Speaker 1: A zone media.
Speaker 2: Hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrew Sage and I run the YouTube channel Andrewism.
Speaker 2: But this is it could happen here today. I'm carrying
Speaker 2: on my discussion of everyone's favorite subject, collapse. I'm here,
Speaker 2: of course with Garrison, and last time we spoke about
Speaker 2: the what, why, and how of collapse, as well as
Speaker 2: in many ways people respond when confronted with this crisis.
Speaker 2: So if you're curious about that, you can listen to
Speaker 2: the previous discussion. One thing I didn't touch on last
Speaker 2: time was the various levels of awareness that people have
Speaker 2: about collapse, because, as with most things in this life,
Speaker 2: it exists on more of a spectrum than anything. We're
Speaker 2: all on this learning journey, and some people are further along,
Speaker 2: if you could even really relate it's that way than others.
Speaker 2: Some discuss of collapse are informed by author Paul Shafferka's
Speaker 2: Stages of Collapse. There are five stages in total, and
Speaker 2: the fust stage is dead asleep, which is where you're
Speaker 2: really just vibing. You know, you can see some issues
Speaker 2: in the world here and there, but that could be fixed. Right.
Speaker 2: All we had to do is organize a bit better,
Speaker 2: change our behaviors, slightly, tweak the rules, and we'll be fine.
Speaker 2: But then you move on to the next stage, which
Speaker 2: is the awareness of one fundamental problem. Is when you realize, oh,
Speaker 2: there's something structurally wrong, but you only see in one
Speaker 2: part of that structural flow, so it seems everything is
Speaker 2: not you know, cash money. You know, maybe you found
Speaker 2: about the depths of systemic racism or imperialism, or overfission
Speaker 2: or mass extinction or fracking, and you know, as one does,
Speaker 2: you start to freak out a little bit. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe you mobilize to bring some awareness of this issue,
Speaker 2: just so people know that you know something is wrong,
Speaker 2: let's fix it, and that one problem can even consume
Speaker 2: you entirely. And then consuming all that knowledge about that
Speaker 2: one problem, you keep learning, and if you really do
Speaker 2: keep learning and are open to learn more and more
Speaker 2: about the issue, eventually reach an awareness of many problems.
Speaker 2: The next stage, the more you learn, the more you worry.
Speaker 2: You take in all sorts of information and begin to
Speaker 2: see how complex and multifaceted the world's problems are. Now
Speaker 2: it's hard for you to even prioritize, which is so
Speaker 2: need to be tell first, In fact, it's so overwhelmed
Speaker 2: you do have be reluctant to acknowledge new problems because
Speaker 2: you already have so much on your plate. Alas you
Speaker 2: cannot ignore the other problems forever, not unless you want
Speaker 2: to keep running in circles. So you get to the
Speaker 2: stage of awareness of the interconnections between the many problems,
Speaker 2: it starts to dawn on you that there are no
Speaker 2: easy solutions. Shutting down factory farms mainly off millions and
Speaker 2: leave perhaps hundreds of millions for the complete meal, or
Speaker 2: efforts to raise the standard of living in the developing world.
Speaker 2: Industrialization in the footsteps of the developed world just might
Speaker 2: accelerate the Earth's demise and profit a select few at
Speaker 2: least you thinking on the systems level. Now beyond the
Speaker 2: symptoms towards the source. Perhaps there is no one solution,
Speaker 2: Perhaps the gravity of such a solution maybe too much
Speaker 2: to beare So. Finally, at the last stage, you get
Speaker 2: to awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life,
Speaker 2: so much so you might even pine after ignorance as
Speaker 2: you realize that this series of problems, or rather this
Speaker 2: all encompassing capital p predicament includes everything we do, how
Speaker 2: we do, what we do, how we relate, and how
Speaker 2: we affect the entire planet. The predicaments is so massive
Speaker 2: you might even reach a point where you're just like,
Speaker 2: there is no capital S solution to this capital P predicament,
Speaker 2: no easy answer, no quick fix, and you can't do
Speaker 2: it alone. And so now what now? In the last episode,
Speaker 2: I would have spoken about a couple of different responses
Speaker 2: that people have had to collapse, slumber, denial, apathy, preoccupation,
Speaker 2: hedonism of weelment, blind hope, individual change, progress, worship, leader worship, apocalypse, worship, despair.
