Don't Forget to Seize the Day

 

Nuclear Jitters
by Joe Orlando of MAD Magazine

The tallest tree
The brightest star
Soon will all be gone.

Do not grieve
For all you see,
Nor woe this flesh and bone.
Nor woe this flesh and bone.

-- From Dust Will Write My Name by William Lee Ellis

Don't Forget to Seize the Day

I think of myself as a Doomer, not a Gloomer.

Yes, I think global civilization will suffer collapse in the near future. Yes, I think the suffering among our 8 billion souls will be horrific. Yes, I think extended Dark Ages are likely, if indeed we do not drive ourselves to extinction. Yes, I believe that prepperation, to the best of one's ability, is prudent.

But to live a life of fear and anxiety? Nah.

We're all mortal. The tallest tree. The brightest star. Soon will all be gone. Get over it.

At least, that's my advice. For the most part, I follow it.

This life - while we are alive - is brimming with hope and joy. We have choices open to us. We have friends, family, lovers. There is music and wine. There is the great, beautiful world all around us.

Same as it's ever been.

So, in the rush of assessments, preparations and learning curves in the face of the gathering storm, don't let it own us.

Let's not be that guy from Nuclear Jitters.

Gypsy Rules for Survival

Cruising Live-Aboards

 The sky became their canopy

The earth became their throne

And as their raiment ran to rags

They thought it nothing wrong

For earth and sky are robe enough

When you sing the Gypsy Song.

-- From Beggars to God by Bob Franke

Gypsy Rules for the Survival

The term Gypsy - our outsider's name for the Romani peoples - stirs in settled folk a feeling of nostalgia and sometimes unease. Nostalgia for their own, lost, nomadic past, whether real or imagined. Unease from xenophobia - fear of the stranger. As a consequence, the Rom have had to navigate many hostile centuries, yet largely kept their identity and cultures intact.

Live-aboards and shanty dwellers have much in common with them, to the point that we often share the Gypsy moniker. We too are mobile among those who would prefer to see us settled down. We too often have more in common among ourselves than with those ashore. We too live along a fringe; in the cracks, as it were.

The following Gypsy tips, or rules for survival/thrival appeared in a post by Ugo Bardi, plus a few gleaned elsewhere. I'll start with the bare list, which I've paraphrased, generalized, rearranged and loosely grouped in triads, then take them one by one. They're presented as 'rules', but consider them advice...


Be yourself.
Cultivate a free spirit.
Family First.

Protect your privacy.
Blow smoke.
Never stand and fight.

Stay mobile.
Live light, travel light.
Seize opportunity.

Cultivate know-how.
Minimize overheads.
Waste not.


*****


Okay... let's unpack 'em a bit:

Be Yourself

BE yourself! Don't yield to conformity. Homogeneity. The pressure to be like everyone else. To blend in. We are each of us unique in all the world. In all the Universe. Don't trade that away for love nor money!

To do so is to impoverish both ourselves and the world.


Cultivate a Free Spirit

Dance, sing, celebrate, make love! Never lose sight of the joy of living.

It's what makes it all worthwhile. What makes living more than mere survival.


Family First

Our family - be it your partner, your children, your kin or your tribe - are our first priority. our Family is our strength and well-being.

Invest yourself in them and theirs.




Protect your Privacy

Lots of folks are curious about how we live. But be cagey about what you tell whom. Not all of those interested are your friends. Detail can be used against you as gossip, rumor or as a pretext for official action.

Loose lips sink ships!


Blow Smoke

Mis-direction and mis-representation have their place, especially when dealing with officialdom. We want to appear as though we fit within the boxes on their forms, whether or not we do. We want to appear more settled and 'legit' than in fact we are.

Smoke and mirrors, my friends.


Never Stand and Fight

When in danger, when in doubt, hoist your sails and bugger out!  - Tristan Jones

Those dedicated to keeping freedom freedom-free tend to have the upper hand. To fight them is at best a full time job. At worst a losing proposition.

This is not to say that we shouldn't give due process a chance. But standing on principle come-what-may is a good way to lose our home, freedom and possibly more.

Consider moving along before push comes to shove.




Stay Mobile

Mobility has us ready to roll on a moment's notice. Extends our range of options and access to resources. Keeps us fresh in outlook. With mobility, we are not bound to the misfortunes of one place. Nor must we suffer a bad neighbor.

If not mobile, we are sitting ducks.


Live Light, Travel Light

Don't you carry nuthin' that might be a load. Ease on down, ease on down the road. - The Wiz

To live and travel lightly keeps us focused on essentials. This good advice has been passed on from the most ancient of Wise Ones to the most successful of present-day sailors.

Take what ya need and leave the rest.


Seize Opportunity

Make the most of good fortune. Recognize the Opportune Moment. Act decisively when a windfall comes your way.

Strike while the iron is hot!





Cultivate Know-How

DIY maintains our independence. Knowledge is portable, cannot be taken from us and makes us intrinsically valuable to others. What we can do is stock-in-trade.


Minimize Overheads

Overheads eat away at our substance. While we can never eliminate them entirely, we can keep them low.

The lower our overheads, the greater the return on any investment. The greater our freedom.

A penny saved is a penny earned.


Waste Not

We want to make full use of what we've acquired at cost. We often want to make full use of what others have neglected or abandoned.

Recycle, reuse, repurpose.

Thrifty does it...


