Which will destroy the Anthropocene ∇ first, climate change or more of the same?
Climate Change
First, the symptoms,
- Changes to temperature patterns change weather patterns.
- Changes to weather patterns change agricultural and wild species habitats.
- Changes to agriculture and wild species habitats are a threat to our life support system and infrastructure will be disrupted.
- As our life support system declines and infrastructure is disrupted, our population will decline.
- Given our Fiat mindset, there is a good chance that competition will increase and our cultural accomplishments will be forgotten.
The other thing that has been happening for a while is the trend towards homogeneity in many fields.
Homogeneity in Politics
This move towards homogeneity is not “coming”, it is already happening. Take governance, for example.
As every nation moves towards being run like every other nation, experimentation goes down and nations approach an all powerful, forever state. Today we can still compare the US to Europe when it comes to, say, healthcare. But as homogeneity sets in, distinctions will be minimal and easily brushed off.
Decline of Science
For another example, take the decline of disruptive science,
The number of science and technology research papers published has skyrocketed over the past few decades – but the ‘disruptiveness’ of those papers has dropped. …
Data from millions of manuscripts show that, compared with the mid-twentieth century, research done in the 2000s was much more likely to incrementally push science into incremental improvements rather than to veer off in a new direction and render previous work obsolete. Analysis of patents from 1976 to 2010 showed the same trend. ∇
This is happening in social science, technology, physical sciences, life sciences, and biomedicine.
In sheer numbers, there is more research, but it is towards provements (Wow, that is going to make us my skin smoother!), and mot towards discoveries (WHAT? We can generate energy like the Sun does?).
Fragile Food
Another example comes from our food supply: food production is getting more and more fragile as we consume fewer and fewer food varieties. ∇
The ways in which plants are used by societies around the world have narrowed drastically over the past 500 years. ∇
“Crop growers worldwide face enormous challenges. Plants are becoming less resistant to pests and diseases. Crops are more likely to be damaged or fail because of droughts, heatwaves, floods, salinization and rising sea levels. Soils are degraded; rivers and watersheds are polluted; and the diversity and abundance of crop pollinators are in steep decline.”
It Has Happened Before
In Profit: An Environmental History ∇ Mark Stoll documents, extensively, how competition has driven us to the spoilage of our environment multiple times. The process was not good for most people who went to their early grave from overwork, malnutrition, and disease. Forests were devastated by sugar, tobacco, and other “commercial” crops. Over time they drained the land of nutrients and impoverished people’s lives.
This is not the first time that competition has driven us to collapse, but it has been localized. The big problem now is that the specter of collapse is global. In fact, it won’t be a collapse, as much as a near extinction. By near I mean that there will be enough of us left and we will eventually make a comeback. The winner-takes-all Fiat system of competition and dominance has been catastrophic and it would force us to replay the same old movie that ends up in collapse, again.
We need to try a different system, one based on collaboration, not competition. Abundance, not scarcity. co-management and co-ownership, not masters and slaves.
Strong Trend
Politically, our priorities are trending towards tweaking and avoiding risk. Worst, this trend is bringing about a world-wide monoculture in every aspect of our lives, not only in politics, ∇ but also science, food, etc.
Monoculture
Monocultures are fragile. A virus that harm one member of the species, is capable of harming every member of the species.
Nature fends this off via genetic and habitat variations. This will allow a handful of individuals to survive, though some cultural knowledge will vanish.
Non-human species don’t accumulate as much cultural knowledge, but humans accumulate a lot of it. We will lose much, if not most, of it.
We will most likely get a chance to restart, but with a decimated community. The whole thing will be very fragile as we restart from near-scratch.
The Anthropocene
This will happen to us, and the Anthropocene will end if we don’t do something about the direction we are going. Our gasoline car is heading towards world-wide homogeneity and climate change.
RADICAL Mindset
One way to protect us against this is a mindset of co-management and co-ownership. If we manage to spread it widely, then we will have a chance to not end up in the same place we are today, with competition rampant, and domination as the only humanity-wide Umwelt.1
The RADICAL model consists of the RADICAL foundation, its tools, and new skills.
The RADICAL Foundation
| people | Meaning & Belonging |
|---|---|
| commitments | Decentralization & Transparency |
| practices | Experimentation |
The Tools
These are the tools that we have come with so far,
| Explicit Alignment |
This applies to a group of people working on a common project (e.g., a company). However you choose to express them, these are the key components that you must consider. The adjective “explicit” comes from the fact that 1) it means what it says, and 2) it is public. “Alignment” means that we are all in agreement with it (not that you have to wear a blue tie). The alignment comes from several discussions, not from a “boss.” |
|---|---|
|
|
| Explicit Relationship |
Inspired by J Kim Wright’s Conscious Contracts®, these apply to individuals as they create or enter a community. Its goal is to make explicit that which usually remains hidden for fear of being ridiculed or rejected. It is the start of trust building at a safe pace (psychologically and physically). The point is to let others know areas that you want to improve and could use help. |
| Future Tools |
There are going to be more tools in the future. For example, specialized and community-specific tools. Stay tuned. |
The Skills
Skills include the capacity to,
- Be inquisitive over being accusative
- Be playful over being rigid
- Speaking from love over a dominating lecture.
ENDNOTES
-
For more, see Anthropocene. Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene>
-
Max Kozlov. ‘Disruptive’ science has declined – and no one knows why. Nature. 4 Jan 2023. <https://radicals.world/naj52>
-
Alexandre Antonelli. Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems. Nature 613, 239-242. Jan 10, 2023. <https://radicals.world/Se6ora>
-
Maris Nuhkat, Mikael Brosché, Sonja Stoelzle-Feix, Petra Dietrich, Rainer Hedrich, M. Rob G. Roelfsema, Hannes Kollist. Rapid depolarization and cytosolic calcium increase go hand-in-hand in mesophyll cells’ ozone response. 233, 84–118 (2022). New Phytologist. <https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fnph.17711>
-
Mark Stoll. Profit: An Environmental History. 2023. <https://a.co/aBfRLRj>
