In a previous post, I speculated that a thermodynamic system such our industrial economy is completely dependent from its “outside”. As it grows and incorporates this “outside”, it is obliged to store high entropy inside itself. Possibly, the epidemic diffusion of riots in the very heart of the global system is an indicator of this predicament. Here, I will try to discuss another aspect of the same topic: the fact that, apparently, we are unable to do anything to avoid global collapse despite our deep knowledge of Natural laws and our incredibly powerful technical means.

40 years after the publication of “Limits to Growth”, we discover that we have been just following the trajectory of the “base case scenario” of the book; business as usual, and with a disturbing accuracy level. In fact, in the intentions of the authors, the BAU scenario was not a forecast, but just one scenario among others, useful to analyse how the system works and changes. But the real world itself has turned this scenario among others into an authentic prophecy (image source)

How was this possible?

It could be that we have done nothing to change our policy and economy, but this is hard to believe. In the past 40 years, we have seen a number of major changes and all of them were completely unpredictable at the beginning of the Seventies. For instance, the partial collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of China to the level of the second planetary power, the globalisation and financialization of the economy, the Internet, the Euro and so on. The Meadows and their staff could not have incorporated all this into their model, simply because they could not imagine anything like that. So we are forced to think that such epochal happenings have been marginal accidents in the evolution of the global socio-economic system.

To get a better understanding of this issue, I think it is best to start by considering World3 itself. In a post of some time ago, Ugo Bardi showed that, behind its complexity, World3 has a very basic thermodynamic architecture. It is a system that builds up and stocks information, with a positive retroaction to the inside flow. The larger the system is, the more it is able to extract low entropy from the wells and throw out entropy to the sinks.

In other words, the BAU scenario more or less describes the activity of bacteria inside a Petri box. First of all, it starts to exploit the very best resources (for instance: sugar) and so it grows. As it grows, it needs more resources and so it starts to digest everything available and, at the same time, it evolves as fast as possible in order to implement its efficiency in the exploitation of increasingly rare and poor resources. This until, at the end, it digests itself and dies.

Now the question is: how is it possible that with all our intelligence, science, and technology we act just like bacteria inside a Petri box? And what about our freedom of choice?

Regarding the first question, I suggest that, in 1970, at a global level, the socioeconomic system had already overshot the Earth’s carrying capacity. My idea is that a system may have a certain degree of freedom, which declines exponentially as it reaches its limits. This means that, far from the limits, systems can change their trajectory and, the farther the limits, the more choices are possible. Bu, when the system impacts against its limits, simple and brutal physic changes become the only possible evolution and nothing can change that.

For example, a boy can choose his job. Sure, there are always severe limits depending on his geographical location, economic and social status, culture and so on. But the degrees of freedom are anyway more numerous than zero. For instance, he can choose to be a soldier, a taxi driver, or an employee. But, if a 50-year-old man loses his job, the only thing he can do is to slice his bread as thin as possible. If he was an employee, he will never have a taxi licence or he will never be enrolled as a military contractor in Libya.

I presume that my hypothesis is consistent with physics and also with historical data. Many, if not all, extinct civilisations have disappeared because of foreign invasions or collapsing in a typical “Seneca Cliff” trajectory. Many historians have investigated this astonishing phenomenon: Vico, Toynbee, Spengler, Tainter, to mention only the more prominent scholars. Each one of them proposed a different set of causes for the collapse of civilizations and all of them analyzed some important aspects of the process. Possibly, the effect of dissipative structures dynamics is the underlying physics of this historically recurrent event.

To me, this hypothesis is consistent with ancient wisdom too. Mythology and epic are full of examples in which the hero has the possibility to change an adverse fate, but only until he (or she) is far from the accomplishment of such a fate. To cite an example, Hector had three times the opportunity to put an end to the Trojan war, but each time he refused to do so because he was winning and wanted total victory. He was sure that the destruction of the Achaean fleet would mean the end of the hostilities, but we know the story went differently. He eventually understood his miscalculation, but by that time it was too late: Achilles was standing in front of him.

Possibly, at a socio-economical level we have a similar situation: as long we are growing, we can choose to halt the growth. But once the overshoot arrives, we can only follow the intrinsic thermodynamic path generated by the system. Usually, this means an extra growth dragged by system inertia, followed by a more or less troubled downsize. And that may be our unavoidable destiny.

The shape of a typical Secular Cycle, based on the work of Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov in Secular Cycles. ( http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8904.html ) Chart by Gail Tverberg

18 Comments on "We are Bacteria in a Petri Dish"

makati1 on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 7:33 am 



The dish has about run out of medium and the deaths have already begun.

“… followed by a more or less troubled downsize. And that WILL be our unavoidable destiny.” My emphasis.

shortonoil on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 7:43 am 



“As it grows and incorporates this “outside”, it is obliged to store high entropy inside itself.”

The Etp Model is a calculation that provides the rate that entropy is building inside the Petroleum Production System. It informs us as to when that process must stop.

That is not very far into the future!

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

onlooker on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 8:15 am 



We sure have behaved no better than bacteria, voraciously consuming without a thought about the source of our sustenance and consequently overpopulating said Petri dish. As Mak stated we are now in the consequences stage of that behavior.

Kenz300 on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 8:26 am 



Too many people demand too many resources……yet the worlds population grows by 80 million every year…..

How many charities are dealing with the same problems they were dealing with 10 or 20 years ago with no end in sight. Every problem is made worse by the worlds growing population.

If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.

