{"id":69614,"date":"2026-03-24T05:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69614"},"modified":"2026-03-24T05:47:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T10:47:53","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-ccxxxiii-were-not-saved-were-making-our-predicaments-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69614","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXIII–We\u2019re NOT Saved! We\u2019re Making Our Predicaments Worse."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXIII<\/h1>\n

We\u2019re NOT Saved! We\u2019re Making Our Predicaments Worse.<\/h3>\n
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This Contemplation is the sharing of the foreword to my latest collection of critiques of technological \u2018solutions\u2019 to our various predicaments.<\/p>\n

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Foreword: We\u2019re Saved! Summing Up Volumes 1 & 2.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The need to believe tomorrow will be like today and yesterday is strong. Humans despise uncertainty. It creates immense anxiety; a \u2018pain\u2019 that needs to be avoided and replaced by \u2018pleasure\u2019, if at all possible. If our immediate environment can\u2019t help with this, our minds can. It is in this vein that we seek stories which enable our bodies to decrease our anxiety and the physiological symptoms that accompany it. Particularly comforting are the tales that suggest we have more agency in our existence than we actually do.<\/p>\n

It is here that narratives about \u2018saving\u2019 our planet and species from the consequences of our intense use of materially-intense technologies arise. \u201cThere are no problems that can\u2019t be fixed!\u201d is the mantra of the times. The \u2018bug\u2019 in our thinking, however, is that we tend to be focussed upon a \u2018doubling down\u2019 on the very technologies and their extractive and ecologically-destructive processes that have put us in this predicament of ecological overshoot. There are very, very few voices highlighting that enough is enough. Those that are present tend to get marginalised and shouted down for a variety of reasons; not least of which is the discomfort created by such ideas.<\/p>\n

Across these almost two dozen \u201cWe\u2019re Saved!\u201d Contemplations critiquing supposed \u2018solutions\u2019 to the dilemmas that plague our species and planet, a pattern emerges: the technological and systemic \u2018solutions\u2019 tend to be overhyped, fundamentally flawed, and serve, in the end, to exacerbate the issues they claim to address. Each promised salvation rests upon a structure of human psychological defence mechanisms, wrapped in language that portrays them as innovative and progressive\u2013the opposite of what they truly are.<\/p>\n

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CLICK HERE<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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If you\u2019re new to my writing, check out\u00a0this overview<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The commonalities that exist among the various \u2018solutions\u2019 include:<\/p>\n

Narrative management via greenwashing<\/strong>: they are marketed through their supposed benefits while ignoring or suppressing their drawbacks, usually by way of suggesting these are temporary challenges requiring simply some engineering tweaks. The sales pitches focus almost solely on their promise of salvation while overlooking the trade-offs that arise and the physical limits impeding their possibility.<\/p>\n

Avoidance of their additive nature to extraction and biosphere degradation<\/strong>: while presented as replacements for hydrocarbons, proposed technologies are actually adding to total energy consumption and material throughput. Hydrocarbon use continues to rise alongside the growth of alternatives demonstrating that the story about a \u2018transition\u2019 is fictional\u2013albeit comforting.<\/p>\n

Blindness to scale<\/strong>: proposals that may work within a small, local venue become resource-intensive and ecologically destructive when industrialised for global application. Niche applications do not scale up to societal levels without exacerbating the issues they are claiming to address.<\/p>\n

Carbon tunnel vision<\/strong>: ignoring the broader ecological impacts of proposed fixes (e.g., biodiversity loss, waste streams, resource depletion, etc.) by hyperfocussing upon carbon emissions allows some \u2018management\u2019 of anxiety about climate impacts but it does zero to address the broader array of ecological destruction brought on by the mass-produced, industrial technologies typically presented as \u2018solutions\u2019.<\/p>\n

Faith in unhatched chickens<\/strong>: almost all technological \u2018solutions\u2019 that get marketed rely upon technical breakthroughs that are invariably \u201cjust around the corner\u201d and always seem to require continual funding to be achieved. This has tended to sustain hope while avoiding responsibility for the failure to meet promises.<\/p>\n

Perpetuation of growth<\/strong>: virtually every \u2018solution\u2019 reinforces the perpetual growth paradigm; a paradigm that is driving ecological overshoot. Business-as-usual expansion is supported without confrontation. The hard discussions about degrowth and simplification are almost invariably avoided.<\/p>\n

Enrichment of the global elite<\/strong>: the \u2018solutions\u2019 that are laid out before humanity as public goods for the benefit of all are concentrating wealth (including massive state subsidies) and power to the top of societal socioeconomic and sociopolitical structures. Continued extraction, industrialisation, and the inequality that results are masked behind an anxiety-reducing narrative of collective salvation.<\/p>\n

If there exists a core message in these We\u2019re Saved! Contemplations it\u2019s that no innovation\u2013technological or systemic\u2013can solve the pursuit of infinite growth on a finite planet. Our species is in ecological overshoot having exceeded planetary boundaries across multiple dimensions and the \u2018solutions\u2019 being bandied about are not neutral tools but amplifiers of the very systems that are exacerbating overshoot.<\/p>\n

Through these essays I have tried to show that believing in such technological salvation is a collective defence mechanism: it allows the avoidance of uncomfortable truths, especially that complex industrial societies cannot be sustained indefinitely. The narratives that have been created have granted most the illusion of agency\u2013the sense that we can \u2018fix\u2019 our way out\u2013while avoiding for the most part any fundamental changes to our patterns of consumption, extraction, and growth that have led us into overshoot.<\/p>\n

The real need is not for better or more technologies but for honest acknowledgment of the biophysical limits we face and to engage in those difficult conversations about degrowth, simplification, relocalisation, and harm reduction; conversations that are foreclosed by those who profit from status quo arrangements, but also those with the best of intentions but continue to hold that more technology is our best pathway to pursue. Until we can face the anxiety and discomfort such conversations provoke and what it means for our future to accept limits and the harm we are exacerbating by chasing technological \u2018fixes\u2019, it seems we are destined to continue chasing the salvation stories. And with them, the acceleration of the \u2018collapse\u2019 they promise to avoid.<\/p>\n

Volume 1 can be found\u00a0here<\/a>. Volume 2\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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What is going to be my standard\u00a0WARNING\/ADVICE\u00a0<\/strong>going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:<\/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. 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<\/p>\n

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If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing,\u00a0please consider ordering the trilogy of my \u2018fictional\u2019 novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian)<\/strong>, via my website 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).<\/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).<\/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.<\/p>\n

Cost (Canadian dollars):
\nBook 1: $2.99
\nBook 2: $3.89
\nBook 3: $3.89
\nTrilogy: $9.99<\/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\u00a0https:\/\/paypal.me\/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me:\u00a0olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/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\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXIII We\u2019re NOT Saved! We\u2019re Making Our Predicaments Worse. This Contemplation is the sharing of the foreword to my latest collection of critiques of technological \u2018solutions\u2019 to our various predicaments. Foreword: We\u2019re Saved! Summing Up Volumes 1 & 2. The need to believe tomorrow will be like today and yesterday is […]<\/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":[22093,2327,2328,14221,34150,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-69614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-ecological-overshoot","tag-finite-planet","tag-infinite-growth","tag-societal-collapse","tag-techno-optimism","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69614","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=69614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69616,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69614\/revisions\/69616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}