Replying to LO27805 --
Dear Organlearners,
Rol Fessenden <rol@fessenden.net> writes:
>My trepidation is not based on concern about
>specific individuals so much as prior experience
>on similar lists. This list is one of the most
>respectful I have experienced.
>
>With your encouragement I will put some thoughts
>out for others to think about and comment on. My
>thoughts are based on nearly 30 years of living,
>working, and observing in third world countries.
>
>My views are 180 degrees apart from what they
>were 30 years ago. If I become energetic on the
>subject it may because I speak much as a reformed
>smoker, one who a long time ago had a very
>different view but was wrenched to another
>perspective by the contradictions between my beliefs
>and my observations.
>
>I have seen enough slavery, "exploitation" (much
>over-used word), and other capitalist mis-use of
>peoples' energies that I am not a proponent of
>unfettered capitalism. On the other hand I have seen
>a lot of good come from capitalist job creation in
>poor countries. That is the yin and yang that I can
>describe with some authority.
(snip, the description)
Greetings dear Rol,
Thank you for a very fine contribution. I myself feel it not necessary to
change your observations and comparisons. They correspond largely to also
mine. However, the reason why I respond is for the sake of "increasing
wholeness". Hence I will add to what you have written, hoping for the
emergence of understanding in what looming cataclysm lies ahead for
umankind.
The bottom line of capitalism is maximum profit. The looming cataclysm is
a problem which cannot be solved by "maximum profit" as the paradigm. It
needs a different paradigm described by "maximum compassion" which I will
now to try to articulate clearly. By this I do not imply that you have
followed a different paradigm. I can read this paradigm of "maximum
compassion" between the lines of each of your vividly descriptive
paragraphs.
People in a 3rd world country or a country with 3rd world regions in it
like ours have to do everything themselves. They do not have "working
machines" to do jobs for them. (I speak of "working machines", even though
the complex collection of "working machines" is nowadays called
technology.) They do have tools, but they themselves are the " "working
machines" " (so to speak of, but not intended) when using these tools.
I use the phrase "working machines" to distinguish these entities from
tools. "Working machines" need a source of "free energy" (like fuel or
electricity) to operate whereas tools do not. It is the very "free energy"
they consume which enables them to work, thus making them different from
tools.
For example, think of a knife. In a 3rd world country a human has to do
all the work upon the knife when cutting something. The human's arm pushes
and pulls the knife forward and backward. Here the knife is a tool. But in
a 1st world country the knife is also available as a "working machine".
Plug its chord into an electrical socket, switch it on and an electric
motor in it lets the blades move forward and backward in tandem. Here the
cutting parts are still the tool, but the electric motor does the work. It
consumes "free energy" from electricity to do so.
The only "working things" which I can think of in a 3rd world country are
fire and animals (often also of the kind called human slaves). A fire
consumes the chemical "free energy" of wood or dung. Its "work" is to
raise the temperature of something. An animal like an ox consumes the
chemical "free energy" of food. Its work is to pull or carry something.
The fire and the animal are natural converters of "free energy" into work.
The kinds of "working machines" I can think of in a 1st world country are
too much to even list in this contribution. They all convert the "free
energy" of fuel, electricity, gravitation, wind or even light into work.
They are the artificial (or engineered) converters of "free energy" into
work. Many would say that the dispensation of the artificial converters
began with the invention of the steam engine a couple of centuries ago. I
do not think so. It began millennia ago with the invention of the sail
boat rather than propelling the boat with oars through the work of humans.
The ancient Phoenicians seems to be the first who invented sail boats.
Perhaps we can go even further back by thinking of a rock balanced at the
edge of a cliff. A slight push and the gravitational force pulls the rock
down onto the body of a victim or the enemy. Whatever the case, we cannot
blame any human or society to have invented the first "working machine".
Furthermore, why would we want to blame them when we use such "working
machines". Nevertheless, blame will be sought. Why?
Two reasons come to mind. The first one is that by converting sources of
fuel into work, many have increased the level of pollution. The thin trail
of smoke coming from a fire to cook food has become the billowing clouds
of smoke from industry. Sometimes it is visibly black, but often it is
clear, yet with millions of tonnes of toxic gasses. One gram of
radioactive uranium causes tonnes of radioactive waste, million times its
mass. Nature is staggering under this load of pollution and humankind is
suffering too. Cancer has become rampant in 1st world countries close to
the sources of pollution. Natural catastrophes have increased dramatically
in 3rd world countries far away from these sources of pollution. Many
scientists argue that this could not have caused that, but few are aware
that Mother Earth is but one whole of which the wholeness is in
unprecedented jeopardy.
