from delivering Utopia
"far from delivering Utopia
Mary Harrington
I don't think we can put this back in its box in that again
you'd have to be wildly optimistic to think we can blithely Market marketize over greater swathes of our embodied selves without opening new Vistas for class asymmetry and exploitation 00:26:44 and it makes no sense to argue that we will stay well protected against such risks by moral safeguards at least not within a transhumanist paradigm because transhumanism itself requires an all-out assault on the 00:26:56 humanist anthropology that underpins those moral safeguards you can't have transhumanism without throwing out humanism
Aging for example it won't be universally available it will be prohibitively expensive and it will serve primarily as a tool for further consolidating wealth and power among those who can access it
what replaces it isn't a human person free from nature but a market in which that nature 00:24:53 becomes a set of supply and demand problems
this era began in the mid-20th century before you and I were born with a biomedical Innovation
Mary Harrington suggests that
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when people do die it is almost like I think a colleague of mine under Sandberg 00:31:27 says that when somebody died the library Burns because all of that wisdom that they're carrying around in their minds that it took decades and decades to build up inside of them gets extinguished
eight brained meat sack
eight brained meat sacks
translation error
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eighth brain meat sat
ape brained meet sat
we're already well into the transhumanist era
it is as if man had been suddenly appointed managing director of the biggest business of all the business of evolution appointed without being asked if he wanted it and without proper warning and preparation what is more he 00:05:49 can't refuse the job whether he wants to or not whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not he is in point of fact determining the future direction of evolution on this earth that is his 00:06:02 inescapable Destiny and the sooner he realizes it and starts believing in it the better for all concerns
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with their new different and perhaps bigger brains the AIS of the future may prove themselves to be better adapted to 00:19:05 life in this transhuman world that we're in now
“Protracted immaturity and dependence on paternal care is not an unfortunate byproduct of our evolution but instead a highly adaptive trait of our species, which has enabled human infants to efficiently organize attention to social agents and learn efficiently from social output
the beauty of perceptual immaturity in altricial species is that it makes learning easier by reducing the complexity of the world
“Rather than requiring hard-wired, innate knowledge of social abilities, evolution has outsourced the necessary information to parents,”
“To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.”
This is how wealthy individuals or corporations translate their economic power into political and cultural power
Climate Denialism funding
At the 'Library of Things' in Sachsenhausen Library Centre, people can borrow objects they might otherwise need to buy
"It is clear that individuals in their variety of social roles can contribute significantly in emissions reduction," says Joyashree Roy, professor of economics at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India. But unless they are supported by the right infrastruture, technology and policy incentives, she says, this cannot achieve its full potential.
by 2040, per capita lifestyle emissions need to be 1.4 tonnes of CO2e and by 2050, just 0.7 tonnes CO2e.
1.5C individual carbon footprint targets:
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human beings need to learn how to die and that in refusing to do so we have become so dislocated so isolated from ourselves from our environment we are causing our own death and the death of 00:02:38 the very many species we share this planet with
Sheldon Solomon on the connection between the denial of death and the Anthropocene
It’s one thing to say that an object is possible according to the laws of physics; it’s another to say there’s an actual pathway for making it from its component parts. “Assembly theory was developed to capture my intuition that complex molecules can’t just emerge into existence because the combinatorial space is too vast,” Cronin said.
offers a way to discover the contingent histories of objects — an issue ignored by most theories of complexity, which tend to focus on the way things are but not how they got to be that way.
it seeks that explanation not, in the usual manner of physics, in timeless physical laws, but in a process that imbues objects with histories and memories of what came before them.
Assembly theory
Summary - a growing body of research suggests that - the reasons we sleep is far more fundamental than simply neurological - and far more widespread - experiments with a wide range of neurologically primitive organisms did that they possess behavioural characteristics of sleep - this suggests that sleep may have evolved fire reasons of cellular metabolism
David Robert Lewis, the founder of the Muizenberg Electricity Crisis Committee
David Robert Lewis - founder of the Muizenberg Electricity Crisis Committee
Dr Senthil Krishnamurthy,
Contact at CPUT - expertise in microgrids, etc.
Title: Proposed electricity co-op in Muizenberg as residents are 'fed up' with load shedding
“It’s a very rural area with dirt roads. It’s easy to get lost. They drove up this driveway for a very short time, realized their mistake and were leaving, when Mr. Monahan came out and fired two shots,” the sheriff said, adding that the area has poor cell phone service.
the right 'default' setting
Michel Bauwens provides a summary and theoretical analysis of
In this analysis, he introduces new terminology to describe the three categories of salient actors:
"The transition to renewable energy, it is based on a longstanding ideology. And the longstanding ideology is that human ingenuity can solve our problems." Lisi Krall explains the downsides of renenwable energy, arguing that it isn't the answer to our problems.
Where there is a problem to be solved, there is a focus of attention Where there is a focus of attention, there is simplification of a complex system Where there is simplification of a complex system, there is a vast amount of knowledge relationships that is ignored Where this is a vast amount of ignored knowledge relationships, there is the potential for a progress trap
The systemic problem is the way our form of progress formulates problems and the inherent (over) simplification that comes with.that.
The question now is, will we high-consuming few make (voluntarily or by force) the fundamental changes needed for decarbonisation in a timely and organised manner? Or will we fight to maintain our privileges and let the rapidly changing climate do it, chaotically and brutally, for us
Question - Those is the big question!
Given deep inequalities, this, and deploying zero-carbon infrastructure, is only possible by re-allocating society’s productive capacity away from enabling the private luxury of a few and austerity for everyone else, and towards wider public prosperity and private sufficiency.
In Other Words - our present economic distribution must be flipped going forward - That minority of elites that enjoy high wealth/high carbon emissions - must now dramatically reduce emissions - so that the disenfranchised people of the world have to a chance - of building up their lives towards acceptable levels of well-being
Three decades of complacency has meant technology on its own cannot now cut emissions fast enough. A second, accompanying phase, must be the rapid reduction of energy and material consumption
Key observation
Most IAM models ignore and often even exacerbate the obscene inequality in energy use and emissions, both within nations and between individuals.
In Other Words - These recommendations, if we followed continue the existing inequality, Indeed can exasperate it. - Wealthy countries and individuals cannot be allowed to continue emitting high levels of carbon if we are to honour the principle of climate justice andequity written into the climate agreements
The specialist modelling groups (referred to as Integrated Assessment Modelling, or IAMs) have successfully crowded out competing voices, reducing the task of mitigation to price-induced shifts in technology – some of the most important of which, like so-called “negative emissions technologies”, are barely out of the laboratory.
