More than human world and Randers 2052

[AxelHeyst]

(I started this thread a week or two ago but it was still half baked so I deleted it. Here's attempt 2.)

We've been talking about the virtual world and the real world in a couple recent threads (EVE and sex). I feel like a world is being left out, the more than human world. I thought it better etiquette to start a new thread rather than derail the intended topic of those threads.

Here's a model:

(The more than human world ( the world of human affairs ( the virtual world)))

The more than human world: physical reality, bugs, dirt, sunlight, water, black holes, humans, dogs, salmon, oceans, the moon, thermodynamics, eating, reproduction, etc. The more than human world is inclusive of human meatsacks, to be clear, we're "fully embedded within it". This term is used instead of Nature because we use the word nature as something Humans aren't inside of.

The world of human affairs: politics, religion, the nuclear family, kinship bonds, language, books, symbols, society, law, the economy...

The virtual world: facebook, EVE, crypto, all of our bank accounts, twitter, netflix...

The virtual world is inside the world of human affairs. The world of human affairs is contained within the more than human world.

Each level doesn't require the level(s) inside it, but does require the level outside it. The world of human affairs doesn't need the virtual world, but does need the more than human world. The more than human world doesn't need the world of human affairs.

The boundaries are permeable in certain ways of course. These world categories exist mostly as loci of attention. When you are in the virtual world you don't pay much attention to the world of human affairs, unless intruded upon. When focused on the world of human affairs, you tend not to pay much attention to the more than human world.

Something that poked at my brain is language that I thought lumped the more than human world in with the world of human affairs, by using the term the 'real world' vs 'the virtual world'. I think it's not good, not precise enough, to contrast the virtual world against 'the real world' which is sort of taken to lumpily mean both the world of human affairs and the more than human world.

For example, when Jacob said that the real world was boring/solved, was he referring to the world of human affairs, the more than human world, or both? And by using the term 'real world', whether he meant it to or not, he set up a condition in the context of that conversation that the options were binary: the virtual world and the non-virtual world. It's fine to categorize the world that way, it's useful to do so in many contexts, but I think it can sometimes centralize humans in a way that isn't useful, depending on what type of conversation is being had.

And just to be clear, I completely agree with this:

Whether the experience of any reality is impoverished likely depends on one's skill of engaging with it and how meaningful one finds it. In other words, it's about the strength of the connection. I would not presume that peak experiences can only be had with/from physical humans or natural landscapes. Indeed, that claim seems rather like a romantic counterreaction(?) to me; I'll bet it's mostly made by people who are temperamentally incompatible with the "built environment" or the Platonic world of ideas.

As we become better at building more worlds, humanity might differentiate. The nature-lovers can be out in nature. The spreadsheet jockeys can sit in a cubicle. I think the mistake is in declaring one connection more meaningful than others ... that easily leads people in the wrong direction. IOW, I don't think we should try to "adjust" people to enjoy the same thing.

The meta-categories aren't meant to imply a value system of the worlds, it's meant to point at a certain relationship between the worlds, i.e. dependence. The virtual world can't exist without the world of human affairs, because it's the world of human affairs that arranges for things like datacenters and wifi to exist.

All right, with those categories set, I want to talk about the Randers thing from his 2012 book 2052: A Global Forecast.

One of Randers' points, as I understand it, is that biodiversity loss is going to be mega by midcentury according to his forecast. People will mostly live in cities and live very connected to the internet, and 'nature' will mostly be parks and nature preserves.

One of his recommendations is to not teach your children to love the untouched wilderness.

“By teaching your child to love the loneliness of the untouched wilderness, you are teaching her to love what will be increasingly hard to find”, he argues, which will lead to unhappiness and despondency. “Much better then”, he concludes, “to rear a new generation that find peace, calm and satisfaction in the bustling life of the megacity – and with never-ending music piped into their ears”.

From this site (I haven't gotten access to the book yet. I have read a bunch of the summaries on the book web page. I hope I'm not completely misunderstanding the context and strawmanning him. If he is being sly about this in some way, I and a whole bunch of other people missed the point I think, and so it's worthwhile to have the discussion anyway.)

1. On the one hand, I agree with Randers: I think no one, ever, should probably have been taught to love the loneliness of the untouched wilderness, because it's never existed. The untouched wilderness is a fabrication of the imagination of a civilized / western culture, a side effect of the idea that humans are separate from what we call 'Nature'. I think that the idea that humans are separate from nature is part of the problem in mindsest that has delivered our civilization into what people are calling The Metacrisis. Here's a paper about how the idea of pristine wilderness is a flawed construct. The book Tending the Wild is relevant as well, if anyone wants to dive deeper into a relevant topic. Check out Jonathon Rowson and Daniel Schmachtenberger as two onramps to thinking about the metacrisis.

