Barbelith Underground > Laboratory > Mass Extinction - coming soon to a planet near you!

"Do I then believe that human existence depends on social and economic changes ? Perhaps - but a couple of questions are worth asking it seems to me - the longest surviving human societies are probably the Kung San or the Australian Aboriginals. Socieites that without external colonial interference have been stable for 10 to 20 thousand years or more. If the intetion is to survive in a stable environment we know how to do that already...."

Exactly. The early tribal communities you describe engage(d) in a mostly non-hierarchal form of sustainable living. They do not consume more than their environment can readily provide, and authority is generally unofficial and based on either expertise or experience (e.g, elders and tribal councils).

But as you have suggested, it's not feasible to "return" to the classic tribal model. It's necessary to model these new communities based on what we have in our environment now. That's the creative part.

I would suggest that our first obstacle is a general lack of certain community-centric skills; basic agricultural knowledge, knowledge of your terrain and it's fauna and flora, et alia. Secondly, I think we'll find an ideological obstacle ; we're used to the idea that we can have children, eat food, and travel when and how we please. While these privileges are not to be sacrificed entirely, they are massively over-employed at present. We suffer from overpopulation due to overconsumption and massive resource depletion. Simultaneously, there is malnourishment and starvation in some regions. The patterns of these sufferings are not based on the natural ebb and flow of abundance and lack -- rather an artifical flow of artificial wealth. It's my opinion that this is going to be extremely problematic in what is now the short term.

"But survival at the appalling cost of reverting to a pre-industrial culture (whether it is mutulalist, communist or not) is not acceptable."

I don't think anyone has suggested reverting to a purely pre-industrial culture; rather that we must sacrifice much of our post-industrial excess. In fact, some of the post-agricultural excess must be shed, as well -- that's the part where we get to have lots of babies if we have lots of 'wealth'.

"Is there a utopian model which we might use as a worthwhile direction to take this society down ... not sure - none that are popular enough anyway."

No. There's no utopia. There are things that work and things that do not. These things are changing all the time. Right now, the way the uber society we're discussing handles it's business works fine for the Western world. Not quite so well for lots of others. Soon, due to a great many factors, this situation will become unsustainable for a great many of us. We can try and change this situation, or we can cling to it until we find "the other perfect model". Fortunately, the things one would do to enact and adopt such change are possible on a grass roots level, and doing these things will serve the purpose of preparing you to survive the inevitable at the same time. You can experiment with it yourself, and find a flavour of sustainable living that works for you. You don't have to be exploited, and you don't have to exploit others.

Unfortunately, lots of people think apathy is cool.

Of course, one could disagree with my assessment that the leaders of powerful governments are unlikely to make changes that may decrease the standard of living for their nations. And it's true -- they might. Some of them. Some changes; it's not the end of the world we're talking about here -- just a rough time. Furthermore, assuming positive changes are enacted, problems will again emerge if we choose to continue employing top-down power structures in the management of basic affairs such as security and the management of resources. It seems to me that top-down power structures work best on a temporal basis, such as those formed based on expertise in order to manage a particular situation.

The classic militia is a good and somewhat modern example; there is generally no long-established rank (which holds true in day-to-day life for the community) or distribution of resource. When there's an issue, there's a de facto structure that determines who's in charge, because it's necessary for economy of action and communication. When the issue has "passed", such communities should not retain a well-armed, top-down controlled standing army. It's not efficient. Conquest is not efficient, and the conquest or the prevention thereof are the primary reasons for a standing army. In this case our society in particular there's little question who the conqueror is. It is we. But I don't mean that in a political sense, I mean it in an a sort of 'uber-cultural' sense. Cultures which exhibit certain traits in common under a certain umbrella of mass consumption and expansion. Hierarchal systems were necessary to organize and execute mass consumption and mass expansion through widespread agriculture (and plunder).

Usually, the best way to deal with such a system, assuming you don't wish to live that way, is simply to walk away. Of course, many are fond of these systems. It's not necessary that they fade into obscurity. Only that they cease the management of the basic functions of survival. In fact, you may personally live under or rule such a system; it's just that we can't all do it, all the time. Right now, the percentage of the world population not particating in this cycle of exploitation at some point is far less than 1% -- it's pretty much down to the Aboriginies.

Of course, it's not necessarily today or tommorow that things will become clearly and totally unsustainable. We could cling heroically to this beast for a very long time; things could slip from our grasp in an instant. But how comfortable do you suppose most people are with the idea that people die elsewhere every day so that they may have inefficient motor vehicles, and so that their (sometimes numerous) children can have these motor vehicles? That's the sliding scale we're working with. To grossly oversimplify (and perhaps excessively restate) the issue -- it's pretty much the suffering and exploitation of others that grants your "right" to own and drive a Hummer. It's already to this point. And the weather's just now starting to change.

I'd like to add that this particular path of human survival will mitigate some of the extinction and that mass extinction is, in itself, not abnormal or avoidable.