I'm discovering an industry of sharp people like you, Matt, who are deeply rooted in ethics and fairness that we all would be practicing if we were fully evolved and that we need to take on for humanity's very survival as a sophisticated species. As I focus on where-to-from-here, I'm spreading your dire reports that we'd be moved by if anything could budge this exploitive system we are in. Governments won't do it for us, but what can we the people do? We're not even looking for that, as what these comments, that all deal with our despair, attest to.
I hope Helene puts the growing insurance crisis front and center. This in itself is enough to take the economy down. How about farm insurance? These are obviously foundational to the economy. I have no idea how to remedy this. Economic collapse will precede environmental collapse. It's happening.
I read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine some years ago, documenting the spread of neoliberal capitalism throughout the world. At this point, gentle messages won't do, IMO. I feel we're out of time. People need to be shocked awake. I went to a small gathering at my sister's house yesterday, a football party, the Bills are part of the cultural identity here. Helene was not discussed, and of course the game is really just a vehicle for pounding advertising into people. 24/7 illness that forms people far more than they realize. Three years on this journey and I feel increasingly alienated from those closest in my lives.
No, I think there are many who are prepared for what is coming. Just so many that do not have our best interest in mind. Insurance has always been on the cutting edge of bleeding the general populace dry and with the coming crises ad-infinitum, it seems deeply unlikely they're going to change their tack. Mutual aid is one deeply imagined future and if we want to benefit from it we need to imagine ways to institutionalize it. I say this with the knowledge that 'institutions' are failing us deeply.
Questions that have long been put off are now deeply important for us to consider:
Who are our social contracts with? If not the government, are they with our neighbors?
What's the meaning of paying in to preventative amenities that are being rigged to never pay out? How do we begin to build alternatives?
Who's coming to our rescue if not the institutions that we've historically put our faith into?
The book Humankind by Rutger Bregman makes a stunning observation that those in crisis are more altruistic and willing to help their fellow human than in any other time in their lives. Their minds are more willing to accept new ideas. Humans are built to help one another in times of need. It is now precisely that so many will have unique capacity for kindness and communal effort. Like many of us though, I'm aware of the Shock Doctrine, and it will come for us again and again unless we begin to create frameworks for transformation and response. We need to engineer Reverse Shock Doctrines.
The Community Driven Recovery and Transition project is one of these. It imagines: "In order for a community to rebuild in a way that is consistent with their values and become resilient in the face of further changes, an exercise that brings the community together before a disaster strikes to envision that future is critical." This is not the first of such efforts, nor the last, but there are seeds. But they are not the only seeds. Seeds of fundamentalism, autocracy, parasitic capital, they are all sowing their own in similar efforts to be there when inevitable collapse occurs. It is my belief though, that there are many of us imagining that there can be better futures. More human-centric efforts to come.
I appreciate Daniel's comments. In much the same vein as Bregman's "Humankind" book, is Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disasters" which documents the many positive prosocial ways people respond in the midst of catastrophic circumstances. A reverse shock doctrine approach can likewise leverage the opportunities created by crises to transition into an entirely new, just and sustainable way of living for people and the planet instead of the exploitation dominant today with neoliberal disaster capitalism.
People might be interested in this to see more of what is happening on the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xyHffO-ur4
This was posted a few days ago.
I'm discovering an industry of sharp people like you, Matt, who are deeply rooted in ethics and fairness that we all would be practicing if we were fully evolved and that we need to take on for humanity's very survival as a sophisticated species. As I focus on where-to-from-here, I'm spreading your dire reports that we'd be moved by if anything could budge this exploitive system we are in. Governments won't do it for us, but what can we the people do? We're not even looking for that, as what these comments, that all deal with our despair, attest to.
I hope Helene puts the growing insurance crisis front and center. This in itself is enough to take the economy down. How about farm insurance? These are obviously foundational to the economy. I have no idea how to remedy this. Economic collapse will precede environmental collapse. It's happening.
The story I'm working on for Thursday is scarier. Things people haven't thought about.
I read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine some years ago, documenting the spread of neoliberal capitalism throughout the world. At this point, gentle messages won't do, IMO. I feel we're out of time. People need to be shocked awake. I went to a small gathering at my sister's house yesterday, a football party, the Bills are part of the cultural identity here. Helene was not discussed, and of course the game is really just a vehicle for pounding advertising into people. 24/7 illness that forms people far more than they realize. Three years on this journey and I feel increasingly alienated from those closest in my lives.
https://youtu.be/5HpHvX-M9Oo?si=kYRIGtLM5L33G18t
Strap in folks...
No, I think there are many who are prepared for what is coming. Just so many that do not have our best interest in mind. Insurance has always been on the cutting edge of bleeding the general populace dry and with the coming crises ad-infinitum, it seems deeply unlikely they're going to change their tack. Mutual aid is one deeply imagined future and if we want to benefit from it we need to imagine ways to institutionalize it. I say this with the knowledge that 'institutions' are failing us deeply.
Questions that have long been put off are now deeply important for us to consider:
Who are our social contracts with? If not the government, are they with our neighbors?
What's the meaning of paying in to preventative amenities that are being rigged to never pay out? How do we begin to build alternatives?
Who's coming to our rescue if not the institutions that we've historically put our faith into?
The book Humankind by Rutger Bregman makes a stunning observation that those in crisis are more altruistic and willing to help their fellow human than in any other time in their lives. Their minds are more willing to accept new ideas. Humans are built to help one another in times of need. It is now precisely that so many will have unique capacity for kindness and communal effort. Like many of us though, I'm aware of the Shock Doctrine, and it will come for us again and again unless we begin to create frameworks for transformation and response. We need to engineer Reverse Shock Doctrines.
The Community Driven Recovery and Transition project is one of these. It imagines: "In order for a community to rebuild in a way that is consistent with their values and become resilient in the face of further changes, an exercise that brings the community together before a disaster strikes to envision that future is critical." This is not the first of such efforts, nor the last, but there are seeds. But they are not the only seeds. Seeds of fundamentalism, autocracy, parasitic capital, they are all sowing their own in similar efforts to be there when inevitable collapse occurs. It is my belief though, that there are many of us imagining that there can be better futures. More human-centric efforts to come.
I appreciate Daniel's comments. In much the same vein as Bregman's "Humankind" book, is Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disasters" which documents the many positive prosocial ways people respond in the midst of catastrophic circumstances. A reverse shock doctrine approach can likewise leverage the opportunities created by crises to transition into an entirely new, just and sustainable way of living for people and the planet instead of the exploitation dominant today with neoliberal disaster capitalism.
It will not be heeded. Instead, we read stories of how the weather is being controlled by nefarious interests i.e. communists, the WEF, Putin, etc.