I've recently been communicating with some friends (see links to their blogs at right), and we've been commiserating about the world's woes; overpopulation, war and famine, environmental destruction, the fast approaching end of our fossil fuels, etc. Even the most pollyanna among us would have a hard time burying their heads deeply enough in the sand to tune out the cries of the poor and pitiful billions. The question isn't, "does the world need fixing," but "how can the world be fixed?"
It seems unlikely that humanity has the wisdom or the will to fix what ails it. The last 4,000 years, more or less, of recorded history detail many attempts at regaining the Garden. At best, these sometimes noble efforts have resulted in a few years peace or temporary sanctuary for a select few. At worst, they've been the first phase of pogroms killing millions--tens of millions. Hardly reassuring for those of us looking for a fix. If the wisest of us has not hit upon a workable solution in the last four millenia, what hope do we have?
How should we then live?
12 comments:
with hope.
"It is madness to wish for the impossible, and it is impossible for the wicked not to do wrong." --Marcus Aurelius
Big difference between "wish" and "hope."
I don't think in this context it makes much difference, but the question is really, "in what or whom do you place your hope?" My point was that hope is unlikely to come from humanity.
Didn't mean to seem pedantic with the Marcus Aurelius quote, but I really do like his take on many things.
I don't know if I know of any blissful garden, but I am sure of the organic growth, overshoot, and die-off phases that all forms of life exhibit. We are merely fulfilling this prophecy. In a closed environment, life forms cohabitating must be at equilibrium with their competitors, prey, and surrounding environment. Introduce a foreign species, or one that exhibits a particular advantage and the whole system shifts. It is much the same in political systems.
We are currently changing the large scale equilibrium that exists on this planet, whether that means the examples of life, like the entire biosphere, or the largest social structures we have created (international forms of communication and trade.) We are in the shift to another phase. When this new system hits equilibrium is the real question, not whether we can fix it. Will it be delayed and how can we adjust to make the structural shocks the least felt?
And as long as we're dropping quotes, "It is not merely enough to possess moral excellence, one must use it as well," ~ Cicero
"Equilibrium is coming," seems like another way of saying, "the end is near." I agree with you in principal. Equilibrium must come sooner or later--by war or plague or mass starvation or all of the above--IF we cannot find a better way to achieve it. The only alternative is expanding into new territories, which are precious few, and therefore only a stopgap method.
What do you propose to mitigate the shocks? Is avoiding a violent phase shift completely impossible? Sam says we confront the future with hope. Again, I agree (mainly because of my faith, to be quite honest). But the question is, "in whom or what do we place our hope?" or "where do we search for a solution, if there is one?"
Well, in addressing this issue let me expound further what I mean...
I'm not sure if you can soften the "shocks" to the system. Economic shocks tend to reverberate for decades, and affect much of the growth of technology. The ecological shocks could take even longer; like the fact that it will take around 100 years to truly feel the effects of global warming that have been caused by the previous 100 years of industrial activity.
The largest political and economic structures probably won't make it; it will simply be to hard to exercise authority over such large structures. A country of laws is only intact when it can exercise those laws and enforce them.
Just as when larger empires collapsed previously (Maya, Rome, Sumerian,) after food production and trade dwindled, populations shrunk and dispersed. Knowledge was lost, and new, smaller social systems took the authority and exercise of power that the larger ones previously held.
I'm not sure what can mitigate the shocks enough to allow some of the political, social, and economic systems we have developed to be maintained. I suspect there will be large scale structural change. But the good news is that on the small scale things could only get better for the majority. 2 and half billion need the food that we currently have available by production; political blocks prevent them from receiving it, not production blocks.
I do not think that there is a solution for the whole world... I think many smaller solutions will aggregate to bring about a new equilibrium.
I don't understand, Frank. At first you say the shocks probably can't be softened, but at the end you say, "many smaller solutions will aggregate to bring about a new equilibrium." These seem to me to be at odds.
You also say that the larger political and economic structures won't survive, and their power will be parsed up among smaller systems. Perhaps this is correct, but if so, why do we care? If 2.5 billion are starving under the present system, why not move to a different system where power is more localized? (I don't agree with this, but I'm playing devil's advocate to your argument.)
In my opinion, more centralized control isn't realing fixing what ails the world and past experience has shown that less centralized control won't do the trick either. The kind of shock I think we are headed towards is massive deaths to world population through war, famine and disease. This will be caused by increasing populations and subsequently increasing competition over less-and-less sufficient resources. Resources could be less sufficient by way of environmental collapse or because of overpopulation alone, with no environmental collapse, but the result is the same. Every method by which we seek to avoid this can only delay the inevitable crash because there is a finite number of resources and we will always outbreed the resources. Improvements to healthcare worldwide and increases in agricultural productivity; more energy resources (whether directly harmful to the environment or not) and conversion of more land to livable land and more water to potable water, will only provide more fuel for the overpopulation fire. At some point the wars, famines, and diseases may knock us back down to a previous level whereupon the cycle begins anew. ***There is no permanent stability for the world; only temporary and localized regions of stability.***
Therefore, the most that we as individuals can hope for, is to live out our lives in some calm and prosperous, albeit temporary, eddy in the stream of world history and it's manifold miseries. We can hope only for a "Pax Americana" that will at least spare us and our loved ones for a season, perhaps at the expense of the rest of the world. We can only look out for our own interests, even if it costs others. (Again, I do not believe this, but doesn't this follow logically from the evidence given? If not, then where did the logic err?)
Um, I see no difference in our two previous posts. I never advocated nor said centralized production was good, nor that localized was. Merely that local systems will be what we return to.
On another note I have a new debate up on my site. Check it out.
Then what was your purpose for this sentence, "I'm not sure what can mitigate the shocks enough to allow some of the political, social, and economic systems we have developed to be maintained."?
Let me ask my question another way; in your view, what form will this "return to equilibrium" take? If "the good news is that on the small scale things could only get better for the majority," then why avoid the return to equilibrium? Why not embrace the status quo or even work to hasten the change?
I'll check out your new debate. For those who are following along, Frank's site can be found at http://www.itisthepath.blogspot.com/
World going down the tubes-- yep, probably. At the most optimistic, humankind has some challenges ahead. The root of it all is population and its inevitable environmental impact. In the past population was an asset to countries, but in the future it will become a liability. Many will have slower population growth as an effect of industrialization/wealth, ie. Italy or the US. Others will mandate it (China). Others won't do either, and will basically end up with nature doing it for them (war, famine, and disease). That's one ironic flip side of "feeding all those billions"-- it doesn't solve any problems in the longer run, and, to the true cynic, might even be making future problems that much worse.
In response to your question, "how then, should we live our lives", I can only say that I'm seeing more wisdom in those leftie bumper stickers you see up here-- "Think globally, act locally". You may not be in a position to change the whole world, but we should do the right thing in our own little part of it. Not that that solves any immediate problems for the untold billions...
It is a strange side effect of modern industrialization that, as populations acclimatize to the wealth and longevity industrialization brings, family size dramatically decreases. Human evolutionary ecology would predict that increased wealth would result in increasing numbers of grand children. That prediction works very well in non-industrialized populations. Why does it cease to work in societies like ours, Western Europe's, Australia's, etc.?
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