Ecodharma: An Alternative Last Chapter, written by Jundo

[Jundo]

Dear All,

I thank all of you for keeping this group going, aided by Kokuu and Doshin.

I ask a favor though: I have written an alternative ending to David Loy's fine book, and I ask you to read it, comment on it, to speak honestly about it. It is okay to call it madness.

It is radical, written in pain and frustration at what we are doing to this planet. I do not see a choice. Some may say that it smacks of 'science fiction,' but not according to what I read and follow regarding new developments in technology, and many experts I speak to (although there are many skeptics there too). At least, it has moved from the category of "impossible," to "perhaps possible," if not "likely."

Some may think my idea immoral, extreme, but to me, the true extreme immorality is to let things continue as they are, allowing children and countless others to suffer or die for our inaction and stubbornness. As well, at the end of the chapter I propose a way to undertake these measures purely voluntarily, by free choice without compulsion, with all due respect for libertarian values and civil liberties, even in a crazy world where countless people refuse a free vaccine to save their own lives.

Please have a read, and know that I am sincere in this. After having read David's book, just as you have, I do not see a better and more effective way. Extreme crisis may necessitate a few extreme steps.

... alas.

My chapter is this (PDF File, feel free to download):

An Unorthodox Strategy on Climate Change (and Generally Saving the World)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LyM...ew?usp=sharing

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kokuu]

That is so UNLESS (as I propose) a group of “White Hat” researchers and activists, “Good Guy” billionaires and political leaders head the “Black Hat” bandits and bad guys off at the pass, get their humanitarian hands on this technology and use it to devise and speed the evolution of good and caring human beings rather than half-human/half-machine marksmen and warehouse stockers. Let us make a world of concerned citizens and humanitarians rather than passive citizens and compliant consumers.

Jundo,

This for me, is a huge problem if it forms the underlying basis of your argument, and cannot be passed over in a paragraph as a given. How can we rely on billionaires, corporations and politicians to get out of a mess which they have played an enormous part of getting us into by encouraging consumerism, playing down the risks of fossil fuels, and feeding into our most base instincts to pit nations and groups against each other.

How do they suddenly become the good guys, and start to put the wellbeing of all ahead of their own power, greed and success as they always have done? This needs explaining.

If we take political leaders and billionaires coming good as an underlying assumption, why not just get them to make better policy in terms of the economy, energy production and sustainability? Under that scenario, many solutions become viable.

Although the solution you are offering seems to be technological, at its heart rests the same issue we are dealing with now - how do we get the people in power to make better decisions. Or, flipped on its head, how do we get people to vote for leaders who will make the hard decisions needed to give us a fighting chance rather than those who promise a fantasy that we can continue to live as we currently do?

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Jundo]

This for me, is a huge problem if it forms the underlying basis of your argument, and cannot be passed over in a paragraph as a given. How can we rely on billionaires, corporations and politicians to get out of a mess which they have played an enormous part of getting us into by encouraging consumerism, playing down the risks of fossil fuels, and feeding into our most base instincts to pit nations and groups against each other.

How do they suddenly become the good guys, and start to put the wellbeing of all ahead of their own power, greed and success as they always have done? This needs explaining.

It takes powerful people, money and capital, political power and influence to make large projects happen, and to counter-act other powerful people, with their money and capital, political power and influence. I assume that not all rich people are evil (it has been so throughout the history of Buddhism, from Emperor Asoka, the first great sponsor of Buddhism in India, through China and Japan to the United States: Upaya Zen Center would not exist were it not for investment by a Rockefeller https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=...feller&f=false). I do not believe that all rich people and social leaders are evil just because they are wealthy and powerful.

The Gates Foundation, whatever Bill's motives, saves millions of lives:

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-health/malaria

It takes foundations with vast resources to fund these kinds of programs, not $5 contributions from ordinary Joes.

But no investment, no vote, no legislation will have lasting effect until we alter the human body and mind to moderate our most terrible drives.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jishin]

This for me, is a huge problem if it forms the underlying basis of your argument, and cannot be passed over in a paragraph as a given. How can we rely on billionaires, corporations and politicians to get out of a mess which they have played an enormous part of getting us into by encouraging consumerism, playing down the risks of fossil fuels, and feeding into our most base instincts to pit nations and groups against each other.

This is incorrect. You and you alone elect who is and who is not a Billionaire. If you are not happy with them vote with dollars or actual political votes.

