[Ibon]

The affluence of industrial civilization afforded many people the opportunity to specialize and differentiate, to self actualize and fine tune their personal interests. To free themselves of the tyranny of whatever group their parents and grand parents belonged to, to become independent of whatever conservative culture held them. A larger percentage of the global population lives in urban environments today than ever before. Urban areas generate more exposure to divergent views, urban areas allow for more anonymity. Rural villages and agrarian areas are more culture bound, more religious, gossip creates a force that bends individuals towards conformity. Just 80 years ago most of the population lived in these more conservative bound rural agrarian communities. Today it is reversed with the majority of the worlds population living in urban areas. This trend has been amplified with the digital revolution. Think of all of us here at peakoil.com, coming together as a community from all around the world. We have a consensus of sorts of the problems we see, but we close our labtops and walk about society and our view is extremely fragmented and divergent from the concerns of most.

This week here at Totumas we had two groups. A meditation retreat from Europe practicing some eastern spiritual discipline, the members all vegetarian and vegans. Candles and incense and chanting. The other group were aged entomologists. Bug collectors excited about obscure beetles and moths. These two groups were not compatible, the vegans could not understand how I could allow guests with killing jars on the property and the entomologists looked perplexed when they heard the chanting from the mediators mixing with the chorus of howler monkeys.

This got me thinking how diverse these two groups were and how diverse individuals are globally. We live in a time of peak individual diversity.

One of the reasons we have not been able to make the required sacrifices to move our global society toward a more sustainable model is because this would require a universal consensus acknowledging the problem and all agreeing on prioritizing mitigation. What exasperates this process is this trend of individualism and the huge diversity of interests and priorities.

There is a silver lining to consequences coming our way. It will reverse the trend of individualization, we will become poorer collectively but we will also be herded towards a convergence of agreements on living within limits. This will come from external consequences, not internal agreement. This will be very challenging initially for most of the worlds population that has increasingly enjoyed living with the anonymity of individualism. Painful in fact. On the other hand it will swing the pendulum towards consensus, make us less fragmented as a population.

That is one of the reasons I do have some optimism regarding the future. We will be forced to align ourselves together to manage the consequences. Less abstract individualism.

In a weird way physical limits will act in a similar way that religions do in small towns.

External consequences to human overshoot will form a kid of cultural glue that will bring us together.

Does this ring true or sound totally absurd?

[ROCKMAN]

"This got me thinking how diverse these two groups were and how diverse individuals are globally". Diverse in SOME aspects of their lives. Just as everyone on the planet is different in SOME ways from everyone else. But then there's the commonality. Everyone has the same basic needs: food, water, shelter, community, self-defense, procreation resources, etc. etc. And most of those necessities require energy input to varying degrees. Both groups gathered in the same area: did they all walk there or did they consume some form of fossil fuel in the process? Did the vegans bring all their food items or did they also do some local shopping to supplement their diets? Local shopping for materials transported by form for of ICE? Did the bug people study their prey via candle power or did they use lighting derived from fossil fuels?

Obvious the commonality list is very long but I'll stop now...the point should be clear. One can pick a hundred differences between one's self and hundreds of millions of others. But none of that changes the pressure for self-preservation shared by the overwhelming majority of the planet. And that is not only the tie that binds us all but also the source of conflict that is currently ripping apart much of the world. The vegans aren't chanting "Death to the bug people!" At least not a consensus of them...yet. LOL. More convergence? Depending upon the demands of one group converging on another that isn't necessarily a good thing.

[Timo]

"More convergence? Depending upon the demands of one group converging on another that isn't necessarily a good thing."

A good thing is vastly different from something that is inevitable, but i do get your point. We all have our own personal limitations of our tolerance of others who are different from us. I mean, Geebus! Reading some of the discussions here at PO, i thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Al Dente that this place is as close as most of us will ever get! Yes, this place is a refuge where people of similar minds can congregate to discuss important issues to all of us. In that regard, PO.com is very similar to Mt. Totumas. However, just as Ibon has recently experienced, the same flame can attract very different species of insects, and in close physical proximity to each other, that close proximity can lead to very unpleasant confrontations. In other words, our opinions, and even our motivations about expressing our opinions would be greatly altered outside of this digital world where we all congregate.

