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[Music]

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Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing

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series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. We've done nearly 700 of them now. If this

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is new to you and you would like to check out previous ones, go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P,

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and look under the past interviews menu. This program is made possible through the support

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of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it,

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there are PayPal buttons on the website and a page that explains alternatives to PayPal.

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My guest today is Professor Cem Bendel. He is a world-renowned scholar on the breakdown of modern

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societies due to environmental damage. Downloaded over a million times, his deep adaptation paper

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is credited with inspiring the growth of the Extinction Rebellion movement in 2018

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and created a global deep adaptation network to reduce harm in the face of societal collapse.

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He completed his PhD at the University of Bristol and his geography BA with honors at the University

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of Cambridge. For decades he has worked on sustainable development as a researcher and

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NGO manager as well as a consultant to businesses, political parties, and UN agencies. One of his

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His specialism since 2011 is pro-social currency innovation, with his TEDx talk from that year

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explaining reasons for Bitcoin and similar.

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In 2017, he co-led the development of the UK Labour Party's communications plan for the

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general election and co-wrote speeches for their top politicians.

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Although recognized in 2012 as a young global leader by the World Economic Forum, Cem has

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has been increasingly critical of the globalist agenda on sustainable development.

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Away from that work, he is partner in an organic farm school in Bali, and supports meditation

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retreats at the main Buddhist temple on the island.

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You may think that that last sentence I read is the reason why I'm having him on Batgap,

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because usually we're talking all about spiritual things, but there's more to it than that,

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you'll see as we get into this conversation. Incidentally, his latest book you can see over

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his shoulder there, Breaking Together, I listened to the entire thing as an audiobook, it's about 18

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hours long, thoroughly enjoyed it. I listened to the introduction twice, the introduction alone

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took over an hour to listen to. But there's a whole background in my thinking and understanding

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of why this idea of societal collapse is pertinent, and I'll elaborate that as we go along.

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but I want to give Jim a chance to say hello and introduce himself and give us the elevator talk of

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What he's all about let's pretend

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There's a societal breakdown happening and they were stuck in an elevator for two hours

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And you can give us the talk but we can start with a more

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condensed version

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Thanks for the introduction Rick. Yeah, and those who have joined us. That's good or watching later. Hello

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I'm joining you from my

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I'm back in my dad's apartment back in the UK. I don't live in the UK, but this is where I spent quite a few months

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Particularly last year

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Writing the book in fact, so I'm actually looking almost with a bit of nostalgia around the room

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Just that process of writing the book for example. I open the book talking about my dad's

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parents my grandparents and

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The way they used to chat and that's because I've got pictures of them

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I just that was basically why I did that because I was sitting underneath a picture of them as I started writing and you have

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to start a book somewhere and

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That was why an elevator pitch about me or the book of the book

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Okay, the book's called breaking together and it has a twofold hypothesis

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First is that um the foundational systems of modern industrial consumer societies are

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breaking, they're collapsing into each other. So we're already within that

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process that can't be fixed and therefore I make the case that collapse

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is the accurate word for that even though collapse is an unfolding process

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will go on for some time and it will be experienced differently in different

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places. But the second part of the thesis in breaking together is that we can

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break together rather than apart in that context by which I mean the fact that

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all the systems, the institutions are breaking, it's somewhat of a judgment on

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their legitimacy and that therefore can invite us to rethink all our previous

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assumptions, preoccupations, things which kept us busy, stuff we hoped for or

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believe might happen one day. It brings us very much into the present moment as

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rethink our values, how we choose to live in this time, who do we want to be.

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So that bigger societal breaking leads to an inner breaking which can actually allow

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us to be something incredible.

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And so in the second half of the book I talk about lots of people who I'm impressed by

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and the way they're responding to this.

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So that's also why the subtitle is a freedom loving response to collapse.

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I recenter human freedom, personal and collective, as important to a value to

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maintain as things get tough because the thesis in the book is that it wasn't

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human freedom that led to this carnage but the fact that we have been

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manipulated from birth to death through something I call imperial modernity

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pumped up and maintained by an expansionist monetary system basically

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encouraging us to behave in ways where we feel numb about the damage in the world

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and we are tough with ourselves, with each other and with nature. We feel life

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is tough and I go into great detail about what I call the money power and

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how it's promoted those dynamics and fed those aspects of ourselves that we

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wouldn't consider to be that great, that positive, to an extent that it then hit

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ecological limits and ultimately is collapsing the societies that it's helped

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build. So yeah it's promoting something what I call

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eco-libertarianism. So it was an attempt to make, what should we say, an offer of a

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political philosophy and framework for an era of collapse, one that's a political

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philosophy that's solidarity based because I see a lot of authoritarianism, a lot of

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nostalgia politics, conservatism, all sorts emerging as people get more and

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more nervous about their lives becoming more and more difficult and the future looking

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more and more bleak.

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So I wanted to offer something else into the mix as we try and make sense of this new era

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of collapse as I call it.

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Okay, let me give you my perspective which I already did in an email.

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I think you agree with some of it and not with all of it but we can play back and forth

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and try to arrive at a common understanding.

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As many of my listeners will be aware, a lot of people who would consider themselves spiritual

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or interested in ancient traditions, the wisdom traditions of the world, have been feeling

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that we're due for some sort of big upheaval, that the current systems are not sustainable.

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You know, many of them believe that this upheaval will be necessary and that on the other side

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of it, we'll have some better world, you know, some more enlightened world, and so on.

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I've been thinking this way since the 70s, not as a certainty, but as a theory of how

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things might unfold.

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And I see all, like you mentioned, monetary systems, I would consider all systems, political,

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monetary, agricultural, technological, everything that's a product of human beings, to be a

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reflection of the mentality or the ambient level of consciousness of the people in the world.

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And obviously, some people are more powerful than others, more creative in producing things than

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others, but basically, it all reflects human mentality or human consciousness. And what people

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think, what various prophecies have predicted for many years, going back to the Babylonians and the

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the Hopis and the Mayans and so on, is that some kind of big shift is going to happen

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in collective consciousness.

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And when that happens, and I do believe it's happening now, all these systems won't work

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anymore because they reflect a lower level of consciousness.

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It's like a kid who's growing quickly and trying to keep wearing the same clothes, they

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get too tight, he has to bust out of them and it destroys the clothes.

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That's my view in a nutshell. I've been meditating, as many people know, for most of my life,

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and I've been interviewing hundreds of people, all of whom are undergoing really profound

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shifts in consciousness and their awareness. And I buy into the notion of collective consciousness,

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perhaps reminiscent of Carl Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, but that consciousness

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is not just a product of the brain, it's a field, and brains are more like sender-receivers

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that interact or tune into that field, and I believe a shift is happening in collective

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consciousness. Perhaps not so much created by people, but actually people are more like surfers,

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they don't create the waves, they ride the waves if they're able to do so, or they wipe out

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if they aren't able to do so. And I think you're correctly predicting and explaining in detail

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how a lot of structures are wiping out, but there are others who are skillfully surfing the waves

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and actually experiencing a kind of a spiritual renaissance within their own lives as a result of

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this upwelling of, you could say, enlightenment in the world. So that's enough of that and let's have

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your response to it and I'm not in the least bit sensitive if you want to disagree with any or all

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all of it. Yeah, thank you. You've covered quite a lot. So I'll start at the end.

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What you just said that a lot of people are experiencing some kind of spiritual

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upwelling, renaissance, whatever, precisely because of their recognition of the

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amount of trouble in the world and possibly if they're unlucky they've been

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through a hard time because of ecological damage and various different

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implications there from because we know that hurt, we know the tragedy, we know

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the grief and despair even can be a very powerful means of people letting go. So

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in psychology the theory is called positive disintegration which is actually

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about oddly the even the benefit of proper clinical depression in part of

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that spiritual transformation and that's as you say you mentioned ancient wisdom

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So even in the Tao Te Ching, they talk about the path to illumination is through the dark.

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So you can find it in all spiritual traditions, the importance of this dark night of the soul.

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So yes, I would say that's happening a lot.

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The guy who introduced us, Reverend Michael Dow, that was a big part of his message

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and that was what he really was dedicating the last years of his life to.

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He passed away recently, very recently and very suddenly, unexpectedly.

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It's amazing to see how many people really were impacted powerfully by him.

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The clarity of his post-doom message that you can't avoid the despair

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once you realize how much carnage has happened already, happening now, going to happen,

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why it's been done and how we knew for so long but didn't change.

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all of that pain. You can't just sidestep it and make it go away.

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But there's something else on the other side of that, the pain of that realization,

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which is, yeah, to live in wonder, gratitude, recommit to service, creativity, live your life,

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try and be the best ever person you can be, precisely because you have that feeling of

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essentially mortality on your shoulder. Again, back to spiritual wisdom, Ram Dass talked about

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living with death on your shoulder and love in your heart. So just at the end

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of what you were saying I just want to connect with you on that and say

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absolutely at an individual level that's something I'm noticing and then

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therefore at a community level because a lot of those people are connecting to

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help each other and to realize that people can respond not necessarily in

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that way that I've just described but just some kind of ego transcendence

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because of this realization. People can respond almost like with ego affirmation

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and psychologists call it worldview defense. There's something called terror

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management theory, I don't know if you come across it, but whereby where people

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feel threatened, they feel their safety threatened, they therefore feel their

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identity and worldview threatened and they can double down on it and become

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quite illogical about it and ultimately violent. And the theory arose from

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analyzing the rise of religious fundamentalisms but I think it applies

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very much to looking at people within modernity than, for example, some scientists who are

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very committed to the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, doubling down on

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how good it is, that methodology, and how perfect it is according to scientific norms,

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despite current temperature measurements.

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Which methodology are they doubling down on?

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The desire for consensus.

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IPCC there's a desire for consensus where there needs to be a preponderance of

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information published, peer-reviewed, for it to then be considered acceptable.

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However, what that means then, for example in my book I talk about it, it meant that

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in 2014 in their big report they were talking about future sea level rise and

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the lowest range of the projection was actually lower than measured sea level

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rise from satellite measurements that year. And that was because there had been

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dispute over how much melt from glaciers on land was going to contribute to sea level rise compared

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to other things, basically thermal expansion of the oceans. So because there was dispute about how

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much it would add, they disregarded it altogether. So that is one example, but it shows you if there

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wasn't consensus, they would disregard it. And there's huge complexity, for example, around

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tipping points and therefore very difficult to agree that and so a number of positive,

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so-called positive and self amplifying feedbacks were also

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set aside, not all of them. But it's that desire for consensus.

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So the thing is, now, September's was 1.8 degrees

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Celsius above pre industrial average temperatures, which is

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decades ahead of official consensus scientific

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projections of the past. And yet we still have some people in the

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field of science doubling down on their view that people like

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me, and there are many people like me who five years ago said,

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this looks really bad and much worse than what the IPCC have been telling us.

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They're doubling down on that we were wrong, we were reckless, we were unscientific, we were naughty,

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we were upsetting people unnecessarily, and that we should just stick with the consensus

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establishment science. They're saying that now even though it's obvious. I'll say as plainly as that,

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people like me who were trying to spot what was most salient, so for example I was looking

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specifically what the oceanographers studying the Pacific were saying,

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but we were right and the people who were slavishly following IPCC

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were wrong. Now that doesn't need to just be seen in terms of vindication. Science,

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when it's siloed and institutionalized, it's self-restricting in how well it can understand

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what's salient to society. There's a huge amount of literature on that.

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So, about consensus. Obviously, science is supposed to work by consensus, but scientists are all very

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siloed because they have to specialize in their little niche in order to advance the field,

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and a lot of them just don't communicate with each other. And scientific consensus,

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even if it's broad, can be wrong. For instance, the predominant paradigm is that consciousness

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is an epiphenomenon of brain functioning, whereas a growing number of people like David Lormer and

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the Science and Medical Network and many others feel that consciousness is fundamental and everything

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arises from that. And if they're right, then the whole scientific edifice is upside down.

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And you talked about the Pacific just the other day, a tropical storm turned into a Category 5

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hurricane in 12 hours and devastated Acapulco. And yet, half the politicians in the United States

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won't admit that climate change is a real thing and don't want to do anything about it. Trump said

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it was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to gain some economic advantage. And occasionally I hear

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from some climate denier who brings up Judith Currie. I don't know if you've heard of Judith

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Currie, but she's this woman who has credentials and who says that there is not a like 99%

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agreement that climate change is being caused by human beings, but that scientists are

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cowed into towing the line in order to get funding and stuff. And if they were to

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dispute the predominant narrative, they would lose their careers and so on.

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So anyway, that's a few different random points.

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When I was talking about this issue of what terror management theory tells us about

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worldview defense, and there can be this doubling down on your worldview and identity

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in ways that become illogical and quite aggressive. And I said, that's not just

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religious fundamentalists. That's also or it can be climate scientists, and we're beginning to see

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that. So the reason I was making that point is that the response to the

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terrible situation we're in for the world's biosphere and the implications

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for societies and ourselves and everyone we love, the terrible situation we're in

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can lead to the ego transcendence. It is a spiritual invitation and

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some people can respond to that invitation. However my view is and my

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experience of that and also psychology research I believe shows that. That's not

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certain at all and in fact I published in a psychotherapy journal on this. In fact

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it's when people feel very unstable and threatened they can also become

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authoritarian because what you do is you try and find a new identity structure, a

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new form of safety, a new kind of belonging. You have this generalized

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and anxiety, you're told where to run to and who to trust and who to hate, who to blame.

