The Simple Story of Civilization with Tom Murphy | Frankly #22
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- This week, Nate invites colleague Tom Murphy, professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and writer of ‘Do the Math’, to unpack his recent essay The Simple Story of Civilization. Tom condenses the vast timescale of human life on Earth to an average human lifespan to give us a sense of the anomalous period we’re living through. What is civilization and how quickly did it come about? Can technology redirect civilization from its current perilous course? Is optimism näive or is it necessary in order to make the hard decisions within us? A 30 minute overview with Nate and Professor Tom Murphy.
For Show Notes and more visit: www.thegreatsi...
This man articulates exactly what I've been thinking. Our hubris is destroying not just Nature around us, but every individual, physically and mentally. Look at what we are willing to do to others, all for profit. It saddens me so much.
Like a golddigger who doesn't care about the heirs we are.
There are 8 billion people. I'd be willing to bet the demographic that even think about this topic is in the at 80%
We are on a rock in space running out of resources. I appreciate the hope.
Do agree that what ever comes next and it may be the cock roaches turn will be the new normal to whoever sees it.
I like how we've had the destructive force of "social media" for about 10 minutes...but most people pretend it's an essential service that we can't do without.
Brilliant y’all. Good to know there are other people who can see this for what it is and speak coherently about it.
Cheers
Extraordinary view... I used to think how lucky I was to not have lived in the past.. now I feel luck I won't live in the coming century! ....(but who knows how the next few decades will play out!)
Humankind has made this choice, and should take responsibility for it. We have more information (like in this podcast) and have had more conferences than ever before, and yet, we continue to make the same choice w/ever-increasing stakes. The latest example is AI and the vast energy needs required to power it. Yes, we keep making the same basic choice, based on the prioritization of what we value amidst a well-known broader environment of scarcity.
Excellent discussion until the hopium part at the end. I don’t understand wanting assurance that human life will continue after one has themselves died. First, such reassurance is impossible-it’s purely speculative. And, once you’ve died, you will not know whether human life is continuing or not, so what’s the difference? You might say compassion for others but consider that the end of life = the end of suffering. There can be no life without suffering. There are no dinosaurs out there suffering anymore, does anyone think that fact is sad or a loss?
Impermanence is the name of the game and there are no exceptions. Of course civilization, as well as human life itself, are impermanent. It will end. That is certain. A physicist of all people should know that.
The telescoping nature of tech evolution is very fibonacci in its exponential function. Oddly enough his metaphor maps on well to the bulletin of atomic scientists "doomsday clock" which puts us in the final 100 secs
I heard a professor give essentially the same exact lecture in 1989.
'Sure we can do something now.' The Titanic's going down, go to the bar while its still open and have a hot whiskey with some warm humour, OR jump into the icy sea in hope of rescue OR... Anyway this ships going down
I felt a lot better when I finally gave up hope...
All of you listen carefully. I happen to operate a Geo Metro.
I’m looking for a wind surfer sail rig.
Can ya see sailing across the prairies, or not. Just saying
This conversation leads me to ponder more about the question of control. To what extent do we need to give up vs innovate to "kick the can"? e.g. no electronic devices? not even bicycles? back to the tropics?
(on a side note: i beg to differ about the inevitability of historical trajectories leading us to where we are. in other words, superorganism could have been less dumb )
The first type of Man's cruel control of Nature was males control over females, in supply and demand. The first worker-slave class, the first natural resource to be exploited. During the Ice Age, humanity almost died out and were in low numbers. It was hard living in those caves, in relatively small groups, poor caloric nutrition, injury, disease, cold, babies died, conception rates low, miscarriage rates high. Males died off in greater numbers than females. Some theories say, that was how humans moved to monthly cycles of fertility from seasonal during the Ice Age - adapting to improve conception rates. At the end of the Ice Age, with warmer environments and fertile river valleys, caloric nutrition skyrocketed and so babies skyrocketed.
Religions switching (often violently) from a wary respect for Nature's power, to a male God that controls everything, but always beginning with the control and management of herds of females, religions stating that every male no matter how unsuitable should have by birth-right at least one breeding female on maturity. (pairbond mating in mammals is actually quite rare, even in humans formal marriage was a late invention for the masses) 'The mother is no parent of that which she bears'. Go forth and multiply, and if females complain, rewrite what primitive goddesses said, burn their writings, smash their tablets, prevent their speech, cut out their tongues, cripple them, herd them into slave pens, or burn them at the stake.
All mammals need mechanisms to deal with a natural 'excess male' problem. Nature often produces excess males - even in flowering plants, far more pollen than ovules. Nature produces far more sperm than are needed to do the job. Its meant to be 'wasted', but God told males not to 'waste' their 'seed' in things like masturbation. Wolf packs, elephant herds often expel adolescent males. Some fight to the death to reduce the number of potential breeding males in dominance fights, males are still statistically more likely to die off from disease and injury. Many herd mammals have a 60F:40M or higher sex ratio, In Nature, not every male is expected or allowed too breed, let alone consciously and deliberately control it.
have you read "Against the Grain" by James C. Scott?
