Steve Bull's Blog, page 91
November 15, 2023
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXIII–Keep Calm and Carry On
Mexico (1988). Photo by author.Keep Calm and Carry On
Today’s Contemplation is my comment on a recent post by Allan Urban that speaks to his experiences attempting to share his learnings on ‘collapse’. For those that have read it, you can likely recognise similar reactions from others; I certainly did.
After years of experiencing the same ‘frustrations’ in attempting to share my ‘insights’ regarding our predicament, I’ve come to understand that we all believe what we want to believe and that regardless of the evidence/facts that point to our inevitable collision with ‘collapse’ most will reject the idea and carry on in the belief that tomorrow (and the future) will be much like yesterday and today. For the most part, that’s a good belief system and one that has been proven correct again and again for people, and how others respond to challenges to this system are fairly typical.
The list of psychological mechanisms to avoid anxiety-provoking thoughts is almost endless. And the idea of ‘collapse’ is most certainly anxiety-provoking. Fight or flight. Groupthink. Going along to get along. Deference to authority/expertise (especially the ruling caste of our societies — e.g., government, legacy media). Cognitive dissonance reduction. Stages of grieving (particularly denial of reality and bargaining). These are next to impossible to overcome.
So, while I write about the situation (see https://olduvai.ca) and my perspective on it, I don’t engage too many others — especially in my personal, social circles — with my views. The exception being those who respond to my writings and are interested in the topics involved.
I have also completely abandoned any ‘hope’ that our political systems (or even most (all?) non-governmental ones) are the place to look for ‘salvation’. These systems are designed for the most part (and motivated by) self-preservation and the status quo. There are few if any that truly aim to ‘deconstruct’ our extractive/exploitive systems that have led us to where we our. That’s not their role; in fact, quite the opposite.
Our governing systems in particular are pre/historic institutions in place to maintain/expand the control of wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide revenue streams for a select few. Their current iterations weave comforting narratives about ‘representation’ and beneficent policies/actions for the masses, but these are propaganda meant to appease and mollify — nothing more. Their aims are primarily oriented towards growing these systems of extraction and exploitation, regardless of the social and/or ecological systems costs.
We have not only cyclical complex society ‘collapse’ processes to contend with in our modern-day experiment of a globalised (and financialised) system, but the various symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot as well — especially depletion of probably the most fundament of resources to our modern complexities: hydrocarbons.
If pre/history is any indication of how things will unfold (and I would contend it very much is), then most of us will deny/ignore the signals long after our decline is well and truly underway — as many argue it already is. We will carry on in our ignorance and complicity, believing things will improve and someone, somewhere will ‘solve’ all this. Keep calm and carry on.
Keeping the ruling caste’s feet to the fire is commendable (if the pressure directs them in a way to degrow our existence, not grow it via even more ‘green/clean’ technology) but ultimately will not result in system changes. It will be Nature that corrects our Overshoot, as it always does with species that blow past its natural carrying capacity.
Perhaps our energies are best focused upon attempts to mitigate the consequences as best we can for our local communities. Relocalise and simplify, or as John Michael Greer has suggested: Collapse now and avoid the rush.
The Apocalypse Is Not What I Expected
“What looks like apocalypse in prospect often feels more like grim normality when it arrives in the present.” – David Wallace Wells
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of movies about the end of the world—Mad Max, The Terminator, Day of the Dead, Deep Impact, Independence Day, stuff like that.
Watching these movies, I internalized the Hollywood view of the apocalypse: People running to the stores, stripping the shelves, and trampling one another as they flee for their lives. Oftentimes, there’s a scene where a child drops a teddy bear or something, reminding us that the end of the world is sad.
Meanwhile, the people in charge meet in dimly-lit rooms full of blinking lights and monitors. Scientists in white lab coats explain the situation while military generals smoke cigarettes and scowl. The President listens carefully as advisors tell him his options. The goal is always to minimize the loss of life or at least save the human race from extinction.
Of course, now I understand that these are just movies and nothing like real life. Even so, I’m still shocked at how different the apocalypse is from what I imagined.
