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Thursday 30 January 2014

"Paradise Lost" Paul Chefurka

“Paradise Lost”  - Paul Chefurka                







Many of us who have been paying attention to the state of the world over the last half century have now begun to realize with growing horror that the progressive deterioration we have been tracking shows no signs of resolution   In fact, to some of us it looks as though there is no way to resolve this deepening crisis. The end of the track is in sight. The planetary factory is in flames, and all the exit doors are barred.

Proposed technical solutions are utterly inadequate to the scale of the problem.  Many ideas like geoengineering will simply make matters worse.  There is no political constituency for degrowth – none at all.  There is precious little political support for even putting a light foot on the brake.  This road to Hell has been paved with the very best of intentions – giving our children a better life stands near the top of the list – but here we are nonetheless. The climate is signalling that our future may be a little warmer than we were expecting, once our seven-billion-passenger train passes those gates.

Now that the denouement is in sight, I’m setting aside the anger and outrage, the blame and shame, to focus my attention instead on why this outcome seems to have been utterly inevitable and unstoppable.

Why has this happened?  I don’t buy the traditional “broken morality” or “flawed genetics” arguments.  After all, our genetics seemed to be perfectly appropriate for a million years, and the elements of morality that some of us see as sub-optimal (the greed and shortsightedness) have been with us to varying degrees since before the days of Australopithecus. I don’t think it’s just a mistake on our part or a bug in the program – it appears to be a part of the program of life itself. It looks to me as though much deeper forces have been at work throughout human history, and have shaped this outcome.

The main difficulty I have with all the technical, political, economic and social reform proposals I've seen is that they run counter to some very deep-seated aspects of human behavior and decision-making.  Mainly, they assume that human intelligence and analytical ability control our behavior, and from what I've seen, that’s simply not true.  In fact it’s untrue to such an extent that I don’t even think it’s a “human” issue per se.

I have come to think that most of our collective choices and actions are shaped by physical forces so deep that they can’t even be called “genetic”.  I haven’t written anything definitive about this yet, but the conclusion I have come to in the last six months is that a physical principle called the "Maximum Entropy Production Principle”, which is closely related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, actually underlies the structure of life itself.  Its operation has shaped the energy-seeking, replicative behavior of everything from bacteria to humans.  All our intelligence does is makes its operation more effective.


 


This principle is behind the appearance of life in the first place, has guided the development of genetic replication and natural selection, and has embedded itself in our behavior at the very deepest level. Like all life, our mandate is simple:  survive and reproduce so as to form a metastable dissipative structure.  All of human behavior and history has been oriented towards executing this mandate as effectively as possible.  This “survive and reproduce” program springs from a universal law of physics, much like gravity. As a result it even precedes genetics as a driver of human behavior.  And lest there be any lingering doubt about the connection to our current predicament, the survival imperative is what causes all living organisms to exhibit energy-seeking behavior.  Humans just do this better than any other organism in the history of the planet because of our intelligence.

In this context, the evolutionary fitness role of human intelligence is to act as a limit-removal mechanism, to circumvent any obstacles in the way of making make our growth in terms of energy use and reproduction more effective.  It’s why we are blind to the need for limits both as individuals (in general) and collectively as cultures.  We acknowledge limits only when they are so close as to present an immediate existential threat, as they were and are in hunter-gatherer societies. As a result we tend to make hard changes only in response to a crisis, not in advance of it.  Basically, the goal of life is to live rather than die, and to do this it must grow rather than shrink.  This imperative governs everything we think and do.

As a result, I don’t think humanity in general will put any kind of sustainability practices in place until long after they are actually needed (i.e. after population and consumption rates have begun to crash).  I don’t think it is possible for a group as large as 7 billion people to agree that such proactive measures are necessary.  We are as blind to the need for limits as a fish is to water and for similar reasons. After the crisis has incontrovertibly begun we’ll do all kinds of things, but by then we will be hampered by the climate crisis and by severe shortages of both resources and the technology needed to use them.

I have given up speculating on possible outcomes, because they are so inherently unpredictable, at least in detail.  But what I’m discovering about the way life works at a deep level makes me continually less optimistic.  I now think near-term human extinction (say within the next hundred years) has a significantly non-zero probability.

