Michael Sales going to college at 18 was nuts! The University of Pennsylvania offered so much more than I had the ability to take in. That said, I did learn what "inelasticity of demand" is (not great) and I'm pretty sure that I had a maximum of one class with Donald Trump (thank God!).

Capitalism: A system that incentivizes productivity, transactional relationships, competition, efficiency, and consumption Communitarianism: A system that values traditions and relationships based on feelings, sometimes at the cost of candor Contradictions: Life is grayer than we’d like Cosmic Consciousness: An external reality and inner possibility A Young Capitalist In 1954. I made my first investment in stock 1957. I was 13 years old. A man I sat next to on an airplane told me about his company, American Maize. He was working on a way to use a liquid version of corn as an alternative to plastic to coat vegetables for sale in grocery stores. I liked the idea. A year or so earlier I’d read How to Buy Stocks, a book that was distributed for free by Merrill-Lynch, and I used savings from various gifts and a little bit of work to buy the stock. Engaging in “high finance,” even at the age of 13, came naturally to me. My family owned a furniture store in Louisville KY. The Sales Furniture Company was always overshadowed by the beautiful Bensinger’s furniture store building next door, and even today, 60+ years after its closing, I still find it necessary to point out that our store stretched over three buildings while Bensinger’s was contained in only one. Yet another aspect of my competitiveness that one would think I would outgrow! In any event, I grew up in a small business owning context. In fact, in the six generations my family has lived in the United States, entrepreneurship has been a constant theme. So, it seemed completely natural for me to develop an interest in the financial markets. That interest (and my family’s relatively privileged circumstances) led me to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where I had every intention of become a securities analyst and investment advisor. I did that kind of work over the summers while at school and for a year thereafter. A Conspiracy of Circumstances However, Ho Chi Minh, Dr. King, the Kennedy Brothers, and Bob Dylan seemed to gang up on me as the 60s unfolded, and they’ve never let me go. Ho had the audacity to beat the bejeezus out of the USA, which was murdering thousands of people in a place called Vietnam where it had no business being and upended my life plans. Even though that racist assassinated him, Dr. King walked right through that door labeled “Segregation Now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!” and became a model to me of what a real man looks like. Every time I listen to John and Bobby Kennedy speak in my mind’s ear, I moan at the thought of the future America was denied by those “murders most foul.” Dion sums up the way I feel about those three martyrs (and another one) in Abraham, Martin & John. Mix in the abracadabra of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and Dylan taking me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind with all the other turbulence of that era, and, Shazam!, you get an Anthropocean, who carries the name given to him at birth but finds himself a long way from the furniture store he used to call home. Like many others, I’ve bathed in a variety of streams that all seem to pour into and then out of the same head. I’ve learned from each of them. They bang and jangle and harmonize with each other. I’m trying to put my reflections on the various elements together into something that’s relevant to being in the Anthropocene. The Banality of Capitalism and the Heart of Communitarianism Realizing that the United States was as willing to make me and hundreds of thousands of other young men cannon fodder in 1968 just as Putin is today with young boys on Ukraine’s killing fields made me a harsh critic of capitalism. The core of winner-take-all capitalism is rotten. Everything is commoditized. Everything has a price, and everyone has h/er price. Every action is instrumental toward some other objective. All relationships are transactional. Nothing is valued for what it is in and of itself. Nothing is stable, immutable, timeless, sacred. Or, as that great admirer of capitalism, Ronald Reagan, once said in advocating for the clear cutting of a majestic red wood forest, “A tree is a tree. How many trees do you need to see?!” * Communitarianism predated capitalism. In Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft one of the founders of sociology, Ferdinand Tönnies contrasted the “natural will to act cooperatively” as characteristic of traditional communities (Gemeinschaft) with the “rational will” to act in pursuit of a specific end, which characterizes the “strictly business” orientation of capitalism (Gesellschaft). # These concepts weren’t taught at the Wharton School I went to, or, if they were, I never retained them, but I pursued communitarianism with a born-again fervor when I moved to the Haight-Asbury in 1968, and I’ve never abandoned it. But I have also come to recognize its romanticism, naïvité, and its limits to learning and growth. Many books, memoirs, articles, films, podcasts, websites etc. have been written, made and created about the Haight-Ashbury, and I will not recount my experiences there and in other parts of the Bay Area over the course of 8 years here in any detail. That said, it was the greatest experience of solidarity that I have known. The scope of curiosity and inquiry was vast, including, but not limited to: an intense interest in mysticism, the occult, religious studies and magic an obsession with listening to, creating and performing music and many other artistic modes of expression naturopathic medicine and natural foods organic farming counter-culture economics gender fluidity and sexual experimentation social and racial equality new forms of journalism and social science, and particle physics Mediocrities and haters like Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Green and Alex Jones who mouth off constantly and belligerently about “Freedom!” wouldn’t have lasted a week in the Haight’s culture. My friend, Barton Kunstler, wrote The Hot House Effect about periods in history where across many centuries and an enormous range of cultures, certain communities have stood out as bastions of creativity and intellectual progress. From ancient Athens to the vibrant American jazz scene of the 20th century, these seemingly disparate enclaves share a set of defining characteristics … factors that drove their unusual creative fervor. For a brief period of three or five years – depending on who’s counting – the Haight was such a place. Hundreds of thousands have been baptized in the waters of its psyche, culminating in its quintessential, ultimate and, perhaps, final, orgasmic expression across the American continent at Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. The impresario, Bill Graham, built the Haight-Ashbury’s greatest shrine, the Fillmore West. He once described Jerry Garcia, the founder and leader of The Grateful Dead as someone “who epitomized what the utopia that never was and never will be is.” For me, the Haight, while obviously imperfect, was a much-needed antidote to the impersonality of mindless capitalism with the imperialistic wars and colonial occupations that always accompany its acquisitive and deadly rationality. The utopianism of the Haight’s tribe exercised great power over people like me. We’d had enough. The Limits to Learning in Communitarian Societies As documented in a variety of studies of utopian and revolutionary moments, including my doctoral thesis, the intensity of the utopian flame like that burnt so brightly in the Haight did not and probably could not last. One for all and all for one is a great feeling, but it doesn’t reliably put food on the table. Undying love and BFF connections are more situationally dependent than one might realize upon entering into them.Ⓧ A friend of mine said that “there is plenty wrong with capitalism, but it is the system that most closely approximates human nature.” Human beings are both self-interested and public spirited. These sentiments can be miscible, forming a uniquely homogeneous mixture when added together into the character of everyone in myriad variations. Capitalism can disappoint, but it has its merits: the establishment of units of value (e.g., greenbacks) and financial institutions (e.g., banks) lubricate transactions between strangers market structures facilitate the dependable exchange of goods and services, credit mechanisms that enable innovation insurance protects risk takers from catastrophic losses operational efficiency that promote safe and predictable manufacture and delivery of products, considered from a utilitarian perspective, many/most of the other mechanisms of capitalism when mixed together with governmental oversight and regulation based on compassion have a better record of providing quality goods and services at the lowest price to the maximum number of people than systems that attempts to guarantee specific results by over-controlling the marketplace. If one is fortunate enough to experience a period of passionate solidarity (such as I did) it may well shape one’s sense of justice and hope for life. It may cause one to feel bonded to certain types of people and causes forever. On the other hand, righteous idealism can be fragile. Strong family, friendship and community ties frequently have a mutual and self-protective substrate. Difficult conversations are often avoided. Learning is sacrificed in the name of caring that is actually an undiscussable codependency. Alliances that seemed so permanent fracture easily when the context that surrounded those relationships shifts and new realities emerge. Chaotic Cosmic Consciousness in the Anthropocene The Anthropocene is generating new truths at an impossibly furious pace. The invention of the Gutenberg press in 1439 is considered by many to have been an inflection point in human history. Information that was once possessed only by a small elite became widely distributed. One might legitimately say that new “Bibles” – new articles of truth – are being minted almost daily in the unfolding of this magical and often terrifying era, which has only just begun. Take cosmic consciousness. The cover of Stuart Brand’s groundbreaking publication of The Whole Earth Catalog in 1970 featured a shot of Earth from space. Conceptually, humanity had known for some time that the physical universe was a lot larger than we could feel, but seeing the Earth as it is seen from outside our atmosphere created a new type of consciousness. Humanity no longer had the idea of our planet existing in space as an idea, a concept. It was now a palpable fact. Those images gave all Earthlings cosmic consciousness as an incontrovertible truth, not as a mental construct. Just as the shift from a geocentric version of the universe to a heliocentric one shook our perceptions of our place in the order of things in the mid-16th century, so are the views we hold of ourselves today being rattled to their very foundation by the lightning-fast discoveries and that are commonplace in the Anthropocene. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is transmitting images back to Earth that appear to be overturning everything we were once sure of regarding the age and history of the universe: The telescope spied galaxies from between 500 to 700 years million years after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, meaning the universe was under five percent of its current age…One galaxy is even believed to have around 100 billion stars. That would make [these galaxies] around the size of the Milky Way, which is "crazy," [according to] the study's first author, Ivo Labbe. It took our home galaxy the entire life of the universe for all its stars to assemble. "According to theory, galaxies grow slowly from very small beginnings at early times," Labbe said, adding that such galaxies were expected to be between 10 to 100 times smaller. What could be going on? One suspect is mysterious dark matter, which makes up a sizeable amount of the Universe. When dark matter "clumps" together into a halo, it attracts gas from the surrounding universe which in turn forms a galaxy and its stars, Labbe said. But this process is supposed to take a long time, and "in the early universe, there's just not that many clumps of dark matter," he said. Labbe referred to the "black swan theory", under which just one unexpected event can overturn [all] previous understanding—such as when Europeans saw the first black swans in Australia. He called the galaxies: "six black swans—if even one of them turns out to be true, then it means we have to change our theories…. the model is cracking." In other words, astrophysics and quantum physics are simultaneously blowing what we think we know about the physical world to bits. Human survival depends upon our inner state of consciousness going through a transformation comparable to what science and technology are presenting to us as truth to cope with the pace of change in a way that will preserve our distinctive abilities to feel, think and create. Without a thoroughgoing internal awakening, it seems likely that humanity will be succeeded by a coldly rational robots equipped with an intelligence that will enable them to endure a future that humans could not. People have employed practices such as meditation for millennia to create an inner space that is at home in whatever reality outer conditions might dish out. Psychotropics such as LSD and psylocibin can accelerate the process of seeing, feeling and accepting that one has only an infinitesimal place in a vastness of being that is completely out of mortal control and yet know peace. A “good trip” has much in common with the spiritual awakening and sense of belongingness that scores of thousands have cited over the eons of human history. Dreams are another avenue to the inner awareness and state of consciousness needed to exist in the Anthropocene. Most people don’t remember or record their dreams and some scientists dismiss dreams as nothing more than “electrical brain impulses that pull random thoughts and imagery from our memories.” However, one can develop the discipline to capture many dreams. Doing so, one encounters entities I experience as master teachers in the unconscious. It’s not a straightforward process and, from my perspective, one is almost always like The Fool who sets out on the journey described by The Tarot. But steady attention to the story of one’s self as presented in one’s dreams and to the validity of the dreamscape’s existence is also a pathway to the kind of inner cosmic consciousness needed to thrive in the outer one the Anthropocene is revealing. * According to many professional reporters in attendance at the event. # The experience of Blacks in America constitutes a tragic illustration of what happens when communitarians are thrown into a capitalist context. Millions were kidnapped from their homes, enslaved, and then “freed” only to be told during Reconstruction, “Okay, now you’re free. We, the folks who hold almost all of the power and wealth in this society, still think you’re subhuman and unworthy of education or the right to vote, but you now have a degree of legal equality. Therefore, we have every right to expect you to jump into a system you had no role in creating, to compete with your betters, play according to the rules that are already in place, and STFU.” Talk about crazy-making! (See Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: The Unfinished American Revolution for a an exhaustive and heart wrenching discussion of this pitiful history.) Of course, the West has brought this same supremacist rationality to many other peoples of the world, which is one of the key reasons the Anthropocene is in such bad shape. That isn’t to say that other cultures and systems don’t have their problems. They certainly do, but that’s no excuse for arrogant capitalism’s rape of so many societies and their peoples. Ⓧ Barry Oshry Power and Systems research provides both conceptual insights and specific. Illustrations of the impact that systemic spaces have on the creation and/or the dismemberment of community. I was following along nicely up to this point. While I, of course, know about Dr King and his work, this sentence doesn’t fit with the flow of the piece. Unfortunately he three in the song are overlapping but different than those you’ve cited.

Will the Anthropocene be an era of ever greater conformity or ever greater individual expressiveness? I am rooting for Lloyd Price's approach!

The death of Elizabeth has gotten me to think about the validity of aristocracy continuing to exist as we move deeper into the era where technology advances in a variety of directions with unknown consequences and traditional mores continue to come under pressure. Signposts back to the past are becoming more difficult to see, even as billions desperately cling to them. The word “aristocracy” derives from the ancient Greek word meaning “the best.” In The Republic, based upon Socrates' teachings, Plato asserted that "...those who ought to govern are those who are trained to know about politics and are trained to know what politics is about. To know about politics is to be able to produce and assess accounts of political processes; to know what politics is about is to be able to produce and assess accounts of the issues that people engaging in political processes use these processes to deliberate and decide." In other words, those who govern should be experts. Continuing in this line of Grecian thought, Aristotle distinguished between oligarchy and aristocracy. “Election by wealth is oligarchic, while election by merit is aristocratic.” Virtue is the defining factor of aristocracy as contrasted with “freedom” as the defining feature of democracy. Populism contrasts with aristocracy. Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of populism: Populism is an appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. “Ordinary” is a particularly slippery term. At one time in my life, I was quite close to four men. Rick was a mixed-race Puerto Rican and Black. Steve, a white guy, was, presumably, some sort of a student at the University of Chicago or had at one time been, maybe for like half a semester. Louis was Black as was Bobby. Rick pumped gas at a station down the street from me and made most of his money dealing weed. He was tight with Paul Butterfield and Elvin Bishop. Steve’s means of employment were unclear. I never saw him without his prescription sunglasses and working man’s cap. I came to believe that he slept in them. Louis read avidly on many topics. He worked on a garbage truck. One payday, I recall his articulating the following with perfect precision of speech. He wasn’t angry; he was stating a fact: “There is no possible way that they could ever pay me enough for the indignities that I have to endure.” Bobby was a connoisseur and cosmopolitan, who was so broke that, when we walked into a nice restaurant, he ordered “The Hobo Special,” which he defined as a glass of water and some sugar cubes along with some bread and butter. All were men that the OED would likely define as “ordinary,” but at the moment in time when I knew them, they carried themselves with a strikingly aristocratic bearing. They were courageous. They faced the “police riot” that characterized the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968. While I haven't seen them since then, I’m sure that life dealt them all some staggering blows, but these “ordinary” men taught me lessons in being for which I will grateful as long as I am me. It was also very true that many/most of the men and women who took that courageous stand against the police in Chicago that summer were part of a popular uprising, but they were unequipped to govern a complex society. They believed in a particular cause vehemently, but they were nothing like the trained experts the early creators of democracy thought of critical to social stability and progress. A populist movement can be very appealing to those caught up in its passion, but it can descend quickly into chaos, lawlessness and incompetence. When populists have been in charge, their track record of achievement has been spotty, Populism is great at starting and driving change, but it tends to silence the minority voices and dissent democracy depends upon for learning, Spaceship Earth is going to work a lot better as a new aristocratic class -- The Anthrocracy -- emerges. The Anthrocratic Class is already making its presence felt. It is made up of people with a range of characteristics. It most effective members manifest the populist ideal of treating everyone with dignity and real respect, and they also possess deep expertise that comes from being trained at something (and maybe many things) they happen to have an innate talent for. Frequently, these women and men will radiate the kind of self-confidence that makes them immediately attractive to others. The humility they have - both naturally as a result of their fundamental character - and acquired by paying attention to lessons of living makes them the antithesis of demagogues. They are