Abandoning Cargoism & Embracing Our Options

MonteQuest

As humans, we tend to be very shortsighted; driven by short-term gains. We live for today and assume tomorrow will take care of itself. The first thing we must learn to do as humans and custodians of the future is to consider the impact of our present actions on that future and modify those actions accordingly. If we cannot do that, the time will come - and soon - when the future will definitely be worse than the present.

We are largely a Cargo Cult, and we suffer from Cargoism: the belief that carrying capacity can "always" be raised anew by further technological breakthroughs. We blindly copy something, without understanding it, to get some positive effect that we’ve observed.

As Catton observed in his book Overshoot: “People continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for"de-colossalization" to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem.”

Bottom line: There is no techno-fix. But we are obsessed with the notion that one exists.

As James Kunstler points out: " It only made me more nervous, because this longing for "solutions," strikes me as a free-floating wish for magical rescue remedies, for techno-fixes that will allow us to make a hassle-free switch from fossil hydrocarbon power to something less likely to destroy the Earth's ecosystems (and human civilization with it). And I think such a wish is, in itself, at the root of our problem -- certainly at the bottom of our incapacity to think clearly about these things.”

As Sharon Astyk writes: “That is, we're betting our kids lives on the hope that at some point renewables will become self-perpetuating, even though we have no idea how that will happen, that would require major, multiple large scale technical breakthroughs in many cases that might or might not happen, AND, we're not willing to do it now, when we have energy to burn, lots of money and no crisis - instead, we're going to bet the farm (and lives) on the fact that we'll be able to do this 20 or 30 years into a depletion crisis with much less money, much less oil, much less availability in a society that we simply don't know the shape of. That is, we're going to stick the next generation with the problem, and hope it isn't too serious. But if we can't do it now, when we have lots of energy and lots of money and all the time in the world, the chances are excellent we won't be able to do it.”

The Planning Forum has been discussing our options for years, so we know what they are. It’s time to start embracing those options and learn to cope and adapt to the coming changes.

Trying to dodge the die-off bullet is not an achievement to pursue; it is a detour to the same destination.
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A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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SchroedingersCat · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 517

There are no solutions at this point -- only adjustments. Some people will adjust better than others.
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Civilization is a personal choice.

Narz

MonteQuest

AirlinePilot

roccman

It is every man for himself [.]

You wander into my world uninvited and if I have a clean shot I am taken it.

Your body will rot where it falls.
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"There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins

"... hope is a rotten-thighed whore" Niko Kazantzakis

We are going back to roccland - me

Narz

Mesuge

Options, options..

What technofix?
How to powerdown or re-industrialize?

-Shall I walk in a plastic crap 3yrs lifespan, CAD designed shoes manuf. at asian labor camps? Apart from some luxury shops the shoe industry doesn't exist in the first world anymore.

-Shall I ride a bicycle, which has been already for some time a brain child of taiwanese CAD operators/engineers and chinese CNC factories.. Including most of the spare parts..

-Shall I convert used compact sub 700kg car into ~40km range lead acid sled, which will survive the the first PO turmoil well, since these batteries still are and will be produced in the US/EU giving thus 10-20yrs of likely operation span..

-Shall I ponny up the budget and buy "state of the art" brand new plugin hybrid or full EV from some dubious startup or asian brand?

-Shall I participate in the vast info-highway aka WWW vulgo ad hoc networked puzzle of server computers to learn about all these options (incl. food and other PO related) at all?

What I'm getting at, "technofix" has become vastly inflated term overhere. There will be always a small doze of old-prevailing or new technology local or imported even in the worst case scenario of downturn in response to PO effects. The "west" is not going to re-industrialize the former consumer/production base again in its all glory, there is no energy, fin. capital, craftsman-skilled labor force, and time to do it..

The other option is Olduvai and/or to go hard core anthropik tribe, which is just a pipe dream at most locations of this overpopulated planet..
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DOOMerotron: at all-time high [8.1] out of 10..

katkinkate

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 719

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 719

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 719

MyOldTDiIsStillGoing

allenwrench ask: Notice anything repetitive about these statements?

allenwrench, we been looking at it for a LONG TIME, is it!?!?!?!?:

I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
I, me , I'm, my
...and continuing into the infinite loop of Narcissism...therefore, no need to repeat it SELF.

Help us out, we are so confessed. Notice, none of the words in the above were used in this statement about our confusion. We are trying our best to get out of this loop.
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THE SIMPLE LIFE: One frozen pond, a few sticks, a little round puck, and a bunch of rowdy kids.

Brickhead · Coal Joined: Jun 23, 2008 Posts: 7

It's pretty sad that we (the majority of us anyway) cannot think beyond ourselves and really think about how we fit into the whole. When I was a young lad I grew up poor. I come from a single parent family that had to collect food stamps and welfare. I kind of know what it's like to live poor. I now have a college education and make a decent salary but I can still remember what it was like. Powering down doesn't bother me at all. It's the people that have never experienced something like I have (I'm not saying I've had the worst life but it wasn't easy) can't imagine that they will have to go through this. It's like you guys have said before people go through denial and that is where a lot of anger will come from. My wish would be as a society we would think about this situation and power down of our own free will. To bad it's not gonna happen. It's the mentality that your neighbor needs to power down first, THEN YOU WILL. It's a cycle that while some think their moving in the right direction keeps them on the path to their ultimate demise.

HappyFace · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 23, 2008 Posts: 26

Ecology is more threatening to the capitalists than evolution. Evolution tells us to compete. Ecology tells us to cooperate.
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