Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The sky is falling! (Part 2)
So, here's part two of the 'We're doomed' series. I realize that I didn't give any real good reasons about why what's going on in the US is going to lead to our demise. I simply pointed out some things that were wrong with the US, and there always are and always will be things wrong with the US. Why is it that we're doomed this time?
Well, first of all, I'm not saying that we're going to die off in the next 100 years. That seems highly improbable. After all, the British thought that the American Revolution would last a few years and then we'd be begging to have british support again. Well, sure, we rose to power after that, but I still think that the total trajectory of the US's power is one that ends in failure. Looking back in hindsight, we can look at past civilizations and say "well of course they were going to fail, they were doing X all wrong". Well take a look at the US (and much of the world) and try and convince yourself that we aren't doing it all wrong.
The war in Iraq and the debate over intelligent design in my last post only tried to illustrate two things: that the administration has recognized the country's need for resources (in this case, oil) outstrips its reliable supply. Yes, there are countless other reasons like the ones Marmar alluded to- power, misdirection, and even peace in the Middle East. But those are proximate reasons, and I think the ultimate reason is still oil. Peace in the Middle East supports our interests, because it will enable us to more freely get our oil. Peace in Africa doesn't necessarily support our interests, because Africa is a much less resource-wealthy land. Of course, there's the terrorism issue. I could argue that terrorism and WMDs were just an excuse to get the public geared towards war, but I'm not going to here. At this point, I think you'll agree that it's not too much of a stretch that stabilizing the oil supply out of the unstable Mideast was at least a good part of the logic.
Secondly, The ID debate just simply illustrates the human fear of change- and that resistance to change will be strong, no matter how irrational that fear may be.
Why is this important? Well, assume you take an average American and look at their consumer habits. We use far too many resources- and we don't recycle them back into the supply side. I'm not talking only about literal recycling of plastics and glass, I'm talking about everything we consume- oil, which is burned and not returned to the earth. Plastics, also made from petroleum. Electronics, made from trace metals. Paper, made from trees which IS recyclable, yet there's still a net loss of trees every year. As an American consumer, I can tell you myself that there's a fundamental gap in our thinking about the environment and what really should be done.
Intuitively, just think to yourself about what the US populace does to the environment, consuming something like 50% of the world's resources for less than 5% of the population. We just know that it isn't sustainable. Of course, if you don't like the intuitive argument, more empirically, we're clearly running out many resources- oil, the ozone layer, coal, trees, etc. Of course we are not at the tipping point yet, so I'm not trying to sow panic (the title of this post notwithstanding).
Even many environmentalists (myself included) may be paying lip service to the idea of saving our resources, but we can't do it without a radical change in our priorities. How many environmentalists are riding their bikes to work instead of driving? How many commit to not using plastic products? How many try to make sure that their net effect on the environment is around zero? The reason is that there are too many other demands on ourselves (and many of them are self-imposed)- we have to make money, we have to save time, we have to have fun, and we have to be cool and have nice stuff.
We laugh when we see someone driving a Hummer and saying that they support the troops, because we find it secretly hypocritical that perhaps a better way to support the troops would be to not use as much oil. But really, every one of us is guilty of the same hypocrisy- we don't want to destroy the environment, but we'll buy individually wrapped M&Ms and fill up landfills full of garbage that we really don't need. We aren't all rushing out to buy hybrids because it would cost us too much money to trade in our cars. We aren't recycling because it takes too much time. We run the A/C because it's unbearably hot in the summer, and burn oil because it's unbearably cold in the winter.
I'm not saying we're all evil because of this-- it's just the way we've been wired. Just like the people on Easter Island were wired to build giant statues and use up all their trees. By the time they realized they had made a serious error, it was too late. Perhaps, yes, we can learn our lesson. But I think what's much more likely, and what history has shown us to be mostly true, is that we'll crash and burn as a civilization and then rebuild, with a new set of values, one in which those citizens learn to be more responsible stewards of their resources. Just like our values have evolved to the point where we laugh at the Easter Islanders and are disgusted with the kind of hunters that kill sharks for their fins and throw the rest of the body back, so too will our descendants laugh at the kind of spend first, ask questions later mentality that we have now.
There are a few caveats that I want to address. One, as we've moved to a more global society, there's a much better chance of our society surviving to the next generation even factoring in a civilizational collapse. Perhaps the US will collapse, but it won't be a deleted civilization- it would be much more like the Roman collapse, in that Roman influence is pervasive in human culture nowadays. Secondly, technology is a key deciding factor.
Technology is the double edged sword in that it may well be what saves us, but it may also be what is driving us to our behavior. People are confident (and I probably am too) that even if oil runs out, that will simply drive capital into alternative energy sources and we'll be ok. But what if we run out of copper? Or trees? And what are we going to do about plastics? But because we have seen the miracles of technology, we're overconfident? What if we can't find a good manufacturing process for plastics once oil runs out? What if the toxic waste we're dumping into the ground isn't fixable? Then we're really screwed, right?
I think we are, but like I said, I don't think we're talking about the end of the human race here. The future almost certainly holds some rough times ahead, but as long as human knowledge survives, then it's probably that we can survive as a race, even if it's not the 6 billion strong that we're accustomed to now. And maybe that might be a good thing.
