Hi. My name is Tony Wall. I’m the founder of Noesis, and I’m happy today to get a chance to place a finer point on a few central themes that you’ll find here at Noesis. The website that our donors and members access is full diverse subject matters, but a few of them will and must remain front and center. Among them is what I generally call, “Misaligned Force”. We might also call it, “Excessive Force”.
If human beings don’t get this phenomenon under control, the fallout might by itself allow Humanity – US – to accidentally and suddenly select ourselves for extinction.
There’s that awful phrase: Human Extinction! If you suddenly wish to find the nearest exit at this point, it means that you are very…. NORMAL. Who wants to discuss the idea of Human Extinction?
Here’s what I have to say about that, and I say it with respect. SOMEONE HAS TO THINK ABOUT IT, AND THAT SOMEONE IS NOESIS. As we ponder this possible fate, will we be planning the most comfortable crash course for Humanity? Quite the opposite, we’ll be planning our ACTIVE AVOIDANCE of that fate. That very hopeful and sincere mission should be enough to keep you listening.
I’m foresworn to go to my grave in attempting to actively steer around the possible, but wholly unnecessary end of our species, for my children and yours. This isn’t intended to alarm anyone. If you’re uncomfortable, try to hover over your discomfort, as I make a few central observations.
Folks, the idea that Humanity cannot select itself for extinction by its own hand is, well, preposterous. What supports such a statement? How’s this: it’s known that 95% of the species that ever existed on Planet Earth are now extinct. If we’re keeping score, that number comes in at a cool 5 Billion species. Since the dawn of life here on Earth, 5 billion species have checked in, and then subsequently checked out. In all cases, their demise was traceable to any number of things that made their continuing existence unsustainable.
Do you still think that Humanity is immune to this fate? Well, then, how about this. As I speak – in the present moment – we’ve yet to meet 4 of every 5 species thought to currently exist here on Earth. We’ve catalogued just shy of 2 million species. There are thought to be 10,000,000. Let me be clear: Humans basically have no idea how we got here, or how we’re leaving. That would naturally ignite an existential crisis for sentient beings like us. We ponder our own existence. We now need to summon the courage to ponder the end of our existence.
Let’s not fret over our growing sense of freefall. Instead, let’s get busy managing it, with the specific intent of surviving! Let’s not HIDE from these realities. Let’s instead own them, and by extension, let’s choose action-based methodology in AVOIDING a wholly unnecessary fate. My message once again arrives at HOPEFUL and REMEDIAL.
In order to survive ourselves, let’s first pretend that we didn’t. Let’s pretend that we in fact select ourselves for extinction by our own hand. Let’s have the courage right now to IMAGINE it, so that we can summon the courage to AVOID it.
The smoking gun for human extinction, the extinction that doesn’t have to happen, will be this one simple thing. I call it generally, Misaligned Force. If those two words, Misaligned Force, mean little to you now, then stay with me as I explain it. Most of us concern themselves with climate change. So do I! Many of us wonder if we’ll need to survive a nuclear event. So do I! What I fear most, however, is the phenomenon of “Misaligned Force”. It needs to be understood and brought under control.
So, here we go. When I explain central concerns, I often choose a simple and straightforward analogy. I’ll do that again right now.
Let’s imagine that we all live in the same neighborhood. Let’s imagine we’re all neighbors. One Sunday morning, I decide to clean out my basement. All of us can easily relate to that chore, right? With my two active teenaged boys, my basement was often a disaster area. We all relegate the things we no longer need to the basement. Fair enough?
All of you, as my neighbors, watch as a tractor-trailer pulls up to my house one Sunday morning. You would all be curious, right? “Why does Tony have a tractor-trailer in front of his house?”
As you all look on, the trailer is unloaded. Now your curiosity doubles! On this trailer, there is a large street sweeping machine, and there are also ten 55-gallon drums of industrial cleaning fluids. You all wonder, “why does Tony have 550 gallons of cleaning fluids?
Finally, one of you decides to investigate this unfolding curiosity. You approach me, and we exchange pleasantries. With that done, you sheepishly ask,
“Tony, what are you plan on doing with all of these powerful industrial items?”
In a very serious tone, I tell you, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m cleaning out my basement”.
Because I tell you this with a straight face, you deduce that I’m serious, and you’re concerned that I’ve lost my wits. You sit me down, and you explain:
“Tony, you have a 500 square foot basement. You’ve chosen tools and chemicals whose power is not PROPERLY ALIGNED with the described task. You bring MISALIGNED FORCE to bear upon a minor chore. Have you lost your mind?”
Because I am in fact sane, I’d easily agree. But, if I were to continue choosing this type of MISALIGNED FORCE, your worry would escalate. Finally, when I show up with a farm combine to cut my half-acre lawn, you, my friends and neighbors, would be compelled to place me under psychiatric oversight, for my and everyone else’s safety. And your choice would be a prudent one.
I hope that everyone got a little chuckle out of that overblown story. That was the intent. I chose a funny scenario to define a not-so-funny concern among human beings
When we’re through laughing, let’s get down to business on this matter. My story is not nearly so silly when we realize that human beings routinely bring misaligned force against other human beings, in solving our ongoing and endless conflicts.
In fact, I’ll go much further:
MISALIGNED FORCE, ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN ITS MANY FORMS, IS KILLING OUR SPECIES. What do I mean?
Consider these rhetorical questions:
- Would you use a hurricane to blow out a candle?
- Would you tap into the Mississippi River to extinguish a pack of matches?
- Would you hire a helicopter to go to the grocery store?
None of these behaviors would occur to anyone. And why? Because the forces I just described are MISALIGNED with the jobs they’re called to do.
If we would not make these choices, then why do human beings bring forces of total erasure to bear upon ideas and opinions that don’t appeal to us, or that differ from our own? And, why is this phenomenon, the one that’s occurring all over the world, both locally between individuals, and across the globe between countries, getting WORSE and WORSE every day?
I’ve made my point. Let me now bring this exercise in for a landing. What we all think looks like the end of the world, as people increasingly get at each other’s throats for the crime of disagreement, are examples of MISALIGNED FORCE. What we see deeply troubles us, and it should.
It will trouble us less when we reveal what’s at the HEART of it. It’s this:
As we all watch with increasing concern, as things increasingly fall apart all around us, we’re not seeing what we THINK we’re seeing. Increasingly EXTREME human behavior reveals a species that’s behaving normally. You didn’t see that interpretation coming, did you?
Humanity has arrived now, in the present day, at the only place that increasingly frightened creatures can arrive. To protect ourselves from what we don’t understand, we circle the wagons a bit tighter. Our tribal defaults have quite naturally worsened into an extremely pronounced “Us v. Them” reality. We’ve awakened the wrecking ball called MISALIGNED FORCE. This ancient mechanism of annihilation is awakened today, in order to extinguish our fully misguided and largely subconscious belief that we’re fighting battles that in fact NO LONGER EXIST.
As an example, let’s consider that political opinion that we fully invalidated the other night? Why would we fully extinguish the opinion of another, as if it were an insect, unless we’re misinterpreting what we’re looking at. In fully ERASING that harmless opinion, we think that we’re fighting a battle for our lives. Why? Because these subconscious forces of protection that rule over us have no capacity to modulate their behavior. They know only one thing–to fully vanquish that which threatens them. The opinions that we fully erase by our invalidation are the sabre-tooth tigers that no longer EXIST.
This dynamic gets worse, if that’s even possible. The misaligned force that all of us routinely bring to erase things that don’t add up to much, then ignite EQUALLY MISALIGNED REACTIONS from those they target. We’re creating these storms of perpetual conflict every day, all day, all over the world, and we have no idea that we’re even involved in this madness.
If I brush up against someone’s girlfriend in a bar, I might die in the ensuing fistfight. Misaligned Force. If another man digs out a parking space in a snowstorm, and he later finds my car parked in it, he may hunt me down and kill me. Misaligned Force.
So, what do we do now? You’ve exposed a few concerns, Tony. Now what? Let me pose a few alternative scenarios that might bring about a more PROPERLY ALIGNED form of future conflict.
- What if we came to learn that the dangers we SEE are in fact something much less? Over a great expanse of time, through repetitive education, might we more correctly judge any given threat, and then bring an aligned response to remedy it?
- Would forces that are properly aligned with the threat not bring about a lesser REACTION from our targets?
- Would these now-properly-aligned scenarios not yield LESSER, as opposed to PERPETUAL, conflict?
- Would this described result, applied all over the world, over the course of decades, through vehicles of education, cause us to bring the IMPOSITION OF THOUGHT to bear upon the current madness that I describe. The answer is yes! We’d no longer feel the need to protect what was never in danger.
None of these maddening churns of useless defaults to conflict are anyone’s FAULT. Blame has no place here or anywhere else. Who accepts our blame? No One! We frightened and confused human beings are simply gripped by evolutionary compulsions of protection that DON’T KNOW that their ferocity no longer applies. What can be identified and understood, can also be managed. At Noesis, we’re here to manage it.
These forces turn us into wrecking machines, and they’re completely invisible to all of us. We’re aware of our behavior, but we’re meant to assist others, and to be assisted by others. We don’t like what we are, because we don’t understand ourselves. Let’s be troubled by all of it, but let’s no longer wonder why this is happening to us.
Listen closely to this, please:
IT’S NOT OUR FAULT. Let’s forgive ourselves. Let’s bring these forces into view. More than that, let’s OWN them. All of us are lost in the same woods. Blame will yield to Empathy, if we give it time.
The battering ram known as Misaligned Force is a symptom. It is not a disease. The more you know, the better.
About this Video:
When humans imposed laws upon our behavior, darker compulsions were forced into hiding.
Laws allowed humans to toil in relative safety. A period of discovery and social acceleration came from it.
Unfortunately, the compulsions we banished never noticed the absence of their ancient enemies. These baser compulsions are not thinking mechanisms. They activate many times faster than the thinking brain.
Humanity now arrives into the present day, heavily overmatched by the immensity of its evolutionary past. Unresolved compulsions and impulses still hunt for long-dead enemies.
Benign events are highly misinterpreted by modern humans. Misaligned responses to these misinterpretations descend into perpetual conflict.
Perpetuated human conflict was and remains the child of misinterpreted threats.
Billions of these misinterpretations occur every day. Misaligned force, with its perpetuated and monetized conflicts, is the only arrival point. Humans are not meant to be in battle against our own.
CONCLUSION: Not Survivable.
THE MORE YOU KNOW, THE BETTER.
In the below videos, Tony places a finer point on several topics of the video “Who is Noēsis?”