Comments on: What Do We Do When We Can’t Get Along? The Pros and Cons of Homomemeity

By: Dave Pollard

Dave Pollard — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 01:17:51 +0000

I contacted Thomas offline about Radio's erratic comments server.Theresa: I dunno, I took a lot of flak over this post. I generally use "organized religion" as a euphemism for the various Big Fundy churches, including the Roman Catholics.

By: theresa

theresa — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 19:51:10 +0000

I feel compelled to add something that often occurs to me while reading about this topic on this blog. The Catholic church has seemed to escaped both the author and his reader’s radar on this topic. Since its Sunday, and I’m thinking about it, I used to be a Catholic and the only real reason I stopped was because of the Church’s position on birth control combined with its massive influence in Latin America. And I am not talking about the more contentious issue of abortion, just simple birth control and family planning. To my way of thinking the position of the Vatican on this topic seems marginally criminal given its moral influence in the world. I’ve never been one to blame the US or any number of corporations for their influence in the world because I’ve never been without complicity in the problem. I did a search of “catholic” in this blog, didn’t come up with much, so it does seem like a strangely glaring omission.

By: Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:15:09 +0000

and now it works….sigh, there goes my 20 minutes of posting….

By: Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:14:02 +0000

Umm I tried posting here but it claims my email addy is no valid…..???

By: Dave Pollard

Dave Pollard — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:56:58 +0000

Thank you all — interesting dialogue here. Medaille has answered the concerns and criticisms better than I could, so I’ll just add a couple of general points. Reducing human population, to 2 billion if we can learn to live simpler, or something less than 1 billion (what we had a mere two centuries ago) if we want to live with a lot of stuff we don’t need, is not an option: either we figure out how to do it ourselves (and I’m not, as I’ve repeatedly said, proposing how)or nature will do it for us. In a variation on Mike’s comment, we either save all species or we will save none. That will be the next dawning of truth after Global Warming, and then perhaps we’ll start to act on it. Technology won’t solve our problems, space travel, even with the most optimistically foreseeable science, will take far more energy and time than we could have, and figuring that the leveling of birth rates will solve the problem for us is hopelessly naive about human history and human nature. As for systems theory, I love it and use it frequently, but it only works for complicated problems, and will be of limited value in addressing the most threatening problems, which are all complex.

By: genevieve

genevieve — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 18:46:36 +0000

Interesting point on the negating influence of the overly tolerant there. I have suspected that for a while, especially as my own openmindedness is not well tolerated within my original ‘intentional’ community of large family. If only I’d realised it was all about me a long time ago and gone off and tried to find my own community…(Sigh)

By: etbnc

etbnc — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 23:12:57 +0000

Thanks, Mike, WindInYew, and Medaille. I think I understand better what you value, Mike.I was trained in an engineering discipline, and I've read a fair bit of science fiction, too. I remember reading Clarke's space elevator novel many years ago. These days I prefer the annual Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois. He finds some writers who really think and write differently.Speaking of thinking differently, I've been thinking a bit differently lately compared to engineering training. A couple of years ago I encountered Peter Senge's work on systems thinking and learning organizations. His book, The Fifth Discipline, greatly changed my view of problems and solutions.In particular, Senge illustrates how today's solution box can become tomorrow's problem box. In engineering school we shrugged and jokingly called that "job security," but I take it very seriously now. As I become more attuned to the links between apparently unrelated problems, and the links between our cultural habits and our problems, increasinglyI seek ways to decouple those links or to create less harmful links. Since I'm attuned to that approach, it may be easier for me to see it reflected in Dave's writing. But I also notice occasions when Dave seems to prefer to vent, so I can imagine how Mike could get that impression. That's one reason I sometimes drop blatant,I mean, subtle plugs for systems thinking into this comment stream. :)Medaille, I do find that the E-prime way of phrasing ideas helps me to express myself more clearly. So I strive to use it, at least in writing. Rephrasing to eliminate those pesky "is"-es from my sentences seems easier in writing than speaking. The effort pays off though, so thanks for that reminder.Speaking of blatant, I mean, subtle link plugs...http://www.thinking.net/Systems_Thinking/Intro_to_ST/intro_to_st.htmlInfo about Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-0385260954-11and a couple of my own pieces of this puzzle, http://mybluepuzzlepiece.blogspot.com and http://home.nc.rr.com/sustain/Cheers, y'all

