The most powerful force in Western politics today is a cultural virus that is always chewing away at our instincts for self-preservation. It is why millions of people support infinity wind turbines and infinity solar panels, even if these make their electricity more expensive and less reliable. It is related to out-group identification and the cultural fetish for victim minorities, and thus explains the popular impulses that permit mass migration. At the broadest level, this force accounts for an important phenomenon in modern politics, whereby millions of people support policies that make their lives objectively worse, while parties responsible for these policies appear utterly immune to their own failures, if they are not actively rewarded for them.
You might call this force “expectant progressivism.” It is the quiet, unstudied belief that things are always getting better, more just, more abundant, more enlightened, more advanced and more human-rightsey. Expectant progressives view the past teleologically, as one massive Whig-historical fable, and they regard their political preferences as investments in moral futures. They aim to put their names on the next brave innovations in social and economic justice while these are still culturally cheap – that is to say, controversial and disputed. Once these innovations become new cornerstones in the liberal consensus, the expectant progressives will be able to cash in on their far-sighted, humanitarian convictions. They will enjoy the privilege of proclaiming that they were, once again, on the right side of history.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Great Simplification #126 with Daniel Schmachtenberger
Today, I welcome back Daniel Schmachtenberger to unpack a new paper, which he co-authored, entitled Development in Progress, an analysis on the history of progress and the consequences of ‘advancement’.
Current mainstream narratives sell the story that progress is synonymous with betterment, and that the world becomes better for everyone as GDP and economies continue to grow. Yet, this is an incomplete portrayal that leaves out the dark sides of advancement. What are the implications when only the victors of history write the narratives of progress and define societal values? What are the value systems embedded in our institutions and policies, and how do they reinforce the need for ongoing growth at the expense of the natural world and human well-being? Finally, how do we change these dynamics to form a new, holistic definition of progress that accounts for the connectedness of our planet to the health of our minds, bodies, and communities?
We live in dangerous times. Everything seems to be out of normal: stagnating economies, inflation, wars and an unfolding ecological and climate disaster. This is clearly not how things ought to be… While many just wave a hand and say, we will get over it, an increasing number of people feel — almost instinctively — that there is something terribly amiss with the stories we tell ourselves about where we are headed as a society. By now we should be already on track to “decarbonize” the economy and green technologies should’ve brought about a new bout of prosperity… What we have instead is rising emissions, a fracturing world order, and a rapid decline of living standards, especially in the most prosperous parts of the globe… What’s wrong with you, world…? Isn’t there a better story out there to help us through this perilous period?
I ended my previous essay about the decline of science and progress on a rather philosophical note — calling for a new eschatology enabling us to move past this civilization and to let go what cannot be hold onto. Eschatology, a word of Greek origin, is a set of beliefs concerning the end — be it the end of a human life, or the end of times itself. While the expression is used to discuss religious matters, this time I will focus on a much wider set of beliefs, concerning not only a certain faith, but civilization itself. Although this might sound a little abstract, what we — and most importantly our politicians — believe what our ultimate destiny is as a society, however, has an outsized impact on our future…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Recently I have been on a four-day hiking trip, completing another 80 km (~50 mile) stretch of the 1171 km National Blue Trail running across my tiny country. This gave me plenty of time to tune into and ponder on the many podcasts I downloaded previously, but never had the time to listen to. One of them was a pretty long one, but it was definitely worth the time; every single minute of it. Out of the many concepts and ideas thrown out there the one that really captured my imagination was the distinction between regenerative and degenerative technologies. While this might sound abstract and theoretical at first hearing, nothing could be further from the truth. As you will see, this dichotomy explains a lot about our past, present, and yes, our future too.
Without further ado, let’s start with degeneration, as known as the decline or deterioration of things. Needless to say, everything we build or make degenerates over time. Paint peels off, rust starts to develop. Abrasion eats away machine parts. Break pads, batteries, bearings etc. all need to be replaced from time to time. Water enters concrete structures, and rusting rebars throw off large chunks of cement. Without constant maintenance and repair both buildings and machines become unusable then dangerous, until they finally break down and collapse.
Compare this to regeneration: the renewal, regrowth, or restoration of body parts. Notice the difference, how even the definition itself refers to ‘body parts’ — not machine parts. Everything in nature is in constant recycling: either growing and living, or decomposing. Nothing is exempt or goes to waste, and everything has its place and its role to play…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Today’s contemplation is a short reflection (and reiteration) on where I believe human ‘energies’ should be focused as we stumble into an unknowable future in light of an article on the topic that was shared to one of the Facebook groups I am a member of via a compilation of related articles periodically distributed by The Collapse Chronicle…
‘Peak humanity’ would appear to have been a direct result of our leveraging of a one-time cache of ancient carbon energy that has afforded us the ability to expand our numbers and environmental impact for quite some time but has, unfortunately, placed us firmly into ecological overshoot — a significant growth far beyond our environment’s ability to support on a continuing basis our numbers and material demands.
