I'm basically in the 7th group. Unfortunately, the longer we try to grow the more likely the sudden collapse scenario comes. And so far it seems we are hell bent on the growth. I don't wish for a doom but I see the "sudden" collapse scenario as very plausible.
Greetings from Norway. I remember back in the 70’s we talked about sustainability … then in the 80’s it became sustainable growth … but the last many years it’s has turned into just growth! Even all the plans for “The green transition” is heavily sold as a unique possibility for GROWTH(new jobs etc..)
@@BartAnderson_writer I see an ideological lock-down in the word "earn" here. Once we switch to the position that everybody is entitled to living decently, and realize that we collectively have enough of wealth for all, the "earn" part becomes ridiculous and completely market-constructed. Sustainability can simply *be* a living.
@@BartAnderson_writer I agree on that. The problem is that it is likely impossible to redistribute wealth "transitionally" and according to some plan - the "elites" will never be complicit, particularly dark triads.
I am somewhere between philosophies 4 and 7. Most of us following this podcast know that growth is coming to an end in the not-so-distant future. The question is what steps do we need to take to adapt to a post-growth future.
I've been living my attempt at a sustainable life for most of my life. I've learned a lot from your work. I find my thoughts and mindset in a state of rational depression. Please interview and visit (if possible) people who are living a low environmental impact, healthy lifestyle. I think we forget that this is still possible. Thanks, Nate!
All members of an industrialized nation, all, are in a non sustainable situation. Anyone can delude themselves as to their exalted standing. Good on you to design and maintain excellent health and reductions of impacts. But when a tsunami, war or pestilence approach, running away may seem reasonable until there is nowhere to hide. Then delusion gives way to the understanding of a truth: we have failed to fathom the hubris, cleverness and selfishness of our species.
Thank you for these frameworks that we can keep in mind as we navigate new conversations. I'm going to make a poster of that final shot of all the philosophies together, so they embed in my long-term memory. I've been studying "Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making" by Susanne R. Cook-Greuter, and I wonder where each of these philosophies fit amongst those levels of ego.
Thank you, Nate. It was exciting to see your 7 philosophies. When I recall interactions with people from time to time especially considering climate impacts, I have come across people having some of these views.
At a recent birthday party for a cousin who turned 70 I was talking to her husband about the damages to the biosphere source of all life. They have a daughter and five grandchildren. They're a very devout Catholic family. The husband proclaimed that obviously this is God's plan and doing. My reply was the identical God of creation he worships gave us the brains to recognize we're undermining creation. He was unmoved to say the least. When reminded that pope Francis has written multiple documents calling for respect for 'our sister earth' and has priests trying to convince dioceses to act on climate his reply was Francis should stick to morals and ethics not nature. This interaction just another reminder of how much damage the Christian faith has inflicted on the world. In a nutshell life on earth sucks. The good times come when you're dead and in heaven playing an organ while staring into the eyes of God for an eternity. Old protestant tune sung in chirches for centuries goes something like this. Oh the good times are coming be they ever so far away.....
I don’t disagree, but let me just say that there are different levels (depths) of understanding among Christians, including among the devout Catholics you speak of. Please don’t give up on those who profess a faith in Christ. There are many wise men and women in this group, and I’ve had the good fortune to cross paths with some. I hope you have that opportunity, too.
@jennysteves thanks for your thoughtful reply. Mom and dad were both one of 12 children in a large Catholic family. I and my three sisters were raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. In our times Christianity was reeling due to the decades of misery and suffering countless deaths created by two world wars and the great depression. People of faith asking where is god in this suffering? The focus in our parish was on the image of Christ as the Prince of Peace. Most sermons featured the sermon on the mount. Unfortunately in order to survive Catholicism made a hard right turn hoping to hold onto members that were jumping on board the prosperity gospel of radicalized evangelical protestants. Where we live now Catholic parishes are on board with guns, forcing women to bear children under the boot of law enforcement regardless of who impregnated her, her health or the condition of the fetus. Homosexuality is condemned. Here in Ohio these zealots own state government. So far this year over $1 billion secular tax dollars has been given to religious kooks homeschoolers and other organizations with zero oversight. In the meantime public schools are in decay. We live in a prosperous growing suburb that needs new schools and remodeling of old schools. The voters turned down a minor increase in taxes. College enrollment in Ohio is down 10%. Colleges closing or consolidating in an effort to survive. In 2006 Ohios education system was #6 in the nation today its 35th. Biden dumped billions into our state for chip plants etc. Unfortunately the companies cannot find qualified graduates to operate the plants. Yes there are well intended Christians. We have many as friends. When I ask them does your pastor speak about the destruction of creation and our responsibility to care for earth from the pulpit they have no reply.
@PinkPanda-Zx no disagreement with you! Yet they breathlessly listen to their orange god as he worships the golden calf. At one time we had a collective vision and understanding of God that included all. That understanding was replaced with a personal one on one relationship with God by religious charlatans decades ago. I dontneed to talk to anyone! God and I we know what's happening.... Deity abuse in service to the non-existent self
Nate I think you along with others badly mischaracterize group number five. I would say the vast majority of doomers or those expecting inevitable collapse do not *want* it to happen, but basically see the writing on the wall... or at least believe they see it. And just because some have that view does not mean they are not still trying and hoping to avoid that outcome and are doing all they can to help soften whatever landing awaits them and their fellow beings, both human and nonhuman. So the statement that this particular outlook serves no purpose is simply not true. Don't be hating on the doomers bro 🤨
Excellent insight and advice: awareness of varying frameworks on this topic --how people imagine the Future reflect decisions on daily life --could help dialogue!! Thank you.
