Time for Change.
| Hey, thanks for coming, if we have contacted you directly it's because we think you might be able to help. It may be that a collapse of our current system is inevitable, but perhaps here we can nurture the seed of a parallel system. This site is not being created by a particular person but by BurnZero, the name of the anonymous collective editing it. This site is presented as an editable Wiki (much the same format as Wikipedia) if you see something wrong and want to edit just sign up for an anonymous encrypted account and start editing. |
Preface
Infinite growth cannot occur within a closed system. It is baked into our core that all of our consumer aspirations can be met, but unfortunately, if we would like to have children that wont have to fight for water in the future, this is not the case. We need to look afresh, into new ways of thinking moving away from the egocentric to the ecocentric.
But we are still all individuals and we all collectively got to this point, perhaps we should start by looking at ourselves to see what has gone wrong before we take any new bold action. Human thought processes proceed as if it is reporting objectively, but in fact, it is often coloring and distorting perception in unexpected ways. What is required in order to correct the distortions introduced by thought, is a form of proprioception, or self-awareness. Neural receptors throughout the body inform us directly of our physical position and movement, but there is no corresponding awareness of the activity of thought. Such an awareness would represent psychological proprioception and would enable the possibility of perceiving and correcting the unintended consequences of the thinking process.
These distortions are not there by error, they have evolved over time for the body to save energy. For instance, why expend all of the energy looking at people's individual nuances to figure out if you can trust them or not. Instead evolution made a rule of thumb and racism evolved. This is not to say racism is correct, it is more to say skin colour one of the simplest differentiators of us and them, evolution has has encoded, culturally / genetically to avoid others, i.e. mother said don't talk to strangers. In general this worked within a monoculture society, however today in our multicultural society this heuristic proves to be a hangover from a distant past.
So the idea is before we go on this wiki journey is that we identify the key heuristics, cognitive biases and psychological fallacies in human thought, so we might see the problem a little better.
The problem: Our System is Broken and it we don't know how to fix it.
Short: We have had a long collective history, but now it is in jeopardy,. Asking politely for the ruling class to act is not going to cut it we need to look at other solutions.
Summary
We need to move from egocentrism to ecocentrism. Some believe we as individuals can slow its progression by adopting better consumption patterns notably following a plant-based diet (saves 0.8 tonnes of CO2-equivalents per year), reducing air travel (each return transatlantic flight avoided saves 1.6 tonnes), living car-free (saves 2.4 tonnes) and having smaller families (saves 58.6 tonnes per child). In reality this is only a minor part of the problem, think of this simple equation:
P (population) x S (services used by people) x E (energy needed to power those services) x C = CO2 (carbon dioxide output)
It’s a neat little formula because it drives home the point: that for all the Paris climate talks and more affordable Teslas, environmental incrementalism is somewhat pointless. Population is of course trending ever-higher, as are the services people demand, especially in the developing world which has barely scratched the surface in terms of cars and air conditioning and other modern basics. Those two factors swamp progress in energy efficiency. Gates points out that scientists are calling for an 80 percent drop in carbon emissions by 2050 e(and a total end by 2100) to stave off the most dramatic effects of climate change, yet even with more efficiency, the growth in population and services means that emissions will instead jump by 50%.
Some believe we can look to our entrenched politicians for answers.This might take the form of recycling plastics or paying charities to reduce people's use of firewood is doing a disservice to the cause. However whether it is recycling plastics or lip service from lobbied politicians it seems neither is effective. By greenwashing ourselves it temporarily relieves the anxiety intended for a much bigger problem. This website serves as log of an expedition to find something better.
In healthcare, when someone has a stomach ache, you can quickly treat it by going to a pharmacy. The pharmacist can address the immediate problem, indigestion = antacids, diarrhoea = loperamide, pain = analgesics. However whilst the acute symptoms may subside, you have just removed a key bodily warning system which might remind you that something more serious is wrong. The same is to say with our actions to save the environment, whilst well-meaning, not using plastic straws only helps relieve a symptom of a much larger problem. The science of third parties trying to convince you of these facts is not nefarious, there's no James Bond villain stroking his white cat. Its simply that we are living in a society which bases its success on profit. A classic example of greenwashing is when Volkswagen admitted to cheating emissions tests by fitting various vehicles with a “defect” device, with software which could detect when it was undergoing an emissions test and altering the performance to reduce the emissions level.
