Attempting a new format (that I will probably fiddle with for a week or so) for sharing articles of interest. Below you will find a number of links to those articles. Note that I may add a few before the day ends so check back. Hope this works for everyone…

First-Responder Trauma: A New Framework for Activists

The Future We Deserve

Climate Disaster Preparation Guide | by Climate Survivor | Jun, 2024 | Medium

The World Lost Two-Thirds Of Its Wildlife In 50 Years. We Are to Blame

How Does Anyone Still Care About This Bullshit?

Julian Assange Is Free. Washington Crafter ‘A Face Saving Deal’. Massive Violation of Habeas Corpus as a Favour to Washington. Paul C. Roberts

Health Prepping: Microbiome Maintenance is Key to…Everything

The Coming US Budget Disaster Will Impoverish Americans | Mises Institute

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: 10 Geopolitical / Financial Risks to the Global Economy

Welsh Police Pay Home Visit To Man For Displaying Reform UK Political Sign

American Pravda: JFK, LBJ, and Our Great National Shame, by Ron Unz

The Spread of Artificial Intelligence. The Emergence of ‘Deep Fakes’, Masterful Distortions. ‘Who Controls the Past Controls the Future’

Fact-Checking Network Says Online Face Checks Aren’t Censorship

US Readies To Evacuate Americans From Lebanon If War Erupts, Marines En Route | ZeroHedge

The UN: “We must all work to eradicate (hate speech) completely.

UN food chief: Poorest areas have zero harvests left

Where is the Sense of Urgency? – by Matt Orsagh

A water war is looming between Mexico and the US. Neither side will win | CNN

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXI–The Politics of Dancing: The politicians are now dj’s…

June 13, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXI

Tulum, Mexico (1986). Photo by author.

The Politics of Dancing: The politicians are now dj’s…

It seems nowadays we’re always trapped in the silly season of election campaigning. Perhaps my memory is foggy but where it used to be a short window of inane proclamations and ever-grander promises (that never actually happen as declared), this period of electioneering now appears to carry on everyday, 24/7/365. If it’s not related directly to an upcoming election, it’s about extolling the great work of those in office and the shortcomings of those in opposition parties (or, gasp, wanting to dismantle ‘democracy’)–the bankrolling of which is via that theft mechanism of taxes or, even worse, perpetual debt (I just love that the narrative management/control and surveillance of domestic citizens being carried out by the ruling caste is paid for by the masses themselves that the ‘elite’ are marketing their beneficence to).

With my understanding of societal change through time, one of the aspects of our complex societies that I’ve come to hold as true is that our polities are ‘governed’ by people focused on improving/maintaining their personal/familial/influential benefactor prestige, power, and wealth. It is not, as they crow on about and market repeatedly, a yearning to benefit society-at-large and others–that’s the narrative they want us all to believe in and support. It is about maintenance/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems from which the ruling caste mostly and extraordinarily benefits.

In this vein, I have lost complete faith in our governing systems to do anything but leverage situations to this end. And a lot of the time this has to do with putting in place monetisation schemes in the form of a racket whereby–as U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler argued about war–a small group benefits greatly at the expense of the many, and then, via mass marketing/propaganda/legislation, coercing society to support the scheme (and call out anyone, usually via the media, who criticises/challenges it). And our conditioning and those psychological mechanisms that strive to reduce anxiety-provoking/stressful thoughts/beliefs lead us to believe the narratives weaved by our ruling caste. It’s the water we swim in and don’t even realise it’s there.

“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
-Smedley Butler, War Is A Racket (1935).

As I’ve written and argued before, our globalised, industrial societies can be characterised as full of such rackets that funnel national treasuries/wealth from the masses to the few that sit atop the power and wealth structures that develop as a society becomes larger and more complex. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s simply the epiphenomena of societal adaptations to increased organisational needs as the population grows and society problem-solves via greater complexity–thanks, surplus net energy and the technologies that have helped to produce these surpluses. That those who hold positions of power and influence conspire to maintain/expand these should be self-evident to anyone peering beyond the veneer of mainstream social stories.

What follows is another one of those difficult conversations I had with another following a Facebook post that popped up in my feed recently.

[NB: I saw Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in concert at the London Gardens (London, Ontario) on November 5, 1980. My friends of the time and I were frequently listening to his music so a few of us had to see him when he performed in our home town.]

JK: You all had better get a handle on our USA 2 party system. If you contribute to the election of Republicans you ain’t seen NOTHING yet.

Steve Bull: JK, Right. Left. Center. Blue. Red. Green. Doesn’t matter. ‘Government’ protects the minority ruling caste, not the masses. Been that way for millennia. Elections are theatre to give the impression of choice and agency in a rigged and corrupt system.

TH: Steve Bull, I have a badge: “If voting changed anything, it would be illegal!” Let the jesters speak! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjJLTslWp_Q

JK: Steve Bull, So 2016 made no difference? Trump/ Hillary, same same? Stupid. Clueless. The parties are not the same, not even close. You just need someone to blame for your failures, might as well be everyone.

TH, It’s easy to move to a better country. Do it!!

Steve Bull: JK, I think you need to read a bit of pre/history—especially as it pertains to how ruling systems developed and changed as large, complex societies arose (pay particular attention to the sociological/anthropological concepts of integrationist and conflict theories as to how hierarchical systems came about—the ruling elite want us to believe in the integrationist perspective but the evidence more broadly aligns with the conflict one).

And, yes, most every politician and political party is essentially the same—especially when it comes to ‘big ticket’ items. Some marginal differences may exist but in most ways there is little difference. Massive debt continues to accumulate. Various rackets expand and/or new ones arise (think military-security complex, big energy, financial institutions, media, big pharma, etc). Wars continue. Domestic surveillance expands. Inequality grows. Price inflation increases. Narrative management/control enlarges. Ecological systems continue to be destroyed in order to pursue the infinite growth chalice. Etc. Etc.

The most significant change that occurs after an election are the stories we tell ourselves and others. My team wins and all is right or improving in the world (and if it doesn’t it’s because the other team is interfering in our ability to get things done); the other team wins and everything continues to or will soon go to hell in a hand basket. And much, if not everything, that occurs after the election is interpreted through these lenses. We see differences in order to reduce the stress of cognitive dissonance that would occur if we recognize that we’re being bamboozled by those few sitting atop society’s wealth and power structures.

EM: Steve, it really is a shame that more people don’t have the comprehensive understanding how these systems work, who actually benefits (the most), and what the eventual outcome is. Too many people like J are out there telling people to move to a better country when they can’t see that they’re the ones being owned and bamboozled, especially here in the US.

TH: JK, Luckily I don’t live in the US…! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiuA6Tfy-pM

We have our own problems fighting off 5 Eyes, NATO associate membership, and being a very close friend of the US….Empire stretches down here, and a lot of uber wealthy Americans have bolt holes here….

We live with the illusion of democracy, while living under a government of occupation on behalf of Empire. The political classes are owned, and their owners pass down agendas that are all about dividing and conquering any communities of resistance, and continuing to open up the country to rape/pillage/extraction. The owners are the corporations/banksters/elites. We are being farmed.

