Campbell at Parliament
I just discovered an excellent piece that explains the oil situation quite well. Dr. Colin Campbell made a Presentation to the British Parliament on July 7, 1999. After providing extensive background material he presented future scenarios. Here are a couple of samples: "For example, they might read an official report showing that Norway's production is set to halve by 2006. Norway is the world's second largest exporter." "I think that a price shock around 2001, if not before, from Middle East control is inevitable and will probably trigger a stockmarket crash." "I think it is absurd that the management of the depletion of the world's supply of its most important fuel should be left to a few feudal families controlling the Middle East. The consuming governments should recognize where their interests lie." Go to http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ and you will find a link to "A Presentation to the British Parliament by Dr. Colin Campbell, July 7, 1999." You will also find many energy papers at my site http://dieoff.com/page1.htm Jay
Re: Democracy is the opiate of the masses.
- Original Message - From: Franklin Wayne Poley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Is that how you regard your neighbours? People on this list? Are you >better? ... and the good ship Titanic takes her final plunge into the icy blackness. Our final scene is of a panicing herd -- arms waving and running in circles -- totally preoccupied with the political correctness of it all. God! What a waste of time. I am leaving this list for a while. C U later, Jay
Re: Democracy is the opiate of the masses.
- Original Message - From: Victor Milne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >It is a cheap copout to claim that politicians by their very nature are >liars. I have met a certain number who, I believed, were public-spirited >people trying to make a difference in their community. Trying to make a difference? So what? People have been trying to make a difference ever since people existed. And today, our water laps the portholes of our Titanic. When one's ship is on its way down, the only thing that matters is results. Rather than wasting time on a make-believe political system, wouldn't it make more sense to petition the rich directly for relief? Jay
Re: Democracy is the opiate of the masses.
- Original Message - From: Franklin Wayne Poley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >What alternative would you propose? How about if you were to become King >Jay I ? Would that work better? A careful analysis of a problem is the first step in solving that problem. If "democracy" is government by the common herd animals, then you don't have it now. Once you see things as they really are -- a plutocracy -- then you can start making constructive suggestions. Jay
Democracy is the opiate of the masses.
>Jan: > >I know one thing for certain: it's not you and people who harbour such >ideas, going to save the world, you just make things more difficult for Jan has political ambitions and provides a good study of the political character. We notice at once that the political character can not actually admit the Titanic is indeed sinking, because that would put him in the untenable position of having to supply a solution -- which he obviously can't do. The democratic process is best thought of as "government by popularity contest". And since, as Lord Russell (and many others) have pointed out, the certainty of a lie is more popular than the uncertainty of the truth, the democratic process selects for the best liars. In our society, the political character must excel at lies -- excel at doubletalk and "doublethink" -- in order to win his popularity contest: "His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself - that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink." -- George Orwell, 1984 In our society, the function of the political character is to not to actually solve problems -- our Founding Fathers reserved "problem solving" for the moneyed-class. Madison even went so far as to boast that "the true distinction" between ancient regimes and the proposed experiment in government "lies in the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity." http://dieoff.com/page168.htm ] In our society, the function of the political character is to simply reassure and calm the common herd animals with soothing, meaningless sounds. To paraphrase Marx: "Democracy is the opiate of the masses." Jay
PLEASE PRINT THIS OUT AND TAPE IT TO YOUR REFRIGERATOR!
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >So how do you decide who's having a grip on reality and the best >solution without having all the options and reasoning offered >listened to? I have told you at least 40 TIMES in the last few years. Now, PLEASE PRINT THIS OUT AND TAPE IT TO YOUR REFRIGERATOR! The scientific method is the ONLY WAY to know the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this: 1 Observe some aspect of the universe. 2 Invent a theory that is consistent with what you have observed. 3 Use the theory to make predictions. 4 Test those predictions by experiments or further observations. 5 Modify the theory in the light of your results. Go to step 3. [ http://www.xnet.com/~blatura/skep_1.html ] Although not normally thought of as "science", these are the same steps that are taken to develop most contingency plans (i.e., fire and police rescues, military exercises, LIFE BOAT DRILLS, etc.) In short, there are only two kinds of information: "scientific" and "other". Only "scientific" information can save the passengers of the Titanic. Two days from now Eva -- when you have forgotten this conversation -- please visit your refrigerator for enlightement. Jay
Re: Here is analogy.
- Original Message - From: Bob McDaniel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> The Titanic (civilization) has just struck the ice -- > >> I advocate selecting the best "qualified" person to organize a >> survival and rescue effort as quickly as possible. > >But, in this scenario, would it really have made much difference? Or maybe >that is the point! [ This is my impression of the facts based on the movie -- I haven't studied the matter carefully. ] The reason there weren't enough lifeboats in the first place, is because Titanic was thought to be "unsinkable". Had the people been emotionally and physically prepared for REALITY, then nearly everyone could have been saved. But even given the terrible situation of an unprepared collision in the ice, many more could have been saved by quick thinking and strong leadership on the part of the captain. The captain appeared to emotionally unprepared for the collision -- walking around in a daze -- with the mates confused and operating on their own. In situations like Titanic found herself, every seaman knows that the killer is the cold water. Had the captain moved quickly and forcefully to build "rafts" out of an anything that would float -- ripped the planks off the walls, used the furniture, made rafts of life jackets, etc. -- hundreds of more lives could have been saved. The key was to keep the people out of the cold water until a rescue ship arrived. The point of the whole story is that one CAN make a difference, but one must first accept the REALITY of the situation. People who CAN'T deal with REALITY should just get out of the way because they are only increasing the body count. Jay
Re: Forward: The Market as God
- Original Message - From: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Since the Market as well as the study of Economics has such an effect on >our lives in spite of our wishes, I am reminded of an earlier section in >which Russell claims that an "individual facing the terror of cosmic > loneliness" is forced to study and become an amateur philosopher: >>"To understand an age or a nation, we must understand >>its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must >>ourselves be in some degree philosophers." Excellent analysis Ray! And Russell is right on target. The choice is between the certainty of a lie or the uncertainty of truth. Only a philosopher can thrive on worldview uncertainty. Jay - "When Leon the tyrant of Phlius asked Pythagoras who he was, he said, 'A Philosopher,' and he compared life to the public festivals, where some went to compete for a prize and others went with things to sell, but the best as observers; for similarly, in life, some grow up with servile natures, greedy for fame and gain, but philosophers seek the truth." Diogenes Laertius
Here is analogy.
- Original Message - From: Jan Matthieu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >But evolution is not rational, isn't it? Leaves the Machiavellian >calculator, who now is going to take the place of evolution and decide >what's right? Here is analogy. The Titanic (civilization) has just struck the ice -- and that's an indisputable fact. "Observers", who aren't certain, can look in the bilge and see the water rising. A little logic and imagination tells the "thinkers" that shortly the Titanic will be unable to support human life. What should be done? I advocate selecting the best "qualified" person to organize a survival and rescue effort as quickly as possible. Eva wants the passengers to form a committee to look into it. Jan want's to lead us in hymns. Jay -- www.dieoff.com -- hymn (him) noun 1. A song of praise or thanksgiving to God or a deity.
"Collapse"
- Original Message - From: Jan Matthieu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> We know that if people continue to destroy our life-support system >> as they have, then our civilization will inevitably collapse (immutable >> 2nd law arguments). > >What 'our' civilization will collapse? You could just as well say that the >way it's been going for the last century or two, western civilization has >been going completely the wrong way. "Collapse" is defined as the rapid transformation to a lower degree of complexity, typically involving significantly less energy consumption. Societies "collapse" when they become too complex for their energy base. Thus, the collapse of capitalism is inevitable because capitalism must grow to survive - must become more-and-more complex and consume more-and-more energy. Joseph Tainter has studied about two dozen "collapsed" civilizations. I have one of his excellent papers at . http://dieoff.com/page134.htm Here is a sample: --- OVERVIEW Historical knowledge is essential to practical applications of ecological economics. Systems of problem solving develop greater complexity and higher costs over long periods. In time such systems either require increasing energy subsidies or they collapse. Diminishing returns to complexity in problem solving limited the abilities of earlier societies to respond sustainably to challenges, and will shape contemporary responses to global change. To confront this dilemma we must understand both the role of energy in sustaining problem solving, and our historical position in systems of increasing complexity. INTRODUCTION In our quest to understand sustainability we have rushed to comprehend such factors as energy transformations, biophysical constraints, and environmental deterioration, as well as the human characteristics that drive production and consumption, and the assumptions of neoclassical economics. As our knowledge of these matters increases, practical applications of ecological economics are emerging. Yet amidst these advances something important is missing. Any human problem is but a moment of reaction to prior events and processes. Historical patterns develop over generations or even centuries. Rarely will the experience of a lifetime disclose fully the origin of an event or a process. Employment levels in natural resource production, for example, may respond to a capital investment cycle with a lag time of several decades (Watt 1992). The factors that cause societies to collapse take centuries to develop (Tainter 1988). To design policies for today and the future we need to understand social and economic processes at all temporal scales, and comprehend where we are in historical patterns. Historical knowledge is essential to sustainability (Tainter 1995a). No program to enhance sustainability can be considered practical if it does not incorporate such fundamental knowledge. In this era of global environmental change we face what may be humanity's greatest crisis. The cluster of transformations labeled global change dwarfs all previous experiences in its speed. in the geographical scale of its consequences, and in the numbers of people who will be affected (Norgaard 1994). Yet many times past human populations faced extraordinary challenges, and the difference between their problems and ours is only one of degree. One might expect that in a rational, problem-solving society, we would eagerly seek to understand historical experiences. In actuality, our approaches to education and our impatience for innovation have made us averse to historical knowledge (Tainter 1995a). In ignorance, policy makers tend to look for the causes of events only in the recent past (Watt 1992). As a result, while we have a greater opportunity than the people of any previous era to understand the long-term reasons for our problems, that opportunity is largely ignored. Not only do we not know where we are in history, most of our citizens and policy makers are not aware that we ought to. A recurring constraint faced by previous societies has been complexity in problem solving. It is a constraint that is usually unrecognized in contemporary economic analyses. For the past 12,000 years human societies have seemed almost inexorably to grow more complex. For the most part this has been successful: complexity confers advantages, and one of the reasons for our success as a species has been our ability to 'Increase rapidly the complexity of our behavior (Tainter 1992, 1995b). Yet complexity can also be detrimental to sustainability. Since our approach to resolving our problems has been to develop the most complex society and economy of human history, it is important to understand how previous societies fared when they pursued analogous strategies. In this chapter I will discuss the factors that caused previous societies to collapse, the economics of complexity in problem solving, and some implications of historical patterns for our effort
Re: How hard is it to change opinions?
From: Jan Matthieu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Are billions of people to be condemed to death because of YOUR >> hundreds-of-years-old "beliefs" about "rights"? > >So that's civilisation for you, doing away with everything valuable people >have died FOR in the past, like democracy for example, and indeed rights, Let me make sure that I have this straight. Billions should be willing to die in the future for YOUR beliefs because millions have died in the past? Does that make sense to you? It sure doesn't make sense to me. They are called "sunk costs". The people who died are now dead. So what? Why should I care what someone died for? You are confusing your own personal political ambition with good sense. Try looking forward instead of backwards. Think of it as an IQ test: "We humans no longer rely on the muscle of fight, the speed of flight, or the protective mask of shape and coloring for survival. We have come to depend on intelligence for life. This is a fateful gamble. It has put at stake our collective survival, and that of the whole biosphere. "About five million years ago, the evolutionary line that led to modern humans diverged from African apes, the common ancestors of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas. Apes are knuckle-walking quadrupeds; Homo is an erect biped. Apes have large jaws and they have small brains (in the range of 300-600 cubic centimeters). Homo has a small jaw, and a fourfold brain size in the range of 1400-1600 cc. Most apes are adapted to life in the trees; Homo is suited to life on the ground. It is this adaptability to terrestrial life that proved to be the decisive factor in the evolution of intelligence. Why some bands of pre-hominids left the trees is still somewhat mysterious (some anthropologists maintain that they were pushed from the forest into the savannah by physically more developed arboreal primates), but once they left the trees their destiny was sealed: they were condemned to a form of intelligence -- or to extinction. The question we now face is whether the kind of intelligence that evolved is sufficient for survival into the twenty-first century. Humanity, as Buckminster Fuller said, is facing its final exam. It is an exam of intelligence: the collective IQ test of the species." VISION 2020 -- Ervin Laszlo, [1994 p. 97] Gordon and Breach 212-206-8900 Jay
Forward: The Market as God
Date: February 20, 1999 To: IFFS/CAIA listserve CSARE Ag Ethics Task Force New Economics of Sustainability Group Ecological Economics listserve SANET - MG (Please pardon duplicate mailings, those of you on more than one list). From: J. Patrick Madden Subject:The Market as God The latest issue of Atlantic Monthly contains a very insightful article by Harvey Cox, entitled "The Market as God." (March 1999, vol. 283 No. 3, starting on page 18) Professor Cox does a superb job of unpacking and documenting this concept. After studying the Wall Street Journal and the business pages of weekly news magazines, he discovered a post-modern theology has emerged, complete with "myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption .. chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic best tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies. The East Asian troubles, votaries argue, derive from their heretical deviation from free-market orthodoxy - they were practitioners of 'crony captialism,' of 'ethnocapitalism,' or 'statist captialism,' not of the one true faith. .. "Soon I began to marvel at just how comprehensive the business theology is. There were even sacraments to convey salvic power to the lost, a calendar of entrepreneurial saints, and what theologians call and 'eschatology' - a teaching about the 'end of history.' At the apex of any theological system, of course, is its doctrine of God. In the new theology this celestial; pinnacle is occupied by The Market, which I capitalize to signify both the mystery that enshrouds it and the reverence it inspires in business folk." He goes on to describe how advocates for this new religion call on doubters to repent and to place full and unquestioning faith in the unseen and often incomprehensible Market God. >From personal experience, I can testify that heretics may be dealt with severely. The article calls to mind my comment during the closing wrap-up session of the IFFS conference in Massachusetts last summer: "The deity most widely worshiped in the world today is the Invisible Hand of the Market." Harvey Cox makes my point exactly, elloquently. So what? What are the implications? First, let us be not deceived about the virtually unlimited power of the market to transform communities, the lives of people, and ecosystems in devastating ways that generate profits for entrepreneurs, especially transnational corporations. Mark Ritchie spelled out the problem during his superb presentation on the last day (should have been the keynote on the first day) of the IFFS conference. Our challenge, the challenge to humanity, is to put a human and ethical face on the market. The challenge is to deliberately reform market institutions and political institutions in directions compatible with quality of life and opportunities for present and future generations, and conducive to continuation of life and emergence of an honorable peace on Planet Earth. If the Harvey Cox thesis is correct, if the Market has become the post-modern deity, and worship of the so-called free market has become the predominant religion of our time, then the United States has surely fallen into a severe and chronic violation of the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state. One of our challenges should be to call a halt to blind and officially sanctioned faith in the Market God. J. Patrick Madden 1153 Melrose Ave. #1 Glendale, CA 91202 USA phone: 818-240-2966 fax: 818-545-0665 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] website: ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/patrickmadden
Re: How hard is it to change opinions?
- Original Message - From: Michael Spencer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> "An Englishwoman...was accused of heresy in 1704... >> [splatter details elided] >> Remember that all she had to do to avoid torture was to change her >> opinion. > >You leave us to infer that so doing would have been "rational". In all cases, when I use "rational", I mean in the sense of Homo economicus -- a Machiavellian calculator. >axioms explicitly. That ending excruciating pain is a good -- even >best -- thing to do is such a default axiom. Two difficulties emerge >when we try to talk about the rationality of actions or propose >rational a course. I agree with you. Ending pain is the norm, but some people seem to like it. >About biology and survival: From the (hypothetical) point of view of a >species, survival comes first. If rationality is available to the This is a misconception. Darwinian survival is the survival of the fittest "genes" -- not species or individuals. Rational actions from an evolutionary standpoint are those that tend to propigate genes. >Is the only way to avoid global catastrophe to do evil? The Second >Law and biology may or may not tell us how to avoid catastrophe but it >surely won't tell us whether or not it's possible to remain humane and >civil persons if we do so. How about the "survival of civilization"? We know that if people continue to destroy our life-support system as they have, then our civilization will inevitably collapse (immutable 2nd law arguments). We also know that if civilization collapses, then industrial supply lines will breakdown and then, billions of innocent people will starve. Are billions of people to be condemed to death because of YOUR hundreds-of-years-old "beliefs" about "rights"? How is this any different from the religious nut allowing her children die because she doesn't "believe" in medicine? Do MY grandchildren have to die just because John Locke ate psychedelic mushrooms 400 years ago? Two hundred years ago, Thomas Paine asked whether the Earth belongs to the living or the dead. It's time to ask that question again. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
How hard is it to change opinions?
>I am motivated to strive for a >survivable option for the future - so sorry. That's the point Eva. You have a specific agenda in mind, and then reject any information that doesn't support it. We all do that to some extent, but "thinkers" will revisit beliefs when presented with new scientific evidense that opposes them. "Observers" will revisit beliefs when their own senses oppose them. But true idealogues neither "think" nor "observe", and are willing to burn for their beliefs: "An Englishwoman, who was married to a Portuguese named Vasconcellos in Madeira, was accused of heresy in 1704, and sent to the Inquisition in Lisbon. There she was kept in prison for over nine months; she was flogged several times to persuade her to confess, and her breast was burnt in three places with a red-hot iron. At last, she was taken to the torture chamber and strapped into the Spanish chair; an iron slipper, heated in the fire until it was red hot, was placed on her left foot. The flesh was burnt to the bone, and she fainted. When she came to, she was once more flogged until her whole back was a mass of blood, and then threatened with the slipper on her other foot. Unsurprisingly, she signed her confession, and was eventually released." [ pp. 78-79, THE HISTORY OF TORTURE, by Brian Innes, St Martin's Pr., 1998 ] ( Remember that all she had to do to avoid torture was to change her opinion . ) That is precisely why our Founding Fathers left America in the hands of the rich. Americas government was designed to be corrupt because the moneyed class is more "rational" (calculating) than either elected officials or the general public. http://dieoff.com/page168.htm "Irrational" political movements like communism scare the hell out of "rational" people -- except of course, those who have nothing to lose. Jay
Re: an empirical observation Re: the end of 'wage slavery'
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I cannot see the relevance, we are a qualitatively different >species even from our nearest biological relatives. This is not true Eva. You are arguing from a vantage point of deliberate ignorance because you are ideologically opposed to scientific information. Which means you are no different than a religious fanatic arguing that your sick children should be prevented from receiving medical care because you don't "believe" in it. Bertrand Russell said that men would rather die than think. He was right. Machiavelli identified the two methods to control most people: deception and force. "Nor did a prince ever lack legitimate reasons by which to color his bad faith. One could cite a host of modern examples and list the many peace treaties, the many promises that were made null and void by princes who broke faith, with the advantage going to the one who best knew how to play the fox. But one must know how to mask this nature skillfully and be a great dissembler. Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions." [The Prince] "A corrupt and disorderly multitude can be spoken to by some worthy person and can easily be brought around to the right way, but a bad prince can not be spoken to by anyone, and the only remedy for his case is cold steel." [Discourses] By way of example Eva, you provide the most convincing argument against your own fantastic ideology. In short, you have falsified yourself. Jay
Re: ethanol
> And they're turning the Amazon Basin into a wasteland at an alarming > rate. Maybe Jay has the figures to do the accounting on this. >Enough "cellulosic biomass" -- typically, that means trees -- to Neither ethanol nor methanol has the potential to "replace" fossil fuels -- mostly because of the land constraints. But David Pimentel also says that ethanol consumes more energy than it produces: "Ethanol production is wasteful of fossil energy resources and does not increase energy security. This is because considerably more energy, much of it high-grade fossil fuels, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the ethanol output. Specifically, about 71% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy contained in a gallon of ethanol." Pimentel: http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/v98n2/mkh-new7.html Lots of stuff on alternatives at: http://dieoff.com/page143.htm Jay
Communism is just another stupid idea whose time has past.
