civilization collapse

Q: What's the moral response to Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies and Smil's Global Catastrophes and Trends? A: Is it something like applying the golden rule to the ecosystem's investment in me? Am I an asset that generates wealth for the ecosystem, or an expense that increases entropy, hastening the eventual heat death of the universe? Am I doing unto the ecosystem as the ecosystem is doing unto me? No.

I have not read the book - just this essay. Seems similar to "Agriculture: the demon engine of civilization" by John Zerzan. Full text here. Review of Zerzan's work here. However an interesting tangential question is why only 10,000 years ago? Why not earlier? Art appears. Climate supports agriculture. Also we have the discoveries in 2005 of mirror neurons. How stuff works - stuff you should know podcast here - listen. The article with the mind experiment that was the basis for the Matrix can be read here.

The best book to date outlining the REAL threats to civilization collapse. Thoroughly researched and documented with an exhaustive and enlightening bibliography. There is at least one threat Smil has overlooked - the sunspot cycle identified by NASA that may cause $1 to $2 trillion in damages. Story here. Link to Google Books Link to Amazon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel#Jet_biofuels Oil prices increased about fivefold from 2003 to 2008, raising fears that world petroleum production is becoming unable to keep up with demand. The fact that there are few alternatives to petroleum for aviation fuel adds urgency to the search for alternatives. Twenty-five airlines were bankrupted or stopped operations in the first six months of 2008, largely due to fuel costs.[21]

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10960 - excerpt - "50% of china CGP related to construction" http://vreaa.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/chinas-re-trading-volume-collapses-recent-mortgage-restrictions-may-be-having-an-effect-after-all/ China’s RE Trading Volume Collapses – “Recent mortgage restrictions may be having an effect after all.” China’s RE and stock markets have some direct effects on Vancouver RE in that a small number of local sales are to wealthy foreign investors from China. More important, however, is the psychological link between the two markets. Many Vancouver locals believe that our market is buoyed by China, and thus speculate on local property based on that premise. For the latter reason, this story is particularly important. It comes at the same time as ballooning inventory in Vancouver, and mortgage debt that is growing more expensive by the week. More on the Vancouver-China relationship HERE. -vreaa From businessinsider.com 27 Apr 2010 - “China’s pr...

how I can unify diamond and tainter and recast diamond un active human agency terms - not passive agency passive human agency: population grew. exhausted resources. collapse. active human agency: resource extraction costs exceeded margin. collapse. problem: rapa nui deforestation. can't divide by zero. they removed all the trees. so the cost to remove new ones from nothing is infinite and the margin on that infinite work is nothing. problem: Chaco canyon drought. no water to remove. summarize: diamond: collapse is a result of resource exhaustion tainter: collapse is a result of margin / profit exhaustion diamond: why? declining returns per unit of work invested vs unit of resource extracted tainter: why? declining returns but why declining returns? exceeded carrying capacity - non sustainable extraction

first - i plan to lock my mortgage for 10 years. second - when mortgage brokers show you charts comparing 25 years of fixed rates to variable - you have ask yourself -is the implicit suggestion that the past is going to repeat itself valid and accurate? how comparable were the past 25 to the next 25 years? here's my thinking: I am thinking different. i am thinking about the largest debt the world has ever known. I am thinking about the trillion dollar bail out package. I am thinking about the billions spent in Canada. I am thinking about the legions of unemployed in Canada and the USA. I am thinking of the foreclosures in the us. I am thinking that the past 25 years may not be a good guide for the future. how much more can governments borrow at these rates? but that's what I am thinking. I am thinking that rates have never been this low. I am thinking how much growth does the economy have left? I am thinking about peak oil. I am thinking about us companies too big too fail that...

how isn't it? for most people, their wealth and resources are stored in their house. when the market value sinks below what they owe their savings are gone. News: article predicting 7 million home foreclosures has been pulled by MSNBC. The article titled "New Wave of Foreclosures Threatens Market: Up to 7 Million Homes Are Potentially Eligible But Haven’t Been Repossessed" was available at this link - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35832152/ns/business-washington_post//. Googling the tite - http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=New+wave+of+foreclosures+threatens+market%0AUp+to+7+million+homes+are+potentially+eligible+but+haven%E2%80%99t+been+repossessed - yields several cached copies.

Read here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson28-2010feb28,0,7706980.story "If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, what are the implications for the United States today? First, debating the stages of decline may be a waste of time -- it is a precipitous and unexpected fall that should most concern policymakers and citizens. Second, most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.5 trillion -- about 11% of GDP, the biggest since World War II." The question "If empires are complex system that ... malfunction..." rhetorical. Nothing is stable. Everything decays. Entropy is the law. Our ancestors are dead. Black holes are the center of galaxies. Point taken.

Joseph Tainter speaks. from 0:29 seconds: This is very important. Energy is ultimately the key to sustainability. I argue that sustainability is a function of problem solving - of a society's capacity to solve it's problems. Solving problems is costly - it requires complexity and the complexity has to be ultimately paid for by energy. Now we sustain our highly complex societies today at levels well beyond what would be possible just with solar energy. Basically we sustain complexity and we sustain our problem solving capacity today through fossil fuels. So we maybe facing a real challenge. Not just that fossil fuels become so expensive that its difficult for people to commute to work or heat their homes. But the high cost and perhaps increasing scarcity of particularly petroleum - liquid fuels - may threaten our ability to be a complex society. In other words - our capacity to solve problems, to support institutions that can solve the problems that we are facing in the future.