Category: Ecology and the Environment

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How Tech’s Richest Plan to Save Themselves after the Apocalypse

How Tech’s Richest Plan to Save Themselves after the Apocalypse

Silicon Valley’s elite are hatching plans to escape disaster – and when it comes, they’ll leave the rest of us behind.

by Douglas Rushkoff for Medium — Published in the Guardian.

Tue 24 Jul 2018 02.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 25 Jul 2018 11.25 EDT
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My Reaction

This is the worldwide agenda.

Why spend money or do anything to help the poor?

The idea in this article is that “survival of the fittest” is where the “fittest” are the extremely wealthy. Of course, they have zero understanding of what “survival of the fittest” means. In biology, fitness is primarily concerned with reproduction. Fit species are those that can produce enough viable offspring that can survive long enough to perpetuate the species. They are necessarily the strongest, fiercest, or smartest. Some species are fit because they produce hundreds of offspring at a time. This is the gambler’s strategy of playing the odds. Others produce fewer offspring, but spend more time and energy caring for the young until they can take care of themselves. This is the nurturer’s strategy. But, there also the key ingredient of variation or diversity. Species that are not diverse enough to have variation in their gene pools are not likely to survive, especially under intensely challenging changes in environmental conditions, such as those looming on the horizon.

The wealthy, no matter how much money they have, may be the least likely to survive. Their gene pool is too small. They really aren’t good at nurturing, because they’ve always paid someone to do it for them. They might be good at the money end of the gambler’s strategy, but in terms of offspring, they’ll fail miserably. And, they lack the knowledge and skills to survive as individuals, let alone as a specie, in conditions that will be unlike anything they have ever encountered.

The big switcheroo may be that the world’s poorest will inherit the human lineage. They are knowledgeable and skilled at surviving with very little. They know how to nurture. And, there are enough of them to have a highly varied gene pool. Maybe there was some wisdom and foresight to the phrase, “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”

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Mullings on the Pathological

The notion of “pathology” has been arising frequently in my conversations and correspondences. In fact, this past year has been an extraordinary opportunity to confront such a notion. We should start with what I mean by pathology or pathological? The dictionary definitions are rather narrow and shallow in terms of meaningfulness. However, when I discuss “pathology” or “pathological,” I am referring to a particular type of learning that has gone askew to the point of harming oneself, harming others, or harming the contexts in which one lives. Pathology can extend across scales from the minute to the global. A virus or bacteria may or may not be pathological in relationship to its context. There is one virus, Herpesvirus saimiri, that lives in a particular species of monkey. Unless something unusual occurs, the host monkeys suffer no ill effects. But, if another species of monkey tries to take over their territory, the H. saimiri virus infects and kills the invading monkeys (Buhner, 2014, see p. 108). Pathology seems to lie in the relationships and context. In such cases, the individual entity — the virus in this case — isn’t pathological, but when the context and relationships change, the pathology occurs within this dynamic. Another example is the Escherichia coli or E.coli bacteria. E. coli lives and thrives in our intestinal tract. In this particular location or context, this bacteria is helpful to our health and well-being. However, if this bacteria is ingested and ends up in our stomach, we get sick. When the contexts and relationships change, some complex sets processes are thrown off track and both the bacteria and the host can suffer a loss of life. So, for me, pathology and pathological refer to some situation (relationship, contexts, and processes) that cause harm or are destructive to an individual, a relationship, or any context that is typically autopoietic (i.e., self-sustaining, self-maintaining, self-repairing, self-transcending, and so forth), which is any living thing or any social or biological system.

And, to clarify the use of “pathology,” we all have our own pathologies. There may only be a few exceptional individuals who don’t have any pathologies. But, on the other hand, not all pathologies are equal. Some are more harmful than others. There are continuums (or “continua,” if you like) of fuzzily bounded pathologies within individuals and larger systems. But, many of these pathologies may only interfere with our lives occasionally or only at more subtle levels. Someone may have a chronic condition, such as a chronic viral infection, that may interfere with one’s activities and functioning one week, but then during another week, that person may function fairly normally. Or, one’s particular habitual patterns of obsessing about one’s weight or appearance or how they interact, may be problematic from time to time, but, in general, may not interfere with one’s functioning at work in at home. But, let’s take “anger” as a pathology. Getting angry occasionally may hurt someone else and one’s self at that moment. But, the anger may fade quickly and one’s relationships can be repaired. However, if that anger begins to dominate one’s relationship to the world, that anger festers and grow. It insidiously starts to infiltrate all aspects of life and can affect one’s health and all of one’s relationships. Such anger can act like a poison to everything it encounters, including one’s own psychological—physical health and well-being. Such poisonous emotions can affect social systems of various scales. As contexts contexts encounter one another, the “learning” of anger can spread.

