for - book - Over the Seawall - Steven Robert Miller

book - Over the Seawall - Steven Robert Miller - A book about PROGRESS TRAPS! - How climate adaptation measures can lead to progress traps, such as - lead to a sense of complacency and false security - leading to overdevelopment - leading to even more people vulnerable to climate and extreme weather events

for - climate crisis - disconnect between - levers of power - and information of what is happening

climate crisis - disconnect between - levers of power - and information of what is happening - there is an abundance of scientific information available to political leaders, yet - they are failing to make the necessary decisions - why?

for - climate crisis - reflections - perspectives - human vs deep time

adjacency - between - climate crisis - different perspectives - human vs - deep time - adjacency relationship - Our global industrialized world is perturbing the carbon cycle so far out of equilibrium that the status quo civilization cannot persist very far into the future<br /> - the earth system has been through many such perturbations and it ALWAYS self corrects - Even the most extreme climate events earth has ever experienced are called transient because they are still relatively short in geological time - In the long term, the planet will restore equilibrium no matter how much extreme the perturbations human civilization creates in the next few centuries - In the long term, the earth is going to be fine - Homo sapien is just one of millions of species, most of which have gone extinct - We should NOT feel we are exceptional - We are comparing different timescales: - human lifetimes are measured in a hundred years - earth system time scales are measured in millions of years - even if there were another mass extinction event, on a geological time scale of tens of million years a new biosphere will regenerate and the ocean chemistry will be restored - Here we have an interesting intersectionality of different timescales. - paleontologists provide a deep time perspective - while we humans live in a timescale of no greater than 100 years - our bodies cannot directly sense change in deep time - therefore, any scientific information about deep time will need to go through our cognitive system - Our body is not evolutionarily designed to biologically respond to information on a deep-time timescale - It may be beneficial to help us see from a deep-time perspective to appreciate the geological-scale changes we are responsible for

for - limits to economic growth - physics calculations - by Tom Murphy show absurdity of continual growth - energy and waste heat perspective

to - Nature Physics - LImits to Economic Growth - Tom Murphy - https://hyp.is/CM3Grj9_Ee-obTc6jrPBRA/tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/papers/limits-econ-final.pdf

for - quote - carbon cycle - hijacked by political institutions and business

quote - carbon cycle - hijacked by political and business institutions - (see below) - In completely hijacking the global car carbon cycle now - the temperature of the planet - the pH of the oceans and - the oxygen levels in the oceans - are no longer determined by Earth system processes like it has been for all of Earth history - it is fundamentally rooted in human institutions - There really isn't any disentangling the the science from the the political

adjacency - between - carbon cycle - human processes - politics and business - adjacency relationship - The carbon cycle is no longer controlled by earth system processes, - as it has been for billions of years, - but rather by human processes of politics and business

for - Planet Critical podcast - 6th Mass Extinction - interview with science journalist Peter Brannen

for - progress trap - abstraction - the ECONOMY! - abstracted and separated from nature

for - progress trap - real dangers from - abstraction and siloing

progress trap - real dangers from - abstraction and siloing - Business processes create workers who live in abstract, symbolic worlds, never seeing the consequences of their symbolic manipulations - At the end of the day, the abstract, symbolic finance industry worker gets a fat salary and lives comfortably, whilist playing with abstractions of processes they are contributing to which they have no sensory information on - the separation of producer from consumer is yet another huge abstraction that cleaves the gestalt into pieces that we cannot see - ANTIDOTE to this - de-abstraction - re-synthesize - Processes have been fragmented and split apart - We need to find ways for people to re-synthesize and assemble the pieces back together again in order to - see and experience the whole picture

for - deep sensing - deep grounding - Deep Humanity grounding

for - educator - polycrisis - individual action - levers - climate and earth history specialists help with education

educator - earth climate history specialist can help with education about the past to help understand what we face in the present

climate education - low impact due to - ignoring perspectival knowing - and salience landscapes - It may help to look at the problem of education through the lens of Michael Levin's multi-scale competency architecture - https://hyp.is/FFxzRL2nEe6ghzeLcJGM7A/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10167196/ - Applied to cognitive and cultural evolution within the lifetime of a single individual (human) - The salience landscape of an individual can vary depending on their educational and cultural background - There are multiple categories of concepts, each with their own degree of salience: - immediate phenomenological experience - high salience - second hand, linguistically communicated experience - moderate and dependent on source - scientific reported phenomena - moderate, high or low, dependent on source and cultural / educational background - second hand, linguistically communicated experience - low, moderate or high, dependent on source and cultural / educational background - A key observation is that humans are evolved to detect specific environmental cue but miss many others - The rate of cultural evolution is so rapid that our biologically adapted processes cannot adapt quickly enough to the rapid cultural changes, resulting in the experience of "hyperobjects" - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=+hyperobject - education that is done haphazardly and in an adhoc manner will fail to discriminate between this large variety of salience landscape, with the overall impact of low educational impact

for - book - The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism won't Save the Planet - Brett Christopher

to - book - The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism won't Save the Planet - Brett Christopher - https://hyp.is/h01Tyj9uEe-rEhuQgFWRuQ/www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3069-the-price-is-wrong

for - climate crisis - we are in a pivotal moment

for - climate crisis - 5 deg C could reproduce similar levels of catastrophes as those in early earth history

for - Climate change impacts - human extinction - don't think so - paleontological evidence shows that humans are a resilient species

Climate change impacts - human extinction - don't think so - paleontological evidence shows that humans are a resilient species - ice ages are really extreme events that humans have survived - Before entering the holocene interglacial period we have been in for the past 10,000 years, the exit from the previous Ice Age took approximately 10,000 years and - there was 400 feet of sea level rise - North America was covered with an Antarctica's equivalence of ice thickness - there was a quarter less vegetation a on the planet - it was dusty and miserable living conditions - There have been dozens of these natural climate oscillations over the past two and a half million years and humans are about 5 to 6 million years old, so have survived all of these - Sometimes in really particularly harsh climate swings,<br /> - speciations of new hominids will appear along with - new tools in the record or - evidence that there's been better control over fire - Humans are resilient and super adaptable - We've lived and adapted to the conditions on all the continents - We will make it through, but modern, industrialized, global society likely won't

for - need for reporting negative news - galvanize support

for - validation - cosmolocal community organization - validation - TPF - validation - Living Cities Earth

for - validation - cosmolocal community organization - validation - TPF - validation - Living Cities Earth

for - cosmolocal movement - validation - Jay Griffith - leverage point - cosmolocal - validation - TPF - validation - Living Cities Earth

for - economic growth - physical limits to - reductio ad absurdum - physical absurdity of continuing current energy and waste heat trends into the near future

paper details - title - Limits to Economic Growth - author - Thomas W. Murphy Jr. - date - 21 July, 2022 - publication - Nature Physics, comment, online - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01652-6

summary - Physicist Thomas W. Murphy employs reductio ab adsurdium logic to prove the fallacy of the assumptions of his argument - In this case, the argument is that we can indefinitely continue to sustain economic growth at rates that have held steady at about 2-3% per annum since the early 1900s. - Using both idealistic and simplified energy and waste heat calculations of energy and waste heat compounding at 2-3% per annum (or 10x per century), Murphy shows the absurd conclusions of continuing these current trends of energy and waste heat emissions on a global scale. - The implications are that physics and thermodynamics will naturally constrain us to plateau to a steady state economy in which the majority of economic activity needs to not depend on physically intensive

from - Planet Critical podcast - 6th Mass Extinction - interview with science journalist Peter Brannen - https://hyp.is/66oSJD-AEe-rN08IjlMu5A/docdrop.org/video/cP8FXbPrEiI/

for - absurdity of indefinite economic growth - energy projection example of recent energy trends

