A defining characteristic of paleo-Progressives is confused thinking and argument in which they contradict themselves, apparently without understanding that they have done so. This rant by Kenny Ausubel is a recent example.

This new world is being born right now before our eyes. It mimics the decentralized intelligence of living systems, the innate democracy of life...

What's called for is strong government leadership to reboot the system.

What is Ausubel recommending, a decentralized intelligence that mimics living systems or a centralized command and control authoritarian system reminiscent of the steam age? It is clear from the rest of the rant that Ausubel's affections are for authoritarian, even fascist totalitarian systems, so long as they are simpatico with his values, so long as he is the supreme leader.

Ausubel seems to have a problem thinking large thoughts, he's unable to scale up insights gleened from examination of small natural systems to the size of societies. The fascinating and admirable nature of complex biological systems, their decentralized intelligence, is recognized at a small scale but Ausubel doesn't look closely enough to understand the dynamics of such systems. One consequence of this partial understanding is the inability to recognize, or admire, large versions of these systems.

Natural systems are not pretty, they are beautiful... terribly beautiful. Their resilience combines heart stopping loveliness and symmetry with cruelty, brutality and seemingly senseless destruction. Natural systems have no respect for tradition. They completely remake their localities, their regions and even the whole world, heedlessly destroying everything that was in pursuit of their narrow interests. Nothing, or everything, is sacred. They have done this since the beginning of time and will continue till the end, whether humans are part of nature or not.

Confusion about humans may be Ausubel's central blindness. He asserts that "Life is intimacy interconnected. As a culture we've made a basic systems error to believe that we exist somehow separate from nature", but everything he says compounds this error, increases the separation, defining humans out of nature and assigning them a controlling, godly role. But he thinks there are too many such gods with too much freedom. They need to be culled and controlled, harnessed to Ausubel's totalitarian vision. He's another tedious anti-humanist.

Enough of his dark and angry delusion. Natural systems are elegant and instructive. It is useful to recognize that biological systems are fractal, that patterns repeat themselves from the smallest to the largest scales over the shortest to longest time periods. The society and economy of a vernal pool is very loosely analogous to that of ponds, lakes, seas and worlds. Humans are part of this, animals like any other species. The changes humans make in pursuing their interests are no different than those of any other species that has ever lived. Nothing is unchanging except perhaps the heatless emptiness of vacuum.

Humans are new, they have only existed for a brief time. It would be unnatural, impossible, for this new species to somehow fail to change the environments it inhabits. Over the last few thousand years humans have occupied and gentrified the planet, transforming hostile environments into gardens and parks. Like any other species it adapted to change, was created by change, coevolved with the rest of the biosphere.

There was no plan, no design, no great leader. There were little leaders that attempted to simplify the complex and fractal reality of natural systems to fit their dim understandings of propriety. Those degraded systems that they produced died, as we should expect. They were simplified to death by Unanimous Fallacies. They all committed the arrogant blunder of taking control and collectivizing humans.

Life isn't safe, comfortable or sustainable; it is resilient. Resilience is a consequence of adaptability, it could not be otherwise. The globalization and uncontrolled development of the world that Ausubel dislikes and fears is how biological systems work. They adapt and thrive, or fail to adapt and wither. We are aware of evolution and have repeatedly mistaken our dim consciousness of the process for the power to control it. Not a chance. Perhaps homo futuris will be so vast, but not homo sapiens. The best we can do is what every other animal does; tell a friend. We can share what we have learned with others so that they might do well, and we can learn from others so that we might do better. The scope of our awareness increases with globalization and enhanced communication, in effect making more humans our neighbors and so allowing increased promiscuity in our conversational copulations.

Humans don't require persuasion or control to adapt to change, we only require information. In this we are like the beasties in pond scum. What may appear to the myopic as organized or even controlled behavior is only responses by individuals to environmental changes and the opinions of neighbors. The narrow experience of dim and fearful individuals like Ausubel shape their opinions. Those opinions have value as do the opinions of all others. Hopefully, you have access to better information and less deranged opinions too.