As I am new to this blog (only a few weeks) I would be very pleased if you could give me some pointers of where you are indeed “emphasizing that distinction”.

Well, all the articles I’ve written on the subject–”The Mechanics of Collapse” and thesis #14 primarily–have not dealt with complexity so much as the costs of complexity. In my comments and in my articles, I have often said that complexity is very often an excellent problem-solving strategy. I have also said that any one problem-solving strategy, pursued to the neglect of all others, will likely suffer from this same effect.

Up to know I have only seen all the team members pushing their primitivist agenda whith no more common sense than christian fundamentalists pushing “intelligent design”.

False analogy. Christian fundamentalists pushing ID make no claim of their own; they merely try to cast aspersions on evolutionary theory, while lacking any real understanding of said theory. We understand technology and culture all too well–I have degrees in anthropology and computer science, so one could hardly ask for a more tailor-suited education in this regard–but we are not simply denying it wholesale. In thesis #16, I specifically challenged the position of some primitivists that technology is evil in and of itself. This is patently not the case.

My scenario of collapse is, actually, the mainstream one. My application of that theory, and my conclusion that we face that crisis now, rather than later, is the only point where I have deviated from conventional wisdom on this subject. Nor have I strayed so very far on that account, either.

Also, the KISS rule which serves as the heading of this post and which, under various flavors, is common lore of the business has been conveniently truncated to fit the primitivist agenda, the full rule is actually:
Keep It Simple Stupid And Supply Service!

Besides the fact that the title was a rhetorical shorthand (thus making your literalism extremely pedantic), your “full version” must be a vernacular form you have had personal experience with. I have never heard this rendition, and neither, apparently, has Wikipedia, though several versions are provided. Your etymology is incorrect; it was adopted by business, but was developed in the Apollo space program, was a founding principle of UNIX design philosophy, and has always had stronger etymological roots in computer science.

But, to address the meat of your dissent, I believe that is precisely what Ben addressed in the article above, which, if I might attempt a more formal codification, would be: that system functions best which maintains functionality with the greatest simplicity.

If you scrap everything you do get ultimate simplicity at the penalty of not getting anything done, not even sustaining your own life.

True, and I think taken as an assumption above left unspoken because it is so patently obvious. But thank you for stating it explicitly for anyone who might have missed it.

Are you pretending to be that stupid for rhetorical purposes, or are you truly?
Our capabilities at dominating other species is the very core of the problem.
We are engulfing the whole eco-sphere without regard for our own sustainability and this is the new lethal context for collapse.
Otherwise it would not matter that much if yet another so-called “civilisation” has to collapse like the Myceaenians, Mayas, Romans or whatever.

The ability to exert such short-term dominance is something any animal would be capable of. To describe it as a peculiar feature of humans is either myopic in the extreme or simply rhetorical grand-standing. That we, and we alone, have done precisely that does not speak for anything other than the fact that we were in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

The primitivist “solution” would have indeed been a good idea volens nolens, it worked before.
But today the overlall world ressources are already so badly damaged that primitivists will buy themselves only a few months (if not only weeks…) survival with their silly proposals.

I believe you meant nolens volens: “Whether unwilling or willing.” You seem to have a knack for invoking words and phrases you don’t really understand….

While we certainly have little in the way of direct evidence of what a global collapse from an industrial state would entail–as such a thing has never happened before–we do have a great deal of indirect evidence to indicate the general shape of things to come with somewhat greater clarity than any mere imaginings that you or I can dream up, no matter how “colorful” our language may wax. For example, we know the robustness of the earth’s ecology: how a rain forest can grow back from a smoldering heap of ash to a full rain forest again in a mere 25 years, how so many of the forests of the eastern United States were barren wastelands and then covered in new growth forests in as little a space of time, or how the air quality in central Pennsylvania increased so markedly only 24 hours into the August 2003 blackout (see Marufu, et. al, 2004. [PDF]). I believe that life is incredibly resilient, and will begin rebuilding almost immediately, should we ever stop trying to destroy it at every turn–essentially, that the wound will heal (and quickly!) if we would ever pull out the blade. Such is my evidence. Where is your counter-evidence, that life is being propped up even now only by our environmental benevolence, and without the support of an industrialized economy, all would die? By all means, please supply us with your evidence indicating that all of ecological science is a lie.