Speaker 2: But as promised for this episode, I want to be
Speaker 2: a bit more constructive in focus and so to answer
Speaker 2: the question, really is there any way out? But before
Speaker 2: I get to that garrison, do you think there are
Speaker 2: any stages am I have missed in that progression of understanding?
Speaker 2: Or what have you observed in your experience?
Speaker 3: I mean, one thing I kind of will reiterate that
Speaker 3: is this something that was talked about a lot when
Speaker 3: Robert was putting together the second season of It could
Speaker 3: happen here is trying to have yeah, like like like
Speaker 3: looking at collapse as one singular moment and more as this,
Speaker 3: like it's a more gauzy and more fuzzy slow crumbling
Speaker 3: of things that we have grown to rely on. And
Speaker 3: it sometimes you could like envision it eventually reaching to
Speaker 3: some sort of tipping point, but other times the tipping
Speaker 3: points never really ever reach. It's it's it's just it's
Speaker 3: just this this forever kind of crumbling and then rebuilding,
Speaker 3: and then crumbling and rebuilding, and you get to like
Speaker 3: a ship a theseus situation where eventually, at one point
Speaker 3: the thing is completely different from what it used to be,
Speaker 3: but there was never like a full moment of quote
Speaker 3: unquote collapse. It was just this this continual like crumbling
Speaker 3: and then becoming into the next thing.
Speaker 2: It kind of sounds similar to what John Michael Grea described, No,
Speaker 2: not John Michael Grea, David Korwitz. He talks about this
Speaker 2: idea of like oscillating decline. Yeah, Yeah, these these recessions,
Speaker 2: these declines, and you have a couple of peaks when
Speaker 2: things have to climb up a little bit and then
Speaker 2: and then the overall picture is like a downward trend,
Speaker 2: but there are some like brief aspects of recovery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's definitely a mode that I think about
Speaker 3: a lot. You know, a lot of people are worried
Speaker 3: of like some like some event triggering a much kind
Speaker 3: of larger scale collapse, and I think, uh, it's good
Speaker 3: too to focus on all of the smaller, the smaller
Speaker 3: crumbling that's just always happening all of the time, no
Speaker 3: matter where you live.
Speaker 2: So I mean my experience is pretty similar. I think
Speaker 2: one of the first issues that I became like fundamentally
Speaker 2: aware of was climate change. Sure of course. I mean
Speaker 2: you crack open anyone of those like I don't know
Speaker 2: if you ever got one of those big books of
Speaker 2: knowledge as a child, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had. I
Speaker 2: had a few kind of plastic key pages. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: they have all these big pictures. Yeah, so I remember
Speaker 2: seeing those in one of those books, like this huge
Speaker 2: like mountain of trash and seeing like this this floating
Speaker 2: garbage patch in the ocean, and I was just like wow.
Speaker 2: And then later on, so the first thing wasn't even
Speaker 2: climate change, it was pollution. And then later on I
Speaker 2: started doing about climate change, and then that really became
Speaker 2: like my nature thing. And then later on I as
Speaker 2: I got older and I learned about learned history and
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, I came to economics and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. I came to realize that just how big
Speaker 2: the situation was. And now I'm here. So, as I
Speaker 2: said in the previous episode, we really don't need blind hope,
Speaker 2: and I should be upondly clear, we definitely don't need
Speaker 2: hopeless despair. It's a little rhyme there. So how do
Speaker 2: we respond to this predicament? The short answer is that
Speaker 2: I don't know. The long answer is this whole podcast episode.
