Continuous Critical Problems
An illustrative list from 1970
The most important essay of the 20th century was published in 1970, the year of the first Earth Day and of wide-spread global environmental protests, vastly greater than today’s XR could dream of. Meanwhile, since 1970, the pace of planetary destruction has not slowed.
Yes we, in the US, have the remains of a gutted EPA, and the level of industrial pollution in US rivers is not so high that they catch on fire anymore. In the mid 1960s, as a child, I recall we were driving through the LA City of Angels region. My mother, I, and the cat were in the back of a camper on a pickup truck. The air was so polluted the mountains (but a few miles away) were fuzzy dim, and the existence of islands off shore were wholly undetectable. The smell was — noxious, and what I recall was the family cat frantically trying to find a way out of the camper, bouncing off windows, as if certain it was about to die. He was smarter than we were, but didn’t know it was even worse outside (or that certain death was not that eminent).
That rivers don’t catch on fire and the Channel Islands can be seen on a clear non-foggy day, however, is not good news. Thanks to the EPA and environmental activists, our predicament is vastly worse (we treated symptoms — visible pollution — CO2 is invisible and odorless) to not distract happy workers from serving the economy — or moving to Canada). We have mitigated the warning signs and continue to fight against the symptoms of our problematique while our prospects for a ghastly future, like everything else, continues to grow insofar as possible.
Basically, we (modern techno-industrialized humans of NIMH) got our collective “Huston, we have a problematique” message in 1972, but early drafts of the message go back to the 1940s.
In 1970, the few who read essays got the message in a 31 page offering titled THE PREDICAMENT OF MANKIND: Quest for Structured Responses to Growing World-wide Complexities and Uncertainties, A PROPOSAL. But it was too long and paragraphs tended to contain more than two or three short sentences, so it ended up moldering in bitlandia in the achives of The Wayback Machine where most critically important ideas having any thing to do with “solutions” can be found.
But never mind what our “problematique” is or what a “solutionatique” might look like — we moderns have progressed far beyond caring. Of possible interest to those who are easily distracted is a short illustrative list of 49 interconnected problems that we have solved by ignoring, or if necessary, demanding that our thought leaders obfuscate at book length if necessary so we can keep on keeping on.
CONTINUOUS CRITICAL PROBLEMS: AN ILLUSTRATIVE LIST
[with updates]
1) Explosive population growth [it’s the GROWTH, stupid] with consequent escalation of social, economic, and other problems.
2) Widespread poverty throughout the world [see #1 above].
3) Increase in the production, destructive capacity, and accessibility of all weapons of war [‘the existence of independent sovereign states IS war’, (or communities or individuals, e.g. Elon Musk), aka the military industrial complex whose Audrey continuously intones, “FEED ME”].
4) Uncontrolled urban spread [see #1 above].
5) Generalized and growing malnutrition [we are turning fossil fuels into food faster than ever, but due to #1 above the absolute number of starving/malnourished humans has increased along with obesity].
6) Persistence of widespread illiteracy [free public education, introduced in 1642 (needed so citizens could serve the economy), was only 80% globally in 1900, down to 13% today — meanwhile, thanks to the global economy-serving schooling system and media (from radio to TV/computer/smartphone screens), our collective grasp of reality is in freefall — but we love our oppressors and adore the technologies that undo our capacity to think].
7) Expanding mechanization and bureaucratization of almost all human activity [and we love Big Brother too].
8) Growing inequalities in the distribution of wealth throughout the world [whose rate of growth has steadily increased so the rate of increasing wealth (energy use) among the top 10% (people like you) remains at least acceptable].
9) Insufficient and irrationally organized medical care [needed to increase the cost (profit) of our illness care system served by our legions of energy slaves who allow vast numbers of humans to be sedentary (to watch screens )— in 2023, 39% of the global population, or about 3.12 billion people, were clinically obese, more than double the rate from 1990, expected (by the UN) to reach 50% obesity levels by 2035 (unless the global fossil-fuel-to-food production system collapses before then)].
10) Hardening discrimination against minorities [I have thousands of energy slaves serving me 24/7, so who needs minorities (aka not truly modern humans) who don’t know how to serve the economy?].
