liminal 🦠on Nostr: "The meta-crisis has both interior and exterior dimensions. The exterior dimension of ...
"The meta-crisis has both interior and exterior dimensions. The exterior dimension of the meta-crisis is catastrophic and existential risk, the full or partial death of humanity and all future generations. This is what we referred to above as the first form of existential risk, the extinction of humanity as we know it.
This exterior dimension can be seen and touched, so it is an obvious place to focus on. There are major problems with human economic systems, supply chains, electrical grids, weapons with catastrophic potential, and other aspects of the built environment. These interface with the biological world in ways that result in degraded and dying oceans, countless extinct species, and climatological disruptions. They compound to destabilize essential human systems and cause cascading and ever-widening humanitarian catastrophes. Planetary computational megastructures encircle the Earth. While they have their clear benefits, the sheer size, volume, and scope of these exterior systems can elicit an overwhelming, sublime terror that calls forth everything we have in response.
For a sense of scale, consider the following. The Alberta tar sands is a fossil fuel extraction operation in Canada that is destroying life and despoiling soil across 140,000 kilometers. an area about the size of Florida. There is a vast garbage patch swirling in the Pacific Ocean, where a huge amount of mostly plastic debris has been brought to one place by ocean currents - it is four times the size of Germany (1.6 million square kilometers). Recent studies show that microplastic residue from household chemicals has found its way into water everywhere on Earth, including deep aquafers and Arctic regions. These dangerous pollutants can dysregulate hormones, cause cancer, and cross the blood-brain barrier. More total animal biomass exists in factory farms than in nature. Three-quarters of Earth's total landmass has been significantly altered by human activity, with 85 percent of wetlands destroyed. Two-thirds of the Earth's of the Earth's oceans have been adversely affected, including through acidification, deoxygenation, dead zones and the loss of sea ice. The global rate of species extinction is accelerating and is already hundreds of times higher than the average rate over over the past ten million years. This paragraph, unfortunately, could be extended into a book."
- First Principles & First Values, Chapter 2: "Our Species Faces Two Forms of Existential Risk: The Death of Humanity and the Death of Our Humanity"
https://amplifypublishinggroup.com/product/nonfiction/politics-and-current-affairs/general-politics-and-current-affairs/first-principles-and-first-values/
This exterior dimension can be seen and touched, so it is an obvious place to focus on. There are major problems with human economic systems, supply chains, electrical grids, weapons with catastrophic potential, and other aspects of the built environment. These interface with the biological world in ways that result in degraded and dying oceans, countless extinct species, and climatological disruptions. They compound to destabilize essential human systems and cause cascading and ever-widening humanitarian catastrophes. Planetary computational megastructures encircle the Earth. While they have their clear benefits, the sheer size, volume, and scope of these exterior systems can elicit an overwhelming, sublime terror that calls forth everything we have in response.
For a sense of scale, consider the following. The Alberta tar sands is a fossil fuel extraction operation in Canada that is destroying life and despoiling soil across 140,000 kilometers. an area about the size of Florida. There is a vast garbage patch swirling in the Pacific Ocean, where a huge amount of mostly plastic debris has been brought to one place by ocean currents - it is four times the size of Germany (1.6 million square kilometers). Recent studies show that microplastic residue from household chemicals has found its way into water everywhere on Earth, including deep aquafers and Arctic regions. These dangerous pollutants can dysregulate hormones, cause cancer, and cross the blood-brain barrier. More total animal biomass exists in factory farms than in nature. Three-quarters of Earth's total landmass has been significantly altered by human activity, with 85 percent of wetlands destroyed. Two-thirds of the Earth's of the Earth's oceans have been adversely affected, including through acidification, deoxygenation, dead zones and the loss of sea ice. The global rate of species extinction is accelerating and is already hundreds of times higher than the average rate over over the past ten million years. This paragraph, unfortunately, could be extended into a book."
- First Principles & First Values, Chapter 2: "Our Species Faces Two Forms of Existential Risk: The Death of Humanity and the Death of Our Humanity"
https://amplifypublishinggroup.com/product/nonfiction/politics-and-current-affairs/general-politics-and-current-affairs/first-principles-and-first-values/