about being awake and present; petulant narcissists are about themselves first, last, and always. Of course, the Anthrocrats are human. They make mistakes. They have regrets. They grow. They fall back. Sometimes they’re sure of things when they ought not to be. Sometimes they are not sure of things when they should be. They have their critics. They come from every walk of life. They are magisterial. It can be easy not to notice some/many of them. Money might give one power, but it doesn’t make one an Anthrocrat. Nor does the possession of money, privilege, and access mean that one cannot be an Anthrocrat. It’s a class based on demeanor, values, and competence. If everyone in history had the leisure time and access to education and a broad range of experiences that those with money and privilege have, we’d have a lot more aristocrats. Aristocrats derive from a particular tradition, although it is largely watered down. In the West, they have been called “all-arounders,” i.e., men and women who are good at many endeavors. They aren’t necessarily oriented toward making money. Many do carry on the tradition of raking in more capital, in part because they are steeped in the family tradition of doing so. But they have the time and resources to think, study, play and create if they want to. The money is likely to be there. In fact, if they’re anxious about money, they probably aren’t all that aristocratic. That’s like a really bourgeois way to think and operate. Philanthropy is characteristic of the aristocratic class. The few real aristocrats I’ve known share some traits. They went to serious schools. Vocational preparation was not the only or the pre-eminent focus of their education. They learned how to think. They were exposed to many kinds of ideas. They engaged fully with topics in school and in life that subsequently were of real interest to them. They were expected to assume leadership positions in society, and they became aware of and developed their leadership capabilities. They both created and inspired organizations. Their class positions, their lack of concern with the constraints that so many people must confront, and the acceptance of their influence in a multiplicity of contexts led them to be at ease and courageous in positions of authority. I’ve also known personally or become aware of a bunch of so-called aristocrats through the media that are nothing but bums. Given that innate talent and intelligence are randomly distributed across all demographic groups, that tail end of the bell curve where one is likely to find those “virtue” oriented aristocrats the Greeks were so excited about, it likely to constitute a very small percentage of the entirety of the aristocratic population. Because of all the resources, training, and access they have, their numbers may be a little higher than that of the general population, but probably not much. Howard Gardner seems to have proved that there are nine types of intelligence: This IQ bell curve reminds us of the likely random nature of the distribution of all of them. Talent is also widely and probably randomly distributed. Talent can be defined as “a superior, apparently natural ability in the arts or sciences or in the learning or doing of anything.” Of course, as Lana Turner demonstrated, luck plays a significant role in whether one’s intelligence and talent intersect with opportunity. But credibility must be given to the adage that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” There are trend lines at work in the Anthropocene that could vastly expand the opportunities for “ordinary” people to have access to the sort of education and life experiences that aristocrats have had and have taken for granted for centuries: Awareness of inner life has become more prevalent. Two stats to support this assertion: there are now approximately 190,000 clinical psychologists in practice in the US. The field continues to grow steadily. Lord knows they’re needed! Something like 600,000,000 worldwide suffer from anxiety and depression. Millions of people describe themselves as “spiritual” rather than “religious.” And, of course, billions more identify as religious. Putting aside critiques of these three activities, they frequently indicate a strong interest in the inner life, the life of the heart/mind/consciousness, and the life that aristocrats have had the freedom to explore. Technological advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and renewable energy (to name but three) will mean that a lot fewer people will be needed to do what constitutes today’s “work.” What’s happened to agriculture will happen to many other industries and occupations. The internet has made first-rate, advanced education become much more accessible and inexpensive via Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). For example, Coursera offers 19 specializations in Physics, including 247 courses touching directly or indirectly on particle physics. EdX offers 43 courses in History, e.g., “Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories.” One can enroll in a four-year curriculum in Astrology. Here is what seems to be a complete list of MOOCs. Even hands-on occupations like piloting an airplane are being taught online and the prospect of flight training via simulation must be an enticing possibility for major airlines that can’t find the pilots to fly their planes. Support high quality, low cost public education at every turn. For example, the proposal to make community colleges free of tuition costs has been circulation for several years and free early childhood education has been advocated by the Democratic Party and others for even longer. And, of course, there are tens of thousands of free or inexpensive events and analyses generated constantly by organizations of every conceivable nature. The several thousand organizations identified by the Security and Sustainability Guide can be a useful resource to those with a geopolitical perspective. The philosopher (and aristocrat), Bertrand Russell, asserted that it is deeply wrongheaded for people to be tied to jobs day in and day out for forty years and then retire and wait around to die: "If we allow work to occupy every waking hour, we are not living fully….Leisure, previously something known to only the privileged few, is necessary for a rich and meaningful life…The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need for slaves. Our capacity for play and light-heartedness has been eclipsed by the cult of efficiency. A society that took leisure seriously would be one that takes education seriously – because education is surely about more than training for the workplace. It would be one that takes the arts seriously because there would be time to produce works of quality without the struggle that artists have for economic independence….Such a society would lose the taste for war because war involves “long and severe work for all.” (Paraphrased from the article about Russell in DK Publishing’s The Big Book of Philosophy.) The Anthropocene is going to be very rough on anyone without a good/great education. The ability to learn and to act on what one learns is the hallmark of the aristocracy’s success. That is why the well-to-do are so willing to pay the exorbitant tuitions that elite universities charge their children. That kind of education is within reach for everyone who wants it today. Grasping that opportunity is resulting in the creation of tens of thousands of people who can become and are becoming Anthrocrats. Of course, there are powerful obstacles facing this happy scenario. As the quote from Aristotle noted at the outset, wealth doesn’t equate with merit or virtuousness. However, unlike many other variables, wealth is not randomly distributed. Although it’s happening in fits and starts, the ‘Cene is pulling the world ever more tightly together. While the one percent can fight it off ruthlessly for a long time, this pie chart is a recipe for revolution and disaster. I don’t know where and don’t know when, but this predictable calamity is likely to occur sooner than we think. With a few exceptions, racial and ethnic minorities make up a disproportionate percentage of the poor and the disenfranchised. An end to racism, in particular, and ethnic and religious intolerance more generally can bridge the gap between the virtue ascribed to the aristocrats and freedom, which Aristotle describes as the central feature of democracy. We’ve had so many examples of talent and wisdom possessed by members of second-class citizens on Spaceship Earth. Imagine an Anthropocene where these arbitrary and absurd divisions are abandoned. Imagine a quantum increase in the size of Anthrocratic leadership! Millions of people possess this virtue the Greeks admired. Enabling them to manifest their competencies fully can save democracy. Although they have died, James Baldwin and Nina Simone are but two examples of the Anthrocrats that are already showing up. The complexity of Baldwin’s reflections on race, sexuality, and politics anticipated the confusion and nuance of the Anthropocene today. Baldwin was and remains renowned. His influence will be felt down through the halls of the future. He did not get the rapt attention he deserved during his lifetime, however. His is still a name that most Americans do not know, and, if they did, many of them would ban his books. For the ‘Cene to make the scene, to survive and thrive in the indefinite era of realization that beckons it, people like Baldwin should be respected as royalty. Not surprisingly, Nina Simone was a friend of James Baldwin. One of eight children growing up poor in segregated North Carolina in the 1940s, Simone faced racism at many, many turns. She was an extraordinarily gifted classical pianist, who sought acceptance at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She was devastated when her application was denied. Many are convinced that Simone, like Billy Holiday, was hounded by racial prejudice. In the 1980s Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That may have been genetic and always present. On the other hand, it may have also been a result of the pressure of having such incredible talent and being continuously oppressed because of the color of her skin. How would you feel if the Klan had the right to hang you simply because they wanted to? That would sure make me nuts. QAnon and Company are itching to bring us back to those days and before. Royalty for Nina in the ‘Cene! So, let us not renounce aristocracy. Let’s reframe what we mean by it in the Anthropocene. Let’s make it more inclusive, bigger, and yeastier. [1] The words “ordinary,” “disregarded” and “elite” all need to be unpacked.

