Thesis #26: Collapse is inevitable.
by Jason GodeskyAgricultural societies have the unique ability to arbitrarily raise their food supply, simply by intensifying their cultivation. By bringing more land under cultivation, or by cultivating what land they have more intensively, or by the occasional technological innovation, agriculturalists can increase their output. By raising the food supply, agriculturalists can arbitrarily raise their population (see thesis #4). Thus increasing the energy throughput of their society, agriculturalists can arbitrarily raise their level of complexity. This draws all individuals in that society, and all neighboring societies, into a catastrophic game of prisoner’s dilemna (see thesis #12). Because complexity is subject to diminishing returns (see thesis #14), the effort required to further increase complexity rises, while the value of such an investment drops. Competition, however, keeps driving the assemblage forward, even after further investment in complexity has long ceased to be an economical decision. If any party does decide to make that investment–however large it may be–then they will enjoy an edge–however slight–over everyone else, forcing all parties to move to the next level of complexity to remain competitive. Thus, competition drives civilization headlong towards collapse.
The diminishing returns of complexity represent an escalating probability of disaster. As that probability approaches one, disasters continue at their normal pace. Sometimes, as we can see in our own world, our own complexity may accelerate that pace, as with our environmental problems (see thesis #17), or it may even create those problems, as with Peak Oil (see thesis #18). Even were these not the case, there is a regular, background pace of problems any society faces. Answering all of them with increased complexity–whether by pursuing technical solutions to systemic problems, inventing new technologies, or creating governmental bureaucracies in response–only aggrevates the greater, underlying crisis of complexity’s diminishing returns. Following this strategy, a routine crisis will eventually arise, but the response of greater complexity will be impossible due to its prohibitive cost.
Thus, a society faces catabolic collapse.
In dealing with some of the problematic details of Tainter’s model, John Michael Greer offered a refinement with, “How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse.” [PDF] Greer noted that, contrary to Tainter’s definition, many of the collapses he considered took place over significant periods of time–centuries or more–while others collapsed catastrophically. This led Greer to develop a model that distinguishes between a “maintenance crisis” and a catabolic collapse.
A society that uses resources beyond replenishment rate … when production of new capital falls short of maintenance needs, risks a depletion crisis in which key features of a maintenance crisis are amplified by the impact of
depletion on production. As M(p) exceeds C(p) and capital can no longer be maintained, it is converted to waste and unavailable for use. Since depletion requires progressively greater investments of capital in production, the loss of capital affects production more seriously than in an equivalent maintenance crisis. Meanwhile further production, even at a diminished rate, requires further use of depleted resources, exacerbating the impact of depletion and the need for increased capital to maintain production. With demand for capital rising as the supply of capital falls, C(p) tends to decrease faster than M(p) and perpetuate the crisis. The result is a catabolic cycle, a self-reinforcing process in which C(p) stays below M(p) while both decline. Catabolic cycles may occur in maintenance crises if the gap between C(p) and M(p) is large enough, but tend to be self-limiting in such cases. In
depletion crises, by contrast, catabolic cycles can proceed to catabolic collapse, in which C(p) approaches zero and most of a society’s capital is converted to waste. …Any society that displays broad increases in most measures of capital production coupled with signs of serious depletion of key resources, in particular, may be considered a potential candidate for catabolic collapse.
Once begun, the process of catabolic collapse creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop: the same kind of unbreakable, self-reinforcing process that propels civilization’s anabolic growth, as we discussed in thesis #12. That process only ends when that society reaches the next lower sustainable level of complexity.
The question, then, is not whether or not these processes wll hold for our own civilization, but the timeframe to expect of them. As we have seen, we have already passed the point of diminishing returns (see thesis #15), leaving us open to the possibility of collapse. Peak Oil (see thesis #18) and environmental problems (see thesis #17) are already poised as potentially unsolvable problems that could lead to collapse in the near future, but ultimately, predicting the proximate cause of collapse is much more difficult than predicting its timeline. The best answer to that question is almost certainly, “soon.”
The U.N. expects human population growth to “level off” at 9 billion in the next century, but humans already take up 40% of the earth’s photosynthetic capacity to feed the 6.5 billion we already have. That is the ultimate cause behind the Holocene Extinction–already the worst mass extinction ever seen on the planet, and driven entirely by human agriculture. Global warming is radically altering the fragile interglacial climate that agriculture requires, and the fossil fuel subsidy that is so fundamental to our civilization’s current mode of existence is running out. As Tainter wrote in his 1996 paper, “Complexity, Problem Solving and Sustainable Societies“:
With subsidies of inexpensive fossil fuels, for a long time many consequences of industrialism effectively did not matter. Industrial societies could afford them. When energy costs are met easily and painlessly, benefit/cost ratio to social investments can be substantially ignored (as it has been in contemporary industrial agriculture). Fossil fuels made industrialism, and all that flowed from it (such as science, transportation, medicine, employment, consumerism, high-technology war, and contemporary political organization), a system of problem solving that was sustainable for several generations.