-absurdity of indefinite economic growth - energy projections - Energy growth has typically been 2–3% per year since early 1900's. - This is approximately equivalent to 10x each century - Present-day energy output is 18 TW and extrapolates to - - approx.100 TW in 2100, - approx. 1,000 TW in 2200, etc. - In 400 years, from today, we would exceed the total solar power incident on Earth - In 1300 years from today, we would exceed the entire output of the Sun in all directions - In 2400 years from today, we would exceed the energy output of all 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy - This last jump is made impossible by the fact that even light cannot cross the galaxy in fewer than 100,000 years. - Hence, physics puts a hard limit on how long our energy growth enterprise could possibly continue

for - steady state economy - when we hit physical constraints - a major percentage of our economy needs to be non-physical

for - adjacency - question - degrowth? - circular economy? - steady state - regenerative processes

adjacency - between - degrowth - circular economy - regenerative practices - steady state economy - adjacency relationship - Where did the 75% number come from? Is there anything special about it? Is it some kind of a limit from the model? - Would circular and regenerative practices play an important role in this? - This would seem to indicate a degrowth type scenario. Degrowth is a misnomer, it doesn't imply continual economic downward trend, - but is specifically addressing a the decrease of physical human economic activity - that is responsible for our excessive pollution load / biodiversity loss - to levels necessary to avoid the worst impacts - It isn't explicitly stated that the other half of degrowth is growth of non-physical economic activity that nurtures and nourishes humanity

for - question - transition - from capitalism to a form of socialism?

question - capitalism to a form of socialism? - To say it seems ludicrous is an opinion that makes sense from a traditional capitalists perspective - From a socialist perspective, it seems feasible - Nothing is free of charge, however, even in socialism, there is always some price an individual must pay, it's more about the incentive structure that differentiates the two - capitalism - polarized towards self-centric perspective - socialism -balanced self-and-other perspective

adjacency - between - capitalism - socialism - differing perspective on self/other worldview - adjacency relationship - While capitalism relies on a self-centric perspective, socialism relies on a more balanced self/other perspective

for - decoupling - economic growth from - physical resources

for - question - decoupling economics from physical resources- degrowth?

question - decoupling economics from physical resources- degrowth? - The author seems to be talking about continuing an economy with - less and less reliance on physically intensive activities, hence significantly reducing our carbon and physical resource intensity

for - question - climate adaptation - resiliency - how do we prepare for potential collapse?

question - climate adaptation - how do we prepare for potential collapse? - How do we prepare? - preparation needs to take place at national, community and individual / family level - Resiliency will depend on how ill prepared we are at each of these levels - How do we prepare for: - high levels of suffering - ill-intentioned opportunists who are ready to exploit the chaos?

for - question - fusion and deep geothermal

question - I suppose it also applies to - nuclear fusion if it becomes feasible and - deep geothermal

for - quote - economic growth - pioneering economists saw growth not as permanent, but as just a temporary phase

quote - economic growth - pioneering economists saw growth not as permanent, but as just a temporary phase - (see below) - Given that - assumptions of quantitative growth are pervasive in our society and - have been present for many generations, - it is perhaps not surprising that growth is not widely understood to be a transient phenomenon. - Early thinkers on the physical economy, such as - Adam Smith, <br /> - Thomas Malthus, - David Ricardo and - John Stuart Mill - saw the growth phase as just that: a phase

for - absurdity of indefinite economic growth - waste heat projection example of recent waste heat trends

absurdity of indefinite economic growth - waste heat projection example of recent waste heat trends - At present, the waste heat term is about four orders of magnitude smaller than the solar term. - But at a growth factor of ten per century, they would reach parity in roughly 400 years. - Indeed, the surface temperature of Earth would reach the boiling point of water (373 K) in just over 400 years under this relentless prescription.

for - transition - renewable energy - won't work - because - the price is wrong! - Brett Christopher - green energy - the price is wrong - transition - alternative to capitalism - book - The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism won't Save the Planet - Brett Christopher

summary - This book provides rationale for why capitalism won't scale renewable energy, but a public sector government approach might - What about the alternative of community-owned or cooperative-owned energy infrastructure? A pipe dream? - Is renewable energy just not profitable and therefore has to be subsidized? - Perhaps it could be seen as a stopgap to buy us time until fusion, deep geothermal or other viable, scalable options become widespread?

from - Planet Critical podcast - 6th Mass Extinction - interview with paleontologist Peter Brennan - https://hyp.is/3ss3Vj9vEe-iDX-3vRVlFw/docdrop.org/video/cP8FXbPrEiI/

for - quote - exceeding 2 Deg C may result in a billion deaths - Joshua Pearce

quote - exceeding 2 Deg C may result in a billion deaths - Joshua Pearce - (see below) - If warming reaches or exceeds 2 °C this century, - mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans - through anthropogenic global warming, - which is comparable with involuntary or negligent manslaughter.

for - 1000 ton rule

1000 ton rule - approximately one future human death for every 1,000 tons of carbon emissions burned

for - seawater farming - business startup speed - 3 month

for - seawater farming - replacing normal agriculture in Bangladesh flood plain

for - stats - seawater farming crops - 300 edible species

stats - seawater farming crops - 300 edible species - education campaigns and cooking classes to publicize and new edible crops

for - stats - seawater farming - soil nutrition impacts - 8% increase in 6 months

for - soil problem - soil salinization due to higher rates of evaporation

for - agriculture - climate change challenge - less rainwater and less water retentive soils

for - stats - agriculture - 1/3 of world's soils are degraded

for - stats - carbon sequestration - salt marshes - 30x more sequestration than rainforests

for - saltwater agriculture - saltwater farming - seawater farming - saline agroecology - Seawater solutions - Yanick Nyberg

for - social tipping point - 2023 paper - paper details

paper details - title: The Pareto effect in tipping social networks: from minority to majority - author - Jordan Everall - Jonathan. F Donges - Ilona. M. Otto - Preprint date - 20 Nov 2023 - Publication - EGUsphere Preprint Repository

summary - This is a recent 2023 paper that summarizes social tipping point research for fields of interest to me, such as climate change. - I'm reading, looking for any real world experimental validation of social tipping point in climate change - I didn't find any but still interesting

from - search - google - research on complex contagion refutes the 25% social tipping point threshold - https://www.google.com/search?q=research+on+complex+contagion+refutes+the+25%25+social+tipping+point+threshold&oq=research+on+complex+contagion+refutes+the+25%25+social+tipping+point+threshold&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRhA0gEJMjAyOTRqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 - search results returned of interest - The Pareto effect in tipping social networks: from minority to ... - https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-2241/

for - social tipping points - Centola 25% threshold - critique - from - Medium - Social tipping points are probably overrated

article details - title - Overselling the Science of Social Tipping Points - author - Peter Licari, PhD - date - 11 Jjune, 2018 - publication - Medium - https://prlicari.medium.com/overselling-the-science-of-social-tipping-points-16095145d32

from - Medium - Social tipping points are probably overrated - https://hyp.is/yMaQND7WEe-Q2zsiwzB5wA/jamesozden.substack.com/p/social-tipping-points-are-probably

for - social tipping points - Centola 25% threshold - critique - to - Medium - Overselling the Science of Tipping Points

comment - The author raises valid critique of Centola's 25% threshold. - His main critique concerns the experiment not representing real world complex scenarios and is summarized in 3 points: - The experimental method used is an oversimplification of the complexity of real world complex issues such as climate change denial and meat eating, which are deeply ingrained beliefs in many cases. - No such attachment exists in the experimental setup - In the experiment, the subjects were incentified. In complex real world issues, there is often no incentive structure - Real life isn't all 1-1 interactions

to - Medium - Overselling the Science of Tipping Points - https://hyp.is/Aocs0D7WEe-knadNGOYVog/prlicari.medium.com/overselling-the-science-of-social-tipping-points-16095145d32

for - social tipping point - critique

social tipping point - critique - This is a good critique of the social tipping point 25% threshold applied to complex contagion, as claimed by Centola - Does Centola et al . have any experimental evidence applied to real complex contagion?

