Infinite gross, revisited

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that we cannot grow the material economy indefinitely on a finite planet.* Such growth however, is exactly what is needed to keep the economic system from falling apart, as many studies have shown.**

What about the "service economy"? Could it be the solution to grow an economy indefinitely? Of course not: people have a finite and very limited amount of time, and the efficiency people can reach depends on factors such as their education, or intelligence, things that are certainly not candidates for infinite growth. Tim Jackson has shown this more precisely in his 2010 book "prosperity without growth" (Here is a good summary of the book on the shift project).

So, this blog post once again wants to remind the reader that we're doomed? Perhaps we can make some useful predictions about what would happen if capitalism remains in place. Remember, in terms of its destructiveness, we are not by far experiencing enough to cause all-out action. There won't be a revolution in today's comfort society, because people are afraid of blood. One of the tragedies of the demise of humanity is that real action can only come too late. Visionaries who have incorporated this cynical standpoint might want to look into saving species DNA and seeds during a long "nuclear winter", to emerge after capitalism has played out and destroyed itself and most of the biosphere with it.

Wow. That's dark.

Another prediction I could think of, is that after the use of all available "resources" that are economically viable to extract (after the planet has been raped everywhere where they expect profit), capitalism would have to turn to further the exploitation of the workers. They had been protected by the fact that capitalism still had other ways to expand.

Here's how. If you don't work 80 hours a week, you'll be fired and on the street. We have already out competed the company that was going to offer you a better deal.

But there is one more inevitable development in the endgame of capitalism, which we can already observe (Exercise to the Reader: find some examples): Consumption becomes mandatory. Corporations (remember they are essentially capital-growing mechanisms, without a soul or link to reality) force the enactment of laws that makes using their products and services mandatory (threatening to "move overseas"), they manipulate the consumer through the privately owned media emporium. That would be the completion of capitalism: When everything and everyone is a direct slave of the capital flow, reduced to replaceable substrate in its process of optimizing capital gains.

Yes, you read this right. In the future final stage of capitalism, you will be arrested for not eating at McDonald's (or the equivalent, whichever generates the most profit). This might seem ridiculous, but ask an 19 century peasant about anything we experience now and he'll find it ridiculous.

Who knows the name of the Greek mythological monster to which we are likening capitalism? And who has a beautiful comment on this sketchy idea?

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* That is why many futurists advocate colonizing Mars, rather than giving up capitalism. Indeed, this is one of the logical escapes from this contradiction, the other being to increase "efficiency" so that we can asymptotically keep growing towards a world of ultimate fulfillment (read: the ultimate realization of the capitalist dogma of indefinite growth)

** It is generally assumed that the "system" needs to grow 3% per year in order not to collapse.
See eg. David Harvey 

The Decade of Inertia

Obama was perhaps catapulted into power by nifty social media outreach and a moderately credible promise of change we can believe in.

When I look at the news, I don't believe in " real change" any more.

• Isn't the 'outcome' of climate conferences, such as those in Rio and Doha, always the same: empty promises by corporations, that can only be classified as delusional greedy psychopaths? Isn't the protest, the cynicism, and the blog posts in their wake - always the same?
• What is the difference between Mr. Morsi and Mr. Mubarak?
• When was the last time something changed in the relationship between North and South Korea?
• Isn't the war in Palestine the same every year? And the outcries, haven't they remained exactly the same?
• Isn't the discussion about gun control, that recently flamed up again after another horrible elementary school massacre - always the same old story.
• Is hurricane Sandy really going to make that change in public opinion, or is it just another little wrinkle in it, that the marketeers of Chevron and BP can with no great effort iron out?

Announcing inertia

Isn't every event that occurs in our post-something world an argument for and against whatever it is the event is about, in a dangerously equal manner?

Sure, there has been unfathomable changes thanks to the Internet, but I suspect that much of the events that seem so fundamentally disrupting the status quo, might sooner or later turn out to be nothing but the smoke of the squeaking machine of our system, that nonetheless continues to move 'forward', towards the materialization of its own delusion.