Of course, any course of action is “sustainable” over a sufficiently short time frame. Burning your house down for heat is sustainable for several minutes. The use of fossil fuels was sustainable for almost two centuries, but now we are facing the end of that subsidy–meaning that all those costs that we ignored in the past must now be paid.
Nothing can grow forever in a finite world. That basic truism is the ultimate doom for civilization. Its very nature will not permit it to exist in a steady state; it must grow. If it is not growing, it is dying. If the economy is not growing, and most investments will have negative returns, who is willing to invest? Without investment, how can we build the infrastructure to continue the civilized life–the roads, telephony, satellites or buildings we need now, much less the investments in future technology and complexity we will need to continue such a pace? That makes investment in complexity even less compelling, since there is no one else investing in it, either, and its total cost must be divided among fewer investors. Being the last one “holding the door,” so to speak, is the worst possible strategy. The snowball may take some time to build up, but ultimately, if investment in complexity were a traded stock, collapse works in much the same way as a “run.”
Thus, the “point of no return” in the collapse of any society is when an increasing percentage of the population begins to believe that further complexity is no longer worth it. That fringe always exists, in small numbers; collapse comes when that fringe begins to grow. As such, we can see the first signs of collapse in the growth of primitivism itself. The spread of ideas like slow food, voluntary simplicity, Ethan Watters’ Urban Tribes, or “The Hunter-Gatherers of the Knowledge Economy“–even less obvious attacks on complexty, like open source and blogging–show a general discontent with the current level of complexity, and a growing antipathy for further investment in it.
Much of the world has already collapsed, but are propped up now only by the peer polity system they are enmeshed in. The following map shows those countries in red, showing how far along in the process of collapse we already are.
In collapse, all the rules reverse themselves. Sustainabilty becomes not only feasible, but advantageous. Small, egalitarian groups out-compete large, hierarchical ones. Human nature becomes adaptive, rather than something we must suppress. That process is the inevitable end of any civilization, because nothing can grow forever and without limit in a finite universe. Moreover, that process will begin sooner, rather than later. It has already begun, and in all likelihood, most of us alive today will live to see its completion.
Hi,
How come Australia is shown as having collapsed already? Are you referring to environmental degradation that makes agriculture unsustainable (topsoil loss, increased salinity, etc.)?
Also, I thought the Permian was the worst mass extinction ever, with 95% of species dying out. If the Holocene extinction is anywhere near that bad, I don’t see how humans will survive at all, hunter-gatherers post-collapse or otherwise.
Comment by Eric — 12 January 2006 @ 1:32 PM
Yes, I’m a bit confused by the map as well. What constitutes collapse? Do you mean that those countries are incapable of supporting their populations from their landbases without importing food? Or that their economies have stopped growing? Or that their populations/governments have stopped investing in increased complexity?
Comment by Raku — 12 January 2006 @ 2:30 PM
Yup. The recent riots are a bad sign, too. Same reason I highlighted Montana. It hasn’t collapsed yet only because it’s enmeshed in a network of complexity that it’s feeding off of. If it weren’t for imports, Australia would collapse.
The Permian was the previous record holder. Over a few million years, 95% of all life died out. But the Holocene Extinction’s just a few centuries (at most, millennia) old, and we’re already looking at the very real possibility of 50%. So, if we’re looking at percentage of life wiped out per unit time, the Holocene is kicking the Permian’s ass.
Our survival hinges on the fact that we’ll destroy our own civilization long before we reach 95% or anything close to it. We might get to 50%, but that’s mostly in the tropics. Since there’s nothing pushing this along except our civilization, the end of that civilization should end that trend pretty much immediately. This isn’t the kind of thing where intertia is a concern.
I mean these regions would not have complex societies there, if there weren’t complex societies elsewhere spending a good deal of effort propping them up.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2006 @ 2:57 PM
Okay, I get Australia. If it weren’t for an import of resources by the colonists, then complex society could never have been established there in the first place. I don’t get why Montana’s particularly special. And are you talking current population numbers, or the original, pre-civ landbase’s ability to support a complex society? Because if you’re talking current numbers, then places like Japan and Korea are definitely unable to support their populations. Their entire economies are based on the import of materials.
Comment by Raku — 12 January 2006 @ 4:43 PM
Thinking about this whole issue of collapse makes it obvious there are two very different alternatives we as a species can take and still survive: one is to reduce complexity as all of your theses have discussed, the other is to make a serious global push into space to find the necessary resources.