There are people of note over the past year and right now who are propagating hate, fear, and anger. Such propagation of negative emotions is a pathological process of learning. It can spread from one individual to another and one context to another. And, such pathologies are dysfunctions in the relationships and contexts, and are ultimately destructive to those contexts and to other contexts that may serve as targets for hatred and as sources of fear.

But, suggesting that such situations are “just” sicknesses as a way of excusing the condition is not at all the issue here in this discussion of pathology. But, people do think or say, “oh, it was the way I was raised” or “ that just who I am.” Such statements are cop-outs. We do have opportunities to take control of our own lives and the way we relate to others. To blame others or to fall into familiar patterns of fear and hatred, is just like an addiction to alcohol or some other substance. We can break these feedback loops that perpetuate harmful or pathological ways of functioning and relating. We can stop destroying our environments and our social contexts.

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References

Buhner, S. H. (2014). Plant intelligence and the imaginal realm: Into the dreaming of Earth. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company.

SEE also: Nora Bateson’s (2015) “Symmathesy – A Word in Progress: Proposing a New Word that Refers to Living Systems” (http://internationalbatesoninstitute.wikidot.com/pub:nbateson-symmathesy2015) — Provides a new and important perspective on learning.

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Communication & Information – Norbert Wiener’s Paradox

“…We cannot afford to ignore Norbert Wiener’s observation of a paradox that results from our increasing technological capability in electronic communication: as the number of messages increases, the amount of information carried decreases. We have more media to communicate fewer significant ideas.”

FROM: Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner. (1969). Teaching As a Subversive Activity. — page 8

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This quote was from 1969, and was citing Norbert Wiener, who died in 1964, but I suspect he was discussing this paradox in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. I wonder what Wiener would think about our current state of affairs? He’d have to talk about miscommunication, false information, and so much more as part of the communication circuits, as well.

The implications of the increase in the amount of information (both factual and not), the increase of triviality and nonsense within that information, and the increase in propaganda along with the ease with which communication can now occur are frightening. Yes, it is nice to have easy access to information, but it requires ways of sorting out the trash from the significant. How do we know what is really trash, what is really significant? How much do we have to dig through before we get to the significant? How much time will we have to spend getting to worthy information? On another line of questions, some people may find messages of hate and distrust valuable. So, what are the implications for divisiveness among people from local communities to the global population? How can we work towards bringing people together, promoting understanding and appreciation of difference, and so forth?

There are so many issues and questions that cross all aspects of living … and ultimately our survival as a species. Wiener’s paradox and all of the questions it brings up affects everything from our personal psychological wellness to global politics, from our effect on ecosystems to our effect on societies. It affects education, spirituality, economics, politics, and global affairs. It is a monster like nothing that has ever been experienced.

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When Things Go South — Schismogenesis

Have you ever noticed what happens when our life situations go south or when big global situations turn bad? It seems that much more often than not, we react with aggression, which can range from pushing someone away to outright physical aggression and violence. At least in contemporary Western societies, the only other ways of reacting to bad situations include (a) withdrawing or taking submissive position or (b) trying to seduce the other entity into some sort of relationship.

Buddhists call these reactions the three poisonous emotions or kleshas. The first is aggression, which can range from pushing something away to attacking it. The second is ignorance or avoidance, where one might withdraw or take a submissive position in order to avoid conflict. The third is passion, where one tries to seduce the other and take ownership. None of these emotional reactions or strategies is particularly helpful. They all result in further conflicts and confusion.

