The Mortal Atheist on Varki’s MORT

Thanks to Dr. Ajit Varki for making me aware of this blog by the Mortal Atheist.

It’s vanishingly rare to find anyone that writes about Varki’s MORT theory and that understands that broad awareness of the theory is the only viable path to mitigating the consequences of human overshoot and preserving some of our best accomplishments.

I mostly agree with what the author says except the final sentence:

Who should read this book? Fans of Terror Management Theory and Ernest Becker.

I would change this conclusion to:

Who should read this book? Every person on the planet who is working to shift our species to a more sustainable path because all of your efforts are failing and will continue to fail until we confront MORT.

https://www.themortalatheist.com/blog/denial-varki-and-brower

OVERVIEW

Here’s a novel thought: what if we owe the incredible super-intelligence of our species to our ability to deny death? Years ago, researcher Danny Brower shared this thought with Ajit Varki during a chance encounter. When Varki reached back out years later, having never forgotten the conversation, he was shocked to discover Brower had died. But Brower had left behind a draft manuscript detailing his theory, what he called “Mind over Reality:” that Homo sapiens was the only species ever to develop a super-intelligence because we were the only species ever to cross the enormous evolutionary barrier of reality denial. Varki took up the manuscript, finished and published the book: Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind. 

The barrier of denial

“Why is it that only humans are able to carry out so many special mental functions that seem missing from all other highly intelligent species, some of which have been around for millions of years longer than we have?” This curiosity fascinated Brower. Why was Homo sapiens the only species ever to become really, really smart? Especially when being this smart has made us the most successful species on the planet. Surely hyperintelligence is an evolutionary boon that should have emerged more than once. But it didn’t, not even in other hominid species or chimpanzees, our closest living relatives.

The first barrier in getting smart is a rare convergence of several biological and environmental factors. Varki identifies many: the species must be highly social but also long-lived, have a stable body temperature (to maintain the metabolism necessary to reliably feed the brain), and be born very early, undergoing extreme postnatal development. So, getting smart was a significant biological barrier. But there are many other social mammals (and some birds) that meet these criteria… why didn’t natural selection and evolution act on their brains in the same way? There’s lots of genetic variation to work with, and the vertebrate organization of brains was established hundreds of millions of years ago. So where are all the other super-intelligent creatures? The crux of Brower’s “Mind over Reality” theory was that there was an additional, almost insurmountable psychological evolutionary barrier, which is the focus of this book. It states: only if a species develops full awareness and higher intelligence while simultaneously developing an ability to deny its own mortality, would it reap any benefits. Otherwise, intelligence and self-awareness would be a negative fitness event.

Let’s examine why. When we speak of a “full awareness” or “higher intelligence,” what we mean is a fully developed theory of mind – the cognitive wiring that allows us to imagine the minds of others. Several other species are self-aware, and some probably possess rudimentary theory of mind (like a green monkey that can deceive another monkey into abandoning its banana hoard). But no species other than Homo sapiens possesses a full theory of mind that allows it to extend itself into the past and future, develop judicial systems, spin fantasies, create religion, torture, or play organized sports. No, for this you need a full and complete understanding of the minds of others. Brower argued that the critical boundary that kept other species out was that the benefits of a full theory of mind could not be realized unless it was simultaneously accompanied by an ability to deny mortality. Consider this, you are an early hominid who is self-aware and now possesses an awareness of others as independent agents. Then, someone in your group dies. You’re smart enough to deduce that this means you will die… but the threat of death is unavoidable – you are now under constant predation from your own intelligence. The anxiety you feel would be inescapable and totally bewildering. You probably wouldn’t have a lot of sex or be terribly interested in challenging the group leader for dominance (after all, you could die! I must admit, it’s morbidly amusing to imagine some lone hominid a hundred thousand years ago, staring up at the sky and feeling the crush of existential dread… the world’s first nihilist). But now imagine that you develop a full theory of mind and the ability to subconsciously suppress your mortality salience… well, now you’re cooking. How much better would you be at understanding your fellow humans, perhaps manipulating them… how much better at finding mates and achieving higher status within the group? But only if you can forget about the fact that you’re marching inexorably toward annihilation. Our most astonishing and critical accomplishment, the authors argue, was not a biological leap but a psychological one: ignorance. 

Why deny death when you can deny everything?

It’s possible that death denial arose from the loss of several neural mechanisms, giving rise to the capability to deny reality wholescale. After all, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest Homo sapiens is incredibly adept at ignoring reality. Consider our disposition toward optimism, which is often irrational (as explored in Tali Sharot’s “The Optimism Bias”), or the fact that we smoke, eat sugary foods, and continue having children (even though childbirth is excruciating and dangerous). We jaywalk, gamble, text while driving, drive without seatbelts (drive at all), forgo writing wills or getting life insurance, follow silly superstitions, and buy homes on the Florida coast or along fault lines. And, of course, there’s religion – a denial of death if there ever was one. But so too is our desire for ultimate meaning illogical – the desire to believe we were put here for a purpose.

“. . .the alternative – that there is no meaning, no scheme – also implies that there is nothing after death. The deep anxiety and depression generated by this latter conclusion has kept mankind searching for the meaning of life for thousands of years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. . . This reality denial at a deep level of our being is essentially universal, and is a fundamental quality of being human.” 

But the most striking evidence of our reality denial still boils down to this:

“. . .you are nothing more than a sort of synthetic “hologram” composed of subatomic particles that originated from the Big Bang, which, when brought together in a particular combination, generated a brain, mind, and a conscious state – which in turn give you the introspection that allows you to read this book and understand it for the very, very, very brief space of time that you are alive. Why is it that despite understanding how absolutely, totally, and completely trivial you are in the enormity of this cosmic reality you can step out every day and act as if the universe is your oyster? Why are you not terrified and depressed by the fact that you are just the tiniest little transient blip in this enormous reality of time and space?”

The answer is: because your ancestors had the rare cognitive quirk of holding false beliefs and ignoring inconvenient truths. (I do appreciate the loveliness of this paradox: that science, our most rational endeavour, may reveal that we’re the most irrational species to ever exist… but that it’s this irrationality that allowed us to get so smart. It’s perfect, really).  