Children of Time
We're more like teen agers who got their first car and drive like reckless maniacs.
imho the most key factor in our controlling behavior is the dominator culture: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominator_culture
"King Dhrutarashtra of the Mahabharata was blind. He gave birth to a hundred sons called Kauravas and had pride in them. The one who embraces the body as oneself is the blind Dhrutarashtra. He is also the one who is called Ravana, a demon in the mythological book Ramayana. One should have a feeling that all the objects are untrue and Reality alone exists. All objects are demons and because you give them the status of the demons, you are King Ravana. Ravana is not the rightful king. He is not the Lord. Because you consider the objects as being true, you become Ravana. You have to get rid of this Ravana 'I'. The 'I' does not exist. Getting rid of the 'I' can be called a wishful death."
"What is the use if one is not detached internally? The attitude must change. To know that all this [moving manifest mundane existence] is false is an act of great bravery. One should be detached within oneself. Once one learns how not to get involved or how to renounce, one then gets the experience. In whatever circumstances or state one is in, one should be detached. Live as you like but renounce internally."
"Objects are untrue. One must turn the attitude of the mind away from them and cultivate the attitude that the Self is Reality. Even if we consider the existing body of five elements as benign, still we know that they are dangerous. Even when one thinks that it is only the Self that can bring happiness, the great illusion [maya] tempts one and brings him or her back to the former condition. It is only when one becomes steady in Self with body, speech and mind can one achieve this knowledge. One can do anything, adorn oneself with gold, wear expensive garments, but the Guru's Grace comes to him alone who considers all this as untrue. If one is not truly renounced, all the efforts become futile."
-- SIDDHARAMESHWAR MAHARAJ
Source: inner-quest DOT org
Nate, I need to say that after decades of thoughts divergent from the main stream about energy and our reality it is absolutely affirming, even within the tragic circumstances we find ourselves in, to find you here on UA-cam. I am digesting all of the podcasts and listening repeatedly. There is hope here. You are doing the right work with the time you've been gifted.
Go Nate! 🎉🎉🎉
Here here 👏
Tom Murphy is my favorite of your guests. He is truly biocentric, kind, real, honest. I really appreciate him and you having him on.
To the question "Is this our fault, are we simply flawed?" I've been reading and listening to Dr. Iian McGilchrist and his books The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things. His Brain hemisphere hypothesis which is supported by a lot of science and research sheds some light on why we behave the way we do. The left hemisphere of our brains has a tendency to highjack the whole of our thinking and is obsessed with power and grasping things. I highly recommend his checking out his work.
True but you have to add the ANS, as it's preemptive on the prefrontal cortex.
His thoughts are excellent. I have the books on my table, but they are a very very tough task to get through. I have listened to many MacGilchrist's interviews and think he is one of the pioneers. Like Daniel Schmachtenberger. And of course Nate Hagens here.
Excellent work. I found the idea of a 70 year old man suddenly going on a week-long intense drug binge a pretty interesting way of looking at our civilization. I'll have to try and incorporate that one in class.
you should do that if you are in the business of teaching the future generations. We need the message to start coming out as loud and clear as possible. All good analogies on deck!
I live in Australia where we have a colonised settler society that has ignored and debased our First Nations peoples and their sustainable cultures for about 250 years. But the tide is turning. We are slowly beginning to realise what we have lost. I spoke with an Elder recently and he asked us non indigenous folks to listen more and walk beside him and his kin. Learn some respect for their culture and Mother Earth. Be their eyes and ears in helping them to protect the land. Listen, learn and help them in their fight for recognition, justice and land rights.
Good.. pick up your wooden stick, leave your home, and head out into the bush.... good luck
This video hits hard. I'm working on research and philosophy around the myth of materialism that I think would pair well with this. Simply put, human beings have developed or invented expensive poverty, but continue to call it wealth even as people suffer more, and become more desperate. I witness so many people waste unimaginable resources solely to SURVIVE, not for any real benefit or liberation. And also at the EXPENSE of developing the real intrinsic wealth that matters, like real communities where people's lives and activities overlap daily. So many facets of modern living in "developed countries" like America is simply exhausting your time, labor, health and massive amounts of resources, solely to COPE with a world and lifestyle that is outright hostile to human needs. And human thriving.
Again, we have invented expensive poverty, but fell for a ruse and call it wealth. We suffer the isolation, alienation, the labor, the deep loss of meaning, deep loss of spirituality and fundamental truth, that we sacrifice instead for coping mechanisms (sugar, opioids, entertainment) just to distract ourselves from the emptiness of this life. I am very passionate about this; I believe many human beings will live much deeper and more liberated lifestyles once they start living minimally, in nature-integrated villages, sharing with each other. In service to their tribe- their family and closest friends.