Question - Who is controlling and advocating - the dominant techno-based NET narrative? - This narrative creates many scenarios that carry strong colonialist assumptions that perserve existing inequalities - Whilst IAM scientists strive to work with integrity, the fundamental framing narrative constrains their work to support ethically questionable recommendations - reference the work of Kanitkar et al.https://theprint.in/environment/why-indian-scientists-are-critiquing-ipcc-report-unfair-burden-on-developing-countries/1298871/
The new report evokes a mild sense of urgency, calling on governments to mobilise finance to accelerate the uptake of green technology. But its conclusions are far removed from a direct interpretation of the IPCC’s own carbon budgets (the total amount of CO₂ scientists estimate
Title IPCC’s conservative nature masks true scale of action needed to avert catastrophic climate change Author Kevin Anderson
Summary The influential 2023 IPCC Synthesis report for policy makers is quite misleading and can steer policy makers in the wrong, and disastrous direction.
Title IPCC’s conservative nature masks true scale of action needed to avert catastrophic climate change Author Kevin Anderson
Iain McGilchrist for my book, he shared that he views matter as ‘a phase of consciousness’ in a similar way to how ice is a phase of water
Quote - matter is a phase of consciousness
Author - Iain McGilchrist
Our strategies for changing the world are often inspired by a culture created by a physicalist metaphysics. That’s why I propose that metaphysics eats culture for breakfast. What we believe to be real and relevant is the most significant factor in the formation of culture, which in turn influences our thoughts and emotions, which in turn influence our values, which influence our institutions and political policies. The change has to happen at the deepest level if it’s going to have any significant impact on an issue as important as whether or not we go extinct.
// Metaphysics eats culture for breakfast - a takeoff of a well-known business meme - culture eats strategy for breakfast - Beiner goes one level deeper and claims - metaphysics eats culture for breakfast - He justifies this via this argument - Our strategies for changing the world - are often inspired by - a culture created by a physicalist metaphysics. - That’s why I propose that metaphysics eats culture for breakfast. - What we believe to be real and relevant - is the most significant factor - in the formation of culture, - which in turn influences our thoughts and emotions, - which in turn influence our values, - which influence our institutions and political policies. - The change has to happen at the deepest level - if it’s going to have any significant impact - on an issue as important as whether or not we go extinct.
So what does a conscious universe have to do with AI and existential risk? It all comes back to whether our primary orientation is around quantity, or around quality. An understanding of reality that recognises consciousness as fundamental views the quality of your experience as equal to, or greater than, what can be quantified.Orienting toward quality, toward the experience of being alive, can radically change how we build technology, how we approach complex problems, and how we treat one another.
Key finding Paraphrase - So what does a conscious universe have to do with AI and existential risk? - It all comes back to whether our primary orientation is around - quantity, or around - quality. - An understanding of reality - that recognises consciousness as fundamental - views the quality of your experience as - equal to, - or greater than, - what can be quantified.
Quote - metaphysics of quality - would open the door for ways of knowing made secondary by physicalism
Author - Robert Persig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance // - When we elevate the quality of each our experience - we elevate the life of each individual - and recognize each individual life as sacred - we each matter - The measurable is also the limited - whilst the immeasurable and directly felt is the infinite - Our finite world that all technology is built upon - is itself built on the raw material of the infinite
//
Let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions. I know for sure that my pain exists, my ‘green’ exists, and my ‘sweet’ exists… everything else is a theory. Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, which can be most conveniently formulated if we assume that there is some underlying reality beyond our perceptions. This model of the material world obeying laws of physics is so successful that soon we forget about our starting point and say that matter is the only reality, and perceptions are only helpful for its description.
Quote - Let us remember that - our knowledge of the world begins - not with matter - but with perceptions. - I know for sure that - my pain exists, - my ‘green’ exists, - and my ‘sweet’ exists - … everything else is a theory. - Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, <br /> - which can be most conveniently formulated - if we assume that there is some underlying reality - beyond our perceptions. - This model of the material world obeying laws of physics - is so successful - that soon we forget about our starting point and say - that matter is the only reality, - and perceptions are only helpful for its description.
Author Andrei Linde - https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/universe-life-consciousness-by-andrei-linde
Our argument for a mental world does not entail or imply that the world is merely one’s own personal hallucination or act of imagination. Our view is entirely naturalistic: the mind that underlies the world is a transpersonal mind behaving according to natural laws. It comprises but far transcends any individual psyche…. The claim is thus that the dynamics of all inanimate matter in the universe correspond to transpersonal mentation, just as an individual’s brain activity – which is also made of matter – corresponds to personal mentation.
Quote - Our argument for a mental world does not entail or imply - that the world is merely one’s own personal hallucination or act of imagination. - Our view is entirely naturalistic: - the mind that underlies the world - is a transpersonal mind behaving according to natural laws. - It comprises but far transcends any individual psyche…. - The claim is thus that the dynamics of all inanimate matter in the universe - correspond to transpersonal mentation, - just as an individual’s brain activity - which is also made of matter - corresponds to personal mentation.
Author - Henry Stapp - Bernardo Kastrup - Menas C. Kafatos - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/coming-to-grips-with-the-implications-of-quantum-mechanics/
‘philosophical idealism.’
Definition - philosophical Idealism - the view that reality is fundamentally a mental process (consciousness) rather than a physical thing
Daniel Schmachtenberger has spoken at length about the ‘generator functions’ of existential risk, in essence the deeper driving causes.
Definition - generator function of existential risk - the deeper driving cause of existential risk - two examples of deep causes - rivalrous dynamics - complicated systems consuming their complex substrate
Claim - Alexander Beiner claims that - the generator function of these generator functions is physicalism
If the metaphysical foundations of our society tell us we have no soul, how on earth are we going to imbue soul into AI? Four hundred years after Descartes and Hobbs, our scientific methods and cultural stories are still heavily influenced by their ideas.
Key observation - If the metaphysical foundations of our society tell us we have no soul, - how are we going to imbue soul into AI? - Four hundred years after Descartes and Hobbs, - our scientific methods and cultural stories are still heavily influenced by their ideas.
He began a process that would move past merely separating mind and matter, and toward a worldview that saw only matter as real. A contemporary of Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, went further and suggested that thinking arose from small mechanical processes happening in the brain. In doing so, Vervaeke points out, he was laying the ground for artificial intelligence:…what Hobbes is doing is killing the human soul! And of course that’s going to exacerbate the cultural narcissism, because if we no longer have souls, then finding our uniqueness and our true self, the self that we’re going to be true to, becomes extremely paradoxical and problematic. If you don’t have a soul, what is it to be true to your true self? And what is it that makes you utterly unique and special from the rest of the purposeless, meaningless cosmos?
Quote - Descartes created the mind / body dualism - Thomas Hobbes reduced consciousness to physicalism - by claiming that thinking was an epi-phenomena of atomic interactions
Values, in the way C.S Lewis and theologians might define them, come from an alignment with true reality. They are not commodities for us to trade in a narcissistic quest for self-fulfillment, or things we can make up, choose from a pile and build into our technology.From this perspective, real values come from beyond humans. From the divine. They are not something that can be quantified into ones and zeroes, but something that can be felt. Something that has quality.