Pros and cons

There are several benefits, obviously, to our denial (you mean aside from being self-aware without crippling existential anxiety at every waking turn?). Optimism and overconfidence can be nice… we’ve crossed oceans in shaky vessels, launched ourselves into space, and jumped off cliffs in primitive flying contraptions. Surely no rational being would partake in these misadventures. Bravery and courage can be marvelous, though they are often reality denial too. Becoming immersed in a movie or video game often means suspending belief for a short while. Even being able to shut out reality to get in “the zone” during a challenging physical or mental task is beneficial. But there are consequences. Our ability to ignore climate change or launch nuclear war is one. Our willingness to follow cult leaders into oblivion or dictators into genocide and crusades seems another. Varki even muses: “the fundamental forces that got us to this dilemma might be valid for any planet that harbors intelligent life.” That perhaps the reason we’ve seen no evidence of other intelligent intergalactic species is because the solution to the theory of mind barrier, reality denial, “ensures that no civilization of intelligent species will persist long enough to master long-distance space travel. . .” Even better:  “. . . it is arguable that we are destined ultimately to destroy ourselves as a species – or, at the very least, to continue to cycle between well-developed civilization and catastrophic collapse, never reaching a technological state much beyond what we currently enjoy.”

 Oh my gosh, how deliciously pessimistic.  

 WHAT NOW? (actions for mortal atheists)

For these reasons, it’s probably essential that we recognize reality denial as a fundamental part of our nature. And maybe by understanding this subconscious hardwiring we can consciously change what may otherwise lead us to extinction-level catastrophe. To fight addiction, you must acknowledge you’re an addict. To fight denial, you must acknowledge its instinctiveness. We can’t get rid of this reality denial, but we can recognize it “and manage its pathological consequences.” Otherwise, we might just deny ourselves into extinction.

 

IN SUM:

Is this book entirely secular? No.

If I had to describe the book in one sentence? We owe our hyperintelligence to our ability to deny death and ignore inconvenient truths.

Who should read this book? Fans of Terror Management Theory and Ernest Becker.

77 thoughts on “The Mortal Atheist on Varki’s MORT”

  1. I am writing this quickly before I forget. It is extremely hard for me to formulate so that it gets across. I already tried at least two times before on this blog (and somewhat failed, I believe). I hope I am more intelligible this time.

    This in no way is an attack to MORT theory. However I’d like to explain why I feel uneasy with the idea that having everybody understand MORT would fundamentally change anything.

    To me the nature of our mental paradox lies even further than (or should I say more adequately “even before”) that. Because Varki’s MORT theory assumes/starts from the existence of an “I” (the autonomous separate entity that each of us supposedly is), the “I” which is bound to disappear. Doing that, this theory reinforces the notion of “I”.

    I believe that, on the contrary, the path to freedom is to recognize that the “I” is a pure artificial construct. The “I” we constantly evoke is not the reality of what we are. It is simply yet another idea, an image, an interpretation, a mental model… that we assume uncritically to be, some kind of distorted reflection of reality, of the being.
    To make an analogy. We often consider it a sign of intelligence when an animal recognizes itself in a mirror. To me it makes an error: it is not itself in the mirror, all that it sees is really the mirror. One can never see oneself, one can never grasp the nature of what one is.

    (It’s difficult to think about this, because we can easily fall into the reflexive trap, the infinite loop of a mirror looking into another mirror. This is sometimes called the thief and policeman trap. That’s why it is said self can’t get out of self)

    I contest the foundational “I” on which is built MORT theory, this “I” is just some interpretation.
    In other words, it goes somewhat like this, in four layers:
    – there is something (call it whatever you want: being, consciousness, existence, god). That can’t be denied (otherwise we wouldn’t even be having this conversation). From there, everything else is an arbitrary mental edifice.
    – then there is the notion of duality, the “I/you” appears (is created by the mind, we are the creator, we give the world all the meaning it has). We identify with the “I” (sometimes with the “you”, depends on the situation we are thinking about). All this is necessary for us to operate/have a grasp on the world.
    – then the realization and fear of death of the “I” (through the experience of the death of “you” really, cause we can’t go beyond this: I can’t say much more about this, luckily having never had a near death experience 🙂
    – then denial of death arises
    So to me, and to, it appears many, religious traditions, we are in a triple denial. A denial that we can never understand what we are (in a way it is a lack of humility, not seeing the limitations of the mechanical mind), then a denial of reality (because once we are lost in the interpretation, we take it from here and forget it is nothing more than an interpretation which could be framed entirely different, even though it’s framed in a particular way mostly for practical purposes such as survival of the body or interacting with other members of the society we live in) and then a denial of death. Denial has to be unravelled 3 times to reach freedom from any mental bondage.

    So to me, the root that has to be discovered by each one of us and then the leap of faith we have to perform (in the abyss) is to recognize we can’t know what we are (and we can’t understand anything). We can be it though. We are even it while studying that which we are not.
    As a matter of fact we cannot not be it either. That’s another mental trick, ah ah ah 🙂
    To me, this is what is meant in spiritual teachings, this is enlightenment, freedom from the bondage of self, etc, etc…
    Explained many times, misinterpreted even more.
    This is at the root of the religious traditions that I know of: Genesis in the ancient testament (tree of knowledge, fall in duality), non-duality/advaita vedanta, Buddhism and the big book of the A.A.

    In a way, to me, science and religion are complementary:
    – science explains measurable phenomena (in terms of other phenomena) and let you have (the illusion of) some level of control
    – religion is a non-teaching: the realization of the limitations of our current appearance, it lets you surrender to the incommensurable beauty of That which is incomprehensible but nevertheless is and brings peace (the recognition that nothing is mandatory, we can let it flow or rather just “flowing”)

    Maybe this comment will irk some readers. They may say this is woo-woo. If that is the case, please explain why you find it so.
    Because on the contrary, this seems to me like the most logical, step by step explanation of the limitations of what we can think about. It is a great non-conclusion which puts a stop to the relentless quest for understanding (it does not mean we have to stop thinking if we enjoy this activity, it just puts everything in light perspective). In any case, this brings me a sense of humility and peace through mental surrendering.
    Or maybe that’s just boring to you and it doesn’t resonate. Fine, that’s the ultimate point (to stop mental masturbation and live joyfully free of fear, regret, grief or sorrow whatever the outer conditions :). “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

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    1. I guess that to me evolution’s master stroke has been the creation of the “I” within and by the human brain. In social animals such as us, that implies a “you”, and thus a theory of mind (TOM). There is no doubt in my mind that we do not see reality as it is, and we never will. We can only that see that which we are equipped to see, being the creatures that we are.