for - rapid whole system change - need for a new religion - Ronald Wright reflections

comment - Deep Humanity is not a religion, but a deeper understanding of our own humanity, what is it to be human? - but just as important, to understand the distinction between - human nature and - nature - For if human nature is a subset of nature, - which the adjective-noun "human nature" implies - then there is something within humans that is of nature herself - Is it possible that the many fragmented spiritual paths that have emerged in different parts of the world merely reflect the different environs from which they developed, and that in fact, they all are searching for the same essence? - If so, then in perhaps the times we are in are calling us for a global recognition of our common denominators that make us ALL human, - and then the even deeper common denominator with nature herself - So what are those qualities we all have in common as human beings? - and also, what are the qualities our species has in common with nature herself? - neuroscientist David Eagleman coined the term "possibileanism". Perhaps it is that?

for - rapid whole system change - need for something that will create a new form of altruism - Ronald Wright - transition - requires an experience of re-awakening transition - need for a new religion? Deep Humanity?

comment 10 July 2024 - Deep Humanity is our attempt at this. It is not a religion, however. It is humanity, but in the deepest sense, so it is accessible to anyone in our species. Our tagline has been - Rekindling wonder in an age of crisis - However, this morning an adjacency occurred:

adjacency - between - familiarity - wonder - adjacency relationship - Familiarity hides wonder - Richard Dawkins said: - There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, - a sedative of ordinariness - which dulls the senses and hides the wonder of existence. - For those of us not gifted in poetry, - it is at least worth while from time to time - making an effort to shake off the anaesthetic. - What is the best way of countering the sluggish habitutation brought about by our gradual crawl from babyhood? - We can't actually fly to another planet. - But we can recapture that sense of having just tumbled out to life on a new world - by looking at our own world in unfamiliar ways. - That is, when a type of experience becomes familiar through repeated sensory episodes, - we lose the feeling of wonder we had when we initially experienced it - It's much like visiting a place for the very first time. We are struck with a sense of wonder because everything is unpredictable, in a safe way. We have no idea what's around the next corner. It's a surprise. - However, once we live there, and have traced that route hundreds of times, we have transformed that first magical experience into mundane experience. - So it is with everything that makes us human, with all the foundational things about reality that we learned from the moment we were born. - They have all become jaded. We've forgotten the awe of those first experiences in this reality: - our first experience of our basic senses - our first breath of air, instead of amniotic fluid - our first integration of multiple sensory experiences into a cohesive whole - the birth of objectification - the very first application of objectification to form the object we called mOTHER - the Most significant OTHER - our first encounter with the integration of multiple sensory stimuli associated with each object we construct - our first encounter with auditory human, speech symbols - our first experience with object continuity - how objects still exist even if they disappear from view momentarily - do we remember freaking out when mOTHER disappeared from view momentarily? - our first ability to communicate with mOTHER through speech symbols - our first encounter with ability to control our bodies through our own volition - our first encounter with gravity, the pull towards the ground - our first encounter with a large bright sphere suspended in the sky - our first encounter with perspective, how objects change size in our field of view as they get nearer or farer - etc... - What's missing now, is that we have repeated all these experiences so many times, that the feeling of awe no longer emerges with life - To generate awe, the repertoire of existing experiences is insufficient - now we have to create NEW experiences, we have to create novelty - Mortality Salience can help jolt us out of this fixation on novelty, and remind us of the sacred that is already here all the time - For, what happens at the time of death? All the constructions we have taken for granted in life disappear all at once, or perhaps some before others - Hence, we begin to re-experience them as relative, as constructions, and not absolutes - All living organisms have their own unique umwelt - These umwelts are all expressions of the sacred, sensing itself in different ways

• What is required is a kind of awakening, or re-awakening
• When religions do their job, it gives us a framework to engage in a shared sense of the sacred, of wonder in the mundane
• In a sense, Deep Humanity is identifying that most vital commonality in all religions and seeing all their diverse intersectionalities in simply being deeply human
• We awakened once, when we were born into the world
  • then we fell asleep through the dream of familiarity
• Now, we have to collectively re-awaken to the wonder we all experienced in that initial awakening experience as newborns

for - quote - unfortunately, I think we need a near miss to wake us up - Ronald Wright

comment - But the problem is that we can't count on that because it may very well be too late by then - Is the extreme weather events now happening regularly enough to wake us up?

for - rapid whole system change - a new form of asceticism - Ronald Wright - Give me liberty or give me death - degrowth challenges

rapid whole system change - a new form of asceticism - We need something that can be higher than stripping away many of the liberties we take for granted? - This will be challenging because the American dream is based on the feeling and phrase "Give me liberty or give me death!"

for - progress trap - modernity can't run away anywhere from its ruins

for - adjacency - great biblical floods - deforestation

adjacency - between - biblical and other stories of great floods of the past - deforestration - adjacency relationship - Wright speculates that a not insignificant number of the numerous great floods in history could be attributed to deforestation of the surrounding watershed - Forests on the hills and mountains, the land acts like a sponge - The tree roots, leaves, mosses, mycelium networks all act to regulate the effects of sudden rainfall or dry spells

for - progress trap - planetary tipping points - rapid climate destabilization

reference - Ice cores provide first documentation of rapid Antarctic ice loss in the past - https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ice-cores-documentation-rapid-antarctic.html

for - progress trap - Agriculture appears to be a progress trap - Ronald Wright

argument - progress trap - Agriculture appears to be a progress trap - Ronald Wright - The early progress traps have been comparatively small in scale - During the stone age, there were no more than a few million people alive (3 to 5 million?) and - they destroyed all the big game where humans lived - The Sumerians, with a population of around one million people salted up and destroyed the fertile land of Southern Iraq - Now we have 8 billion people and a third of them are starving - Our continuous technology development is what enables us to stave off the day of reckoning but - we are losing a Scotland-size worth of topsoil every year to - soil erosion - urban sprawl - We still face the possibility of collapse - Our species has existed for 5 to 6 million years and - civilization is an experiment that has only emerged about 10,000 years ago - It's still very possible for the experiment to fail

for - statistics - progress trap - comparative levels of poverty

statistics - progress trap - comparative levels of poverty - modern civilization has - a huge middle class - a small elite class - a huge impoverished class - The absolute number of people living on less than 2 dollars a day is less than the entire population of humans only 100 years ago

for - progress trap - the agricultural-large family positive feedback loop

progress trap - the agricultural-large family positive feedback loop - Interesting to compare modern vs agricultural societies - Populations are dropping in most western countries around the contemporary world, yet - traditional agricultural societies had large families to tend to large amount of agricultural work - There is a progress trap potential with encouraging many large families with a limited land resource: - If you have larger families, you can cultivate more land - If you cultivate more land, you can have even larger family - until you reach a point when the land has been exhausted and you are now forced to reduce the population

for - progress trap - cultures that avoided progress trap of population explosion - Tahiti - via infanticide

progress trap - cultures that avoided progress trap of population explosion - Tahiti - via infanticide