The two, in fact, could easily coexist: space colonies, mining & travel that give evolution greater options to work on, while a reduced population here lives a fairly simple (by modern standards) lifestyle that treats Earth as a genetic reservoir. We NEED to do things that protect Earth that way.
Now, I’m all in favor of making sure human impact doesn’t adversely effect other species & the biosphere in general as much as possible… and going into space will actually HELP that effort. We will certainly find other life out there eventually and should then treat it as our equal, but it’s highly unlikely in our solar system. For the abiotic regions of space, maybe our exploration/colonization is what we SHOULD do, because it expands the envelope of living things.
Colonization in this sense is VERY different from colonization in Earth’s historical sense, since it doesn’t mean subjugating other peoples’ cultures to our own. In fact, it will probably result in humans creating MORE varieties of culture (many of them probably tribal in nature) over time, just as happened with the migrations of those who survived the genetic bottlenecks long before civilization was born. In an even longer timeframe, it may enable the evolution of several species of human descendents where staying on Earth is likely to restrict evolution and will eventually result in our extinction by asteroid, comet, or solar activity.
Yes, all species die. Even if we’re successful spacefarers, we’ll eventually cease to be Homo sapiens as we know it, and our descendent species will eventually go extinct. But there’s no reason for that to happen sooner because we chose to limit our horizons despite having the intelligence to open them. Intelligent adaptability is our ecological niche, and there’s no reason why using it can’t keep us alive as long as the horseshoe crab’s niche has kept it alive (a billion years or so).
Comment by Jay Denari — 12 January 2006 @ 4:49 PM
No, no, no … it has nothing to do with settlers or colonization or anything like that. I’m talking about their political and economic position right now, this minute. Australia and Montana are in red for the reasons Diamond discusses in Collapse. See “The collapse of the wide, brown land” by Paul Sheehan. On Montana, here’s a quote from Collapse itself:
That’s my criteria for all those red regions. The parts in red are the ones that cannot support complex societies, but are complex now only because they are part of a peer polity system. And frankly, I think I’ve vastly underestimated it. I think more of Africa and the Middle East should be in red … most of eastern Europe, probably, too … and most of the “red states” in the U.S. (which are so dependent on the complex systems of taxation and dispersion for the support of the coasts). You’d probably see the same pattern in Canada, with only Toronto and Quebec in white.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2006 @ 4:55 PM
And the reason that possibility is not realistically on the table was the subject of thesis #16. We’ve passed the point of diminishing returns for complexity, including technology. That plan requires a lot of new technology to spring up, well, yesterday, really. Being past the point of diminishing returns, though, our technological progress is becoming more modest–and it’s costing us more. In short, it would be a big, almost impossible push even in a world where innovation held steady–but add on top of that, that we actually live in a world where innovation is falling, and, well … it ceases to be a realistic possibility.
Besides … it’s not a matter of people living “badly,” it’s just the ramifications of a complex society made out of primates with no evolutionary adaptation for it. We didn’t destroy this world out of malice, after all. We move on to the next, we’ll only destroy that one, too. On and on, hopping from world to world, until we’ve consumed all life in the universe. That’s the progressivist’s best case scenario: we become the aliens from Independence Day.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2006 @ 5:01 PM
But please note, I’m one of the people who’ve said that a post-civilized, tribal space program is conceivable, and I have no problem with doing everything we can to keep our species alive as long as possible–at least not in principle. I’m a big fan of our species.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2006 @ 5:04 PM
Then I still don’t understand why countries like Japan aren’t included. They’re so overpopulated, they couldn’t feed themselves without importing tons of food, and their industry couldn’t survive without importing tons of raw materials.
Comment by Raku — 12 January 2006 @ 5:56 PM
True. As I said, I’m probably underestimating here….
Japan had a complex society before Commodore Perry that seemed to be chugging along just fine. Has that balance significantly shifted since then?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2006 @ 6:07 PM
Hey –
Your map might be more effective — or at least more intuitive — if it were in gradiated shades. Realistically, ALL countries are at least somewhat dependant on the total network… so the tipping point should be where the intersupports are no longer effective at propping the whole thing up, no?
‘Course, that’d be a LOT more work for you, Jason
Janene
Comment by Janene — 12 January 2006 @ 6:18 PM
Hmmmm … well, it’s difficult to tease all these out in a peer polity system. Do we count in trade? I’m mostly looking here at what they sometimes called “failed states” and really damning ecological disasters. In short, everything where someone’s suggested that it’s collapsed, and had a half-decent argument to back it up.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2006 @ 6:21 PM
Diamond mentions in Collapse that Japan relied on the northern island of Hokkaido (which wasn’t part of Japan until sometime in the 19th century) for raw materials and deforested most of the island. Who knows what would have happenned if they didn’t open up to the rest of the world.
