on humanism and environmental crisis

Posts tagged ‘niche crisis’

Rome conference or die

Part  1: The vision.

Part  2: The crisis of the human niche.

Part  3: The worldview and the crisis of the human niche.

Part  4: The role of evolution.

Part  5: The prehistory of mind and the crisis.

Part  6: The conference as a metaphor and the process.

Part  7: What we will teach – the vision of Experience Society.

Part 1: The Vision.

    When we observe the world, most events are circular in nature. The day and night, the seasons of the year, first marriage, second marriage, 

First coming, Second Coming, reincarnation.

     This is the natural source of popular and reassuring concepts;  “as it is worse, it will get better.. and worse again, after the drought there will be a flood, it is warmer, it will get cooler”.

Even in science, the cosmos is hugely circular and particle physics too. Glaciations, civilizations, and periods of war and peace come up and down. “ we are fine, we’ll be fine”.

    Not so fast, desafortunamente.

Evolution is one of the basic, and relatively newly discovered mechanisms in the universe that are not circular. 

Also thermodynamics II and expanding Universe.

Sure, Heraclitus pointed to the non-circular flow of the river, but then we’d found out about water circulating in the earth. Maybe you just need to find a bigger circle and “we’ll be fine”?.

What is “fine,” I ask, and I pick the smartest and best-informed people I can find. 

They would – uniformly, uniformly- say” I know it is bad, I do what I can locally, give money to charities, but it is going to be bad.” “ Not in our lifetime” they add sheepishly and walk away with just slightly bent shoulders, as if saying “I know, our children, hopefully, educated and with good jobs…”

There is a fierce battle to position ourselves to survive well forthcoming disasters, not unlike virtual reality video games. As in the game, the blood and corpses aren’t so disturbing if the people concerned were not even born yet, who will live ( and die) in far away countries (mostly imaginary) and even now dying in droves, poor and miserable and we learned to tolerate this fine.

The problem: the more we learn ( and we can not unlearn, and understanding is fun) the more realistic are these corpses. They soon acquire faces, maybe even names, and they start to stink, after they slowly die in front of our eyes. More charities? More steel bars in our windows?

I have a better solution and it comes from 50 years of working with children, studying worldviews, evolution, and the history of our minds.

   The only hope I see is creating a different type of people, actually, the type we use to be for the last 10 million years until the last 50 000 thousand years (0.5% or “December 31st “ of our species’ existence). 

The last surviving hominids, we almost got extinct before. We need again a Houdini trick, we need to shed the last 10 000 years of a thin slimy layer of greed and grabbing. We will retain symbolic thinking, and smart brains but avoid the destruction of the planet.

We are going to create Experience Society.

We are going to teach the new generation to live happily, peacefully, in partnership with other humans, other sentient beings, and the whole environment. 

How do teach them that?

It is what the Rome conference is all about.

We’ll start with infants, then expand to older and older children. 

Let me address some objections. 

  1. “You can not parent and teach something or some ways you are not. It is not what you say, but who you are.” Agree, it has to be bootstrapping and dealing with the chicken or egg ( literally) dilemma. But we can do, and all we can do is the best we can. Certainly, we can do better than we are doing now. And neuroscience and evolutionary anthropology have some good news for us.
  2. “How can you force others about such an intimate subject like parenting. Parents feel they know how to parent and will not listen to any ‘propaganda’”. Agree, that it will be difficult, but it is why we need a broad range of experts and authorities and wise men and women and maybe magicians. I am listening for solutions rather than for naysaying. But every year it became more and more clear that doing nothing will bring to our children unspeakable misery. We are talking about the happiness of your children, nothing less.
  3. “We’ll never agree on the curriculum”- different cultures and nations, different religions, different economies, different worldviews. Yes, I see it as an almost un-winning gambit, but, first, in the beginning, we are talking about parenting babies 0 to 12 months old! everybody wants babies to be happy. Second, psychologically, I see the possibility of some kind of “unity out of desperation”. ( covid-19 in Italy and the response to Putin’s aggression comes to mind.)

