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Changing society's behavior to use less oil and other resources
Posted by Gail the Actuary on May 31, 2010 - 9:28am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Post Carbon Institute
How can we help promote societal behavioral change?
Well, I think I have a somewhat of a decent pedigree to talk about this, because I used to deal with billionaires, managing their money, and some of them had $100,000,000, and all they wanted to do was to get to $200,000,000, and then quit. And then they got to $200,000,000, and they got to $500,000,000, et cetera, and I noticed at the same time that the clerks who were making $25,000 a year were just as happy as these billionaires.
And then I started reading about evolutionary psychology. We pursue dopamine and different neurotransmitters because they feel good. And it took me a very long time to understand that it is the pursuit of resources and status that gives us the feelings of success, rather than the actual use and acquisition of the resources.
Warren Buffet is a good man, but he treats this all as a game. So, I think if people recognize that financial wealth is just a marker for real wealth, real wealth being defined as the four ecological capitals--social capital, which is our friends and our network; human capital, which is our health, our knowledge, our skills; natural capital, which is our ecosystems, our fresh water, our trees; and built capital, which is our "stuff", our wind turbines, our electric cars, our pavement.
If people can accept that finance is just a marker, and if we can compete for--as an evolved species, we are not going to allow every one on the planet to be equal. As noble a concept as that is, it will never happen. We are a competitive / cooperative species. But if we compete for things that are more benign in their throughput, for example art, or information or gardening, I think that would be a huge potential leverage point.
And I have been walking down that path myself, because I used to be an incredibly large consumer, and I've struggled with reducing that. And now I make $20,000 a year as a graduate assistant, and I spend just a little bit more than that, and I am happier than I have ever been in my life. So I know that it can happen, even though I still talk to my hedge fund buddies, and they make a lot of money, and they are worried about how to protect it and what is coming. They are missing the message. They are good people, most of them.
But we need to create examples: "Wow. Look at these people. They are using less resources. They used to use so many more, and they are happy." That is a lot different message than, "We have climate change; we have peak oil coming; you need to use less resources."
So it's a subtle shift of perspective, but I think that is important. It's going to ultimately get down to human behavior, absolutely. Without behavioral change, without changing the carrot that both the United States, and the countries that follow us compete for, away from conspicuous consumption, none of this other stuff is going to matter. It's only going to be fingers in the dike--temporary fixes.
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We - all of us - everyday and in every way - are doing everything we can to "hedge" our position.
If we could make it clear and overt that by "doing the right things" and I am not going to go into detail about what that is as IMO we all know, we increase our position in society, increase our ability to thrive, increase our chances of living.
Instead we have ascribed all of these things to ONE thing and ONE thing only...........MONEY!
Now don't just come back with some dismissive about how money is just a proxy, a unit of measure, a benign monetary unit like any other tradable unit BS!!!!.
Money, or more specifically Dollars are what we use to decide who lives and who dies, yet the power to create, expand, engineer, whatever term you can come up with for what they do, has been given to a very tiny group of individuals. They have created the system where $=life or death then they decide who gets $. They play GOD and they are not god. These people and more importantly this system must end. Please don't go off saying that what ever we set up will have the same ends...BS!!
Yes we have the potential to be animalistic but we also have the ability to decide not to let that rule our world...everything else is greedy, immoral, unethical, assholes trying to rationalize their existence. BS!!!
This is pointless chatter about ethics and morality in the Price System. It is worse than pathetic and shows the overall poor quality of intellectual discourse on the Oil Drum.
The Price System precludes a good society and includes the destruction of the earth for debt token generation... ('your hedge fund buddies are good people'... that is so lame).
I have not seen a more ignorant posting 'Nate Hagens' here... of the actual dynamic of our system.
It is not reformable, but can be changed into a science based social design.
Technocracy technate.
Jeremy Jackson: How we wrecked the ocean.
The Industrial Age ends in wholesale disaster for the earth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0VHC1-DO_8
Investigate actual creative ideas and not intellectual slop http://www.technocracytechnate.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=699d9fa70fe9df419...
"It is not reformable, but can be changed into a science based social design." Technocracy technate.
from your website---
"The design of a Technocracy technate requires control and central administration of all forms and sources of energy. It thus replaces the controlling role of financial institutions and money with the basic requirement of all activities — energy. The organizational structure of the Technate provides for continuous research and review of the role of all energy-based functions in order to provide a maximum standard of living for all citizens… unhindered by the complications of the Price System, decisions will be based on the requirements of society as determined by continuous research, within the prudent use of resources and the conservation of energy.
Initially, the allocation of energy quotas would continue substantially as today to maintain continuity. Over time a redirection of energy and resources would respond to the need for a new approach to society’s problems and our role in Earth’s ecologies.
Society’s central problem is here restated and redefined to make understandable the decision that must be made by the citizens of North America: To continue with a failing Price System which will result in a terminal collapse of society and the inevitable die-off; or… To institute a new form of society based on energy, not money — A technate design which would match available resources to society’s needs, with a minimum expenditure of energy for maximum social gain for all citizens.
More on the basics of the design ideas here."
-----First sentence---
The design of a Technocracy technate requires control and central administration of all forms and sources of energy.
And how do you propose to make everyone agree and go along with your idea of how things should work?
Unfortunately you don't see this as an issue. This is the issue that will make your plan so utterly impossible.
"People" are not "units". Keep you techno claptrap in the dustbin of history where is belongs.
I cannot disagree more strongly with your point of view.
Nate deals with the biological driver of the system we live in. Calling Nate "ignorant" has no substance and this little gem...
"It is worse than pathetic and shows the overall poor quality of intellectual discourse on the Oil Drum."
I have encountered people like yourself before. I see a level of immaturity holding you view as being soo far superior to others, that all others are ignorant and stupid compared to your vast intellect.
Perhaps before jumping into the "trash em" mode you could explain in detail the fallacy you see of Nate's thesis. I doubt you will, most rock throwers live in glass houses.
I wait...
Sorry I do not respond directly to clown commentary such as your post trying to troll me with inflaming non-sense.
I suppose you think that M. King Hubbert co-founder of the Technocracy technate design was also someone that you think was not really an intellectual or scientist http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2003AM/finalprogram/abstract_61689.htm
Again this site shows itself for what it. A pseudo intellectual trash of slop from people like Nate Hagen ... who is 'wishing' to reform the Price System... and that is a pathetic dream http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dfx7rfr2_70cmz88f&hl=en dreamed by money scam artists and ignorant moralists.
Notice people like Eyesores Engigma... they are trying to inform people with ideas...,, not just regurgitate Price System crap.
The internet sucks and rules also at the same time... people follow information often to sources they are brainwashed with because they can not figure out information creatively or are uneducated http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205039391
"I am the folklore and the hoary traditions of over 7,000 years of human toil, hand tools and Scarcity.
I am the seminar leader who helps people overcome their personal inadequacies so they can deal with me more effectively, people who never envision a society without my operating characteristics."
-the above is from your link-
7,000 years of human behavior - you think energy command and control will ever overcome this? Overcome market and trade?
Nate is talking about human behavior and so is the above.
You negate your own premise.
There is a severe disconnect in your logic, which must be emotional.
I'm going outside to work now. If my action creates an economic advantage to me that you don't get by posting on TOD that is the way it is. Now if you think you will take from me what I have rightly earned then you and I will have a problem.
Maybe I should sit here and continue to post and you can support me, give me an equal share, because "I'm here".
I can agree that there is greed and excessive consumption. However, I know from personal experience that having something that someone else envies but will not make the personal changes/efforts that I have to get it are a dime a dozen, and very self righteous. I watch birds fight over seed at my feeder. Tell me what's going to happen.
Using more energy than is sustainable will end with a correction just like the sun rising, same with population.
What exactly have you rightly earned? You have been merely lucky to have had access to cheap energy and to live in a society that has been able to steal it from the rest of humanity and the future.
Your rights end where the commons and the rights of others to live begin. Your handle is obviously most appropriate if you truly believe that you have a right to what you have! What you have is due the spoils of the grandest larceny in the entire history of all civilizations.
Anyways trying to explain reality to some who calls him or herself delusional is probably a waste of time but I'll give it a try.
It isn't about taking anything from you, its about making you (of your own volition) understand that you do not have the right to destroy the air and water and ecosystems on which others depend for their survival, by living in the way that we in western society think we have a right to do.
What you have is the consequence of massive deprivation, death and suffering of other less privileged people and other living creatures...
Hello FMagyar and All,
How did you post a picture?
Cheers,
Neal
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How do I include an image in my comment?
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* Then include the appropriate HTML code in your comment. For example:
<img src="http://my.webserver.com/filename.gif">.You could draw a similar chart for resource consumption within a single country like Brazil or China or India or Russia. In India just 10 people collectively have a net worth of US $100 billion which is 10% of India's GDP. This in a country where 850 million people live on less than or equal to $2 per day. Mukesh Ambani, who is the richest man in India (number 3 or 4 in the world) is building a $2 billion house in Mumbai, a city where more than 50% of the population lives in huts or shacks. You can see grinding street poverty everywhere in India and yet tax evasion among the wealthy is so common it is taken for granted.
Why should Americans alone feel guilty about consuming more than their fair share of resources when wealthy in every country do the same? How do you determine fair share anyway? What mechanism will you use to ensure "fair" resource distribution?
What you have is the consequence of massive deprivation, death and suffering of other less privileged people and other living creatures...
In most cases it is due to bad local leadership. People in N. Korea, Zimbabwe, etc. will suffer even if Americans trade in their cars for bicycles.
Because two wrongs don't make a right and we're the ones who proclaim to the world that we are holier than they are!
As for the wealthy hogging resources in Brazil, China India etc... that's true so if as you say I were to create a chart for each of those countries they would certainly look bad, until we zoom in at a higher resolution on the wealthy here in the US.
Yeah, Man! Go USA!
I do not proclaim myself as holier than thou. Therefore I do not feel a special obligation to sacrifice for the rest of the world.
Then go fire up your SUV. Drive it down to the corner store. Buy yourself a big apple pie and some vanilla ice cream and go home and sit down in front of your TV and gorge yourself!
Just because you can!
I fail to see how that logically follows.
I do not drive an SUV or eat lots of ice cream or spend much time watching TV because I see these as all harmful to my best interests. The SUV would be expensive, increasingly so as oil production declines. The ice cream and TV sitting would be bad for my health.
I have a problem with lines of argument that attempt to portray all that's happening as one big morality play. I understand that humans tend to think in moral terms and tend to try to assign moral meaning to events. But the depletion of oil reserves is just a physical fact. The propagation of humans into the billions is just a result of how evolution boosted in human intelligence enough to make this possible.
The moralizing tends to obscure the basic facts of the matter.
Thanks Charles! Appreciate it.
FuturePundit, I am (to use Charles' words) just trying to push you a bit outside your comfort zone and maybe point you towards a different way of seeing.
In a way that's part of my point, because I seem to detect what to me is a form of logical disconnect in your response. It's as if you are saying I'm not the cause of my brother's misfortune, that's just his tough luck. So why should I feel responsible or care or have to give up anything.
Well you're right, it isn't and you don't but you could.
Do you perhaps hear yourself in those words saying that if it's bad for you or against your interests then you won't do it?
There just seems to be an awful lot of focus on yourself there.
With not much empathy for the plight of those who are less fortunate than we are, due in large part to the lifestyle choices of those of us living in the comfort of western civilization. (individual mileage may vary)
But again you are right, it isn't really your responsibility so it shouldn't fall on your shoulders... Carry on!
My thrid wife of whom I am no longer married too, has that same thought. It is not your responsiblity so why are you helping me all the time.
We Several people have told me this time and again, Charles it is not your responsibility why are you paying her bills for her.
Well as you all know I am a Christian, and Christ would of and did help the poor and hurt in his world during the times talked about him. So if I am a follower of Him I follow his example. Works won't get me into heaven, giving up and calling on his gift of death and resurection does that, it is called grace. But as a Christian I am told that I return his love for me, by loving others. So that is why I help someone that society tells me I do not have a responsiblity too.
We are fighting the ideals of one set of people with the ideals of another, and another and on and on. So many sets of ideals and nothing gets done because each group sees it as either not their issue, or someone else will do it for them, or they are willing to do something and are frustrated when they see so many others who should care, just sitting and doing the same old same old wasteful actions.
I mean it gets me when people who call themselves christians go on and on about how it is their right to flog someone else, and then take their oil, or land and also drive a Big SUV for the sake of their rights to do so.
WHY is it so hard to understand, if God made this world, then he would want you to be gentle to it and not waste it. If there is no God, then you only have one world to live on and wasting it is stupid as well. Just because I figure that when I die I'll be in a better place called heaven, does not tell me I can waste what I have here.
Jesus had a parable about wasting the gifts you were given, Those that waste it here, did not get a reward on the other side.
So there is my reasons for not being a bad steward of my bit of the world I have, and it is not a big piece.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed world, where hugs are free and peace is everywhere.
But what we do need is people to get out of their comfort zones, tell themselves that the only way this mess will get any change done, is for themselves to get up and change something.
We hear the oh whoa is me meme all the time now, and then we ask people what they have done to change thier problems and they say, nothing, then we look about for a tree to hit our heads on. If you complain that there is a problem and you then do nothing to change it, then you are getting what you are getting for a reason.
We have to change ourselves first before we can expect others to change. Be the leaders that you want to lead you, when there is no one at the head of the line, step up and take the spot.
Most of us realize that there is a mess heading our way. We could sit back and lament all day long, but it will not change on its own. You can't have a garden if your seed packs are still inside unopened.
I understand Fred's frustrations.
Hugs from the Hot state of Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
"Why should Americans alone feel guilty about consuming more than their fair share of resources when wealthy in every country do the same?
What the hell does fairness have to do about anything? Fair share my ass!
I have no idea what your point is.
I was responding to FMagyar's criticism that since Americans are 5% of the global population and consume 25% of the resources they are consuming more than their "fair" share. I was using his definition of fair, not mine.
I couldn't find where Fred used the word "fair".
I agree with your statement: "I have no idea.....".
In a world of finite resources, words like "fair", "morality", "greed", "want", "blame","right/wrong", and "need" have little meaning. Nature and her laws don't care.
In a FAIR world of the future, cause we don't have one now, having a place to sleep out of the elements, enough to eat every day of your life, and not getting so much more that you take away from another would be the terms I would use.
The problem is I don't know the answer to the question....
I write stories where people are in power that are altruistic and are pushing this in their actions, but that is just a fictional case, not a real way of doing so.
I would start by forming an island nation and getting it working on a small scale and selling the idea to others. (Island nation does not have to be a hunkof land surrounded by water, but just off by itself inside other countries. Not something that is likely to happen.
But people are working in a small way to keeping things as fair and balanced as they can in their own actions.
If you see a hungry person, do you walk on by, or do you figure out a way to help them? If you see a homeless person do you walk on by without talking to them to see if you might be able to help them? Lots of little things like that, and others.
I have designs for a castle that had over a million rooms (lots of ~fill in the blanks in this space~ areas on the drawings, but major areas were hashed out, It was part of a story about a guy that lived for over a billion years ). But I already know I don't need or want to live in a place like that. Cool to see, but I'd start farming out the empty spaces to people in need.
Yes I practice what I preach.
Fairness is not going to happen as long as people don't work on their own selfish desires, but everyone has to work on it, or at least working on it has to be a cultural norm, instead of an oddity.
Lots of people who post on TOD are walking the walk, and spreading the fairness for all doctrine.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Take this:
and reword it into more historical phrasing:
If your idea of a better world involves changing humans into something they're not then you are going to be pretty frustrated with the future.
Peak Oil is not the occasion to try to strive for an impossible utopia that is not compatible with human nature. This is just another challenge for survival. Humans have faced other challenges due to local area climate changes, new diseases, exhaustion of resources, and other problems. Those previous episodes didn't transfer humans into sacrificial altruists and Peak Oil isn't going to work such a transformation now.
Somewhere in one of these posts, they were talking about Brain evolution, and positing that the brain of modern man might have evolved to be altruistic, But the slowness of the system will frustrate me in hunting down the post.
I say that man can be "sacrificial altruists". But man can also be totally uncaring and selfish.
The communism of the the recent world's experiments has been tied to people being greedy in the system, gaming the ideals to suit their desires.
I don't think a Magical Kingdom will pop up overnight. But any solution to the problems will have to be worked on, with blood ,sweat and tears.
I say that men can change, and you say that they can't, Is that a correct conclusion?
Hugs from somewher over the rainbow, or in spain on a plane,
Charles,
YadaYada and a better future.
Well said, FMaygar!
If we could just get to the point that the best educated quarter or fifth of the overall population understands what you are talking about,we would probably be ok;that would more than likely be enough to tip the scales from insanity to sanity.
Incidentally I do get your point in respect to religion, and believe it or not , I actually feel the same way a lot of days.
But I can't help being amused by a biologist who taking a religious nut any more personally than he does a wasp or a honeybee or a rat.They are all just doing their own thing, as dictated by mother nature. ;)
Just to be perfectly honest, I have been heard on a bad day to curse an inanimate object, which is at least an order of magnitude worse, in terms of being rational.
I apologize for jerking your chain when you were just enjoying a little well earned rant.
No apology needed, there are times when a little sense of perspective is needed. Its all part of the back and forth that I've come to expect from those that frequent this site. Thanks!
"What exactly have you rightly earned? You have been merely lucky to have had access to cheap energy and to live in a society that has been able to steal it from the rest of humanity and the future."
Yes, I'm fortunate to live in an era of cheap and abundant energy. I'm also lucky to live in the USA during this time. Not everyone in the USA has equal incomes, in case you didn't know that. That I should give what I have to someone who doesn't work as hard as I do or has made a series of poor life choices (inside the USA) is something I'm very resistant of. We in the US consume more than our share of global resources? Well no kidding.
My questions - Who gave you the right to consume the electricity and other resources for your computer? Are you not stealing from the rest of humanity and future generations? Is your internet connection "vital" to the common good? I think not.
"Your rights end where the commons and the rights of others to live begin. Your handle is obviously most appropriate if you truly believe that you have a right to what you have! What you have is due the spoils of the grandest larceny in the entire history of all civilizations."
Are you suggesting that what I have which was earned with my labor isn't mine? Then where do you fit in? How do you pay for internet, food, clothing, housing? Do you lock your doors at night? Ever think someone might steal your computer? Why don't you just give it to them - by your definition you also do not have a right to anything you own.
Or is it just people with "more" than you have who should give up what they have? But what happens when someone else is poorer than you?
You are delusional if you think this equal package idea will ever fly. I has been tried time and time again. Someone always Has more and someone less.
Now having said all of that. There should be greater income equality, worldwide. But some occupations are worth more than others and should pay better. So here we go again....
If you work for free you are nuts.
Are you suggesting that with no expected effort on your part that someone else should give you what you want because you think they should? Good luck with that idea...we will fight like birds at the bird feeder....we are no smarter than yeast...
Not at all! I'm a realist and actually both work for a living and am trying as hard as I can to reduce my own foot print in the world while I try to raise awareness in others.
The raising awareness thing is actually an ongoing experiment and I have been trying various ways of saying things and of approaching people in general. Sometimes I try humor, sometimes rational arguments on other occasions anger and insults. For the record, among other things, I have a rather extensive record of interactions with people in all walks of life across a wide variety of cultures. I have been professionally involved with teaching, training and changing (at least corporate) culture, and in a few other venues as well.
But I digress, back to my main point.
What I'm trying to do is to get people to see the world as it really is and to understand that not only do we all have to change the way we have been doing things up until now but that in order to accomplish that we must get people to understand and to let go of their own biases and learn ways to short circuit their biologically evolved behaviors which are no longer adaptive in our current so called "civilized" environment and culture. Humans evolved to live in relatively small groups.
To simplify that concept, we can not have a world in which 9 billion humans aspire to the consumerist lifestyle of accumulating stuff thinking it is true wealth and they are all willing to fight to the death to protect their perceived right to do so. We are after all social animals with evolved altruistic traits that are partly responsible for survival advantages of the group. If you study primate behavior for example you will find many examples of the group isolating and meting out justice against those members that are perceived not to be playing fair. The members are expected to pull their own weight and give back to the group as able and of course all members are not equal there is a well defined hierarchy. There is also either a patriarch or matriarch that is the top or alpha member and leads the group. They do enjoy special privileges.
BTW Just an aside on the working for free concept. Ever hear of pro bono or volunteer work? Maybe drop in to your local hospital and talk to people who volunteer there...you might find that they are not nuts! You might even learn from what it is that motivates them.
As for fighting amongst birds at your feeder, they are pacifists, you should study the evolution and escalation of the different techniques of biological warfare employed by the myriad organisms on your typical coral reef.
And now I need to get back to my still rather primitive experiments with steering collapse through initiating tipping points in criticality landscapes.(Big hat tip to greenish) Sometimes starting a small avalanche in the right place can save the village from being buried by the big one. And if that means stepping on a few toes, then so be it.
Cheers!
Delusional is correct.
We surely do NOT wish to actually visit socialism upon this country.
I/Others fought against the commies some time back unless you forgot.