The Issue.
Unfortunately, there is no Darth Vader like villian for us to blame. No one is in control of large complex global systems. It is not the evil rich or evil corporations driving us to collapse. It is the ever-evolving systems in which we all participate and which no one influences enough to change direction in any coherent and sustained way that determine our trajectory to collapse. We want someone to blame, and even argue that “we are the system”, and we are all to blame, but we are not. The system will take its own course, as it always has. And all signs are that the courses our energy/resource, economic and ecological/climate systems are on, lead in each case to an End Game.These are the main issues we face:
- Deniers - cherry picking small pieces of information and relying on people’s lack of comprehension and capacity for research to sow doubt and uncertainty.
- Undermining expertise and intellect - (Goebbals, Gove, Bannon, Farage, Savarola, Trump, Putin) creating division between those who care, and those they care about
- Religion - prizing faith over research and evidence based approaches & telling people that their own higher power won’t allow destruction, floods and desertification
- Mercantilist capitalism - capitalism, a great system that has done more to reduce poverty than nearly any other institution, but corrupted and protected by governments in order to allow them to exhaust resources rather than respond to the consequent changes in supply and demand
- First past the post electoral systems - promoting single issue politics (Brexit), and weakening the capacity of smaller parties to campaign for complex longer term issues (understandably seen as secondary)
- Consolidation of the media - I don’t subscribe the conspiracy theories, but 80% of all UK media is controlled by just 4 men - and any economist can tell you the damage done by oligopoly - and any political scientist can appall you with horror stories of what oligarchies do
- Apathy/(bread and circuses) - compare subscriptions to sky sports against subscriptions to Greenpeace - once the bread gets a bit short, it’ll be too late
- Technoutopianism - I’m a fan of a technological solution - but it is a bet and a risky one too - the interrelationships of climate and environment are complex, and the rise of the scientific method over superstition has been incredibly successful in speeding up progress, but it can take a long time, and as you can see from the thermometer below we are already crazily close to the +1.5C increase
- Poor education standards - making it easier for people to be misled through ignorance of the availability of data for research and forecasting (negating their talents and intellect)
- Undiagnosed and untreated mental illnesses - narcissism, psychopathy of the wealthy and those in power.
- Copyright and patent system - if we could copy the code of FB, Gmail, Youtube and distribute it, we would not have to sit through endless advertising promoting excessive consumption just to connect with one another.
- Undisclosed corporate lobbying - many politicians migrate between private and governmental positions.
- Pro natalism - it's inherent in our culture to have more kids. The best thing you can do for the planet is have 1 or less children.
The argument that is presented on this site is that these issues are a symptom, a consequence of a root cause.
Who is to fault?
We should not point fingers, the majority of people not seeing the crisis is not an individuals fault, its just that the human brain has specific heuristics which make objecvtive observation difficult. in this example, when facts contradict self interest the brain obfuscates. Another example is confirmation bias, when people are so gung hoe in making judgements they tend only to see the reinforcing information (which is also perpetuated by our new media algorithms).
If we do nothing.
It is said history doesn't repeat itself but often rhymes. Greece, the birthplace of democracy however Socrates also predicted its downfall. He describes his ideal society of democracy, the one he lived in himself, and postulates about how it would transition out of democracy and most likely into tyranny. He speaks of the wonders he and his fellows enjoy in this democracy, that what they value is found in so many aspects of democracy, and of its overflowing freedom.
But like all societies, there are ever-present drones. The class separated from the workers who a democracy is formed around and the traders who are meant to distribute wealth among all without hoarding it. The class of people who control what everyone else defines as valuable, that control the final big stick of violence to beat with when the other sticks break. The class who begins as supposed representatives of the people who eventually begin to represent only themselves. The class that gains strength with each generation slowly separating themselves from the mob.
