The Social Case for Creating the Not-Utopia

 Obviously, my current fascination with, and desire for, creating an intentional community, stems from my psychology as an extrovert. I often think, and write, that the reason for creating such a community is driven mainly by a desire to be resilient in the event of some external force being brought to bear upon us from outside our sphere of influence. But I haven't yet written about the compelling case for this more social perspective.

If the current political and social environment weren't the toxic shit-show that they are, a compelling case for the establishment of a community could still be made, convincingly. But the fact that the dumpster is, in fact, on fire only strengthens this position. The need for a community that creates a broad base of support for people has been well documented. 

Rhaina Cohen wrote a piece in the Atlantic about people who have unusually tight, platonic bonds with friends, such that they fill the roles traditionally occupied by a spouse or romantic partner. From one of the subjects in the article:

"Throughout this evolution, Americans started relying more and more on their spouses for social and emotional support, with friendships consigned to a secondary role.

John Carroll, who met his platonic partner, Joe Rivera, at a gay bar, describes this type of romantic relationship as “one-stop shopping.” People expect to pile emotional support, sexual satisfaction, shared hobbies, intellectual stimulation, and harmonious co-parenting all into the same cart. Carroll, 52, thinks this is an impossible ask; experts share his concern. “When we channel all our intimate needs into one person,” the psychotherapist Esther Perel writes, “we actually stand to make the relationship more vulnerable.” Such totalizing expectations for romantic relationships leave us with no shock absorber if a partner falls short in even one area. These expectations also stifle our imagination for how other people might fill essential roles such as cohabitant, caregiver, or confidant."

David Brooks has also written extensively about this. The collapse of the family unit, according to Brooks, plays a large part in the decline of social stability. Despite his reasoning that the decline of religious belief (and practice) is a net negative, with which I disagree, I do agree that it has contributed to this collapse. I reject the notion that superstition is good for us, but I accept that we have not been able to forge something else to replace the community aspect of religious life that I believe is essential to the psychological well-being of the human animal.

I believe that we need to return to this community-centered way of life or the sense of alienation and depression that pervades our society will continue to worsen. I think that we will begin to see a renaissance in the intentional community movement, as people recognize that their needs are failing to  be met in isolation.

The scariest thing about attempting to create such a community is that people are fucking crazy. I think that, when faced with the idea of absconding to some other person's idea of a utopian society, people get the willies and reject the idea. But the fact is, yes people are crazy, and part of living in a community is accepting some of that crazy and even embracing it. Right now, people marinate in their crazy without ever having their crazy exposed, until it spirals out of control. That might be in the form of anxiety or depression, or joining the Proud Boys or ISIS.

Currently, we live in the richest country in the history of humankind, and we are in the unique situation that we actually have the means to completely start from scratch, should we deem it necessary. I think that, as our society continues to fracture, more and more people will deem. They will deem the shit out of it.

Risk Management - Can You Protect Yourself from Weaponized Stupidity?

The shit show continues, unabated. As it turns out, a virus thrives on stupidity. Americans decided that we were tired of the pesky rules that kept the coronavirus at bay, but as it turns out, denial isn't a vaccine. Who'd have thunk?

The handling of this pandemic, on a global scale but especially in the U.S., does not give anyone (with a shred of common sense) confidence that we are up to the task of containing any sort of existential risk. Imagine, if you will, a pandemic that is more virulent? Has a much higher mortality? The truth of the matter is that 99% of people could be well and truly fucked.

And it's not simply the gross, aloof incompetence of the leaders in our country, or their cynical, obtuse execution (or lack thereof) of any sort of response to the pandemic. It's also the remarkable stupidity with which the general populace has reacted to said pandemic. And not to be a total hypocrite, I include myself in this category to some extent. It's very easy to have the knowledge of a thing, and to react poorly when the thing doesn't effect you personally. We see this every day with climate change. I know that it is probably bad, and that I have to take it seriously. I know that I should do everything in my power to minimize my own contribution to the problem, but because climate change does not require me to act, only compels, it's very easy to just carry on driving a truck and living in a 4000 square foot house whilst the world (or at least Australia) burns.