Just about everyone in this space, including Nate and Tom, discounts the competitive nature of humans and indeed all species. My view is that as macro societal units break down, some strong leaders of resultant tribal units will certainly war against smaller, weaker tribes in order to seize their assets and enslave their people. Nothing even close to Utopia will ever be realized. Witness Putin vs. Ukraine and the European conquest of the Americas. It’s going to be brutal, I’m so sorry to say.
IMHO, those of us who are so privileged would be best served to go through the grieving process and arrive at acceptance of the fact that we are simply using the intrinsic slave labor (as Nate so well puts it) of fossil fuels to accelerate our using up all available resources. Bill Rees makes the point in Nate’s great podcast with him that every species on Earth has always been so driven. Our very recently evolved and limited cognitive brain can not in any way be expected to overrule the deeper, more primitive emotional, pleasure seeking and competitive parts of our brain. Bill has spoken to this, the triune brain theory, noting in some interviews that the concept isn’t universally accepted among all scholars. However, even he enters the realm of hopium at the end of his interview with Nate. Always end with some optimism if you want people to hear what you’re saying. Here’s my offering:
Let’s spend the rest of our time here loving and being kind to each other as much as possible. The biggest part of that would be to give up blaming humanity; to forgive ourselves. While a small percentage of us can recognize what’s coming, our species as a whole has not the ability to alter our course toward perhaps the most consequential inflection point in the history of life on our planet. Again, this is my opinion and others of course might disagree.
Realmente, opino lo mismo, el hombre a dominado al hombre para perjuicio suyo,. Dice las escrituras. El pensar egoistamente y enriquecerse exprimiendo al pobre cada día más . Extrayendo y saqueando la tierra.
@P T I don't think people discount competitiveness, it's just not in our nature in a way that makes it fate. We are free in a deep sense. And if you don't believe that we are, then what is there to mourn?
@@PT-cu2fg "Just about everyone in this space, including Nate and Tom, discounts the competitive nature of humans and indeed all species. " Actually, we misunderstand competitiveness: It is largely a learned behavior in humans.
William Catton’s book Overshoot is one of the best reads ever. One thing it sheds light on that’s missing in this conversation is that humans are NOT special in exploiting and overshooting the carrying capacity of their environment. It’s simply animal nature and ALL animals overshoot whenever they have the resources to allow them too. Overshoot then leads to die-back if not die-off. The difference is that all other examples of overshoot are local-this is the first time that animal (human in this case) overshoot is on a global scale. And BTW even bacteria will overshoot followed by die-off, consider bacteria in a bottle of wine or on a petri dish-once their energy source has been depleted their demise follows. We aren’t so special or unique after all-we’re just doing what all animals do, just on a more massive scale.
Yeah. The only difference is that humans are the only species, as far as we can tell, able to predict overshoot. Amazing brains!
Sadly, we do not seem to have the collective will necessary to correct our course towards our own overshoot, and all the destruction that entails.
@@harryhedgehog5549 We did not predict overshoot as a species. Only a handful of people predicted it. And even today few people realize that climate change is just one symptom of overshoot, which is the main driver of the destruction we’re causing. Have you listened to Nate’s interview with William Rees? It’s the best.
Amazing brains you say. I like to say that we’re too smart for our britches-an evolutionary faux pas. We like to believe that we’re oh-so smart, but as a species we’re lacking in wisdom. Smarts not in the service of wisdom are ultimatley useless and dangerous.
Regarding the question of the inevitability of the desperate situation in which we find ourselves, discussed at the 20-minute mark: The wisdom traditions of many indigenous cultures who were on the receiving end of colonialism saw quite clearly the destructive folly & the moral decay found within the human supremacy and estrangement from nature common to civilization and empire. If Nate hosted more guests from indigenous wisdom traditions, who are also well aware of the science of the cataclysm we are experiencing, this would become quite evident.
"The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . . That system has been on the life-support of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates ever since. Indeed, so perilous a state has the system been in since 2008, it was essential that the people who claim to be our leaders avoid doing anything so foolish as to lockdown the economy or launch an undeclared economic war on one of the world’s biggest commodity exporters . . .
And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders - at least within the western empire - have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union."
consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/07/01/bigger-than-you-can-imagine/
That was so great to say that a child of the future will not cry over not having something we have today! We could in theory adjust to a more sustainable way of living. One major worry that I have is that at the same time as these kind of podcasts are made that inform us and urge to "buckle up" and get ready to change our ways, other people in the media are still bowing to that mantra that "we will get tech to make everything all right".
We who see the writing on the wall are the few.
Thank you for another great conversation.
Yep, this civilization is done, all have failed as history has shown. I think the native americans had it right.
99.9% do not even believe or at least admit we have a big problem .
There is nothing inherent within physics or minds that precludes us from cultivating beautiful responses. That's not hope; it's reality.
It’s reality, but so is stating the long odds. There is much pain and fear ahead for many.
