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Plastic in whale stomach, Plastic pollution, Thinking things through, Waking up to plastic fibres from clothes, Whales
This obsession with distraction from reality. Certainly in Western societies… The obsession with entertainment, with being seen to be busy, with distraction, with status, with everything but what seems truly pressing and urgent. The fear of responsibility, but as we know, it sets you free. Just take the example of a child, give them some responsibility, watering a plant, feeding an animal, collecting sticks for a fire, washing up… And they love it, they rise to it and they do it well with their fullest concentration and they are present, no distractions…The world of distraction, like the mirror just reflecting back at you…
A life of meaning, being bold, following your path, going to bed knowing you did something today that helped you on your journey… There has always been much literature about this and it’s uplifting and life affirming. Fill your life with true purpose… Follow it and be true to yourself. What does it all mean, sometimes the answer comes from knowing what it isn’t.
However it is a process of elimination that can be applied to everything, to the planet, to our lives individually and collectively…. What matters, then focus on that, when we ask ourselves what truly matters. Getting good at sorting the wheat from the chaff, in all areas of life, or focusing then redesigning, like a constant edit…
Because there is an absolute beauty present throughout the universe and we are a part of that, a meaningful and structured beauty that presents itself to us everywhere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9mG149Nfrk
I’ll start with an article I read about the anthropologist David Graeber in The Economist :
‘Not since Dilbert has truth been spoken to power in soulless work settings. But the cartoon character’s successor may be David Graeber. In 2013 he achieved viral fame with cubicle zombies everywhere after he published a short essay on the prevalence of work that had no social or economic reason to exist, which he called “bullshit jobs”. The wide attention seemed to confirm his thesis.
Mr Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, has expanded on the ideas in a recent book. He responded to five questions from The Economist’s Open Future initiative. He rails against “feudal retinues of basically useless flunkies.” As he puts it: “People want to feel they are transforming the world around them in a way that makes some kind a positive difference.”
The Economist: What is a “bullshit job” and can you give a few examples?
David Graeber: A bullshit job is one that even the person doing it secretly believes need not, or should not, exist. That if the job, or even the whole industry, were to vanish, either it would make no difference to anyone, or the world might even be a slightly better place.
Something like 37-40% of workers according to surveys say their jobs make no difference. Insofar as there’s anything really radical about the book, it’s not to observe that many people feel that way, but simply to say we should proceed on the assumption that for the most part, people’s self-assessments are largely correct. Their jobs really are just as pointless as they think they are.
If anything, just taking people’s word for it might understate the problem, since if you think that what you’re doing is pointless, but there’s some non-obvious larger big-picture way that you’re really contributing to the greater good, at least the greater good of the organisation, then what’s the chance no one is going to tell you that?
On the other hand, if you think you’re doing something that seems like there’s a good reason to be doing it, but in the larger big-picture you’re not (say, the whole operation that you’re working for is actually some kind of scam, or no one is really reading your reports, etc), well, that’s precisely the situation where they’re least likely to tell you what’s really going on.
If my own research is anything to go by, bullshit jobs concentrate not so much in services as in clerical, administrative, managerial, and supervisory roles. A lot of workers in middle management, PR, human resources, a lot of brand managers, creative vice presidents, financial consultants, compliance workers, feel their jobs are pointless, but also a lot of people in fields like corporate law or telemarketing.
The Economist: What does it say about the modern workplace that these purposeless jobs exist?
Mr Graeber: One thing it shows is that the whole “lean and mean” ideal is applied much more to productive workers than to office cubicles. It’s not at all uncommon for the same executives who pride themselves on downsizing and speed-ups on the shop floor, or in delivery and so forth, to use the money saved at least in part to fill their offices with feudal retinues of basically useless flunkies.
They have whole teams of people who are just there, for instance, to design the graphics for their reports, write accolades for in-house magazines no one reads, or in many cases, who aren’t really doing anything at all, just making cat memes all day or playing computer games. But they are kept on because the prestige and even sometimes the salary of any given manager is measured by how many people he has working under him.
The more a company’s profits are derived from finance rather than from actually making and selling anything, the more this tends to be true. I call it “managerial feudalism.” But it’s not just the FIRE [financial, insurance and real estate] sector: you have a similar infestation of intermediary ranks in the creative industries as well. They keep adding new managerial positions in between the people producing stuff and the guys ultimately paying for it, often whose only role is to sit around all day trying to sell things to each other.
Health and education are equally hard hit: managers now feel they need to each have their little squadron of assistants, who often have nothing to do, so they end up making up new exotic forms of paperwork for the teachers, doctors, nurses… who thus have ever less time to actually teach or treat or care for anyone.
The Economist: You note that a lot of interesting jobs that entail creativity and status are concentrated in affluent cities. Do you think bullshit jobs have contributed to populism and polarisation?
