"Culture is a drag on adaptation." A great way to describe the phenomenon. Perhaps it is a drag upon any change? I try to push conservation and waste elimination into all activities within which I am involved. It had a very aggravating effect upon my boss, who in one such situation turned red in the face and asked, "Why can't you just be like everyone else?" Why would I want to be? If they ate going in the wrong direction, why should anyone want to be like them? Why? Is that a question often asked? The social pressure is tremendous. You enter a space, and you are counter cultural. Who is most likely to change or be changed within that space? Is it the majority? Or you, the counter-cultural minority? I really do like that expression. I think it is true. The pushback against change will be tremendous. Thanks for this discussion. Much more thorough than your average YT interview. Thanks again.
Its just soo much to consider unraveling this ‘system’ that cannot be attained without a disaster first. I don’t see it happening. Its just so huge,pervasive,it would take a revolution where there would be high casualties. For me its an existential angst realizing whats happening. We’re already in Overshoot. Can we self-arrest ? I don’t know
Extremely helpful conversation that greatly aids in understanding the evolution of our current predicament for those of us who have been studying Nate Hagens and others. Thank you!
Great show which gets to the crux of how we arrived here. Thanks Rachel. Modern humans have been around for 300,000 yrs. Gift of the Holocene and a stable climate enabled roughly 5% of human existence to rapidly build civilization. As we cast that gift aside with little humility we will return from whence we came
For both humans and social insects, with the adoption of agriculture the nature of the “group” changed from a collection of in- dividuals cooperating to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes, to some- thing akin to a superorganism centered on a narrow economic purpose, namely, the production of agricultural surplus. In ultrasocial species, the flourishing of the group is often at odds with the well-being of particular individuals in the group (Anderson and McShea, 2001; Gowdy and Krall, 2013). The evolutionary leap to ultrasociality in humans had its origin in the unique ability of humans to cooperate with one another. Prosocial traits were part of the human experience long before agriculture. The path to human sociality was paved in the Upper Paleolithic with the evolution of the social brain (Frith and Frith, 2010; Sherwood et al., 2008). Our propensity to cooperate is a trait that in many ways defines what it is to be human (Wexler, 2006). We are strikingly different from our primate relatives in the extent to which we cooperate with non-kin (Hill et al., 2011). The ability of humans to cooperate with each other made possible the evolution of traits that define our species-language, culture, technology, and complex social structure. Sometime in the Upper Pleistocene these traits gave us art (more than 70 K years ago, Tollefson, 2012) music (at least 30 K years ago, Conrad et al., 2009), and a flourishing of sophisticated technology (100 K or more years ago, Henshilwood et al., 2011). Recently a number of authors (de Waal, 2009; Nowak and Hightower, 2011; Pagel, 2011) have rightly argued that the human propensity to co- operate with others is the greatest human asset and perhaps the only hope for a sustainable and equitable future. But this optimism can be pushed too far.
Sounds like what I've been told and do in part believe. I don't think the good old family values of the Paleolithic were all that good though. They all got along and raided their enemies in harmony. I like that you stressed cooperation as the primary innovation behind human success. "Survival of the fittest" is an obscene propaganda slogan everywhere appropriated to the ends of brutal degeneracy.
@@SandhillCrane42 On the origins of human war see Professor R. Craig Ferguson's new book, "Chimpanzees, War and History" - published by Oxford University Press - he's the world's expert proving that our early human ancestors (surviving today in many cases) had peaceful culture.
22:00 "[fossil fuel] energy allowed industry to disconnect from geography". Peter Zeihan also wrote about this in his book "The end of the world is just the beginning", i.e. how before being able to use coal- powered steam energy, industry was tied to specific river locations which could be used for water-powered mills (and would not be flooded away or sink into delta swamps); or a few locations (the Netherlands) where you could import massive amounts of timber to create windmills for milling or water management. Other than that, the alternative was highly inefficient (never mind cruel) slave or serf labor, or farm animals which required massive tracts of land to grow the food that they ate. It is instructive to look at this event the other way around though. Before the advent of fossil fuels, locations lacking in suitable river systems (including most of Africa, Australia and the like, but also many other WITHIN river-rich countries) were destined to remain permanently impoverished. As the guest implies, if we mismanage the transition away from fossil fuels, we may (at least in large parts of the world) end up back in a pre-industrial economy, which would absolutely NOT be able to sustain anything near the current global population, never mind the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed.
Zeihhan is clueless as ever . We are at industrial level population that can only be kept by industrial means . That means only growth or bust ! End of story
Why do you think we can "manage" Mother Nature at all? If fossil fuels completely stop emitting CO2 right now that means the Aerosol Masking Effect will also stop from sulfur pollution, thereby heating up Earth another 1 degree Celsius. Plus there's already 250 extra Zettajoules of heat in the oceans that will soon be releasing - the current atmosphere heat increase is only 30 zettajoules. Over 90% of global warming heat got absorbed into the oceans. Then there's the natural Arctic Amplification of the ESAS "abrupt eruption" 500 gigatons of methane, along with the land permafrost methane. This thing is long baked in because Western civilization produced a lot of fun gadgets at the expense of all life on Earth. oops.
Beautiful talk, thank you for the content. I know you take your suggestions from your guests but if there ever is an extra spot on your list you could be interested in talking to Jonathan Nitzan from York University who co-authored the 2009 book Capital as Power, he has a very nice theoretical framework on Differential Accumulation for those interested in exploring more the interplay between cultural, political and economic power and how it makes the system perpetuate itself even when it is heading off a cliff.
@@cristinataliani5619The problem of overpopulation always seems to be swept under the rug. And it's really the most important issue in the current crisis.