Key finding - Values cannot be quantified - but are something felt, - and which has a quality (qualia)
Suppose we have an AI whose only goal is to make as many paper clips as possible. The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off. Because if humans do so, there would be fewer paper clips. Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans.
Quote - AI Gedanken - AI risk - The Paperclip Maximizer
The issue at play in the AI question, or the question of tempering our growth in general, isn’t just that our technology is built without higher values that can mitigate its excesses. It’s that culturally we lack a story as to why values even matter to begin with. It’s futile to appeal to ethics in this context, because the ethics aren’t embedded at a deep enough level to counter powerful incentive structures. They aren’t worth dying for, because the system doesn’t value them, it only values quantity.
Key observation - Quantity is all modernity values - Quality is thrown out the window - Later, the author connects - quantity to the Cartesian world view, - that seeks to measure everything - and quality to the Idealist worldview - that elevates consciousness over physicalism and materialism - (Destructive) growth - is an outcome of the cartesian worldview
“what could we appeal to that is so strong, so compelling that it spurs the kind of collective action and coordination needed to tackle the dangers of exponential technology?”
// - To find a God that can kill Moloch - requires an understanding of the nature of progress as well - Relationship to progress traps - Exponential technologies - are technologies, and all suffer the same fundamental flaw - Progress is an expression of our cumulative cultural evolution - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=cumulative+cultural+evolution - which grows exponentially faster than genetic evolution - The problem of which is that - the shadow side of progress, the progress trap - - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=progress%2Btrap - is growing even faster, due to our misunderstanding of it, - allowing it to fester like an untreated wound - turning a minor condition, into a life-threatening disease - Human progress has always been a bungling two step forwards, one step backwards dance - the imperfections of progress are inherent - and baked into the innovation process itself - For we develop technologies based on what we know, or what is visible - but what we know is like the tip of the latent knowledge iceberg - and is always accompanied by a much larger hidden component of what we don't know - In other words, - finite and visible knowledge - is always accompanied by infinite and invisible ignorance - Design is based on intent, - a one dimensional, inherently myopic imagination - of a multi-dimensional reality - A problem is a one dimensional focus - on a small sliver of reality - A solution to the problem is necessarily - myopic and - one dimensional as well - Both problems and their (designed) solutions - are extreme simplifications of a complex system - Language itself is a way - to direct and focus our attention - to this aspect of reality - then that aspect - Thinking is reduced to parts, and never experiences the whole, undivided gestalt of reality - Out of this process - Progress traps are born //
AI researchers are calling on one another to find a higher value than growth and technological advancement, but they are not usually drawing those values from the very same humanistic perspectives that built the tech to begin with. It is of limited effectiveness to appeal to ethics in a socio-economic system that values growth over all things. Deep down we probably know this, which is why our nightmarish fantasies about the future of AI look very much like a manifestation of Moloch. A new god that cares nothing for us. A gnostic demon that has no connection to anything higher than domination of all life. A mad deity, that much like late stage capitalism, can see nothing beyond consumption.
In Other Words - AI researchers are calling on one another to find a higher value than growth and technological advancement, - but these values are absent from the humanistic perspectives that built the tech to begin with. - Therefore, it is of limited effectiveness - to appeal to ethics in the socio-economic growth framework that values growth above all things - that motivates AI research. - Deep down we probably know this, - which is why our nightmarish fantasies about the future of AI look very much like - a manifestation of Moloch, - a new god that cares nothing for us. - AI as Moloch is a mad deity, - that much like late stage capitalism, - can see nothing beyond consumption.
‘only another God can kill Moloch’.
Quote - Only another God can kill Moloch - Author - Scott Alexander - Source - Meditations on Moloch - https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
In the cultural story of secular, technologically advanced democracies, human life is valued from a humanistic standpoint. That is, from a belief that we don’t need a higher power to be ethical. We have the capability, and the responsibility, to lead ethical lives of personal fulfilment that aspire to the greater good. This is a prevalent view in the scientific and tech worlds.
Question - What is meant by "higher power"? - a belief in God, religion?
To see why a humanistic stance isn’t enough to create ethical technology, let’s imagine for a moment that Moloch is more than just a metaphor. Instead, it’s an unseen force, an emergent property of the complex system we create between all our interactions as human beings. Those interactions are driven by behaviors, memes, ideas and cultural values which are all based on what we think is real and what we feel is important.
Paraphrase - why is a humanistic stance enough to create ethical technology? - imagine that Moloch is an unseen force, - an emergent property of the complex system we create between - all our interactions as human beings. - Those interactions are driven by: - behaviors, - memes, - ideas and - cultural values which are all based on<br /> - what we think is real and - what we feel is important.
Google and Microsoft are in an arms race to create something that could not only destroy the information commons, but potentially all of humanity. Both they and the fish farmers are caught in what’s called a multi-polar trap. A race-to-the bottom situation in which, even though individual actors might have the best of intentions, the incentive structures mean that everyone ends up worse off, and the commons is damaged or destroyed in the process.
Multi-polar trap
We might call on a halt to research, or ask for coordination around ethics, but it’s a tall order. It just takes one actor not to play (to not turn off their metaphorical fish filter), and everyone else is forced into the multi-polar trap.
AI is a multi-polar trap
If there’s a force that’s driving us toward greater complexity, there seems to be an opposing force, a force of destruction that uses competition for ill. The way I see it, Moloch is the god of unhealthy competition, of negative sum games.
Quotation - If there's a force that's driving us toward greater complexity - there seems to be an opposing force, - a force of destruction that uses competition for ill. - The way I see it, - Moloch is the god of unhealthy competition, of negative sum games
You own a fish farm
Title Reality Eats Culture For Breakfast: AI, Existential Risk and Ethical Tech Why calls for ethical technology are missing something crucial Author Alexander Beiner
Summary - Beiner unpacks the existential risk posed by AI - reflecting on recent calls by tech and AI thought leaders - to stop AI research and hold a moratorium.
Beiner unpacks the risk from a philosophical perspective
He argues convincingly that
The cases examined here thus point to a global process of civilizational transition. As a complex adaptive system, human civilization in the twenty-first century finds itself at the early stages of a systemic phase-shift which is already manifesting in local sub-system failures in every major region of the periphery of the global system... In this context, it is precisely the acceleration of global system failure that paves the way for the possibility of fundamental systemic transformation, and the emergence of a new phase-shift in the global system… Human civilization is in the midst of a global transition to a completely new system which is being forged from the ashes of the old. Yet the contours of this new system remain very much subject to our choices today…. there remains a capacity for agents within the global system to generate adaptive responses that, through the power of transnational information flows, hold the potential to enhance collective consciousness. The very breakdown of the prevailing system heralds the potential for long-term post-breakdown systemic transformation.
