Three Urgent Truths

The human race is on the verge of extinction. To avert extinction, we need to spread the following three truths, which presently are not widely known. Some political activists are spreading one or another of these truths, but few are spreading all three.

1. The ecosystem is nearing collapse, due to climate change. Our situation is worsening gradually, but faster and faster. And we’ve been misled about how much faster. (It’s growing exponentially due to feedback loops, with occasionally an additional abrupt acceleration due to tipping points and cascading failures.) The headlines all talk about what will happen “by the end of this century,” but we may pass the point of no return by the end of this decade. Drastic changes before then might still fix things, but we’re not making drastic changes, because of truth #3, below.

2. Our rulers are madmen, playing chicken or “Russian Roulette” with nuclear war. Each year that we continue with nuclear brinkmanship is another round of the deadly risk. The fact that we haven’t had a nuclear war yet does not mean we’re safe. Quite the contrary – we’re gradually becoming more unsafe. (The waiting time until first occurrence of a Poisson point process diminishes exponentially as the time interval is increased.) The only thing that can make us safe is friendship and disarmament. But that’s not happening because of truth #3, below.

3. Capitalism does not plan ahead. Our rulers, driven by the market, concern themselves only with the short-term private profits that will keep them in power one more year. Thus they do not concern themselves with externalities, the destructive side effects of their actions. If we continue to be ruled by profit, it will soon kill us all. We’ve been ruled by private wealth and hierarchical power for 12,000 years, and it’s hard to imagine any other way of life. But for the previous 300,000 years we shared as equals, and that’s still what we teach our kids, still where we turn in crisis, still who we are genetically. That’s what we must resume in order to survive, but it will bring us far more than just survival. To end capitalism, we must spread an understanding of the need to end capitalism.

Help spread the word.

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2023 Jan 31, version 1.01.

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