My 15 year plan

[Edward K. Ream]

Rebecca and I had a great three-week vacation.  We spent many hours chatting in the car, and several times I talked at length about what where I think the world is heading.  It isn't pretty.

When I arrived back home, my thoughts jelled after reading this article by Andrew Bracevich in Foreign Affairs.  Highly recommended.

Bracevich is a well-respected commentator, and I agree with what he says.  Alas, he is talking to the wind. There is no real constituency for what he is saying in the military-industrial-congressional complex.  His reasonable ideas will almost certainly be ignored.  Instead, we will have the usual absurd discussion about how much of GDP to spend on "Defense", as if that could replace discussions about what a military is for.  It's an frustrating situation. I feel like screaming.

It gets worse.  I expect CO2 emissions to continue their straight-line upward course, despite new clean technologies and heaps of international agreements.  Yes, increasing amounts of clean (or cleaner) energy will be generated, but that does not mean that CO2 emissions will decline.  Think about that for a moment.

The results are likely to end civilization as we know it within a few decades.  Global warming will destroy agricultural capacity.  There will be no getting it back.  The consequence will be unbearable pressure on our societies.  The number of failed states is increasing.  I expect to see more and more.  Our political system is already on the brink of failure.

And it gets even worse.  I expect the ongoing sixth mass extinction to continue, possibly even at a greater pace, given our increasing population. At some uncertain point, this will destroy our ability to live on this planet.  That is, the human race will go extinct. We are truly living on the brink.

The world is full of people who understand the danger, but offer preposterously inadequate remedies.  Instead, I prefer Elizabeth Kolbert's approach: refrain from comforting nonsense of the "10 things you can do to save the world" variety. There appears to be no way to alter how billions of people are organized.  As a result, millions of people may see the ongoing and oncoming disaster, but we are all helpless.

This is the world that I see.  I would love to be wrong, but I see little contrary evidence.  And I see no way to make any real difference about either global warming or mass extinction.  Me talking to the wind has no chance.

As a result, in spite of my feelings that Leo is an utterly insignificant piece of the big picture, working on Leo seems like the best that I can do in the circumstances.  I'll be focusing on new directions for Leo in the coming months.  These will be projects that can be done in a year or less.  Most will involve closer cooperation between Leo and other tools.

Your comments, please, Amigos.

Edward

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tuesday, September 13, 2016 at 11:14:23 AM UTC-5, Edward K. Ream wrote:

I chose to create a 15-year plan because my life expectancy at age 67 is about 17 years. I am under no illusions that I am guaranteed to live 17 more days, much less 17 more years.  Still, it seems wise to plan for the "long" haul.

Edward

[Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas]

On the urgent and important issues we're facing and the need of tools, like Leo, to overcome part of it I strongly recommend this:

https://via.hypothes.is/http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

(commented version with hypothesis)

I think we need to do stuff that makes sense in that scenario, not because we're going to save the world for sure, but because the world deserves, that effort from us, at least, as a existential way of giving ourselves sense to it in the middle of chaos.

In this commented version I share my thought on what I can do with my Leo inspired tool, Grafoscopio, interactive visualization and storytelling and data activism from my particular context in our local hackerspace. Hopefully this could bridge in some way with the concerns and efforts of others.

Cheers,

Offray

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[Zoom.Quiet]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Edward K. Ream <edre...@gmail.com> wrote:
...

>
> This is the world that I see. I would love to be wrong, but I see little
> contrary evidence. And I see no way to make any real difference about
> either global warming or mass extinction. Me talking to the wind has no
> chance.
>

Wow, never think about E.K.R can discuss like these.
in face, even now,if u life in china internet is NOT EXSIT
google/facebook/twitter/... etc.
i means i am livin the world E.K.R see/image;
so i able say about it: even world out control, look like.
but i always trust the technic will save human again and again ;-)
because in history, technic always done it many times.