Yes we have made a very bad wrong turn here by advancing 'social' programs beyond all meaningful bounds and hence have been guilty of destroying a very great culture and country. This is the fault of the clowns we elected. They lied of course and we believed their lies.
We now see a thin-skinned man with the inability to understand just what is going down in the GOM. A clear example of bad choices by many in this country who 'just don't get it'.
Our country is not some 3rd world banana republic but we are certainly heading there rapidly if we don't clean our house out and flush the ignorance of the gen xers among us down the drain.
Remember the words "its not considered proper to sweat in New York City".
Sweat is what built this country. Its those who do not sweat who are taking it away from us. What I earn by the sweat of my brow is mine and not my 'brothers'. Let those who can't sweat eat the bitter weeds of discontent.
Socialism is not communism. The British and French incorporate a lot of socialist ideals througout their society.
Ahhh all sematics then. Could I say with some accuracy that Communism is a form of Socialism?
Well actually I suppose that Russia does not practice true communism? Or that Pol Pot was not practicing socialism nor any of the other chinese dictators?
Ah we fought against the Chinese "whatevers" and ditto the Cold War with those who threatened to send their long range bombers to the USA. And of course the N.Koreans.
Yes I was in those conflicts and saw men burned and crash during the Cold War. So were those lives spent in vain?
I do not wish to live under any but the most free form of government. I could care less what Brazil, France or any other country or nation state wishes to impose on its populace.
Currently I am happiest here and I have been in other countries as well. No thank you.
I own my land. I care for it. I see no one else around as I bush hog the brush in my fence rows. I see no one else as I sow and harvest the crops.Why then should I wish to share? I will share as I see fit and no one shall take it from me.
I fought for these values. I swear by them and not like many others I get tears in my eyes when that flag passes in review with the honor guard holding it aloft.
I am and always will be a patriot but I dislike what my government has become of late. I would fight today if JFK was my commander-in-chief. Not so sure about Obama.
I am a simple man since I eat what I grow or trade with others for my needs. I need no brain chemistry to do those simple chores.
And I doubt there are very many 'good men' in the financial areas of New York City. They have ripped and shredded human morals for their own greed. If that is evidence of brain chemicals at work may I suggest lobotomies in their cases?
very interesting. noted how long you been here. tell you what. read every post on this site for a year and then go back and read what you have written. sounds like you got a bolt hole. get ready to put your head down. no man is an island.
As I have posted elsewhere, I have hopes for a better future, where people can live in harmony with each other and yada uada Bada.... But I am not advocating taking from those that have and spreading it in an even layer. All I am saying is that no one should be left to starve in the world.
I come form a military family, Been overseas on bases and have worked for the Gov't in my own time, supporting those kinds of efforts. So I thank you for your time spent protecting our freedoms.
I am of the mindset that we need to help others, but not so much so that they feel that they can crash on the couch and not lend a hand in the food growing and basket making.
If I were in your area, I'd ask not try to impose my ideals on you, just a friendly chat, and wonder if you know where the wild (name of the week) plants grow.
Thanks for posting at the TOD, hugs from arkansas.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
First if you have personally been in any battle as a member of our armed forces you have my utmost respect and gratitude, I support and salute you for your service. To be clear I do not support most of the reasons that have been given for justifying our engagement in most of our recent international conflicts.
Having said that, Socialism is not the same as Communism.
Not even in the same ballpark. There are many examples of Socialist Democracies that respect human rights and have free market economies. Whether or not they will be better able to ride the coming storms than the system we now have in the US is a question that will be left up to future historians to decipher.
BTW we already live in a corporate welfare state which to me is much worse that any socialist society.
Some of the more socialist countries in Europe are broke.
yup, how much does the greatest experiment in democracy in the history of the world owe? wait,the USA is not a democracy? well, facist, perhaps...
Democracy does seem to be malfunctioning. Calling the US fascist does not remove the fact that it is a democracy.
I rest my case! Had a nice rain this afternoon. The peas have bloomed and matured. need to pick them tomorrow. Okra needs to be cut. Squash bores need to be monitored. Latest corn planting is emerging. Break corn. Pepper plants need to be transplanted. Millet for birds needs to be planted. zenias need to be transplanted for butterflies. mulch needs to be spread in new garden area. Melons need to be checked.....
Of course, because we should not find "social" solutions to the ongoing and worsening economic dislocation. It may infringe on our god given right as members of the monied class to consuming as much as we want. Just give the unwashed more free markets and if they can't survive, well, to bad. The invisible iron fist will take care of them like god intended. People should be valued as the market dictates. If they happen to be unemployed, they are not worth anything.
I, for one, have no idea what most people mean these days when they say "socialism". It seems to be all over the map.
The people who like socialism think socialism means whatever it they like to see in a government and an economic system.
There is no separating the government and the economic system. Without big government our economic system would collapse like a paper bag. Especially the military. We need that to expand/maintain market share and resource extraction because without that it would collapse. So, constant government intervention is necessary for operation at some level. What you really oppose is government intervention that is not in our own personal interest.
yup, what we are looking for is protecting mine. Mine and thine. duality, the greatest and most dangerous fetish in human nature.
I oppose lots of forms of government intervention that harms the interest of others without harming my own interests. I favor a more voluntary society.
google Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The US wouldn't be such a small fraction of the world's population if the people in certain other countries hadn't spent the last hundred years making so many babies.
I am not responsible for the results of the reproductive decisions made by others. Without power there is no responsibility.
India's population is going to grow by one or two USAs. Am I supposed to hand them resources to help them do this when they ought to be shrinking their population instead? I do not think so.
yup. Let me guess, a member of the tea party that has aspirations of getting a job as a pundit on Fox News.
I do not understand where you are going with this. How is it Futurepundit's fault third world population has exploded?
In terms of resource usage it is the 1st world that has exploded in population. It would take some third world countries 35-40 people to equal the resource consumption of average americans.
people in certain other countries hadn't spent the last hundred years making so many babies
USA population
1900 - 76,212,168
2000 - 291,421,906
Growth - 383%
India population
1900 - 271,306,000
2000 - 1,014,003,800
Growth - 374%
Yes, SOME people have LOTS of babies !
Alan
A very substantial fraction of that US population growth came from abroad, both up to 1924 and starting again the mid 1960s. Not so India. If we hadn't started letting in immigrants again back in the 1960s the US population would be 250 million or less and near zero population growth. Instead we are headed for 450 million (and immigration amnesty boosts fertility btw). India, meanwhile, is headed for 1.7 billion by 2050. This is all bad news.
yup, looks bad everywhere. The pie is shrinking and there are more of us. guess that means .......
But you haven't even chosen the right countries to compare. The really high fertility countries have growth rates orders of magnitude higher. For example, from 1900 till today Kenya's population has grown by a factor of 28. A mere factor of 3.74 pales in comparison. But Kenya isn't even top of the pops when it comes to fertility. The countries that still have 7+ babies per woman today are just amazing.
Future Pundit,
Will you hold the gun to their heads and pull the trigger? Will you eat your hamburger and watch someone else starve before your very eyes?
I don't know how many people will die in the next ten minutes, no human knows that, though we could plug some datasets in and a few lines of code and get a rough guess. Not that we can predict things like "storms, lightening kill 50,000 at the KFC in X city, at the local BBQ night, or other things like that".
So I have some ideas, You get your mask on, and steam the instruments and we go, tube tying and nipping the breeders over there. What say you? Going to help fixing the Over population potential?
You don't need power to be responsible. You should be responsible no matter your station in life.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future world with more hugs and caring.
BTW, a chart that focuses on US versus rest-of-world resource consumption is so 20th century. With the exception of oil China has now bypassed the US in the use of just about every resource. In some cases the gaps between China and the US are huge. For example, in 2005 China produced over 10 times as much cement as the United States.
yup. We are in overshoot. Detroit is converting abandoned and deteriorating urban areas into backyard gardens. What is the per capita energy consumption of China compared to the good old USA? check it out.
North America has around 52% of the worlds resource base. The old Russian Federation around 32%.
The entire Far East including China... less than 7% of the worlds resource base.
This is why we have done what we have done... not because we are smart. All humans are the same.
No human is 'worth' more than any other human.
https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfx7rfr2_357gsgx2ptk A Statement Of The Social Objectives Of Technocracy technate design.
Installed technology, trained personnel and resources. This is the key to change.
Start with the conversion of North America to a technate using biophysical economics http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics and Energy Accounting in a non market economic system http://www.archive.org/details/TechnocracyStudyCourseUnabridged
The technate design is located in the last couple of chapters of the Technocracy Study Course... main author... M. King Hubbert.
Guess what?
This silly site and its posters could do something useful and actually get educated about a way that is viable and come to terms with the future... is that good poetry or what?
I'll go to your site soon, but from what I have read of your posts, it seems like something along the lines of the currently titled Venus Project.
The Furutist whose ideas these are, was showing them off as long ago as 1979, so it has been around a while, and his ideas are good, but I am not sure they can be done any more than my own. He has the problem of limited funding to buy land to build his bigger dream site on, though he has a small set up in florida.
I need about an acre to get all my ideas up and running, but I am still doing what I can to my parent's little city lot, 1/6th an acre would be great if I could support all my food and energy and living needs on it, then I could convince people that it does not take a lot of land to feed all the people we have on the planet.
But as with anything you have to have a working model and be able to show others all the bells and whistles. Ideas are great but they only sell books not much else.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, and hugs from me to you all.
Charles.
There is no connection between the information I am giving and what the Venus Project is. None. Fresco is not related to M. King Hubbert or Howard Scotts ideas.
I hope that is now clear for you.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TBonePickensetc more.
You are an idiot. It is hardly innovative thinking, but most of what you say makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, it is predicated on the false assumption that others, far from being as hubristically arrogant and egotistical as yourself, are empathetic, compassionate and enlightened.
Well, relatively speaking, most will be, but, alas, if the history of the world up to now is any guide, such propitious qualities markedly tend to be in shorter and shorter supply, the great the power and status of the individuals concerned. And you expect fallen mankind, of which you seem to represent such an egregious example, to build according to your utopian plan, without reference to a spiritual regeneration. Dream on.
The poster you sought to excoriate was making a very insightful and valuable point about the most successful way to reach certain categories of successful people (under Western societies' current canons of success), people with entrenched, precataclysmic world-views.
You remind me of the British paterfamilias who made all the big decisions in his family, such as whether we should stay in the Common Market, while his wife made all the small decisions, such as where they lived, what careers they should pursue, what schools their children went to, etc.
You need to grow up and learn a little humility. Not false modesty, humility. Understanding your own limitations. That way, you could even avoid the nemesis you appear to be so zealously courting.
If the idea is good I don't really care about the arrogance of the originator.
I had heard that King Hubbert had most people quaking in their boots when they tried to talk to him on technical matters. Did people listen to him less because he was arrogant? Or did they listen to him more because he was arrogant?
Caveat: this is just what I have heard about Hubbert through second-hand info.
I can tell you from tons of past experience that how you say something is far more important than what you say.
There are exceptions.
Cheers
Yes indeed.
The entire realm of math and science hold most of the exceptions.
And it's a very small realm.
Well, that all depends on whether you are talking to someone who is most interested in the truth or someone who is most interested in how things make them feel.
Some people really are more interested in objective reality.
Monbiot:
"Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it. Tell them something new and they will hate you for it."
That's what we always struggle with, a type of vanity.
Why do you let it bother you so?
There are a lot of people who haven't blogged very much and feel a need to raise their voice to be heard.
He will either move on somewhere else, or he will participate and find he doesn't have to shout and belittle people.
I actually agree at some level with what he is saying, though it never crossed my mind to belittle Nate. I'm new here, and I'm leery of soap boxes as I have seen many examples of people who have become captured by a cause.
I have no reason to doubt peak oil, but I am weary of the shriller aspects of the implications. The fact is, the country went on a severe energy budget during WWII, so there is precedence.
Oil is only one form of energy. Maybe more stuff will have to be produced locally, and maybe we will have to use glass instead of plastic, and maybe we will need better insulation, and... maybe it won't be as bad as we fear. Even if it is, what's the worst that can happen? Large dieoffs, and a retrenchment for mankind. We'll adjust. The biosphere will do what it always does, and we are puny.
I was the first person on TOD to engage John Carter and the reason I did so was that I agree with what he says.
You have to admit, his "style" gets attention.
In very general terms I think that a system that provides for the basic needs of all participants should be based on cooperation and competition should be reserved for anything beyond that and also to promote improvement.
Since it seems to be well established that there is a innate need to compete and feel superior it should not be repressed but channeled into useful or at least harmless competitive endeavors.
Physical activity is beneficial health wise and also could satisfy the urge to compete (just one example off the top of my head) others could be organized competitions in art, inventions, mathematics, science, etc. These could create a new type of hero to be emulated.
Everything beyond survival needs that people hold as important or "value" is a result of the culture that they are exposed to...........so change the culture and change the social mores and hence the behavior of the society.
We are hardwired to do a lot of things. however, capitalism worships competition and forces people to compete for survival means. It's based on competition. Valuing competition above cooperation and setting a system up around it reenforces and exacerbates the more sociopathic aspects.
Would it really be that detrimental to our social development to devise a social system that favors cooperation over competition. Would people just not be able to handle it and go crazy... We certainly cooperate within a competition based system. I'm sure we could compete in a cooperative based system without feeling "unnatural" without withering up a dying
We did make this current social system. I think we could make a new one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis
http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/chapter2-1.php
The fact is that competition is much less a determinant of behavior and evolution than commonly supposed, and our view of nature as "red in tooth and claw" is mostly a projection of our own cultural prejudices. We find what we look for. Secondly, the idea that genes "program" behavior and serve as the blueprint of physiognomy is also wrong, a product of our mechanistic worldview; evidence is emerging that the environment triggers and even alters DNA to serve purposes that transcend the individual. Thirdly, the genetic integrity of higher organisms is not so absolute as commonly supposed: plants, fungi, and even animals share the genetic fluidity of the bacteria in previously unsuspected ways. A fourth indication that the supposed genetic integrity of the biological self is largely is cultural projection is that the leap from anuclear bacteria to eukaryotic cells, like other macroevolutionary jumps, happened through a symbiotic merger of simpler organisms. Cooperation, and not competition, is the primary basis of life and the primary engine of evolution.
arraya. very interesting stuff. please play more often.
Hi Rube,
I think it's time to shed this 18th century pre-science social system. I think we can all think of situations where competition goes arwy, though I think you would be hard pressed to find a situation gone bad from too much cooperation. Our competition worship has gone far enough.
People competing for their means of survival in a shrinking wealth pie could and will get quite pathological, quick.
Markets and money itself are competition enhancing and requiring mechanisms and MAJOR behavioral drivers. Be it people or countries. Markets and money logic drives the world. Well in reality, natural processes do, but in our hubris, we think we do through our aberrant financial structure.
When our global system functions on the same basis as ravenous sharks who need ever more feeding lest they drop dead, what else can you expect on a FINITE planet except inevitable war? This is the BIG problem i have with those who insist on focusing upon modifying behavior within a system that's logic dictates otherwise and think that everything can just be "mellowed," as if a fight to the death can be mellowed. The entire system has a logic which is totally irrational from any kind of objective perspective, but this doesn't matter, its logic has taken over all institutions, be it academia, media, government, sports,... and presented for so long as "human nature" that most people, even ones who should know better, have come to accept it as such. Till we overthrow that "logic," we will remain its prisoners right to our inevitable DEATH.
Really, we don't have an oil problem. We have a massive materials efficiency, distribution and allocation problem. Which can turn ugly quick as our unnatural social system breaks down.
Unfortunately, due to the dominance of competition verse cooperation, we have to wait for the old system to die and not lose our heads when it does.
The best thing we can hope for is a quick clean economic collapse before we do too much damage.
hello,
i love your optimism. unfortunately despair has been my usual mood recently. I am afraid we are into overshoot and things are not going to turn out well. As someone recently said on this site," TSHHTF, it just ain't equally distributed yet." Living my whole life on the GOM I am now feeling it personally. I'm an old man and i know you can't really live until you have become comfortable with death. I just wasn't ready for the death of one of the most productive ecosystems on the earth. We have known for a long time the run off from the mid-west farms were causing large dead zones, but no one expected this. Most do not realize how this will effect the lives of millions for many years, especially for those who cannot yet understand how they can live without the wild things this portion of our world produces. Now that we see how our free market capitalist system has lured us into collective suicide it makes us sick. I am sure that many in the third world who have had experiences of a similar nature shake their heads as they watch the destruction of the most critical portions of their life support system. Interesting indeed. Me i plan to grow my gardens, and drink it to the dregs. Just hope its not spiked with petroleum products. Nice talking to you.
cheers,
Lynn Margulis sounds like an ideological nut who finds natural selection's implications problematic for her desired form of society. Competition for resources has driven and continues to drive evolution.
Take this part:
Well, parasitic is pretty much the opposite of symbiotic. But the presence of viral and bacterial genes in the human genome does not tell us anything about the practical possibilities for human society. Genetic variations get generated in the genome in a variety of ways. What determines whether they survive is whether they boost the odds of reproduction of offspring that also succeed in reproducing.
Clearly, we are very evolved because creating a race to use up resources as fast as possible on a finite planet is so wise. We will battle our way to enlightenment in a toxic , overcrowded wasteland. If that isn't evolution, I don't know what is...
Well there is the study of the creatures living in us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora
Who knows if some of them can alter our brains in ways we have yet to understand. I seem to remember hearing of a study to ID all of them and get their DNA mapped as well.
So until we know more, we can't say for sure that some things are, or are not happening. Like the lady says in her article.
Charles,
Hugs, from me and all my fellow creatures in my space, But Buddy the gut-bug says special waves to you, he's got a cousin living in a person near you, and thought he'd send them waves over the internet.
Hi John,
Your opening statement "This is pointless chatter about ethics and morality in the Price System. It is worse than pathetic and shows the overall poor quality of intellectual discourse on the Oil Drum." left me puzzled. I believe you either got up on the wrong side of the bed today or your ego is more important to you than effective communication.
So please, either apologize for your misstep and contribute in a manner which improves the overall quality of TOD, or find another forum for your ego.
Thanks.
Nate makes salient points. However, John's correct, you can't reform market system's or their dehumanizing and anti-social nature and any talk of social change without talk of these "behavior driving mechanisms" seems to be short sighted. Also, Pricing mechanism cannot consider anything external to them and therefore will destroy us, as everything that we depend upon as living creatures embedded within a web of life cannot be defined and controlled by something that cannot exceed its scope. All "value" is subjective anyway... Why is it impossible to compete and still be equal? Or at least dramatically more equal than the uber-perverse social stratification we have today. I don't buy that people have to be "above" somebody or else. Sounds like cultural bias to me.
Market systems and capitalism create battlefield earth. It can't end well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis
Understanding that what we have is an institution of our own creation, makes it apparent that we hold our own destiny in our hands; that it's not an invisible hand that acts through our very nature, and thereby removes our free will to be otherwise, but rather a confusion waiting to be transcended. We are confused on a mass scale.
I think the bigger question is: As more and more people get kicked out or further disenfranchised through "market" adjustments, how do you get them to stay with the program besides force. No doubt, people are confused on a mass scale and scared to death of change. Unfortunately, change is about to vomit all over us, much to our dismay.
Impossible, like an infinite growth system on top of a finite resource base. We may have another plan that is utterly impossible. The one that is playing out in front of us.
At some level of social collapse people will probably look for a new way. Whether we manage resources conscientiously and equitably with a logical method of arriving at decisions or through further unemployment and all the shame, guilt political craziness and propaganda that comes with it, our current rationing system, it will come. One way is not sustainable or even in the ball park of Humane. Guess which one. With the current economic inertia transpiring. Change will come in a humane or inhumane way. It is our collective choice. Market systems will not make humane choices or people that are beholden to enforcing their logic with an, IMO, erroneous belief that it is "natural".
Finance seems to me like a burst appendix at this point, an organ, in the global body, that we really don't need anymore and has become toxic to our survival.
The 'self' is not the center of the economy, the earth is, and until that understanding is integrated into our social system. We. Are. Doomed.
No, they are consumers and once the stop doing that, they are worthless and need to die per the logic of the market system because ain't nothing free in a "free" market.
And the marketing industry has been studying and preying on "biological" drivers for decades, hence the over consumption. Over consumption is profitable, encouraged and achieved. Mission accomplished. We are surrounded with a hologram of repetitive lifestyle images emotionally manipulating us to buy things.
Creating a race to compete for and use all of our resources as fast as we can can't be reformed and will only lead to disaster for everybody. Tweaking is futile. The game needs to change.
"At some level of social collapse people will probably look for a new way. Whether we manage resources conscientiously and equitably with a logical method of arriving at decisions or through further unemployment and all the shame, guilt political craziness and propaganda that comes with it, our current rationing system, it will come. One way is not sustainable or even in the ball park of Humane. Guess which one. With the current economic inertia transpiring. Change will come in a humane or inhumane way. It is our collective choice. Market systems will not make humane choices or people that are beholden to enforcing their logic with an, IMO, erroneous belief that it is "natural"."
I couldn't agree more.
From a marketing perspective we are consumption and our behavior is monitored and encouraged or discouraged for maximum profit to the corporate good. The current situation in the US is not a "free" market.
