gummint

What if the human-created world has already changed? What if government can no longer exist as a force meant to spur efficient growth in the production of wealth? What if, from now on, the only reasonable government is one that is meant to inhibit growth at every level of human endeavor?

"The Problem of Denial" by sociologist William R. Catton, Jr. (born here in Minneapolis, by the way) is an interesting read. He seems to summarize the point that I have been trying to make (post-autistic economics, levels of reality for human perception of economics, etc.) about taking personal responsibility for the state of the whole system. Ecological carrying capacity is a reality, and yet human psychology resists acknowledging that truth. The abstract for his article states succinctly, "Denials of ecological limits resemble anosognosia (inability of stroke patients to recognize their paralysis)."

What is the consequence of this "blind spot"? Within the first few sentences of the article, he quotes Edmund Burke who wrote that humans "... are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.... Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

I think perhaps that the failure of religion to curb human desires (for example, the failure of religious "abstinence-only education" to reduce HIV transmission rates) means that government must now step in to enforce changes of behavior that benefit the long-term success of the society (and therefore the species). Failure to do so means that we cede that task to Nature Herself, and She is a deadly harsh mistress.

This paper might serve as an underlying theory that supports the existence of such things as The Long Now foundation. Humans need help in thinking about timeframes beyond their immediate daily perception. Maybe that's what government has to do now. Like the Chinese one child policy. Government may have to force people to behave in ways counter to our evolutionary programming. This task, obviously, will not be easy.

Evolution likes exponential growth. Exponential growth, however, produces disasters because the upper ceiling permitted by natural resources will always cause the growth curve to crash into reality. Evolution wants exponential growth; humans, however, dislike disasters.

I impatiently wait to see which motivation wins.

In flights of fancy, I also easily wonder if other spacefaring civilizations wait to see the outcome of this very decision before they make contact. Species that opt for perpetual growth, after all, would need to use resources outside their native star system. Enforcing isolation seems a very efficient way to let unrestrained species burn themselves out (by destroying the ecosphere of their homeworld) without endangering the rest of the galactic neighborhood. Some people have already proposed use of the name Homo eusapiens as the name of the new creature that lives within this long timeframe, after Homo sapiens exhausts itself.

As I said before, suppose that you were limited to life in a 10-acre stretch of land. How would that change your decisions if you had that limitation kept continually in your perception? It's the same concept, writ large.

I need to do more reading about sapient governance to see if George Mobus addresses this issue too.