Rudolf Steiner: Vaccines to Kill The Soul?!

[Lou Gold]

The life works of E.O. Wilson and the controversies surrounding them seem to fit into this discussion. From his humanist perspective, he felt that the challenge was for humans to move from being conquerors to stewards. This NY Times obituary following his recent death offers food for thought in our discussion of possible practical applications.

[Jim Cross]

OK. Thanks Jim. I have no reason to challenge your experience as yours but I will note that it seems rather like "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," which offers nothing novel, just history repeating itself.

My take is that globalization with its concomitant planetary boundaries is producing something profoundly new, namely limits that will force or drive changes at the species level. In my view you are correct to the extent you are saying "different human, different technology." Cyborgs are becoming actual-factual-real. This would surely be, in my view, a difference making the difference. But I don't know that you are saying this from your perspective. Is it the way it is for you?

I agree mostly but I don't our time is all that unique. Humans careen from crises to crises with a little peace and calm in between.

OK. Nothing unique about emergent planetary awareness and its challenges/opportunities, just careening through crisis and calm. Is this what you deeply feel should be taught to the children? Or, are you simply noting that change and challenge have broadly similar pendular cycles? If the latter, is there for you any personal meaning or purpose in it?

I don't think we are disagreeing as much as you think. The current climate and environmental crisis is a recapitulation of all the little mini-crises. We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it. So we hunted the mega-fauna, cut down the forests, and over fished the oceans. Where nature was abundant enough we didn't cause any permanent harm. Where it wasn't we moved either by physically moving, inventing new technology to exploit something new (agriculture?), or society collapsed. We were also held in check by human mortality.

Some think there used to be a Golden Age when humans were pure and our current age is the aberration. I think our current situation is simply a continuation of human exploitation of nature except now it is with technology able to do more damage than previously.

Yes, we could collapse on a planetary scale but we don't know exactly what would result from that. Would billions die? Would some small elite rule and live off the labors of other survivors? Would we all revert to hunter gatherers?

Or, we might not collapse at all . We might simply adapt to however we've changed the world. We find new technology and keep going. Who knows how far fusion power is off into the future.

[Lou Gold]

I agree mostly but I don't our time is all that unique. Humans careen from crises to crises with a little peace and calm in between.

OK. Nothing unique about emergent planetary awareness and its challenges/opportunities, just careening through crisis and calm. Is this what you deeply feel should be taught to the children? Or, are you simply noting that change and challenge have broadly similar pendular cycles? If the latter, is there for you any personal meaning or purpose in it?

I don't think we are disagreeing as much as you think. The current climate and environmental crisis is a recapitulation of all the little mini-crises. We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it. So we hunted the mega-fauna, cut down the forests, and over fished the oceans. Where nature was abundant enough we didn't cause any permanent harm. Where it wasn't we moved either by physically moving, inventing new technology to exploit something new (agriculture?), or society collapsed. We were also held in check by human mortality.

Some think there used to be a Golden Age when humans were pure and our current age is the aberration. I think our current situation is simply a continuation of human exploitation of nature except now it is with technology able to do more damage than previously.

Yes, we could collapse on a planetary scale but we don't know exactly what would result from that. Would billions die? Would some small elite rule and live off the labors of other survivors? Would we all revert to hunter gatherers?

Or, we might not collapse at all . We might simply adapt to however we've changed the world. We find new technology and keep going. Who knows how far fusion power is off into the future.

OK. Looks like there's no mileage to be gained here. We've entered one of our endless loops.

I fundamentally disagree with, "We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it." In fact, mutualism has been a core tool of survival. Humans are top predators because they figured out how to organize hundreds of thousands of strangers into cooperating to make a bomb or perhaps master a future nuclear fusion and this amazing ability to cooperate has created huge problems of choice as to how to use or not use the technologies.

The "wise steward" approach to forestry such as at the world renowned Menominee Tribal Forest was not at all based on "use it or lose it" but instead on selection logging, which left most behind for future sustainability. Interestingly, today the forest which always produced an annual profit has more old-growth and diversity in it than when the approach was begun over 150 years ago. Today, it is considered as a premier example of forest management in the world. Is this a retreat into hunter-gatherer times? No, it's an ancient-future more sustainable wisdom.

One problem is that you sweepingly allude to notions such as that hunter gatherers drove megafauna extinction when these firm conclusions are now vigorously debated and are becoming much more nuanced. For example, there's new studies suggesting that megafauna populations varied with climate change. I'm sure that humans were somehow implicated as co-occupants of the times but evolutionary complexities cannot be reduced to simplicities like "use it or lose it."

