Voting In a Different World

Those who wish to "make America great again" seem unable or unwilling to accept that the United States and the world it inhabits are irreversibly different from anything they might identify as "the good old days," and that trying to force change in that direction will cause death on a massive scale that ensures its impossibility. By selling that goal and policies that would promote it, Donald Trump has proven himself a menace to the country he is campaigning to serve (regardless of whether he intends to really "serve" – or rule).

As I discussed back in July, both presidential candidates support the behaviors most responsible for the existential crisis that faces our entire species, with the main difference being mainly in degree. Trump would accelerate the destruction of natural ecosystems that enable us to live, without acknowledging it is even a problem; while Clinton is willing to at least admit there is destruction, though seems unwilling to take the drastic steps needed to truly address it (even if she does have a friendly Congress).

I share both race and age with many hard-core conservatives who I'm sure support Trump, and for many years I also shared their political opinions and religious beliefs. Experience, and a parent who thrived on innovation and exploration, encouraged me to question everything; and by age 40 l had jettisoned most of those opinions and beliefs in favor of a more general and personally meaningful set, which I have written about extensively.

In retrospect, my evolving views reflected the changes in the world around me – physically, socially, and in terms of an explosion of knowledge and understanding of how everything works. As people became more interdependent, they were forced to face their core values about life, including which lives they would cherish and which could be used and thrown away. Those who valued only a few lives seized as much power as possible for their groups; while the vast majority who valued other lives as much as their own supported sharing power with other groups and, to a growing extent, other species.

Meanwhile, humanity's activity – aided by technology – began having obvious and increasingly serious impacts on quality of life, and predictive technologies used by scientists showed that those impacts were directly traceable to our approach and exceeding of a range of natural limits to the habitability of our planet. I became aware of this, and in my own way verified their predictions with a corresponding change in my worldview that now defines my politics, along with other parts of my life – because knowledge is most valuable when shared and converted into action.

I have shared my insights and attempted to convince those who pay attention that certain actions are critical to improving the future, however bleak that may appear to be. Currently the most critical action is to keep ultraconservatives like Trump from exerting enough power on world affairs to accelerate humanity's race toward extinction. In a few days we will know the impact of voting, and be able to assess whether or not we are in for the worst.

Legacy

It's time for most of us to abandon the dream of retiring comfortably, and to focus instead on leaving a legacy we can be proud of.

As a recent report highlights, our economic system rewards those who speculate, and victimizes those who work. It is also a global Ponzi scheme that threatens not only the economic wellbeing of the majority but availability of physical resources all of us depend on for survival. Essentially, we are participating in a game that cannot, nor should be, won. As I explained in a new meme, that game ─ unrestricted competition ─ can only result in the death of everyone.

I have detailed in multiple blog posts (and the upcoming book, Death Stoppers Anthology) my personal struggle with the inherent conflict between personal and global responsibility that we now face because of our proximity to global ecological limits. I shared it, along with evidence of that conflict, to be part of a conversation about how to create a future that maximizes our ability to survive and thrive as a species, and to be part of a team dedicated to realizing that future regardless of the personal consequences.

The competition that threatens us is not totally unrestricted yet, but the few who have the upper hand in that competition are focused on removing what few restrictions remain. This is especially obvious in the subversion of the U.S. political system, which made major gains in the recent mid-term elections in large part due to the weaponization of money enabled by a Supreme Court that values unrestricted competition. In a critical time when the world must be setting the stage for rapidly reducing carbon emissions (along with other stresses on Earth's life support systems), the social infrastructure dedicated to protecting common resources needed for our survival has become at-best useless, and at-worst is being co-opted to remove existing protections and make the situation much, much worse.

Many of us are held in thrall by the hope that we might still live comfortably following a life of service to the system we've been taught to believe is a legitimate source of value to the world, but in fact is dedicated to sucking us dry, just like the other "resources" that supply our pursuit of happiness as embodied by monetary wealth. For those of us who perceive the threat to our existence and that of future generations, this misperception and the hope it fuels must be replaced with a more accurate and comprehensive vision of real value that our lives can attain: a legacy that is testimony to whatever good remains in us, that is physically embodied by a better chance for the survival of our species. We must also share this vision with as many people as possible, and build up a critical mass of support so we might succeed despite the huge odds aligned against us.

Voting for Survival

In "The Politics of Happiness" on the Idea Explorer blog, I summarized why this year's election is likely to be disappointing, no matter who wins. Despite those reservations, it's clear that there's more hope of making the necessary changes with liberals rather than conservatives in power.

The reasons should be obvious. Today's conservatives generally hate change, value the concentration of personal power, are willing to put faith ahead of facts, and don't want to accept responsibility for how their actions impact anyone outside of a very selective group that they are willing to treat as equal in value to themselves. Liberals tend to be the opposite in each respect, which makes them more inclined to make the changes needed to avoid the hazards we face.

There is, of course, a continuum between these two extremes, and most of us lie near the middle. A properly functional political system will tend to serve this group the best. Unfortunately, that won't be good enough to avoid massive casualties in the years ahead, because it necessarily favors the growth in consumption that is the root cause of those casualties, and because some people in the population are still okay with sustaining casualties (as long as they're not one of them). Sadly, our political system isn't even that functional: What should be a bell curve of politicians that is conservative at one end and liberal on the other, instead is biased toward the conservative side.

I voted for Democrats across the ballot in this election because there is a chance that they might be open-minded and responsible enough to consider doing the right things, while Republicans were most likely to tow the conservative line and proudly drive us into oblivion. Hopefully, enough others will too.