Does it make me a sociopath for me to hope big cities *do* collapse and become a thing of the past? People who know me well understand when I say I like persons, but not people, which is to say that while I treasure individual friendships and relationships, I at best tolerate crowds. I think we have not evolved the psychological mechanisms to live together in great concentrations. Our advanced civilization is much too young to qualify as having stood the test of time, a few measly tens of thousands of years is such a small blip in time compared to the time life has existed on our planet. I personally believe that the Earth would be much better off with under a billion (highly educated) people, with AI and robotics providing for the bulk of our material needs, and that is something we should as a species strive for. But then, I could be absolutely, completely, wrong about all this, and instead just be a sociopath. I hope not.
On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 11:48 AM Merle Lefkoff <[email protected]> wrote: > Biofilm, huh? I think you may be on to something. > > Returning a long-overdue book to the downtown Santa Fe library last > evening, I took a walk thorough the plaza to see how our "phase two" was > coming along. There were about 40 police strolling about--with only a few > pedestrians, locals all wearing masks, and a few unfortunate tourists (not > wearing masks, evidently not needed in the biofilm). There had been a > rumor of a demonstration which had not materialized. So the officers were > enjoying the evening "break", as they told me. > > I can't sleep at night worrying about how we're going to keep peace in the > valley in the near future as the quickening collapse of our systems becomes > logarithmic. Many big-city police are recruited based on former military > service. Also, many who get a high from dealing with violence are > attracted to policing. The recruits are then trained as warriors, not > peacekeepers, today even dressed for duty on the "front lines". Beyond the > systemic context of racism, poverty, etc. etc., the elected city mothers > and fathers who theoretically "control" local law enforcement either don't > give a damn, or they're scared of the very powerful police unions. > > I'm old enough to remember the release of the President's National > Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, known as the Kerner Report, > FIFTY-TWO years ago in 1968. After surveying 24 "disorders" in 23 cities, > the final conclusion was that "Our nation is moving toward two societies, > one black, one white--separate and unequal". The report then went on in > extraordinary detail to describe the challenges of pervasive racism and the > absence of political will to provide the federal money needed to intervene > AT THE SYSTEM LEVEL. It was quite remarkable to read again; every word > could have been written today; President Johnson immediately dismissed the > report, released on February 29; and on April 4 Martin Luther King was shot > dead. > > > https://hystericalcolorblindness.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/kerner-commission-report-pdf/ > > > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 9:47 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Aside: Do you avoid using the Reply mechanism on purpose? The subject >> seems to be a normally formatted reply, but there are no References: >> headers in your posts. This prevents threading clients from treating your >> post as a reply. It seems like you're using the Gmail web client. But I >> haven't read email headers in awhile. So who knows? >> >> I entertain a long-running (longer than usual for me) ill-formed >> hypothesis that as our population density approaches the carrying capacity >> of the earth, such isolation will be more and more rare. And that diversity >> will also go down. We'll become more of a biofilm (or superorganism) on the >> surface of the earth and less of a seething constellation of differentiable >> agents. One hitch is that as climate change worsens, some places will be >> the exclusive playgrounds of the wealthy (wealthy enough to own the water >> and supply chains to move goods to these rarified places). So you >> optimistic elitists living in compounds like Santa Fe (parasitic off those >> of us who might still function more naturally as climate change blossoms) >> will become more and more isolated while the rest of us become more and >> more like a biofilm. >> >> So you'll need to cling to your diversity while it lasts because WE are >> coming for you! >8^D >> >> On 6/3/20 7:41 AM, Jon Zingale wrote: >> > I personally find the Santa Fe police force to be very good at being >> > empathetic and encouraging peaceful conflict. As someone who has spent >> > half of my life living in dense urban centers, I often feel a >> responsibility >> > to witness when I see police interactions with others. Moving to Santa >> Fe has >> > done a lot to remediate my feelings around the police. Further, while >> there is >> > a very long way to go wrt race and equity, the discussion has been >> explicitly >> > in motion here in New Mexico for a long time. Is it possible that our >> apparent >> > /isolation from the broader unrest/ is a sign of maturity within our >> social >> > discourse? I have some concern that there may be a rising pressure >> > across the diverse regions of our country to abstract away our >> differences, >> > and to behave as if the discourse is /everywhere the same/. Doing so in >> > many cases would erase the very good work that has been hard-won. >> >> >> -- >> ☣ uǝlƃ >> >> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . >> ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ... >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> >> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> > > > -- > Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. > President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy > emergentdiplomacy.org > Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA > [email protected] <[email protected]> > mobile: (303) 859-5609 > skype: merle.lelfkoff2 > twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff > -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . > ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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