Cultural Programming vs. Sustainability
Like it or not, our civilization finds itself past the point of cheap energy and easy credit — confronted with a future that simply will not look like the past.
Here’s a short video in which I mention that we as a society need to redefine ourselves, that the “rich getting richer” is not sustainable. Moreover, this isn’t a bad — or even a painful thing, since when we are able to look past the thin veil of materialistic pleasures and begin to see our lives in grander terms, we find joys that we never knew existed.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4W0fYcYrY]
Dear Craig,
Excellent video- Cultural programming v Sustainability. Agree 100% with your views.
Regards
Tony
Yes, it is more blessed to give than to receive but Jesus was talking about personal giving. Margaret Thatcher once said that socialism works well until you run out of other people’s money.
The dynamics of this country has been successfully built on the pillars of individualism and personal responsibility to our brothers and sisters.
The OWS folks are all about divying up a pie that they think has a finite size. In reality, the pie grows as creative people invent new ways of doing things. We all win when the 1% create a larger pie.
Our poor are the richest “poor people” in the whole world.
Thanks for considering an alternative viewpoint.
Larry Lemmert
Wautoma, WI
retired chemistry and physics teacher
Nice. Quite a number of us in my, ahem, age group, enjoy the benefits of a less-is-better approach. I have no sense of how it comes about, but a number of my friends and associates seem to arrive there in their own ways and time. We like the simplicity of a smaller house and fewer objects that demand of one’s time in their maintenance. May not be very noble, but I like the electric car with no maintenance, no smog certificate at registration time, etc. It removes certain stressors in life to reduce the less than useful responsibilities we accumulate like so much landfill.
Globalization has happened. Its a one way street. Sustainability only works when everyone plays according to the road rules. Humanity obviously needs to learn to be cooperative to a much greater degree than at present. How do we pull this trick off? Do we require whole civilization’s hitting rock bottom in order to change our ways?
It may be the will of ego that change, or a viable solution, will not be accepted untill every solution that will not work has been exhausted, since it is listening to the ego that has gotten these problems firmly established at all.
I couldn’t agree more with Larry I’m in the new renewable energy buisness but what the OWS are doing is not the way.
You have to have the 1% to come up with new inovative products otherwise we will just follow into socialism like Europe.
Peter Law
Phoenix, AZ
Peter, IMO, that is the great lie that the 1% even exists upon at all. There is no evidence that “socialism like Europe” is a limiting or backward moving establishment at all. Only representatives of the wealthy “1%” would claim it so. Even the govt investment programs supported by that elite have shown their inability to accurately pick who will enable needed advancement. Indeed, the management practices of the banking establishment that govt has invested with collosal capitol have shown that investment has only rewarded and perpetuated their corrupt practices of rewarding the managers for their corruption.
We have been hijacked in terms of an ideology, what is priceless in our lives, those deep, meaningful conversations with our parents, children or loved ones, the laughter of our grandchildren, the gathering of family around a table to a supper of thanksgiving has no economic value and is considered worthless in todays metrics … Yet all of us know the deep personal value this is to each and every one of us.
Thank you for sharing this video …
I agree partially.
Saying that we have been hijacked implies that the changes in relationships which you detail are involuntary and have been caused mainly by forces outside of ourselves. To a limited degree that may be true, but within our own families we have the power to return to the mode of living which strengthened families, i.e., conversations with parents, sharing meals, etc. That is something which cannot be imposed from outside, such as by legislation.
During the gilded age (about 1865 – 1900), there was also an extreme disparity between rich and poor. The abuses then may have even been worse than they are now. Tycoons would go to Congress or state legislatures with a suitcase full of money, sometimes exceeding even $500,000 (which would be worth far more than now) for bribes, and it worked. Judges were bought. What is happening now is slightly less obvious, but also corrupting. The abuses of the gilded age decreased as the public became more incensed and insisted on corrective legislation.
History tends to repeat itself. The anti-Wall Street demonstrations, although not well focused, indicate widespread dissatisfaction. I expect that eventually, there will again be corrective legislation which will effectively reduce the abuses which have resulted in excessive wealth and income disparity.
I hope your message will penetrate the hard hearts out there Craig, I couldn’t agree with you more. Reaganomics has proven itself to be a failed ideology (for the 99%), but there are those who are still believers. Hopefully this is changing, especially with the younger generation. It’s good to see OWS finally happening, I hope it will continue to be as non-violent a revolution as possible.
We have so far been pretty good at defining the problems, now we need to be dialoging about what the solutions look like. “Cooperative capitalist” systems like Mondragon for instance. Getting the influence money out of government for another.
Keep up the good work Craig, it may seem like rowing upstream a lot of the time, but that’s what it takes!
Excellent commentary, Craig.
Here’s my two cents…
At seven billion, and counting up fast, the population is already well beyond the biosphere’s sustainable carrying capacity under the current wasteful infrastructure, and the global population is swelling further and further past that break point every day. That is a plain fact that’s highly demonstrable from a number of observable data sets, and it’s not up for rational debate.
We therefore have a pair of simple sets of choices before us – choices that we need to begin to make immediately:
Set A:
First, we must completely remove and effectively prevent the dominance of money within the political sphere, in order to enable the agents for the following necessary changes to overcome the power of bribery (legal and otherwise)…
Second, organize and act collectively to rapidly move our infrastructure off of that dirty ancient sunlight that we pull from the ground in the form of fossil fuels, and onto clean modern sunlight in the form of concentrated solar power (CSP), wind power, hydrokinetics, the highest efficiency photovoltaic available, and passive solar (all of which are really solar at their base) – and, at the same time, go after perhaps the lowest hanging fruit, the known available efficiencies now on the table, the advances in biomimicry, and the use of natural symbiosis (like mixed complimentary crops, and pest control using insect predators, etc.)…
This will enable us to – thirdly – stretch our resources and minimize our footprint until we can harvest the current energy input that our planet receives daily (about 6000 times the current use), and actually manage our resources and product streams in a sustainable way…
Fourth and finally, we must also quickly address population growth by a massive effort in birth control availability and education and the empowerment of women – worldwide.
…or…
Set B:
First, firmly deny that there’s any real problem…
Second, admit there’s a problem, but deny that we have any control or input…
Third, admit we have control, but claim either that the matter just isn’t a top priority at this time, or that we can’t afford to change under present circumstances…
Fourth, simply sit back and trust that Greed will use Technology in time to resolve the problem before the infrastructure waste and decay, and the resource depletion, pull the solutions out from within our reach…
Fifth, admit the extreme necessity of rapid action now, but fail to act in a coordinated and effective manner to remove obstacles and proceed on multiple fronts…
Sixth, watch the unnecessary and wrenchingly cruel demise of human societies collapsing under their own weight…
Seventh, devolve into a terminally vicious collective insanity that makes the law of the jungle look like sweet kindergarten – with permanently wretched consequences for the once beautiful biosphere that supported us…
Look back on a vast unending parade of forever lost opportunities that had existed for all humankind.
“What can I do?” you ask. “I’m just one person.”
None of us alone can determine our collective path, but each of us must determine which path we take, and contribute to, individually.
How many of us are behind plan B?
Wow, dude. That’s pretty fantastic writing.