This training is literally worthless. While it has occasional shocking insights into issues such as crime, homelessness, politics, etc. -- there is no money to be made by telling the powerful the obvious. "Speaking truth to power" is how grad students got called out for extinction in the 2018 GOP budget.
This Thanksgiving Day 2018, I am instead going to tell the powerless -- essentially everyone reading this -- some "generally accepted"* basic truths about 21st century civilization. None of this first part should be controversial - this is 'can't see the forest for the trees' type stuff. But I am expecting some knee jerk reactions from ideologues.
-> The carrying capacity of the planet to support human beings, barring truly major technological changes (aka nanotech), is fixed. The human population is growing and will continue to grow absent major war or sustained genocide.
-> The only major ecological variable outside potential human control at this time is the weather itself, whether this is couched in the language of 'climate change' or is seen as changes in global trends over time. Everything else is politics: whether Japanese continue to "research" (read: eat) whales, China industrializes using oil previously sold to America, we exploit oil reserves in the global North or feed the starving South ... we can solve all these problems, we choose not to.
-> The sheer destructive power of weapons available to humanity has exceeded the capacity of humanity to withstand same. The planet will survive; the humans will not be so fortunate. Thus 'proliferation' (unauthorized access to nuclear arms) continues to be a major concern, but compare to the next point.
-> There is little to no effective disagreement between the power blocs that control the world. Trump is Putin is China is Japan. The future is planned.
-> It would be awfully convenient for a lot of people who make money if the population of the planet were to stabilize soon. It would be a little less convenient for a smaller set of people if the population were to radically fall ... but watch this space for updates, as this is a major if hidden goal of the globalist left. There is much internal (and for obvious reasons, confidential debate) about who to throw off Starship Earth, but not much debate that the 'starving billions' (and therefore unprofitable) need to somehow wander off.
-> The complexity of human problems, general and specific, is starting to exceed our ingenuity in understanding and solving them. We have tools for handling very complicated problems -- but those very tools create much more complicated problems we do not have tools for! This 'complexity' dilemma cannot be solved through simplistic actions no matter how anyone tries. The most forward looking organizations realize that they are in a complexity crisis ... others have their heads buried in the sand (or in the case of the US Navy, the mud) ...
Now for my _commentary_ on the above. None of what I am about to say carries any particular truth or weight -- merely my uneducated opinions of the above.
From this point on, I am being political as all get out. I am taking certain positions on the facts above.
-> The weapons of the 20th century war emphasized physical destruction, the burned out building. The weapons of the 21st century war will emphasize intellectual destruction or the literal destruction of your human opponents. Either your enemy changes his mind or you burn out his brain. (Then you loot his stuff.)
-> The major capabilities of X-weapons have yet to be demonstrated. ("X" for "we don't know, it's still classified.) The limits of nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons, etc. are relatively understood. But esoteric weapons are another story ... Steve Jackson Games jokes about "Orbital Mind Control Lasers" but a lot of digging at the spot marked X was cut off, like a switch, in the mid 1960s. There is a lot to worry about here.
-> In my professional opinion, major war or genocide will call into question humanity's continued existence on the planet in at least three ways. 1) Massive psychological damage, even to the alleged victors. 2) Chains of retaliation leading to humanity turning away from the potential of peaceful paths. 3) Inability to unite humanity in the future against existential threats, natural or manmade or even alien.
-> Nonetheless, there are members of the major power blocs who continue to flirt with genocide and limited war as methods of population control. One method is 'benign neglect' -- permit natural disaster, and simply do not respond to it ... or respond in punitive ways. I view the introduction of cholera to Haiti in this light, as essentially deliberate biological warfare little different from giving out smallpox infected blankets to starving Native Americans.
-> Given the problem of population control, and respecting that it is real, my own proposed solutions are simple and radical. They must necessarily be grass roots to have any hope of success. 1) Appropriate technology to spread the benefits of advanced technology without the costs of a fossil fuel driven society. 2) Mass deployment of effective basic medical care through patient education, community health aides, and flattening of global health costs. 3) Free birth control on demand and support for do it yourself birth control options globally. 4) A global safety net to discourage having more than two children, probably structured as a regressive tax and a negative income tax (subsidy payment) for not having children.
-> A useful middle step towards the above is to increase the survivability of individuals, villages, geographic areas and particular cultures _through their own efforts_. "If you set a fire for a man, you warm him for a day. If you set a man on fire, you warm him for the rest of his life." On this scale, I am somewhere between passing out matches and passing out flyers on how to make hand bows.
-> Explicitly to make genocide more difficult, I support the spread of appropriate technology and defensive memetics across all human populations in all areas. The alleged gains from genocide are far outweighed by the losses, even if one adopts Stalin's hoary adage that "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." The ideology of inalienable human rights, such as the right to speak a language or to possess weapons, is one such memetic element. Note that these are essentially defensive in application... no one is going to go massacre their neighbors with hunting rifles no matter how many adjectives one applies to them (the neighbors or the rifles).
-> To improve survivability from natural and man-made disaster, I encourage everyone to learn as much as they can about survival and community building. There is the language of the "first responder" (first designated reaction on scene) and even the "zeroth responder" (first trained person already on scene). I am circling in the direction of the "enabled bystander" ... that every person should not only be trained in the basics of emergency response, but able and willing to act within their skill level and training and _work together cooperatively_ to resolve complex incidents through simple safe efforts.
-> We need a major breakthrough in how we solve social and economic problems due to the complexity dilemma. I have ideas; I am open to many other ideas. But any ideas which do not enjoy deep popular support will fail.
I think the solution might be mass but weighted participation in decision making that will make direct democracy look like freewheeling anarchy. The joy of the capitalist system is that it leverages so many different people making decisions into the organization process. Command economies just don't work - not enough decision makers and not enough analysis. Our problems are becoming too complex for mere bureaucracy
This is the kind of stuff I think about for fun. If I could find someone to pay me to think about it, I would leap at the chance. But people who think they know all the answers don't have any use for comments from the peanut gallery.
* "Generally accepted" for planning purposes by major governments, insurance carriers, global capital accumulations, brokerages, etc. Note that this may or may not be a public position statement, but is taken into account in planning.
