I've been reading your posts for awhile, but today I saw link to this post on Naked Capitalism. Congrats - you deserve the attention, (so does Tim Morgan) although I think most of NC's readers, along with the majority of Western civilization humans are not ready to fully accept any one of the Overshoot predicaments humans are in, let alone what their combined consequences mean for civilization and the human race.
It's not a matter of intellect or not caring. I'm not the first person to say it, but I think the majority of humans are psychologically/emotionally incapable of accepting what is already well underway with unavoidable horrors to come. The Nazi's and their dying days denial are great to poke fun at, but they were typical human deniers.
..
The video below was meant to mock, but it works fine as a Psychology 101, (Chapter 3 Denial) training video.
*Climate change deniers (Erik the Viking)*
"This little clip seems to be a great metaphor for climate change deniers. It's from the 1989 movie "Erik the Viking" and features Terry Jones (who also directed) as King Arnulf of the island nation of High Brazil. The sinking of the island is actually brought about by the gods' displeasure at an act of violence by one of the Vikings, but the metaphor is too delicious to pass up!"
I can do better than that. I think the intent beind your words doesn't really require dismissing morality plays as morality plays, it only requires ignoring them.
"Ignoring the morality plays for a second, we can see that this is the playing out of declining fossil energy availability. Taking in the morality plays for a second, we can see that Russia invaded a democracy to serve it's own national interest."
In dismissing the moral side of things, and echoing Russian talking points about "spheres of influence", do you realise how much you are taking the Russian side of things? The Russian government seems to see our minds as a battlespace, and takes it to be worth it's time and resources to try to persuade us to oppose our own government and interests in this world.
I'm expecting a rough century as the fossil fuel economy declines, but I'm rather hoping to be caught by a rising green energy economy as the fossil age ends. Mining equipment can be made electric and refining processes can be changed - electrolysis may be difficult to make cost effective, but in theory it can be used on almost any ionic compound.
Mining and engineering Experts who have actually analysed the possibility of whether a transition to renewable would be feasible (in particular for mining) have come to very different conclusions >> The Realities of the Energy Transition:
Moreover, what is promoted as "green" is not really green: "All leading researchers on the subject of a viable energy transition to renewables acknowledge that renewable energies are not really green, first of all, and that they would not have the capacity to fully replace fossil fuel energies. At best their use would be a useful short-term strategy as a solution for softer landings when the initial energy decline really starts to set in ..."
I feel like you take them to be authoratative. The experts arguing about the impossibility of energy transition are usually trying to replace all the current energy use on earth with renewable energy supply. I'd agree that that's unlikely to happen, or not quickly anyway. I think more likely one hundred years from now, the rich will drive cars and ordinary people will get about on bicycles, possibly electric ones or tricycles for the older people. Although electric overhead wires for power supplies is an established technology for rail networks, why not roads too? That could significantly cut down on the need for battery minerals.
I tried to estimate the current total embodied energy of nitrogen fertilizer used across the world, and the figure I came up with was in the same area as total world solar energy production. But solar energy production is growing at 25% per year, and that was last year.
Energy transition is coming whether we want it or not, it doesn't matter whether we can fully replace the current energy use with renewables. We will likely be left with whatever renewable generation is still running for a while, until everything is in place to build new renewables with only renewable feedstocks. (Which is why any legal requirement to take them down should be seen as an issue requiring immediate correction - and it's not profitable, overall!)
Do you think people will stop using renewables because of the lack of availability of fossil fuels? I think they'd be the highest priority for society, something in the area of food.
Your comment stated that the fossil fuel age will end, but it won't, because it can't for the following reason:
The energy transition is not really a transition, but an expansion into alternative methods of energy production IN ADDITION to fossil fuels ... Our dependence on fossil fuels are becoming even more entrenched because renewable energies can only be produced WITH fossil fuels ... Did you actually watch the linked Video Presentation?
These are people with extensive experience and they are tasked with feasibility studies for the energy transition. It will not be possible to build renewables only with renewable feedstock because the minerals that are used to manufacture renewables are in short supply too - especially copper (see the presentation). The world might get away with one or two generations of renewables at most (at scale).