*****


So there you have 'em. Rules for the Road from those who've been traveling a long time gone.

Like most advice of this nature, they're for our consideration. Take 'em or leave 'em. Adapt them to our unique situation. Add to them from any source we deem fit...

And ease on down the Road.







PS. Here are the original rules from Ugo Bardi's post, Survival Tips from the Gypsies, in order presented:

1. In battle, the best strategy is flight.
2. Don't carry and don't use weapons.
3. Cherish your mobility.
4. Travel light in life.
5. Cultivate creative obfuscation.
6. A man's family is his refuge.
7. What you learned to do yourself, can never be stolen.
8. Catch the occasion when you see it.  
9. Be jealous of your identity.
10. Be a free spirit.

Note:  I skipped number two in the preceding post. Definitely a point to consider seriously. It may be somewhat more context dependent than the others? Certainly, the use of a firearm against a human being is a choice fraught with consequence, however justified one may feel.

Musings on the Archdruid's Comments on Korowicz

One of many possible Tipping Points for Humpty

Cartoon by Tom Toles of the Washington Post

All the King's horses

And all the King's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again. 

Musings on the Archdruid's Comments on Korowicz

I am one who reads both the works of David Korowicz, with whom I largely agree, and John Michael Greer, with whom I largely disagree. They represent reasoned poles of the fast vs. slow collapse debate.

David Korowicz has written numerous papers examining Catastrophic Collapse (fast and deep). Principal among them is Trade-Off: A Study in Global Systemic Collapse. It's tough going, but well worth the effort.

He describes the global economy in systems terms.

The global system includes a handful of hubs - agriculture, energy, finance, IT, transport, water/sewage -  critical to the on-going function of the global system. All elements of the system are interdependent to some degree and most are dependent on one or more hubs. A failure in one element can spread to the next in a process called contagion. Failure of interdependent elements can infect a hub. Failure of any one hub brings down vast swathes of the system, and likely one or more others. Enough loss of function and the system collapses, fast and furious.

Historically, crises in the modern global system have been overcome by adaptive and  negative feedback mechanisms (directed and reflexive responses which curb runaway behaviors and ease the system toward normal function). But there are limits. He writes, "...our experiences of diverse system collapses, albeit on a smaller scale, should warn us to be cautious in our assumptions.

Korowicz builds his case and concludes that the global system is stressed and near a tipping point, beyond which contagion spreads at an accelerating rate which overwhelms available response mechanisms, and the system as a whole fails.

Okay... what does Greer think?

John Michael Greer blogs eloquently at thearchdruidreport.com, and has proposed a theory of Catabolic Collapse (slow and staged in the Long Descent). This theory is founded on the assumption that history is a reliable guide to the future, specifically in respect to the rise and fall of civilizations.

In his post, The Far Side of Denial, he devotes a large portion to an effort to rebut the Fast Collapse conclusions of Trade-Off.

In essence, he argues that some combination of actions and effects can and will always halt runaway collapse on the scale of a civilization. Always has, always will. No reason to think it's different this time.

Greer concurs with Korowicz' assessment of current affairs and that collapse is imminent or underway. He differs in that he believes that responsive actions and mechanisms limit the drop. That multiple collapses will continue in more or less descending, stair-step fashion, playing out over generations.

To my mind, his rebuttal misses the mark. I will argue that a) capacity to arrest collapse is limited , b) Korowicz addresses actions that might be attempted and c) we are in historically uncharted waters.

Greer supplies the historical example of the systemic US banking crises of 1932/33, introducing the crux of his rebuttal. He writes:

It’s the sequel, though, that didn’t get into Korowicz’ analysis. Faced with the imminent reality of national collapse, the US government did not sit on its hands, which is what those with the capacity to do something are always required to do in fast collapse theories.
...
A nation facing collapse, it bears remembering, has plenty of options, and it also has the means, motive, and opportunity to use them.

First, in fast collapse theories, it is definitely not required that anyone sit on their hands. One the contrary Korowicz (among others) anticipates a great deal of effort to recover, contain or regroup once a tipping point occurs. But his analysis indicates that, beyond a certain threshold, these efforts are insufficient. Crises spread faster than damage control mechanisms can cope, thier own systems failing as the crisis deepens.

In this quoted passage, Greer is challenging Korowicz' assessment that "governments will respond to the crisis by choosing the minimal option they think will solve the immediate problem" (JMG's paraphrase). He considers this an assumption, rather than a conclusion.

Yet, taken in context Korowicz concludes that governments are unlikely to take decisive action in advance of a crisis, and lag behind a rapidly unfolding one. This itself has plenty of historical precedent.

Korowicz  explicitly discusses inhibitions to prior action and several drastic response approaches (historically more or less effective) with detailed analysis of why they would come up short should the global system tip. He further examines radical approaches that have never been tried and finds them wanting.

In other words, he very much includes action on the part of those able to act.

I'll stipulate that a nation (aware that it is) facing collapse has plenty of options and motives to use them. But are those options both viable and sufficient to the task? Unproven at best. Past success is no guarantor of future success. Many of the options available in past crises are long gone from the table.

Future options are unspecified and can only be guessed at. At best, they are likely to be improvisational (see Greer's 'kluged together response' from his defibrillation analogy, below).

Means? Maybe; but in many cases doubtful. Means to avert some threats are physically out of reach, some technically so and others would break the bank.

