Thursday, November 23, 2006
Why Doomsday? Why Now?
I want to resume my blog after a brief break in the wilderness with an answer to the two related questions of why doomsday, why now? My first response to the question of why it is essential to think doomsday now is that doomsday has already visited more than a third of humanity, crushed under the weight of world wars, regional conflicts, starvation, poverty, absolute misery, exploitation, environmental degradation and a host of violations of human dignity executed by the rich and the middle class upon the wretched of the earth. Doomsday has or is already happening to more than half of the population of planet earth. Each passing day sees tens of thousands go down, while the rich and the comfortable ensconce themselves in habitats of comfort and wealth, oblivious to the misery of the majority of humankind. They insulate themselves in an ideology of self-righteousness, deluding themselves that they deserve the property, the rights, and the wealth they believe is their god-given right.They are living lives of consummate meaninglessness. They are earning their living while their lives are being lost and dull death will come one day. What they fail to realize is that doomsday is a historical event. It has already happened. We are looking back at the end of the world for millions and millions of poor children, mothers, fathers , families who never got or never will get the chance to attain even a minimum of a first world life style.
The only decent attitude that one can assume in this age of mindless, reckless,nihilistic destruction is that of mourning, mourning the early deaths of poor children who never had a chance. Never had a hope. Never had a dream. But we can only cry so many tears. We can only wear out our hearts on our shirtshleeves. But we cannot walk to the funeral of humanity with vague sentiments and a sympathy with no goal. We must be resolute in committing ourselves to establishing a viewpoint that allows others to see the consequences of their actions. There is really no "other" that is responsible for the state of the world, there are no other Powers that be, no Gnomes of Zurich, no Illluminati. These are entitities that might exist, but the the reality is that we are all complicit not only in our own endeavors, our own comportment, but in all of the crimes attributed to renegade politicos, terrrorists and other unsavoury characters that we would never associate with. We have seen the enemy and he is us. We only have to look into a mirror to see where the problem lies.Whatever we get, we will deserve. But so many poor unfortunates get what they never should be subjected to in order for a minority of humanity to enjoy their bubble baths, their daily showers, their creature comforts.
This brings me to my normative conception of doomsday. My view is that doomsday is not a forecast, but rather a moral judgement, that it ought to be visited upon those who have rendered it possible. It is nothing less than rightful retribution. You reap what you sow. You get back what you deserve.
Well enough of emotion. Let me get down to the nitty-gritty of why I think that doomsday cannot be delayed, why doomsday is happening now. It is my view that the current crisis will not be a crisis with limits. It will be a crisis without end. It will continue in a downward trajectory once the peak is reached. And a few of us know what peak I am talking about, notwithstanding CERA's desparate attempt to deny peak oil reality. The downward spiral will start with a slowdown, then recession, a brief but illusory recovery, another downturn and a crash that will turn into a decadal depression, blackouts, riots, marauding hordes, disease, pestilence, famine, die-off, dark age, Olduvai gorge, and perhaps a miniscule proportion of humanity barely surviving at earth's polar regions at century's end.
This gloomy doomsday scenario is not inevitable, but with each passing day where only a few enlightened individuals (mostly peak oil and climate change bloggers) can see the light of day, not enough people are awakening to the actuality that surrounds their lives. So few aware people, so little time to take action.
Over thirty-five years ago, a premier first generation eco-cassandra doomster, Paul Ehrlich co-authored a book with Richard Harriman, entitled How To Be A Survivor (Ballantine Books, New York, 1971). And in that book he talked about the despair that ordinary normal people had about the state of the world. He quotes from a number of readers of Natural History Magazine that could easily be mistaken for views of today:
"I personally do not think the environment can be saved. Man in my opinion, is too egocentric to pay the price in time ..."
"... my 30-year commitment to a cleaner, better, happier world was a hopeless dream."
"I personally believe it is time for man to leave the earth; he is more of a destroyer than a builder. Let earth renew itself."
"I have a sense life is over ..."
"I shout at slobs that I catch littering and polluting (I'd shoot them if it were legal)."
"I keep dreaming of bombing Con Ed."
"We are totally pessimistic for the long range."
"I do not think man is going to make it."
" ... there is no cure for human misery or inequity as long as overpopulation exists."
"Am moving to New Guinea in October."
"... gave up in despair and am moving to Australia."
"I pray a lot for the world."
"No telling how long any of us will be here."
These are people talking over 35 years ago. Is there any difference now ? Well we now have peak oil and chaotic climate change to deal with. Let's face it:Doomsday's long overdue.
I want to resume my blog after a brief break in the wilderness with an answer to the two related questions of why doomsday, why now? My first response to the question of why it is essential to think doomsday now is that doomsday has already visited more than a third of humanity, crushed under the weight of world wars, regional conflicts, starvation, poverty, absolute misery, exploitation, environmental degradation and a host of violations of human dignity executed by the rich and the middle class upon the wretched of the earth. Doomsday has or is already happening to more than half of the population of planet earth. Each passing day sees tens of thousands go down, while the rich and the comfortable ensconce themselves in habitats of comfort and wealth, oblivious to the misery of the majority of humankind. They insulate themselves in an ideology of self-righteousness, deluding themselves that they deserve the property, the rights, and the wealth they believe is their god-given right.They are living lives of consummate meaninglessness. They are earning their living while their lives are being lost and dull death will come one day. What they fail to realize is that doomsday is a historical event. It has already happened. We are looking back at the end of the world for millions and millions of poor children, mothers, fathers , families who never got or never will get the chance to attain even a minimum of a first world life style.
The only decent attitude that one can assume in this age of mindless, reckless,nihilistic destruction is that of mourning, mourning the early deaths of poor children who never had a chance. Never had a hope. Never had a dream. But we can only cry so many tears. We can only wear out our hearts on our shirtshleeves. But we cannot walk to the funeral of humanity with vague sentiments and a sympathy with no goal. We must be resolute in committing ourselves to establishing a viewpoint that allows others to see the consequences of their actions. There is really no "other" that is responsible for the state of the world, there are no other Powers that be, no Gnomes of Zurich, no Illluminati. These are entitities that might exist, but the the reality is that we are all complicit not only in our own endeavors, our own comportment, but in all of the crimes attributed to renegade politicos, terrrorists and other unsavoury characters that we would never associate with. We have seen the enemy and he is us. We only have to look into a mirror to see where the problem lies.Whatever we get, we will deserve. But so many poor unfortunates get what they never should be subjected to in order for a minority of humanity to enjoy their bubble baths, their daily showers, their creature comforts.
This brings me to my normative conception of doomsday. My view is that doomsday is not a forecast, but rather a moral judgement, that it ought to be visited upon those who have rendered it possible. It is nothing less than rightful retribution. You reap what you sow. You get back what you deserve.
Well enough of emotion. Let me get down to the nitty-gritty of why I think that doomsday cannot be delayed, why doomsday is happening now. It is my view that the current crisis will not be a crisis with limits. It will be a crisis without end. It will continue in a downward trajectory once the peak is reached. And a few of us know what peak I am talking about, notwithstanding CERA's desparate attempt to deny peak oil reality. The downward spiral will start with a slowdown, then recession, a brief but illusory recovery, another downturn and a crash that will turn into a decadal depression, blackouts, riots, marauding hordes, disease, pestilence, famine, die-off, dark age, Olduvai gorge, and perhaps a miniscule proportion of humanity barely surviving at earth's polar regions at century's end.
This gloomy doomsday scenario is not inevitable, but with each passing day where only a few enlightened individuals (mostly peak oil and climate change bloggers) can see the light of day, not enough people are awakening to the actuality that surrounds their lives. So few aware people, so little time to take action.
Over thirty-five years ago, a premier first generation eco-cassandra doomster, Paul Ehrlich co-authored a book with Richard Harriman, entitled How To Be A Survivor (Ballantine Books, New York, 1971). And in that book he talked about the despair that ordinary normal people had about the state of the world. He quotes from a number of readers of Natural History Magazine that could easily be mistaken for views of today:
"I personally do not think the environment can be saved. Man in my opinion, is too egocentric to pay the price in time ..."
"... my 30-year commitment to a cleaner, better, happier world was a hopeless dream."
"I personally believe it is time for man to leave the earth; he is more of a destroyer than a builder. Let earth renew itself."
"I have a sense life is over ..."
