It’s very difficult for residents of rich countries in particular to understand that human will and…

It’s very difficult for residents of rich countries in particular to understand that human will and rationality has little impact on how life unfolds. Rich nations assume that, and think information runs societies, because they’re rich and powerful. It’s an illusion. /1

The apparent discretion those living in rich nations have to choose outcomes for how life unfolds derives from previous imperial/colonial conquest and rule. Existential choice is literally just power. That’s the only way it happens. /2

In other words you have to kill and destroy and tame what opposes you, to have the impression of choosing your destiny. The world, both human and non-human, will always fight you to impose a different destiny. /3

And this remains true within rich nations too, where those with lower status experience an entirely different, largely imposed order in their lives. Not much freedom for them. Freedom is status. Status is power. Status comes from fighting. /4

Year after year I scroll here seeing pleas for ‘we’ to do something, to right some terrible wrong in the world. There is never any we, without some form of catastrophic disruption to status. War, natural disaster. /5

Just as evolution is likely driven by catastrophic events, rather than by some sort of gradual optimisation driven by living things themselves, social life exists in two states. Status hierarchies, or destroyed status hierarchies. /6

Only in the latter, which we experienced in the aftermath of the 4 catastrophes of the first half of the 20th century, does a ‘we’ emerge. Not out of good will or ‘democratic’ reform, But to survive. It’s all hands to the wheel, to not die. /7

Watch this mechanism during natural disasters, the same people who the day before a bushfire are on social media in battle with each other, or slagging off their neighbours, are suddenly ‘united’. Politicians talk about ‘true Aussie grit’, and other jingoistic bullshit. /8

Reality drives societies. Not information, or mis/disinformation. Humans squabble in their status games, ignoring reality, until reality being ignored overwhelms their societies. Only then do they suddenly find solidarity. Until the wreckage is cleared. /9

Then the status games begin again. Rinse and repeat. Ad infinitum. /end