Well, first of all, I'm not saying that we're going to die off in the next 100 years. That seems highly improbable. After all, the British thought that the American Revolution would last a few years and then we'd be begging to have british support again. Well, sure, we rose to power after that, but I still think that the total trajectory of the US's power is one that ends in failure. Looking back in hindsight, we can look at past civilizations and say "well of course they were going to fail, they were doing X all wrong". Well take a look at the US (and much of the world) and try and convince yourself that we aren't doing it all wrong.
The war in Iraq and the debate over intelligent design in my last post only tried to illustrate two things: that the administration has recognized the country's need for resources (in this case, oil) outstrips its reliable supply. Yes, there are countless other reasons like the ones Marmar alluded to- power, misdirection, and even peace in the Middle East. But those are proximate reasons, and I think the ultimate reason is still oil. Peace in the Middle East supports our interests, because it will enable us to more freely get our oil. Peace in Africa doesn't necessarily support our interests, because Africa is a much less resource-wealthy land. Of course, there's the terrorism issue. I could argue that terrorism and WMDs were just an excuse to get the public geared towards war, but I'm not going to here. At this point, I think you'll agree that it's not too much of a stretch that stabilizing the oil supply out of the unstable Mideast was at least a good part of the logic.
Secondly, The ID debate just simply illustrates the human fear of change- and that resistance to change will be strong, no matter how irrational that fear may be.
Why is this important? Well, assume you take an average American and look at their consumer habits. We use far too many resources- and we don't recycle them back into the supply side. I'm not talking only about literal recycling of plastics and glass, I'm talking about everything we consume- oil, which is burned and not returned to the earth. Plastics, also made from petroleum. Electronics, made from trace metals. Paper, made from trees which IS recyclable, yet there's still a net loss of trees every year. As an American consumer, I can tell you myself that there's a fundamental gap in our thinking about the environment and what really should be done.
Intuitively, just think to yourself about what the US populace does to the environment, consuming something like 50% of the world's resources for less than 5% of the population. We just know that it isn't sustainable. Of course, if you don't like the intuitive argument, more empirically, we're clearly running out many resources- oil, the ozone layer, coal, trees, etc. Of course we are not at the tipping point yet, so I'm not trying to sow panic (the title of this post notwithstanding).
Even many environmentalists (myself included) may be paying lip service to the idea of saving our resources, but we can't do it without a radical change in our priorities. How many environmentalists are riding their bikes to work instead of driving? How many commit to not using plastic products? How many try to make sure that their net effect on the environment is around zero? The reason is that there are too many other demands on ourselves (and many of them are self-imposed)- we have to make money, we have to save time, we have to have fun, and we have to be cool and have nice stuff.
We laugh when we see someone driving a Hummer and saying that they support the troops, because we find it secretly hypocritical that perhaps a better way to support the troops would be to not use as much oil. But really, every one of us is guilty of the same hypocrisy- we don't want to destroy the environment, but we'll buy individually wrapped M&Ms and fill up landfills full of garbage that we really don't need. We aren't all rushing out to buy hybrids because it would cost us too much money to trade in our cars. We aren't recycling because it takes too much time. We run the A/C because it's unbearably hot in the summer, and burn oil because it's unbearably cold in the winter.
I'm not saying we're all evil because of this-- it's just the way we've been wired. Just like the people on Easter Island were wired to build giant statues and use up all their trees. By the time they realized they had made a serious error, it was too late. Perhaps, yes, we can learn our lesson. But I think what's much more likely, and what history has shown us to be mostly true, is that we'll crash and burn as a civilization and then rebuild, with a new set of values, one in which those citizens learn to be more responsible stewards of their resources. Just like our values have evolved to the point where we laugh at the Easter Islanders and are disgusted with the kind of hunters that kill sharks for their fins and throw the rest of the body back, so too will our descendants laugh at the kind of spend first, ask questions later mentality that we have now.
There are a few caveats that I want to address. One, as we've moved to a more global society, there's a much better chance of our society surviving to the next generation even factoring in a civilizational collapse. Perhaps the US will collapse, but it won't be a deleted civilization- it would be much more like the Roman collapse, in that Roman influence is pervasive in human culture nowadays. Secondly, technology is a key deciding factor.
Technology is the double edged sword in that it may well be what saves us, but it may also be what is driving us to our behavior. People are confident (and I probably am too) that even if oil runs out, that will simply drive capital into alternative energy sources and we'll be ok. But what if we run out of copper? Or trees? And what are we going to do about plastics? But because we have seen the miracles of technology, we're overconfident? What if we can't find a good manufacturing process for plastics once oil runs out? What if the toxic waste we're dumping into the ground isn't fixable? Then we're really screwed, right?
I think we are, but like I said, I don't think we're talking about the end of the human race here. The future almost certainly holds some rough times ahead, but as long as human knowledge survives, then it's probably that we can survive as a race, even if it's not the 6 billion strong that we're accustomed to now. And maybe that might be a good thing.
# posted by Stuart @ 10:31 AM 