By: medaille

medaille — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 22:25:10 +0000

This is a big topic and a very good one, because it doesn’t get discussed in detail enough.In reference to Mike’s first comment, This blog is called “How to Save the World.” I tend to take that to mean the entire organic/nonorganic entity that is Earth. It is clear that there is a finite amount of energy coming into the planet from the sun and some from other sources but the total amount of energy that can be used in a given time is relatively fixed. This energy must be distributed across the whole world and all the species living in it. I’ve read somewhere in the past that the Earth can sustainably hold somewhere between 1 and 2 billion people. I’m not sure how exactly that was calculated, but it’s pretty clear that if the our population is too large we start having to take resources from other species in order to support our own population and that biodiversity suffers. I’m pretty certain (gut feeling looking at population graphs over time compared to when fossil fuels started being used) that 6.5 billion people is too large of a population to support on this planet without negatively affecting biodiversity over the long haul. Thus I think our global population needs to be reduced.I don’t think Dave is advocating selective removal of bad people (even if I believed in “bad” people). On a similar note, its dead obvious that if we continue to breed with no self-control, we are dooming ourselves to resource-scarcity, no matter how big of a system we’re in. At some point in time, we’re going to have to consciously step in and reduce the amount we breed to keep our population at a certain level, that we’ll have to agree is for our own good. If we don’t do that, nature will step in and reduce the population for us. It could be a virus or bacteria or starvation or something, unless we think that we are completely capable of dominating nature.As far as colonozing the moon or space or whatever: Obviously you know now that I don’t thinkit would be a permanent solution without breeding control, but a different aspect of it was brought to my attention by comedian David Cross in his album It’s Not Funny, that most of us would never have the opportunity to be part of those that would colonize space to get off this dying planet. His punchline was something to the effect that the rich would get to colonize the moon or mars or space, and that the meek get to inherit the earth. I really doubt that the bulk of us will ever get the opportunity to be a colonist with the way our society is set up to benefit those who already have power, and if we’re going through the hassle of making things equitable for all, we’ve already done the bulk of the work necessary to set us up for sustainability.Now to comment on the post itselfI think it’s perfectly natural for people to clump together with like minds. I’m becoming increasingly convinced in the idea of holographic metaphysical reality where we pull in things that are like the vibes that we are currently emmitting, so in that sense we would tend to cluster together with like minds. On a more conventional basis, I think that the human mind will tend to clump together with other like minds in its pursuit to maintain its own worldview. We know that people have trouble “hearing” other people because when they are listening to them, they only selectively hear what already conforms with their world view and tend to reject that which clashes with it. Since people of the same culture tend to have the same patterns in their brain and thus the same (or relatively close enough) worldviews, they won’t reject those people as much as they would people with dramtically different worldviews than they have. Of course, they wouldn’t really be consciously aware of the decisions they were making, but would probably instead feel like they were just too far apart to really have a good understanding of each other or something like that.I think our big problems stem not from the differences we have with others, but in the intolerances we towards others. You seemed to mention that a lot of our intolerances stem from religious convictions. Almost all of our organized religions are fundamentally flawed in that they tell us what to think, so that’s what we think. In reality there is no real thinking on most of our religions, its just justifying what we’ve been told to believe to ourselves. All religion is is a means to come up with a model of the universe and how to interact with it to acheive the best possible result for ourselves. It’s exactly like science in what its goal is, but its different is that it can’t conform to the scientific method yet, because science hasn’t gotten to that level of understanding to be able to test it yet. Our spiritual goal is to acheive the best outcome possible in the afterlife. My point being that people need to start percieving religion as a way of trying to better fulfill their own personal model of the universe rather than as just accepting someoneelses model as their own. It’s pretty hard to be ignorant of the possibility that they’re life is more spiritually pure when you realize that you’re both just working off of a model of reality rather than one being right and one wrong. Or we could all just start talking in English Prime, where there is no certainty and everything is expressed as a perception. It’s pretty hard to be ignorant when you can’t use the word is to describe the universe.To change perspectives, I don’t really think war or oppression due to intolerance is that big of an issue. I tend to think that most people are passively complicent as far as oppression is concerned. There is a small minority that do the pushing for war and everyone else just lets them do it for the group. Removing the veil of ignorance from them so that their power can’t be used without their full consent and understanding would go a long way to prevent power from being used immorally. In other words, prevent secretive ruling of a group.Thisis getting a little long, and I’m pretty sure I could write much more on this subject, but I’m cutting the rest of this off.

By: WindInYews

WindInYews — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:46:48 +0000

Mike, I think your ‘solution box’ is a very nice statement. Thanks for remembering it for us.Here in Europe, you can still find the evidence of peoples and persons adopting great courage and changes of mind, to survive and return on the problem they found themselves in 60 years ago. They did it, and so can we all now, as the world changes. Good fortune to you.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 20:36:38 +0000

etbnc: Both fiction and history feature save-the-world plans that involve massive depopulation. Pollard obviously feels much toward the earth, and I read all his posts, but cannot get past what I see what might be termed crypto-genocidalism. Saying there’s no solution, but maybe we’ll find one, if we get the population down to “much, much lower” levels, is to me the same as saying there’s no solution, or rather, that he can’t think of one.If you want to build a new society with a hearty band of like-minded individuals in a pristine wilderness, I’m all for it. Perhaps Mars, the moon, or other unpopulated places in the solar system would be the ideal place for this. I’m all for that, and if or when possible, I’d go in a minute.There’s 6.5 billion people on the earth. Which ones are problems and which ones have solutions? Would you accept Dave as judge?I want to save the world too, though my bent is more technological. Say reversing global warming or some such will cost many $trillions. Perhaps those same trillions could be spent building a space elevator and establishing orbital colonies, or populating Mars, or some other technique that would get folks off the planet. Maybe then the global warming problem would (at least partially) solve itself.Many, many years ago I read an essay about looking for solutions not in the problem box, but in the solution box. It’s affected my thinking ever since.