      “I”, seems masterful to me in that it requires humans to work (frantically, neuortically) in its service, to preserve the illusion that there is some sort “I”. Is there a way around this? Getting rid of the genernalized anxiety surrounding “I”, its constant demands and insecurities, while preserving some sort of TOM, over reality or otherwise? I kind of doubt it.

      And, I really don’t know why anyone would even want to (although most do). There’s nothing there to preserve in the first place. It’s just a trick. At least that’s what I mostly tell myself.

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      1. Sorry for answering late. I was busy with something else I wanted to finish first.

        Thank you for getting my point. I guess. It’s not an easy topic, and we don’t use the same vocabulary, as I didn’t study the field of “Theory of mind”, and am a bit more accustomed with the religious corpus.

        Yes, one can “function” without the idea of “I”. In fact that’s what young kids do. It doesn’t prevent from interacting with other. It doesn’t remove the ability to understand other’s feelings, or to operate in the I/you duality when needed. It doesn’t prevent learning or thinking. Simply most of the time, these faculties are not conjured. It doesn’t make one acquire supernatural powers either. Maybe there is just room for more awareness and less rumination. It relieves anxiety, since there is no attachment, no “I” to defend. The fact that all things are transient can be accepted. Death and birth lose their meaning to be replaced by a sea of unknowns. And the most beautiful part in all this is that this position can’t be proven inconsistent with reality. In other words, it is not denial. If it were there would still be some anxiety as it seems to me that even in denial, somewhere deep, we know we are lying to oneself.

        Yes, the I/you duality is a mesmerizing trick. Yes, there is nothing to preserve. It unfolds. The I/you game is also part of the unfolding.
        I don’t really know what pushes you out of the I/you duality. Maybe just aging or getting ones idea about reality being crushed by reality until it’s seen. It just happens eventually. There are many “paths” advertised though. Most of the time, the “path” reinforces the trick.

        Personally, I can’t say I am totally there. It’s more and more the case. But it’s still an oscillation: the remaining bits of my identity left to be shattered by life. And why not? It means I probably have some more things left to frantically do in this world before resting in bliss 🙂

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    2. If we accept what we don’t know then we wouldn’t really learn anything new, would we?

      I think the strong experience of “I” is part of nature. Give this set of genes a strong sense of itself, then it will make sure to keep itself alive, will strive hard to acquire resources, and then reproduce (fulfill it’s purpose). Then it can die or whatever

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      1. Sorry for my late reply. I had to finish something first.

        In general, I don’t know.

        To me learning can still be fun even if it’s going to be the discovery of only a limited word-view. Exploring a new universe/skill-set is fun. It’s even more fun once we accept it is not an absolute, since it makes it a “free” pursuit. There is nothing at stakes. No need to travel to present theories, trash other scientists to be recognized, publish papers, search for grants…
        But accumulating knowledge in order to relieve existential anxiety, that’s a pain. And that can be let go of entirely when the I/you duality is seen for what it is, when we admit we can’t know.

        Anyway some things are going to happen, better do what makes us tick. If learning is your thing, go ahead, if not just do something else.
        But knowledge is not going to be the answer to THE problem. (not more than anything else: power, money, sex, alcohol, games, sports…)

        At least, that’s the way I see it today 🙂

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  2. Yes, you are right to worry that this is “who” – overthinking insoluble dilemmas. Religions are technically guilty of this at all times – there is no “surrendering” possible to the vicissitudes of existence. What degree of control do you think a human mind has over outer conditions?
    By the way, there is nothing wrong with masturbation, and as far as the MORT, perhaps there is some agreement there – it’s basically of no help to the human predicament, defined however you like.

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    1. Sorry for taking time to reply. I was doing something else I wanted to finish first.

      Thank you for your answer. I am not sure I understood what you meant though. Sorry.
      To me, the beauty was to recognize not knowing is at the basis of all. Before that, my starting point was the faith in “I”.
      And, from experiencing it, I can tell there is a great difference between living and living as an idea.
      I don’t know what degree of control a human mind has over outer conditions. I think the answer you expect is none. However, to me again, the meaning I give to an experience affects me more than the experience in itself. So I guess, everything and none at the same time 🙂

      You are right about masturbation, nothing wrong with it. As a simulacra, I’d still argue it is less satisfying. I guess mileage may vary 🙂

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  3. Denninger says much higher inflation is imminent followed by a crash in 1 or 2 years.

    I’m still seeing food prices rising here.

    Denninger seems to confirm my belief that interest rates rise in response to inflation, not in response to central banks “fighting” inflation.

    As with every other overshoot calamity we face, we’re well past the time when a tolerable solution was possible.

    Given that we soon face an intolerable situation, I expect WWIII is inevitable.

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=249340

    Remember that the excuse to huge deficits was that we were in a health emergency — a pandemic — and we had to force people out of work and businesses closed, thus taxes would go down and so would wages; we couldn’t let people starve. Ok, fine and well, that’s a decent political argument but the pandemic is over. So why are we running $2 trillion in fiscal deficits for this year ending in September?

    We reset the baseline federal spending to $6 trillion, more or less, and contrary to the claims that all this new economic activity would mean there would be more output and thus more taxes as it has actually turned out that was a lie and tax receipts are falling.

    This of course makes the deficit larger but even at $3.2 trillion annualized in tax receipts with $6 trillion in spending you’re close to a 50% fiscal deficit and a roughly 11% inflation rate given that GDP is approximately $26 trillion.

    We’re not seeing 11% inflation right now — or are we?

    Friedman put it quite-succinctly: Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomena.

    He was right, of course; mathematics just is. But our Congress has gamed the numbers for the last three decades through both monetary games, playing with the Social Security and Medicare bonds along with foreign trade impacts. The latter is gone due to the Ukraine-related sanctions, the reverse-repo game is about to run out and the big daddy of all, CMS, is about to run out too.

    Social Security, by the way, is not part of the problem; it is actually reasonably-stable. Fancy that but it neither helps or hurts as a result.

    Now add another trillion to the deficit when CMS exhausts its bond sources and all of that impact shows up in the inflation data immediately and either the government cuts this out right now, in total, or you’re looking at a 15% inflation rate and rapidly rising because the rate of interest to borrow will price upward immediately which makes it worse because Treasury must, of course, pay interest on all those bonds.