Australian Wildfires in 2019-2020 - Image from The New York Times

That being said, I still wear a mask in public, and I still vote for politicians who I think are the most likely to take these issues seriously. But I am part of the problem, to some extent. So this begs the question, how do we protect ourselves, from ourselves...and others?

We, in American society, lack resilience in the face of even minor disruptions to our social systems such that it beggars belief. Our economy is largely designed for max efficiency. Max efficiency is, by necessity, not resilient. In order to build a system of, say, distribution that is resilient in the face of unexpected disruption, it requires sacrificing some of the things that make it completely efficient and cost effective. It is objectively inefficient to stockpile critical inventory (food, PPE, fuel, etc.) as a hedge against disruption in the supply chain, but we are finding out that the cost of not doing so can be counted in human lives lost.

So, if the system would have to be redesigned in order to make it more resilient, and the chance of Americans tearing down the current system and overhauling it is slim to none, and slim is sipping vodka somewhere in Red Square, then is it prudent, or even possible, to somewhat remove ourselves from that system, at least enough to protect ourselves?

What does a resilient community look like? To some extent, it still has to rely on some external systems, but that reliance can be minimized.

• Food security - easy in theory, and not much more difficult in practice. Grow your own food, raise your own livestock, and remove yourself from the supply chain as much as possible.
• Energy security - Solar and wind power sufficient to power the community. Also important to cultivate a greater sense of energy independence (i.e. a lifestyle that is not so dependent on the consumption of energy).
• Water security - Clean, independent water source that is not in danger of being compromised by an outside source. Rain water collection, wells, and springs?
• Security security - This one is not easy, because those who live in circumstances of greater insecurity and / or scarcity, will do what humans have always done - whatever it takes to survive. And that will include taking what anyone else has. Since I have no desire to live in a heavily armed community (certainly armed, but I don't know how to purchase a tank or rocket launcher..), it would necessitate some degree geographical protection. Either it's somewhat remote, or it's built like Helm's Deep...or both. I think that this is where you will have to take your chances to some extent, for reasons that I outline below. I don't want to live six hours from anything, because it means that you are building your community for the wrong reasons.
• Resource security - Even communist enclaves like Twin Oaks (probably an unfair characterization) make hammocks or sandals or some other hippie shit for some skrilla. I don't know what this means with respect to sharing resources, but it likely would be much more substantial than your run-of-the-mill HOA dues. The good news about the Coronavirus is that it will probably result in more freedom to telecommute. 
• Health security - This one is tough. Science-based, Western medicine, divorced from the motive of profits, is pretty neat-o. But much of it is dependent upon massive investments in infrastructure and technology. So there has to be some middle-ground. Because the resilient and secure community of the future will still need MRI's and antibiotics. 

It would also be nice to build a resilient community that manages to have a minimal ideological point of view. If you read about places like Acorn, or Twin Oaks, two of the more prominent intentional communities in the United States, there seems to be a very deep dissatisfaction with American and Western culture. Much of the criticism is valid, but I also believe much of it is dubious. It all has a very Marxist feel, and I would like to be a counterweight to that without being a Libertarian thought experiment come to life.

That's not to say that it wouldn't encourage progressive thought. The purpose is not to escape the evils of Capitalism, per se, but to simply forge a community that doesn't drive little girls into gender dysphoria, anorexia, or K-Pop. I picture a place where Tyler Cowen and Paul Krugman can come and make sweet, sweet love. Is that weird?

At any rate, the overarching goal is practical, not ideological. And, not to bury the lede or anything, but my thesis is thus: It is possible that climate change fatalism is like a new religion, and we all need to chill the fuck out a little bit. And it's also possible that this moment aboard the American experiment express isn't headed for the ravine, loaded with dynamite, despite the evidence that supports this. And we may not run out of fresh water, and there might not be a civil war, and my son(s) might escape into adulthood without becoming addicted to Oxy / coke / heroin, or all three. 

I don't think the motivation to build a resilient community should be grounded in these fears. I think we should make a sober assessment of the reality of current events, and our trajectory, and create something that will endure and offer a better, more secure way of living even if all of those assessments turn out to be totally wrong. The desire to create a healthy community that could be insulated when it has to be, but not disconnected from the broader community, should stem from what it will bring to it's members, even in the best of times in America.

