Oases of Positivity in a World Going Mad

Overpopulation has led both to increasingly violent weather and to increasingly violent social storms. How can we resist the madness?

We humans are especially susceptible to violence in large groups, as examples from football hooliganism, riots, lynchings, gangs, and organized warfare attest. Even protest gatherings organized purportedly for peaceful protest can easily turn violent — witness the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Something about perceived anonymity in a large group seems to disable our individual mental suppression of violent behavior. Yet friendly behavior in groups is also possible, as cooperative group dancing, singing and eating attest.

As our human population has increased and our technological means of communication have enabled larger groups of people (human supra-organisms) to form temporarily and communicate rapidly to coordinate their activities, social storms both physical and psychological have become larger and more frequent, just as climate change has resulted in more frequent and violent atmospheric storms.

What is an individual human like you or me to do?

We can become active participants in violent social storms, we can watch them from some distance with horror, fascination, or even perverse enjoyment, or we can participate in the oases of peaceful, positive social groups that remain.