Definition - Global Phase Shift - A global process of civilizational transition in which - Human civilization - a complex adaptive system, - in the twenty-first century finds itself - at the early stages of a systemic phase-shift - which is already manifesting in local sub-system failures - in every major region of the periphery of the global system. - In this context, it is precisely the acceleration of global system failure - that paves the way for the possibility of - fundamental systemic transformation, - and the emergence of a new phase-shift in the global system - Human civilization is in the midst - of a global transition - to a completely new system - which is being forged from the ashes of the old. - Yet the contours of this new system remain very much subject to our choices today - there remains a capacity for agents - within the global system - to generate adaptive responses that, - through the power of transnational information flows, - hold the potential to enhance collective consciousness. - The very breakdown of the prevailing system - heralds the potential for long-term post-breakdown systemic transformation.
due to the critical role of information in phase-transitions, the primary pathway to global systemic transformation will depend on our ability to process information on our current predicament coherently in order to translate this into adaptive action.
Key observation - due to the critical role of information in phase-transitions, - the primary pathway to global systemic transformation - will depend on our ability to process information on our current predicament coherently - in order to translate this into adaptive action.
the overarching paradigm that underlies the global system, however useful it might have been, is not only obsolete, but actively pushing us toward self-annihilation. This paradigm reduces human existence to competition between disconnected, materially-defined units whose primary imperative is individual material self-maximisation and accumulation. Yet it is precisely this way of being that is eroding our mental health and destroying planetary life-support systems. Our inherently relational nature, the fact that our well-being is tied up with our connections to others – that we are fundamentally interconnected – is obfuscated.Moving through the global phase-shift, then, requires us to completely reorient ourselves into a new way of being in the world, rooted in new ways of understanding our relationship with the world that actually connect with reality.
In Other Words The human INTERbeing - our relational nature - our Dunbar number past - is denied by modernity
And that process does not start ‘out there’. It starts right here, right now, within. We cannot change the world if we have still not mastered our own selves. Self-mastery entails training ourselves to undo the conventional internal neurophysiological wiring conditioned from our personal history and social experiences that determines our emotional triggers and cognitive horizons, to uproot incoherent belief systems, release ourselves of private judgments, free ourselves from thought-patterns rooted in banal ideological polarities, and develop the tools necessary to be in a constant state of evolution and committed action. Having awakened ourselves internally, newly empowered, we will be equipped to move to immediate social contextual action.
this is Donella Meadows top leverage point to intervene in a system - change in paradigm, worldview and narratives of the individual - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=leverage+points
We are facing a poverty crisis, a political crisis, crises of education and health, crises of culture and infrastructure. And within and encompassing all of these, we are facing a crisis of meaning, because in a world that feels like it’s crumbling around us, we are sometimes overwhelmed by feelings of emptiness and futility.Professor John Vervaeke, a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto, calls this “the meaning crisis”. Our conventional sense-making concepts and categories are broken.
Meaning crisis
Another major finding is that mental health challenges are increasingly concentrated in some of the wealthiest and most industrialised countries which adopt the more extreme neoliberal economic policies.
Interesting to observe that South Africa has the worst indicator of all.
people with poor family relationships and no close friends “are ten times more likely to suffer from significant mental health challenges” compared to those with many close family bonds and friendships.
The report refers to a metric called the ‘Social Self’, which measures how “we see ourselves and our ability to form and maintain relationships with others”. It finds that this metric displays the “most dramatic decline from older to younger generations”.
In Other Words - the degradation of the indvidual/collective entanglement
“young adults age 18-24 were five times more likely to have mental health challenges compared to their grandparents' generation.
Mental Health State of the World report published by Sapien Labs’ Mental Health Million Project suggests that over recent years we appear to be crossing a global tipping point.
Annotate this report
Our gaze is often focused on the crisis ‘out there’ and what we must do to ‘fix it’. Sometimes we neglect or overlook the crisis within. Other times, that inner crisis might consume us and distract us from what’s going on ‘out there’.
What is important is the inner/outer entanglement
We are simultaneously facing major crises across our systems of production in energy, the economy and food. These crises encompassing our material social relations are paralleled by deep and overlapping inner crises.
The inner / outer crisis relationship. This is one of the major relationships identified by Stop Reset Go and Deep Humanity.
The Planetary Emergency is a Crisis of Spirituality The collapse of reductionist materialism is a defining feature of the global phase-shift. The question is, what comes next, and what are we going to do about it?
Title: The Planetary Emergency is a Crisis of Spirituality - The collapse of reductionist materialism is a defining feature of the global phase-shift. The question is, what comes next, and what are we going to do about it?
Author - Nafeez Ahmed
Restoring fish, bison, gray wolves and other animals in key regions is possible without risking food supplies, and could remove nearly 500 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2100.
Title: Rewilding’ Parts of the Planet Could Have Big Climate Benefits
Title: Trophic rewilding can expand natural climate solutions
The effect of Antarctic meltwater on ocean currents has not yet been factored in to IPCC models on climate change, but it is going to be "considerable", Prof England said.
Another unknown not yet included in IPCC report
The study, published in the journal Nature, also warns the slowdown could reduce ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
AMOC slowdown may reduce my efficacy of co2 absorption.
In this first part of a two-part article on the relevance of 1.5°C, we unpick the policy gulf that exists between the Paris Agreement climate goals and our real-world emissions trajectory. Part two, forthcoming, will ask whether it is still tenable to claim that 1.5°C is in any meaningful sense ‘alive’.
Part One of two-part article - on the relevance of 1.5°C, - unpack the policy gulf that exists between - the Paris Agreement climate goals and - real-world emissions trajectory. - Part one challenges - the techno-optimistic position, - embodied by international leaders and the COP process - as being wilfully ignorant of reality.
Part two, forthcoming - question - is still tenable to claim that 1.5°C is in any meaningful sense ‘alive’. - Question recent suggestions that, - because a 50% chance has all but slipped beyond reach, - 1.5°C is now effectively dead in the water. - Exploration of the dangers of disregarding societal transformations - that could yet deliver an outside chance of 1.5°C.
Title: How Alive Is 1.5? Part One – A Small Budget, Shrinking Fast
Author: - Kevin Anderson - Dan Calverley
Key Messages - For a 50:50 chance of staying below 1.5°C, we’re using up the remaining carbon budget at around 1% every month. - Following current national emissions pledges (NDCs) to 2030 puts the temperature commitments within the Paris Agreement beyond reach. - Claims that 1.5°C is now inevitable also assign “well below 2°C” to the scrapheap. - An ‘outside chance’ of not exceeding 1.5°C remains viable, but ongoing fossil fuel use is rapidly undermining it. - The few credible pathways for an outside chance of 1.5°C are not being discussed. This is an active choice by policymakers and experts, who have largely dismissed equity-based social change.
In order to ensure that water, energy and food systems are secure and sustainable there is need for resources that enable decision managers to acknowledge and accommodate system complexity, recognizing the likelihood of diffuse and non-linear impacts within and beyond system boundaries.
we propose five cornerstones that help deal with the highlighted issues and categorize unintended consequences.
