Transcriber: TED Translators admin Reviewer: Denise RQ
The title of this presentation is, "The Big Question.
Enviromental misalignment and the value war."
Human society today
has two diametrically opposed systems of economy.
One is our traditionally imposed model of monetary-market economics,
the other is a physical rule structure
emerging from our growing scientific recognition of reality,
both enviromentally and sociologically.
The consequence
is an ever increasing level of social destabilization
and an ongoing decline in public health.
I divided this into two brief sections, the first part is called:
"System Clash: Market Efficiency vs. Technical Efficiency,"
The part two: "Values Wars:
Societal Potential, Collapse and Transition,"
what we are capable of doing, what's in store for us if we don't,
how we can get out of this system, etcetera.
Before I begin part one, - economy, what is economy?
It's defined in Greek as the managment of the household,
a definition that is often lost.
To economize, what does that mean? It means to increase efficiency.
Keep that in mind. Reducing waste.
That's what an economy is supposed to be.
Defining my terms.
We'll use two terms throughout this presentation,
the first is a theoretical notion of an "Earth Economy,"
defined as decisions made directly based upon scientific understanding
as they relate to optimized habitat management and human health.
Production and distribution is regulated
by the most technically efficient and sustainable approaches known.
Compared to our currently existing market economy, defined:
"Decisions are based on independent human actions
throught the vehicle of monetary exchange,
regulated by the pressures of supply and demand.
Production and distribution is enabled
by the buying and selling of labor and material provisions,
with the motivations of a person or group, the self-interest,
as the defining attribute of unfolding."
This is a chart of seven economic attributes,
[there are] many more, but this is what I wanted to focus on here.
Basically they are intrinsic to each economy, in comparison.
I'm focusing on the market economy and its relationship to a natural system,
what we are calling the "Earth Economy".
The only caveat here with these asterisks,
are elements of sociological development based on scientific integrity, ingenuity.
The evolution of science and our knowledge of ourselves and the enviroment.
That wil be talked about as we go along, as we touch upon each one of these.
First point: consumption.
In a market economy the entire thing is based on consumption,
the only reason that you are wearing clothes,
that you are eating, that you have a home
is because someone, somewhere is buying or giving a service,
exchanging money in some form and consuming.
That's what the system is.
What does the natural world have to say about that?
What does an "Earth Economy" have to say?
In all reason, the Earth is a finite closed system.
Preservation, not consumption should be the ethos.
If you lived on an island with a small group of people
and you had a finite amount of resources
with a natural generation of growth, a very simplified society,
would you decide to make an economic system
that try to use that up as fast as possible?
No, and I'm afraid the Earth
is an isolated island in a vast cosmic sea,
and it's a lot smaller than we think.
Point two: obsolescence.
The market system is driven explicitily by obsolescence.
Two: Intrinsic obsolescence.
Intrinsic obsolescence being the use of cost-efficiency,
meaning that every good produced has to be inferior at the moment it's made
because the corporate institutions
must save money at the very beginning of production
to remain competitive against everyone else that is competing.
Planned obsolescense, which is much more insidious,
which is basically a form of fraud,
even though is completely codified and formalized as a marketing tactic.
Basically designs goods to break down under the assumption of repeat purchases
and it's truly amazing that this exists at all.
And what does nature have to say about this?
Building upon what we had just stated, it's environmentally irresponsible
to design goods to fail or allow them to fail unnecessarily.
That is basically offensive, we need optimum design,
to have things last, survive.
Point three: property.
The ownership metaphysic is a core premise
allowing controlled restriction of resources and goods.
They say metaphysic as property isn't real.
There is not such thing of ownership in the broad scheme,
not either intellectual or physical goods.
It's all transient.
The idea of everyone owning one of everything, for example...
Does that make a lot of sense when we think about our natural economy?
What about the use of goods? What about access?
The natural enviroment demands access. Universal property is inefficient.
Strategic access
is more enviromentally responsible as a model and more socially efficient.
If you had a car that you drive, maybe 40% of the time,
why not let the other 60% be used by somebdoy else?
You create a system of access and use, that's enviromentally responsible.
Point four: growth. Builded on the consumption once again.
The market economy requires near constant growth to maintain employement.
This ties in a little bit with the growth of our population as well,
but you always hear about this,
the government: "We have growth" and "we need more growth"
and "GDP" or "lacking growth" and it's basically just absurd.