[Jim Cross]

OK. Nothing unique about emergent planetary awareness and its challenges/opportunities, just careening through crisis and calm. Is this what you deeply feel should be taught to the children? Or, are you simply noting that change and challenge have broadly similar pendular cycles? If the latter, is there for you any personal meaning or purpose in it?

I don't think we are disagreeing as much as you think. The current climate and environmental crisis is a recapitulation of all the little mini-crises. We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it. So we hunted the mega-fauna, cut down the forests, and over fished the oceans. Where nature was abundant enough we didn't cause any permanent harm. Where it wasn't we moved either by physically moving, inventing new technology to exploit something new (agriculture?), or society collapsed. We were also held in check by human mortality.

Some think there used to be a Golden Age when humans were pure and our current age is the aberration. I think our current situation is simply a continuation of human exploitation of nature except now it is with technology able to do more damage than previously.

Yes, we could collapse on a planetary scale but we don't know exactly what would result from that. Would billions die? Would some small elite rule and live off the labors of other survivors? Would we all revert to hunter gatherers?

Or, we might not collapse at all . We might simply adapt to however we've changed the world. We find new technology and keep going. Who knows how far fusion power is off into the future.

OK. Looks like there's no mileage to be gained here. We've entered one of our endless loops.

I fundamentally disagree with, "We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it." In fact, mutualism has been a core tool of survival. Humans are top predators because they figured out how to organize hundreds of thousands of strangers into cooperating to make a bomb or perhaps master a future nuclear fusion and this amazing ability to cooperate has created huge problems of choice as to how to use or not use the technologies.

The "wise steward" approach to forestry such as at the world renowned Menominee Tribal Forest was not at all based on "use it or lose it" but instead on selection logging, which left most behind for future sustainability. Interestingly, today the forest which always produced an annual profit has more old-growth and diversity in it than when the approach was begun over 150 years ago. Today, it is considered as a premier example of forest management in the world. Is this a retreat into hunter-gatherer times? No, it's an ancient-future more sustainable wisdom.

One problem is that you sweepingly allude to notions such as that hunter gatherers drove megafauna extinction when these firm conclusions are now vigorously debated and are becoming much more nuanced. For example, there's new studies suggesting that megafauna populations varied with climate change. I'm sure that humans were somehow implicated as co-occupants of the times but evolutionary complexities cannot be reduced to simplicities like "use it or lose it."

Yeah, I expected you would fundamentally disagree. Like many you think there was a Golden Age and, if we can get things right, there will be a Golden Age again. I think what you will find is that the little pieces of paradise were temporary results of many fortuitous circumstances - low populations, periods of good climate, not many enemies - and they vanished quickly when populations grew and the contenders for paradise showed up wanting a piece. At any rate, whatever strategies they used for a temporary paradise don't apply to us now.

[Jim Cross]

An estimated 90 to 95% of Indigenous people in Amazonia died after European contact. This population collapse is postulated to have caused decreases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at around 1610 CE, as a result of a wave of land abandonment in the wake of disease, slavery, and warfare, whereby the attendant reversion to forest substantially increased terrestrial carbon sequestration. On the basis of 39 Amazonian fossil pollen records, we show that there was no synchronous reforestation event associated with such an atmospheric carbon dioxide response after European arrival in Amazonia. Instead, we find that, at most sites, land abandonment and forest regrowth began about 300 to 600 years before European arrival. Pre-European pandemics, social strife, or environmental change may have contributed to these early site abandonments and ecological shifts.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf3870

The narrative used there weren't any civilizations in the Amazon. The contemporary rewrite is there were civilizations but they were wonderful stewards of the environment and did nothing but better it. Eventually we'll be back to a balanced perspective. Their societies likely expanded beyond the capacity of the environment and they collapsed too hundreds of years before the damage done by the Europeans.

[Lou Gold]

I don't think we are disagreeing as much as you think. The current climate and environmental crisis is a recapitulation of all the little mini-crises. We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it. So we hunted the mega-fauna, cut down the forests, and over fished the oceans. Where nature was abundant enough we didn't cause any permanent harm. Where it wasn't we moved either by physically moving, inventing new technology to exploit something new (agriculture?), or society collapsed. We were also held in check by human mortality.

