How We Can Save Our Civilization

[RobertEarl]

Well... how?

What ideas do you have?

Or is the topic like the weather:
Everyone talks about it but no one can do anything about it.

[ZombieHorde]

1. This too shall pass.

One way or another.

[freshwest]

2. I wouldn't save *all* of it.

[veganlush]

3. get out and

volunteer for democrats. Flush the tea-baggers from the house. Switch to a plant-based diet.

[GliderGuider]

4. How?

Why?

and...

Does it need saving?

and...

Will it say "thank you"?

and...

Why didn't we "save" all the other civs that have passed away?

and...

Would I really be happier with ten billion neighbours instead of seven?

and...

Would they?

"It is more useful to discover the source of our questions than to seek their answers."
"A single connection is the quantum unit of the sacred."

~Bodhi Paul Chefurka

[RobertEarl]

6. Source of your question, PC

I asked How, and it goes right over your head or you ignore it and ask Why.

If you want to explore the why of we, you can go post an OP.
(hey, that rhymes!)

You are not lacking in basic mental capacity, so why not answer the question of How.

Shirley were you to be tasked by your master to come up with an answer as to How, you would bend over backwards with suggestions?

So consider me your master for a bit and answer the question, honestly.

But do try to condense it, please. You can howl like the northwind at times.

[GliderGuider]

7. That was my oblique way of saying that I think "How?" is the wrong question.

There is no "how" IMO. We have already entered the bottleneck.

"How?" implies that somebody is the master, and I don't think that's the case.

We're not going to save this Titanic, she's been holed below the waterline for a hundred years. All we can do at this point is make sure as many lifeboats of as many different types as possible get put in the water ASAP. We don't know which ones may help, so we should probably just toss in everything in sight.

Condensed enough for you, grasshopper?

[RobertEarl]

9. No How, no way?

Pretend I am your master and I have directed you to give me some ideas on How to save this civilization. That's all I am asking. Is that too much to ask?

Think of it in terms of your lifeboat metaphor. In what form would a How lifeboat appear? I know you can do this.... it really is just a matter of convincing you to do it, eh? C'mon, play along.

[GliderGuider]

10. First, define for me what you mean by "this civilization".

What are the parameters you wish to see "saved" that might otherwise be washed away by the tides of change?

[GliderGuider]

12. From this historical vantage point,

Would you have wanted to "save" the civilization of 1200 AD intact, as though it were the pinnacle that those who were alive at the time probably thought it was?

[RobertEarl]

13. In one word: Comfort

Our civilization is the most comfortable ever.

I like that I have been comfortable and wish that on everyone.

How do we save Comfort?

[GliderGuider]

15. Is our civilization really comfortable?

Are all the billions of illiterate, malnourished, garbage-picking people in the world comfortable? Or are they not a part of this civilization?

I think you're suffering from confirmation bias, brought on by your privileged position as one of civilization's 1% elite.

Comfort as we here in the crumbling industrialized West think of it is a chimera. It never existed as an aspect of the greater civilization, so it can't be "saved" as such.

Now, comfort levels similar to those enjoyed by Peruvian peasants or Portuguese smallhold farmers may be "savable"...

[RobertEarl]

18. Well, I don't know about you

But I have been uncomfortable like the starving masses and I have been comfortable like the 1%. I want everyone to know what that comfort feels like. That is what I'd like to see saved.

I find enjoying life to be so much easier when comfortable. I imagine most other beings feel the same. Why would i want to deny any other beings the same enjoyment? I don't, therefore there is something to save. The question is: How.

[GliderGuider]

20. In that case, I'm back to "We can't"

It would take resources we don't have, energy we don't have, political organizations we don't have and a culture we don't have.
There will be no ponies for everyone, I'm afraid - some things are simply too expensive.

[RobertEarl]

21. Just to be argumentative....Yes We Can!

We have resources. The planet is full of 'stuff'.

We have energy: The sun shines!

We can do politics that is beneficial.

