Deep Adaptation – An Introduction

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This is intended to provide a summary on “The Deep Adaptation Agenda”, as proposed and coined by Jem Bendell in his paper ‘Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy‘ (July 2018).

Included below is material from Dr. Bendell’s website as well as a Rupert Read lecture.

From Bendell’s paper:

“…recent research suggests that human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress.  Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations. This situation makes redundant the reformist approach to sustainable development and related fields of corporate sustainability. Instead, a new approach which explores how to reduce harm and not make matters worse is important to develop. In support of that challenging, and ultimately personal process, understanding a ‘deep adaptation agenda’ may be useful.”

The essence of The Deep Adaptation Agenda is…

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‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism

“Surveillance capitalism,” she writes, “unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data. Although some of these data are applied to service improvement, the rest are declared as a proprietary behavioural surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as ‘machine intelligence’, and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later. Finally, these prediction products are traded in a new kind of marketplace that I call behavioural futures markets. Surveillance capitalists have grown immensely wealthy from these trading operations, for many companies are willing to lay bets on our future behaviour.”

While the general modus operandi of Google, Facebook et al has been known and understood (at least by some people) for a while, what has been missing – and what Zuboff provides – is the insight and scholarship to situate them in a wider context. She points out that while most of us think that we are dealing merely with algorithmic inscrutability, in fact what confronts us is the latest phase in capitalism’s long evolution – from the making of products, to mass production, to managerial capitalism, to services, to financial capitalism, and now to the exploitation of behavioural predictions covertly derived from the surveillance of users. In that sense, her vast (660-page) book is a continuation of a tradition that includes Adam Smith, Max Weber, Karl Polanyi and – dare I say it – Karl Marx.

via ‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism | Technology | The Guardian

Hope and Vision in the Face of Collapse – The 4th R of Deep Adaptation

Professor Jem Bendell

“People need hope, Jem.”
“It’s really important to have a vision of a better future, Jem”

As someone who worked in environmental campaigning and then organizational change, I learned about the role of hope and vision in helping to align and motivate people. As someone who worked at the heart of political communications during the 2017 UK General Election campaign, I’m also aware of the power of a positive narrative when told well, consistently and authentically. In my professional world of leadership and its development, hope and vision are recognized as key. I still teach such skills to senior executives in business, politics and civil society and am proud of the way they feel empowered in their purpose as a result.

But, but, but…

Since my return to analysing climate science last year led me to conclude we face inevitable near-term societal collapse, where might we find any hope or…

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Reza Negarestani: A Preliminary Investigation – Intelligence and Spirit

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Originally posted on The Dark Fantastic: Literature, Philosophy, and Digital Arts:
The History of spirit is its own deed; for spirit is only what it does, and its deed is to make itself – in this case as spirit –…