What book are you reading now?

I'm half way through David Attenboroughs witness statement and it occurs to me, that although we need some kind of utopia to survive and help the planet to survive again...it is based on removing greed and distributing wealth evenly and in the pursuit of regaining balance, rather than for personal gain.

In that way it struck me that it would appear to suit the autistic way of thinking more than the neurotypical

I am fascinated by the whole question of Utopia, and in a book I mentioned here earlier, Utopia for Realists, his point was that by the standards of earlier times, we already have it, at least in relatively developed countries (like Scandinavia, I don't count either the UK or the States as being all that developed. Not after what has happened in each country after the last four years). 

Delicious food that can be obtained with ease, warm places to live in, cleanliness. Freedom basically from being cold, hungry and dirty. 

Then Basic Income was almost success introduced by the Nixon government no less, and it is being tried out in Germany now, has been experimented with in Norway. And what is interesting and totally counter intuitive is that most people don't just spend it all on drink, drugs, or sit around doing nothing. They start investing in their educations! They start small businesses! They start planning for their futures! With the stress of worrying about how you can hope to survive gone, the threat of punishment removed for being poor, the ability to make good decisions is restored. 

So interesting........

So there are places that appear to be doing something right, at least. And perhaps removing many of the causes of inequality might help keep.the work.on the apple at bay that much more. 

The other problem is that poo happens. In the past there has been climate change not of our making, but even now there are still rapacious climate change deniers. Volcanoes erupt, creating long volcanic winters, meteorites strike. Will there be the ingenuity in the future to handle these?

I don't think that autism confers niceness necessarily either, humans are only 98% removed from chimpanzees after all. 

More recently I did read something far more sobering, by a Fabian Scheidler. He sees us all as being trapped in a malignant machine of power that is basically holding the whole lot of us to ransom.

Sound's like governments don't want basic income, as they would lose their means of control.

Sound's like governments don't want basic income, as they would lose their means of control.

Therein lies the problem