Tweeting the Future: Thoughts toward Launching a Meme

Seeding a Tree of Knowledge

Where once there was a void,
Now at least there are
Seeds of splendor,
Becalmed belief for another time.
 by Scott Hastie

Tweeting the Future: Thoughts toward Launching a Meme

Okay. So let's assume it's going down hard with a long, dark age ahead, on the order of centuries to millennia. Let's say we want to send a message to our descendants, if any. How might we send it, and what might we say?

Given that high tech media are not likely to survive, we're stuck with lower tech options:

• Social trasmission (institutional, hermetic, tribal, ???)
• Focused oral tradition (memorized) -- (songs, poems, stories, ???)
• The written word (engravings, impressions, durable books, ???)
• All of the above

In all cases, I consider it useful to think in terms of memes, ideas which are 'copied' in one or more media (including human mind and society). I'll speak of our message as a single meme, but it is more likely to be a set of memes.

A meme's success, per se, is determined by:

• Fecundity (high rate of copies) – Tell all your friends! Tell them now! Get them to do the same!
• Fidelity (accuracy with which it is copied) – Hi fidelity gets a message across, while low fidelity soon drifts from its intent (think the game of Rumor aka Telephone).
• Longevity (how long the meme is able to generate copies) – We're still reading the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Code of Hammurabi.

So how might we maximize the odds? Do we send out the naked meme as a podcast and hope it takes? Do we manipulate the message for better transmission? Or even 'encapsulate' it in a vessel (a book, say), that itself contributes to transmission? Or hitch-hike on an already successful tradition? Do we establish a medium, such as a hermetic sect?

My thoughts are evolving along these lines:

• The message should be fashioned concisely in 'scriptural', poetic language using simple, non-technical language. Prose? A poem? A song (the tune of Greensleeves is an ancient, musical meme)?
• It should be inspirational, and at best, useful (possibly as a teaching tool or mnemonic) during transition, both currently and in the midst of a dark age.
• It should be written in durable, portable book form, and also inscribed in stone and/or impressed in fired clay (or equivalent).
• Publication, distribution, memorization, transmission and discussion should be encouraged from the outset.

Scriptures are a tried-and-true method for bringing a body of information through difficult times with good fidelity. They replicate through both written and focused oral traditions, and are abetted by diffuse oral traditions (e.g., schools of propagation, discussion and debate). The feeling of higher purpose associated with scripture improves fecundity and fidelity.

If it is beautifully and compellingly written, it is more likely to have high fecundity. Especially so if it is inspirational and/or useful to persons immersed in a dark age. These should be goals at the composition stage.

Concision is a virtue on all fronts... being shorter, it requires less mental and physical resources for copying (improved fecundity), and is less likely to incur copy errors (fidelity). If it is more often copied into smaller, relatively portable physical media, longevity is enhanced.

Physical media which are both durable and beautifully crafted increase longevity. Holy books which are beautifully bound and illuminated are valuable property simply as objects, protected and treasured regardless of belief in their contents. Many have survived for centuries.

So let's look at some content/format possibilities...

Richard Feynman proposed this single, ingenious sentence, which 'unfolds', under careful inquiry, to yield all of physics (with all other hard sciences implied):

“...All things are made of atoms – little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little apart, but repelling on being squeezed into one another.”

This sentence is deliberately NOT fashioned in compliance with current, scientific consensus in which 'Quantum fields' have supplanted 'Atomic particles'. But not-yet scientists starting from this sentence, have a good shot at figuring out quantum fields on their own, in time. The goal is not up-to-the-minute accuracy, but to provide an accessible starting point to an inquiring mind.

James Lovelock proposed a compendium in clear, unambiguous language, preserving all our knowledge, A Book for All Seasons. Obviously, this would be a BIG book.

Each has transmission liabilities.

Clearly, a tome is not concise, and loses all the advantages of concision. If we wished to transmit our modern knowledge base, memorization – or even understanding the whole – would be out of the question. Few of today's specialists can fully master more than even two fields of knowledge. What's more, the effort of composition and subsequent production would be immense, far beyond the reach of small fry.

A single sentence is more attractive, to me. It is ultra in most of the virtues; ultra-portable, transcribable, easily memorized even by the young. It's a little clunky, however. I suppose it could be written as a limerick?

All things are made out of bits

That whiz non-stop in a blitz.

Apart by a fraction,

They feel an attraction.

But push 'em together, they splits.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!

Here's a an attempt to mimic successful, albeit less mnemonic forms...

