The following is one of my renowned “mega-posts” from an IshCon thread.

Cultures are like individuals in some ways. In some ways, cultures are constantly changing. This is not quite the same culture right now as it was when I began typing this sentence. Things are constantly in flux; in that sense, we’re all changing the culture every moment of every day, and to suggest otherwise would be to claim that we are the only things in the universe that have no impact on anyone or anything else whatsoever.

In another sense, and because of this, a culture is not the frozen snapshot, but the ongoing process of constant flux–just like an individual personality. I am not quite the same person I was when I started typing this, just as my culture has also changed in those few moments; but we are both still the same system (I am a biological system and it is an ideological system, but we are both systems of other interlocking systems, giving rise to an emergent complexity) undergoing a continual process of constant change. In that sense, a culture is indestructible.

That said, cultures, like individuals, also have recognizable personalities, and those personalities can change radically over time. We often refer to an individual’s personality as if it were innate and immutable (our mythology tells us it is, after all); we say this or that person is good, bad, kind, mean, smart, dumb, etc. So, too, we speak of the innate, immutable nature of this or that culture.

Is this fair? Perhaps it is; it can be accurate of the snapshot of that entity’s continuing change, but of course, we must remember that it can always change. Even change drastically. The Hyksos invasion changed the ancient Egyptians; instead of living in self-assured isolation, they became terrified of the outside world–and built the world’s first empire in a bid to destroy everything that might threaten them again. So, too, it is no doubt fair to say that George Bush is the mindless puppet of dark powers–even though, a decade or more ago, it would have been more accurate to call him a spoiled frat boy.

Our culture has a personality, as well. It is hubristic, narcicisstic, and gluttonous. Like an individual, this can change.

Civilization

What do we mean by “civilization”? Most people I ask tell me it is a synonym for “culture,” in which case, Tony, you are precisely right. Anything we move beyond will also be a civilization. However, when pressed, this definition shows its weakness; we are uncomfortable referring to a !Kung civilization, or an Aborigine civilization, or an Inuit civilization.

The term comes from the Latin civis, for “city.” The Roman Empire was a patch-work of civitates–city-states–united under the imperial government. The ancient world was less about sprawling empires than spheres of influence; a network of cities connected by alliances, blood feuds and trade, each with a hinterland from which it pulled its food and resources. These hinterlands would at times overlap, and cities would war against each other. Much land was left unclaimed by any city at all. A culture of cities–that is what the Romans meant when they talked about civilization. It described their culture, and separated it from the “barbarians” who surrounded them.

In time, the cities consolidated their power; cities conquered each other, alliances became confederations and leagues which gave way to states. Gutenberg’s printing press allowed city leaders to manipulate thoughts and ideas to give rise to the myth of the “nation,” and the modern state was born.

In assessing what makes civilization a distinct subset of culture, V. Gordon Childe identified three primary criteria still recognized by anthropologists:

1. Concentrated populations (i.e., cities)
2. Concentrated power into a minority of the population (i.e., hierarchy)
3. Concentrated wealth into a minority of the population

All civilizations share these three values. In fact, I suspect that they’ve been teased apart a bit too much, because not only do all civilizations share these, but we have never found any of them without the other two. And only civilizations have these criteria. This is more than a correlation I’ve noted, there are causal reasons for this to be so.

Hierarchies actually do not make very good decisions. Leaders can make quicker decisions (though we are talking about a matter of hours, not days), which is why egalitarian societies like the Shoshone of North America’s Great Basin would appoint a leader of the rabbit hunts, where coordination and time were of the essence. But leaders also tend to make worse decisions. Much has been written of swarm intelligence and the wisdom of crowds. It is a very interesting and widely accepted view in biology and the social sciences, essentially boiling down to a scientific mechanism and support for the old proverb that two heads are better than one. Group concensus almost always produces a far better decision than any individual leader.

But, as already mentioned, they do take a bit longer. This is fine for small populations. Disagreements and arguments that require the community to step in and arbitrate are a small percentage of all the encounters between people in a society. As the number of people increases, so too do the number of encounters; so too do the number of disagreements, disputes and arguments that call for intervention. With a small population, these are sufficiently rare to decide by communal debate and concensus. Larger populations, however, have exponentially more disagreements; there simply isn’t enough time for the whole community to consider each and every case in all its complexity and circumstance. Instead, leaders are appointed to make the decisions more quickly–we usually call them “judges” now. Rules and laws are written to further expedite the process. This is a compromise to speed the process, not to make it more fair. The essense of a law is to ignore circumstance; its very purpose is to make the process less fair, but more efficient. Laws often try to accomodate for this somewhat. As a programmer, I do much the same with if-else blocks, trying to catch every possible type of input that may come along. I’m dealing with a far more finite set than the endless intracacies of human behavior, and even the most inept programmer quickly learns that it’s almost impossible to predict every possible circumstance you will have to deal with. So, too, with laws. We try to abrogate its effect, but the essence of law is still injustice.

