We need to avoid being pessimistic, "we must live as if change is possible, isn't that the only way?" (I nicked that from Tim Winton, I liked it). You seem to be offering a view of possible change.
But it seems to me to be mostly, if not entirely, addressing our looming economic/social collapse. How do you think it will intersect with our looming environmental collapse?
A crisis of some sort will occur - I’m expecting it’s a social/economic one because that’s what shifts us. In addressing it, I believe we will have the bandwidth to solve more complex issues, like harm to the biosphere. That may be the trigger that hits first but I suspect the earth is more resilient than our modelling suggests (it has been up to now)
This dovetails precisely with my current thinking (that I’m struggling to get into a publishable form), particularly my belief that unrestrained capitalism has stacked the deck so high it’s on the verge of toppling, and the tl;dr version of human history is a recurrent pattern of the powerful abusing the powerless until the powerless have had enough and band together to force change and create something different.
For me that leads directly to the questions of “where do we go from here?” and “how do we get started, and scale it up enough (and quickly enough) to have the necessary impact?”.
It always starts with having the courage to reject cynicism and get optimistic (even idealistic) enough to imagine the kind of world we want for ourselves and our Posterity, and looking backward from there to draw ourselves a map of sorts, identifying what changes get us closer and what obstacles we’ll need to overcome.
And yes, establishing a workable form of large-scale UBI, making labor a seller’s market instead of a buyer’s is crucial.
I believe we have all the tools to create a decentralised democracy that constantly shreds consolidated power. It’s not quite inevitable but it’s highly likely as the obvious choice in the coming crisis (yes we are not there yet).
My only question is: will it be nation based or are we ready to jump to universal based - where nation states still exist but have no legitimacy on some international decisions?
We need to avoid being pessimistic, "we must live as if change is possible, isn't that the only way?" (I nicked that from Tim Winton, I liked it). You seem to be offering a view of possible change.
But it seems to me to be mostly, if not entirely, addressing our looming economic/social collapse. How do you think it will intersect with our looming environmental collapse?
A crisis of some sort will occur - I’m expecting it’s a social/economic one because that’s what shifts us. In addressing it, I believe we will have the bandwidth to solve more complex issues, like harm to the biosphere. That may be the trigger that hits first but I suspect the earth is more resilient than our modelling suggests (it has been up to now)
This dovetails precisely with my current thinking (that I’m struggling to get into a publishable form), particularly my belief that unrestrained capitalism has stacked the deck so high it’s on the verge of toppling, and the tl;dr version of human history is a recurrent pattern of the powerful abusing the powerless until the powerless have had enough and band together to force change and create something different.
For me that leads directly to the questions of “where do we go from here?” and “how do we get started, and scale it up enough (and quickly enough) to have the necessary impact?”.
It always starts with having the courage to reject cynicism and get optimistic (even idealistic) enough to imagine the kind of world we want for ourselves and our Posterity, and looking backward from there to draw ourselves a map of sorts, identifying what changes get us closer and what obstacles we’ll need to overcome.
And yes, establishing a workable form of large-scale UBI, making labor a seller’s market instead of a buyer’s is crucial.
I believe we have all the tools to create a decentralised democracy that constantly shreds consolidated power. It’s not quite inevitable but it’s highly likely as the obvious choice in the coming crisis (yes we are not there yet).
My only question is: will it be nation based or are we ready to jump to universal based - where nation states still exist but have no legitimacy on some international decisions?
That was what much of my book was about but I created a sort of summary here: https://open.substack.com/pub/beyondsurvival/p/what-happened-next?r=40ir&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
This hits home in so many ways. Love this post.
Thanks Wes - glad it connected with you :)