A Breath of Sea Air

Way north of my city, in the upper reaches of the Salish Sea is Hornby Island. I have never been there, but I hear it is a magical place. Here the great cycles are recorded. This video is a wonderful revelation to us urban dwellers who so rarely have the opportunity to witness the immensity of the natural world.

Orlov revisited

In my last review, I didn't include some salient points about the Orlov book that should at least be mentioned as they pertain to how his thesis holds together.

I skipped over chapter four, but it is crucial in understanding what he refers to in the harm/benefit analysis. If the power and control of the technosphere is to be diminished, he suggests that we need to hold as our standard the health of the BIOSPHERE.

But allow me to digress here a bit. Back on page 67, or there about, I read some passages that I can't get out of my mind. It is not that I remember them verbatim, but that I remember the essence of their meaning, and that is what has left a lasting chill.

Part of the control that the technosphere wields in getting people to adhere to certain beliefs, and thus behaviors, is the idea that we are becoming (or have already become) a global culture. This implies that as we think and act we follow along ever more converging paths of socially accepted behavior. Social media, for example, nearly demands it. If you have the courage to speak your mind, are you waiting to be struck by someone else's observation that you have not followed in line with the accepted world view that is now part of the popular meme? (I have often found this to be true, and as such deleted my Facebook account, for all the good it will do me!)

We have left behind centuries of previous forms of social organization that gave our lives definition and meaning. We understood our place in society through the boundaries of family, tribe, folklore, geographical location, city-state, nation-state, etc. Now, it seems we are swimming in a soup of humanity that is held together with the perfidy of imposed ideas. This is most evident when examining the vitriol that comes in response to political correctness.

In order to be inclusive of others our language use and behavior needs to conform to ever morphing sets of criteria. The intention is to acknowledge and correct a previous expression of prejudice or dismissiveness of individuals defined by the groups to which they belong. But by trying to erase the boundaries of these groups, regardless of how they are named, we are effectively asking others to join in where they may not want to go.

Not everyone wants to be identified with humanity as a whole. And so what you get is an ocean of identity politics and all the folks are clamoring to stake their claim in the please-acknowledge-me-I-matter territory.

I do not place myself on the political spectrum anywhere near the right end, and yet, I despise political correctness as much as any of those torch-bearers. And that is where the chill sets in.

If you have that many people in your society feeling dispossessed, underappreciated, unrecognized, and thwarted in their attempts at self-actualization, stirring the soup with platitudes of inclusion is not going to achieve your aims.

If we want to create a society that values the lives of all its participants, we cannot afford to ignore the fears and insecurities of those who bellow and scream obscenities. This is a horrifying realization. We are all guilty of writing off those who we are convinced will never listen to us, and that brings us up to NOW.

If we don't start bringing down the walls between us, the technosphere will continue to perpetrate its memes in order to conglomerate us and denigrate self-definition by any other means than the perceived, acceptable one. What we have lost in the meantime is any definition of basic, essential humanity--the idea that love confers value on all. That's it. Not language, not policy, not coercion. We need a vision of what love is, so we can know what it is like to extend it for ourselves as well as others. Our society, through capitalism, and other features, blinds us to the possibilities that matter most. Can we ever believe that the only possibility that matters is love??

💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓

Critical Thinkers Need Apply: A look at Orlov

If you go searching for works that answer interesting and urgent questions, you may be most rewarded by the writing of Dmitry Orlov. But I will warn you, don't expect a comforting narrative laced with platitudes or pablum. You are not in that territory.

In his book, Shrinking the Technosphere: Getting a grip on the technologies that limit our autonomy, self-sufficiency and freedom, Orlov taps into the zeitgeist like a needle biopsy and shows you the cultural molecular structure in new and disturbing ways. The aim of his book is to discuss the ways in which our civilization has become enslaved by the new, technologically advanced, more efficient methods in which we conduct our daily lives.

