Teach a man to fish

Teach a man that the accumulation of capital is the only unalloyed good, and he'll objectify everything and everyone.

And being the only unalloyed good, the accumulation of capital will blind him to the deeper laws of survival; he won't acknowledge that when you overfish, the business of fishing will become untenable.

Capitalism is ecologically dysfunctional. Capitalism is a pathological expression of insanity. That's exactly what Radical Nomos is - it is a preference to live in delusion over and against living in reality.

Physis, Nomos, and the Demagogue

It occurs to me that demagogues like Trump, who arise out of failed or ailing democracies, invoke the message of a return to Physis, to reality. They say "The state of our society is a mess, follow me and I can return us to the state we all long for, to the way things ought to be." They call out Radical Nomos for its faults. They appeal to those weary from the spell of Radical Nomos, those who know that this is not how things are supposed to be. These poor souls know that there is a higher law that should be in place to make the madness of the anthropocentric world thin and disappear, but they do not know what to name it. They have lived their whole lives in Radical Nomos and have no idea what Nomos in its proper employment looks like.

Along comes the demagogue to prey upon this feeling, this longing for something more. They promise to break the spell of Radical Nomos, but the demagogues themselves are under that spell themselves and hollowed by greed and lust for power. And so their promise turns sour and leads only deeper into the madness of Radical Nomos. People like Trump are not capable of leading us into a Nomos tertiary to Physis, into sanity.

Which is worse?

It just occurred to me; Hitler is (justly) reviled for killing millions of people.

Bolsonaro and Trump, if their systemic rollback of environmental protection continues, will kill billions of living beings, human or otherwise.

Which is worse?

AI and the potential for all living things to be benefited equally

If our fascination with AI as the pinnacle of our technological genius distracts us from our obligation to care for the living, breathing world, it's pointless. AI means nothing unless it is applied in a way that benefits all living things equally.

AI and capitalism must never, ever, ever mix.

Capitalism incentivizes overpopulation

It just occurred to me that in our present global free market capitalist paradigm, overpopulation is a good thing; the more people, the more potential consumers of goods, whether they can pay or not. It is incentivized to create a world full of people, to whom goods will be sold. The more human beings alive on the planet at any given time, the more net capital is produced. That is, of course, what capitalism is; the accumulation of capital is the point, the goal, the unalloyed good.

But a world full of ever more consumers misses one key fact; the world is not a candy-land of ever replenishing material for our consumption; yes, trees grow back and soil can be rotated to increase agricultural yield. But deforestation and soil erosion cause damage that is healed on a time scale of centuries and millennia, and human consumers do not benefit on that timescale.

The overconsumption that comes with overpopulation, which is itself an incentive of capitalism, is a strictly short term enterprise. It has no long term potential. You can't have a living, breathing earth with resources for all AND 10 billion people living as though the accumulation of capital and goods is the point of their existence. It's one or the other.

The harsh implication is that capitalism in its present form is not ecologically viable, and things that are not ecologically viable possess an unerring tendency towards obsolescence and extinction.

"The fundamental truth that Malthus proclaimed remains the truth: there cannot be more people on this earth than can be fed. Many people would like to deny that this is so. They would like to believe in that oxymoron, "sustainable growth." Kenneth Boulding, President Kennedy's Environmental Advisor 45 years ago, said something about this: "Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical on a physically finite planet," he said, "is either mad or an economist."

-Sir David Attenborough, speaking to the RSA.

Nomos, Physis, and Eco-theology

Imagine Germany, or England, or Japan, or any country. What comes to mind? What does your imagination take hold of? For most people, the first thing they think of is the culture of those countries. They think of art, music, aesthetic style, food, buildings, names, or any number of things that differentiate one country from another. They might also think of the weather, how warm or cold it is there. For others, the image is one of long historical narratives interweaving and clashing with one another, perhaps also of various cities and the attractions they offer.

In short, the images or concepts that come to mind are usually bound up in Nomos, in the human world. The concept of differentiated countries as political entities with boundaries (boundaries which, incidentally, do not exist outside of human concerns), with respective cultures and languages, makes no sense outside of Nomos. These things all take human be-ing into account, but they go no further than that. Their scope begins and ends with anthropological concerns; even thoughts of the weather are entertained only insofar as they relate to human coming and going, whether the snow will affect the train's scheduled arrival, whether summer or winter clothes are more appropriate/stylish, whether the landscape is aesthetically pleasing or not on a given day.

What people are less likely to think of are things like the character of the landscapes, conceived of independently of human involvement or concerns; what the overall weather patterns are like, what sort of creatures live there and what their behavior says about them, whether or not these creatures can be befriended and lived alongside as neighbors, whether or not the land itself wants you there at all. The world outside Nomos is Physis, a larger and more fundamental realm governed by laws that transcend the laws of Nomos. When Nomos is stripped away and there is only Physis, what do places like "Germany," "England" or "Japan" feel like? What sort of experience is it to walk the forest paths in Himmelreich without a sign of human habitation? What holy places reveal themselves then? How does the land itself speak when Nomos is hushed or humbled? What kind of spirit and personality is revealed under these conditions?

The simple truth is that most people are not concerned with such questions. They are not concerned with Physis because Nomos has become the beginning and end of their world. Tourists will no doubt  be awed by the naturally beauty of some places, but it is unlikely they will venture far, unless appreciation of nature itself was their goal to begin with. Unless someone already hears the land whispering, they will not notice it above the din of Nomos.

