added malthusian thoughts

Book/DRAFT.md

@@ -756,21 +756,22 @@ Jeff Schmidt described this as being conservative, which was correct in a manner
 
 The threat of exclusion is a constantly wielded scalpel with which to make social and psychological modifications and it is nearly impossible to conceive of the fine line whereupon a balance is discovered between useful stressor, destructive disabler, or aspect which incentivizes erroneous, malicious or simply redundant behaviour. Shame and the threat of being prevented access to resources might serve as sources of effective and corrective forces in certain situations, such as with little children and preventing them from consuming poison, but how do we know the limit at which it becomes inappropriate or serves such as to cause the prevention of developing the proper incentive structures within professional disciplines?
 
-Both the liberal view and the idealized view of the Communist (at least insofar as Marx himself had fantasized about) is that a human should be able to pursue their affairs without coercion (at least to the extent that they are not causing violence to others -> first order physical violence) or oppression and domination through the advantage of one's access to capital (communists). This is a good place to ask if the common ground might, at least as far as ideological conceptions are concerned, indicate that there is a universal value at hand which should inform oume and time again and which remains a huge threat in the sense that we do need professionals, and we could benefit tremendously by having some sort of publicly-coordinated research facilities, which is what universities fulfill in some capacity, or have at least done so traditionally, even if it's come to be a situation where even those who apologized for their many missteps years ago have now come to wonder if they do more harm than good. In fact, when I refer to the broad pursuit of collectivism as though it were a cult (and yes it is). That is not to be argued in the sense of there being some formally declared membership to a specific organization, but the fact of this functioning as a cult and, because of the congruence that various domains bear towards one another, like heads of a hydra, because of their logical pursuit of the same end impossible end result, they relate to one another in a manner wherein one head supports the adoption of the proliferation and interfacing with another head.
+Both the liberal view and the idealized view of the Communist (at least insofar as Marx himself had fantasized about) is that a human should be able to pursue their affairs without coercion (at least to the extent that they are not causing violence to others -> first order physical violence) or oppression and domination through the advantage of one's access to capital (communists). This is a good place to ask if the common ground might, at least as far as ideological conceptions are concerned, indicate that there is a universal value at hand which should inform time and time again and which remains a huge threat in the sense that we do need professionals, and we could benefit tremendously by having some sort of publicly-coordinated research facilities, which is what universities fulfill in some capacity, or have at least done so traditionally, even if it's come to be a situation where even those who apologized for their many missteps years ago have now come to wonder if they do more harm than good. In fact, when I refer to the broad pursuit of collectivism as though it were a cult (and yes it is). That is not to be argued in the sense of there being some formally declared membership to a specific organization, but the fact of this functioning as a cult and, because of the congruence that various domains bear towards one another, like heads of a hydra, because of their logical pursuit of the same end impossible end result, they relate to one another in a manner wherein one head supports the adoption of the proliferation and interfacing with another head.
 
 This is always the recurring programming coming from the cultists: identify a vulnerable person and suggest that their very whim must be met so long as food can be prepared. That is to say, so long as the absolute destruction of all of civilization hasn't yet resulted, the consequence of not meeting the whim of any vulnerable person whose identity can be posited as being a description of the great plight of the future existence of mankind, then it can be assumed that we'll suffer an eventual civilizational collapse, alluded to perhaps simply by saying that we are failing to evolve in our historical environment which includes such and such calamity, such as the loss of a species of fauna, or a change in the expected pattern in some particular locale.
 
-Though it may seem to be tangential, "aff..tepin", or even a diversion in order to go all into such matters as a preamble to categorical description, we need to be closer to understand what manner of definition is sought by the true believer -> one which rests upon not just an ontologically-driven assumption about man, but one which demands the acknowledgment of the capacity to define man -> to insist on a belief that not only is the true nature and meaning of humanity and human life knowable, assertable, and these things on the basis of an imposable morality which must be followed by any who participates in the discussion, but that it is ultimately the purpose of man to attain the capacity to arbitrarily define itself until no possibility of encountering constraint can occur.
+Sometimes this is referred to as resilience, particularly in the wake of new initiatives surrounding sustainability. That is to say, they speak of resilience s though it is a reinforcement of infrastructure, an upgrade in the materials being used, the adding of redundancies to ensure that infrastructure and services re not disrupted in the case of a catastrophic or somehow unforeseen event, but that isn't what is referred to, at least not in the discourse of governance and civilizational or social planning (which are often stand-ins for the same thing, without actually referring to just things that are social or just things that are infrastructure). The transformations that are expected (and that, again, is a key watchword as has been elaborated on by a whole sleuw of liberal (classical) thinkers today) to take place in the sensibilities of the citizens (and even non-citizens, or those who aren't adequate to be identified as true citizens of the transcendental super nation) insofar as it is they themselves who are resilient to the changes that will be imposed on them in the form of a reduction of services, energy availability and so forth. The rationale behind and such changes is for the human type who is identified as being vulnerable through a process of having ascertained them as such based on social theory and that, as a particular mitigation is necessary to ensure that an eventual civilizational collapse will not occur, all other less-vulnerable citizens can afford to be more resilient. This can be argued both on the basis that they have a resource and privilege buffer which allows them to take on the prospect of material loss, as well as on the basis that the eventual collapse would incur more of a material loss for said persons anyway, thus making this the less costly of a prophesized dualistic set of possible outcomes.
 
