Escaping the Apocollapse: If Humans Were Intelligent, What Would They Be Doing Now?
Kevin Kelly's Taxonomy of Collapsitarians:
Brian comes along and looks at Kelly's portrait of the "six species of collapsitarians" and decides that a collapse -- a full collapse -- will not happen. Brian freely admits to bona fide existential risks as described by the Lifeboat Foundation, but feels that humans are intelligent and sensible enough to avoid the most discussed mechanisms for collapse: climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, overpopulation, self-implosion of globalism, nuclear war, economic doom etc. Brian discusses these mechanisms, and presents reasons why they would not cause a total collapse, based upon humans meeting the problems wisely and heading off the collapse. For anyone concerned about the possiblity of a deep, total collapse of civilisation, Brian's article is worth reading.
Brian is quite right that intelligent, wise, and functional human societies could deal with any and all of the listed problems above without breaking a sweat. In fact, many of these "earth-shaking crises" are mostly fabricated problems meant to sell newspapers and to transfer wealth from productive sectors of society to non-productive sectors (academics, politicians, bureaucrats, the UN, etc). Despite all the angst, the sleepless nights, the nightmares of children -- the problems simply do not exist at any meaningful level. And the rest could, as Brian maintains, be dealt with relatively easily by smart societies.
But -- have you seen any smart societies around lately? Voters have been electing some particularly clownish leaders recently in nations from the UK to the US to Russia to Australia. Such fools as these can only create new problems and make existing problems virtually insoluble -- they will not be solving any important problems soon. Rather than allocating resources wisely, governments led by such cracked pots will maximise mis-allocation of resources -- from the productive to the non-productive on a grand scale.
All of humanity's problems are soluble. But not if the scarce resources needed to solve the problems are mis-allocated by corrupt and ambitious leaders of limited wisdom and foresight. Within the developed world, governments have grown so huge and bloated as to become a suffocating force upon the creativity of the underlying society. Growing government becomes its own end, rather than a means to empower the creativity and enterprise of its citizens. Ballooning taxes become the largest single expense of any working person, steadily eliminating the life choices the person could have otherwise made. Smooth-talking politicians explain why all of this is necessary and for a very good cause. In the end, government workers become a privileged class, parasites on the few producers who remain.
In the US, the election of Obama does not cause Apocollapse. The problems leading to the collapse of the US economy have been in place for almost a hundred years. They grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the 1960s, the late 1970s and the late 1990s. George W. Bush looked the other way while the programmed growth of these problem entities occurred on his watch -- and seemed not to take them into account in his own foreign policy decisions. And then Obama happened . . . .
Obama is the epitome of the clueless clown president, the smooth talker that puts zombie brains to sleep with words given him by others who happen to be good with words -- and know what the zombies want to hear. Obama is taking phantom, non-existing problems and making them a priority in his administration. He is taking small problems and turning them into huge problems. And he is taking huge problems and turning them into insurmountable problems.
I admire the optimism that Brian Wang displays, as he presents quite sensible responses to the popular collapsitarian concerns of the day. If humans were actually intelligent, capable of electing sensible leaders and of holding these leaders to account, the solutions to problems would occur largely as Brian describes. But that is not the situation we find ourselves in.
There will be a collapse. Whether it will happen soon, before Obama can reinflate all the pre-existent economic bubbles, or whether Obama can defer the collapse until after he leaves office, is only relevant to the timing. Will it be a "total collapse?" Not likely.
Although societies as a whole are growing dumber -- as witnessed by the ability to elect an Obama -- within those societies are persons of strong core competencies who will seek each other out if things get bad enough. Around these competent cores will grow functional islands in the middle of a larger dysfunctional society. If enough functional islands can link up and provide an inspiration to enough persons in the larger society, many of the corrupt and dysfunctional drags on society can be dispensed with, at least temporarily.
Some very amazing technologies are being researched, developed, and trying to find their way to market. There are a few of these technologies that are so powerful that they will make it very difficult for the populist Obamanoids of the world to use the stupidity of the majority as a weapon against humanity as a whole. In the long run, Brian Wang is correct in his optimism. In the short and middle run, however, we are in for some excitement that most of us would rather avoid.
Luddites, anarchists, and anti-civilization activists...
Goldbugs, survivalists, Y2K holdouts, and slightly right wingers...
Conservationists and greenies....
Somewhat leftist anti-globalists...
Critics of American super-power...(...native academics...prominent historians.)
Former financial employees who see...no escape from, this doom.
KevinKelly
Brian comes along and looks at Kelly's portrait of the "six species of collapsitarians" and decides that a collapse -- a full collapse -- will not happen. Brian freely admits to bona fide existential risks as described by the Lifeboat Foundation, but feels that humans are intelligent and sensible enough to avoid the most discussed mechanisms for collapse: climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, overpopulation, self-implosion of globalism, nuclear war, economic doom etc. Brian discusses these mechanisms, and presents reasons why they would not cause a total collapse, based upon humans meeting the problems wisely and heading off the collapse. For anyone concerned about the possiblity of a deep, total collapse of civilisation, Brian's article is worth reading.
