FFR: The Big Collapse

By | March 29, 2009
11 Comments

Futurist Brian Wang returned to FFR to discuss Collapsatarianism with Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon.

Why do some people believe that a major collapse is imminent? And are they seeing the whole picture?

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  • Harvey

    People with one million dollars, feel like they need five million dollars to be on the safe side, whereas people with five million dollars, feel they need twenty million dollars to be on the safe side. And they don’t want that taxed. Then Madoff runs off with all that. Then they want a government to take a collection to replace that. Research provided by the Espatchelowe Art Institute.

  • https://blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    I think I could feel reasonably safe with 10 million or so. Reasonably.

    Actually, this goes back to your question about free markets. What makes a market “free?” A lack of interference from external forces outside the market — government and others. I think pure free markets are a fantasy, and that we’re better off with things like product safety requirements and environmental protection even though they (arguably) interfere with a pure free market. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have a problem with the market being free enough to allow failure of organizations that have been dubbed “too big to fail.” AIG? GM?

    Michael D. makes the argument that we shouldn’t attempt to revive extinct species such as dinosaurs or mammoths because there is a reason they aren’t with us any more. Evolution selected against them. I’m not sure I agree about dinosaurs and mammoths, but the health of our own social and economic evolution probably demands that some things die off. Huge businesses that lost a lot of money and can’t keep going on their own strike me as good candidates.

  • Harvey

    While Moore’s Law finds the World Economy, is it a good idea, to put the fate of human lives in the hands of the “free market”? Right now, it seems to me, those that hold onto the illusion of “free market” principles can only be Calapsatarians.

  • Oddom Idobur

    After thinking about this for a while and reviewing Mr. Wang’s arguments, I believe my strongest objection to this line of argument is that it leads people to think that there is nothing fundamentally wrong or dangerous about the current course of events. It leads people to believe that the situation is readily salvageable. It’s deliberate sabotage of measures and mental attitudes that are possibly critical and certainly safer than anything in practice right now.

    This belief is founded on two falsehoods: first, that what _can_ be done to resolve the current crisis (and there are certainly measures that would be effective) _will_ be done, which betrays a total naivete and lack of learning curve where politicians are concerned – inexcusably so. Second, a simple lack of understanding of the tremendous destructive inertia stored up in the financial and social and demographic forces currently at work. The bond market is the single biggest national security threat the USA faces and hardly anybody seems to grasp the why or how, or what the immediate real world implications are of trouble there.

    Civilizations _do_ fall. Rome did. The Achaean Greeks did. The mark of a dark age, as Jerry Pournelle has repeatedly pointed out, is not just that what once was done can no longer be done, it is that men no longer believe it ever could be done – so the Achaean city walls were said to have been built by giants, because who else could move such stones; and eighth-century European peasants grew a tenth of what the Romans had managed on the same land. The mental prerequisites for this loss of capability are too widespread in the current culture for anyone to feel comfortable about it. Denying the possibility of a collapse is as stupid as denying any possibility in science. Gather evidence and do what experiements can be done. But don’t go around saying everything’s fine and nobody needs to do anything: that’s sabotage of attempts to preserve civilization, and that makes you nobody’s friend.

  • MikeD

    I said what? right, you meant Mr. Darling. :)

    We should revive dinosaurs only if they’re tasty… but not velociraptors because I saw a movie about them once: they’re more likely to eat you than you are likely to eat them.

  • https://blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    MikeD –

    >>I said what? right, you meant Mr. Darling. :)

    Right. He’s Michael D. You’re MikeD. Let’s not let the fact that your given name is “Michael” cause any undue confusion, here. ;-)

    Oddom –

    >>Denying the possibility of a collapse is as stupid as denying any possibility in science. Gather evidence and do what experiements can be done. But don’t go around saying everything’s fine and nobody needs to do anything: that’s sabotage of attempts to preserve civilization, and that makes you nobody’s friend.

    Lighten up. As Director of Research for the Life Boat Foundation, I think Brian is noddingly familiar with the idea that the world can end and, yes, that civilization can end. But rather than asserting the inevitability of collapse, Lifeboat is actively engaged in trying to ensure the survival of civilization. I suppose that makes them everybody’s friend.

  • Oddom Idobur

    I don’t care what his organization’s name is and neither should you. I care about what he does and advocates. He says “sorry collapsitarians, it’s not going to happen”. That alone disproves your claim: he’s not taking it seriously.

