media honed to react to our ancestral impulses. Knowing our evolved psychology can help us make good predictions.
5. If we are to visualize what a sustainable (or more sustainable) society might be, we need to know what makes us happy, content, miserable, violent, etc. Sociology and psychology (and economics) must take their lead from evolution/biology. Only a view informed by evolution can help construct the demand side of the necessary "biophysical balance sheet" or, more plainly, a Full Planet Human Constitution. We do not need 100x exosomatic footprints to lead meaningful lives now or in the future. In the coming sections we will integrate ecology, energy, economy and our environment. We'll come back to how human behavior integrates into the big picture, but this Human Behavior section should have given a clue that human brains and behavior lie at the core of our modern predicament. TaaL: The “ castle ” is an apt analogy. You don ’ t so much have energy problems, pollution problems, population problems, inequality problems and ecology problems. Rather, you have a brain problem from which the others are emergent. There is no physical barrier between the current status quo, and a thriving human future on a healthy planet which lasts many millions of years. There are, however, many human brain barriers to this outcome, which is why you ’ re currently moving in the wrong direction, at speed. These predilections and tendencies form a daunting moat around the castle which represents such livable futures. But keeping with that metaphor, I ’ ll note that one can learn to swim: it ’ s impossible to be born without errant programming, but possible to understand and overcome it, or at least partially overcome it. And probably necessary, in your case: there ’ s a comet called the “ gene agenda ” which is on course to smash your world and end your societies, but it ’ s not coming from space. Like most cosmic disasters, its roots lie in the chance events of deep history. The Bottom Line: Our brains are pre-programmed with evolutionary bias and delusion which was formerly helpful and is now destructive.
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