Today’s guest post by Preston Howard discusses an issue central to our overshoot predicament that is often ignored: The Maximum Power Principle (MPP). The MPP states that life optimizes for maximize power, not maximum efficiency, and implies that life does not look forward in time to consider the consequences of maximizing power today.
While preparing an initial report for Florida’s first Area of Critical State Concern1 in 1972, I had the immense good fortune to spend time with Howard T. Odum, an environmental engineering scientist who directed the Wetlands Center at the University of Florida. The area of state concern was the Big Cypress Preserve adjacent to the Florida Everglades. Dr Odum and several of his graduate students had ongoing studies in the area. In informal conversations, Dr Odum explained the Maximum Power Principle as described below. I believe it presents Humanity’s current situation better than anything I have seen about global warming, overshoot, or climate collapse. However, to my knowledge no one has mentioned it in any serious article except Gail Tverberg in her articles about resource consumption.
To understand the Maximum Power Principle2, let us imagine a square island, barren of any vegetation. As happened many times in Florida, suppose our island was created by fill where a shipping channel had been deepened. Situated close to the seaport, someone intended to build something on the new island, but permitting requirements and other administrative delays where taking “forever.” (These details provide a “context” for the discussion.)
The barren island does not remain barren for long, as plants soon begin to grow on it. The solar energy that bathes the island provides abundant energy for the early pioneer plants. Seeds blow in on the wind. Some may wash ashore. Birds drop some. Those initial plants found a world filled with more (solar) energy than they could use. In this bounty they made their best efforts to use as much as they could and to grow as fast as possible, even at the expense of wasting energy by not using it efficiently.
Point 1: The Maximum Power Principle states when energy is abundant, those organisms survive best that maximize their use of energy, even if they are wasteful in how they use it (because the supply of available energy is “infinite” in a relative sense).
Weeds grow quickly, and they soon cover most of our imaginary island. The fact that weeds are wasteful in how they use available energy does not matter, because there is plenty of solar energy for all the plants.
Slower growing, but more efficient, plants also germinate, but they compete poorly because higher foliage from the faster growing weeds blocks energy-rich sunlight from the young trees and shrubs. Perhaps by chance some of these seeds fall on a higher elevation where weeds cannot easily block them from the sun. Or, perhaps they are near the shoreline, where the water provides weed-free access to adequate solar energy along the water’s edge. If these more efficient shrubs and tree seedlings find niches to assist their growth, they can survive even though they cannot compete well against the weeds directly.
In time, vegetation covers our imaginary island. Now the situation changes dramatically concerning the Maximum Power Principle.
Point 2: When the energy supply is limited, those organisms compete best that maximize the efficient use of the energy available to them.
Now every plant on our island has neighbors nearby, pushing leafy branches where a plant wants its own leaves to collect sunlight. Plants no longer have access to unlimited energy where growth is maximized even if excess energy is wasted. Soon there is no energy to waste. Plants find it difficult to obtain all the energy they desire, and the increasing competition with other plants for available energy adversely affects their growth.
In this new environment the struggling tree seedlings and shrubs have an advantage because they use available energy more efficiently than the weeds. Over time these changes allow shrubs to win out against the inefficient weeds, just as the trees will — in time — overpower the shrubs.
Examples of the Maximum Power Principle
As a general rule, all biological life embraces the Maximum Power Principle. If a life form confronts an energy source it can use, it succeeds best if it uses it as the Maximum Power Principle indicates. To understand the Maximum Power Principle as it impacts the real world, let’s look at a few examples.
Example 1: Paramecium in petri dish3. Paramecium are single-cell organisms that live in water and consume a variety of foods, including yeast. Here, we examine where we put several paramecium in a petri dish with an abundance of yeast. The buffet has been served, and the paramecium begin to consume the yeast. The paramecium flourish, reproducing more and more paramecium as the yeast is slowly consumed. Until… until there is no more yeast to consume, at which time the (now many) paramecium all die of starvation. Unfortunately, there is no natural system to suggest to the paramecium problems they may encounter if they eat all the yeast as fast as they can.
Sometimes events occur that regulate unrestrained growth that otherwise harms an organism in the long run. For example, if yeast gets down to 10% of the initial amount, suppose a lab assistant regularly restores it to 25% of the initial amount. In this situation the paramecium population fluctuates with the availability of yeast.
Example 2: Deer on the Kaibab Plateau4. The Kaibab Plateau is a relatively inaccessible area on the north side of the Grand Canyon comprised of approximately 700,000 acres. In 1907 there were an estimated 4,000 deer resident on the plateau, in addition to pumas and wolves, which were predators of the deer. The predators and the prey maintained a relative balance with one another. Between 1907 and 1923 a successful effort removed most of the predators, allowing the deer population to increase. By 1925 the deer population grew to more than 100,000, which was far in excess of the carrying capacity of the vegetation available on the plateau. All vegetation was consumed. Over 40% of the herd died in two successive winters, and the deer population plummeted to around 10,000. There it stabilized because of the significantly compromised vegetation available for food. (Earlier estimates suggested the Plateau could originally support 30,000 deer).
Example 3: Deer on St Matthew Island5. St Matthew Island is a remote island in the Bering Sea, north of the Aleutian Island chain in Alaska. During World War 2, the United States needed to know whether or not Japan attacked the island. The US Coast Guard established a radio navigational system on the island. It was understood that the 19-member team on St Matthew could never defend the island, but before capture the team could alert HQ by radio in the event it was invaded by Japanese soldiers. Because the island is so remote, the military was unsure whether it could provide regular supplies. As a backup food source, the US relocated 29 reindeer to the island so the radio team would not starve. For the deer, the buffet had just been served! St Matthew is 32 miles long and 4 miles wide, and it was covered with lichen, a favorite food of reindeer.
When World War 2 ended, the radio team left the island, but the reindeer remained. In 1957 Dr David Klein, (then) a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, visited the island with a graduate student. They determined that the 29 original reindeer had grown to a population of 1,300. When Dr Klein returned a second time, in 1963, the reindeer population had grown to 6,000, or almost 50 reindeer per square mile. Just like the paramecium, this did not look good for the reindeer. Due to overconsumption, lichen was increasingly scarce. The winter of 1963-64 was one of the worst on record for that part of Alaska. In 1966 Dr Klein returned to St Matthew Island to find just 42 reindeer, including only one male. It had deformed antlers and probably could not reproduce. All the St Matthew Island deer perished during the next decade.
The Maximum Power Principle lesson: If resources allow, the organism should use the resources to grow as the tried-and-true way to survive best over the long run. Ecologically, there were no checks and balances to suggest that 600 reindeer could live on St Matthew Island, but 6,000 could not. This is important.
How Humanity Embraced the Maximum Power Principle
No animate life form is exempt from the Maximum Power Principle, not even Humans. Starting in the 1700s, Humans began using coal to power an increasingly industrialized Western society, starting primarily in Great Britain. Around 1850 oil was discovered in open ponds in Pennsylvania. Humanity soon found oil worked as well, and perhaps better, than coal. For the next 175 years Humanity (at least parts of it) had access to these energy-rich resources. And, just as the Maximum Power Principle dictates, Humanity used as much of these resources as it could get. Simply put, in 300 years Humanity harnessed the power of lightning and taught sand (silicon) to think6. Humanity electronically connected most of its 8 billion inhabitants and extended its presence into outer space. Humanity has no predator to threaten its dominance in any corner of the globe.
One might think Humanity’s success is guaranteed, except for a few things: First, the increasing scarcity of oil and coal and natural gas suddenly threatens to remove the punch-bowl from which Humanity has been feeding. Second, the carrying capacity of the Earth is far less than 8 billion humans unless we continue to supplement with increasingly scarce resources. And, last, our centuries-long party has now broken the Earth in ways Humanity cannot repair.
All the King’s horses and all the Queen’s men, will never restore this spherical jewel, regardless of what we do. We have transitioned from a “grow as much as you can quickly” environment to a “use remaining energy resources as efficiently as possible” environment, but we refuse to notice. As increasing numbers suffer because we do not adapt, those with power and authority choose to continue as before because it enriches them. Except in small, cosmetic steps, we do not even try to save one another. Instead countries say to one another, “you go first,” and “no, you go first.” But, that’s how money talks in the United States, where corporations are declared to be people under law. The job of corporate citizens is to enrich their shareholders, not to act in concert with environmental constraints.
Humanity’s Future Foretold
Nonetheless, one can take heart. Humanity is right where it is supposed to be. We will continue to use energy that remains available to us to build electric cars and windmills and nuclear weapons as we now increasingly compete against one another. And, just like the deer and the paramecium, we are certain to collapse as critical resources dwindle. The Maximum Power Principle is deeply embedded in all life, and — like it or not — we are no exception.
We are foolish if we think we can escape7 the Maximum Power Principle. As fast as scientists tell us of the need to address looming dangers (starting with global population concerns in the 1960s), and as fast as people far and wide demand global change, and as carefully as the United Nations forces all countries to accept the need for step-by-step remediation, it will never happen. We will continue to burn more coal when oil is scarce. And we will continue to drill for increasingly hard-to-extract oil until our electronic interconnected house of cards crumbles around us. This behavior is hard-wired at the cellular level, allowing us little choice concerning whether or not to embrace the Maximum Power Principle.
One might ask when this catastrophe will occur. Don’t look now, but it is occurring before your very eyes. Regardless of whatever we do at this point, we have broken the World, and we cannot fix it. Our actions cause extinction of hundreds of living organisms8 every month. Human activity warmed the globe to the point that arable land is less available, decreasing the global food supply. Actions with unintended effects melt polar and glacial ice, and yet have not kept seawater temperatures from increasing. We now discover fish cannot live in the warmer ocean water. Rising ocean water and weather extremes adversely impact Human settlement across every corner of the globe. Unfortunately the Maximum Power Principle does not allow do-overs.
The Earth suffers from a runaway infestation of Humanity. Just like the paramecium, as necessary resources increasingly become unavailable Homo sapiens will join the long list of extinct flora and fauna previously unable to survive a changing world. But the Earth will not die. After Humanity’s demise, the Earth will heal itself. This could happen quickly. Perhaps in less than an eon (2250 years), a “blink of the eye” in planetary time. It would be nice to think Humanity might recognize its bleak future, and would attempt to facilitate the successful transition of whatever life manifests itself after Humanity’s exit. That, however, is not likely because of the Maximum Power Principle.
If I knew today was Humanity’s final day to exist, I would most want to plant a tree.9
Addendum
I would be remiss not to call attention to the single situation I know where Humanity acted contrary to the Maximum Power Principle and instead chose to minimize present energy use in return for greater resource bounty in the future. American “First Peoples” — at least some of them — chose to plant corn from larger husks while instead eating only corn from the smaller husks. Over time, this gave them a larger harvest.
While this may seem “obvious” to someone today, it embraces action directly contrary to that expected by the Maximum Power Principle. Somewhere in their historic past someone in those tribes stood before others and suggested they eat less now in return for the promise of more food in the future. I expect whoever it was, she probably convinced the other women (who tended the plants) and never mentioned it to the men who were perhaps out hunting.
Sources and Notes
1Howard, P. (1974) “The use of vegetation in the design of regulations pertaining to coastal development of the Big Cypress critical area.” Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on Restoration of Coastal Vegetation in Florida (Tampa, Florida: p. 16).
2Odum, H. T. and Odum, E. C., (1976) Energy Basis for Man and Nature. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company (pp. 39-40). [Co-author E. C. Odum was Howard Odum’s wife and research partner. Not to be confused with Eugene Odum, below.]
also
2Lotka, A. J. (1956) Elements of mathematical biology. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. (p. 357). [Here described as the Law of Evolution.]
3Lotka, A. J. (1956) again. [Here described using bacteria, while noting, “… a man, for example, may be regarded as a population of cells.” (Lotka’s emphasis.)]
4Odum, E. P. (1959) Fundamentals of Ecology. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company (pp. 239-240). [This was the first college-level textbook to include the word “Ecology” in its title. Eugene Odum wrote this book “with” Howard Odum, who provided an energy basis for nature.]
5Klein, D. R. (1968) “The introduction, increase, and crash of reindeer on St. Matthew Island. J. Wildlife Management 32: 350-367. Source: https://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect21reindeer.html on 28-Jul-2023. [Retrieved on 28-Jul-2023.]
6Lesser, H. G. (1984) “Microprocessor pioneer and industry mover.” Computer Accessories and Peripherals, 1:5 (p. 69+) [Quoting Harold Lee: “One good way to look at our (computer) industry is that, literally, within the last three hundred years, we’ve harnessed lightning and used it to teach sand how to think.”]
7Schalatek, L. (2021) “Broken Promises – Developed countries fail to keep their 100 billion dollar climate pledge.” Source: https://us.boell.org/en/2021/10/25/broken-promises-developed-countries-fail-keep-their-100-billion-dollar-climate-pledge. [Retrieved on 7-Aug-2023, as just one example of many available.]
8Pope, K. (2020) “Plant and animal species at risk of extinction.” Source: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/03/plant-and-animal-species-at-risk-of-extinction/ [Retrieved on: 8-Aug-2023, although many references address this issue.]
9Merwin, W. S. (quote) “On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.” [Apologies to Merwin (1927-2019), a Pulitzer Prize winner and United States poet laureate, for my alteration.]
About the Author
Preston Howard has a Masters degree is in geography and retired in 2011 after a wide-ranging career in data management. In 1972 he developed a simulation of seaport growth, the first of his many national and international publications and presentations. Today he lives in a log cabin in one of the more successful intentional communities in the United States.
Rob here again.
I do not know what Preston thinks of Dr. Ajit Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory however I believe that the MPP and MORT theories are both true and together are the primary cause of human overshoot.
The MPP governs biology just as the laws of thermodynamics govern the universe. Nothing in the universe may violate the laws of thermodynamics and no life may violate the MPP. How could it be otherwise given that life at its core is chemical replicators evolving to compete for finite energy and resources?
Assuming that the MPP governs all life and cannot be overridden, how is it possible for an intelligence to exist in the universe that is smart enough to understand that behaving in accordance with the MPP will destroy itself and all that it cares about?
A solution that evolution discovered on this planet, and perhaps the only solution possible on any planet, is to prevent high intelligence from emerging unless it simultaneously evolves a tendency to deny unpleasant realities, like for example, the fact that it is in overshoot. Otherwise the intelligence might override the MPP to reduce suffering and possible extinction, and the replicators that created the intelligence won’t permit that.
Apparently it’s quite improbable and/or difficult to simultaneously evolve high intelligence with denial because it has occurred only once on this planet, despite the obvious fitness advantages of high intelligence.
The MPP and MORT together explain why we seem to have no free will to do anything wise about overshoot. They also explain why an honest assessment of our responses to overshoot symptoms would conclude we are doing the opposite of what a wise intelligent species with free will should do.
Despite this bleak assessment I’ll continue to push awareness of MORT and population reduction, just in case I’m wrong and there is a way to override denial and MPP, because our existence on this planet is so rare and precious, and because there is much suffering coming soon that could be reduced.
It’s possible that Preston disagrees with my opinions on MORT. That’s OK because even if I’m wrong, Preston’s points about the MPP are still probably correct.
un-Denial 
Well-presented and irrefutable.
Of course, there are a few more dimensions to this predicament, as is the case with any single-bullet theory.
Humans are ultrasocial, bound by fear and hierarchy and innate self-deception to remain committed to the social order that contains the maldistributed benefits of maximum power. Biological scientists tend to ignore sociology, which would demonstrate the hyper-absurd levels of broad social power held by corporations, state-corporations, and their profit- or advantage-seeking allies.
“We” do not drill for oil, and neither do “we” trade in commodities of earth’s resources. “They” do, and they have not been regulated in any appreciable way.
Javier Blas and Jack Farchy’s “World for Sale” is an amazing book to give the political, real evidence of how corrupt and unregulated humanity’s economic and social supersystem has become because of the Maximum Power Principle that Preston Howard has delineated so well.
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Thank you for this post. I always wanted someone to explain MPP to me. And now my wish has been granted 🙂
In particular, I found point 2 extremely interesting. As I see it a change of effective competition strategy once the world becomes full.
Precisely because of point 2, there is still something I don’t understand. How is it that MPP necessarily ensures that “Homo sapiens will join the long list of extinct flora and fauna previously unable to survive a changing world”? Isn’t there rather the possibility for a shift in strategy which would follow point 2?
Or framing the question differently, which conditions ensure a similar outcome to the ones presented in the three examples (Paramecium and deers)? And which conditions rather ensure an outcome similar to reaching a forest climax (which seems to me consistent with what point 2 describes)?
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I am glad that he mentioned the case of indigenous tribes acting contrary to the MPP. While it is possible in exceptional cases for humans to defy MPP, it can only happen if the prefrontal cortex is able to override the primitive brain.
We are the only species that has the capacity to defy MPP, at least in theory. In theory as oil decline becomes obvious in a few years leading powers could come together and decide to divide remaining resources equitably and try to achieve a soft landing where we are able to draw down the resources over centuries while implementing population policies that Rob suggests.
But as the primitive brain is all too powerful for the rational brain to override, especially in such large numbers as required right now. And with the primitive brain in charge of our decisions we become similar to the reindeer in our capacity to think.
There is NO WAY that American policy planners are going to compromise the “American dream” in any way. They were itching for a nuclear war with the soviets when there wasn’t even a resource conflict just an ideological one. If there is a resource conflict with China for real , American leaders would rather burn the world down than give up the American way of life, which is just endless consumerism.
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The actions of our leaders today unfortunately suggest you are correct. I remember when Canada was respected for being a global peacekeeper.
If we assume MORT is false and we do not have a genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities, can anyone think of a mechanism to explain how a leader can contemplate using nuclear weapons?
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I think China’s race to achieve nuclear parity with US and Russia makes it pretty clear that they foresee the use of nukes in future conflicts with the west.
This post also makes another thing painfully obvious that democracies, especially the western ones are doomed to fail. I am not a fan of authoritarian regimes but in this particular scenario it seems to have an edge over democracies.
For instance when we are staring down the inevitable resource crisis and collapse a FEW people at the top of authoritarian regime can overcome denial and implement the right policies (or force it down) which would ensure the survival of their country.
In a democracy MAJORITY of population has to overcome denial and elect leaders who will then have to implement these painful policies.
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Good points. Very hard to win an election unless you lie when resource depletion prevents growth and everything in our system breaks. Also very hard to hold on to an elected position in that environment. We’ll probably lose democracies.
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The “Benevolent Dictator” is likely the only way to move away from complete ruination to a hard landing.
At this point, we are way beyond even the possibility of a soft landing.
The saga of the last four years, has revealed that 94% of the population are sheep. Worse than that, a large proportion of them will not be happy unless the rest of us are forced to also be sheep (take the experimental dangerous jab or lose your job, etc.).
There are an enormous number of people that deserve to suffer.
The human race – a very pretty firework, short lived and blew a few hands off.
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No society can succeed, if that means continuing indefinitely. Countries can’t continue for ever no matter who is leading them (though any one person can only lead for so long, anyway).
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No species is capable of overriding MPP. It only appears that way in small bites.
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How do I remain sane while knowing this? Denial is sometimes the only way to remain sane.
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There’s a touch of crazy in all of us that are aware of our overshoot predicament. It’s tough to swim in a sea of fish that are oblivious to everything that is important. With defective denial genes we probably would not have survived in a hunter-gatherer tribe.