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So Hannah Arendt and others say that that was what was happening through the Industrial

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Revolution and changes to society which led to fascism rising in Europe. So we could see

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some of those same potential responses today. So not only the breakdown of societies, but

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the recognition of just how bad it is, the terror associated with that deep existential

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terror. The loss of a sense of meaning can be either a moment of spiritual

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transformation or it can be a moment of derangement, being manipulated by

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populist authoritarians, becoming aggressive and leading to lots of

00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:14.200
violence. So I believe there is a role to play for people who've done their own

00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:19.600
work, who can find a way of being calm within this storm and help people

00:20:19.600 --> 00:20:21.360
through this and so yeah with the deep

00:20:21.360 --> 00:20:24.520
adaptation forum that I started we

00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:26.680
kicked off I think in March 2019 I

00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:28.720
worked with it for about 18 months and

00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:30.520
then left it but very much it was

00:20:30.520 --> 00:20:33.240
focused on how can we help each other be

00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:36.280
with this really emotionally tough

00:20:36.280 --> 00:20:40.000
realization rather than rush to oh we'll

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.160
fix it with nuclear power or I don't

00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:44.120
know a billionaire will fix it or we

00:20:44.120 --> 00:20:45.960
can't do anything blame the Chinese or

00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:48.120
it's a hoax yes just hoax they just want

00:20:48.120 --> 00:20:51.900
controls. We just wanted to help people be in the pain, support

00:20:51.900 --> 00:20:54.380
each other, work through the emotions and think what the

00:20:54.380 --> 00:20:58.080
options for the future for them, their communities might be. So

00:20:58.080 --> 00:21:01.900
that was the initial focus of that. And that was why. So you

00:21:01.900 --> 00:21:06.040
can see already that no, I do not agree with you that this

00:21:06.040 --> 00:21:10.460
will make almost like an inevitable collective

00:21:10.460 --> 00:21:13.780
transformation of human consciousness to a higher level.

00:21:13.780 --> 00:21:16.820
Now I didn't use the word inevitable, by the way, but

00:21:16.820 --> 00:21:21.780
continue. Okay, but some people do, some people do. So what I see is that there

00:21:21.780 --> 00:21:27.860
are different ways of responding and part of the way I can feel okay with my

00:21:27.860 --> 00:21:32.700
understanding of the world as I see it, the way I can feel okay is to try and

00:21:32.700 --> 00:21:40.580
help more people respond curiously, kindly, creatively, bravely. That gives me a sense

00:21:40.580 --> 00:21:46.220
of meaning and a sense of joy and I don't think I would have any other way of

00:21:46.220 --> 00:21:53.580
of responding. So I want to go back to what you were saying about poppy prophecies and

00:21:53.580 --> 00:21:56.700
the idea that we're going to go through a lot of trouble, but that's just almost like

00:21:56.700 --> 00:22:01.620
a rite of passage basically, like a maturing of the human species in our consciousness

00:22:01.620 --> 00:22:06.980
to emerge into a spiritual and ecological civilization perhaps.

00:22:06.980 --> 00:22:10.420
For some reason I was reminded of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If", you know, "If you can

00:22:10.420 --> 00:22:15.260
keep your head while all about you are losing theirs". As you were saying that, I was on

00:22:15.260 --> 00:22:21.460
a boat ride with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1974 and he was talking about this phase transition,

00:22:21.460 --> 00:22:23.300
as he called it, that was going to happen.

00:22:23.300 --> 00:22:27.180
And it was sounding a little scary and someone said, "Well, how can we survive this?"

00:22:27.180 --> 00:22:29.780
And he said, "Hold on to the Self."

00:22:29.780 --> 00:22:35.520
And by that he meant kind of capitalist self, you know, in the Advaita sense of realize

00:22:35.520 --> 00:22:36.940
your true nature.

00:22:36.940 --> 00:22:40.660
So I think this is where spiritual practice comes in because you were talking about how

00:22:40.660 --> 00:22:47.380
different people react to societal chaos in different ways. Some go scampering to the

00:22:47.380 --> 00:22:55.860
dictators and others find it as a catalyst to spiritual awakening. I think that whatever

00:22:55.860 --> 00:23:01.660
else one does, and I believe you follow this advice, if you have some kind of effective

00:23:01.660 --> 00:23:08.020
spiritual practice or orientation or something, it's going to help because you'll experience

00:23:08.020 --> 00:23:13.700
that there's a deeper dimension to life that is unperturbed by the chaos that happens on

00:23:13.700 --> 00:23:19.620
the surface and it'll help you whatever happens, even if you die, it'll be good to have that

00:23:19.620 --> 00:23:22.580
inner presence as an anchor, as a foundation.

00:23:22.580 --> 00:23:27.420
Yeah, so I've found a number of things helpful myself.

00:23:27.420 --> 00:23:33.660
I learned a lot through doing a Vipassana and doing it with a monk who really, it was

00:23:33.660 --> 00:23:36.780
was just a wonderful experience because I think there were only about six of us

00:23:36.780 --> 00:23:42.080
and we had quite a while every day then in dialogue one-to-ones with the monk

00:23:42.080 --> 00:23:51.540
and this unpacking, this disaggregating of stimulus, reaction, emotion, thought, new

00:23:51.540 --> 00:23:58.540
emotion, disaggregating all the stuff that goes on and then realizing wow I

00:23:58.540 --> 00:24:04.840
I can have different mind states which will make me more able to just witness and let go.

00:24:04.840 --> 00:24:09.740
A calmer, open, more loving and gentle to myself and to the world mind state.

00:24:09.740 --> 00:24:15.740
Or I can have a more fearful one or a grumpy one and how that all influences that chain of events

00:24:15.740 --> 00:24:19.740
between stimulus, feeling, thought, feeling, thought, action.

00:24:19.740 --> 00:24:25.240
I guess another way of talking about it is just recognizing the extent to which

00:24:25.240 --> 00:24:30.640
we ourselves and everyone is a bit bonkers and if you can just slow down

00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:37.240
the process so that we breathe and we can witness what's going on then within

00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:40.720
that there's a chance for more wisdom doesn't necessarily mean there's

00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:44.680
more wisdom but there's the chance for it so obviously yeah mindfulness

00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:50.320
meditation and also for me discovering something called authentic relating and

00:24:50.320 --> 00:24:55.480
circling and I use that a lot in my teaching on these topics because it's

00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:59.080
basically doing meditation but in dialogue because you're witnessing

00:24:59.080 --> 00:25:03.040
what's going on with you as you're engaging with another and in Buddhism

00:25:03.040 --> 00:25:08.160
it's also as some people call it insight dialogue these techniques. I was blessed

00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:13.280
to have discovered those two processes in order to therefore not just be

00:25:13.280 --> 00:25:18.200
consumed by my feelings and I've had periods of panic looking at some of the

00:25:18.200 --> 00:25:22.280
science over the last five years and then looking at the news of what's

00:25:22.280 --> 00:25:27.200
happened with more, I don't know, 30 degrees in the Arctic Circle of tundra

00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:32.600
forest fires and permafrost melting and stuff. It does trigger in me often these

00:25:32.600 --> 00:25:37.720
waves of a kind of panic but at least I can witness it and see it as these

00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:42.800
things are just happening to me. The other stuff of course is any spiritual

00:25:42.800 --> 00:25:48.600
tradition invites us into a different sense of time. So we're not so bothered

00:25:48.600 --> 00:25:53.060
with either like what am I doing this year or what am I going to achieve in my

00:25:53.060 --> 00:25:59.160
life even. It's just realizing there's an eternal flow so that sense of expanse of

00:25:59.160 --> 00:26:06.040
reality can also help. In my case and in many people's cases there is what is

00:26:06.040 --> 00:26:10.680
known as faith to many people which is that no matter how bad things are, no

00:26:10.680 --> 00:26:14.840
matter how unnecessary the amount of suffering and destruction that's

00:26:14.840 --> 00:26:20.080
happened and is happening now and is to come, there's some kind of deep ultimate

00:26:20.080 --> 00:26:25.680
rightness and it's a faith which is not super logical, it's experiential, it's

00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:29.840
connected to mystery and wonder and just going wow isn't it bizarre and amazing

00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:34.520
to be alive and that existence exists. So for me that's a faith which is also

00:26:34.520 --> 00:26:40.940
sustaining and I know that can sound a bit odd to some people like oh that's

00:26:40.940 --> 00:26:44.960
just your privilege speaking when you're really suffering is that really going to

00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:49.300
be there but I hear from people who've had terrible suffering that that faith

00:26:49.300 --> 00:26:54.880
has stayed with them so connect immediately on that point. But you

00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.620
mentioned some other things there are two things you mentioned you mentioned Judith

00:26:57.620 --> 00:27:05.620
Curry and current denialism, do you remember? And you mentioned ancient prophecies and the

00:27:05.620 --> 00:27:11.780
fact that there are lots of people who have since the 70s realized that we're

00:27:11.780 --> 00:27:15.800
living in an unsustainable industrial consumer society and there will be a

00:27:15.800 --> 00:27:19.760
collapse and there will be a transformation and yet they've had

00:27:19.760 --> 00:27:24.800
this in sort of a way of this is what we need to go through and then we'll reach

00:27:24.800 --> 00:27:30.160
the promised land perhaps in the end. And then you mentioned, what an amazing phrase to say

00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:35.280
that you were on a boat with Maharaj. Great, anyway, that one. Okay, so I'll just start

00:27:35.280 --> 00:27:38.360
with Judith Curry because that's the least interesting. Should we get that one out of

00:27:38.360 --> 00:27:39.360
the way?

00:27:39.360 --> 00:27:42.620
You have a good memory, by the way, I appreciate that you recall all these points and you're

00:27:42.620 --> 00:27:44.460
coming back to them.

00:27:44.460 --> 00:27:51.360
So actually, Judith Curry is a bit right and a hell of a lot wrong. She's a bit right that

00:27:51.360 --> 00:27:58.000
there is institutional pressure on climate scientists who want to succeed and get funding

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:05.020
and climb up the career ladder and that they have had what's called carbon tunnel vision.

00:28:05.020 --> 00:28:11.800
She and John Christie and others are right that there was a huge attempt to make it all

00:28:11.800 --> 00:28:18.120
about carbon dioxide and play down other factors that influence not only climate in the past

00:28:18.120 --> 00:28:21.480
because of course climate was influenced by all manner of things before humans

00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:24.680
influenced it, but also to play down other possible

00:28:24.680 --> 00:28:28.360
impacts on climate right now and in the future.

00:28:28.360 --> 00:28:31.880
So my chapter in the book actually says yes you're right

00:28:31.880 --> 00:28:35.560
Judith Curry and John Christie and the others that

00:28:35.560 --> 00:28:40.440
there was a little bit of massaging of the data sets in order to produce the

00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:44.280
hockey stick graph to make the medieval warm period not

00:28:44.280 --> 00:28:52.320
appear and to ignore the fact that actually prior to human influence, temperatures rose,

00:28:52.320 --> 00:28:56.760
global average temperatures rose, hundreds of years prior to carbon dioxide levels in

00:28:56.760 --> 00:29:03.080
the atmosphere rising. So this is called the carbon lag and they hit that. Now that doesn't

00:29:03.080 --> 00:29:08.080
mean that we don't have a massive problem. It means the opposite. It means the problem

00:29:08.080 --> 00:29:13.520
is far worse. It means that because we put more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 50%

00:29:13.520 --> 00:29:19.320
CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 200 years, it is without doubt a gas which

00:29:19.320 --> 00:29:24.940
traps infrared heat and will warm up the planet. But what that means is we've done

00:29:24.940 --> 00:29:30.360
that, we've raised temperatures and what the paleontological records show is that

00:29:30.360 --> 00:29:35.280
means we have committed carbon, meaning as the oceans warm up they will release

00:29:35.280 --> 00:29:39.680
more carbon dioxide, as the soils warm up they will release more carbon dioxide, as

00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:45.520
as the forests get hotter and drier and more diseased, they will burn more and

00:29:45.520 --> 00:29:48.760
they will switch from being sinks to sources of carbon dioxide and that's

00:29:48.760 --> 00:29:53.360
being shown already for many of them world's most important forests. So it's a

00:29:53.360 --> 00:29:57.600
lot worse than what mainstream climatologists say. So I say to the

00:29:57.600 --> 00:30:01.680
climate skeptics like Curry and Christie and the rest, you're

00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:05.760
right and therefore it's a hell of a lot worse. So it's not what you're saying it

00:30:05.760 --> 00:30:18.760
The other thing is the carbon tunnel vision meant that we didn't focus on the hydrological cycle and how it's very clear that forests now play a global role in seeding clouds.

00:30:18.760 --> 00:30:28.760
So for example, the pollen and the bacteria given off by the Amazon will not just seed clouds above the Amazon through evapotranspiration locally, but will actually seed clouds in Tibet.

00:30:28.760 --> 00:30:34.240
And what this means is that the world cloud cover is influenced by the amount of forest

00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:35.960
cover on the ground.

00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:38.160
And we have trashed forests.

00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:43.100
We've cleared as much in the last 200 years, I think, as in the previous 9,000.

00:30:43.100 --> 00:30:48.360
And this rate went up massively since the 70s through economic globalization and basically

00:30:48.360 --> 00:30:53.880
spreading consumer capitalism around the planet since the 1970s.

00:30:53.880 --> 00:30:57.360
And so that correlates with a rapid rise in temperature.

