Steve, it seems that you have us facing imminent disaster, as though we're facing the end times the day after tomorrow. I just watched an interview with Jeremy Rifkin who's just written another book, an optimistic one this time. (I forget the title). Hey, he seemed to be saying, things are bad but we've got the capacity to pull through!
In my last posting I tried to say, perhaps rather badly, that humanity tends and wants to operate in a state of illusion, either good or bad, depending on where it thinks it's going. Right now the prospect of getting anywhere good seems unlikely; we're in an endtimes thought mode. The reality of our situation may be that we aren't really in an endtimes situation at all, but having pulled the shadows over ourselves, we we tend to think we are and we behave accordingly. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Kurtz" <[email protected]> To: "RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 6:00 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] "The coming cull"?? (was Re: consistency) > Hi Chris, > > Hope you are enjoying the population growth and multi-culturalisation of > tiny Switzerland. From what I hear from other friends there, the > stresses on the schools, hospitals, police, etc are increasing all the > time. > > The "cull" I refer to is unspecified as to exact nature. It could > involve any combination of events like famines, droughts, pandemics, > grid failures, fuel interruptions which halt distribution of essentials, > WMDs used by terrorists, madmen leaders, or deranged military men, and > even possibly accidents in our brittle automated systems. Y2K didn't > smash us; but that doesn't eliminate future possibilities. > > Scientists agree (almost universally) about biodiversity loss, topsoil > loss, forest cover loss, grain reserve loss, fish stock loss, and > increased toxification of the food chain, soil, water (fresh & sea) and > air. That shrinking & sickening 'pie' gets cut into 220,000 NET more > slices daily. Hence the ugly scenes Mike S posted. > > Socio-economic engineering, 'isms', utopian thinking, religions, all > pale in the face of mammalian nurture/nature drivers. Human behavior is > predictable on broad scales; hierarchy, superstition, intelligence, > physical robustness, etc are distributed on a Bell (or similar) Curve. > Given natural environmental circumstances, it is likely that certain > behaviors will dominate. > > I am not living in fear. I'm helping to prepare our son and his wife > (37, 38 yrs old) to have some independence IF systems break down in > rural New England. She is a medical doctor at an under served rural > clinic, so she'll get gasoline rations if that comes. He is a university > professor, but in Sound Engineering/Music Dept, so non-essential I > assume. They are lucky to have 3 hectares of forest and a small garden. > I will add a small orchard and a greenhouse. They also have a clean year > round brook/stream coming off a small, protected mountain. > > Can the 'world' be saved? Not as it is in my opinion. We are like too > many rats in a cage: they cannibalize each other. > > If you get to New England, Edith and I would gladly host you. It has > been a decade or so since you gave us a tour in Basel (I think) > > Cheers on the downslope, > > Steve > > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