Some think there used to be a Golden Age when humans were pure and our current age is the aberration. I think our current situation is simply a continuation of human exploitation of nature except now it is with technology able to do more damage than previously.

Yes, we could collapse on a planetary scale but we don't know exactly what would result from that. Would billions die? Would some small elite rule and live off the labors of other survivors? Would we all revert to hunter gatherers?

Or, we might not collapse at all . We might simply adapt to however we've changed the world. We find new technology and keep going. Who knows how far fusion power is off into the future.

OK. Looks like there's no mileage to be gained here. We've entered one of our endless loops.

I fundamentally disagree with, "We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it." In fact, mutualism has been a core tool of survival. Humans are top predators because they figured out how to organize hundreds of thousands of strangers into cooperating to make a bomb or perhaps master a future nuclear fusion and this amazing ability to cooperate has created huge problems of choice as to how to use or not use the technologies.

The "wise steward" approach to forestry such as at the world renowned Menominee Tribal Forest was not at all based on "use it or lose it" but instead on selection logging, which left most behind for future sustainability. Interestingly, today the forest which always produced an annual profit has more old-growth and diversity in it than when the approach was begun over 150 years ago. Today, it is considered as a premier example of forest management in the world. Is this a retreat into hunter-gatherer times? No, it's an ancient-future more sustainable wisdom.

One problem is that you sweepingly allude to notions such as that hunter gatherers drove megafauna extinction when these firm conclusions are now vigorously debated and are becoming much more nuanced. For example, there's new studies suggesting that megafauna populations varied with climate change. I'm sure that humans were somehow implicated as co-occupants of the times but evolutionary complexities cannot be reduced to simplicities like "use it or lose it."

Yeah, I expected you would fundamentally disagree. Like many you think there was a Golden Age and, if we can get things right, there will be a Golden Age again. I think what you will find is that the little pieces of paradise were temporary results of many fortuitous circumstances - low populations, periods of good climate, not many enemies - and they vanished quickly when populations grew and the contenders for paradise showed up wanting a piece. At any rate, whatever strategies they used for a temporary paradise don't apply to us now.

For clarity Jim but not because I expect you to listen, I do not think there was a Golden Age. I do think there is an ancient wisdom about dealing with the challenges of finding ecological balance and acting as more aware, respectful and responsible ecological citizens that needs to be incorporated into modern times. The work of the botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer presents an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Other examples (without myth or guiding stories) would be the rediscovery of the wiser use by indigenous people of fire in forest management or terra preta technologies in agriculture and waste management. And E.O. Wilson's Half Earth Project is a concrete practical modern extension of the respect-for-all-beings ethic of Mitakuye Oyasin. But in order to avoid these modern scientific practical incorporations of old wisdom, you misrepresent and project a romantic notion of a Golden Age and create a strawman argument that is not worthy of serious discussion. Indeed, it's just a cheap shot of skepticism.

[Jim Cross]

OK. Looks like there's no mileage to be gained here. We've entered one of our endless loops.

I fundamentally disagree with, "We evolved in world where the most advantageous strategy was use it or lose it." In fact, mutualism has been a core tool of survival. Humans are top predators because they figured out how to organize hundreds of thousands of strangers into cooperating to make a bomb or perhaps master a future nuclear fusion and this amazing ability to cooperate has created huge problems of choice as to how to use or not use the technologies.

The "wise steward" approach to forestry such as at the world renowned Menominee Tribal Forest was not at all based on "use it or lose it" but instead on selection logging, which left most behind for future sustainability. Interestingly, today the forest which always produced an annual profit has more old-growth and diversity in it than when the approach was begun over 150 years ago. Today, it is considered as a premier example of forest management in the world. Is this a retreat into hunter-gatherer times? No, it's an ancient-future more sustainable wisdom.

One problem is that you sweepingly allude to notions such as that hunter gatherers drove megafauna extinction when these firm conclusions are now vigorously debated and are becoming much more nuanced. For example, there's new studies suggesting that megafauna populations varied with climate change. I'm sure that humans were somehow implicated as co-occupants of the times but evolutionary complexities cannot be reduced to simplicities like "use it or lose it."

Yeah, I expected you would fundamentally disagree. Like many you think there was a Golden Age and, if we can get things right, there will be a Golden Age again. I think what you will find is that the little pieces of paradise were temporary results of many fortuitous circumstances - low populations, periods of good climate, not many enemies - and they vanished quickly when populations grew and the contenders for paradise showed up wanting a piece. At any rate, whatever strategies they used for a temporary paradise don't apply to us now.