I didn’t realize the world is ending until 2020. I had spent months reading up on climate change in order to find out how bad it was and whether humanity could avoid the worst-case scenario.
For years, I had assumed that renewables would replace fossil fuels, but by the summer of 2020, I realized that was impossible. Humans were hopelessly addicted to oil. Without it, we would return to pre-industrial lifestyles, only on a planet with way more people and much worse weather.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Debt Reaper
Debt is an integral aspect of modern economies and has long been hailed as a catalyst for growth. When wielded judiciously, it stands as a potent tool for economic development, providing the means to finance projects, expand operations, and invest in essential sectors like education, health, and housing. In the right context, debt fuels economic growth, creates jobs, and fosters innovation. Furthermore, during economic downturns, it offers a safety net for individuals and organizations, helping them weather financial storms.
Source: GettyImagesThe ghost of future wealth
Governments have traditionally argued that as long as debt remains manageable and serviceable without difficulty, there’s little cause for concern. While this notion holds some truth, the reality is that recent growth has largely been fueled by an insurmountable increase in debt. Particularly since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the creation of what seems like wealth has resulted in soaring asset prices, including equities and real estate, contributing to an alarming rise in wealth inequality. However, there exists a disconnect between perceived wealth and actual wealth, a scenario unlikely to endure. Distinguished economists have persistently argued that debt for consumption essentially borrows demand from the future. This borrowed debt inevitably must be repaid, heralding a probable future slowdown in demand. However, debt allocated for investment purposes differs significantly, capable of fostering future growth and potentially curbing long-term debt.
Source: IMF (2022)The trajectory of global debt, as depicted in the chart above, illustrates an unrelenting rise in both government and private debt over time. Up until the 2000s, the surge in debt was primarily attributed to burgeoning private debt, empowering a substantial improvement in living standards, especially in developed nations. Since 2000, private debt has plateaued, whilst government debt has sharply ascended, sustaining the growth in living standards. Yet, the overarching question remains – at what cost? However benign they might seem, debt levels can swiftly move from being a seemingly manageable concern to a formidable challenge once they surpass a particular threshold.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Doug Casey on the Imminent Bankruptcy of the US Government
International Man: Everyone knows that the US government has been bankrupt for many years. But we thought it might be instructive to see its current cash-flow situation.The US government’s budget is the biggest in the history of the world and is growing at an uncontrollable rate.
Below is a chart of the budget for the most recent fiscal year, which had a deficit of nearly $1.7 trillion.
Before we get into the specific items in the budget, what is your take on the Big Picture for the US budget?
Doug Casey: The biggest expenditure for the US government are so-called entitlements. It’s strange how the word “entitlements” has been legitimized. Are people really entitled to the government paying for their health, retirement, and welfare? In a moral society, the answer is: No. Entitlements destroy personal responsibility, legitimize theft, destroy wealth, and create antagonisms.
The fact is that once people have an “entitlement,” they come to rely on it, and you can’t easily take it away. The Chinese call that breaking somebody’s rice bowl. In the case of the American welfare state, it’s more a question of breaking a whipped dog’s doggy bowl. It’s a shame because many have come to rely on their mother, the State, not entirely through their own fault. The US has become pervasively corrupt.
The World Economic Forum (WEF)—a pox upon them—isn’t entirely incorrect when it arrogantly calls most people “useless mouths.” An increasing number produce absolutely nothing but only consume at the expense of others. Courtesy of the State.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Europe Is Burning
The only lessons the Old World offers to America these days are cautionary.
Ever since the earliest days of the Republic, American intellectuals, artists, and statesmen looked to Europe for models. Conservatives felt attracted to the continent’s sense of continuity and tradition, and as the base for Christianity. More recently, progressives saw in European social democracy and globalist pacifism a role model to be embraced.
Yet today Europe seems not much of a model for much of anything outside of museums, charming cathedral towns, and terrific food. The notion that Europe represents the future, nurtured by the likes of Mitterrand advisor Jacques Attali, Jeremy Rifkind’s utopian European Dream, and the American journalist T.R. Reid’s 2005 The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy, seem utterly delusional.
