There would seem to have been two ways of dealing with future prospects in history. One is pessimism, that of end times and hitting walls. There have been many arguments in this regard on this and other lists. The other approach is that of hope and optimism -- we are emerging out of the shadows and better times are coming. Again, many arguments supporting this view.
Both of these approaches would seem to require a healthy or unhealthy dose of illusion. If healthy, then "hey!" the darkness is fading. We are emerging into the light! If unhealthy, we see the darkness descending. Not sure of where we are now. The global economy does appear to be under considerable stress. The governments of key nations have accumulated enormous debts. Actions taken by central banks could be either inflationary or deflationary, but it's not clear which. Jobs that would enable people to look after themselves continue to disappear or move off to the "developing" world where they can be done at near starvation wages. The gap between haves and have nots, whether within nations or internationally, is growing. Institutions and processes established to maintain international balances and world order do not seem to be working. There is a great deal of anger out there. Nevertheless, we don't want to feel badly about things. So bring on the light -- the illusion that all is still manageable, that all will get better or will at least not get worse. Ed P.S.: Please feel free to regard this as an outburst. ----- Original Message ----- From: Arthur Cordell To: 'Keith Hudson' ; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' ; [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 8:52 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] consistency For the record, I am generally regarded as a pessimist but in this case I am not. Humans have been remarkably robust and have developed a capacity to re-group and continue, even after sustaining great losses. So while things do indeed look dire, I think that there will be some positive outcomes that will be a function of the human spirit to go on and continue. Hunhhh. What's he saying? I don't know this for sure but it seems a useful way to go on each day, looking for signs of change, looking for green shoots. Anybody got a better idea? Arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 4:02 AM To: [email protected]; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] consistency Michael, Superb piece of writing. I read it this morning soon after writing a piece to my own Short List. There were enough resonances between yours and mine for me to follow with mine here: <<<< THE COMING MOTHERS-TO-BE In reply to my essay of yesterday, "My latest outburst", Steve Kurtz has replied thus: "Well done! As you know, I agree. But since overshoot has added stress to the situation by diluting and diminishing resources of all kinds, I see little hope of a positive outcome until well after the coming cull. If the cull involves nukes, maybe centuries will be required to recover." OK, so what would a galactic observer say about us when looking down on this beautiful oxygen-blue, chlorophyll-green, cloud-white planet with its golden partner which will be kind enough to energize the whole show for a few billion more years yet? Nukes? Probably one or two. Israel versus Iran? Iran versus Israel? Pakistan versus India? India versus Pakistan? We probably need one or two more small spats, and the horrors and emergencies to follow them, to finally consolidate the fact that warfare, so beloved of ideological nation-states in the last century, is no longer affordable. After all, when the greatest military power on earth (not to speak of all the other Western nation-states, also deep in debt) can no longer afford to build the latest fighter-plane, or stealth bomber or super-Abrams tank or invincible aircraft carrier or laser anti-missile protective shield and cannot even bring peace to small nations it has invaded, then we oughtn't to need reminding. We probably need to be reminded, however. After all, due to our past, we have evolved so far only to be able to think a day or two ahead. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof". The one hope we have is that we are still evolving. Mutations to brain genes are still possible. It's not been long since we had two whoppers that are still spreading through the world population. Some other useful ones might have already taken place in some individuals who do, in fact, think more objectively about long-term stewardship and also of their own genetic descendants. Resources? We're already at the limit of recyclable freshwater for agriculture. (There'll be a few spats about that alone, never mind old-fashioned jingoism or religious wars.) We're already somewhere near the peak of fossil fuel production -- the very basis of the Western way of life and most modern economists' fundamental assumption of the desirability of economic growth forever. There's no energy technology that can possibly take the place of fossil fuels for more than -- what? -- a quarter of the theoretical population of the world in 100 years' time. Back to the galactic observer. What would he say about us at