For clarity Jim but not because I expect you to listen. I do not think there was a Golden Age. I do think there is an ancient wisdom about dealing with the challenges of finding ecological balance and acting as more aware, respectful and responsible ecological citizens that needs to be incorporated into modern times. The work of the botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer presents an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Other examples (without myth or guiding stories) would be the rediscovery of the wiser use by indigenous people of fire in forest management or terra preta technologies in agriculture and waste management. And E.O. Wilson's Half Earth Project is a concrete practical modern extension of the respect-for-all-beings ethic of Mitakuye Oyasin. But in order to avoid these modern scientific practical incorporations of old wisdom, you misrepresent and project a romantic notion of a Golden Age and create a strawman argument that is not worthy of serious discussion. Indeed, it's just a cheap shot of skepticism.

I don't think it is a cheap shot. It is a balanced perspective. Your modern ecological perspective is exactly that - it is modern, not ancient. And it is technological just like the ancient "wisdom" was. You're looking at the ancients through your modern prism and seeing what you want to see. The technologies in the Amazon were remarkable and enabled fertility in soils that were regarded as infertile. However, that didn't prevent the same problems from arising. What lead to the growth of the Amazonian civilizations led eventually to unsustainable societies. Boom and bust happens regularly throughout nature too. If you look only at the boom you see one thing. You look at the bust you see another. You need to look at both.

That still means little for our current situation which you were previously arguing was unique. I would say it remains to be seen whether it is unique because if it is a bust then it will be like all the other busts in human history just on a bigger scale.

We really may need to do something unique to avoid the bust.

[Lou Gold]

An estimated 90 to 95% of Indigenous people in Amazonia died after European contact. This population collapse is postulated to have caused decreases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at around 1610 CE, as a result of a wave of land abandonment in the wake of disease, slavery, and warfare, whereby the attendant reversion to forest substantially increased terrestrial carbon sequestration. On the basis of 39 Amazonian fossil pollen records, we show that there was no synchronous reforestation event associated with such an atmospheric carbon dioxide response after European arrival in Amazonia. Instead, we find that, at most sites, land abandonment and forest regrowth began about 300 to 600 years before European arrival. Pre-European pandemics, social strife, or environmental change may have contributed to these early site abandonments and ecological shifts.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf3870

The narrative used there weren't any civilizations in the Amazon. The contemporary rewrite is there were civilizations but they were wonderful stewards of the environment and did nothing but better it. Eventually we'll be back to a balanced perspective. Their societies likely expanded beyond the capacity of the environment and they collapsed too hundreds of years before the damage done by the Europeans.

Do you have access to the full article? I'd like to read it. Location of the study sites would be tremendously important. If they were in the southwestern Amazonia (think of Acre State in Brazil or the Pando region of Bolivia or the upland areas of Peru) this would make sense. This region is the forest-savanna marginal area of shifting climate, draught, flooding and uncertain agricultural conditions, surely places where population increase beyond local carrying capacity would surely matter. On the other hand, if the sites are located in the central Amazon basin where the terra preta soils are found and where Francisco de Orellana reported high density populations of miles in length along the main rivers, the narrative would surely be challenged. It's important to remember that Amazonia is larger than Western Europe and present a vast variety of local contexts but I do suspect that the grand assertion that the plague of European diseases was the sole driver of increased forest growth is too simple.

[Lou Gold]

Yeah, I expected you would fundamentally disagree. Like many you think there was a Golden Age and, if we can get things right, there will be a Golden Age again. I think what you will find is that the little pieces of paradise were temporary results of many fortuitous circumstances - low populations, periods of good climate, not many enemies - and they vanished quickly when populations grew and the contenders for paradise showed up wanting a piece. At any rate, whatever strategies they used for a temporary paradise don't apply to us now.

For clarity Jim but not because I expect you to listen. I do not think there was a Golden Age. I do think there is an ancient wisdom about dealing with the challenges of finding ecological balance and acting as more aware, respectful and responsible ecological citizens that needs to be incorporated into modern times. The work of the botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer presents an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Other examples (without myth or guiding stories) would be the rediscovery of the wiser use by indigenous people of fire in forest management or terra preta technologies in agriculture and waste management. And E.O. Wilson's Half Earth Project is a concrete practical modern extension of the respect-for-all-beings ethic of Mitakuye Oyasin. But in order to avoid these modern scientific practical incorporations of old wisdom, you misrepresent and project a romantic notion of a Golden Age and create a strawman argument that is not worthy of serious discussion. Indeed, it's just a cheap shot of skepticism.