Given the calamitous outcome of fascism in the countries where it’s been fully implemented (e.g., Italy and Germany in WW II), Americans have every reason to be vigilant about and to act against this dogma. The polycrisis nature of the Anthropocene makes it and everyone living in it vulnerable to the emergence of extremist ideologies. Unlike “Authoritarianism” or “Totalitarianism”, Fascism is an easy word to say, and that may be why it’s used (and misused) a lot. Just because fascism is a term that is overused and loosely applied, doesn’t mean that it isn’t a political ideology that has specific components. They are worth knowing and reflecting upon. Fascism is characterized by: Unwavering and unquestioning loyalty to the “strong man” leader, and his oligarchic supporters. (And it’s almost always a ‘he’ because Fascists, e.g., the Proud Boys, see women as “the weaker sex”). The Rule of Fear rather than the Rule of Law. Flagrant lying and rumor-mongering to gin up anxiety and terror in the population Conformity and the loss of individualism. People who don’t agree with the Leader are to be ostracized and/or hunted down as threats to the stability of the State Militaristic nationalism and a state of perpetual warfare. Enemies are everywhere. Only “pure” folks, whatever that means, are true citizens. “Foreigners” who don’t have the proper pedigree (e.g., don’t speak a society’s official language well) are suspect. Minority groups and people with skin color or religious traditions that are not held by the majority of the population constitute a threat. Even if they reside in a territorial possession or colony of the Leader’s society, they are not “one of us.” The majority is aggrieved usually by a supposedly nefarious and secretive "elite" minority whose allegiances to some other homeland or creed outweigh its members' commitment to the dominant culture and its ways. They should be watched closely and, under various circumstances, interned or expelled. War and chaos are better than peace and tranquility. War gives men a chance to be real men. Chaos makes you tough, and helps you face “the mean world with the required strength.” Peace activism is feminine. An independent media is the enemy of the state. The function of the media is to propagandize the point of view and fine character of the Leader. Many people are considered no better than vermin; they are subhuman “infestations.” One of the best ways to conduct foreign policy with other authoritarian regimes is to pay no attention to the topic of ‘human rights because every society has its malingers and malcontents who question the authority and probity of the Leader. Critical thinkers like artists, intellectuals, and scientists are frequently the worst offenders. Doctrinaire Religious Leaders join the government in calling for subservience to authority. Election fraud is widespread and campaigning is a one-party farce. Corruption and cronyism are rampant. In the United States, through our system of checks and balances, the behavior of any individual or group seeking to be the singular voice of authority over national affairs is constrained. Our Constitution was designed to protect the republic from every brand of tyranny. Attempts to debase the power of the Justice Department by Trumpism feels fascistic. Fascism’s un-American tendencies are all too ascendant in the current era. There are many reasons why this is the case. For example, our educational system and our media have not and are not preparing us to engage the complexity of the Anthropocene within which we are embedded. We are distracted, ill-informed, and, therefore, vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories. Much more can and will be said on this topic. In my opinion, it will be simpler for those of us who understand the centrality of the Constitution to the American project to name the fascist tendencies of the MAGA Movement. If the shoe fits, make them wear it! Clearly articulating the parallels between current regimes worldwide (e.g., Russia, India, Hungary, etc.) and Fascism can awaken those in the thrall of the short-term benefits and the emotional fire of authoritarianism to the real dangers and long-term risks fascism poses to our freedom and our form of government. Roosevelt's The Four Freedoms are the Antithesis of Fascism Norman Rockwell's depiction of them: Freedom of Speech Freedom to Whatever Form of Spirituality is True for the Individual Freedom from Want Freedom from Fear

Starting in 1995, I’ve wanted to purchase an all-electric vehicle. That’s when I first became aware of the work of Stan Ovshinsky. Compared to Edison by his obituary in The New York Times, Stan died with over 400 patents across multiple disciplines. With a compelling life story, Stan was an extraordinary Anthropocean. His nickel metal hydride battery was instrumental to the creation and production of GM’s EV-1, a vehicle that went from 0 to 60 in about 6 seconds. As chronicled in Who Killed the Electric Car, a documentary film about the rise and venomous destruction of the EV-1 by General Motors, what happened to Stan’s work is another tragic example of the fate suffered by many thousands of visionaries whose character and accomplishments are and will be largely forgotten by history. Boy, could we use people like him now! It was an honor to be his friend. The demise of the EV-1 left me without an electric car hope until 2008 when I started reading about Tesla. It took me a while to work up the nerve to purchase this new vehicle. It was expensive; it wasn’t clear that the company would survive; its founder was/is a polymath and a nut. Thanksgiving Dinner, 2019 made my decision. At a dinner party, I met some Tesla owners: a Canadian couple who had already owned two of the vehicles and a beefy guy with gray hair and a big smile. My conversations led to action. A lot of parents should only love their kids as much as the Two-Timers love their Teslas! They'd driven their car from Montreal to Florida. Even before the ongoing build-out of Tesla’s current 25,000 superchargers worldwide, they dismissed any concerns that one would run out of power on the road with a wave of the hand. They glowed when describing the ride and the car’s acceleration. They waxed poetically about the scope of the windshields. I felt like I was talking to salespeople at a service center, but they were only speaking as happy customers. My partner and I listened very closely to their “presentation.” It moved us closer to the purchase. Mr. Beefy spoke almost as extravagantly about his experience as the couple. The coolness of the interior. The automaticity of electronics and technology. The pride he took in being an early adopter. But, there was one key difference in his commentary: "To tell you the truth, I just traded my Tesla in for a BMW CS. The Tesla is a great, great car, but I missed the vroom! I just have to have that sound of the car’s power! I love that, live for it!" (Paraphrase) [1] Being a person who’s been trying to get off the internal combustion engine and gasoline power for 30 years, Mr. Beefy did an excellent job of reminding me that I didn’t want to be him. I do not miss the vroom. I want to be a long-termer, someone for whom the future is as important as the present. I want the Anthropocene to be a safe place. I don’t want Earth to repeat Venus’ experience. I bought a Tesla. A lot of people “live for the vroom.” Let me guesstimate their numbers in the US: There are 290 million cars There are 40 million trucks There are 9 million motorcycles There are 115,000 gas stations There are 143,000 used car dealerships There are 19,000 new car dealerships The lobbying budget of the gas-powered auto industry as a totality is difficult to estimate. Taking into account a variety of inputs, I think a conservative figure might be around $300,000,000. Of course, not every driver has a psychological identification with muscular-sounding vehicles. But do not count them out. There is one whole heck-of-a-lot! For example, there are 425 commercial drag strips and hundreds of oval race tracks. I can’t validate it, but my guess is that we’re talking about 2,000,000 hard-core muscle car, truck, and motorcycle guys. And, of course, since charts and lists can be boring, there’s the experience we all have of everyday aggressive drivers doing crazy and dangerous stuff. That’s twice the number of people in Wyoming. In other words, a lot of people are going to miss the Vroom. Take a little time to look at this ten-minute clip taken by road drivers in somewhat common vehicles demonstrating just how much the Vroom means to them. They are, obviously, risking their lives, that of those that are in the car with them, anyone they might injure or kill through accidents, etc. Are they worried? Absolutely not! They are having the time of their lives! In the clips, their girlfriends – because they’re mostly guys – are super-turned on. And they love capturing their machismo on video for whatever little bit of posterity they may get to enjoy as much as the folks who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. Flash forward to 2035. California recently announced that it will ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles beginning 13 years from now. California’s approximately 33,000,000 gas-powered vehicles consumed 14 billion gallons of gasoline in 2021. It is the US’ largest car market. Forgetting about the Vroom for a minute, consider how many millions of people are directly and indirectly tied into the fossil fuel transportation system in this one state right now. How in the name of everything having to do with the Gaia, are we going to deal with the dislocation they are going to go through to switch over to alternative energy? What are their reactions to that dislocation going to do to all of us who are already sold on the vision of a green and circular economy?! As I write, the Federal Reserve Commissions Chair, Jerome Powell, has re-iterate the FED’s intention to fight inflation. The US is headed into recession. “Households will feel some pain.” 300 talking heads mentioned “soft landing.” The stock market dropped by 1,100 points. If today’s economy is challenging to manage, imagine one where millions and millions of