Thinking about the idea that when the environment is easy, algae and fungus go it alone.
But when times get tough, they form interspecies alliances (and become lichen).
Times have been easy, so we've forgotten, but we CAN team up with other organisms and become stronger.
1/n
But when times get tough, they form interspecies alliances (and become lichen).
Times have been easy, so we've forgotten, but we CAN team up with other organisms and become stronger.
1/n
That's the idea behind locally-centered small-scale regenerative farming.
Reduce our energy requirements and begin to find new old ways of living within the ecosystem instead of sand-blasting it into straight rows of inedible corn.
2/n
Reduce our energy requirements and begin to find new old ways of living within the ecosystem instead of sand-blasting it into straight rows of inedible corn.
2/n
Modernity is fragile because humans act like we're above the world.
But everything we eat has grown - taken energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil. No amount of corporate obfuscation can change this.
Despite our pretensions we are 100% reliant on the ecosystem.
3/n
But everything we eat has grown - taken energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil. No amount of corporate obfuscation can change this.
Despite our pretensions we are 100% reliant on the ecosystem.
3/n
But our pretensions at superiority somehow make us think it's okay to destroy the same ecosystems we're 100% reliant on for food.
Because "technology" will save us.
Solar panels, factory "meat," wind turbines, desalination. It's all piecemeal and doesn't add up.
4/n
Because "technology" will save us.
Solar panels, factory "meat," wind turbines, desalination. It's all piecemeal and doesn't add up.
4/n
And, to paraphrase @AlexSteffen, this "predatory delay" is intergenerational warfare. A massive crime committed by our parents and grandparents against our children and grandchildren.
They've essentially elected to nuke the biosphere so they can go on cruises.
5/n
They've essentially elected to nuke the biosphere so they can go on cruises.
5/n
They've alienated themselves from reality and it shows up as aggressive dysfunction.
The climate crisis. The "mental health" crisis. Depression, addiction, suicide, hopelessness.
It's all the same thing.
We replaced something valuable and meaningful with emptiness.
6/n
The climate crisis. The "mental health" crisis. Depression, addiction, suicide, hopelessness.
It's all the same thing.
We replaced something valuable and meaningful with emptiness.
6/n
We replaced meaning with consumerism and more consumerism.
It is the engine that will drive us to extinction if we let it, because unmitigated consumerism destroys the things we ACTUALLY need to give us way too much stuff we have no need for at all.
8/n
It is the engine that will drive us to extinction if we let it, because unmitigated consumerism destroys the things we ACTUALLY need to give us way too much stuff we have no need for at all.
8/n
And the thing my more naive self never anticipated (I was very naive) is that, when we realized what was happening, there would be absolutely zero political will to DO something about it.
Because we discount events 100 years from now down to ZERO.
"NoT mY ProBlEm!"
9/n
Because we discount events 100 years from now down to ZERO.
"NoT mY ProBlEm!"
9/n
You can see this in the "debate" over wearing masks at the height of the pandemic.
Wearing one was a simple thing everyone could do to help a public health crisis, but many felt their "right" not to wear was more important than their "obligation"
10/n
Wearing one was a simple thing everyone could do to help a public health crisis, but many felt their "right" not to wear was more important than their "obligation"
10/n
Any sacrifice is too much for a people raised to be so soft and entitled.
But I'm not talking about COVID:
Our collective response to our effect on the global ecosystem is the same, but with infinitely worse consequences.
11/n
But I'm not talking about COVID:
Our collective response to our effect on the global ecosystem is the same, but with infinitely worse consequences.
11/n
My right to feel GOOD about buying cheap plastic shit at Walmart or to tune my diesel so I can "roll coal" on a Tesla outweighs every obligation I have to my grandchildren.
Their right to food and fresh water has no standing.
This is fundamentally and profoundly fucked.
12/n
Their right to food and fresh water has no standing.
This is fundamentally and profoundly fucked.
12/n
We are a society unmoored NOT ONLY from the ecosystem on which we VERY MUCH depend, but also from our neighbors and OUR OWN OFFSPRING.
We're alienated from everything that matters.
"Real" gold has stolen our ability to see real value.
13/n
We're alienated from everything that matters.
"Real" gold has stolen our ability to see real value.
13/n
I don't have all the answers, but the answer is not, for example, #bitcoin.
Modern civilization is at such a scale that we're necessarily alienated from each other.
Too many of us in the same "group" for us to have any loyalty to one another.
14/n
Modern civilization is at such a scale that we're necessarily alienated from each other.
Too many of us in the same "group" for us to have any loyalty to one another.
14/n
Humans evolved to live in much, much smaller groups. There is a right size for a polity and it's not 330 million.
Smaller groups mean closer ties and more robust civic life where people have more of a say. Where every externality is plainly visible.
This is #localism.
15/n
Smaller groups mean closer ties and more robust civic life where people have more of a say. Where every externality is plainly visible.
This is #localism.
15/n
It is no coincidence that democracy and western philosophy arose in Greece and Italy, whose rough terrain gave rise to small independent city-states with robust civic lives.
Geography, for a long time, limited the size of these cities by necessitating their independence.
16/n
Geography, for a long time, limited the size of these cities by necessitating their independence.
16/n
Being free of the alienation caused by being the subject of a leviathan (especially one that uses its power to funnel money from the population to a few wealthier-than-god feudal lords) seems like a required step.
17/n
17/n
"But billionaires have created VALUE"
I say Jeff Bezos (for example) has NOT had to pay anything of the externalized costs of Amazon's operations.
Carbon emissions, massive material waste, shit working conditions, clogging cities with delivery trucks.
18/n
I say Jeff Bezos (for example) has NOT had to pay anything of the externalized costs of Amazon's operations.
Carbon emissions, massive material waste, shit working conditions, clogging cities with delivery trucks.
18/n
Amazon doesn't pay those costs.
We do. Our grandchildren will be crushed under the weight of this debt that we don't even know how to count.
It is industrial colonialism - destroying the existing world in order to take as much for one's self as possible.
19/n
We do. Our grandchildren will be crushed under the weight of this debt that we don't even know how to count.
It is industrial colonialism - destroying the existing world in order to take as much for one's self as possible.
19/n
I don't know all the things we should do, but I do know this: times are about to get hard.
They're already getting hard.
Time to start thinking less like algae and fungus.
Time to start thinking like lichens.
20/n
They're already getting hard.
Time to start thinking less like algae and fungus.
Time to start thinking like lichens.
20/n
Note: I stole the idea of the lichen as a metaphor from the wonderful, imagination-expanding "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer
indiebound.org/book/978157131…
indiebound.org/book/978157131…
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