- Original Message - From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >People were not consciously structuring slavery, >feudalism or capitalism. It happened to them >as a consequence of the physical environment including >technological/economical development and in turn, social >relations. I am beginning to understand your thesis Eva. It seems to be one of two possibilities: Hypothesis #1. "People" are defined by their actions. "People" can only do good things. If that is so, then the "people" can rule because they, by definition, can only do good. Moreover, anyone who does bad is, by definition, not a person. But wait a minute! Wasn't that Hitler's thesis too? Hypothesis #2: "People" can do no wrong. Only the "system" can be wrong. Hasn't this hypothesis been falsified by Joseph Stalin? Question: Over a hundred million people were killed during the last century. Isn't it possible that some of those who were doing the burning, raping, shooting, clubbing, knifing, and bombing were doing it because they LIKED it? Even among primitive people, the murder rates are high. System problems again Eva? Where on Earth, has the "system" EVER allowed the "people" to become the angels you claim them to be? "The new human freedom made striving for expansion and power possible. Such freedom, when multiplied, creates anarchy. The anarchy among civilized societies meant that the play of power in the system was uncontrollable. In an anarchic situation like that, no one can choose that the struggle for power shall cease. But there is one more element in the picture: no one is free to choose peace, but anyone can impose upon all the necessity for power. This is the lesson of the parable of the tribes." [ p. 21, Andrew Bard Schmookler, THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES; SUNY, 1995. ISBN 0-7914-2420-0 ] Communism is just another stupid idea whose time has past. Jay
Re: social darwinism again
With respect to the title of this thread: "social Darwinism again". In order to even understand the subject matter, one would have to be able to differentiate between "social Darwinism" (politics) and "biological Darwinism" (science). Nowadays, there is a great deal of popular literature available on the subject. Jay
Re: an empirical observation Re: the end of 'wage slavery'
- Original Message - From: Stephen Straker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >share the same idea. What do you mean by "hierarchy"? I can only >guess at what you take "hierarchy" to be. Hierarchy is the natural ordering among primates and many (all?) other social animals. It's the dominant male character, or the "alpha" animal in mamals. If you have two cats, one is the boss. Anthropologists have described "egalitarian" societies, but that does not mean that the people in them do not tend to hierarchy. It means that their particular social system works to keep the dominant animals in check -- to supress the geneitc bias fort dominance. These "egalitarian" societies work because they are small. Community members must be able to "recognize" other community memebers. That limits them to 300 or 400 individuals. It not a question wheither or not human will have rulers, the only question is who shall rule. We are presently ruled by the rich. I would like to see different criteria. It's a fact of life that democracy (no matter how one defines it) is on the way out. To find out more about aimals in politics, see: DARWINISM, DOMINANCE, AND DEMOCRACY: The Biological Bases of Authoritarianism, by Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275958/0275958175.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275958175 Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: an empirical observation Re: the end of 'wage slavery'
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Social structure is not the same as hierarchy. >You are not anti-communist, you are anti-democratic, you are a >supremacist madman, who sees humanity with contempt, who sees >humanity as chattel to be herded who sees humanity with less dignity >than herd-animals, because herd animals do not choose their ways. I am a realist, someone who recognizes the overwhelmingly obvious fact that humanity is hierarchical -- that some people are better at some things than others. I would -- like all other people who are not insane -- go to a doctor for surgery. I suppose a true believer like yourself might opt for surgery from the grocer, but it doesn't make sense to me. Jay
Re: A NEW MEANS OF CONTROL HAD TO BE FOUND
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Economic theories are not the cause of wars, economic structures >that developed without any human intervention, and seem >to be oblivious to any government manipulation, are. "Economic structures that developed without any human intervention?" If humans didn't develop them, who did? The chimps? The men from Mars? (It just gets better and better.) Jay
Re: an empirical observation Re: the end of 'wage slavery'
- Original Message - From: Stephen Straker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Of course, any and all relations can LOOK hierarchical IF you are >prepared or intending to see them that way. The question is: are >they REALLY hierarchical, and THAT requires more than looking. Isn't it rather silly to expect me to prove what is demonstrated to you every day is true? Your personal incredulity is not a valid scientific argument. Why don't you point some society -- or some social primate -- that doesn't have hierarchy? It seems the burden to disprove our everyday experiences -- and the findings of the scientific community -- is on you. Jay
Re: A NEW MEANS OF CONTROL HAD TO BE FOUND
- Original Message - From: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I enjoyed your post. Your statements about wealth and Madison are also >the viewpoint of Noam Chomsky who gave a talk on it on C-Span last year. >Of course it was played at three in the morning. It explains the support for market economies by western governments! Western governments are not run by people who believe all those stupid economic arguments, they are run by people who have a hidden "political" agenda for market economies: peace. I am reading Karl Polyani's THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION again, and once again I am amazed by his powers of observation. He described the exact same processes we see at work today. Polyani finds the cause of the first and second world wars in an "acute peace interest". Sound contradictory? It's exactly the same thing I wrote about in my last newsletter: free trade and movable capital forcing governments to be peaceful. [ http://dieoff.com/page168.htm ] GREAT IDEA!!! But yesterdays problem was that the economic theories were fundamentally wrong. And when the economic system crashed, it took a hell of a lot of people with it: "The dissolution of the system of world economy which had been in progress since 1900 was responsible for the political tension that exploded in 1914." [p. 21] Today we see the global economy crumbling again for the same reason: economic theories are fundamentally wrong. And once again, I believe these stupid economic theories condemn us to another century of world wars. In a decade or so, the rich will fully understand that the ongoing population explosion and resource depletion endanger the welfare of their own famlies. I suggest a global welfare state as a means to relieve the strain on the planet and provide "needs" to most people. But as you mentioned in an earlier post, people without work would probably become restless. It may well be that the market economy is the only "humane" means for the rich to control the common herd animals. In which case, the rich will be forced to resort to "inhumane" means of control -- perhaps a new designer bioweapon capable to hitting the delete key on upwards of six billion people. Jay
A NEW MEANS OF CONTROL HAD TO BE FOUND
- Original Message - From: Jay Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >We are not ** common heard animals with some >higher evolved race of scientists, Jay, wake up from >this irrational nightmare of yours. Our Founding Fathers crafted American government to defend against "irrational" movements like Communism. Americas government was designed to be corrupt because the moneyed class was thought to be more rational (calculating) than either elected officials or the general public! Free trade and free commerce was conceived as a means to keep governments and men "self-interested" (rational). Capital would flow towards governments and men who embraced Machiavellian "self-interest" (rational, calculating) and away from those who were "passionate" (irrational). NEW MEANS OF CONTROL HAD TO BE FOUND A feeling arose in the Renaissance and crystallized by the seventeenth century that moralizing and preaching religious doctrine could no longer be trusted to restrain the destructive passions of men. [6] A new means of control had to be found. The most obvious solution was repression and coercion. Repression had been the choice of St. Augustine as early as the fifth century and of Calvin in the sixteenth century. But the repressive solution was beset by a seemingly insurmountable problem: quis custodies ipsos custodes (who shall watch the watchers)? Suppose the sovereign turned out to be excessively lenient, cruel, or had some other failing? What then? Bernard Mandeville (1670?-1733) rejected repression and suggested that a society based on the deadliest of the seven deadly sins [7] "avarice" would create common Machiavellian interests and suppress irrational passions. Mandevilles ideal society was one where the unwitting cooperation of individuals, each working for his or her own interest would result in the greatest benefit to society at large. Mandeville anticipated laissez-faire economic theory, which promoted self-interest, competition, and little government interference in the workings of the economy. PSEUDO DEMOCRACY "Democracy" is defined as "government by the people". But our Founding Fathers never intended for "the people" to govern themselves governance was reserved for the moneyed class. Two political theorists had great influence on the framers and creation of the Constitution. John Locke (1632-1704) made the greatest impact through his Second Treatise of Government. Locke pioneered the ideas of natural rights and private property, as well as the concept of "separation of powers" to keep any one segment of government from gaining too much power. The French writer Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), the second major intellectual influence on the Constitution, further developed the concept of a separation of powers and taught that "invisible wealth which could be sent everywhere" would force governments to govern with greater "wisdom". In other words, here we find the political argument for free trade: and through this means commerce could elude violence, and maintain itself everywhere; for the richest trader had only invisible wealth which could be sent everywhere without leaving any trace In this manner we owe.., to the avarice of rulers the establishment of a contrivance which somehow lifts commerce right out of their grip. Since that time, the rulers have been compelled to govern with greater wisdom than they themselves might have intended; for, owing to these events, the great and sudden arbitrary actions of the sovereign (les grands coups d'autorité) have been proven to be ineffective and ... only good government brings prosperity [to the prince]. [8] Adam Smith (1723-1790), like so many others in his time, believed that free trade and commerce led to good government and peace. In his Wealth of Nations, Smith established powerful economic arguments for laissez-faire, but the attentive reader can find the hidden political arguments here as well: commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived in almost in a continual state of war with their neighbors, and of servile dependency upon their superiors. [9] James Madison (1751-1836) "the father of the U.S. Constitution" [10] was born into a community of self-made Lockean Virginians to whom property rights were both natural and civil. Madison studied Smith carefully, hoping to discover "the true principles of political economy [which] are everywhere needed more so in our young country than in some old ones." [11] Madisons primary political concern centered on the maintenance of social stability by the political and social control of competing factions; control by
Re: an empirical observation Re: the end of 'wage slavery'
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >We are not ** common heard animals with some >higher evolved race of scientists, Jay, wake up from >this irrational nightmare of yours. To deny human hierarchy, is to deny what is before your eyes everywhere. Hierarchy is part of every human society, from the shaman, to the Native American "Chief", to the football quarterback, to priests, to opera singers, to astronauts, to CEOs, to Joseph Stalin. Hierarchy is part of ALL primate societies -- from chimps, to baboons, to Americans. You must deny what is so utterly obvious because it is incompatible with your God of Communism. Your fruitless struggle to defend your God against science reminds one of Bellarmino defending his God against science: " wherein it is set forth that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus, that the Earth moves around the Sun and that the Sun is stationary in the center of the world and does not move from east to west, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held. In witness whereof we have written and subscribed these presents with our hand this twenty-sixth day of May, 1616." -- Robertro Cardinal Bellarmino "Of all hatreds, there is none greater than that of ignorance against knowledge." -- Galileo Galilei, June 30, 1616 Jay
Re: an empirical observation Re: the end of 'wage slavery'
- Original Message - From: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Thanks for all of the work. You were very articulate and I enjoyed the >read. If your premise is correct then the rest of that post is >unnecessary. There are those in every movement who state that the >original premise has been betrayed.I think the Free Marketeers >would say the same about their ideas. They certainly would >argue with you about genuine Capitalism ever being tried in the world. You hit the nail on the head Ray! No matter what the issue -- from democracy to nuclear power -- it works great when abstracted from the real world. People evolved to believe in illusions -- not to discover real world: "The human mind evolved to believe in gods... Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to [science] which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms." The Biological Basis of Morality, E.O. Wilson http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/bio2.htm The idea that the common herd animal can solve problems in complex systems, is the biggest illusion of all. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
ARCO: "the last days of the Age of Oil"
[ http://www.arco.com/corporate/news/p020999.htm ] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 9, 1999 ARCO CHAIRMAN SAYS LAST DAYS OF OIL AGE HAVE BEGUN: CALLS ON U.S. ENERGY INDUSTRY TO MEET CLEAN FUEL CHALLENGE HOUSTON - The 21st Century will bring a dramatic "new look" to the U.S. energy industry, with cleaner-burning natural gas and renewable motor fuels playing decisive roles in the energy mix of the future, ARCO (NYSE:ARC) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mike R. Bowlin told a meeting of industry leaders here today. Speaking at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates' 18th annual executive conference, Bowlin said the world is entering "the last days of the Age of Oil," and the energy industry must respond wisely or face the consequences. "Global demand for clean energy - natural gas, renewables, electricity and new energy technologies - will grow faster than overall demand for energy, including oil and coal," said Bowlin, who heads the nation's fifth largest oil and gas company. "Ten or fifteen years from now there still will be a large and healthy market for oil - of course. We hope that it would be a healthier market than today. But it is also true that the market share for oil will diminish, as the demand for other forms of energy grows." The energy equations of the 21st Century, focusing on alternative fuels, will leave oil and gas companies with a critical choice, said Bowlin: "Embrace the future and recognize the growing demand for a wide array of fuels; or ignore reality and slowly -- but surely -- be left behind." Bowlin predicted that natural gas, which he described as "a still under-appreciated energy source," will be vital for economic growth in the developing world. He described ARCO as "a believer in an expanding role for gas in Asia" where liquefied natural gas (LNG) may account for up to a tenth of total energy demand by 2010. "We all have a stake in a prosperous society and a clean environment," said Bowlin. "To ensure both, our industry must be able to deliver a competitively priced product that meets the demands of our customers and government." Bolin called on the energy industry to join automakers in a major new effort to develop clean fuels. "Working cooperatively with the autos to determine the most cost-effective combination of vehicle and fuel technologies is the key to achieving our mutual goals," Bowlin said. As an example of industry initiative, he cited ARCO's role in developing reformulated gasoline in California, where ARCO is headquartered. In 1989, ARCO introduced the world's first cleaner-burning gasoline, EC-1, at its Los Angeles-area stations. Ultimately, reformulated gasoline was mandated for all of the state. "The issues of the day - while demanding our attention - should never prevent us from planning for tomorrow," Bowlin said. "I believe that the energy industry of the 21st Century will be more competitive, more diverse and more dynamic than today. The challenge is not merely to survive today's low prices, but to plan for a future in which hydrocarbons are just one of a wide variety of fuels that will build the global economy of the 21st Century." ARCO is a worldwide integrated hydrocarbons corporation with operations encompassing all aspects of the oil and gas business: exploration, production, refining, and marketing of crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. ARCO has significant operations on the North Slope of Alaska and in the Western United States, Gulf of Mexico, China, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom North Sea. Click here to view speech http://www.arco.com/corporate/news/SA020999.htm ### For further information: William Warren or Linda Dozier (213)486-3384. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: G. Hardin new book
From: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Somewhere I read that the market must expand for it to work as a system. > >Could some of the economists fill me in on that one? All of our institutions are based on endless physical growth, thus all of our institutions must either change of perish. Here is a rather long scan from what I believe to be the best book on the subject: Political Theory It is not the aim of this book to prescribe the form of post-industrial civilization but rather to document the existence of ecological scarcity, show how it will come to dominate our political life, and then make plain the inability of our current political culture and machinery to cope with its challenges. From this analysis, a range of possible answers to the crisis will emerge. For example, if individualism is shown to be problematic in an era of ecological scarcity, then the answer must lie somewhere toward the communal end of the political spectrum. Also, certain general dilemmas that confront us -- for example, the political price attached to continued technological growth will be made explicit. In brief, then, this work is a prologue to a political theory of the steady state. Yet although it stops well short of formulating a genuine political theory of the steady state, it is directly concerned with the great issues that have dominated traditional thought about politics. Our essential purpose is to show how the perennial, but dormant, questions of political philosophy have been revived by ecological scarcity. We shall see, for example, that the political problems related to the task of environmental management have to do primarily with the ends of political association, rather than with the political means needed to achieve agreed-upon goals. The questions that arise from the ensuing analysis are essentially value questions: What is the common interest? Under current conditions, is liberal democracy a suitable and desirable vehicle for achieving it? What, indeed, is the good life for men and women? In other words, we confront the same kinds of questions that Aristotle, in common with the other great theorists of politics, asks. We are obliged by the environmental crisis to enlarge our conception of politics to its classical dimensions. To use a famous capsule description of politics, the questions about who gets what, when, how, and why must be reexamined and answered anew by our generation. Our goal in this book is to set the agenda for such a philosophical reexamination of our politics. However, we do not approach this task as does a traditional political philosopher. Past theorists seeking guidance for human action have grounded their ideas on revelation or induction. Either, like Plato, they have appealed to some a priori metaphysical principle from which the shape of the desirable political order can be deduced, or, like Aristotle, they have examined human behavior over time to see whether certain kinds of political institutions are more effective than others in producing a happy and virtuous people. Of course, many theorists have mixed these approaches, and some have introduced other considerations. In almost all cases, however, humanity's linkage to nature has counted for little. By contrast, like Malthus, we start with humanity's dependence on nature and the basic human problems of biological survival. To be sure, most political and social thinkers have acknowledged humanity's ultimate dependence on nature, and a few have devoted some attention to the specific effects that environmental constraints have had on people. In Book One of The Politics, Aristotle discusses scarcity and other ecological limits, implying that because of them slavery may be necessary for civilized life. Plato in Book Two of The Republic and Rousseau in The Second Discourse also display a subtle awareness of the impact the evolving process of getting one's daily bread can have on social institutions. Nevertheless, with the major exception of Malthus, political and social theorists have tended to take the biological existence of men and women as given. This is no longer possible. Nor is it possible any longer to ignore humanity's impact on the environment. Of course, concern about this impact and the consequent damage to human welfare also has a long history (Glacken 1956). Over two thousand years ago, Plato in Greece and Mencius in China both worried about the destruction of habitat caused by overgrazing and deforestation. The early Christian writer Tertullian called wars, plagues, famines, and earthquakes blessings because they "serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race" (Hardin 1969, p. 18), and Aristotle found the poverty caused by population growth to be the parent of revolution and crime: "If no restriction is imposed on the rate of reproduction...poverty is the inevitable result; and poverty produces, in its turn, civic dissension and wrong doing" (Barker 1952, p. 59). Clearly, certain o
Re: Limits to Nordhouse
- Original Message - From: Tom Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>issues must be examined. How large are the drags from natural resources >>and land? What is the quantitative relationship between technological >>change and the resource-land drag? How does human population growth >The irony is that Nordhouse is right that the questions are "empirical >questions that cannot be settled solely by theorizing" but he glosses over >the inconvenient fact that the tradition of economic analysis is precisely >that of "settling" empirical questions by theorizing. There are some other interesting aspects of Nordhouse's piece. For example, he introduces the concept of "drag". It's not in my MIT Dictionary of Modern Economics, but it seems an ad hoc definition: "that which drags". Economics is based on such tautologies. >Nordhouse is a co-author with Paul Samuelson of recent editions of the >textbook, Economics, which contains several glaring distortions of >empirically verifiable fact. The facts have simply been "corrected" or >omitted where they embarass for the theory. > >Is that any way to write a textbook? Would you trust such "scholarship" >with the fate of your world? Physics incorporated thermodynamics -- moved from "production" to "circulation" -- over 100 years ago. But modern economic texts such as McConnell & Brue, 1999, and Samuelson & Nordhouse, 1998 still do not discuss thermodynamics or entropy! "An answer might lie in the fact that economics is no more than a mechanistic belief (though defended with fanatical vigour) that by exchanging goods for money, countries can make themselves better off. It is true that by buying from another country we can avoid resource depletion and environmental degradation here, but that degradation is transferred to the supplying country. If the country that sells us those goods buys its materials from us, it avoids its own resource depletion and environmental destruction and transfers the impact back to us. So while we are all at it (and use each other's best economic advantage), we cannot avoid environmental damage by trading with each other and thus get perpetual environmental benefits like perpetual motion. Indeed, if that worked, we could achieve absolute environmental integrity by just selling our products to another country and then buying them back. That proposition is clearly absurd. We shall see that globally no environmental advantage can be gained from international trade and much environmental capital is lost while amenity assets are destroyed in the process. "Unfortunately there is a physical law, the entropy law, that will not permit perpetual motion to take place, and a technical law, the Carnot limit of maximum efficiency, that will not allow any material and energy to be used without generating some waste. That means it is impossible to convert energy and material 100% into useful product. Technical processes in the real world cannot exceed a theoretical efficiency of around 60%, while most production processes take place with efficiencies of between 25% and 0%. The latter being all modes of transport, which are a total loss in terms of physics. Transport adds nothing to the actual value of a product. Only in economic valuation, something may have a higher value in one place than another, but the product itself can only deteriorate in the process. "Thus, no economic process is possible without some degradation of the planet." [ pp. 59-60, TOES Proceedings 1995, Gerhard Weissmann ] More at http://dieoff.com/page168.htm Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Nordhouse on Limits to Growth