"I shout at slobs that I catch littering and polluting (I'd shoot them if it were legal)."
"I keep dreaming of bombing Con Ed."
"We are totally pessimistic for the long range."
"I do not think man is going to make it."
" ... there is no cure for human misery or inequity as long as overpopulation exists."
"Am moving to New Guinea in October."
"... gave up in despair and am moving to Australia."
"I pray a lot for the world."
"No telling how long any of us will be here."
These are people talking over 35 years ago. Is there any difference now ? Well we now have peak oil and chaotic climate change to deal with. Let's face it:Doomsday's long overdue.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Doomsday's Timetable - A First Cut Hypothesis
So given all of the factors cited, how will the doomsday scenario unfold? I want to be clear that it will be an interaction of all four vectors that will do us in. Concentrating just on 2 or 3 factors will lead to an incomplete picture. The main novelty of my approach is that I introduce marxian crisis theory as the explanatory mechanism of the process of collapse. I also anticipate the consequences of the devolution of the industrial mode of production to be an existential crisis that will throw all but the strongest and best prepared into a death spiral. The knowledge and awareness of peak oil and chaotic climate change are not just indices or quotients of intelligence, they are the ultimate prerequisites for the attainment of a level of wakefullness that will allow for critical decisions to be made in a timely fashion. In short, it is nothing less than the ultimate survival test.
Marx's economic crisis theory sees capitalism as an unsustainable method or mode of production whose core problem is the imbalance between capital and labour. The economic cycle is nothing more than a hegemonic battle between capital and labour, with capital winning all of the battles, except the last one. Marx saw economic crises as necessary elements of capital's need to rid itself of the detritus, not only of labours' challenges, but also of parasitic psuedo-capitalists who attempt to live not only on the remnants of dead labour, but also on the backs of capitalists who in their prime had produced magnificiently effective instruments of production. The system becomes clogged with parasites, predators, hustlers, charalatans, quacks, counterfeiters, swindlers, carpet-baggers, unscrupulous rip-off artists, loan sharks, pawn brokers, snake-oil salesmen,fly-by-nighters, hangers-on, running dogs, sycophants, corporate criminals (Lay, Skilling, Ebbers, Rigas family, Black, Stewart) the dregs of society at the top and at the bottom we get tramps, body sellers, pan handlers, squeegee kids, vagabonds, vagrants, addicts, beggars, the homeless, the indigent, the derelict, the destitute, the wretched of the earth. At these moments, capital, like a snake, needs to shed itself of its dead skin, false labour and tepid capital that cannot reproduce itself at a given rate of profit. These are the economic crises known as depressions that periodically put the system on trial. We are at this point in the current economic long wave, at a pitch or a peak, that is precariously steep due to the stretching of the present cycle beyond its normal expansionary possibilities. A world depression after the crash of 1987 was avoided because the capitalist class feared that it may indeed have been the final crisis predicted by generations of marxists as well as Wall Street pundits. So a depression has been delayed for almost two decades and probably cannot be delayed for much longer, perhaps no more than five years. This is the first element of my theoretical prognostication: capital cannot avoid its periodic cleansing process that will occur no later than 2011. We are indeed into the last five years of the end game and capital is not only losing its basis of existence, it has used up all of its options. This is capital's last crisis.It is Custer's last stand. It is the Alamo. Unfortunately, it will also be ours, unless we find some niches of escape and fortify our minds and bodies so that we can endure the coming doomsday.
One of Marx's most lucid elementary propositions, his two sentence theory of ideology, stated: "It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence. On the contrary, it is his existence that determines his consciousness." This simple idea explains so much that is wrong and dysfunctional about capital's imposition of its economic dogma onto the masses and the colonization of its life-world. It also explains why there is so much denial and opposition amongst the majority of the educated chattering class to the basics of peak oil and climate change. It is very refreshing to see non-ideological thinking among a growing critical mass of peak oil websites and blogs (e.g. Byron King, big gav, and Kurt Cobb). Those who are aware of the economic consequences of peak oil and climate change already see that the end of our current system is on our event horizon.
The system as we know and experience it appears to us to be a substantial entity. Despite a few recessionary downturns, most of us have little experience of a great depression. But we have heard tales and seen books on the topic. It still looms as a fear, but those who raise the possibility of a re-occurence of the dirty thirties, are cast aside as doomers. What few realize is that the structure of capitalism is based on energy derived from petroleum, natural gas, hydro-electric and nuclear sources. These sources stand at the core of the system. The system is then built, level on level, like an onion, with a host of industrial commodities that are derived from this core. That core is now at its maximum expansionary potential. The accumulation of capital is now at its limit. A diminishing core means a diminishing capitalism. This is capital's death knell, because capital needs a constantly expanding core of energy resources to literally fuel its growth. Capital has long been depicted as a financially unstable system by marxists and non marxists alike (e.g. H. Minsky, C. Kindleburger). Capital's defining feature at this the final stage in its 500 year history is its systemic fragility. Once the core of energy resources collapse, it will crumble in a flash.
Once this realization starts to set in among the masses, there will be a slow gravitational pull toward the critical mass of peakniks and crisis thinkers. Indeed one of the factors that is keeping the system at an artificial level of seeming stability is the obtuseness, ignorance, stupidity and denial of the masses. Events emanating from peak oil and climate change over the next five years will force and shock the masses into a position where they will have to confront reality.
My first cut time estimate, then, for the onset of doomsday is that it will be self evident within five years, that is before the end of 2011. In later posts, I will focus on the interaction of the four vectors and their sub-vectors, to assess whether the timetable is accelerating or decelerating.
So given all of the factors cited, how will the doomsday scenario unfold? I want to be clear that it will be an interaction of all four vectors that will do us in. Concentrating just on 2 or 3 factors will lead to an incomplete picture. The main novelty of my approach is that I introduce marxian crisis theory as the explanatory mechanism of the process of collapse. I also anticipate the consequences of the devolution of the industrial mode of production to be an existential crisis that will throw all but the strongest and best prepared into a death spiral. The knowledge and awareness of peak oil and chaotic climate change are not just indices or quotients of intelligence, they are the ultimate prerequisites for the attainment of a level of wakefullness that will allow for critical decisions to be made in a timely fashion. In short, it is nothing less than the ultimate survival test.
Marx's economic crisis theory sees capitalism as an unsustainable method or mode of production whose core problem is the imbalance between capital and labour. The economic cycle is nothing more than a hegemonic battle between capital and labour, with capital winning all of the battles, except the last one. Marx saw economic crises as necessary elements of capital's need to rid itself of the detritus, not only of labours' challenges, but also of parasitic psuedo-capitalists who attempt to live not only on the remnants of dead labour, but also on the backs of capitalists who in their prime had produced magnificiently effective instruments of production. The system becomes clogged with parasites, predators, hustlers, charalatans, quacks, counterfeiters, swindlers, carpet-baggers, unscrupulous rip-off artists, loan sharks, pawn brokers, snake-oil salesmen,fly-by-nighters, hangers-on, running dogs, sycophants, corporate criminals (Lay, Skilling, Ebbers, Rigas family, Black, Stewart) the dregs of society at the top and at the bottom we get tramps, body sellers, pan handlers, squeegee kids, vagabonds, vagrants, addicts, beggars, the homeless, the indigent, the derelict, the destitute, the wretched of the earth. At these moments, capital, like a snake, needs to shed itself of its dead skin, false labour and tepid capital that cannot reproduce itself at a given rate of profit. These are the economic crises known as depressions that periodically put the system on trial. We are at this point in the current economic long wave, at a pitch or a peak, that is precariously steep due to the stretching of the present cycle beyond its normal expansionary possibilities. A world depression after the crash of 1987 was avoided because the capitalist class feared that it may indeed have been the final crisis predicted by generations of marxists as well as Wall Street pundits. So a depression has been delayed for almost two decades and probably cannot be delayed for much longer, perhaps no more than five years. This is the first element of my theoretical prognostication: capital cannot avoid its periodic cleansing process that will occur no later than 2011. We are indeed into the last five years of the end game and capital is not only losing its basis of existence, it has used up all of its options. This is capital's last crisis.It is Custer's last stand. It is the Alamo. Unfortunately, it will also be ours, unless we find some niches of escape and fortify our minds and bodies so that we can endure the coming doomsday.