2. On the other hand, his recommendation seems to be veering into the effect, intended or otherwise, of saying 'don't encourage nature connection or natural literacy'. This effect/goal that I perceive in his suggestion is what I dislike about the recommendation. I get that his point is that biodiversity is going to nosedive and so let's not fall in love with stuff that's going to be destroyed anyways. But 'Nature' isn't like some stuffed animal that we're not going to be able to take with us. Nature, aka the more than human world, is the world inside which the world of human affairs is nestled. The reason things are going to get shitty this century is partly because we've not understood our connection and relationship to the more than human world, we've not understood the consequences of our actions. We (as a society) need to be increasing our natural literacy, not decreasing it, even if that is going to make it harder to watch biodiversity loss. In other words, if you don't like watching species die, that's too bad, suck it up and watch anyways, because we need to learn from this shit.

The trick to both increasing natural literacy and minimizing psychological suffering/grief, I think, is to first jettison the idea that nature is or ought to be separate, pristine, lonely, untouched, or 'wild'. In a sense, what we're suffering over isn't any particular thing happening to the natural world, it's the increasing level of evidence that our idea that nature was wild and pristine is wrong, and has always been wrong. Maybe we're mourning not for the destruction of nature, but for the destruction of the idea that we humans are gods.

Zoning out and clamping headphones over our ears in the middle of our megacities seems like recommending that we all pull the e-brake at the 'denial' phase of Kubler-Ross. I'm struggling to see how this is supposed to work out well for anyone.

How about instead we push through and do the work necessary to get to Acceptance so we can move on with our lives and, maybe, Do Something About It All? Even if that Something is just figure out how to have a meaningful life in the midst of the sixth great extinction, through the slow descent, through whatever it is the following couple of centuries has in store for us?

Possibly, I don't know for sure but possibly, there are in fact actions we humans can take, even if that's just doing ground work for future generations who will be doing the actual work of rejuvenating the natural systems of this planet. Our generation's work might be to just survive as well as we can, figure out how to drop our footprint way way down, and how to shuffle good information, people, and practices from here through the bottleneck of the next couple centuries to the Ecotechnic Gardeners of Earth of 2322. AKA ere/2.0.

Either way, burying our heads in our megacities isn't any kind of functional response. It strikes me as doubling down on doing things the same wrong way we've been doing them for at least a few centuries now.

It's possible that this was all essentially Randers' point, and I've miscontextualized him. Like I said, I haven't had the chance to read his book yet. I'm happy to be corrected here. It just seemed to me that a lot of people were taking his point the way I interpreted it, whether he intended that or not. In that case, both my argument against his strawman and the explanation that it is in fact a strawman will be valuable.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I like the categorization here of the more-than-human, human-affairs, and virtual worlds. I think this captures the fact that the world of human affairs isn't more "real" than the virtual world because the human-affairs world is still a byproduct of human psychology. The advantage of the more-than-human world is that it lets you see beyond human psychology, thereby deepening your understanding of the universe.

This makes me also wonder if each level has a separate, but important, role to play or if this is a hierarchy where the more-than-human simply contains any experience you could have at the other levels.

[daylen]

It is hard to get everyone to view things a particular way, perhaps even impossible without totalitarian structure that suppresses individuality. A civilization just sorta does a lot of stuff and mostly learns from mistakes and near disasters. Not to say that conversation about sustainability is a waste of time, but that we each have our own ways of navigating the complexities of the 21st century (denial may be necessary to prevent psychological breakage).

I tend to believe the greater than human world is much more resilient than we give it credit for, partially because we often cannot imagine nature without us. Though, I assure you that it would be quite difficult to wipe out gaia (of single celled organisms). If we did than that is an accomplishment in itself (to never to celebrated). Gaia probably isn't going to miss us if we go extinct, though I think there is a pretty good chance we do not go extinct in the next 10,000 years.

I tend to think that more virtual access will only deepen our appreciation for the greater than human world (through self-reflection). Going out is one way to expand consciousness, going in is another way.

[Jean]

i feel a lot of sadness about place i love the get dammaged by too much people visiting them.
It is very egoistic, but i am very annoyed that rule are put in place to protect things i could enjoy freely for the last 30 years, because more people want to enjoy them now.

Telling people they shouldn't love the more than human world in the state it had while most human existed is like telling them they shouldn't have a family. It's zelling them they shouldn't exist as human.
The world might be too small for human to have a human life. But i don't see any reason to give it up so that other people can have it instead of me.

[OutOfTheBlue]

@AxelHeyst, thank you for this revised thread and for the pointers. I've found myself nodding along in many places, but also have further reading ahead.

At this point, I'll be just contributing a few quotes.

On the more-than-human-world (Bill Plotkin)

Cultural ecologist David Abram’s term for our larger world that includes the human realm as one element or subset; in other words, the not merely human world. Not to be confused with the other-than-human world, the self-organizing world beyond the human Village or outside the walls of our homes. Synonyms: the Earth Community; the greater web of life.

Note: Elsewhere, I've seen him uses the term "greater world".