Our cybernetic civilization is approaching a "Kardashev Type 0/1 boundary" and I don’t think it's possible for us to make the jump to Type 1.  Like most other people, Kardashev misunderstood the underlying drivers of human behavior, assuming them to be a combination of ingenuity and free will.  We indeed have ingenuity, but only in the direction of growth (and damn the entropic consequences).  We can’t manage preemptive de-growth or even the application of the Precautionary Principle, because as a collective organism humanity doesn't actually have free will (despite what it feels like to us individual humans).  Instead we exhibit an emergent behavior that is entirely oriented towards growth.


 I see no purpose in wasting further physical, financial or emotional energy on trying to avoid the inevitable. Given our situation and what I think is its root cause, I generally tell people who see the unfolding crisis and want to make changes in their lives simply to follow their hearts and their personal values.  I'm not exactly advising them to “Eat, drink and be merry”, though.  You might think of it more as, “Eat, drink and be mindful.”
Paul Chefurka
August,2013
Ottawa,Canada

Comments:

We struggle to explain why the conventional economic doctrine battles the realities of existential economic science; the first hypothesizes an infinite positive sum-game for human activity, while the latter goes begging to find an wider audience for its voice - that asserts a finite negative sum-game, dictated by the physical constraints and the laws of exponential mathematics. These two beliefs are deeply conflicting with one another because the first chooses to ignore the governing rules of the universe, whereas the other proposes integration with science, physics and mathematics, in order to set a better path for human activity.


So in our search for explanations we look to other writers, scholars, thinkers and activists for insights into why our collective actions and theories act in defiance of realities by endorsing infinite growth doctrines that are not only impossible to continue any longer, but they also push our species along an accelerated path destined for premature extinction.


As Paul Chefurka sets out in “Paradise Lost” maybe there is nothing to be done or anything else that can be said. Our internal wiring is so connected to the natural forces of the universe that it causes us to pursue and use more energy to serve our primary purposes of survival and procreation. Call it an inborn energy-seeking behavior. We are then just an integral natural part of the second law of thermodynamics serving to further and accelerate the causes of entropy in the whole universe. That being the case, conventional economic doctrines sadly wins the battle, as it is clearly aligned with entropic forces that invisibly shapes the destiny of humanity, the universe and eternity.

Hence in our last analysis, it as certain as it gets that we cannot defeat eternity, but that in itself should not dissuade us from seeking to optimize our entropic relationship with the universe in pursuit of a longer path. Too many things could happen along the way!   


Sunday 26 January 2014

Humanity Needs A Doctor?

Humanity Needs A Doctor?



http://firstfinancialinsights.blogspot.ca/2013/11/infinity-express-flight2100-entropy.html

Earth's Current Population Equivalents 
Exceed 40 Billion

For sure the first thing we have to do is get the metrics right so that we can properly diagnose, manage and remedy, if possible, our  population predicament.

To do so, we must first understand that this is not about population numbers at all. Rather it is all about "population equivalents," but so long as the focus remains on person numbers, then we are doomed to head down the wrong path with little hope of finding a cure. In the end, you cannot remove a brain tumor by doing a heart transplant - it is just not going to happen.

There is no responsible economic organization or entity on this planet that does not have an accounting system with metrics to determine, monitor and control its status. So there is no good reason as to why we should not work towards and apply similar concepts for the whole planet as an initial way to get a handle on our planet's overall situation. As a metric - "population equivalents" is a fairly straightforward mathematical concept to apply as the prime unit of measure within this overall planetary accounting system.

Population equivalents should firstly allow us to start comparing apples to apples and not to pears, turnips and potatoes. For example, when the entropic/climate/resource footprint for each developed nation person is estimated to be 34 times larger than a underdeveloped nation's person - this comparison shows a huge gap in the annual-planetary cost  between these two person types to the planet. The implications of this difference needs to be better understood and managed based on objectives. As a medical professional you might start with an old idea and goal like - LONGEVITY!