When LIMITS TO GROWTH was published by the Club of Rome in 1972, it provoked a firestorm of controversy. LTG was quickly attacked by economists of the day. Although, some resorted to outright lies in attempting to discredit the models [1], I suspect that most simply didn't understand them. The conclusions of the LTG team were: -- 1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity. 2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential. 3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success. [pp. 23-24, LIMITS TO GROWTH, Meadows et. al, 1972] -- In LETHAL MODEL 2: The Limits to Growth Revisited, William Nordhouse either didn't read or didn't understand Limits to Growth. Although the LTG models projected "accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment" , Nordhouse thought the book was about limits to "economic growth": "Two decades ago, a ferocious debate erupted about the feasibility and desirability of future economic growth. The popular imagination was captured by a study of the world economy known as The Limits to Growth. This work, sponsored by the mysterious-sounding Club of Rome, convinced many that unfettered economic growth had come to an end and that the world was entering the 'era of limits.' "The emergence of the anti-growth school was the latest peak in a long intellectual cycle of pessimism about economic growth that originated with Reverend T.R. Malthus in the early 1800s. But such concerns receded from the public consciousness in the 1970s and early 1980s as the immediacy of skyrocketing oil prices, a growing international debt crisis, mounting fiscal imbalances, and slowing productivity and real wage growth displaced vaguer long-term anxieties about declining resources and growing entropy." [p. 1] Having misunderstood (or misrepresented) both Malthus and the entire LTG debate, Nordhouse finds no "theoretical" limits to economic growth and looks to past economic growth for evidence of economic limits: "Ultimately, then, the debate about future of economic growth is an empirical one, and resolving the debate will require analysts to examine fundamental structural parameters of the economy. Several critical issues must be examined. How large are the drags from natural resources and land? What is the quantitative relationship between technological change and the resource-land drag? How does human population growth behave as incomes rise? How much substitution is possible between labor and capital on the one hand, and scarce natural resources, land, and pollution abatement on the other? These are empirical questions that cannot be settled solely by theorizing." [p. 16] I have more of Nordhouse's paper and more of the original Limits to Growth material in the footnotes at: http://dieoff.com/page168.htm References and notes: [1] The Economist in PLENTY OF GLOOM,12/20/97. http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/20-12-97/xm0002.html "In 1972 the Club of Rome published a highly influential report called 'Limits to Growth'. To many in the environmental movement, that report still stands as a beacon of sense in the foolish world of economics. But were its predictions borne out? "'Limits to Growth' said total global oil reserves amounted to 550 billion barrels. 'We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade,' said President Jimmy Carter shortly afterwards. Sure enough, between 1970 and 1990 the world used 600 billion barrels of oil. So, according to the Club of Rome, reserves should have been overdrawn by 50 billion barrels by 1990. In fact, by 1990 unexploited reserves amounted to 900 billion barrels -- not counting the tar shales, of which a single deposit in Alberta contains more than 550 billion barrels." But the Economist is simply wrong! In fact, the Club of Rome allowed for a 500% increase in "reserves". See http://www.dieoff.com/LimitsToGrowth.htm Moreover, global oil production is now expected to "peak" in about five years, see: THE END OF CHEAP OIL by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. La
Re: an alternative to Lundemocracy
- Original Message - From: Victor Milne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I like Thomas' suggestion for governance by a parliament comprised of >citizens chosen by lottery. It certainly eliminates a lot of distortions in >Inspired by this story, I have proposed the Moccasin Rule for government. These are both really good ideas that should be incorporated into any new social system. Jay
The Society of Sloth
- Original Message - From: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Interesting but what would you do about initiative?That has been the >problem with all of the "job" oriented labor in the communist and socialist >countries or so goes the propaganda here about it.In my culture it is >the Sacred, the family, I propose to put 95% of the people on welfare -- the society of sloth. Here is a snip from http://dieoff.com/page168.htm -- Step one would be to establish a global government of some sort with the authority to protect the global commons our life-support system as well as protecting universal human rights. This government would also oversee the "clean" manufacturing of "repairable" and "reusable" energy-efficient appliances and transportation systems. It would also insure the sustainable production of staples like wheat, rice, oats, and fish. Does this new global government sound repressive or restrictive? Not at all. A great deal of freedom is possible in fact, far more than we have now. eMERGY CERTIFICATES Step two would be to replace the organizing principle of "avarice" with the principle of "sloth"; break out of the money-market-advertising-consumption death trap. The Society of Sloth would not be based on money because that would be inherently unsustainable. Instead, it would be based on "eMergy Certificates". [37] Global government would determine the "needs" of the public, set industrial production accordingly, and calculate the amount of eMergy used to meet these needs. Government would then distribute purchasing power in the form of eMergy certificates, the amount issued to each person being equivalent to his pro rata share of the eMergy cost of the consumer goods and services. eMergy certificates bear the identification of the person to whom issued and are non-negotiable. They resemble a bank check in that they bear no face denomination, this being entered at the time of spending. They are surrendered upon the purchase of goods or services at any center of distribution and are permanently canceled, becoming entries in a uniform accounting system. Being non-negotiable they cannot be lost, stolen, gambled, or given away because they are invalid in the hands of any person other than the one to whom issued. Lost eMergy certificates would be easily replaced. Certificates can not be saved because they become void at the termination of the two-year period for which they are issued. They can only be spent. Insecurity of old age is abolished and both saving and insurance become unnecessary and impossible. eMergy Certificates would put absolute limits on consumption and provide people with a guaranteed stream of "needs" for life. With modern technology, probably less than 5% of the population could produce all the goods we really "need". A certain number of "producers" could be drafted and trained by society to produce for two years. The rest can stay home and sleep, sing, dance, paint, read, write, pray, play, do minor repairs, work in the garden, and practice birth control. SELF-DETERMINATION Any number of cultural, ethnic or religious communities could be established by popular vote. Religious communities could have public prayer in their schools, prohibit booze, allow no television to corrupt their kids, wear uniforms, whatever. Communities of writers or painters could be established in which bad taste would be against the law. Ethnic communities could be established to preserve language and customs. If someone didnt like the rules in a particular community, they could move to another religious, cultural, or ethnic community of their choosing. In short, the one big freedom that individuals would have to give up would be the freedom to destroy the commons (in its broadest sense) the freedom to kill. And in return, they would be given a guaranteed income for life and the freedom to live almost any way they choose. For the references, see http://dieoff.com/page168.htm Jay
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Ray E. Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >As for hiring your leaders, that is what most American cities do. The >elect a mayor and hire a City Manager to run the place.It works pretty >well but does not avoid the issues of pollution or loss of resources that >you were complaining about in your past posts. Yes, I haven't put all the bits and pieces together so it sounds coherent. Right now we DO hire our leaders -- even the elected ones -- but with the wrong goals (make more money) and selection criteria (good for business). In brave new "Hansonland", corporations would not exist "to make a profit", they would only exist for specific purposes to serve the public good. It used to be that way. Leaders with specific qualifications would be hired for specific functions. The corporation is probably the right form, but it needs a different purpose. Maybe next year (if there is one) I will crank out a longer paper about Hansonland. Jay
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Edward Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >This puts us at a dead end, which may also be your point. I don't like the >idea of scientists running things. I've worked with too many of them. One >of the best couldn't think his way out of a paper bag, but he could do >wonders inside that bag. They really don't want to govern. Who's left? >The Pope? The UN? The IOC? Basically, I am suggesting a new governing structure with specific goals -- something like a corporation under a constitution with checks and balances. The entire system would be based on merit -- not popularity contests. Suppose society decided the primary "goal" was for our kids to live long enough to retire. Obviously, this implies a functional society, which is a "technical" question -- somewhat like asking "How can I make the cooking fuel on my boat last the entire trip?" The logical way to proceed would be to the experts specific questions, and then "hire" -- not elect -- qualified "leaders" (CEOs) to lead us to explicit goals. If they fail to meet specific benchmarks, fire them and hire someone else. We do not need the 90 million Americans, who read below the 7th grade level, to make decisions. A constitution with checks-and-balances has done a fairly good job of looking after their welfare so far. We would need to build this kind of "protection" for the disadvantaged into a new system. Indeed, I suggest universal welfare at: http://dieoff.com/page168.htm The bottom line is we are out of time. Our political and economic systems are based on utopian nonsense left over from the enlightenment. It's time to invent new social systems for the new mellienum. Jay
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Edward Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>No thanks! I saw direct democracy in action the other night on a PBS >>program about Rwanda: eight-hundred-thousand dead in one hundred days. > >Don't you think your being just a little unfair? That was butchery, not >democracy. Given its background, it could have happened under any form of >government. That's exactly my point. Given the opportunity, it would happen anywhere, at any time. There is nothing inherent in man that keeps him torturing and murdering his fellows. For example, the practice of human torture was "legal" for at least 3,000 years and formed a part of most legal codes in Europe and the Far East. Remember that Hitler was elected by "the people". Moreover, the men who ran the camps during WW2 were, for the most part, average people. Remember the Slave trade? Just some conscious family men trying to make a buck and put their kids through school. Let "the people" make all the laws? Bad idea! Jay
Re: re:democracy
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I pointed out (often), that there are fundamental conditions for >a proper working democracy, and these conditions did not >exist in our history so far. Then the reasonable observer would conclude they never will. Jay
Re: democracy
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >We were tallking about intelligence, not some rare genetic >decease. It is not even an accepted fact that intelligence >is inheritable. So - you are saying, that most of humanity I don't want to get in a fight about IQ, but the scientists say it is at least partially inherited Besides the discipline of evolutionary psychology, the molecular biologists (who have nothing to evolutionary theory) find that genes have a great deal to do with human behavior: "The emerging science of molecular biology has made startling discoveries that show beyond a doubt that genes are the single most important factor that distinguishes one person from another. We come in large part ready-made from the factory. We accept that we look like our parents and other blood relatives; we have a harder time with the idea that we also act like them. In other species, we value and encourage genetic differences in 'personality.' Consider the difference between a Wisconsin dairy cow and a bull from Pamplona, or a golden retriever and a pit bull. Human breeding is less orderly, but children do share personality traits with their parents. Every grown man has experienced a shock of realization when he does something exactly like his father before him. Every mother has a similar experience when a child behaves exactly like her. This is not bad; it's beautiful. This does not mean we are doomed to become our parents; it means we begin our journeys where our parents left off." [pp. 11,12, LIVING WITH OUR GENES: Why They Matter More Than You Think, by Dean Homer & Peter Copeland; Doubleday, 1988 ] But getting people to accept new knowlege has always been difficult: " wherein it is set forth that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus, that the Earth moves around the Sun and that the Sun is stationary in the center of the world and does not move from east to west, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held. In witness whereof we have written and subscribed these presents with our hand this twenty-sixth day of May, 1616." -- Robertro Cardinal Bellarmino "Of all hatreds, there is none greater than that of ignorance against knowledge." -- Galileo Galilei, June 30, 1616 Jay
Re: (Fwd) HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY (fwd)
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >primate and human behaviour is not the same, so such research >is not scientific. Evolutionary scientists include humans unless stated otherwise. Scientists are using the theory of evolution to predict human behavior: - Third, and most important, the theory of evolution can be used to help scholars and scientists develop substantive testable predictions about human behavior. Cosmides (1989) used it to make predictions about content effects in logical reasoning. Silverman and Eals (1992) used it to make predictions about gender differences in spatial abilities. Singh (1993) used it to make predictions about preferences for body images. Buss (1994) used it to make predictions about gender differences in mate choice criteria and tactics for acquiring mates. Orians and Heerwagen (1992) used it to make predictions about evoked responses to landscapes. Several chapters in Part III of this book discuss recent research in which various aspects of evolutionary theory were used to derive testable predictions about human behavior. [pp. 8-10] HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: Ideas Issues and Applications, Eds. Charles Crawford & Dennis Krebs; Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998 http://www.erlbaum.com/2621.htm
Re: (Fwd) HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY (fwd)
- Original Message - From: Mike Hollinshead <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >It is no more scientifically true than that the sun and planets revolve >around the earth. > >What is really funny is that Darwin purloined his principle of selection >through competition from classical economics, from Malthus in fact. So you >take the dog eat dog mythology of early capitalism and apply it to biology >and then "prove" that hierarchical social systems are evolutionarily >determined because evolutionary biology proves it to be so. Tosh. It is a >tautology from beginning to end. (As is the Darwinian "Theory" of >Evolution, but that is another story). Hierarchy -- not hierarchical social systems -- has been observed in all social primates. And in dogs, cats, lions, etc. I suppose on another planet things might look different, but here on earth, primates are genetically predisposed to hierarchy. Hierarchy empirically true -- it's everywhere -- the birds do it, the bees do it, the aardvarks do it, the Green Bay Packers do it, etc. Jay > >for those who would like the fine print of the argument see Richard >Lewontin (a biologist who can actually think rather than merely >regurgitate) Biology as Ideology. It was one of the Massey Lectures and >can be sourced at the the CBC's website under the program Ideas. > >Mike H > > >- Original Message - >>From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Why do they believe this? First, explicit evolutionary thinking can sometimes eliminate certain kinds of errors in thinking about behavior (Symons, 1987). >>> >>>Evolutionary theory is only intended to explain how living organisms >>evolve. >>>Applying it to any other field of inquiry puts you on VERY shaky ground. >> >>It's presently being used to predict primate (human) behavior. >>Although it's politically incorrect, it's scientifically true. >> >>Jay > > >
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Colin Stark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Hence the concept of Direct Democracy: >" a SYSTEM of citizen-initiated binding referendums whereby voters can >directly amend, introduce and remove policies and laws" No thanks! I saw direct democracy in action the other night on a PBS program about Rwanda: eight-hundred-thousand dead in one hundred days. Jay
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Edward Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>How about an explicit definition of the job and explicit qualifications? >>We do that with every other job, why not politics? > >God will write them? Theocracies worked for a while, but they too had their >problems -- e.g. the classic Mayas screwed up their environment just as >badly as we have. Gee! Why not try science for a change?
Re: (Fwd) HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY (fwd)
- Original Message - From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Why do they believe this? First, explicit evolutionary thinking can >> sometimes eliminate certain kinds of errors in thinking about behavior >> (Symons, 1987). > >Evolutionary theory is only intended to explain how living organisms evolve. >Applying it to any other field of inquiry puts you on VERY shaky ground. It's presently being used to predict primate (human) behavior. Although it's politically incorrect, it's scientifically true. Jay
Re: re:democracy
- Original Message - From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Natural selection and genetic development works in a >much larger time scale than social depelopment that >may change human hierarchical, obedient etc behaviour >in less than a generation and such socially >conditioned behaviour forms >are not genetically inheritable. You are correct. Here is a longer quite from Somit & Peterson that discusses "indoctrinability": --- This book seeks to explain an incontrovertible though hardly welcome fact: Throughout human history, the overwhelming majority of political societies have been characterized by the rule of the few over the many, by dominance and submission, by command and obedience. No matter the century or era, we see the same pattern -- authoritarian regimes are notable by their presence and persistence, democracies by their infrequency and impermanence. This has unarguably been the case in the past; an objective assessment of today's some two hundred polities compels the conclusion that, even in what is hailed as an "Age of Democracy," it still remains essentially the case today. The consistency of this pattern raises two very troublesome questions. First and most obvious: Why are authoritarian governments so common and enduring--and democracies, in painful contrast, so rare and, all too often, so fragile? To this question, many answers have been offered; as their sheer number and variety testifies none has yet been particularly persuasive. In this book we address the same issue but advance a quite different explanation. Although other factors are undoubtedly also operative, the most important reason for the rarity of democracy is that evolution has endowed our species, as it has the other social primates, with a predisposition for hierarchically structured social and political systems. In the pages that follow, we will try both to explain why and how this has occurred and, equally important, to anticipate the objections that likely will (and certainly should) be raised to such an unattractive thesis. The proposed explanation promptly triggers the second question: How, then, can we account for the undeniable occasional emergence of democratic polities? Many of those who have wrestled with this problem find the answer in some unique concatenation of economic, social, historical, and political "facilitating" factors. These factors undoubtedly play a role. Nonetheless, paradoxically enough, we must again turn to evolutionary theory for the necessary, though not sufficient, condition that makes democracy sometimes possible. Although it shares the proclivity of its fellow social primates for hierarchical social organization, Homo sapiens is the only species capable of creating and, under some circumstances, acting in accordance with cultural beliefs that actually run counter to its innate behavioral tendencies. The generally accepted, if lamentably awkward, term for this truly unique capacity is "indoctrinability." Celibacy and the (presumably) less demanding ideal of faithful monogamy are obvious examples of indoctrinability at work. Democracy, an idea almost as alien to our social primate nature, is another. It is indoctrinability, then, that makes it possible, given some conjunction of the aforementioned facilitating social, economic, and other, conditions, for democracies occasionally to emerge and to have some chance to survive. Our original objective was to address the two questions identified above. As we proceeded, however, a third task emerged. A neo-Darwinian perspective on the prospects of democracy in a social primate species can all too easily be misperceived as deliberately or inadvertently (the net effect is the same) antidemocratic in thrust. That is assuredly neither our position nor our desire. Our intent, rather, is to show that the democratic cause will continue to be ill served if we fail to take adequate account of our species' innate hierarchical inclinations. That evolution has endowed Homo sapiens with a genetic bias toward hierarchy, dominance, and submission need not necessarily be a counsel of despair. Better to grasp this reality than to blissfully believe that our species is innately democratic in its political tendencies and that other forms of government are unfortunate, but essentially temporary, aberrations. Only after we recognize and accept that fact can we begin to think realistically about the type of domestic and foreign policies required for the survival of democratic government, a subject to which we finally decided to devote our concluding chapter. [pp. 3,4, DARWINISM, DOMINANCE, AND DEMOCRACY: The Biological Bases of Authoritarianism, by Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson; http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275958/0275958175.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275958175 Jay
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Peter Marks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Government by popularity contest is a stupid idea. > >So is the corresponding straw man form of any kind of government. >Government by age? Government by family name? Government >by bank account? Government by narrow technical expertise? How about an explicit definition of the job and explicit qualifications? We do that with every other job, why not politics? If democracy means "rule by the common people", then America has never been a democracy What's more, our founding fathers never INTENDED for America to be a democracy: "These passages all too neatly anticipate Madisons conception of citizenship: do not give "the people" any power when they are assembled; allow some of the white males, acting in isolation, the fleeting participation of voting for their representatives and restrict the right for as long as politically possible to one branch of the legislature. Beyond this minimalist approach to politics, ask little else of the people, except under extraordinary conditions." As it has turned out, modern evolutionary scientists have found that the Founding Fathers were right: true democracy wont work. Natural selection and genetic development created a human tendency for dominance, submission, hierarchy, and obedience, as opposed to equality and democracy. As one political scientist recently put it: "[ Evolutionary scientists ] Somit and Peterson provide an informative account of the evolutionary basis for our historical (and current) opposition to democracy. For many, this will be an unwelcome message like being told that ones fly is unzipped. But after a brief bout of anger, we tend to thank the messenger for sparing us further embarrassment." Read all about it at: http://dieoff.com/page168.htm Jay
Re: one's fly is unzipped
- Original Message - From: Victor Milne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >On this thread I'll have to agree with Eva against Jay's contention that a >mind is predisposed [by evolution] to reproduce the genes that created it. > >A human being is predisposed to get laid, which in bygone ages usually had >the effect of reproducing the genes. Patriarchy, emphasizing reproduction >and transmission of property to the offspring, has been admittedly the most >widespread form of social organization, and it does articulate the supposehere are social >structures enough with other assumptions for us tod >evolutionary imperative of reproduction. However, t doubt that the >reproductive urge (as opposed to the sexual urge) is an evolutionary given: Predisposed means before socialiazion. 1. a. To make (someone) inclined to something in advance. Jay
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Edward Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Democracy makes no sense. If society is seeking a leader with the best >>skills, the selection should be based on merit -- testing and >xperience -- >>not popularity. Government by popularity contest is a stupid idea. > >Somehow I'm not at all surprised that this is your point of view. But then >how is merit to be determined? Testing and experience, you say, but who >will assess this? Surely an intelligent and informed public should have You said it yourself. When we want a leader to fly a plane, we find one who has passed tests and has air time. When we want a leader to do surgery, we find one who has graduated medical school. Qualifications for these leaderships have explicit tests and measures. Since the human mind evolved predisposed for social manipulation, when we chose leaders by popularity contest, we naturally get the best "manipulators". In other words, we get the most-corrupt, most-accomplished- liars waving their arms in front of our faces each day on television. Sound familiar? Since they really aren't that entertaining, why bother? If they were any good at law, they would still be practicing. What possible skill is anyone selected by popularity contest likely to be qualified for? Used cars? Life insurance? Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Edward Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >and social complexity grew. While hunting and gathering societies needed >only transitory hierarchies, more complex societies needed permanent ones. >However, there is no reason on earth why these couldn't be democratic, >allowing a particular leadership limited powers and only a limited tenure. Democracy makes no sense. If society is seeking a leader with the best skills, the selection should be based on merit -- testing and experience -- not popularity. Government by popularity contest is a stupid idea. Jay
HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
- Original Message - From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >the suicidal tendecy of the present system?? Surely >the selfish gene wants the human species to survive... No, it want's itself to survive. The selfish gene cares only about itself. Moreover, evolutionary psychology is THE science of human behavior. HANDBOOK OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: Ideas Issues and Applications, Eds. Charles Crawford & Dennis Krebs; Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998 http://www.erlbaum.com/2621.htm Here is a sample: --- INCOMPATIBILITY OF EVOLUTIONARY AND NONEVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS Must evolutionary and nonevolutionary explanations make different predictions? To answer this question consider two sets of explanations. The first set contains explanations that were explicitly constructed with evolutionary theory in mind. The second set contains explanations that were developed without any explicit knowledge of evolutionary theory. However, some of these latter explanations, such as commonsense explanations like, "Blood is thicker than water," and, "It is a wise father that knows his own child," are compatible with evolutionary theory, although they were devised without knowledge of it. Other members of this second set, such as those designed to explain true altruism, where fitness costs outweigh benefits, are incompatible with the logic of evolution by natural selection. Thus, the greater set of all explanations that are compatible with evolutionary theory includes all of Set I and some overlap from Set 2. Explanations that are not compatible with evolutionary theory can be thought of as "warp drive" explanations because warp drive is what the crew of the Starship Enterprise use when they wish to violate Einstein's theory of relativity to travel faster than the speed of light. Developing explanations of physical phenomena that violate Einstein's theory of relativity is risky, as is developing explanations about behavior that violate Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Hence, it is likely that any good explanation of behavior will be compatible with an evolutionary explanation, even if it were not explicitly developed from an evolutionary perspective. Although a good explanation of behavior need not have been explicitly constructed from an evolutionary perspective, the contributors to this volume are committed to the proposition that an explicit consideration of evolutionary theory will improve the quality of explanations of human behavior. Why do they believe this? First, explicit evolutionary thinking can sometimes eliminate certain kinds of errors in thinking about behavior (Symons, 1987). For example, it has been seen that explanations that implicitly assume organisms have evolved to act for the good of their group or species should be treated with considerable skepticism. In addition, use of the theory can sometimes help prevent one from making and accepting moralistic fallacies--where one assumes that what ought to be actually is. Consider some examples. Stepparents ought to treat their natural and stepchildren equally. However, when Daly and Wilson (1980) applied evolutionary thinking to the problem of child abuse, they found that stepparents were a major source of abuse. There ought not to be conflict within families, but Trivers (1974) has used evolutionary theory to help us understand the within-family conflict that has perplexed us for generations. Recently, Haig (1993) argued for the occurrence of mother-offspring conflict during gestation. Men and women ought to have the same intellectual abilities, but Silverman and Eals (1992) have been able to use evolutionary thinking to predict and explain gender differences in some perceptual abilities. A rigorous application of evolutionary theory may help us identify and deal with other oughts that contradict reality. Second, because the theory of evolution explains the evolution of all life forms, concepts developed when using it are likely to be very general. Kinship theory (Hamilton, 1964), parental investment theory (Trivers, 1972), sexual-selection theory (Darwin, 1871/1898), and reciprocity theory (Trivers, 1971), for example, have been used to explain behavior in a great many species of animals. For many, it is intellectually satisfying to use the same theoretical framework, such as kin selection, to help explain sterile castes in worker bees, wasps, and ants (Hamilton, 1964); alarm calling in ground squirrels (Sherman, 1977); helping at the nest in jays (Woolfenden & Fitzpatrick, 1984); suicide in humans (de Catanzaro, 1991); the naming of natural and adoptive children (Johnson, McAndrew, & Harris, 1991); mortality and risk during a crisis year (McCullough & Barton, 1991); genetic relatedness, the biological importance of a decision, and decision rules (Burnstein, Crandall, & Kitayama, 1994); village fissioning among hunter-gatherers (Chagnon & Irons, 1979); and whom new babies are said to resemble (Daly & Wilson, 1982). Thi
Re: one's fly is unzipped
- Original Message - From: Cordell, Arthur: DPP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Or, maybe, the selfish gene wants *my * DNA to go forward. Maybe we have no >'program' for the human species. Coming from a wide open world (the hunter >gatherer saga) there is nothing in our internal makeup to cause us to >cooperate at the level of survival of the human species. This latter Exactly! We cooperate because it contributed to "inclusive fitness" in hunter-gatherer communities. Apparently, the basic human cooperation model between strangers is called "tit for tat". Upon meeting a stranger we give them the benefit of the doubt and cooperate. We remember his face and if he later stranger cooperates back, we cooperate again. But if he stiffs us, we stiff him back. It's pretty simple and works well in small communities. People who didn't cooperate, didn't pass their genes on to the next generation. Here is an utterly fantastic page on these subjects http://mitpress.mit.edu/MITECS/culture.html Evolutionary theory identifies three ways in which cooperation can evolve which differ in the delay before the "debt" incurred by cooperating is repaid (see Bertram 1982). (1) Mutualism defines the condition when both individuals gain an immediate advantage from cooperating. This may be an appropriate explanation for many cases of group living where individuals gain mutually and simultaneously from living together (e.g. through increased protection from predators, group defense of a territory, etc). (2) Reciprocal Altruism defines the case in which the debt is repaid at some future time, providing this is during the lifetime of the altruist. This may be an appropriate explanation for cases where individuals who are unrelated to each other form a coalition for mutual protection: the ally will come to the aid of a beleagured partner even though it is itself in no immediate danger, but it does so on the implicit assumption that the partner will come to its aid on some future occasion. (3) Kin Selection is defined as the case where the debt is repaid after the death of the altruist because the extra fitness that accrues to the recipient contributes to the altruist's inclusive fitness. (Inclusive fitness is the technical term for the genetic quantity that evolution seeks to maximize; it is the number of copies of a given gene contributed to the species' future gene pool by an individual as a result of his or her own reproductive output plus the number contributed by his or her relatives as a direct result of that individual helping each relative to breed more successfully). Kin selection can only work where the two individuals are genetically related. It may provide an explanation for assistance freely given to relatives without prior demands for reciprocation. Jay GIF image
Re: real-life example
- Original Message - From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I think I'd be most upset if I were of your crew; >they are NOT stupid, if it WERE the question of >life or death, they would have made the same choice >as you. First of all you did not know my crew. Moreover, the reason they have skippers on boats is because they are better trained than crew and passengers. It's a fact of life. Human society is inherently hierarchical for the simple reason that it contributes to "inclusive fitness". Could anyone imagine democracy on a commercial airliner? "I want to fly higher so I can see further!" "No I want to fly lower so I can see the cows!" "OK, let's vote on it." >Jay, I hate to be personal, but you'd brough up this >example, and it demonstrates that you count yourself >as apart from the rest of us, The Good and Benevolent I am surprised it took you so long to notice my captain bars. Jay
real-life example
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >How do you know what's it like when it is not run by the rich? >The primaly desired outcome is to satisfy first the basic than >other needs. Democracy assures than the outome is always just, >or as just as possible, all there is for the democratic process to do >is to find the best possible way. >I cannot see the distiction You have the contradiction in your own paragraph: "as just as possible" vs "best possible way" Those are two different solutions. Let me give you a real-life example that actually happened to me. A few years ago, I was skippering my sailboat on a 50 day trip from Guam to San Francisco. Sailboats carry a finite amount of propane for heating drinks and cooking. Moreover, if one runs out of anything a thousand miles from land, one is out for the remainder of the trip. We took the great circle route and it got quite cold in the northern latitudes. My four crew members liked hot chocolate and coffee before going on watch. However, I informed the crew that if they used propane to heat their drinks every time they went on watch, we would run out before reaching San Francisco. I assumed if we ran out of propane the worst would be that we all would lose a little weight, but since everyone could stand to lose a few pounds anyway, I decide to let the crew decide. They decided to take a chance and keep heating their drinks. Well, we ran out of propane about half way across. Can you imagine eating raw brown rice? It was a memorable experience. Collectively we lost about 100 pounds. Had the crew forgone the hot drinks, they would not have suffered any harmful effects and we wouldn't have run out of propane. The "just" answer was to have hot drinks, but the "right" answer was not to have hot drinks. Had there been lives at stake, I wouldn't have given them the choice. A world that is over carrying capacity and about to run out of fuel is just like my sailboat, except for one thing. If the fuel runs out this time, billions are going to die. I wouldn't give them the choice. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: one's fly is unzipped
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >but not a good enough point in respons the one I made; >humans are motivated more for pleasure/happiness >than reproduction. That's why babies have to look cute >and toy-like at least in our culturaly freer society > Even than quite a sizable number decide >not to bother. Where is the selfish gene? If it wasn't there, we wouldn't be here. Jay
Re: one's fly is unzipped
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> The ultimate goal of a mind is to reproduce the genes that created it. >wrong, and there are plenty of human (they are the ones with the mind) Good point! I am working on my next paper. It's changed to: "A mind is predisposed to reproduce the genes that created it." Jay - predisposed 1 a. To make (someone) inclined to something in advance: His good manners predispose people in his favor. See synonyms at incline. b. To make susceptible or liable: conditions that predispose miners to lung disease.
Re: Sustainable work
- Original Message - >Neva Goodwin: > >"At some point, we need to ask, why are we using the word, "work"? Exactly! In a world with Limits to Growth, only those people who are "needed" to produce essential goods and services should work. All the rest should "play". See "The Foulest of Them All" at http://dieoff.com/page168.htm Jay
Re: one's fly is unzipped
- Original Message - From: Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Even the best of the present nominal democracy won't work >if the power is not in fact in the hand of those elected by dubious >means. Which doesn't mean that democracy cannot work, It's an empirical fact that democracy is on the way out. In 1981, 35% of the world's population lived under "free" political systems, by 1996 the number fallen to 19%. [1] Why? Even if democracy weren't run by the rich, it STILL can't "solve" problems because it's "process" politics instead of "systems" politics. "As the name implies, process politics emphasizes the adequacy and fairness of the rules governing the process of politics. If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just -- or at least the best the system can achieve. By contrast, systems politics is concerned primarily with desired outcomes; means are subordinated to predetermined ends." [2] But in a world of Limits to Growth, a civilization either "solves" its problems or the day must come when it "collapses": "Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. . the past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear - a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology." [3] We are now feeling Limits to Growth, and democracies are collapsing into authoritarian systems. This then is the political problem imposed on democracies by immutable biophysical laws: solve or collapse. Jay --- [1] p. 43, DARWINISM, DOMINANCE, AND DEMOCRACY: The Biological Bases of Authoritarianism, by Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson; Review at http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275958/0275958175.html [2] p. 242, ECOLOGY AND THE POLITICS OF SCARCITY REVISITED; Ophuls, 1992. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716723131 [3] COMPLEXITY, PROBLEM SOLVING, AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES, by Joseph A. Tainter, 1996; http://dieoff.com/page134.htm
one's fly is unzipped
The ultimate goal of a mind is to reproduce the genes that created it. Among social primates, the ability to manipulate others is one of the most important factors in getting one's genes into the next generation. The human mind evolved primarily as a tool to manipulate others in complex social hierarchies. [1] The sine qua non of politics is: "social manipulation" -- it's taking a fact out of context and twisting it around to improve one's "inclusive fitness". It's in our genes -- we all do it. Obviously, mental attributes that are optimized for politics can not sustain very long for the simple reason they can't actually solve problems in the real world. This is why even the "pseudo democracies" (money-based democracies, or democracies under capitalism) are historically rare and now on the way out: "[ Evolutionary scientists ] Somit and Peterson provide an informative account of the evolutionary basis for our historical (and current) opposition to democracy. For many, this will be an unwelcome message - like being told that one's fly is unzipped. But after a brief bout of anger, we tend to thank the messenger for sparing us further embarrassment." [2] As resources are depleted, the ruling classes are less-and-less able to allow the common herd animals the pretence of self government. It seems that democracy was only temporary luxury -- enjoy it while it lasts: "I submit that the democracy we are encouraging in many poor parts of the world is an integral part of a transformation toward new forms of authoritarianism; that democracy in the United States is at greater risk than ever before, and from obscure sources; and that many future regimes, ours especially, could resemble the oligarchies of ancient Athens and Sparta more than they do the current government in Washington." [3] "West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real 'strategic' danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate introduction to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will soon confront our civilization." [4] Jay [1]"In fact, telling primates (human or otherwise) that their reasoning architectures evolved in large part to solve problems of dominance is a little like telling fish that their gills evolved in large part to solve the problem of oxygen intake from water. The struggle for survival through competition and cooperation with members of one's own species is as old as life itself. If the data on social norm and theory of mind reasoning show us anything, it is that the winners are most likely to be those with the capacity to exploit or route the constraints of the dominance hierarchy. If one were to guess at which problems cognition evolved to solve, one would be hard pressed to come up with a better candidate than dominance." [pp. 45-46, THE EVOLUTION OF MIND, Denise Dellarosa Cummings & Collin Allen; Oxford University Press, 1998 ] [2] Robert E. Lane, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Yale University, and Past President, American Political Science Association, commenting on DARWINISM, DOMINANCE, AND DEMOCRACY: The Biological Bases of Authoritarianism, by Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson; Review at http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275958/0275958175.html [3] WAS DEMOCRACY JUST A MOMENT? by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly, December, 1997 http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/democ.htm [4] THE COMING ANARCHY, by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994 http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/election/connection/foreign/anarcf.htm
Re: Sustainable work
- Original Message - From: deborah middleton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sustainable work is related to softwork. Softwork is informal work >practices that occur in informal work settings/environments. > > >Any other suggestions/comments/help is much appreciated. If you want something really radical ... er, I mean visionary, read "The Foulest of Them All" at http://dieoff.com/page168.htm Jay
Polanyi
I was re-reading Polanyi's THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION, and was struck by the parallels between the global economic problems a hundred years ago -- which ultimately led to WW1 & 2 -- and the current economic problems. Who besides Polanyi is considered an authority on this period? Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: Afrika and living beyond our means
- Original Message - From: M.Blackmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >The big difference is that we are externally resourcing our needs in large >part - Africans generally aren't (apart from aid inputs). In fact, if I Although all countries are not listed, there is a breakdown by country at http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/report/english/footprint/ranking.htm Jay -- www.dieoff.org
THE POPULATION EXPLOSION
- Original Message - From: Eva Durant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Africa is a more sparsely inhabited continent >than the others, even the fertile bits. >East-Anglia and Belgium e.g. are far more >densely populated and there is no sign of dioff. THE POPULATION EXPLOSION by Paul and Anne Ehrlich (1990) Published by Simon and Schuster Tel. 212-698-7000 OVERPOPULATION Having considered some of the ways that humanity is destroying its inheritance, we can look more closely at the concept of "overpopulation." All too often, overpopulation is thought of simply as crowding: too many people in a given area, too high a population density. For instance, the deputy editor in chief of Forbes magazine pointed out recently, in connection with a plea for more population growth in the United States: "If all the people from China and India lived in the continental U.S. (excluding Alaska), this country would still have a smaller population density than England, Holland, or Belgium." *31 The appropriate response is "So what?" Density is generally irrelevant to questions of overpopulation. For instance, if brute density were the criterion, one would have to conclude that Africa is "underpopulated," because it has only 55 people per square mile, while Europe (excluding the USSR) has 261 and Japan 857. *32 A more sophisticated measure would take into consideration the amount of Africa not covered by desert or "impenetrable" forest. *33 This more habitable portion is just a little over half the continent's area, giving an effective population density of 117 per square mile. That's still only about a fifth of that in the United Kingdom. Even by 2020, Africa's effective density is projected to grow to only about that of France today (266), and few people would consider France excessively crowded or overpopulated. When people think of crowded countries, they usually contemplate places like the Netherlands (1,031 per square mile), Taiwan (1,604), or Hong Kong (14,218). Even those don't necessarily signal overpopulation -- after all, the Dutch seem to be thriving, and doesn't Hong Kong have a booming economy and fancy hotels? In short, if density were the standard of overpopulation, few nations (and certainly not Earth itself) would be likely to be considered overpopulated in the near future. The error, we repeat, lies in trying to define overpopulation in terms of density; it has long been recognized that density per se means very little. *34 The key to understanding overpopulation is not population density but the numbers of people in an area relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities; that is, to the area's carrying capacity. When is an area overpopulated? When its population can't be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources (or converting renewable resources into nonrenewable ones) and without degrading the capacity of the environment to support the population. In short, if the long-term carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current human occupants, that area is overpopulated. *35 By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every nation is already vastly overpopulated. Africa is overpopulated now because, among other indications, its soils and forests are rapidly being depleted -- and that implies that its carrying capacity for human beings will be lower in the future than it is now. The United States is overpopulated because it is depleting its soil and water resources and contributing mightily to the destruction of global environmental systems. Europe, Japan, the Soviet Union, and other rich nations are overpopulated because of their massive contributions to the carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere, among many other reasons. Almost all the rich nations are overpopulated because they are rapidly drawing down stocks of resources around the world. They don't live solely on the land in their own nations. Like the profligate son of our earlier analogy, they are spending their capital with no thought for the future. It is especially ironic that Forbes considered the Netherlands not to be overpopulated. This is such a common error that it has been known for two decades as the "Netherlands Fallacy." *36 The Netherlands can support 1,031 people per square mile only because the rest of the world does not. In 1984-86, the Netherlands imported almost 4 million tons of cereals, 130,000 tons of oils, and 480,000 tons of pulses (peas, beans, lentils). It took some of these relatively inexpensive imports and used them to boost their production of expensive exports -- 330,000 tons of milk and 1.2 million tons of meat. The-Netherlands also extracted about a half-million tons of fishes from the sea during this period, and imported more in the form of fish meal. *37 The Netherlands is also a major importer of minerals, bringing in virtually all the iron, antimony, bauxite, copper, tin, etc., that it requires. Mo
Re: Fwd: Controversy over genetically modified organisms (fwd)
- Original Message - From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Africa has is just now reached its physical limits and is beginning a >>massive dieoff -- population control by increasing death rate instead of >>decreasing birth rate > >Is this really true? (see simultaneous article, Will Humans Overwhelm >the Earth? Yes. HOLD FOR RELEASE 06:00 PM EDT Saturday, September 26, 1998 Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments Many countries that have experienced rapid population growth for several decades are showing signs of demographic fatigue, researchers at the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental research organization, announced today. Countries struggling with the simultaneous challenge of educating growing numbers of children, creating jobs for swelling ranks of young job seekers, and dealing with the environmental effects of population growth, such as deforestation, soil erosion, and falling water tables, are stretched to the limit. When a major new threat arises-such as AIDS or aquifer depletion-governments often cannot cope. Problems routinely managed in industrial societies are becoming full-scale humanitarian crises in many developing ones. As a result, some developing countries with rapidly growing populations are headed for population stability in a matter of years, not because of falling birth rates, but because of rapidly rising death rates. "This reversal in the death rate trend marks a tragic new development in world demography," said Lester Brown, President of Worldwatch and co-author with Gary Gardner and Brian Halweil of Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem. In the absence of a concerted effort by national governments and the international community to quickly shift to smaller families, events in many countries could spiral out of control, leading to spreading political instability and economic decline, concludes the study funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Marking the bicentennial of Thomas Malthus' legendary essay on the tendency for population to grow more rapidly than the food supply, this study chronicles the stakes in another half-century of massive population growth. The United Nations projects world population to grow from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.4 billion in 2050, with all of the additional 3.3 billion coming in the developing countries. However, this study raises doubts as to whether these projections will materialize. Today, two centuries after Malthus, we find ourselves in a demographically divided world, one where national projections of population growth vary more widely than at any time in history. In some countries, population has stabilized or is declining; but in others, population is projected to double or even triple before stabilizing. In 32 countries, containing 14 percent of world population, population growth has stopped. By contrast, Ethiopia's population of 62 million is projected to more than triple to 213 million in 2050. Pakistan will go from 148 million to 357 million, surpassing the U.S. population before 2050. Nigeria, meanwhile, is projected to go from 122 million today to 339 million, giving it more people in 2050 than there were in all of Africa in 1950. The largest absolute increase is anticipated for India, which is projected to add another 600 million by 2050, thus overtaking China as the most populous country. To understand these widely varying population growth rates among countries, demographers use a three-stage model of how these rates change over time as modernization proceeds. In the first stage, there are high birth and high death rates, resulting in little or no population growth. In the second stage, as modernization begins, death rates fall while birth rates remain high, leading to rapid growth. In the third stage, birth rates fall to a low level, balancing low death rates and again leading to population stability, offering greater possibilities for comfort and dignity than in stage one. It is assumed that countries will move gradually from stage one to stage three. Today there are no countries in stage one; all are either in stage two or stage three. However, this analysis concludes that instead of progressing to stage three as expected, some countries are in fact falling back into stage one as the historic fall in death rates is reversed, leading the world into a new demographic era. After several decades of rapid population growth, many societies are showing signs of demographic fatigue, a result of the struggle to deal with the multiple stresses caused by high fertility. As recent experience with AIDS in Africa shows, some countries in stage two are simply overwhelmed when a new threat appears. While industrial countries have held HIV infection rates among their adult populations under 1percent or less, a 1998 World Health Organization survey reports that in Zimbabwe, for example, 26 percent of the adult population is HIV positive. In Botswan
Re: Fwd: Controversy over genetically modified organisms (fwd)
- Original Message - From: David Burman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I think the issues in genetic engineering are not whether it is moral or >diabilical, but the introduction of hitherto unknown elements into the >natural world - mixing genes from different species in one organism. It is >not at all far fetched to imagine new human genetic diseases being >introduced from donor species, in the process of "curing" human diseases. >In the quest for perfection - but more realistically in the quest for new >markets - many new problems (with which we will have no experience) will be >introduced to complement the old ones that we are familiar with. In general, I agree with you David. But I believe an exception should be made to cure an epidemic that threatens to destroy all of civilization: the "baby epidemic". Africa has is just now reached its physical limits and is beginning a massive dieoff -- population control by increasing death rate instead of decreasing birth rate: "With their rising mortality trends, more reminiscent of the Dark Ages than the bright millennium so many had hoped for, these countries are falling back to an earlier demographic stage with high death rates and high birth rates, and no growth in population." [1] Long term carrying capacity estimates of planet Earth are around two billion [2] -- one third of present numbers. But there is much more humane solution to the "baby problem" than misery and death. If we were to simply treat the "baby problem" like the "smallpox problem", then our collective problem could be quickly solved. The most humane method I can imagine is "contagious contraceptives". See NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH: Why We Must, and How We Could, Achieve It, by John B. Hall, University of Hawaii. Population and Environment, Volume 18, Number 1, September 1996. Here is a sample: "The immune system, which usually functions to protect us from disease, but also is involved in allergies and the rejection of transplanted organs, can be harnessed to contraception (Anderson & Alexander, 1983; Aldhous, 1994). A contraceptive vaccine has been suggested for veterinary use (Miller & Dean, 1993). In this application, the female animal to be sterilized is injected with preparations of the zone pellucida (the outer envelope of the egg cell) from a different species of animal. The injected female responds to this foreign material by producing antibodies against it. These antibodies, however, also recognize the different but related material on her own eggs, a process called 'cross-reaction,' and attack these, destroying them. The death of these egg cells in the ovary releases the controls on maturation of immature egg cells and they begin to develop. As they approach maturity, they are also recognized by the immune system and destroyed in turn. A run-away cycle of maturation and destruction follows, and within a few months all of the potential egg cells in the animal's ovary have matured and been destroyed, and the female has been nonsurgically sterilized (Skinner, et al, 1984). Such a dramatic procedure would probably have little application in human contraception except in rare cases in which the person concerned wished to be sterilized, and since it would probably induce menopause, is unlikely to be acceptable even then. However, many less absolute contraceptive actions can also be mediated by the immune system. "Many cases of natural infertility occur because the woman produces antibodies against sperm which are recognized as foreign bodies by her tissues (Bronson, et al, 1984). Vaccines could probably be developed that would stimulate more women to produce such antibodies with a corresponding decrease in their fertility (Primakoff, et al, 1988; Primakoff, 1994). In yet another approach, women have been vaccinated with peptide sequences similar to those found in certain hormones involved in reproduction (Talwar et al, 1993; Talwar et al, 1994). Very effective vaccines can be produced by splicing gene segments for the desired peptide sequences into some of the genes of the vaccinia virus (Moss, et al, 1984; Talwar et al, 1993; Talwar et al, 1994) and then using this virus to vaccinate the subject, just as it was used to vaccinate against smallpox. The peptide sequences produced by the virus stimulate antibody formation, the antibodies would cross react with the naturally occurring hormone in the woman's body, and reproduction could be inhibited. Many such alternatives that harness the immune system in the service of contraception are available." This paper is archived at: http://dieoff.com/page119.htm I realize some of you don't have web access, so I setup an autoresponder. If you will send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and a you will receive a complete text version of Hall's paper by return email. Jay - [1] http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/143.html [2] http://dieoff.com/page157.htm
NAFTA -- SELLING AMERICA'S CULTURE TO THE WORLD
Author: Nancy Snow. Propaganda, Inc. Title: SELLING AMERICA'S CULTURE TO THE WORLD Foreword by Herbert I. Schiller. Introduction by Michael Parenti. The Open Media Pamphlet Series. Seven Stories Press, New York, 1998. 80 pp. $8.50 Cdn, $5.95 US. Reviewed by Rose A. Dyson * This book offers a cogent analysis of U.S. foreign and domestic policy since the beginning of the 20th century. In it Nancy Snow takes us on an armchair tour through the headquarters of the United States Information Agency. She begins by introducing us to the work of its foreign branch. Coined as "public diplomacy" its real function is worldwide dissemination of propaganda designed for the purposes of influencing the actions of human beings in ways that are compatible with American corporate interests. Its origins are traced back to the Creel Commission, set up by President Wilson prior to World War I, as part of the national strategy to gain popular support for U.S. entry into that war. Apart from carefully crafted speeches made at home and abroad, distribution of pamphlets and publications, poster displays and advertisements in newspapers, the Hollywood film industry was enlisted, with the help of legendary directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, to rally anti-German support. As a result, American journalist George Creel and his committee members successfully launched the beginning of merged business and government interests. Snow's critique of the continuing corporate domination of the USIA is based on firsthand experience in the Pentagon in the early 1990s--both as a federal government sponsored graduate student on a Fulbright Scholarship and then as the holder of a freshly minted Ph.D. in international relations--when she was hired to conduct cultural programs for the purpose of increasing mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and people of other countries. We are guided through dealmaking for the North American Free Trade Agreement. Described as "trilateral education" between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, USIA input was designed to foster harmonization of "values" between educational and cultural as well as economic dimensions. In the beginning, scholarships within universities proliferated with the objective of educating what became known as "the NAFTA generation." In the process, the Agency's early ideals for mutual understanding between peoples of all countries took a back seat to support and endorsement for U.S. led economic and cultural dominance in the global economy. The shift away from a policy of containment to a policy of free markets began with Ronald Reagan in 1982. Under the Clinton administration, the USIA undertook a new post-cold war propaganda emphasis on democracy and free markets with the shift accelerating in the absence of any limits. Fusion of foreign policy objectives between commerce, culture, and U.S. national security meant that it became increasingly necessary to justify educational and cultural exchanges by linking their success to American business and economic development goals. Snow's own preferences for cultural democracy over economic priorities and national security objectives ultimately led to rejection of this particular career path within the federal bureaucracy in favour of education and activism based on a critique of corporate based diplomacy. The USIA's target audience, explains Snow, is upper class business and professional elites who are often themselves agents of the propaganda system. The American majority, or remaining 80-90 percent, assume the role of "the bewildered herd." They are expected to go with the flow and not trouble themselves with political and economic decisionmaking. Compliance of the herd is achieved because it forms the target audience of the commercial mass media through tabloid news, professional sports, and popular television. International outreach is achieved through broadcasting such as Voice of America, Worldnet, the USIA Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, cultural exchange programs, and the U.S.'s most popular exports--Hollywood movies and the myth that the U.S. economy is a model for how other market economies, both developed and less developed, can successfully adapt to the global marketplace. With the passage of NAFTA in 1993 the USIA emphasis on trade and economics as its primary mission has led to a focus on the use of communications technologies for new synergies between public diplomacy and trade promotion. American business interests abroad are now the paramount objectives. The strategic plan for 1997-2003 includes the overlapping goals of NATO expansion and the subsequent enlargement of markets for U.S. arms manufacturers. Now, the terms "national security" and "democracy" are used interchangeably with free enterprise and free markets, ensuring the long term viability and survival of a strong military-industrial complex. American elections are perce
Perhaps we need to emulate the Chinese system.
Perhaps we need to emulate the Chinese system. (keywords: "scientists", and "the economy is self-destructive") -- Scientist Says Chinese Development Different from Western Countries Xinhua 12-JAN-99 BEIJING (Jan. 12) XINHUA - Zhou Guangzhou, the vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), said today that China needs a new development road and models that are different from Western countries' for its sustainable development. Zhou told the annual meeting of the China Association of Science and Technology that China's large population and shortage of natural resources mean that it needs a new mode of production and a new style of economizing on resources that is environmentally friendly and uses latest research findings. Zhou, also president of the association, said that the serious flooding last summer revealed the problems in China's economic development like the destruction of forests. Scientists need to advise the government and spread knowledge among leading officials to promote the coordinated development of the economy, society and the environment. The China Association of Science and Technology has 4.3 million members. Its annual meeting provides a forun for scientists to discuss their major goals. Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: What about (blush) gas
- Original Message - From: Mike Hollinshead <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >According to Marchetti (see IIASA references) global consumption of natural >gas as a proportion of total consumption will peak in 2017, when a new >source will take over. I don't put much faith in IIASA generally, and Marchetti in particular. I have an IIASA/Marchetti paper that claims the carrying capacity of earth is one trillion people! Clearly these people aren't too concerned with reality. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/cgi-bin/pubsrch?RR78007 What new energy source does Marchetti see taking over from fossil fuel? Pixie dust? Why hasn't David Pimentel heard of it? Like Yogi Berra, I feel dejav vu all over again: "What about the energy needed for the super-industrial society? Scientists and engineers are generally agreed that a sufficient research and development effort will make available before the year 2000 several new technologies that can provide the world with nearly unlimited and economical quantities of clean energy from renewable or inexhaustible resources. The technologically advanced nations could obtain most of their energy requirements from these sources by the year 2025. Some of these sources would also be feasible for many developing nations. Furthermore, conventional and currently unconventional fossil fuels will last for centuries. Thus, if the appropriate decisions are made, our grandchildren will not be plauged by an energy crisis. In addition, if we relieve the pressure on the traditional fuel supplies by shifting rapidly to the advanced technologies, then more 'natural' oil and gas would be available to less developed nations." [p 243, WORLD ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, by Herman Kahn & Hudson Institute; Westview, 1979] IIASA/Marchetti seem to be the intellectual and ethical descendents of Hudson/Kahn. Where are their net energy calculations? I just don't believe these guys. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: FW -- what about ethanol?
- Original Message - From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >As long as we are talking about fuel, I'd like to ask a few questions >about ethanol. I am told that ethanol is already cheap enough to be >used instead of gasoline in some places (e.g. Brazil), even in these >days of low gasoline prices. Is that true, or not? Jay? Does >anyone have any figures I could use about ethanol? Ethanol is, to say the least, controversial. I do not have the time or inclination to untangle the arguments myself, but here is David Pimentel's opinion: "Ethanol production is wasteful of fossil energy resources and does not increase energy security. This is because considerably more energy, much of it high-grade fossil fuels, is required to produce ethanol than is available in the ethanol output. Specifically, about 71% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy contained in a gallon of ethanol." http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/v98n2/mkh-new7.html I suspect that it could provide net energy in some cases, but it is certainly not going to be a major source of energy like oil. Here is a good paper on renewable energy: Renewable Energy: Economic and Environmental Issues, by David Pimentel, G. Rodrigues, T. Wane, R. Abrams, K. Goldberg, H. Staecker, E. Ma, L. Brueckner, L. Trovato, C. Chow, U. Govindarajulu, and S. Boerke (Originally published in BioScience -- Vol. 44, No. 8, September 1994) http://dieoff.com/page84.htm The bottom line is that the US already has too many people for energy self-sufficiency at these consumption levels. Jay -- www.dieoff.org
Re: What about (blush) gas
- Original Message - From: Tom Lowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Global gas reserves are so great that it will be the fuel of the next >century, replacing coal and oil as the main source of power, the conference >heard. > >Peter Odell, professor emeritus of international energy studies at Erasmus >university, Rotterdam, said the belief that fossil fuels would run out or >be replaced by renewable energy was wrong. I am going to find out for sure who Odell is, but based upon his publications, I think he is an economist. In other words, he probably assumes that energy is a function of price -- which anyone with a brain realizes is wrong. According to Campbell -- a geologist -- global natural gas production is expected to "peak" a few years either side of 2020. [ p. 119, THE COMING OIL CRISIS, by C. J. Campbell; Multi-Science Publishing Company & Petroconsultants, 1997. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0906522110 ] Bernabé -- major oil company CEO -- is more pessimistic and sees the peak in global natural gas production about ten years earlier: 2010 http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0615/6112084a.htm For the gas in the US, see Riva : http://hubbert.mines.edu/news/v97n3/mkh-new4.html The fact that economists are unanimously and consistently wrong doesn't make them right. I explain in great detail -- with examples -- why economists-as-agroup are wrong about energy in my latest newsletter: "The Foulest of Them All" at http://dieoff.com/page168.htm Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: Interesting development
>People are sick of the Back to the Cold War: This message went off too soon. It should have been: "People are sick of the "free market" lie, it's back to the Cold War." Jay
Re: Interesting development
- Original Message - From: Cordell, Arthur: DPP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Futurework <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, January 04, 1999 5:57 AM Subject: Interesting development >January 4/99 > >Japan's Justice Minister blasts U.S. economic practices > > TOKYO (AP) - Japan's outspoken justice minister today accused the >United States of relying on military threats to protect its economic >market, Kyodo news agency reported. People are sick of the Back to the Cold War: --- Global Intelligence Update Red Alert January 4, 1999 1999 Annual Forecast: A New and Dangerous World SUMMARY * Russia will begin the process of recreating old Soviet empire in 1999. The most important question of 1999: will Ukraine follow Belarus into federation with Russia? * Russia and China will be moving into a closer, primarily anti- American alliance in 1999. * Asian economies will not recover in 1999. Japan will see further deterioration. So will China. Singapore and South Korea will show the strongest tendency toward recovery. * China will try to contain discontent over economic policies by increasing repression not only on dissidents, but the urban unemployed and unhappy small business people. Tensions will rise. * Asia will attempt to protect itself from U.S. economic and political pressures. Asian economic institutions, like an Asian Monetary Fund, will emerge in 1999. * The Serbs, supported by the Russians, will test the United States in Kosovo. There is increasing danger of a simultaneous challenge from Serbia and Iraq, straining U.S. military capabilities dramatically. * The main question in Europe will be Germany's reaction to the new Russia. The Germans will try to avoid answering that question for most of the year. * Latin America appears ready to resume its economic expansion, beginning late in 1999. FORECAST The Post-Cold War world quietly ended in 1998. A new era will emerge in 1999. It will appear, for a time, to be not too dissimilar to what came before it, but looks can be deceiving. In fact, we have entered an era with a fundamentally different global dynamic than the previous era. We should not think of the period 1989-1998 as an era. It was an interregnum, a pause between two eras. 1999 will see a more conventional, natural world, in which other great powers in the world will unite to try to block American power. In 1998 the United States worried about Serbia, Iraq and North Korea. In 1999, the United States will be much more concerned with Russia, China, France and Japan. The world will not yet be a truly dangerous place, but it will begin the long descent toward the inevitable struggle between great powers. Two forces are converging to create this world. The first is the recoil of Russia from its experiment in liberalism. The other is the descent of Asia into an ongoing and insoluble malaise that will last for a generation and reshape the internal and external politics of the region. In a broader sense, this means that the Eurasian heartland is undergoing terrific stress. This will increase tensions within the region. It will also draw Eurasian powers together into a coalition designed to resist the overwhelming power of the world's only superpower, the Untied States. Put differently, if the United States is currently the center of gravity of the international system, then other nations, seeking increased control over their own destinies, will join together to resist the United States. Russia will pose the first challenge. Asia will pose the most powerful one. Russia Begins its Quest to Recover Great Power Status The die has been cast in Russia. We wrote in our 1998 Forecast http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/1998.asp: "Whether or not Yeltsin survives politically or personally is immaterial. The promise of 1991 has become an untenable nightmare for the mass of Russians. The fall of Communism ushered in a massive depression in the Russian economy while simultaneously robbing it of its global influence." In 1998 we saw the consequences of this. The reformers in Russia were systematically forced out of power. Power seeped out of Yeltsin's hands. Finally, a new Prime Minister was selected -- the former head of the KGB's international espionage apparatus. A restoration of sorts is well under way in Russia. Personalities are unimportant. What is important is that in 1998, the massive failure of the reformers resulted in their being forced from power. The West, which had invested in Russia, realized that it would never recover those investments nor many of the loans they made. As a result, investment and credit ceased flowing into Russia and, therefore, Western influence plummeted. There was no reason to appease the West if no further money was forthcoming. The Russian love affair with the West came to an abrupt halt. As so many times before
Re: (Fwd) Erlich Is Wrong Again
- Original Message - From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >The best way to restrain population growth is, as Victtor says, to >raise the standard of living, particularly for women, and to allow >women greater control over their lives and communities. We are already over carrying capacity. I just don't see the First World elites cutting consumption so Third World women can have "greater control over their lives". Still, as our life-support systems continue to disintegrate, pressures to do SOMETHING will continue to build. Technologies of mass destruction will continue to proliferate, and as resource wars break out around the globe, ambitious men will be willing to use them. IMHO, at some point in the future, the First World elites will have no choice but to act first. In order to protect themselves, they will have to depopulate the Third World with a genetically engineered bioweapon. It's just a matter of time until "first strike" becomes their only option. (A bioweapon -- unlike a rocket -- leaves no radar track.) Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: (Fwd) Erlich Is Wrong Again
- Original Message - From: Dennis Paull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Professor Erlich may have been wrong in his time table for the >beginning of global shortages of food, energy and other >resources, but the gist of his message is still valid. I can't find the reference, but Ehrlich was presented an award by a scientific body for helping to avoid his scenario. In other words, his book "scared" people into changing their behavior. Here is what he says about the issue: --- The Population Bomb starts with these words: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines -- hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." In fact, some 250 million people, about as many as now live in the United States, have perished for lack of food since those words were written. Roughly 100 to 140 million of them died in the 1970s. But because the famines of the 1970s were less catastrophic than we predicted, we've probably been criticized more for the "battle is over" statement than any other. Our response is that partly because of The Population Bomb and similar warnings by food specialists, global programs to improve food distribution were initiated and emergency systems set up to feed famine victims. Those programs were largely successful in heading off the massive famines we had thought would occur during that decade.[ p. 74, BETRAYAL OF SCIENCE AND REASON, P & A Ehrlich; Island Press, 1996 ] Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: reply to Caspar Davis re: net net baud rate
- Original Message - From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >You may find it hard to believe, but I have given some thought to the notion >that you might actually be right, and can't completely discount it. I wish I could >be sure that you have given as much thought to the "other side" -- people >like me who believe human ingenuity can get around the problems you >envision. Why don't you demonstrate it for me Douglas? Stop putting gas in your car and just fill it with "visions" each day? If that don't work, try "ingenuity" -- If that don't work, try "good old American know how" -- If that don't work, try "good will" -- or pray into the tank -- or try peace for a change -- If that don't work, fill it with "democracy" -- or try a tank full of votes -- try filling your tank with "rights" -- or the "other side" -- If that don't work, try "good intentions"-- or ... Jay
Re: reply to Caspar Davis re: net net baud rate
- Original Message - From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >But I have a lot of trouble persuading people to imagine those >things, so I came up instead with the simpler task of explaining I have a lot of trouble people getting people to imagine "running out of gas". Even though everyone has experienced it. That should tell you something. Jay
Newsletter Highlights
Here are a few of the highlights of my next newsletter.
CRISIS
The roots of our present crisis are inherent to both "capitalism" and
"pseudo democracy". Both of these interdependent social systems
require ever-increasing amounts of high-quality natural resources
and waste sinks in order to maintain stability. Neither one of them
can survive the depletion of oil. Global oil production is expected to
"peak" around 2005. [1]
FREE TRADE
Free trade and "invisible wealth" (movable capital) were originally
conceived as "political" devices to bring good government and keep the
peace:
Montesquieu:
"... and through this means commerce could elude violence, and maintain
itself everywhere; for the richest trader had only invisible wealth
which could be sent everywhere without leaving any trace . In this
manner we owe.., to the avarice of rulers the establishment of a
contrivance which somehow lifts commerce right out of their grip.
Since that time, the rulers have been compelled to govern with greater
wisdom than they themselves might have intended; for, owing to these
events, the great and sudden arbitrary actions of the sovereign (les
grands coups d'autorité) have been proven to be ineffective and ...
only good government brings prosperity [to the prince]."
Smith:
"... commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good
government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals,
among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived in almost
in a continual state of war with their neighbors, and of servile
dependency upon their superiors."