JK: EM, nobody owns me. I’m doing fine. I work hard and have a great life.
Our tool is the ballot box. Standing on a street, holding signs, protesting doesn’t do shit. Get involved, complaining won’t get you anywhere. Run for office, be psrt of the change. Revolution at this point is not in the cards.

Steve Bull, how do you propose fixing it? Complaining on Facebook? You aren’t going to change the Constitution and feeble little protests do nothing. Americans can run for office and if you look at Congress you’ll see Reps from the poorest of families. Get off your butt and run for office. Bitching Facebook won’t cut it. Going to take a lot of work.

EM: J, first of all, what we suffer from is a predicament, not a problem. Predicaments have outcomes, not solutions. So, you aren’t going to fix squat with politics, period. Vote for whoever you want, we and they lack agency to solve anything because it isn’t a problem we face.

As for Steve, he is Canadian, so he won’t be running for office here in the US.

Steve Bull: JK, Sure, just like this image suggests:

And, I wasn’t complaining. I was making a statement based on my understanding of pre/history.

JK: Steve Bull the mafia? B. S.

The hate I see on these posts and some MAGA cult people are very similar. Lot of whining, victimhood and makes me sick. Blaming Biden and Jews for genocide while HAMAS cowers behind civilians, does NOTHING except kill Jews.”Degrowth” while pretending to be off grid. I’ll give y’all another 30 days. Maybe you’ll figure out Tammy Baldwin is different than Ron Johnson. Biden is different than Trump. Makes me sick.

If I thought the USA and the mafia were the same I would ABSOLUTELY get out of the USA as fast as I could. No question. I sure as hell wouldn’t whine about it. I’d take action.

Steve Bull: JK, Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that this is not simply a US phenomena; it is an epiphenomena of large, complex societies. It pervades virtually every level of government across the entire globe and has been with humanity for some 12,000 or more years. We, in the West, just wrap it up in a cloak called ‘representative democracy’ and hold theatrical performances to give the masses the impression they have choice and agency in societal decisions and actions. All the while, a relatively small group of well-connected and influential power brokers continue to raid national treasuries (especially in terms of natural resources) and siphon wealth from the masses.

JK: Steve Bull, What do you mean “pre history?” Sounded like complaining. Hey, I have no problem with complaining —that’s what I’m doing. I’m complaining about the anti-semitism I see, hypocrisy, misunderstanding our political system, thinking the 2 parties are the same, whining without acting, and misinformation. For example, I saw an interview of an LGBQ woman holding a pro-Palestine sign without understanding that HAMAS would kill her if she were there. It’s insane. I’ve never seen an anti-Hamas word in these posts.

Steve Bull: JK, Prehistory is simply human history prior to written documentation. It begins a couple of million years ago up until about 5000 years ago with the introduction of writing systems. Most of our knowledge of those times is determined via physical anthropology and archaeology–the latter an area of study that I concentrated on for a few years and received my Master of Arts in. As far as a misunderstanding of our political systems, most people ‘misunderstand’ them because it is in the interests of the few that benefit (power and wealth wise) from them to keep the masses ignorant, mollified, and complacent…so they craft narratives that these systems provide agency and choice to the masses and that they are ‘representative’, and ultimately serve as a net benefit while hiding their true intent: the control and expansion of the wealth-generating and -extraction systems that provide their power, influence, and prestige. Quite frankly, sociopolitical systems are in place to protect the ruling caste of a society; they are not there to protect and serve the masses apart from throwing them a few bones occasionally. And there is about 12-15,000 years of evidence to support this assertion.

JK: Steve Bull So is your point that little has changed in all those years?

Steve Bull: JK, No, much has changed. But not the general tendency of a ruling elite to leverage as much as possible to their advantage.

JK: I do realize the power of big money, millionaires and billionaires, but smart voting will go a very long way toward fixing things. I guarantee you that if Hillary had won in ‘16 the world would be better. If Biden loses this year things will even worse than we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes. There is a gigantic difference between the parties now. Anyone with integrity who doesn’t vote or votes 3rd party is supporting Republicans. The danger is real.

Steve Bull: JK, We have to agree to disagree. And your comment aligns with what I said above: “The most significant change that occurs after an election are the stories we tell ourselves and others. My team wins and all is right or improving in the world (and if it doesn’t it’s because the other team is interfering in our ability to get things done); the other team wins and everything continues to or will soon go to hell in a hand basket. And much, if not everything, that occurs after the election is interpreted through these lenses. We see differences in order to reduce the stress of cognitive dissonance that would occur if we recognize that we’re being bamboozled by those few sitting atop society’s wealth and power structures.”

I also wanted to share this piece of writing from my late step-grandfather, Jack Flynn, written some 40+ years ago but that could have been penned today. I miss the long conversations/debates we used to have over any number of social and political issues of the day. He was one of, if not the most important influences in my thinking during my formative years.

Can This Be Our World?

As we waste and squander finite natural resources,
that are our children’s heritage.
As we watch their future disappear.
Are we witnessing the beginning of the end?

As I view the waste and squander,
one thing comes to mind.
“Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.”
Seems to be the universal trend.

How did a species such as ours,
with the ability to reason, and think,
who certainly knows wrong from right.
Allow such a magnificent planet
to fall into such plight?

Truth and wisdom are lost in a barrage of words,
Which emit from mass media, twenty-four hours a day.
Endless innuendo, rhetoric and cliches,
We are expected to understand and obey.

In our modern world a few powerful nations
dominate the whole planet.
Co-operation is considered, passe.
They use and abuse, threaten and gesture,
invade smaller nations, and no one can tell them nay!

Inevitably there must come the time,
when the “immovable object, meets the irresistible force”,
then things should become more clear.
Being powerful nations, afraid to lose face,
they will probably try something Nu-clear.

This post was named after Re-Flex’s 1983 pop song based upon people’s expressive nature displayed during dance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-S4YQpteg. I love the music of the 1980s. I spent some years as a ‘disc jockey’ including a brief stint at Western University’s radio station and some paid party gigs. I also continue to hold a rather large album collection, with the very recent addition of a signed Men Without Hats disc cover that I purchased at a concert they performed at our town’s annual music festival and around the corner from our house–what was not to love? Free. Close by. And, mid-afternoon so I didn’t have a late night and mess up my early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine…

If you’ve made it to the end of this Contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my websiteor the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.

Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99

Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…

https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1

A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.

With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.

The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.

Click hereto access the document as a PDF file, free to download.

Wars, Apologetics, and Political Arguments

May 2, 2024

Wars, Apologetics, and Political Arguments

When political arguments ask you to commit to extreme positions, perhaps they are religious rather than ethical arguments.

Possibly the two most pressing world events at the moment are the wars in Ukraine and Israel. In each case, the argumentation for each side in the Western world has followed a similar and now-familiar pattern: My side is good, the other side is bad, and your neutrality on the subject is evil. In fact, anything short of giving material support for my side is an act of sedition.

But this type of argument is more suited to matters of faith than to matters of opinion or rationality. They are asking you to make real political and material sacrifices for their cause similar to the way a Christian asks you to sacrifice parts of yourself to live in faith that God is your creator. I am not necessarily making the argument that progressivism or neoconservatism are actually religions in their own right. While I understand that sentiment, those ideologies are still missing important pieces of what makes a religion a religion. Rather, it demonstrates how those ideologies use the concept of faith to compel populations to choose one side or the other, and commit their resources, in conflicts having nothing to do with them.

