The Great Leap the Human Race Needs to Make -- And Fast

[Nevilledog]

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Maranoa Girl
@GDixon1977
“To our systems & institutions, we have no intrinsic worth. The ‘economy’ matters more than our lives, hence the false tradeoff between the economy & public health. Therefore, we don’t deserve much of anything, from healthcare to retirement…” — @umairh

eand.co
The Great Leap the Human Race Needs to Make — And Fast
What the Next Historic Wave of Progress, Leadership, and Innovation is Really About
4:29 PM · Feb 9, 2022

https://eand.co/the-great-leap-the-human-race-needs-to-make-and-fast-be0906b9df06

Sometimes, an especially tragic fact hits me.

Koalas are on the verge of going functionally extinct. “Functionally,” meaning their numbers will soon be too small to produce the next generation of koalas. Like me, perhaps you grew up thinking of koalas as little and beautiful things. If you want to split hairs, by the way, there’s been some debate about it, mostly because nobody has the resources to really count how many koalas there are…but that’s telling in itself. Let’s say simply that koalas are in profound trouble, and their numbers are declining swiftly.

It’s a tiny example of the stakes we face, my friends. We human beings have to make an epic shift to taking care of the world all around us — including ourselves. We need to become a nurturing species now, not a predatory one. And our whole politics and economics must reflect that. How are we to do that?

I’m the furthest thing from a tree-hugging green radical. I’ve never cared much about the environment or the planet, on some kind of intense personal level. But when human-caused mass extinction becomes the stuff of everyday headlines…I think any sensible person has to conclude: something has gone badly, badly wrong. With our politics. With our economics. With our culture. But what, exactly? How did we get here?

Another way of asking that is: what would it have taken to have saved the koalas? I want to answer that question backwards. (And I don’t think “but the koalas aren’t all the way extinct yet!” is in any way an appropriate defense, except to someone with the moral fibre of a Zuck or a Bezos. I mean: “to have saved all those which died needlessly?”) By the way, I’m going to put the following in unfamiliar terms, which might feel strange and even outlandish to you. That’s because I want to reduce the challenge before us to its simplest and truest essence.

*snip*

[qazplm135]

1. one of humanity's worst qualities

is we take forever to respond to long term threats.

One of our bests is our ability to respond to short term threats, but the problem is once this long term threat becomes a short term threat our ability to respond is going to be very restricted.

[Poiuyt]

2. One of humanity's other worst qualities is that we worship the dollar more than anything else

including our health.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

3. This is what I have been trying to say on DU

That the systems destroying life for money are sociopaths.
I hate capitalism because capitalism kills.

I hate the super rich because they are souless hoarders. Yet people say that thier offended I dont rah rah capitalism and the fuckhole wastes of skin sociopath billionaires.

I hate billionaires, I hate capitalism, hate sociopathy be it a a human one or a systemic one. I hate the shit life does to life,I think profit needs to die. I hate abusers of systems or people or animals.

I have tried so hard to say this but I couldn't put it in words like this writer.

I cried my eyes out seeing capitalists turn life into money and kill it. I hate seeing dominators crush vulnerable lives. I hate this culture of greed and death.

Yet I felt so frustrated and helpless and stupid having my feeble attempts to explain this money death sickness to articulate this problem and how it horrifies me. Just to get pooh poohed it hurt. This problem is huge, with millions of facets and needing help.

But Kudos with flowers blooming and koala bears dancing to this writer,Maranoa Girl.

She is so beautiful.

[Martin Eden]

4. Bookmarked for later n/t

[ymetca]

5. The path not taken

I remember reading some of R. Buckminster Fuller's writings a long time ago, and one of his "maxims" has always stuck with me, which was, something to the effect that the objective of Science was to provide the greatest number of survivable days for the greatest number of people, while doing the least amount of environmental harm in the process.

He then showed that, by linking up electrical grids, and eventually connecting them all globally, we could reduce carbon emissions drastically, while providing more power, more places with lower and lower costs, and so on.

For him, it was a design problem. Fix the design and fix the problem.

But what he failed to consider, perhaps, were the thousands of years of slavery, deprivation and oppression, which are maintained and worsened by design.

I have slowly come to the conclusion that hierarchy is the enemy of humanity. Any political design that is hierarchical must be, by default, antithetical to life at its core. It's designed to concentrate power and only intermittently and unevenly distribute it. A model which is clearly male-dominated, indeed "phallic" by design. Pyramids and skyscrapers are clear examples of this flawed misconception of how we must organize our human endeavors. It's only half of the equation, with the other half either ignored entirely or ruthlessly suppressed, until the whole jenga tower collapses, over and over and over again.

In order to see that it is flawed, individuals embedded in, and benefitting from, such systems, must begin to defy its constrictions, and it's flaws shown to be harmful.

Maybe we are starting that phase now? I don't know.

man made of dust.. died in his lust

[I_UndergroundPanther]

6. All republicans believe

In a " natural"hierarchy of humans.

Thats why anyone who believes like republicans believe,in a hierarchy need to be kicked out of politics forever.
Hierarchy ,
Thats sociopathic and antidemocratic .

[canetoad]

7. Where to start?

Stuff.
People want stuff whether they need it or not.

Travel.
Most travel is not necessary. If you think it is, take a good hard look at the word 'necessary'.

Food.
It's an industry. One which will ALWAYS have an audience. Are they interested in your health? Nope, they are only there to sell FOOD to a captive audience. Grow more.

Maybe the first human who chipped the first flake from a nodule of flint started all this madness. But there was never any going back. People will just not consider anything they think is regressive.

And ultimately, greed is at the bottom of all our problems.