Will our decade we remembered so, as the era of inertia, an era in which those in power kept repeating themselves, just like those out of power - because 'we' have constructed a global edifice of power that is beyond the influence of politics.

Will future poets write about a sad theatre of reflexes by the powers that were, about an undivine commedia that lead to the Big Disaster?

I keep it short this time, because I am in the middle of a personal transformation. More about that later.

Very Bad vs Downright Catastrophic Climate Change

Image courtesy of realclimate.org

On this blog I find myself often describing the psychological features of our climatic predicament. I mean, we know the facts, people are working around the clock to get the facts straight, and have succeeded in spite of the heavy lobby in favor of 'the economy' and against the facts. You can find all the facts you need on 350.org.

A lot has also been written about the psychological mechanisms that have been deployed as the truth started to sink in. A few years ago, people could 'deny' human-made climate change without being ridiculed. Business as usual didn't yet have the connotation of disaster.

Pragmatic thinkers with an tendency for optimism are hard pushed to find a way to express their deepest concern, that there is still something we can do. James Hansen is very upbeat in a letter to his granddaughter, saying that we should "never give in to the naysayers" (who for some reason claim it's impossible to reverse the anthropogenic climate change). Alex Steffen (author of "Carbon Zero") writes

To keep climate change within that merely “extremely dangerous” range, scientists say, we must limit the rise in global temperatures to 2°C. Allowing warming to accelerate beyond 2°C to 4°C takes us beyond extremely dangerous into downright insane. [...] If that were the end of the story we could all just start drinking now.  Hell, I’d buy the first round. But it’s not. We still have a choice. We still, just barely, have the option of choosing to limit warming to 2° and then working hard to restore the climate once we’ve stabilized it. We can, yet, pause at “extremely dangerous” and pull back from the brink of chaos.

And Bill McKibben, in a worthwhile Rolling Stone article from August 2012:

The three numbers [1. we can't raise temperature more than  2° Celsius; 2) that means we can't put more than 565 more gigatons of CO2 in the air by midcentury; 3) the fossil fuel industry is planning to burn 2,795 Gigatons] I've described are daunting - they may define an essentially impossible future. But at least they provide intellectual clarity about the greatest challenge humans have ever faced. We know how much we can burn, and we know who's planning to burn more. Climate change operates on a geological scale and time frame, but it's not an impersonal force of nature; the more carefully you do the math, the more thoroughly you realize that this is, at bottom, a moral issue; we have met the enemy and they is Shell.

I understand and share the frustration of climate activists. The news they have to break is going to be bleaker and bleaker, yet in order to get the public's attention they can't talk "doom and gloom" (Hansen), they need to be more and more upbeat about it. They need to make it seem as if we still have a reasonable chance, as if there is a way out, that it's not too late. But here's the thing: the public will translate that into "we are on the right course" or "those in power will know what to do". But those in power don't. And those who know what to do have no chance to get in power. The urgency of the situation is dismissed, precisely because there is no painless way out, both our options are precarious and allow no peace of mind. It's just that one of the options, namely stopping to burn the fossil fuels, might lead to significantly less victims than the other scenario.

These two prospects of "very bad" vs "catastrophic" might induce a feeling of whatever. We're all doomed anyway, so why don't we be doomed in style, uncorking the champagne and throwing one big party that marks the end of days (which religious fanatics more or less secretly desire anyway)? People in the Western world are, despite occasional disasters, not at all equipped to imagine even the "very bad" prospect. Their default state is in a safe and warm home, a safe and warm drive away from a safe and warm supermarket stocked with food they also perceive as safe. Foreclosure, homelessness, and hunger are perceived as a scandal because it is an exception to the 'normal' way of life. For every person who lived through a natural disaster, there are thousands who watched it on TV, from the comfort of their couch, and the images they see don't educate them about the "very bad" down the road, instead they become more convinced that it is only in the world "out there" where the bad things happen. The images make them dismissive and numb. They are fully informed, yet they will not be able to make the link between the bad events out there  and the rupture of their supply chain of safety and warmth - until after the fact.

How can we prevent this? How can we educate a public that is born into a cocoon of safety, protection and entitlement, about the "very bad" and its distinction from the "catastrophic"? This seems to be the task of climate activists, but the cynic in me said that one decade from now, things will be a bit simpler. We'd all simply have to brace and wait for the catastrophic.

