Thursday, January 23, 2025

Gaia loves making senses » NeuroClastic


Picture by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Core concepts inside Buddhist and Daoist religious traditions are reflective of the commonalities discovered throughout many human scale indigenous cultures. A compassionate body of affection as susceptible mutual understanding is suitable with a panpsychic relational philosophy. Everybody needs their expertise to be taken significantly. We’re embodied spirits, compelled to make sense of this world, and we will solely accomplish that in good firm.

Life

Life creates situations conducive to life – Janine Benyus

This straightforward definition or statement strongly hints at the truth that dynamic technique of life consists of suggestions loops.

Life is fully fully relational, it’s sacred, cyclical, fleeting, compostible, nested, regenerative, and it perpetually stays mysterious for all contributors.

Spirits

Any high-dimensional house that gives an affordable description of Gaia, i.e. all of life, together with the potential of homo ecologus, is finest conceptualised fully relationally, from the very backside layers of physics upwards.

Life consists fully of relationships, that are suggestions/studying loops, and these in flip, in mixture, represent the constructing blocks of what in our human animal scale notion is skilled as consciousness. There is no such thing as a scarcity of people that conceptualise life this manner. This turns into very apparent when learning Jap religious and philosophical texts. 

As people, with our human limitations, we’ll by no means be capable of scientifically “show” to any quantifiable degree of certainty that consciousness emerges on this manner, however science will even by no means be able to disproving that consciousness emerges and exists on this manner. This by no means signifies that science is ineffective, it merely highlights the boundaries of science, that are a part of the boundaries of human comprehensibility. In the identical manner, within the summary symbolic universe of arithmetic there are statements can’t ever be confirmed to be true or false, and we’re not even outfitted to determine all such statements.

On the spatial and temporal scales which can be related for organic and ecological methods, the smallest suggestions loops emerge between molecules, ensuing the thoughts boggling complexity present in cell biology and the molecular genetic code. These suggestions loops scale as much as the most important suggestions loops between bioregional terrestrial and marine ecosystems inside Gaia. The broadly widespread anthropocentric conceptions of “consciousness” at finest generalise to animals with brains, however exclude all different suggestions loops in residing methods from contributing to the lived experiences of consciousness at a lot smaller and far bigger spatial and temporal scales.

Powered-up (optimistic) suggestions loops are these suggestions loops by which, over time, extra info (whether or not molecules or in a extra summary code) piles up in some residing cells or beings than in others. Such powered-up feedbacks are all the time short-term phenomena relative to the life spans of the residing cells or beings concerned. 

The our bodies of human animals develop to a sure scale, after which they keep intact for a human lifetime. In the course of the lifetime of a human animal all of the molecular suggestions loops inside the human physique (between cells, between organs, and so on.) are maintained in a de-powered (balanced) state, fed by exterior vitality from residing meals, leading to “waste” that consists of constructing blocks which can be able to be reassembled into new life by thermonuclear vitality of the solar.

Equally, social suggestions loops between human animals develop into relationships, and wholesome relationships then keep intact for a human lifetime. All through life, all of the suggestions loops inside a wholesome relationship are maintained in a de-powered state, fed by shared lived experiences and shared understanding, leading to cultural output that consists of constructing blocks which can be able to be absorbed by the native ecology of care, and built-in into new relationships inside the native ecology of care.

Panpsychism

A universe conceptualised fully by way of dynamic suggestions/studying loops results in a panpsychic philosophy by which consciousness is omnipresent, in any respect ranges of scale, which is suitable with Jap religious traditions akin to Buddhism and Daoism. It invitations us to think about non-anthropocentric viewpoints, it alerts us to the cultural bias that’s inherent in trendy industrialised notions of “intelligence” and “success”, and it attracts consideration to the decrease and higher limits of human scale, together with our cognitive limitations and emotional limitations.