Speaker 2: I mean, I could give some platitudes. You know, we
Speaker 2: need sobriety, clarity, lucidity. I mean. Paul Shafuka points out
Speaker 2: in his article that those in stage five awareness who
Speaker 2: see that the predictament encompasses all aspects of life look
Speaker 2: to one of two paths. And I mean I've since
Speaker 2: adapted into Britain and remixed the two paths, so not
Speaker 2: one to one with what he had in mind, but
Speaker 2: you should get the gist. The first path of response
Speaker 2: to the predictaments of collapse is the inner path of
Speaker 2: self healing. It's a manifestation of that fake can the
Speaker 2: quote be the change you want to see in the world,
Speaker 2: sort of retreating into oneself, taking deep and poosonal developing
Speaker 2: your self awareness. I mean, some people take this to
Speaker 2: mean some sort of hyper individual thing, and it low
Speaker 2: key is if you tilt and twist your head slightly,
Speaker 2: you can maybe see it in a different line. I
Speaker 2: don't think it has to mean becoming a monk or
Speaker 2: an aesthetic. I don't think it means denying systems or
Speaker 2: ignoring the painful truth. I think it involves taken in
Speaker 2: the gravity of what we're dealing with, such a grand
Speaker 2: scale issue, and putting it in a personal context, unabstracting
Speaker 2: it and understanding it through a more managical lens. I'm
Speaker 2: not one to fall back on evolutionary terminism or anything
Speaker 2: like that, but I do think often about how we
Speaker 2: kind of weren't meant to be processing this entire planet,
Speaker 2: this entire population, you know. I think we're very good
Speaker 2: at dealing with immediate problems, very good at looking at
Speaker 2: situations that are before us, that are directly impacting us,
Speaker 2: and looking at how we can solve that. And of course,
Speaker 2: no local solution necessarily is going to by itself solve
Speaker 2: a global cris but medley of local solutions can. But
Speaker 2: we're not even talking here with this inner path of
Speaker 2: local solutions. Yet we're talking even at the smaller scale,
Speaker 2: in the local, at the base unit of society, which
Speaker 2: is the self. So you might continue pursuing knowledge of
Speaker 2: the issues, start developing your practical skills and people's skills,
Speaker 2: trying to minimalize your lifestyle and preparation for the economic
Speaker 2: and social shocks of collapse. Perhaps seeking to settle somewhere
Speaker 2: you've determined it's best suited to whether the coming storms,
Speaker 2: which I believe I saw a video like some years
Speaker 2: ago where this guy was saying the Midwest might be
Speaker 2: the best place environmentally to settle. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you'll cover that in the first or second season. That
Speaker 2: could happen, yet.
Speaker 3: I mean there was something definitely we were looking into
Speaker 3: during some of the research phases of a lot of
Speaker 3: the agriculture that is currently based in the south of
Speaker 3: the United States. Every every every decad is going to
Speaker 3: start moving up and up and up, and particularly like
Speaker 3: Canada is going to enter a very large agricultural economic boom.
Speaker 3: That process has already started. But yes, there's gonna like
Speaker 3: be this this slow rising level of like industrial farming,
Speaker 3: which first of all, isn't isn't actually great for the
Speaker 3: land itself. Like once all of the land that's abandoned
Speaker 3: in the Southern States, like after it's been tapped for
Speaker 3: so long, it's really just like dust, like it's it's
Speaker 3: not actually useful dirt anymore. But it's all of that
Speaker 3: stuff's going to start moving farther and farther north as
Speaker 3: the as the conditions for growth start changing. And I
Speaker 3: mean it's the same thing for a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of things that are grown and like more like
Speaker 3: jungly forest mountain areas where every year, like coffee and chocolate,
Speaker 3: they have to start they have they have to start
Speaker 3: moving the crops or they're up the mountain. And again
Speaker 3: that's that doesn't that's obviously not a great long term
Speaker 3: solution because the mountain is only so high that it
Speaker 3: costs and it costs a lot of money to constantly
Speaker 3: be moving your crops higher and higher up a mountain. Indeed,
Speaker 3: but that is the sort of like agricultural and like
Speaker 3: economic drive. It's going to start getting more and more
Speaker 3: common to supply the amount of food that Americans are
Speaker 3: used to eating. And it won't like in the case
Speaker 3: of coffee, like it's not like actual coffee beans are
Speaker 3: not going to be as common as they were today
Speaker 3: or twenty years ago. It's going to become more of
Speaker 3: like a higher priced luxury item. And I'm sure, I'm
Speaker 3: sure Americans will get their caffeine fixed some other way.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's like that those those sorts of changes
Speaker 3: are going to become more and more and more commonplace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And this is why you know,
Speaker 2: anarchists get I think unfairly labeled like past like excessively
Speaker 2: a care area or maybe parochial in their focus. But
Speaker 2: I think that as we talk about the degradation of soils,
Speaker 2: we talk about the failures in the long term of
Speaker 2: monocultural large scale farm and the only way that we're
Speaker 2: really going to see that sort of land restored again
Speaker 2: is through the sort of acro forestry, pulmaculture, you know,
Speaker 2: small scale practices that involve rebuilding that relationship between the
Speaker 2: people and the land itself. Regardden outside of the US,
Speaker 2: I don't know what my game plan would be. The
Speaker 2: dry seasons are certainly dry, and I think last year
Speaker 2: actually was one of our driest wet seasons, So I
Speaker 2: don't really plan on leaving, but I do think about
Speaker 2: I do find myself thinking about, Okay, where am I
Speaker 2: gonna like, but where am I gonna settle? You know,
Speaker 2: like where am I gonna be able to like safeguard
Speaker 2: myself and stay connected with people and live? You know.