---
On Nature (Daniel Quinn)

“[…] they start talking about Nature, which is perceived as being something like the aggregate of processes and phenomena of the nonhuman world—or the power behind those processes and phenomena. As people commonly see it, we Takers have tried to ‘control’ Nature, have ‘alienated’ ourselves from Nature, and live ‘against’ Nature. It’s almost impossible for them to understand what B is saying as long as they’re in the grip of these useless and misleading ideas. “Nature is a phantom that sprang entirely from the Great Forgetting, which, after all, is precisely a forgetting of the fact that we are exactly as much a part of the processes and phenomena of the world as any other creature, and if there were such a thing as Nature, we would be as much a part of it as squirrels or squids or mosquitoes or daffodils. We are unable to alienate ourselves from Nature or to ‘live against’ it. We can no more alienate ourselves from Nature than we can alienate ourselves from entropy. We can no more live against Nature than we can live against gravity. On the contrary, what we’re seeing here more and more clearly is that the processes and phenomena of the world are working on us in exactly the same way that they work on all other creatures. Our lifestyle is evolutionarily unstable—and is therefore in the process of eliminating itself in the perfectly ordinary way.”

“I think I understand all that.”

“Even understanding all that, I assure you, people will say to you, ‘All the same, don’t you think we need to get closer to Nature?’ To me, this is as nonsensical as saying that we need to get closer to the carbon cycle.”

“I understand. On the other hand, some people do like to be outdoors.”

“That’s fine, of course—so long as they don’t insist that sitting in a forest glade is ‘closer to Nature’ than sitting in a movie theater.”

“No one would ever think of saying that a duck or an earthworm is ‘close to Nature,’ and it’s similarly true that our animist ancestors were not ‘close to Nature.’ They were Nature—were a part of the general community of life. They belonged to that community as fully as moths and skunks and lizards belong to it—as fully and, I might add, as thoughtlessly. I mean they didn’t congratulate themselves for belonging to it, they took it for granted. ”

---

Just because (it's a great quote)

At the apex of his insanity, Man has even proclaimed himself a “geological force,” going so far as to give the name of his species to a phase of the life of the planet: he’s taken to speaking of an “anthropocene.” For the last time, he assigns himself the main role, even if it’s to accuse himself of having trashed everything—the seas and the skies, the ground and what’s underground—even if it’s to confess his guilt for the unprecedented extinction of plant and animal species. But what’s remarkable is that he continues relating in the same disastrous manner to the disaster produced by his own disastrous relationship with the world. He calculates the rate at which the ice pack is disappearing. He measures the extermination of the non-human forms of life. As to climate change, he doesn’t talk about it based on his sensible experience—a bird that doesn’t return in the same period of the year, an insect whose sounds aren’t heard anymore, a plant that no longer flowers at the same time as some other one. He talks about it scientifically with numbers and averages. He thinks he’s saying something when he establishes that the temperature will rise so many degrees and the precipitation will decrease by so many inches or millimeters. He even speaks of “biodiversity.” He observes the rarefaction of life on earth from space. He has the hubris to claim, paternally, to be “protecting the environment,” which certainly never asked for anything of the sort. All this has the look of a last bold move in a game that can’t be won.

The objective disaster serves mainly to mask another disaster, this one more obvious still and more massive. The exhaustion of natural resources is probably less advanced than the exhaustion of subjective resources, of vital resources, that is afflicting our contemporaries. If so much satisfaction is derived from surveying the devastation of the environment it’s largely because this veils the shocking destruction of interiorities.

---

Randers recommendation to not teach "our" children to love the "untouched wilderness" (let's call it the wild world) strikes me as an excessively bad one, but I need more time to gather my thoughts (and quotes).

[jacob]

I'd hate to contribute to authors being misunderstood, but it's not my impression that he was being sly about the recommendations. I think they're quite sincere. There seems to be about three strategies here:

• Adults who are already suffering from the loss of nature. These are often concentrated around people who love nature, that is, nature is a big part of their life and focus. E.g. gardeners, biologists, ... (People who have been trying to "save the world" for a long time are in this group.)
• ... some of whom are willing to risk/guarantee similar suffering in the next generation in the hope that if the next generation feels as bad about this loss as they do, the children might "still do something". I think we can add your (AH) position to this bullet point in the sense that they might also learn a lesson from the loss which will be helpful to avoid making similar mistakes again?
• The Randers/Lovelock perspective that "at this point it's too late to do anything"---a perspective that Meadows eventually also came around to---and that preventable psychological suffering in the next generation is immoral.

Integral ecology distinguishes between three different kinds of nature/Nature/NATURE. I forget which is which. (If someone has an integral ecology reference on hand, please remind me?) IIRC, it refers to the objective (I can climb a mountain), subjective (I'm awed by the elephant), and interobjective (atoms and DNA and ecosystems and so on).

Randers's point is that the interobjective will be gone like the way of the dinosaurs. Sure we can still learn something from the Holocene. We can study it and learn. However, we're entering the Anthropocene. Therefore, avoid developing a subjective attachment to the Holocene. It'll make you sad in the same way as if the dodo bird was your mascot and oh by the way mom and dad's generation killed the last one when you were 5. Also don't set up objective solutions, like a homestead, for the Holocene, because it'll be flooded and burn. Instead enjoy your "electronic entertainment system".

I think it's similar advice to not becoming a wheelwright or a farrier, this being bad career advice. Other advice [in the book] includes "don't become a tourist"/"get your tourism done now" because in 2052, the world will be too crowded in that there will be many more who will have money for tourism and so you'll either be priced out or you'll be standing in line. For example, climbing Mt Fuji is no longer a spiritual experience as much as it's standing in a 4km line that goes all the way up the mountain. Is it still a mountain, when it's full of international tourists who took the bus half way up? Is the last elephant in a zoo still an elephant?