    His arguments indicate he doesn’t actually understand the riskiest aspects of the current crisis, or how to mitigate or resolve them. His proposals are materially feasible but socially and politically extremely unlikely to be implemented and in any case do not address the social causes driving the crisis; classic technocrat mistakes. The problem is not a technological one; we are not facing any truly existential technological challenges, not even peak oil. This crisis is driven by societal issues: outright fraud becoming commonly acceptable to the point where there’s trillions of dollars’ worth destroying confidence in the medium of exchange required for an economy to function at any level at all, voters and politicians who continue voting themselves more and more money, national budgets built on exponentially growing ponzi schemes and facing imminent catastrophic collapse, potential domino reactions from local trade and financial disruptions involving the entire globe as a result of the globalized economy, dissolution of interpersonal community type relationships on which societies previously fell back on to endure hard times, aging populations throughout the technological world without sufficient younger generations to replace them, ballooning younger populations largely lacking in technological skills throughout the third world, the multicultural-induced dissolution of national solidarity throughout the technological world, cities filled with underclass populations kept quiet by government handouts.

    Yes we _can_ reduce our level of consumption. But what are the consequences of that? In the past it was done by a society not far removed from being mostly agricultural. What is the fraction of modern 20somethings have the skills and mindset needed to cobble together a wood gasifier to get their car running without self-asphixiating from CO, or to plant a garden and raise chickens, instead of complaining that the government isn’t doing enough? How many boomer retirees are going to accept that, no, they can’t have their retirement and medical care and they shouldn’t vote to have the government pay for what they want, and yes they might just have to endure a slow decrepitude without health care? How many ghetto blacks or Mexican drug gangs, once the bond market collapses and deficit spending is forced to stop and budgets everywhere (including law enforcement) drop by 60% or more, are going to sit down and start building orderly and prosperous communities the way the Americans who settled the frontier did, as opposed to going out with guns and taking whatever they can? How many politicians are going to forego the easy path of fearmongering about guns and trying to confiscate them (and thus directly risking an immediate and severe civil insurrection) as a way of capitalizing on an unsettled and fearsome climate? How many politicians are going to put their reelection on the line to tell the voters that not only are they not going to spend more on what they voters are asking for, but they’re going to hand out less loot from now on? How many voters are going to accept that behavior _must_ change and they cannot continue doing and getting what they have been, before the situation has been driven past the point where it is readily recoverable? As things get worse, how many politicians are _not_ going to vote for taking things from those evil rich people to give it to the “less fortunate”? How many families that couldn’t hold together in mutual support in a classic nuclear family in good times will be able to manage it in bad? Oh, _eventually_ they will learn how, but how long will it take them to learn?

    It is not like controlled experiments on any of this have not already been run. Japan’s economy for the past 20 years shows what happens in an aging society without sufficient younger generations to replace it, regardless of technological inputs – and they don’t have the multicultural problem. Katrina showed what happens to populations trained to be dependent on government control when that control is suddenly drastically weakened. The French car burning riots demonstrate what we can expect from Europe’s Muslims once they stop getting their government payoffs. The kidnapping and murder rate in Phoenix over the last few years shows us what we have to look forward to by indulging the illegal immigration vote. California – economically and socially – is the USA’s future in a microcosm.

    Mr. Wang is in COMPLETE DENIAL.

    Technology can’t fix society. It’s a tool. It has to be applied by sane individuals. If Mr. Wang was a moralizing preacher – as little as I like them – I might have more faith in his influence to slow or reverse current trends.

    I have my disagreements with _Atlas Shrugged_, but its fundamental logic of “if A then B” is absolutely inarguable and there is every evidence that current headlines will continue to parallel it – until we stop doing A, rather than trying to choose whether to use the hammer or the screwdriver to do it.

    And, “lighten up”? On _this_ subject? No.

  • Oddom Idobur

    One additional comment – I only just noticed, looking over Mr. Wang’s site (nextbigfuture) his post about “emerging technological black swans”, in which he discusses assorted energy companies including BlackLight Power. I have not looked into the others, but I _do_ know that BlackLight Power has been promising the revolution “real soon now” and “within a year” for a decade or more. They are a scam. Their business model is to get foolish venture capitalists to give them money without ever actually producing anything. They’re pretty good at it. If Mr. Wang had done any research before writing his post, he would be aware of this. That he isn’t doesn’t speak well of his critical thinking skills.

