Undulating Ungulate

August 25, 2010

machine that turns plastic into oil

Read that headline again.
Holy fucking shit.

So simple, so brilliant.
There is hope.

Filed by billy at 10:53 pm under technology,utopia
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July 11, 2010

wade davis

is the man.

I blogged one of his TED talks a while back, and since then have explored further. Last year he gave the 2009 Massey Lectures in Canada. They are fucking awesome, and if you snoop around you will probably find the audio available somewhere online (Not sure if it is legit, so not linking; his SALT talk on the same themes is here.) (EDIT: actually, the talks seem I am on about seem to be here fairly legally )The lectures are collected into the book The Wayfinders.

His fundamental message – that the diversity of world-views adds to the collective wonder of humanity, and that each of these world-views has astonishing depth and richness and makes a unique contribution to that collective – comes at an incredibly relevant moment in time.

We are facing a cultural mass extinction, and a corresponding impoverishment of the human collective. We face a linguistic catastrophe – around half the languages spoken in the world are going to be dead in a generation. With each language we lose a world-view, a way of understanding and being, a unique set of answers to the questions posed by humans – who are we? what are we? why are we? how do we survive? what does our existence mean?

His grasp of diverse cultures and ability to express them is second to none. His talks are a hell of a ride. Appreciating what is at stake through his examples is literally mind-blowing. The diversity of human belief and behaviour is staggering.

I find it flat out inspiring. There is a massive convergence with my own work on consciousness, belief, and world-views, though from a really different point of entry; and I can see potentials that excite the heck out of me. There is something hugely important here.

Filed by billy at 12:53 pm under consciousness,culture,language,oblivion,reading,research,the world,utopia
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April 26, 2010

looking to the future with hope

It is no secret that Buckminster Fuller has been a huge influence on my own thinking. I have watched a bunch of TED talks lately, and a couple of talks stood out as people who were picking up aspects of Fuller’s thinking, consciously or unconsciously.

Ray Kurzweil is known as a prolific inventor, and as the singularity guy, positing a technological singularity a-coming real soon as the technological growth curves go exponential. This extends the curve’s on Fuller’s own observations of accelerating acceleration and increasing ephemeralization (basically, being able to do more and more with less and less, as the amount of information and inventions we have increase ever faster) into the 30 years of data post Fuller’s death, and extrapolates from that.

Anyhow. In his talk he links a few developments he sees coming as the curves explode upwards, and it is pretty fascinating. Particularly the stuff on the intersection of biology and technology.

(Embedding fubar. Get it here )

He really grounds the sense of how damn different things are going to become. (This reminds me of Erik Davis’s interview with RU Sirius, in which Sirius noted that a coming gamechanger was the point at which widespread nanotech fabbing and open source designs collide – being able to make anything anywhere cheaply – was a point at which fairly unimaginable social changes occur.)

The other talk was William McDonough on cradle to cradle design. This to me reflects another aspect of Fuller – comprehensive thinking, and applied design science as a solution. The work the cradle to cradle people are doing is amazing and important – providing a breakdown to the parts per million of the environmental effects of materials – to allow designers to design better stuff, with an awareness of the environmental impact of the entire life cycle of a product. The high point for me was his description of the seven cities they had been commissioned to build from scratch for the Chinese government, based on their principles. Again shades of Fuller, and his Old Man’s River City designs – the difference being here they are really happening. The description of the cities – a vision of how a city can be an integrated healthy functioning organsim – is incredibly inspiring.

For some reason the embedding isn’t working today: so get it here william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design.html)

So yeah. I guess I am glad that people are picking up on the comprehensive and optimistic parts of Fuller’s thinking; and also, as with Fuller, that more people should know what these people are thinking and doing. We act according to what we believe is possible. And so much more wonderful things are possible than we think.

Filed by billy at 12:53 pm under technology,the world,utopia
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December 23, 2009

On Copenhagen

The Copenhagen talks failed to reach a binding accord that deals with the scientific reality of climate change. This effectively is committing to radical sea level rises and unpredictable local weather effects, massive population migration and millions of unnecessary deaths.

Thus our current social organising systems and structures – democracy and capitalism – have demonstrated they are maladapted to the present environmental context we face. I called this a few months ago, and stand by it.

Thus they need to be replaced. Or rather, rendered obsolete by new people’s movements. We can adapt in our own lives to face the reality of our times. We can organise directly within our communities and horizontally across the world between illusory nation states. We can, and must, take responsibility for ourselves and our world, and do things differently ourselves. Expecting our systems to solve the problem from above is to willfully embrace a fatal ignorance.

The failure of Copenhagen is the wake up call. Change is coming, and it us up to us to engage with those changes: to lead.

Hmm. Looking through the archives, I find this:

I remain optimistic – in the most general sense, we currently have enough resources to make the planet rock for everyone, if only we did things really differently, starting right now – however some days do seem darker than others. And the fact of a fundamentally broken economic system based on illusion, a fundamentally unsustainable approach to resource use and the planet, and an incompetent corporate owned media that will have to face its total failure as a means to inform people in democracy – that these things will collapse in on themselves, while causing a mess, provides us with the opportunity to replace them with better systems. And we are free to do this. In crisis lies opportunity. This is the source of my optimism. For the unfolding crisis is upon us.