-## Cults and Totalism
+Though it may seem to be tangential, even a diversion in order to go all into such matters as a preamble to categorical description, we need to be closer to understanding what manner of definition is sought by the true believer (one which rests upon not just an ontologically-driven assumption about man, but one which demands the acknowledgment of the capacity to define man) to insist on a belief that not only is the true nature and meaning of humanity and human life knowable and assertable, and that these things are the basis of an imposable morality which must be followed by any who participates in the discussion, but that it is ultimately the purpose of man to attain the capacity to arbitrarily define itself until no possibility of encountering constraint can occur.
 
-TODO: put in the description of a cult and cite references which probably should include James Lindsay and Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism by Robert Jay Lifton.
+## Cults and Totalism
 
+> "Thought reform has a psychological momentum of its own, a self-perpetuating energy not always bound by the interests of the program’s directors. When we inquire into the sources of this momentum, we come upon a complex set of psychological themes, which may be grouped under the general heading of ideological totalism."
+> "..."
+> "In discussing tendencies toward individual totalism within my subjects, I made it clear that these were a matter of degree" - Robert J. Lifton (Ideological Totalism)
 
 ## Neo-Malthusianism
 
-The Malthusian spirit might not be something in all those who share his goals, or even ......
-
 So the premise is the set of assertions that includes the following:
 - Nature is treacherous
 - We utilize technology to mitigate the danger of nature
@@ -789,9 +790,43 @@ Again, this is because of a historical sensibility, which is to say that it's no
 
 If their expression of being is made to manifest incorrectly, it is at best a latency-inducing frivolity and at worst the regressive and insensible entrapment of the entirety of human kind and human culture into a most stagnant and unnatural form of reality; a falsely-lived life for all others simply because one cannot put to rest their urges and most fallen and simple, animalistic aspects - one's for which it is man's capacity to resist and overcome which is the most basic demonstration of having evolved from mere animal to a thoughtful and conscious being.
 
