Sunday, July 13, 2014

the detroit experiment: evolve or die...,


nakedcapitalism |  As Ilargi himself acknowledges, even by the standards of his fare, this post on “overshoot” is plenty sobering. We do seem to be on our way to precipitating a mass species die off (as in it’s underway already and humans seem remarkably unwilling to take sufficiently stern measures to stop it). The end of civilization as we know it seems almost inevitable, given that most “advanced” economies are seeing serious erosion of their social fabric, as reflected in falling social well-being measures.

However, the provocative point that Jay Hanson argues is that our hard-wired political habits guarantee our undoing. It’s akin to a literary rendering I read long ago of Dollo’s theory of evolution, which went something like this:
Species develop characteristics which give them competitive advantage. Dinosaurs get big so no predators can eat them up. Saber tooth tigers develop monster jaws so they can chomp on mastadons and other large prey.
But the problem is that species continue to develop these characteristics beyond the point of maximum advantage. Dinosaurs get so big that they need to get a second brain in their midsection to manage their bodies and they die of anatomical schizophrenia. Saber-tooth tiger become such efficient killers of large prey that they begin to wipe them out, and their hypertrophied jaws are badly adapted to killing smaller prey, so they die of starvation. And humans have developed overly large brains and are in the process of thinking themselves to death.
By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor-in-chief of The Automatic Earth. Originally published at Automatic Earth

There is not one single person I’ve learned more from than Jay Hanson, back when I was even younger than I am now. Jay is not the greatest writer in the world, his talent is that he has the right kind of unrelenting curiosity, needed to dig deep into the reasons we put ourselves where we do (it’s hardwired). This curiosity made put together the best library of information on ourselves and the world we live in that one can ever hope to find, at dieoff.org, much of it not published anywhere else. I took a month off 15 years ago and read it all back to back. The dieoff library was – mostly – finished by then. So it was a nice surprise to have someone send me the following piece, which is recent. It may look bleak and dark to you, but the challenge is to find where you think Jay goes wrong, and what you know better. That will not be easy, Jay’s a mighty smart puppy. I guess the essence is this: our brains are our destiny. That this leads to things we don’t like to acknowledge is something we will need to deal with. Walking away from it is neither a solution nor the best way to use the one part of us that may help find a solution. Which is also our brain.

Jay Hanson: I have been forced to review the key lessons that I have learned concerning human nature and collapse over the last 20 years. Our collective behavior is the problem that must be overcome before anything can be done to mitigate the coming global social collapse. The single most-important lesson for me was that we cannot re-wire (literally, because thought is physical) our basic political agendas through reading or discussion alone. Moreover, since our thoughts are subject to physical law, we do not have the free-will to either think or behave autonomously.

We swim in “politics” like fish swim in water; it’s everywhere, but we can’t see it!
We are “political” animals from birth until death. Everything we do or say can be seen as part of lifelong political agendas. Despite decades of scientific warnings, we continue to destroy our life-support system because that behavior is part of our inherited (DNA/RNA) hard wiring. We use scientific warnings, like all inter-animal communications, for cementing group identity and for elevating one’s own status (politics).

Only physical hardship can force us to rewire our mental agendas. I am certainly not the first to make the observation, but now, after 20 years of study and debate, I am totally certain. The net energy principle guarantees that our global supply lines will collapse. The rush to social collapse cannot be stopped no matter what is written or said. Humans have never been able to intentionally-avoid collapse because fundamental system-wide change is only possible after the collapse begins.

2 comments:

Constructive_Feedback said...

Blax News Reports: Why The UN General Secretary Told The "Americanized Negros From Detroit To 'GET THE HELL OUT OF MY OFFICE. I HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO' When They Petitioned Him With The Claim Of "Water As A Basic Human Rights", Seeking Relief From The Payment Of Their Detroit Water Bills That Were 3 Months In Arrears

http://withintheblackcommunity.blogspot.com/2014/06/access-to-water-as-human-right-activist.html



Brother CNu:


I have Philos love for you bro but at times you miss the mark, despite your proximity.


The notion that "Water Is A Human Right" and thus a petition to the United Nations is justified for relief in Detroit is SUBORDINATE to the fact that this is the same FRAUD AND HOKUM that the LEAST OF THESE in Detroit fell for from their LEADERSHIP for the past 40 years.


The ecosystem of EQUAL HUMAN BEINGS called "Detroit" had put forth a PLAN for POWER that they have been working for no less than 60 years. Once they assumed POWER and began to implement THEIR VERSION of "Justice" into government/economic/cultural/ criminal justice operations - it is clear that all that was highly rational in THEIR OWN MINDS - did not stand the "Road Test".


The notion that "Detroit Needs To TRANSFORM OR DIE" - with the assumed focus being on ECONOMICS or GOVERNMENT POLICY is the LEAST OF THE CITY'S PROBLEMS.


There is a cacophony of NON-GOVERNMENTAL/NON-ECONOMIC issues that are lurking among the people that are at a lower level in the FOUNDATION and which need to be ADDRESSED AND REGULATED before we can even start talking about GOVERNMENT or ECONOMICS.


Do you think that if Jet Magazine was transparent and told their readership back in 1970 that come 2015 A LARGE SEGMENT OF DETROITS POPULATION will choose to go to the UNITED NATIONS to seek relief upon the grounds that "WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT" - that this unchecked Confidence Man force would have been REGULATED?


Why then do we need to go back to 1970?
WATCH TO-DAMNED-DAY as the CONFIDENCE MEN still have standing to MOLEST the interests of the people. Not content at showing shame for the VALUABLES STOLEN and the WRECKAGE they have amassed - they understand that their congregation likes to FIGHT THE PERCEIVED ENEMY but will never INSPECT THEIR LEADERSHIP for evidence of any trace of the 'Enemy Virus' that might be floating around in their bloodstream.

CNu said...

The pathetic begging for empathy got started in earnest today.In Detroit, a city that borders the largest source of fresh surface
water on the planet, thousands of people are being prevented from
getting water from their faucets. Pastor David Alexander Bullock,
national spokesman for the Change Agent Consortium, discusses with
Melissa Harris-Perry.http://on.msnbc.com/1sPJccj

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