[pf] Fork in the evolution road

by Kaleopono

21 December 2000 08:35 UTC

The news note that Jill forwarded about a phosphorescent potato developed to
glow when it's thirsty so that farmers will know when to water their fields
provoked and agitated me.  I've been a farmer.  At one point I bought a
moisture meter but found it a pain to use, without getting in return any
truly useful increment of new information.  The quickest, most efficient and
effective way to tell if my plants needed water was to observe them during
the course of my daily farming activities, and regularly stick my finger
into the soil in various parts of the field to gauge its dampness.

Soil is remarkably variable even in a small field and some parts retain
moisture better than others.  The farmer necessarily must work with
averages.  Great precision isn't necessary and isn't worth the cost.  Also,
different crop plants require less or more water.  How can the glowing
potato compensate for such differences?  The cheap eye-and-finger method I
used didn't add a penny to the cost of production.  Farmers have used it for
centuries, and have done just fine, haven't they?  Do modern farmers really
NEED a glowing potato to tell them it's time to water their fields?  These
biologic, technological instruments must be specially handled and planted
separate from the crop plants they monitor.  Well, just imagine the profits
coming to the manufacturer of the "small hand-held device" that is necessary
to detect the potato's glow -- no doubt to be sold as a cutting edge high
tech device and very costly, too!

Increasingly it is apparent to me that humankind is at a fork in the
evolution road.  How are we going to assure that an adequate supply of food
and other resources needed to sustain our lives can be maintained?

One path is the road of persisting in the practice of routinely and
systematically increasing our dependence upon a widening stream of new,
incompletely known, still largely experimental technologies that:  1) must
be purchased at high cost from monopolistic, multinational corporations that
control the supply and therefore the price; 2) aren't really necessary in
the first place, but are developed because someone thinks a profit can be
made off the novelty of the new technology; and 3) require not less but as
much or often more human management, manipulation and control than previous
methods of attaining the same end.  (This is not an exhaustive list of this
path's characteristics, but does point out the direction in which this path
leads.)

The growing-dependence-on-technology path is hubristic, arrogant,
shooting-for-the-moon, high risk, betting-the-whole-bank (the accumulated
savings of the entire town and community) on a single deal of the cards.  It
is propelled by the commanding selves who, like dogs that are ruled by a
stimulus-response mechanism, lunge for each morsel that falls to the ground
without discrimination of any kind.  They grab and swallow whatever comes,
unchewed-untasted-unsavored-unexperienced-unknown, in a single gulp so that
no competitor can get any share of it.  Me first!  I'm the top dog!  Then
they hurriedly sniff the area to see if there's any other opportunity they
can gobble up before another dog can get to it.  This path choice includes
an escalating snuffing out of life forms that do not serve an immediate,
profit-producing purpose for a small number of gargantuan multinational
corporations.  Not only the surrounding physical environment, but also the
substance of life itself, will be controlled, efficient, industrialized,
sterile, unfulfilling, unloved, despiriting....

This path of gargantuan, centralized, winner-take-all industrialized systems
will behave more and more like an out-of-balance flywheel, the rotational
speed of which is being steadily increased because the operators just keep
stoking the engine in single minded pursuit of more economic power, growth
and presumed trickle-down prosperity.  As the speed continues to increase,
the vibratory oscillations arising from the imbalance will become more
pronounced.  At a certain point the holding capacity of the weakest link
will finally be reached and then that component of the system will fail.
When the catastrophic failure occurs (as it surely will:  consider Bhopal,
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, aircraft that fall out of the sky, the Exxon
Valdez, the natural gas pipeline explosion in Texas, the contamination of
non-GMO corn with Starlink corn, global warming, terrorism, drugs and other
health issues, the rising sea level, more costly devastating storms,
dropping water tables and vanishing potable water supplies, declining
fisheries, denuded forest lands, the spread of insect pests as well as plant
and animal diseases, and on and on and on) the vibrating flywheel will cause
the manmade machine upon which we all ride and have staked our very
lives...to explode into smithereens.  Once initiated the life support
system's disintegration will likely be immediate, uncontrollable and
unstoppable.

Given the prevailing culture, assumptions, attitudes, sociology and
psychology of persons wielding power around the world, it is not a question
of if but only of when the disintegration of our life support system will
occur.  The signs are all around us that the triggering event is near and
approaching closer.  Why is it that so-called conservatives are pursuing
this path of all caution thrown to the wind?  The blind are leading the
blind.  The world is upside down.

The other path available to humankind at this fork in the evolution road is
the truly conservative one of among other things, deliberately slowing the
pace of human-driven change.  This path will give highest priority to
restoring and then maintaining the wholeness and the vitality of the natural
ecological systems of the earth.  All the equally entitled life forms (our
sisters and brothers) that these systems sustain ought to be vigorous and
thriving.  We need to stop encroaching on and destroying their territory.
We need to stop polluting their territory, and our own.  There is a great
deal of accumulated damage to be undone.

Those following this path of restoration and affirmation of life's spiritual
foundation will seek to minimize human perturbation of the natural life
support systems that have evolved over millions of years.  There is ample
opportunity to create long-lasting, stable positions that provide family
livelihoods and meaningful and rewarding work to everybody if this path is
followed in preference over the other one.  This path is one of humility,
appreciation, thankfulness, concern for all, caution, patience, balance,
respectful awe of the Creative Power that far surpasses human capabilities.
This path holds far greater promise for humankind's long term survival than
does the
full-steam-ahead-with-solid-fuel-rocket-boosters-if-we-can-find-and-strap-th
em-on-industrialization-of-everything-no-matter-what path.

Whew!  That G-force is doing weird things to me!  And to you, too, I bet.
Nobody can keep track of everything that's impinging upon their life and
livelihood.  Living gets more and more frantic, more and more conditional
and uncertain.  What's the rush, anyway?  Ho'omanawanui, "make the time
stretch out greatly", take it easy, relax, keep your life in balance, don't
stress out, enjoy what you are doing, appreciate the flow of the aloha
spirit as you work, do each task to the best quality of which you are
capable, don't be careless and sloppy or cut corners deliberately.

Looking at it from the perspective of the billions-of-years, evolutionary
timescale:  if phosphorescent potatos are destined to replace farmers' eyes
and fingers for the task of determining when crops ought to be watered, it
surely won't matter whether they are introduced today or 100 years from now.
In the evolutionary timescale, it will still be instantaneous.  Taking 100
years will assure ample time for relaxed consideration of the possible
consequences of their introduction, and whether there is really any point to
widespread use of this new, manufactured life form in the first place.  The
new organism's behavior under widely varied conditions can be observed and
evaluated.  With no compulsion to hurry in lunging dog fashion, stress
within all parties will be reduced not increased.  Life will be more
enjoyable and satisfying.

Similar self-restraint and time stretching would be beneficial in all
technological areas.  Meanwhile, the odds that life will go on indefinitely
will steadily improve.  Humans will be better able to enjoy and savor life
in general and their lives in particular.  We might even become really
civilized instead of conducting our affairs in the same manner as packs of
dogs.

Kaleopono