Bullying!

Bullying! that's the solution. All we need is thousands of anonymous people following the decision makers of the big corporations (Monsanto, DOW, Bayer, Pfizer, Shell, Chevron, Conoco, Vale, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, BP, Coca Cola, Nestle, Apple, Samsung, Goldman Sachs, ...) everywhere they go. Make graffiti, pee in their gardens, block their garages and lawns, throw firecrackers, empty their tires, make banana peel traps, take away their shoes, pull them a leg, make anonymous phone calls, pile up dirt on their porch, lay bonfires, stain their clothes, cut their shoelaces, send fake love letters to their homes to make their wives angry, drop ants in their mailboxes, put glue on their door handles, cut the electricity line that goes into their homes, smash their windows, block the exhaust of their cars, put a laxative in their drinks, send them spam e-mails, take their mail out of their mailbox, set fire on their trashcans, put used woman's panties where their wives can see them, record their voice when they speak their destructive minds and publish it on wikileaks, put used toilet paper on their doorstep,

And make sure not to get arrested. And never stop. Never ever stop.

If they hire security firms to protect themselves, start bullying the head of the security firm.

Create an anonymous website with concrete demands: Your corporation needs to stop doing this and this, otherwise the bullying will not stop. The bullying has to become a natural fact, as sure as the sunset.

Make sure that being a decision maker of such a corporation - as long as the decisions are for-profit and against the needs of our planet, simply MEANS making your own life a living hell.

Most addresses of these people are known. Why didn't we do this before? Oh, yes, because it might actually work. Bullying, just like in elementary school. And it's great fun. When did you ever bully with a strong moral conviction that you are doing the RIGHT thing?

These bankers, CEOs, investors, shareholders, fund managers, lobbyists, lawyers, they will stand up in the boardroom and say "Yes I know it will diminish our profits next year but I want my life back" and key is that whoever else is in the boardroom agrees - because they are bullied too.

This is a call to the 99% - START BULLYING THOSE ABUSING THEIR POWER IN ANY WAY!

Best of humanity

"This is not a vacation, gentlemen" sounded the speaker of the space shuttle. A group of five distinguished white males looked at each other but didn't seem the least uncomfortable.
"You have been democratically elected because you are the most promising individuals to continue humankind. We the people have voted for you. Don't let us down in outer space" the voice continued. The men, who were all dressed in elegant suits and most of whom had a modestly protruding belly, nodded.
"The election process has been straightforward and simple, to make sure that also average Dreamericans could join, that is, if they would possess a quality that enhances their survival out there. Every single individual has had a fair chance to raise funds and run an honest campaign to demonstrate their superiority and aptitude for survival in outer space."
-"Amen!" said one of the gentleman.

Our last hope

"You are in a capsule that is bound to travel for several years through space. All amenities have been provided and there is nothing to worry about. You are expected to arrive on Saturn, that is a little bit more than one light-hour away, in four years time, where we the people will put all our faith in you as you will re-establish civilization there."
The gentlemen all nodded, and some started humming the national anthem.
"It has been established, that runaway climate change is now unstoppable and the earth will be scorched in its entirety in a matter of years, if not months. Science has shown that this is an irreversible process. Some people have called this a problem, but they don't realise that their negativity is not taking them anywhere good. You, the chosen, have been selected for your incredible optimism."
One gentleman attempted to applause at this point.
"Your incredible optimism and belief in the future of humankind is what has made you the sole legitimate representatives of our species in the new territories we are going to conquer. We believe in your incredible skills and unyielding persistence, that you have already proven during your campaigns to become the democratically elected superior individuals of our species."
-"Amen!" repeated the gentleman who had spoken before.
"I will now go through the list of names. Please stick up your hand if your name is mentioned. Brandon M. Romney of Goldman Sachs. Present. George W. Paulson of Barclays. Present. Rexona Tillerspoon of Rude Oil. Present. Ben Berbanksy of the FED. Present. Nathan Rothwild. Present."
"You will be the last remaining individuals of our species. All our faith in you, and upon you we bestow the hope of our last breaths. All technology you will need to restart civilization on Saturn is available in this capsule. In case you need to reproduce, you can do so in vitro, and you'll find eggs in the fridge. May I now have your attention please. Here is a message from our sponsors-"