Find the others. Get involved.

Er. Merry Christmas.

Filed by billy at 12:58 pm under oblivion,the world,utopia
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October 23, 2009

350 international day of action SATURDAY

If you somehow don’t know yet, 350 is about getting a sane deal for the climate – one which allows for human civilisation to continue – at the Copenhagen talks in December. Oct 24 is an international day of action to put pressure on decision makers at those talks.

Lots of groups and individuals have organised amazing events and actions that will take place around the Wellington region on 24 October. Come over and join one of the many activities to show that you want action on climate change!

* Opening – Dawn ceremony at Brooklyn Hill at 6pm
* Climate Action Festival
* Ecotherapy
* Lanterns of Hope
* Cycling for Sustainability and Safety
* Frocks on Bikes
* Silent Meditation, Contemplation or Prayer
* The Big Stretch
* Ice sculpture from 2pmâ€“4pm
* Biggest Kiwi in the World! at 3.50pm!

Get out and do something.

More information: http://www.350.org.nz/wellington/international-day-of-climate-action

Filed by billy at 3:51 pm under new zealand,the world,utopia
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October 8, 2009

Make a submission on the Climate Change Response Bill

The Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill 85-1 (2009) is about to go into select committee. Submissions to the select committee are due by Oct 13.

Under National, the bill effectively seems to involve the public subsidising polluters to the tune of $2 billion/year until 2030, and not doing much that is effective about climate change. This is pretty shit, really, and worth opposing.

Thus it seems well worth every environment/sanity/survival of the species inclined person in the country to submit to this select committee. IN our legal and government system, submissions to the select committee are probably, pound for pound, the most relevant and effective political action one can take.

You can download the bill here.

You can make an online submission here. This is pretty darn easy.

Advice on making submissions is here.

If you want some ideas about what specific things to say, here is one example, and the greens have some ideas here. On the whole it would probably be better if it was put in your own words rather than cut’n'paste, though.

Filed by billy at 1:09 pm under new zealand,no mercy for john key,politics,the world,utopia
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September 28, 2009

amazing UN video contest

If you had the opportunity to speak to the world leaders, what would you say? Hey, here’s your chance.

The gist: make a video, send it in, the people who make the best five get flown to New York to address the UN…

Here’s UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon pimping it, yo.

This is actually cool on all sorts of levels.

Entries close October 10th.

Filed by billy at 10:13 pm under technology,the world,utopia
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September 25, 2009

global wake up

Went along to the Avaaz flashmob on Monday. (If I ever work out how to get photos of my new phone, there are pictures… ) They were coordinating a worldwide climate action wake up call to world leaders. The results were pretty successful, garnering “more than 2600 events in 135 countries across the globe.” This is a video culled from the demonstrations.

Heartening that actually there are people all over the world who get it and willing to do something, however minimal, about it. Also interesting as a sort of dry run for the 350 day of action on 24 October, as this was way more spontaneous, and 350 has way more organising behind it…

In general it seems to me that if the Copenhagen talks fail to come up with global measures to ensure our survival by reducing emissions to a sustainable level, then our current social organisation modes of capitalism and democracy will have demonstrably failed, effectively proving they are maladapted to coping with the present environment and world situation, and therefore will need replacing.

Filed by billy at 11:32 am under the world,utopia
2 Comments

September 4, 2009

Kseniya Simonova

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who won Ukraine’s Got Talent (!) with these totally freaking amazing and unbelievable sand animations. Watch now.

There are a whole bunch more here.

This may be the most beautiful random stuff I’ve ever seen on the net. Wow.

Filed by billy at 11:29 am under culture,utopia
1 Comment

September 2, 2009

glimpsing the future

The UK Royal Society’s review of geoengineering argues for a 2-step back up plan in the 50-50 event that current moves to curb global warming at 2 degrees fail – a series of sun shields, and tech-heavy methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (argument for tech rather than tree planting is messing with ecosystem is where we go wrong).

Meanwhile, on the incipient resource wars front, China is restricting access to rare minerals.

China currently accounts for 93 percent of production of so-called rare earth elements â€” and more than 99 percent of the output for two of these elements, dysprosium and terbium, vital for a wide range of green energy technologies and military applications like missiles.
…
Even tighter limits on production and exports, part of a plan from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, would ensure China has the supply for its own technological and economic needs, and force more manufacturers to make their wares here in order to have access to the minerals.

In each of the last three years, China has reduced the amount of rare earths that can be exported. This yearâ€™s export quotas are on track to be the smallest yet. But what is really starting to alarm Western governments and multinationals alike is the possibility that exports will be further restricted.

Oh yeah. Interesting times a-coming.

Filed by billy at 5:16 pm under oblivion,politics,the world,utopia
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