"All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable."
Ran across a little collapsology book in the library yesterday, which is actually a translated version of an essay published in the New Yorker that is still available online:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending
@chirrolafupa @rostiger (warning: i'm commenting before having read the full article). i'm concerned that this will lead to "throws hands up" outcomes since it's "inevitable" rather than drastic paradigm shifting of society!
@exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa @rostiger I’ve read the article, I’m on team acceptance, and I’m not throwing my hands up
It is my understanding and belief that what’s being advocated, really, is to drop the personal responsibility angle – no amount of reusable straws and biodegradable cups and riding your bike to work is going to stop what’s coming, but that’s incentive to put pressures on the corporations who cause these problems and the governments who enable them, not to give up
@exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa @rostiger and that pressure hopefully doesn’t stop at getting corporations to use renewable energy (staving off the problem) but instead at responsibility for repairing the damage that’s already been done while also ensuring that they’re making the world livable for all people by whatever means necessary now that the damage has been done
@flip @exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa @rostiger god, for the love of god, i dream that one of these men will someday have to take responsibility and face consequences for even one of their endless actions
@dogstar @flip @exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa Call me pessimistic, but recent history seems to have mostly proven otherwise. I really am trying to look at the hopeful side of things, but it's haarrrrd.
@dogstar @flip @exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa Some days my only way to deal with this is to put the blinders on. This shit gets me down.
@rostiger @flip @exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa oh yeah, extreme same.
i try to be a realist rather than a pessimist, but a lot of our anthropocene seems pretty worst-case-scenario. the way i escape that is precisely by giving up on larger systems and trying to think in terms of small communities and being helpful in those contexts. thinking along the lines of "there will be a collapse, it is not avoidable" ironically makes me feel less totally powerful in that way.
the basics (food, shelter, sanitation) are really not so bad to handle with a small community. even radio communication is pretty easy to hack together with the right knowledge. things get hard when you start talking about covering medical needs, then you have to deal with biochem and a lot of advanced and very complex technology.
as far as collapse goes, the amish are doing just fine without all of our fancy stuff. it isn't so scary if you think about it that way i think, unless not having a screen to look at is the worst thing you can think of lol. there is still a lot of potential death, but there are communities out there that know how to work with a much lower technical capability than we are used to.
i don't think that giving up advanced technology is the solution to avoiding collapse. to me the question is, how would a future post-collapse culture regain the lost knowledge? what can a pre-collapse culture do to make sure useful information is transmitted in a usable format? how do we plant the seed for a resilient culture that could make is across this chasm?
in short, i don't think we'll get anywhere without some serious cross-generational thinking. one lifetime isn't enough to course correct an entire civilization.
@xj9 @chirrolafupa @exquisitecorp @flip @rostiger oh yeah i was not even thinking about 'advanced technology' really so much as lifestyle and everything else
i do think inter-community communication and cooperation is essential to all of this though
@xj9 @chirrolafupa @exquisitecorp @flip @rostiger
i just mean more of this along the lines of "our fates are decided (at least ecologically) by a handful of Men selected essentially randomly who are pretty ignorant and perversely motivated and will never face any consequences for anything, and all systems of the world are there to make them more money" and realizing that we are condemned to that until something inside of the planet snaps and taking action with that view
yeah i doubt its possible to stop anything at this point. maybe if we was doing something now, but we're still at the "is there really a problem tho?" stage.
@xj9 @chirrolafupa @exquisitecorp @flip @rostiger nah. the powerful people knew about this being a serious problem long before anyone else, look at exxon's research into it. they just utterly don't care and they still don't have any reason to care
yeah, but if there was political will to force the change its not like they could stop it. as it stands, The People aren't sure if there is an issue or not for various reasons.
@xj9 @chirrolafupa @exquisitecorp @flip @rostiger at risk of coming off like the paranoiac fatalist that i actually am, when i talk about "all systems of the world are there to make them more money" this includes systems about disseminating information and informing people... not sure if you are implying an individual responsibility to remain informed but i think a lot of things are deliberately designed to prevent this.
some weirdos manage to stay out of their sphere of influence which puts them in a position to do something about it. only Fate knows who that would be and why.
@xj9 @chirrolafupa @exquisitecorp @flip @rostiger i guess i can't disagree with that!
@dogstar @xj9 @chirrolafupa @exquisitecorp @flip Yes to all of this. Keywords here are cooperative interdependence and cross generational thinking. I think stuff like self reliant eco villages are already going in that direction. Unfortunately a lot of those thoughts and ideas are somewhat confined to this here community.
@flip @chirrolafupa @rostiger i'm with you!
@flip @exquisitecorp @chirrolafupa The way I understood the argument is that reducing CO2 emissions on a personal level are still worthwhile, because it's the right way to live anyhow. Politics should keep up advocation even if it just buys us a few more years, that's good. And it's especially important to invest into social equality and solidify democratic structures, because that will essentially determine how bad things will go once shit hits the fan.
@chirrolafupa It shook me a bit more than I like to admit, I was still under the hopeful illusion that there might be some way to prevent it.
@rostiger have you read the deep adaptation paper? i find that approach to be helpful:
https://jembendell.com/2019/05/15/deep-adaptation-versions/
@chirrolafupa The term sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not aware of it's definition. Will read it, thanks for the pointer!
@rostiger no problem! i think/feel it's a good framework that shows that there are "non-pessmistic" ways to say and live "collapse is inevitable" :)
@chirrolafupa Hey, thanks again for the pointer to the Deep Adaptation Paper. It helped a lot! I struggled quite a bit with this topic in the past few days, but the more I read the more ideas form in my head on what to do. It has been irritatingly uplifting? I guess I'm still processing...
@rostiger 
i'm very glad! it's certainly difficult, but i think/feel one should at least witness it :)
for me, merveilles is the best place/community i know so far to connect along those lines/topics/feelings/thoughts 
.
the deep adaptation forum sounds nice but i haven't been there yet
@chirrolafupa I don‘t think this is something I can just witness, even though maybe I should. I’m still evaluating the actions that this new information suggests for me directly. In the meantime I‘m pondering how to communicate those topics to those around me outside of merveilles. I‘ll check out the forums too, thanks for the pointer again!
@rostiger :) thanks for sharing! i find it good to get reminded that other people are also accepting/embracing the idea of collapse in the near future