My best advice for coping is to do something proactive to prepare. Even if your actions don’t help in the end, doing something potentially useful for surviving, using your awareness of reality, will probably make you feel better. At least it did for me.
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If I may…
There are so many solutions to that question…
Maybe you don’t. Sanity is insane. It is arbitrary, conforming to the norm of the day.
Only to function in society is it necessary to behave as sane, on the inside, everything goes.
You are free to break out.
Aren’t we free to pick whatever reading of the world suits us? Many are valid along at least some cross-section. Many more are pure fantasies.
Aren’t all ideas, as limited abstractions of reality (of That which is indescribable), ultimately just inert fantasies?
Some have trust. They lay down their mental weapons and stop waging the eternal war against the world. They live in peace and joy.
Some are brave. They accept they can never attain truth but simply live it. They are in free fall, in continuous wonder, while starring into the abyss.
Some are daring. They decide they are the ones giving all the meaning to the world. They live passionately.
Some even chose to live in nihilistic hell, or is it paradise?
In truth, at some point, we are just running in circle: haven’t we always known we, like any “thing”, were mortal, but that’s because we define ourselves as an individual separate entity enjoying “free” will. So it’s just tautological.
If you define yourself as the divine, then there is no death. But then, you also have to let go of the temptation of the little subject/object control game. Because there is no separate entity either.
At this point you can just calmly watch everything unfold as if you were the train station manager (who has no impact whatsoever on the timetables even though he acts as if he is the one telling the trains to leave the station).
I apologize for opening up the perspective so much that it may have no value. But school maths problems usually have only one solution. And it’s such a relief to see that life is not reduced to being a math problem. You may break the frame.
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Thanks for putting this up, Rob. It again shows that humans are a species and act like any other species. Call it MPP or MORT but the real cause of our predicament (and that of all species) is the origin of life on this planet. MPP is how life got going and diversified over the whole planet. There is no “solution”, regardless of what we would like. Any small apparent victory is drowned out by the MPP.
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Mike, I do not remember your views on MORT. If you think MORT is wrong, what mechanism do you think is in play to ensure MPP trumps our uniquely powerful intelligence?
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MORT seems real but is a consequence of life, as is MPP. What trumps our powerful intelligence is being a species. Rex Wyler, in that recent Nate Hagens round table, made this plain, just as Preston Howard has in this post. Denial must happen to continue the MPP and the MPP must continue for all species.
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Good, I think we agree. This means no life in the universe can be super smart unless it denies unpleasant realities. In addition, all intelligent aliens will believe in life after death.
I do not believe Nate Hagens and Rex Wyler acknowledge that genetic denial is the mechanism that prevents intelligence from overriding MPP. They are missing a key piece of the puzzle required to understand what is going on.
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I would put this differently
” no life in the universe can be super smart unless it denies unpleasant realities. ”
I would say
No life in the universe can be super smart if it doesn’t have the capacity to doubt its understanding of the universe.
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I do not understand. Your idea seems too complicated for evolution. What selection pressure would cause a brain to doubt its understanding of the universe and how might a mutation to an existing brain cause that behavior?
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LOL Rob,
How about the frequent experience of being wrong?
” is that a snake in the grass??? Oh thank god it is only a stick!”
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Yes, that’s an evolved behavior for good reason. Our fear response is triggered without having full evidence that a threat exists. Fast thinking trumps slow thinking as Daniel Kahneman says.
But that’s the opposite of the behavior we’re trying to explain: Why do we deny overshoot?
There are plenty of imperfect signals that should trigger our fear response but instead we aggressively deny overshoot. Clearly this is a different evolved behavior that requires an explanation.
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I really don’t think it is.
You and I and most of the folks here have read and seen evidence that we interpret as a signal that the human population is deep into ecological overshoot and we are expecting some pretty horrible things are coming for us.
Others have read and seen evidence that we are progressing to ever greater levels of power and control, and that good things are coming.
You are wondering why they deny your beliefs about what will happen, and they wonder why you deny their beliefs about will happen.
But at the core are beliefs about the future.
And you consistently think your beliefs are true and others are denying the truth, when in reality they may just doubt that your beliefs are true.
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We disagree.
If you approach a super smart polymath that uses slow thinking to conclude overshoot is not a problem, like Pinker, and present conclusive evidence to show overshoot is an imminent threat and we must get our population down to reduce suffering, they will aggressively deny the evidence and what needs to be done.
Denial is a different behavior than each of us interpreting imperfect evidence differently.
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Well yes Rob, we do disagree. (why do you deny the Truth? LOL or do you just doubt that i am correct?)
I am willing to bet that Pinker would say something like :
That is not conclusive evidence. You are disregarding this, that and the other thing.
For example: Productive, programable, self replicating wet nanotech takes care of all the issues you have.
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And I would then show Pinker the math and the physics which proves he is wrong and he would still deny reality.
Denial is a different animal than us having different beliefs about reality. There is a true reality and most deny it.
We disagree.
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LOL
I do believe that there is a true reality, but humans can not know it. ( its bigger, interconnected, operates at scales that are too small and too large for us to incorporate into our very limited understanding.)
All we have is more and less useful ideas about reality.
math and physics can be very useful but they are ideas about reality not reality itself.
So you are wrong, denial of your “truth” is just another example of having a different understanding of reality.
(now that does not mean the people who think we are not in ecological overshoot aren’t horribly wrong, i believe they are wrong. I just don’t believe they are in denial.)
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Of course math & physics do not fully explain reality, yet. But the portion of reality that math & physics do explain is a bedrock that can be relied for making decisions about what is true and what is not. A person that disagrees with the conclusions of math & physics does not have a different interpretation of reality, they simply denial reality, as explained by Varki’s MORT.
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No Rob
You keep denying this fundamental philosophical truth.
Why are you in denial?
Does your belief that you know the truth satisfy some type of evolved need for ontological / epistemological certainty?
( i will stop beating this horse now, in the hope that you will understand that other people can have good reasons to believe differently than you . other people can be wrong, you can be wrong, i can be wrong but that doesn’t mean that we are in denial.)
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Intelligent people can disagree about the nature of dark matter because we don’t understand it yet.
Intelligent people cannot disagree about overshoot (or the laws of thermodynamics) unless they deny reality.
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Reality isn’t a matter of belief. It’s a matter of facts (and maths and physics). Those who believe other than what can be shown by the tools all have access to must expect to be wrong. Those who accept what can be shown by the tools we all have access to can only expect to be more or less correct (nothing is 100% but some things are accepted fact that even deniers accept but don’t want to think about).
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The appearance of progressing to ever greater levels of power and control is what we would expect as we go up the curve. Then we will wonder what went wrong as we go down the curve post peak.
Expecting infinite growth in a finite world is definitely wrong. There can be no debate, surely?
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To Mike “Reality isn’t a matter of belief.”
Well that’s true. But, none of us is really debating over reality, we are debating over interpretations of an aspect of Reality.
Because we are limited in our perception of reality (there is only access to the now through the “gates of perception”, the senses, and then through language and ideas to a bit more, but the further we get from direct experience, the fuzzier it gets).
And that’s highly complex, because we literally drown in Reality, but do not even recognize it (I guess for functional reasons). We like to think reality can be reduced to simple ideas.
The so-called cornucopians believe we have only scratched the surface of what is possible. And they may well be right (even though, I myself believe, not this time). To make an analogy (which may be totally bogus because it is based on so many unknowns), Romans at the apex of their empire wouldn’t have been able to imagine the level of today’s energy expenditure. However, there was, in theory, no laws of physics preventing them exploiting fossil fuel that was already there.
I guess that’s why some people may genuinely believe we will go to mars, harvest fusion, or some other magical technology.
Other people may well argue that we will gently decline over a period of a century rather than collapse. For instance, Ananda Shiva claims small farms feed 70% of the world already. So, I guess for them lack of big machinery is not going to be a problem.
Themists like to have margins of errors and focus on the infeasibility. Given human have a natural optimism bias and tend to deny pretty much everything that goes against their narrative, themists may well be turn out to be right (that’s what I believe at least).
But, ultimately, this is still only a war of ideas.
I also believe some people genuinely do not care at all about suffering and mass dieoff. They may frame all this as the cost of progress of the human species (evolution needs some way to separate the chaff from the wheat).
Some just take things as they come, one after the other. This is still not denial. To them it’s outright crazy to spend so much energy trying to imagine how the future will look like and to influence the outcome. As if we knew what’s best for ourselves…
There is one Reality. But we all live in different layers of it.
We can’t really access Reality. We debate ideas about an aspect of reality.
We easily get convinced our idea of reality is Reality. We tend to confuse the map for the territory.
In the realm of ideas, so much is debatable. There are many people in denial. But there are also genuine believers in their own idea of reality.
But it seems I am just rehashing the words of jim.
(Two more off-topic aside, but still on the relationship between reality and beliefs:
* our experience of reality is influenced by our beliefs. There are things we are unable to see because we strongly believe they are not there,
* being reality ourselves, we are co-creators of reality, so our beliefs end up impacting reality)
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I like that.
Indeed, don’t we all evolve in different layers of the same reality?
Reality is so rich, it is in itself an offence to try caging her inside an idea. The thing which is not a thing. Incomprehensibly beautiful.
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I might put it another way: No life in the universe can be super smart.
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I can’t disagree with your first comment (no super smart life without denial) but perhaps for a different reason. Because life is what it is, MPP, MORT, lack of free will, etc, if it is capable of denying anything, it will, but that won’t stop or support its characteristic species behaviour. The appearance of denial is how humans would interpret what they observe.
Regarding your second comment, I think it’s very possible but not certain. It’s one strategy that may enable denial to be rationalised.
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Preston, I would be interested in hearing about your experience in an intentional community, if you’re willing to share.
The little I’ve read suggests that most fail. I’m curious if your community needed some form of unifying spirituality to succeed.
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Rob, first let me thank you for your efforts to provide reasonable stability in the current troubled times. I cannot speak about other intentional communities, but the one in which I reside has about 100 homes and is much more like a “standard” residential subdivision, but with larger lot sizes (1 acre or .4 hectare min.)
As an original member in this community (now 50 years old), I helped others build their houses, much as was done in early New England or Midwestern US communities. Those actions build community unlike “normal” subdivisions where most folk know few except perhaps their next-door neighbors, folk who may stay only a year or two.
For those who live in more standard apartments, condos, or residential homes, there are ways every person can build community. For example, talk to them (even if you just knock on their door and introduce yourself). Get email addresses for the group (as appropriate) and share info. Share when someone notices something suspicious. Pass the word when someone needs a ride to work next week while the car is in the shop. What goes around comes around.
For example, when a hurricane damaged a neighbor’s house (trees fell), they were offered use (with fair rent) of a vacant cabin someone had. Also, others set up a meal service providing dinner to the affected couple while they made repairs. Again, actions that reinforce community.
Not everyone in our community shares the same views on important issues (like me, for instance, with a very unpopular view about Humanity’s future). I sometimes get into strongly worded discussions with others in my community, but — at a deeper level — we all agree, notwithstanding our disagreement, we are “in community” to the best of our ability (whatever that means in the then-current context). There is a large supply of person-to-person energy if only we can find a good way to tap into it. My neighbors and I — with plenty of bumps here and there — have found strength in community, strengthened by our diversity.
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Thanks Preston. Sounds like you live in a very nice community. I had an incorrect mental image of a communal kitchen and wondered what the secret to making that work was.
P.S. I added your name to your comment so people will know it is you.
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Sadly, I don’t see humanity doing anything on a large scale to soften the inevitable landing. Jimmy Carter asked people to wear a sweater rather than turning up the heat. If people are fighting tooth and nail against cosmetic changes to their lifestyles to mitigate overshoot, what are the chances they will vote for the revolutionary change actually needed to address overshoot.
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In addition to MPP being hard wired into all species genes, because otherwise they would be outcompeted over time and then go extinct, there is another concept explored by Odum that also plays a part in the unfolding predicament.
Emergy analysis tries to calculate not just how much energy is utilized in a process, but also how much energy is “embedded” in the components of a transformation process. When we try to calculate the EROEI of various resources or extraction efforts, drawing a boundary around the system to accurately determine the EROEI is critical to make correct decisions. Most analysis, even life cycle analysis is incorrectly done, often intentionally, so we get bad decisions and poor application of what nonrenewable resources still remain.
Consistent and agreed emergy calculating is still a work in progress ( it’s complicated!), so not a big player in the ongoing discussions.
I don’t think we’ll see a PV powered production facility that cranks out sufficient panels to replace themselves AND power the facility, AND extract more panel materials (no recycling is 100%) AND power the rest of an economy of any size. Emergy analysis would make this more clear. I think of PV as just a short term extension of fossil power, kind of a set of training wheels to make the decline to a completely bioenergy based existence more gradual.
A counter or refinement to the MPP theory is that there are biomes where cooperation and efficiency do get established, such as the tree/fungus/microbe based system in old growth forests. This is described in Suzanne Simard’s “In Search of the Mother Tree”.
Unless we tip the whole system into a death spiral, some species will pass the bottleneck, as we will still be getting sun energy input to the system. As long as photosynthesis is not snuffed out, complex life will continue. I kind of hope humans are part of the ride, but if not, so it goes.
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Thanks for the lesson on emergy. Very interesting.
I get annoyed by the endless debates about the viability of RE which use the complexity of the calculations to obscure reality and to support whatever agenda is being pushed.
I settled the issue in my mind with one simple observation. If it was possible to run modern civilization on RE then we should be able to point to one example, of any size, anywhere in the world, that does it. There is no example, therefore it’s not possible.
Countless small “modern” communities operate exclusively with diesel, gasoline, and propane. Yet we can’t point to a single one that does it exclusively with RE. That’s conclusive evidence without even having to draw on your point about making PV with PV.
I also like Gail Tverberg’s argument that any viable energy source will be able to profitably grow its own use without a subsidy from a different energy source.
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Alberta’s Premier is fighting the Feds to decarbonize their grid by 2035. They have spent huge amounts on wind turbines and solar panels but the variability means they have to back up with gas. Alberta says 100% RE means a grid with intermittent power and rolling blackouts. I’m not far right like Danielle Smith but in this case she is right.
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When the topic comes up I tell people that if renewables were “better” they would just take over the way that fossil carbon did as an energy source.
Adam
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We seem to be close to the end of an empire. Curious minds want to know if it will end with a bang or a whimper.
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Thank you to AJ for bringing to my attention this must watch 17 minute presentation by Dr. Peter McCullough to the European Parliament on Sep 13, 2023.
Dr. McCullough is an expert with impeccable integrity and is a genuine hero who worked hard and sacrificed his career to save lives and to expose the many covid crimes committed by our “leaders”.
I have no doubt that the people at the center of the pharma cabal are evil, but it’s not probable that the majority of parliamentarians are also evil. The evidence presented here by Dr. McCullough is so compelling that if Europe does not soon ban the use of all mRNA poisons we should assume this is another example of our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities. The fact that trusted official experts deliberately harmed the parliamentarians, their children, and billions of others, and continue to do so, is just too unpleasant to believe. So they’ll probably deny it.
https://rumble.com/v3hwcgm-dr.-mcculloughs-speech-at-the-european-parliament.html
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There’s dark stuff going on behind the scenes. They are quietly working on a global agreement to do more of what they just did with covid. No lessons were learned.
I quit half way through. I can’t take it. The power of evil pharma makes me crazy.
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Today’s essay by Doug Noland on the history of excess debt and bailouts that created the current global pressures building for a deflationary event is very good.
http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2023/09/weekly-commentary-remembering-ltcm.html
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Dear Rob,
Thank you for the daily feed of hand-picked news.
It seems to me they all point in the same direction: an acceleration of the destructive forces to current arrangements.
At this point, any resistance seems futile, however a large portion of society does not seem to be ready for a managed retreat, yet. So I guess the general strategy is to maintain the illusion of normalcy, close our eyes, brace for impact and wait for what’s coming next…
As individuals, it seems more rewarding to either focus on necessities, the small, local and immediate and/or practice full acceptance.
Denial is also a fear-coping mechanism, isn’t it? It kicks in when we both know what’s coming, don’t know how to do anything meaningful about it (in our frame of understanding and cling to the frame).
Once we are all individually slapped by reality, we will finally consider a change.
I liked this article from the honest sorcerer:
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/a-grandiose-experiment.
Note that if reality is somehow totally deterministic, if there is absolutely no free-will, then prophets of doom, I mean themists 😉 who think they can change the behaviour of the group are in denial too. Even though, they may still be useful (in that some have to play the role of the coal mine canaries)
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Thanks Charles. That’s an excellent essay by B and ties in nicely with Preston’s discussion of the MPP.
It seems B is a disciple of Nate Hagens, and not a disciple of Dr. Varki. 🙂
I admit that my efforts to increase awareness of MORT so that we might avoid the worst are yet another example of denial as I have explained in the past:
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Friend Panopticon is back from a break with doozy of a climate news roundup.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2023/09/30/30th-september-2023-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
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Dr. Tim Morgan today with a different but excellent spin on MPP and denial, although I doubt he knows that’s what he’s talking about.
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The latest from Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche who is another expert voice with integrity that is ignored. Note that our “leaders” do not engage with Bossche in a scientific debate to point out where he is wrong, rather they simply deny what he is saying.
For those unfamiliar with Bossche, his track record on predictions is pretty good, although as with peak oil predictors, he was early:
1) Bossche predicted that mass vaccinating in the middle of a pandemic with a leaky vaccine would create variants. – True
2) Bossche predicted that variants would evolve to become more contagious for vaccinated people. – True
3) Bossche predicted that variants would then evolve to become more virulent for vaccinated people. – Waiting for validation
https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/how-many-more-times-will-i-have-to
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John Titus only creates a few videos a year but usually has something interesting to say.
I’d rate today’s video a must watch.
Titus explains that the Fed plans to deal with exploding unrepayable debt and rising interest rates by creating a lot more inflation, and that this plan will end in disaster.
I like that Titus compares leaders of today with those 75 years ago and concludes, as have I, that the former are much stupider than the latter.
Note what a lucky coincidence covid was for solving a financial crisis that had built up in the few months preceding the release of the engineered Wuhan virus.
I don’t think Titus is overshoot aware so we need to extrapolate his analysis to obtain a full understanding of what’s going on and why.
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Speaking of denial, no diesel, no problem.
The Monarch MK-V is an electric autonomous tractor that will make farming sustainable and profitable.
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Flooding in NYC.
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That can’t be right. I thought NYC’s problem was too many illegal immigrants.
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This is Superstorm Sandy all over again. NYC is a sea of concrete and asphalt, nowhere for the water to go (except into the subway stations). There are neighborhoods on Staten Island that were permanently abandoned and allowed to return to nature after Sandy. More of NYC will have to be allowed to return to the wild going forward…
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Dr. John Campbell is lost for words to explain why both government and opposition members are unwilling to debate excess death data despite compelling evidence that we have a big problem.
He obviously doesn’t know about MORT.
This video of representatives standing up and walking out rather than listening to and discussing the evidence is possibly the best example of our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realties that I’ve seen. To admit that you were duped into harming yourself and your own children, plus all the people you were elected to represent, is too painful to accept. So they deny reality.
I also saw it in family and friends who took strong positions without evidence and then held those positions as evidence emerged that they were wrong.
