On the Outskirts of Paradise

April 29, 2022

Every time I travel Goleta’s main drag, Hollister Avenue, through the far western end of town, it depresses me. Strip malls and big box centers, multistory apartments and condominiums are jammed cheek by jowl where open fields dotted with scrub oak used to host birds, butterflies, and a thriving population of nature’s smaller denizens. It’s become far too big-city-like to be comfortable for those desiring a semi-rural living environment.

I realize I should be welcoming and openhearted with all the humans who are trying to squeeze into this highly desirable jewel of a community. But it’s just not in me to be welcoming at the moment. The traffic, the noise, the visual clutter are all anathema to the tranquility I long for and the peacefulness that used to imbue this area.

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It feels slightly selfish to want ample space, tranquility, and beauty around me. I resist assigning wrongness to that human desire, though. Compacted living space is not my ideal, but rather the vision of the globalists. It seems they want to jam the humans who survive their depopulation agenda into tiny urban dwellings and supply just enough resources for bare survival. Space, tranquility, and beauty are not deemed necessary resources in that master plan.

While doing research on another article, I learned about a proposed eleven-story, 1.5-million-square-foot dormitory designed to house some 4,500 UCSB students in predominantly windowless living cubicles. (1) The builders would cleverly substitute electronic screens showing the “outdoors,” and recirculated air, to make up for the lack of windows.

When I read that Charles Munger, the amateur architect of this monstrosity, is considered the righthand man of Warren Buffett, it made sense. (2) You will own nothing (and live in a windowless box) and be happy about it.

The dormitory design outraged numerous people, including a near-fifteen-year member of the architectural board of review for the University who resigned his post in protest. (3)

Thus sneaks in the sinister disguised as the sensible. Discard the standards of aesthetics and the human need for fresh air, spaciousness, and abundant natural light, and treat us as if we’re already robots, no longer encased in fully organic human flesh.

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I reckon the storyline of the Borg in Star Trek was some variety of predictive programming. Or perhaps a warning of where we could be headed.

The first episode I saw with the Borg left me feeling hollow and despairing. Although it was just science fiction, there was an arrow of truth from that squared-off, junkyard-y gigantic spaceship that streaked straight through time to my present-day life.

And when they tried to make Jean-Luc into a Borg, the horror went bone deep. Of course I knew it wouldn’t really happen (and it was fiction in the first place). But the notion of assimilating human intelligence and individuality into a hive where no one was individual and no one had private thoughts seemed all too possible.

It might be fanciful, but when I look over the sea of multistory rooftops where meadows used to stretch to the horizon and the small creatures of Gaia cohabited, I feel that the beginning of that Borg takeover has occurred with nary a protest, here on the outskirts of paradise.

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I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to stop the march of supposed progress that continues to winnow individual living space into smaller and smaller areas. Would this be one of the realities due for massive revamping as we push our way toward the New Earth? 

I assume so, although I can’t imagine how existing overcrowding in many populous areas of Earth can be remedied. I find hope in the refusal—so far—of my local community to allow the square, Borg-like dormitory to be plonked down within spitting distance of the nearby Pacific Ocean.

Santa Barbara gave birth to the modern environmental movement. It’s where Earth Day began. (4) We have a history of protecting our environment and wanting to live harmoniously with the abundant natural resources and beauty we’re gifted with.

If any community is well equipped to resist a Borg takeover, I have to believe it is this one. Resistance is not futile. Jean-Luc showed us the way—fiction or not.

(1) Local codes limit building height to four stories.

(2) “Vice chairman of famed holding company Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett’s right-hand man…” (https://www.forbes.com/profile/charles-munger/?sh=6e2d427d697a)

(3) “UC Santa Barbara’s proposed giant Munger Hall student housing project spurred national outcry…and left many local architects, community members and students stunned by the building’s ‘jail-like’ design.”  (https://www.noozhawk.com/article/proposed_ucsb_munger_hall_dorm_building_sparks_national_criticism)

(4) “One year after an estimated three million gallons of oil spilled off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, environmental activists, political leaders, and supporters gathered to raise concerns for our health and environment. April 22, 1970 became the first Earth Day marking the birth of the U.S. modern environmental movement.” (https://floridawildlifefederation.org/earth-day-the-largest-environmental-movement-in-history/)