Rescuing Homeless Children From the Streets of India

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpaR_pTVeBk

Poverty in the Philippines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M5PAS8Lr10

shortonoil on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 9:30 am 



“We sure have behaved no better than bacteria, voraciously consuming without a thought about the source of our sustenance and consequently overpopulating said Petri dish.”

That is the same behavior that is also excepted by all animals. In case you missed it, Homo sapiens are animals. But we don’t want to say that; it might bust someones preconceived notions about being made into superior creatures. Although all that we are is the critter that is on the top of the food chain — for now?

penury on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 9:40 am 



Humans at least the believers that are created in the image of their “god” have the belief that nothing bad can happen because “god” a will provide. It is this hubris which allows murder, mayhem and the destruction of all other species to satisfy the desires of the humans. It also allows the murder of humans who refuse to accept your sky pilot.

tahoe1780 on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 9:44 am 



Not living sustainably on current “income” (renewables, but on “savings” (fossil fuels, water, clean air). How can this end well?

JuanP on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 10:29 am 



I have no problem admitting that I am an animal. I have always accepted my animality. What I find very hard to accept is that I am human. Even in kindergarten I felt I couldn’t relate to other humans, but I could always relate to other types of animals and plants as fellow living beings. People I just can’t understand. Human behavior thoroughly horrifies me.

Go Speed Racer on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 10:58 am 



The humans almost all are awful. Start with the fat waddling pigs at Wal-Mart, buying their Twinkies and cigarettes with their food stamps. Then we have the wet back aliens loved by liberal democrats, invaders who steal your hubcaps. Then we have all ‘the children’, brain dead links who play video games for 14 hours a day while their ignorant useless parents and teachers watch. Then we have the working class, roonstupidnto pick a nail out of the road, but losing bo file off the back of their rusty pickup, then the college, smoking their weed while going 200 grand into the hole to be a barista at Starbucks, then all the white collar political psycho’s at Apple and Intel, the ones who write all the software bugs because neither they nor their leaders give one crap about making something that works, then the political system with true rotting sewage like Hillary Clinton and her bags of money and all the opponents who keep committing ‘suicide’ and don’t forget all the business owners, the trillionaires who bring you all the crappy malfunctioning garbage while they steal away so much money it’s visible from outer space. What a planet-ful of scumbuckets. Beam me up Scotty.

Apneaman on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 11:55 am 



Calling us an animal is an insult to animals. We may have evolved from an animal, but we have morphed into a cancer. If some aliens just discovered earth and were observing it from afar, they would quickly deduce that the planet is infected with a two legged cancer. Terminal.

It’s not just some convenient analogy either. Our behaviour mimics that of a cancer. This is no original idea of mine. A number of micro biologists have spoken of this. I’m guessing many more think it, but would never say it.

DUAL SYSTEMS THEORY

“I am sure there will be great reluctance in placing industrial civilization under the heading of “cancer” without first understanding the technological system’s origins. The common perception is that technological civilization is unprecedented and that humans, by some supernatural agency, are responsible for its appearance. However, a closer examination will reveal that industrial civilization is no more than what has come before in the evolution of life, only occurring at greater size and scale.”

more

http://megacancer.com/2015/08/03/dual-systems-theory/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM1-DQ2Wo_w

peakyeast on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 12:27 pm 



I will tolerate no such comparison with the despicable humans. We, the yeast, do not exterminate all other races.

onlooker on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 12:39 pm 



We, the yeast, do not exterminate all other races.- Said like a true honorable yeast. haha.

peakyeast on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 3:12 pm 



I wish they had updated the graph to include until 2010 – or even better until 2014. That should be possible?

Why a 16 year gap right where things are getting dicey?

peakyeast on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 3:20 pm 



50% of the territory between 2000 and 2030 should be available and those numbers would really increase the reliability of the entire graph and the projections.

makati1 on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 7:30 pm 



For your Sunday entertainment…

https://www.facebook.com/anonews.co/videos?fref=photo

From a 1981 movie (“My Dinner With Andre”) where the character perfectly describes America today. Imagine, 35 years ago someone actually saw today and described it perfectly. Over 10,000,000 views.

Plantagenet on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 9:01 pm 



Peakyeast really knows his petri dishes.

joe on Sat, 23rd Apr 2016 10:42 pm 



The article begins with idea that we cant predict outcomes of changes which are happening, it admits then that we cant know what tomorrows world looks like. It must however follow the laws of physics. As our population growth curve flattens, the system supporting our global civilisation is increasingly fragile as we specialise more and more as an oil dependent mammal, the first in history.
In evolution, specialists always vanish.

theedrich on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 3:13 am 



The problem is not lack of resources. It is too much demand.  The anti-Whites always scream about how Whites have used too much of everything.  They never mention that Whites are the ones who have invented modern science and technology, and that it is the insectivores invading from outer space who want to consume our creations.  Or that the expanding darkies are the true Petri-dishlings.  Whites are supposed to show “compassion.”  Meanwhile it is politically incorrect to notice that the unWhites are incredibly vicious and unpitying in their “cultures” of murder, slavery, sex trafficking, narcotrafficking and every other type of corruption and crime.

Ultimately, the problem is the sickos who demand that we have “pity” on the lower races and their self-made problems.  According to these psychopaths, Whitey is supposed to embrace the dishlings and teach them how to be human.

Unfortunately, that approach has not worked with the Negroes (and now Spics) in America, despite $trillions lavished on them, nor will it ever work.  But that is not the real aim of the maniacs.  Their true target is the utter annihilation of the Caucasian race, and with it, civilization, for once and for all.