Rob here: It’s a challenge to summarize in a few words Hideaway’s Complexity Accelerated Collapse of a Thermodynamically Unsustainable System (CACTUS) theory, but here’s my latest attempt:
- modernity depends on many non-renewable resources
- new resources must continuously be extracted from the earth’s crust to replace those burned or lost to decay, and because 100% recycling is not economical nor technically feasible for most resources
- reserve quality declines as non-renewable resources are extracted because they are finite, and because we consume the best first
- therefore, the energy, materials, and technology complexity used for resource extraction must increase to compensate for falling reserve quality to maintain a given extraction rate
- increasing civilization scale accelerates the development of higher extraction technology complexity
- increasing civilization scale increases the efficiency of resource use
- increasing civilization scale requires growth in non-renewable resource extraction
- therefore, increasing civilization scale BOTH enables and requires non-renewable resource flows to increase
- therefore, many complex interdependent self-reinforcing positive feedback loops collaborate to grow civilization quickly
- eventually, a physics limit is reached that prevents one or more non-renewable resource flows from increasing, which triggers a cascade of interdependent self-reinforcing negative feedback loops to collapse civilization’s scale and complexity
- therefore, modernity will be a short-lived rapidly growing and rapidly collapsing phenomenon anywhere that it emerges in the universe
- we have hit several limits to resource extraction growth and increasingly violent world affairs reflect stresses in a system preparing to collapse
- therefore, we are privileged to be alive to witness a rare peak of what is possible in the universe
Today’s essay by Hideaway takes a deep dive into points 5 & 6, the relationships between scale, efficiency, and complexity, and provides an explanation for point 11, why modernity is behaving like a supernova.
Enough fooling around with CACTUS limericks, let’s do some serious CACTUS math…
For me, coming across the scaling laws was like a bolt of lightening that connected everything about the complexity trap humanity has fallen into, and motivated me to research everything I could find about scaling laws and their relevance to all systems.
I knew that modern civilization couldn’t continue after fossil fuels because the EROEI of alternatives and nuclear was too low when taking the full wide boundary approach.
However, there was always the possibility of something new, or more improvements to existing technologies, that might allow modernity to continue, despite the fact that entropy and dissipation are real, and that lower ore grades require more energy to extract the same quantity of minerals and metals, and that we live on a finite planet.
Ingenuity, innovation, and agency are the reasons usually given for why limits don’t apply to for humans. I will show why the scaling laws override all claims that there are no limits.
The topic of how scaling laws will influence our future deserves a large book. This essay is as short as I could make it while still getting across important concepts.
I have used A.I. to help construct the tables and a few times used it to make some points concisely instead of me rambling on too long, so any change in writing style is where I’ve used A.I. to write the point concisely.
As you’re reading, if something is not making sense, wait for the “pivot”, because it didn’t make sense initially to me either.
I learnt a bit about biology scaling laws back in my Uni days many decades ago, however my more recent studies has been on how urban settlements also abide to scaling laws, with different rates than biology, and with some additional rules not seen in biology.
For mammals, as the size of the species increases, food intake also increases, but a doubling of size only leads to a 75% increase in food intake or metabolic rate. This is known as Kleiber’s law. The less specific observation that animals become more metabolically efficient as they grow in size is called the power law, hypometric scaling, or sub-linear scaling.
Plotting mammal species metabolic rate versus size on logarithmic scales results in a straight line with a slope less that 1.
The reason given for efficiency growing with size is usually the mathematical and geometric nature of the networks that distribute nutrients, and carry away waste and heat, as stated in the image above.
These networks are the circulatory system, the nervous system, the lymphatic system, the bone structure, sight and hearing connected to the nervous system, and others I may have missed.
In biology, the study of how the growth of structures and systems is influenced by size is known as allometry.
Of interest to me is that social insect colonies, like ants and bees, also demonstrate scaling laws similar to individual organisms, often also to the ¾ power, though not for everything.
Professor Geoffrey West, a physicist, has done a lot of research about how cities look and act like an organism, with economies of scale, and similar fractal internal networks. His research, and the research of his PhD students, determined that scaling laws for cities are slightly different than those in biology.
In human settlements characterized as ‘urban’ centres, a doubling in size results in an 85% increase in many aspects like road surface area, power line length, number of gas stations, etc., all the physical type attributes. Other aspects, like population density in megacities, scale at the 75% power law.
Interestingly though, we are not entirely as efficient as nature, that mostly scales at a 75% for a doubling in mass.
There are some aspects of cities that scale at greater than 100% for a doubling in size, the socioeconomic aspects, as Geoffrey West explains:
“The bigger the city is, the less infrastructure you need per capita. That law seems to be the same in all of the data we can get at. It is a really interesting relationship, and it’s very reminiscent of scaling laws in biology. However, when we looked at socioeconomic quantities—quantities that have no analogue in biology, like wages, patents produced, crime, number of police, etcetera—we found that unlike everything we’d seen in biology, cities scale in a super-linear fashion: The exponent was bigger than 1, about 1.15. That means that when you double the size of the city, you get more than double the amount of both good and bad socioeconomic quantities—patents, aids cases, wages, crime, and so on.”
More can be learned by reading Prof. West’s book “Scale”, or by watching one or two of his YouTube videos.
Two aspects of scaling are massively relevant to our existing civilization: the efficiency gains that resulted from growing towns and cities, around the world, compared if we had stayed a rurally based population, with the same population.
Take an example of a material, let’s call it “K”, it could be bitumen for roads, or wire in overhead transmissions, or bricks in shops or commercial premises, etc., any physical attribute that has scaled at around 85% for every doubling of population. A city that has grown over the last 100 plus years from 100,000 to a current 3.2M has had 5 doublings in population size, while “K” that originally had 85,000 tonnes used for infrastructure has grown to 1.842M tonnes of use with the same doublings of population. It’s still massive growth, but if the growth had matched population growth on a one for one basis, as in scaled at 1, it would have grown to 2.7M tonnes of use. Think of all the energy and materials saved by using only 1.8M tonnes of “K” instead of 2.7M tonnes for the same population if it had scaled a 1:1 instead of sub-linearly at 0.85:1.
While this sub-linear scaling for materials and energy use has been an advantage for efficiency in the cities, it almost always goes unnoticed in our modern world as there is still a vast increase in energy and material use, plus cities are huge vacuums of resources from their hinterlands and we tend to focus just on the increased use of both energy and materials, while not realising the efficiency gains in the background.
Where do all the efficiency gains come from, apart from the usual excuse of human ingenuity? In the case of scaling laws, it’s the other side of the coin. With human settlements we have super-linear scaling or hypermetric scaling (above 1 around 1.15) for just about every aspect of socio economic human interaction. Whether it’s ideas, innovation, patents, arts, wages, GDP, money, debt, research, R&D expenditure, telecommunication volume, social interactions, or even walking speed!!
However, we also get hyperlinear scaling of around the same 1.15 or 115% for every doubling of the population for crime rates, disease spread, police, traffic congestion, pollution, and waste.
Pivot 1!!
I want to stop here for a second, because the theory and research findings, suddenly didn’t make sense to me!!
How can urban areas/cities of which a huge proportion of humans now live in compared to prior historic times be more energy efficient at the rate of 85% for every doubling in their population, when overall energy use has grown by something like 30 times while the population has grown by 10-12 times, in other words a super-linear scaling of overall energy use?
I track this inconsistency back to the definition of urban areas/cities. What they are measuring has been the residential and old commercial part of cities or central local government areas, where all the people mostly live, not the entire metropolitan area including all the industrial areas and ports!!
The following map/diagram, is a heat map of a city in Northern Italy, Padua. It doesn’t matter which one, as it shows the entropy of a city, but also has where the old city centre is located compared to today’s energy use. Notice how number 6 is the old city centre, which has had the population double and double again over time, where the huge sublinear scaling of an 85% increase in energy use, infrastructure etc. has occurred for every doubling of human population, even though many of those people might work in the Industrial area number 1, that is excluded from the calculations of energy use for the ‘city’. The cities physical limits stay constant in all the research.
It doesn’t matter how the research is not that accurate for overall growth as portrayed by Prof West in so many videos. It is still accurate and important for the efficiency gains we’ve had for where people live and interact.