Virtually every species that enters such a predicament experiences the ‘collapse’ that inevitably follows once the fundamental resource that has allowed it to blast past its natural carrying capacity is ‘exhausted’ (in the case of fossil fuels, it’s about a declining energy-return-on-energy-invested and the hyper-exploitation of the resource — and others, as well as an overloading of natural sinks — via debt/credit expansion to reduce significantly its future availability).
This impending ‘collapse’ is problematic on a number of fronts but I would contend that it is particularly so because of some very dangerous complexities we have created and distributed around our planet, placing our long-term future and that of many other (all?) species in great peril.
Energy is ‘everything’ to life and the surplus energy we garnered from our exploitation of fossil fuels has led to our hyper-complex and globalised industrial society. Along the way the vast majority of humans have lost the knowledge and skills to be self-sufficient and adapt to a life without fossil fuel energy and its long list of ‘conveniences’. Of particular note should be our dependence upon long-distance supply chains for virtually all our most important needs: food, potable water, and regional shelter materials.
While relocalising these necessary aspects of our existence should be a priority for every community that wishes to weather the coming transition to a post-carbon world, we should be considering quite seriously the safe decommissioning of some significantly dangerous creations.
Three of the more problematic ones include: nuclear power plants and their waste products; chemical production and storage facilities; and, biosafety labs and their dangerous pathogens. The products and waste of these complex creations are not going to be ‘contained’ when the energy to do so is no longer available. And loss of this containment will create some hazardous conditions for human existence in their immediate surroundings at the very least — in fact, multiple nuclear facility meltdowns could potentially put the entire planet at risk for all species[1].
As of today’s date, some 438 nuclear reactors (with another 56 under construction) are spread throughout 32 nation-states[2].
Finding the actual number of chemical production and storage facilities that exist is next to impossible but a proxy of their existence can be imagined via their economics and global spread of the industry[3], and it is massive.
As for biosafety labs, the total number is also virtually impossible to nail down due to the various ‘levels’ assigned, but as for those ‘studying’ the most dangerous pathogens, currently 59 are spread around the globe[4].
These facilities, even with today’s high-energy inputs and safety protocols, have experienced catastrophic ‘accidents’ — at least for the immediate environment/ecological systems, residents of the area, and/or employees.
From Chernobyl and Fukushima[5], to Bhopal and Beirut[6], to numerous lab failures[7] and ‘accidental’ infections and deaths of lab employees[8] (to say little of the recent possibility of Covid-19 having escaped from a lab[9]), the dangers posed by them have periodically been quite obvious.
As our surplus energy to minimise these dangers falls, our ability to protect ourselves from them also declines increasing the risks that they pose substantially. It seems only prudent to decommission and ‘safely’ eliminate the dangers while we still have the energetic-ability and resources to do so.
There is little in our current thinking about this situation that leads me to believe we will address these potential catastrophes, however. In fact, I see significant hubris and denial on a daily basis as we surge headlong in the opposite direction expanding on these complexities for the most part rather than reducing them — to say little of our continuing pursuit of the infinite growth chalice on a finite planet.
The fact that we seem to be doing the exact opposite of what seems prudent and forward-thinking does not instill a lot of confidence in me for our long-term prospects. Our failure to address the potential lethal consequences — primarily, it would seem, because of our continuing belief that we can both predict and control complex systems, and because these pursuits further enrich the ruling elite — raises the stakes significantly for both current and future generations, as well as all other life on the planet.
[1] Here I am reminded of the television series The 100 where the fourth season is centred around the devastation wreaked by a wave of fire and radiation that sweeps across the planet as a result of several dozen of the globe’s nuclear plants melting down; their ongoing maintenance was impossible after a complex AI launches the world’s nuclear weapons arsenal in an effort to address human overpopulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series)
What historians call the Golden Age of Greece—which ran from about 500 to 300 BC—spawned the foundational Western philosophers Plato and Aristotle; mathematicians such as Euclid whose geometry is still taught in schools today; classical Greek dramatists such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, whose plays are performed even now; an architecture so grand that it has been imitated in our own time, especially in government buildings; and the practice of democracy, a form of governance that would go into eclipse for over 2,000 years until the American and French revolutions.
