I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1428 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:21 pm Post subject:
somethingtosay, I'm not sure about your idea that the birth rate increased in the 40s due to increased sex in single family homes. I won't go off on that tangent except to say that I believe young healthy married people will always find a way to be intimate even under the most crowded of conditions.
The population boom did not start in the 1940s and I don't even think you can say it is directly related to the use of fossil fuels. It started a century or two before and was related to increased food supply and to increased opportunities to start new households. People marrying and starting their families early results in large families and a high birth rate. To a certain extent the baby boom is probably most closely related to the long economic upswing that occurred in the 50s and 60s. If you would like to put it in terms of "energy slaves", I would say that it wasn't the number of energy slaves that was important, it was the rate of increase in energy slaves. Oil use was increasing by 7% up to the late 70s. This oil boom fed the rapid increase in the world's economy and provided many valuable opportunities for young people to acquire a livelihood and start a family.
The key reason for the falling birth rate in industrialized societies is that for a couple to be able to afford to raise children in a socially acceptable manner requires more and more money and effort. First it is not socially acceptable to have children that you can not afford to raise. Second to acquire a livelihood requires more and more education. This directly reduces the number of years of effective fertility. The extra number of years that the offspring stay in the nest (while acquiring the necessary education) also has a depressing affect on the parents ability to raise additional children. Interestingly increased life expectancy has not led to increased wealth generation that is devoted to child rearing. Instead people choose to or are forced to retire and therefore must spend a significant portion of their effective work life saving money to fund that retirement instead of investing the money and effort in their family. In effect the increased life expectancy has a depressing effect on people's fertility.
In a less developed country, an individual requires fewer years of education before he can acquire a livelyhood and start a family. This reduces the cost of raising children and increases the number of effective years of fertility. A cattleherder in Mali is able to marry once he is in his teens. He may not live nearly as long as the computer programmer but he or she has many more fertile (married) years. Since the Mali cattleherder does not plan to retire he doesn't devote much energy to saving for retirement and all his productive savings can be devoted to investing in his children.
In terms of marginal returns, the cost to replicate a household unit is much lower in Mali than in Canada therefore the marginal return is much higher. In other words our decreasing fertility rate is a sign of our decreasing marginal return and an indication that we may be in the yellow or red zone of Tainter's complexity cost/benifity graph. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
The above link points to a Tainter essay in which he explains how Byzantium managed to prolong it's survival by deliberately simplifying its organisational structure (in contract to the Western Roman Empire).
There could be a lesson for us there!
Thanks for the link to the essay it was very interesting. I liked the comparisons of the Byzantine model, the Roman model and the European model. This got me thinking. How will the Byzantine model be applied for Peak oil and which nation will apply it? It's a little late, maybe I'll post my thoughts tomorrow. For those of you having trouble with the link above, here's a working link to Tainter's Essay
"Today, when more complexity creates less return, the result is a decrease in the energy slaves available to to the adult population. The result of this is a decrease in leisure time, mobility and wealth. The birth rate will then go into decline as parents know or learn very quickly that children are a drain on available energy slaves. Also, today, the extended family is not available as it was in the past, making the chore of raising a family ever more difficult. Sex leading to birth decreases."
No no no no. The birth rate in America and the rest of the industrialized world has been declining at least since the 1970s, especially of the white and Japanese populations. In fact, the birth rates of the world as a whole, if I recall correctly, has gone down, but those of whites and Japanese have gone below 2%, below the replacement rate, meaning that these populations will soon decline.
In the past, it used to be that children were often needed to help the parents with work (such as on the farm) and they were needed to support the parents in old ages. Also, people believed in being fruitful and often wanted to have many descendants. Today, required those things are not, because of technological advances and things like Social Security, so that may be one reason why the birth rate has declined so precipitously. Social movements like the feminist movement are probably reasons too.
Also, has anybody heard of Marc Widdowson's theory of the dark ages at
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1428 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 11:43 am Post subject:
I found this study today from TD Bank that finds when corrected for the aging of the population and the increased level of schooling the median wage of Canadians has DECREASED between 1981 and 2004. That sort of observation shatters my faith in progress and reminds me of the decrease in marginal returns predicted by J. Tainter. People are having to run harder and harder just to stay still.
"In fact holding age and education constant. Canadians of both genders saw outright declines in their wages. The real median hourly wage for university-educated men of a fixed age fell by 5.8 per cent between 1981 and 2004 while the real median hourly wage for non-university-educated men of a fixed age fell by 13.9 per cent. For women also holding age constant the result is a 4.8 per cent drop in real median hourly wages for university-educated women and a 4.0 per cent drop for non-university-educated women. Astonishingly, for all levels of education and for both sexes, workers earned less in 2004 than in 1981."