    If the government does not stop spending in deficit then rates will spiral higher, the deficit will spiral higher and it will all collapse — stocks, real estate, everything. All done, have a nice day, any asset that relies on access to borrowed funds will be cut to a tiny fraction of today’s value which means stock prices, real estate, cars and similar. All of it simply because the cost of financing any of that will rise rapidly into double-digit territory and stay there.

    To cut the inflation rate to a true 2% the federal government would have to run a maximum deficit of about $500 billion on a forward, indefinite basis. That in turn would mean cutting roughly 2.5 TRILLION, or every penny CMS currently spends plus a bit, out of the budget on a permanent basis.

    But even that won’t reverse any of the already-existing price increases that are making life wildly unaffordable for a huge percentage of the population. To do that the bubble must come back out and that means the government run a durable surplus and the market has to believe it in order for rates to become lower on a reasonably-durable forward basis.

    No, you can’t get all of this that out of defense or any of the other tropes that people like to run; there simply isn’t enough money there nor could you more than double the average personal income tax rate (that is, increase revenues) without collapsing people’s ability to buy food, shelter and transportation — the basics of life.

    I put forward a plan to solve this before it happened. You will note that in that article (and the linked one after it on implementation) there were pro-forma graphs showing what was going to happen to the federal budget and its impact if we did not take those steps. Well, we didn’t take the steps and it happened. This would have been difficult before and now its more-difficult but if we don’t do it all the indicators of so-called “prosperity” you think you have today are going to go up in smoke and the headline numbers in this (and every other) Ticker may in fact prove optimistic.

    This is no longer a “will get us five or ten years from now” problem, as it was when I wrote Leverage. It is now a problem that threatens to blow up in our face in a year or two, exactly as I warned was coming in 2007 and which happened in 2008.

    Time’s up folks.

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    1. Learn to embrace poverty. I guess.

      The God who does not exist sent his only masochistic son to earth for one reason, to teach us humans how to suffer. Even he, Jesus that is, said: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” I ask the same question every day, and get the same answer: “I put you here to suffer and die for the sin of being born. So just get on with it. Stop complaining.”

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        1. Yes!! I love the macabre humor of it all!
          People who know me have gotten used to me shouting “peak oil” at inappropriate times haha. It’s my version of ‘God’s will’ as an explanation for things.

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  4. Here is an amazing example of Varki’s MORT in operation.

    Dr. John Campbell revisits excess deaths around the world and the absence of discussion or debate about this unpleasant reality.

    It’s easy to understand why a party in power would not want to shine light on their policies, however you need MORT to explain why opposition parties are silent.

    Clearly they are denying the fact that they probably harmed their own health and the health of their children.

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  5. Thanks to Mac10 for making me aware of a new George Carlin documentary. I just downloaded it and it looks really good.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12899886/

    https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2023/07/fomc-fear-of-missing-crash.html

    FOMC: FEAR OF MISSING CRASH

    “It’s called the American Dream for a reason – you have to be asleep to believe it” – George Carlin

    I just finished watching the HBO special, George Carlin’s American Dream. I thoroughly enjoyed it of course. It confirmed my view of the degeneration of humanity. Throughout Carlin’s life his views on society became darker and darker, but then he died in June 2008, just before the big housing collapse and bailout clusterfuck. Imagine if he were alive today what he would be saying about this current gong show? Over the past 15 years since 2008 all of Carlin’s self-destruct themes have gone into overdrive. The difference is that in 2008 we discovered Quantitative Easing – printed money – the secret of effortless wealth. Which happens to be just another drug – a financial drug. I call it monetary euthanasia – just hose down markets with enough free money to give everyone the illusion of normalcy. In other words, central bank manipulated markets give the sheeple the illusion of wealth while everything falls apart in real time. Carlin would say that it’s all a big fucking conspiracy.

    Of dunces.

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      1. Monk,
        I particularly love that Carlin quote. As I’m rapidly approaching the end of my life, I have to remind myself constantly that death is just going to be oblivion like the oblivion of 14 billion years before I was aware of the universe. No change throughout all time except for a brief excursion into consciousness. Interesting what the matter/time and the rules governing unverse gave rise to!.
        AJ

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    2. Carlin was always out to get laughs. I eventually realised that nothing can be read into his jokes, otherwise it becomes obvious that he was a climate change denier. On other subjects he was very funny.

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      1. I did not know Carlin denied climate change. Given MORT I guess that makes him a non-defective human being.

        Most climate scientists deny the core cause of climate change (and what needs to be done) which makes them no better than people who deny climate change.

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        1. I suppose you may be referring to overshoot as the “core cause” but climate scientists look at the proximate cause of climate and its changes. The proximate cause of the current change is fossil fuel burning and we started doing that a couple of centuries ago. Humans may have been in overshoot then but, if not, it wouldn’t matter if they just continued to burn coal at the level they did then because the end result would have been the same, just a few centuries later.

          Yes, there are quite a few clips of George using a lot of the climate change denier arguments. This goes for environmental issues generally. Often funny but also often too ridiculous to be funny. Shame, he was a funny guy.

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  7. Rintrah today addresses the core issue. Are our leaders morons or evil?

    He concludes they’re probably evil but we’ll never know for sure. I’m thinking to answer the question all we need to know is whether our political and health leaders injected themselves with the same substance they strongarmed citizens to accept.

    https://www.rintrah.nl/depopulation-through-pig-abuse/

    It’s a fair question to ask. As I’ve mentioned before, the genetic fingerprints of natural selection by corona viruses suggests that these viruses can kill large swathes of the population, over a period of decades.

    I would ask these people however, if they are serious about their theory of managed decline, whether they have ever considered the possibility that these vaccines peddled by the US defense apparatus (Pfizer and Moderna were just following orders), were part of the project.

    The double-whammy would look as following: You release a new virus, then you use mRNA technology to break the population’s immune response against it. This technology has been used, to promote a tolerogenic immune response against the protein people are immunized against. The result is that you induce the sort of immune response that creates a population susceptible to constant reinfection. The body responds to the virus, but in such a poor manner that you remain forever susceptible.

    And so far, the technology has worked quite well at breaking the population’s immune response:

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/current-covid-patients-hospital?country=~JPN

    The data from Japan is pretty straightforward: We’re now stuck with this virus forever.

