Steve Bull's Blog, page 28
May 24, 2024
Usury: The Crime of the Ages. “Bankers’ Greed”
Many historians believe, as do I, that the happiest period of history in the Christian West was during the High Middle Ages within the towns that had grown up most notably within Germany, Italy, France, and England.
Probably the most accessible chronicle of what life was like then may be found in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.”
At the centers of these towns were the Gothic cathedrals which were both spiritual and technological hubs. Characteristic of the economic life of the era was the fact that the Church had outlawed usury. This was the key to personal freedom.
The dividing line between that era and our own came into being around 1500, when the German Fugger family persuaded the Pope to begin to allow usury, a practice which quickly spread.
This practice assured that, gradually, all the wealth of society would inevitably accrue to the bankers, especially when they gained the privilege of creating paper money or book-entry credits “out of thin air” and then lending it at interest.
This was the greatest crime of the ages.
We need to remember that the Christian era began when Jesus made his last visit to Jerusalem by going to the Temple and throwing out the money lenders who had desecrated it.
The Temple symbolizes, of course, all human God-given life.
When usury became widespread after 1500, citizens gradually lost all their rights and their human sanctity when they became debtors to the money lenders and were legally mere chattel whose entire well-being, and even their lives (debtors prisons), were sacrificed to the bankers’ greed.
This was understood at the time. It’s what Shakespeare depicted in the “Merchant of Venice.” It’s what the Faust legends were about, with people now selling their souls to the devil as they ruined their fellow humans.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Unconventional War
War isn’t limited to tanks, aircraft carriers, and drones. Much of war is fought by unconventional means. Looking at last week’s headlines, it’s easy to conclude that war is already upon us and ramping up.
Consider what’s happening both at home and abroad, then look at the summary of unconventional warfare tactics below…
Some news from just the last week…
In Economic terms; “This is WW3”
In Kunstler’s latest Podcast episode, his guest, Jeff Rubin says,
Europe Agrees to Give Russia’s Billions to Ukraine (msn.com)The European Union on Tuesday approved a plan to hand Ukraine the profits generated by frozen Russian central bank assets.“We have approved in the EU using revenues from Russia’s central bank’s frozen assets to help Ukraine,” wrote Lipavsky on X, formerly Twitter. “Up to €3B only this year, 90% goes for Ukraine’s military. Russia must pay for its war damages.”Gold and sIlver prices continue record high runs (yahoo.com)“In economic terms this is World War 3. In 1960 4% of global GDP was subject to sanctions. Today, it’s almost 40% and at the rate we’re going it’ll soon be 50%.”
Alliances, Assassinations, Coup attempts, and color revolutions:
Putin Goes to China. Major takeaways“New Era” Partnership:In a joint statement, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged a “new era” of partnership between the two powerful rivals of the U.S.They cast the U.S. as an aggressive Cold War hegemon sowing chaos worldwide.Their shared opposition to the U.S. extends to security issues, Taiwan, Ukraine, North Korea, and cooperation on nuclear technologies and finance1.Signaling Priorities:By choosing China for his first foreign trip after being sworn in for another six-year term, Putin emphasizes his priorities.The red carpet welcome and personal ties with Xi underscore the strength of their partnership2.Grievances Against the U.S.:Russia and China expressed concerns about U.S. actions:…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
From COVID-19 to Campus Protests: How the Police State Muzzles Free Speech
“Politicians of both parties want to use the power of government to silence their foes. Some in the university community seek to drive it from their campuses. And an entire generation of Americans is being taught that free speech should be curtailed as soon as it makes someone else feel uncomfortable.”—William Ruger, “Free Speech Is Central to Our Dignity as Humans”
The police state does not want citizens who know their rights.
Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.
This year’s graduates are a prime example of this master class in compliance. Their time in college has been set against a backdrop of crackdowns, lockdowns and permacrises ranging from the government’s authoritarian COVID-19 tactics to its more recent militant response to campus protests.
Born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, these young people have been raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.
And now, when they should be empowered to take their rightful place in society as citizens who fully understand and exercise their right to speak truth to power, they are being censored, silenced and shut down.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXIX–Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXIX–Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse
It’s been a few months since I last posted a Contemplation. There are a variety of reasons for this.
