I know I'm pretty much on my own with this one, but I firmly believe that our inability/unwillingness to contemplate the future consequences of our present actions is an ethical and spiritual problem, not a biological/cognitive one.

Tags: future
Current Mood: determined

I just ran into a truly excellent article here. In my previous post, I mentioned the ability of humans to think creatively and to imagine our future. When I wrote that, I was thinking particularly of the MIT Profs. who created the WORLD simulations in the 1970's. The fellow who wrote the article I just mentioned above seems to be involved in some way with that effort. For some reason, there is no link to the first graph in the article, so if you're interested, you should scroll to the end of the article and download the powerpoint slides of a talk based on the same data. The full graph is in the slide presentation... I always feel pleased (in the sense that I'm on the right track) with myself when people who are much smarter than myself and who have access to more time and data that I do, come up with identical conclusions to those I came up with myself. On graph 1, there is one single country on our entire planet that resides in the quadrant of world sustainable development, and it is Cuba. Years ago I have remarked in private correspondence with others that, after studying the available data, I firmly believe that the evidence shows that Cuba remains the single and only hope for the long term survival of the human species. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cubans were forced to get by on much less energy/ecological space than they previously had, yet they did it and survive to this day. We should be devoting all our energies to understanding how that survival happened.

I should also remark to any propaganda-doped people and FBI agents that my comments about Cuba are not a political endoresment of communism, oppression, tyrrany or anything else of that sort. I couldn't give a shit about that anymore. The survival of our species goes way beyond political affiliations, ethics, judgements of morality or any other such bullshit. My bias always has been the bias of the humanist (as my angry political friends sometimes like to point out), and every day I search for hope, any inkling of hope, that humans will live long and prosper. That I can look my grandchildren in the eye and hand them a life worth living. This article represents the best hope I have ever read for that survival.

Tags: exponential growth, future, peak oil
Current Mood: hopeful

I was lying awake last night, unable to sleep (fortunately a rare occurance), with many thoughts randomly wondering around my brain. At some point I was thinking: You know, I don't buy this bullshit about humans being unable to think or plan ahead or being unable to plan for the future. Our ability to imagine the future is exactly the thing that makes us uniquely human.

There are so many ideas about what makes humans different from other animals. Some say it is conciousness. Wrong - plenty of counter examples of exhibitions of consciousness of self and others in the ape and monkey families. Some say it's emotion. Wrong again - even rats show clear evidence of happiness and sadness. Some say we are the "symbolic species". Wrong again, so wrong it's not even worth arguing about. Our symbolic reasoning may be more sophisticated than most animals, but certainly there is good evidence that some animals construct simple grammars and develop type 2 language ability. (I remember hearing an article on the radio recently about a chimp study that demonstrated rudimentary type 2 language ability in the chimps.) Well, even type 1 language is still symbolic, so I guess I don't get this idea at all.

So, to cut a long story short, I read story somewhere about how and why homo sapiens are different from other species. (I thought George Monbiot wrote it, but I've searched through his archives and I can't find it.) In essence it suggests that early sapiens, in order to survive the harsh environment of the expanding sahara and kalahari deserts, had to be able to plan ahead. As a result, humans with certain parts of the brain that were well developed, survived, and the rest died. The survivors had remarkable ability to imagine and think creatively. (They also ate lots of omega 3 fatty acids from shellfish that helped stimulate the growth of certain areas of the brain.) For example, Sapiens are the only species (as current evidence shows) to bury artifacts with the dead (with the seeming intent that these artifacts could be used in the "afterlife".)

My point is this: what makes us uniquely human is our ability to imagine the future and to think creatively. It is exactly these features of our brains that allow us to predict what will happen to the global climate in 100 years and to write computer programs that simulate the whole planet's ecosystem and which clearly show that our population has exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet by several billions. Humans don't have a problem imagining the future. Our problem is our reckless desire to ignore what our creative mind is telling us will come to pass. We desire to delude ourselves that we can save the planet with energy conservation and biofuels. If our brains are so powerful that the vast majority of the otherwise thinking and feeling human population can delude themselves so badly in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, surely we have the brain power to face up to the reality of the situation and do what needs to be done? Then again, maybe not...

Tags: exponential growth, future, genetic determinism
Current Mood: contemplative