It also makes a lot of logical sense, as people living in high rise smaller apartments have obvious heating and cooling savings, material savings in construction, less street area per person etc., compared to those living in stand alone housing in rural areas. Plus less distance to the supermarket, or restaurant, or university, or office block, etc..
End pivot.
Back to scaling laws that definitely apply in nature such as in Kleiber’s Law described above. What if we took the entirety of human civilization as a whole, as no city in the modern world can build, exist or operate without inputs from across the world, whereas this might have been restricted to the local area 600 years ago, so we must accommodate for this massive change.
The character of cities has evolved from originally relying solely upon their hinterland thousands of years ago, to being totally dependent upon areas outside their hinterland today.
Using total human population doublings compared to energy and materials growth we get the following over the last few doublings.
The Long-Term Scaling of the “Bloom”
| Population Doubling | Approx. Dates | Total Energy Increase | Scaling Exponent |
| 500M – 1B | ~1500 – 1804 | ~1.3x to 1.5x | ~0.4 to 0.6 (Hypometric) |
| 1B – 2B | 1804 – 1927 | ~5x to 6x | ~2.3 to 2.6 (Extreme Hyper-linear) |
| 2B – 4B | 1927 – 1974 | ~4.7x | ~2.2 (Extreme Hyper-linear) |
| 4B – 8B | 1974 – 2022 | ~2.5x | ~1.3 (Hyper-linear) |
| Population Milestone | Approx. Year | Total Material Use (Gt/yr) | Global “Metabolism” per Person |
| 500 Million | ~1500 | ~1.0 Gt | ~2 tonnes |
| 1 Billion | ~1804 | ~2.5 Gt | ~2.5 tonnes |
| 2 Billion | ~1927 | ~7.0 Gt | ~3.5 tonnes |
| 4 Billion | ~1974 | ~30 Gt | ~7.5 tonnes |
| 8 Billion | ~2022 | ~100+ Gt | ~12.5 tonnes |
Notice how every aspect of energy and materials use is super linear scaled since the start of the fossil fuel era. If I was writing up chapters of a book, I’d break this down further for say a 15-20% increases in population and compared to above energy and materials use.
I’ve also been working on breaking it all up into other categories like net energy use, or total materials moved, that accounts for all the extra earth moving from mining 1% ore grades instead of 10% ore grades etc. None of them really change the big picture shown by just energy and materials above, except for the net energy where we are going backwards. By necessity though, net energy calculations are not possibly fully accurate, but the trend is what’s important…
Net Energy vs. Population Doublings (Estimates)
| Population Doubling | Total Energy (EJ) | Estimated EROI | Net Energy (Surplus) | Energy System Cost |
| 1B – 2B | 20 – 100 | 40 – 80 | ~5.1x Increase | ~2.5x Increase |
| 2B – 4B | 100 – 260 | 80 – 40 | ~2.6x Increase | ~5.2x Increase |
| 4B -8B | 260 – 600 | 40 – 15 | ~2.2x Increase | ~6.2x Increase |
Notice how net surplus energy after taking out estimated energy cost of energy is still super-linear in scaling. I therefore took it down to the increases in net energy for every 15% increase in population from more recently, from the end of exponential oil use growth.
Net Energy vs. 15% Population Growth (Post-1974)
Figures based on a weighted average global EROI that includes the shift from conventional oil (100:1) to unconventional (15:1) and renewables (<5:1 in full-system terms).
| Window | Pop. Growth | Net Energy Increase | Energy System “Tax” |
| 1974 – 1986 | +15.3% | ~24% | Baseline |
| 1986 – 1998 | +15.1% | ~19% | ~1.4x |
| 1998 – 2010 | +15.2% | ~12% | ~2.8x |
| 2010 – 2022 | +15.0% | ~4% | ~4.2x |
The energy tax is just the growing cost of gaining energy, but the obvious take from above is that since around 1998 while population has kept growing, net energy has not kept pace and the lag between them is growing. Meanwhile ore grades continue to decline and energy use to gain metals and minerals is accelerating. Calvo and Mudd 2016, have shown that a 30% increase in copper production came with a 46% increase in energy use for that production, which means falling ore grades, remoteness, deepness of mines, harder ore indexes have overcome any efficiency gains. This is another part of the story though, so I’ll leave it or this will be a book.
Pivot 2 !!
What about the super scaling aspects of human civilization, how do they fit into the big picture??
One aspect of super scaling of anything is that as you move forward in time at some point super-scaling has to reach infinity as it’s exponential growth.
Then there is the vast difference between the super-scaling that happened as populations doubled in urban areas and towns for all socioeconomic metrics, like innovation, GDP, patents, research, R&D expenditure, wages + salaries, wealth creation, higher degrees in specialities, information exchange, cultural output as in restaurants, theatres, creative venues, along with all the negatives of crime, police numbers, disease spread, waste, land rents and taxes, compared to physical super-linear scaling of materials and energy use. The former are all man made concepts, the latter have physical limits.
In the long term it’s impossible for these to reach infinity, so we know it simply cannot go on forever.
We also changed the scaling rules, instead of a town or city growing organically, we made the world pretty much as one, for a lot of our human interactions and storytelling.
We created the internet where communication is available instantly around the world. We have forums all over the place for sharing of all types of stories, YouTube videos for learning skills, or sharing new ideas on every possible range of topics. We have online journals in most specialist areas where a new article can be instantly shared around the world. All this accelerates the super-linear scaling of every socio economic metric.
The table below shows the rate of increase in our collective complexity, in other words the stories we tell ourselves.
Global Cumulative Growth per 15% Population Step (1970–2024)
| Population Milestone | Year (Approx.) | 15% Pop. Step | Global GDP (% Increase) | Scientific Papers (% Increase) | Administrative Loading (% Increase) |
| 3.7 Billion | 1970 | Base | Base | Base | Base |
| 4.25 Billion | 1978 | +15% | +44% | +40% | +35% |
| 4.9 Billion | 1986 | +15% | +31% | +43% | +28% |
| 5.6 Billion | 1994 | +15% | +28% | +50% | +32% |
| 6.5 Billion | 2005 | +16% | +46% | +100% | +55% |
| 7.5 Billion | 2017 | +15% | +40% | +100% | +62% |
| 8.0 Billion | 2024 | +7% | +18% | +70% | +40% |
I’ve included GDP as just a story we tell ourselves, just like every scientific paper (whether true or not!), plus every other nonphysical aspect of our modern world. We cannot live on these stories, we need food, shelter, clothing, etc., and we can earn money by telling these stories to each other and use money (another story humans tell each other!) to buy food, shelter and clothing.
However we don’t tell all these stories in a vacuum. Take the increased administration. This takes people, buildings, heating, air conditioning, paper, computers, etc. I can look at my local government in a rural area where over 40 years ago there was a shire secretary, a building inspector, a health inspector and a couple of administrative assistants. For pretty much the same population as back then, the administration has around 60 people, all using energy and physical resources.
End pivot…
Back to scaling laws in the natural world.
In the natural world, super-linear scaling is extremely rare, while sub-linear scaling occurs in many systems.
As noted early, nearly all life forms have a type of inherent sub-linear scaling and can exist for extremely long periods of time. The ecosystems the lifeforms collectively form also have this sub-linear scaling.
We also have sub-linear scaling in physical non-life systems, that are also extremely long lasting. For example a river length extends by around 0.6 for the increase in size of the river basin (Hack’s Law).
Then there is the surface volume law for planets and stars where the energy loss of a sphere is only 0.67 times the increase in volume (radius squared compared to radius cubed). This is why a large planet like Earth stays hot for billions of years, while a small satellite like our Moon cools down and “dies” quickly. The larger the mass, the more efficient the “insulation.” (more on stars later!!)
The dissipation of energy in large-scale fluids (like the wind or ocean currents) follows Kolmogorov scaling. The energy contained in small eddies scales sub-linearly relative to the energy in large-scale flows.
Also on the largest possible scale, the way matter is distributed in the universe follows sub-linear fractal patterns. The number of galaxies found within a sphere of radius scales with an exponent of roughly 2.0 (instead of 3.0). The universe isn’t a solid block of matter; it’s a web of filaments. This “under-filling” of space is sub-linear which allows gravity to balance the expansion of the universe without everything collapsing into a single point.