    The main reason I’m willing to consider the Managed Decline model of what has happened ever since the mysterious vegan Swedish girl promised you in late 2019 that “change is coming, whether you like it or not”, is that it should have just been obvious these vaccines were going to make things worse. The technology they use to produce these vaccines, is identical to the technology they use to induce immune tolerance.

    It’s kind of hard to believe this would happen by accident: “Yeah sorry, the completely new technology we’re using against this vaccine turned out to make things worse. Yeah it’s the exact same technology we were using simultaneously for immune tolerance therapies, but hey, we didn’t see it coming. Enjoy the IgG4!”

    Of course some people are eager to believe this virus is just like the flu. But there is no flu virus out there, that infects you twice a year. In a given year, about 10% of the population catches symptomatic influenza. SARS2 now infects you two or three times a year, because the vaccine has been such a success. This is going to exhaust your immune system.

    I don’t think we’re ever going to get an answer in regards to whether this was all just the largest screw-up in history, or some sort of managed decline project to gradually turn us all into brain-damaged drooling zombies who continue to go through the motions in auto-pilot until we are replaced by AI.

    Which reminds me of another problem I haven’t yet mentioned. We’re pretty sure that the Omicron variants began once a rodent population was infected. The virus would have been much deadlier in these animals, so it mutated to become more benign.

    But right now, the virus is reverting to greater virulence, by prohibiting your infected cells from realizing they’re infected. And that matters. The reason pigs are not susceptible to SARS2, is because their cells just immediately kill themselves upon being infected, so the virus can’t spread.

    Now the question you have to ask yourself is: What happens to pigs, once we give rise to viruses that are much better at preventing our cells from figuring out they’re infected? It’s possible that pigs will become susceptible to SARS2 as a result too. Rodents were originally not susceptible to SARS2. They only became susceptible to infection once the first variants evolved.

    Of course it’s also possible that we create a bridge from human SARS2 to pig SARS2 ourselves. Like I just mentioned, pigs are right now immune to SARS2, because their cells very rapidly respond with apoptosis to infection. But to create organs for humans, pigs are having their genome edited, by introducing human genes that suppress apoptosis. So it’s perfectly thinkable that if these pigs were infected, their infected cells would not undergo apoptosis rapidly enough to stop the virus from spreading. There are all sorts of risks involved in these experiments, some of which we can predict in advance and others that we can’t.

    And of course, some morons went ahead and made a pig with a human ACE2 receptor. This is meant to create a “model animal” for SARS-COV-2 infection. But if these morons succeed at their quest, to turn pigs into an animal they can test SARS2 on, what do you think will happen? The virus will adapt to pig cells. To adapt to pig cells, it will need to be very good at suppressing apoptosis. If such a virus then spills back into humans, it would be a very dangerous virus.

    We could see a variant evolve that can infect pigs. And then you’re stuck with a situation where these animals all stuck together in a farm start breeding highly virulent variants, highly capable of suppressing their innate immune response. The same thing happened with bird flu. In the wild the bird flu virus is mild, because the host needs to be alive to spread it. In a poultry farm the virus does not need to be mild to spread, because the birds are all stuck together. That’s how it turns very deadly.

    Putting a lot of genetically identical animals of the same species in a building together, is how you turn mild viruses into very lethal viruses. It takes a few years, but we did it with influenza. The mild influenza viruses from migrating birds invaded the chicken concentration camps, where these viruses became highly pathogenic. After all, they don’t need to keep their host alive: They’re in a competition with other variants of themselves, to spread through a poultry farm as rapidly as possible.

    Unlike the rodent immune system, which is 10% similar to ours, the pig immune system is 80% similar to ours. What do you think happens, when SARS2 learns to infect pigs?

    The coronavirus that jumped from cattle into humans in the 19th century had to keep the cows alive, to jump from one cow into another. A pig-adapted version of SARS2 would have no need for that: All the pigs just live in the same building. It’s a situation very similar to what we’ve seen in bird flu. The difference being, that birds are genetically very different from us, whereas pigs are very similar to us.

    The 2009 pandemic influenza, was called “swine flu”, because it came from pigs. It can happen again.

    We were lucky, because in late 2021 a mouse-version of SARS2 suddenly jumped into our species. And so it had a level of virulence that is well adapted to mice, but pretty harmless in humans. It rapidly began to increase its virulence again with newer variants, but we really lucked out so far.

    A SARS2 version that evolved in mink farms or in caged pigs, is unlikely to have the low virulence that the Omicron versions which evolved in wild rodents had.

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    1. I don’t think it’s all that remarkable. NATO has largely deindustrialized. Most of its members are still running post WW2 algorithms through their minds and hearts, a time long past. Europe, by and large, has been converted into a type of Disneyland, maybe a homage to all things past.

      The Russian/Belarusian leadership, along with supporters in the background, out of the limelight, so to speak, are much more connected to the reality of the world. That organism that can pass through the most free energy the quickest, convert it to entropy the fastest, wins. Except maybe in cases of bad luck and such. No getting around that. The hot air of propoganda, is just that, hot air. Most of its available energy has been spent.

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      1. From the comments to Simplicius:

        “That Russian general Mordvichev seemed very relaxed, cool, matter of fact. Contrast with the rhetoric infused garbage we hear in English, tells a lot.”

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      2. Good points. In addition we’ve had two US presidents in a row that can’t form a coherent sentence, let alone speak intelligently for hours without notes like Putin. I seriously doubt any NATO country would be willing to sacrifice their young men in the large quantities that Ukraine and Russia are willing to endure. It’s probably too late and maybe impossible for us to re-industrialize, and that’s before Russia closes it’s oil and natural gas valves.

        And then there’s China. How exactly will we fight a war with a country that manufacturers 95% of everything we need to survive plus many components needed for the weapons we expect to use against them? China has 1.4 billion proud and united people patiently waiting for justifiable payback against the west. And China’s teamed up with Russia who’s already beating us without much help from China.

        One wonders if NATO will simply roll over and fade away into the night, or will we go nuclear in desperation like petulant monkeys?

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  10. Tim Watkins is emerging as the best regular writer in the overshoot space. Today’s essay is a nice addendum to his recent overshoot primer that I raved about above. Note that he does a nice job of weaving denial into this one. Someday maybe he will embrace Varki’s MORT.

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/07/25/an-exercise-in-denial/

    Energy was always the true driver of growth in the economy. The technology/productivity that pundits like Bloom imagine is going to ride to the rescue in the future, was only ever a means of leveraging as much of the energy available to us for useful work (exergy) while minimising the amount lost as waste heat. But this is a once-and-done process. Now that all of the economically viable improvements have been made, only an alternative – more energy dense and cheap – energy source can save the day… and currently, no such energy source exists.