Non secular traditions

Buddhism often known as Buddha Dharma, is an Indian faith[a] and philosophical custom primarily based on teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering instructor who lived within the sixth or fifth century BCE.[7] It’s the world’s fourth-largest faith,[8][9] with over 520 million followers, referred to as Buddhists, who comprise seven p.c of the worldwide inhabitants.[10][11] It arose within the japanese Gangetic plain as a śramaṇa motion within the fifth century BCE, and regularly unfold all through a lot of Asia. Buddhism has subsequently performed a significant position in Asian tradition and spirituality, finally spreading to the West within the twentieth century.[12]

In keeping with custom, the Buddha instructed his followers in a path of improvement which results in awakening and full liberation from dukkha (lit. ’struggling or unease’[note 1]). He regarded this path as a Center Approach between extremes akin to asceticism or sensual indulgence.[17][18]

Buddhism give attention to minimising struggling and unease corresponds on to the sturdy lively want of hypersensitive neurodivergent folks to minimise cognitive dissonance. It additionally hints on the social issues that come up when a tradition has normalised and even insists on sustaining excessive ranges of cognitive dissonance over prolonged durations.

Taoism or Daoism is a various philosophical and non secular custom indigenous to China, emphasizing concord with the Tao 道 (pinyin: dào; Wade–Giles: tao4). With a variety of that means in Chinese language philosophy, translations of Tao embody ‘manner’, ‘street’, ‘path’, or ‘method’, typically understood within the Taoist sense as an enigmatic technique of transformation finally underlying actuality.[1][2] Taoist thought has knowledgeable the event of assorted practices inside the Taoist custom and past, together with types of meditation, astrology, qigong, feng shui, and inner alchemy. A typical aim of Taoist follow is self-cultivation, a deeper appreciation of the Tao, and extra harmonious existence.

Taoist ethics fluctuate, however typically emphasize such virtues as easy motion, naturalness, simplicity, and the three treasures of compassion, frugality, and humility.

Daoist virtues and treasures align with the sensitivity profiles of many neurodivergent folks and represent a timeless critique of all anthropocentric empire constructing makes an attempt going all the way in which again to the early Warring States interval (c. 450 – c. 300 BCE), together with a name for disengaging from and subverting such makes an attempt.

Taken collectively, the core concepts inside Buddhist and Daoist religious traditions are reflective of the commonalities discovered throughout many human scale indigenous cultures, together with the virtues and working ideas present in egalitarian hunter gatherer societies. Foundational Daoist texts akin to Zhuangzi additionally emphasise the necessary position of humour in subverting and weakening anthropocentric empire constructing makes an attempt.

Love

All my work is rooted in caring deeply for the Earth, loving her deeply, and due to this fact by no means letting hurt come to her… So i made a decision to inform the story of of my love for the Earth, which is staying alive, my love for all times, my deep ardour for all times, as a result of a part of what has been exiled is life itself… I spotted that what connects life to is love. The microorganism is giving like to the plant, the bee is giving like to the flower… The world in actuality is a fantastically interconnected world, and it’s interconnected by means of many many layers. It’s interconnected by means of consciousness, which is why we’re religious beings in human kind. However the vegetation exterior my window are religious beings in plant kind. However the plant of the lychee is in lychee kind, and the tree of the mango is in mango kind. They’re simply completely different expressions of 1 religious interconnected consciousness on the earth.

– Vandana Shiva

The extent to which we’re alive emerges from the merchandise of mutual belief, commitments, and shared understanding and experiences in all {our relationships}.

By advantage of their scale and design, so-called “relationships” with summary super-human scale anthropocentric establishments are devoid of real shared understanding and experiences. The extra a tradition forces folks to belief and “spend money on” such “relationships”, the much less capability we’ve got for real relationships with residing beings, the much less our lives are formed by mutual belief, and the much less alive we’re.

As soon as we perceive these dynamics, and consciously reorient our lives in direction of human scale, the prospect of “collapse” of establishments will be understood from a sober perspective – because the expiry of a social license that was inherently invalid all alongside. There may be a lot for us to be taught from indigenous societies that haven’t but been totally crushed by the lie of homo economicus. This jogs my memory of Eduardo Kohn’s necessary guide on anthropology past the human. Right here is an effective introduction:

We will perceive relationships as steady multi-modal de-powered dialogues inside ecologies of care, together with the ensuing entanglements of our interior worlds.

A number of days in the past I listened to Richard Watson’s reframing of evolution, equivalent to what I consult with as collaborative area of interest development and the compassionate framing of aware evolutionary design

It’s refreshing to listen to extra voices arguing for reframing evolution in collaborative phrases. This has turn out to be uncommon within the trendy world, despite the fact that Kropotkin wrote about it fairly eloquently over 100 years in the past.

