hearthstone
12-02-2009, 05:08 AM
Some Suggestions for Designing a Sustainable Earth Co-operatively.
(a rough draft)
The need for designing a sustainable world co-operatively is explained at The Need for Designing the Future Collaboratively (https://www.modelearth.org/intro.html).
A design of a sustainable world should start with very basic components. Once the bare-bone structure of the design is outlined well, then it would be possible to start elaborating on the basic design.
The most basic unit, component of a sustainable world design is the simplest viable community conceivable with its basic habitat.
Viable community is the smallest possible social unit. It is viable in the sense of being able to perpetuate itself indefinitely on its own, without needing, for its biological and cultural survival, any contact with any other members of its species outside itself.
It is important that the basic design is as simple and transparent as possible, as "bare-bones" as possible--to the point that it could not possibly be any simpler!--even if, at first, we might think it too simple. But the design best start from very simple--if, during the designing, there are any difficulties to arise from complexity, it would be much easier to fall back onto a simpler design that is well understood, rather than start with a complex design and then, if difficulties should be experienced, we would not know where to go for safety.
Every simple viable community in the whole world would- have to be designed with taking its local conditions on mind, and with enough "buffering" around it to allow for any unforeseen expansions of its basic territory that might be necessary due to, perhaps, climatic changes, or just for extra measure to accommodate any, even unforeseeable, exigencies. The "buffering" zone has to include more than enough space for all other species that we share the Earth with for them to be able to live without being discomforted by us in any way, of course.
However, even that each individual sustainable community design would be fitted to its own unique local conditions, the basic principles of the design would be the same--when starting introducing more complexity into the design, the design has to continue to support lifestyles at the full width of the spectrum to accommodate every possible form of sustainable living. Any more complex societal forms (and there might be many) should organically arise from the simplest possible one, with no infringements on the basic capacities, so that if the need would arise, it would be possible to go back for all members of the community to a more basic form of existence without any difficulties. In this way a great variety of sustainable life styles would be possible to exist side by side without them interfering with each other, without incurring any demands on any of the neighbors, human and non-human alike!
In this way it would be possible to have even a very diverse of sustainable lifestyles to exist side-by-side without anyone being inconvenienced by any of the neighbors' different ways of living.
The design that would be based on the above stated principles would have the best chance to exist even if the human-made environmental damage would cause extreme environmental conditions--it would be better able to withstand many changes that we even cannot foresee now.
Hunter and gatherer type of communities would well fit within any wilderness meant to preserve wild life, so would pastoral type communities--all it would require is that there is more than enough "buffering" included with the territory of any different sustainable life styles to allow for any kind of changes without running out of land for any species to live on.
This would mean that there would be at any point of time very few people around (as few as possible), and this would be good.
What is happening on Earth today could be seen, in terms of geological time, as a continuation of a stabilizing process that is aiming towards an equilibrium after a major disturbance that came from the outside of the Earth system that caused the demise of the dinosaurs and made possible the ascend of humans.
Humans and the disturbance of the Earth system caused by them is just a repercussion of this stabilizing process.
Humans, and countless other species, could ride out all the difficult times ahead of us, if it is recognized that the latest disturbance caused by humans is also fixable by humans themselves--we have all the knowledge and resources to make it happen.
(a rough draft)
The need for designing a sustainable world co-operatively is explained at The Need for Designing the Future Collaboratively (https://www.modelearth.org/intro.html).
A design of a sustainable world should start with very basic components. Once the bare-bone structure of the design is outlined well, then it would be possible to start elaborating on the basic design.
The most basic unit, component of a sustainable world design is the simplest viable community conceivable with its basic habitat.
Viable community is the smallest possible social unit. It is viable in the sense of being able to perpetuate itself indefinitely on its own, without needing, for its biological and cultural survival, any contact with any other members of its species outside itself.
It is important that the basic design is as simple and transparent as possible, as "bare-bones" as possible--to the point that it could not possibly be any simpler!--even if, at first, we might think it too simple. But the design best start from very simple--if, during the designing, there are any difficulties to arise from complexity, it would be much easier to fall back onto a simpler design that is well understood, rather than start with a complex design and then, if difficulties should be experienced, we would not know where to go for safety.
Every simple viable community in the whole world would- have to be designed with taking its local conditions on mind, and with enough "buffering" around it to allow for any unforeseen expansions of its basic territory that might be necessary due to, perhaps, climatic changes, or just for extra measure to accommodate any, even unforeseeable, exigencies. The "buffering" zone has to include more than enough space for all other species that we share the Earth with for them to be able to live without being discomforted by us in any way, of course.
However, even that each individual sustainable community design would be fitted to its own unique local conditions, the basic principles of the design would be the same--when starting introducing more complexity into the design, the design has to continue to support lifestyles at the full width of the spectrum to accommodate every possible form of sustainable living. Any more complex societal forms (and there might be many) should organically arise from the simplest possible one, with no infringements on the basic capacities, so that if the need would arise, it would be possible to go back for all members of the community to a more basic form of existence without any difficulties. In this way a great variety of sustainable life styles would be possible to exist side by side without them interfering with each other, without incurring any demands on any of the neighbors, human and non-human alike!
In this way it would be possible to have even a very diverse of sustainable lifestyles to exist side-by-side without anyone being inconvenienced by any of the neighbors' different ways of living.
The design that would be based on the above stated principles would have the best chance to exist even if the human-made environmental damage would cause extreme environmental conditions--it would be better able to withstand many changes that we even cannot foresee now.
Hunter and gatherer type of communities would well fit within any wilderness meant to preserve wild life, so would pastoral type communities--all it would require is that there is more than enough "buffering" included with the territory of any different sustainable life styles to allow for any kind of changes without running out of land for any species to live on.
This would mean that there would be at any point of time very few people around (as few as possible), and this would be good.
What is happening on Earth today could be seen, in terms of geological time, as a continuation of a stabilizing process that is aiming towards an equilibrium after a major disturbance that came from the outside of the Earth system that caused the demise of the dinosaurs and made possible the ascend of humans.
Humans and the disturbance of the Earth system caused by them is just a repercussion of this stabilizing process.
Humans, and countless other species, could ride out all the difficult times ahead of us, if it is recognized that the latest disturbance caused by humans is also fixable by humans themselves--we have all the knowledge and resources to make it happen.