From the perspective of Gregory Bateson, there also are three basic strategies or types of relationships. These types of relationships don’t align with the Buddhist 3 poisons, but one can see how the three poisons come into play within these relationships. Gregory called the first of these types of relationship “symmetrical.” Such symmetrical relationships are characterized by the parties being at odds with one another. Such a relationship can manifest as two people or two groups vying for control. Both individuals or groups are similar in nature. The second type of relationship he called “complementary.” In these relationships, the individuals or entities take on the characteristics of opposites. In some cases these relationships consist of a dominant individual and a submissive individual. Both of these types of relationships tend to degenerate into schismogenesis or the pulling apart and disintegration of the relationships. The warfare of the symmetrical and the resentment of the complementary do not help bring relationships together. The only type of relationship that holds the potential to not lead into schismogenesis is reciprocal or a relationship based on negotiation and some sense of mutuality. However, most relationships, whether at the scale of two individuals or even one individual contending with some other thing (e.g., an alcoholic and alcohol) or at the scale of nations, relationships move from symmetrical to complementary to reciprocal. But, the ones that tend to default at reciprocal are those that hold the most potential for survival.

But, let’s go back to how our default patterns of reaction, especially in Western societies, seem to be those that are aggressive or retaliatory. Someone calls us a name and we are ready to punch them. Someone drives to slowly and we start cursing at them. We think some problem is the fault of a particular group (illegal immigrants, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, the LGBTQ community, African Americans, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, Christians, or whomever). We react with aggression. At the very least, we may spread the anger or hatred and poison those around us. The reaction to 9/11 was aggression. The reaction to anything we don’t like is one of aggression. Abortion doctors are killed. A murderer is executed. A person who looks different from us is pushed away, attacked, or killed. We do this every single day. The police do it. Everyday citizens do it. Corporations do it.

And, as our world begins to collapse under the weight of a burgeoning population, rising sea levels, scarcity of water, scarcity of food, and scarcity of almost all resources, people will act out through aggression. But, aggression is exactly what is NOT needed. We don’t need to disintegrate into the visions extreme schismogenesis as in Mad Max, Blade Runner, or Total Recall. What we need to do more than anything is to come together. And, the only way to do that is with reciprocity along with heavy doses of empathy, compassion, and a willingness to understand others. Of course, we also need to change our ways of thinking so that we can in fact move toward solutions to a global meltdown, which isn’t a problem of any one nation or group of people, but is a problem for all of humanity.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’ll end with an excerpt from a poem (“It’s a Mistake to Think You’re Special”) by John Giorno (from Subduing Demons in America, 2008, Berkeley, CA: SoftSkull Press, pp. 341—342) – read this with rhythm and a lot of energy:

Butterflies
sucking
on the carcass
of a dead bird,
and your body
is being pulled down
backwards
into the world
below,
as a king.

I feel most
at home
among the defiled
I feel most at
home among
the defiled
I feel most at home among
the defiled,
in the center
of a flower
under a deep
blue
sky.

It’s a mistake
to think
you’re special.

(1984)

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Habits of Mind

We have these habits of mind in the West where we think along lines that are linear… simple cause and effect. But, the world (outside of simple physical, nonliving events) does not work that way. We must think about the complexity of multiple systems interacting and where the “blame” is in the relationships, which is not with individuals, with groups, or with other entities.

The same holds true for all levels of relationship. From those with our lovers and families to those among nations. It’s all about the relationships and intricate interconnections within and among different systems (we can think of each individual as a system, in addition to larger systems with fuzzy boundaries, such as nations, social groups, ecosystems, economies, religions, etc.).‬‬

As individuals, we are the result of our relationships. These relationship range from the molecular (e.g., DNA is all about the relationships between the base pairs) to those with family, friends, teachers, and others and to those with our environments. The relationships within the contexts in which we have lived contribute to a great extent who we are and how we manifest. That’s part of our humanity. We are social beings, who learn socially. And, this learning is mostly not the learning we do in schools. We are learning systems… and the systems in which we live are learning systems. According to Nora Bateson (2015), this kind of learning is called “symmathesy” or mutual learning in contexts. Murderers and criminals of all kinds are the product of symmathesy as are the highly regarded political leaders, spiritual leaders, and all the rest of us, including bacteria, protists, plants, fish, birds, and so on. All living systems, social systems, and ecological systems, are examples of symmathesy. This learning is “in” and “about” relationship. But, this learning is not value laden, it is just the way living systems learn. So, the learning can be pathological in relation to social norms. Or, the learning can be grounded and sane within the social contexts.