So the basic strategy on an individual level is to avoid developing a subjective appreciation for what you can't get.

What I don't know is whether the advice is intended for the average person with average complexity (concrete/formal thinker, not systems-formal) of average stage and depth (wow, that's an awesome hotdog). However, I kinda think so. The financial advice for the average person is something akin to get an education, get a job, avoid debt, save 15%. If you lead with something complex and high depth, you might end up with people having a shallow understanding of what you're actually doing. ERE -> Living in poverty. Plotkin spirituality -> Tree hugging hippies. If this is so, then the Randers advice is simply what people in 2052 will think is common sense for the common man and not something that would inspire an psychotechnical revolution.

[prudentelo]

Much is lost, but much remains.

There is really a lot of nature in the world, actually truly huge amount, as most people do not want to be in it or be aware of it even. Of course if everyone did want this, would be desperate shortage. But since they dont, very easy to find lots of nature even in "dense" countries.

Fuji indeed probably ruined tourist trap. On other hand, can name two large temple tourist sites with no line in Japan just inside million-cities. Then go to Hokkaido or Shikoku and see about lines .,,

Tourist lacks imagination. LIke consumer, can get 4x more spiritual experience/time spent in line, if thought applied. Acutally, probably more like 4000x.

If you are ERE and like Japan why not move to Japan and spend year learning Japanese, then ask temple priests if you can interview for book you are writing on Japanese temples, and ...

One way out is that "tourist" "consumer" eventually ends up plugging (voluntarily, lining up for opportunity) matrix and can then be stored in very dense space, maybe even underground, leaving world for more imaginatives

[daylen]

For our purposes, we offer three definitions, which we label as NATURE, Nature, and nature. NATURE includes the whole Kosmos in all its dimensions, including interiors and exteriors: the Great Nest of Being. Nature (with a capital N) refers to the exterior domains of the Kosmos, the domains that are studied by the natural and some of the social sciences: the Great Web of Life. Finally, nature (lowercase n) means the empirical-sensory world in two different but related uses: the exterior world disclosed by the five senses (and their extensions), and the interior world disclosed by feelings, emotional-sexual impulses, somatic experiences as contrasted with rational mind and with culture: the Great Biosphere.

- Integral Ecology

[jacob]

@daylen - Thanks! So different than I remembered above.

[jacob]

In the integral terms of nature, Nature, NATURE that @daylen posted above, my rephrasing of Randers's point is this:

"nature" is the average or non-integral experience of humans, e.g. "I go hiking in Yosemite national park. El Capitan in the sun rise looks amazing and my fellow campers agree. We take selfies and post them on instafacetweet. Over there a park ranger is clearing the trails and fencing in a wildlife reserve to protect a rare frog."

"Nature" is the science-based understanding or "right-hand-side". It's the deep study and mapping of all the species, the terrain, how they interact with each other and the environment. An ecologist calculating population dynamics. A biologist talking about how the insects mandibles are perfect for chewing. "Nature" does not go into the subjective experience of that insect though. For that, there's ...

"NATURE" which is the integral understanding of the whole deal. In the subjective (UL) corner is the stuff of Plotkin. NATURE is not just a place to visit and experience the sights. That is just nature. It's a place that can connect you to your innermost thoughts and feelings as a human creature who is part of that nature. In the intersubjective (LL) corner, it's also forming a relation and including not just your fellow campers or fellow humans but all species---not just the cute ones---in a unitive experience. When that skeeter descends on you, you don't swat it away. You see [the feeding] as part of a cycle, sharing your blood---was it ever really "your" blood---and appreciating how everything is connected.

So using those terms ... what I think Randers's point is is that "Nature" is undergoing a transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene. This means everything (well, a lot anyway) you study and learn about now will be lost to "history" within a few generations. In concrete terms, Yosemite will burn in a wildfire. And your graduate degree in forest ecology will be useless. This also means that "nature" will be more limited. While it's almost already impossible to find true wilderness, it will also be harder to find "fake wilderness" like your local 2500 acre forest preserve, so better not get too attitude to those "nature" experience. Even if you love the "nature" experience of a walk in the woods, the next generation will not be able to as they grow older---so don't establish a family camping tradition but get them some good wifi instead. I don't think NATURE was ever part of his calculations. Maybe some integral theorist can find a way to incorporate the Holocene to Anthropocene transition of Nature into a greater superset in some Turquoise fashion; e.g. "this but a transition to a new world and it's all wonderful how we're all on this planet-sized spaceship witnessing this".

[7Wannabe5]

I think Randers prediction is correct on the global level (where few of us actually experience nature), but unduly pessimistic at the local level for affluent world dwellers. The first problem with his argument would be that it neglects the fact that increased urbanization of the human population leads to decrease in the fertility rate. So, for instance, while the world population of humans has increased from approximately 4 billion to 8 billion in the roughly 50 years I've been conscious of nature (age 7 to 57), the population of the affluent world region in which I reside, Michigan, has only increased from 9 million to 10 million. Current projections of world population increase over the next 50 years only add an additional 2.5 billion human (mostly in Africa) at peak, and world population may already be in decline by 2052.