• Tahitians practiced population control via
  • infanticide
    • It was ok to kill a newborn baby before it drew its first breath, as it was not considered a person until it drew the first breath
  • advanced Eroticism - separating sexual activity from reproduction

for - progress trap - dangerous mythology

progress trap - dangerous mythology - We subscribe to a dangerous myth that: - progress will go on forever and - everything will get bigger and better and - we don't have to control our numbers - or our demand on nature - because we will always find a way to make it work

• We have to break out of that mindset

for - progress trap - agriculture that could work - historical terraced cultivation in Peru and China

for - progress traps - exceptional civilizations - Egypt and China

progress traps - exceptional civilizations - Egypt and China - While 1,000 years seems to be the norm for the lifetime of an average civilization, China and Egypt have both endured 3 times as long - Egypt had the self-replenishing Nile River with topsoil being washed down from Ethiopia every year to maintain their soil fertility - So they avoided the salinity problem until modern times with the construction of high dams that have had unintended consequences - China also had unusual conditions of exceptionally deep layers of annually replenished topsoil called loess that were formed by being blown in by the wind from surrounding areas

for - writer's motivation - Ronald Wright

for - progress trap - inequality - resentment

progress trap - inequality - resentment - rapid emergence of the far-right and populus - Indeed we see so much resentment everywhere. For example, the far-right and populus could only emerge so rapidly because of such resentment of being left behind.

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 traps - interview - Ronald Wright

summary - In this more recent interview, Ronald Wright, author of "A Short History of Progress" and advocate of the idea of "progress traps", offers his cogent take on the world today, as refracted and reflected through an archeological lens - Wright sheds light on the relevance of history and especially archeology on our contemporary polycrisis, illustrating how, while different in details, are very similiar to the same mistakes our ancestors of every age have made - The archeology lessons of Sumeria, Stone age humans, Easter Island and more illustrate that it is dangerous to romanticize our ancestors as their mistakes cost them their civilizations, as much as the current mistakes we are now making may cost ours - I would add that our own Stop Reset Go and Deep Humanity research compliments Wright's superb work on Progress Traps with ideas borrowed from the East - specifically, Shunyata or Emptiness - Complimenting progress traps with Emptiness reveals another dimension of the perennial problem our species face since time immemorial, and in every generation henceforth - Deep Humanity integrates Progress with Emptiness, the individual with the collective, friends with enemies and proposes that we are approaching a singularity in our species, - in which all past civilizations are converging in one heterogenous entity in modernity - and the future of our species will depend on whether we can culturally adapt quickly enough to the multiple existential risks we now face - Our future as a viable evolutionary species may depend on the collective direction we move in in the next few years, of resolving the age-old quagmire of the holographic unnamable present in every one of us born into a living and dying body, continually fractures itself into violently polarized pieces. - Do we have the collective foresight to penetrate our own ignorance?

for - progress trap - habits of thinking - limits - liberty

progress trap - habits of thinking - limits - liberty - Technology has provided us with ever increasing types and scales of liberty - We cannot imagine taking away those liberties!

for - key insight - we evolved from hunters - who don't look beyond the next animal we kill

key insight - we evolved from hunters - who don't look beyond the next animal we kill - We are in a binge mode of subsistence that requires instant gratification - This is the same default thinking that runs our economy and much of our lives and it takes effort to counter it

for - key insight - progress trap - A Short History of Progress - we are clever but NOT wise!

key insight - progress trap - A Short History of Progress - we are clever but NOT wise! - In other words - Intelligence is FAR DIFFERENT than wisdom

new memes - We have an abundance of intelligence and a dearth of wisdom - A little knowledge is dangerous, a lot of knowledge is even more dangerous

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

for - comparison - history vs archeology - Ronald Wright

comparison - history vs archeology - Ronald Wright - Written history is very recent but archeology can go back hundreds of millions of years

for - quote - metaphor - progress trap - live off the interest, not the principal of nature - Ronald Wright

for - progress trap - example - weapons leading to nuclear weapons

progress trap - example - weapons leading to nuclear weapons - These are the most ironic inventions of civilization - We spend significant percentages of our budgets maintaining and escalating them, meanwhile, we all know we cannot use them as it would mean billions would die

quote progress trap - nuclear weapons - When you're talking nuclear weapons that can never be used you're investing in something that's completely useless - that you're maybe burying in the ground in the form of missile silos or - you're putting into submarines or - into aircraft or missiles - You can never use these things and they are draining off the surplus that might otherwise be used into - wealth redistribution and into - long-term sustainability

for - adjacency - progress trap - pyramid scheme

adjacency - between - progress trap - pyramid scheme - adjacency relationship - the pyramid sales scheme works as long as you can - continue to draw in new investors and new buyers - you concentrate the wealth upwards - you're not actually making real wealth - you're simply taking the wealth from the rubes who are coming in, in order to pay off the people who invested earlier to make it seem like it's a sustainable enterprise when it isn't (ponzi scheme) - Unfortunately, civilizations in their relationship to nature seem to follow that pattern - They expand the base and then when the base can't be expanded anymore - then all the environmental problems that have been hidden by constant expansion suddenly come back and hit them in the face - And those environmental problems of course cause social problems - They very often cause revolutions and wars because - suddenly people realize the pie is not getting bigger so therefore they become discontented with the small slice that they're getting, - unless they're people at the top of the pyramid - So it's a pyramid in the sense of a social pyramid too

for - progress trap - civilization itself is one

for - history - agriculture - Holocene required

history - agriculture - Holocene required - Ronald Wright makes a good point, without a long stable climate period such as the Holocene, agricultural experimentation would not have succeeded

for - progress trap - example - internal combustion engine / fossil fuels

progress trap - example - internal combustion engine / fossil fuels - This is one of my favorite examples. - Nobody could foresee that the ICE burning fossil fuels could lead us to destabilize Earth's entire climate system

for - definition - progress trap - Ronald Wright

definition - progress trap - A seductive trail of successes that leads to a catastrophic end - Ronald Wright - defined in his book "A Short History of Progress"

for - corn - thousands of years to breed from 1 cm cob to present size - transition - stone age to agriculture - importance of women

for - progress - transition from stone age hunter gatherers to agriculture - role of women and children

for - agriculture was invented in at least a dozen places around the world

for - meme - from gathering to gardening - Ronald Wright

meme - from gsthering to gardening - Ronald Wright - (quote - see below) - As the last ice age ended, - where a lot of people were trying to find a new way to make a living and - were reaping wild grasses and other wild plants - and gradually realized that - if they put some of the best seed back - they could go back to the same place and get more the next year and - over many thousands of years, they went - from gathering to gardening and then - full-scale agriculture - Anf they were doing the same thing with animals - they were finding that they started by following wild goats and donkeys around and - later on, realized that you could keep these things in a pen and then eventually you could domesticate them - and that area had a particularly wide range of wild species that were suitable for domestication

for - quote - Humans drive themselves out of Eden - Ronald Wright

quote - humans drive themselves out of Eden - (see below) - Human beings drove themselves out of eden and - they have done it again and again - by fouling their own nests

for - progress trap - example - from history - Sumerian civilization

progress trap - example - from history - Sumerian civilization - the really big progress traps uh come with with the invention of agriculture and - i mentioned the first full-blown civilization in the old world the sumerians who perfected the art of irrigation in what is now southern iraq and - for for several centuries everything went really well - They had built canals and ran the water onto the desert and were able to - raise more and more crops and - expand their farmland and - expand their population and - their cities got bigger - their numbers got greater but - what they didn't know is that the kind of irrigation they were practicing - was causing the land to get saltier and saltier - and after a number of centuries they suddenly saw their farm meals declining because of salinity - and they had to switch to crops that could tolerate more salt - and then eventually they ended up producing only about one quarter of the food that they'd been able to produce when they started -and the civilization collapsed - So they had walked into what i call in my book a progress trap - and this is where the myth of progress is so seductive - You do something that in the short run produces obvious benefits so you're getting this positive feedback from some new invention, whether it's - a new way to drive mammoth over a cliff or - it's a new way to expand your farm base through irrigation - but there's a hidden cost down the road which is often hard to foresee

for - quote - myth of progress - Ronald Wright

quote - myth of progress - Ronald Wright - (see below) - although the idea that this can go on forever is where the myth of progress gets dangerous - because there have been many times and places in the human past, - not even necessarily in our own cultural tradition - among other civilizations where there have been great periods of - expansion and - prosperity - and everybody started to get the idea that life was getting better and better - but usually those those periods of rapid expansion are done and nature pays the bills for that

