Week 8 – Reflecting on Half Earth Socialism
Hello everyone,
quick drop-in from my side since my to-do list is growing and growing today. However, I wanted to briefly talk about a talk I have been to yesterday called “Half Earth Socialism” and was part of the First Breath Series organised by EFI & reflect on what I can take away from it.
The talk “Half Earth Socialism” talked about the equally named book and video game and was presented by the author Troy Vettese and 2 of the programmers behind the project. It was my first attendance at a First Breath talk (& I plan to go on many more, especially in the SEM2) and I found it quite interesting. I have to say that I kept bouncing between “WHAT?” to “Maybe I should read that book and confront myself with a very radically different vision of the future and society” – kind of like a pendulum. In the end, I did not decide to buy the book since my reading list is extensive and maybe I need to finish that first.
Briefly explained, Half Earth Socialism has it’s name from the hypothesis that we should leave 50% of land to nature and the wild. Rather than living WITH nature, giving nature it’s own space where we do not interefere. And it’s true that a lot of the transmission of diseases stems from being close to wildlife. The authors obviously went into much more detail (and on the other hand I haven’t read the book to give you a comprehensive account), but to give you a gist of the “vibes” the author calls himself a vegan marxist. Very niche.
So far so good. I found it interesting that they proposed such a radically different vision of the future, something that I might not really be thinking about having been influenced by the world I grew up in. And this is the point where I am thinking maybe I should read this book – whether I agree and disagree with it in the end. However, there was a second part to this talk: the made a video game out of the book.
And it found it super interesting how I immediately picked it apart asking “what is the data input”, “what’s the data and maths behind this” and “are the decision in the game really data-driven”. Turns out the game is open source and everyone can look up how it has been built. And certainly there is a lot of correlating factors and decision and cards – there really is plenty going on in that game. However, when I asked e.g. how they calculated the benefits and costs of let’s say wind energy, they did not facture in 1) original production cost and transportation 2) maintenance and repairs 3) how long they will last etc. etc.
And this links back to an ongoing theme of something I stress again and again. While we need to find new and creative solutions for the future, I do argue that we should not neglect the complexity of reality. Obviously data can easily be modified to fit your own views and beliefs. However, I always want to know “what is the maths behind this” and what factors have been calculated and which ones have been neglected. I believe that for educated and fruitful conversations we need to make sure we see the whole picture and not just scratch the surface. I hope you are still following.
So summa sumarum, I have been reminded of how passionate I am to reveal what data and maths, statistics and research/future suggestions have been based on. To link this back to the purpose of this blog – I think this is something I should think about for my final project. Maybe I can find a way of addressing this from a science communication perspective. Maybe this is giving me a new angle under which to examine contemporary issues. And maybe I can focus my work (in one way or another) on laying bare the data and maths behind decisisons and pathsways for ambitious futures.
If you have read until the very end – congrats. And I hope you are still following. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this – I would be SUPER curious to hear your input & let me know if anyone else has heard of “Half Earth Socialism” or even tried the online video game.
#lilac
Hi Kass – Yes! This is such an important issue! Algorithms, black-box models, digital systems, automated decision making, etc. etc. all play such important roles in everyday life from what we see on our social feeds (e.g. see Gen’s topic ideas) to how decisions get made about social welfare applications (e.g. see Rhi’s potential project idea on PIP) and to how our credit score gets calculated (e.g. reading from Toolbox). Your impulse always to ask ‘what are the maths and statistics and models behind this?’ is a really important one, and I could definitely see a Futures Project and/or PhD project coming out of it.
So the question now might be – what is the specific arena through which you want to explore this question? Is it to compare a range of real-world projects and examine how they communicate the back-end models, and what different effects this has on user learning and engagement? Is it to dig deep into one particular case (like this game for instance) and analyse all the maths behind it and what kinds of representations they lead to? Or possibly a more theoretical project looking at the ‘normativity of numbers’ (Gerhard Anders’ work), gaps between simplified models and reality, science communication, and accessibility?
Try making a list of potential ‘entry points’ into this topic and then what methods it will require. This will help you to identify what might be a Futures-Project-sized question (what you can accomplish by the end of the degree), as well as potential larger questions that you could expand into a PhD proposal. Very exciting!
On the PhD point, make sure you get in touch with PhD programme directors for potential programmes you might want to join. They’ll have specific information about application and funding deadlines, which may differ across departments. If you’d like help thinking through how to choose a department and programme, let me know.
Kassandra, I’m so envious of your going to a live talk – or at least you made it sound live. I look forward to attending things in person during a visit next term. vegan marxist – niche indeed!
I wanted to comment on something you said, “While we need to find new and creative solutions for the future, I do argue that we should not neglect the complexity of reality.” I really agree with this and hope that we can find more of our future in the past. It wasn’t that long ago (relatively speaking) that we lived in harmony with nature. This is a new problem and our solution seems to always be to build something new to deal with all the new things we built – ha. How about a future of un-building?? Dismantle, simplify, localize, seasonalize, go without – call me a Flexitarian Retrovertist
I’ve been thinking about the half-earth socialism talk so much since going! And especially the game part haha. Because although I really agree with the lack of explanation of the complexity in actually calculating all those variables, I enjoyed their effort of speculating about possible future scenarios and actually providing a constructive “solution”. Will get back to you if I manage to read the book 🙂
Half Earth Socialism as a topic sounds fascinating and scary all at once. Do you know if the session was recorded at all?
Hey Kass – I totally agree with you that there is so much bad use of data out there and understanding what variables and inputs have been used and how the inferences have been made on data is really important! I’m interested in exactly that with programs like universal basic income, if we are going to be radical about how we reshape our world how can we model and consider the impacts and how can these be based in some sort of logic – even for a big unknown?
I agree it is super important for science communication to get this right too – I find it interesting to track how a ‘fact’ from some academic research develops and is shared through the community that it is aimed at and how ‘correct’ it stays down to it’s simplest form. For example, I saw an online nutritionist make an inference from some studies about how high estrogen impacts period pain, and also how magnesium can break down extra estrogen and so she started eating a cabbage a week and was promoting that as an end-all cure for cramps…the over simplification of these solutions always annoys me lol
Your summary has also sparked my interest now to go read the book that this talk was based off – the first thing that came to mind from your summary was that it’s interesting that the author is positioning humans and nature as ‘different’ and ‘need to be kept separate’. How very Victorian Romantic!