Another issue with the map is that while Australia couldn’t survive without the world, the rest of the world wouldn’t do so well without Australia either. They are a major exporter of minerals.
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 12 January 2006 @ 6:37 PM
If you are looking for failed states then most of Africa, especially the West Coast should be in deep red.
See here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2005/fsindex/majormap.html
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 12 January 2006 @ 6:38 PM
Hey, Jason! We’re more alike than I realized.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 12 January 2006 @ 10:29 PM
“Japan had a complex society before Commodore Perry that seemed to be chugging along just fine. Has that balance significantly shifted since then”
Oh ya. The most fertile and agriculturally productive lands are also the most heavily developed. The island is fairly mountainous, and agricultural land is scarce, yet almost all of the good land now has dense urban populations. The rich plains between Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto are now home to a continuous megacity that makes the East Coast of the US seem sparsely populated in comparison.
Comment by limukala — 13 January 2006 @ 2:06 AM
It’s probably going to take long before total collapse comes, isn’t it? Because there’s nuclear energy?
By the way, are we that sure that there’s not more oil then we think there is? From who did we get the numbers about oil in the first place?
I read a number of articles stating that oil is not a fossil fuel but it’s being created quite fast in the middle of the earth. But if that’s the case we probably still demand far to much oil, and that demand probably keeps rising until it totally collapses.
When do you think Belgium is going to collapse? It’s boring here and I want something to happen
Comment by Gunnix — 13 January 2006 @ 5:30 AM
Nuclear power requires uranium, but it’s extremely efficient with that uranium. But then, uranium is a fairly rare resource. We have enough uranium on earth to power our current usage for 50 years. But, civilization must always grow, so usage can’t remain steady–it has to go up. So, less than 50 years.
But, uranium don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that reactor. We needed to start building those a few decades ago for it to have an impact. We’d need to start pouring all of our resources into it right now for nuclear energy to save us now.
Oh, the numbers are total frauds. Don’t trust them, they all, all lie. But they lie about how much more they have, typically. We used to estimate another decade till Peak Oil. Then we found out how much Shell and Saudi Arabia were lying to us. So, in fact, there’s probably less oil than we think there is. See thesis #18.
That’s called “abiotic oil.” It’s right up there with aquatic ape theory, UFOs, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. That is, it’s a fairly popular, oft-repeated piece of complete, unsubstantiated foolishness.
Collapse is an all-or-nothing affair. So, Belgium will collapse at the same time as everyone else. My best guess is that it should be fairly obviously underway by 2012-2015.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 8:22 AM
the type of farming we have at the moment is actually the most inefficient system ever in terms of energy input to food output.
Comment by michael the tubthumper — 13 January 2006 @ 1:02 PM
It is indeed, as I’ve often said. The most efficient, in terms of energy input to energy output, is horticulture. All agriculture is beyond the point of diminishing returns, and even the simple, agrarian life has a negative overall efficiency.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 1:35 PM
About uranium, the problem is more than mere creation of electricity. One of the major uses for oil is the creation of nitrogen fertilizer. It’s this fertilizer, made using oil by a method called the Haber-Bosch process, that’s the foundation off the Green Revolution. When peak oil peaks, the first place it will be felt will be the fields, not the cities. Electricity will be a very minor concern when 50% of the world’s nitrogen fertilizer dissappears.
Not to mention any problems arising from any sort of “Peak Uranium.”
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 13 January 2006 @ 3:53 PM
Collapse is not inevitable.
This rediculous cataclysmic, catastrohic inesscapable end, which is being pushed in certain circles with as much religiosity and zealous ferver as to make Falwell, Robertson, Free Market Capitilist preachers, Authoritarian Marxists/Socialists, Neo-Nazis and Fred Phelps jealous, is creating a schism in anarchism in general and leading to a form of intellectual and physical poverty of thought and action and a push towards authoritarianism through elitism, misanthrope and futalism.
It’s paralyzing our movement as much as the influx of leftists is.
End times fear mongering and appocalyptic scenarios….whats the difference between the second coming of Christ used to keep people complacent here and now rather than improving their imeadiate conditions through popular uprisings and inssurections because they are going to inherit the coming kingdom of God and the unquestionable coming end of civilization and the adherents practicing deetatchment from civilization, rewilding with a firm belief that they will be the sole people inheriting this post appocalyptic egalitarian utopia?
Whats the difference between Reconstructionist Christians who were and are promoting the destruction of the planet through greater use of resources and the encouraging of wars as a way to usher in the end times and thus the second coming of Christ and those within our circles who speak of ushering in the collapse of civilization through insurrectionary actions such as destroying power grids an dams thus killing millions of poor in the process?
Think folks.
This kinda propaganda makes me sick the same way christian or white supremist propaganda does. Same message as the impetus to gather adherents. The use of psuedoscience is the same also.