I could but won’t go on. Every one of the above sub-linear scaling laws in the natural world is a huge area of research by itself, with books and high-level research (stories by humans) about it all, if anyone is slightly interested.
Super-linear scaling is rare and only tends to last a short period of time.
In the natural world of life, super-linear scale events are things like cancer. A tumor’s metabolic demand and growth rate scale super-linearly relative to its mass. Because it scales faster than the host’s ability to provide energy (the sub-linear “pipes”), it eventually starves the host and itself. It is a “singularity” that ends in the death of the system.
Then there are outbreaks like a locust plague or an algal bloom. When a “pulse” of energy (like nitrogen/phosphorus runoff) hits water, the algae population scales super-linearly. They use the excess energy to replicate at a rate that ignores the usual “checks and balances.”
When environmental triggers (like sudden rain) occur, locusts undergo a “phase change” from solitary to gregarious. Their interaction density scales super-linearly, triggering a massive, coordinated population explosion.
Algal blooms grow so fast (super-linear demand) that they consume all the dissolved oxygen in the water (sub-linear supply). They literally suffocate the environment that supports them. A locust plague consumes every green thing in its path. It is a “vacuum” of energy that strips the landscape faster than the landscape can regenerate.
Because these processes are super-linear, they cannot reach a “steady state.” They always end in a Finite-Time Collapse:
The Algal Crash: Once the nutrients are gone or the oxygen is depleted, the algae die off en masse. This creates a “dead zone”—a state of high entropy and total system failure.
The Locust Die-off: Once the swarm runs out of food or hits a geographical barrier, the population collapses. They simply starve or revert to a solitary, low-energy state.
Interestingly, locust plagues are triggered by information. When locusts’ hind legs are touched enough times in a crowded environment, it triggers a hormonal shift. This is exactly like socioeconomic scaling. The “interaction density” of the crowd changes the behaviour of the individual to prioritize runaway growth over individual survival.
Non-life natural systems.
Super-linear scaling happens in things like nuclear fission. In a prompt critical state, the number of neutrons scales super-linearly with time.
In chemical explosions, the rate of reaction increases as heat is released, which in turn increases the rate of reaction.
The Outcome is a state of high entropy and energy dissipation. It eventually “exhausts” the kinetic energy of the flow unless more energy is constantly pumped in.
Back to stars.
Inside the core, the nuclear fusion rate scales super-linearly with the mass of the star. As a star’s size gets bigger, the internal pressure and temperature spike, causing it to burn fuel at an astronomical rate. This is the “Live Fast, Die Young” reality.
Earlier I mentioned that star’s surface area cooled at a sub-linear rate which is also true and hence a conflict. The reason stars of large magnitude are so unstable is specifically to do with this conflict of 2 scaling laws.
The instability of massive stars stems from a fundamental mismatch in how gravity and pressure scale as a star grows (‘grows’ means comparing stars of different initial masses, as they don’t grow like a plant, etc.). While a star’s mass (and its inward gravitational pull) increases with its volume, the outward radiation pressure required to counter that gravity increases far more aggressively, proportional to the fourth power of temperature (T4). In these giants, light becomes the dominant structural support rather than gas, creating a “squishy,” delicate balance where the outward push of photons nearly overcomes the inward pull of gravity. This forces the star to operate at the Eddington Limit, where it becomes so volatile that it frequently sheds its own mass in violent eruptions or pulses, eventually leading to a catastrophic structural failure when the core can no longer sustain the furious energy output required to stay inflated, as in supernova explosion.
Enough of large stars, there are books written about all this, suffice to say that having 2 different scaling laws applying at the same time make them very unstable.
Finally, let’s put it all together and get to the reason you’re probably reading this essay.
Human civilization has aspects of both sub-linear scaling like most life forms, and super-linear scaling like very few life forms and physical processes in the universe.
When did humans show the first signs of super-scaling? The answer might surprise some, but it was back in our hunter-gathering days, when there was enough social interaction of early religions that allowed the building of such places as Göbeklitepe in Turkey or Pivot Point in the U.S.A. Though super-scaling really took off with the towns and city states that developed with agriculture.
Every one of these city states, though, ended up collapsing as the growth in the socio-economic sphere of complexity outgrew the surrounding supply of energy and materials. Every anthropologist has their own description of exactly what happened with city states and their collapses, but they just about always stick to ‘human’ factors and certainly don’t embrace falling EROEI, and diminishing returns on materials, as playing an important role.
Prof Joseph Tainter, certainly does cover the increasing complexity of administration or problem solving, which acts as a tax on the prosperity of the culture, but doesn’t quite go as far as attributing a super-scaling aspect to this problem solving.
Fast forward to today’s civilization, where the complexity is growing at a growing rate.
With the help of A.I. I’ve created the following table…
Complexity Growth per 15% Population Addition
Statistics based on proxies including regulatory volume, R&D expenditure, and global supply chain nodes.
| 15% Pop. Window | Approx. Years | Complexity Growth (%) | Scaling Ratio | Major Driver |
| Window 1 | 1974 – 1982 | ~28% | 1.8x | Early Automation / Fuel Efficiency |
| Window 2 | 1982 – 1991 | ~42% | 2.8x | Personal Computing / Global Debt |
| Window 3 | 1991 – 2001 | ~65% | 4.3x | The Internet / Just-in-Time Logistics |
| Window 4 | 2001 – 2012 | ~88% | 5.9x | Carbon-Silicon Fusion / Social Media |
| Window 5 | 2012 – 2024 | ~112% | 7.5x | AI / High-Tech Governance (ESG) |
Everyone that has been around for enough decades, intuitively knows the above to be true in every facet of their lives. If you want to build a nuclear power plant, or a shed in your backyard, or sell some produce at a market, anywhere in the Western World, there are layers of more rules and regulations compared to a few decades ago.
Back when we bought our farm, if you wanted to put up an agricultural shed, you just built it. Now in 2026 you require a planning permit ($cost), which requires different experts to perform tests to make sure the land isn’t too steep, and the ground has the geotechnical strength to support the shed, plus bushfire overlays, environmental overlays, vegetation management overlays, etc. Then you apply for the building permit ($cost), that another expert must make sure all the engineering calculations, colour of building, appropriate materials, etc. are used. Then if you want to use the shed for any commercial purposes, more sets of rules come into play ($larger costs).
The above table, is just a best guestimate, but there are different actual statistics that back it up, like reports on ESG rules and regulations growth over the last 25 years, etc.
I’ve lost count of the number of politicians that promise if they are elected then they will cut the red tape for ….. (name your own businesses, companies, level of govt, etc) but it just doesn’t happen on any scale, as all rules, regulations, extra complexity are about ‘helping’ people or making everything ‘safer’ for workers, public, school kids, nurses, farmers, the poor, the homeless, the environment, the whales, the dolphins, the rare double breasted red herring, etc, etc, etc.
Where did this more recent explosion in the super-linear scaling of complexity come from? It’s easily accounted for by the internet that has made the social interactions of the whole world as if we were one large super city. Ideas, knowledge, concepts, stories, research papers all are instantly available around the world once posted online. Anyone here not think that a new set of rules or a tax thought up in Timbuktu won’t be recognized as a possibility in your own area very quickly if it serves a distinct purpose?
People will argue that the rules, regulations and increased complexity are a choice, and despite the increasing energy and material cost of these growing phenomena, it is a choice humans have made, so humans could also choose to undo it.
What they always fail to recognize is that money, debt, patents, stock markets, bond markets, religions, etc., are also just stories that humans have told ourselves and convinced each other are real, when realistically they are all part of the socio-economic fabric of the world we’ve built and are real as this super-linear scaling is what keeps modernity functioning.
As a civilization, we have super-linear scaled our use of energy, materials, and every socioeconomic metric, as we’ve grown to this scale on a finite planet. We have a 6 continent supply chain based on so many factories, processing plants, mines, banks, letters of credit, ports, ships, trucks, railways, flights, markets, organisations, trade blocks, that work in such a complex fashion, that it’s impossible to understand it all.