MORT is very powerful.
Another debate on excess deaths has been granted for October 20 in the UK. Lets watch to see if they behave any different then.
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Kurt Cobb with a different way to think about renewable energy.
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-clean-energy-economy-turns-out-to.html
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I’ve listed in the past dozens of things our leaders got wrong on covid. In fact, I make the claim that they got 100% of things wrong which can’t be explained with stupidity because they would have done better deciding with a coin toss.
This latest issue on DNA contamination has been bubbling for a while and I haven’t paid too close attention because I wanted time for the wheat to sift from the chaff.
Today’s detailed essay by Dr. Ah Kahn Syed seems to be a good introduction to yet another thing our “leaders” screwed up on.
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/5-ways-to-skin-a-genetically-modified
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I missed this video by John Titus when he released it 2 years ago. It’s a must watch explanation of why inflation is high today. Titus shows how the pandemic was used as cover for a titanic shift in monetary policy. For the first time central banks pushed their magic money into the retail channels. This was a documented plan proposed by Blackrock to the Fed just a few months before covid began.
Titus thinks this was a plan by the elite to enrich themselves and to increase their power via digital currencies. While no doubt partially true, he seems to be overshoot blind and thus does not understand that growth is over and we do need fundamental changes to the system, although if we had intelligent ethical leaders this should have been done in manner that did not double the wealth of billionaires.
Skip ahead to 48:20 for the summary if you’re short of time but the whole thing is a superb and is an easy to understand primer on how the monetary system works.
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“You can’t taper a ponzi economy.” – Max Keiser
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Every time I look at interest rates I have to re-think the whole thing. It’s not intuitive.
Listening to the news you would be led to believe that 10 year interest rates are going up because the Fed is fighting inflation by raising short term interest rates. That’s wrong.
10 year interest rates are going up because the businesses that loan money are worried about inflation and want to make a profit when they they are repaid with inflated money.
The reason inflation is high is because central banks printed a gazillion dollars using covid as an excuse to keep the banking system from collapsing because we’ve hit overshoot limits to growth.
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What about this? Interest rates are ‘energy return on investment predications’ pulled back and forward through time.
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LOL, not sure I understand but it sounds good.
I wrote this spin a while ago. Interest in this context means the real interest rate with inflation netted out.
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Very good! I like it
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The power of the people behind covid is breathtaking.
I hope the winners get regular boosters.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/
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And they gave the prize to the wrong person.
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Love Ray McGovern.
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David Martin is a strange bird and difficult to figure out. He’s definitely smart, and as I’ve commented in the past, has a core expertise in intellectual property patents which makes him skilled at tracing the technology history of covid.
But is he legit, or crazy, or both?
In a 90 minute interview a few days ago he presents evidence that the covid virus and mRNA resulted from bioweapons research and that the pandemic was deliberately initiated.
https://rumble.com/v3lflua-episode-8-silenced-with-tommy-robinson-dr-david-martin.html
Martin makes a very good point that those of us who oppose the official covid story made a strategic error by referring to mRNA as a vaccine. This has polarized society because most of us grew up trusting traditional vaccines. We could have united more people in opposition to mRNA by calling it what it is, a novel untested gene therapy technology.
So far so good. Then Martin goes a step further and claims that covid is a plan by the elites to reduce the population.
I’ve speculated on this idea in the past because every covid decision made has been the opposite of what one would do if public health was the top priority. Especially injecting mRNA into children starting at 6 months of age when the child and society receive zero benefit, and the child is exposed to a lifetime of serious health risks.
I concluded then that while the core of people around Fauci are no doubt evil profit seekers, most of our leaders are simply brain-dead stupid and there is no population reduction plan in play.
In the interview, Martin discloses that he denies overshoot by claiming:
– The earth can easily support billions more people.
– Climate change is not caused by human activity but rather is caused by fluctuating magnetic fields in the universe that are causing the earth’s iron core to heat up which in turn is warming the oceans. This is easily debunked here: https://skepticalscience.com/underground-temperatures-control-climate.htm
– Martin thinks the elites are using mRNA for population reduction because they hold Malthusian beliefs and are worried their opulent lifestyles will be threatened if the population is not reduced. He says Bill Gates is at the center of this plan.
You can see Martin’s denial circuit doing back flips here. He sees evidence for a population reduction plan, but because he denies overshoot, is forced to assume evil intent.
Is there any possibility that there is a population reduction plan in play, but without the evil intent that Martin assumes?
I know that:
– Gates is well versed on the reality and implications of peak oil. He knows billions will suffer and perish when fossil energy soon depletes.
– Gates invested in fusion research with the goal of finding a solution to peak oil but it has not panned out. He now knows fusion will not save the day.
– Gates wants to do something useful for humanity with his billions before he dies.
I wonder if Gates read Jack Alpert’s plan? Food for thought.
http://www.skil.org/
https://www.youtube.com/@RapidPopDecline/videos
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Throughout the entire c19 overture many players rose to the limelight. They all come with their own symphony.
Their thematic orchestrations either spoke to you or they didn’t. Perhaps some had motifs your could relate to or understand, resonate with yet not really connecting too. Martin was one of those guys for me. Something was just off. He may very well be 100% legit but he doesn’t present that way.
The truth is out there somewhere but who cares………………………………? depressing really.
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I’d like to figure out what happened and see justice before I die.
Geopolitical mysteries like JFK & 9/11 don’t interest me because of course the elite play power games.
But the fact that pharma (or some other powerful force) could influence the health minister and most of the doctors in my province to ignore data and implement policies that harm and kill people is a mystery worth understanding.
Worse still, they don’t care and they’ve learned nothing, which means this clusterf*ck could repeat.
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Dear Rob,
I am under the impression that you are a very nice person who values human life and wellbeing above all.
Maybe our “leaders/owners” share your values, maybe not.
If they do, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. People like Bill Gates may see themselves as saviors. Saviors may be the worse of all.
Maybe they don’t, and it was just business as usual. There is a long thread of scandals in the history of pharma, involving politicians. It was not the first, it won’t be the last.
Maybe the only difference was the scale of the act: we saw the consequence of a hyper centralized empire at work. Everybody dancing in synchronisation.
There are previous examples in history showing some (most?) humans are ready to use others like tools: world war I was a trauma for a whole generation.
One thing seems for sure to me: at the start of the “pandemic” there was a need for some excuse to issue more debt.
Another thing is for sure to me: if we have started travelling down the slope of collapse, this must manifest in some concrete events. There are probably going to be more insane moments. After all, it seems to me covid didn’t have such a huge immediate impact on world population (maybe more on the longer term dynamic though?).
(It’s nice I don’t have to apologize for being the bearer of bad news: un-denial is really a space of freedom 🙂
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Thanks Charles.
As you say there have been many pharma frauds that have fooled doctors in the past. Statins continue to fool doctors today. Covid was different. It was not just about an unsafe drug. It was everything from blocking safe and effective early treatments, to not advising people on how to protect themselves, to harming children for no reason. One can forgive the high emotions of the early days but now that things have calmed down they still have not admitted mistakes or adjusted policies in the light of new evidence. Hell, they haven’t even taken steps to prevent more gain of function research and another lab leak.
It seems to me given the continued emergence of new variants and no lessons learned we are on a path to repeating our mistakes.
I agree we can expect many more insane moments as things collapse. I expected the once respected Canadian health care system to become rationed and less available with time, but I did not expect it to deliberately harm people.
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The most important talk you will ever hear, Warning it is very info dense so you might need to take notes, look things up, listen to it many times, but this is the only thing left that matters;
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Thank you, I saw this when it was released. I left the following comment on YouTube:
As usual, not one person spoke up and said, you’re right.
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Maybe he doesn’t mention it because there is no acceptable way to achieve it and because population reduction alone doesn’t fix the problem, even though it’s a prerequisite.
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sigh
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He is looking for an answer just so that he can present it because he believes he is the smartest man in the room. It is still going to take him years to understand the meaning of the word predicament. Personally I think that Daniel takes mental masturbation to a new level.
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I agree!
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I finally remember who he reminds me of, this absolute snake from the self-help world:
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so true!
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I’m going to sound kinda bitchy here, but I just don’t like this guy. He doesn’t say anything very useful or profound.
There’s just something off about him. Lots of talky talky, no idea how he gets his money money. He seems very impressed with himself, like he’s enjoying posing as a thought leader.
Maybe I’m just too far down the doomer rabbit hole to enjoy these 101 people anymore…..
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You’re right. I guess I tend to ignore “off” characteristics because I assume everyone that’s overshoot aware is a little crazy.
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The US will need to reinstate the draft to fight Russia and China, but there’s a problem:
This interesting read by Simplicius the Thinker lists many other things that the US must do to get ready for a real fight. Odd that the west is pushing so hard to escalate when they are not ready. You really get the sense that our leaders are incompetent.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/army-war-college-report-predicts
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bootcamp can fix that 😛
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What about the thousands of migrants at the southern border trying to get into the U.S.? What a perfect demographic to recruit. A problem in search of a solution. Offer them U.S. citizenship in return for military service. Lots of eager warm bodies to feed into the grist-mill.
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Arizona governor moves to end farming deal with Saudi company.
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Reminds me of an ex-dairy farm I worked on a few years ago. Back in the 70’s it was the biggest dairy farm in British Columbia despite growing very little hay. Diesel was cheap enough that they could truck in hay from Oregon and still make a profit. That model of course does not work today.
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Only a Supervillain could stop climate change.
https://indi.ca/only-a-supervillain-could-stop-climate-change/
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Very nice find! I like Indrajit Samarajiva’s style of writing very much. Just scratched the surface but he’s prolific (almost an essay a day) and seems quite aware, bright, and witty. Have added him to my info feed.
Or perhaps leaders in 1972 wise enough to ban debt backed fractional reserve monetary systems.
He’s right that it’s too late today. Now I think it’s all about reducing suffering, avoiding nuclear war, and trying to keep a few of our most valuable accomplishments.
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Here’s another recent essay by Samarajiva on Ukraine.
https://indi.ca/nato-has-failed-in-ukraine/
Amen brother.
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And another, this time discussing and expanding on a recent essay by Dr. Tom Murphy.
https://indi.ca/the-long-road-to-ruin/
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Samarajiva today.
https://indi.ca/ukraine-has-actually-lost-ground-in-its-counter-offensive/
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Debt backed fractional reserve monetary systems are essentially legalized Ponzi Schemes. Ponzi schemes are inherently unsustainable because they depend on perpetual exponential growth to remain solvent.
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I agree. My point was there are effective leverage points that could be applied to reduce overshoot, if we actually wanted to do something about it, which of course we don’t.
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We can’t grow our way out of our debt predicament. Nate Hagens predicts that the U.S. economy will shrink by 30%. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stagflationary-economic-financial-and-debt-crisis-by-nouriel-roubini-2022-12
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Nate Hagens appears to have predicted a 30% GDP drop May 30 2022 on a Planet: Critical YouTube video
The link above does not mention Nate or 30%.
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Today’s interview of Luke Gromen by Nate Hagens is the best discussion of the relationships between energy, monetary systems, the economy, and world affairs that I’ve ever heard.
Too much to absorb in one go. I will be listening to this several times over the coming month.
A couple initial observations.
Very interesting comment with a possible link to the covid mystery at 59:00. Gromen thinks one of the energy productivity miracles that could save us is:
Lots of awareness and discussion about peak cheap oil but very little discussion about the probability and implications of much less energy due to financial collapse. Is this an example of Gromen’s denial circuit at work in that it’s ok to discuss inflation and higher prices but not ok to discuss scarcity?
I agree with the thing that worries Gromen the most:
Examples for me include putting weapons on the border of Russia, preventing Ukraine from negotiating a peace with Russia, and blowing up Nordstream.
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There is something almost spooky about covid. It’s layer upon layer upon layer of things that do not make sense.
Skip ahead to 21:30 for an analysis by Dr. Bret Weinstein of the recent Nobel prize awarded for the covid mRNA substance.
The award relates to an invention that increases the longevity of mRNA in the body before it is broken down. When the inventor is asked about long term safety he replies that it is safe because mRNA is transient, meaning it does not last long in the body.
Also discussed are the possible implications of the recent discovery of DNA contamination in a large sample of saved mRNA vials. This might explain the turbo cancers that have been observed by a pathologist who may now lose his license for speaking up.
The small scale manufacturing method used for the clinical trials did not have DNA contamination. When they geared up after approval they changed the manufacturing method which introduced DNA contamination. In other words, no testing was done on the substance that was injected into billions of people.
Much more is revealed in this discussion about how what we are being told does not make sense.
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There’s no problem if you hide the data.
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Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA who should have received the Nobel prize but did not because he opposes how the technology was used for covid, today explains why the mRNA invention that did receive the Nobel prize should not have been approved for use in billions of people.
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/pseudouridine-what-is-it-and-why
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I’ll go one step further with this hypothesis. Some extremely powerful individuals (most probably unknown to the public) would like humanity to go on at all cost. They figured out the only way to do that would be to greatly reduce its numbers.
Why do I say that? Because I thought that’s probably the project I had started, if I had lots of power, around 2012, when confronted with information about NTHE. At that time, I even thought, it could be done with some virus (which I now believe is naïve: humans are kind of tough).
Remember law one of robotics in Isaac Asimov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics)?
Well, there was some book were it was extended with law 0:
So if you have a lots of power, see what’s coming and do nothing, you allow humanity to come to harm.
I would propose then that it’s possible to entertain such ideas without feeling like a villain. It just seems like a rational, necessary sacrifice for the survival of the species. Anybody who identifies with humanity as a whole rather than individuals and has machine-like hyper-rationality could decide this.
(To reassure you, I do not entertain these ideas any more, primarily because I now see the duality humanity/rest of life as a very limited way of framing reality)
Now, there are elements which do not totally fit my hypothesis:
– why not stop oil flowing? (maybe the powerful individuals want to keep their powers and industrial civilisation)
– why not unleash a more powerful virus? (maybe it didn’t work as planned, or maybe for the same reason as the previous question it has to be done gradually)
– why not simply ration the economy? (maybe because it would meet a lot of opposition so it can’t be done openly)
– is it really possible that some individuals would possess such powers without being known? Isn’t it paranoid to think that?
And how do we test the hypothesis?
I will be honest, I believe Bret Weinstein’s and my hypotheses are both extremely unlikely. These ideas are dangerous too. They can be exploited to angry public sentiment, start the next movement and decapitate some people (this maybe is unavoidable at this point, though).
I am more of Nate’s sentiment, that the world is a complex place, there are several powerful entities with different agendas. Somehow, history is made by the balance of powers. It’s an emerging organic collective behaviour. Mistakes (lot’s of them) were made, greed and lust for power are real forces. Sometimes, the interests of several entities match.
At least, there is material for a nice sci-fi book 🙂
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You make a very interesting thought experiment.
I go back and forth on my beliefs. Some days I agree with Nate Hagens that no one is driving the bus and we are simply observing the super-organism at work. Other days I believe that money explains everything as Jikkyleaks says: “pharma money controls government and government money funds pharma.” Other days what I see is so evil that it can’t be explained by aggressive CEO’s maximizing growth (who I have worked with in the past so have some insight) and that there must be some other agenda in play by a few powerful people.
I hope to figure it out before I die.
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Thank you. I hesitated before sharing, because it’s a lot of speculation, not many facts.
Maybe, it’s just how reaching the limits to growth feels. It seems like a covert war, but it is simply the effect of the ironclad invisible hand of our new collective circumstances. A limited space filled with arrogant humans and depleting resources. Nobody is ready to voluntarily abandon its turf, whatever the size. So there is some friction.
Anyway, if you ever find your answer, please let us know!
As for me, I believe I lack the intellectual tools to reason soundly at this scale. Maybe we should first precisely state what we want to know. And then we could go and interrogate a history scholar with integrity, or an investigative journalist… But maybe we would just learn more about the process of writing history and story-telling rather than truth. Ah ah ah 🙂
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LOL. You’re right. Truth is elusive.
I still want to figure it out why the health care systems in rich democratic countries were used to harm rather than protect people and why most citizens don’t care.
I agree with your point about limits to growth creating stresses. People are going crazy or getting angry everywhere. I feel it myself.
This morning the news was a major escalation of violence between the Palestinians and Israelis. I’ve been there several times. Few talk about it but the core issue is there is not enough land and water for the number of people that want to live there. Perhaps a preview of what we can expect at home with scarcity and degrowth.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/palestine-strikes-back.html
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el gato malo weighs in today on the pharma fraud…
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/did-the-pfizer-vaccine-even-really
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Dr. John Campbell studied the mRNA clinical trials, decided to be vaccinated, and became a leading advocate for mRNA.
About a year ago he became aware of much evidence that our leaders are lying about the safety and effectiveness of mRNA, publicly admitted he was wrong, and has since fought against covid policies.
Yesterday he learned that he was bait & switched into injecting an mRNA substance that was different than what was used in the clinical studies.
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How do they not see the silver lining of population decline? Kurzgesagt is run by intelligent people, but yet they remain in denial about this critical issue.
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I see it a lot. It’s troubling. More polymaths in denial I guess.
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Nate Hagens again explains how complex our overshoot predicament is.
My response: It’s not complex. Population reduction is the only good path and genetic reality denial blocks it.
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But until overshoot is recognised, no population reduction strategies will even surface.
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That’s why I said the only good path is blocked by genetic reality denial.
I think overshoot aware people can be placed into 2 groups:
The first group, which I believe you belong to, thinks nothing can be done to make the future less bad.
The second group, which Nate Hagens belongs to, believes we can and should do something to make the future less bad. My point is directed at the second group. They are wasting their time unless they focus on population reduction and trying to find a way to override MORT. I’m not saying it’s possible, I’m just saying it’s the only thing that might help.
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Right. I’d expand on the first group. Though I could think of ways to ease into a painful future and make it less bad, I can’t see a way that can happen, as humans are a species.
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I respect your view that there is nothing that can be done because we are an animal governed by evolved behaviors. You might be right. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell me I was wrong every time I suggest to people who think that something can be done that MORT is the key. You agreed that MORT explains why intelligence does not override MPP. Can MORT be overridden? I’d say probably not, but it’s worth trying because there is no alternative. After all, we stopped burning witches when we understood epilepsy was a health disorder and not a demonic possession.
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Yeah, it would be worth trying; what have we got to lose?
By the way, I didn’t so much agree that MORT provides that explanation as state that MORT itself can be explained by our being a species.
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Mike, just wanted to let you know I found a reasonably priced source of plain unsweetened Kefir at Costco ($3 per liter).
The last few days I’ve been back to my normal routine of walking 6 km with almost no pain. I’m not 100% but much better.
Lots of moving parts. In addition to drinking Kefir every day for a couple weeks I also started taking Glucosamine Sulfate about a month ago and have avoided physical activity that probably caused the injury in the first place. So not sure if Kefir gets the credit but I am going to continue drinking some every day.
Thanks for the tip.
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That’s great. $3 per litre sounds good. After currency exchange rates, that’s close to the price I make it for myself. I’ve tried tablets containing glucosamine but haven’t had any benefit from them. A cure/treatment for arthritic hands is the one diet change I’m missing. Fortunately, it’s not too bad and doesn’t stop me from doing anything, though some things are a bit more painful than I’d like!