One of Marx's most lucid elementary propositions, his two sentence theory of ideology, stated: "It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence. On the contrary, it is his existence that determines his consciousness." This simple idea explains so much that is wrong and dysfunctional about capital's imposition of its economic dogma onto the masses and the colonization of its life-world. It also explains why there is so much denial and opposition amongst the majority of the educated chattering class to the basics of peak oil and climate change. It is very refreshing to see non-ideological thinking among a growing critical mass of peak oil websites and blogs (e.g. Byron King, big gav, and Kurt Cobb). Those who are aware of the economic consequences of peak oil and climate change already see that the end of our current system is on our event horizon.
The system as we know and experience it appears to us to be a substantial entity. Despite a few recessionary downturns, most of us have little experience of a great depression. But we have heard tales and seen books on the topic. It still looms as a fear, but those who raise the possibility of a re-occurence of the dirty thirties, are cast aside as doomers. What few realize is that the structure of capitalism is based on energy derived from petroleum, natural gas, hydro-electric and nuclear sources. These sources stand at the core of the system. The system is then built, level on level, like an onion, with a host of industrial commodities that are derived from this core. That core is now at its maximum expansionary potential. The accumulation of capital is now at its limit. A diminishing core means a diminishing capitalism. This is capital's death knell, because capital needs a constantly expanding core of energy resources to literally fuel its growth. Capital has long been depicted as a financially unstable system by marxists and non marxists alike (e.g. H. Minsky, C. Kindleburger). Capital's defining feature at this the final stage in its 500 year history is its systemic fragility. Once the core of energy resources collapse, it will crumble in a flash.
Once this realization starts to set in among the masses, there will be a slow gravitational pull toward the critical mass of peakniks and crisis thinkers. Indeed one of the factors that is keeping the system at an artificial level of seeming stability is the obtuseness, ignorance, stupidity and denial of the masses. Events emanating from peak oil and climate change over the next five years will force and shock the masses into a position where they will have to confront reality.
My first cut time estimate, then, for the onset of doomsday is that it will be self evident within five years, that is before the end of 2011. In later posts, I will focus on the interaction of the four vectors and their sub-vectors, to assess whether the timetable is accelerating or decelerating.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Doomsday's Timetable - An Outline
In this post I will outline an empirical methodology and a theory that tackles the most difficult problem of prognosticating the onset of doomsday: how long do we have? Everyone needs to know this vital piece of information. It will determine the logistics and the strategy of how one best prepares for the worst case scenario. I have identified the four main factors that will act together to produce an unprecedented melange of beastly wicked devastating forces. Within each of these four areas, there are several subordinate factors or variables that need to be taken into account. These are:
-Peak oil (the depletion rate of the giant oil fields (Ghawar, Cantarell, Daqing, Burgan, etc); the degradation gradient of the quality of oil in these fields; also referred to as EROEI; the duration of the plateau period (are we in it now?) the exploration/discovery ratio; the accuracy and reliability of the statistics of fossil fuel extraction/production; the anxiety level of peak oil experts such as Simmons, Campbell and The Oil Drum; riots and "terrorist" attacks in Saudi Arabia; adjusted downward OPEC quotas as masks for decline; breakout of armed hostilities between Iran and Israel; resistance movements in oil provinces e.g. Balochistan; Putin sheds political role to become oil czar with ex-politicos such as Shroeder and perhaps Chirac; acknowledgement by Saudi Oil minister Ali Al Naimi that Ghawar is going down - this would be the unequivocal signal. )
-Climate change (the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 (potential for runaway greenhouse); the incidence of extreme climate events; the impact of these events on infrastructure; the slowing of the Gulf stream; rate of rise in sea level; the change in albedo in the arctic and the antarctic;rate of melting of glaciers and icebergs;rate of species extinction; rate of atmospheric pollution; rate of dead zones in sea and on land,; rate of deterioration of Amazon; rate of increase in earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and volcanoes; changes in the ozone hole; changes in Chandler wobble; changes in sun spot cycle and solar radiation; coral destruction; increasing methane release from peat bogs and clathrates undersea; runaway greenhouse; changes in sea-floor spreading (potential for runaway plate tectonics);crossing of the galactic plane in 2012)
-Economic crisis (nominal unemployment rate; nominal consumer price index; exchange rate of US dollar, price of gold;drop in nominal GDP per capita per annum; gini coefficient; bankruptcy rate; crash of equity asset values on world bourses; gold holding of national banks, private banks, individuals; the organic composition of capital; precipitous fall in the rate of profit; sharp decline in consumer confidence; sharp increase in Producer Price Index; Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (nairu);panic on the markets; fleeing of right wing economists to the left; accumulation crisis, unsold inventories 200 trillion dollar triple witch meltdown in financial drivatives.)
-Socio-Political Breakdown (ratio of right to left wing governments in the world; tendency to right wing militaristic dictatorial governments; appearance of rogue states; rate of migration of environmental refugees, draft dodgers, conscientious objectors, escape artists, expatriates; rate of incarceration of political prisoners; suicide rate; marital dissolution rate; increasing rate of drug use;increase in mental illness rate; rate of change in indices of anomie and alienation; the stark evidence of the end of the social; political legitimation crises; increase in addictive behaviour; increase in social unrest, sabotage, riots, anarchy, rebellion, revolution; outright nuclear confrontation of the major powers, nuclear winter)
It is the combination of these four vectors of forces (and the sub-vectors within each) that will determine the speed of the onset of the doomsday scenario. Although the elements that I have identified can be quantified and placed into a statistical multivariate model, I prefer to start my analysis at a theoretical or qualitative level. The one thing that the numbers cannot capture is the "spirit" in Hegelian terms or the "specter" that Marx famously referred to in The Communist Manifesto. In the context of our current life-world, there can be little doubt that there is a smell of disaster and doomsday in the air. There is a bad moon rising. There is trouble in the air. We are all dead men walking. We are all captive passengers on a runaway train.
My theory is simply that the interaction of all of the vectors and sub-vectors I have identified above will combine to produce a deadly perfect storm at the geophysical level, an immense conflagration at the economic level, an increasing level of dysfunctionality and the ultimate disapperance of political and social structures. The end result will be a crisis of existence, of identity and of survival.
In this post I will outline an empirical methodology and a theory that tackles the most difficult problem of prognosticating the onset of doomsday: how long do we have? Everyone needs to know this vital piece of information. It will determine the logistics and the strategy of how one best prepares for the worst case scenario. I have identified the four main factors that will act together to produce an unprecedented melange of beastly wicked devastating forces. Within each of these four areas, there are several subordinate factors or variables that need to be taken into account. These are:
-Peak oil (the depletion rate of the giant oil fields (Ghawar, Cantarell, Daqing, Burgan, etc); the degradation gradient of the quality of oil in these fields; also referred to as EROEI; the duration of the plateau period (are we in it now?) the exploration/discovery ratio; the accuracy and reliability of the statistics of fossil fuel extraction/production; the anxiety level of peak oil experts such as Simmons, Campbell and The Oil Drum; riots and "terrorist" attacks in Saudi Arabia; adjusted downward OPEC quotas as masks for decline; breakout of armed hostilities between Iran and Israel; resistance movements in oil provinces e.g. Balochistan; Putin sheds political role to become oil czar with ex-politicos such as Shroeder and perhaps Chirac; acknowledgement by Saudi Oil minister Ali Al Naimi that Ghawar is going down - this would be the unequivocal signal. )
-Climate change (the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 (potential for runaway greenhouse); the incidence of extreme climate events; the impact of these events on infrastructure; the slowing of the Gulf stream; rate of rise in sea level; the change in albedo in the arctic and the antarctic;rate of melting of glaciers and icebergs;rate of species extinction; rate of atmospheric pollution; rate of dead zones in sea and on land,; rate of deterioration of Amazon; rate of increase in earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and volcanoes; changes in the ozone hole; changes in Chandler wobble; changes in sun spot cycle and solar radiation; coral destruction; increasing methane release from peat bogs and clathrates undersea; runaway greenhouse; changes in sea-floor spreading (potential for runaway plate tectonics);crossing of the galactic plane in 2012)
-Economic crisis (nominal unemployment rate; nominal consumer price index; exchange rate of US dollar, price of gold;drop in nominal GDP per capita per annum; gini coefficient; bankruptcy rate; crash of equity asset values on world bourses; gold holding of national banks, private banks, individuals; the organic composition of capital; precipitous fall in the rate of profit; sharp decline in consumer confidence; sharp increase in Producer Price Index; Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (nairu);panic on the markets; fleeing of right wing economists to the left; accumulation crisis, unsold inventories 200 trillion dollar triple witch meltdown in financial drivatives.)