Speaker 2: So in a sense, I am on that inner path,
Speaker 2: educating myself as much as possible, trying to develop my
Speaker 2: practical skills, focusing on what I could do as an
Speaker 2: individual to make changes in my own life and partially
Speaker 2: in my surroundings in a way that is manageables. Do
Speaker 2: you see yourself in this path as well? Though?
Speaker 3: I I'm not sure I tried to not. I I
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time thinking about the future, I guess,
Speaker 3: but I try not to lock myself into any any
Speaker 3: particular pathway. I don't know, like I've already started to
Speaker 3: move around the US, uh, leaving, leaving the places where
Speaker 3: I've kind of grown up for the majority of my
Speaker 3: life that are actually decently suited for for some kind
Speaker 3: of climate collapse. But yeah, I I I don't know.
Speaker 3: I have I have risk. I have some form of
Speaker 3: hesitancy to like seed territory or just like like right
Speaker 3: off places as just being like not worth it, like
Speaker 3: especially especially like the south, the American southeast, just like
Speaker 3: that there's kind of a there's kind of a nocean,
Speaker 3: just to like write off large swaths of areas, whether
Speaker 3: like agriculturally, like climate wise, or like even like politically
Speaker 3: being like, oh, this is just where all of the
Speaker 3: fascists are going to live, and like that's not that's
Speaker 3: not true. This this has this area of the country
Speaker 3: is actually is one of the most diverse parts of
Speaker 3: the country, and to write it off all is like
Speaker 3: just like Republican Land is. I think it is grossly misguided.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, if things get really really bad,
Speaker 3: I'm also going to hold onto my Canadian passport and
Speaker 3: just go and have that, have that as a backup option,
Speaker 3: just to just to go up north into uh into
Speaker 3: the snowy desolate of northern Alberta.
Speaker 2: So I mean I kind of a shove. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: Bush comes to shove, Antarctica is the final.
Speaker 3: Frontier, right, So like I I I always kind of
Speaker 3: I'm I have that backup option, which is easier than
Speaker 3: a lot of people. But it's it's it's it's something,
Speaker 3: it's something I try not to like. I don't like
Speaker 3: relying on that kind of notion.
Speaker 2: I feel you, I feel you, yeah, And I mean
Speaker 2: that's part of why I don't see this in a
Speaker 2: path is fully satisfactory to me. Yeah, even though I
Speaker 2: feel it's a path of unconsciously choose due to some
Speaker 2: of the challenges I faced on the outer path. But
Speaker 2: still what clicks with me more is the outer path.
Speaker 2: I've also called it balanced realism, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: hard to balance because a lot of people who confuse
Speaker 2: realism with pessimism, you know, you just see everything being awful,
Speaker 2: as I'm a realist, you know. But truthfully, I think
Speaker 2: taking the outer path of balance realism means shaken off
Speaker 2: the burdens and blinders are both pessimism and optimism and
Speaker 2: alarmism and denihialism and fatalism and hedonism and all these
Speaker 2: other setbacks and obstacles, all the others except aism trying
Speaker 2: to keep watching andwism. Please, but you're really loosening yourself
Speaker 2: from your own hopes and fears. Really, I think the
Speaker 2: way I try to see it is I have no idea.
Speaker 2: No one can really know what outcome there will be.
Speaker 2: You know, up to now, I haven't met a profit.
Speaker 2: I have meta sayer, I have meta fortune teller. I
Speaker 2: don't think any of us really know what the outcome
Speaker 2: will be, and there's so many factors that we can't
Speaker 2: even calculate and take into account. Yeah, I mean, for
Speaker 2: all we know, I mean, it will be very disruptive
Speaker 2: of our reality, right, And personally, I'm not really a
Speaker 2: believer in like there be an interspeller alien species, but
Speaker 2: you know, imagine just out of the blue, like on
Speaker 2: a random Thursday afternoon, there was an actual alien invasion.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of us could really predict that.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are things that we do have the
Speaker 2: be aible to predict and work with and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: but really, of course that's an ex saggary to the example.