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Nice simple summary of the known possible causes of the recent temperature spike.
h/t Panopticon
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/climate-expert-planet-doomed-2666469
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It’s perhaps another example of MORT?
Since, if 1.5°C is understood to be a danger threshold, why agree to ignore that and aim, instead, to limit warming to well below 2°C?
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Yes. And then agree to CO2 reductions that you have zero chance of achieving. It’s denial top to bottom.
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Hello Rob and friends,
Hope all are well and thank you all for the stimulating conversation as always. I thought i would slip this entry into here as the turmoil in the Middle East has just rocketed into the stratosphere. Lots has happened for our family in just the past few weeks which accounts for my relative absence from this forum but still every day I check in for my sanity break. Many times I wished to contribute a usual Gaia length response but I am now extremely pressed for time and energy. Long story short, after our surprisingly delightful and smooth mother/daughter holiday, my mother has decided she wants to sell her home and relocate to our property there (this will involve a house build on the block) for consolidation of resources reasons, and although this is a very rational decision and would have had to be done sooner or later anyway (if we even have a later), making it happen will be an immense undertaking and yours truly will have the brunt of this responsibility. What a time to be thrust into this endeavour! It is just surreal to me now that I am organising a project that will see even more abuse of resources (like a crane eventually lifting a modular home trucked in 1500km to site). It may not even eventuate into fruition but it is my duty to try and do my best, and in a way it is keeping me somewhat more grounded in the day to day tasks when I am reeling in the doomsphere.
And with every second ticking, our current every day life and expectations are being eroded away as surely as the massive glacier calving events. This morning we awoke to news that WW3 has continued on another front, what fresh hell but this turmoil is just another bite of the bitter fruit of our sowing that we have to reap and eat. If we didn’t think in superlatives before of our human predicament, this latest game play should surely jolt us into submission that the life as we know it are most definitely numbered. I think we are in for a really interesting turn of events now, it’s like everything that has happened is a build up for the main show, we’ve been just climbing to the top of the roller coaster and now it’s going to let go and rip.
With every opportunity, I would like to send my goodwill and best to you all and thank you for being a part of my journey at this time of times which defines our humanity. I feel so blessed to have this community which shares a congenial understanding of what it means to have lived as a member of this species and extend that consciousness into our own personal meaning and fulfilment. Thank and bless you for being here and for your singularly unique contribution to the sum total of everything.
Rob, I was to explain the Law of One and the best summary I can give, is that we are ultimately all connected, there is only one of us in the room (the room is just infinitely large!) Everything that seems to define our individualism and separateness is an illusion (they call it distortion) so the One can experience the infiniteness of possibilities, another term for Life, really. Love is the force that furthers the realisation and seeking of our Oneness, and Light is the wisdom (sum knowledge and experience, which can be most enlightening when viewed in relation to another) that guides us to that state of realising Oneness. At some stage in each individualisation of the whole’s (as in a human being on this planet) development there comes a choice when the entity decides whether to lead a life in serving itself or others (altruistic). Interestingly, both paths will eventually lead to a realisation of Oneness and there is no judgment of either. In fact, one possibility cannot exist without the opposite as a foil, to provide a referential framework of the experience. You cannot know or feel true happiness without suffering and sadness also existing, for example. There’s a lot more about how our experiential universe is constructed (fractally is the best way of describing it) and how everything eventually progresses through ever higher densities (or levels if you will, in octaves) to eventually return to the One. Our planetary consciousness is now currently between third and fourth densities, just getting to the point of choosing a definite path of service to ourselves (which has led to the current state) or others (becoming more aware of our connectedness). There are decidedly woowoo details of how this got channelled through from what is claimed a sixth density thoughtform calling themselves Ra, they’ve already progressed through the physical manifestations and now are Borglike in being a collective, not needing physical existence. Maybe it’s like AI? Anyway, Ra itself keeps saying that their story isn’t important and those details which seem so pertinent and interesting to us cannot be revealed as it may interfere with our choice (like the prime directive in Star Trek). The main thing is we are all coming to realise that it is all One and the whole universe as we know it is only a small construct in which to experience that through choice. I can understand if I’ve really done your head in with all that, but that’s my in a nutshell understanding of this particular cosmic view.
Esoteric aside, and you may think the above is absolutely batshit crazy but here’s another piece of news that I found today that leaves me agog with disbelief. At first I thought it was a parody and an attempt at comic relief considering the dire news of the moment but unbelievably it’s true that there are many humans today who still think the answer to all our problems is still out there (literally) and achievable. I almost gagged on my own spit (generated by laughing) when I read the part that “under so and so convention, no-one owns the asteroid” Well, then, it’s for our taking and although its net worth is still speculative, it could very well be the solution to our mining shortfalls. Yay! If only we could find a way to lasso it into Earth, but as we know, that’s only a pesky engineering problem. It’s good to have a laugh in every day and not take any of this too seriously, we may not have too long to worry about it all any way.
All the best, everyone. May every day bring you as much joy and wonder as you can find, and through that may you know peace and a sense of resolution and meaning.
Namaste.
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Mea culpa.
I forgot to post that news link about mining a metal asteroid.
Read it and weep with laughter and incredulity. We’re a funny species, truly.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-10-08/nasa-psyche-explainer-asteroid-journey/102885864
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Good luck with the house build/move, Gaia. I feel your pain, having done something similar, though as the parent, rather than the child. We built a home (and actually built it, with some help from friends) for our son and his family, then had a home for my wife and myself built at a factory and had it moved onto the site. Luckily, someone else did most of the work on the second home but I had to deal a lot with unreasonable planning rules, which delayed us for quite a while, spending more than a year and a half in a rented portable cabin (which wasn’t really designed for a long residence).
Anyway, I hope it goes reasonably smoothly.
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Hi there Mike,
Thank you so much for your well wishes, they mean a lot to me and add motivation to the task before me. I am so glad for you and your family that you are on the other side of this transition now and you have had time to enjoy your new stage of life together. I can totally understand what you said in an earlier post about just wanting a few more years of peace and stability to continue this longer, I wish it so, too.
I also appreciate all your comments about our genetic propensity for denial and if MORT is just an aftereffect of our species’ natural evolution as a species or an a priori turn that led to the full development of our species as Dr Varki surmises. Am I understanding you (and Rob) correctly?
A thought came to me just yesterday breaking through the morass of tedium relating to our current situation. That is, we here seem to think we didn’t inherit the denial gene because we are able to see the full reality when it comes to human overshoot. But I reckon all of us were once blissfully ignorant of our overshoot predicament just as the other 99.9% of our species until something happened, however and whatever, that flipped the switch and caused our brains to view the same picture completely differently. That means none of us were born without the denial gene actively working in tandem with the pre-programming of our culture that makes true free will impossible (as least according to great minds like Sapolsky). We all have the same inherent genetic tendency which causes us to lean towards MPP and groupspeak and tribalism and above all, denial of unpleasant realities, all which enabled and enhanced our survival. That is our default state and having broken free is like an enzyme being activated, or turning on a promoter codon that starts a new genetic material to be read and produced. We are an anomaly, like a cancer to the original organism. The beginnings of an undenial tendency (doubts, feelings of unease, questioning and even changing habits) are usually stamped out earlier on by any number of pre-conditionings which can be likened to the system’s immune response to rogue cells. For example, Kira’s friend who seemed overshoot aware but then re-converted once married with kids and a mortgage. It’s just easier to not think of doom when you have bills to pay and children to finish raising. Once the house is paid off and children are grown, or if we are fortunate enough to have the resources to prepare another way of life, then it becomes more possible to entertain another view. I’m not saying that is how it is for all of those who are reality aware, but it is a usual prerequisite that the shackles of modern society are thrown off one way or another.
I know I’m not saying anything new here at all, just musing out loud at how impossibly intricately interwoven our existence is, and whether or not we are more part of a whole than individuals pursuing our own experience. If the whole history of humanity can be seen in light of a total organism with us as generations of cells replacing one after another, our spectacular growth and peaking in dominance is part of that life trajectory. Now we are reaching our allotted span (no matter it is self induced) and our senescence and all the decrepitude that may entail is well underway. Naturally then the human species will diminish and may even extinguish. But on the main, the earth will rebalance itself after a distinct period of time, and life will continue to life. It will not be for us to determine or judge whether or not one life form deserves longevity over another, just as the universe has no preference. I guess that’s a very Gaia like view for one who chooses Gaia for her avatar!
I hope everyone is finding their own balance through these shattering days of knowing we have turned another page of our story that seems determined to reach some climatic ending. I for one do not believe for an instant that this latest chess board move was anything but a predetermined gamble to draw even more defined geopolitical lines. Every country and their cultures and religions are under existential threat now with total collapse and climate emergency certain, and for some it will be seen as a do or die situation to make their first and/or final move. We can still be kind, generous and of service with our thoughts, words, and actions through the end, and in this I absolutely believe we have free will.
Go well and make that peace, beauty and joy.
Namaste.
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Hi Gaia, it will be good to have your family close by when long distance travel soon becomes more difficult. Good luck with with your construction project.
Very sad what’s going on in the middle east. I expect a lot of suffering as Israeli revenge is usually an order of magnitude higher than the original offense.
Thanks for explaining the Law of One. I carefully read your words but they kind of washed over me without being absorbed. I guess that’s why I’m an atheist.
I assume the Law of One has a founding book as most religions do. Do you know who wrote it and what the story is on that person? I’m wondering if s/he is a L. Ron Hubbard desciple?
Also, can you confirm the Law of One believes in some form of life after death? If we ever find a religion that doesn’t it might be evidence that MORT is wrong.
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Hello there Rob,
A heartfelt thank you for your encouragement for my current endeavour–it seems less likely with every passing hour that it will eventuate but I still have to try as if it may. That’s the power of suppressing my un-denial trait for you!
I just posted a usual Gaia length ramble in response to Mike, but really with thoughts for everyone to comment on in relation to our on-going conversation about denial and MORT. I see how MORT is our default state but no-one will recognise it, just as fish cannot really know what water is because there’s nothing else it has any experience of except water. Only a very few and given certain circumstances will ever be able to have the opportunity to adopt another way of seeing, no matter how educated or otherwise rational they may be. Thus your ever growing list of polymaths in denial, they are examples of our species with more CPU capacity but otherwise standard inclusions.
I can understand why my description of the Law of One may have stymied you; thank you for trying to digest what I tried to convey. It shows your open mind and also highlights the wide range of perceptions as human beings. For me, I can intuitively grasp the general tenets of this particular world and cosmic view but as with other religions, the details of who and where and what that seem to define one belief from another are not important to me. If there be any truth for any of us, it has to be something that resonates with our personal view. The core message that I take away from the Law of One is we are all connected and thus it follows we are to treat one another as such. Basically, this is the message I glean from all major world religions and all the other trappings that come with them do not add any more relevance to it. Nor does the promise of everlasting life change for me the rightness, beauty and truth of being kind and compassionate as we can in the life that we know and live now. I first realised this as a teenager and that was when my previous core beliefs of Christianity became stories to me, and I became open to all religions whilst not professing to follow any. I can sum up Christianity in three words that ring more true to me than all the theology output for the past several millennia–Love one another.
But to answer your questions, the backstory on the Law of One is quite intriguing. The Ra entity (originally from the planet we know as Venus) that supposedly channelled this information did so in a format of questions and answers sessions through a young woman named Carla Rueckert (deceased) between 1981-1984 and this was collated into a series of 5 volumes called The Ra Material. I do not think there is any connection with Scientology. At the core, Law of One purports that beings transition through different densities or levels, so that implies reincarnation. At some point, physical beings become a collective consciousness as they progress further into realisation of Oneness. So definitely a belief that there is a continuation of consciousness, if not physical being, after death.
If you are interested in anything more, I can direct you to the original material and there are several dedicated websites.
I am thinking that a religious experience for you is walking in the forest and feeling the awe of being alive. When will you have the chance to worship so devoutly in this way again? I hope you can get in another camping trip before it turns too cold. By now the leaves around you should be at peak colour, oh how the trees know to go out in a blaze of glory, but at the same time also gently letting go. We can honour and learn from our arboreal friends through all the seasons of our lives.
Namaste.
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Best of luck in your project. This sounds like the right thing to do now before it is not possible any more (at least at this scale).
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Thank you Charles for your well wishes. I am trying to keep an open mind and heart to all possibilities of good things that may come from our family’s united intentions to support and care for one another. This is a gift we can still choose to give and receive, no matter what the final material outcome. I am in humble awe of everyone’s courage, especially the young, to keep boldly on their path even though the way forward is so uncertain, and it is with comfort that I trust a child shall lead us. I know you will be well and grateful in all things because of your family’s great love for one another. Sending you and your family all the best, with special admiration for Rachel.
I am envisioning a bountiful autumn harvest for you in fruits of the trees and of the spirit.
Namaste.
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In a sense, all life is connected but remember that all life-forms have to eat other life-forms (or deceased life-forms, or the waste of life-forms) to survive. We’re definitely connected in that way but, given that all life-foms ultimately evolved from a common ancestor, I place no particular importance on my species. Any theory of some other plane of existence must apply equally to all other life-forms, which is where most religions fall down, seeing humans as somehow special.
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The Man Who Killed Millions and Saved Billions
Interesting history of nitrogen fertilizer and Fritz Bosch who co-invented the Haber-Bosch process that converts natural gas into ammonia and is the main reason 8 instead of 2 billion people are alive today.
I also wrote about it here:
and here:
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Is anyone familiar with this guy who writes on medium under the name of honest sorcerer?
He very much understands all of the predicaments and where are going to end up and is very articulate in his articles. Really good stuff!!
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Yes he is good. He’s fairly new and I do not know anything about him.
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He has disclosed very little personal information. From what he mentioned in an article he is around 41, lives in Central Europe, works as an engineer and is married with kids. What I find remarkable is that up until 2019 he believed the myth of endless progress, eternal growth and was invested in the civilization as any other average guy. In just a year or two he seems to have completely overcome his denial and see the reality of how this all ends.
The reason I find it interesting is because of the contrast with my friend who is around the same age and is married with kids. He saw the truth for a short while and then went into complete denial and now believes ChatGPT will solve fusion!!
I first thought that being invested in civilization predisposes you to deny reality but now I am not sure because their circumstances are identical- married with kids and in a great job.
I know this is a tough one but why is it that some people are able to overcome denial and most people cling to it harder and harder. Is it some deviation in brain chemistry?
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I suspect the variance in denial is caused by genetic variation in the population.
In our past the small percentage of people with mental disorders like schizophrenia became our Shamans.
And the small percentage of people with defective denial genes were probably considered to be depressed and struggled to survive as outcasts.
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Yes, genetic variation may be the explanation for the anomalous behavior. But this would also mean that sites such as these and books which shed light on our predicament are targeting a very small section of the population. What would be interesting to know is if environmental factors can influence this variation. When I say environment factors I don’t mean education because lets be real the math and physics needed to understand the present situation is 8th or 9th grade at the very best and I have seen renowned physicists and even Nobel laureates say mind-numbingly stupid things like covering Sahara with solar panels.
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Just a thought. Perhaps those who think they aren’t in denial about reality really are in denial but manage to persuade themselves that they aren’t? This occurs to me because there are many who seem to know what’s going on but remain invested in civilisation, doing very little to alter their lifestyles in a way that might be more compatible with reality. I include myself in that. I sometimes think I’m doing far more than others but, if I think it through, I’m still not doing everything I could, not by a long way, so am as much a part of the problem as others.
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I share a great deal with B (40 years old, electrical engineer, middle europe, married with kids), but it’s the same for me with “denying un-denial”.
We are like a group of skydivers who have forgotten the parachute. If you’re the only one who notices, what good is it? Shortly before the end, everyone panics, but the chance to change something would have been before the jump – it’s long gone. Enjoy the flight – and bang, it’s over.
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On Substack and Medium.
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Headline news this morning that processed/fast food companies are worried about declining sales because so many Americans are eating less because they’re injecting Ozempic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaglutide
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Given that 40% of American adults are obese, Americans eating less in not necessarily bad thing.
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For sure, I just find it astonishing that people would inject a dodgy drug with many side effects rather than cutting carbs.
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People have gotta have their supernormal stimuli.
https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/
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I keep a list of supplies to buy when risks escalate.
I just returned from filling the list.
Anyone else worried?
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Always worried.
AND constantly think that my next purchase of anything might be my last. Anytime I think about collapse I figure we are 10 minutes away from Putin dropping the big one on us (NATO countries) to retaliate for the U.S. launching “tactical” nukes from Poland/Romania at Russian positions in the Donbass.
AJ
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Looks like the US government has something to distract their voter’s attention away from another lost war so maybe they won’t need to escalate Ukraine to save face.
I am worried that Israel’s fury might cause the middle east to escalate. Wouldn’t take much to disrupt the world’s supply of diesel.
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Yeah, I’m worried. I don’t have a list but I am slowly getting in hand tools that may be useful and now starting to think again about a manual water pump for our bore. But one of the things that slows me down on preps is the thought that when the shit hits the fan, so many people are going to be struggling to survive that any preps I make will be overwhelmed by the need to help as many others as possible and by those who try to take as much as they can from others to survive. Still, slowly preparing.
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Rob, Preston Howard here. Many thanx for the many stimulating posts from your un-deniers. I wanted to follow up on a recent post you tagged as somewhat “religious.” I hope my perspective adds light, not heat, to the discussion.
Gaia Gardener started an earlier post saying she was “to explain the Law of One and the best summary [she could] give, is that we are ultimately all connected, there is only one of us…”
Absolutely correct.
Like Gaia, I am a different individual who, like Gaia, also finds myself standing before the proverbial elephant. However, for those un-denial readers more anchored in science and its related tools, I recommend the following:
In closing, I confess an inability to understand an existence beyond (instead of) our 3-D world of Time and Space. Einstein told us: “Time and Space are MODES by which we THINK, and not CONDITIONS in which we LIVE.” I chew on that comment as I march forward to my own extinction in the spacetime world I know.
— Preston
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Hi Preston, yowser you touched on a bunch of big topics in one comment!
No worries about heat here. I envy people who obtain comfort from spiritual beliefs and often wish I belonged to some spiritual community. There are many good reasons that religions emerged simultaneous with behaviorally modern humans a hundred thousand years ago. I was curious about the Law of One because I saw that some smart overshoot aware people belong to it and wondered if it might be the one for me.
I have no doubt space, time, and matter are not fundamental. My understanding is that we cannot probe for a deeper understanding because it takes more energy than we are able to apply to do so. This uncertainty does not bother me because the models we already have are plenty accurate enough to predict anything that might interest us at the scale we inhabit. I did find several lectures by Arkani-Hamed and will watch them to see if I’m missing something.
I have read a portion of Hoffman’s Case Against Reality but quit because I thought he was stating the obvious and tried to make how our imperfect senses and brain model reality into something more important than it is. Les Fridman does excellent interviews so I’ll listen to his Hoffman episode to see if I short changed his book.
I’ve read a lot of books on consciousness trying to understand what is “the hard problem”. I still don’t understand why it is hard. I don’t even understand what the problem is. For me, consciousness is what emerges when many nerve cells collaborate to sense and make decisions in support of us executing the Maximum Power Principle. Why is that hard? Why is that a problem? It is what it is.
I do know that if I put a plastic bag over my head so that my mitochondria are prevented from oxidizing the food I ate for lunch, everything will go dark like I’m asleep or dead, and therefore my consciousness must be constructed from matter.