QAnon and The Madness of Crowds

It's amazing how conspiracy thinking in such a contradiction. The Qooks believe that there is a grand conspiracy involving a cabal of (Jewish? Democrat? Freemason? Alien? Vampire? Ginger?) elites that control the world, who are hell bent on....fuck, who knows. The funny thing is that they fear a hidden, nefarious, controlling force that they cannot see or prove exists, yet the prophet of this Qook-spiracy is a hidden figure that they cannot see or prove exists, controlling them in ways that are quite tangible. 

Fuck, people are dumb.

Bad American?

I've been thinking about patriotism and jingoism quite a bit lately, and wonder about my own perspective on this matter. If you look at my life on paper, I look like a halfway decent American. I served in the military, I pay my taxes (now...), and have never been convicted of a crime! I'm basically Captain America.

The thing is, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors there. First, I did serve in the US Navy, and was honorably discharged after my 4 year contract was finished. But it's probably a stretch to say I served all that honorably. Don't get me wrong, I didn't commit espionage or piss in the potable water on the boat or anything, but I was generally useless. It should be said that I camouflage my uselessness like a fucking artist, but I was still pretty useless. I spent the better part of two deployments reading fantasy novels and hoping not to call any real attention to myself whilst doing virtually nothing of consequence. In fact, you can probably just etch that last part into my epitaph...

At any rate, the rest of my uber-patriotic veneer can be boiled down to one thing: marrying a saint. She has extricated me from a nugatory life of bad credit and rock-bottom existence. So now I have a mortgage, a really nice car, a pretty good job that has benefits for my progeny and a paycheck. Other than that I am really only as useful to society as a pathologically lazy turd can be.

So, now that we know my tangible contribution is poor, what about my philosophical one? I think my love of country can be best expressed in my sincere belief that the system of government devised by the founders of this nation is simply unrivaled in human history. It has done, up until recently, a pretty good job of keeping the worst of human impulses from setting our collective dumpster on fire. It has kept the religious zealots and ideological ne'er do wells from hijacking the plane and crashing us into the side of the mountain.

Other than that, I could really care less. I don't actually know how hard I would fight to keep those forces, which are stronger than ever and have already set the trash ablaze, from finishing the job. In some ways I feel like my contribution to this project has been keeping myself informed, taking my role as a voter seriously, and using that power to do good as I see it.

Ben Franklin (might have) said, “A nation of well-informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved.” (This quote is attributed to Ben, but may have been done so erroneously.) Regardless, it is quite obvious that a nation of uninformed window-lickers are, on the other hand, perfectly capable of razing a nation to the ground. This is what we are currently witnessing, and yet I feel as though I am watching from an emotional distance. If these idiots can't fathom the gift that they were given, then it should be taken from them. Unfortunately it is also being taken from me, and more importantly, my children.

Maybe it's the fantasy that, should the American experiment be ended, I can simply retreat to a small corner of the world and carve out an existence that suits me. The quarrels and quandaries of the narcissistic elite can be relegated, with modern technology, to the background, and we can use the gifts that we have been given (like growing up white in America, and thus being replete with resources) to start a new experiment.

But I can't help but acknowledge that this attitude might be not only selfish, but delusional. It's possible that I am just a bad American, and that I should resolve to fight, with my last breath if necessary, to protect what's left of the greatest political experiment ever conceived. History may look back and declare that those of us who could have done something and didn't were the most culpable; and contemptible. That being said, not sure what I can realistically do, other than what I am doing, which is paying attention and exercising my freedoms and responsibilities responsibly. Maybe not Captain America, but a private in the infantry?

Hanging Around

I've had this idea floating around in the back of my mind for a while now, and it's not the origin that interests me, it's the persistence. I think it started after the mild panic that David Wallace Wells' book The Uninhabitable Earth induced in my psyche. I've obviously written about my climate pessimism before, and the idea that we may have to endure some post-apocalyptic hellscape sometime in the not-too-distant future.

My ideas around this subject have vacillated from one extreme to another, inhabiting many different realms of feasibility and sheer stupidity. From moving to Haines, Alaska (among other far-flung locales) in order to escape the perceived certainty of desperate hordes of idiots rampaging through civilization after the breakdown of organized society, to simply making a go of it where I am because it's all alarmist and things are going to be fine. The thing is, I really do think that anything is in play, from this being an overblown problem that we innovate our way out of, to something out of Mad Max.