The compassionate body of affection as susceptible mutual understanding is suitable with a panpsychic relational philosophy of the universe primarily based on suggestions/studying loops and the life affirmative language of ecologies of care.

Sensitivity profiles

All people have distinctive sensitivity profiles which can be formed by our neurological baseline tendencies in addition to all our lived experiences within the particular ecological contexts we’ve got been embedded in. That is very true for hypersensitive neurodivergent folks, a lot of whom have skilled and been sensitised by traumatic experiences in a social world by which they’re systematically marginalised, pathologised, and typically criminalised.

Our individually distinctive nervous methods and sensitivities develop and evolve over the course of our lives. 85% of neurodivergent adults usually or all the time really feel overwhelmed and misunderstood, and over 60% usually or all the time really feel disrespected and unsafe. Our general sense of wellbeing is decided by alignment between our sensitivity profiles and the ecology of care we’re embedded in (or not).

The official diagnostic standards for “autism” are deeply entangled with signs of advanced trauma. Those that determine as Autistic and plenty of different neurodivergent folks clearly have unusual baseline sensitivity profiles from beginning, however then traumatic lived experiences within the trendy hypernormative industrialised world pile on prime. In the long run it’s unimaginable to say the place “autism” stops and the place “trauma responses” start.

The conclusion is that each human is a novel repository of lived experiences. The paradigm of the trendy medical mannequin that’s centered on diagnosing and treating people is limiting in some ways, and except these limits are totally acknowledged, it can lead to important hurt, particularly amongst those that are intersectionally marginalised.

Everybody needs their expertise to be taken significantly. Simplistic and pathologising diagnostic labels and therapies centred on decontextualised people won’t ever be as much as the job. Our distinctive sensitivity profiles, which embody our total nervous methods, by no means restricted to our brains, form our distinctive manner of sensing and making sense of the world.

Those that have been actively concerned within the neurodiversity and incapacity actions for various years, particularly neurodiversity activists who’re dedicated in direction of real paradigmatic change, are advocating for intersectional solidarity past labels, and are taking concern with the cookie cutter classes discovered within the DSM that gloss over the individuality of each lived expertise.

I relate to the next dialog with Minna Salami on a number of ranges, particularly given her transcultural context that spans Nigeria, Germany, Sweden, and different cultural environments.

Powered-up relationships (persistent unbalanced suggestions loops) between people generate cognitive dissonance, which is skilled as a dis-ease that calls for to be resolved. There may be ample proof that ignoring or suppressing cognitive dissonance for prolonged durations ends in psychological, religious, and bodily ailments.

I’ve been testing this idea of cognitive dissonance for various years. It explains my very own experiences, and it appears able to explaining the experiences of many others I’ve shared the idea with. Apparently, the idea properly suits along with the outcomes of Michael Tomasello’s experimental developmental psychological analysis, in addition to with Camilla Energy’s organic and cultural anthropological analysis.

These people who’re labelled “hypersensitive” appear to be those who’ve a aware consciousness of cognitive dissonance and are compelled to take/keep away from particular actions in an effort to cut back cognitive dissonance. These people who should not “hypersensitive” appear to be those who’re in a position to tolerate cognitive dissonance over prolonged durations, and should not be capable of join the sensation or supply of cognitive dissonance with their psychological, religious, and bodily ailments. 

Hypersensitivities and the individuality of sensitivity profiles hints at variations within the ranges of aware lived expertise of particular occasions, and it leads in direction of a idea of suitable vs. incompatible sensitivity profiles.

The psychological bell curves related to the Satan’s Sadistic Guide (DSM) successfully outline the bandwidth of “culturally acceptable” human sensitivity profiles, and so they low cost and pathologise “culturally unacceptable” human sensitivity profiles.

Tradition co-evolution

All main evolutionary milestones within the historical past of Gaia have co-evolutionary traits, together with classes from the the emergence and co-evolution of organic cells and the next co-evolution of multi-celled organisms. 

The empirical information we’ve got about cell biology teaches us lots in regards to the complementary roles of summary image methods and semantics in co-evolutionary processes, it teaches us that evolutionary processes are inherently co-evolutionary, i.e. ecological processes reasonably than species-specific organic processes.

The semi-permeable membranes of cells present a mannequin for co-evolutionary processes between a number of residing organisms that has been empirically “street examined” for billions of years by Gaia.