We can fall into a trap in just thinking that “I am the way I am because of my relationships and the contexts within which I was raised. And, that is just the way it is. So, tough.” But, this is a cop-out. We have the ability as complex systems to transcend our typical ways of thinking and behaving. In fact, that self-transcendent ability is one of the characteristics of autopoietic systems (Capra, 1982). Autopoietic systems are also known as complex systems or systems that are self-generating, self-maintaining, self-regulating, self-transcendent, and so forth (“auto” = self & “poiesis” = to make OR “autopoiesis” = self-making). And, all living systems are autopoietic. So, the “mutual learning in contexts” of such self-maintaining systems is known by the word created by Nora Bateson, “symmathesy” (“sym” = together; “mathesi” = to learn or “symmathesy” = learning together, mutual learning; which also is the basis of the notion of co-evolution).

In fact, our only hope lies in this potential for self-transcendence. We all have to work at not thinking in simple cause and effect ways. We desperately need to begin thinking in ways that see how multiple systems are interacting and how these system are learning together, for better or for worse. So, while the U.S. may start manipulating some political entity somewhere else in the world, that “U.S. system” is learning about and reinforcing the notion of manipulation, at the same time, the entity being manipulated is learning about how to be manipulated and how to resist being manipulated, etc. The alternative to such negative or pathological learning is to begin to transcend this level of functioning. How can we relate in ways that are more direct, more reciprocal, and mutually beneficial? This example is at the scale of nations, but the same holds true for all of our personal relationships. We can understand others as bundles of relationships, but instead of relating in ways that are based on our old assumptions (whatever they may be), we can take a fresh look, with great empathy and mutual understanding of our shared humanity, and proceed to relate in ways that transcend our old habits of mind. In attempting to think in this way, we can transcend our own habitual patterns and ways of thinking and relating. We make the jump and begin to influence others. The more us who can begin trying to do this, the greater the chances of making a big difference.

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Bateson, N. (2015). Symmathesy — A word in progress: Proposing a new word that refers to living systems. A manuscript in review for publication.

Capra, F. (1982). The turning point: Science, society, and the rising culture. New York: Bantam.

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Learning Content is the Trivial Part of Learning

We really have it all backwards. We are completely focused on having kids and adults learn copious amounts of content as the supreme goal of education. But, such a goal is really rather trivial within the entire scope of learning. This is blasphemy in the politico-corporate controlled institutions of education, testing, and publishing, but I do believe we’ve completely gone astray. We’ve lost sight of the depth and extent of learning. We’ve lost sight of children (and adults) and all of their abilities, capabilities, characteristics, and needs. We no longer value curiosity, creativity, inquiry, play, time to ponder and process, time to make mistakes and try again, time to explore, time to talk and argue, time to negotiate.

I’m not suggesting that content knowledge is useless or irrelevant, but it is superficial knowledge compared to other kinds of learning. And, what we have done is create a world of superficiality, while thinking it’s the most sophisticated knowledge ever. It’s an extraordinary illusion. Or, rather it is an extraordinarily confused view of knowledge and what is worth knowing. A mistake that is strikingly apparent in the move to online courses and online degrees, which really amount to no more than a grand scam.

And, let me say here that while this superficial knowledge may have some importance and interest, when it stands as alone as the total package of knowledge, it is more or less meaningless, disconnected, and irrelevant. The way we package knowledge into textbooks and then test the supposed acquisition of this knowledge is just further testament to the decontextualized and disconnected approach we have developed to our relationship to knowing and knowledge. We think that all of these bits of information mean something, like money in the bank, but unlike money in the bank they are worthless without context, meaning, and relationship. On the other hand, these bits of information are money in the bank for testing companies, publishers, and politicians; and very big money at that.

