Well, here are my observations: Humanity is an evolutionary failure, it happens sometimes. Usually, a species goes extinct because it can't adapt to a changing world, but never before has a species been the cause of a global extinction level event that wiped out everything. What is the change that humanity failed to adapt to? We developed technology, but failed to drop competition. It was fine to compete before technology, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but life goes on. Now here we are, competing on a global stage, with ever increasing demand for land to exploit for capital gain, but we live on a finite sphere. Competing for more and more consumption on a finite sphere, I hope, would be obviously suicidal, yet it's more taboo than even talking about population control. Shshshsh, don't talk about limiting growth, that will ruin the economy. It's insane. You have Biden, arguably the best choice out of three depressingly bad choices, talking to Xi Jinping and saying, "I think competing in a global market is healthy for us, but we shouldn't go to war over it." This statement clearly shows his lack of understanding concerning the overarching problem: competition for resources on a finite sphere is death and can only lead to war.
We created technology to make our lives better, but we work twice as hard to acquire/maintain/replace/upgrade it. I'm sure this is a matter of yin and yang, a balancing of all things in life. Still, technology must not be, in and of itself, a bad thing, because it seems clear now that other organisms have developed it and are traversing the galaxy, but they must have developed empathy for all life on their planet, something we have failed to do. Instead, we have an economic model that naturally paves the way for psychopaths like Putin, Trump, Hitler, Stalin, etc. to rise to the top. If you don't mind being cruel and heartless, you can do whatever it takes to gain power and wealth. They always make the same promise, I will protect you and raise your standard of living, but they always deliver death and destruction. This is because we can't shake the competitive tendencies we have; the desire to provide the best life we can for our loved ones.
You talked about a hundred year cycle, but the Universe is nothing but cycles. From the electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom, to the solar systems orbiting the galactic core, life is cyclical. There are tiny little cycles, like everyday you cycle through being happy and sad. These are so small, you don't notice them. Oh, I burnt the toast, yay my aunt called, ugh, I'm late for work, oh good the traffic is moving... Then you have good weeks and bad weeks, good years and bad years, good decades and bad decades good centuries and bad centuries, millenia, epochs... This cycle we're in now is a big one, the biggest one. Barring some unforeseen, dramatic, global evolutionary leap that transforms the entire human race into a cooperative organism instead of a competitive one, I can only see mass extinction at the Chicxulub event level. Hopefully it won't be a Permian level extinction event.
Thanks for all of this, I appreciate you engaging. Your post takes me to several different places. I’ll try to organize my thoughts -
On the topic of Turchin’s work, he points to competition being a big part of civilization collapse. A main part of his thesis is that societies become “top heavy” when there are too many elites or elite aspirants (ppl with social power or who want social power) and only so many metaphorical chairs in the game of musical chairs. He calls it “elite overproduction.” Bc of this, he says, there’s incentive to break the rules and find other ways to get on top, which is why we see the rise of a figure like Donald Trump. He also says that this elite overproduction (and the corruption that it breeds) + a large majority of people in society feeling bad about the state of things (which he calls “popular immiseration”) —> leads to combustion (revolution, civil war, etc) bc elite aspirants who can’t get a seat within the system in traditional ways leverage the popular discontent to start a revolution.
It’s a fascinating model (that I’m not doing full justice) that I appreciated wrapping my head around. It makes sense to me as a complex cause-and-effect model.
Turchin also says that in some cases across history there are enough pro-social elites/elite aspirants who see what’s going on (the breakdown, car driving over a cliff) and cooperatively ban together to steer the ship in a different direction. Which makes me think about your empathy comment. It brings to mind the question: what kinds of qualities or ways of being are needed for the type of thinking, action, cooperation to take place that’s needed to redirect the ship? Empathy surely being one, in my humble opinion.
