[holmes]

spec i agree but we have got to stop the exponential growth function. it is imbedded in our culture. It must be replaced by the logarithmic method. There will be several easter islands within the US. Its just staying far enough away from those areas and defend ourselves from them. That is the challenge.

[gg3]

What matters is the impact of a population on its resource base & ecosystems. Easter Island was a microcosm both in terms of population and ecological variables; the Earth altogether may be larger, but our collective impacts are now affecting the entire system. Climate change, mass extinctions on a scale not seen since the dinosaurs were wiped out, etc. etc.

Dvanharn: "The signs of a global disaster are flashing like the red lights on a thousand fire engines right now": good visual metaphor.

Holmes: "... caring for the unborn of today instead of the unborn 7 generations down the road..." good comparison. In fact I think this makes for a very interesting point in terms of moral philosophy. This should be raised as a moral challenge to the political anti-abortion crowd: if they're so concerned about the unborn, they should be concerned with the unborn "seven generations down the road," otherwise IMHO they are engaged in fetal-idolatry. From the perspective of consistent conservatism, the principle by which abortion is a moral tragedy, necessarily also applies to unsustainable consumption. And let's not forget, greed & gluttony are "deadly sins" also.

Omar, re. " Contary to what most people believe, human nature is fickle, irrational, and above all dedicated to the short-term." That's only half the picture. The other half is rational and capable of foresight. We are both arisen from ape and descended from God. At various times in our history we have embraced our God-nature (or in nonreligious terms, our reasoning-nature) as both a norm for comportment, and a goal toward which to strive.

I am frankly shocked at the degree to which so many are so willing to abandon our God-nature and consign our collective personhood entirely to the realm of the baser instincts. To me this is the height of laziness, and the abdication of free will. It brings up the image of people allowing themselves to crap in their pants in order to save themselves the effort of getting up to go to the bathroom.

Emotional states are highly contagious. Fear is the most notorious example, but sexual feelings are not far behind. Elation, depression, competitive zeal (as for example among sports fans), anger, passivity, and others, are all easily transmitted in any space where people are gathered together. All of these and more are transmitted among humans virtually instantaneously and without conscious effort.

When humans are in trance states (altered states characterized by heightened focus of attention), not only can emotion be transmitted in the blink of an eye, but sensory constructs and cognitive constructs can be transmitted equally readily. I've observed these phenomena directly in my graduate psych research projects, and it is truly amazing how much information can pass between individuals in an instant, with hardly a word spoken. I have yet to understand the mechanisms by which this works, but the observations alone are compelling. As well, trance states may be ideal conditions for studying "in the lab" the type of information and state-variables transfer that occurs in normal human interaction.

One of the ways societies have responded to the contagiousness of emotional states, is to use "time, place, & manner" rules to limit exposure by non-consenting parties. Behaviors that would be considered "rude" when done "in public" i.e. on the street, are acceptable in quasi-private contexts: lusty smooching in the "lovers' lane" section of a park; competitive zeal at the sports bar; a whole range of excitement, fear, and suspense at the movie theatre; spirtual rapture in the house of worship; and so on. The strongest emotions are generally reserved for the most private locations, i.e. within the home, or even more privately, in the bedroom.

What we've seen over the last 50 years, is the erosion and breakdown of these "rules of comportment" in Western societies. The 1960s rebellion against "sterile conformity" was the most obvious turning point, but others have been equally powerful, for example the escalation of violence in the media generally, giving criminality a kind of "star" status. The flipside of crime is the exploitation of grief, as local news cameras poke their way into kidnapping & murder trials, and into funerals (the more tragic the better for the ratings).

The numerous emotionalisms thereby unleashed, have tended to crowd out the rather less "exciting" state of "reasonableness." They create a kind of cultural demagoguery where the contagion of emotion bypasses rational thought with a degree of speed and completeness that would make a mid-20th century dictator jealous.

Yet we needn't give up our feelings in order to gain the cool-headedness of deliberate reasoning. What is needed is not a step backward into emotionally repressive puritanism, but a step forward in the kind of self-knowledge that would allow more individuals to recognize the difference between reason and reflex, betweem genuine feeling and the group-contagion that Aldous Huxley called "herd-poisoning."

