Even though I’m sufficiently aware of the information behind Peak Oil and the oil age’s connection to rapid global population growth, I found Hartmann’s summary of this topic to be one of the best introductions available. Representing the world as varying forms of ancient sunlight is a powerful analogy that can introduce even the most encapsulated thinkers to holistic systems thinking. It reminded me of the idea that innovation can either be built on success of the past or borrowed from the future. Hartmann provides all the facts and figures necessary to demonstrate that the majority of our current lifestyle is dependent on the ancient sunlight of the past, stored in dense forms like oil and coal. Our depletion of this resource has borrowed even the most basic support systems from the future.

Yet, how can we be in a situation that is so dire yet everything looks so good? (Even though a lot of this has changed since Hartmann updated the book in 2004, because in 2009/2010 things are starting to look quite bad.) Ancient Sunlight explains that our modern industrial civilization is living off its startup capital, like a company that is building a lavish office without pushing a sustainable business model. We are blind to problems underlying economic systems and infrastructure because we don’t have to as long as we are growing, much like the enthusiasm behind a ponzi scheme before it falls apart. The severity of this situation cannot be iterated enough. An example is in human slavery, the dense form of energy we have now gives us access to hundreds of energy slaves that can drive our cars and light our houses, without this it would take many humans to do equivalent work. Coupled with collapses in biodiversity, water shortages, widespread desertification because of climate changes, and massive cutbacks in forest cover are presenting our species with a decade of significant change afoot.

Analyzing how we got here is a useful way to build a model for the future. By looking at historical examples of global cultures Ancient Sunlight draws a distinction between Younger Cultures and Older Cultures. Hartmann explains how younger cultures are warlike, agressive and obsessed with superiority while older cultures are filled with respect, integration and conservation. A poignant example is how the two cultures handle diversity, younger cultures seeking integration and dissolution of ” the other” while older cultures respect and encourage individual expressions of a cultural identity.

The younger culture is a culture of control, gaining power through its current incarnations with the powerful drugs of television and general entertainment, just two of the things that completely disconnect us from our natural environment and our birthright as humans. Hartmann provides an all encompassing look at the stories we tell ourselves about our culture, i.e. that we are separate from the world, that it is our destiny to subdue the world, get yours before anyone else can. Constrast these examples with the older culture stories, i.e that we are part of the world, that we must cooperate with the rest of nature.

Much of this comes from our view that natives were lazy and stupid, falsehoods that are overturned by even a cursory study of the accounts from ethnographers, whether of brilliant pharmacological solutions to illness in the Amazon or of the technology of the !Kung tribes which allowed them to work less than 20 hours a week. Cooperation is revealed as the basis for a new paradigm, a better society encompassed by this statement from Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Ultimately Hartmann concludes that our private practices of raising awareness and informing ourselves of these problems can lead to an empowered group ready to provide leadership as our industrial civilization loses its control. After practicing years of meditation myself, I couldn’t agree more on a better way to start. Quiet time for reflection has led me to immense personal and universal truths. After reading The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight I can see this practice has done the same for Hartmann.

© jritch for a robot, i am not, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economic growth, economy, humanity, peak oil, technological program

Sander’s talk started by covering the history of innovation. By adapting the environment and the brain to tackle new challenges, humans are one of the greatest success stories in nature’s history, all because we can adapt and innovate. Eventually, humans began focusing their innovation centers in cities. Cities are not more energy efficient but are better innovation engines.

This centralization comes with a requirement: as centralization increases, the rate of innovation that must occur to support the structure has to increase. Food and energy must be brought from further and futher away because the ecological footprint of the city grows. Once fossil resources became harnessed, innovation became fundamentally necessary to support the collapse of society. As more of our society depended on oil for growth, that growth continued because of innovation. Technology has allowed us to harvest more oil faster and from more remote places. This supported more population growth and further innovation. At this point in the talk Sander makes a shocking claim: perhaps innovation is the greatest ponzi scheme of all, the rate of innovation must increase at all times to prevent the collapse of civilization.

And the more I think about it, the more I think he is right. How could I prove him wrong? If we stopped innovating, would we destroy humanity with the state of our current technology? All signs point to yes, especially in the United States.

Sander continues by pointing out two views of humanity and its relation to nature.