War arguments

For Ukraine-Russia, the American establishment opinion has seemed to be that Ukraine came into existence in 2022, nothing happened, and then Russia invaded it as the first step toward inevitable world conquest. Although “Russia is definitely losing,” if we fail to send over a single one of these aid dollars, Ukraine will promptly fall and Russia will easily overrun the rest of Europe in a matter of weeks. With Israel-Gaza it is that Israel has acted as a loving parent to the Palestinians, though sometimes utilizing tough love for their own good…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Synthetic Controversy

March 16, 2024

Synthetic Controversy

Regarding modern psywar application of the divide and conquer strategy

Chapter 7: Competitive Strategy
In war, the army succeeds by deception(surprising the enemy), by moving the enemy with benefits, and by divide or concentration of forces in variation.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

In his first Italian campaign in 1796 and 1797, Napoleon was outnumbered by nearly 20,000 troops by the Piedmontian and Hapsburg armies. He was able to defeat them by using rapid, forced advances which separated the two armies, allowing him to fight them singly.

The American Civil War provides an excellent example of the “divide and conquer” strategy with Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign. While fielding only 17,000 men, Jackson was able to defeat three Union columns (60,000 troops) by using the difficult to terrain to ambush and fight each singly rather than facing all at once.

In warfare, dividing and conquering is a common tactic. It involves splitting the enemy forces into smaller groups, isolating them, and attacking each group separately to weaken their overall strength.

In politics, divide and conquer tactics typically involve creating divisions among opponents or within rival groups to maintain control or gain an advantage. By sowing discord, exploiting existing divisions, or creating new divisions using the method of synthetic controversies it becomes much easier to weaken opposition and consolidate power.

But how are divide and conquer tactics deployed during modern PsyWar and hybrid warfare?

In media, including legacy/mainstream, social and other alternative media, controversy sells. And it often seems like all media has become much more about sales than about sharing factual information. Controversy generates clicks, re-posting, and message amplification. The controversy can focus on either a substantial or a trivial issue. In modern PsyWar, with its emphasis on censorship, propaganda, and psychological shaping or manipulation, facts and reality are increasingly irrelevant. It is no longer necessary for the controversy to be fact-based…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“F**k Around & Find Out”: Truckers Warn Loads To NYC Will Be Rejected Starting Monday

February 19, 2024

“F**k Around & Find Out”: Truckers Warn Loads To NYC Will Be Rejected Starting Monday

Update (Sunday):

Trending on X this morning:

Google search trends for “trucker boycott” surging across nation:

And “boycott NYC”…

“I’m a trucker, and I stand with the boycott. Time to show the corrupt we run this country. Not them,” one X user said.

I’m a trucker, and I stand with the boycott. Time to show the corrupt we run this country. Not them#TruckersForTrump #Truckers pic.twitter.com/p4F1gADW3S

— Patrick Rossow (@HillbillyTkR91) February 18, 2024

Besides New York City, truckers on X call for drivers to boycott liberal cities.

What this country needs is a good old-fashioned trucker boycott of democrat-run cities.
The left needs to be reminded of who really runs this country. #MAGA #Trump2024 #TruckersForTrump pic.twitter.com/Ug3NOiPEHm

— The Real Trucker Jake 🇺🇸 (@bigskyfit) February 17, 2024

“Liberals laugh at the thought of a trucker boycott of NYC. A few years ago, a trucker boycott brought the state of Colorado to its knees. MAGA patriots make this country run. Liberals make our coffee,” another X user said.

Liberals laugh at the thought of a trucker boycott of NYC
A few years ago, a trucker boycott brought the state of Colorado to its knees.
MAGA patriots make this country run.
Liberals make our coffee. #MAGA #Trump2024 #TruckersForTrump pic.twitter.com/btG0ceRtw3

— The Real Trucker Jake 🇺🇸 (@bigskyfit) February 18, 2024

What happens if trucks stopped?

What others are saying.

Truckers are talking about not delivering to New York City for THREE YEARS!!! 🔥🔥

“You thought groceries were expensive now? Just wait. If you live in New York City, you better get out.”

This is the FO stage of FAFO. pic.twitter.com/diNLlYeCce

— Steve 🇺🇸 (@SteveLovesAmmo) February 18, 2024

Besides truckers talking about not delivering to NYC, there are apparently some shipping companies joining the protest.🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/2sI2kzpPFf

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) February 18, 2024

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh LXIII–Primary Motivation For Society’s Elite

January 28, 2024

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh LXIII

August 11, 2022 (original posting date)

Primary Motivation For Society’s Elite

It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
-Anonymous[1]

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently (for years to be honest) on the ever-present belief by most people that our governments/political class/ruling elite can lead the way to ‘solving’ our various crises, be it the ‘climate emergency’, ‘energy crisis’, ‘inflation’, ‘inequality’, ‘geopolitical disagreements’, etc.. I note such a perspective virtually every day be it in personal comments people make in social media posts and/or by journalists/contributors in the media (both mainstream and ‘alternative’); and it is particularly strong and echoed by almost everyone around election times or perceived ‘crises’.

Add to this belief the ‘bargaining/denial’ arguments that tend to suggest that the only reason the ‘problems’ have not been addressed/solved/mitigated is because we simply have not had the ‘right’ individuals or ‘party’ in power; once the ‘right’ people get chosen by the public, all will be well again — if the new government can overcome the disastrous policies/actions of the previous one or current political opposition[2].

I lost that perspective some decades ago[3]. I have increasingly come to view our world/nation state/regional ‘leaders’ (aka ruling elite/class) as part and parcel of our growing problems/predicament. In fact, more often than not I see their actions/policies as resulting in even worse situations — eventually[4] — yet they are often (always?) marketed to the public as optimal and beneficial for all (or may result in some slight, short-term pain, but most certainly will result in longer-term prosperity for all — think of the current narratives developing around the ‘austerity’ and ‘sacrifices’ required to support the war efforts in Ukraine[5]).

I have come to interpret our societal elites’ behaviour as primarily motivated by a never-ending drive to control/maintain/expand the wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide their revenue streams and thus their power/wealth/prestige/privilege[6]. That some portion of the wealth they appropriate gets funnelled back into the public sphere is simply ‘the cost of doing business’; just as the number of financial institutions that knowingly ‘bend the rules’ to obtain obscene profits set aside a portion of that ill-begotten wealth to pay the eventual fines should they get publicly prosecuted for their shenanigans[7].

Perhaps the most egregious (but purposeful) ‘error’ our elite make is their chasing and cheerleading of the perpetual growth chalice (particularly economic growth[8], but they do also encourage population growth[9]). The common refrain/narrative is that growth is primarily — if not ‘solely’ — a benefit to human ‘progress’ and well-being, any negative impacts being discounted or rationalised away demonstrating a poor if not conveniently purposeful ignorance of the way complex systems behave.

It is as Donella Meadows argues in Thinking in Systems: A Primer[10]:

…a clear leverage point: growth. Not only population growth, but economic growth. Growth has costs as well as benefits, and we typically don’t count the costs — among which are poverty and hunger, environmental destruction and so on — the whole list of problems we are trying to solve with growth! What is needed is much slower growth, very different kinds of growth, and in some cases no growth or negative growth. The world leaders are correctly fixated on economic growth as the answer to all problems, but they’re pushing with all their might in the wrong direction. …leverage points frequently are not intuitive. Or if they are, we too often use them backward, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve.

It seems self-evident to me that this pursuit of perpetual growth runs into some fairly heavy obstacles in the sense of biophysical limits on a finite planet, despite arguments to the contrary — especially by most economists who argue for infinite substitutability as the ultimate solution to such limits, or the ever-expanding ‘printing’ of money.

There is not just the issue of resource limits and diminishing returns on extraction/exploitation of the necessary resources for our ever-increasing societal complexities (especially energy-producing ones) but the predicament of ecological overshoot that occurs when a species exceeds its environmental carrying capacity[11].

It’s instructive at this juncture to revisit what archaeologist Joseph Tainter points out in The Collapse of Complex Societies[12] given that his analysis and thesis rests primarily upon ‘collapse’ in the sociopolitical sphere (which then has serious repercussions in pretty well everything else for human societies).

Tainter argues that ”[c]omplex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require.”[13] They are maintained almost exclusively through organisational control and specialisation.

Growth of complexity refers to size, distinctiveness and number of parts, variety of social roles, distinctiveness of social personalities, and a variety of mechanisms to organize parts into a whole.

Where more complex political differentiation exists: permanent positions of authority/rank can exist in an ‘office’ that can be hereditary in nature; inequality becomes more pervasive; groups tend to be larger and more densely populated; political organisation is larger, extending beyond local community; a political economy arises with rank having authority to direct labour and economic surpluses; and, with greater size comes a need for more social organisation that is less dependent upon kinship relations, and the constraint that kin-ties had on individual political ambitions is lost.

States, perhaps the most complex of human societies, are characterized by: their territorial organisation (i.e. membership determined by place of birth/residence); a ruling authority that monopolizes sovereignty and delegates all power — with the ruling class being non-kinship-based professionals that hold a monopoly on force within the territory (e.g. taxes, laws, draft) and is validated by a state-wide ideology; maintenance of territorial integrity is stressed; and, greater stratification and specialisation, particularly with regard to occupation, develops.

Complex states, like their simpler societies, must divert resources and activities to legitimising authority in order for the political system to survive. While coercion can ensure some compliance, it is a more costly approach than moral validity.

To ensure moral validity amongst the populace, states tend to focus on a symbolic and scared ‘centre’ (necessarily independent of its various territorial parts) which is why they always have an official religion, linking leadership to the supernatural (which helps unify different groups/regions). As the need for such religious integration recedes — although not the sense of the scared — once other avenues for retaining power exist.

In summary, organisational structures that arise in complex societies[14], especially as they grow larger and even more complex[15], concomitantly see the development of ‘power’ structures[16] that lead to outsized influence/power over others by a controlling elite that then creates and fosters legitimisation narratives, and/or coercive policies, to ensure these structures are maintained/expanded.

In addition, Tainter maintains that support, be it via legitimisation or coercion, also requires a material base. This support, however, can decline when output failure (political and/or material) ensues. As this process is ongoing, it necessitates resource mobilisation in perpetuity — a significant impossibility on a finite planet where such exploitation encounters diminishing returns due to our proclivity to extract the easiest- and cheapest-to-retrieve resources first. The tendency by the elite to deal with output failure is to begin pulling in resources from other spheres and/or increase coerciveness to maintain their priorities — be it using domestic reserves and/or surpluses, and/or exploitation of other societies.

Given the above, it is not a stretch to see that the primary motivation of the elite conflicts quite significantly with any policy/action/belief that would contend that growth cannot and should not be pursued in perpetuity. Throw in the evidence that we are in ecological overshoot and the predicament for humanity multiplies several-fold.

Then we encounter all the psychological and biological/physiological mechanisms that affect human beliefs and actions, and our situational predicament explodes. Cognitive dissonance reduction. Deference to authority. Desire to believe one has agency. Groupthink. Optimism bias. Confirmation bias. Avoidance of pain and seeking of pleasure. Rationalisation/justification of behaviours that conflict with certain beliefs. Overarching propensity to deny reality.

This all adds up to a tendency to believe in comforting lies and avoid harsh realities. We want to believe the propaganda of the elite and their promises to address and ‘solve’ our crises. We want to believe we have significant impact on society and agency via the ballot box. We want to avoid looking in the mirror. We want to continue with our lives unencumbered by existential worries and let others, our ‘leaders’, ‘solve’ our ‘problems’.

What we have instead, I tend to believe, are elite confabs that result in grandiose promises to benefit society at large while in actuality end up funneling wealth to the owners of the industries and financial institutions required to produce and fund the actions/directives sold to us as ‘solutions’. A mainstream media (again, owned by the elite) that parrots the elitist rhetoric and provides a widely dispersed platform for the marketing and misleading propaganda of the ruling class, especially legitimisation narratives. An ever-expanding potpourri of racketeering, such as the ‘green/clean’ energy narrative, ‘equitable/beneficial’ creation/distribution of fiat currency, the necessary expansion of ‘war’ and government, etc..

The world is not as it appears to most. What most of us believe in is, in my opinion, a tightly controlled illusion that benefits a minority primarily at the expense of the majority.

There are no ‘solutions’ to our predicament of ecological overshoot and the inevitable collapse that is awaiting us (if not already begun). There is, at best, a ‘hope’ for some to come out the other side of the bottleneck we’ve created (primarily via our leveraging of technology to overexploit our planet and expand the human experiment).

But as I shared with someone who commented on my last contemplation: “Hope is very much a two-edged sword. It can indeed foster denial and bargaining so as to avoid the stress of cognitive dissonance and provide pleasure while avoiding pain. It can, depending upon how one’s energies are focused with some ‘hope’, serve to provide direction and impetus to acting in ‘better’ ways. As I see it, however, the problem is that our ‘elite’ (and feckless others) pedal and leverage it for purely self-serving purposes, and most soak their version of it up because comforting lies are much more enjoyable than harsh realities.”

Seeing beyond the grand illusion that has been constructed over the ages by the elite is, again in my opinion, what is necessary to understand what can and should be accomplished to salvage some of our human experiment. It is, as I have argued before, most important to attempt to relocalise as much as is possible potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter requirements. It is not to give over responsibility to others who do not have your best interests but theirs in mind. And it is not to believe in their ‘solutions’ — that way surely leads to ruin.