I’ve been ‘distracted’ by the preparations in my gardens for the upcoming growing season. The unseasonably warm weather here north of Toronto allowed me to get outside quite a bit earlier than previous years and I’ve put that time to use performing all those preparatory tasks I need to do: post-winter clean-up, setting up my rain barrel system (that gets ‘dismantled’ in the fall given the snow and cold our region receives in the winter), preparing the ever-increasing number of garden beds, getting seed potatoes and a variety of other seeds in (i.e., pea, bean, carrot, and kale), mixing up new soil (compost + ‘used’ soil + peat moss + vermiculite), spreading mulch over many of the beds, and finishing up some stairs and a work area in behind my greenhouses that I began last year. These things are on top of the hydroponic seed-growing system I established in the past couple of years and some weeks ago began several dozen seeds (tomato, squash, eggplant) and required periodic attention and, finally, transplanting into pots/grow bags/raised beds.
As most of this prepping is now complete my activities have already shifted towards maintenance of crops (especially the perpetual trimming/training of vines/canes) and working on the next ‘big’ project (dismantling an older experiment with composting and replacing the wooden retaining walls with brick/stone).
On top of this, I made a pledge to myself to reduce significantly my screen time. So that’s also reduced my reading and writing time. While not helping to minimise my cathartic needs that writing brings, less screen time does focus my energies on actionable, physical endeavours that in the end I believe are far more immediately relevant; and which require a bit more time with each passing year–apparently, I’m not getting any younger as my back and various joints periodically remind me; and ‘suffering’ through a torn rotator cuff due to a fall playing pick-up hockey (who knew it’s hard to stay upright when you step on another player’s stick?) that has slowed me even more than my ever-increasing age–although I’m ‘fortunate’ that it’s only certain arm motions that have been restricted and I’ve still been able to haul heavy objects around and do the majority of physical chores that need doing.
In addition, I occasionally think of that line from the Talking Heads song, Psycho Killer: “Say something once, why say it again”. And as I think about many of my Contemplations, the repetition of some themes/topics cannot help but be obvious; and the repeating of them increasingly seems pointless since we all believe what we wish to believe (especially that which addresses our confirmation biases)–the choir that I preach to will accept my stories while those who do not will in all likelihood never, regardless of ‘evidence’ or persuasiveness–we are a rationalising species, not a rational one.
And, this writing ‘hobby’ (despite the long-ago initial motivation: marketing my ‘fictional’ novel trilogy) is a money-losing prospect where the income from my novel sales is significantly less than the ‘channel fees’ I pay to my self-publisher for keeping the print version of my first book available; to say nothing of the fees for maintaining a website presence. Being on a pension for the past 10+ years makes one just a tad more concerned about ‘superfluous’ expenditures such as personal hobbies.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time attempting to both update my website (still more to do) and post all my Contemplations on Substack (now complete). So, if you’re relatively new to my writing and find yourself looking for more to confirm or challenge your beliefs, please peruse my website, Substack, or Medium page.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, I am attempting to spend more time with my wife. We try to get our dog out for a 30-45 minute forest walk every morning, and have been enjoying other time together as we reconnect after many years of giving our time and energy to ‘raising a family’ and careers in education (and other people’s children). And as I experience my adult children’s periodic struggles with our increasingly complex (dare I say, ‘collapsing’) world, I am also attempting to be present and supportive for them more than I have in the past.
Realising that one is closer to the end of this roller-coaster ride of life than the beginning puts things in perspective and pulling back on the amount of time I engage in a somewhat self-indulgent ‘hobby’ seems apropos. Reading and writing have taken a distant backseat to my attempts to ‘live in the moment’, that is sometimes ‘difficult’ when one filters a lot of what’s going on in our world through an ‘overshoot-collapse’ lens.
Or, maybe all the above is a personal rationalisation/justification for just being ‘collapse weary’ and realising how fubar our species is and my ‘pontificating’ over it is accomplishing little. Actions over words is where my mind is settling, and those actions are oriented towards personal, familial, and community resiliency and sufficiency in a ‘collapsing’ world.