PSEUDO DEMOCRACY
In 1997, the Chinese lobbyist Johnny Chung observed: "I see the White House
is like a subway - you have to put in coins to open the gates." Millions
of Americans have made the same observation: American politics is based on
money - one dollar, one vote. Why is American politics based on money? The
surprising answer is because the Founding Fathers intended it that way.
Democracy is defined as "government by the people", but the framers of the
Constitution never intended "the people" to govern themselves. Governance
was reserved for the moneyed class (for excellent reasons). Madison even
went so far as to boast that "the true distinction" between ancient regimes
and the proposed experiment in government "lies in the total exclusion of
the people in their collective capacity." In short, the framers of the
Constitution crafted an "authoritarian" political system that presented the
illusion of democracy to "the people".
( My next newsletter covers these issues in great detail -- with all the
references. Sign up at: http://dieoff.com/page1.htm it will be sent
out on Jan 1.)
Seen in this light, all of the "economic" posturing and rationalization
(e.g., comparative advantage and so on) for free trade amount to nothing
more than a smoke screen to hide the political aspects of the economy from
"the people". Moreover, modern neoclassical theory looks like nothing but
an elaborate lie -- complete with mathematical conjuring tricks -- designed
to protect the moneyed class from public scrutiny (remember the man
behind the screen in the Wizard Oz?).
As it has turned out, modern evolutionary scientists have found that the
Founding Fathers were right: true democracy won't work. Natural selection
and genetic development created a human tendency for dominance,
submission, hierarchy, and obedience, as opposed to equality and democracy.
Although, capitalism and pseudo democracy have worked well enough for those
of us who have been able to take advantage of it, these social systems must
end soon. Besides the inherent energy limitations, our life-support system
itself is disintegrating from the waste and destruction:
"To put this in context, you must remember that estimates of the long-term
carrying capacity of Earth with relatively optimistic assumptions about
consumption, technologies, and equity (A x T), are in the vicinity of two
billion people. Today's population cannot be sustained on the 'interest'
generated by natural ecosystems, but is consuming its vast supply of
natural capital -- especially deep, rich agricultural soils, 'fossil'
groundwater, and biodiversity -- accumulated over centuries to eons.
In some places soils, which are generated on a time scale of centimeters
per century are disappearing at rates of centimeters per year. Some
aquifers are being depleted at dozens of times their recharge rates, and
we have embarked on the greatest extinction episode in 65 million years."
-- Paul Ehrlich http://dieoff.com/page157.htm
So what can be done? Before solving our crisis. we must see it as an
"engineering" problem and NOT as an "economic" problem ("getting the
prices right")!
I REPEAT: Before solving our crisis. we must see it as an "engineering"
problem and NOT as an "economic" problem!
In other words, send the economists on permanent vacation an
which crash are we re-visiting?
*** Original message: Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 19:51:37 +0100 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Aubrey Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [gci_2] Richard Douthwaite on . . . "which crash are we re-visiting?" How will the present economic crisis turn out? As I write, stockmarkets in Europe and North America have almost returned to their pre-panic levels. Does this mean that the worst is over and that the people who lost their jobs in Asia will soon be back at work? If so, we're essentially going through a re-run of 1987, when the markets also gave everyone a bad fright by taking a sharp tumble. Back then, the authorities quickly restored normality by cutting interest rates and laying on lavish supplies of bank credit, exactly as they are trying to do today. If this 'repeat of 1987' scenario applies, the events of the past eighteen months have done no real harm and the world economic system will soon be growing again on the lines it did before. If not, however, and earlier economic crises prove a better guide to current events, we've got a long drawn-out period of misery ahead of us with no clear end in sight. For example, the stockmarket crash in 1929 ushered in over a decade of plant closures and mass unemployment which was only ended by massive spending on armaments for the Second World War. We might even be in for something akin to the world-wide depression which followed the Wall Street crash in September 1873. This dragged on for twenty-five years. So which is it to be? A few months of roller-coaster excitement or something very much longer, more miserable and more serious? The only way to decide is to look beyond the share price indices and work out what is really going on. As the famous phrase has it, the rich are different and one way in which they are is that they save a much higher proportion of their earnings than the rest of us. Consequently, if the rich get richer, as has happened recently in almost every country in the world, the average level of saving and investment tends to go up. In the US, for example, the richest 20% of the population are considerably richer now that they were thirty years ago. In 1996, they received 46.8% of the national income, up from 41.4% in 1967. As a result, the total value of the investments they owned rose from 81% of the nation's wealth in the mid-1960s to 84.3% in 1996. The bottom 20%, by contrast, got only 4.2% of national income in 1996, down from 5.4% in 1967, a drop of around a quarter in the proportion they received. This forced them to borrow, with the result that when their assets are set against what they owe, as a group they possess less than nothing at all. No-one will continue to invest year after year unless they are making satisfactory profits. For example, a firm won't build a new factory this year if the one it built last year didn't hit its sales target and still has an unacceptable level of excess capacity. Similarly, a property company won't build a new shopping centre or apartment block if rents are falling and it can't find tenants for its earlier developments. To put this in general terms, investing won't continue if the markets aren't absorbing the capacity that previous investments created at prices which generate a high enough income to make it attractive to plunge more money in. In other words, unless demand expands to keep up with the increased output the investment brings about, the income from productive investments will drop and savers will begin to look at more speculative ways of using their capital. So where is the increased demand to come from? The best potential source is obviously the poorer 80% of the population, most of whom have long wish-lists of things they would like to buy. However, if their incomes aren't adequate to purchase the extra output because the rich are taking too much, they will be unable to spend enough to keep the economy going at full capacity. The proportion of manufacturing capacity in use will fall and investment will slow or stop. >From World War II until a few years ago, governments, especially those in Western Europe, used high top rates of income tax and the social welfare system to ensure that a fair proportion of the gains from growth went to the less well-off. Although this redistribution was mainly for reasons of social justice, its by-product was an excellent market for investors to exploit year after year. Indeed, the main problem during the period was not a demand deficiency but inflation whenever demand out-ran supply. This problem occurred again and again in the UK where the proportion of national income going to the wealthiest 10% fell by almost a quarter between 1948 and the mid 1970s. Middle income Britons were the main beneficiaries rather than the least well-off and a massive market for foreign holidays, home improvements, cars, clothes and other consumer goods developed. Redistributive processes were at work during this period in the US too because between 1947 and 1973, the propo
Y2K endangers the global food supply
Food Supply Update: December, 1998 Y2K Food Supply Prospects Paint Frightening Picture copyright © 1998, by Geri Guidetti This and all Updates may be reprinted and distributed in any media if done so in their entirety, including byline, Web address and signature file information. They must be distributed free of charge unless included as part of a magazine or journal. It's crunch time. Here comes 1999, and it promises to be a dilly. Not since the days when guns replaced sharpened hunting sticks, and grain mills replaced crude, hand-hewn mortars and pestles, has a year's rollover meant more to the question of whether or not there will be enough food for the future. Simply put, what we doas nations, states, businesses, families and individualsin the next twelve months, may well determine what, when, and if we will eat in the year 2000 and beyond. Over the past three years, I have been sounding an alarm that our food supply is much less safe and secure than any of us can imagine, largely due to vulnerabilities wrought by the same technology that has brought us so much food. We've created a monster, and the monster's about to get sick. If you come to the same conclusion, it will raise your anxiety level. Most of us don't need anymore anxiety in our lives, yet the flip side of that is that it is better to know, when you might be able to do something about it, than not to know and be helpless to change the outcome. It is with some apprehension that I offer some thoughts about the bigger food supply picture for 1999 and prospects for Y2K. We will redefine food in the year 2000. It may take a little while, but that must-have-super-size-fried-double-whopper-with-bacon-and-cheese-with-cherrie s-garcia-and-big-gulp-chasers will be metamorphosed into a grateful-to-have-bowl-of-vegetable-soup-with-homemade-bread-with-water-chase r. And remember, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Despite the calm reassurances and optimistic projections of elected leaders, appointed agency heads and corporate CEOs, the ugly truth about our collective, global impotence to purge our infrastructure of the so-called Millennium Bug is leaking, seeping, oozing out. The Millennium Bug is the Ebola of our technology based existence. There is no cure for Ebola, and it will infect the computer-dependent food supply monster in the year 2000. Unless we hear and see proof, in the next few months, that the complex production, processing, distribution and sales limbs of the beast are fixedor that effective contingency plans are in placeincreasing public awareness and the resulting panic will make it sick well before the close of 1999. Let's look at some prospects for disease prevention. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) now has a web site offering called, "Facts About the Y2K Problem and the Food Supply Sector." You can find it at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OM/y2kfact2.htm. It is here that you will find Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman's, public statement on the problem. He observes that it takes the work of "tens of thousands of people" to produce a meal for an American family. He then says: "I must confess, however, that until recently I hadn't thought very much about the connection between food on our tables and computers. But, as a new millennium approaches, that link is becoming all too clearWe are facing the potential of serious disruption because of this problem" Interesting. In July of 1997 I published an Update citing data in one of the USDA's own reports on the extent of computers in all aspects of agriculture and posed the questions, at that time, concerning potential impacts on our food supply. Had Mr. Glickman even seen that USDA report? Had he thought about its implications for our nation's food in Y2K? In his current statement, he goes on to say, "That's why USDA, along with the rest of the Administration, is hard at work to make sure our internal systems are Y2K compliant. We are also working with our partners in state and local governments who help deliver federal programs to make sure our computers continue to talk to each other and perform the work they are programmed to do. Now, through the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, the federal government has undertaken a massive outreach effort to heighten awareness of the Y2K problem. "The Council has asked USDA, working with the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, State, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, to lead the government's awareness campaign to the food supply sector." Let's get this straight. First, Dan Glickman, the head of the federal agency that oversees food production for the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, just recently became aware of the connection between computers and food? Next, the newly formed President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion has asked the USDA to work with The Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and State to lead the government
Paper: money-based politics, economics, energy, and "new society"
I am working on a new paper which I will email to my Brain Food mailing
list just after the first of the year.
We have all heard economists recite endless ECONOMIC arguments for
laissez-faire ("let things alone") economic policy - which are essentially
arguments for "money-based politics".
But in this paper, I will point out the little-known POLITICAL arguments
for money-based politics, highlight capitalism's inherent "energetic" Limits
to Growth, anticipate global social collapse within the first few decades
of the coming century, and propose a "new society" to mitigate the
coming nightmare.
My "new society" is quite unusual!
If you are interested in this paper, please visit my web site at
http://dieoff.com/page1.htm and register for my Brain Food list.
If you are already on my list, there is no need to reregister.
Jay
-
COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU!
http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
More conspiracy
Here another one for conspiracy lovers: I assume Saddam Hussein works for us. He keeps the Saudis in our pocket. That's what I would do if I were President. Think about it. Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
VICTORY?
VICTORY, by Peter Schweizer For a fascinating account of how American government operates in the black, read VICTORY: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union, by Peter Schweizer; Grove/Atlantic, 1996. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0871136333 Schweizer book is endorsed New York Times, the Washington Times, and Forbes. Schweizer was sponsored by the Hoover Institution. "This extensively researched study is fast-moving, exciting, and accurate." -- FORBES magazine about Schweizer's VICTORY. -- According to Peter Schweizer, the Saudis cooperate with the US in exchange for intelligence on dissidents [p. 31], satellite pictures, AWACS [p. 51], Stinger missiles [p. 190], advanced fighters, direct military protection, and were even "leaked" information when Treasury Department planned to devalue the dollar so they could shift investments into nondollar assets. [p. 233] During the Cold War, the Saudis worked in the black with the CIA to lower global oil prices and thereby deprive the USSR of the much-needed hard currency it needed to operate. Each $1 drop in oil price cost the USSR about one billion dollars in revenue. A $5 drop in the price of a barrel of oil would increase the U.S. GDP by about 1.4 percent. Poindexter: "It was in our interest to drive the price of oil as low as we could". [p. 218] Weinberger: "One of the reasons we were selling all those arms to the Saudis was for lower oil prices." [p. 203] Alan Fiers: The Saudis were also providing financial aid to the mujahedin and the contras. [p. 202] "In the first few weeks of the Saudi push, daily production jumped from less than 2 million barrels to almost 6 million. By late fall of 1985, crude production would climb to almost 9 million barrels a day." [p. 242] "Shortly after Saudi oil production rose, the international price of oil sank like a stone in a pond. In November 1985, crude oil sold at $30 a barrel; barely five months later it stood at $12." [p. 243] "In the spring of 1986, the downward plunge in international oil prices was causing serious worries around the world but also among some quarters in the Reagan administration. Vice President George Bush was preparing for a highly visible ten-day tour of the Persian Gulf area. A product of the Texas oil country, Bush saw danger, not hope, in the dramatic and recent decline in oil prices." [p. 259] Bush was acting on his own against the Reagan administration! While Reagan, Casey and Weinberger were trying to talk oil prices lower, Bush was meeting with Yamani and Fahd trying to talk oil prices higher! [p. 260] In 1983, the Treasury Department had done a secret study that found the optimum oil price for the US economy was about $20 a barrel. [p. 141] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0871136333 Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
mobil/exxon -- speculation
>>If this merger is based (as claimed by the respective CEOs) on >>rationalisation of producers because of declining consumption of oil how >>does this affect the timeline on the 'tank is empty' equation? > >As of Oct 22, 1998, Duncan & Youngquist see a global production >"peak" in 2006. Of course these estimates could be off a few years either > way. But that's their best estimate. > >But the real reason behind the merger may the "peak" instead of prices: I don't have any more information than Joe Six-pack, but here's how the "peak" scenario could fit. Conspiracy theorists should love it! The large energy companies and government may be seen as a "strategic alliance" -- perhaps something like "energy utilities" masquerading as private companies. These mergers are orchestrated in preparation for BIG changes in the energy business -- including selling a lot less oil. WHY ARE PRICES SO LOW? "Why are prices so low? The experts say crude oil supplies are at record highs because OPEC countries are producing so much" [NBC News, 12/2] In other words, our Saudi allies are lowering the price of oil just exactly like they did to help us destroy help us destroy the Soviet Union. But this time it's to lower prices prior to adding a GLOBAL WARMING carbon tax -- which will bring prices back up again. However, we still must ask whether or not governments care enough about the distant future to add a carbon tax? (Taxes would have no impacts on climate for many, many years.) I haven't met anyone in government like that, have you? Two possibilities: #1 None of the people we see are actually making the decisions -- there are good, intelligent people in a back room somewhere pulling the levers while the Neanderthals we see on television do their stand-up comedy routines.. #2 The carbon tax isn't about global warming at all. - A PEAK UNDER THE COVERS by Jay Hanson 11/11/97 I'm sure of this much, though: If you're looking for a straight word on global warming, the last people to ask are oil companies, auto manufacturers, electric companies or the politicians they hire. They would pump carbon monoxide into maternity wards if they could make a buck at it without getting sued. -- Donald Kaul, Tribune Media Services in the 10/27 Orlando Sentinel IF the corporations only can be stopped by human die off, THEN the corporations will be stopped by human die off. -- Jay's Theorem . . . It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows. This is never so apparent as when President Clinton -- the president of the most environmentally destructive government on Earth -- expresses concern over global warming: "Make no mistake, the [threat of global warming] is real. If we do not change our course now, the consequences sooner or later will be destructive for America and the world." Experience in American politics teaches us that government NEVER acts for publicly stated reasons. Instead, EVERY political action is motivated by hidden agendas,[1] and is designed to reward political friends or punish enemies. Then, once the plan is ready to go, plausible, approval-winning reasons are cooked-up and fed to the public. Let's speculate a bit on what might be really going on "under the covers". ___ AMERICAN POLITICAL FUNDAMENTALS I see the White House is like a subway -- you have to put in coins to open the gates. -- Johnny Chung (1997) America's so-called political system is based on money. BIG CORPORATE MONEY now owns the best government that money can buy. Presidents are NOT elected because they give a damn about either environment or posterity; they are elected because BIG MONEY wants them elected so BIG MONEY can make even more BIG MONEY. The obvious question is "Which BIG MONEY interests want President Clinton to curtail our present energy orgy because of concern over global warming?" If that's the right question, then aside from the BIG INSURANCE COMPANIES, it seems unbelievable that ANY individual BIG MONEY interests would WANT to end our present energy orgy. (Remember that this would abruptly curtail the economists' shop-till-you- drop theory of salvation.) So the obvious question is obviously not the right one. The next possibility is an energy issue that ALL BIG MONEY interests are deeply concerned about -- so concerned, that they are eve
mobil/exxon -- speculation
>>If this merger is based (as claimed by the respective CEOs) on >>rationalisation of producers because of declining consumption of oil how >>does this affect the timeline on the 'tank is empty' equation? > >As of Oct 22, 1998, Duncan & Youngquist see a global production >"peak" in 2006. Of course these estimates could be off a few years either > way. But that's their best estimate. > >But the real reason behind the merger may the "peak" instead of prices: I don't have any more information than Joe Six-pack, but here's how the "peak" scenario could fit. Conspiracy theorists should love it! The large energy companies and government may be seen as a "strategic alliance" -- perhaps something like "energy utilities" masquerading as private companies. These mergers are orchestrated in preparation for BIG changes in the energy business -- including selling a lot less oil. WHY ARE PRICES SO LOW? "Why are prices so low? The experts say crude oil supplies are at record highs because OPEC countries are producing so much" [NBC News, 12/2] In other words, our Saudi allies are lowering the price of oil just exactly like they did to help us destroy help us destroy the Soviet Union. But this time it's to lower prices prior to adding a GLOBAL WARMING carbon tax -- which will bring prices back up again. However, we still must ask whether or not governments care enough about the distant future to add a carbon tax? (Taxes would have no impacts on climate for many, many years.) I haven't met anyone in government like that, have you? Two possibilities: #1 None of the people we see are actually making the decisions -- there are good, intelligent people in a back room somewhere pulling the levers while the Neanderthals we see on television do their stand-up comedy routines.. #2 The carbon tax isn't about global warming at all. - A PEAK UNDER THE COVERS by Jay Hanson 11/11/97 I'm sure of this much, though: If you're looking for a straight word on global warming, the last people to ask are oil companies, auto manufacturers, electric companies or the politicians they hire. They would pump carbon monoxide into maternity wards if they could make a buck at it without getting sued. -- Donald Kaul, Tribune Media Services in the 10/27 Orlando Sentinel IF the corporations only can be stopped by human die off, THEN the corporations will be stopped by human die off. -- Jay's Theorem . . . It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows. This is never so apparent as when President Clinton -- the president of the most environmentally destructive government on Earth -- expresses concern over global warming: "Make no mistake, the [threat of global warming] is real. If we do not change our course now, the consequences sooner or later will be destructive for America and the world." Experience in American politics teaches us that government NEVER acts for publicly stated reasons. Instead, EVERY political action is motivated by hidden agendas,[1] and is designed to reward political friends or punish enemies. Then, once the plan is ready to go, plausible, approval-winning reasons are cooked-up and fed to the public. Let's speculate a bit on what might be really going on "under the covers". ___ AMERICAN POLITICAL FUNDAMENTALS I see the White House is like a subway -- you have to put in coins to open the gates. -- Johnny Chung (1997) America's so-called political system is based on money. BIG CORPORATE MONEY now owns the best government that money can buy. Presidents are NOT elected because they give a damn about either environment or posterity; they are elected because BIG MONEY wants them elected so BIG MONEY can make even more BIG MONEY. The obvious question is "Which BIG MONEY interests want President Clinton to curtail our present energy orgy because of concern over global warming?" If that's the right question, then aside from the BIG INSURANCE COMPANIES, it seems unbelievable that ANY individual BIG MONEY interests would WANT to end our present energy orgy. (Remember that this would abruptly curtail the economists' shop-till-you- drop theory of salvation.) So the obvious question is obviously not the right one. The next possibility is an energy issue that ALL BIG MONEY interests are deeply concerned about -- so concerned, that they are eve
Re: mobil/exxon merger
From: Jock McCardell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >If this merger is based (as claimed by the respective CEOs) on >rationalisation of producers because of declining consumption of oil how >does this affect the timeline on the 'tank is empty' equation? As of Oct 22, 1998, Duncan & Youngquist see a global production "peak" in 2006. Of course these estimates could be off a few years either way. But that's their best estimate. But the real reason behind the merger may the "peak" instead of prices: HERE WE GO AGAIN: The oil surplus won't last as long as we might wish. by James Srodes, Barrons, Oct 19, 1998 "Most news analysts got it wrong when they credited low oil prices for the recent proposed $48 billion takeover of Amoco by British Petroleum. What's really driving this mega-merger is an impending global oil shortage that will have profound economic and social implications. Seen in this light, the BP-Amoco merger makes short and long-term sense, and the light also shines on other oil companies." I have the rest at http://dieoff.com/page161.htm Jay
Science to displace economics as secular religion?