The definition, or meaning, of the term "Organism" from a dictionary is; " . . a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole. " Which also means "their function" for the whole. If an organism is to continue its existence.
My master's thesis was on "radical ecology" and nondualism! So it's great to hear her talk about the problem of duality vis a vis Nature. I did my master's thesis in 2000. haha.
10:15 it seems like an issue of path dependence, where models of population growth won out in early short-term competition to models of feedback control mechanisms on plant agents in a stable population. Leading to reinforcing feedback loops prone to decay as opposed to a balancing feedback loop using model predictive control to allow for continuous adjustments on shorter time horizons than the yearly cycle. Which means that we lost the opportunity to be a species with deep sociobiometric interoception. As opposed to a species
35:00 Rachel talks about how the pervasive uniformity of the modern economic system (and model) seems inherently fragile. For more insight on this point, have a look at Jane Jacob's book "Dark Age Ahead" (2004). I think it was in this book that she wrote about how most civilizations rise and then collapse, and any rebirth is usually predicated on contact with a DIFFERENT culture and economy, with the differences allowing for a rise in trade and renewal of the local economy. Jacobs feared that having a sort of "monoculture" economy across the modern world could lead to a situation where a financial (or civilizational) collapse would cascade globally, and there would be no new sources of external input which might help bootstrap redevelopment. (She did not write anything much in that book about climate crisis matters specifically; that book might not be useful if you are only interested in the green transition etc.)
“That hunters and gatherers had the freedom of either continuing with their existence or joining the early welfare states needs clarification. What we define as ‘welfare’ is synonymous with domestication. The choosing was forced, to join an agrarian autocracy of one kind or another. Hence, there were no barbarians left in Europe by the 16th century. Insofar as the state, the rulers and military had any benevolent aspects, it was only to hold a population together, best at the center. Hold as many people, who can be as productive for the state.” James C Scott (Seeing Like A State). That foundational aspect of many civilizations, however massive in construct, framed the idea of welfare (security and prosperity) only as long as the citizens ‘served’ the vital interests of the ruling elite. As long as the Barbarians were kept out or eventually enslaved (and converted) to ‘serve’ the empire. In this context, one can see that the Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations were tacitly dependent on slavery, servitude and military prowess, to ensure civilization would operate ‘nicely’, for the elite, for a few centuries at least.
Oh yeah, civilization is definitely built upon slavery. Progress is intraspecial violence transformed in the chrysalis of the citadel's walls into a locust with a man's face. Without slaves, who could ponder all these things and talk, talk, talk to produce slight innovations for huge salaries? Without slaves, people would have to feed themselves and tend to their own needs. You couldn't flaunt your status without being one hell of a carsmith.
9:07 i think she is describing evolution by constitutional selection as opposed to natural selection. Like a more complex particle swarm optimisation problem.
With the transition to agriculture, the average individual was worse off even though the group flourished-individual well-being was diminished for the nu- merical and material success of the superorganism. We believe that the focus on individual selection and the neglect of MLS has blinded us to the complex and ambiguous evolutionary history of our pro- pensity for cooperation. We claim that the human superorganism is a self-organized higher- level system forged by Darwinian selection processes. As with societies of Attine ants, the system holds together and forms a structured whole responsible for the organization and execution of the material repro- duction of society. It is a self-referential, interlocking system focused around an economic dynamic that defines the group: for agriculture, the imperative of producing agricultural surplus; for contemporary capitalism, the creation of surplus value. This system continues to evolve today as it engulfs a larger and larger portion of the earth's natural resources and consolidates its power to bring the world's population under a single production system operating under a uni- fied “cosmology” (Gowdy et al., 2013; Sahlins, 1996).
What happens with this transition is not simply a matter of selection at the group level resolving a col- lective action problem among individuals. With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt driven by the imperative to produce surplus. Thus the group is by definition the embodiment of a bioeconomic evolutionary force that is central to understanding the evolution of ultrasociality in humans and by extension complex society in general and its ecological consequences. MLS adds to the literature on ecological and cultural co- evolution of human society (Gual and Norgaard, 2010; Smaldino, in press; Waring, 2010; Waring and Richerson, 2011). It is natural that attempts to understand our evolutionary behav- ioral attributes have looked first at our closest relatives, the great apes and other primates (de Waal, 2009). But the evolution and or- ganization of social insects can also give us insights into human so- cial evolution. Individuals within many species can form groups. And the selection of groups need not be based on genes but rather on group level traits also subject to the forces of natural selection (El-Hani and Emmeche, 2000; Ghiselin, 1974; Martínez and Moya, 2011; Reeve and Hölldobler, 2007). The same evolutionary princi- ples apply to groups of very different kinds of organisms unrelated by kinship.
The energy capture dynamics of the emerging economy would reset the approaches to profit, and therefore social dynamics. Natural connections would be rekindled. In any case, the Promethean age severed the connections with nature, starting with the Greeks.
“Although agriculture provided the economic basis for the rise of states and development of civilizations, the change in diet and acquisi- tion of food resulted in a decline in quality of life for most human pop- ulations in the last 10,000 years.” In a review of recent studies of societies shifting from foraging to agriculture Mummert et al. (2011, 284) conclude: “The impact of agriculture, accompanied by increasing population density and a rise in infectious diseases, was observed to de- crease stature in populations from across the entire globe and regardless of the temporal period during which agriculture was adopted, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America, and North America.” We should remember that as late as 1900 human life expec- tancy was only about 30 years. This decline in individual well-being is consistent with our argument that the NDT [neolithic demographic transition] represented a transition to ultrasociality and that the “good of the group” no longer corresponded to the good of the average individual.
