RE: What do you think will save us, if anything? (in terms of climate action)
The better we learn to work with the earth, the more likely we can survive disaster when it strikes. Catastrophe is unavoidable, unpredictable, and inevitable.
Generally I avoid the supporting the hysterical political garbage. The crux of the disagreements seem to stem on methodology, beliefs, future forecasting, and whether or not we can actually prevent an imagined future random disaster. All of the methods presented by government are dangerous, divisive, costly, controlling, wasteful, and take years of expensive study to research the effects of their damaging policies.
I have nightmares about the government creating a global weather system that tinkers with controlling the temperature. It ends up killing everyone because the earth attempts to counterbalance it with chaos and extinction. The machine's stabilizing/sterilizing effects produce a nullifying effect, shutting down cycles of life that can no longer function to support various species. Or perhaps the machine glitches or develops a AI God-Complex-Consciousness and so it and freezes or melts the planet.
When a earthquake, tsunami, pandemic, or meteor hits, who is most likely to survive? I doubt it will be the genius climate scientists hiding in bunkers eating protein bars. I think it will be the scattered remnants of people surviving in the isolated forests, mountains, icelands, and deserts. They already know how to live sustainable lives, how to hide, and how to survive crushing circumstances. If anyone can find unpolluted lands, they can. If anyone can heal the polluted aftermath, if they can't, the world eventually will do so on its own, after millions of years if necessary.
I hold no belief that people exist so that they can be ever-present on this world to exist for eternity. Civilization will fall one day, and become a ruin. Civilization cannot be preserved by allowing it to grow, and I do not think it can be forced to trim down and live like a past era. People are always creating new solutions with technology. People have to want less. Civilization grows too fast to sustainably feed its insatiable hunger.
Not everyone will have the same mind about this. Wars. Pillaging. Enslavement. Chaos. Genocide. In a morbid way, tyrannical nations have a feral way of balancing out populations so that only the strongest groups of people can survive the next generation. Hunter and Pray Prey among humans, just like animals do to balance out their populations from becoming too invasive.
Maybe humanity will eventually embrace peace. Not likely if they are unable to reduce their human desire to perpetually want more for themselves. Sometimes to survive, it also spells death for others. Should people be forced to not want to survive? Should they be allowed to kill others so they can be able to survive? I'm going down a very dark philosophical road.
Completely with you on the gov't part. I can fully see how the first actual impactful effects of climate change will be used to implement draconian policies... not to actually mediate the harm, or let alone to turn things around, but in order to do what the powerful have been doing always and everywhere: gain an advantage in controlling us. You can see that on how fanatic so many fools are about plastic straws these days. Oh yeah? So why didn't you stand up against straws three years ago, before they became so uncool? Unfortunately, it is so easy to implement severe oppression by following the rules of democracy, especially if the populace is in panic. As much as I hate Donald Trump, I get scared when I imagine the rebound it will have.
totally agree. and i also agree when you say that these large scale implemented from above "balancing measures" would be disastrous. i believe the solutions are small, simple, attainable and when implemented by many bring great change. i think many of the problems facing us today are because people have done things at too large of a scale without properly understanding the implications of their actions.
as far as the rest of your thoughts are concerned, a morbid road indeed. part of me hopes that the social experiments and "natural culling" that you speak of will never come to pass because we humans not in those powerful positions will finally get a clue and rebel against these forces through taking our power back. i agree that the most adaptable, skillful humans will flee to the mountains and other climes and survive - who knows where the best spots truly are however because we cannot predict in exactly what way climate catastrophes will hit the earth. i agree with you for sure about the need to want less. i think we see it in some ways and on a small scale with the voluntary simplicity movements, but it's no where near a mainstream trend.
as you're talking about balancing effects as well, i have to wonder too if the simplicity and "want-less" actions that become movements aren't also our interior response to collective unconscious understandings that if we adopt those trends we might have a better chance at survival. yet perhaps the powers of ignore-ance and insatiable appetite will continue to dominate as our overarching modern narrative is that of the hollywood mansions variety.
Like how you tied in the collective consciousness.
Yesterday I was pondering what the world would be like if mainstream society became dominated by a computerized internet linked MK Ultra type brain. All middle class and wealthy people are hooked up to a Borg headset, with different models and tier levels based on how important you are, which means different levels of control might be enacted on you to feed the goals of the machine.
In my fantasy, I thought of a collective consciousness as a Star Wars Force type cult called The One, unable to be exterminated because they grow in strength and numbers even beyond death. They would be known by the masses as being aesthetic, poor, terrorists, and known to perform Japanese style ceremonial acts of suicide to achieve dimensional ascension of the mind.
Thanks for the response. I really have no idea what solution is best. One thing I think gets overlooked is culture. Although it is a social construct, it is an instinctual human behavior development based on the land where a person comes from. Family size, arranged marriages, dowry, etc. These things have a direct relation on how quickly the population will grow. When people bring culture to foreign lands, they are often surrounded with racism and bigotry. Their culture is clashing with another that has been the established norm there. It can lead to more of the culling effect that is so awful. Without getting into that issue, I will say that some of the region specific cultures must be part of the key to unlocking a balance between population and consumption/pollution for their zone of origin. Each place on earth requires different lifestyle choices in order to survive.