Nate Hagens [1] often talks about a wider-boundary view and nth-order effects. I find it both informative and enlightening as well as thought-provoking.
I find these discussions both entertaining and annoying. We humans unquestionably expect to be able to bend the world to our will, even when the “world” is defined by some arbitrary set of rules put forth by some faction whose intent is solely to serve their own purposes, desires, and needs, independent of a shared reality. Legumes, among other things, make you fart. Get over it.
And this is the predicament that people seem to either not understand or completely (wilfully?) ignore. As is said, problems have solutions; predicaments have outcomes. I think this [0] is worth a read (among many other similar analyses)
Some interesting, recent discussion: "Interview at the Technical University of Munich: Not only are forests more complex than is commonly realized, they also do more." [1]
Personally, I don't think the capitalist-driven agenda anywhere in the world gives a flying fricative about the health of anyone, only the health of the profit motive and it's benefits to shareholders. Food and healthcare is but one more example. Love or hate the JRE, I think this episode [1] provides much food (pun intended) for thought. The common person simply does not matter other than as a(n) (addicted) consumer.
What if we don't spend the effort, time, and money to 'decode' birdsong? What if we don't feel the need to uncover such, to reinforce the human exceptionalism? What if it really wasn't meant for us to know? What if we simply just relaxed and immersed ourselves in the beauty of birdsong? Would we be somehow deprived?
Canada, like most other global north countries (regions), cannot maintain its economy - at least in the expected way, that is of ever-increasing GDP as has been the trend for the last 75+ years - based upon birth rate alone. We are below the replacement rate. Demographics, another aspect of the so-called poly crisis whereby we see and interact with the world through the lens of the left-brain hemisphere, isolated and reductionist, rather than a necessary and more holistic "big picture" global view.
For an interesting and relatively plain language view:
"This is about the things you do, the products of your creativity, your expressions of joy and anger and pain and love and beauty. It’s about a company who used to claim to support writers and other creators deciding that all you do, all the things you care enough to express in whatever imperfect, broken, dumb way are up for grabs to feed to a machine whose expressed purpose is to replace you, to drown your work in the digital equivalent to toxic waste. And very obviously Automattic knew it was shady. Because they worked on this completely in secret: They could have introduced an opt-in system for third party data use beforehand. Communicated things honestly, going into an exchange with their users before accepting checks from Microsoft/OpenAI and others. But they didn’t. Because they didn’t think that the writers and artists that made WordPress and Automattic what they are and their work are deserving of respect."
This feels true to me. So my question is - and I don't know the answer yet, though I continue to seek such - when do we, as a humanity, break this cycle? When, and how, do we override the greed impulse, the impulse for power and control and domination of others? When do we begin to leverage a superior cognitive capacity enough to gain true enlightenment and break free from the bonds of behaviour which, while necessary as we evolved, is no longer required, and replace it with an egalitarian perspective and an accompanying stewardship model of life on earth?
So, the technocracy can use its billions (trillions?) of dollars (in aggregate) of influence to continue to perpetuate technology which buries us in distraction and dopamine hits and furthers the capitalist agenda, yet we are unable to amass the same kind of support and influence to tackle the existential problems with which we are confronted globally. Speaks volumes on the state of our humanity. Why do we let these people continue to drive the bus when it is not in our collective, long-term interest?
This is wonderful! I had no idea the museum, nor the Telecommunications History Group, existed. Having worked in Bell Canada for many years I had the pleasure of working on many kinds of switches including DMS-10s and also DMS-100, DMS-200/250, Step-by-step, crossbar, SP1 and PBXs including 701, SL1 etc (not to mention 1A and 6A key systems, Dataroute, T-carrier and many other analog and digital systems). Interesting side note. If, as a telecom technician, you were weened on mechanical switch systems like step-by-step, you really understood call processing at a level that carried well through to hybrid and all digital systems whereas techs who entered the scene at the digital stage didn't have the same (or so it seemed) level of understanding which made a big difference in troubleshooting CO problems.
I don't know. We seem to get down right giddy, wallowing in our cleverness to create solutions to problems we, ourselves, have created, without addressing the root cause or making any changes which will negate the need for our so-called solution. Imagine a world where we don't have to be this cleaver to thrive and live healthy and fruitful lives.
[1] - https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-oil-price-myste...