 |
| I just returned from a conference and noticed this plaque. |
These are turbulent times, many changes based upon the awakening recognition of what it means to have finite reserves while operating in an economic system predicated on growth in order to fulfill monetary promises. This old rubric is clashing with resource and energy grabs gift wrapped with religious themes and decorated with exploitations of cultural factions. The rubber is finally hitting the road, as the predictions published in the 1972 Limits to Growth slowly demand action. What better way to get yours "while the gettings good" then to have the casual observers confused and shaped into a combative narrative with their neighbor. Don't look for truth or logic in these narratives, you will only find spin, smoke and mirrors. Obviously the problem is those people over there... Look for something much bigger my friends. "Those people over there" are pretty much like the people over here! None of them voted on the debacles we keep on walking into. What does that tell you?
Buckle up, it will seem to many that the world has gone crazy. Not at all, the powerful and influential who use governments as part of their bought and paid for mechanisms to get what they want are posturing to protect their dominions in an age of degrowth. PS, they don't all agree and scarcity makes them very nervous, greedy and grumpy.
Business as usual is finally changing and rapidly - it had to. Competing ideas for how to keep their power and exert control are swirling around the think tanks with gaming scenarios burning up the MWatts at the data centers... I don't think "share and share alike" is part of the strategy. Apparently Richard Edward or Daniel Defoe aren't big with the top-hat and monocle crowd.
This community survival/adaptation problem is a fertile research area for a group of good systems engineers. I think back to my childhood where contact with the big government was non-existent, local farms produced most of what was in the market and a stay at a hospital cost about what a stay at a good hotel was. Complexity removed from everything, pesticides etc., grant money too - what would the inputs and sustainable population be and in what environmental boundary conditions would need to be evolved for a local community to be happy and healthy? I'm sure there is no funding for this type of research, but it would be life saving, pioneering and society changing if comprehensive analysis were done and published. Any takers out there? An educated return to the 1800's with only the technology that adds value to life - not to some corporate portfolio. Open source simulations of system models could also help many people with diverse ideas explore this topology as well and contribute to many dynamic models that would succeed.
I wish for peace, happiness and health for all.
