<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title><style type="text/css">p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Interesting / recommended:<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Movie — Mortal Engines. "We have to destroy London" London traveling around the globe destroying all other mobile cities.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Book — SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson. Black hole destroys moon, three arcologies (one a space station, one undersea, and one in Alaskan mine, survive but ethnic strife among the seven "races" (each the descendants of one of the Eves) survives as well.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Wed, Jun 3, 2020, at 1:21 PM, Steve Smith wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><p>Gary -<br></p><p>I do think your characterization if taken literally has a tinge
of the sociopath in it... but I have similar instincts and offer
this complementary? perspective:<br></p><p>I used to worry (a lot more) about what I called <i>Homo Hiveus</i>,
an evolution (via social not genetic mechanisms) of our tribal
species to a eusocial one. It sounded like a purely miserable
way of life, etc., yadda yadda. I was a budding
pseudo-liberatarian.<br></p><p>I credit Glen somewhat for harping against hyper-individuality
(on and offlist) with me enough to get my attention, if not to
completely straighten me out. I am not tuned or calibrated for
crowds personally and I therefore ignore/avoid them... however
that does not mean I don't believe that we either A) CAN become a
better version of ourselves by giving over to a more collective
way of being; or B) WILL move toward the biofilm Glen suggests
whether that represents a "better" version of ourselves (by what
measure?).<br></p><p>My instincts/embedded values weigh in: 1) I don't want to give
up/lose my personal identity (ego) and/or agency to a collective;
and 2) I don't want to see my species over-run the planet (any
more than we have, and surely less) and exclude (most) other
life-forms in the process.<br></p><p>I became interested in the futurist Paolo Soleri's Arcologies
(Architected Ecologies) when he was building his first (and only)
example in central AZ while I was in college in Northern AZ
(1970s). Through having done some laser scans of the Paolo
Soleri Amphitheater I became more intimate with his staff at
Arcosanti and have visited a few times. One articulation of his
vision for "Arcologies" is to build (I'm getting the numbers wrong
I think but you can appreciate teh spirit) 1 square mile
Arcologies, each holding 1M people and providing for all of their
own needs (food and energy) in self-contained ways.... and that by
"contracting" the world population into roughly 1000 of these (at
the time) that it would "save the world"... this included NOT
plowing up 1000 square miles around each arcology for intensive
agriculture... and did imply a vegetarian/vegan diet (though maybe
with aquaponics if not soylent-green).<br></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology#:~:text=Arcology%2C%20a%20portmanteau%20of%20%22architecture,ecologically%20low%2Dimpact%20human%20habitats.">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology#:~:text=Arcology%2C%20a%20portmanteau%20of%20%22architecture,ecologically%20low%2Dimpact%20human%20habitats.</a><br></p><p><br></p><p>I also made a shift in consciousness maybe 25 years ago when I
realized that we *don't all have to take the same route*. While
I'm not a big fan of Musk's ideas of appropriating/colonizing
Mars, I do think it is at least as inevitable and viable as the
Norse colonizing Greenland and Vinland (even if they ultimately
withdrew). So some sea-bottom arcologies, some rainforest-canopy
arcologies, some desert, some polar, each with it's own character
would suit me better. And surely Mars/Moon/Kuiper-belt too?
Complexity theory would suggest a power-law distribution of scales
too?<br></p><p>I hope we *don't* go to bio-slime and if we need several thousand
Arcologies to "contain" the bulk of the human (over) population
then I'm game... I won't be around for it and probably my
children/grandchildren (who have chosen big cities:
Portland/Denver) will be more adaptive to such. We could *also*
reduce our population to something more sustainable. I'd like
to hope (romantically) that there would still be room for some
comfortably dispersed human populations living a
sustainable/permaculture lifestyle as well... but the purists
would need thousands of identical arcologies (hives) I am sure.<br></p><p>- Steve<br></p><p><br></p><div class="qt-moz-cite-prefix">On 6/3/20 12:44 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CANr4ZeNaRCY7z8wa8G2rHq2o7q8dFxDsejWaEFrtcL55FYqXUA@mail.gmail.com"><div dir="ltr">Does it make me a sociopath for me to hope big
cities *do* collapse and become a thing of the past? People who
know me well understand when I say I like persons, but not
people, which is to say that while I treasure
individual friendships and relationships, I at best tolerate
crowds. I think we have not evolved the psychological mechanisms
to live together in great concentrations. Our advanced
civilization is much too young to qualify as having stood the
test of time, a few measly tens of thousands of years is such a
small blip in time compared to the time life has existed on our
planet. I personally believe that the Earth would be much better
off with under a billion (highly educated) people, with AI and
robotics providing for the bulk of our material needs, and that
is something we should as a species strive for. But then, I
could be absolutely, completely, wrong about all this, and
instead just be a sociopath. I hope not.<br></div><div><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="qt-gmail_attr">On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 11:48
AM Merle Lefkoff <<a href="mailto:merlelefkoff@gmail.com">merlelefkoff@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="qt-gmail_quote" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1px;padding-left:1ex;"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">Biofilm,
huh? I think you may be on to something.<br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">Returning a
long-overdue book to the downtown Santa Fe library
last evening, I took a walk thorough the plaza to
see how our "phase two" was coming along. There