On near death experiences I’m sure they are real. If you crash a brain, say with insufficient oxygen or a psychedelic drug, that brain may produce all kinds of strange senses and stories. I remember smoking some weed spiked with an unknown hard drug in high school and the world literally changed speed into slow motion and no one could convince me otherwise.
I’m looking forward to watching the info you recommended because a lot of people agree with you so I wonder if I’m missing something important.
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I’m with you, Rob. “This uncertainty does not bother me because the models we already have are plenty accurate enough to predict anything that might interest us at the scale we inhabit.” Indeed, we can only use space, time and matter to probe that which might be outside those, so are unlikely to gain any useful insights into it.
We already are able to probe far more than is useful to our lives. This kind of thought also applies to a god; does it matter to us whether such a being exists? If so, why? Humans got by for hundreds of thousands of years without, as far as we know, such beliefs, just as all other species did, and do.
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Chuck Watkins sticks to hurricane monitoring and stays away from geopolitics despite being an expert on nuclear war risks after he was attacked for speaking out on the nuclear risks of western policies in Ukraine.
So on the super rare occasion when he says anything, I listen. It seems he thinks the middle east nuclear war risks are much higher than Ukraine.
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ZeroHedge says fill up your gas tanks.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/foreigners-missing-after-terrifying-red-dawn-moment-israeli-rave
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This maybe the moment when an aircraft carrier is sunk.
Stay tuned to the insanity channel.
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I like today’s essay by Simplicius the Thinker because he outlines some of the possible explanations for what’s going on, which shows how complex geopolitics is, and concludes he doesn’t know what’s true yet.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/israel-flashpoint-localized-skirmish
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Me? I’m going to listen to my Canadian government and then assume the opposite is true. This worked perfectly for covid.
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smart
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Maybe it’s my COVID fatigue but I can’t help but feel this attack was very convenient timing for Netanyahu.
Also how bad are music festivals lately?! Must be one of the first things to collapse in a declining world.
I feel incredibly bad for the victims on both sides who have been let down by useless leaders for decades.
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The people I follow and respect say it is unlikely Netanyahu deliberately allowed this to happen. More likely he was too occupied with internal political battles. Also likely that Hamas has improved it’s fighting capabilities and ability to fool surveillance. Also likely Netanyahu will lose his job over this when the dust settles.
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I thought Chris Hedges had a good take on the Israel/Palestine war. I have always thought that the Jews in Israel went from being the victims to being Fascist victimizers. They surely run an apartheid state now.
Hedges is a must read:
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/09/chris-hedges-palestinians-speak-israels-language/
AJ
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Thanks. Excellent essay by Hedges with lots of historic context.
There’s much evil in our species.
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Even more ominous is Black Mountain Analysis (Alek), who is a Serb and usually writes about the
U.S./NATO debacle in Ukraine.
In the attached link he discusses the Israel/Palestine war and how it could easily be the start of WWIII with the U.S. potentially losing big time or going nuclear (that’s me reading between the lines.
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/israel
AJ
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Very good.
I’m expecting another shoe to drop soon. Perhaps China will do something with Taiwan? Or maybe another 9/11 type attack within the US? The people who hate the US empire smell blood.
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They say that in the early days of WWI and WWII participants did not know they were in a world war.
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From discussions I’ve had most people can’t conceive of 5G warfare. They are still stuck in nation vs nation war with bombs mentality.
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I’m ignorant on 5G warfare. Can you explain?
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5th generation warfare is using new technologies like micro drones, microwave emitters, biologicals like covid and even CBDC’s and social credit scores as weapons against populations to control them. Now the fight is not necessarily nation against nation but government against its population. Where it goes from here is so unpredictable. It really feels as though major components of modern civilisation are at risk. For example how hard/easy is it to drone attack refineries anywhere in the world. Take out a few of them and we are on a faster road to collapse. Same with critical grid infrastructure. Let us hope that saner heads prevail.
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Thanks!
I guess it’s obvious to you but I’ve been trying to understand why my Canadian government has been acting so un-Canadian, for example, calling truckers who protested unscientific and unethical covid policies Nazis, and now celebrating real Nazis who fought our Russian allies.
I think it may have to do with overshoot and limits to growth. It is impossible to both “fix” our problems and retain power in a democratic country. Our cornered leaders are shifting to authoritarian rule.
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I think to overall strategy is to undermine peoples sense of reality and certainly. The more chaos that ensues to more people will demand an authority to fix the situation. I think we have moved into the part of the game where speaking out now gets you removed form the game early. Tread carefully everyone.
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I can’t really fault you for hoping that civilisation continues; I do also. But is it a matter of not wanting civilisation to collapse whilst you’re alive (my hope) or thinking it is somehow possible to keep it going indefinitely?
Green resistance groups would love to take out a few refineries, and a few dams, to speed civilisation’s collapse. I have a lot of sympathy for that position, even though I selfishly don’t want to cope with it.
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Kunstler can turn a phrase…
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/here-we-go-loop-de-loop/
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Karl Denninger today confirms what I believe to be true. Central banks do not control the interest rate. Inflation caused by governments printing money and growing spending faster than the real economy causes the interest rate to rise.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=249846
Denninger also explains what the US must do to avoid collapse, starting immediately:
Not going to happen. Collapse it is then.
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Denninger has many insights that are very valuable. He is a pragmatist and sees collapse as a possibility. Even though he is republican/libertarian he thinks Trump was/is as bad as Biden. My only problem is that he is in denial about climate change (reminds me of Dave Collum) mostly because he see the “Green Agenda” of renewable electrification as a fraud (which it is).
I hope he is wrong only because he see a Mad Max collapse.
AJ
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A lot of covid crime aware people also deny climate change. My theory is that they deny climate change because everything our leaders say we need to do to prevent climate change is a lie and won’t work. They accurately detect these lies and then incorrectly extrapolate that climate change itself must also be a lie.
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Most people can’t can’t grasp that climate change is a symptom of overshoot and a lifestyle that is totally unsustainable. In essence a metabolic shift for the planet. There is nothing that can be done to stop CC. How bad it will be depends on how fast we collapse or voluntarily reduce our lifestyles down to that of hunter gatherers and how fast our populations reduce. Personally I see massive waves of death coming due to our own stupidity and our tendency to not share outside of the tribe in hard times.
I often wonder how it would be to sit around with many of you discussing these topics over a glass of wine and and a fine meal. Thanks to all for the online meal.
Niko
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I wish I had an aware friend like you in my local community. I have a small number of friends here but none are aware.
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Unfortunately we are few and far between. That said, I lost most of my entire social group through the covid reactions but I am happy to report that I ended up finding a bunch of new people to hang out with that are actually switched on to what is going on. Also I managed to resurrect a lost friendship with a bit of work and a definite boundary to some discussions.
Maybe we can organise a virtual hangout sometime, you seem like an interesting person to chat to Rob. As do so many of the other regulars here. I wish I had more time to comment than I do. Best wishes to you all.
Niko
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I would love that! 🙂
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To me it seems too much like black and white thinking when you say “deny climate change”. I think the truth, as always, is somewhere in between.
As you mentioned above, you often think exactly the opposite of what the government is telling you is true. So why do all governments tell us that CO2 is the ultimate evil and and eliminating it is the panacea to finally get climate change under control? Right – because it’s bullshit. It just gives them a means to tax the air you breathe and ban you from doing things you enjoy, especially if it requires fossil fuels (because they know they are running out), nothing more. I think the impact of CO2 is significantly overestimated.
Also, I don’t think there is such a thing as a stable climate at all, and there have always been fluctuations throughout the history of the earth – mainly due to solar cycles*
But that doesn’t mean I deny a human influence on the climate. Because I too am convinced that what we are doing to the planet is not good for it. Our influence will cause a faster change to unfavorable conditions and make it uninhabitable in the long run – as nikoB wrote, all of these are symptoms of overshoot, triggered by civilization (industrial agriculture with pesitzides and water shortage, albedo and urban overheating, ocean pollution, overfertilization, desertification, erosion by clearing, drought,…). And the so called green energies even accelerate this bad influences.
So, would you still call me a climate change denier?
*refer to this link for more information:
https://ibdst.blogspot.com/2023/07/fact-check-truth-about-global-warming.html
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It’s not governments that are telling us about the effect of CO2 and other gases on climate change, it’s the scientists. Before I started to take notice of the actual science on this, I didn’t think humans could possible have much impact on our environment, including clime. But now it’s clear to me. It’s also clear to me that humans are responsible for probably all of the warming in the last 50 years (only some of it before then).
When we talk of a stable climate, we don’t mean “not changing” but changing within a fairly tight range. This allowed (unfortunately) the rise of civilisations. Happily, at least that will be going away for a while.
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I unterstand your critique and I also believe in scientific methods. But scientists are also humans and may err. And many of them are funded by governments – whose bread they eat, those song they sing… You surely know about the real mathematics behind the “97% of all scientists” who agree on climate change?
If you are really open to scientific thinking, please read the link and build your own opinion. And please do not use the killer phrase “The Science”. Otherwise it is more a sign, that you believe in “The Science”™ that is not allowed to be doubted. It clearly acts as a replacement religion these days.
As I said: I don’t doubt the negative influence of civilization on our planet. This may include rising temperatures – but do you know definitely, that it results from the CO2 or maybe just of all the energy we released? After all, all energy becomes heat in the end – right? I know, that I don’t know.
P.S. Your statement “It’s clear to me” sounds dangerous to me: Don’t be afraid of someone seeking the truth. Be afraid of those, who mean they have found it.
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I skimmed your link. They make a lot of claims. Too much work for me to fact check each one but perhaps you could reply with the single most compelling fact you believe to be true? I’ll try to check it.
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There is a brochure by 4 German scientists, called „Can mankind save the climate?“ that has a lot of well described and referenced information. (ISBN 978-3-00-066383-3, unfortunately available only in German). Some of the graphs are the same as in the link I posted earlier.
They share the following argument that seems most compelling to me:
The Arrhenius equation is not the whole truth, a further increase in CO2 will not increase the temperature accordingly. The reason for this lies in the spectral distribution of the absorption – Arrhenius could not know this, because he had no spectrometer.
When we look at the absorption spectrum of sunlight and the reflection spectrum of the earth, we see that water vapor is the most climate effective gas. It absorbs most of the infrared emission. It leaves only small windows for other gases to absorb the remaining wavelengths of infrared radiation to be converted into heat. There are mainly 2 wavelengths that can be absorbed by CO2 to be be converted into heat (4.3 and 14.7 µm). Since there is no relevant reflection in the 4.3 µm band, this can be neglected. And for the 14.7 µm band, most of it is also absorbed by water vapor. So there is only a small bandgap in the shorter wavelength end of the 14.7 µm band, that is really relevant for greenhouse effectiveness of CO2. Therefore the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere influences the total transparency or total absorption of infrared only in this small band.
When you apply the Lambert-Beer-Law for the dependency of intensity-reduction of radiation by absorption on its way through the atmosphere, you get the result that with the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere almost all radiation is absorbed after 40 m above surface. This means, the absorption effect of CO2 is already saturated – no radiation reaches the higher atmosphere, let alone space. A further increase in CO2 therefore would not significantly increase the greenhouse effect.
Reference Picture: https://tinyurl.com/3xc4w354
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Thanks. A lot of this went over my head but I’m trying to understand the essence of the claim.
The last sentence may be what I’m looking for:
Are they saying that mainstream climate science has been correct up to the current 440ppm CO2 but any further increase in CO2 will not worsen the additional 1C of warming that is already locked in?
If not, please clarify what the essence of the claim is.
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I will try to read that link but fully considering it will take tangential research on my part and I’ve probably done that dozens of times for the same arguments. I wish I could save all of that work without having to redo it. But I will try to find time.
As far as I can tell, CO2 is one of a number of gases that traps some of the outgoing infra-red and re-radiates part of that back into the atmosphere. From increasing those so-called greenhouse gases (Sagan said it’s not really the same as a greenhouse but used the term for simplicity) it is “clear to me” that the earth would warm up (compared to having none of those GHGs in the atmosphere). Increasing those gases in the atmosphere enhances the warming, until the outgoing radiation from earth equals the energy coming in. So warming definitely results from CO2 (and other gases).
There is much made by skeptics of the 97% of published papers supporting AGW, and much of it is nonsense (even to the point of claiming the data actually shows only a few percent have such support) but you’d be hard pressed to find a publishing climate scientist who doesn’t think CO2 warms the planet (though a few might question the magnitude of that effect). As I’ve mentioned, I used to be hugely skeptical until I started looking at the science with as open a mind as I could muster. It completely changed my stance. I use the term “clear to me” because I wouldn’t have an opinion on something if that opinion were not clear to me. Would you?
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Sabine Hossenfelder recently explained that the greenhouse effect does not work the way most people assume.
It is very complex and very subtle but I have a feeling that she explains why marraomai incorrectly believes that more CO2 will not cause further warming. This would be an easy and forgivable error to make.
I’d have to watch this several more times to be sure of what I just said. Maybe someone smarter than me can confirm.
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Hello Rob,
I’ve watched the video and I understood the main point so far:
With increasing CO2 concentration, the edges of the absorbtion bands get wider, which increases the radiation back to earth. So there is a temperature rise effect on the ground, which due to the overall engergy leads to aa temperature gradient and a temperature decrease in the stratosphere. Others have already calculated this influence and came to a mathematical result of 0.7°C temperature increase of ground temperature, if the amount of CO2 is doubled – sounds not that dramatic as the proclamated 4/5/6 or whatever degree. Other effects like the water vapor feedback loop, that are used in the climate models, have not been verified. Let alone the reasoning for any other “corrective” factors (like Einstein and his cosmologic constant, which he added to make the result look right).
In the end all IPCC models neither got the current projection right, nor were they able to correctly replay what has happened in the past.
So all in all, climate is such a complex thing, no one can really calculate or predict it – or put all the blame on one single factor in a chaotic, complex feedback, multi-variable, differential equation system (or whatever this is called…). Anyone stating else is an imposter in my eyes, “Science” is not almighty – otherwise it would be a religion.
So with my critique, I just wanted to raise awareness, that when government, “The Science” and “The Majority” tell you, CO2 is the main driver, this should make one suspicious. Call it a feeling. Just like with Covid, which by the way also was supported by “The majority of scienctists”, if you know what I mean…
In the German Democratic Republic, there was only one party to vote for. They always had resulsts of 97..99% and everyone knew it was fake. But dare to say something else and the StaSi came for “Clarification of a matter”. So much about the majority…
But I say it once more: I am, like all of you, convinced, that civilization has a very negative impact on the planet, which surely in some way influences the climate and even more the environment, which is our foundation for living. We have almost sawn through the branch, on which we sit.
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I took time to go through most of that undiepundit post. I took some notes but really don’t have time to edit them into a proper comment, so am just copy and pasting them here.
So not convincing at all, to me.
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Denninger is a smart guy but still can’t grasp overshoot and that the party is over no matter what we do. He still sees a road back to growth not realising that all of it is a cancer and that getting back to growth is the last thing we want or can even achieve without killing ourselves faster. Interesting times have certainly just got more interesting.
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OK, so unsustainable tech is bad, and way too much exponential growth of consumption and overpopulation is all bad. I=PAT and infinite growth on a finite planet is bad. I get it. Been there, run the Richard Heinberg tour of Australia (in 2005), shown the “End of Suburbia” in NSW Parliament house, I got permission of the producers to make a half-hour cut and distribute DVD’s to every Federal politician in Australia and every one of my State pollies as well. Been there, worn the T-Shirt.
But what if the T in I=PAT becomes a divider of harm to the point where we can feed and clothe 10 billion of us by 2050 and NOT kill the planet? What if we can meet their needs, still have nature thrive, and then watch first world economics cause a WorldWide Demographic Transition that will slowly reduce the population? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
Remember the old example of bacteria in a Petri dish. Assume you know it doubles every minute, and the dish will be full in an hour. When is the dish half full? In 59 minutes! The bacteria has been almost invisible for 50 minutes then in the last 10 minutes goes from a tiny blotch to an eighth, then a quarter, then a half, and suddenly the dish is full!
In this metaphor – renewables are just becoming visible as a smudge on the side of the petri dish. But because they are now so cheap, they are about to explode out exponentially. South Australia has the world’s highest penetration of intermittent wind and solar renewables – and there are a few teething problems. But generally, it’s working! Check out other signs of growth.
In 2025 so many solar factories will open they’ll have FOUR TIMES the capacity of all the solar built in 2022 – nearly a terawatt per year. 5.8% from 2025 basically ALL THE WORLD’S power in 17 years, so from 2025 that’s 2042. Oh yeah – and the reference for this also includes an interview with Dr David Murphy – the founder of the whole EROEI concept – and he says solar is fine!
https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-184-eroi-of-re/
By 2030 America will have up to 15 TIMES the EV battery capacity – meaning almost 100% of cars could be EV. (This is just a comparison for illustration purposes. It’s NOT an assertion that America will stop importing cars and build 100% EV’s themselves. These batteries will of course be split between EV, household, business, and grid utility sectors.) Oh yeah, and a LOT of these will be sodium – and some may be bold new chemistries like aluminium sulphur or aluminium silicon etc which are in the lab but showing promise.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/05/map-which-states-will-build-the-most-ev-batteries-in-2030.html
Even trucking is going electric. Tesla have their 40 ton Semi, but Janus Australia even have a 100 ton electric ROAD TRAIN that runs on a giant battery-swap system! https://youtu.be/9eYLtPSf7PY
Electric mining trucks are being experimented with. https://www.caterpillar.com/en/news/corporate-press-releases/h/caterpillar-succesfully-demonstrates-first-battery-electric-large-mining-truck.html
Electric arc furnaces, hydrogen to replace coking coal as reductant, and so many other innovations are coming to mining. Lithium from seawater is nearly economical – and there’s a million years of lithium in the ocean. But sodium batteries are superior for grid storage as they are less fire prone, less toxic, and less expensive.
Clean tech and EV’s are all growing SO FAST that the head of the International Energy Agency predicts that oil DEMAND will peak by 2026 and decline from there. https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028
Experts think demand for ALL FOSSIL FUELS will peak soon, and phased out WELL before 2050!
http://theconversation.com/theres-a-huge-surge-in-solar-production-under-way-and-australia-could-show-the-world-how-to-use-it-190241 Basically, people are going to be shocked at how fast things change across the next 10 years, let alone 20.
I’m not saying we WILL make it. They could always reelect Trump, or the next guy that’s nuts. Plenty of crazy to go around. But I’m saying the real engineers out there have this. There’s no ‘inevitable energy descent’ the peakniks go on about. That’s all a lie.
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Renewables require fossil fuels in their construction, operation and dismantling. Without a fossil fuel industry, there is no renewables industry. And, per Nate Hagen’s recent video, oil production would not need to drop too far for there to be a shortage of many needed refined fractions of crude oil. Interestingly, crude oil production peaked in November 2018.
I recommend Bright Green Lies for an exhaustive examination of all aspects of so-called renewables.
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If we’ve learned anything from the last few years – especially the 2008 GFC – it’s that society has an awful lot of energy ‘fat’ it can cut. Personally I side with the head of the IEA who says oil DEMAND will peak in a few years. That’s way before the actual geological limits of peak oil kick in. It’s just the math of the inevitable rise of EV’s. They’re still scaling, prices are still dropping. BIG industries around the world are starting to do the math on buying their own solar farm and running their own mine on electricity.