And do count on the hard-core survivalists to come to steal your carrots, mushrooms and chickens, fucking and killing you as a bonus before going themselves extinct.

Carrots, mushrooms and chickens? Do you take us for farmers? We’ve identified agriculture as the single worst mistake in the history of humanity, and while some of us have an interest in permaculture as a means of “rewilding” our domesticates, I have my suspicions of such endeavors, and favor foraging entirely.

I will grant you, your scenario is the premise of many science fiction movies. Fiction being the operative word. There are places even now–in the continental United States, even–which have not seen a human foot in centuries. And in all previous collapse scenarios, civilizations contract–they do not expand. Your scenario of rampaging barbarians makes for excellent fantasy–but it is precisely that. Every previous iteration of the collapse cycle indicates that those of us who look outside the cities will have little competition for those spaces no one else sees as resources at all. But, anything is possible, and maybe this will be the first time, out of all those dozens of times it’s happened before, where you’re proven right.

But the odds are decidedly against it.

That said, what would be the best hope of defending ourselves from such a horde? A small group in a remote area is difficult to find. A nomadic group can simply move in the face of aggression. A guerrilla force on its own hunting grounds is nigh unstoppable. These are precisely the traits we will naturally possess. Our military superiority to any intruder is a natural byproduct of our chosen way of life.

Give me ten people, my pick of our land, and ten years to become its people–in short, everything I plan to have before this all happens–and I would gladly stack us against any hundred commandos you care to pick.

But I see Bill’s already addressed the multiple levels on which this is merely a paranoid flight of fancy with little realistic possibility.

Thanks, for your thoughtful and meaningful reply.

You are right, I was wrong. There are many reasons why selfish greed has the upper hand. Ignorance and gullibility are not alone to blame.

But to be clear, when I use those terms, I do not use them disparagingly; not at all.

Much too often, ignorance is merely a condition that results from the same crime it perpetuates. For example, during the first three quarters of 2005, the federal government spent $335 billion to pay interest on US Treasury Bonds. During the same period, it spent only $6 billion on education.

Gullibility, on the other hand, is a state of mind that reflects not only lack of knowledge, which is not a fault but merely a condition, but it also reflects a sense of trust which, in fact, is a virtue not a vice. When someone trusts me, it says to me that they are trustworthy. People tend to believe that others have the same values as their own. Of course, the gullible ones are always in for a rude awakening. But, their gullibility is at once their weakness and their strength.

So yes, those two groups of people do not makeup the full gamut of folks out there besides the selfishly greedy; some refuse to see, or cannot see because they are looking from the wrong perspective.

Also, I do not harbor contempt for anyone. We are all without exception human beings.

I despise false and destructive instruments, not people. Interest is one of the worst kinds.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and aknowledging the problem. I too would like to fix it.

I chat in forums like these to test the soundness of my propositions and acquire new perspectives that I can apply to my own theories. I am diligently working at other sites to spread knowledge and dispel illusions.

Good for you! (Hey… send some of those folks on other sites here, too. )

And, I agree– selfish greed would go nowhere fast if not for ignorance and gullibility.

Be careful when you say this. Remember, you’re talking about real people here. (and yes, I’ve made the same verbal mistake before and will probably make it again)

For example, I could take your post to mean my parents and grandparents are “ignorant and gullible.”

My father’s an ex-intelligence officer for the military. My grandmother (in part) ran several large businesses. My great-grandfather owned and managed part of Los Angeles.

These are not gullible people, nor are they idiots. However, they, like many, many others, are trapped in a twisted, horrible paradigm.

Let’s phrase this another way. I hang out with some members from the First Nations. Among them, there’s a -lot- of talk about what those “Europeans” are doing. More than once, someone has asked “Why do they have to do what they do?”

My answer is this: “The Europeans do what they do because they have to be right. If they’re wrong, they must admit they are part of the greatest mistake in the history of mankind, a mistake that has lead to billions of deaths and mass extinction. They can’t do that. They can’t admit that. It’s too much.”