> As a result, in spite of my feelings that Leo is an utterly insignificant
> piece of the big picture, working on Leo seems like the best that I can do
> in the circumstances. I'll be focusing on new directions for Leo in the
> coming months. These will be projects that can be done in a year or less.
> Most will involve closer cooperation between Leo and other tools.
>

Yes, in the future, the whole world will still only one kinds of
working ~ coder;
so the only things can spread for ever, must be the tool for coder ;-)
Leo is must one legend of it.


btw: in Leo coding always like enjoy, but contrast Sublime Text 2/3,
many editing function not yet.
such as: vertical select block ~ in subl usage: Shift+Control+↑/↓ will
select rectangle area, edit text in same time.
some times, it will very happy for change many code.

> Your comments, please, Amigos.
>
> Edward
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "leo-editor" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to leo-editor+...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to leo-e...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
life is pathetic, go Pythonic! 人生苦短, Python当歌!
俺: http://zoomquiet.io
授: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/cn/
怒: 冗余不做,日子甭过!备份不做,十恶不赦!
KM keep growing environment culture which promoting organization be learnning!

[Edward K. Ream]

​​On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Edward K. Ream <edre...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bracevich is a well-respected commentator, and I agree with what he says.  Alas, he is talking to the wind.

One alternative to talking to the wind is talking to oneself ;-) At least that way I have some chance of convincing my interlocutor.  Hehe.

One reason why doing something about global warming or mass extinction is hard is that there way too many constraints.  For example, economists typically consider growth to be essential. Alas, growth compounds CO2 emissions and stress on species.

One way forward is to use disciplined magical thinking.  This may reveal goals.

As I see it, the world would be better off with maybe only a billion people.  If all lived at the standard of living of the US, then perhaps the goals of E. O. Wilson's Half Earth might come to pass and the stress on species would be reduced.  We may as well assume little or no CO2 emissions.

But this is pure magic.  By definition, the seven+ billion people alive today can be expected to live, on average, their typical lifespan.  Events may drastically reduce that lifespan, but absent such horrors it would take 50 or more years of a global one-child policy to get the world back to 1 billion people.  That isn't going to happen.

Furthermore, as John Mauldin points out, declining populations create serious economic consequences, at least for present societies. Reducing population will face huge resistance from politicians and business leaders.

Aside: There is a howling mistake in Bill McKibben's otherwise excellent piece in the New Republic.

"But would the Stanford plan be enough to slow global warming? Yes, says [Mark Z.] Jacobson: If we move quickly enough to meet the goal of 80 percent clean power by 2030, then the world’s carbon dioxide levels would fall below the relative safety of 350 parts per million by the end of the century."

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.  This is a bathtub problem mistake.  Reducing the rate at which water flows into a bathtub does not lower the level of the water! CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by weathering of rock, and iirc that process takes on the order of 10,000 years. See this page for more.

Which just goes to show that people are notoriously bad at understanding rates of change.  To do it properly requires calculus, and that's not a real strong suit among business leaders and politicians.  Or with Bill McKibben, apparently.

We won't get even to 400 ppm unless we learn how to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  That can be done, but it would take a huge amount of green energy.  Only governments could fund such a project. It's not going to happen with climate deniers in control.

In short, disciplined magical thinking (aka thought experiments) shows just how difficult the problems are.

Edward

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 11:36 AM, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <off...@riseup.net> wrote:

On the urgent and important issues we're facing and the need of tools, like Leo, to overcome part of it

​.

​Thanks for the encouraging words.  I agree that improving Leo is probably the most effective ​thing I can do.

​

I strongly recommend this:

https://via.hypothes.is/http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

(commented version with hypothesis)

​Yes, we must move towards renewables and all the rest, but that's not going to be enough. I stand by my prediction that CO2 emissions will continue to increase, regardless of renewables.  Increased renewables and increased emissions are not incompatible.