    The digital “fourth industrial revolution,” which pundits like Bloom await with bated breath, is just a fairytale… An exercise in denial to help avoid acknowledging that most of us are poorer than we were twenty years ago, that our life support systems are beginning to fall apart, and that nobody is offering a credible means of reversing the process of decline.

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  11. Tom Murphy today discusses books that helped to shift his worldview from “we’re screwed” to “let’s make the best of the inevitable”.

    https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/07/a-reading-journey/

    I hope this is helpful, and seen as more than just a reading list. I don’t want to be that person who basically says: “Hey, I’ve read these books and think you should as well.” For me, these have been key pieces in what I feel has been a profound journey. I feel like I’ve finally emerged from a decades-long tunnel of concern—the associated anxiety being quite palpable in all those Do the Math posts.

    The message was: “This isn’t as easy as you might have been led to believe, and I have good reason to think we may be screwed.” This frightened me. It smelled like failure, and nothing but loss.

    Now the message is changing to: “Okay, sure, modernity—not humanity—is certainly screwed and obviously can’t browbeat its way into the future. But why lament the disappearance of something that never could have lasted? There will be something on the other side, and that may be something we can be proud of. Getting through adolescence is tough, but growing older and wiser has its perks.”

    While surely it’s not necessary (or even possible) for anyone to replicate my steps exactly, hopefully these “tracer bullets” will help illuminate your own customized journey and bring us to something approximating the same page.

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    1. Yes, of course, but in my view the logic is all wrong. The logic is about preserving the “I”, or the context for an “I”, maybe some future “I”. Which, of course, simply cannot be done, in any context.

      Anyhoo, this is not the logic of the MPP, which is something like, in shorthand: “Burn it up, as quickly as possible, within any given set of circumstance.” This is what we observe. Some small minority might object, with their faulty logic, of course.

      We are thermodymic creatures and must serve “its” dictates, no matter the (false) logic or denial that might be employed.

      I notice that TM does not include “The Thermodynamics of Evolution”, by Roddiere, on his reading list.

      If conditions for life on earth remain sufficient after the passing of industrial civilization, then it will continue.

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        1. Personally, I think that it is (may be) possible. But that’s not what happened. So I won’t pretend otherwise.

          Just for fun, just as a thought experiment type thing, if humans were perfectly “logical”, maybe in an unhuman way, they might employ, and express, some type of logic thus:

          We have “x” resources and “y” techniques available to us. How can we best employ these things, as quickly and as completely as possible, so that we and our offspring can produce as much entropy from these resources as they can produce, as quickly as possible?

          This seems to be the underlying logic, and is what we observe to be happening, but with a lot of blather placed on top. The blather, in my mind, can be “blamed” on the ratcheting involved in biological evolution. Which is basically the energy pass through requirements of the MPP, combined with some preservation of information (DNA), which, of course, can include all sorts of “junk”. We could also talk about cultural information and “junk”.

          This logic, may come about to be expressed at some point. One has to remember that molecular DNA has only been thought of for maybe 80 years? something like that. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics has only been kicking around for maybe 50 years? Something like that. But, there is no reason to improve the logic, if the results are already in place. That seems to be the case.

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          1. I think we’re focused on different things. I’d like to understand how a species plenty smart enough to know its actions are killing its offspring can understand everything except its own overshoot.

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            1. Yeah, I think you’re using the wrong logic. First you need a viable “I”, before it can think about having viable offspring, never mind preserving a place for them in a set of constantly shifting conditions. That’s not to say that there isn’t some small minority that might buy into your logic. Obviously there is.

              I think that there have been some various hunter/gather tribes that existed in pretty stable conditions for a longlong time, that developed various means (behaviors) of population control, infanticide and such. They stayed within their carrying capacity as part of the environment. Understanding of overshoot, as a concept, had little or nothing to do with it. But that’s not us. We’re not h/g’s. We’ve largely, almost completely, wiped them out.

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            2. I’d say that industrial humans are stuck in a positive feedback loop. The more resources we use, the more we need to use. Per force, it will keep going until it can’t.

              This is all perfectly in line with the MPP, which is the bottom line. It is the irrefutable logic. Many wish to deny it, or negotiate with it, or maybe dismiss it, instead of understanding it. I’d say.

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                1. Why? Because they’re stuck, and they know it? Hoping and praying for a miracle? because its built in? What else should they do? Lay down and die? Or fight it out and see who gets to control what? Who gets to produce the most entropy the fastest?

                  That kind of looks like the answer for now. Makes sense to me. I guess.

                  What is our “intelligence” for, other than to acquire and use resources? It’s certainly not there to plan for some sustainable future. Never has been never will be. Those who think otherwise are the ones in denial. I’d say.

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                2. So why? Thinking a little more about the question I’d say something like: Human’s are inherantly delusional. Their delusions consist of visions in support of survival and reproduction. Nothing else. It has to be this way. If people don’t constantly garner energy and reproduce, they die out. Pretty simple.

                  For most, there is no profit in recognizing a driving force like the MPP. So they cannot recognize it, no matter how plain or how well it may be spelled out to them. So, of course, they deny it. Why should they do otherwise? Or, more properly, how can you do anything other than deny something that you cannot see or recognize, when you are not so programed, equipped, to do so? And whenthere are so many alternative and appealing visions that do support the imperatives of survival and reproduction?

                  I try to stick to the most basic causes that I can think of, like the MPP. It drives the process for creatures like us, I’d say. Why denial? It works. That’s all matters.

                  Why MPP? Why something instead of nothing? Ask God, who does not exist. I guess.

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                  1. I care about why. You apparently don’t. To each his own.

                    Why my interest in denial?

                    Why denial?

                    You: It works. That’s all that matters.

                    Me: It’s required to co-evolve with intelligence so that awareness of mortality does not reduce reproductive fitness. A side effect of denying mortality is that we deny everything that is unpleasant including overshoot. It’s an open question as to whether evolution would permit intelligence to override MPP. I’m betting not but on this planet we did not need to test this because we already deny overshoot and so are not at risk of willfully deviating from the MPP.