A handful of readings that support the notion that the elite’s primary motivation is the control/expansion of the wealth-generating/extracting systems that provide their wealth/power/prestige/privilege:

https://cdn.mises.org/Anatomy%20of%20the%20State_3.pdf

There Won’t Be Any Winners Because The Status Quo Is Corrupt Everywhere
July 27, 2022 Systemic corruption on this vast scale optimizes failure and collapse. Debating which nations will “win”…www.oftwominds.com

charles hugh smith-Money from Nothing: A Primer on Fake Wealth Creation and its Implications (Part…
Frequent contributor Zeus Y. explains how the financial system creates fake “wealth” from nothing and why the entire…www.oftwominds.com

charles hugh smith-When Belief in the System Fades
Knowledgeable correspondent Jon H. recently recommended an important book on the elites which sit astride the U.S…www.oftwominds.com

charles hugh smith-Fragility and Resilience
Non-resilient systems are prone to rapid devolution or collapse. The same can be said of structures, enterprises…www.oftwominds.com

charles hugh smith-The Big Squeeze: Part 2: Abused Fundamentals and Fake Markets: How They Play Out
(January 28, 2011) The Big Squeeze, Part 2: Abused Fundamentals and Fake Markets: How They Play Out I am pleased to…www.oftwominds.com

https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-global-architecture-of-wealth-extraction-4c0a6b954a1

What Happens When Corruption Is Systemic
The human mind evolved to deal with singular threats — a lion jumping out of the bushes or a wildfire spreading through…medium.com

Systems of Wealth Hoarding Hide in Your Mind
The internet is exploding with conversations about the Panama Papers — the largest data dump in history of secret files…medium.com

[1] Often credited to humourist Mark Twain, research suggests this ‘just ain’t so’ (see: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/18/know-trouble/).

[2] I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that really changes after an election is the narrative we tell ourselves and others: If my ‘team’ wins, all will be right with the world soon enough; if the other ‘team’ wins, the world will soon go to hell in a handbasket.

[3] Through the years I have been involved in the ‘political’ sphere in a number of roles. During some of my post-secondary years, I chaired a university department’s students’ ‘union’ and got to witness academic ‘politics’ first-hand. Perhaps the most eye-opening experience, however, were the years I spent as the chair of a political action committee for a relatively large teachers’ federation/union. After that, I spent a number of years as one of the chief negotiators for the region’s school administrators.

[4] The time lag that often occurs between an action/policy and the negative consequences can sometimes be quite long, causing a connection between them to be mostly unseen. However, very visible (and always highlighted) ‘benefits’ can occur quickly — think of infrastructure construction here where the project is clearly visible and can be laid before the public but the ecological/resource consequences are externalised and/or temporally far-off allowing them to be ignored/discounted.

[5] https://www.axios.com/2022/03/12/democrats-gas-prices-russia-ukraine; https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/how-much-are-we-prepared-to-sacrifice?s=w; https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/more-escalations-in-online-censorship?s=w;

[6] I have reached this perspective through personal experience, observation of current events, and lots of reading. A handful of examples of relevant readings will be included at the end of this contemplation.

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/business/dealbook/guilty-pleas-and-heavy-fines-seem-to-be-cost-of-business-for-wall-st.html; https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/11-billion-fine-just-cost-doing-business-jpmorgan-175948500.html; https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/2147/; https://www.reporterherald.com/2013/01/16/bank-fines-just-a-cost-of-business/

[8] https://www.businesstoday.com.my/2022/07/09/encouraging-gdp-growth-will-strengthen-economy-in-q2/; https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/4d723-minister-donohoe-notes-strong-growth-in-gdp-and-encouraging-indicators-for-the-domestic-economy/; https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-industry-growth-midsize-us-cities-recession-economic-recovery-2020-10; https://www.forbes.com/sites/garyshapiro/2013/01/23/six-ways-to-create-economic-growth/?sh=220ee7017e32; https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/economic-growth-causes-benefits-and-current-limits;

[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51118616; https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world/europe/italy-births-fertility-europe.html; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-population/japan-targets-boosting-birth-rate-to-increase-growth-idUSKCN0T113A20151112; https://southeusummit.com/europe/france/migration-creates-net-positive-population-growth-france/

[10] Meadows, D.. Thinking In Systems: A Primer. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008. (ISBN 978–1–60358–055–7)

[11] Catton, Jr., W.R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 978–0–252–00988–4)

[12] Tainter, J.. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978–0–521–38673–9)

[13] Ibid. P. 37

[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_society; https://anthropology.iresearchnet.com/complex-societies/

[15] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228384313_Organizational_complexity; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3367695/; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286533126_The_emergence_of_social_complexity_Why_more_than_population_size_matters;

[16] https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-structure/Theories-of-class-and-power

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXX–Ecological Overshoot and Political Responses

November 20, 2023

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXX

September 21, 2021

Ecological Overshoot and Political Responses

Today’s post has been prompted by some thoughts regarding the inability of our political systems to respond in a timely manner to our plight of ecological overshoot penned by Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace, and posted by Alice Friedemann of energyskeptic.com.

I agree with virtually everything Rex argues, especially the role of self-interest by our political class for their apparent rejection of the notion of ecological overshoot and what needs to be done to address the negative impacts this predicament will have on our societies (we can’t avoid these impacts but we might be capable of mitigating their worst outcomes somewhat). My experience with government (I spent many years involved with unions/federations/councils and their political action committees, including chairing some and being directly involved in negotiating contracts, thus having to deal directly with senior administrators and politicians) and readings pertaining to various sociocultural areas (e.g., economics, geopolitics, political systems, pre/history, etc.) have solidified for me the notion that our sociopolitical institutions are for a variety of reasons the last place we should be looking to ‘correct our course’ and attempt to confront the many complex issues of our overshoot and that are beginning to become more obvious. In fact, it is likely (I believe guaranteed) that our ‘ruling class’ will continue to do the exact opposite of what is needed.

Government systems appear to be a means to an end for maintaining the power (and thus wealth) structures within our complex societies. The ‘elite’ of society uses the various governmental bureaucracies/institutions/agencies (as well as other areas they tend to control such as media, education, entertainment, etc.) to meet their primary objective: the control and/or expansion of the wealth-generating systems that provide their revenue streams. Everything they do more or less is to help meet that end. And, yes, they do throw some bones to the masses periodically if only to keep them mollified, distracted, and less likely to rebel (as Noam Chomsky has argued so well, control of the people is one of the most important concerns of those who hold power and privilege); one of the more ‘effective’ means in my view is the theatrical performance we refer to as ‘elections’ — convincing the masses in ‘representative democracies’ that they have agency via the ballot box is perhaps one of the most successful scams the ruling class has accomplished for as Johann von Goethe observed: the easiest slave is the one who believes he is free.

Growth, the very antithesis of addressing ecological overshoot, is promoted by government to help in their pursuit of both wealth and power. But it also addresses the unfortunate consequence of the way we have sustained growth the last few decades: exponentially-exploding debt (somewhat north of 200 trillion U.S. dollars at present for the globe, and the larger the debt the larger and more sustained the payments to the ‘lenders/creators’ of the world’s various currencies — the financial institutions that seem to work hand-in-glove with our governments). This debt has not only turned our financial/economic/monetary systems into gargantuan Ponzi schemes, it has necessitated the continuation of growth in perpetuity to help pay off the debt (significant revenue for the financiers) and keep the Ponzi schemes from collapsing.