In the physical world, who knows how we would react if we had these same discussions face to face?! Anonymity does have its benefits. Those benefits can be removed, and can even be reversed by placing opposing views physically against each other. Again, Geebus! Just look at the behaviors of Republicans today as they try to figure out what the party even stands for as they all head toward Cleveland in July. People are receiving death threats, and are being assaulted over their political views, all in the name of democracy. (BTW, that was not intended to be an insult to Republicans. Just an observation of an ongoing clusterfuck based on actions, as opposed to ideology.)

I think this illustrates where Ibon and i part ways in our views of the future, and for the record, i hope he's right, and i'm wrong. I just can't, for the life of me, see humans coming to any rational, sensible equilibrium in our treatment toward each other. Humans are not that advanced in our mental capacities. Self preservation will trump (not the Donald!) the collective interest. Push will come to shove, and at that point, it's survival of the fittest, and the fittest will have the most guns, and everyone else will be dead, all in the name of Darwin. Those with the guns will end up dying, anyway, because they killed off everyone who has the mental capacity to help them survive in a world without all of the modern conveniences we've all grown dependent upon, the absence of which will ultimately lead to the pushing and the shoving that begins our own extinction event. In that world, and at that time, the eastern religions and the entomologists will not have the slightest interest in helping each other survive. They'll each be in their own separate worlds, fighting for their own survival.

Future generations will have to compete against each other in a world of decreased resources, increased disease, increased temperatures, and greatly increased hostility from other human beings. If the planet doesn't kill you in some manner, another human will.

IMO.

[Ibon]

Obvious the commonality list is very long but I'll stop now...the point should be clear. One can pick a hundred differences between one's self and hundreds of millions of others. But none of that changes the pressure for self-preservation shared by the overwhelming majority of the planet. And that is not only the tie that binds us all but also the source of conflict that is currently ripping apart much of the world. The vegans aren't chanting "Death to the bug people!" At least not a consensus of them...yet. LOL. More convergence? Depending upon the demands of one group converging on another that isn't necessarily a good thing.

Competition for diminishing resources is indeed a huge part of the story. With less energy and less wealth there is also less excess to indulge in individualism. It becomes a less complex world in terms of enabling every individual to indulge in his or her whims, opinions, judgement, hobbies, obsessions, etc. Let's face it, energy enables all the nuts and bolts of a civilization but it also enables the extravagance of individual self actualization. In the 19th century for example only a couple of explorers roamed the seas and continents discovering exotic cultures and species. Most of the rest of the educated world would content themselves with reading about it in the limited publications and literature available.

Contrast that to today. Hundreds of millions can fly to Bangkok or hundreds to Totumas, they can post pics and impressions on their Facebook account. You had to be very smart or very rich to travel in the 19th century. Today we reward the mediocre with this extravagance.

A less complex world materially means that privilege to indulge in excesses are reserved for a very few. Not a broad middle class where every one is attempting to be a small king or queen of his own making.

Enabling so many billions to feel entitled to individualism is exactly the definition of bad management.

A culture that rewards the privilege of individual expression only to its best and wisest is a better managed culture.
The rest should be socialized to humble expectations.

Now this might seem like quite elitist sentiments and yet from an energy perspective a society thus organized would be further along the road to sustainability.

We need to breed generations where 95% are socialized to very simple and humble expectations and only those that excel will earn the privilege of being mentors, teachers, authors. Today the signal to noise ratio is such that 99% of whats out there is noise and mediocre and the 1% that merits mentorship and leadership is lost. We have bred a global society of individualism but this has not lead to excellence. It has lead to a lot of noise that is void of quality and substance. It is ironic in a sense that individualism has lead to a dumbing down of the masses.

The experiment of an enabled global middle class has been an abject failure, not only in wasted consumption but also in the mediocre quality of the average world citizen.

Moving through the consequences of human overshoot will return the historical norm where only a limited few will have the privilege to have their names in print, their music heard, to be mentors and leaders. That is where the consensus and convergence should take us. Everyone will be humbled to just shut up and listen to those few wise enough to earn the privilege of speaking and writing.