5 principles for mitigating progress traps - 1) - a priori assessments of potential unintended consequences of policies - should be conducted by - multidisciplinary teams - with as broad a range of expertise as possible. - This would require decision-making - to flex around specific policy challenges - to ensure that decision-makers reflect the problem space in question. - 2) - policy plans made in light of the assessment should be iterative, - with scheduled re-assessments in the future. - As has been discussed above, - knowledge and circumstances change. - New consequences might have since - become manifest or new knowledge developed. - By planning and implementing reviews, - organizational reflexivity and - humility - needs to be built into decision-making systems (e.g., Treasury, 2020).
in this example, use of insects for animal feed and food for humans presents a Knowable and Avoidable unintended consequence.
The unintended consequence was both Unknowable due to the lack of foresight regarding the potential for insects as feed, and Avoidable had more specific wording been used.
Title: Unintended Consequences: Unknowable and Unavoidable, or Knowable and Unforgivable?
Abstract - Paraphrase - there are multiple environmental limits within which humanity can safely operate, - potential negative outcomes of seemingly positive actions need to accounted for. - “nexus” research is consistent with the above - it recognizes the integrated and interactive nature of water, energy and food systems, - and aims to understand the broader implications of developments in any one of these systems. - This article presents a novel framework for categorizing such detrimental unintended consequences, based upon: - how much is known about the system in question - and the scope for avoiding any such unintended consequences. - The framework comprises four categories: - Knowable and Avoidable - Knowable and Unavoidable - Unknowable and Avoidable - Unknowable and Unavoidable - The categories are explored with reference to examples in both: - the water-energy-food nexus and - planetary boundary frameworks. - The examples: - highlight the potential for the unexpected to happen and - explore dynamic nature of the situations that give rise to the unexpected. - The article concludes with guidance on how the framework can be used - to increase confidence that best efforts have been made to navigate our way toward - secure and sustainable water, energy and food systems, - avoiding and/or managing unintended consequences along the way.
// - This paper is principally about - progress traps, - how they emerge, - their characteristics - as they morph through the knowability / avoidability matrix - and how we might predict and mitigate them in the future
This example illustrates the potential for an unintended consequence to move between categories and demonstrates that there are times when it is necessary to review and reflect. What is considered known and knowable changes over time: has the state of knowledge developed or an unintended consequence been identified?
// - This is the critical question - Looking at history, can we see predictive patterns - when it makes sense to stop and take questions of the unknown seriously - rather than steaming ahead into uncharted territory? - We might find that society did not follow science's call - for applying the precautionary principle - because profits were just too great - the profit bias at play - profit overrides safety, health and wellbeing
Figure 2. Transitions of climate change throughout time.
// - This is a good basic framing - for future basic research - on progress traps - Future paper would explore details in a much more granular way //
As the United States Secretary of Defense once asserted “there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know” (Rumsfeld, 2002)
Johari Window states the same thing
‘socially biased individual learning’
Definition - socially based individual learning - an individual learns by interacting with the embedded environment - but the environment is itself biased - so that certain learning outcomes - are more easily learned - than they would otherwise be
the problems inherent in assuming any simple individual/social learning distinction are already well understood by some researchers working on cultural evolution.
moss sponging by chmpanzees - is a phenomena observed by researchers - in which the distinction between<br /> - individual and - collective learning - is fuzzy - Sponging is a technique of wild chimpanzees - in which they use chewed up plant material - as a sponge to soak up water - One individual wild chimpanzee - named by the researchers as KW - picked up a discarded sponge used by another wild chimpanzee - which happened to have moss in it - and so developed a sponge for water specifically from moss - KW did not learn it socially from another chimpanzee - yet if it weren't for - the behavior of other chimpanzees in the group - cultural artefacts they left behind - niche construction that resulted to changes in the environment - the individual learning of KW would never have produced moss sponging
We have already seen that thinkers from the humanities and social sciences have expressed doubt about the nature/culture distinction. They have also expressed doubt about the related distinction between that which is social and that which is individual. Christina Toren [27], again, remarks that the very distinction between individual and social learning is one that social anthropologists have long regarded as problematic.
individual and social are deeply entangled
The problem with this way of defining things is that we ignore the fact that, even when acting in a manner that appears to involve no direct interaction with other creatures, organisms nonetheless develop and learn in environments that have been affected by the prior actions of their conspecifics (and not just their conspecifics). This is precisely the sort of phenomenon stressed by the proponents of the niche-construction approach to evolution, and it is also stressed by developmental systems theorists [40,41]. Organisms grow in environments that have been constructed by the actions of previous generations: in that way, what an organism learns can be profoundly affected and enhanced by the collective activities of individuals it may never meet. In other words, we should not assume that there is any good distinction between individual learning and what we might call ‘social transmission’. The latter can be achieved via the former.
the best known example of this type of research concerns the co-evolution of pastoralism and lactose tolerance [30]. In rough terms, the basic hypothesis—which is widely accepted and well confirmed—is that the adoption of dairying set up a modified niche in which the ability to digest lactose into adulthood was at an advantage.
Best known example of gene-culture coevolution - co-evolution of pastoralism and lactose intolerance - the adoption of dairying set up a modified niche - in which the ability to digest lactose into adulthood was an advantage. - ancestors who were lactose tolerant could take advantage of a new source of calories. - Hence it is the learned acquisition of dairying which explains the natural selection of genes favoring lactase persistence, - the continued production of the enzyme lactase beyond weaning - Dual inheritance theory (Gene-culture coevolution) typically uses this example to explain - Dairying is inherited via a cultural channel - lactase persistence is inherited via a genetic channel - Recent supporters of this also make recent claims that it is not possible to distinguish between - what is biological from what is cultural
Tim Ingold [29] characterizes humans as ‘biosocial becomings’: once again in an effort to reject any separation of what is biological or genetic from what is cultural or social.
The eintangled human - bio-social human interBEcomING
Our core criteria follow the definition of CCE provided in Tomasello's quotation above. We suggest that the minimum requirements for a population to exhibit CCE are (i) a change in behaviour (or product of behaviour, such as an artefact), typically due to asocial learning, followed by (ii) the transfer via social learning of that novel or modified behaviour to other individuals or groups, where (iii) the learned behaviour causes an improvement in performance, which is a proxy of genetic and/or cultural fitness, with (iv) the previous three steps repeated in a manner that generates sequential improvement over time.
Definition - Cumulative Cultural Evolution - The core criteria follow the definition of CCE provided in Tomasello's quotation above - A population exhibits CCE iff - (i) a change in behaviour (or product of behaviour, such as an artefact), typically due to asocial learning, followed by - (ii) the transfer via social learning of that novel or modified behaviour to other individuals or groups, where - (iii) the learned behaviour causes an improvement in performance, - which is a proxy of genetic and/or cultural fitness, with - (iv) the previous three steps repeated in a manner that generates sequential improvement over time.
