Dark ecology

From this article:

"Religion is the point: the religion of complexity. [...] There is human-scale change, and there is industrial-scale change; there is change led by the needs of complex systems, and change led by the needs of individual humans. There is a manageable rate of evolution, and there is a chaotic, excitable rush toward shiny things perched on the edge of a great ravine, flashing and scrolling like sirens in the gathering dusk."

Which reminds me of that I wrote here:

I've also suggested that perhaps there is a time for us to decomplexify. It might be appropriate given that our current socio-economic system is depleting natural resources faster than they can be regenerated. This on top of the fact that our fossil-fuel energy system is destroying the atmosphere and oceans at an alarming rate. All of which is directly tied to this notion of unlimited growth, as is not coincidentally our models of complexity. Hence the degrowth movement advises us to live within our means and our ecological limits. All of which might very well require us to take a step back on our complexity obsession to survive. As both articles make clear, biological evolution has repeatedly become simpler when necessary. Instead of thinking that more complexity is the answer to our so-called meta-crisis it just might be that it is the cause and that we might need to engage more voluntary simplicity at this point in our evolution.

 

I can hear the cries already. But that would be a regression! It would be going backwards! But only if we unconsciously accept the premise of unlimited growth and complexity in one direction. It would after all be in line with evolution itself, which the complexity crowd purports to claim as their own premise. Perhaps we should listen to what evolution actually does instead of following our current dysfunctional obsession with ever-increasing complexity and growth? There's a move in Tai Ji Quan called Step Back and Repulse Monkey. This seems the right time to practice it.