Brian is quite right that intelligent, wise, and functional human societies could deal with any and all of the listed problems above without breaking a sweat. In fact, many of these "earth-shaking crises" are mostly fabricated problems meant to sell newspapers and to transfer wealth from productive sectors of society to non-productive sectors (academics, politicians, bureaucrats, the UN, etc). Despite all the angst, the sleepless nights, the nightmares of children -- the problems simply do not exist at any meaningful level. And the rest could, as Brian maintains, be dealt with relatively easily by smart societies.
But -- have you seen any smart societies around lately? Voters have been electing some particularly clownish leaders recently in nations from the UK to the US to Russia to Australia. Such fools as these can only create new problems and make existing problems virtually insoluble -- they will not be solving any important problems soon. Rather than allocating resources wisely, governments led by such cracked pots will maximise mis-allocation of resources -- from the productive to the non-productive on a grand scale.
All of humanity's problems are soluble. But not if the scarce resources needed to solve the problems are mis-allocated by corrupt and ambitious leaders of limited wisdom and foresight. Within the developed world, governments have grown so huge and bloated as to become a suffocating force upon the creativity of the underlying society. Growing government becomes its own end, rather than a means to empower the creativity and enterprise of its citizens. Ballooning taxes become the largest single expense of any working person, steadily eliminating the life choices the person could have otherwise made. Smooth-talking politicians explain why all of this is necessary and for a very good cause. In the end, government workers become a privileged class, parasites on the few producers who remain.
In the US, the election of Obama does not cause Apocollapse. The problems leading to the collapse of the US economy have been in place for almost a hundred years. They grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the 1960s, the late 1970s and the late 1990s. George W. Bush looked the other way while the programmed growth of these problem entities occurred on his watch -- and seemed not to take them into account in his own foreign policy decisions. And then Obama happened . . . .
Obama is the epitome of the clueless clown president, the smooth talker that puts zombie brains to sleep with words given him by others who happen to be good with words -- and know what the zombies want to hear. Obama is taking phantom, non-existing problems and making them a priority in his administration. He is taking small problems and turning them into huge problems. And he is taking huge problems and turning them into insurmountable problems.
I admire the optimism that Brian Wang displays, as he presents quite sensible responses to the popular collapsitarian concerns of the day. If humans were actually intelligent, capable of electing sensible leaders and of holding these leaders to account, the solutions to problems would occur largely as Brian describes. But that is not the situation we find ourselves in.
There will be a collapse. Whether it will happen soon, before Obama can reinflate all the pre-existent economic bubbles, or whether Obama can defer the collapse until after he leaves office, is only relevant to the timing. Will it be a "total collapse?" Not likely.
Although societies as a whole are growing dumber -- as witnessed by the ability to elect an Obama -- within those societies are persons of strong core competencies who will seek each other out if things get bad enough. Around these competent cores will grow functional islands in the middle of a larger dysfunctional society. If enough functional islands can link up and provide an inspiration to enough persons in the larger society, many of the corrupt and dysfunctional drags on society can be dispensed with, at least temporarily.
Some very amazing technologies are being researched, developed, and trying to find their way to market. There are a few of these technologies that are so powerful that they will make it very difficult for the populist Obamanoids of the world to use the stupidity of the majority as a weapon against humanity as a whole. In the long run, Brian Wang is correct in his optimism. In the short and middle run, however, we are in for some excitement that most of us would rather avoid.
Labels: collapse of nations, economic depression, escape, Obamanation, zombies
posted by al fin at 4:28 pm
3 Comments:
Right to the point...
Very interesting.
The sad conclusion here is that there has to be at least a near collapse before something change.
John Galt was having the same conclusion, and he created that collapse... for the change.
That was quite a gambling.
( and a fiction... )
But maybe do we need our John Galt now ?
Salut!
"In the long run, Brian Wang is correct in his optimism."
How long...50 years, 100 years?
"Think like a pessimist,but act as an optimist" :)
Think ... pessimist, but act .... optimist? Very good, M. I will have to remember that.
John Galt's inventions not only supplied unlimited energy to Galt's Gulch, they also made the redoubt invisible to aerial surveillance. Any aircraft that made direct contact with the invisible force field lost all of its electronics.
The equivalent of such a force field today might be an artificial intelligence that could make persons "invisible" to computer surveillance, and provide them with plenty of working capital.
Add self-replicating nano-assemblers that can make virtually anything out of air, water, dirt, and sunshine.
These tools are in the pipeline. They are very destabilising. Governments hate the idea that people might be better off without big brother looking over their shoulder and dipping into their bank accounts.
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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell
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