In summary, my time spent sitting in front of my computer or even just with a book/article is being reduced significantly as a result. What time I have had in the early mornings as I’m enjoying a couple of mugs of coffee, is oriented towards perusing some articles and doing some other personal chores. I am even going to be scaling back the ‘current events/articles’ I share via my website–perhaps just performing this periodically.
And as I continue to reflect upon and contemplate our predicament and how to perhaps ‘insulate’ my family/community from the changes to come, I am shifting towards an attempt to understand more fully what past complex societies did in response to societal decline/collapse/simplification. There are clues in these responses as to how we can better adapt to the societal transition that is upon us.
Given the above, then, I am thinking of changing tack with my writing. I am going to begin reading, summarising, and commenting upon academic/research articles that pertain to the two most common themes of my writing: societal collapse and human ecological overshoot. Combined with the aspects I outlined above, this will necessarily slow down significantly my screen time and writing; academic work can oftentimes be more ‘dense’ and time-consuming to process (especially if one is not repeatedly immersed in the field of study and the style of writing)–at least, this is true for me. I am going to aim for posting a new Contemplation at a rate of about once every 4-8 weeks; maybe more, maybe less–we’ll see.
The first such article I wish to share and comment upon is one from archaeologist Joseph Tainter that looks at the archaeological evidence that suggest examples of ecological overshoot and societal collapse. My thoughts regarding it follow…
Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse
Joseph A. Tainter
Annual Review of Anthropology, 2006, Vol. 35, pp. 59-74.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25024914
After suggesting that the concept of overshoot traces its roots to Malthus’s argument that population (which grows exponentially) would overshoot food supply (which grows linearly), Tainter argues that population numbers, consumption of resources, and waste production are the main concerns surrounding human ecological overshoot. He also suggests that the concept of collapse has been poorly defined by researchers but commonly is assumed to be a loss of both population numbers and societal complexity.
He reviews the pre/historic record for evidence of societal collapse brought on by ecological overshoot and proposes that overshoot goes beyond simply population and consumption, and may include political aspects, economic costs to society (especially its ability to pay for ever-growing complexities), and technological capabilities (particularly with regard to transportation and communication).
The studies Tainter reviews include collapse for the Maya lowlands (whose collapse has been blamed upon ecological factors, a growth system, and sociopolitical and socioeconomic policies), and Mesopotamia (Ur dynasties, that experienced diminishing returns on its resource base, and overreach via excessive socioeconomic policies).
Chew’s (2001) studies of ecological degradation over the past 5000 years using World Systems Theory concluded that excess consumption led to environmental degradation and eventual collapse for societies of the past. Basically, “… over-exploitation of resources due to capital accumulation, urbanization, intense land use, and population growth led to constraints on continued expansion and ‘a downscaling of material and cultural lifestyles’”.
Diamond’s (2005) overshoot model similarly argues that the foundational cause of collapse for a society is degradation of the environment, however it also includes the variables of local ecology, hostile neighbours, social responses, climate, and trade partners. While disagreeing with most of Diamond’s examples (mostly because of rare, adverse conditions that prevented adaptation), Tainter suggests the best case for overshoot, resource degradation, and collapse presented is that for Easter Island.
Tainter appears to agree fully with the assessment that Easter Island’s complex society ‘collapsed’ in the sense of a loss of organisational capacity. Several researchers suggest deforestation kicked off a cascading set of events: decline in fishing and farming, increase in warfare and insecurity, settlement pattern shifts, population decline, and, finally, sociopolitical collapse.
Tainter reviews a number of theories regarding overshoot and collapse, using the archaeological record as a measuring stick to gauge their viability, including: Meggar’s (1954) environmental limitation theory, Cooke’s (1931) and Sanders’s (1962) research regarding the consequences of low-production swiddening leading to overshoot and collapse, and Culbert’s (1988) elite-driven agricultural intensification resulting in resource degradation and eventual overshoot.
He suggests that Ur’s Third Dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate may be the best candidates for assessing population overshoot, resource degradation, and sociopolitical collapse, but then argues the evidence indicates that neither show Malthusian overshoot, nor one brought on by excess production (today’s primary concern).
Further, he concludes that Chew’s (2001) analyses of Bronze Age societies are not supported by the empirical evidence.