Towards the end of the discussion, the problematic notion of 'fortress conservation' is raised as a method proposed to be implemented now to mitigate the effect of human economic systems on earth/ecological systems. It needs to be understood that the economic system is in a state of catabolic collapse as neoliberalism consumes the basis of its own existence - made manifest by the the reality of limits. Consequently, as this economic system falls apart, and globalisation with it, no global governance system of agreements can exist to support fortress conservation efforts as radical re-localisation takes hold. As to notions of a dualism that assert humans somehow existing outside of nature, this is an intellectual construct, not reality. Humans are : from, in, of, and being, nature. Sometimes referred to as the 4th law of thermodynamics, Lotke's Law or the Maximum Power Principle, suggests how nature strives and evolves for a greater return on energy than invested - strives for surplus. Our disasterous economic system of exploitation is born of the same nature at the very base of the tree of life. Collapse has always been inevitable. How we get there still matters which is why some choose to act for a 'just' collapse. JustCollapse.or g
Having pinpointed the capital accumulation dynamic of wage-labour and capital as the culprit and foundation of the present system, why the f"%k do both talkers then go on to use verbal gymnastics to skirt the bleedingly obvious solution - the conscious abolition of wage-labour and capital! Just say it!
We argue that our understanding of the Neolithic revolution and the development of agrarian state societies can and should be informed by evolutionary biology and specifically by viewing the transition to agriculture as a bioeconomic process, an ultrasocial transition. The evolution of primary states from simple agri- cultural societies to imperialistic empires was driven by the forces of group selection (Turchin, 2003; Wilson, 1997, 2002). Groups that were the most efficient surplus producers, the most cohesive, the most successful militarists, and the most expansionary out-competed the others. Cultural mechanisms-hierarchical religions, deference to authority, bureaucratic structures of redistribution and reciprocity reinforced these societies. The social characteristics and belief systems of those early ultrasocial societies that won the struggle for survival in the Neolithic paved the way for the rise of global capitalism and the full force of the Anthropocene
But in an evolutionary context there are important ways in which the organization of labor in agricultural societies of the past is connected to its organization under capitalism. From the beginning of agriculture the production of surplus had simultaneously engaged a more extensive division of labor but this division of labor did not de- pend on markets, rather is was part of the formation of the trait group. The expansion of markets was a later outgrowth of the ultrasocial tran- sition with agriculture. Eventually markets take the dynamic of surplus production down a more accelerated path in terms of ecosystem dominance.
t is hard to be optimistic about our prospects. Unless we can figure out how to dismantle the superorganism, human society seems des- tined to crash or end up in a Brave New World dystopia. The present contradictions of the system and its ecological challenges cannot be ef- fectively resolved without fundamental change to the system. If we are inclined to throw up our hands in resignation, we should keep in mind that evolution cannot see ahead and that it is not without its dead ends. As an evolutionary system, the human economy has no foresight. It can't look ahead to prevent collapse and will likely continue along its path as long as it can continue to function as an articulate whole.
Ants and termites comprise about 30% of the entire animal biomass in the Brazilian rainforest (Hölldobler and Wilson, 2011, 6) and 75% of the insect biomass. Worldwide the social insects-ants, termites, bees, and wasps-comprise about 2% of the earth's insect species, but they ac- count for 50% of the earth's insect biomass (Hölldobler and Wilson, 2009, 4).
Lisi Krall is a Professor of Economics at the State University of New York Cortland. She's very cool as far as Professors go. I did too much activism as a student to be "acceptable" into the corporate-state controlled academia. haha. Too bad she doesn't know enough about the actual ecological crisis in terms of abrupt global warming. A good dose of Jim Massa would help. Oceans drive abrupt global warming.
Her work reminds me of Mary E. Clark - big time. Ariadne's Thread: The Search for New Modes of Thinking. Preface - PART I: Nature's Constraints: 'What are the Limits to Growth?' - The Future: A Search for Values - Energy and Exponentials - The Economics of Spaceship Earth - Our Environmental Charge Account Comes Due - PART II: The Human Animal: 'What is Human Nature?' - The Emergence of Human Nature - The Cultural Spectrum - Religion and Worldviews - On Acquiring a Worldview - PART III: Possessive Individualism: 'Whence Comes This Western Worldview?' - From God to Man: Origins of the Western Worldview - The Cult of Efficiency - Alienation - The Loss of the Sacred - PART IV: New Modes of Thinking: 'Where Do We Begin?' - Rethinking Economics - Defusing the Global Powder Keg - Politics: Worldviews in Action - Nuclear 'Defence' - or Conflict Resolution? - Humankind at the Crossroads - Notes - Index Balancing the theories of cutting-edge neuroscience with the insights of primitive mythologies, Mary Clark provides down-to-earth suggestions for peacefully resolving global problems. Human Nature builds up a coherent, and above all positive, picture of who we really are. OK that's less political ecology though - more neuroscience. "Humans are in danger of crossing a divide where their foothold on an earth once abundant in self-willed otherness is slipping away. This is apparent with the sixth mass extinction, climate change, and the many breaches of planetary boundaries. Bitter Harvest brings clarity to this moment in history through a focus on economic order, how it comes to be what it is, and the way it structures the relationship between humans and Earth. An unusual synergy of disciplines (evolutionary biology, history, economic systems analysis, anthropology, and deep ecology) are tapped to fully explore the emergence of an economic system that contextualized a duality between humans and Earth. Conversations that focus on capitalism and the industrial revolution are subsumed under the longer arc of history and the system change that began with the cultivation of annual grains. Bitter Harvest engenders a more critical conversation about the complexity of the human relationship to Earth and the challenge of altering the economic trajectory that began with agriculture and has now reached its apogee in global capitalism.
