Soon to be heard with increasing frequency across the media
waves, before joining the minestronic pool of end-of-days words, catastrophe,
like crisis, emergency, disaster, unprecedented, adaptation, extinction,
sustainability and the rest, is likely to become another regular feature of
our fun-filled everyday news cycle. So, in constructing my own Anthropocene
taxonomy, I’m adding the catastrosphere to the egosphere already
defined below.
I myself have been accused of being a catastrophist. More of
that later, but first I introduce the catastrophogenic class of the
twenty-first century: those whose accumulated decisions, interests and exercise
of power generate or intensify conditions capable of producing large-scale
social, ecological or civilisational catastrophe. Clearly, I do not belong to
this class, having neither the power nor the inclination to flirt with the
gaudy baubileros competing for my hard-earned bucks and extremely short attention span.
But rather than see the word and its genus sucked
mellifluously into the watery depths of the BBC, only to emerge through its
oddly neutral plumbing system where catastrophe drips into an
increasingly numbed psyche, I am considering a march from John O’Groats to
Land’s End bearing a sandwich board declaring the imminence of total global
catastrophe. A more informed message than the end is nigh, perhaps, but
also a nod of humble respect to those who have tramped the streets proclaiming
much the same thing for centuries. This I hope will preserve the pre-eminence
of catastrophe as the last word to survive the descent of language into mushed
homogeneity.
I have also been approached by a well-known influencer who
has offered support by creating millions of digital followers who would benefit
from free Botox treatment if they receive a catastrophe voucher, which I will
distribute in various towns along the way, combining face-to-face connection with on-line benefits. This, with the necessary caveats,
makes me a Catastrophist, and a proud one at that.
The march, I think, will build a movement of Catastrophists,
(CPs) prepared to take on the catastrophogenic class, (CPC) head on,
rather as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) took on the nuclear
establishment. Naturally, I’m anxious that scientific rigour should underpin
all claims made by CPs, so I will compile a Directory of Imminent
Mega-Disasters, (DIMD) providing evidence of our progress towards total
catastrophe.
A traffic-light system indicating the proximity of
catastrophic activities will help those new to the movement, together with an
FAQ and handbook addressing questions such as: So what do you think — that it
would be better if humans disappeared? The answer: No. That’s not what I think.
And so on.
Obviously, this is a dynamic context, and questions will
arise as particular events dominate global news. One of the latest concerns is
the apparently catastrophe-assisted activities of exciting businesses called
Anthropic and OpenAI. In a previous blog I wrote that AI is not artificial and
is not all that intelligent and listed some of the very stupid aspects of
growing AI around the world, most notably its capacity for slurping up huge
quantities of quintessential resources already in decline — one of the imminent
disasters that will appear in the DIMD.
It now transpires that people inside one of the world’s
leading AI companies don’t know whether they know what they’re doing and are
publicly warning that what they are doing might kill us all. Others agree. Some
of those closest to the technology are openly arguing over whether they will
remain in control of what they are racing to create, with one putting the
chance of resultant human extinction at more than 10 per cent within ten years. Ten per
cent! Ten years! Well, you couldn’t make it up, could you?
The technology itself has been trained on a vast quantity of
human input and output, so presumably it has absorbed a fair portion of the
egospheric stupidity of its creators along with everything else. One of the
world’s most powerful AI slush-funders, Elon Mush, suggests that the warnings
may be a psyop — a set-up to encourage regulation aimed at stopping unfortunate
outcomes such as extinction. Meanwhile, everybody carries on building the stuff
and seeking billions of dollars to remake life in our own robotic image. Who
needs regulation? FFS, it’s a free world — well, at least for the next ten
years.
But this is where the DIMD will be very handy for the
ordinary person who simply wants to keep up with the detailed activities of the
CPC. I will require some sponsorship to get the march and movement up and
running, as well as the DIMD, a website and an app, and will form a Committee
of Catastrophists, (COC), to ensure sound governance and provide guidance
informing future strategy.
I will use the John O’Groats–Land’s End march as a
consultative exercise so that everyone has an opportunity to express their
views on the best next steps. By the time I reach Land’s End, with luck,
catastrophe will have been properly defined through an evidenced-based disaster - mega-disaster progression. I, together with the
soon-to-be-formed COC, will then independently assess and traffic-light the
findings before incorporating them into the DIMD. This will provide a platform
for an inclusive global comms base, allowing dialogue to flow across borders,
sectors and stakeholder communities, ensuring that everyone has a voice in
shaping our shared catastrophic future.
I will also continue developing the emerging taxonomy of the
new age, an Anthropocene classification system embracing the egosphere,
the catastrosphere, the catastrophogenic class and, of course,
the catastrophist — the catalyst for a new global community of like-minded
gnomes like me.