Seven Years Ahead

I found a fantastic article about Edward O. Wilson in SEED magazine, who very much synthesizes what I want to get at. Mr. Wilson very accurately reconciles the problems that we have built up between science and religion. His innovations have helped many scientists worldwide accept their faith, without having to justify it to the greater public. We have taken for granted the natural laws of business and economics and found the best possible way to be efficient in our exploitation of the third world. It just seems to make sense (to some, not I). We see it as truthfully applying all of our conceptions of good in a structure that allows many various cultures to "benefit" from what we are doing.

However, we cannot forget that we what are doing is systematically destroying these same cultures utilizing a capitalist system that hegemonically dominates the way in which we live today. Our short term, pragmatic economic goals tend to destroy whatever goals we have in the future to continue going as we are.

We must use the media to expose the inefficiencies of the system, otherwise we will continue to dig our own graves.

The native Indians believe that we must act today while taking into consideration the seven next generations. The strength and the virility we think we have is, indeed, unreal and it is not safe of us to believe such irrationalities. We must think of our own children.

In terms of globalization, I think that the way in which it has allowed populations and cultures to reach beyond borders through the internet and other means of communication is nothing less than phenomenal. Bypassing all thoughts on cultural hegemony and social Darwinism, it will allow other voices to create new truths, rather than this devastating onesidedness that has come to be the status quo within our own society. I, for one, have become extremely skeptical of much of the information given to me. Consequently, I find myself double checking all of my sources to ensure that they are relevant and non-biased in a manner that is detrimental to the construction of my own thoughts and applications.

Case in fact/: I have found myself questioning the entire concept of development and the manner in which the Western world is going about it. The imposition of our concepts, those of democracy, freedom of speech, etc. have created a society that is consciously self-nullifying. We don't know where to draw the line because we are worried about being politically correct, maintaining that we can say whatever we want, without actually putting actions where are mouths are.

The capitalist system that is put in place at the current moment is one that is supported by people that are voiceless and do not have the access to the technology and the information. We are marginal. Our attempts to change the bureaucracy are left in vain.

Wilson says that " its become fashionable in the intellectual world to believe there are many truths, each particular to a subject of human concern- which are not connected to each other- that exist independently". But this splintered knowledge base is misrepresentative. It tends to justify certain biases in some fields, while forgetting the HUMAN responsibility we have to the fellow citizens of the earth. We have forgotten the natural order of things. Sooner or later, all of this misinformation and the actions that are associated to them will cause a major backlash. We forget that the earth's anger tends to throw us off guard. The "first" world is acting like a solemn teenage whose demands are through the roof. However, this time, mother is not there to reprimand at each new uprising. Like Wilson I am a biophile, a person with an innate affinity for natural environments. In my field of studies I have not ventured into such microscopic investigations of the physical world, but rather have gone into the rather horrific macroeconomic sectors between the northern countries and those below the equitorial border. Wilson is pushing disciplinary and ideological boundaries in his seminal synthesis " The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth". There has been such wishywashy policy changes from the American congress, but I fail to see why they don't understand that if there are not changes made now, then the future seems a little bleak. Don't they get it! This was highlighted in the /"green issue" of vanity fair awhile back. Don't laugh. Vanity Fair is a thoroughly read magazine and they have some pretty disastrous pictures of the white house under water, and also most of New York City in a few decades. if global warming isn't decreased, then the permafrost WILL melt and cities will drown in their own sorrow. And it is melting already. In "an Inconvenient Truth" there is a picture of the first ever crack in the arctic permafrost, a fact that has stunned scientists since it happened. Some of the most stunning images of the book are those of the receding glaciers. There are time framed pictures of the glaciers dating from the 1920s until now. It is amazing that no one actually pays much attention to how these simple natural environments are losing their capacity to hold ecosystems together.

In the environmental case, the problem isn't that there isn't information out there. The issue is that the American government isn't taking responsibility for things that have been highlighted time and time again, as mentioned in About Kyoto: Filtering the News.

And case in fact, this is detrimental to America's own growth. We are exporting know-how and innovation to Asia, a continent that is only growing and enjoying our stupidity as we hand off the hardest obstacles to them. We hand off scientific integrity and blow it apart with religious claims owing our existence to God. We continue basing this faith, and forget that in doing so, we are destroying the very world that this God built. God cannot save us from our own sins, no matter how much we repent.

Case in fact: when the president of the united states consults science fiction writers for global warming advance, hundreds of scientists protest, with perhaps dozens making their way into print media.

The human upstages the information. Unfortunately, the American’s vaunted national imagination has been severed from the discipline and skill they need to make them great. At the top levels of government there is a global embarrassment that disregards science in favor of dogma. This has led to continuing problems in terms of social and environmental policy at home and abroad, and a system whose conclusion at this time is idiotically ironic. The population must understand what is at stake. Although the information may be out there, the leader is not the prophet he needs to be in the international arena. As an international leader, he has lost all weight and validity. George Bush is a clown. The thing, he just doesn't see it- and so many citizens actually believe in him. Call me stupid but....

Source: