Alex Steffen @AlexSteffen
What Houston shows us, yet again, is that we live in a world of predatory delay.
Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.
For delay to be truly predatory, those engaged in it need to know two things: That they're hurting others and that there are other options.
When folks know they're unnecessarily causing damage, they have a moral choice to make: Do they find another way to make money—or dig in?
A generation has failed this moral test. Old people have mostly chosen to dig in their heels—and lie to themselves about what they're doing.
Whether we're talking about the housing crisis, the climate crisis, the defense of autodependence or the impoverishment of America's kids...
It's all one big dynamic. Older people getting rich—unprecedentedly rich—by dismissing their obligations to society & young people's future.
And in all of these cases, the desire to not be called out on their predatory behavior has lead to the embrace of alternative facts.
"Building housing doesn't make housing more accessible."
"Cars are here to stay."
"I pay too many taxes."
The result has been what we all can see: A nation whose neglected systems are coming unglued at the seams as it heads into planetary crisis.
Faced with that crisis, we hear the chorus of profitable inaction: gradualism, incrementalism and a "realism" that ignores physical reality
But actual based-in-reality realism is our status quo breeds catastrophes, and we need to remake the systems around us at breakneck speed.
We know the costs of delay are already staggering—but also that the potential for sustainable and widely shared prosperity is enormous.
We also know that we're surrounded by steepening problems: Every day, our challenges become increasingly harder to solve—speed is everything
We are asked constantly to cheerily ignore the lies that make delaying change possible, in the name of respecting differences of opinion.
We're told that change must prove itself before we undertake it, mindful of real estate profits, coal jobs, easy commutes
Well, pardon me, but fuck that.
All of it.
When the status quo is both destructive and deceptive, those working to create needed change owe those benefiting from delay exactly nothing
There is no moral equivalence in the choice of disruptive rapid action and comfortable delay followed by disaster,
Those of us who are ready to create a sustainable, equitable future have the wildest permission imaginable to deliver it however we can.
The time has long passed when we should presume good faith and honest intentions from those who embrace lies to perpetuate predatory delay.
If this crazy year offers us any gift, it's a note of clarity.
It's out of clarity that speed emerges.
It's speed that is our best hope.
We know that when the flood waters in Houston recede, that same chorus will start up again, that same bullshit will spin back up.
Whether we accept it—whether we treat predatory delay as normal behavior or call it out and demand bold, rapid change instead—is up to us.