00:30:57.360 --> 00:31:02.720
And so, yeah, in my book I talk about how we need to broaden our understanding of the climate

00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:08.280
emergency. It's not just carbon, it's also methane, it's also forest cover. And we have

00:31:08.280 --> 00:31:15.360
to accept that actually it might well be totally catastrophic for life on Earth, including

00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:20.880
our own species already, and we can't do anything about it because of the committed carbon,

00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:24.320
because of the amount of heating that we've already started. We're already looking at

00:31:24.320 --> 00:31:31.600
1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial in 2023, decades ahead of when the official projections

00:31:31.600 --> 00:31:37.400
were. So a lot of people hear that and they think immediately because they maybe haven't

00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:43.720
disaggregated the thought, emotion, reaction, mind state and critically analyzed their culture

00:31:43.720 --> 00:31:49.140
because they're totally wedded to consequentialist ethics. They think, well, that guy who's just

00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:54.780
said that he's telling me to give up he's telling me not to try and cut carbon

00:31:54.780 --> 00:32:01.220
draw down carbon restore ecosystems no I'm not I'm not saying that at all I'm

00:32:01.220 --> 00:32:07.100
saying don't do that with any fairy tale that we're fixing the climate and we're

00:32:07.100 --> 00:32:11.780
getting out of this mess so do it absolutely let's do as much as we can

00:32:11.780 --> 00:32:18.220
but don't be attached to the outcome and most people if they allow the despair

00:32:18.220 --> 00:32:24.420
I'm talking about environmentalists who work on this stuff allow the despair. They don't just quit then I say I don't care anymore

00:32:24.420 --> 00:32:25.820
I don't want us to you know

00:32:25.820 --> 00:32:31.940
Cut carbon or restore wetlands and forests and get toxics out of our food chain and whatever

00:32:31.940 --> 00:32:37.140
They don't they go back to it. They go back to it with a passion, but without being so attached to

00:32:37.140 --> 00:32:42.980
stories of techno salvation everything getting fixed so that's my answer to

00:32:43.980 --> 00:32:51.100
Judith Curry and all that lot and that's why I really recommend people who are interested in climate change read chapter 5 or listen to it

00:32:51.100 --> 00:32:56.280
Like you did for free on SoundCloud or download it for free. You can gem bend all comm

00:32:56.280 --> 00:33:00.940
EPUB, so you can put a link to it on your back at pace

00:33:00.940 --> 00:33:08.400
So I'm a contrarian on climate because in the same way we talked earlier about the problem of institutional and siloed

00:33:08.740 --> 00:33:14.140
or any science it has its limitations and there are silos there are hierarchies

00:33:14.140 --> 00:33:20.060
there's cultural influences so yeah I am persona non grata with people like

00:33:20.060 --> 00:33:24.500
professor Michael Mann who Curry and Christie hate because they were I think

00:33:24.500 --> 00:33:30.140
fighting with him in the early days of the IPCC stuff about all this and he won

00:33:30.140 --> 00:33:34.140
basically and they lost and so they're pissed off with him but yeah Michael

00:33:34.140 --> 00:33:38.100
man hates my work because he wants to keep it, you know, this

00:33:38.100 --> 00:33:42.480
is a gradual warming. And as long as we have the right

00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:44.760
technologies and the right policies and the right

00:33:44.760 --> 00:33:47.160
entrepreneurship, the right leadership and all the little

00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:50.880
people do as you're told, then we'll fix it. That's probably

00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:54.920
believes that. Well, that's been his narrative and I have not

00:33:54.920 --> 00:33:58.240
talked to him. I have no idea what he really believes, but he

00:33:58.240 --> 00:34:01.400
maybe he absolutely believes that I have no evidence to say

00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:07.560
doesn't believe it. You know what I wish? I wish that there were public debates properly moderated

00:34:07.560 --> 00:34:12.440
so people aren't just shouting at each other quite lengthy like this interview on various issues,

00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:18.600
you know, COVID vaccines and climate change and gun rights and abortion and all the issues that

00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:23.400
are tearing society apart because otherwise it's like, you know, here in the states some people

00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:28.120
are listening to the extreme right-wing media, others to the extreme left-wing media, and they

00:34:28.120 --> 00:34:32.840
they just get their assumptions reinforced, but there's no communication.

00:34:32.840 --> 00:34:37.920
And there is probably some truth on both sides, although as Stephen Colbert puts it, I think

00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:41.580
he said that the truth has a liberal bias, at least that's my bias.

00:34:41.580 --> 00:34:47.600
But in any case, I wish there were public dialogues where people could engage in really

00:34:47.600 --> 00:34:52.760
learning and hear both sides and give people ample time to rebut each other.

00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:54.840
That would be so healthy.

00:34:54.840 --> 00:35:00.800
I agree and we've got the opposite of that as you said and what's extremely painful for

00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:06.320
me having spent almost three years working on this book, so the first 18 months were

00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:10.760
commissioning research papers from specialists in various areas and then working with them

00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:16.880
because it's covering all manner of areas of scholarship and then a year writing it,

00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:21.800
is that for example there's a whole chapter on free will. I spent a long time looking at

00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:25.920
that and that's also based on previous years of interest and reading on it and

00:35:25.920 --> 00:35:31.800
someone will send me a one-minute tick-tock video from someone who I may

00:35:31.800 --> 00:35:36.040
have finished her undergraduate but she labels herself your friendly

00:35:36.040 --> 00:35:41.200
neighborhood neuroscientist who's saying no there's no free will because a study

00:35:41.200 --> 00:35:45.600
shows that it there is no free will yeah because they measured that there was a

00:35:45.600 --> 00:35:50.040
impulse from I don't know in the arm to tell the hand to move before the brain

00:35:50.040 --> 00:35:54.880
and send it to the arm and I have I talked about that study yeah I talked

00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:58.000
about that study just last week in my interview with Ruth Kastner who's a

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:02.820
physicist that study has been thoroughly rebutted and totally rebutted and yeah

00:36:02.820 --> 00:36:06.540
it doesn't take you very long you could just type in to Google that what was the

00:36:06.540 --> 00:36:10.320
study you could use AI now what was the study that showed this it would come up

00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:13.400
with the name of the study and then you just go to Google Scholar even you don't

00:36:13.400 --> 00:36:16.440
even have to use any in the morning you were scholar and just type it in and then

00:36:16.440 --> 00:36:19.360
see who's referenced it. And then you'll see the number of

00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.880
rebuttals or people who tried to do the same study or proved how

00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:26.720
it was wrong. And no one else has managed to do a good

00:36:26.720 --> 00:36:30.160
neuroscientific study disproving free will. And it's precisely

00:36:30.160 --> 00:36:33.600
because no one have managed to create a good study,

00:36:33.600 --> 00:36:37.120
experimentally disproving free will with neuroscience, that

00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:39.560
people keep referring back to that one, which is old and

00:36:39.560 --> 00:36:42.560
debunked. And guess what? No, it's fresh now has got a million

00:36:42.560 --> 00:36:44.960
hits on tik tok. And I'm being sent this by my friend. It's

00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:49.280
like, since when did you decide that this is how you're going to

00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:53.880
learn about the universe? Which is kind of cute. Oh, is that why?

00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:57.040
Okay, well, I'm probably not going to be a TikTok star. I'm

00:36:57.040 --> 00:37:00.200
not cute enough. So yeah, we are going in the wrong way in that

00:37:00.200 --> 00:37:05.040
sense. But what I've realized is, if you are more than an

00:37:05.040 --> 00:37:11.240
armchair observer, if you are engaged in any issue of public

00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:18.680
note current affairs, more than just wanting to feel good about yourself, get a dopamine

00:37:18.680 --> 00:37:25.000
hit, get a few likes on Facebook, you're more involved in it than wanting to feel angry and

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:30.360
self-righteous in order to have a bit of escape from your general anxiety or dull feeling of

00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:36.620
meaningless life. If you're more involved in an issue, whatever it is, than those reasons,

00:37:36.620 --> 00:37:41.120
want to know, you want to dig and inquire, you want to hear differences of opinion,

00:37:41.120 --> 00:37:46.320
you want to check and double-check your understanding and therefore for me the

00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:50.240
people who've most committed to really understanding this are the people who

00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:55.000
have decided to risk arrest and going to prison. The climate activists in

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.400
Extinction Rebellion, five years ago when they decided that they were going to glue

00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:04.680
themselves to trucks or whatever, they had to really convince themselves of what

00:38:04.680 --> 00:38:09.320
they were doing was based on a fair analysis of the science. And

00:38:09.320 --> 00:38:13.360
they really, really looked into it properly. And they were

00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:16.720
right. And what's amazing is three of the exile co founders

00:38:16.720 --> 00:38:19.880
extinction rebelling co founders just published a letter saying,

00:38:19.880 --> 00:38:22.480
well, they should have just said is, Hey, everybody, we got it

00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:26.280
right. And all you sort of careerist climatologists who

00:38:26.280 --> 00:38:29.320
slagged us off in the mass media made us out to be extremists

00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:32.360
who got the science wrong. Well, you were wrong. But no, they

00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:37.580
were basically saying we got it almost right but we had a bit of carbon tunnel vision,

00:38:37.580 --> 00:38:41.640
we should have been thinking about aerosols, we should have been thinking about forest

00:38:41.640 --> 00:38:46.420
cloud seeding, we should have been realized that ocean health matters massively to the

00:38:46.420 --> 00:38:50.480
climate, we should have realized it was a broader agenda, we tried to talk about it

00:38:50.480 --> 00:38:55.960
as a broader agenda, the ecological crisis not just climate, we tried to stick to the

00:38:55.960 --> 00:39:01.040
idea that this is a near and present danger for us and our loved ones but we had all these

00:39:01.040 --> 00:39:05.680
climatologists with all the power of sitting on IPCC committees, and all this

00:39:05.680 --> 00:39:09.320
sort of "we want to help you, we want to help you be more scientific" and we

00:39:09.320 --> 00:39:13.960
watered down our analysis and our message and we shouldn't have done because

00:39:13.960 --> 00:39:17.200
actually they were wrong and we were right. So yeah, there was a public letter

00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:23.040
and then in response to that 70 scholars from around the world, 16 countries, I was

00:39:23.040 --> 00:39:27.240
one of them, we signed a letter saying the scientific community needs to learn

00:39:27.240 --> 00:39:32.040
from its mistakes. It needs to realize also when it's badly disparaged

00:39:32.040 --> 00:39:37.560
scholarly activists now who are facing prison and an apology would be the least

00:39:37.560 --> 00:39:42.920
way of making amends. As far as I know the many many climatologists who've said

00:39:42.920 --> 00:39:47.720
many derogatory things about climate activists in the last five years haven't

00:39:47.720 --> 00:39:51.080
come out and apologized and said actually they were right and I was wrong.

00:39:51.080 --> 00:39:56.240
I agree with what all these climate activists are saying and I agree with

00:39:56.240 --> 00:40:01.360
what you're saying, and who am I to agree, but based upon my paltry understanding, I

00:40:01.360 --> 00:40:07.280
think you're right. But I do take issue with throwing tomato soup at artworks or gluing

00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:13.100
yourself to stuff. I mean, that just makes these people seem crazy, and I think it weakens

00:40:13.100 --> 00:40:18.600
their credibility to most people. Do you agree with those tactics? I mean, surely it makes

00:40:18.600 --> 00:40:21.440
headlines, but it makes headlines like, "Wow, these people are nuts."

00:40:21.440 --> 00:40:27.440
So, yeah, well the tomato soup wasn't actually on the artwork itself.

00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.440
They chose the ones that had glass pane covers.

00:40:30.440 --> 00:40:31.440
Oh, that was nice of them.

00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:36.440
Yeah. The thing is that many... I mean, that's the Just Stop Oil campaign,

00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:38.440
a spin-off to Extinction Rebellion.

00:40:38.440 --> 00:40:44.440
Many of the activists in Extinction Rebellion do many, many things.

00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:49.440
And it is interesting that the ones we've heard of are the ones you've mentioned.

00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:55.800
Now, would you have heard of all the other things that they've been doing if the ones

00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:59.580
didn't throw the tomato soup on a glass-covered painting?

00:40:59.580 --> 00:41:03.860
This is the problem with the way our media communications are in the world.

00:41:03.860 --> 00:41:07.240
These stunts seem to be the only things that you'll get to hear of.

00:41:07.240 --> 00:41:12.360
So if they didn't do it, you wouldn't hear about what Extinction Rebellion is doing otherwise,

00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:13.360
really.

00:41:13.360 --> 00:41:15.440
I don't waste my time.

00:41:15.440 --> 00:41:20.160
I don't participate in those kinds of nonviolent direct actions, disrupting

00:41:20.160 --> 00:41:26.720
sports events and stuff, it's not my bag, but I am aware of, and I acknowledge,

00:41:26.720 --> 00:41:31.260
I acknowledge the argument of people like Roger Hallam, who say that people like

00:41:31.260 --> 00:41:35.620
you, Rick, and people like me, if we really believe this to be an existential

00:41:35.620 --> 00:41:40.700
crisis, that will fundamentally change everything and damage everything and

00:41:40.700 --> 00:41:47.180
cause awful, awful, already is but will cause a lot more awful problems in society.

00:41:47.180 --> 00:41:51.560
His message is get out on the streets and okay do something else but it's non-violent civil

00:41:51.560 --> 00:41:56.160
disobedience and the only reason why they're doing these high profile stunts is because

00:41:56.160 --> 00:42:00.440
there aren't enough of people like you and me alongside people on the streets causing

00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:02.640
havoc in a peaceful way.

