Mini-Manifestos: Part 1

The collective spectrum of Doomer Optimism

The umbrella of Doomer Optimism is not one vision for the future, it is an orientation that says: we see the world as it is, and we move forward with a practical, positive vision despite the challenges.

We defined Doomer Optimism as “a collective dedicated to discovering regenerative paths forward, highlighting the people working for a better world, and connecting seekers to doers.”

To demonstrate the variety and breadth of people engaging with such a perspective, I have asked for Doomer Optimists to write mini-manifestos clearly stating the vision for the future they are working toward.

I hope this exercise will make clear the very many thoughtful people working on practical initiatives to bring about a better future. I also want to make legible the specific philosophies and toolkits being used, so that others may find what resonates with them and thereby, find their community.

Doomer Optimists don’t all have to agree with one another. In fact, many virulently disagree. It is my goal to highlight the good work people are doing, and to lift them up. I also think of our collective as a place to interrogate each other’s perspectives. With public vetting and pushback, each of our individual visions can become stronger.

I will be releasing these mini-manifestos in parts. In Part 1 we hear from Aris Roussinos, Tara Ann Thieke and Empty America. In future manifestos we may hear from Joe Norman, Jason Snyder, Tucker Max, Julie Fredrickson, Chris Smaje, Anarcho-contrarian, Roxanne Ahern, Chris Dancy, Chris Ellis, Gregory Landua and Matthew Pirkowski, among others.

WHY I AM FLEEING TO THE HILLS

Aris Roussinos @arisroussinos

It seems that with climate change there are only two modes of thought for most people: either nothing will change at all, or everything is about to collapse in horrible and world-destroying ways. There is a more obvious conclusion that people seem resistant to thinking about: that things will change, in many ways for the worse, but life will go on.

If we can’t change what is about to happen, we can at least prepare for it. I live in Britain, and for Britain having a similar climate to central France will not be the end of the world — but we should start planning for it now. A rise of two degrees will return Britain to its climate during the Roman Warm Period, when an admittedly lower level of civilisation functioned perfectly well.

The risk assessment highlights the risk of flooding in low-lying areas, the risk of drought in summer, and the risks of disruption to international trade. But its observations are all, with sufficient planning and adaptation, perfectly manageable. It even observes that there are opportunities as well as risks, and promotes a vast expansion of vineyards on British soil, which with appropriate planning could become a £50 million annual industry.

I personally take climate change seriously. I believe in the predictions of the vast majority of the world’s scientists, and thinking through the potential outcomes of such a world-changing process, I am planning how to adapt my lifestyle to best manage what is seemingly inevitable. In the New Year, barring some unforeseen eventuality, I will sell my house and buy a smallholding somewhere hilly (and so at less risk of flooding than the coastal town where I currently live) and with enough land that I can ensure my family’s food supply in case of trade disruption or rising prices.

It’s a way of living some are calling Doomer Optimism: I don’t believe that society will collapse within my lifetime, or that starvation will soon stalk the land. But I do think there’s a strong possibility that the cost of living will become significantly higher within the next two decades or so, to such a degree that it makes sense to rethink my family’s way of living now to ensure a decent future quality of life in the years ahead.

The question here isn’t one of survival in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but of ensuring an atmosphere of comfort and plenty in a likely world of consumption taxes and restrictions brought in through poorly-thought out climate change mitigation efforts, the intervention of corporate interests, and occasional disruptions to international trade. I will not, as they say, live in the pod, and I will not eat bugs, and neither should you. We should demand better, and there are alternative futures. 

There is a great deal of ingenuity in this country only now being focused on technologies such as nuclear fusion, which may soon provide clean sources of almost limitless energy, or on fast electric aeroplanes and capacious electric airships, which may be better used for freight than for human transport. The medium term may be uncomfortable, but the long-term future may be very good indeed, if only for Britain. 