With the formal foundations of class idea, mannequin idea, and denotational semantics, we’re outfitted to exactly articulate the interdependencies between summary image methods and semantics, together with the co-evolutionary processes that act on image methods and semantics.

Co-evolutionary processes between a number of cultural organisms are steeped in a paradigm of aware collaborative area of interest development reasonably than in senseless and intensely vitality intensive and wasteful head-to-head competitors.

Tradition co-evolution at human scales entails the next:

  1. The emergence of cultural practices between two commonly interacting human animals. Balanced relationships and de-powered dialogues are finest understood and visualised as a suggestions loop that ends in a convergence and entanglement of our inner psychological fashions and better ranges of shared understanding and compassion.
  2. Inside a human household or family that features n human animals there are as much as 1/2 n * (n – 1) relationships between human animals the co-evolution of relationships provides rise to extra cultural practices. 
  3. Empirically we all know that wholesome human cultural organisms encompass a number of households or households that collaborate and dwell collectively on every day or weekly foundation to kind a coherent financial useful resource sharing unit, i.e. a human scale cultural organism. Inside a human scale cultural organism that features m households there are as much as 1/2 m * (m – 1) relationships between households that co-evolve and provides rise to extra cultural practices.
  4. Relationships between households encompass relationships between particular folks. So on the degree of a human scale cultural organism of l human animals and m households there are a complete of 1/2 l * (l – 1) relationships between human animals that co-evolve, plus 1/2 m * (m – 1) relationships between households that co-evolve.
  5. Moreover, empirically we all know that human cultural organisms keep collaborative relationships with various different human cultural organisms, which in flip encompass relationships between particular folks, ensuing within the co-evolution of interacting cultural organisms.

This gives us with a human scale framework to suppose and cause about cultural evolution with a completely collaborative body of omni-directional studying.

From inside a co-evolutionary body it turns into apparent that each one head-to-head competitions are finest understood as short-term and vitality losing distractions which can be finest clamped down on as quickly as they turn out to be detectable inside a household, inside a cultural organism, or between cultural organisms.

These are the cultural foundations which can be prime of thoughts in egalitarian hunter gatherer societies, and the ensuing cultural practices are the product of 300,000 years of tradition co-evolution. This tells us the whole lot we have to know in regards to the priorities of values in wholesome life affirming cultures, and it explains the constantly rising reputation of the Open House strategy to omni-directional studying launched by Harrison Owen within the Nineteen Eighties.

Hunter gathers and the work of lecturers like Eduardo Kohn increase the above co-evolutionary body to relationships past the human. The collaborative body past the human can also be clearly seen within the observations and writings of Pëtr Kropotkin from 1902.

The cognitive and emotional limits of human scale turn out to be seen and apparent within the non-trivial challenges of stopping and de-escalating head-to-head competitions and conflicts between cultural organisms. Nonetheless, there are well-documented examples of egalitarian societies which have apparently been profitable at minimising head-to-head competitions and conflicts between cultural organisms over a whole lot and 1000’s of years. We might do nicely to be taught from such cultures, after which to use what we be taught to the design of digital communication, collaboration, and design instruments for the following 200 years and past. The variety of initiatives heading on this common route has been slowly however steadily rising over the course of the final 20 years. The work of Brett Victor is one other instance of an initiative that has been going for 10+ years.

Past human scale, we will chill out and place confidence in Gaia’s knowledge. That is very a lot in keeping with the spirit of Open House. The place invited, we will present palliative care to the dying super-human scale establishments, together with related schooling in direction of secure and viable exit paths for the inmates.

The human spirit inside Gaia

People advanced to make sense of the world at human scales:

  1. The human nervous system is a way making organ that advanced to combine at human scale right into a human scale cultural organism, inside which tradition operates primarily as an vitality saving software. 
  2. Human cultural organisms save vitality by participating in collaborative area of interest development with a aware main give attention to group wellbeing, and this has allowed people to colonise and adapt to just about all terrestrial ecosystems on the planet. 
  3. Collaborative area of interest development usually even extends to relationships between native human cultural organisms, but it surely doesn’t scale past the cognitive and emotional limitations of human scale. Subsequently conflicts simply emerge when the native group dimension or the native density of teams exceeds these limits. Sustaining egalitarian collaborative relationships between human scale teams is stretching the boundaries of the human capacities for language and tradition.

