{"id":55979,"date":"2020-12-12T07:36:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T12:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55979"},"modified":"2020-12-12T07:36:13","modified_gmt":"2020-12-12T12:36:13","slug":"cycles-systems-and-seats-in-the-coliseum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55979","title":{"rendered":"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum<\/a><\/h3>\n

The idea that debt, leverage, speculation, greed, exploitation and parasitic elites can expand exponentially forever is magical thinking.<\/i><\/p>\n

Contrary to first impressions, I am not a\u00a0doom-and-gloomer<\/i>; I’m a\u00a0systems-cycles-er<\/i>,<\/b>\u00a0meaning I’m interested in where systems and cycles are heading.<\/p>\n

Cycles work because we’re still running Wetware 1.0<\/b>\u00a0which entered beta testing around 200,000 years ago and was released, bugs and all, around 50,000 years ago. Since the processes and inputs haven’t changed, neither do the outputs.<\/p>\n

Nature is a mix of dynamic, semi-chaotic systems (fractals, etc.) and cyclical patterns which tend to operate within predictable parameters. Why should human nature and human constructs (societies, economies and political realms) be any different?<\/p>\n

So longterm success breeds complacency, hubris, economic and intellectual sclerosis, draining political infighting and the\u00a0overproduction of parasitic elites<\/i><\/b>, to use Peter Turchin’s apt description. Consumption of resources expands to soak up every last bit of what’s available and then the supply of goodies plummets for a multitude of completely natural and predictable reasons (sunspot\/solar activity, El Nino, etc.) and a host of unpredictable but equally natural semi-chaotic extremes (100-year droughts, floods, etc.).<\/p>\n

Wetware 1.0’s go-to solutions to all such difficulties are rather limited:<\/b><\/p>\n

1. Ramp up magical thinking.<\/b>\u00a0If a couple of human sacrifices ensured good harvests in the good old days, let’s slaughter a couple hundred now–and if that doesn’t work, then…<\/p>\n

2. Do more of what’s failed spectacularly<\/b>\u00a0and slaughter a couple thousand fellow humans, because darn it, maybe everything will turn around if we just kill another couple dozen.<\/p>\n

This requires ignoring the novelty of the current challenges and clinging to\u00a0what worked so well in the past<\/i>\u00a0even as whatever worked in the past\u00a0can’t possibly work now because circumstances are fundamentally different<\/i>.<\/p>\n

3. Seek scapegoats.<\/b> It’s those darn witches. Burn a bunch of them and our troubles will magically disappear.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum The idea that debt, leverage, speculation, greed, exploitation and parasitic elites can expand exponentially forever is magical thinking. Contrary to first impressions, I am not a\u00a0doom-and-gloomer; I’m a\u00a0systems-cycles-er,\u00a0meaning I’m interested in where systems and cycles are heading. Cycles work because we’re still running Wetware 1.0\u00a0which entered beta testing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24078,3487,3519,195,2384,1224,15931,587],"class_list":["post-55979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-charles-hugh-smith-2","tag-cycles","tag-cyclic-history","tag-debt","tag-elite","tag-exploitation","tag-historic-cycles","tag-of-two-minds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55980,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55979\/revisions\/55980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}