by Rubus
Taken all that is known about the world, taking down civilization is the noblest goal of them all. That this goal incites near reflexive revulsion amongst the vast majority of the civilized speaks volumes as to the magnitude of the task before us.
And the devil is in the details. In this case, what intricate details and what a fiendish devil. An ill-conceived anti-civilization outcome could easily be every bit as bad as the genocidal denunciations lobbed at the anti-civ crowd by its fiercest ideological enemies.
And yet, doing nothing and letting civilization reach one of its logically-expected conclusions would be far worse. Who would want to live in a techno-fascist dystopia of total control, or be compelled by circumstance to eke out a miserable existence in the barely-habitable remains of the ecosphere?
As to the latter outcome, those living in the original stone age at least had a clean planet, free from widespread contamination (be it chemical, radiological or genetic) to live on. If our endeavor fails, our progeny might not be so lucky.
I write this sitting on a decaying old-growth spruce log in the coastal rain forest of the Pacific Northwest, looking through an opening in the trees to the ocean below. From that log grow hemlock trees, some of considerable size, but all leaning and fated to topple as the substrate they grow from further decays. It is, I think, an apt metaphor for the struggle before us.
Doubtless what we construct to replace industrial civilization will itself not stand the test of time. For one, the clock is ticking and there is a loaded gun to our heads. We do not have the time for the sort of slow, incremental experimentation that constricts the most durable systems.
Yet tear down and build anew we must. Whatever hardships our inevitable errors create, the far greater error of failing to end civilization will create far greater hardship. And like the leaning hemlocks with their intricate feathery foliage, what we create will have a beauty of its own while it lasts.