What most people don’t know is that the ancient Greeks who lived through that era did not think of themselves as being in a golden age. Instead, they thought of their society as a much degraded version of the heroic age that preceded it, an age described in such works as Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey and Hesiod’s Works and Days. How utterly difficult it is for most people living today to imagine a society whose members believed that the future would only bring further degradation and decline perhaps until civilization itself disappeared. History was to them cyclical with dark and golden ages—golden ages that start out with great vigor and hope and then grind down to dark eras that destroy the progress of the past.
Today, most modern people think of time as linear and history as merely a story of the gradual and now rapid rise of technological, social, political and cultural progress. Since time is linear, the trajectory is always forward and expected to be up. We humans will never again fall prey to the civilization-ending mistakes of the past. Our technology has no equal. Humans have decoupled from the limits nature previously imposed on them…
This is an essay from reader wis.dom project who describes his painful personal journey of connecting dots to achieve awareness of our overshoot predicament.
I was born in 1969, at a time when everything still seemed possible. On July 20, two people walked on the moon, which is probably the greatest technological achievement of man to this day. In my youth, I devoured novels by Asimov, Clarke, Lem, Dick and Herbert. The galaxy’s colonization seemed within reach.
45 years later, I realized that I was a victim of mass hypnosis, what I refer to today as techno-utopia – a belief in the limitless human development, genius and almost divine uniqueness of Homo Sapiens. I realized that industrial civilization, like any other dissipative structure, is doomed to inevitable collapse.
In 1972 – 3 years after my birth, a book titled The Limits to Growth was released by the Club of Rome. It was the first scientifically compiled report analyzing future scenarios for humanity. It indicated that unlimited development is not possible on a finite planet. The book was published in 30 million copies and was one of the most popular at the time. Surprisingly, despite the wide range of my readings, the book did not appear on my horizon for a long time. As if it was covered by another intellectual “Säuberung”. In fact, it was the subject of an intellectual blitzkrieg and relatively quickly evaporated from the media circulation. I experienced this myself by talking to several university professors. Every one of them dismissed the LtG concept with a shrug and an unequivocal, non-debatable conclusion that the theory had long been discredited.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Are you sure that this is where we are headed…? Image source: Pixabay
Most people living in a high-tech modern society take it as a given that the only way forward is through even more technology. The matter of pollution and sadly the question of sustainability has now been successfully reduced to grams of CO2 — ecological overshoot, the rise and fall of civilizations, resource depletion and our utter dependency on hydrocarbons be damned. ‘We have electric automobiles, smartphones, AI driven lawn mowers and even indoor farming after all!’
From this short sighted viewpoint self driving cars, robots, and clean energy from hydrogen seems not only logical, but almost inevitable. Recency bias (discussed in Part 1) sheds some light to the psychological factors at play here. There is strong cultural element supporting this popular view however — a powerful story, something which is simply invisible to the everyday citizen. It’s like water to a fish. Something in which we were marinated in our whole lives from childhood cartoons to PhD awarding ceremonies, and throughout our entire professional careers.
This story, or set of stories to be precise, act like a modern albeit still very dogmatic belief system, not unlike traditional religions. Just like earlier cults it effectively prevents us from imagining a whole range of different futures, and urges us to dismiss these as unacceptable. It thus locks us into the false dichotomy of instant annihilation through a misconceived notion of collapse, and salvation through doing more of the same stuff that brought us to this point in the first place.
Technology is not a ratchet
The story originates in the false myth of progress. Namely, that cultures in earlier times were inherently inferior: undeveloped both in terms of technology and social structures…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
As modern civilization’s shelf life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of why societies collapse and civilizations die. Meanwhile, a lucrative market has emerged for post-apocalyptic novels, movies, TV shows, and video games for those who enjoy the vicarious thrill of dark, futuristic disaster and mayhem from the comfort of their cozy couch. Of course, surviving the real thing will become a much different story.