When I was 7 years old, just post-peak industrial era in my region, visible polution was everywhere. Rivers were full of chemicals, the snow was black from car exhaust every winter, humans tossed trash out of their cars on to the side of the road, etc. Pretty much the whole state had been logged out by 1900 due to homesteading and provision of lumber to the plains, and the deer population was down to 50,000. In 2022, the deer population of the state is 2 million, bears, wolves, and wildcats have returned to the lower peninsula, and 53% of the state is forested (an increase of a million acres since 1980.)

So, at the simple level of predicting whether my great-grand-children will be able to sit on a beach and watch the sunrise over Lake Huron or take a walk in a forested area vs. immerse themselves in virtual reality game in densely populated urban setting, I would say that these are complementary rather than competing realities, and, hopefully, they may be able to enjoy both. The very real threats to fragile complex systems due to climate change and related issues, are as likely to wipe out the networks that support provision of virtual reality as the networks that support provision of nature experiences for humans.

[daylen]

What is the minimum viable ecosystem required to make humans feel as if they are having a natural experience?

The show "The Expanse" explores this question with belters having little access to other organic life, martians going more of the controlled greenhouse and hydroponics route (I assume), and earthers limiting population with natural reserves (I assume). Belters live a fragile life and they know it. It is interesting to compare this to more of a mad max or dune scenario where perhaps most do not remember how things use to be and so a religion tends to become pervasive. Before too long, subsequent generations can live somewhat blissful lives as they are indoctrinated into a purpose early. Or something like that.

Another approach is to look at cuts in the phylogenetic and technologic tree that would severely hamper both the feeling of natural immersion and virtual immersion (that is cascading extinction or non-recovery of technical processes stemming from resource extraction points).

I suspect that the rate of biological evolution increases up to a certain point of entropic configuration of inorganic matter on a planet(*). That is, organic life creates the patterns for latter life to flourish by diversifying ecological and materialistic edges. Gaia of single-celled organisms may take a billion years to become multi-cellular life on a typical planet, but perhaps once it has happened once a mass adaptation or re-population may [relatively] quickly follow a mass extinction (say several thousand years).

One cut that seems quite vital is of the extinction of trees which would perhaps not be completely necessary for human life but would definitely limit the tech tree. Plants in general seem quite difficult to wipe out as weeds will tend to find away around our shenanigans (and even thrive off our failure, see abandoned places with lots of artificial edges).

The fate of domesticated animals in largely tied to ours. It is quite possible that we will loose many of our co-evolutionary partners from climate extremes or from a general lack of animal diversity (as is already the case in a few instances).

With the population peak around the corner, I wonder what the supply chains will be able to afford in various regions (especially in terms of electronics) as our local worlds shrink. Seems like the U.S. and China will further isolate from each other for the foreseeable future. Like a relationship that needs some distancing. Perhaps ready to partially merge in the arctic five thousand years from now.

Lots of possibilities!

(*) A planet may start out rough [yet of lower entropy] state that is too chaotic for life, then approach a somewhere-in-between climax of biological evolution that then descends into a flat, and desolate desert of high entropy until being gobbled up by a star or freezing for a long time (until big crunch potentially).

[7Wannabe5]

What is the minimum viable ecosystem required to make humans feel as if they are having a natural experience?

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"- semi-autobiographical novel by Betty Smith -1943. Young girl growing up in tenement poverty in 1920s finds inspiration in the growth and beauty of the sort of "junk" tree (Ailanthus altissima) that can break through concrete, seek sun and flourish.

As with most experiences, is also subject to hedonic adaptation. One of the benefits of not being conventionally full-time employed is that it is much easier to find a trail or a beach where you can be alone.

A garden or park designed to provide a natural experience for humans inclusive of tall trees could be grown from seed/seedling in around 10 years.

[OutOfTheBlue]

"NATURE" which is the integral understanding of the whole deal. In the subjective (UL) corner is the stuff of Plotkin.

To wit: In his latest book, The Journey of Soul Initiation, Bill Plotkin identifies an additional life passage that ought to occur for most individuals having grown up in an egocentric and/or transitional society such as ours. This is a necessary shift from an egocentric early adolescence to an ecocentric/soulcentric early adolescence, the psychospiritual life stage he calls the Oasis, so as to later move toward the Cocoon (late Adolescence). As he writes:

Success with the developmental tasks of the Oasis [then] moves you toward Confirmation, the passage into the Cocoon, which, in turn, ushers you into your first Descent to Soul when the time is right. Confirmation is an even more profound life transition than Eco-awakening. While Eco-awakening brings about the shift from one early-Adolescent stage to another, healthier one, Confirmation ushers you into an eco­centric late Adolescence (the Cocoon).

ECO-AWAKENING

The shift from egocentrism to ecocentrism is what I call Eco-awakening, a major life passage [but not a separate life stage].