I don't think it is a cheap shot. It is a balanced perspective. Your modern ecological perspective is exactly that - it is modern, not ancient. And it is technological just like the ancient "wisdom" was. You're looking at the ancients through your modern prism and seeing what you want to see. The technologies in the Amazon were remarkable and enabled fertility in soils that were regarded as infertile. However, that didn't prevent the same problems from arising. What lead to the growth of the Amazonian civilizations led eventually to unsustainable societies. Boom and bust happens regularly throughout nature too. If you look only at the boom you see one thing. You look at the bust you see another. You need to look at both.

That still means little for our current situation which you were previously arguing was unique. I would say it remains to be seen whether it is unique because if it is a bust then it will be like all the other busts in human history just on a bigger scale.

We really may need to do something unique to avoid the bust.

Again you misrepresent. I have repeatedly described the present modern need as an 'ancient-future wisdom' and have never asserted that 'ancient' was a Golden Age. The point is to not throw the baby out with the bath as the problematic mechanistic modern has done. What is unique in the emergent awareness are planetary limits and NOT that there aren't always cycles of ebb and flow, boom and bust, etc that guarantee a continued future of finding balance in a dynamic system. You project onto me a belief in a future-perfect that I do not hold. My notion of perfect is ongoing process. My hope is only for a more aware one.

[Jim Cross]

An estimated 90 to 95% of Indigenous people in Amazonia died after European contact. This population collapse is postulated to have caused decreases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at around 1610 CE, as a result of a wave of land abandonment in the wake of disease, slavery, and warfare, whereby the attendant reversion to forest substantially increased terrestrial carbon sequestration. On the basis of 39 Amazonian fossil pollen records, we show that there was no synchronous reforestation event associated with such an atmospheric carbon dioxide response after European arrival in Amazonia. Instead, we find that, at most sites, land abandonment and forest regrowth began about 300 to 600 years before European arrival. Pre-European pandemics, social strife, or environmental change may have contributed to these early site abandonments and ecological shifts.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf3870

The narrative used there weren't any civilizations in the Amazon. The contemporary rewrite is there were civilizations but they were wonderful stewards of the environment and did nothing but better it. Eventually we'll be back to a balanced perspective. Their societies likely expanded beyond the capacity of the environment and they collapsed too hundreds of years before the damage done by the Europeans.

Do you have access to the full article? I'd like to read it. Location of the study sites would be tremendously important. If they were in the southwestern Amazonia (think of Acre State in Brazil or the Pando region of Bolivia) this would make sense. This region is the forest-savanna marginal area of shifting climate. On the other hand, if the sites are located in the central Amazon basin where the terra preta soils are found and where Francisco de Orellana reported high density populations of miles in size along the main rivers, the narrative would surely be challenged.

This looks like it:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wa ... azonia.pdf

Here's also a more condensed but readable version.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 110207.htm

It looks like there were sites across Amazonia and there were variabilities in them. The claim is that human management of the rain forest peaked around 1200 AD so there was already a decline happening by the time of European arrival. It's not claiming, of course, that the European arrival wasn't devastating, only that humans may have maxed out before the Europeans.

Climate change may have been a key but there is also evidence of increased warfare around the time caused by migration of peoples from the Andean highlands and also increased spread of tuberculosis.

Here's another article:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... e_Holocene

By using a robust model testing approach, our analyses document that the growth of pre-Columbian human population over the 1700 years prior to European colonization adheres to a logistic model of demographic growth. This suggests that, at an aggregate level, these pre-Columbian populations had potentially reached carrying capacity (however high) before the onset of European colonization.

By the way the regions where terra preta exists (or can exist) was much more limited than I realized.

Terra pretas were most frequently found in central and eastern Amazonia along the lower courses of the major Amazonian rivers. Terrain, hydrologic and soil characteristics were more important predictors of terra preta distributions than climatic conditions. Our modelling efforts indicated that terra pretas are likely to be found throughout ca 154 063 km2 or 3.2% of the forest.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896013/

To me what all of this points to is that conditions for "harmony" with nature have been special or temporary. Invaders, climate change, disease, over population, lost of fertility of soil - any number of things can upset a delicate balance