Immediately, I thought about Rome with: 

  1. Pope Francis being a good guy and the catholic church being, well, “catholic”, would be somewhere to start. Add Dalai Lama, some more religious leaders, spiritual leaders, maybe some presidents, and UN officials.
  2.  Media influencers, press, and activists for equality, global warming, for peace.
  3. Scientists: environmentalists of all kinds, philosophers, sociologists, economists, psychologists, developmental pediatricians, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and AI experts.
  4. Humanists: wise men and women from modern and ancient cultures, teachers, writers, poets, artists, and musicians.
  5. Pregnant mothers and their spouses, grandmothers, and grandfathers.
  6. Teenagers- possibly the primary target populations?

This is the vision, but there are still many elements we need to convince people about, not only convince, like “ ok, maybe, if you say so” but convince about urgency and gravity and famous “ so, what” or “so what, if no Rome conference?”

Parts 2-6. Convincing, before even starting. 

Part 2. We need to convince people that there is a crisis of the human niche. 

It is important to use the term niche instead of “environment”, “habitat” or, worse “ global warming” (a tiny part of the problem).  Modern and deep evolutionary understanding will be necessary. 

On a happier note, it will not be necessary to argue” whose fault”, is it “human-made” or “just a cycle”- because of the revolutionary and unusual nature of the solution.

Part 3. We need to convince people of a humanistic worldview. 

This has nothing to do with religious belief, spirituality is an important part of the conference. Neither is socialism in disguise (how we divide our material goods, according to capitalistic, socialistic, or communistic principles is still all about material goods). We need the humanistic worldview to know that we can die like died other hominids like Neanderthals died, and Sapiens almost died 50.000 years ago. We need to know that we made this civilization and on this base, on these shoulders, consciously, we can build a new one. And thrive and have fun.

Part 4. We need to convince people of the evolutionary mechanisms including strengthening niche, diversity, and complexity.

It is what species do to avoid extinction. Working to keep the niche strong and healthy. Examples are everywhere, even iconic Darwin’s finches. It is not circular! It is messed up because we messed it up, and until we won’t change our ways, it will get worse and worse. Remember what Einstein said about insanity? 

Part 5. We need to convince people about the hybrid nature of our minds. 

If we want to replicate the pre-linguistic value system with our modern, symbolic brains, we need to trust evolutionary realism and evolutionary neuroscience. The exciting research showing our brains mixing ancient algorithmic beings with language-powered symbolic thinking explained how we are the only hominid that survived. We manipulate this incredible system every day, more and more purposely, like with artificial intelligence, meditation, and psychopharmacology. So, we can stop killing the planet and ourselves.

Part 6. We need to convince people to embark on the project.

  Rome conference is perhaps just my armchair musing. It may be a metaphor for the project, a new conversation involving more people. Or it can end up being a real conference in Rome. 

This would involve an unheard amount of trust and goodwill, maybe desperation. We would need to trust developmental experts, parenting experts, our political leaders, holy men, trust people, and each other in general. ( Going to the moon was nothing compared to this request)

We would need to trust the process, the journey because we do not know the way it’d unfold, we’d have to learn from each other, and use imagination. 

We need to cross multiple barriers: east-west, religious-nonreligious, have-have not, truth -media.

Part  7: What we will teach – the vision of the Experience Society

This will be the subject of the conference. The whats and the hows.The curriculum for the starting but crucial segment- “parenting the infants” seems pretty easy to agree on. Lots of this is in Piaget, Spock, Montessori, and Waldorf programs. And a lot is common sense like the parents need to be present and mindful, the society needs to support the family. No media, no violence. The concept of blaming the materialism of the cavemen is new and startling. The conversation about the non-materialistic source of happiness is very new and very old at the same time.

***

The terrible and cruel truth is that if we fail to work on it now, we’ll be reduced to something similar, painful, fractured, 50 years from now. Possibly Neanderthals had a similar option: “change your lifestyle, your beliefs, your language, trust them”. And they are gone.  

Not all items of convincing are necessary to work for the conference, just this set of opinions makes everything fit together so well…

***

This is the overview of this concept. I am working on Parts 2-7 in the form of separate essays.