Of course, such infinite growth is a tad difficult on a finite planet so the other options of addressing our financial dilemmas is to increase taxes and/or inflate away the debt. Our feckless ‘leaders’ are attempting all three of these approaches to keep things from collapsing. They cheerlead and encourage growth, telling the masses it has only beneficial properties and minimising, ignoring, or denying the negative aspects. Taxes are expanded continually and applied to increasing numbers of economic interactions, although the wealthy have an almost infinite number of ways to minimise their tax obligations, unlike the masses. Inflation (which in its original form refers to ever-increasing money/credit printing but eventually results in price inflation which is what most people think of) is, in perfect Orwellian language use, said to be a positive force for our economy while it actually debases our currency which serves the purposes of the large debtors (governments and large corporations) but harms the masses because of the debauching of their ‘money’ as is becoming increasingly obvious as wealth inequality continues to explode.

For all of these reasons (and more) it is unlikely (I would actually put the likelihood at zero) our political systems would ever intentionally curtail the pursuit of growth for it is their seed corn. They will pursue and cheerlead it right up until collapse can no longer be denied, and then attempt to push it some more as they tell those experiencing precipitous decline to stop believing their lying eyes; and/or blame our failing societies on some foreign/domestic bogeymen, but certainly not them and their policies.

The government, as with the rest of the ruling class and unfortunately most people, will not hear the arguments about ecological overshoot at all. It matters not how much ‘science’, data, or evidence is thrown at them. Almost everyone but especially the elite are in total denial (or at least feigning it, perhaps just to reduce their cognitive dissonance). This is why I have abandoned any ‘hope’ that our ‘leaders’ will in any way address ecological overshoot even if they do admit it exists — if they do, it will likely be leveraged to pursue activities that not only enrich the ruling class further but make our overshoot worse, such as ‘clean’ energy which is anything but clean and certainly not sustainable as sold. And, unfortunately, the political systems (at least in so-called ‘representative’ democracies) have morphed into out-promising the other parties for what ‘goodies’ they will provide freely to citizens. More. More. More. Which, again, is the opposite of what is needed to counter our going even further into overshoot…not that it may matter much at this point given how far we are likely already past the most important tipping points.

As Rex argues, the ‘solutions’ that will matter most to people will be at the local level. Relocalistion of as much production and distribution of goods as possible (but especially potable water, food, and shelter needs — including that which is needed to deal with local weather/climate, such as wood for winter heating) is the best approach to be taking to help one’s community mitigate as much as possible the coming storm. It’s likely to get ugly and ‘government’ will be nowhere to be found to turn to; you will need to depend upon immediate family, friends, and community members so cultivate those relationships and work on getting them to understand our predicament and begin making your local community as self-sufficient and resilient as possible.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIX–Are We Being Duped Regarding Global Warming?

November 20, 2023

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIX

August 17, 2021

Are We Being Duped Regarding Global Warming?

Today’s contemplation was prompted by an email my mum sent me. As she closes in on 80, I find that she’s becoming a bit more open-minded about things but remains somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to global warming/anthropogenic climate change. We periodically share thoughts on the state of the world, especially politics, and I think I’ve almost got her convinced to abandon her faith/trust in government…

Anyways, here is the comment about global warming she forwarded to me and my relatively quick response (typed up while I was engaged in replacing a floor/foundation for one of our greenhouses — I never considered a decade ago when I installed the first greenhouse, of three, that the mini-garden ties I was using to terrace our backyard would decay/rot so quickly so I am replacing them with concrete blocks and putting in a patio stone floor so that my eldest daughter who has taken over the greenhouse can have many years of use with it, hopefully). I have added some minor supplemental thoughts (in italics) and supporting links to a few sources (see endnotes).

Comment:

With global warming having become as much a political issue as a scientific inquiry, I went from wondering whether mankind might really be influencing the climate to someone questioning a science I do not understand. I am now worried we are being duped by people with an agenda, like keep the money gravy train running. No one has yet explained to my satisfaction the big ice age followed by warming then a mini-ice age, followed by warming, all before mankind was a significant presence on earth and did nothing but have a few campfires.

Response:

That human activity has an impact on our environment and ecological systems, I have little doubt. How could almost eight billion of us and our resource demands not? Especially the so-called ‘advanced’ economies[i]. There is growing evidence that shows that our industrial civilisation has surpassed several planetary biophysical limits and likely overloaded a number of the planet’s compensatory sinks due to the vast amounts of waste material produced in its quest to procure the minerals and energy that our tools require for their manufacture and pollutants produced through their use.[ii]

The issue with the focus on global warming/climate change/carbon emissions is multi-faceted —such stories are never as simple as we’re led to believe. Geologic history shows pretty clearly that the planet’s climate changes and probably most significantly as a result of the sun’s cycles.[iii]

Is human activity exacerbating natural cycles? Quite possibly[iv]. Is it as catastrophic as painted by some?[v] Only time can truly tell since modelling of complex systems is fraught with difficulties.[vi] One minor variation of one of many variables that are used to create future predictions can shift the eventual outcome significantly.[vii] Of course, humans don’t like uncertainty (which is really all that can be provided about the future — probabilistic scenarios that may or may not occur — no matter how complex one’s predictive model is) so we cling to and tend to believe forecasts that are at their root uncertain; their potential accuracy matters not.[viii]

One of the other complications of the narrative is that our ruling class always leverages crises to their advantage. Always. I have little doubt that the hyper focus on climate and carbon emissions is being used to pursue the ruling class’s primary motivation: control/expansion of the wealth-generating systems that provide their revenue streams.[ix]

The ‘problem’ of climate change is always presented with ‘solutions’ but those ‘solutions’ do not address carbon emissions in the least; in fact, there’s a good argument to be made that they actually increase them.[x] Much as the ruling class manufactures consent for any policy that the masses might question/reject (almost always via significant propaganda campaigns), they have created a narrative that is designed to persuade people to believe something that is increasingly being shown to be completely false and little more than marketing/sloganeering.[xi]

These ‘solutions’ also, conveniently, increase the revenue streams of the ruling class via taxes and complete replacement/overhaul of virtually all important technology (e.g., ‘renewable’ energy, electric vehicles, etc.). Scratch even gently below the surface of the ‘clean/green’ energy story and you discover it’s all basically bullshit.[xii] These technologies not only are not sustainable because of their dependence upon finite resources (including very much on the fossil fuel platform itself), but their production is hugely ecologically destructive. We are being sold a load of crap on various fronts so that the sociopaths that ‘control’ our world can profit. This being said, we do face some significant environmental and resource depletion challenges.