The real truth of infinite growth

Extinguish everyone that is not us, everything that is not human, let every organism go extinct, with the exception of us, homo sapiens, let the mammals die, the reptiles, the bees, the plankton - never mind our primitive ancestors once were dependent on them for their survival. We won't be. We will have machines to manufacture or print all the molecules we need for our sustenance, and we will optimize the process so we will live on light and silicon. The bottom line is that everything that is not us, and cannot become us, should be destroyed. Some old fashioned critics say that this idea is the result of some deep trauma, somehow the result of nature. As if we were depending on something abstract like nature!

Don't believe their propaganda! You know better. We need infinite growth. All the numbers say that, all the economists say that. So we need to destroy and replace everything that is not us with machines and then with better machines. That is the only way we can go on forever. Don't you see it? Don't you see how it is our moral obligation to destroy everything that is not us? What kind of world would that be, where we would allow something other than us to subsist. Could you even imagine that? Something other than us? That would be so profoundly wrong.

No. We can't let that happen. But we are doing fine. We are getting rid of 200 species that are not us everyday, and that number is rising. We are also doing good when it comes to diminishing forests and rivers.We are doing what we can to destroy dirty tribal cultures that are not us, and that, too, is rather successful. Furthermore, the oceans will be void of life before we are halfway this century. Once we have gotten rid of biological matter and other unhygienic stuff that is not us, we will devise a plan to get rid of other things.

Some critics say we can never reach the goal of being completely independent of matter. But that is precisely the point! That is what allows us to sustain infinite growth on a finite rock. We are not matter, that is what matters. Once we have materialized ourselves in silicon we will be advanced enough to realize that we are not silicon, which gives us the moral obligation to destroy all silicon. And we will replace it with another element. And then another one. Since that is the ultimate goal of humanity, and the very source of our dignity: infinitely destroying everything that is not us.

Idea of Do NOT consume

I did it. I have alluded to the greatest possible crime against "the Economy". I have created a facebook page entitled "do not consume" on which I post a prohibition sign with the picture of a consumer item. It is intended to be a repetitive, mind-numbing message in exactly the same way the big advertising industry is bombarding us with pro-consumption commercials. It targets the subconscious mind of the viewer, it hopes to deliver the antidote to consumerism at the subliminal level.

Some have told me they think the message is not subtle enough. They said I should find a more sophisticated way to get the message across. I should talk about responsible consumer choices and lifestyle choices. I should stress the fact that we are not forcing anybody to consume even one drop less of anything. I should also offer alternatives: instead of X, use Y, silently assuming that Y is not one iota less "convenient" in delivering what we ultimately seek: pleasure.

But I think there is something not quite right with this view. When I say "do not consume" why is it not perceived in the same way as "do consume an iPhone 5", the subliminal message that our children are exposed to everyday, yes they are forcefully exposed to it. And when we create one little campaign saying the opposite in exactly the same manner, we would be limiting their freedom of choice?

True freedom of choice has to evolve the real, socially acceptable, option of NOT choosing anything, but remaining where you are, who you are, without following the imperative of evermore consumption. True freedom is NOT a choice between Apple or Samsung, Republicans or Democrats. That is not freedom, that is slavery in disguise, and everybody who looks back on recent history would see this: We have human beings cut off from their natural way of being, the way they've evolved over many millennia, anxious creatures on prozac living empty individualist lives in anonymous cities, and on top of that a thin film of "choice" between a handful of different corporations, politicians, or jobs.