Thus spake St. Feynman

in the Age of Legend:

“All things compose of tiny bits;

atoms dancing without cease

Faster when warmed

Slower when cooled

Heat is tempo

Near, they attract

thrust close, repel

To observe the dance

is to change the dance”

Hear ye the seed of all knowledge!

Sow, and ye shall reap.

There... some poetic license and a hint of quantum physics. An improvement on St. Liebowitz, but still not exactly catchy. Is there a poet in the house?

Wisdom is tougher nut to crack. Its more vague and koan-ish, so is harder to unfold?. Subject to contention, too. But even among religions, Feynman's approach applies. Here's Jesus of Nazareth's summary of Judaism (arranged from KJV)...

This is the first and great commandment:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God

with all thy heart,

and with all thy soul,

and with all thy mind.

And the second is like unto it;

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commandments

hang all the law and the prophets.

Guatama Bhudda may win the brevity prize, summing his teachings with “Release all attachment.” 

Point is, the concept isn't new, and we have some authorities to consult.

The problem with too much brevity is that, as a vehicle, it has low inertia. Why would a slave in the seventh year of the Warlord Vog pass this on? For that matter, would Vog or his flunkies - who might wish at least to appear wise - pass it on?

It seems to me that, for all its genius, Feynman's sentence or its variants, would have near zero fecundity. The Bhudda's may make it as one meme within an already successful meme set, but that hardly needs our help.

Even among my fellow geek friends, it gains no traction. If they've heard of it they love the idea, but none have managed to learn it by heart. They're hard pressed to remember its important features, despite that they're conversant with the principles. To someone marooned in a dark age, it would be useless and inscrutable blither. If printed on a waterproof card, it would be of better use to patch the roof.

But I think the approach is a good one.

Every line, verse or stanza – each the seed of a whole line of inquiry – would ease the task of those who follow. Each would confer useful knowledge from the very first steps along the path. And with a longer poem or shorter book, there's room to improve the hints, and build one upon the next.

I believe there is a threshold of critical mass, where mere weight of words gain enough gravitas to capture imagination, appealling at any stage of knowledge. They could gain the allure of a gnostinomikon; a book of knowledge, backed by actual science, to shame the grimoires of the past. Every mage who approached would be started on a true path.

Think what a smattering of infection theory might have done for those in a time of cholera? A few, trustworthy and select words to the wise would be invaluable. Only to read that there are miniscule, living creatures which can carry disease by contact, inhalation or ingestion... it doesn't take a medical genius to get from there to patient isolation, or to check the water supply, or to wash hands and dressings.

The scientific method itself -- our greatest invention -- can be drawn in a few words, and guide through the worlds of knowledge. (“Our greatest invention” from Lewis Dartnell). Scientific method, math and logic, physics, mechanics, chemistry, evolution, ecosystemics, economics, politics. All these in seed form.

With such a book in their hands, the great minds which inhabit all times would be put onto the scent, passing at a run the cold, blind trails of ignorance...

...on their way to Renaissance.

***

PS. There's a dark possibility to such a project. It may be that we'd be passing them a poison pill. The jury is still out on whether ours is the best of times or the worst of times. Without hard won wisdom to accompany the power this meme would carry, it might be like passing a live grenade to a baby.

Ruminations on SHTF Strategy

Get lost!

Not being tense but ready.
Not thinking but not dreaming.
Not being set but flexible.
Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.
It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.

-- From Tao of  Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee

Ruminations on SHTF Strategy

Like so many Preppers over the years, we have pursued a distinct SHTF strategy. I'd like to share our thinking for your consideration.

This strategy is built around the notions that a) S will HTF, b) it's very difficult to foresee the actual conditions that will pertain when it does, and c) we may be driven off or separated from every material possession we have accumulated in its advance.

Our strategy centers around several key elements:


Subsistence Environment

We have sought out an environment in which it is possible to subsist comfortably with neolithic technologies. Were we to become separated from our every material possession, it would be possible to thrive from local resources, given adequate skills.

This underwrites all the rest with a fail-safer option... under no scenarios in which we remain free and able do we perish for lack of sustenance.

An important aspect of this area are abundant water, and wild forage, fish and game. The world is a garden, and likely to become even more so, post collapse.

By not relying on domestic plants or animals (to which one is bound and beholden), we are less of a target for others.


Social Distance

Our chosen environment is sparsely populated, and requires both knowledge and material resources to venture beyond its sub-urban centers.

This buffers us from pandemic SHTF,  the initial paroxysms of social unrest and, likely, from predatory individuals and groups preying on concentrations of survivors and other resources in the towns.