We need a steady state economy! The Earth is a finite system once again.
Earth demands a "balance load" economy respecting dynamic equilibrium,
where things come together and balance,
not the necessity to exhaust to maintain labor.
Point five: competition.
This inches into our new, sociological developments
that aren't talked about enough.
Market system economy based upon
personal and corporate competition in the open market,
selling your labor, competing for market share.
That's a completely metaphysical notion,
based on our early, tribalistic form of scarcity
and this notion that we can't possibly get along or go around
so we have to fight for everything and [everyone] is out for themselves.
What we've come to find is that human collaboration
actually is at the core of all invention, it's called usufruct.
Psychological studies now show
long term distortion with the competitive view.
The great amount of distortion, corruption, crime you see,
all you hear, the headlines, white-collar, blue-collar,
all come from this primitive notion of the competitive enviroment
and nothing is held as sacred.
Point six: labor for income.
Human survival is contingent upon one's ability
to obtain employment and enable sales.
That's your right to life.
You can't get labor, you might as well die,
because you don't serve an economically efficient role.
What does this mean to our development in science and technology?
Mechanization is incredible!
The advent of automation is making human employment
more scarce at a minimum and possibly obsolete entirely.
Mechanization is also more productive and efficient than human labor
which means it's social irresponsible for us not to mechanize
and enjoy the fruits of the abundance, ease and safety it can create.
Scarcity and Imbalance.
Contrary to what most think,
money and the movement of money that generates consumption economy,
is explicitly based on imbalance and inefficiency
it's really an inefficiency economy, an anti-economy.
The poverty, everything you see, and this imbalance
that's just not some by-product qor result of some greed institution.
That's inherit to the system.
The system wouldn't work if it was efficient
and there was a balance in any element of human survival.
Why would we want that?
Abundance. Equality.
New sociological studies have found
that equality is more positive to public health.
If you compare US,
a highly stratified society with deep imbalance,
to Norway and Sweden, that have much less levels of stratification,
the public health in those less stratified societies
blow us out of the water.
Why not work to create an abundance through all these mechanisms of efficiency
that technology now enables to meet human needs?
Reduce crime, all sorts of other, obvious sociological phenomena.
Spectrum of social disorder and there it is!
You have a macro socioeconomic system, a macroeconomic element,
that is basically, funneling out this distortion from childhood
all the way through every level of sociological exhibition,
everything you see is coming from this very sick
distortion premise of economy.
My interest, ultimately:
[The] relationship of macroeconomics to sociology.
Part two: Change.
"Values Wars: Societal Potential, Collapse and Transition"
Over here are series of social problems
that you would see in the newspapers periodically:
poverty, unemployment, destabilization, debt collapse, pollution and waste,
all of which are completely technically obsolete.
None of them have to exist, at all.
At minimum they could be reduced to a very core degree
those that are a little more subjective.
Removing the enviromental and sociological inefficiency
inherent to the "market"
and simply applying modern, scientific understandings,
resolves or greatly reduces all of these issues.
That is our potential.
And since we don't maximize that potential, unfortunately,
because of this framework we're in,
we are faced with a unique form of collapse
that many are not talking about enough.
There's three nails in the coffin in my opinion.
Unemployment: I'm sorry to say, based on the way things are going,
you are not going to see percentage employment levels
as in the past human population, it's over!
Energy costs will rise here and now, within a hydrocarbon economy.
Absolutely no investment or true intention of government or corporative
to move forward to any types of renewables
that'd replace the current, massive infrastructure we have created
and far too much more money will be made as the system fails,
because of the scarcity of this thing.
Debt Failure: Am I the only one laughing
at the fictional notion of debt knocking down countries like dominoes one by one?
Transition. Here is the value war.
Of all the times I speak with people about these issues,
they tend to understand it,
but they have these value association
that hold on to all artefacts of the prior system; it's a value war.
How do we get from one to the other?
What can we do to inspire change and create social reform?
And the big question: what will you do?
What kind of form, of social awareness,
what role do you think you can play?
Will you maximize your own self-interest
or realize your self-interest is only as good
as the integrity of society as a whole?
Where self-interest must become social interest for us to survive.
That is the new equation and that is the big question.
Thank you very much.