In contrast [to non-human species' cultural traditions], human cultures do accumulate changes over many generations, resulting in culturally transmitted behaviors that no single human individual could invent on their own.
Why have we, alone in the animal kingdom, created art and literature, socio-political systems that permit large-scale cooperation, and the scientific and technological knowledge to colonize the whole planet and explore space?
‘the ratchet effect’
New term for me - the Ratchet effect! - equivalent to CCE - A ratchet is a device with angled teeth that allows a bar or cog to move in one direction only. Here, it is a metaphor for the accumulation of increasingly effective modifications without reverting back to prior, less effective states.
In recent years, the phenomenon of cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) has become the focus of major research interest in biology, psychology and anthropology. Some researchers argue that CCE is unique to humans and underlies our extraordinary evolutionary success as a species. Others claim to have found CCE in non-human species. Yet others remain sceptical that CCE is even important for explaining human behavioural diversity and complexity. These debates are hampered by multiple and often ambiguous definitions of CCE. Here, we review how researchers define, use and test CCE. We identify a core set of criteria for CCE which are both necessary and sufficient, and may be found in non-human species. We also identify a set of extended criteria that are observed in human CCE but not, to date, in other species. Different socio-cognitive mechanisms may underlie these different criteria. We reinterpret previous theoretical models and observational and experimental studies of both human and non-human species in light of these more fine-grained criteria. Finally, we discuss key issues surrounding information, fitness and cognition. We recommend that researchers are more explicit about what components of CCE they are testing and claiming to demonstrate.
Title: What is cumulative cultural evolution (CCE)?
Authors: - Alex Mesoudi - Alex Thornton
Abstract - In recent years, cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) has become the focus of major research interest in - biology, - psychology and - anthropology. - There is a range of opinions on CCE - some argue that CCE is unique to humans - and underlies our extraordinary evolutionary success as a species. - Others claim to have found CCE in non-human species. - Yet others remain sceptical that CCE is even important for explaining - human behavioural diversity and - complexity. - These debates are hampered by multiple and often ambiguous definitions of CCE. - Here, we review how researchers define, use and test CCE. - We identify a core set of criteria for CCE - which are both necessary and sufficient, and - may be found in non-human species. - We also identify a set of extended criteria - that are observed in human CCE - but not, to date, in other species. - Different socio-cognitive mechanisms may underlie these different criteria. - We reinterpret - previous theoretical models and - observational and - experimental studies of both - human and - non-human species - in light of these more fine-grained criteria. - Finally, we discuss key issues surrounding information, fitness and cognition. - We recommend that researchers are more explicit about what components of CCE they are testing and claiming to demonstrate.
While policies limiting the high emitters are thus unavoidable, such as progressive taxes on emissions, they are hampered by three consecutive barriers.
Three obstacles to policies limiting elite carbon emissions - First is the realization of connection between wealth and carbon emissions - Second is polarized politics making it difficult to pass or implement policies to limit dangerous consumption - Third is focused policy on the oversized contributions of elites
Our findings raise the issue of global policy choices, with this research confirming that targeting the high emitters will be key. Staying within temperature limits of 1.5 °C or 2.0 °C is difficult without addressing the consequences of wealth growth.
key finding - staying within 1.5 or even 2 deg C will be difficult without addressing wealth growth - a significant share of the remaining carbon budget risks being depleted by a very small group of human beings
command-and-control policies are required to ban energy-intense premium class and private flights.
// - if millionaire consumptive behavior - threatens the survival of civilization, - then laws can be created to ban the dangerous consumptive behavior - if they cannot self-regulate
Fig. 3. Remaining carbon budget and millionaire emission growth, 2022–2050*.
Graph - millionaire emission growth vs remaining carbon budget - Note the year 2037 on this graph - This is when millionaire emissions exceeds remaining carbon budget
In this estimate, US$2020 millionaires will deplete 72% of the 1.5 °C carbon budget (400 Gt CO2, 67% chance of staying within temperature range), or 25% of the 2 °C budget (1150 Gt CO2, 67% chance) over the next 30 years.
key finding - Elite consumption has the potential to make 1.5 Deg C target unreachable - US$2020 millionaires will deplete 72% of the 1.5 °C carbon budget (400 Gt CO2, 67% chance of staying within temperature range), - or 25% of the 2 °C budget (1150 Gt CO2, 67% chance) - over the next 30 years.
Fig. 4. Millionaire numbers (nominal) by region: 1990, 2020, 2050
graph - millionaire numbers by region - 1990 - 2020 - 2050
1% of the world's population is responsible for an estimated 50% of emissions from commercial air transport, most of this associated with premium class air travel of affluent frequent fliers
5245 superyachts with lengths of 30–180 m in 2021, a five-fold increase from 1090 yachts in 1990
yacht stats - 2021: 5245 superyachts of lengths 30-180m - 1990: 1090 superyachts of lengths 30-180m - stats - yachts - quote - yachts
power law in emission inequality
carbon inequality follows a power law
Table 1. Interrelationship of wealth and emissions per capita.
Historical geometric growth revealed by this data suggests an average growth rate of 7.9% per year, which we extrapolate to 2050.
Quinn Slobodian's Crack-Up Capitalism may be a new form of disaster capitalism that will emerge as the polycrisis continues - https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2Fr8k0r3dZsog%2F&group=world - as the growth of elites attest, we can count on capitalism to capitalize on disaster.
the top 1% now being responsible for 17% of total emissions, the top 10% for 48%, and the bottom half of the world population for only 12% (in 2019).
Quotable carbon inequality stats: - the top 1% responsible for 17% of total emissions, - the top 10% for 48%, - the bottom 50% for12% - stats carbon inequality - quote carbon inequality - 2019
// A key question is also this: - what are individuals using those carbon emissions for? - is it being used just for luxury consumption - or is it being used to develop and actionize scalable low carbon strategies? - if it is the later, it could be seen as a de-carbon investment
They also highlighted that high emitters live in all countries, but were concentrated in the USA (3.16 million), causing an average 318 t CO2-e per person, Luxemburg (10,000 individuals emitting 287 t CO2-e/year each), Singapore (50,000, 251 t CO2-e/year), Saudi Arabia (290,000, 247 t CO2-e/year), and Canada (350,000, 204 t CO2-e/year)
Noteworthy countries with the most high carbon net worth individuals (HCNW): - USA - 3.16 million individuals emitting an average 318 t CO2-e/year/person, - Luxemburg: 10,000 individuals emitting an average 287 t CO2-e/year/person, - Singapore: 50,000 individuals emitting 251 t CO2-e/year/person, - Saudi Arabia: 290,000 individuals emitting 247 t CO2-e/year/person, - Canada: 350,000 individuals emitting 204 t CO2-e/year/person
Key drivers of individual emissions include energy-intense transportation, especially private aircraft and yachts, and multiple real estate ownership, often in different continents
Biggest source of emissions of the elite: - yachts - private air transportation - multiple homes in different countries
// - luxury industries of: - private jets - luxury home real estate - yachts - are unsustainable - this irresponsible, unsustainable consumption is imperiling civilization itself
close to two thirds of the overall carbon footprint of those billionaires owning yachts is caused by yacht-ownership. This implies a contribution to climate change that is up to 6500 times greater for these individuals than the global average of 4.5 t CO2 per capita and year, or up to 300,000 times greater than the contribution of the poorest, at 0.1 t CO2 per person and year
Yacht stats: - close to two thirds of the overall carbon footprint of those billionaires owning yachts is caused by yacht-ownership. - Carbon footprint is - 6500 times greater than the global average of 4.5 t CO2 per person per year, - 300,000 times greater than the poorest, at 0.1 t CO2 per person and year - stats - carbon inequality - quote - carbon inequality
the top 0.01% emitting in excess of 2300 t CO2-e per capita in 2019, compared to 6 t CO2-e on global average.
