[lexicon]

The Primal Forces of Nature vs. The Real Primal Forces of Nature

While I myself am sick to death of the way the word "revolution" is bandied about like a hip label at a boutique retail outlet, I realize that talking about it has become par for the zeitgeist. Even the New York Times feels it's important enough to weigh in on this sign of the times. I've gone on the record lamenting this misdirected anger in a previous blog entry that I believe correctly relabels this phenomenon as devolution. I think that Jenna Orkin, while commenting on the New York Times article, gives the best assessment of the cinematic genesis of this movement:

Network

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hey say a radical is a conservative who's gotten arrested. These days, "laid off" or "foreclosed" will do just as well.

The Tea Party movement is Paddy Chayevsky's immortal scene in the movie Network projected onto the national screen; the one where everyone starts shouting out the window, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" It also evokes the early days of 9/11 Truth which was a ragtag militia of well-meaning, patriotic and even heroic souls finding their way among the misguided or psychotic. Ron Paul figures large but so do some other less reliable but all too familiar characters. (Read the article and figure out who's being referred to, dear reader.) They have even resurrected the phrase, "big tent."

The burgeoning doubts about the Federal Reserve are a good sign but when they're coupled with questions about Obama's citizenship, one is left with the queasy feeling that there's major disinfo going on here, like those websites that smear legitimate questions about 9/11 by juxtaposing them with doubts about the Holocaust. - Jenna Orkin

[SeaGypsy]

Nice post Lexicon. I agree 100%. I can't see this global village changing it's trajectory in any real way. In so called 3rd world countries people wnt the same junk they see us in the 1st world having (beamed by satellite). The slave masters have worked the game so perfectly that only a tiny percentage of people realise we are being had. The system is set up to suit a completely unnatural universe where an ever increasing number of earths are being created in time for the ever increasing human need. We all know this isn't happening. The masters are not about to admit their game plan is fatally flawed. The slaves are happy in their delusion of perpetual BAU. Like any farmer who reaches a point of overstock, there will soon be a time where massive de-stocking (culling) is necessary for the survival of the farm. Allowing this to happen in a natural way would mean the entire farm is at risk, creating the circumstances for controlled descent would mean an end to BAU (& subsequent need for an entirely new game plan). So instead we have the inexorable build up to a massive war; in which a lot of people will die violently and a lot more will die by neglect. Using the farming metaphor, some paddocks will be shut off and allowed to starve out, while others (those with resources) will be selectively culled.

[Homesteader]

Agreed, that is a great post lexicon.

[culicomorpha]

Nice post.

Or to put it another way, the organism that wins in a struggle between its self-preservation and its environment kills the host, and hence itself.

But this kind of ecological thinking doesn't appear to be very well-understood by the majority of people, and among the small minority who do understand, there isn't much they can do about it.

I have heard this situation described as an "evolutionary cul-de-sac." Humans have adopted ad hoc methods that assured short-term survival, but as a consequence made long-term survival impossible. Since there are three separate elements impinging on long term survival: 1) population, 2) technology, and 3) commonly-held, but ultimately wrong ideas about our relationship to our environment, it seems inevitable that the force that will restore balance to this situation will not be in the form of a human revolution. That's just wishful thinking. The restoring force will be in three forms: 1) population decrease, 2) reduction in technology, and 3) major changes in how humans perceive (and act upon) their understanding of their relationship to the natural world.

#1 will come from pestilence, war, and famine. #2 will come from diminishing energy and failing social systems, and #3 will come from humility in the face of our own folly.

My hope is that peak oil works on all three restoring forces to help restore a semblance of balance. If not, if we are so clever that we continue along this path, then we *will* kill the host. Or at least the parts that matter to humans. (and probably many other organisms, who will be innocently exterminated because of our stupidity.) As you noted, George Carlin summed it up nicely. The planet will be fine. It's humans who will be f**ked.

[lexicon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'N')ice post Lexicon. I agree 100%. I can't see this global village changing it's trajectory in any real way. In so called 3rd world countries people wnt the same junk they see us in the 1st world having (beamed by satellite). The slave masters have worked the game so perfectly that only a tiny percentage of people realise we are being had. The system is set up to suit a completely unnatural universe where an ever increasing number of earths are being created in time for the ever increasing human need. We all know this isn't happening. The masters are not about to admit their game plan is fatally flawed. The slaves are happy in their delusion of perpetual BAU. Like any farmer who reaches a point of overstock, there will soon be a time where massive de-stocking (culling) is necessary for the survival of the farm. Allowing this to happen in a natural way would mean the entire farm is at risk, creating the circumstances for controlled descent would mean an end to BAU (& subsequent need for an entirely new game plan). So instead we have the inexorable build up to a massive war; in which a lot of people will die violently and a lot more will die by neglect. Using the farming metaphor, some paddocks will be shut off and allowed to starve out, while others (those with resources) will be selectively culled.

