What is on Your Mind?

Nice aphorism.

Thanks for all of you participating here and welcome all others for sharing thoughts and emotions on this topic, even if not conforming to the majority of opinions here.

In terms of the M. Scott Peck(therapist, author) quote: "Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost." we're not that bad here. Everyone here seems to at least sense that there is a big problem here.

For my side I'm not a globetrotter myself. Not travelled much. Just reading and watching what's easy to get. And my view is the same as Neos in terms of the state of the planet: We treat the planet with unbelievable ignorance that our actions will ever have an effect. I think it's easy to get an overview of the current state of the planet by just googling around and on the other side it's in fact very difficult to ignore all unpleasant information about that passing by by accident.

Knowing is one part - Acting the other part. As the above mentioned author also said, "the greatest weakness of all humans is lazyness". (He used the word "original sin"). And a controverse person nowadays - the girl Greta Thunberg - said(whether it came out of herself or she heard it from others) "There are people with more guilt and others with less". Yes, I think that's the case. There are people that actively pushing for example fracking(pumping masses of extremely toxic chemicals into the ground), dumping nuclear wast just into the see, willingly try to enslave people through the use of AI, ... . That's indeed a big part of responsibility of a few here. But since we all know the crimes being done and know we are using the products(gasoline, food, electricity, ...) nevertheless, we have have a little share of responsibility ourselves. With some thousands people doing bad things in this world and some billions of the high industrialized countries silently acknowledging and supporting the action of the former, we see that the former would not get away with it or even economically survive without the laziness of the rest.

The lazyness from my side is: This whole thing is so big, I feel overwhelmed by it. What can I - this little human do? It's so ardous. I do not want to fight other people. There are so big instituions I feel so powerless against. I have enough tasks myself, I can not handle much more. I have to care about myself. Everyone has its only set of problems and is not enthused to get more.

Climate change is only one of the bullets approaching us. And it's not a quick one. But with every day passing by without actions the bullet is harder to avoid. At the moment we got the clarity that we got an average level of changes and impacts on our lives and on the production of the things we need. In about 10 years or so without action the game is over. We will no longer be able to handle things coming in about 20-100 years. Hunger, Violence, War.

We are in a comparatively good position of beeing able to push things forward. We have no lack of things of our needs in live. Everything is still there. We have spare time and a high level of freedom . For me the first thing in action is to get myself into action. And I call upon you, successful and highly intelligent people. Many of you accomplished so much in life. Incredible things. Things they may never have imagined they would. Will you take the challenge? If we fail so what? But if we didn't even try? What heritage do you like leave to our successors? Uhm, sorry about the mess we left to you!

The talk of XR talks about "virtue ethics". Do the right thing, even if there's no hope for change.

If masses of people change from serving profit to serving the change towards a life-supporting society, it will make a difference.

And it begins with me and you.

Update

Interestingly Frank Capra, the famous film directory(1897-1991) made a movie with warnings more than 60 years ago, stating the dangers clearly. Here's the one minute extract from the "unchained goddess(1958)" YouTube

Update II

The video on taxing co2 usage from wisecracker was very interesting and I think it will help. And I think it will need additional persuation for politicians to do it and citizens to accept it, too.

Dear Stomp,

It's great to have people with passion and energy for whatever interests them.

My wonderful partner in life, she recycles everything she can and we take that to a recycling center every month or so. She even got back about $3 dollars last time, and she was thrilled in a fun sort of way, trading what would have been bags of garbage for a few bucks and helping the planet at the same time.

However, on the darker side ...

Two days ago someone secretly dumped tens of thousands of gallons of some black goop into a drain pipe at night and that black, toxic goop flowed from that pipe directly into the sea.

Every weekend, hoards of people come down to the beach near our home and sit on their bamboo mats, drink their whisky, cook with clay pots, eat, consume and destroy the beach and the sidewalks.

Where I live, frankly speaking, the stray beach dogs are cleaner than the vast majority of the tourists. Imagine that! Stray beach dogs are cleaner than the hoards of tourists!

As mentioned earlier, as someone who has travelled to over 50 countries, and have scuba dived around 1,000 times in maybe five or six countries, I can tell you that humans will destroy a huge, beautiful coral reef in a matter of days, weeks or months just to get their groups of paying tourists to sit on an island beach for the day.

I have seen boat loads of tourists standing on coral reefs, boat anchors ripping reefs apart, you name it.

If you are really into making a difference, I would encourage you to make some great YT videos because the young generation are all about video and media. If you have great ideas you want to share, causes you want to address, wrongs you want to right, you will reach a much wider audience on YouTube than on unix.com. Of course, you are welcome to post here as well.

Maybe you can go to VideoBlocks and download some global warming and pollution video footage, use Camtasia, Final Cut or Premier Pro and make a video or maybe even make many videos.

Personally, I am just getting into video media, professional stock video footage, special effect and video production, and it's really amazing what is available to work with in 2019.

The sky is the limit and you can easily have your own "Global News Channel" with amazing videos.

Video media is "where it's at" these days.

Hey Neo,

thanks for showing appreciation for my post. Nice to see, that what I write is interesting at least for one person. ;-) Thanks for caring for earth to you and your partner!