00:42:02.640 --> 00:42:09.060
That's his message, I acknowledge it and I believe it's equally valid to my view which

00:42:09.060 --> 00:42:13.700
is I don't think there's much point in doing that. I'm much more interested in

00:42:13.700 --> 00:42:18.500
getting ready in communities for the collapse which I believe has already

00:42:18.500 --> 00:42:24.820
begun so I'm more interested in turning to neighbors who where I live to try and

00:42:24.820 --> 00:42:30.020
prepare for the breakdown of industrial consumer way of life and to learn from

00:42:30.020 --> 00:42:37.260
this and to resist authoritarianism in all its forms and I actually think some

00:42:37.260 --> 00:42:41.460
of these activists stunts actually sort of help legitimate authoritarianism

00:42:41.460 --> 00:42:46.980
because it means leads to more draconian policing, more draconian laws, more I

00:42:46.980 --> 00:42:51.100
think undemocratic use of the court systems by judges. I can't go into that

00:42:51.100 --> 00:42:57.300
too much because those ridiculous behavior of judges in the UK to restrict

00:42:57.300 --> 00:43:02.060
proper trial by jury. So yeah I acknowledge his argument and I disagree

00:43:02.060 --> 00:43:05.580
with it. I'm choosing a different path. Okay should we go back to those

00:43:05.580 --> 00:43:09.820
prophecies and whether... Yes, good, you read my mind.

00:43:09.820 --> 00:43:16.060
Anyone today in a Western, or even though let's not even say Western, anyone today

00:43:16.060 --> 00:43:22.260
in a modern urban culture reading about ancient civilizations and their

00:43:22.260 --> 00:43:27.180
prophecies, reading about or learning about indigenous peoples and communities

00:43:27.180 --> 00:43:32.940
alive today, any of us looking at that, we're bringing our own mental models

00:43:32.940 --> 00:43:38.420
from modernity and that means although we think we might be learning we're

00:43:38.420 --> 00:43:46.260
actually projecting from our culture on to their own forms of wisdom. So I talk

00:43:46.260 --> 00:43:50.700
about that in the book as well. Some of the habits of modernity which are very

00:43:50.700 --> 00:43:56.740
deeply ingrained is this idea of anthropocentrism or anthroposupremacy

00:43:56.740 --> 00:44:02.920
the idea that somehow reality exists with us at the center. That's one thing.

00:44:02.920 --> 00:44:09.020
Another is that we're always progressing either materially or in some other way.

00:44:09.020 --> 00:44:16.580
So like what is new can be better, will be better than the past. So just let's

00:44:16.580 --> 00:44:22.260
just take two of those things. With that you can end up coming up with the ideas

00:44:22.260 --> 00:44:27.900
in conscious evolution where it's like, well, it's our destiny as humans to evolve to a

00:44:27.900 --> 00:44:36.140
higher consciousness. And I think the opposite could be what's happened because there is

00:44:36.140 --> 00:44:44.500
such incredible wisdom in indigenous societies. And also, I think about it, I think I may have

00:44:44.500 --> 00:44:49.320
mentioned it in my email to you, I can't remember. I'm working not with that many, but with a

00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:55.080
few farmers in Bali in my organic farm school and they don't have all the

00:44:55.080 --> 00:45:00.320
education and they don't really know about all manner of things. It would be

00:45:00.320 --> 00:45:08.280
weird to talk about a planetary future for the whole Homo sapiens and that's

00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:14.880
all just weird blah blah. I don't think they are any less awake. In fact I think

00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:21.840
there might be more awake than the people who write blogs and send emails about a global brain

00:45:21.840 --> 00:45:29.680
awakening and planetary consciousness emerging. I really don't like what I think is the implicit

00:45:29.680 --> 00:45:37.200
modernity and patriarchy, anthroposupremacy, that's sort of lingering in that worldview,

00:45:37.200 --> 00:45:43.680
that we are all going to come together in a global consciousness that's awakening and progressing.

00:45:43.680 --> 00:45:51.080
Yeah, it's patriarchal. It's like, no sod it. Why can't you just be happy that...

00:45:51.080 --> 00:45:54.360
What is really frightening, I think, for a lot of people in Western modern culture is

00:45:54.360 --> 00:46:00.360
that, no, it's our culture that is omnicidal. That humans lived for hundreds of thousands

00:46:00.360 --> 00:46:05.160
of years without screwing up the planet in the way that we've done in 200 years. And

00:46:05.160 --> 00:46:10.160
even today, 4% of the world's population is indigenous and where they live, there's over

00:46:10.160 --> 00:46:12.320
about 80% of the world's biodiversity.

00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:13.400
Now, what does that tell you?

00:46:13.400 --> 00:46:17.780
And if you look again, it's also a bit annoying to hear for some people, but

00:46:17.780 --> 00:46:22.360
so much of the archeology and anthropology of the past years has been racist.

00:46:22.360 --> 00:46:29.480
So basically it's, it's assumed that the first peoples were somehow not stewarding

00:46:29.480 --> 00:46:31.300
and working with their environments.

00:46:31.300 --> 00:46:35.480
And actually looking at it again, for example, now we know that the Amazon

00:46:35.480 --> 00:46:39.520
was not a wild untouched environment, but a wild garden one and that hundreds,

00:46:39.520 --> 00:46:44.200
if not thousands of species in the Amazon because of millennia

00:46:44.200 --> 00:46:47.440
of human settlement. And there are many examples of that in

00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:51.840
North America, too. So no, there was incredible complexity,

00:46:51.840 --> 00:46:57.800
incredible wisdom, and trashed by Eurocentric culture,

00:46:57.800 --> 00:47:01.160
originally colonialism, but then that became this sort of what I

00:47:01.160 --> 00:47:06.160
call imperial modernity and taken to the extreme, like all

00:47:06.160 --> 00:47:09.080
of that on cocaine because of an expansionist monetary system.

00:47:09.080 --> 00:47:15.080
and a lot of people, older people, privileged people, often white, living in

00:47:15.080 --> 00:47:21.480
the West, are attracted to stories which absolve any sense of guilt. And I think

00:47:21.480 --> 00:47:24.360
you don't need that, but I know a lot of people do. So be like, oh this was

00:47:24.360 --> 00:47:29.180
predetermined overshoot, any species would do this and it was just, what was it in

00:47:29.180 --> 00:47:35.920
the William Catton book, natural exuberance. No, not at all. That's not what

00:47:35.920 --> 00:47:42.920
the latest scholarship shows. So just because our culture, our system, when I

00:47:42.920 --> 00:47:48.120
say our I mean modernity, which came from colonialism originally and just because

00:47:48.120 --> 00:47:53.960
of that is at fault for Omnicide doesn't mean that we sort of just get lost in

00:47:53.960 --> 00:48:00.400
self-hatred. An interest in an aversion to blame and shame is itself an aspect of

00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:05.440
modernity and the Abrahamic religions that modernity was built on. You can just

00:48:05.440 --> 00:48:11.340
let all that go. And that's what I've also loved from my own Buddhist reading and

00:48:11.340 --> 00:48:16.480
sinking into this and this notion of pre-forgiveness because the way somebody

00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:20.160
else is, the way I am, is just the same consciousness having a different life

00:48:20.160 --> 00:48:26.320
experience. So there's no possibility of damnation of self or other in some kind

00:48:26.320 --> 00:48:31.600
of deep level. So you don't need to worry about shame and blame. I actually believe

00:48:31.600 --> 00:48:38.400
that the stories of the problems of our time being necessary to go through to

00:48:38.400 --> 00:48:45.120
some sort of higher consciousness, I see that as culturally very specific, pretty

00:48:45.120 --> 00:48:50.480
racially and culturally insensitive and the people who like it tend to be people

00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:53.440
of privilege in a particular culture because it makes them feel better about

00:48:53.440 --> 00:48:57.920
the horrors of what's happened and what's to come. So yeah that's my take on

00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:04.640
that and the positive side of it I would say is and how it relates to a more sort

00:49:04.640 --> 00:49:11.480
of beautiful heart opening kind of philosophy is simply nature and the

00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:18.400
universe is perfectly imperfect. We don't need to think about any transformation

00:49:18.400 --> 00:49:23.920
to get somewhere. We label things good and bad. This is a human thing that we do

00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:29.920
but life is unfolding and we don't really understand why and all the destruction

00:49:29.920 --> 00:49:35.560
is super painful but if there is eternity then life will come again both

00:49:35.560 --> 00:49:40.560
on this planet and elsewhere in the universe and if we believe that organic

00:49:40.560 --> 00:49:46.080
life or complex life even if it's not organic is is somehow deeply meaningful

00:49:46.080 --> 00:49:50.280
in the universe then the possibility for that always existed to create what we

00:49:50.280 --> 00:49:55.600
are today, so it still exists. So for me actually, what I've learned from my

00:49:55.600 --> 00:49:59.560
reading of Buddhism is just is this deeper acceptance of everything that we

00:49:59.560 --> 00:50:06.080
might label good and evil, good bad, dark, light, just sort of is. So I want to be as

00:50:06.080 --> 00:50:10.840
present to it and as engaged with it. I want to witness it and I want to be

00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:16.060
there for other people as much as I can be and not lose myself too much into

00:50:16.060 --> 00:50:22.140
stories of sacrifice and service. I want to also have fun, therefore not be bitter about anything.

00:50:22.140 --> 00:50:31.020
Okay. You may be aware of Brian Thomas Swim, you know Brian? I interviewed him a year ago, maybe.

00:50:31.020 --> 00:50:36.460
He has a nice little quote, which is that you leave hydrogen alone for 13.7 billion years and

00:50:36.460 --> 00:50:44.860
you end up with giraffes, opera, and I don't know, rose bushes or something. And illustrates nicely

00:50:44.860 --> 00:50:51.060
a point which I believe, which is that the universe itself is one huge giant evolution machine.

00:50:51.060 --> 00:50:57.460
Greater and greater complexity is arising out of simplicity. And in so doing, forms are

00:50:57.460 --> 00:51:03.240
being created through which the primordial intelligence that gives rise to the whole

00:51:03.240 --> 00:51:08.580
thing can become a living reality through you and me and mosquitoes and angels or whatever

00:51:08.580 --> 00:51:14.380
else may exist, Indonesian farmers. But everything's evolving. I would say everything's evolving.

00:51:14.380 --> 00:51:19.540
You said in your email to me that these farmers in Indonesia don't need to evolve spiritually.

00:51:19.540 --> 00:51:23.340
That's just a matter of philosophy, I think, but I think everything is evolving spiritually,

00:51:23.340 --> 00:51:24.740
like it or not.

00:51:24.740 --> 00:51:26.660
Everything, everyone.

00:51:26.660 --> 00:51:32.060
And this thing about the ancient cultures, firstly, again, there's no inevitability.

00:51:32.060 --> 00:51:33.960
I didn't use that word.

00:51:33.960 --> 00:51:39.640
My friend Dwayne Elgin made a little video in which he outlines several different possible

00:51:39.640 --> 00:51:41.900
scenarios of how things might go.

00:51:41.900 --> 00:51:47.740
of them involves breakdown into chaos, but the first one would be continuing chaos for a long time.

00:51:47.740 --> 00:51:54.700
Second one would be some kind of AI-driven, Chinese-style authoritarian world. And the third

00:51:54.700 --> 00:51:59.900
one would be that we do experience a spiritual renaissance out of the ashes, so to speak,

00:51:59.900 --> 00:52:07.740
and this collapse will be seen as having been necessary for that to come about, because under

00:52:07.740 --> 00:52:12.380
the current systems and structures, it really couldn't come about.

00:52:12.380 --> 00:52:16.700
To Dwayne's one, I would add a fourth, which is this idea of collapse going for a long

00:52:16.700 --> 00:52:24.340
time. But there will be good and bad, there will be spiritual renaissances and the opposite

00:52:24.340 --> 00:52:31.180
of that, all happening at the same time. So for me, I see a future for the human race

00:52:31.180 --> 00:52:37.820
this century of there being a lot of beauty, joy, love, spiritual transformation, and also

00:52:37.820 --> 00:52:45.500
a lot of hate and violence and stupidity, ignorance, delusion, derangement.

00:52:45.500 --> 00:52:51.380
As there is right now. So many people living these blessed lives, you know, and then there's

00:52:51.380 --> 00:52:53.260
all hell breaking loose.

00:52:53.260 --> 00:52:56.980
I talk about this in the book, is that okay, so some people say, yeah, okay, what you said

00:52:56.980 --> 00:53:02.540
sounds right but don't you have a vision? I said well yes I do because I believe

00:53:02.540 --> 00:53:07.220
that so much of the suffering is as a result not of human nature, not as of our

00:53:07.220 --> 00:53:11.300
freedoms but because we've been so oppressed through an expansionist

00:53:11.300 --> 00:53:15.300
monetary system and the way it's shaped us and I talk about it in great detail

00:53:15.300 --> 00:53:19.860
in chapter 10 in the ways that it's shaped our experience of reality and

00:53:19.860 --> 00:53:24.420
encouraged us to behave and feel and think in certain ways and not others and

00:53:24.420 --> 00:53:30.540
And so, yeah, my vision is that where we are freed, more and more of us are freed from

00:53:30.540 --> 00:53:33.720
that in order to be more of ourselves.

00:53:33.720 --> 00:53:34.720
Which what does that mean?

00:53:34.720 --> 00:53:39.740
Well it means to be more in discovery of what it is to be us and to be in connection with

00:53:39.740 --> 00:53:42.380
others and to be in connection with nature.

00:53:42.380 --> 00:53:50.900
And for some people that might include experiencing non-ordinary states of consciousness which

00:53:50.900 --> 00:53:56.180
which might affirm their sense that consciousness just isn't in here, but is shared.

00:53:56.180 --> 00:54:02.100
It might include them realizing that maybe there's some sort of universal consciousness.

