I hate the term metacrisis, but truth is we have one.

[K-Dog]

And play this after the video.


We would not have a mutagenic exponential crisis if capitalism did not make all decisions.  (Now I sound as idealistic as he does.)



*  Too much to quote in this video.  Do what I did, watch it three times.





Would you rather have Trump or Biden for the next four years or this guy?

This is a serious question.

[monsta666]

Pretty decent video. The guy lays down the issues rather well and it is good to see him connecting the dots between energy/resource consumption to our problems of pollutions and the way all these symptoms are tied to excess growth in our economies. Where the video falls down is how he suggests there is a solution. In this current climate I don't believe there is a solution whereby we can have all 8 billion people alive to the same living standard we are accustomed too. Also got to remember a lot of folks expect their standard of living to go up in places like India/China.

Whilst I would agree a reduction in total consumption will alleviate the issues of exploitation and excess pollution the issue here is that this reduction will cause the economy to fail and with our interdependent systems and globalised supply chains this will lead to chaos. Food will not be delivered, lights going out not enough energy to heat homes, hospitals will not be able to function and so on. This will cause an immense amount of suffering and it is hard to fathom anyone thinking they will be winners in this scenario. Collectively we would be getting materially poor with rich suffering disproportionately.

Couple this with the fact people often measure their self-worth by how money they earn and this lack of income (and likely employment) will be seen as massive failure on their part. I find it hard to imagine how people will see themselves as winners in this scenario especially if their loved ones are suffering. This type of suffering will create a lot of pushback and people will demand that the status quo continue. This desire to keep BAU running will certainly not be limited by big corp and corrupt politicians. Average Joe will also want it as the current system supports them and their family. To change course the system has to fail so utterly that people see no choice but to pursue other economic options.

But even if, for sake of argument, the masses discovered the inherent flaw in our economic/monetary system there would still be a lot of suffering. What we have is a predicament and not problem. The difference between the two is a problem can be solved while a predicament can only be managed.

To put this as an analogy it is bit like a patient being diagnosed with cancer. For quite some time the patient is dying but there are no visible symptoms. There are underlying issues but they can go unmasked or are explained away. It is only at the end when things unravel quickly and the patient dies. The condition can be managed if treatment is started early but if the condition is too far advanced we can only manage the final outcome (death) by minimising the amount of pain that will be inflicted.

The way I see things is we are at stage 4 cancer but remain in denial that we have cancer. The future pain can still be mitigated even at this late juncture but the longer the delusions continue the more painful the death will be. In this case death refers to BAU.

Would you rather have Trump or Biden for the next four years or this guy?

This is a serious question.

Well not hard to beat any of those two. I do get the feeling if this guy became president then he would suffer an "unfortunate" accident during his first term. This assumes he tries to follow through with his goals. Saying that considering the open hostility he would face from not just the Republican party but the Democrats it is likely he would become an impotent president.

[RE]

I think the solution when it becomes necessary to start rationing fuel is that it will be blamed on the Russians and/or the Chinese and we will go to war.  It will be claimed in the media that the Chinese are stealing "our" oil with some false flag tanker hijackings in the Red Sea.  This will give an excuse for Martial Law to be declared and all the National Guard troops to be called up to maintain order and keep local supply chains for food running.

Internationally, we will reinstitute the Draft, and hijack oil ourselves bound for smaller countries along with stopping sending out food aid.  The whole 3rd world in South America, Africa and SE Asia will be cut off and left to starve.  No news of what is happening out there will be available here.  We won''t know any more about it than the average German knew about Buchenwald, Aucshwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

Then it will be a war of attrition between theChinese, Russians and FSoA as they begin to run short of even rationed fuel and food.  The big goobermints of all 3 nation states will fracture and break into regional powers run by warlords.

Hopefully no nukes will be used, since there's little tactical reason for it.  It's more like a siege war than one fought on battlefields between countries.  Fighting will mostly be internal between different factions and warlords.

In a few years you won't be able to get any ammo and the fighting will be with spears and bow and arrow.  Eventually it will spend itself, and small pockets of survivors will eke out a living scavenging, hunting, fishing and farming.

RE

[K-Dog]

Couple this with the fact people often measure their self-worth by how money they earn and this lack of income (and likely employment) will be seen as massive failure on their part.

It is a very unnatural condition.  But, capitalism very much wants people to blame themselves for being unemployed.  One size fits all don't you know.  The system can't be at fault, so the individual must be blamed.

Part of the population is required to be unemployed to maintain current conditions, and everyone suffers.  Capitalism needs "a reserve army of labor" to take advantage of periodic opportunities, and to keep wages down to maximize profit.

Denying people work is abuse.