Category:

climate change, enviromnental crisis,, Evolutionary Reality, Explicit and implicit worldview, human nature, Humanism, materialism, What will happen to the mankind

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Be the best?

Be the best?

 

Because of the niche crisis, I am thinking and writing a lot about materialism, its origin, and its effect on humanity.

 

I am obsessed with the notion that shifting dimensions is something very important in our thinking. Nolens volens American democrats (and I as one of them) were forced to do just that. 

From climate and health care suddenly COVID pandemic was all-important: and now- race.

The ability to shift dimensions is crucial for wise judgment. It is an element of critical thinking, there is no creativity without shifting dimensions. To do it you use imagination, historical, and global perspective. 

 In racism a doctrine selects a group of people, declares them inferior and then other people can use it for brutal advantage, sometimes for generations and generations. And a systemic injustice can persist because the critical thinking, shifting dimension, and perspective are so rare. 

  It is also difficult, requiring effort and training. 

And here the materialism comes back like an old stew. Living and thinking in the world of things offer incredible advantages. Modern school with an emphasis on technology and science is famously one dimensional. Auto mechanics and computer technology don’t require fluency in classical Greek. Actually, it is difficult to think where would you use this skill- still standard in European high school 100 years ago.

One dimensional thinking gives quick and high profit while fosters consumerism and inequality and racism. And it is a hallmark of free-market capitalism- profit is everything.

Fortunately, it is not in our genes, it started only 50, 000 years ago. Like poor people are not stupid- only taught to be poor for several generations, the same – CEOs and financial sharks are not bad and greedy- only taught for several generations to be the best you can be- measured by one dimension- your account. Neither group is happy- so the reversal is possible but it would take one or two generations. If we start now.

What is an alternative to materialism?

Evolutionary, before the invention of material culture and the language of material things- whichever came first- the world of primitive hominids, like animals, was populated with the more or less sophisticated descriptions of behaviors. Now, with our prodigious brains, we call it experiences. We can not completely eliminate material culture, but we can create a world where experiences are valued high and they, not things define the richness and qualities of our lives.

If you share a pie the more you take, the less is left for others. It is where we are. But if you share a beautiful sunset, the more you share, the richer and more fantastic is the experience. It is where we need to be. The experience, unlike the gadget you owe, depends on your input, your relationship you are in, your mood, your knowledge, and your imagination. It makes it difficult but it makes you really happy, content and peaceful. Makes your life examined and your children smiling. It is when you are the best- the quality of experience determines it.

 

And one more thing. It is sustainable, the switch would give us a glimmer of a chance of survival as a species.

Because our share of the pie is dwindling and it will continue to.

I know, we need a whole new conversation, the measuring system, a new language, institutions, and industries…the parents teaching love and relationships, the schools teaching critical thinking and multidimensional thinking. Teaching art, poetry music, and literature.

And who will do it, where is this broad coalition of courageous and hopeful people?

Category:

climate change, enviromnental crisis,, human nature, materialism

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Same horde of cavemen

 Listen, friends,

I do not want to spoil your afternoon but if we don’t do something dramatic soon, our grandchildren will live in misery and many of them will die. We have 40 years or so to do it.

The ecological catastrophe is like a Monster with 100 heads and we are not even cutting these heads. We are nibbling on the tail and this is no good. 

I believe there is the chink in the Monster’s armor. A vulnerable place awaiting the arrow of the hero. 

         The trick is simple. We are almost 8 billion strong hurtling towards a disaster, but each of us is the same human. Same genes, instincts, pleasures, and pains. Same brain structures, same neurotransmitters, and hormones. Just 50, 000 years ago we were an almost extinct horde of cavemen. And now we KNOW THIS, we SEE THAT. we can imagine and understand that the proper action can save us again. It is just the same horde (or community)- so what if it looks like 8 billion strong mad crowds that are high on power, violent, reckless, and…stupid. The solution is inside each of us. Each of us wants to be happy. No exceptions. The way we try to get this happiness has been changing with cultures and civilizations but it seems that until quite recently it was stable, and lo and behold, safe for the planet. We were happy, embarrassingly, in the similar way the animals are, just a little bit fancier. It was all about a good experience- satiety, relationships, safety, awe, beauty, and art. Only just about 20 or 40 thousand years ago we slowly developed “the kingdom of things”. We dig out coal and oil and ore, we got energy, technology, and gadgets. Things are seemingly irresistible, they please all senses, they are reliable( your car will be there and ready tomorrow – your woman might not be)- easy, easy, so easy to get happy and powerful and safe, especially after all these thousands of years of fear, uncertainty, relying for happiness on OTHERS! Oh, the misery of relying on these tiny, fleeting moments of understanding, awe, and fun. 