BTW, 2024 was a record year for coal:
"Coal is often considered a fuel of the past, but global consumption of it has doubled in the past three decades."
Back in the '70s, I wrote a simple program (in PLOne) projecting resource growth/depletion vs World economic/population growth...It showed an inflection point around 2014, at which point trouble was likely to erupt...Amazingly to me, in 2014 the US/NATO overthrew the Ukrainian government, and the battle for Ukrainian and Russian resources began.....
Having subsequently worked for Big Oil/Gas, I can confirm that major prospects have become scarce, and their exploitation difficult...BP's Horizon catastrophe has confirmed it, as has Chevron's expensive failed attempts to drill offshore Alaska, frustrated by the weather...I disagree with the notion that Russia is in decline, however, because Russia has vast resources which haven't even begun to be exploited....Remember that "proven reserves" is an SEC invention, which only measures fully connected oil and gas....
You might have a point, there… 2014 was also "peak longevity" in the US, which I see as a leading indicator. Unlike most of the rest of the world, this downward trend has continued in the US post-COVID, and is now two years below what it was in 2014.
When I emigrated to Canada in 2006, I gained two years of life. By 2014, that had grown to four years! If things keep going this way, pretty soon, I'll be immortal!
Thanks for seeing 2024 off with another post. Much appreciated as always. I have a minor disagreement here:
"Contrary to the facts on the ground, the West remains completely incapable to comprehend that they’ve irretrievably lost dominance over the rest of the world. The Rest of the World, on the other hand, is still reluctant to recognize that they are next on the chopping block as cheap energy and resources run out"
Both the west and the rest share the same stubborn defiance of the relationship between surplus energy and civilization. The west's dominance (indirect mass parasitism) and the rest's subservience (elite complicity and direct parasitism) are both expressions of interdependence, and yet that very interdependence is fuelling war. We might be entering an age of high intensity semi-conventional warfare restricted to mutually agreed upon territories like Ukraine or Syria or Afghanistan, which is as insane as it sounds.
"One thing is for sure: we are on an accelerating path towards a sudden downturn — a true Seneca Cliff — with a potential to end global civilization as we know it in a matter of decades. Of course many things are possible in the future, and this is just the worst case scenario. One thing is for sure: we (especially in the West) are past our peak and must contend with a long decline."
That makes two things that are for sure: the Seneca Cliff and the long decline (unless the first is just the worst case scenario). Unfortunately, they can't both be true.
Yes - It could be stated such, if one is focused upon a collapse event rather than a process, however time is subjective and '..a matter of decades..' is actually considered a rapid #collapse by most collapsologists, generally speaking, so I suggest there is no contradiction being expressed here.
When you are straddling the peak, things seem to take forever — like the plateau in Permian Basin fracking, for example. (https://blog.gorozen.com/blog/the-depletion-paradox) 1% down today is perhaps 3% next year.
A lot of things start small, then cascade out of control. Most events are stochastic. Witness water coming to a boil in a kettle — the whole thing doesn't boil at once, but once it does, it's clear there was never any question that it was *going to* boil!
Of course, external events can modify things. If the water is about to boil, and then there's a power outage, boiling never happens.
That's like what happened with COVID. We *could* have chosen to use that to begin controlled degrowth… but we didn't.
"Anyone trying to explain any of these events as a morality play with good and bad characters, or as one country invading another clearly do not know what they are talking about."
Assuming facts not in evidence!
I prefer that you stick to physics and stay out of fringe politics.
You're not just contradicting the single-party US system with two right wings and their captured media; you're contradicting a wide spectrum of international media, from Al Jazeera to The Guardian. You're drifting from multiple source journalism into parroting conspiracy theory.
I don't disagree that we face political chaos. I just don't see any point in picking sides, especially when not supported by any credible news reporting.
Yes - Thanks Jan, however I think it is useful that B has pointed out the complex intersection of #LimitsToGrowth with geopolitical power plays. Seen through the lens of energy and resources, various politically expedient rhetorical devices fall apart and the ugly truth of accelerating collapse is revealed - I believe this is what B is pointing to in this writing.