Mobility

Sailboats are the only vehicles on this planet with unlimited range. (Paraphrased from Tristan Jones).

Without access to fossil fuels, we are able to access resources, networks and safe havens across a wide area. When a location becomes untenable, we  have a chance to shift ourselves and all we possess out of harm's way or to where resources are more abundant.

If need be, we can shift out of the region, entirely, to any island or coast in any hemisphere.


Knowledge Base

Skills toward a reasonable life post-SHTF are many. We feel that their on-going acquisition not only enhances our future chances on our own terms, but increases our value should we fall into the hands of others. 

This seems especially true of medical skills under field conditions. Or hard-won sailing related skills. Or local foraging knowledge. Or field chemistry. Or...


Shorter-Term Stores

We carry enough stores to see us through what seems a reasonable period to tackle post-SHTF learning curves. These especially include the demographic situation (who's left, where they are located, and what is their character), any transition left to master full subsistence, and relocation allowance should our situation seem untenable.


Longer-Term Tools

These are the material possessions which can increase efficiency in meeting our needs.

Examples include our sailing vessel and gear, manual wood and timber working tools, weapons, food processing gear, and books of knowledge not yet mastered.

While we cultivate the skills to reacquire all these from natural and scavenged materials, having them in hand frees us to focus elsewhere.


Live It Now

Living the strategy gives us a head start on vital learning curves.

It questions while there's time to remedy answers we don't like... How independent are we? Can we move as we like? Can we improvise? How long do particular stores last? Is our tool set adequate? What knowledge do we wish to acquire? What are our priorities?

We're perhaps fortunate that our strategy very much embodies how we would like to live, anyway. It's inexpensive, good fun, and a healthy lifestyle.

So why wait for S to HTF?


*****

Two strategies we consciously avoid:


Bug-Out Refugee Status

Many strategies begin and pretty much end with a Bug Out Bag (often geared for 72 hours). When SHTF, the thinking goes, we grab our Bug Out Bag, pack up the car and git out o' Dodge till things get 'back on track'. Went camping as a young 'un... I'll get by.

Problem is, 72 hours is just the leading edge of Collapse. Roads clog. Got fuel?

Running the gauntlet of a SHTF exodus from any urban center is a daunting prospect. 

Dare you leave your family to scout resources or terrain? Do you have relationships with resident locals along the way? Can you protect yourself and yours from bandits? Or even desperate Mr. Jones and family, there, who got out with neither BOB nor blanket? How about a hundred of him? Or a thousand?

But the burning question is, where are you going? And are you prepared to survive - much less thrive - once you get there?

Some good SHTF advice: Don't be a refugee.


Bunker Down

At the other end of the strategic spectrum - and at first glance more attractive - is the Bunker strategy. This is usually a camouflaged, fortified combination of living quarters and warehouse.

Downside is that, camouflage or no, folks have likely heard about it. When push comes to shove, it's going to have its attractions for desperate people. Not being mobile affords them plenty of opportunity for figuring out the chinks in your armor. The bastards can grind you down by attrition or burn you out and naked into the open.

Warehoused stores are finite, and have a shelf-life. Sooner or later, we've got to emerge from our walls and try our hand at gardening, hunting or forage. Once we do emerge, we'd find ourselves behind on the learning curves for how to live outside our bubble.

It seems to us that the sheer investment in this strategy can tempt one into staying on past that moment when, as Willie Nelson says, ya gotta know when to walk away, know when to run. It's gotta be tempting to 'make a stand', rather than to retreat and regroup.

Theory of warfare generally equates immobility with defeat. What does that tell us?

*****

The Big, Bad Picture

Should SHTF on our national or global scale, I expect all domestics nuclear plant to go LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident) for want of industrial level support. This means that the Northern Hemisphere is going to be heavily irradiated in short order. This will especially be true in certain wind- and watersheds.

Missing from our strategy is relocation to the Southern Hemisphere on the far side of the Equatorial Convergence Zone (hemispheric wind divide). We have the means, but...

Good idea, but it means trading our present life and friends for a shot at a future life with unknown peoples, among whom we would be refugees. We'd trade a good chunk of what learning curves we've climbed to begin at the bottom.

As we age, the potential for return on such an investment is diminishing. If we had made that move as young sailors, maybe. But now?

We'll likely accept what comes to us and make our stand here, in our home waters.

Failure Modes in Complex Systems

For want of a rail?