I see myself in many of these groups, but I must admit, even now, I haven't let go of the dream of #3 - the idea that humanity will not reach beyond our own planet is among the most depressing things I can think of.
I am closer to the perspective of degrowth 4, wherein the most important way I can contribute to the well being of the future is to impart the right wisdom that I can obtain from the classical, feudal, enlightenment, industrial revolution, finally into the modern period that I think will end in the next 50 to 100 years. There will be people living beyond that that I feel must know a story of how they came into a torn up world, and I want that to be intentionally understood from some elements of true things.
Very useful, as always. Thank you, Nate. Personally, I'm in favor of dropping the current media-pushed game of prophesizing the future, and spending more time thinking about how best to plan for the constantly shifting range of possibilities the future actually is. I enjoy travelling with you immeasurably, Nate, because you help me better perceive, in the moment, the depth, breadth and detail of what it is I'm experiencing. That time is moving in a single direction is a particular perspective born of two human eyes mounted face forward above regularly expanding and contracting lungs, and a rhythmically beating heart squeezing blood and oxygen through the highways of our arteries and veins. Spacetime is actually more akin to a heaving sea of possibility stretching in all directions around us, and we humans being are all afloat in the middle of it, bobbing about like corks riding the tossing waves. From this perspective all seems random, directionless and pointless. Notice, however, that some waves may collide and combine to be larger and more powerful than others, carrying all they encounter in the direction of the impetus that arose to set them into existence. For a period of time, before these dis-integrate back into a range of smaller, more temporary and chaotic waves, the crests of these bigger waves present the possibility of seeing further and traveling farther in a particular direction than do others. If you can learn to maneuver yourself toward the crests of the waves around you rather than remaining stuck down in the troughs, the possibility of catching one of these waves and settling upon a course to somewhen just may arise... For us the course we set will have meaning and poignancy born in part of the wave with which we travel. But we will do well to remember that the sea itself will always remain, and be, just the sea. In this way, we ourselves will remember who and where we always are. 💦🐬💦
I find elements of these in myself, particularly 3, 4 and 7. I still believe that with a focused effort the out-of-Earth future is possible even with degrowth, we just need to focus on the right things. I would completely agree that's naive, but the thought of knowledge, sentience and life itself ending with the planet's habitability and not continuing indefinitely is the ultimate existential catastrophe in my eyes.
As a Nate Hagenite, I think I'm a hybrid of 4th & 7th Category. My permitted active via media influencers are Rafael Nadal, Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Nate Hagens, Guy McPherson. These guys may speak for me. Influencers of yesteryear, rock-n-roll 60's,70's. Namely: John Lennon - All You Need is Love, Paul McCartney - The Love You Take is Equal to The Love You Make, Ronnie Van Zant - Be Something You Love And Understand. Give a Hootion mitigate your pollution. Peace
I think the best-case scenario at this point would be somewhere between a disastrous collapse and an intentional degrowth transition to a less industrial society. Preventing collapse was possible 50 years ago when Limits to Growth was published but not anymore. I agree that it doesn't even matter whether continued growth would be a good thing because it's not going to happen, no matter what we do. I think category 1 is the largest. The video had pictures of poor people but I think it's largely a matter of personality too. Some people are just more inclined to think about big picture issues in a systematic way than others.
I believe Nate is predicating his bend but not break philosophy on wising to remain a bit hopeful. I agree with you. Being ready to die and feeling the pain of continued wreaking of the living planet are the wise choices of the large number of folks with enhanced awareness. The rest will muddle along, be ready to fight to hold on to their privileges and join others in blaming any number of targets as things devolve.
yesterday had an revelatory bioregional food co-op meeting with the original back to the land movement people from the 1970s with the current flush of back to the landers with very different values. It appears that here in the ozarks the back to landers stayed on the land unlike in other regions and help to build OOGA which was the predecessor of the USDA organic standards. Just an observation of the current back to the landers being energy blind and much more inclined towards human exceptionalism.
Perhaps we know that a gradulist de-growth is being actively pursued when a "right to repair" is enshrined in law on the major corporations, so many consumer items have to be replaced that being able to repair a dishwasher recently became a major achievment. Also recently was a passenger on an electric bus service in North Wales (T22 from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog), lovely quiet ride, but made me realise that no diesel needed to be delivered to the bus depot, less oil needed refining or transported around the globe, less maintenance required on the bus, all things that shrink the economy. It is possible plus found out that Pine Martins now seem to be in permanent residence in a forest near home.
Diogenes was a legendary ancient Greek philosopher who was known for wandering the daytime streets of Athens with a lighted lantern while looking for an "honest man". Does that sound familiar? Thanks. Nate.
Without growth we're deleting each other so the most likely solution will be virtual markets and placeholders for value. Since the status-for-survival game is a permanent fixture we'd need to dematerialize / dephysicalize the place in which that's happening at least so far as it pertains to who has the bigger bank account (athletic competition and health maintenance would still be physical world things although E-sports would be part of the panoply as well). The only difficulty though - the money obviously wouldn't buy a lot in the physical world, just online.
Thank you Nate, for this brilliant classification of philosophies to look on the world. The only thing i wonder is labeling the y-axis of the diagrams with growth. Shouldn‘t it be something like „size“. Considering the scenario you described with no growth suggest in the diagram a constant growth? Or do i get the message wrong?