This discussion reminds me very much of the book 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn
This concept was first introduced to me in Derrick Jensen's Endgame, Volume I: The Problem of Civilization. So interesting how a physicist and environmental activist (although Jensen has an engineering background) can come to a similar, fundamental conclusion. Thanks for the stimulating conversation!
yeah, i think it's highly likely that tom has also read jensen.. he just adds some oh so outrageous calculations and oh my! shocking quantities to grab the abstractoids' attention, but the core is the good old, tried and tested deep green ecocentric framework.
I mentioned to jensen how gardening can be the start to reverse this process. He banned me from his Facebook page.
Thanks Nate! I'll send this to family and friends.
"crazy idea that we could own the land" - Nonsense! Land ownership is just a more orderly, less violent expression of territoriality which is a characteristic of many, many species of animal. I refer your guest to Robert Ardrey's excellent book from the 1960s, _The Territorial Imperative_ .
Jesus said that people who gather food in barns are acting without faith.
Nice discussion. But it's clear why humans historically cannot organize their society around sustainability. Suppose there was a tribe or society with a far seeing leader who prioritized sustainability above all other goals. Unfortunately there was a neighboring tribe which prioritized military technology and conquest above all else. Sadly, the sustainability tribe will become victim of short sighted militaristic tribe. Those who are short sighted and prioritize short term gains over long term goal will nearly always triumph over those who prioritize long term sustainability. That's unfortunate outcome of evolution of human competition.
There is a disturbing trend on UA-cam. People adopting large cats and other exotic species as pets. They are orphans without habitat. When an animal is removed from their environment, in most cases, they cannot go back. Regrettably, the world can survive without these higher species but the crash of the insect populations is much more ominous.
Hey Nate, have either you or your guest read 'The Dawn of Everything' by Graeber and Wengrow? I think you should.
That book is very dishonest. I highly recommend to read a critique of it on a channel called What is politics?
Capitalism... We need to get rid of Capitalism.
I don't think we can discuss this fully without first looking at our economic system.
The return to the mean will be pretty dicey.
Won't the societal collapse that will be forced on us also open up space for trying new ways of maintaining some form of settled human existence. No doubt the collapse will be devastating in terms of death and suffering, but the current megasystem has to be broken before there is any possibility of radical change. At the moment we do not have a choice--we are not agents in that respect--but once our civilization dissolves choice and agency emerge.
Great idea except how to live through such a reorganization. I can't imagine it. Yet it will happen. Perhaps humans will not be participants.
wow this one was really great
brilliant conversation and exploration between you both…thank you 🙏🏼
Most people generally shy away from complexity because it's complex. I've been hopeful for decades that a critical mass of people would veer toward building a culture that values sustainability. A cultural paradigm shift looks harder with every passing year. I've decided to imagine potential futures where people live peacefully and proudly within nature, nurturing life and dreaming of millions of years in the future. It's a soothing practice.
Sounds like Tom Murphy is a neomalthusean like me! Murphy's law is coming for us.
E.F. Schumacher pushed this direction 50 years ago, and Wendell Berry as well, promoting the Amish as example.
There needs to be a mechanism to pay people to consume less. Wont capture everyone but it is the firs turn of the wheel to get the oil tanker turned around.
but if you pay people to consume less, wouldn't they consume more with the additional money? (eventually?)
@@thegreatsimplification How many people are lacking in resources to live active and fulfilled lives while paying excessive rents, dental and medical bills, inadequate nutrition, and denied meaningful recreation? Lots of scope for redirecting monies saved or discounted into other essentials to achieve wellness and decent quality of life.
A great metaphor. We are now like someone 75 needing surgery in health care systems falling apart. Like all animal species we exist at the grace of the biosphere but we have created a system which we may not be able to reinvent with the energy issues, financially bankrupt and unabley to 'fix' the issues or try new ideas and entering a new climate age that will be variable causing farming issues. While i understand many of the issues leading to this predicament, live with a low carbon output, solar panels, strawbale insulation and have planted 3,000 trees I wear clothes from asia, food from many sources etc. Enmeshed in a system that we probably can't escape from until we realize fossil fuels, EV's, growth are not the issue, its us and we will hopefully arise from the ashes like a phoenix afterwards to a better quality of life with much less stuff
This is such an excellent discussion! I believe the only way to navigate this bottleneck is to change our mindset, and create a new ecological paradigm with new values and ethics that support thrivability , the 'do no harm ' you mention My work is to bring this to, and hopefully through schools. It is much more nuanced than this of course, but I agree with Tom about staying optimistic, not with hope but with resolve.
Why is it everyone is trained to condemn fossil fuels as evil, yet no one wants to be the first to give up fossil fuels. Anyone can just get a divorce yet no one does. Everyone is trying to get others to give up fossil fuels but NOT ME. Fossil fuels are not the problem. Pursuing luxury, house, cars, grocery stores. We can all go back to growing our own food, who will? Few. NOT ME. Seems very PC to condemn the best thing that ever happened, high luxury from fossil fuels. Like heroin, no one wants to give it up. WHY ME? We want luxury. Why?