To manage this will take a certain frontier spirit, a willingness to make the best of and thrive in a harder situation than we are accustomed to. Instead of prophesying doom and then doing nothing about it, we should be imagining a positive vision of what a Britain adapted to climate change would look like: a country of high-speed trains hurtling across tall viaducts between new hill towns, with lush vineyards overlooking the broad new wetlands on what was once farmland. It is not too late to make the Britain of the near future not just livable, but an improvement on what we have now. Life will go on: it is our duty to make it as comfortable and prosperous as possible, not just as individuals, but as a nation.

Excerpted from: https://unherd.com/2021/11/why-i-am-fleeing-to-the-hills/

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A DIFFERENT IMAGINING

Tara Ann Thieke @TaraAnnThieke

There's a terrible power in controlling how we collectively imagine the future. Right now the options seem to be a plutocrat-led Metaverse+pod lifestyle, or gathering apocalyptic collapse. Some want to return to 2019, but is this desirable? What about a different imagining?

What about a renaissance of domestic manufacturing, of a mass rejection of the administrative culture for a return to trades? To make cities and small towns hum again, not with throwaway culture, but with the art of making lasting beauty?

What about a return to seasonality and animal husbandry, golf courses with sheep and chickens in every yard? An end to CFOs and a restoration of family farms to the many who yearn to work with their hands? Attention to the needs of the body rather than the algorithm.

A dwindling work week, an end to instant gratification culture. Yes, less travel. Yes, less restaurants. Sorry. But: more fruit trees. More time off work. Local goods you know, less time spent shopping and maintaining throwaway plastic culture.

Herbalists in walking distance, doctors who know your name, neighborhood co-ops rather than factory schooling, an end to putting our elderly in institutions to die alone, an end to advertising blight, a restoration of canals lit at every lock by a Marian grotto.

We can build back better by stopping the people who built up wrongly, and return to how we were building long ago. We can fulfill our promise rather than accept the ticket to the Metaverse, a place imagined, for $$$, by a technician somewhere else.

We have to imagine something other than what we're being compelled into, or frightened by. We should imagine something other than starvation or pods or coercion. We should find words for a different future, and use those words, to stop a future only billionaires desire.

Excerpted from this thread:

Tara Ann Thieke @TaraAnnThieke

What about a renaissance of domestic manufacturing, of a mass rejection of the administrative culture for a return to trades? To make cities and small towns hum again, not with throwaway culture, but with the art of making lasting beauty?

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THE ELASTIC FRONTIER.

Empty America @Tierra_y_Cielo

Conventionally, we assume that the frontier conclusively closed some time in the late 1800s in USA, with perhaps a survival until the mid 20th century in parts of the developed world. I propose that this concept is largely incorrect, in that "development" did of course advance with the flush of seemingly endless fossil fuel energy, but "development" had probably already reached its greatest extent and is likely already retreating.

You could picture the "kernel" of development being found in Southern England in the early 1700s and slowly spreading from there to nearly every corner of the world (to varying degrees) by about 2015. My concept is that as fossil fuel and liquid fuel in particular become more scarce and expensive, rather than a dramatic collapse, you will see a relatively smooth contraction of "development" back into the core zones. The core zones are #1 developed world metro areas, and #2 large metro areas in the developing world.

So essentially what we will see is a fall back of development first from marginal/rural areas of the developing world in the very near future, followed by a fall back from remote rural areas of the first world, which will become stark by perhaps 2050. This not a forecast of doom. Most people reading this can live out their lives in full technological modernity simply by locating in leading metro areas of the developed world.

Likewise, people who bemoan the loss of the frontier can take heart. Because the total amount of "frontier" conditions on earth has almost certainly bottomed out already, and will only rise from this point on. We may in fact see the rapid emergence of frontier conditions (cheap and abundant land at the price of certain hardships) emerging in multiple developed nations due to a combination of low birth rates, falling rural population, and exponentially increasing costs of liquid transport fuels.

Rather than a process of "collapse" it is a quasi-biological process of growth-overshoot-retraction to a stasis point. In 1500, 0% of the earth was developed. In 2015, maybe 70% was. By 2050, maybe the octopus retracts to 20% again.

So chose your own adventure. The further out you are from metro centers of the first world, the higher the probability that you will actually get to do "homesteading" stuff for real and for keeps!