What makes you think the growth philosophy will change, when future elected or appointed, leaders will continue to be sociopathic and narcissistic left brain dominant achievers, not right brain visionaries (such as your good self)? Mission impossible to change the ruling class structure of our disjointed world - there is no collective "we" to make sensible change, philosophical or practical. Still, I admire your efforts to align worldly thinkers with your viewers.
As always, I think you should consider the possibility of technolgical advances in all fields as not just a mitigating factor, but a transformative one. There are so many entrenched players who will resist change til doomsday that the solutions before us will not come to fruit. I fully admit that. They might unintentionally destroy our planet in a Holocaust in a vain attempt to hold onto their legacy. But your degrowth scenario is even more implausible, albeit well-meaning.It would require a complete re-making of our geopolitical nation state perpetual struggle for dominance (Mearsheimer, et al) and a change in consciousness of 8 billion individuals or a large fraction thereof. Given that, it's the Garden of Eden. But I think any idea that we can go back to the Garden is even more perilous than mine that technology can save us and our planet. But thank you. You are very wise.
...I find people are more worried if at all with the immediate... like here in Mexico, insecurity, dismantling of the judicial power, dubious interpretation of how a majority is attained in leading to a rubber stamp congress, money exchange rates, inflation...etc. etc. I really don't think people worry much about a couple generations up ahead....on the other hand I have struck a few chords when talking to people like you can't manufacture renewable energy gadgets with renewable energy...and other say, you won't be around by then so why worry!
I call people who think space is some sort of promised land "space nutters". They basically have a religion that started with Russian Cosmism. And the decades of sci-fi that followed.
I struggle to understand your position. We only know one example of life, here on Earth. That life, particularly its complex flavors and intelligence and knowledge, all will become extinct without space colonization once the Earth leaves its habitability window. This is not some kind of religion, but the current scientific understanding. That's one part of it, the rational and the bigger one. The other part is emotional, the innate curiosity to see far lands with our own eyes. I'd say this is one of the components at the very core of what makes us humans.
Seems to me one optimal way to at least temper growth or maybe find a softer impact is (easy to say but...) strive for efficiency. Imagine what our global technologically dependent civilization would be if we were to reach 95% efficiency in such areas as land use, agriculture, food production and consumption, transportation, manufacturing, renewable energy, etc.. It would not correct for the impoverishment we've already inflicted on the biosphere but maybe it would help level off the arc and grant us a bit more time. One major problem with capitalism is that it rewards bad behavior and makes heroes out of sociopaths. I've heard a number of economists say that capitalism and free markets promote efficiency, but the evidence says otherwise. In the current system efficiency only applies to any operations which increase profitability; for example demographic marginalization and fragmentation, political corruption, strip mining, ignoring uncapped oil wells, clear cutting forests across entire regions and manufacturing everything out of f*cking plastic. Today efficiency is all about consolidating as much wealth and resources as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.
Does yeast in a petri dish operate on philosophy or stimuli? Collapse is just pointing out the obvious, if you can set anthropocentricism aside. Limits to Growth used 1970's tech and data to easily predict the result of exponential growth yet it may as well have been a guide map rather than a warning. Nevertheless, it's been said that a small rudder can change the course of a large ship
I think there might be different ways to approach degrowth. I don't think centrally organized degrowth (if even possible) could avoid a collapse of civilization. However, any intentional choosing of local, ecological, resilient solutions over high-tech GDP favored ones might soften the crash/landing ever so slightly. Would front loading some hardships be the right thing to do for future generations?
@@danielfaben5838 I seen several people teach this for those in the city. Mother Earth News has a women who teaching how to build a pond using an old carpet with a lining. Even though she in a city she draws in frogs, and dragon flies. Even in the small you can create a smaller version, don't have room for many trees their are dwarf varieties and lots of edible bushes In Buffalo a group took control of empty lot building a farm their. The city tried to shut it down so they contacted the News stations and now these urban farms are spreading and the city is supporting them. Those in apartments can grow from any south facing window or even mushroom if none face south and lettuce needs less sun. Further if all else fails buy into a local farm or find the closest farmers market. Push for local stores to buy more local produce. There is much one can do, being in a city only forces one to be more creative.
I'm worried about war, nuclear war, and AGI. :-( I guess that puts me in Category 1 (just trying to survive the day) or Category 2 (the future is an extrapolation of the past = more war, more violence). But what I WANT is a clean, healthy, abundant planet, where native species have been reintroduced, where ecosystems are thriving, the watersheds have beavers and snails and fish, the rainforests so abundant, I can see Bison for hundreds of miles, and the old growth forests are protected, and our population naturally, slowly, safely declines to about 1 billion people.
Look at lidar of underwater structures. There were more people on the planet in previous times in relation to plant and animal. Living in a time of controlled scarcity.
@@TheDiversifiedFarmer Women don't answer to you. They are choosing not to have as many babies as they did in the past. I'm fine with it, and I'm very doubtful that lidar images of underwater structures will change their minds.
@robertgulfshores4463 learning alot about people. Conversations are one way and they will put words in your mouth and make a straw man out of you to try to score imaginary points for their ego
Category 8: Logistic growth. Seems the most likely to me. Of course, trees do not grow past the sky. Continued growth forever is impossible. De-growth implies carrying capacity overshoot. It may happen, but it hasn't happened yet.