-We will need to delve into the more classical understanding of Malthusianism in order to make sense of the world today. In particular, we will see how manuscripts of the early Club of Rome analyses - we can see already, even after knowledge of the Soviet Atrocities, the interests of the day were still such as to assume that Marxist Analysis is necessary and that a Marxist objective should be sought.
+We may need to delve into the more classical understanding of Malthusianism in order to make sense of the world today. In particular, we will see how manuscripts ( !NOTE: Decide if we need this) of the early Club of Rome analyses - we can see already, even after knowledge of the Soviet Atrocities, the interests of the day were still such as to assume that Marxist Analysis is necessary and that a Marxist objective should be sought.
+
+### Malthusian Dialectics and Transhumanism
+
+The Neo-Malthusian influence has left a lot of the older generation intellectuals with a perspective extending firstly from the assumption that humans are treacherous to nature, and that nature is treacherous to us. That the relationships at the base level is one to be described by disharmonic excesses of pointless activities motivated by the fact that man's animalistic urges have not been made consonant with his capacity for grandiose schemes and a need to imagine himself as something larger and extending beyond his own life.
+
+Our ability to harness our faculties in conjunction with the materials provided by nature allows us to imagine that we are, in effect, controlling nature, or at least refining our ability to reform and direct nature en route to inevitable mastery, but this simply means that we are capable of disturbing the balance of nature long before ever becoming capable of moulding it correctly, which is itself an ambition which is likely to never reach fruition. In the short term, we mitigate the immediate danger of nature to the long term detriment of the natural world as a whole.
+
+There is perhaps a break in the representation of Neo-Malthusian influence in modern times, particularly among the older generation, but even as it extends into today's youth, in that the influence of Neo-Malthusianism appears to go off in two different directions.
+
+There is a Neo-Malthusian influence which remains among much of the older generation, and which even influences the younger generation (though it may present in a few different ways that are more directed towards social activism and transhumanistic desires) and I'm trying to consolidate two schools of thought which appear to have bifurcated from that domain of thought (the Neo-Malthusianism).
+
+1. A desire to master technology and nature such as to bring harmony between the existence of man and the natural world. This may include a transhumanistic development of human cognition and biology such as to allow for the potential to live a full life which affords humans limitless experience without incurring the pitfalls of resource depletion and mishandling, environmental degradation and the perpetuation of increasingly tumultuous climatic cycles which threaten to make existence on this planet unsustainable for human beings (and perhaps all life as a whole).
+
+2. A desire to reduce all human activity and energy utilization to a net-zero or even absolute-zero equation wherein there is a perfect displacement of energy and transformation of matter such as to allow for the existence of some humans in a manner which does not disturb the natural world. This would allow perfectly equilibrated systems to perpetuate themselves and thus reinforce nature's propensity towards a robust and ever-lasting expression of life.
+
+Some might refer to these two incarnations of Malthusian thought as being one which still contains a modicum of techno-optimism, which might be referred to as Neo-Malthusian Techno-Optimism, and that this modern articulation of Malthusian influence is more compatible with the transhumanistic aspirations of both technocratic interests as well as the tech-infused yearnings of young, pop-culture infused entertainment seeking individuals who hope for all the life-enhancing benefits and experience-expanding affordances of technology without early, disciplined investment in their physical well-being, while the other would be characterized by a more Eco-minimalist manifestation of Malthus-inspired thinking which is more prevalent among the older generation.
+
+For the younger, more transhumanistically inclined expression of modern Neo-Malthusianism, we can consider some of the following sources:
+- [An Eco-Social Perspective on Transhumanism](https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/an-eco-social-perspective-on-transhumanism)
+- [Transhumanism Degrowth](http://viznut.fi/texts-en/transhumanism_degrowth.html)
+- [The Future of Innovation](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318466857_The_Future_of_Innovation_Hyper_Innovation_Slow_Innovation_and_No_Innovation)
+- [Beyond Capitalist Realism](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-02-26/beyond-capitalist-realism-the-politics-energetics-and-aesthetics-of-degrowth)
+
+Many would contend that it's absurd to consider that Malthusianism would lead to something as Transhumanism, because the thinkers and authors of works derived from institutions such as the Club of Rome, who published "The Limits To Growth", contended that technological expansion was not a possible means of overcoming the impending loss of resources. But, of course, such thinkers would need to consolidate the fact of their failed predictions, particularly stringent ones which claimed quite outrightly that we wouldn't have certain resources, such as copper, by a time that is now long behind us.
+
+To such critics, however, I would respond in communicating that Malthusianism is predicated on a necessarily collectivist world view which deals with a historicist conception of the world and compels an expectation of an eschatological endpoint which, according to their worst predictions, serves as some form of judgment for the ills of mankind. Any sort of collectivist understanding of the world requires a shared endpoint and a description of reality based on a state of world in a process of becoming, and that this inescapably means a dialectical way of thinking about the world.
+
+When thinking dialectically, we are always in a spiraling course of re-imagining the terms of the world as concepts that are never fully-formed but that are always developing against their contradictions into syntheses which represent the next stage of understanding in the course of human history. As such, we can turn to the use of the dialectic in supposing the manner of thinking which allows the human mind to aspire towards Malthusian principles while desiring the benefits of technology so long as they are in line with a future endpoint of liberated humanity.
+
+1. The dialectic always progresses
+2. Programs are implemented by the state
+3. Excuse will be made similarly to noting that standard of living changes in negative correlation to birth rate, at certain scales
+4. A truly scientific society will account for all resource use and thus need to be both developing transhumanistic tech while being sustainable
+5. Most transhumanist tech is developed on the basis of treatments which are intended for the masses in a dialogue which includes consideration to overpopulation, such as vaccines
 
-So, now, to our categorical definition, which is bound by imminence in that it is an object which relates to every man and, thus, is ontologically consistent with man as a process of engaging in his self-definition. It is not man himself and not necessarily the aggregate of him, nor his geist. It is the object relating all then and serving in such a capacity that, upon its imminent attainment, marks the phase whereupon evidence of man's nature finally manifests by virtue of the conditions which were now made palatable by man's own hand, such as to make him "man in himself".
+These considerations can inform our categorical definition of communism, which is just a formal artifact for the logical conclusion of collectivist thinking and which is bound by imminence in that it is an object which relates to every man and, thus, is ontologically consistent with man as a process of engaging in his self-definition. It is not man himself and not necessarily the aggregate of him, nor his geist. It is the object relating all then and serving in such a capacity that, upon its imminent attainment, marks the phase whereupon evidence of man's nature finally manifests by virtue of the conditions which were now made palatable by man's own hand, such as to make him "man in himself".
 
 Its definition is then the promise that man can and, by virtue of logical extension of such an assumption, should bring about the moment of his true reality. It is the binding of all men to this imminence but it also requires one last contextual element in order to make this understanding complete.
 
@@ -1156,7 +1191,7 @@ The criticism of this would be to say that the state would then turn its attenti
 
 But the solution to that is easy - you just need to keep refining the process and the content within the state until there exists no contradiction between any of its components. That is to say, until such point that all men are one mind or that there is only one man.
 
-So while there may be some aesthetic difference in the theory, we are heading to the same endpoint and always beacuse it's the purpose of man to move through conflict until the distinctions are eliminated.
+So while there may be some aesthetic difference in the theory, we are heading to the same endpoint and always because it's the purpose of man to move through conflict until the distinctions are eliminated.
 
 
 2025-01-31 18:18:35