5 posts tagged “b”
Preserving and increasing options is a major component of a self-saving world. Making it a habit would be a part of the answer to the question, How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? Time-inclusive thinking began when the first farmers planted their seeds instead of eating them (it must have seemed a risky investment). The story of civilization is the story of ever new forms of thinking ahead and the results of those forms. How the story will play out we have no way of knowing. The product of even the most imaginative and prudent forethought is not certainty but surprise. This is the reward for infinite-game generosity. Surprise plus memory equals learning. Endless surprise, diligent memory, endless learning. …
Stewart Brand in The Clock of the Long Now, 1999,
In this time of grave decision, when all the goodness in man must be called forth to subjugate the bad, when our survival depends upon the victory of wisdom and knowledge over stupidity and dogma, we would do well to pay heed to the word of a poet who has expressed the inarticulate thoughts of may of us who look forward hopefully to a more meaningful future for mankind. If the words of Rabindranath Tagore were to become the creed of all men, there would be little doubt that our civilization, and with it our freedom, would survive:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free:
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls:
Where the words come out from the depth of truth;
Where the tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action –
Into the heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Harrison Brown in The Challenge of Man’s Future, 1954
If it turns impossible to identify a gene for low reproduction, we should as grain growers drop the endeavors to achieve better nutritional qualities – i.e. a better amino acid balance - for the cereals. Then we should concentrate on localizing and introducing in wheat, rice, corn, sorghum and millet, a powerful gene for producing oestrogen, which then would bring the same effect as “the pill” in a more acceptable form.
I can imagine that this project would be classified as basic research of radical importance, doubtless to be financed by whichever of the large funding institutions.
Norman E. Borlaug in Wheat Breeding and its Impact on World Food Supply, in
K.W. Finlay et.al., eds. Proceedings of the 3rd International Wheat Genetics Symposium, p. 1-36. Canberra, Australia, Australian Academy of Sciences. 1968
When competing “experts” recommend diametrically opposing paths of action regarding resources, carrying capacity, sustainability, and the future, we serve the cause of sustainability by choosing the conservative path. This is the path that would leave society in the least precarious position if the path we choose turns out to be the wrong path.
Albert A. Bartlett: Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth and The Environment (Essay), 1997
Reality is that we (USA) are not first nor on may measures even a close second. Moreover, the reality of the future of our health care system, given the trends discussed earlier, is far from comforting, although in our illusions we can blithely treat health care as business-as-usual. Many experts and presumably some political leaders know we are on a sure path to disaster, but getting the society to understand this will be most difficult because there are many forces working to perpetuate the illusions for their own interests or their own peace of mind. The key to resolving the health care crisis ultimately will turn on whether society as a whole can break free of these myths and face head on the price of life.
Robert H Blank: The Price of Life, The Future of American Health Care, 1997
