If you’ve ever wondered just how powerfully collective thinking grips most members of our species—including, by and large, those who most forcefully insist on the originality of their thinking—I have an experiment to recommend: go out in public and advocate an idea about the future that isn’t part of the conventional wisdom, and see what kind of reaction you field. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll get some anger, some argument, and some blank stares, but the most telling reaction will come from people who try to force what you’re saying into the Procrustean bed of the conventional wisdom, no matter how thoroughly they have to stretch and chop what you’ve said to make it fit.
Now of course the project of this blog is guaranteed to field such reactions, since the ideas explored here don’t just ignore the conventional wisdom, they fling it to the floor and dance on the crumpled remains. When I mention that I expect the decline and fall of industrial civilization to take centuries, accordingly, people take this to mean that I expect a smooth, untroubled descent. When I mention that I expect crisis before this decade is finished, in turn, people take this to mean that I expect industrial civilization to crash into ruin in the next few years. Some people, for that matter, slam back and forth from one of these presuppositions to another, as though they can’t fit the concepts of prolonged decline and imminent crisis into their heads at the same moment.
That sort of response has become more common than usual in recent months, and part of the reason may be that it’s been a while since I’ve sketched out the overall shape of the future as I see it. Some of my readers may have lost track of the broader picture, and more recent readers of this blog may not have encountered that picture at all. For that reason among others, I’m going to spend this week’s post summarizing the the decline and fall of industrial civilization.
Yes, I’m aware that many people believe that such a thing can’t happen: that science, technology, or some other factor has made progress irreversible. I’m also aware that many people insist that progress may not be irreversible yet but will be if we all just do that little bit more. These are—well, let’s be charitable and call them faith-based claims. Generalizing from a sample size of one when the experiment hasn’t yet run its course is poor scientific procedure; insisting that just this once, the law of diminishing returns will be suspended for our benefit is the antithesis of science. It amounts to treating progress as some sort of beneficent fairy who can be counted on to tap us with her magic wand and give us a wonderful future, just because we happen to want one.
The overfamiliar cry of “but it’s different this time!” is popular, it’s comforting, but it’s also irrelevant. Of course it’s different this time; it was different every other time, too. Neolithic civilizations limited to one river valley and continental empires with complex technologies have all declined and fallen in much the same way and for much the same reasons. It may appeal to our sense of entitlement to see ourselves as destiny’s darlings, to insist that the Progress Fairy has promised us a glorious future out there among the stars, or even to claim that it’s humanity’s mission to populate the galaxy, but these are another set of faith-based claims; it’s a little startling, in fact, to watch so many people who claim to have outgrown theology clinging to such overtly religious concepts as humanity’s mission and destiny.
In the real world, when civilizations exhaust their resource bases and wreck the ecological cycles that support them, they fall. It takes between one and three centuries on average for the fall to happen—and no, big complex civilizations don’t fall noticeably faster or slower than smaller and simpler ones. Nor is it a linear decline—the end of a civilization is a fractal process composed of crises on many different scales of space and time, with equally uneven consequences. An effective response can win a breathing space; in the wake of a less effective one, part of what used to be normal goes away for good. Sooner or later, one crisis too many overwhelms the last defenses, and the civilization falls, leaving scattered remnants of itself that struggle and gleam for a while until the long night closes in.
The historian Arnold Toynbee, whose study of the rise and fall of civilizations is the most detailed and cogent for our purpose, has traced a recurring rhythm in this process.
Falling civilizations oscillate between periods of intense crisis and periods of relative calm, each such period lasting anywhere from a few decades to a century or more—the pace is set by the speed of the underlying decline, which varies somewhat from case to case. Most civilizations, he found, go through three and a half cycles of crisis and stabilization—the half being, of course, the final crisis from which there is no recovery.
That’s basically the model that I’m applying to our future. One wrinkle many people miss is that we’re not waiting for the first of the three and a half rounds of crisis and recovery to hit; we’re waiting for the second. The first began in 1914 and ended around 1954, driven by the downfall of the British Empire and the collapse of European domination of the globe. During the forty years between Sarajevo and Dien Bien Phu, the industrial world was hammered by the First World War, the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Great Depression, millions of political murders by the Nazi and Soviet governments, the Second World War, and the overthrow of European colonial empires around the planet.
That was the first era of crisis in the decline and fall of industrial civilization. The period from 1945 to the present was the first interval of stability and recovery, made more prosperous and expansive than most examples of the species by the breakneck exploitation of petroleum and other fossil fuels, and a corresponding boom in technology. At this point, as fossil fuel reserves deplete, the planet’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and other pollutants runs up against hard limits, and a galaxy of other measures of impending crisis move toward the red line, it’s likely that the next round of crisis is not far off.
What will actually trigger that next round, though, is anyone’s guess. In the years leading up to 1914, plenty of people sensed that an explosion was coming, some guessed that a general European war would set it off, but nobody knew that the trigger would be the assassination of an Austrian archduke on the streets of Sarajevo. The Russian Revolution, the March on Rome, the crash of ‘29, Stalin, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Auschwitz, Hiroshima? No one saw those coming, and only a few people even guessed that something resembling one or another of these things might be in the offing.
Thus trying to foresee the future of industrial society in detail is an impossible task. Sketching out the sort of future that we could get is considerably less challenging. History has plenty to say about the things that happen when a civilization begins its long descent into chaos and barbarism, and it’s not too difficult to generalize from that evidence. I don’t claim that the events outlined below are what will happen, but I expect things like them to happen; further than that, the lessons of history will not go.
With those cautions, here’s a narrative sketch of the kind of future that waits for us.
*************************
The second wave of crisis began with the Ebola pandemic, which emerged in West Africa early in 2014. Efforts to control the outbreak in its early phases were ineffective and hopelessly underfunded. By the early months of 2015, the first cases appeared in India, Egypt, and the Caribbean, and from there the pandemic spread to much of the world. In August 2015 a vaccine passed its clinical trials, but scaling up production and distribution of the vaccine to get in front of a fast-spreading pandemic took time, and it was early 2018 before the pandemic was finally under control everywhere in the world. By then 1.6 billion people had died of the disease, and another 210 million had died as a result of the collapse of food distribution and health care across large areas of the Third World.
The struggle against Ebola was complicated by the global economic depression that got under way in 2015 as the “fracking” boom imploded and travel and tourist industries collapsed in the face of the pandemic. Financial markets were stabilized by vast infusions of government debt, as they had been in the wake of the 2008 crash, but the real economy of goods and services was not so easily manipulated; joblessness soared, tax revenues plunged, and a dozen nations defaulted on their debts. Politicians insisted, as they had done for the past decade, that giving more handouts to the rich would restore prosperity; their failure to take any constructive action set the stage for the next act in the tragedy.
The first neofascist parties were founded in Europe before the end of the pandemic, and grew rapidly in the depression years. In 2020 and 2021, neofascists took power in three European nations on anti-immigration, anti-EU and anti-banking industry platforms; their success emboldened similar efforts elsewhere. Even so, the emergence of the neofascist American Peoples Party as a major force in the 2024 US elections stunned most observers. Four years later the APP swept the elections, and forced through laws that turned Congress into an advisory body and enabled rule by presidential decree. Meanwhile, as more European nations embraced neofascism, Europe split into hostile blocs, leading to the dissolution of the European Union in 2032 and the European War of 2035-2041.
By the time war broke out in Europe, the popularity of the APP had fallen drastically due to ongoing economic troubles, and insurgencies against the new regime had emerged in the South and mountain West. Counterinsurgency efforts proved no more effective than they had in Iraq or Afghanistan, and over the next decade much of the US sank into failed-state conditions. In 2046, after the regime used tactical nuclear weapons on three rebel-held cities, a dissident faction of the US military launched a nuclear strike on Washington DC, terminating the APP regime. Attempts to establish a new federal government failed over the next two years, and the former United States broke into seven nations.
Outside Europe and North America, changes were less dramatic, with the Iranian civil war of 2027-2034 and the Sino-Japanese war of 2033-2035 among the major incidents. Most of the Third World was prostrate in the wake of the Ebola pandemic, and world population continued to decline gradually as the economic crisis took its toll and the long-term effects of the pandemic played out. By 2048 roughly fifteen per cent of the world’s people lived in areas no longer governed by a nation-state.
The years from 2048 to 2089 were an era of relative peace under Chinese global hegemony. The chaos of the crisis years eliminated a great many wasteful habits, such as private automobiles and widespread air travel, and renewable resources padded out with what was left of the world’s fossil fuel production were able to meet the reduced needs of a smaller and less extravagant global population. Sea levels had begun rising steadily during the crisis years; ironically, the need to relocate ports and coastal cities minimized unemployment in the 2050s and 2060s, bringing relative prosperity to the laboring classes. High and rising energy prices spurred deautomation of many industries, with similar effects.
The pace of climate change accelerated, however, as carbon dioxide from the reckless fossil fuel use of the crisis years had its inevitable effect, pushing the polar ice sheets toward collapse and making harvests unpredictable around the globe. Drought gripped the American Southwest, forcing most of the region’s population to move and turning the region into a de facto stateless zone.
The same process destabilized much of the Middle East and south Asia, laying the groundwork for renewed crisis.
Population levels stabilized in the 2050s and 2060s and began to contract again thereafter. The primary culprit was once again disease, this time from a gamut of pathogens. The expansion of tropical diseases into formerly temperate regions, the spread of antibiotic resistance to effectively all bacterial pathogens, and the immense damage to public health infrastructure during the crisis years all played a part in that shift. The first migrations of climate refugees also helped spread disease and disruption.
The last decade before 2089 was a time of renewed troubles, with political tensions pitting China and its primary allies, Australia and Canada, against the rising power of the South American Union (formed by 2067’s Treaty of Montevideo between Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay), and insurgencies in eastern Europe that set the stage for the Second European War. Economic troubles driven by repeated crop failures in North America and China added to the strains, and kept anyone but scientists from noticing what was happening to the Greenland ice sheet until it was too late.
The collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which began in earnest in the summer of 2089, delivered a body blow to an already fraying civilization. Meltwater pouring into the North Atlantic shut down the thermohaline circulation, the main driver of the world’s ocean currents, unleashing drastic swings in weather across most of the world’s climate zones, while sea levels jolted upwards. As these trends worsened, climate refugees fled drought, flood, or famine in any direction that promised survival—a promise that in most cases would not be kept. Those nations that opened their borders collapsed under the influx of millions of starving migrants; those who tried to close their borders found themselves at war with entire peoples on the move, in many cases armed with the weapons of pre-crisis armies.
The full impact of the Greenland disaster took time to build, but the initial shock to weather patterns was enough to help trigger the Second European War of 2091-2111. The Twenty Years War, as it was called, pitted most of the nations of Europe against each other in what began as a struggle for mastery and devolved into a struggle for survival. As the fighting dragged on, mercenaries from the Middle East and Africa made up an ever larger fraction of the combatants. The final defeat of the Franco-Swedish alliance in 2111, though it ended the war, left Europe a shattered wreck unable to stem the human tide from the devastated regions further south and east.
Elsewhere, migration and catastrophic climate change brought down most of the nations of North America, while China dissolved in civil war. Australia and the South American Union both unexpectedly benefited as rainfall increased over their territory; both nations survived the first wave of troubles more or less intact, only to face repeated invasions by armed migrants in the following decades. Neither quite succumbed, but most of their resources went into the fight for survival.
Historians attempting to trace the course of events in most of the world are hampered by sparse and fragmentary records, as not only nation-states and their institutions but even basic literacy evaporated in many regions. As long as the migrations continued, settled life was impossible anywhere close to the major corridors of population movement; elsewhere, locals and migrants worked or fought their way to a modus vivendi, or failing that, exterminated one another. Violence, famine and disease added their toll and drove the population of the planet below two billion.
By the 2160s, though, the mass migrations were mostly at an end, and relative stability returned to many parts of the planet. In the aftermath, the South American Union became the world’s dominant power, though its international reach was limited to a modest blue-water navy patrolling the sea lanes and a network of alliances with the dozen or so functioning nation-states that still existed. Critical shortages of nonrenewable resources made salvage one of the few growth industries of the era; an enterprising salvage merchant who knew how to barter with the villagers and nomads of the stateless zones for scrap technology from abandoned cities could become rich in a single voyage.
Important as they were, these salvaged technologies were only accessible to the few. The Union and a few other nation-states still kept some aging military aircraft operational, but maritime traffic once again was carried by tall ships, and horse-drawn wagons became a standard mode of transport on land away from the railroads. Radio communication had long since taken over from the last fitful fragments of the internet, and electric grids were found only in cities. As for the high-end technologies of a century and a half before, few people even remembered that they had ever existed at all.
In the end, though, the era of Union supremacy was little more than a breathing space, made possible only by the collapse of collective life in the stateless zones. As these began to recover from the era of migrations, and control over salvage passed into the hands of local warlords, the frail economies of the nation-states suffered. Rivalry over access to salvage sites still available for exploitation led to rising tensions between the Union and Australia, and thus to the last act of the tragedy.
This was set in motion by the Pacific War between the Union and Australia, which broke out in 2238 and shredded the economies of both nations. After the disastrous Battle of Tahiti in 2241, the Union navy’s power to keep sea lanes open and free of piracy was a thing of the past. Maritime trade collapsed, throwing each region onto its own limited resources and destabilizing those parts of the stateless zones that had become dependent on the salvage industry. Even those nations that retained the social forms of the industrial era transformed themselves into agrarian societies where all economics was local and all technology handmade.
The negotiated peace of 2244 brought only the briefest respite: a fatally weakened Australia was overrun by Malik Ibrahim’s armies after the Battle of Darwin in 2251, and the Union fragmented in the wake of the coup of 2268 and the civil war that followed. Both nations had become too dependent on the salvaged technologies of an earlier day; the future belonged to newborn successor cultures in various corners of the world, whose blacksmiths learned how to hammer the scrap metal of ruined cities into firearms, wind turbines, fuel-alcohol stills, and engines to power handbuilt ultralight aircraft. The Earth’s first global civilization had given way to its first global dark age, and nearly four centuries would pass before new societies would be stable enough to support the amenities of civilization.
*************************
I probably need to repeat that this is the kind of future I expect, not the specific future I foresee; the details are illustrative, not predictive. Whether the Ebola epidemic spins out of control or not, whether the United States undergoes a fascist takeover or runs headlong into some other disaster, whether China or some other nation becomes the stabilizing hegemon in the next period of relative peace—all these are anyone’s guess. All I’m suggesting is that events like the ones I’ve outlined are likely to occur as industrial civilization stumbles down the curve of decline and fall.
In the real world, in the course of ordinary history, these things happen. So does the decline and fall of civilizations that deplete their resource bases and wreck the ecological cycles that support them. As I noted above, I’m aware that true believers in progress insist that this can’t happen to us, but a growing number of people have noticed that the Progress Fairy got her pink slip some time ago, and ordinary history has taken her place as the arbiter of human affairs. That being the case, getting used to what ordinary history brings may be a highly useful habit to cultivate just now.
242 comments:
Not that I'm equating the collapse of the global industrial civilization with the death of a cat, but it kind of works as an analogy. I find JMG's predictions completely, terrifyingly plausible- just ordinary history, just as all critters eventually return to the earth. But when you put a date on the beginnings of things- tracing the Ebola epidemic changing into a pandemic as soon as January 2015, and on from there- it seems impossibly close. I want to say, nah, someday, but not yet, not now. Though of course the first round has already happened, just as poor Fred probably had something brewing inside when I bought his Friskies last week. I'm feeling echoing loss at the unavoidable realization that "someday"- such a huge crushing "someday"- is already now.
--Heather in CA
PS Captcha: "terminus great". I got chills.
10/22/14, 3:50 PM
Tom Hopkins said...
10/22/14, 4:03 PM
MindfulEcologist said...
My short term, fight or flight circuits seems to insist on asking what is going to happen NOW and when that is dark and dangerous the sirens wail and the lights go off and everything else gets masticated into simple categories of black and white. Seeing the immediate threat but not losing sight of the larger descent – that is exactly the sort of third way cognition we industrialized humans seem to find so inhospitable.
On the other hand I find my story telling mind is very at home in these things. Your narratives are most welcome. I look forward to Twilight’s Last Gleaming with relish. From this understanding of my own contemplations strengths and weaknesses I take hope. Clarity of mind and resolute action does seem to grow given sufficient time for mulling things over. Yes what you have to say is not what we were raised hearing – anywhere far as I can tell – but it is not being spoken in Enochian, as it were.
Btw – I tackled Homo Colossus on my blog this week for those readers that might be interested.
10/22/14, 4:12 PM
ChemEng said...
I wonder if the collective thinking mood that you allude to may be changing, at least a little bit. Two weeks ago I gave a talk to about 140 process safety professionals. These are people in the chemical and energy industries who develop and manage programs that minimize the chance of a major safety or environmental event. My theme was “Process Safety in an Age of Limits”.
Like you, I used historical analogies to support my forecasts as to what changes may happen to the process industries in coming years. One of my themes that the concept of “Safety as a Value” is actually quite recent (one aspect of your Faith in Progress); it is, in my opinion, a cultural artifact that developed in the early 19th century at a time when society was generating a surplus of industrial products and could afford to pay attention to all kinds of new activities, including worker safety.
As you might expect, I expected the reaction of the audience to be either indifference or hostility. After all, these are people who have an immense confidence in the ability of new technology to solve problems. That’s their job, and they’re good at it. To my surprise the response was quite positive; the discussion that followed was good-natured and practical, mostly on the lines of, “Where do we go from here?”
I know you maintain that the issues we face are predicaments, not problems. And I recognize that one little talk isn’t going to make all that much difference in the scope of the very big word picture you draw. Still, if we can harness the skills, education and intelligence of an audience such as the one I spoke to we may expect to see some innovative responses to the trends that you describe.
Maybe it helped that a high percentage of the audience appeared to young professionals rather than establishment figures.
10/22/14, 4:41 PM
Paul said...
Your posts posit a development of societies in much the same way, and with the same predictability that new fauna and flora colonise a new landscape. Pioneer species laying the foundations for further development, resulting, at least in sustainable systems in a stable climax ecosystem.
It's pretty discouraging for anyone interested in trying to make the world a better place. Why fight for equality or a better standard of living for the greater number when such battles are rendered null and void by the lessons of history?
One of the most quirkly thought provoking parts of Albert Bartlett's famous lecture on exponential growth was his table of things that encourage and discourage it (war is good. a cure for cancer would be disastrous) but still, isn't there room for trying to make things fairer?
10/22/14, 4:48 PM
Violet Cabra said...
10/22/14, 4:48 PM
Kutamun said...
Reckon you might be onto a few things here with your skrying ..
Theres no doubt Canada and Australia are slowly morphing into the elite lifeboat / imperial periphery resource province / leftand right boxing glove of the middle kingdom .
As our own former Prime Mnister Paul Keating stated so eloquently and proudly " we are a pimple on the arse of the world " and Singaporean Dictator Lee Kwan You " the poor white trash of south east asia ", but we are Prominent Pimply White Trash , if i may say so , currently shirt fronting our way blithely through the mouldy corridors of international diplomacy .
True enough , by my own observation , the place is infested with middle kingdom operatives , as is much of south east asia with the so called "bamboo diaspora " of the middle kingdom sprinkled strategically all over the place . There is no love lost between Indonesia and Australia , but crucially , even less between islamic Indonesia and China , who hate each other , though Indonesia have lately taken to whizzing around in Russian Sukhoi fighter jets , of which they have ordered plenty, which i find instructive . It will be fascinating to see how these two interact in future , and wether Russia and China keep it together , much of Australias future shape will depend on it .
While there those of us still marching around australia in beplumed slouch hats singing loudly " god save the queen ", the truth of the matter is Her Maj ' has been defunct now for 60 years , and as we slowly slip out of the grasp of our crazy U.S mates and into the clutches of The Middle Kingdom , it is in that guise that i believe we will undertake future wars in the time frame you describe , as Client State to China ; by then no doubt many of us will in fact be Chinese .
There is a lot of water to pass under the bridge between now and then , as 60 % of us are still Anglo , with ingrained cultural memories of our grandparents marching north to repel the " yellow peril" in the dark and stinking jungles of Papua New Guinea , and many never returning . No doubt our feckless pollies will some day flip the switch on this old programming if it suits them ( or our crazy yank mates ) ..
It is as one visiting Indian wag remarked recently " twenty five percent of australians are casual racists and the rest are full time !" ..
AveAGoodday
10/22/14, 4:49 PM
Mister Roboto said...
10/22/14, 4:50 PM
GreenEngineer said...
Thank you for this. It is helpful to illustrate exactly you anticipate when you contrast the doomers and the cornucopians. (For what it's worth, I think this scenario would get you tagged as a "doomer" in most contexts. Granted, there are some doomers who forecast immediate and complete systems failure with complete confidence. These people are fools, if only because predicting the future with certainty is a fool's errand. But I have met many self-identified doomers who do not expect to live to see the worst consequences of our current foolishness, but who are nevertheless struggling with how to live with what they know. I am in that camp myself, and I'm only 42.)
Are you familiar with the word "groaf"? Perhaps not, since as far as I know it was coined earlier this year. Groaf is simply economic growth which has a negative net cost to society. Whether you believe that all growth is groaf, or that non-groaf growth is possible but uncommon (and unpopular, since it requires investments with long timeframes), it's a useful term to introduce to discussions with the optimistically deluded. I also find that it helps bridge the gaps that tend to appear among different degrees of doomer (which as you have experienced, are often the most vociferous of all disagreements) and focus people on the central issue: the inability of most people to distinguish growth from groaf (which itself is a direct consequence of faith in the religion of progress).
10/22/14, 5:00 PM
Kaitain said...
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-to-start-war-and-lose-empire.html
It’s bad enough that the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations have backfired so spectacularly in the Middle East. But Orlov shows how attempts by the Obama administration to screw the Russians over have also blown up in America’s face, weakening the US while actually strengthening Russia and Vladimir Putin.
As Orlov points out near the end, one of the poster boys for the senility of the elite (and yes, Orlov uses that term repeatedly) is vice president Joe Biden’s spectacularly corrupt and debauched son, Hunter Biden.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/10/22/the_hunter_biden_chronicles_124381.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/21/where-there-s-trouble-you-ll-usually-find-joe-biden.html
It’s almost as if the American elites are hell-bent on imitating every cliché they ever heard of about the debauched elites of Caligula’s and Nero’s Rome or Marie Antoinette's Versailles. It's people like this who I strongly suspect will be serving as decorative ornaments for various lamp-posts and trees in the not-so-distant future...
10/22/14, 5:02 PM
dfr2010 said...
"I will not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer."
(I figure three years is long enough for lurking - might ought to be somewhat sociable and leave a comment finally.)
10/22/14, 5:08 PM
William Lucas said...
or, as Winston Churchill put it, "History is simply one damned thing after another."
As always JMG, I enjoy your treatment - or should that be weekly treat.
hadashi
10/22/14, 5:36 PM
Pinku-Sensei said...
10/22/14, 5:57 PM
William Knight said...
Because the Internet is still fairly new, if for some reason it went down hard today, many of these vital systems could still be reverted to a pre-Internet state fairly quickly.
But not for much longer. Major portions of our infrastructure are being rapidly transitioned to a state where the very ability to recover itself goes down if the Internet does.
To fully describe what I'm talking about would take some time, but to get a sense of it, consider a very simplified situation where the power grid depends on complex software systems that have failed and the software systems themselves cannot be repaired because the power grid has failed.
You might think the people transitioning us to the Cloud would be aware of this kind of danger and take steps to minimize it. I maintain that is not the case, for two fundamental reasons: 1) prior civilizations didn't have an Internet, so we don't truly grasp the scope of this danger and 2) the blind faith in progress and infallibility that JMG frequently mentions.
Think of it as "Ebola for the Cloud" where the first Cloud emerges, but without any real immune system, because it hasn't had a chance to evolve one yet.
10/22/14, 6:03 PM
Ventriloquist said...
Grim winds
peel skins
off dark, lonesome towers
-- David
10/22/14, 6:18 PM
pyrrhus said...
On the contrary, 500-1000 years of Malthusian conditions might well produce a somewhat better breed of humanity for the next time around. Greg Clark has convincingly shown that to be what happened in England up to the 19th century in A Farewell To Alms.
10/22/14, 6:25 PM
Yupped said...
But it was interesting to sketch out an illustrative story, and helpful too. I agree about this being the second crisis of the industrial age, and that we have actually just lived through an age of relative calm. As a kid I heard many family stories of misery and chaos from the 1914- 1945 years (and even before 1914 there was plenty of conflict and chaos in Europe: war, depressions, injustice, famines and migrations). But somehow I grew up with a sense that my generation, my time, was going to be different - that the grown-ups had finally figured it all out and that we would surely all live peace and prosperity.
Where did that sense come from? The optimism of the 60s? The natural optimism of a young adult? Consumer and political marketing? A generation's typical belief that they would avoid the mistakes of their parents? Some of each probably and various other things too.
But it's interesting to see how quickly and deeply this belief in progress took hold, because the stability of the post WWII years was only relative, with plenty of problems to deal with: the 50s had numerous crises; the 60s had Vietnam and social upheaval; the 70s had oil crises, terrorism and political upheavals. And the cold war ran through it all. There was only a very small number of years, during the 80s and 90s perhaps, when the industrial world really did seem stable. And that meant nothing if you lived in Yugoslavia or Russia or South Africa or Argentina or many other places across the globe.
Clearly the industrial world has been able to persuade itself that peace, prosperity and progress are the natural order of things. And that belief has gone deep. But it's surprising how deep it has gone, given so much evidence to the contrary even during the golden years of progress.
10/22/14, 6:28 PM
Ryan Reef said...
Hello. I am a newcomer to your blog. I have read through your last three posts and found them very interesting. I am curious if you have encountered the work of Jeremy Rifkin and his optimism regarding the possibility of a third industrial revolution. I was wondering if you (or any others on your site) have critiqued his work.
Thanks,
Ryan
10/22/14, 6:40 PM
jonathan said...
hard to believe that they don't know something.
10/22/14, 6:57 PM
Roy Smith said...
10/22/14, 7:19 PM
Neo Tuxedo said...
Compare John Ruskin's concept of "illth", which Robert Anton Wilson says (in Prometheus Rising) "did not become accepted and incorporated into our language because people, at that time, were not ready for it."
It’s almost as if the American elites are hell-bent on imitating every cliché they ever heard of about the debauched elites of Caligula’s and Nero’s Rome or Marie Antoinette's Versailles.
I've often had the similar thought -- I may even have expressed it in this space -- that the American elite seem to be engaged in a vast and hideous social experiment: "How precisely can we duplicate the conditions that precipitated the American, French, and Russian Revolutions whilst, and at the same time, keeping the poors so frightened of what followed the last two that they will accept literally any alternative to toppling us from our perches?"
But, of course, it's not deliberate. If that were their actual goal, rather than being an inevitable concomitant of their determination to gather all the wealth in the world unto themselves at the total expense of literally everyone else, they'd at least display the rudiments of subtlety about it once in a way, instead of being so blatant that even the blind can see it and the truly sensitive (in the words of "Christian Technocrat" and authentic megalomane Hillman Holcomb) "should even be able to 'taste' it and 'smell' it."
It's people like this who I strongly suspect will be serving as decorative ornaments for various lamp-posts and trees in the not-so-distant future...
I won't attend any of their funerals, but in the words of a great American author, I'll send notes to each one saying I approve.
10/22/14, 7:20 PM
Tom Bannister said...
As Violet said though, life is an adventure, and part of the fun of an adventure is not knowing exactly what will happen or when your number might be up. The future you've sketched out here certainly offers plenty of opportunities for adventure. Thanks for this heart stopping but highly illuminating post! I cannot tell you how helpful its been. (after your 'the next 10 billion years' post, probably my favorite!)
10/22/14, 7:25 PM
Kaitain said...
Speaking of Indonesia and Sukhoi fighter jets, check out this little nugget. According to some reports, Indonesia recently signed a deal to buy 180 Russian combat jets, including Su-35 multi role strike fighters and T-50 PAK FA stealth fighters. Those are the latest and most advanced Russian fighter designs, and according to many aviation experts, outclass the F-35’s that the US and its allies are saddling themselves with by a considerable margin. At least one think tank Down Under is advocating jumping ship and negotiating a license production agreement with Sukhoi to build Su-35’s and T-50’s in Australia.
http://in.rbth.com/blogs/2013/04/08/why_australia_should_scratch_the_f-35_and_fly_sukhois_23629.html
http://www.newaustralia.net/defence_airforce.html
Based on military and long term strategic merits, this would make a lot more sense, but probably won’t fly due to political concerns. Still, as the downslope of the Long Descent grows steeper, Oz will have to start making other arrangements to replace the current one. If America starts coming apart at the seams or simply loses its grip on the global strategic order, there will be a number of imperial satrapies, including Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan and Israel that will be looking to make other arrangements with China and/or Russia. Indeed, there have already been rumors circulating in diplomatic and military circles that Israel has been quietly negotiating with Russia and India to join the T-50 program as a partner as an alternative to the F-35.
10/22/14, 7:27 PM
Sixbears said...
Rarely did my ancestors have much money, but they were willing to move to new places, learn the language and find something interesting to do.
You know how some families have a long military history? Mine were usually at the wrong place or the wrong age to join armies.
Having given up on the dream of infinite progress, I've have to find something else to sustain me. As it turns out there's lots of good and interesting things that can be done on the downward slide. Strong ties to family and friends can be worth much more than money.
I had the advantage of growing up in a dying mill town. Decades of local decline demonstrated to me that progress was not universal. My friends who grew up prosperous suburbs have a totally different mindset -which is weird considering how their lives are a struggle.
Your blog has been a useful mental exercise for me. Can't wait to so see how the next few decades play out. Hope to be around as I'd hate to miss the show.
10/22/14, 8:00 PM
Sven Williams said...
It chills me to think that at 28, I'm young enough to watch in horror as this emerging second crisis picks up steam, and may even live long enough to witness its climax and conclusion, all the while living with the memories of how comparatively easy and carefree things were in my youth. How much worse it must be for someone who's had time to start careers, mortgages, and families! I'm just wallowing in wage labor with a huge pile of student debt.
In a few decades, I can't wait to tell the whippersnappers how worked up a nation got over trivialities. On the other hand, I know they won't want to hear it.
10/22/14, 8:09 PM
Kyoto Motors said...
Since I never got around to weighing in last week, allow me to comment on Krugman here: I thought the funniest thing about the article was how it just simply ended abruptly, as though it had proved something beyond the need to go on, which of course it had not. To use a sufficiently polite, albeit dated (and very Canadian term), what a hoser!
Thanks as always for the weekly read. Will finally be getting to Star's reach this autumn too!
10/22/14, 8:29 PM
wiseman said...
Interesting assessment, I understand that it's just your imagination but I still have one question, for someone who says that change happens incrementally you've jampacked a lot of catastrophic events in this century.
As far as the predictions go I look forward to commenting again about this particular post in Dec 2015 if I am still alive and this blog is still running :)
10/22/14, 8:47 PM
Darren Urquhart said...
10/22/14, 8:53 PM
YJV said...
I just finished and handed in a 15 page university systems engineering subject research portfolio titled "The Feasibility of Airships in a Post Peak-Oil future" (Yes, I chose the topic). If there's any technology that can stands a chance of maintaining viable air transport in an energy-starved future, it's airships. Ultralight aircraft would only possibly be used as a military substitute to today's fighter planes I reckon.
I'm thinking of condensing the report and submitting it for your year long tech competition - that is, if it's still open by the time I finish exams in three weeks.
Also, with your timeline: you didn't mention it but I'm sure one of the first actions of a hegemonic Australia would be to integrate NZ, either willingly or by force. I'm grateful to be a Kiwi, looking at the future - the country is likely to survive climate change the most unharmed, it's hard to get to compared to most other countries, relatively isolated and generally able to support enough crops to be self-sufficient (especially once the temperatures get warmer). The future is an unknown territory, but I seem to be slightly luckier than others. Only time will tell.
YJV
10/22/14, 10:03 PM
Joel Caris said...
At the risk of being brusque myself, of course there's room for trying to make things fairer. What's stopping you?
One of the things I've come to find fascinating in discussions here and elsewhere about a harsh future, is this idea that if the future's going to be worse than the present, then what's the point of trying to do good?
What's odd to me about this is the implicit assumption that if you can't fix the world as a whole, you can't do good.
It's a near-lock certainty that not you, not me, not anyone here is going to do a single thing that will impact the entirety of the world's population. Or a majority of it. Or even a few million people.
But you, and me, and our esteemed host, and every other reader and commenter is perfectly capable of engaging in actions right at this moment, and throughout the rest of their life, that can make the world a touch better. Similarly, we can engage in actions that will make it worse. And a heck of a lot of the time, we won't be able to accurately figure out ahead of time which way an action is going to affect things.
But we can absolutely attempt to make the world fairer, and better, and to improve the lives of a very small number of people. People in our lives. Friends and family members and neighbors and so on.
None of us are going to fix the world. It's going to rumble along it's course, and there's a pretty excellent chance that the immediate future is going to be worse than the present and immediate past. So it goes. But that hardly keeps us from making it a touch less worse, and that work is worthwhile. What the heck else are we going to do?
Our own actions are all we control. So the only response we have is our own response, our own particular actions. So, tomorrow, get to work making the world fairer if that's what you want to see happen. That's all you can do--and that's a beauty, not a condemnation. Embrace it.
10/22/14, 10:03 PM
Kylie said...
Your abandoned Pittsburgh factories have an interesting counterpart over here in the abandoned farmhouses scattered through the countryside, where one farmer after another has been driven broken and forced off the land by fire, flood, drought or pests. Quite spooky to look at from the road, and hopefully a repellent to the progress fairy.
10/22/14, 10:04 PM
Mark Rice said...
I have been finding conventional wisdom to be more and more procrustean. The news media seems to be using an ever shrinking handful of narratives to contain the news. I find what people call the MSM to be extremely procrustean in it's treatment of reality. I prefer to call this "standard narrative news" instead of "main stream media".
Wanting to know what reality is about is one thing that keeps me coming back to this blog.
I have experienced reactions to discussing some of these topics with people stuck in some of the standard narratives. I suggested to a co-worker the thought that more expensive energy could have something to do with the anemic economy. This person's knees jerk in the Fox News direction. He few into a rage. To him it was all about less government. If we had less government then everything would be better -- end of story.
Another person whose knees jerk in the more "progressive" direction finds the sort of topics discussed here to be too distressing. She labels these sorts of things "conspiracy theories". I realize this label is not precise use of the language. These ideas that are a bit outside of the mainstream do cause distress in many different people.
10/22/14, 10:09 PM
Donald Hargraves said...
In other news, the whole of the Apple iPhone and iPad lines that were rolled out this fall have shown to have major weaknesses in them – weaknesses not in the previous versions of the iPhones and iPads. Bendable iPhones (the Sapphire fronts must have failed them, so they went with Gorilla Glass and tried to use U2 to distract the masses) and iPads with shorter battery life (thinner is not always better) may be a blip, or – as I fear with the F-35 – the beginning of the terminal decline of the brand.
And finally, I'm still recovering from the impossibly rapid decline of four blue jeans I recently bought from Target (two tore in front, three had tears in their back pocket, a third tore on the side after a couple of months, and the remaining one's fraying on the upper leg). I'm now running short on jeans and am fearful enough to not have bought new ones since.
In short: Not only has the Progress Fairy been pink-slipped, but it appears that he's been replaced by the Collapse Demon, and that guy has started taking a sadistic pleasure in his work.
10/22/14, 10:25 PM
Unknown said...
Dear heather,
My sincere condolences on the death of your cat.
10/22/14, 10:39 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Tom, it might make an interesting novel; we'll see if anybody offers me an adequate advance.
Ecologist, yes, it's difficult to break out of the conventional wisdom! The only thing I know of that makes it easier is plenty of history books, which bit by bit communicate the way things actually happen.
ChemEng, that's excellent news. The more people with their hands actually on the levers of systems start to grasp the shape of the future, the better off we're all likely to be.
Paul, of course there's a point in trying to make things fairer, so long as you don't delude yourself into thinking that you can achieve Utopia. There are plenty of moments in history when a given society can become more just or less so, more compassionate or less so, more tolerant or less so, and it's usually small groups of committed people who are willing to take action at those moments that decide things one way or the other. What history tells us is that there's no inherent trend toward betterment -- not that we can't make things better if we're willing to put ourselves on the line for that purpose.
Violet, if you grasp just how harsh things are likely to be, and still see it as a grand adventure, you're well prepared for the future.
Kutamun, quite a few SF authors have Australia as a Chinese possession in the future -- I'm remembering Cordwainer Smith especially, who imagined Australia in the 25th century or so as Aojou Nambien, one vast Chinese city covering the whole Australian continent...
Mister R., I expect to see drug legalization and mass pardons as we proceed, for the reason you've indicated -- lack of funds to maintain the prison system. Still, most incarcerated people get out after a few years anyway, you know.
GreenEngineer, no, I hadn't heard of "groaf." I assume you mean a negative net benefit to society -- a negative net cost would amount to a gain, for the same reason that -(-1) equals 1.
Kaitain, the American elite classes have always had a huge inferiority complex when it comes to European aristocracy. It would come as no surprise at all to me if they were all saying, "We can too be just as decadent, useless, and self-defeating as the Ancien Regime, so there!"
Dfr, a comment based on Dune is always welcome here. The Litany Against Fear, by the way, is worth remembering and using as we head into a troubled future!
Hadashi, exactly. Decline and fall is just business as usual.
10/22/14, 10:43 PM
Derv said...
Of course, there are plenty of legitimate doomers out there who really think we're on the cusp of total extinction or a Mad Max world in the next three minutes or so, but I think a fair number of people categorized this way would actually agree with your model quite a bit. What you mean by "collapse" and what they mean by "collapse" can be two very different things, due to the fuzziness of the term. The world financial system falling apart, the death of the dollar, rolling over the downward slope after the peak of total liquids production, the end of growth, pandemics, war and government default are all things that are easily lumped into the category of "collapse."
Not a big insight, I know, but I just don't want us all to be talking past each other from language limitations. There's a crash, a recession, a depression, hyper/de-flation, and perhaps even an apocalyptic catastrophe on the horizon, all of which might be considered the "collapse" line to others. So perhaps some more precision is in order.
For instance, we could say that the start of "decline" is the point where US or world economic production trends inexorably downward (perhaps on a per capita basis), in which case we are probably already in decline. "Collapse" could be the point where, for the majority of the US (or world, for world collapse, etc.) can no longer depend on the infrastructure systems that we've become accustomed to. A world where you don't get a "job" because there's no longer such a thing as hiring, but merely getting by on your own; a world where a tornado rips half your town apart, and nobody comes from anywhere to help you, nor do we even expect the govt to; a world where exchanging dollars for euros is the process by which you pick your favorite toilet paper; and so on. The "crash" could be when all the silly games of passing around bits and paper to generate "wealth" (which is so abstracted from reality as to be meaningless) falls apart, and the bubbles pop, and you can make a living only by doing something that actually has value.
These are just suggestions, but I honestly think some set of definitions offered up by you would be of great benefit. The situation currently reminds me of the ancient Romans attempting to discuss Greek philosophy in Latin - their disciplined, practical language was hopelessly unfit for parsing the various schools of Hellenistic thought. So they stole a chunk of the Greek language outright and added two new declensions.
I don't know of any Greek we can steal from for this topic, but we need something.
10/22/14, 10:49 PM
Unknown said...
10/22/14, 11:06 PM
John Michael Greer said...
William, no argument there. The hoopla about "ephemeralization" makes me wonder if any of the people who use that word know that what it actually means is "making something short-lived..."
Ventriloquist, good. Thank you.
Pyrrhus, are you volunteering to risk being weeded out of the gene pool?
Yupped, good. You're getting it. The fantasy of "everything's all right" is deeply rooted these days, but it's very recent. A glance back over history is a good corrective.
Ryan, industrial revolutions require adequate energy and other resources. We're running out of those. It's very comforting for people like Rifkin to insist that progress can just keep chugging on, via yet another industrial revolution, but the facts don't bear him out. If you're interested in a more detailed discussion, I suggest my book The Long Descent.
Jonathan, I think a lot of people know that the excrement is on its way toward the rotary impeller. The rich are simply in a position to do something about it -- though I suspect they won't last long in those island hangouts. Once the rule of law collapses, what's to keep their armed guards from arranging for a few weapons-related accidents and taking everything for themselves? Historically speaking, that's usually how such schemes end up.
Roy, thanks for the link! If that's true, the chances of a vaccine that will apply to more than a limited number of Ebola strains are not good. Ouch.
Tuxedo, I think we're going to watch one of the all-time classic examples of elite senility and its usual consequences. Thing is, it's not just a lack of subtlety; they seem to be ignoring every option that might defuse the situation or buy them a little time. Thanks for the reminder about illth -- I need to reread Ruskin, anyway.
Tom, good. You're young enough to have a very high chance of seeing a lot of the impending crisis, and if you pay close attention now and make such preparations as you can, you've got a better than average chance of coming through it in one piece. Seeing it as an adventure is a good start!
Sixbears, that's a useful heritage to have just now.
Sven, the whippersnappers may be sitting around you, wide-eyed, listening to your stories. It's going to be a wild time.
10/22/14, 11:06 PM
DW said...
There comes a point in the raveling where the sweater ceases to be. And then the lights go out.
10/22/14, 11:08 PM
irishwildeye said...
Will Ebola turn out to be an irresistible force of nature, on a collision course with the immovable object that is the modern western mindset. In so many ways this creature seems ideally placed to exploit so much of the folly of the last three decades. The payday maybe here and it may get very ugly soon.
I’ve long known that industrial civilization was doomed, but at some point in the future. Like I knew that I must die - but at some point in the future. Last Monday I came to terms with the fact that both of these things may happen sooner rather than later, because of Ebola. It was a liberating thought, in that I resolved to make the best use of what ever time is left.
Suddenly my step was quicker and more urgent, the autumn leaves and the overhead clouds seemed more vivid. It was great to be alive. I resolved to do more of the good things in life more often (nature, friends, music, cycling, etc). Monday’s bike ride home from work on quiet backroads through the Irish countryside was sublime.
By the time I got home on Monday evening I was full of warm fuzzy positive feelings about Ebola and ready to face what ever is coming. Thanks to the Archdruid, Mary Oden and the Ebola virus I had a wonderfully productive day.
If the Ebola epidemic is not contained in the next few months and goes pandemic it will do a power of good in clearing up a lot of delusional thinking very quickly.
10/22/14, 11:10 PM
Redneck Girl said...
Don't fear Nature and our ultimate fate, it is a natural ending and beginning. That is the miracle of life and Nature. That is our immortality
Wadulisi
10/22/14, 11:22 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Wiseman, how many catastrophic events took place in the 20th century? Make a list sometime; it's worth doing. Then do the same thing for the 19th, the 18th, and any other century you care to name. History is jampacked with catastrophic events.
Darren, I know the feeling! My one regret about not being immortal is that I'm enough of a history buff to want to see how all this works out.
YJV, ultralights are much cheaper, they can be built in a basement workshop, and they're superior for what I suspect will be the primary uses of flight during the coming dark age -- principally military reconnaissance. Airships will come later, perhaps in the ecotechnic renaissance of the 28th century. As for New Zealand, of course -- if Australia doesn't make it a protectorate, someone else will.
Kylie, if too many farms get abandoned, it'll be interesting to see where people get their food as global shipping breaks down.
Mark, yes, I get the same thing fairly often. Sometimes all you can do is shake your head and walk away.
Donald, oh, I think it's a collapse fairy. There are wicked fairies, too, in the old stories. I imagine this one with a dwarfish stature, big yellow eyes, a toothy grin, dressed in rags coated with concrete dust and holding a magic wand that turns all things to ruin...
Derv, that's an interesting point. One of the reasons I use stories as often as I do is precisely that they communicate very clearly what I'm trying to say -- better, I think, than a definition can.
Unknown, good. You're getting it.
DW, most of those are issues in a fast collapse, not a slow, ragged, fractal one. You'll notice that by the end of the story, though, nobody has an industrial society left, and everything you've mentioned can easily enough be wrapped up into that process.
Irishwildeye, I went through something of the same thing once I started tracking the spread of Ebola and realized that the peak and imminent decline of human population could be upon us right now. Mind you, I've known for decades that such a moment was going to arrive, and so was as ready for it as I could be, but it's still one of those moments where you take a deep breath, steady yourself, and go forward.
10/22/14, 11:26 PM
daelach said...
@ Paul: Assuming you are a US citizen, the US consume around 25% of the global ressources with just 5% of the global population. Fight for global equality would imply to drop the average US consumption (that means: also yours!) by 80%. In case you were Western European, the drop still would make 60%. Alternatively, having 80% (resp. 60%) of the global population die would render equality possible. Since neither is exactly popular in the West, global equality stays a lip service as long as the global deindustrialisation is still in the future. And then, it will be equality towards poverty.
@ Mister Robuto: Guess where the warlords will get their armies from.. partly from prisons, partly from ex-soldiers who found that their loyalty oath to the US was rather one-sided (means: the government cheated them as usually).
@ Jonathan: The rich will be quite surprised what happens when they need this refuge. In such a scenario, the cut-off will not only spare them the nasty aspects, but also the flood of goods they are used to. Getting that rich is only possible through the work of others, and if these others can't reach them because they retreated, they will find that they will have to actually work for a living instead of manipulating a complex financial system. A horse without rider is still a horse, but a rider without horse isn't a rider anymore.
Not to mention that those who are supposed to locally defend them might find out that they actually would do better without them - a lesson from the warlords of Ancient Rome.
10/22/14, 11:39 PM
Brian Kaller said...
Thanks again. My apologies if you explained this in a previous post and I missed it, but why do you consider the 1914 – 1954 cycle the beginning of the decline? By most measures I can think of – energy use, population, technology – we’d be in the peak right now.
I can see that it was a series of disruptions, but so were the series of wars that swept Europe and its global colonies from the 1760s to the 1810s, relative to the population and technology of its time. If you argue that the 20th century destruction was greater, that greater energy use in turn justifies us being the peak and not the Victorians. I’m not criticising, just curious.
10/22/14, 11:49 PM
Tom Bannister said...
You might be familiar with this Australian 'New Zealand Invasion- 100% There for taking' Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI
Tbh though also speaking as a New Zealander I reckon if the Aussies (or maybe China if we're unlucky) do think about invasion and/or forced integration of some kind they'll try and avoid a direct military occupation if possible. Our terrain is ideally suited for a domestic insurgency plus we have plenty of illegitimate firearms own in rural areas...
P.S: Thanks for the encouragement JMG!
10/23/14, 12:00 AM
KL Cooke said...
I wonder if said elites believe their refuges are easily defensible, or defensible at all against even a modest, but trained invasive force.
Think of the battles for the Pacific islands during WWII.
What will these guys do, throw cocktail umbrellas at the LSTs?
10/23/14, 12:08 AM
KL Cooke said...
Apple has always seemed to me to be something of a cult. The test of a cult, or any social movement, is whether or not it can it survive the death of its founder.
10/23/14, 12:34 AM
Avery said...
Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West: The 100th Anniversary Update
10/23/14, 12:47 AM
Snoqualman said...
Of course the sound quality could be atrocious, interference abounded, and whistling heterodynes might pierce your auditory brain centers. But it was fun, and it sounded like it was coming from far away, which it was. Naturally propagated via the ionosphere at no charge.
I miss it. I recently took up ham radio, which is fine, but it can't replace shortwave broadcasts, and the thrill of hearing a fluttery signal from the other side of the world, coming directly to you without any of this fragile infrastructure which, even I must admit, does allow us to enjoy The Archdruid Report.
It was "real" - not a product of endless 1's and 0's. And such fun trying to identify obscure languages. I hope it returns. And if the power stays on, maybe even with the deeply reassuring orange glow of vacuum tubes.....
10/23/14, 12:50 AM
Marc L Bernstein said...
However, it suggests that those persons (religious leaders, philosophers, etc.) expounding a moral perspective may play little role in the historical events you imagine, unless such persons also possess a timely brand of charisma modeled to meet the needs of the time.
I wonder what Chris Hedges (who combines scholarship and a moral voice with democratic political activism) would think about your narratives, which perhaps are built along lines of thought influenced by Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee, among others.
Other scholarly and moral voices include Noam Chomsky and Henry Giroux.
For example, the "good" relative to our time in history might include
- simplicity
- honesty
- a modest form of asceticism
- a balanced mix of enlightened self-interest and genuine self-sacrifice
- courage, meaning standing up for the poor and less privileged while holding fast to consistent moral imperatives
- etc.
The "bad" relative to our time in history might include
- extravagance
- greed
- dishonesty
- cowardice
- hoarding
- scapegoating
- violence mixed with aggression
- abandonment of reason (?)
- etc.
Along with various ecologists such as Garret Hardin, I view ethics as profoundly situational. What is good in 1 circumstance can be less than good in others. What is clearly evil in 1 circumstance might be (sadly) expedient and necessary in another.
An example would be the issue of generosity towards those who have become climate refugees. As you suggest, letting them in has its downside, while closing your borders meets with a different set of problems. Where does ethics fit in?
This issue of changing morality as history unfolds is a large topic and one you might decide to address at a later time.
10/23/14, 12:53 AM
Marc L Bernstein said...
India and Russia were conspicuous by their absence in your narrative of the geopolitical dynamics of the next 100 years or so.
The melting of a substantial portion of the Himalayan glaciers may play a major role in the problems faced by China in the next 100 years or so. If China ever does become a global hegemon as you suggested, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers might play a role in toppling it from this position, perhaps through civil wars over dwindling food resources due to insufficient fresh water for irrigation purposes.
As a result of global warming, within 100 years or so major portions of northern Russia will have a far more agreeable climate than they do today. This would cause Russia to be a target for the migration of climate refugees, many of which would be escaping from unlivable desert-like conditions farther to the south.
Regions in the southern hemisphere which are far from the equator, such as Patagonia, may suddenly become attractive places to live as the climate warms.
Similarly, regions of northern Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and islands such as the Baffin islands, Ellesmere island and others may become livable, although this might take quite awhile, perhaps 200 years or more.
10/23/14, 2:07 AM
Judy said...
I kept thinking that when people talked about collapse they must be talking about the US, because the UK had already collapsed. OK so we are making a good pretence at trying to stand shoulder to shoulder, but I just felt that the next crash wasn't going to hit us quite so hard because as an empire we had already collapsed. That is not to say that the fallout wasn't going to cut us down further, but just that it couldn't be 'our' collapse.
I also felt that the whole collapse situation was being viewed from the US, and envisioned the whole world collapsing with it. But there are countries on the periphery who aren't going to be damaged to the same extent. But I see where you are coming from with the cascading events.
So now I understand a bit better the stages. I don't think our brains were intended to know this much. There is probably a reason we don't know what is going to hit us until it hits. I don't suppose weeping for my children will ease anything. Short of that what else can I do other than try to make the most of every last minute?
10/23/14, 2:30 AM
Somewhatstunned said...
Paul used the words "making the world a better place" and that phrase always makes me squirm.
Having an explicit ambition to "make the world a better place", stated in those exact words, is dangerous. It cannot be done with any certainty and seeing yourself as someone who can improve "the world" can be hubristic and prevent you from seeing what is really going on and what your actions are really doing.
No, I think the thing to go for is "making the world less bad, in certain respects, than it otherwise would have been". That ambition is most certainly doable, and because it sounds so modest and unexciting is unlikely to give you over-exalted idea about yourself ...
10/23/14, 2:48 AM
Phil Harris said...
JMG wrote: "-- think of what it would have been like for people in the summer of 1914, going from ordinary peacetime to the Great War in 37 days with no warning."
Well ... "It will be over by Christmas".
best
Phil H
10/23/14, 3:14 AM
Peter Nelson said...
while I find your posts often insightful and erudite, I consider your arguments suggesting a century-long decline unconvincing.
All your historical examples have one thing in common that is not shared with today's situation: they were regional, whereas this one affects us globally. There are no moderating outside forces/civilizations that could dampen or slow our current downward trajectory.
In addition, during all the previous downfalls of complex civilizations, the mechanization of agriculture was nowhere near as pervasive and progressed.
From these observations follow three major aspects of the ongoing decline that your perspective does not, in my humble opinion, include to their full extent.
1. The sheer scale of globalization and interdependence has made global finance extremely important in maintaining the ever crucial supply chains. A very likely breakdown of one major bank can easily put global trade on hold. Letters of Credit will not be issued anymore, halting the transport of goods and foodstuff in particular in virtually a couple of weeks. No country on earth, except maybe Russia and a couple of sub-saharan African countries, has a sufficient level of autarchy to sustain a level of functioning for more than a couple of months. Certainly not the US, Europe and a large part of Asia.
2. The mechanization of agriculture has led to a severe atrophy of manual skills on how to plant, maintain, harvest and store crops. This is compounded by future shortages of fertilizers, pesticides and replacement parts. Í cannot perceive how governments or farmers will be able to soften the shortfalls if just one crucial aspect in this increasingly vulnerable supply chain breaks down. This is an unprecedented development of our time that cannot be compared to previous collapses of civilizations.
3. Negative feedback loops are much more pronounced and immediate in their effects on a global and and interdependent civilization such as ours. Whereas the collapse of Rome had only a moderate effect on agricultural output, and the US could take over from the British Empire, this is not the case with our crumbling global financial system or our diminishing return on oil. All major and most minor economies are part of the financial system, and all are affected if one major center crumbles under its weight. The effects are immediate and will likely affect all of them.
Given these reservations I find it much more likely that anything that resembles our current civilizational setup or the current nation-states will not be in existence anymore in about 30 years time. I expect the devolution of our civilization to occur over a much shorter time frame this time around.
10/23/14, 3:47 AM
streamfortyseven said...
Two things - that kind of energy is being rapidly depleted, for one, and the physical infrastructure required to make that kind of energy is pretty fragile - and very flammable. Destroying oil refineries is a pretty simple thing, a couple of missiles will do the trick - even something as simple as strafing fire using tracer will put the refinery out of business and set the distilled fuels on fire. The same goes for oil fields, inland and at sea. No jet fuel and the aircraft can't fly - that's the main thing that put the Luftwaffe out of action and sealed Germany's fate - even though they put a coal-to-liquids program in place in a hurry, it still wasn't good enough.
Over and above energy, there's food - and most importantly, water. Three days without water and the best soldier is out of action; and if the soldier is drinking dirty, polluted, or poisoned water, potentially even worse results quickly occur...
I'd recast the forecast taking these logistical factors into consideration - the results might be different.
10/23/14, 4:17 AM
Κασσάνδρα said...
I mostly made my blog for warning my friends about the troubles of our falling civilization and I can say that they understand that things will not be rosy. Many more translations will follow from your latest series on the future of industrial civilization, with your permission.
I was always afraid of a pandemic as it is one of the troubles of a falling civilization that an individual can do little about it, especially if his/her family has small children. That said I hope that we would be lucky and Ebola will stay an epidemic and not a pandemic.
I found your posts on climate change greatly insightful. Do you have any book recommendation about paleoclimatology of South Europe, so I can find similar historical data about my location?
Also, as I bought a copy of Spengler’s Decline of the West, I can say that it is not what I expected. I expected a history book from the eyes of a historian who endorses the rise and fall of civilizations cycle, but so far I have found a treatise on history science which is difficult to read even if it is translated to my native language. Furthermore, this book presupposes that you know history from other sources. I will still finish reading it but I would like to have some history books that my child can learn history through the viewpoint of Toynbee and Spengler but not restricted to some highlights of civilizations’ histories that enhance the specific viewpoint. So, could you (as a history buff) propose me some history books that are analytical and earthly and unbiased? I know that an answer to that may include a great many books, but maybe it is an idea for a future post of yours about various history books for every civilization. From a answer to a commenter to a previous post I put on my book wish list Michael Grant’s The History of Rome and Bryan Ward-Perkins' The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization.
Thank you again for your devotion to informing us about the perils of our future. I always believed that only the informed can be prepared for the future.
10/23/14, 4:32 AM
Matt said...
I'm puzzled as to why you identify 1914-54 as the first cycle as, at first sight, it wasn't driven by the ecological or resource limits you highlight elsewhere.
Do you have any material that could help me understand this any better?
Cheers
Matt
10/23/14, 4:39 AM
Leo said...
Since cities have lots of wealth there a target for warbands.
Defenders: YPG light infantry with AKs and RPGs, limited ammo.
Attackers: ISIS with tanks, artillery and unlimited ammo.
journalists diary of the experience:
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/24/kobane-diary-four-days-inside-city-keeping-incredible-and-unprecedented-resistance-277509.html
Turns out that the Kurds won. Also as the was nerd has stated, ISIS is incmpetent/overhyped, so it might be an outlier
http://pando.com/2014/10/16/the-war-nerd-nobody-could-have-predicted-islamic-states-retreat-from-kobane-except-me/
10/23/14, 4:47 AM
Brian Cady said...
http://prosperouswaydown.com/sellers-emperors-ppe/
10/23/14, 5:17 AM
Spanish fly said...
Dear Archdruid, what do you think about this film?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_%28film%29
Mmmm...Nolan space bats.
10/23/14, 5:32 AM
YJV said...
Somebody really needs to research this. Hopefully in the future there will be research institutes looking into transition technologies - I would definitely want to work in them.
YJV
10/23/14, 5:57 AM
sgage said...
I just happen to have a picture of the Progress Fairy, in her 'Petrolia' aspect:
http://personalpages.tds.net/~sgage/pics/oilfairy.jpg
Not really sure how to interpret the expression on her face...
10/23/14, 6:32 AM
onething said...
10/23/14, 6:32 AM
zaphod42 said...
Of late I have seen a glimmering of awareness with one son. Daughters not so much yet.
We will have to wait for the black swan to deliver the next blow, and as you say, that is by definition unpredictable.
Enjoy!
Craig
10/23/14, 6:52 AM
David said...
Serious gut-check for me with today's post. Conceptualizing decline and fall is one thing, seeing the possible context of the latter half of one's life written out in stark terms is something else. Many thanks for the motivation.
@Joel-- I agree. I have been moving myself away from the "fix the world and eradicate evil everywhere" mindset to "what can I do in my immediate sphere of influence to make the world slightly better than it otherwise would be" -- the shift in focus not anly renders one's actions more effective, but also helps to keep one sane.
10/23/14, 6:52 AM
onething said...
Funny, I worry about myself or children/grandchildren being caught by violence or ebola, (and I second the motion that I want to live in part because I want to watch!) but I'm not particularly depressed about the futility of human goodwill in a time of decrease. I see little difference, really. After all, in times of increase, there are myriad sins going on, perhaps more covered up and less visible. But the overall sum doesn't change all that much. And if history is cyclic, then the seeds of each phase are planted in the other. I think one has an approximately equal change in either era of getting good ideas to stick and take hold in one's comrades, it's just that the impediments differ. Excepting perhaps during moments of the most intense crisis.
10/23/14, 7:09 AM
Kyoto Motors said...
Luckily for us, the good news of day-to-day living, while it doesn't make headlines or history books as often, is still a daily occurence.
;-)
10/23/14, 7:21 AM
Claudia Oney said...
I see my little 3 acres with developing orchard, verdant garden, three lambs and a calf annually and milk and eggs all year around is now only a bit of cushion for my most immediate descendants.
This is very bitter. And sad. I have been reading the JMG for years and I think it just got through my head that dark days means, well, dark days.
10/23/14, 7:22 AM
Wolfgang Brinck said...
Anyone who takes your history of the future seriously not in the particulars but in the broad outline of disruption and uncertainty is already a step ahead of anyone who expects perpetual progress. Mental preparation is a valuable resource because when collapse or an invading army comes to your town, you won't be wasting time or energy saying, oh, no, this can't be happening.
Learning to farm and garden are useful skills, but only in a stable political environment that will recognize and defend your ownership of your plot of land. Ownership of arable land is a good hedge against economic collapse but becomes an emotional boat anchor that keeps you stuck in place when hostile armies advance.
Learning some foreign languages may be helpful. Learn the language of whoever you think is most likely to invade your neck of the woods.
In any case, an uncertain future is most likely unstable and your best hedge against that is to stay flexible and mobile.
10/23/14, 7:26 AM
Rhisiart Gwilym said...
Simply wonderful post, JM - again!
10/23/14, 7:31 AM
RPC said...
Thank you for this! My own thought is that we're actually a good deal further down the slope of decline. One could base it at the 2008 financial collapse, the 2001 tech collapse and beginning of the US security state, or even 1980, when we began to live off our children (government debt) in earnest. Still, it's all pretty arbitrary!
"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered." - G. K. Chesterton, "On Running After One's Hat"
10/23/14, 7:35 AM
Neo Tuxedo said...
They appear to honestly believe that those options would constitute aid and comfort to the International Communist Conspiracy. Look how they still react to the New Deal, which (as I believe I've said in this space before) was clearly a desperate attempt to save capitalism from the capitalists; you'd think FDR had called for guillotining of economic royalists on the National Mall, not just for letting a few crumbs fall to the floor.
FDR pushed the New Deal for the same reason Bismarck was the one to give Germany a social welfare system: because he recognized that there's only so far down you can grind the poor. At least, there was; with the advent of television, that most dangerous of drugs, it may in fact be possible (pace Lincoln) to fool all the people all the time. (I've meant to say, and may actually have said, that if someone could explain television to Trey so he understood it, not just understood but grokked it, he would grok in fullness why Meriga and the old world fell.)
10/23/14, 7:38 AM
donalfagan said...
I guess I've read enough scifi that none of what you wrote was that hard to imagine happening. Is it too late to sail off to the West?
Mr Roboto, JMG,
A complication to simply releasing prisoners is that some prisons are now privately run for profit. Hard to say whether these prisons will shut down because of non-payment, cling to the cheap labor force, or evolve into a reality show.
10/23/14, 7:51 AM
Shane Wilson said...
thanks for your well worded response about "global" change. I try to focus all my efforts locally, to make a small change in a good way among those I'm close enough to see regularly (in person, of course), and whenever someone talks about "changing the world" (shudder), I try to redirect them into some local action. Think small, think local.
JMG,
I seemed to think that you thought that a unipolar hegemonic empire would not be possible with the energy remaining after the US empire collapse, and that the following BRICS empires would be multipolar, yet you feature a unipolar Chinese global empire. Did I remember wrong, or have you changed your mind?
Also, didn't this round of crisis/collapse of the West begin with the oil crisis of the 70's, when the West began offshoring its industry to the third world, and shoved its working class into poverty? So, not only did the 1st round of collapse/decline begin in 1914, but this round actually began with the deindustrialization of the West that began in the late 70's and picked up speed in the 80s and 90s
10/23/14, 7:56 AM
Richard Larson said...
10/23/14, 8:02 AM
Andrew Brown said...
I did want to chime in on another layer of this story - and one that I think is important in the "what - if anything - is to be done?" question. You mention the withdrawal of the state from many areas. Cultural anthropology has a lot to say about how people organize themselves in spaces that fall outside of direct state control - whether that's a jungle, desert or a slum. There will be pockets of stability, and innumerable experiments in self-organization. Human culture has never been unitary and will be less so as the global system falls apart.
Even if you are right that true ethogenesis has to be further down the road, culture is quicker to organize and adaptable even to crisis. Most will be swept away, probably, but when has that ever not been the case?
Most of our green-wizardly endeavors will leave no trace - but someone's will. In any case, humans find satisfactory living in all sorts of crazy situations - and nothing in your story exempts us from the need to work on that at least.
10/23/14, 8:08 AM
Eric S. said...
10/23/14, 8:10 AM
Joe Roberts said...
If the first round of decline started in 1914, are we then to think of the 19th century -- with all its massive inequality, slavery and at the very least state-supported racial segregation, and unflinching colonialism -- as the pre-collapse apex of western civilization? That's the part that's hard to get my head around, but perhaps I'm looking at this in an overly dichotomous way.
10/23/14, 8:14 AM
Dmitry Orlov said...
10/23/14, 8:48 AM
Dagnarus said...
Also do stories such as this
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/16/us-china-protests-idUSKCN0I513I20141016
influence your opinion off how likely China is to be the next imperial power?
10/23/14, 8:49 AM
latefall said...
http://caps2020.eu/library/
CAPS stands for "Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation"
And they have a call for proposals open since a few days! If you want to start smaller - just jump on one of the projects that tickles your fancy. If it is worth its salt they should be happy to take you on...
I am currently in the process of mashing together something between library, fablab, tool sharing, documentation...
@Paul: "Why fight for equality or a better standard of living for the greater number when such battles are rendered null and void by the lessons of history?"
Come, come - just because the odds are against us (in the end we are fighting entropy, and for all we know we won't win) is no reason to give up? There is still a minority of battles to be won. Make em count. Situations are never hopeless, only people are. It can always get worse.
If you feel the need to detach from "positive thinking" (something I highly recommend) give this a shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osJ-J2x7qFw&feature=player_detailpage#t=146
@Mister Roboto re "predisposed to criminal behavior":
While I am aware that prisons are perceived as a critical factor in crises, I am not really convinced it the predisposition to criminal behavior is a bigger problem than a predisposition to seriously unethical (e.g. selfish) behavior. You should make sure you keep the latter in check (in or out of prison).
@William Knight re "cloud": I agree to a large extent. I believe the term for the problem regarding power plant is "black start".
Also, whenever I hear "cloud" too much in IT-talk - I like to throw in a "on premises". I was thinking about putting a small server into the back rest of a comfy chair. During a cold winter the <10 W would not go to waste then. I guess that would be an embedded device...
@Jonathan re hawaii:
Not sure that is such a smart move if you are trying to stay safe. In a low tech world the sea is like a highway that allows you move a lot of loot relatively fast...
Will you bring guards? Enough? Too many?
@Daelach: Thanks for the link! Looks pretty good at first glance. I hope there's some more on de-escalation, running away, and poison. I find most resources lacking in that field. I just wonder how things would change if women took to carrying a small but readily available dose with them. Not really to win a fight but to ruin an assailant's week, or take them both down...
10/23/14, 8:55 AM
latefall said...
I should say that you are smack in the target group.
10/23/14, 8:57 AM
magicalthyme said...
On Ebola, I recently stumbled across excerpts from an article on African treatments for Ebola from a survivor. You will need to force down daily, for 5-6 days straight, 1.3 gallons of water with a heavy dose of salt and sugar mixed in. As if the nausea and vomiting are not enough, your mouth and throat will be filled with sores. They are trying to make the drink more palatable and she mentioned she occasionally snuck orange juice into the mix.
Nurse 2, Amber Vinson, has been declared virus-free by her mother. No official confirmation, but if true it is in record time. Possibly she hit the jackpot on the experimental treatments -- time will tell.
On the new travel restrictions and monitoring, I'm guessing it's a twofer: recognition of the likelihood that there will be more Duncan's over time combined with political compromise over calls for complete travel ban.
The Ebola czar is probably strictly political cover, since he's a PR "fixit" person. I noticed he was given Obama's full authority, so Obama is distancing himself from political fallout by appointing a fall-guy should things go horribly wrong.
On the concerns about mutation, note that over time mutations trend away from virulence and toward greater compatibility with their host. This fits with evolution, where the longer a host survives, the more opportunities to pass to a new host. And it fits with the facts. Of course, there are always exceptions, where a lethal strain -- such as the 1917-1918 Spanish flu -- emerges, but the more lethal a strain is, the greater the likelihood that it will burn itself out.
In the meantime, my hospital system has gone from totally ignoring it to a week's worth of daily email updates. An overstaffed, overpaid administration justifying its existance. (walks away shaking head).
Mary
10/23/14, 9:34 AM
Seaweed Shark said...
I had been under the impression that Toynbee identified the 1914-1945 period not as the first stage of decline, but as the "time of troubles" that ends the creative phase of a civilization and brings on its imperial phase, which could last many hundreds of years before actually declining.
Perhaps it's the same thing -- but I've read Toynbee and as far as I recall he doesn't say a thing about resource exhaustion as a cause of decline, at least not in his magnum opus. He seems to find the cause of decline in the inexorable working out of the inherent life cycle of the civilization, never mind whether there are resources around or not. Only in some of his late works does the idea of resource exhaustion kind of creep shamefacedly in, from the side. But enough about that.
I would be interested to read your thoughts on one of the most famous earlier examples of the type of story you told in this post. I know a number of these came out during the 1970s and 80s, but I am particularly thinking of the near-future chapters of Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men". How does Stapledon's vision of the fall of the 'first men' differ, in general theme, from your own? If I remember right he did lay heavy emphasis on the exhaustion of fossil energy as a cause of decline, and he represented human society as being so consumed with its own fantasies as to ignore the crisis in the room, all of which appears to follow your own thinking but which must have been ground-breaking ideas in 1930.
Your blog remains one of my most anticipated weekly reads and always provides much to think on.
10/23/14, 9:35 AM
steve pearson said...
Of course, during the earlier stages of decline, a lot of prisoners will end up in someones war band, probably along with the cops who put them in jail in the first place. Interesting times.
10/23/14, 9:38 AM
joe said...
10/23/14, 9:51 AM
theotokosbooks said...
10/23/14, 10:03 AM
pyrrhus said...
I took a course in Roman history in college with an excellent professor. On the question of when the Roman Republic went bad, he suggested that the turning point was the costly and lengthy Spanish wars, which as I recall were around 140 BC. That's a long time before the collapse. This professor also suggested that Vietnam may serve a similar function for the US. But the US is already showing late stage decrepitude, as you point out, only 45 years later.....
10/23/14, 10:11 AM
Bob Patterson said...
On a more sour note - Salon article on how 21 American cities make giving food to the homeless illegal. What is next? Death squads? Today's NY Times notes new CT rules/laws regarding Ebola quarantiune of anyone suspected of the sickness (9 interned so far)
10/23/14, 10:47 AM
Bob Patterson said...
10/23/14, 11:05 AM
Glenn Murray said...
The notion of the airship itself is flawed: It was a rare airship that survived long enough to be dismantled (USS Los Angeles, and Graf Zeppelin). Even at the peak of airship engineering and design, run by arguably the most well-disciplined, experienced organizations in the world at the time, disasters such as the R-38, R-101, USS Akron, Macon, Shenandoah, K-5, K-14, K-34, K-53, K-56, K-57, K-111, K-133, The Italia, Roma, C-2, Hindenburg, Dixmunde, Spirit of Akron, Goodyear lightship,.... to name just a few were common headlines. They broke up, blew away, crashed, burst into flame, fell from the sky, exploded and failed in innumerably different and exiting ways.
Maybe this time it will be different.
I would not count on any helium being available for any future airship fleet: http://www.livescience.com/38990-looming-helium-shortage.html. The wish that "New Technologies" and "increased demand" will magically bring new helium sources to the market is a bit like the chanting that has been going on over fracking and oil. It may be time to start training up some homing pigeons instead. They are probably more reliable/ less dangerous.
10/23/14, 11:26 AM
RPC said...
10/23/14, 11:29 AM
Robert Haskett said...
Your predictions, or similar crises, seem uncomfortably possible given current realities and trends, about which the majority of us remain in absolute denial. Although your timelines are based on the history of previous civilizations, they seem rather too long to me. A significantly more abbreviated timeline would be more plausible given our 21st century society reliance on the rapidity of transportation and communications, the corporate supply of goods and services, the fragilities of high technology, the limited supplies of non-renewable resources (especially fossil fuels), and the destructive potential of modern warfare with its weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the hubris and ignorance of the controlling elite ensure that poor political, economic, and environmental decisions will continue to be made. And the elite will maintain power for much too long because of the active support, or the blind faith, or the apathy of the “sheep” majority.
Nevertheless, despite almost insurmountable odds, I remain hopeful that awareness of our predicament will dawn on most of us, that we will realize that a massive transformation is urgently required, and that we will demonstrate an unprecedented level of local, national, and international co-operation and generosity to embrace a sustainable lifestyle, save our planet from environmental catastrophe, and preserve the best of our current civilization. (Yes, admittedly, given what I have seen over the course of my life, it is a faint hope, but if we believe that our lives and those of our children and grandchildren have meaning and that goodness is more widespread than evil, it is essential to have hope. Yes, JMG, I too hope that, despite rather overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it will be different this time.)
10/23/14, 11:31 AM
EntropicDoom said...
10/23/14, 11:43 AM
EnergyLens said...
I get the sense that in the “future” very few people will look back and see with hindsight The Limits as a major factor in the descent, in the crumbling of this industrial culture, or even the cycles that you have so eloquently elucidated. I think for most it will be trauma has dislocated them or their fore bearers, and for a long time ideological groups will perpetuate narratives blaming this or that scapegoat, this or that conspiracy, this or that “fool”. It stuns me that there are still people who believe Rome collapsed because of lead poisoning…
I am thinking today of the conflict you had with the neoprimitivists in 2006(?) and the challenges people had with your perspective on Transition Towns… for me this post really drives home the change in perspective you have been advocating and how some over-passionate supporters for this or that “solution” or believers that there is one true path out of the crisis as they perceive it have really boxed themselves in.
It is always nice to see a reference to Ruskin! My grandfather was something of a Green Wizard… long, long before I had any inkling the deeper challenges that our culture would face. From him I inherited a full set of Ruskin’s writings. It wasn’t until after he passed that I had the opportunity to open them and decipher his margin notes. I wish that I could speak to him now to get a sense of how he really saw things; I wonder what struggles he faced in trying to communicate with his peers.
10/23/14, 12:23 PM
ed boyle said...
Punctuated decline, with stability at a lower stage followed by next decline follows historical experience. 80-100 year phases with a paradigm of power and structure, repeating a number of times as a civilization rises and falls is normal if we believe strauss and howe. Maybe it lasts 300 or 1000 years.
I could see russia , surviving as byzantium, slyly going down to lowest level to keep it going hundreds of more years, while in west trying to maintain high level culture results infaster collapse. Siberia is big, good for survival. Beyond that, analysis, storyline is great but who knows what will happen.
10/23/14, 12:44 PM
SLClaire said...
10/23/14, 12:45 PM
daelach said...
You will find much stuff on de-escalation on the website. Concerning "running away", he has written a whole book on how to do it correctly: "Marc MacYoung - Street E & E". Evading, escaping, how to get over fences, when to hide and when not, when and how to strike during escaping and so on.
As for female defence, poison isn't the best option because it is difficult to inject it with stopping power. Depending on your local circumstances, a small firearm is a good option, next best is a knife (though that requires a bit training). Both equalise inferior physical force, but the latter does not require ammunition supply which may become scarce. And guess why fencing doesn't have weight classes as opposed to practically all other martial arts.
That's better than poison because even if you poisoned the attacker and he suffered afterwards, you still would suffer, too. There is a brilliant book on the topic, however not available anymore, plus that this is serious stuff I would not want to mention here as not to risk any problems for the Archdruid. In case you are interested in a scanned PDF, you can contact me through my profile.
10/23/14, 12:49 PM
latefall said...
@JMG & Donald: Should we have a drawing competition for the fairies of progress and decline? The wand would have to be a bent fuel rod for mine... I recently read about the "Heinzelmann" (a generally nice and helpful house ghost) who could appear in different forms - though the original form was said to be a stabbed child, bled white but covered in blood - with two knives sticking cross-wise in his heart. People used to make effigies for such helpful goblins "Kobolde"...
@YJV: compression is less of a problem than longer term (weeks+) storage. As fuel it still sucks compared to liquid fossil fuels. Even if you find a tank to intercalate it in. But I guess it'll be used, as well as ethanol and wood gas. Actually I'd be interested if there's a halfways efficient way to separate the (not insignificant fraction of) hydrogen out of wood gas source. I'm afraid all this is not going to fix the fact that we'd run into resource limits...
There is somewhat promising (not as in "flying car", or more energy) research on combined gas production and energy storage through compression if I remember correctly...
@Andrew Brown: Thanks for that comment! I strongly agree. I have the faint hope that at least some aspects of life will make more sense again as we return to business as usual after the fossil fit.
10/23/14, 12:57 PM
LewisLucanBooks said...
I was watching some of Medieval Monastery Farm over on YouTube a couple of months ago. Cheese and butter making utensils were cleaned using, basically, salt and sunshine. Around my place I mostly use vinegar to clean and disinfect. There's enough feral apples around that I can make my own.
10/23/14, 1:04 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Daelach, yes, that's certainly one option.
Brian, the homeland of industrial civilization is Europe, and in the century before 1914, the nations of Europe and their immediate colonies owned the planet, lock, stock, and barrel. That collapsed in 1914-1954, and was replaced with the far more fragile US and Soviet hegemony over a much more restive world. In looking at other civilizations, historians usually put the peak around the point of maximum territorial control, and that seemed valid in this case as well.
Tom, my guess is that some kind of indirect hegemony will be more likely.
Avery, it was indeed. Thanks for your post -- I'd also noticed how well Spengler was doing, but hadn't taken the time to make a list. That's useful, and provides a good place to point people.
Snoqualman, I expect shortwave to make a comeback in the decades ahead, first as a retro fad, and then as a serious information medium that goes around the mainstream. Keep your receiver!
Marc, to my mind the language of morality has been used to death in recent decades. I find it more useful to stay on the fact side of the fact/value dichotomy, and let people make up their own minds about morality -- that's something of a Druid habit, for whatever that's worth. As for India and Russia, this was an impressionistic sketch, you know, not a book-length survey!
Judy, by all means weep for your children, and then dry your face and teach them things that can help them get through the same kind of rough times your grandparents and great-grandparents experienced. There's quite a bit that can be done to make the Long Descent less traumatic than it would otherwise be, and the experiences of the generations that survived two world wars and the Great Depression are a good place to start
Stunned, exactly. Better by whose definition?
Phil, I'm waiting for the pundits to start saying that about Ebola.
Peter, I explained in my post why I find that sort of "but it's different this time!" argument unconvincing. It's always easy to point to a few unique vulnerabilities in the present case and insist that this means it's all over in thirty years, but those earlier civilizations had unique vulnerabilities of their own, you know. Fast-crash theorists have been predicting imminent doom since before I was born, and they've been consistently wrong; meanwhile the fractal decline predicted by Spengler et al. has proceeded exactly on the course they described. I consider their view a much better guide.
10/23/14, 1:12 PM
heather said...
Thanks for your condolences. Fred was a good cat and we will miss him.
One final gift he gave our family was the opportunity to begin to normalize death and the grieving process for our children (ages 6 and 10). We got to be sad together, to talk about what might happen after death, to bury our loved one and talk about all bodies returning to the earth, to talk about eventually moving on while remembering the good times and keeping the love in our hearts… Assuming JMG is accurate in his description of the type of future my (and all) children will face, they will likely need the skills for dealing with grief and loss more than my progress-fairy-sheltered youth ever demanded of me. And I frankly am learning much from my kids' direct and honest responses to the situation. I see this relatively small loss (though I feel disloyal to Fred for framing it that way!) as a form of inoculation, strengthening us all for inevitable greater future pain. I believe that the dark times will come; with luck we can learn to deal with them with some grace and acceptance.
--Heather in CA
10/23/14, 1:14 PM
Lesser Bull said...
Mr. Greer’s vision of the future is highly dependent on his conviction that economically accessible petroleum is being drained rapidly. Without that, IMHO a more likely version of the future is a series of crises that culminate towards the end of the century in the formation of some kind of world consensus governance that can go on for several centuries or longer. It will be stagnant, but will have a lot of apparent progress at first both from inertia and also from the gains from scale that will come from unification. That is, more or less, John Reilly’s vision in his work Spengler’s Future, which is a lot of fun to read. Check it out. http://web.archive.org/web/20111119084935/http://johnreilly.info/title.htm
Part of the difference between Greer and most other people that take Spengler seriously is that Greer identifies Louis XIV as an Alexander the Great figure whereas most other Spenglerites identify Napoleon as our modern equivalent of Alexander the Great. See @Avery above.
10/23/14, 1:17 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Kassandra, thanks for your comment! I'll consider your suggestion for a post on history reading -- yes, Spengler takes some getting used to. I don't happen to have any recommendations for southern European paleoecology -- maybe one of my readers can help out here.
Matt, sure. Look up the fraction of the Earth's land area that was directly ruled either from a European capital or from the capital of one of the first wave of European colonies (basically, the New World) in 1914. Now compare that to the equivalent fraction now. That's a solid marker of decline.
Leo, sieges are a normal part of warfare -- consider Stalingrad! It's only the somewhat odd conditions of recent wars that have made them uncommon.
Brian, Mary Odum's always worth reading.
Fly, I haven't seen it, and probably won't, so don't have an answer for you.
YJV, I'd encourage you to give it a try and see what kind of results you get.
Sgage, funny.
Onething, yes, and a lot of other factors, too. It was a fairly brief sketch of two and a half very troubled centuries!
Zaphod, I hope they get it before the black swan lands in your back yard...
David, glad to hear it. That was the point of the exercise, or most of it.
Onething, different people get it in different ways, and at different moments -- thus the varying ways I try to use to get the message across.
10/23/14, 1:25 PM
jim said...
I think that from a perspective of Catabolic Collapse, air ships have the potential to have lowest total cost (construction and maintenance costs) for any Global transportation system. (especially if the Airships are solar powered, and hydrogen is used for both lift and energy storage)
John, I am starting to come to the conclusion that a fully fleshed out Theory of Catabolic Collapse could guide investments and policies that could postpone the collapse for a long time.
10/23/14, 1:42 PM
magicalthyme said...
I'm not sure it's all that far away. We've already replaced welfare with workfare, and force single mothers to put their children with strangers while they work. The drive toward the cheapest wage possible could be as much a way to force people to work evermore hours to support themselves in dire poverty (such that recently a young woman died of CO poisoning while napping in her car between her 3 minimum wage jobs). Not to mention the constant griping from the right about paying unemployment compensation. And my Gov. 38% (LePage) is on record as referring to Social Security as "welfare." Never mind the decades worth of taxes we paid into the system in order to qualify...
Just a quick correction, too. I should have written "a minimum of 1.3 gallons" to treat Ebola. Also, in Africa they say that anti-inflammatories can make things worse, although the Spanish nurse was treated with anti-inflammatories when her breathing became difficult. It may be a matter of the type of anti-inflammatory. Some act directly on the immune system, aspirin leaves mucus membranes more prone to bleeding, but maybe some herbal combination will not have the negative side effects.
Mary
10/23/14, 2:12 PM
Mike said...
There are just 3 options for lighter-than-air vehicles: hydrogen, helium (the only 2 gasses significantly less dense than air) and hot air.
I suppose at some point the lesson of the Hindenburg may be forgotten, but if so, it will be relearned quickly. Hydrogen is not a practical option.
It's not widely know, but helium is a by-product of the natural gas industry. The same deep rock formations trap both gases and helium is separated out when the natural gas is produced. This source will be depleted when the natural gas is depleted. So helium is not a practical option.
Hot air can be produced with any sort of combustion, but an airship (and now we're really just talking balloons) that uses wood or cow dung as its fuel will have little range and little capacity for any other cargo. More likely, a hot air balloon will use distillates of wood gassification or methane from biodigesters as its fuel. Both are possible, but with so many better uses for these raw materials, I don't think hot air is a practical option either.
Air ships are unlikely to play a significant role in any post-carbon world I can think of. But maybe I should read The Ecotechnic Future. Perhaps you've explored this topic in more detail JMG?
10/23/14, 2:30 PM
latefall said...
The point about poison was also not so much intended as a effective way to handle such a situation - more to avoid it in the first place. If it became customary for a woman to be armed (similar to a bee's sting), you could reduce the number of easy targets for serious crimes - that could make much of it nonviable. Also, I don't expect to get away without suffering if I draw a knife and the other party still insists on a fight. The additional point with poison is that they'd have a strong incentive to keep you alive, once they are convinced they actually got the poison in their system - after all you may have (or know someone who has) an antidote. Calling an ambulance may not be their first choice.
Re gun: People are very sensitive to guns spreading, and walking around armed, here. I may get one for blanks - which is a lot better than nothing at all. At the moment I carry a kubotan and pepperspray only. I may get/make a decent sling and spear gun, but I won't be carrying those. Long term I consider a walking stick/spear/blowgun thing useful. Most of all the walking stick part - to keep well clear of trouble in the first place.
10/23/14, 2:42 PM
Ray Wharton said...
Minutes before loading up this post I finished my third reading of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It is interesting how the apocalypse that the story follows has the same shape. The earliest phase remember in the lore of the peoples was known simply as the seven days of fire, which in due time was followed by the rise of a subsequent technological society, the Kingdom of Efrit. It build many wonders, before it fell. There were three events, each with devastated the dominant empires of the era between the seven days of fire and the time of the story. It is in the after math of a civilization which went much further down the road of technological development than our civilization is likely to reach, and the global devastation is proportionately much greater; the majority of the planets land surface is too toxic for humans to survive without protective gear.
Linking these threads of though are your military ultra light aircraft. It takes some ticklish imagining to see a dark dark age where the chieftain of a proud tribe still maintains independence from a more powerful neighbor by grace of a preserved ultra light still kept sky worthy. Cannons, a single machine gun
(used only in critical moments in battle), some ultra light aircraft, and ancient ballistic armor for the most prestigious warriors back up a main force fighting with muskets, lances, and swords.
Honestly this post didn't strike me as too down, much of the repeated body blows don't land until well after my likely tenure on the Earth. The devastation that could hit soon, its an endurance race not a sprint. True friends and good spirits are my precaution; to those ends I have many apples in need of baking, be well and thanks for the interesting read.
10/23/14, 3:07 PM
Ed-M said...
Well thank you very much for the timeline, it certainly puts things in perspective. It looks a lot like what happened to Imperial Russia and then Soviet Union. And it may describe what happened to Detroit since 1950... gradually increasing decline punctuated by traumatic events. In other words, not in the least like 9/11 (Twin Towers' collapse) at all.
Pace deorum.
10/23/14, 3:39 PM
Ed-M said...
I'm so sorry.
Ed-M
10/23/14, 3:42 PM
MizBean said...
For our household I added an addendum to Mr Greer's acronym:
LESS MEAT
Less Energy Stuff & Stimulation
More Effort Attention & Time
It's kind of a mnemonic in duplicate.
10/23/14, 3:49 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Wolfgang, exactly -- you live in a part of the world that's had to deal with ordinary history in the recent past. One of the things that makes Americans clueless is that it's been too long since we've had war, plague, famine, etc. on our own soil.
Rhisiart, diolch yn fawr!
RPC, oh, no question, the US has actually been in decline since around 1974. It's simply the beginning of the crisis stage of decline and fall that I put in 2014.
Tuxedo, the interesting thing to me is that television is losing its capacity to keep people entranced by the same narrative. Instead we've got an assortment of contending narratives, many of them fostered by radio or the internet, and no reason to think we've seen as many of them as we'll get.
Donalfagan, the Straight Path is closed. We're here, and have to deal with Middle-earth as it is.
Shane, I don't recall dismissing the idea of a unipolar hegemony further down the line -- quite the contrary, the idea that someone else will take over when the US lands on its nose has been a theme of these posts all along. My guess is that Chinese hegemony will be less intrusive than ours, just as ours was less intrusive than the British Empire's conquest of a quarter of the world's land surface.
Richard, yes, but that's because I've been living with these ideas for decades. It takes practice.
Andrew, of course. Most of the new ventures that matter will be going on inside the stateless zones, and post-migration communities that happen to preserve useful skills may become the seeds of great nations a thousand years down the road. That's also ordinary history.
Eric, storytelling is probably the oldest and certainly one of the most powerful technologies our species has come up with. We'll see about continuations or expansions of this particular story.
Joe, did you think the peak of a civilization was a moral peak -- or, let's say, a peak of niceness? Most civilizations at their peak are busy conquering and enslaving other nations, you know, and western industrial civilization was just another example. It's often on the way down that people start having second thoughts about such habits; as Hegel noted, the owl of Minerva flies at dusk.
Dmitry, you're quite correct that this brief impressionistic sketch didn't happen to mention Russia by name. It also didn't mention by name India, Brazil, Malaysia, Ecuador, or Andorra, for that matter. It was meant as a rough outline, and -- ahem -- my world view is a little less Russocentric than yours seems to have become of late.
10/23/14, 5:10 PM
imaginosophy said...
Here's a thought: How likely is it that we will escape more nuclear reactor disasters a la Fukushima while governance and resources are diminishing (or even a plague ongoing yoinks!) since even a decommissioned power plant (spent fuel) requires decades of monitoring and maintenance? Not likely, right?
Now that I think on it, since it's ongoing, I wonder if Fukushima could replace ebola as the precipitant crisis of JMG's collapse narrative? And what about Japan prematurely achieving failed-state status as a result of the remediation costs and other fall-outs?
This from an article about TEPCO's most recent attempt to stop the radiation leaks from yesterday:
"The scary part about the escaping radioactive material all this time later is that no one truly knows the scope of the problem and how best to approach it."
Gah!
Who wants a free Fukusanta jpeg for Doomer/WAFer Xmas cheer, this year?
http://imaginosophy.blog.com/files/2013/12/Fukusanta-sm1.jpg
10/23/14, 5:22 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Magicalthyme, thanks for the latest. The info on rehydration chimes with what I've seen, too.
Shark, I use Toynbee as a source for the morphology of collapse, but you're right that his theories of causation leave quite a bit to be desired. That's why I also use Spengler, Vico, Catton, and a great many others. As for Stapleton, it's been a very long time since I read Last and First Men -- will have to remedy that before I can respond in any useful sense.
Steve, certainly societies with a lot less wealth to hand will find other ways to deal with crime than locking up huge numbers of people on the government nickel.
Joe, I need to read that one of these days.
Theotokosbooks, a short impressionistic sketch of the sort I offered doesn't have room for everything! Malik Ibrahim, by the way, was (will be?) a Muslim Filipino warlord, the Attila the Hun of the 23rd century southwest Pacific, not a religious figure at all -- he briefly united Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and large chunks of Southeast Asia under his rule, though it all fell apart again after his death.
Pyrrhus, the difference is that the US is not industrial civilization, it's just one temporary hegemon. Nobody managed the Roman feat of uniting the whole industrial world under a single government, so we get a succession of hegemons, each of which collapses in turn, rather than a universal state that keeps on being propped up by one ruling elite after another.
Bob, glad you enjoyed the book! As for your two alternatives, I don't think either one is at all likely; the internal proletariat in America, no matter how bad things are here, recognizes that the implosion of American empire and the end of the arrangements that let us batten on a quarter of the world's wealth will make things much, much worse -- so nobody really wants to rock the boat.
Glenn, blimps served in two world wars as antisubmarine crafts with very few accidents and a great deal of success; what you've shown is that rigid airships are very vulnerable, which is certainly true. I suspect our descendants will find a place for some sort of airship, but as I noted in my scenario, my money would be on handbuilt ultralight airplanes powered by alcohol engines as the most likely aircraft for the next millennium, mostly because of their military value as reconnaissance craft.
Robert, yes, I'm familiar with those arguments; obviously I disagree, for reasons I've outlined in detail in my first two peak oil books, The Long Descent and The Ecotechnic Future. The contrast between sudden doom and the unprecedented awakening in which you put your hopes sounds rather too much like religious myth for my tastes.
Doom, oh, there will be the samurai, too. Those or the close equivalent always show up in dark ages.
Lens, oddly enough, I've been thinking of those old quarrels as well. It's always the same thing -- the myth of perpetual progress or the myth of imminent apocalypse -- dolled up in this or that set of ideological drag.
10/23/14, 5:37 PM
John Michael Greer said...
SLClaire, good. It's when we wake up to the fact that life is a process of ripening toward death, that death is not the opposite of life but its fulfillment, that actual maturity finally arrives. That's how I see it, at least.
Latefall, let's do it! Pictures of the Progress Fairy and the Decline Fairy are now on topic.
Lewis, sounds like a good plan to me.
Heather, that sounds like an utterly sensible way to approach this.
Mike, no, I haven't gotten much into the prospects for deindustrial aircraft, lighter-than-air or otherwise. The thought of an army of the new dark ages, mostly rifle-carrying infantry, with some cavalry for scouting and skirmishing, some crude rocket launchers for artillery, and a couple of ultralights buzzing overhead for long-range scouting, just stuck in my head!
Ray, I'm not thinking of ultralight aircraft as something preserved from the past, but something that smiths of the new dark ages could craft for themselves: a simple alcohol-fueled engine, fabric wings, wood or bamboo structural members, and a certain amount of cordage and metal fittings, and you're in the air. It's actually far from rare for technologies from an earlier civilization to remain viable in stripped down form for military use through the dark age that follows, and this one would be both easy and useful to dark age warlords.
Ed-M, you're most welcome.
MizBean, maybe so, but my omnivore readers may decide to change the phrasing a bit, you know.
Imaginosophy, I've commented at some length about how I see the nuclear issue working out in an earlier post. The short form is that yes, that's likely to be one of many nasty legacies our society is leaving to the future, and it will account for a share of deaths, but in the near to middle future it's not going to cause collapse all by itself -- you'll notice that the wilder claims made about the Fukushima disaster have turned out to be handwaving. Nuclear power is bad enough; there's no need to insist that it's even worse than it actually is!
10/23/14, 6:00 PM
Kyoto Motors said...
10/23/14, 6:07 PM
Snoqualman said...
Helium is a wonderful element, but people casually throw it away. I often hike in the Cascade mountains downwind from Seattle, and it has long been a dreary part of many trips to find dead mylar balloons, their helium gone, presumably up through the atmosphere and on out into the blackness of space, never to be seen by humanity again. And for what? Nothing more than a few moments of selfish amusement watching a bagful of it floating away. Just one of the innumerable ways people waste the natural treasures of our fair planet.
There was a show on "Nova," I believe, a few years back, taking a new look at the Hindenburg disaster. If I remember correctly, the verdict seemed to be that it was the flammable fabric doping agents, applied to the outer shell I think to decrease gas permeability, that burned so fiercely, not the hydrogen.
I believe I have read that hydrogen burns cool, and has a rather low energy density overall, making it not that good of a fuel. There seem to be at least some knowledgeable people who believe its flammability to be quite manageable. Airships of course face other problems, and don't mix well with violent weather, as attested by the string of disasters listed by a previous commenter. But even so, they do "float on air," and it may be too soon to rule out a comeback of sorts for them, even filled with hydrogen.