Speaker 2: But I want to be able to wrack, organize, and
Speaker 2: accept any number of possible outcomes in the face of
Speaker 2: such a grand predicament. I think maintaining realism is difficult,
Speaker 2: especially with so much information too have been around in
Speaker 2: the ether, and you don't know what's true and what's not.
Speaker 2: But I think it's necessary. You know, you agitate, your fight,
Speaker 2: your build for the best, but you also prepare and
Speaker 2: defend for the worst. Prefecide by the way on optimism,
Speaker 2: I see really two sides of collapse optimism, both I
Speaker 2: think are well placed, but both unfortunately misled. There's the
Speaker 2: optimism that collapse absolutely will not take place, which I
Speaker 2: think is a sort of optimism that doesn't really quite
Speaker 2: understand where collapse, what forms collapse can take. And then
Speaker 2: it's a sort of optimism that collapse will take place,
Speaker 2: but will overcome it. I mean, the house of collapse
Speaker 2: might not line up fully with our predictions, but there
Speaker 2: is a very clear trajectory that we are on. The
Speaker 2: idea that collapse is just not in the at all
Speaker 2: really feels like wishful thinking. Humanity I don't think has
Speaker 2: the plot armor that we tend to think it does.
Speaker 2: And that lack of plot armor also means that there's
Speaker 2: really no guarantee that we will overcome collapse if it
Speaker 2: does occur. There are no show outcomes, to be sure,
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean to be destined to come out
Speaker 2: of this unscathed. But what do you think of optimism
Speaker 2: considering what you do for work?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I honestly don't think about optimism very much.
Speaker 3: I see a lot of like bad stuff, like every
Speaker 3: day as a part of my job. I think about
Speaker 3: a lot of like grim stuff, I suppose, but it's
Speaker 3: honestly not something I think about it. I think it's
Speaker 3: a little bit of its own bubble. I think there's
Speaker 3: a utility for having hope but not having a sense
Speaker 3: of just like static optim I think. I think hope
Speaker 3: is a is a is a useful thing to have
Speaker 3: in your brain, but but not not have it be
Speaker 3: as like this just like umbrella that you apply to
Speaker 3: every single aspect of your life, and the way like
Speaker 3: optimism is but in terms of like like when you're
Speaker 3: mentioning like the alien thing. I think one way that
Speaker 3: people do think about collapse trying to cope with it
Speaker 3: a lot is like it's kind of some form of
Speaker 3: like disx makana, like like this this something will happen,
Speaker 3: whether that's some other like catastrophic event or like apocalyptic event,
Speaker 3: or it's like some new found scientific advancement that one
Speaker 3: day will pop into existence and then we'll solve all
Speaker 3: of these problems. I think both of those are kind
Speaker 3: of a form of a Dix machana, and both of
Speaker 3: those are actually ways of coping, even though one is
Speaker 3: more apocalyptic and one's more utopian.
Speaker 2: I thought you were talking about the video game series,
Speaker 2: you know, no, like just like an oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: an ex cybern ethics and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, sure, we like that kind of that kind
Speaker 3: of is its own form of dis x makta in
Speaker 3: terms of this, this this thing entering from backstage that
Speaker 3: now solves all of these problems we have in the
Speaker 3: story of the world. But I mean that is I
Speaker 3: think that's that's the thing that I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people try to find some so it kind of
Speaker 3: allows you to not be in denial about the current
Speaker 3: predicament but still envision a future that is pretty similar
Speaker 3: to what we currently have, just with this like magical
Speaker 3: invention or this or this like or this like apocalyptic
Speaker 3: event that forces people to like actually solve some some
Speaker 3: degree of problems.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's kind of it's kind of like the thing in
Speaker 3: Alan Moore's Watchman, being like if there was a giant squid,
Speaker 3: then the whole world would team up together solve the problem,
Speaker 3: And I don't know, that seems a little bit less likely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Unfortunately, climate collapse, ecological collapse is not a giant squid,
Speaker 2: and there is no Doctor Manhattan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and even even after COVID, Right, you have this massive,
Speaker 3: like world threatening event, and it's it's kind of the
Speaker 3: perfect example of it's like a you know, a version
Speaker 3: of the giant squid, and that did not lead to
Speaker 3: the whole world working together to solve this big problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, to be fair, it was like a giant
Speaker 2: invisible squid. Yeah, it was. To be fair as well,
Speaker 2: the giant invisible squid is still there and like regularly
Speaker 2: claiming lives. We kind of just go up all with
Speaker 2: all of these kind of ignoring It's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: that goes Fred, you know, snatched up by the giant squid.