As a part of an Open Supply human scale heritage for future generations of people, it’s exactly within the context of collaborative area of interest development that clear and appropriately designed digital technological guardrails across the human capacities for language and tradition may turn out to be the instruments that reach the reliability of human collaborative area of interest development to bigger scales, with out centralising any choice making powers within the arms of strongmen.

It’s time to change the ten,000 12 months previous misguided religion in energy drunk strongmen by a scientifically enlightened religion in 4+ billion years of Gaia’s advanced knowledge.

Radical egalitarianism is the structure of the adaptive intelligence of the human species. This structure differs considerably from the nervous methods of different primates, as a result of different primates don’t have comparable capacities for language and tradition.

  1. The primate nervous system is a way making organ that advanced to combine into small versatile aggressive alliances inside the context of a social dominance hierarchy, inside which tradition operates primarily as a social energy amplifier inside conflicts. 
  2. Primate alliances amplify social energy to weaken the place of social energy on the prime of the hierarchy, that is the paradigm of “collaborate solely to compete”, which introduces a component of opportunistic cooperation that’s solely simply ample for sustaining general group coherence.
  3. Primates don’t consciously belief the collective intelligence of the group, and the first focus of their psychological schools is the navigation of aggressive social dynamics inside a “collaborate solely to compete” paradigm. This limitation, compounded by their lack of symbolic language, prevents them from creating a collective primate group scale repository of cultural knowledge and collective understanding of the native bioregional ecosystem that persists, is transmitted reliably, and evolves over the course of many generations.

If we consider human nervous methods as outlined above, it turns into apparent that:

  1. The course of evolution of the human capacities for language and tradition has optimised for steady collaborative area of interest development primarily based on secure relationships inside human cultural organisms.
  2. Human gene-culture co-evolution could have favoured the scale of variability and variety that we observe between particular person people at present. Human neurodiversity is finest studied and understood at human scale.
  3. It solely is sensible to discover adaptive ranges of human variety vs maladaptive ranges of human variety or uniformity by evaluating human scale cultural organisms.

It’s absurd to try to outline “regular” or “adaptiveness” on the degree of particular person people. 

These observations give us a framework for positioning and reasoning about internalised ableism. WEIRD societies have turn out to be indifferent from the evolutionary roots of our capability for tradition. We’re surrounded by Man Debord’s Spectacle. Not solely is hardly something ever is what it appears to be, from an atomised individualistic place, surrounded by self-interested homo economicus, we will solely anchor ourselves within the non-human organic world, and we’ve got to deal with all human cultural development with suspicion.

It is a world the place, within the absence of belief primarily based human scale ecologies of care, institutionalised BS within the type of companies led by strongmen is the one accessible anchor level for the social world, particularly given that almost all digital technique of communication have been seized by companies.

In the cultural metamorphosis that’s in progress, Gaia is the one true authority. Yearly she speaks with better authority to all of us.

Changing into conscious of cultural bias

To turn out to be consciously conscious of cultural bias throughout all human endeavours, it helps to consider as academia as consisting of two subsystems which can be linked through a studying / suggestions loop, roughly as follows:  

Human cultural output as a part of Gaia

  1. the humanities
  2. arithmetic
  3. statistics and engineering

Human makes an attempt at understanding Gaia

  1. world research and political science
  2. the earth sciences
  3. physics
  4. chemistry
  5. ecology
  6. all of biology minus WEIRD bias in evolutionary biology
  7. the medical sciences minus WEIRD psychiatry
  8. the social sciences minus WEIRD psychology

With these distinctions in thoughts we will critically look at our understanding of Gaia by way of the humanities, the mathematical disciplines, and the statistics and engineering which can be framing our scientific investigations. We will turn out to be specific about all of the cultural assumptions that underpin the sciences. Arithmetic stands out because the one self-discipline that’s religiously centered on making all assumptions specific.

Distinguishing human cultural outputs from empirical scientific human makes an attempt of understanding Gaia brings internalised ableism into the focus of a vital lens, linking it to the trendy human predicament, and exposing the harmful ranges of pseudoscience at midnight triad of “scientific” disciplines hinted at within the dialog “Synthetic Intelligence, Darkish Patterns, and the Digital Economic system”  with Stuart Mills:

  1. WEIRD economics (economics & enterprise administration)
  2. the psychologically “regular(ised)” WEIRD human (psychiatry & psychology)
  3. digital automation of WEIRD behaviour (pc science & knowledge science)

The questionable social license of this triad of WEIRD disciplines primarily tends to be constructed by referencing outcomes from the opposite two components of the triad, and manifests in a language that normalises violence.

