The system we do not understand: how the living foundations of the world are being destroyed

“System” is the key word of the modern world.

A word that conveys the mood of our time.

A word that defines the direction of development in science, technology, and society as a whole.

It is no coincidence that everyone is now talking about “banking ecosystems,” “urban ecosystems,” or “industrial enterprise ecosystems.” Although such so-called “ecosystems” should be treated with great caution. At best, these are attempts to present wishful thinking as reality. No technical or anthropogenic system can yet compare in complexity to natural ecosystems. All of them are significantly simpler.

At worst, we are witnessing a substitution of concepts, where we begin to attribute the properties of Living Systems to various kinds of necro-systems. To beings that are dead from the outset, mere cadavers imitating the complexity of living systems. To nonviable Frankensteins of various kinds.

But the overall direction is understandable and correct.

First, at our core, we are living organisms. Living Systems ourselves, existing in accordance with systemic principles.

Second, our society is also a Living System.

Third, we ourselves, together with the techno-world of our cities that we are building, are embedded in the real Living Systems of biogeocenoses. Ultimately, in the Biosphere of planet Earth.

I repeat these thoughts again and again in many different variations.

There is nothing new in this, and there are many books written centuries ago in which systemic principles are described quite clearly.

But…

…the authorities ignore even an elementary understanding of systems.

…and despite compulsory secondary education, many people still do not understand what Living Systems are. Yes, they heard something in the school biology course. But they never really understood it.

Let me again give examples of situations in which systemic principles should theoretically be understood by those who make decisions on behalf of society as a whole. On behalf of each one of us.

But in practice, decisions are made that ignore basic systemic principles. That ignore even the elementary foundations of ecology from the school biology curriculum.

First.

The “relocation” of rare (“Red Book”) plants.

Anyone who has ever planted or replanted an apple tree in their own garden — or even just a currant bush — knows that it is not so simple. It must be done in spring or autumn. It must be done according to certain horticultural practices. But even then, the plant will “be sick” after planting and may fail to take root altogether.

With wild species, everything is even more complicated. They are embedded within a particular ecosystem. Many of them cannot be transplanted at all. They do not establish themselves, and even specialists do not always know exactly why they fail to do so.

But the real leader in the ranking not only of misunderstanding basic ecosystem principles, but of sheer illiteracy bordering on clinical idiocy, is the “relocation of fungi.” Just like the ban on collecting the fruiting bodies of certain fungal species, these are highly dubious and strange innovations in legislation.

Note.

The fruiting body of a fungus is only the reproductive part of the fungal organism, formed from the intertwined hyphae of the mycelium. The function of the fruiting body is the production of spores arising through sexual reproduction. In everyday speech, the fruiting body is usually called simply a “mushroom.” These are exactly the “mushrooms” that officials try to “protect” or “relocate” for the sake of the commercial exploitation of nature reserves. Although what must be protected is the entire ecosystem — it is impossible to preserve rare fungal species, and indeed plant species in general, separately from the ecosystem that contains them.

Second example.

Reforestation as a process of replacing natural biocenoses with planted forest stands.

Accounting practices that equate square kilometers of “restored” forest with natural ecosystems are blatant and extreme falsehood. “Rows of planted trees” are in no way equal to complex natural ecosystems. They are not viable biogeocenoses, but only something that might potentially become such in 200 years, given a number of conditions and a fortunate combination of circumstances. Right now, however, this serves as justification for writing off — and stealing — budget funds, while also creating food and breeding grounds for hordes of forest insect pests, as well as fuel for forest fires.

Third.

The seizure of nature reserves by commercial corporations affiliated with the state in order to scale up tourism projects.

The “magical transformation” of strict nature reserves into “national parks.”

As a result, genuinely protected territories, where human interference used to be limited, are now being replaced by formally protected territories.

This is being pushed through literally step by step:

• first tourism and tourist routes;
• then ski resorts and hunting as an “exception”;
• then the “relocation of rare plants,” the “removal of protected areas as having lost their value,” and permission to hunt rare animal species in National Parks already at the level of full-scale development on legal grounds.

Mineral extraction is next in line — at this pace, reserves will very soon truly “lose their value,” and then they can easily be removed from the lists of protected areas.

These are only three examples of problems in the living system of our society. In essence, they are diseases of our society. The moment when all of us together become not the mind of the planet, but a destructive force.

The idea of the Biosphere developing into the Noosphere, into a sphere of the разумной evolution of Life on the planet, is already more than a century old. And personally, I see no other option: either we learn to govern complexity, or we destroy ourselves.

© PAVEL PASHKOV