I want that egalitarian society filled with a void of automobiles and an abundence of trees and flowers too but we got cut out this nonsense and cut out the psuedoscience.
Comment by Anonymous — 13 January 2006 @ 4:07 PM
But we’re not talking about the end of oil–just its peak. Per volume, most oil is used for transportation. If we can get some other fuel, then we should have enough oil to continue using it in petrochemicals. As I heard one person opine, “Oil is to important to just burn.”
The quality of the evidence. We’ve had this discussion before, and your refutation is illogical. If you would like to point out where I’ve used “pseudoscience,” I’d appreciate some constructive criticism, but I don’t care much whether or not it serves anarchy–I care whether or not its true.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 4:14 PM
Oh, and if collapse isn’t inevitable, then that means that something can grow forever in a finite universe. Those two statements are logical inverses of each other, so it has to be either P or not P–and not P is patently absurd.
So, if your objection has any merit at all, it has to be the time scale, rather than its eventual occurence.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 4:19 PM
You havent used psuedoscience directly but the premis is based directly in a psuedoscientific mythology going way back.
My refutation is not illogical and your poor grasp of formal language systems such as model logic is glaring.
I don’t care much if it serves anarchism either becuase it obviously doesn’t although being promoted as tenent within but the heading of this site does pay lip service to it.
This is logically fallacious. You cannot with scientific certainty say the universe is finite. Your “logical” end is thusly negated and even more so there are always more than two choices (you’ve commited another logical fallacy -care to name it?), one musn’t choose between collapse or progression. Things aren’t “black and white”, “either/or”. I refer to this as the Bush fallacy …”youre either with us or against us”.
Comment by Anonymous — 13 January 2006 @ 4:34 PM
oh, and whats more, what you and this site are promoting is a faith based system of putting ones hopes and desires in an abstraction - the future. The future is not yet and the past is gone -all we have is now; a series of “nows”. The revolution is ever present. The revolution is in the struggle and the struggle must be in every moment that we interact with one another and our enviroment.
Comment by Anonymous — 13 January 2006 @ 4:37 PM
The reasoning used to justify the notion that civilizations must grow, must increase in complexity, only applies if there are multiple civilizations in competition with each other. If there is only one civilization spanning the entire globe then there is no one to compete against and the prisoner’s dillema doesn’t apply. The same would be true if all civilizations cooperated together, instead of competing, and agree not to pursue infinite growth.
In addition, a civilization could simply stop growing when it reaches the point where the returns from increasing complexity equal the costs. At that point growth brings no competitive advantage, because the benefits equal or exceed the costs. That civilization need not collapse, it could simply stop growing - remaining the same size for eons, neither growing nor declining. So collapse isn’t inevitable.
Comment by Joe Licentia — 13 January 2006 @ 5:43 PM
Well I gotta say I kind of agree with “Anonymous” above.
But also with the rest…
Sure collapse might be inevitable. But when where and how can probably not be predicted. It’s interesting to read these articles but in the end it’s not of such great importance. When it actually happens most of us probably won’t be prepared, there will be situations which we didn’t think of. But that’s what keeps the world a fun place: surprises. And I’m sure we can improvise when needed.
I’m curious how you can be so sure about abiotic oil being a myth.
And so many other things which are presented as facts. Do you and scientists really understand so much of how everything works? I’m quite sceptical about scientific proof, and common known facts. I think human knowledge is so imperfect that we’ll never really understand. If you read Masanobu Fukuoka’s books “One straw revolution” and “Road to nature” you might understand what I try to say.
I think this site and the work done like on http://www.inthewake.org is cool though. I do hope civilization is going to crash down, and get industry out of this world so we can live more naturally again like hunter gatherers. But I’m not going to put my believe in collapse, prepare for it or wait for it. It might just as well come in a 100 years.
There always turn up things that are not planned that surprise you.
And on a side note, who knows, maybe it will not be so cool after collapse as we think…
I don’t want to show any disrespect to anyone of this website, because it might well be that I’m completely wrong in what I say
Comment by gunnix — 13 January 2006 @ 5:49 PM
Had you read the article linked to, you would know that I’ve already refuted your argument, where I wrote:
Your bald assertion (logical fallacy) that my “poor grasp of formal language systems such as model logic is glaring” is undermined by your inability to separate soundness and validness in your second comment. Whether or not the universe is infinite does not undermine the validity of the statement. At most, if the universe is in fact infinite, you would show the logic to unsound, but not invalid. Logic is the domain of validity; empirical evidence is the domain of soundness. You’ve made a claim about soundness, and confused it with validity by referring to it as “illogical.”
I’ll agree that there is indeed a glaringly poor grasp of formal language systems, but I don’t think it’s coming from me.