You mentioned that 1/2 of the viewers of this video were vehemently against this session and unsubscribed. What stuck out for me was Tom's statement "...(which) led to property rights, the crazy idea that we can own the land...", and that is wherein lies the rub. This mental construct has become sacrosanct, a religious tenet which cannot be refuted by some great portion of the global population. I'm going back to Dan Kahan (Yale) and his statement: We have to disentangle what people know from who they are. This is a wooly mammoth of a task for us.
On humans living sustainably in the past... nobody afaik has put up a convincing argument to suggest past civilisations have been *inherently* sustainable... rather than simply with numbers of people on the planet (say 300 million people at the time of the Romans), and tools available pre-Industrial revolution, whatever way of life people followed was never going to add up to threatening the planet's ecosystems. Jared Diamond's book Collapse has many examples of past civilisations driving themselves into extinction through local unsustainability... and wild population swings across history suggest sustainability has been elusive at best. it's an important point because if we fetishise the past in this way, we risk coming to wrong conclusions about what to do next.
Wow! I think that's the only interview I've heard where someone repeat the line I often say to goad the Cornucopians: "What would the squirrels want if your asked them?" :-)
That was a stunning round table Dr Hagens. A real brain workout. Excellent guests.
Geez. More smart guys again ignorant of indigenous teachings and cultural point of view. Will they ever truly understand? The great homo sapien global war has been civilization vs indigenous people. If you are questioning the viability of civilization then why not ask what the alternative pov of indigenous people part of the conversation?
I'd love to see Tom Murphy bak on the show! He's truly one of a kind
This is not a good analogy, since it seems very rational to me to go on a drug fueled binge in one's 70s. As long as it does not harm those who survive, it is very reasonable. I plan to do it myself. I will do it responsibly though; avoiding doing damage to anything that survives me (except my reputation).
If we put all our cards in evolutionary mythology and advance that forward inside this closer system where we regurgitate earth inside it will lungs not evolve along with the biosphere and oceans ?
Or do we say selection is just a small %?
Or are we putting to much emphasis on ourselves without ever subtracting outside influenced like solar and geological cause and affects. Orbital percession?
Arcehology is finding our natural resource usage and behaviors under the Amazon forest which appears to be a positive growth in the wake of our behavior.s
The Flying Rock analogy works if one understands that how that rock can maintain its trajectory is a greater upwards thrust, ie. cheap energy.
Such an amazing guest. May we find our way
" Hope is the currency for people who know they are losing ...." Richard Jobson.
The dialogues around this impasse on how to achieve a whole new orientation to managing our civilization in a sustainable way really struggle. If you have the grasp of the systemic complexity and if you are grounded in ecological principals then deep down inside you know the answer but it must remain unspoken.
Tom Murphy's analysis is solid. All that's missing is the solution. This is the tough part because the economic and political powers don't leave much agency for the rest of us. The first thing is to realize there are no answers coming from those places. They won't help us. The next thing to realize that whatever can't continue forever won't.
The inevitable solution is adaption by individual people. Here, everyone has agency they can't find in the existing system. As the existing system fails to supply required services, people will figure out how to implement alternatives. The most obvious head start in this process is to grow food. If you don't have your own land, plant edible food in nearby land that isn't being managed by anyone.
property rights are the cornerstone for civilisation, communism was much worse for the environement
its called "appropriate technology". many of the poor countries practice this. which can only be practiced if we get poorer- but with a safety net! so be it! this garden we live in is worth it.
A new direction would be choosing wisdom. Wise leaders would tell the truth. The truth is the need for sacrifice.
Up to now, we have sacrificed other beings and systems for our own empires. To give up empire and even ourselves would be the sacrifice. Get ready for death of our image as wise knowing beings followed by our personal sacrifice.
After all of that I needed to de-pressurize a bit with some insanity. Here is what I found:
Ducklings jump into the basket to sleep with kitten Loki while bunnies run around
ua-cam.com/video/Vyfx9FwmHMY/v-deo.html
Hope......I don't like hanging onto such a thing....for me hope just means we aren't dealing with the problem...a bad place to find yourself hoping everything will be ok....it's laughable...hahaha
I also like to think ...dream....fantasise. ...of a culture of people growing that will change the course of things....but the growing number of awakened people won't change a thing whilst we have "MONSTERS" running the planet.....with their greedy ways....
Until theirs enough people to push back at these demonic systems...we are buggered.
It's crunch time baby.......can humans slow down....change their ways.......I believe some can.....but mostly I just see humanity running fast....like they don't give a damn or even think about nature & consequences to our modern way of living & I think Nate that your guest is right when he mentioned that future generations....in fact those who are alive today & who don't remember a world rich with life ...won't miss it....the great distraction is technology....the computer...the mobile phone.....whilst technology & all the supposed clever people are running fast & pushing it onto the masses....humanity & society is falling apart....I've never felt so much anxiety around me than I feel today.
In my personal world I'm battling rage & a feeling of being alone my head as even family members....my own daughter just don't want to hear the shit we are in....just keep ordering crap online..keep flying around the world.....keep doing what your doing......don't get me wrong....I'm not against flying....but there is too many of us doing this ....just too many of us doing everything........