Comment - history repeats when we forget the lessons of that part. - Historians are so important right now to remind us of past lessons

for - definition - progress

definition - progress - before enlightenment, progress was defined in a moral and spiritual sense - after the enlightenment and industrial revolution, it was defined in a material sense

for - quote - myths - Ronald Wright - adjacency - myths - perspectival knowing - emptiness - progress trap

Quote - Myths - Ronald Wright - (see below) - Myths are not necessarily untrue. They're usually partly true. The danger lies in the part that isn't true.

Comment. - What a great little sentence! - From this perspective, so many things that people claim as "true" are actually myths.

adjacency - between - myths - progress traps - perspectival knowing - emptiness - adjacency relationship - Myths emerge out of perspectival knowing of reality (Vervaeke) - The emptiness of reality is in stark contrast to reductionist thinking which is always relatively incomplete in comparison - This leads to the emergence of progress traps

for - definition - progress - material - economist Sydney Pollard - improvement

for - health - 2021 paper - sugar as toxic narrative

for - health - 2023 paper on impact of dietary sugar on human health -

for - reference - book - Gross Domestic Problem - https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/gross-domestic-problem-9781780322728/

for - progress trap - example - cell phone usage

for - progress trap - achieving narrowly defined goals with externalities

progress trap - achieving narrowly defined goals with externalities - Within the field of progress traps, - progress is the focus on intended consequences and - progress traps are the unintended consequences reference - Ronald Wright - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Ronald+Wright

for - podcast - great simplification - Nate Hagen - guest - Daniel Schmachtenberger - topic progress

for - health - 7 classes of dietary fat - to - article showing vegetarians can get enough DHA from non-animal, plant-based dietary sources

health - 7 classes of dietary fat - arranged from best to worst - omega 3 - alpha lonolenic acid (ALA - EPA (icosopentinoic acid) - DHA (docohexainoic acid) - only from marine life - fish - vegans and vegetarians NEED DHA to function properly. They cannot get in outside of fish. This poses a real problem - monosaturated fatty acids - olive oil

to - Physician's committee article on Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Plant-Based Diets claims that vegetarians do get enough DHA from non-animal sources - https://hyp.is/_4klxD1jEe-VvxuChksdEw/www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/omega-3

for - key insight - farmed fish have no omega 3 because they eat corn, not algae

for - health - causes of mitochondrial dysfunction

health - causes of mitochondrial dysfunction - dietary sugar - parabens - radiation from space - chlorpyrifos - glyphosate - insecticides - air pollution

for - health - mitochondrial dysfunction - radiation - radiation in space causes mitochondrial dysfunction

for - adjacency - mitochondria - good dietary fats

adjacency - between - mitochondria health - good dietary fats - adjacency relationship - good dietary fats are essential to good mitochondria health because mitochondria are made of fats and require essential fatty acids as building blocks

for - health - mitochondrial dysfunction - main reason - dietary sugar

for - question - health - insulin resistance - why aren't mitochondria within cells not responding to insulin?

question - health - insulin resistance - why aren't mitochondria within cells not responding to insulin? - The fat cells are being stored in the liver, resulting in - fatty liver disease - The liver stores the fat cells floating in blood (triglycerides) then recirculates it back to the cells. - The cells and liver are caught up in a vicious cycle of "hot potatos" with the fat cells.<br /> - (See Stanford explainer video above)

for - health - insulin and insulin resistance - simple explanation - to - insulin resistance - clear and simple explainer video - Stanford University health - insulin - simple explanation - insulin stores sugars and tryglycerides floating around in the blood into cells. - more detailed explanation - when blood glucose rises, then beta cell of pancreas start to secrete insulin to bind to glucose and put into cells for storage - Watch this clear, short video explaining insulin resistance from Stanford University - https://hyp.is/4Ymu4D1ZEe-jFfeB23zicA/docdrop.org/video/U1cr14xffrk/

for - key insight - insulin covers up the real problem of mitochondria dysfunction

for - health - insulin resistance - metabolic syndrome

health - insulin resistance - metabolic syndrome - When your mitochondria doesn't work, it results in insulin resistance - Metabolic syndrome includes an enormous variety of the major diseases afflicting modernity - up to 75% of the diseases that affect modern humans and - up to 75% of today's health care costs - and includes - type 2 diabetes - hypertension - dyslipidemia - cardiovascular disease - cancer - dementia - fatty liver disease - pollycystic ovarian disease - (he didn't include strokes here but he mentions throughout his talk)

for - personal health - metabolic disease - insulin resistance caused by mitochondria dysfunction - interview - Dr. Robert Lustig - health - dangers of sugar in our diet

summary - Robert Lustig is a researcher and major proponent for educating the dangers of sugar as the root cause of the majority of preventable western disease - He explains how sugar and carbs are a major variable and root cause of a majority of these diseases - It is useful to look at these bodily dysfunctions from the perspective of Michael Levin, in which all these diseases of the body are problems with lower levels of the multi-scale competency architecture - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=michael+levin%2C+multi-scale+competency+architecture

for - health - insulin resistance - a symptom of mitochondria dysfunction

for - diet - vegetarian - sources of omega 3 DHA - from - prof. emeritus Robert Lustig talks about lack of DHA omega 3's in plant-based diets

Robert Lustig says that it is a concern that vegetarians don't have a good non-animal source of omega 3 DHA but this source seems to show research that show vegetarians can get enough DHA

from - prof. emeritus Robert Lustig talks about lack of DHA omega 3's in plant-based diets - https://hyp.is/sMonLj1gEe-nPdM5M2H0qQ/docdrop.org/video/WVFMyzQE-4w/

for - key insight - health - insulin resistance

key insight - health - insulin resistance - This is the key to the mechanism by which insulin levels increase in the blood. - As our diet places higher levels of glucose in the blood, the pancreas responds by releasing more and more insulin to process this elevated level of insulin and the cells respond, - but the cells, especially surrounding the organs no longer store fat when a certain threshold of high insulin is reached - high amounts of visceral fat around the organs is then accompanied by fat being released by the cells into the blood stream, elevating triglyceride levels - The liver then starts to take this up and if there are now elevated trigycerides in the bloodstream, the liver and cells get locked into a vicious cycle of fat release

for - explanation - insulin resistance - Stanford University

explanation - insulin resistance - Standard University - great explanation from Standford University

from - Prof. Emeritus Robert Lustig on root cause of insulin resistance - https://hyp.is/RFJQrj1aEe-nIQu5Sj1fyw/docdrop.org/video/WVFMyzQE-4w/

for - health - heart - ferritin marker

health - heart - ferritin marker - If ferritin test shows high ferritin levels (abnormally high iron levels) it means swelling in the body, called inflammation. - Conditions that can cause inflammation include - liver disease, - rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions, - overactive thyroid - hyperthyroidism - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/ferritin-test/about/pac-20384928#:~:text=If%20a%20ferritin%20test%20shows%20high%20ferritin%20levels%2C%20it%20most,and%20overactive%20thyroid%2C%20called%20hyperthyroidism.

