Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 10:08 am Among people who've been seeing collapse for a long time, there has been debate about how bad it will be. I would think (maybe others wouldn't) that they would just say, yes, we agree there is going to be a collapse but we have differences in opinion about how bad it will be. Those differences in opinion, though, have life and death consequences providing the collapse crowd is right and therefore the debate seems to be emotionally charged. My take on that has been that it's pretty difficult to know what is going to happen and everyone should make their own best guesses. If my guesses are wrong, then I may die. That's just how it goes. John Michael Greer and Gail Tverberg are the 2 that come to mind when I say this. They've been trading barbs online. So far the collapse has been slow as John Michael Greer has been predicting. He's been saying since at least 2006 that this collapse will be pretty much like all the previous historical collapses. It seems crazy to me that that will be the case and I've talked about the reasons why here. The biggest reason is that because this is an industrial age economy with a fast growth rate, we are drawing down renewable resources about 20 times faster than Rome was at its peak. Plus by expertly continuing to kick the can down the road, which is about all the ruling class seems to be expert at, resources are being drawn down past the comparable times of previous collapses, probably. Yet John Michael ignores this (my interpretation), and though he has been expecting a new dark age for some time, he moved to Providence, Rhode Island to ride it out. That's the last place I would consider riding this thing out. Gail says this is a networked economy and when the network breaks there will be a huge collapse, much worse than any historical example. I don't want to put words in her mouth, but that's my interpretation of what she is saying. I agree with Gail. In fact, that's what my predictions I've posted repeatedly say in so many words.

Higgenbotham wrote: Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:07 pm

Higgenbotham wrote:Bill Gates and others say this is not like Roman times because of all the great technology we have. To that point, let's talk about some of this great technology and how it relates to the drawdown of the resource. I only see technology that works to draw the resource out faster; for example, irrigation in the Midwest that draws down the aquifers, or fracking that draws down the oil resource. Both of these then allow the renewable resource excess extraction rate to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be possible. There does not exist any great technology which is putting water back into aquifers or increasing stores of liquid fuels (unless it depletes the other resources - ethanol for example). Most of the enhancement of soil is done with fossil fuel derived products.

Bill Gates wrote:The key point of the book is that more than 1,500 years separate our current era from Roman times, and life has changed so much that any sense of similarity is illusory. In Roman times, people had barely enough food to sustain them. Human and animal muscle power comprised virtually the entire kinetic energy source. Life expectancy was between 20 and 30 years. Income levels were a fraction of what we have today. So the dynamics of “surviving” were completely different then.

Smil makes an important point regarding scientific and technical advances. Whereas U.S. innovation has played a central role in creating a modern global civilization in less than 150 years, “the Roman Empire had an unremarkable…record in advancing scientific understanding, and its overall contributions to technical and engineering innovations were…fairly limited.”

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Compari ... cient-Rome

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Jun 11, 2014 7:40 pm

aedens wrote:and the point you noted ---- "Or another way to think about it is what happens when you jump from the 20th floor all at once instead of taking the stairs down from the 5th floor (where you should have been to begin with) to the 3rd floor."

That would have to do with whether hard limits to profits apply or whether it is possible to extend the larger picture by stagflating an industrial economy. History shows that it is possible to stagflate an agricultural economy but there are a lot of reasons for me to expect that when people have to eat they don't close up shop versus when they have an unprofitable business they do close up shop.

The two processes appear similar in that more is extracted out of the ground than can be replaced to maintain a steady state condition.

It may be that the excess extraction rate initially exceeds the replacement rate required to maintain steady state approximately proportionally to the growth of the population. The growth rate of the population was approximately 0.1% per year in Roman times versus 2% per year in these late Industrial Age times. There would be a point where the population has grown sufficiently to consume the replacement that nature provides to those resounces that are renewable. At the time that point is hit, if the population is growing at a rate of 2% versus 0.1%; with all other conditions being equal, the first year drawdown is occurring at the relative rate of 2% divided by 0.1%. This would mean that the drawdown of the renewable resource where the Industrial Age population is growing 20 times faster than an Agricultural Age population will proceed 20 times faster, approximately, during year 1 of drawdown. This would relate to things that directly affect food production such as soil and water.

Bill Gates and others say this is not like Roman times because of all the great technology we have. To that point, let's talk about some of this great technology and how it relates to the drawdown of the resource. I only see technology that works to draw the resource out faster; for example, irrigation in the Midwest that draws down the aquifers, or fracking that draws down the oil resource. Both of these then allow the renewable resource excess extraction rate to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be possible. There does not exist any great technology which is putting water back into aquifers or increasing stores of liquid fuels (unless it depletes the other resources - ethanol for example). Most of the enhancement of soil is done with fossil fuel derived products.

In Roman times they were extracting out of the ground whereas now the extraction is out of the earth in the form of energy, which then enables faster rates of extraction out of the ground. I think it is the rate of extraction and the differential between the rate of extraction prior to collapse that will make the difference in the speed of the collapse, as well as the points noted earlier that are the practical points as to how that may happen in reality. In an agricultural economy, during the collapse, people get less food and there is a process of attrition that lasts a long time - decades or centuries. Even separating the rest of our economy from the agricultural economy and considering just that process, the layering of the industrial economy onto the agricultural economy allows for agriculture to deplete at a much faster rate than was observed historically during previous collapses.