people are going to go through multiple wrenching social shifts be like? Vehicular transformation is only one. Diehards are particularly wedded to the past. Is it possible to alter the behavior and maybe even the values of men who are totally absorbed in their rides? What are we to do with the men (and some women) who cannot imagine themselves without their hot rods? I don’t have good answers to my questions, which is one reason the Anthropocene is so up for grabs. There are so many unknown unknowns. I was reminded reminded that kids put cards on their bike wheels to create noise. Maybe that can be adopted by EV manufacturers?! I heard that an electric car company is coming up with an acceleration noise that’ll be graded to sound like the gas-power vroom. Legislation outlawing making EVs noisy is surely in motion. Maybe intern the Vroomers at an enormous race track in Mississippi like we did with tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans during WWII?! (Not a serious proposal.) Perhaps when noisy fast cars are outlawed, only outlaws will have noisy fast cars?! I’d call those ideas quintessentially short-term fixes. How about this: Green-focused education at every level of schooling starting now! I don’t know the average age of the masculine muscle car or truck romantic today, but let’s say it’s 32. Those who don’t die as a result of their recklessness will be 45 in 2035. Let’s also assume that the average age of kids in Pre-K to 12 at all schools is presently 10. They’ll be 23 in 2035. Assume that the young people in school now get a thorough education about climate change. Assume that any parents who thinks that climate change is a hoax will be unable to shape local school education policy, that the denial of climate change will be roundly and repeatedly repudiated and mocked in 95% of the media and that the teaching of climate change denial will not be allowed in public schools. What difference would it make in the thinking, norms, and behaviors of these young people who will be entering adulthood in 2035? Probably a lot. There are multiple climate change resources available for educators, including for the very young. For example, this clip from Learn Bright, introduces kindergarten and first graders to the distinction between weather and climate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkvPdUtYhX8. Learn Bright has an extensive curriculum of climate and nature-related video lessons (https://learnbright.org/?s=Climate+change&post_type=product) https://kidsagainstclimatechange.co/lessons-for-teachers/ is explicitly focused on helping children understand the drivers and dynamics of climate change in order to prepare them to be part of the solution. Clean Net is committed to climate and energy education: https://cleanet.org/clean/literacy/climate/index.html But education - and public education, in particular - is needed to achieve the transformation in societal consciousness. Of course, given the degree to which the teaching of climate science is such a polarizing and politicized topic, it’s a lot to assume that climate change denial will no longer be tolerated in certified educational settings by 2035, but hey, it could happen! Without focused, redundant, omnipresent, and well-funded climate education, intensive civil strife over a changeover to renewable and alternative energies is completely predictable. Since a polycrisis of problems with climate change as one of the key drivers is not going away, conflict over the push to make the shift to a green economy makes the imposition of a severe – and probably stupidly bureaucratic – environmental dictatorship becomes increasingly likely. More about that speculation subsequently. [1] The CS is the most powerful car in BMW's M division’s history. The current model features a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 engine uprated to produce 635 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque. It gets approximately 17 mpg.

My mind tends to cringe when people say this to me. It is a statement that is usually/almost always delivered in conjunction with the “eye-lock,” a way of looking at people combined with a tone of voice that communicates “You know what I’m about to say is right” and/or “I’m the grown up in the room when it comes to this topic.” It’s a kissing cousin to “Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth.” Here's an example: In 2018, Cesar Sayoc, a career criminal and an ardent supporter of then President Trump, sent 16 bombs via the US mail to a combination of Democratic politicians and news organizations like CNN. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden were all intended targets. Cesar Sayoc’s Van When ABC News reporter, Tara Palmer, asked Mike Pence if he thought Trump’s rhetoric and behavior contributed to Sayoc’s attacks, the then-VP responded: Here’s the video. "Look, the reality is the people responsible are the people responsible. And what the president and I stand for, and I think every American stands for, is that threats or acts of political violence from anyone, anywhere, for any reason should not be allowed." [Emphasis added.] Needless to say, there are a lot of people who don’t see it that way, Mike. And that’s the point. My guesstimate is that well over 75+% of all categorical “advocacy” statements like Pence’s could and should be subject to question. One making an advocacy statement believes that he or she is stating a fact, regardless of the evidence. Here’s an example of an assertion within an inquiry statement that makes the opinion open to being disproven. "Given the dynamism, insecurity, and rate of change in the Anthropocene, can we agree that this era requires a dramatic shift in the ratio of inquiry to advocacy statements?" Chris Argyris, his collaborator, Don Schön, and their “guild” (of which I am a member) engaged in an extensive study of the behavioral strategies of people under organizational stress of one sort or another and determined that most people use advocacy statements most of the time in any situation that they feel called upon to express a point of view. Stress is a moving target. Something may be stressful for one person and not stressful for another. Many psychological and sociological factors determine what will be stressful for a person. Regardless of these variations, people under stress are vulnerable to absolutist thinking and behavior. This evidence about how we tick seems highly relevant to effective function in the Anthropocene because, increasingly, the very definition of reality is up for grabs. As discussed in another blog entry, George Soros asserts (and demonstrates with data) that there is a “reflexivity” between mind and matter. Matter exists, but the emotions that matter evokes in us and the ways in which we think and act upon our reactions to matter tend to blur the character of whatever aspect of reality we’re responding to. A mindset about what is observed can be as important if not more so than the material in the question itself. Once you’ve seen it, can you not see it? Once we have a frame of reference regarding a phenomenon, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to change our minds about “know to be true.” Neuroscience elaborates on the nature of reflexivity. Based on extensive experimentation and analysis, Anil Seth is a prominent neuroscientist who holds that “our brains hallucinate our conscious realities.” We trust our senses to inform our consciousness, but, apparently, it’s the other way round. The part of our brains that decides what is going on weaves the perceptions of our senses together in a part of the brain that is remote from the components of the brain where “reality’s” inputs arrive. Consciousness’ pre-existing conclusions regarding meaning are applied to input received and say “This is A” or “This is Q.” Intriguingly, and not surprisingly, quantum physics arrives at a similar conclusion: “reality is what you choose it to be.” It seems that everywhere we look, what we see is what we get. Given that most of us most of the time are unaware of the fact that we’re making up reality and given that it’s also completely clear that, paradoxically, reality does exist, it’s not surprising that a belief in inevitability walks hand-in-hand with the certainty with which most of us proceed through life. Here are some examples: It’s inevitable that the United States and China will go to war It’s inevitable that the worst effects of climate change will unfold It’s inevitable that experimentation is anything other than heterosexuality leads to depravity It’s inevitable that capitalism ruins people It’s inevitable that socialism stifles innovation It’s inevitable that we’ll find life on other planets It’s inevitable that we’ll discover that there is no life on other planets You get the picture. If one arrived in the Anthropocene from the Middle Ages, for example, the experience would be astonishing and overwhelming. There would be ways in which human beings and some elements of nature would be familiar, but the technological accomplishments of humanity would be beyond any concept of possibility available to all but the rarest of Medieval minds. I suspect that most immigrants coming here from 1200 would have heart attacks within half an hour of arrival. I’m sure that folks 800 years ago had many assumptions about what was absolutely going to transpire on our planet in the future, and 95+% of those expectations would have been completely incorrect. So, look, the reality is, we might believe that we know what is going to happen in the 'Cene, but that isn’t the same thing as actually knowing. It’s our story of the truth, rather than the truth itself. We’d be advised to hold our beliefs tentatively, to think more in terms of hypotheses than certainty, and to pay particular attention to evidence that disconfirms our convictions. It’s hard to learn from what we know. Isn’t it what we don’t know that can teach us? P.S. It’s a Dalmatian