-Socio-Political Breakdown (ratio of right to left wing governments in the world; tendency to right wing militaristic dictatorial governments; appearance of rogue states; rate of migration of environmental refugees, draft dodgers, conscientious objectors, escape artists, expatriates; rate of incarceration of political prisoners; suicide rate; marital dissolution rate; increasing rate of drug use;increase in mental illness rate; rate of change in indices of anomie and alienation; the stark evidence of the end of the social; political legitimation crises; increase in addictive behaviour; increase in social unrest, sabotage, riots, anarchy, rebellion, revolution; outright nuclear confrontation of the major powers, nuclear winter)
It is the combination of these four vectors of forces (and the sub-vectors within each) that will determine the speed of the onset of the doomsday scenario. Although the elements that I have identified can be quantified and placed into a statistical multivariate model, I prefer to start my analysis at a theoretical or qualitative level. The one thing that the numbers cannot capture is the "spirit" in Hegelian terms or the "specter" that Marx famously referred to in The Communist Manifesto. In the context of our current life-world, there can be little doubt that there is a smell of disaster and doomsday in the air. There is a bad moon rising. There is trouble in the air. We are all dead men walking. We are all captive passengers on a runaway train.
My theory is simply that the interaction of all of the vectors and sub-vectors I have identified above will combine to produce a deadly perfect storm at the geophysical level, an immense conflagration at the economic level, an increasing level of dysfunctionality and the ultimate disapperance of political and social structures. The end result will be a crisis of existence, of identity and of survival.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Foundations of Doomsday Thinking
In my last post I sketched the process through which one acquires a doomsday mindset. Essentially one immerses oneself in marxist, eco-cassandra and existential literature, observe world events, and arrive at some tentative perspectives on how the world works or doesn't work. The arrival of the awareness of peak oil, and the acceleration of climate change, has now given second life to the marxist paradigm of capitalism's collapse. Unfortunately for marxists and everyone else, there will be no transition to socialism, there will be no possibility of continuing the system of industrial production ( a point made by Jean Baudrillard ) under the impending conditions of energy scarcity, famine and exhaustion, chaotic climate and a crumbling economic, political and social edifice.
This is somewhat depressing since it implies that there are no outs or solutions to the mess we are going to find ourselves within. This is largely true, but there are several niches in the form of collectivism or communalism based on older socialist theories that might be the only pragmatic options. (By the way, I will be expanding upon these themes in later posts.)
In today's post I want to comment on the "epistemological" foundations of my doomsday thinking. The word "epistemological" simply means the grounds for or the theory of knowledge. It is a ten dollar word that academics and psuedo-intellectuals use to distinguish themselves from the riff raff. This is not my intent at all. My intent rather is to pay tribute and homage to all of the thinkers, past and present who have given me resonant thoughts, inspiration, consolation and solace. The latter source is quite critical because you cannot be a doomsday thinker without some relief, without some form of hope that alleviates the despair that is the natural concomitant of doomsday thinking. I have noted recently on the peak oil sites and blogs references to peak oil blues, peak oil fatigue, peak oil burnout. I recognize these symptoms of depression from my earlier encounters with the failure of marxist theory, and I can proffer some advice to novice doomers. Seek relief in poetry, music, art, get physical, be natural, take a hike, take a break, take a walk, take a trip. Do not dwell forever in this domain. This is just a mere episode, an epi-phenomenon. It will end and the end is in sight. If you sink into the abyss of despair, remember you are not alone. Also remember that if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you. Then you are almost sunk and the only way to get out is to go deeper into the abyss. If you are that far gone, then descend into nihilism, the lowest level of doomsday thinking. Read Nietzsche, read Heidegger, read Kierkegaard, read Sartre, read Camus. Realize that when you think nihilistically, you first think the thought and then uncannily the thought thinks you. At some point, you realize that you are possessed, you hit rock bottom, then you rebound, you overcome your despair, you come up for air and the world and its beauty takes on a wonderful hue. Just hang in there, dude. You will prevail. I'm the living exemplar.
So what are the epistemological foundations of my doomsday thinking? Well first I want to quote a rather long excerpt from Antonio Gramsci, another marxist epigone ( i.e student, disciple) that epitomizes, for me, what it means to pay homage to a past master:
"Karl Marx is for us a master of spiritual and moral life, not a shepherd wielding a crook. He is the stimulator of mental laziness, the arouser of good energies which slumber and which must wake up for the good fight. He is an example of intense and tenacious work to attain clear honesty of ideas,the solid culture necessary in order not to talk in a void, about abstractions. He is a monolithic bloc of knowledge and thinking humanity, who does not look at his tongue in order to speak, who does not put his hand on his heart in order to feel, but who constructs iron sylogisms which encircle reality in its essence and dominate it, which penetrate people's minds, which bring the sedimentations of prejudice and fixed ideas crumbling down and strengthen the moral character.
Karl Marx is not, for us, the infant whimpering in the cradle or the bearded man who frightens priests. He is none of the anecdotal episodes of his biography, no brilliant or gauche gesture of his outward human animality. He is a broad and serene thinking brain, he is an individual moment in the anxious search that humanity has been conducting for centuries to acquire consciousness of its being and becoming, to grasp the mysterious rhythms of history and disperse the mystery, to be stronger in its thinking and to act better. He is a necessary and integral part of our spirit, which would not be what it is if he had not lived, had not thought, had not sent sparks of light flying from the collision with his passions and his ideas, his sufferings and his ideals."
(An Antonio Gramsci Reader, Selected Writings, 1916-1935 edited by David Forgacs, Schocken Books, New York, 1988, p. 39).
Amen. Right on.
So in this spirit of paying homage and tribute, call it "epistemological" if you want, I list the persons who have affected me most in my doomsday thinking, in terms of ideas and concepts, inspiration, solace and comfort:
-Lao Tse ( live like a butterfly dreaming he's a man, mimic nature)
-Buddha (do anything you want, but do it with love)
-Diogenes of Sinope ( one of the first avatar rebels)
-Socrates (the unexamined life is not worth living)
-Jesus (do onto others as you would have them do unto you)
-Mohammed (the second religious rebel)
-Marcus Aurelius (Accept the things to which fate binds you)
-the bushido code of the samurai warrior
-Immanuel Kant (the categorical imperative, a restatement of Jesus)
-G.W. Hegel (the world "spirit", history as a process without a subject)
-William Blake (To see the world in a grain of sand)
-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein, The Last Man)
-John Keats (Beauty is truth and truth beauty)
-Lord Byron (So we'll go no more a-roving so late into the night)
-Samuel Tayor Coleridge (Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink)
-Jean Jacques Rousseau (The noble savage, The social contract)
-Max Stirner (precursor to Nietzschean nihilism, Marx & Engel's nemesis)
-Karl Marx (the state is the executive committee of the bourgoisie)
-Friedrich Nietszche (Lou Salome, amor fati in the face of nihilism, will to power)
-Mathew Arnold (Dover Beach - Ah love let us be true to one other)
-William Butler Yeats (The Second Coming - the best lack all conviction)
-Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol)
-Emily Dickenson (Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed)
-Christina Rossetti (When I am dead my dearest)
-Ernest Dowson (I have been true to thee Cynara in my fashion)
-A. E. Housman (doomsday morning - be ready when trouble comes )
-D. H. Lawrence (How beastly the bourgeois is)
-Joseph Conrad (The Heart of Darkness:allegorical source of Apocalypse Now)
-Friedrich Engels ( The history of the working class in England)
-V. Lenin (Imperialism and Revolution)
-L.Trotsky (The Permanent Revolution)
-R. Luxemburg ( The Accumulation of Capital)
-Antonio Gramsci ( The Prison Notebooks - first real political prisoner)
-Somerset Maughm (Of Human Bondage; The Razor's Edge)
-Soren Kierkegaard (lost love of R. Olsen led to fear and trembling)
-M. Heidegger (The fundamental event of modern times is the conquest of the world as image)
-Jean Paul Sartre (Hell is other people; Life is a useless passion)
-Albert Camus (The Outsider, The Rebel, The Myth of Sysyphus)
-Herbert Marcuse (One Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilization)
-Paul Mattick (Critique of Marcuse - capital and labour will unite in death)
-Louis Althusser (For Marx, Reading Capital, Lenin and Philosophy)
-Jean Baudrillard ( The Wheel of Production, a refutation of socialism)
-Jacques Derrida (peak oil believer, started marxist revival in the 90s)
-Ernest Mandel (Late Capitalism, The Second Slump, Revolutionary Marxism Today)
-Ivan Illich (Tools of Conviviality)
-Creedence Clearwater Revival (Lodi, Bad Moon Rising)
-Samuel Beckett (Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again , fail again, fail better.)