Thanks Nate, this really does frame the conversation in a very clear and skillful way. I could see this or something similar being the starting point for ongoing dialogues, aiming for more light than just heat. The poet, Robert Frost one said, “poems, are momentary stays against the confusion.” In this way, a podcast can become poetic…
we have another problem now, how to deal with trumpland? i fear to have friends from America, this is a question about our future and trump is a catalyst and symptom of changing times. so please stop the most powerful and destructive people from harming everyone and everything.
I don't believe in growth as the metric. perhaps an alternative y-axis could be 'well-being' and the ideal trajectory is an s-curve, implying that there is, from a resource efficiency perspective, there is an optimum amount of dissatisfaction we should aim for, given some law of diminishing returns. new questions then arise including: can well-being go up while "growth" (i assume GDP) goes down? what is the coupling between growth and well-being, where are there inverse relationships, what is the functional unit of well-being? on so on.. Fundamentally, we need to change the metrics for success. While i love this podcast, this video has a secondary (I think, unintentional) effect of validating growth as a measure. Gross national happiness is an example, and i suspect each country will need to decide on its own indicators, once they realise that resources are necessarily finite, and then we will see the borrowing of strategies from one place to another. Ideally this would result in a race to the top, but i won't be holding my breath.
Hey Nate, comment didn't go through so trying again... I think you badly mischaracterized group number five, the doomers. I would basically describe this group as expecting the worst but hoping for the best. And I would definitely argue that the vast majority don't *want* collapse.
Yes I agree. I think there are different categories of doomers 1-The fraction of doomers who actually want collapse I’ve heard referred to as accelerationalists. I suppose because they want to ‘speed up’ to a finish line. 2-Another group of doomers could be the surrenderers perhaps because they feel like the machine is just too big to go up against. 3-Another percentage of the doomers I like to call the “go-down-in-flames” group. This might be the biggest group. Although we know we will be crushed, we won’t stop trying until the results of the giant machinery have us smashed like pancakes. There are probably other categories and divisions, but these three groups of doomers are from my limited observations.
No one asked me, but: I have one foot in the "Growth As Natural Law" camp and one foot in the "Collapse" camp. But I operate from the "Growth Is No Longer Possible" vantage point. Life has no interest in being incinerated during the death throes of its nearest star (A very unpopular opinion in this community. I invite your critique). We (earth life) are the only known sentients in the cosmos and I'll be dammed if I'm gonna let this chapter end here on Earth. We have to expand terrestrial life beyond this locust, or else. I give life a 1% chance of making it to the stars. I think there is a 99% chance humans will go extinct this century from our own hubris: an industrial accident, or exceeding planetary boundaries. If we were sober enough to consider biophysical limits, we would be much better poised to become interplanetary in the coming century or two (again, I invite your criticism). Humans are the thread of mycelium reaching from Earth towards the stars. Life must not end here. (I am bracing to be verbally attacked right now. Please be gentle)🙏
On the contrary, personally I agree literally with everything you said. It's actually incredibly refreshing to see a real human that shares my values! Such a position seems so obvious if one's centered on nature and ecosystems, and yet it is incredibly rarely adopted by people. Perhaps some simply do not know about Earth far future trajectory, others are excited for humans to go extinct, seeing the species as a "cancer" and either anticipating another, more sensible intelligent species to arise post-human extinction (very unlikely to start a new space program due to the lack of easily obtainable mineral resources for industrialisation), or being totally OK with life ending - which then begs the question, is there much difference in their eyes between humanity ending complex life in a mass extinction and the complete and final extinction of life itself due to natural causes. But in all honesty, I don't really know why being pro-life and pro-space at the same time is easy for both of us but not for others, I never asked people myself. Although, I can understand the one position that there is simply not enough time to develop everything (from transportation to any way of surviving different gravity, to which the human body seems ill-adopted), and we ought to give *some* time to complex life instead of shortening it in a mass extinction for our ambition. To which I'd say, I still hold some hope (like you), and, second, our space ambitions are currently miniscule compared to literally any other industry - media, cosmetics, you name it - and it doesn't contribute anything to our (and the biosphere's) demise.
@@danielfaben5838 Cosmos is not sentient, there is nobody to appreciate or not. It is very likely to be a lot of empty bodies devoid of meaning. There is nothing "imperial" about spreading life across the Universe, it is a moral imperative if life is seen as a value.
News no one talks about... China owns, to my knowledge, the entire supply and supply chain for TiO2 and has placed sales restrictions on it. I'll let you Google what it's function is in the world. I think de-growth is inevitable if supplies are constrained.
I'm basically in the 7th group. Unfortunately, the longer we try to grow the more likely the sudden collapse scenario comes. And so far it seems we are hell bent on the growth.
I don't wish for a doom but I see the "sudden" collapse scenario as very plausible.
Greetings from Norway. I remember back in the 70’s we talked about sustainability … then in the 80’s it became sustainable growth … but the last many years it’s has turned into just growth! Even all the plans for “The green transition” is heavily sold as a unique possibility for GROWTH(new jobs etc..)
Unless sustainability has a way for people to earn a living, it will go nowhere
@@BartAnderson_writer I see an ideological lock-down in the word "earn" here. Once we switch to the position that everybody is entitled to living decently, and realize that we collectively have enough of wealth for all, the "earn" part becomes ridiculous and completely market-constructed. Sustainability can simply *be* a living.
