¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 We will all be refuges from civilization, needing to migrate to a new humanity – the societal butterfly. Those in refuge camps and those challenging poverty in the slum rings (favelas) surrounding many cities on Earth are populations ripe for uplift. Hear Stewart Brand on Squatter Cities. Where to place those flooded out by rising sea levels? Where to place the new population growth?
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Many people would, if they could, migrate to another, safer, better place. Where to go? All good places are already occupied, and few places look that much better. Iceland? New Zealand, Finland, Cuba?
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 I have a wild proposal for the physical aspects of humankind’s migration.
¶ 4
Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0
Populate the vast ocean’s surface
with high tech platforms for
humans to live and work.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 These will be for habitat, food and energy production,. Permanent, self-sufficient “new land” for all aspects of human life. I once called them floating archipelagos. Linked platforms to survive severe storms. Use our trash for construction. Buildings would lower to below surface during storms. Platforms under & surrounding for sea life natural farming – artificial continental shelves. Wind, solar, wave motion, tide, and temp differential energy sources; fueling water desalination and all other power needs. Other platforms for food production, for CO2 sequestration, factories, and for computer server farms. Design and implement a staged development – with well organized experimentation. Model as the Apollo Program with sub-projects and boundary management. Set up modular, semi-automated production facilities (factories) on coast lines. Design for optimum socialization. Integrate uplift education into the design/construction/establishing processes.
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Design as if space colonies, for survival in worst case climate change scenarios. Strategically vacate land regions for recovery. Design construction from renewable energy sources and put no drain on current Earth energy sources. Non polluting. Contribute to ocean recovery and designed not to significantly harm oceans. Ocean de-acidification projects if possible. How might they effect weather patterns if they become extensive?
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 Existing human cultures and societies are not transported to all ocean platforms. Some are dedicated to the emergence of a nu humanity, with experimental societal systems.
¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 The whole project should be NON PROFIT; where participants are ensured a good lifestyle. An alternative global economy. Start small with experimentation, but design for exponential growth soon after. In a way, aiming BIG may be the best way to succeed.
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 This can be done without support from the top elites; but it would require collective effort well beyond what we have yet witnessed. Strategies would be needed to keep the top elites from blocking this enterprise or co-opting it. Proving an outlet to reduce pressure on established systems and not threatening to confront them may be a negotiation strategy.
¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 Relate this to my EXODUS model from 1998.
8 Responses
faboolous No I was not aware of them. Thanks.
Larry, did you ever come across these guys: http://www.seasteading.org
While my mind is on it, I need to record another alternative place for some humans to migrate to: VERTICAL CITIES STRUNG TO MOUNTAIN TOPS LIKE CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS.
Not all mountain tops. Those experiencing rapid glacial melt may need to wait centuries. I fantasized this for the 9,000+ ft Mountain Range north of Tucson, with Canadian climate. There is a quality paved road to the summit, where there is a village and ski slope. It is already part developed and no longer “wilderness”, although only a small % is developed. Vertical cable car transportation could be constructed that uses gravity so only differential weight and friction need require additional energy. Different sites at different altitudes. Water collection and distribution. When the atmosphere heats up, mountain tops may be the place for some to migrate. Food production regions could be researched for mountain tops.
I also reflected back on Cities in Flight, and imagined the floating platforms being independent, able to navigate, float with currents, visit the Arctic, meet at times and the separate floating platforms dock. With care and technology, humans could inhabit the oceans, surface and depths.
With high tech, we could colonize the Arctic and Antarctica. I wintered over at Byrd Station, Antarctica fall 1960 to spring 1962. Food production systems are also possible. I recently read a questionable article about Nazi plans to colonize the Antarctic.
OUR PRIORITY must be the replacement of contemporary societal systems and to stop greenhouse gas emissions ASAP. The Earth’s climate will continue to change whatever we do, so imaginative adaptation is also necessary – but with the long term very seriously in mind.
jonasthanatos nuet Alex, I appreciate your unique perspective and freedom to express it.
I agree, our Strategy should be commensurate with our Challenge: ENORMOUS.
FLOATING ARCHIPELAGOS FOR REFUGES FROM CIVILIZATION are only one of many theses of our metamorphosis. Initial experimentation can, however, begin before UPLIFT commences.