-Bob Dylan (There is no success like failure, and failure's no success at all)
-Noam Chomsky (books, speeches and interviews - a real warrior)
-Immanuel Wallerstein (student of Braudel, la longue duree )
-Fidel Castro ( the ultimate left wing survivor)
-Che Guevera (The revolutionary is the highest form of the human species)
-Marion King Hubbert (first human awakening to peak oil)
-William R. Catton Jr. (Overshoot -see previous blog)
-James Lovelock (Gaia, plate tectonics and petroleum/gas deposits are inter-related)
-Jay Hanson ( His die-off website predicted the Iraq war in 1999)
-Richard Duncan (The Olduvai Gorge - our ultimate fate)
-voxfux (His website predicted the assasination of P. Wellstone)
-xymphora (an enlightended weblog with critical insights into the machinations of the Powers That be) (also rigorous intuition)
-Oneida Kincaid (website AWOK earlier forecast Earth Crash)
-Survival Acres (No bullshit survival artist, knows what's coming)
-Stinking Desert Post (Has already headed for the hills)
-Michael Goodspeed (When the Ego dies)
-Jan Lundberg (Culture Change - an oil industry insider, blowing whistle)
-Hugo Chavez (Another true lefty warrior, speaking truth to power)
-deconsumption (Awakening from the American dream - or is it nightmare?)
-ASPO (Campbell, Laherrerre, Aklellet, Bahktiari etc. blowing whistle)
-The Oil Drum (best technical site on peak oil)
-Mike Ruppert (From the Wilderness, right on analysis -Goff, Kane, Baker, Austin-Fitts)
-Byron King (Whiskey & Gunpowder - powerful analysis, historical and geological)
-World Socialist Website (wsws - trenchant leftist commentary)
-Counterpunch ( great essays on current events)
-Al Giordano (The narco news bulletin, a great enlightened leftist journalist)
-William Blum (Some things you should know before the world ends)
-Dissident Voice (another good source of leftist views)
-Countercurrents (ditto)
-Vheadline (check out Lendman, Miller, McKillop, Heck, Lee and Oil Wars)
-ocnus (articles on behind the scenes political, economic & social events)
-Jim Puplava (Financialsenseonline - pay attention to his messages)
-Martin Lefebvre (Scoop - philosophical ruminations on current events)
-Energy Bulletin (up to date news on the world oil crisis)
-Ran Prieur (astute commentaries on the unraveling of civilization)
-J. Orlin Grabbe Jr. (great website with inspirational pics)
-Living in a van down by the river (Where we will all be - if we're lucky)
-Jason Godesky (extreme primitivist, only hope is nomadic survival)
-John Zerzan (the ultra primitivist critic, rejects everything modern)
-John Michael Greer (aka the Archdruid forecasts a "catabolic" crash)
-Matt Savinar ( a second generation doomer, son of Hanson and Ruppert )
-Mathew Simmons (Twilight in the Desert - curtain call for capital)
-Richard Heinberg (Museletter - long time primitivist, coming into his own)
-James Petras (marxist activist in Latin America)
-Tariq Ali (editor of New Left Review, longstanding marxist rag)
-John Bellamy Foster (editor of Monthly Review, another marxist rag)
-Mike Davis (pop leftist, Planet of Slums, Ecology of Fear)
-Subcommandante Marcos ( Zapatista leader attempting a quiet revolution from below)
-Arundhati Roy (a super intelligent and beautiful woman from India)
-kiara windrider (The dark night of the human soul)
-Johnny Cash (Because your mine, I walk the line. Empire of Dirt)
-Michelle Wright (inspirational C&W singer, I surrender)
-Patty Loveless ( You don't even know who I am)
-Martina McBride ( Independence day - Let the guilty pay )
-Shania Twain (Party for two)
-Emmylou Harris (The long black vail - with D. Edwards)
-Uma Thurman (Dangerous Liaison, Kill Bill parts 1&2)
-family and friends (daughters J&C, friends D. E. A., K. P &T.)
I would like to end this long post with two poems by A. E Housman that captures the doomsday mood perfectly:
XIV
There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.
Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned .
His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.
There follows no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of the breast.
Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul.
VI
I to my perils
Of cheat and charmer
Came clad in armour
By stars benign.
Hope lies to mortals
And most believe her,
But man's deceiver
Was never mine.
The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady,
So I was ready
When trouble came.
(From The Works of A. E. Housman, Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
Herfordshire, 1995, p. 27 & 165)
In my last post I sketched the process through which one acquires a doomsday mindset. Essentially one immerses oneself in marxist, eco-cassandra and existential literature, observe world events, and arrive at some tentative perspectives on how the world works or doesn't work. The arrival of the awareness of peak oil, and the acceleration of climate change, has now given second life to the marxist paradigm of capitalism's collapse. Unfortunately for marxists and everyone else, there will be no transition to socialism, there will be no possibility of continuing the system of industrial production ( a point made by Jean Baudrillard ) under the impending conditions of energy scarcity, famine and exhaustion, chaotic climate and a crumbling economic, political and social edifice.
This is somewhat depressing since it implies that there are no outs or solutions to the mess we are going to find ourselves within. This is largely true, but there are several niches in the form of collectivism or communalism based on older socialist theories that might be the only pragmatic options. (By the way, I will be expanding upon these themes in later posts.)
In today's post I want to comment on the "epistemological" foundations of my doomsday thinking. The word "epistemological" simply means the grounds for or the theory of knowledge. It is a ten dollar word that academics and psuedo-intellectuals use to distinguish themselves from the riff raff. This is not my intent at all. My intent rather is to pay tribute and homage to all of the thinkers, past and present who have given me resonant thoughts, inspiration, consolation and solace. The latter source is quite critical because you cannot be a doomsday thinker without some relief, without some form of hope that alleviates the despair that is the natural concomitant of doomsday thinking. I have noted recently on the peak oil sites and blogs references to peak oil blues, peak oil fatigue, peak oil burnout. I recognize these symptoms of depression from my earlier encounters with the failure of marxist theory, and I can proffer some advice to novice doomers. Seek relief in poetry, music, art, get physical, be natural, take a hike, take a break, take a walk, take a trip. Do not dwell forever in this domain. This is just a mere episode, an epi-phenomenon. It will end and the end is in sight. If you sink into the abyss of despair, remember you are not alone. Also remember that if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you. Then you are almost sunk and the only way to get out is to go deeper into the abyss. If you are that far gone, then descend into nihilism, the lowest level of doomsday thinking. Read Nietzsche, read Heidegger, read Kierkegaard, read Sartre, read Camus. Realize that when you think nihilistically, you first think the thought and then uncannily the thought thinks you. At some point, you realize that you are possessed, you hit rock bottom, then you rebound, you overcome your despair, you come up for air and the world and its beauty takes on a wonderful hue. Just hang in there, dude. You will prevail. I'm the living exemplar.
So what are the epistemological foundations of my doomsday thinking? Well first I want to quote a rather long excerpt from Antonio Gramsci, another marxist epigone ( i.e student, disciple) that epitomizes, for me, what it means to pay homage to a past master:
"Karl Marx is for us a master of spiritual and moral life, not a shepherd wielding a crook. He is the stimulator of mental laziness, the arouser of good energies which slumber and which must wake up for the good fight. He is an example of intense and tenacious work to attain clear honesty of ideas,the solid culture necessary in order not to talk in a void, about abstractions. He is a monolithic bloc of knowledge and thinking humanity, who does not look at his tongue in order to speak, who does not put his hand on his heart in order to feel, but who constructs iron sylogisms which encircle reality in its essence and dominate it, which penetrate people's minds, which bring the sedimentations of prejudice and fixed ideas crumbling down and strengthen the moral character.
