Please read Pt.1 and Pt.2
If you are on a sinking ship what do you do ?!?
You build an Ark !?!
What is an Ark ?!?
An Ark is an ensemble.
An ensemble is a collection of knowledge, instrumentality, skills, and resources which together generate a synergy, it makes something larger possible.
This is the key, and I will repeat it many times.
An Ark is an ensemble with the goal of trying to make sure humanity has a future.
The oldest ensemble of humanity is neolithic civilization.
The wisdom of this ensemble is contained in The sacred law of survival of aboriginal peoples of earth: shelter, water, fire, food, and others.
Without shelter you can die in hours from exposure.
Without water you can die in days of dehydration.
Without fire most food is marginally assimilable to unassimilable, and you can die from malnutrition.
Without food you can die in weeks from starvation.
Without others you will die in years from loneliness and insanity.
Without others you can not be fully human and humanity does not exist, humanity is a collection of others.
Humans are social animals and civilization as we know it requires others to form ensembles.
An ensemble is a collection of knowledge, instrumentality, skills, and resources which together generate a synergy, it makes something larger possible.
All of the game of humanities future exists in ensembles. The ensembles we are interested in are generated out of the humans present in any given location. These ensembles will confer adaptive vigor on those groups as the civilization they are embedded in degenerates around them.
What follows will be the beginning of a five part conversation concerning the future of humanity within global environmental catastrophea.
Ensembles are the scaffolding of civilization.
An ensemble is a collection of knowledge, instrumentality, skills, and resources which together generate a synergy, it makes something larger possible.
All of the game of humanities future exists in ensembles. The ensembles we are interested in are generated out of the humans present in any given location. These ensembles will confer adaptive vigor on those groups as the civilization they are embedded in degenerates around them.
These are the basic premises of this approach to global environmental catastrophea.
Arks as an approach have four temporalities, near, short, mid, and long.
These temporalities span from post technological feudalism to a new beginning as we emerge from the ice.
Near term – entry into the collapse.
Short term – from the beginning of collapse to chaos.
Mid term – from chaos thru the migrations.
Long term – after the migrations thru the ice and to a new beginning.
Near term we must begin where ever we find ourselves.
Near term Arks must be both situationally independent and situationally appropriate.
The goal of near term Arks is an ensemble that can migrate, and provide the elements of The sacred law of survival for your self and for a few others(3-10).
The design scale of near term Arks is the extended family.
Short term Arks have one additional element which can be combined with other short term Arks to form more complex ensembles raising the civilizational floor.
Short term Ark + short term Ark = new ensemble.
New ensemble = new higher civilizational floor.
Short term Arks must be able to be stable inspite of chaos until the migrations are underway.
Short term Arks must be able to integrate elements to work with other Arks.
The design scale of short term Arks is the local community(300-3000).
Mid term Ark has as its goal the creation of positive chaos, SOC in reverse.
Aggregation of mid term Arks generates ensembles to reverse the flow of civilizational collapse in the chaos.
New ensemble + new ensemble = higher and higher civilizational floor.
Mid term Arks must be able to migrate and must be able to integrate other arks.
The design scale of mid term Arks is regional(10’s of communities to 100’s).
Long term life will migrate to a new stable point. Because we have destabilized the genomes of life on earth and because catastrophea is a chaotic process it is impossible to anticipate except in the simplest of terms, it must be viewed as a wave to be ridden not a vehicle to be steered. We must acknowledge our lack of control over anything except our response.
As life heals and finds a new shape, humanity must heal, in order to find its place within the new shape of life on earth.
Long term we must heal the hearts, minds, bodies and souls of humanity, to dream a dream for life.
Long term we must heal and adapt while life migrates to a new stable point and heals itself.
Long term Arks will allow humanity to dream this dream thru the slumber of the ice and to a new beginning.
In the next set of conversations we will look at what is and is not an element in an Ark.
Before we can do that tho we must ask a few questions. The answers to these questions will shape what comes after.
How early can we stop the slide ?!?
How high can our floor be ?!?
The answer to these questions are conditioned by the following factors.
First the disruption of modernity due to catastrophea will be strongly correlated to how many people die in how short a time.
Human civilizational ensembles are embodied in human lives.
Consequently the death rate must be minimized.
The size of the sand pile determines the aggregate size of the catastrophe from humanities point of view.
Therefore we must reduce the birth rate to near zero.
There are two paths to this outcome one desirable and the other very very undesirable, choice or draconian political/social methods.
Choice is the desirable path because it originates in love for life.
Inside the path of choice is the goal of rapid demographic transition for the entire human race.
Demographic transition must be achieved in order to stabilize the population decrease necessary for the maximum survival of the human species.
Demographic transition requires the formation of the circumstances necessary to change the evolutionarily delivered drives for procreational survival.
Humanity must make it possible for its members to make the choice to be child free.
In order to make that choice freely individuals require the following circumstances.
Minimum standard of living.
Health care.
Education.
Non marginalized social opportunity.
With these things in place human beings have the opportunity to identify their good with the greater good of those that exist and those that are to follow them.
They then have as a possibility the choice to give the gift of life to the future generations by being child free in this life.
Society has as a possibility the honoring of that sacrifice and choice by adopting such human beings into existing family systems to give them the gift of human life in the present for the sake of the future generations.
This must be the beginning of any conversation about the future of the human race.
Demographic transition for all of the human race.
Choiceful child free people.
Humanities adoption of itself to strengthen its extended family systems.
The creation and emergence of near term Arks.
The generation of extended networks of cooperation bonds.
Out of the ashes we will rise again……….
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