{"id":64831,"date":"2023-01-23T12:38:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T17:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64831"},"modified":"2023-01-23T12:38:50","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T17:38:50","slug":"an-empire-of-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64831","title":{"rendered":"An Empire of Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Empire of Denial<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Is there a rise from the dead?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Despite claims to the contrary, we still live in an age of empires. The only difference this time is that the one dominating this planet is in full denial of this fact. No empire can avoid its fate however, and this one is of no exception either. In my\u00a0<\/em>previous post<\/em><\/a>\u00a0I\u2019ve shown how Empires fail as they meet their fate at the end of their exponential growth period, but what are the ominous signs of this happening today? How long can the Empire mask its predicament by over-reliance on foreign resources, debt and constant territorial expansion? Is there a way to stop the unraveling, once the abundant flow of resources starts declining?<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, is there a way back for Empires from the land of the dead?<\/em><\/p>\n

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Empire State. Photo by\u00a0Patrick Langwallner<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In <\/span>order to answer these questions, we have to understand what behavior has led up to this point. The key to understand this is that the overuse of resources to the point of unsustainability almost\u00a0always lends a short term political advantage<\/em>\u00a0over those who are more reality conscious and think generations ahead. Thus the more unsustainable your actions are, the more successful you become \u2014 on the short term at least. This bidding game virtually guarantees that the Empire ends up overdoing things, resulting in overshoot: using natural resources and polluting Nature at rates well beyond the planet\u2019s capacity to recover.<\/p>\n

Lacking any meaningful \u2014 let alone politically acceptable \u2014 answer to this predicament, however, the Empire\u2019s elite finds itself in a corner. The only way forward would be a rapid adaption and a radical cut-back on excess. Yet, elites cannot back down, else their rivals (both from within and outside) would immediately take advantage, threatening the Empire to plunge into chaos…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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

An Empire of Denial Is there a rise from the dead? Despite claims to the contrary, we still live in an age of empires. The only difference this time is that the one dominating this planet is in full denial of this fact. No empire can avoid its fate however, and this one is of […]<\/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":[3,4,5],"tags":[22093,259,681,769,32578,3142],"class_list":["post-64831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","tag-ecological-overshoot","tag-empire","tag-resources","tag-sustainability","tag-the-honest-sorcerer","tag-us-empire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64831","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=64831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64832,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64831\/revisions\/64832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}