Reckless CHAINSAW!!! Masacree

Elon Musk as Leatherface

Who will survive
And what will be left of them??

-- Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Delicately. These things must be done delicately!

-- The Wicked Witch of the West

Reckless CHAINSAW!!! Masacree

Okay, I admit. As analogies go, a horror film massacre is a little over the top. But these are unusual times. And I didn't fire up the chainsaw.

In his The Collapse of Complex Societies Joseph Tainter documents a trend in which needed bureaucracies inevitably grow, layer upon layer, until they become unsupportable and society collapses. It's happened time after time. 

In the case of our present government the system is vast and very complex, tightly coupled, poorly understood and already highly stressed. In Tainter's terms, it is top-heavy, unstable and, historically speaking, at the brink of collapse. So okay... agreed. Reforms and reductions are in order.

In Musk's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), we see agreement-in-action with that assessment. He's taking a metaphorical chainsaw to the flesh, blood, bone and ligaments of our federal government.

Problem is, as the Wicked Witch of the West observed, these things must be done delicately.

To take a chainsaw to it? To move fast and break things?? To fix later the needful stuff we broke??? [Their words, not mine.]

Government is a complex adaptive system. In a computer system, the grid, an ecosystem or our own bodies, small failures - normally dampened by healthy, negative feedbacks - can sometimes push a system beyond a tipping point. After that... well... who knows? Things spin out of control. There is real risk that the computer crashes, the grid goes down, the ecosystem disintegrates, our bodies die.

Those of us who consider that a full collapse is possible are a tiny minority. We hear talk of deep recession, or even depression. Of the bull gone bear. Of debt and deficit. All these are seen as problems to resolve within a more or less functional system. Like treating cancer (Fox commentator analogy). 

Without entertaining possibility of collapse, one assumes that the system stumbles if we act to trip it up, but won't fall. Why be delicate? Why not use a chainsaw?

If our government were a patient with treatable cancer and a surgeon, foggy on anatomy and oncology, commenced removal by chainsaw... 

...Wanna bet on that patient's prognosis?

*****

Years ago, I read a study which modeled the random loss of institutional personnel lost in a pandemic context. The question was, what percentage of loss is the threshold for institutional failure? It was surprisingly low... I don't recall the exact figure, but it was well below 5%.

When personnel are lost, they take with them a quantity of 'institutional knowledge'... professional knowledge concerning the institution's field of purpose, networking  interconnections within the institution and external to it and functional knowledge of how to keep the lights on and pay the bills. And more. This was the original meaning of the phrase 'the Deep State' before it came to mean some secret, conspiratorial cabal embedded within government. It referred to institutional continuity despite the turmoil of politics.

The administration and DOGE purges aren't entirely random, but neither are they entirely directed. They have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the purpose, means and requirements of the agencies they've infiltrated and begun to mess with. One might argue that they have mis- or under estimated their importance as well, both in terms of mission and system function.

Their means (e.g., incentivizing resignations) aren't focused, but draw rather evenly from those who feel vulnerable, at the same time creating a situation in which all feel vulnerable. They're arbitrarily changing and in some cases breaking the mechanisms which underlie the whole (e.g., the governmental payment system).

On top of it all, the upper levels of agencies are being co-opted with loyal but inexperienced new-comers with axes to grind.

In our patient analogy, how long before a vital organ fails for lack of specialized cells? How long before the circulation system shuts down? How long before the central nervous system - mishandling the signals necessary to coordinate the body - stutter and seize?

And when the patient codes, where are the experts to resuscitate them?

Exponential Growth for Doomies

A whirlwind tour of growth versus limits

The problem is, exponential growth patterns 

don't give you an early warning sign.

Because the dangers really speed up at the end, 

when it's too late to do anything about it.

-- Dr. Kent Moors 
  

Exponential Growth for Doomies:       
      Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

We all think we're familiar with growth.

If we can earn $1000 a week, that's $4000 a month and $48,000 a year. Nice, neat and linear, right? Most of what we count in our everyday lives is like that.

But exponential growth aka geometric growth aka non-linear growth aka compounded growth isn't as intuitive. Even if one is familiar with it, this kind of growth can ambush us.

If something is growing exponentially, each dollop added to the heap is proportional to (a fraction of) the heap that's already there. The bigger the heap, the bigger the dollop, the bigger the heap the bigger the dollop... a dash, a pinch, a dollop, a handful, a bucket.....

We typically say the heap is growing at some percent rate per unit of time, say 5% annually (that is, 5% of the total heap size added to the heap every year... the amount added gets bigger each year).

Or we might think in terms of doubling rate, or doubling time (the time it takes the heap to double in size). Each doubling period... tick, tick, tick... doubles the entire heap.

The rate of change may stay the same, but the increment of change - the dollop of change - gets bigger. And bigger. And BIGGER! As we go from the more horizontal portion of an exponential curve to the more vertical portion, any given stretch of time - a year; a decade; a lifetime - spans an astonishing increase. Each stretch encompasses an ever more fantastic volume of change.

An exponential curve is sometimes called a 'hockey-stick'. Things are flattish for a while, there is a transitional middle, then things get steep.

Things might look nearly flat for a long, long time (like my father before me, time out of mind; as if nothing will ever change). It took us millions of years to learn to control fire, for example.

Then things pick up to an exciting time of change for the better (that old woman saw the first automobile AND the first moonshot).

Things pick up more, and things get a little scary (That kid born in 2000 is now looking at super bugs, cyber warfare and an ice-free arctic).

In a finite system (the only kind we know of), nothing continues doubling forever. Most systems can be described in boom / bust cycles. Exponential growth for a giddy while, then crash. Sometimes repeat. Sometimes not.

