Not doing is indeed it. The Achilles heel of modern industrial civilization is the lack of restraint across all facets of human activity. The worst and most damaged of us never ask whether something should be done, only if they can get away with it. The sad part is that once the tribal Dunbar limit was broken, the natural prevalence of dark triad traits in our species were no longer effectively kept in check. So Earth restoration is an exercise in dark triad trait mitigation at scale.
"We started doing a research project recently on what the equivalent of sociopathy and dark triad traits and indigenous cultures were, and we haven't finished, but this is something I'm very interested in and for the most part, what we've seen so far is there was radically less of that trait, because there wasn't an evolutionary niche for it. Because in a small Dunbar tribe, if you lied, everybody knew you lied and if you screwed somebody, you were screwing the people that your life depends upon, and so in that small environment there was just not a niche for it. The niche came later. I did talk to a Lakota scholar who said in the Lakota tribe, if a kid had the traits that they referred to as the equivalent of sociopathy, the whole tribe worked to heal it in them and if they didn't heal it in them at the rite of passage ceremony of puberty, where they become an adult, they were killed, because they said that if that didn't happen, those people when they grew up always caused war."
Important conversation, and I'm looking forward to the "Saving What's Left" session at the Global Earth Repair Convergence!
Thanks Anastassia. I am working this into my blog post. No internet, ...becoming with nature. ;-}
Yes, John, and with a sense of danger, too
https://substack.com/@anastassiamakarieva/note/c-252693981?r=125bs1&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
There were interesting comments on LinkedIn by Chris Christodoulou (B. Eng)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7458469019524739073/?dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287458841326026047489%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7458469019524739073%29
Not doing is indeed it. The Achilles heel of modern industrial civilization is the lack of restraint across all facets of human activity. The worst and most damaged of us never ask whether something should be done, only if they can get away with it. The sad part is that once the tribal Dunbar limit was broken, the natural prevalence of dark triad traits in our species were no longer effectively kept in check. So Earth restoration is an exercise in dark triad trait mitigation at scale.
"We started doing a research project recently on what the equivalent of sociopathy and dark triad traits and indigenous cultures were, and we haven't finished, but this is something I'm very interested in and for the most part, what we've seen so far is there was radically less of that trait, because there wasn't an evolutionary niche for it. Because in a small Dunbar tribe, if you lied, everybody knew you lied and if you screwed somebody, you were screwing the people that your life depends upon, and so in that small environment there was just not a niche for it. The niche came later. I did talk to a Lakota scholar who said in the Lakota tribe, if a kid had the traits that they referred to as the equivalent of sociopathy, the whole tribe worked to heal it in them and if they didn't heal it in them at the rite of passage ceremony of puberty, where they become an adult, they were killed, because they said that if that didn't happen, those people when they grew up always caused war."
- Daniel Schmachtenberger