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45 comments on Movie review: Escape from Suburbia-Beyond the American Dream

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AlanfromBigEasy on October 8, 2007 - 6:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Whatever you are doing, there is a 99.999% chance it's not going to have any effect on anybody beyond yourself and perhaps a handful of people close to you

I know, as a fact, that actions I have taken in the past, unrelated to Peak Oil, have changed people's lives for the better and that these changes have rippled beyond that.

However, my focus is not so much on "I" but on other people and our mutual relationships (a cultural focus I find stronger in New Orleans).

I have learned in my years to seek leverage points, and my presence here on TOD is a deliberate choice after surveying other Peak Oil sites. This has lead to other opportunities and the ability to start a meme.

Last week was a breakthrough on a related front. The Millennium Institute ran my scenario on their T21 model and came up with very positive results, which will be presented Wednesday at ASPO-Houston.

I am VERY well aware that "I" can do almost nothing, but my relationships and joint efforts can affect change.

At the Millennium Institute I meet Hans Herren, who now works there. Read the link below and tell me that no one can make a difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Herren

Best Hopes,

Alan

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GreyZone on October 8, 2007 - 10:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Remarkably, what Alan appears to be doing is old fashioned campaigning - reaching out to people and building working networks of individuals who have an interest in the solution he is presenting. Modern campaigning does not do this. Instead it relies on Madison Avenue and the mechanics of advertising rather than the mechanics of engagement. Engagement amongst politicians today is solely reserved for those who are peers to the politician and thus "deserving" of engagement. The rest of us get hucksterism with Madison Avenue glitz. This is partly due purely to population - Hillary Clinton cannot effectively engage 300 million people so she has to use the advertising route (as do all the rest of them as well). So a modern politician prioritizes time and reserves "engagement" for those that the politician believes deserve it. Interestingly, this also is most frequently either those who can get that politician re-elected or another politician of the same rank or higher, so the entire scenario becomes a closed loop, largely immune to external thinking.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone

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