Opportunity? There's the little matter of adequate time. Responses require time. In any given crisis there is but a window of opportunity before responders are overwhelmed.

That these allusions to unspecified 'drastic' options 'bear remembering' presuppose Greer's conclusion, and fail to address Korowicz' well-developed and explicit arguments to the contrary.

It is insufficient capacity to stabilize a tipped system which implies fast collapse after a tipping point.

Should the system tip and hubs fail, those who might act are in the dark without power. Lost without communication.  Immobile without transport. Starving without food or water. Blind, toothless and very soon struggling to survive. Yesterday's plenty languishing undeliverable. Tomorrow's waiting for the smoke to clear.

Capacity degrades even as opportunity slams shut. Like the rest of us, all the King's horses and all the King's men are constrained by the resources on hand..

Is the past a reliable guide to the future in terms of fast vs. slow collapse?

Greer's assumption that 'nothing is (fundamentally) different  this time' dismisses critical technologies that demonstrably and fundamentally alter the contexts through which historiical events must pass.

To pick one example, in 1859, the Carrington Event (high magnitude solar storm) caused telegraph systems around the world to fail and spark, causing many fires. Telegraph wires acted as antennas, capturing enough energy to exceed limits.

Before about 1850, the Event would have had little to no impact whatsoever, as telegraph technology had not yet become widespread. By 1859 its impact was profound. Now... well. Now we're wired.

Sophisticated circuitry doesn't hold up nearly as well as telegraph wire.We might have the means to shield all our vital electrical and electronics (as one might against EMP). But we haven't yet shown the will. In another such event we'd certainly develop that will.

But all the King's horses and all the King's men would arrive too late with too little. Would Humpty merely suffer a few cracks, or be reduced to egg drop soup? The past cannot rule the latter out.

Clearly, to state that X has never happened does not mean it can't or won't. Or that we survived a previous (superficially) similar event, so we will survive the next. All history plays out in context. Solutions to previous problems cannot be simply repeated. Cause and effect propagate differently as linkages change.

New technologies create new conditions:

They multiply the number of interacting parts, (inter)dependenciesparts and overall complexity. They supplant historical infrastructures - organic agriculture, beasts of burden, localized economies. They interrupt or degrade the transmission of skills all but lost after a single generation's hiatus. They supplant and degrade whole ecosystems. They expose us to dangers our species never imagined, much less faced.

Change the context (system), change the flow of history. In matters of kind, quantity, complexity and tempo, we live in a changed world. Despite historical resemblances, guidance and intact commonalities, we are in new and uncharted territory.

***** 

Greer concludes with the following (emphasis mine):

Korowicz’ study points to one very plausible way that the next major round of crisis could slam into the industrial world. The fact that the nations affected by it could kluge together responses to it, slap the equivalent of defibrillator paddles onto their prostrate economies, and get a heartbeat again for the time being doesn’t change the fact that a financial collapse followed by even a partial supply chain breakdown would be a massive crisis, the sort of thing that could well plunge hundreds of millions of people into permanent poverty and push the global economy further down a long ragged decline that will be much less amenable to drastic responses.  We’re in agreement, in effect, that the patient is terminally ill; the question is simply whether first aid measures available to the paramedics on site can get his heart beating again, so he can drag out the dying process for a while longer.

 As a paramedic I feel this analogy (patient in cardiac arrest) is apt, but weighs in against Greer's thesis..

It is not at all a 'fact' that defibrillation, even at the hands of skilled technicians, can reliably 'get his heart beating again', much less a "kluged together response". Nor is it sufficient. Once a patient tips over into cardiac arrest, they are in crisis with severe danger of whole system collapse.

Absent prompt, correct action and well managed recovery, the patient will likely die in very short order.

Here's the concluding analogy from Trade-Off:

Collectively, it is like we are passengers traveling in an unimaginably complex plane locked onto a perilous course. Our understanding of the engine and guidance system is partial, nor do we know many of the connections between them. We may want to change course by retooling the guidance system, but there is a meaningful risk it will stall the engine, and we’ll plummet to the ground. Good risk management might argue that before repairs are done, we ensure the passengers have parachutes, but time is running out, maybe it already has.

Greer presumes a Horn of Plentiful Options to intervene should this plane begin to plummet He appeals to the authority of the past.I can't follow him there. But...

Collapse - fast or slow - is the unproven negative until it happens.

We all come to believe, one way or another. Life is an act of faith. I believe the value of debate is refinement one's understanding. Through debate, we may confirm our conclusions, be persuaded of our opponents' or be inspired to new possibilities.

My advice is to prepare for the worst (fast collapse), hope for the best (slow collapse) and take what comes with prepperation!







For more on the Carrington event, see NASA news and analysis. In 2012, a solar storm of similar magnitude narrowly missed the earth.

How Systems Collapse: Human Body Analogy

 

...Slowly, at first, then all at once.

-- Dmitry Orlov

How Systems Collapse: The Human Body Analogy

I would say that most persons who entertain the notion of Collapse picture some version of Slow Collapse. Aka Catabolic Collapse aka the Long Descent.

Those of us who foresee Fast Collapse appear to be a distinct minority.

I read on-line that many cannot imagine the complete failure of a system as vast and complex as the Global Industrial Economy, along with its embedded Global Civilization. It seems too big to fail. They will not let it collapse!

Here to help you imagine is the example of the Human Body, a vast (trillions of cells), highly evolved, Complex Adaptive System.