How do they suddenly become the good guys, and start to put the wellbeing of all ahead of their own power, greed and success as they always have done? This needs explaining.

Again, you are blame shifting. You are responsible.

Although the solution you are offering seems to be technological, at its heart rests the same issue we are dealing with now - how do we get the people in power to make better decisions. Or, flipped on its head, how do we get people to vote for leaders who will make the hard decisions needed to give us a fighting chance rather than those who promise a fantasy that we can continue to live as we currently do?

I my opinion you don't. Humans are inherently good and evil but because of technology, the evil has outpaced the good. It's a matter of time before the world ceases to exist as we know it.

My 2 cents.

Jishin, Gassho, ST, LAH

[Dogukan]

Jundo,

Thanks for your alternative chapter. I appreciate your honesty - although the degree of honesty of your text makes it quite difficult to comment on it.

One can list numerous reservations as to why your proposal should not be implemented. You can list dozens of points as to why your proposal should be implemented without any delay. The grounds for people's acceptance & refusal will inevitably be controversial as the very basis of your proposal marks quite a radical shift from what we've known and acknowledged as "our world" for centuries.

First off, we are the results of a very long and extremely complex evolutionary process. If the moral basis of your proposal is based on the fact that there is no superiority of the human species over other beings (so we can change human genes), then what will prevent us from using every single means of modern science to make countless changes to make the world a perfect place, a heaven below, a Pure Land? Why we will find it enough to make some necessary changes to prevent calamities, genocides, and other cruelties while we are able to change everything? Why should we have to grieve when someone we love dies, for instance? Why should we shed tears? We can eliminate this as well, with some gene manipulations. Where are the exact ethical boundaries?

I also share Kokuu's concerns. Yes, all rich people are not naturally evil. Yet, money is not an infinite commodity and by simple math, if someone earns a single penny more than the others, it means that someone here or there earns a penny less. In the case of the big capitalists, these pennies are hard to calculate. Therefore, practically speaking, if your proposal will one day come to fruition, these genetic changes need to be made to the entire world population at the same time. Because even just a group of rich people whose "greed gene" hasn't been altered would be quite enough to destruct our "paradise lost" in less than a year - while we are dealing with an optimistic group of volunteers.

Well, these are my concerns. I am sure that you understand them, you must have asked these questions too. But if we're stuck in the dilemma of "genocide or genetic manipulation", or if the question is "die without a single drop of water in the next decades or let me inject you something" - well, the answer is clear. It's ironic, though, that after decades of speculations that AIs will humanise, we've come to the point where humans "artificialise".

After all, I enjoyed reading it. The text has some rather convincing parts. But... Well, you know. Can't say I share your enthusiasm. It still seems to me like a dystopia (regardless of its efficiency) rather than a joyful solution. However, radical solutions keep the human mind alive. Thank you for giving me something to think about.

Gassho, Doğukan.
Sat.

[Tairin]

Thank you for sharing this text with us Jundo. I am not surprised by the contents since you’ve posted similar proposals before here at Treeleaf. My thoughts are the same now as they were then. To me it is abhorrent to consider essentially drugging the masses to save ourselves. But I also wish people would stop assuming we humans can continue to live our destructive lifestyle and that science and technology will somehow save us. I wish that somehow we all could find the strength and resolve within us to do the right thing for the sake of ourselves, our children, and the planet. Ah if wishes were fishes….

As I think I’ve made clear in my comments through out the book chapters, I believe it is too late for us to solve this problem by resolve alone. We’ll never get enough people to give up their lifestyles. So yes as much as I dislike the idea I believe that the only way to save ourselves is by applying a multitude of solutions, natural and technology. I also think that we humans aren’t going to suddenly shed 2 million years of developed evolution in the next decade so we likely do need some sort of reprogramming.

I wish it wasn’t so.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Jundo]

Hi Dogukan,

I do not feel my vision to be dystopian, and quite the opposite: "Dystopian" is the "Mad Max" horror of hunger, violence, conflicts over resources on a polluted planet that will come if we fail to act, as described so well in David's book. Imagine how our present world would be if we could just radically reduce or eliminate many social problems such as child abuse, violent crime and prisons, drug abuse and alcoholism, homelessness and hunger (due to the upping of our inborn trait of empathy for others), reduction of excess consumption, many or most wars and much more, replacing the ability to allow others to suffer with the caring that one feels for one's own parent or child. It would not be a perfect world, but imagine how much nicer this world would be just without those problems alone.