11) Hardening prejudices against differing cultures [a top 10 list is enough distraction — as an exercise for the student, update the rest — and add the 52 not on the list, but stop at a 101 because people like that number].
12) Affluence and its unknown consequences.
13) Anachronistic and irrelevant education.
14) Generalized environmental deterioration.
15) Generalized lack of agreed-on alternatives to present trends.
16) Widespread failure to stimulate man’s creative capacity to confront the future.
17) Continuing deterioration of inner-cities or slums.
18) Growing irrelevance of traditional values and continuing failure to evolve new value systems.
19) Inadequate shelter and transportation.
20) Obsolete and discriminatory income distribution system(s).
21) Accelerating wastage and exhaustion of natural resources.
22) Growing environmental pollution.
23) Generalized alienation of youth.
24) Major disturbances of the world’s physical ecology.
25) Generally inadequate and obsolete institutional arrangements.
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26) Limited understanding of what is “feasible” in the way of corrective measures.
27) Unbalanced population distribution.
28) Ideological fragmentation and semantic barriers to communication between individuals, groups, and nations.
29) Increasing a-social and anti-social behavior and consequent rise in criminality.
30) Inadequate and obsolete law enforcement and correctional practices.
31) Widespread unemployment and generalized under-employment.
32) Spreading “discontent” throughout most classes of society. 33)Polarization of military power and psychological impacts of the policy of deterrence.
34) Fast obsolescing political structures and processes.
35) Irrational agricultural practices.
36) Irresponsible use of pesticides, chemical additives, insufficiently tested drugs, fertilizers, etc.
37) Growing use of distorted information to influence and manipulate people.
38) Fragmented international monetary system.
39) Growing technological gaps and lags between developed and developing areas.
40) New modes of localized warfare.
41) Inadequate participation of people at large in public decisions.
42) Unimaginative conceptions of world-order and of the rule of law.
43) Irrational distribution of industry supported by policies that will strengthen the current patterns.
44) Growing tendency to be satisfied with technological solutions for every kind of problem.
45) Obsolete system of world trade.
46) Ill-conceived use of international agencies for national or sectoral ends.
47) Insufficient authority of international agencies.
48) Irrational practices in resource investment.
49) Insufficient understanding of Continuous Critical Problems, of their nature, their interactions and of the future consequences both they and current solutions to them are generating.
101) The condition of being a modern human.
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Oh and ignoring our predicament, do I need to know that we have a problematique? Just ask the Google AI who, as everyone knows, knows all:
Problématique is the second studio album by German singer Kim Petras, released on 18 September 2023 through Amigo and Republic. It was originally planned to be her debut album, however, it faced multiple delays and was ultimately postponed in favour of Feed The Beast (2023). Problématique.
So, like way cool dude (archaic 1970’s jargon).
Now that’s the kind of problematique I’m talk’n about (not).
And the solutionatique is obvious (the Club of Rome was talking about our “problematique” in the 1960s, so surely some were using “solutionatique” then, but in print the word appears in 1988 and after). The Club of Rome was founded to complicate things, to confuse us Anthropocene enthusiast moderns for some evil reason.
I don’t want to know any more. I’m going to YouTube to search for Kim Petras videos.
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For involuntary change, join the Or-not MHEM. The belief that you are a free agent, with free will to choose your future (or get modern humans to choose their future), is error floating on a sea of ignorance in a thick fog of illusion.
[Note: MHEM membership excludes politicians and the recently (<1 year) politically active, including environmentalists. Otherwise, with the exception of the San, Hadza, and Pygmy, all other humans are Modern humans, and acknowledging that such is who and what you are is the requirement for being MHEM. MHEM includes members who celebrate Modern human life and favor the extinction of all life on the planet that humans do not value (aka “Hypers”). Hyper MHEM supporters will prefer to join Hyper MHEM. A minority faction views the condition of being a Modern human the way AA members view the condition of being an alcoholic — i.e. non-viable. The author is obviously one of the “Or-nots” after breakfast who seek to “just say no” to the Anthropocene.]