If you need to provide food and a place to live for your family, a utopian vision is not enough. We need a definitive transition plan.
@@BartAnderson_writer I agree on that. The problem is that it is likely impossible to redistribute wealth "transitionally" and according to some plan - the "elites" will never be complicit, particularly dark triads.
Brilliant
This is brilliant framing
Thanks so much for your work ❤️
I am somewhere between philosophies 4 and 7. Most of us following this podcast know that growth is coming to an end in the not-so-distant future. The question is what steps do we need to take to adapt to a post-growth future.
I've been living my attempt at a sustainable life for most of my life. I've learned a lot from your work. I find my thoughts and mindset in a state of rational depression.
Please interview and visit (if possible) people who are living a low environmental impact, healthy lifestyle.
I think we forget that this is still possible. Thanks, Nate!
thanks - I have some scheduled
@thelastsasquatch1019 best of luck with the squatchcast, LOL!
All members of an industrialized nation, all, are in a non sustainable situation. Anyone can delude themselves as to their exalted standing. Good on you to design and maintain excellent health and reductions of impacts. But when a tsunami, war or pestilence approach, running away may seem reasonable until there is nowhere to hide. Then delusion gives way to the understanding of a truth: we have failed to fathom the hubris, cleverness and selfishness of our species.
See you on "The Road"
@danielfaben5838
You'll enjoy this book by Cormac McCarthy, if you haven't read it.
@@danielfaben5838okay if you think I'm delusional. Lol
Thank you for these frameworks that we can keep in mind as we navigate new conversations. I'm going to make a poster of that final shot of all the philosophies together, so they embed in my long-term memory. I've been studying "Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making" by Susanne R. Cook-Greuter, and I wonder where each of these philosophies fit amongst those levels of ego.
Thank you, Nate. It was exciting to see your 7 philosophies. When I recall interactions with people from time to time especially considering climate impacts, I have come across people having some of these views.
Thank you Nate for keeping us informed. Very interesting and helpful.
At a recent birthday party for a cousin who turned 70 I was talking to her husband about the damages to the biosphere source of all life. They have a daughter and five grandchildren. They're a very devout Catholic family. The husband proclaimed that obviously this is God's plan and doing. My reply was the identical God of creation he worships gave us the brains to recognize we're undermining creation. He was unmoved to say the least. When reminded that pope Francis has written multiple documents calling for respect for 'our sister earth' and has priests trying to convince dioceses to act on climate his reply was Francis should stick to morals and ethics not nature. This interaction just another reminder of how much damage the Christian faith has inflicted on the world. In a nutshell life on earth sucks. The good times come when you're dead and in heaven playing an organ while staring into the eyes of God for an eternity. Old protestant tune sung in chirches for centuries goes something like this. Oh the good times are coming be they ever so far away.....
I don’t disagree, but let me just say that there are different levels (depths) of understanding among Christians, including among the devout Catholics you speak of. Please don’t give up on those who profess a faith in Christ. There are many wise men and women in this group, and I’ve had the good fortune to cross paths with some. I hope you have that opportunity, too.
I would argue that such people are merely using their faith as a shield, and the real problem is their own apathy
@jennysteves thanks for your thoughtful reply. Mom and dad were both one of 12 children in a large Catholic family. I and my three sisters were raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. In our times Christianity was reeling due to the decades of misery and suffering countless deaths created by two world wars and the great depression. People of faith asking where is god in this suffering? The focus in our parish was on the image of Christ as the Prince of Peace. Most sermons featured the sermon on the mount. Unfortunately in order to survive Catholicism made a hard right turn hoping to hold onto members that were jumping on board the prosperity gospel of radicalized evangelical protestants. Where we live now Catholic parishes are on board with guns, forcing women to bear children under the boot of law enforcement regardless of who impregnated her, her health or the condition of the fetus. Homosexuality is condemned. Here in Ohio these zealots own state government. So far this year over $1 billion secular tax dollars has been given to religious kooks homeschoolers and other organizations with zero oversight. In the meantime public schools are in decay. We live in a prosperous growing suburb that needs new schools and remodeling of old schools. The voters turned down a minor increase in taxes. College enrollment in Ohio is down 10%. Colleges closing or consolidating in an effort to survive. In 2006 Ohios education system was #6 in the nation today its 35th. Biden dumped billions into our state for chip plants etc. Unfortunately the companies cannot find qualified graduates to operate the plants. Yes there are well intended Christians. We have many as friends. When I ask them does your pastor speak about the destruction of creation and our responsibility to care for earth from the pulpit they have no reply.
@PinkPanda-Zx no disagreement with you! Yet they breathlessly listen to their orange god as he worships the golden calf. At one time we had a collective vision and understanding of God that included all. That understanding was replaced with a personal one on one relationship with God by religious charlatans decades ago. I dontneed to talk to anyone! God and I we know what's happening.... Deity abuse in service to the non-existent self
Nate I think you along with others badly mischaracterize group number five. I would say the vast majority of doomers or those expecting inevitable collapse do not *want* it to happen, but basically see the writing on the wall... or at least believe they see it. And just because some have that view does not mean they are not still trying and hoping to avoid that outcome and are doing all they can to help soften whatever landing awaits them and their fellow beings, both human and nonhuman. So the statement that this particular outlook serves no purpose is simply not true. Don't be hating on the doomers bro 🤨
Excellent insight and advice: awareness of varying frameworks on this topic --how people imagine the Future reflect decisions on daily life --could help dialogue!! Thank you.