Our human body is as familiar to us as...  well... as the back of our own hand. That it ages, suffers illness and trauma, wears out important parts... none of this surprises us. That the body is mortal is dead certain.

Bodily systems typically decline over years in a process one might think of as Slow Collapse. Arteries harden. Muscle mass is lost. Bones weaken. The mind's reach shortens. Whether one is a Yogic Master or couch potato, age takes its toll. Decline may be faster or slower, but it is relentless. We may suffer deficits or enjoy partial recoveries, but from conception, entropy holds us in its dissipating grip.

Illness or trauma can degrade or damage particular limbs, organs or systems. Our immune, digestive, cardio-pulmonary, neurological systems – to name a few – can slow and stutter.

We are borne in stages toward our final crisis.

The eventual mechanism of our demise is uncertain, but the prognosis is not. Sooner or later, some break-down – large or small – will abruptly escalate to total system failure. Whether from a state of good health or struggling with diminished function, when the crisis comes, our system is tipped from being a massively intricate, integrated, living body, to a collection of dis-integrated cells dying in isolation.

For example, cardiac collapse begins with a small system failure (blood supply, electrical signal, valve failure, etc.). Once the 'pump' stops, blood is neither oxygenated nor distributed throughout the body. Cellular waste products are neither transported nor processed. Even with CPR, the system is going downhill fast. Organs, dependent on the heart's function, degrade or fail. Bodily elements, dependent on those organs degrade and fail.

Without prompt, correct, decisive intervention (and most often even with that advantage), the patient undergoes Fast Collapse.

TEOTWAKI.

There are many ways to come to terms with mortality. Seize the day. Eat, drink and be merry. Reach out in love to those around us. Far from paralyzing us, the prospect of our personal finitude can be a catalyst to live. And so might it be with global Collapse of Civilization. The fact of mortality itself needn't lead us to throw in the towel.

Point is, we're all too familiar with Fast Collapse in highly evolved, complex adaptive systems.

In terms of the human body, we understand the mechanisms of collapse far better than its workings. In terms of the industrial economy, we understand neither, for all our economic theory. What we do understand of systems is that they can be driven out of their range of stability, and become vulnerable to catastrophic collapse.

Fast Collapse is not simply some pessimistic, Doomerish nay say, per se, to be dismissed with the lifting of a skeptical brow. It's not Schadenfreude, delighting in Goetterdeamerung. It's not even a narrative, competing with others for prime time. Instead, it is an argument based on the doings and undoings of complex adaptive systems.

The prime mission of this blog is to lay out that systems theoretic argument in an accessible manner. To that end, I'll be presenting Systems Theory for Doomies in following posts, along with renditions of the major, systems based arguments supporting Fast Collapse.

And why?

Fast Collapse calls for very different preparation measures than does Slow Collapse. While no preparation guarantees success; no preparation might very well guarantee failure.

Go not gently into that good night!

Pascal's Wager, Adapted for Prepperation

Calvin's Wager
by Bill Watterson

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then?
-- From Pensees by Blaise Pascal

To make a choice is to change the future.
-- Deepak Chopra


Pascal's Wager, Adapted for Prepperation

Blaise Pascal considered the question of how a rational person, in the absence of proof, should wager (bet) with respect to God's existence. It is an early example of decision theory.

Paraphrased (and stripped to bare bones), the argument runs like this:

If God does not exist, belief in Him costs one little.
If God does exist, disbelief costs one much.
Therefore,  it is rational to wager that He does exist, and act accordingly.

Let's restate that in terms of Collapse:

If Collapse is not coming, preparation costs one little.
If Collapse is coming, lack of preparation costs one much.
Therefore, it is rational to wager that Collapse is coming, and prepare accordingly.

Wanna bet?

An Aspect Ratio Component to Collapse?

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.
-- Proverb



An Aspect Ratio Component to Collapse?

Over the years, I've seen a number of buildings collapse.

Some take years, slowly kneeling - like a dying elephant - before collapsing gently in place. Others stand proud - losing a bit, here and there, to wind and weather - then, one day to the next, they collapse with a roar.

It dawns on me that aspect ratio is a pretty good predictor of which it will be. Buildings which are short for their footprint ease themselves to the ground. Those which are tall for their footprint go down fast and hard. Think the Pyramids vs the Twin Towers.

If this a property of systems in general, we might wonder what aspect ratio describes our global industrial civilization?

A subsistence  farmer might be described as low aspect. Aside from a few necessities - salt and iron are often all that's needed - all necessities are provided from the footprint. In contrast, a corporate farm cannot be worked without constant supply from the outside world (machinery, fuel, fertilizer, seed, a market, etc...), and a critical failure can bring operations to a halt. I'd consider that high aspect.

Even more so in the case of cities. 

Cities are utterly dependent on the uninterrupted flow of goods, services, material and personnel from well outside its footprint. In some cases from a world away. Very high aspect in our half-urban world.

I'm just sayin'.

Belated Musings on Christmas vs. Predatory Capitalism

Mr. Potter, what makes you such a hard-skulled character? 

You have no family, no children. 

You can't begin to spend all the money you've got.

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob” faltered Scrooge.

“Business!” cried the Ghost,,,. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

-- From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickins

Belated Musings on Christmas vs. Predatory Capitalism

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and the movie It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra are polemics against rampant Capitalism... that profit-before-all economic machine that commodifies everything it touches. Churns resources to garbage. Creates profit rather than wealth and moves that from the commons to the pockets of so very few.