So hath Ibon spoken ..... ha ha ha

[Tanada]

I would state that the truism is "physical choices are dependent upon the available energy."

This is true whether the choice is for a bedridden elderly person wanting to choose to use the bathroom facilities rather than the bed pan, or the dreamer who wants to fly from wherever they are to wherever they dream of visiting far away. In the first case the energy is internal biological energy, in the second it is fossil energy shaped into an aircraft and propelling it from origin to destination.

If we loose our current civilization and come crashing down to a lower energy extraction rate then our choices necessarily narrow considerably. That isn't to say our choices cease, after all people moved from Africa out to the entire seven continental size land masses with nothing but biological energy by walking, swimming and building simple water craft to cross channel. By 40,000 ybp humans had spread all the way to Tasmania south of Australia and by 20,000 ybp they had spread across North and South America. In the 1500's you could, if you were wealthy enough, hire a ship in Europe and make that same journey to South or North America in 2-3 months. Hundreds of thousands of people more or less did that from 1500-1870 using nothing but sail power before steam engines were fuel efficient enough to manage a full crossing without running out of fuel.

From the 1880's to the 1950's if you wanted to travel across the Atlantic as a paying passenger you could take a steam ship. Then we moved on to heavier than air propeller airplanes that could do it in a day. Then a jet that could do it in 12 hours, then 7 hours, then hypersonic Concorde would take you across in 3 hours.

Now we have given up Concorde, but you can still book that 7 hour flight if you can afford the expense. International shipping is almost entirely cargo today, but their is nothing requiring it to be so, it just can not compete with aircraft for passenger traffic. Start taking away all the subsidies given to air travel by the many governments of the world and that would change virtually overnight.

Right now I have not flown on any aircraft in 8 years, yet my taxes go to subsidize air travel on a massive scale. You can say I have the choice to fly if I wish and the means to pay for it, but if you add up all the subsidies taken in the form of taxes where was my choice? Politicians back before many of the members here were even born decided that the prestige of having an airport in their city was worth millions in subsidies, even billions in some cases. And those subsidies have never ended from the time those decisions were made.

Just as an example look at LaGuardia Airport in NYC. In 1929 they tore out an amusement park for the first phase of construction. It is a 'public' airport which means the taxpayers own it and pay for it, week in and week out ever since 1929. The 'public' are paid usage fees by airlines that use the airport, but those fees are nowhere near enough to cover the sunk costs of building the airport, nor the constant maintenance costs to keep it running. They also do not replace the tax revenue that would be generated by other types of commercial development on what is a rather large piece of land in a very crowded piece of landscape.

LaGuardia is unfortunately not the exception, but is much more often than not the rule. Airports are a huge resource drain on the public coffers and rarely if ever draw in the kind of business claimed to offset the expenses in other ways. As a public investment they are a financial boondoggle from start to finish.

So the consensus has been for the last 70+ years that airports are a 'public good' but if you use some honest accounting methods you can easily prove this to be a false statement. Unfortunately most people have no interest in math and tend to believe what they are used to is how things are supposed to be. If you suggested decommissioning Los Angeles Airport and replacing all that land with housing or industrial development you would be howled down as some sort of maniac.

So bottom line, I don't think you will see any convergence on a new consensus position until such time as the pain of continuing BAU is too great to carry any further. Sadly when we reach that point the whole subsidized way of life that we currently have on many levels will fall apart so that a new paradigm can come into existence, but I don't believe any of us can predict what that new paradigm will be. When societies go through those kind of changes the successor culture can be anything from mildly to wildly different.

[Timo]

Tanada, i'll paraphrase your previous post here in a way that i think summarizes the entire point you made about public subsidies for airports, and the correlation between airports and the reduction in time necessary to travel from point A to point B.

Time is money.

