sanity_is_maddening

Thank you for this. This is a phenomenal framing of the death of meaning.

This also has scratched an itch that has been bothering me…

Because I would say my biggest frustration with what you specifically described is how it bled through the common landscape of ideas. Through the whole social fabric.

It’s almost an infection in all forms of communication now.

It’s not just in ads, but journalism and even fiction or how art only seems to be presented as only viable as submissive to commerce and act merely as entertaiment or be condemned to oblivion where close to none can find it.

I’ll add a more precise example to what I’m trying to communicate…

There has been a strangely growing number of “eating the rich” pieces in all forms of media and art this decade.

Fiction especially seems to have escalated the rate in both literary and cinematic explorations. But it is clear that the current cultural landscape wants mere faint acknowledgement to act as consequence. Awareness is the only permitted punishment. Because then it has to forcefully act as the only form of absolution available.

So the invitation to mockery and the cartoonish portrails of the wealthy triggering the intended and controlled schadenfreude response is what is “sanctioned” for publishment or distribution. Because it addresses the existence of a problem but with enough distance from reality that it remains divorced of real world consequences. So bring on projects where the elite are just clowns or murdered in silly ways in silly thrillers and horror flicks but leave out of focus or frame, the consequences of their actions, or at least the more concrete and real forms of how real lives are affected by them. But especially and essentially leave out the possible and tangible ways in which the problems of the system that benefit them and negatively impact others can be spotted or dealt with.

There are projects who do not fit this description, but they don’t get much publicity, wide promotions or wide distributions in the end. Even when they get acclaimed runs in festivals or good critical reception. The “Machine” doesn’t get behind them.

Which is obvious in the end, after all, the publishers and heads of studios do belong much more to that faction in the class war. But if they play it well, they make it seem brave to finance these carefully selected projects to “the other side”, but just as long as these act as “casual roasts” of their peers, and not indictments that call for actual consequences. As it would be a call on themselves to actually change, or for them to also face consequences. In reality. And not just in just a performative plane.

So… “We may acknowledge the problem, just as long adressing that said problem is not permitted or at least inaccessible to most” becomes the approved and sanctioned approach.

Also to add another tangent to the death of meaning in the post-truth world… it is not a coincidence that in the current social paradigm of alternative facts and the subsequent alternative realities that people inhabit, the only form of universal concensus seems to be that the world as we know it is coming to an end.

And the death of meaning is an inevitable contributor to that conclusion, regardless of whom or from where one observes the world now. As it is an unsustainable reality from all angles.

The great tragedy is that onto itself the end of the world as we know it is not necessarily a terrible ordeal if people were allowed to perceive other ways of existing.

But as it stands, bleakness seems the only outcome as the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy running on a feedback loop of self-preservation.

Anyway… I hope I made enough sense in my rant in comparison to your sharply written and succinct comment. Again, I thank you for your words, even in your other comments in this thread.

I’m going to try and follow up on your writing.

We all need more people with your level of insight. And not in just “times like these”. But always.

So I wish you the best and hope to find more of your writing shared around along the way.

Cheers.

My kind of heroes. People who seek to better the world without seeking attention while doing it.

And there’s an app to help contributing to openstreetmap.

Here’s a link to it on f-droid…

https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/

While I do share your deep frustration regarding how the attention scale tips a lot more for the frivolous in the face of calamity, I have to say the way you are commenting is just a good example of how to not communicate with others in behalf of a cause.

You could harness the enthusiasm of people for this cause and redirect their attention to other issues, by claiming that this is a good example in how we can indeed fight back against the many injustices that are reigned over us.

If you instead intend to belittle people into it, you’ll get nothing but what you are getting here, which is… well, you can see for yourself.

Not to mention that you might be successful in demotivating people even further.

I try to raise as much attention as I can to Permaculture and syntropy or the syntropic method, and try to promote movements such as Degrowth, Veganism, Zero Waste and I never shut up about Precision Fermentation. But there’s a reason why I don’t call myself an Environmentalist, a Vegan or a Zerowaster and so on… even though in practice I technically do practice all these things - well, not all, not Precision Fermentation because I don’t have the money or infrastructure to do it, otherwise I would, and that is why I probably can’t shut up about it. But I don’t use distinguishing labeling to describe myself that may generate a sense of otherness to others. There’s literally nothing different about me because I do or practice any single one of these things or all of them. Any person can choose to do any of them or all of them at any point, and the only obstacle might be that they didn’t have the knowledge as to how or they didn’t or don’t have time and support to learn it.

