(Thanks for the ping, Whenifhow)
The Comedian's "Economic Holocaust" ping list...
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 01/29/2011 6:08:32 AM PST by Whenifhow
That birds fly and pigs don't is a consequence of laws of nature governing physics and biology. Nothing that transpires on physical planet Earth is any different: the laws of nature are inviolate. Always. [1]
This is a truism, and should be readily apparent, as it indeed often is in indigenous cultures where people are entirely dependent on natural forces and what is close at hand. But this truism is rendered invisible by technological and bureaucratic power, the delusional quality of human exceptionalism, and the complexity of civilizations, especially but not exclusively of recent industrialized civilization.
That is, we have imagined throughout the known history of the past ten thousand friendly-climate years that, because from time to time we have been able to use the laws of nature to our short- and long-term advantage, we are no longer subject to them. Current instances are encyclopedic: Use of fossil fuels, the Green Revolution, atomic energy, widespread dispersion of toxics, and entering the sixth great extinction are recent examples. We persistently act as if unintended consequences do not exist.
Nonetheless, such consequences abound, and are forcefully shaping our lives. If we are to address causes and consequences, whether we fully understand them or not, it's essential to be open to and explore perspectives that may be very different from prevailing ones.
Cultures evolve because they provide us with effective ways of surviving the environmental hand we are dealt, but cultures are powerful regulators of human behavior and thought, and tend to persist despite changes which may render their central assumptions dysfunctional or lethal (e.g., we can pollute and desertify the planet to our heart's content).
The culture which drives us, whether we deplore it or not, likes us to go around in activism circles whenever we threaten to question its most basic tenets -- activism keeps us busy and harmless. Notwithstanding, the forbidden point to consider here is that collapse of civilizations, including ours, is inevitable and always has been. Hidden in plain sight, we have not grasped what will sooner or later become obvious: Civilizational collapse is not up to any of us, no matter what we do. As when faced with an unstoppable Hurricane Katrina, which is only obeying the laws of nature, the best we can do is to be prepared.
To elaborate a bit: there are indeed laws of nature that govern human groups, just as there are physical/biological laws that govern any living creature. This seems as if it should be obvious. These laws, particularly in relationship to civilizations, may not be so obvious as the laws governing the behavior of a falling apple, but they are every bit as inviolable.
In order to live within the constraints of such laws, which civilized humans habitually seem to forget (not only in Euro-American civilization, but in all other civilizations throughout known history), we have to re-learn them (a central theme in Ishmael) [2]. And by "civilization," I mean human societies more or less larger than chiefdoms, industrialized or not, living in central dwellings more or less distant from sources of food and other necessities, with a distinct class structure that differentiates between a ruling oligarchy and everybody else.
What kinds of laws are these? Pretty simple really. Primarily, any biological organism, including humans, will grow exponentially until it runs into limits to growth, or overshoot of carrying capacity. The wall may be in the form of no more food, or competing species, or new competing members of one's own species. Sometimes a balance is struck, and an equilibrium is maintained for an indefinite period of time if and until an external event upsets the balance (e.g., a new species in the niche, climate change, etc.).
A critical corollary is that exponential growth is an imperative. Any species will expand its numbers if it possibly can for as long as it can.
Now with humans sometimes culture adapts to perceptions of limits, and develops norms that restrict expansion of self-defeating growth (China's one-child policy is an example of such an attempt, successful or not); island cultures may do that because the limits are painfully obvious. But, as on Easter Island, ecosystem reality may remain unappreciated, as people would often rather die than change their culture, and die they did.
As civilizations grow larger the ability to change seems to dwindle, and we witness all civilizations in history going through their birth, vigor, then death, until, as in Ozymandias [3],
. . . Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that collosal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.
In one of my top ten books of the 20th century, Joseph Tainter (The Collapse of Complex Societies) [4] explains, in terms of the flow of energy (he calls it "marginal return"), why civilizations must collapse. Social complexity is very expensive, and the more a civilization grows the less you get back per unit of input (also called "diminishing returns"). Sooner or later every civilization busts its budget, cannot afford its armies or its bureaucracies, is unable to suppress increasing dissatisfaction among the masses who must be at least nominally pacified (think bread and circuses), exhausts its resources, suffers from its environmental travesties (the most salient of which is destruction of trees and soil), runs out of food, and is eventually supplanted by simpler more sustainable groups (if there are any around) or just disperses (if there's any place left to disperse to).
I would propose that the civilizational life cycle, as described above, is a law of nature. The collapse is therefore predictable. It has nothing to do with our specific Euro-American now-gone-global deplorable civilization -- it has to do with any civilization that gets to a certain size, necessitating hierarchy and class. Cultures will vary in their metaphors and style, partly depending upon geography, as Jared Diamond has pointed out [5], but the final outcome will be the same: collapse.
And that's where we are now. The determining factor is size (relative to resources). All else is simply the stories we tell ourselves. Therefore:
We can write to politicians, we can riot in the streets, we can write learned tomes, we can cavort through the vast wasteland of talk radio, we can make impassioned documentaries, we can bring down Monsanto, we can put up solar panels and drink organic yak's milk. None of that will change the outcome one bit (as tragic as that may be now that humans have become a global force) -- because civilization is on a course prescribed by laws of nature which have no regard whatsoever for human wishful thinking.