Speaker 3: I'm sure in the Watchmen world there would be a
Speaker 3: great many of like squid deniers, of people who are like, no,
Speaker 3: the squid was never real. The squid was all fake.
Speaker 3: That was all fake in New York City, it was.
Speaker 3: It wasn't real.
Speaker 2: Like that. Long said, there has no opinion that everybody
Speaker 2: in the world will agree with. You know, like, if
Speaker 2: you were to say, for example, that all humans need
Speaker 2: food to live, there's gonna be a contrarian who's gonna
Speaker 2: tell you, actually, I survive on photosynthesis. I'm a breathetarian,
Speaker 2: you know, so there's there is no uncontroversial tea because
Speaker 2: they will. I think there will be a deniers no
Speaker 2: matter what. You know, as you were talking about optimism
Speaker 2: and sort of the dark things you're dealing with, it
Speaker 2: reminded me of something that that shook me. Yesterday. I
Speaker 2: was watching shown on YouTube Sean's video on Palestine, and
Speaker 2: he shared the story of this young person and boy
Speaker 2: who had filmed the video celebrating himself win a gat
Speaker 2: in a thousand subscribe, and he was sharing his goals
Speaker 2: of you know, you may get in ten thousand and
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand, maybe even a million, and he was
Speaker 2: killed last year by the idea. So I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's connected, but not entirely related. We're talking more long
Speaker 2: lines of ecological collapse and systems collapse and this sort
Speaker 2: of thing. And while it's true that for much of
Speaker 2: the world, collapse is not going to look like a
Speaker 2: singular event, I think it is also important to recognize
Speaker 2: that and remember that there are people for whom collapse,
Speaker 2: or rather their subjective collapse, the collapse of their world,
Speaker 2: their way of life, their existence, is tearing them in
Speaker 2: the face absolutely right now, you know, I don't want
Speaker 2: to compare misfortunes. But you know, there is that reality
Speaker 2: that you know, some people are facing like cataclysm right
Speaker 2: in their face, and for others it's like a slower boon,
Speaker 2: but ultimately similar feats. You know.
Speaker 3: That was something we were also considering when putting together
Speaker 3: some of the climate change focused earlier episodes from a
Speaker 3: few years back. And like the effects of climate change
Speaker 3: or just collapse in general are not like uniform, right
Speaker 3: they they it first targets on the periphery and like whatever,
Speaker 3: that's kind of a faulty way of doing that, right,
Speaker 3: Like an old term would be like the third world.
Speaker 3: We were trying to find better, better terms.
Speaker 2: For this, and that doesn't really fully work.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was actually recently talking and I stream about how
Speaker 2: like like I'm just like I feel like all these
Speaker 2: distinctions people trying to draw, like the west is just
Speaker 2: the east, or you know, global North is school, so
Speaker 2: they're all a bit messy. Yes, actual application, But the
Speaker 2: people on like.
Speaker 3: The the edges of empire, the edges of like the
Speaker 3: Imperial engine, are going to face this a lot sooner
Speaker 3: than the people in the imperial core, and like that
Speaker 3: that is just whether that's collapsed through like war like
Speaker 3: like like forced collapse, or that's collapsed through like environmental
Speaker 3: factors like but both of those are often the case.
Speaker 3: People are going to do a lot of work to
Speaker 3: maintain the mecca of New York City, but they're not
Speaker 3: going to care if a small town.
Speaker 2: Not even a small town like Jakarta, could sink into
Speaker 2: the ocean.
Speaker 3: And absolutely like just like who kires, right, hurricanes taking
Speaker 3: out like act like care.