Unfortunately it's all too little too late. We've already triggered multiple climate tipping points. If we have an ice free Arctic this summer, the latent heat that is no longer melting the ice will kick into overdrive helped by El Nino & greatly accelerate the release of methane. Be kind to the ones around you & break out the barbecue, because I'm afraid the end is near my friends.
Field biologists discovered that cooperation is widespread among a varie- ty of species and that much of this cooperation could not be explained by kin selection alone (Goodnight, 2005; Goodnight and Stevens, 1997; Wilson, 2010). Remarkable examples of non-kin co- operation have raised doubts about the robustness of kinship expla- nations of ultrasociality. For example, it was recently discovered that two distinct species of spiders cooperate to provide extended ma- ternal care of obviously unrelated individuals (Grinsted et al., 2012). Johns et al. (2009) document a case where unrelated termite colonies merge and operate as a single unit. Furthermore, biologists have realized that the genotype-phenotype distinction was not as rigid as assumed by many selfish gene advocates. Different environ- ments can call forth strikingly a different phenotype expression. Phenotype plasticity is thought to be a key feature of the evolution of social insects (Keller and Ross, 1993).
Where environmental conditions were permitted, early human agricultural societies followed the same pattern as a few social insects and exhibited explosive population growth, complex and detailed division of labor, intensive resource exploitation, territorial expansion, and a social organization favoring the survival and growth of the supergroup over the well-being of individuals within the group. Similar economic forces lie behind ultrasociality in social insects and humans-increased productivity from the division of labor, increasing returns to scale, and the exploitation of stocks of productive resources. Exploring the evolutionary mechanisms behind ultrasociality offers insights into the growth imperative that threatens the stability of the earth's life support systems.
Selfish individuals outcompete altru- ists within a group, but altruistic groups outcompete selfish groups (Wilson and Wilson, 2007). But MLS and group selection are less straightforward than MLS1 would imply because the group may be defined by a cluster of “emergent characters.” Thus the play of selec- tion may be not on a single trait but on a cluster of traits that come to define the group. And the group is not simply the aggregation of in- dividuals with certain traits that have a greater probability of being reproduced because of the existence of the group, but rather the group has an advantageous character or trait all of its own. From the level of the organism, the MLS theory can be extended down- ward to explain cooperative and selfish genes, or upward to explain the evolution of group coalitions (Wilson et al., 2013). Wade et al. (2010) show that models of kin selection and group selection are not contradictory but in fact mathematically equivalent.
The primary energy sources were tightly constrained in magnitude and location. They consisted of wind and water moving across the Earth's surface, and, on the bio- sphere, plants and animals. All of these energy sources are ulti- mately derived from the flow of energy from the Sun, which drives atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle and provides the fundamental energy source for photosynthesis. The- se processes have inescapable intrinsic inefficiencies; plants use less than 1% of the incoming solar radiation for photosynthesis and animals eating plants obtain only about 10% of the energy stored in the plants. These energy constraints provided a strong bottleneck for the growth of human numbers and activity. Were it not for the accommodating coal fields of England, the path of economic evolution and the development of capitalism would have been profoundly altered. Petty commodity production would surely have remained the order of the day. Fossil fuels-a vast, accessible, and flexible energy source-moved humans to a seemingly unlimited stock of energy.9
@@thurstonhowellthetwelf3220 I thought if I spammed the profs research I might bring out the podcaster. haha. She has replied before I think. I started out in social science like this Prof studying evolution in terms of group selection - E.O. Wilson's book was a fascinating read. I'm glad this Prof is able to realize that the "superorganism" of humans is doomed in terms of ecological evolution and she even cites Prof David F. Noble whom I feature in my master's degree! Yes it's the natural sciences as Chomsky emphasizes, that now indicate the hard science of doom, as Jim Massa the oceanographer details. Massa corroborates Guy McPherson who gives his sources. So I have double checked the sources and they all hold up. I knew we were doomed by 1996! So then I got into the nonwestern philosophy to see what happens after death. hahaha. thanks
speed to 1.25, she's a slow speaker. 'Redistribution'? No, no, wont work--recent history has demonstrated the disaster of that sort of change. Equity is of course a disaster--she seems to recommend a communistic course run by commissars. Not much understanding of technology or energy development here.
The problem is the combination of human shorttermism and wishful thinking. That is why infinite growth has been accepted as feasible. Self deception and selfishness took over in the human psyche.
this was impressively deep, most folks do not think of system change.
"Culture is a drag on adaptation." A great way to describe the phenomenon. Perhaps it is a drag upon any change?
I try to push conservation and waste elimination into all activities within which I am involved. It had a very aggravating effect upon my boss, who in one such situation turned red in the face and asked, "Why can't you just be like everyone else?" Why would I want to be? If they ate going in the wrong direction, why should anyone want to be like them? Why? Is that a question often asked?
The social pressure is tremendous. You enter a space, and you are counter cultural. Who is most likely to change or be changed within that space? Is it the majority? Or you, the counter-cultural minority?
I really do like that expression. I think it is true. The pushback against change will be tremendous.
Thanks for this discussion. Much more thorough than your average YT interview.
Thanks again.
Its just soo much to consider unraveling this ‘system’ that cannot be attained without a disaster first. I don’t see it happening. Its just so huge,pervasive,it would take a revolution where there would be high casualties. For me its an existential angst realizing whats happening. We’re already in Overshoot. Can we self-arrest ? I don’t know
i got arrested 8 times protesting the system.
there are soft solutions for change ✌️
@@realKytraWhat solutions are you referring to?
No.
Extremely helpful conversation that greatly aids in understanding the evolution of our current predicament for those of us who have been studying Nate Hagens and others. Thank you!
Here I would like a pause for my convenience and tea is waiting thanks for the update.
