I find so much value in your posts, and I appreciate your freedom to write them when you feel you need to. I agree the Great Simplification feels a little lost in the woods right now. I worry Nate is burning out on some level. I enjoyed the Schmachtenberger episode, but afterwards I realised he hadn't actually said anything more than "raise awareness" in a very pleasant and round about way, and I wondered if my instincts that it is too late for that to do much good are right or not. He has developed the cadence of a preacher which I find unnerving at times.
If you see 8 billion blissful frogs boiling slowly in a pot are you really doing them a favour pointing out their ever worsening suffering, especially if the >90% of the frogs are physically unable to jump out of the pot?
The questions keep returning- How do people change? Can people even choose to change? Did I even change on this journey, or did I suspect something was deeply wrong with the world from day one and this is just the natural consequence of that abnormal instinct? Is there any reason to change beyond a certain point? A lot of smokers with terminal lung cancer keep on smoking to their last day. Their logic seems correct to me. Maybe the suburbanites sucking down every last drop of self destructive dopamine are on the best of all possible paths for them.
Maybe those of us who have jumped out of the pot already are all that are going to do so. At some point this will be true, when the water is too hot to survive anymore. Maybe that is just the way it has to be, and our compassion and urge to save others will reach its practical limit. Maybe us enlightened ones are merely sitting on the edge of the pot, where there might be a slight breeze to cool our heads while our feet are put to the fire. If you were sentenced to be burnt alive there would be no advantage in demanding that only your waist down was consigned to the flames. Quite the opposite in that particular scenario.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I tend to agree with what you’ve said here - it’s a tricky situation.
In all my recent interactions with “normal people” I’ve realized that, yes, I wouldn’t be doing them a favor if I’d explain our predicament to them, for precisely the reason that they have enough to worry about and they simply have no. way. out. Like, seriously. People are fucking trapped, dude, and as long as I can’t actively help them escape that trap, I feel I would only add to their misery when describing the inner workings of this trap to them, or detailing the gruesome injuries & death it causes.
One of the reasons why we are much less active on social media is that we don’t feel it’s fair to push our (relatively) good life into the face of people for whom this is simply not an option. Millions of people here subsist on fucking ramen noodles, and what would they feel if we talked about the benefits of homegrown organic produce? What would the hopelessly indebted farmers feel if we spoke to the virtues of natural farming?
It’s difficult, though, because on some level we are condemning all of them to the ranks of “those that probably won’t make it,” and while there’s a painful truth in that, it’s still emotionally demanding. We are a species that deeply cares about one another (at least about those in our ingroup), so it comes somewhat naturally to want to help mitigate future conflict & suffering.
*How to do this* is the big challenge standing in front of us now.
The cracks in the walls are getting bigger and more difficult to ignore, but the house still stands - for now. We know it's coming down soon, though - and count our blessings while we still enjoy them. That includes reading your posts, safe on my couch, with the 20 year old cat that we recently adopted between me and the screen. What you share about 'getting it in your heart' touches me. It is the intensity of experiences and the letting go of (big) ambitions that you describe that resonates. Everything has been said, the die has been cast. And yet, our words still have the power to connect us and heal. Our gestures still can inspire and comfort. Our grief still speaks of our love for this wonderful planet. The birds still sing their song - be it not in a magnificent dawn chorus as I remember from my childhood. A single butterfly can make me marvel. That intensity. My heart gets it, too...
I read an article last month about the economic crisis in Nigeria...a country with a large population and significant natural resources. And yet for many people survival comes down to having a few gathered wild nuts to sustain themselves. I think it is very worthwhile to grow as many trees and plants with nutritional, medicinal, or timber values as we can. I was talking to my Thai husband about this and he said...if there is war or disaster and we have food and others dont, people will come to take our food. I asked so what should we do? He said, we will have to share it. It is a simple idea but this simplicity may save us (people and animals).
I agree, increasing the local availability of “natural resources” such as food (!!), fuel, fiber, timber, thatch, cordage, medicine, resin, latex, etc. seems like the best chance we have.
Here in Thailand, a transition to a saner way of living would – in theory – not even be that difficult. People would just have to go back to a more traditional lifestyle (with some important differences, though). Thailand is an exporter of food, so – again, *in theory* – it would be definitely possible to avoid the worst. Permacultural techniques have a much higher output of nutritional quality & diversity per acre, so food system could be “intensified” in a more natural way – diversification, polycropping, increased human labor input (due to a massive demographic shift back to the countryside), localization of supply chains, etc.
