DOI: 10.1093/9780197908280.003.0003 ISSN:

The Existential Crisis

Pasi Heikkurinen
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Abstract

Chapter 2 describes the internal and external variants of the existential crisis. It tells the reader what we already know, namely, that humanity is transforming nature too much, producing an ecological overshoot, and it is a threat to itself and others; that cultures with high matter-energetic throughput (the ones that are unsustainable) need to slow down their metabolism; that we must renounce technologism to slow down this earthbound metabolism; and that this process of de-growth is absolute. We either grow or de-grow; there is no position available where entropy could remain stable. We must decide whether we become sustainable or wither away.

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