Our future alternatives are varied. We gain little from thinking about those that may manifest if we don’t succeed.
A big concern about the viability of this enterprise is whether the floating platforms could be made safe from destruction by storms and how stable they could be made (continuous rocking would not be tolerated). I feel this can be technologically solved, which should call for experimentation. Secure covers for platforms should be possible. Rings of floating barriers around platforms might soften the wave motion inside. With weather prediction the platforms may be moved away from the core of storms. They could even migrate for the seasons, and even summer in the Arctic.
I am reminded of the SciFi novel CITIES IN FLIGHT by James Bliss. http://www.christopherseddon.com/2008/04/cities-in-flight-by-james-blish.html It appears I had read only one of the four novels. My main objection to SciFi is that it seldom considers significant changes in the nature of humans and their social systems. There are a few exceptions, but even these only tweak human nature. Much SciFi are “Westerns” in space – different venues to explore the vagaries of contemporary humans.
I am not one who looks to technologies (material and social) to provide easy tricks for humankind to continue its destructive ways. On the other hand, the ingenuity of humankind is truly awesome. Had the technological mind been directed towards other challenges our world would be radically different today. No human (and I include myself) can come near to appreciate how BIASED our “sense of reality” to the specifics of our development and situation. We are buried in knots of systems of perspectives/paradigms/barriers. The gap between how we conceive ourselves today and the wide diversity of possible future “states for humanity” is as wide as the gap between the mind of a four year old and a forty year old in the 21st century.
Can we learn to embrace our infancy?
nuet jonasthanatos My estimate, which I admit is optimistic, is that we are the fruit – good or bad fruit! – of a new evolutionary branch that branched off, away from the other older apes, roughly 7 million years ago. Some might say that this is a delusional timeline for humanity rather than an optimistic guess, and I grant them their criticism. It is delusional.
With that being said, I can’t think of a better project for humans to get involved in than the furthering of that beautiful timeline which is 7 million years in the making. If it requires us to build these refuges, then so be it. We will all be the better for it, or rather future generations will all be the better for it. It’s not about us, really, it’s about them, our future great-great-great-grandchildren.
I think that we may need people like you, Larry, precisely because you are a visionary. You might not be a visionary leader, but you are a visionary nonetheless, a visionary thinker. We can’t all be shakers & doers, I myself am more of a philosopher and even a contemplative than anything else. It’s the alignement that is important, I believe, the way that a – potentially increasing – wide diversity of individuals can come together to work on a single master project together.. for the good, well, for the good of everything really, the planets, the stars, the universe.
Or nothing might happen and we might be left behind as carcasses, and thinkers like us forgotten in our own lifetimes. But I think at times if you’re going to dream, then you better dream big, and if you’re going to have a Master Narrative or Story about Humankind, then it had better be Grand, even Grandiose… why not even a little delusional? They can all call it science fiction if they want.. but to me it is something extraordinary, something to believe in, to put my twopence in, and my fair share of person-hours.
(Nota bene: I fear at times something strange, I fear sounding like Timothy Leary, like I am bellowing something like, Let’s all fly out into outer space! Let’s colonize the stars! I’m not saying that, but then who knows, maybe I am. It’s been nice chatting with you.) 🙂
jonasthanatos Alex, I appreciate your acknowledgement of the potential of this proposal. It has been more than a decade in Nuet. I am still not getting emails when others comment on my blog posts. In fact, there was no indication of any NEW comments when I looked into my Dashpad. But, I felt the need to look into comments.
There is an enormous gap between ideas and proposals and manifesting them. PRACTICALITY has been my other drive, but few recognize it when contrasted with my Big Picture ideas.
Let us dialog on how to build a movement to bring this about. I feel that ALL such projects will only manifest as part of an UPLIFT movement. Yesterday I realized that uplift was no only about the competency of persons, but the whole infrastructure that seafed their learning and interactivity in collaborating.
Now to look at your second comment. THANKS ALEX.
I find this to be one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve ever had the chance to stumble upon. We should be building these immediately. I would be willing to put 12 hours of intense physical labor per day on a project like this. It’s too important. We cannot afford to gamble our futures away any more.