November 29, 2022

So here's some headlines running through my head. Climate change is upon us. Al Gore tried to popularize our political will to tackle this very real problem while science produced ever more data predicticting increased carbon dioxide, methane, and this blanket of gases causing increased temperatures overall and melting glaciers, icecaps, and changing ocean currents, changing our weather patterns with devastating tornadoes, hurricanes, and rain and drought causing our oceans to rise, coastlines to change, rivers and lakes to dry up, and temperatures to sores in certain areas. Destruction of property, deaths, and crop changes are more in the news. island nations are at risk and large populations are struggling to cope with the flooding, mud slides, heat, drought, and food shortages. Meanwhile, large corporations, governments such as Brazil, and our politicians influenced by the lobbyists and corporations, attempt to debunk the hard science behind climate change and industrialization and population expansion with propaganda and defunding of agencies and watchdog groups so our forests continue to be destroyed for farming and population growth.

I relate so far that our weak responses to these growing climate crisis to our human tendency to enjoy narrative thinking and rationalization of our mistakes as correct actions for the greater good. The stories circulating through our social media which reflects real life beliefs of large segments of our population are like science fiction narrative to me. Qanon here described briefly is a narrative percolating through many peoples beliefs that is similar to past beliefs that are the foundation of Scientology, and many religions of our present day worshippers. Powerfully connected people have subverted our political institutions, corporations, and media outlets to gain more power, money, influence, and control over us. Children are peddled as sex servants to this group. This or a similar group of nefarious power brokers are attempting to replace our American way of life founded on caucasian christian principles attempting to cause America to become colored and white christians will lose influence, power, money, jobs, etc. Adding to this mix of narrative fiction believed as real and factual we elected a president in Trump who operates always in his own best interests, reports at times outlandish lies such as his political opponent Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.A., Hunter Biden clearly broke the law, there is nothing wrong with telling the president of the Ukraine that needed military assistance approved by congress will only be released if the Ukraine finds some way to charge Biden with crimes. He reported that the COVID virus epidemic was not so serious and was created by China to cause chaos in the world. But the big whopper lie he continues to report to his constituents is that he won the last election but it was stolen from him. He encouraged his followers to storm the capital to disrupt the congressional delegations certifying the election for Joe Biden, he has been reported to have misrepresented his financial information to obtain loans and received lowered tax assessments for his properties, and he now has invited a notorious right wing anti semite and hate mongering bigot against minority groups to his Thanksgiving dinner. Now if you agree with Trump and others who deny climate change and report all these conspiracy narratives I'm sure you won't like the rest of this blog. 

Octavia Butler has become a favorite writer of mine. The Parable of the Sower is a classic written in 1993. The events and narrative take place 2024 and afterwards. Outside of Los Angeles this fifteen year old narrator with  a hyperempathy disorder describes a world devastated by climate change so that security services such as the police are in shambles and corrupt. Commerce is broken so that water becomes as precious as gasoline which is even in much shorter supply. Jobs are scarce so people fortunate to live in their own homes are under siege by the vandals, homeless, and criminal elements now right outside their homes. Children may be taught in makeshift schools and many are just neglected. Social conventions are crumbling so that incest, polygamy, and murder, rape, and servitude are real issues. Our fifteen year old is a writer so she describers this world and clearly highlights the tremendous denial and social isolation of people in her life. She sees that it is clear that sooner than later some vandals, criminals, hoodlums will attempt to overrun her home. Her father counsels her to keep her observations and planning to herself. She wants her small community of a half dozen families to plan an emergency escape plan and train themselves in self defense and survival living off the wild dangerous land outside the walls of their homes. She knows that her present life in her besieged home will end soon and they need to have a plan. Her father reluctantly admits his agreement with her observations and her conclusions but counsels her to promise not to talk about it since the other families are in such denial about their impending fight for survival. Butler describes how hard facts concerning the danger of living under these circumstances can be denied, ignored, and rationalized away by those most suffering. Our fifteen year old writes a new kind of bible which has some great wisdom. 