Gerald Cilente made the comment that we are in a fascist condition here in the US. This is hard to argue with.
The size of corporations and the dependence of population on energy are issues that can only remedied by some form of collapse.
What will it look like? There has always been and will always be social stratification. If I work harder than someone else then I shouldn't have to share with them just because they are "here". Try this and you get everybody doing nothing. Take all the money and wealth away from everyone and in 20 years there will be rich and poor. Rich people want it more than others and are willing to work harder to get it. Others will sit and bitch about the unfairness of it all. Are there exceptions- well of course. Is there corruption and perversion of values- of course.
My point is humans have not evolved to some higher mental plane. To disregard emotional/biological motivation and to put all assets in some neatly packaged box equally distributed with out regard to individual effort will never work and never has.
The world is a biological battlefield. To bad us humans developed such amazing machines, anti-biotic's, we are heading for collapse sooner or later it will be as natural as rain.
Which propagates extreme waste and irrational use of resources
There is no such thing. Most property was stolen and people violently forced into market systems through out history . Value and property are legal creations. Government intervention is taking place at all times and everywhere. Laws of property, contract, and tort are state creations that allocate certain rights to some people and deny them to others. These forms of law represent large-scale government “interventions” into the economy. Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings thru the state. The only difference is perspective on whether "interventions" are happening to your benefit or not whether you perceive it as free or not.
It's a bullshit system full of contradictions. It just voodoo based around property and price points.
We all get something for nothing. We need less work and less productivity. In fact PO demands it.
Getting something for nothing
In the distribution to the public of the products of industry, the failure of the present system is the direct result of the faulty premise upon which it is based. This is: that somehow a man is able by his personal services to render to society the equivalent of what he receives, from which it follows that the distribution to each shall be in accordance with the services rendered and that those who do not work must not eat. This is what our propagandists call 'the impossibility of getting something for nothing.' Aside from the fact that only by means of the sophistries of lawyers and economists can it be explained how, on this basis, those who do nothing at all frequently receive the largest shares of the national income, the simple fact is that it is impossible for any man to contribute to the social system the physical equivalent of what it costs the system to maintain him form birth till death--and the higher the physical standard of living the greater is this discrepancy. This is because man is an engine operating under the limitations of the same physical laws as any other engine. The energy that it takes to operate him is several times as much as any amount of work he can possibly perform. If, in addition to his food, he receives also the products of modern industry, this is due to the fact that material and energy resources happen to be available and, as compared with any contribution he can make, constitute a free gift from heaven. Stated more specifically, it costs the social system on the North American Continent the energy equivalent to nearly 10 tons of coal per year to maintain one man at the average present standard of living, and no contribution he can possibly make in terms of the energy conversion of his individual effort will ever repay the social system the cost of his social maintenance. Is it not to be wondered at, therefore, that a distributive mechanism based upon so rank a fallacy should fail to distribute; the marvel is that it has worked as well as it has. Since any human being, regardless of his personal contribution, is a social dependent with respect to the energy resources upon which society operates, and since every operation within a given society is effected at the cost of a degradation of an available supply of energy, this energy degradation, measured in appropriate physical units such as kilowatt-hours, constitutes the common physical cost of all social operations. Since also the energy-cost of maintaining a human being exceeds by a large amount his ability to repay, we can abandon the fiction that what one is to receive is in payment for what one has done, and recognize that what we are really doing is utilizing the bounty that nature has provided us. Under these circumstances we recognize that we all are getting something for nothing, and the simplest way of effecting distribution is on a basis of equality, especially so when it is considered that production can be set equal to the limit of our capacity to consume, commensurate with adequate conservation of our physical resources.
The coming economic collapse of our man made system is unavoidable. How we conduct ourselves after is a choice.
We don't really have an oil problem, well only if we want continue capitalism or growth based economics , we have a belief system problem that has led to a massive structural, resource allocation and distribution problem and a bizarre self-destructive cultural distaste in paying attention to the planet's limits which we label as a biology problem and an "acceptable" self control problem because we just can't help it. BS
We have the know-how and technology to monitor and budget resources. It's a matter of will and developing a humane, conscientious system to do so.
It is a collective choice and to say otherwise is nonsense.
Wow!
Now I would quibble with some of the details you use, but I think you have a lot of important things to say, and a great way of staing them.
Heres one area I would quibble a bit:
I think it is too easy to read that as: "a few control freaks invented a system to benefit themselves, and the rest follows from that." I think the development of our current system was much much more haphazrd than that. Mostly we are creating laws one at a time to handle narrowly defined situations. Generally there is no one guiding the whole process towards some predefined end. We may have individuals with power who have illusions of doing so, but for the most part the implications of their actions defy prediction.
Not too far off really.
It was a long process and often forced in the beginning and is throughout the third world even today. Obvious nobody is forcing it to a predefined end because it will end in disaster, as we are starting to see. There is only so much natural and social capital we can turn to money to feed the beast. The upper percentile enforces its propagation because of their privileged position and probably believe in it's folklore to an extent. They even manufacture consent to quote chomsky, see unemployed tea baggers. And of course it is romanticized and sanctified.
The means of subsistence production (especially primary production per the physiocrats' definition: agriculture) were taken away from people en masse (enclosed) not too long ago see "enclosures" in england circa 1200-1700. People suddenly did not have the same type of access to the land that they'd always had. Someone else owned it in a totally different way than the feudal way. The merchant class -- those who produce nothing, but simply rearrange and sell what nature produces -- rose to prominence, and began to enclose more than just agricultural land, but also overtook manufacturing methods, materials and people, too. As people lost their ability to sustain themselves directly, they began to have to do so indirectly through the sale of themselves to the new system. That's the social relation part, people (society) had to literally sell themselves into the system in the form of wage labor which took on market pricing mechanisms. Prior to that, people worked for a certain amount and paid dues to the feudal lords, but it wasn't a market in the modern sense of price making and taking. Capital (and thus capitalism) is the social relation which necessitates and involves the selling of oneself to the market at market value as just another commodity. You cannot live within the system as we know it, without selling your self (labor) for a wage, which you then use to buy the things to subsist upon. It is a socially acceptable coercion . Essentially, a middle-man was created and this middle-man began to siphon off greater and greater commissions and expanded with the increase in ownership capability bought through the new social relationship. This is now the ruling class see wall street and their minions politicians
This enclosing was very similar to the stalinist russia collectivization, except in Russia it was done in a very short time and hence more brutal. Of course, trade, exchange and markets have been around since the beginning of civilization, but all encompassing markets where everybody's survival is dependent on a market working is a very new program. The vast majority throughout history have taken care of there survival needs outside of market systems. Up until probably 500 years ago.
Whether those few middle-men be a cabal of government officials (Russia), or private tycoons (in a Randian world), or a mix thereof (like in the U.S.), the social relation of labor (people) as a commodity and expressed through capital is the same.
Around this social relation we created a doctrine after the fact. See the invisible hand - Where ones self interest, primarily monied, is supposed to benefit the whole. It's going to start eating itself and kicking people out of the market system as time goes on. And it worked ok for a small amount of the population for a short sliver of history at huge environmental and social costs. And now it is starting to fail just as it has taken over the globe. People are going to be pissed. lol
'''''''''''''a few control freaks invented a system to benefit themselves, and the rest follows from that'''''''''
Money History & Energy Accounting. Short history of the origin of the Price System and some major aspects of it from a technocratic perspective http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfx7rfr2_211crx6c26k - Some alternative viable ideas.
Getting something for nothing is quoted from "Man Hours and Distribution' by M King Hubbert 1940.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22289589/Man-Hours-and-Distribution-M-King-Hub...
What I took from Nate is that there is chemical stimulus in our brains that make us behave certain ways, to ignore biology is foolishness.
"collective choice" - "WE" "make" "a collective choice" with every nickle we spend and what we do with our time.
"WE" rule our collective destiny, "we" have made our "choices" - "we" will suffer our "consequences".
From the early days when "we" decided to walk upright, "we" have made choices.
Note also the sociopath theory of CEO employment advanced by Thom Hartmann and others.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thom-hartmann/profiling-ceos-and-their_b_2...
Is there also a chemical stimulus (or imbalance) in the brains of corporate executives? It doesn't happen to everyone, just a select few.
The argument makes a lot of sense from a rhetorical POV.
My point is humans have not evolved to some higher mental plane. To disregard emotional/biological motivation and to put all assets in some neatly packaged box equally distributed with out regard to individual effort will never work and never has.
Actually, you're completely incorrect. There have been, and continue to be, egalitarian societies. It's not the possibility that is in question, just the will. And that comes down to shared values.
All societies are unequal. The degree of inequality varies. But Hierarchies are the human norm. You can bet the Castro brothers have much higher living standards than a farm field worker in Cuba.
double
Several of your statements got me thinking. Generally speaking I agree with your point of veiw. Being a Christian I think in the End God is in charge, but that is just me telling you where my faith is, and is not a value judgement on anyone else. Here is what I'd like to see happen in a future culture of earth.
The Free Market.. You have food stands and basket stands in a market place. But no money exchanges hands, not even trade per se, if it is there you take what you need. People take care of people, there are no starving or homeless people in the village. If you need things moved, you can go get a truck from the motor pool and move the heavy things you need to move. Taking the truck back for the next person who might need it.
Places that grow food are near the village, and the wild places are further away, left alone to the most part, managed so that wild fires don't sweep through everywhere, but fires are left to go free in other places. If you were a new person to this countryside, you'd think it was all chaos, and while it seems that way, there is planning involved up to a point, but things are left to be free to just happen on their own.
..............
Really there are designers and planners out here in the world, who would let the grass grow high in our yards, and would let whatever showed up stay there for the most part. If we did not have a city code enforcer not come by and tell us our yards needing mowing.
When My dad passes away and the yard is left to me, I won't mow it nearly as much as he does, and he is getting better than he used to be. I've influenced him to leave certain areas as wild as they are, because it brings the wild things back to the yard.
Man has had this nasty habit of trying to control things for almost ever. I see it this way, in the garden of eden things were not as orderly as we have been picturing it in our heads, not many clean cut lines, and things weren't as kill or be kill as they are out here in the rest of the world. The concept is that the garden was where Adam and Eve lived apart from elsewhere, but that garden is gone and we can't get back in it. What we have now been doing since that time is misunderstanding some of those oft times quoted verses about subduing the world.
We have a wild thing on our hands, it is not going to be controlable really, and you have to labor at growing things, (subdue, means to control). We have this need to control our direction, Adam and Eve needed it, otherwise the story of them disobeying would have been different.
Disobeying a parent is the child's need for control of their world. Free will is the ability to feel control is in our hands.
As a gardener I do control things, I cut down the plants I don't want grwoing places, while leaving them other places. I try to use as little control as I can, letting the chaos happen wherever I can. I am not an organic gardener, but I don't use pesticides or herbicides from the big industrial plants. I do use plants to be herbicides and pesticides.
Pine Needles kill a lot of plants, Marigolds ward off some bugs, and some plants even kill bugs that might eat them.
We can change how we live. We are being forced to get back into the swing of things by our own lack of control of how we have been using things up till now. We couldn't control our thrist for power over nature, and now we can't control the outcome of those actions.
Our actions are forcing us to change, even though that was not what we intended to have happen, when we first started doing whatever it was we started in the first place. We over fished, now the balance is swinging toward a system that will limit us in ways we can't even predict, though most of us know it is not going to be pretty.
We need to reteach ourselves that we can't control the world by subduing it, we have to learn to live in the symbiosis that we were really part of all along.
We won't get out of here alive, and we have to face that fact, and we need to let go more often than we have in the past. Free will, lets us let go, but we have to work on the fear that letting go brings out in us.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Please tell us of all the sites with what you consider superior intellectual quality. I would love to visit them. In the mean time, I will just have to settle with what I have found to be of extremely adequate intellectual quality.
As for Nate, I have found him to be stimulating, interesting, educational, and thought provoking. Besides, I don't think that it is intellectually superior to simply name call someone. Just the facts and analysis, please.
Most people here, despite their many differences and perspectives, get along pretty well most of the time. That is why so many of us return.
tstreet, ditto to everything you said.
When someone starts downplaying another's intelligence it usually means they disagree with the argument not that the argument is unintelligent. Easier to scoff than discuss.
Who decides who is on the politburo that allocates energy quotas? Replacing dollars with energy credits merely changes what is printed on money. Money allocation still decides what does and doesn't get done.
In the pastor's sermon today, he talked about how we humans have a kanck for making things our gods, be them ideas, or objects or concepts. In today's world two of the biggest gods around is entertainment and money, Though it seems like that is a new thing, it is not. Look at Rome and the Games they showed to the people to entertain them, some of those structures are still standing, arenas, and theatres, and baths.
$=life or death only if you worship the $.
Long ago I learned a lot by looking at ants, one of the few bugs I was able to handle being around as a kid, I've mostly gotten over the fear of insects through working on it now. Ants don't carry a lot of cash around with them, though they do store up wealth.
What Nate is saying in my mind is that, we need to be teaching people that money isn't everything, and we can live happy lives with less of it in our pockets. My belief system is different from his, but I understand what he is trying to say in the secular framework. We have been teaching in this country for a long time that Money will make you happy, that Money is tied to the American Dream, That other Countries can Aspire to the American Dream in their own lands.
My parents grew up in the Depression, Money in hand was not something that they had, but they have loads of capital, skills, and knowledge.
Elsewhere I stated that my dad's first car was a 1.5 ton dumptruck I was wrong it was a 5 ton one, but he fixed it so that it would run and true to his father's word he got to drive it. He was just relating that most of his toys were things he picked up from the town dump and repaired, toy trucks and stuff. No money yet he had toys.
That mindset of we can have things and be happy even when we don't have any money, has stuck with me all my life. Money does not make happiness. That I am able to get up in the morning makes me smile. That I can give someone a hug makes me smile. That I can feel the clover on my bare feet makes me smile.
Nate stated that those fellows thought that 200 million would stop them, but they went on and on. We can't find happiness in things and we seek more of them, or different things. Money being a big one today because that is what we have been told for the last 50 years or so. You see it on the news, you read about it online, money and power will make you happy.
Nate in his talk was saying that we have to go back to the old ways of thinking about things, money will not bring happiness, we have to reteach the old lessions our forefathers seem to have known, even though their were people through all the ages of man craving more money.
Growth is going to happen, but it'll be a fungus, not gold stacking higher in the bank. What we need to realize is that we don't need to get richer, we need to get better connected to the land, that way we won't abuse it so much, because we will understand that where our food really comes from.
My faith says that everything good comes from God, but your faith might not say that, and that is okay by me, to each their own thoughts. But either way land is where our food is produced, and not in a bank. We need to get better at living a simpler life, not worrying about how much we have in the bank, but hoping we have more plants in the ground producing food.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Thanks for responding CEO. Seems my comment got hijacked by our resident technocrat.
I think two things are going on here. First and foremost everyone...I mean everyone understands to there core being that money determines whether they live or die. Ok there may be a few wild tribes that don't see it that way but the other 99.9% do
What that means is that most are obsessed with acquiring this life sustaining stuff every waking second, and even some dream time I suspect. This is what defines humanity, society, civilization, whatever term you like because it is the vast majority I am talking about who are involved in this process 24-7-365-birth until death.
The second thing that is going on is that some reach certain levels of "wealth" where they are theoretically "safe" but that too is subjective, and then they begin to "play" with some of that money, consume on a level that is not reasonable or necessary or how ever you want to judge it. Thats when Nates concept of neural rewards kicks in but it is only after the survival deal has been thoroughly addressed for a long enough period of time. In other words Nates conclusion is primarily correct only for those well off enough, aka Americans and first worlders and of course despots in every corner of the world but I would argue that their level of "enough" is higher than most.
I understand that there are examples of low income people spending beyond their means but I would argue that that does not disprove my theory. Surrounding ones self with possessions aka "stuff" is also another way of ensuring life. I am not saying that they don't feel something when they pursue their acquisitions, I am just saying that that is secondary for the most part.
So in other words I feel that Nates perspective is accurate but mostly for a relatively small % of the mix, and I would add that your comment about "the love of $" is only accurate for that same small sub-group.
Most people are busting their A$$ for the love of not dying.
Your last comment made me laugh. Once in the tail end of 2005 I was as good as dead, should have been dead, my doctor called it a miracle that I was alive, and the Heart doctor told me 100% of the people who had what I had were either dead or not sitting up and talking like I was. Up till finding out what was wrong with me, I was hoping for death, in a passive way.
If I die tomorrow, great. If I don't, great, guess I'll learn what I can do to help someone smile.
I really have little fear of dying, I don't do a lot of jumping in front of bullets or cars anymore, but if need be I'll get my shoes on and dance.
LOL. I know my actions in the past have totally scared the socks off people watching me do the things I did.
I am that sub group that can use money or not. Drop me in the woods and tell me I can't leave and I won't complain.
Maybe we know different groups of people, but I know others that don't live life just to get money. Some of my friends, don't have money, only carry a pack around when they move from sleeping place to sleeping place. In my profile I talk about helping the homeless. Some of them get by without ever needing money, and don't pursue it.
Guess I need to meet the other folks in our 7,000,000 strong club.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
CEOJr1963,
If someone says to me that they have gotten along fine without money and don't pursue it or feel they have any need for it, I am glad for them, because I know they have been INCREDIBLY LUCKY.
When I was younger, I didn't even really think of money, if I could eat that day, and had a roof over my head (sometimes mine, sometimes friends, sometimes family) I was fine.
My first lesson came when I had my first real toothache. I could have banged my head against the wall...I begged God or any force available to make it stop...and as the frequency of toothache got worse and more multiple as I aged, I realized that without money, I would suffer over and over again, with the infection only doing me more and more damage. By the time I was able to borrow enough at an astounding interest rate on a credit card to get them out...the interest rate could have been 150% and I would have gladly signed on the dotted line...THAT is the first time I really began to think about the power of money.
It is so easy to take it all for granted isn't it? Every wealthy person should be poor at least once, just to know what even marginal sums of money is worth. I have a freind who is dying of cancer because she would not go to the doctor...she had no insurance and did not want the hassle of the constant bills and collection efforts, and even though she had been in pain and sickness for sometime, she would not go...and by the time she did, it was far too late.
I remember sitting in the Kentucky Center for the Arts, right behind the big glass windows facing the street, across the street from the Humana building...preparing to go to see the Louisville Orchestra play for my first time...you see, at that time my finances were on the rebound, and for the first time in my young adult life I could afford a $65.00 ticket, and I was going to hear Beethoven's violin concerto played live...and my eyes welled up with tears. It was something my parents had never felt they could afford. It doesn't sound like much...to hear a symphony concert, go to operas or ballet, going to galleries and museums. I remember the first time I could afford to see the Cincinnati Reds play, my first trip to Chicago to see the Art Institute of Chicago...not much really, but when you first have the moeny to actually go and see events, occassions, all our culture has worked to accomplish, the work of generations of investors, builders, planners, bankers, sportsmen, artists...it is so easy to take it all for granted, isn't it?
Money means very little...if you have have a considerable sum of it.
RC
Roger,
The most money I think I have ever had in my hand at once, in cash or check was $4,000 or so, likely memory fails to the exact amount. It was really just me holding someone elses money for a bit, as it had to go other places than my pocket for keeps.
That is a fortune for most people in the world. The most I have made in one year is $22,000 and that was with a load of OT.(several 70 hour weeks).
My Dad wrote a story and read it out loud into a 5 inch reel to reel tape and added in the sound effects, I must have been little, under 4, but I remember feeling the joy at hearing the ghost story he made up for me.
I was an adventuresome kid, climbing on the fridge under the age of 3, my dad was still home, he got sent to Vietnam for my 3-4 year, and 4-7 we were in Germany. They had to put an adult high latch on the door to keep me in, then I figured out how to get out, so they put a key lock on the door.
Life was always a wild eyed place to have fun in for me, even though I was terrified of bees after getting stung in germany( bad reaction too). I never knew my parents were the working poor as a child, I did not learn that till I was an older teen or in my 20s.
Everyone had food too, even though things were tight, my dad was frugal with his money, and his credit, used it then paid it off as soon as he could, paying extra to the bills.
I don't need money to live a happy life, but the money I do have I share with as many people as I can, I don't feel it is mine really, I just have use of it like any other tool.
If I had the choice of an apple, a pair of trusty Vise-Grips, or 2 bucks, I'd consider the vise-grips first, the apple second and then the 2 bucks next. All three of them are useful, the apple seeds gives you a decent chance of getting a tree out of it, and gives you a meal. The vise-grips are the best deal, that brand of hand tool has lasting power and good range of motion and uses. The 2 dollars can be spread in lots of different ways.
I have had tooth aches in the past, and no have not been able to go to see anyone about them, pain is an odd thing for most people, some can handle it well, while others can't, still others have no choices in the matter drugs don't stop it and the mind can only block it so much, I have seen that a lot in folks, all you can do is love them and be there for them.
I do stand up preformance art at times, and my brother is in the Huntsville Alabama theatre scene a lot, I haven't been able to pay myself for tickets, they have all been gifts.
Sometimes the king goes out and acts like a homeless man in the streets to learn how his subjects need his care, as the story goes.
