16 tweets · May 2019 · 99 likes · 3 retweets · read on Twitter
@cognazor @KeenDisregard Yeah, reading the book I got the sense that other people reading it might think "ah yeah, people are gonna figure everything out" without accounting for the fact that this might not happen, for various reasons. It might, but you can't take that for granted!
@cognazor @KeenDisregard I don't think David disagrees factually with what I've said, but his treatment of it conveys a sense of "don't worry" that seems naïve to me. Naïve for two reasons: 1. we're still mid static→dynamic society transition 2. lack of understanding of complexity & nonlinear dynamics
@cognazor @KeenDisregard Re 1, our society is observably dynamic & that's why we can have humanity-scale existential risks. However, globally, we're still more in-transition than we are *in* the new way-of-thinking. "Schools are for training thinking" is still an ideal, not real
@cognazor @KeenDisregard This transition phase has properties that are different from the static society and different from the dynamic society, and in ways that are probably hard to predict because it's happening at a boundary, rather than within a given system.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard Speaking of systems that are hard to predict, The Beginning of Infinity, like most rationalist/modernist takes, tends towards seeing all systems as complicated systems, ie ones that if you think about long enough you can figure them out and control them.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard In complex systems (including interpersonal relations, intergovernmental relations, and biology on all scales from tiny organisms to biospheres) by the time you've understood the system well enough to control it, it has already changed. Needs an improvisational approach.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard This is issue #2, above. In nonlinear systems, it's sometimes possible to use a tiny amount of energy to produce a change that takes a million times as much energy/info/effort to reverse. This isn't rare, it's the usual case. Don't believe me? Drop your phone onto concrete.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard Your phone is a complicated system though—we can easily model what it would cost to fix (ie replace). & yet if it were an old model not being manufactured any more and with no good used ones for sale, it might actually cost you 10-100 times as much to get a perfect replacement.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard On a much larger scale, a solar storm could knock out huge sections of the power grid, and there aren't enough replacement transformers to just swap them in. How to build replacements if power is out everywhere? How long would that take? What would be lost in the meantime?
@cognazor @KeenDisregard And... people are working on this! → nbcnews.com/mach/space/how… But did you know people were working on it? Do you know how much progress they've made? Do you know whether we'd be fucked if a huge solar storm happened next week? ☀
@cognazor @KeenDisregard And solar storms are just one thing! So, I resonate deeply with DD's message that the only way out is through. We can't go back. We can't build a sustainable civilization just by recycling. And... just because the only way out is through doesn't mean we'll find that way out.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard But we might! Holding that uncertainty is incredibly challenging. I've been taking in Jem Bendell's writing & speaking about Near-term Inevitable Collapse, and I love its focus on preparing not just logistically but psychologically for such a future... and... it's still certain.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard I really like how @dthorson phrased this in the intro to a recent Making Sense Of episode of Emerge with him & Bonnitta Roy: "perhaps-inevitable near-term collapse". "Perhaps-Inevitable" is a beautiful phrase. It points so powerfully at the limitations of our knowledge & power.
@cognazor @KeenDisregard @dthorson "Perhaps-inevitable" is so so so different from "99% likely" or "near-certain" or anything like that. It recognizes that we're in a complex system with huge dynamics and things might already be inevitable but also we can't know that for sure either!
@cognazor @KeenDisregard @dthorson (This tweetstorm I just wrote has been gradually brewing since I read The Beginning of Infinity months ago, and further evolving as I've taken in this stuff about collapse, with yet further developments as I learn more about McGilchrist's brain lateralization model.)
@cognazor @KeenDisregard @dthorson Ooh, and here's an article where someone who used to be not worried about climate change didn't change their probability assessment but DID realize "wait, even if this is not likely, we should still do stuff to make sure we're safe".