00:54:02.100 --> 00:54:07.420
They may label it God, they may label it the Akashic Record, they may label it an Atman

00:54:07.420 --> 00:54:12.300
or an Anatman or whatever, you know, loads of words out there, concepts, framings out

00:54:12.300 --> 00:54:16.580
there and I've got to the point of thinking that if you start getting attached to those

00:54:16.580 --> 00:54:23.340
stories then you're back in fear, you're needing order to latch on to. Some people

00:54:23.340 --> 00:54:27.500
won't, some people will have joyful caring loving lives and they won't necessarily

00:54:27.500 --> 00:54:30.780
have had an altered state of consciousness where they've experienced

00:54:30.780 --> 00:54:35.100
we space or universal transcendent being and they will think that when they die

00:54:35.100 --> 00:54:38.980
that's it they're just skin and bones and they're gone. And then they'll be

00:54:38.980 --> 00:54:43.460
pleasantly surprised. Well yeah but also they'll just be loving caring good

00:54:43.460 --> 00:54:48.340
people anyway? Sure, yeah, absolutely. I know people who have been meditating for decades

00:54:48.340 --> 00:54:54.460
who are absolute jerks. In fact, there's, I think, a spiritual egotism that often happens

00:54:54.460 --> 00:54:59.700
with people who think they're superior and intolerant.

00:54:59.700 --> 00:55:05.220
I had this very recently, because death of a loved one really, really helps bring this

00:55:05.220 --> 00:55:10.380
into focus. So you know, my dad just died, what, three days ago, and I'm sitting by his

00:55:10.380 --> 00:55:16.560
lifeless body saying goodbye I said out loud so dad I don't know I don't know

00:55:16.560 --> 00:55:20.820
whether I'm speaking to you as a consciousness right here right now which

00:55:20.820 --> 00:55:27.340
is like a congruent dad consciousness and if it is I want to say this and then I

00:55:27.340 --> 00:55:31.260
don't know if you're just merged with the universal consciousness already I

00:55:31.260 --> 00:55:36.860
whoa what a trip that is so you've like rejoined like wow lucky you I mean

00:55:36.860 --> 00:55:39.460
That's weird. Look, there I am next to my dead dad.

00:55:39.460 --> 00:55:41.260
But if that's true, wow!

00:55:41.260 --> 00:55:43.260
And then, oh, geez!

00:55:43.260 --> 00:55:47.260
But even in that way, there might be an imprint on that Akashic Record

00:55:47.260 --> 00:55:50.660
that is dad's consciousness, Peter Bendel consciousness,

00:55:50.660 --> 00:55:52.860
that will be reincarnated in a new life form.

00:55:52.860 --> 00:55:55.260
It's like, wow, you've got an amazing trip ahead of you.

00:55:55.260 --> 00:55:59.060
Or, you're just, that's it.

00:55:59.060 --> 00:56:04.260
None of you exists anymore apart from the impact you've had on people.

00:56:04.860 --> 00:56:11.180
and the ability of people like me to now have a conversation in my head with my idea of you

00:56:11.180 --> 00:56:15.660
which I've been doing which is fascinating to find I was having this conversation with my dad

00:56:15.660 --> 00:56:19.820
in the hours before I got to the nursing home knowing he'd passed. So it was almost like he'd

00:56:19.820 --> 00:56:25.580
come alive as a being for me to talk to but maybe that's the only way that he's still alive which is

00:56:25.580 --> 00:56:31.100
so just in in people's memories of him and then I thought well if that's the case this is what I want

00:56:31.100 --> 00:56:36.380
want to say to you. And I think even if I have more we space moments and more

00:56:36.380 --> 00:56:41.860
periods of experiencing collective consciousness and telepathy and so I've

00:56:41.860 --> 00:56:46.380
had all of those. I'm lucky I've had those in my life. I say I'm lucky because

00:56:46.380 --> 00:56:51.580
it means I know there is more. I'm not quite sure how there is more. I don't

00:56:51.580 --> 00:56:56.180
know what words are best for describing it. I don't think my dad wasn't as

00:56:56.180 --> 00:57:00.540
lucky. I don't think he ever had any of that. But I think I'd be okay with that

00:57:00.540 --> 00:57:07.120
not knowing the way I've just described it. Because if we get attached to the stories,

00:57:07.120 --> 00:57:12.300
as you were saying, people who meditate for decades as well, I think it takes us away

00:57:12.300 --> 00:57:15.820
from being nice and kind to each other and ourselves.

00:57:15.820 --> 00:57:22.540
I think that's the bottom line. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I don't think

00:57:22.540 --> 00:57:27.580
that if somebody's been meditating for decades, it means that they're more highly evolved

00:57:27.580 --> 00:57:35.120
spiritually than some simple farmer or anybody else. We all come in at different levels.

00:57:35.120 --> 00:57:38.500
So there was another point I was making there when I said that, which is that basically

00:57:38.500 --> 00:57:46.980
an Indonesian farmer like Kadek, he's our farm manager, his carbon footprint and ecological

00:57:46.980 --> 00:57:54.200
footprint is infinitesimal compared to the many people who will be pontificating about

00:57:54.200 --> 00:58:02.120
some great spiritual revolution after the collapse and carnage of the biosphere and modern societies

00:58:02.120 --> 00:58:05.760
which they've contributed to far more than Kodak.

00:58:05.760 --> 00:58:09.360
Which doesn't mean they're not right. There might be some spiritual revolution even though

00:58:09.360 --> 00:58:10.800
they're polluting like heck.

00:58:10.800 --> 00:58:15.040
Yeah, but you see what I mean? It's like, well, maybe Kodak doesn't need a spiritual

00:58:15.040 --> 00:58:20.520
revolution. What I'm saying is it's a very culturally specific story. This is it. Stories,

00:58:20.520 --> 00:58:25.940
become popular amongst specific people and groups because they serve the person in some

00:58:25.940 --> 00:58:30.680
way. And for me mindfulness can be connected to this what I call critical literacy in the

00:58:30.680 --> 00:58:35.080
book which is actually deconstructing these frames and these narratives and saying well

00:58:35.080 --> 00:58:40.400
who's being served by this and who's not. So for me I often think well a lot of these

00:58:40.400 --> 00:58:46.880
stories in the western spiritual community or now the western doom-a-sphere can actually

00:58:46.880 --> 00:58:53.280
just be helping people change nothing in their lives and carry on consuming and

00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:58.840
just feel a bit less bad about it. So this is with Michael Dowd I was always saying

00:58:58.840 --> 00:59:03.200
very interested to explore this with him always which is that you know he's

00:59:03.200 --> 00:59:07.240
spreading the good news that actually after collapse acceptance there can be

00:59:07.240 --> 00:59:11.720
joy and he was also not wanting to pass any judgment on what that might mean for

00:59:11.720 --> 00:59:15.920
people and yet if through collapse acceptance you just want to fly around

00:59:15.920 --> 00:59:20.760
around the world and go on cruises and fly first class and drive your SUV then

00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:25.960
for me there's something going wrong there. There's a numbing that's coming

00:59:25.960 --> 00:59:31.160
from collapse acceptance. So this is why I say there's work to be done to help

00:59:31.160 --> 00:59:36.440
steward each other and help each other through this waking up to just how bad

00:59:36.440 --> 00:59:41.360
things are and why they got this way and what our options are and how we wish to

00:59:41.360 --> 00:59:45.400
be. And it does require, as you were saying earlier, you know good critical

00:59:45.400 --> 00:59:51.220
conversations between people who are happy to disagree, not take it too

00:59:51.220 --> 00:59:55.680
personally, not try and cancel each other if you disagree. That's what I liked

00:59:55.680 --> 00:59:58.920
with Michael because we could talk about these things and he totally got

00:59:58.920 --> 01:00:02.600
what I was saying and he was just super exuberant about the joy of collapse

01:00:02.600 --> 01:00:10.620
acceptance as well. He was actually after my interview with him his wife made an

01:00:10.620 --> 01:00:13.540
edited version of it she said you're one of the first interviewers who ever

01:00:13.540 --> 01:00:17.860
managed to slow him down enough to interject questions and things like that

01:00:17.860 --> 01:00:21.540
because he just gets so exuberant. But I just had a thought while you were saying

01:00:21.540 --> 01:00:26.820
that your whole idea of collapse is a theory but it's a very well researched

01:00:26.820 --> 01:00:30.860
theory. You offer a lot of evidence in the book, chapter by chapter, how each

01:00:30.860 --> 01:00:37.580
individual area is unsustainable. And I would say that my notion or others

01:00:37.580 --> 01:00:44.620
notion of some kind of enlightened age coming down the pike is also a theory, and it's more

01:00:44.620 --> 01:00:48.820
difficult to quantify. You know, you can't measure temperatures and this and that in

01:00:48.820 --> 01:00:54.380
order to provide evidence for it, but my measurement is in the realm of my life's experience, but

01:00:54.380 --> 01:01:01.180
so many conversations with people who are undergoing a spiritual transformation that

01:01:01.180 --> 01:01:06.380
might not at all be evident on the surface, but that it makes me feel like something of

01:01:06.380 --> 01:01:11.900
this nature is epidemic in the world. It's a global phenomenon that doesn't come anywhere

01:01:11.900 --> 01:01:17.900
close to making the news or even showing up in a very manifest way anyplace. It's more

01:01:17.900 --> 01:01:23.620
of a subjective experience that's happening among growing numbers of people. But as I

01:01:23.620 --> 01:01:30.500
said in the very beginning, I think our subjective state is the fulcrum or the ultimate cause

01:01:30.500 --> 01:01:36.740
of whatever ends up manifesting on the surface. I think that if this subjective state becomes

01:01:36.740 --> 01:01:43.220
more the norm, we used the word extraordinary earlier or something, so if it becomes more

01:01:43.220 --> 01:01:48.940
ordinary, then I think that all the surface structures of life will necessarily have to

01:01:48.940 --> 01:01:54.740
change, and as we've seen, most of the people who run these structures don't change willingly,

01:01:54.740 --> 01:02:00.540
And so there's going to have to be some kind of cataclysmic collapse in order for something

01:02:00.540 --> 01:02:02.740
new to arise.

01:02:02.740 --> 01:02:06.580
So just carrying on from what I was saying earlier then.

01:02:06.580 --> 01:02:07.960
So there's two ways I could respond.

01:02:07.960 --> 01:02:10.900
One is to talk about the theory and the evidence for it.

01:02:10.900 --> 01:02:15.020
And then we would talk about, well, if that's happening, so what?

01:02:15.020 --> 01:02:16.020
Let's think about it.

01:02:16.020 --> 01:02:19.980
But another is to look at where the theory is coming from.

01:02:19.980 --> 01:02:21.360
Which theory?

01:02:21.360 --> 01:02:22.660
The one you just mentioned.

01:02:22.660 --> 01:02:23.660
My theory?

01:02:23.660 --> 01:02:24.660
Yeah.

01:02:24.660 --> 01:02:30.260
a spiritual awakening under the surface that has momentum.

01:02:30.260 --> 01:02:32.260
Okay, let's talk about where that comes from.

01:02:32.260 --> 01:02:37.260
So what I'm interested in, would your life feel as good if you didn't believe that?

01:02:37.260 --> 01:02:44.260
It's kind of a moot question because my life was going to shit before I learned to meditate.

01:02:44.260 --> 01:02:50.260
I had dropped out of high school and gotten arrested a couple times and I was starting to use hard drugs.

01:02:50.260 --> 01:02:55.660
And then my life underwent a dramatic turnaround and has been, you know, had its ups and downs,

01:02:55.660 --> 01:02:59.260
but has been continually enhanced ever since over the last 55 years.

01:02:59.260 --> 01:03:03.660
And that's what has formed my opinions about many things, just my own experience.

01:03:03.660 --> 01:03:06.660
But then that could be just your experience.

01:03:06.660 --> 01:03:14.660
And the theory that there is a spreading awakening, spiritual awakening, and there's momentum,

01:03:14.660 --> 01:03:17.160
not necessarily that it will add up to, you know, whatever,

01:03:17.160 --> 01:03:26.660
But where would you be if you didn't believe that there was this momentum, this spiritual awakening in other people and that possibly the opposites occurring?

01:03:26.660 --> 01:03:29.060
I might be sort of more depressed.

01:03:29.060 --> 01:03:30.860
I might be pessimistic.

01:03:30.860 --> 01:03:39.860
But since I have been in touch with thousands of such people over the years, I feel like that phenomenon is occurring and it gives me some optimism.

01:03:40.160 --> 01:03:46.960
So what I'm getting at is that there is a tendency in all of us to look for what we want to see in the world

01:03:46.960 --> 01:03:53.360
according to our identity and our stories of reality and our assumptions and the culture and life experiences.

01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:53.860
Yep.

01:03:53.860 --> 01:04:01.560
And so for example, if you yourself have experienced really tough unbearable pain, emotional, psychological,

01:04:01.560 --> 01:04:07.460
and you got through that through meditation and through a spiritual awakening, then you know that pain.

01:04:07.460 --> 01:04:12.760
So when you see other people suffering in that pain, that must potentially, you must feel

01:04:12.760 --> 01:04:19.700
it hard and it will therefore be a useful story to think that, yeah, but at least more and

01:04:19.700 --> 01:04:21.280
more people are getting out of that.

01:04:21.280 --> 01:04:26.480
So what I'm pointing to is that to become aware of how different theories of reality

01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:31.700
are ones that we can be choosing because of what they're doing for us.

01:04:31.700 --> 01:04:38.260
But what I've got from my spiritual inquiry, if you call it that, is just to become more

01:04:38.260 --> 01:04:41.860
of a witness to like, "Oh, that idea, that appealed to me.

01:04:41.860 --> 01:04:43.100
That calmed me down.

