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Rabbit Holes š³ļø #43
From utopia factories to disposability culture and lots of thinking, not enough contemplation
Hi there, weāre back with the usual Rabbit Holes format. Before we get started:
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In case you missed last weekās deep dive, click here to explore a few thought-provoking ideas to improve how we talk about climate change and climate action.
Alright then, letās get into this weekās Rabbit Holes:
THIS WEEK ā š Utopia Factories šļø Disposability Culture š¤ Lots of Thinking, Not Enough Contemplation
Rabbit Holes š³ļø
Here are three perspective-shifting ideas that Iāve come across lately, plus some fun extras. Enjoy!
#1 š Utopia Factories
How can societies cope with radical change? The article below strives to answer this by exploring a few ideas from Alvin Tofflerās classic book Future Shock. The idea to build a sort of jury service to call citizens up to engage in discussions about desirable futures and new visions is super interesting, and timely in a world that lacks new narratives.
āAt the heart of this is the question of how we come together as a society to think about the future.
Tofflerās core concerns here could not feel more timely. Heās interested in how we get better at anticipating where weāre heading as a society, and how we could get better at keeping alternative futures alive. [ā¦]
Toffler is thinking of a suite of institutions that would equip us to approach the future with more intent. A system of governance that would enable us to anticipate the future, as best we can, and reflect on whether we like where weāre headed, and course-correct if we donāt. [ā¦]
In particular, it would go beyond what Toffler dismissively calls āecono-thinkingā, drawing in diverse disciplines to reflect on where weāre headed as a society not just economically but culturally, environmentally, and psychologically.
At the core of Tofflerās vision of social futurism, then, is the question of how we save enough space ā and the right kind of space ā to anticipate the future and imagine different futures together. [ā¦]
Hence the need for a ācollaborative utopianismā and Tofflerās provocative suggestion that we āconstruct utopia factoriesā.
This again all starts to sound pretty head-in-the-clouds but in a sense itās quite a practical project of democratic reform. Toffler refers to jury service as a model, suggesting a system in which we call people up periodically to engage in deliberations about the kind of future weāre building and the kind of future we want. The goal being to fill a gap:
āNowhere in politics is there an institution through which an ordinary person can express their ideas about what the distant future ought to look, feel, or taste like.āā
Ā» Medium | How to cope with future shock by James Plunkett
#2 šļø Disposability Culture
Do you actually know where your trash goes? Where exactly does it end up? Each piece of it? Weāve become so disconnected from the āresourcesā we use and dispose off. The article below explores who we normalized mindlessly throwing things away.

āDisposability is one of the most serious generational problems we face today. It originates in human supremacyāthe false notion that humans are better than, wiser than, and therefore separate from, the rest of nature. Systems that abide by human supremacy find little use for ānatureā beyond what can be extracted for profit. Therein lies natureās valueāit is money, never the sanctity of a river or the dignity of an elephant or the beauty of an old-growth forest. This losing logic is at the root of the ecological crisis we face today. [ā¦]
Disposing of things is a daily ritual for many, as quotidian as breathing. As a direct consequence, there is a small continent of plastic in the Pacific Ocean. Landfills are nearing capacity. Climate change is raging.
This lifestyle of āthrowaway livingā is only a few generations old, but the consequences go far beyond pollution. Research from the University of Kansas āfound a correlation between the way you look at objects and perceive your relationships.ā The author of the study said: āEven in romantic relationships, when I ask my students what would they do when things get difficult, most of them say they would move on rather than try to work things out, or God forbid, turn to a counselor.ā[2]
In other words, the prevalence of disposable objects in our lives is causing our interpersonal relationships to suffer even more than they already were. [ā¦]
The real problem is that there is no away [in terms of throwing something away]. [ā¦] Away is relative, never absolute. Away is always some other beingās here. We live on an interconnected planetāāawayā doesnāt actually exist.ā
Ā» Human and Nature | Itās time to practice āno-awayā living by Sam Edmondson and Lauren Hage
#3 š¤ Lots of Thinking, Not Enough Contemplation
I believe that across societies there is this deep urge to stop what feels like a constantly accelerating hamster wheel of āmoreā, āfasterā, ābetterā. So I loved this article about the importance of leisure time and contemplation in a world paralyzed by the ādissembling fog of social mediaā where āeverythingā becomes work, and work itself becomes increasingly machine-like.
āWe live in a world where information is easier than ever to come across. It is claimed that generative AI will eventually remove most of the work that humans had to do to find answers. In the future, that will leave us all more time for leisure, for contemplationā¦right?
No. I believe the opposite is true. People are contemplating less, not more ā and the trajectory that weāre on will only continue toward a lack of leisure, an inability to contemplate anything at all. We are learning to mimic the machines that are the entities really doing the thinking ā and even learning to āserveā them in some way by training them, or orienting our own work around making good āpromptsā for them to work with.
And thatās a shame, because the competitive advantage that humans have ā the one thing that the machines will never be able to do ā is engage in the act of contemplation. [ā¦]
Author Iain McGhilchrist has shown that the dominant way of processing reality seems to be discursive thought, logic, abstractions, conclusions. Very little time is devoted to contemplation, or to intellectus [true understanding; a mode of spiritual knowledge] which is meant to supplement, not compete with, ratio [reasoning; science, puzzles,ā¦.]. These two modes of thought are meant to exist in a relationship, in a balance. With the hypertrophy of the left-brain, the calculating brain, and a general cultural fixation with ratio, we are left lopsided.
And we lack powerful models of contemplation. Who do you know who is a great contemplative? Probably no one. [ā¦] All of the modern models of knowing are nearly 100% ratio, from podcasts to a typical āConferenceā full of talking heads to the way that AI presents things to us built entirely on discursive methods derived from programming. [ā¦]
In the constant push to create and publish content on schedule, even artists and writers ā people who should possess the skill of contemplation, if they are to have anything worthwhile saying ā find themselves selling their contemplative time for āproductiveā time.
Thick desires come from thick knowledge ā both about ourselves, and the world around us, even the nature of reality itself. And thick desires require leisure ā because it is only in leisure that we are free enough to decide what it is we stand for. [ā¦]

There is a shortage of good contemplative models of desire, it seems ā at least contemporary ones. Not only models of people who know how to live this kind of contemplative life and inspire others to do so, but also models from the world of art which show this mode of thinking in all of its splendor [ā¦].ā
Ā» Medium | Leasure as Anti-Mimesis by Luke Burgis
ā Extras
š Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination by Geoff Mulgan
š No Miracles Needed: How Today's Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air by Mak Jacobson
š Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isnāt Food ⦠and Why Canāt We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken
šŗ Provocative Predictions for the Future of Tech with NYU Professor Scott Galloway
šæ Shower Thoughts
Thatās it for this week!
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