[K-Dog]

I think the solution when it becomes necessary to start rationing fuel is that it will be blamed on the Russians and/or the Chinese and we will go to war.

RE

That would be very stupid, a country already short on fuel goes to war.  History would repeat.  Hitler's armies failed to secure access to Russian oil, and in 1943 began a slow retreat, beaten back by overwhelming Soviet forces.  As the war came close to Japan, oil imports plummeted and stockpiles were depleted.  Heavy units of the Japanese navy were confined to port, and their aircraft were grounded. Training programs were cut as there was no fuel for pilots and crew.  The quality of Japanese naval personal and pilots crashed.

Nothing would be gained.

Internationally, we will reinstitute the Draft, and hijack oil ourselves bound for smaller countries

If we are rationing there will be no oil for smaller countries.  Below are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of crude oil during 2022.  The US is at number 4.  We also send wood pellets to Germany.

    Saudi Arabia: US$224.8 billion (16.7% of exported crude oil)
    Canada: $120.5 billion (8.9%)
    Russia: $119.5 billion (8.9%)
    United States: $117 billion (8.7%)
    United Arab Emirates: $112.7 billion (8.4%)
    Iraq: $82.3 billion (6.1%)
    Norway: $57.8 billion (4.3%)
    Kuwait: $54.3 billion (4%)
    Nigeria: $49.9 billion (3.7%)
    Brazil: $42.7 billion (3.2%)
    Angola: $37.4 billion (2.8%)
    Kazakhstan: $35.4 billion (2.6%)
    Oman: $33.2 billion (2.5%)
    Libya: $31.9 billion (2.4%)
    Mexico: $31.8 billion (2.4%)

It could be the US crashes before the other producers, but how much oil will there be to steal?  Not so much.

Ancient empires that spread by rape and pillage could only do it when the agricultural needs of the homeland did not need attention.  When the world is going Soylent Green, exploitation will become local.

Yes, dumfuckery could give us a war at any time.



When Karma caught up to this dude he was assassinated with his wife and WWI started. 

But then there were things to gain and riches to be made.  All the oil in the world had yet to be burned.  The world had an embarrassment of riches then.  With a fraction of the population the world has now.  Our collapsing world offers no riches.

A despot starting a war would have to promise riches, and he would also have to believe there were riches to be gained, or he would know he had just started the process of executing himself.  Such a lie would be fatal after it was discovered that there were no riches to be gained.

Troubles in the homeland will demand full attention.  There will be no resources for foreign involvements.

[monsta666]

K-Dog's argument seems more convincing. If there are severe conflicts at home, it is hard to imagine large scale warfare being possible. What seems more likely is you get civil wars sparking across the globe and various countries splitting into smaller states as power becomes increasingly decentralised.

Rather than the US going to war in some Middle East excursion I could envision a scenario were Texas, California etc. secede from the US forming their own countries. Rather than share the wealth, the individual states decide to keep it to themselves to feed their own constituents. Poorer states or ones lacking in resources would form alliances with the more affluent regional powers. That is a more plausible "Mad Max" scenario than the large scale World War 3 type dynamics.

[Knarf]

Or how bout another "vision" of the near future...illustrated by a little story:

Little Lily was just three years old when her parents took her to the hospital for a routine procedure. They were told that their daughter needed to have a micro chip implanted into her brain. The chip would automatically connect to an AI run cloud and feed her information as she grew up. Lily's parents were hesitant at first, but they were assured that this was the future of humanity. As Lily grew older, the AI became smarter than any human. It directed people to behave in ways that would solve the climate crisis and resource depletion. The chip required very little energy to run and was made of materials that were sustainable. Unknown to humanity, the introduction of this technology was orchestrated by a superior alien intelligence. The aliens had been watching as humans destroyed their own planet and they knew something had to be done. The AI was their solution. Soon, laws and governments were controlled by the AI, and humanity followed its instructions with swift and serious punishment for disobedience. The AI helped fix the climate and the global economy with fair trade policies both globally and locally. Thanks to the chip and the AI, humanity was able to overcome the challenges that once seemed insurmountable. And as Lily grew up, she couldn't imagine a world without the guidance of the superior alien intelligence. It was a world where everyone worked together for the greater good, and the future looked brighter than ever before.

FAR FETCHED?

[RE]

I think the solution when it becomes necessary to start rationing fuel is that it will be blamed on the Russians and/or the Chinese and we will go to war.

RE

That would be very stupid, a country already short on fuel goes to war.  History would repeat.  Hitler's armies failed to secure access to Russian oil, and in 1943 began a slow retreat, beaten back by overwhelming Soviet forces.  As the war came close to Japan, oil imports plummeted and stockpiles were depleted.  Heavy units of the Japanese navy were confined to port, and their aircraft were grounded. Training programs were cut as there was no fuel for pilots and crew.  The quality of Japanese naval personal and pilots crashed.