The latent fear that civilization is living on borrowed time has also spawned a counter-market of “happily ever after” optimists who desperately cling to their belief in endless progress. Popular Pollyannas, like cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, provide this anxious crowd with soothing assurances that the titanic ship of progress is unsinkable. Pinker’s publications have made him the high priest of progress.[1] While civilization circles the drain, his ardent audiences find comfort in lectures and books brimming with cherry-picked evidence to prove that life is better than ever, and will surely keep improving. Yet, when questioned, Pinker himself admits, “It’s incorrect to extrapolate that the fact that we’ve made progress is a prediction that we’re guaranteed to make progress.”[2]
Pinker’s rosy statistics cleverly disguise the fatal flaw in his argument. The progress of the past was built by sacrificing the future—and the future is upon us. All the happy facts he cites about living standards, life expectancy, and economic growth are the product of an industrial civilization that has pillaged and polluted the planet to produce temporary progress for a growing middle class—and enormous profits and power for a tiny elite.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The new film about a total apocalypse of the human race is being slammed by many film reviewers. But when I chat to people who have seen it they think it brilliant. And my Facebook wall is full of friends writing versions of OMG what a film! So what might these extremely different reactions tell us?
When I read the reviews of ‘Don’t Look Up’ they seem to misunderstand the film. Even the reviews from environmentalists who slag off the other reviews miss what is seen as important about the film by me and people who are alive to the very latest climate trends.. So here are my two cents on the film and – like all important art – the lessons from the reactions it has generated.
Judging by its output since WWII, the role of Hollywood has been to produce stories that celebrate human power (mostly male), including conquest, progress, success and heroic individualism. The stereotypical ‘Hollywood Ending’ is not only good but is thanks to one special person. Even tragedies and horror films would typically include some of those themes. Compare American output to French films and those aspects of Hollywood content are quite clear. Such aspects are not accidental. They align with an ideology of modernity and progress that has dominated global cultures for… well there are many views on how deep it goes.. But at least since WWII.
With that background, a film that was released for Christmas and ends with all the main characters expressing love for each other before they are obliterated along with the entire human race is not very usual! Don’t Look Up is the first time I have seen ‘doomer humour’ in a film with the biggest stars.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
This image by the Tuscan painter Piero della Francesca exudes such power that it may truly blow your mind. Apart from the mastery of the composition, the perfection of the details, the fascination of the human figures, a canvas in the hands of a grand master is not just an image: it is a message. In this case, all the figures are static, there is no one moving. Yet, the painting carries the message of a tremendous movement forward in time. It shows a great change occurring: something enormous, deep, incredible: the triumph of life over death. And those who sleep through it are missing the change without even suspecting that it is happening. Just like us, sleepwalkers in a changing world, where gigantic forces are awakening right now.
“Cataclysms” (*) is a recent book by Laurent Testot (Univ. Chicago Press, 2020) that goes well together with “The End of the Megamachine” (Zero Books, 2020) by Fabian Scheidler of which I wrote in a previous post.Both books see human history using the approach that I call “metabolic.” It means to take the long view and see humankind in terms of a living entity. Call it a “machine” (as Scheidler does), call it “Monkey” (as Testot does), call it a “complex system” (as it is fashionable, nowadays), or maybe a holobiont (as I tend to do). It is the same: humankind is a creature that moves, grows, stumbles onward, destroys things, builds new things, keeps growing, and, eventually, collapses.
Bot “Cataclysms” and the “Megamachine” catch this multiform aspect of the great beast and both emphasize its destructive aspects. Both understand that the thing is moving. More than that, its trajectory is not uniform, it goes in bumps. It is a continuous sequence of growth and collapse, the latter usually faster than the former (what I call “The Seneca Effect“).…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Chris Smaje has been a lecturer in sociology and is now a small farmer and writer, living in England. This book springs from his blog of the same name, and as posts from that blog have run on Resilience, many readers will already be familiar with Smaje and the kind of things he talks about. The book’s subtitle summarizes it fairly well: “Making the case for a society built around local economies, self provisioning, agricultural diversity and a shared Earth.”
Perhaps I should begin by noting that since I have been following Smaje on this site, and was already in agreement with his theses before I read his book, some might say I’m biased. There was very little I disagreed with; however, there was quite a bit I didn’t know. I’m glad I have a paper copy, as I will be rereading it and using it in discussion.
Before getting into the parts of the book, I will say something about the level of diction; it requires continuous attention to follow the thread of often complex argument. This is not a book to read over a long period, or while doing other things.
In the first chapter, Smaje delineates “ten crises”: population, climate, energy, soil, stuff, water, land, health and nutrition, political economy, and culture (yes, it’s quite a long chapter). In the course of discussing these issues he makes the case that we can’t just stumble on with business as usual—that won’t be possible much longer. Then in the rest of the book he argues that a small farm future is the best of possible responses to these crises, the best way to negotiate a future that avoids the inequality that plagues us today, and often has in the past, as well as to repair the ravages inflicted on our only planet by neoliberal capitalism and industrial farming. Yes–he takes on capitalism.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