were about 40 police strolling about--with only a
few pedestrians, locals all wearing masks, and a few
unfortunate tourists (not wearing masks, evidently
not needed in the biofilm). There had been a rumor
of a demonstration which had not materialized. So
the officers were enjoying the evening "break", as
they told me.<br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">I can't sleep
at night worrying about how we're going to keep
peace in the valley in the near future as the
quickening collapse of our systems becomes
logarithmic. Many big-city police are recruited
based on former military service. Also, many who
get a high from dealing with violence are attracted
to policing. The recruits are then trained as
warriors, not peacekeepers, today even dressed for
duty on the "front lines". Beyond the systemic
context of racism, poverty, etc. etc., the elected
city mothers and fathers who theoretically "control"
local law enforcement either don't give a damn, or
they're scared of the very powerful police unions. <br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;">I'm old
enough to remember the release of the President's
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder,
known as the Kerner Report, FIFTY-TWO years ago in
1968. After surveying 24 "disorders" in 23 cities,
the final conclusion was that "Our nation is moving
toward two societies, one black, one white--separate
and unequal". The report then went on in
extraordinary detail to describe the challenges of
pervasive racism and the absence of political will
to provide the federal money needed to intervene AT
THE SYSTEM LEVEL. It was quite remarkable to read
again; every word could have been written today;
President Johnson immediately dismissed the report,
released on February 29; and on April 4 Martin
Luther King was shot dead.<br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://hystericalcolorblindness.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/kerner-commission-report-pdf/" style="font-family:-webkit-standard;" target="_blank">https://hystericalcolorblindness.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/kerner-commission-report-pdf/</a><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;"> <br></div></div></div></div></div><div><br></div><div class="qt-gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="qt-gmail_attr">On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at
9:47 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <<a href="mailto:gepropella@gmail.com" target="_blank">gepropella@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="qt-gmail_quote" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1px;padding-left:1ex;"><div>Aside: Do you avoid
using the Reply mechanism on purpose? The subject seems to
be a normally formatted reply, but there are no
References: headers in your posts. This prevents threading
clients from treating your post as a reply. It seems like
you're using the Gmail web client. But I haven't read
email headers in awhile. So who knows?<br></div><div> <br></div><div> I entertain a long-running (longer than usual for me)
ill-formed hypothesis that as our population density
approaches the carrying capacity of the earth, such
isolation will be more and more rare. And that diversity
will also go down. We'll become more of a biofilm (or
superorganism) on the surface of the earth and less of a
seething constellation of differentiable agents. One hitch
is that as climate change worsens, some places will be the
exclusive playgrounds of the wealthy (wealthy enough to
own the water and supply chains to move goods to these
rarified places). So you optimistic elitists living in
compounds like Santa Fe (parasitic off those of us who
might still function more naturally as climate change
blossoms) will become more and more isolated while the
rest of us become more and more like a biofilm.<br></div><div> <br></div><div> So you'll need to cling to your diversity while it lasts
because WE are coming for you! >8^D<br></div><div> <br></div><div> On 6/3/20 7:41 AM, Jon Zingale wrote:<br></div><div> > I personally find the Santa Fe police force to be
very good at being<br></div><div> > empathetic and encouraging peaceful conflict. As
someone who has spent<br></div><div> > half of my life living in dense urban centers, I
often feel a responsibility<br></div><div> > to witness when I see police interactions with
others. Moving to Santa Fe has<br></div><div> > done a lot to remediate my feelings around the
police. Further, while there is<br></div><div> > a very long way to go wrt race and equity, the
discussion has been explicitly<br></div><div> > in motion here in New Mexico for a long time. Is it
possible that our apparent<br></div><div> > /isolation from the broader unrest/ is a sign of
maturity within our social<br></div><div> > discourse? I have some concern that there may be a
rising pressure<br></div><div> > across the diverse regions of our country to abstract
away our differences,<br></div><div> > and to behave as if the discourse is /everywhere the
same/. Doing so in<br></div><div> > many cases would erase the very good work that has
been hard-won.<br></div><div> <br></div><div> <br></div><div> -- <br></div><div> ☣ uǝlƃ<br></div><div> <br></div><div> -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. -
.... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-.
-.- . .-. ...<br></div><div> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br></div><div> un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br></div><div> archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/<br> FRIAM-COMIC</a> <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> </div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>--<br></div><div> <br></div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.<br></div><div> President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy<br></div><div> <a href="http://emergentdiplomacy.org" target="_blank">emergentdiplomacy.org</a><br></div></div><div>Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA<br></div><div><div><a href="mailto:merlelefoff@gmail.com" target="_blank">merlelefkoff@gmail.com</a><br></div><div> mobile: (303) 859-5609<br></div><div> skype: merle.lelfkoff2<br></div></div><div>twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div>-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - ....
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