for - health - heart - majority of hypertension and high blood pressure is caused by insulin resistance metabolic disease

for - health - heart - Beta-blocker/thiazide diuretic combos

health - heart - Beta-blocker/thiazide diuretic combos - This combo lowers the blood pressure by - removing excess water and salt from the body and - slowing the heart rate. - These only mask the symptoms CAUSED BY INSULIN RESISTANCE

for - health - heart - the critical role of inflammation

for - health - heart - root cause of heart disease - lifestyle choices - dietary choice

health - heart - root causes of heart disease - lifestyle choices - dietary choice - root cause of insulin resistance is poor diet with too much sugar and carbs and other variables such as excessive alcohol - dietary changes can shift lipid particles to large, fluffy LD particles - high sugar and carbs is a main factor leading to insulin resistance

to - Root cause of insulin resistance - interview with Robert Lustig - https://hyp.is/l14UvjzwEe-cUVPwiO6lIg/docdrop.org/video/WVFMyzQE-4w/

for - medical deception - communicating relative risk instead of absolute risk is misleading and gives the appearance of a greater effect

for - progress trap - statins

progress trap - statins - heart health - Long term studies show that the mainstream prescription of statins to lower LDL levels over 10 year period increases risk for: - insulin resistance and - type 2 diabetes - both of which are primary drivers of heart disease - hence, Statins are a progress trap

for - health - heart - need to identify those with high LDL but ARE metabolically healthy

health - heart - high LDL AND metabolically healthy - against medical norms, there may be NO NEED TO LOWER THEIR LDL levels - and in fact, trying to do so may lead to harm

for - health - heart - In most people, LDL occurs with metabolic disease, and that's the dangerous situation

for - health - heart - LDL score

health - heart - LDL score - The AMOUNT of your LDL score is not as important as - The QUALITY of your LDL score - ALL high LDL isn't dangerous

for - health - dangers of sugar - Harvard

for - key insight - key issue of 2024 election is NOT which democrat to vote for, but to prevent autocracy at any cost

for - authoritarian regime playbook - take gradual steps to degrade democracy - Trump given permission to perform anti-democratic actions that don't raise red flags

for - 2024 election results explained - France

for - key insight - gainful employment of white working class led to cultural backlash and shift from left to far-right - to - Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace

key insight - gainful employment of white working class led to cultural backlash and shift from left to far-right - source - Davidson and Saul

to - Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace - https://hyp.is/8Hf0lDzqEe-KM9dQxJDxsw/core.ac.uk/download/pdf/84148846.pdf

for - stats - whites become minority percentage of US working class by 2032

stats - whites become minority percentage of US working class by 2032 - From Economic Policy Institute

to - People of color will be a majority of the American working class in 2032 -

for - adjacency - Neoliberalism - rise of the Far-Right - paper summary

paper summary - title: Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of the Far-Right - author: Jacob Fuller - date: April 2023 - publication: The Compass: Vol.1: Iss. 10, Article 3 - download link: https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/thecompass/vol1/iss10/3

summary - A good paper that examines the root causes of the ascendency of the far-right in U.S. politics, based on harmonizing two theories - emergence of neo-liberalism - racialized economic anxieties

• NAFTA is complex and is often oversimplified
• See this article that discusses its complexities

to - How Did NAFTA Affect the Economies of Participating Countries? - https://hyp.is/0j7PsjyUEe-LGOsFIWCyWA/www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/north-american-free-trade-agreement.asp

for - definition - deaths of despair

definition - deaths of despair - Deaths of white working class due to massive loss of livelihood caused by offshoring. - These deaths are characterized by drug overdoes, liver failure, smoking related cancers, etc - author: Case and Deaton

for - types of jobs lost to China - adjacency - job losses of white working class - far-right support for nationalism and protectionism

types of jobs lost to China - mostly white working class - upper management jobs did not suffer much job loss

adjacency - between decimated white working class - far-right - nationalism - protectionism - adjacency relationship - The decimated white working class are strong supporters of far-right politics - Pain and suffering of the white working class is a root cause for voting against perceived neoliberalism, which they blame for their loss of livelihood Protectionism and nationalism is a desire to bring the jobs back home

for - stats - US trade deficit with China

stats US trade deficit with China - Due to the cheaper cost of manufacturing in China, many U.S. companies have outsourced their labor abroad. - This has resulted in - a massive trade deficit between the U.S. and China and - has led to a loss of around 2.4 million jobs since 2013, or - almost two-thirds of all U.S. manufacturing jobs

for - quote - Mexico - NAFTA job loss - stats - Mexico - NAFTA job loss

quote - Mexico - NAFTA job loss - - This decline in agricultural production, - coupled with a sheer reduction in wages due to a lack of labor and regulatory standards in the agree- ment, - created over 1.3 million lost jobs in the Mexican agricultural sector alone, - leading to an unprecedented level of immigration into the United States

stats - Mexico - NAFTA job loss - Mexico lost 1.3 million jobs due to mass migration to the US due to NAFTA

for - NAFTA impacts - US - Mexico

NAFTA impacts - US - Mexico - NAFTA was a neoliberal trade deal brokered between the US, Canada and Mexico to promote "free trade" - 10 years after signing NAFTA, Mexico reduced tariffs of US agricultural products<br /> - This resulted in a form of subsidizing US farmers, who outcompeted Mexican farmers, - causing many Mexican farmers to move or illegally migrate to the U.S.

for - definition - far right

definition - far right - The Far-right is defined as individuals and groups that they belong to which are expressly nationalistic, focusing heavily on homogenization within a nation. - defined by Arie Perlinger

for - adjacency - neoliberalism - far-right - paper details - from -

paper details - title - Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace - author - Neil Davidson - Rick Saull - date:- aug 2017 - publication - Critical Sociology, 43(4-5), pp. 707- 724.(doi:10.1177/0896920516671180) - https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/84148846.pdf

from - Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of the Far-Right - https://hyp.is/eaKZaDzrEe-NQNPud8wuDQ/scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=thecompass

for - from - demographic trends - U.S. - people of color in majority of working class by 2032

summary - These statistics show a major U.S. labor force trend of - people of color constituting the majority of the working class by 2032, -10 years earlier than predicted by the U.S. census bureau. - This is a source of racial tensions in the United States being fanned by the far-right - The bigger picture is that - the working class has universally been ignored and - class inequality has been the result of a complex set of variables that - are fundamental structural issues common to both major political parties

from - Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of The Far-Right - https://hyp.is/F6XYujyREe-TaldInE8OGA/scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=thecompass

for - political polarization - challenge to building multi-racial coalition - to - Wired story - No one actually knows how AI will affect jobs

political polarization - building multi-racial coalitions - This is challenging to do when there is so much political polarization with far-right pouring gasoline on the polarization fire and obscuring the issue - There is a complex combination of factors leading to the erosion of working class power

automation - erosion of the working class - Ai is only the latest form of the automation trend, further eroding the working class - But Ai is also beginning to erode white collar jobs

to - Wired story - No one actually knows how AI will affect jobs - https://hyp.is/KsIWPDzoEe-3rR-gufTfiQ/www.wired.com/story/ai-impact-on-work-mary-daly-interview/

for - key insight - Wage stagnation is a universal problem of the working class and reducing racial and gender inequality goes hand-in-hand with reducing class inequality.