Speaker 2: Just to be clear, well, countries.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely like those these things do not do
Speaker 3: not get held on the same the same level.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So I mean I'm supposed to answer my
Speaker 2: own question. I think you do need a dose of
Speaker 2: optimism to keep you from falling to despair or completely
Speaker 2: checking out to the struggle, just for the sake of
Speaker 2: your mental health, but not to the point of blindness
Speaker 2: from the truth. I don't think there's anything wrong with
Speaker 2: maintaining some level of emotional cushion in to keep you
Speaker 2: going to you know, fuel you to wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning and make it through your day, but not
Speaker 2: to the point of the delusion, I suppose. And I
Speaker 2: think this is this is the value of the outer
Speaker 2: path as well. And I think this outer path is
Speaker 2: fueled by a bit of in a grace and peace,
Speaker 2: you know, you let go of some level of naivety
Speaker 2: and passivity. You're moving, acting, doing, adapting. And here, of
Speaker 2: course I'm thinking of like the Puma culture movement, the
Speaker 2: Transition Towns Network, or the other ongoing movements and projects,
Speaker 2: none of which are Perfick mind you, none of which
Speaker 2: are going to say the whole world or anything, but
Speaker 2: they Sidney Try. And I'm as thinking of like the
Speaker 2: movement for the MST in Brazil, and you know the
Speaker 2: Leavia Campecina who we would have interviewed in people about recently.
Speaker 2: These groups, these movements, these struggles are thinking, are looking local,
Speaker 2: thinking global and actually really making a difference. I think
Speaker 2: that outlook is necessary. I think we need more political
Speaker 2: movements it could be honest about reality that aren't waiting
Speaker 2: for a safere or politician that aren't wait sensor it's
Speaker 2: too late to act, that aren't removing power from the
Speaker 2: hands of people and placement elsewhere. Move on instead, are
Speaker 2: far less reactive and more proactive. And maybe I'll never
Speaker 2: see a global shift to the growth or a steady
Speaker 2: state economy in all lifetimes without a major disruption and
Speaker 2: shifting the efforts of grounds roots movements. We can definitely
Speaker 2: see small scale, local resilient systems springing up and spreading
Speaker 2: that are better able to endure the coming economic, socio
Speaker 2: ecological shocks. I am as pro social revolution as they come,
Speaker 2: but I think we need a more expansive understanding of
Speaker 2: what that entails. I was reading actually this morning, Anarchy,
Speaker 2: a graphic guide by Clifford Harper, and he spoke about
Speaker 2: how sixty five years of persistent agitation and organization culminated
Speaker 2: in the largest, most far reaching revolutionary movement of the
Speaker 2: modern times. I think when we discuss the Spanish Civil
Speaker 2: War and the cnt FAI will get caught up from
Speaker 2: what was happening during the Civil War. But I think
Speaker 2: I don't think there's not focused on the fact that,
Speaker 2: you know, these organizations were moving and shaken in their
Speaker 2: communities and in their regions for decades prior to any
Speaker 2: major you know pop off. You know, like a general
Speaker 2: strike does not happen overnight, and insurrection does not happen overnight,
Speaker 2: esp actually not without the level of broad scale support
Speaker 2: they will be necessary to sustain those efforts. On the
Speaker 2: topic of the Transition movement, in particular. That movement was
Speaker 2: officially started in two thousand and six in the UK,
Speaker 2: but had some routes before then. In two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: Prima culture designer Rob Hopkins task students at Kinsale for
Speaker 2: their education college with applying permaculture principles to the concept
Speaker 2: of peak oil, lead into the creation of the Kinsale
Speaker 2: and she Dissent Action Plan. Two students, Louis Rooney and
Speaker 2: Catherine Dune, developed the Transition Town's concept, presenting it to
Speaker 2: the Kinsale Town Council, which adopts the plan for energy independence.
Speaker 2: Then Hopkins later moved to Totney's, England, where he, along
Speaker 2: with Narishkian Gray Kian Grande, developed these concepts into the
Speaker 2: Transition model. Transition Town Totney's, founded in early two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, served as inspiration for other transition initiatives globally.