The cultural problem in engineering is an lively disinterest in making all assumptions specific, and as a substitute, as wanted, counting on WEIRDly handy assumptions baked into the darkish triad of “scientific” disciplines to advance the arrow of “progress”. That is mirrored in the “shut up and calculate” angle to unknowns and the evident absence of any smart scale conscious precautionary precept.

A maybe much less apparent dimension of fully “regular” internalised ableism manifests within the age bracket by which homo economicus is taken into account to be “productive” or “helpful”, i.e. employable and exploitable for revenue, roughly the interval between the ages of 20 and 65. Everybody exterior this age bracket is by default thought-about to be an financial burden in trendy society, together with the “prices” of teaching the beneath 20s and taking good care of the over 65s.

The faith of economics has legitimised an obsession with maximising the quantifiable financial “utility” that may be extracted from a human life. How else may anybody ever provide you with the absurd notion of “internet value”?

Throughout the body of maximising financial utility, in-depth intergenerational dialogues past these which can be a part of the indoctrination system are undesirable. Homo economicus thrives in environments of stratified age cohorts (generations X, Y, Z, …)  which can be competing in opposition to one another, thereby lowering useful bidirectional intergenerational studying, and creating alternatives for advertising and marketing and promoting age cohort particular industrial companies and merchandise.

Reviving belief in humanity

Nothing within the atomised trendy social world is sensible anymore, as a result of human scale cultural organisms, together with understanding of the life sustaining and adaptive significance of such organisms have been eroded from residing reminiscence. The human spirit has been damaged, i.e. religion in humanity and religion in Gaia has been shaken to the core.

All of the dynamics that characterise a breakdown of sincere communication in good religion, or a scarcity of expertise with de-powerd dialogue / non-violent communication manifest in pretty apparent signs:

  1. Utilizing persuasive strategies to encourage one other to undertake an opinion (ABA and your entire behaviourist bag of tips) – reasonably than listening and fascinating in deeper compassionate dialogue to grasp the opposite.
  2. Casting doubt on observations and assessments of one other, in domains or contexts by which the opposite is extra intimately accustomed to the context – reasonably than listening and respecting the contextually knowledgeable observations of the opposite.
  3. Ignoring questions that categorical a want from one other to grasp motivations and expressed emotions – reasonably than overtly sharing motivations and emotions.
  4. There are probably additional signs …

The aggressive body of homo economicus totally normalises the compulsion of being seen as “impartial and powerful”. Fears of exposing vulnerabilities pave the trail for a tradition of ubiquitous distrust and psychological well being issues. That is the cult(ure) of internalised ableism.

This state of affairs leaves trendy people in a desolate, remoted place from which extending deep belief to different people has turn out to be seemingly unimaginable for a lot of. Amongst different issues, we see this mirrored within the AutCollab Analysis knowledge, which clearly reveals how a lot Autistic and in any other case neurodivergent folks would love to assist others, together with strangers in want, however on the identical time many are [very] afraid to dare ask for assist.

The deep indoctrination within the fantasy of homo economicus has additionally made trendy people distrustful of themselves. The overwhelming majority of makes an attempt that individuals undertake to turn out to be “profitable” inside the dominant cultural body leaves folks to conclude deep down that “there should be one thing improper with me” and certain “I didn’t attempt onerous sufficient”

The result’s an epidemic of self hate and disgrace. 

The results of self hate are amplified by the social requirements and pathologising labels documented within the Satan’s Sadistic Guide (the DSM). David Mackler focuses on self hate inflicted by dad and mom on youngsters, however there are a lot of different avenues inside the poisonous social system that lead in direction of self hate.

To make issues worse, on the few events the place folks “succeed inside the system”, they need to discover a manner of rationalising and justifying their “success”. This entails suppressing any unfavorable emotions they could have developed on the trail in direction of success, which in lots of circumstances concerned moral corner-cutting and grandiose notion administration in an effort to “win” the culturally prescribed aggressive social sport. In different phrases, turning into profitable often includes suppression of our innate human compassion for others and in some circumstances knowingly inflicting hurt on others in an effort to “win”. 