We have the climate & conditions to do that relatively easily (when compared to colder or drier countries), and we can fall back on traditional wisdom & proven natural farming techniques. But therefore, those people would first have to let go of their (unrealistic) ambitions & expectations of life – namely to live a western middle-class lifestyle (materially) and isolate oneself against “Nature.”
I think what Surin said contains a profound truth – that’s most likely what we will do here as well. It’s the best *and the only* thing we can do, really. There’s no guarantee that it works, either for others or for us, but it’s our best chance.
Let’s hope that more people will realize this in time, in order to smoothen the transition. So far it seems like all the farmers here do is to further increase intensification. More fertilizers, more pesticides, more torture of the Earth to extract the last few “goods” to be sold. We talked to a friend who’s from Cambodia, and she said in her village all the hills are bare by now. The air is so hot you can’t be outside during dry season. Not a single tree left standing – people sold them all or turned them into charcoal. And nobody thinks of planting some trees back!
What the long history of our species seems to tell us is that when a culture runs into insurmountable limits, there are two ways this could go, and often both of them happen to the same culture. Some people choose to “go down with the ship,” and don’t change their ways even when faced with utter ruin. Others are able to learn from “hitting rock bottom” and adjusting their behavior to accommodate conservationist ethics.
I believe this is what gave Native American cultures concepts like the Honorable Harvest and the Seven Generations Principle, and – more generally – I think the Megafauna Extinctions gave the surviving hunter-gatherers a renewed and deepened reverence for the animals they hunt – and thus a responsibility to also protect them. Derrick Jensen formulated this principle like this: “If I consume the flesh of another I am responsible for the continuation of its community.”
The only thing left to do now is to prepare & wait. Trying to change people’s minds has, in our experience, proven to be an utter waste of time, so they’ll have to learn it the hard way, I’m afraid.
It seems all that is left is to strengthen bonds between friends and family, creating islands of strength on which to weather the coming storms. Hopefully all these islands can one day form a new continent where our descendants can start a new world.
I find so much value in your posts, and I appreciate your freedom to write them when you feel you need to. I agree the Great Simplification feels a little lost in the woods right now. I worry Nate is burning out on some level. I enjoyed the Schmachtenberger episode, but afterwards I realised he hadn't actually said anything more than "raise awareness" in a very pleasant and round about way, and I wondered if my instincts that it is too late for that to do much good are right or not. He has developed the cadence of a preacher which I find unnerving at times.
If you see 8 billion blissful frogs boiling slowly in a pot are you really doing them a favour pointing out their ever worsening suffering, especially if the >90% of the frogs are physically unable to jump out of the pot?
The questions keep returning- How do people change? Can people even choose to change? Did I even change on this journey, or did I suspect something was deeply wrong with the world from day one and this is just the natural consequence of that abnormal instinct? Is there any reason to change beyond a certain point? A lot of smokers with terminal lung cancer keep on smoking to their last day. Their logic seems correct to me. Maybe the suburbanites sucking down every last drop of self destructive dopamine are on the best of all possible paths for them.
Maybe those of us who have jumped out of the pot already are all that are going to do so. At some point this will be true, when the water is too hot to survive anymore. Maybe that is just the way it has to be, and our compassion and urge to save others will reach its practical limit. Maybe us enlightened ones are merely sitting on the edge of the pot, where there might be a slight breeze to cool our heads while our feet are put to the fire. If you were sentenced to be burnt alive there would be no advantage in demanding that only your waist down was consigned to the flames. Quite the opposite in that particular scenario.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I tend to agree with what you’ve said here - it’s a tricky situation.
In all my recent interactions with “normal people” I’ve realized that, yes, I wouldn’t be doing them a favor if I’d explain our predicament to them, for precisely the reason that they have enough to worry about and they simply have no. way. out. Like, seriously. People are fucking trapped, dude, and as long as I can’t actively help them escape that trap, I feel I would only add to their misery when describing the inner workings of this trap to them, or detailing the gruesome injuries & death it causes.
One of the reasons why we are much less active on social media is that we don’t feel it’s fair to push our (relatively) good life into the face of people for whom this is simply not an option. Millions of people here subsist on fucking ramen noodles, and what would they feel if we talked about the benefits of homegrown organic produce? What would the hopelessly indebted farmers feel if we spoke to the virtues of natural farming?