That is, if we're going to survive on this planet in any state above that of cavemen, we have got to learn to think.

"Homo noeticus" ("reasoning human" or "God-knowing human") walks among us, if we would only notice his footprints.

[RIPSmithianEconomics]

I don't visualise Easter Island so much as Africa. If you want a vision of the future for the West, look at Angola, Sudan, Zimbabwe, South Africa and so on. Tropical diseases, global warming, peak oil, water and food shortages, resource wars and mass poverty will create a twilight sort of culture, where you have both cannibalism and computers. And a boot stamping on a human face for all eternity.

[Jack]

A number of posters have advocated small communities as sustainable alternatives to the present energy intensive society. They have a point – such societies can function in a lower energy environment.

I suspect that things will get worse; my basis for this is a fairly harsh assessment of human nature. I posted it on a thread, but could not resist spreading my message of hope to a wider audience.

Please consider the following excerpt from Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies"

The collapse of complex societies 18

The Ik

The Ik are a people of northern Uganda who live at what must surely be the extreme of deprivation and disaster. A largely hunting and gathering people who have in recent times practiced some crop planting, the Ik are not classifiable as a complex society in the sense of Chapter 2. They are, nonetheless, a morbidly fascinating case of collapse in which a former, low level of social complexity has essentially disappeared. Due to drought and disruption by national boundaries of the traditional cycle of movement, the Ik live in such a food- and water-scarce environment that there is absolutely no advantage to reciprocity and social sharing. The Ik, in consequence, display almost nothing of what could be considered societal organization. They are so highly fragmented that most activities, especially subsistence, are pursued individually. Each Ik will spend days or weeks on his or her own, searching for food and water. Sharing is virtually nonexistent. Two siblings or other kin can live side-by-side, one dying of starvation and the other well nourished, without the latter giving the slightest assistance to the other. The family as a social unit has become dysfunctional. Even conjugal pairs don't form a cooperative unit except for a few specific purposes. Their motivation for marriage or cohabitation is that one person can't build a house alone. The members of a conjugal pair forage alone, and do not share food. Indeed, their foraging is so independent that if both members happen to be at their residence together it is by accident.

Each conjugal compound is stockaded against the others. Several compounds together form a village, but this is a largely meaningless occurrence. Villages have no political functions or organization, not even a central meeting place.

Children are minimally cared for by their mothers until age three, and then are put out to fend for themselves. This separation is absolute. By age three they are expected to find their own food and shelter, and those that survive do provide for themselves. Children band into age-sets for protection, since adults will steal a child's food whenever possible. No food sharing occurs within an age-set. Groups of children will forage in agricultural fields, which scares off birds and baboons. This is often given as the reason for having children.

Although little is known about how the Ik got to their present situation, there are some indications of former organizational patterns. They possess clan names, although today these have no structural significance. They live in villages, but these no longer have any political meaning. The traditional authority structure of family, lineage, and clan leaders has been progressively weakened. It appears that a former level of organization has simply been abandoned by the Ik as unprofitable and unsuitable in their present distress (Turnbull 1978).


----------end excerpt----------------------------

I perceive that many believe that

1) Prudent, planned, intelligent action can mitigate the more adverse elements of peaking.

2) People are fundamentally good, and will respond in a positive manner. Thus, they should be helped for the greater good of society.

3) Fundamental standards of fairness, decency, and law should and do control the behavior of individuals and nations, and this results in benefits for all.



My perception is that the Ik are close to the fundamental, underlying pattern upon which humankind is built. All of the gentler aspects are a thin veneer - one which will disappear in short order in the face of want or adversity.

Thus, I expect the worst of people. Sometimes, I'm surprised...not often, though.


Fuel will quickly bring people into survival mode. Each individual, family, and societal group will say - and believe - that their needs supercede the needs of other groups. Since the expense, or absolute availability of oil will result in perceived real needs not being met, all else must follow. The tradesman going to his next job will steal gasoline, and self-righteously contend that he must do so to feed his family. He'll believe it, too.

As shortages propagate, and people begin to experience actual hunger and cold, levels of crime will increase. To what level? Perhaps we should recall the Easter Island insult from modern times that translates as "Your grandmother's flesh sticks in my teeth." It is suggestive.

