{"id":69225,"date":"2025-06-15T03:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69225"},"modified":"2025-06-15T13:01:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T18:01:19","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-ccvi-a-great-simplification-is-on-our-doorstep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69225","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCVI\u2013A \u2018Great Simplification\u2019 Is On Our Doorstep."},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCVI
\n<\/a><\/h1>\n

A \u2018Great Simplification\u2019 Is On Our Doorstep.<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

stock.adobe.com<\/span><\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/span>CLICK HERE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new to my writing, check out <\/b>this synopsis<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

I have been wanting for some time to connect in an aggregate fashion a few of the \u2018texts\u2019 I\u2019ve been exposed to over the past two decades and that have greatly informed my thinking on what I tend to write about<\/span>. This past couple of weeks I\u2019ve finally gotten around to doing this in between the demands of my expanding food gardens and some family obligations. I begin with a short summary of each (in no particular order) and then attempt to tie their general arguments together into a coherent summation of what they portend regarding humanity\u2019s future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a happy ending to this story, you may be disappointed\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A Short History Of Progress<\/b><\/p>\n

Archaeologist Ronald Wright\u2019s monograph (2004) provides a critical examination of the widespread assumption that technology and social evolution inescapably results in an improved future for our species. He argues that what we have termed \u2018progress\u2019 (and attributed to our ingenuity, technological prowess, and problem-solving abilities) is a double-edged sword that creates a \u2018trap\u2019 whereby our \u2018solutions\u2019, while seemingly successful and beneficial in the short-term, are almost always unsustainable and lead to greater problems\/predicaments in the long-term.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A great example is our adoption of agriculture (and especially modern, industrial agriculture). While this form of food production has so far been able to support ever-larger populations, it has resulted in deforestation, significant land system changes, social inequality, biodiversity loss, soil depletion, and significant vulnerability to crop failures and long-distance supply issues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In assessing the rise and fall of various complex societies\/civilisations, Wright demonstrates how each case study he analysed declined in complexity by way of classic \u2018progress traps\u2019. After a period of relatively rapid growth, each society experienced significant stress as a result of their technological \u2018success\u2019: depletion of essential resources (e.g., water, forests, fish stocks, soil fertility); damage to their immediate environment and its ecosystems (e.g., water salinisation, deforestation, soil erosion); and, the \u2018Masada Effect\u2019, whereby having recognised the growing crises, the elite exacerbate them by concentrating wealth\/resources amongst themselves resulting in increasing disparity between them and the masses which, in turn, leads to a loss of social cohesion and growing domestic strain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Modernity\u2019, Wright posits, is caught in a variety of overlapping progress traps of unbelievable scale. In addition to those just listed above, modern societies have added: runaway consumption; weapons of mass destruction; and, globalisation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wright demonstrates that: \u2018progress\u2019 is not linear or inevitable; past success does not guarantee future success; technology cannot inevitably solve the \u2018problems\u2019 it has created; and, that the biogeophysical limits of a finite planet cannot be overcome via human ingenuity and technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Limits to Growth<\/b><\/p>\n

Meadows et al. (1972) used complex systems dynamic modelling to simulate a number of possible scenarios for humanity\u2019s future based upon key variables (i.e., food production, population growth, resource depletion, industrialisation, pollution generation). The modelling demonstrated that even small growth rates (i.e., 1-2% per annum) could lead to a significant increase in the drawdown of resources and\/or overloading of compensatory sinks on a finite planet and almost invariably resulted in societal \u2018collapse\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Standard Run (or Business-As-Usual) scenario projected that a sharp decline in key growth indicators (i.e., population and industrial capacity) would occur around 2050 or shortly thereafter. The primary reasons for this contraction in growth would be: declining food production per capita; resource depletion; and, increased pollution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A prominent concept in the text is that of \u2018overshoot and collapse\u2019 whereby global society surpasses the carrying capacity of the planet by way of resource depletion and sink overloading. As a result, industrial civilisation would \u2018collapse\u2019 back to a much reduced regional carrying capacity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Scenarios where \u2018collapse\u2019 did not occur were found but required significant alterations in the key variables prior to finite limits being encountered. The possibility of avoiding \u2018collapse\u2019 lessened with the passage of time before such changes were made.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Limits To Growth: The 50-Year Update <\/b>(2022)<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the \u2018warning\u2019 above, it\u2019s enlightening to review humanity\u2019s ability to avoid the Standard Run scenario after five decades. The view is not very good.<\/span><\/p>\n