I don't know if this kind of analysis has been done for other countries, but I would be interested if anyone else has encountered similar findings for their country. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
Joined: Jan 11, 2005 Posts: 572 Location: southern Wisconsin
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:36 am Post subject:
Just wanted to add a couple of thoughts to the Western fertility discussion. One significant factor in declining birth rates has got to be the availability of inexpensive and effective birth control devices. Being an early baby boomer, I lived through that era. The Pill prevented millions of unwanted births, believe me. My father relied on animal skin condoms - and luck.
Also, with the sixties, there came a general disdain for established institutions. This meant that the Catholic prohibition regarding birth control was largely ignored by my Catholic friends.
Another factor is the mass movement of Westerners off the farm. My mother was one of 12 children. In her era having lots of children made economy sense. My grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves. My mother was typical of her siblings who left the farm - she had two children.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1428 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:25 am Post subject:
Quote:
Another factor is the mass movement of Westerners off the farm. My mother was one of 12 children. In her era having lots of children made economy sense. My grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves. My mother was typical of her siblings who left the farm - she had two children.
I think while this view has an element of truth, it doesn't accurately represent the complexity of the system. People didn't consider their children their "energy slaves" (they could hire an extra hand if it came to that). While the children did at some point start to become a net benefit to the farm they required years of investment of time and effort before they were of much use and then all too quickly they left to set up their own household, usually with economic assistance from their parents. Children didn't make economic sense as labour saving devices. They made sense as a place to invest your surplus time and effort. Compared to other possible investments children gave the highest possible returns, in terms of long term security and happiness. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
My grandparents farmed with horses and had no electricity until the 30s. Their children WERE their energy slaves.
I will continue to recommend The Allometry of Human Fertility and Energy Consumption to people wishing to understand the link between energy use and population. One of the primary causes (and perhaps the underlying cause) of Western nations fertility decline comes from having access to more energy per capita. This dovetails nicely with the economic arguments as the higher energy use societies end up having the highest economic growth rates. It explains the larger family size in energy and economically poor nations.
This paper establishes that parents have to trade off between the number of children and the energy investment that it takes to raise that child to raise them to a competitive level of fitness. These studies (and I'll assume based on this discussion that this book expands on this, though perhaps not within allometric theory itself) show that our human built energy transport networks scale similarly to the biological transport networks that we can explain with power laws. Allometric theory shows that metabolic energy throughput determines biological rates because selection for both the maximum energy throughput and the maximally efficient energy transport networks. Since these behave with diminishing power law relations, as energy use per capita increases, fertility rates will decrease.
To quantify this, let us take a look at Kleiber's law. It shows that the metabolic rate(B) is proportional to mass(M) to the 3/4 power.
B ~ M ^ (3/4)
Other biological rates(R) work on a negative 1/4 power to the mass.
R ~ M ^ -(1/4)
which reworks to
R ~ B ^ -(1/3)
Of course, human energy throughput also includes extra inputs so our reproductive rates don't come directly from our mass. By plotting human fertility rates with energy per capita use, we find that we DECLINE in fertility as we RISE in energy use, at a -(1/3) rate.
Tying this all into the thread, this means that as world energy per capita continues to fall, we should expect to see a resurgence of human fertility though with a higher death rate due to lack of energy inputs. For civilization to continue on its current course and for us to see the population limitation that has been projected from developing countries we must not only replace the energy lost due to Peak Oil we must find an exponentially larger source or the energy per capita of these countries will never reach a point where fertility will decrease.
And unlike collapses of civilizations before with local ecosystem damage and local famine, this collapse has global implications. The decreased availability of energy will cause a fertility rates to rise, meaning lower per capita energy. Combined with a lower overall energy picture with a population growth that demands an exponentially larger energy source, and we have an intensification of our environmentally destructive resource patterns, which also tends to get worse with lower energy and economic situations. While we may measure the time in decades, I doubt that any of us will refer to these times as "soft".
Of course, we could choose to live a different way. But civilization’s people have true belief in its unlimited power, even when the science says otherwise. Hopefully we will make the right choice. _________________ EntropyFails
"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 399 Location: Northern California, USA
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
ElijahJones wrote:
So in Tainter's theory the attempts to rebuild the world trade center and erect the world's tallest building in Chicago are attempts at legitimation and the moneys could be better spent elsewhere? Nice article Leanan, I am going to read that book when I get time, but I almost feel like you gave us such a thorough overview that I may not need to. I still will though.