I often post links to the Honest Sorcerer here. Great complement to B's work. A quick scan shows record breaking heat continues in so many parts of the globe, plus wildfires, drought, flood, off season tornados. Fun times, my friends!
Of course the universe had a beginning. The fact that the universe is (a) dynamic is all the proof that is needed to establish that it has a beginning. Momentum is defined by its temporary nature.
That's not to say, of course, that this universe is not a single cycle of a multi-cycle function for which the point of origin resides outside of time.
Thanks Andy but I don't see that that hypothesis stands to reason. A new expanding universe would displace that existing universe in which the black hole that created the new universe had formed, cancelling each other out, so to speak - like wave cancellation.
Black holes are minor, local, mysterious phenomena in the grand scheme of this universe.
Perhaps your implying that black holes birth universes in other 'dimensions.' I don't believe in other 'dimensions' because they don't stand to reason based on this universe, and this universe is all we have on which to base our reasoning.
Thats fair. Personally I believe the entire universe is connected and bound together by some sort of conscious intelligence as I am a student of zen/the tao. I basically believe nature and the entire universe is God and we are all the universe experiencing itself. We know energy cannot be destroyed, so when one universe dies I think another is born in its stead in an endless cosmic cycle of death and rebirth. Black holes is just one possible mechanism for this. This notion is what makes the most sense to me knowing all that I do about physics, cosmology and philosophy. I am open to a multiverse existing as well, but until tech exists to explore it I dont worry about it much either way.
I'm an animist because animism was our now-misunderstood ancestral common human cultural heritage. If it was the universally adopted, evolving worldview of humans for 99pc of its history then who am I to adopt otherwise, is how I see it.
We're not far apart, though animism doesn't admit a God, only a Creator about which nothing can directly be known, hence the God assignation, which is a qualitative word, is inadmissable conjecture. Animism is little c conservatism -- minimalism -- and must obey pure Reason, as best as Reason can be ascertained, at all times.
All indigenous societies had some close variation of the same minimalist cosmology. The cosmology common to the Red Man societies was encapsulated by the phrase "the great Spirit/Mystery in the sky," with sky meaning everything - meaning earth, sky, and everything else in the universe. Meaning that all matter, from light to plasma to elemental tomineral to biological all required spirit/consciousness/intelligence, in varying densities, in order to exist, to occupy spacetime, to hold themselves together, and to evolve.
Animist Spirit/Mystery often gets mistaken for their god, by civilization, but it means the consciousness running through all things, just as you see it.
When we see that energy can't be destroyed, we are only seeing that from within the universe, so although I agree with you that the universe feels like it's most likely to be a cycling toroidal structure and thus energy is never ultimately destroyed, I also want to add that if Creator created energy in the first place then we have to admit the possibility that Creator still is contingent and therefore could destroy energy, but that of course has nothing to do with physics.
Multiverse is a mental construct only, as I see it. It's just another kind of human wanting something for nothing. A postmodernist addiction to recursion.
Have you heard of the book Stalking the Wild Pendulum? Ill confess much of my concept of the universe as a toroidal cyclical structure was cribbed from there. If you ever hear someone talking about CIA studies on consciousness, this scientists work is where they got it from. I have dozens of books on Universal consciousness related subjects. The Perennial Philosophy of Universal consciousness which predates organized religion fascinates me. Animism sounds the same as the Tao, or the Advaita vedanta branch of hinduism. Different nznes for the same idea. As you say, humanity has had this concept all along. I agree with all that you have said here, I struggle to go full pan psychism with my beliefs by ascribing consciousness to inanimate objects, but as we know that reality is largely an illusion I continue to keep an open mind but try to approach everything through the lens of rigorous philosophical and scientific logic.
Think of energy depletion and the exploding debt as burning both ends of a candle. One end is the depletion of energy and raw materials. The other end is the man-made act of debt creation to defer financial costs. Because of the need for trade and hence a form of money to facilitate trade in a highly specialized industrialized civilization, we have this other end of the candle- i.e financialization. But they are both burning, and when they meet, that's the end of it.