Great show which gets to the crux of how we arrived here. Thanks Rachel. Modern humans have been around for 300,000 yrs. Gift of the Holocene and a stable climate enabled roughly 5% of human existence to rapidly build civilization. As we cast that gift aside with little humility we will return from whence we came
For both humans and social insects, with the adoption
of agriculture the nature of the “group” changed from a collection of in-
dividuals cooperating to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes, to some-
thing akin to a superorganism centered on a narrow economic purpose,
namely, the production of agricultural surplus. In ultrasocial species, the
flourishing of the group is often at odds with the well-being of particular
individuals in the group (Anderson and McShea, 2001; Gowdy and Krall,
2013).
The evolutionary leap to ultrasociality in humans had its origin in
the unique ability of humans to cooperate with one another. Prosocial
traits were part of the human experience long before agriculture. The
path to human sociality was paved in the Upper Paleolithic with the
evolution of the social brain (Frith and Frith, 2010; Sherwood et al.,
2008). Our propensity to cooperate is a trait that in many ways defines
what it is to be human (Wexler, 2006). We are strikingly different from
our primate relatives in the extent to which we cooperate with non-kin
(Hill et al., 2011). The ability of humans to cooperate with each other
made possible the evolution of traits that define our species-language,
culture, technology, and complex social structure. Sometime in the
Upper Pleistocene these traits gave us art (more than 70 K years ago,
Tollefson, 2012) music (at least 30 K years ago, Conrad et al., 2009),
and a flourishing of sophisticated technology (100 K or more years
ago, Henshilwood et al., 2011).
Recently a number of authors (de Waal, 2009; Nowak and Hightower,
2011; Pagel, 2011) have rightly argued that the human propensity to co-
operate with others is the greatest human asset and perhaps the only
hope for a sustainable and equitable future. But this optimism can be
pushed too far.
@@johnbanach3875 why an either/or? You assume I haven't written books and those are "my" comments - both logical errors.
Sounds like what I've been told and do in part believe. I don't think the good old family values of the Paleolithic were all that good though. They all got along and raided their enemies in harmony. I like that you stressed cooperation as the primary innovation behind human success. "Survival of the fittest" is an obscene propaganda slogan everywhere appropriated to the ends of brutal degeneracy.
@@johnbanach3875Why? It's a decent comment. It takes like 15 seconds to read.
Oh. Oh I see now. Oh. Sorry.
@@SandhillCrane42 On the origins of human war see Professor R. Craig Ferguson's new book, "Chimpanzees, War and History" - published by Oxford University Press - he's the world's expert proving that our early human ancestors (surviving today in many cases) had peaceful culture.
Sharing will save the world.
22:00 "[fossil fuel] energy allowed industry to disconnect from geography". Peter Zeihan also wrote about this in his book "The end of the world is just the beginning", i.e. how before being able to use coal- powered steam energy, industry was tied to specific river locations which could be used for water-powered mills (and would not be flooded away or sink into delta swamps); or a few locations (the Netherlands) where you could import massive amounts of timber to create windmills for milling or water management. Other than that, the alternative was highly inefficient (never mind cruel) slave or serf labor, or farm animals which required massive tracts of land to grow the food that they ate.
It is instructive to look at this event the other way around though. Before the advent of fossil fuels, locations lacking in suitable river systems (including most of Africa, Australia and the like, but also many other WITHIN river-rich countries) were destined to remain permanently impoverished. As the guest implies, if we mismanage the transition away from fossil fuels, we may (at least in large parts of the world) end up back in a pre-industrial economy, which would absolutely NOT be able to sustain anything near the current global population, never mind the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed.
Zeihhan is clueless as ever . We are at industrial level population that can only be kept by industrial means . That means only growth or bust ! End of story
Why do you think we can "manage" Mother Nature at all? If fossil fuels completely stop emitting CO2 right now that means the Aerosol Masking Effect will also stop from sulfur pollution, thereby heating up Earth another 1 degree Celsius. Plus there's already 250 extra Zettajoules of heat in the oceans that will soon be releasing - the current atmosphere heat increase is only 30 zettajoules. Over 90% of global warming heat got absorbed into the oceans. Then there's the natural Arctic Amplification of the ESAS "abrupt eruption" 500 gigatons of methane, along with the land permafrost methane. This thing is long baked in because Western civilization produced a lot of fun gadgets at the expense of all life on Earth. oops.
Beautiful talk, thank you for the content. I know you take your suggestions from your guests but if there ever is an extra spot on your list you could be interested in talking to Jonathan Nitzan from York University who co-authored the 2009 book Capital as Power, he has a very nice theoretical framework on Differential Accumulation for those interested in exploring more the interplay between cultural, political and economic power and how it makes the system perpetuate itself even when it is heading off a cliff.
The Conservation Revolution by Bram Buscher and Robert Fletcher is an excellent book about the dilemma of “conservation “
I am very, very impressed by your channel!!!
Preach it, Lisi!
The current Green New Deal just continues to GROW the problem.
Well done! It gave us a good reflection on our existence... I must say thank you!
This was a good presentation however the problem of overpopulation of Homo sapiens was not discussed enough!!!!
@@cristinataliani5619The problem of overpopulation always seems to be swept under the rug. And it's really the most important issue in the current crisis.
The definition, or meaning, of the term "Organism" from a dictionary is;
" . . a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole. "
Which also means "their function" for the whole. If an organism is to continue its existence.
My master's thesis was on "radical ecology" and nondualism! So it's great to hear her talk about the problem of duality vis a vis Nature. I did my master's thesis in 2000. haha.
Very interesting and enlightening... thanks for making this video.
Thank you for this video! You were both so insightful.
Glad you enjoyed it!
the environment creates economics and economics creates cultures.