By page 70 you may be thinking: This is beginning to sound like one very elaborate, but well-argued conspiracy theory. Nonetheless, it is challenging to dismiss the author's reasoning behind the layers of control wrested from our direct influence. For example, these are the characteristics of our state of adherence to the demands of the technosphere:

• it overcomes its natural limits, (conquest of nature)
• wants to control absolutely everything
• technologize everything
• put a monetary value on everything
• demands homogeneity
• wants to dominate the biosphere
• controls you for its own purposes
• demands blind faith in progress

Any of this sound familiar? Its only alternative to infinite progress is the apocalypse. It always creates more problems than it solves. 

Reading this book sheds some very discomfiting light on the degree to which our society is structured around ever increasingly demanding technological involvement. Orlov develops his narrative from many varying layers of historical and cultural analysis. In chapter three he references Ted Kaczynski, a cultural critic of some very prescient acumen. Had he turned his fervor to something other than bombing people, alas, he might have made a convincing revolutionary.

Chapter four is the harm/benefit analysis. I admit I got lost in this section. But his most fascinating illustration of how people can inhabit their world using nature-like technologies is in chapter five. Here he brings his observations to a personal level. Having grown up in Russia in the 60s and 70s, he experienced wilderness and homesteading in a way few North Americans would relate. Especially interesting was his description of the Russian stove and what it would look like to survive in Siberia using essential skills with tools for hunting, fishing, building, gathering. You get the idea. 

Chapter six addresses the need for restructuring society so that we do not, in fact, further destroy the biosphere. It takes a look at the ways in which we live under the parasite load of what he calls bad political technologies. These are structures that enrich, empower and protect special interests and privileged elites at the expense of the rest of society. They set the stage for injustice, exploitation, poor social outcomes, economic stagnation, mass violence, civil war and eventual political disintegration. Their forms of control are found in: 

• the medical industry
• higher education
• prison-industrial complex
• automotive industry
• agribusiness
• financial
• organized religion
• the legal system

So how do we shift to using good political technologies? We need ones that work to improve everyone's welfare, and build on previous successes to increase social cohesion and solidarity. While Orlov's work may not have answers, it is still a mighty provocateur's playbook. It will give you more than enough for reflection when he specifically points to recent attempts at regime change across the globe. Also, he is not one to shy away from taking a position. (p. 182)

"Nonviolence is nothing more than a tactic. It can even be used to promote violence by rendering a population defenseless in the face of aggression, in order to provoke a massacre and then use it for political aims, as was done by Gandhi, who preached nonviolence to Hindus, profiting politically when they were then massacred by moslems."

If you get this far and are still fence sitting, chapter seven will elucidate the milieu even further. Here he talks about social machines described as: (p. 189)

"...a form of organization that subordinates the will of the participants to an explicit, written set of rules, that is controlled based on objective, measurable criteria, and that excludes, to the largest extent possible, individual judgment, intuition and independent spontaneous action."

Ouch. I think I've been in that room before! The author doesn't pretend that extracting ourselves from these strictures of society will be painless, but I do appreciate that he reminds the reader of the flimsy premise underlying so much of our social glue (for lack of a better term). (p. 201)

"As society degenerates, social machines degenerate with it, and in spite of all the efforts at surveillance and automation, people find ways to survive. And if this requires throwing some monkey wrenches into the works, then more and more people will start doing just that. At some point it will become evident to all that most of the social machines have become so degraded that they are mere relics--empty shells maintained for the sake of appearances--while all of the decisions are made outside of them by actual humans applying their individual judgment to situations to which no written rules need apply."

The last two chapters, Wresting Control, and The Great Transition, offer ways of examining one's own life for clues of escape. Orlov, himself, has decided that living on a boat has provided him an acceptable level of freedom.

So dear reader, 2019 has most definitely been the year of I'd-rather-not-think-about-it books, but think we must, and I am grateful for the folks who have written the books of my last three reviews. They are brave and clear-headed individuals, the kind that I would like to figure into my Dunbar number. (Don't know this reference? Read the book!) As always....looking for my tribe. Ciao.