EJ
I think you're not seeing the big picture. The costs of building these structures is trivial in comparison with the "legitimization" expenditures of the government otherwise known as middle class entitlements (social security, medicare, etc). The construction of these buildings may run a few billion dollars. Entitlements cost 100s of billions of dollars a year.
The best analogy to the Mayan Pyramid building is actually our military expenditures. The Mayans Kings built Pyramids to impress the other Mayan Kings as to how powerful they were, and how they should not be attacked or raided because their mighty structures were proof as to their abilities to the armies they could muster. It was sort of an Arms race model. The Mayan buildings even had very elaborate murals of captives being tortured and ritually sacrified on them. Of course the government these days just focuses on building the army and lets the embeded journalists and their news agencies do the intimidating of other governments.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1428 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
abelardlindsay wrote:
The best analogy to the Mayan Pyramid building is actually our military expenditures. The Mayans Kings built Pyramids to impress the other Mayan Kings as to how powerful they were, and how they should not be attacked or raided because their mighty structures were proof as to their abilities to the armies they could muster. It was sort of an Arms race model. The Mayan buildings even had very elaborate murals of captives being tortured and ritually sacrified on them. Of course the government these days just focuses on building the army and lets the embeded journalists and their news agencies do the intimidating of other governments.
That is simply one interpretation. The legitimization interpretation is also quite plausible. Who's to say it wasn't for both reasons. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
Joined: May 17, 2004 Posts: 293 Location: San Jose, CA
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 12:04 am Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
Does anyone else feel that the government's response to the Katrina disaster is an example of Tainter's theory of complexity eventually giving diminishing returns?
It's my understanding that FEMA was redirected to focus on terrorist incidents, after the attacks of 9/11. Their budget for dealing with natural disasters was cut. We also now find ourselves in Iraq, probably to secure our future oil supplies.
Now we have a huge natural disaster, and many of us are appalled by the government's fumbling response.
My feeling is that because FEMA (and the government) was now focusing on terrorism, and many members of our National Guard were in Iraq and unavailable to restore order in New Orleans, we were not able to respond to this disaster like we might have in the past.
Is this an example of collapse, or the process of collapse? I don't think it's imminent, but I see a lot of big problems piling up (peak oil, medicare, social security, debt, terrorism, etc.) that are stretching our resources to the point where we can't deal with the more everyday ones (hurricanes, maintenance of infrastructure, etc.).
I just found it very unsettling to see the lack of response by the feds to this disaster, and I couldn't help thinking of Tainter's theory.
Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 399 Location: Northern California, USA
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 3:09 am Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
Carrie wrote:
Does anyone else feel that the government's response to the Katrina disaster is an example of Tainter's theory of complexity eventually giving diminishing returns?
It's my understanding that FEMA was redirected to focus on terrorist incidents, after the attacks of 9/11. Their budget for dealing with natural disasters was cut. We also now find ourselves in Iraq, probably to secure our future oil supplies.
Now we have a huge natural disaster, and many of us are appalled by the government's fumbling response.
My feeling is that because FEMA (and the government) was now focusing on terrorism, and many members of our National Guard were in Iraq and unavailable to restore order in New Orleans, we were not able to respond to this disaster like we might have in the past.
Is this an example of collapse, or the process of collapse? I don't think it's imminent, but I see a lot of big problems piling up (peak oil, medicare, social security, debt, terrorism, etc.) that are stretching our resources to the point where we can't deal with the more everyday ones (hurricanes, maintenance of infrastructure, etc.).
I just found it very unsettling to see the lack of response by the feds to this disaster, and I couldn't help thinking of Tainter's theory.
This may be an example of declining marginal returns but I don't think Iraq has anything to do with it. If anything, because of Iraq, less effort was expended on Katrina relief efforts than would normally be expended. So we have a diminished amount of effort, yielding a lower return. Not really tainteresque which is about more effort yielding lower returns.
What could be said though is that the return on the organizational complexity of the federal government becomes negative after a certain point, especially in emergency management. If the states were solely responsible for their own disaster preparedness and relief than they might get better return on investment because the complexity would be lower than that of a larger federal organization, they would be able to respond faster, be monitoring the situation more closely and have much better ability to process the specialized knowledge regarding vulnerabilities and preparedness than a massively funded federal beauracracy that would struggle to acheive better returns through more effort and complexity.
