Timothy Wilken
The following is an excerpt from my dialogue with Arthur Noll on SusCom.Digital-Ocean.org
Our challenge at Sustainable CommUnity is to have an answer ready. If we can invent sustainable community, then we will have the answer. That is certainly my purpose in being here.
The degree of re-education needed is very great, and the precedent for this in the needed time frame is totally lacking. Even in larger time frames, the needed education has never happened for crucial matters like accepting evolution, understanding basic science, with regard to the masses. And we need a scientific basis for how we act, getting everyone to accept evolution would be part of the needed reeducation. It isn’t going to happen. Most people’s brains are not adapted to learn such things, and we cannot change the basic general structure of brains.
Humans are the most adaptability of all species. They are the only species to survive well in all climates and locations on the earth. They had accomplished this before the discovery of fossil fuels. To change you have to have a strong reason to change. Learning something new requires three things 1) Motivation, 2) Method, and 3) Organization. In the case of teaching Sustainable Community to our fellow humans, they will become highly motivated by the effects of the fossil fuel crisis on their daily lives. It is our job at SusCom to prepare the Method and Organization.
I don’t see how to design a community more than we already have, without having actual places to work with. We have all the general principles we need. The rest grows out of those principles, and the environmental conditions available. I feel we are spinning our wheels to try design more without more specific information.
I think there is much more we can do globally to support those locally. I think we need to create detailed sustainable commUnity manuals. So that those remote from us can download these manuals and use the directions to create there own sustainable commUnities. Now this should not stop any of us from beginning to work locally. I than we each should begin to recruit a small team to work with us on the local level. Certainly, one can argue that survival in the North differs from survival in the South, but there are many common solutions for both locations. I feel we need to work out the general application, and allow the specific application to be designed in the various “localities”.
When things fail, millions of people will be looking for alternatives, but I don’t see being able to take care of millions of people with our ideas.
I don’t see that our role will be to take care of millions of people. I see our role of providing a common database containing, principles, procedures, techniques, processes to allow millions of people to take care of themselves.
The fundamental problem is that what is happening is turning things to ruin, and you don’t take care of people’s fundamental needs in such numbers with ruined soil, clear cut forests, decaying and inappropriate infrastructure, etc. It will take decades, and centuries in many cases, to restore land to its potential productivity, build appropriate infrastructure, and in turn support the maximum sustainable population, which is still very likely much less than today. No matter how one spins the problem, it comes up that lots of people have to die. There is absolutely no political will to start fixing the problem by attrition, even if there was time for that to work at this point. I don’t think there is time.
Certainly many careful thinkers beside yourself, Joseph George Caldwell, and Jay Hanson, have concluded that civilization is doomed and most of humanity will die. And, you may ALL be right. I understand this conclusion has lead you to argue for the “lifeboat” scenario. Recruiting young healthy groups of men and women, teaching them how to survive off the land, helping them to disperse throughout the world to hopefully escape the chaos and mass dieoff that will engulf the rest of species as the fossil fuels deplete. I recognize and accept that the “life boat” scenario is a reasonable and worthwhile project. It should be done. It should be planned for. It should be implemented.
In the past, you have used the analogy that those attempting to rescue our species are like those moving furniture around on the deck of the Titanic as she sinks. However, I don’t see myself as just moving deck furniture. I am trying to stop the Titanic from sinking. I and a handful of engineers are working below decks to see if we can stop or at least slow the leaks to a controllable level. We know the Titanic will never be the same. But can we salvage enough to keep the ship afloat and avoid a dark age?
Now the odds of our success may be low. Many might say non-existent. But those making that argument are not biologists and synergic scientists. Those making the argument do not understand the enormous power of biological adaptation, the leverage of Synergic organization, and the power of community.
I also don’t believe that even if people wake up and start looking for solutions, that they will take what we have to offer. The most aware people right now are looking for solutions, and they routinely pass me over. They want more, and in every corner you find people promising more. I don’t think that the millions of people who will be looking in the near future will be thinking any differently. I see people betting on religion and science fiction right now, I think it is very likely that they will continue to do so even with the stakes much higher on the outcome. It is what they are trained to do, and what they believe in. “God” will provide. “They” will figure out ways to make it all work. I’m sure this sort of mentality ruled on Easter Island. When problems threaten you work harder and pray harder, is the motto of most. That is what they attribute the initial “success” to, so why shouldn’t it work again? Specific reasons why it won’t work again are brushed off, “God”, is capable of anything, and in the same vein, the scientists who got people on the moon and built computers and microwaves and all the rest of it, are also God like to those who don’t understand the physical principles and limitations involved. People feel that of course “they” can find substitutes. Not a possibility of failure. I think millions will die believing that all they need is just a little more time, a little more time, a little more time…
I have family that is like this. I have neighbors who are like this. Most of the people whose apartments I fix are like this. There are masses of such people. They fill churches and/or dream of a “Star Trek” future as they drive their cars and click their computers. Are they second class citizens? I think they are the walking dead. The dead have no rights except to decay and have their molecules used in a better design. People who show the right stuff to stay alive deserve respect, the dead get nothing. They vanish and become a distant memory. On the other hand, I do not know who deserves respect and who doesn’t right now, I think it is very true that “many who are first will be last, and the last first”. People considered second class right now might easily turn out to be first class survivors. The rich want to hang onto their status and comfort. I see no option except to go through the whole population and comb it out.
All humans are resistant to change. But those who survive change when it is necessary. Our brothers and sisters will sort themselves out. As the truth of fossil fuel depletion and the failure of adversity and neutrality becomes obvious to more and more humans, they will seek solutions. Yes, they will turn to Big Government, Big Religion, and Big Business, in hopes for solution. But they will find nothing. Adversity and Neutrality are soon bankrupt. Then they will turn looking for solutions elsewhere. This is our chance. But only if we have our act together. We cannot hand them a book of principles and say work it out for yourselves. We need to have things much farther developed. Here is the sustainable commUnity manual explaining how to build sustainable commUnity. This is how you will need to change–how you can adapt–how you can gain the leverage of synergic relationship–how you can harness the power of community.