         But we can make this pivot, we can make this second Renaissance smarter, more robust, the experiences with technology can be more “things-like”.

There is no other way anyway. 

And if we do it later when the resources are gone, we are overcrowded and fearful, then this “old happiness” practiced with the blade on our throats might look more like a caricature of the good stuff.

I think we need to create a broad coalition across professions, nations, and many other “huge” differences, and smarter people than me need to lead and design the details and actions.

I welcome brainstorming on my blog ecohumanistlab.com  and I will post more practical elements. of how to call it- a dream? plan? movement?  I think that the parenting of infants and toddlers would be easiest to address.

Category:

climate change, enviromnental crisis,, human nature, What will happen to the mankind, Worldview Owner's Manual

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Niche crisis, Part 2, ” Materialists and Idealists”

 

Part 2

Materialists and Idealists

 

In the first part of this essay, I made some bold hypotheses and ended up with outrageous promises.

I will repeat then: The niche crisis is in itself not a problem, it is just an inevitable result. Therefore to handle it we have to find the cause. I think that the cause, broadly speaking, is the domination of things of our civilization. (The pollution-related to cars, trucks, and roads is not the problem, it’s the result, the problem is that we LOVE to drive, LOVE the power and feeling related to moving a big machine fast. The problem is not outside the culture but inside the culture) It started, I think, and I will talk about it later, from peculiar language development and now it is literally killing us. We can correct this, but in order to do that we need to start with the conversation, maybe even create a new language, a new set of metaphors and mythology. This is part 2. 

Part 3 will start the conversation about the promises of the new beautiful world.

I thought that this domination of things had to do with the eternal distinction between materialists and idealists. 

I checked a few philosophy texts, some psychology sources, and of course: Google. It all left me befuddled. Nothing fitted the bill. 

  1. The philosophy was as always useless; neither early materialists like Democritus and Thales, or late like Marx and Engels were really materialistic, nor idealists like Berkeley or Hegel had anything to do with the niche. The primordial sin of our civilization must be somewhere else. 
  2. If it was a sin, maybe the religions would do the trick? Oh, I don’t mean the trick they do with humanity for the last 50 000 years. I mean the elusive distinction of believers vs nonbelievers – often understood as idealists vs materialists. But, no, all of them, fundamentalists, mystics, atheists, humanists, all of them want to be good and all are greedy and all want their kids to be successful.
  3. Big psychology- Myer-Briggs tests and others- and folk psychology tell me: materialists are bad (that’s for sure) and unhappy.

-they give babies coca-cola instead of milk.

-they murder to steal money or a nice jacket or even sneakers.

-their science is wrong: Newtonian, solid brick and mortar, not relativity and “observer’s Universe”.

– they are responsible for technology, corporations, gadgets, and consumerism.

-among the believers, the materialists are the worst: young Earth, literal interpretation of scriptures,  seeing beliefs as real and factual, sacred rights, holy wars, and xenophobia.

So, idealists must be good: they live frugally, don’t eat meat, like theater and poetry, hiking, nature, meditation, praying, and dancing.

 

Mahatma Gandhi, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, Oprah and Albert Schweizer, etc, etc. We need to be like them, but we can’t.  Why? All of these famous idealists were driven, obsessed by humongous overwhelming ideas, usually not very happy, crazy overachievers, rather miserable “I will show them” people. 

We are all good normal people and we cannot be like them, well, do we actually want our children to be like them?