Rule of 69 or 70

The Rule of 69 (or 70) is a handy rule-of-thumb which allows a rough estimation of doubling time given the percent rate of growth per unit of time. Using 70 is slightly less accurate than 69, but the math is often slightly easier.

Doubling-Rate = 70 / %Rate-of-Growth 

If our average rate of growth is 5% per year, then 70/5 = 14 years... our heap will double in 14 years. If the rate of growth is quarterly, say, it would double in 14 quarters.

Let's say an economy grows at 2.5% per year on average. By our rule of 70,  70/2.5 = about 30 years. At that rate, the economy will double in 30 years. If this rate is sustained, it will double every 30 years.

Consequences

In rough terms, the global, industrial economy - the world's heap of goods, services and assets; its pollution, environmental impact, its footprint - has been doubling every 25 years for the last two hundred (give or take).This means today's global economy is roughly 256 times that of 1800. Double the economy of 1990. Next stop, 512x!

At every doubling, close to twice the resources are consumed. Twice the waste produced. Twice the 'footprint' is required, as it were. The next doubling is due about 20 years from today according to the IMF.

A 'next doubling' assumes nothing happens big enough to derail that juggernaut. It has mass. It has momentum. If it hits a wall or leaves the tracks it'll make one hell of a wreck.

My friends, we live in a time when the now vast human world is doubling every few decades.

 
We Doomies think that, coming somewhere soon-ish along the economic curve, something's gotta give. We'll hit the limits our planet can support. And then the trend will break. Break bad.

Now here's the thing: Just before that last doubling - the one that can't fit within limits and brings down the house  of cards - the world looks to have half of its reserves left. We've taken all of human history to saturate the world to today's level, only those few decades (if that) to double it. Or go bust.

How many more doublings have we got?

For further consideration, I suggest the Crash Course, free from the team at Peak Prosperity. Episode #3 focuses on exponential growth.

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?

Fast or Slow Collapse: Why it Matters

The Days of Wind
by Qin YongJun

Slowly, at first, then all at once.
-- Dmitry Orlov on Fragility and Collapse


Fast or Slow Collapse: Why it Matters


Fast and slow are relative terms.

From the perspective of centuries and relative to its duration, the fall of the Roman Empire was relatively abrupt. From the perspective of individuals involved, however, many experienced little change in the course of their lifetimes. It was a Long Descent from the peak of its expansion, through crises and contractions to the Dark Age that followed.

When we contemplate the Collapse of the modern global economy with so much that it entails, many are persuaded that it will be a similar, Long Descent, declining catabolically in fits and spurts over generations, in keeping with most known historical precedent.

Fast Collapse types (myself included) are persuaded that descent will likely be abrupt on our time scale, crashing catastrophically from near peak to near zero in the course of days to months.

Why does this matter? Why isn't it a genteel debate whose outcome will become clear in time... the loser will stand the next round of beer? Why shouldn't we just wait and see?

My answer is that the two scenarios call for vastly different preparations, and on a very different deadline.

If the Long Descent lies ahead of us, our best bet is to establish locally resilient communities, capable of carrying forward in reduced circumstances. The learning curve is relatively gradual for dealing with the economic environment as it (d)evolves. For most, there will be world enough, and time.

But should Catastrophic Collapse be the case, we are more or less flung onto our own resources, struggling amid all others mired in a fully similar plight, minus any functional economy at all.

I present two analogies for slow and fast Collapse, respectively. They are imperfect but illustrate the different preparations which would be important.

Here's an analogy for Slow, Catabolic Collapse:

The TITANIC strikes an island and goes hard aground. The lower hull is flooded and many of the ships stores are ruined, but there is no immediate risk of sinking. The generators go down, and with it many of the ship's systems. But most crew and passenger decks are clear of water. Passengers, while dazed, turn to and begin to work with crew to aid the injured, ensure dry shelter for those impacted and ration supplies. They do best who have good relationships with others aboard - both socially and those with skills. Eventually, some power may be restored and longer term plans undertaken. And so on. But the island has limited resources... things will get worse before they get better.

And one for Fast, Catastrophic Collapse:

The TITANIC strikes an iceberg and sinks within hours. There are no lifeboats (preparations are the responsibility of individuals). Most flounder in the water with a very brief window of survival. Many are drowned by their panicked, desperate neighbors who attempt anything to live. Some had prepared for this emergency, as best the could. Of these, many don't make it; pulled down by the floundering masses. Some fail due to poor choices. A few, thanks to adequate preparation and good fortune survive the immediate disaster. And so on. But they are now adrift among many resources (analogy breaks down, here) but with little to no hope of assistance.

I'm not going to argue, here, for Fast Collapse, though that is my persistent conclusion. But once Collapse begins in earnest one's choices may be tightly constrained. In the face of Fast Collapse, a 'wait and see' approach is likely to become 'waited too long'.

I urge that deciding which scenario is ahead/immanent, and acting upon that decision is a matter of life and death for you and yours. To wait and see is to have made a decision.

A last observation, however... preparations for Slow Collapse do not address Fast concerns, but those for Fast Collapse perform valuable service in many likely Slow scenarios. Even if never called upon, these do no harm. They are like fire escapes which may never be used...

...But you're gonna want 'em once all hell breaks loose.





PS.  This may be the place to mention that I often hear a cheap kind of psycho-analysis speculating on why people conclude whether fast, slow, or indeed any Collapse is probable.We all assess what facts we can, relate them, and attempt predictions to the best of our ability.

Those persuaded that Collapse is likely don't glory in it. Fast Collapse folks don't want to avoid a long, arduous Descent. Slow Collapse folks don't wish to avoid a traumatic, desperate Catastrophe.

I mean, isn't the Future hard enough to contemplate without second guessing motives?

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.

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.