01:04:43.100 --> 01:04:46.860
Oh, that one, I didn't like that idea."

01:04:46.860 --> 01:04:51.940
So whenever I start to hear a theory of what's happening in the world, I wonder what it might

01:04:51.940 --> 01:04:54.180
be doing for someone and why they might like it.

01:04:54.180 --> 01:04:58.120
But the other thing is I'm also a sociologist and I'm very critical of modernity.

01:04:58.120 --> 01:05:04.040
so I'm immediately spotting the deep stories of our culture such as progress

01:05:04.040 --> 01:05:11.120
and the idea that there needs to be or there always will be a progression and

01:05:11.120 --> 01:05:15.480
therefore that would be associated with scale. It wouldn't be just like one human out of

01:05:15.480 --> 01:05:18.640
eight billion who progresses to enlightenment. No, there needs to be scale.

01:05:18.640 --> 01:05:23.680
There needs to be progress. There's the possibility that the opposite is the

01:05:23.680 --> 01:05:28.300
natural flow of life. There is the possibility that human extinction

01:05:28.300 --> 01:05:34.720
through a degrading of the spiritual awareness of more and more humans is

01:05:34.720 --> 01:05:40.080
exactly what was meant to happen. There's the possibility that's exactly what was

01:05:40.080 --> 01:05:43.320
meant to happen. There's the possibility with the fact that they have a quantum

01:05:43.320 --> 01:05:47.560
dance that bees are closer to enlightenment and higher consciousness

01:05:47.560 --> 01:05:52.320
than Homo sapiens and that actually the universe just needs to get rid of us.

01:05:52.320 --> 01:05:58.080
Possibly, I'm not saying that because I don't want to dismiss all those incredible indigenous peoples who lived

01:05:58.080 --> 01:06:06.620
fantastically in harmony with nature for millennia, but possibly the natural future of homo sapiens is to become less awake, more numb,

01:06:06.620 --> 01:06:11.660
more aggressive, more stupid, more separate and fearful and more deluded in our own.

01:06:11.660 --> 01:06:16.580
Maybe, you see, maybe. And what I'm getting to is that I don't know,

01:06:16.580 --> 01:06:21.860
but I'm okay with the not knowing and what's still true, what's still true for me,

01:06:22.080 --> 01:06:29.080
is if I can be mindful, if I can be loving, if I can be courageous, if I can be curious,

01:06:29.080 --> 01:06:36.080
if I can be creative and I can help other people that way too, and it might not add up to much.

01:06:36.080 --> 01:06:45.080
But for me, not being attached to outcome includes not being attached to the idea that humanity awakens.

01:06:45.080 --> 01:06:50.080
Okay, let me jump in here. So yes, I think not being attached is very important.

01:06:50.080 --> 01:06:54.920
there's a verse in Bhagavad Gita which goes, "You have control over action alone, never

01:06:54.920 --> 01:07:00.560
over its fruits. Be not attached to the fruits of action, nor attached to inaction." And

01:07:00.560 --> 01:07:05.080
yet, we all have all kinds of ideas. I mean, you have ideas that you're very, quite certain

01:07:05.080 --> 01:07:10.160
of, and quite committed to, and so on. It doesn't invalidate them that you're committed

01:07:10.160 --> 01:07:15.300
to them, nor does it validate them. It's just you have a lot of evidence, based on your

01:07:15.300 --> 01:07:20.980
experience and understanding and research and so on. So, the things you said about the philosophical,

01:07:20.980 --> 01:07:25.940
more philosophical spiritual type ideas that I've been espousing, the same thing applies.

01:07:25.940 --> 01:07:31.940
They're based upon my personal experience, my observation of other people's experience,

01:07:31.940 --> 01:07:37.300
and then there's traditional cultures who talked about these things and prophesized that this or

01:07:37.300 --> 01:07:41.780
that might happen. In the Vedic culture, for instance, they have this cyclical understanding

01:07:41.780 --> 01:07:46.340
a history of you goes you know where it gets better then it gets worse then it gets better then it gets worse.

01:07:46.340 --> 01:07:50.580
There are various arguments as to which point in that cycle we might be.

01:07:50.580 --> 01:07:57.220
I just wanted to make that point about in the book I call it critical wisdom which is becoming aware

01:07:57.220 --> 01:08:01.700
of our attachments to stories because we're entering a period where there's going to be

01:08:01.700 --> 01:08:07.300
generalized anxiety and a lot of derangement and so how can we be as kind and wise in that context.

01:08:07.940 --> 01:08:12.180
So one of them is to try and look at our deep stories and whether that's just, we're just

01:08:12.180 --> 01:08:17.460
thinking what cultures made us think that makes us feel better in the moment or not. So I just

01:08:17.460 --> 01:08:23.460
wanted to make that point with that. But the other thing is, I love your theory. I love the idea

01:08:23.460 --> 01:08:28.580
that Homo sapiens, I don't like the idea that Homo sapiens and I reject the idea that Homo sapiens

01:08:28.580 --> 01:08:33.780
are the most important form of consciousness on the planet. We don't know, we just don't know.

01:08:35.300 --> 01:08:40.340
There's that bit about complexity that I mentioned earlier. A human nervous system is a lot more

01:08:40.340 --> 01:08:45.220
complex than a bee's nervous system. Of course, the bees are essential and critical and we'd

01:08:45.220 --> 01:08:50.820
probably all die if they all died. That alone could do it. But there is something to be said

01:08:50.820 --> 01:08:57.940
for a more sophisticated nervous system being capable of greater reflection or expression of

01:08:57.940 --> 01:09:02.420
the primordial intelligence that underlies and pervades the universe.

01:09:03.300 --> 01:09:12.580
Maybe, but also if we think of life forms as having a collective consciousness, then the

01:09:12.580 --> 01:09:19.460
capacity for interrelationship between a swarm of bees may mean that there's some kind of

01:09:19.460 --> 01:09:22.900
consciousness there, which is highly complex.

01:09:22.900 --> 01:09:23.580
I agree.

01:09:23.580 --> 01:09:25.380
I love this is a fantastic.

01:09:25.380 --> 01:09:28.180
I couldn't have this interview with a swarm of bees, though.

01:09:28.660 --> 01:09:34.660
No, but then maybe our interview is nothing compared to the amazing stuff that the swarms of bees are doing.

01:09:34.660 --> 01:09:42.660
But there's the idea again from our culture that the brain is so important in mind and yet there's some really weird studies.

01:09:42.660 --> 01:09:45.660
Like there are individuals that had hardly any cerebral cortex.

01:09:45.660 --> 01:09:46.660
Oh yeah, I know that.

01:09:46.660 --> 01:09:47.660
They were like a coconut.

01:09:47.660 --> 01:09:52.660
There was just some brain cells around the skull and the rest of it was liquid.

01:09:52.660 --> 01:09:54.660
Yeah, and they were carrying on normal lives.

01:09:54.660 --> 01:09:58.900
I know, but there's quite a few examples of that, which completely challenge our notion

01:09:58.900 --> 01:10:03.820
of where intelligence lies in the body, or even if it's just in the body or not.

01:10:03.820 --> 01:10:08.100
Anyway, so I'm saying yes, maybe, maybe humans are special, maybe.

01:10:08.100 --> 01:10:13.660
But also maybe we're special to create the way for the really special species, which

01:10:13.660 --> 01:10:18.920
comes after we wipe out 95% of life on Earth, which it looks like what we're doing.

01:10:18.920 --> 01:10:24.720
And so maybe it's the future swarm of bees or colony of ants in 20 million years, who's

01:10:24.720 --> 01:10:29.440
actually, you know, that's where it's at for consciousness expressing itself through planet

01:10:29.440 --> 01:10:30.440
Earth.

01:10:30.440 --> 01:10:31.440
Who knows?

01:10:31.440 --> 01:10:36.840
But anyway, if we go with your theory, then I am a researcher and I say, well, you know,

01:10:36.840 --> 01:10:40.440
you have a little bit of confirmation bias going on because you love talking to people

01:10:40.440 --> 01:10:42.440
who like talking about these things.

01:10:42.440 --> 01:10:49.600
And so you could triangulate that with data on consciousness that people are experiencing

01:10:49.600 --> 01:10:51.940
and behaviors and all sorts.

01:10:51.940 --> 01:10:56.680
And then there's a whole debate there about what would be the objective indicators of a

01:10:56.680 --> 01:10:57.680
spiritual awakening.

01:10:57.680 --> 01:10:58.680
That's pretty difficult.

01:10:58.680 --> 01:11:01.120
I've got one for you.

01:11:01.120 --> 01:11:03.360
I was in the TM movement for a long time.

01:11:03.360 --> 01:11:09.960
And one of the premises there was that collective consciousness is a thing and that it can be

01:11:09.960 --> 01:11:14.800
enlivened or influenced by large groups of people meditating together. So, I participated

01:11:14.800 --> 01:11:19.760
in groups as large as 8,000 and at some point we went to various, I spent three months in

01:11:19.760 --> 01:11:24.940
Iran, you know, with a group of people meditating just before the Shah left. And researchers

01:11:24.940 --> 01:11:30.800
did a lot of studies on societal indicators, economic and crime and various things and

01:11:30.800 --> 01:11:35.400
claimed to find, I think they had a vested interest in making TM look good, but they

01:11:35.400 --> 01:11:40.680
They claim to find a correlation between the existence of these groups and measurable changes

01:11:40.680 --> 01:11:42.720
in these indicators.

01:11:42.720 --> 01:11:47.440
And they claim that the p-value or whatever was very strong, that these studies really

01:11:47.440 --> 01:11:49.160
showed something was happening.

01:11:49.160 --> 01:11:56.360
So I'm saying this with a little bit of uncertainty because I think there was that agenda to make

01:11:56.360 --> 01:12:00.000
TM look good, but on the other hand, maybe there's some truth to it.

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:04.280
And there's guys like Rupert Sheldrake and some of his colleagues who tried to do research.

01:12:04.280 --> 01:12:07.940
Rupert wrote a book called Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.

01:12:07.940 --> 01:12:12.360
And they used all sorts of careful methods of controlling that the dogs had no way of

01:12:12.360 --> 01:12:15.840
knowing that the owners were coming home very randomly.

01:12:15.840 --> 01:12:18.320
I'm pretty Sheldrake-ian, if one can...

01:12:18.320 --> 01:12:19.840
Has anyone said that?

01:12:19.840 --> 01:12:20.840
Sheldrake-ian?

01:12:20.840 --> 01:12:21.840
That's a good word.

01:12:21.840 --> 01:12:24.400
I lost my cat recently and I was very upset.

01:12:24.400 --> 01:12:28.400
I had telepathy with my cat and I know that can sound a bit wacky but...

01:12:28.400 --> 01:12:29.400
I believe it.

01:12:29.400 --> 01:12:34.480
When my cat was stuck up a tree, it was the only time in my life with the cat in two years

01:12:34.480 --> 01:12:39.280
that I thought, "It's daytime, for some reason I need to go and look for Buki."

01:12:39.280 --> 01:12:40.400
I had to go out.

01:12:40.400 --> 01:12:43.960
And I found him, you know, 80 meters away, stuck up a tree.

01:12:43.960 --> 01:12:46.320
And that's just one example.

01:12:46.320 --> 01:12:50.600
There is weird stuff that I would just accept, "No, that's not chance.

01:12:50.600 --> 01:12:53.200
That's some kind of telepathy."

01:12:53.200 --> 01:12:56.920
So I'm not arguing against anything you've just said, but I'm saying neither of those

01:12:56.920 --> 01:13:02.040
two things are evidence that there's a momentum towards a widespread human awakening which

01:13:02.040 --> 01:13:07.600
will affect the destiny of life on Earth or Homo sapiens. And I would be able to marshal

01:13:07.600 --> 01:13:14.720
lots of evidence. For example, in my lifetime, 50 years on Earth, over 60% of wildlife has

01:13:14.720 --> 01:13:21.280
been wiped out. We're now down to wildlife on planet Earth constitutes 4% of all mammals.

01:13:21.280 --> 01:13:27.120
rest of it's humans are pets and livestock and the carnage is extreme.

01:13:27.120 --> 01:13:35.680
And so if a spiritual awakening is somehow happening, that doesn't look very good.

01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:41.100
Well yeah, but I've agreed with you from the outset that there seems to be a terrible collapse

01:13:41.100 --> 01:13:42.400
taking place.

01:13:42.400 --> 01:13:47.560
What we're possibly disagreeing on is what may follow this collapse and I'm saying perhaps

01:13:47.560 --> 01:13:52.320
this will be, like you said, a dark night of the soul, a dark passage of some kind, and

01:13:52.320 --> 01:13:56.280
there'll be a bright future on the other side of it, but also perhaps not.

01:13:56.280 --> 01:13:59.920
And I wanted to make that point because you mentioned the word possibility a little while

01:13:59.920 --> 01:14:05.720
ago and I just want to make clear that I don't deal with absolutes or certainties.

01:14:05.720 --> 01:14:10.200
I take everything as a hypothesis and I give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but I

01:14:10.200 --> 01:14:14.500
also take everything with a grain of salt and proportions vary.

01:14:14.500 --> 01:14:18.940
If somebody tells me the earth is flat, and I'm actually aware of such people, that's

01:14:18.940 --> 01:14:19.940
all salt to me.

01:14:19.940 --> 01:14:20.940
The earth is not flat.

01:14:20.940 --> 01:14:23.060
There's too much evidence that it isn't.

01:14:23.060 --> 01:14:26.700
But if they tell me some other things, like, well, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong.