But, answering the charge you made against my evidence while mistaking evidence for logic, while the universe may have a constantly increasing volume, that is still finite. Constantly increasing is not the same as infinite. Also, the arguments of cosmologists as to whether the univere is constantly expanding are arguments of volume–mass is not. Even under your the terms of your inability to understand the notion of infinity, the mass–and thus, the available resources–in the universe are still finite.
The logical fallacy you’re looking for is the false dilemna, but this isn’t one of them. Once again, your inability to handle simple logic is glaring. There are not always more than two choices–just most of the time. You’ve invoked the same fallacious argument as above, by claiming that my argument resembles some other argument, that argument is wrong, therefore mine must be wrong, as well.
Logic very often divides the world into two choices, most commonly “P or not P.” Those two may be very lopsided: P may be very narrow, and not P very broad, but everything can always be divided into P and not P. Take, for instance, this statement: “Everything is either blue, or not blue.” That is true, no matter how you divide it–anything that isn’t blue is, well, not blue.
So, likewise, in any finite universe (please note, “universe” does not necessarily mean “the cosmos”–it can refer to any set, and no, I shouldn’t have to explain this), any system dependent on constant growth must, inevitably, collapse. That is a valid statement. Feel free to try to prove that it is unsound, but it can never be illogical.
My hope is for a world where government has become obsolete, thus, “anarchy.” Whether or not that holds true to the body of philosophy called by that name is irrelevant to me. There are myriad definitions of anarchy and anarchists. Some include me; others do not. My arguments fit within the larger body of anarchist literature, because whatever other anarchists may think of me (or I of them), we share the same, defining trait of backing a system that has no government.
Joe,
The level of “the civilization” is rather arbitrary, no? If political units contained within it are competing against one another, won’t the civilization continue to grow? If corporations compete against each other? If individuals compete? If such competition is pursued at any level, it must ultimately result in increasing complexty.
The point of diminishing returns is not the point at which the benefits exceed the costs. This is the very crux of the problem. It is the point at which the benefits begin to dwindle–when the curve turns downward, on a trajectory towards the point where the benefits exeed the costs. That is the point of collapse.
This changes things for your proposal of ending competition by mutual agreement. Once again, we’re at the prisoner’s dilemna discussed in thesis #13. We can observe that all players would benefit from that agreement. However, the combination of fear of betrayal and personal motivation always leads someone to betray the pact and continue the escalation. You are essentially proposing a cartel, wherein all parties agree not to increase their complexity. Cartels always fail, because in the end, the temptation to cheat–and thus out-compete everyone else in the cartel–is too much to resist.
See game theory for a full mathematical explanation of why this is the case.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 6:11 PM
Anonymous:
I agree with you that collapse is not inevitable, although I think there is enough evidence on this site and elsewhere to believe it is very likely. As an anarchist, I have some of your concerns, because although anarchy in name is advocated here, cooperation is to be limited to those persons in your tribe. It is stated that humans can’t consider or treat more than 150 people as persons, the rest of us are things. This mindset makes an egalitarian society impossible.
I think your statement about a “schism in anarchism� is an oxymoron. Anarchy cannot have dogma so a schism is impossible. An egalitarian society would welcome hunter-gathers. I agree with you that some of the concepts advocated here are detrimental to creating an egalitarian society. Also some are based on questionable science and beliefs.
You say: “The revolution is in the struggle and the struggle must be in every moment that we interact with one another and our environment.� I think you’re correct here, however the struggle at this time is a struggle of ideas. My impression is that the people contributing to this site are sincere. They have analyzed our present civilization and agree with us that it is disgusting because it is oppressive and is destroying (or has destroyed) our environment. There is no intention here to bring on collapse, just a feeling that it is inevitable and a lack of responsibility for this. If you intend to contribute to “the struggle� then try to use the constructive criticism Jason has requested.
Jason:
Your P or not P argument was probably not understood because Anonymous doesn’t know your definition of civilization. This civilization must collapse because it’s defined as needing to expand. Anonymous probably thinks that you can call an egalitarian non-capitalist society a civilization.
On the subject of finite worlds, a tribe has to deal with the same problem in a finite world. Without a global society that has a methodology for preventing the tragedy of the commons, unless population is controlled by environmental stress, collapse will be repeated.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 13 January 2006 @ 6:12 PM
Where is easy–everywhere, or nowhere at all. And since nowhere isn’t an option, it’ll be everywhere. As for how and when, as I said above, when is a lot easier than how. With so many proximate causes converging in the near future, I would set the probability of collapse now, rather than later, extremely high.
Particularly since we’re evincing all the same signs as, well, every other civilization right before it collapsed. I would even venture that it’s no longer a hypothetical possibility, but a process that has already begun.
