Wicked Minds - Issue #12: The Wasteland
In the 'Hollow Men,' T.S. Eliot penned these famous lines:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
I am reminded of this poem on many an occasion, especially these days with bangs and whimpers are aplenty. Could many whimpers lead to a bang, a catastrophic version of the butterfly effect: say a fight over water on a city street that leads to a communal riot that leads to a bombing that leads to an assassination that leads to a civil war?
Serious people are thinking about such scenarios, and its clear that the institutions designed to manage collective existence are inadequate for the future that awaits us.
U.S. Intelligence Report Warns of Global Consequences of Social Fragmentation - The New York Times — www.nytimes.com The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted weaknesses of the international order, said the report, which is issued every four years.
I worry that our knee jerk response to cascading crises will be:
More authoritarian control
Mad max attempts by the richest to guard themselves while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.
Madder max attempts by the very richest to create floating cities in the ocean or leave the earth altogether.
Climate Chaos Is Coming — and the Pinkertons Are Ready - The New York Times — www.nytimes.com As they see it, global warming stands to make corporate security as high-stakes in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.
Surely We Can Do Better Than Elon Musk ❧ Current Affairs — www.currentaffairs.org
Getting past the cult of Genius and the bleakness of capitalist futurism.
We desperately need new ideas, ideals and institutions that will help us flourish together in a turbulent future: new mechanisms of trust, solidarity across species boundaries, a better appreciation of the miracle of life.
Talking with the Botanist Who Talks to Trees | The Tyee — thetyee.ca Diana Beresford-Kroeger is famed for her writing on nature. We visited her home, drank whiskey, savoured her genius. Part one.