But, what is misunderstood and misrepresented about learning is the big issue. Learning is dynamic and continual. We are always learning … in all situations, whether we like it or not. Learning is not an accumulation of static information in neatly packaged structures. Learning about any kind of relational information is always changing and morphing as new connections are made and lost. Learning doesn’t just happen in the brain, but is distributed throughout our bodies. And, in fact, there seems to be ample evidence that social learning is distributed among people. Look at a highly coordinated sports team where the thinking and immediacy of learning is taking place within the team and no one individual. In fact, learning seems to be distributed among individuals in coordinated contexts much more often than we ever imagined. Our bodies are comprised of more microbes than human cells. And, on top of that, we have millions of other inhabitants living in most parts of our bodies. This vast ecosystem is not just a bunch of individuals disconnected from one another, but is a community of different species living in an interdependent, coordinated way. And, this whole ecosystem has to learn together in order to survive. We are just beginning to understand how complex these interactions are, but we can get a sense that our learning is not just what some book says, but is about how we respond to, adjust to, react to, and make sense of all kinds of information with which we are confronted all the time. Most of the time, we don’t even know we’re learning or where the learning is taking place, but it is happening.

So, we have this distributed learning happening all of the time as we encounter new situations and new contexts. We walk on a new hiking trail, swim in the ocean, ski, ice skate, go to a new country or any new place, we are renegotiating the ways we do things, re-assessing our assumptions, reworking our relationships and ways of relating. These new renegotiations are new learning.

But, let’s return to what I’ve referred to as superficial textbook learning. What this textbook learning tries to address is the accumulated depth and expanse of learning that has occurred by organisms, ecosystems, and living systems of all kinds. Authors and publishers try to condense this knowledge down to discrete bits of disconnected, decontextualized, static informational strings. The vast depth and extent of interrelationships are never explored and discussed. The dynamic, changing, and uncertain nature of our knowledge is never recognized. The knowledge claims are all very clinical, dry, lifeless. We are not presented with the complexity of interacting systems that affect one another in countless ways, and that within these systems are even more relationships affecting aspects of all of the players in the systems.

In a world where the issues are increasingly intense and increasingly important to our continued survival and well-being, we and especially our children need to be learning in ways that enable us to make sense of what is happening. We need to be able to dissect out the nonsense from the sensible. We need to see the complexities and interrelationships. We have to see the faulty assumptions that we and others are making and then take appropriate actions. We can’t do this by learning lots of disconnected, superficial information. We must be learning at deeper levels of relationship and context.

For a great treatment of a different way of viewing learning, read Nora Bateson’s Symmathesy: A Word in Progress.

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Living In Sync With Context

It is difficult to live in sync with the natural context. In big cities, we are surrounded by cement, asphalt, steel, and glass with spots of grass and trees. But, such synchronization, as much as possible, should be our challenge.

Take a stab at guessing in what natural context this house (in the photo below) belongs.

House20151007_151140

When we think about where we live, what are the natural surroundings? What are the native soils, plants, terrain, etc? Our mere presence in a natural setting makes a difference, but what sort of dwelling and grounds will have the least impact on the local ecosystem? We may find that our impacts are more than we like, or less than we may have expected. But, this exercise can help us begin to think about how we can live and think in ways that are more in line with our local ecosystems.

By the way, the context for the house shown above should look something like that shown in the photo below. It is quite interesting how people move into the desert, then try to make it look like they live in a temperate forest setting with a large pond, trees, and grass. What isn’t shown are the sprinklers for the acres of grass.

DesertScene2015-10-8 142700

There’s a fundamental disconnect here… not even an attempt to live in sync with the desert ecosystem.

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Alternatives to Consumerism in Life and Schooling

Over the past few days, I was thinking about this week’s blog entry as a re-analysis of some old research data from a teaching unit. I was looking through old transcripts of students working on a ship building project and how their thinking naturally involved multiple perspectives and seamless multiple interacting systems. I think I’ll get back to that later in this entry, but as “things” go, this morning, Nora Bateson posted something on Facebook about how we should stop buying things and simplify… Here it is:

Today I found this quote in a Wendell Berry story. It has been a week of head banging with the wall of non-communication between the humans and the corporations– frustrating to the bone. I thought of revolutions, evolutions, uprisings and social media viruses. I have been feeling tiny and silenced– and noticing acutely how tightly we are coupled into the corporate web. At this moment, we have not got the infrastructure to live without it. It thrives on our wanting… luxuriates in our insatiable need for having… so: this.

