> [!summary] Progressive Summary # Structured Notes ## Definitions learning - a change in behaviour as a result of experience negative reinforcement - when we are less likely to repeat an action as a result of its consequence positive reinforcement - when we are more likely to repeat an action as a result of its consequence ## Chapter Summaries ### Chapter 6 - Stages of Awareness Taken from Paul Chefurka's blog post of 2012. When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global crisis, each of us seems to fit somewhere along a continuum of awareness that can be roughly divided into five stages: 1. Dead asleep. At this stage there seem to be no fundamental problems, just some shortcomings in human organization, behaviour and morality that can be fixed with the proper attention to rule-making. People at this stage tend to live their lives happily, with occasional outbursts of annoyance around election times or the quarterly corporate earnings seasons. 2. Awareness of one fundamental problem. Whether it's Climate Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution, oceanic over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism, economic instability or sociopolitical injustice, one problem seems to engage the attention completely. People at this stage tend to become ardent activists for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal about their personal issue, and blind to any others. 3. Awareness of many problems. As people let in more evidence from different domains, the awareness of complexity begins to grow.  At this point a person worries about the prioritization of problems in terms of their immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems - for example, someone who is committed to fighting for social justice and against climate change may not recognize the problem of resource depletion.  They may feel that the problem space is already complex enough, and the addition of any new concerns will only dilute the effort that needs to be focused on solving the "highest priority" problem. 4. Awareness of the interconnections between the many problems. The realization that a solution in one domain may worsen a problem in another marks the beginning of large-scale system-level thinking. It also marks the transition from thinking of the situation in terms of a set of problems to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At this point the possibility that there may not be a solution begins to raise its head. People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into tight circles of like-minded individuals in order to trade insights and deepen their understanding of what's going on. These circles are necessarily small, both because personal dialogue is essential for this depth of exploration, and because there just aren't very many people who have arrived at this level of understanding. 5. Awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life.  This includes everything we do, how we do it, our relationships with each other, as well as our treatment of the rest of the biosphere and the physical planet. With this realization, the floodgates open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or acceptance. The very concept of a "Solution" is seen through, and cast aside as a waste of effort. ### Chapter 7 - What Students Need Most academics try to reproduce themselves (like a selfish gene). They prioritise deep reading, persuasive writing, and critical thinking, with the purpose of ever-expanding knowledge production. But is this what students really need? Education is a social system that we have all inherited. Do we spend enough time questioning the goals of the system, and whether they still serve our needs, given the changes that have happened around us? It's important to prioritise and focus on what students *need* to learn, before we attend to what they *can* learn. ### Chapter 8 - Aims of Education Humans have lived in hunter-gatherer societies for 97% of their history. We have a natural "mothering" instinct, having evolved in close-knit kinship tribes. Taking care of children has always been a collective enterprise. The purpose of education is "to promote the welfare and well-being of the younger generation." ### Chapter 9 - Between Ideal and Reality > It seems to me that the typical college curriculum is not, in fact, grounded in any evidence-based understanding of what the world would look like over the next half-century or so—the assumed lifetime of our current students. Instead, it is based on a deeply held assumption that Business-as-Usual will continue uninterrupted. Yet, current trends are suggesting the exact opposite. Insofar as the goals of the typical college curriculum are disconnected from reality, they’re not serving the overarching purpose of education. > While there are several criteria for determining what qualifies as the welfare and well-being of the younger generation, and while each of them can and does influence the shaping of the college curriculum to some extent, there is one super criterion whose influence cannot be easily resisted. Backed by the power and momentum of Business-as-Usual, this criterion is represented by the prevailing consensus regarding the most essential role that higher education is supposed to play in society—i.e., to produce the human resources that the economy needs. > > There is a widespread tendency to think of college education primarily as a means to earn a diploma that, in turn, allows an individual to earn a decent livelihood. Ask the following question to a group of randomly selected people: “Why is it important for young people to get a college education?” The most common response will probably be an expression of survival anxiety, such as a desire for financial independence, upward mobility, economic security, a better lifestyle, etc., or an expression of ideological commitment, such as reducing poverty, increasing economic opportunity, creating a level playing field, contributing to economic growth, maintaining the nation’s global status, etc. Either way, the emphasis is likely to be on the economic rewards of higher education, both for the individual graduate and for the society at large. > If students view themselves as buyers of academic credentials, then that’s at least partly because colleges tend to treat them as customers. The idea of exchange is no longer confined to the economic sphere but has colonized all aspects of modern life, including education. As