Probably the most dire predicament we face is ecological overshoot — too damn many people (especially living in ‘advanced’ economies) for a planet with finite resources.[xiii] The constant push for growth (which really is just to prolong/support the gargantuan Ponzi that our financial/economic/monetary systems have become) is the exact opposite of what we likely need to be doing; as is the push to ‘electrify’ everything.[xiv] The unfortunate thing for the future is that any species that overshoots its natural carrying capacity has only one way to be rebalanced: a massive die-off.[xv] When that occurs (and how it unfolds) is anybody’s guess…

As much as we tend to believe we understand our world and its complexities, I would contend we do not; at least, not very well. To compensate for this uncertainty we have developed all sorts of psychological mechanisms that lead us to believe particular narratives with some ‘certainty’. The beginning of a recent paper that challenges the mainstream story surrounding ‘renewable’ energy (that has been presented as a panacea for reducing carbon emissions; although I would argue Peak Oil is a more troubling issue in the energy needs of industrial civilisation[xvi]) is pertinent to this idea: “We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”[xvii]

[i] https://archive.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/the-environment/general-analysis-on-the-environment/45393-how-much-of-the-worlds-resource-consumption-occurs-in-rich-countries.html; https://www.livescience.com/20308-greedy-nations-top-resource-users-earth.html

[ii] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800914001323; https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/1259855.full; https://ideas.ted.com/the-9-limits-of-our-planet-and-how-weve-raced-past-4-of-them/; https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2015-01-15-planetary-boundaries—an-update.html

[iii] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-does-sun-affect-our-climate; https://phys.org/news/2017-03-sun-impact-climate-quantified.html

[iv] https://sciencing.com/what-human-activities-affect-the-carbon-cycle-12083853.html; https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/680; https://phys.org/news/2010-12-human-affect-carbon.html

[v] https://www.populationconnectionaction.org/2021/08/12/ipcc-catastrophic-climate-change-is-coming/; https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1025898341/major-report-warns-climate-change-is-accelerating-and-humans-must-cut-emissions-; https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/deepadaptation.pdf

[vi] https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/complexsystems/introduction.html; https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf

[vii] https://issues.org/climate-change-scenarios-lost-touch-reality-pielke-ritchie/?fbclid=IwAR1dbpSNqPXWr9QyfC-fDzlWrvfswO3LLZKj08szexcCb_7h7uRW2j7Qv54

[viii] https://www.amazon.com/Future-Babble-Pundits-Hedgehogs-Foxes/dp/0452297575

[ix] https://www.counterpunch.org/20 , 15/10/06/yes-there-is-an-imperialist-ruling-class/; https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalelite07.htm

[x] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/jan/09/wind-turbines-increasing-carbon-emissions; https://www.amazon.com/Life-after-Fossil-Fuels-Alternative/dp/3030703347; https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/opinion/mondaycop22-lower-co2-emissions-with-lower-carbon-solar-energy/

[xi] https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499; https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598; https://planetofthehumans.com; https://www.brightgreenlies.com

[xii] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-renewable-energy-technologies; https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme807/node/715’ https://www.nap.edu/read/12619/chapter/7; https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2015/08/the-dark-side-of-renewable-energy-negative-impacts-of-renewables-on-the-environment/20963/; https://www.routledge.com/Environmental-Impacts-of-Renewable-Energy/Spellman/p/book/9781482249460; https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-environmental-impact-of-lithium-batteries/

[xiii] https://www.pnas.org/content/99/14/9266; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319810.Overshoot

[xiv] https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/our-economy-is-a-ponzi-scheme-8fc56b9e594f; https://eand.co/how-the-economy-became-one-giant-ponzi-scheme-4ac84bf18738; https://moneyweek.com/economy/global-economy/601657/why-our-economy-is-a-giant-ponzi-scheme

[xv] https://thesenecaeffect.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/humans-in-ecological-overshoot-collapse-now-to-avoid-a-larger-catastrophe/; https://www.earthovershoot.org/who-we-are/frequent-questions.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(population)

[xvi] https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/29458/peak-oil-decline-coronavirus-economy/; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/has-peak-oil-already-happened/; http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/liegl1/

[xvii] https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508/htm?fbclid=IwAR2ISt5shfV4wpFEc8jxbQnrrxyllyvZP-xDnoHhWrjGTQRIqUNfk3hOK1g

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh IX–Hear, Speak, See No Evil: Sociopolitical Collapse

October 7, 2023

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh IX

Chichen Itza, Mexico (1986) photo by author

Hear, Speak, See No Evil: Sociopolitical Collapse

Once more a comment posted in the Tyee in response to ongoing ‘debate’ with others in regard to the 2020 U.S. presidential election and some of the accusations of irregularities surrounding the process. While not obviously related to ‘collapse’ I will add some context to draw it into my ongoing thesis afterwards.

_____

For the sake of argument, let’s say some of these [a list of supposed election irregularities] are fabricated and/or misinterpretation of events (which is what the video of the polling clerk filling out ballots is being explained away as — they were filling out ‘damaged’ ballots). That does not mean they all are and should just be summarily dismissed. They merit further scrutiny and investigation. Conspiracies (that is, an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act) are common in politics (in fact, perhaps far too common).

A few thoughts to share for those that believe otherwise.

The fact that the sources are not mainstream should not lead to their immediate dismissal as many suggest. All one has to do is look at how many mainstream sources are deliberately suppressing the whole Julian Assange debacle or the Hunter Biden laptop evidence that suggests pay-to-play shenanigans involving his father. Or Glenn Greenwald deciding to resign from the media company he founded because fellow editors refused to publish an article unless he removed all criticism of Joe Biden. These examples (and there are many, many more — a pertinent one is how many mainstream media accepted the Bush administration’s declaration that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and then basically ran PR for the government’s invasion) should show that mainstream media is quite biased and often does not perform due diligence in its reporting, suppresses stories, or primarily runs opinion-editorials and passes them off as investigative journalism, especially if one is questioning the dominant narratives that they tend to support quite adamantly. It is often, unfortunately, only those outside of the mainstream that question the stories told by the-powers-that-be and challenge them.

And the supposed importance of elections and sanctity of voting are two of those narratives (the ones that this article goes to great lengths to further). And these are very, very important social narratives for several reasons. First, the political class overseeing society need legitimization. They need the citizens to believe with all their hearts and minds that the ruling class has a ‘right’ to be making the decisions they are making and enacting the policies they are enacting with the support and blessings of the people. Without this legitimization they would not only run into significant difficulty with social ‘order’, they would lose control of the wealth-generating systems that supply their revenue streams (their primary motivation). This right to govern supposedly derives from the choices made via the ballot box; we quite often hear leaders claim they have a mandate from the people to justify (rationalise?) their actions.

Second, people want to believe they actually have agency in the way their society is managed. Believing you have agency in your life is a fundamental need. So, people want to believe they can significantly impact the political process by voting. And we are socialised almost from birth to believe this story. Our public schools initiate us into the dominant narrative, teaching children the importance of our political system and how we need to support it. We are told it is a civic duty to vote. That if you don’t vote, you can’t complain. That major wars have been fought to protect our freedoms and the right to vote. People do not want to confront the possibility that it is all just theatre; that it is a story to keep us mollified, well behaved, and compliant; that the real power may lay well beyond their reach or influence (or as George Carlin opined: it’s a big club and you ain’t in it). The people do not want to face the idea that their leaders do not have the interests of the masses as their primary motivation; that would just create far too much cognitive dissonance.

For these two reasons alone the majority of people and certainly almost all the ruling class (and this includes academics, media, politicians, corporations) will refuse to see or acknowledge the flaws when exposed. Evidence is memory-holed. Whistleblowers are vilified (or worse). The believers and those benefiting from the dominant storyline will fight tooth and nail to defend the system. The narrative must be protected. Just read up on the various inquisitions of the Catholic Church to see how narratives that support the powerful are protected.

PS
I truly do want to thank those who challenge my thinking in a constructive manner. It forces me to rethink and reflect on my own biases and blindspots. For those who fall back on the ad hominem fallacy of attacking me or calling me names, please grow up.