One of my stories that I have typed up part of, talks about a man that is being trained to be God, he's been alive for billions of years and still has lessions to learn from his teacher, in the bit of story that is on paper, one of his long time companions is telling him that he has to Love everyone Selflessly, and he is still finding that difficult after all these years.
All I can do is give you a hug, and a helping hand when you need it.
Heh, if someone wants to walk a mile in my shoes, remind them I love to go barefoot and gravel is not a problem.
Hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
'''''''''Thanks for responding CEO. Seems my comment got hijacked by our resident technocrat'''''..,end quote Enigma.
Really, you better hope that all your comments get hijacked by resident technocrats... because that is the ONLY thing that this site has going for it.
The progressive liberal or libertarian nonsense is a complete waste... http://www.archive.org/details/TechnocracyAndProgressiveLiberalTheory
Quotes from Hubbert and things like Man-Hours And Distribution form a tiny reality core here http://mkinghubbert-technocracy.blogspot.com/
Wrong. Everybody dies. That's what being mortal is all about. Money may decide who lives longer and who dies sooner and how they die. (some rich who indulge in risky behavior die young anyway, while some of the oldest people in the world are peasants). Money may also decide whether or not your genes get passed on (some rich people have few or no children while some peasants have far more)
I don't diagree with your evaluation about greedy people. But I think that in order to think clearly we need to accept our mortality. Once done, I think the temptation to greedy immoral behavior lessens. Survival is not a thing we can accomplish. Living somewhat decently we can accomplish.
It looks like you're still managing to eat well on 20K a year :)
I kid, I kid, pot calling the kettle black.
Great to the point talk, very clearly expressed.
Laughs, I eat well on less than $9,000 a year in the USA. I have expensive habits too, food wise that is, I like cheeses that have high dollar values, I like fine wine, good beer, and play pool when I can. I know you said you were kidding, but I would be considered obese by most people's standards. Though as a kid I was skinny, but now I am large. I am taller than both my parents, in fact most of my relatives. As an early 20's I could put an 8 foot railroad tie on my shoulder and carry it, but these years I am not nearly as strong in the back as back then.
Happy is what happy does. And no, donuts are not on my diet plan, haven't had one in several months.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, not to push obese ideals, but to help make the unfed fed.
$20K is roughly 20 to 25 times what half the human population lives on. Bringing the world up to Nate's level would require the throughput of 20 to 40 times as many resources which the world currently uses.
Good to see Nate is as arrogant as ever. Yes, what a fine lifestyle choice he has made, and by all means let us commend him for it. But it is just that, a lifestyle choice, nothing more.
Any suggestion that Nate, out of all six-going-on-eight billion people on this planet, knows better than anyone how the whole planet should be "behaving" is conceited beyond belief. Simply stupendous arrogance.
It didn't take me long at all after I started studying ecological overshoot to learn that complex systems will quite naturally self organize to maximize available energy and resources.
Where large accumulations of resources are involved the exuberant spurt of growth and the resulting collapse when those resources are exhausted can be quite dramatic. Again, this behavior is quite natural, nothing at all to be alarmed about, and can be observed in complex systems at all scales, both living and non-living.
Think about it, would any other species of mammal given our unique abilities do anything differently? Not likely, and all of the specious moralizing to the contrary won't change that. It follows then that any suggestion that somehow our entire species is just a bit daft, and if we all could only "be like Nate" then somehow everything will be alright is a stunning conceit that is quite simply beyond worthless. A colossal waste of everyone's time.
What would I suggest? Give people the tools to understand how the world works, based on sound ecological principles, and let them make up their own minds how they want to live. Failing that it seems like the least we can do is disabuse ourselves of the ridiculous notion that people are only being stupid and if we could just somehow "engineer" their behavior then, by gosh! We can save the planet!
Or maybe Nate is just too smart for that...
Cheers,
Jerry
Over consuming is profitable and keeps people employed. And we are asking how to make more people unemployed and companies less profitable. LOL
ConsumerCapitalism5.0 is probably not the best resources management program to run. Until we address that, we are wasting time. We need a new program.
Hopefully the coming collapse slaps some sense into us.
I think Hubbert was right when he said:
Start there and work backwards.
This King comment, important as it is, repeats the same weakness that lives in Nate's endeavor, as well as in so much of the talk emanating from the green movement. The problem is not that "our culture" demands growth. The problem is that our elite, our capitalists, demand it, and have set up extremely successful institutions to ensure it by holding us all hostage to its primacy. Power and institutions are the horse. Culture is the cart.
People did not and do not ask for capitalism. It was and is foisted upon them. If given access to the key policies, ordinary people would severely restrict business prerogatives. Hence, no such access is permitted. To bury this fact is to ensure that no intentional, decent change will ever come. Whole cultures don't change through verbal haranguing. They change when major institutions change. Capitalism, not culture, is our problem, plain and simple.
"Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate." - Albert Einstein
*Channeling Darwinian*
This is massively ignorant. Capitalism was a contingent outcome that depended, among many other things, on the existence of the great east-west axis of the Eurasian land mass. How do you imagine we'd have reached the present state of destructiveness without capitalism and capitalism without the present configuration of the planet?
Meanwhile, if this is your analysis, why bother thinking about the issue at all? If it's all blind evolution among thoughtless monkeys, why not just party instead?
"Consumer" indeed. Consumer of Social Darwinian twaddle.
Consumer I have to disagree in part. Human rapaciousness comes to the fore when excess energy is available (developing the first tools increased the energy available to humans in early history, and continued as it made available to us more trees, food, and fossil fuels). Sometimes this is through removal of predators by one means or another. The problem with some invasive (rapacious) species is that they have been moved to a place where there are no natural predators. I would venture to say that any self replicating species can look rapacious if they have a bounty of food and a dearth of predators. The only difference with humans is that we can name it. It appears, despite our extended consciousness we are no more able to deal with this phenomenon than deer on an island without predators. We are rapacious but the only difference in our rapaciousness is our power. So that puts us on a par with the anaerobic bacteria that consumed CO2 and Methane and liberated O2, poisoning the world for their kind and sending them underground. Despite all the knowledge and discussion we humans have it would appear that our actions in changing the environment we depend on are mindless. We are rapacious, we are powerful, so were bacteria.
BTW after the influx of humans to Australia there was ecological destruction, but then their environment was depleted and they lived with little further destruction until some tens of thousands of years later when the Europeans arrived. Perhaps if we are lucky we will just make our environment so difficult that we can live in some sort of balance. Perhaps we will extinct ourselves.
And within Capitalism it is technology and overpopulation of labor that is turning people into helpless slaves.
A society that uses 2% of it's population to provide it's food should have an incredible quality of life and much free time to pursue self-development.
Technology instead has been used to concentrate power, control of resources and production rather than improve the life of all members of society.
Marx had a lot of things right about Capitalism and the owner/worker struggle is one thing he got right.
Labor unions created the American Middle class unfortunately like all institutions they eventually became corrupt.
There is an enormous labor glut and unless the work is spread around by reducing the work week to something like 15 hours things will continue to deteriorate.
Workers of the World Unite!.......or pick out a spot for your tent in Shanty town.
People were trying to "grow" empires long before capitalism. Capitalism is just the latest manifestation of the "culture of empire" which is now codified behavior with written doctrine. It is a cultural pathology that has enveloped the globe as most try to emulate it in some form.
I agree people did not ask for capitalism and will surely ask for something else as it breaks down.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html
In the future chaos which we shall soon enter in this nation, if a man approaches my lifeboat with a hoe I shall welcome him and share the toil necessary but if he comes bearing a weapon I shall endeavor to turn him away or visit the same upon him who would visit it upon me. I will gladly share my knowledge with the first but not to the second.
Its just that simple. Brain chemicals or not.
We either work together or not. Choices of life must be made.
Looking to the northeast to the white building for deliverance is not a good choice. Looking within to your own traits and abilities is a good choice. Putting your hand to the plow to gain sustenance is going to be the prime motive of life. Those who refuse to 'sweat' will not last long.
Otherwise you are toast as well as everyone else.
Needs this to be said?
Arraya
Obviously you have a brain... and obviously this site, just like real life is mostly a waste of time as to dealing with brainwashed zombie 'believers' of this and that.
The Nate Hagens of this world run the default template and it destroys itself because that line of thinking does not make sense http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dfx7rfr2_55dh6wv9&hl=en Technocracy an idea for now.
The future can be friendly, but not in the current system or Price System.
http://www.archive.org/details/WhoIsATechnocrat-WiltonIvie Who is a Technocrat... Wilton Ivie.
What an unpleasant comment, beginning to end. Nate's work has been great stuff, and any newbies to TOD would be well-advised to read his past keyposts - some of the best stuff to be found on the web, delving deep into the reasons we find ourselves in our current predicaments. You won't find it elsewhere.
Our species IS a bit daft - more than a bit, actually - and it bears thinking about, parTICularly in the context of just why, exactly, we're currently destroying the gulf of mexico.
The way things are is not the only way they can be, and there are huge degrees of freedom remaining in how the human overshoot is ultimately resolved.
Among the flavors of human daftness, aggressive proselytizing for fatalism is interesting to see... but a little goes a long way.
The tern "fatalism" implies pre-determination, which utterly and completely misses the point. We live in a deterministic system, just ask any baseball player how they know where to run when they catch a fly ball. That, however, does NOT translate into pre-determinism. A giant gust of wind or the ball hitting a bird could (and have before) completely alter the course of events.
How likely those events are is another discussion altogether, but as Catton brilliantly points out in his book "Bottleneck" our current situation is not unlike the unfortunate airline pilots who have just realized that their speed and momentum will cause them to overshoot the runway in the very near future. Furthermore, much to their shock and horror, they also realize that due to the aforementioned speed and momentum their window of opportunity to actually do anything about it has already passed.
The charge of "fatalism" is easily dismissed as little more than a pejorative, typically spit out by those who are sputtering to find an otherwise intelligent response to the fact the "fate" has nothing to do with it.
Cheers,
Jerry
You're arguing - with no little venom - that neither we nor any other hypothetical species with our abilities would ever do anything differently, and that it's arrogant to suggest otherwise. And then you throw in the butterfly effect to remind us that any small perturbation can entirely alter the course of world events. You say we need to show people how the world works, after excoriating Nate for trying exactly that.
I agree Catton's a bright guy; I'm surprised you like him. I guess the "too late to do anything" meme is appealing to you, but that isn't exactly his message.
I'll give you a free upgrade from fatalist to troll, then, and will give you the last word. My bad for commenting at all.
Greenish, Thanks for the post.
When I had first read most of the negative comments this key post generated, I was awash with anger at the fact of people being so rude. Then it sank in that we have been breeding the rude behavior for a while now worldwide.
Even 50 years ago the world had been tainted by concepts of bad behavior being the norm. My mother was telling a story about her and her sisters having a wreck, and they promised to pay the people back for the damage to the car, but had to pay it a little at a time. Every week they paid off the debt, which totally surprised the people involved. They did not believe my mom when they said they'd do it, and were amazed that there were people that were still honest in the world. And that was 50 years ago.
Now we are amazed that there are as civil a bunch of people as TOD has been shaken out to be. Shaken out, I use the term, because we have had our weeks when certain posters have been shaken out of the site because they were not civil enough.
I have ran my own websites, with forums and chat rooms and handled 100's of emails a week asking the simple questions over and over again. My second wife and I ran a Betta information page back in the early 90's where we offered help to anyone getting started in the Betta breeding and keeping hobby. Kindness goes a long way, but a sour puss makes you spit and sputter. The webiste was still up and getting readers until earlier this year when that host went offline for whatever reason, otherwise I'd point you to it. Back in the day when WebRings were famous, and HTML code was rather new.
I hope that the overshoot of human population and energy wastefulness will settle out to a more calm world. But I don't think it'll be easy to get there if it ever gets to where we can call "life easy" again for everyone, if that ever was the case in this world.
The easy life is when you let go, and even then it is not easy to let go all the time. Most people only find the easy life, in death.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Thanks for your kind comments, Charles... your presence on the site makes it a better place.
I'm dealing with a family tragedy just now and wouldn't be around, except that the gulf oil spill is a family tragedy too - I feel it no differently.
I have some idea of the level of work and commitment which have gone into Nate's work, and am happy to see references to it posted at a time when there are more people tuning in to TOD.
To those folks, I'll note that usually this is a very special place which it's a privilege to visit, a place unlike any I know of. And I'd note that "campfires" are usually a good place to be.
Politeness is a product of violence.
The more violent a society, the better the manners.
I doesn't pay to be rude when the consequence of rudeness is death.
The chatrooms give people license to be rude, with no consequence.
Unfortunately rudeness, like pornography, is a boring waste of time.
Politeness is a product of violence.
Bizarre !
Perhaps the most violent society that we have good information on were the pagan Vikings. Not noted as being excessively polite, just extraordinarily violent.
Alan
The Vikings did have an exceedingly hierarchical culture, and one of the reasons they got around so much is that local resources were generally under tight management; opportunity required travel. As a hierarchical society of generally armed individuals, they had fairly rigid codes of conduct (evolving into legal structures) depending on status and relation, and fairly ruthless punishments for violators. Politeness maybe isn't the most appropriate description for that, but the thrust of the statement is sound.
Personal freedom is greatest in cultures where moderation is the rule.
As examples of polite, violent people I offer the Japanese under the samurai.
The Zulus under Chaka.
The extreme formality of the Europeans under the dueling laws.
The Maoris.
As for the Vikings, I offer The Saga of Egil Skallagrimson, where one of the talents of Egil is his handiness with praise poetry.
Further I hold that the Vikings had a robust disregard of death.
Societies that are less polite are any western domesticated culture with blanket protection of the Law.
I come from a polite society and am sensitive to the impoliteness around me.
I mark in general the level of violence in a particular society by the level of "niceness" I find.
I prefer the company of violent people.
So in your mind is kindness and politeness the same thing?
I know that you can be polite to the man you are about to fight with. But would you let him win out of kindness to him?
Or would you call letting someone else win a waste of your time and his?
I sometimes train with a 6 foot stave, be it wooden or steel( about 8 pounds of pipe). But I try not to be violent and am almost always kind to people even if they push themselves into being my enemy, for whatever reasons.
At times in the past four years dealing with the homeless in these parts, I have faced loaded guns and knives.
I am not sure there has been a homey huggy culture on earth, unless you look at the Amish, but they set themselves apart for most of their day to day lives.
But the thoughts you bring up, still rub me in the wrong way, there should be more hugging and joyfulness in life, and not a lot of killing and hate.
Hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, along with more hugs and laughter.
CEO actually the Amish are not quite as huggy as you would think.
Just as a documented fact some Amish maintain horrific puppy mills
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/20/us/amish-at-heart-of-puppy-mill-debate.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
And from a person who escaped from his Amish roots
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/07/15/escaping-the-amish-part-1/
I agree that kindness and politeness are not the same thing. Kindness is far rarer. Politeness is social glue and how much kindness is behind it depends on the nature of the society, family or other group in which it is being practiced. Southerners were very polite when they went about their lynchings, why they even sent lynching postcards to those who couldn't attend. OTOH politeness in a meeting can facilitate all views having an opportunity to be heard. It can set the framework for actions that bind family and community together.
Christ did not preach what they are practicing then, so they if they are acting thusly, need to be told the error of their ways.
Following Christ is not the easy path that people seem to think it is, you have to do a lot of giving up your own control. Humans don't like letting someone else control the purse strings, or have sway over thier lives.
Children are always pressing their boundaries and taking bits of your resolve, till they win out, or find out you the parent will not give in to their demands.
Tough love is something that they have been using to teach young people about the dangers of crime and their own actions, and where they might lead.
I didn't figure they were a huggy group, but I had forgotten the points you posted, I have heard others like them in the past.
Nothing in the days ahead is going to be easy. Jesus did not pray for us to not have troubles, but to be strong when they came our way.
I don't know where the world is going in these times of angst and knashing of teeth, to pull some images together, but I do know one thing, We won't know anything until after it has happened.
Hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Nice of Jesus the powerful to leave us in troubles but offer to help us be strong. But if you were out of gas on the road and someone stopped and said I won't help you out by taking you to get gas, but I will urge you to be strong no doubt you would be pissed. God gets off so lightly and we humans get to take all the blame.
Yet most of the change that humans have to do is on their shoulders. If you complain that nothing is changing and you are still sitting at home doing nothing, God won't wipe your tears away and help you, that won't teach you anything. The point I was trying to make is this.. You have to do your part to change and what you can't change God can.
I know for the basic fact that a lot of people on TOD don't much like religious folks, and have a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to people spouting off on Christian Ideals, and then turning out to be hypocrits really.
I don't like the people out there, claiming to be Christians and then not acting like I think Christ would act. A lot of them are out there, all over the place, and they are making a bad name for me and people like me.
I try very very hard not to say things that I will not also back up with actions. I can't be a trustworthy person if all you see me do is talk and talk and no actions In any realm of human actions, secular or church.
If I have offended people by stating my opinions, please let me know.
I don't know where people are in thier own lives, what troubles them and what they need unless I learn to listen and ask the right questions. And even then I am sure I'll miss things, because most people have a habit of hiding theirselves from other people.
If I am stuck on the side of the road, and someone were to stop and say that to me, I'd smile and might laugh a bit, and agree, I need to walk to the next station and beg for gas.....
In 2007, Feb 6th, I totally ran out of gas at mile marker 202 on I-40 heading to Memphis, It was 9 pm. I had my Cat with me, and was bugging out without anyone knowing where I was going, I had not even figured that out.
I walked to the next exit, Bosco, and went down the dark dark road, with my backpack on, and my walking stick in hand. I knocked on about 5 doors, no answers, No car stopped, even though dozens passed me on a dark road with no one around, did I worry, not really, I was wondering if I was really heading toward Bosco, I'd never been there before. This long before I had a cell phone.
Finally I walked down a short road to a house with a big light on it. I knocked, and this guy came to the door, complaining that Did I know it was almost 1 am? I told him I was out of gas up on the highway and he did not care one whit about that, but kept complaining about the time.
Finally he said, get out of here Or I'll call the police, hearing that I smiled. I told call the police then.
About 5 minutes later a state trooper shows, I tell him my tale and he said, so that was your car I saw on the highway.
Long story short, all in all I got all the way to Huntsville alabama, asking for nickels and dimes from strangers from gas station to gas station.
Was I doing it all on my own, or was God helping me? You decide.
On the topic of the key post, We have to change as much as we can, whether we think it will work or not, but we have to change, no one is going to change this mess for us, unless we do the work first.
hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Edit,, a typo.
I don't believe in any god but the last time I saw someone out of gas I stopped and took him to the gas station and back to his car. Interestingly enough he turned out to be a pastor. Did God help that man or did I?
You did it CEO - if there is a powerful God who intervenes on behalf of humans he has a whole backlog of innocent children to help out. Some are starving, some are being made into sex slaves, some are dying horrible deaths from disease. But God stepped in and put you and your out of gas situation ahead of them. If that God exists he is despicable. Besides instead of helping you when you ran out of gas why not help you earlier, do a loaves and fishes on the gas tank or your wallet?
Jesus never said there was not going to be suffering in the world. It is the nature of the world, chaos. I don't have all the answers and I wonder at things like you do, but I am not prefect and I have caused suffering in others by my actions. There are few people that live a prefect life without somewhere along the way impacting someone else in a bad way. You might be one of the few that have lived such a life, I don't know, so I'll say that you have unless I hear otherwise from you, and even then It would behove me to not tell anyone that fault of yours, I'd still say you were a good person.
We can continue this discussion in email if you like. I would like to talk gardening with you anyway besides spiritual matters. I am always trying to gain new information about gardening and things we can do to lessen the need for factory farms.
In the case of you helping the man, you helped him. Call it the Invisible hand of God working through you if you like, or the invisible hand of your genes, either way it had the same outcome.
Billions of little connections with the total world around us, trillions of things happening all at once, no one sees them all. (unless you believe God does) I've always wondered what it would be like to see it all happening at once, and be able to understand all the bits of information flowing.
Because I was running from him as well, again, why would God fix my problem if I was willfully running in the other direction. It's not easy to explain in a post on here, email is better suited for this discussion.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, where there is only peace, hugs.
I have read several of the sagas, including Egils. From memory, he first killed/murdered at age 9 and he wrote a taunted poem after killing the son of the King of Denmark (I killed both the King and Queen with a single blow). Nothing overly polite there.
I suspect that you got your idea from one of Heinlein's novels (one of his least insightful ideas).
If you prefer to hand out with drug dealers, ex-cons, those with severe anger control issues, members of the Mafia and so forth, that is your call.
Alan
I apologies for not making myself clear.
Criminals and overly passionate people don't survive lethal societies.
On one occasion I was overcome by a rageing madness in Africa.
It was tollerated. Once.
I never sucombed again.
I have read Heinlein, but he did not shape my prefference.
My opinion was formed by living among both a military nation (the Matabele) and their prey, the Mashona.
Be vary wary of a weak people who gain Power, for they are ugly.
I haven't seen you contribute anything of value here. Perhaps because it is easier to tear down than to build. I don't know you but I do know I really dislike your character.
Uhmmm, in case you didn't notice, I'd say that's exactly what Nate is doing.