With few (important) exceptions, we don't have rich human communities where people have real choices and true democracy is invigorated every day, where the hallmark of choice-freedom is that there is always a real and socially accepted option to remain things as they are. If a corporation comes to such a community and tell them they could buy a dirty gasoline car or a cheap electric car, they can retort "we are fine with our bicycles, horses, or pre-owned cars."
[note: the electric car over its lifetime uses a lot more energy than a gasoline car. Think about the fossil fuels needed for the extremely energy-intensive process of rare earth mineral mining]

Everything short of NOT consuming will give the corporations the opportunity to lure us into yet another trap. And there have been many traps, biofuels being the most appalling one. Make no mistake. If you buy a "green" fridge that has energy category A, you are still buying a device that is created with planned obsolescence in mind, a device that only increases your ecological footprint.

We are not forcing anyone. But physical reality will very soon force consumption down to minimal levels, but then it will be too late. Make no mistake. The decline of this system will be even more rapid than its ascent. There is a crop failure in the US the mainstream media is not talking about. A similar crop failure in Russia 3 years ago had severe consequences. There is the war in Iran - when the strait of Hormuz would be blocked even for a relatively short period of time, it will cause huge economic turmoil.

It is your choice. Either you do nothing, or you do everything. And everything includes protesting, doing everything within your might to convince others, and NOT consuming the products of the destructive corporations.

The assassination speech

The president prepared a speech, but never gave it. His advisers told him that giving this speech would be "unwise with respect his security situation". In plain English: they were afraid it might get him killed.
Instead, he entrusted me the manuscript to "do the right thing". I don't know exactly what he meant by that, but then I watched all that fuzz about wikileaks, and figured the right thing to do is to leak it, to publish it on my blog.

My fellow people of the world!

Today, Dreamarica is in shambles. It is ruled by large corporations that cannot act otherwise than to maximize their profits. The naive among you might think that these profits are ultimately based on the freely chosen consumption of citizens, and that it is thus the ultimate apotheosis of democracy. Whatever a loose horde of consumers indirectly decide, support, vote for, dream about, or purchases is essentially a good thing. Yes, sure, and Romney pays his taxes and my real name is Santa Claus.

I want you to understand, Dreamericans, that the consumer society is bankrupt, and we have to move beyond it or perish. The symbolic order that enables consumerism in our society is called capitalism. It is a system of endless production, and cannot function without infinite growth. Ultimately, this is impossible on a finite planet. Almost all thinking economists and ecologists say this, and I am the first president to embrace it wholeheartedly. We need to dismantle capitalism, step by decisive step. The endless cycles of production and waste have to make way to a more profound cycle that is in harmony with nature. In order to end capitalism, I will remove the incentives for this perversity. I declare our money invalid. From now on, communities will use ledgers and tabs, and maybe a local currency, like in ancient times. Factories and offices will be transformed into public spaces, art centers, or housing for the homeless. Everybody in Dreamarica will have a roof over her head.

We don't need more infrastructure. Everybody must understand that living locally is the only sustainable way of life. I have thought hard about the future of transportation. Of course our addition to oil, foreign or domestic, will have to stop. After the dismantling of capitalism, I will quickly phase out all oil drilling and fracking. I will also stop the use of biofuels. We will give up part of our physical mobility, but we will gain mental strength. We have more than enough electric vehicles on the road to cover our needs for emergency transportation and occasional long-distance travel for family visits. But I urge you to live in the same community as your loved ones, it will enrich your life!

We don't need more stuff. I encourage average Dreamericans to refurbish used items. We don't need more people, because we have already overshot the carrying capacity of our land base. I will create incentives for couples who are having less than two children. Immigrants are welcome if they adapt to our new "way of life". Humanitarian refugees will be unconditionally accepted.

Our beautiful national parks will be extended. "Reservations" for the indigenous people will be renamed "unoccupied lands" or "free land" and vastly extended. All of our dams will be removed, restoring watersheds and undoing some of the damage done. Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems will be protected and given priority over human settlements.

Permaculture will be the way we produce our food, and lessons are mandatory for everyone. We will build or retrofit our houses to have optimal passive heating and cooling capacities, decimating the energy usage of buildings. The techniques are all there, we will build resilient communities using them. Our energy consumption will be lower than that of our brothers who inhabited this continent for ten thousand years, and to whom we owe everything.