A common theme in the early years of the millennium was that Europe was on the verge of global resurgence while America was in decline. Europe’s eventual stagnation, as many conservatives point out, can be in part traced to an ever expanding high-tax welfare state that generally absorbs roughly ten more percentage points of GDP than in the U.S. But this is not the only explanation. Some of the moderately better off European economies, like Denmark and Sweden, are welfare states but manage to outperform the rest.
The real problem is civilizational. Europeans are unwilling to preserve their industrial base and control their borders, leaving the continent increasingly weak and largely defenseless. The leaderless American empire may be creaking, but Europe is in worse shape, hemmed in by dismal demographics, high taxes, suffocating regulation, and an entrenched bureaucracy that makes California seem like a libertarian paradise.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
“UK Files” Reports Show: Both Left and Right Can Be Targets of Censors
American audiences may struggle with the particulars, but leaked Labour Party documents detail how “anti-disinformation” can be weaponized in all directions
Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn was undone, among other things, by accusations of antisemitismJust as some denizens of George Orwell’s Animal Farm were more equal than others, Britain’s Center for Countering Digital Hate stands out among the fast-growing list of organizations dedicated to the global elimination of wrongthink, commonly described using terms like disinformation, hate, and lies.
Recently the target of a lawsuit by X, the CCDH was and is a conspicuous recurring character in the Twitter Files, where among other things it organized a relentless campaign against Robert Kennedy, Jr. and others deemed purveyors of vaccine disinformation. Recently, they also appeared in articles bemoaning a judicial decision enjoining the government from engaging with platforms on digital censorship.
CCDH reports and correspondence are distinguished by a unique tone of fevered indignation, as if members were consumed with rage at a world that hadn’t yet deleted disfavored accounts. Their methods, issuing bullhorn demands for total social defenestration through a vast and cleverly courted network of mainstream press allies, represent a perfected template for the modern “anti-disinformation” organization: moral absolutists unafraid to use accusations of bigotry as a political weapon.
When British investigative journalist Paul Holden approached Racket with a story based on leaked documents showing the secret history of the CCDH, I was intrigued, but it wasn’t until I saw the first drafts that I realized the story’s importance. Holden is in possession of a wealth of internal correspondence about Britain’s Labour Party, in character and politics a near-exact analog to our Democratic Party…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
November 14, 2023
Why are “Solutions” Really Just Bargaining?
Flag Rock Recreation Area, Norton, VirginiaI have tried to point out the reality throughout this entire blog that what we face moving forward is a set of predicaments with outcomes, not problems with solutions. Therefore, prescribing different ideas (whether they are actually labeled “solutions” or not is more or less irrelevant) focusing on ways to mitigate or “fix” these predicaments is a fool’s game because no solutions are available. Reflecting on a recent article where I pointed out that the chief cause of problems is solutions brings a certain level of discovery to many people. Pointing out that enlightenment eradicates false beliefs and that who and what we are as a species isn’t going to change no matter what ideas are brought forth, human ingenuity needs to be seen for what it actually is – precisely what brought us to this point in the first place!
I have also pointed out my support for the degrowth movement but that doing so changes nothing with regards to the predicaments we face. Sadly, I am still frequently accused of NOT supporting the degrowth movement despite my efforts (which frequently are far superior to those busy denigrating those efforts). I am also often accused of “giving up” or being a doomer or spreading doomism or being a nihilist or even “Malthusian” of all things. I choose to laugh at this criticism because none of those criticisms hold up under scrutiny and their hypocrisy is noted as what is known as special pleading. This is a logical fallacy, in other words. Each one of these people who criticize me for being skeptical, critical, or otherwise pointing out the reality is suffering from denial of that reality and often at the same time suffering from optimism bias as well, which often leads into toxic positivity. Basically, these folks are suffering from a huge dose of hopium…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The Psychological Pain of Inflation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tomorrow morning will report its Consumer Price data from October. The Producer Price Index (PPI) appears the following day.
