DocWatts

You laugh, but we were incredibly lucky to get through the 20th Century in one piece, as a civilization ending thermonuclear war could have broken out at several different points during the Cold War had events played out just a little differently. Not like there was any real plan in place to prevent that from happening; we were just incredibly fortunate to have individuals with good judgement in place during those key moments. Likewise, it would seem incredibly presumptuous to consider an eventual ecologically caused civilizational collapse an impossibility if things are bungled badly enough, despite forecasts of it happening in the next few decades being off the mark. Hell, if global civilization continues with 'business as usual' without making significant changes, such an outcome is not only likely but probably inevitable.

More likely that the brunt of the suffering and conflict will take place in poorer regions of the planet that had little to do with creating the problem, as completely unfair as that is. That's not to say that the rich nations will come away from the Climate Crisis unscathed. Expect a worldwide refuge crisis over the next century as parts of the world become unlivable, with all of the political instability that entails. Add to that potential for resource wars over things like water, and things could get ugly indeed. Wealthy areas that lie along coastlines (or are below sea level) in places like Florida or the Netherlands may simply have to be abandoned due to rising sea levels, if significant resources aren't set aside for things such as sea walls. A significant portion of the world's economic and technological output may have to be redirected to addressing Climate Change, which may translate in to lower (or at least stagnant) living standards for much of the world; something that could have been mitigated if the problem was addressed sooner. All of these are far more likely than a global civilizational collapse, especially in the next 50 years. I don't see such an eventuality being completely off the table if things are bungled badly enough, but it's highly likely it will be a long, drawn out affair that won't happen everywhere at once. Unlike case studies such as Rome, we have no idea what it would take for a civilization with nearly 8 billion people to collapse, nor what that would look lile.

As an aside, not going out and engaging with the rest of society is a huge problem I see with the likes of a number of popular Intellectuals (such as Sam Harris), who massively overestimate the influence that Academia has on the rest of society, and subsequently use Academia as a distorted (or more charitably a highly partial) lens to evaluate all of SD-Green (or just to theorize about social trends more broadly). When in actuality if they spent more time among the lived realities of ordinary people they would understand that a large portion of the country (at least in America) living hand to mouth, with the feelings of anxiety and resentment which that entails, is a much more relevant attractor point for societal trends than what's taking place on a handful of college campuses (or in the online debate space).

Arnold Schwarzenegger on the myth of the "self made man."

I'm fine with a 1000 page book, but I do wish he didn't have to devote so much space to re-explaining things he's already written about in ten other books. Maybe different starting points for newcomers and returning readers might be useful in a hypothetical revised and edited edition of some of his longer books.

As it would be a good extension of your Spiral Dynamics series, and it would be interesting to get your take on other types of developmental models (such as the video you did on Susanne-Cook Geuter).

That's correct but it largely misses the point. It's basically the equivalent of when Libertarians take great pains to point out that the United States is a Constitutional Republic rather than a Democracy. When you know full that when someone from the contemporary era mentions democracy they're referring to a Republic rather than an Athenian style democracy. Likewise, since the aforementioned stateless society has never been achieved, Communism is a perfectly functional label for Socialist countries with a Centrally Planned Economy, even if it's not 'correct' in a technical sense.

I'm sure the irony of an 'all quadrants all levels' approach itself being true but partial is not lost on Ken Wilber That said, I do think the model is more useful in some ways than Spiral Dynamics, though I'd imagine it would be of limited utility to someone who's not already versed in developmental models.

@Radu97 Just out of curiosity, how knowledgeable are you about the Roman Empire to be making such a comparison in the first place? Because if there is a (very loose) analogy to be drawn, the final Century of the Roman Republic would be a far more instructive case Study than the eventual collapse of the Western half of the Empire centuries later.

As someone who listens to a huge volume of podcasts, audiobooks, actualized.org content, etc, I actually completely agree with this. You're not going to get nearly as much value out of any of these things if you don't take time to pause, reflect, and integrate them in to your life. I would also say the same thing is true of reading Books as well. I question the Wisdom of finishing a dense book on any topic, and then just diving in to another dense book immediately, without allowing the mind time to integrate and synthesize new ideas and concepts.

Thanks!

:Title: Been meaning to change mine, but I must have missed the widget to do so on the page to edit your profile.

Game Developer/Artist here. We live in a time where it's easier than it's ever been for one person (or a few people) to create a game. Game engines like Unity use a streamlined drag and drop interface, along with a simplified scripting language that's much easier for non Coders to pick up and learn than Programming Languages of olde (such as C or C++, which are quite a bit more difficult for newcomers). Other engines like GameMaker Studio or RPG Maker allow someone to make a game with limited or even no coding. That said, there's a lot more to making a game than knowing how to Code; game design is a Skill, every bit as much as learning how to play an Instrument is a skill. Furthermore, it's a skill that involves many hats such as Digital Art, Graphic Design, and UI Design just to name a few. But these are things you can learn if you have the motivation to. And things that aren't your strong suite (such as sound design or digital painting) are things that you can bring another person in for. That said, will one or two people working on a game in thier spare time create the next Skyrim or Fallout? Of course not. But there are plenty of highly successful and innovate games that were made by either one or just a few people. Something like Undertale is one of the most highly rated games ln Steam, and was made by one dude who learned game design by working on ROM Hacks (ie mods) of old Snes games.