I’m always open to change my point of view based on new evidence. Hell, I was once a lector in the Catholic Church, so, I’ve come some ways already. But the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. You can’t say abiotic oil is real because all the evidence against it has some margin of error. All evidence has some margin of error, and ultimately, there’s always Humean skepticism. But I don’t find that useful, so I assume that we CAN know things on the same premise as Pascal believed in G-d.
The abiotic oil people have no evidence for their claim, and there’s an enormous amount of evidence against them. So, I reject it totally. And then I laugh at them, because while it’s respectable to disbelieve something that’s actually true for want of evidence, it’s really stupid to believe something when there’s no evidence–whether it’s true or not.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 6:29 PM
Anonymous - keep in mind that Jason, et al, aren’t saying “the collapse is coming, so let’s sit on our asses and watch some shit burn — since we are virtuous and right, we will inherit the earth!” (muahaha)
If anything, it’s more of a reminder that the shit is going down soon(ish), so you’d better get ready, whatever that means for you.
Chuck - woah… For some reason I wasn’t aware that Haber-Bosch is used to make fertilizers. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was developed during WWI (II?) because Germany had run out of materials to make bombs. Interesting.
Stepping out again…
-Mike
Comment by WackyMorningDJ — 13 January 2006 @ 6:33 PM
Were my views on this not ennumerated in such detail, or if I had not written on that subject at such length and so publically, that might be an excuse for his logically bankrupt rantings. But, since that is not the case, I will persist in taking as hostile an attitude towards our anonymous little troll as she deigned to take up against me, unless and until she sees fit to attempt a civil dialogue. If she should decide that, I would gladly reciprocate. If not, then I’ll deal with her as I would with any other troll who likes to throw around the phraseology of logic without the faintest grasp of it.
Such controls need not be conscious or global. Every other animal operates within that dynamic equilibrium quite easily without any such thing–as did our forager ancestors.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 6:36 PM
First, all appologies for the hostile tone.
Second, regardless of how many articles you’ve written or how well known you are in certain circles it doesn’t mean you’re well read…it’s a big world out there Mr. Ego ;)(passive aggresive j/k)
All right, please hold off on me untill I read a bit more because truthfully I didn’t know you had a technical language with specialized definitions. P or not P would have made sense in that context as spoken to by the other poster.
Comment by Anonymous — 13 January 2006 @ 7:02 PM
While I would love to see civilization collapse in my lifetime, and the evidence certainly seems to suggest that it will, we must always take into account the unexpected. Everyone always seems to pick the future they most desire or most fear (depending on their disposition) and then find great evidence to back it up.
Did I mention that I think your probably right? I still think there are other possibilities, and this article may give you an inkling of one of them (which, if you follow its implications is actually pretty scary)
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/01/space-cadets.html#comments
Oh, btw, anonymous, while its great that you think that this line of thinking is bad for ideological reasons, you haven’t given a shred of evidence to support your claims, other than, “it hurts the anarchy movement” which is to say “I don’t like it.”
Sorry to say, it just sounds like whining to me.
Your best argument is that all this is based on future conjecture and only the present has any tangible reality. I certainly agree, but living in the present as I do (or try to), I notice certain signs-in the present-that seem to indicate what might be coming, and therefore indicate intelligent action to be taken-in the present. Living in the present doesn’t mean you have to be shortsighted. You have to prepare for the future in the present.
Also, by all this talk of fighting and revolution, you are just playing into the hands of the people you are trying to fight. Resistance will only make the oppressors stronger (how do you build muscle?). It gives them a pretense for further oppression and domination (see those evil anarchists destroying Seattle, we need more and stronger police, etc). Also, if by some miracle you succeed, you have simply left civilization, but all of the tools to create it are intact. If we simply make predictions, watch it collapse and try to help as many people as possible in the interim, it will be much harder for civilization to recreate itself. Ya, it sucks that a whole lot of people will die, but first of all, is death really as horrible as a life of slavery, stress, domination and toil? Second, the earth can’t support 6.5 billion people without destroying most every other kind of life (let alone 9 billion), so are you saying you would sacrifice over 50% of the population of the Earth so that one cancerous species can continue to live unhappy, stressful lives?
No matter what there is bound to be a whole lot of suffering. The goal is then to reduce the amount of suffering as much as possible, not keep as many humans alive as possible.
Comment by limukala — 13 January 2006 @ 7:04 PM
“Such controls need not be conscious or global. Every other animal operates within that dynamic equilibrium quite easily without any such thing–as did our forager ancestors.â€?
All animals including humans reproduce at such a rate as to increase their population exponentially. Other animals have their populations controlled by environmental stress. This is usually by predators or lack of food. Humans are capable of conscious birth control.