If there is anything we can learn from all other types of super-linear scaling it’s simply that they all end, and always very abruptly, compared to the time they were in the super-linear scaling phase.
Again I’ve used A.I for this last bit..
Is there any type of super-linear scaling that has ended gently?
There are no examples of super-linear scaling ending “gently.” In physics and biology, super-linear scaling is inherently unstable because it creates a positive feedback loop that accelerates until it reaches a physical limit.
In every known natural case, the ending is a discontinuous “break” or a catastrophic phase transition. Here are the three ways nature “ends” super-linear scaling:
The large star. It never “tapers off.” It burns faster and hotter until it hits the Iron Wall. The end is the Supernova—a sudden, violent collapse followed by an explosion. The system doesn’t “downsize”; it is physically obliterated, leaving only a tiny, dead remnant (a neutron star or black hole).
The bloom model of Algae or Locusts. These systems grow until they hit the Metabolic Ceiling of their environment. Because they have no “brakes,” they consume their host or their food supply entirely. The Result: A total population crash. 99.9% of the organisms die in a matter of days or weeks once the “Iron Wall” of resources is hit. The “scaling” ends in a wipe, not a transition.
The wildfire. A wildfire or a forest fire exhibits super-linear energy release as it grows (heat creates wind, which feeds the fire more oxygen). The Ending: The fire does not “gently” decide to become a candle. It accelerates until it either runs out of fuel or exhausts its oxygen. The Result: A sudden “flicker and out” or a massive “flashover” collapse. The system leaves behind a high-entropy state (ash) that cannot support any further scaling for a long time.
To conclude an already too long essay on a topic that deserves a book, this video of Prof Geoffrey West on Nate Hagens’ Great Simplification podcast opened my eyes to the world of scaling laws and its importance in our civilization.
On this episode, physicist Geoffrey West joins Nate to discuss his decades of work on metabolic scaling laws found in nature and how they apply to humans and our economies. As we think about the past and future of societies, there are patterns that emerge independently across cultures in terms of resource use and social phenomena as the size of a city grows. Does Kleiber’s law, which describes the increasingly efficient use of energy as an animal gets larger – also apply to human cities? How have humans deviated from this rule through excess social consumption beyond a human body’s individual metabolic needs? What could we learn from these scaling laws to adjust our communities to be more aligned with the biophysical realities of energy and resource consumption? Can an understanding of social metabolism impact our social metabolism?
I recommended you watch the entire video, but the most important part is from 32.30 to around the 42.00. Be cognisant that the scaling laws Dr. West refers to are inside the main residential areas and it seems from lots of research I’ve read to exclude the heavy industrial areas, which explains the actual amount of energy and materials our civilization uses.
Most of the video past the 42 minute mark demonstrates the usual human denial by looking for ways to overcome fundamental laws of physics that clearly show anything that grows exponentially (aka super-linear scaling) comes to a rapid end.
To conclude, civilization is a physical phenomenon, not really different to a large star that has both sub-linear and super linear scaling, nor that different to a locust plague or algal bloom, consuming every available resource until it reaches a limit, and then the entirety of the system just dissipates.
You will not find any physicists arguing that civilization is not an energy dissipative structure, so why should civilization end differently than any other energy dissipative structure?
Even in Prof Geoffrey West’s findings of scaling laws that apply to cities, he and his colleagues still find that “innovation”, being the important element (not total energy use), must keep increasing at a faster rate and still reaches a point of “singularity” anyway. Singularity is a polite physics term for collapse. (He explains this in the video link above anyway).
All past civilizations have collapsed, and some people like to use them as models for our potential slow collapse. However all past civilizations were agriculturally based for their energy in the cities, with the proportionally massive rural population living a mostly subsistence lifestyle, so could easily carry on exactly as they had prior to the town/city or state developing.
Even the Roman Empire at its peak only had around 2% of the population in Rome itself, with around 7% of the total population in all urban areas. Our modern world is vastly different to this, with the developed world often having 70-80% or more of the population in urban areas, and the farming relying upon all of modernity to take place. We have neither the skills nor the equipment/animals to go back to a subsistence type of agriculture, like those in collapsed civilizations of the past.
I attribute just as much human ingenuity to those living in prior civilizations as we have, yet this never stopped them from collapsing, nor did human agency, and we could argue that they had more agency than we do in modern democracies, as it’s easier to change rules and how people live in monarchies with absolute rule, than in modern democracies where governments come and go every few years.
My summary of No1’s summary.
https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-05-21
Nicole Foss was a favorite of mine 10ish years ago when she wrote about the unsustainability of our system. I saw her speak live once when I was just learning about peak oil.
Here is some of Foss’s work I posted on un-Denial.
Foss withdrew from writing a few years ago but is back.
Today she explains her view of the covid crimes. Foss thinks covid was one piece of a global plan to cull the population.
I still lean to blaming clever monkeys in denial trying to make money for status on a bus with no driver that is steered by CACTUS forces.
But I’m not certain because so many dimension of covid were so obviously wrong they are hard to explain without assuming deliberate malice.
As marromai said:
https://www.foss.blog/2026/05/21/the-bioweapon-population-cull/
Herman Daly was a respected overshoot expert who influenced many other overshoot experts.
Daly’s life’s work was based on the idea of sustainable development, achieved by governing civilization with ecological economics.
CACTUS shows that Daly’s work was complete nonsense.
CACTUS is a big deal.
https://steadystate.org/overlooked-steady-staters/
Thank you for this wonderful analysis. I watched or listened to the TGS interview with Geoffrey West at the time, and bought his book, because I doubted his findings, but didn’t have time to do a deep dive like this. I’m tempted to contact Nate or his institute with a link to this essay.
Tom Murphy has recently published a series called “Two Murphies”, about a debate he had with someone who does appear to believe that modernity can be sustained.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2026/04/two-murphys-part-1/
He just published part 4 today.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2026/05/two-murphys-part-4/
Here we can see the difference between someone with working denial genes and some one who has at least partially broken denial genes.
I left a comment on part 3 that said “I’m enjoying this series very much Tom, but c’mon you have to admit, you’re debating a child.”
He did not post it of course. Just like my last couple of attempts. But this time it might have been my new name that scared him off.😂
I also left a comment, I believe on resilience.org, asking for a chance for Tom to rebut Dave’s conclusion. I haven’t checked on whether the comment was posted or whether there were replies.
It’s not a psychological disorder.
It’s an improbable evolved behavior that emerged only once on this planet.
We’ve all been focused on the Iran war due to the dire implications of Hormuz being closed.
Meanwhile, US and Europe have become much more aggressive in their efforts to harm Russia and a major retaliation by Russia against Europe is now probable, and could lead to a very bad place depending on how US/Europe responds.
Western leaders have lost the ability to put themselves in the shoes of their enemies which has created a very dangerous situation.
There are many MORT tones in this essay by Glenn Diesen.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/europes-irrationality-and-inability
Unrelated:
In my ongoing search for more evidence in regards to MORT, I have come across this individual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33231784/
“Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception
Does natural selection favor veridical percepts-those that accurately (if not exhaustively) depict objective reality? Perceptual and cognitive scientists standardly claim that it does. Here we formalize this claim using the tools of evolutionary game theory and Bayesian decision theory. We state and prove the “Fitness-Beats-Truth (FBT) Theorem” which shows that the claim is false: If one starts with the assumption that perception involves inference to states of the objective world, then the FBT Theorem shows that a strategy that simply seeks to maximize expected-fitness payoff, with no attempt to estimate the “true” world state, does consistently better.”
Anyone familiar with his work? Seems to support MORT, if correct.
Addendum:
Google Gemini about Hoffman’s work: “His simulations yielded a shocking result: Organisms tuned to truth always go extinct when competing against organisms tuned to fitness.”
“Hoffman proves via computer simulations that evolution actively weeds out truth-seekers in favor of systems that prioritize fitness-enhancing illusions.”