In these classics, we see two poster-boys of Capitalism, neither of whom would seem the least reprehensible to today's 'Captains of Industry' and 'Financial Wizards'.

In Scrooge, we see a man possessing all the lauded virtues of entrepreneurial endeavor. His is thrifty, yet knows when to 'take risks'. Shrewd, but 'honest'. Punctual, and fulfilling his contracts. A 'good man of business'.

But not one whit more.

He cheats himself of love and companionship. Blinds himself to those impoverished – at least in part - by those systems of law and property which have enabled his enrichment. Scoffs at liberality (“...are there no Prisons?”). His employee – paid no more than what the market will bear – is barely scratching out a living for himself and family.

Still, his is a mere shortage of empathy and kindness; his indifference is, in a sense, passive.

The three Spirits who visit him show him a past, present and future in which his profits profit him not. Re-envisioning his role as a capitalist, he is redeemed, and the world better for it.

Potter, on the other hand, is an active perpetrator... a 'monopoly capitalist' or Robber Baron.

He is a slumlord who manipulates markets and his business environment, and undermines his competition. “Bearing down hard”, he uses financial leverage to coerce his “lazy, shiftless populace” of neighbors toward a “hard-working and thrifty working class”. Though a board member of Bailey Building and Loan, he literally steals $8,000 and frames George Bailey for malfeasance.

Yet, again with the aid of a spirit, we visit the dystopic Pottersville, a nightmare of heartless capitalism run amok. Alienation, desperation and the triumph of the market is the result of finance divorced from human values.

Both Scrooge and Potter are capitalist paragons. Intelligent, decisive, determined, and above all, successful. They issue credit by the numbers and foreclose to their own advantage, unencumbered by charitable weakness. Yet, neither – at least before his eyes are opened – is a paragon of mankind.

It's notable that, in neither story, are the Market nor even Capital themselves in question.

'Liberal' businessmen solicit Scrooge for charitable donations. The London markets are described in mouth-watering terms. The Bailey Savings and Loan (Potter's opposite) is capitalist to the core. Supply and demand are axiomatic in both.

Yet both were written to implore a return to Adam Smith's "enlightened self-interest" - the awareness that one benefits from the weal of one's neighbors, community and nation.

I've quoted the word 'liberal', here, and one might well introduce the term 'social(ist)', words much reviled at this apex of a long, bull run.

Year after year, we revisit these stories. Regardless of where we sit on the political spectrum, we empathize with the same protagonists. Fan, Belle, Fizziwig, the Crachitts. The Baileys and all of Bedford Falls. We react to the same antagonists. Scrooge, with hope and gladness for his redemption. Potter, our sympathy for his paraplegia tempered by the unrepentant smallness of his soul.

There is no argument about whether Scrooge and Potter are simply misunderstood. No one would prefer Pottersville to Bedford Falls. None think Tiny Tim earned an early demise, nor that his family earned one for him. None feel that George Bailey, in the end, wasted his life.

Can we agree, beyond the Christmas season, that there is more to life than profit? May we not strive  for more humane, inclusive systems of finance?

The Arctic: God's Watching

Hunh, SNORT! Who's to say what's 'normal'?
- Climate Change Skeptic who'd just sailed the NW Passage

NASA graphics are a good reference to fight climate change denial. Of course, sometimes you also have to counter willful blindness and or a simple failure of brain to interpret data coming in through eyes.
- Robert Scribbler


The Arctic: Slip-Sliding Away

So I'm talking with this guy off a pretty nice boat of modest size. Seems he was working his way down the west coast of Alaska after his Northwest Passage. Yes, that one. The one that claimed so many lives in their vain attempts to make the traverse across the top of the Americas.

He wasn't a trailblazer, mind you - more of a retired, upper middle management type. Took a couple of months to motor through, with no problems. Had a great trip. Skipping along a now fairly well trodden path.

"Well," says I, glibly, "I guess climate change is good for something."

Notice, I didn't even say global warming. Nevertheless, a sudden chill descended upon our conversation.

"Hmph. If you believe in that sort of thing!"

 "Um... you just completed the fabled Northwest Passage."

"So?"

"So it's been closed for all of human history. Doesn't its being open suggest that climate patterns are deviating from our epoch's norm?"

"Hunh!", he snorted, "Who's to say what's 'normal'?"

We backed away from one another, each in wary albeit civil retreat. Each of us likely thinking don't try to teach a pig to sing... won't work and it annoys the pig.

*****


Okay. I get that TEOTWAWKI is a stretch for many to swallow. That there might be Limits to Growth. That technology might not ride to the rescue forever.

But to deny that the world's climate is warming?

I mean, we have cameras in space. They take pictures, send them back and we get to see the Northwest Passage, open from one end to the other. And much, much more. This is not a matter of ideology or propaganda. This is not researchers drumming up grant funding.

Who's to say what's normal??

How about Arctic Peoples who have lived along its frozen shores - and even upon its frozen surface - since time out of mind?

Or maybe, by 'normal' he was taking a longer view? MUCH longer? Beyond the tenure of our species?

How does one reconcile a belief that the planet is not warming, with one's personal experience of open, Arctic waters?

*****

The Watchmaker Analogy runs like this:

You are traversing a wilderness, where none have gone before. You notice a strange object, lying on the ground, and you pick it up. It's a watch. It shows the correct time, it's second hand marking the beats of your heart.

