“My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know that they don’t. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.”
The content below was written by Jared Diamond and appeared in the August 1, 1995 edition of Discover Magazine (http://discovermagazine.com/1995/aug/eastersend543). The content of the article article been widely copy-and-pasted by others and often serves as the basis for what people think they know about the island. Here, I try to provide comments to help update the essay with knowledge that we have gained over the past 25 years. In just a few centuries [the entire prehistoric occupation was just 500 years: ca. 1200AD to 1722AD. Radiocarbon dates (Mann et al 2008) show the loss of the palm forest took this entire span of time.], the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest [note that choice of the word “wiping” belies the fact that the palm forest was turned into gardens over the entire prehistoric span of occupation and possibly into European times], drove their plants [large palm trees (Jubea Chilensis) with little economic value] and animals [by animals, Diamond means “seabirds.” Excavations by Steadman et al (1994) show that there were once seabirds on the island that are now extinct.] to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos [according to whom? and when? Archaeologically, we only see changes in settlement patterns after the point of European contact] and cannibalism [there is no empirical evidence of cannibalism on Rapa Nui]. Are we about to follow their lead?
“#SOLARPUNK is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?” The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and wild, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid. Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world — but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not warnings. Solutions to live comfortably without fossil fuels, to equitably manage scarcity and share abundance, to be kinder to each other and to the planet we share.
via https://medium.com/solarpunks/solarpunk-a-reference-guide–8bcf18871965
“Civilization, in many ways, is the safe cultivation of dangerous curiosity. The sophistication of a civilization may be judged by the kinds of dangerous questions its members allow themselves to ask.”
“Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation. Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces.”
–Octavia E. Butler. Parable of the Sower
Most reasonable scientists flocked to a theory put forth by Penn State astronomer Jason Wright: alien megastructures. As it turns out, the unusual dimming is almost certainly the result of a massive collection of solar panels known as a Dyson swarm. While SETI observations of the star found no unusual radio or laser signals that might indicate a technologically hyper-advanced civilization, most astrophysicists accept some version of the theory that the aliens are either harvesting solar energy from the past via a n-d timebridge, or, somewhat less likely, from the security of a half-dimensional “spacetime fjord.” Unfortunately, confirming either possibility will have to wait until the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018.
via http://motherboard.vice.com/read/aliens-are-clearly-trying-to-extinguish-an-entire-star
Rudimentary stepwells first appeared in India between the 2nd and 4th centuries A.D., born of necessity in a capricious climate zone bone-dry for much of the year followed by torrential monsoon rains for many weeks. It was essential to guarantee a year-round water-supply for drinking, bathing, irrigation and washing, particularly in the arid states of Gujarat (where they’re called vavs) and Rajasthan (where they’re baoli, baori, or bawdi) where the water table could be inconveniently buried ten-stories or more underground. Over the centuries, stepwell construction evolved so that by the 11th century they were astoundingly complex feats of engineering, architecture, and art.