The result’s an epidemic of deeply suppressed guilt hidden beneath outwardly narcissistic behaviours in an effort to survive in a poisonous life denying society.

One more perverse impact of the predicament of internalised ableism is seen in a number of the WEIRD therapies devised to deal with the pathologies listed within the DSM, which principally train therapists strategies for:

  1. Making folks really feel higher about themselves by figuring out different individuals who have harmed them, which inevitably includes some attribution of blame, and thereby to some extent it distracts from clearly seeing the systemic patterns of intergenerational trauma which can be at work.
  2. Encouraging folks to consider that engaged on “themselves” will finally permit them to turn out to be “profitable”, and thereby pushing folks again into the atmosphere that’s dominated by the poisonous guidelines for “success”.

These poisonous patterns won’t ever seize to be perpetuated till the ideology of homo economicus is discarded. Rising numbers of WEIRD therapists are leaving their “professions” or are in search of to depart their “career”. Over time I’ve supplied peer assist to fairly various therapists and recovering therapists. I deeply really feel their ache.

Everybody within the WEIRD world is to some extent entrapped by the system. Even those that are (re)studying native human powered subsistence degree methods of communal residing and surviving, minimising their consumption, usually depend on some degree of monetary “investments” to maintain themselves, and thereby find yourself with one foot or at the least just a few toes within the poisonous system, contributing to its continuation.

A more healthy manner to consider our remaining entanglement with homo economicus is to grasp it as a type of palliative look after dying establishments, by incrementally equipping the inmates with viable exit paths. We will encourage the dying technique of establishments as they’re incrementally deserted and turn out to be fully out of date.

2025 is the UN Worldwide 12 months of Cooperatives. Cooperatives Construct a Higher World, showcasing the enduring world influence cooperatives have all over the place. This theme places a highlight on how the cooperative mannequin is an important resolution to beat many world challenges.

Buddhist and Daoist values and virtues can present overarching steerage alongside the way in which:

  1. Minimise the human and non-human struggling on the downwards slope of homo economicus, and 
  2. Maximise pleasure as a part of the metamorphisis of human scale cultural organisms within the cultural compost heap.

An apparent manner of minimising human struggling is to share the framing and reasoning outlined above with rising human scale ecologies of care:

  1. to equip folks to be extra light with themselves
  2. to reassure them that you understand that they’re doing the perfect they will inside the bounds of their human cognitive and emotional limits, 
  3. and to remind them that everybody can contribute to the metamorphosis by letting go of internalised ableism, by appreciating and actively supporting the work of those that are the brokers inside the metamorphosis, and by counting on non-violent resistance as wanted to forestall avoidable hurt and to assist the dying technique of the system.

Our nervous methods are deeply linked at human scale. We’re embodied spirits, the whole lot is linked. Interfaces restrict our humanity. We advanced to be totally current with one another, with out interfaces.

Numerous what I’ve been writing about over the course of the final two years will be understood as an try of making the insights of neurodivergent folks like DJ White with distinctive life paths extra accessible to a considerably broader viewers, i.e. the viewers of all those that are a part of one of many tens of millions of emergent human scale cultural organisms which can be rising within the cultural compost heap. Past alignment with DJ White’s recommendation on committing to a sacred mission at human scale, I relate to his considerations for the oceans.

My re-examination of social methods transcends previous classes. It makes use of a brand new methodology of study (the research of relational dynamics) that pulls from a bigger knowledge base than standard research. It seems to be at a a lot bigger, holistic image that features the entire of humanity, each its feminine and male halves; the entire of our lives, not solely politics and economics however the place all of us dwell, in our household and different intimate relations; and the entire of our historical past, together with the 1000’s of years we name prehistory.

this extra full image makes it potential to see interactive relationships or configurations that aren’t seen in any other case. There have been no names for these social configurations, so I known as one the domination system and the opposite the partnership system.

As soon as we perceive these configurations, it turns into clear that the true wrestle for our future shouldn’t be spiritual vs. secular, East vs. West, South vs. North, proper vs. left, and so on. If you concentrate on it, societies in all these classes had been, and are, repressive, violent, and unjust.