In his defense of the British soldiers who fired on and killed eight colonists during “The Boston Massacre,” John Adams said: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. Given the degree to which misinformation, conspiracy theories in search of evidence, and unrestrained lying characterize current American political discourse (and probably that of many other societies as well), one suspects that facts are falling out of favor. Many Republican Party candidates and platform planks have virtually no relationship to facts: Climate change? A hoax! Diversity? A left-wing plot hatched at the UN! Biden’s Election? Stop the Steal! Viruses? Invented by George Soros using satellites put up by the Rothchilds in the 1800s! The truth stands about as much of a chance these days as an allied bomber did flying over Berlin at Noon on a sunny day in 1941! One could discount my concern about the state of facts by asserting that this "lies lead over truth" has been around for a long time. After all, Mark Twain said that “a lie can get halfway around the world in the time that it takes truth to put on its shoes.” Given the speed of social media, lies can now get to the moon and back several times before truth has even thought about putting on its shoes. Why is the truth in so much trouble in the Anthropocene when climate change and other threatening trends are creating such a desperate need for it?! I believe that loneliness is closely connected to the willingness to lie and to believe lies. As I’m using the term here, loneliness is a feeling of terrible emptiness and anguished longing for connection. One wishes to be with others, to be cared for by others, to belong to associations with like-minded people, to be liked, and to feel loved and supported. One of the key benefits of fused families is where everything is thought about and spoken of in the context of a “hive mind”, where there is no “dead air,” no moments or extended periods of independence from the talk, the thinking, the faith, the chores, the gossip of the family and, frequently, the clan to which the family belongs. Fused families aren’t all the same. They can range from conditions where every member of the family thinks and feels “happy” to ones where family members all feel miserable, but still, stick together because they aren’t lonely. The promise that you won’t be lonely is what keeps many social units intact. Think of people who are constantly on the phone with someone or forever tuned into television shows or are compulsively knowledgeable about everything that’s happening in sports or join gangs or spend every weekend going to parties or cruise around in packs of thousands of motorcycles. Many of these people are lonely and will become enraged or break down in tears if anyone says so. FOMO [Fear Of Missing Out] has become a national compulsion. If one has a bad case of FOMO, it’s well-nigh impossible to get a break from it. There is so much to know and all of it seems so important! The Anthropocene presents us with virtually unlimited options for stimulation and almost no limits on lifestyle options. It’s impossible to be cool across all the fronts that all of us are encouraged to learn and know about. The vastness of possibilities may increase loneliness because choosing anything means knowing that so many alternative paths aren’t being followed and all the people one might meet by doing so. The tree of life presents so many alluring branches. It’s hard to choose, but not choosing can lead to a deeper sense of psychological disquiet, a feeling of being lost and not knowing which way to turn. Economic anxiety augments the paralysis of not knowing what to do. Applying attention to poor choices puts people in a deep hole. Loneliness is knowing that you could be such a wonderful friend or lover if only people would give you a chance. Loneliness is having a lot of secret thoughts that you know you can’t share. Loneliness is living day after day with no one else touching you. Loneliness is longing to receive the kind of attention and support you are so entitled to and knowing that it will never come. Loneliness is living a life of quiet (or loud) desperation in the context of a society that frequently cares a lot more about possessions or profits or ideologies than it does about people and nature. Loneliness is a precursor to being manipulated. It’s a vulnerability that makes many of us willing to say or do anything to belong to something that is bigger than us, something that will make us feel that we fit in. Demagogues know that lonely people are available selves. They don’t have a core identity even when they are sure they do. They can be enrolled in extremist movements. The character of Professor Rath in Blue Angel (1930) is an example of someone who begins the film quite confident that he has a very solid, upright self, who tolerates no foolishness or lasciviousness from his students. But then he goes to a nightclub and becomes completely entranced by Marlene Dietrich, a femme fatale with a well-formed identity, who chews the professor up and throws him away like trash, sort of like Trump devouring a Big Mac and then chucking his leavings on the floor for someone else to clean up. As Clay Brown reminds us in his video essay, the Professor’s vulnerability, the loneliness that he did not know he had, his openness to be controlled and dominated by an aggressor as portrayed in the film anticipated the majority of the German population’s eager renunciation of that society’s profound achievements in art, culture, and science to embrace a blood-thirsty murderer’s insane ideology. Manipulators know that many, perhaps most, people don’t have a true core of being. Many of us are more like Kevin McCarthy than we are like Liz Cheney. This weakness of character, which is difficult to acknowledge even to ourselves let alone others makes the lonely easy prey for cynical powermongers. In his monumental The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Wilhelm Reich referred to these narcissists as “freedom peddlers.” A freedom peddler is a con artist who leads others to believe that following him or her will liberate them to be their true selves when all the fraud truly wishes to do is to turn suckers into true believers who will pay the swindler to lie to them. Of course, the situation becomes even worse when the Jim Jones of the world believe their own horse pucky. These sociopaths are willing to die for their psychoses and to take everybody else with them. Since despair and rage at the unfairness of the world are frequent companions of loneliness, the freedom peddler who gives meaning to the lives of the lost can persuade them to do all sorts of things that they would never have considered if they didn’t become part of a movement. Lonely people can easily be transformed into fanatics, and large groups of people who are deeply alienated from everyone and everything – including themselves –can be turned into violent mobs by exploiters who know how to massage their fears and their neediness. As a colleague and friend says, “when things are pretty bad, people are willing to believe things that are too good to be true.” For example, in the United States and in a variety of other societies, the lies of authoritarians and their regimes are getting louder and louder. Here’s what they sound like: “We are the master race. A hidden cabal of evil, corrupt, and filthy rich people that have sacrificed no blood for our soil are trying to replace us in our homeland! They are running a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor in DC! They are seeking to destroy the feelings of pride we have in our heritage. They distort our glorious history to try to make us feel bad and guilty! They are mocking the flag! Everything they say is fake news. These vermin are enemies of the people! Get rid of them and put people like me in power and your troubles will be over!” Of course, all statements like these are lies, but ideas like these have been widely believed across centuries, as they are now. They continue to be held fervently even when they are disproven over and over again. QAnon didn’t suffer any great loss in popularity when it turned out that JFK Junior really is and was dead. The need to belong to something that validates one’s being and animates one’s passion is more important than the truth for millions, if not billions of people. At the climax of George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith is so tortured that he agrees with Big Brother’s party that when The Party says 2+2=5, it’s right. That is the sort of conformity people can be manipulated into believing devoutly when they are bereft of an internal compass. They would be happy to reload Big Brother’s gun when he starts shooting people on 5th Ave. So, what is the antidote to the emptiness that loneliness generates? This is an excellent question, for which I don’t think there is any easy answer. One response is that loneliness presents us with an opportunity to develop an intense awareness of ourselves, an awareness that prepares us to make better choices about the communities we join and what we do in them. Loneliness gives us an opportunity to pay attention to what we pay attention to. The psychologist, Clark Moustakas, elaborated on these ideas in his books on the topic of loneliness. Personally, I’ve found great value in remembering my dreams and paying attention to the powerful positive forces and feelings that can appear in them, as well as to worrying emotional reactions that point me toward doorways to change which I need to walk toward and through. There are many viewpoints regarding dreams. I believe and I am confident that something called the collective unconscious is real and that through dreams, and probably other methodologies as well, one can become open to and influenced by primordial archetypes of the essence of human nature that can provide us with a kind of succor and insight that is greater than the sadness and trauma of loneliness. But that’s just me. That’s my way of finding peace, sometimes, in the hurly-burly roller coaster of the ‘Cene. What’s yours? If we could find unifying responses to the profound feeling of loneliness that so many of us suffer from, we’d have a heck of a lot happier and more hopeful Anthropocene. # # # [1] I believe that this is an actual sign posted in the Paoli, Indiana News on March 15, 2021. Because I was not actually in Paoli, Indiana on March 15th, 2021, I cannot verify it was.