A number of my non-native friends don’t take credit for what their ancestors did (and, to be fair, a number of their ancestors were just as oppressed as anyone else). But I do. I do because someone has to say “Yup. My folks were responsible.” And then we have to fix it.

So just be careful when you choose your words. At their core, many of these Takers are sick with the thought that they might be wrong, that this world might f—ed up because of them.

They need healing, not contempt.

(and now I return back to my corner…)

Best

Bill Maxwell

Snicker.
Oh the amusement surrounds me.
See, it is funny. It reminds me of so many other arguments of the same damn thing being said over and over, yet lacking much of a point the entire time. “You are wrong because I said so!”
That argument is simply not cogent.
Why will the people hear not be winning the Darwin Award?
Well, because we’re planning for the shit to the fan. We’re family, we’re friends, we’re a tribe. We stick together.
That’s what a tribe does.
The people that will be winning the Award, however, are those people that think they are immune to any disaster movie type incidents that are rapidly coming our way.
Once it’s upon us, it’s those people that wont have a clue.
It’s those survivalists, the primitivists, the tribalists that will know how to make it through, will know how to survive till “the day after tomorrow” =)

“Awk! You’re wrong! Awk! You’re wrong!”

Neat!

Now, dear Ah-no-nymous, don’t complain too hard about my sentiment. After all, you brought it on yourself with the stereotypical villian laugh at the beginning of a post.

But hey, here you’re just paying attention to Jason when the rest of us have posted some nice things to you too. For example, I’ll posit this little question. Who’s most likely to win the Darwin Award? People who stay with a civilization in the middle of causing the single greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet? OR those who try to find a different way?

Hm.

I wonder.

Well, hey friend, good luck to you sitting in the city watching TV when the lights go out. I’m sure the blank screen will continue to be a good companion even after the images go away.

Of course, I might be mistating your position. Perhaps you live alone in an abandoned ICBM silo somewhere in Wisconsin, suffering from survivalist envy. Or you’re a disgruntled Mennonite youth working off of a public library computer. I don’t know. The trace programs haven’t finished running yet.

So hey, best of luck. I’ll just hang out here with my homeboys, talking about the day after tomorrow (the actual event, not the movie.)

Ok…so…do you have an actual point to make

Yes, even several, but for this I need an answer to my yet unanswered question to Jason:

As I am new to this blog (only a few weeks) I would be very pleased if you could give me some pointers of where you are indeed “emphasizing that distinction”.

(was “the distinction between complexity, and the cost of complexity”)

P.S. Some of you don’t seem to know much about Darwin Awards
http://www.darwinawards.com/
You will have to prepare your acceptance speechs in advance

It’s called “Does this have a point?”
You seem hell bent on attacking anything and everything, yet, all your arguments seems to be lacking one key element. What was that again? Oh yeah, a Point!
A survivalist, primitivist “bozo” is going to be the one that knows where the carrots are and knows how to get them, and once they have them, will know how to protect them. Not to mention a hard core survivalist will know how to steal them as well.
Now, some survivalists that perhaps aren’t quite as prepared for the time when all hell breaks loose, may turn to one another and say “Oh wow, my brother looks like he’d be good to eat” Or “My child….my sister..” and so on.
But for us here?
Oh, you bet we’re going to be prepared.
And we have something better than that.
We’re together.
So, I don’t believe it’s those of us that are here that are going to be preparing speaches for the acceptance of the Darwin Adwards.
Nope, it will be those people that laugh in the face of the very people that will survive.
=)
Have a nice day!

Bwah-hah-hah-ha-ha!
Denial, scorn and smear (I am no friend of survivalists).
Very telling!
The bozos who join other’s treacherous agendas will find out.
Lots of Darwin Awards to be granted, this is the decisive benchmark…

Ok…so…do you have an actual point to make or is this more a case of “I like to see my words magically appear on the screen?”

MichaelD –

Well, it is very easy to come along and say ‘I’m not going to hear anything you say but your wrong.’

Its very easy to say some things are simple and some things are complex. But saying it does not make it so. ”

—————–

Nope, again. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to *hear* you—I said I wasn’t going to *read* everything. People who get things done don’t have time to read 168 posts about straighforward issues, either.

Which is why I searched for my name to see if there were any responses. Now I’m simply going to *do* something.