“In Ireland, decarbonisation systems company Cool Planet Group has signed a €50m deal with a “leading global mining company” to retrofit 8,500 diesel mining trucks into electric vehicles over the next three years. This retrofit, though, could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Crowley told the Irish Times: “As many as 1 million diesel mining vehicles will need to be retrofitted to electric by 2030. We’re working with five or six of the largest mining companies in the world and we’ve developed a bunch of vehicles that are electric, don’t emit diesel particulate matter, but also they are much safer. They have collision avoidance systems so they can’t run people over.” “ https://www.mining-technology.com/features/mining-vehicle-electrification
The best bit? Some are charged from overhead pantographs (like tram wires) as they drive up hill. These huge trucks are carrying 240 tonnes. But they do DOUBLE the speed of their old diesel cousins going up hill while charging! Just watch 60 seconds here. (Or go back to the beginning and watch all 11 minutes – it’s a good episode.) https://youtu.be/6TxMeHRq1mk?t=213
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PS: As for “Refined fractions”
A barrel of oil is used for so many things. Let’s look at how much of a barrel does what – and what might replace it over the next few decades of the energy transition. Some of these are already underway and accelerating – a few have passed R&D and are just being trailed. Percentages of oil use can be found here: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/whats-made-barrel-of-oil/
PETROL AND DIESEL is 70%: Electric Vehicles can EASILY replace 70% of the oil barrel. EV’s are doing it, and even trucks can be replaced now the Tesla Semi and Janus Australia are here. Janus use a forklift to drive a battery-swap system for big “Road Trains” carry 100 tons. They go 400 km or more then just pull in and swap the batteries in a minute. This means the batteries don’t have to fast charge – which is less stress on the grid and batteries. They estimate they can run 10 trucks just from the warehouse roof! https://www.januselectric.com.au/
HEAVY FUEL 5%: for international shipping. As we Overbuild the renewable grid to get through winter, the 9 or 10 non-winter months of the year will have maybe 5 or 6 multiples of their national grid. Super-cheap excess power. This could be when nations manufacture heaps of synthetic fuel for airlines or shipping.
The other option could be Last Energy’s ‘nuclear batteries’ – factory manufactured 20 MW block reactors. Last Energy just entered into agreements with Poland to sell 10 and the EU to sell 34 (US $19 billion) so they’re up and away! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Energy There are 55,000 cargo ships but as 40% of that is fossil fuels, as the world turns to a mix of renewable and nuclear energy we’ll get down to 33,000 ships. Make them nuclear they’ll go 30% faster and so cut another 30% of the ships – down to 22,000 ships.
ASPHALT 4%: Replace with concrete. It is 30-40% more expensive, but as I’m a New Urbanist and want us to live on a fraction of the land, we can afford premium for vastly less of the stuff. All the young people in my world are over cars and traffic jams and accidents and tire pollution etc. They want a walking distance, intimate, attractive town square with a Metro. They’re sick of driving and wasting time in traffic jams and accidents and pollution.
Concrete might be offset by “Fossilisation” of non-recyclable plastic wastes etc from rubbish tips and household waste. https://youtu.be/_DOssohdBi0
They’re is also Gasification of household waste which might become economic when we Overbuild renewables. This turns household waste into half the stuff to build the next house, such as plastics and paints and roof tiles and pavers. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/gasification/
LIGHT FUEL 3%: mainly for heating. Replace with heat pumps. Or if in a New Urban district with central heating pipes, use a community thermal battery. Heating these giant thermos-flasks of hot gravel or aluminium-laced bricks is another place to dump excess summer power for long cold winters. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/thermal-batteries/
OTHER 12%: Cooking fuels and some petroleum plastics etc. Synfuel can replace some of it. If we need chemical inputs, there’s lots of coal left. (As long as we have a MOSTLY circular economy, I’m fine with a few top-ups of raw materials here and there.) Again – Gasification can replace a lot of this material. Anything else can probably be supplemented by biomass schemes like Marine Permaculture Arrays that will grow vast amounts of seaweed and shellfish – enough that even powdered seaweed food additives could feed the world all the protein we need!
JET FUEL 6%: Jet fuel is probably the hardest. Alternatives currently cost more. Local carriers under 900 km can go battery electric. But the big international flights will be either going hydrogen or synfuel. Hydrogen needs bigger tanks, displacing paying passengers, and so would cost more. Synfuel can fly the same plane – but costs more – unless again the Overbuild is so dramatic it REALLY brings the price down. Maybe flying is just going to cost more? Maybe that’s the way it should be.
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The point was that you can’t just extract the fraction you want from the oil reservoir. You have to extract the crude oil and then refine to all fractions, to get the fractions you want. Hence oil extraction will always be higher than we’d like. And you can bet those other fractions will get used.
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I get the point. But the real point here is that as we start to use less and less gasoline and diesel, we’ll start to figure out where there are excesses. Activists will point out what’s going on. Big oil will kick and scream that they have to, as that’s how refining works! Eventually the marketplace or governments will get it and move in the other directions listed above – and a thousand others I haven’t listed or thought of. Legislation will be passed. Stuff will happen. When they figure it out. In fact – many of the startups above are already going into business and starting to make product. It could scale as the EU and other concerned nations figure out what’s going on and create incentives for alternatives. Indeed, there are SO MANY things going on that even a fanboi like myself can’t read a fraction of the Executive Summaries as to how many changes there are in energy materials and alternatives to oil product. The above was a only a very rudimentary introduction.
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Must watch interview with Jeffrey Sachs on the risks of global war due to the incompetence and false beliefs (aka denial) of our leaders.
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A global debt crisis is coming.
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What’s China up to? Anyone monitoring them?
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Sad news. I just learned Michael Dowd died 3 days ago.
If you don’t know Michael he has a large body of work at https://postdoom.com/ related to overshoot and collapse delivered with a unique spiritual perspective that I’m sure many found comforting.
I wrote about Michael here:
Here is the announcement I found on Reddit:
This seems to be the official location of the announcement with information on a planned celebration of life.
https://jordanperry.substack.com/p/michael-dowd
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In case you’re wondering, I do not know what his views on mRNA were.
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Really sorry to hear that.
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That’s very sad news indeed Rob. I listened to and watched a lot of his work over the last few years. His love of life and people always shone through. I wish his family all the best without him.
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I had been thinking a lot about Michael today and the vocal work that he did. I spent many hours listening to his soothing voice articulate JMG and many others writings. It saddens me to hear that he has passed. I had no idea.
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Yes, Michael did a very good thing as a volunteer by narrating important books like William Catton’s Overshoot into audiobook format.
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Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. I listened to his Catton Overshoot audiobook while working on a tiny house project. I had read the book a few years ago and listening was a great refresher. If there is any lesson in Dowd’s untimely death is that those of us who are older (he was only 65) and have a fall/get a head injury should always go to the ER as concussions (speculating that is what Dowd had) can be deadly.
He will be missed.
AJ
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That’s how I read (listened to) Overshoot, Myth of Progress and many others too. I still have copies.
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He will be dearly missed, what a wonderful giving man. My thoughts go out to Connie and their children and grandchildren.
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Interesting post from Tom Murphy, as part of his rail against human supremicism. He puts up a hypothetical situation:
He thinks the humans should pay the price but is not so certain that he’d make that choice if he were one of the drivers. I probably wouldn’t either and can rationalise that choice outside of actually having to make it.
I’ve only read occasional posts by Tom but have done so more regularly recently. Does he seem to be veering into the doomosphere? In this post I get the feeling he doesn’t yet completely come to terms with the notion of humans just being another species. He seems to think that humans can act rationally, outside of their inert drives as a species, if we could only choose to do so. But humans, like other species, don’t really have free will, as Sapolsky argued in his Hagens interview.
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Have not read the post but I suspect there may be two things going on with Dr. Murphy:
1) He has come to realize how severe our overshoot collapse will be, and that his life’s work will be lost.
2) He, like me, thinks our gig on this planet is very special, and he’s having a tough time accepting that a species with such a powerful intelligence can’t use it to avoid the disaster he see’s coming. After all, he was able to figure out what needs to be done and has changed his personal like. Why can’t the other 8 billion do the same?
I think he’d be a little more at peace if he understood MORT.
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Gail Tverberg today….
ourfiniteworld.com/2023/09/25/can-india-come-out-ahead-in-an-energy-squeeze/comment-page-10/#comment-439396
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If you believe covid is a plan by the elites to address overshoot by reducing the population, or as Luke Gromen recently said, “an energy productivity miracle”, then today’s essay by Endurance does a nice job of assembling evidence that points in that direction.
The problem is Endurance denies overshoot and thinks, for example, that Dennis Meadows’ Limits to Growth report was an evil plot, which of course discredits him.
Nevertheless he does pull together a lot of evidence.
I left this question in the comments:
Do you have any evidence that elites avoided mRNA injections?
https://endurancea71.substack.com/p/connecting-the-dots
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LOL, Joe Rogan’s become a doomer.
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Excellent interview by Dr. Bret Weinstein of Efrat Fenigson on things that don’t make sense in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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Very good conversation. My spidey senses are tingling like theirs. Very informative to hear from an ex soldier.
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https://energyskeptic.com/2023/sodium-batteries/
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Very good big picture review of oil situation today by Nate Hagens and Art Berman.
Many important issues discussed but what stood out for me is how incompetent our western leaders are.
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Interesting. A couple of points come to mind.
Firstly, Art seems to think we can go back to the lifestyles of 50 years ago. Of course, he’s referring to those in developed nations, but that might be a useful first step. It would still not be sustainable but I suppose the per capita resource consumption of that period might enable us to have a fairly modern lifestyle for quite a while longer as we continue to figure out how to move to a nearly sustainable way of life. I suppose a conscious step down like that would mean we are trying to be realistic. (OK, I understand that such a move is impossible since we’re a species, but, just maybe …)
Secondly, I’d like to see some round tables on Art’s suggesting of a future discussion about what is realistic, though I’d hope it goes further than just energy sources. What is realistic about living arrangements on a finite planet. This would, of course, be hypothetical because are not interested in what is realistic for the future, only what they can do today. Still, it would be an interesting discussion.
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There is a serious flaw in this logic that we can just go back to 60s level of consumption and things might get better. In 1960 population of U.S was 160-170 million and the oil consumption was about 10 million barrels, which means on a per capita basis it was essentially the same as today. The difference was that the rest of the world – with the exception of some European countries – were barely consuming any oil at all.
Countries like China and India were still agrarian societies with hardly any industrialization compared to the U.S.
The only way that this logic works is if U.S can get the rest of the world to go back to their consumption levels in 1960s which is absolutely impossible since most of these countries are still consuming a fraction of resources compared even to America in 1960s.
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Yes. I’m thinking the insanity we’re observing around the world has to be related to what you say.
No one is willing to voluntarily make do with less.
For those countries with big debt loads, making do with less is probably not be possible without crashing their economies.
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True. Maybe Art was more referring to the relative simplicity of life then. Perhaps with the technology we have today, such simple living might have a lower per capita energy consumption. It will never happen voluntarily, of course. And, as Rob mentions, it would collapse economies.
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Wonderful nuanced intelligent discussion of tribal tensions and complexities in both Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia.
I would say this weekly discussion by Alastair Crooke, Glenn Diesen, and Alexander Mercouris is the best geopolitics content I know of.
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I have read a lot on the issues and history of the Israel /Palestinian problem and the Ukraine/Russia problem. This podcast even gave me more information and insight. The only problem I see, is that all these people, both the commentators here and the leaders such as Putin, Netanyahu, Zelinsky are collapse unaware (or appear to be so).
AJ
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Exactly.
How would geopolitics change if Israel/Palestine was framed without denial as too many people for the available land and water on the cusp of getting much worse as oil depletes and the climate warms, rather than two religions that hate each other?
Without denial, religions would realize they are deeply united with a common purpose to deny mortality.
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Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)
Song from The The
Are you right here Jesus? Ah
Buddha? Yeah
Muhammad? Okay
But all right friends, lets go
They’re 5 miles high as the crow flies
Leavin’ vapor trails against a blood red sky
Movin’ in from the east toward the west
With balaclava helmets over their heads, yes
But if you think that Jesus Christ is coming
Honey you’ve got another thing coming
If he ever finds out who’s hijacked his name
He’ll cut out his heart and turn in his grave
Islam is rising, the Christians mobilizing
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
It’s war, she cried, it’s war, she cried, this is war
Drop your possessions, all you simple folk
You will fight them on the beaches in your underclothes
You will thank the good Lord for raising the union jack
You’ll watch the ships sail out of harbor
And the bodies come floating back
Watch the ships sail out of harbor
And the bodies come floating back
But if you think that Jesus Christ is coming
Honey you’ve got another thing coming
If he ever finds out who’s hijacked his name
He’ll cut out his heart and turn in his grave
Islam is rising, the Christians mobilizing
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
He’d be gunned down cold by the C.I.A
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart
But God didn’t build himself that throne
God doesn’t live in Israel or Rome
God doesn’t belong to the Yankee dollar
God doesn’t plant the bombs for Hezbollah
God doesn’t even go to church
And God won’t send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it’s sown
Islam is rising, the Christians mobilizing
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
The world is on its elbows and knees
It’s forgotten the message and worships the creeds
Armageddon days are here again
Armageddon days are here again
Armageddon days are here again
Armageddon days are here
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Saludos
el mar
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Well that felt good. Just went through my Twitter feed and unfollowed anyone that was adding heat to the Israel/Palestine tragedy.
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Nate Hagens on the situation in the Middle East.
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Thanks.
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Couldn’t agree with him (or you) more. My only problem is that everyone around me DENIES the storm we are in. It is so aggravating . . . it almost makes me want to drink;)
AJ
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I quite drinking many years ago but I’ve got a little stash for trading or self-medication if a day comes when the next day does not matter.
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Chuck Watkins today…
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Tim Watkins today….
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/10/13/why-energy-prices-are-deflationary/
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A little good news in a sea of bad.
Maybe the criminals will avoid jail but at least their gravy train is drying up.
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Burn in hell you murdering motherf**kers.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/pfizer-crashes-after-slashing-profit-guidance-more-half-collapsing-demand-covid-meds
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Dr. Weinstein is a good man, and is the only voice approaching this tragedy from an evolutionary basis. He was early and correct on covid, and he’s early and correct again on Israel/Palestine.
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Hi Rob and everyone taking refuge in this oasis of sanity,
Hope you’re all traveling along in the best possible way. Just wanted to share this gobsmacking post in the Guardian this morning.
US state department diplomats warned not to call for ‘ceasefire’ or ‘end to violence’ – report
The US state department has sent emails to diplomats advising them against making public statements that suggest the US wants to see less violence amid the ongoing bombardment of Gaza, according to a HuffPost report.
High-level officials do not want press materials to include three specific phrases: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm”, the report says.
The emails were sent hours after Israel issued mass evacuation orders to the more than one million residents of northern Gaza ahead of an expected ground invasion of the region.
It seems clear that the West (US) does not want to solve this situation in a fair, peaceful or permanent way, in fact the exact opposite. We all know reasons for this stance but the blatancy of it is still astounding.
Also reported was another troublingly suspicious piece of hearsay intel that suggested that “top secret” documents were found on several Hamas terrorists bodies that instructed them to target elementary schools, youth centres, and kibbutz villages with women and children. Whilst I do not doubt that this indeed was the aim of the Hamas attack, I am left to question if the Hamas militants really did have on their persons such documents that are now revealed to be more incendiary justification for the all-out response of Israel.
Here it is as it appeared on the Guardian website:
Hamas created detailed plans to target elementary schools and a youth center to “kill as many people as possible”, seize hostages and quickly move them into the Gaza Strip, according to “top secret” plans obtained by NBC News.
The documents were found on the bodies of Hamas terrorists by Israeli first responders and shared with the news outlet.
They appeared to be orders for two Hamas units to surround and infiltrate villages and target places where civilians, including children, gathered in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Sa’ad, the report said.
Israeli officials told the outlet that the documents show that Hamas had been systematically gathering intelligence on each kibbutz bordering Gaza and creating specific plans of attack for each village that included the intentional targeting of women and children.
We are really entering unchartered yet roiling waters that seem to steer us ever towards the chasm. Sending to all beacons of fortitude to guide our way forward.
Namaste.
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I think all of the conflicts are about securing resources and citizens subconsciously know it while overtly denying it and sometimes dressing it up as a moral conflict, which explains why the majority support the wars in US, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Israel, Palestine, etc.
President Bush in 1992 said the quiet bit out loud:
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He is right in one sense of the word. No amount of negotiation will allow it to continue indefinitely. (I think this quote originally came from John Michael Greer)
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If you like specific plausible predictions of how the economic system will collapse, and you don’t believe the story we are being told about Israel/Palestine, and you’re able to ignore things that you might disagree with, then this interview by Canadian Prepper of Rafi Farber is interesting.
He says we’ve got maybe another 5 months. Financial collapse discussion begins at 48:10.
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Comment by Hickory @ POB on Gaza overshoot.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-oct-12-2023/#comment-764738
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Nice review of China’s real estate debt bubble. In summary, it’s huge and the ability to kick the can may be coming to an end.
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The mysterious Paul Arbair (polar bear??) today with an overshoot aware analysis of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
It’s hard not to agree with Jay Hanson that nuclear war is inevitable.
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What is your opinion on Richard Duncan’s Olduvai theory?
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I disagree with it. It will take much less than 1000 years to return to hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olduvai_theory
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Why do you think it will take <1000 years? This article states that the climate will be to unstable to support settled grain based agriculture. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328719303507.
This article from medium all but explicitly says that metallurgy will die out in 1000 years. https://medium.com/data-driven-fiction/what-future-for-civilization-760b9257edb3
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I’m not following you. I think the situation is worse than Olduvai predicts. Your articles seem to agree with me.
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I just wanted to hear your current reasoning for that conclusion (I fear that it is correct). A return to a hunter gatherer lifestyle implies a 99% reduction in population though.
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Now that I think about, a return to a hunter gatherer lifestyle wouldn’t be such a bad thing. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race
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Got it, I misunderstood. Agriculture requires a stable climate. I think we’re losing climate stability and so it is likely large scale agriculture will end long before a thousand years from now. With no oil and no large scale agriculture that leaves hunting and gathering as the only way of life possible for our species. It will be very hard in the early years because we’ve done so much damage to ecosystems and wild life. The carrying capacity will be very low.
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A return to Hunter gatherer would result in a 99.99 percent reduction from current levels. ie. when the population has been reduced by 99 percent it will still require a 99 percent reduction from that point to get it down to a sustainable level.
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Does that take into account the enormous reduction in wildlife, during the modern era?
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I re-listened to the recent Art Berman/Nate Hagens interview linked above on my walk today.
1) Art recently re-calculated that the aggregate decline rate for all oil wells in the US is 36% per year. This means if we enter an economic depression and oil becomes unaffordable for many causing the price to fall due to lack of demand to say $20 per barrel, thus causing all drilling to stop because it would be unprofitable, then oil supply would fall year on year with 100 representing today as follows: 100, 64, 41, 26, 17, 11, 7, 4, 3, 2, 1
Meaning worst case in 10 years we’re down to zero and living like the Romans, at best.