[Ayoob_Reloaded]

Hey, more happy tales of the Ik!

Between 1964 and 1967, anthropologist Colin Turnbull lived among the people of Uganda known as the Ik, an unfortunate people expelled by an uncaring government from their traditional hunting lands to extremely barren mountainous areas. In 1972, Turnbull published a haunting book about his experiences which left no doubt that a whole society can embrace "wilding" as a way of life.[7]

When Turnbull first came to the Ik, he met Atum, a sprightly, little old barefoot man with a sweet smile, who helped guide Turnbull to remote Ik villages. Atum warned Turnbull right away that everyone would ask for food. While many would indeed be hungry, he said, most could fend for themselves, and their pleas should not be trusted; Turnbull, Atum stressed, should on no account give them anything. But before he left that day, Atum mentioned that his own wife was severely ill and desperately needed food and medicine. On reaching his village, Atum told Turnbull his wife was too sick to come out. Later, Turnbull heard exchanges between Atum and his sick wife, and moans of her suffering. The moans were wrenching, and when Atum pleaded for help, Turnbull gave him food and some aspirin.

Some weeks later, Atum had stepped up his requests for food and medicine, saying his wife was getting sicker. Turnbull was now seriously concerned, urging Atum to get her to a hospital. Atum refused, saying "she wasn't that sick." Shortly thereafter, Alum's brother-in-law came to Turnbull and told him that Alum was selling the medicine that Turnbull had been giving him for his wife. Turnbull, not terribly surprised, said that "that was too bad for his wife." Whereupon the brother-in-law, enjoying the joke enormously, told him that Alum's wife "had been dead for weeks," and that Atum had buried her inside the compound so you wouldn't know." No wonder Atum had not wanted his wife to go to the hospital, Turnbull thought to himself: "She was worth far more to him dead than alive."[8]

Startling to Turnbull was not only the immense glee the brother-in-law seemed to take in the "joke" inflicted on his dying sister, but the utter lack of embarrassment shown by Atum when confronted with his lie. Atum shrugged it off, showing no remorse whatsoever, saying he had simply forgotten to tell Turnbull. That his little business enterprise may have led to his wife's death was the last thing on Alum's mind. This was one of the first of many events that made Turnbull wonder whether there was any limit to what an Ik would do to get food and money.

Some time later, Turnbull came across Lomeja, an Ik man he had met much earlier. Lomeja had been shot during an attack by neighboring tribesmen and was lying in a pool of his own blood, apparently dying from two bullet wounds in the stomach. Still alive and conscious, Lomeja looked up at Turnbull and asked for some tea. Shaken, Turnbull returned to his Land Rover and filled a big, new yellow enamel mug. When he returned, Lomeja's wife was bending over her husband. She was trying to "fold him up" in the dead position although he was not yet dead, and started shrieking at Turnbull to leave Lomeja alone because he was already dead. Lomeja found the strength to resist his wife's premature efforts to bury him and was trying to push her aside. Turnbull managed to get the cup of tea to Lomeja, who was still strong enough to reach out for it and sip it. Suddenly Turnbull heard a loud giggle and saw Lomeja's sister, Kimat. Attracted by all the yelling, she had "seen that lovely new, bright yellow enamel mug of hot, sweet tea, had snatched it from her brother's face and made off with it, proud and joyful. She not only had the tea, she also had the mug. She drank as she ran, laughing and delighted at herself."[9]

Turnbull came to describe the Ik as "the loveless people." Each Ik valued only his or her own survival - and regarded everyone else as a competitor for food. Ik life had become a grim process of trying to find enough food to stay alive each day. The hunt consumed all of their resources, leaving virtually no reserve for feelings of any kind, nor for any moral scruples that might interfere with filling their stomachs. As Margaret Mead wrote, the Ik had become "a people who have become monstrous beyond belief." The scientist Ashley Montagu wrote that the Ik are "a people who are dying because they have abandoned their own humanity."