We do not need to "give up" everything the twentieth century has left us. While most of modern medicine is a profit-oriented scheme and more people are sick than ever before, it did make some valuable inventions, and we don't need to give that up. Health care will of course be free for everyone, and I am sure that every community will find a good way to remunerate medical staff (for example, by housing them in beautiful homes) but in Dreamerica (where all basic needs of food, shelter, health are free), people will feel rewarded by the pride they take in their jobs. This also goes for firefighters, public servants, teachers.

Our schools will prepare for a sustainable and happy life. There will be traditional courses, except of course in subjects like capitalist economy, but we will focus on cooperation. Permaculture will be a mandatory course, and Dreamericans will be encouraged to learn Spanish or other foreign languages. Science is important, and I will encourage practical biology and chemistry education that gives our children an adequate understanding of ecosystems.

In the past decades, we have become addicted to food that we cannot produce at home, like coffee, tea, cocoa. We will stop these imports unless we can ensure a fair and sustainable way to do so. We will offer education and labor, especially help with setting up resilient communities, in places like Ghana, Ethiopia, Brazil, Indonesia, in exchange for a modest supply of tropical produce. We will also support the people in failing states such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Congo or Haiti with food aid and education. This policy will be the replacement of most of our military. We will keep part of the traditional military until the rest of the world has followed our lead and such institutions become obsolete.

I don't know how quick we can do it. But it is the only way forward. Some of you will ask if it is possible, and I tell them to look at Cuba. They have realized some of this (local food production, free education and health care) with very limited means. We can do much better than them! We will urge them to stop the suppression of dissidents so that they can be our friends.

Some of you will think of Utopia, and some of you will shiver. That is the result of the indoctrination of the current system. In the dreadful Orwellian dystopia, there is a centralized hierarchy of power, but in Dreamerica, there will be self-governing resilient communities. Their interaction, in the form of art festivals, trading markets, knowledge exchange, is what will define us as a glorious land.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, and may Mother Earth bless Dreamerica.

What is needed?

Some call it the greed at the heart of the capitalist system, others call it the impossibility of infinite profit on a finite planet, still others call it the dead-urge of our entire industrial civilization. What we can - and should - all agree on, is that we are heading towards the biggest disaster in the history of our species.

Most people are still blatantly ignorant about the amount of damage, and the pace at which the destruction continues (we are losing about 200 species every day; clearcutting, fishing, mining, agriculture, mountaintop removal, dams, tar sands, vivisection, fracking, offshore drilling, toxic chemicals, factory farming, etc). Some people have begun to show traits of fatalism ("I can't do anything about it, anyway") or are hoarding supplies to survive the collapse ("preparedness"). Others choose to fight back, in order to limit the damage that will be done by those in power as they'll do anything to defend what they perceive as theirs.

What is needed is sympathy for the latter group. These people are not violent eco-jihadists, or minority terrorists, even though those in power will never stop demonizing them as such. Quite on the contrary. They are feminist activists, who advocate dismantling a violent ideology of masculinity. These are activists that have come to the painful conclusion that dogmatic nonviolence will not solve this problem (but make things worse as it effectively silences true resistance). They are people who care deeply about the future of our planet, and refuse to compromise.

What is needed is a belief that there is still a way out, that we can defy the deadly logic of capitalism and industrialism. What is needed is the slightest hint of an alternative. That seems easy, but remember that the system will do everything to claim anything we come up with for itself, and continue its destructive path: infinite growth of "green" energy (which is double harmful¹), profit-seeking eco-villages, industrial patches to keep the pollution at bay.

Dreams
The power of the dominant culture to claim our ideas and rephrase them in its inherently destructive terms, seems insurmountable. But we will have to try. Never be afraid of sharing your dreams! If you don't share them, the dreams of the ruling elite, the dreams of the CEOs of Monsanto, DOW, Chevron², and their henchmen, the dreams of the power-hungry lobbyists, the misanthropic futurist dreams of the Hollywood propaganda machine, and the dreams of your abusers will define our imagination of the future. We need to stop that. If we want to be perceived as who we are: loving, caring beings who have decidedly taken the side of our planet, against the cancer that is destroying it, we need our "propaganda": we need to nurture the collective dream of a future humanity that lives in harmony.