Mr Graeber: I do. I think a lot of the—often quite legitimate—rancor directed at the “liberal elite” is based on resentment of those working-class people see as having effectively grabbed all the jobs where you’ll actually get paid well to do something that’s both fun and creative, but also, obviously benefits society. If you can’t afford to send your kid to a top college and then support them for 2-3 years doing unpaid internships in some place like New York or San Francisco, forget it, you’re locked out.
For everybody else, unless you get very lucky, your choices are largely limited to two options. You can get a basically bullshit job, which will pay the rent but leave you wracked with the guilty feeling that you are being forced, against your will, to be a fraud and a parasite. Or, you can get a helpful, useful job taking care of people, making or moving or maintaining things that people want or need – but then, likely you will be paid so little you won’t be able to take care of your own family.
There is an almost perfect inverse relation between how much your work directly benefits others, and remuneration. The result is a toxic political culture of resentment.
Those in the largely pointless jobs secretly resent teachers or even auto workers, who actually get to do something useful, and feel it’s outrageous when they demand nice salaries and health care and paid vacations too. Working class people who get to do mostly useful things, resent the liberal elite who grabbed all the useful or beneficial work which actually does pay well and treats you with dignity and respect.
Everyone hates the political class who they see (in my opinion, quite rightly) as basically a bunch of crooks. But all the other resentments make it very difficult for anyone to get together to do anything about it. To a large extent, our societies have come to be held together by envy and resentment: not envy of the rich, but in many cases, envy of those who are seen as in some ways morally superior, or resentment of those who claim moral superiority but who are seen as hypocritical.
The Economist: People tend to emotionally adjust to their circumstances, so is there any reason to believe that we would be dramatically more satisfied in a world free from drudgery?
Mr Graeber: The thing that surprised me was just how hard it was for so many people to adjust to what seemed like comparatively minor problems: basically, boredom and sense of purposelessness in life. Why couldn’t they just say, “Okay, so I’m getting something for nothing. Let’s just hope the boss doesn’t figure it out!”
But the overwhelming majority reported themselves to be utterly miserable. They reported depression, anxiety, psychosomatic illnesses that would magically disappear the moment they were given what they considered real work; awful sadomasochistic workplace dynamics.
As Dostoevsky said somewhere: if you want to totally destroy a prisoner psychologically, just make them dig a hole and fill it in again, over and over, all day long – and in some gulags, they actually tried that out as a form of torture and he was right, it worked. It drove people completely crazy. I think people can put up with even boring work if they know there’s a good reason to be doing it.
As an anthropologist, I know that leisure isn’t itself a problem. There’s plenty of societies where people work two-to-three hours a day maximum, and they find all sorts of interesting things to do with their time. People can be endlessly creative if you give them time to think.
The Economist: People in the West have more freedom to choose their careers than at any time in human history. Does liberalism deserve some credit for that and if so, are people not responsible for their own bullshit jobs?
Mr Graeber: Well if you talk to young people fresh out of college, you don’t hear a lot of them saying, “Ah, the world lies open before me … what then would I best do?”
Sure, you heard that a lot in the 1970s, 80s, even 90s: “What do I really want?” Now, not so much. Most graduates are in a panic over how they’re going to pay their student loans and the real dilemma you hear is: “Can I get a job that will actually pay me enough to live on (let alone be able to have a family someday) that I wouldn’t be entirely ashamed of?”
It’s the same trap I described above: how can you live a life that benefits others, or at least doesn’t hurt anyone in any obvious way, and still be able to take care of a family or the people that you love. And all the while there’s this endless drumbeat of what I call “rights-scolding,” and it comes from the left and right equally. It’s a moral invective towards young people as entitled and spoiled for expecting they deserve any of the things that their parents’ generation (who are usually the ones doing the scolding) took entirely for granted.
So I wouldn’t blame anyone for making the best they can of the situation. The question for me is: why isn’t this situation seen as a major social problem? I mean, if you count all the people who are in real work in support of bullshit jobs, all the cleaners or receptionists or drivers who don’t know that the company they’re working for is basically a tax dodge or somesuch, and the bullshitisation of real work, then maybe half of the work that’s being done is totally unnecessary.
Just think what kind of culture, music, science, ideas might result if all those people were liberated to do things they actually thought were important. So if the question is one of personal responsibility, I’d say: let’s just give everyone enough to live on, some sort of universal basic income, and say “okay, you’re all free now to decide for yourselves what you have to contribute to the world.”
Then, sure, we could say that people would be responsible for what they came up with. And sure, a lot of it would be nonsense. But it’s hard to imagine a full 40-50% would be doing nonsense, and that’s the situation that we have today. And if we get even one or two new Miles Davises or Einsteins or Freuds or Shakespeares out of the deal, I’d say we’d have more than made back our investment.’