“It wasn’t that long ago that we used to hunt them as prey.” An urbane and well-educated 70-year-old white man I know said this to me recently when we were discussing the challenge many men face in their attempts to understand women. Freud famously and notoriously commented on this topic asking, “What does a woman want?!” While my acquaintance thought he was being facetious, his statement shocked me. It spoke to the continuing disparity between the power of men and women, a differential that is expressed physically in many circumstances. The overturning of Roe in the United States got me speculating about the core of what it is that men want from women? For a lot of guys, some form of sexual subservience is the obvious answer. Many men hate the idea and the actuality of women expressing themselves sexually as they see fit. Frequently, “manly” men think of themselves as “love machines” ready, willing, and able to have sex with any woman they find attractive in terms of what “sexy” means to that guy. In their view, women are supposed to be in the thrall of sexed-up men. The idea that women have their own sexual nature, their own way of wanting and needing sex independent of what a man might want doesn’t appeal to many/most guys, certainly not the ones who are passing these outrageous anti-female laws all over the world and in the US, particularly recently. Men are afraid of female sexuality, and there are facts that make such insecurity somewhat understandable. For example, while the research isn’t rigorous, there seems to be little doubt that well over 50% of women can have multiple orgasms in a single sexual encounter and that this capacity for sustained and intense pleasure remains intact for much of a woman’s life. On the other hand, only 10% of men in their 20s ever experience multiple orgasms[1] and the percentage of guys capable of revving up the southland more than once every couple of days declines significantly as people with penises age. Any man who’s been fortunate enough to be with a woman who is experiences multiple orgasms frequently knows that it can be mighty challenging to keep up! Once warmed up through foreplay that they find to be adequate, many women can keep at it for a very long time. Furthermore, getting turned on Monday can lead a woman to want more sex on Tuesday and Wednesday when a lot of guys feel like starting pitchers, who need a couple of days off between trips to the mound. It is noteworthy that only approximately 15% of women report having multiple orgasms, even though many more could (and maybe do in the privacy of masturbating without a man’s insecurities around to deal with). Bottom line: millions of women are unsatisfied sexually. They’re not getting the kind of sex they want as often as they want and how they want it. How are men responding to this? Increasingly, the people (mostly men) who make the laws in the United States are reacting to the sexual needs and potency of women by denying that such needs exist. Even more important, male legislators are punishing women who like sex by making it more dangerous for them to engage in intercourse. In contrast, there are no real prohibitions or penalties for men having sex. Yes, there are plenty of “people of faith” of both sexes who believe that sex has a wide range of mystical connotations and practice abstinence before marriage and sex for procreative purposes within marriage. Sounds mighty tough to me. But I think it’s fair to say most men get the message that they are supposed to be constantly hot to trot from every conceivable source from the onset of puberty till they lay us in our graves. Men are constantly presented with images and allurements of women that cannot possibly be satisfied. Raquel Welch as an example of the All-Powerful and Unattainable Seductress While the objectification of both sexes is probably on the rise, women are still much likelier to be seen as “things” to be desired and conquered than men. Recapping: it’s not enough that men have their own natural sexual appetites. These desires are constantly being stimulated. Men are essentially told to go forth and fuck as much and with as many partners as possible. Many men do just that. And most of us do so without having to face anything like the kind of risks confronting women. Yes, men transmit and get infected with sexually transmitted diseases. And, yes, relationships can be very complicated for guys. But men do not get pregnant. Men are not oppressed by laws requiring them to take pregnancies to term regardless of how the pregnancy began. Of course, some of the most vociferous official opponents of abortion and liberated female sexuality are consummate hypocrites, but they aren’t our primary concern here. It’s the garden variety guy’s casual or semi-casual sex that is most alarming. When the criticism of the sexual activity of men is compared to the extreme stigmatization that women must deal with that is most unfair. (“Boys will be boys.”) Throughout the course of most of their lives, men are encouraged to have a variety of sex partners; women not only have to deal with the possibility and consequences of getting pregnant; they are also called “whores” and “sluts” if they do the thing multiple men want them to do. Sometimes the same men who take advantage of a woman’s sexuality lead the charge to condemn the women they just had sex with. It may or may not surprise most women to learn that the kind of bragging Donald Trump did with Billy Bush about his sexual exploits and proclivities is extraordinarily commonplace. Melania Trump called this conversation “locker room talk,” but – as almost every man above the age of 50 knows for sure (and probably most of them over the age of 13 would also acknowledge) – this kind of discussion between men is in-the-car talk, having-coffee talk, hanging-out-in-bars talk, could-happen-any-and-all-the-time talk among men. I’m not a Puritan. I’m not saying that the way men behave sexually is necessarily bad or evil, although when they are chauvinistic, abusive, or immature their actions can be obnoxious and, sometimes, criminal. What I am saying is that the sexual playing field between men and women needs some serious leveling. It is time for men – especially uptight Republican men running legislative bodies and their moralizing religious allies – to acknowledge that the sexual desires and conduct of women are as legitimate as those of men. The social position and condition of women is a key concern in the Anthropocene. Male suppression of the sexual expression and freedom of women demonstrates a great fear of women as independent actors. Men have gotten so used to being the dominant gender they cannot believe that their supremacy is being challenged politically, economically, personally, and physically. The fact that women are at least equal to men in sexual potency, if not more so, threatens the identity and self-image of many men, particularly those who are used to being in the driver's seat. The sexual self-doubt of men is a key component of the authoritarianism that is surging in many locales around the world. Uptight men want strong, sexually charged-up women to be (a) under their control or (b) shut down. Stop prohibiting women from having sex if they want to! Stop layering their choosing to have pleasure if they wish with laws that constitute a legislative chastity belt! Get off their backs! Let her stand up and breathe the same air of authority as you do! [1] And the nature of those multiple orgasms by men is substantially different than it is for women, e.g. the same ejaculation might not be complete and there is another smaller ejaculation after the first one.

Here we are, citizens of the Anthropocene, trying to figure this all out. The big question, of course, is "will there be time"? Watch me in this brief intro then join me as I explore this and other questions as I report from the front lines...

