For a long time, I thought that we have to separate #socialjustice issues from #environmental and #sustainability issues in order to solve either.

I thought all of these were too complex in themselves, and entangling them would complicate the solutions even more.

I now think I was wrong. Environmental and sustainability issues ARE social justice issues. What's more, I don't believe an unjust society can ever be sustainable.

So it's a choice between justice or judgment day.

In my view, #humanity is in the grip of a two-pronged problem:

1. unsustainable use of the #Earth and its resources
2. #technology constantly increases the powers of the few.

These processes feed each other: more powerful technologies enable more #exploitation, and exploitation increases pressures to compete with more powerful technologies.

As a result, the Earth-system's margins of safety erode, and cascading disasters become more likely by day.

This vicious cycle has to be broken before it breaks our human #civilization .

I've given the matter considerable thought yet haven't found durable solutions - except one:

distribution of #power .

To stop the cycles of exploitation and prevent new ones,

1. No being should have so little power that exploiting them is easy;
2. No being should have so much power that exploiting others is easy.

In other words, I believe #democracy is THE answer.

Every alternative to #democracy requires steep #hierarchy - some beings having unilateral power to make decisions over others.

And then we're back at the problem of benevolent dictatorship: they invariably become mere dictatorships in short order.

What's more, a hierarchical society incentivises #competition .

Hierarchies force everyone to compete. Either for a higher position, or to avoid losing position: in a hierarchy, those at the bottom are at the mercy of the more powerful.

The steeper the hierarchies, the greater the rewards for the winners of the competition... and the greater the penalties for the losers.

Over time, this tends to make existing hierarchies even steeper. And competition more cutthroat.

In a world where infectious horsepox can already be assembled from mail-order RNA for $100 000 or less, cutthroat competition WILL lead to a disaster.

And #technology marches on. While #environmental margins of safety erode.

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-canadian-researchers-reconstituted-extinct-poxvirus-100000-using-mail-order-dna

The ONLY truly #sustainable solution for this two-pronged problem is, I firmly believe, #democracy .

Share #power and #resources fairly and equitably.

THEN it may be possible to set safe, universally respected #limits to the use of powerful technologies and finite resources.

Because only fair, democratic sharing

a. reduces the pressure to compete, and
b. gives those in danger of being exploited enough power and resources to defend themselves.

Only in #democracy the grassroots groups of concerned citizens can reliably amass enough power and influence to stand against the encroachment of the powerful few.

Checks and balances.

A sustainable society needs powerful checks and balances, especially if it hopes to keep using powerful technologies.

The best bet for good enough checks and balances is to share the power to check and balance broadly and fairly.

That is, democratically.

Therefore, sustainability requires democracy.

I would never claim that #democracy is a silver bullet that solves everything.

I wouldn't even claim that democracy is automatically sustainable. Current democracies aren't.

I only claim that democracy is the least bad of all the alternative proposals, let alone experiments, of running an industrial society.

And I claim that there are some democracies that do better than others.

The Nordic social democratic model consistently wins just about every metric measuring societal success.

The #Nordic social democracies are far from perfect, and there are worrying signs that they may be sliding to the right.

But the basic #welfare state model remains extremely popular in the Nordics.

Even the right-wing parties CAMPAIGN on a platform to SAVE THE WELFARE STATE.

The Nordic model is popular because it works.

The Nordic model is also the best existing template, or springboard, for a #sustainable society.

That's why I joined a Social Democratic think tank, and that's what I do.

So here, in a (fairly large) nutshell, is why I say #democracy is non-negotiable.

I also happen to think that democracies have to protect each other. If democrats are divided, authoritarians can pick us off one by one.

For instance, #Russia has to lose the genocidal war it's waging in #Ukraine .

Any other result would encourage autocrats and very likely lead to more war in the future.

Hence, I'm a cautious supporter of #neoidealism . A great overview is here:

https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-rise-of-the-new-idealists

I'd be very happy to connect with anyone who wants to hear more, tell me something, or just ponder how to promote #democracy , #justice and #decency in this world.

The world is a mess, but I remain an optimist.

#Activism works, and many things have genuinely much improved from my youth.

Deployment of #renewable #energy is accelerating, faster than most people (me included) believed possible.

There will be defeats, losses and tragedies. But there will be victories, gains and triumphs too.

@milesizdead you are doing EXTREMELY important work!

I too was so very frustrated with #democracy when I was young. I think it is somewhat inevitable, but at least for me, reading #history helped a lot.

As did the realization - through reading history - that slowness is not just a bug, it's a feature too.

New ideas are hard to implement rapidly. Which protects us when the new ideas are bad.

Here's even a mathematical explanation of why that's good :D

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959137/