_____

One of the arguments made by Dmitry Orlov in his book The Five Stages of Collapse is that there exist a number of tipping points as it were that indicate a complex society is on the verge of collapse. He states these “Serve as mental milestones…[and each breaches] a specific level of trust or faith in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is generally quite swift.”

His five stages are:

Financial collapse where faith in risk assessment and financial guarantees is lost.
Commercial collapse that witnesses a breakdown in trade and widespread shortages of necessities.
Political collapse through a loss of political class relevance and legitimacy.
Social collapse in which social institutions that could provide resources fail.
Cultural collapse that is exhibited by the disbanding of families into individuals competing for scarce resources.

As I suggest in a review and commentary on his book: “all that is needed for political collapse is for more citizens to come to the realization that the status quo is no longer working for the benefit of all but for the benefit of the elite. When the masses finally come to better understand the corruption and malfeasance that percolates throughout the political world, collapse of the political class will occur.”

This is perhaps what we are witnessing with greater frequency in the U.S. and elsewhere, suggesting sociopolitical collapse may not be too far off in the future. And with sociopolitical collapse comes some pretty serious knock-on effects that will upset the complex systems we all rely upon, especially long-distance supply chains and social ‘order’.

As I have argued in other places, when it comes to politics we seem to be chickens arguing over which fox will guard us while the henhouse is burning down in the background.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh VII–Science: It May Not Be All You Think It Is

October 5, 2023

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh VII

Oct 12, 2020

Science: It May Not Be All You Think It Is

Ha! It’s poetry in motion
Now she’s making love to me
The spheres are in commotion
The elements in harmony
She blinded me with science
(She blinded me with science!)
And hit me with technology
-Thomas Dolby, 1982 (She Blinded Me With Science)

Science, it turns outs, is a process not an answer. And, it usually has many answers from various sciences, each having their own methods and standards. When someone tells you, “the science says,” be skeptical. They are usually being paid to say what they are about to say or at least have been thoroughly indoctrinated by others who are paid. There is never just one answer to any supposedly scientific question.
-Kurt Cobb (Why am I feeling so anxious? The end of modernism arrives)

Unfortunately, there are many other misconceptions about science. One of the most common misconceptions concerns the so-called “scientific proofs.” Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a scientific proof…all scientific knowledge is tentative and provisional, and nothing is final. There is no such thing as final proven knowledge in science. The currently accepted theory of a phenomenon is simply the best explanation for it among all available alternatives. Its status as the accepted theory is contingent on what other theories are available and might suddenly change tomorrow if there appears a better theory or new evidence that might challenge the accepted theory. No knowledge or theory (which embodies scientific knowledge) is final.
-Satoshi Kanazawa (Common Misconceptions About Science I: “Scientific Proof”)

In short, we can never be 100% that our perception of reality is accurate, and scientific experiments are virtually impossible to totally and completely control. Further, science often uses inductive logic, and it relies on probabilities to draw conclusions. All of this prevents science from ever proving anything with absolute certainty. That does not, however, mean that science is untrustworthy, or that you can reject it whenever you like. Science tells us what is most likely true given the current evidence, but it is a skeptical process that always acknowledges the possibility of being wrong.
-Fallacy Man (Science doesn’t prove anything, and that’s a good thing)

The answers you get depend on the questions you ask…What man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conception experience has taught him to see…Observation and experience can and must drastically restrict the range of admissible scientific belief, else there would be no science. But they cannot alone determine a particular body of such belief. An apparently arbitrary element, compounded of personal and historical accident, is always a formative ingredient of the beliefs espoused by a given scientific community at a given time…Because scientists are reasonable men, one or another argument will ultimately persuade many of them. But there is no single argument that can or should persuade them all. Rather than a single group conversion, what occurs is an increasing shift in the distribution of professional allegiances…The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.
-Thomas S. Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions)

Science! That is the refrain from some to argue for what IS and what IS NOT ‘true’ or ‘factual’ in this world of social media edicts and memes (and associated self-created echo chambers), especially regarding fake news, climate change/global warming, pandemics, politics, and life in general.

The idea that science provides us with ‘objective proof’ about issues is a common error I’ve encountered time and time again. It is held for many reasons, primary among them may be the ‘politicisation’ of the notion; that is, the use of ‘science’ by politicians and others to reinforce what are for all intents and purposes desired goals/policies/actions/narratives/etc., and their insistence about science providing definitive support. We are certainly seeing this more and more with competing narratives regarding Covid-19 and what should and should not be done to address certain concerns.

My enlightenment, as it were, regarding scientific ‘proof’ and associated beliefs came in two parts during my university education. First was a poignant discussion with a professor providing feedback on a paper I had written and used the idea of science proving something to support my conclusion. He stated rather bluntly that “‘proof’ is only relevant in mathematics and jurisprudence, not science.” He then went on to explain the concept in greater detail, but it was that short statement that has stuck with me and altered my view of ‘objective science’ as ‘proof’ of various beliefs.

The second tipping point for me was during a presentation on human intelligence by the psychology department of the university (I had become interested in the subject as I explored human evolution via physical anthropology classes and sat in on a presentation by a guest speaker). As I recall, the visiting professor asked somewhat rhetorically what was the definition of intelligence we could use to explore the concept. After entertaining a few responses (all of which were different) he stressed that if we were to ask 100 psychologists such a question, we would get back 100 different answers: there was no agreed upon definition. One’s particular perspective ‘coloured’ what was important and observed.

There were also a handful of texts I read that impacted my beliefs. Some of the most pertinent ones were: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Mismeasure of Man, Ever Since Darwin, The Interpretation of Cultures.

The two experiences described above and the books I read impacted my interests at the time and I set off exploring other ideas and perspectives, getting into deconstructivism, philology, hermeneutics, dialectics, epistemology, objectivity versus subjectivity, and skepticism. More recently I’ve explored the somewhat related subjects of complexity and cognition.

All of these ‘colour’ my belief system and my arguments regarding ‘collapse’. Do I know for certain some of the things I pontificate about. Absolutely not. And I hope I couch my rhetoric in words such as ‘likely’, ‘evidence’, ‘probably’, etc. to demonstrate my uncertainty. Because when we get right down to it, not one of us can be certain about the future and our beliefs about it. As several people have been credited with stating: It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. We live within complex systems made up of complex systems that, because of the nonlinear feedback loops that exist and emergent phenomena that arise from them, can neither be predicted nor controlled. Of this, I am fairly certain.

Do I believe ‘collapse’ of our current globalised, industrial world will occur? Yes. The evidence, to me, seems overwhelming; particularly all the experiments involving complex societies that have been carried out before us and ended with decline/collapse (see Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies and Diamond’s Collapse) and the ‘fact’ that we live on a world with finite resources but are pursuing perpetual growth (see Meadows et al’s The Limits to Growth and Catton’s Overshoot).

Will, as some argue, our technology and human ingenuity save us in this current trial in complex societies? I’m doubtful; in fact, I’m fairly certain these things will simply expedite the fall as we rush into them to try and solve the problems we have created, bumping up against the real biophysical limits imposed by a finite world in the process and creating even more problems and dilemmas.

Of course, because I cannot predict the future with certainty, only time will tell…

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