01:14:26.700 --> 01:14:33.900
But I really am not wired in a way to be adamant about any particular idea, including all the

01:14:33.900 --> 01:14:35.780
points I've made today.

01:14:35.780 --> 01:14:37.640
And I think that's a scientific attitude.

01:14:37.640 --> 01:14:39.640
That's the way scientists should think.

01:14:39.640 --> 01:14:41.740
And I'm not a scientist, but that's the way I think.

01:14:41.740 --> 01:14:47.100
Yeah, if someone comes in with the knowledge that I have, and it's not just I'm predicting collapse,

01:14:47.100 --> 01:14:54.780
I have a whole chapter, chapter one, which is talking about all the data going in the wrong direction since 2016, for human societies.

01:14:54.780 --> 01:15:03.660
The Human Development Index has been going down in the majority of countries outside the rich world since 2016.

01:15:03.660 --> 01:15:09.060
It's been going down including in OECD countries, the majority since 2019.

01:15:09.420 --> 01:15:14.380
and some of that data is collected two years prior to being put into the index

01:15:14.380 --> 01:15:20.220
and lots of other indices show the same thing. So we're talking basics, life expectancy, morbidity

01:15:20.220 --> 01:15:27.420
before the pandemic and because it's global it shows therefore a global set of processes are

01:15:27.420 --> 01:15:32.540
happening to cause that. It's not just like one bad leader, oh you know we shouldn't have elected him

01:15:32.540 --> 01:15:37.900
or her or whatever or that war or that was a mistake. No, this is global, it's happening everywhere.

01:15:37.900 --> 01:15:39.660
So it's happening already.

01:15:39.660 --> 01:15:41.100
Let me ask this question that came in.

01:15:41.100 --> 01:15:44.700
This is from PG Woodhouse's grandson.

01:15:44.700 --> 01:15:47.820
No, I don't know about that, but it's Ro Woodhouse from London.

01:15:47.820 --> 01:15:53.420
How long was the Holocene meant to continue before we destabilize the biosphere?

01:15:53.420 --> 01:15:55.980
Oh, a technical question about climate.

01:15:55.980 --> 01:15:58.300
How long was the Holocene meant to go on for?

01:15:58.300 --> 01:15:59.980
Tell us what the Holocene is because...

01:15:59.980 --> 01:16:04.300
The answer could be answered by someone who looks at ancient climates and

01:16:05.020 --> 01:16:08.380
Kondratiev cycles and all sorts.

01:16:08.380 --> 01:16:10.380
What is the whole thing?

01:16:10.380 --> 01:16:12.380
Explain that.

01:16:12.380 --> 01:16:15.820
So I guess it would have been thousands if not tens of thousands of years.

01:16:15.820 --> 01:16:18.220
But I don't know. I didn't look into that.

01:16:18.220 --> 01:16:20.220
Google it. Look at how...

01:16:20.220 --> 01:16:22.220
Google it.

01:16:22.220 --> 01:16:26.220
Come back and tell us. Unless this is meant to be a rhetorical question. I don't know.

01:16:26.220 --> 01:16:31.260
I also believe that ideas are what ideas do.

01:16:31.260 --> 01:16:34.540
Stories are what stories do.

01:16:34.540 --> 01:16:40.620
I'm always interested in the implication and so with the understanding I have that we are

01:16:40.620 --> 01:16:46.780
already within an era of a creeping collapse of modern societies. If someone over here is saying

01:16:46.780 --> 01:16:51.340
I want to tell you that this is the beginning of the age of Aquarius and we're going to have a

01:16:51.340 --> 01:16:55.180
whole spiritual up and all that stuff. Oh really? I haven't heard that before. Okay.

01:16:55.180 --> 01:17:03.340
You know but isn't it? Then someone over here is saying this has broken my heart. I find it

01:17:03.340 --> 01:17:10.100
really difficult. I'm so sad about the difficulties that my children are going to face. I'm heartbroken

01:17:10.100 --> 01:17:13.660
that they don't want to have kids and I completely agree with them, but I'm heartbroken about

01:17:13.660 --> 01:17:22.780
that. I want to do as much as I can to reduce as much harm as possible, to resist aggressive,

01:17:22.780 --> 01:17:28.620
authoritarian, nasty policies, to try and help have a better quality of life for as long

01:17:28.620 --> 01:17:32.500
as possible with least impact on the planet, relocalize supply

01:17:32.500 --> 01:17:36.260
chains, become less vulnerable to external shocks like a

01:17:36.260 --> 01:17:39.940
financial crisis. So we've got someone over here saying, Oh,

01:17:39.940 --> 01:17:42.300
this is just the nasty stuff we've got to get through to the

01:17:42.300 --> 01:17:44.900
global awakening and homo sapiens will finally reach their

01:17:44.900 --> 01:17:47.180
destiny as the higher consciousness species. And

01:17:47.180 --> 01:17:50.220
someone over here who's just being a bit more ordinary, and

01:17:50.220 --> 01:17:53.220
kind and loving and heartbroken. I'm going to go over there.

01:17:53.220 --> 01:17:56.500
And I would say to that that somebody could be both of those

01:17:56.580 --> 01:18:01.220
somebody say, "I'm going to do everything I can to mitigate the suffering," and at the same time,

01:18:01.220 --> 01:18:07.060
I think, you know, there's a good chance something ultimately good is going to happen. In fact,

01:18:07.060 --> 01:18:12.740
I think some of these spiritual teachers who've been coming out to the world in the recent decades,

01:18:12.740 --> 01:18:19.860
who actually gave voice to some of these predictions, maybe their mission was to minimize

01:18:20.580 --> 01:18:27.940
the chaos to some extent by helping to accelerate the rise in collective consciousness, to minimize

01:18:27.940 --> 01:18:33.540
the suffering to some extent. Maybe they felt it was inevitable, but they just wanted to

01:18:33.540 --> 01:18:41.540
make it a little smoother if possible. Yes, so I'm not entirely against people being

01:18:41.540 --> 01:18:48.740
fully committed to doing all they can to encourage more and more people to awaken to a deeper and

01:18:48.740 --> 01:18:54.020
higher reality, spirituality, whatever we call it, I'm for that. But what I'm more

01:18:54.020 --> 01:19:00.580
for is love beyond hope. And for me that was a core thing I got from Buddhism

01:19:00.580 --> 01:19:04.660
where the Buddha in one of his teachings said there's three kinds of people in

01:19:04.660 --> 01:19:09.860
the world. The man with hope, the one without, who's hopeless and the one who's

01:19:09.860 --> 01:19:14.500
done away with hope, who sees it as drawing our attention to the future and

01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:17.620
therefore drawing our attention away from the present and therefore getting

01:19:17.620 --> 01:19:24.460
bound up with stories and aversions and cravings. So I am trying to live and I'm

01:19:24.460 --> 01:19:29.780
excited by living hope free. It doesn't mean I don't try and work out what might

01:19:29.780 --> 01:19:36.220
help. Another way of talking about it is activism and social contribution, whether

01:19:36.220 --> 01:19:39.580
that's through doing what you're doing or working in community on organic

01:19:39.580 --> 01:19:45.340
permaculture or whatever is your chosen contribution. Doing it as a gift and a

01:19:45.340 --> 01:19:52.140
A gift doesn't need and doesn't expect an outcome or a return.

01:19:52.140 --> 01:20:00.140
It's just this is me sharing what's in my heart and what I want to do and what's me being most being me.

01:20:00.140 --> 01:20:05.740
So yeah, love beyond hope and social engagement as a gift and not being attached to outcome.

01:20:05.740 --> 01:20:10.840
And because of that, I'm a little bit allergic to some of these stories about,

01:20:10.840 --> 01:20:14.740
"Oh, this is just the trouble we've got to go through to get to the other side."

01:20:14.740 --> 01:20:19.740
Well, it's not trivial. I mean, the way you're saying that makes it sound like, "Oh, there's a little bump in the road."

01:20:19.740 --> 01:20:24.740
You could wipe out, you know, 90% of the world's population, and that's not going to be pretty.

01:20:24.740 --> 01:20:28.740
And it's not very pretty in Gaza and Israel right now, you know.

01:20:28.740 --> 01:20:35.740
It hasn't been very pretty in Syria after the ecological disaster spurred that upheaval.

01:20:35.740 --> 01:20:40.740
And anyway, on your comment about hope, I think I might be kind of where you're at in that respect.

01:20:40.740 --> 01:20:46.800
When I'm saying these things about a possible bright future, I'm not dwelling in hope or

01:20:46.800 --> 01:20:50.520
hanging my emotions on that possibility.

01:20:50.520 --> 01:20:56.080
It's more like a hypothesis, again, to use that word, and I see evidence to suggest it

01:20:56.080 --> 01:21:00.340
might be the outcome, but if it isn't, then it isn't.

01:21:00.340 --> 01:21:04.540
And I don't really have a lot invested in that as an outcome.

01:21:04.540 --> 01:21:08.600
It's not like the fundamentalist Christian just staking everything on going to heaven

01:21:08.600 --> 01:21:13.720
after they die or something. We'll see how it turns out. And like the Beatles sang in

01:21:13.720 --> 01:21:18.040
the revolution, we're all doing what we can and I'm doing something I feel is having an

01:21:18.040 --> 01:21:22.680
impact and you're doing something you feel is having an impact and we can't all do everything.

01:21:22.680 --> 01:21:27.960
So, you know, we're all ultimately on the same team, I think, and we'll just see where it goes.

01:21:27.960 --> 01:21:33.880
It's interesting you mentioned the Beatles. You know, they're reforming because Yoko Ono found a

01:21:33.880 --> 01:21:37.720
a tape recording of John Lennon singing one of the songs.

01:21:37.720 --> 01:21:41.480
Oh, yeah, they're using AI to make it all work together. And

01:21:41.480 --> 01:21:41.960
yeah,

01:21:41.960 --> 01:21:45.280
I'm actually secretly hoping it's really rubbish. Otherwise,

01:21:45.280 --> 01:21:49.200
I'll be sad that my dad who was a Beatles obsessive, missed the

01:21:49.200 --> 01:21:54.400
final. Really, really, really bad.

01:21:54.400 --> 01:21:59.840
I was a bit of an obsessive myself. I can sing all the

01:21:59.840 --> 01:22:02.600
songs and with lyrics, although not very well, and all the

01:22:02.600 --> 01:22:06.000
harmonies. Yeah, I love the great I was

01:22:06.000 --> 01:22:10.440
there when they were some originals. He's got from the 60s

01:22:10.440 --> 01:22:12.240
just over there are singles.

01:22:12.240 --> 01:22:16.200
It was very exciting in those days. I mean, when I was in high

01:22:16.200 --> 01:22:19.280
school, and I want to hold your hand came out all the kids would

01:22:19.280 --> 01:22:23.200
like open the car doors of their cars and blast their radios and

01:22:23.200 --> 01:22:25.560
they play that song every morning at the same time and

01:22:25.560 --> 01:22:28.280
people would be dancing in the parking lot. It was just like

01:22:28.280 --> 01:22:31.240
this cultural breakthrough after breakthrough with each new album

01:22:31.240 --> 01:22:33.400
that came out throughout the 60s.

01:22:33.400 --> 01:22:36.400
Yeah, there isn't quite that shared experience anymore.

01:22:36.400 --> 01:22:37.400
Everyone's...

01:22:37.400 --> 01:22:38.400
It's all Taylor Swift.

01:22:38.400 --> 01:22:43.960
When I say shared experience, I mean, yeah, okay, maybe there is a shared experience for

01:22:43.960 --> 01:22:46.340
younger people musically.

01:22:46.340 --> 01:22:47.340
There is with some of them.

01:22:47.340 --> 01:22:53.160
I'm just on my own musical journey and I got to thank SoundCloud and typing in ecstatic

01:22:53.160 --> 01:22:58.640
dance into SoundCloud and putting it in there to get me to get the second half of the book

01:22:58.640 --> 01:23:03.640
done just working late into the night listening to these down tempo

01:23:03.640 --> 01:23:09.920
electronica. You actually wrote that book? Yeah there's no words really it's just

01:23:09.920 --> 01:23:15.320
you might have some Native American stuff or some Indian I don't know.

01:23:15.320 --> 01:23:18.480
Getting a little silly here did any more question oh a question came in so we're gonna ask

01:23:18.480 --> 01:23:23.840
that in a minute. Listening to music is deeply serious. Yeah it is I just find it

01:23:23.840 --> 01:23:27.040
divides my mind unless I'm doing something really mindless.

01:23:27.040 --> 01:23:28.040
Okay.

01:23:28.040 --> 01:23:30.700
There's a couple of questions.

01:23:30.700 --> 01:23:35.400
This is from Sundaria M. in India.

01:23:35.400 --> 01:23:40.760
Sometimes coming across people who suffer, victims, makes me suffer more than them, even

01:23:40.760 --> 01:23:42.680
though we are strangers.

01:23:42.680 --> 01:23:47.000
How to break this pattern, especially in today's world where something or the other is going

01:23:47.000 --> 01:23:48.320
on in the world?

01:23:48.320 --> 01:23:53.920
Well, I've never heard that put in that question. What was it? Sundar, did you say?

01:23:53.920 --> 01:24:00.920
Sundarya. She or he feels that they have so much empathy that they suffer even more than the person who's suffering.

01:24:00.920 --> 01:24:14.920
I'm a bit stumped by that question because we don't know the extent of another person's suffering or another animal's or other sentient creature's suffering.

01:24:14.920 --> 01:24:23.920
We don't know, we can guess, but our suffering, meaning our emotional distress at witnessing that suffering,

01:24:23.920 --> 01:24:30.920
is actually a human virtue. It's one of the Brahma-vihara, one of the four natural ways of being.