Obviously, this is an artifact. It could not have grown here, being inorganic. It could not have sprung, by chance, into spontaneous existence.

We infer a Watchmaker.

By analogy, we - finding ourselves enmeshed in a world of fantastic intricacy - are to infer God.

So, when we look at the melting face of His great Artifact...

Are we to infer His pleasure?

Spooky...

Planet Petri Dish

Spooky...

Since Y2K, nothing with an associated date has concerned me more than any other. But this year... I'm picking up a vibe.

Nothing particular stands out. 

We're skittering along the usual up and down slopes at accelerating speed. Oscillations are getting wilder, but we've grown to expect that. Abundance is slipping away from us, but there's still (nearly) half of everything left, isn't there? 

All this has seemed critical for decades - a small interval in history. No particular reason to think it might go bust this year.

But something's in the wind...

Many observers who've never committed themselves to a prediction are restless. Lowing and milling in our courses. Spooked.

Many who've reliably cheerled the the team with rah-rahs of Growth! Excelsior! Never better, thank you very much! are entering 2015 with the jitters. A dim perception of trouble brewing is coming to a simmer.

Could be the return of nuclear posturing among the heavy hitters. Could be the emergence of Ebola (still a Level IV pathogen), and it's potential escape into the wider Third World. Could be the death throes of American Empire. Could be the spectre of Islamic fundamentalist unrest threatening the heart of Middle East oil kingdoms. Could be the financial meltdown threatened by fiat money, global debt, untamed derivatives, shift of reserve currency, etc.. Could be 'climate change', from CO2 or jacked up on perma-frost methane release. Could be any number of unmonitored threats stemming from fouling our petri dish.

The sense - or realization - that we  have lost control - is waxing pandemic. Global symptoms of Collapse, with which we've lived our entire lives, have grown feverish and are nearing convulsive intensity.

In terms of Limits to Growth type projections - a graphic of which banners this blog - we are just now leaving the give-or-take margins of uncertainty flanking the cusp of our arc. One or both feet are now firmly planted on the slippery slope of the catastrophic Seneca Cliff (or catabolic Long Descent, if you prefer).

What does this mean for ourselves?

Time to double-check our preparations. Gather our Tribe. Get our affairs in order. Make our peace. Maybe say our good-byes. None of this can hurt.

It could be just another year of everything getting worse for most folks...

But could be feelin' the tremblor, before the Big One, that puts the birds to flight.

It IS Different This Time

This is a poor graph, I admit... scales to left an right of the 'peak' are not consistent.
My Bad.

The overfamiliar cry of “but it’s different this time!” is popular, it’s comforting, but it’s also irrelevant. Of course it’s different this time; it was different every other time, too. Neolithic civilizations limited to one river valley and continental empires with complex technologies have all declined and fallen in much the same way and for much the same reasons.

-- From TheArchdruidReport by John Michael Greer

Here, he's speaking of 'Cornucopians' but same goes for 'Doomers'

It IS Different This Time

Let me start by stating that I am a fan of the writings of John Michael Greer, the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America, and avidly follow his blog, thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.

I find his thinking and presentation clear, his knowledge of history wide-ranging and that his ruminations run deep. He never fails to widen my horizons, nor to stimulate a flurry of fact-checking (almost all of which holds up, btw... rare exceptions are subject to interpretation), cross-reference and further readings.

My cup o' tea!

So it is with the greatest respect that I venture to differ with one of his central assumptions; that  nothing is different this time.

Greer proposes an explanation of How Civilizations Fall: A theory of Catabolic Collapse:

At a certain, peak moment, an ascendant culture's accumulating assets become too expensive to maintain with available resources. Some assets are converted to waste (let go) in a period of contraction, beginning a long period of descent. 

'Assets' everything from institutions, mores, hierarchy and education to infrastructure to soil fertility. 'Waste' may involve the overthrow of dynasties, debasing of currencies and crumbling or abandoned infrastructure to retreat, defeat and/or revolution.

Contractions are typically (though not necessarily) chaotic, involuntary and violent.

Following each contraction, a temporarily affordable equilibrium is reached at a lower level, and things even out for a while, with perhaps partial recovery. But, so long as no new resources become available, the cycle repeats in a downward trend, following a generally stair-step trajectory.

This theory arguably accounts for the (rise and) fall trajectories of historical civilizations. 

The question arises, does this theory predict the course of our own collapse, or are things different this time?

Greer, himself, is dismissive of the notion, and considers our civilization to be fundamentally the same as all its predecessors. In his view, it will collapse, and follow a similar, stair-step trajectory of slow descent into coming Dark Ages.  

Here is an evocative sample he provides of the narrative one might expect for our future Long Descent, analogous to those of the past.

I, myself, believe the are fundamental differences between our present and historical cases, and that the collapse will be catastrophic (I guess that makes me a 'Doomer').
 
A contraction can only 'fetch up' at the next lower step while its survivors possess assets which are both sufficient and viably intact at a lower level of function. 

To fundamentally change our situation from those past in ways that make us vulnerable non-catabolic, catastrophic collapse, there must be non-trivial differences which render our fall-back assets insufficient and/or non-viable.

So what's new? Here's a minimal list, for starters:



The Global Economy

For the first time in human history, the economies of the world are fused into a single, global dynamic, utterly dependent on continuity and collectively continuous growth to maintain its vital functions.