(Unless, of course, you were somehow implying that humans are not a unique form of mammal that allows us a whole range of responses to scarcity.)
You've just paraphrased something very close to Nate's position.
So why the ad hominem blather preceding it? You sound like an envious ape.
I have followed Nate for a while now and before reading your arrogant comment I had come away with the impression that I have not seen him so subdued and measured in his comments and in his general tone before. It seems to me that he was going out of his way to tell the truth about our predicament and dilemma in as gentle a way as possible. Perhaps he has been affected like many of us by the happenings in The Gulf...
That truth is that this just isn't about a life style choice as you put it at all. The fact remains that only someone who is completely blind to reality could make your comment. Perhaps it is just your own particular denial mechanism kicking in.
Nate obviously understands and has been able to clearly read the writing on the wall, that writing is saying, in ten foot tall block letters, that we are encountering limits and we have no choice but to change course. He also grasps at a fundamental level why we are where we are and understands what must be changed in our collective behavior to get us there. Therefore his comment about changing the carrot.
We humans evolved, as all animals have, to maximize our reproductive capabilities. Unfortunately what you call a lifestyle choice is a misguided form of displaying fitness for mate attraction and feeding the addictions of our pleasure centers with dopamine producing behaviours.
What Nate has figured out, and you haven't is that our current practices are neither the best way nor the only way for going forward. We need different goals that still allow us to achieve happiness. Yes happiness!
BTW personally I have lost patience with people like you, I don't think carrots will work in your case, my solution to changing your behavior and the behavior of others like you is to hit you very hard upside the head with 2 x 4's. You will need to feel a lot of pain before you get it and I just don't think we will have the time to be gently persuading with people like you! You will never be happy, you are too far gone you are too addicted and your destructive behaviors are going to kill all of us. It is your so called lifestyle choice that is the problem not Nate's!
And now I need to go get some caffeine >;^)
Cheers!
Jerry is OK. He has given me lots of good comments in the past.
I just notice that occasionally something will set him off, and I can never tell if it was something I said.
I figure this is partially a vent site and leave it at that.
You probably mean well, but your argument misses the point:
- our species is different, whether we are able to utilize that difference for collective action to avoid maximizing overshoot collapse is a different matter. Tainter might have something to say about big civilizations being able to to avoid looming resource collapse, btw.
- the speed, magnitude and timing of collapse is all a guessing game. Your guess is as good as mine. Or Nate's. Don't fall into the "I know physics, hence I know this is deterministic and can be calculated and I now better than most" trap.
- if we all could be like nate, is a waste of everyone's time? How can it be, when it's clearly not for Nate, or for me, or for many other of us who have shifted down our consumption. You may disagree of the systemic resource consumption and overshoot related impact, but the subjective reality triumphs: when it is meaningful to me, it is meaningful.
- I think Nate is trying to do what you also want: give people tools to understand how the world works. You two might disagree on how it works and what are the tools required, but that again is a matter of opinion just as much as fact.
Also, you have been on TOD for 3+ years. Do you honestly think this argument hasn't been repeated here a few hundred times already?
And with a bit better argument form and less ad hominems in it?
I'm sure you can do better in terms of the argument -- it remains to be seen whether you wish to do it or not.
I do believe most of the people who are jumping Nate's bones tonight are guilty of not knowing the real Nate Hagens.
I have been reading this forum for a year now , religiously, and have gone back and read quite a bit of his older work.
Nate is fully informed of the Darwinian nature of the world, and has made many, many hard nosed and very realistic comments/statements about our nature and our culture.
It is a fundamental mistake to evaluate what somebody is saying out of context-and in THIS CONTEXT, the proper context is a knowledge of his overall body of work.
Even blockheaded Baptists ( I know a great many. ) who have never read a book other than the KJB generally understand that you cannot make a decision as to a proper course of action or the correct evaluation of a given problem/situation by reading and applying only one chapter of the Bible.
Tonight Nate is talking about things that are speculative, in terms of their becoming realities;but the science behind his work is sound.
Apparently it is also over the heads of a lot of commenters tonight.
If the handle Darwinian had not been taken already, I would be using it myself.Anybody who has read my extensive comments will understand that I am not given to idealizing human nature.
Personally I do not think it is likely that Nate's vision of a possible new cultural paradigm will become reality within the forseeable future, but then I would NOT have bet on Jesus Christ, Gandhi,or Martin Luther King in their early days.
A few years ago, when I still believed we could turn the corner on depletion and pollution ahead of a major crash,I would have believed that Nate's vision stood a real chance of being realized.It is true that most of the human race still lives a miserable life, according to western standards, but it is also true that western standards have been evolving towards something we can be proud of;we have outlawed slavery, women have mostly gotten their rights recognized, hardly anybody actually starves in the west, etc.
The multiculturalists might not like it, but it is also true that western culuture is leading the way to a better world, overall,on the social front, and that the eastern world is following in our footsteps in this respect.Young women are ABLE to go to school in Afghan villages because we are in Afghanistan.
There is NO FUNDAMENTAL REASON why this overall progress cannot continue, or why we cannot evolve culturally to the level Nate envisions.There are of course many formidable obstacles between present day reality and his vision, and it probably will not come to pass anytime soon,if ever, as most of the progress we have made over the last few centuries in particular is in danger of being lost.
The competition is real, and viscious, but we are a plastic species, and we ARE CAPABLE of changing our cultural cues and baselines.
Young men these days win a bride by demonstrating their ability to earn a living programming a computer or building a house rather than going a viking or stealing horses.We may warehouse our old folks,out of sight out of mind, but we generally don't simply leave them to die of dehydration,alone, in their own exrement.These examples are blunt and oversimplified but a perceptive reader should get the point.
We can't get rid of the drive for high status, but he is correct in asserting that we can measure status in other ways, and there is ample evidence to back up this assertion.
We need to change what we score or learn not to care about the score. Capitalism not only celebrates this, but sees this as fundamental to its success. This is valid but capitalism is part of a larger natural system that it is destroying.
Great idea. How about using a scorecard such as this....The Maryland Genuine Progress Indicator
http://www.green.maryland.gov/mdgpi/otherindexes.asp
Nate, I see little hope that anything other than necessity will decrease the consumption of the bulk of the population. You are a statistical outlier. The desire for more stuff and higher status comes from too deep an innate instinct to modify it much.
If you think it possible to bring about the change of attitudes you are advocating and to make this happen in advance of necessity then I would be curious to hear how you think you can do that.
Reading thru TOD discussions most of the people who say they are cutting consumption appear to be doing so out of necessity and then making a virtue of necessity. You can always find some retirees who are selling to move to a smaller place. Some can dress up their reasoning in Peak Oil. But a large fraction of all retirees downsize just to cut back on workload in cleaning a house, keeping a lawn, cutting property taxes, and the like.
I've cut my own consumption only to save more since I expect I'll lose my job eventually. I haven't managed to convince anyone else I know to do likewise. Everyone else is living BAU.
Interesting observation about cutting back although I don't know if it is generally true. What would we all really do if we suddenly inherited several million dollars.
I have already planned out what I would do with several million dollars. It seems strange prehaps, but as a kid I was fone of thinking that I was the king of the world and had so much money I did not want for anything. In my head I used it for the good of others, helping as many people as I could with it.
You might all think that I am crazy simple minded, but altruism seems like the only way to go for me.
I have stated elsewhere that I live on less than $9,000 dollars. But really I live with others, and share in the costs only a little bit. The house is paid for. I don't own a car, but can drive. I save water like a skin flint, not that I have too. I pay the rent on a trailer I don't live in, but 2 other people do. I also pay the light and water bills. I buy food when needed for another couple who have a house, even though last month my dad paid their rent for them. I have spent money on buying meds for the lady who's rent I pay, because her medicaid was over taxed at the end of the year (july to july).
The house the three of us, parents and I, live in is under 900 sq ft.
If I had money show up in my room in the morning, I do these things in this order.
*Thank God for it.
*Wonder if I had to pay taxes on it.
*Take some and drop it in the collection plate at chruch, without telling anyone, ear marking for several needs I know they have.
*Stop by Sheri and Jamie's and ask them how much they needed for the rent, and the light bill( they don't have lights on ), set aside money to replace her top dentures as well.
*Buy My Aunt Sis's house and let her live in it for free.
*Talk to my Lawyer about what I have to pay to the local and fed gov'ts.
*set about planning to buy some land somewhere to set up a new town built around my BioWebScape designs.
*save some for the rainy days of others, because I know they are on their way.
*drop some bucks on TOD.
*help my parents with some of their bills, though I know what my dad would say to that, "I am doing fine, it's your money."
Yeah I know, you can't belive a word I am saying, Maybe you just need a gift from a stranger like me.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Ps, There are thousands of other needy people I could help I am sure, so if you want any of this money, better speak up, when it shows up, I know me, it'll be gone in a flash.
Let's assume several means three.
Two million to produce really good food, until the money is all gone.
One million for a really big gravestone, with the inscription:
Here lies toilforoil
Who toils no more
For no oil is there
To toil
I think Nate's point is that the instinct for higher status can not be modified, but perhaps the more stuff = higher status part can be changed.
The method for achieving status can be changed but we have a limited set of evolutionary tools to work with. In a world of declining resources the cult of the warrior will probably step up to the plate.
This is a very 20th century, American/Western Culture view of human nature. It is not universal. There are many cultures where conspicuous consumption is frowned upon. And cultures where too much stuff, or not the right stuff, is a terrible burden.
Also, if people are going to have to downscale their material consumption by necessity, then it makes perfect sense to turn this into a virtue. People feel better when they have a sense of control. If a new situation develops, such as "I have less money," which response is more adaptive:
1. Boo-hoo. Waaa! I am now poor. Poor me!
2. Hmm. Let's see now. What can I do to get what I need with less income. Let me look on the bright side, I may have more free time while under-employed. Not so bad after all.
What I worry about are people around me who are materially rich, like kings and queens of old, not dealing well with loss of material comforts and then getting depressed, and then acting out in all sorts of horrific ways.
Just relax people. We would be extremely wealthy with a quarter of the oil we currently use. Just relax.
Keeping the populace more relaxed would be a lot easier if the uber rich would allow a closing of the inequity gap.
Jason said
That is a very good point. Even our 'scientific' explanations tend to be highly culturally loaded. And 'we' (this Western culture) change as we 'grow up': a recent article in Science
Jason, Not is is not an American or Western view. Conspicuous consumption is common in any culture where people become wealthy enough to conspicuously consume.
The people who frown on conspicuous consumption are overwhelmingly those who do not have much money. If rich people hide their wealth rather than flaunt it they do this out of necessity. They fear the masses.
Everybody wants some with rare exceptions. The only thing that differs between cultures is the average discount rate. How much to save for the future?
Sure, it helps people to feel better if they turn a necessity into a virtue. But their lowered consumption first has to become a necessity before they decide to make it a virtue. That transition period is going to be painful as hundreds of millions of people lower their expectations.
So I go back to what I said to Nate: People can't be convinced to lower their consumption as a virtue before they have to. Rather, they even go on living beyond their means using credit to consume more than they can afford. It takes the cutting off of credit cards and eviction notices to get a large fraction of the population to change. For another fraction also pretty large they'll lower their living standards right when they lose their job or suffer a pay cut, not before.
There aren't a lot of savers who live beneath their means. I try to convince friends to live beneath their means. I tell them what's coming. Some might even believe me. But they go on living the way they do now. I know people who are going to go bankrupt due to Peak Oil. They do not know it yet. But its coming.
I wonder what the ratio of living beyond their means was 200 years ago? I'd think less than now, somewhere along the way we created the ability to use from tomorrow for today.
Yes I know it was Fossil Fuel use. But the stuff has been around a long time, and so has the forests and the oceans full of fish. We have been able to live beyond our means for a while, haven't we?
I can remember moving here to my parent's house in May of 2006, I was basically pennyless, though I had a collection of books, and kitchen supplies and clothes. The important things to keep hold of, everything else I gave away.
Now here I am getting a handout from my dad to go spend time elsewhere out of the house, and I make a point of giving away to the last penny all the cash I have in my pocket some days. Even days when the peeny I have I found on the sidewalk earlier.
In the Christian world it's taught to not worry about tomorrow, God will provide for you like he provides for the birds of the air( as the quote goes). I get into phases where I am planning on a collapse and going to buy this or that to prepare, and I wonder, why?
I know how to forage for food from the wild, even the wilds of a suburb with bits of wild tracts and trees people grow for shade not food.
How much should I save money wise? Nothing, I should safe knowledge though, be it in books, or in hand, or in the tools in my shed. But could I give everything away down to my last shirt and still be happy and well?
American culture has been changing for decades, and part of it has lost the ability to make do with what you had and be happy with it. People I knew in my families history didn't have money, but did live okay. My dad has an out of this world credit score, so sayth his bank rep, that was helping him get a loan for siding and windows. She couldn't believe how high it was, higher than anyone else she'd seen. My dad has had to borrow money in the past, but that is not living beyond your means. Borrowing is not living beyond your means, I'll repeat.
Living beyond your means, is taking from where you can't ever pay it back. We can't replace the stored energy the earth had stored for years before us. That has let us live beyond our means and that is where we are now.
So When did we get to this point? When we both increased in population enough to use the maximum amount of energy possible. The peak where the max. number of people could use the max. number of energy units. Are we there yet, or have we passed this population and energy peak?
Thinking about it, we could pile all the earth's energy on one side and all the people we could ever have on the other side and see where the highest point for both sides would be. I can't wrap my head around what I am thinking about to get it into language to convey the thought, so if this seems confused forgive me (or don't).
But somewhere in all this thinking of mine, I get the impression that we could have more people in the system than we do now, if we had a better control of the flow patterns, and not all this random like mish mash we call our world today.
Futurist like to think about the Globe being able to support 10's of billions of people. If only we organized it better than we are currently doing, and they have all sorts of plans on paper to do just that. Real world actions and planning does not seem to mesh with the futurist's ability to see the possible though.
Where we are heading now is only a guess. But maybe in some future world, we will have more people on earth than we have now, and they will just use a lot less energy than we use/waste. I can always dream.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
People 200 years ago lived much much closer to the minimum needed to survive. They had less leeway to save.
Someone today who sees Peak Oil coming who refuses to prepare for it is acting irresponsibly.
FuturePundit says, "Someone today who sees Peak Oil coming who refuses to prepare for it is acting irresponsibly."
Not to prepare for any huge change is to act irresponsibly, but the question still remains...peak oil when, and what do people think they can do to prepare for it?
I have always made the argument that we should be diversifying away from fossil fuels not because we know when peak oil is coming, but because we don't know...one day is as good as another, so why not tomorrow, or for that matter, why wasn't yesterday the perfect day for peak oil? But then every possible alternative is dismissed as "techno toys" and "silver BB's"...so for lack of perfection, nothing is done. So be it.
RC
Prefection never happens, ask any gardener, or any artist for that matter. My first wife was an artist, she'd get to the point where she knew to mess with it anymore would just waste her time, or mess it up. Most of her stuff looked prefect to me, but she was never statisfied about some of her works.
We have to give up and just do something already.
Tomorrow never comes, yesterday is gone, and now is the only time I have left.
Live in the now and fix what you can. We can't wait for the end, if we sit to long in one spot we will grow roots, and not want to move again.
That is why I preffer to hug someone new each day, and give away a recipe or seed, or crop, or something, and step up to the plate and ask if anyone wants the last cookie, if not I'll randomly give it to someone.
Hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
Peak Oil was yesterday at 25 hundred hours. LOL.
Start building the ark. I understand that there are possible pitfalls in every strategy, but having no strategy will result in certain disaster.
Besides, resilience is fun and liberating. When you buy the most efficient car you can, don't drive at all, or put in all that insulation, it is kind of fun to see oil prices go up. Schadenfreude? Perhaps.
Instead we have. Got an oil gusher larger than any disaster in history? Get in your SUV, drive a few hundred miles, do a bunch of pointless shopping, and celebrate memorial day with NASCAR. And why not. This is Amurica.
I drive about 500 miles per year. I live on less than half my take-home income. I've cut my energy consumption to a level I won't be forced to live at for several years at least.
I've still got more items to do to prepare. Preparation never stops. The biggest challenge: Find a job that'll survive the decline, at least for several years and with good pay during that period.
The first step should be to decide that individuals can take steps to prepare.
What you can do to prepare for it depends on who you are, where you are, what you know how to do, how much money you have, what you currently do with your money, and so on.
I do not think the timing matters that much. If it is coming in 10 years that just gives you more time to prepare. That's not a reason to be passive about it and continue your current lifstyle. Regardless of whether the production decline starts next year or 5 years from now there are plenty of things you can do to prepare. For example:
- Stop taking vacation trips. Save the money toward an electric car, gardening implements, better home insulation, other other useful things for dealing with a lower energy economy.
- Spend less on clothes. Again, use the money for adaptive purposes.
- Spend less on the latest cell phone, TV, or other gadgets.
- Stop eating out at restaurants.
- Move closer to your job.
- Take a job closer to your home.
- Or move to take a new job that'll survive at least the early years of Peak Oil and take a place to live very close to work.
- Work more hours to make more money to buy things to prepare. I realize this is an imposition. Some people don't want to work that much. But the option is available to most people.
I can think of lots more things that people can do to prepare. What I would like to know: how many people who read this site who believe Peak Oil is real are making impositions on themselves to prepare. My guess is that only a small minority are preparing.
As one who has been interested in the history of India, assuming that that mode of behavior is preordained just doesn't feel right. Here we had in an ancient culture people who had achieved high status and wealth, would give it all up to become poor beggars searching for the path to enlightenment. Sometimes they would willing starve themselves to death in the effort. This didn't just happen once or twice, but was a pretty common lifepath for thousands of years.
Someone who gave up their high status and wealth first had to achieve high status and wealth. What made them do all the achieving and acquiring? The behavioral economists say we are wired for acquisition.
We aren't blank slates which can be reprogrammed to want to be poor. Poor people want to be rich. Rich people want to be richer.
Nate's theory is a pull theory, an explanation of the factors that make high-volume product usage and social preening spontaneously attractive. He continues not to mention the push side, which is corporate marketing plus capitalist domination of macro-choices/policies. That's rather strange, given his pedigree and experience.
Also, I'm not sure it's particularly valid to extrapolate from the population of compulsive capitalists to everybody else. Power not only corrupts, it attracts the more rotten personae. Not everybody who had enough money to live forever on would want more. But our overclass is full of those who do. They are also the pushers of things like cars-first transport.
Meanwhile, newsflash for Jerry: Human beings can think and act based on reason. We're not quite the same as other animals in that way. Not saying it'll happen, but the odds aren't zero, either. If they were, why would you bother reading TOD?
At first, Mr. Hagens struck a chord with me in his affirmation that people need to use less energy to decrease the pressure caused by "competition for usage of resources," but then I stopped and wondered why he didn't acknowledge or even advocate for the emerging technologies like wind, solar, geo-thermal, or tidal energy sources. His arguments seem oddly phrased in the new-age speak of the 1970s. They also also seem to miss a fundamentally immutable reality: as population increases, energy usage demands will continue to increase, no matter how much conservation is enacted or enforced. His argument for scaling down energy usage seems oblivious to this reality. Whether this is intentional or not is unclear. I would hope that with his self-identified "scaling down" of income and energy usage, he would at least give some kudos to the capitalists (few who remain) who are investing in technologies and energy sources that are set up to bring low-cost and "lesser competitive" energy sources to the masses of the earth, presumably without the "carbon negative" impacts of our current energy paradigm... Just sayin' Otherwise, using less resources is admirable and practical, given improvements in appliances and infrastructure delivery (HVAC, Hot Water on Demand, etc.). The real question not addressed, and only alluded to by Mr. Hagens, is "how do we move towards an energy consumption model that is non-competitive and promotes an environmentally friendly infrastructure?"
Why do you believe population will forever increase and energy usage will forever increase?
Do you have any familiarity with "The Limits to Growth" literature?
I don't believe there is any agreement about your "fundamentally immutable reality" at all.
If you assume ever increasing population that is true. If you read any of the demographic predictions, they have population peaking mid century then beginning a gradual decline -and this is for studies which don't consider overshoot/dieoff. So if you assume that further population growth will be weak, and then population will gradually decline, then using less per capita can be a way forward. Its all in the numbers, resource usage per capita times population. Obviously a change from increasing population to decreasing is necessary. We have seen this happen for other than dieoff reasons in several places (Japan and Italy are prime examples).
Nate, and even his detractors here seem to be motivated by somewhat similar observations and goals. Why is humanity taking the disastrous course it is on? What can be done to change the trajectory? Obviously, Nate can only come to understand a piece of the puzzle. He has choosen to pursue that piece which best conforms with his own strengths and weaknesses. He is doing the best he can given his own internal resources. Can we ask for more?
"The blind led by the insane." Shakespeare, Bill
The intellect rarely overcomes our motivations in life. If it were easy to overcome our appetites, then we would likely become extinct as there is very little “reason” for living except to fulfill our inborn desires. Fulfilling our inborn desires means we live. Capitalism produces a lot of unnecessary fodder for our desires.