I see myself in many of these groups, but I must admit, even now, I haven't let go of the dream of #3 - the idea that humanity will not reach beyond our own planet is among the most depressing things I can think of.
I liked these thoughts Nate. Thanks.
Very helpful information thanks Nate.
I am closer to the perspective of degrowth 4, wherein the most important way I can contribute to the well being of the future is to impart the right wisdom that I can obtain from the classical, feudal, enlightenment, industrial revolution, finally into the modern period that I think will end in the next 50 to 100 years. There will be people living beyond that that I feel must know a story of how they came into a torn up world, and I want that to be intentionally understood from some elements of true things.
Haha, yes Nate. Spiral Dynamics world view/belief system map offers an interesting orientation to such analysis
Very useful, as always. Thank you, Nate. Personally, I'm in favor of dropping the current media-pushed game of prophesizing the future, and spending more time thinking about how best to plan for the constantly shifting range of possibilities the future actually is. I enjoy travelling with you immeasurably, Nate, because you help me better perceive, in the moment, the depth, breadth and detail of what it is I'm experiencing.
That time is moving in a single direction is a particular perspective born of two human eyes mounted face forward above regularly expanding and contracting lungs, and a rhythmically beating heart squeezing blood and oxygen through the highways of our arteries and veins. Spacetime is actually more akin to a heaving sea of possibility stretching in all directions around us, and we humans being are all afloat in the middle of it, bobbing about like corks riding the tossing waves.
From this perspective all seems random, directionless and pointless. Notice, however, that some waves may collide and combine to be larger and more powerful than others, carrying all they encounter in the direction of the impetus that arose to set them into existence. For a period of time, before these dis-integrate back into a range of smaller, more temporary and chaotic waves, the crests of these bigger waves present the possibility of seeing further and traveling farther in a particular direction than do others. If you can learn to maneuver yourself toward the crests of the waves around you rather than remaining stuck down in the troughs, the possibility of catching one of these waves and settling upon a course to somewhen just may arise...
For us the course we set will have meaning and poignancy born in part of the wave with which we travel. But we will do well to remember that the sea itself will always remain, and be, just the sea. In this way, we ourselves will remember who and where we always are.
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Great Nate! More please.
I find elements of these in myself, particularly 3, 4 and 7. I still believe that with a focused effort the out-of-Earth future is possible even with degrowth, we just need to focus on the right things. I would completely agree that's naive, but the thought of knowledge, sentience and life itself ending with the planet's habitability and not continuing indefinitely is the ultimate existential catastrophe in my eyes.
As a Nate Hagenite, I think I'm a hybrid of 4th & 7th Category. My permitted active via media influencers are Rafael Nadal, Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Nate Hagens, Guy McPherson. These guys may speak for me. Influencers of yesteryear, rock-n-roll 60's,70's. Namely: John Lennon - All You Need is Love, Paul McCartney - The Love You Take is Equal to The Love You Make, Ronnie Van Zant - Be Something You Love And Understand. Give a Hootion mitigate your pollution. Peace
I think the best-case scenario at this point would be somewhere between a disastrous collapse and an intentional degrowth transition to a less industrial society. Preventing collapse was possible 50 years ago when Limits to Growth was published but not anymore. I agree that it doesn't even matter whether continued growth would be a good thing because it's not going to happen, no matter what we do.
I think category 1 is the largest. The video had pictures of poor people but I think it's largely a matter of personality too. Some people are just more inclined to think about big picture issues in a systematic way than others.
I believe Nate is predicating his bend but not break philosophy on wising to remain a bit hopeful. I agree with you. Being ready to die and feeling the pain of continued wreaking of the living planet are the wise choices of the large number of folks with enhanced awareness. The rest will muddle along, be ready to fight to hold on to their privileges and join others in blaming any number of targets as things devolve.
Thanks Nate!
yesterday had an revelatory bioregional food co-op meeting with the original back to the land movement people from the 1970s with the current flush of back to the landers with very different values. It appears that here in the ozarks the back to landers stayed on the land unlike in other regions and help to build OOGA which was the predecessor of the USDA organic standards. Just an observation of the current back to the landers being energy blind and much more inclined towards human exceptionalism.
Thanks for your viewpoint,
We need more of that!
Perhaps we know that a gradulist de-growth is being actively pursued when a "right to repair" is enshrined in law on the major corporations, so many consumer items have to be replaced that being able to repair a dishwasher recently became a major achievment.
Also recently was a passenger on an electric bus service in North Wales (T22 from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog), lovely quiet ride, but made me realise that no diesel needed to be delivered to the bus depot, less oil needed refining or transported around the globe, less maintenance required on the bus, all things that shrink the economy. It is possible plus found out that Pine Martins now seem to be in permanent residence in a forest near home.
i don't think we can be entirely sure which one it'll be but i'm leaning towards the 7th
Diogenes was a legendary ancient Greek philosopher who was known for wandering the daytime streets of Athens with a lighted lantern while looking for an "honest man". Does that sound familiar? Thanks. Nate.
Without growth we're deleting each other so the most likely solution will be virtual markets and placeholders for value. Since the status-for-survival game is a permanent fixture we'd need to dematerialize / dephysicalize the place in which that's happening at least so far as it pertains to who has the bigger bank account (athletic competition and health maintenance would still be physical world things although E-sports would be part of the panoply as well). The only difficulty though - the money obviously wouldn't buy a lot in the physical world, just online.