Production is widely distributed, with markets and essential components found half a world away from one another. Energy flows ditto. Communications are networked via surface, sub-surface and satellite connections.

Complex systems - such as the global economy - are chaotic. That is to say, resistant to successful modelling, subject to the Butterfly Effect, strange attractors, abrupt phase shifts.

They tend to be robust, so long as a critical set of vital nodes (aka hubs) continue to function. But, should one of these fail, a series of cascading failures can be (with very high likelihood) set in motion which destabilize the system, leading to a system crash.

Add to this the effects of economic dependency on unlimited growth within the closed system  of planet earth. All growth is exponential.

Until it isn't.


Technology

Unique to the modern era, our civilization is supported by a suite of interdependent technologies which, in the event of sufficient interruption, can neither be 're-booted' nor function in a contracted environment.

Technical expertise has become ever more specialized, with the effect of rendering the implementation and maintenance of all core systems a vast, team effort. At the same time, these teams are ever more dependent on the tools they service, and the environment in which those services function.

Production has become ever more dependent on inter-linked technologies which are themselves far beyond the reach of the human artisan.

A power grid is one example. 

Power grids distribute necessary electrical power for virtually all aspects of modern civilization. This includes their own, continued operation. Communication and control of the grid itself depend on some unknown but considerable level of grid function.

Should even momentary, grid-wide failure occur, reboot (black start) is a delicate matter whose success is not assured. Should the down period extend, every hour decreases the chances of a successful reboot, as support systems (such as parts deliveries) degrade for lack of power.

Other, codependent technologies would fail as well, further disrupting reboot efforts.

To reconstruct the grid at a lower level of function, or even break it into gridlets, would require massive changes, by specialists, to existing soft-, hard- and firmware, unsupported by grid power. Not a chewing gum and baling wire operation. 


That's the point.


Food and Farmers

Historically, even the most technologically advanced civilizations were built on a preponderant majority of farmers and countryfolk whose tools, methods, seedstocks and know-how were able (by and large) to withstand the upheavals of catabolic collapse. Each tread in their civilization's long descent relied on those assets.

Our codependent, global economy cum civilization, in contrast - through a succession of green revolutions which put world food production on a petroleum footing, hybridized most primary seedstocks, mechanized virtually all farming tasks, encouraged monoculture and long distance transport - has fundamentally, albeit temporarily, altered the historical relationship between food producers and civilization.

Should the current, interlocked, computerized and satellited systems of fuel / power, transport and finance fail for any extended period at all, current crops will fail and/or languish in the field for lack of labor, fertilizer and pesticide and transport, far from their markets. Hybrids revert to diminished parent stocks. Irrigation systems fail. 

Especially in the First World, farmers themselves will face malnutrition, even in the midst of monocrop abundance. Even where (non-hybrid) seedstock is on hand, the interval between seed and harvest is a long one, with initial output vastly diminished.

Farms are no longer subsistent. Farmerfolk have not preserved, by and large, the country skills that once saw themselves and others through each round of contracted equilibrium. The ways and means lie, for the most part, some three to four generations past in the First World, and considerable losses in the remainder.

We can no more return directly from present practice to viable, organic farming than peasant farmers of the past could return directly to viable hunter-gathering. The tools and skill-sets are different, and the learning curve that separates them, vast.

And when city folk go hungry, farmlands no longer spread around their walls.


Population Mass and Urban Concentration

The planet's population of some 7 billion+ human beings is now half-urban (54%).

By contrast, 1800 saw roughly 1 billion souls (roughly double world population at the height of Rome, and less than presently live in China or India) of whom only 3% were urban dwellers.

Another way to put it: in 1800, 97 persons embedded in a rural economy supported 3 persons embedded in an urban economy. Now, less than 3 rurals support those 3 urbans.

In the event of systemic disruption, sheer weight of numbers will exacerbate any collapse via resource exhaustion / pressure and competition by the living and putrefaction of the dead.

Cities are, for the most part, serviced by long chain and Just In Time logistics. Without constant resupply, limited food-on-hand is quickly consumed. Two choices: fight for what's left, or fan out into adjacent countryside (which is not necessarily farmland).

My guess is that the cities will first implode, then explode.

Much of the world's core business is conducted within, or orchestrated from cities (finance, ports, fuel terminals, communications, etc.) . They go down, and world commerce goes with them.

As the cities tear themselves and surroundings apart, another indisputably novel factor comes into play. 


Resource Depletion

Numerous surface and near-surface resources - in particular fossil fuels and metals - have been extracted well past the reach of even marginally lower levels of technology and economy. 

Generally speaking, EROEI for what remains is presently 'uneconomic' despite all our current material and procedural advantages. If dilute concentrations (low yield deposits or tailings) are not affordably recoverable, they are in practice unavailable.

Below some unknown but certain point, contractions must needs exist within a salvage/scavenge mineral budget, with entropic losses at each recycle. Fossil fuels aren't recyclable, and would cease to be an option.

In addition, energy requirements for such recycling - absent accessible, concentrated energy - make industrial scales unlikely. Furthermore, in such a transition, industrial infrastructure would require re-tooling on a massive scale; requiring energy and a highly functional industrial environment, neither of which - at least below the point mentioned above - would pertain.


Nuclear Situation

The northern hemisphere is now liberally salted with nuclear reactors. 

