Are you a Doomer™?

[GliderGuider]

43. A lot of people accused of being Doomers™ are actually Wayseers™.

The issue about "wanting to see the illusion crumble" is a contentious one, to use some British understatement. Expressing that desire seems to trigger an almost atavistic revulsion in many people. Their distaste is also reflected in their compulsive desire to keep the Civ/Tech game going as long and as high as humanly possible, as though stepping off that path somehow denies an essential aspect of our humanity. Wanting to see the game change and go back to a lower level is often characterized as treachery and defeatism.

IMO this view is the direct result of the Education for Empire™ program implemented through schools and the media. That program is devoted to making sure that we Fit the Machine™, while accepting the characteristics of the machine as a given. In the words of Daniel Quinn, it is dedicated to fostering the belief that this is the only possible way humans can live, and that we have always breen meant to live this way.

A lot of people have started to question those Imperial™ assumptions. They have the sneaking feeling that it's OK to be who they are, even though that's at odds with the Program™. Even worse they have begun to suspect that maybe the Program™ itself (the one we've been following for the last 10,000 years or so) night be a crock of shit - that its goals are antithetical to Life™ and its methods intrinsically harmful.

What's more, many of us are starting to realize that the way we've been treated by the Program™ - had our egos twisted, our values warped, and even been taught to believe that were were wrong or even broken for feeling as we do - is the source of much of our alienation, misery and self-loathing.

Now (finally) some of us are starting to say,

"Enough! I am not broken. There is nothing traitorous about wanting to live a simpler life. There is nothing sacred about flat screen TVs, cars and the waterfall model of software development. There is nothing vile about wanting fewer people on the planet. There is no treachery in wanting humanity to do less in order to leave more space for other life. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a Leaver™ instead of a Taker™."

This feeling is very well expressed in the remarkable Wayseer Manifesto video. It's also the underpinning of the Occupy movement, of Via Campesina and other such grass roots movements.

I have always loved big, revolutionary change. It excites me to see old orders summarily swept away, and something brand new and unexpected take their place. I hope with my whole heart that we will see such a change explode through our civilization as its calcified carapace begins to crack under the stress of the multiple organ failures its own actions have precipitated.

I suspect you're a Wayseer. Good luck!