It sounds grim, what can we actually do? Well, once we recognize the reality -- but not until then -- we can act on it. As far as I can tell, acting on it means getting ready to live our lives within planetary means. It may be too late for that, as the climate prepares to rage wildly beyond livability, but let us try what we can (which may include pulling carbon out of the atmosphere so somebody will survive). [6]
Preparing ourselves is not a salve for the terrible pain of our current predicament, but it's about as good as it gets -- and is full of relationship and a renewed sense of community, so that we may, at the very least, as Elizabeth Kübler-Ross once put it, live until we say goodbye. [7]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQx5yX55BKo&feature=feedu
From 1-26 We are at the zero point of systemic collapse. It becomes clear that we are experience a system failure of human industrial civilization.
It will not be long before we see the events in the Middle East played out here and in Europe.
The economic situation in Europe and the EU will fail.
A bill allowing states to file for bankruptcy is moving on fast track through congress. within days of that being passed, you will see states file for bankruptcy.
New Jersey, Illinois, California as well - there 6 states
State employees will be laid off and fired and pensions disappear overnight.
There are predators who understand there is a diminished police force. It is important to learn how not to become a victim.
Climate collapse, mass extinction, the Gulf of Mexico is now dead and people who have been exposed to that have become sick and dying and it is not coming back.
reads quote from article
Culture Change - Jan 20 - Adam Sacks "The natural laws of collapse"
"The culture which drives us, whether we deplore it or not, likes us to go around in activism circles whenever we threaten to question its most basic tenets -- activism keeps us busy and harmless. Notwithstanding, the forbidden point to consider here is that collapse of civilizations, including ours, is inevitable and always has been. Hidden in plain sight, we have not grasped what will sooner or later become obvious: Civilizational collapse is not up to any of us, no matter what we do. As when faced with an unstoppable Hurricane Katrina, which is only obeying the laws of nature, the best we can do is to be prepared."
The last 3 words in my speech at the University of Washington Seattle were - prepare, prepare, prepare.
I am convinced our primary job is to help you prepare.
Across the Arab continent, Egypt is the largest country. A vital area for the balance of power.
The sense of urgency is to prepare. Three months of food, water, first aid, self defense is vital. Training on self defense is important to be prepared to survive.
It is time to get involved in a local community and prepare.
FYI
If a big storm is coming it is a good idea to batten down the hatches.
The Gulf of Mexico is very much alive and well.... the guy had me sucked into believing until I got to that part.
I noticed that too. What was he referring to?
There is information available here. Not sure if the search terms have been compromised, so you need to dig for information.
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/
Good to know, now I can cancel home delivery as I was really, really beginning to hate yak's milk ;-)
(Thanks for the ping, Whenifhow)
Adversity employs great talents; prosperity renders them useless and carries the inept, the corrupted wealthy and the wicked to the top
May they bear in mind that virtue often contains the seeds of tyranny
May they bear in mind that it is neither gold nor even a multitude of arms that sustains a state but its morals
May each of them keep in his house, in a corner of this field, next to his workbench, next to his plow, his gun, his sword, and his bayonet
May they all be soldiers
May they bear in mind that in circumstances where deliberation is possible, the advice of old men is good but that in moments of crisis youth is generally better informed that its elders
Denis Diderot
Apostrophe to the Insurgents, 1782
Ditto
Bayou La Batre near me is back up and running. Seafood tastes great.
Regardless...I'm a good Boy Scout and I am prepared for many things.
Ditto
Bayou La Batre near me is back up and running. Seafood tastes great.
Regardless...I'm a good Boy Scout and I am prepared for many things.
Hippie think is always wrong, because in its humble misanthropy is a hard core of pride.
That they speak scientifically of inexorable laws which they are unable to obey is particularly ironic.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
THX. WILL CHECK IT OUT.
As something to think about. I have noticed over the last 30 years or so that there are more and more fictional stories, Movies and computer game simulations about catastrophic civilization collapse.
Some of the more outre versions are the zombie apocalypse, these are seen in the various zombie movies, Day of the Dead, etc.
So why bring up those sorts of things? Well, it occurs to me that maybe there exists a societal “subconscious” that actually want to see civilization collapse. I’m not sure but I see the pressures building up world wide.
And as a parting thought as others have noted. We are only “Nine meals from Anarchy”.
I just love the solution. </sarc> Never a return to freedom, but rather a communist utopia where we murder our babies in the womb to control population, and we bow down to the murderous environmentalist wackos who will control everything about our lives all the way down to every breath, crap, and pee.
My only gripe is the contention the CO2 causes climate change...but there's no doubt the climate changes. Always has. Hot, cold, temperate. You just never know.
Too many people? You bet...and more and more of us are living in advanced societies.
I predict big wars in conjunction with these collapses.
I live on the Gulf in Mississippi. It is teeming with life. Fish, crabs, oysters, shrimp...ALL abundant.
Great quote from Diderot! I sent it to my teens.
The whole CO2 thing is so discredited by now it’s a farce.
How much CO2 is in the atmosphere?
Five Co2 molecules per 100?
Two CO2 molecules per 100?
Seven CO2 molecules per 1000?
There are about THREE CO2 molecules PER TEN THOUSAND!!
Does anybody here seriously believe if it goes to five CO2 molecules per ten thousand then all the sudden it’s gonna boil us to death?
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