The second reason is that more than 99% of our "working machines" convert
the free energy from non-renewable sources. These sources are being
depleted at an astounding rate. In less than a century our grand and great
grand children in the 1st world countries are going to experience
incredible shortages in "free energy". Their "working machines" will
become useless unless they are willing to pay life endangering prices for
"free energy". What is even worse, the environment has already been
changed so much in many regions that, for example, few trees remain to be
used as fire wood. "Working machine" friendly crops have replaced "working
human" friendly crops. Many people will not be able any more to feed
themselves or keep themselves warm in heated houses.
It indeed goes much better in 1st world countries because the majority of
people in them have their "working machines" to add wealth to their lives.
This is often called nowadays the "wealth creating capacity of
technology". But it is done in terms of an inevitable cost. This cost
involves the price of free energy which increase regularly as the reserves
get less as well as the expense to reduce pollution by other "working
machines" also needing free energy (to be made and then to operate). Thus
people in 1st world countries became increasingly enslaved by paying for
the costs of their "working machines".
Like in Senge's parable of the boiled frog, the majority of people in 1st
world countries are not even aware that their material standard of living
is eroding away. But the small minority of people in 3rd world countries
having also "working machines", are becoming acutely aware that their
material standard of living is decreasing drastically. The simple reason
is that they have to export their goods with low added value to trade it
for the import of goods with high added value. Each time when a "working
machine" is used to add value, the cost of the free energy it needs plus
some profit have to be added. Ultimately they in a 3rd world country have
to pay for the "free energy" used to add value in a 1st world country.
To keep up with such rising cost for materialistic things, especially
"working machines", the crime and corruption among many 3rd world
countries are rising even beyond unprecedented levels. When informed about
this dilemma in 3rd world countries, most people of 1st world countries
feel comfortable because this materialistic degradation happens far less
in their countries. They feel comfortable in their wealth zone because
they lack the imagination to realise that it is going to happen in their
own countries on an even worse scale. Some of their leaders tries to force
3rd world countries to step down on the increasing rate of crime and
corruption while getting little done to the same effect in their own
countries.
Yes, it goes better in the 1st world countries than in the 3rd world
countries for the simple reason that they are further back in the row of
humankind heading for cataclysmic disaster. Should they not succeed in
increasing their time span involving both the past and the future as I
have explained in "Constructive Creativity and Leadership", the coming
cataclysm for them will be worse than the disasters already now
experienced in 3rd world countries. Yet they insist on 3rd world countries
learning from them rather than they also learning from 3rd world
countries.
This lack of wholeness between the countries of the world and within each
country is going to cost humankind dearly. I am reminded daily of it by
the thousands of poor and hungry people I see when passing them. I wish I
could change their fate by interacting directly with them. The few who
make contact with me I cannot show away so as not to let them lose all
hope in the humanness of humankind.
However, I firmly believe that by writing in an almost inhuman frenzy as I
do on our dear LO-dialogue, I am able to make a difference for them. For
there is still sufficient wholeness among humankind that the thoughts on
creativity and its outcomes which I articulated in the past will lead by a
chain or tree of events meandering through the whole world into actual
deeds for these very unfortunate ones which I have to pass daily. You
fellow learners can help in the meandering of thoughts too, in heavens
name not by copying mine, but by articulating your own thoughts
authentically.
Please, let us not fell into the argument of whom are the wealthiest in
the unsinkable Titanic -- those on the highest deck or those on the lowest
deck. When the seemingly unsinkable Titanic will hit the ice berg, the
vast majority will perish. It is as unsafe on the highest deck as it is on
the lowest deck.
We will all have to cut back drastically on our "working machines", not in
terms of numbers, but in terms of the non- renewable "free energy" they
use up. When I write "drastically", I mean it by at least 50% over the
next ten years. Eventually we will have to stabilize at a level of some
10% of what we are using up now. This 10% has to be evenly distributed
among all the countries and not merely the 1st world countries already
using more than 90% themselves. This means the back cutting will have to
be done in 1st world countires while 3rd world countries will have to stop
increasing their consumption.
Is there a national leader brave enough to tell and explain this to
his/her nation? Is there a nation with enough honour and integrity to do
it despite what it will take? Leaders and followers will have to create
constructively as never before.
If it takes a creative collapse so vast as to give up most of our "working
machines", then let us do it while there is still time to do it. The
Titanic has not yet sunk. If only we had the wisdom to shut off its
engines, the "working machines" throbbing deep inside. Where is the
captain? Huh, is the captain having a party too?
The bottom line is not maximum profit indicative of increasing
materialistic wealth, but compassion flowing forth from increasing
spiritual wealth. Slow down the engines of the sinkable Titanic and steer
it from the unseen ice berg looming ahaid. You are the captains. You need
to be on the bridge to steer the ship.
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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