There will likely be no real surprise here: inflation will still be running hot around 3.7 percent, confirming what I and many have suspected. Inflation is overall accelerating over the declines earlier this year. That’s bad economic news because it further confirms lower living standards and continues to vex average people juggling multiple jobs, high interest payments on debt, and increased unaffordability of just about everything.
(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)“Inflation has given us a few head fakes,” Fed chair Jerome Powell said at an International Monetary Conference over the weekend. He further swore that he would continue to use the power of the Fed to beat back this monster. But notice that he took no responsibility for inflation at all, despite the factual record showing that he enabled some $5 trillion in debt purchases from a spending-mad Congress, and soared the money stock in ways we’ve never seen.
This is the first time that I can recall the Fed chair having anthropomorphized inflation, as if it has a will of its own, has a head on its body, while using clever tricks to get around the defense front line, which of course is the Fed.
The line about “head fakes” pertains not to inanimate inflation but to the very human and oddly devious Fed itself. To understand Powell’s remark here fully requires a refresher lesson from Freud in what it means to project one’s failings on something else. It’s really childish—the young child blaming the monsters under the bed for the mess in his room—but it works due to the economic ignorance of the public.
…click on the above link to read the rest…Our Energy “Needs” Are Driving a Mass Extinction
Nuclear, fossil fuels, and renewable energy all cause major harm to ecosystems. Are we willing to accept these limits?
Clouds of smoke from record wildfires rise above the Russian Arctic in summer 2010 — at that time, the hottest on record in the region. Photo by the author.The writer Martín Prechtel often talks of the Tzutujil Mayan culture he was adopted into, and that community’s relationship with technology. He describes that, in their traditional ways, the production of a tool such as a knife was a grave and serious matter. Throughout the physical effort of creating the knife, mounting a handle, and sharpening the blade, and extending throughout its use, many prayers and lengthy and exhausting ceremonies were required.
The power of the knife, Prechtel says, requires a spiritual expense, a lengthy reflection and meditation on the origins of the materials, the intended use, the ramifications of the technology, and the proper mindset with which it is to be used.
The Tzutujil Maya, Prechtel says, didn’t invent bulldozers or aircraft carries—not from any stupidity, but out of a cultural recognition of the costs (ecological, material, and spiritual) of such technologies.
The contrast between this approach to our physical tools and their impacts on the world around us and our communities could hardly be more different from the perspective on technology in modern civilization. Rarely do we ask the question, “should we invent this?” Even more rarely is that question answered with “no”—at least, not by the people with the power to influence the outcome.
Today, every new technology which can give military or business advantage is essentially automatically accepted. The ideology of progress has evolved from “manifest destiny” to “technological progress.” But the genocide and ecocide continues to underly the process of expansion. The Chickasaw writer Linda Hogan calls this “a sort of madness that is a god to people.”
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Watchdog Has Grim Winter Warning: There May Be Blackouts
As much as two-thirds of the United States could experience blackouts in peak winter weather this and next year, the North American Reliability Corp has warned.
These warnings have become something of a routine for the regulatory agency lately. Earlier this year, NERC issued a blackout warning for some parts of the U.S. over the summer, citing extreme temperatures.
This latest warning also has to do with extreme temperatures. Yet it’s not just the temperatures themselves that are the problem. It’s the power generation mix that is making the grid more vulnerable.
In its latest assessment, NERC cited recent data showing that up to a fifth of generating capacity could be forced offline in case of a cold snap over areas that do not normally get this kind of weather.
The regulator points to the lack of gas transport infrastructure as one of the main challenges for the U.S. grid this winter as it compromises the security of generating fuel supply. The report also notes historical evidence that extreme winter weather can also affect the production of natural gas and, as a result, reinforce the effect of weather on power supply security.
It is not just natural gas that is problematic, however. The massive buildout of wind and solar capacity has also had an impact on electricity supply reliability and could turn into a problem during the winter.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