Complex systems fail in complex ways. Moreover, the scope of a catastrophic failure of a complex system is commensurate with the scope of the complex system.
-- J.N. Nielson's post, Complex Systems and Complex Failures



Failure Modes in Complex Systems

Systems lie along a complexity gradient ranging from simple to complex.

At the extreme simple end, we have simple machines: inclined planes, levers, pulleys and wheels with axles. The middle covers quite a spread, from windmills to sailboats to internal combustion engines to assembly lines to factories to computers. 

We don't often think of it, this way, but living organisms - including ourselves - outpace our most ambitious artifacts. These might be contenders for the extremely complex end. But no. Consider communities of these organisms, ecosystems of these communities, the geo/biosphere in its entirety, with its solar and meteoric inputs.

The global industrial economy fits in there somewhere. Less complex than the terran system as a whole. More complex than any given ecosystem.

The question I'm considering in this post is how different levels react to trauma.

Clearly, you can't take a sledge hammer to many of our artifactual machines. Bust holes in them, and they falter and fail in fairly short order. And up to a certain point, the more complex they are, the harder they fall. That sledge can take a lot of abuse. If the head mushrooms, still usable; if the handle breaks, repair or replaceable. But the computer we're hypothetically bashing? Like Bruce Lee, I could take it out with this pinkie!

Beyond a certain level of complexity, many to most systems must be resilient, robust, self-repairing, self-healing... all words those which can handle a good deal more than might appear. Most such systems are evolved, though we have begun to learn to apply them to our own creations.

But there are limits.

If the resilient mechanisms of a system are overwhelmed - or if key mechanisms fail permanently - the system goes down. Permanently.

Worse, both Complexity and Chaos Theory state that the failure of complex systems is inevitable.


Internal Failure Modes

Three general modes can bring a system down from within. I'll informally call them node, runaway and domino failure modes.

Node failure is deep doo-doo. Nodes are sub-systems upon which the function of many other aspects of system functionality depend. A node goes down, and all dependent, 'downstream' sub-systems fail with it. Worse, nodes are often inter-dependent. Failure of one node can spread to others in a process called contagion; essentially a critical case of the domino mode mentioned below.

A human health example of node failure is ventricular fibrillation. The heart, for whatever reason, begins to spasm out-of-sync, and fails to pump sufficient blood flow. If it can be brought back into sync (via defibrillation techniques), a full recovery is possible. But if not - and the heart fails permanently - all other bodily systems fail in short order for lack of blood perfusion.

The power grid is a node within a modern, industrial economy. It falters, and if not brought relatively quickly back on line, all dependent systems - banking, communications, IT, etc. - exceed their back-up arrangements and fail.

Runaway failure occurs when positive feedback - that which ramps a system into more 'extreme' states - is insufficiently damped by governance mechanisms. These counter positive feedback loops with negative feedback. This can happen even in an otherwise healthy system. Typically, a system in runaway mode will suffer increasingly wild oscillations until a vital node gives way.
 
 "Galloping Gertie" - the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which dramatically tore itself apart in 1940 - is an example of runaway failure. The process, described as "phenomenon in which several degrees of freedom of a structure become coupled in an unstable oscillation" is very hard to rule out of any complex system, whether designed or evolved. Degrees of freedom, couplings and even initial oscillations are extremely difficult to predict or detect until well underway. Complexity guarantees that.

A prediction of Peak Everything theory is that market feedback cycles will begin to oscillate wildly in post-peak environments. Supply (particularly of energy / fossil fuels) in post peak situations has plenty of room to fluctuate in response to demand. Demand, however, while driven upward by exponential growth of any market component, is coupled with forces of 'demand destruction' (loss of those willing or able to pay higher prices). Demand fluctuates more and more wildly, with production attempting to follow jerkily in its wake. Both supply and demand 'players' begin to drop from the field as market conditions exceed their ability to cope. Add in risky financial 'instruments', and the finance node is threatened. Banks begin to fail...

Domino Failure is sequential failures radiating outward from a single trigger event among dependent elements (again, even if they are otherwise functioning 'normally'). This is the "For want of a nail... ...the Kingdom was lost" mode. Failure of a small element can initiate such cascading failures. It may 'burn out', or it may take down a node (see Doo-Doo, above).

Again, the power grid is an example (see Blackout Inevitability and Electric Sustainability). In the case of the 2003 Northeast Blackout, it all began with a software bug. The sequence of events cascaded until large swathes of Canada and New England were without power.