Karl Marx is not, for us, the infant whimpering in the cradle or the bearded man who frightens priests. He is none of the anecdotal episodes of his biography, no brilliant or gauche gesture of his outward human animality. He is a broad and serene thinking brain, he is an individual moment in the anxious search that humanity has been conducting for centuries to acquire consciousness of its being and becoming, to grasp the mysterious rhythms of history and disperse the mystery, to be stronger in its thinking and to act better. He is a necessary and integral part of our spirit, which would not be what it is if he had not lived, had not thought, had not sent sparks of light flying from the collision with his passions and his ideas, his sufferings and his ideals."
(An Antonio Gramsci Reader, Selected Writings, 1916-1935 edited by David Forgacs, Schocken Books, New York, 1988, p. 39).
Amen. Right on.
So in this spirit of paying homage and tribute, call it "epistemological" if you want, I list the persons who have affected me most in my doomsday thinking, in terms of ideas and concepts, inspiration, solace and comfort:
-Lao Tse ( live like a butterfly dreaming he's a man, mimic nature)
-Buddha (do anything you want, but do it with love)
-Diogenes of Sinope ( one of the first avatar rebels)
-Socrates (the unexamined life is not worth living)
-Jesus (do onto others as you would have them do unto you)
-Mohammed (the second religious rebel)
-Marcus Aurelius (Accept the things to which fate binds you)
-the bushido code of the samurai warrior
-Immanuel Kant (the categorical imperative, a restatement of Jesus)
-G.W. Hegel (the world "spirit", history as a process without a subject)
-William Blake (To see the world in a grain of sand)
-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein, The Last Man)
-John Keats (Beauty is truth and truth beauty)
-Lord Byron (So we'll go no more a-roving so late into the night)
-Samuel Tayor Coleridge (Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink)
-Jean Jacques Rousseau (The noble savage, The social contract)
-Max Stirner (precursor to Nietzschean nihilism, Marx & Engel's nemesis)
-Karl Marx (the state is the executive committee of the bourgoisie)
-Friedrich Nietszche (Lou Salome, amor fati in the face of nihilism, will to power)
-Mathew Arnold (Dover Beach - Ah love let us be true to one other)
-William Butler Yeats (The Second Coming - the best lack all conviction)
-Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol)
-Emily Dickenson (Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed)
-Christina Rossetti (When I am dead my dearest)
-Ernest Dowson (I have been true to thee Cynara in my fashion)
-A. E. Housman (doomsday morning - be ready when trouble comes )
-D. H. Lawrence (How beastly the bourgeois is)
-Joseph Conrad (The Heart of Darkness:allegorical source of Apocalypse Now)
-Friedrich Engels ( The history of the working class in England)
-V. Lenin (Imperialism and Revolution)
-L.Trotsky (The Permanent Revolution)
-R. Luxemburg ( The Accumulation of Capital)
-Antonio Gramsci ( The Prison Notebooks - first real political prisoner)
-Somerset Maughm (Of Human Bondage; The Razor's Edge)
-Soren Kierkegaard (lost love of R. Olsen led to fear and trembling)
-M. Heidegger (The fundamental event of modern times is the conquest of the world as image)
-Jean Paul Sartre (Hell is other people; Life is a useless passion)
-Albert Camus (The Outsider, The Rebel, The Myth of Sysyphus)
-Herbert Marcuse (One Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilization)
-Paul Mattick (Critique of Marcuse - capital and labour will unite in death)
-Louis Althusser (For Marx, Reading Capital, Lenin and Philosophy)
-Jean Baudrillard ( The Wheel of Production, a refutation of socialism)
-Jacques Derrida (peak oil believer, started marxist revival in the 90s)
-Ernest Mandel (Late Capitalism, The Second Slump, Revolutionary Marxism Today)
-Ivan Illich (Tools of Conviviality)
-Creedence Clearwater Revival (Lodi, Bad Moon Rising)
-Samuel Beckett (Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again , fail again, fail better.)
-Bob Dylan (There is no success like failure, and failure's no success at all)
-Noam Chomsky (books, speeches and interviews - a real warrior)
-Immanuel Wallerstein (student of Braudel, la longue duree )
-Fidel Castro ( the ultimate left wing survivor)
-Che Guevera (The revolutionary is the highest form of the human species)
-Marion King Hubbert (first human awakening to peak oil)
-William R. Catton Jr. (Overshoot -see previous blog)
-James Lovelock (Gaia, plate tectonics and petroleum/gas deposits are inter-related)
-Jay Hanson ( His die-off website predicted the Iraq war in 1999)
-Richard Duncan (The Olduvai Gorge - our ultimate fate)
-voxfux (His website predicted the assasination of P. Wellstone)
-xymphora (an enlightended weblog with critical insights into the machinations of the Powers That be) (also rigorous intuition)
-Oneida Kincaid (website AWOK earlier forecast Earth Crash)
-Survival Acres (No bullshit survival artist, knows what's coming)
-Stinking Desert Post (Has already headed for the hills)
-Michael Goodspeed (When the Ego dies)
-Jan Lundberg (Culture Change - an oil industry insider, blowing whistle)
-Hugo Chavez (Another true lefty warrior, speaking truth to power)
-deconsumption (Awakening from the American dream - or is it nightmare?)
-ASPO (Campbell, Laherrerre, Aklellet, Bahktiari etc. blowing whistle)
-The Oil Drum (best technical site on peak oil)
-Mike Ruppert (From the Wilderness, right on analysis -Goff, Kane, Baker, Austin-Fitts)
-Byron King (Whiskey & Gunpowder - powerful analysis, historical and geological)
-World Socialist Website (wsws - trenchant leftist commentary)
-Counterpunch ( great essays on current events)
-Al Giordano (The narco news bulletin, a great enlightened leftist journalist)
-William Blum (Some things you should know before the world ends)
-Dissident Voice (another good source of leftist views)
-Countercurrents (ditto)
-Vheadline (check out Lendman, Miller, McKillop, Heck, Lee and Oil Wars)
-ocnus (articles on behind the scenes political, economic & social events)
-Jim Puplava (Financialsenseonline - pay attention to his messages)
-Martin Lefebvre (Scoop - philosophical ruminations on current events)
-Energy Bulletin (up to date news on the world oil crisis)
-Ran Prieur (astute commentaries on the unraveling of civilization)
-J. Orlin Grabbe Jr. (great website with inspirational pics)
-Living in a van down by the river (Where we will all be - if we're lucky)
-Jason Godesky (extreme primitivist, only hope is nomadic survival)
-John Zerzan (the ultra primitivist critic, rejects everything modern)
-John Michael Greer (aka the Archdruid forecasts a "catabolic" crash)
-Matt Savinar ( a second generation doomer, son of Hanson and Ruppert )
-Mathew Simmons (Twilight in the Desert - curtain call for capital)
-Richard Heinberg (Museletter - long time primitivist, coming into his own)
-James Petras (marxist activist in Latin America)
-Tariq Ali (editor of New Left Review, longstanding marxist rag)
-John Bellamy Foster (editor of Monthly Review, another marxist rag)
-Mike Davis (pop leftist, Planet of Slums, Ecology of Fear)
-Subcommandante Marcos ( Zapatista leader attempting a quiet revolution from below)
-Arundhati Roy (a super intelligent and beautiful woman from India)
-kiara windrider (The dark night of the human soul)
-Johnny Cash (Because your mine, I walk the line. Empire of Dirt)
-Michelle Wright (inspirational C&W singer, I surrender)
-Patty Loveless ( You don't even know who I am)
-Martina McBride ( Independence day - Let the guilty pay )
-Shania Twain (Party for two)
-Emmylou Harris (The long black vail - with D. Edwards)
-Uma Thurman (Dangerous Liaison, Kill Bill parts 1&2)
-family and friends (daughters J&C, friends D. E. A., K. P &T.)
I would like to end this long post with two poems by A. E Housman that captures the doomsday mood perfectly:
XIV
There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.
Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned .
His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.
There follows no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of the breast.
Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul.
VI
I to my perils
Of cheat and charmer
Came clad in armour
By stars benign.
Hope lies to mortals
And most believe her,
But man's deceiver
Was never mine.