Dream 1: eco-villages
For most of its history, humankind has lived in villages. Until a few years ago, the majority of people lived in a rural situation. I dream about a future in which humans live together in small groups in permaculture villages that do not consume resources they don't ultimately replenish. The groups are small enough to guarantee social cohesion and large enough to be efficient in terms of the division of tasks. They have access to the collective knowledge about the design and operation of sustainable systems. The villagers are no longer slaves, not to lords, not to kings, not to capitalists. They live free and rejoice. Art, theatre, music, storytelling, these things form the center of social life, not money, career, fashion, and fear. Villages exchange with each other to their mutual benefit. The education system no longer mimics the factory floor and new generations will be more and more estranged from the fear and greed that defined their ancestors.
While I dream, the machine of the enemy has produced poisonous "arguments" to defuse my revolutionary idea.
- It requires some remnants of industrial infrastructure, therefore it is hypocritical.
- It requires a steep decline in human population, therefore it is misanthropic.

How do we react to that? We dream on.

Dream 2: living on the debris
Over time human population will probably decline as there are not enough fossil fuels to feed 10 billion people sustainably. Such a decline can be extremely violent, with peoples murdering each other in resource wars, but it doesn't have to be. Industrial infrastructure won't go away completely. It is important to realize that only a halt in expansion inevitably leads to the dismantling of the system (that's why it is a cancer).
I dream of us living on the debris of civilization. We are comfortable in dilapidated high-rises without television. People are dancing on the rooftops and balconies³. There are too many of us to resettle to the land, so here we are, living a poetic live on the remains of the failed industrial society. We carry to burden of a perceived responsibility for our ignorant grandparents, and carry it with proud. In the center of our community are art, theatre, music, storytelling. Cities no longer destroy and pollute in order to sustain themselves. There are vegetable gardens everywhere. Ducks, chicken, rabbits are the denizens of former factories. Human population is slowly declining as most people decide to have less than two children. Biodiversity increases as nature recovers. There are no wage slaves, no traffic jams, no office hours in this city. There is street theatre, solidarity, sharing.
While I dream, the machine rolls on and has produced even more poison to stop us from even thinking of an alternative.
- People would never voluntarily give up their "wealth" and god-given right to SUVs, therefore it is undemocratic.
- You idealists don't mention safety, therefore it is irresponsible.

But we dream on. In dreams, everything is allowed. And it is time that our dreams enter the collective mind, replacing the toxic dreams of the dominant culture ("when we're done with this planet, we'll go to the next; technology will find a way out through 3D printing and genomics"). What a dream describes is the result of our revolution, not how we get there. Indeed, in the resulting situation crime rates are low, because the violent culture has been abandoned. In the resulting situation, the majority of people have simply understood what it takes to live together, and they have no reason to harm each other⁴.

Confidence
We activists don't know what is going to happen. We don't have all the answers. We are trying to save what can be saved as this destructive culture approaches its sad climax. It is important not to confuse us with those who have an urge for destruction. But we cannot blame anyone for doing so, as ours are very confusing times.

All we ask you is to make up your mind, and try to listen to the voices from our grandchildren, whose birthright it is to be part of a living planet.

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¹Wind turbines, solar panels, and hydropower all rely heavily on an industrial infrastructure. Even the strongest propositions, such as those of Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute won't work if energy still has to be transported over thousands of kilometres, is dependent on the destruction of landbases for mining of rare earth minerals, and has to be complemented by 'conventional' energy sources anyway because the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow.

²I can't possibly mention them all. Take the whole Fortune 500. It is in the very nature of a corporation to do harm. There are some elections of the worst company of the year, such as the Public Eye Awards (that honor goes to Vale in 2012). 

³It is certainly possible to live sustainably in a city. See the experiment of Colin Beavan, the "No impact man".

⁴ Even today, the majority of people won't harm each other knowingly (of course the destroy each other by participating in the system). Violence is on the decline, as powerfully demonstrated by S. Pinker ("the better angels of our nature"). This might also mean that our society is capable of a leap of faith from an oppressive police State that produces violence by its very nature to the peaceful coexistence of communities.

Peep!

