Interestingly I was musing earlier in a similar way in terms of how we move away from our current economic system to something better. I concluded it needed a fundamental reappraisal of what was important to us. An acceptance of the basic equality of all humans and a desire to ensure that all inhabitants of the earth have what they need to exist and the opportunity to grow and participate in their own way in their communities. Something like the well-being economy set in the framework of the Doughnut.
As humans, we occupy a unique place in the world (I read Olivia's post and her reference to Stoicism!) although research is increasingly showing that the non-human world shares more of our sentience than we have previously wanted to acknowledge. Even so, there is something we have that has separated us from that world and given us greater scope to manage and develop our world. This can be characterised in so many ways but if we extend my framing of a different approach to economics to the non-human world, stewardship would be the way I would choose.
In terms of moving to that state, the idea of us living in a simulation that is predetermined by the 'map' is an interesting one and I guess I would only take issue with the rather binary way that it is expressed here. Wouldn't any framework created by humans of itself be the map and therefore the only question would be whether the ensuing simulation moved us closer or further away from 'reality'? More importantly to my mind, while you might use this philosophical idea as a justification for change it doesn't suggest a means to effect the change so many of us want.
Talking about it isn't enough although it is certainly a part of it. The process of change individually is difficult enough but effecting change over a country or even a number of countries is an enormous task! Not that we shouldn't be thinking in those terms. Even for those of us who are eager to get there change can be unexpectedly hard. A road map and a strategy are essential elements plus a willingness to respond flexibly to setbacks and acquired knowledge. In our rural area of Suffolk there are the beginnings of change. Parishes and interested bodies are adopting a cluster approach to developing local solutions to problems that the climate and environmental crisis have thrown up. I am a latecomer to the party but I am won over that ground up change is the way to demonstrate the value and efficacy of a cooperative and consultative approach based on agreed values. Whether it is enough both in scale and timeliness remains to be seen but it beats the hell out sitting on your own with your head in your hands!
I think a global grid electrical would be hugely expensive.
Based upon the German Suedlink disaster, I calculated the cost of a UK-Sahara link (for solar power) an eye-popping £3,100 billion.
This was following up on Dr McKay’s proposal, of placing solar panels in the Sahara. (See Sustainable Energy Without Hot Air.). Dr McKay was a former government advisor, and therefore a complete fantasist, just like Prof Pantsdown.
Trucking 80 gw of energy from Africa to the UK is a monumental and very expensive task, and you lose 15% of the energy en-route. And imagine the rent the Spanish and French would charge…
In actuality, the world's interconnectedness as we have known it is a historical fluke and one that is rapidly breaking down.
As America abandins propping up the globalized system, nations are re-learning the hard way that access to critical things can't be just left to trade. That especially pertains to secure food and energy.
Both the EU and PRC might not even survive in their present forms or at all the next ten years.
Neocolonialism will be real popular again. Think of how the world was pre-WW2.
"The reality of our biophysical nature, its interdependence, has been subsumed by ideology, which is not real."
Why do you assert that ideology is not real? The evidence of lived experience shows us that ideology is a powerful motive force in organizing human action within our uniquely human way of being in an artificial world that we build for ourselves in which to live through our technologies out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, as a mutual aid society for sharing an abundance of technology solutions to the everyday problems of everyday people living our everyday lives in networks of connections for enterprise and exchange to form a safe and dignified house for humanity within a built environment of Urban, Rural, Curated and Left-Alone landscapes along the creative edge of an interactive and adaptively evolving Human-Nature partnership, choosing new beginnings from time to time, and over time, to fit the changing times, innovatively, through Civil Society, predistributively, through Finance, distributively, through Enterprise and redistributively, through Government.
This world is artificial in the sense that it is an artifact of human ingenuity and initiative.
But that does not mean it is not real. It is made out of Nature, government by. the laws of Nature, that we apply through our technologies to change the way the world about us as we find it works, to make it work more a way we choose to make it.
Ideology is the story of our technology that we tell ourselves in order to hold ourselves together in society, as occupants of one shared safe house: the blueprint for our security in an insecure world, if you will.
Ideology is also an artifact of human ingenuity. And it to must evolve to adapt to changing times, as times change from time to time.
Ours is one of those times when our ideology needs to be evolved. Our house is no longer safe. Our security is becoming insecure. We need to adapt. We need to learn new. We need to remodel our safe house. For that we to revise our blueprint.
How are we going to do that?
That's the first question we need to find the courage to confront. this question of How?
Ideology is not real in that it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of any underlying biophysical reality. Particularly in an era of incredible energy abundance where we’ve had so much surplus for so long that it hasn’t really mattered whether our beliefs actually track reality. William E. Reese has made this point. In some cultures ideology can closely track reality, such as Australian Aboriginals who developed a culture and memetics that was stable and sustainable over long periods of time, because it led to a dynamic equilibrium with the natural world, with reality. For our culture Rachel’s statement is spot on.
Interesting concept.