I appreciate your time Nate & your guests ....thankyou
yep, I quit trying to warn people about what's coming. I just keep prepping with the realization that all this work will probably only ease the suffering.......
I agree, hope is not a plan.
Could you give up that plastic globe behind you?
Thank you, Professor Murphy. Civilization is in fact the problem. Prior to the Neolithic Revolution, we lived in sustainable egalitarian communities. Upon the invention of deities, we formed hierachical societies with inherent need for growth and expansion (city/state/government funding via taxation). Civilization can be likened to terminal cancer.
Thanks, Nate, this is another fascinating talk. Keep doing what you do. Happy New Year.
Wonderful Frankly, Mr. Hagens. I immediately thought of James Scott's "Against the Grain" and his claim that humans are fire addicts.
"Likewise, our civilization-also not founded on principles of sustainability-can soar upward for a time (during our inheritance spending spree) and seem like great fun-giving its paying passengers tremendous satisfaction for a time. Patiently waiting for us is Earth and planetary limits."
As written by Memphis Slim and interpreted by Tracy Nelson: ua-cam.com/video/yye1GKQGpFY/v-deo.html
People are justanimals with cell phones
There has to be some cognitive dissonance in his mind because on one hand he clearly has a luxurious lifestyle as we can see him sitting in his nice office but on the other hand he knows that his own consumption is unsustainable.
The book "Ishmael" completely changed my point of view regarding human civilization. Given the maximum power principle, homo stupidus started down the road the extinction the first time someone dug up a plot of land to plant a crop.
We have a plan! Let's collaborate.
This is why the schemes, goals and "vision" of groups like The World Economic Forum are just so wrong. Really - just naive and stupid.
I like the guests who really understand Thermodynamics well. That's essentially what he's explaining here.
"Salt" the book is a personal favorite; what always strikes me was the impact of refrigeration on the erosion of communities. In the 1950s, the US government gave indigenous communities freezers in order to store their seal meat. Unfortunately, these communities were anchored by butchering the seals together and distributing the meat to the town. With a freezer, younger members could just store the seal in their own freezers. There were a lot of books in the late-90s, early 2000s that documented the erosion of communities and social capital; now it's the way it's always been. Even more closely aligned with the theme of this video is "The Energy of Slaves" (reading it now). Essentially, it thematically links the attitudes of slaveowners with "our" attitudes living in a world with fossil fuel-driven "mechanical" slaves. There's an anecdote about a Roman with a slave for each miniscule task of the day and when one screws up fanning or laying petals...it's a big scene. It reminded me of a tricked-out Jeep riding your bumper in a school zone or complaining about a teaspoon too much cream cheese on their bagel order.
Excellent,excellent presentation.
My main problem is that all analysis of the predicament we find ourselves facing is all coming from a very narrow perspective of growing up and living in the wealthy west. We assume that we represent all of humanity and can make off hand claims and condemnations of humanity while leaving out the perspective and potential insight from the OTHER 85% of the planet. We in the west automatically dismiss that input as inferior and not important.
And what's more many of those in the west who can see their own perdicament assume all of humanity has to come along for the ride the west is on. Not everyone has such a high horse to fall from.
Soy Ama de Casa. Investigadora, y estudio historia . Y este tema de personas , que dan su punto de lo que sucede en el ámbito financiero que está unido al sistema de vida de una persona y no afecta individualmente sino a todos. El Dr. Natan es un Filantropo, Economista financiero es alguien apreciado por cada de uno que vemos, que vamos acercando a edad de piedra. La pregunta es te estás preparando. Un saludo desde Tijuana baja California.
Super intéressant 👍👌
Nate - keep up the good work, and fighting the good fight. Thanks for intro to Tom Murphy.
21:05 the unabomber was 1 of them
Prescription: Metanoia &. mass adoption of a new "religion" that nutures Gaia?
The love of machines, the empathy for machine failure.
We are paid to pollute, not to nurture, we use words incorrectly and model them to our needs.
‘Hunter gatherer’ does not portray the human who is ‘being’.
A human in being, plants seeds, looks at trees, studies health and is immersed in the pace of nurture.
When we grow something from seed, our mind of attachment is in a state of nurture and wonder, the love of machine ends this relationship.
William Stanley Jevons of 1865 understood our primitive relationship of profit gains equal to efficiency, not thermodynamics.
Unbelievable! What a way to look at civilization in it’s entirety. Time for a big change.
Wow great conversation, thank you both. Tom has a gentle quality that is very communicative. I wish I had taken notes from which to comment. I have a good cartoon of evolution: a fish coming out of the water, an amphibian, reptile, primate. They all have the 'thought bubble', 'Eat, Survive, Reproduce.' The last figure in the lineup is a human, s/he is wondering, 'What's it all about?' Two things that come to mind are, 1) There is no other species wondering what it's all about, which I will here translate into 'ecological relationships and ecological reality.' And 2), It is an totally emergent universe. Nothing around you used to exist (except hydrogen), everything is new.