Of course, the existence of leadership means that a small class of people now has far greater say in all the decisions of the community, including the distribution of resources. Even if this is not the starting point of their leadership (which it usually is), the accumulation of wealth into this class follows from simple human nature. Like all animals, humans do what’s best for themselves. Though our evolutionary strategy has centered on the understanding that cooperation is in our own best interests, we still look out for number one when that cultural system breaks down–such as when we suddenly find ourselves in a position to decide where all the wealth goes. Even if your present leaders are generous, selfless and altruistic enough to pass on such temptation, it is far too unstable to persist for very long, as it relies on the most unpredictable of variables: the individual personality. This is not exactly the sort of strong bedrock on which to build the future of an entire culture.

These three points are all driven by a large population. That is to say, they are all driven by a large food supply. That is to say, they are all driven by surplus. Occasionally, rare flukes of nature allow these conditions to arise, such as with the Kwakiutl. In most of these cases, the phenomenon is geographically confined, as the Kwakiutl were bound by the salmon runs to the rivers of British Columbia. The xenophobia which evolution has given humanity to make its tribes more coherent, stronger social groups also gives all cultures the will to conquer, dominate, and destroy all other cultures. But they can’t field the armies to do so, making the impulse harmless. The Kwakiutl would have conquered the world, were they able to take their salmon runs with them. But they couldn’t, and so, they failed. Similarly, Teotihuacan’s empire frayed and eventually fell for its inability to transport food to the great distances its armies had covered. Geography and the natural reality defeat the human desire for conquest.

Unless, of course, you find some way of generating your own surplus. Then you can take it with you. Then that desire for conquest becomes suicidal. Suicidal because, as the history of our own culture shows, such indulgence will ultimately destroy the diversity upon which you depend.

The Crash

Everything is the product of co-evolution. Squirrels have evoled in such a way as to more quickly and easily gather nuts. So, too, have nuts evolved in such a way as to better feed squirrels, as the squirrels, in gathering them, also help spread them. Ultimately, domestication is much the same process. But not everything is domesticable; for example, the millennia of co-evolution with squirrels means that the competition is far too fierce for acorns for humans to ever get a foot in the door.

In fact, the pool of domesticable species is very small. We have had great success with cereal grains, because of the incredible number of seeds found on a single stalk, meaning only a small fraction of those stalks harvested need to be invested into next year’s crop. The rest can be eaten. Large herd mammals have also been very successful, since we can usually identify a leader of that herd and, in breaking it in, subdue the entire herd. Animals for which we have to break in every individual will never work. But successes in domesticating anything else have been few and far between.

This means that civilization depends for all its food on a small pool of a few, closely related species. This is why civilizations suffer famine and starvation. When Richard Lee studied the !Kung in the Kalahari Desert, they worked just two hours a day to get all their food; their Bantu neighbors were dying in droves of starvation from one of the worst draughts in living memory.

Civilization has let slip the geographical confines that checked the natural human impulse for conquest. It is driven by a need to constantly expand in order to maintain the surpluses that define it. The combination is a culture that is killing itself very, very quickly. It is not an overstatement to say that civilization is the most monumental failure in the known universe, ever. No experiment of evolution has ever failed in such a devastating manner, or so quickly.

The overwhelming loss of diversity–of species, cultures, languages, and everything else–is cutting out the very basis of civilization’s existence. However, this is where civilization’s hubris and narcissism work to something of an advantage for the rest of the earth. Because civilization refuses to acknowledge the interdependence of life on this planet, it fails to recognize the harm it’s doing.

As mentioned above, civilization relies on a very tenuous foundation. That foundation has always been fickle, even in optimum circumstances. Even minor fluctuations in weather cause massive famines and starvation for civilized societies. Any significant climate change whatsoever will wipe out the civilized food base entirely. This is exactly what we can expect over the next 50 years.

By comparison, the human in its natural habitat is one of the most adaptable species on the planet. As omnivores, a human forager can make a living out of even the most minimal wastes, such as the Australian Outback, the Kalahari, the Arctic, and all the other marginal areas so bleak and unforgiving that civilization has yet to find any way to cultivate them.

If anything on earth survives, it is quite likely that humans will be among them. And, barring the use of CBRN (chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear) weapons on a global scale (which is always a distinct–but totally unpredictable–possibility), it is very likely that humanity will survive. In fact, none of the inevitable outcomes of civilization threaten the existence of life on earth, and even threaten human survival only probabilistically.

Civilization would be one of the very first things to perish from a major ecological disturbance; humanity would be one of the last. The earth is incredibly resilient; when the electric power went out in the northeastern United States in 2003, the lack of pollution for just a few days made a significant and measureable decrease in air pollution.

