Imagine 2

I began this essay with the “Imagine” page. And asked a question: Are we in heaven, or are we in hell? That question remains, and begs the further questions: What’s our problem, anyway? Do we even actually have a problem? Observation of humans today, and of the record we have of humans for the ~15 000 years past, certainly indicates that humans are not a broadly cooperative bunch. We don’t seem to long tolerate quiet, stable mutuality; we don’t seem to be comfortable with an absence of enemies. The strongest, most successful hegemonic empires, hardly threatened by external enemies, soon break down as factions within rise up to oppose each other in civil wars both cold and hot. It seems that whenever there was peace, war, any war, was chosen.

Of course, it’s not like any of our past ‘civilizations’ – at least since the advent of settled agriculture – were ever very wonderful; excuses might be made that in the past knowledge was much more limited and localized, so, really, not much better can be expected when looking back on our naive ancestors. But today we (claim to) have considerably better knowledge of human behavior and of ecology in general, and our expectations now can be much higher.

And it seems those expectations are higher. Whether you look at the shrill screams of the aggrieved far, far right or the indignant protestations of the also aggrieved far, far left; whether you talk to the center right or the center left; whether it’s the bead-counting, nail-biting micro-manager or the transcendental, woo-woo mystic, there seems a very clear general disgust for human culture as it now displays.

Yet there seems to be remarkably little discussion about how to get organized on an improved footing of cooperation. The right hearkens back to the good old days of strict hierarchies, the left yearns for some amorphous kumbaya, the center dithers and wrings its hands.

Basically, the problem remains the enshittification of our entire economic system, which is to say, of course, of our entire political system. And the general unwillingness of people to cooperate.

But when the question is asked, ‘what’s to be done?’, at best it’s mostly a throwing up of hands and a hopeless shake of the head; at worst, it’s a call to arms in defense of the great leader, or of incremental changes at the margins facilitated by more management and especially more micro- management, or of, perhaps best of all, more micro-management dictated by the great leader.

But maybe, for humans, the at worst is actually the best. So when seeking the explanation for our attraction to war that requires the fewest assumptions, what fills the bill pretty well is that we are simply thrilled to death by the good fight for righteousness. So maybe the worst is the very best, the very fulfillment of true human aspiration!

So just imagine: Are we in heaven, or are we in hell?

Heaven or hell, I’ve proposed the beginnings of a workable exit strategy centered on creating a level playing field. What you and I do will provide the answer to my question.