Interestingly I was musing earlier in a similar way in terms of how we move away from our current economic system to something better. I concluded it needed a fundamental reappraisal of what was important to us. An acceptance of the basic equality of all humans and a desire to ensure that all inhabitants of the earth have what they need to exist and the opportunity to grow and participate in their own way in their communities. Something like the well-being economy set in the framework of the Doughnut.
As humans, we occupy a unique place in the world (I read Olivia's post and her reference to Stoicism!) although research is increasingly showing that the non-human world shares more of our sentience than we have previously wanted to acknowledge. Even so, there is something we have that has separated us from that world and given us greater scope to manage and develop our world. This can be characterised in so many ways but if we extend my framing of a different approach to economics to the non-human world, stewardship would be the way I would choose.
In terms of moving to that state, the idea of us living in a simulation that is predetermined by the 'map' is an interesting one and I guess I would only take issue with the rather binary way that it is expressed here. Wouldn't any framework created by humans of itself be the map and therefore the only question would be whether the ensuing simulation moved us closer or further away from 'reality'? More importantly to my mind, while you might use this philosophical idea as a justification for change it doesn't suggest a means to effect the change so many of us want.
Talking about it isn't enough although it is certainly a part of it. The process of change individually is difficult enough but effecting change over a country or even a number of countries is an enormous task! Not that we shouldn't be thinking in those terms. Even for those of us who are eager to get there change can be unexpectedly hard. A road map and a strategy are essential elements plus a willingness to respond flexibly to setbacks and acquired knowledge. In our rural area of Suffolk there are the beginnings of change. Parishes and interested bodies are adopting a cluster approach to developing local solutions to problems that the climate and environmental crisis have thrown up. I am a latecomer to the party but I am won over that ground up change is the way to demonstrate the value and efficacy of a cooperative and consultative approach based on agreed values. Whether it is enough both in scale and timeliness remains to be seen but it beats the hell out sitting on your own with your head in your hands!
I think a global grid electrical would be hugely expensive.
Based upon the German Suedlink disaster, I calculated the cost of a UK-Sahara link (for solar power) an eye-popping £3,100 billion.
This was following up on Dr McKay’s proposal, of placing solar panels in the Sahara. (See Sustainable Energy Without Hot Air.). Dr McKay was a former government advisor, and therefore a complete fantasist, just like Prof Pantsdown.
Trucking 80 gw of energy from Africa to the UK is a monumental and very expensive task, and you lose 15% of the energy en-route. And imagine the rent the Spanish and French would charge…
Ralph
In actuality, the world's interconnectedness as we have known it is a historical fluke and one that is rapidly breaking down.
As America abandins propping up the globalized system, nations are re-learning the hard way that access to critical things can't be just left to trade. That especially pertains to secure food and energy.
Both the EU and PRC might not even survive in their present forms or at all the next ten years.
Neocolonialism will be real popular again. Think of how the world was pre-WW2.
Now Rachel, are you back on the ayahuasca?
...yeah, I'm just kidding : )
I get where you're going, I think, but my god, this is a big ask.
It makes ending capitalism and embracing world peace look easy by comparison.
But the idea of it does make me smile, it would be a fun experiment.
"The reality of our biophysical nature, its interdependence, has been subsumed by ideology, which is not real."
Why do you assert that ideology is not real? The evidence of lived experience shows us that ideology is a powerful motive force in organizing human action within our uniquely human way of being in an artificial world that we build for ourselves in which to live through our technologies out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, as a mutual aid society for sharing an abundance of technology solutions to the everyday problems of everyday people living our everyday lives in networks of connections for enterprise and exchange to form a safe and dignified house for humanity within a built environment of Urban, Rural, Curated and Left-Alone landscapes along the creative edge of an interactive and adaptively evolving Human-Nature partnership, choosing new beginnings from time to time, and over time, to fit the changing times, innovatively, through Civil Society, predistributively, through Finance, distributively, through Enterprise and redistributively, through Government.
This world is artificial in the sense that it is an artifact of human ingenuity and initiative.
But that does not mean it is not real. It is made out of Nature, government by. the laws of Nature, that we apply through our technologies to change the way the world about us as we find it works, to make it work more a way we choose to make it.
Ideology is the story of our technology that we tell ourselves in order to hold ourselves together in society, as occupants of one shared safe house: the blueprint for our security in an insecure world, if you will.
Ideology is also an artifact of human ingenuity. And it to must evolve to adapt to changing times, as times change from time to time.
Ours is one of those times when our ideology needs to be evolved. Our house is no longer safe. Our security is becoming insecure. We need to adapt. We need to learn new. We need to remodel our safe house. For that we to revise our blueprint.
How are we going to do that?
That's the first question we need to find the courage to confront. this question of How?
Ideology is not real in that it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of any underlying biophysical reality. Particularly in an era of incredible energy abundance where we’ve had so much surplus for so long that it hasn’t really mattered whether our beliefs actually track reality. William E. Reese has made this point. In some cultures ideology can closely track reality, such as Australian Aboriginals who developed a culture and memetics that was stable and sustainable over long periods of time, because it led to a dynamic equilibrium with the natural world, with reality. For our culture Rachel’s statement is spot on.