Diamond’s (2005) analyses demonstrate a misunderstanding of ‘collapse’ (Norse Greenland and Pitcairn and Henderson Island) and confuse Malthusian overshoot with overshoot due to extreme climatic conditions (Maya and Southwest U.S.). And even Easter Island is not likely to qualify as a case of overshoot and collapse since the loss of giant palms (the identified tipping point leading to collapse by many) was likely more due to the rats brought by the original settlers than to human population overshoot.
Tainter concludes that the archaeological literature contains few cases that suggest population and/or mass consumption overshoot followed by environmental degradation and sociopolitical collapse. He further suggests that most of the interpretations that argue for overshoot are not credible; those that are lead to the conclusion that overshoot only occurs during extreme conditions [this aligns with his thesis in The Collapse of Complex Societies in that collapse is brought about by a society’s inability to respond to crises due to reserves being depleted via their use to sustain status quo systems as a consequence of diminishing returns having been encountered on investments in problem-solving].
Rather than cases of overshoot, we see examples of elite mismanagement and lack of proper feedback to governing institutions to correct misguided policies and actions. The human ability to adapt, especially in terms of agricultural intensification, is often denied by those seeking examples of overshoot. Greater resource production always appears possible via capital and technology application, labour, knowledge intensification, and/or energy subsidies.
The argument can be made that increasing mechanisation, irrigation, fertilisation, and/or labour have all resulted in increased production–proving Wallace, Erlich, Jevons, and Malthus wrong. In addition, societies may choose to simplify to a less costly organisation and/or reduce consumption; this is what the Byzantine Empire chose in the 7th-century AD when it lost its wealthiest provinces (Tainter notes this “may be history’s only example of a large complex society systematically simplifying” (p. 72)).
Despite the above, Tainter wonders whether our modern world can continue to intensify production indefinitely escaping a Malthusian fate. Neoclassical economists argue markets will always uncover new resources so overpopulation and/or overconsumption is not ever a concern.
“The contrary view is well known. We must reduce our ecological footprint or eventually collapse. The neoclassical argument is based on faith that markets will always work and denial of diminishing returns on innovation. Should we base our future on faith and denial, or on rational planning?” (p. 72).
More detailed summary notes can be found here .
My Thoughts
The lack of agreement over what constitutes overshoot and/or collapse is not unimportant. One of the ‘insights’ I gained over my decade of post-secondary education and subsequent observations of human perceptions of our universe is that the exact same observable phenomena are oftentimes (if not always) interpreted in different ways–sometimes even diametrically opposed to one another. I would argue that this is especially true when one is dealing with broad concepts such as ‘collapse’ and ‘overshoot’. Ask archaeologists what ‘collapse’ is and you’re likely to get many different answers; in fact, you’re likely to also get some that argue the term is inappropriate for what is observed via the artifactual remains of human complex societies (i.e., societies don’t ‘collapse’, they ‘adapt’).
Differences in what societal ‘collapse’ and/or ‘overshoot’ are and how they present themselves in the archaeological record can lead to quite disparate explanations about the process and responses. Despite the ideal of science being a dispassionate and objective enterprise, it is performed by humans with all the subjectivities, foibles, and predilections that we possess. We often if not always see what we want to see and interpret the world to support our beliefs. Scientists are no different and can become enmeshed in particular paradigms and echo chambers. Where one sees clear evidence of societal ‘collapse’, another sees examples of innovative adaptation.
The ability of humans to adapt to changing conditions, particularly around resource production, is predicated upon our capacity to shift behaviour and/or leverage resources–especially energy. One must wonder, as Tainter does, whether this is possible for our modern globalised and industrialised world. It would seem this is especially so where the all-important energy subsidy for hydrocarbons may not exist; certainly not at the scale necessary to support modern, industrial society’s complexities and its finite resource requirements–no matter how ingenious our species perceives itself to be.
This appears to be where the rubber hits the road. The archaeological evidence may indicate no previous examples of societal collapse due to overshooting of the natural carrying capacity, but past societies were vastly different in the sense that most of the population were skilled and knowledgeable in food production with few ‘elite’ being supported by the labour of the masses, and vast regions of land that had yet to be overexploited by humans existed relatively close by.
