I always see these various concepts for intentional communities that shine with glamour and sophistication. The Venus Project to name one. Some engineering prospects suggest a virtual paradise. Evacuated Tube Transport suggests that your trip from New York to Hong Kong would be like a one hour drive. You could order chinese take-out . . . from china.
But here’s the problem. It’s not that these proposed ideologies and technologies are inconceivable. It’s not that they won’t happen. It’s that they generally all come with the assumption that we aren’t fucking idiots.
The Human species is the sophisticated version of a locust. It doesn’t matter how advanced out technology becomes, we will always demand more than it can offer. We didn’t need computers, or genetically modified food, or fission power in order to thrive well. Likewise, we don’t need a cold fusion alternative to oil. We don’t need quantum computers to better organize our thoughts. And we don’t need evacuated tube transport to better our transportation.
What we need is a governmental organization like the United Nations which is powerful enough to act on our community on a global scale. But whose sole responsibility is to design international laws and theories which would maintain a sustainable ecosystem. We need less population. Why is this idea so taboo in the mainstream? Do people not want to look at what’s staring them in the face?
One of the unseen causes of overpopulation is in fact rape. Harsh punishment (like death or life imprisonment) for rape could single-handedly curb third world overpopulation to a standstill. In the commonwealth with some economic stability, taxation for large families would easily solve the problem. The ultimatum for parents, responsible or not, would be simple. If you can afford lots of kids, go ahead. If you can’t, you don’t keep them, and it’s put against your assets like every other debt. Plain and simple.
I don’t think that the world’s problems, so far as resource management goes, is complicated. However- the REAL problem is something (maybe the Crown, maybe leading nations . . . maybe some economic faction we haven’t yet named) is eating away at our means to administer simple solutions to the leading problems. These kinds of solutions could be put in place very easily. But people would have to accept that (1) Life can be good, but it will not be glamorous. (2) some kind of insidious economically cancerous group of people (whether affiliated together directly or just compounding the problem) is ruling us, and has to be surgically removed the same way a tumor is removed and destroyed very carefully from all its entwining influence. Only then do the simple solutions matter.
I am in near full agreement with you Gaia; the only place I think I differ is on the means of preventing population growth. I think (hope) that it is possible to promote rationality and compassion in people as they grow up, through their education and interaction, and that with this change in attitude people will be more willing to help each other to help themselves. With increased rationality and understanding will come the realisation that we need to do the things like what you mention: a) stop or even temporarily reverse population growth; b) cut out the cancers that are the central banks and the free market of capitalism.
Especially with that remark and for a little while after, I was with you, but considering that one remark, how seriously can anyone take any other thoughts… from anyone?
Is the planet of the apes really better off better with ape socialized regulated ecosystems?
As pointed out on another thread, you (-all) can’t even figure out good from bad, but you think there is this elite group of genius ecosystem chimp altruists that you want to be given global oligarchic power… geeez.
You are asking for a centralized group of rulers, a concentration of extreme power, or, as James wrote, a global oligarchic power. You say that maintanence of a sustainable ecosystem will be their sole responsibility, but so much can be claimed and controlled in the name of sustainability.
Why can’t global sustainability be realized in the form of autonomous decentralized cooperation?
On reading the title of this thread, I recalled these two passages from Brave New World:
Perhaps there are two kinds of freedom, one is glamorous and one is not. Autonomy and Security. The freedom of self-determination, to rule oneself, and the freedom to be protected from harm.
As a matter of fact, it is impossible for human beings to be either absolutely autonomous or absolutely protected. Self-determination must be practiced within limited or finite mental and physical capacities and no human being can have absolute protection from death, for example. (Even if biological immortality became possible, people still would not be invincible.)
Every society maintains some balance between autonomy and security among its members.
If we look to a global centralized power for the “means to administer simple solutions to leading problems” then we grant a select group of people more autonomy than everyone else in hopes that their power will be best for our protection.
I am just amazed at how a few young graduates can reasonably independently operate a nuclear plant to power entire cities by way of selectively splitting atoms . . . and at the same time a great bulk of the city will consume that energy in an orgy of clubhoppers and a slum of drug addicts feeding their habit with government money. That same scientific achievement is regulated by an elaborate economic system which is based on the lie that modern money actually represents anything tangible.
It does seem that there is an optimal point of order at which us “apes” are able to intelligently solve problems. When you shift that to massive public or to international politics, both extremes break down to an in inconceivable mess both sophisticatedly elaborate and productively stupid.
How do the select intelligent “critical mass” overcome the ape crowd and the ape masters?