The diet industry provides an interesting example of the interaction of the Id (primal desires), the intellect and ego, and capitalism. An individual eats excessively to satiate the appetite of the Id and grows obese. They recognize this in the mirror and the ego worries about their appearance and the intellect worries about their health. A fight ensues and sometimes the Id is vanquished, and just as often it is not. The diet industry rakes in profits as people lose the battle against their appetites and reapply again and again for help. The diet industry will often use a group approach and activate the superego (morality, social behavior) in the fight against obesity. It becomes a crime, a moral failing, to let down the group. The intellect will be weak in fighting the Id, but if it becomes socially undesirable to be a pig (energy or food), the superego can be effective in the fight. But the Id will always be there, perhaps seeking ways to cheat the societal mores and taboos.
Although we are very effective at producing technicians for our system, we have failed at intellectual development. A nature loving religion with its potential for abuse may be the best that can be achieved in the larger population in the future. A new life may be possible, but only after the addictions to the past one have been broken. To break them may require collapse, a loss of 95% of our lifestyle and then a reestablishment of a new order at perhaps 30% of our current energy usage.
Intellectuals can live on a steady diet of books, ideas, peace and quiet for thinking and some isolation in nature. People run by the Id must feed appetites repetitively with real energy and products. Well-developed superegos touting the morality du jour will spend their time trying to proselytize or crucify the unrepentant Ids.
The herd is and will continue to be manipulated. This is mostly because their intellects, analog minds, have not been developed enough to distinguish reality from fantasy. If you have an Id that does not want to be handled and persecuted by any kind of moral majority, then you should probably be making arrangements now to isolate yourself from the suppression of appetites and resultant backlash of angry Ids that will be occurring in the future.
I'm wondering about Nate's often repeated reference to the neurotransmitter Dopamine as somehow a causative element in some people's obsessive need to pile up wealth. I'm much more inclined to think that particular human defect is a lot more cultural than chemical. Don't all animals produce Dopamine? And, in humans, is there any evidence that the volume of Dopamine production correlates to greed? I guess there is a relationship between Dopamine and addiction but perhaps also a relationship to eating ice cream a couple of times a month.
Nate is a person who has apparently experienced a sudden epiphany and turned his life around on a dime. Did some sudden change in his brain chemistry cause this? I doubt it. My own life has certainly gone through changes, as have most people, but I've never suffered the wealth addiction. Why? Dunno but I don't think brain chemistry has much to do with it. A whole host of complicated social and character issues play a part, economic too, I suppose. How can trying to untangle them really help anything?
"He who dies with the most toys wins." Popular saying amount tractor guys I hang out with. But they say it tongue in cheek, self mocking as they collect as many tractor tools as they can afford.
I can appreciate Nate's desire to find some answers. I respect his ability to turn his life around and pursue a much better direction. I don't think we need to hold him accountable for solving the world's problems. Shedding a bit of light in a dark space works for me.
"I'm wondering about Nate's often repeated reference to the neurotransmitter Dopamine as somehow a causative element in some people's obsessive need to pile up wealth. I'm much more inclined to think that particular human defect is a lot more cultural than chemical."
Let me relate something to you from my personal experience. Across the alley from my house lives a family of folks from the Phillippines. An elderly couple and two of their children. The old folks have been there twenty years, or thereabouts.
The elderly couple had an apartment in the house (basement level, I believe) and the children had the first and second floors.
Recently, the elderly couple decided to return to the Pillippines. The kids filled up six - 6 - large waste dumpsters with stuff they had accumulated in this space - if my house is anything to go by, about 800 square feet. Hoarding. I saw the stuff myself - it took 4 full weekends of people working, to empty that apartment. They were wearing dust masks.
The children live pretty normally, as far as I can tell, so it's not genetic. I was chatting to the daughter, the other day, and she said they had to redo the whole apartment, because it was filthy - carpets were rotted, etc.
It is a kind of anxiety disorder, in the obsessive-compulsive category (as has been discussed on TOD before) where the acquisition of the "stuff" is pleasurable or rewarding, and they cannot throw things away.
Acquisition of any kind, be it money, or household goods, beyond one's basic need for food, clothing and shelter, is all about the search, and not about having the stuff.
Of course, in our society, we don't treat massive accumulation of money as an obsessive-compulsive disorder - maybe we ought to.
spring_tides - Six years ago my wife and I closed an interior design store and we had an accumulation of stuff, but not just any stuff...showroom merchandise such as expensive handmade rugs, designer sinks, sectionals and chairs tables etc. My parents had a vacation home so we moved the items into there for use in the home. Late last year they were closing up the home and renting it out so we went there to collect the stuff. Prior to our arrival our stuff had been picked over. My wife had an inventory list (as any shopkeeper would) and when I questioned the missing items there was a conspiracy of denial about the items from my sisters and parents. Truly abominable.
None of those items taken had any survival value. The larceny resulted in a permanent souring of relations. To propose that somehow the "bad tendencies" will somehow be rooted out by our recognition that living in an austere manner will make us better people is laughable. It is about the stuff. We covet and that's older than the Bible.
Joe
Joe,
One thing I learned a long time ago - keep business and personal separate ;) Perhaps a storage facility would have been a better choice than moving saleable goods to a family residence.
To your point, though, human nature being what it is, I'm sure survival items would be stolen, too, if someone thought their life depended on it more than the owner. Essentially, I think most people feel their life is worth more than the next person.
I wasn't, specifically, commenting on "coveting" what another person has - more the "thrill of the chase" when it comes to acquiring our own possessions. "Coveting" has a lot to do with our definition of what has value.
I'm reminded of the crowds that gather at huge sales at the big box retailers - the urge to kill is not far below the surface.
The behavior you describe seems to happen a lot in families where the parents die, and the children fight over their possessions. I think it's a mechanism for dealing with loss that they can't handle in other ways.
Fighting over the things in your house be they mom's, or dad's or mary's or frank's, seems so pointless. But maybe I have been in a family that shares a lot of itself with others, so I have been spoiled into thinking that sharing is a gift, when it is selfishness that I should be aspiring too.
We humans are DNA coding and experience maps, rolled into a dough that can bake itself and eat itself out of house and home.
We can change, just look at all the people who one day were different than what they are now. So we can fix some of our problems, but we have to want to change. We have to look at the whole picture and see the patterns we want for the future picture.
Maybe I just have hopes for a better future, because I have lived with who I grew up knowing long enough to see their willingness to change for the better, being mindful to be mindful of others.
IE I have a positive outlook, while others don't see anything but darkness ahead.
I hope most people don't think that, I know some people do. In Christian circles you hear Jesus say laying down your life for another is one of the greatest acts you can do. It would be a sad world if everyone was selfish.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed world.
Charles,
I'm certainly no expert when it comes to people ;) I get the sense that, if two starving people were in a locked room with one small meal, it would be a rare individual that would hand the food to the other person, unless the other person was a very large individual.
I seem to be having more success with robins lately - as in birds. Since they eat worms, and I do not, we are not in competition.
A pair of robins have been nesting in my neighbor's mailbox, and one visits my vegetable garden for worms for their chick. Day by day, he is getting more used to my presence in the garden, non-threatening, and I can do work, weeding etc, while the bird is going about his feeding, all the while with half an eye on me, just in case.
It's pretty cool...
Cross-species interaction...
Long ago in a land far away, in this very yard, I got a bird to eat out of my hand.
I used to feed ants to a spider that lived in my bathroom at one house I lived in. (I wonder why he planted his web in the corner of a damp bathroom? Afraid of my step daughter I am sure, she would have put him/her in a jar and forgotten about them. Though that girl would scare the boys in school by letting slugs crawl on her, and other otherworldly things that boys are afraid of having happen to them)
I feed the squirrels the black walnuts so they will leave the pecans for me, Still got to figure out how to keep more of the walnuts this year though.
The birds bring balance to a yard, We have several different kinds here for the first time, I have no clue what they are.
Prisoners of War come to mind, and their stories. I don't need the food, I'd hand it off, but you'd have to trust me at my word.
Hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
I'll have to read the papers on Dopamine, but as I understand it in a laymens terms goes thusly. Humans get a positive feedback in their brains due to certain actions, and those actions are different in each person. We are a sum of our parts, and part of us is the DNA code we are born with, and the nuturing we have been exposed to writing pathways in our brains. So everyone is different, totally different, but they can have group beliefs and group reactions.
In the world of religious experience you have people who do things differently than people who claim to not be religious. But in all that, we have a built in need to form some sort of structure that at times falls into a religious experience. For example, when can use religion in a sentence this way, "He planted his peppers religiously in a straight row, every year that I knew him, never doing it another way".
As a child I figured I could relax my arm till I could wiggle it like I saw in the TV show I was watching( I don't know what it was that made me think about it, but I knew the idea popped into my head while I was watching TV( something I rarely did)). I was about 9 or 10 then. I started working on relaxation as a mentally and physically challenging subject from then on. I knew a lot about the subject when people introduced me to transendental meditation in college, more so than the people teaching the class.
Our brains have ways of forming opinions and thought processes without hearing other people talk to us, or having read about it somewhere. Curious minds of children learn better playing than they do almost any other way. The pathways that form in the brain, are also keyed to the chemicals that certain actions produce. All before you get introduced to the drugs of youth, your mind was able to produce the same effects all on its own.
It is a wonderful tool we have in our heads.
Nate likes to understand what makes mankind tick. Not a bad thing really, call it his religious experience.
Dopamine is linked to the whole science of understanding motivation and pleasure amoung other things. So that is why he uses it in his talk up top. There are likely reams of data that I could cut and paste for you to look at about the subject.
But in my mind, I know that there are certain things that make me happy, and stress free. They won't be the same for everyone, but there will be a subset of people that I am in where most are the same.
Our brains are full of chemicals that do this and that, and processes which we barely understand, and there is more to learn about human brains and their abilities than we currently know. We still have questions about sleeping and why we need it, and all the odd things that sleeping and not sleeping can do to a person.
I ran uncontroled experiments on sleep deprivation for several years on myself, I found some really odd results, and then did more reading and found ways to tweak the experience for better results, not all of them good. But was that whole process just me feeding my need for control? Or a kid playing in the sandbox of time?
I am and have always been curious, even wrote a short story found on my blog..
http://dan-ur.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
Way down at the bottom of the page.
The running title was Curiousity Dies.
Greed is found to be a behavior, but it helps to understand that behaviors produce chemicals and some of our actions are controled by chemical reactions in our brains. Not everything is controlled that way though, at least I don't think so, in my opinion.
Dopamine is not in all animals, just some. But we really have no clue about a lot of things like that, how many animals have we run studies on, how many do we have the DNA code written out on, lots of unanswered questions.
I would be willing to bet our ideas about dopamine are not complete either.
Take a sand grain, and tell me how it formed, what part of the world it was in before you found it, what hillside it came from and what animals walked by it while it was younger. Those are some of the things I think about when I am walking in the hallways of my mind.
If we were all zen masters sitting on a hill, who would bake the pumpkin bread while all of us are sitting there?
That is one thing about Nate and TOD we can have keyposts and posts about ideas that might or might not really amount to getting out of OIL PEAK, but we can have hope that some good will come of the discussions.
Hugs from Arkansas,
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
I have come to much the same place as Nate, but by a different pathway. First in my personal life. And after having lived it, I now advocate for it.
It is a better way of life.
It is also MUCH more sustainable (although that is a continuum, but what I advocate is several steps along that continuum) and creates less damage.
I think it is clear that the "American Dream" of Suburbia has lead to social isolation, obesity and all of the related ills, MASSIVE consumption of resources as a way of life (drive to get anything or anywhere) but not much contentment.
And who among us does NOT personally know of at least one person killed or badly injured by automobiles ? Unlike heart disease (an indirect killer largely caused by cars) or cancer, accidents tend to strike those younger with many potential years of life to live.
And even if such a lifestyle were desirable, it's last days are upon us.
Already roughly 30% of Americans want to move to TOD (Transit Orientated Development) but less than 2% do because there is not enough T for the OD.
30% would be a VERY good start on a larger social transformation.
The carrot is a better life and lifestyle, the stick is post-Peak Oil and the economic trauma it will bring.
Best Hopes for Positive Changes in the future,
Alan
It is about social status/position in the social hierarchy.
The system that uses money as the measurement for social position will and has created a condition where the best parasites are the winners to the great detriment of the many.
If you want to change the scoring mechanism you need to change the value system of the culture and that is created almost exclusively by the media......chiefly the TV.
Who controls the TV?..........That is the core of the problem and also the only solution.
As far as any organism would do the same thing vis-vis energy/resource use......There has been no other organism that is so eminently capable of manipulating the ecology as humans.
Our ability for abstract thought and imagination have no analog. This unprecedented creative ability is obviously a double edged sword but could be just as readily be used to correct many of the problems that it created provided the reasons for dopamine release where different.
It is about what we decide is "good" and "bad" that determines what we do as a species.
Get control of the media and change the message that is being projected and internalized by the society and you will change the ethos.
Nate's comments are on target as usual. He has brought so many truths and well reasoned arguments to TOD over the years it is always interesting and informative to hear what is on his mind.
His definition of real wealth as the "four ecological capitals--social capital, which is our friends and our network; human capital, which is our health, our knowledge, our skills; natural capital, which is our ecosystems, our fresh water, our trees; and built capital, which is our "stuff", our wind turbines, our electric cars, our pavement (our homes)," should be committed to memory.
To that I would add Fredrick Soddy's definition of 'economic wealth' from his book, "wealth, virtual wealth and debt" which is "the ability to control the flows of useful energy and embedded energy." Perhaps Soddy's economic wealth is another name for "built capital."
It is important to help get across to people the concept of money being a 'marker' for real wealth. You can always print money or create it with the stroke of a pen...but you can't create energy. To drill down a bit more it might make sense to say that money is really a marker for "built capital" (economic wealth).
Agreed. This interview of republican pollster, Frank Luntz, goes to the heart of proven ways to affect behavioral change by framing a new and more truthful (with less emphasis on consumption) definition for real wealth that people could embrace. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/gop-pollster-luntz-tells-enviros-sto...
IMO this is where we need to go.
If this is a 'Campfire', what then is a 'flame war'?
Excellent talk by Nate, with precisely the right approach;
a consumption based lifestyle is addictive and unhealthy.
We know based on resource, environmental data that it is literally insane to think we can continue to consume in the manner our society tells us to.
A lot of people even want to learn how to live well at a much lower level of consumption(but what would the neighbors say?).
It can be done.
Best TOD video in quite a while.
One thing that might be expanded on is the long-view of this through history, particularly European history after the Romans. There is always change in material circumstances, and always cultures either adapt or are replaced by ones more suited to conditions. I think the OP is spot-on about the direction of things and how we must adapt, but I also highly doubt that we will, as a culture.
...so now we have individuals living like kings on very little, scattered sparsely amongst a population which strives in misery, up to its ears in wealth it gets little satisfaction from.
Our culture is not well adapted to a low energy lifestyle.
As Gibbon observed in Decline and Fall, the barabarians were well
hardened against life's difficulties while the families of the roman elite were served by literally thousands of slaves and a massive military machine. The average roman was weighed down with debts and many rejected their roman culture in favor of the Christian culture. One reason the state became Christian is because the church offered a social support network and Christians could read and write and became indispensible to the apparatus. The military was so expensive that most of it was outsourced to Goths and Hunnic mercenaries.
As St. Augustine might have noted, the Roman state evolved into the City of God. And the Church even managed to convert millions of barbarian pagans into 'christians'.
For many, the Dark Ages were a better outcome for people than the oppression of Rome, though we may find that hard to believe.
Our society is surprisingly oppressive IMHO.
I think Freud's "death drive" or neuropsychology on anxiety and fear states might be another way to look at the prevalence of conspicuous consumption (within a capitalist market frame) as a method or mode to hedge against inerent risk and uncertainty in the external world. The earth (and reality in general) is a very chaotic and uncertain thing. Human beings require extensive cultural, intellectual, and symbolic (meaning making) resources and institutions in order to manage this raw complexity and uncertainty in the external world. And so humans project (based on internalized cultural and intellectual modes of perception and awareness) what they take to be the meaning, make-up, and constitution of the world. We would like to think profit is the prime motive for wealth acquisition (which is certainly the ideology flowing out of capitalists modes of production). But I think it may be something a little more deeply rooted in our reptilian brain, in our fight and flight mechanism. We buy things because we like them (and dopamine pushes us to seek out safe and rewarding experiences that bring us fulfillment, joy, happiness, and all the rest). But we also buy things, I believe, to hold the alien and inhospitable world of external reality at bay, and to manage our uncertainty and fear over the fundamental nature of the world (what we are able to know, or what is beyond our grasp of human understanding). And we also like to belong to similar groups of other people who enjoy and consume the same kinds of things (like a school of Blue Fin Tuna finding safety in numbers during their most heroic and difficult task of mating, reproduction, and a furtherance of the species). There is nothing universal or a priori about conspicuous consumption. It is a cultural and social behavior that is has to be learned, and is shaped by historical and social circumstances in ways that can be examined, re-learned, changed, documented, and analyzed across different times and places.
I don't think dopamine cares one way or the other as to the safe part of experiences. I know people who buy things that are not safe.
There seems to be little talk about the nasty side of humans, the crimnal side of our mind, the bad behaviors that we do as well as the good ones.
What of the people who get a blast out of killing people, or doing other people harm? The same brain chemicals that you might get from hugging or giving, are also released when you beat up the guy next to you at the bar.
Our culture has labeled the bad behaviors bad, and we punish people for them, but they still aren't stopped. So a selfish person might be as happy as a selfless person as far as his brain is concerned.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future.
We've all seen the graphs by organizations like the IEA and EIA and CERA, showing conventional oil going down, demand continuing to go up, and the wedge in-between being labeled something like "yet to be identified". Well, pair that image with the live feed from the bottom of the GOM and you've got your answer to that implicit question about where the new oil is coming from.
From here on out, extracting new oil is going to be increasingly costly and RISKY. Will there be an ecosystem left intact if we pursue "drill, baby, drill" all the way to the bitter end?
I know everyone is focused right now on what is happening in the GOM, but it really is past time to look beyond that to the long term. The race against depletion is over, and depletion has won. From here on out, any new oil coming on line is going to be too little and too late to do anything more than just make a dent in the annual losses due to depletion. This means that it is time - right now - for everyone, from the individual citizen all the way up to the corporate boardrooms and the halls of government, to get really serious and really focused on energy efficiency and conservation - and on energy alternatives.
I know that it is really tempting right now to focus one's ire on BP or on the oilcos in general or on Obama or on government in general. To my way of thinking, this is all just a distraction. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. More things like this are bound to happen in the future - as the level of risk increases, what else can you expect? IMHO, we really need to resist the temptation to stew in the present crisis and rather move on and focus on the really critical issue at hand: we need to be moving on energy efficiency, and we need to be doing it RIGHT NOW.
I don't need to detail what needs to be done. We all know the drill, we've been discussing it here for years. It is time to move on from deliberating and start doing.
I completely agree.
I concur also, it's the 99.8 & 1/2 % that don't "get it" that have to be convinced or it is for naught.
As stated before here, the advertising folks have studied this in detail & it's has "payed off" handsomely.
We need a marketing approach that is as slick and effective as the "stuff" companies have.
Too bad the average joe/jane can be so easily lead down the primrose $/stuff=wealth path.
Best wishes for a rapid resolve of the GOM leak.
We need to get the genius behind this ad.
And WOW what acting! Almost as good as Barney Rubble.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQNdi-fRExc
absolutely Porge. Babes/ sex. It's worked ever since first introduction. Somehow the TOD folks have to "spin" it as to create results. (at least for approx. half the population.
Maybe classified ads.............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mubCkCAEiDQ&feature=related
sliiiiick.
This one is even better.
Listen to the music LOL.
They are like parodies but this is what the Real Estate bubbles ads are all about.
I would make comments about the "clients" that took the course but that would be Politically incorrect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnda41lj6go&feature=related
Question for Mr Obama.
"Mr Obama, are you enjoying the oil experience?"
Seconded!You can always count on WNC O. for a well reasoned and focused comment.
There has been next to nothing so far said about the silver lining of this nasty storm.
Given the day to day realities of our culture,I am of the camp that believes there is hope for a safe, sane,and prosperous existence for our grandchildren,IF we as a society come to our collective senses.
But the human race is a little too much like a hysterical female actor in a disaster movie who only comes to her senses when her boyfriend, all other options exhausted, slaps her soundly.
We are going to need to be slapped , and hard, several times, over a period of time, before we become willing to face up to reality as a society.
I think most of us will agree that as bad as things are in the GOM right now, they will only get A LOT worse before they get better.I will bet my last dime that this becomes the worst single discrete accidental environmental disaster in history before much longer.
But if it serves as a Pearl Harbor wakeup event,perhaps in the end we will all ,excepting the local people, be better off as a final result.
I just hope the next disaster does not strike in my neck of the woods.
The Gulf is history already, let's hope something useful comes of it.
Judging by the look on Tony Hayward's face I am half expecting him to blurt out "We're only doing this because of Peak Oil" any day now on live Prime Time news.
When I look at how Kodak adapted to the highly disruptive changes in the photo industry, I can't help but feel that the oil industry knows exactly when peak oil is, and is not about to roll over and say that it was fun while it lasted, but it's time to go away.
