This year I am going to write something short, daily, about what is going on – “2 cents on the Arrived Ecological Debacle” (2cotAED). I have to write it; you don’t have to read it. If you DO read it, feel free to tell me how wrong I am (and hopefully why). Re: the debacle aspect: in 2004 the English writer Sara Maitland wrote about the “pending ecological debacle.” The expression stuck with me; it’s a debacle because it was foreseen, warned about and was avoidable. Well, it’s no longer really “pending” is it?
Have a think about this, by a child psychiatrist writing in the Grauniad.
“Our brains continue to develop up until the age of about 25, and prior to that our ability to think rationally, make decisions based on fact rather than emotion, plan, problem-solve and exhibit self-control is limited. Countless adults struggle to mediate their phone use and maintain productivity, make impulsive purchases online and fall for the many scams out there – why are we expecting our children to cope?”
Two responses to this from me.
One – there is a long history of the Latest Technology being the fuel for moral panics (telephones were going to end face-to-face meeting, etc). BUT that is not to say the wolf never comes. I am so happy that I am not having to help young people navigate this shitshow. My childhood and adolescence seems like halcyon days, pre-Internet, and with only a few TV channels. Now? Uggh.
(NB books like Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, The Plug-in Drug, Amusing Ourselves to Death and other jeremiads are still worth reading).
Two So, there’s an argument around ‘diseases of affluence’ – type 2 diabetes, heart disease etc – that they are a result of the physical environment that has been created. Well, smart phones etc are part (a large part, but only the latest) of the mental environment that has been created.
We are swimming, drowning, in our own shit, literally and and psychically. There is no hope of us even lowering the speed of the shit-level rise…
marchudson.net 
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