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                    1. I don’t know if I’d disagree with much or any of that. I might put it different terms.
                      I might say something like:

                      The master stroke of evolutuion is the “I”. That is what must be protected. Any thing that threatens the “I” must be fought, or denied. I’m sure that the “I”, and the various methods of denial (see Zapffe) and “intelligence” (a collection of techiques, both genetic and cultural) that it employs, are all inseparable.

                      So, why denial? To protect the “I”, to keep it moving forward in service of the MPP. We can’t have the shit show falling apart in the face of reality.

                      How did the “I”, and thus denial come about? Through the ratcheting action of evolution writ large driven by the MPP, including biological evolution. See Roddier, et al.

                      Click to access Thermodynamics_of_evolution.pdf

                      And again, Why all this? Why anything at all? Ask God. If you get an answer, please let me in on it.

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  12. I’m pretty much done with this Canadian Prepper guy. Some days he has interesting things to say but many days he doesn’t have a clue.

    A couple days ago he was flogging a flashlight with a gazillion lumens and a 45 second run time plus freeze dried lobster tails FFS.

    Today’s must have prepping item is a portable air conditioner powered by a portable rechargeable battery.

    I think the core problem is he’s in denial and is prepping for everything except the main threat: overshoot collapse and the end of modernity.

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  13. “I think the core problem is he’s in denial and is prepping for everything except the main threat: overshoot collapse and the end of modernity.”

    Here again we differ, in perception, maybe perspective. I do not view civilizational collapse as threat in any way, at least no more so than than I view my own death as threat. It’s simply an inevitability. In fact, and this is just me, I largely view my own death as the death of the universe, and I’m no Idealist. In fact, to me, Idealism is kind of a dirty word.

    This prepper guy is selling his method of protecting the “I”. Which is as good as any other, in that it is doomed to fail. May he keep gibbering and twitching to the bitter end. That’s what he’s (and you and me) here for. I’d say.

    So there ya go.

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      2. Huh? This seems like a weird position to me. It’s kinda like, what is that is aware of its own mortality, or is worried about its reproductive fitness, if not some kind of “I”? What is in denial?

        Why say that so and so is in denial, but “I” am not?

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        1. You are trying to complicate something that is very simple. If your philosophy has personally helped you deal with the tragedy that is our predicament then that’s great. If you shared it in that way, such as “I like to think about it in this way xyz, and that’s really helped me stay calm and accept what we’re heading into.” People would probably be more receptive. But if you approach others with a “everyone should think like me” you’re not going to be very persuasive.

          My understanding of what you’re saying is (by “you” I mean you Dave):
          – You accept the predicament of overshoot and collapse.
          – You don’t believe there’s any point in trying to prevent the predicament or lessen the suffering through concrete actions.
          – You are proposing others should accept the predicament etc. as it will be what it will be.
          – Whether a human dies today or in 20 years is the same to you.
          – I’m assuming by “I” you are referring to consciousness and that the individual is aware they are their own entity.
          – You directly said: “recognize that the “I” is a pure artificial construct.” I.e., you don’t believe individuals are real (which is clearly false since we are all individuals and interact with individuals every day.)
          – You agree that individuals deny reality as an evolutionary trait.
          – You seem to be emotionally opposed to the idea that individuals should want to do something about the predicament, either at a societal level or at an individual level.

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            1. If you want to do philosophy at university you have to learn how to break arguments down into clear premises (labelled a, b, c, etc.). To analyze the position, you have to see if a, b, c, etc. are all true statements on their own. And then, does b follow from a, or are a and b related in some way. Etc. There are many ways a, b, c can go together to make an argument. In the more advance years of philosophy it essentially becomes math.

              This is a very unnatural way of thinking for most people. Hence why it has to be taught.
              A natural way of thinking is more rambling than this, random pieces of information and ideas get joined together. Ideas can just pop into your head. One might get an insight or intuition. It can all make sense internally, but you can’t expect someone else to just get it. Often people can get really sidetracked debating philosophy while not realizing that they both got the very first premise wrong or one or both misunderstood premise a.

              Physicists tend to out and out dismiss philosophy. Not because they are mean bigots, but because most break throughs in physics came from doing science. That is to say measuring the real world.
              Science definitely has it’s epistemological issues as well. For a brilliant summary of this I would highly recommend Morris Berman’s book, The Reenchantment of the World (this book is mostly a history of science). But overall it is the linear logical thinkers doing science who are making the knowledge breakthroughs. But read Morris Berman because it is clear scientists do a magical type of thinking to get an insight and then they prove it. An example is that corn geneticist who says the corn tells her what to do, she won a Nobel prize (Barbara McClintock).

              Each individual needs to decide for themselves how mystical versus material they want to be. I try to keep an open mind but I tend to prioritize that which I can validate with my own senses. I trust myself as a reliable narrator (maybe erroneously?). Anyway, all of this is why I love peak oil so much. Because it’s so real, granular and easy to grasp. Climate change is much harder to understand, to get your hands around. I don’t really feel confident with anything that I supposedly “know” about climate change. So it’s very surprising to me that so many people believe in climate change but don’t believe in peak oil.

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              1. Thanks. I download Berman’s book.

                It’s not so much that I dislike philosophy it’s that when I encounter it (and likewise for poetry) a cloud bank descends on my brain. It has something to do with me being allergic to ideas that are not clearly and concisely expressed. I am annoyed by ideas that are made deliberately obtuse for no other apparent reason than the source seeking intellectual dominance rather than discovering truth.

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          2. For me, though I dislike it, I think we do have to accept our predicament, though for the species as a whole, there is no awareness of acceptance, humans are simply acting in the way that all species do. Of course, I’ve said this before but there seems to be little acceptance of that. Some people are seeking a reason for humans acting in the way that all species do. There is no reason other than that’s life.

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            2. I understand what you’re saying but I think there is a mystery to be solved here.

              Human intelligence and behaviors are qualitatively and quantitatively different than all other animals by a wide margin.

              Human Uniqueness

              I’m fascinated by the fact that most brilliant minds are capable of understanding most everything except overshoot. There are no painless responses to overshoot but we definitely could be doing many wiser things than we are, yet none of our leading intellects are capable of even discussing the options.

              On Famous Polymaths

              What would a wise society do?

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              1. I’ve seen that list before, though I don’t think some of the features listed are unique (for example, I’m sure I’ve read of species which assist in childbirth, share food and hunt in groups) but certainly humans have lots of characteristics that are unique but I suspect there are unique characteristics for most species. Still, despite unique characteristics, humans will always act like a species. It’s hard to believe that it could be otherwise. As a topical aside, this is also why we won’t be seeing any aliens here – any species that could otherwise have created the means to cross star systems would have long since trashed their planet.

