The System is the Problem - A Systemic Issue

Finding Grace in Chaos- True Knowledge in Civilizational Collapse

THE SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM - A SYSTEMIC ISSUE

“Ask and we will be given, seek and we will find.”(paraphrased)

“So I say to you, ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

From Luke 11:9

FORWARD:

A few months ago I shared a dream of how the future might take shape - I share it again here as a partial vision of how such an accomplishment might change everything.

Here is the link to the dream description:

Most of us know we live at a time when everything needs changing - when we encounter the uncomfortable awareness that everything we have been taught might be wrong.

It might be uncomfortable but that discomfort is spurring us into real action.

Ask and it shall be given, seek and we shall find.

Be for warned that this essay skips over massive amounts of source material to allow quick and dirty communication.

Necessity is the mother of invention - and the need for quick invention just got the better of a more learned essay.

My sincere apologies for having to cut to the chase in such an uncomfortable fashion.

THE FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS

Human civilization is caught in a negative feedback loop - and has been since the first highly organized agricultural society.

No matter which former civilization we try to examine - and academia has spent inordinate amounts of intellectual energy here - we don’t ultimately know why.

Here are just a few modern examples of how this overextension and exploitation affects several modern civilizations.

Although I am not going into the details here - there is a broad new academic discipline involving anthropology and genetics which serves as a foundation for these unforgivable simplifications.

One day I may have the necessary requirements to do better justice to these subjects - so please take them, for now, as my quickly sourced overview of an exceedingly complex topic.

In every civilizational collapse there may be external environmental or climatic causes, military and economic overextension, and the ever present threat of disease epidemics.

But, like clockwork, every past civilization did collapse - meaning that subsequently others began building the next one - and so on, into infinity.

Today it is not difficult to surmise we are in yet another civilizational collapse - and the biggest one ever in history.

Getting a front row seat at the collapse of our civilization is hardly something we would have chosen to be born into.

But due to the perpetual ability of human civilizations to overlook the systemic weaknesses which cause collapse - in some ways humans have always lived in some stage of civilization collapse.

If we could turn back the clock about 12,000 years to the end of the last ice age we would might more easily see the way systemic weaknesses became built into our civilizations.

About 12,000 years ago humans lived primarily as hunter gatherers and in small mobile groups which followed the herds and seasons to find necessary resources.

As the ice and cold faded away the southern areas of the planet warmed first - allowing a slow transition to plant food sources such as various grains.

Gradually these southern populations adapted to an agricultural and more settled life and began growing and farming their own grains and managing animal husbandry.

This was a profound revolution, requiring a total socioeconomic, sociopolitical and psychosocial reset - as it gradually moved to other areas as the land warmed once the ices melted.

Agriculture and animal husbandry meant local populations rapidly outgrew the available land and resources, meaning more territory had to be settled - not to mention that the former territory had to be defended and maintained and protected.

This meant large resources had to be placed into both military defenses and into military aggressions.

The largest change was in the health of population through diet - where a hunter gatherer’s diet - of wild game and wild plants - was abruptly changed to that of mostly grains with even meat and milk derived from grain fed animals.

This led to two terrible consequences - (1) rampant tooth decay from grains and (2) plague from rapid increases in in rodent populations feeding on grain with massive flea populations.

The psychosocial repercussions were also profound as free living and athletic humans who had to innovate and be prepared for all kinds of challenges to successfully hunt and gather suddenly became settled burghers and farmers.

Living in large groups, especially as less healthy human beings required the development of big government - and a bureaucracy to keep track of all the variables necessary to maintain and defend the massive infrastructure.

As an additional systemic problem tooth decay - and the constant threat from rodents, fleas and plague - threatened every human equally - as medicine grew inevitably into a huge bureaucratic necessity.

All this, combined with the custodial duties of overseeing a population requiring constant policing and defense capabilities, plus, requiring the military acquisition of new lands for rapidly increasing population - forced extreme measures.

The bureaucracy needed to oversee the lives of farming families and the grain and animals which served as resources, required elaborate accounting strategies - plus legal and banking innovations to solve disputes and to accurately count and record births and deaths.

The psychological shift from hunter gatherer combined with the tremendous change in basic health resulted in the development of an increasingly more complex dilemma.

Nothing which could be accomplished by the civilization could solve this fundamental dilemma - as weaknesses were reinforced by built in accepted prejudices.

Complicating this was the inevitable rise of an elite class - a 1% of the population - which began to accumulate knowledge and power over the remainder of the population- the 99%.

Overall - and this essay represents only a small fraction of the issues involved - these changes meant a significant change in human culture - one which has meant a huge change in biological human evolution.