Now consider the case when 100 million people migrate annually from these underdeveloped nations to developed countries. That migration alone  has the equivalent impact of adding 3.4 billion people to the underdeveloped nations population totals. Or you could also say it is equal to the birth of 3.4 billion people in these underdeveloped countries.

Put in another way - the 1 billion people footprint of developed nations calculates to an equivalent 34 billion people footprint in underdeveloped countries. Thus, the planet's population size using approximate actual numbers could be considered closer to 40 billion people when population equivalent footprint measures are used. (1 billion developed plus, 6 billion underdeveloped people)

BIG number? But now you be the doctor and tell the patient where you think the problem is - Heart or Brain?

So in order to get things right, we first and foremost need to start measuring properly. Moreover, it is a "conceptual technology"  that has been well-developed by the medical profession, among others, over many years. So why not apply it to the most important patient we know?

In short, we need to go beyond checking the patient's brain condition based on its pulse rate and advance ourselves to using proper clinical metrics and devices to better diagnose and remedy our sickly patient. In so doing, we may then stand an improved  chance of extending its life.

It is your call now ... Doctor!

First Financial Insights
December 10, 2013


"Doctors my pulse is fine. But, my head still hurts."
"That's strange... "

firstfinancialinsights.blogspot.com

Wednesday 15 January 2014

SCARCITY - Humanity's Final Chapter

Scarcity 
 Humanity’s Final Chapter*
     "Diminishing Returns"      


Diminishing Returns – harbinger of humanity’s final chapter

The “law” of diminishing marginal returns applies to successive investments in
nonrenewable natural resource (NNR) exploitation… 

Click here for full article


Comments: "Diminishing Returns"  


January 6, 2013

Dear Chris,

Thanks so much for your most recent article.  As always, excellent work.

Here are a few of my humble observations and thoughts, adding further despondency to the whole situation. 

Aggregating all NNRs from a planetary perspective, thereby creating a single theoretical planetary NNR unit to your lessons, should help clearly convey our grave circumstances, thusly causing even deeper concern amoung readers.

Following from the above, one could point out that it is our traditional economic theory that drove us into this abyss. And it still fails to acknowledge or understand the realities we now face in terms of certain economic collapse, particularly as NNRs diminishing returns will tie directly to the dilution and collapse of all currencies. Few will understand, it seems, until it is much to late, that this is the true and primary cause of ALL Fiscal Cliffs - not our politicians, for sure.

The diminishing returns from the planetary NNR unit are also dramatically accelerated by population growth, climate change and other related concerns. Throw into this mix, the demise of the supporting social, economic and political frameworks, then the dark outcomes of diminishing returns gets much deeper.


So, the only question to ponder now is: Where do we stand? And based on the projected extraction and consumption growth of the global NNR units, all other things being equal;   


HOW MUCH LONGER DO WE HAVE; EVEN ON A BEST CASE BASIS? 


Sincerely,





Where have all the fish gone?




*William R. Catton Jr. Comments: 
Scarcity - Humanity's Final Chapter
 by Christopher O. Clugston 


Foreword by William R. Catton Jr. (Author of “Overshoot”)

“Chris Clugston has pulled together such an array of facts about the path ravenous humanity has trod and the consequences we now confront that no person who fails to read this book should be eligible for election to high office.” – William R. Catton Jr.

Scarcity is a book about humanity’s “predicament”, which can be summarized as follows: the natural resource utilization behavior that enables our current “success”—our industrialized “American” way of life—and which is essential to perpetuating our success, is simultaneously undermining our very existence as a species.

Our industrial lifestyle paradigm is enabled by enormous quantities of nonrenewable natural resources (NNRs)—i.e., the fossil fuels, metals, and nonmetallic minerals that serve as the raw material inputs to our industrialized economies, as the building blocks that comprise our industrialized infrastructure and support systems, and as the primary energy sources that power our industrialized societies.

Ironically, since the inception of our industrial revolution over 200 years ago, we have been eliminating—persistently and increasingly—the finite and non-replenishing NNRs upon which our industrialized way of life and our very existence depend. As a result, most of the earth’s NNRs have become permanently scarce—i.e., there are not enough globally available, economically viable NNR supplies to completely address humanity’s global NNR requirements going forward.