It's too late and you guys know it.We're all going down with the ship
Good for Murphy for finally stating the obvious, we must exist within the principles of sustainability. Civilization is maladaptive and with hubris believes it can adapt the planet to itself rather than adapting to the planet. A maladaptive system cannot survive. The fundamental problem is using energy over and above the photosynthetic energy budget that fuels life. As an animal, we take advantage of available energy. We need to do what is not natural and deny ourselves. If we used fossil energy at a sustainable rate (to define sustainable - no greater than the rate of production or at a rate of waste production no greater than the planet can assimilate) there would be no problem.
That’s all very well but you seem to be presupposing that TGS “The Great Simplification” would be sociably and technically manageable and that you and maybe your nearest and dearest would be survivors whereas at the first signs that FF’s being depleted we’d start to fight over them, resulting in survival of the fittest, human nature in its rawest sense, dog eat dog. We were getting close to that with the Covid-19 lockdowns when supermarket shelves started emptying, but TGS would be far far worse on just hearing of the first signs of it like petrol (Gasoline) station queues🤔
another nifty preposterous calculation:
If we take the age of Earth-4.5 billion years-and compress it into one year, 144 years would be 1 second!
February 25th - life appears
August 16th - multi-cellular organisms appear
December 13th - mammals
December 31st,
11:30 - hominids walk
23:36 - homo sapiens
23:59 - agriculture
23:59:58 - industrial revolution
such a goofy species, aren't we?
Always a nice exercise to view things in this 'lifetime' way. When it concerns the use of energy, it is quiet right. But we are not the first civilization to go in overshoot. Many times we have asked more of nature than it could give. The story of Pacal (Palenque) for instance, where they had to go farther and farther to find trees. In the end they had to go so far, it wasn't economically viable and the civilization collapsed.
On the other hand... There have been civilizations (although we would call them 'primitives') who had learned and survived the lessons nature teaches and so could thrive exceptionally long. The people Pizzaro found in the Amazon could have been like that. It looks like it they were there for over a thousand years, in the millions, without destroying the Amazon. They thrived until Pizzaro brought disease. These people were not primitive. They were resourceful. They even invented 'terra preta', probably what made the big difference between plundering nature and reviving nature indefinitely.
How do natural systems achieve balance? They have no choice, it is either balance or oblivion. The system is broken and everyone from the bottom to the top is gaming the system. The system creates the actors, the actors protect the system. Power is the problem, power doesn't negotiate.
The agricultural revolution isn't fully complete, even now in 2023. It's a process, with different people at different stages of domestication. Both wild and domestic food procurement can be degenerative OR regenerative, ecologically speaking, though domestication does seem to tend to be more generally destructive. As a participant in agriculture, and hunting, and foraging, I can say the lines between aren't ways even particularly crisp. Human "sustainability" could be rated on a spectrum as well of course, and ultimately, the sustainable will sustain, the unsustainable won't. Nothing to lose sleep over really unless you and yours are wildly unsustainable, and not ok with that.
Crystal's Edict
"The Point" -Is so far reaching that it is nearly impossible to say in words. Speaking and lecturing or listening to speaking and or
lecturing about "living; life/Nature" are mostly just received as some kind of esoteric truth and a longing for something more meaningful.
The actual meaning of the same Truth is that only Heaven exists and humans are the only thing lost to it and from it. Servitude to Nature
alone is the only road to redemption. Inside or outside. Death / life are just misnomers, change of state. The Purpose remains constant.
One Soul many faces. No one form is superior to another. Civilization it's self is the cause of all life's destruction. Accepting this as
some kind of necessary phase or step TO something is delusion. Now is always constant. All and every essence is always dying & being born.
Action is now. Preservation of complexity for the sake of All beings NOT civilization at all And not humans first
1billion humans to dismantle all infrastructure and returning ALL mined/drilled materials to their inertial place of origin by order of density and toxicity.
1billion humans to create "Earth-Ship" type self generating environments from as much earthen material as possible. As many species as possible must be able to migrate to & from these ....
All the rest to support the the first two.
One Soul Many beings /faces/species
Crystal's Law
I've listened to most of your pieces, but somehow, I have managed to miss this one until now! Excellent!
yeah, listening to tom, deep ecological thinking shining through, it's crystal clear. he basically just reiterates classic DG talking points, qua derrick jensen. it's cool, it's the truly based bodhisattva non-anthropocentric take-seeing and comprehending, feeling that however difficult it may be, there is openness and acceptance towards radical change-however extremely difficult it may be.
on the other side, you'll find the longtermist vein, who can't stand that humanity may not produce "infinite value". such hubris, but the feeling of not letting go can be so intensely alluring. nothing new though.
