I am excited to announce a new effort that will attempt to provide a crucial set of perspectives on modernity. It is to be a series of video shorts (5–10 minutes is my target) called Metastatic Modernity.
The name conjures a grave cancer diagnosis—terminal, in fact. This intentional association captures my sense that modernity is fated to self-terminate, like any cancer, on account of its complete reliability on non-renewable materials, accumulating ecological damage, and failure to exist as a part of an ecological whole in reciprocity with nature. It has no long-term place on this planet.
But, because modernity is just one of many possible ways for humans to arrange their lives, a failure of modernity does not translate to a failure of humanity. The introductory video is here:
The series description reads as follows:
This series of 17 short videos aims to put modernity (another word for civilization) in perspective. In terms of cosmology, evolution, biology, ecology, and time, modernity is highly unusual and inherently self-terminating (i.e., fated to collapse). Eventually, a cancer metaphor is used to describe the tumor we witness growing out of control, spreading to all parts of the globe (metastasizing) and initiating a sixth mass extinction. Humans are not the cancer, but the infected organ within the community of life where the cancer took root.
As indicated, the present outline has 17 episodes, subject to modest expansion. I’m coming up on a solid year of weekly Do the Math posts, so I’ll probably take my foot off the pedal on that front while I concentrate on the video series. I will, however, plan to post each new release on Do the Math, along with a complementary written version of the content, sometimes with additional material (not a transcript, but a parallel and better-crafted companion). I will strive to maintain a cadence of at least one video release per week.
For now, I’ll share a bit more about the motivation and goals for this effort, followed by a written expression of what the first video covers.
I have recognized for some time that a blog format—and one with “math” in its name, no less—has limited appeal. Over the last year, only four posts broke 10,000 views (about fusion, my confessions, modernity’s fate, and population projections). Yet the video I created about population projections reached 10,000 views within two weeks. So, it’s a channel that might reach more people. By chopping up the big message into small chunks that provide exposure in a more natural communication style, perhaps a greater fraction of humans can begin to see the world we inhabit differently, in a beneficial way. I have not studied how the YouTube (algorithmic) gods work, but I presume you can help promote the video series’ YouTube recommendations by thumbs-upping the videos and subscribing to my channel. Apologies for coming off as a self-promoting influencer wannabe!
The Sequence
Here is the first-cut outline of the series content, by episode (this page will provide a portal to each in one convenient place).
- Introduction: What is modernity and what does this series aim to do?
- Cosmology: Astrophysical perspective on our insignificance
- Early Life: The tremendous problem-solving upon which we utterly rely today
- Evolution: Simple, elegant, and subtle in the context of a co-evolved community
- Biological Inheritance: Almost everything we are is gifted by ancestry
- Accidental Tourists: We aren’t the pinnacle, purpose, or destiny of evolution
- Timeline: Putting modernity into context as a flash in terms of relevant timescales
- Ecological Nosedive: Documenting the explosive start of the sixth mass extinction
- Fireworks! How did we fall into this trap? Who’s idea was it? This is weird.
- Just Ditch the Bad? Can we keep the nifty parts and just jettison the ill effects?
- What About Renewables? Won’t we solve the problems via technology?
- Human Supremacy: How we became such narcissists and why it’s deeply problematic
- A Species out of Context: A terminal departure from our evolved, ecological context
- Cancer Analog: Humans are a victim of this self-terminating disease, and at great risk
- What Now? A difficult transition looms. What to expect and how we might react
- Perspective Synthesis: Tying it all together toward a unified outlook
- Humility back in Human: Establishing who we really are, valuing the truly important
If you’ve been reading Do the Math over the last few years, you’ll probably be able to flesh out a number of these elements from the one-line hints. I hope the exercise helps sharpen things for me, clarifies the perspective for readers, and provides a place to point friends who are more likely to watch a video than to read a blah-blah-blog post—thus reaching a broader audience.
Specifics from Episode
I will make it a habit to include a written version for each episode providing a general sense for what it covers and elaborating key points (sometimes clarifying or correcting). Sections are arranged by “chapter” within the video, corresponding to the navigation handles provided in the description on YouTube.
Introduction
This is a very brief introduction as to who I am: a recovering astrophysicist who had a career as a physics professor at UC San Diego (more here), now focused on planetary limits and the fate of modernity.