But my ADD being what it is, I can't really obsess over any one thing for all that long. Now, with the COVIDs tearing through our society and economy, there are fresh reasons for extreme pessimism, which is right in my wheelhouse. Climate change hasn't disappeared, but it has become just another layer in the equation.

At any rate, the obsession that I am talking about basically boils down to creating an intentional community. Not a Facebook group or self-congratulatory Reddit sub-thread with a Discord channel, but a planned, physical community. I know that my fascination with this idea has numerous influences, from growing up in Northern California, and seeing the naive but beautiful idealism of hippie communes, to my love of fantasy novels and films (yes, I want to live at Bag End....GFY). I also think it's my very extroverted personality, and my innate desire to be a part of a broad, but tight-knit community.

The one thing I don't have is an illusion of utopia (I've probably said this before). We are all battling eons of genetic programming that make us basically insane, so the idea that it is possible to create a place where we leave the barbarian of human nature at the gates is pure fantasy. I completely accept this. I'm more interested in creating a space that is more efficient and resilient, able to face the reality of the future, whatever that looks like.

That isn't to say that the ideal community wouldn't be curated. It wouldn't do to just post it to Facebook and see who's game to move into the commune of the future™. I would prefer to leave the religious nutters, anarchists, Trump rally attendees, gingers, and those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, off of the roster. None of those shifty-eyed fucks can be trusted.

I also wouldn't want everyone to be just like me (i.e. handsome, balding, middle aged, pudgy white men with huge penises). Imagine how tiring all of the high-fiving would get... But it would be important to narrow it down to people of have a similar approach. All of the people that I respect tend to have the same approach, or at least make the attempt. They don't take themselves too seriously, and they are willing to accept that they could be wrong, about anything, at any time, which usually results in a person bereft of rigid ideology. My peeps.

I think I have stated all of this before. I never re-read my old posts...more than every time I log in to Blogger. I'm a fucking narcissist, geez. The problem is that I can't seem to find a coherent way to state this as an overview. I keep wanting to write a detailed manifesto about the Commune of the Future©, but I am too scatterbrained to pull it off. Also, there is the problem of not really believing. Go on the internet and look at all the people prepping for the end of the world, and you really don't want to cast in with that fucking lot. This realization leads me to have a nagging sense, despite what I see as convincing evidence, that I'm a complete fucking kook, and just need to chill the heck out.

Blue Dots and Random Thoughts

Wait but Why is a blog by Tim Urban. It's extremely popular, and I am a fan of Tim's. He has an easy style, speaks in fairly simple terms, even when tackling complex subject matter. About two years ago, his blog went nearly silent, and stayed that way until about two months ago, when he began a series of immense posts about the current state of our society here in the US. Kind of a "where we are and how we got here" project.

Here at the Rational Pessimist, it reads as a bit of a post-mortem. He hasn't finished the series yet, and I imagine that it will end with a "reason for hope" type of a thing, but I imagine it will ring hollow, in the same way that David Wallace Wells' optimism in The Uninhabitable Earth did. In the year or so since I read that book, his attempt at optimism almost seems silly, although I understand it as a necessary part of what was a fabulous, if disturbing, read.

This brings me to where we are, as a society as I type this. That fuckstick in the White House is taking his acquittal victory lap, and it's difficult to come to any conclusion other than, "What the fuck is actually happening here?" Maybe that's a question not a conclusion. But whatever. It gets me to pondering the nature of fatalism, and whether or not it's ever justified. Despair is so fucking unhealthy. Pessimistic people die early. At this rate, my wife will outlive me 50 years. So where do we eek out some optimism when you feel like the slice of moldy cheese in a turd sandwich?

I think it comes with having a plan. A plan for the kids. But that plan cannot be based upon some apocalyptic vision of the future. Read this piece in the Bulwark. It talks about an experiment using colored dots that shows just how shitty our wiring is...

Researchers showed people a series of colored dots in shades ranging from blue to purple and asked them to sort them. When they showed people the same frequency of blue dots at the beginning and the end of the trial, they would identify them at a consistent rate. But when they decreased the number of blue dots, people began to interpret purple dots as blue. They expanded their idea of what “blue” is in order to keep seeing blue dots.

