In response to the Doomer hypothesis, a slapdash response:
A comment in response to Tree of Woe's "Proem for all Post-Dark Age Civilizations"
In response to the Doomer hypothesis, a slapdash response:
Preface:
The following Article is a quickly composed comment in response to this article:
I think the source article (a guest piece as it happens refuting some of the author’s contrary views) is pretty good such as it is, though I clearly disagree with most of its materialist premises.
Comment:
Am not going to enter into the forest of details regarding energy production and use etc. Not my bailiwick. Except to point out that the 65% inefficiency of electricity distribution is something which should have been better addressed decades ago. The figure I heard a while back was 80%.
However, bigger than scarcity is the mental obstacle presented by narrowing Reality down to only faith-based materialist interpretation which is little better than superstition.
Briefly: three dimensional space is like a living collective dream comprising irreducible consciousness (For a modern versus Platonic or Buddhist treatment of this I recommend: https://besharamagazine.org/newsandviews/federico-faggin-irreducible-consciousness-life-computers-human-nature/ ). All of which means we live in a living, or life-generating, matrix, or ‘experiential continuum’, classically known as ‘Creation’, which moreover did not take place in one instant back in past Time but is ongoing in the ever-present ongoing Now. The present is without beginning or end, aka past or future, and thus is eternal. Material realities appear as temporal and spatially discrete, i.e. in particular moments and places with no end of particular characteristics involving location, size, appearance, duration and so forth.
Creation also means that in every moment in every place Life is auto-generating, like in a Dream, a type of self-existing auto-poesis. The perception of three dimensions which accommodate this and that, here and there, basically all auto-emerging forms of infinite multiplicity each with particular location and dimensions, is created by consciousness perceiving space in that way. This consciousness-awareness element is what makes it all living, is the essence of Life. There is not a corner in this our collective reality, including on the quantum level, not teaming with this Life essence, even empty seeming wastelands like the Poles or large deserts.
This life energy can be used to fuel machines, maybe, or maybe our problem is over-reliance on machines based on the materialist paradigm and we should be looking more to nature-based solutions to effect heating, locomotion, building etc.
Example: the amount of heat generated by soil-derived microorganisms in home fermented fertilization (‘bokashi’ among many others) is a free, abundant source of energy, based on a living process. We could make huge tanks to generate such heat to drive turbines driving water electrolysis into hydrogen then stored in tanks for cars and houses. Just an example. The point being: probably we could do more with plants and microbes versus inanimate machinery.
Also: Viktor Schauberger’s use of implosion motors as a driver, versus explosion-combustion which we mainly use, was suppressed, as was Tesla’s wireless power generation, probably because such energies do not well lend themselves to monopoly capitalism controls and profits. Which is a politico-social, not an engineering, issue as with nearly all these environmental-energy-scarcity issues.
SRI farming methods can easily provide abundant food for over 70 billion humans without soil depletion. Our main problem is bad practices due to bad value systems based on flawed world views lacking authentic wisdom which, among other things, split objective and subjective, animate and inanimate, and so do not value Life and living processes, including aesthetics, goodness, heart, beauty etc. Machine world is a mistaken world. Example: the Kogi people in Colombia know how to regenerate damaged ecosystems rapidly but are laughed at by the same scientists who cause the damage as ignorant pre-modern savages.
Ultimately this is about value systems not physical-material resources. We must learn to value Life which also means valuing Mind (or Spirit, Dasein etc.). Musk’s stated mission of preserving consciousness by shipping it to other worlds is profoundly ignorant, even nihilistic. (Ignorant because our life forms do not belong in that very different environment; nihilistic because it gives up on our ability to take care of things in the realm in which we are naturally born, where our life forms belong.) However, if our value systems and wisdom levels were to change, then both societal corruption – by far the biggest obstacle way beyond any physical resource scarcity concerns – and technological challenges could be properly addressed. Indeed, we will find that all boils down to appreciating and managing the extraordinary, all-pervasive level of Abundance that exists in every corner of this Awake Living Realm.
We have to turn from materialist Quanta to paying attention to more spiritual Qualia. We need to turn this very world into a creative, uplifting Lucid Dream. That is our mission. Not Mars. As long as we are tethered to materialist fallacies we will believe that going to Mars represents some sort of meaningful journey because in terms of external quanta (measurables) it is so impressive; rather our emphasis should be on wisdom, the sort of simple, human faculty expressed in William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
Or Flower in the Crannied Wall by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is"
Addendum:
For those familiar with what some call the oldest written text in the world, the Yijing or I Ching, I cast the coins to see what it has to contribute to this subject and received:
6 – Conflict, obstruction > 50 Cauldron, transmutation, Changing Line 3 (local governance). I might publish the full Reading of this later as additional commentary simply because I find it interesting to interface this very ancient ‘oracle’ with contemporary issues. Most people use it to get personal advice about business, love life and so forth but it can be applied to any situation providing one has the metal flexibility to do so. I am only at the Advanced Beginner, or possibly Intermediate, level so don’t do a great job, but I still think it interesting to bridge different systems of thought and perception so whether or not the Reading is good or the I Ching of interest to the reader, it’s still a worthwhile exercise.
https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/proem-for-all-post-dark-age-civilizations/comment/78791588