We are probably only a few decades away from societal collapse. Its not clear what will tip us over the edge, but its undeniable we are at the brink and society is getting weirder and more violent as a result.
The world system’s nonlinearities make jumpy behaviour very possible, though I’ve not yet learned the right kinds of maths to do anything like describe the bifurcation points of Bardi’s Seneca Cliff ODE. I also mentioned elsewhere that the idea of 1500M dying from climate issues over the next 10 yrs shouldn’t be thought of as 150M/yr dying every year but rather the whole 1500M dying at a random year out of the 10. Mass casualty events have been seen to happen in these ways with famines and plagues over the course of history only lasting a few years at a time even with high mortality with maybe only the Black Death lasting longer.
I've been reading your posts for awhile, but today I saw link to this post on Naked Capitalism. Congrats - you deserve the attention, (so does Tim Morgan) although I think most of NC's readers, along with the majority of Western civilization humans are not ready to fully accept any one of the Overshoot predicaments humans are in, let alone what their combined consequences mean for civilization and the human race.
It's not a matter of intellect or not caring. I'm not the first person to say it, but I think the majority of humans are psychologically/emotionally incapable of accepting what is already well underway with unavoidable horrors to come. The Nazi's and their dying days denial are great to poke fun at, but they were typical human deniers.
..
The video below was meant to mock, but it works fine as a Psychology 101, (Chapter 3 Denial) training video.
*Climate change deniers (Erik the Viking)*
"This little clip seems to be a great metaphor for climate change deniers. It's from the 1989 movie "Erik the Viking" and features Terry Jones (who also directed) as King Arnulf of the island nation of High Brazil. The sinking of the island is actually brought about by the gods' displeasure at an act of violence by one of the Vikings, but the metaphor is too delicious to pass up!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-HOYTz-rs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Final Climate Round-up Post of 2024
*31st December 2024 Today’s Round-Up of Climate News*
by Panopticon | Dec 31, 2024 | Climate | 11 comments
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/12/31/31st-december-2024-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
Climate change... yet another undeniable truth brought to you by the same people that sold you the plan-demic.
I can do better than that. I think the intent beind your words doesn't really require dismissing morality plays as morality plays, it only requires ignoring them.
"Ignoring the morality plays for a second, we can see that this is the playing out of declining fossil energy availability. Taking in the morality plays for a second, we can see that Russia invaded a democracy to serve it's own national interest."
In dismissing the moral side of things, and echoing Russian talking points about "spheres of influence", do you realise how much you are taking the Russian side of things? The Russian government seems to see our minds as a battlespace, and takes it to be worth it's time and resources to try to persuade us to oppose our own government and interests in this world.
I'm expecting a rough century as the fossil fuel economy declines, but I'm rather hoping to be caught by a rising green energy economy as the fossil age ends. Mining equipment can be made electric and refining processes can be changed - electrolysis may be difficult to make cost effective, but in theory it can be used on almost any ionic compound.
Mining and engineering Experts who have actually analysed the possibility of whether a transition to renewable would be feasible (in particular for mining) have come to very different conclusions >> The Realities of the Energy Transition:
https://vimeo.com/1034752953
Moreover, what is promoted as "green" is not really green: "All leading researchers on the subject of a viable energy transition to renewables acknowledge that renewable energies are not really green, first of all, and that they would not have the capacity to fully replace fossil fuel energies. At best their use would be a useful short-term strategy as a solution for softer landings when the initial energy decline really starts to set in ..."
https://energyshifts.net/truth-and-energy-at-the-crossroads/
I feel like you take them to be authoratative. The experts arguing about the impossibility of energy transition are usually trying to replace all the current energy use on earth with renewable energy supply. I'd agree that that's unlikely to happen, or not quickly anyway. I think more likely one hundred years from now, the rich will drive cars and ordinary people will get about on bicycles, possibly electric ones or tricycles for the older people. Although electric overhead wires for power supplies is an established technology for rail networks, why not roads too? That could significantly cut down on the need for battery minerals.