1 – Be happy with what you’ve got. Don’t be always looking for something better.
2 – Don’t buy anything you don’t need.
3 – Don’t buy what you ought to save. Don’t buy what you ought to make.
4 – Unless you absolutely have got to do it, don’t buy anything new.
5 – If somebody tries to sell you something to “save labor,” look out. If you can work, then work.
6 – If other people want to buy a lot of new stuff and fill up the country with junk, use the junk.
7 – Some good things are cheap, even free. Use them first.
8 – Keep watch for what nobody wants. Sort through the leavings.
9 – You might know, or find out, what it is to need help. So help people.

FROM: Nora Bateson, on Facebook, September 21, 2015

This entry started me thinking about how my Dad, who was a young married man and first-time father during the Great Depression, used to save everything many years later after I was born. Our basement was filled with all kinds of things. If something broke, he’d fix it. If he couldn’t fix it, he’d save the parts that were useful and toss the rest. He’d save old nails and screws. Although he was barely literate, he was a genius in all things electrical, mechanical, and structural.

Fortunately, a little bit of his “saving everything” and an even smaller bit of his genius rubbed off on me. I save the screws and nails from things that fall apart. I build much of my own furniture and repair things myself. I often try to do what he called “jury-rigging” things… just making up solutions to problems by using parts in ways for which they were not designed.

These types of actions are not “chores” or “impoverished” approaches, as we’re led to believe by the corporate world of buy-more-new-things-all-the-time-or-you-are-not-a-worthy-person messages. In fact, there is something that feels very wealthy about making and fixing your own things. When I make or fix something, I feel empowered. I feel enriched. I feel like I am a more complete and capable human being. And, as I was mentioning to a neighbor yesterday, I have even stopped calling repairmen. More often than not, they charge a fortune and screw up the job anyway. So, I told my neighborhood, “I can do screw it up myself for a whole lot less money.” But, as it turns out, it may take me a little longer, but I usually end up doing a better job than the so-called experts, who also seem to be out to scam people, but that’s another story altogether.

So, back to the children and their ship-building project. I had just given the kids some letters from fictions people asking for bids on ships to take tourists around to natural history sites. Each group had to act as a company to come up with these ship designs over the next couple of months. But, on this first day, they could explore some prototypes and test out their designs. These are mixed groups of grade 5, 6, 7 girls and boys. Here are a few excerpts. The lines are coded as Group# = Group Number, g# = girl number, b# = boy number.

Group 1
g1 Oh, you have to fill it out and then bring it back. You gotta … Wait a minute. Okay. A cylinder won’t work actually … cause even if it does … like it can’t tip, right? But even if it does, if people are sitting on one end and it tips, it all falls to the other end …
b1 Unless …
g1 … and they won’t get there safely.
b1 … unless you had like another cylinder inside the first a cylinder that like at the center (???) … so like there’s another cylinder that moves …
MUCH LATER ON…
b1 We should make up a name for it, like … (???) … like you know how they have names for sailboats and that …
g1 Mm hm.
b1 … (???) … … How about “The sub appeal?”
g1 The what?
b1 “The sub appeal.”

Group 2
b4 No, that’s too ordinary. We want something that people want to come to.
[Pause. Seem to be listening to group three and their discussion of ferries, ferris wheels and so forth.]
b4 Yeah, put a ferris wheel on it. Put a (???) on it and a swimming pool. Actually a swimming pool would be a good idea. Yeah, swimming pool would …
b5 No, no. If we had a swimming pool, we’d have like a really deep, deep hole? … (???) swim in it underneath and it would go …
b4 Yeah … yeah.
b5 So you could just jump into it, and it would be, it wouldn’t be on the ship, because then there would be bars and gambling machines and stuff. [Slight laugh.] No, no gambling ’cause that’s illegal.
b4 No, no, that’s good to … no, it’s not illegal.
b5 Yeah, it is.
b4 No, it … Yeah, that’d be cool.
b5 That would be good though …
b4 A pool, pool hall.
b5 Yeah, a pool table and stuff. Like a bar, a really nice bar and a fancy restaurant. … [Responding to someone at another table.] Yeah, we are.
LATER IN THE CONVERSATION
b5 No, and you can look out them, like underwater, from underwater.
b4 Yeah.
b5 It’s like a little underwater thing down there … and you can look down …
b4 No, it’s like, has like a glass bottom.
b5 Not … no, that’s not good. [Semi-giggle.] This really heavy guy comes along and steps on it. Kshaaa! [Vocal sound effect for heavy guy falling through glass bottom.]