Our culture is the problem. So your How^tm is to change the culture?

[GliderGuider]

24. Changing the culture would be a good beginning

However I don't think changing our culture would "save" this civilization, since civilization and culture are much the same thing. Changing a culture changes the civilization - just ask the Europeans about the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

I do have a lot of hopes for planting cultural seeds that will flower once we've gone through the bottleneck, though.

Overall, I'm not generally a big fan of trying to keep things the same. I like change, and I especially like big change. Since change is inevitable, I find that attitude keeps me from suffering.

[RobertEarl]

25. So that is your comfort level?

keeps me from suffering

You asked earlier about what this civilization means and I was not certain so I avoided that subject. But it is key to understanding what should be saved, or, rather, could be saved. And should it even be saved?

So here is a stab at it;

Civilization to me is the idea that we be civil towards each other and to the planet. That we do unto others as we yada,yada.

In light of the coming changes, how can we save our civilization?

[GliderGuider]

26. Given that definition, I'm not sure if what we have even IS a "civilization".

"Civilization to me is the idea that we be civil towards each other and to the planet. That we do unto others etc."

I see less civility to other humans and the planet, and less reciprocity and altruism, in today's global industrial civ than I do when I look back to Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies. So from that point of view guess which civilization I'd prefer to save?

I don't mean to knock that definition of civilization, though - I think it's a very good one. It just gets all twisted up in peoples' minds with notions of material affluence that actually have an inverse effect on those values - the richer we become the more those values are diminished.

[XemaSab]

29. I know I'm hopping into the middle of this discussion

I would say that "civilization" is the collected body of technology, tradition, and art.

I think we should find a way to rework the first two and keep the last.

[bananas]

17. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x262451

[RobertEarl]

23. wow. what a mess

Can't we all just get along? -

[tama]

5. My question is more modest

What can we do to give our children a fair chance to live a good life?

And my most basic initial suggestion is: stop believing in money and giving money power over life.

[GliderGuider]

8. It's also more sensible.

I'll add that it would help immeasurably if we taught them to listen to the women.

[stuntcat]

11. Make sure the babies who are already here will have a future before we make more babies.

Children are great but focusing so much on the next generation (and how they might save things) is not what humanity needs to do right now.

Now is time to stop passing the responsibility to the babies.
Now is time for every human to be finished with thier precious growing-up years.
Until we can get to the point where we all know the next 90 years will be a real gift to the children, then start making more of them.

I wish humanity could agree to focus on what's important right now, and that is not coddling a precious dna-bearer at the expense of all the animals and the oceans.

[bananas]

14. Eliminate nuclear weapons

http://www.globalzero.org/
http://nuclearrisk.org/
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/
http://www.psr.org/
http://www.ippnw.org/

[GliderGuider]

16. If nuclear weapons aren't destroying civilization, how can eliminating them save it? nt

[bananas]

19. If the gun hasn't gone off yet, why should we stop playing Russian roulette? nt

[GliderGuider]

22. Oh, we should definitely get out of the nuclear business.

However, if we got rid of all nuclear weapons, but ocean acidification, global warming, loss of food and energy and social breakdown finally does us in, the only thing we avoid is a regional nuclear war or two along the way. I think ocean acidification and global warming is a much bigger deal than nuclear war, but I agree they aren't mutually exclusive.

[Odin2005]

27. A Manhattan Project for green energy and infrastructure.

Including a national high-speed rail system, investment in carbon-free power sources, and large subsidies for electric vehicles.

[bananas]

28. The full solution to global warming

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/01/10/207320/the-full-global-warming-solution-how-the-world-can-stabilize-at-350-to-450-ppm/

The full global warming solution: How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm

By Joe Romm on Jan 10, 2011 at 4:32 pm

In this post I will lay out ‘the solution’ to global warming.

This post is an update of a 2008 analysis I revised in 2009. A report by the International Energy Agency came to almost exactly the same conclusion as I did, and has relatively similar wedges, so I view that as a vindication of this overall analysis.

<snip>