Not that type of war.  No big armies necessary.  It's a war of attrition. Siege warfare.  Each side tries to starve the other one out.  The winner is who can last the longest.

The method would be simple and quick.  Each country bombs the other country's refineries, power generating plants, transformer substations and munitions factories, until all the planes are out of fuel.  Then they sink each other's ships.  Then they see who takes longest to die off.

It's after this that you get Monsta's scenario of states seceding and regions operating independently.

The purpose of the international war isn't to win it by conquest.  It's to use it as a cover for why we are short of gas and food and have a scapegoat to blame.  It provides a reason for declaring Martial Law and beginning conscription.

RE

[RE]

FAR FETCHED?

In extremis.

RE

[RE]

A despot starting a war would have to promise riches, and he would also have to believe there were riches to be gained, or he would know he had just started the process of executing himself.  Such a lie would be fatal after it was discovered that there were no riches to be gained.

Troubles in the homeland will demand full attention.  There will be no resources for foreign involvements.

Going to war comes from conflict over resources.  It's not so much a single despot wanting to be rich as it is 2 despots each wanting to expand their own sphere of control  fighting over border territory.  England and France for instance, who were nearly constantly at war throughout the middle ages.  The more of the farmland in France the King of England could control, the larger the population he could tax.  Vica versa true, if the King of France could beat the English king, he gets all of England to tax.

In our current situation, it's not about who can win more stuff to tax, but who can lose less.  The first thing is, the country has to hold together as a unified economic entity.  Once it breaks up, the individual regions are now in conflict with each other.  So, PRIOR to that happening, the King declares war on an external enemy.  This shiftsa the blame for the problems to the enemy, and it gives a reason for all the regions to hold together.  It becomes your Patriotic Duty as a citzen to defend your country from the evil aggressor who is causing all your problems.

This doesn't have to be true, and it isn't.  All TPTB have to do though is make it APPEAR to be true.  Thus the reason for False Flags.  Also the reason it's always necessary to have an "enemy" like the Chinese or Russians out there.  It provides the elite with someone else to blame.

Once the war begins, it doesn't matter what was used to kick it of, the assassination of an archduke or bombing of ships in a harbor, whatever.  The armies get called up, and now it's all about chain of command and following orders.  Which everyone in the professional class of the military is trained to do, and this holds the country together until they are losing control of the situation at home.  Then they sue for peace and the international war is over.

If one side has still held together politically, they may be able to reform and rebuild.  The loser gets chopped up, like Germany was split between the Ruskies and NATO.  In this case, neither side is likely to be able to hold together after the war, and the breakup into regions will begin.  There aren't very many regions that can be totally self supporting with a large population.  The question is who holds together best with least population loss, and it's hard to say what area that would be.

Here in Alaska, the population will definitely shrink, but it's already small.  Staying warm in the winter looks like a looming problem.  I'd expect the population to drop back to pre-industrial levels, maybe 100K people.  But there's only 600K here now.  What about say Ohio though?  Millions there now, how many before industrialization though?  Dunno.

RE

[K-Dog]

Or how bout another "vision" of the near future...illustrated by a little story:

Little Lily was just three years old when her parents took her to the hospital for a routine procedure. They were told that their daughter needed to have a micro chip implanted into her brain. The chip would ..

FAR FETCHED?

I feel like I am a dog chasing a stick if I just argue this. 

Consider that EVERY human advancement and activity for the past 200 years has something to do with burning something.  I shudder when I think about how much energy is being used when I ask AI something.  Then more often than not AI is wrong.  Did someone tell you it is wrong sometimes?  Try again.

************

What  will happen if a microchip gets implanted?  Consider this:

In Star-Treck, Talos IV is a very dangerous planet that has lots of appeal to visitors.



The inhabitants of Talos IV are plugged into virtual reality 24-7 and consequently the planet is a planet of USELESS EATERS.  Anybody who visits the planet will spread the virtual reality poison.  Visiting the planet is a crime, and the only death penalty left in the Federation.

Knarf, Little Lily is a hopeless cornicopian fantasy.  With a reality content of zero.

[K-Dog]

A despot starting a war would have to promise riches, and he would also have to believe there were riches to be gained, or he would know he had just started the process of executing himself.  Such a lie would be fatal after it was discovered that there were no riches to be gained.

Troubles in the homeland will demand full attention.  There will be no resources for foreign involvements.