for - key insight - demographic shift will have major implications on U.S. economy, politics and social infrastructure.

for - stats - 25 to 34 year old people of color is earliest U.S. working class cohort to transition in the year 2021.

for - stats - majority of U.S. working class will be people of color by 2029

stats - majority of U.S. working class will be people of color by 2029 - prime-age U.S. working class cohort is age 25 to 54

for stats - U.S. working class projected to become majority people of color by 2032.

stats - U.S. working class projected to become majority people of color by 2032. - source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

for - stats - U.S. working class - 666.1% of civilian workforce between 18 and 64

for - AI - impact on jobs -WIRED interview

for - key insight - free trade - from - Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of The Far-Right

quote - free trade - (see below)

key insight - free trade - NAFTA displays the classic free-trade quandary: - Diffuse benefits with - concentrated costs - While the economy as a whole may have seen a slight boost, - certain sectors and communities experienced profound disruption. - A town in the Southeast loses hundreds of jobs when a textile mill closes, - but hundreds of thousands of people find their clothes marginally cheaper. - Depending on how you quantify it, the overall economic gain is probably greater but barely perceptible at the individual level; - the overall economic loss is small in the grand scheme of things, - but devastating for those it affects directly.

from - Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of The Far-Right - https://hyp.is/F6XYujyREe-TaldInE8OGA/scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=thecompass

for - NAFTA free trade - complexities

NAFTA free trade deal - complexities - NAFTA was a a very complex trade deal and it's not so easy to calculate its net impacts

from - How neoliberalism played a role in emerging the far-right - https://hyp.is/F6XYujyREe-TaldInE8OGA/scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=thecompass

for - AI - inside industry predictions to 2034 - Leopold Aschenbrenner - inside information on disruptive Generative AI to 2034

document description - Situational Awareness - The Decade Ahead - author - Leopold Aschenbrenner

summary - Leopold Aschenbrenner is an ex-employee of OpenAI and reveals the insider information of the disruptive plans for AI in the next decade, that pose an existential threat to create a truly dystopian world if we continue going down our BAU trajectory. - The A.I. arms race can end in disaster. The mason threat of A.I. is that humans are fallible and even one bad actor with access to support intelligent A.I. can post an existential threat to everyone - A.I. threat is amplifier by allowing itt to control important processes - and when it is exploited by the military industrial complex, the threat escalates significantly

• to - YouTube - 4 hour in-depth interview with Leopold Aschenbrenner on the disruptive and existential impacts of A.I. super-intelligence
  • https://hyp.is/zk8hdjEoEe-EIHtdo3U81w/www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdbVtZIn9IM

for - key insight - AI - progress trap - nightmare scenario - dictator controlling superintelligence

meet insight - AI - progress trap - nightmare scenario - locked in dictatorship controlling superintelligence - millions of AI controlled robotic law and enforcement agents could police their populace - Mass surveillance would be hypercharged - Dictator loyal AI agents could individually assess every single citizen for descent with near perfect lie detection sensor - rooting out any disloyalty e - Essentially - the robotic military and police force could be wholly controlled by a single political leader and - programmed to be perfectly obedient and there's going to be no risks of coups or rebellions and - his strategy is going to be perfect because he has super intelligence behind them - what does a look like when we have super intelligence in control by a dictator ? - there's simply no version of that where you escape literally - past dictatorships were not permanent but - superintelligence could eliminate any historical threat to a dictator's Rule and - lock in their power - If you believe in freedom and democracy this is an issue because - someone in power, - even if they're good - they could still stay in power - but you still need the freedom and democracy to be able to choose - This is why the Free World must Prevail so - there is so much at stake here that - This is why everyone is not taking this into account

for - progress trap - double bind - AI - ubiquity

progress trap - double bind - AI - ubiquity - Rationale: we will have to equip many systems with AI - including military systems - Already connected to the internet - AI will be embedded in every critical piece of infrastructure in the future - What happens if something goes wrong? - Now there is an alignment failure everywhere - We will potentially have superintelligence within 3 years - Alignment failures will become catastrophic with them

for - progress trap - AI - example - give prompt for AI to earn money

progress trap - AI - example - instruct AI to earn money - Getting a base model to make money. By default it may well learn - to lie - to commit fraud - to deceive - to hack - to seek power - because in the real world - people actually use this to make money - even maybe they'll learn to - behave nicely when humans are looking and then - pursue more nefarious strategies when we aren't watching

for - AI - security - Open AI - examples of poor security - high risk for humanity

AI - security - Open AI - examples of poor security - high risk for humanity - ex-employees report very inadequate security protocols - employees have had screenshots capture while at cafes outside of Open AI offices - People like Jimmy Apple report future releases on twitter before Open AI does

for - definition - AI - The Alignment Problem

definition - The Alignment Problem - When AI intelligence so far exceeds human intelligence that - we won't be able to predict their behavior - we won't know if we can trust that the AI is aligned to our intent

for - AI - Security - Open AI statement in response to this essay

for - AI - security risk - once automated AI research is known, bad actors can easily build superintelligence

AI - security risk - once automated AI research is known, bad actors can easily build superintelligence - Any lead that the US had would immediately vanish.

for - AI - security risk - model weight files - are a key leverage point

AI - security risk - model weight files - are a key leverage point for bad actors - These files are critical national security data that represent huge amounts of investment in time and research and they are just a file so can be easily stolen.

for - AI - security risk - next 1 to 2 years is vulnerable time to keep AI secrets out of hands of authoritarian regimes

for - key insight - low security at top AI labs - high risk of information theft ending up in wrong hands

for - AI evolution - nightmare scenario - US govt may seize Open AI assets if it arrives at superintelligence

AI evolution - projection - US govt may seize Open AI assets if it arrives at superintelligence - He makes a good point here - If Open AI, or Google achieve superintelligence that is many times more intelligent than any human, - the US government would be fearful that they could be overthrown or that the technology can be stolen and fall into the wrong hands

for - progress trap - AI - one nightmare scenario

progress trap - AI - one nightmare scenario - Whoever is the first to control superintelligence will possibly have enough power to - seize control from pre superintelligence forces - even without the robots small civilization of superintelligence would be able to - hack any undefended military election television system and cunningly persuade generals electoral and economically out compete nation states - design new synthetic bioweapons and then - pay a human in Bitcoin to synthetically synthesize it

for - progress trap - AI and even more powerful weapons of destruction

progress trap - AI and even more powerful weapons of destruction - The podcaster's excitement seems to overshadow any concern of the tragic unintended consequences of weapons even more powerful than nuclear warheads. - With human base emotions still stuck in the past and our species continued reliance on violence to solve problems, more powerful weapons is not the solution, - indeed, they only make the problem worse - Here is where Ronald Wright's quote is so apt: - We humans are running modern software on 50,000 year old hardware systems - Our cultural evolution, of which AI is a part of, is happening so quickly, that - it is racing ahead of our biological evolution - We aren't able to adapt fast enough for the rapid cultural changes that AI is going to create, and it may very well destroy us

for - progress trap - AI triggering massive economic growth - planetary boundaries

progress trap - AI triggering massive economic growth - planetary boundaries - The podcaster does not consider the ramifications of the potential disastrous impact of such economic growth if not managed properly

for - progress trap - AI and human enslavement?

progress trap - human enslavement? - Isn't what the speaker is talking about here is that - AI will be the masters and - humans will become slaves?