The ability of our species to intensify resource production in order to support our numbers and complexities seems in the present severely handcuffed by the lack of an energy subsidy that is capable of meeting the ability of hydrocarbons to do this. Despite narratives that a suitable energy ‘transition’ is not only feasible but in the works, every energy system continues to depend upon finite resources, cannot equal the density nor transportability of hydrocarbons, and serves more to support/sustain growth (in that they are additive to our energy use rather than supplanting any) than adapt to a simplifying world with much, much less energy–particularly net energy–to support our expansion and complexities, let alone continue to sustain the status quo.
The combination of increasing ecological systems destruction/degradation–because of our massive expansion in both numbers and corollary resource consumption and waste production–and very significant dependency upon a single energy resource (that is finite in nature and has encountered significant diminishing returns) has painted us into a corner.
While it has been said that history never repeats itself precisely but tends to rhyme with the past, the archaeological record has shown that virtually every iteration of human societal complexity has eventually reached a zenith and then simplified/collapsed. Our story, then, is likely to be quite similar but with idiosyncratic twists and turns not experienced in the past. Predicting exactly what will happen, or when, is complete guesswork.
From my perspective, our pre/historical record can provide signals as to what we might expect (bearing in mind that differences in the interpretation of artifactual remains and their import alters the story told). Whether humanity can avoid and/or mitigate the trials ahead of us is yet to be seen–especially in a fractured world where the worst of us seem to be steering the policies and actions to be taken as we bump up against the limits of what is and is not possible.
The current lack of skills/knowledge to be self-reliant/-sufficient (at a scale far, far beyond past societal simplifications where skilled families/communities could extricate themselves from the sociopolitical/-economic complexities and their disintegration via migration and/or self-sufficiency) combined with widespread ecological systems destruction due to humanity’s expansive reach and extractive proclivities, as well as significant diminishing returns on resource extraction and energy-averaging systems (i.e., trade to subsidise the lack of local resources) indicates exceedingly chaotic times ahead for homo sapiens 8 billion individuals and their complex societies.
The tales that will be told by we story-telling apes as the species collectively stumbles into this chaotic future and argue incessantly over how to ‘solve’ our insoluble predicaments will be something to behold. I can’t help but wonder what myths about our peak global society will emerge on the other side of this stupendous clusterfuck we have created. My ‘hope’ is that humanity can meet these ‘challenging’ times with grace and dignity; my prediction, however, is that we will not.
Best of luck to all in the journey ahead.
Snapshot of articles I’ll be reading/summarising over the next year or more:
The Origins of Agriculture. Kent Flannery, 1973.Archaeological Contributions to Climate Change Research: The Archaeological Record as a Paleoclimatic and Paleoenvironmental Archive. Daniel H Sandweiss and Alice R. Kelley, 2012.Archaeology, Ecological History, and Conservation. Frances M. Hayashida, 2005.What Cultural Primatology Can Tell Anthropologists about the Evolutionof Culture. Susan E. Perry , 2006.Social Stratification. Frank Cancian, 1976.The Archaeology of Equality and Inequality. Robert Paynter, 1989.The Evolution of Complexity in the Valley of Oaxaca. Stephen A. Kowalewski, 1990. Institutional Failure in Resource Management. James M. Acheson, 2006.Population Control and Politics. Jack Parsons. 1991.Population Growth Through History and the Escape From the Malthusian Trap: A Homeostatic Simulation Model. Marc Artzrouni and John Komlos. 1985.Population Viability Analyses with Demographically and Spatially Structured Models. H. Reşit Akçakaya. 2000.Optimum Human Population Size. Gretchen C. Daily, Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich. 1993. Is Human Culture Carcinogenic for Uncontrolled Population Growth and Ecological Destruction? Warren M. Hern. 1993.
