for - progress trap - dark futures scenario - like Easter Island but on a global scale

comment - The potential global breakdown of global industrialized society, rupturing supply chains so that our highly interdependent world becomes the very Achilles Heel that hastens its demise is chilling - It could mean a huge disruption to the most important aspect of civilization - the continuing accruing and inter-generational transmission of knowledge - It would be catastrophic to lose that, but it is entirely possible - As Wright himself famously said, to use a computer metaphor, we humans are like 50,000 year old hardware, running modern software - By that, he meant that our cognitive physiology (brain and sensory processing system) has not changed for tens of thousands of years, yet cultural evolution happens at exponentially faster rates, so much so that our biological systems are not adapted to keep up with the pace, and that spells disaster - When we no longer have the sensory or cognitive apparatus to sense danger, and we are offloading that to AI, we are in an extremely vulnerable situation

progress trap - Gedanken - Think of our ancestors from 50,000 years ago. - What Wright is saying with his metaphor is that if that child from 50,000 years ago were transported by a time machine to modernity, (s)he would have little problem integrating into modern society - LIKEWISE, if we lose all the knowledge fruits of accumulated over so many thousands of years, it would be like being born into a human tribe 50,000 years ago. - We would likely still have language, but all our technology may have to start from scratch!

for - progress trap - archeology - Easter Island

progress trap - archeology - Easter Island - The archeology tells the fascinating story of the progress trap that Eastern Island ancestors created. - Easter Island is desolate and only 64 square miles total - It is located 2,000 miles (3218 km) from the nearest landmass of South America - Archeologists trying to piece together the stone monoliths of Easter Island found pollen samples in the crater lakes on the island, proving that the place was once a thriving forest - By the time the first Europeans landed (the Dutch) on Easter Island, it was just grassy hills - How did it go from a lush forest land to a grass land? - The layers of pollen samples told a story - The aboriginal polynesians that the Dutch explorers encountered arrived about 1,000 years earlier - They cut down the forest, grew their population and used trees in many ways, including to transport the huge stone monoliths that paid respect to their ancestors - The original people multiplied then separated into separate warring tribes - The environment was devastated as the logging destroyed the forest and all the abundant ecosystem that provided for their sustenance - This created severe erosion and the soil became impoverished - The tribes collapses into warfare and cannibalism

progress trap - Easter Island - Sumeria etc - lesson - don't romanticize our ancestors - Human groups have continuously sabotaged themselves through overexploitation and lack of foresight - Progress traps have been a constant part of our species for a long, long time

for - comparison - Easter Island vs Climate deniers

comparison - Easter Island vs Climate deniers - When they cut down their last trees, the Easter Islanders could not even build canoes to transport themselves off the island - Climate deniers think the same way - justifying in whatever way they can the continuation of the current unsustainable system, until history will prove them too late

so strange... i was searching 'gold' and came across this phrase inverted as one of Leopold's musings. then i realized a version of this phrase — gold by bronze, or bronze by gold — recurs throughout the novel.

In reference to the "Easter Rising/ Easter Rebellion of April 24, 1916 in Dublin. [] Here a short article about the event. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Easter-Rising)

Time in the US, Homelife, Mexican traditions, Holidays, Spanish language, US traditions, Holidays

Makes a connection between fasting and Easter baptism

Like so many Donne poems, he makes great use here of astronomical imagery. I love this idea of the soul being like a spinning planet in the body, "being by others hurried every day", affected by gravitational pulls of "pleasure or businesse". What is your soul's "first mover"? By what is your soul "whirld"?

Selected images from the Desmond FitzGerald Photographs collection in UCD Archives were used to illustrate Conor Mulvagh's video presentation, "The Destruction of Dublin, 1916," issued as part of the UCD Decade of Centenaries web site; it is also available on youtube.