 |
As for the wisdom of Harari, I am talking about Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens -- and perhaps one of the most provocative thinkers/communicators in the world today.
But first, infrastructure in the USA. Our collective "genius" has enabled us to create what is arguably the least "green" way of living in the entire world. How did that happen? The Webster definition of "willy-nilly" offers a clue: without direction or planning, haphazardly.
Now, in the 21st century, we're doing exactly that -- we are faced with spending trillions of dollars to replace or renew the aging infrastructure in an overall "system" of living that is grossly unsustainable.
Whether it's sprawling suburban neighborhoods or ancient subways, bridges, highways and tunnels -- when are we EVER going to realize that our "systems" of living in the wealthiest countries of the world must be totally replaced if we are to survive?
Whether it's record-setting heat in the Northwest or record low amounts of ice in the Arctic Ocean -- Mother Nature continues to remind us of how ridiculously unsustainable our modern way of living has become.
The down side of infrastructure replacement. Since I have long argued that we must design an entirely new, far greener, "system" of living -- I worry that spending trillions of dollars replacing old infrastructure will severely lower the likelihood that we will EVER design and build a completely new system of living -- one that is five or ten times greener than what we have today.
That said, a new, fully-sustainable "system" of living of the future would almost surely be unrecognizable to the average American today. But if we make it nice enough, most people will love it in the long run.
Clearly what we need is a much greener "successor" civilization to replace the grossly unsustainable one that has brought us to the brink of extinction. But I know of not one prominent leader who is even talking about it.
The inspiration for this SOS Memo was four-fold:
- This summer's record-setting heat wave in the northwest USA/Canada,
- Biden's ongoing efforts to spend trillions on infrastructure replacement
- A July 7 article in the New York Times entitled: A Battle between a Great City and a Great Lake
- A recent thought-provoking video by Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens.
Let's begin with that great city.
The Great City is Chicago and the Great Lake is Lake Michigan. The article begins with this statement:
Chicago has a weakness at its very foundations. The towering skyscrapers and temples of commerce were built upon a swamp.
Therein lies the problem. Throughout the history of human civilization, we have treated nature like a nuisance that we can just overwhelm with our brilliance.
So what happens when you build a huge city in a swamp? The article's introductory statements continue with the hubris of our ancestors that led to the nightmare that we have today:
"For generations, bold engineering projects have fought to maintain a perilous balance, keeping water in its place - not too high, not too low.
But Chicago is a city built for a different time. The time before climate change."
Will we ever learn? As we decide how and where to build the mega-cities of the future, we best take great care to learn from our mistakes. And, before we break ground with that first shovel-full of dirt, we best step back and design a fully sustainable "system of living" for the future.
And for that, we need to do some serious thinking. The article about the Chicago dilemma is a good place to start -- if we wish not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The most serious of those mistakes will continue to happen if we keep ignoring the natural world as we move forward.
A CLASH BETWEEN ELEMENTAL FORCES - Sun, rain, heat and ice - is what is threatening to upend centuries of relative stability along the Great Lakes' 10,000 miles of shoreline, including the 22 miles that define Chicago's eastern edge.
Chicago, in some crucial ways, is perhaps more immediately exposed to the dangers of global warming than cities on the ocean. At least ocean levels change relatively slowly and predictably (storm surges notwithstanding) and move in just one direction: up.
So, Chicago's leaders got creative. Instead of putting sewers under the streets, they put sewers on top of the streets, then built new roads atop the old ones. They effectively hoisted the city out of the swamp.
Buildings in downtown were raised by as much as eight feet, an enterprise that required placing immense beams and jackscrews beneath their foundations. Then, a conductor would direct hundreds of laborers in the precisely choreo-graphed turns of the screws to lift the structures out of the muck.
It was a feat of engineering as audacious as it was was
ultimately ineffective at solving Chicago's predicament.
Two photos from the article illustrate that ineffectiveness
While almost everyone seems to be thinking that investing trillions in the replacement of crumbling infrastructure in a grossly unsustainable "system" of living is a good idea, it makes absolutely no sense to me!
My opinion is based on the fact that Mother Nature's message to us is getting louder and louder about how our current "systems" of living will not be tolerated for much longer.
For that reason, we must hit the pause button before we launch into the decades long, "willy-nilly" replacement of aging infrastructure that will never come remotely close to delivering a sustainable way of life. Want more proof?
This just in!
published on July 8, 2021 (article includes 59-sec video)
It is my conclusion that we will only get one chance to get this right. Truthfully, I regret to admit that I am doubtful that we will ever get it right.
But I believe that we can improve our chances of long-term survival by opening our minds to the "big picture" of what is happening now -- and how we got here -- early in the 21st century.
As for opening our minds, I recommend that you take 41 minutes to watch Professor Harari's April 2021 version of what he wrote about in his 2015 book, Sapiens.
Just click on this image to watch the 41-minute video
Throughout the video, he refrains from talking about climate change or the possible extinction of humanity. Rather, he talks about how we rose from obscurity to take control of the entire planet.
He also talks a great deal about fictional stories that humans have been making up for thousands of years. And those stories keep changing as science exposes the myths behind the many fantasies. Yuval says:
"Good technology is never enough. Humans don't dominate the planet just because they know how to produce very sophisticated technology. Technology can change the world, but whether it changes it for good or for evil really depends on the stories that people believe and the stories that people use to organize themselves."