Ik families elevated wilding to a high art. Turnbull met Adupa, a young girl of perhaps six, who was so malnourished that her stomach was grossly distended and her legs and arms spindly. Her parents had decided she had become a liability and threw her out of their hut. Since she was too weak now to go out on long scavenging ventures, as did the other children, she would wander as far as her strength would allow, pick up scraps of bone or half-eaten berries, and then come back to her parents' place, waiting to be brought back in. Days later, her parents, tiring of her crying, finally brought her in and promised to feed her. Adupa was happy and stopped crying. The parents went out and "closed the asak behind them, so tight that weak little Adupa could never have moved it if she had tried."[10] Adupa waited for them to come back with the food they had promised. But they did not return until a whole week had passed, when they knew Adupa would be dead. Adupa's parents took her rotting remains, Turnbull writes, and threw them out, "as one does the riper garbage, a good distance away."[11] There was no burial - and no tears.

Both morality and personality among the Ik were dedicated to the single all-consuming passion for self-preservation. There was simply not room in the life of these people," Turnbull observes dryly, "for such luxuries as family and sentiment and love." Nor for any morality beyond "marangik," the new lk concept of goodness, which means filling one's own stomach.

[gnm]

I doubt if that can be called the normal baseline for people. THere are many instances of parents starving themselves so thier children wouldn't. Since procreation is the law above all else as far as nature is concerned, then I would say that these Ik having total disregard for their offspring, are being selected against.

natures own,

-G

[Jack]

I doubt if that can be called the normal baseline for people. THere are many instances of parents starving themselves so thier children wouldn't. Since procreation is the law above all else as far as nature is concerned, then I would say that these Ik having total disregard for their offspring, are being selected against.

natures own,

-G

But those parents were molded by values acquired during more prosperous times. The effects of multi-generational dire poverty may overcome the limits we'd like to believe exist.

[gnm]

I maintain my stance - humanity has gone through servere famines for as long as we have existed. if that groups failover was to become that dysfunctional then they should kindly remove themselves from the gene pool. Other populations have done better under similar stresses.

Ik - should be Ick!

-G

[Jack]

I maintain my stance - humanity has gone through servere famines for as long as we have existed. if that groups failover was to become that dysfunctional then they should kindly remove themselves from the gene pool. Other populations have done better under similar stresses.

Ik - should be Ick!

-G

May time prove you to be correct.

Though, on second thought, I suppose I'd prefer not to try the experiment.

[Ayoob_Reloaded]

This one's a doozy. It's so crazy. From an Amazon review of the book from which the excerpt was taken:

"It was harrowing to read of one Ik who, upon coming in contact with his mother for the first time in years, merely asked her if she had any food; when she said no he left without another word."

[Jack]

This one's a doozy. It's so crazy. From an Amazon review of the book from which the excerpt was taken:

"It was harrowing to read of one Ik who, upon coming in contact with his mother for the first time in years, merely asked her if she had any food; when she said no he left without another word."

It's a different perspective - one we don't like to think about. As I said earlier, I hope it doesn't come to this; but I really don't see how we can rule out man's devolution to being Ickey.

The rigors involved in a die-off will put the world into a situation that has some similarities to the Ik. Will the rest of us do better than they? I wonder.

[pilferage]

While evident, I find this senario highly unlikely considering the fundamental differences between our society and the Ik. Frankly, we're not as savy as they are regarding survival, if we ever were at the point they are, we'd most likely die off en masse.
I suppose we might see isolated regions exhibit this type of cultural adaptation, but I wouldn't bet on it being widespread or likely.

[gnm]

American Indian populations suffered terribly during the period known as the "Archaic" which was the dieoff of most of the megafauna that they had hunted for years and 1000's of years prior to thier adoption of agriculture. During this period starvation was frequent and severe as evidenced by bone and other archaeological evidence. They still maintained a culture and crafts though this period but evidenced a major reduction in trade and in the quality and variety of thier artifacts.. arrowheads, clothing etc....

-G

[Malthus]

I doubt if that can be called the normal baseline for people. THere are many instances of parents starving themselves so thier children wouldn't. Since procreation is the law above all else as far as nature is concerned, then I would say that these Ik having total disregard for their offspring, are being selected against.

Starving yourself to death by feeding your children although noble is the stupidest thing that you could do. You recall what they say in airplanes "put your mask first then go assisting your children". It is the same here in the 18-19 century in the worker families in Europe most of the food went to the father because he was the most important source of income and thus food and had to be kept healthy and strong. A family without a healthy father was almost surely doomed in those days

[Liamj]

The Ik are worth considering, or remembering anyway. Read 'The Mountain People' (Turnbull) at 15, haven't forgotten them yet. Agree that most will dieoff before learn anything like such focus, no idea if good or bad thing.