Purpose of Series
The aim is to put modernity into better perspective, currently envisioned as 17 video shorts (it was 15 at the time of recording). I make a firm pledge to deliver low-production-quality videos, unedited, but perhaps compensated by helpful and stimulating content. It is what it is. I hope it’s useful.
What Is Modernity?
Modernity is not too hard to define. Most people have a sense already: look around you. I show images of a city, a modern home interior (nothing like the natural world), a hospital bed representing medical care, images for science, technology, computers/servers, dense traffic (transportation), a petroleum pump (energy to power modernity), and solar panels as a newer way to power modernity.
Then I show the Creation of Adam painting as a token for anthropocentrism (human supremacy): a source of many problems. This is followed by a picture of a distressed orangutan whose forest has been leveled (also suffering a tranquilizer dart in his side). The orangutan did nothing wrong, but didn’t stand a chance. These harms are often hidden from view and purposefully ignored: too uncomfortable to confront. Our lifestyles end up creating misery for many animals on the planet.
Is Modernity Terminal?
Since I call the series “Metastatic Modernity” and label the first episode “Stage IV,” the strong implication is that modernity is terminal. So is it? This would seem like dire news.
I acknowledge that justifying the claim is a heavy lift that I can’t do in one swipe. That’s what the series is intended to help illuminate, by providing a lot of crucial context that is not often appreciated and held together as a whole—an important but rare achievement.
However, if forced to justify the terminal diagnosis, I offer one word: unsustainable. Unsustainable things fail, and most would acknowledge, I think, that the way the world is going is unsustainable. Then it becomes a matter of degree in terms of how much of the current way of living must fail.
DON’T PANIC
Douglas Adams often pointed out that one of the most attractive features of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the calming effect of the cover, on which DON’T PANIC was printed in large, friendly letters. The prospect of modernity’s collapse might trigger a panic reaction for many, but I point out in equation form that:
Modernity ≠ Humanity
Failure of the first does not mandate failure of the second. Modernity is just a way we live now (trapped within it), but it is not fundamentally who we are: not an immutable expression of our DNA. This realization helps explain why we are currently confused about how to live on this planet.
In comparing modernity to an affliction like cancer, it may help us to appreciate that it’s okay if the cancer dies, if its termination leaves the patient alive. I extend this wish to more than humanity: all living things are presently threatened (the metastatic aspect), and need relief. Let’s focus on what we truly value: life.
The Plan
We need to recognize that modernity has limited our exposure to a very narrow realm, so that we lack a comprehensive perspective from within our bubble. The goal of this series is to step back and absorb something of a “grand” view.
Biased Information
I use a news channel analog to help us better appreciate our restricted view. Most of us are aware of polarized news sources so that people are not even sharing the same factual basis and therefore find it almost impossible to have productive or even genial conversations. The resulting tunnel vision and distrust is hugely problematic.
But all of us are fed almost all of our information by modernity-boosters—generally promoting economic growth and the mythology of progress. Basically every newspaper, magazine, television show, politician, corporation, school and university, and even personal acquaintance is a fan of modernity, promoting its perks and ignoring or dismissing its irreconcilable ills. We don’t see much criticism or questioning whether this whole way of life even makes sense to pursue. It is asserted for the sake of reassurance that ours is the one right way to live, albeit with an expanding set of pesky and persistent problems around the margins that surely technology and policy will address someday. Our exposure is also very anthropocentric: look at any page in a newspaper or magazine and evaluate: is it focused on people and/or human accomplishments?
I also suggest considering what news a German in 1942 would hear. “The Nazi party is awesome; we’re doing great things for the magnificent and deserving German people; we’re building a future so perfect it will carry on for a thousand years.” Missing was coverage of the costs: the ugly side. Concentration (death) camps were hidden from view: not front-and-center. Likewise, our media is essentially propaganda delivered almost universally from boosters of modernity (hint: near-universal alignment to economic interests) talking about how great our future can be if we keep the faith. To my ears, it’s biophysically- and ecologically-blind utopian nonsense.
Course of Action
Our goal is to develop a more complete perspective: to see things through a long lens from a more external point of view. For me, what emerges is a sense that modernity is dangerous and unhinged. I expect others will start to see this, too, if they do not already.
While You Wait
I lamely wrap up in a meandering description of what comes next, and encourage people to check out Do the Math in the meantime (world’s worst salesman). At present, I’m not enough of a YouTube presence to be trusted with live links in the video, but that day might come (after reaching 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch-hours).