Regarding the possibility of climate change making far northern latitudes more habitable and productive, I would not bet on it. The Arctic will still be the Arctic. Winter nights will still be very long. Even if "average" temperatures go up quite a bit, it is the extreme temperatures that will still dictate what can and cannot grow there.
Average, or mean, really means rather little in this context. Perhaps there will be more nice days on Ellesmere Island than at present, but I fear it will get just as cold then as it does now, maybe not as often, but it only has to happen once to destroy whatever it is that one may be growing and hoping to eat.
Talk of northern Russia or the Canadian Arctic becoming significantly more hospitable seems premature. The average can stay the same or go up while the highs get higher and the lows get lower. I worry that those lows may get lower, even at lower latitudes, with unfortunate consequences for agriculture. The term "global warming" is an unfortunate choice of words, and some have suggested it should really be called global "weirding."
As for China becoming the world's pre-eminent power, we'll see on that one, too. Previous commenters have reminded us how Japan looked to be on the verge of buying almost the whole world in the late 80's, and we know how that turned out.
Certainly China is resuming its position as a great power, but it is also beset with serious problems, like a huge population on a relatively small amount of productive arable land. Much of that land is threatened by desertification, or being ruined by runaway "development" and pollution. The fact that just about anyone there with the means to get a foreign passport does so has to mean something as regards their confidence in the country's future.
But they are a hard working, energetic people. I wouldn't bet on the U.S. keeping its position of power much longer, based as it is to a large extent on conjuring trillions of dollars into existence. We probably still have far more good land per capita than most places, despite our own energetic efforts to ruin it. As ever, we'll see.
10/23/14, 6:12 PM
ganv said...
I think of the first crisis of modernity (1914-1954) as an instability of the exponential growth phase of our civilization--new possibilities of warfare and mass communication developed faster than the social norms needed to manage them. It could be that a piece of the next instability will be directly caused by growth as much as by resource constraints. (i.e. internet communication and drone warfare might be equal initiators with resource constraints in the next crisis).
In the background here is an observation that humans don't learn much from the past. Our knowledge of our history is much much more complete than any civilization before us, and in theory we easily could avoid the worst of the coming crises. This time could be different. But JMG is almost certainly right that we won't. The irrational currents of human social and political movements seem to be much much stronger than the rational currents.
10/23/14, 6:31 PM
Kylie said...
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/480759328945412500/
10/23/14, 7:04 PM
steve pearson said...
cheers, Steve
10/23/14, 7:50 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Snoqualman, not that many million years ago, crocodiles lived on the northern shore of Canada. If we get serious global warming, the arctic will not stay arctic; 24 hours of sunlight on the Arctic Ocean all summer, even if it's angled sunlight, puts a lot of heat into the water.
Ganv, in theory, we could have chosen a different route. In practice, we didn't, and at this point -- as I see it, at least -- it's way too late in the process to escape the consequences of our inaction.
Kylie, but which side is which?
10/23/14, 8:21 PM
Kylie said...
On the flipside, Decline is starvation and death for we who benefited on the way up, but for the wider environment Decline is pink and rosy as the blood we stole temporarily starts pumping back through their veins again.
10/23/14, 9:31 PM
steve pearson said...
10/23/14, 9:34 PM
steve pearson said...
cheers, Steve
10/23/14, 10:27 PM
Unknown said...
Things are not so good in South America either. Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are in the midst of a nearly year long drought. This effects both their hydroelectric power generation as well as their drinking water supplies. If relief does not come by the end of the year both cities could be without drinking water. We´re talking almost 16 million people in the region. Climate change is already having a huge impact yet you see almost none of this in the world wide press. The two states the cities exist in are in dispute over who controls the water that remains and how much each should get. Local war here is a possibility, though I hope not a likely one.
10/24/14, 12:48 AM
YJV said...
@ Tom - I think NZers would be more willing to integrate with Australia over China. For all practical purposes NZ is a colony of Australia's anyway.
@latefall - yes from what I understand the basic problem is (relatively fast) leakage. I hadn't thought of fuel-ethanol or wood gas (there's so much common knowledge that you won't find in the obvious places anymore). There's research in trapping hydrides in metals like magnesium but I don't know how efficient that will be. Any attempt to create the level of fuel we have now will run into hard resource limits.
@JMG: a summer holiday project seems like a good idea indeed!
@Mike - the biggest problem is definitely the fact that Helium, the safest gas, isn't easily available without natural gas infrastructure. I'm wondering to what extent Helium was extracted prior to that industry existing. The Hindenburg design had inner cells that were supposed to be filled with Hydrogen, sealed off from outer cells that were to be filled with Helium. Hydrogen was supposed to be valved instead of Helium when necessary. I'm not sure if there's any established methods of making hydrogen gas less reactive (I read that there was NASA research on that), but if there is a lower energy way of doing it, it could make hydrogen airships viable.
@jim: The paper was done in a mundane way where I simply had to 'apply' the different analysis concepts, additionally I have to deal with non-Peak-oil acquainted academia, so I really had to tone down the harshness of reality (even with a page of background on Peak-Oil) and only focus on the immediate future. At the end the running theme was 'it all depends on the amount of available energy'.
I didn't think of graphene because from what I learnt in materials science last year, it's a heavy energy consuming modern piece of technology. Even though the first film of graphene was made with graphite and sellotape, I haven't heard of any research that produces graphene with minimial complexity of process and little embodied energy.
10/24/14, 1:06 AM
Juhana said...
Are you exploring this path of thinking in your other writings, or can you recommend other writers having same philosophical worldview? During this storm, that thinking is very comforting, at least for me.
I have been reading this blog for a while now. It was one of the first sites I found after my own waking up to the reality of peak energy and environmental depletion, manifesting themselves currently through economy in contraction. One curious side note I have made during this time is that American readership tends to reframe everything into morality play. There must be justice and moral lesson hidden in the story, or story doesn't make sense at all, seems to be the main narrative.
After travelling extensively through areas what Timothy Snyder calls collectively as "bloodlands" that attitude makes no sense. Heck, I am born and living in the same geographical area, albeit in much luckier part of it, in the northern extension of this geopolitical fault line. This almost Manichean attitude of Americans (black/white, darkness/light) is probably biggest cultural barrier I have ever met. It seems that amoral (not immoral, mind you) assessment of situation is next to impossible for most of your readership. Timothy Snyder seems to be one of very few Americans who really "get it", history and it's consequences.
I dare to claim that anyone born to the landscape over which fire storms of holodorom/pogroms/holocaust/blitzkrieg war fronts raged repeatedly and having even tiniest amount of historical perspective has SOME inner sense about liquid nature of morality and about need to defend your own tribal contingent no matter what. They also know how to do small-scale gardening, fishing and hunting. ALL of them, including my own family, maybe counting out very small urban upper-middle class of mentioned nations.
For many demagogues painting hellfire images about doings of this or that tribal federation, same actions would be absolutely allright if it was THEIR gang in position to execute them. I believe this is basic truth about biological nature of human race everywhere, but some cultures try more desperately deny it. Longer the timeline when no war has ravaged one's own land and wealthier that peacetime has been, more easy it is to fool oneself.
This difference of worldviews going to the very foundations ensures that US dealings with resurrecting crisis in said geographical area, in Bloodlands, shall not go well for your state. You are going to stumble around the dark room with wrong mental map in your mind.
I am not so interested about long view. Any brotherhood with its descentants must survive through current problems and those looming immediately after them, and if it doesn't...long view doesn't matter to them anymore. Most logical way to react to situation is with amoral attitude towards strangers (not immoral, there is difference between them), at the same time strengthening bonds and firepower of your own kin.
Why to bother anymore about abstract wrongdoings against, let's say residents in Ferguson, if they are just bunch of strangers for you? It's not like they would be helping you in bad spot either. So why waste your time, energy and resources to have moral outrage about things that does not affect your own, and doesn't involve your allies? It seems so absurd, like some theological argument over how many angels can dance on the pin of the needle. Let the strangers fight it over between themselves, don't risk yourselves in that process irrelevant for you.
10/24/14, 1:16 AM
Bruno Bolzon said...
10/24/14, 2:37 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Very plausible and the seeds are already in place too. There are benefits to being an island with a massive desert. Did you know that the centre of the continent isn't technically a desert, but more of an arid land. It has always supported people, although not in the densities that we are used to.
Interestingly too, I've often thought that higher and warmer oceans may paradoxically lead to more rainfall here through greater evaporation and increased energy to the storm bands which circle the equator.
Incidentally too, a big chunk of the desert/arid lands which is to the north west of here is actually below present sea level, so you never quite know what the future brings? In wet years the area fills up to slowly drain away into the Great Artesian bore. The area fills with life during those events and the extra moisture brings rain to my part of the world.
Did you note that an Ebola case has been reported in New York of all places? I noted that the government here has refused to send any assistance other than AU$18m to the affected regions. Oh yeah, customs has been going hard on the 700 or so people that have been in that area too and returned to Australia.
It is strange that we can find the resources to send military assistance to Iraq (military advisers, whatever that means - didn't they use that language in previous wars?), but not Africa. I heard an interview with Julie Bishop the foreign minister who said that we were focusing on assistance in the immediate Oceanic region in relation to Ebola. She also happened to mention that Fiji had soldiers are active as peace keepers in the affected Ebola regions. Pragmatism, dunno?
Oh yeah, there is a new blog entry up with lots of cool photos - even some of the local insect protein! Interested? Check it out at: Trying to smile
Cheers everyone!
Chris
10/24/14, 2:51 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Hear, Hear! Well spoken - as usual!
Hi Shane,
Welcome to reality. It is difficult indeed, is it not? Still, better learn the fact today with a full belly than tomorrow when you may be hungry.
Hi Kylie,
Yeah, there are more than few around these parts too. I should take the camera out for a drive one day and post some photos. The funny and ironic thing is that as that land has become fallow, the fertility and top soil would also increase. Interesting stuff huh? Also with the building codes as they stand, it is much cheaper to restore a wreck of an old farm house than build from scratch.
Cheers
Chris
10/24/14, 3:08 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
I understand that you are busy, but I hope that you have had a chance to ponder the implications of transfer pricing further as there are just so many fascinating and different angles to it?
Everyday more angles spring to mind: The company performance has been dismal last year, so there will be no wage rises, in fact we're planning to off shore the local jobs. In fact we actually have to increase unpaid hours to improve labour productivity (economists love that sort of gear).
Oh yeah, I've since discovered that Adam Smith was in fact deeply opposed to joint stock companies (the modern corporation) and was very honest in his assessment of company directors of such entities. "Negligence and profusion, therefore must prevail" is one actual quote. Honestly, I believe that I would have enjoyed a quiet beer or two with the guy.
The guy actually had a preference for small business.
This is an awesome quote from John Kenneth Galbraith too: "People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason." Oh my, but he has both a sharp wit and tongue! Something to aspire to I guess.
By the way, my internet troll troubles are now sorted thoroughly. I discovered by back tracking where the guy lived. It is amazing how many clues can be found to a persons real world existence in their Internet persona (videos, comments etc). It is the unwise person that assumes that they are smarter than everyone else. Even the dumbest dog that I have had the pleasure of knowing displays a level rat cunning that can be often surprising.
Hi Heather,
My condolences for your loss.
Cheers
Chris
10/24/14, 3:28 AM
daelach said...
@ JMG: The decline of the US beginning with its national peak-oil, I guess. Did you notice the coincidence of that and the termination of the Apollo moon program?
Concerning the light aircraft of the future, not made of high-tech material (which will not be available anyway) or even metal, but wood, lacquered tissue and cords, with wheels like bicycle wheels. These were the first usable aircraft, like the "Dufaux 4" from 1909.
Actually, there is a striking similarity to the life cycle of a human in that. From a weak child to a thriving adult and then as a gaffer weak again.
10/24/14, 3:43 AM
Darren Urquhart said...
2 billion would pull us back to 1988 levels.
Little more than blowing the froth off the top really.
10/24/14, 4:26 AM
Gloucon X said...
I hadn't yet thought that the current Ebola epidemic could increase overall anti-immigrant sentiment. But now it seems obvious, and I wonder if it won’t be the biggest issue in the 2016 election. If the crisis worsens, a candidate who is the most anti-immigrant (probably a Republican) could emerge and this person could become part of the nucleus of the AIP should he or she go down to defeat in 2016. In any case we could see the end of unregulated mass immigration under the banner of health, safety, and survival. International travel too could come under some serious restrictions. You've certainly given us some issues to think through here.
10/24/14, 4:48 AM
Rashakor said...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-price-swoon-won-t-232100348.html
10/24/14, 6:50 AM
Bill Blondeau said...
JMG, simply, thank you for this inspirational post. I will soon be writing up a comparable outline for my own deindustrial future. Radically different, but still hopefully within those error bars of plausibility. I'll post a link in ADR comments when it's up.
Re the airship technology debate: it's a fascinating mental puzzle. On the one hand, airships considered from a systems perspective are superbly energy efficient and resilient (yes, efficiency and resilience are opposed principles in general, but this is an unusual case) compared to the heavier-than-air transport we use now. In fact, given the comparatively trivial infrastructure requirements of airships, they are much more sustainable than railroads in a deindustrial time.
On the other hand, airships have been shown to be, as Glenn Murray documented, fragile in bad weather; and bad weather is one of the things we are pretty much guaranteed over the next few centuries.
There is one point that I haven't seen raised yet: airship technology has never been developed very well. In the petroleum-rich 20th century, heavier than air flight simply made overwhelmingly better economic sense. Airships were abandoned, not because the technology ran up against intractable inherent limits, but because airplanes had a much better ROI. JMG pointed out that the naval recon blimps had a good safety record, which suggests that the primary concerns of airship viability are addressable, and that as-yet-untried design improvements would probably pay off.
Our descendants will be denied a lot of the scientific and engineering accomplishments that we still take for granted. However, they are unlikely to be any less inventive and thoughtful than we are. I'm betting that dismissing future viability of airships based on what we've done so far is like arguing that clippers and windjammers couldn't be practical based on the known limitations of medieval cogs.
Show me a fundamental thermodynamic, economic, or engineering limitation that forecloses the possibility of airships (ahem, before the 28th century), and I will dolefully concede Glenn Murray's point that "The notion of the airship itself is flawed", at least for present purposes
Until then, I think the question remains fascinatingly open. In the absence of such a fundamental liability, the appearance - or not - of airships in the next few centuries will depend on historical, rather than inherent, factors.
10/24/14, 7:09 AM
Kaitain said...
http://time.com/3534140/ferguson-michael-brown-grand-jury-leaks-investigation/
10/24/14, 7:50 AM
Eric S. said...
10/24/14, 8:02 AM
Jeff said...
10/24/14, 8:04 AM
Shawn Aune said...
Makes sense...
10/24/14, 8:25 AM
Eric S. said...
Juhana: “Are you exploring this path of thinking in your other writings, or can you recommend other writers having same philosophical worldview? During this storm, that thinking is very comforting, at least for me.”
A recent book that's had a huge impact on me as far as working towards a perspective on death of dying that puts death in context as a fulfillment of life to be celebrated and embraced, that takes a very personal and practical approach towards the process from a Druid perspective has been Kristoffer Hughes' new book "Journey Into Spirit," which was released just recently. There are many others of course both ancient and modern but that was the latest one that really grabbed me. I definitely think it’s a topic we need to be thinking a lot about, since we’re facing a time where both the lengths of our lives and the manner of our deaths will be a lot different than has been the norm for the last few decades and that can be a challenging thing to get used to. Working on our attitudes towards death is a good starting point, the biggest challenge I’m facing right now is trying to figure out how to die well even if I wind up dying violently, or of a contagious disease that prevents me from being able to have loved ones pleasant. I want to learn how to die now so that I can be ready for it when it comes, and we are a civilization that really has forgotten how to do it. A lot of people I know think that’s a morbid thought for someone in their late 20s to have… but I’m thinking learning how to die is right up there with learning how to garden in a time like this.
10/24/14, 8:27 AM
Shawn Aune said...
I find it interesting that the number of steps down appears (at least in this case) to match the number of steps up.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-four-industrial-revolutions.html
10/24/14, 8:28 AM
Kaitain said...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKpBq53gpRk
Note that these are prototypes that are still going through the flight test program and the Russians are being pretty tight-lipped about the full capabilities of the aircraft. Still, the ability to do a flat spin as a controlled maneuver speaks volumes about the maneuverability and flight control system of the aircraft. The T-50 was specifically designed to compete with the F-22 in air to air combat and is said to have even greater maneuverability than the Sukhoi Su-35, so it should have no problem at all dealing with the F-35. If the Indonesian Air Force equips itself with T-50's and Su-35's and Oz is stuck with F-35's, there's no question as to which side would have air superiority.
In light of that, I think that New Australia's proposal to get out of the F-35 boondoggle and negotiate a deal with Sukhoi makes a huge amount of sense. Too bad the chances of that happening are close to zero...
10/24/14, 8:29 AM
Ed-M said...
Dimitri, you'll be pleased as punch to know that Spengler has predicted that Russia, sustained by Orthodox Christianity, is going to last another thousand years. Assuming, of course, that it can survive the multiple curveballs that Mother Nature and the voelkerwanderung of Asia are going to throw at it. And also assuming that the ideas that US Evangelical Christians have given the Russians have not infected Russian Orthodoxy with American ChristPsychosis (US Evangelical anti-gay activists were behind the idea of Russia's "silence the gays" law as reported by Mother Jones) including its Manichaean morality.
Juhana, you are spot-on about Americans' black and white thinking on morality. But you underestimate it, methinks, when you call it almost Manichaean. I say it's totally Manichaean! And most of the outrage whipped up here against certain goings-on in other countries or certain acts against 'Murka by others, like 9/11, is done so by corporate media outlets in service of some sort of agenda, usually the looting of some country that has the chutzpah to sit on "our" natural resources. When the far left (or paleoconservative and libertarian right) point out outrages by our own, the usual response is: "Why do you hate America?" So we have this other delusion that Americans do not commit evils, held by many if not most Americans, and propagated in our media and instilled into our children in our public schools.
10/24/14, 8:31 AM
Shawn Aune said...
The economy, like the climate, is a complex and adaptive far-from-equilibrium dissipative system.
A small scale system that can be described exactly the same way is the Benard Cell.
Benard cells are complex adaptive systems that self-organize in the presence of a large energy gradient.
The bottom of the mixture is heated while the top is cooled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ApSJe4FaLI
As the top gets cooler and the bottom gets warmer (the gradient gets bigger) the system begins to self-organize to dissipate the additional heat.
The larger the gradient the faster the system organizes its self to dissipate more heat. This is the key to the "adaptive" part of the initial description.
These complex dissipative structures are quite stable and able to shift up and down in complexity along with the strength of the gradient. So not only are they self-organizing but also seem to have a sense of self-preservation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgrU3tzgxXo
This, in a nut-shell, is why the economy isn't going to pop like a bubble. This is also the reason why run-away climate change will end up limiting its self long before humans are extinct.
For a far-from-sexy romp through thermodynamic land try...
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Thermodynamics%20Reading%20List.html
Thanks!
10/24/14, 9:25 AM
Shawn Aune said...
Speaking truth to power is where I often go for that...
http://www.carolynbaker.net/
10/24/14, 9:46 AM
Kevin said...
http://www.personalblimp.com/
I figure if a handful of people can do this on their own dime (and without helium at that), the technology probably has a future somewhere down the line.
Re the theme of waking up to our depressing nearer future: the post that did it for me was one the Archdruid published a few years back, whose core theme was something like "There is no brighter future up ahead." I found it a major bummer.
@ Cherokee - the go-to person for your question from last week regarding the senility of entire peoples and their decaying empires would be Morris Berman, who has written a number of books on the theme of American decline. His most salient phrase to describe his countrymen (and mine) is "a collection of degraded buffoons." He has a high opinion of us - Not!
But at least I and mine have the security of knowing that our particular corner of the continent will always have a rosy outlook, as illustrated by this classic image from Lloyd Kahn's blog:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v9iXLX2GMtk/VEamtywHtTI/AAAAAAAARVI/gFzgFxpnUg0/s1600/Ca-cornucopia_of_the_world.jpg
It's a veritable cornucopia. What could possibly go wrong?
10/24/14, 9:48 AM
Roger said...
It's DIFFERENT this time? Well, as my father says, yeah it's different, it's just the end that's the same. Why? Maybe because people and human nature don't much change.
I wonder what comes about as a result of the "rigor mortis" (as I think you called it) in Washington. You know, the momentum into the future coming from the past and so, if the glass is going to crack, maybe it first cracks along the Mason Dixon line.
But there are other possibilities such as that of an American military intervention, not to fight turbaned tribesmen far away, but rather right in Washington DC. I can envision high ranking generals, exasperated to the gills, sending delegations to Congress and the White House to strongly suggest a - cough - "time-out" while a military council expedites solutions to certain urgent matters.
Or imagine that the glass first starts to crack not in the US but north of the border with fracture lines extending south. It's not all roses up here, we have regional and linguistic grievances that go back centuries and that sometimes erupt violently. And really messed up politics and institutions to go with it.
Not long ago three western provinces signed an agreement called the New West Partnership encompassing trade and other matters. Sounds boring right? But maybe it's a seedling for future North American boundaries? Could it maybe include border states that throw in their lot to get out of the dysfunctional morass they're in? You know, a fresh start.
10/24/14, 10:10 AM
Bors Sand said...
10/24/14, 10:39 AM
Shane Wilson said...
I know it was just a brief sketch, but you've mentioned repeatedly that you think the best chances for an American insurgency would come from the Mountain West or the Deep South. I assume that that insurgency would come from remnants of the Tea Party/Don't Tread on Me faction. My question is this, since the South is the most diverse area outside of California, with the highest percentage of African-Americans and the fastest growing Latino population, wouldn't this focus any white Tea Party based insurgency inward in ethnic infighting, rather than outward? And wouldn't the DC government intervene to make sure that internal opposition to any insurgency was well funded? To me, the diversity of the South is a strong barrier to overcome for any white Tea Party based insurgency to overcome.
I'm surprise you didn't get any comments from Canadians loudly proclaiming that, under no circumstances could Canada survive a US collapse to become a close ally of China, and loudly proclaiming that their border is intrinsically indefensible. :)
10/24/14, 10:39 AM
pyrrhus said...
In a Malthusian world, which you have convincingly shown is virtually inevitable without fossil fuels, volunteering has nothing to do with it. Less "fit",and/or less lucky
individuals will, on the average, have fewer children, and fewer of those children will survive. This process of natural selection has been largely suspended during the last 150 years, but will operate in full force during any post industrial Dark Age.
10/24/14, 10:49 AM
latefall said...
Large concentrations of hydrogen are not your friend (unless they are really far away). They may be helpful, but in many cases they are just waiting for you to drop your watch. Buildings for e.g. fuel cell research are often designed in a specific way to vent the explosion and keep the rest of the compound somewhat intact. You need to seriously consider something _will_ go wrong.
That is in my opinion also what the next generation of airships need to include at the early design stage. Bail out systems (can have relatively large volume) come to mind. I tend to believe that they'll come back to be used for a number of things in the next couple of decades. Materials got a lot better (performance wise and to a dregree availability) not the least because we started to understand them. And if you need to ship semiconductor products or intermediary products around the world I'd put it in a submarine or an airship. I am pretty certain they'll go "poof" once in a while - but so does everything in a dark(er) age. And if you can get at the cargo before someone else does - it is half as bad.
10/24/14, 12:08 PM
latefall said...
If you have a microwave and graphite you can get something that'll start being useful already. Hummer method with acids and furnace is another step up but significantly more sophisticated at the moment (for high quality - the process is pretty old). Then there's CVD growth which is highest quality but small yield at the moment. The reactor is a airtight quarz tube at some 500-800 C with some (ideally well known) carbon containing gases going in. People haven't really started to optimize the process for cost (or sustainable footprint) as it is pretty finicky and only moderately well understood as it is. Most of the time people will grow stuff like that on Si-wafers
just to keep conditions easier to control and compare. There may be much cheaper, self stabilizing recipies to do it out there. Or not.