I saw a brilliant movie the other day. It featured a highly sophisticated critique of both the prevailing intellectualism and the corporately hijacked political elite. Its protagonists presented in part woolly, but mostly toothy arguments supporting the view that our system is undeniably adrift and we are headed for imminent disaster.

The name of the movie was Ice Age 4: Continental Drift. The animal friends from the earlier three movies return in a swashbuckling adventure as their continent breaks apart, and they engage in an involuntary adventure to survive at the high seas, battling nutty pirates and other sea creatures.

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

This is exactly the kind of movie mr Zizek should analyse, and I asked him here on his facebook to do so.

The most memorable dialogue, and in fact the reason for this very write-up, runs something like this:
Two possums, Crash and Eddie, launch themselves for fun from a cliff, climbing on top of high pine trees that give way under their weight and smack them next to, and partly on top of, a molehog whose name I forgot.
molehog: "Watch out what you're doing! We are evacuating because of a disaster. Don't you see what's happening? How can you be just so happy?"
possum 1: "Shall I tell him our secret?"
possum 2: "Okay"
possum 1: "We are very, very..." [halts, and memorably touches his upper lip with his tongue, while raising his eyebrow] "...stupid!"
molehog: "Aren't you a teeny bit concerned with... for example, imminent death?"
possum 1: [pinches the nose of the mole with his thumb and index finger] "peep!"

That commentary, "peep!" seems all there is to say about the situation of our civilization. We are the weasels (with the difference that we are actually causing our disaster) saying "peep!" pinching the nose of anyone (scientists, activists, permaculturalists, vegans, leftists alike) who seems to spoil the party by expressing all too serious concerns. Our "culture of make believe" (Jensen) is what has brought us here. Every serious question we raise about the party (which is, of course, the paradigm of economic growth and the whole destruction in its wake) is more inconvenient than the most inconvenient truth - because "truths" don't exist anyway in the postmodern consumerist endgame.

It is so much easier to sympathize with the "peep!"-sayers than with the Cassandras and those foreboding destruction . Indeed, the creatures in the movie have had mine from the start. I think this is an extremely powerful rhetoric device and we must find a way for it to work in favor of the resistance and against the status quo.

How? Well, our enemy does have concerns: They care a lot about money. So let's say a CEO of a big bank or corporation is denied a bonus, made some really bad personal investments and goes broke.
"But can't you see, if I'm not properly remunerated I can't possibly do my best, and the whole system goes down."
-"We don't understand you because we are very, very stupid."
"Aren't you a teeny bit afraid that the whole financial system might collapse, and the rich elite would disappear overnight?"
-"peep!"

Mad Max World

Cover of Mad Max (Special Edition)

We have been taught to accept whatever choices people make, as long as they are lawful. Within an essentially unquestioned framework called "The Law", we believe, people (I mean citizens) can live out their valuable freedom, and choose anything they want and cannot do in-justice.

Of course, "The Law" is a power structure only cosmetically separated from the state, which is only cosmetically separated from the Corporatist Elite. And these corporate entities (with more "personhood" under the law than most primates have) make the choices that matter to our planet. They choose to "develop the resources", that is to rape and kill mountains, forests, rivers, oceans.

We have choices too. I'm not talking about the allegedly all-important consumer choices (will come to that in another post), but about the choice to fight back. To do something about "it". If we can for once indoctrinate ourselves, and find other sources to base our emotions on than our flat-screen TV sets, we might have a chance. We might be able to associate the feeling of wealth with healthy forests and rivers teeming with life. And to associate the feeling of poverty with encroaching concrete, industrial production and consumption.

The Lightness of Being

"Recently I had contact with a scale. Not an old squeaking household scale, but an industrial-grade scale with metal footholds and a very precise digital display boasting accuracy in the hundredths. I was naked, and the scale was thus threatening to tell me the only truth. I waited for a short moment, then gathered all my courage and hurtled onto the scale..."

This sounds like a typical story in our overweight, decadent society, with its absurd value of lightness, the exact opposite of what the system imposes on its prisoners: maximal throughput of materials, maximal absorption of the "resources" to be taken from the earths remaining rain forests, or from their local supermarkets.