[careinke]

Lucky, I thought I could get a nice response out of you.

Your comments were very useful. Thanks.

I've sort of gone into observer mode over the things I have no control over.

I am thankful we will always eat, have a place to live, and perpetual sources of energy. I am especially thankful for the historical opportunity to front run the Banks and Corporations in my accumulation of digital assets.

The fight stage is days from being completed....and then we win.

Peace

[theluckycountry]

I feel the same way inke, as my sig line testifies, I couldn't give a rats arse about the rest of the world, or the rest of Australia for that matter. It can all go to hell in a handbasket because that's what they have been working for. You want to take on half a million in debt in times of economic turmoil, well suck it up if you lose that house. You snooze you lose in this world.

[Newfie]

Lucky,

I am a bit perplexed over your take on social obligations. When you say China can just pull back because they have no health care and retirement obligations your are somewhat correct. But it means the population will fell the full force of the pulling back, the people will suffer.

So it strikes me that when you say “China” you really mean the government, damn the people. Sorta takes the “social” out of “Socialisim.”

I kinda like the idea of a country where there is a web of support.

But, as always, none of us really have a clue about the future in any detail, we just all agree it looks kinds bleak, at best.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'L')ucky,

I am a bit perplexed over your take on social obligations. ... when you say “China” you really mean the government, damn the people. Sorta takes the “social” out of “Socialisim.”

I kinda like the idea of a country where there is a web of support. But, as always, none of us really have a clue about the future in any detail, we just all agree it looks kinds bleak, at best.

[theluckycountry]

Excerpt from the link above

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hanks to the many energy slaves (first real humans, now machines powered by fossil fuels) the use of complex technologies became democratic the first time during human history. Everyone who worked hard enough could’ve bought a car and a house. Food was cheap and widely available. People had a similar access to goods and thus felt they deserve equal rights. This process gave rise to human rights movements, democracies and individual freedom. For a while at least things were allowed to go in a self-organizing manner.

Given the fact that both human nature and our resource use are driven by the maximum power principle, however, western civilization fell into the same old civilizational trap as its many predecessors, repeating the same old pattern all over again. It started with discovering a new resource (fertile land, coal, oil, uranium etc.) and mining it to exhaustion. Then it went on by pretending that depletion is not a problem at all, while kicking the can down the road ever more desperately.

As resources and energy started to stagnate (and soon decline) so will technology use become ever more limited to an ever smaller, ever more privileged elite class. Again. Since the maintenance of such technologies will still require massive hierarchies, democratic self organization will be no longer enough. First resource extraction then manufacturing will become more autocratic, then outright dictatorial. Say goodby to worker rights, adequate pay, and a social safety net. Those who have the keys to the grain store, the access to oil fields, lithium or copper deposits, or those who can decide which neighborhood gets electricity by flipping a switch, will have the power and control over the population. Just like any other time before.

Not that it could’ve happened any other way. Beyond a certain point every civilization becomes wholly unsustainable, due to the fact that they always use up an accumulated resource wealth much faster than it could regenerate. Our industrial capitalist civilization is no exception. Its history follows the same arc as all of its predecessors. And just like in ancient times instead of looking for an “exit strategy” by attempting to dismantle what is wholly unsustainable in an effort to soften the blow somewhat, we will get more fairy tales of how the next bout of prosperity is just around the corner, or how we just need to elect the right leader promising to bring back the ‘good old days’...

[yellowcanoe]

People seem to think that technology will save us. It's actually the other way around - technology has enabled us to use resources at an ever increasing rate and thus hasten the day when we hit a wall.

[Newfie]

Yellow,

Can’t say I follow how your post is connecting to mine BUT I do agree with much of what you say. A point of demonstration is we use a pressure kerosene stove for cooking, but even kero is becoming hard to come by. I had to buy JPA here in Antigua because they have no straight up kero.

I look at it like this; humanity has been crossing a swamp. We build stepping stones, or mats or rafts if you like, but we disregard the ones we have used, we let them rot or sink. Thus if we ever have to go BACK on this path, well we can not. We seek answers in technology because it is the only thing we have. At one time here there was a thread here about building wooden sailing vessels. That can never happen, we cut down the trees and it takes centuries for them to grow.

This is a big part of the degrowth dilemma, we can not imagine a non-growth centric future, perhaps because there is none, which will lead to a pretty poor outcome.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', 'P')eople seem to think that technology will save us. It's actually the other way around - technology has enabled us to use resources at an ever increasing rate and thus hasten the day when we hit a wall.

[theluckycountry]

The Dark Face of Degrowth: Argentine's President, Javier Milei

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')o you remember how we imagined what “degrowth” would be? A world of small communities practicing social equality and sustainability. Sorts of Hobbit villages, but with some technology included, just to make sure that you can still connect to the Web. In Italy, we even refer to it as “Happy Degrowth.”

But, as time goes on, we see that degrowth has a different and darker face. The face of the newly elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, with his antics and tirades against the enemies of the people. It comes with the promise to dismantle everything we thought was granted in our world, all in the name of defending the people from the evils of socialism and communism while at the same time restarting economic growth. No such silly things as “degrowth” are involved, and climate change is a socialist lie.