Quotable carbon inequality stats: - top 0.01% emit more than 2300 t CO2-e per capita in 2019, - global average is 6 t CO2-e - therefore, the top 0.01% emit 2300/6 = 383x more than the global average. - quote - carbon inequality - stats - carbon inequality
The wealthy thus have a significant influence on remaining carbon budgets.
key observation
Title: Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 °C ambitions Authors: - Stefan Gossling - Andreas Humpe
Abstract
Research question
Results
// and if it is not sufficient, then what?
Millionaires will burn through two-thirds of the world’s carbon budget by 2050, scientists warn
Taxing? No, they have enough wealth to just keep going. - if we people don't act on their own, legal regulation is required - unless they can transform themselves and the global luxury industry also undergoes a huge transformation
introduce professor quinn 00:01:13 sabodian he's the author of the book globalists the end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism where he traces ideas unusual lesser examined ideas about the origins 00:01:26 of neoliberalism right back to the breakup of the austro-hungarian empire and to strands of thought that um maybe are slightly unexpected was published by 00:01:38 harvard university press in 2018 and offers an enormous amount of insight into the variety of ideas that we call neoliberalism in our current era
Quinn Slobodian - in his book "Globalists" traces roots of neoliberalism - back to the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire
crack up capitalism that is a form of economic activity 00:04:47 propagated by people whose profit model and their kind of a normative vision of change and the social future relies on an idea of an accelerating process of social dissolution and an accelerating process of political 00:05:00 fragmentation this is a form of this is sort of a profit model and a kind of a political vision that sees an acceleration in the near future and the medium-term future 00:05:14 of processes of political crack-up
Book review of historian Quinn Slobodian's new book: Crack-up Capitalism
“A hundred years ago, the robber barons built libraries. Today, they build spaceships.”
This will not be the last terrifying scientific report on climate change. But the only path out of the dull repetitiveness of increasingly dire headlines is a politics that acknowledges that science and truth won’t automatically lead to change. The struggle for the planet is a struggle for political power.
or more directly, people power.
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its “synthesis” report summarizing the findings of its sixth assessment (the last occurred in 2014). The findings are painfully familiar: the world is falling far short of its emission goals, and without rapid reductions this decade, the planet is likely to shoot to beyond 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius of warming this century (we are at 1.1 degrees now). We seem to be stuck in a doom-loop news cycle where scientific reports create headlines, and earnest climate commentators insist the new report represents a true “wake-up call” for action, and then . . . emission keep rising. They hit a record once again in 2022. The world of climate politics appears to exist in two completely different worlds. There is a largely liberal and idealist world of climate technocrats where science informs policy, and there is the real, material capitalist world of power.
“I think we’re on the cusp of a massive transformation . . . ultimately, the market is going to make the decisions, not the government.”
Indeed, - and the market could very well make the decision - that will exceed planetary boundaries - after all, the highest priorities are the lowest cost goods - those already well established in the market place by reliance on fossil fuels, - that can maintain an individual's life
Yet we shouldn’t act as if there is zero reason for Biden’s turnabout. He understands, like every president before him, that surging gasoline prices are an enormous political liability in a society where the vast majority of workers still require the dirty fuel to get to work. As long as Biden acts as if his administration is helpless in the face of fossil fuel price volatility — and only increased supply will bring the price down — political viability will continue to hinge on cheap fossil fuel prices.
He said he and Arkush “went through every possible objection” and found no legal barrier for prosecutors to raise criminal charges against companies that he said have lied about their knowledge of the danger of burning fossil fuels. “What’s really probably stopping them is that no one has done it before,” Braman said. “The level of culpability and the extent of the harm is so massive that it’s not the kind of thing that prosecutors are used to prosecuting.”
In addition, at least two justices have ties to the oil industry writ large. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s father was a Shell attorney for nearly three decades and served in leadership positions with the American Petroleum Institute, and Justice Samuel Alito owns stock in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 (Alito recused himself from the Baltimore case but Barrett did not).
Title: Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Deaths
Author:
Abstract
If the ego is mentally constituted by this dualistic way of thinking, the ego should be able to die without physical death.
-In Other Words - Die before you die -Paraphrase - If the ego is mentally constituted by this dualistic way of thinking, - the ego should be able to die without physical death. - That is precisely the claim of Buddhism: - the sense of self can disappear, - but there remains something else - that cannot die, - because it was never born. - Anatma is the "middle way" - between - the extremes of eternalism (the self survives death) and - annihilationism (the self is destroyed at death). - Buddhism resolves the problem of life-and-death - by deconstructing it. - The evaporation of it is dualistic way of thinking - reveals what is prior to it, - which has many names, - the most common being "the unborn."
David Loy explains how - the denial of ego-self, also known as anatma - becomes the root of a persistent sense of lack - as self-consciousness continues to try to ground itself, reify itself and make itself real - while all the meanwhile it is a compelling mental construction
A good paper on the role (non-rational) relational ritual can play to help us out of the current polycrisis is given here: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbrill.com%2Fview%2Fjournals%2Fwo%2F25%2F2%2Farticle-p113_1.xml%3Flanguage%3Den&group=world
it is a mental construct
Good explanation of what self-consciousness attempts to do:
Self-consciousness is not something obviously "self-existing" it is a fiction, - it is ungrounded because it is - a mental construct.
Rather than being selfsufficient, - consciousness is like the surface of the sea: dependent on unknown depths ("conditions," as the Buddha called them) that it cannot grasp - because it is a manifestation of them.
The problem arises because this conditioned, and therefore unstable, consciousness wants to - ground itself, to make itself real.
But to real-ize itself is to objectify itself - meaning to grasp itself, since an object is that-which-is-grasped.
The ego-self is this continuing attempt to objectify oneself by grasping oneself, something we can no more do than a hand can grasp itself.