1) In the cohesion of nature, strangeness and force are emphasized. That change is attributed to nature but people are passive and resistive to change. Nature and change are viewed as dangerous because they are outside the realm of human control.

The opposing view is that,

2) Humans are overly agressive, forcing change on our environment to support our war-like culture and nature is passive receiver of our exploitation.

These two views interplay to create a critical approach to human decision making: natural dangers are exaggerated, human dangers are underplayed.

This can be seen in the climate change debate. We fear the response of nature to our actions but ignore the many other problems humanity is creating through our technological program.

Sander continues by stating the inevitable result of technological innovation. We intervene more and more in our environment, thinking that we reducing our risks but all we do is change the spectrum of risks, not the overall quantity of risks. The end state is that we lose control because we lose the ability to understand the complex chain of events resulting from our interventions.

Human changes are rapid and shallow attempt to replace and begin to outweigh the natural changes which are slow yet all encompassing. Risk spectrums shift over time with respect to their environments. We tend to overemphasize the frequent risks, try to reduce them and substitue completely unknown risks at larger scale over a longer time period. This accumulation of long term, large scale risks build up and collapse the civilization.

At some point, Sander believes that every social system will go out of control. The system pushes itself into a trap, the cost of problem solving goes up, flexibility goes down, the outcome is included in the way it was started, our exploitation of our environment creates the weaknesses we must contend with at the end.

Oil has provided us a shockingly stable environment but this environment has reduced our ability to adapt. Now, we can only innovate within the structure we create for ourselves, aggravating the situation even further, reducing our ability to break with the overarching problems. Climate change isn’t bad for humanity, it is bad for the status quo, our social structure. The fall of the Roman Empire resulted primarily because they used up all their wood, their primary energy source, shipping it from further and further away. This collapse was not a “solution”, it was simply the inability to maintain innovation at the rate necessary to extract new energy sources. After the fall of Rome people migrated from urban areas to the rural environment. The city was the keeper of information, the archivist was the maintainer of civilization. Perhaps we are in a slightly better position now because the internet helps us maintain our global knowledge, yet is even more dependent on energy than the city.

Sander stated that he thought the urban situation will explode, it is fragile and we invest more and more in our cities and less in a resilient rural environment.

He shared my sentiment: optimistic for humanity, pessimistic for society.

So what if we can accelerate our innovation to maintain the pace required to avoid collapse? Unfortunately that acceleration also rapidly adds up in unintended consequences. Technology must be implemented at faster and faster rates to avoid collapse but prevent the long term viewpoint. Many immediate problems add up and then you can’t focus on the long term problems.

Sander compared our situation to a tribe in the Southern hHghlands that saw deforestation and decided to counter with a ceremony of slaughtered pigs. The tribe raised continually more and pigs to slaughter, converting the entire valley to mud. Eventually the pigs piled up and died of disease. The land was ruined because of the mud and the tribe was left in the mess they’d created.

Hardly a mainstream view, it is much more attractive to spout the promises of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. Assuming that rates of technological innovation will continue or exponentially increase as technological determinists like Ray Kurzweil do, is turning a blind eye to the role energy plays in civilization. By considering energy do we have to conclude our industrial civilization will unravel over the next few decades? Perhaps all our 20th century innovation is built on the high energy environment provided to us by cheap oil, if that’s the case it’s going to be an interesting ride down the back side of Hubbert’s peak.

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Post tags: history, technological program, technology

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Post tags: technological program, technology, video

The Ascent of Humanity falls into a selective category of books which has redefined my life simply by the process of reading it. Similar to the breath of fresh air I received when reading Krishnamurti or Arthur Koestler for the first time, Charles Eisenstein is the modern practical philosopher. But to call him a philosopher is to diminish the all-encompassing treatise that Ascent of Humanity is to the modern human. Every book I read hereafter will seem like light reading.

The modern American culture has persuaded us that everything is ok, whether by focusing on sports or celebrities or through medicating those with alternate views to reality. Eisenstein reveals that is the rest of us who are sick. Sick from separation from “nature”, the very representational nature of the word reveals our innate contempt for it. This separation has now become ingrained within our lives through degraded diets, overly sized residences, isolation from community and relationship through shared consumption. But no worries they (the leaders, experts and scientists) say, science and technology will save us. Eisenstein’s masterwork here is the complete desolation of the modern technological paradigm, what he labels as the Technological Program, the idea that our problems can be fixed with more technology. Like the addict, technology has become the cause and solution of all life’s problems.