Thank you Nate, for this brilliant classification of philosophies to look on the world. The only thing i wonder is labeling the y-axis of the diagrams with growth. Shouldn‘t it be something like „size“. Considering the scenario you described with no growth suggest in the diagram a constant growth? Or do i get the message wrong?
So much dog hair on Nate's hat today
What makes you think the growth philosophy will change, when future elected or appointed, leaders will continue to be sociopathic and narcissistic left brain dominant achievers, not right brain visionaries (such as your good self)? Mission impossible to change the ruling class structure of our disjointed world - there is no collective "we" to make sensible change, philosophical or practical. Still, I admire your efforts to align worldly thinkers with your viewers.
He knows what's coming, he is optimistic by choice
As always, I think you should consider the possibility of technolgical advances in all fields as not just a mitigating factor, but a transformative one. There are so many entrenched players who will resist change til doomsday that the solutions before us will not come to fruit. I fully admit that. They might unintentionally destroy our planet in a Holocaust in a vain attempt to hold onto their legacy. But your degrowth scenario is even more implausible, albeit well-meaning.It would require a complete re-making of our geopolitical nation state perpetual struggle for dominance (Mearsheimer, et al) and a change in consciousness of 8 billion individuals or a large fraction thereof. Given that, it's the Garden of Eden. But I think any idea that we can go back to the Garden is even more perilous than mine that technology can save us and our planet. But thank you. You are very wise.
...I find people are more worried if at all with the immediate... like here in Mexico, insecurity, dismantling of the judicial power, dubious interpretation of how a majority is attained in leading to a rubber stamp congress, money exchange rates, inflation...etc. etc. I really don't think people worry much about a couple generations up ahead....on the other hand I have struck a few chords when talking to people like you can't manufacture renewable energy gadgets with renewable energy...and other say, you won't be around by then so why worry!
I call people who think space is some sort of promised land "space nutters". They basically have a religion that started with Russian Cosmism. And the decades of sci-fi that followed.
I struggle to understand your position. We only know one example of life, here on Earth. That life, particularly its complex flavors and intelligence and knowledge, all will become extinct without space colonization once the Earth leaves its habitability window. This is not some kind of religion, but the current scientific understanding. That's one part of it, the rational and the bigger one. The other part is emotional, the innate curiosity to see far lands with our own eyes. I'd say this is one of the components at the very core of what makes us humans.
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Greetings Nate!
Seems to me one optimal way to at least temper growth or maybe find a softer impact is (easy to say but...) strive for efficiency. Imagine what our global technologically dependent civilization would be if we were to reach 95% efficiency in such areas as land use, agriculture, food production and consumption, transportation, manufacturing, renewable energy, etc.. It would not correct for the impoverishment we've already inflicted on the biosphere but maybe it would help level off the arc and grant us a bit more time.
One major problem with capitalism is that it rewards bad behavior and makes heroes out of sociopaths. I've heard a number of economists say that capitalism and free markets promote efficiency, but the evidence says otherwise. In the current system efficiency only applies to any operations which increase profitability; for example demographic marginalization and fragmentation, political corruption, strip mining, ignoring uncapped oil wells, clear cutting forests across entire regions and manufacturing everything out of f*cking plastic. Today efficiency is all about consolidating as much wealth and resources as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.
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Does yeast in a petri dish operate on philosophy or stimuli? Collapse is just pointing out the obvious, if you can set anthropocentricism aside. Limits to Growth used 1970's tech and data to easily predict the result of exponential growth yet it may as well have been a guide map rather than a warning. Nevertheless, it's been said that a small rudder can change the course of a large ship
I think there might be different ways to approach degrowth. I don't think centrally organized degrowth (if even possible) could avoid a collapse of civilization. However, any intentional choosing of local, ecological, resilient solutions over high-tech GDP favored ones might soften the crash/landing ever so slightly. Would front loading some hardships be the right thing to do for future generations?
Regenerative growth is the only growing that healthy, growing a premaculture farm that can feed a village is growing isn't it?
Great for villages. Not so much for megacities. Humans have a problem of scale at this point. You have the right idea post-doom.
@@danielfaben5838 I seen several people teach this for those in the city. Mother Earth News has a women who teaching how to build a pond using an old carpet with a lining.
Even though she in a city she draws in frogs, and dragon flies. Even in the small you can create a smaller version, don't have room for many trees their are dwarf varieties and lots of edible bushes
In Buffalo a group took control of empty lot building a farm their. The city tried to shut it down so they contacted the News stations and now these urban farms are spreading and the city is supporting them.
Those in apartments can grow from any south facing window or even mushroom if none face south and lettuce needs less sun.
Further if all else fails buy into a local farm or find the closest farmers market. Push for local stores to buy more local produce. There is much one can do, being in a city only forces one to be more creative.
I'm worried about war, nuclear war, and AGI. :-( I guess that puts me in Category 1 (just trying to survive the day) or Category 2 (the future is an extrapolation of the past = more war, more violence). But what I WANT is a clean, healthy, abundant planet, where native species have been reintroduced, where ecosystems are thriving, the watersheds have beavers and snails and fish, the rainforests so abundant, I can see Bison for hundreds of miles, and the old growth forests are protected, and our population naturally, slowly, safely declines to about 1 billion people.
Who is in the continuum?
Who makes that choice?
Choice has been made?
Look at lidar of underwater structures.