You are absolutely correct that virtually every city demands the presence of a local airport. Most cities, indeed, have some form of a local airport, and nearly all of them are publicly subsidized. I fly, on average, about once (or less) per year, yet i pay for the "privilege" of having two local airports 24/7/365. This privilege is sold to us taxpayers as a tool to enable economic development because having that airport nearby reduces the time it takes for people and products to move between any two destinations. Therefore, the cliche that time is money is actually an oxymoron, because the less time it takes to move products around the globe, the more money is promised in return. Less time is more money.

I'll also add the obvious statement that energy is not a factor in that equation. Time and money are the only two variables considered. If you were politically stupid enough to place energy into that equation, that simple inclusion would fundamentally change everything about how we live. Changing our current way of life is not a politically viable option. Therefore, we ignore that variable, because ignorance is bliss.

We'd rather live the lives of stupid kings and queens, instead of brilliant, intelligent paupers.

The consequences of our stupidity don't really matter, because we only live once.

[onlooker]

I agree that moving through the bottleneck will exert a tremendous homogenizing force on humanity. It will do so by the great trauma that all will bear witness too. It will do also by completely tearing asunder figuratively and literally the fabric of civilization. In the rubble of our once mighty civilization we will have confront the stark realization of the fragility of life and of human constructs. In these ways, remaining humans having been so seared by all this, will once again by necessity assume a more modest role within and among the Natural world. Thus, the remaining humans can be free to accentuate the priorities that should govern them henceforth. The priorities of humility, compassion, solidarity, love and a bountiful love and respect for Mother Earth. The one caveat is the negative natural tendencies related to selfishness always lie within us even if dormant ready to assert themselves unless the society at large retains the memory of Great Downfall and its lessons.

[SeaGypsy]

In the meantime, I keep recalling an old post of Ibons, a thread starter about 'what if nothing much changes (in our lifetimes)? Kestler & the long emergency, chaos theory & novelty competing with inevitable universal death. On that score I'm starting to move towards ennuis position- a lot of folks here in mid age winding up preaching doom right up to the old folks home, mean while letting life slip by like something should have been just never quite was.

[Timo]

Excellent description of a significant portion of humanity, SG. I'll put myself into that same category of people - trying to do something, but never quite getting there or getting much, if anything, done to address the source of our concerns.

By the same token, however, there may be some silver lining to our collective ennui, or inability to address what we all see is going wrong with the world. We get it. We understand the consequences of our actions, and we try to self-regulate our actions to minimize those consequences. Sure, we could all do more to mitigate the consequences of our actions, but doing that would fulfill the sense you described that the older we get, the more we see our life just slipping by, while we're not really able to enjoy the fact of being alive. This would require a doctorate in sociology, but i highly suspect that "we" are in the minority of the human population in our understanding of action and consequence. That said, i wonder if our own self-realizations/reflections of our lives are that dependent on what we see as the action/consequence loop that's driving the planet off the cliff. Everyone lives their own lives, and this feeling of a "lost life" in terms of coulda, shoulda, woulda, may be just a part of human nature when we reach the mid to latter stages of our lives. I doubt hardly anyone who has ever lived hasn't retrospectively thought of something they'd have done differently during their lives. There are more things to do in life than our lifetimes afford to us the ability to do.

And, we all make mistakes. If only there was a backspace button on the keyboard of life. I'd certainly edit a few chapters.

[SeaGypsy]

Thanks Timo, reminds me of Nietzsche's Zarathustra- "how many things must he have not done to reach such perfection?' The guy who invented modern individualism over 100 years ago, in his real life was tragically lacking- in health, love, family, friendship, self assuredness. It appears Nietzsche probably only had sex twice in his life, the first time shamed him & broke his heart, decades later the second gave him syphilis which eventually drove him mad & killed him.

The deeper you travel in life the more intense the experience of myriad paradox. The longer you improve your inner practice the more able & accepting you become, but also the more detached, aware that there is only one person you can take responsibility for. Part of being self responsible is accepting there are many things one can't do, for myriad reasons, will not achieve.

The most powerful person in the world- is it?- the wealthiest, or the furthest away from wealth? The freest person- the one who can have anything, or the one grateful to have the little he needs? Who's judgement really matters- God's? a community?, or just the few intimates around us?