I tried to estimate the current total embodied energy of nitrogen fertilizer used across the world, and the figure I came up with was in the same area as total world solar energy production. But solar energy production is growing at 25% per year, and that was last year.
Energy transition is coming whether we want it or not, it doesn't matter whether we can fully replace the current energy use with renewables. We will likely be left with whatever renewable generation is still running for a while, until everything is in place to build new renewables with only renewable feedstocks. (Which is why any legal requirement to take them down should be seen as an issue requiring immediate correction - and it's not profitable, overall!)
Do you think people will stop using renewables because of the lack of availability of fossil fuels? I think they'd be the highest priority for society, something in the area of food.
Your comment stated that the fossil fuel age will end, but it won't, because it can't for the following reason:
The energy transition is not really a transition, but an expansion into alternative methods of energy production IN ADDITION to fossil fuels ... Our dependence on fossil fuels are becoming even more entrenched because renewable energies can only be produced WITH fossil fuels ... Did you actually watch the linked Video Presentation?
These are people with extensive experience and they are tasked with feasibility studies for the energy transition. It will not be possible to build renewables only with renewable feedstock because the minerals that are used to manufacture renewables are in short supply too - especially copper (see the presentation). The world might get away with one or two generations of renewables at most (at scale).
BTW, 2024 was a record year for coal:
"Coal is often considered a fuel of the past, but global consumption of it has doubled in the past three decades."
https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2024
Nothing is as it appears - don't assume anything based on headlines or group-think, you are bound to be wrong.
Green energy economy... Even less credible than the 2 planes 3 towers story.
Back in the '70s, I wrote a simple program (in PLOne) projecting resource growth/depletion vs World economic/population growth...It showed an inflection point around 2014, at which point trouble was likely to erupt...Amazingly to me, in 2014 the US/NATO overthrew the Ukrainian government, and the battle for Ukrainian and Russian resources began.....
Having subsequently worked for Big Oil/Gas, I can confirm that major prospects have become scarce, and their exploitation difficult...BP's Horizon catastrophe has confirmed it, as has Chevron's expensive failed attempts to drill offshore Alaska, frustrated by the weather...I disagree with the notion that Russia is in decline, however, because Russia has vast resources which haven't even begun to be exploited....Remember that "proven reserves" is an SEC invention, which only measures fully connected oil and gas....
Crap in crap out. That's your program for you.
You might have a point, there… 2014 was also "peak longevity" in the US, which I see as a leading indicator. Unlike most of the rest of the world, this downward trend has continued in the US post-COVID, and is now two years below what it was in 2014.
When I emigrated to Canada in 2006, I gained two years of life. By 2014, that had grown to four years! If things keep going this way, pretty soon, I'll be immortal!
Nice! But now Canada's in trouble....
Substack really needs an "agree, but don't like it" button…
Hence the refusal of Big Oil to leave Russia after the Ukraine war began, and the lack of sanctions being applied to them....
Then bring on the Resource Wars of Extermination …
Thanks for seeing 2024 off with another post. Much appreciated as always. I have a minor disagreement here:
"Contrary to the facts on the ground, the West remains completely incapable to comprehend that they’ve irretrievably lost dominance over the rest of the world. The Rest of the World, on the other hand, is still reluctant to recognize that they are next on the chopping block as cheap energy and resources run out"
Both the west and the rest share the same stubborn defiance of the relationship between surplus energy and civilization. The west's dominance (indirect mass parasitism) and the rest's subservience (elite complicity and direct parasitism) are both expressions of interdependence, and yet that very interdependence is fuelling war. We might be entering an age of high intensity semi-conventional warfare restricted to mutually agreed upon territories like Ukraine or Syria or Afghanistan, which is as insane as it sounds.
Thanks B . I'll include this and Gail Tverberg's December piece, with the Limits To Growth BAU and the 2024 update of that graph, also. https://i0.wp.com/ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/State-of-the-world-plot-BAU-and-recalibration-23-with-Gails-labels.png?ssl=1
The question is "What control narrative?"
I think WW-3 has to be the control-narrative. What else will do?
Excellent analysis. Furious agreement. Much appreciation. Thanks B.