[Malthus]

seen that lovely new, bright yellow enamel mug of hot, sweet tea, had snatched it from her brother's face and made off with it, proud and joyful. She not only had the tea, she also had the mug. She drank as she ran, laughing and delighted at herself."[9]

Jack could you please provide us with a link to the article/book if there is any. The Ik became my personal heroes I d like to learn more about them

[No-Oil]

Most people consider the Human race to be superior to other life forms, but the Ik appear to be less "Human" than most animals, which in general show remorse/longing at loss of offspring., they also often show degrees of what we would term compassion, towards each other & their offspring. Many animals have been filmed attempting to feed & care for sick family members, even when they are totally ill equiped to do so.

The main problem with the Human race is the capatilist dream of get rich quick & the promotion of individualism to achie that goal. We waste vaste amounts of energy because we choose to do things seperately or individually.
We could save vaste amounts of fuel if we used solo systems for most forms of transport.

Example 1;-
Theair are over 20 main stream small package carriers in the UK (population approx 60M) Each of these companies has multiple distribution hubs covering the country & each hub has 10-100's of local area delivery vehicles. They ALL perform the exact same function & you often see 6-10 of their individual vehicles in the same street on the same day.

The Royal Mail is about to loose its single franchise to carry postal mail, because they don't make enough profit & because the "Government" wants to introduce competition. Most of the previously mentioned foirms want a bit of that action, because they already have the main haulage capability.

The Royal Mail is not that efficient, but could be improved. Even so, they are much more efficient at standard mail delivery than both they & their new competitors will be when operating seperately.

The simple answer is ONE haulage company, no franchises & realistic prices. This would reduce the fual burn by these companies by around 35-40% or more. If they make same day delivery illegal, then again this would cut the fuel use & costs.

The down side to all this, is that you would only need a third of the staff to run the outfit. If this was jsut vehicles, you'd just scrap or recycle them, but we can't readily do that with people!

So as you can see if we used the most efficient means to do ANY work/job, then we would only require approx a third of the people we currently have.
Thus mass die off is the answer to both energy & consumption problems.
We "Humans" have become way to soft when compared to the Ik, they have no compassion, but we as a society have way to MUCH.

We keep out criminals in Hotel conditions & they can complain if we don't. We keep our seriously ill alive with expensive operations that cost more than they will ever contribute back to society. We keep our handicapped & mentally disturbed alive for no reason other than to tie up another 1-3 people in the social care system & to consume precious food stuffs, for NO benefit to society. We try to treat those that abuse them selves with drugs & try to stop those that wish to leave the gene pool from doing so. I could go on, but you get the idea I'm sure.

These areas will be the first to be hit when times get hard. In the UK we spend 2% of our collected taxes to maintain the prison system at a cost of approx £42k per prisoner. Many are locked up for minor crimes like petty theft of items worth hundreds of pounds, but we then spent £42k to keep them locked up for 12months to punish them !!!!!!!!!! I'll let you figure out the logic to that.

I was speaking to an architect recently that designs buildings foor the government & he mentioned that he had just won a contract to design a new prison. After I picked myself off the floor from the shock that they were wasting my taxes to pay a private firm to design a facility that has existed for hundreds of years, I asked why don't they just use an existing design. He did not have an answer for that one !!!!!!!

Thus the world is doomed through its own personal greed at all levels & its crass stupidity in adopting a system of operation, that does not address the effects each change will cause before permitting the change !!!!

[Pops]

Jack, I also read Diamonds book and that insult is the one thing that “sticksâ€

[nero]

Here is a link to someone who has a much better opinion of the Ik


Ik Revisited

[FoxV]

Here is a link to someone who has a much better opinion of the Ik

So shocked I was to find a culture that abandoned their children (from an excert posted in another topic on this forum) that I had my wife read it (a graduate in Anthropology). Her comment was "A lot of studies done before 1985 were extremely prejudicial and not worth very much".

I'm glad somebody posted a link to a more recent and less biased study on the IK