Again and again, as I find you and your guests coming up blank in the quest for a way to get people to wake up to what you are saying and especially to offer them hope or a "way out" that includes joy, I find myself almost wanting to scream to you "THE ARTS!". I mean especially the narrative and performing arts. Fiction. Storytelling, movie making, song writing. The great storytellers can change people's minds quicker and more completely than scientists, politicians, economists, possessors of Phd's, and even bankers. How about exploring that subject, being careful not to "sink into the slough of despond" of dystopianism. Explore the famous influential dreams. "Pilgrim's Progress", "Heidi", "Swiss Family Robinson", "Robinson Crusoe", "Woodstock (the song), "Tis a Gift to be Simple" (the song). See if there is anything like them now; and if not, encourage their production. People need a dream, not only a nightmare. You will find yourselves in terms of vocabulary in a different world. Your lexicon, your jargon does not fit with storytelling. Though you use it so eloquently, it is a put off compared to "once upon a time..."
Im aware of this and am working w people in eg Hollywood on creating different arcs. But this is a science based podcast. This work influences that work. Can't do it all on one channel. Thank you
@@thegreatsimplification Thanks for getting back to me. I understand about being science-based; but don't let that tie you hands, or blind you to solutions that otherwise might escape you. I don't know of "humanities based podcasts"; but they probably wouldn't fly anyway. It is the original works that need to do the job. Still, you might devote one of your episodes to at least tipping your hat to the possibility of paradigm change coming from the arts.
Really, the matter at hand is too critical to ignore something because it's out of your comfort zone. Couldn't you put somebody else on it?
@@mrbisse1 how about you get on it?
@@anthonytroia1 I AM on it and have been so for about a year -- a very long novel named "The Pergola Pump"; but I am hoping that there are others who are much better writers than myself who could do the job or who have already done the job but are not recognized. I also created a screenplay for the cause, "Resurrection," but could get no interest in it; so I am including it in the novel. In any case, there is a history of works that have fulfilled this function for both good and evil. I would add Jules Verne's "Mysterious Island" (good, I think) and "Atlas Shrugged" (bad, as I remember). "Far from the Madding Crowd" comes to mind (good). An Australian professor of sustainability, Dr. Samuel Alexander wrote a VERY good short novel the rights to which some American television producer bought, but I don't believe anything has been done with it. So, you see, I believe that there is enough for Nate to explore and expose. There is another body of such writing has been thoroughly studied. It is from around the first two decades of the 20th century. Dona Brown's "Back to the Land" (2011) does a brilliant job of recounting it. See, for example Bolton Hall and David Grayson.
When asked if renewable energy was reason for any degree of optimism Tom Murphy says:
"If every jackass on the planet had abundant clean energy what would they do with it? Would they do good things, like ecological restoration? Well there is no money in that, so our financial or economic system won't support such things."
What if there was money in ecological restoration? Vast global streams of revenue for ecological restoration could very easily be created with a simple global price on carbon emissions.
Ecological restoration has enormous capacity to sink carbon. Every living thing in a complex ecosystem is a carbon based lifeform. Most of the mass of living things is below the surface in the soils, and even when they die, the carbon chains that make up their bodies become part of the soils, enriching them in the process, sequestering more carbon, holding more water, and supporting an increasing abundance of living things within and above the soil.
So, the money for ecological restoration is there, should we choose to solve climate change at the global scale.
Tom Murphy also said that Malthus is ridiculed now, because he could not foresee the power of fossil fuels to temporarily overcome the natural limits to uncontrolled population growth, so "maybe there is something we are not seeing as well."
The thing we are not seeing is how we can easily change the outcomes that the economy delivers.
We can set the goals for the system to deliver, apply a simple penalty price to the major economic activities that drive outcomes away from those goals, and use the revenues collected to handsomely reward all economic activities that drive outcomes towards those goals. In this way, the system automatically cultivates and grows the positive activities, and shrinks or eliminates the negative activities. If the pricing signals are free to rise and fall according to how well the overall outcome is tracking the goal trajectory, the economy will automatically deliver the desired outcome, even if every player in the system is pursuing only self interest and the profit motive.
Armed with just a single goal, to make net greenhouse gas emissions follow the agreed Paris trajectory to zero and into negative territory, a global race between nations and corporations will begin to restore the most ecosystems, and so sink the most carbon and get the greatest share of massive global revenues.
What we are not seeing is the power of Market Outcome Guidance Mechanisms to achieve any goal we collective agree as necessary or desirable. The same price on carbon emissions that drives up ecological restoration will drive down total energy consumption, drive up the energy efficiency of all goods and services in the system, and dramatically increase the speed at which the excess heat in the Earth-atmosphere system is released into space.
This solution is clearly a win-win-win scenario. So, what objections are there? I am not saying that getting a global agreement will be easy, just that it is absolutely necessary if we are actually to address the issue of the sustainability and stability of industrialised human civilisation.
The presumption that the economics we have currently are necessarily the economics we must have into the future is wrong. Changing the economics, and aligning the profit motive with the goal of the sustainability of human civilisation, is the only thing we can do to change our trajectory, and to write a positive chapter into the simple story of human civilisation.
I mean, your not wrong
And also I feel like we also don’t know what is going on. We might be approaching a singularity who knows.
Progressive self imperilment is an underlying theme...