Home » Posts tagged 'the great simplification'
Tag Archives: the great simplification
The Next Generation’s Dilemma: Confronting the Metacrisis
The Next Generation’s Dilemma: Confronting the Metacrisis
Reality Roundtable 9 with Priscilla Trịnh, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart
Today’s Reality Roundtable with Priscilla Trịhn, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart, focuses on Generation Z’s perspective of the metacrisis, how learning the reality of the human predicament has affected their worldview, and what they see as viable future paths for themselves and the world. What are the unique challenges that young people face when addressing the layers of complexity and risk in the world, and thinking about how to respond?
Priscilla Trịnh currently serves as Director of Communications at the Post Growth Institute and co-coordinator of the Minnesota Youth Institute. She is also the creator of the #postgrowth jobs board and a founding member of The Overstory Alliance.
James Branagan is a content creator and video editor, posting content on slow living and philosophy from his channel, The New Naturalist. He’s committed to the task of addressing some of the many facets of Our Human Predicament, particularly education and food production systems.
Natasha Linhart graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 2023 with a degree in BSc in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics with a focus in Economics and Business, and electives in Degrowth and Critical Theory. For the last year, she has been working as a Research Associate with the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future.
How might we approach intergenerational relationships to encourage the transfer of knowledge in both directions, without blame or resentment? Could fostering community, empathy, and personal responsibility act as a bridge across generational divides, steering us towards a more unified and compassionate future?
Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for Betterment
Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for Betterment
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?
The Strait of Hormuz and ‘the Spice’
The Strait of Hormuz and ‘the Spice’
Frankly #61
In this week’s Frankly, I’d like to highlight the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, a global supply chain choke point where nearly half of the world’s oil available for export travels through on a daily basis. In the midst of high-stakes geo-political events where threats (and misery) from warring nations dominate the discourse, we remain (mostly) energy blind to the bottlenecks that lie at the center of these conflicts, which if disrupted could send our liquid-combustible-fuel dependent economies crashing.
How could the threat of expanding regional wars – especially Iran’s potential response in the Strait of Hormuz – impact the world’s reliance on the flow of oil? Who are the people making world-altering decisions – and do they have the best interest of the future in mind? Can a heightened awareness of our global system’s dependency on fragile energy supply chains shift our focus away from escalating risks towards deconfliction and peace?
Last week, I was joined by Luther Krueger to discuss one example of a category of innovation that I’ve taken to calling ‘Goldilocks tech’ – which uses accessible and abundant materials to achieve important tasks for human societies with less or considerably less energy and material throughput. In the western world, most of us are used to indoor, gas or electric stoves, typically powered by fossil fuels, and in a third of the world, people are still using solid fuels – wood, coal, or dung – which come with many health and environmental risks. Solar ovens are an alternative which makes use of passive solar energy at a range of temperatures and can be made from basic or reused materials.
The Great Simplification Ahead
There is no denying that a major economic downturn is now in the books, and that lacking an energy miracle, the world economy is about to go through a major shift. After discussing the faulty nature of prevailing economic metrics (GDP) in last week’s essay, and understanding how economic growth has turned into stagnation 18 years ago already, let’s turn our eyes towards the future. What might the world economy look like after the onset of the coming crisis? How would world leaders react? Could gold or bitcoin save the day? Let’s dive in.
There is a yawning gap between real economic productivity and debt in the world economy. Despite the fact that GDP seems to be growing, real economic output (best measured by energy consumption) has been stagnating for almost two decades now. As a result Western nations have lost their dominance in the world economy, and now face a steep decline due to an ever worsening energy balance and their colossal import dependence.
You see, this is not a matter of money or the lack thereof. Governments all around the world had the chance to print all the money they wanted in the past two decades. There were two thing they could not conjure up, however: cheap raw materials and energy. Contrary to common wisdom, the green energy transition is not a miracle waiting to happen, only an expensive and utterly unsustainable addition to the existing fossil fuel energy infrastructure. Shale oil, the much heralded “solution” to peak oil, has also run its course and now is close to reaching its all time high… Only to embark on a steep decline afterwards. None of this is a monetary question, only a matter of geology and economics: resource depletion and the resulting cost increase. Printing money does not solve any of these issues, only creates more inflation.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Quiet Part Out Loud
The Quiet Part Out Loud
Of all the challenges facing our culture, the fact that humans use social sorting mechanisms to solve physical world problems looms as perhaps the greatest. This Frankly is a reflection on the possibility of sharing a socially unpalatable message to a large percentage of citizens and leaders. Our vertical and horizontal social infrastructure isn’t built to process, share and address challenges of this magnitude – but instead to ignore, water down, and mitigate. Will the quiet part be spread out loud to large amounts of humans as The Great Simplification becomes more obvious? Or will the quiet part be socially squashed a la George Orwell? Of course I have particular interest in this question, and its resolution. Time is moving very fast…
Steve Keen: “Mythonomics”
On this episode, we meet with Economist, Author, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategy, Resilience, and Security at University College in London, Steve Keen.
Keen discusses how mainstream economics misses the centrality of energy to our economy and to our futures, the naive treatment to the risks of money and debt creation, and the disconnect economic theory has to climate change risks.
About Steve Keen:
Steve Keen is an economist, author of Debunking Economics and The New Economics: A Manifesto, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategy, Resilience, and Security at University College in London.
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
03:30 – Frank Stilwell
03:50 – Theory of the Second Best
05:17 – Paul Samuelson and paper (1966)
07:30 – Neoclassical economics
07:40 – Alfred Marshall
09:45 – Basic assumptions of economics
09:30 – Contemporary macroeconomics is applied microeconomics
11:12 – We are deeply social creatures, and this isn’t accounted for in economics
11:40 – Theory of supply (rising marginal costs)
12:15 – In reality, supply has a falling marginal cost (pg 102)
12:35 – Alan Blinder + survey on marginal falling costs (pg 22) and vs his textbook
18:30 – Energy is not included as an input (factor of production)
18:44 – Computable general equilibrium models
19:02 – Rational Expectation Revolution
19:20 – Intertemporal equilibrium models
19:21 – Cobb-Douglas Function
19:24 – Constant elasticity of production function
20:26 – When energy is included it is to a very minimized extent
20:41 – Working paper by Rudy Backmann looking at energy fall implications in Germany
21:57 – Change in energy and change in GDP is 1:1 (or .99)
22:11 – Reiner Kümmel and paper factoring energy into CD Production Function
23:10 – CO2 at 420 ppm
23:48 – Energy consumption/output in roman slaves (pg 558)
24:44 – A barrel of oil is equivalent to 5 years of human labor (Section 4.3)
25:59 – Adam Smith
26:03 – Physiocrats
26:59 – Evolution of Labor Theory of Value
28:40 – Robert Solow
29:30 – The assumption is that technology is responsible for our massive growth
30:12 – Bob Ayres
31:10 – James Watt – Steam Engine
31:00 – Energy is the true driver of growth, not technology
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
