Oh boy, so much to say to this one! Three remarks, all personal:
One, I was asked by Resilience to review Bright Green Lies, and I did read it but ended up not writing a review because I thought it was cherry-picked, distorted in much the way Planet of the Humans was, but I don't have the technological expertise to show where, for example, the problems with solar power were exaggerated. But one line central to the book has stayed with me: it claimed that essentially all green organizations, at least the Big Greens, were trying to maintain our way of life, not to rescue the environment. I thought that unfair and exaggerated but I keep seeing evidence that it's true. Not of ALL but of most. (Similarly, a claim in books by Wilbert's coauthor Derrick Jensen was that violence by people lower on the socioeconomic scale against people higher up is always punished; but violence by people higher against those lower rarely is, often is not even seen as violence. When I first read that I thought it a wild exaggeration but boy I sure see examples a lot.)
Second, it happens that just before I clicked on the R Word, I looked at OCA's Organic Bytes and there was a piece about Bayer (Monsanto)'s new propaganda outlet, and how this George Church is celebrating work with DARPA on programming humans, growing humans in artificial wombs, finding ways to grow food on Mars and how we can not only program human bodies but brains as well. This kind of thinking is the exact opposite of this post, or an extreme example of what it decries. But people with that kind of uberfascist mentality have a lot of money and power.
And finally, it happens that I spent my teen years in California. I remember seeing a whale only once. I used to hitchhike up the coast to Big Sur when I was fed up with high school. A fantastic place, with 100 foot cliffs over rocky ocean, where sea otters played and the wind played with my hair and whispered "freedom" in my ear. Once I saw a whale tail rise out of the ocean, flip and sink.
Then when I was 20 I lived in San Luis Obispo for a winter and got involved in the fight to block Diablo Canyon with a referendum (it didn't work). And I noted that Diablo Canyon was within 2 miles of a place I loved, Montana de Oro state park, with rocky beaches full of tide pools and hidden caves.
I've been told that in the unlikely event I'm ever in CA, I should NOT go see Big Sur because I would be depressed at how commercial it has become (wildfires too I think).
Oh one more thing. From that area I have a beach photo I took at least 50 years ago. In the foreground in a wooden sign: private property, no trespassing. Behind it is the Pacific Ocean. I think that sign has something to say about all this--it's as much about capitalism and greed as technology.
If philosophy is the love of truth, then it would seem you are on a good path, albeit one less travelled. Thanks for the valuable insights. The great technical race to create ourselves as dead and durable matter, in an effort to escape Nature, death, and corruption seems to be our deepest corruption. It is paradoxical and frustratingly ironic in that we inflict death everywhere. Investing ourselves (in every sense) in technicality as the dynamic of future being, means we are now living in and for the future which is a diminishing certainty. Maybe a great deal of philosophy and indigenous knowledge already has answers. But the likely 'seed trust' has to grow locally and organically as you say. What would be wrong with a human experience that was an expression of human will that remains deferential to mystery (philosophy/mythology), and calibrated to human energy capacity (no calorific multipliers and limited energy 'leverage')? And where human will is wilfully integral to its interdependence with locality as the basis of sustained, shared, and sacred existence?
Call to action, of course. But what sort of action? Not long-range exclusively, since if we don't deal with what could prevent there from being a long-range those things won't matter So what about possibilities? I am the only one publicly writing about what we-the-people could do now that could matter. It's about getting a voice and creating a force. Have a look and think with me! This is my save the world track: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/changemaking-now
Oh boy, so much to say to this one! Three remarks, all personal:
One, I was asked by Resilience to review Bright Green Lies, and I did read it but ended up not writing a review because I thought it was cherry-picked, distorted in much the way Planet of the Humans was, but I don't have the technological expertise to show where, for example, the problems with solar power were exaggerated. But one line central to the book has stayed with me: it claimed that essentially all green organizations, at least the Big Greens, were trying to maintain our way of life, not to rescue the environment. I thought that unfair and exaggerated but I keep seeing evidence that it's true. Not of ALL but of most. (Similarly, a claim in books by Wilbert's coauthor Derrick Jensen was that violence by people lower on the socioeconomic scale against people higher up is always punished; but violence by people higher against those lower rarely is, often is not even seen as violence. When I first read that I thought it a wild exaggeration but boy I sure see examples a lot.)
Second, it happens that just before I clicked on the R Word, I looked at OCA's Organic Bytes and there was a piece about Bayer (Monsanto)'s new propaganda outlet, and how this George Church is celebrating work with DARPA on programming humans, growing humans in artificial wombs, finding ways to grow food on Mars and how we can not only program human bodies but brains as well. This kind of thinking is the exact opposite of this post, or an extreme example of what it decries. But people with that kind of uberfascist mentality have a lot of money and power.
And finally, it happens that I spent my teen years in California. I remember seeing a whale only once. I used to hitchhike up the coast to Big Sur when I was fed up with high school. A fantastic place, with 100 foot cliffs over rocky ocean, where sea otters played and the wind played with my hair and whispered "freedom" in my ear. Once I saw a whale tail rise out of the ocean, flip and sink.
Then when I was 20 I lived in San Luis Obispo for a winter and got involved in the fight to block Diablo Canyon with a referendum (it didn't work). And I noted that Diablo Canyon was within 2 miles of a place I loved, Montana de Oro state park, with rocky beaches full of tide pools and hidden caves.
I've been told that in the unlikely event I'm ever in CA, I should NOT go see Big Sur because I would be depressed at how commercial it has become (wildfires too I think).
Oh one more thing. From that area I have a beach photo I took at least 50 years ago. In the foreground in a wooden sign: private property, no trespassing. Behind it is the Pacific Ocean. I think that sign has something to say about all this--it's as much about capitalism and greed as technology.
You must be exhausted. Almost daily you provide provocative, no, terrifying, contributions which
are like eyes of the Wild, watching, questioning us. Waiting. We are in charge, but of what?
Why do I find comfort in your daily post? Soon, I hope, I will make modest entry on my site.
Thank you for Max Wilbert.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
If philosophy is the love of truth, then it would seem you are on a good path, albeit one less travelled. Thanks for the valuable insights. The great technical race to create ourselves as dead and durable matter, in an effort to escape Nature, death, and corruption seems to be our deepest corruption. It is paradoxical and frustratingly ironic in that we inflict death everywhere. Investing ourselves (in every sense) in technicality as the dynamic of future being, means we are now living in and for the future which is a diminishing certainty. Maybe a great deal of philosophy and indigenous knowledge already has answers. But the likely 'seed trust' has to grow locally and organically as you say. What would be wrong with a human experience that was an expression of human will that remains deferential to mystery (philosophy/mythology), and calibrated to human energy capacity (no calorific multipliers and limited energy 'leverage')? And where human will is wilfully integral to its interdependence with locality as the basis of sustained, shared, and sacred existence?
Call to action, of course. But what sort of action? Not long-range exclusively, since if we don't deal with what could prevent there from being a long-range those things won't matter So what about possibilities? I am the only one publicly writing about what we-the-people could do now that could matter. It's about getting a voice and creating a force. Have a look and think with me! This is my save the world track: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/changemaking-now