Based upon analyses derived from US Geological Survey (USGS) and US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data pertaining to domestic (US) and global NNR demand, supply, pricing, and utilization; Scarcity provides compelling, if not irrefutable, evidence to support this assertion; in addition to enumerating the causes, implications, and consequences associated with our predicament.

Scarcity is essential reading for those who correctly perceive that the world, especially the industrialized “Western” world, is in a state of decline—decline that cannot possibly be reversed by our incessant barrage of misguided economic and political “fixes”. Scarcity will enable you to make sense of a world that is experiencing the most profound paradigm shift in human history.

NNR scarcity is the most daunting challenge ever to confront humanity. If we Homo sapiens are truly an exceptional species, now is the time to prove it.

"Scarcity is an impressive analysis of our present predicament. Far too many influential people are attempting to address that predicament with flagrantly misconceived notions about it, and most of what nations and their leaders are trying to do about today's troubles remains counterproductive. This you know, and you show it crisply and emphatically.” – William R. Catton Jr.

Note: For those who are unfamiliar with William Catton, he published the seminal work on humanity’s “predicament”, entitled "Overshoot", in 1982. If you have not yet read "Overshoot", I strongly encourage you to do so; it is arguably the most important book written in the 20th century.



 Get The Picture?


Saturday 11 January 2014

Humanity Needs A Doctor - 40 Billion PLUS????

Humanity Needs A Doctor?

http://firstfinancialinsights.blogspot.ca/2013/11/infinity-express-flight2100-entropy.html

Earth's Current Population Equivalents 
Exceed 40 Billion

For sure the first thing we have to do is get the metrics right so that we can properly diagnose, manage and remedy, if possible, our  population predicament.

To do so, we must first understand that this is not about population numbers at all. Rather it is all about "population equivalents," but so long as the focus remains on person numbers, then we are doomed to head down the wrong path with little hope of finding a cure. In the end, you cannot remove a brain tumor by doing a heart transplant - it is just not going to happen.

There is no responsible economic organization or entity on this planet that does not have an accounting system with metrics to determine, monitor and control its status. So there is no good reason as to why we should not work towards and apply similar concepts for the whole planet as an initial way to get a handle on our planet's overall situation. As a metric - "population equivalents" is a fairly straightforward mathematical concept to apply as the prime unit of measure within this overall planetary accounting system.

Population equivalents should firstly allow us to start comparing apples to apples and not to pears, turnips and potatoes. For example, when the entropic/climate/resource footprint for each developed nation person is estimated to be 34 times larger than a underdeveloped nation's person - this comparison shows a huge gap in the annual-planetary cost  between these two person types to the planet. The implications of this difference needs to be better understood and managed based on objectives. As a medical professional you might start with an old idea and goal like - LONGEVITY!

Now consider the case when 100 million people migrate annually from these underdeveloped nations to developed countries. That migration alone  has the equivalent impact of adding 3.4 billion people to the underdeveloped nations population totals. Or you could also say it is equal to the birth of 3.4 billion people in these underdeveloped countries.

Put in another way - the 1 billion people footprint of developed nations calculates to an equivalent 34 billion people footprint in underdeveloped countries. Thus, the planet's population size using approximate actual numbers could be considered closer to 40 billion people when population equivalent footprint measures are used. (1 billion developed plus, 6 billion underdeveloped people)

BIG number? But now you be the doctor and tell the patient where you think the problem is - Heart or Brain?

So in order to get things right, we first and foremost need to start measuring properly. Moreover, it is a "conceptual technology"  that has been well-developed by the medical profession, among others, over many years. So why not apply it to the most important patient we know?

In short, we need to go beyond checking the patient's brain condition based on its pulse rate and advance ourselves to using proper clinical metrics and devices to better diagnose and remedy our sickly patient. In so doing, we may then stand an improved  chance of extending its life.

It is your call now ... Doctor!

First Financial Insights
December 10, 2013


"Doctors my pulse is fine. But, my head still hurts."
"That's strange... "