Renting a House is in many ways the best of both worlds: avoids the downsides of being crammed in to an apartment complex, as well as the downsides of actually owning a House: namely maintenance costs like having to fork out $10k to replace an aging leaky roof for instance, or the possiblity of being underwater on a mortgage if your Life circumstances change.

This. I appreciate (and have enjoyed listening to) his perspective on metaphysical topics, but it's a bit like opening a Ken Wilber book and having to read through yet another lengthy explanation on the Four Quadrants, something that you've read through five times already... (Though I guess getting compared to Ken Wilber isn't the worst thing in the world )

While you might be able to sell people at Orange on some of the surface elements of Green by presenting arguments for it on Orange's own terms (ie "Ecologically sustainable businesses are more profitable!" Or "The Materialism paradigm is actually bad science"), generally speaking people move from one value Meme to another because thier current paradigm isn't working for them. Perhaps they are feeling emotionally unfulfilled, or thier value Meme is causing them dysfunction in thier lives. Or maybe they came face to face with one of the ugly realities of thier worldview (such as economic exploitation), and that causes them to have an existential crisis. Or perhaps their life circumstances changed, and they now find themselves a wage slave confronted with the brutal realities of what life is like for a poor person. Perhaps they do some psychedelics, and have an experience which causes them to start questioning the assumptions behind thier Materialist Reductionism paradigm. To put it mildly, moving from one paradigm to another is a really big deal, and not something that can be undertaken without a serious reexamination of one's basic sense of Self Identity.

The benefit of smaller countries like Finland decarbonizing is that they serve as a Model or Case Study for the larger countries to look to; both to prove that it can be done, and as a sort of working model or template that can be learned from and adapted to the particular circumstances of different countries. Sort of similar to how Universal Basic Income is being experimented with on a small scale first, with the hope that it can eventually be adapted to work at increasingly larger scales.

For sure. Was thinking about this as not only a way to step back and gain a bit of meta-perspective, but I was also considering how I'd approach the subject in a casual conversation with someone who's not necessarily versed in topics such as epistemology or ontology.

Interesting way of framing it. I assume that the realization part is what makes Spirituality distinct from Philosophy, which also deals in metaphysics. Thanks, I'll check it out. Though I never found an 'Investigation in to Truth' to be a useful definition, since there are many ways of Investigating Truth. Science, philosophy, and the various religious traditions would all make that same claim. Tossing Spirituality in to the mix doesn't specify what makes it distinct; though I recognize it can certainly inform all three.

I can't see such a thing being even a remote possibility until humanity develops to the point where there's not vast differences in wealth, power, and more generally human development among different regions of the planet. The only reason that something like the European Union works is because the center of gravity for that region is at world-centric (rather than an egocentric or sociocentric) worldview. And it certainly wouldn't be possible under current global socio-economic conditions, where the world economy depends to a large degree wealthy regions of the planet using thier developmental advantages to exploit less developed regions. Perhaps when the center of gravity for the entire world is at roughly SD-Green (rather than roughly SD-Blue/Orange, which is where it's at right now), something like a Federated World Government might be possible. But it almost certainly won't be in our lifetimes.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/6/15/22533396/democrats-congress-decriminalization-marijuana-drug-policy-reform-act The Bill is known as the Drug Policy Reform act, and would Federally decriminalize personal possession of small amounts of all Drugs. It would also reclassify a bunch of substances as no longer a Schedule 1 Drug, opening the door for Legally sanctioned Trails for Medical and Health benefits. The Bill's overall goal is treat Drugs as a Public Health (rather than a Criminal) problem, and would more or less end the War on Drugs as it currently exists. That said, obviously there's no way in Hell this is going to pass both the US House and Senate. But the fact that a Bill like this is even being considered goes to show just how far the Overton window has shifted in favor of a more open minded and humane approach to Drug Policy. Something like this being openly discussed in the US Congress would have been unthinkable just 10 or 15 years ago.

The North Korean State isn't really a government so much as it is a Hostage Situation involving 25 million people...

To be fair, weed's pretty much legal in much if not most of the US by the point. More perturbing is that the US Incarcerates more people - both the total number and per capita - than any other country in the world. More even than China, an authoritarian State whose with roughly four times the population of the US.

Coming from someone who works in the Industry, I'd argue that the Gaming Industry is as spread out over the Spiral as any other entertainment media such as films or books. Much of the Indie gaming scene has already been Green for some time now. The second best selling PC Games of all time, Minecraft, is just as much an educational tool that encourages creativity as it is a Survival video game where you fight monsters. Encouraging to see some (but by no means all) of the bigger studios beginning to adopting Green values. The most Progressive large gaming companies tend to be a mix of Orange and Green; namely they're Orange in thier business model, and Green as far as thier Company Culture and their Social (rather than economic or business) Values.

https://theconversation.com/us Would highly recommend The Conversation as a high quality, complex news analysis source that's relatively neutral and unbiased. Vox also does very good reporting and analysis, though they do skew Left (not a big deal if you know that ahead of time, and get your information from a variety of sources)