[ Is this an opportunity for science to displace economics in the field of secular religion? ] Billy Grassie wrote: Meta 205. 12/1/98. Approximately 178 lines. Below is a Request-for-Proposals to compete for seven(!) $100,000 Grants for Research, Writing, and Publication Exploring the Constructive Interaction of Science and Religion. This announcement was first posted in Meta 164 on September 21, 1998. At this time I am please to announce that there will be an additional $100,000 grant awarded as part of this competition. Our benefactor, Sir John Templeton, has expressed a desire to increase the number of grants and add a fourth category to the three already listed in the original RFP. The specific focus of this seventh award will be on "Expanding Concepts of God." The award will promote scholarly research and writing on how our understanding of the Divine is expanding and evolving in the modern world. In particular, the theme will focus on how increasing understanding in science, technology and commerce can be fruitful as a source of inspiration and insight relevant for refining and expanding concepts of God. You will note that there is significant overlapped with the three categories already listed in the original RFP. Thanks to the generosity and vision of Sir John Templeton, there are seven extraordinary opportunities for individuals or groups to do significant research and writing for popular and scholarly audiences on the constructive interaction of science and religion in the 21st Century. Please note that the deadline for letters-of-inquiry is January 4, 1999. The full application procedure is detailed below. -- Billy Grassie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Seven $100,000 Grants on Science and Religion [Please circulate on other listservers and excuse duplicate cross-postings. Thank you.] - REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS - to compete for SEVEN $100,000 GRANTS FOR RESEARCH, WRITING, AND PUBLICATION EXPLORING THE CONSTRUCTIVE INTERACTION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION The John Templeton Foundation is pleased to announce a competition for seven $100,000 awards to support sabbatical research and writing on the constructive interface between science and religion in the 21st century. Applications are encouraged from talented, research-focused, writers representing any and all religious traditions, as well as non-religious thinkers. Successful applicants will have demonstrated skills in research and writing, exemplifying engaged, well-informed discourse, balanced inquiry, and a humble approach to learning. This awards competition seeks to stimulate outstanding research, writing, and publishing in the broad field of science and religion. Four topical categories are listed below for the present cycle. Proposals should be submitted in one or more of the following three categories: 1) EVIDENCE OF PURPOSE: Investigations at the constructive interface of science and religion which are focused broadly on the subject of teleology, giving evidence of purpose and meaning in relation to cosmological, evolutionary, and human cultural processes. 2) HUMAN CREATIVITY AND UNDERSTANDING: Considerations of the potential and meaning of humanity's accelerating comprehension of reality and expanding creative power with specific concern for moral and spiritual progress. 3) CONCEPTS OF GOD: Theological and philosophical investigation of the relationship between God and World, especially which integrate scientific insights and perspectives. 4) EXPANDING CONCEPTS OF GOD: Consideration of how our understanding of the Divine is expanding and evolving in the modern world, with particular concern for how increasing understanding in science, technology and commerce can be fruitful as a source of inspiration and insight relevant for refining and expanding concepts of God. APPLICATION DEADLINES: - Letters of Inquiry: January 4, 1999. - Full Applications: May 3, 1999. - Grants Announced: September 3, 1999. TYPE CATEGORIES: (I.) PROFESSIONAL SCHOLARLY BOOKS (II.) NON-PROFESSIONAL BOOKS FOR POPULAR AUDIENCES An important criteria of merit is effective dissemination of the work in the form of chapters published in scholarly journals and distinguished magazines. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT AND THE "HUMBLE APPROACH": The main aspect of vision and mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue research at the boundary between theology and science through rigorous, open-minded and empirically-focused methodologies, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. This has been described as the "humble approach." Typically it seeks to focus the methods and resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have religious and theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to healthcare. The Foundation sponsors a wide variety of project initiativ
Re: Caordic change and Greens?
From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I believe that a much more satisfying life is possible by substituting >friends, community, conversation and caring for stuff. I largely If we don't follow Caspar's advise, there may not be ANY life a hundred years from now -- let alone "satisfying life". This is the subject of my next newsletter. With respect to simulation, I am surprised that no one mentioned the most famous simulation of all: The Club of Rome 1972: LIMITS TO GROWTH In 1992, Meadows published an update to the original work. Here is a composite graph: http://dieoff.com/Yourhere.gif "Business as usual" scenario from BEYOND THE LIMITS: "In Scenario 1 the world society proceeds along its historical path as long as possible without major policy change. Technology advances in agriculture, industry, and social services according to established patterns. There is no extraordinary effort to abate pollution or conserve resources. The simulated world tries to bring all people through the demographic transition and into an industrial and then post-industrial economy. This world acquires widespread health care and birth control as the service sector grows; it applies more agricultural inputs and gets higher yields as the agricultural sector grows; it emits more pollutants and demands more nonrenewable resources as the industrial sector grows. "The global population in Scenario 1 rises from 1.6 billion in the simulated year 1900 to over 5 billion in the simulated year 1990 and over 6 billion in the year 2000. Total industrial output expands by a factor of 20 between 1900 and 1990. Between 1900 and 1990 only 20% of the earth's total stock of nonrenewable resources is used; 80% of these resources remain in 1990. Pollution in that simulated year has just begun to rise noticeably. Average consumer goods per capita in 1990 is at a value of 1968-$260 per person per yeara useful number to remember for comparison in future runs. Life expectancy is increasing, services and goods per capita are increasing, food production is increasing. But major changes are just ahead. "In this scenario the growth of the economy stops and reverses because of a combination of limits. Just after the simulated year 2000 pollution rises high enough to begin to affect seriously the fertility of the land. (This could happen in the 'real world' through contamination by heavy metals or persistent chemicals, through climate change, or through increased levels of ultraviolet radiation from a diminished ozone layer.) Land fertility has declined a total of only 5% between 1970 and 2000, but it is degrading at 4.5% per year in 2010 and 12% per year in 2040. At the same time land erosion increases. Total food production begins to fall after 2015. That causes the economy to shift more investment into the agriculture sector to maintain output. But agriculture has to compete for investment with a resource sector that is also beginning to sense some limits. "In 1990 the nonrenewable resources remaining in the ground would have lasted 110 years at the 1990 consumption rates. No serious resource limits were in evidence. But by 2020 the remaining resources constituted only a 30-year supply. Why did this shortage arise so fast? Because exponential growth increases consumption and lowers resources. Between 1990 and 2020 population increases by 50% and industrial output grows by 85%. The nonrenewable resource use rate doubles. During the first two decades of the simulated twenty-first century, the rising population and industrial plant in Scenario 1 use as many nonrenewable resources as the global economy used in the entire century before. So many resources are used that much more capital and energy are required to find, extract, and refine what remains. "As both food and nonrenewable resources become harder to obtain in this simulated world, capital is diverted to producing more of them. That leaves less output to be invested in basic capital growth. "Finally investment cannot keep up with depreciation (this is physical investment and depreciation, not monetary). The economy cannot stop putting its capital into the agriculture and resource sectors; if it did the scarcity of food, materials, and fuels would restrict production still more. So the industrial capital plant begins to decline, taking with it the service and agricultural sectors, which have become dependent upon industrial inputs. For a short time the situation is especially serious, because the population keeps rising, due to the lags inherent in the age structure and in the process of social adjustment. Finally population too begins to decrease, as the death rate is driven upward by lack of food and health services." [p.p.132-134, Meadows; See also http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC36/Gilman1.htm ] Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
POLITICS IN DISGUISE
From: Brian McAndrews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Also, perhaps Jay should be more humble when he speaks with such
>confidence about empirical science. The history of science is full of
Just to keep the resord straight, the scientific method isn't perfect, but
it's the best we have.
(Permission to reprint is expressly granted!)
POLITICS IN DISGUISE
by Jay Hanson
A large percentage of the Nobel laureates in economics live in cocoons.
-- E.O. Wilson
The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt
but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise ...
economics is a form of brain damage.-- Hazel Henderson
Economics should be seen as politics -- not science -- for two reasons:
(1) Economists do not use the "scientific method". (2) The economist's
agenda is explicitly "normative" (political).
The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the
truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like
this:
1 Observe some aspect of the universe.
2 Invent a theory that is consistent with what you have observed.
3 Use the theory to make predictions.
4 Test those predictions by experiments or further observations.
5 Modify the theory in the light of your results.
Go to step 3. [ http://www.xnet.com/~blatura/skep_1.html ]
Economists will argue that "Economic systems are generally too complex
to be replicated in a laboratory environment, so economists analyze the
data."
But consider the POLITICAL heart and soul of economics: the "rational
utility mazimizer".
"One of the peculiarities of economics is that it still rests on a
behavioral assumption -- rational utility maximization -- that has long
since been rejected by sociologists and psychologists who specialize in
studying human behavior. Rational individual utility (income)
maximization was the common assumption of all social science in the
nineteenth century, but only economics continues to use it.
"Contrary behavioral evidence has had little impact on economics because
having a theory of how the world 'ought' to act, economists can reject
all manner of evidence showing that individuals are not rational utility
maximizers. Actions that are not rational maximizations exist, but they
are labeled 'market imperfections' that 'ought' to be eliminated.
Individual economic actors 'ought' to be rational utility maximizers and
they can be taught to do what they 'ought' to do. Prescription dominates
description in economics, while the reverse is true in the other social
sciences that study real human behavior." [p. 216, Thurow, 1983,
http://dieoff.com/page162.htm ]
The reason that economists cling to nineteenth-century behavioral
assumptions is because without them, they are out of a job!
It's a fact of life that economic theories can only be replaced by
better economic theories. And since economists can not invent a better
theory because of a fundementally-flawed world view, they work to make
the world match existing theory. If economists told the truth, they
would be unemployed.
The solution of course, is to junk economics, economists and start over:
"No compelling reason has ever been offered why the same strategy [of
consilience] should not work to unite the natural sciences with the
social sciences and humanities. The difference between the two domains
is in the magnitude of the problem, not the principles needed for its
solution." -- E.O. Wilson
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/bookauth/eow1.htm
Jay
-
COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU!
http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: simulation -- and Jay Hanson's comments on it
- Original Message - From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I'll try to find a way to include such complicated matters in my >model, but it won't be easy. And that's really what's wrong with >Jay's argument. He is absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt >that we're just going to run out of energy, period, while I find it >hard even to begin estimating such things. What does he know that >I don't? I have accumulated a large amount of information about alternative energy at: http://dieoff.com/page143.htm But the twofold bottom line is #1. There have been no published studies that I am aware of which show the US could survive on solar energy. Here are some that show we can't: "Several studies indicate that to enjoy a relatively high standard of living, America's human population should be 200 million or less (Pimentel et al., 1994a)." http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/gaia-pc/Pimentel2.html With 100 million being "ideal": http://dieoff.com/page136.htm "The United States could achieve a secure energy future and a satisfactory standard of living for everyone if the human population were to stabilize at an estimated optimum of 200 million (down from today's 260 million) and conservation measures were to lower per capita energy consumption to about half the present level (Pimentel et al. 1994). However, if the US population doubles in 60 years as is more likely, supplies of energy, food, land, and water will become inadequate, and land, forest, and general environmental degradation will escalate (Pimentel et al. 1994, USBC 1992a)." http://dieoff.com/page84.htm #2. I am absolutey postive we are going to run out of energy. Here's why: [ snip from my REQUIEM at www.dieoff.com ] CAPITALISM AND DEMOCRACY IN THE COMMONS Consider capitalism as an organized process to ingest natural, living systems (including people) in one end, and excrete unnatural, dead garbage and waste (including wasted people) out the other. From a thermodynamic view, capitalism may be seen as the conversion of low-entropy matter into high-entropy waste and garbage. From an economic view, capitalism may be seen as the high-speed depletion of natural capital. Politics (self-organization) among human animals is product of evolution. As soon as two or more people organize, the inevitable struggle for power ensues. This power struggle follows genetic patterns of exploitation, lying, and self-deception. The triumph of capitalism and democracy could have been predicted by evolutionary theory. Capitalism extends the human genetic propensity to exploit (make the best use of something: profit) and lie (meant to give a wrong impression: advertise). Democracy is simply the freedom to exploit and lie. Self-deception keeps us from knowing what we are really up to. In his 1968 classic, "Tragedy of the Commons",[35] Garrett Hardin illustrates why communities everywhere are headed for tragedy -- it's because freedom in the "commons"[36] brings ruin to all. Visualize a pasture as a system that is open to everyone. The carrying capacity of this pasture is 10 animals. Ten herdsmen are each grazing an animal to fatten up, and the 10 animals are now consuming all the grass that the pasture can produce. Harry (one of the herdsmen) will add one more animal to the pasture if he can make a profit. Adding one more animal will mean less food for each of the present animals, but since Harry only has only 1/10 of the herd, he has to pay only 1/10 of the cost. Harry decides to exploit the commons, and the other herdsmen, so he adds an animal and takes a profit. Shrinking profit margins force the other herdsmen either to go out of business or continue the exploitation by adding more animals. This process of mutual exploitation continues until overgrazing and erosion destroy the pasture system, and all the herdsmen are driven out of business. Most importantly, Hardin illustrates the critical flaw of freedom in the commons: all participants must agree to conserve the commons, but any one can force its destruction. Although Hardin is describing exploitation by humans in an unregulated public pasture, his principle fits our entire society. Private property is inextricably part of our commons because it is part of our life support and social systems. Owners affect us all when they alter the emergent properties of our life support and social systems (alter their land) to "make a profit" -- cover land with corn or with concrete. Neighborhoods, cities and states are commons in the sense that no one is denied entry. Anyone may enter and lay claim to the common resources. One can compare profits to Hardin's "grass" when any corporation -- from anywhere in the world -- can drive down profits by competing with local businesses for customers. One can see wages as "grass" when any number of workers -- from anywhere in the world -- can enter our community and drive down wages by competing with local workers for jobs. Everywhere one looks, one sees th
Re: "lesson of the cake"
[ By the way, this is not personal in any way. Debating this stuff on the
internet is my idea of having a good time. ]
From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>I hate to see him make such a fool of himself. I'd still like to put his
>theories to the test by writing and running a similation, but that
Everyday life IS putting my theories to the test and the results will be in
soon. But one doesn't need to "run a simulation" in order to discern the
nature of reality, all one needs to do is pay attention.
The "lesson of the cake" simply demonstrates that one can not have his
cake and eat it too. This elementary concept -- which most people would
consider common sense -- is denied by economic cargo cult members:
---
JUST LIKE MAGIC
by Jay Hanson
Once upon a time, Daddy Economist, Mommy Economist, and a litter of
little Economists were in a mountain cabin, sitting in front of a small
coal- burning stove to keep warm. Although most people know that when coal
burns, it's gone forever, Daddy Economist isn't worried because he was
trained to believe that when the coal is gone, a substitute will magically
appear. So when the coal is gone, he looks around, and his furniture pops
into view -- just like magic! So Daddy Economist starts breaking up his
furniture and burning it in the small stove.
Now the Economists must sit on the floor, but heck, it's better than the
alternative: dying. Then one day, SURPRISE!!! All the furniture is nearly
gone. But Daddy Economist isn't worried because he believes a substitute
will magically appear. So when the furniture is gone, he starts ripping the
boards off the walls of his cabin and burning them in the stove to keep
warm.
Now the Economists must sit on the floor very close to the stove, but heck,
it's better than the alternative: dying. Then one day, SURPRISE!!! All of
the cabin that will burn is gone. But Daddy Economist isn't worried. He
starts pulling the clothes off his family and burning them in the stove to
keep warm.
