Tuesday Word of the Day: Sustainable Growth

To sustain means to maintain, to reach equilibrium, to create an environment whereby an activity can continue into the future indefinitely. To grow means to expand, to push boundaries, and to break equilibrium by surpassing old standards.

Within a closed system, which earth currently is at a practical level for human life, the two terms are contradictory. One cannot continue growth within our little backwater planet indefinitely into the future without running into the limitations imposed by the earth itself. The planet is only so big. The planet can only maintain so much biomass.

After a certain point, if we which to continue sustaining our growth, we must begin (and have begun) transforming other species' biomass into our biomass. The problem with turning other species biomass into our biomass, is that we need the other species to generate breathable air, and soil that we can grow our food in, and to inhale our carbon dioxide, and to run the water cycle and the nitrogen cycle and so forth.

To sustain growth means to be at the bottom of a very large hole with no apparent way out and continue digging.

On Debt and Dependence

As animals we move through three periods during the course of our lives. We begin as dependent beings and we slowly grow into independence and then flower and become interdependent beings.

Unless you are a domesticated being. Domesticated beings- such as most dogs, most house cats, most humans and most farm animals to a greater or lesser extent- never leave the dependent stage. This outcome is not the result of any accident.

Those people who domesticated these beings, dog, cat, cow, or human; did so with the intent of making them dependent. Dependence is part of the definition of domestication, a being that does not not depend upon the good nature of another to survive is not domesticated. Such beings may remain potentially capable of throwing off their domestication and becoming wild again, and becoming free again, but they are dependent as long as they do not break this chain.

There are many forms of dependence that a would be master may attempt to force upon their intended livestock.

The means of violence is denied. Cats are de-clawed, dogs are muzzled, bulls de-horned, chickens are de-beaked, peasants are forbidden to use swords and so on. The first method of enforcing dependence is to remove the means to assert oneself through violence or the threat of violence.

The means of education is denied. Horses are fitted with blinders, dogs are not allowed to hunt, mothers are separated from their babies moments after birth. Books are burned, scholars are executed, literacy is curtailed, topics are rendered taboo. Without the ability to learn and, as importantly, the ability to choose what we will learn- the domesticated being will not be able to see their captivity.

Docility is bred for and trained into the animals. Obedient animals are rewarded with food, or attention, oat bags and gold stars, a scratch behind the ears and a place on the Dean's list. Disobedient animals are used as object lessons, shock collars and canings, public humiliations and forcible confinement in a kennel. Such tactics make it rational for any single animal to stay obedient.

Obligations are created. Student loans, mortgages on houses and cars, credit card debt and on and on. Now the domesticated being is trapped within the system, until it untangles or ignores these obligations.

Saturday Thoughts: Predictions

Predictions are a tricky thing, they have a tendency to make one look foolish. I will risk looking foolish.

I expect this to be the last great empire of the False King. I expect that other empires may follow this one, but they will be lesser- because less will be left to work with after this empire falls. I do expect this empire to fall.

I do not know how it will fall. If the earth is lucky, it will fall quickly and quietly- like a puppet with cut strings. This last greatest empire of the False King is fragile. goods travel thousands of miles with very little margin for error. And these are not luxuries, these are basic needs such as food, natural gas to heat homes, gasoline to run cars and make fertilizer and pesticides, minerals and timber and other raw manufacturing materials, clean water to drink (or more likely waste) and electricity to power everything else. It is possible that if the systems are threatened by large enough systemic pressures, that all supply lines will break at once or nearly so, and the empire will fall like a broken puppet to floor of the stage.

If the earth is less lucky, the fall will be fast and violent. Resource wars will break out, people will starve and panic and run. There will be vast devastation, but nothing that life cannot recover from- just nothing human beings can survive.

If humans are lucky, and the earth is even less lucky, the end will arrive like a battered wife falling down a long flight of stairs. There will be jarring blow after jarring blow as the first crisis- whatever it is- ignites the next and so on down through a fragile web of systems. Some humans may survive this in a humbler manner than the last two or three centuries have allowed us to get used to. There may again be empires, but they will resemble Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great- large but drawing only upon the renewable resources of the planet and thus not a danger to it.

The apocalypse may not thunder in at all. The end could creep in by degrees like the dusk at midsummer. So the when the end arrives, it will not be noticed, but will be the 'way things are.'

The earth is- as far as human civilization is currently concerned, a closed system. We are using up limited non-renewable energy to power unchecked growth in population and consumption. This will not end well under any circumstances. The only hope for continuing the current empire's preferred method of existence is to find a cheap, high return renewable energy source that rivals the energy density of fossil fuels. This is the current strategy that the empire is betting on.

I don't expect this work. I think it is probably possible, but I don't think we have allowed ourselves enough time or resources to achieve that goal.

I don't know when things will fall. I have some ideas, but I am not certain. I am planning with the assumption that I will live to see the end. But many prophets expecting to do so were proven wrong, so I am also planning for other contingencies.

But I expect to see an empire fall in my lifetime that will dwarf the fall of Rome and leave its citizens feeling as though the world has ended.

Thursday Revisited Classic: Coming at life from the Wrong direction

"We have only one thing to give up. 

Our dominion. 