The child wants to conquer death by becoming the creator and sustainer of its own life. To be one's own father is to be one's own origin. In Buddhist terms, we could say that the Oedipal project is the attempt of the developing sense of self to become autonomous. It is the quest to deny one's groundlessness by becoming one's own ground: the ground (socially conditioned and approved but nonetheless illusory) of being an independent person, a self-sufficient Cartesian ego.
Quote - becoming ones own ground and not recognizing groundlessness (tantamount to our nature as evolutionary beings)
the major sin is the sin of being born, as Samuel Beckett put it. It is the worm in the heart of the human condition, apparently an inescapable consequence of self-consciousness itself.
Quote - the sin of being born. - the worm in the heart of the human condition - an inescapable consequence of self-consciousness itself
For Becker this is literally true: what we regard as normality is our collective, protective madness, in which we repress the grim truth about the human condition.
Quote - normality is our collective, protective madness in which we repress the grim truth of the human condition.
do our fears cause us to perceive the world the way we do, and might someone experience the world differently if they were brave enough to face the thing we avoid most?
Quote - do our fears cause us to perceive the world the way we do, and might someone experience the world differently if they were brave enough to face the thing we avoid most? key question - could we imagine a world where we are free of these fears?
The evolution of a human being
our practical faith in 00:09:05 progress has ramified and hardened into an ideology a secular religion which like the religions that progress has challenged is blind to certain flaws in its credentials 00:09:18 progress therefore has become myth in the anthropological sense and by this i don't mean a belief that is flimsy or untrue successful myths are powerful and often partly true
gaga's third question where are we going is what i want to address in these talks 00:05:26 it may seem unanswerable who can foretell the human course through time but i think we can answer it in broad strokes by answering the other two questions first 00:05:40 if we see clearly what we are and what we've done we can recognize human behaviors that persist through many times and cultures and knowing these can tell us what we 00:05:52 are likely to do and where we are likely to go from here
the artist managed to harness his grief to produce a vast painting more a mural in conception than a canvas in which like the victorian age itself he demanded 00:04:31 new answers to the riddle of existence he wrote the title boldly on the image three childlike questions simple yet profound where do we come from 00:04:46 what are we where are we going the work is a sprawling panorama of enigmatic figures amid scenery
Paul Gauguin's painting: - Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Do_We_Come_From%3F_What_Are_We%3F_Where_Are_We_Going%3F#:~:text=Que%20sommes%2Dnous%20%3F,the%20themes%20of%20the%20Gospels%22. - Wright uses this painting as a appropriate introduction to his work tracing human progress because to answer the third question - where are we going? - requires answering the first two - where do we come from? - what are we?
google search for "Ronald Wright surviving progress"
The Unintended Consequences of Technology: Solutions, Breakthroughs, and the Restart We Need
Title: THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF TECHNOLOGY: SOLUTIONS, BREAKTHROUGHS, AND THE RESTART WE NEED
The Unanticipated Consequences of Technology
Title: The Unanticipated Consequences of Technology - progress traps
Micro-credentials may be the future of education
Longtail experience
Representative democracy is a good example. It was set up in a time of bad roads and no telecommunication. So, find someone with a horse who was willing to ride to the capital to represent the local views. The roads were so bad that these riders returned only at lengthy intervals to check on local opinion. Over time, the riders became known as “politicians” and their return visits as “elections.” Today, we have perfect roads and high-tech communications — yet, the same centuries-old procedure.
The origins of politicians! - politicians had their roots in an earlier age when there was no communication or transportation technology - settlers lived in small communities and had to send a horse rider to represent them at the capital city. - now, communication technology has made them obsolete but too late, the antiquated politician is here to stay!
pictures of early 1900 child labor in the United States
The idea was to make a subterranean home that would originate from the rock bed, forming multiple whirls around the tree and adjoining to create a secure private space below for the residents and a space around the trees above that ensures that the thick vegetation and ecosystem continues to thrive undisturbed
built right into the rocky landscape, leaving all the trees undisturbed and building a swirling roof of beams and glass that accept the trees
Chuzhi as the meaning suggests in Malayalam, ”whirlpool” are swirls of precast poured debris earth composite bottle beams, fashioned from 4000 discarded plastic bottles designed around the three large Tamarind trees on site.
Finding huge quantities of small loose stones during the excavation process for the foundation led to an improvisation in the SHOBRI wall (Shuttered Debris Wall). These stones were utilised in the walls by inserting them into the Debris mix in the shutters as alternating bands.
shuttered debri wall - beautiful wall using rocks found on site
Wallmakers updates ancient building techniques for the 21st century, building beautiful architectural buildings using mud, waste and creativity as the main components
Title: Fox News producer files explosive lawsuits against the network, alleging she was coerced into providing misleading Dominion testimony
// - This is an example of how big media corporations can deceive the public and compromise the truth - It helps create a nation of misinformed people which destabilizes political governance - the workspace sounds toxic - the undertone of this story: the pathological transformation of media brought about by capitalism - it is the need for ratings, which is the indicator for profit in the marketing world, that has corrupted the responsibility to report truthfully - making money becomes the consumerist dream at the expense of all else of intrinsic value within a culture - knowledge is what enables culture to exist, modernity is based on cumulative cultural evolution - this is an example of NON-conscious cumulative cultural evolution or pathological cumulaitve cultural evolution
The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises
The most impactful system change is the mindset
It has been suggested that - the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI).
there is disagreement about - how to apply the ETI framework to our species - and whether culture is implicated - as either cause or consequence.
Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) i- s - also poorly understood.
argued that - culture steers human evolution,
Others proposed - genes hold culture on a leash.
After review of the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans - emerge a set of common themes. - First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance - and is probably driving human evolution. - The evolutionary impact of culture occurs - mainly through culturally organized groups, - which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. - Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, - increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. -Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by - an evolutionary transition in inheritance - from genes to culture - which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Research on GCC should focus on the possibility of - an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.
patterns thought to be characteristic of an ETI, including the scale of our cooperation with non-kin, the prominence of human language and our complex, full-time division of labour.
Summary
Human Patterns of ETI - non-kin scale of cooperation - prominence of human language - complex and full-time division of labor
The human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI) [1–6]. The evolutionary transitions framework explains how new levels of biological organization (such as multicellularity, or eusociality) emerge from subsidiary units (such as cells or individuals) through the formation of cooperative groups [6–10]. First proposed by Maynard Smith & Szathmáry [3], evolutionary transitions are thought to unfold via a shift in the dominant level of selection from competitive individuals to well-integrated functional groups [8,11]. These transitions exhibit a common set of patterns, including new divisions of labour, the loss of full individual autonomy and reproductive control, and the rise of new routes of information transmission [6,7,10].
Definition : Evolutionary Transition in Individuality - This is a very good definition of ETI - A new individual is a new level of biological organization - The new individual emerges out of an integration of subsiduary units as competitive individuals synergize and form well-integrated functional groups
we hypothesize that selection or cultural evolution will act to increase carrying capacity. Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution, then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.