You are using it as a rat freely uses a Skinner box whenever it wants to — As inspired by the White Queen, I sometimes think as many as six unthinkable thoughts before breakfast. This morning I was thinking about my adventures in bitlandia, about 30 years of uploading content to the web. Prior to mastering the web, I uploaded messages using a 300-baud modem to the…

A Timeline — Abstract: Those showing evidence of ‘ Thinking in Systems’ have been a minority, at least since empire-building began about ten thousand years ago. Control SYSTEM serving educational sub-SYSTEMs, formal and informal, in complex empire-building societies tell growth (and elite) serving narratives that are humancentric. But as Laozi notes, ‘True words…

Thinking long term past to future — Abstract: Eight years of considering our problematique, 252 notes-to-file (articles/missives/essays), and I recently became aware of the prehistory of Malta (while reading Reg Morrison’s The Spirit in the Genes). I skipped the history of Malta to consider the island nation’s present state of ecological and civilizational overshoot. The story of…

Know Then Thyself — Abstract: All humans are subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect (sense of illusory superiority). The low ability deny the effect and the high ability misinterpret it. That the low ability mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is is clear to the putatively high ability humans. The highest ability…

The believing mind precludes understanding — Any reliance on political or religious solutionatiques will have a predictable outcome, as will denial as usual. Failure is an option. Voting to decide if the asteroid exists, forming factions to decide which solution voters prefer if a majority decide that it does exist, will have a predictable outcome. Could Elon Musk put an ark in orbit within five years to recolonize Earth ten years after the impact? Don’t count on it. Let go of any belief in belief and see what may follow as there are no true stories (beliefs), only likely stories.

Make me World Dictator, or something — Existential threats exist: e.g. that a very large asteroid could make a direct hit with Earth in five years is one possible threat, one that most people can understand and maybe believe in, unlike the threat of multiple system failures secondary to a carrying capacity overshoot event that they cannot…

They are out there — There is an apparently vast blogosphere for doomers out there that I, as extreme cornucopian optimist, have no interest in. Yet as a gateway drug, The Doomstead Diner contains information that may be of interest to those who can overlook the flashing lights, videos, and vet their sources. The click-bait…

Acknowledging the problematique is a step in the right direction — The Real Green New Deal website Addresses: ‘overpopulation, ending U.S. empire, restoring democracy while shifting to new political systems​…, economic de-growth, what aspects of modern life can be retained in an energy de-intensified world, taking action outside the system now.’ To quibble: there is no ‘U.S. empire’, merely a vestige that, like all other former sovereign…

Towards real solutions — Existential threats exist: e.g. that a very large asteroid could make a direct hit with Earth in five years is one possible threat, one that most people can understand and maybe believe in, unlike the threat of multiple system failures secondary to a carrying capacity overshoot event that they cannot…