{"id":65807,"date":"2023-10-01T05:07:22","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T10:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65807"},"modified":"2023-10-03T05:49:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T10:49:48","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-ii-fiat-currency-replacing-it-is-not-a-solution-to-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65807","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh II; Feeding the Growth Monster: Fiat Currency and Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh II<\/h3>\n

August 8, 2020<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Monte Alban, Mexico (1988) Photo by author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feeding the Growth Monster: Fiat Currency and Technology<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My response to an ongoing discussion regarding debt-\/credit-based fiat currency and it\u2019s impact on our pursuing the infinite growth chalice.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Yes, credit-\/debt-based fiat is certainly one of the most significant causes of our pursuing the infinite growth chalice. Not the only one, but one of the main ones, certainly. And having \u2018sound\u2019 money that was not created and distributed by private interests may help, but there are no guarantees especially if it were in the hands of the political class who, much as they do now, would very likely use such \u2018power\u2019 to \u2018buy\u2019 votes, \u2018pay off\u2019 supporters, and fund boondoggles.<\/p>\n

I honestly don\u2019t know if there is any \u2018solution\u2019 to this monetary conundrum. In the words of Men Without Hats in their song \u2018Unsatisfaction\u2019: I\u2019m never satisfied when the answers could be real. I may not know what’s right but I know this can’t be it.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what change occurs with our monetary system, I\u2019ve reached the conclusion that if we don\u2019t begin pursuing degrowth strategies as of, like yesterday, we are destined to experience the collapse that always accompanies overshoot.<\/p>\n

We are well into the diminishing returns fiasco that archaeologist Joseph Tainter outlines in his monograph Collapse of Complex Societies, and sets the stage for sociopolitical (and economic) collapse; and it is likely no amount of \u2018tinkering\u2019 in our business-as-usual trajectory is going to prevent collapse\/decline at this point.<\/p>\n

All of our debates are probably quite academic and moot at this point. Making one\u2019s local community\/neighbourhood\/family as self-sufficient\/-reliant as possible may be the only way to ensure some of us make it through the other side of the inevitable transition since our society\u2019s collapse will be unlike every other one in pre\/history as virtually none of us have the skills\/knowledge to survive without modern society\u2019s energy-intensive technology and long-distance supply chains.<\/p>\n

This is one of the main motivations for me to transition our yard towards food production rather than monoculture grass and begun helping family and neighbours do the same.<\/p>\n

We have painted ourselves into a corner from which there is unlikely any escape route and we are beginning, quite vociferously and violently in some cases, to fight over a shrinking economic pie.<\/p>\n

Arguments over how to \u2018fix\u2019 things abound (the ruling class has latched onto infinite money printing to \u2018paper\u2019 over things, much like the Romans did when they began clipping coins during their decline) but most of these are not \u2018fixes\u2019 to our unsustainable trajectory but part and parcel of our attempts to reduce the cognitive dissonance that arises from realising we cannot continue business as usual but the path we need to follow is \u2018unthinkable\u2019 for it would mean sacrificing almost everything we hold dear in \u2018modern\u2019 society.<\/p>\n

Most of us want to believe that technology and human ingenuity will ‘save’ us (thus arguments from academics\/educators about focusing more resources into education, not realising that there isn’t the time nor agreement over ‘solutions’ for education to play a role) but it is most likely that our efforts at greater and greater technological ‘solutions’ are just expediting our journey over the cliff since technology speeds the exploitation of finite resources, much as money printing does, and creates a host of negative consequences we conveniently ignore.<\/p>\n

If people believe the world is in chaos now, just wait a few years\u2026<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Please consider purchasing my novel trilogy to help support my continuing online presence. Click\u00a0HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh II August 8, 2020 Monte Alban, Mexico (1988) Photo by author. Feeding the Growth Monster: Fiat Currency and Technology My response to an ongoing discussion regarding debt-\/credit-based fiat currency and it\u2019s impact on our pursuing the infinite growth chalice. _____ Yes, credit-\/debt-based fiat is certainly one of the most significant causes […]<\/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":[2,3,4,5,6,7],"tags":[150,309,33948,5833,786,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-65807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-collapse","tag-fiat-currency","tag-human-ingenuity","tag-steve-bull","tag-technology","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65807","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=65807"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65830,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65807\/revisions\/65830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}