Many facts, insights, causes, outcomes, solutions, and evolved behaviors associated with human overshoot have been discussed by many people over many years.
It’s rare for a new idea to emerge in the overshoot space.
Hideaway’s CACTUS theory has some important fresh insights not previously discussed about the biophysical forces that collaborate to create brief blips of modernity in the universe.
Not every idea in CACTUS is new. But CACTUS identifies and integrates all of the important overshoot forces into a coherent unified theory that explains what’s going on better than anything I’ve seen in 20 years of study.
Inside the integrated whole of CACTUS is an important relationship I’ve not seen previously discussed that explains modernity’s dependence on growth of civilization scale for growth of resource use efficiency, and growth of resource extraction technology complexity, which creates self-reinforcing feedback loops, and vulnerabilities, that accelerate both the growth and decline of modernity.
CACTUS shows that the requirement for growth is independent of the type of economic system, or monetary system, or states thereof.
CACTUS shows that overshoot collapse can be triggered by depletion of any of many non-renewable resources, not just the master resource diesel.
CACTUS shows that steady-state and degrowth “solutions”, or any other form of “sustainable” modernity, are impossible, and therefore surviving humans will return to their hunter gatherer origins.
CACTUS shows that a gentle decline is impossible and that modernity will end rapidly.
CACTUS provides a clear prescription on what needs to be done to extend modernity as long as possible, assuming that is your goal.
CACTUS explains what not to do if the goal is to avoid triggering a premature collapse. Our leaders do not understand (or deny) CACTUS, and therefore they are making decisions that will end modernity sooner than was necessary. Citizens also do not understand (or deny) CACTUS, and therefore they are permitting their leaders to get away with the dumbfuckery.
CACTUS shows that broad awareness of overshoot and CACTUS is a good thing if you want to avoid war and violence as growth slows, and you want to avoid triggering a premature collapse.
CACTUS shows that modernity will be rare and brief when it emerges in the universe, and that modernity will never regrow on this planet, and therefore CACTUS provides deep reasons for gratitude and temperance.
These are BIG important ideas.
Elements of CACTUS have been discussed by others elsewhere, but the integrated totality of CACTUS ideas are not in wide circulation, and given their profound implications, deserve widespread debate and discussion.
Yet, what do we observe?
Silence.
Every famous overshoot intellectual, and the sites that focus on overshoot issues, are silent on CACTUS.
How is this possible? Seriously.
If I had learned about CACTUS from say Gail Tverberg, or Tim Morgan, or Tim Watkins, or Nate Hagens, or Alice Friedemann, or Chris Martenson, or Jack Alpert, or B, or Jean-Marc Jancovici, or Quark, or Simon Michaux, or David Korowicz, or Tom Murphy, or Tim Garrett, or Sam Mitchell, or Bill Rees, or Sid Smith, or Dennis Meadows, or William Catton, or Jay Hanson, or Paul Chefurka, or Richard Heinberg, or Charlie Hall, or Joseph Tainter, or James, or Jason Bradford, or xraymike79, etc., etc., instead of stumbling on Hideaway’s CACTUS theory in posts he made at the Peak Oil Barrel site that others, including the site owner, were ignoring or aggressively denying, I would have still discussed CACTUS hundreds of times, because the idea is so important to understanding our reality.
Why is the little un-Denial community the only site discussing CACTUS?
Ditto on the Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory.
After I stumbled on Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory in a 2013 CBC radio interview, I talked about nothing else for 10 years because it was such an important new idea for making sense of the existence and strange behaviors of a uniquely intelligent species, and for people, like myself, trying to find a path to reducing harms from overshoot.
For anyone trying to bring awareness and positive change to any unpleasant issue, including people still trying to find a solution for overshoot, or any of its symptoms like climate change, pollution, species extinction, ecosystem destruction, etc., etc., MORT is the MOST IMPORTANT IDEA they need to understand.
MORT explains why 99.9% of people aggressively deny everything that is unpleasant, including issues that are obvious without an advanced education, and including when denial of the issue will make things even more unpleasant.
MORT explains why famous polymaths who can and do understand many complex issues, are incapable of understand relatively simple overshoot issues, even when spoon-fed the facts.
MORT explains why only one species has evolved an extended theory of mind, despite obviously powerful fitness advantages.
MORT explains why only one species has gods.
MORT explains why behaviorally modern humans rapidly emerged from one small tribe to extinct all close cousins, and to dominate all other species.
These are BIG important ideas.
And yet all of the overshoot experts, including people who have devoted their lives to finding solutions to overshoot or its symptoms, all of whom have failed due to the genetic denial explained by MORT, have been silent on MORT for over 10 years.
Why, for example, don’t the thousands of climate scientists that have totally failed to make a difference, want to to understand why they failed? Why do climate scientists that have a sound understanding of physics still push “solutions” that are physically impossible?
How is this possible? Seriously.
If the reason everyone is silent on MORT and CACTUS is because they think the theories are wrong, then why hasn’t a single expert explained why they are wrong? Or proposed more compelling theories to explain what we observe?
No discussion. No criticism. No debate. Not even acknowledgement that the MORT and CACTUS theories exist.
Just silence.
I believe most of my overshoot colleagues have good intentions, and good integrity, and good intelligence, and so the only explanation I can think of is that ALL of the overshoot experts have normal denial genes, and un-Denial is the only place on the planet that the tiny number of mutants with defective denial genes congregate.
Is this possible?
It seems very improbable, but what other explanation is there?