Without constant, specialized service, high-tech resupply and continuous flow of coolant (water + grid power or fuel), the majority of them will undergo irremediable LOCAs (Loss Of Coolant Accidents), releasing radioactive debris into widespread air- and watersheds.

No prior civilization has faced an analogous pitfall in the course of its descent.


*****


Greer's theory of Catabolic Collapse posits collapse as inevitable, and here, we agree. 

Its prediction of stair-step, long descent, however, relies on the assumption that nothing fundamental has changed in the current civilization. That the future is analogous to the past.

But, if any of the above-listed considerations are true (along with others one might add), it IS different this time. Fundamentally, non-trivially different.

A stair-step, Long Descent may still be possible.  

If vital technologies and services can be kept running continuously through several cycles of contraction, they might be incrementally curtailed. Eventually, by this means, they could reach the lower-tech levels that would allow them the luxury of intermittency and eventual, sub-catastrophic demise.  Populations might incrementally reduce, and rural assets might regain ascendency. Nuclear plants might be safely decommissioned and their wastes stored for long-term, low to zero maintenance.

But, without a widely distributed set of assets which can be reconfigured and simplified under extreme duress; with a glut of vulnerable populations with no immediate means of support beyond the functioning global economy; without some implemented, passive alternative to nuclear plant coolant systems... well... Humpty Dumpty sits on a wall.

Should a trigger event initiate irrecoverable, cascading failures in a core system - the pillars of our civilization become dominoes. And the next step downward from here is so spaced as to ensure a tumble.

It appears to me that - rather than an inevitable repetition of historical process - the Long Descent is but one, rather remote possibility we now face among a crowd of abrupt, catastrophic likelihoods.

Watch that first step... it's a doozy! 




NOTE: The problem with growth - doubling every so often - is that ONE doubling period prior to full saturation of whatever medium, the cup only appears half full... all of human history and we've only used up half of what's available. Especially the easy access, low hanging fruit.

For the first time, it appears that we are at - or past - the halfway point.

Will it take all of historical time to use up the remainder? Or merely one more doubling period, currently estimated to be within the half-century range?

My guess is that - in this sense - the collapse of civilizations is more logarithmic than catabolic.

 

Goodbye Baby, and The Short Arm of the Law

Rock-a-bye, Baby, in the tree top.

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.

And down will come Baby, cradle and all.

Goodbye Baby, and The Short Arm of the Law

A goodly number of my fellow TEOTWinkies are concerned about Big Brother (Government, Corporate Interests, IMF, WTO, Oligarchs... you choose). 

Me? Not so much.

We have two friends, one an eX-CoastGuard, and the other eX-RightWingNut. Both extremely intelligent, well-informed and capable. But they have diametrically opposed takes on Big Brother and his capabilities.

XRWN: Big Brother is damn near omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Come SHTF, they will terminate 'undesirables' with extreme prejudice, round the remainder into internment/work camps for 'safe-keeping' and comb the back-country for 'malingerers'.

XCG: Big Brother can't find its own ass, nor discern shit from shinola. If it does crush someone, it's likely collateral damage from some other operation gone wrong. In rare cases, the operation going wrong is targeting those involved, but the actual result is SNAFU, and always back-fires.

It's been amusing to me, over the years, to see how the onrush of data supports one side or the other. And I've got to say, XCG is winning by a mile.

Big Brother IS a Conspiracy, of sorts. A lot of conniving SOBs are colluding diligently to line their own pockets and eradicate anything or anyone that gets in the way of sucking the world dry. And at this, they are fabulously successful. They work together where it profits them.

But they're not all working to line the same pockets - they compete with one another for the plunder. And this creates turbulence. Dare I say teotwurbulence?

One has only to look at history of the last century to date to see the colossal ineptitude of Big Brother. Afghanies, in just the last score of decades, have managed to repel four invasions by three of history's Biggest, most powerful Brothers.

But look deeper...

There's also the Conspiracy of Life. That yeasty ferment that booms unto bust. Growth to the limits; a stunning vista; the plunge.

Human conspiracies of greed and power are but manifestations of that froth. Pale, predictable and pointless.

It has crowded our species- all 7 billion of us -out onto a slender limb of our planet's carrying capacity. We've spent the last several centuries sawing away at that limb, and now we are over halfway through. Splintering sounds fill the air.

And when the bough breaks, the cradle (of civilization) will fall.

But you knew that.

*****

So what does this mean for after it's fallen?

Well, last I looked, extensive planning and logistics are required for the least coordinated military option. An army travels on its stomach. A mechanized army travels on its fuel tank.

In a hard landing, logistics come to a screeching halt. If resources aren't lying around, waiting to be appropriated, search and internment forces of any scale will be dead-in-the-water. 

How will fuel get from well to refinery to Hummer? With what will troops be fed? Paid? How to recover or replace deserters headed home to stand by their loved ones? How to incentivize them to fan out into the dangerous boonies in hot pursuit of the lunatic fringe?

Given that 90% of us (a conservative figure) are concentrated in urban or sub-urban communities, one can bet that any resources they can muster will be directed at high-priority, urban targets.

Oh sure, we on the fringe might get crushed by the flailing colossus as it goes down. Our local police or National Guard may well become the local warlord + militia, with a 'go mission', our address and a local sense of eminent domain. But that's Little Brother, and another matter...   

Big Brother, I'm not too worried about.