Data indicates that the Standard Run scenario has been the trajectory most closely playing out. Humanity has surpassed the planetary carrying capacity and continues to draw down \u2018renewable\u2019 resources and produce pollutants faster than the planet can regenerate and absorb them. The peak, after which contraction will occur, appears to have moved closer in time by a decade or more. And, further continuation along this path is simply making the inevitable \u2018collapse\u2019 all that more severe. The text also introduces the relatively recent discussions about planetary boundaries and how several of those have already been broached by humanity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The text basically highlights that humanity has continued business-as-usual, entering the overshoot phase that species do when they surpass their environmental carrying capacity, with \u2018collapse\u2019 all but assured.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Collapse Of Complex Societies<\/b><\/p>\n

Archaeologist Joseph Tainter\u2019s (1988) monograph outlines that societal \u2018collapse\u2019 is a recurrent phenomena that appears to be the result of economic processes, particularly that of diminishing returns on investments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tainter views societies as problem-solving ogranisations. Problem solving requires significant resources to perform (especially of energy and labour) and typically results in evermore complexity (e.g., increasing organisational levels\u2013bureaucracies). While investments in addressing societal problems result in significant benefits as the cheapest- and easiest-to-accomplish approaches are pursued initially, these \u2018solutions\u2019 eventually encounter diminishing returns and societal benefits get smaller and smaller as time passes\u2013sometimes to the point of exceeding the costs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As problem solving becomes more costly, the population bears the brunt of this (e.g., increasing taxes, resource shortages) and societal resilience decreases (i.e., the ability to address new challenges successfully wanes) leading to increased vulnerability to stress surges. (e.g., crop failure, war). For an increasing percentage of those in society, the costs of the benefits accrued become overly burdensome and they \u2018opt out\u2019 of the centralised systems. Eventually, the support required to maintain the sociopolitical systems is absent and it simplifies to a level that can be supported by any remaining local population.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, \u2018collapse\u2019 is the result of a centralised system becoming increasingly unsustainable\u2013due to greater complexity and costs\u2013and more vulnerable to stress surges. This tendency for increasing \u2018costs\u2019 to overtake the \u2018benefits\u2019 eventually leads to increasing numbers of society\u2019s members making an economic choice to withdraw their support, resulting in a simplification of its sociopolitical and connected systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Arithmetic, Population, and Energy<\/b><\/p>\n

Physicist Albert Bartlett\u2019s presentation (initially made 1969, but updated regularly) on the mathematics of growth concludes that humanity\u2019s inability to understand the exponential function has resulted in a significant miscalculation of how growth and consumption impact sustainability\u2013especially as it pertains to population and resource use (particularly energy).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Exponential growth occurs when increases of fixed percentages (e.g., 3%) take place over a fixed time (e.g., a year). One way to think about such growth is to consider \u2018doubling time\u2019 that can be determined by the \u2018Rule of 70\u2019: 70 divided by the growth rate = the doubling time; so a 3% per year rate would have a doubling time of about 23 years. Even very small annual growth rates can eventually result in huge impacts on growth and sustainability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Human population growth tends to follow an exponential trajectory and is ultimately unsustainable upon a finite planet. As our resource consumption and energy use tends to follow or exceed our population growth, our \u2018fixed\u2019 resources (e.g., hydrocarbons, arable land, minerals, fresh water) have an increasingly shortened lifespan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bartlett argues that our \u2018leaders\u2019 tend to promote infinite growth without acknowledging the mathematical impossibility of it on a finite planet. Their \u2018solutions\u2019 to this dilemma (e.g., efficiency, technology) ignore Jevon\u2019s Paradox and the fact that exponential growth overwhelms supposed gains. True sustainability would require consumption to never exceed regenerative abilities of \u2018renewable\u2019 resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bartlett\u2019s presentation argues that the root cause of our various predicaments is our inability to understand the simple arithmetic of exponential growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change<\/b><\/p>\n