Eco-awakening occurs when we have our first conscious and embodied experience of our innate membership in the Earth community. All other affili­ations then become secondary and, in fact, derivative of our inherent participation in the larger, more-than-human world (which is to say, the not merely human world, the world that includes the human realm as one element). A romantic partnership and member­ships in family, social or ethnic groups, and perhaps a religious community will continue to provide great riches and lend abundant color to our life, but these will forever after be experienced as secondary. The vitality of the Earth community, of which we have al­ways been part, is now our first concern and first gladness and commands our greatest loyalty. What would our world be like if all humans experienced Earth as sacred?

[…]

Eco-awakening rocks your world. You now realize you had previously been a kind of refugee, existen­tially and ecologically homeless. The restlessness, anxiety, alienation, and displacement you had experi­enced all your life disperses like mist in morning sunshine. You feel at home in the world in a deep, rich, and unprecedented way, a way you hadn’t known was missing, hadn’t even known was pos­sible. Each natural thing is no longer an object but a subject to whom you are related and have always been related. Separation has ended. You’ve escaped the conformist-consumer “matrix" and returned con­sciously to the world into which you had been born, an animate world in which everything is alive, every­thing speaks, everything is related to everything else.

Eco-awakening is an essential developmental mile­stone in preparation for the Descent to Soul. Discovering your own Soul — your unique eco-niche in the more-than-human world — cannot happen without it.

[…]

Before Eco-awakening, we feel disconnected from the larger web of life. This experience of existential homelessness results in a compensatory craving for social acceptance as our be-all and end-all, and we act out this craving by socially conforming and re­belling. After Eco-awakening, when we are rooted in our greater and deeper belonging, we feel relatively little need or desire to conform or rebel. Instead, we’re drawn to wander deeper into the mysteries of our original more-than-human home.

Eco-awakening is an artifact of egocentric culture. In healthy, ecocentric cultures, no one ever goes through the passage of Eco-awakening. Children never lose their innate communion with the wild self­organizing world. They have no need to be awakened from a culture-imposed slumber or trance. They are raised in families and communities where wild kin­ship is a daily reality. Never having found themselves in the egocentric early-Adolescent stage of Con­forming and Rebelling, they have no need to be liber­ated from it.

Although an artifact of egocentric culture, Eco-awakening is nonetheless among the greatest bless­ings imaginable when it occurs. And it’s a necessary transition for any further maturation, including your eventual arrival at the rim of Soul Canyon.

Or, in the words of Daniel Quinn:

"The world is a sacred place, and we belong to it."

[…] I don't think NATURE was ever part of his [Randers'] calculations.

By teaching your child to love the loneliness of the untouched wilderness, you are teaching her to love what will be increasingly hard to find”, he argues, which will lead to unhappiness and despondency. “Much better then”, he concludes, “to rear a new generation that find peace, calm and satisfaction in the bustling life of the megacity – and with never-ending music piped into their ears”.

I think that Bill Plotkin's work in general (and apart from the above-quoted text on Eco-awakening, I am also thinking of the chapter on the developmental tasks of the Garden [his term for the late childhood psychospiritual life stage] in Nature and the Human Soul) make Randers suggestion look like a poor-visionned and misdirected one, one that falls short on most conceivable levels.

[theanimal]

Well said. From my perspective, his conclusions seem to be biased from his location (Europe) and his intended audience (people in dense cities). Looking at North America alone, the northern and western portions are vast and still with low population densities, unlikely to change for the same reasons they are low at the moment. For the person in an urban metropolis, his conclusion might be true as vacant lots get built up for housing. But at the same time, there are animals that adapt to changing conditions and continue to flourish. Coyotes are one, with populations that refuse to be eradicated even in dense urban areas such as Chicago. Deer are another, with many of the states in the eastern US at all time highs for population.

As prudentlo suggested, going to the most popular places is fine but likely to result in a standard tourist experience. The same goes for going on the popular trails in places like national parks. In addition to imagination, effort and lack of skill are other distinguishing factor. Most people won't leave the road and will just visit the scenic viewpoints along the road. There will be some who go out on trails but generally not too far from the road. Almost nobody goes off trail. Off trail more than a mile from the road, most non developed places in western and northern North America are the same as they ever were and you are pretty much guaranteed to be by yourself.

[ertyu]

But at the same time, there are animals that adapt to changing conditions and continue to flourish.

Yesterday night on the sidewalk there were mom, dad, and their 4-5 y/o son all crouched around a snail. Dad was shining his cell phone light over it, and he was pointing out things about it to his child. Appreciation of nature is hard-wired. I don't thing this "don't teach your children to love nature" thing is achievable

[jacob]

I think it's important to accept that the recommendations (actually there are 20) are based on a model simulation of the next 40 years after 2012. So from this point on, it's "only" 30 years and as such macro changes are fairly locked in already. Anyone old enough to remember 1992 knows how little time thirty years is.

The model computes things like GDP/capita, investment requirements for maintenance, cost of infrastructure debt, damage from climate change, remaining energy availability and bio capacity. Part of this is what remains for consumption.

So when you read the book, you're basically looking at a bunch of curves for each of these variables and the recommendations reflect where those curves are going in respective parts of the world.