"One thing is for sure: we are on an accelerating path towards a sudden downturn — a true Seneca Cliff — with a potential to end global civilization as we know it in a matter of decades. Of course many things are possible in the future, and this is just the worst case scenario. One thing is for sure: we (especially in the West) are past our peak and must contend with a long decline."
That makes two things that are for sure: the Seneca Cliff and the long decline (unless the first is just the worst case scenario). Unfortunately, they can't both be true.
ERROR! ERROR!
Yes - It could be stated such, if one is focused upon a collapse event rather than a process, however time is subjective and '..a matter of decades..' is actually considered a rapid #collapse by most collapsologists, generally speaking, so I suggest there is no contradiction being expressed here.
I agree. Nothing really happens instantaneously.
When you are straddling the peak, things seem to take forever — like the plateau in Permian Basin fracking, for example. (https://blog.gorozen.com/blog/the-depletion-paradox) 1% down today is perhaps 3% next year.
A lot of things start small, then cascade out of control. Most events are stochastic. Witness water coming to a boil in a kettle — the whole thing doesn't boil at once, but once it does, it's clear there was never any question that it was *going to* boil!
Of course, external events can modify things. If the water is about to boil, and then there's a power outage, boiling never happens.
That's like what happened with COVID. We *could* have chosen to use that to begin controlled degrowth… but we didn't.
"Anyone trying to explain any of these events as a morality play with good and bad characters, or as one country invading another clearly do not know what they are talking about."
Assuming facts not in evidence!
I prefer that you stick to physics and stay out of fringe politics.
You're not just contradicting the single-party US system with two right wings and their captured media; you're contradicting a wide spectrum of international media, from Al Jazeera to The Guardian. You're drifting from multiple source journalism into parroting conspiracy theory.
I don't disagree that we face political chaos. I just don't see any point in picking sides, especially when not supported by any credible news reporting.
Yes - Thanks Jan, however I think it is useful that B has pointed out the complex intersection of #LimitsToGrowth with geopolitical power plays. Seen through the lens of energy and resources, various politically expedient rhetorical devices fall apart and the ugly truth of accelerating collapse is revealed - I believe this is what B is pointing to in this writing.
Jan, I have been seeing your posts for years, and you have been wrong most of the time. Wrong again.
Wait... is this Pintada from ofw? How the hell are ya, glad to see you're still lingering! Anyway season's greetings and all that.
If by "wrong", what you mean is "I don't agree with you", then I agree with you! :-)
We should welcome collapse - really. https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/fuck-everyone-and-everything
Thanks for your always fine work. I am terrified for my grandchild about to be born. I think collapse is escalating. Energy of course.
Nah - let's cheer on collapse... its' the only way to end this shit show https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/fuck-everyone-and-everything
Fossil Fuel does not exist....Period
I often post links to the Honest Sorcerer here. Great complement to B's work. A quick scan shows record breaking heat continues in so many parts of the globe, plus wildfires, drought, flood, off season tornados. Fun times, my friends!
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/12/28/28th-december-2024-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
Everything that has a "beginning" has an "end"...But the "Universe" has no beginning
Of course the universe had a beginning. The fact that the universe is (a) dynamic is all the proof that is needed to establish that it has a beginning. Momentum is defined by its temporary nature.
That's not to say, of course, that this universe is not a single cycle of a multi-cycle function for which the point of origin resides outside of time.
If black holes birth new universes it could be an endless expanding cosmic web.
Thanks Andy but I don't see that that hypothesis stands to reason. A new expanding universe would displace that existing universe in which the black hole that created the new universe had formed, cancelling each other out, so to speak - like wave cancellation.
Black holes are minor, local, mysterious phenomena in the grand scheme of this universe.
Perhaps your implying that black holes birth universes in other 'dimensions.' I don't believe in other 'dimensions' because they don't stand to reason based on this universe, and this universe is all we have on which to base our reasoning.