That sounds about right. Technology requires an uncompromising look at reality and mathematical precision in order to make tool fit substrate just as an enzyme evolves to fit substrate precisely. The goal is to make the resources flow through the dissipative structures in furtherance of a homeostatic state as efficiently as possible. The remainder of reality can be or must be obfuscated or dismissed. This is why we have the Phd. homozymes that are geniuses at making technological advances while being unconscious of the unsavory aspects of reality or covering them with fictions that suit their emotional needs or innate needs to continue their dissipative functions.
The idea that our brain does not accurately model reality seems plausible and likely. It’s easy to think of examples we’ve all experienced to validate this idea.
Hoffman’s explanation of this idea is another matter.
AJ and I briefly discussed Hoffman’s book 4 years ago here:
https://un-denial.com/2021/12/15/by-bill-rees-on-the-virtues-of-self-delusion-or-maybe-not/comment-page-5/#comment-57630
P.S. The book Life Ascending: The Ten Greatest Inventions of Evolution by Dr. Nick Lane is my favorite book of all time. I have read it many times and it will be the last book I read before dying if I have any say in the matter.
Dr. William Rees today with an essay on his experience studying human overshoot and the origin of the ecological footprint idea that he is famous for.
Rees is a top expert on overshoot yet does not understand CACTUS because he thinks it is possible for a steady-state modernity to exist.
Another top overshoot expert, Dr. Dennis Meadows, who authored the 1970’s Limits to Growth study, also made the same error.
Hideaway’s CACTUS theory really is a big deal because it invalidates core beliefs of overshoot experts.
https://reeswilliame.substack.com/p/carrying-capacity-the-vinegar-in
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that “carrying capacity” graph, but it always annoys me. It makes out that the carrying capacity is around half of the overshoot level. That’s just plain wrong, and was for things we know that go to super-linear scaling like locust plagues, algal blooms or even the Reindeer on St Mathew’s Island.
Realistically the carrying capacity line is 95%-99% down towards the ‘time’ line.
Where it’s currently placed makes it look like Earth had a carrying capacity of 4B humans, whereas the last time humans were able to survive for tens of thousands of years, even with damage and extinction to many mega fauna species, the human population was around 4M.
Dennis Meadows and the whole “Limits to Growth” team and computer program, missed the ever decreasing grades of resources and that efficiency gains had limits, so there never was a sustainable population with any modernity.
Modern civilization relies upon mining of both energy and materials to overcome entropy and dissipation. It’s a process that has to rise exponentially just to replace what’s lost to entropy and dissipation, no matter how many or few our population is.
Exponential growth of an energy source, no matter what it is, on a finite planet, just does not work in the long term, because of the laws of thermodynamics. Unfortunately it’s that simple.
Once we work out that modernity was never sustainable, because of physics, the rest of CACTUS falls into place. Most people don’t understand simple physics laws of thermodynamics, or don’t want to understand them and there implications for civilization.
That’s a good explanation of CACTUS.
Meanwhile, every overshoot expert in the world is silent on CACTUS.
How is it possible that they all ignore the biggest new idea in their field of study to emerge in a long time?
I think the cause is MORT, another important theory that everyone ignores.
It’s ok to discuss overshoot if you believe a solution exists for modernity to continue at a reduced population.
It’s not ok to discuss overshoot if it’s impossible for modernity to continue under any circumstances.
Tom Murphy seems to believe that Modernity is inherently unsustainable, but he discusses it in a long-term abstract sense, and not in a sense that Modernity will end abruptly during the lifetimes of many of his readers.
All hope is lost for US democracy. Thomas Massie was defeated today.
there was no democracy. It has always been you will vote for who we let you vote for. Democrats did it blatantly with Kamala. It is all corrupt.
Citizens could have voted for Massie but enough were swayed not to by $32+ million from Israel spent on ads against him.
Any citizens that watch ads and are swayed by them deserve to get something that is not a very good outcome.
If you care about the Thomas Massie story and what it implies, you will love this inspired monologue by Tucker Carlson.
Pretty good interview from the perspective of highlighting how confusing and crazy the world has become.
Insider experts have no better understanding of what’s going on that we do.
Among many other issues discussed, Pakistan just sent 8000 troops to Saudi Arabia. Why? To protect Saudi Arabia from whom? Iran or the US?
I doubt that the region or the world economy will recover from this. Even if it doesn’t trigger CACTUS, it will be a permanent step down in catabolic collapse.
Nate Hagens today unveiled his MEGA-PLAN for how we should prepare and respond to CACTUS.
The most important thing I noticed is that Hagens does not mention our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realties, nor how he plans to cause the 95% of citizens who deny overshoot to understand what is going on and embrace his plan instead of becoming violent and making things worse.
This despite 10+ years of me trying to teach Nate about Dr. Varki’s MORT.
It’s a plan, like Jack Alpert’s original plan, that skips Step 1, that all subsequent steps depend on.
How is this possible? Seriously.
P.S. Hagens also does not mention CACTUS, but in his defense, CACTUS is a new idea and I’ve not put any effort in making him aware of Hideaway’s theory because I learned from MORT that it is a waste of time.
https://natehagens.substack.com/p/essay-what-to-do-as-the-world-falls
Nate Hagens first recaps our overshoot predicament without using the word overshoot:
Then Nate provides advice on what we should do about overshoot.
He uses a lot of words that are hard to summarize but here is my attempt:
1) Find like minded friends.
2) Make plans for surviving with less of everything.
3) Protect nearby ecosystems from more damage caused by collapse.
4) Be kind to others.
5) Participate in and shape local government.
6) Tell new stories to shape our culture to cope with reality.
7) Design a new economic system for your local region.
Nate proposes we implement all of the above in 3 phases:
A) Move fast now before everything breaks.
B) Prioritize use of resources so our system bends instead of breaking.
C) The Stable Attractor – no idea what he’s talking about – maybe one of you can try translating this mumbo-jumbo:
Concluding Thoughts
The plan to solve the human predicament, summarized:
Pretty accurate summary. Well done.
Nate sounds plenty worried. I think he feels a deep responsibility to hand his audience some sort of agency.
I think there’s much going on inside Nate’s head that he doesn’t want to say out loud.
Yes I agree, Nate is not at peace with reality.
I have been very absorbed of late in the work of Martin Butler, having joined his Patreon and reading a lot on there – he is someone Chris has posted about before. This may be of interest, a document that lays out 12 core tenets of this Negative Philosophy. I would welcome any thoughts from wise un-denialists 🙂 .
1. You Will Die – The fact we are decaying things that die is the reference point for evaluating how we live a life. It should moderate ambitions, diminish self-importance and have a freeing effect since nothing you do is important.
2. To let go is the foundation of all practice. In essence, this means being able to let go of our beliefs, opinions, biases, theories, emotions, and desires in a timely manner. It requires that we are conscious of our inner states and that we know how to let go when we wish.
3. Inner power or virtue is all that matters. Inner power comes from understanding and the ability to act on the understanding. A person with power is not a leaf blown around by whatever happens in life.
4. To “not-care“ is the perfect antidote to life. Unfortunately coming to the state of not caring cannot just be switched on, it is the result of years of letting go. We can always not care because we can not-care that we care about something.
5. Never Try to Change. Negative philosophy is not concerned with morality or rules on how to behave in life. You are fine as you are and all that is required is that you observe yourself and come to understand yourself.
6. No free will. Every effect has a cause, meaning that our behavior at every moment is caused. The notion of free will arises because we are cause blind.
7. No self. What we consider to be a self is nothing more than the thoughts, emotions, and desires that run through our consciousness.
8. Abstractions such as purpose, meaning, truth and morality are human inventions aimed at making us feel significant.
9. Nothing in life can offer satisfaction. This means, of course, that we will always be dissatisfied. But we can not-care that we are dissatisfied.
10. Misery is inevitable. The fundamental dynamics of life, characterized by a permanent state of decay, loss, disappointment, and dissatisfaction, mean that our inner life will be one of lack and result in misery. For those who can rest in their misery, it is something akin to a blessed state.
11. Existence is a case of all-against-all. This is inevitable as billions of creatures compete for power and resources. Polite social activities might disguise the conflict, but it is always there.
12. Happiness is a childish idea. The quickest way to become even more unhappy is to seek happiness.
This is awesome. Thank you. Very succinct and clear, every point.