On H2 storage: Well either you keep it cool (eats energy, adds complexity and some volume) or you keep it compressed (adds lots of weight, cost, and volume). And hydrogen is small so it can seep through many materials fairly easily (sometimes degrading them in the process). Graphene would stop that (or significantly reduce it in case of a incomplete layer, e.g. flakes the hydrogen would have to side step).
On ultralights: They were diddling around with them before the combustion engine already. Knowing some of their potential will surely keep them attractive, and from being forgotten altogether. Airdropping troops onto fortresses with one-way gliders was fairly successful at times. Also Germany used human powered flight a lot to train their Luftwaffe pilots back then (weren't allowed engines). There's a bunch of boxes with some 4000-5000 articles regarding that sitting at the library of congress. If one of the library buffs here could help me and point out how to get my hands on (copies of) them in some way, I'd be happy to give it a shot and try to archive these long lost relatives in a second location. If it is any help, this stuff was my family's property before.
10/24/14, 12:09 PM
onething said...
I'm also curious about what hospitals are doing right re ebola. I had assumed that the usual, knee-jerk assumption of reducing fevers might mean giving Tylenol which is hard on the liver. Then, too, the body creates the fever in part to kill microbes. NSAIDS would increase the likelihood of bleeding. Yet I recently read that fever reducers are part of supportive care, possibly in Africa rather than the U.S. Perhaps an herb like feverfew could be used - but even there, I am unsure whether or when it is a good idea to reduce a fever.
Meanwhile, I got this from someone in the herbal business:
Anything that will boost one's glutathione levels should help with protection against any viral disease. The 'cytokine storm' you refer to is caused by an imbalance in the TH1/TH2 immune cells which happens when glutathione levels are low. The Cysteine in NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) is used by the body to synthesize glutathione.
So, I looked up glutathione and found Glutathione: The Mother of all Antioxidants. There are some tips to increase your levels, such as eating sulphurous foods (brassicas, onions, garlic), exercise, some supplements (N-acetyl cysteine, alpha lipoic acid, selenium, folate, B6, B12, vite C, E, and milk thistle.
10/24/14, 1:01 PM
Bret said...
10/24/14, 2:35 PM
latefall said...
If you run into a slightly darker age, I imagine ammonia (NH3) would be a very good hydrogen storage state.
You can have significantly more hydrogen in a volume of ammonia than in liquid hydrogen, and it doesn't try to get away all the time. It is still not very friendly (especially to aquatic beings) but you'll smell it before it kills ya. Conversion is not without losses (and some added weight) though. Some losses can be recouped with smart design - others not. You end up with a bit below half the energy density of diesel, which is not thrilling but not much worse than other alternatives. The tank is MUCH simpler. Here's some background: nh3fuel.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/nh3fa-2014-yoshitsugu-kojima.pdf and nh3fuel.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/nh3fcx-brian-evans.pdf
Here's the up side though: ammonia generally stays put so you can wait till you really need it. And you will need it for something - it is a very, very useful intermediary product. Fertilizer, plastics (bakelite or acrylonitrile -> PAN -> Carbon Fiber*), cleaning agent, disinfectant, and of course, explosive. Oh yes - and lifting gas.
I assume what is going to be critical is how well you can localize the downstream steps without killing yourself or advertising for a raid.
*This is probably rather hypothetical as you would opt for the slightly lower quality pitch derived version...
10/24/14, 3:10 PM
btidwell said...
JMG's assertion that the first Crisis began in 1914 has a particular personal relevance. In the past few years I've become involved in Steampunk subculture, mostly because it's fun, partly because it supports my custom fashion design profession.
Those intrigued by "Steampunk" should google it as I can't do it justice in a few words and it is a supremely visual phenomenon anyway. The shortest form is that it is a historical reenactment movement inspired by Victorian/ Edwardian society and Victorian science fiction (HG Wells, J. Verne)and a vast and growing body of modern fiction in the same style, although the social movement far transcends it's literary roots.
The common trope is that the interest in Steampunk is fueled by a disaffection with "magic plastic boxes" and a romantic longing for technology that was tactile and understandable and a society that was gracious, stylish, and "real." (Steampunk rarely acknowledges it's upper class focus and prejudice)
The idea that our civilization went into significant decline in 1914, pretty much the later date of the Steampunk era, adds another layer of significance for this growing social affectation ...a completely unconscious longing for the last glory days of Western Civilization.
While the end of Civilization may be one raison d'etre for Steampunk. Steampunk, as a rapidly growing pop cultural idiom, would seem to be a social acknowledgement that, if only subconsciously, we all know that was the beginning of the end.
10/24/14, 4:27 PM
Derv said...
My artistic skills don't extend beyond MS paint, but I took a stab at a progress fairy: an ugly little brown and gray monster covered with a cracking bacchus mask and an oil martini: http://i.imgur.com/ISz7Q0j.png
10/24/14, 4:31 PM
troy said...
But anyway, it's possible that at least one pocket of humanity will ride out the plague relatively unscathed, due to their being at least one world leader with a vestigial shred of common sense. (The fact that it's Kim Jong Un is, to borrow a phrase from Cherokee Organics, "not a good look" for the rest of the world's leaders, but no matter. I wrote the them all off as hopeless dullards and short-sighted crooks a long time ago). So I'm more optimistic about the future today than I was yesterday.
Imagine a future where 70% of the world's population is wiped out by the first wave of Ebola, and then when it mutates into a new strain, 70% of the original survivors are wiped out because their antibodies don't recognize the next year's mutant strain. And then again with the next strain. But North Korea remains unaffected by the rest of the world's decision to commit mass suicide for the sake of political correctness. And when Ebola finally burns itself out due to running out of victims, the North Koreans spread out and repopulate the globe, remembering and worshiping Kim Jong Un as the savior of humanity. Perhaps centuries from now, religious scholars will gather in the world's largest and most prosperous city, Pyongyang, to formally debate whether stories that The Holy Un could communicate telepathically with dolphins or hit holes-in-one consistently when golfing are literally true or if they are divinely inspired allegories for the moral edification and enlightenment of humanity.
Wouldn't that be something? That would certainly be something. Good setting for a space bats story.
10/24/14, 4:39 PM
Random Man said...
Yes, yes, we can talk about history and net energy decline and declining marginal returns on investment. That is the main driver.
But everything humans do has a distinctly cultural aspect to it. Once people stop believing that the system works, all bets are off and confidence will never return.
I'm a physician. My patients are a mess, and I'm a mess. There is little improvement on either their or my part. All of healthcare can be considered something like a second rate team that always loses, or a town nobody wants to live in.
Progress faded a long time ago, now there's just money for people who work in healthcare, and the need for some, any kind of care, by patients who have acute pain or other symptoms.
But take away those incentives and there's further breakdown. If there's no money for payment, nobody will show up to care for the ill. I'm not predicting that, I'm guaranteeing it. People have too many individual and family problems as it is. And if patients stop believing they will get even substandard care, they will stop coming in and just stay at home and get morphine and other drugs on the black market.
Anyways, that's my point. Remove incentives, and then psychologically people behave differently, then collapse accelerates.
10/24/14, 5:01 PM
Paul said...
What prompted my post was not this blog entry in particular, but the general thrust of things here. In particular, your treatment of Marxism.
My experience of Socialists and Communists (community and society are the same thing, no?) comes from direct involvement in various causes. Generally they come from the libertarian side of things, and have nothing in common with the Authoritarian crap of Stalin and Mao. They're not utopians. They're just trying to make sure we dont end up deeper in the mire than we need to, whether the general trajectory is up or down. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote,
" I of course understand that the widespread revulsion inspired even now, and perhaps forever, by the word Communism is a sane response to the cruelties and stupidities of the dictators of the USSR, who called themselves, hey presto, Communists, just as Hitler called himself, hey presto, a Christian. To children of the Great Depression, however, it still seems a mild shame to outlaw from polite thought, because of the crimes of tyrants, a word that in the beginning described for us nothing more than a possibly reasonable alternative to the Wall Street crapshoot."
There is nothing utopian the writing of Socialist like Vonnegut or Zinn. The Noble Worker is nowhere to be seen.
They. We. I. are just trying to get somewhere towards the Golden Rule.
When I read your posts about how society is about various interest groups striving to extract what they can from a limited pot, I think of pressure groups such as AVAAZ, and it fits perfectly. I have Socialist friends who are steadfastly in favour of Fracking because it fits their ethos of ordinary working people doing useful productive work to benefit society. To them, environmentalism seems like middle class pollyanna stuff.
To assume that the party could continue if it weren't for the greed of the 1% is as mindlessly dualist as the business as usual ethos dispensed by the elite, but it's a popular idea. Yet despite the increased reach of protest groups through social media etc, it seems to me pretty obvious that the world is becoming a) more polarised and b) more right wing.
The first seems inevitable in times of crisis (and the crisis has hardly touched us yet) The second is not inevitable, although it is probably the path of least resistance. This is a cause of deep concern.
It seems to me that the great social advances of the last couple of centuries - the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, and all the rest, were made possible as much by the surplus energy of fossil fuels as it was by any mass moral upwelling. Peak oil may also mean peak liberality.
10/24/14, 7:19 PM
dltrammel said...
One comment stood out to me;
Bogatyr said:
"I absolutely support and applaud @dltrammel and others in their efforts to build a Green Wizard movement, but this problem of how to fend off predators is a huge, huge gap in the concept. In fact, there's a huge conceptual gap afaik between Green Wizards/Transitioners on the one hand and the individualist preppers on the other, and that's building a strong, resilient community."
Least Bogatyr and others think that I intend Green Wizards to be pacifistic, let me smile and shake my head in the negative.
To me the archetype Green Wizard is Leonardo Da Vinci. Artist, scholar and lets not forget military genius.
The Green Wizards who sit on the Prez of West Merica's Cabinet of the 2200s will be as learned in military skills as of gardening and energy conservation if I have anything to do with it. The reason we don't "currently" discuss security and military skills is for two simple reasons.
First, JMG asked us not to.
As the one sort of leading the whole Green Wizard movement I defer to our "patron saint".
Secondly, his point was there are plenty of informative sites on the Internet that talk about such things that Green Wizards don't need to repeat the discussion. He also pointed out that such discussions often are very emotionally charged.
People have strong opinions on the subject.
And I've seen this myself. Young boards that don't yet have a sense of "community" like we have at the moment, can crash under the anonymity of charged discussion like those about firearms and personal security. It only takes a few trolls to ruin a community.
We want the Green Wizard's site to be a place where even rabid right wingnuts and left leaning ecofreaks can come and share. I don't care your political leanings as long as you can politely discuss the best compost to use for tomatoes.
If we can moderate the discussion for a while, as people learn that the people who are sharing are "people", then when down the line you disagree with something they say, you won't start a "flame war" over it.
Now for me its a simple matter of evolution and growth to avoid a few subjects in the beginnings of growing Green Wizards.
Personally I consider nutrition a key skill as the world descends. If you are not eating well then things like disease and stress will work against you. Your bottom line survivability drops when you eat poorly.
Unfortunately at the moment, there is a big push back by government licensing boards on what they see as "amateurs" giving food advice. I eat "primaly" and have seen where the "powers that be" go after those they consider not giving them their due with licenses and such.
So at the moment we are not discussing "nutrition" on the Green Wizard forum.
Nor alternate medicine I'm afraid.
The truth is as long as JMG "owns" the name Green Wizards, he is a target for any loonie that wants to sue him, since we all know he's a rich author, should they follow some internet advice on our forum.
In the next year we will be creating a Green Wizards non-profit. Once we do the we will have more freedom to discuss the subject like nutrition, homeopathic and herbal medicine and yes, security and protection.
Til then, I ask you bear with us and by all means, visit the forums, get registered and contribute.
We've been a bit lax on the GreenWizardsDotInfo site with update but thats about to change. The Summer was crazy for me but we have a few guest writers with some amazing articles to post this month. And I'm going to do a series as I winterize my home that should help teach people to conserve.
Hopefully we can get the ball rolling before JMG's prediction of a Ebola pandemic turns the lights out.
10/24/14, 7:26 PM
dltrammel said...
"I absolutely support and applaud @dltrammel and others in their efforts to build a Green Wizard movement, but this problem of how to fend off predators is a huge, huge gap in the concept. In fact, there's a huge conceptual gap afaik between Green Wizards/Transitioners on the one hand and the individualist preppers on the other, and that's building a strong, resilient community."
I added the bold.
I will disagree, Green Wizardry isn't about building a strong, resilient community.
For better or worse, given what I've seen of the people interested in Green Wizardry, GW is a solitary profession.
As much as I would like different.
The people that seem to be attracted to what we teach are more lone wolves than momma bears.
That doesn't mean that Green Wizards won't learn how to help a disorganized group of people a functional community, just that we aren't "Transition Towners". We don't come in at the start and advocate that we need a holistic systemic approach to the problem of surviving in a World Made Harsh.
Maybe you will think thats a wrong way to approach the coming collapse but theres alot of single people out there, without a group that want to help, in what ever small way they can. To me Green Wizardry is that skill set.
LOL. of course I can be wrong. Feel free to join the discussion on the forum and weigh in with your opinion.
After all "dissensus" which is unity in different opinions is one of the GW core principles.
I look forward to the discussions.
10/24/14, 7:39 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
So let's just scrap all those pages, and what say we move straight into that next bit, all that stuff about dissolution of all the nations, breakdown of all that global sh... um, I mean stuff (we're shooting for a PG-13, right? Gotta watch the language, Bro!), pirates, lots of pirates, the kids love pirates, then just a gradual darkening of everything -- one by one, without too much fuss, all the lights just slowly go out. Do we really need a whole nuther century of all that battling of the empires? Let's just go right for bleak and postmodern, no winners, no heros, no morals, just fade to black, roll credits for the empty theater. Very Scandinavian; they'll love it in Denmark. Oh, right, Denmark is all underwater. Well, you get my point.
10/24/14, 9:27 PM
Derv said...
I can't speak for everyone, though I know there are others who share my mindset. But my (intense) dislike of Communism isn't on account of Stalin's crimes. It's because the system is inherently evil.
Given that, in at least the standard Communist model, the government takes control of the means of production, and distributes goods to the people, it is inherently totalitarian. Since it seeks to eventually abolish any form of monetary exchange, any step toward that which is not strictly voluntary (which then only ever takes place in small communities) is universal slavery. As its aim is an eventual one-world system, it is inherently imperialistic. Since the whole purpose of this planet-wide social engineering experiment is a classless society of equality, harmony, and peaceful anarchy, it is inherently utopian. And given that it sees history through the entirely secular lens of Marxist class struggle, and Communism as the inevitable outcome of history, it holds to an "ends-justify-the-means" philosophy, the justification of every evil governing power in every age.
I might also add, as a personal note, that I believe in Original Sin and concupiscence, which means that there is no possible conceivable system of earthly governance where greed, wrath, envy and pride will no longer be a problem. This means a state apparatus will always be necessary to some degree, which means the end-state of Communism is completely impossible to achieve. Others may differ on their particular religious beliefs, but a fair number of secular people, and those of other religious views, also believe in free will. This, too, renders mankind essentially uncontrollable, such that no set of cultural programming can undo the free choice of some people to do evil things.
The actions of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and all the rest are not an unfortunate coincidence for Communism. They are its inevitable outcome if executed outside of a fully voluntary commune. The state takes control of the means of production and distributes scarce goods, which puts it in the position of choosing who gets to die. The inevitable thrust of history toward Communism is for the greater good, so those who act against Communist interests are enemies of mankind, and thus treated less than kindly. The dictatorship of the proletariat - the traditional approach to Communism's second stage - concentrates unimaginable power into the hands of a few Communist zealots. If they pursue the aims of Communism, they will commit atrocities. If they shun the aims of Communism and pursue self-interest, they will commit atrocities. (continued in second post)
10/24/14, 10:48 PM
Derv said...
I could continue ranting for quite some time about this. The notion that Communism is a great idea that's never been properly tried is a vile myth. Those who say that it's simply not practical are closer to being right, but still assume that we ought to do it if it were possible. We shouldn't. It's evil.
I am a traditional conservative (which nowadays has nothing to do with the GOP). Progressives, the other side of that coin, tend to think that human society can be shaped or molded into new forms successfully, and that therefore social experimentation can be greatly beneficial. They may recognize the risks and try to minimize them, but large-scale social experimentation (justs like any form of experimentation) requires a good deal of centralized control. There has to be directors, a shared vision, and the means of attaining it (which in this case is all the nasty powers that are a part of the state apparatus).
A traditional conservative doesn't agree with this. It believes that humans have a relatively fixed nature that, while adaptable, can never be undone. There has never in history been a society where murder was extolled as a virtue, disrespect of your superiors was praised, and lying to your mother was rewarded, to give a few examples. Even societies that engaged in cannibalism did it to honor their ancestors or to dehumanize an enemy, impulses found in our civilization as well as all others. So the idea of social experimentation is quite simply bad. It has little to no upsides and plenty of downsides. Centralizing power and trying to remake mankind have led to more atrocities than any man can name. If it also will never lead to a utopia, or even a fundamental change in human society, why bother?
In this sense at least, the main thrust of this entire blog is unabashedly conservative. We are not different. It is never different this time, in the ways that matter at least. We will see our civilization decline just as all human civilization declines. No new state model, technology, ideology, or space alien will come along to fix our problems and undo the inevitable result of human nature. Civilizations grow, become dysfunctional, and decline, and that's all there is to it. We can understand that process, perhaps even make it more bearable, but we will not escape it.
Communism is a utopian fantasy built upon the dream of worldwide enslavement and reprogramming of all mankind. It deserves its place next to Nazism on the shelf of "worst ideas from the 20th century."
10/24/14, 10:49 PM
My donkey said...
Here's an example article:
http://www.straight.com/news/756716/gwynne-dyer-hello-fusion-power-good-bye-fossil-fuels
However, even if fusion took the place of fossil fuels and was offered free to everyone (which it never would be, but for the sake of argument), we'd still have to contend with the ongoing depletion of resources such as fresh water, topsoil, various minerals, and space to live and grow food. And we'd still have to deal with types of environmental pollution other than greenhouse gases.
Considering how thoughtlessly we've wasted valuble resources and poisoned our own back yard in the past, I wouldn't expect our habits to change. Giving humanity ad libitum access to energy would be like giving a bacterial colony ad libitum access to agar in a Petri dish, precipitating a similar boom and bust in short order.
I never looked at life from a multi-faceted ecosystems perspective until taking an Ecology course in university. Too bad we're not taught Ecology throughout primary and secondary school; maybe it would help us to recognize and be wary of one-sided views on anything.
10/25/14, 1:04 AM
Bogatyr said...
Thanks for your responses! I really do agree with you on most things, you know.
Still... Personal experience has taught me that staying under the radar is harder than most people think. When things turn sour, no-one should bank on that.
Similarly, recent experience has shown me that you can't count on most friends and acquaintances being there for you either.
Lone wolves won't survive when packs are ravening; associations built for peaceful times won't withstand severe shocks. Hence my focus on community-building. I don't necessarily mean military skills, though the issue of violence has to be considered. I'm more concerned, though, with how we build something that, when very bad times come, means you can count on having people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you.
If the Green Wizards project is looking at that, then my perception is definitely out of date. I'll try to visit the forums as time allows!
10/25/14, 2:33 AM
YJV said...
Interesting stuff! The crux of it is whether the embodied energy of graphene will match with available energy and tech complexity.
Using Ammonia to store hydrogen is similar in principle to using Metal Hydrides. The latter is non-toxic and there's already tank designs out there. Scrap metals will be abundant in the future so maybe that option can be viable.
I did gliding myself back when I was in the NZ air cadets. Gliding still requires a method to get to an adequate height, so if airships are around I can easily envision glider paratroopers from those airships being used.
Also, it's great that someone's thinking of archiving this stuff. This is one of the few places where plastic based paper comes in useful and I hope everyone learns the skills needed to archive important technical texts.
Thanks for all the info!
10/25/14, 4:23 AM
Marcello said...
This is one of the most recent for example:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenertransport/10767973/Airships-is-the-Titanic-of-the-skies-about-to-rise-again.html
You can check up CargoLifter to see how such attempts end up.
A small blimp pose no significant challanges and can carry out a number of useful roles. Scaling up however seems to create a number of issues, perhaps not unsolvable but not easy to tackle.
Air transport on a substantial scale is not viable in an energy constrained society. The large mass of people will be stuck in the farm/village, while perhaps traveling to the provincial town once in a blue moon. Goods will be moved by ships/barge over seas, rivers and canals. Gravel roads will have to do where water won't be viable and some sort of rail based solution could remain an option as long as strips of iron can be turned out at a sufficiently economical price.
For the records the napoleonic military deemed hydrogen filled balloons not worth the investment in chronically scarce transport and resources. It took a sizable number of carriages, hours to set up and the benefit was relative.
10/25/14, 6:26 AM
Ursachi Alexandru said...
I've been following both of your blogs with great interest lately, but I'm mostly lurking around, reading the comments, until I come across a subject that I just have to speak about. So, here it goes:
Your answer to Dmitry Orlov - THANK. YOU.
10/25/14, 6:36 AM
Dan the Farmer said...
Thank you to all that have researched the care we'll need in treating this thing. I'm still wondering if it's best to catch early or late.
10/25/14, 9:39 AM
Mark Rice said...
"It isn't necessary, of course, to attend the London conference on "inclusive capitalism" to realize that industrialized countries have a problem."
Various figures of economics and finance are profiled who are not quite mainstream but respected by many.
10/25/14, 10:15 AM
pyrrhus said...
I doubt that it will take centuries. Industrial agriculture takes a lot of energy (and water), and will likely collapse in short order after serious energy shortages.
10/25/14, 12:32 PM
Mean Mr Mustard said...
Seems the Blogger monster ate this ditty earlier today..
My copy of 'Twilight's Last Gleaming' - first published 2015(!) - arrived good and early this morning. So I'll judge this book by its cover.
I got a book today, oh boy
The Chinese army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
Beached USS Ronald Reagan enveloped in smog
I know this much for sure - Having read the blog!
Kudos to your cover artist as well as the author! (And apologies to John Lennon!)
Cheers
Mustard
10/25/14, 1:29 PM
Unknown said...
Following up on latefall's remarks on airship development, the dangers of hydrogen as the lifting agent are mitigated if the ship is remotely controlled. Imagine a cargo airship traversing lands without good roads, escorted by one person on a mule or camel with camping gear and a radio controller. Or the Pony Express version, with relays of riders.
As latefall proposes, if cargo is padded and can be jettisoned by radio signal, it might be retrievable after an airship catches fire.
I can see this making economic sense for overland transport across deserts and remote places currently supplied by air, like the interior of Alaska. It wouldn't be good for crossing mountain ranges, because of the winds and storms.
10/25/14, 1:47 PM
Andy Brown said...
I'm no Communist, but I think the "standard model" as you put it is pretty much a straw man as far as discrediting communism (lower case 'c'). In history, humans have organized many different forms of social and property arrangements including some that are arguably communistic - at least when it comes to the means of production. Communism, fascism, nationalism and indeed capitalism have been used to experiment with large scale human domination as well as human emancipation. I'd have to agree with you that it hasn't been pretty, though I would spread the blame farther than you - to include those who claim to be bound by human nature as well as those who claim to be able to remake it.
10/25/14, 3:17 PM
YJV said...
Yes I saw those in my research. Nobody has thought of building airships in a simpler way rather than putting more complex gizmos and making them hybrids and stuff (apart from this guy: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/02/gipsy-zeppelin-baseship.html). The reason airships haven't been invested in is because the relative cost of fuel makes investment in improving aircraft easier and more worthwhile. Give it another 20 years and I can definitely see government thinking about investing in airships (the US and Royal Navies already have, for example) due to the vastly increased costs of moving material through the air.