Discovering People from whom I want to hear more

I just discovered Nancy Neithercut.

I already love her and here is potent proof why:

Rethinking work in the 21st century

The danger of using superlatives for describing one book is when you read the next one, and find it gives you a verbal bear hug every bit as strong as the previous one. Nonetheless, the joy is all mine in reading the latest contribution from Ellen Ruppel Shell. The Job: Work and its future in a time of radical change  (2019) As I was reading it I couldn't help but think: I wish this was the book that I had been able to write five years ago when I was deep into my own story (see left side bar link). It acts as a perfect sequel to the musings from my slim volume.

Shell is a professor of journalism from Boston University. She has provided her thesis with an enviable depth of research that, at last, has given her subject the gravitas it deserves. Chapter 8 in particular made me feel vindicated in a way few other authors have articulated. Mind the (skills) gap elucidates the fantasy of widely available stable, living-wage jobs, and characterizes this wishful thinking as "toxic alchemy." This truth alone, makes it harshly obvious that if the poor have no choice but to take any job they can get, then they are participating in the precarious, low-wage jobs that keep them poor in the first place. Perfectly stated this way:

“Because it incentivizes more people, no matter their skills, to accept any job they can get, it reduces the need for employers to create better jobs, or to open up better jobs to people closed out of them, people who may lack credentials or a certain pedigree but who, like Susan and Leroy, are willing and able to work.”  “The idea that a lack of skills is preventing many people from working their way out of poverty is wrong,” Edin said. “‘Skills’ is a smokescreen for other things.”

Also:

"This "skills gap" finding was so widely quoted that it became a sort of cultural meme. But other than the say-so of employers, there was little if any evidence to support the vague and slippery claim."

We are often told that the future is an open field for those educational concentrations involving science, technology, engineering and math, but she reports that the supply of STEM graduates is 2 to 3 times larger than demand. Even Paul Krugman has coined the term "zombie idea" to indicate beliefs that have been "repeatedly refuted with evidence and analysis but refuse to die."

This ruse does not escape the notice of grads:

 “Smart students preferred not to invest their hopes, efforts, and intellectual capital in sectors that no matter the hype dumped workers at the least provocation, sometimes only to replace them with cheaper workers, whether they be domestic or from abroad.” 

Then in Chapter 11, The Finnish Line, when you are good and ready for some solutions, Shell delivers with a truckload. Finland certainly wasn't on my radar, but putting it there was a welcome education. We are introduced to Pekka Pohjakallio, whose firm is rethinking work for the 21st century. In contrast to how most Americans conceptualize the urgent call to innovate, here a more realistic version prevails.

 “The innovation bubbles up most often when the brain is relaxed and deep in thoughts beyond the particular problem at hand—that is when we seem to be least productive.”

“Reflection is what makes most of us more efficient, not less, Pohjakallio said, “But we are given no time for reflections because it’s impossible to measure, and impossible to bill against. We are constantly fixated on the ends, not the means, and that holds us back. If we really knew what was valuable, many of us might easily be able to accomplish what needs to get accomplished not in ten or twelve hours a day but in four.” 

If you are hungry, even starved, for hearing about methodologies that function at human scale this book doesn't disappoint. In fact, it elevates the reader's potential to believe that improvements are possible. Shell refers to our current system as our nation's work disorder, and rightly partners with those who predict it will not be solved by technology, but by a change in the rules.

And it gets better: 

Chapter 12, Abolish Human Rentals. In this chapter Shell makes clear that the very basis of our interactions binding us to forces of commerce create in us a violation of what would otherwise be an equalized sense of duty to each other, collectively.

“Regarding ourselves as “human rentals” makes it more difficult for us to make meaning of our work, for the very reason that we are human and therefore subject to certain assumptions, including what social scientists call the “reciprocal obligation.” In employment context, the reciprocal obligation involves a psychological contract between employers and employees--the implication that each party will work together for mutual benefit. Employment at will essentially breaches this implicit contract: since it allows employees to be fired for almost any reason, or no reason at all,…”

In every subsequent passage and chapter the author never backs down from revealing every layer of sham contrivance made for the advantage of the employer. And then, in Chapter 14, Homo Faber, I came across an explanation I've wanted to hear for a seriously long time.