I don’t really have anything useful to express around it, or nihilism in general, except that much of my life has been a gradual, erratic, journey toward the very conclusions you have listed above.
thanks.
I am glad – and you are welcome. It was a toss up on whether to express / share such a view. Here is one more for the road. He has many, many essays like this!
Not So Serious
After several hours of oblivion, we wake up in the morning and find ourselves in a state of survival consciousness. Our mind, emotions, desires, and sensations are all geared to ensure, as far as possible, that we continue to persist as best we can. This survival consciousness is a bit of a joke, being a product of the brain, and has the sole function of supporting our efforts to get the resources the body needs. Rats have a less sophisticated survival consciousness, but it does pretty much the same thing.
This daytime consciousness we inhabit has evolved to maximize our survival fitness, and not much else. While it is capable of supporting the processing of symbols (words and images mainly), our survival consciousness has not evolved so that we can establish the “truth” of our existence. This consciousness exists in our own perceptual and conceptual bubble; the truth is not within our reach. Our ability to process symbols has proven useful; there is no doubt about that, but we overreach ourselves when we think we can decipher the universe’s secrets.
Taking our daytime waking consciousness seriously is a terrible mistake. It cannot tell us anything other than the price of eggs and the speed of light. In other words, it processes experience. Please don’t look for it to tell you why there is something instead of nothing, whether the universe had a beginning, and why cows have four legs. This survival consciousness is adept at establishing “what” but wholly inept when it comes to “why.”
Unfortunately, this consciousness also comes with the illusion that we are a distinct, definite psychological entity with our own existence. This is a trick of nature to make us strive even harder to persist in our existence. Animals have an instinctive drive to avoid danger and persist, and we also have this. But we also don’t want to lose our existence as a person, despite the fact it is an illusion. It’s a cruel trick because we know that our life will come to an end one day.
If we can understand that during waking hours we occupy a kind of dream set up by the brain, which does not know anything other than establishing the price of eggs or how to calculate Planck’s constant, and that it presents us with a fictitious entity called a self, then we have the possibility of taking daytime consciousness less seriously. It disappears when we sleep anyway, once we have got the eggs and had our car serviced.
As a “creative”….I don’t know how else to express this, there is an exercise from Betty Edwards book, Drawing On Right Side of the Brain, where a drawing is begun by drawing negative spaces or voids around and within the subject, and not the subject itself. A thing may be defined by what it is not. It’s not mysterious. Just a shift in perspective.
What is the proportion of void or empty space to the quantity or mass of molecules that any object consists of? I don’t actually know. But I suspect we float within an infinite nothing, bound by charges and interacting valences determined by density, proximity, mass, and so on.
As a child, I experienced certain fundamental betrayals, that carried some hard earned gifts. Consequently, reality has never been a rock solid proposition. This has demanded a certain flexibility, for which, I am now grateful.
…..and so, what many find disorienting and repugnant in respect to the idea of the essential meaninglessness of existence, belief, cherished narratives, cultural norms, religions, “spirit” or “soul”(lol), “purpose”, Justice, and so on, are just that…comforting, but essentially meaningless.
That said, I love me a cheap red wine, a bowl of pasta with pesto made from basil I grew myself, with a few calamata olives on the side.
….and I believe, for what it’s worth, that every human being inhabiting and invested in global industrial civilization is stark raving mad. Including myself.
now I see MORT everywhere.
Beautifully said. I know where you are pointing to with this void.
I agree that letting go of all those cherished ideas you listed is where the juice of life seems to be, the nothingness, and yet there is the incessant “what’s next” aspect, that means I seldom rest there. I am looking at this in myself.
I was last night transcribing something about the Void, the negative space. Here’s a section:
—–
Because if you can drop all these ideas of purpose, meaning, morality, good, bad and all the rest of it, then it leaves some space. You’re, in effect, acquiescing to the void.
To no meaning, to no purpose, to no morality. To no ideas of good and bad. And that’s a very, very big thing.
And it’s the only way you find peace. But, just to add a little bit of philosophy to that, a character called Kurt Gödel, and mathematicians will know about Gödel, he lived in the last century, and he created something called the Incompleteness Theorem. And what Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem says is that everything you think, all the frameworks for thought that you have, are incomplete.
And what he means by that is that you base your world of thought on ideas that cannot be proved. And that’s true for mathematics, it’s true for science, it’s true for everything. We cannot prove the basic axioms or assumptions for the way that we think about things.
And this is a big disappointment to a whole load of people in the last century, because they thought they were effectively creating a system of thought that was totally self-contained. There’s no such thing. It doesn’t matter what your ideas are, the foundations of them are shaky.
Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem proves it. He was Einstein’s buddy, in fact he was the only guy that Einstein really wanted to know.
So, our thought is based on shaky foundations. It’s based on the void.
The essence of the mind is the void. It’s screaming at you every day. You might go looking for purpose, and you’ll never be able to convince yourself, because there is no purpose.
The essence of what you are is void. Same with meaning. People have searched for meaning for millennia.
And they might create something that’s fairly persuasive, but ultimately it all fails. And it all fails because the heart of us is void.
Nothing. Nothingness. The void is at the heart of us.
And instead of trying to fill that in when we feel a little bit lost or things seem meaningless or whatever, we should really, really savour those kinds of feelings and thoughts. Because that’s the real us, trying to pop through.
For 16 hours a day, we walk around with this conscious mind. It disappears every night for however many hours, particularly in deep dreamless sleep. Our waking mind is basically the terminus point for the subconscious.
Our subconscious is only concerned really with all the mechanisms of survival. And so the subconscious pushes through to our conscious mind. Get a job. Get food. Get money. Find a mate. Have sex. Get shelter. All the things that we need for survival. Because if you look at your everyday activities, what are they mainly concerned with? Just survival.
So to dance with the void is the most difficult thing that a human being can do. Because we are constantly tempted to fill in the blanks.
Yet if we can sit with the blanks, that is where reality is. Filling them in is just telling ourselves fairy stories. If you can dance with the void, it means being able to bear that tension.
The tension of constantly wanting to fill in the blanks all the time. So, what do you do? Well, you sit back and watch the chimp’s tea party. What’s the chimp’s tea party? Well, the chimp’s tea party is manifest existence.
All the stuff. What Lao Tzu calls the 10,000 things. Sit back and watch it.
It’s a fucking mad house. There are some delightful things. There are some horrific things.
If you get some of the wonderful stuff, great. But you’ll get some of the awful stuff as well. So, sit back and watch it.
And as they say,
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.
The void is the real deal.
—–
And so this Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, I think is basically ‘Turtles all the Way Down”. And while it does hold up, it does not mean that I dismiss the laws that have been discovered. I listened this morning to Geoffry West with Nate Hagen, the one Hideway recommended, and it is fascinating that such laws can be observed and tested as the scaling law was – Kleibers Law. But in the end, these are just on the practical level to predict what’s going to happen, and we know what’s goind to happen ultimately, we are going to die. so it’s like, Die before you Die – it could all be condensed down to that.
Re:
Yes of course! And i like this great phrase from Butler – ‘give your beast a wide pasture’ aka let it indulge in what it loves. Don’t suck the joy and pleasure out of the corporeal, but ultimately it fades, it does not satisfy and always needs to be remet again and again, that futility.
Awesome. Thanks.
As an artist, it’s in the void where I got a fresh set of eyes. Where things lose their names and I see them for the first time….again.
I recently felt that I had to reassure a loved one that I am not suicidal over this….the stripping away of various anchors. Because so much simply falls away…..and I simply do not care.
I’m an awareness pulling bindweed from encroaching upon my potatoes with sweat in my eyes….and I laugh, because I know how this ends. But it is not ending yet.
Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”
https://www.best-poems.net/mary_oliver/wild_geese.html
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
It very kind of you to post the whole poem. Thank you.
Butler’s advice seems like a mentally healthy way of responding to world affairs, and our own mortality, since nothing can be done about the general trajectory of either.
I get some peace from trying to understand what is going on and why, which I think, but am not sure, is his point 3, “inner power comes from understanding and the ability to act on the understanding”. Is Butler curious about the forces that shape our world and our behavior? What is his explanation for why only one species believes in gods, and why only one species has an extended theory of mind?