We don't own the world. 

We're not kings yet. 

Not gods. 

Can we give that up? 

Too precious, all that control? 

Too tempting, being a god?" 

--Anthony Hopkins, Instinct, 1999

Should we solve world hunger?

If so, how should we do this?

The growth rate of any population seems- based on a wealth of evidence from all species (humans most definitely included)- to be irrevocably tied to available food. Take a population of any species and give them access to enough food to support a higher population than currently exists and the population will (barring mitigating factors) grow at least until it reaches that higher population.

The population may overshoot of course and then crash as a result. Likewise, limiting factors such as available space or other factors may slow or stop population growth. But barring this, populations of anything will grow to the capacity dictated by the available food.

How then do we address world hunger? As soon as we hit the carrying capacity of the current food supply, those people on the margins will start to fall off into the less than gentle arms of natural selection. It happens this way in every population of every species we have ever found.

Are we looking at this the wrong way?

We see human life as sacred- or so I have been repeatedly told. But does that mean that the loss of any human life should be prevented? Obviously I do not wish to see anyone I care about die. But that wish does not change the biological imperative.

I have heard serious scientists who are actually attempting to eradicate aging, speak of old age as though it were a disease. Aging is one of the few things that keeps our near geometric population growth in check. I do not wish to see people die, but I understand that this is how life works.

It starts, it travels a certain distance and then it stops- consumed to fuel the next starting life.

If we seek to prevent the final stage, we remove one quarter of the wagon wheel upon which life turns. A world where nobody died would crush with a human population that would strip the Earth bare like locusts. A world without hunger would devour the Earth in a single day as population exploded like a nuclear bomb across the globe. Lining the oceans with cities would not prevent our very speedy demise in such as case.

Perhaps in our obsession with abstract ideals, we have forgotten that nothing is abstract and we are not special. Our time, as a species, as a culture and as individuals is finite.

We may strive to prolong our stay, but to do so in a manner which ends the whole experiment of life on Earth is bad form.

We are not worthy of special attention as species go. We were not made special on the sixth day. We do not have special dispensation to ignore biological law.

Hunger is a feature of life, not a problem. It will persist as long as life persists. The problem is that we fancy ourselves as gods- and think that we have the right to say "No, this shall not be!"

One day soon we may wake up to find that our Godhood was a delusion that lead us off a cliff and into a free fall towards a canyon floor with which we cannot survive colliding.

Tuesday Word of the Day: Heresy

Heresy is a strong word with strong associations. In modern popular usage the word connotes crimes against the church-normally the Catholic Church- and smells strongly of witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition.

But where did the word come from and what meaning lies at the core of this word's family history?

Heresy comes from the Greek verb meaning: to choose.

Church and state were inseparable for centuries in Europe and are still inseparable in many countries, and there are strong elements in many first world countries that would love church and state to once again merge. The idea that choice is a crime, and indeed the highest crime imaginable in such governments, says a great about how modern domestic culture works and where said culture's fear can be found.

Friday Book Review: "Being Animal" by David Abram

"We cannot abide our vulnerability, 

our utter dependence upon a world that can eat us."

--David Abram

I love the title of this book. Domesticated human so often forget that they are animals. I read and hear even domseticated humans who should know better say things such as "our closest relatives are the primates". Humans are primates- and the domesticated human forgets that.

I really enjoyed Abrams' first book Spell of the Sensuous, and would recommend that book over this book. There was more meat and less poetry in the first book, more direction and more focus. That said, this book unsettled me, which is a compliment. I did not disagree with it, though many times I wanted to disagree.

Abrams approach is to question and pull at modern assumptions about seperateness as though he was pulling strands from a blanket. Slowly your certainty loses it's integrity and everything begins to loosen. He makes good points regarding the awareness of all being. He goes too far, which is likely nowhere near far enough. He is ridiculous in the way Picasso or Van Gogh is ridiculous- not because he is wrong, but because he sees so differently.

If you are certain, then you should read this.

Verdict: Recommended Read

Thursday Revisited Classic: Why Solving Small Pox is a Problem for society

I recently saw a sharp little video that argued that our ability as a species to eliminate small pox is reason for us to be optimistic about our future.

The speaker shows us how much damage global warming will do to Bangladesh alone. He gives us a view of how devastating our actions will be to the earth and ultimately to ourselves.

He also shows us a host of communicable diseases that we have almost eliminated- such as Guinea Worm.

Now he is very right. Dedicated individuals eliminated small pox, and other dedicated individuals have nearly eliminated other communicable diseases such as guinea worm.

The question is not 'does this mean then that we are able to achieve this kind of effect upon problems such as global warming?'. The question is 'why did we put such effort towards this problem, and why have we failed to put that same effort towards problems such as overpopulation or global warming?'

I believe that the problem has to do with cultural mythology.

We seem to believe that the world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule the world. Because of this we will put a lot of effort into destroying enemies and competitors- like wolves, and Indians, diseases that hurt human beings (sorry, diseases that hurt domestic humans) and anything thing else that stands as opposition to our rule.

On other hand, global warming is just a side effect of ruling the world. Over population is our cultural destiny. We can talk about fighting these things, but to actually do something significant about them would require us to change our cultural mythology.