a result, colleges themselves focus on, and take pride in, preparing students for the job market—in exchange for tuition money. This seems to be in accord with the brutal logic of capitalism, for why else would anyone pay tens of thousands of dollars just for the privilege of becoming educated? But the situation is at least partly the inevitable outcome of assuming that colleges are best run as business enterprises and that education is best treated as a commodity. > Since the economy of late capitalism is run, for the most part, by for-profit corporations that have also captured much of state power, it is almost inevitable that the needs and perspectives of the corporate world will shape, if not determine, our own teaching priorities. As a result, the current demands of the market exert a far greater influence on our curricular decisions than the actual interests of our students—including, for example, their right to know the full reality of how the Collapse of civilization is unfolding. Typically, our students learn just enough critical thinking to become good employees or entrepreneurs, but not enough to become disillusioned with Business-as-Usual itself. > The typical college curriculum is therefore a patchwork of vastly different and even contradictory values and concerns. The pieces that make it into the final curriculum rarely signify a unified vision grounded in the shared goals of a learning community. Instead, the resulting patchwork is more accurately viewed as a map representing the relative power of various groups of stakeholders, each of which has its own take on what counts as the welfare and well-being of the younger generation. These groups must compete for influence because there is too much divergence in their interests and worldviews. As a result, the pieces they contribute do not cohere organically; what holds them together is mere expedience—i.e., the overriding imperative to produce the sort of human capital best suited for maintaining Business-as-Usual. ### Chapter 10 - Teaching as a Vocation > Recall that colleges are supposed to transform young people into “productive members of the economy.” While everyone participates in the economy, college graduates occupy a higher position on the consumption-production ladder than the rest of the population. In the United States, for example, the median lifetime earnings of those with a bachelor’s degree are 75 percent higher than those with only a high-school diploma. It follows that college graduates are particularly valuable for Business-as-Usual. Since Business-as-Usual is responsible for supercharging the Predicament and for bringing humankind to the verge of extinction, educators are indirectly participating in an assault on their own cherished values. > Our educational system is functioning on the basis of two critical assumptions: First, the needs of the students are essentially the same as the needs of Business-as-Usual, and second, Business-as-Usual will continue uninterrupted in the foreseeable future. The fact that both assumptions are incorrect results in a massive contradiction for the educational system. Being part of this contradiction means that educators like you and me have to confront a serious moral and spiritual crisis. If we leave this crisis unaddressed, teaching won’t remain a meaningful endeavor. It may exist as a job, but not as a vocation. > Time is always short, since each of us is already in the process of dying. But time is also short because serious societal disruptions are just around the corner. The longer we ignore the call of our time, the less time we’ll have to respond. > > In this unusually difficult moment, the only way to remain true to ourselves and to our vocation is to be willing to go beyond our traditional roles and identities. We cannot address the crisis we’re facing unless we can find the willingness to radically expand our zone of concern, renew our sense of purpose in ways that correspond to our reality, and recreate ourselves as the sort of leaders that the world needs at this time. > > All of this may seem incredibly daunting, and justifiably so. It is doubtful that any of us would voluntarily sign up for such a heavy responsibility. I wouldn’t. Yet, life has thrown at us this grand challenge, and—ready or not—it is asking us to rise up to meet its demands. Of course, we can choose to say “no, thank you” to life’s challenge, an option that will require us to stay in denial and maintain the status quo as long as possible. This may seem like an attractive option, except that it involves sacrificing our integrity and self-image in a way that renders our lives’ work meaningless. Key Points ### Chapter 11 - The Meaning of Our Predicament Weber described different types of rationality. There is practical rationality, which figures out the most efficient means to achieve a specific goal. Then there is substantive rationality, which takes into consideration the full set of values that are important to a human being. Since industrializaton, practical rationality has accelerated in its scope and power, and there is now a huge gap between our use of practical rationality and substantive rationality. The Holocaust is a tragic example of what happens when we place too much priority on the first. Our actions are guided by negative or positive feedback loops. Feedback loops could last seconds (touching a hot stove), or decades (climate change). In order for the longer feedback loops to guide our behaviour, we need to construct chains of reasoning using symbolic reasoning. ### Chapter 12 - The Predicament and the Brain Another way of framing the Predicament is using Iain McGilchrist's left-brain and right-brain metaphor. > Before we could cut down forests, dam rivers, and remove mountaintops, we first had to privilege the viewpoint of the left hemisphere, which saw the world as dead, deterministic, and meaningless. From that moment onwards, humanity’s spiritual and moral growth couldn’t keep pace with material and technological progress. > > In parts of the world where the consequences of this lopsided evolution are most prominent, one can find great wealth and comfort surrounding an “existential vacuum,” a monumental emptiness where meaning used to reside. Business-as-Usual tries to fill this vacuum with the promise of everlasting progress and instant gratification, but the satisfaction it provides is utterly ephemeral. ### Chapter 13 - Lost in the Ivory Towers # Quotes