    The rest of it seems to be either evolutionary improvements on existing tech, or a collection of stuff that _might_ pan out but hasn’t actually reached the critical breakthrough. This isn’t anything to build hope on.

  • https://blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    Oddom –

    I can’t tell if your misreading of Brian’s essay and my comments is deliberate or just the result of being so intent on getting the word out about our coming doom.

    Two things I really must respond to, though.

    >>This isn’t anything to build hope on.

    Well, if I read you correctly, there is nothing worth building any hope on. Or maybe you have a list of solutions as exhaustive and ponderous as your catalog of ills, and you’re saving it for later.

    From an earlier comment:

    >>It’s deliberate sabotage of measures and mental attitudes that are possibly critical and certainly safer than anything in practice right now.

    Okay, you’ve got us there. Brian Wang is engaged in deliberate sabotage of efforts to save civilization, and we at the Speculist are in collusion with him.

    That’s why I preemptively deleted your comments.

  • http://nextbigfuture.com Brian Wang

    Not addressed directly to commenter, but to clarify my position.

    Just because most doom scenarios are flawed does not mean that improvements or positive steps should not be taken. Debunking the boogeyman does not mean a child should not eat properly or clean up there room or do their chores. Using lies to “motivate” the correct behavior is a flawed strategy. Be concerned about the real things.

    Also, just because there clearly is a two minute drill that would work does not mean we need to leave problems to the last two minutes. It is like the New England Patriots to allow a high school team to lead by ten points until the last two minutes.

    The problems of peak oil, excessive man-made CO2, environmental stewardship are all solvable problems. A few years in a crash program, a decade or two if we were reasonably serious and had a decent plan and 4-9+ decades or more if we piss around and choose to float by.

    Society is currently on the 4-9+ decade floater path. No one needed my permission to have this as the default option.

    The USA is lapsing into a condition where they will have real competition from China to be the largest economy and vying for world leadership. India will be coming up as well. So on the geopolitical global level there will be some competition on world standards and who has the money and resources to easily fund change.

    Technology is also reaching the level where smaller groups can do what only could be funded by nation-states. This is already the case for certain things like funding the cure for some disease. This is a two edged thing. Smaller groups can cause big problems ala super-terrorists but smaller groups can solve bigger problems/challenges. This is a eons long trend. Technology is empowering.

    I am trying to provide a few things:
    1. Technological due diligence: Up to date status on technology and projects that can have big impact or be very useful. Provide full understanding of poorly understood technology and relevant history. Most people do not understand nuclear power, nuclear fuel/waste, nuclear weapons and options and real choices and plans.

    2. I am trying to propose better development plans, policies and options. Ideally ones that can be acted upon by smaller and more responsive groups.

    3. I am researching and trying to communicate understanding of what the real risks and scenarios are.

    If anything peoples attitudes, beliefs are too entrenched and not changing based on real facts and they do not seek out full information to base their decisions upon.

    Basic strategy for solving big problems/challenges:
    1. Increase capability and gather resources.

    If you have more money or have more stuff then you are able to fund more attempted solutions.

    2. Gather correct information and understanding

    3. Make the good and efficient plans and policies. There are trade-offs. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Elapsed time matters.

    For society: regulations and regulatory bodies need to consider the time and effort consumed with compliance. Over regulation and excessive delays makes society less responsive to threats and slower to improve and having a weaker slower growing economy over time means reduced capability. India has 3% economic growth for decades, instead of 8% growth that China and now India show was possible. India has 4-8 times less economic capacity now than they could have if bureaucracy and better economic policies were introduced earlier.

    There is the technological solution to illegal immigration. The Smart-Dew sensor border in conjunction with border guards and minutemen volunteers. $10-100 million for 10 mile deep 2000 mile security system.

    If groups have valid concerns and were truly motivated to fix them, then they would find a way to fix them even if someone said the end state a few decades from now is not extinction.

    Just as if someone was to provide some proof that some people genetically could smoke and not die of cancer prematurely, but it would still make them sicker, weaker health and cause problems for those around them and be a pointless waste of money. Plus some could smoke for decades but could then quit and recover most of their health. They would still be more sick and poorer for decades. If someone was to take those statements and say see because you are not threatening me with death I will continue. Those people were not going to quit.

  • Oddom Idobur

    “If anything peoples attitudes, beliefs are too entrenched and not changing based on real facts and they do not seek out full information to base their decisions upon.”

    Yes. Exactly. That is a major part of the underlying problem. Until this, and everything that goes with it, changes, technical measures will be insufficient.