A handful of ‘recent’ articles of interest (you can view many more on my website):
https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/the-role-of-energy-in-production
https://erikmichaels.substack.com/p/new-developments-and-accepting-our
https://collapselife.substack.com/p/the-surveillance-state-will-be-a
https://www.collapse2050.com/living-in-fear/
https://www.thedailydoom.com/p/truth-or-consequences
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/musings-on-the-nature-of-technology
If you’ve made it to the end of this Contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
May 23, 2024
Titillating Tidbits
Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse on UnsplashIt’s a slow-news day today in terms of any one big story, so I don’t have much to comment on, other than a few news tidbits of interest:
Fed Governor Waller adds to the weight of statements by other Fedheads who have spoken since the FOMC meeting, saying he will need “several months” of improved inflation data before he would even consider a rate cut. That comes even after the last CPI report that gave the first blip down for inflation in months. (See “CPI’s Little Head Fake.”) He does not see an increase in rates as likely. So, the Fedheads have been consistent in agreeing with me on this—NO PIVOT for several months to come at the earliest. (I alway add one caveat: All bets are off if they’ve managed to blow the entire economy and banking system up prior to seeing enough months of improving inflation data and rising unemployment.)
Several states have taken steps to block the use of central-bank digital currencies within their states. That is a welcome step that will slow down the adoption of CBDCs. The Fed had indicated some significant moves toward a US CBDC would happen a year ago, but their “distributed ledger,” which is the backbone of such a system, was a failure. It couldn’t handle the volume of transactions—not even close. I haven’t heard much about it since, so maybe those hushed failures have sent it back to the drawing board. (If anyone else knows otherwise, please let us known in the comments. It just goes to demonstrate how secure central-bank digital currencies are certain to be.)
Biden has ordered that the entire northeast gasoline reserve be drained in order to combat gasoline inflation this summer … and then be permanently closed…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
First World War and Imperialism. Dr. Jacques Pauwels
Imperialism, the worldwide expansion of capitalism, motivated by the lust for raw materials such as petroleum, markets and cheap labour, involved fierce competition among great powers such as the British Empire, czarist Russia, and the German Reich, and thus led to the Great War of 1914–1918, later to be known as the First World War or World War I.
The First World War was the product of the nineteenth century, a “long century” in the view of some historians, lasting from 1789 to 1914. It was characterized by revolutions of a political, social, and also economic nature, especially the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and ended with the emergence of imperialism, that is a new, worldwide manifestation of capitalism, originally a European phenomenon. This essay focuses on how imperialism played a decisive role in the outbreak, course, and outcome of the “Great War” of 1914–1918; it is based on the author’s book,
The Great Class War 1914–1918, James Lorimer, Toronto, 2016.
When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the nobility (or aristocracy) constituted the ruling class in just about every country in Europe. But because of the French Revolution and other revolutions that followed – not only in France – in 1830 and 1848, the haute bourgeoisie or upper-middle class was able, by the middle of the century, not to unseat the nobility, but to join it at the apex of the social and political pyramid. Thus was formed an “active symbiosis” of two classes that were in fact very different. The nobility was characterized by great wealth based on large landownership, had a strong preference for conservative political ideas and parties, and tended to cultivate clerical connections…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
A ‘plague’ comes before the fall: lessons from Roman history
The ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. Credit: Livioandronico2013. CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Pax Romana—the 200-year “golden age” of the Roman Empire—was a marvel of diversity, connectivity, and unchallenged hegemony. By the middle of the second century AD, imperial Rome ruled territory across three different continents. Roughly one-quarter of the Earth’s population, some 60 million people, lived under Rome’s vast aegis, and the emperors of the age—most notably Marcus Aurelius—enjoyed the consent of those they governed. The Empire’s elites—witnessing the disciplined legions, widespread religiosity, cultural efflorescence, and dominant economy—likely expected their world order to endure forever.
In the year 166 AD, however, seemingly eternal Rome was caught completely off-guard as a deadly novel disease swept across the Eurasian landmass. It ransacked Rome’s cities for at least a decade and preceded centuries of decline. This major biological event—now known as the Antonine plague—appears to have been the world’s first pandemic.
Historians hotly debate its death toll—with estimates ranging from 2 percent to 35 percent mortality—and its broader social and economic effects. The disease itself remains undiagnosed. The great Greek physician Galen described its main symptoms as fever, throat ulcers, and a pustular rash. Some have suspected it was measles or smallpox, but modern analysis provides reasons to doubt these as the possible culprits. Human remains from the Antonine plague period, meanwhile, have thus far failed to yield genetic evidence sufficient to identify the pathogen.