The research shows that typical materialists and famous rich materialists were not so happy and if they were happy it was the idealist part of them which did it.  Like philanthropy of Rockefeller and Gates. And making material achievements a priority in life actually make self-expression and good relationships more difficult. It looks that it is not switching from materialist to idealist that is necessary- it would be impossible anyway.

So, we want our children (and ourselves) to be happy first. Then we have to find a way to be happy without hurting the planet.

These distinctions require thinking. Thinking and discussions and role-modeling. What is necessary and doable is noticing how indoctrinated we are by generations of automatic concepts of success, the meaning of life, and happiness. Things: a well-paying job, a good house, a fast car, and a pretty woman. It is a very one-sided picture of the American Dream, which is actually a dream of most of the people in the world.

If we explain to people that this dream is untenable, that the planet can not support it, that we have to give it up, to sacrifice our dream for the planet, and for others …. We’ll go nowhere. Tell the leaders, CEOs, generals, and clergy to relinquish the power to save the planet… we’ll go nowhere. Tell economist that capitalism needs to pivot and production of things and energy has to shrink and …we’ll go nowhere. 

What can we do? Dealing with things is so easy, the numbers are on their side.

Dealing with ideas, relationships, Unknown, feelings, even art, and literature – all require and benefit from critical thinking, shifting dimensions, using imagination ( some people talk about transformational education). Dealing with things do not… Things are: cheaper or more expensive, hotter or cooler, slower or faster – so easy to deal with, so inviting for the categories, divisions and … ownership. And it is literally how the hell broke loose.

And how did we get like that?  The evolution of the nervous systems and ethology will help here. Animals are not materialists, their brains are full of behaviors ( in the notebook of the observer, like Jane Goodall watching her chimpanzees), for them (say, chimpanzees) they are the experiences. The trick is to avoid bad experiences like pain, hunger, or fear and maximize good experiences- satiation, control, safety even belonging. Not much different than early humans. Hominids, also hunter-gatherers, lived in more or less egalitarian societies, where the leader, usually male, possessed very little, except for mates. 

     In our search for the origins of this worldview dysfunction or of materialism, I’d like to point to the two moments that were pivotal.  50 to 10 thousand years ago communication became a language. Animals and hominid’s “language” followed their world of experiences. It described behaviors (experiences), even sometimes complex ones like bees dance, crows teaching their children about bad people and butterflies astral navigation, but they were still behaviors. And then, at the toddler stage of our civilization, something happened to humans. And to humans only: see the interesting hypothesis of Dr.Hrdy (among others). I said “toddler” because, as a pediatrician, I observed the same magic hundreds and hundreds of times in the office and you might have seen it in your home. A 15-month-old human infant is a pretty complex being. She can talk a little, but she understands a lot, she knows her surroundings, she even mastered the skill called “object permanence”. She knows pretty much how the world around works, what is anger and fear and sadness, hunger, and the bliss of cuddling with mom. But, your dog or even a crow in your yard can do all of these. And then, out of blue, your child will point to the pineapple on the table: “What’s that, Daddy?”

And an abyss opened, a huge difference between humanity and all known sentient and artificial beings. Only humans can ask for the name of an object not related to any function or behavior.

 

    What was first, naming objects or materialistic society? I don’t know, but what is important is that it happened recently, so materialism is not in our genes ( neither are things, really, and their objectivity is perfectly questionable!) 

It is also possible that the” invention of things “ timing is not mere coincidence. Because it is the time ( 50 to 20 000 years ago, when we almost got extinct- about 10 thousand people left, or less!) when our egalitarian society could have changed. Maybe it was the pressure of a shrinking niche related to climate change, after the Toba volcano eruption and ice age. We behaved (we actually were) like cornered animals, we tried to survive against each other. With the rule of violence, fear, and anxiety our worldviews changed. We tried to get happy with things, so we learned to get high on power, violence, and control.  Interestingly, more or less at the same time we developed societies with haves and have nots, (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China), and having was better, and the things to have to be on the top were, well, things.