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8 is another example. The (predicted) burst of the housing bubble set dominoes falling in all directions, some foreseen and others not. Analysis continues to this day. Unfortunately, so do many of the practices which led to the crisis, and the bursting fracking bubble may well give us another shot at total disaster along similar lines.

Again, dependencies within a complex system are extremely difficult to map, much less predict. Those who correctly predict the broad outlines of disaster are typically ignored both before ('pessimists on the lunatic fringe') and after ('who knew?' and 'hindsight quarterbacks'). So it goes.


External Failure Modes

Systems can fail for 'external' reasons, as well.

Blunt trauma failure is something I hesitate to call a 'mode', though any system is susceptible to it. Here, something big and bad happens - a nuclear exchange, for example - that blows a hole in important fabric. It may be random - as from solar flare - or targeted - as in ICBMs or sabotage. Blunt trauma can activate any of the other modes, or merely destroy the system as a whole.

Running out of steam failure happens when the resources upon which a system runs fall below some necessary threshold. In particular, energy, space and material resources. Run low of any essential, and the whole thing winds down. Run out of any essential and the whole thing grinds to a halt. This type of failure follows a trajectory (curve) which can range from 'Seneca's Cliff' to the 'Staircase Descent'.


Timescales of Failure

Whether total, systemic failure is 'catastrophic' (my school) or 'catabolic' (Greer, Kunstler, et al), I suspect is a matter of the timescale over which failure is viewed.

The graph is similar. A long period of growth is followed by a relatively shorter period of decline or 'collapse' (Senaca's Cliff).

For myself, I tend to think of high to low collapse occurring within a single lifetime as both catastrophic and probable. Our current situation has been collapsing - by my estimation - for decades, now, and will accelerate to whatever bottom very soon.

Yet both means and trajectory look very similar, whether they play over a shorter or longer term. From the perspective of the individual, a lifetime is all one has. Generations may experience the long descent. Cultures may experience the rise and fall of civilizations. Our species has experienced ages - the paleo- and neo-lithic, bronze, iron, industrial and information ages.

From a long enough perspective, the rise and (presumed) fall of agricultural civilizations over roughly 10K years - is but a blip. Look close enough and any process plays out in gradual, slow-mo. Thus, whether collapse is fast or slow is a subjective matter.

Whether it plays out within our or our children's lifetimes, however, is a practical matter. One prepares for 'contractions' differently than from SHTF.

Ya lays yer money and ya takes yer chances.

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.

 

Predicting TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)

Homer Simpson's Schrei
by Lisa Lustich 
after Edvard Munch (Der Schrei) and Matt Groenig (The Simpsons)
I'm sure he's 'schrei'ing, "D'Oh!"

Thomas Andrews: The pumps buy you time, but minutes only. From this moment, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder. 

Ismay [incredulously]: But this ship can't sink! 

Thomas Andrews: She's made of iron, sir! I assure you, she can... and she will. It is a mathematical certainty.

- Dialog from the movie, Titanic 


Predicting The End Of The World As We Know It
 
Prediction is tricky business. To my mind, there are three general kinds:

Mystic prediction - Revelations, Mayan Calendar change-over, Age of Aquarius - in which visions of a deeper Truth are predicted to manifest themselves. Maybe. But I don't lose any sleep over them.


Context prediction - Cuban Missle Crisis, Fukushima spent-fuel storage collapse, economic bubble-burst - in which a particular event (or range of events) is foreseen and its likelihood estimated (best, worst and probable case scenarios).

We've spun the wheel and pray for good fortune. We may not know the odds, exactly, but grip the table with white-knuckled hope. These alarm me, but when one is over, it's (more-or-less) over, and we go on to the next event. 

Crises may be recurrent, but each is embedded in its own context.


Systems prediction - Malthus, Limits to Growth, (Abrupt) Climate Change, plummeting biodiversity - in which exponential growth and depletion, runaway feedback and physical limits trend toward our demise. These strike me as coming upon us with mathematical certainty. With the partial exception of Malthus (who had not foreseen three 'green' revolutions) these are on or ahead of schedule, with no relief in even theoretical sight.

Systems predictions are concerned with processes.

 A process is a causal chain of related events. In a simple system like dominoes, causation is a one-way trip. In complex systems, a domino which is 'down' is not out-of-play. Complex systems allow feedback. This is what makes systems prediction tricky... feedback leads a complex system to self-adjust.

But there are limits. Adjustments always occur. But complex systems also tend to be chaotic. Beyond a certain threshold, the system may shift to a new mode, wildy dissimilar to its former pattern. 

This is the core concept of TEOTWAWKI.


