J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Utopian Speculations Page 7 of 10

How To Avoid Fascism and Restore Growth in the United States

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On October 19

In Culture Rants/Shares, Money/Personal Finance, Politics, Utopian Speculations

" Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy." -- Benito Mussolini

Historically, prolonged extreme concentrations of wealth and outrageous income inequality tend to play out in two ways:

1) Violent Leftist/popular revolutions, such as the French Revolution, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the Russian Revolution.

2) The rise of a Fascist state, as the elites use “fear of the other” to gain support for policies that suppress freedom and democracy, and increase coercive control of the impoverished masses.  Fascism never rises without support of the elites.

In the United States, with its strong pro-capitalist institutions and values, we’re more at risk for fascism than we are for violent Leftist revolution.  There are strong currents of popular fascism in the racist, xenophobic blatherings of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.  More and more our lawmakers are controlled by corporate interests.  Disturbing incidents where police and military are used against U.S. citizens are on the rise.

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Three Levels of Using Your Brain to Improve Your Life, and World

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On August 10

In Metaprogramming, Problem Solving, Utopian Speculations

There are ways to get the biggest bone, but does it have any meat on it?

There are different ways of using whatever wits you may have been blessed with to improve your quality of life.  Are you effectively using all three?

Level 1 — Maneuvering

This is the level of simple tactics.  Observe the situation, and act to better your position.  In traffic, you might try to get in the fastest lane.  In a fast-paced conversation, you might listen for a gap so that you can speak your mind.  In doing your job, you might CC your boss on a deliverable to a third-party (to make sure your boss knows you’re actually doing some work).

Effective maneuvering demands concentration and cleverness.  Most of us master the basics on the school-yard, and later refine our maneuvering skills by learning to work more efficiently and effectively.  Time-saving tips and optimization techniques fall into this category.

Maneuvering, on its own, won’t take us very far.  The other day I got caught in Giant’s traffic — the approach to the Bay Bridge was agonizingly slow.  Drivers (myself included) maneuvered to get into the best lane, to “cheat” and get into a lane at the last minute, or to drive close to the car ahead in order to prevent other drivers from cheating.

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How It Might Go Down (A Global Population Scenario)

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On March 25

In Evolution/Biology, Utopian Speculations

Up and up and … ?

A graph like the one above should make you nervous.  A line going nearly straight up indicates a “bubble” situation — and all bubbles must pop.  Dot-com bubble, U.S. housing market bubble, Dutch tulip bulb bubble; historically, there are dozens of examples of market bubbles.  The above graph references population, not markets, but there are just as many examples of animal population crashes (for example the chilling story of the reindeer of St. Matthew Island in Alaska).  Bubble dynamics are always the same; exponential growth is never sustainable, and is thus followed by exponential shrinkage.

Human population can’t go up indefinitely.  Something will eventually limit (and reverse) our growth.  It might be food, it might be energy, or it might be cultural factors.  “Doomers” predict human population decline will be brought on by hard limits to oil and food production, and will be accompanied by chaos, violence, and strife (Thomas Malthus, with his predictions of overpopulation and mass starvation, could be considered the original doomer).

Some, like the environmental writer Fred Pearce, predict a rosier decline.  Pearce predicts that voluntary reduced fertility (women choosing to use birth control) will allow human population growth to taper off and eventually decline gradually, with a a minimum of strife.  We’ll avert economic catastrophe by working into old age; we’ll “harness older people as a resource.”

My bullshit detector goes off listening to both lines of thinking.  The doomers and the optimists are both overlooking important variables.  To get a complete picture of human population decline scenarios, what factors do we need to consider?

An overpopulated Coldplay concert.

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How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part III

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On February 9

In Utopian Speculations

Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and civilly disobedient bus rider Rosa Parks.

This post is a continuation of How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part II, in which I started to chip away at the non-trivial problem of how disempowered communities can regain power.

Certainly this qualifies as An Extremely Difficult Problem … in this case I’m taking the empirical approach.  What has worked in the past?  We can look to the specifics of Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution, MLK’s civil rights movement strategies, Nelson Mandela’s leadership in the anti-apartheid movement, how Cesar Chavez organized U.S. farm workers, and other examples of communities regaining power without the use of violence or other coercive tactics.  Are there generalities that apply to all of these cases?

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How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part II

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On February 2

In Utopian Speculations

One has led a successful non-violent revolution, the other is still trying.

In How To Accumulate (Non-Coercive) Power, Part I, I wrote about how individuals can become more powerful.  In this post I’ll write about how communities can become more powerful (including how communities can escape from the tyrannical, coercive control of oppressors).

A different kind of power grid.

When I write “accumulating power,” I’m referring to non-coercive, non-zero-sum power (which I explained in detail in my earlier post The Four Types of Power).  Non-coercive power allows us to do more; it increases our scope of action.  Coercive power, are on the other hand, is derived from controlling others, either through violence, the threat of violence, or withholding resources necessary for survival (like food or shelter).  I’m not interested in this kind of power — I don’t want to control others.  I would prefer to live in a world in which everyone who is capable of free choice can exercise it.

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