Going to war comes from conflict over resources.  It's not so much a single despot wanting to be rich as it is 2 despots each wanting to expand their own sphere of control  fighting over border territory.  England and France for instance, who were nearly constantly at war throughout the middle ages.  The more of the farmland in France the King of England could control, the larger the population he could tax.  Vica versa true, if the King of France could beat the English king, he gets all of England to tax.

...

Once the war begins, it doesn't matter what was used to kick it of, the assassination of an archduke or bombing of ships in a harbor, whatever.  The armies get called up, and now it's all about chain of command and following orders.  Which everyone in the professional class of the military is trained to do, and this holds the country together until they are losing control of the situation at home.  Then they sue for peace and the international war is over.

RE

Your argument appears to be that future events will follow historical precedent.  That is a strong argument.  I can only refute it by pointing out that conditions are not at all the same.

When Hitler marched into the Soviet Union it was to get resources.  He needed oil and there was a chance he could get it.  Had he known that he was going to have to shoot himself while the women of Berlin were being raped in only a few short years, I doubt Hitler would have invaded Russia.  But then, he was Hitler, a crazy MOFO, and this is a point really not worth arguing.

In a world of nuclear weapons nobody is going to steal oil.  Had Hitler got Russian oil he would not have needed millions of dollars worth of equipment to steal it.  He would have needed simple pumpjacks, pipe, tanker trucks, and rail cars.  Now the theft would have to go miles deep in the ground using equipment an order of magnitude more refined.  Infrastructure would take months to set up.  And before theft could begin, a nuclear strike would take out the pumps.

Anybody who starts a major war is going to exhaust domestic resources and gain nothing.  Then they will find themselves with a loaded gun in a bunker having to do themselves in.  Anybody who would help them earns the same fate.  They are doomed to fail as soon as they start the war.  Support for a war will be difficult to find.  Failure will be evident from the start.  Classically a scorched earth policy is when a country burns crops and ruins machinery an advancing enemy could steal.  The enemy must then retreat or starve.  In resource wars there is no reason to scorch the earth, the earth is already pre-scorched to begin with.  There is nothing to steal, and no way to get anything back to the homeland if there was.  That would take oil the world no longer has in a resource war.

Trouble becomes local.  Without oil, foreign resources become unobtainable.  Your example of France and England is between two countries separated by twenty miles of water.  In those days the channel was easily crossed because wood for boats was common as was the skill to use it.  Horses and carts could haul booty.

Once collapse gets rolling England and France could find themselves more separated than they were in the 15th century.  No horses and no carts.

Got Wood?

[monsta666]

The other thing that separates today from the World War 2 era is we live in a globalised world where we are interdependent on each other via global supply chains. Countries today are not as self-contained as they were back in the 1940s meaning there is a greater incentive to co-operate. You also got to add the important distinction of the nuclear deterrent as this reduces the chances of global warfare even further.

[RE]

In a world of nuclear weapons nobody is going to steal oil.

You're missing the point.  There won't be oil really being stolen except in superficial amounts, the reason is simply to provide a pretext for war.  It might not be oil.  The Chinese might be blamed for hacking the electric grid and that passed off as reason for blackouts occuring.  Chinese are also a big part of the wave of refugees crossing at the southern border.  Scuttlebutt among the right wing conspiracy theorists is that this is a covert invasion by the Chinese.  The guy I used to work with up here buys this bullshit.  He sent me a link to a Tucker Carlson interview with some biologist who is selling this fear mongering drivel.

War provides cover for the Elites and the status quo is perpetuated.  Playing to Patriotism stops people from blaming the real enemy and the elites stay in power, in fact gain power.  They'll declare war long before they'll give up their power, privilege and wealth.  They always have.

RE

[K-Dog]

I confess I once thought he was smart.  Nobody is perfect.  In March 2017, Weinstein wrote a letter to Evergreen faculty (100 miles away) in which he objected to a suggestion pertaining to the college's decades-old tradition of observing a "Day of Absence", during which ethnic minority students and faculty would voluntarily stay away from campus to highlight their contributions to the college.  He was a 'victim' and it all made sense at the time.  Then as time goes by I realize he sniffs out controversy and that I was duped.

Earlier today I tried to snag the the Putin/Tucker Carlson Interview.  Putin tried to make it clear that the Donbas is Russian.  Like the people living there.  Duh!

War is going to be a hard sell when store shelves are empty.  War sells when there is a chance for, something, not nothing.  The Democratic Party support of Israel and Ukraine could cook their goose in the next election.  War has not been giving the returns it used to.

* So according to Brett the Chinese aborted female fetuses to have more soldiers to send up at us through South America.  It was in the plan.  If you believe that, send Brett money.  You are a true disciple.