*****

What will trigger TEOTWAWKI? 

Frankly, I don't know. But my sense is that we have built a house of cards...

We depend on non-renewables and cheap energy. We depend on unlimited growth. We have mountains of nuclear devices lying about in their own waste, domestic and weaponized. Fundamentalists (including our own) have their hands on reins of power. We've created ideal conditions for pandemic. We've shot past the climate tipping point (permafrost melting). We're killing the oceans. Arable land and potable water are on sharp decline. By every metric, we are living in environmental overshoot.

Any one of these, among others, could be the trigger.

I don't believe these have to reach a scale which, of themselves topple the techno-economy which underlies The World As We Know It. A pandemic, say, doesn't have to kill off 90% of world population to trigger the process... 10% might do it. It needn't be apocalyptic in scale.

...All it has to do is shake the table hard enough.

*****

I believe that, at some point, we shall cross a threshold of economic collapse - a point somewhere between Orlov's  Stage 1 (financial collapse) and 2 (commercial collapse) - which marks the onset of the equivalent of another Great Depression. And this will be our point-of-no-return.

Since the onset of the previous GD - a mere four score years ago - much has changed. 

World population has tripled, and gone from predominantly rural to predominantly urban or sub-urban, concentrated in low-lying coastal areas. Thus, important nodes of the global economy are exposed to civil unrest and rising sea-levels

Wealth disparity has left billions desperate, at or over the edge of disaster. Meanwhile, corporate and fiduciary theft and corruption have weakened the system from which the wealthy have profited. Thus, it is a very short drop into widespread, violent unrest.
 
Small, largely subsistent farms (whose knowledge, seed stock and husbandry means necessary for small-scale farming has been drastically reduced or lost) have given way to large, corporate, hybridized monoculture, whose productivity is dependent on fossil fuels... meanwhile we are at the limits (and losing ground) on arable land and fresh water. Thus, the food supply is likely to collapse along with the economy, incapable of supporting resident or refugee populations.

Cheap energy has enabled physical separation of manufacture from raw materials, energy, transportation and market synergies. Industrial centers more than ever rely on a functioning global economy for local operation. Thus, they are no longer centers for potential recovery.

Supply-on-demand (aka just-in-time supply) has left cities with a 3 to 4 day supply of food on hand. Thus, interruption of the supply flow will throw cities into immediate crisis.

The cumulative result is, I believe, that an economic stumble on the scale of the previous GD will subject us to far greater stresses, while lacking many of the fail-safe structures which saw that generation through. 

The result, I think, will be slide through depression straight to collapse. If it were a matter of depression, only, we might well recover for another round. But given our givens, I think other events will rule that out.


*****

In the exponentially near future (I venture within the next world population doubling period), I predict a full-blown depression = collapse. 

I see it going down something like this:


Short Term (First Years)

1. We enter the economic equivalent of the Great Depression -
   
   One or more trigger events occur, initiating positive (runaway) feedback in economic systems.
   
   The global economy stumbles, falls and fragments as bank and business fail. Debt defaults, currencies become non-negotiable. This is a global process. There is no entity of financial standing left to halt, much less reverse the process.
   
   Import/export fails as credit and exchange become non-functional.
   
   The direct result is virtual cessation of international and intranational trade. Import/export ceases, notably the flow of oil. Transportation systems cease to function.
   
   
2. Urban centers implode - Supply-on-demand falters then fails, causing immediate food shortage. Abruptly unemployed millions riot over food and frustration. Fires rage. Critical infrastructure is damaged (port facilities, grid elements, financial centers, fuel distribution). Within cities, roads are occupied and blocked. Attempts at imposing martial order are successfully resisted.
   
3. Urban centers explode - Food all but gone, desperate millions fan out into the adjacent countrysides, laying waste and consuming animal and seed stock. Roads are controlled by gangs demanding compensation for right-of-passage. Competence and cruelty are honed by ruthless culling.
   
   
4. Rural systems go down - Transportation fails completely due to financial disruption, uneven fuel availability and impassable roads.
   
5. Death tolls in the billions - From violence, exposure, starvation and disease. Many water sources are polluted by untended corpses.
   
   
6. Rise of two-bit 'warlords' - Small bands will likely coalesce to appropriate whatever seems worthwhile.

All it takes for this sequence to start, I believe, is that we wander across the threshold from recession to depression.  We have come close several times - as assessed by sober, conservative economists.




