{"id":60841,"date":"2021-12-08T20:33:40","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T01:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60841"},"modified":"2021-12-08T20:33:40","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T01:33:40","slug":"caught-up-in-complexity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60841","title":{"rendered":"Caught Up in Complexity"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2021\/11\/caught-up-in-complexity\/\">Caught Up in Complexity<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_2087\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2087\" src=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake-300x200.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake-450x300.jpg 450w, https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/ostrich-real-fake.jpg 1280w\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2087\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2087\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From analogicus, via Pixabay<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Readers of this blog will know that I have come to some big-picture conclusions about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2021\/04\/ultimate-success\/\">success<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2021\/05\/why-worry-about-collapse\/\">failure<\/a>\u00a0that are unsettling. I don\u2019t like them myself. Not only do they create an inner sadness about where I think the human endeavor is heading, but they result in a sort of isolation that I would rather not suffer\u2014introvert though I am. Among other academics at my institution, it is rare for me to find kindred spirits, even among groups self-selected to care about environmental issues. Most don\u2019t seem to see very far beyond climate change in the lineup of existential threats, increasingly focusing on inequities within the human population that stem from climate and environmental disturbances. I am glad that climate change awareness is high (a genuine threat), but even if climate change had never arisen, I think we would still be in grave trouble from the more fundamental flaws in our explosive approach to living on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>This is a large part of the impetus behind\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/planetarylimits.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PLAN<\/a>, which I announced in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2021\/11\/finally-a-plan\/\">last post<\/a>. Already, I am gratified that people joining the network from vastly different fields and experiences have formed similar conclusions at the highest level. So I\u2019m not crazy, unless we all are. In any case, I am less lonely. [<em>I will say that crazy is usually easy to spot in conversation: a little too insistent\/enthusiastic\/one-track. The PLAN folks feel really solid, broad, and even perhaps subdued to me: not the type you want to back away from at a party.<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p>But I still try to understand\u00a0<em>why<\/em> so few of my colleagues have reached similar conclusions. The easy answer is that I\u2019m just plain wrong&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caught Up in Complexity From analogicus, via Pixabay Readers of this blog will know that I have come to some big-picture conclusions about\u00a0success\u00a0and\u00a0failure\u00a0that are unsettling. I don\u2019t like them myself. Not only do they create an inner sadness about where I think the human endeavor is heading, but they result in a sort of isolation [&hellip;]<\/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":[3,4,7],"tags":[32267,9128,31103],"class_list":["post-60841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-complexityclimate-change","tag-do-the-math","tag-tom-murphy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60841","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=60841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60842,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60841\/revisions\/60842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}