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Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.
Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.
Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.
It is not civilization that is inherently unsustainable - it is barbarism. Civilization and Barbarism evolve together, parallel to each other. Advances in science, philosophy, art, culture, theosophy, and technology are civilization. Advances in violence, oppression, greed, ignorance, and environmental exploitation are results of barbarism. These are two distinct sets of virtues that appear to be the same thing, but nothing could be further from the truth. Those of us who are or have been civilized are crushed under the collective upholding of barbarism (Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, MLK, etc. etc.) while the barbarians and their values are the easiest to go along with.
Individuals are creative, groups are destructive. An individual is a beacon of civilization while a group resorts to unthinking barbarism. All advances in every school, in every undertaking, have been made by individuals. Then the collective will slowly undo and misinterpret what was accomplished by one person in their solitude. It is our duty as conscious individuals to preserve these advances in civilization and protect them from the collective barbarism that will degrade them.
If society collapses, the creative advances we made must be kept. Do not blame civilization itself for the callousness and greed of blind men. In doing so, you throw away every possibility for a future that knows Unity.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater - we will never live like we did 15,000 years ago.
Ah, I didn’t think I’d have to visit civilization is unsustainable 101 all over again.
Read this, if not the entire book Endgame.
388 Notes