for - progress trap - superintelligence threat

progress trap - superintelligence threat - super intelligence is going to be far beyond our cognitive capabilities across many domains. For example, - it's going to be able to find exploits in human code too subtle for humans to notice - it's going to be able to generate code too complicated for any human to understand - even if the model spent decades trying to explain it - How do we entrust ourselves to a superintelligence that is so far beyond us? If it thinks we are expendable, it could easily find our weaknesses and bring about extinction

for - AI evolution - projections for capabilities by 2030

AI evolution - projections for 2030 - AI will be able to do things we cannot even conceive of now because their cognitive capabilities are orders of magnitudes faster than our own - Write billions of lines of code - Absorb every scientific paper ever written and write new ones - Gain the equivalent of billions of human equivalent years of experience

for - stats - comparison of cognitive powers - AGI AI agents vs human researcher

stats - comparison of cognitive powers - AGI AI agents vs human researcher - 100 million AGI AI researchers - each AGI AI researcher is 100x more efficient that its equivalent human AI researcher - total productivity increase = 100 million x 100 = 10 billion human AI researchers! Wow!

for - progress trap - debate - nobody is discussing the dangers of such a project!

progress trap - debate - nobody is discussing the dangers of such a project! - Civlization's journey has to create more and more powerful tools for human beings to use - but this tool is different because it can act autonomously - It can solve problems that will dwarf our individual or even group ability to solve - Philosophically, the problem / solution paradigm becomes a central question because, - As presented in Deep Humanity praxis, - humans have never stopped producing progress traps as shadow sides of technology because - the reductionist problem solving approach always reaches conclusions based on finite amount of knowledge of the relationships of any one particular area of focus - in contrast to the infinite, fractal relationships found at every scale of nature - Supercomputing can never bridge the gap between finite and infinite - A superintelligent artifact with that autonomy of pattern recognition may recognize a pattern in which humans are not efficient and in fact, greater efficiency gains can be had by eliminating us

for - stats - AI evolution - equivalent of 100 million human researchers working 24/7

stats - AI evolution - equivalent of 100 million human researchers working 24/7 - By 2027, the industry's aim is to have tens of millions of GPU training clusters, running - millions of copies of automated AI researchers, or the equivalent of - 100 million human AI researchers working 24/7

for - key insight - AGI as automated AI researchers to create superintelligence

key insight - AGI as automated AI researchers to create superintelligence - We will reach a period of explosive, exponential AI research growth once AGI has been produced - The key is to deploy AGI as AI researchers that can do AI research 24/7 - 5,000 of such AGI research agents could result in superintelligence in a very short time period (years) - because every time any one of them makes a breakthrough, it is immediately sent to all 4,999 other AGI researchers

for - key insight - AGI in next 5 to 10 years or bust

key insight - AGI in next 5 to 10 years or bust - As we start approaching billion, hundred billion and trillion dollar clusters, hardware improvements will slow down due to - cost - ecological impact - Moore's Law limits - If AGI doesn't emerge by then, then we will need to have major breakthrough in - architecture or - algorithms

for - AI evolution - prediction - 2027 - all cognitive jobs can be done by AI

for - stat - AI evolution - prediction 2027 - training time - 6 OOM decrease

stat - AI evolution - prediction 2027 - training time - 6 OOM decrease - today it takes 3 months to train GPT 4 - in 2027, it will take 1 minute - That is, 131,400 minutes vs 1 minute, or - 6 OOM

for - AI evolution - prediction - 2027 - AI agent will replace AI chatbot

for - definition - hobbling - AI

for - stats - AI evolution - Math benchmark - 2022 to 2024

stats - AI evolution - Math benchmark - 2022 to 2024 - 50% increase in accuracy over 2 years - inference accuracy improved 1000x or 3 Orders Of Magnitude (OOM)

for - stats - AI - evolution - Math benchmark

stats - AI - evolution - Math benchmark - 2021 - GPT3 scored 5% - 2022 - scored 50% - 2024 - Gemini 1.5 Pro scored 90%

for - progress trap - AI - milestone - automated AI researcher

progress trap - AI - milestone - automated AI researcher - This is a serious concern that must be debated - An AI researcher that does research on itself has no moral compass and can encode undecipherable code into future generations of AI that provides no back door to AI if something goes wrong. - For instance, if AI reached the conclusion that humans need to be eliminated in order to save the biosphere, - it can disseminate its strategies covertly under secret communications with unbreakable code

for - quote - AI prediction for 2027 - Leopold Aschenbrenner

quote - AI prediction for 2027 - Leopold Aschenbrenner - (see quote below) - it is strikingly plausible that by 2027 - models will be able to do the work of an AI researcher SL engineer - that doesn't require believing in sci-fi - it just requires in believing in straight lines on a graph

for - AI - future spending - trillion dollars - superintelligence by 2030

for - progress trap - AI - threat of superintendence - interview - Leopold Aschenbrenner - former Open AI employee - from -. YouTube - review of Leopold Aschenbrenner's essay on Situational Awareness - https://hyp.is/ofu1EDC3Ee-YHqOyRrKvKg/docdrop.org/video/om5KAKSSpNg/

for - Generative AI music - producers and artists using for inspiration

comment I would agree with this. Especially since the AI music currently sounds lo-fi

for - AI music issues - rerecording an AI music generated song - copyright question

for - AI music - youtube content ID algorithms can identify it

for - new music sales model - direct to consumer - helps mitigate AI music

for - AI - law - too slow

for - AI - progress trap - nice simple explanation of how progress traps propagate

for - progress trap - Generative AI - copyright infringement vs Unfair business practice argument

for - progress trap - AI music - oversaturated market

for - Spotify - thousand stream threshold to trigger royalty payment - cuts out many producers

for - AI Disruption - Realtime - music industry is scrambling

for - AI music - Google Deep Mind - Google AI Soundbox - Wycliff Jean endorsing

for - AI music - Udio - investors - Will.I.Am - United Masters

for - example - social media platforms bleeding content producers - Meta - Facebook - Instagram

for - example - music platforms bleeding producers - Spotify - discovery mode

for - progress trap - AI music - dilution of general royalty pool - due to large volume

for - stats - AI music platform Udio - tracks created per day - over 800000

for - AI music - Udio - terms of service - users can sell the music made on Udio

For - progress trap - AI - Generative AI - IP - Yale Law Journal

for - progress trap - AI music - critique - Folia Sound Studio - to - P2P Foundation - Michel Bauwens - Commons Transition Plan - Netarchical Capitalism - Predatory Capitalism

to - P2P Foundation - Michel Bauwens - Commons Transition Plan - Netarchical Capitalism - Predatory Capitalism https://hyp.is/o-Hp-DCAEe-8IYef613YKg/wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Commons_Transition_Plan

for - AI music theft - citation - Noam Chomsky - quote - Noam Chomsky - AI as plagiarism on a grand scale

to - P2P Foundation - commons transition plan - Michel Bauwens - netarchical capitalism - predatory capitalism - https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Commons_Transition_Plan#Solving_the_value_crisis_through_a_social_knowledge_economy

from - youtube - Folia Sound Studio critique of AI music tools - Suno - Udio https://hyp.is/NGScyjB_Ee-rSYNhe9Fuug/docdrop.org/video/wEQ9Vg2YKcU/

physical health - whole foods tour - brenda turner - nutritionist

for - AI - replicating music - AI - music app - Udio

for - podcast - Great simplification - Hospicing Modernity - Vanessa Andreotti

Summary - metaphor of the house is used to compare modernity

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