[BigTex]

Humans are very good at developing strategies that span up to 20 or 30 years. However, once the strategic goal gets to be more than 40 or 50 years out, something goes haywire and it's like the human mind is incapable of reacting appropriately to the challenge on which long-term strategy should be based.

It is not surprising that from an evolutionary perspective there would not be a well-developed ability to develop plans that span more than a human lifetime. There is little survival value to developing a 100 year plan if there is no way to pass the plan down generationally because there is no written communications (as there haven't been for most of human history). Today we obviously have the ability to have generational continuity to strategic planning if we wanted it, but it's like the possibility of this approach doesn't event occur to most people (to be fair, long term planning is a luxury that requires short and medium term problems to be more or less under control).

The Japanese talk about 100 year plans, but I wonder how seriously they take it.

The peak oil problem is exactly the kind of thing that calls for a 100 year plan, but I'm not sure the human mind is equipped to develop a 100 year plan or follow one once developed.

I don't think it is a matter of people being stupid, I think it is more like a person who is color blind--their inability to see color is not a function of their intelligence.

Examples of big problems that people just don't seem to really SEE because of the duration over which they occur include:

Peak oil
Social Security and Medicare funding issues
Overpopulation
Global warming
Rising sea levels

Perhaps having the ability to fully perceive long term problems would actually just contribute to a lot of misery and mental illness, since the problems of one lifetime are usually plenty to keep each of us busy.

If you ask most people what their plans are for the next 5 or 10 years they can probably tell you. If you ask them what their 30 year plan is, they have probably thought less about that one. Ask them what their 50 year plan is and few people will have a good answer. I think this same dynamic applies to us collectively.

But it seems to me that long term survival of human beings requires a coherent long-term strategy.

The human mind can develop and execute to perfection a 10 year plan; beyond that the effort seems to dissipate and focus is lost (part of the problem, too, is that circumstances frequently change in unanticipated ways). I think that ultimately the peak oil challenge will be to fit a 40 or 50 year solution into a 10 year strategy.

[BigTex]

Would someone please comment on the theory in the OP?

I spent 5 or 10 minutes coming up with it and I can't believe none of the experts here have an opinion.

[lper100km]

I’m surprised at how optimistic you are to consider a 50 year time period.

With the ‘western’ world addicted to instant gratification and at least half the rest of the world consumed with daily survival, why would anyone think more than a few days ahead?

In my business days it was astounding to me how ‘good’ managers were overlooked in favour of those who thrived on being action oriented crisis managers. The ‘good’ managers planned to avoid crises in the first place, yet this was never understood or recognized in the hierarchy. The essence of ‘management’ was completely lost. It’s the same mentality that will fail us all on the big issues.

[BigTex]

It's like the greatest doctor in the world--no one knows who it is because his/her patients are never sick.

But I think it has some kind of evolutionary component to it--long term planning (50+ years) has only recently come to have survival value.

[mos6507]

You hit the nail on the head. This is an evolutionary dead-end that we're in. We are a victim of our own success. What worked to get us to the top of the food chain may also be our undoing.

[dorlomin]

Stone Henge and the great Cathedrals of Europe required over 100 years of work. Id like to see the time lines for the Amerindian cities and temples such as Machu Piccu.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'Y')ou hit the nail on the head. This is an evolutionary dead-end that we're in. We are a victim of our own success. What worked to get us to the top of the food chain may also be our undoing.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'S')tone Henge and the great Cathedrals of Europe required over 100 years of work. Id like to see the time lines for the Amerindian cities and temples such as Machu Piccu.

[lper100km]

Long term plans are only worth anything if they can be implemented and maintained. Regrettably, short term opportunism and events outside of the control of the planner will likely override or distort them. Quickly said, the concept of a national plan for any country may sound like a great idea, but I think reality will dampen the ability to develop something so complex, the ability to stay on course for that length of time and the required co-operation of all other nation states. (That is, unless the national plan calls for world domination!)

An individual or small group may make plans for their own purposes, but those can be easily and devastatingly upset by social and economic turmoil.

It strikes me that individually, it’s a crapshoot, plan or no plan. So maybe, the crisis managers and opportunists are in fact the ones that will survive.