Speaker 2: Early two thousand and seven, the Transition Network UK charity
Speaker 2: was co founded by Rob Hopkins, Peter Lippmann and Ben
Speaker 2: Brangwin to support and the seveny transition concepts worldwide. By
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, project had expanded, with numerous communities
Speaker 2: becoming official transition towns. These are things you don't care
Speaker 2: about in the news. These are positive developments that have
Speaker 2: happened under the radar for decades at this point. By
Speaker 2: May twenty ten, over four hundred community initiatives were recognized
Speaker 2: as official transition towns in various countries, reflecting a diverse
Speaker 2: range of communities involved, from villages and neah words to
Speaker 2: cities and city boroughs. The initiatives who developed citizens cooperatives,
Speaker 2: renewable energy, local and sustainable food systems, new cooperative economic models,
Speaker 2: sustainable transport systems, energy to send, action plans, and even
Speaker 2: heart and soul groups built to respond to the emotional
Speaker 2: components of collapse and transition. In the book How Everything
Speaker 2: Can Collapse, which I referenced in the previous episode, Paulo
Speaker 2: Savine and Raphael Steven's talk about the paradox of collapse,
Speaker 2: and I'll leave it in their words because I think
Speaker 2: it was really well put quote. From a philosophical point
Speaker 2: of view, transition is a strange and paradoxical thing. It's
Speaker 2: both catastrophists and optimistic, that is to say, both lucid
Speaker 2: and pragmatic. Lucid because the people involved in these movements
Speaker 2: are not in denial about catastrophes. Most of them have
Speaker 2: given up the myth of eternal growth as well as
Speaker 2: the myth of the apocalypse. They know and believe in
Speaker 2: what awaits us. Generally receptive to catastrophised language because they
Speaker 2: already are committed to the search for real alternatives. Pragmatic
Speaker 2: because catastrophis political thinking is not apocalyptic in nature. It's
Speaker 2: not claim to worry about the end of the world,
Speaker 2: but more precisely about a sudden and potentially traumatic reorganization
Speaker 2: of ecosystems and societies. Neither business as usual nor the
Speaker 2: end of the world, just a world to invent together
Speaker 2: here and now and good. The Transition movement is vitally
Speaker 2: rooted in imagination, and I've spoken about the vitality of
Speaker 2: imagination in the past. In fact, my video on the
Speaker 2: subject was partially inspired by Rob Hopkins' book From What
Speaker 2: Is to What If? You imagine? You sketch out the details,
Speaker 2: and then you roll up your sleeves and you make
Speaker 2: it real. During the development of the Transition Networks project,
Speaker 2: Rob Hopkins, along with others, published the Transition Handbook, which
Speaker 2: is structured in three parts, the first ahead, which are
Speaker 2: the facts of the situation. Then you have the heart,
Speaker 2: which are the emotional consequences and desire futures, and then
Speaker 2: you have the hands, which is how you get from
Speaker 2: imagination to action. And I just thought that was a
Speaker 2: really great approach, even though the handbook is dated in
Speaker 2: some ways. Of course, guiding people through the process of
Speaker 2: even accepting transition and getting them on the outer path
Speaker 2: works well on the small and personal scale, but there
Speaker 2: is a challenge of scale. Savine and Steven's point out
Speaker 2: that you can't exactly announce on a large platform Listen up, everybody,
Speaker 2: prepare for the end of the world. As you can imagine,
Speaker 2: it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like telling people not to rush out and buy
Speaker 2: upoly toilet. People. Transition on larger scales is difficult. Not
Speaker 2: to say it's not difficult to build the local communities
Speaker 2: resilience from disruptions and food, energy, climate, etc. But on
Speaker 2: the macro scale is even more difficult, at least if
Speaker 2: you did to take on a top down approach. You
Speaker 2: get what I'm saying. It is because this isn't exactly
Speaker 2: a problem that rulers are capable of solving. The debt
Speaker 2: system is not going to go away by decree. The
Speaker 2: energy system that fills their coffers won't shift until it
Speaker 2: profits them either. And in Seeing like a States, the
Speaker 2: anthropologist James's Scott spends a lot of time discussing just
Speaker 2: how that top down perspective of the world is inherently
Speaker 2: limited and incapable of effecting those sorts of changes. But
Speaker 2: thankfully the people able to act where rulers won't. As
Speaker 2: being the Stevens put it transitioners to that wait for governments,
Speaker 2: they already invent in ways of living through through this
Speaker 2: collapse in a non tragic way. They are not waiting
Speaker 2: for the worst, but building for the best. Ultimately, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get on the level of the transition town
Speaker 2: rutists on the outer path that are building networks, building
Speaker 2: community and building sustainability. Highly suggests that if you're looking
Speaker 2: for ways to help out in your local situation, check
Speaker 2: out the transition down network and see how you can
Speaker 2: tap in or start your own initiative and your own area.
Speaker 2: That's all I have for now or power to older people.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here. I am Andrew, this
Speaker 2: is Garason.
Speaker 1: Peace. It could Happen Here as a production of cool
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Speaker 1: for listening.