Marlena13, thank you for the data points.
Justin, that’s got to be the best editorial response to a manuscript ever. I live in hope that someday I’ll achieve something on the same level!
Joshua, I routinely field two questions from people about decline. Yours, asking whether I’ve taken into account the fragility of modern industrial society, is one. The other, its equal and opposite, asks whether I’ve taken into account the capacities modern industrial society has to deal with crisis. My answer to both is the same: yes, I’ve taken both these into account, and they cancel each other out. Industrial society is uniquely robust in some ways and uniquely fragile in others, but it’s rising and falling in lockstep with every other civilization in recorded history.
Clay, I wonder if the elites have any idea just what an immense danger they’ve created for themselves. At this point all it would take is a few fast-talking recruiters for one of the jihadi Muslim groups to target these kids, and the US elite classes will be faced with the same kind of infiltration crisis the British had in the era of Kim Philby et al. — except this time they may just be wearing high explosives in their vests.
Leo, that’s an intriguing question. To some extent, of course, the answer is yes — sick people spend more money for medical care, which is why most treatments these days manage illnesses rather than curing them; “a patient cured is a customer lost” isn’t simply a joke any more. But does it go beyond that? I don’t know.
Travis, oh, granted. Right now it’s only workable on a homescale basis, by people who aren’t addicted to medical pharmaceuticals. Later, when the current healthcare industry has crashed to ruin? That could be a very different matter.
Stephen, there isn’t really an occult view on the subject — just a recognition that everybody has their own life to live, and if that’s the choice that works best for you, go ye forth and do that thing.
Rafael, (1) ah, but your first assumption is wrong.
This is a pinisi, an Indonesian schooner. There are hundreds of them still sailing around the islands of southeast Asia, and they are still being built. Given Indonesia’s location, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand are well within reach of this technology as fossil fuel-powered ships run out of fuel. 2) It depends utterly on the nature of the organism; the precautions that will keep you and your family safe from, say, bubonic plague aren’t the same as those that will keep them safe from hemorrhagic fever, say. One way or another, as public health falters, a lot of people are going to die. 3) That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Marlena13, I like that. Thank you!
Maurice, you’re welcome and thank you. Someday I’ll want to see if I can write a post that touches on collapse, bad architecture, and Lovecraft all at once. As for the possible origin of demons in a previous universe, that’s a concept from the Cabala; you can find quite a bit about it if you look up references to the Qlippoth (sometimes spelled Kelippoth) in Cabalistic literature.
Patricia M, if the Beeb is pushing it, there are probably serious problems with Britain’s water supply.
Tidlösa, thanks for this.
Aurelien, and thanks for this. I hope you’re right — frantic attempts to rearm in the face of economic realities have occurred before.
Ken, it’s a feature of falling civilizations. Chariot racing, with the attendant accidents and clouds of dust, was wildly popular in Roman times.
Brunette, well, there’s the comparable case of zebra mussels —
https://www.ecosophia.net/a-conversation-with-nature/
— not quite the same thing, but once again nature is coming out ahead of the game.
Chuaquin, I haven’t heard much about it recently, but there were waves of copper and aluminum theft here at intervals.
Forecasting, yes. The collapse of European neocolonial rule over Africa is going to cost the European subcontinent bitterly.
Ecosophian, I really don’t think most people in the West realize just how catastrophic to the existing Western regimes a Russian victory in Ukraine will be. The entire grand strategy of the West for many years now has focused on breaking up Russia and absorbing it into the EU as a collection of weak, readily exploitable successor states, whose abundant resources can be drained to prop up the current system, while preparing for the final confrontation with China in the second half of this century. Russia’s refusal to go along with the project was bad enough, but the Russians are slapping a NATO proxy force silly in Ukraine, their economy is booming while Europe’s withers, they’re making broad inroads in the resource-rich nations of Africa, and they’ve established a robust military-political alliance with China, Iran, and North Korea — an alliance that is far and away the most powerful military presence on the globe, and has military technology the West can’t equal. (We still don’t have working hypersonic missiles, for example.) Thus the Western elites are facing a prospect they never thought they could encounter: it’s not just that they won’t get what they want as fast as they want it, they could lose — and the price of defeat could mean the implosion of the economic and political arrangements that prop up their power. That being the case, you’d better believe that they’re going to keep shoveling money, weapons, and troops into Ukraine to try to keep the regime there propped up. Their backs are to the wall at this point.
Travis, most of what goes into your recycle bin ends up in a landfill anyway. Aluminum and glass are profitable to recycle, and some paper also gets recycled, but mostly it’s just virtue signaling. Reuse it yourself, or simply generate much less waste, and the results will be better.
Materia, because next to nobody can get their heads around the prospect of population contraction. Of course you’re right — 2.1 may not be adequate at this point anyway because of rising mortality rates, and not just among infants. (Anything that kills people before they finish their reproductive lives affects the birth rate.) As we go, the breakeven point will move toward 3 or even above, while the rate of live births drops toward 1 or even below. It’s a familiar process in the twilight of civilizations.
Siliconguy, good gods.
Anonymous, I’ll make an exception for this, because you’re quite correct.
Your Kittenship, you need to find print or online publications that talk about such things. Search engine fu is a useful thing to have here.
Ken, as I understand it, if you’re already dying it’s not a problem to refuse food, water, and non-palliative medical care to make sure the process doesn’t drag out unduly. Other than that, it’s suicide, and comes with karmic consequences. There’s no real difference between the depressed teen and the elderly person in your example — both are ending otherwise viable lives for emotional reasons, rather than allowing the gods and their own higher self to take care of that choice.
Sub, true enough. Are you at all familiar with Rupert Sheldrake’s writings? He’s worked out ideas very close to Fortune’s, and showed that they stand up to experimental testing.
Balowulf, the only sources I’ve found for such things are studies of prehistoric climate. This post of mine —
https://www.ecosophia.net/riding-the-climate-toboggan/
— includes a link to a source with a good bibliography.
Corax, interesting. I think you’re definitely on to something, and I don’t think you’re just being paranoid. I’ve been planning on doing a post on this for a while now. I’ll have to look up Lindsay and his imitators, of course — if you can post a link to a choice rant or two, that would be helpful.
Other Owen, it really does seem to be localized. Bugs are holding fairly steady here in Rhode Island, as far as I can tell.
Robert M, ouch. Yeah, that’s not going to end well.