A couple of days before England reported the highest temperatures in its recorded history (7/19/22), a New York Times/Siena poll delivered some very bad news to the Anthropocene: only 1% of the American population ranks climate change as the #1 problem facing America today. The climate’s 99-1 loss in the poll of public opinion stands in stark contrast with the 97+% of publishing climate scientists who are convinced that climate change is real. Most of the folks who are best informed on this topic view it as a pressing crisis. As reported by NASA and many other sources, the evidence of the climate emergency is everywhere: Global temperatures have grown steadily higher since the 1950s. They’re currently about 1° C higher than they were then. A 2° C increase in global temperature will expose 37% of the world’s population to sustained heat waves, such as the current one in Jacobabad Pakistan (population ~200K), where temperatures rose to over 100° for 51 days straight. Unabated, the continuation of present fossil consumption habits will result in a temperature rise of ~4°C, with unimaginably terrible consequences. Droughts and extreme wildfires have become a fact of life in the Western US while violent storms and precipitation pelt the East. Climate change is driving desperation and migration within and between countries. Being in the very small minority that considers climate change to be a truly pressing existential crisis is tough. There is so much that needs to be done, but there is so little will to do it. Depressing. It would make a significant difference in public opinion if events driven by global warming were simply named as such in the popular media. For example, the thermometer is expected to hit 111° F today in Phoenix AZ. The current drought in Phoenix is approaching 15 years in length. It has surpassed the worst drought in more than 110 years of official recordkeeping. Despite this fact, the digital version of today’s Arizona Republic carries no front-page information about the drought or its link to climate change. Nor is such a link to climate change made anywhere in the paper. It does carry a story about the early emergence of the yearly “wildfire season,” in which 1,400,000 acres were burned in 2020—2021. No reference is made to climate change. Ditto for a story on two private prisons losing power after a major storm causing about 2,700 prisoners to boil in 100+° heat. I am unaware of any concerted and organized campaign to demand that the reportage of life-threatening weather events by the mass media be described in climate change terms. Here’s a statement that is made repeatedly in press coverage: “While it cannot be stated with certainty that this (tornado, hurricane, forest fire, flood, drought, loss of life, tsunami, mass extinction, mass migration of desperate refugees, war, heat wave, sea level rise … nightmare) is caused by climate change, it’s the sort of thing that is correlated with the predictions made by climate scientists.” BS!!!! The specifics may vary, but the context is clear: global warming is causing extreme weather everywhere. Idiot politicians like Manchin are posturing and dithering and getting wrought up with the scandal of women having sex or the protection of the wealth of billionaires and their yachts while the planet fries. It is long past time for media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the Gannett Newspaper, and Xinhua News Agency which reach millions and billions to start telling the truth: we are rapidly approaching a requiem scenario for civilization and maybe for all life on our planet. Through our ignorance, rigidity, and immaturity, we are bombing ourselves back into the Stone Age. The situation reminds me of a scene near the end of one of my favorite movies, Schindler’s List. In this scene, Oskar Schindler, who saved about 1,200 Jews from being exterminated by the Nazis in Poland, arrives at a railway station where there are boxcars crammed full of men, women, and children on their way to being murdered in the death camps. Schindler, who was once a confirmed Nazi and a multimillionaire, had the extremely good fortune to find his humanity. He sacrificed all of his possessions to give comfort and life to a few hundred out of the millions who were slaughtered by a ruthless tyranny. Tragically, as the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, stated on July 18, 2022, short-term thinking in the Anthropocene has created the conditions that make “collective suicide” very likely. We’ve put ourselves into the boxcars Schindler hosed down. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch described courage as “When you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyhow.” This is the position that we, the members of the 1% who have no doubt that climate change is the existential issue confronting our era have to display. What are we who know of the approach of this calamity to do to be true to ourselves? Can we prevent this self-inflicted apocalypse any more than Schindler was able to save the Jews in those boxcars? Probably not, although there might still be some very slight chance of stepping back from the eve of destruction. Should we concentrate on saving ourselves? Maybe. Should we bank on technological breakthroughs that will shift the management of Earth to artificial intelligent agents that won’t give a single damn about human sensitivities? Maybe. Should we expend our last ounce of energy pleading with the folks who are too busy worrying about today to concern themselves with the day after tomorrow for themselves, their children, and Nature? I don’t know. I do know that, if through some miracle, civilization survives for the next 200 years, this era will be recalled with horror and contempt. It will be remembered as one in which most people didn’t have the education, skill, attention, or opportunity to give a damn, and as one in which there were some who could have made a difference, but preferred to party and make war while Earth burned.

I was recently served by a robot at Brooks’ Burgers in Naples, Florida. It wasn’t quite as spiffy as this one, but it was moving toward a humanoid look. The wait staff loved it. The robot relieved them of the hassle of having to carry heavy platters and allowed them to be more engaged with customers. It was quite polite. It was approaching me as I got up to go to the washroom, but rather than run headlong right into me, as I feared it might, noticed me and came to a stop, then moved over so that I may walk by. Everyone over 30 at Brooks’ paid close attention to the technological marvel; the people 15-30 looked up, and the kids 10 and under, paid it no mind because they were too wrapped up in their hand devices to notice. According to Anthropocean Elon Musk, the Artificial Intelligence behind robotics is “dangerous.” Of course, that was in 2017 before Tesla started working on its own humanoid and Elon was still a Democratic voter. Sentient Beings? Recently, a Google Engineer, Blake Lemoine, claims he’s been interacting with a sentient robot built on LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications), a proprietary Google program. In his informative overview of the Lemoine story in Innovation and Tech Today, Aron Vaughan, defines sentient as “self-awareness.” If you know you exist, you do exist. “I think, therefore I am.” If a robot knows it exists, it’s a self-aware entity. Given that Roe v. Wade was overturned today, one wonders when protections are going to be extended to this new type of being? (I’m not sure that we can call it a “lifeform,” but sentient robots are surely going to be a “something.”) Lemoine and others are already agitating for that sort of recognition and legitimacy. Will granting robots citizenship become an activists cause by 2050? 2030? Robotics is a thread of “The Singularity.” National Medal of Technology and Innovation winner, Ray Kurzweil coined the word “Singularity” to describe the explosive growth occurring in computational capacity, as computer, genetic, nanotechnology, robotic, and AI technologies are demonstrating daily. The moment that computational power equals or exceeds the ability of the human brain, people may well become the slaves to the IT devices many thought would be slaves to us! This is a depressing prospect to me, a card-carrying and aging flower child. Here I was expecting the Aquarian Age and, instead, I’m getting Robbie the Robot rolled up with The Terminator and a disembodied Her! Kurzweil was the keynote speaker at a World Future Society assembly where I was one of the leaders of a scenario workshop around 2000. He spoke to an audience of well over 1,000. He talked about his father’s death at 58 and how that had such a powerful impact on him. The younger Kurzweil was about 55 at the time of his talk. He spoke about life extension possibilities and technologies and described his daily regimen involving his consumption of something like 250 dietary supplements. He was not a One-a-Day vitamin kind of guy. Even brilliant scientists make predictions that don’t always come true. He said he’d recently seen his physician, who remarked that he didn’t look a day over 35. Being about the same age as Kurzweil, I didn’t have the same impression of Ray’s condition. I turned to my colleague and said, “He needs to get another doctor.” As far as I was concerned, he looked every bit his age. I’m not remembering the sequence of events perfectly, but I believe it was the next year that Kurzweil, who suffers from diabetes and high cholesterol, was hospitalized and nearly died. I point these recollections out because even brilliant scientists make predictions that don’t always come true. Nitpicking reservations aside, advances such as those reflected in the recent Google story provide ample evidence that something like Singularity is coming into view. For example, the size of the global robotics marketplace is expected to be well over $170bn by 2027 with personal robotics constituting approximately 30% of that volume. These powerful technology trends are very unlikely to be reversed. In the 2030 remake of “My Fair Lady,” Professor Henry Higgins may be addressing a robot when he ends the show with, “Eliza, where are my slippers!” This note is only a slight foray into a theme that will be recurring in this adventure story about the Anthropocene. Technology’s influence and capabilities are gaining strength and power constantly. As The Beatles stated at the close of A Day in the Life, “Everything is going up!” The pace of change is accelerating into hyperspeed and probably into hyperspace.