Our primordial “personality” stays dormant, waiting to be awakened… We need another renaissance chapter in our civilization. With our technology and advances in knowledge of the human mind, we can make a better renaissance than the original Italian One. A mixture of materialism, idealism, humanism, and all that is needed to take care of this planet. We can do it, but it will take the new conversation on being authentic, working on one’s personal unique worldview and on creating unique, personal mythology. James P. Carse in the “The religious case against belief” argues for this conversation, for questioning. It is what the real religious people (read: happy, authentic, mature) do – question belief, use the paradigm and language of their religion just for one, but all-important purpose – to question the world, to embrace the Mystery. To find the meaning, the worldview, the happiness. Well, not to find, to journey on finding it.

It is going to be a renaissance – the rebirth of the type of mind which made us human. We have it inside: the excitement and awe of the Unknown, the curiosity, joy, and imagination. Loving, playing, arguing, making fun and derision, showing others, and ourselves’ foolishness.  We’ll thrive on experiences instead of gadgets- we’ll treat them as assets, cherish them, and make them richer and richer as our complexity and intelligence grow.

This optimistic story does not need to be true. It would be reassuring and promising.  And I am asking for so little. Just start talking, open your mind, and imagine. Well, we are not completely off the hook- this new plan includes role-modeling, right? Somebody has to change first or at least start changing.  This conversation, this work will lead to a new curriculum, more on that unknown black hole in Part 3.

Category:

climate change, enviromnental crisis,, Explicit and implicit worldview, human nature, Humanism, What will happen to the mankind

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Niche crisis II

The initial version was published in December 2019, this is a new, expanded form.

Niche crisis or environmental crisis.

 Part 1. The Hypothesis and the chance.

I am convinced that the niche crisis is caused by a particular cognitive development at the dawn of our civilization. This early achievement turned out now to be our biggest problem. 

“Niche crisis“ is an unusual term so let me explain.

When we look at our world we see our environment. This term for me contains some cloaked feeling of entitlement, may even sound congratulatory. It doesn’t have a biology or cosmology sense. To me, it answers the question your good friend may ask over the beer: “how is life?” You tell him about our environment- not ideal, but our- loud music, stupid people, polluted air, etc, etc, And you wouldn’t answer: “Well, I am just becoming extinct”. 

If we want to talk about the crisis the ecologists would use the term “ecological niche” or simply “niche”. When we look at any species from outside the system, as an observer, that species has its niche – the resources, climate, food, other members of the species, predators, anything that influences its evolutionary fitness. Niche is species-specific- it describes the dynamic situation – niche’s strength- that any given species exists in at any given point in time. Not habitat, not ecology, not environment. It is why I prefer the term “niche crisis”. We will really need this “observer view” as we go along. Homo sapiens is the last surviving of twenty-six other hominids. The one that almost went extinct several times, the last only about 50 000 years ago ( if you forget the brink of the nuclear war in 1962). 

When the ship is sinking and there is water coming in we send a crew to pump the water out. The more the water is pouring in, the more bailing is needed, right? Obviously, no. We need to find the hole in the hull and repair it and it is how we save the ship and ourselves.

I believe that the ship is sinking and we are busy at the pumps.

And our niche, which pretty well fits geographically Planet Earth, is getting weaker again. Even if population growth is slowing down- “only” 9 billion by 2050, the number of people pulled out of poverty/subsistence life into the “consumer’s circle” is growing rapidly and I hope will continue to grow. So, the resources like clean air, diverse forests, clean water, good soil, fish, and plankton-rich oceans are dwindling, especially for these new, vulnerable consumers. And the just feeling of injustice and social conflicts fostered by our wonderful internet (people call it, I guess as a joke, – “global brain”) gets worse.

The ship is sinking, for sure, even if some of my gloomy images might be controversial, but not all of them, for goodness sake. And please don’t tell me “there is always a crisis” or about the Chinese-like “great wheel of history” or “nothing new under the sun” – or as Trump reacted to coronavirus: “ it’s nothing, just a virus, can’t see it”. I see millions and millions of good, smart, young people, who are “at the pumps”. Recycling, electric cars, solar panels, not eating meat, and planting trees, all these are heartwarming.

     Let’s keep bailing, as a compromise, to feel good and keep the troop morale high, but we have to find and repair the hole. Find the cause of the crisis while trying to slow down the disastrous results. 

