Let Us Do Something About the Future Now! Not After It Happens.
(Draft!)
The
unpredictable nature of any of the next coming crises and their,
justifiably presumed increasing severity should, and is making any
true sapient very worried. One of the many reasons for worry is
that no adequate measures are being undertaken to prevent the
coming crises from materializing, since it is obvious that any
post-crisis remedies will not be enough to improve on the
situation--as they have not been in most cases so far, since any
such remedies have never been but cosmetic palliatives.
Time to prevent the coming crises from happening is now. This
opportunity is growing smaller and smaller with time. The longer we
are doing nothing truly effective and appropriate, the more
difficult it will be to do so as the time progresses.
To any thinking person it is obvious that the only lasting and
profound solution to our situation is for the whole humanity to
become truly transparently sustainable in order for humanity
to survive in any recognizable shape.
It is a mistake to think that we could ever achieve being truly
sustainable by using methods that cause our problems in the first
place, by using "green technologies", or any such for-profit minded
enterprises, since the problem lies in the very basic dilemma: The
notion of profit is diametrically different in the present way of
life from what it is in a truly sustainable culture. In the present
day, "normal", way of life, "profit" means to gain advantage over
others, disregarding consequences of gaining such an advantage--the
source of most of our problems--whereas "profit" in a sustainable
way of life means the benefit of the whole.
What should the transition between money making and a true care
about the Earth look like? This is impossible to imagine since
those two are qualitatively (and not quantitatively) different from
each other--there is no gradual transition possible to occur. The
transition that should occur is to start seeing the advantages of
truly sustainable living when compared to the insane way of life we
are so familiar with. For that to start happening we have to have a
model/vision of what a sustainable world would actually look like
in order to have sufficient basis for a comparison, because there
is no commonly held idea of what "living sustainably" should
actually mean--we are aware that our current way of life (that we
are familiar with) is not satisfactory, but the opinions on how we
should live are too many to be of any practical use; if we should
follow all of those we would never get anywhere, because most of
those opinions might be incompatible with each other, and, perhaps,
with the principles of sustainability also.
The future is of Earth is already happening now, albeit only in
places of the world where it still doesn't affect us (or so we
elect to think); We still continue to think that we can fix
terrorism, all the results of overpopulation, etc. by various means
that, so far, have been quite profitable (at least to some of
us)--military interventions, huge humanitarian operations
(providing a temporary relief to some surviving victims, and huge
profits to, again, some of us). The future is already starting
manifesting even in the "developed" countries, but still only where
it doesn't really hurt those who are in control--among the poor,
homeless, ... . The future is coming nearer and nearer to us, but,
so far, all that we are doing is to keep on fiddling (or was it a
lyre?). still trying to make profit, even on our own funeral.
Thank you -
Mr. Jan Hearthstone - ModelEarth.Org .
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