Also on point 3, what does Butler mean by “all that matters is virtue”? Does he mean that it is important that we try to be kind to others, because that important piece seems to be missing from his prescription. But if he’s advising that we try to be kind, doesn’t that conflict with his point 5, never try to change?
Good pick up re point three, and I was going to question him on that myself. I think the word virtue is used differently here and may be influenced by his fav philosopher, Spinozer, so I will give it some more thought/investigation so hopefully I can clarify, for my own sake as well.
Re your question is he curious about the forces that shape our world and our behaviour. Well yes, but he comes at it differently to you, you have a more scientific approach and it has been most important from a biological / historic way to make sense of this. I don’t think he is interested in looking that far back. However there have been some wacky ideas about ‘is it deliberate’ implying that it is a demonic set up by some malignant force, otherwise how could you account for so much cruelty and suffering in life. I don’t know if he is serious about this or not.
His words with regard to our current predicament:
So in all this, the only salvation is to use our power of reason to be able to observe that, and gain some pleasure in understanding the whole mess. He does laugh quite a lot in his talks, and I sense a light hearted approach, despite it all, which is a good sign to me.
And when I first landed at un-denial, i saw openess to this. I remember one post, where Gaia reflected on the question of whether the whole thing, ‘existence’ has been worth it. And that is a very unusual question that would normally be quite taboo. So I sensed here open minds where looking at such matters is not off the table. But clearly it still offends some.
But most of all, the message is to observe one’s own inner beast, our survival drive, selfish behaviours, desperate will to live, and to understand what is driving that and to have some distance from it. So yes, a healthy psychological approach for these times, given what we know is coming.
A truly excellent summary of his ‘philosophy’.
For me, it reeks of self-pity, is internally self-contradictory and incoherent, and he is what is so aptly called in England a ‘miserable old git’.
Our actions do matter, even on a scale that may look pitiful in a cosmic perspective; and, as I have experienced, even a thought can manifest in reality……
He’s a half-blind cripple assuring everyone that walking and seeing aren’t worth it anyway.
You are very good at dishing out ad hominems but don’t offer anything else.
You can believe what you want, Thermodynamics implies that any of your actions, goals, achievements on any level or scale do not matter as the outcome of it all is predetermined.
There are some contradictions in the work, but being able to hold such contradictions or paradox, is a sign of intellectual maturity.
The 12 tenets are a rich starting off point for discussion about life, death and everything. One I had just now with my 19 year old, after I read out loud the document to him as well.
Your comment ‘even a thought can manifest in reality’, reeks of new age nonsense, much like the work of ‘The Secret‘ from the Australian woman who wrote this best selling book that hoodwinked many thousands of people into believing they determine their own reality with their thoughts, and equally, everything bad that happens to them is their own fault. A cruel and deranged idea. She even went as far as to propose that the Tsunami of 2004 was due to people thinking ‘negative thoughts’!
Florian is right, ad hominem attacks that pay no real attention to what is proposed, are a waste of time.
Thank you for taking the time to summarise this.
I once was mentally convinced by most of that.
But, no, yuk, this is not me, not for me.
Life is incredible. Whatever the circumstances.
I am grateful. And I try to smile and welcome all of it. Which is really not an easy exercise at times, especially for a passionate person like me with strong likes and dislikes.
The most funny thing I have discovered is that, somehow, the people I most despised would sometimes turn into the best company, with time and if I made the effort to know them. It is so not static. Really magical.
The key point here is ‘no yuk’.
I get it, you recoil from this, just as you would recoil from seeing a dead animal on the road covered in maggots and stinking. That recoiling is our survival drive, the will to life and to persist at all costs. That’s all it is pointing to, and the misery such a drive can bring, and to be able to see that if, for example you have gratitude for a beautiful blossoming flower, or a loving relationship, why not have gratitude for a rotting corpse? It’s because the latter diminishes your power and survival. But both are part of life. Decay as much as growth.
Life is incredible what ever the circumstance?? What of the suffering of so many?. The banality of evil, some one who works for 12 hours a day assembling a smart phone for example, never before have humans existed or suffered in such a way. At least in the past, those who were in slavery and had a miserable existence, could not look on a smart phone and see wealth and abundance for everyone else but them. They might have been able to accept their misery a bit easier in the past.
I wonder if you were to put down an alternative 12 tenets, what would they be? Or if you did really attempt to take down each one of these, what would it look like? 🙂 You have been open and respectful in your reply, I appreciate that.
Dear Renaee,
I apologize for antagonizing you.
And these 12 tenets might be true for you. And that’s fine.
Just not for me. And it’s not fear of seeing a dead corpse (I am kind of fascinated by them, actually, because there is so much movement on a dead corpse and then when the feast is over, suddenly it all ceases 🙂
I don’t really have tenets, myself. I encountered a lot of true statements. But then, any written sentence about reality is going to turn out, at some point, a half-truth.
I think Swami Prajnanpad (who I admire a lot, there are many people I admire), said something like there is no truth in general, always in the particular (meaning general mental abstractions are not going to be true, it’s always about the particular lived context of a person). This is, to me, the meaning of “One without a second”. (One is what is, seconds are all the mental abstraction, the mind is prompt to lay on reality)
So maybe you could say my tenets are a big question mark and a big smile to the circumstances I experience.
And so, yes, for me, life is incredible, whatever the circumstances. I didn’t say easy or without pain. Just incredible. A childish awe.
Also, I don’t really identify with my body. The body is like a car to me. I take care of my car (actually I don’t own one, my wife does 🙂 But, what I am is before that. So…
Also, there is a strange power in us which shapes reality. I can make my life miserable, if I choose to. And I can make it incredible if I wish to. Even though, this is not about control. It’s more like my inner state works like a magnet (or maybe only a lens? Who knows really) of outer circumstances.
And about the suffering of so many (I think you mean pain, here? Pain is on the body, suffering is how we live it in our mind, isn’t it?), I really don’t know. I am not them. Why does it resonate with you? What is it that you have to see in you, but externalise? I don’t know, you have to see for yourself. (if the process is similar for you as it unfolds for me. Which just not may be the case)
Also, I have seen enough strange things to tell you that I don’t know where this stops, how huge this thing we call reality really is and the reason of it all. So, I can’t tell you. Again, believes who wants to, and I am not here to tell you this or that.
So yes, I have faith. I choose faith. I smile. And it’s great.
Best.
PS: yes, sometimes I get angry and vent. But then, soon after I usually laugh at myself… What is there to get angry at?
PPS: there is one exercise I do continuously, it has become a habit. It is that of observing my “inner” sensations in response to any “outside” event. When I do that, I can notice a tension I wasn’t aware of, reactions I didn’t acknowledged. And it dissolves, slowly. I know I haven’t finished that work. There is a symmetrical effect: when I correctly (with the right state of mind, at the right pace, with the right intent) work on the outside, it acts as a cleansing ritual inside me.
I hope I could share a bit of all that. I know that the more I try to put in words, the bigger the risk of misinterpretation. Words are so treacherous…
Dear Charles, no need for aplogies, you did not antagonize me, I am genuinely curious and often just passionate in the way I communicate.
Yes – the truth/Tao that can be spoken is not the Truth/Tao – I get that old spiritual trope and agree with it.
Re pain, physical or psychological. I have been interested in it throughout my life and sensitive to my own pain most of all, and that of all creatures around me, and so life long quest to understand where the pain originates from. Eg studied psychology a lot and then when this still draws a blank, looked at the deeper existential pain of existence itself, as well as dabbling in many of the spiritual / new age ideas out there as well.
I think of all the conditioning that goes into that phrase ‘smile’ and be happy. 50 or 60 years ago, when family photos were taken, no one smiled, they all looked grim. Look at us now with our ‘family snaps’ there is so much hiding underneath the frivolity of life, and I find that way more interesting.
Each to their own my friend 😊
PS- Your PPS, i do this too, something similar, though not all the time.
Words are treacherous, but on the screen they are all we have got. I find much more is communicated to me that penetrates when I listen in the context of a conversation.
Good stuff Renaee.
LOL!! I don’t think Martin received the memo:
Great MB session today Renaee! Takes brass balls to push the life negating stuff.