It’s difficult, though, because on some level we are condemning all of them to the ranks of “those that probably won’t make it,” and while there’s a painful truth in that, it’s still emotionally demanding. We are a species that deeply cares about one another (at least about those in our ingroup), so it comes somewhat naturally to want to help mitigate future conflict & suffering.
*How to do this* is the big challenge standing in front of us now.
The cracks in the walls are getting bigger and more difficult to ignore, but the house still stands - for now. We know it's coming down soon, though - and count our blessings while we still enjoy them. That includes reading your posts, safe on my couch, with the 20 year old cat that we recently adopted between me and the screen. What you share about 'getting it in your heart' touches me. It is the intensity of experiences and the letting go of (big) ambitions that you describe that resonates. Everything has been said, the die has been cast. And yet, our words still have the power to connect us and heal. Our gestures still can inspire and comfort. Our grief still speaks of our love for this wonderful planet. The birds still sing their song - be it not in a magnificent dawn chorus as I remember from my childhood. A single butterfly can make me marvel. That intensity. My heart gets it, too...
Beautifully put, thank you so much!
I read an article last month about the economic crisis in Nigeria...a country with a large population and significant natural resources. And yet for many people survival comes down to having a few gathered wild nuts to sustain themselves. I think it is very worthwhile to grow as many trees and plants with nutritional, medicinal, or timber values as we can. I was talking to my Thai husband about this and he said...if there is war or disaster and we have food and others dont, people will come to take our food. I asked so what should we do? He said, we will have to share it. It is a simple idea but this simplicity may save us (people and animals).
I agree, increasing the local availability of “natural resources” such as food (!!), fuel, fiber, timber, thatch, cordage, medicine, resin, latex, etc. seems like the best chance we have.
Here in Thailand, a transition to a saner way of living would – in theory – not even be that difficult. People would just have to go back to a more traditional lifestyle (with some important differences, though). Thailand is an exporter of food, so – again, *in theory* – it would be definitely possible to avoid the worst. Permacultural techniques have a much higher output of nutritional quality & diversity per acre, so food system could be “intensified” in a more natural way – diversification, polycropping, increased human labor input (due to a massive demographic shift back to the countryside), localization of supply chains, etc.
We have the climate & conditions to do that relatively easily (when compared to colder or drier countries), and we can fall back on traditional wisdom & proven natural farming techniques. But therefore, those people would first have to let go of their (unrealistic) ambitions & expectations of life – namely to live a western middle-class lifestyle (materially) and isolate oneself against “Nature.”
I think what Surin said contains a profound truth – that’s most likely what we will do here as well. It’s the best *and the only* thing we can do, really. There’s no guarantee that it works, either for others or for us, but it’s our best chance.
Let’s hope that more people will realize this in time, in order to smoothen the transition. So far it seems like all the farmers here do is to further increase intensification. More fertilizers, more pesticides, more torture of the Earth to extract the last few “goods” to be sold. We talked to a friend who’s from Cambodia, and she said in her village all the hills are bare by now. The air is so hot you can’t be outside during dry season. Not a single tree left standing – people sold them all or turned them into charcoal. And nobody thinks of planting some trees back!
What the long history of our species seems to tell us is that when a culture runs into insurmountable limits, there are two ways this could go, and often both of them happen to the same culture. Some people choose to “go down with the ship,” and don’t change their ways even when faced with utter ruin. Others are able to learn from “hitting rock bottom” and adjusting their behavior to accommodate conservationist ethics.
I believe this is what gave Native American cultures concepts like the Honorable Harvest and the Seven Generations Principle, and – more generally – I think the Megafauna Extinctions gave the surviving hunter-gatherers a renewed and deepened reverence for the animals they hunt – and thus a responsibility to also protect them. Derrick Jensen formulated this principle like this: “If I consume the flesh of another I am responsible for the continuation of its community.”
The only thing left to do now is to prepare & wait. Trying to change people’s minds has, in our experience, proven to be an utter waste of time, so they’ll have to learn it the hard way, I’m afraid.
It seems all that is left is to strengthen bonds between friends and family, creating islands of strength on which to weather the coming storms. Hopefully all these islands can one day form a new continent where our descendants can start a new world.