Milei is just the most vocal and extreme example of an upcoming wave of extreme right politicians, whom we usually call “populists.” He claims to be an economist, but his proposals are based mainly on a mix of slogans, platitudes, and legends. Just as an example, in a recent interview, he launched himself into a tirade against the Club of Rome, accusing it of having predicted with their “Limits to Growth” study that fossil fuels would have run out by the year 2000 and that by now we should all have been dead. And, instead, we are two billion people more than when the prediction was made, in 1972. Didn’t you notice that, you silly communists who pretend to be ecologists?

The story of the “wrong predictions” of the Club of Rome is one of the many legends that surround the Limits to Growth study. But it is among the most resilient ones, so much that some 50 years after it appeared, it is still widely believed. It was useless that some poor guy (your humble author, U.B.) wrote an entire book, “The Limits to Growth Revisited” debunking it. It was also useless that several other quantitative evaluations (e.g. by Graham Turner, Gaya Herrington, and Nebel et al) confirmed the correctness of the basic scenarios of the study. What can mere scientific studies do against slogans spoken with absolute certainty on TV? Unfortunately, Mr. Milei is a typical politician whose primary instinct leads him to search for a culprit for all problems. If that leads him to re-propose old and debunked legends, well, that’s the way to be elected president of Argentina, apparently.

If collapse is an unavoidable destiny for these systems, it doesn’t mean people can’t try to do something to avoid it, but they usually worsen the situation. It was noted long ago, and it is called “pulling the levers in the wrong direction.” An example: everyone is noticing that the quality of the public health-care system of most Western States is getting worse and worse. It is a consequence of having fewer resources available and also of bureaucracy having accumulated well above the levels that the system can sustain. If left to itself, the system will nicely go through the Seneca cycle and vanish into thin air. But governments may think of doing something to avoid that.

The political Left will typically try to maintain the system output by making it more efficient and eliminating such things as corruption and incompetence. That implies more regulations, laws, guidelines, assessments, and the like...

The political Right will typically slash down the input of financial resources into the health system and let it decline or collapse, probably faster than it would do if left to itself. This is called “optimization”...

The difference between these two options is not large. Most governments will do both: they will increase bureaucracy AND slash down services, all in the name of doing a favor to the people. They don’t have a choice: shuffling the remaining resources from one subsystem to the other changes nothing. The whole system is desperately short of resources and has to shrink. And shrink it will, no matter what populist or socialist governments proclaim. (The collapse of our health care system is simply degrowth)

So, Javier Milei is acting as a “slave of history,” as Tolstoy termed kings and rulers. He is pushing Argentina in the direction where the country is slated to go: down the cliff. It won’t solve any problem; on the contrary, it will generate much worse ones than those Argentina already has. But, to give Milei his due, at least he clearly stated what he wanted to do and those who voted for him can’t complain for whatever is going to hit them as a consequence. It is also a good thing that Milei doesn’t seem to plan military attacks against other countries. That doesn’t mean he won’t transform Argentina into a police state, as is typical of populist dictators. But that will make little difference to a future that doesn’t look good.

Milei is showing us the ugly face of degrowth. His aggressive style and substance seem to be as far as possible from the gentle attitude of the typical supporters of degrowth. But they all make the same mistake: they neglect the fact that a complex system is a beast that needs energy, and if you starve it, it will die. Before it dies, it has plenty of chances to become nasty. Very nasty. Milei is an initial manifestation of this nastiness. Things could considerably worsen in the future. Degrowth will definitely not be happy...

[mousepad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ilei is an initial manifestation of this nastiness.

[ralfy]

"If everyone lived in an ‘ecovillage’, the Earth would still be in trouble"

https://theconversation.com/if-everyone ... uble-43905

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '[')b]The Dark Face of Degrowth: Argentine's President, Javier Milei

[mousepad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', 'T')he large influx of immigrants, temporary foreign workers and international students seems to be having the effect of reducing gdp per capita as well as overwhelming our medical system and driving up the cost of housing.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mousepad', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', 'T')he large influx of immigrants, temporary foreign workers and international students seems to be having the effect of reducing gdp per capita as well as overwhelming our medical system and driving up the cost of housing.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '[')b]The Dark Face of Degrowth: Argentine's President, Javier Milei

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '[')b]The Dark Face of Degrowth: Argentine's President, Javier Milei

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', '
')Argentina acquired independence from Spain in 1816 so they have been free from the impact of colonization far longer than Canada and Australia have. Alas, it didn't seem to help them.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', '
')Argentina acquired independence from Spain in 1816 so they have been free from the impact of colonization far longer than Canada and Australia have. Alas, it didn't seem to help them.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yellowcanoe', ' ')My step-daughter's motherinlaw was surprised to find that she could not buy milk on a trip back to Venezuela even though she was in the part of the country where the dairy industry had been centered. The problem is that what farmers had to sell their milk for didn't cover their production costs. Petro wealth can be very destructive to a country. One oil producing country that managed to avoid that fate is Norway. They have been able to benefit enormously from their oil wealth without destroying the rest of their economy. They were able to do that by having a robust democracy, good rule of law and a very low level of corruption before their oil/gas wealth was discovered.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', '&')quot;If everyone lived in an ‘ecovillage’, the Earth would still be in trouble"

https://theconversation.com/if-everyone ... uble-43905