This is an hour of tipsy stream of consciousness, ideas that are buried away inside and itching to be heard. This is not planned, and how it works its way into the the book is something I will work out later… I guess you could say it is a like a pros/cons list that works best if you actually write it down and use a dividing line.

Meritocracy & Nature

This book is about who gets what in a world where inequality is growing and soon populations will diminish.

I feel that if we put aside one single factor – merit – our society, and planet, would be very different.

Until ten thousand years or so ago, every living being on our planet had the same modus operandi –  stay alive and perpetuate the species. Any time a species decided to deny equal rights to another – such as the runt of a litter – it was for a survival of the fittest reason. To help the species survive.

Until ten thousand years or so ago, we didn’t have a species where individuals decided who got what, aside from what helped the entire species. We suddenly had the unique luxury of having more than the minimum we needed to survive, and so some of us decided it was theirs.

Religion kicked in at around the same time, and language as well. From before the pharaohs, until today, religious leaders have assigned themselves rights to bounty. When I visited Samoa, in the villages all the homes were incredibly modest, typically without solid walls or individual bedrooms. Priests and ministers had grand homes – I saw some that were multi-storied and modern.

As they would tell it, God decided that they should have, or needed, more. 

Merit has been widening for a very long time, ever since we could achieve anything more than survival. We expanded from religious leaders, to kings, to aristocrats, to businessmen, to men who weren’t slaves or conquered people, to all men. In the last century or so we have added women, the disabled, people of other religions, sexuality or race into the mix of who can share the spoils of human achievement.

Even now, with all of the anti-discrimination laws, we are merely not refusing access to the spoils. To get your share you still have to earn it, via capitalism, or whatever bribery and conniving it takes to succeed in communist lands.

The trend is clear, and we can reasonably expect a wider, fairer distribution of the spoils in the coming decades.

Meritocracy was incredibly useful when we still had so much to achieve. Those who brought greater success to society were rewarded, and those rewards encouraged effort. 

While meritocracy is still useful in many ways, the scale of it needs adjusting. And here’s why:

We have achieved enough for everyone to live modest, decent lives without any undue suffering. From a survival point of view, we are 100% there. Aside from preparing for a global cataclysm, which we are severely under-prepared for, and aside from our potential to blow up the planet with nuclear bombs, we have made it. Nothing else can be done to ensure our survival. We are spending our energy inventing fidget spinners and making TikTok dance moves.

Let’s turn it upside-down. If humans are the only species capable of meritocracy, then we are unable to bestow merit on other species, no matter how much we enjoy their existence, or the benefits we derive from them. 

Some dog owners love to dress up their pets, but all the dogs perceive is attention (which they adore). They have no concept of fashion. Those dogs who inherit millions of dollars don’t enjoy life any more than other dogs. 

We can’t express our love, admiration or usefulness of other species in any way that is meaningful to them. All we can do is:

• Make sure they still exist in numbers
• Make sure they don’t suffer

Modern societies tend to have animal suffering laws for pets and mammals/birds that can indicate suffering. We don’t have them yet for fish/insects/plants. The trends say we will, one day.  Read The Hidden Life of Trees. 

Rivers

I tend to have more imagination than most, and I often think that “lifeless” things have souls. I consider the possibility that rocks and pebbles are bored with their stationary existence, and will some of us to kick them, for a new environment to be part of.

Aside from odd ideas like that, we can’t reward lifeless things in any way, because the nature of being lifeless is that they cannot respond. It is like reading to someone in a coma, very hard to do without feedback or strong faith. And that is someone who we know is capable of listening and responding.

So any gratitude and merit that we give and assign must be to the living, so we can gauge a response, instead of having crazy faith.

So then, what is a river? What is a cloud? What is the sea? What is a volcano, or hurricane or tornado? What is wind?

This century, in isolated cases, we have given personhood to rivers. They cannot express any sort of emotion, and they are not alive (feel free to research this, I disagree. For starters, they regulate temperature with bends, for the benefit of their residents…)

We have not given rights to rivers because we wish to appease them – like sacrifices to the gods. No, we have given them rights as a means of ensuring their continued existence in recognition of what they provide for us.

Rivers are easy. The number one determination of where our cities exist are rivers. They provide fish, irrigation and easy transportation. And drinking water, without which we die in a few days. 

Every non-living thing has contributed to our success as a species, as a parasite of Gaia.

Rivers are easy to identify as something that needs looking after. They resemble life, as they have movement and therefore can respond and react. 

Mountains are less obviously important to us, but they are. Aside from the spiritual and aesthetic angles, they feed rivers if they are high enough, and affect the weather, often causing rain. Their height and terrain add to the variety of species we have. 

Aside from climate change, it is pretty hard to harm a mountain. Maybe deforestation…

Under the ground is much different, and non-living entities should perhaps be divided into terranean and subterranean. While what we do with the likes of coal and oil can be damaging, their absence from beneath us has no negative aspects.

Inert (as opposed to wind, rain, clouds, rivers, tornadoes) lifeless objects, even if they had souls, I am guessing wouldn’t care about their situation much. Carbon might enjoy floating about equally as much as being part of a diamond or your little toe.

So I am not suggesting any form of personhood for anything below the ground aside from water.

Above the ground, arguably, some level of personhood is warranted for everything we can see, touch or sense. Because they all, in some crazy convoluted way, contribute to our success.

Cows and soybeans and the wood from trees clearly contribute.

Sunrises, gentle snow and sun showers improve our moods.

Floods can be beneficial – just ask Egypt. 

Volcanoes are rightfully feared, yet I grew up in the Bay of Plenty (in New Zealand), named for the volcanic soil that was so fertile.

The Gaia Hypothesis is close to 50 years old. I think most adults of that age or older know what Gaia is, but it doesn’t get mentioned so much these days.

In a nutshell, the entire (above ground) planet is a living organism. And by extension, our success as humans has and does depend on Gaia. The easiest argument for Gaia perhaps is observing the myriad of changes that occur when you remove anything at all from our world. Any type of weed or venomous creature or annoying bug that is removed has consequences our advanced sciences cannot predict.

Think of an intricate watch, with dozens or hundreds of moving parts. The watch sells for $100. What is each moving part worth?

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