We were not evolved to become domesticated into large groups of grain eaters - and the systemic issues affect us today as much as they did in former times.

Despite our current modernization, in which modern sanitation and pest control, and modern dentistry and medicine, play such a significant role, and where modern military provides safety and security - the systemic issues are still with us.

The enormous need for systematic change is so daunting - and our human ignorance of our own biology and place in the universe is so overwhelming - that the inevitable collapse is simply a foregone conclusion.

Now we have developed AI as a strategy for assisting us in surviving long enough to bring a solution.

It is a great tool, but unless our collated human wisdom is sufficient to solve the above named problems, we simply do not have a chance.

Without solving the a priori issues of grain eating and animal husbandry to allow humans to regain their natural health - and without devising a system of governance which alleviates the social hierarchy of the 1% ruling over the 99% - we are going the way of the dinosaurs.

Such practices as restoring the worlds natural ecosystems - by placing such keystone species as bison and beavers to resurrect the prairies and wetlands - might give us sufficient breathing room to devise methods of saving smaller and healthier human populations.

Changes is health care - moving away from such practices as disease models - and towards such practices as health models - could work well.

Simply ruling out grains & sugars as feed for humans and animals would reduce tooth decay - and reduce the need to poison rodent populations.

Changes in governance toward more truly democratic practices and constitutional republics could prove revolutionary in alleviating some systemic issues.

A SYSTEM OF KNOWLEDGE OVER THE OLD DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Finally, it is a revolutionary change in education which could make the most profound difference.

We have built a system which is based on the many rationalizations and inconsistencies which we tell ourselves to prop up our unwillingness to face these issues.

I have previously called this a recursive loop - as we recycle our own ignorance and prejudices in support of an otherwise unstable “house of cards” system.

A truly open and knowledge-based system of real education would face these issues head on and would not shrink from delving into the many issues and challenges to be solved.

When we face up to the realities of civilization collapse - the sobering reality of how quickly and expeditiously these problems must be solved - the immediate need for quantum change becomes the governing principle.

If AI can help us accomplish this. - then every sacrifice we have made to see it develop - will be worth the enormous cost.

Under this system, there would be need for millions of jobs as many of us pick up these responsibilities.

As we engage in building a System of Knowledge to replace the old Department of Education.

Because regardless of all the issues involved - the price to be paid for failure is simply one more extinct civilization to be added to the already substantial pile.

A system of knowledge which openly addresses the systemic weaknesses we now live with.

We begin listing the many inconsistencies addressed here and expand upon them as required.

This does not mean humans cannot live in a civilization - it means we cannot live in this one.

I have seen the civilization we are capable of building - one we can most definitely enjoy as evolving and as healthy and wise and as constantly changing human beings.

For this is not about our failures, which are inevitable - it is about having the courage to face our imperfections and weaknesses to learn and to pick ourselves up and begin once again wiser and more knowledgeable than before.

A being called Christ once tried to teach us to learn this process of resurrection.

To attain true education is the epitome of asking and we will be given, of seeking and we will find.

This is the time to replace fear with acceptance - to replace hatred with compassion - and to replace uncertainty with inner knowledge.

The greatest journeys begin with one small step.

This is the time for understanding that our human journey is one of the Hero and Heroine’s Journey.

That first tentative step is the unfolding of a most powerful and important journey.

A System of Knowledge.

What do we do when all around us is crumbling to dust and when all small changes are ignored in favor of the stays quo - the ideas which we cling to, meant to protect us at any cost?

We use our human nature to question everything to begin to reshape the ways we have been viewing the world and ourselves.

We follow the instructions of that Christ consciousness - that which instructs us to ask and we will be given, to seek and we will find.

And how do we tell when something is knowledge - over some thoughts which have been devised to fool us into compliance ?

Through paying precise attention and by knowing how these ideas make us feel inside.

Spiritually and psychologically healthy humans are inner directed - as opposed to being directed from without.

The ideas which are whole and true will begin to set us free - and propel us toward interaction and communication which feels like and is true knowledge.

The ideas which have been devised to keep us agreeable to living in ignorance - will become apparent - as we question everything- and will lead us to the true knowledge we are seeking.

We have been subjected to gaslighting and manipulation and deception.

The truth , and real knowledge, feels like a breath of fresh air in a stale room.

And the truth - and real knowledge - sweep away the stench and confusion of ignorance with the power of Christ consciousness.

The future lies in the frontiers of our own human consciousness.

Seek knowledge and we shall find, ask for truth and we will receive.

Those brave souls who have made it through this essay may be interested in another essay which makes forays into the kind of true knowledge I believe we humans are on the doorstep of beginning to understand.