Yes, I can imagine how disturbing, how frustrating and how painfully that may be for you seeing people in ignorance for the environment just dumping everything leaving a mess whereever they are. From small to planetary scale.

What's regarding the things to do(video): I'm on my way to find my path. I take the tip with making videos with me, but I at the moment I'm already drowning in the overcomplexity of IT, and so that's not my primary path of action.

---

Thought on mobility:

Actually here in germany big hype in terms of electrified mobility. I think albeit this may work in the little lands of Europe it will be far less important in a country like the USA with its vast distances. Probably hydrogen based propulsions with its increased energy concentration may fit better here. Are there any attempts noticable in this direction?

Regards,
stomp

Regarding that, I plan to do a small segment in my next video on Cyber Dystopia by pointing out that humans polluting cyberspace in the information age is a natural extension to the same human behavior that polluted the planet in the industrial age.

In other words, it does not matter if it is the physical spaces on Earth (the land, air, sea and outer space around Earth), or the cyberspaces on Earth (social media, networks, Internet, our cognitive mental spaces), human greed, hatred, and divisive self-destructive human nature and attraction to sensuality and materialism will pollute and destroy all around us.

So, as people are rightfully consumed with the real and present danger of global pollution and climate change, there is also a very real and present danger in cyberspace. They are different sides of the same coin we call "human nature".

Even if you could save the physical resources on Earth, human society is destined for dystopia due to cyberspace pollution, influence operations, propaganda, human targeting (some call this "personalization") and AI as a way to debase the human condition.

In other words, when a world has decided that machines can do things better than humans, and actively work to obsolete humans for those tasks, the cast has already been set. Pandora's box has been opened.

Even if human society can reverse climate change (which I have already stated I do not think, personally speaking, it is reversible based on well-established historical human nature on a global scale), it is unlikely that human society will reverse the shift in human society where cyberspace is weaponized and cyber used against each other (humans v. humans, machines v. humans, even machines v. machines) in ways we cannot even being to imagine today.

Just look at Boeing and their AI system for flight control. That system was put in place and most pilots were not even told about it because Boeing and the civil aviation authorities considered it "not cost effective" or necessary to train the human pilots on Boeing's MCAS system correctly. Then, two Boeing planes crashed because of MCAS, both under the control of the machine (the AI) and many humans lives were lost. This is what happens when corporations put profit and machines above passengers and pilots. They believe that humans cannot fly the plane as well has machines, and so they put the "AI" in control and humans could not override. Still, Boeing makes planes and tweaks their AI. Boeing executives retired and become "the inspectors" and the cycle of human greed and destruction continues. There are countless AI-related mishaps occurring every day which we never see or hear about, some huge like Boeing's MCAS system (which we finally heard about), some small, like Facebook targeting "haters" with "hate messages" for profit.

The problem is greed, especially corporate greed and of course materialism, consumerism and sensualism (sensationalism). Humans are unlikely to move past this stage in their evolutionary journey and are on a clear path toward self-destruction.

No amount of tech push for "green energy" or "pollution eating algae" can compensate for human greed.

It's really self-evident, I think.

PS: And I am an optimist..... but I am "realistic optimist".

Hi Neo...
This does not just apply to current technology, remember the first commercial jet airliner? The "de Havilland Comet". This was a technological achievement in its own right but.......
........the "unknown unknowns" reared its ugly head because the manufacturers "knew better".

However, in my opinion, as mass migrations occur due to loss of land mass this will bring forth a huge rise in nations becoming insular and with it the violent extremes of "all sides" willing to __exterminate__ those trying to edge in on their space, using their food, water and resources.

This will in turn bring the major powers into conflict with each other as alliances start to break apart which could culminate in mass extinctions on a global scale within weeks or months especially with those powers that have nuclear weapons. We are already seeing this with the nation with the largest arsenal in human history flexing its muscles again under the auspices of the [Far] Right Wing in power.

I suspect these scenarios could come far more quickly than an entire global _melt_ down of the polar ice caps...

Maybe I am a pessimist but I fear for my 2.5 year old grandson as he has to face this[these] scenario[s] sooner or later, but it might be too late now let alone in a little over a decade's time...

Barry...

OK.

It's done... my third video for YT.

In this video, I link industrial pollution and waste to cyber pollution and social media. This is the best video I have made so far. It's less than 5 minutes so take a look, comment, like and subscribe.

Cyber Dystopia - Part 1: Cyberspace Pollution and Social Media

Code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VASywEuqFd8

Code:

The first video in our  Dystopian Cyberspace Series.

Cyber Dystopia - Social Media  (Part 1)

FULL HD 1080

Subscribe Now so you don't miss the next video in this new cyber dystopia series.

With credit and a shout-out to Moby and great dystopian animation by Steve Cutts.  I used number of short video clips from the video link below to assist in the production video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VASywEuqFd8

All other video footage with the exception of Steve Cutts' Moby animation (above) is the property of Daemon Media and / or fully licensed to Tim Bass  by StoryBlocks.

Join me, help me make more videos and so help do something about the problem.