The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady,
So I was ready
When trouble came.
(From The Works of A. E. Housman, Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
Herfordshire, 1995, p. 27 & 165)
Thursday, October 26, 2006
A Doomsday Mindset
Yesterday I posted a brief intro to what I intend to do with this blog I call doomsday's doorstep. We are all sitting on it and not too many people know it. Today I want to to describe how one acquires a doomsday mindset. It's not easy and you really have to have a lot of perseverance to keep trodding down the doomsday pathway. I have been doing it, off and on, for about four decades so you can say that I have earned my credentials or my union card or whatever qualifies for entry into the school of apocophylia. I haven't graduated, still learning at age 64, and I know that there are a lot of novice doomers out there that might benefit from my experience.
To start then, my first awareness of a potential doomsday came from reading Karl Marx's Capital , Volumes 1-4, and the Grundrisse, especially the parts dealing with economic crises. According to Marx's analysis, internal contradictions, overproduction and underconsumption would lead to the breakdown of the system known as "capitalism" (Marx never used that term, but it is a convenient shorthand to refer to the reality we all live in). Marx's epigones, especially Rosa Luxemburg and Ernest Mandel, extended his theory into the twentieth century. The latter in his two major works Late Capitalism and The Second Slump, described the system as close to eminent crisis, not on its death bed, but near the end of its rope. The leitmotif of the "crisis of capitalism" has haunted Marx's students for over a century. The failure of Marx's prediction of capitalism's collapse has put marxists in a tough spot. The one thing missing in Marx's oeuvre is an energy (petroleum) theory of value that ought to have replaced the labour theory of value that Marx borrowed from the classical economists Smith and Ricardo. This one oversight explains why Marx and his epigones failed to comprehend the longevity of capitalism. Without petroleum and narural gas, capitalism would have died decades ago. But now after a century of continuous petroleum extraction and with the decline and the depletion of all fossil fuels, the odds of Marx's prediction coming true have increased dramatically.
During the seventies, I began to read a series of analyses, starting with Garrett Hardin's "The tragedy of the commons", the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth , Paul Erhlich's The Population Bomb, and Barry Commoners' The Closing Circle. None of these works found their way into the cultural consciousness and more's the pity. Denounced as "Eco-Cassandras", their primary message that the resources of planet earth are limited in supply and that the earth is a closed, not an infinite system, was all but ignored by the public and their masters. Their message made sense but there was never any serious debate about the issues they raised. It was at about that point that I came to a realization that anaylyses of this nature were destined to remain on the margins of awareness and that no-one in public office or positions of influence could alter the course of capital's death machine. It was going to be a fight to the finish. I adopted a survivalist mindset, bought gold and dried foods and looked for an exit to the hills. But I hesitated and paused. My curiosity got the better of me.
Then the eighties started with a revolution in Iran and the publication of the classic study in the eco-cassandra lexicon, William Catton jr's Overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change. What Catton managed to do in his sociological analysis was to distill the essence of the world problematic into one word. The idea was so simple and intuitive - we are in the process of overshooting the carrying capacity of a planet that contained a plentiful but finite and limited supply of natural resources. Again very few listened to Catton's message and again more's the pity.
A very momentous event occurred in October 1987 when virtually all the major stock markets of the world crashed in unison, the world crisis and crash that Marx so long ago predicted. But this was not the end of capitalism as we knew it. Shortly before the crash an unkown academic by the name of Alan Greenspan took over the reins of the Federal Reserve Board (the private bank cartel that controls the world money supply) from Paul Volker who had declared defiantly in the face of all evidence to the contrary that the business cycle was dead. Volker was right. With Greenspan as the quarterback of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT), the system managed to survive for almost two decades, despite a few ups and downs along the way, but no crash, so far. At this juncture in the late 1980s, a host of financial experts from Wall Street and elsewhere joined the chorus of Marxist doomsters, predicting hard times for capital ( Joseph Granville, Harry Browne, Howard Ruff, James Dines, Doug Casey, Ravi Batra and a slew of authors from Arlington House).
The nineties started with the first Iraq war, the first attack on the WTC, the demise of the Soviet Union, Barrick's Bank, and then proceeded to the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund, a financial enterprise with billions of dollars in assets, premised on the theories of Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, two Nobel Laureate prize economists. What does this say about the Nobel prize or more important the state of economics? The nineties ended with two significant events: the appearance of a website called die-off created by Jay Hanson who emphasized the works of the earlier generation of eco-cassandras; and the publication of an article in the Scientific American, March, 1998, entitled "The End of Cheap Oil" written by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere, two very experienced oil geologists with a wealth of experience in the petroleum industry.
The first decade of the 21st century began with the mitigated prevention of a potential Y2K disaster and the unmitigated allowance of a four-pronged air attack on the WTC, the Pentagon and Chicago's Sears Towers. This event (called a desparate provocation by the Powers That Be - Max Kolskegg) was a signal that the end game had begun. The end game is a reflection of a crumbling over-extended, debt-bloated faux fiat money system. The end game would be the fight to the finish that I sensed over two decades ago. The sense of deja vu was indeed poignant but my sense of foreboding was even more so. The end game is a fight for control and access to the last remaining sources of energy supply available to the main political actors. The end game will finish with the common ruin of the contending classes,
Awareness of the connection between all these dots is now apparent on the more enlightened websites and blogs on the internet. In some cases this awareness will lead to dread and depression, anxiety and denial. This is normal. Ride out the storm. What is happening now is not just a literally earth-shattering event but an existential ego shattering event. It will force all of us to abandon all of our moral prejudices. our cultural sentiments, our long held values of equity, democracy, justice, peace and humanity. We will be forced, whether we like it or not, into a deep survival mode. We will have to be prepared to face an unprecedented onslaught of a series of wicked firestorms that will fry the unaware. Become aware and you and your loved ones have a chance to live. Remain unaware and the only blessing that you will have is that you will not know what hit you.
Yesterday I posted a brief intro to what I intend to do with this blog I call doomsday's doorstep. We are all sitting on it and not too many people know it. Today I want to to describe how one acquires a doomsday mindset. It's not easy and you really have to have a lot of perseverance to keep trodding down the doomsday pathway. I have been doing it, off and on, for about four decades so you can say that I have earned my credentials or my union card or whatever qualifies for entry into the school of apocophylia. I haven't graduated, still learning at age 64, and I know that there are a lot of novice doomers out there that might benefit from my experience.
To start then, my first awareness of a potential doomsday came from reading Karl Marx's Capital , Volumes 1-4, and the Grundrisse, especially the parts dealing with economic crises. According to Marx's analysis, internal contradictions, overproduction and underconsumption would lead to the breakdown of the system known as "capitalism" (Marx never used that term, but it is a convenient shorthand to refer to the reality we all live in). Marx's epigones, especially Rosa Luxemburg and Ernest Mandel, extended his theory into the twentieth century. The latter in his two major works Late Capitalism and The Second Slump, described the system as close to eminent crisis, not on its death bed, but near the end of its rope. The leitmotif of the "crisis of capitalism" has haunted Marx's students for over a century. The failure of Marx's prediction of capitalism's collapse has put marxists in a tough spot. The one thing missing in Marx's oeuvre is an energy (petroleum) theory of value that ought to have replaced the labour theory of value that Marx borrowed from the classical economists Smith and Ricardo. This one oversight explains why Marx and his epigones failed to comprehend the longevity of capitalism. Without petroleum and narural gas, capitalism would have died decades ago. But now after a century of continuous petroleum extraction and with the decline and the depletion of all fossil fuels, the odds of Marx's prediction coming true have increased dramatically.
During the seventies, I began to read a series of analyses, starting with Garrett Hardin's "The tragedy of the commons", the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth , Paul Erhlich's The Population Bomb, and Barry Commoners' The Closing Circle. None of these works found their way into the cultural consciousness and more's the pity. Denounced as "Eco-Cassandras", their primary message that the resources of planet earth are limited in supply and that the earth is a closed, not an infinite system, was all but ignored by the public and their masters. Their message made sense but there was never any serious debate about the issues they raised. It was at about that point that I came to a realization that anaylyses of this nature were destined to remain on the margins of awareness and that no-one in public office or positions of influence could alter the course of capital's death machine. It was going to be a fight to the finish. I adopted a survivalist mindset, bought gold and dried foods and looked for an exit to the hills. But I hesitated and paused. My curiosity got the better of me.