And now back to the plastic scandal and facing the reality of cheap clothes made of… plastic! They shed plastic micro fibres and these end up everywhere, the water, fish, worms that fish eat and yep…us. Let’s get aware and get change rolling in so we don’t produce plastic clothes… Wool is great, organic cotton etc etc…
Up to 32,000 tonnes of microplastics enter British waterways each year, says Friends of the Earth
Vehicle tyres and synthetic clothing are the two leading contributors to microplastic pollution from UK households, according to a new report from Friends of the Earth.
The report estimates that between 9,000 and 32,000 tonnes of microplastic pollution enter British waterways each year from just four sources. The two leading sources are tyre abrasion, with between 7,000 and 19,000 tonnes entering surface waters each year, and clothing.
In the UK an estimated two-thirds of clothing is made from synthetic plastic material, according to analysts from Eunomia, who wrote the report for FoE.
Up to 2,900 tonnes of microplastics from the washing of synthetic clothingsuch as fleeces could be passing through wastewater treatment into our rivers and estuaries.
The scale of plastic pollution from household plastics is of the same magnitude as that from large plastic waste such as bottles and takeaway containers – about 26,000 tonnes of which enters UK waterways each year.
The environmental campaign group is calling on the government’s resources and waste strategy – expected next month – to include measures for tackling microplastics as part of a comprehensive action plan.
The four key contributors to microplastic pollution in the oceans from UK sources, according to the report, are:
- Vehicle tyres: 68,000 tonnes of microplastics from tyre tread abrasion are generated in the UK every year, with between 7,000 and 19,000 tonnes entering surface waters;
- Clothing: the washing of synthetic clothing could result in the generation of 2,300-5,900 tonnes of fibres annually in the UK – up to 2,900 tonnes of this could be passing through wastewater treatment into our rivers and estuaries;
- Plastic pellets used to manufacture plastic items. Up to 5,900 tonnes are lost to surface waters in the UK every year;
- Paints on buildings and road markings – weather and flake-off results in between 1,400 and 3,700 tonnes ending up in surface water every year.
Julian Kirby, FoE plastics campaigner, said: “It’s staggering that so little is being done to prevent thousands of tonnes of microplastic pollution from car tyres, clothing and paints pouring into our rivers and seas every year.
“Microplastic pollution may be largely invisible, but it’s having a potentially devastating effect on our natural environment – especially as it can be mistaken for food by some our smallest ocean creatures, which are then eaten by bigger creatures as part of the food chain.
“Ministers are right to be concerned about the impact of bags, straws and single-use coffee cups on our environment, but we mustn’t ignore the threat from tiny bits of plastic, too.”
Friends of the Earth is urging the government to consider a number of measures to tackle car tyre pollution, including a standardised test to measure tyre tread abrasion rate and a car tyre levy to pay for research into solutions, and to consider mitigation measures.’
I have to post this article, not just because it is tragic but because we need to know the reality of this situation. This shocked me but I am not despondent. I just think it’s important to publicise this because in knowing we can start to think, to find solutions, to teach children and to be fully present in knowing what the reality is. I don’t believe in giving up whatsoever, this is a crossroads and I know that humanity has the ability to avert disaster and to seek solutions and enact solutions. I know we have the potential and that we are limitless, I know this from my own experience and from the shared narrative of history.
Sperm whale washed up in Sulawesi had flip-flops, bottles, bags and 115 drinking cups in its stomach
A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including flip-flops and 115 drinking cups, a park official has said, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the world’s largest plastic polluting countries.
Rescuers from Wakatobi national park found the rotting carcass of the 9.5 metre (31ft) sperm whale on Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after receiving a report from environmentalists that villagers had surrounded the dead whale and were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said.
Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group WWF and the park’s conservation academy found about 5.9kg (13lbs) of plastic waste in the animal’s stomach containing 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, two flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.
“Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia.
She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whale’s death because of the animal’s advanced state of decay.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 260 million people, is the world’s second-largest plastic polluter after China, according to a study published in the journal Science in January. It produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29m tons ends up in the ocean, the study said.
Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime affairs, said the whale’s discovery should raise public awareness about the need to reduce plastic use, and had spurred the government to take tougher measures to protect the ocean.
“I’m so sad to hear this,” said Pandjaitan, who has campaigned for less use of plastic. “It is possible that many other marine animals are also contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous for our lives.”
He said the government was making efforts to reduce the use of plastic, including urging shops not to provide plastic bags for customers and teaching about the problem in schools nationwide to meet a government target of reducing plastic use by 70% by 2025.
“This big ambition can be achieved if people learn to understand that plastic waste is a common enemy,” he told The Associated Press.’
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