Reflections From India

Frankly #54

For this brief return from my first visit to India for a six-week limbic reset, I’d like to shares insights on both my personal experiences in the country and how its history, culture, and role as a rising economic power intermingle to create a unique position into the coming decades.

Despite India’s history of avoiding globalization and industrialization, westernized patterns are emerging, including an expanding reliance on fossil fuels - and resultant convenience and consumption. Yet, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, significant labor devoted to agriculture, and increasing vulnerability to global heating, India will face unique challenges and opportunities within the human predicament.

As many Indians remain unaware of their country’s growing role in global heating and the effects it will bring, what alternative opportunities for permaculture and other restorative projects remain within the Indian subcontinent? How could India’s abundant wealth of social capital and unique history/ethos help its people resist the encroachment of the Superorganism and play a larger role in the global Great Simplification?  

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In case you missed it…

This past week, I was joined by fellow mid-westerner and friend, Ashley Hodgson. As a professor in behavioral economics, she and I discussed the intersection between my work in analyzing the superorganism and her work which she calls ‘The New Enlightenment’. By taking a wide-lens look at the way our human systems work, we can see the incentives and structures that push power towards consumptive, short-sighted, and destructive pathways. As we enter a world where the perpetual growth we’ve come to expect is no longer possible, how can we lean into the creativity and ingenuity required when thinking about new economic paradigms? 

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