(for example, stories like each religion's magical tale about how we were created -- or a global economic system that requires never-ending growth in a world of finite resources)
He continues, "I think we can say without any doubt, that in the 21st century, we will see amazing new technology -- better and much more powerful than anything we have seen previously in history."
As I neared the end of his video, I thought he would never mention the elephant in the room, climate change -- but he finally did, without actually saying the words.
His closing two sentences in the film are accompanied by this image that, of course, is associated with climate change. You can read those final sentences below this final image:
"The really big and interesting question is whether we will be able to produce good stories to match our wonderful technology. If not, it's going to be very bad news, not only to human beings, but probably to all other organisms on the planet."
You'll have to watch the complete video to completely understand what he means about being able to produce "good enough stories" that will enable humanity to totally reinvent ourselves in the future.
Those behavior-changing "stories" of the future, whereof he speaks -- that would be capable of dramatically changing our behavior enough to save our civilization -- are beyond my ability to even imagine.
The Bottom Line. We told a "story" in Chapter Twelve of OUTCRY that was all about leveraging the incredible power of AI to augment the creativity and imagination of humanity.
Regarding that story, with each passing week, I become more convinced that we will never be able to save our civilization -- or perhaps even our species -- without some major help from the lightning fast/accurate/unbiased thinking of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Below this title of Outcry's Chapter 12 -- are several excerpts from that chapter:
When All Else Fails, Can AI Save Us?
Consider the enormity of the envisioned sustainability solution put forth earlier in this book. It would be a massive undertaking that would take at least twenty or thirty years before we could even have a working model operating here in the United States. That's because we're talking about the gargantuan task of designing, building and populating a truly green civilization -- with absolutely no compelling mandate to do so.
That compelling mandate is what Harari kept repeating throughout his new 42-minute video. He describes many fictional "stories" that people believe and whose actions are driven by those beliefs.
Frankly, I don't see humanity ever coming up with a sufficiently powerful "story" that will enable us to escape the mess in which we find ourselves. Why?
Speaking of the lack of a mandate for urgent action, I continue with that AI theme from Chapter 12 of OUTCRY:
Not only have we no mandate, we haven't even been able to get the conversation started about the urgent need for a replacement, or successor civilization -- much less reaching agreement on the many conveniences of our modern world that we may have to sacrifice in order to end up with a harmonious relationship with nature.
In closing, as I have said before, I don't always feel joy about some of my findings, but I do feel joy in knowing that I am helping others grasp a "bigger picture" relative to how our collective actions as individuals can affect the future of our species.
For the record, this is the second SOS Memo where I have used "willy-nilly" in conjunction with infrastructure. The first was in May of 2019: Willy-Nilly Planet Stewardship.
What can you do? Invite me to conduct a free Zoom session (from 30 minutes to one hour) with your group. This is the latest title slide that I am currently using for those kinds of sessions:
The image above is a clue regarding the essence of my "family game plan" that is revealed near the end of my talk.
Finally, please do whatever you can to help spark the global "conversation" about our need to urgently transform our way of living into one that has a much better chance of keeping us alive indefinitely.
The billions of innocent children
of the world deserve no less!
I am confident that if a few million people carefully read and digested OUTCRY, that there might there at least be a more robust conversation taking place, a conversation about our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world -- and what it will take to get us focused on maximizing our chances for survival.
To be sure, we must do a lot more than change what we eat -- and OUTCRY helps explain the "why" and the "how" of that proposition.
To my knowledge, OUTCRY remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable, super-desirable, future way of living for humans -- along with ideas for how we might get there as quickly as possible.
PS: Free Zoom Conferences. In the interest of jump-starting the urgently-needed global "conversation" about the dilemma we are in, I am now offering to conduct private Zoom conferences free of charge to groups of almost any size. I look forward to ZOOM-ing with you and your group sometime soon.
In preparation for those Zoom visits, I have developed a one-hour format consisting of an opening statement followed by a 20-minute slide show and then ending with a discussion and Q&A with the attendees. The sessions you organize will be far more interesting and productive if attendees have read OUTCRY in advance.
Our book, for a host of environmental reasons, is only available as an e-book on Amazon. As such, it contains hyperlinks to hundreds of references and videos, is less expensive, does not kill any trees and does not have to be manufactured and delivered.
Here are a few of them where you can see how my vision has evolved since that first "creative idea" on 9-21-18:
As always, I am just trying to help spark the all-important "conversation" about what is needed. By sharing a vision of what I believe is possible, I hope to influence others to think bigger, faster, better and bolder.
********************
What else can you do to help? Two things:
1. Live as greenly as possible while doing all that you can to raise the awareness of "big picture" solutions that are crucially necessary for saving our civilization.
2. Share this BSB and my "Mama Ain't Happy" BSB with prominent journalists, thought leaders and/or elected officials whom you respect. They need to learn a lot more about the many reasons why Mama ain't happy.
Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth
If you got this blog from a friend or found it on our website and want to receive more of these Bite-Size Blogs? Join Our Mailing List
Want to get started nurturing your own health and the health of our planet? Take our survey at 4leafsurvey.com
Click here to learn more about this free online dietary assessment tool.
|
|
|
|
|
|