Some time in the next 50 years, some species in the Amazon will go extinct, or the climate will change, or we will reach peak oil. The result will be the collapse of civilization’s food base. The initial reaction will be chaos and war. Food riots will form gangs which will eventually hunt each other cannibalistically. The cities will become killing fields. Those who know how to survive off the land will be able to do so, as there are millions of species available as food to humans that are neither so fragile as civilization’s domesticated species, nor as lacking in diversity. Eventually, the city-dwellers will be forced to try to make their living in the forests, as well. Because the human body cannot last more than a few weeks without food, this process of war, riots, starvation, and so forth will most likely take place over the course of a year at the most. At the end of that year, those able to survive without civilization or domesticated crops will be starting new cultures, and everyone else will be dead.

No doubt it will be the most horrific time in human history; all the horrors of the apocalypse will no doubt ring true in tone if not in detail. But it is, at this point, essentially unavoidable. When it is over, the human population will no doubt measure in millions, rather than billions. We will be constrained to a natural carrying capacity, rather than the inflated one of agricultural production.

Make no mistake, we must get our population down to a natural carrying capacity–that is to say, where the human population is measured in millions, rather than billions. Any solution that does not end there is not a solution at all; at best, it will only postpone the inevitable. The earth cannot support billions of humans for much longer.

Is there a way to gradually move our population down, without a massive die-off? Possibly; I have yet to hear of any viable plan for that, but anyone who wishes to attempt that route certainly has my blessing. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I won’t say it’s impossible.

Regardless, one way or another, either gradually or cataclysmically, the human population must drop significantly. My current plan is one of moving gradually away from civilization and dependence on it. In doing so, I hope to provide an example of how such a process might be achieved. The less dependent we are on civilization, the more likely we are to be among the survivors.

Leadership & “Human Nature”

The contention that leadership is essential to human nature is quite natural for those of our culture, and shows how culture can color our understanding. If looking to leaders is pure human nature, then why have we only had leaders for 0.16% of our time on this planet? Why are there still so many cultures where the very concept of leadership is totally unknown? You are right that many animals do have hierarchy, including most of our closest primate relatives. Quite a few do not. You will note, for example, that animals with hierarchies often have marked sexual dimorphism; human sexual dimorphism is almost non-existent. In fact, all of our social behavior has much more in common with the egalitarian bonobos than the aggressively hierarchical chimpanzees.

The contention that leadership is natural is a perfectly understandable thought experiment, but it simply doesn’t hold up to the known facts of the matter. Were this still the Enlightenment when Hobbes made such pronouncements and there was no evidence to consult this would be one thing; but now we do have evidence, and it has shown this thesis to be utterly and completely baseless. Leaders make bad decisions quickly; concensus makes good decisions slowly. But it is rare that a quick decision is needed–unless your actual goal is to become enormous, field huge armies, and conquer the world. Then quick decisions are much more important. But aside from that, speed is a rather irrelevant factor; with the ease and liesure of forager life, you really have all the time in the world. Communal decision-making becomes the chief pasttime. Gossip and intrigue is what foragers do most of the day while we’re laboring at whatever exhausting tasks occupy us all day.

Progressives

I’ve always found it ironic how conservatives are so proud of their country, and then rattle off a list of their opponents’ hard-won victories–victories they did everything they could to stop. It is progressives who abrogate the essential injustice of our laws; it is progressives who slow the onslaught of civilization; it is progressives who make civilized life tolerable; it is progressives who keep the velvet glove over the iron fist.

I see progressives as the defense. Ultimately, the only long-term solution is for the human population to dramatically decrease. It will decrease, one way or another. Progressive efforts buy us more time, and make it more likely that we might be able to make that transformation gradually instead of cataclysmically.

I applaud progressive efforts. I help progressives whenever and wherever I can. Without them, this whole process would happen so quickly we’d have no chance to prepare. Every day the progressives buy for us makes it a little bit more likely that we will be able to survive and build a new tribal culture beyond civilization. They are the defense, and the defense is invaluable. You can’t win a game without a good defense.

At the same time, you also can’t win a game without a good offense. Progressives hold back the enemy, but that counts for little unless we take advantage of those gains to cultivate new minds, and move ourselves beyond civilization as far as we can. Weeding out Mother Culture’s influence from our own minds will never be finished; it will be an ongoing effort. Many of us have made significant strides, but we will never be finished with this. We’ll always be finding vestiges, and then ripping them out, too. It may be that the influence will never die away completely, but with each generation it will grow weaker. I suspect that may be enough.

Some efforts I have my doubts about, some I applaud loudly. The only ones I try to stop are the ones that try to destroy us all, like the Neoconservative agenda.

So here we are at the end; I’ve agreed strongly with almost as much as I’ve disagreed strongly, Tony. But here at the end, I suspect we’ve reached points that aren’t so distant from one another. I value what you’re doing very highly. Without it, I doubt the things I’m doing would mean anything at all. No one of us can do this alone, and without your efforts, I shudder to think where we might be today.