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                1. An ape that believes in gods and life after death, flies to the moon, and builds nuclear weapons is unlike any other animal on this planet.

                  We disagree, about pretty much everything it seems.

                  Let’s end this discussion. You believe whatever you want and I’ll do the same.

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                  1. Hmm. I didn’t say humans were like other species, only that some characteristics that are touted as unique are not unique. I doubt we disagree about everything. I suspect that we are in complete agreement about the critical things that will affect every life form’s future. My primary point is that the evidence points to humans being a species.

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              2. Rob,

                Yeah, to think that there is, or even can be, a “wise” society, as described above, is kind of silly (sorry for the pejorative, but I couldn’t come up with a better word.), if you ask me. And again, if you ask me, and I know you didn’t, it’s completely illogical (a form of denial, I guess). The logic is something like: Use it up as quickly as possible (possibilities are always limited), burn it down if need be, and then see what happens next. I can see the wisdom in that.

                Anyhoo, I leave you to your ruminations. Best of luck to you.

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                1. Very depressing. It’s nice that people in denial avoid un-Denial like the plague. They’re ok arguing with someone that physical laws can be violated, but not ok with someone pointing out that they have genes that prevent them from seeing unpleasant realities.

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    1. Interesting, thanks.

      Dr. Varki does not know the mechanism that evolution used to implement denial of unpleasant realities. He has proposed researchers look for a mutation in the hypothalamus that occurred simultaneous with the emergence of behaviorally modern (God believing) humans 100-200,000 years ago.

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      1. I can see the usefulness of such a mechanism in an evolutionary sense as outlined by MORT. I’ve even known cases where the deceased, even though very close and loved, are expunged from the memory of surviving family in what seems to be a defensive measure. You could chalk that up to selfishness, but it could be a brain mechanism over which they have little control.

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  15. A few quotes from H L Mencken to put some clarity to the purpose of philosophy.

    ‘A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. By asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.’

    ‘Philosophy, as the modern world knows it, is only intellectual club swinging.’

    ‘Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses . He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself’.

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  16. @Monk

    – I’m assuming by “I” you are referring to consciousness and that the individual is aware they are their own entity.

    That seems a pretty good description of “I”. It seems that it is “I” that might be afarid of death and worry about reproductive fitness. IOW MORT is in service of what might be called “I”. That’s the point that I was getting at. I was reacting to Rob’s (confusing?)statement, that my “I” was a philosophical theory or something.

    As far as my own philosophy surrounding death and collapse and such, well, like opinions and assholes, everybody has one. One response is as good as the next, I’d say. If you think that hand wringing and finger pointing is somehow superior to “prepping” and whatever all that entails, all I can say is , OK.

    Breaking down a conversation into x,y,z premises and such is a specialized version of philosophy, formal logic. This is a just a conversation. We’re just “shootin’ the shit”, so to speak. At least that’s all i’m doing. No need to get your panties in a wad.

    Best of luck to you. And remember: The only thing better than dieing as an infant, is to never be born in the first place. I could make that into a sylogism for you, but I won’t.

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  17. Nice deep dive today by Nate Hagens on the relationships between oil, economy, and human behavior.

    He predicts the coming economic collapse will impact the global north the most thus freeing oil to be consumed by the poorer south.

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  19. There’s roughly 350 tigers in Nepal. That’s it. And apparently it’s a success story in Tiger conservation.
    Meanwhile at 43 degrees south we’re enduring our warmest July on record. I don’t think we’ve had a frost for the whole month. Just beggars belief.

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      1. Not retreating, just growing more slowly, far more slowly, than usual. Anomaly graphs are often posted on Twitter, which give the impression that the sea is is retreating but it’s just that the anomaly is growing (on the negative side).

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    2. Yeah, definitely something weird going on. I’m at 37 degrees south and we’ve usually had several frosts by now, and almost always multi-day morning frosts. But we’ve just had 3 frosts for June and July, only one in July and two consecutive slight frosts (just hit 0°C) in June. Some deciduous trees still have quite a few green leaves as though they forgot it was Autumn, a couple of months ago! That last point is very odd since I think it is day length, rather than temperature, that signals a tree to shed its leaves.

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  20. First time I recall hearing Patrick Ophuls. I like how he thinks. This short excerpt from a Dec 2022 interview summarizes the 4 biggest threats from reality denial.

    The full interview is also excellent.

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      1. Thank you Rob for bringing this gem of a discussion to our attention. I found it strangely consoling precisely because the stark conclusions exhort us to take our medicine that we deserve, without the spoonful of sugar to help it go down. Instead we can call upon our own courage to acknowledge and swallow the bitter pill of our own making. In Patrick Ophuls I found a wise, kind, but also stern and righteous grandfatherly figure whom you would trust to tell you the truth of his experiences without forcing you to believe it, and leave you to explore your own path and learn from the consequences of your choices. He paints with the same sweeping brush as James Hansen, another stalwart who has been more than patient in his admonishments, and equally disquieted by the plight of his grandchildren on this planet. Alas, it is rather late, probably too late to fully benefit from the wisdom of these well-meaning and sagacious octogenarians who are part of the last generation in our Western civilization to live through the carbon pulse in relative ease of physical comfort.

        I take heart from his practical and kindly advice for the young and those who have concern for them, which should take in account all of us. Practice a discipline to master one’s physical and mental self, learn a trade to solve problems using one’s brain and own hands, and find peace and equanimity through a spiritual seeking–wise and compassionate advice indeed from a grandfather who generously shares his life lessons well learned.

        I was rather in a downward spiral as of late with all the excruciating climate news but this podcast and Charles’ offering really perked up my resolve to carry on and bear witness to it all, and keep on planting trees without a moment to lose.

        Thank you Rob for sharing this space with all of us.

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        1. I agree Ophuls is a very wise and aware man. I’ve added some of his books to my queue.

          Glad you’re pulling out of a funk Gaia. There is so much bad news these days.

          I remain broken by our leaders’ covid actions (and inactions) and the majority of citizens choosing to remain ignorant. Now leaders and most citizens are re-confirming their ignorance with Ukraine.

          As Ophuls said in the interview, our leaders are normal fallible humans with a thirst for power.

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