Why can't we, as Aldo Leopold exhorted us to, "think like a mountain"?
Failure to recognize that important processes happen across many scales can lead to disastrous outcomes.
Long time scales:
Civilizations may "pulse" with rises and falls.
- Mayan - M. Harris 1977
- Italy - Putnam 1993
- Easter Island - cultural elaboration
Energy and society
- Exploitation of ample resources followed by decline
- "The Prosperous Way Down" - Odum and Odum 2001
Cultural perceptions of time:
Comparing - in a broad sense (Hall and others)
- type 1
- time is continuous and orderly
- focus on the near future (Americans especially)
- can't perceive longer term environmental constraints
- type 2
- type 3
- honoring ancestors leads to focus on repeating the past
- type 4
Personal perceptions of time:
human time scale - on a log scale (1 min/ 10 min/ 2hr/ 24 hrs/ week/ season/ year/ decade/ lifetime)
stages of life
- major changes each 5 years up to about 20 overshadows external events
- early adulthood and family are major distractions also
Brain function:
making choices over a short time uses a different part of the brain than long term
- FPET
- examples:
- borrow money for tomorrow vs. one year from now
- gambling - odds of winning vs loosing are perceived asymmetrically
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