laodan's favorite ecology pages, page 1

Last login: 10 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA.; Likes 1,599 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 228 fans • Received 65 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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http://www.princeton.edu/~icouzin/Science%20movement%20ecology.pdf: Nov 13, 2007 7:15am 1 review ecology, change
http://www.princeton.edu/~icouzin/Science%20movement%20ecology.pdf; Inching Toward Movement Ecology via Carl Zimmer / The Loom, in Princeton University Collective Animal Behaviour Laboratory
The model shows that only a tiny number of "informed" individuals" that is - those familiar with a food source or migration path - are required to bring around the whole group, they reported in the 3 February 2005 issue of Nature. These few are somehow able to get "naive" members to "reconcile the tendency to clump together" with the tendency to follow those in the know, says Couzin. The researchers found that the larger the group, the smaller the proportion of leaders required. In the case of bees, this behavior likely evolved as a more efficient way to transfer information: Only a few individuals need to take the time to observe the waggle dance, and the rest just follow along. Inching Toward Movement Ecology Princeton University Collective Animal Behaviour Laboratory Image via The Loom The study of change within species. This is just fascinating. The quote here above makes me think about human societies and the societal function of visual arts. It's always a question of "collective how to act" that visual arts were deemed to illustrate in visual signs for all to share. In animism the shaman gives the direction by infusing in his tribe members a holistic vision where all the particles are interconnected. Religion that follows will force-glue the citizens behind a simple foundational story and modernity will break down all stories gluing the individuals. But we discover in late modernity that this path through individualism is threatening the very survival of the human species. The studies on movement ecology could perhaps teach us something vital in term of the road toward the survival of humanity.

The Ecology of Work | Curtis White | Orion magazine: Apr 29, 2007 5:57am 3 reviews ecology, economics, worldviews
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/267; The Ecology of Work via the blog of Dave Pollard "How to save the world", in Orion magazine by Curtis White
I don't believe that capitalism can become green, simply because the imperatives of environmentalism are not part of its way of reasoning. Capitalism can think profit but it can't think nature. It's not in its nature to think nature. What is part of its nature is marketing ("We're organic! Buy us!"), even while its actions--industrial livestock practices that masquerade as Earth-friendly, for instance--are really only about market share, dividends, and stock value. Capitalism as a system of ever-accelerating production and consumption is, as we environmentalists continually insist, not sustainable. That is, it is a system intent on its own death. Yet the capitalist will stoically look destruction in the face before he will stop what he's doing, especially if he believes that it is somebody else whose destruction is in question. Unlike most of the people living under him, the capitalist is a great risk-taker largely because he believes that his wealth insulates him from the consequences of risks gone bad. Ever the optimistic gambler with other people's money, the capitalist is willing to wager that, while there may be costs to pay, he won't have to pay them. Animals, plants, impoverished people near and far may have to pay, but he bets that he won't. If called upon to defend his actions, he will of course argue that he has a constitutionally protected right to property and the pursuit of his own happiness. This is his "freedom." At that point, we have the unfortunate habit of shutting up when we ought to reply, "Yes, but yours is a freedom without conscience." The Ecology of Work The Idols of Environmentalism Walking Away to the Next Human Culture
Here are excellent articles that address the shortcomings of the environmental movement. Modernity is indeed driven since centuries by the logic that is at work inside invested capital. In one word capital can be lost while the reason for people to transform their money into capital is to reproduce and then to expand the initial amount of money they have. Applied along centuries this logic imposed the belief that conforming to it was the only possible rational way of behaving. In short capitalism is the simplistic system of thought at work in the very narrow ensemble constituted by money. Reality is far more complex than this single ensemble constituted by money. So the only way to save the world from the miopy of capitalism is to become aware of the complexity of reality that encompasses an infinity of ensembles interacting among themselves... But this implies that the logic at work inside capital should be crushed and replaced by a holistic approach!