LOL. Wish I lived in Melbourne. I’d take you out for a late-night breakfast and embarrass you by recreating this scene down to the last detail.😊
Dang – I cant see the video?? Says not available in my country. I wished you lived in Melbourne too – we would have long and eventually tedious discussions til the wee hours of the morning 😉
Shoot. Try this one.
Got it – yeah you really would embarrass me!! 🤣 I don’t think I have ever watched this movie. Last night we watched most of Into the Wild, willf finish tonight. It’s different each time I watch it. I forgot how grim it is with his family.
If point 6 is correct (everything is predetermined), which I believe it is, then I am not capable (able) of ‘deciding’ for ‘myself’ on points 2–5, precisely because it is predetermined anyway.
The way I see this is that our actions or thoughts are determined, meaning they are a result of the conditions of the past, of previous influences.
This is not the same as everything being ‘Pre Determined’ which implies that phenomena are pre planned or fated. So saying we have no free will, is not the same as saying everything is predetermined. Viewing things as predetermined is like saying it has already happened or been figured out by something or somone, as a fait accompli.
It’s a very common misconception and Sapolski goes into it in depth in his book ‘Determined’. I just did a quick reference check on AI – it basically says the same:
To explain this difference, Sapolsky frequently relies on chaos theory:
Very intersting, thanks!
But the question remains: Can we decide? Can we be guilty?
my anwer is No. If you are intrigued by this stuff (as I was), Sapolsky’s book is the best place to start. He covers a bit of philosophy to begin with, then gets into the science in later part. It’s a hard slog, but worth it.
Good morning dear Renaee,
Thank you so much for bringing this to light, I am with Christ (or should I say Christ is with me, that sounds like it has more religious vibes) in that we could probably talk way into the wee hours! But the sun is finally shining here after 5 weeks of rain and I am reveling in all the garden tasks everywhere all at once! So very sorry that I can’t comment in more depth but this question of determinism is sticky and as much as I can understand the intellectual side of the argument, my heart says another truth, one that for me fundamentally defines my sense of beingness.
While the stage may be set for each of us, and the lines we are speak and the actions drawn out, but at the final reckoning, the moment of the scene, we can still choose how we are to act, and all the while we can be thinking from our own volition. In my experience of life that has played out countless times, and I have bucked the system in many ways that belied underpinings that by logic should have directed me in another direction. We here at un-denial are also evidence that there must be another factor in play, for why have we chosen to believe as we do when the vast majority of our cohort and even family (who presumably have similar nurture and nature) do not? Of course our lives are mostly shaped, the greatest factors being era of birth, place of birth, and to whom we are born, but for me the crux of what it means to be human can be discovered and experienced in spite and despite all these parameters.
On the other hand, I do very much want to absorb from this determinism philosophy that we are all captive to “fate” and our and others’ actions should not be judged without first understanding, and even better, traversing the terrain that led one to their destination, encompassing all the sorrow and joy around every turn. The main benefit that I seek from this is a more compassionate way of being human, and there is no more powerful way that I know to lead me closer to forgiveness.
I often try to think that although we experience ourselves as individual consciousness, we are really all parts of a universal consciousness. We are like cells or organs of a body that seem different from one another but in reality are part of the same whole, although with our limited perspective we may not grasp that reality. It is our individualisation that gives us as physical organisms the greatest scope of understanding who we are and how we wish to express this, but in the ultimate reality (if there is one) we are all part of a Oneness, however you choose to define this. Everything is contained in the whole, that is a very logical statement that I think even Rob can accept!
Back to el mar’s burning questions, in my mind, on the individual level we must be able to decide, and because of that we must bear the consequences from our thoughts and actions ( and that could include experiencing a feeling called guilt). For example, I cannot reconcile that we have no choice but to accept the outcome of bombing Gaza to the stone age, and there should be no guilt on anyone’s part because these decisions were determined by forces beyond our control.
Otherwise, the construct of being human for me has missed its mark and in my thinking, potential, which is a simultaneous physical, emotional, and spiritual experience. We are here in a body, with a human mind, living within certain experiential boundaries. This is our role, and whilst we can glimpse a understanding of an ultimate reality, one that is all knowing and accepting, and encompassing, that is not the part we are given to play at this moment.
It is well and good to delve into the mind of God (or universe) from time to time, and be able to sense the complete let go, let all, but we as humans are but one form of the physical manifestation of God (or universe). We are most suited to act our part through our daily actions and the stories we tell and play in our lives on this world stage we find ourselves. And perhaps paradoxically, it is only through being the “hands” of God that we can truly understand the experience of God, just as actors who really get into the part become that role.
Oh dear. I’ve gone on in the usual Gaia fashion and I just really meant to say that I am really enjoying this dialogue and how it opens more awareness and acceptance. Sending everyone love and best as we each play our part with all gusto we can muster. These are amazing times and the fact that we are actually living through this drama is an incredible privilege in a very real way.
Namaste, friends and fellow actors.
I am glad you have enjoyed the dialogue and that the rain has eased and you can work in your beautiful garden again. Yes, we three would gasbag for hours, I just know it.
The whole free will thing is always incredibly fraught. I used to communicate with another collapse blogger about this, and he said nothing else on his blog got people as het up as two topics – veganism and free will!
So it’s such a huge topic, and I dont want to take up too much more space than I already have, but to say…
I believe there is a paradox here. The phrase “the man who understands he is a machine is no longer a machine”. In that there is something in humans that allows us to see we are conditioned in our behaviour and therefor know something beyond that – which is this void or emptiness or ‘pregnant nothingness’ from which we came and will return. Lights out. In knowing the strings are being pulled and we are not in charge, means that we have glimpsed we are a slave, but this glimpsing means we are free! And in a practical sense not determined and triggered by the conditioning that made us the puppet that we are. We can play our role on that stage with more grace.
That’s about the only way I could sum it up for now.
What i admire in others and wish to pursue in myself in the time remaining, is dedication to a single task to realise this and to be free from my conditioned nature. And yet I know that there is nothing to do, or be done or to change in any way. All is well. And a bit like collapse unfolding, in that we have accepted there is ultimately nothing to be done.
I look at Nate’s complicated chart, and thank god that I am not concerning myself with trying to change anything “out there” any more – one endless distraction. Although I can see for him it is the culmination of life’s work and he could not do otherwise than that. For myself I kinda wish I never got involved with it all to start with. I now have the selfishness to only care for my inner life and to be able to respond in a way that is not robotic and conditioned and inflamed, but will be rational and at peace and always with a sense of humour to the end – i hope ☺️
I watched an interview of Gary Burton by Rick Beato, then I watched this Tiny Desk Concert, now I’m adding Gary Burton to my library, with thanks to the Russians for creating the best serious and obscure music site on the planet.
Very pleasantly vacuous.
Craig Tindale serves up some more CACTUS shavings that remove the prickly spikes, then adds a dash of sophisticated sounding mumbo-jumbo to give it the fragrance of academic deep thinking, then creates tension by threatening to expose a scary overshoot reality, but fortunately pulls back, and concludes with a delicious secret sauce recipe that renews a prosperous modernity in only 3 to 7 years.
In one short essay, Tindale demolishes Hideaway’s life’s work, and everyone can now forget about CACTUS.
https://ctindale.substack.com/p/money-broke-physics-the-framework
😂 😂 😂
Just finished reading through that word salad of Tindale’s.
As soon as he gets to this bit … “These steps require three to seven years to execute.”
It is just plain wrong. It doesn’t take 3-7 years to implement, it takes energy, materials and complexity to do. Lose part of the existing energy, material and complexity of the existing structure, and throughput of civilization and “building” anything becomes exponentially more difficult to impossible, as it takes energy and materials away from those trying to exist in a state of “less”.
The underlying assumption of every ‘solution’ I’ve ever read is the same, we’ll build more of “%^&*($%@@#”, somehow with less energy to do the building, using lower grade materials that turn up out of the ether, and existing complexity that continues.
This is even when the author themselves has proclaimed we will have less energy, less materials and less complexity. Onward to Nate Hagen’s new essay or whatever, where I’ll bet I have exactly the same complaint about his solution…
Yes but I bet he makes more money from his essays than you (and I) do.