I.e., do we have deeper ways of seeing our future than just Lord of the Flies vs. Summerhill? These two titles are ones that I assigned in a course on Ethics, back in the late ’60s when I was a Graduate Assistant in Philosophy at Boston University. In other words, Dystopia or Utopia? I wanted my students to wrestle with that question. Why? Because it was the very question that preoccupied me. And still does.

Here’s one young person’s current, somewhat nuanced perspective on the question:

What Really Happens after Societal Collapse?

For more, much more, read both the following short essay and the many thoughtful, even fascinating commentaries below it.

The Problem of Emergent Human Nature and Civilizational Collapse

Meanwhile here is geopolitical analyst Steve Pieczenik’s perspective on what just went down with his neighbors and nearby relevant corporations in north central Florida. A very surprising type of post from him! Would that many more people would use the internet to relay their personal post-hurricane experiences with neighbors and corporations. Doing so would call out both those who believe all humans are predatory, as well as all corporations who refuse not to be altruistic in times of need!

And meanwhile, I’d say that it’s a good idea meanwhile to not only “stock up” on survival supplies (for you AND your neighbors) but to recognize that this type of stocking up generates what is most necessary, not just post-collapse, but pre-collapse. Imagine, if everybody on earth woke up each day with all those near them, as part of their tribe, inside their circle of protection. Millions, billions, of overlapping circles of protection, all generated by, not economic, but social capital.

Oh, and BTW, also essential, in fact underlying everything else, including social capital, is natural capital. Notice: both these fruitful, nourishing types of capital lie beneath what we call, what we hunger after, what yanks our chains and keeps us enslaved, what we get fixated on and use to determine our own “self-worth”: MONEY!

Money is an unnatural scrim that floats like a chimera above both social and natural capital. Unfortunately, over the last several thousand(?) years, we have   locked into not just money, but now fiat money as a species, thinking it “real,” more real than “anything money can buy”! Fiat money, money backed by nothing, is NOT real. Fiat money is a (mind controlled) “shared agreement” to pretend that something utterly worthless is of value! Get over it! Learn to live, as much as possible, below money, in continuous multidimensional, interspecies exchanges and communion with both each other (social capital) and the Earth (natural capital).