When fighting for the environment or fighting fascism (It’s literally the same fight against the capital influence that dictates these conditions because of the few that want to thrive at the cost of everything else), it needs to start with making people feel less alone in the face of it all, and then reaffirming their sense of belief that any difference that they can make is a difference worth making.

You’re doing quite the opposite here. And believe me when I tell you this. Because I am on your side. Even your feeling of anger and resentment is one I share when seeing the apathy and complacency in the people around me everyday. I just learned my lesson that the pessimistic attitude and outbursts got me nothing but alienation. And from time to time I still need someone to do the same for me as what I am doing here for you now, someone needs to snap me out of all the rage and loathing because it accomplishes exactly the opposite of what I want to happen in the world.

I apologise if my very long message feels condescending, or if it makes you feel like telling me to go fuck myself. If it does, remember this… I’m on your side. I really am.

I’m not entirely clear as if you just meant that as a thought experiment… Because I wasn’t suggesting anything in that direction, actually. I was merely stating that the ratio of space required to grow food for the population in cities should match the vertical design of cities themselves. And even include these vertical farming structures within cities themselves. It all needs to match the design of efficiency in housing. Otherwise, it’s just a race to the bottom in how to run out of surface land and resources the fastest way.

Also, I want to mention that this idea that the entire lives of people would have to be dedicated entirely to farming has always been greatly exaggerated as to scare off people from procuring sovereignty for themselves and their communities. My girlfriend and I grow some of our food. I would say even if I took the task alone with the intention of feeding us both entirely all year round, it would take me about less then 2 months worth of work spread out across two seasons. That out of an entire year leaves a lot of time to spare. Not to mention, that I could use the same time to grow more for more people. After you put what you need in the ground, setting an automatic irrigation system, the maintenance work is not that much of a hassle, especially using the syntropic method within a permaculture design. The early stages of setting this up are laborious indeed, but after that, not really, not really at all.

This all to say that this is another one of those myths that capitalism has ingrained falsely in people as to keep the labour of the masses retained to the benefit of the few who gain the most from it. It’s about insuring the conditions where the elite can keep manufacturing the consent in others to exploit them. And insuring dependency is always the way to do it.

Farming wise, and regarding our current food systems, I think that people in general should learn more about syntropy if we are to communicate better as to what needs to be achieved. As it will mean different approaches depending on geography. Not to mention Urban vs rural settings would also require different approaches as well.

Then it would also be easier to gather support for innovations such as Precision Fermentation. Because using bacterial and microbial life to grow our sustenance is ingenious. The lower the trophic level we consume from, the lesser the destruction. And it would also be faster. Always.

If we truly insure true efficiency, we truly minimise destruction. And maximise the potential for prosperity for all, including non-human animals, plants and all other organisms.

Unfortunately the only efficiency that our current systems are designed for is to maximise profit. Which requires continuous growth, which is unsustainable and will ultimately lead to its own inevitable collapse. 6 of the 9 established planetary boundaries have already been breached. It’s only a matter of time now. As to how much time that will take and how much of the world will be taken with it, that is all tied to massive amounts of data for us to even fathom to process.

And AI is currently accelerating all this race to depletion in all fronts.

So, yeah, optimism right now, would be indeed for fools as you say.

Thank you for beating me to it. I 100% agree with you.

But I have to say, in order to meet the nutrient density requirements, they would have to completely reform the agricultural sector. Which I would love, but we know how this goes with these people.

And the fact that in 2025, we keep stacking people on top of each other to the point that more than half of the world’s population is living like this in cities, which is integrated in a vertical axis, but the energy consumption of the same people is still spreading elsewhere on an horizontal axis… that is foreboding the worst of outcomes in this regard.

The permaculture philosophy and the syntropic method would have to be integrated. And with it, vertical indoor farming in cities as a necessary response. But this would mean the end of monocultures and pesticide use. No more plowing either. Terrible for the microorganisms in the soil, means terrible for everything else. Soil policy would have to be in place as a baseline… it’s a lot.

But I keep saying this… Environmentalism, veganism, sustainability and ethics are all the same thing. The very same thing. It’s trying to insure that our lives as both the individual and the mass population causes the least destruction and suffering as possible. And that we can aspire to be net positive to all biological life on the planet. If the general population understood this, we could be heading somewhere. Unfortunately without understanding entropy and how the trophic balance is achieved, I doubt that one can understand syntropy or what the hell I’m even talking about right now.

But yeah… Syntropy vs Entropy is hard to explain in a small paragraph to the ADHD crowd of our time, I guess.

So… Optimism is just not in the cards. Not for me at least.