Mid-Term (First Generation)

1. Hybrid and agribusiness crops fail - Lacking fertilizer, pesticides and fuel for water, plowing, sowing and harvest, crops fare extremely poorly. Hybrids fail to breed true after first generation, reverting to largely unviable stock. Small farming/gardening seed and techniques are rare and scattered. Hunger makes what seed there is difficult to preserve. Forage replaces agriculture.
   
2. Base mortality rates climb - Lack of medicine, medical and natal services, and sanitation are themselves deadly, and permit spread of previously controlled diseases, exacerbated by poor nutrition. Death by violence continues, though decreases as perpetrators are reduced by attrition and victims become more scattered.
   
3. Untenable domestic nuclear plants go LOCA (Loss Of Coolant Accident) - Water- and airsheds irradiated and poisoned by emissions. Potentially short term fatal in immediate vicinity. Long-term health and reproductive issues over a wide region; dire in the northern hemisphere, hopefully less so in the southern.

Longer Term (Next Several Generations, If Any)

Assuming the environment isn't too badly damaged by radiation and runaway climate change...

1. Environmental recovery begins - Freed from habitat pressures, surviving plant and animal populations rebound.
   
   
2. Parasitic/predatory groups decline - Scarcity of victims make these groups unviable.
   
3. Limited agriculture regains a foothold - Surviving non-hybrid strains are propagated.
   
4. Limited trade begins - Scavenged and hand-assembled items, food and furs.
   
5. Rise of monastary-like centers - Knowledge is preserved, reassembled and reworked along new lines.

Beyond (the Possibly Human Future)

1. (Human induced) climate change runs its course - Exactly how is in question. It's likely to add to the daunting list of challenges that survivors face over the next millennia.
   
2. Genetic damage accumulates - Infant and birth mortality rates rise further. Plant and animal species stressed.
   
3. Physical remains of present culture degrade - Scavenging returns diminish, eventually to negligible.
   
4. Extraction of mineral resources remain uneconomic - In our era, we extracted beyond the reach of lower-tech, boot-strap efforts... only common surface elements will be available, by and large.
   
5. Human cultures advance on neo-lithic technologies - While some 'modern' technologies may survive (such as glass work), by and large technologies are based on biologic and common mineral resources. With luck, understanding of microbiology, physics, astonomy and mathematics will survive and inform for a brighter future.

In Conclusion

So this is what I see as coming, and why I'm a 'hard lander'. 

I see the trigger as relatively banal (vs. apocalyptic). The collapse as a relatively abrupt transition (vs. long, slow decline). The aftermath as practically permanent (vs. recovery from temporary set back).

It just won't take much.

Where I Am as the Lights Go Out

This post is an attempt to summarize my current take on TEOTWAWKI and related issues. It's not fact, but a reasoned position from reported facts. My more or less educated opinion.

My formal background is in philosophy of science and logic. In college years (late 1970s) I came across LIMITS TO GROWTH, whose premises and conclusions I accepted. Not long after, as a consultant in systems and software, I became early aware of the Y2K situation, and observed at first hand the social aspects of the professional and public response (and lack thereof).

Just so you know, I don't believe much of real life falls into binary categories - yes/no, true/false. I prefer probabilities which fall somewhere between 0 and 1, and Fuzzy Logic wherein something may be both one thing and its opposite, simultaneously and to varying, overlapping degree. Thus, when I state or imply anything as fact, that's shorthand for I'm confident that...

'Nuff said.


Assessment

Exponential growth in virtually all metrics of human economy is generates a tightly coupled decline in virtually all global resource metrics.

Each period of doubling consumes the equivalent of all previous periods, combined. It appears that we have passed global peak on a diverse array of resources necessary to present economic premises, without forseeable substitutes on the horizon. It is therefore probable that, in this doubling period, we will encounter critical depletion of necessary resources, and attendent disruption or failure of the global economy.

Energy, water and arable land stand out among these necessaries, with their corollaries, food and population.

The Industrial and Green revolutions have enabled the exponential growth of human population well beyond the carrying capacity of non-industrial and organic farming economies. When those revolutions falter and fail so will a large proportion of the population, feeding back into the general collapse.

I concur with Dmitry Orlov's Five Stages of Collapse, which I believe to be a good framework description of the process.



