Sustainability is destroying the Earth

[GliderGuider]

10. Good critique, bad proposal

The DGR and other anti-civ folks have a very good critique of the causes of our predicament. They clearly understand the role of civilization, politics and technology in creating the problems we now face. What they do not have is anything resembling a practical general response. IMO that failure is because there simply isn't a practical response that would give us the desired outcome, whether it's their desired outcome or anyone else's.

The same objection applies to proposals from the technocrats, the spiritual transformationists, the social justice activists, the political gradualists and all the other groups. People hate thinking that they (we) are in an inextricable bind. That discomfort gives rise to all sorts of magical thinking about possible responses.

The adult thing to do would be to face the facts and accept that there is no good general solution, that the only practical responses are at the personal/small community level. An adult would prepare themselves to be as psychologically flexible as possible, in order to deal with all the unexpected shit that the world will be throwing at us over the next few decades.

Unfortunately, there aren't many adults in this world. Most people prefer to cling to any possible "solution", no matter how outlandish, rather than face the fact that we've unintentionally but irreversibly fucked the biosphere and our own species into the bargain.