Of discipline, futility and Three Types of People – End of Days #19 and #20

I took the day off yesterday – not from work but from talking about staring into the abyss. That does not mean that my Twitter feed wasn’t full of graphs and memes and articles some of which I took in. It simply means that I didn’t have the discipline to put out a thousand words. And I can make all sorts of excuses about that and I certainly will such as o and this is where I do the victimology “nobody listening to me” or “oh it’s so difficult to stare into the abyss” but ultimately I’m not good at discipline and attention to detail. And part of the attraction in doing the series was or has been to try to get on top of that 

Let’s talk about  “Belling the Cat” – so much we are looking at – the graphs we are looking at, the news stories of the smoke from the wildfires choking the air in New York or Washington D.C or of tthe heat waves are hitting and India and other parts of the world where there are not enough white people to justify a film crew or the broadcast of film clips  are so much bargaining and apocalypse-porn.  And some of us (me?) seem hope that if we cry long enough then the benevolent adults currently hiding will come and fix things – what I call the “scraped knee theory of change.” 

But I don’t have anything else to suggest because the problem of climate change is not climate change famously but rather a much broader set of problems. And these problems haven’t been caused just since the Industrial Revolution  – we  as humans have taken at least as much as we wanted if not more and pushed the bill (or “the check” as the Americans call i)t onto other species other people and future generations.  I hate the term “hardwired into our DNA” but yeah you know,,,

So we’ve seen to be I don’t know three positions or maybe as more

One is the doomers – there are shades of them, various types of them – I won’t subdivide.

Then there are all the ones who are aware and telling everyone that they have to take (unspecified) action. What is interesting is that the focus on reducing your own carbon footprint seems to be gone now – everyone kind of seems to realise that it’s gotten beyond that.

Then there are those in active or passive denial, who have decided that ignorance is bless who are quite happy with the BBC not covering the Committee on climate change report that points out that net zero is a joke and that the government has no plan and think that Zac Goldsmith was wrong or rude or whatever in sledging Sunak over the lack of concern about climate change the top of UK government.

And these people have decided that they would rather not know. And I can understand that. I can understand their anger at the Just Stop Oil protesters and their constant smearing and their violence. It’s because the Just Stop Oil people are trying to get them to think about something they really do not want to think about,  that they feel scared about confused about guilty about. Not everyone – I’m not saying that everyone who boos or drives through a blockade is just under the surface a “doomer” – there are some people who are just stunningly ignorant and simple because that’s how you get through life isn’t it?

Ultimately the doomers and the deniers are in a horse shoe they both kind of meet at the point of “screw it there’s no point doing anything.” The difference between the problem is overwhelming and the problem doesn’t exist is not that big

Then on various points of the Horse Shoe you have the “DO SOMETHING” types. But I don’t spend a lot of time going into the details because I guess I’m in that doomy quadrant and I’m not listening to the various exhortations and imprecations of the climate action people because it all adds up to “the cat should wear a bell, the cat should wear a bell.”

And anyone who isn’t talking about why previous efforts of the mice to get the cat to wear a bell have failed leaves me suspicious of them. It leads me thinking about our either a grifter or willfully ignorant. And if you do not have a theory change what changes what has to be forced to happen and how you as an individual and a group can overcome both external and internal barriers then I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time giving you my limited attention

Ultimately it feels so so weird. I was raised in the 70s and 80s where although they were problems we would overcome them with technology and information and engaged electorate But then it became “the market will provide” and now we know that the market will not provide and we also know that while we were not paying attention, while we were not doing what we needed to do, the problems were getting “out of hand” – that’s an interesting expression “out of hand” – beyond solving

We’ve been playing a giant game of Jenga, and not noticing that every time we removed a block the thing started to wobble more. Now it’s just looking like it will tip over quite soon and this is it isn’t it you don’t  need lots of detailed graphs and algorithms to display feedback loops [but then again...]. People get it there are enough examples in real life whether it’s a house of cards or block of Jenga or whatever

There’s that EM forster a short story/novella that I should probably read “the Machine Stops” 

I suppose we could crowd source a reading list for the apocalypse so that ywe are better informed?

Look this has been put together using the voice recognition tool on Gdrive it’s been an experiment. Normally if I narrate something it’s when I’m yomping along the canal towpath, but obviously I can’t do that at the minute.  I will persist with narrating while lying flat on my back and I will get better at it whether I use it for more blog posts is another question. One thing I’ve learned is keep your eye on the screen to make sure that the computer is still listening to you I lost a good three or four minutes –  and they were quality insights – because I had not noticed that Skynet was no longer falling over my every word. And these I couldn’t recollect – it’s not exactly the man from Porlock as tragedies go but it’s there

So the final thing I’d say for now is that you have to at this point yourself having fun. It’s a nihilistic narcissistic position but I don’t see what’s left. Yes collective action can help on a lot of issues but the climate and other catastrophes are simply too big and we have left it too late.