Short Term Prospects

Here's what I see as the likely-case scenario:

• Growth pressures weaken and destabilize the global economy through a series of crises (Jenga Effect).
• One or more trigger events occur, which initiate economic disruption, impeding flow of cash and credit (Domino Effect).
• Cash becomes scarce or unobtainable (closed banks), a currency crisis emerges (hyper-inflation).
• Cash is refused in exchange for goods and services (full-blown currency crisis).
• Workers abandon posts as payrolls are unmet and cash is, in any case, worthless, taking resources with them.
• The transport system having lost bankroll, man-power and heavily pirated, grinds to a halt.
• Supply on demand premise fails.
• Greater urban areas erupt into violence, destroying urban economic and physical infrastructure (no reboot).
• Food gone in urban areas, surviving population fans out into countryside, destructively reaping what food is available, and suffering high attrition (Locust Effect).
• Persons on critical medications/service based life support dying. High mortality among the very young  and old.
• Domestic nuclear plants, lacking continuity of parts, personnel, coolant and materiel, begin descent toward criticality.
• Survivors to date begin to come to terms with the new situation, but with little knowledge or eco-infrastructure, face famine.
• Stable bands form, wild forage experience (good and bad) accumulates rapidly.
• When the nukes start venting, water- and windsheds will be impacted to varying degrees. Scenarios bleak.

I could well imagine the collapse phase of this scenario playing out, world-wide, in a matter of days or weeks (Senaca's Cliff Effect). Nuclear fallout, of course, would just be climbing out of its box.


Long Term Prospects

I foresee no reboot.

The premises that underlie the modern world shall have been irreparably violated. While collapse may have left unconsumed a pile of resources the equal of all that we've used throughout history, the easy pickings are gone. Remaining resources require a high tech, industrial economy to extract. Beyond a vanishingly narrow threshold, failure of the present economy will put the resources necessary to reboot forever out of reach.

Post-collapse, I see an extended period of Dark Ages most dire. While surface resources remain (material remains of the present), I see raider packs attempting warlord economies with varying, local success. After that, many of their victims will simply disappear into rebounding wilderness.

Extinction of the human species is a definite possiblity. But we've proven versatile. It would not surprise me if we made it through.

Beyond the Dark Ages of Transition, I see a return to neolithic technologies and modes of society. This is the source of my personal optimism (insofar as I'm at all concerned with what follows my personal TEOTW). More in other posts on why. Suffice it to say that I believe that our 10K year experiment with civilization has not been of net benefit to most human beings who've endured it.

If we care to attempt aid for future generations, I would turn attention to how the period Dark Ages might be shortened.


Preparation

We're looking for the following in preparation for the collapse:

Social distance - Crowds will become mobs. At the very least, they will be laced with and hounded by parasitical yahoos.

Mobility - The ability to move in the face of changing circumstance I see as crucial. Bunker mentality hasn't worked out well, even for those with logistical support.

Skill Sets - The acquisition of skills increases personal value and capability. Once learned, you cannot be relieved of them.

Tools - A set of (hand)tools increases efficiency, freeing energy for other purposes.

Food Cushion - A lifetime supply of food is immobilizing. A food cushion should be enough to allow relocation and a period of perfecting forage skills and other learning curves.

Seed - Gardening will likely be an important supplement to forage. Non-hybrid seed kits grant a head-start. Gardens, I note however, can also be immobilizing. I tend toward hardy varieties that can fend for themselves, once established.


Social Aspects

I'm often asked, how can you prepare for yourself, knowing so many around you will not make it?

My reply is that it's similar to coming to believe that our ship is sinking. We gather necessaries to evacuate and survive at sea. As we do so, however, we spread the alarm and attempt to persuade others to prepare, as well. When the time to abandon ship comes, we abandon ship. Once sunk, we might have it in our power to save a few. But taking on enough to endanger the lifeboat, is not an option.

I want suvival of as many as possible. I want viable, post-collapse community. I can't force it.

But this blog is a reaching out, now, to all who will listen...

THIS SHIP IS GOING DOWN!




PS. My Other TEOTWAWKI

There's another exponential growth curve running parallel to those we've discussed. That of technological growth.

The Kurzweil Singularity is the point when technological growth goes 'vertical'... when radical technological advance is virtually instantaneous.

There is a chance that this will, indeed avert our previous scenario. Not by miraculously providing new sources of energy, etc., etc., but by moving us and ours into the virtual realm of quantum computing. I won't go into it, here, but to me, it's quite credible (I have an information specialist background, remember?). It will solve our immediate problems (and by that I mean on a stellar time scale), but not in the realm of classical thermodynamics where our present concerns lie.

Problem is, it's a race to the finish between depletion curves and our ability to transcend them in a new medium. While Kurzweil's conjectures interest and intrigue me, my money's on that first version.

So pass me that Book o' Arcane Skills!