Environmental sociologist William Catton Jr.\u2019s (1980) text argues that through the temporary availability of hydrocarbons, humanity has been able to exceed the planet\u2019s long-term carrying capacity for the species. This is an unsustainable situation given the finiteness of the resource that will lead to a significant correction via population decline and societal \u2018collapse\u2019 as it has artificially and temporarily increased the species\u2019 carrying capacity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Catton points out that pre-industrial Homo sapiens lived within the planet\u2019s natural environmental limits until our technology began to divert resources from other species and helped us to drawdown finite resources, with both of these creating a \u2018phantom\u2019 boost to our carrying capacity. Through this depletion of non-renewable resources, our population grew beyond the natural and more permanent limits, leading us into \u2018overshoot\u2019. This path sped up significantly with the Industrial Revolution and our leveraging of hydrocarbon resources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hydrocarbons, in particular, have led to an illusion of \u2018sustainability\u2019 and increasing carrying capacity. It is \u2018phantom\u2019 in the sense that it is based upon a finite resource and is exacerbated by its negative impact upon our ecological systems (thereby reducing our future carrying capacity from its pre-overshoot level\u2013see Model D in Figure 3 above).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature\u2019s inevitable correction to this situation is already underway according to Catton as we increasingly encounter resource depletion issues, pollution crises, and social unrest. Technology cannot \u2018fix\u2019 this [in fact, it could be argued that this is actually making it worse as it increases the phantom carrying capacity through its increased resource drawdown and ecological systems degradation].<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The conclusions made in each of these texts are quite distressing on their own. When combined, the diagnosis for our species is extremely dispiriting; in fact, quite a few people would say terminal\u2013especially for our industrial civilisation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Collapse\u2019 of our complex societies seems no longer speculative but highly probable, if not guaranteed.<\/b> Overshoot is a reality that is already impacting our planet and human-made systems\u2013a finite cache of hydrocarbons has helped us to consume even our \u2018renewable\u2019 resources at almost twice the rate that our planet can regenerate them. Progress Traps are global and interlocked. Social cohesion is being increasingly strained due to diminishing returns on our investments in complexity\u2013especially as it pertains to resource extraction and global energy averaging systems. It would appear that pursuing exponential growth on a finite planet is the main cause of our predicaments and has been exacerbated by our technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Collapse\u2019 will likely be in the form of a systemic unravelling, not a cataclysmic apocalypse<\/b>. A number of cascading failures will probably be a decades-long affair where resource wars erupt (especially over water, arable land, and minerals), economic decline\/crises emerge (e.g., hyperinflation, debt crises, supply constraints), ecological disasters arise (e.g., crop failures, pandemics), centralised institutions fail (e.g., sociopolitical simplification), and significant population decline occurs. And all of these will be exacerbated by the \u2018solutions\u2019 our elite will implement, especially the technological ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A managed descent (degrowth) is unlikely, if not impossible.<\/b> The purposeful contraction of this latest human experiment in large, complex societies will probably not be pursued due to psychological impediments (e.g., our misunderstanding of the exponential function prevents timely approaches; our faith in technology to save us is widespread and likely will be doubled-down upon) and structural barriers (e.g., short-term incentivisation of market gains over long-term survival; elite hoarding of resources; lack of a mechanism to enforce widespread cooperation). Nature\u2019s corrective measures are far more likely to occur than some coordinated \u2018awakening\u2019 by humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

A \u2018great simplification\u2019 is on our doorstep.<\/b> Given the texts summarised above, industrial civilisation\u2019s prospects are looking to be quite different from the technoutopian one painted by many of today\u2019s \u2018leaders\u2019 who tend to push growth as the \u2018solution\u2019 to overcoming our many pressing issues. There is, however, no avoiding the cyclical \u2018collapse\u2019 that impacts complex human societies, and this time it\u2019s global in nature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The only questions that remain may be: how expedient will the \u2018collapse\u2019 be (i.e., will it occur more rapidly than typical \u2018collapses\u2019 take due to a nuclear catastrophe such as a global war or massive failure of the hundreds of nuclear power plants around the globe); how severe will the corrective \u2018die-off\u2019 of our species be; and will the growth-decline cycle repeat itself after this iteration has \u2018collapsed\u2019?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

What is going to be my standard <\/span>WARNING\/ADVICE<\/b> going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly time will tell how this all unfolds but there\u2019s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by \u2018collapsing now to avoid the rush\u2019 and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There\u2019s no guarantee it will ensure \u2018recovery\u2019 after a significant societal stressor\/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can \u2018hope\u2019 for from its pursuit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, <\/span>please consider ordering the trilogy of my \u2018fictional\u2019 novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian)<\/b>, via my <\/span>website<\/span><\/a> or the link below \u2014 the \u2018profits\u2019 of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).<\/span><\/p>\n

Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Costs (Canadian dollars):<\/span>
\n<\/span>Book 1: $2.99<\/span>
\n<\/span>Book 2: $3.89<\/span>
\n<\/span>Book 3: $3.89<\/span>
\n<\/span>Trilogy: $9.99<\/span><\/p>\n

Feel free to throw in a \u2018tip\u2019 on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents\/dollars helps\u2026\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

https:\/\/paypal.me\/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US\u00a0<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: <\/span>olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton\u2019s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter\u2019s Collapse of Complex Societies: see <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCVI A \u2018Great Simplification\u2019 Is On Our Doorstep. stock.adobe.com CLICK HERE If you\u2019re new to my writing, check out this synopsis. I have been wanting for some time to connect in an aggregate fashion a few of the \u2018texts\u2019 I\u2019ve been exposed to over the past two decades and that have […]<\/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":[150,22093,485,3197,14221,33947],"class_list":["post-69225","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-ecological-overshoot","tag-limits-to-growth","tag-overshoot","tag-societal-collapse","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69225","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=69225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69314,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69225\/revisions\/69314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}