So while I read that "the way to picture how a collapse will take place is to read about how that process has historically occurred" I doubt very much that will be the case. That would be especially true given how the Central Bankers are running the hamster on the wheel at maximum speed.

Collapse Functions.jpg
Excess.jpg

Graphs are here:
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24366#p24366

Higgenbotham wrote: Mon Jan 01, 2024 5:02 pm

Turning to the duration of the darkness that
will follow collapse, past dark ages can serve as a
guide. Typically, the period of utter obscurity and
turmoil lasts between fifty and two hundred years,
which may therefore be posited as the likely
duration of the coming dark age. A duration nearer
the upper limit of this range is probably more
likely, since the most severe dark ages tend to
follow from the first time that humans achieve a
particular level of social complexity. The present
era is the first time that humanity has achieved so
thoroughly connected a global civilisation, and
some extreme contradictions have been
accumulated. It seems that it will take not one but
several human lifetimes to erase from memory the
hatreds and conceits that ultimately pitch the
present world order into the abyss.

The Phoenix Principle and the Coming Dark Age by Marc Widdowson, 2001
pp. 278-9

Bob Butler wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2024 3:56 pm That does not look like a global problem where funds are not available. They were available, in white communities. That looks like a local racial problem where latinos and blacks are harassed and oppressed. This is not to say it is not a problem that should be dealt with. It just does not support your claims of a dark age.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:37 pm

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 11:25 pm Generally, my guess would be that graphs of energy per capita and prevalence of slavery will be mirror images.



Energy per capita on the top, prevalence of slavery on the bottom, the x axis being time and the red horizontal line being where we are now.

All this provided a more concentrated form of energy is not on the horizon anytime soon.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per- ... energy-use

Bob Butler wrote: Sun Jan 07, 2024 12:34 pm I’m not sure how you divide 3000 into 1,800 and 200, unless you are using Hamas’s approach.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sat May 07, 2016 5:31 pm

John wrote:

Higgenbotham wrote: > Let's say for example there is an island that can support a steady
> state human population of 1,000. The human population consists of
> 6,000 due to over-expansion off the accumulated resource base. The
> population is relatively homogeneous except 3,000 have black skin
> and 3,000 have white skin, so we have 2 readily distinguishable
> subgroups. The perceived available resource drops to a level that
> is sufficient to support a population of 500 and there is a
> general consensus on this. The subgroups go to war and at the end
> of the war 2,000 whites remain and everyone else is dead. The
> perceived available resource remains at 500. The 2,000 whites then
> proceed to further divide themselves into previously unidentified
> subgroups (i.e. "Hatfields" and "McCoys") and these subgroups go
> to war. This process stops when the perceived available resource
> is greater than the remaining population.

What you've described here is exactly the template for a Generational
Dynamics saeculum with two identity groups. You can take that
scenario, and throw in a Recovery era, Awakening era, and Unraveling
era, and you have exactly what happens.

However, I'm not aware of a situation where one side was completely
wiped out. There are always "collaborators" on the winning side that
protect some of those on the losing side. A sub-population of the
losers always find a way to hide out until the war is over. And most
important, there is a crisis war climax where the losing side
surrenders and the winning sides recoils in horror at the things it's
done, sometimes turning some of those remaining on the losing side
into slaves or something similar, which causes riots in the
next Awakening era.

If your characterization of Trump is correct, then Trump is proposing
to take resources away from Mexicans and Muslims and give them to
Americans, which would trigger a war, spiraling into a crisis war.

Yes, what I described above is a very simple model that leaves a lot out. It is also extreme because I described a carrying capacity that is less than 10 percent of the population. One of my goals in conveying that model as I did was to illustrate that humans divide themselves into subgroups on a continuum where even if the population is all one racial group, it will divide into subgroups and the like racial subgroups will war against each other.

A more accurate example of the model would be to start with the 3,000 and the 3,000, then reduce those to 1,800 and 200, for example. The 1,800 would then see that eliminating the remaining 200 would do them no good and the 1,800 would then perceive subgroups within the 1,800 and war against each other. The larger subgroups within the 1,800 would at some point be perceived as more of a threat than the remaining 200 or whatever that number needs to be to put their attention elsewhere.

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:49 pm My more specific predictions would be:

• There will be a major global financial panic and crisis. Supply chains will break, resulting in unavailability of critical raw materials and components. Global trade will begin to shut down. As it begins to become apparent that the supply chain linkages are permanently broken, the global interlinked financial markets will shut down and cease to exist. This will all happen very quickly. It will not take years from the initial panic.
• The focus of governments will turn to controlling their panicked and hungry populations. Due to lack of availability of imported goods and adequate storage "sufficient to reconstitute" a system consistent with nation state government, this will prove to be too little too late and most government will devolve to the local level as populations lose faith in their national governments and the national governments lose the resources and ability to control their populations.
• There will be no large scale nuclear war. Instead, the population will be culled through starvation, local strife (including settling of long-standing scores) and disease. Wave after wave of pandemics will sweep the world.
• Similar to national economies and governments, centralized utilities will fail or become so decrepit as to be unsafe and unusable. All centralized utilities including the power grid will shut down permanently.
• The initial worldwide kill rate during the first couple decades following the financial panic will exceed 90%. The global population will be in the range of a few tens of millions when the bottom is hit in two or three centuries. Similar to the last dark age, the world's largest cities will have a population on the order of 25,000 and a large town will be 1,000.
• Life during the coming dark age will be similar to the last dark age but worse due to environmental damage and pollution.