As for airships being unviable in an energy-constrained society, I'm not too sure whether they will be or not. There are definitely methods of making small and low-fuel airships. Also the cost of building an airship route can be cheaper than building a rail line, since you don't need tracks - and both technologies require metals on a similar scale. If a future society can support rail I reckon it could support airships. In the interim canal barges and tall sail ships will rule. In this case the major 'if' will be the lifting gas. Perhaps future societies will risk using Hydrogen until they find a more suitable gas or way of getting Helium. After all, pioneer pilots took the same sort of risks crossing the Atlantic.
10/25/14, 4:49 PM
Mokey44 said...
After having read your blogs for so long, I've seen an odd but interesting convergence in wider media.
Russell Brand, the British comedian/actor, has started a Youtube Channel he calls 'The Trews' (True News) in addition to his latest book, Revolution, where he seems to have found a whole new direction- using many of the same ideas that are found here, he's advocating for local, decentralized communities to get involved around issues that impact them and not wait for the politicians. He also talks about the more spiritual dimensions of creating a society based around the ideas of connection with nature and others.
He uses the language of comedy to get people thinking about bigger issues and seems to seriously want to change the society. His last stand up show actually discusses the language of symbolism that gets pretty close to an understanding of thaumaturgy.
I've also noticed that the larger media write about anything they can to actually not engage with his ideas. They write about his 'hypocrisy'- but as someone who had made it to the top of his profession after being on welfare for years he seems to be uniquely positioned to have had a chance to be a part of the 1% and decide that it wasn't worth anything if poor people are still being exploited. It's fascinating to watch.
In many ways he reminds me of what you've said in your posts about being on the outside of society and not having your ideas misrepresented by the mainstream.
In one of the latest episodes, he and Max Keiser and Alec Baldwin talk about Peak Oil and how many of the famous wealthy people Baldwin knows are buying up massive acres of land in Northern areas, saying that they will have people working for them growing food in fifteen years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qRfHIL93zw
I think the ideas you've spoken about here are trickling into parts of society in rather unexpected ways.
10/25/14, 5:52 PM
rapier said...
No system is perfect or perfectible in theory, and in practice every ideology will be corrupted. Those with a will to power can operate under the guise of any ideology.
Not that today's ideologies are really ideologies at all. Rather they are an amalgamation of policy views based upon prejudices and then stuffed into a box called conservatism, liberalism, capitalism,whatever.
True believers will disagree violently.
10/25/14, 5:54 PM
Mokey44 said...
After having read your blogs for so long, I've seen an odd but interesting convergence in wider media.
Russell Brand, the British comedian/actor, has started a Youtube Channel he calls 'The Trews' (True News) in addition to his latest book, Revolution, where he seems to have found a whole new direction- using many of the same ideas that are found here, he's advocating for local, decentralized communities to get involved around issues that impact them and not wait for the politicians. He also talks about the more spiritual dimensions of creating a society based around the ideas of connection with nature and others.
He uses the language of comedy to get people thinking about bigger issues and seems to seriously want to change the society. His last stand up show actually discusses the language of symbolism that gets pretty close to an understanding of thaumaturgy.
I've also noticed that the larger media write about anything they can to actually not engage with his ideas. They write about his 'hypocrisy'- but as someone who had made it to the top of his profession after being on welfare for years he seems to be uniquely positioned to have had a chance to be a part of the 1% and decide that it wasn't worth anything if poor people are still being exploited. It's fascinating to watch.
In many ways he reminds me of what you've said in your posts about being on the outside of society and not having your ideas misrepresented by the mainstream.
In one of the latest episodes, he and Max Keiser and Alec Baldwin talk about Peak Oil and how many of the famous wealthy people Baldwin knows are buying up massive acres of land in Northern areas, saying that they will have people working for them growing food in fifteen years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qRfHIL93zw
I think the ideas you've spoken about here are trickling into parts of society in rather unexpected ways.
10/25/14, 6:09 PM
Derv said...
I don't mean to imply that there aren't many other evil systems, or abuses by those in power under other systems. I think it's obvious that Nazism and other forms of Fascism naturally tend toward the kind of atrocities committed in their name as well.
Moreover, the sort of communistic systems you describe are quite different than state-level Communism, which is what I was warning against. It's not a straw man argument because it is, in fact, what Marxist-Leninist Communism (and its close cousins) actually believe.
Now, as I said, a communistic system that is totally voluntary, and which has no strong ideological underpinnings, is a very different sort of gig. But it's practically a different system altogether, such that the two deserve totally different names. State-level, Marxist-based Communism has a utopian dream it seeks to fulfill by dominating the world. That is its stated aim, and it MUST be their aim, given what they believe. A stateless, classless society is impossible so long as other states exist; their very existence requires a standing army by the Communists, and therefore a state apparatus, such that a transition to the final Communist society is impossible.
But this doesn't apply to some group of people who have decided to place control of their production in the hands of some trusted authority and form a community around it. Heck, that's practically identical to the most common forms of monasticism. And a small group of people (a tribe, a town, whatever) that chooses for themselves to follow that model aren't seeking to impose anything on anyone; they do not carry the ideological baggage. I say leave those people be. They're fine, even if I wouldn't want to be a part of their group.
But when we're talking about the future of the West, and Communism on a scale any larger than that, the ideological stuff must accompany it. You will never find a populace that will, to a man, willingly give up their control over the means of production. You can only remove the natural law of private property by force. This requires revolution, or at the very least long-term indoctrination (the Fabian or Gramsci approach).
A group of people who advocate seizing private property by force and imposing via revolution a re-engineering of human society to create a utopia are exactly the kind of scary people I was talking about.
I wish there were better terms for some of this, but I find the ordinary labels insufficient. I guess you can follow the distinction between Marxist/Engels Communism and non-Marxist communism, with Marxist Communism being the worrisome kind (or any of its children: Trotskyism, Leninism, Maoism, etc.).
Again, it's not about taking away a community's right to live how they wish, even if it is as communists. It's about stopping the people who want to prevent me and others from living how we choose.
10/25/14, 6:57 PM
David said...
I doubt we have a century left for your proto-history to play out. Complex systems become increasingly fragile and sensitive to disruption by relatively minor factors. Maybe a decade, if we are lucky.
10/25/14, 8:54 PM
Gloucon X said...
Sorry Derv, you blew it. I was about to join the ranks of the traditional conservatives, but then you used the the weasel words “relatively” and “adaptable”. This caused me to ask myself: From where did all these rebellions, revolutions, social movements and experiments that arise? They arose from the human mind, and the human desire to make things better, in other words, from human nature. Traditional conservatism now looks to me like only one of a range of options used by these adaptable humans.
Which leads us further, to the oft mentioned Progress Fairy. How do we keep the human mind from applying technology to solve problems? Three hundred years ago humans just happened to discover that fossil fuels can help them solve lots of problems. Humans have been improving their technology since the Stone Age, so it must be a part of their adaptable human nature. If that is the case, then how can we criticize them for doing what nature designed them to do?
10/25/14, 8:59 PM
buho62 said...
After all, it's hard work to move beyond reading these kind of sketches as something more than just doom porn, and to get up and start muddling towards doing something about it. And the hardest part of that is going against the social grain.
10/25/14, 9:48 PM
Derv said...
I agree with you that modern (pseudo) capitalism is also evil, and that even a "pure" form of capitalism is amoral, with no consideration for human needs or long-term damage. But it does, more or less, respect the natural rights of man, so long as it's not combined with the sort of monetary system we have presently. When you add control of the currency and loan money into existence, the only possible outcome (all else being equal) is the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
Gloucon X-
I make a conscious effort to soften my tone both online and in person, because my natural tendency is to be extremely harsh. People tend not to even give what I say a second thought if I'm overly blunt. I agree. They are weasel words. I believe human nature is fixed.
I said "relatively" because I didn't want to get into a hypothetical debate about whether human nature could be different in, say, a million years or so. I said "adaptable" because I didn't want people to think I was suggesting that our fixed nature cannot manifest itself in a variety of ways (while still retaining its particular traits).
I suspect that you were joking when you said you were nearly convinced, but I hope you weren't. Join us. We have pie.
It is certainly true that progressivism and social experimentation are the products of the human mind. But they are a manifestation of an innate human drive - the desire for a better, fairer, more just, more kind world - combined with a particularly strange, modern cultural delusion. We believe, for reasons utterly beyond me, that we are in total control of creation itself.
Moreover, the tendencies toward utopia and apocalypse that JMG often notes is another quirk of human nature. Regardless of your religious persuasion, the idea of these two contraries manifests itself in all religion, even if it is only as a part of a cycle. It's the consequence of our moral tendencies combined with our need for agency. If our actions really do have a moral dimension (and they do), and we really are able to shape our world (which we can, albeit in a very limited fashion), then we will eventually bring the world to a state of happiness or a state of destruction. This works fine in the spiritual sphere, but in a secular framework it becomes the religion of progress.
And it just so happens that this particular set of secularized beliefs which were once part of religious frameworks is horrendously destructive. It is destructive in the capitalist form, promoting egoism, hedonism and short-sightedness. It is destructive in the Marxist-communist form, which abandons moral guidelines altogether and imposes its totalitarian doctrine from the top down.
Of course, as JMG would likely point out, these are not the only two options. It is a false dichotomy. We can take other paths. But we need to abandon those which are destructive, totalitarian, and reinforce the most selfish tendencies in man.
10/26/14, 1:49 AM
jean-vivien said...
On a more somber note, it looks like banker rain season has just started : http://mobile.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSKCN0IE08U20141025?irpc=932
Tragic for them... and pretty scary for Europe too
10/26/14, 2:01 AM
Andy Brown said...
This probably isn't the place to argue world-views, but I would like to clarify that "conservatism" doesn't have to come from a narrow view of what human nature is or what humans are capable of.
The great adaptation of the human animal is the capacity for culture, which hugely expanded the diversity of human arrangements (though not infinitely of course).
Humans strive (to varying degrees) in whatever cultural system they find themselves in. For deeply motivating reasons, they strive to be liked and respected by the people they want to be liked and respected by; they strive for some degree of material security or success; they strive for the benefit of whatever group they identify with (self, family, tribe, nation). The details of that are more various than admitted by most conservatives – or most members of any culture (who tend to consider their way of doing things the natural, sensible way)
I agree with conservatives to the point that grandiose social experiments that try to tear people from their culture are doomed to fail. Small scale ones end up trying to replace culture with psychological dependencies (charismatic leaders) and state-scaled one with institutions of oppression. So, again, I agree with conservatives that incremental changes are much more likely to make sense and stick – I just bridle when conservatives invoke “human nature” to limit things to their preferred scope. Yes humans are selfish, but they are also altruistic; they abuse each other, but also have an innate sense of justice; they perceive what’s going on around them and have also the tools to delude themselves and others.
The collapse of culture (as JMG describes) tears away culture – it destroys some of the things we’ve built our identity on – nation, tribe, family, even self; it destroys the avenues by which we pursued public regard and success. It simplifies things down to a narrower set of options - to homesteads and warbands and the demands of physical survival for example. These are more basic, but to think of it as an underlying “nature” is like thinking of baskets and goat bladders as nature, just because we sometimes forget how to make proper pottery.
(Please don't take any of this as a personal attack - I'm trying to clarify my difference of opinion in a way that explains why a "progressive" like myself pretty much agrees with most of what JMG has to say here.)
10/26/14, 5:27 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
Communism, in *any* implementation, can survive about as long as the gasoline-powered automobile. Because, like the auto, it is fossil-fueled.
10/26/14, 5:46 AM
Marcello said...
The older, "simpler" types of large airships crashed and burned quite a lot. What you linked to is not much bigger that various small blimps and assorted that are normally used successfully.
Payload would be minimal.
As a mater of fact a single train, even an old steam one, can pack the load of a fleet of large Zeppelin, so the economics don't really add up except for specific applications like oversized loads, very remote locations and such; not that I would expect railroads to be viable in the modern form either, I was thinking more about animal drawn carriages over strip rail or plateways that could be used to link a mine or such to the nearest port
10/26/14, 6:48 AM
Eric S. said...
Green Wizardry isn't so much about standing alone as I understand it, it isn't necessarily about being a lone wolf or laying low. It's about recognizing that in times of crisis, skills and habits are the one thing that can't be taken away from you as long as you're alive. No matter how strong the communities you build now may be, they may not be the communities you have 30 years from now if you're still alive.
If you're in the suburbs, people may foreclose on properties when they can't afford to pay bills and move closer to their jobs, if you're in the city new people will move in and the landscape will change drastically, if you're in the country people will pour out in search of work and you'll be swept up in a tide of "Okies" searching for this or that promised lands. You may lose jobs and wind up in urban hovels and shanty towns, your town may become the staging ground for a decisive historical battle in some future war and you may have to pick up and move away until it's over only to discover that there's a crater where your house was from a stray missile. You might have to do odd jobs around town, or you may find yourself on the wrong side of whatever government comes into play and decide your chances are better with the insurgents. And if you make it through everything you may finally get your happy ending and have a home, a trade, and a community to carry you through your old age. A community with a mix of languages, customs, and religions that may not be yours.
There's a lot of on the job training through all that, but it'll be a lot easier if you start building a reportoi of skills and habits that'll make it easier to get accepted into those new communities and get hired into those odd jobs. You can't learn everything so you've got to pick the things that suit you and the future your home town is likely to have. And yes, community building can be one of those skills. The difference between Green Wizardry and Transition is that for Green Wizards the skill of building strong, resilient communities rather than the communities themselves is the thing that's valued and is one skill among many. Is the difference between insulating and weather stripping the house you live in now because you want a strong, resilient house and learning how to weather strip and insulate starting with the house you live in now because you know that's a good thing to know how to do. Yes your house benefits in both cases, but in the latter case you've gained something valuable even if your house gets taken away from you.
10/26/14, 7:22 AM
Shane Wilson said...
Americans are compulsively idealistic--we have a whole civil religion around our founding/nation that both sides of our political process pay homage to. We were founded upon the American dream as a land of bounty that knows no limit, and every limit we've encountered, we've overcome. Once the frontier (land limit) was closed, we began industrializing/exploiting our bounty of fossil fuels, once our fossil fuels peaked (1970s), we exploited our empire for its wealth. Americans are basically congenital idealists who congenitally can't understand or accept limits. It's going to get VERY interesting in North America as we finally have to come to terms w/limits in short order, and our idealism/optimism finally comes crashing down. I live in the black sheep region of the US, the American South, which has consistently foiled the idealism of the elite regions/coasts by being impoverished, unequal, "backward", etc., at least until recently. We've always been the sore thumb that refused to succumb to the progressive idealism of the rich, elite regions that represent the American norm.
10/26/14, 7:39 AM
Shane Wilson said...
There were two foundational colonies in the U.S., the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay and the Virginia company. The Virginia company was explicitly a commercial venture, while the Puritans were a fundamentalist protestant sect that nevertheless became as commercial as the Virginia company (for God and profit was the Puritans' motto) The Puritans became the dominant faction, while the Virginians (southerners) became the minority faction, which is why Americans celebrate that landing at Plymouth rock as thanksgiving rather than the founding of Jamestown (Virginia). So the die was cast, and the moral imperative of America was fixed, and that's the reason why everything the Americans do is set in moral tones of good vs evil w/the Americans on the good side, dates back to 1620 & Plymouth rock.
10/26/14, 8:19 AM
Shane Wilson said...
10/26/14, 9:44 AM
Moshe Braner said...
Regarding northern regions becoming better for agriculture as the climate warms: warmer temperatures are not enough. Rainfall patterns matter too. But even more so, good soil will take more than a couple of centuries to build.
Regarding lighter than air flying machines. I keep wondering why peak-oilers are enamored of them. Perhaps it comes from the Hollywood-created myth that it is strong engines that keep airplanes in the air, and as soon as the engine sputters an airplane dives straight down. Look at a glider (sailplane, not so much hang glider) flying without an engine, and see how efficient long wings and steamlining can be. And staying up is not enough - need to get somewhere! A sailplane can maintain altitude while moving a mile a minute with just a 5 horsepower engine. Airships displace a lot of air as they move, thus require large, multi-hundred horsepower engines to move relatively slowly. As for hot air balloons, they use more fuel per hour, just to keep the air in the balloon hot, while floating at the wind's whim, than a small airplane uses while flying where the pilot pleases at 90 mph.
If the "floating in air" part is the important part, for freight (rather than reconnaissance), floating on water is far easier. Doesn't work inland (except where canals are feasible), but railroads are the next best thing.
And yes it is tragic how we throw helium away on frivolous nonsense, and emblematic of how as a species we are no smarter than yeast. But no, airships is not the best use of helium. There are other uses where helium has no substitute, such as superconducting electromagnets which are essential to technologies such as MRIs.
10/26/14, 10:04 AM
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...
I think you're off by a few decades. Orwell only missed by several years.
~
10/26/14, 10:45 AM
Dennis D said...
10/26/14, 11:20 AM
Avery said...
10/26/14, 11:50 AM
steve pearson said...
10/26/14, 2:42 PM
Redneck Girl said...
At that point I was reminded of a Robert Heinlein statement, "Cassandra didn't get half the kicking around she deserved!"
Since my friend runs a boarding stable and she's only been paying on the acreage itself for about ten years with the result that she's paid much less then ten percent of the principal, I think that was fear talking. She's put a lot of money into the infrastructure of the stable and she loves the business. I would too. Unfortunately this slump is beginning to hit her business solidly and a cold wind is blowing up her spine.
She doesn't want to believe what we're facing so she isn't thinking about how to weather the storm. I wish I could help her but I may not be able to help myself. The only thing I'm really concerned about is how to care for my 'furred and hoofed' children.
Wadulisi
10/26/14, 5:04 PM
latefall said...
Sailplanes and airships are very different animals. They both fly some of the time but that's about it. I don't really know where to start talking about how all of that affects their performance in different roles. Sailplanes (as well as LTA) have some rather hard to push limits (have a look/listen at the design of the Concordia). Without propulsion a sailplane isn't really such a reliable recon asset that you'd drag it along, just so you can start doing some fair weather recon after a hearty breakfast (once the thermals get going). With a motor it really ain't much of a sailplane anymore. If you land in the field - how do you get it up again? I think it could still serve certain niches in select regions, but there'll be a lot of other things/issues competing for time and resources.
I agree pretty much with all of the rest of your post. Though there's a few things: Because floating on water is so easy, it is also easy to rob you on water. Certainly an airship is far from invincible - but if you do the worst stretches at night it isn't so easy/attractive to shoot it down for the random barbarian. And you can outrun many of the other known threats. The last point is that airships don't need a lot of infrastructure maintained - they can go extremely long distances. Resulting in a relatively low maintenance bill. Something very attractive once population has gone down.
A little mind game on the safety front - what are your guesses for fatalities per billion (1E9 km) a person travels. How would you say they vary between modes of transport (factor of 3 or factors of 3000)? Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport#Safety. How does this compare with dying through some sickness or smoking? And in a dark age? The last item be most interested in (but I can't find) is the "learning curve" of these technologies (+ other major factors). Cause I can't really imagine they racked up similar numbers of passenger miles as cars have done by now...
10/26/14, 5:20 PM
latefall said...
Thanks for the gipsy zep link. Surprisingly I hadn't seen that before. I have put a couple dozen man hours into research of a concept around a hydrogren balloon/blimp/cable based (hopefully) sustainable logging concept. You are supposed to carry compostable matter and equipment to selectively cut trees in a line path along a temporary cable line. I pitched the concept to someone working in development/empowerment in sub-saharan Africa and he hated it. He said people would instantly "weed out" all the valuable old growth and it is very doubtful you'd get (non-competing) compostable waste and not something else (e.g. salt water) as ballast... So I put it on hold until I could think of a way to make that scenario less likely. It is somewhat similar to the aeromodeller as I want low tech or cheap mass products to go into it. It should be transportable by train or horse cart. Non-explosive defects should be good natured and repairable in a few days (with some spares) in the field. Explosion should be survivable with a, say 80% chance that will see you have you only lightly injured. I don't think a higher survival rate, but with a large chance of heavy injury is necessarily better. When it is irreparably damaged it should should be easy to break it down into useful elements (up- or downcycling, e.g. survival blankets, reflectors).
I envision making it out of elements (e.g. 1:2:4 shape) that have approx 90 kg equivalent of lift (makes them versatile and possible to handle with weighed down individual - though really I'd have to check empirically what size and tether is most appropriate for what region). They'd get thrown into a net and second bag with (possibly with inflatable (heatable?) pockets to optimize shape a little). This is underpinned by a (spaceframe? - if speeds are low) or beam skeleton (e.g. H-shape) to give you mount points, stretch the shape into something more aerodynamic, and (big difference to to aeromodeller!) build distance between you and the hydrogen. Crew would spend most time in (spring loaded) zorbs (see globe-riding). If something went "poof" overhead the zorbs would zing away. I guess it would make sense to attach a foam flame barrier shading you from the explosion on one side. As you fall down it would/could probably turn aft (a little like a parachute) making it possible to deploy some sort of additional bumper to the front (needs to work on water, trees, and solid ground). My guess would be 2 or 3 bendy sticks with balls on the ends. My former concept was a tandem bubble design with (chainsaw) engines for propulsion - or rather offset. Because I'd launch it downwind, anchor it, and use the engines mostly for offset. It would then anchor with one part and the other part would run out a line and eventually the cable. After that balloons could provide lift to run stuff up and down sloping terrain. In the end you reassemble, wait for the right wind and cast off, or use another set of cables, or have a few donkey pick you up. If it wasn't for the weather - mountains with cable systems are actually pretty good for LTA travel. Depending on the region lighting may be a very serious issue - especially cable tethered. I assume one would have to mount a light ring and one or two more sturdy antennas to the H-frame. I have some sketches, back of envelope calcs, and a bunch of patents and other files I pulled of the net (a little of it in German, the rest probably only a subset in your collection). But if you are serious about this we can talk it through some more - but I really don't want to hi-jack the thread for this too much. After all there are other venues for this: http://transformaking.org/
10/26/14, 5:22 PM
YJV said...
Ah now I get what you mean by railroads. Definitely agree that a modern style railroad system seems unfeasible.
Still, as long as airships can provide an edge in terms of speed, there might be some intersection of speed/payload that makes it applicable. That doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be widespread, of course.
@Moshe
Airships aren't a substitute for faster sailplanes or gliders. For heavier-than-air aircraft the factor of power required to increase speed is much less than that required to increase weight. Airships are the opposite. This is just the law of aerodynamics. The slower the airship, the better it is in power consumption. Hence the amount of power you need is similarly less as you don't need large amounts of thrust to generate dynamic lift needed to keep the thing in the air. There's an intersection of speed/load below which airships are better, and above which aircraft are better. As for MRIs and such, those things definitely won't be around in the future.
Most of these disagreements are simply based on how much energy and what level of infrastructure is available if built from virtually, scratch. I myself don't really know the answer to this question, so I'm rather ambivalent to the matter.
10/26/14, 5:38 PM
Derv said...
Thank you for your equally thoughtful tone. I can understand where you would get that picture from, given my comments, but allow me to clarify. I believe that men possess a set of rights, which includes the right to the product of his own labor. If I grow food on my land, I think it's quite fair and true to say that it's mine. The same applies to anything else I produce, and to my labor itself.
The state provides a number of services which I benefit from, which includes the protection of my private property rights (as well as preserving me from harm, and so on). As such, it's not unfair or unreasonable for the state to ask for some share of what I produce to sustain itself, and this is taxation obviously. So long as the state does what it fundamentally exists to do - primarily defend its citizens from harm external and internal, though a few other things could be added to that category - then it is a legitimate state, to which I owe my allegiance. It is not a voluntary relationship.