Thats fair. Personally I believe the entire universe is connected and bound together by some sort of conscious intelligence as I am a student of zen/the tao. I basically believe nature and the entire universe is God and we are all the universe experiencing itself. We know energy cannot be destroyed, so when one universe dies I think another is born in its stead in an endless cosmic cycle of death and rebirth. Black holes is just one possible mechanism for this. This notion is what makes the most sense to me knowing all that I do about physics, cosmology and philosophy. I am open to a multiverse existing as well, but until tech exists to explore it I dont worry about it much either way.
Cool Andy, thanks.
I'm an animist because animism was our now-misunderstood ancestral common human cultural heritage. If it was the universally adopted, evolving worldview of humans for 99pc of its history then who am I to adopt otherwise, is how I see it.
We're not far apart, though animism doesn't admit a God, only a Creator about which nothing can directly be known, hence the God assignation, which is a qualitative word, is inadmissable conjecture. Animism is little c conservatism -- minimalism -- and must obey pure Reason, as best as Reason can be ascertained, at all times.
All indigenous societies had some close variation of the same minimalist cosmology. The cosmology common to the Red Man societies was encapsulated by the phrase "the great Spirit/Mystery in the sky," with sky meaning everything - meaning earth, sky, and everything else in the universe. Meaning that all matter, from light to plasma to elemental tomineral to biological all required spirit/consciousness/intelligence, in varying densities, in order to exist, to occupy spacetime, to hold themselves together, and to evolve.
Animist Spirit/Mystery often gets mistaken for their god, by civilization, but it means the consciousness running through all things, just as you see it.
When we see that energy can't be destroyed, we are only seeing that from within the universe, so although I agree with you that the universe feels like it's most likely to be a cycling toroidal structure and thus energy is never ultimately destroyed, I also want to add that if Creator created energy in the first place then we have to admit the possibility that Creator still is contingent and therefore could destroy energy, but that of course has nothing to do with physics.
Multiverse is a mental construct only, as I see it. It's just another kind of human wanting something for nothing. A postmodernist addiction to recursion.
Have you heard of the book Stalking the Wild Pendulum? Ill confess much of my concept of the universe as a toroidal cyclical structure was cribbed from there. If you ever hear someone talking about CIA studies on consciousness, this scientists work is where they got it from. I have dozens of books on Universal consciousness related subjects. The Perennial Philosophy of Universal consciousness which predates organized religion fascinates me. Animism sounds the same as the Tao, or the Advaita vedanta branch of hinduism. Different nznes for the same idea. As you say, humanity has had this concept all along. I agree with all that you have said here, I struggle to go full pan psychism with my beliefs by ascribing consciousness to inanimate objects, but as we know that reality is largely an illusion I continue to keep an open mind but try to approach everything through the lens of rigorous philosophical and scientific logic.
Think of energy depletion and the exploding debt as burning both ends of a candle. One end is the depletion of energy and raw materials. The other end is the man-made act of debt creation to defer financial costs. Because of the need for trade and hence a form of money to facilitate trade in a highly specialized industrialized civilization, we have this other end of the candle- i.e financialization. But they are both burning, and when they meet, that's the end of it.
We are probably only a few decades away from societal collapse. Its not clear what will tip us over the edge, but its undeniable we are at the brink and society is getting weirder and more violent as a result.
A few years, not decades - it's already happening and is bound to accelerate at an exponential speed. Use 2025 for Prepping, you won't regret it.
Don't waste your time and your money
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-utter-futility-of-doomsday-prepping
The world system’s nonlinearities make jumpy behaviour very possible, though I’ve not yet learned the right kinds of maths to do anything like describe the bifurcation points of Bardi’s Seneca Cliff ODE. I also mentioned elsewhere that the idea of 1500M dying from climate issues over the next 10 yrs shouldn’t be thought of as 150M/yr dying every year but rather the whole 1500M dying at a random year out of the 10. Mass casualty events have been seen to happen in these ways with famines and plagues over the course of history only lasting a few years at a time even with high mortality with maybe only the Black Death lasting longer.
Yup, a few years, not decades. My opinion is that B needs to reconsider his timeline.
Shale production is now in decline ... as we know depletion with shale is far more rapid than with conventional oil....
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/predictions-for-2025
Jack be nimble Jack be quick Jack jump over the candlestick.