This is simply the most important book I have ever read. Not only because of its content but at the point in my life during which I read it. In-between undergraduate and impending graduate school. Perhaps I am tempted to unplug from a spiritually destitute existence, the one promised by the modern exchange of my time for money promised by employment. But my old readings of Rudolph Steiner remind me that true self growth does not occur in isolation. And Eisenstein reinforces that sentiment by expounding on recent discoveries about biology, physics and math which demonstrate that the Newtonian discrete world of equal and opposite reactions does not exist, that our classification as single individuals has now handicapped us past the point of salvation. Perhaps only a crash of epic proportions must occur before we enter Eisenstein’s “Age of Reunion”, a time in which we once again integrate with our natural world and discover human existence full of meaning far from the modern myth of “survival only”. Perhaps that time is beginning right now. Yet, it is nothing to fear, it is only the inevitable result of centuries of separation, separation which has culminated in the super-specialized trivial existences we now occupy.

I can’t even begin to describe this book in a simple review, yet I would be honored to tell you about it in person. Read this book. Stop whatever you are reading now and find a copy. He even gives it away for free on his website. The ideas truly are that important. Here are a few of those ideas I wrote down while drinking in the wisdom developed within these pages:

We think of children as immature adults but we would be more accurate in thinking of adults as atrophied children

Totalitarianism is the inevitable destination of a society completely obsessed of acheiveing complete control over reality

The world of the rational is only one component of a functioning society. Theology looks for the purpose of things as opposed to reason or cause. We are not just here, we are here for a purpose, young people know it most certainly: we call that idealism. Broken to the lesser lieves we offer them, they react with hostility, rage, depression. All defining qualities of modern adolescence.

The modern cell is an autocatalytic set where RNA, DNA, protiens and verious intermediate prodcuts all contribute ot each others success. We could have just as easily named the whole as a unity of life, or a smaller part, just as we could say in a human that our organs are alive or that our cells are alive or mitochondria are alive. True, none are viable on their own but neither are human beings. Without bacteria in their rumens, cows would be unable to digest cellulose and would quickly starve. Is the bacteria part of the cows or is it seperate? Is the discrete classicfication of organisims the source of confusion?

The mandelbroit set is where C is a complex number and Zo=0, Zn+1 = Zn^2 + C // after a given number of iterations, the sequence of Z0, Z1, …Zn will either exceed the absolute value of 2 after which it either stays in the neighborhood of the origin or diverges into infinity. If C generates a sequence that does not diverge to infinity then it is in the mandelbroit set. There is no way of determining where that divergence will occur so mathematically we say, “After a particular # of iterations C is still part of the mandelbroit set” In other words, it is a reality that cannot be reduced. It seems to possess order and beauty because it is a fractal. The same happens in populations, growth and cells. Systems have emergent properties that will never reduce.
Cold hard science has its place, but not as the prevaling dogmata of society, merely a segment of a mind, heart, soul almagamation.
Spirit is an emergent property of matter. When death occurs, the emergent property of a soul may be associated with a bound energy and brings and enormous detangling. The detangling of embedded information and energy is thus equivalent to mass loss. The standard physics has no way for the mass measured to just disappear without being converted to over 9×10^16 joules, where does it go?

Now we are discovering that at the very basis of life, no such “I” from the mind of Descartes, “I think therefore I am” does not exist! The distinction from this reality is an illusion.

Two recent discoveries in biology: 1) life is at its basis cooperative 2)there is no absolute when trying to define the biological self

Matthew Wood, Stephen Buhner and Elliot Cowan all have descriptions of non-deterministic plant worlds

Feldenkrais, EFT, spinal network analysis and applied kineselogy all display hope for new medical approaches

In 1906 Silvio Cessell in The Natural Economic Order proposed a “Free Money” currency that bears a form of negative interest called demurrage. A stamp must be attached occasionally to keep the money worthwile so it does not expire. J.M. Keynes even supported the theory. An in 1932, Worgl, Austria implemented it by requiring a maintenance stamp worth 1% of its full value. It was a huge success as economic activity boomed. It was outlawed by Austria’s central bank in 1933 because it was competing with the primary currency.

Gurdjieff’s primary perscription for recovering mindfulness was “intentional suffering”, meaning an unwaviering intention not to avoid or escape the consequences due. On a psychological level, this closely parallels the internalization of the conomic costs.

