Peggy -
Steve Smith and Marcus wrote of GMO's and their concerns related to
how we seem to construct only worse disasters as we endeavor through
unnatural means to address ones we have already created.
I'm not sure Marcus shares my concerns, his commentary may be on the
meta-problem more than even my own.
I agree and add to their views with this:
"natural" is a term bandied about easily, but it is a very important
concept. Cells in our body and their entire method of working well and
keeping us healthy is based on natural design. Each time we use
unnatural designs for purposes of consumption, or for medicine, or
even placed in the air in which we live and breath, we contribute to
the destruction and alteration of billions of years of carefully
developed mechanisms. It is easy to work within natural systems to
feed and cloth ourselves, and these natural methods also protect the
rest of the animal population as well
.
Sadly, I am not sure it is as easy as you suggest. I fear we have
painted ourselves quite deeply into a corner, having built a population
load so large on top of mass transportation and mass production
(material goods and foodstuffs alike) as well as having
lost/given-up/forgotten many of the very deep knowledge and skills
required to survive without the neo-natural (not entirely un-natural but
certainly somewhat distant from what our phenotypic selves could manage
without the extreme prosthetic technological extensions we have
co-evolved with in the last 50 or perhaps 200 or perhaps 10,000 years).
I believe that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of our host
(planet earth) by a factor of 2 or 10 or 100 *without* the complex,
sometimes fragile and likely deeply damaging systems we have come to
depend on. I'm not rooting for an apocalypse but suspect that without
it, our only future is to race forward like the Red Queen, faster and
faster, to stay ahead of the rolling tidal swell of our own mistakes
made in generally good faith.
I know that sounds hopeless and it is not intended as such, just my own
ward against the two extremes of A) it is inevitable, we might as well,
full speed ahead, drill baby drill! OR B) "lalalaLALAlalalala!"
everything is fine, just buy things with the proper labels (organic,
natural, 100%, this-free, that-free, etc.) and invest our hoarded
capital in earth/human/animal/soul-friendly endeavors... and the rest
will sort itself (and maybe throw a few 1% under a bus, into jail,
through a gallows or a guillotine just to satisfy our blood-lust).
I do think that the many movements of awareness that lead to these
labelings and cautions and best-laid plans are well informed and
motivated and I don't want to undermine the achievements they are
making, I just don't want to pretend they are more than, at best a "good
start" and at worse an exercise in misdirection and false-security.
It just isn't quite as profitable.
I was once a rabid capitalist who thought the only way to live a happy,
productive, healthy life was to apply myself, work hard, hoard the
results of that work and apply them (re-invest) to various levers
(ignoring the screams of the people, creatures, etc. being "levered" or
worse yet acting as fulcra for my prizing things about to suit my
interests). Sadly I still function as one, even if I no longer
believe in the mythologies espoused by that religion.
Nick's references to Dionysian/Appolonian Ant/Grasshopper was very
apropos, IMO.
They say that "People who live in glass houses should not throw
stones", I'm pretty sure that is a trick used to keep people from
asking hard questions or pointing out inconvenient but obvious
inconsistencies in the status quo. It does weaken my throw when I
realize that I depend heavily on many of the systems I have come to
mistrust, even oppose. Perhaps instead, it should serve as motivation
to to improve my aim?
- Steve
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