10:15 it seems like an issue of path dependence, where models of population growth won out in early short-term competition to models of feedback control mechanisms on plant agents in a stable population. Leading to reinforcing feedback loops prone to decay as opposed to a balancing feedback loop using model predictive control to allow for continuous adjustments on shorter time horizons than the yearly cycle. Which means that we lost the opportunity to be a species with deep sociobiometric interoception. As opposed to a species
I had an idea for international court. We should assign a representative of the ‘more than human’ world to the position of arbiter.
35:00 Rachel talks about how the pervasive uniformity of the modern economic system (and model) seems inherently fragile. For more insight on this point, have a look at Jane Jacob's book "Dark Age Ahead" (2004). I think it was in this book that she wrote about how most civilizations rise and then collapse, and any rebirth is usually predicated on contact with a DIFFERENT culture and economy, with the differences allowing for a rise in trade and renewal of the local economy. Jacobs feared that having a sort of "monoculture" economy across the modern world could lead to a situation where a financial (or civilizational) collapse would cascade globally, and there would be no new sources of external input which might help bootstrap redevelopment. (She did not write anything much in that book about climate crisis matters specifically; that book might not be useful if you are only interested in the green transition etc.)
Absolutely have to have wilderness areas.
Kohei Saito next!
“That hunters and gatherers had the freedom of either continuing with their existence or joining the early welfare states needs clarification. What we define as ‘welfare’ is synonymous with domestication. The choosing was forced, to join an agrarian autocracy of one kind or another. Hence, there were no barbarians left in Europe by the 16th century. Insofar as the state, the rulers and military had any benevolent aspects, it was only to hold a population together, best at the center. Hold as many people, who can be as productive for the state.” James C Scott (Seeing Like A State). That foundational aspect of many civilizations, however massive in construct, framed the idea of welfare (security and prosperity) only as long as the citizens ‘served’ the vital interests of the ruling elite. As long as the Barbarians were kept out or eventually enslaved (and converted) to ‘serve’ the empire. In this context, one can see that the Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations were tacitly dependent on slavery, servitude and military prowess, to ensure civilization would operate ‘nicely’, for the elite, for a few centuries at least.
Oh yeah, civilization is definitely built upon slavery. Progress is intraspecial violence transformed in the chrysalis of the citadel's walls into a locust with a man's face. Without slaves, who could ponder all these things and talk, talk, talk to produce slight innovations for huge salaries? Without slaves, people would have to feed themselves and tend to their own needs. You couldn't flaunt your status without being one hell of a carsmith.
Thanks
9:07 i think she is describing evolution by constitutional selection as opposed to natural selection. Like a more complex particle swarm optimisation problem.
With the transition
to agriculture, the average individual was worse off even though the
group flourished-individual well-being was diminished for the nu-
merical and material success of the superorganism. We believe that
the focus on individual selection and the neglect of MLS has blinded
us to the complex and ambiguous evolutionary history of our pro-
pensity for cooperation.
We claim that the human superorganism is a self-organized higher-
level system forged by Darwinian selection processes. As with societies
of Attine ants, the system holds together and forms a structured whole
responsible for the organization and execution of the material repro-
duction of society. It is a self-referential, interlocking system focused
around an economic dynamic that defines the group: for agriculture,
the imperative of producing agricultural surplus; for contemporary
capitalism, the creation of surplus value. This system continues to
evolve today as it engulfs a larger and larger portion of the earth's
natural resources and consolidates its power to bring the world's
population under a single production system operating under a uni-
fied “cosmology” (Gowdy et al., 2013; Sahlins, 1996).
What happens with this transition is
not simply a matter of selection at the group level resolving a col-
lective action problem among individuals. With the transition to
agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly
different gestalt driven by the imperative to produce surplus. Thus the
group is by definition the embodiment of a bioeconomic evolutionary
force that is central to understanding the evolution of ultrasociality in
humans and by extension complex society in general and its ecological
consequences. MLS adds to the literature on ecological and cultural co-
evolution of human society (Gual and Norgaard, 2010; Smaldino, in
press; Waring, 2010; Waring and Richerson, 2011).
It is natural that attempts to understand our evolutionary behav-
ioral attributes have looked first at our closest relatives, the great
apes and other primates (de Waal, 2009). But the evolution and or-
ganization of social insects can also give us insights into human so-
cial evolution. Individuals within many species can form groups.
And the selection of groups need not be based on genes but rather
on group level traits also subject to the forces of natural selection
(El-Hani and Emmeche, 2000; Ghiselin, 1974; Martínez and Moya,
2011; Reeve and Hölldobler, 2007). The same evolutionary princi-
ples apply to groups of very different kinds of organisms unrelated
by kinship.
The energy capture dynamics of the emerging economy would reset the approaches to profit, and therefore social dynamics.
Natural connections would be rekindled.
In any case, the Promethean age severed the connections with nature, starting with the Greeks.
“Although agriculture provided the economic basis for the rise of
states and development of civilizations, the change in diet and acquisi-
tion of food resulted in a decline in quality of life for most human pop-
ulations in the last 10,000 years.” In a review of recent studies of
societies shifting from foraging to agriculture Mummert et al. (2011,
284) conclude: “The impact of agriculture, accompanied by increasing
population density and a rise in infectious diseases, was observed to de-
crease stature in populations from across the entire globe and regardless
of the temporal period during which agriculture was adopted, including
Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America, and North
America.” We should remember that as late as 1900 human life expec-
tancy was only about 30 years. This decline in individual well-being is
consistent with our argument that the NDT [neolithic demographic transition] represented a transition to
ultrasociality and that the “good of the group” no longer corresponded
to the good of the average individual.