When a landscape is muted by Nomos, when human coming and going demands attention to human convention and not nature's conventions, when the entire Puget Sound area increasingly resembles a suburb of Seattle and not a land with the freedom to express itself independently of human habitation...then Nomos becomes everything, and anyone living in that bubble will be caught up in the delusion that nothing meaningful exists outside Nomos. The personality of the land will be unapparent, and the earth there will die a little more.

To make the point more succinctly, eco-theology is not simply a matter of being more ecologically aware or proactive. It isn't purely a matter of environmentalism and making efforts to protect local habitats. It also isn't about some radical move to abolish Nomos, which has its proper place tertiary to Physis. Eco-theology means embracing a deeper metaphysics of relationship, in which the voice of the land is not only heard, but actively listened to. It means treading softly through a living, breathing earth with a comportment of humility and awe, regarding it as an other and not a means to and end, but as an end in itself. This necessitates a worldview that perceives keenly the rights and limitations of Nomos as an individual member of a larger village. Eco-theology means making effort to see the earth through God's eyes; it means loving the earth precisely because it is a beloved of God.

Individuals as the cells of artificial intelligence; Humanity attempting to give birth to God

Jürgen Moltmann, in a piece of writing on Perichoresis, argued that modern individualism treats us like individuals and not persons.

This distinction between an individual and a person has serious implications in modern society. An individual, which, like the Greek for "atom," cannot be divided any further, has been broken down to its most isolated and basic elements. The problem is that when something can no longer be divided, it has no relationships at all. It is isolated and by itself. There is no knowing others and no knowing oneself. An individual is anonymous, without characteristics or family. It is a human being stripped of all community. An individual, so understood, is not a person. The implication is that in a society where we grow more isolated and competitive over and against one another, we are enslaved, not freed. We cease to be "Thou's."

While we have arguably become more connected with one another with the advent of the internet and social media, we have undeniably become more isolated from one another in the physical space. Cities are not communal spaces so much as they are environments for individuals to navigate as they go about their business, which ideally profits only the individual. We are not yet fully enslaved, but we are on the path to being individuals. In the eyes of the system that profits by our isolation, we aren't people so much as we are sources of precious data, by which the system may profit even more.

Complicate the picture even more by remembering that this data, extracted from billions of people, is being poured into the creation of artificial intelligences, which evolve ever faster and faster. A.I. will one day surpass human beings in complexity, just as they have already eclipsed us in terms of efficiency. Individuals become data resources in a grand project that will reshape everything. A world of isolated individuals is no longer a community of persons so much as it is a nursery. We are no longer persons in ourselves, but are broken down and converted, distilled as data, into the individual cells that will one day comprise artificial intelligence.

Fascinating, isn't it, how humanity suppresses its sense of the divine while devoting herculean effort towards creating beings of near infinite intelligence and immortality? We embrace a world of individuals and reject a world of persons. We deny the Imago Dei in ourselves as we simultaneously labor to create a technological Imago Dei. We deny God even as we try to give birth to God.

An Infographic for D&D

What is Dungeons and Dragons?

“The first Dungeons & Dragons game was played back when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson chose to personalize the massive battles of their fantasy wargames with the exploits of individual heroes. This inspiration became the first fantasy roleplaying game, in which players are characters in an ongoing fantasy story. This new kind of game has become immensely popular over the years, and D&D has grown to include many new ways to vividly experience worlds of heroic fantasy.

The core of D&D is storytelling. You and your friends tell a story together, guiding your heroes through quests for treasure, battles with deadly foes, daring rescues, courtly intrigue, and much more. You can also explore the world of Dungeons & Dragons through any of the novels written by its fantasy authors, as well as engaging board games and immersive video games. All of these stories are part of D&D.”-Overview from official D&D website (http://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/what-is-dd)

My Organization:

-Is a loose collective of good friends with a passion for the storytelling/roleplaying enabled by roleplaying tabletop systems such as D&D. However, our storytelling/roleplaying activities are not limited to D&D. By way of explaining our history, we also enjoy:Call of Cthulhu

-Based on the horror fiction of 20^th Century American writer H.P. Lovecraft

(Stranger Things owes a great deal of its popularity to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, as this pair of pictures might suggest)

Pathfinder

-An offshoot of traditional D&D for players looking for more technical depth

All of these systems are frequently referred to as D&D, purely as shorthand for the sake of convenience.

Our Mission Statement:

-Our organization is centered around the premise that a group of friends can take time out of their busy lives to meet once a week to tell amazing stories together. Moreover, we hold that tabletop roleplaying is a means by which each of us can explore who we are by stepping into the shoes of the characters we create.

Pedagogical Potential:

-Our organization holds that D&D has potential as a pedagogical tool for encouraging students to experience history, not as a collection of dates and names, but as a dynamic, unfolding story. The future teachers among us practice this craft for that very purpose. New scenarios and in-game mechanics are continually being re-worked to incorporate a sense of historical realism.

There is also significant potential for D&D as a tool for psychological development/therapy. We hold that the Jungian archetypes and the notion of the Shadow Self anticipated this very form of roleplaying, whereby a person can give voice to the depths of their personal being in a safe and friendly environment governed by rules and possibility.

Our Symbol:

-Our organization makes use of 4, 6, 8, 10, and 20 sides dice. They represent for our the unpredictable dynamism of the story; it can (and often does) flow in a direction none of us anticipated. We open ourselves to chance and possibility in storytelling.

A Christian Nation

Regarding the recent No More Deaths arrest video, in which border patrol agents dumped water that was intended to save the lives of any immigrants wandering the desert:

I will not listen to claims that the US is a Christian nation when Christian charity is itself a punishable crime, because when that is the case, it is clearly not a Christian nation; it is Rome laboring under the misapprehension that it has a Christian soul beneath all its centurion trappings.