There were more people on the planet in previous times in relation to plant and animal.
Living in a time of controlled scarcity.
@@TheDiversifiedFarmer Women don't answer to you. They are choosing not to have as many babies as they did in the past. I'm fine with it, and I'm very doubtful that lidar images of underwater structures will change their minds.
@robertgulfshores4463 learning alot about people.
Conversations are one way and they will put words in your mouth and make a straw man out of you to try to score imaginary points for their ego
Category 8: Logistic growth. Seems the most likely to me.
Of course, trees do not grow past the sky. Continued growth forever is impossible.
De-growth implies carrying capacity overshoot. It may happen, but it hasn't happened yet.
Thanks Nate, this really does frame the conversation in a very clear and skillful way. I could see this or something similar being the starting point for ongoing dialogues, aiming for more light than just heat. The poet, Robert Frost one said, “poems, are momentary stays against the confusion.” In this way, a podcast can become poetic…
we have another problem now, how to deal with trumpland?
i fear to have friends from America, this is a question about our future and trump is a catalyst and symptom of changing times. so please stop the most powerful and destructive people from harming everyone and everything.
I don't believe in growth as the metric. perhaps an alternative y-axis could be 'well-being' and the ideal trajectory is an s-curve, implying that there is, from a resource efficiency perspective, there is an optimum amount of dissatisfaction we should aim for, given some law of diminishing returns. new questions then arise including: can well-being go up while "growth" (i assume GDP) goes down? what is the coupling between growth and well-being, where are there inverse relationships, what is the functional unit of well-being? on so on..
Fundamentally, we need to change the metrics for success. While i love this podcast, this video has a secondary (I think, unintentional) effect of validating growth as a measure. Gross national happiness is an example, and i suspect each country will need to decide on its own indicators, once they realise that resources are necessarily finite, and then we will see the borrowing of strategies from one place to another.
Ideally this would result in a race to the top, but i won't be holding my breath.
Hey Nate, comment didn't go through so trying again... I think you badly mischaracterized group number five, the doomers. I would basically describe this group as expecting the worst but hoping for the best. And I would definitely argue that the vast majority don't *want* collapse.
Yes I agree.
I think there are different categories of doomers
1-The fraction of doomers who actually want collapse I’ve heard referred to as accelerationalists. I suppose because they want to ‘speed up’ to a finish line.
2-Another group of doomers could be the surrenderers perhaps because they feel like the machine is just too big to go up against.
3-Another percentage of the doomers I like to call the “go-down-in-flames” group. This might be the biggest group. Although we know we will be crushed, we won’t stop trying until the results of the giant machinery have us smashed like pancakes.
There are probably other categories and divisions, but these three groups of doomers are from my limited observations.
No one asked me, but: I have one foot in the "Growth As Natural Law" camp and one foot in the "Collapse" camp. But I operate from the "Growth Is No Longer Possible" vantage point. Life has no interest in being incinerated during the death throes of its nearest star (A very unpopular opinion in this community. I invite your critique). We (earth life) are the only known sentients in the cosmos and I'll be dammed if I'm gonna let this chapter end here on Earth. We have to expand terrestrial life beyond this locust, or else. I give life a 1% chance of making it to the stars. I think there is a 99% chance humans will go extinct this century from our own hubris: an industrial accident, or exceeding planetary boundaries. If we were sober enough to consider biophysical limits, we would be much better poised to become interplanetary in the coming century or two (again, I invite your criticism). Humans are the thread of mycelium reaching from Earth towards the stars. Life must not end here. (I am bracing to be verbally attacked right now. Please be gentle)🙏
Good for you! If it were possible to expand, would the cosmos appreciate our "infection" of the next imperial project after the failure of this one?
On the contrary, personally I agree literally with everything you said. It's actually incredibly refreshing to see a real human that shares my values! Such a position seems so obvious if one's centered on nature and ecosystems, and yet it is incredibly rarely adopted by people. Perhaps some simply do not know about Earth far future trajectory, others are excited for humans to go extinct, seeing the species as a "cancer" and either anticipating another, more sensible intelligent species to arise post-human extinction (very unlikely to start a new space program due to the lack of easily obtainable mineral resources for industrialisation), or being totally OK with life ending - which then begs the question, is there much difference in their eyes between humanity ending complex life in a mass extinction and the complete and final extinction of life itself due to natural causes. But in all honesty, I don't really know why being pro-life and pro-space at the same time is easy for both of us but not for others, I never asked people myself. Although, I can understand the one position that there is simply not enough time to develop everything (from transportation to any way of surviving different gravity, to which the human body seems ill-adopted), and we ought to give *some* time to complex life instead of shortening it in a mass extinction for our ambition. To which I'd say, I still hold some hope (like you), and, second, our space ambitions are currently miniscule compared to literally any other industry - media, cosmetics, you name it - and it doesn't contribute anything to our (and the biosphere's) demise.
@@danielfaben5838 Cosmos is not sentient, there is nobody to appreciate or not. It is very likely to be a lot of empty bodies devoid of meaning. There is nothing "imperial" about spreading life across the Universe, it is a moral imperative if life is seen as a value.
News no one talks about...
China owns, to my knowledge, the entire supply and supply chain for TiO2 and has placed sales restrictions on it.
I'll let you Google what it's function is in the world.
I think de-growth is inevitable if supplies are constrained.
Food colouring? I know China commands much of the world's solar panel supplies, but this would be the icing on the cake.