the present time -- after the experience of seeing other planetary civilizations going into collapse mode, but maybe others, including his own perhaps, who've managed to scrape by and come to their senses? He would see the white indigenous populations of the Western countries (and Japan, and possibly China quite soon) going extinct for the simple reason that adults of child-bearing age (increasingly since about 1985 in real income terms) can no longer afford to buy a house, buy the fashionable stock of consumer goods and raise and educate more than the 2.2 children or thereabouts per family necessary for population replenishment. He would also see increasing pressure of migration of poor people into the Western world. From his observations of other planets, our galactic observer might well make a shrewd guess that this migration will tail-off soon. For one thing, those of the former poor who have already migrated will -- in order to protect their own newly acquired Western standard of life -- not any longer be encouraging their brothers and sisters and cousins to come long and take low-paid jobs and state welfare benefits. For another, before too long, the indigenous populations of the Western nations are going to get very nasty indeed with their politicians and civil servants unless they stop immigration absolutely. Meanwhile, because of water shortages and because of the increasing cost of nitrogenous fertilizer made directly from fossil fuels, there is no way that hundreds of millions, if not billions, of the already poor and deprived of the non-Western world will be able to be fed in the coming 50 years. (What with more agricultural land being turned over to growing biofuels, then the starvation has probably already started in earnest. As the Indian economist, Amartya Sen, has noted, starvation -- even mass starvation -- can be hardly noticeable. It's just an old person or two dying here and there a little sooner than otherwise, or a baby here and there not surviving on a mother's reduced milk.) Meanwhile, the galactic observer is already noting that the remaining resources of the world -- good agricultural land, minerals, fossil fuels -- are already being bought up by the richer segment of the Western world and by China under its Confucian wise men. Meanwhile also, the galactic observer -- blessed as he is with a much more profound and historical knowledge of evolution of life in more than a few planets -- will note that evolution still proceeds on Earth whatever our social-engineering politicians and utopianists might plan for national health schemes. What is already emerging is a sort of international super-class comprised of those who are much more rational than the norm and who don't despise science. (Even our seasoned galactic observer is astonished that 40% of Americans still believe that God created life within the last 10,000 years! This is yet another of the products of poor quality, and worsening, state education relative to modern requirements. What our facile state educationists have noted is that as we are moving away from a labour-intensive manufacturing economy then we must educate more children in service occupations, conveniently ignoring that the new service occupations of any value at all are noT hairdressing or flipping burgers or waitressing in restaurants but much higher levels of skills than heretofore if they are to add real value to an economy.) How vulnerable is the new super-class to the wrath of the increasingly impoverished indigenous Western worker or the shanty-town poor of the rest? Hardly at all. Unlike the highly visible formal holders of power in their impressive governmental buildings, the super-class is scattered around the world and also they're comprised of so many different specializations here and there in scientific laboratories, city offices, offshore islands, countryside estates. It's hydra-headed. Lop off one segment -- if the mob can identify it -- and another will grow. The specializations of the super-class usually get on with their own thing -- whether it's finance, or planning the next chip factory to make production even more automated elsewhere, or research in the lab. But they recognize one another when they meet -- they have only to exchange a few words of conversation to know when they're talking TO their own kind whatever the specialization. Furthermore, they're all sending their children to the same restricted number of the best schools and universities, so there's plenty of cultural cross-fertilization in the second generation. There's only one fly in the ointment. Or, should we say, there's only one thing that our galactic observer hasn't perceived yet, but is expecting to, possibly quite shortly. The super-class -- if at all -- is not yet noticeably more fertile and self-replenishing than your average ex-prosperous person in the Western world or the poor who are being culled elsewhere. Does the super-class have a death wish also? Unlikely, one imagines, because the very nature of their daily activities is investing in the future, whether it's money or intellectual effort. Considering that most people with any assets at all -- and that includes culture also -- want to pass them on to their children. The super-class will already be far more aware than most of the world population that the fastest growing scientific discipline is that of genetics and that's where many of the best young brains have been heading in the last decade or two. The super-class will know that before too long any mother-to-be with any intelligence at all will be wanting to reduce the number of sub-optimal genes in her children. The mother-to-be will also be partial to the notion that some highly beneficial new genetic variation -- discovered in some rare individual in some DNA database or other somewhere in the world -- could be inserted into her own, or her intended partner's, genome. If the new high quality children are going to inherit the earth, then the mother-to-be is definitely going to make sure that she has enough children to do so. >>>>>>>>>>>> At 03:13 01/03/2010 -0400, you wrote: Arthur Cordell wrote: > Any "long jumps" that citizens can initiate? Long jumps that > citizens can begin rather than respond to. Hardly any. Assassinate the head of state of a powerful and bellicose nation? Start a religion that catches on like wildfire? Locate the single, critical lynch-pin of the global system and manipulate it? The landscape metaphor (or model) for complex systems is one of very many dimensions, not the spatial dimensions of science fiction. Rather it's just + a vector of a million or many, many millions of variables, + some rule(s) that describe how each of those variables changes over time and + a connection map that shows which of those variables affects which others as they change. In that context, a long jump is an event which, between (some arbitrary) time t and time t+1, changes a significantly large number of the variables without reference to the rules and dramatically changes the connection map as well. That's a large order for an individual. Oh, you can do it on a small scale. Trappped by school and grownups? Burn down the school house: it may only cause a ripple or it may so alter and realign the relationships, attitudes and loyalties in the village as to put the village on a whole different and previously inaccessible track. Maybe knocking down a couple of office building in the world's financial heart has done it, and we're still waiting for a new, stable global attractor to emerge. Effective, not pretty, with typically unpredictable outcomes but also not a one-man project nor, I suppose, one which you'd want to contemplate. So what *can* individuals or small groups of them do? The complexity catastrophe isn't new. It's just new as a global phenomenon. In the past there was -- what shall I call it? -- fallback for individuals or groups fleeing persecution or the law, for populations ravaged by war, natural catastrophe or plague. That was a reversion to more or less -- often more -- primitive conditions, what today we'd call survivalism. Also not pretty, with poor prospects for survival and worse ones for health and prosperity, but doable. America had what we called "the frontier" until the late 19th century. Anything like a frontier probably had vanished a century or more earlier in Europe but there remained, episodically, deep forests and lands depopulated by war or plague in which, as a last and desperate resort one could try to scratch out a living. No more. There aren't any livable, empty lands anymore. The Sahara, the Taklamakan, Kergeulen Island. Any takers? The fallback doesn't exist, not only for that reason but because the wildlife and other resources and, especially, the skills don't exist. Not one in a hundred thousand urbanites has milked a cow, raised a parsnip or amputated a gangrened finger. I may seem to be wandering here so lets get back, obliquely, to Arthur's question. Rather than ask what we, as comfortably secure individuals, can cobble up verbally to reconfigure the system, lets ask what those people do who are so uncomfortable and insecure that they feel compelled to punt, to execute their own long jumps into unknown regions of the system space. Are they implementing a working "fallback"? Or just taking desperate measures to survive in the status quo? Saturday's Globe & Mail had a long piece on Detroit. There's this guy who came back, 25 years ago, from his stint in the army to his (formely) hardly upscale but modest, comfortable community to find it a cross between a slum and a ghost town. [1] He painted vacant houses in polka dots, covered them with hubcaps, hung junk in trees and did dribbly art. All stuff you'd probably call hideous and unsightly, just as the City of Detroit did. But after years win-some-lose-some battles with the city, it's now a Work of STreet Art, his neighborhood is proud of itself and, what do you know, other artists (admittedly, of widely varying quality) are moving to Detroit where you can buy a house for $2,000 or less. Another relevant piece showed up on SlashDot: [2] Stewart Brand writes in Prospect Magazine about what squatter cities can teach us about future urban living. 'The magic of squatter cities is that they are improved steadily and gradually by their residents,' writes Brand. 