In both of these groups, I’ve selected excerpts that show how children move from the technical-scientific (which is what is generally expected of children) to other “important” issues, like names, bars, and gambling machines. Children do not separate out the “disciplines” of science, mathematics, etc. All of the disciplines (or subject matter areas) arise in their thinking and conversations in blended ways and naturally become part of their thinking. But, this type of thinking is borderless systems thinking. Although we can easily dismiss these tangents as trivial, these tangents are where the important potentialities lie. This is where the creativity is. These tangents are where insights and problem solving arise. This type of thinking is the same sort of thing as keeping odd assortments of screws, nails, and pieces of metal. This is the type of thinking that helps children feel like complete and capable human beings. This is where they feel empowered and enriched.

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Consciousness of Trees and Our Need to Move Beyond Simple Systems Thinking

Trees and shall we say plants have much more going on than we’ve assumed. We need to pay attention.

This powerful short video points to how our thinking needs to move beyond mechanistic thinking and even beyond simple systems thinking to a much more complex way of thinking about interrelationships.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iSGPNm3bFmQ

Even though the film depicts some of the relationships with diagrams, these relationships are only a tiny picture of the complexity. There are so many things going on with their roots acting as neural networks with a complete set of neurotransmitters, bacteria and other living things that assist with many communal functions, their mere presence as mini-ecosystems for millions of other creatures, their abilities to affect local and global climate, and the list goes on.

We cannot capture the complexity in diagrams without getting lost in the webs of interconnections, which move and morph anyway. Systems thinking suggests a certain stasis, but in reality the world works in ways that are dynamic and ever-changing in order to meet the ever-changing conditions.

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Meat, Veggies, Water, Sentience, & Perplexities

At certain times in my life, I tried following a vegetarian lifestyle. But, each time, no matter how careful I was, I couldn’t do it. I lost way too much weight the first and I was already very skinny; and I got sick a lot. The second time, I really got sick a lot. A few years ago, I suggested the idea to a naturopath I saw thinking that she would encourage me and have some suggestions for how to do it correctly. But, she said, “Nope. You have to eat meat. Your physiology is different. You’ll get too sick, if you don’t eat meat.” Interesting that I knew this all along. But it’s too bad in many ways. It is ecologically more sensible to eat only vegetables, especially if you grow them yourself or buy locally grown vegetables. You’ll get more energy-bang-for-the-buck.

However, this got me thinking about a number of things that keep getting posted on Facebook and elsewhere on the internet. The general dogma is that meat is bad and vegetables are good, because animals are sentient and plants are not. Well, that dogma seems to be threatened by increasing evidence that plants may have a lot more going on than we previously thought. Here are a few of many links (investigate some on your own):

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-green-mind/201412/are-plants-entering-the-realm-the-sentient

http://goodnature.nathab.com/research-shows-plants-are-sentient-will-we-act-accordingly/

http://letthemeatmeat.com/post/79193241820/what-would-plant-sentience-mean-for-vegan-ethics

So, if plants are able to think and plan; are aware of their surroundings, including other plants and animals; can solve problems, care for others; and so forth; the argument about sentience may no longer hold true. Hmmm… We may need to rethink our positions from a high moral horse. We may have to consider that all living things are here together. We may need to think about how we can eat another sentient being with sensitivity and appreciation for their sacrifice, rather than as some sort of disconnected right. We may have to realize that we are part of a larger set of relationships where no single type of being is better than any other. Oooh, what a crushing blow….

But, I also came across postings from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and all I’ve got to say is BEWARE. They aren’t who you think they are (and neither is the ASPCA). Check out a few of many links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lucy-uprichard/the-many-failings-of-peta_b_2945870.html

Home

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/the-problem-with-peta-20120725-22ouo.html

http://listverse.com/2013/05/30/10-insane-facts-about-peta/

As for me, I’m trying to thank the plants and animals for their sacrifices and I’m trying to spend some time trying to imagine what it would be like to be a plant or some other animal. But, I’m also spending time appreciating my dog and my two cats. They are teaching me a lot about relationships and being present.