01:24:30.920 --> 01:24:36.920
What I loved about the Brahma-vihara set of virtues is it's not saying what we aspire to,

01:24:36.920 --> 01:24:41.920
it's saying what's natural prior to injury, emotional, psychological injury of our culture.

01:24:41.920 --> 01:24:46.540
we are naturally empathetic and compassionate. And so I would say well

01:24:46.540 --> 01:24:53.500
it's very human and okay that you feel pain, suffering, at another suffering. But

01:24:53.500 --> 01:24:58.100
there's a however, which is it sounds like you're feeling so affected by it

01:24:58.100 --> 01:25:02.940
that it's causing you a problem and I don't know what in whatever way. So this

01:25:02.940 --> 01:25:08.620
often can be a trauma response, so there's unresolved emotional pain and

01:25:08.620 --> 01:25:13.220
and psychological injury, wounds that haven't been healed and we've all got them,

01:25:13.220 --> 01:25:17.220
but it means that we witness something and that's not making us feel that way,

01:25:17.220 --> 01:25:22.920
but it's triggering something because of our own life experience and what we haven't healed in ourselves.

01:25:22.920 --> 01:25:26.820
Because it's great to feel compassion and some pain.

01:25:26.820 --> 01:25:31.220
The opposite would be awful, but if it's triggering a trauma response, it's becoming overwhelming,

01:25:31.220 --> 01:25:36.120
it's interfering with the rest of your life and interfering with making wise choices

01:25:36.120 --> 01:25:41.840
to promote joy and reduce suffering in the world as you can, then that's an issue.

01:25:41.840 --> 01:25:42.840
What to do about it?

01:25:42.840 --> 01:25:47.440
The key thing is so many people are getting into doom scrolling, as it's called, as you've

01:25:47.440 --> 01:25:52.600
got a word now, doom scrolling, just paying attention to all the tragedies in the world,

01:25:52.600 --> 01:25:58.400
all the latest bad news about the climate or the hurricane here or the disaster there.

01:25:58.400 --> 01:26:01.820
And it is a way of not being present.

01:26:01.820 --> 01:26:05.420
It might feel like you're being present to the world's suffering, but it's not.

01:26:05.420 --> 01:26:10.100
a distraction from it. And often a lot of people will doomscroll, they'll then share that stuff

01:26:10.100 --> 01:26:15.460
on Twitter or whatever and it's a way of just screaming "Ahh!" about it rather than just

01:26:15.460 --> 01:26:22.380
"Okay, there's pain and suffering in the world, there's a lot of it to come, how can I allow

01:26:22.380 --> 01:26:29.300
that somehow as part of my reality without me becoming obsessed by it or it destabilizing

01:26:29.300 --> 01:26:35.380
me so I can't get on with the rest of my life?" And there is healing to be done in order for

01:26:35.380 --> 01:26:37.880
for one not to have a trauma response.

01:26:37.880 --> 01:26:39.680
And it may mean you need to switch off

01:26:39.680 --> 01:26:41.200
from seeing other people suffering

01:26:41.200 --> 01:26:44.020
and focus more on self-love for a time.

01:26:44.020 --> 01:26:45.800
Comes in waves.

01:26:45.800 --> 01:26:47.960
There's only so much of the world's tragedies

01:26:47.960 --> 01:26:50.320
and suffering that we can take on board.

01:26:50.320 --> 01:26:52.520
So maybe just spend more time with self-love

01:26:52.520 --> 01:26:55.720
and healing your own injuries and traumas.

01:26:55.720 --> 01:26:57.560
And then be happy with the fact

01:26:57.560 --> 01:26:59.920
you feel pain and another's pain.

01:26:59.920 --> 01:27:01.000
- That's a good answer.

01:27:01.000 --> 01:27:03.320
One thing I would add is be an ocean.

01:27:03.320 --> 01:27:07.920
If you try to dissolve some mud in a glass of water, it just really muddies up the water.

01:27:07.920 --> 01:27:12.560
But if you dissolve a handful of mud in the ocean, it's just dissipated.

01:27:12.560 --> 01:27:19.280
So if you can become oceanic in your consciousness, in your heart, in your inner reality, then

01:27:19.280 --> 01:27:25.680
you can feel the tragedies of the world, but not be overwhelmed by them.

01:27:25.680 --> 01:27:30.440
And you can probably contribute more to helping mitigate them in some way.

01:27:30.440 --> 01:27:32.680
Like you need to be a good swimmer to be a lifeguard.

01:27:32.680 --> 01:27:36.960
All right, next question from Petra in London.

01:27:36.960 --> 01:27:42.360
If you are saying we don't know what's for the best in the long run, then why do our

01:27:42.360 --> 01:27:44.720
best to stop the collapse?

01:27:44.720 --> 01:27:48.040
So we can't stop the collapse.

01:27:48.040 --> 01:27:49.440
That's my analysis.

01:27:49.440 --> 01:27:50.440
It's already begun.

01:27:50.440 --> 01:27:52.080
It's a creeping collapse.

01:27:52.080 --> 01:27:53.560
We don't know how fast it will go.

01:27:53.560 --> 01:27:55.760
I'm talking about a collapse of modern societies.

01:27:55.760 --> 01:28:03.040
associated also with the rapid degradation of the biosphere, so ecosystems all around

01:28:03.040 --> 01:28:07.320
the world and the derangement of the climate and we don't know how bad that's going to

01:28:07.320 --> 01:28:12.960
get. We don't know if anything we do will make a difference. So the question then you

01:28:12.960 --> 01:28:18.280
asked is in that case, the rhetoric was why do your best, but why do anything to try and

01:28:18.280 --> 01:28:23.400
make a difference in that case? It shouldn't be a rhetorical question. I actually think

01:28:23.400 --> 01:28:29.480
it's an example of the habit of modernity that we assume consequentialist ethics.

01:28:29.480 --> 01:28:34.800
It's normal in all wisdom traditions that you choose to do things because

01:28:34.800 --> 01:28:40.940
that's the right way to live. You try to live a good life, reduce harm where you

01:28:40.940 --> 01:28:48.720
can, promote joy and love and care where you can. You try but it may not work.

01:28:48.720 --> 01:28:52.080
So Rick, you mentioned the Bhagavad Gita. It's in there, it's in Buddhism, it's in

01:28:52.080 --> 01:28:58.000
all wisdom traditions. So it's the rise of consequentialist ethics, so where you do

01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:01.200
something because of a story that it's definitely going to have a positive

01:29:01.200 --> 01:29:06.060
impact. That's just an issue of the dominance of consequentialist ethics is

01:29:06.060 --> 01:29:11.720
an aspect of modern culture. So I realized that doesn't help you then in

01:29:11.720 --> 01:29:17.440
choosing what to do. There's another question very, very close to the one that

01:29:17.440 --> 01:29:22.760
Petra you asked. Is it Petra or Petra? It's P-E-T-R-A. I don't know how they

01:29:22.760 --> 01:29:29.000
pronounce it. Okay Petra. Another question is how do I know what to focus on to try

01:29:29.000 --> 01:29:35.000
to help if I believe that my way of life is breaking down and will continue to do

01:29:35.000 --> 01:29:39.520
so and when I don't know how fast that's gonna happen? Well there's no good answer to

01:29:39.520 --> 01:29:43.160
that. There's no one answer to that because we do not know in complex

01:29:43.160 --> 01:29:47.800
systems, how quickly it's going to break down and where. We don't know. So I'm not

01:29:47.800 --> 01:29:52.240
going to give you a simple answer to that. What you can do is know what will help

01:29:52.240 --> 01:30:00.280
you be more kind, wise and action-oriented come what may. So you know that

01:30:00.280 --> 01:30:05.720
mindfulness and meditation will help. You'll know that having worked out what

01:30:05.720 --> 01:30:10.640
your sense of the purpose and meaning of your life is and your values are will

01:30:10.640 --> 01:30:15.920
help you so you know you can't just postpone that anymore. We might be in a

01:30:15.920 --> 01:30:22.100
terrible situation standing in queues for rations with a World War three on

01:30:22.100 --> 01:30:27.520
within a couple of months even. So you can't postpone these deep questions

01:30:27.520 --> 01:30:31.280
about the meaning of life anymore so don't postpone it, get on with it. What is

01:30:31.280 --> 01:30:36.020
really important to you? How can you cultivate the way you wish to be? There's

01:30:36.020 --> 01:30:40.320
lots of things of that. How can you not postpone these deep questions about the

01:30:40.320 --> 01:30:44.320
meaning of your life and what you believe in and then okay what's next?

01:30:44.320 --> 01:30:48.600
Well what comes next depends on those values so some people will think well I

01:30:48.600 --> 01:30:54.680
do actually want to try and give me and my kids more years of quality life

01:30:54.680 --> 01:30:58.600
that's really important to me and it's probably more important to me than

01:30:58.600 --> 01:31:04.560
helping wake up all my friends and colleagues to the predicament or it

01:31:04.560 --> 01:31:11.880
It might be, I want to do what I can to try and give humanity a better chance with climate

01:31:11.880 --> 01:31:12.880
change.

01:31:12.880 --> 01:31:18.040
So I want to help reforest the world and cut carbon emissions and draw down carbon.

01:31:18.040 --> 01:31:24.240
And I think that maybe trying to push government to act through climate activism is what's

01:31:24.240 --> 01:31:25.240
for me.

01:31:25.240 --> 01:31:26.640
And then, okay, go and do that.

01:31:26.640 --> 01:31:31.120
But you can't skip those first two things that I've just mentioned.

01:31:31.120 --> 01:31:35.320
anyone who comes along and tells you for certain this is what's going to happen, this is what

01:31:35.320 --> 01:31:38.680
you should be doing and this is because of what the results will be, they're just talking

01:31:38.680 --> 01:31:43.440
nonsense. We're in a highly complex, unpredictable situation now apart from knowing that things

01:31:43.440 --> 01:31:46.640
are breaking down. Yeah, and we all have roles to play, different

01:31:46.640 --> 01:31:53.000
roles as we said. Petra's question reminded me of that story of the starfish. I don't know

01:31:53.000 --> 01:31:57.360
if you've heard this one, but a man and a boy are walking along the beach and the tide

01:31:57.360 --> 01:32:01.520
has gone out and there are just thousands of starfish stranded on the sand and they're all

01:32:01.520 --> 01:32:06.720
going to die in the sun. So as they walk along, the man keeps reaching down, picking up a starfish

01:32:06.720 --> 01:32:10.400
and throwing it in the water and they walk a few more steps, he does it again, he keeps doing that,

01:32:10.400 --> 01:32:14.720
and finally the boy says, "What difference can that make? There are thousands of them."

01:32:14.720 --> 01:32:19.120
With that, the man picks up another one, throws it in the water and says, "Made a difference to that one."

01:32:20.960 --> 01:32:28.520
Yeah, that resonates with me a lot. And as you say, people have different roles to play.

01:32:28.520 --> 01:32:33.200
So somebody somewhere on that beach might be sitting in front of a computer trying to

01:32:33.200 --> 01:32:38.200
work out how best to get as many of those starfish back into the sea. So they may be

01:32:38.200 --> 01:32:43.320
then trying to use Twitter or TikTok to get a whole bunch of people down to the beach.

01:32:43.320 --> 01:32:46.640
And then they might be calculating how long would it take to get that many people down

01:32:46.640 --> 01:32:50.500
and will the starfish have died? Because how long are the starfish going to live before

01:32:50.500 --> 01:32:54.260
they die, so how therefore what should be the scope of my ambition for how many

01:32:54.260 --> 01:32:59.540
people to get to the beach? You know, someone who loves being nerdy and

01:32:59.540 --> 01:33:04.420
calculating all that will do all that and that might help too. Yeah, he might get an

01:33:04.420 --> 01:33:09.540
army of people down there and save all the starfish. Or he might be too ambitious

01:33:09.540 --> 01:33:13.660
and managed to get a thousand people from London to show up but they took till

01:33:13.660 --> 01:33:16.620
tomorrow to show up and all the starfish are dead and it would have been better

01:33:16.620 --> 01:33:24.140
for him to just join the guy on the beach and chuck a few starfish in. So, we don't know.

01:33:24.140 --> 01:33:28.380
Good, we had a couple more questions but I'll let them go and thank you so much,

01:33:28.380 --> 01:33:32.140
Jem, for your time. I really appreciate it. I really enjoyed talking to you. I enjoyed

01:33:32.140 --> 01:33:37.340
reading your book and I'll be in touch. I'll send you a follow-up email with a couple of thoughts.

01:33:37.340 --> 01:33:41.420
Yeah, thanks for the invite and yeah, to everyone who's watched this, interested,

01:33:42.140 --> 01:33:46.300
Please check the book out. I'm quite proud of it. It took a long time.

01:33:46.300 --> 01:33:50.700
It's a free download, right? In addition to buying a physical one,

01:33:50.700 --> 01:33:53.180
you can just download the thing and read a PDF if you want to.

01:33:53.180 --> 01:33:54.380
Exactly.

01:33:54.380 --> 01:33:59.740
I prefer to listen to things and it's on audible. Matthew Slater reads it, a friend of yours,

01:33:59.740 --> 01:34:05.420
and he does a really good job. All right. So thanks for those listening or watching. And

01:34:05.420 --> 01:34:10.300
thank you, Jim. And my condolences on your father's passing. And we'll be in touch.

01:34:10.300 --> 01:34:17.280
Thanks for all you're doing. Thank you. Cheers Rick. Bye-bye. Keep up the amazing work with this series. I'll try to bye

01:34:17.280 --> 01:34:18.120
Bye.

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