The idea [behind the advice] is basically that life is going to be more pleasant if one follows the trend of where those curves are going. Not where one would like them to be. Not resisting them. It's basically the equivalent of someone in 1992 suggesting you should get into computers because that's where the future is. Those who took that advice (I didn't) are currently living in easy-mode because they jumped on the correct trend.

So first thing to consider is is that the prediction takes into account more just absolute population size but also how old the demographics is. It then computes how much money they have for "wants" (consumption) and how much they have for "needs" (investment which includes fixing hurricane damage, afforesting wildfire areas, etc.).

And from this we can conclude certain things and create some rudimentary/general advice.

GDP/capita will still be going up, so people will be working as hard as ever. They just won't be able to enjoy their money as much as we currently do because increasingly more money will go to paying for debt, damage, lack of maintenance, and shortages. Whether this will be via tax, insurance, or out-of-pocket is a political issue, but the cost will be there. This means there will be less money for consumption.

(Another piece of Randers advice is not to get attached to "getting rich" in the way Americans currently are. Find your happiness beyond the world of "owning nicer things". I think GenZ is already moving in that direction because they have to. But imagine the resentment of a child who has been raised in the belief that they deserve nice things, only to find that they can't afford them as adults. Or the self-worth of someone whose parents think the child is a failure because they aren't as materially successful. OK, Boomer.)

As consumption/capita decreases, it means there's less money available to "go forth into the woods" compared to how many can currently afford that. (BTW the predictions are separate for each "region" of the world. I'm talking US here.) This could mean both the decreased ability to afford the trip, but it could also mean that the average person is simply priced out of living the "nice areas". You already see this effect in some places. The trend says it will be worse. The PNW will become even more unaffordable for most people.

Of course you'll almost always be able to find a place with no/few people, but the reason for that is that the place generally sucks. It's arid, hot, etc. and so [almost] nobody wants to live there. Insofar it's fun to visit, you might not be able to afford that in 2052. Therein lies the catch. (Of course if you can learn to scrap out a living in the desert AND like it, you're all set.)

Biodiversity&capacity is going down. So, to take the example above, while there's more deer, there are also fewer predators (because humans don't like them around their new development in Pendler-Woods). Consequently there are more mice and so the forests are full of ticks and so there's more Lyme disease. (Try pulling up a chart of how much area Lyme increasingly covers year by year.) So you can go shoot a deer, but that's not exactly what he's talking about. [Note: It's important to note the quality and not just sum up some quantity.]

The lack of consumption also means less money to go towards the ability to attain an ecocentric or kosmocentric state by going to a circling workshop. This is already something that's only affordable to the "Yoga Bourgeoisie". Most people are ego- or at best socio-centric. A person who goes deer-hunting in their truck is going into (lower case) "nature" to shoot a quarry for themselves and their family. They're not looking to become one with all through meditation about (all upper case) "NATURE". Again, I'm talking generalities.

And here's the kicker. It's not possible to look at the US in isolation. The reason the west is or rather looks sustainable with more nature than in the 1960s is that we outsourced our heavy manufacturing and pollution to poorer countries. It's not like we gave up the resulting products---hence the often giant trade imbalances we hide with government debt---it's just swept under the carpet. Out of sight, out of mind or at least out of accounting for it. However, heavy industry is what makes a country materially rich if polluted. As emerging industrial countries get equally rich, they'll start charging more. Industry will move back to the first world and the wheel will turn. Our pollution will be back in our backyards, where we'll be paying to clean it up lest it decreases biodiversity further. See how it's all connected? This is what makes the predicament hard to escape. Any trick that solves one problem just creates two new ones.

On the consumptive side, you now have more people in the world who can afford the same goods. If you're reading this, you're probably part of the 10% most affluent in the world right now. Thirty years from now, many in the rest of the world will have caught up. You'll be slightly poorer in absolute terms, but significantly poorer in relative terms. If a public good is exclusive, which is the case for natural areas, there will be many more who can outbid you in 30 years. That is basically to say that your current privilege is not worth as much when others also attain that privilege. Likely people will be putting up signs and walls to keep those tourists, foreigners, upstaters, downstaters, etc. out.

In conclusion, this is where the trends are going. I'm sure there will be clever workarounds. However, those will not be available to the average person and it is that kind of person the advice was intended for.

[AxelHeyst]

Nice. That aligns with my understanding of where Randers was coming from.

My discomfort, to try to use fewer words to describe what I OP'd with, has nothing to do with anyone's personal experience of Nature (although the discussion around that is very interesting), and also for the purposes of this thread I think it's fine to accept that the next 30 years are going to play out according to those curves - so I'm not arguing that we should try to do something different in order to bring about some different future by 2052. Let's just say we're on the rails of Randers' curves to 2052.