And as a democracy ages this class will swell until it affects the wealth of the democracy forcing the workers to challenge the drones provoking them into picking at the traders who move wealth around allowing for everyone to have access to a countries creations until the traders eventually become oligarchs.
Oligarchs who became oligarchs due to toxic freedom and drones. And how can we complain that they became oligarchs? Workers who live in a society whose top value is freedom that then are forced to hand over wealth rubs all citizens the wrong way, but most pay their modest share; however when someone reaches the class of trader they become the target of the drones who will attack a traders freedom.
The trader will become then an oligarch who stores wealth at the threat of someone taking it away from them, of suddenly being cut up for the drones to dish out as they see fit, or to not dish out as they see fit. Now not only the drones are hoarding the wealth of workers, but also the wealth of traders, and the traders now oligarchs hoard the wealth of workers.
Eventually, this will lead to the people championing a tyrant to go after both sides with a righteous fury fueled by the anger amongst the workers. It will not matter if it is only a minority of people who champion a tyrant because this minority will be violent zealots tired of waiting for change. Silently the tyrant will punish the drones and the oligarchs, tho the workers know what the tyrant is doing they will stay silent with the tyrant. The tyrant will be chased off after that, but the democracy would have already been eroded away by that point leading to more strife.
The tyrant will return and finally bring democracy into tyranny. At first, workers might support everything good or bad that the tyrant enacts. But the workers will quickly realize their mistake. That when power is given it can not be so easily taken back. And they will oppose the tyrant when they realize this, and the tyrant will oppose them, and what most likely follows is a series of tyrannies.
And in this play I have described, this fantasy, I see those who fit these roles in our own democracy.
Our representatives seem to not represent us anymore but instead themselves, the stick, and the control over wealth, or to be blunt, the politicians, the military, and the banks. These are the drones.
Our capitalists who store wealth for the sake of wealth are oligarchs turned oligarchs from toxic freedom.
We workers chase them for money, land, assets that they have only permission to hold. The drones have the big stick, the callous nature to not care if half or more of the population suffered from using the stick so long as they remained drones.
Trump is a breakthrough president, who by most qualifications should not have been one. He has a crowd of zealots, and yes also rational people, but still a crowd of angry workers. Call him a drone, or an oligarch, he is one of them but some of the workers still champion him, fight for him, push him forward, and would seat him on the throne of God.
I have no opinion on what is right, or wrong in this theory. I can not interact with the outcome so I try my best to observe and think about it without taking action, so I have no right to judge someone. But I thought this idea was both frightening and interesting to think about so I wanted to share it and maybe encourage some more people to read Platos passage on it and make their own inferences.
But I do want to offer something other than doom and gloom. That perhaps technology will prevent this downfall, or that democracy will evolve into something wonderful instead of falling to old ways. And yes I'm aware of how loonie this all must come off as and know that I am probably very wrong and/or naive.
The Timeline.
Every part per million (ppm) we go past 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere increases our chance of a disaster happening. Whilst the everyday chances of something happening is remote, everyday by doing nothing we are purchasing an accumulative lottery ticket for doomsday. The most likely occurrence would be if we remove the foundations of Maslow's hierarchy of human needs lack of water and food which causes mass migration would be the most likely tipping point. “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.”
The Goal.
The goal is to figure out what are the best ideas lying around and contrast them. There are two players. One a nihilistic machine whose sole goal is the accumulation of profit, the other is us. However both are on the same ship. The machine is killing the life support that we are both on, they dont fully realise it yet but they are starting to. There will come a point where some of the cogs working within the machine will start realising we are both on the same ship and realise it needs to stop. The realisation will most probably come from environmental black swans. Hurricanes, floods, famine. There are accelerationist amongst us. Who believe this point is inevitable and hedonistically consume quickening all of our demise. You have to believe we can save the ship, look at your children, look at the ground, underneath the bones of thousands of generations of your ancestors. Then look to the sky, a lifeless, dark universe. Lets not be proof of Fermi's paradox. Lets sort this shit out.
Proposed Solutions.
move the world from egocentric to an ecocentric We cannot consume our way out of this crisis.
- Electric Vehicles - a great concept but avoids the root problem.