[ralfy]

There was such "cultural glue" experienced by peoples in the past as empires collapsed for various reasons, only for survivors to thrive and create new empires.

And likely the combinations of global crises makes the current situation far different from what happened in the past.

[onlooker]

There was such "cultural glue" experienced by peoples in the past as empires collapsed for various reasons, only for survivors to thrive and create new empires.

And likely the combinations of global crises makes the current situation far different from what happened in the past.

Yep no new Empires are going to be created anytime soon if ever.

[SeaGypsy]

I'm watching nationals of several countries busy empire building right where I live & work every day. While the west has peaked & gone into retrospect, many other countries are pushing upward & forward, doom be damned. Call them the $2 a day 20 years ago, $20 dollar a day now global middle.. Added with their diaspora, these people are potent. Important resurgent cultures such as the Khmer, once a superpower, still display all the characteristics- tenacity, dedication, goal oriented teamwork.

[ennui2]

There are more things to do in life than our lifetimes afford to us the ability to do.

Just imagine what it was like when the average life-expectancy was in the high twenties or low thirties. The oppressive sense of looming mortality must have felt like living in Logan's Run.

I'm not necessarily advocating waste and hedonism, but if we're going to fall down Olduvai Gorge it seems like a real waste to be in a position of historically being able to live like a king and opting for no-impact-man instead. At the very least I think it's better to appreciate the good things we have while we still have it than to be constantly wracked with guilt or bitterness over it.

People never fully appreciate what they have until it's gone. I'm not saying walking through a Wal-Mart is a transcendent experience, but the fact that all this stuff is at arm's reach for so cheap IS truly exceptional and will one day be the stuff of myth and legend.

[KaiserJeep]

Heinlein summed it up very succinctly:

"Every man since Adam and Eve got kicked out of Paradise is as eccentric as a pet raccoon."

- Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land

[Ibon]

There was such "cultural glue" experienced by peoples in the past as empires collapsed for various reasons, only for survivors to thrive and create new empires.

And likely the combinations of global crises makes the current situation far different from what happened in the past.

I think we may see two macro movements at play at the same time. The unglueing of the global economic system that will increasingly fail to hold itself together and the less complex world that follows will be more regional and the convergence and consensus will tighten within these regional populations.

So a tearing apart of a complex world due to declining energy, environmental chaos and population contraction. And then a coalescing and convergence regionally. Increasingly defined by the carrying capacity of consumption and population that each region can generate without external imports. This may actually take place gradually through several generations or more abruptly. Nobody knows.

I would not under estimate our global civilization though. There is still a lot of resiliency out there to send food to areas when drought strikes. To send teams of pathologists to hold back epidemics, for global powers like China investing in far off places. This is the glue that still holds our global civilization together. We require some pretty severe consequences to start the unglueing when nations increasingly pull back to reserve resources and investments to within their borders as a result of crisis.

[Ibon]

Just imagine what it was like when the average life-expectancy was in the high twenties or low thirties. The oppressive sense of looming mortality must have felt like living in Logan's Run.

I am not sure that there was this oppressive sense of looming mortality. That may be your projection sitting in the here and now of our modern world where our expectancy of a long and stable life looks back on these times with this sense of oppression.

For those that were actually there and living without these assumptions there may not have been this sense of oppression.

Think of Mozart or Chopin, both died young living in a world where high mortality rates and disease was the norm. You do have to ask yourself if life back then wasn't more intensely lived, the uncertainty of a long life focused your powers of creativity and sense of being with a deeper vertical sense.

We live today long and shallow lives by comparison.

Or is this idea of a deeper vertical life just some romantic notion that I am projecting on to these past times?

Only the shadow knows!

[onlooker]

Its funny because this crystallizes the notion that we are living in intense times now. At least in terms of the challenges and uncertainties of what the future holds. I think at all times people at some point in their lives have truly have had the epiphany that life is fragile and that challenges exist but can be overcome. So these realizations can be heightened in times of stress and uncertainty. I will say I admire those here who have acted purposefully and with set objectives despite the uncertainties inherent in any type of preparation now for the future. At the same time we can all understand that we must live for today and not be so worried about what tomorrow will bring.