What would happen if you lost your willpower? Would you stay in bed until noon, lounge in front of the TV and descend into a vague never-ending spiral of indulgence? Perhaps this is not true human nature but a response to work. Why do we stay up late and dread waking up in the morning? We simply try to avoid the lives pre-calculated for us.
Base your career decisions not on money, security or status but on what would I most love to give to the world.

We think that art is self-expression which is strange historically. An artist used to be seen as a medium through with the divine operated. The artist was a servant of God.

Language is more powerful than any other technology. Anything we accomplish, we do so through language. Quite often the purpose of our words is control rather than communciation.

The entire world of modern human existence is builg on the interpretation of symbols.

When the investment in something is large enough, we dare not ask ourselves if it has made us happy for fear of the answer.
After staying in studying throughout school and spending sleepless nights as an intern, after all these sacrifices do you dare admit that you hate being a doctor? lawyer? etc…

The realm of food is a way to practice being good to yourself.

The conditioned self fears the freedom it so desires. The universal response to why we go to school is “to learn” but modern schooling has proved to do otherwise.

The national 1992 adult literacy survey says otherwise, 42 million out of 190 million adult americans can’t read 50 million can recognized printed words at a 4th and 5th grade level cannot write simple messages or letters 3.5% of the of the 26,000 sample demonstrated literacy skills adequate for college a level 30% of high school students reached in 1940 and a level equivalent to that of other nations Are people just dumb? Is education the illuminating force that give people a hope for enlightenment? If so, we can look to our school system as a glimmering light of hope that allows the dull masses to achieve some semblance of productivity, a noble effort. However: after 60 years, education spending has quadrupled and illiteracy has also quadrupled. Among blacks literacy rates have decreased form 80% to 60%, among whites illiteracy increased from 4% to 17%. Before forced schooling was legislated in 1840, literacy rates in New England approached 100%. Is the school system to blame for this decline? Perhaps you could argue it is not until you consider the reason for its conception. Modern education is not a failure though. The primary purpose of the industrial economy’s schooling has always been to condition people from childhood for partial, trivial, mechanical, dull, repetitive, and un-challenging work. This system was created by the modern industrial coal powers like France, Prussia and the US. This information is from John Taylor Gatto’s Underground History of American Education.

The animal or primitive human was much more aware of his or her environment because there were no “safe” areas and “un-safe” areas. The indoor pacification of humanity has dulled our attention to our surroundings.

Humans have become the intermediate step in the technological program that convert natural capital into financial capital, merely cogs in the machine

the net present value of an eternal annual cash flow of $1 trillion is only $20 million @ a 5% discount rate economically it would be more rational to destroy the planet in 10 years to generate a $100 trillion income than getting $3 trillion indefinately

interest is the basis of modern competition ensuring that someone will always be left out in the economic game of musical chairs a credit score is just a number that quantifies your ability to compete in the modern monetary system

our “winners” [the CEO's, athletes and such:] have maximizes rational “self-interest” only to find the promise of secure happiness betrayed

© jritch for a robot, i am not, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ascent, complete control, defining qualities, economic game, human beings, technological program, theology

I’m on page 280 or so and as I read up to page 500 I will type up the notes that I jot down every few days.

1. humans have become the intermediate step in the technological program that convert natural capital into financial capital, merely cogs in the machine
2. the net present value of an eternal annual cash flow of $1 trillion is only $20 million @ a 5% discount rate
3. economically it would be more rational to destroy the planet in 10 years to generate a $100 trillion income than getting $3 trillion indefinately
4. interest is the basis of modern competition ensuring that someone will always be left out in the economic game of musical chairs
5. a credit score is just a number that quantifies your ability to compete in the modern monetary system
6. our “winners” [the CEO's, athletes and such] have maximizes rational “self-interest” only to find the promise of secure happiness betrayed

#6 was particularly interesting to me today because I was listening to a discussion on NPR’s Talk of the Nation last week regarding “Who should make the most money?”. Guest Ron Shapiro was interviewed, the guy that negotiated A-Rod’s contract. Ron referred to the fact that all the money didn’t make A-rod as happy as he thought.

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Post tags: ascent, economic game, NPR, personal context, ron shapiro, seperation, talk of the nation, technological program