[mos6507]

Personally, I'm glad that the world's elite like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Pickens, etc... are trying to tackle some of these issues. Sure, it's technofix, but if you left our predicament to the usual anarcho-primitivist types in these forums we'd crash back to Georgia Guidestones levels overnight, taking most of us down with it. In order to get through this with the least amount of suffering you need some kind of temporary stopgap. If that means nuclear, shale gas, methane hydrates, so be it. The trick is, once we've got the house of cards propped up, to start dismantling it before it inevitably collapses for real. So you have technofixers on the one hand who can't accept the inevitability of powerdown and doomers on the other who can't support technofix of any kind because they've got visions of loin cloths and spears in their heads and nothing else will do, even if it means billions dead who otherwise could have been spared.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')If that means nuclear, shale gas, methane hydrates, so be it. The trick is, once we've got the house of cards propped up

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')If that means nuclear, shale gas, methane hydrates, so be it. The trick is, once we've got the house of cards propped up

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')Remember, even Lovelock is a nuke advocate..

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ') So obviously you are trying to map out some alternate path to population reduction other than die-off.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')I don't know what that sentence means, actually. I don't see any way to avoid die-off, that is, a rapid decrease in the population. I'm not sure what you mean by "die-off."

[Ludi]

But people die all the time. The death rate will necessarily go up if the birth rate falls. I guess by "die-off" you mean massive premature death, not just a rapid decrease in the population.

I'm not sure how a few nuke plants will solve the vast problems we face, really. I haven't seen much of a case for them solving soil loss, falling water tables, poisoned air and ocean, mass extinctions, etc. Or providing food to starving millions. Maybe I'm not reading enough Lovelock.

[lexicon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('culicomorpha', 'N')ice post.

Or to put it another way, the organism that wins in a struggle between its self-preservation and its environment kills the host, and hence itself.

But this kind of ecological thinking doesn't appear to be very well-understood by the majority of people, and among the small minority who do understand, there isn't much they can do about it.

I have heard this situation described as an "evolutionary cul-de-sac." Humans have adopted ad hoc methods that assured short-term survival, but as a consequence made long-term survival impossible. Since there are three separate elements impinging on long term survival: 1) population, 2) technology, and 3) commonly-held, but ultimately wrong ideas about our relationship to our environment, it seems inevitable that the force that will restore balance to this situation will not be in the form of a human revolution. That's just wishful thinking. The restoring force will be in three forms: 1) population decrease, 2) reduction in technology, and 3) major changes in how humans perceive (and act upon) their understanding of their relationship to the natural world.

#1 will come from pestilence, war, and famine. #2 will come from diminishing energy and failing social systems, and #3 will come from humility in the face of our own folly.

My hope is that peak oil works on all three restoring forces to help restore a semblance of balance. If not, if we are so clever that we continue along this path, then we *will* kill the host. Or at least the parts that matter to humans. (and probably many other organisms, who will be innocently exterminated because of our stupidity.) As you noted, George Carlin summed it up nicely. The planet will be fine. It's humans who will be f**ked.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')I'm not sure how a few nuke plants will solve the vast problems we face, really.

[lexicon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'P')ersonally, I'm glad that the world's elite like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Pickens, etc... are trying to tackle some of these issues. Sure, it's technofix, but if you left our predicament to the usual anarcho-primitivist types in these forums we'd crash back to Georgia Guidestones levels overnight, taking most of us down with it. In order to get through this with the least amount of suffering you need some kind of temporary stopgap. If that means nuclear, shale gas, methane hydrates, so be it. The trick is, once we've got the house of cards propped up, to start dismantling it before it inevitably collapses for real. So you have technofixers on the one hand who can't accept the inevitability of powerdown and doomers on the other who can't support technofix of any kind because they've got visions of loin cloths and spears in their heads and nothing else will do, even if it means billions dead who otherwise could have been spared.

[pablonite]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lexicon', 'I')'m not sure if Gates is being realistic.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')I don't see why you can't be for permaculture AND nukes

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')I can't be for a wasteful, toxic, expensive, centrally managed bureaucratic industry and for something which is the opposite of all that at the same time.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lexicon', 'r')ealistic mitigation and then there's cornucopian fantasy. I'm not sure if Gates is being realistic.