'Squatter cities are also unexpectedly green. They have maximum density -- 1M people per square mile in some areas of Mumbai -- and have minimum energy and material use. People get around by foot, bicycle, rickshaw, or the universal shared taxi.' Brand adds that in most slums recycling is literally a way of life e.g. the Dharavi slum in Mumbai has 400 recycling units and 30,000 rag-pickers. 'Of course, fast-growing cities are far from an unmitigated good. They concentrate crime, pollution, disease, and injustice as much as business, innovation, education, and entertainment,' says Brand. Ah, another Stewart Brand eulogy for the salt of the earth. While the guy in Detroit is doing whatever he's doing and living there, Stewart lives on a houseboat in a sort of American Wonderland. One of the people responding to Brand's article writes: I unintentionally found myself living (flat broke at 34 years old) in a slum off Jalan Wahid Hasyim in downtown Jakarta in '94 for two months. It was the most disgusting, scary, dark, bleak, psycho, messed up two months a person could have. I'm talking about swarms of dengue-infected mosquitoes from dusk till dawn, cockroaches slapping off the walls like flying moccasins nightly, bloated ticks on the walls, intense heat and 100% humidity always, an auto body shop that started banging hammers on car panels at 6am 7 days a week, a mosque on each side of our house, complete with blown-out speakers calling locals to prayer 5 times daily, a disco behind us thumping on till 7am every morning, rats, dogs, cats all of them wild, mangy, diseased, flea-and-tick-bitten, puking and hunger-crazed, regular power failures, single-mom hookers lurking, screaming, pot banging food vendors day and night, storm-triggered floods of black, stinking filth, the toxic stench of burning plastic and vegetation always. And that was just down the alley I lived on. Walk out into the streets and it was thousands on thousands of cars, trucks, motorbikes, buses and two-stroke Indian-made Bajai taxis all jammed up, barely moving, all churning out black and blue smoke. Fold in rotting, burning garbage piled randomly with no hope of ever being collected, missing sidewalk covers over canals filled with what looked like black snot and choked with a billion plastic bags, coconuts, palm fronds, trees and Christ knows what else, plus disfigured, heartbreakingly filthy beggars here and there, the sick and aged homeless selling their trifles to make ends meet, corruption from the parking mafia on up to the president, and this wasn't the city's worst slum. Though I went there too and saw people bathing babies and brushing teeth in rivers you wouldn't dare throw a lit match into. Sorry, Mr. Brand. This is the most insane, out-of-touch pile of white-guilt-assuaging crap I've come across in decades. You have no idea what you are talking about, sir. Stay aboard your yacht in Marin where you'll be safe in your delusions. I've also spent time on a yacht in your marina, and can tell you that that life couldn't be any further removed from the reality of slum living, unless you moved it to the moon. People in the slums hate their lives (no matter how much they may smile at you as you pass by in your Indiana Jones hat and cargo pants full of candies for their kids), and for thousands of sound reasons. There is nothing happy or applicable to be pulled out of slums other than the knowledge that they are cesspools of tragedy, misguided dreams, unimaginable filth and evil. So it sounds like the urban-do-it-yourself-without-resources alternative is not predictably as good a fallback as, say, living in a hovel in the wastelands left behind by the 30 years war. So I've kinda shingled off onto the fog here without addressing Arthur's original observation: 2. That we [ western capitalist society] have not solved the distribution problem. I recently offered unsolicited advice to a friend who is engaged in a somewhat complicated project. He thanked me and, in fact, took my comments on potential pitfalls into his discussions with other people, where he described me as his "resident pessimist". I got into reading up on complexity and generalized systems less because of my earlier interest in physiology than because I wanted to see if it was a possible way to make sense out of the overlapping, often contradictory and mutually incomprehensible domains of thinking about how the world works. It certainly hasn't given me any conclusive answers and seems not to promise to do so even were my grasp of the subject less feeble. It's left me, however, with an embarrassingly pessimistic belief that a global population of more than, oh, say, 3 billion or so is destined for an average standard of living more like the Bombay slums than like the American industrial heartland in, say, 1955 and governance unlike anything envisioned by post-Enlightenment statesmen. [1] See: http://www.agilitynut.com/h/heidelberg.html or google "heidelberg project". [2] http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=slums+stewart+brand http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/how-slums-can-save-the-planet/ -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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