Although the plague did not on its own cut short Rome’s dominance, it struck an empire that was confronting multiple challenges beneath a veneer of prosperity and growth—factors that modern-day infectious disease experts might recognize as creating the ideal conditions for pandemics. Much remains unknown about the Antonine plague; in some ways, modern scholars are just as in the dark about this first pandemic as its contemporary victims…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Trillions of Tons of Carbon Are Missing from Climate Models
Draft script:
From Popular Mechanics comes this headline on 22 April 2024: Trillions of Tons of Carbon Are Missing from Climate Models. The story begins with three bullet points: (1) While the world’s soils are home to lots of organic carbon—such as leaf litter and animal waste—inorganic carbon, which is often in the form of solid carbonates, can also leak into the atmosphere. And it isn’t accounted for by current climate models; (2) A new study focuses on the role of soils as both a storage for and emitter of carbon, and found that 23 billion [metric] tonnes of inorganic carbon could escape soil over the next 30 years; and (3) Good land management—as well as other practices, such as afforestation and improved rock weathering—can help slow down this significant source of CO2.
Here’s the lede: “The sole purpose of people and programs combating climate change is finding ways to keep carbon out of the atmosphere.” The first paragraph continues: “Planting trees is a big help, as their woody roots lock away carbon for decades, and companies are hard at work trying to find artificial means of sucking greenhouse gasses from the air and sequestering it underground. But in this obsession with tracking CO2 levels, one significant source of both emission and storage has been overlooked—the soil.” A minor detail is worthy of mention: Planting trees is not necessarily a big help, as I pointed out previously in this space.
The article goes on: “the top two meters of soil beneath our feet currently hold roughly 2.3 trillion [metric] tonnes of inorganic carbon—five times more than all of the terrestrial plants on Earth combined.”…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Gresham’s Law Comes for Science
Yves here. KLG below describes how science publications have become much less reliable over time, with the proliferation of “open access” journals part of the problem. As he said via e-mail:
As science has hypertrophied, the bad is supplanted the good as spurious quantification of scientific research has come to rule the practice of science. This has in many ways ruined the practice, the art, and the craft of scientific research. Yes, I am one of those.
This has been facilitated by the rise of open-access, mostly virtual publishing, which was not originally considered a threat. On the contrary, open-access online publishing was expected to be a positive good. And it often is. But it often is not. Predatory publishers were not long in appearing as online publishing became accepted. Neo-predatory, if not outright predatory, “journals” are now the repositories of an ever growing mountain, and a form of Gresham’s Law – the bad drives out the good – has taken over much of the scientific literature, which has become “pay-to-play.”
And the finish is something my colleagues and I have only recently determined. Pay-to-publish has extended its tentacles into medical education, probably with equally deleterious effects.
IM Doc has regularly inveighed against a narrower but more dangerous corrupting influence: the way Big Pharma games drug-related studies and touts (typically) small scale studies that promote off-label uses.
By KLG, who has held research and academic positions in three US medical schools since 1995 and is currently Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Dean. He has performed and directed research on protein structure, function, and evolution; cell adhesion and motility; the mechanism of viral fusion proteins; and assembly of the vertebrate heart…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Foreign Pollen Follies
Autumn crop breeding update
Originally, I planned to complete preliminary work on a bunch of different new crops that I began breeding seriously this year so I could write up one big article on each species, but I think progressive updates on all of them is a more useful way to show the mindset and strategies needed to feel your way into the unknown. If you missed the start of this work check out the Four Flower Gauntlet.
The first crop to report on is the sword bean. In autumn 2023 I hybridised three different species, and in spring 2023 I planted out those F1 seeds. They grew into a wall of green on the bamboo trellises, flowered profusely, and podded sporadically while the pod sucking bug pressure was high over summer. Now the weather has cooled they have started podding more heavily, and seed should be ripe by late winter. It is not uncommon to see lower fertility levels in wide hybrids, so I am happy with the amount of seed that is forming. Breeding crops for seed production is easy since any plant which produces more seed will leave more offspring if you pool all the seed together. I planted three trellises, each with seed from one of the three mother species (but with unknown pollen parents) and slashed the vines that tried to climb between them, with the hope of keeping track of female parentage. The vines got away from me in autumn, so it looks like I will just be throwing all the hybrid seed together and selecting based on seed traits and production levels…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