This explains why the US appears ready to do anything to retain control of the Middle East and to defeat Russia.
2) Later in the interview Art Berman said peak oil is nothing to worry about because although we will have to make do with less, we are headed back to a lifestyle of the 60’s and 70’s which was still pretty good. This does not square with 1) above and suggests to me denial is in play.
3) Nate asked Art, given the overwhelming evidence for near term non-voluntary supply decline, why do so many leaders and smart scientists communicate there is no problem? Are they saying what they think people want to hear? Art, who interacts with many people, answered he thinks they genuinely believe there is no problem. Neither Nate nor Art saw the obvious connection to Varki’s MORT. Sigh.
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Dear Rob,
Reading your comment made me viscerally realise something which might seem obvious to those who understand we are social creatures first. Although I am not sure what I am going to say is true, because that is not the way I personally function.
It occurred to me that maybe many people outsource their beliefs completely, rather than try to build them by reasoning from observations. What I mean by that, is that most adopt their group’s view of the world uncritically. It makes sense at the group level. It’s a kind of optimisation, division of labour. (because building a coherent world-view from scratch requires lots of time and energy). In a way, we all do that at some level, since at some point we have to accept some premises (or alternatively choose to live extremely simple/humble lives outside the world of ideas. By the way an entirely valid strategy :). I wonder what proportion of the population just blindly accepts the conclusion, the last layer, the end-product (as delivered by their group, which is, I guess, mostly media today).
Now that I think about it, it seems to me group dynamic exerts an enormous force on every individuals. Once society has settled for a certain way of viewing things, it tends to eliminate all ideas going against it.
And so, in a way, it’s maybe easier to be a themist/doomer in France: we have a culture which used to accept pessimism and even celebrated melancholy (Baudelaire spleen: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/161)
American culture, which has from the 90s gradually permeated our society, feels to me as incredibly/foolishly positive. So much so, that it has become impolite to expand on some subjects such as hardships, illnesses, death… I find most romantic gothic darker creatures (like myself some days 🙂 have (partially) learned to automatically censor themselves, in order to avoid being outcasts.
So maybe Art is in polite automatic self-censorship/denial mode, in order to stay accepted. He doesn’t want to go too far. He is being “nice”.
I’d like to propose a test to check whether this is denial or not (it requires face to face interaction though):
1. first try to explain the inconsistency that is displayed in somebody’s discourse
2. if the person does not want to listen, then it is denial
3. if the person listens, seems to understand, but then refuses the conclusion without any based counter-argument, then it is denial
4. if the person, listens, understands, accepts the reasoning and then recognizes the inconsistency, then it is not denial. The person can now tell why the inconsistency (it could be just difficult to say only true things, it could be politeness, caring for the listener’s emotional load, or manipulation so that the message is better accepted, or just fatigue…).
5. if the person, listens, understands, accepts the reasoning and then proposes a counter-argument, a generalization, another way of framing things, then it is not denial, and we can reverse the roles (we are now the ones who need to do the homework of trying to understand 🙂
Some final notes…
Maybe the genetic individual denial tilt is not that extreme, but the larger the group, the larger the reinforcing loop. Or maybe, on the opposite, we are all individually crazy and the group creates a sort of accepted kind of valid averaged reality.
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I think your insights are good Charles about the power of group consensus. I can easily accept our leaders being nice and going with the flow on the millions of minor issues and beliefs we swim in.
But not the big issues like whether you should be coerced into injecting a substance that the data clearly shows has more risks than benefits. Or whether we should conserve a critical depleting resource and reduce our population in preparation for being soon forced to make do with much less.
Nate has chosen to be “nice” on both of these big issues and I think much less of him because of it.
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I understand and I agree.
At some point, “nice” is doing a disservice.
Now, I frame this as part of the ongoing dissolution of hierarchy and erosion of institutions…
For me, it is time to mourn the current global scale civilisation and participate in much more modest and local endeavours. I believe, new leaders will emerge only at this level.
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George Kaplan @ POB.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-oct-12-2023/#comment-764775
Mike Roberts will like this one.
Me? I’d point out that “the thing that clicked in our brains and culturally about 50,000 years ago” was an extended theory of mind enabled by a mutation to deny mortality.
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Yup, he pretty much nailed it. Regarding extended theory of mind, a theory can’t affect anything, it can only explain things.
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You’re right. I seem to be abnormal. The question I care most about is Why?
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I don’t know 🙂
But it is nevertheless nice to have you sustain this place…
While it lasts:
This winter France is going to test power reduction for 200K households (https://bnn.network/world/france/french-minister-confirms-electricity-networks-winter-capacity-amidst-potential-power-cut-tests/). A sign of the times, while at the same time, 20% of new cars sold are electric (https://insideevs.com/news/691408/france-plugin-car-sales-september2023/)…
A grain of cognitive dissonance…
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I was under the impression that France was the country in Europe with the best electricity security having built a fleet of nuclear plants that produce more than France needs and therefore exports surplus electricity.
Is this wrong?
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I don’t know the details. You may have to ask other more informed readers. But it is not all as rosy as it may seem from afar.
In the past, electric heating was encouraged. Probably, not a great idea… I guess when you have a lot, you waste a lot.
So winter peak consumption was an issue last year, which is going to be recurring from now on.
Our nuclear facilities are aging, there was some maintenance issues last year. As you know, the availability of natural gas was not granted either. We had to import electricity at times. Coal fired power plants were fired up. At some point we were lucky the weather was only mildly cold.
We will see how it goes this year (I am not overly worried, but time plays against us)
To me, it feels like we are bumping against the limits, even in this area in France. Either that, or maybe we are just an exceptionally cautious and forward-looking people 😉
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Thanks!
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I just wanted to add something about nuclear power in France: I am largely more worried by the medium term prospect. In that the power plants were initially planned to last for 40 years. As shown on this graph (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#/media/File:Histogramme_des_%C3%A2ges_des_r%C3%A9acteurs_nucl%C3%A9aires_fran%C3%A7ais_en_service_en_2020.svg), they were already 34 years of average age 3 years ago.
And now, there are talks about extending their lifetimes up to 80 years. Maybe that’s feasible, but still seems a bit ludicrous to me. I hope we won’t have huge risks of accidents 10 to 20 years down the road. Maintenance will be more difficult then (with no access or largely more expensive diesel and everything else). The company in charge of nuclear power plants is already largely indebted.
And there are also some new constraints: increased security issues, lack of water, heat and the impact on stream life in summer…
As shown on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#France, most power plants were built together in the 70/80s. No new nuclear power plant has been completed since 2002. Only one is being currently built, Flamanville, which already experienced lots of delays. Furthermore, according to this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant, “EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012 […] The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022”. As of today, it is not online yet.
There are talks of 14 new power plants up to 2050. Do we still have the know-how?
Frankly, I secretly wish we lose access to the fuel to chinese or russian, so that we have to shut the power plants down gradually earlier: I fear forced sobriety less than nuclear radiations.
From this graph (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#/media/File:Electricity_in_France.svg), it seems to me electricity generation in France is on a plateau, and nuclear is slightly decreasing.
More here https://www.reuters.com/graphics/EUROPE-ENERGY/NUCLEARPOWER/gdvzwweqkpw/ and here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France.
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This can be also tied to the fact that Europe has currently no more space launchers. Ariane 5 last launch was in July, Ariane 6 first flight is planned in April 2024.
Sorry French engineering turns out to be a disappointment these days. The golden age is clearly behind. Meet us now on the avant-garde of deindustrialisation and neo-primitivism 😉
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Wow, nothing new built for 20 years and the single new project is 600+% over budget! It seems the end of real growth was many years ago.
I agree with you about the risks of nuclear being unacceptable as we collapse.
If we put off decommissioning them for too long then at some point we may not be able to afford, or have access to the necessary diesel and materials, to do any form of safe shutdown.
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Very good comment.
But it got me somewhat angry 🙂
Because, I am not sure to understand what is really meant by “The first people to show concern for the wider world will be the first ones to have their gene lines snuffed out, and with them any propensity to “rein it in””
I would take issue with it, if it means that the various strategies which consist on agreeing on quotas, restoring land, turning deserts into forests, … is “showing concern for the wider world”.
I am well aware none of this will be sufficient to avoid collapse of the industrial civilisation or human population. But, it will definitely be easier for a tribe to survive in a forest than in a desert.
Survival of the fittest (individual) in a wolf eat wolf world of rat race where time is money is all part of the current exploitative culture. To me, it is mainly a myth. It is not the whole story. It is not a recipe for survival. Cooperations survive, simply because a group is stronger than an individual. When I say group, I don’t mean group of humans only. I believe, the most powerful associations are between complementary forces (respiration/photosynthesis, synthesis/digestion, stillness/movement). So is it really species that are selected? Or rather systems? Holobiont, ecosystems, etc… Nature is very, very, very complex and thus beautiful.
To me, blind enthusiasm about growth and absolute hopelesness of any kind of actions are both coins of the same culture. They are both just encouraging the status quo.
I respect those who would like to adopt these two extreme views. I just think they shouldn’t be the only stories around and shouldn’t even monopolize speech. Because, ultimately, they add very little value.
Well, that’s just me, these days 🙂
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I missed this 3 year old investigation showing how the Chinese manipulated global covid data to make risks appear higher than they were.
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Waiting for my ex-friends to send me this letter.
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Really good debate happening now at POB. Here’s one post by Hickory that I agree with but there are many others taking more optimistic positions.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-oct-12-2023/#comment-764819
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HHH @ POB…
https://peakoilbarrel.com/june-non-opec-and-world-oil-production/#comment-764769
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Tribute to Michael Dowd.
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I think this is my new all-time favorite discussion on the covid insanity. Must watch if you’re still trying to understand what happened and is still happening.
Here we have a deep dive into the paper that claimed mRNA saved millions of lives and which the Nobel prize committee leaned on when it awarded the prize for covid mRNA.
The analysis is complete nonsense and the claims are clearly false.
Everyone in the following chain has no scientific skills and/or integrity:
– authors of the paper
– peer reviewers of the paper
– journal that published it
– Nobel prize committee that relied on it
– recipients that accepted the Nobel prize without correcting the error
– journalists that uncritically echoed the claims
Also a shocking discussion on all-cause mortality. There was no change in all-cause mortality, anywhere, anytime, except all-cause mortality increased everywhere, whenever mRNA injection campaigns started.
It reminds me of the Nobel peace prize awarded to Obama BEFORE they knew his terrible war record. This time they awarded the Nobel prize AFTER they knew that mRNA kills rather than saves people.
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Did some digging on fellow Canadian Denis Rancourt and confirmed he is not overshoot aware and therefore probably draws incorrect conclusions about government motives. He also denies some elements of the climate change “consensus”. Haven’t dug deep enough to know if he’s correct on those climate bits or in denial.
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James @ Megacancer gives his explanation for why humans believe in life after death.
I don’t buy it because it’s too complicated and too cosmic, and because it does not explain why only one species on this planet believes in life after death, nor why that species invented god simultaneous with it evolving an extended theory of mind.
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Well he starts out with this:
“Humans have a fear of life and death that results in compensating behaviors and beliefs often taking the form of a religion whose focus is the worship of an all powerful deity often occurring at a church or temple under the guidance of a priestly class.”
and that is just wrong. Maybe actually look at the full range of spiritual beliefs among humans before making such crude assumptions. It is like saying all organisms are hairy bipeds.
And what evidence do you have that gods were invented instead of discovered (or revealed?) ?
I understand that it flows from and is consistent with your basic materialist world view, but that is different from having evidence that they were invented instead of discovered.
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The evidence that persuades me that gods were invented is 1) they emerged simultaneous with a mutation to deny mortality 2) no other species believes in them 3) they violate the laws of physics.
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LOL
1) There is no evidence that a mutation is causing people to deny mortality. Nor have you given an explanation on how a slight change in a biopolymer causes a change in belief about mortality.
2) How do you know what other species believe?
3) Do ideas violate the laws of physics? For example show me 7. not an example of 7 things but the concept of 7 itself.
And what laws of physics do you think are being violated?
jim
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https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-25466-7_6
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I have a good piece of evidence having studied anthropology and history – the gods change over time and reflect the society that creates them. Ancient Egypt is a very good example of this. Another example is ancient Greek cities thinking it was cool to have a patron god or demi-god. So hilariously jut invented new ones so they could have one. Pretty easy to do when Zeus goes around raping everyone.
Gods are cultural artifacts
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Want to keep expanding beyond your limits? Why you need a god that tells you to, “go forth and multiply”. (yahweh)
Need to protect the forest on your island from over-harvesting? Why you need a god that grants permission to fell a tree and smites those who take from him. (Tāne Mahuta)
Want to make sure peasants don’t eat their cow in a terrible famine, so that they can have a new calf next year? How about make the cow sacred and associate her with the gods.
Etc.etc.
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I always wondered why cows are sacred in India. I thought maybe dairy has a better EROEI than meat. Or maybe their vegetables depended on manure.
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Milk is used to make ghee, a shelf-stable, long-lasting nutrient dense cooking fat
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Yes, I got curious about ghee and studied it a few years ago.
I love peasant wisdom. No refrigeration for butter? No problem. Just boil the water off from butter to make near pure fat and it will last forever at room temperature.
I made a batch. It’s easy. Tastes much better and is more healthy than seed oils.
Costco sells it in 3 Kg buckets now.
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That’s what really scares me about going back to a no-oil world. There’s so much we no longer know 😦 as modern peoples
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Me too. It’s going to be a gong show.
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I see that every day when I go into my garden/pasture/forest to work. I think that even my parents and especially my grandparents knew much more about being self sufficient on the land than I can ever learn now.
AJ
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I was watchin a house tour in France and they were showing an alcove where they used to keep the salt in the old days. Of course that was turned into an aesthetic feature. But I started wondering about why salt was kept in an alcove.. no idea LOL WASTF
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Or alternatively, the universe is filled with a wide variety of gods and other spiritual beings, and people have had relationships with different ones at different times.
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Some people like string theory because it makes anything possible and no ideas are testable.
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I first heard about string theory on a PBS documentary called Nova : The Elegant Universe. I was actually quite young when I first watched that documentary (I was in Elementary School). https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/the-elegant-universe/
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String theory was quite the rage for a while. Universities loved it because you didn’t need to spend gazillions on labs to do research. A blackboard with chalk was all you needed. My take on string theory is that if you introduce sufficient variables into a model you can make it look like anything. Unfortunately it predicted nothing new that has been verified to be true. Which means a lot of people wasted a lot of time.
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occam’s razor – which explanation seems the most plausible? yours or mine?
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Interesting and horrifying deep dive into South Africa’s ongoing collapse.
Too much to summarize but here is one illustrative feedback loop accelerating the collapse:
– blackouts make it easier for thieves to steal un-energized wires
– replacing stolen wires makes it harder for the power company to operate with a profit and increases blackouts
– more blackouts increases poverty creating more thieves
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The SA govt is about as stupid and arrogant as they come. They’ve made the power situation way worse by trying to micro-manage everything and refusing to let private companies do their own thing.
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Interesting tidbit.
One carrier can fight for 24 hours before having to re-arm and re-fuel. Two carriers can fight for 48-96 hours. Three carriers can fight continuously.
To understand US intentions, watch how many carriers they send.
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Gaza hospital destroyed. Better send 4 aircraft carriers tout suite.
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Whoa…
Gonna be difficult to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
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I loved this super intelligent discussion on how bad US foreign policy is. They don’t say it, but the conclusion I draw is that nuclear war is inevitable, and it will be the fault of the US.
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The most depressing news I heard last week was that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s own siblings do not support his run for president.
I have for a long time wondered why Fauci never lost his job when he funded creation of the the virus, and then completely screwed up the response to it.
If this claim by RFK, Jr is true, then perhaps we now know the answer.
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New 3 part podcast on the Limits to Growth study looks promising.
https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/
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New episode from Michael Shermer discussing free will with Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
Have not listened to it yet.
https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/robert-sapolsky-on-free-will-determinism/
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indi.ca is very uninteresting in the last few days sadly. “We need to break the rules, and tear this wicked White Empire down.” is nothing I will take serious, sorry. I left the following comment:
“If we look at this rationally, humans will be culled given our state of overshoot. Raised ethnic tensions just come with the territory. Basic stuff. And that is why I’m sorry to say that I’m slightly disappointment in our host. Essays in the style of a oversocialized college leftist is not why I came to this site. But I have hope that our valued Indrajit will catch himself again and realize that team sports are fun and games but we are done for no matter what since unsustainable resource depletion began 10,000 years ago (http://theoildrum.com/node/4628).”
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LOL Rob I read the theory you linked to., and here is the critical part that is pure bullshit:
“Such individuals would observe deaths of conspecifics whose minds they fully understood, become aware of mortality, and translate that knowledge into mortality salience (understanding of personal mortality). The resulting conscious realization and exaggeration of an already existing intrinsic fear of death risk would have then reduced the reproductive fitness of such isolated individuals”
It is a completely ridiculous assumption, let me put it in plain English :
if you understand you will die it means that you will not have sex or babies.
It is kind of like this : “If i know that a meal will come to an end, why bother eating at all?”
Look at pre industrial societies, death was something that happens all the time, not just to the old in a separate place. And they have no problem reproducing.
I guess MORT would say they don’t really understand death, they really don’t get the true existential dread that a real understand of death would bring, they are in denial. LOL It is a new version of a catch 22.
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Are you saying that a person who is depressed does not lose the will to compete and procreate?
Speaking personally, I know that to be untrue. My life changed permanently when I became overshoot aware. I would not have had a child if I knew then what I know now. Nor would I have made it to a senior VP position in a large company.
A casual look at the behavior of homeless people confirms my personal experience.
On death awareness, of course we all know we die. The key point you seem to be missing is that the vast majority believe there is some form of life after death. This belief is reinforced by every one of the thousands of religions we have invented since we emerged as behaviorally modern humans.
I’m not religious, but I once had a friend who is say to me, how can you live knowing there is nothing after death?
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Shouldn’t he have said: “I’m not religious, but I once had a friend who is say to me, how can you live assuming there is nothing after death?”
😉
I think that if we suddenly were to regularly witness “paranormal/miraculous” events, they would quickly be rationalized and normalized away.
Isn’t it the state we are in? Experiencing a continuous miracle, and finding it totally normal.
Which is sad in a way: the inability to feel the sacred, in what simply is.
Automatically mapping every live experience into inert concepts. Constant killing.
🙂
Living in the fabricated mirror of existence. The curse of nominal consciousness.
🙂
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I know what you’re saying is probably important but my brain fogs in when I read your words. Maybe someone else has something intelligent to say about your ideas.
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Thank you Rob 🙂 No problem. Sorry for not being able to communicate it more clearly.
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And you are missing my point, why be depressed about dying?
In the last year i have buried my dad and mom, their deaths were not a tragedy. They both lived a long good life and death took away their rather intense daily suffering and pain. Yea sometimes death is a tragedy but often times it is a blessing.
For myself, knowing that i will die gives meaning to the choices i make about how to live.
And not having kids because you think we are deep into ecological overshoot is a totally different thing than not having kids because you know you will die.
It looks like MORT is just some atheist intellectualization of our societies death phobia.
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There are many good reasons for religions to exist such as providing a set of rules to help a community cooperate with each other, social service safety net, law and order, music entertainment, etc. etc.
But no good reason that I can see for every religion to have some form of life after death story. Yet they do. Why?