“For nearly a century, corporate social responsibility was subjugated to--and some argued legally trumped by--a fiduciary duty to make shareholders as much money as possible. This duty--later articulated by Milton Friedman--was first made law through the case of Dodge v. Ford Motor Company in 1919, in which Henry Ford was overturned in his effort to employ as many men as possible so as to spread prosperity (and presumably demand for his cars). Oddly the ruling also thwarted Ford’s efforts to lower the price of his cars, and to raise wages. The Michigan Supreme Court declared that Ford shareholders must take precedence over the needs of employees and even customers. Over time, through both law and custom, the concept of “shareholder primacy” became the default position for all publicly held companies.”

And in this last chapter as much as I could agree with the author, I still had questions I would have loved to invite her to answer. But to prevent this review from going on indefinitely, I'll leave you not only with a hearty recommendation to read it for yourself, but also one last necessary quote:

“Growing efficiencies was a fixation of the industrial age. It’s a fixation we can no longer afford. We must quell the GDP fetish, a metric that overvalues work of the sort that brings outsized profit to the few and underrates and even fails to measure what matters most--work of intrinsic value to those who do it and to those who need it done. …”

 Amen!

The Human Game: all bets are off

If you read only one book in 2019, let it be this one: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?  by Bill McKibben This four-part narrative frames the continued existence of the human species as a collective game played on a board, the earth, in a cosmic casino. If you shy away from topics that focus attention on the toll our existence is having on the planet, then you'll definitely have to bear the discomfort. But I heartily invite you to withstand the blows. Our continued ignoring of the increase in climate change has forced the game to two imperatives: 1) keep it going and 2) keep it human.

McKibben gives the Koch brothers and their advocacy groups credit for "committing treason against an entire planet," and for supporting the denial of climate science. These manipulations have prevented us from developing solutions formed from political will. But there is plenty of blame to go around and Silicon Valley moguls are equally deluded through their embrace of the ethos promoted by Ayn Rand. This is a bizarre allegiance considering that Rand's political beliefs represent "...toxic overshoot of a natural and appropriate reaction to the totalitarian threats of the blood-soaked twentieth century." 

As if the geological force exerted by human existence wasn't enough, part three, The Name of the Game will leave you positively unnerved. Here the focus is on the progenitors of artificial intelligence, and the logical consequences of its unregulated development. McKibben posits that genetically altering humans before they are born will only rob human life of meaning.

"Sometimes we need to engineer ourselves: hence Prozac. But you can stop taking Prozac. You can't turn off the engineered dopamine receptor. That's you, and you will never know yourself without it. As climate change has shrunk the effective size of our planet, the creation of designer babies shrinks the effective range of our souls." 

Before reading this section I had only a cursory understanding of the reach of AI (artificial intelligence). But McKibben deftly illustrates its capacity to make irrelevant human life as we know it. The promoters of the technology seem to have weird obsessions for lengthening lifespans indefinitely, and as he notes:

"A world without death is a world without time, and that in turn is a world without meaning, at least not human meaning."

Just when you can't handle one more bit of bad news, part four is called: An Outside Chance. The stakes couldn't be higher, ecological hell or post human meaninglessness.

"If we are to build the political will to deploy renewable energy fast enough, we'll need a bulldozer for reshaping the zeitgeist. That's the job of movements." 

It is the method by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few, but clearly:

"You can't spend your entire life building movements--almost by definition they burn bright and then burn out." 

We have it in us to take the steps to save ourselves because the human game is a team sport and our impulse is toward solidarity. Even with its final hopeful message, I found this book a sobering work to digest, but the writing is so timely and the style so plain-spoken that its urgent message cannot be ignored. Now if only those titans of industry got it, too.