I understand that Neolithic populations remained quite stable. So did chimpanzees in that period. The chimp’s population was controlled by availability of food or predators. I know you have stated elsewhere that humans were able to avoid this trauma. Please explain how and provide a reference.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 13 January 2006 @ 7:06 PM
oops, now I see how the link works.
Comment by limukala — 13 January 2006 @ 7:06 PM
please please hold off on me for now cause I’d like to learn a little more, reply to some specifics and as I won’t be able to post again until tomorrow I’d hate to be buried up to my eyeballs. Not only would it be very difficult to not lose site of some things and get lost on sidetracks (interesting though they may be) but I’m gonna have to type for a very long time as it is! There are so many things I want to speak to at this point.
Comment by Anonymous — 13 January 2006 @ 7:16 PM
[QUOTE]The earth can’t support 6.5 billion people without destroying most every other kind of life (let alone 9 billion), so are you saying you would sacrifice over 50% of the population of the Earth so that one cancerous species can continue to live unhappy, stressful lives?[/QUOTE]
Right, I think the earth can support 6.5 billion just perfectly. There’s enough land and space for all of us, including other animals and plants.
Masanobu Fukuoka, a natural farmer, (and not only him) says you need about 300 square metre for one human to live on sustainably. If I make the calculation there’s even plenty of space left here in Belgium (which is very densely populated). Of course, this is only possible with a primitive and natural lifestyle.
Comment by gunnix — 13 January 2006 @ 7:21 PM
Gunnix,
Being a Fukuoka fan, I do have to point out that we’ve f***-ed up so much arable land, it’s doubtful we have enough left to fulfill a vision of feeding everyone.
But to use his techniques to help ease our transition our way out of civilization and back into a healthy world… now that’s something to contemplate, no matter how many or how few people it supports.
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 13 January 2006 @ 9:02 PM
I’m also a big Fukuoka fan. His calculations are based on life in Japanese rice growing land, which is fairly limited, and most temperate climates have been so thoroughly exploited that it would take years of intensive rehabilitation to bring them anywhere close to the productivity of his land without chemicals. Remember that he has been developing his techniques for over 50 years. That is a long time to build up the health of your land, and means it probably never saw the devastating effects of chemical agriculture to a significant degree since the green revolution didn’t get going full swing until the sixties.
Also, it would still require us to use a pretty substantial portion of the sunlight income, and that is assuming we somehow develop perfect population control. Even if the whole world was a “natural farm” we would still be selecting mostly species we like, at the expense of those we don’t like or notice.
Assuming we overcome that diffuculty and somehow manage to use our horticultural techniques to increase diversity and bring local ecologies to a climax state, the real issue is, do you really think there is any way in hell you can convince the majority of westerners that they would be better off without their cars and big screen HDTV’s? In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, he does case studies of civilizations that have collapsed, and found that in every case, the people chose to maintain the cultural practices that were destroying their environment, even when the signs of collapse were obvious. In other words, people would rather die than live differently or change their worldview.
Comment by limukala — 13 January 2006 @ 9:21 PM
Bob,
It’s your basic understanding of how populations are controlled where you go awry. Starvation and predation are only the most extreme forms of population control. More often, these are simply handled by modifying the birth rate. If lynxes eat too many snowshoe hares, it becomes harder to find the snowshoe hares that are left. The lynxes spend more time hunting, and so, less time copulating. The birth rate drops, and the death rate remains constant, so the lynx population drops. With less predation, the snowshoe hare population comes back up, and the process repeats. The lynxes were never starving to death–it was just a bit of a more difficult spell.
Ever notice that fertility is pretty much the first thing to go? So much as a head cold, and you can’t concieve? There’s a reason for that. Populations of all animals except civilized humans maintain a dynamic equilibrium, because they don’t control their food supply. Any animal that can arbitrarily raise its own food supply will do so–over and over and over again. It will never choose not to, and that leads us to the current predicament.
But, as I’ll explain in thesis #29, this is the last time this cycle is going to be repeated, for at least a geological epoch.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 January 2006 @ 11:20 PM
Why are the states of misisipi and Louisiana not colured in red. They still seem to be mostly abandoned after huricane Katrina.
Comment by Stephen — 14 January 2006 @ 2:00 AM
The strip of red along the Gulf Coast is a little hard to see at this resolution, but my understanding was that it was just the coast, not the whole states, that were in collapse. Was I wrong about this?
The map obviously needs some work, but I think it accomplishes its goal of driving home just how far down the road of collapse we already are. You’ll notice that, consistently, my error is that I didn’t make enough of it red. Take a look at that map–most of it is in red. I’ll polish the details for the book, but I think the point is neatly illustrated now: collapse is no longer a hypothetical future, but a present reality.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 January 2006 @ 11:33 AM
First I wanted to appologize. I am usually not abbrasive in this manner nor do I usually spout off half cocked.
Although I usually do not d