A good analogy is the centralized roman army having to march from place to place to maintain order throughout the empire requiring significant logistics efforts vs the Byzantian model where the army was not a centrally managed professional class, instead local landowners were all members of the army and defended their own locales.
Last edited by abelardlindsay on Sun Sep 04, 2005 10:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 1:37 pm Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
There is a book out there called The Cultural Conquest of Ireland. It makes the distinction between "having cultures" as opposed to "being cultures." After all the necessities of living (shelter, food, water, clothing) are taken care of, people in a "being culture" will turn their attention to being more, i.e. a better musician, better artist, better storyteller, better healer, better Mother, Father, Neighbor, or whatever. Their self-worth is wrapped up in BEING more. In a "having culture" once all necessities are taken care of, people turn their attention to having even more food, water, shelter, or clothing. Their self-worth is based on HAVING more. Although the book concentrates on Ireland, it draws parallels with all the "being cultures" that once existed all over the world from Africa to South America to the Native Americans to the Aborigines. It just stands to reason that the "having cultures" have literally eaten up the "being cultures" until we have an entire planet operating under the "having culture" pardigm. We are eating up the planet that sustains us, and will soon start canabilizing other "having cultures." War is inevitable.
I haven't read The Collapse of Complex Societies, but plan to now that I have found this discussion. It seems to me that where once a complex society occupied a finite geographical area, and its collapse would not affect people on another continant; this complex society has involved the entire planet. Heaven help us when it collapses.
I think there needs to be a complete paradigm shift of every person on the planet to a "being culture" (Unreasonable, I know). I see it happening sporatically with middle agers questioning their life's purpose and with rat race drop outs. With the proliferation in our society of people on anti-depressants, it is obvious that the quick fix of buying that sparkly new SUV doesn't bring lasting satisfaction. I think people don't know that there IS another alternative...another way of living that brings self-esteem, support from a loving community of souls, a chance to make a real contribution to the lives of those around you, to be respected, loved, and a part of something that really matters. If this comes about on a world-wide scale, it will be because of the collapse. Perhaps instead of all of us reading these posts in horror, we should be concentrating on the opportunity that is being presented to the human race... a chance to evolve into something more.
As a side note, I hope those stock piling guns will ask questions first before shooting. If my husband and I roam the countryside looking for a community to settle in, please don't assume we are looters...you might be shooting someone that could be of great value... an engineer? Construction worker? Electrician with the know-how to wire up a wind turbine? Organic Gardener? Herbist? Doctor? Nurse? Veternarian? This is a chance to work together, people! The government likes to use fear to divide. Don't let the government get its way! We need each other more than ever.
Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 4:40 am Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
How's this for a conspiracy theory then? A few people in Glastonbury UK have been observing that the delay in sending aid to New Orleans may have helped the powers-that-be by giving them an interesting window on what might happen during other large scale disasters or the breakdown of society as a whole post Peak Oil. Just though I'd throw that one in.
Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 7:09 pm Post subject: Re: The Mechanism of Collapse
RobintheDruid wrote:
How's this for a conspiracy theory then? A few people in Glastonbury UK have been observing that the delay in sending aid to New Orleans may have helped the powers-that-be by giving them an interesting window on what might happen during other large scale disasters or the breakdown of society as a whole post Peak Oil. Just though I'd throw that one in.
Robin
No, that was not the main point. TPTB wanted to extort Gov. Blanco into letting them federalize NO by withholding and inmterdicting humanitarian aid. The destruction of the city was a golden opportunity for a tryout of martial law and gun seizure from law abiding homeowners, property seizure, ethnic cleansing, internment camps, and media control at gunpoint on US soil. They would have done this out of greed and lust for power even if there was an unlimited oil supply.
Now that the feds have completed their land grab, the pork barrel contracts in the tens of billions of dollars have been given out to Fluor, Bechtel, Shaw and Halliburton. They also got to use mercenaries and foreign troops on US soil, all goals for the NWO. (It was likely Blackwater Inc. contractors that blew the 17th St. canal levee to flood the 9th ward and got into a gun battle with the NOPD. That was why Mayor Nagin said he was afraid of being killed by the CIA. He was terrified that his men had killed 5 NWO operatives.)
Buried in the news of this week, the Padilla case, the appeals court says the US govt doesn't have to respond to citizens petitioning for redress of grievances and the President can imprison anyone anytime forever without charges, trial, habeus corpus, or presumption of innocence. It is over. The US is now legally a dictatorship, just like Germany after 1933. If you don't like that, leave North America while you can. _________________ "The world is changed... I feel it in the water... I feel it in the earth... I smell it in the air... Much that once was, is lost..." - Galadriel
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