Humans mostly act as if they have nothing to do with reality, that they are free to take as much as they want from the Earth. But that is not how it works. The Earth is not part of humanity, humanity is part of the Earth.
It all started and still starts with physics, which is why planets formed, and continued here with biological development, which is why plants and animals grew. And then came humans, but they alienated themselves from that physical-biological layer and created a social-cultural layer, a self-made reality, and then went on to codify it into self-made arrangements, laws, and institutions to enforce it. [1] People have now completely lost the distinction between the foundation, the physical-biological basis, and live mostly in the self-created sociocultural reality. Its all about fiction, livinge in a dreamland.[2]
That distinction is not only completely gone from daily life, but also from the news (media) and politics. Even in schools, this distinction is hardly explained. In the sense that physics is a hard fact that humanity must align with, it is not a soft, flexible approach. There are no compromises to be made.
In much of the news, that context is completely lost. Especially because in the past century, the financial economy has become the benchmark for everything. Like GDP and so on.[3] And so, a lot is compared in terms of money. But money has no physical meaning, it was invented by humans, and over time has been distorted so that we can extract as much value from the Earth as possible. Financially speaking. But financial value is not physical value, and even substances in the ground, land yields, or fish in the sea aren’t even financially valued, let alone physically.[4]
The Earth system, on the other hand, stands or falls with a physical balance in all these processes. You can physically utilize only a small portion of what is available each year. Financially, you can extract everything, although “extract” here is a poor choice of words, it’s more like depleting everything. And then that balance changes. With all kinds of (unforeseen) consequences. (People depleting Planet making Profit)
95% of the media is fiction (including financial economy).
In daily life, the Earth and its physical-biological side no longer play a role. The news revolves around the problems of our own species, the financial side, the cultural side, the athletic side.
Look at the newspapers, take the Volkskrant, for example. The first section is almost entirely about the problems within the species itself: political fights, bombings, attacks, and making money on the stock exchange. The paper also has a second section (!!) every day, half the newspaper, dedicated to human fiction: theater, films, music, books, philosophy, etc. A whole section full of human emotion. Hardly any word about physics and biology. The species is only concerned with itself. When there is an article about physics or nature, it is often financially related. Only on Saturdays are there a few pages of pure science… The same is mostly true for NRC.
And when it comes to energy or raw materials, it is always again in terms of money, of financial economy. It’s no wonder that people no longer have any idea about the relationship with physics and nature. And that relationship is very critical.
Politicians, too, hardly understand how the world really works. They don’t even understand humanity itself, let alone the big system within which humanity must function.
For example, they may have heard that biodiversity is declining, but how exactly that happens, they have no clue… And that it’s of vital importance… It reminds me of that plant grower on the TV show Keuringdienst van Waarde. He sold and promoted butterfly-attracting plants, completely free of worms and caterpillars because customers didn’t like that, so he sprayed them. When asked where the butterflies would come from if he killed the caterpillars, he turned red, never thought about that…
This physical-biological world ultimately only concerns land and its annual renewable yield from solar energy. That’s what my last book is about. [5] Land that has mostly been given away to commercial and private owners.
Therefore, I advocate for more balance in what matters in the world: a daily newspaper section about what people like and where money can be made? Fine. But also every day a section about how that fits into the bigger picture: about energy, raw materials, pollution, organic farming, renewable resources, and the exploitation of land ownership, and how that mismatches with the financial system. Every day!
The same goes for the TV news: no naive passerby, who knows nothing, being asked what they think, or a correspondent who’s just heard the bell ring, but always also ask the scientist about the physical context. Also, spend half the news on items about the system we must live in, in addition to the news about how we (want to) live within it.
Alpha’s can only thrive if the “beta” picture is right.
At the same time, of course, we need to instill this awareness early. In schools, starting from primary school, let’s say 3 days a week can be about humanity, the species, and 2 days a week about the system, the Earth, on which we depend. Focus on the workings of the world around us. Also in further education, half of the curriculum should be mandatory for “beta” subjects (exact sciences), even for “alpha” students (humanities). And stop pretending you can only study humanities (Alpha studies) and understand how the world works. Alpha students/people can only thrive if the “beta” picture is right. And they need to know and apply that, even in their Alpha world. Otherwise, they become completely detached from reality (which most already are…). And the rest of us too, because Alpha people represent 90% of the people in parliament. And you can see the result in the unfounded chatter every day…
But let’s start with the media, make sure they get the picture right. That will already be a big step forward. I’m available for some fundamental crash courses…!
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[1] laws: https://www.ronaldrovers.com/about-fabricated-laws-and-fysical-laws/
[2] dream land https://www.ronaldrovers.com/living-in-dreamland/
[3] GDP: https://www.ronaldrovers.com/gdpgde-gross-domestic-exhaustion/
[4] fish https://www.ronaldrovers.com/pay-the-fish-no-not-the-fishmonger-the-fish/
[5] book https://www.ribuilt.eu/product/the-space-time-economy/
[6] checklist: https://www.ronaldrovers.com/environment-and-climate-checklist-for-journalists/
