In collapse-aware settings, this can be very practical. Neurotypical adults may hear neurodivergent climate distress as catastrophising. Neurodivergent young people may hear adult reassurance as denial. The adult thinks they are regulating the child. The child experiences this as evidence that the adult cannot see.
And he says something rather interesting that relates to this topic.
Lengthy quote posted here:
Stages 3 and 5 both tolerate contradictions, but of different types and in different ways.
Stage 3 does not feel a need for rational justifications, and mostly doesn’t have the capacity to use them; so it mostly doesn’t even notice logical contradictions, and isn’t bothered by them when it does. However, stage 3 can be highly intolerant of contradictory value judgments, because they threaten community harmony.
Stage 4 finds contradictions within its system a fundamental problem, and tries to eliminate them one way or another. Eventually, if contradictions cannot be eliminated from the system, it must be replaced. Stage 4 wants to find the right system, and if two contradict, that shows one is wrong.
Stage 5 recognizes the value of sorting out contradictions within a system, and retains stage 4’s ability to do so. However, it doesn’t expect any system to work perfectly, so it tolerates internal contradictions if they appear relatively unproblematic. Stage 5 entertains multiple systems, and is comfortable with contradictions between them, because systems are not absolute truths, only ways-of-seeing that are useful in different circumstances. Stage 5 is uniquely comfortable with value conflicts, since (unlike both 3 and 4) it does not take any value as ultimate.
Ignore what “stage” means for now. When you are within a specific mentality / perspective, it can become a significant barrier to understanding how people outside that framework make meaning.
Here’s the point that caps this off :
For stage 4, stage 5’s tolerance of contradiction is indistinguishable from stage 3’s; both appear simply irrational
Stage 4 are basically highly educated people in leadership roles in a lot of life’s organizations. These are basically “technical” experts.
What’s interesting in the overall sense is that “collapse awareness” is almost a diagnostic. Like, to see collapse, an individual has to have this meta- systemic- mind. And to process it as “collapse” this individual needs to be able to find the contradictions and cognitive dissonance has to result. A lot of these steps and stages don’t happen to certain kinds of people.
So this is how you can get a world where you have these highly accurate remote sensing satellites giving us second by second thermal imaging of the planet and these scientists giving us computer modelled future projections of climate and yet not one of these scientists has been bothered by the actual physical impossibility of humanity changing course. They are following this instrumental path without groking the meaning of the information, there is this massive disconnect between what we know and what that means. These same technicians plan for retirement and discuss all kinds of fantasies that are totally outside of the solution space and live in contentment.
If you would point out where this all leads and what that means for us living right now, you are seen as nihilistic, irrational, overreacting, stupid, ignorant and so on.
Ironically, if you’ve been following the latest James Hansen stuff on climate, he says something rather sobering. Many of the world’s leading climate researchers and scientists figured out all these “climate models” which were the most accurate computer simulations of the global climate trajectory. These were used in policy and basically became the foundations of all the guardrails for destroying the habitability of the planet.
However, all the models made a crucial mistake about atmospheric particles and there were never any measurments taken.
Rather than improving our odds of survival by reducing harm, the climate models actually got us to DOUBLE the harm. The scientists made such a large mistake that it basically committed humanity to extinction. There is a lot to contend with in seeing how science achieved the exactly opposite effect than what it aimed to do.
So if you were to say “this was a huge mistake”, the institutions think you’re arguing from a position of not understanding the climate or not trusting science, rather than seeing through the hubris and incompetence that came out of having a fake system of knowledge.
This article really hits the mark.
I recently re-read this article
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
And he says something rather interesting that relates to this topic.
Lengthy quote posted here:
Ignore what “stage” means for now. When you are within a specific mentality / perspective, it can become a significant barrier to understanding how people outside that framework make meaning.
Here’s the point that caps this off :
Stage 4 are basically highly educated people in leadership roles in a lot of life’s organizations. These are basically “technical” experts.
What’s interesting in the overall sense is that “collapse awareness” is almost a diagnostic. Like, to see collapse, an individual has to have this meta- systemic- mind. And to process it as “collapse” this individual needs to be able to find the contradictions and cognitive dissonance has to result. A lot of these steps and stages don’t happen to certain kinds of people.
So this is how you can get a world where you have these highly accurate remote sensing satellites giving us second by second thermal imaging of the planet and these scientists giving us computer modelled future projections of climate and yet not one of these scientists has been bothered by the actual physical impossibility of humanity changing course. They are following this instrumental path without groking the meaning of the information, there is this massive disconnect between what we know and what that means. These same technicians plan for retirement and discuss all kinds of fantasies that are totally outside of the solution space and live in contentment.
If you would point out where this all leads and what that means for us living right now, you are seen as nihilistic, irrational, overreacting, stupid, ignorant and so on.
Ironically, if you’ve been following the latest James Hansen stuff on climate, he says something rather sobering. Many of the world’s leading climate researchers and scientists figured out all these “climate models” which were the most accurate computer simulations of the global climate trajectory. These were used in policy and basically became the foundations of all the guardrails for destroying the habitability of the planet.
However, all the models made a crucial mistake about atmospheric particles and there were never any measurments taken.
Rather than improving our odds of survival by reducing harm, the climate models actually got us to DOUBLE the harm. The scientists made such a large mistake that it basically committed humanity to extinction. There is a lot to contend with in seeing how science achieved the exactly opposite effect than what it aimed to do.
So if you were to say “this was a huge mistake”, the institutions think you’re arguing from a position of not understanding the climate or not trusting science, rather than seeing through the hubris and incompetence that came out of having a fake system of knowledge.