Now the Economists are forced to stand right next to the stove and
constantly turn, but heck, it's better than the alternative: dying. Then in
a few hours, SURPRISE!!! All the Economists' clothes have been burnt in the
stove. But Daddy Economist isn't worried because
Re: simulation
From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I'd like to write a program to run a simulation of the world economy, >first to see if Jay's conclusions follow from his own data, and then >to do a sensitivity analysis to see what are the most important >variables. I will save you some trouble Douglas, the most important variable is ENERGY. Economists are trained to believe that the world runs on money -- but they are wrong. In fact, the world runs on energy. By definition, energy "sources" must produce more energy than they consume, otherwise they are called "sinks". The global economy burns energy to make money-there is no substitute for energy. Although the economy treats energy just like any other resource, it's not like any other resource. Energy is the precondition for all other resources. The global economy receives almost 80% of its energy subsidies from nonrenewable fossil sources: oil, gas, and coal. They are called "nonrenewable" because, for all practical purposes, they're not being made any more. The reason they are called "fossil" is because they were "produced" by nature from dead plants and animals over several hundred million years. The key to understanding energy issues is to look at the "energy price" of energy. Energy resources that consume more energy than they produce are worthless as sources of energy. This thermodynamic law applies no matter how high the "money price" of energy goes. For example, if it takes more energy to search for and mine a barrel of oil than the energy recovered, then it makes no energy sense look for that barrel-no matter how high the money price of oil goes. It will make no energy sense to look for oil in America after 2005. During this coming century, the global economy will "run out of gas" as nearly all fossil energy sources become sinks. One can argue about the exact date this will occur, but the end of fossil energy -- and its dependent: the global economy -- are inevitable. A good analogy is like having a motor scooter with a five-gallon tank, but the nearest gas station is 10 gallons away. You can not fill your tank with trips to the gas station because you burn more than you can bring back-it's impossible for you to cover your overhead (the size of your bankroll and the price of the gas are irrelevant). You might as well put your scooter up on blocks because you are "out of gas" -- forever. It's the same with the American economy: if as a country, we must spend more-than-one unit of energy to produce enough goods and services to buy one unit of energy, it's impossible for us to cover our overhead. At that point, America's economic machine is "out of gas"-forever. OIL Oil is the most important form of energy we use, making up about 38 percent of the world energy supply. No other energy source equals oil's intrinsic qualities of extractablility, transportability, versatility and cost. These are the qualities that enabled oil to take over from coal as the front-line energy source in the industrialized world in the middle of this century, and they are as relevant today as they were then. Forecasts about the abundance of oil are usually warped by inconsistent definitions of "reserves." In truth, every year for the past two decades the industry has pumped more oil than it has discovered, and production will soon be unable to keep up with rising demand. According to a March, 1998, Scientific American article by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère Global oil production is expected to "peak" around 2005. See THE END OF CHEAP OIL at: http://dieoff.com/page140.htm In November, 1997, the International Energy Agency (IEA) convened an Oil Conference in Paris. Laherrère and Campbell presented three papers on oil depletion (against Adelman and Lynch from MIT). As a result of this conference, IEA prepared a paper for the G8 Energy Ministers' Meeting in Moscow March, 31, 1998. IEA followed Laherrere and Campbell's view and forecast a peak in conventional oil for 2010 at 78.9 Mb/d and decrease in 2020 at 72.2 Mb/d. [ Source: Laherrere personal correspondence ] See WORLD ENERGY PROSPECTS TO 2020. http://www.iea.org/g8/world/oilsup.htm According to Richard Duncan, this represents a significant reversal of IEA position: "This is a real stand-down for them because until recently they were in the Julian Simon no-limits camp." [ personal correspondence ] See Duncan's energy paper THE WORLD PETROLEUM LIFE-CYCLE at: http://dieoff.com/page133.htm Franco Bernabé, chief executive of the Italian oil company ENI SpA, expects the world to experience 1970s-style oil shocks starting sometime between 2000 and 2005. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0615/6112084a.htm . Also see http://reports.guardian.co.uk/articles/1998/7/26/13026.html . Jay
"lesson of the cake"
- Original Message - From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I'd like to write a program to run a simulation of the world economy, >first to see if Jay's conclusions follow from his own data, and then >to do a sensitivity analysis to see what are the most important >variables. No need to write a program Douglas. Here's an experiment you can try at home. #1. The candidate economist must go to a library. There they will notice spheres sitting on wooden stands. These represent the planet we live on: Earth. Spheres like Earth are by definition finite -- they only hold just so much stuff. Economists are required to memorize this key point and say it over and over, "The Earth only holds just so much stuff cause it's a sphere. The Earth only holds just so much stuff cause it's a sphere. The Earth only holds just so much stuff cause it's a sphere. ..." Economists are required to say it over and over until he or she can remember it without peeking at notes. Next, the economist is ready for his or her very first BIG scientific experiment! The economist is advised to stay calm, and be sure to get a good night's sleep before attempting the experiment. #2. Put a piece of cake on a plate. #3. Eat the cake. #4. See if you still have the cake. Economists aren't used to empirical science and will have to do the experiment (#2 through #4) a few times before the implications finally sink in. Now, write a report on the "lesson of the cake". Isn't science fun!!! Jay
Re: FW -- some optimism, plus my plans for matching as social panacea
- Original Message - From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 27, 1998 2:26 PM Subject: FW -- some optimism, plus my plans for matching as social panacea >As I mentioned in an earlier message, I am an optimist, by nature and >by nurture, so Jay's pessimistic "only choice" of either global dieoff>or dictatorial world government seems utterly wrong to me. If I was Would a picture help? Jay-COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU!http://dieoff.com/page1.htm GIF image
"The Thing"
Faith and Credit: The World Bank's Secular Empire by Susan George, Fabrizio Sabelli Paperback - 282 pages (September 1994) Westview Press; ISBN: 0813326079 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813326079 "The Thing" In the late 1980s the Italian Communist Party was undergoing a full-blown identity crisis. Italian Communists had no idea what to call whatever future Party might emerge from the ruins of the post-Gorbachev world. In all the documents, in all the discussions of the time, this as-yet undefined Party was referred to as la Cosa -- the Thing -- an institution in search of a new personality. Since The Godfather, Cosa Nostra -- Our Thing -- has entered all our vocabularies, whatever our language. Calling the Mafia Cosa Nostra is one way of not having to say what it really is. At Bretton Woods, the founding fathers didn't know what to call the Bank either -- it got its name more or less by default and "Bank" it has remained. Throughout these pages we have tried to determine what the Bank is and at the end of the enterprise we, too, are tempted to call it the Thing because, although we think we have made progress, to some degree it remains fascinating and mysterious. One of the chief attributes of power is not having to say what it is, not having to reveal its true identity, not having to give up its secrets to even the most diligent search. Thus the question "Why is the Thing so powerful?" is crucial. One thing about the Thing is certain: it is not powerful because it is a bank; that is, in ordinary language, a purely economic entity. Nor is it powerful because it has some of the characteristics one would expect of an international public service organization. It is a political and cultural enterprise, even a modern version of what the pioneer sociologist Marcel Mauss called the "total social phenomenon" (le fait social total). The obvious, financial and economic side of the Bank is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The multiple roles it plays and the many functions of power it assumes, like the difficulty of defining it, make the Bank a total social phenomenon, a Thing. This is why throughout the book we have spoken of beliefs, faith, doctrine, prophecy, and fundamentalism; of ancestors, initiation, esprit de corps, intellectual leadership and rule. This is also why, in addition to the facts and the documentary evidence, to the economic and political analysis we have tried to provide, we have made a few unorthodox sorties we called "Interludes" into the world of the imagination. If the Bank were just a bank we would have had no reason to call on fiction. We hope the reader will have found in each chapter and interlude partial answers to the question "Why is the Thing so powerful?" This is the thread we have tried to follow, the one that should bind the book together. Borrowing from French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, we can say that the Bank is powerful because of its capacity constantly to exchange economic capital for symbolic capital and vice versa. Its economic activities generate money -- well over a billion dollars a year in profits -- but also immense prestige. Its prestige in turn generates more financial and economic power. The Bank has dug passageways and built bridges that allow it continually to shuttle between material and non-material wealth, to transform one kind of capital investment into another and to reap all the rewards of both. The Bank is thus in a position to assume functions which are at once economic and symbolic: integration, guidance and, most important, maintenance of a programme of truth. The Bank is the visible hand of the programme of unrestrained, free market capitalism. The Bank's first function is to be an instrument of integration through the market. This market is (or should be) co-extensive with the world; like that of the Church, its vocation is universal. All nations and all people must become ever more tightly bound to it. In this setting, the doctrine of export-orientation finds its natural home. All countries must trade as much as they can and rely for their subsistence first on the world market, last on their own resources. Until quite recently, even in wealthy countries, communities provided for most of their wants from their domestic, local economies. What they could not find close at hand, they sought at the regional or national level. Only rarely, usually for luxury items, would they have recourse to the world market. This historical pattern has been turned on its head: we are now exhorted to satisfy our needs first from the international, global market, then the national or regional one and so on, down the ladder to the domestic economy, lowliest of all. The Bank's second function is to act as a guide. Those who believe that its own doctrine is that of laisser-faire are mistaken. The Bank is, in fact, far more interventionist than the interventionist governments whose policies it seeks to transform. If the Bank were to leave people a
Re: [Fwd: Fw: REAL COST OF U.S. GASOLINE IS $15.14 PER GALLON, REPORT SAYS] (fwd)
>Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 12:52:37 -0600 (CST) >Subject: REAL COST OF U.S. GASOLINE IS $15.14 PER GALLON, REPORT SAYS > By Tom Doggett > > WASHINGTON - So you think you're getting a good deal on a tank of > gasoline these days? Not so, if all the oil industry tax subsidies > received from the federal and state governments and other costs that > went into producing that gallon of gasoline were included in the pump > price. > > Such external costs push the price of gasoline as high as $15.14 a > gallon, according to a new report released Tuesday by the > International Centre for Technology Assessment. I just discovered that the report itself is available on-line at: http://www.icta.org/projects/trans/index.htm Jay
Re: Simon and methane
>>Jay Hanson wrote, in part: >> >> If you are looking for a new god to lead the masses out of the >>wilderness, the cargo cults exemplified by Julian Simon would be >> a bad choice. Cargo cults will fall out of favor when global oil >> production "peaks" in less than ten years. >Tom: >First, Jay, talk to us about the recent finds of frozen methane on the >ocean floor- supposedly puts the current oil/gas reserves in the minor >leagues "Methane occurs in hydrates, which are ice-like solids found in Arctic regions and deep water. Hopes of exploiting such deposits appear to be doomed because, being a solid, the gas is unable to migrate and accumulate in commercial volumes. Reports that the Messoyakha Field in Siberia produced gas from hydrates is apparently erroneous." [ p. 120, Campbell, 1997 ] See everything you wanted to know about energy at: http://dieoff.com/page143.htm >next, I cite Julian Simon, not because I believe in his folks as the >God's who will rain cargo on the world but because they are happy by and >large and don't seem to be wlking around with a cloud over their heads. >And secondly, consistantly, they have out guessed the gloom and doomers A careful examination of the record would show that no one makes more failed predictions than economists -- both the evangelical variety that assault our sensibilities on TV every day, and the academic variety represented by the World Bank. Julian Simon was simply the world's greatest con man. >And that is what I think is needed, some creative vision other than >making the developed world wear hair shirts and turn in their SUV's so >that the developing world has to capitulate and cut its growth desires > >thoughts? IMHO, instead of inventing a new earth-based religion of some sort, a better plan would be to enlist existing religions in the fight to save the planet. In truth, the "antichrist" is here -- it's "Homo economicus". Economic "Cargo Cults" threaten every religion and every society on the planet. Indeed, the Cargo Cults are the arch enemies of life itself. If you want to do something positive in the secular world, organize a protest movement to shut down the Chicago School of Economics. The tactics taught in the economic school have killed -- and will continue to kill -- far more than the tactics taught in the military school. Reuters Sunday, November 22, 1998 PROTESTERS DEMAND CLOSING OF ARMY'S SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 21-A thousand protesters marched today outside a Georgia military base to demand the closing of the U.S. Army School of the Americas, where opponents claim that Latin American soldiers are taught torture. "I believe it should be shut down simply because of its history, and the history can't be denied," said Dan Anderson, of Grand Rapids, Mich., who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. "They'll all admit some of the awful things those graduates did." The protest outside the sprawling Fort Benning military installation, about 85 miles southwest of Atlanta, has been an annual event since 1990. It has been held each year to mark the Nov. 16, 1989, massacre of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador. The School of the Americas trained 19 of the 26 Salvadoran officials implicated in the massacre by a United Nations investigation. The school trains more than 900 U.S. and Latin American soldiers each year. Last year, the protest group crossed the Columbus city limits onto the Fort Benning base, where the school is housed. There were 542 arrests, among them priests, nuns and college students, last year. Thirty of them -- all repeat offenders -- were sentenced to six months in federal prison for criminal trespass. This year, event organizers expect more than 5,000 protesters Sunday. Actor Martin Sheen has promised to lead them through Fort Benning's main gate. The number of potential protesters was confirmed by the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau, which said every hotel in the area was booked to capacity tonight. Many of the protesters held banners reading, "Close the School of the Assassins," "Los Sangre Es en Tus Manos [the blood is on your hands]," and "Stop the Oppression of Latin American Peasants." A man wearing a skeleton costume strode through the crowd on stilts. The protesters appeared evenly divided between members of various orders of the Catholic Church -- including Benedictines, Jesuits, Franciscans -- and college students, many of whom arrived in caravans. Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: "chaordic structures"
From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>IN THE LANGUAGE OF ECOLOGY -- a language which it behooves us all >>to learnóthe conditions of an imperiled environment are described >>in a few short and pungent words: 'drawdown,' 'overshoot,' >>'crash,' and 'die-off.' [snip] >Nevertheless I take Jay's point.It is hard to see how our species can >escape the Reckoning when we are so firmly in the grip of denial. You are absolutely right! If there is any way out of the coming nightmare, we MUST overcome social taboos and confront biophysical realities. Has anyone else thought it odd that everyone talks about "sustainability" but no one has an operational definition? "When a well-defined problem is virtually ignored as long as the commons problem was -- more than a hundred years -- we naturally suspect the interference of taboo. This plausible supposition is by its very nature, nearly unprovable. Taboo is a composite thing: there is the primary taboo, surrounding the thing that must not be discussed; around this is the secondary taboo, a taboo against even acknowledging the existence of the primary taboo. "A taboo may be sustained in part for good tactical reasons: breaking it may open up a nest of problems not yet ripe for productive discussion. We may speculate -- we can hardly know -- that the long avoidance of the commons problem was due to a subconscious awareness of the intractable Quis custodies problem, which would have been activated by any attempt to depart from the system of the commons." [ Hardin, 1977, http://dieoff.com/page96.htm ] The scientists are telling us that our lifeboat is full. We have to overcome social taboos start discussing voluntary suicide, euthanasia, sterilization, redefinition of "rights", and all those other things we hate to think about. We can do it our way: perhaps in the context along the lines of the new social system that I have proposed. Or Big Brother will do it his way: full speed into the wall, then it's the police state -- a modern blend of the Holocaust and Orwell's 1984. Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Simon and methane
[ I got this off-list, but Tom Ables said he wanted it on-list, so I am forwarding it to the list. ] Jay Hanson wrote, in part: >> > If you are looking for a new god to lead the masses out of the wilderness, > the cargo cults exemplified by Julian Simon would be a bad choice. Cargo > cults will fall out of favor when global oil production "peaks" in less > than ten years. --- First, Jay, talk to us about the recent finds of frozen methane on the ocean floor- supposedly puts the current oil/gas reserves in the minor leagues- next, I cite Julian Simon, not because I believe in his folks as the God's who will rain cargo on the world but because they are happy by and large and don't seem to be wlking around with a cloud over their heads. And secondly, consistantly, they have out guessed the gloom and doomers So, if we throw out Simon and their Nemisis from the "green" camp what do we have for an alternative- I haven't seen a good vision which is orthogonal to this linear spread or at least onto on the line somewhere betweeen the two extremes. And that is what I think is needed, some creative vision other than making the developed world wear hair shirts and turn in their SUV's so that the developing world has to capitulate and cut its growth desires thoughts? tom Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: Caordic change and the Story
From: tom abeles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >In fact, there are a host of others who also have postive visions. there >is Julian Simon and his associates. and there are even those such as >thoughts? If you are looking for a new god to lead the masses out of the wilderness, the cargo cults exemplified by Julian Simon would be a bad choice. Cargo cults will fall out of favor when global oil production "peaks" in less than ten years. If one thinks about it for a moment, one sees the smart choice would be an ascetic god. If you were to use Jimmy Jones for your prototype god du jour, you could kill two birds with one stone -- so to speak. Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
In truth, humans only have two options
In truth, humans only have two options: #1. Be managed like domestic pets. #2. Dieoff like wild animals. >>Jay: >> This particular planet -- Earth -- already has too many people working. >From: Douglas P. Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >By how many, Jay? How much MORE unemployment do you want? 10%, 20% >maybe? We all know you think the earth is overpopulated, but putting >people out of work isn't going to solve that, unless they kill themselves You misunderstand the concept of carrying capacity. Putting people out of work WILL help solve the overpopulation problem -- here's how: Ecologists define carrying capacity in terms of the "load" on the biosystem: "An environment's carrying capacity is its maximum persistently supportable load (Catton 1986)." [ http://dieoff.com/page110.htm ] The "load" on the biosystem is defined as the per-capita load multiplied by the number of people. If the product is greater than carrying capacity, a region is "overpopulated". The ecologist's "overpopulation" is, by definition, a temporary condition. In nature, "overpopulation" is followed by "dieoff". Theoretically, humans could increase carrying capacity by reducing the per-capita load -- by reducing GDP. We also must introduce draconian birth control measures so the next generation won't dieoff in spite of our efforts. My new post-consumer society would only require a fraction of the resources -- it would be able to "carry" many more people: === SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Sustainable development both improves quality of life and retains continuity with physical conditions. To do both requires that social systems be equitable and physical systems circular. COMMONS: "A commons is any resource treated as though it belongs to all. When anyone can claim a resource simply on the grounds that he wants or needs to use it, one has a commons." [ Virginia Abernethy, POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT, Vol. 18, No. 1, Sept 1996. cited in CCN's FOCUS, Vol. 2, No.2, p. 20. ] COERCION: To "coerce" is to compel one to act in a certain way -- either by promise of reward or threat of punishment. POLITICS: One coercing another. AUTHORITY: I use this word in the sense that goals (or ideals) are NOT produced by a consensus of the governed. For example, physical goals for sustainable development must come from "scientific authority" -- because no one else knows what they must be. Examples of "authoritarian" political systems include corporations, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and churches. An obvious example of extremely successful "authoritarian, systems politics" is a corporation. GLOBAL PROBLEMATIC: Global tragedy of the commons because people are genetically programmed to more-than-reproduce themselves and make the best use of their environments. THE ONE-AND-ONLY SOLUTION: Global coercion. ... POST-CONSUMER SOCIETY We already live under a coercive, global religio-political system called "Capitalism". The sine qua non of Capitalism is the conversion of our life-support system into commodities. Thus, Capitalism WILL end -- one way or another. There is no a priori reason a new coercive system would need to be anywhere near a brutal as our present one. In reality, the current development paradigm is nothing but a grotesque -- energy gulping -- Rube Goldberg machine to deliver "needs" to people. Today, people still "need" the same things that hunter-gatherers "needed" 35,000 years ago: community, shelter, health care, clean water, clean air, and about 3,000 calories a day of nutritious food. But each of those three million hunter-gatherers used the same amount of energy as a common dolphin, whereas each of today's 269 million Americans uses as much energy as a sperm whale. Step one is to break out of the money/market/advertising/consumption death grip. A new society would NOT be based on money because it's inherently unsustainable. It would be based on something like Hubbert's energy certificates. [ See It's the Money, Stupid! at http://dieoff.com/page149.htm The key to the new society is to find meaning and happiness in non-consumptive activities such as religion and the arts. With modern technology, probably less than 5% of the population could produce all the goods we really "need". A certain number of "producers" could be drafted and trained by society to produce for two years. The rest can stay home and sing, dance, paint, read, write, pray, play, and practice birth control. Highest priority would be to establish a global government of some sort with police powers that are capable of protecting the global commons -- our life-support system -- as well as protecting individual human rights (as yet, undefined). Within the global framework, I believe a great deal of freedom is possible -- in fact, far more than we have now. Any number of cultural, ethnic or religious communities could be established by popular vote. Religious people could have public prayer in their schools,
Re: "chaordic structures"
From: Colin Stark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>"By Chaord, I mean any self-organizing, adaptive, nonlinear, complex >>community or system, whether physical, biological or social, the behavior of >>which exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos. Or, more simply >>stated, a Chaord is any chaotically ordered complex." >> >>Hock seems to be saying that Chaord is nature's way of organizing. >> Do list members agree? > >yes Those who beleive "nature's way" is the prefered future, do not understand "nature's way". THis is nature's way: --- IN THE LANGUAGE OF ECOLOGY -- a language which it behooves us all to learnthe conditions of an imperiled environment are described in a few short and pungent words: 'drawdown,' 'overshoot,' 'crash,' and 'die-off.' "Drawdown is the process by which the dominant species in an ecosystem uses up the surrounding resources faster than they can be replaced and so ends up borrowing, in one form or another, from other places and other times. For our age, though the examples of such depletion are numerous, the most vivid is that of fossil fuels. In the space of a little more than a hundred years we have used up perhaps 80 percent of the buried remains of the Carboniferous period -- oil, gas, and coalthat were deposited over a period of a hundred million years or more, and what's more we have become totally dependent on continuing the process. One can argue about the due-date, but the outcome is certain. "Overshoot is the inevitable and irreversible consequence of continued drawdown, when the use of resources in an ecosystem exceeds its carrying capacity and there is no way to recover or replace what was lost. It takes many forms, depending on the system, but perhaps the clearest and in some ways the most touching is exemplified by Easter Island. When it was first settled a thousand years ago, the island was a rich and forested land covered with palms and a small native tree called the sophora, and on its sixty-four square miles a prosperous and literate culture developed organizational and engineering skills that enabled it to erect the famous massive stone statues all along the coastline. For reasons lost in time, the population of the island over the years increased to something like 4,000 people, apparently necessitating a steady drawdown of vegetation that eventually deforested the entire island and exhausted its fertile soils. Somewhere along the line came overshoot, unstoppable and final, and then presumably conflict over scarce food acreage, and ultimately warfare and chaos. By the time of Captain Cook's voyage to the island in the 1775 there were barely 630 people left, eking out a marginal existence; a hundred years later, only 155 islanders remained. "Crash, as with the Easter Islanders, is what happens after overshoot-- a precipitate decline in species numbers. Once a population has exceeded the capacity of its environment in one life-giving respect or another, there is no recourse, nothing to be done until that population is reduced to the level at which the resources can recover and are once again adequate to sustain it. Take the case of the famous Irish potato famine. For well over a century, year after steady year, the British encouraged and the Irish developed a near-total dependency upon a single dietary mainstay, the potato, and the population of the island grew from 2 million people to more than 8 million. Then suddenly in 1845 a natural competitor for the potato came along in the form of a parasitic fungus that got to the tubers somewhat before the people did and turned the potatoes into sticky, inedible, mucous globs. Crash: within a generation the country was devastated, more than half the population died or emigrated, and those who remained were reduced to a poverty that diminished only a century later. "Die-off and, in its final form, die-out, is a phenomenon common in the history of zoology and botany, and the dodo and the passenger pigeon are not exceptional. There is, for example, the everyday but suggestive experience of yeast cells introduced into a wine vat. Enormously successful as a species, they gobble up nutrients from the sugary crushed grapes around them and expand their population without a thought to the consequences of drawdown; within weeks, however, the 'pollution' they produce -- alcohol and carbon dioxide, which of course is what the fermentation is all abouthave so filled their environment that they are unable to survive. The resulting crash, in that vat at least, means an acute die-off and then extinction. "Where along this ecological trajectory can we locate the modern -- the theoretically sapient -- human?" [p.p. 24-26] DWELLERS IN THE LAND, by Kirkpatrick Sale; New Society Pub., 1991, Phone: 800-253-3605; ISBN 0-86571-225-5.
Re: Theobald's Latest Message
- Original Message - From: fran^don <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >The concept would seem appropriate for a system of governance on both the >national/global level and the community/bigger community level. Don, you are well aware of the "limits to growth" problem. "Limits to growth" is an aggregate problem. How can decentralized governance deal with aggregate problems such as "limits to growth"? >BTW Jay, did you have a mile swim today? Yes I did. Jay
"chaordic structures"
- Original Message - >The other question is whether the upswing in energy around Y2K and >funddamental change will lead to attempts of various >people/organizations to centralize energy flows or whether we shall be >wise enough to set up decentralized/chaordic structures. http://www.cascadepolicy.org/dee_hock "By Chaord, I mean any self-organizing, adaptive, nonlinear, complex community or system, whether physical, biological or social, the behavior of which exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos. Or, more simply stated, a Chaord is any chaotically ordered complex." Hock seems to be saying that Chaord is nature's way of organizing. Do list members agree? >>What problem do they solve? > >hierarchy/dictatorship problems If there is no hierarchy, how can chaordic structures limit the scale of the aggregate human enterprise? If there is no hierarchy, how can chaordic structures allocate resources under conditions of "absolute scarcity"? Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