Towards the end of the discussion, the problematic notion of 'fortress conservation' is raised as a method proposed to be implemented now to mitigate the effect of human economic systems on earth/ecological systems. It needs to be understood that the economic system is in a state of catabolic collapse as neoliberalism consumes the basis of its own existence - made manifest by the the reality of limits. Consequently, as this economic system falls apart, and globalisation with it, no global governance system of agreements can exist to support fortress conservation efforts as radical re-localisation takes hold.
As to notions of a dualism that assert humans somehow existing outside of nature, this is an intellectual construct, not reality. Humans are : from, in, of, and being, nature. Sometimes referred to as the 4th law of thermodynamics, Lotke's Law or the Maximum Power Principle, suggests how nature strives and evolves for a greater return on energy than invested - strives for surplus. Our disasterous economic system of exploitation is born of the same nature at the very base of the tree of life. Collapse has always been inevitable. How we get there still matters which is why some choose to act for a 'just' collapse. JustCollapse.or g
54:30
This is whats gonna happen ua-cam.com/video/qPb_0JZ6-Rc/v-deo.html
Good description of the problem space.
Thanks for the link - a sobering watch.
Having pinpointed the capital accumulation dynamic of wage-labour and capital as the culprit and foundation of the present system, why the f"%k do both talkers then go on to use verbal gymnastics to skirt the bleedingly obvious solution - the conscious abolition of wage-labour and capital! Just say it!
We argue that our understanding of
the Neolithic revolution and the development of agrarian state societies
can and should be informed by evolutionary biology and specifically by
viewing the transition to agriculture as a bioeconomic process, an
ultrasocial transition. The evolution of primary states from simple agri-
cultural societies to imperialistic empires was driven by the forces of
group selection (Turchin, 2003; Wilson, 1997, 2002). Groups that
were the most efficient surplus producers, the most cohesive, the
most successful militarists, and the most expansionary out-competed
the others. Cultural mechanisms-hierarchical religions, deference to
authority, bureaucratic structures of redistribution and reciprocity
reinforced these societies. The social characteristics and belief systems
of those early ultrasocial societies that won the struggle for survival in
the Neolithic paved the way for the rise of global capitalism and the
full force of the Anthropocene
But in an evolutionary context there are important ways in
which the organization of labor in agricultural societies of the past is
connected to its organization under capitalism. From the beginning of
agriculture the production of surplus had simultaneously engaged a
more extensive division of labor but this division of labor did not de-
pend on markets, rather is was part of the formation of the trait group.
The expansion of markets was a later outgrowth of the ultrasocial tran-
sition with agriculture. Eventually markets take the dynamic of surplus
production down a more accelerated path in terms of ecosystem
dominance.
Buy sheep and sell deer? What does that have to do with agriculture?
Another insightful discussion..learned so much, thank you both
t is hard to be optimistic about our prospects. Unless we can figure
out how to dismantle the superorganism, human society seems des-
tined to crash or end up in a Brave New World dystopia. The present
contradictions of the system and its ecological challenges cannot be ef-
fectively resolved without fundamental change to the system. If we are
inclined to throw up our hands in resignation, we should keep in mind
that evolution cannot see ahead and that it is not without its dead ends.
As an evolutionary system, the human economy has no foresight. It can't
look ahead to prevent collapse and will likely continue along its path as
long as it can continue to function as an articulate whole.
Good stuff. You can tell this is the real deal because there's hardly any views 😂
@@corrie8659 and thus we perish
Ants and termites comprise about 30% of the entire animal biomass
in the Brazilian rainforest (Hölldobler and Wilson, 2011, 6) and 75% of
the insect biomass. Worldwide the social insects-ants, termites, bees,
and wasps-comprise about 2% of the earth's insect species, but they ac-
count for 50% of the earth's insect biomass (Hölldobler and Wilson,
2009, 4).
Lisi Krall is a Professor of Economics at the State University of New York Cortland. She's very cool as far as Professors go. I did too much activism as a student to be "acceptable" into the corporate-state controlled academia. haha. Too bad she doesn't know enough about the actual ecological crisis in terms of abrupt global warming. A good dose of Jim Massa would help. Oceans drive abrupt global warming.
Her work reminds me of Mary E. Clark - big time. Ariadne's Thread: The Search for New Modes of Thinking. Preface - PART I: Nature's Constraints: 'What are the Limits to Growth?' - The Future: A Search for Values - Energy and Exponentials - The Economics of Spaceship Earth - Our Environmental Charge Account Comes Due - PART II: The Human Animal: 'What is Human Nature?' - The Emergence of Human Nature - The Cultural Spectrum - Religion and Worldviews - On Acquiring a Worldview - PART III: Possessive Individualism: 'Whence Comes This Western Worldview?' - From God to Man: Origins of the Western Worldview - The Cult of Efficiency - Alienation - The Loss of the Sacred - PART IV: New Modes of Thinking: 'Where Do We Begin?' - Rethinking Economics - Defusing the Global Powder Keg - Politics: Worldviews in Action - Nuclear 'Defence' - or Conflict Resolution? - Humankind at the Crossroads - Notes - Index
Balancing the theories of cutting-edge neuroscience with the insights of primitive mythologies, Mary Clark provides down-to-earth suggestions for peacefully resolving global problems. Human Nature builds up a coherent, and above all positive, picture of who we really are. OK that's less political ecology though - more neuroscience.