When it comes to my labor, however, or any of my other God-given rights, these can only lawfully be taken from me by my consent. To violate my person without my consent is evil and criminal, whether it be assault, rape, murder, and so on. To violate my private property rights is theft, vandalism, etc. But a communistic system takes control of the means of production, which includes my labor. This is mine by right. That means, for it to be just, legitimate, and non-criminal, I must give it up voluntarily to them. That is legitimate, and that is what smaller communes entail; I swear a vow of poverty and obedience to my abbot, making me part of a voluntary communist organization. This is not the case with a Marxist-Communist state. Therefore it violates our rights by its very nature, and is inherently criminal and evil.
In short: a state is not a voluntary organization, but it is only legitimate so long as it preserves its citizens' rights by natural law. A communist society requires citizens to give up their rights; therefore it is only lawful when it is entirely voluntary. It is fair to say, then, that a Marxist-Communist state is evil.
As for your remaining comments, well, I think in some ways you may be conflating Burkean conservatism with a Hobbesian philosophy and/or Adam Smith's economic model. The two are correlated, but are not necessarily tied together. I don't agree with Adam Smith's model, or with Hobbes' view of mankind. I agree that, just as progressives can outright dismiss the existence of a fundamental human nature, some conservatives can overstate what is fundamental to human nature and human society. I don't disagree with anything you say about human nature there; I only (perhaps) disagree with the idea that the state must be the method of expressing it.
This ties to another idea about the nature of the state, but I've ranted quite a bit here so I'll only glance upon it. The nature of the state is violence - force - whether direct or indirect. It is the means by which the will of some ruling power is imposed upon the people. This is entirely acceptable in some cases (imposing a "no murder" rule is quite a good thing) and bad in others (stealing a person's labor through slavery or forced communism). After all, if the state enacts a program I disagree with, it's not as though I can withhold the portion of my taxes that go to that program. If I do, force will be used against me. In brief, the state should only demand from us those things for which they could justly throw us in prison. What qualifies for that line is debatable, but that's where the line is in my opinion.
10/26/14, 6:22 PM
Derv said...
I agree that these large, complex systems are products of advanced civilizations (though I doubt that industrial civilization is explicitly required), and soon enough we'll be under the old model of "whatever makes us not dead" or "whatever the guy with the bazooka says." That said, I suspect we'll have at least one more spasm across the West related to these issues, so they are important in the short term. It may be neo-fascism as JMG suggests, or an attempted pseudo-capitalistic feudalism, or a communist revolution across Europe. I couldn't say for sure. But I suspect that after the initial "hang the bankers" phase, we'll have a civilization-wide crisis over how to "fix" what's obviously broken. And I suspect that dilemma will be sorted out with fire and blood, sadly.
Avery -
I don't believe I argued that revolutions intend to overthrow all social norms, so I'm not sure what your point is. I do agree that revolution is almost always a response to social injustices that have grown too large to endure. But, too often, the cure is worse than the disease.
10/26/14, 6:22 PM
KL Cooke said...
"Deficiency of understanding is called stupidity. It is just dullness in applying the law of causality, incapacity for the immediate apprehension of the concatenations of causes and effects, motives and actions. A stupid person has no insight into the connection of natural phenomena, either when they follow their own course, or when they are intentionally combined, i.e., are applied to machinery."
(Arthur Schopenhauer--The World as Will and Idea)
10/26/14, 11:12 PM
KL Cooke said...
Isn't that essentially an Hobbesian view?
Where you speak of rights as a transcendental concept, I'm inclined to think in terms of realpolitik.
10/27/14, 12:11 AM
YJV said...
I didn't entirely understand how that works, but it sounds interesting! The diagrams would make it clearer. Great to hear your thoughts!
10/27/14, 1:24 AM
Lance M. Foster said...
10/27/14, 4:04 AM
Juhana said...
Russo-Serbian axis of friendship was long time coming, and first time it's modern version was announced in football terraces of Eastern Europe. At the same time, resentment of those groups who suffered the most during bolshevik rule, like West Ukrainians, towards Russian recovery made them to turn whatever source of inspiration, even if it means commemorating Galizien or displaying auf deutsch wolfsangel. This is no politburo scheme or elite conspiracy, it's genuine grassroots uprising at the both sides against old tribal enemies and Western post-World War Two progressive ideology. For me it seems that large parts of Eastern European youth and big segments of society there have shrugged teachings of the Sixties from their shoulders and turned to older values for their self-image. Not all, but many. I mentioned this trend two years ago in this blog, before football hooligans turned into paramilitary death squads again... Now the connection of grassroots counter-culture of hoods and football terraces making union with political powers with ruthless realpolitik in their minds has became obvious even for mainstream journalists...evolving into fullgrown ideology of the hood, of the lower-middle and working classes.
10/27/14, 7:26 AM
Gloucon X said...
"How do we keep the human mind from applying technology to solve problems? Three hundred years ago humans just happened to discover that fossil fuels can help them solve lots of problems. Humans have been improving their technology since the Stone Age, so it must be a part of their adaptable human nature. If that is the case, then how can we criticize them for doing what nature designed them to do?"
"Deficiency of understanding is called stupidity. It is just dullness in applying the law of causality, incapacity for the immediate apprehension of the concatenations of causes and effects, motives and actions. A stupid person has no insight into the connection of natural phenomena, either when they follow their own course, or when they are intentionally combined, i.e., are applied to machinery." (Arthur Schopenhauer--The World as Will and Idea)
Sad, but true. Nature gave us a brain capable of using fire and the simplest stone tools, and also one that compels us to innovate our technologies. Yet, apparently, she failed to give us a brain capable of anticipating the possible harm of this activity until it is too late. Is nature at fault here for designing humans as a kind of doomsday machine?
10/27/14, 7:45 AM
Juhana said...
http://theden.tv/2014/10/26/the-long-slow-collapse-what-whig-history-cant-explain/
When different people with different perspectives, hopes and fears start to see same thing happening, then that thing must be real and actual, what do you think?
10/27/14, 9:13 AM
dltrammel said...
@Bogatyr (and Dltrammel and whoever else is involved in Green Wizardry please correct me if I'm totally missing the point):
EXACTLY!!!
Wonderful summary Eric, mind if post that with credit in a future blog post?
And why aren't you writing for us?...(evil grin)
10/27/14, 9:53 AM
Eric S. said...
10/27/14, 12:20 PM
Moshe Braner said...
I also am not too hopeful that "simple engines running on ethanol", for either type of aircraft, are feasible. Internal combustion engines, to be practical (with a long enough running life) need advanced metalurgy (and thus a vast supply network). The Wright brothers designed and built their own engines, a marvel of power to weight ratio for the time, but they were only good for running a few hours, a proof-of-concept. Late in WW2 the almost-defeated Germans were building airplanes with primitive metalurgy engines, due to their loss of mineral sources and advanced industrial facilities. Not lack of knowledge, mind you. And those engines too only lasted for a few hours of runtime. But typically long enough to be shot down...
Craft floating on water can not only carry much heavier payloads than those floating on air, they can also utilize their contact with both the water and the wind (via keels and sails) to travel crosswind and even (more slowly, by tacking) upwind. This trick is not available to airships.
10/27/14, 2:03 PM
NickVictoryofthePeeps83 said...
10/27/14, 2:23 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
Your quote: "Nature gave us a brain capable of using fire and the simplest stone tools, and also one that compels us to innovate our technologies. Yet, apparently, she failed to give us a brain capable of anticipating the possible harm of this activity until it is too late. Is nature at fault here for designing humans as a kind of doomsday machine?"
Is simply incorrect and unsupported in the real world.
Plenty of human societies live in (or are forced to live in by their circumstances) balance with the various ecosystems that they find themselves in. Most animals in the forest here have to deal with this reality on a day to day basis too.
Obviously I don't know your circumstances and contributions so this is not directed at you personally, but ultimately we aren't victims of some innate force driving ourselves towards self-destruction. There is a word to describe that end point with animals: "extinct".
The destruction of the environment around us is simply our fault. It might feel good to off load responsibility for those (and yours too by the way) actions onto that innate force that you describe, but it serves no purpose.
Mate, we're not even the first civilisation to outrun our resource base and tip over into decline. It is a boringly familiar story accelerated by the acts of all the individuals in that civilisation pursuing self-interest over consequences. It is not even hard to understand.
I'd have to suggest that your quote is actually mouthing the words of the apocalypse fairy? Dunno.
Hi everyone,
I've got a new blog entry up talking about all of the disasters I’ve had with the bees over the years and what I'm currently doing about it.
Also, there are more rocks, of course and some ruinman work producing steel pump bushfire covers.
Plus, I also show some of the work that I'm doing here with the patches of remnant rainforests on the farm.
We're back babe-bee
Apologies for the awful bee joke in the title, but I couldn't help myself and am still giggling about it! hehe!
Cheers
Chris
10/27/14, 2:23 PM
Gloucon X said...
Thanks for a fine discussion, and for introducing ideas of Traditional Conservatism. As a fairly rebellious person, I was shocked to see how much I agreed with TC when I read the wiki page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_conservatism#The_new_conservatives
I’ve only read the British take on TC so far. The emphasis on agrarianism, local and regionalism, the condemnation of big business as well as big government, the criticism of the idea of material progress, and of the notion that wealth, prosperity, and economic gain were the sum of human existence. We also share a fondness for the wisdom found within Classical and other ancient texts. All great stuff. So far, so good.
In America, so called conservatives have mocked or abandoned most of these TC ideas, and kept people like me from even considering any ideology using with the word conservative. That is truly a shame. I had read some of Chesterton's biting criticism of the crassness of capitalism, and the ideas of E F Schumacher (who has a following among the left). It seems that these TC ideas could be combined with some of the better ideas of the left to create the foundation of a truly sound, sensible, and comprehensive political movement.
Though I’m still working the hierarchy stuff, which for me, must be based on something truly legitimate and just. My explorations look very promising...so does that pie you mentioned. I may just show up soon with the coffee.
10/27/14, 9:18 PM
onething said...
Tylenol is hard on the liver, and NSAIDS are mildly hard on the kidneys. I can't imagine why your doctor thought a fever of 101 would fry your brain. Fevers can be tiring, but I only ever brought down a child's fever if it was night and both parents and child needed some sleep. Perhaps there is something I don't understand, but a fever is a large part of how the body fights illness. When I have a fever, I take a hot bath! It feels so good.
10/27/14, 10:18 PM
YJV said...
You raise valid points, and are definitely right in saying that barges/ships will always be the non-industrial technology to rule. The feasibility of internal combustion engines will decide whether both airplanes and airships exist in the future. What I'm saying is that if - and it's a big if - there exists energy enough to build internal combustion engines at all, then it will most likely be a scalable technology (big engines can be scaled up version of smaller engines), and therefore will mean that both airplanes and airships will be feasible, along with a train system. But it's a big if.
10/28/14, 12:46 AM
Bogatyr said...
I did actually begin to follow the Green Wizard path myself shortly after JMG first introduced it, and invested quite a lot of time and money in acquiring skills - AND, not unimportantly, the often specialised tools needed to use those skills.
None of that helped me when my home and those of my neighbours were targeted in the same night by a well-organised group of thieves - who, from the way they worked, must have had local knowledge. It got me thinking, you might say.
So, we're working from different core assumptions and in different contexts. Dissensus rules ;-)
I don't propose to discuss it any further here. I'll post links to my blog from time to time, for those who may be interested; Redneck girl with her Cascadian ninjas has ideas I'd like to hear more about! I signed up for the Green Wizards forum a few days ago, but I've not received the promised confirmation email yet...
10/28/14, 1:25 AM
1ab9a86a-8991-11e3-899b-000bcdcb8a73 said...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/business/oversize-expectations-for-the-airbus-a380.html?_r=0
My favorite bit is right at the end where the airline dude tells Airbus not to worry because "The global economy will take care of you."
I almost fell off my chair laughing, which is my excuse for sharing this. Hopefully one day all these airframes will make handy shelters for someone, they can be quite durable.
10/28/14, 8:27 AM
Janet D said...
Hubby & I have had to travel a fair amount the last few weeks. Everywhere we go, there is widespread road damage/disrepair, poverty and run-down neighborhoods, disheveled school yards filled with portable buildings. It's pretty amazing when you open your eyes.
We were near Portland, OR this weekend. They recently had to shelve a plan to replace the aging I-5 bridge between Portland and WA State (the one that 125,000 people travel on every single day; the one that engineers have already said will not remain standing during a major earthquake). Why did they shelve it? Well, WA State, which had originally agreed to fund 1/2 of the cost of replacement, pulled out, citing the no-new-taxes pledge made by the State Senate. No funding. Well, Oregon can't pay for the bridge replacement themselves. They estimate it will take another 5-10 years to get to this same decision place again (why so long, I'm not sure). Catabolic collapse.
I'm headed back outside, to sit in the rain and the trees. It's a highly wonderful tonic when one has come in touch with a long line of fairies seeking unemployment bennies.
10/28/14, 10:33 AM
Derv said...
I wouldn't equate short to mid-term pessimism about outcomes with a Hobbesian view. I don't think the natural state of man is nasty, brutish, and short, and that the state is a mechanism for preventing that. I think that man is inherently social; the family, the tribe, the clan, the town, the nation are the natural state of man. We are meant to be communal, to cooperate, to be altruistic. We have vicious impulses too, to be sure, but no man I've ever met acted out of anything but an intent to do good, even when he did what was evil.
Gloucon X -
Yes, the modern "conservative" establishment has absolutely nothing to do with the original ideas of traditional conservativism. Subsidiarity has been abandoned entirely, the size of government and its connections to corrupt corporations is a non-concern, and they do nothing more than pander to a superficial sort of religious-political organization. They are inconsistent, dishonest, immoral, and at this point don't even feign traditional conservativism in their speeches anymore. It hasn't had any real influence on the GOP since Goldwater, really.
I'm not a fan, as you can see. And it upsets me how badly they've tainted the idea of conservativism in the popular mind. Despite the protests of some friends, I refuse to vote for men like Romney. The only way traditional conservativism is ever going to regain a foothold is if the present GOP bums fall apart so badly that the corrupt party establishment is thrown out.
Nevertheless I'm hopeful that, after a long, long while (when GW Bush is an "ancient" memory), and our false political dichotomy falls apart, there may be a return to the principles that once made the West a beautiful civilization.
10/28/14, 11:42 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
Another note about my "20th Century rebooted" analysis of this future history -- in this framework of mirroring the last century, one big thing is missing from the 2080s -- the second global pandemic, which was never really brought under control and continued killing people by the millions 30 years later. Eventually humans simply had to evolve genetic resistance to it, a process that was not really complete until near the *end* of the dark ages. In case anyone has forgotten, HIV is still killing as many people in Africa *every week* as Ebola has killed in its entire history (though mostly in a different part of the continent). Life expectancy in some countries has dropped from the 60s to the 30s. Globally, HIV deaths are only kept under control by expensive high-tech medications, and the virus continues spreading even in the "developed" world. Without the global pharmaceutical industry (something that sits very high on the energy pyramid), AIDS comes back with a vengance and deaths climb and climb and climb. Transmission also accelerates, since the meds lower the viral load in the blood and cut the risk of transmission by orders of magnitude. Plus, poverty and its associated conditions (medical and sociological) enhance HIV transmission.
This pandemic began in the previous century, and likely has several more centuries to run.
10/28/14, 12:25 PM
Varun Bhaskar said...
Might considering inviting the person running the site to be a greenwizard.
http://blog.survivorlibrary.com/
10/28/14, 12:47 PM
Eric S. said...
I can definitely understand that frustration, and getting past the "but I have to have the tools and the land" was the biggest hurtle for me until I sat down, assessed my situation, and asked myself what I could do right now with what I already have and started adapting my goals to my situation and interests. Green Wizardry isn't all about organic gardening and wind turbines, and there’s a lot that can be done without any tools at all. If you're interested in community and diplomacy, a Green Wizard could maybe start by finding time to volunteer with a prison outreach program or homeless shelter to get an idea of what the communities you'll be a part of someday will look like. Talk to people, especially very poor people who live in areas ruled by urban gangs about how they survive and how they navigate their worlds and power structures. If you’ve got a gift for it, learn the languages that you think will give you an edge in the future (Spanish, Mandarin, and Arabic, are all good bets depending on where you live and a syncretic language like Haitian Creole can give you a picture of the way languages change as populations mingle). The core of Green Wizardry is that it works within historical processes that began before anyone live today was born and will continue after everyone alive today has died. That means it has to adapt to that world as it materializes around us and the best way to do that is by participating in and adapting to a changing world, rather than prepping for or creating a world that may arrive someday.
Dltrammel: I may be asking a question with a stupidly obvious answer, but how do I actually join the Green Wizardry Forums? I think I’m finally confident enough on my own journey to join in on that discussion. Also, just found the e-mail address you sent me back in June when you asked me the same question about writing something (which I’d completely forgotten about.) I’ll see what I can start pulling together.
10/28/14, 2:08 PM
Thomas Daulton said...
Here's a helpful possible map for you, from the Washington Post: "Which of the 11 American Nations Do You Live In?"
10/28/14, 5:29 PM
Annabel said...
10/29/14, 1:33 AM
David said...
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/keith-ablow-american-jihad-fox
Very sad.
10/29/14, 8:02 AM
Jerrica Benton said...
Thanks for sharing the link. Wow, after the last Neocon Crusade went *so* well, why shouldn't we start another, embiggened, War on Everypony? [/sarcasm]
Isn't the definition of insanity repeating the same action but expecting different results?
10/29/14, 10:55 AM
Ellen He said...
10/29/14, 11:18 AM
Shane Wilson said...
I'm not sure you can extrapolate what's happening in the U.S. to the whole world. I've noticed what Janet's talking about both locally and in my travels since the Great Recession, but from what I've read (can't speak from experience), things are growing like gangbusters in a lot of the BRICS countries like Russia, India, and China, and they've actually been intensively expanding their infrastructure. They certainly seem bullish and confident in the future, and seem ascendant...
10/29/14, 12:35 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
Annabell -- discussed at length on this blog and in the comments several years ago when some Jensenites were prominent commentors here. My take -- you'll be squashed like bugs and have no impact on the machine. Better to spend your life helping to figure out how people can live through and after the long messy collapse than to blow yourself up in a totally ineffective attack on something a million times larger and more powerful than you (which will die of natural causes soon enough anyway, in historical terms).
And I have to get in my usual shot at Jensen himself -- a poster child for talk the talk but don't walk the walk. While he preaches that we should go live in the wilderness, he jet-sets around the globe, wearing industrial fabrics, clean shaven, well fed, in comfort and style.
10/29/14, 2:29 PM
latefall said...
Xestobium rufovillosum rubigosum of the order Coleoptera, vulgar "The fairies of Progress and Decline", are indeed one species. Its natural habitat is typically near gradients of concentrated energy, where it is generally found in a sort of anaerobic hibernation in which can have markedly different morphologies. The most common resembles a statue human likeness (often with a high concentration of noble metals in the skin), less often it is found in the form of a mathematical formula, or a political text. When conditions are right (abundant flows of concentrated energy, hot exhalations of other species, and a raised background noise level) it begins an intricate mating behavior. Their mating calls have been shown to mimic simple human exclamations, or that of other species such as the "Muse fairy". There seem to be certain key phrases that are necessary for a precopulatory ritual such as "They will think of something!" but only a fraction of them could be positively identified thus far.
A large (prime) number of eggs are placed in the feathers of a black swan where they slowly develop over several Kondratieff cycles. The time until hatching is rather variable and is probably triggered by external conditions. There is significant evidence of a coordinated hatching of a large fraction of larvae, typically on a Friday or a Monday. Their diet has been shown to have a large influence on their chance to develop into a "Fairy of Progress", a "False Hope", or a "Fairy of Decline". Misunderstandings, bad ideas, and mistakes in unit conversions lead to development of a "Fairy of Decline". It is unknown which elements are necessary to breed the increasingly rare "Fairy of Progress". Attempts to do this under controlled conditions in captivity have only resulted in "False Hopes" which differ in morphology only in the later stages of development but are said to excrete a slightly more pungent pheromone early on.
The fully developed "Fairy of Progress" has the appearance of a human torso and head with technicolor butterfly wings made of nanoscopic photovoltaic elements. The abdomen resembles that of a chrome skinned grasshopper with turbines on the last pair of legs, anti-grav pads on the mid pair, and a set of blue laser pointers on the front pair. The humans hands often initiate an electric arc in which they can refine lead to gold given a suitable protective atmosphere which is contained in the removable helmet.
Unlike its cousin the "False Hope" most "Fairies of Progress" are very reclusive and generally communicate with indirect visual cues and only sometimes in the high audible range (generally as alarm), however asked to elaborate they generally become more excited and drift well into the ultrasonic range. When threatened they will extend a sting which is a powerful antibiotic and cure for most known illnesses. The long held belief that any machine treated with "Progress Fairy" pulp will increase its efficiency above unity has been disproved several times however.
10/29/14, 3:17 PM
latefall said...
Most of the above is derived from the so called "Pandora's Box" case, which was unwittingly monitored when a customs officer forgot to switch off the mobile freight x-ray device receiver.
Reconstructions of the damaged solid state disc are imperfect but they seem to show an abnormally large morbidly obese human in inverted fetal position who fills more than 3/4 of the container volume. There are clearly visible round mouth parts on the side opposite to the apparently false face, as well as long irregular antenna-like protrusions identified as Zircalloy. Protrusions barely visible at the sides of the body could be spiracles, but this is strongly contested. The whole body seems to have a high concentration of particularly toxic compounds and heavy metals. Locomotion could not be observed over larger distances but locations of movement seemed to correlate with locally increased entropy and corrosion, as well as isotope analysis from the sinkhole.
10/29/14, 3:25 PM
1ab9a86a-8991-11e3-899b-000bcdcb8a73 said...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDj72Al0cI
(interview starts 49 seconds in).
The guy is an engineer who went in 1998 from Michigan, the epicenter of industrial decline, to China and saw their industrial base ramp up. There are some phenomenal number mentioned in passing. It's a long listen but I found it worthwhile, a warts and all view from someone who's been there long enough to know what's what.
10/29/14, 4:46 PM
Ellen He said...
"Sorry Ellen He, but your apologia-defense of the Arch-Druid grows ever weaker when you say things like: “it will likely follow the same path that all other civilizations before it followed: that of rise, apogee, and decline.”
Um, some examples please? Note that I am not even asking you to prove that this happened to ALL or even a MAJORITY of past civilizations. I’d like to see if you could support it for any. At all. It is Spenglerism and part of the silliness that I talk about here:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-tytler-insult-is-democracy-hopeless.html
Sure, you’ll cite some cases like the fall of the Roman Empire… which did not fall in the richer, eastern half for another thousand years. Did nation conquer nation? Sure. But the model there is predation, not senescence. Please notice how you posited as a GIVEN AXIOM something that is not just without basis, but spectacularly false. So much for all the rest that is supported by the “axiom"
10/29/14, 5:03 PM
sgage said...
"And I have to get in my usual shot at Jensen himself -- a poster child for talk the talk but don't walk the walk. While he preaches that we should go live in the wilderness, he jet-sets around the globe, wearing industrial fabrics, clean shaven, well fed, in comfort and style."
I share your disdain for Jensen. He really doesn't seem to walk the walk at all.
And I understand the 'clean shaven' bit - Mr. Anti-Civ ought to let his beard grow, fer crying out loud. I haven't shaved since I graduated highschool in '73.
10/29/14, 5:08 PM
latheChuck said...
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140416/DEFREG03/304160021/Russian-Missile-System-Masquerading-Innocent-Cargo-Container
10/29/14, 5:20 PM