Seneca said “wealth is slow, and the road to ruin is swift” unless we are warned like Ulysse on his successful return to Ithaca “Be careful, you will encounter sirens.” If you listen to their song, they will pull you with them and you will die crashing on the rocks. »
To avoid the terms “collapse”, “end of the world” or even less “collapsology”, I prefer to use this title “worldquakes”, like “earthquakes” for the future of our finite world, in its global dimension, treated from the point of view of “bio-geophysics” or the environment, from the socio-economic point of view and from the spiritual point of view. Indeed, the world is now interconnected and interdependent, that’s a fact. The organization of our contemporary world is broken down into large networks: oil & gas, electricity, water, finance and communications. If one of these networks collapses it is the start of a world earthquake, in the past cities or countries have already shaken because of either a fuel or electricity shortage, or a shortage of electricity. water, either from the bankruptcy of banks or even states, or from the loss of communication.
Why this analogy with earthquakes? Because of the many points in common with a seismic crisis (slow growth and rapid breakage but difficult to predict over time, possible aftershocks, visible consequences in the form of collapse of structures followed by reconstructions). The difference is indeed the scale, we must now think on a world scale from different points of view:
- for the human sciences (Cf. “Collapse” by Jared Diamond) we also talk about “involution*” with pessimistic forecasts from economists or demographers,
- from the point of view of financiers, with a latent global economic recession,
- and finally the revelation of a new world or cycle in religious writings (The apocalypse of Saint-John or the Kalkî for the end of this cycle for Hinduism or Ragnarök in Nordic mythology).
It should also not be confused with the term “Anthropocene”. Because the Anthropocene would only concern a purely geological event centered on man exclusively, whereas the time of geology and the time of man, that is to say his pre-industrial history and these world quakes to come post-industrial will be of another order, not limited to geology, unlike an era or an age, but to an entire digitally interdependent ecosystem in particular.
So are we under anesthesia? Yes, then it is time to wake up and show ourselves flexible for our new relationship with the world or rather for our relationship with the new world which already awaits us, it is even an immediate and collective duty (in the sense of collective awareness ). But be careful, this is not a return to nature, it is a return to Nature in all its dimensions (in the sense of Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere).
Take charge of our world and not just our phone.
* “To involute is to have an increasingly simple, economical, sober approach”, it is a virtuous triangle