Curious if you see any signs of hope around these kinds of qualities/ways of being emerging? The one I see that piques my interest the most is our collective (and growing) awareness of ourselves as a system, like I share in the piece. Sometimes I feel pie-in-the-sky about it. And other times I see the rise of so much collective moral grappling and confusion as a sign that awakening/awareness is happening. We just need more tools to help actualize it (which is why I advocate for collective healing/healing-centered tools)
Well, here are my observations: Humanity is an evolutionary failure, it happens sometimes. Usually, a species goes extinct because it can't adapt to a changing world, but never before has a species been the cause of a global extinction level event that wiped out everything. What is the change that humanity failed to adapt to? We developed technology, but failed to drop competition. It was fine to compete before technology, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but life goes on. Now here we are, competing on a global stage, with ever increasing demand for land to exploit for capital gain, but we live on a finite sphere. Competing for more and more consumption on a finite sphere, I hope, would be obviously suicidal, yet it's more taboo than even talking about population control. Shshshsh, don't talk about limiting growth, that will ruin the economy. It's insane. You have Biden, arguably the best choice out of three depressingly bad choices, talking to Xi Jinping and saying, "I think competing in a global market is healthy for us, but we shouldn't go to war over it." This statement clearly shows his lack of understanding concerning the overarching problem: competition for resources on a finite sphere is death and can only lead to war.
We created technology to make our lives better, but we work twice as hard to acquire/maintain/replace/upgrade it. I'm sure this is a matter of yin and yang, a balancing of all things in life. Still, technology must not be, in and of itself, a bad thing, because it seems clear now that other organisms have developed it and are traversing the galaxy, but they must have developed empathy for all life on their planet, something we have failed to do. Instead, we have an economic model that naturally paves the way for psychopaths like Putin, Trump, Hitler, Stalin, etc. to rise to the top. If you don't mind being cruel and heartless, you can do whatever it takes to gain power and wealth. They always make the same promise, I will protect you and raise your standard of living, but they always deliver death and destruction. This is because we can't shake the competitive tendencies we have; the desire to provide the best life we can for our loved ones.
You talked about a hundred year cycle, but the Universe is nothing but cycles. From the electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom, to the solar systems orbiting the galactic core, life is cyclical. There are tiny little cycles, like everyday you cycle through being happy and sad. These are so small, you don't notice them. Oh, I burnt the toast, yay my aunt called, ugh, I'm late for work, oh good the traffic is moving... Then you have good weeks and bad weeks, good years and bad years, good decades and bad decades good centuries and bad centuries, millenia, epochs... This cycle we're in now is a big one, the biggest one. Barring some unforeseen, dramatic, global evolutionary leap that transforms the entire human race into a cooperative organism instead of a competitive one, I can only see mass extinction at the Chicxulub event level. Hopefully it won't be a Permian level extinction event.
Thanks for all of this, I appreciate you engaging. Your post takes me to several different places. I’ll try to organize my thoughts -
On the topic of Turchin’s work, he points to competition being a big part of civilization collapse. A main part of his thesis is that societies become “top heavy” when there are too many elites or elite aspirants (ppl with social power or who want social power) and only so many metaphorical chairs in the game of musical chairs. He calls it “elite overproduction.” Bc of this, he says, there’s incentive to break the rules and find other ways to get on top, which is why we see the rise of a figure like Donald Trump. He also says that this elite overproduction (and the corruption that it breeds) + a large majority of people in society feeling bad about the state of things (which he calls “popular immiseration”) —> leads to combustion (revolution, civil war, etc) bc elite aspirants who can’t get a seat within the system in traditional ways leverage the popular discontent to start a revolution.
It’s a fascinating model (that I’m not doing full justice) that I appreciated wrapping my head around. It makes sense to me as a complex cause-and-effect model.
Turchin also says that in some cases across history there are enough pro-social elites/elite aspirants who see what’s going on (the breakdown, car driving over a cliff) and cooperatively ban together to steer the ship in a different direction. Which makes me think about your empathy comment. It brings to mind the question: what kinds of qualities or ways of being are needed for the type of thinking, action, cooperation to take place that’s needed to redirect the ship? Empathy surely being one, in my humble opinion.
Curious if you see any signs of hope around these kinds of qualities/ways of being emerging? The one I see that piques my interest the most is our collective (and growing) awareness of ourselves as a system, like I share in the piece. Sometimes I feel pie-in-the-sky about it. And other times I see the rise of so much collective moral grappling and confusion as a sign that awakening/awareness is happening. We just need more tools to help actualize it (which is why I advocate for collective healing/healing-centered tools)