The actual wrestle is inside societies in each one among these classes, between individuals who need to transfer to a extra caring and equitable world and people who nonetheless consider insensitivity, cruelty, and destructiveness – and all of the distress they result in – are “simply human nature” – the inevitable results of unique sin or egocentric genes.

We’re all accustomed to relations of domination and submission from our personal lives. We all know the ache, concern, and rigidity of relations primarily based on coercion and lodging, of jockeying for management, of making an attempt to govern and cajole once we are unable to specific our actual emotions and desires, of the tug of struggle for that illusory second of energy reasonably than powerlessness, of our unfulfilled craving for caring and mutuality, of all of the distress, struggling, and misplaced lives and potentials that come from these sorts of relations.

Most of us have additionally, at the least intermittently, skilled one other manner of being, one the place we really feel secure and seen for who we really are, the place our important humanity and that of others shines by means of, maybe just for a short while, lifting our hearts and spirits, enfolding us in a way that the world can in any case be proper, that we’re valued and useful.

Our human craving for caring connections, for peace reasonably than struggle, for equality reasonably than inequality, for freedom reasonably than oppression, will be seen as a part of our genetic gear. The diploma to which this craving will be realized shouldn’t be a matter of fixing our genes, however of constructing partnership social buildings and beliefs.

Within the domination system, any person must be on prime and any person must be on the underside. Folks be taught, beginning in early childhood, to obey orders with out query. They be taught to hold a harsh voice of their heads telling them they’re no good, they don’t deserve love, they should be punished. Households and societies are primarily based on management that’s explicitly or implicitly backed up by guilt, concern, and pressure. The world is split into in-groups and out-groups, with those that are completely different seen as enemies to be conquered or destroyed.

In distinction, the partnership system helps mutually respectful and caring relations. As a result of there isn’t a want to take care of inflexible rankings of management, there’s additionally no built-in want for abuse and violence. Partnership relations free our innate capability to really feel pleasure, to play. They permit us to develop mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That is true for people, households, and entire societies.

From Partnership 101, Riane Eisler, 2021

Making sense of the world

We’re all compelled to make sense of this world, and we will solely accomplish that in good firm at human scales. We advanced to expertise cognitive dissonance as discomfort and to try in direction of eliminating it at human scale.

It is just when trying on the time scale of human evolutionary historical past that we will recognise powered-up civilisations as a cultural illness as a substitute of complicated them with a misguided “arrow of progress”, and within the course of tricking ourselves into believing that “progress” will be the results of homo economicus and instruments designed within the picture of homo economicus, amplifying the worst potential human impulses.

The time period “intelligence” has been shoehorned into a really WEIRD anthropocentric notion of “success” or “progress” that’s designed to compel people to “dwell as much as” the doctrine of the cult leaders of homo economicus. When “intelligence” (synthetic or in any other case) has been decreased to something that helps us justify and keep our addictions within the face of rising ranges of cognitive dissonance, can we sink any decrease?

It’s terribly straightforward to design instruments that surpass human capabilities. We’ve got been doing this for a number of hundred thousand years. It appears this has been forgotten. We’re “nice” software makers, and all the time have been. Nice in quotes, as a result of our cognitive and maybe even extra so our emotional limitations can get in the way in which of us understanding the complete ecological implications of deploying our powered-up instruments.

Superior instruments within the arms of energy addicts have all the time been a foul thought. Because the saying goes, “a idiot with a software remains to be a idiot.” We’ve got have made the error of worshipping the human functionality for superior recursive software design as “intelligence”. The result’s a human social world devoid of knowledge and rising ranges of cognitive dissonance.

Knowledge is the capability to grasp the distinction between the human functionality for superior recursive software design and human ecological understanding.

Gaia is looking for a aware paradigmatic shift within the design of our instruments away from the life denying faith of homo economicus in direction of a life affirming faith of homo ecologus. In the identical manner that badly designed digital instruments can amplify the worst human impulses, nicely designed digital instruments maintain the potential to amplify the noblest of human impulses on our 200+ years journey of coming down from the carbon pulse.

Fellow Autist DJ White urges us to at the least attempt to gently land the airliner of industrialised civilisation in a suitably flat corn subject as a substitute of hoping for some miracle to refill the gas tanks whereas persevering with at full throttle.

Be a part of us!

Autistic, Genuine, and Autonomous ecologies of care past the human develop organically, at human scale, at a human tempo, one trusted relationship at a time. Be a part of us!

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