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People are curious about death.
and experiences like the one this guy had are fairly common.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medium-reading-dad-ghost_n_6176c898e4b03072d6f9f7e9
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You are not debating this with intellectual integrity.
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Probably has a well-functioning denial gene 😉
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baloney
You asked why religions talk about death.
I gave you a perfectly reasonable response : people are curious about death.
I also gave you a first person account about people who believe they have been contacted by a dead loved one. And it turns out that having a visitation by a dead loved one is not an uncommon experience. But of course you reject that because you know the TRUTH.
You believe you know the TRUTH about what happens when you die and everyone else is in denial.
you are the one without intellectual integrity in this argument.
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Thank you for providing excellent evidence in support of Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory. Our species exists because it evolved a tendency to deny mortality. Denial of death is central to who we are. Questioning this belief thus generates emotion rather than logic.
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No Rob.
I think Anonymous/Jim? is genuinely trying to explain something very basic.
I will speak first person, because consciousness is experienced subjectively (and it is only an assumption that others experience it similarly as myself). I think he is simply saying: “I can’t know what will happen at death. I just know what happens to the body of others. That’s all. That’s the only thing that I ever witnessed.”
So really, the experience of death is an unknown.
Saying there is nothing after death is a claim, an assumption. It is not the “TRUTH” 🙂
I think Anonymous is not being emotional at all.
To him (and myself), he sees your certainty about what happens to consciousness after death as a belief.
To you, there is no doubt death means cessation of consciousness and saying otherwise (either admitting that we can’t know, or being convinced that there may be something happening that we can’t comprehend) is denial.
How do we decide what’s true? I guess that’s one of the things we just have to wait and see 🙂
Maybe when you will read my message it won’t make sense to you. And likewise, I won’t understand why it is not obvious to you. Maybe we simply function on different tracks and can’t understand each other about this. That would be an interesting conclusion on its own.
That would be ok with me. Yet, I will stand firm about the fact that admitting we can’t know is not the same as denial.
I will add that it seems obvious to me there are many things we can’t know, that are not knowable. We are limited beings.
I will go as far as to say that pretending otherwise is arrogant 🙂
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Sorry, when I said “there are many things we can’t know, that are not knowable. We are limited beings.”, I really meant there are things we can’t know through logic/reason/by following the scientific method. Because, I don’t know if we truly are limited beings 🙂
I know that with this addendum I risk to discredit the rest of my argument to your rational eyes. But I prefer being precise…
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Personally, I wouldn’t dare claim every religion has some form of life after death story. That’s how it may seem from the standpoint of the current culture. But that’s maybe not how it is experienced from the inside.
As I see it, different religions try to explain/frame reality in different ways.
I am oversimplifying here, but as I understand it, we have currently settled to interpret reality with ideas such as self, living self, dead self, sum of all living selves=human species, sum of dead selves=losers according to the rules of the game set by Darwin, sum of all ideas=reality.
Don’t other religions/cultures interpret reality starting from different concepts such as the “original Force flowing through every being”, or “the One being experiencing its multiplicity throughout individuals”, or “the Soul travelling from reincarnation to reincarnation through the ages” or the “Lineage passing down its privilege”? So that the question of “life after death” doesn’t really apply in the terms of the “self”. It is not that there is a self, death and a life after death. It is rather that there is eternity, and then temporary assemblies of eternity doing their thing for a while.
When a toaster breaks down, there is still electricity in the network. Did the “self” of the toaster die and will live again in another toaster (only same model, same brand)? Or did electricity remain eternal? Or was the toaster unique to never come back again (despite being built in a factory identical to others)? Or all these statements are true at the same time? Or the toaster can’t ever understand electricity? Or no statements will ever be true and the toaster should just have faith in electricity?
But, wait, it is said the self is an illusion! Ah ah ah.
Sorry I love clouding the issue. I don’t think we can cast reality/our experience into a 100% logical rational framework. That’s too tight.
And, once we have settled for a belief, are we still able to notice what is outside of our belief?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife
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Whatever the beliefs of various people, we seem to find that, by and large, they collectively act just like other species. Individually, some religious adherents might seem to live their lives the way their belief in what their creator wants them to, though an individual’s interpretation of that might vary from person to person.
Religion is an irrelevance. It has no bearing on how humans act, collectively. Even when most people might have claimed to be religious, they were still wrecking the planet’s ecosystems and having scant regard for other species. They were still a species.
An afterlife seems something to hold out hope for, especially when this life is so messy. However, belief in an afterlife for humans (and, for some, other species) seems to fly in the face of what we’ve learned about or world, about life and about physics. But we still keep accumulating that knowledge. It beats me why some scientists are still religious and even claim that there is no conflict between science and religion. Isn’t this the ultimate example of denial?
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Well, if I were to interpret what you just said from the outside, I would say that you are a believer in life after death, or rather of eternal life. Since the species outlives the individual.
In a way that would be true, in a way that would be a misrepresentation of your words.
I think that’s exactly what is being done with other beliefs in this page “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife”.
It’s a bit like a page of the gospels describing the stupid beliefs the heretics adhere to.
To say the “individual” continues into some form after the death of the body is an interpretation, grounded on some elements of truth, evidences.
To say the “individual” disappears completely after the death of the body is likewise an interpretation, grounded on some elements of truth, evidences.
To say the “individual” is a fleeting actualisation, a proof of something bigger than the body is another interpretation.
To say there is no “individual”, but a larger concept fooling itself to experience multiplicity yet another.
Ad nauseam…
This is all saying more about what we currently believe in, what we mean by “individual” (which is an abstract concept), rather than anything about the nature of reality.
Today, we cast reality in notions such as the “species”. Do we really understand the concept of “species” in the way the high priest of our religion (the scientist) understand it? Aren’t we misusing a concept from a model which had a specific purpose to answer unanswerable questions? Tomorrow, the unit of thought will change. Maybe ecosystems, maybe holobionts, maybe Gaïa… It will be no less or more “faithful to reality”.
Personally, I have no problem with the fact that things have a dynamic of their own at their level (be it the species, or any other notion). This doesn’t prevent me from doing my thing.
At my level, I can say for sure, the way I interpret reality deeply impacts my actions. To give a concrete example, in the community garden, I am not growing/tending for individual plants, I am not waging war against pests, diseases, and the soil, I have no problem with pruning, I keep the seeds, I harvest continuously (it’s never empty), I sow randomly and let some plants complete their cycle. That’s because I do not see the individuals, or the species. I do not see the deadline of the next season, time has no meaning. I see and care for the overall strength and continuation of the coexisting various streams of life. I do not see good or evil, weeds vs. edible. I also have no problem pruning excess life, simply I try to feel the point of equilibrium.
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It’s self evident that a species outlives individuals of that species. Other than that, I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
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Sorry, I wasn’t clear.
I am just trying to say, that I don’t think this statement is true “An afterlife seems something to hold out hope for, especially when this life is so messy.”
I rather think religions are ways to make sense of reality from different angles. They are talking about something bigger than individuals. From which the individual originates and to which he will go back to. Or of which individuals are either made of or are components of.
And so it goes the same with the species. Individuals make up the species. Individuals are combination of successful genes sets. Genes are passed down. So it’s also a kind of life after death story.
The case could be made, that belief in the species and survival of the fittest would encourage people to procreate even though knowing about their own mortality.
So to me evolution is a story not so dissimilar to other beliefs. It has the exact same overall structure.
I hope I was able to express myself better. If not, then it’s no big deal 🙂
To say things a little bit differently.
I guess I do not believe in the myth of progress, or in the fact that we understand reality better today than we used to. To me, we just frame it differently. Scientific or religious, these are just all stories. Nice ones, useful ones, true ones (or rather in concordance with some elements of reality) but stories nevertheless.
I guess it is natural the stories of the current time are seen as the apex of understanding…
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This site exists because I believe MORT is an important theory that explains many things about our species, the most important being why our uniquely intelligent species exists, and why we deny overshoot.
The debate I want to have on this site is whether MORT is true or not.
If MORT is true, then we know why anonymous, and the majority of all behaviorally modern humans since we evolved about 100,000 years ago, believes there is life after death.
If MORT is false, then I will shut this site down, and people can debate whether life after death is true on a different site. I personally give priority to physics, but I don’t care if someone prefers to give priority to something else. I care about trying to understand why our species is committing suicide.
Here are some of the questions that I think are central to whether MORT is true or false, and for which MORT provides a scientific answer.
Perhaps others can think of additional questions.
1) Why is there only one species with an extended theory of mind?
2) Why is there only one species with sufficient intelligence to understand physics?
3) Why did the technology and culture of hominids stall for over a million years until something happened in one small tribe in Africa about 100,000 years ago?
4) Why did all 8 billion of us emerge from one small tribe in Africa? And why did that tribe replace the many other similar hominid species?
5) What genetic change occurred about 100,000 years ago that must be both modest in complexity and extreme in effect to explain the explosive emergence and dominance of behaviorally modern humans?
6) Sapiens successfully bred with both Neanderthals and Denisovans at different times and locations. Sapiens retained a few of the other’s useful genes, mainly for disease immunity, but there is no evidence of full hybrids as you would expect. Why?
7) Why does only one species have religions?
8) Why did religions emerge simultaneous with behaviorally modern humans?
9) Why has every human tribe, in every geography, through all of time, had a religion?
10) Why does every one of the thousands of religions think it is the only (or most) true religion?
11) Why does every religion have a life after death story?
12) Why are the thousands of life after death stories all different?
13) Why do many atheists retain some form of spirituality which usually includes a belief in some form of life after death?
14) Why does a species with plenty of intelligence to know better aggressively deny it’s own overshoot?
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I understand that our Homo sapiens sapiens species emerged over 200,000 years ago, possibly 300,000 years ago. So I’m not sure why you use 100,000 years. Anything about human life and thought prior to some kind of documentation (e..g. cave drawings) can only be guesses and most of the period where there might be some kind of documentation is still just informed guesswork.
So your questions mostly make assumptions — “why x y z” assumes “x y z” is true. I’d agree with most of those assumptions but we can only hazard a guess as to why.
I was a bit surprised that you think many atheists have some kind of belief in a form of life after death. Are there any examples?
As you know, I see MORT as more of a recognisable feature of being a species than some specific trait that emerged in humans at some point in the past. I think being a species explains everything about our behaviour. It’s a bit depressing, really.
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I’m ok with saying behaviorally modern humans emerged somewhere between 100-300K years ago. The date is not agreed yet. Most use the range 100-200K. The uncertainty does not undermine MORT.
MORT provides a scientifically coherent explanation for why each of those statements is true. Showing that one or more of those statements is false would undermine MORT. For example, find another species that has an extended theory of mind but does not believe in gods. Or find another species that believes in gods but does not have an extended theory of mind. Of find a religion that does not believe in life after death. Or find two religions from different geographies and times that have the same life after death story. Etc. etc.
My comment about spiritual atheists was based on my personal observations. Here’s what the Bing AI says:
I don’t understand your last statement. Let’s boil MORT down to its essence: “An extended theory of mind requires denial of mortality”. Now explain what you mean by “feature” rather than “trait”.
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I meant that humans being a species means that they will behave in a way that appears to be denial of reality, rather that there being some distinct genetic change which started the denial. Other species may not be as aware of their environment or of their ultimate fate as humans are but, if any are, they would also appear to deny that reality. The species would become extinct if it weren’t for that denial (because they would stop having children, for example). So we only see species that act in that way.
Some of the statements above are neither provable nor disprovable (particularly those about other species or of beliefs in prehistory). As I say, most of them seem reasonable assumptions but not provable ones.
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Thanks. So you believe the emergence of behaviorally modern humans was gradual and did not occur as a bang from one small group?
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No, I think any species has always had its characteristic behaviour from the time the species emerged (obviously, there must be a woolly period around the beginning of a species but putting that aside). That behaviour was probably very similar to that of the species from which Homo sapiens emerged.
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This may be the core of our disagreement. I think the archeological record shows homo sapiens’ behavior changed significantly in a very short period of time when behaviorally modern humans emerged. I don’t feel like assembling all the evidence to convince you but I refer you to Varki’s book and papers as a starting point if you want to check what I’m saying is true. It’s analogous to the emergence of the eukaryotic cell. An improbable evolutionary event occurred that changed everything.
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If Sapolsky is right, our descisions are not from free will. The only factors that influence how we behave are genes and environment (epigenetics covers both). A species is characterised by its behaviours, which are determined by genes, ultimately. So it’s hard to see how a species can change its behaviour without altering its genes significantly, becoming another species. If you’re referring to social behaviours then they will vary from group to group as their environment develops. There may even be minor genetic changes which improve the prospects of the owner of that change in a different environment (e.g. skin colour, superficial facial features).
If there were a slight genetic change which allowed our ancestors to deny certain aspects of our condition, that implies that awareness of that condition must have also evolved in a similar time frame. However, the latter, without the former would have been deleterious to our prospects (because, without denial, why would we not have given up?) but if it was deleterious, then the gene would not have propagated in the species and so no denial gene would have been needed.
Of course, I’m just babbling here and may be totally off the mark but I don’t see how a denial gene (that didn’t previously exist in all species) would be needed, to be successful as a species. It certainly appears that we have a denial gene but I contend that it’s just a common property of being a species.
I’ll try to do more research on this though I guess specific behaviours are difficult to determine, the further we go back. One thing I found was that human brains are now the smallest they have ever been (up to 150cc less than when our species emerged), with most of that decrease in the last 6,000 years. I don’t know if this is a factor in our collective stupidity.
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Thanks. I’m not arguing we can change our behavior, although I’d like us to try as we did, for example, by using our understanding of science to stop burning witches.
For me mostly now it is a desire to go to my grave knowing I figured out why such a smart species committed suicide without even trying to avoid it.
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It’s true we’ll need to find the mutation, probably in the amygdala, that is responsible for denial and that emerged simultaneous with our extended theory of mind. As far as I know no one is looking for it since I’m pretty much the only person on the planet that thinks MORT is important.
In the meantime, what you say about the evidence being circumstantial and not definitive for proof or disproof is true. Nevertheless I’ve tried to make it easy for people to shut this site down because I will accept circumstantial evidence that MORT is wrong. Find me religions that do not believe in life after death. Find me two geographically/temporally different religions with the same life after death story. Find me an elephant/crow/dolphin that exhibits behavior consistent with a belief in life after death (not just mourning which is known to exist).
We had one commenter make the bold claim there were countless religions that do not believe in life after death but when challenged was unable to provide the name of a single one.
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Yeah, difficult to prove either way. I’m fairly sure that there are some pagan religions that don’t have life after death as a tenet but, so far have been unable to find specifics, despite some general descriptions of pagan religions which say something vague like “most” pagan religions have some notion of life after death – implying that there are a few which don’t.
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Name one and I’ll try to check it.
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No luck so far, though Unitarian Universalism doesn’t actually teach that there is anything after death. However, it doesn’t rule out that there is.
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I don’t think you’ll find one. We’re like fish that can’t see water.
“God” is denial of death. “Religions” are denial of death.
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Hi Rob,
I would like to offer a an alternate point of view.
See my comment just below next Mike Roberts’ answer. I misplaced it because we have reached the edge…
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Science can never be 100% certain of anything. All it takes is a repeatable experiment which shows some theory to be wrong, for a rethink to occur. But, for now, any theory which has support of experimental or observational evidence, and has no experimental or observational evidence which counters it, is taken to be an accurate explanation of reality. Science is not really a belief in any meaningful sense.
Any religious belief that I know of has no experimental or observational evidence. So I can dismiss them personally but despair that others exhibit those beliefs and even, usually haphazardly, apply those beliefs to their own lives and try to impose them on others.
That almost nothing can be known for certain is irrelevant to our daily lives.
I also think progress is a myth. Progress first requires a goal that one can make progress towards. There is no common agreed goal for our civilisation.
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Hi Rob,
Precisely, I am trying to argue against the fact that “all religion offer a life after death story”.
To me, it seems more subtle than that. As an example, I will take Hinduism from the wiki page you linked to (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife). First let me copy what’s said on this page:
To me this does not really mean there is life after death per se (at least not in the same form). It reads like a description of what the people of the time thought we were made of. There are 3 components. One component dies, two remain.
It reads the same as the following (which is not “religious” according to today’s standards): our body is made of matter (atoms), is powered by energy and its behaviour programmed by genes. At death, the body atoms are redistributed, energy flows continuously through us so that’s somehow eternal and genes may have been passed on to children. So yeah, this story too could be interpreted as a “life after death story”. But fundamentally it is not. It is a story about our understanding of reality. It is a story about some things bigger than the body that will outlast the body…
There are many things which outlives our bodies in which we put value. It may be our genes (or the species), the memories others will have of us, a working system (like a company), knowledge which was transmitted to pupils, … any kind of legacy really.
I admit that anything which implies an involvement of the individual into something larger than himself could be interpreted as denial of death. But that’s not how I understand it.
I guess my difficulty with MORT is the “denial” part. I don’t see our individual involvement in things bigger than us as denial of death. I see it as an acceptance that we will die but some things/aspects/impacts will outlast us. Some things we cherish.
So it could equally be argued that knowledge of our own death is a further motivation towards action instead of necessarily putting ourselves into a depressive state which would work against survival of our gene. (Isn’t this precisely the motivation of people fighting to preserve some landscape for instance?)
Something like: “time is fleeting better get things done”, or abnegation, gift of oneself, etc… (truly many diverse emotions, fear and denial being only one among several)
My goal is not necessarily to kill MORT or contradict you. Maybe some work is needed around the “denial” step of the reasoning?
I hope I could express my thoughts in a way which makes sense to you. I hope it was rational enough for your standard. Tell me what you think 🙂
Side-note: how would you compare MORT with it’s sister theory TMT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory?
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Nate’s starting to lose it. He’s been reporting on the coming apocalypse for a long time but now that it’s real and imminent he seems to be having trouble accepting it.
I thought prepping was supposed to make you calm. 🙂
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I love his videos. He’s clearly a very smart man! But yea I think he thought we would end up in some AI techno-fascist situation, rather than a full scale collapse of everything. The nuclear threat is more scary if you’re in the northern hemisphere too…
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Yeah LOL. Most doomers love to fantasize about low probability asteroid impacts and Carrington events. Near certain collapse due to overshoot, not so much.
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Must watch. Tucker Carlson nails what I think is going on. It’s all about hanging on to power in the next election.
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USA has Australia as well as Western Europe
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And Canada. 😦
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true!! Mean old tucker forgetting about us all
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https://kirschsubstack.com/p/the-died-suddenly-vax-vs-unvaxxed
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https://kirschsubstack.com/p/ok-you-were-right-we-admit-vaccine
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Dr. Robert Sapolsky in the interview with Shermer linked above:
This is totally consistent with and supports Varki’s MORT theory.
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What does covid have to do with MORT you ask?
Well, after overshoot, covid is the biggest, baddest, most in-your-face example of how the majority of citizens deny unpleasant realities.
Parents denied obvious evidence and harmed their children for zero benefit FFS. And now they deny that they did it. And our leaders and “health professionals” deny that they screwed up.
Covid is MORT on steroids!
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Indeed. Denial on such a grand-scale.
I interpret it as the last heroic act of resistance in an ongoing process of death of the current dominant cultural paradigm. (which does not stand any more in the face of reality)
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