Other than having and outstanding title, the piece is a great reminder, along with the works of Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker, and others, that our (and especially my) tendency toward seeing some kind of disaster around the corner is usually, probably unwarranted. The key is, as always, in balance. Finding that sweet spot between blind optimism and unjustified pessimism.

That brings us back to the question. What the fuck is actually happening here? Are the problems, as I see them, with our society and with humankind as a whole, nearly as bad as I tend to think that they are, or am I seeing phantom blue dots? Is the state of American society divided beyond repair? Is climate change the existential threat that it appears to be? Is every new Star Wars film really that shitty, or am I just a dick whose expectations are way too high? Remember, people see the purple dots as blue even when they are warned about it.

So that brings me back to having a plan. In November of this year, there will be an election that could shape the future of the American experiment. The Trump campaign is already launching an information warfare campaign sure to be the envy of authoritarian dictators everywhere. Regardless, our country is pretty evenly divided between the two extremes. I think it can be wagered that the outcome will be close. I think Trump is going to win. This is because pessimism is kinda my shtick. But also because there is too much division amongst the forces that are supposed to be united under one banner: defeat Trump.

Analyzing this, and anything else that I view as an existential and too-likely-for-my-liking threat, will take a rigorous adherence to the idea that the dots are probably purple.

One Trick Pony

I don't want this space to be only about my climate pessimism. I'm super pessimistic about all kinds of stuff!

Like our country. It's a shit show. A dumpster fire. A Kirk Cameron argument. It's terrible. And there is no sign that it's pulling out of the tailspin.

Here's my hot take of the day: If you still support Trump you are one of two kinds of people:

1. Woefully ignorant
2. Willfully ignorant

Look, I get it. Life is hard. Knowing what's true is hard. People have spent millennia believing all manner of absurdities in order to try to make sense of the chaos that defines life in the known universe. It's a strange and difficult project attempting to parse that which is true from that which is bullshit. Spend a little time researching the various fallacies of reasoning and argument to which we all fall victim and it's easy to descend into moral and epistemological relativism and conclude that there is simply no way for your average dullard (eg: me) to understand much of anything.

But in this case, it seems so easy to determine that this dude is a morally bankrupt buffoon who has zero interest in the well being of anyone who's name doesn't start with a T and end with a rump. It's so comically obvious, and that the fact that such a broad swath of the American landscape considers this a feature, not a bug, is incredibly alarming, especially after three years of collective insanity.

This morning I read this piece by David Brooks in the Times, and lays out a "ridiculously optimistic", fictional look back at the 2020's from the perspective of 2030. I liked it, in the same way that I like most of David's writing. It was a pleasant fiction, all except for David's knee-jerk romanticizing of religious belief, which I find silly. He lays the groundwork, as he has done for a couple of years now, for a path that would lead us all into a better future, from his perspective. But our trajectory isn't merely veering away from an optimistic decade, it's careening headlong in the opposite direction.

Last night that fucking turd running our country ordered a pretty substantial attack that killed the Iranian Norman Schwarzkopf, and did so unilaterally, so far as I can tell, meaning he didn't bother to inform Congress or any of our regional allies. And it's not like he sent Seal Team 6 in to eliminate this guy via covert op or anything. Dude sent a cruise missile up his ass at Baghdad International Airport in broad daylight. Is this a "wag the dog" situation? Does Trump forecast too much risk in 2020 to his reelection campaign? We shall see, but it's obvious that there is nothing he wouldn't sacrifice at his own gold plated altar.

This could prove to destabilize the Middle East even more, and it's impossible to predict the ripples that are now flowing out from this event. Iran isn't likely to take this lying down.

I now believe that this country is in a downward spiral, and instead of Sully guiding us safely into the Hudson, we have the real life version of Leslie Nielsen wondering if Ivanka has ever seen a grown man naked....

So domestically we're a mess, and there are literally zero bright spots from a foreign policy perspective. I think I will continue prepping for the worst and hoping that the fictional country envisioned by D Brooks is out there somewhere.

I picked a hell of a week to stop sniffing glue.