I also remember Y-2K turned into a bit of hysteria, and this hysteria was good for all kinds of business. My roommate at the time was a Seventh Day Adventist who headed for the hills during the date change. She had worked herself into a frenzy by watching and reading church-supplied material.
In the runup to this, I would read the business section to her during breakfast and comment that the Dow was holding up quite well as we neared the end of the world. I read to her an article where Edison Electric thanked everybody for their money, and where they expressed their disappointment of having to go out of business because they could not find all the clocks in their systems. The article, or course, was not real and she, of course, was not swayed by logic and facts.
Behavior cuts both ways. There are people who insist global warming is a hoax. You can talk science all day long to them and it won't matter. It's funny, though; ask them if they think a ban should be placed on all testing for global warming and see what they say.
I think consuption should be minimized on everything, but then I'm likely to be labeled anti-capitalist, not that I care.
If oil stopped flowing tomorrow, I'd be sitting pretty because of all the new business opertunities that would arise. I bet I'd have a hard time meeting demand for my steam engines.
Adaptation is a feature that preceeds humans. It is responsible for one of our survival mechanisms that we use, and that is superior cognition. That feature allows for rapid adaptation to a changing environment. Use it and survive, or don't.
The fact is, I'm not going to sell any steam engines because the oil companies are not going to allow an abrupt transition away from oil. They will have already established the transition path to other forms of energy. There are only a few critical areas where the energy density of hydrocarbons is absolutely nessesary, and that is primarily for warfare. Everything else, including transportation will shift to some other energy source, electricity is my guess.
Damn, just lost a lengthy comment. I will try to reconstruct it more briefly. For you newbies, brought here for by GOM tragedy, Nate is a very bright young fella. He has posted numerous thought provoking ideas over the years. Several years go he began to discuss evolutionary psychology, which is briefly mentioned in this lecture. While I encourage everyone, especially newbies, to go back and read Nates older posts posts there was one which especially caught my attention. He referred to a book, this was about a year ago, Spent, by Geoffery Miller. Miller is a evolutionary psychologist who is applying Darwinian principals to Marketing. After reading this book, Edward Bernays, Sigmon Freuds nephew, and others responsible for the out of control consumption came clearly into focus. If you could talk to Nate he would tell you that a clear understanding of what he is talking about can be found in that book. Do yourself a favor and get and read the book. Will not post the link to purchase the book, because i don't want to pretend to provide computer referral skills to most who post here. The problems in getting traction toward what Nate is talking about is a marketing problem, and we must find a way to combat the effectiveness of big corporations in stimulating our brains into believing we must have every new thing advertised. Also offered are a multitude of things one can do.
Thanks for your work Nate. Let us know when we should refer to you as Dr. Nate Hagens. You will always be the smart young fella in the kayak to me.
The book referenced above.
http://www.amazon.com/Spent-Sex-Evolution-Consumer-Behavior/dp/0670020621
video related to Bernays.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#
I watched all 4 parts - pretty scary stuff. Especially when one connects it to current events, and "populist" politicians (I don't think I need mention names) that deliberately try and stir up the emotions of the mob.
Gail and Nate:
Thanks for an interesting little perspective. Perhaps overly optimistic; I agree that without behavioral change we aren't going to mitigate fossil fuel decline. However I'd like to point out the elephant in the room, as always: overpopulation and exponential population growth.
Jerry McManus and FuturePundit: Excellent comments. I can see you both have a very mature and nuanced understanding of human nature, unlike some of the more "I know what's best for you" people here, whether they be arrogant technocrats, environmentalists, or wealth-despisers.
Ultimately humans cannot be controlled. Trying to do so will only completely crush freedom and the human spirit - and the 1st half of the 20th century is a very, very good example of what happens when this is attempted.
Hopefully, enlightened democracies will work synergistically with free markets to create new incentives other than money that work well with underlying human psychology. If this happens along with sensible controls on human population growth and fossil fuel production, we might have a chance.
I won't hold my breath, though. I'm still a declinist/doomer. The case is overwhelming.
A little food for thought from the Great Transition Initiative
http://www.gtinitiative.org/
How does one get people to change? Now that is a question for the ages! Since I happen to be in the "change business" it's one I've thought a lot about.
A. No one method will work for all.
B. Consider personality types. For example, with the narcissists, flatter their ego. Make change "cool" or "in" or "popular" or make it a kind of contest to see who can do it "best". For the anxious person, you can use persuasion regarding the dangers of not changing. For the thrill-seeker they may be tempted by the mere "risk" of chucking one lifestyle for another all in one fell swoop. Many personality types, thus many kinds of "carrots" or "sticks" could work. (I've only listed a few here for the sake of examples.)
C. Consider that many people are actually motivated by what's going on in their social circle, whether at home or work, etc. So you may need to target different groups differently - depending on social status or economic situation.
D. People are most likely to change in a crisis. For example, this particular crisis with oil spilling in the Gulf. There are lots of ways this particular crisis can be used to foster change. Since we've got oil spilling, many people may be prompted to consider using less oil, driving less, turning down thermostats (or turning them up - depending). Consider all the effects of this crisis - environmental, careers, financial situations, vacations, etc. And utilize each to target the change you'd like to see happen.
E. Telling one's personal story of how you or I already try to live in certain "changed" ways may or may not work to motivate others. Some people might see us as acting "high and mighty" if we tell our "change" story. Though others may actually be swayed and want to try something similar. So always consider that your target audience is coming from a unique perspective and make that part of your change "pitch". Thus, rather than start out by taking the initiative and assuming you can "preach the word" (so to speak) and thereby "make a disciple" - I'd suggest you find out about someone, what matters to them, how they tick, what values they hold, who or what may affect them most deeply. Then make use of those insights to formulate your strategy.
Just a few thoughts. At the end of a thread. Maybe someone will read them and find them helpful.
Peace to all!
COMING HOME
TheraP,
I see you are a relative newcomer to posting here, so first, welcome, glad to have you in the discussion! :-)
Now, to your points, I think you are on the right track...I have posted several times over the years here on the subject of studying historical cases wherein "hip" or "cool" made a real difference in people's purchasing patterns. I am familiar with study of this by way of my profession for the last 13 years in the media research field, after leaving the fabrication and machine shop industry. In the shops the question was how to build it...but to the marketing and media industry the question is much more psychological and ergonomic...how do people want it to feel, to look, to sound, what emotions and desires are being met by the product...what EXPERIENCE do people want when they consume.
It is a fascinating field: Few people realize the extraordinary effort that is spent by corporate America (and the developing world is fast adopting our methods) to study the exact FEEL of the consumer when he or she buys. This is best explained by some examples, broadly known for the most part, but very instructive:
Let us take SUV's. The auto manufacturers have long known that the female in the household very often has veto power over the vehicle that is purchased. The SUV was acceptable to many females who would veto the hubby or boyfriends desire for a sportscar because even though it was consumptive, it could be justified on the basis of practicality and safety...but there was something more: Many women liked the sense of size and presence the SUV gave them. A petite female could feel the pleasure of masculine power and control when driving a large SUV that she could not easily enjoy otherwise. The Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalade's were and are very popular among women...they feel safe and secure and give a sense of power. This is fascinating in that many of the women who drive them consider themselves "green" on environmental issues (!!), leading to the oxymoron of a "green SUV". That such a concept can be easily sold gives us an idea of the power of self delusion when it comes to purchasing and consuming in developed countries.
The inverse: In the 1950's, the Volkswagen Beetle began to catch on as the "anti-establishment" car...never mind it was built by one of the largest scale corporations on earth and had its roots in Fascist buracracy...the car played to an anti-establishment "reverse snob appeal"....the idea that "I can afford a big middle class luxury ride, but unlike you, I am clever enough to be original and think outside the norm..." The Saab of the 1950's sold to the same type of intellectual elitism...and pretty soon these vehicles, smaller, less consuming, became the chic' wheels to have.
We are in an interestng period right now, just as we were in the 1960's. In the 1980's and 1990's, everyone wanted to "ape the wealthy", with big homes, vacation cabins, and a big luxury truck to carry the kids and the purebred dogs out to vacations and marinas...there was a new "macho" rich in the air ("greed, for lack of a better word...is good") as the rich aristocratic class was the model (terms such as "masters of the universe" and the CEO of Citicorp who said "we are doing God's work" became the mantra...the "entrepreneur class" and the "financial services community" became the model for all status in the developed world (Ronald Reagan's pivotal philosophical statement "We should run America like a business", as though any business was good simply because it was a business...like Enron perhaps...?)
After the financial collapse of the last 2 years, the "priestly class" of financial fund managers, business managers (remember when almost no one even knew what a CEO was?) have been discredited...virtually no one has any respect for them or for the once hallowed business schools and Ivy league colleges that created them. With proper advertising and marketing, it would be easy to play against the "wealth is all" and "greed is good" mantra of the last 25 years. Status could become something very different.
A little discussed fact: The women will be crucial in deciding the outcome of this: Guys didn't mind being a poor hippy in the 1960's as long as the "earth mother" type of women saw it as attractive, as masculine. If the women of developed nations accept something other than wealth and consumption as masculine and attractive, men will move in that direction. The heaviest efforts in media and market research should be focused on women. We need to know what they really want. What research I have seen is not promising: Women still want men who can demonstrate financial power, can still prove they can provide status and power through financial means. Artists and poets are generally regarded as either bound for poverty if not madness, and often regarded as gay. Men must please their wives, and more often than is commonly admitted, their mistresses. Right now, despite his problems with his sponsers, Tiger Woods is still the example of the man who could deliver and not just in bed but in the bank account...most of the men criticizing him were crying sour grapes.
Many women now use their own talent and abilities to provide experience, status and power but many have proven to be just as craven for consumptive lifestyles as men if not more so. They are trying to "catch up" to the variety of experiences men have always enjoyed, so men must now view them not only as prospective mates but as competitors.
There have been studies done showing an emerging trend that may be of assistance, and it is catching on in both genders: This is a "coming home" desire, a desire to buy and support more local art, food, culture, a return to smaller shops and a type of aesthetic "simplicity". The problem is that products of this type are generally more expensive, and are harder to purchase in these economically challenging times. Right now, it is an "elitist" trend, but the middle class tend to try to ape the elite. But the public may now look for role models away from the management/financial class.
Again, an example is in order: The American actress Meg Ryan, something of a baby boomer icon, was recently featured in her relatively modest beach home she has renovated on Martha's Vineyard, in the stylish trendy magazine Elle Decor:
http://www.elledecor.com/celebrity-homes/articles/meg-ryan-s-island-home
The home is notable in contrast to her prior palatial home, in that it is simple, small, built and designed in local vernacular materials and decor...it is a return to local elegant simplicity, the opposite of the "bigger is better" and "when you can build some...build more" mentality that has so prevailed over the last quarter century. That Ryan, a single, wealthy, smart woman with the means to build anything she wants returned to a more minimalist (almost Zen like in it's use of whites and muted colors, local fixtures,and small but elegant scale) home says much about a willingness to set a new (again) refinement of tastes, a willingness to set the bar of consumption lower as a way of achieving status.
There is a social and political risk in the "coming home" trend...it can be used to justify a sort of zenophobia and patriotic jingoism. Such a sense of place/time/being can lead to very involved philosophical issues...one thinks of Martin Heidegger's chalet in Todtnauberg and the still controversial implications of the writings created in this insular modest environment so close to the "earth", to "fatherland", to a "rootedness".
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Heideggerrundweg0009.JPG
...or Blaise Pascal's return to the faith and abandonment of science and logic at Port Royal and the little monestary convent there.
What are the implications of a type of inward turning "intellectual localism"...what will be the pleasures and hobbies and hopes of the localised mind and how will the corporations attempt to hold on to their influence over the minds of a newer, localised, "simpler" more ascetic consumer? Many of the so called "green washing" advertising campaigns are trying to address this consumer.
Will the citizens of the advanced nations be willing, perhaps even find it rewarding, to "come home" to a smaller, more limited realm of experience, and forego the variety of experience, technology and excitement they have become accustomed to...or will we attempt to regain the glory days of the 1980's and 1990's, damn the cost? Can you easily picture yourself living a humane but more inward turning, localized, intellectually and aesthetically minimalized existance? Will your mate or mistress (or boyfriend, whatever the case may be) tolerate it, or will they simply assume you have gotten old, lost the fire, and are simply fading away? What will you do to feel useful and to feel as though you are still expanding your horizons, or are these goals from a bygone era? Can our nation compete in a still competitive world if our people are basically turning inward, slowing down? We are talking here not only about a change in consumptive patterns, but a change in the very fabric of life and values....that is why Nate's post set off such a firestorm of comment.
RC
Wow! That was a mouthful. ;)
To my mind there are all sorts of ways people may be influenced to change. And for all sorts of reasons. But you're asking a lot of good questions. Some of this is already happening just due to people deciding to pay off debts and save $$$.
I spent 8 years teaching young children before "escaping" the classroom to "work in the trenches" doing therapy - and honestly reaching out to teachers of young children is huge way to effect change. Children see things clearly. War. The environment. An oil spill. Scarcity of resources. Get children talking about these things, thinking about them - you get them going home and effecting change in families.
But here's an example of what you discuss in terms of marketing. I drive a 2006 Prius. I'm the proverbial "little old lady" with a low mileage car, sitting in the garage. (and bicycle, by the way) What I notice in the new Prius model is that they seem to have taken into account the "men in my life" - who don't like "my" Prius (which I love!) as it feels small to them, but I bet it also looks feminine, though that may be subliminal. However, the new model looks "fierce" - and I bet that will appeal to men, though I can assure you it DOES NOT appeal to me!
But ultimately I don't think this comes down to "fads" really, unless we aim to get the rich and status seekers to feel "proud" of their lifestyle changes in the direction of simplicity etc.
Lots to think about. Here's a blog I did some time ago that I think pertains, though I haven't worked it all out yet. I was thinking on the fly then. And maybe I'm always in the process of thinking on the fly. But you brought up advertising. And that reminded me of this post:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/t/h/therap/2009/03/syste...
Just in case it somehow fits this topic... which I think it does.
therap,
just spent an hour on your link. great stuff. hope you will continue to share your thoughts.
Thanks! I think I'm pretty hooked on this place already. Glad to be of help. But even more, glad this place exists!
Peace and sanity!
Good stuff. You might also enjoy reading the solutions journal www.thesolutionsjournal.org if you have not seen it already. Here is a good article from this journal that goes to your topics. http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/571
Love my bicycle and prius too.
TheraP,
First, forgive my lack of brevity, it is an ailment of mine that most of my TOD friends are all too familiar with. To use a phrase you used in your blog post linked (FASCINATING STUFF) I also have a tendency to "think on the fly" and work out my thinking by writing. TOD has become something of a sounding board for this thinking...which they can view as a curse or a blessing, depending on viewpoint I suppose! :-) If someone introduces some deep ideas that my mind has been passing close to, this will induce me to think and write more, and your ideas in your post here and in the blog post you linked did just that...uh oh.
Speaking of curses and blessings...my 13 years in media and market research. It has been so rewarding to me, but at the same time I feel the way you mentioned feeling about psychology...the difference between the high goals of a profession (helping the consumer, answering their needs, including them, etc.) and what we know are the practical less savory uses to which the tools can be put (encouraging over consumption and waste, cheapening the aesthetic look and feel of whole nations, playing to the lowest common denominator, manipulation of sound bites and images to create questionable wants and satisfactions, etc.)
This goes to the points you make in your blog...the power of advertising, which has now become the arbitrator of taste, art, desire, and even ethics and aesthetics in the developed nations. The advertising industry has in many ways displaced the roles of artists, writers, priests and philosophers (I think of Albert Camus who once told a political rally in Algeria "dignity is more than a new pair of shoes", but to those who had never owned new shoes, his message was somewhat lost...or Pope John Paul who once told the Polish people that the great and valiant struggle for liberty was about more than just being able to blanket Poland in shopping malls. He meant nothing against shopping malls per se, but that life, liberty, dignity, MUST be more than just that.
We need to find a place to discuss just these issues...What do we want, and WHY? How do we determine what we want, what we need? Can we think over the din of the advertisers?
In the blog you quote you use a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville writing in the 1800's:
"The public seems not to realize the level of study they are under, the millions spent (the firm I work for is a 9 billion dollar firm engaged ONLY in market and media research)to WATCH them, STUDY them, and then develop tools to CHANGE THEM.
it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is a shepherd."
What would he think now? The tools he referred to were SO primitive compared to those used today, and the government is no longer the controlling force, but the corporate and financial class are (this is so important, that people were hysterical about government control and completely MISSED the ever growing power of the corporations and financial community during industrialism)
Again, let me give just a small example: I have seen a "model store". When you come to the entrance, the greeter gives you a card, like a credit card, and you are told you can sweep the card at touch screens located in front of items, to get more information and discounts, coupons, even drawings for big prizes. In the ceiling of the store are camaras, and the card is an RFID (radio frequency identification) card that shows where you are in the store every second, how long you look at an item, what items you looked at (the camaras can be slow motioned so even the turn of your head as you walk by is noted) These have been built in the grocery industry, hardware industry, clothing and mass retail industry.
I once heard a market research theorist say, "you give my a zip code and I can tell you what they eat, how they vote, what they drink and how often they have sex per week, if any." THIS is what anyone who wants to change the desires and aspirations of the public are up against. It is not to be forgotten that the most "counter culture" generation in history, the creators of Earth Day and the practioners of "free love" became only a few years later the most consumptive, most wealth driven, most status seeking "macho" generation in history...to use a great line from the Elaine May movie "A New Leaf", they "kept traditions alive that were dead long before they were even born" such was their conservative fascination with status, wealth and power.
TheraP, I cannot stress how great it is to meet you by way of this site, and my respect (and even fear) of the power of psychology as a tool is well developed, it is a tool I have seen the market researchers use to great effect, but often to questionable ends. Thank you for the link to your fascinating essay, and like you, I have long been a fan of liberal arts, story, song and poetry to say more truth than much so called "scholastic" writing and research.
I leave you with a link to a song I have used here on TOD before in these types of discussions....Shawn Colvin's "Polariods". This is on the surface as simple song, about a trip, a breakup, coming back home to mom, but the language, the use of words "from bedroom to business speak", the images of the late 1990's aesthetic of artsy, prosperous creatives, the ease with which it is all taken for granted on the "ship of fools", "beneath the dawn of a menacing sky". It is such a portrayal of what matters, the LOOK, the FEEL, the AESTHETIC of the late 1990's. I mourn the loss, even though I know it was an era fraught with waste, pretention, greed, and cheap advertizer inspired aesthetic, the truth is, it is part of ME. We are very much made by the age in which we live, and despite howling and gnashing of teeth, we can only go so far in leaving it behind. This to me is THE psychological challange of change, adapting, but without losing WHO WE ARE, who we have been, even loving the beauty of a faulted age, because all ages are faulted ages:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nezSWF6ymQ
Thank you for a great thought provoking discussion, and keep coming back...:-)
RC
thatout,
this is at least the 2nd time you have referred to this song. unfortunately she sings faster than i can listen. please, its me, not her. where can i get the words? respect your opinion and want to dig into this one. thanks.
Rube it is easy to get the lyrics of any song by Googling for it.
Here ya go:
http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/shawncolvin3455/polaroids165785.html
Polaroids
S. Colvin
Please no more therapy
Mother take care of me
Piece me together with a
Needle and thread
Wrap me in eiderdown
Lace from your wedding gown
Fold me and lay me down
On your bed
Or liken me to a shoe
Blackened and spit-shined through
Kicking back home to you
Smiling back home
Singing back home to you
Laughing back home to you
Dragging back home to you
I was so wary then
The ugly American
Thinner than oxygen
Tough as a whore
I said you can lie to me
I own what's inside of me
And nothing surprises me anymore
But forests in Germany
Kids in the Tuileries
Broken-down fortresses
In old Italy
And claiming his victory
Shrouded in mystery
He went running away with me
Back in our home New York
Walking these streets forlorn
We all in our uniforms
Black and black
Doing that slouch and jive
The artist must survive
We've got all we need we cried
And we don't look back
Thinking we had it made
Poised for the hit parade
Knee deep in accolades
The conceptual pair
But ever the malcontent
He left without incident
Vanished into thin air
Now I am always amazed
Words can fill up a page
Pages fill up the days
Between him and me
But the vows that we never keep
From bedrooms to business-speak
Make me remember how cheap
Words can be
And the letters I wrote you of
Were those of the desperate stuff
Like begging for love in a suicide threat
But I am too young to die
Too old for a lullaby
Too tired for life on the ledge
But I had a dream last night
Of lovers who walked the plank
Out on the edge of time
Amidst ridicule
They laughed as they rocked and reeled
Over the mining fields
Coming to rest on this ship of fools
But he just took polaroids
Of her smile in the light
Of the dawn of the menacing sky
And before they went overboard
She turned and held up a card
And it said Valentine
http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/shawncolvin3455/polaroids165785.html
Hi ThatsItImout,
THANK YOU for your post! You opened up a world that I never truly understood.
RC, Your post got me thinking of the mindset of control.
There is talk of the term, the invisible hand, it ties into something else which I won't talk about now, but also with another thought which I will.
