David and Trip,
Brilliant post David. I agree with you overwhelmingly. May I offer we
convert this to a new thread with an enhanced MOQ twist?
Some musings....
THE GREENS
There are interest groups that have come to the conclusion that social
progress is unsustainable and a bad thing. Therefore they want to stop it.
Their beliefs lead them to intentionally distorting reality (ie lying) to
convince others that the world is going to hell so it needs to change courses
immediately. They make up data to hide the fact that health, wealth, water
quality, air quality, life expectancy, forest preservation and so on
routinely get better as societies gain in quality. Living the lie, they
become cancers to the progress of quality.
THE OSTRICHES
Then there are those at the opposite extreme, who ignore any negative
ramifications of social quality. They dismiss the dangers of progress
self-amplifying out of control and of the conflicting value potential between
levels. Aware of the hidden goals and the lies of the "greens," they make
the mistake of ignoring all the barometers of environmental quality. These
folks refuse to acknowledge that we can damage our environment or that
unfettered freedom can lead to the tragedy of the commons.
I think the MOQ leads us to a very different direction than either of these
extremes. The MOQ warns that social values can run contrary to biological
values (here simplified as our environment/ecosystem), but it clarifies that
it is critical to find a balance that preserves the underlying level while
strengthening the higher emergent one. How?
1) The MOQ suggests intellectual truth. We must empirically evaluate our
environment and resources. We don't lie about it for effect, nor do we hide
our eyes from it, but instead we lay out the truth so we can really evaluate
the pros and cons of our current state. We need to know our true problems
and our true strengths so we can make knowledgeable decisions. I am
determined to "take people to task" that distort problems (invariably with
lopsided attacks on free enterprise/democracy/science that are heavy on
problem, but void of solution or balance. These folks fail to see that
nihilism is not an improvement.)
2) The MOQ (at least Roger's version) suggests finding ways to improve
quality across all levels. Easier said than done. Regardless, the ostriches'
destruction of biology undermines the higher levels and the greens'
intentional assassination of social quality is similarly destructive to both
of the top levels. (In other words, the 'greens' and the 'ostriches' both
lead to the same place -- BAD KARMA.)
3) Roger also suggests that the answers to the problem of maintaining social
quality improvement while preserving the environment will come from a variety
of sources. We will make mistakes along the way and we will stumble upon
unintended victories. The key is to try differing strategies and keeping
relatively unbiased measures of our success. Some ideas may need to be
collective (Though these are very risky. History shows that collectives --
even when they accomplish what they set out to do -- often find they chose
and solved the wrong fricken problem). Others will will be decentralized or
distributed solutions. Inherent in this last point is that each of us may
define the problem wrong, or use overly biased measures, but that together we
can find a solution through a dynamic cooperative/competitive journey.
As usual, I could be wrong
Rog
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