"Humans are in danger of crossing a divide where their foothold on an earth once abundant in self-willed otherness is slipping away. This is apparent with the sixth mass extinction, climate change, and the many breaches of planetary boundaries. Bitter Harvest brings clarity to this moment in history through a focus on economic order, how it comes to be what it is, and the way it structures the relationship between humans and Earth. An unusual synergy of disciplines (evolutionary biology, history, economic systems analysis, anthropology, and deep ecology) are tapped to fully explore the emergence of an economic system that contextualized a duality between humans and Earth. Conversations that focus on capitalism and the industrial revolution are subsumed under the longer arc of history and the system change that began with the cultivation of annual grains. Bitter Harvest engenders a more critical conversation about the complexity of the human relationship to Earth and the challenge of altering the economic trajectory that began with agriculture and has now reached its apogee in global capitalism.
Unfortunately it's all too little too late. We've already triggered multiple climate tipping points. If we have an ice free Arctic this summer, the latent heat that is no longer melting the ice will kick into overdrive helped by El Nino & greatly accelerate the release of methane. Be kind to the ones around you & break out the barbecue, because I'm afraid the end is near my friends.
Field
biologists discovered that cooperation is widespread among a varie-
ty of species and that much of this cooperation could not be
explained by kin selection alone (Goodnight, 2005; Goodnight and
Stevens, 1997; Wilson, 2010). Remarkable examples of non-kin co-
operation have raised doubts about the robustness of kinship expla-
nations of ultrasociality. For example, it was recently discovered that
two distinct species of spiders cooperate to provide extended ma-
ternal care of obviously unrelated individuals (Grinsted et al.,
2012). Johns et al. (2009) document a case where unrelated termite
colonies merge and operate as a single unit. Furthermore, biologists
have realized that the genotype-phenotype distinction was not as
rigid as assumed by many selfish gene advocates. Different environ-
ments can call forth strikingly a different phenotype expression.
Phenotype plasticity is thought to be a key feature of the evolution
of social insects (Keller and Ross, 1993).
The Illusion
Where environmental conditions were permitted, early human
agricultural societies followed the same pattern as a few social insects and exhibited explosive population
growth, complex and detailed division of labor, intensive resource exploitation, territorial expansion, and a social
organization favoring the survival and growth of the supergroup over the well-being of individuals within the
group. Similar economic forces lie behind ultrasociality in social insects and humans-increased productivity
from the division of labor, increasing returns to scale, and the exploitation of stocks of productive resources.
Exploring the evolutionary mechanisms behind ultrasociality offers insights into the growth imperative that
threatens the stability of the earth's life support systems.
Selfish individuals outcompete altru-
ists within a group, but altruistic groups outcompete selfish groups
(Wilson and Wilson, 2007). But MLS and group selection are less
straightforward than MLS1 would imply because the group may be
defined by a cluster of “emergent characters.” Thus the play of selec-
tion may be not on a single trait but on a cluster of traits that come to
define the group. And the group is not simply the aggregation of in-
dividuals with certain traits that have a greater probability of being
reproduced because of the existence of the group, but rather the
group has an advantageous character or trait all of its own. From
the level of the organism, the MLS theory can be extended down-
ward to explain cooperative and selfish genes, or upward to explain
the evolution of group coalitions (Wilson et al., 2013). Wade et al.
(2010) show that models of kin selection and group selection are
not contradictory but in fact mathematically equivalent.
The primary energy sources were tightly
constrained in magnitude and location. They consisted of wind
and water moving across the Earth's surface, and, on the bio-
sphere, plants and animals. All of these energy sources are ulti-
mately derived from the flow of energy from the Sun, which
drives atmospheric circulation and the hydrological cycle and
provides the fundamental energy source for photosynthesis. The-
se processes have inescapable intrinsic inefficiencies; plants use
less than 1% of the incoming solar radiation for photosynthesis
and animals eating plants obtain only about 10% of the energy stored in the plants. These energy constraints provided a strong
bottleneck for the growth of human numbers and activity.
Were it not for the accommodating coal fields of England, the
path of economic evolution and the development of capitalism
would have been profoundly altered. Petty commodity production
would surely have remained the order of the day. Fossil fuels-a
vast, accessible, and flexible energy source-moved humans to a
seemingly unlimited stock of energy.9
Thanks for your excellent comments.. you should be on the show.. would love to hear you talk for an hour or so.
@@thurstonhowellthetwelf3220 I'm posting Prof Lisi Krall's research. does the podcaster even read her comments? haha
@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 who knows ??
@@thurstonhowellthetwelf3220 I thought if I spammed the profs research I might bring out the podcaster. haha. She has replied before I think. I started out in social science like this Prof studying evolution in terms of group selection - E.O. Wilson's book was a fascinating read. I'm glad this Prof is able to realize that the "superorganism" of humans is doomed in terms of ecological evolution and she even cites Prof David F. Noble whom I feature in my master's degree! Yes it's the natural sciences as Chomsky emphasizes, that now indicate the hard science of doom, as Jim Massa the oceanographer details. Massa corroborates Guy McPherson who gives his sources. So I have double checked the sources and they all hold up. I knew we were doomed by 1996! So then I got into the nonwestern philosophy to see what happens after death. hahaha. thanks
@@thurstonhowellthetwelf3220 apparently she doesn't read her comments yet? haha
ants practice Eusociality also - one of six or so species as E.O. Wilson details in his 'Social Conquest of Earth" book
Homo-colossus!
yeahh thats the 1 who fucked over homo-sapians
speed to 1.25, she's a slow speaker.
'Redistribution'? No, no, wont work--recent history has demonstrated the disaster of that sort of change.
Equity is of course a disaster--she seems to recommend a communistic course run by commissars.
Not much understanding of technology or energy development here.
Tell us the truth .. .stop with the half truths ...seen by your works
Those that speak of good but are not of good
Blah, blah blah.
The problem is the combination of human shorttermism and wishful thinking. That is why infinite growth has been accepted as feasible. Self deception and selfishness took over in the human psyche.