Patrick Arnesen, July 2022, more details? Full Introduction
The Arcology Channel proposes a novel strategy for addressing many of our world’s most urgent problems, such as the need for climate change adaptation, environmental sustainability, less wealth inequality, healthier communities, stabilized population demographics and the defense of democracy and freedom. It shows how green, climate-proof towns and cities can be built and made to flourish, by taking advantage of a reformed socio-economic system.
It may seem like the height of hubris to attempt to solve all these problems at once, but the Arcology Channel is based on the key insight that, contrary to intuition, it may be very difficult to deal with them individually. Instead, they can, and perhaps must be, addressed as a whole.
The reason for this is the fact that our socio-economic system is a system, much like a machine, with interconnected cogs and wheels, it has complex relationships between its political, financial, corporate, social, media and legal institutions. These institutions depend on and reinforce one another, such that deep reforms in any one area would stress or break the countless other subsystems that depend on it. Therefore, such reforms are nearly always rejected by the system as a whole. What’s more, such reforms almost always run afoul of the problem of world views, whereby they will appear radical, or even incoherent, when evaluated by people immersed in the beliefs and conventions of our existing system.
It’s because of these problems that countless well-meaning social movements have failed to make meaningful progress, and why, despite all their efforts, our systemic problems grow worse.
The Arcology Channel is born of a sense of urgency. The world faces an immanent catastrophe stemming from our failure to address climate change. It seems clear that we will not curtail our C02 emissions in time to avoid a cascading series of tipping points, after which feedback loops in the Earth’s own natural systems will release vast amounts of additional greenhouse gasses. The resulting Hothouse Earth scenario, as described by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will degrade basic eco-services, such rainfall and temperature regulation, that our civilizations are predicated on, to the point of widespread collapses, famines, wars, and ultimately, megadeath.
The key insight is that a systems-based problem demands a systems-based solution. By analogy, one would never try to ‘reform’ a steam locomotive to turn it into an electric train by gradually replacing one component at a time. The new components would be incompatible with the old ones and you’d have a broken train. It makes far more sense to build new electric trains from scratch, to gradually replace the old ones.
Thus the solution is not to attempt individual, deep societal reforms that would face overwhelming resistance, but to build a new, internally consistent, self-supporting socio-economic system, with its own unique set of interdependent subsystems, and then to show how it can be funded, built, and replicated. Over time, societies based on the new system will flourish and spread, much like how an adaptive mutation can spread through the population of a species, allowing it to survive a hostile change to its habitat.
The Arcology Channel shows how this can be done. It pulls together diverse ideas from the fields of civil, software, and environmental engineering, law, economics, and the social sciences. Individually they are not practical in today’s world, but together, they form a working whole.
Front and center is the concept of the Arcology. Dating back as far as the 1960s, it envisions a highly technological, car-free city, that harmonizes with nature and supports a high standard of living. The city internally produces its own power, water, and food. It controls its temperature and humidity and closes its ecological and waste cycles. Even under permanent drought conditions and above 50C (122F) temperatures that will soon be common around the world, an arcology can flourish.
However, arcologies need steady-state, closed-loop systems, and are incompatible with our current economic and financial systems, which disincentivize long-term thinking and over-prioritize economic growth. To address this, The Arcology Channel introduces a set of mutually supporting systems, including a new form of digital currency, private enterprise based on democratic corporations, intentional villages, democratic reforms, and an expanded single-payer model for delivering a wide range of social services. Combined with the intentional design of the cities, these adaptive changes will produce a highly efficient society, which will make arcologies affordable, increase leisure time, and gradually fix the world’s demographic crisis.
The Arcology Channel proposes a phased plan. It starts with a campaign to raise awareness, focusing on a message of hope. It recommends site locations and strategies for finance and the required legal framework. It outlines a ‘deal’ that could be struck with a host nation to mutual benefit, allowing the two different economies to peacefully co-exist and support one another. It shows how to reduce cost by bootstrapping the new socio-economic model, before and during construction. Finally, it identifies the necessary preconditions for success.
In the face of the grim climate conditions that will soon become the new normal over much of the world, the only societies that will remain viable will be those that can protect their people and agriculture from extremes of drought and heat. The Arcology Channel shows how this can be done while also improving quality of life. It may be a key tool to avoiding the famines, wars and population displacements that will be our default if we do nothing.
Next: Read the Full Introductory Essay
Contact: patrick@thearcologychannel.org