- Green Energy - one of the best solutions, however it is arguable that we cannot improve our existing infrastructure to get us out of this (Jevons Paradox).
The solution
Stage 1
Ban lobbying.
Increase transparency - power corrupts, for anyone to hold power over another they need to commit to being 100% open, this means publically available bank accounts and open email messages.
Ban loopholes.
Meet Basic Needs - by transitioning away form carbon based fuels in the future this will create a basic need gap for the most vulernable. As such we need to protect people by establishing a firm social foundation—a social guarantee. We need to guarantee universal public healthcare, housing, education, transport, water, and energy and internet, so that everyone has access to the resources they need to live well. And as unnecessary industrial production slows down, we need to shorten the working week to share necessary labor more evenly, and introduce a climate job guarantee to ensure that everyone has access to a decent livelihood—with a basic income for those who cannot work or who choose not to. This is the bread and butter of a just transition.
Tax the rich. We need to tax the rich out of existence. As Thomas Piketty has pointed out (https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2019/06/11/the-illusion-of-centrist-ecology/), cutting the purchasing power of the rich is the single most powerful way to reduce excess energy use and emissions. This may sound radical, but think about it: it is irrational—and dangerous—to continue supporting an over-consuming class in the middle of a climate emergency. We cannot allow them to appropriate energy so vastly beyond what anyone could reasonably need.
How can we do this? One approach would be to introduce a wealth tax. Make it tough enough that rich people will be incentivized to sell off assets that are surplus to actual requirements. We can also introduce a maximum income policy, such that anything over a certain threshold faces a 100% rate of tax. In addition to cutting excess consumption at the top, this approach will reduce inequality and eliminate the oligarchic power that pollutes our politics.
Stage 2
Burn Zero Carbon - follow the advice of 100 Nobel laureates and several thousand scientists calls for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to do just that: an international agreement to end fossil fuels on a fair and binding schedule. We don't need net zero (reliance on future technology to suck carbon out of the air) we need aim at burn zero. Nationalize the fossil fuel industry and the energy companies, bringing them under public control, just like any other essential service or utility. This will allow us to wind down fossil fuel production and use in line with science-based schedules, without having to constantly fight fossil capital and their propaganda. It also allows us to protect against price chaos, and ration energy to where it’s needed most, to keep essential services going. At the same time, we need to scale down less-necessary parts of the economy in order to reduce excess energy demand: SUVs, private jets, commercial air travel, industrial beef, fast fashion, advertising, planned obsolescence, the military industrial complex and so on. We need to focus the economy on what is required for human well-being and ecological stability, rather than on corporate profits and elite consumption.
How do you pay for a social guarantee? Any government that has monetary sovereignty can fund it by issuing the national currency; think of quantitative easing, but this time for people and the planet. This is true for all high-income countries, although for EU countries it would have to be done in a coordinated fashion. The crucial thing is that to prevent any risk of inflation, we also have to reduce the purchasing power of the rich. And that brings us to the next key point.
Ban the corporate structure - so other organisation types can flourish. There are already many alternatives in existence, co-operatives etc however they have not become the dominant institutions on earth as corporations have an unfair advantage, much the same as China having a police-state advantage over the west. Corporates are computers, machines unfeeling in pursuit of profit, as they are not governed by humans but solely by profit they have an unfair advange as they do not take into account externalities which effect us allhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEEzripANUQ&t=232s
Eating meat license - eating meat is the third worse thing one can do as a consumer.
Contingency stage
One possibility for cooling the earth is to Inject Sulfur into Air. Injecting sulfur into the second atmospheric layer closest to Earth would reflect more sunlight back to space and offset greenhouse gas warming, according to Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego.
The Route
To get to the stages listed above immediately would take a mammoth effort, people en masse do not change. Like a oil tanker it has huge inertia which needs to be turned slowly. As such a series of projects is proposed to increase awareness and steer toward the solution.
- The Last Garden - making corporates more aware of over expansion - inspired by the Joni Mitchel Song "Bog Yellow Taxi"
- Solar music beacons - using solar panels that charge a battery hooked into a bluethooth hifi all set in concrete.
- Deep fake