There is a few groups that want to control people, the sheep of the world. Which you used the term the Government wants to be the Shepherd. I said out loud, "The Lord is my Shepherd." Which is kinda funny because humans in general like to follow a lot more than they like to lead. Well generally speaking that is.
I guess some people are born leaders and others are more comfortable as followers. That is where you get a lot of dividing up the lines of power.
Gov't whats to shepherd people, but so do the people that want to control gov't. The powers sitting off in the dark room looking at the video feeds from the office of POTUS. Someone is pulling strings in the world, trying to control people.
Who has paid for the vast new stores with the cameras and cards and the computer datamining programs, who is wanting to sell that data?
That guy who said he could tell you what I would be like if he knew I was at 72118 zip code. Was lying, but was telling his form of truth to you. He has an average set of data points, a bunch of numbers that tells a part of the picture but not the whole picture.
I am not normal, and I don't fill out many surveys and I know that the cameras are watching me. I have worked in a company where your movement was monitored, where you handled TopSecret documents (US DOD kinds), and I know what I can and can't say in general conversations about those years. But I was always a bit on the watchful side, as I am very curious. Heh, even named one of my cats that, she was too curious for her own good.
I wrote a story once where the narrator has started a group that plants tiny chips in people's heads and uses their eyes and ears as an early warning network as well as way to get more people involved in his groups activities. His own brain has a chip in it, but he put it there himself and designed it as a master cell, not to be part of the whole, but to be able to control to a point the others. It goes on for pages discribing how it all works, and you like mail me and I'll tell you more.
But the point I was trying to make is, that there seems to be a collective idea amoung some people that we can control humans, shepherd them to do what we want them too, be it through group think, or ads, or even some religions.
It is a general need to have control over ourselves and others, that some people have the desire so strongly that they filter up to the top as leaders of men.
Be they people we know in the public eye, or people we don't know behind the scenes, but they are out there and their tools are What TheraP uses, and what you use, and what I use( stage acting, and writing) and money, and oil and all kinds of little subtle things.
So who will be the new Shepherds of men in the future?
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, with lots of hugs to go around.
"So who will be the new Shepherds of men in the future?"
I have friends who are in contact with some folks in the banking community. Recently I was in on a discussion in which the financial types decided that at some point, the populations of the world would have to accept a "benevolent dictator", some small circle of people who would co-ordinate the debt, the activity, the currency, the finanacial and military activity of nations.
Fueled by some good booze, this naturally led to a somewhat ironic discussion of who we could accept as the benevolent dictator (?)
Finally we agreed....Walmart. Their stores would be the new "cathedrals" from which they could manage to distribute the ideas of the new age....scattered all over the World, Walmart as benevolent overlord. It was funny as long as we were all a bit drunk. :-)
RC
"Competition" is a vague term. People are in competition, of course, we evolved to be so. But the exact nature of that competition is characterized (IMO) by "the Prisoner"s Dilemma"----we don't care about winning but we care if the other guy wins and then takes our water or our money by gaining power over us in some way. We don't want to lose if there is a competition; we don't want to be seen as stupid or slow if we are not.
Until PO if you just sat it out and waited you would lose. An incinerator might be built next to your house in the country. The river where you fished would be dammed up. Rich people in the cities would benefit from the incinerator and the dam while you got nothing. (Although the govt would say that they were helping you by providing jobs, licensing medical care, overseeing this and that.)
Finally, with energy peaking, the reach of those far away to take clean nice resources away from ordinary people is also peaking. The rich, powerful, clever, will have to lower their sights and be satisfied with less (and less!!). But the competition will never end, just the shocking power to create and destroy will be reduced further and further. But it's all relative. Now with the European debt crisis, people in the US are saying "well, at least we aren't broke!". But of course, TODers know that is only a little while away.
Are you awake yet?
People don't laugh so much at me anymore.
Perhaps I have contributed to the survival of some beautiful people.
I hope so.
I have been reading some of the recent findings on the brain.
"The Other Brain"
What you chose to concentrate on is controlled by Astrocytes.
We also have Microglia crawling around in our brains and generally interfering in synaptic communications.
Oligodendrocytes listen into neuronal chatter and release neurotransmitters which influence alertness and mood.
So what are you?
"Seek and do not stop looking until you find.
When you find you will be perplexed.
When perplexed, Astounded.
And rule over all."
Christ. (Gospel of Thomas)
Have you read any or Roger Penrose's material on cognition and the brain?
I clicked through to Oligodendrocytes, and had to chuckle because myelin is something Penrose strongly implicated as the seat of the inductive aspects of cognition.
One thing interesting that he pointed out was the large variety of general anethetics with wildly different chemical composition, yet all do exactly the same thing, and that is to essentailly deactivate the brain. Wiki says the operation of general anesthesia is poorly understood, but Penrose pointed out that all the anesthesias essentially shorted out the ion charge in the myelin microtubules.
It seem there are boxes within boxes in the brain.
I don't understand Quantum mechanics and am puzzled by the implications of the twin slit experiment and how Quantum superposition will allow computers to solve the unsolvable.
It seems to me that the sum of all possible outcomes are superimposed and the right answer "pops into existence!!"
Was it Penroses hypothesis that there were carbon nano-tubes in the brain that are tuned to the resonant frequency of Quantum Wave Functions which allows us to use this facility? In which case our minds are "out there".
I have Penroses "Road to Reality" but I got stuck on the relevance of the Riemann Sphere. Still, it is fun I am inspired to pick it up again.
Ye Gods. I gaze into the vast void of my ignorance.
"Ye Gods. I gaze into the vast void of my ignorance."
We can't learn it all. There's just too much.
Penrose is trying to find out why we (humans) don't suffer from the halting problem of Turning machines, and equivalently, why Godel could even formulate his incompleteness theorem. It boils down to there must be some non-algorithmic non-computable aspect of consciousness, and the only mechanism he could think of to drive that is quantum mechanics.
That means a quantum event in the brain must undergo magnification, so he started looking for tiny structures in the brain that might allow for a quantum event to evolve for a sufficient time to where the superimposed states reach a roughly one-graviton potential which he claims is enough to signal a neuron input.
The microtubules inside myelin hold an ionic electric charge that, because of the myelin insulator, could evolve quantum mechanically in the way he is looking for.
He's not actually claiming anything other than a bunch of very interesting facts. It's tough to research because so many disciplines are crossed.
I hope I didn't butcher his work.
Thank you.
If Quantum Entanglement could (in some mysterious way) be used by design to solve problems, is it such a long shot to propose the the brain might have stumbled upon this powerful method by evolution?
If not, how did Godel propose his incompleteness theorem?
Number theory is based on some pretty suspicious axioms.
wiki
Apparently there's recent research which shows that creative thinkers are able to think like crazy people do. This does not surprise me - and may be like Quantum Entanglement. The difference, I would posit, between creativity and madness is that creative individuals can be transiently "mad" - allowing themselves to think outside the box - way outside - but then can "bounce back" (so to speak) to real world thinking where they can apply their new ideas in ways that work - even if they may not always make sense. The unprovable truths, which may yet be proven. Acupuncture, for example, turns out to "work" via the turning needles damaging cells, which releases "something" acts as a pain reliever. (If anyone wants links, I can try to dig them up - I think I got both pieces of info from the science section of the NY Times - within the past week.)
Would be interested in your views on Savants. Or savant skills.
I have some abilities in this area and have wondered how one in your field would assess such.
For instance I can awake at exactly the same time each morning without an instrument nearby. I just have to mentally make a note to do so but oft times even do not have to do this.
I also can hear or not hear a ticking clock as I will it.
I can also hear sounds that others cannot. And no hear sounds that others do.
I can find certain plants in the woods by my 'minds eye'. More or less an acquired skill that does not lend itself to objective methods. Say ginseng and goldenseal as well as elderberry and others as well.
I can show also douse graves and water. But cannot set up an experiment and prove it. It just doesn't work that way. Like being on a second floor and trying to douse a bucket of water on the first floor.
Recently my friend and I doused 22 unmarked graves in two overgrown and lost family farm cemeteries. Full of downed brush and trees.
These areas seem to go far beyond science and the materialistic/objective world.
Yet they can be done. I and others I have seen are able to do this yet ....well there are believers and non-believers but once they see it done they shake their heads and walk away
Perhaps this accords with Nate's brain chemistry after all. Or how about finance traders who seem to 'know' when something is breaking or about to?
I have read 'Liars Poker' and the other books by same author.
It is the ability to be both inside your head and outside it at the same time, amoung other names. There are still a lot of mysteries that we have yet to find the answers too, concerning our brain and our body.
I used to train myself to turn off pain within minutes of having it attack. Now if something hurts, I just relax for a bit and the twinge is gone.
There is still much to learn about ourselves and our brains, I figure we will learn it all by about the time the last human dies off.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, Hugs from Arkansas.
I don't discount anything when it comes to the brain. It does incredible things that we are hardly even aware of.
For instance, I believe the only way we can tell if a movie is running backwards is by observing violations of entropy (I.E. decreases in entropy). Our brains seem to be acutely aware of this condition without consciously looking for it.
I think the brain uses entropy measurements in much of its default processing. For instance, when we drink a hot cup of coffee or tea, we will take a cautious first sip, and if acceptable, we never even consider being careful on subsequent sips.
We do an incredible amount of stuff without thinking. If we had to stop and think about every step, such as checking if a chair will support our weight before we sit, then getting thorugh the day would be unbearable.
Default assumptions is also where we can get into a lot of trouble. A green light only means you have the right of way; it does not guarantee that you will make it to the other side of the intersection.
Native Americans and other aboriginal people are able to tap into energy fields by their myths..energy and matter are the same thing, the matter might be animals they want to catch.....the myths and songs are ways (which some people speculate are using quantum mechanics type of thinking patterns---see a book called "The Way of the Human" by Calvin Martin Luther) to give and hear voices ---useful and necessary for their hunting and "fitting in" to their world----to the energy fields and patterns that they live by. The myths and songs become the voice of the places. The places have their own energy fields, these are made of the animals and plants---also the people.
I am sorry if my explanation isn`t good; I only half understand it myself.
The idea that there are invisible energy lines running throughout the world, and that animals and humans can tie into them and use their forces for whatever means they need.
That only some people have the needed ability to focus that energy so as to use it, but that they have set up rituals to bring a group into that select club.
I have run arcoss that bit of thinking in some of my readings.
I am not going to say it is false, as there are to many things in this world that can not be logically explained away. My own beliefs tell me what they are, not really how they work, or even how to use the information I have found out about the subject.
If you want to talk further on the subject e.mail me.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, with lots of hugs to go around.
Here is something along those lines.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100518064610.htm
Yes, that's the exact info I was mentioning above. Thanks! :-)
What a great site this is! I'm glad we can discuss things other than what brought many of us, including myself, here initially. So important to be able to integrate information and see what that tells us.
I'm convinced that places like this will keep many of us alert and productive members of society, as we move into our older years.
My Xoda Rap stage show is never the same twice, it plays on my ability to jump around in my head and outside the box of reason and back in again like a rubber bouncey ball in a house of mirrors.
But my dad is this way too, and when he and I and my brother are all in the room together and we get going verbally, it seems like someone is in a looney bin listening to the patients prattle on about crazy things, only if you follow the leaps and jumps the logic is there, but you have to be fast on your mental feet. We usually have loads of fun and we are a very happy family for the most part. I can usually make someone laugh if I think a bit about it, to cheer up someone that is down, in the family. It is harder to do that in the general populace, because not everyone's sense of humor is in the same place.
But I have been classed as Bi-polar( I have a left side and a right side, and a front side and a back side, and the world is both north and south, so is the world bi-polar as well as me?). It got worse after I had massive blood clots in my system in Dec 2005. By the time I got to the hospital and they found them, they were wondering how I was still alive.
I had them in my legs, but not the signs of them being there, I had then in my arms as well, and my pulmonary artery was considered totally blocked. I was literally a walking and talking dead man.
So the paper is nothing new to me, I have heard about things like that for a while now, several years ago they were talking to a guy on NPR who was only creative when he was off his meds, on them he lost the ability to paint.
Welcome to the forums, gald you like the place, some of us have been around a long time for this very reason.
Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future, with hugs for all.
Fun is coming to TOD and being sent off on journey of previously unexamined possibilities.
This one might be a little out there in left field... http://www.quantumbrain.org/TSC2007.pdf
On the other hand quantum computing is real so why wouldn't our brains incorporate that as well...
Quantum computers and quantum chromodynamics...
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000219
http://www.quantumbrain.org/TSC2007.pdf
Wow. That is bizarre.
But then all life is bizarre.
I hope someone replicates the experiment in the privacy of their bedroom.
Would you confess to doing an experiment like this?
Huge risk, huge reward.
I can hear the snick of knives being withdrawn from scabbards.
More power to them.
Are you trying to find out what I do in the privacy of my own bedroom or something? ;^)
OTH, to characterize that quantum brain thing as bizarre would be what I call an understatement...
Holy crap! Thanks for the link.
Did you read the whole thing?
I don't automatically buy their conclusions mainly because they really didn't propose alternative explainations. They are asking us to take a lot at face value, but still...
Reducing commuting time and distance from home to work saved me a fortune and gave me the extra time I need to do many things.
I ve cut my commuting time down by two hours and costs to zero (except the odd bike repair). I have even less time than before though due to two young kids.
double post deleted.
Well Nate it seems you opened a can of worms on this one. I dont think I've ever seen so many insults being thrown before in one discussion! I blame it on all the GOM oil leak news which has been dominating TOD just recently. People are airing their frustrations I guess.
I think you are right about that. I know it has deeply affected me personally. My patience has been very limited with my fellow man as a result.
I practice a form of conflict resilution, and one of the things that has to happen to tone down fights or arguements is to get back to a stable place and sit there for a while, then work out the problem.
Though I do not like what is going on in the gulf, I can't do much other than pray about it, really. But I can be as stable as I can be myself, so that I don't cause more problems that will add to the mess.
When emotions are running high, you need to have a stable place to go and stand your ground and watch out from, and be as calm as you can be.
Hugs all around, this is not over with yet, and the emotions will be hot to boiling for a while.
Charles,
The reptile within us is there for a reason but it should be hog-tied under most all circumstances.
Earlier you alluded to altruism and humans can be altruistic, it depends upon which part of the brain is dominant at the moment. There is no unified whole within our brains but rather competing modules, some parts are very old and concerned with basic needs and some newer areas are mostly concerned with societal or social behavior. Religions call this dichotomy good and evil. The evil can never be completely expunged because it insures our physical survival. The goodness seen in the society of men, controlled by a different part of the brain also serves in our cooperative survival.
That’s why I love that statue from “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. A young girl holds two pans like those of a scale, weighing the good and evil of one’s life, because that’s what life is, the competition between a reptilian brain module that is unconcerned with morality and the social primate module that dampens the ruthlessly competitive tendencies.
Religion’s goal is to reinforce the social module and throw a vaporous bone to the vicious primal Id, to keep it satisfied. Religion serves a purpose, but I appreciate people that can be nice and decent without any promise of eternal life or the damnation of hell.
Evil or anti-social behavior is usually done on the sly or under circumstances where the ego/intellect is under the influence of the Id. Like in “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, Hyde will come out in the dark, while no one is watching. How many of our Wall Street good citizens are operating in the shadows of their complex machinations.
Unfortunately, the intellect/ego cannot always control the motivations that well up within the brain. Addicts are completely helpless even though they “know” they are addicted. Sometimes their intellect denies the addiction because the Id desperately wants to hold onto the pleasure.
In cases of warfare, some citizens will oppose aggression at any cost while others will goosestep their way to immense atrocities. A polite, easy-going soldier within his own group can, under the right conditions, murder, rape and pillage.
In my experience the Id (primal desires), the ego/intellect, and the superego (social morality) are coming on stage and leaving repeatedly all day long. The Id should be knocked off stage when it makes gratuitous appearances and the overactive moralists should desist from nitpicking people's behavior because the Id lurks even in the purest of hearts.
Nate,
Your choice to lower your income more than your expenditures is unwise. The wisest choice for survival is to not lower your income at all and then to lower your expenditures.
To prepare for Peak Oil we need to increase our productivity, lower our consumption, and channel the extra output into development of the infrastructure we need for a post-oil era.
As for creating a new kind of human that wants less: Other utopian undertakings that tried to make humans into something they're not have failed. See New Soviet Man for example.
and FuturePundit. i rest my case.
What case is that???
I really hate people that can not think...
Technocracy & Progressive liberal theory
What is the Technocracy technate movement? How does it differ from the Progressive liberal or Libertarian movement in North America? http://docs.google.com/View?id=dfx7rfr2_337c73kmqhf
I find people who do not think more trouble than ones who cannot. But, beyond that it's really more significant what they do, and not what they think.
Very thoughtful analysis by Nate. I'll add the following:
The conclusions presume that each given person has the financial "wherewithall" to not worry about his/her own financial security for the future. Other than "trust fund babies" and embedded government patronage titleholders (e.g. administrators, policy wonks, etc and their cronies) most everyone else is responsible to provide for themselves and their families now and into future generations.
As Nate correctly points out, we as a species are competitive by nature. He also correctly adds that we are, at the same time, cooperative. I would use the term "interdependent" in that our "society" functions within an understood framework of laws to minimize civil unrest and chaos.
Our competitiveness as Americans, however, is rooted in the belief of the pursuit of happiness upon a foundation of self-governance. For 99.9% of Americans, that pursuit of happiness does not involve 8,9 and 10-figure incomes or net worths. It involves seeking to provide for yourself and your family in an environment which gives the individual a high level of control over his/her success or failure.
The societal values that Nate describes have clear merits. It is obvious that he "walks the walk".
Nonetheless, our American society is predicated upon the fragile ethos of government of the people, by the people and for the people. As more and more freedoms are surrendered to the government, we become a group of people "forced" into subsistence as the bureaucrats dictate.
Ask yourself this: Why have so many ambitious, good-hearted people fled statist government regimes across the world during the past two centuries in order to have a new beginning in the United States? Love of freedom, seeking a better life for their children, escaping "boot on the neck" limitations to their personal and career options and aspirations, etc.
Unfortunately, as we surrender our freedoms to statist "leaders", they will not (never have in the history of mankind) govern as an altruistic group of benevolent decision-makers. They will merely use every means to ensure their perpetual power and authority. History makes this clear. Limiting domestic energy sources is typically only referenced as a means to control and exert power over a group of people.
If we unilaterally surrender our means of accessing affordable energy sources, we simply allow other governments and regimes to "fill the void".
A more enviable approach to reducing individual energy consumption is to lead individuals, of their own volition, to CHOOSE their own path. The benefits of activities such as recycling and lowering one's energy consumption "footprint" are best achieved by people gravitating towards them.
This Oil Drum forum provides a terrific clearinghouse of reasoned thoughts and analysis. It exemplifies the value of "drawing people towards an ethic".
Biospheric interactions are inherently cooperative in nature, not supremely competitive... this is how a life manages to endure without snuffing everyone else out. Everything finds its unique niche in a functioning ecosystem, and the niches in their entirety are unique to the organisms that occupy them. And nature doesn't have concentrated ownership of the means of production... EVERYTHING is the means of production for everything else, equally distributed. Output = input. No waste to speak of, contrary to our system.
The human social construct of private ownership of the means of production that is our current economic system, a man-made institution fully dependent on social support... (without the social organization of military, police, and courts [you don't think these just magically appear, do you? And you don't think they've been with us for our entire history as a species, do you?] to keep the land under private ownership and control, it would fall apart immediately) is not mirrored in the natural world.
One might introduce the concept of limited competition. See Kropotkin. Gould, for a more contemporary and famous source. Margulis and Lovelock as well.
Capitalism is not cooperative in a holistic sense as life is. It does not perpetuate life in a balanced and sustainable way. We've seen the central concepts of externalities at work, and what that means for eventual destruction of the framework in which our economic paradigm and institution operates. Output = waste. Production = turning life (landbases and creatures) into non-life (consumer goods). No longer a cycle, and so completely different.
We are a part of this biosphere, but we're a very special part. Unfortunately, what makes us special also makes us very dangerous. We're self-aware...second-order consciousness. That particular aspect of the biosphere is potentially a great thing, and completely a natural thing. We've done a poor job of stewardship thus far, but our part may well be transcending poor stewardship and being the second-order consciousness of this planet, rather than in spite of it.
Just in case people do not know (and no doubt 99% don't, on this site) the basis of the technate design is anthropological.
It uses the vertical alignment business method common to business now, in a non market economic system based on energy accounting.
It is based on creative competition, because it is known that humans compete.
Always.
It is not so much sociological in nature as to theory and morality and ethics etc. but anthropological.
It is a viable plan of action for a science based culture.
http://www.technocracytechnate.org/technocracystudycourse.pdf
For those interested in actual social change this is the place to start.
Arguably the most creative thing written in the 20th. century by some of the most creative people of a very creative period.
The last couple chapters are the design ideas but the whole thing is interesting.
More general info. http://technocracy-technate.blogspot.com/2008/12/beyond-price-system.html
Thanks for giving me an amazing post, its great time to read your post. I’ve got some more interesting topic for discussion. So keep it up.
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