It’s hard to find good news these days. Even the few leaders with integrity and deep understanding are struggling to make progress against the evil growth forces of modernity.
Ive been guilty of many forms of denial at one time or another. But due to the peculiarities of my upbringing I could not invest deeply in any particular narrative or comforting anchor or belief. Consequently, none of the usual narratives, traditions, or common strategies for organizing a life in an infinite and meaningless universe have ever proven durable.
One of the last illusions to die….and this truly saddened me, was what I called the anarcho-primitivist. The noble savage. I do not use the word “savage” derisively. Maybe I should say, “Rewild”. I thought there might be a time, and culture, and a pure, original and blameless state in which we might live in some kind of balance with the Earth. Loved Derrick Jensen. Read everything. It won’t work.
It won’t work…for a ton of reasons. I’ve explored a lot of them. I continue some of the practices because I enjoy them. Best bowdrill time to an ember-35 seconds. Even now, in idle moments I am making a cordage from dogbane stems(Apocynum Cannabinum), identifying wild medicinal and edible plants, gardening. I love it…..and it’s not going to work, for a wide variety of reasons.
Several years ago it occurred to me that all these problems of global industrial civilization, including human caused climate disruption, were related, had synergistic relationships to each other that made resolving any single aspect of the whole Gordian knot of problems utterly futile. The old “Problem vs. Predicament” conundrum.
I like the CACTUS theory because it really clarifies the tangled knots and foggy ess in my own thinking on this. As well as MORT and the forms denial takes. This is part of an ongoing cthonic shift in me. I’m still struggling. I think I can grow wings, with which to travel the existential void. But, I cannot. Because it is not, itself, “Wu”, the uncarved block of potential. It is nothing….and even my constructed “I”, is nothing. A momentary spark.
Anyway, companions in thought and feeling are a real gift.
Thank you.
Thanks for the new post Rob. I’d argue that some on that list do understand CACTUS but tend to keep it quiet these days, like Paul Chefurka, David Korowicz, Sid Smith and even Charlie Hall, who paints the future as ‘we all die’ in his last presentation on the monthly peak oil chat.
Others are very close like Bill Rees, though I suspect he doesn’t want to say the CACTUS part out loud as it destroys hope. People always prefer hope to reality. Look at most cancer sufferers for evidence of this, who jump on every ‘trial’ available, even though it makes them much sicker (and often for a lot longer).
Those that have worked out a CACTUS like future would also realise that if there is no saving modernity, which is what everyone wants, then the best thing to do is get on and enjoy modernity and life in general while it lasts.
I also often think and wonder if politicians, billionaires, leaders in general are correct in continuing the faster route to collapse.
Collapse is bad for humans and most life that can be caught/shot then eaten, but is the natural world as a whole better off with collapse sooner or later? I’d suggest sooner is better, but personally would prefer it later, such are our selfish genes, just like genes of every other living form on the planet.
Bill Rees sees humans as no different from other species in using up all the resources it has the capability of acquiring. So he sees collapse as inevitable. I don’t know if he thinks about the increasing complexity as playing a part but I guess the increase in complexity is needed to continue to access all those resources. This was a very good article of his: https://reeswilliame.substack.com/p/why-collapse-is-inevitable
Maybe I should change it to getting closer, though I’ve heard him talk about possibly 2B humans living a much lower energy/material lifestyle than present westerners, but still in proper housing of small apartment size etc.
Hideaway sez: “I also often think and wonder if politicians, billionaires, leaders in general are correct in continuing the faster route to collapse.”
Preston MPP Howard here with a reminder: Biologically, the Maximum Power Principle embedded itself within virtually all life, from single-cell organisms on up as the “correct” choice for survival.
When circumstances change in a manner that foreclose a previously successful niche, life forms sometimes find themselves on their own version of the Titanic, with no lifeboat available. We see that today as whole species of insects, amphibians, reptiles, and birds go extinct before our very own eyes as climate change continues.
We are on our own version of the Titanic. Humanity has broken the Earth, and no one can “fix” it. So, humanity continues what it has always done: We eat, drink, and (try to) be merry, as we fight over increasingly fewer resources. As the climate warms, humanity will succumb to its own likely extinction, or near extinction if some find a lifeboat to a new niche. However, there is no lifeboat for 8 billion humans.
Were we good stewards of the paradise Earth originally provided us, perhaps today we would have the maturity to understand our situation. We could act, not in our own best interests, but in what is in the best interests of healing the Earth. Some later life form — aeons after the Earth has healed itself — might discover such efforts, allowing it to commend humanity’s effort to assist the Earth’s effort to heal itself.
Like many on today’s Titanic, I try to protect myself from expected shortages. I liken those of us on un-denial.com to Titanic passengers who are writing our story, putting it into a bottle, and casting it overboard in hopes someone in the future can avoid our mistakes.
However, few are willing to do this because… grandkids, for example.
This is a polycrisis and the end is not premature. We wish it were but the complexity is such that do not understand all the elements of collapse. It appears that the end is near but that is the end of modernity. We have entered the Age of Stupidity.
No collapse is premature. Perhaps you mean collapse earlier than you’d like?
MORT is an explanation for denial of humans but it isn’t the only one. Not that it matters a great deal, since humans can’t change it (partly because of their denial of denial).
CACTUS is the most important point. I’d like to see others discuss it, particularly in the consideration of a supposed energy transition.
Because of MORT, others wont discuss CACTUS, because discussing it rationally might challenge and change their internal beliefs, so best not to discuss it at all, usually with a hand wave of how the future is not yet set in stone or something similar.