Then the eighties started with a revolution in Iran and the publication of the classic study in the eco-cassandra lexicon, William Catton jr's Overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change. What Catton managed to do in his sociological analysis was to distill the essence of the world problematic into one word. The idea was so simple and intuitive - we are in the process of overshooting the carrying capacity of a planet that contained a plentiful but finite and limited supply of natural resources. Again very few listened to Catton's message and again more's the pity.
A very momentous event occurred in October 1987 when virtually all the major stock markets of the world crashed in unison, the world crisis and crash that Marx so long ago predicted. But this was not the end of capitalism as we knew it. Shortly before the crash an unkown academic by the name of Alan Greenspan took over the reins of the Federal Reserve Board (the private bank cartel that controls the world money supply) from Paul Volker who had declared defiantly in the face of all evidence to the contrary that the business cycle was dead. Volker was right. With Greenspan as the quarterback of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT), the system managed to survive for almost two decades, despite a few ups and downs along the way, but no crash, so far. At this juncture in the late 1980s, a host of financial experts from Wall Street and elsewhere joined the chorus of Marxist doomsters, predicting hard times for capital ( Joseph Granville, Harry Browne, Howard Ruff, James Dines, Doug Casey, Ravi Batra and a slew of authors from Arlington House).
The nineties started with the first Iraq war, the first attack on the WTC, the demise of the Soviet Union, Barrick's Bank, and then proceeded to the collapse of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund, a financial enterprise with billions of dollars in assets, premised on the theories of Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, two Nobel Laureate prize economists. What does this say about the Nobel prize or more important the state of economics? The nineties ended with two significant events: the appearance of a website called die-off created by Jay Hanson who emphasized the works of the earlier generation of eco-cassandras; and the publication of an article in the Scientific American, March, 1998, entitled "The End of Cheap Oil" written by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere, two very experienced oil geologists with a wealth of experience in the petroleum industry.
The first decade of the 21st century began with the mitigated prevention of a potential Y2K disaster and the unmitigated allowance of a four-pronged air attack on the WTC, the Pentagon and Chicago's Sears Towers. This event (called a desparate provocation by the Powers That Be - Max Kolskegg) was a signal that the end game had begun. The end game is a reflection of a crumbling over-extended, debt-bloated faux fiat money system. The end game would be the fight to the finish that I sensed over two decades ago. The sense of deja vu was indeed poignant but my sense of foreboding was even more so. The end game is a fight for control and access to the last remaining sources of energy supply available to the main political actors. The end game will finish with the common ruin of the contending classes,
Awareness of the connection between all these dots is now apparent on the more enlightened websites and blogs on the internet. In some cases this awareness will lead to dread and depression, anxiety and denial. This is normal. Ride out the storm. What is happening now is not just a literally earth-shattering event but an existential ego shattering event. It will force all of us to abandon all of our moral prejudices. our cultural sentiments, our long held values of equity, democracy, justice, peace and humanity. We will be forced, whether we like it or not, into a deep survival mode. We will have to be prepared to face an unprecedented onslaught of a series of wicked firestorms that will fry the unaware. Become aware and you and your loved ones have a chance to live. Remain unaware and the only blessing that you will have is that you will not know what hit you.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Welcome to Doomsday's Doorstep.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
What I intend to do over the course of this blog is to draw a picture of the penultimate doomsday scenario. The ultimate doomsday scenario is simply the destruction of the planet earth and everything on it. That scenario will come into play in several billion years time when our sun burns out and transforms into a red giant with a massive overgrown corona swallowing the earth in its orbit and scorching every living object on it, leaving the remnants of the earth as a giant charcoal spheroid. So the earth is headed toward doomsday, as is our sun, our galaxy and our current universe. Several other ultimate doomsday scenarios might come into play, such as cosmic ray mega-bursts, pole shifts, runaway greenhouse, runaway plate tectonics, collision with large asteroids, etc. But these are not the concerns of this blog.
The penultimate doomsday scenario that I am going to draw is based on events and historical processes occuring right now. There are four main sources from which I draw my doomsday picture: (1) peak oil; (2) climate change; (3) economic crisis and (4) socio-political breakdown. There is a fifth source that I am going to draw upon and that is the existential crisis that will ensue when the first four crises eventually play out.
My main motive for this blog is that virtually none of the main actors in the above four areas of discourse, although characterized as doomers, have actually pieced together a credible scenario that depicts the worst case. Some have come close, for example in the peak oil field, there is the Archdruid (aka John Michael Greer), Mike Ruppert (FTW), Survival Acres, James Howard Kunstler, Jason Godesky (the Anthropik Network), Jay Hanson (the erstwhile die-off) and Matt Savinar (LATOC). But none (with the exception of Jay Hanson) have concentrated their attention upon what will happen when all of the above sources of crises start to co-mingle to generate a wicked constellation of devastation. Almost all of the doomers still believe that there will be some semblance or form of survival after the crash. But is this based on faith or inertia or what? The closest conception of the ultimate doomsday scenario is that provided by James Lovelock who sees perhaps 200 million survivors on our planet at the end of this century, after global burning wipes out over 95% of humanity. But even Lovelock does not give us a credible argument of how we get to that state. His account given in The Revenge of Gaia (2006) is essentially a gut reaction to how he feels the global burning scenario plays itself out. But we cannot rule out the possiblity that Lovelock's instincts are any less sound than his science. All we have to do is piece together the actual steps that will lead to this utter decimation of the human population. Lovelock could have sub-titled his book The Revenge of Malthus.
I am going to draw upon the main actors mentioned above (plus a host of others) and put this scenario together step by step and then see what I come up with. My intention is not to scare anyone out of their wits, but to give interested parties a rationale for following a path that will lead to their offspring and loved ones being part of the 200 million at century's end.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
What I intend to do over the course of this blog is to draw a picture of the penultimate doomsday scenario. The ultimate doomsday scenario is simply the destruction of the planet earth and everything on it. That scenario will come into play in several billion years time when our sun burns out and transforms into a red giant with a massive overgrown corona swallowing the earth in its orbit and scorching every living object on it, leaving the remnants of the earth as a giant charcoal spheroid. So the earth is headed toward doomsday, as is our sun, our galaxy and our current universe. Several other ultimate doomsday scenarios might come into play, such as cosmic ray mega-bursts, pole shifts, runaway greenhouse, runaway plate tectonics, collision with large asteroids, etc. But these are not the concerns of this blog.
The penultimate doomsday scenario that I am going to draw is based on events and historical processes occuring right now. There are four main sources from which I draw my doomsday picture: (1) peak oil; (2) climate change; (3) economic crisis and (4) socio-political breakdown. There is a fifth source that I am going to draw upon and that is the existential crisis that will ensue when the first four crises eventually play out.
My main motive for this blog is that virtually none of the main actors in the above four areas of discourse, although characterized as doomers, have actually pieced together a credible scenario that depicts the worst case. Some have come close, for example in the peak oil field, there is the Archdruid (aka John Michael Greer), Mike Ruppert (FTW), Survival Acres, James Howard Kunstler, Jason Godesky (the Anthropik Network), Jay Hanson (the erstwhile die-off) and Matt Savinar (LATOC). But none (with the exception of Jay Hanson) have concentrated their attention upon what will happen when all of the above sources of crises start to co-mingle to generate a wicked constellation of devastation. Almost all of the doomers still believe that there will be some semblance or form of survival after the crash. But is this based on faith or inertia or what? The closest conception of the ultimate doomsday scenario is that provided by James Lovelock who sees perhaps 200 million survivors on our planet at the end of this century, after global burning wipes out over 95% of humanity. But even Lovelock does not give us a credible argument of how we get to that state. His account given in The Revenge of Gaia (2006) is essentially a gut reaction to how he feels the global burning scenario plays itself out. But we cannot rule out the possiblity that Lovelock's instincts are any less sound than his science. All we have to do is piece together the actual steps that will lead to this utter decimation of the human population. Lovelock could have sub-titled his book The Revenge of Malthus.
I am going to draw upon the main actors mentioned above (plus a host of others) and put this scenario together step by step and then see what I come up with. My intention is not to scare anyone out of their wits, but to give interested parties a rationale for following a path that will lead to their offspring and loved ones being part of the 200 million at century's end.