           Every species survives by expanding its niche. More food sources, more diverse habitats that the organisms can adapt to means more sex and more babies. The survival of the fittest works on the individual organisms’ and it’s family’s level, but only the sum of these changes determines the strength of the species’ niche. 

The ecological niche is all about the flow of energy which ultimately comes from the Sun. The stronger the niche the more energy the species absorbs and utilizes. The complexity increases creating stronger bodies, brains, and stronger social life. You noticed very “broad strokes”, I’m not explaining those mechanisms, just sketching them, but the only difference when we talk about the human’s niche is that the complexity is called the culture or civilization and the animal’s urge to survive and to mate is called the pursuit of happiness.

      And this is our ticket. We have to strengthen our niche otherwise we’ll become extinct. Our ticket is our culture- we are conscious, thinking, and observing our own demise. 

So, what is this cognitive achievement turned out to be a problem? It happened gradually between 100,000 to 10,000 years ago. The primitive communication grew into language. The description of behaviors became the description of reality, including the distinct material world. I will discuss this evolutionary process in detail in part 2. The new reality opened the world of things, of technology. The worldviews and the meaning of life changed. Now we have more shopping malls, more hotels, more toys and gadget factories, more airports and bombers. The image is of emotional regression – a bully sucking his thumb. To understand the situation we need to keep shifting the dimensions: from society to personal and back. We need to see that our civilization is the sum of millions of lives, their successes and failures, their loves and hatreds. We keep trying to be satisfied or happy or just less anxious (whatever is the thing we want!) by consuming the planet’s dwindling resources. Imagine that within the next ten years flying electric taxis will become very popular. In the language of cultural evolution, this means complexity and ability to adapt.

Until recently, such an invention would increase the strength of the human niche. Not anymore: more passengers, airports, parkings, services, businesses, more technology, more rat race, violence, and poverty. We have to pivot and we can do it. The thing we get from technology, call it happiness, call it power or security we have to learn to get from sustainable experiences. We can learn and teach it to our children- this is a matter of a new curriculum and of a new generation.

How can we do it? 

In the book “About time” Adam Frank describes how the evolution of humanity’s relation to time changed the world. This sense of time changed slowly over millennia. We learned and followed how time-related technology changed people’s minds and people’s minds created technology. It is how this civilization works: we see progress outside,- the same “progress” sits inside everyone’s brain, what each person knows, different depending on education, experience, and interests- and this builds the third, elusive“progress” that exists as a conversation (Werner Erhard’s jargon),  as Carl Jung’s our “collective unconscious” or simply as “culture”. This third “progress” is the one that creates our language, metaphors, and our mythology. 

Now we can, paradoxically, use technology against the technology abusing the Planet. With the new global conversation, we can change the language and mythology almost on the dime.

People’s lives will improve. The improvement will involve more and more people but the resources will be spared. The economies will shrink materially, but the access to and the use of carbon-neutral experiences will expand exponentially. This is the only way, otherwise, the suffering of millions will ensue. In my work on worldviews, I see human potential. I read these personal worldviews, work with them and I am amazed: everybody writes about peace, meaningful relationships, and love of nature and beauty. We have to follow our idealistic worldviews. We want this, we just need to be taught how to get it. What for Teilhard de Chardin was a nebulous Omega Point (literally pie in the sky) for us might be a desperate survival maneuver.

There will be two complementary essays – the sequels to this one. 

Part 2: Materialists and idealists. I will attempt to find them, find them now, and find them in the past. I have already hinted at the origins of materialism- will talk more about that. Where did they come from and where did they go?

Part 3: I will look into the future, into a new curriculum to build a new society. This utopia is unlike well-known, worn and failed utopias of the past- one of spiritual and moral perfection. We will teach our children,( and grass-root movement sprouts already everywhere,) to be happy without abusing the planet. Their lives, in contrast to the prediction for the year 2050, will be more exciting and rich than ours. They will have more than we have, but no more gadgets or power. They will have more love and friendship. More creativity, fun, discovery, and beauty.

 They will be idealists.

Category:

climate change, enviromnental crisis,, Evolutionary Reality, Explicit and implicit worldview, human nature

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