    All that you touch 
    You Change.
    All that you Change
    Changes you.
    The only lasting truth 
    is Change.
    God is Change.   (Page 3 Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower)

    A victim of God may,

    Through learning adaptation,

    Become a partner of God,

    A victim of God may,

    Through forethought and planning,

    Become a shaper of God,

    Or a victim of God,

    Through shortsightedness and fear,

    Remain God's victim,

    God's plaything,

    God's prey.   (page 29 Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower) 

    All struggles

    Are essentially

    power struggles.

    Who will rule,

    Who will lead,

    Who will define,

    refine,

    confine,

    design,

    Who will dominate,

    All struggles

    Are essentially power struggles,

    And most are no more intellectual

    than two rams

    knocking their heads together.    (page 89 Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower)

Butler describes a world that I see coming our way unless we see that change is imperative, necessary, and requires planning and agreement for the greater good. The major world evangelistic religions have dictates for living requiring sacred text, authorities that interpret and advise them, conformity to dietary habits, clothing requirements, certain prayer schedules, and sexual role behaviors and attitudes so non adherents become outsiders, mistrusted and prejudiced. I can not understand how change as described in Butler's fictive bible can occur in such communities. Adherents have their blinders on believing they are living the good life so they may have a place in heaven. Authorities are influential to them. Scientific studies are much less interesting and influential. Political strength is accrued by them since they vote as a bloc while our much less conservative majority population are concerned with their everyday issues and are less easily mobilized as a bloc. Fortunately, our less conservative citizens do have a sense of democracy and want freedom and change. To have change you must have information. There's the rub since information to some is propaganda to others. Butler's Sower mentions the second law of thermodynamics (entropy), chaos theory, and parts of buddhism and hinduism to find some references to her concept of change as both destructive and constructive with human consciousness the earthseed to strive for footholds into the greater universe.  

I enjoy Monday meeting with two friends where we discuss all sorts of issues with good humour and attempts to clarify our confusing beliefs and prejudices. For example, we read some papers that suggest that our universe is a simulation inside an alien computer that is playing out its program. Physicists looking into cosmology and the theory of everything notice that certain fundamental forces have certain clearly defined values that is off by a fraction would mean chaos and no suns, stars, elements, matter, space, etc. Why these values and not others? We can predict certain events in our ordinary world so that before, now, and later have some cause and effect sense to them. But if we look at the quantum world of events, particle, forces, etc. we may see a wave, a particle, or an equation of probability characteristics that give us a clue that something is there but not exactly where or how strong, weak, big, small, etc. We know that science is a discipline in which we can sometimes assemble facts that appear real yet sometimes as science advances in discovery and analysis what we had concluded in the past no longer applies. There it is again that change must be included and welcomed. Unfortunately, when we invest a lot of time and effort in our research we resist new analysis and data that may change our understanding. 

           Leonard

PS  I have limited this blog's description of the changes to our planet due to climate change. A more complete analysis could include the effects of our recent pandemic on our lives, the various wars and conflicts threatening our survival, the threats to our planet due to earthquakes, volcanic activities, and asteroid collisions etc. Here's an example from a recent New York Times article https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/opinion/covid-pandemic-cities-future.html

Here's a link to a very good article about Octavia Butler https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/17/arts/octavia-butler-vision-kindred.html

I came across these entries to a photography blog I sometimes read. The writers describe some anecdotes and opinions of the lawlessness and danger to life and property to professional and amateur photographers. The blog to me described Butler's Sower's world.  https://diglloyd.com/blog/2022/20221201_1200-GettingDangerousForPhotographers.html

For those interested our universe as a hologram is described here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-our-universe-a-hologram-physicists-debate-famous-idea-on-its-25th-anniversary/

The proton is a basic building block for all matter yet further study reveals the quarks and gluons that the proton contains and then some very strange data...

https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-complicated-thing-imaginable-20221019/