• The More Than Human (MTH) world is where our food, energy, water, and air comes from, and where our pollution goes. (obviously Randers understands this: it's how the model works)
• The World of Human Affairs depends entirely on some level of functioning of the MTH world in order for these flows of food etc to continue.
• The world of human affairs is interacting with the MTH world in such a way that the flows of food, air, water, etc are changing, often in unexpected and unintended ways. We're in overshoot of the MTH world's carrying capacity and are drawing down the resource base.
• The more we as humans understand the MTH world, and the interactions between the two worlds, the less likely we are to suddenly find ourselves without food, water, energy, air, etc in a localized or globalized way. Or: it will require deep knowledge of the MTH world in order to develop a relationship with it where we are no longer drawing it down, and live at a point below the carrying capacity.
• Arguably one reason our current flows are going unstable is because we haven't understood the MTH world, or our relationship with it, well enough. We've been poking it with a stick / trying to figure out how to answer the question "How can we keep living well above the real carrying capacity of the MTH world?" which has only one answer that has been politically unappealing which is why we've ignored it.
• Thus, in the future, including the next 30 years but also beyond 2052, it is important for humans to understand the MTH world as well as we can, and our relationship with it. In other words, one generalized strategy that our species ought to adopt is a program, initiative, culture of increasing our understanding of the MTH world.
• And this is why I'm not happy with the recommendation. It seems to centralize the issue of people's feeeeelings about having pretty nature to look at via driving or flying, and downplay the issue of where food comes from. Or rather, I feel that it ignores the link between people's relationship with the MTH world and the species' overall ability to interact with it in a functional, below-carrying-capacity sort of way.

However,

...those will not be available to the average person and it is that kind of person the advice was intended for.

So, fair enough, maybe in Randers' vision only specialists need to know how the MTH world functions in order to get food. In that case, this is the real point of divergence, because I think the future past 2052 will need to have much, much higher portions of society to have deep practical knowledge of the MTH world. Because I'm not very happy with how hyperspecialization has worked out for society, among other reasons, one of them being that I see the surplus resources required to support hyperspecialization becoming depleted. Here I'm looking beyond 2052 of course, to some point when I imagine the megacities hollowing out as the basis for maintaining them erodes over time.

Add:
I might take a stab at rephrasing the recommendation in a way that doesn't bother me:

• Don't teach your kids to have a recreational relationship with Nature. Don't let them feel entitled to driving or flying eco-tourism holidays to unspoiled national parks.
• Do teach your kids to develop a deep curiosity about the MTH world, and encourage them to learn and understand everything they can about it. Don't let your kids think tomatoes come from the supermarket. Don't let your kids not know that hyenas rip the stomachs out of wildebeests while they're still alive because lions will come soon (or, rather, that's what they used to do, when lions and wildebeests and hyenas still existed). Don't let your kids not know that birds talk to each other. Take them to the big agribusiness farms if you have to, and ask them questions to get them to discover on their own what pollination is, and why there are robots with q-tips flying around, and what bees were. Etc.

(Of course if you can learn to scrap out a living in the desert AND like it, you're all set.)

fremenERE

[Slevin]

fremenERE

Isn’t that what serenity and the new studio are about? Just need some desert fog nets and you can start calling yourself Lisan al Gaib .

[candide]

@jacob. Brilliant post. Thread needs to get instant upgrade to "best of forum."

GDP/capita will still be going up, so people will be working as hard as ever. They just won't be able to enjoy their money as much as we currently do because increasingly more money will go to paying for debt, damage and shortages. Whether this will be via tax, insurance, or out-of-pocket is a political issue, but the cost will be there. This means there will be less money for consumption.

There are big implications for even ERE 1.0 with this. I take as a given the higher cost of doing business, but the different paths that cost can take require different kinds of bets.

Taxation. In this world, costs will go up, so the amount needed to get to the magical 4% will have to higher, and the math will dinged on both ends, as it will be harder to get a savings rate going. This means many of the marginally FI -- myself very much included -- will have to go back to work, at least in spurts.

Out-of-pocket. This is where skill-based (and using social capital as barter for access to skills) approaches shine. . . I'm also counting "doing without" as a skill. This makes lowering costs and plugging shortages a series of part-time jobs, and while this is ERE explained by Jacob, this work goes against the stated preferences and actions of most of SWE-FI, even many people on this forum. The high taxation would might be the easier one for them to cope with, as it will do more to hold together the world they know the cheat-codes for longer.

Insurance. Translates to my mind as the worst of both worlds. But that might also be the product of living in Red State that refused the medicare expansion, thus leaving insurance by far the biggest expense I have to plan for. Ah, high cost to satisfy the rules and regulations AND exploitative and with unpredictable payouts to satisfy the needs of sharesholders/insiders with stock options. Mmm. . . sign me the fuck up.

The breakdown of systems creates incentives to do some hoarding. The problems being 1) those purchases can't compound (though they may keep up with inflation) 2) you are now going to be extra hurt by certain natural disasters or theft. . . All of which increases the FI number.

I might take a stab at rephrasing the recommendation in a way that doesn't bother me:
Don't teach your kids to have a recreational relationship with Nature. Don't let them feel entitled to driving or flying eco-tourism holidays to unspoiled national parks.

I think that is spot on.

As my daughter grows, I plan to have the conversations like you mention in your second bullet point, but I'll try to instill the connection, wonder, and love with where nature grows through the cracks -- literal and figurative. We'll look at the birds, we'll see what bugs come into the garden, and so on. She might not learn hundreds of species of plants, but she'll know intimately the rhythms of a dozen or so very well. . . That's at least what I can give her; she may one day hunger to know a lot more, and I'll try to figure out how to support that if that eventuality comes.