This is a response to Jen Gerson’s post at The Line on the recent disastrous flooding in B.C. and the wider context of trade and economic systems, global crises, and the human management of such things. Please follow the link to The Line article to read Jen’s original post.
Jen, I believe you are hopelessly optimistic.
Even the darkest writer's choice to set pen to paper, keyboard to screen, is animated by the presumption that somewhere in the endless swirl of Time, someone out there will hear you and acknowledge your efforts.
Doubtless, shouting from the rooftop has its momentary personal rewards.
However the trend lines of human history are not encouraging. Humans are, despite all the self-promotional advertising, by and large, dumb animals addicted to their incremental habits. Evolutionary incrementalism however is not the time frame for surviving catastrophic systemic crises of one's own making.
Humans are simply not capable of acting in concert to alleviate the consequences of their own behaviours on a planetary scale. Catastrophic collapse is the hard teacher of civilizations. 'Build back better' is not the philosophy of cockroaches.
Which brings me to Big Data. Big Data?
Big Data is part of the human effort to build a form of intelligence humans do not have. In order to overcome its own deficits of perception, analysis, memory and synthesis a particular form of life attempts to create a new form of life without those deficiencies within a non-evolutionary time frame. No surprise if said creature fails to anticipate all the consequences of its efforts.
Approaching the planet like you're just re-arranging the furniture in your room is not just a micro-macro disconnect. God, The Creator, Evolution's Sorcerer in Chief, The Animating Principles of All Things, is not just a built back better human. Bigger, stronger, smarter, faster than the previous edition.
In other words.
The idea that a bunch of humans can micro-manage the planet is just a dumb idea. If my observations are unconvincing, I suggest a conversation with cockroaches.