Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #51
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Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #51
From why you should be depressed to losing our own biodiversity, unlearning economics, new urbanism and maximum wage
As I mentioned last week, I am currently in the process of connecting the threads that run through the now over 50 Rabbit Holes issues + my other deep dives. It’s actually evolving into a whole theory or framework, and I am very excited to share that with you soon. Here is a sneak peek:
Now, let’s get into this week’s Rabbit Holes, which is a bit more video (or podcast) focused. So, maybe a good time to replace that Netflix time slot in your calendar with some of the videos below. 😉
THIS WEEK → 😰 Why You Should Be Depressed 🦋 Losing Our Own Biodiversity 📈 Unlearning Economics ➕ New Urbanism 🚿 Maximum Wage
Rabbit Holes 🕳️
As always, here are three perspective-shifting ideas to create a better world, plus some fun extras below. Enjoy!
#1 😰 Why You Should Be Depressed
This is a super mind-blowing interview with Daniel Schmachtenberger. It starts off a bit confusing, but around minute 19 I think it shifts to extremely thought-provoking ideas. I recommend you to watch the whole thing, but below is an excerpt that stuck with me, in which Schmachtenberger answers the question: “Digesting this [i.e. the metacrisis], how can you not become depressed?”
A few minutes later, he then goes on to say this (minute 47):
“Then, recognize that if life was not actually beautiful, meaningful and sacred to you, you would give no shits at all that it's being destroyed. And so don't act out of anger depression and fear. Act out of that sense of the sacred and that you are in service to a life that is beautiful, to a Life – with a capital L –, a world that is beautiful. And that you're at a time when there is a higher possible consequence of your action than there has ever been for humans. And there is an obligation in that, and there is a meaningfulness in that… that you don't want to waste!”
#2 🦋 Losing Our Own Biodiversity
I recently got into the Zach Bush Rabbit Hole and listened to a few podcasts he was on. It’s again mind-blowing how Zach links health, well-being, and self-awareness with the macro-level problems we are facing, i.e. our destructive and exploitative systems, in particular our food system. The short clip below (please ignore the odd, unfitting title and thumbnail of the video) is a great summary of Zach’s main theories. Quick teaser:
“If you keep isolating yourself further and further from nature you become a very monotonous expression of nature. […] You lose biodiversity for this disconnect from nature and so you become much like that chemical farm that's lost its vitality and is overrun by multi-drug resistant weeds.
And you're going to have sinus problems, you're going to have sleep problems, you're going to have attention problems, you're going to have mood disorders, you're going to have all of that for this lack of biodiversity within the ecosystem of the soil within your body.”
If you wanna dive deeper into this stuff, I can also recommend this entire podcast episode with Rich Roll.
#3 📈 Unlearning Economics
This podcast/video will take you down the Rabbit Hole of unlearning anything you might have learned in your economics or business program at university. It’s a must-watch if you are interested in rethinking economics and business. Yes, it’s a long video/podcast, but think of it as an upskilling exercise. And if you do want to skip through, I highly recommend Jon Erickson’s and Josh Farley’s (🤯) parts and the discussion between everyone at the end. Quick teaser:
Jon Erickson: “It is a chicken and an egg right? If you believe we are selfish we therefore create institutions that draw out our selfishness.”
Steve Keen: “We are sharing and collective belief sharing species, if you find stuff which conflicts with your beliefs you turn a blind eye to it.”
Josh Farley: “For essential resources the less we produce the more they contribute to GDP which is about as perverse a measure of welfare as you could possibly have.”
Kate Raworth: “If the biggest diagram that we're teaching students does not have energy and materials from the living world, it does not have unpaid care of the household, it does not have the commons, three of the most fundamental sources of our well-being, they're absent….this does not serve us.”
➕ Extras
🎬 They built a new city in Guatemala and it’s stunning by The Aesthetic City
The recently developed city of Cayalá, in Guatemala, redefines how we can build modern cities. It’s a great example of so-called New Urbanism, an urban design movement that basically promotes a return to the traditional European city, with romantically dense, small-scale architecture and walkable streets. Just watch:
I also love architect Léon Krier’s drawings, like this one:
📕 The Progress Illusion - Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics by Jon Erickson
”In The Progress Illusion, Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. […] The result has been a system that perpetually concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, while depleting the natural resources on which economies are based.”
📒 The F-List by Clean Creatives
”The 2023 F-List report documents the agencies that choose to continue working with fossil fuel companies despite the scientific consensus that this work is destroying the planet.”
🚿 Shower Thoughts
That’s it for this week!
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