I think we need to do stuff that makes sense in that scenario, not because we're going to save the world for sure, but because the world deserves, that effort from us, at least, as a existential way of giving ourselves sense to it in the middle of chaos.

​I agree.  I'm also in morning for the natural world.​  On our trip Rebecca and I visited Banff and Jasper. They have been turned into Disney Land.  I'll never go back.

Imo, technologists and physicists don't understand that it is biology that is the foundation of the world.  We are destroying it. Technological "solutions" are driven by the market and often increase pressure on the natural world.  Market failures will not be cured by technology.  We need a new way or organizing the efforts of billions of people. I despair of it happening.

Compounding the already insurmountable problems is our flawed intellectual apparatus.  The human brain is subject to dozens of cognitive biases. The rise of all sorts of denialists, especially in the last 15 years, is truly horrifying.  An op-ed piece in today's Times discusses just how daunting the situation is.

I won't apologize for laying out the problems as I have.  This is not a matter of being "optimistic" or "pessimistic".  We must start with stark realism.

Edward

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 1:06 PM, Edward K. Ream <edre...@gmail.com> wrote:

​> ​

One alternative to talking to the wind is talking to oneself ;-) At least that way I have some chance of convincing my interlocutor.  Hehe.

​Just to be clear.  My goal in writing all this is to get my thoughts on "paper" so I can stop thinking about them and move on to developing Leo ;-)

EKR

[Don Dwiggins]

Ed and all,

Awareness of this predicament we face isn't new.  I first learned of it via the dieoff.org site in 1999. (The site has recently changed; it used to consist mainly of links to many articles.  Still worth reading, though.)  A few thoughts:

• "Pessimism has negative survival value".  Homo Sapiens is a tough, adaptable species.  Civilzations have come and gone, as ours will.  The human population will diminish significantly.  Even without global warming, we'd face an energy crisis -- we're very close to hitting a maximum of economically extractable resources, with a global economic system that can only operate smoothly with perpetual exponential growth.  The long-term carrying capacity of the global ecosystem for humans is uncertain, but surely much less than 7 billion people.
  All this said, there's likely to be humans living, with much simpler lifestyles, for centuries to come.
  
  
• Speaking of pessimism/optimism: http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/paul-hawken-university-portland-speech-2009
  
  
• I recommend reading John Michael Greer's blog thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com, and his books, especially "The Long Descent" and "The Ecotechnic Future".  For a near-term look at the U.S. in particular, "Decline and Fall" provides a useful perspective.  (You mentioned "disciplined magical thinking".  Greer is a good resource there too; see galabes.blogspot.com.)
  
  
• The Transition Initiatives movement is worth getting to know.  Start with http://transitionus.org/transition-101, and look on that site for initiatives in your area.
  
  
• I think you'll find "Low-Tech Magazine" interesting; given the orientation of folks on this list, http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-internet.html might be a good place to start.
  
  
• Develop resilience.  Small, local communities of people who understand each other and naturally work well together toward common goals are well placed to be able to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
  
  
• Get to know Gaia.  Learn to think in terms of complex dynamic adaptive systems, and appreciate the many gifts she gives us, even in her disturbed state (I recommend Donella Meadows' "Thinking in Systems" for an introduction).  Learn to appreciate the long view.  "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the next best time is now."  I'd like to think that, if Homo Sapiens is doomed to extinction, the last few humans will plant a grove.  (Of course, we will become extinct, given enough time.  Gaia moves on.)
  
  
• Native American societies' spiritual stories feature the coyote as the "trickster".  Coyotes are among the most adaptable animals, and are making themselves at home, even in the middle of the biggest cities.  What can we learn from them?

Hope this helps,

Don Dwiggins
Northridge, CA

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 3:04 PM, Don Dwiggins <ddwi...@advpubtech.com> wrote:

Awareness of this predicament we face isn't new. 

​Thanks for the links.

Edward