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| notankers.ca |
"... strangely tall hairless monkeys dominate the planet in fanatical nihilism - extracting from the planet almost all the petro-carbons which they burn to the point of eliminating the planets ability to sustain them with they oxygen they themselves burn with. One must concluded that either their fleet of star ships is currently looking for other oxygenated planets and will soon return to rescue them or if they do not have such a fleet they are a suicidal species.
CONTACT NOT RECOMMEND."
What are the alternatives? Diggers or Hunters and Gathers, these are our historical alternatives and correspond to two models of growth. The J curve ie. exponential growth with the crashing end when the dug resource in question dry up or the sine curve the ever swaying interlocking waves of the inter-dependent species for example the prey-predator relationship of the Fox and the Hare.
So, who are we Diggers or Foxes-Hares? Logically digger have no legs to sand on the universe has a finite mass (as best be now) so the end game is clear. Aesthetically is seems preferred by our late capitalist culture, but we seem to be lacking the foresight of that fleet of star ships. Are the diggers egger to reach the edge of the petri-dish, just see what happens? A game of Nero anyone? The dice are in the air, Jesus and Allah dig the J curve Buddha and Animalists recycle.
I see this difference as a difference of identity, i.e. who we chose to be Diggers or Fox-Hares. The diggers burn it up, they love a fireworks show. The Fox-Hares submit to each other. The fox are beholden to the hares: knowing that if the foxes eat all the hares they in turn stave after the feast. The hares are intimately connected to the foxes, every sense they posses is finely tuned to a constant awareness of the foxes presence. Like a mold and its form they come to reflect each other. Hence the species boundary is artificial they are both part of a Fox-Hare complex. Embracing this identity requires the ability to see oneself as part of a pattern and the to value a burred dislocated self, and un-centred identity. The diggers have no such existential angst they they know they are not the dirt, because each day they burn the dirt and are not diminished. This gives them the experience to claim that they are “not-dirt”, of course this is an illusion only discovered in the burning of the last piece of dirt, when their true dependence on the dirt is revealed.
Maybe, just maybe this realization can also be found in the ever more frenetic search for the last pieces of dirt. Let’s hope so. Let’s say it now We are the Dirt People.
So, maybe The Hunter and the Digger have more in common that we first thought, if the game is plentiful the hunter forgets their symbiotic link to the antelope over cooks the meat.
If we must burn let us remember they we too are burning up.