... what will prevent us from using every single means of modern science to make countless changes to make the world a perfect place, a heaven below, a Pure Land? Why we will find it enough to make some necessary changes to prevent calamities, genocides, and other cruelties while we are able to change everything? Why should we have to grieve when someone we love dies, for instance? Why should we shed tears? We can eliminate this as well, with some gene manipulations. Where are the exact ethical boundaries?

Actually, it will be quite possible soon simply by someone plugging themselves to a virtual world in which the data input through all senses will be so fully replaced, and so detailed (perhaps in combination with drugs which enhance the reality of the experience), that it will be indistinguishable from how we experience this world now. It will last so long as the electricity keeps going. Some may choose such a life, like the Heavens of the Devas in traditional Buddhism in which every pleasure is granted. I believe that others will opt for a more ordinary world such as ours, with love and loss, ups and downs, yet with the extremes of suffering, greed, violence, crime, poverty etc. mitigated.

I also share Kokuu's concerns. Yes, all rich people are not naturally evil. Yet, money is not an infinite commodity and by simple math, if someone earns a single penny more than the others, it means that someone here or there earns a penny less. In the case of the big capitalists, these pennies are hard to calculate. Therefore, practically speaking, if your proposal will one day come to fruition, these genetic changes need to be made to the entire world population at the same time. Because even just a group of rich people whose "greed gene" hasn't been altered would be quite enough to destruct our "paradise lost" in less than a year - while we are dealing with an optimistic group of volunteers.

It is a question about which path will be dominant. I tend to feel that good will win out by simple math: If many of the world's people are made good, but some or many others remain bad, the bad may dominate for awhile due to their violence and aggression, and willingness to control others. For example, a Putin or Ted Bundy might not willingly subject themselves to this treatment. However, it is doubtful that the bad folks would change most of the good people in the world to bad, for then they would simply become competitors in evil. What the bad folks might seek to do is pacify the masses, enslave them or just turn them into docile citizens. However, hopefully a few underground groups will be able to keep working to turn the bad people good. (Frankly, when it comes to criminals like Putin or Ted Bundy, my interest in free choice and civil right to choose goes right out the window, and this treatment should be administered to Putin and Bundy even against their will). Once the bad people are turned good, they will no longer do bad because physically incapable, nor wish to go back to their former evil selves. New Putin and Bundy would be incapable of returning to their prior evil state. The good will soon come to overwhelmingly dominate, the few remaining baddies will be far outnumbered, and the slaves will be freed. Good has to win mathematically.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Amelia]

This is a lot of speculation. I think we will have to see just how time and discovery actually treat the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw

Gassho
Sat, lah

[Ryumon]

Ecodharma: An Alternative Last Chapter, written by Jundo

This is incorrect. You and you alone elect who is and who is not a Billionaire. If you are not happy with them vote with dollars or actual political votes.

I strongly disagree. The deck is stacked, the game is rigged by those in power. It always has been.

Plus, you may live in a country that has free elections, but the majority of people in the world do not benefit from that.

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat

[Jishin]

I strongly disagree. The deck is stacked, the game is rigged by those in power. It always has been.

Plus, you may live in a country that has free elections, but the majority of people in the world do not benefit from that.

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat

It is a terrible thing to feel that others are responsible for your situation and you have no control over your life. Very depressing.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Ryumon]

Ecodharma: An Alternative Last Chapter, written by Jundo

As just one example, I live in a country where, right now, a new prime minister is being chosen by 160,000 members of one political party. Tell me how I have any control? In the US, you have minority rule because of the electoral college, gerrymandering, and because of moneyed special interests.


Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat

[Jishin]

As just one example, I live in a country where, right now, a new prime minister is being chosen by 160,000 members of one political party. Tell me how I have any control? In the US, you have minority rule because of the electoral college, gerrymandering, and because of moneyed special interests.


Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat

Move.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Bion]

Move.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

Can’t argue with that one. [emoji1787]

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Prashanth]

Move.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

To steal an analogy:

Bring me a single mustard seed from a country where no inequality, no poverty, no climate change, no unfairness exists...


gassho.

sat

Sent from my GS190 using Tapatalk

[Ryumon]

Move.

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

That’s a clever, zenny one-word answer, but assuming that people have both the legal right to move to another country, and the finances to do so, is incredibly naive. Tell that to the billion or so Chinese that would like to live in a democracy.

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat