Thesis #29: It will be impossible to rebuild civilization.
by Jason GodeskyPrevious collapses often set the scene for another “rise” to civilization. The fall of Rome shapes the Western imagination’s idea of collapse, with the descent into the barbarism of the Dark Ages, the long gestation of the Middle Ages, and the final rebirth of “civilization” in the Renaissance. However, as Greer points out in “How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse,” [PDF] the Western Roman Empire suffered a maintenance crisis, not a catabolic collapse. So the question remains, is this a collapse, or the collapse? Are we merely facing a momentary downturn in a new sine wave of complexity, or does this collapse represent the end of civilization once and for all?
In Of Men and Galaxies, Sir Fred Hoyle obviously confuses civilization for intelligence, but that error notwithstanding, the following observation speaks to one of the essential problems that will face any civilization that will hope to succeed us:
It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only.
It is important to remember that the various facets of complexity are inextricably linked, one to another. As Joseph Tainter remarked in “Complexity, Problem-Solving and Sustainable Societies“: “Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be.” He further oberseved in Collapse of Complex Societies:
A society increasing in complexity does so as a system. That is to say, as some of its interlinked parts are forced in a direction of growth, others must adjust accordingly. For example, if complexity increases to regulate regional subsistence production, investments will be made in hierarchy, in bureaucracy, and in agricultural facilities (such as irrigation networks). The expanding hierarchy requires still further agricultural output for its own needs, as well as increased investment in energy and minerals extraction. An expanded military is needed to protect the assets thus created, requiring in turn its own sphere of agricultural and other resources. As more and more resources are drained from the support population to maintain this system, an increased share must be allocated to legitimization or coercion. This increased complexity requires specialized administrators, who consume further shares of subsistence resources and wealth. To maintain the productive capacity of the base population, further investment is made in agriculture, and so on.
The illustration could be expanded, tracing still further the interdependencies within such a growing system, but the point has been made: a society grows in complexity as a system. To be sure, there are instances where one sector of a society grows at the expense of others, but to be maintained as a cohesive whole, a social system can tolerate only certain limits to such conditions.
Thus, it is possible to speak of sociocultural evolution by the encompassing term ‘complexity,’ meaning by this the interlinked growth of the several subsystems that comprise a society.
So, complexity is a function of energy throughput, and all the facets of complexity are interlinked. The question of whether or not a civilization will be capable of rising again is a question of how much energy will be available to it.
First, we must understand what kind of collapse it is that we face. A prolonged maintenance crisis like the fall of Rome would allow time for adaptation, but it is more likely that we face a sudden, catabolic collapse. The difference, as Greer explains in the paper cited above, is driven by the sort of diminishing returns on complexity that we have already discussed at length. Rome faced a maintenance crisis. It was beyond the point of diminishing returns, but the ecology and resources available in Europe were still sufficient to support a civilization. Rome collapsed under its own weight, moreso than from any kind of environmental stress or resource depletion. Thus, its collapse centered primarily on scaling back complexity and breaking down into smaller, more manageable kingdoms. In this scenario, energy throughput is reduced because complexity must fall to a more economic level. It is the price of complexity that is driving the process, so it levels out at a lower–but still civilized–level.
That is not the case with catabolic collapse. Catabolic collapse takes place when reductions in collapse are driven by a shortfall in energy throughput. That can be the result of desertification, sustained drought, loss of agricultural land, massive mortality from war, famine or disease, climate change, or a necessary fuel source’s production peaking. While it is true that our complexity has passed the point of diminishing returns (see thesis #15), and we are dealing with the cost of that, we have not yet shown many signs of a maintenance crisis. Rather, the perils we face–such as global warming, mass extinction (see thesis #17), and peak oil (see thesis #18)–are causes of catabolic collapse. Our shortfalls in complexity will likely be triggered by shortfalls in energy throughput. As Greer describes the process:
A society that uses resources beyond replenishment rate (d(R)/r(R) > 1), when production of new capital falls short of maintenance needs, risks a depletion crisis in which key features of a maintenance crisis are amplified by the impact of depletion on production. As M(p) exceeds C(p) and capital can no longer be maintained, it is converted to waste and unavailable for use. Since depletion requires progressively greater investments of capital in production, the loss of capital affects production more seriously than in an equivalent maintenance crisis. Meanwhile further production, even at a diminished rate, requires further use of depleted resources, exacerbating the impact of depletion and the need for increased capital to maintain production. With demand for capital rising as the supply of capital falls, C(p) tends to decrease faster than M(p) and perpetuate the crisis. The result is a catabolic cycle, a self-reinforcing process in which C(p) stays below M(p) while both decline. Catabolic cycles may occur in maintenance crises if the gap between C(p) and M(p) is large enough, but tend to be self-limiting in such cases. In depletion crises, by contrast, catabolic cycles can proceed to catabolic collapse, in which C(p) approaches zero and most of a society’s capital is converted to waste.
Of course, many of the survivors will want to rebuild civilization. The nature of catabolic collapse, however, will leave them with precious little to start with. As a self-reinforcing cycle, catabolic collapse is as unstoppable as the anabolic growth that currently drives us into ever-greater complexity. Both are self-reinforcing feedback loops, and both must run their course before any other direction can be taken. So we need not consider the case of an “interrupted” collapse, where civilization is rebuilt from the remains of the old. This will not be a return to the Dark Ages; it will be a return to the Stone Age.
How we be so sure of this? The current state of civilization is dependent on resources that are now so depleted, that they require an industrial infrastructure already in place to gather those resources. When coal was first used as a fuel, it could simply be picked off the ground. Those surface deposits were quickly used up. When those were gone, coal mining began. It was more costly, but as coal became a necessary fuel, the cost was justified. The shallowest mines were exploited first. As they ran out, miners turned to deeper and deeper mines. Today’s mines are often hundreds of feet below ground, with access tunnels that must burrow through miles of earth. Mining so far below the earth is a dangerous job, made possible only by industrial machinery for ventilation, stabilization, and digging. We can fetch this fossil fuel only because we have fossil fuels to put to the task.
Again, the issue of peak oil leaves significant quantities of oil still in the ground. But it is deep in the earth, or under the sea, and often of a poorer quality, requiring more refinement. We can drill and refine this oil only because we have industrial equipment to build rigs and power refineries for the task. Any interruption in our civilization’s supply of fossil fuel would require any effort to rebuild civilization to start from scratch. Catabolic collapse is precisely such an interruption.
Civilization, as we have seen, is only possible through agriculture, because only agriculture allows a society to increase its food supply–and thus its population–and thus its energy throughput–and thus its complexity–so arbitrarily. That level of complexity provides the agricultural society the ability to achieve other levels of complexity, such as crafting metal tools, state-level government, and advanced technology. Civilization only began when agriculture became possible, but does that mean that civilization can only appear based on agriculture? Yes, it does. Every culture must have some means of gathering food, and every means of gathering food can be placed into one of two categories: those where the people produce their own food, i.e., “cultivation,” and those where they do not. The latter is referred to as “foraging.” There is an enormous diversity under that heading–far more than deserves such a bland, umbrella term, but all such forms share a number of things in common. Because the amount of food they consume depends on the amount of food available in their ecosystem, there is a caloric limit of how much they can consume. They cannot raise their food supply, because their food supply is not under their control. Cultivators can be further subdivided between those who operate above, and below, the point of diminishing returns. Below the point of diminishing returns, cultivators are called horticulturalists. Horticulture also places a caloric limit–however many calories can be produced below the point of diminishing returns. To produce more than this would require working above the point of diminishing returns, at which point they cease to be horticulturalists, and instead become agriculturalists. Agriculturalists can increase the number of calories they produce simply by increasing their inputs–thus, only agriculturalists can arbitrarily increase their energy throughput, so only agriculturalists can start a civilization.
Given that, how plausible is agriculture after the collapse? Again, all but impossible. Plants, like any other organism, takes in nutrients, and excrete wastes. For plants, those are nutrients they take out of the soil, and waste they put into the soil. In nature, what one plant excretes as waste, another takes in as nutrients. They balance each other, and all of them thrive. But monoculture–planting whole fields of just one crop–sets fields of the same plant, all bleeding out the same nutrients, all dumping back in the same wastes. It is precsely the same effect as filling an empty room with people and sealing it completely off. Eventually, the entire room will be full of carbon dioxide, and there will be no more oxygen. Monoculture does to topsoil what locking yourself in a garage with your car engine running does to a human. Koetke’s “Final Empire” highlighted the importance of topsoil to life on earth, and the devastating impact agriculture has had on that topsoil:
In 1988, the annual soil loss due to erosion was twenty-five billion tons and rising rapidly. Erosion means that soil moves off the land. An equally serious injury is that the soil’s fertility is exhausted in place. Soil exhaustion is happening in almost all places where civilization has spread. This is a literal killing of the planet by exhausting its fund of organic fertility that supports other biological life. Fact: since civilization invaded the Great Plains of North America one-half of the topsoil of that area has disappeared.
As that happened, we also invented ever more powerful petrochemical fertilizers to offset the death of the soil, giving the illusion that all was well. The Dust Bowl arose because our innovation was outpaced by the devastation. We quickly got back on top of it, leading us to the current situation. The Great Plains are essentially a desert. We grow most of the world’s corn on a thick layer of oil we have laid over its soil, long ago bled to death by the first wave of farmers in America. In “The Oil We Eat,” Richard Manning dramatically illustrated how much our “breadbasket” now relies on oil when he wote:
Corn, rice, and wheat are especially adapted to catastrophe. It is their niche. In the natural scheme of things, a catastrophe would create a blank slate, bare soil, that was good for them. Then, under normal circumstances, succession would quickly close that niche. The annuals would colonize. Their roots would stabilize the soil, accumulate organic matter, provide cover. Eventually the catastrophic niche would close. Farming is the process of ripping that niche open again and again. It is an annual artificial catastrophe, and it requires the equivalent of three or four tons of TNT per acre for a modern American farm. Iowa’s fields require the energy of 4,000 Nagasaki bombs every year.
Iowa is almost all fields now. Little prairie remains, and if you can find what Iowans call a “postage stamp�? remnant of some, it most likely will abut a cornfield. This allows an observation. Walk from the prairie to the field, and you probably will step down about six feet, as if the land had been stolen from beneath you. Settlers’ accounts of the prairie conquest mention a sound, a series of pops, like pistol shots, the sound of stout grass roots breaking before a moldboard plow. A robbery was in progress.
The Fertile Crescent was not always a cruel joke. It was turned into a desert by agriculture in the very same way. At the moment, 40% of the earth’s surface is covered in farmland; most of that is no longer arable after being farmed for so long. Of the 60% that remains, most of it was never arable to begin with–that is why it was not farmed. The domesticable crops are a small subset of all the plants that exist, and they are disproportionately cereal grains, making them both small in number, and lacking in diversity. They tend to be low in nutritional content, and extremely tempermental, requiring very specific climate and soil conditions. Beyond simply lacking the soil they require, they will not have the climate they require, either.
In thesis #6, we made reference to Ruddiman’s “long Anthropocene” hypothesis, arguing that the Holocene interglacial was artificially extended by the deforestation caused by early agriculture. If Ruddiman is right, then an interruption in agricultural production would result in the resumption of hte Pleistocene ice age. However, that case is complicated by the more recent trend of global warming. Mounting evidence suggests that the massive increases in the scale of anthopogenic atmospheric change introduced by the Industrial Revolution may not simply have offset the earth’s natural cooling trend, but may have begun to reverse it. Regardless of which scenario follows the collapse, ice age or global warming, the one thing that will not be possible is a continuation of the status quo. No matter what follows, we will see the end of the Holocene, and with it, the end of any climate capable of supporting agriculture on any significant scale.
We are therefore talking about a complete break with the end of our current civilization. Whole generations will pass before it becomes feasible again. What, then, of the distant future, when another interglacial occurs, or when global warming stabilizes? Will we be able to rebuild civilization then?
After the passage of millennia, the soil may well heal itself, and the necessary climate may return. In that scenario, agriculture may be possible in those same areas, and under the same conditions, that it first occured. Flood plains at a given climate are necessary. It needs to be an annual flood, and it needs to deposit new soil, to compensate for the depletion of the soil on a regular basis–but not so regular that the fields are flooded while the crops are still growing. And, they will need to exist in areas where domesticable plants live. All in all, a very precise set of circumstances already.
If agriculture does begin in such areas (and there can only be a dozen or less in the whole world), they will find themselves limited below a ceiling we did not suffer. In the course of our civilization, we used up all of the surface and near-surface deposits of all the economically viable metals on earth. The simple physical property of pounds per square inch will limit the technology of our little kingdoms to the Neolithic. No plow, however ingenious, can ever be made out of rock. In some directions, complexity will be allowed to flourish. In other directions–particularly lever-based machines, tools, and weapons–we will be very tightly circumscribed by the lack of any feasible materials. That limitation on technological complexity will necessarily limit all other forms of complexity, as well–as discussed above, while some levels can gain complexty at the expense of others, that can only happen within certain parameters. This is why the Neolithic never saw state-level governments; only with the beginning of the Bronze Age did we see that development. Likewise, the lack of metals will continue to limit technological development after the collapse–and by limiting technological development, it will limit all other forms of complexity.
The role of human ingenuity is marvelous, but not all-encompassing. Not every problem can be solved simply by the application of wits. Ambition and wits existed in plenty throughout the Paleolithic, yet we never developed the technology or complexity necessary to build a civilization, because complexity advances as a single thing, and always as a function of energy. The lever and the wedge are ultimately necessary–in the form of the plow and the sword–but these are not effective unless made of a material that can withstand sufficient pressure. The only such materials on earth are metals now buried so deep underground that only an industrial infrastructure can fetch them.
Our future Neolithic kingdoms will thus be constrained by problems of scale inherent to such low levels of complexity, lacking the technology to communicate quickly or easily, without effective weapons to suppress rebellion, without complex bureaucracies to administer large territories. They will effectively be limited to small city-states, incapable of expanding beyond that for the same problems of scale that inhibited so many of the civilizations of Mesoamerica, but moreso.
There is the minor question of civilization’s waste, however. While mining the earth for metals may not be possible, mining our waste may be far more feasible. Of course, unattended metals rust quickly, and become unusable after a generation. However, our landfills preserve the garbage within remarkably. Might potential future civilizations mine landmills for new metals? There is, of course, an inherent limitation to such a proposition, in that the rate of that resource’s replenishment is zero. Even fossil fuels have some replenishment rate. Any such resources will quickly be depleted–such a civilization might have a chance for a brief flash of glory, barely entering something akin to a Bronze Age level of complexity before burning itself out.
With the passage of gelogical ages, though, this will pass. Fossil fuels will be replenished, and metal ores will rise to the surface. After ages of the earth have passed, and another ice age comes, and then an interglacial, then, if there are still humans so far into the future–this is a matter of at least tens of millions of years, far longer than humans have so far survived–then there might be another opportunity to rebuild civilization then, but that will be the first chance we have after this collapse.
One more to go! Momentus!
Comment by planetwarming — 19 January 2006 @ 11:57 AM
The one everyone’s been hoping to sink their teeth into since I first posted the list. First thing out of Devin’s mouth was how he expected to take this one on. So, fire away! But, if you’ll permit me an addendum, this is what I said in a thread last night:
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 January 2006 @ 11:59 AM
Hi Jason,
Anthropik.com has been a wonderful treasure. Thank you.
I don’t have anything to offer in terms of rigorous academic feedback. Intuitively, I feel you are really on to something with this series of theses.
Please excuse me if I start to ramble. I’ll try to be ruthless in my editing.
What I would like to offer is a bit of a vision for the future. This idea occurred to me after reading a number of your works on this site.
What if, having lost the ability to use physical materials for creating an “advanced” civilization, humanity now has the opportunity to develop itself in other ways? No longer being able to depend on physical technology such modern communications and computer chips.
Granted the survivors still need to figure out how to eat. After that is accomplished, what then?
From my own life, I’ve discovered in myself the ability to work with “life force” energy. When I “run” energy, people can feel it directly and it can relieve pain or encourage the others body to heal. Whether the person is with me physically or lives thousands of miles away.
Could this type of personal development be part of the future of humanity?
Other examples.
I’ve started posting interviews on my web site. The interviews are conversations with a couple of men I’ve had the great fortune to get to know. Each of them uses “unusual” skills.
One is a private security contractor in the Middle East. The other is an accomplished animal and man tracker. (His tracking and awareness skills are considered to be at the same level as African trackers that live in the bush. As evaluated by people who work in the African bush.)
Granted, these guys are grounded in physical skills and have trained their physical senses to high levels of sensitivity.
They have also learned to be constantly curious about everything that goes on around them.
Yet, at some point they go beyond the physical/mental and use those “intuition” to literally stay alive. Or, to know things that go beyond what modern science can explain.
An elder from the Bering Sea region told me once that his people used to communicate with other peoples all the way down the West Coasts of North and South America, generations ago. He’s taken to calling it the InnerNet.
Maybe this agriculture thing will be seen as a short distraction in the development of human potential?
Maybe it will be a gift to not be able to rebuild our technological, agricultural civilization. Assuming we can feed ourselves after it’s all over and still have a bit of time to spare. Will future generations have the chance to explore these other areas of human potential and development? Maybe even build a “civilization” based upon them?
As they used to say on Monty Python - “And now for something completely different.”
Thanks for your patience,
Eric
Comment by Eric — 19 January 2006 @ 1:09 PM
Eric — bingo.
Once thesis #30 comes online, I’m going to start editing for a book. Meanwhile, you’re going to see a lot more on this site about all the possibilities that open up for us, once this nightmare is finally over.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 January 2006 @ 1:17 PM
The nice thing is we can begin developing that potential, now, while we prepare physically for collapse.
I’m looking forward to your upcoming thoughts on what’s next.
Eric
Comment by Eric — 19 January 2006 @ 1:34 PM
Jason,
Why do you see humans as passive creatures that history happens to, rather than active beings that create it?
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 19 January 2006 @ 1:42 PM
Why cannot a future civilization recycle all the metal we have digged up and are now using?
Comment by Tom — 19 January 2006 @ 1:42 PM
I don’t. Some systems are self-reinforcing, and must reach their natural conclusion before “free will” comes into play again. Two seconds before you splatter on the ground is too late to contemplate your free will–you should have done so before you jumped out of the plane without a parachute. Some processes–like civilization–take longer. As I’ll be discussing in thesis #30, after the collapse, this process will be over, and free will will become a significant force again. Once you’re back on the ground, you can choose which direction you’re going to walk, or if you’re just going to sit on the ground–but you can’t choose to do anything that’s impossible, like walk into the past. Nor can you do anything you lack the resources for–you can’t walk down into the earth without something to dig with (at least not very far). Now, you can focus on those limitations and wonder why I’m being so pessimistic, or you can look around and notice that the field is still open with infinite possibilities.
Some kinds of invention are bound by resources available. Some things are possible, and some things are not. The field of things that are possible is infinite, but that doesn’t mean that everything is possible.
So, I don’t see history as something that happens to people. People do actively create history. But history has consequences, and sometimes you get the dumb luck of being the generations whose choices are severely limited, because of the choices your ancestors made. It’s not a matter of determinism–it’s a matter of consequences.
I addressed that in the article, where I wrote:
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 January 2006 @ 2:00 PM
Approximate, current US copper distribution:
1/3 in situ
1/3 in landfill
1/3 in circulation
Comment by JCamasto — 19 January 2006 @ 2:12 PM
Hey, I’ve since changed my mind about the general thrust of the argument. That was how many months ago?
I wrote the general argument out recently in just a few sentences:
I think there are some important elements to point out, however — it’s not as simple as the argument above. Resources don’t deplete all at once, although some of them can deplete more rapidly than others. Collapse unfolds on a timeline of decades, most typically — and while there is no limit to how fast a society can collapse, it would seem that civilization will take a while to come down. This isn’t the argument, of course, but I do think it’s important to say.
If you’ll also recall the comments I made on Thesis 13, where I wrote the following:
I went on to say that although aggregate complexity is still decreasing, certain regions of the world might still be able to increase in complexity. While this is generally in agreement with everything you’ve been arguing, to me this means that civilization all around the world is NOT collapsing in the apocalyptic horror we’re so used to seeing in Hollywood movies. The reduction in complexity comes on the order of the global system, not necessarily the local one. What the collapse might look like in asome countries might just be the cessation of luxury imports. While you might argue that in a peer polity system, every aspect of that system must collapse in tandem, I would say that as long as we’re terming collapse as a decrease in complexity this does not mean that it will be necessarily catastrophic. What I mean is that a decrease in complexity in some parts of the world can and will be handled without turning into our typical vision of collapse.
Finally, the definition of civilization that we’re working with is that of settlements of 5,000 or more people. While it might be capped at a level of complexity of the Neolithic, a civilization could continue to exist (and will, in my opinion) at this level for quite some time. Thus, I would add some nuance to the argument and say instead of it being impossible, that “civilization will be extraordinarily difficult to maintain, and will be capped at a level of complexity of the neolithic, never becoming the global mostrosity that it has become today.” That doesn’t really make for a good title to your thesis, however — and I’ve seen you make these arguments elsewhere, so I understand where you’re coming from — it’s just that I’m not sure other people will be able to get what you’re saying because of the lack of nuance.
If you notice a pattern, so much of my critique of what you’ve been writing has more to do with how you say it rather than what you’re saying. Adding more nuance, and acknowledging that there are other ways of seeing these things, even if you disagree with those perspectives, would be very helpful for these theses, I think. Another way of saying what I just said is that just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Life isn’t about who is right or wrong, it’s about who we are and where we’re going. you’ve said it yourself, although in different words — the intellectual justification for who we are isn’t as important as the person itself.
I think that’s all for now.
-Devin
Comment by Devin — 19 January 2006 @ 2:41 PM
Then we understand one another perfectly.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 January 2006 @ 2:55 PM
Echoing Eric, the “undiscovered country” lies between our ears. I advocate sensory deprivation flotation tanks, where one floats on/in a small sea of warm, ultrasaline water in a darkened room, as an outstanding way to begin your explorations. The majority of brainwave activity functions simply to overcome gravity, and a float tank releases those brainwaves for other uses. John Lilly, credited as the inventor of the float tank, learned to communicate with dolphins, for example. Gives us something else to do when the lights go out.
Happy trails,
Rick
Comment by Rick — 19 January 2006 @ 3:05 PM
“Any interruption in our civilization’s supply of fossil fuel would require any effort to rebuild civilization to start from scratch.”
I was much more taken with–and persuaded by–this essay than I expected to be, given the word “impossible” in the title of the essay. It seems thorough and evenminded to me.
The above sentence is a sentence I lingered hestitantly on, though; and after thinking a little while I realized what my hesitation about that statement is. It implies that all of civilization, as a whole, is at the level of consumer as regards fossil fuels. And although admittedly I have no source to cite that that isn’t the case, it seems reasonable to think that militaries might have stockpiles of fuel in order to maintain a presence in the event of a wider, civilian collapse.
Also, providing governmental powers have the foresight to prepare, they might militarize oil-production–which wouldn’t stem off the effects of catabolic collapse for the masses, but might allow a narrower, streamlined, militarized head of civilization to go on living.
Of course, that hypothetical ignores other probabilities like bottom-up revolt.
I guess what I’m saying is, is that it might be worthwhile to analyze the collapse in terms of segments of civilization. Chances are the upper hierarchy will screw the lower in order to keep the upper running.
Comment by Matt — 19 January 2006 @ 3:58 PM
Strategic reserves might fit what you mean here, but they are limited and, as a rule, unrefined. There really isn’t anything the upper class can do to change the situation overly much. They might concentrate their resources to carve out a small fiefdom here or there, but these will be the exceptions–not the rule. They wll also be shortlived, barely surviving their creators.
I like a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but collapse makes the elites largely irrelevant. They seem to be spending most of their efforts simply on seeing to their continued survival, rather than carving out kingdoms in the rubble.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 January 2006 @ 4:30 PM
It seems to me that most of the elites everywhere prefer the hunter-gatherer lifestyle or at least its best attributes to anything else.
Hunting was the sport of kings and off-limits to peasants all over the medieval Europe.
Let us not forget, today we are the elites. I wonder how many Third-World peasants are having discussions on the advantages of hunter-gatherer lyfestyle.
People with spare resources, spare time and ability to learn will be disproportionately represented among the ancestors of hunter-gatherer tribes of 2106.
Comment by _Gi — 19 January 2006 @ 8:26 PM
I wonder if you have any idea about how much metals are there in our wastes, and left-over detritus.
We’ve mined many millions of tons deep out of the ground and deposited it right on the surface for easy access.
Some of the metals do not rust. Gold, silver, platinum, titanium. They were mined from very deep mines, where no primitive could have touched them, and now they are on the surface. Others rust or corrode only very slowly or only by some rare chemical processes, like aluminum. The energy expended to smelt all of the aluminum from the ores is forever out of reach to a primitive kingdom, but most of the metal will still be available.
There are orders of magnitude more metals now on the surface of the earth than ever before in its history.
I think you are underestimating all the hard work the civilization has done to pull the metals out of the depths and refine them.
I think future civilizations will advance much farther than the Neolithic kingdoms.
Comment by _Gi — 19 January 2006 @ 8:42 PM
…
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These are some of the issues I’m interested in exploring, from a practical level now more than theoretical. I’ve done some limited “psychic” experiments on my own, with a moderate degree of success, but would like to find a more collective and interactive experience.
In terms of preparation for the inevitable catabolic collapse, it’s probably all I can do. Of course, I could go to wilderness survival school (after paying lots of $$ and time I probably cannot afford, even being an American middle-class elite as _Gi says) but the opportunities to use said wildnerness skills, even if they could be kept up with practice before the collapse, would probably be somewhat limited during the confusion that ensues while the collapse is happening.
Better to plant the seeds (so to speak) for the next phase of human existence. Any thoughts?
Comment by slomo — 19 January 2006 @ 11:56 PM
Jason, this went longer than I realized. Delete as you see fit. Maybe it would be more appropriate elsewhere?
Hi slomo,
I’m not sure where to start in offering thoughts. The potential seems infinite. Making discussion difficult to launch. Though fruitful once underway.
I hope it’s helpful.
====
Here’s three examples of non-physical skills you could develop:
I. In the short book I published on my web site , The Spiritual Secrets of a Navy SEAL, a retired Navy SEAL told me about how he uses his spiritual (for lack of a better word, not religious) development and skills doing Contract Security work in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This guy uses very unusual techniques to keep his team and clients alive. Unusual by “normal” standards.
And by safe I mean avoiding rocket propelled grenades, suicide bombers and ambushes.
II. The gentleman I interviewed for the audio download “Hunted by a Psychopath” has been tracking, trapping and hunting since age 7 or 8. Not just for recreation, this guy is obsessed with tracks. The audio is about how a guy with a deer rifle trailed him one evening when he was a kid checking his trap lines.
Here’s a more relevant story he told me the last time I talked with him. He was driving down the road with a mutual acquaintance. Doing about 60 mph and said, “Hey, that looks like a weasel trail.”
The acquaintance told him to pull over and prove it. So, he did. They even found the tracks of some kind of weasel or another.
Sure, he knew that a weasel would likely be found there. Just because it was a place weasels would like to be. But he said, there was something else going on, as well. An intuition that the track was actually there.
He also told me about being frustrated during an Elk hunt one day and having three cedar trees literally send an Elk to him the next day.
We’re going to record that one for the web site for download.
I think I’ve finally convinced him to work with me to develop a course on how to learn to do what he does. He is in a constant state of learning. He’s like some kind of human 3d audio/visual recording device.
One key to his abilities is that impossibly inquisitive mind. You would not believe his ability to question what is going on in his environment.
My guess is our ancestors were more like him than like your average modern city dweller.
III. My story. I can sense and hold energy vibrations that people can feel directly. Whether in my immediate presence or not. This energy can relieve pain or encourage the body to heal itself.
Though that’s just the door to the possibilities being opened a tiny crack. Healing is just the start and most obvious application. The other guys are using “energy”, too. They just don’t experience it that way.
====
Which aspect interests you?
The people in I. and II. can tell you new stories from every single day of their lives about using these “skills”. The man in II. usually tells me three or four whenever I call him. Just from the morning of the day I call him.
There are common threads in all three of our stories that you might miss by not getting all the details because of the shortness (yeah, you should see a long one
of this comment.
Physical awareness or awakening your physical senses is one key the three of us share. Another is regular, active forms of meditation. And a third is frequent exposure to nature.
Don’t mistake any of the above for idealistic New Age fantasy. At least not in cases I. and II.
The people in question live much closer to death than I ever have.
In case I. it is in the context of human warfare. In II. it is in the context of hunting and trapping. You should have seen the guy at the fur store in Anchorage we stopped in during a business trip. My friend was describing the geographic location, season harvested, general health, and sex of the animal the pelt came from. For every species in the store.
The proprietor was amazed (and agreed with his assessments). He even asked my friend for industry contacts for quality furs as we left.
OK. I’m rambling. Second hand at that. I apologize both for the length and brevity of this comment. So much to say, so little room to say it without dominating the thread.
You do have time to develop the ability to do the physical skills. It is possible learning them from a book. If you can’t find a teacher or class, a friend to learn them with can be a great help. Don’t underestimate the power of two people trying to accomplish a mutual goal.
Make sure that you immerse yourself in nature at the same time. Get those instincts to come alive.
Plus, you do have to actually get out there physically. Which ever ones you chose to start with, reading doesn’t get you there.
Eric
Comment by Eric — 20 January 2006 @ 1:31 AM
You know I wrote an article on this. You are correct. Many metals will be available to us. And you may be the first to try melting titanium with a wood fire and plowing a field with a copper plow.
The point I make is that the advanced metal alloys will be beyond us. And the easy to bend metals are, well, easy to bend. Copper, gold, silver, alluminum, etc are useless for farming. The metals we will have are good for conducting energy and making pretty things. Niether of which will create a civilization.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 20 January 2006 @ 1:42 AM
There were extensive and tyrannical agricultural civilizations in the Americas that were not based on metalworking (except for gold and copper, entirely for ornament).
If we collapse to the level of the Aztecs and the Maya, nothing has actually improved and the hunter-gatherer lifestyle remains out of reach. Most of those people were malnourished serfs at the mercy of egomaniacal thugs armed with clubs and obsidian blades. The exact differences between that scenario and some guys in Kevlar with Armalites are of scale alone, not ultimate quality of life. Class-based exploitation, torture and war remain. Whether you have your heart ripped out atop a pyramid or are eaten away by white phosphorous is not really much of a difference.
If someone can convince me that our civ (including everything down to Neolithic kingdoms) really will get staked through the heart and will never get up, I’ll be the first to cheer. But it seems to me that the collapse will not go all the way. The only sure way out of the endless nightmare that surrounds the human race is _extinction_.
(I’m a different Eric, by the way)
Comment by Eric — 20 January 2006 @ 2:15 AM
Alright, I don’t think I disagree as much as I thought I would, as I think my first impression was merely semantic differences. I would wholeheartedly agree that industrial civilization will be gone for at least 10’s of millions of years, but systematic and hierarchical domination could still play out, even without metals (which still be around, if low in iron). More to the point “the undiscovered country is between our ears.” Just because it is a mental power and takes a more refined consciousness doesn’t mean it can’t be used for domination or ego-serving purposes. There are enough spiritual teachers out there with powerful, palpable psychic energy that still play out petty games of manipulation and power to prove that psychic development does not always entail spiritual development (osho for example).
Psychic warfare and domination would probably be even more insidious than guns and bombs. I’m not saying this will happen. I’m just saying that in order to escape the cycles of domination and repression, a change must occur in our collective consciousness, not just our technology.
One more thing, I hate to troll, but I had just finished reading the Greer essay when I surfed over here, and I couldn’t help remembering that he used the Roman Empire as his first example of catabolic collapse, which you said it wasn’t.
“The collapse of the western Roman Empire, by contrast, was a catabolic collapse driven by a combined maintenance and resource crisis”
The resource crisis being the lack of easily conquered, wealthy neighbors to annex.
Comment by limukala — 20 January 2006 @ 3:09 AM
One criticism I would like to make is you did not make any mention of Pastorialism. Pastorial nomads manage to live in the harshest enviroments, from the Artic Tundra to the Sahara desert and the Mongolian steppe. Anywhere a forager can live a pastorialist can, except on the ice pack, but that wont be around much longer anyway. Pastorialists live at a higher population density, and a higher complexity level than foragers. It is more energy eficient to reapeatedly drain an animal of milk blood and wool than to kill it and they matain an exclusive predator role. There beasts of burden and wagons alow them to carry more cultural artifacts and children than foragers vus going through the cycles tribal warfare more quickly. And the adapt more quickly to a changing enviroment than agriculturalists. The richer pastures can even suport settled or semi-setled pastorialists. Lactose intolerance may be the first thing to go in the next stage of human evolution.
Also I think you might be be underestimating the abilities of agriculture to return. Once the aswan dam is breeched and the Yangze dykes are eroded rich soil shall return to these areas very quickly. Also the heavy aluvial soils and clays of places like europe seem to be more resistant to destruction than elswhere. In these places it only take a few years after changeover for new organic farms to become viable. Acording to Guns Germs and Steel there have been 10 independent discoveries of agriculture in the last 10,000 year of wich noticably: New Guinea, Sahel and USA do not at a quick glance seem to fit the stereo type of the anualy flooding river valey. The things most likly to prevent a return of agriculture are rising sea levels or a new glacial period, in which case Pastorialism will prevail, Both will create new rich soils when they receed.
Also I think you under estimate the future ability to recycle scrap metal. Even if the Iron rusts it is simply returning to its natural state as iron ore. Acording to colapse the vikings made use of Bog Iron with as litle as 1% ore in it! Also sipler societes should be very good a using small scaterd deposits of scap metal. But when the scrap metal is finaly recycled down to dust baring an asteroid colision etc, the Neo-neolithic will last for the rest of Earths history. There shall never be another industrial revolution not even in a hundred million years. For the siple reason tha newly revealed deposits will be used up before there is enough for an industrial revolution. Every ten thousand year or so somewhere in the world, an earthquake or land slide will reveal a new deposit of iron or coal. And it will keep a city of full of blacksmiths or poters going for a few centuries. And then ten thousand years later it will hapen somewhere else. Human consumption will never alow it to acumulate the amounts necesary fo an industrial age.
China is often cited by historians as an example of a long lived and continuous civilisation that maintained a high level of complexity without colapse for over two & a half thousand years. Could anyone please tell me the primitivist growth calapse responce to this?
Stephen Wordsworth.
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 20 January 2006 @ 5:03 AM
Ill just add that I think a pastorialist will likely make the trasition to agriculture more quickly and willingly than the original forager-agriculture transition. And although pastorialism is not quite as good a lifestyle as foraging it is still much better than agriculture.
In the long history of the neo-neolithic the human race will likley split up into many diferent species being spread so far across the globe.
Stephen Wordsworth.
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 20 January 2006 @ 5:22 AM
I live in a heavily settled area of the country, so it’s not so easy to get to the deep wilderness on a regular basis. However, I do live near a state park of moderate size, that is about as close to “wilderness” as exists for a hundred miles. I walk there with my dog almost every day. In the six years I have been there on a regular basis, I have noticed a change for the worse. The woods, as degraded as they were six years ago, have become a lot sicker. Just an intuition…
Comment by slomo — 20 January 2006 @ 11:00 AM
Gold and silver are too soft to make anything useful out of–that’s why we only use them for jewlry. Platinum is rare, and titanium requires extremely high temperatures to work–much higher than is possible from a wood-burning fire (which is what we’ll be stuck with, without fossil fuels like coal).
Of the economically viable metals that remain, they corrode very quickly if they’re not carefully preserved. Whatever we don’t specifically take care of (which won’t be much–maybe a few heirloom swords or guns) will be gone after the first generation. Mining the landfills is a possibility, but that was already discussed.
Cahokia was extensive, but its tyranny was limited to a few miles’ radius from Monks’ Mound. The Mesomaerican and Peruvian civilizations found themselves greatly constrained by geography–and that was in the Holocene. As I pointed out, soil infertility will negate the possibility of agriculture in the near term, and climate change will negate it in the long term.
To collapse to the level of the Aztecs or the Maya would require the resources that were available to the Aztecs and the Maya. The soil now is even poorer than when it brought down the Mayans. So, we can’t collapse to the level of the Aztecs or Mayans, for precisely the reasons I outlined in the article.
But, importantly, when they do, they’ll be very tightly capped. They’ll be small, short-lived, and exceptional.
You’ll recall I took issue with Tainter’s application of his own theory, too.
Indeed, because I do not distinguish between pastoralists and agriculturalists. Pastoral cultures require contact with agricultural societies to be sustainable. Thus, they are an epiphenomenon of agriculture. Without agriculture, there will be no pastoralism, either.
No, rusted iron can’t be reworked.
It collapsed several times that I can think of–the Warring States period, the Mongol invasion, the warlords of the late 1800s and early 1900s–and I’m no expert on Chinese history, either.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 12:19 PM
Ran Prieur linked to this thesis, with some commentary. I’ll answer his points here.
It does, but it only rebuilds it annually in flood plains. That’s necessary in order to keep up with monoculture, in order to give early agriculturalists a start. If there is a solid break–as I argue there will be–then we’ll need to start from square one, and to do that we’ll need all the factors that the first farmers needed, including flood plains. The soil will heal itself everywhere within a century or so, but monocropping will kill it in a few years–too quickly for the Second Agricultural Revolution to keep up. So, the Second Agricultural Revolution, like the first, will need flood plains.
“No-till agriculture” is horticulture, which is sometmes also called “hoe agriculture.” Horticulture cannot arbitrarily raise its level of complexity, because of the limits on production. Permaculture is the same. Ergo, no, they cannot drive a pattern of conquest. They are limited by the same kinds of factors that limited Cahokia and the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.
There won’t be many areas protected from moisture in an age of massive climate change, and we’ve also concentrated most of our iron in cities that cluster into more moist areas (there arent’ too many cities in the middle of the desert). Aluminum has been discussed previously here, and upthread. Basically, the metals that will survive are the metals that aren’t useful for tools or weapons. And, again, living off of waste means exploiting a resource with a replenishment rate of zero. There are intractable problems with that.
They did, because instead of hydrocarbons, they had good soil fertility and a climate well-suited for cereal grain agriculture. A civilization needs hydrocarbons, soil fertility, and a good climate–pick any two. Post-collapse, we will have none, as I explained in the article.
This is not true. Consider a strictly hierarcical society like the Kwakiutl. They were incapable of expansion or imperialism, because their source of energy–the source of ther complexty–was the salmon run. It couldn’t be exported. They couldn’t take it with them. Their society had to stay close to the salmon runs. As complex and hierarchical as it could survive there, it could not expand. It could not take more than it gives. The key, then, is the energy source itself. This is why foragers are so much more stable–they do not control their energy source. This is why agriculture is always doomed to collapse–and why I remain so suspicious of horticulture and permaculture.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 12:52 PM
Could it then be argued that the ancient Egyptians were the same way as well, since their source of energy and complexity was on the banks of the Nile and could not be exported? (It expanded on the banks of the Nile, but not further.)
That makes sense–since it did not expand, and was thus taken over by other civilizations.
Comment by aksum — 20 January 2006 @ 1:09 PM
In other words, the Egyptians could not control their energy source as well.
Comment by aksum — 20 January 2006 @ 1:10 PM
Egypt did expand. They couldn’t farm the desert, but they could farm the greener lands in the Levant–which is where they expanded. Their source of energy was agriculture, and unlike a salmon run, you can farm other areas. The Kwakiutl couldn’t make the salmon run in California the way that the Egyptians could farm Palestine.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 1:11 PM
But the Egyptians could control their energy source, and did so quite well. You can decide whether or not to farm this or that piece of land, you can decide how intensively to cultivate. By comparison, if the Kwakiutl wanted a bigger salmon run next year, they could just …. what? Nothing, really. Hope for a bigger one, and be disappointed when it doesn’t happen? That’s what I mean by control.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 1:12 PM
Ran replied to my comments with a bit of general policy:
As one who spent years trying to devise ingenious ways to guard against civilization forevermore, might I suggest that it might actually be better to not be on guard? To guard against civilization ever rising again leads to certain dastardly consequences of its own, and in trying to guard against it, we may end up bringing about many of its worst traits.
Will we need to institute a shamanic inquisition? A genocidal slaughter of anyone who does not keep to the one right foraging way?
I see a greater peril in guarding against civilization, than in the complacency that it may have fits and starts in isolated pockets of the world. We may not be able to rebuild civilization, but out vigilance may yet breed all of its intolerance and oppression nonetheless.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 1:44 PM
My apologies. I was under the impression that Egypt was limited to farming the banks of the Nile. While they were able to expand and farm more land around the Nile, their agricultural expansion was limited to the Nile River Valley.
Also, civilizations often invade areas for other resources than agriculture–such as metals and timber, etc.
Comment by aksum — 20 January 2006 @ 1:55 PM
No, in the New Kingdom they expanded beyond the Nile River Valley, primarily into the Levant, which did have good, arable land, which they farmed. But you’ll note that the Egyptians never really did much with all that desert around them, save for the odd mine for metals.
Quite right, but those are all still sources of energy.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 2:01 PM
Thank you for correcting me. I’m not really a total expert on Egyptian civilization, I just remembered a few anecdotal references, and I acknowledge my errors.
Comment by aksum — 20 January 2006 @ 2:04 PM
It occurs to me that besides all the metals we leave behind, we also leave large quantities of materials previously unavailable to civilizations. Plastics.
There are hard plastics which can be fashioned into weapons and tools. There are soft plastics that can be used for nets and clothes. There are metallo-ceramics, glass, rubber.
You keep saying that there will not be economically viable quantities of useful materials. What is the scale of your prediction?
Obviously, there won’t be enough left to rebuilt a global civilization. Its very likely, there won’t be enough left for a continent-spanning empire. But something smaller in scale?
One question to you as a specialist. Don’t the archeologists find weapons made of gold very often in scythian burial mounds for instance?
Comment by _Gi — 20 January 2006 @ 2:25 PM
Yes, as I wrote in the article, you might have isolated pockets, something the size of city-states.
Yes–ceremonial weapons, made for show. They’re useless as actual weapons, though.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 2:41 PM
Theory:
The whole purpose of civilization has been:
- to discover the Quantum world and the Cosmos as a whole, both empirically and spiritually (As Above, so Below. As Without, So Within).
- to truly begin integrating the Outer Ego with the Inner Spirit.
- to being understanding the balance of polarities/opposites and Dualities
- to understand the inner workings of the Mind, Body and Soul
- to demonstrate that the Supernatural can both be understood and tamed, and finally,
- to provide its members (some) opportunities for this understanding and taming from an experiential standpoint, rather than an exploitative standpoint
Advanced civilization then, need not be a matter-based extension of these discoveries in selectively hegemonising itself, through its collective members, over the domain in which it thrives. It’s merely the mode through which a species such as humanity understands its’ Self in the myriad of perspectives and lenses that the safety net of Civilization has allowed the exploration of. While selective members innovate and discover, thus allowing “progress� to be continuous, unless there’s a dramatic disturbance in this equilibrium, there will be no actual application of these discovered paradigms by the collective.
Such is the current state of affairs, where civilization discovers, through its innovations, the range of possibilities and extends the limits of freedom in action and being. However, to truly ensure the ‘fittest’ subsets of possibilities are chosen, external forces must change to enact a sort of Darwinist selection. This selection must be external (i.e. God?) or else humanity in its own freedom of choice amidst the comforts that civilization allows, will always choose the path of least resistance. This, as its turning out, will become damaging to the environment in which civilization finds itself growing as well as damaging to members within humanity that are unwittingly ‘preparing’ themselves for an as yet untested future by undertaking paths of higher resistance.
These paths of higher resistance in and of themselves are also aspects that civilization stumbles on, where a mere survivalist endeavor would not allow for it. Ancient cavemen did not become yogis or persevere in quantum physics labs, only because these possibilities were never allowed for. Nor was the sexes in balance or altruism concepts that our primitives could even biologically and psychologically able to manifest. For civilization also discovers and advances in the Inner world with concepts that mirror the ‘just’ and ‘good’ and ‘fair’. This enables a different kind of progress to ensure that civilization does not end up eating itself or its environment, with ever-expanding change and adaptation abilities enabled by science and technology.
Thus, civilization endures for another era/epoch and eon. However, when it comes to a point to rely purely on the Manifest advancements to ensure paths of least resistance to its members and only defines progress by such yardsticks, will it sign its own doom. This too will be a predictable outcome, wherein the Fall necessitates members within civilized society to rely on the remaining shards of an Inner evolution that’s matched and kept up with the Progress of civilization’s Ego. It does not mean then that, civilized society ends up back in the Stone Age should our Industrial vestments collapse around us. If anything, the biological remnants of humanity that have survived (Chosen to survive?) will shape a world anew with whatever communication, and technology required of them to continue. This will be determined by the required paths of higher resistance that in itself will weed out concepts, discoveries and innovations that would be obsolete in this new environment, selected for by what will work best in this new world.
Comment by Kart — 20 January 2006 @ 3:01 PM
Our marines have ceremonial weapons too.
Sabres on their sides are almost entirely useless in combat today.
But if they and their adversaries didn’t have any guns and artillery, they wouldn’t be so useless any more.
If stainless steel sabres become extinct, whoever owns the golden sabers will still be better armed than those who have no blades. But even setting blades aside, golden maces will be very effective. And golden helmets would provide better protection than leather helmets.
Comment by _Gi — 20 January 2006 @ 6:31 PM
No, they’re still useless. You might be able to get someone if you catch him off-guard, but otherwise that weapon is going to bend, break, whatever, and become more a liability than an asset.
I’d rather have a good, sharp stick in a fight than some golden axe.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 January 2006 @ 6:34 PM
…Especially seeing as how gold cannot take an edge.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 20 January 2006 @ 6:37 PM
With but a small amount of alloying element in it, such as often occurs in nature, gold will take a very nice edge.
Electrum - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum, mentions
“Electrum was much better for coinage than gold, mostly because it was harder and more durable, but also because techniques for refining gold were not widespread at the time”.
Other natural elements were even better at producing gold alloys that could take an edge.
Gary
Comment by Gary Ewell — 20 January 2006 @ 6:44 PM
But all take a certain amount of both metals and heat inorder to alloy. Electrum is gold and silver. The heat required is beyond wood. Besides which, how much gold and silver do we have? No enough to outfit entire armies. Even if a couple people had metal blades most will have rock blades and fire-hardened points. Both of which are quite effective. They used to use obsidean for eye surgery because they couldn’t get metal edges sharp enough.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 20 January 2006 @ 7:07 PM
Hey –
I saw nothing about electrum use for weapons in that article. ‘Coins and drinking vessels’ does not suggest a useful edge…
And what Ben said.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 January 2006 @ 9:52 AM
Ever heard of a rocket stove?
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 21 January 2006 @ 2:12 PM
Wooden rocket stoves are netoriously ineffective.
Might be better with a earthen kiln and bellows setup. But we’re still talking very serious limitations with what we have to work with. We’ll have some metals, glass, rock, wood, dirt, and animal/plant fiber. The limitations are imagined only, I assure you.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 21 January 2006 @ 3:51 PM
China did not collapse in the sense you intend. There was no decrease in the technological capacity available in China. Agricultural overshoot corrected by famine back to … yes, agriculture. With everything that was available before still available, and gradually with more on top of that (the Chinese were once technologically highly innovative).
Though I greatly respect what you write here and you are clearly very knowledgeable about pretty much everything, I have to say I think you are far too dogmatic about this particular aspect (i.e. how far the collapse will actually go). There will be land, probably a lot, left for agriculture ‘at the level of the Aztecs and the Maya’, as I said. In fact, it seems you are leaving out much of the primitive ag that now exists and is not carried out US-style. Will that crash when you and your people see their ag go? Or is this another example of what we might term ‘the World Series error’?
Comment by Eric — 22 January 2006 @ 2:38 AM
The Ancients and Medieval people turned wood into charcoal to get a fuel which burns at a high enough temperature smelt metals. And alloy coper and tin to make bronze. A high temperature carbon monoxide rich enviroment deoxidises metals like iron and coper, this the ancients did with charcaol to extract the metal oxides from ore.
All the roman ruins in europe are underground because Medieval style agriculture does not erode the soil faster than it is replenished.
I dont see how pastorialists are dependent on civilisation. When folowing there traditional lifestyle they are self sufiecient.
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 22 January 2006 @ 4:20 AM
It seems to me that as much as you all talk about the collapse of civilization you still want to keep it in existance. Maybe not as industrial agriculture but on some other level. You talked about pychic improvement and abilities. What does any of that have to do with the topic at dicussion here. Arent we talking about the end of civilization. One of you proposed immersing yourself in a water tank in a dark room to better your psychic abilities. So are you gonna do this before your morning blogging session or after you go freegan dumpster diving? Absolutely ridiculous. If peak oil really does happen where are you going to get your food , fresh water, heat, ect. Ohh you are going to grow algae and plant gardens. Have you ever tried to live of algae and garden plants for extended periods of time? How do you know what its going to be like of if its even possible. While having all of these things to take care of when are you going to be able to sit in a saline tank and focus on how to communicate with dolphins , what good will that do you. I mean I though all along you people wanted to see an end to all this stuff but yet everyday i see more crazy stories about urban vs rural sustainability blah blah blah blah. Why arent we focusing on how to live without civilization not how to survive off of its carrion. What does urban vs rural sustainability matter if you dont use trade and barter systems to survive? If theres one I think thats been established its that our current civilization isnt going to last wether it be peakoil, war, destruction of nature, it doesnt matter we know its terrible and sucks so lets get out of it. Lets learn to live without it so when the collapse comes we arent prepared were immune to it. It makes me sick to my stomach thinking that people are thinking about personal developement and psychic ability when the earth is being destroyed and we are on the verge of mass starvation. Wake up!
Comment by Red — 22 January 2006 @ 2:41 PM
Stephan, what ores? The only ores left are low-grade and miles below the surface. The romans used high-grade ores sticking out of the ground.
Pre-industrial agriculture did use up the soil. The difference was that without petrolium-base fertilizers they had to use crop-rotations, manure, and had to leave fields fallow for years at a time. They still had to expand, and expand they did. If they did not, they would have collapse under their own weight. Each year they’d have more people, and less food. Eventually thier population would stop expanding. Their economy would collapse.
Have to wait for Jason for a good answer on pastorlists. I have some ideas, but it’s his claim.
Red, I would tend to agree to a point. Ignoring material concerns for the purposes of a hope of evolving psyhic abilities seems…undeservedly optimistic. For one, evolution does not create things wholesale. Two, individuals do not evolve, populations evolve. Three, psychic powers sound exhausting. I’d expect that such a person would need to eat more. Too bad they neglected to learn hunting. But, while psychic abilities shouldn’t be a main goal, developing a culture capable of surviving the crash is a definite goal. A short-term one at that. Once we have all the time in the world we can concern ourselves with psychic powers. For now, survival first. Life second. Psychic powers eventually. That being said idle musings don’t have to get in the way. As long as we’re working towards our goals, then there is no point in being crotchety over idle musings. If anything, such musing can serve for entertainment, allowing a person to relax and not be as strung out about how crappy the whole situation is. Being aware is one thing, stressing yourself to an early grave is another. There is no point in killing yourself over it, if nothing else dead people make poor allies.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 22 January 2006 @ 5:10 PM
First, I am not a survival expert. And I apologize if I am stepping on any belief systems here.
My comments are not meant to convert anyone to my views regarding “psychic powers”. A term I am reluctant to use. I prefer “spiritual skills” or “intuition”.
And the term “spiritual skills” is not meant to imply any formal religious belief systems.
I just wanted to clarify a few points so that my previous comments are not misunderstood by otherwise interested readers.
Do you need the physical skills, experience and knowledge of place (including plants and animals)? Most definitely. You have to maintain body core temperature, stay hydrated, fed, work with others toward your shared goals of tribal living and etc….
Yet, there is also the realm of spiritual skills. A part of the human survival tool kit. And it is available to all people.
For modern examples, I personally know at least two people (who are willing to talk publicly) who use or have used these abilities that all humans have, to stay alive or keep others alive.
One is doing so in Afghanistan and Iraq, right now. His name is Michael Jaco. He runs Tactical Awareness School to teach these skills in a adverse environments. I mentioned him previously and you can check out his forum at his web site. He usually gets on the forum once a day from overseas.
If you know any US Navy SEALs, check his credentials. He is very well regarded for his 20 plus year career in the Navy. Mike considers spiritual skills vital to his survival.
This is about detecting an enemy before he can slit your throat. Or, kill your family.
Or, knowing where the deer went when you can’t find any tracks or sign. Or, communicating out of sight and silently with other members of your tribe or hunting party.
Native elders I have talked with have confirmed the use of spiritual skills in their peoples past, as well.
Spiritual skills a luxury to develop when life is good at the primitive camp?
No way. While I am getting ready physically, for what may come, there’s plenty of time in life, right now, to assemble my spiritual toolkit. 20 minutes before bed will do.
This stuff is not about personal growth or self help books from Barnes and Noble or Amazon. It is about being human and staying alive. The skills are your birthright, hidden by the overuse of the logical mind (which is a valuable tool, as well) in modern society.
Lastly, spiritual skills are far from exhausting. They can be healing and energizing in this crazy world. Giving your logical (or emotional) mind a little downtime is worth it in itself.
Clear as mud?
Time to manifest myself some lunch
Comment by Eric — 22 January 2006 @ 6:34 PM
If this is what you mean, we can agree.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 22 January 2006 @ 6:51 PM
Your very right about rusted metal, it brakes up into thin flakes that would be impossible to reconstruct. Aluminum also degrades - just eats away. Unless a society has the wherewithall to protect metals (highly unlikely), can believe a generation is all they will have value.
Also, there isn’t actually much gold, and of what there is, is scattered amongst the whole of the planet. Do forsee this metal being used for jewelry, and trade should horticulture be practiced. Here is one tactic where it (horticulture) could be signifcant post collapse:
http://www.weblife.org/humanure/index.html
Also, to those who are radical in rejecting any other survivor-style than hunter-gather, one can only guess (yes, Jason’s guesses reads as reasonable) how the survivors will sustain themselves after the collapse.
Another thing, all those who know how to survive off the land will be fighting for territory until exhaustion. At this point I think we may develope an American Indian type society.
Whatever does happen, it will be a good book!
Comment by Rick Larson — 22 January 2006 @ 10:44 PM
yah i agree with what your saying about spiritual skills being a necessary piece of the puzzle when it comes to survival and life skills. I do not doubt that spiritual powers dont exist or anything, Ive felt it before its just that at the time i read the comment my mental focus was on other issues and the comment seemed out of place and then with the examples about communication with dolphins and stuff further reinforced that feeling. Being the emotional entities that we are i find that its better to express my emotion rather than hide them but its not meant to be an attack on you or anyone. Just me putting in my crotchety 2 cents. I guess the reason im getting so touchy about this stuff is that i fear that the future for people in 1st world civilized countries especially america is going to be a terrible terrible collapse and alot of people are going to suffer and die. Plus im surrounded by a majority of people who are oblivious to the catastrophe that looms or are unwilling to accept it and are in denial. So i tend to be offensive, and try to remind people to stop living in the dream and realize whats going on because i want to help people out. Sorry i dont mean to shit on anyones dreams its just i want to help .
Comment by Red — 22 January 2006 @ 11:59 PM
Hey, Red. Yeah, I know how you feel. One of the problems I run into is the news that makes me feel optimisitic isn’t the same news that most Americans consider good anymore. Likewise, I often make people feel depressed and miserable when I talk about these issue when I have reached the point of them making me feel excited. Maybe if I try and depress people I’ll get them all excited?
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 23 January 2006 @ 12:37 AM
Hi Red,
All this stuff going on can be tough on me, too. I go about my day realizing that most the people (including the children) I see around me may well starve to death in my lifetime or sooner. Heck, I might even be one of them.
Unfortunately, I really don’t see how I can change the course things to come for any but my family and a few friends. It’s taken a while to make my peace with the future I see it. Maybe others will see my example, such as it is, before it’s too late?
Then again I’ve never fit in with the majority of people anywhere I’ve been. So who knows.
Thank you for crotchety 2 cents
Eric
Comment by Eric — 23 January 2006 @ 2:57 AM
The collapses in China were more modest, I’ll grant you that–but then, so was their growth curve. Collapsing all the way to the stone age is not an inherent property of collapse. We’re going to collapse to the stone age because we’ve left no other alternatives for ourselves, but this has not always been the case. Other collapses in the past have left resources in place allowing collapse to fall back merely to a different level of agricultural complexity. This is what happened with China’s collapses, but this is also what happened with the fall of Rome.
Industrial agriculture is the only form of agriculture that’s even remotely viable over most of the earth right now. Ancient and medieval agriculture requires some kind of soil fertility, but almost all of that fertility was wiped out by, well, the ancient and medieval farmers. Today, all you have is dead soil. Now, throw down a thick layer of industrial fertilizer, and you’re no longer planting crops in dead soil–you’re basically planting them in a few feet of oil. That will work. But if you don’t have a few feet of oil anymore, then all you have is the dead soil that ancient and medieval farmers used to use. Primitive agriculture was once viable in these areas, but is not any longer. You cannot farm dead soil–which is all you’ll have in the short term. And you’ll never be able to farm jungles or glaciers, such as farmers will face in the long term.
Erosion is only one of several ways that medieval-style agriculture killed the soil. Far more important was the way that monocropping pulled out all the nutrients needed by their crops. Medieval farmers used a short fallow period to try to get around that, but even with that, their agriculture went through the land fairly quickly.
Animals are only domesticated in the first place by agriculturalists. Agriculturalists in essense domesticate a little ecosystem to serve them; their animals graze the fields after the harvest, and their dung provides ready fertilizer for the next planting. Pastoralists get their animals in the first place from agriculturalists.
Secondly, nobody can live on meat alone–not even meat and dairy. Pastoralists generally purchase a significant supplement to their diet from agriculturalists.
Thirdly, no pastoralist society has ever existed except in a symbiotic relationship with an agricultural one.
Regarding “spiritual skills” vs. practical ones … I’m focused on the practical for the time being, but forager cultures are shamanic cultures, and that may prove to be a crucial element, as well. Maybe it’s just a matter of group cohesion, or maybe it really is everything it claims to be. I don’t care–it’s a black box to me. I don’t know why it works, I just know it works.
I’m not so sure. There’s a lot more territory than there is people who know how to survive off the land. I tend to think we’ll have territory to spare, once it shakes down to just those who know how to live off of it.
They did indeed. But besides the fact that those metals are very, very deep in the earth now–or on the surface, where they will quickly rust and become useless–charcoal itself runs you very quickly into the “peak wood” problem that brought down so many would-be civilizations.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 23 January 2006 @ 12:04 PM
Re: pastoralists
Are the Chuckchi pastoralists? Their major source of energy is their reindeer herds. As far as I know they had no agricultural neighbors for a long while.
Comment by _Gi — 23 January 2006 @ 3:05 PM
Reindeer herders started in southern Siberia, and have had contact with Central Asian, Russian, and Scandinavian farmers on an ongoing basis. Wherever they’ve roamed, there’s always been an agricultural society on their southern border.
The Tungus are among these people–the ones we get the word “shaman” from. Their word, saman, means seer (in the sense of, “one who sees”), but it’s been suggested that they may have picked up and somewhat mis-applied the term samana–ascetics–from Buddhist missionaries in the 8th century.
The Chukchi, specifically, are divided into the “reindeer Chukchi,” and the “maritime Chukchi”–foragers who hunt sea mammals and fish. They have been in contact with Russia since the 1640s. Rock art from about 1,000 years ago show that they were hunting reindeer, like the Inuit hunting caribou (they are closely related), until c. 1000 CE. That means that they haven’t been herding very long–maximum 400 years before their first contact with Russia. How far ahead of the Russians did reindeer herds come? The Plains Indian culture was formed by guns and horses from Europe–and the refugees from tribes shattered by smallpox and invasion–centuries before any of them actually encountered the Europeans themselves. How simlar might Chukchi history be?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 23 January 2006 @ 4:14 PM
That said, the Arctic is anomolous in many ways. Even foragers there only have meat, so perhaps in a frozen, Arctic wasteland, the rules of pastoralism change a bit? The rules of foraging certainly do, so why not?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 23 January 2006 @ 4:17 PM
We need to get away from the merchant design for managing the planet.
We need to think of how the merchants morphed into corporations which now have more resources than most nations. The whole usury disaster that the prophets warned has manifested itself in the can’t get it anywhere else at any price but the corporate source _ the merchant utopia.
The support group micro trading system keeps the resources local and the transportation of them down to a low footprint level. http://raenergy.igc.org/microtrade.html
For all on Earth to share the planet within the solar budget we need to consolidate the infrastructure. Beginning on the family level by living three generation under on roof. http://raenergy.igc.org/home.html#artists
Creating one hundred C21 family support groups or intentional autonomous communities. http://raenergy.igc.org/VILLAGE.html
Eliminating the five city system
http://raenergy.igc.org/solidarity.html#CITIES
There is a synergy or a weave that can actually share the planet on an equal level. But we must transcend from what is to what ought. URL http://raenergy.igc.org/ought.html
Paste the URLS into your browser
Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/ArchitypeOfFairness.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/
Comment by Raleigh Myers — 24 January 2006 @ 11:12 AM
Is this guy the new “alien and Jewish conspiracy” guy?
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 24 January 2006 @ 11:33 AM
I … I don’t know.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 January 2006 @ 11:38 AM
What prevents rusted metals like Iron from being re-smelted again?
Comment by Mal — 24 January 2006 @ 4:36 PM
Hey Mal –
I researched this some time back, so I’m gonna be a little vague… but basicaly Iron comes out of the ground as Iron Oxide which is then smelted into usable iron. When it rusts, it is again calledIron Oxide (ie ‘oxidized’) but the chemical properties are different. I don’t recall if it is an extra oxygen atom, or one fewer, or if, in fact, it is more than a single atom change…
hmmm… that’s really vague… but I can’t figure out where the original discussion is. Sorry
Janene
Comment by Janene — 24 January 2006 @ 4:50 PM
The oxidation, I believe. As Rick mentioned upthread, “it brakes up into thin flakes that would be impossible to reconstruct.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 January 2006 @ 4:50 PM
A single atom change is the difference between a cloud of noxious gas and table salt.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 January 2006 @ 4:51 PM
The I-beams from skyscrapers may perhaps furnish arrowheads and spearpoints for millenia to come if there were energy to melt them. It might take a long time for an I-beam to rust through to its core. Does anyone know how many tons of steel there are in the skyscrapers of the world? Probably a great many. But, fortunately, there will be insufficient fuel for the melting.
A shrewd industrialist might now manufacture titanium swords, ploughs, horseshoes, etc. and stockpile them for future use. Maybe a farsighted government (say, Switzerland) would make enough titanium swords to outfit an army and store them in a mountain for a few hundred years, their location revealed only in riddles or poems decipherable by a few.
Comment by Peter Q. Kilbridge — 24 February 2006 @ 6:38 AM
Peter,
You already provided the very reason that’s not terribly likely:
You simply can’t get the heat up in a wood-burning fire to melt steel–even if you had the energy to retrieve I-beams out of the skyscrapers in the first place (that retrieval process would be a very energy-intensive endeavor in itself).
True, but then there’s also attrition–and the fact that no shrewd industrialists appear to be that shrewd just yet. There would only be enough, even from the start, to outfit a very small army. The biggest problem armies face are not weapons, but logistics. Teotihuacan’s armies could destroy anything, but they needed to be fed–and that circumvented the size of the Teotihuacano empire. Their greatest military innovation was not a weapon, but the tortilla, because it was light-weight and could be stored for long periods of time without going bad. So, a small army lacking the logistical infrastructure to stray very far from its home base–this would begin as a minor abberation, a curiosity, and from there, become increasingly rare.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 February 2006 @ 10:00 AM
There are huge amounts of reinforcement steel in almost all buildings built nowdays in the west, not only high-rise. It’s actually quite uneconomical, but it’s probably easier to push it there than to design more carefully thus reducing the use of expensive metals.
I-beams can be re-used in all kind of ways without reshaping, but that’s not what will make the difference.
Comment by Quizzie — 25 February 2006 @ 6:16 AM
Using I-beams in ways other than reshaping them is a fair enough statement. But the physical energy needed to tear them apart will not be available, as there won’t be much to eat in the cities.
A wild forager will look upon the cement and steel cities as wood a termite.
Comment by Rick Larson — 25 February 2006 @ 2:55 PM
There is little reason to worry that foragers will rediscover civilization by stumbling upon old ruins.
But a lower tech civilization stumbling upon the ancient ruins is a different matter. The lower tech civilizations of ancient world had no access to I-beams, millions of tons of copper wires, land-fills filled with aluminum and other metals and plastics, or other enduring artifacts of our age.
Perhaps our ruins will not matter. There will be no more global empires after we are done. But if there is enough bronze and iron to go around, the weapon tech will probably not be below musket and cannon in the most advanced post-collapse societies.
Comment by _Gi — 25 February 2006 @ 6:01 PM
People can heat rust and reconstitute iron. My late husband was a blacksmith and I have watched the process. Heat quickly breaks the oxygen-iron bond. Not to mention that lots of iron will be buried conveniently in concrete. Relatively protected from corossion and predictable to find even if it has rusted completely. You said “rusted iron can’t be reworked.” But it can once it is made back into iron rather than rust.
The hardest part will be getting the small flakes of iron created by heating the rust back into large masses, but it is possible to heat it sufficiently over a charcoal fire. It may not completely melt, but can be beaten together at that temperature. Sure it’s more work than I’d be willing to do, but it is not impossible even without fossil fuels.
While I would love to believe your contention that large scale civilization will never again become possible, I remain skeptical. I agree that it will not be possible in the next several millenia, but I’m not willing to bet on the contention that advanced civilization is a one shot deal.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 26 February 2006 @ 12:39 PM
I can’t see an I-beam, as is, making a very effective weapon or a plow.
To reach that level requires the ecology for large-scale, intensive agriculture, which also won’t exist again for quite some time.
Interesting–it was a blacksmith who first told me that rusted iron could never be reworked, and I’ve since checked that with several other blacksmiths who confirmed that notion.
Or do you mean that the rust breaks off, leaving only the iron that is left? In which case, it’s still not much of a save, because we’re talking about things completely rusted through.
I think the next window of opportunity will be so far in the future, that our species will need to double its age first. It will take millions of years for fossil fuel and metal reserves to reconstitute themselves, and then you’ll need the same, specific ecological conditions to appear again.
If it ever happens again, it won’t be for a very, very long time.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 February 2006 @ 10:06 AM
“it was a blacksmith who first told me that rusted iron could never be reworked, and I’ve since checked that with several other blacksmiths who confirmed that notion.”
Have these blacksmiths actually worked with raw ore or are they just the kind that hamer away at iron ingots? iron oxide is iron oxide it the same in ore as it is in rust, in fact rust is the best and purest iron ore at 100% pure iron oxide! The most limiting factor will be that most of the worlds cities will be underwater for a while!(I am now almost certain that the “worst case” global warming scenario will ocur this century.)
Despite having a severe wood shortage the vikings in greenland managed to make enough charcoal to make use of bog iron, which has as litle as 1% iron ore. Such poor sources of iron are not in use today, as our deep mines give us access have acess to much richer ores. So that poorer more local sources are still waiting there for future iron age societies. Its the same with alot of other resources there are lot of good quality coal deposits which are very accesible but they are just too small and scatered to be economical for the large and centralized mining industry.
But needless to say there will not enough fossil fuels left for a civilization with anything like the complexity we have today, even after a very suden colapse, but maybe a small steam age?
In the centuries ahead Pastorialism will likely become dominant. Climatic instability will make agriculture and even horticulture very hard. And a modern farmer knows almost nothing about farming sustainably. But the basics of herding have remained the same. The Inuit, Lapps, and Mongols prove that humans can survive on a diet of almost 100% animal products as long as you eat all the animal including the eyes, kidneys, liver, and fat you will get all the vitamins you need. Pastorialists will also forage any plants available in enviroments less extreme than those they curently subsist in. The pastorial lifestyle can be done with just basic paleolithic butchering and leather buchets and containers for milk/cheese. You dont even need that bone or antler bit for riding a horse. But of course pastorialists can and do use there animals to carry many more artifacts, tents, children, and weopons etc than foragers do. So in the chaos of colapse foragers will likely be fine, but there decendents will either become or be overcome by pastorialists.
Stephen Wordsworth
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 28 February 2006 @ 9:15 AM
Someone here talks about this.
http://www.simegen.com/pipermail/simegen-l/Week-of-Mon-20040503/012973.html
Comment by bob — 28 February 2006 @ 9:19 AM
Chemistry seems to disagree with you. The very first sentence of the relevant Wikipedia entry is, “There are a number of iron oxides.” It then goes on to list three major kinds. The main ores for iron extraction are hematite (nominally Fe2O3) and magnetite (Fe3O4).
By comparison, Wikipedia describes the chemical formation of rust:
All iron oxide–they all contain Fe and O, as you’d expect–but those still look like very different chemicals to me.
Apparently, rusted iron can be reworked–but only after resmelting it, and Ben already dealt with the problems there:
On the point of alloys, the blacksmith I learned about this from made some comments on the viability of iron on the Yahoo! Ishmael Discussion list:
will be almost zero.
It’s unclear whether pastoralism is possible all on its own, or only as an adjunct of an agricultural society. Regardless, pastoralism is not feasible in many environments where foraging is, so, like permaculture, I won’t rule out the possibility of pastoralism, but it is certainly less adaptive than some of the other alternatives, and thus, I don’t think it’s likely to be in any way “dominant.” Its chances of success may be adequate, but those chances are still lower than foragers’.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 February 2006 @ 12:25 PM
If people get used to using guns after collapse, there will always be need for more guns. So, whoever can make more guns will have an advantage and will keep making more guns. The gun technology will not completely disappear and it will need raw materials.
Collapsed societies in Africa use a large number of guns, supplied cheap by arms manufacturers. If this supply ends, they will be forced to make their own.
And so will our society.
There are still places in the world with more coal close to the surface than England used to have.
Wherever pastoralism is viable, it will likely be preferred because pastoralist societies have greater complexity, and civilized people will prefer societies with greater complexity. If pastoralism is viable even in the tundra, it is likely to have a wide range of viability.
Comment by _Gi — 28 February 2006 @ 3:33 PM
You need an industrial infrastructure to make guns–that’s why it will disappear. Demand is nothing if you have no supply.
They’re not truly “collapsed.” They exist in a peer polity system, where areas of more concentrated complexity export their complexity to the less concentrated areas–like osmosis. In this case, “collapsed” societies in Africa use imported complexity (in the form of guns, in this case), supplied by areas of more dense complexity (arms manufacturers, in this case). The movie Lord of War illustrates this with a narrative that is heavily inspired by the real-life intrigues of Viktor Bout. Regardless, the situation in Africa does not support any notion of an arms manufacturing industry surviving collapse; rather, it illustrates the effect of quasi-collapse in a peer polity system.
They can’t make their own, and neither will we.
Unless it can only exist in conjunction with an agricultural society–which will no longer exist.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 February 2006 @ 3:41 PM
“Unless it can only exist in conjunction with an agricultural society–which will no longer exist.”
Except in occasional pockets for brief amounts of time.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 28 February 2006 @ 4:54 PM
Rust is different than rusted metal. Scrapping metal is part of my business and the thin flakes that fall from rusted metal have nearly no substance. Most of it crumbles in your fingers, and can not phantom anyone poking about in the brush trying to fill a bucket with this.
Comment by Rick Larson — 28 February 2006 @ 10:40 PM
Indeed, it’s my understanding that the first step in reworking rusted metal is to knock the rust off. But we’re not talking about mildly rusted metals; we’re talking about the wreckage of civilization that people might try to salvage in a generation or two–the stuff that’s rusted all the way through.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 February 2006 @ 10:45 PM
“It’s unclear whether pastoralism is possible all on its own, or only as an adjunct of an agricultural society.”
Why? No complicated tools or technologys are required for the herding of animals.
“pastoralism is not feasible in many environments where foraging is”
The only areas Im aware of this being the case is on the ice pack, and the rhealm of the tetse fly. But that is only a small part of the world.
Stephen Wordsworth
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 28 February 2006 @ 11:34 PM
“You need an industrial infrastructure to make guns–that’s why it will disappear. Demand is nothing if you have no supply”
But a muzle loading rifle can be made with simple blacksmith technology and an artisan.
Before the method for turning coal into coke was discovered in the begining of the 19th century in the industrial revolution, charcoal made from wood was the prefered fuel for shaping and smelting iron.
Eventually the worlds metals will be used up, and once used up they will never be able to acumulate to significant levels, but that dosent mean we should ignore the time inbetween.
The Inca created one the most top down controling societes on the planet while still in the stone age all by themselves. Your lord decided everything for you, were you worked who you maried etc. Civilisations will rise and colapse, as they have done in the past but they will still be there for a while. This colapse will not be the end of history. Just the end of written history.
Stephen Wordsworth
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 1 March 2006 @ 12:00 AM
Pastoralism was previously discussed in thesis #8, as well as a bit upthread.
Yes, but there’s going to be a problem with blacksmiths and getting up sufficient heat for iron-working, as discussed above, and in Ben’s “Metals for the Confederation.” Also, how will gunpowder be produced?
Richard Cowen disagrees. He says, “Coal had a limited use in medieval times, but was the fuel of choice only for blacksmiths,” even while discussing how coal was used only when a looming timber crisis threatened Europe (see “Peak Wood“).
That is quite true. That’s what we call the Neolithic. You’ll note that even with a very complex society, their lack of metals still capped their development–and their scale–significantly. Escaping the Inka was not a terribly difficult proposition (the way it was for, say, the Roman Empire). This is precisely what I had in mind when I mentioned the occasional small Neolithic kingdom.
Note that the Inka’s complexity was based solidly on agriculture. As explained above, the opportunities for that will be limited, too. Metals will cap complexity, but an inability to farm will put even the Neolithic out of reach.
I don’t see how, without arable farm land or a Holocene ecology.
In the sense that history is written history (well, that is how it’s defined), that doesn’t make much sense. But I certainly agree that we’re not by any means talking about the end of human existence. We’re talking about the end of one terrible (but mercifully short) chapter in human history, and the beginning of something new and far, far better.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 March 2006 @ 12:01 AM
I guess, I was misreading this as civilization can NEVER come back to haunt our descendants EVER. With the clarification, I now understand you to mean that you cannot concieve of the possibility of a global civilization in less than a geological epoch.
And why would any blacksmith go to the effort of smelting when he has readily available iron ingots? Of course they all say it’s impossible, it is simply not worth the investment they’d have to put into it. I didn’t say my husband had done so. I said I’d seen the heat turn rust into - not rust, and that “not rust” could be smelted at temperatures achievable by charcoal. I apologize for appearing to be more specific about the chemical structure of that “not rust”. Yes, blacksmiths prefer coal, but they can use charcoal.
My concern is more that some society at some point in less than a geological epoch will find the process worth their while. I am simply not comforted that it is impossible, unlikely though it may be.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 1 March 2006 @ 4:52 AM
Charcoal can provide sufficient heat to rework iron, that is true … if iron is available. Even most ores are some kind of iron oxide (”rust”) because of how easily iron and oxygen bond. The purity of an ore has nothing to do with that (that refers to what percentage of it is iron, and what percentage is other minerals). The other problem is the availabilit of iron itself. Most of the iron we have extracted is alloyed (and thus cannot be reworked at the temperatures of a charcoal fire), or exists in some form that will rust through–at which point, it is no longer useful.
Iron will still come down from meteorites, and frankly, that would probably prove a more abundant source of iron than civilized wreckage. Both of them do not provide iron on any kind of scale sufficient to really make any kind of difference on the scale of a society. It can produce exotic, singular items, jewelry, etc., but it can’t make 1,000 swords or 10,000 plowshares.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 March 2006 @ 4:13 PM
Hmmm. I would like to think that a collapse would lead back to hunter gathering.
However, would it? Right after the collapse there would be a lot of scared, hungry, domesticated people. Faced with starvation, and used to doing as they are told it would be very easy for someone (with lots of pre collapse weapons) to set up a feudal heirarchy. Whilst 90% would still die, i cant see how such heirarchies could not set up limited agriculture as a basis for small empires. Organised religion would likely spread like wildfire, and before the modern weapons which subjugated people ran out, feudalism would have taken root. Most people would be serfs in tiny, warring (with whatever weapons) kingdoms, subjugated by a mix of religion and oppression by a warrior caste. Global society may never rebuild - but it would still be rubbish.
On the roman empire - didnt atilla smash them as well as them have a ‘maintanance crisis’.
Comment by Slothboy — 2 March 2006 @ 3:42 PM
As I argued in the article, there’s no arable land left to build a feudal system on. I have no doubt people will try it, but they’ll never have so much as a single harvest. People will try a lot of things. Where will the metals for their weapons and plows come from? Only in a few tiny pockets will any level of agriculture be viable, and you’ll probably get a tiny fiefdom in each of them. But they’ll be incapable of expanding, and that will make them collapse with alarming frequency. Organized religion needs to be supported by day-to-day existence, and however appealing feudalism may be as a response to collapse, it won’t be a viable response. Those who attempt it will be dead before the first year is out, and it will survive only in tiny, remote pockets.
Attila did attack the Empire, just like Alaric before him. Then there was Odoacer who laid claim to the title, “King of Italy” in 476 CE. But as much damage as they did, none of the “smashed” the Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire went on until the 1400s, and there was heavy continuity from the Roman Empire in Britain (see Ken Dark’s Civitas to Kingdom), France, Spain and Italy. The Roman Empire didn’t really “collapse,” so much as it faded into the Middle Ages.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 March 2006 @ 3:59 PM
Huh, very interesting. Im beginning to agree with you. What happens if we manage to, say, GM wheat with nitrogen fixing nodules etc, so post collapse land is arrable. I guess its up to anarcho-primitivists to stop such things.
Comment by Slothboy — 2 March 2006 @ 4:45 PM
Most of our GM activity at present is going into “protecting intellectual property,” i.e., producing wheat that doesn’t produce fertile seeds, so you need to buy your seeds fresh each year. Monsanto’s actually leading a campaign a la RIAA about how planting your own seeds is “stealing.” They’ve even modified crops to emit a signal so that “pirated” seeds can be tracked and stopped.
So, even if they were to produce such a crop (and I don’t think it’s really something they’re interested in doing at the present), they’d probably also build in their “protections,” which would make it irrelevant.
See Jeff Vail’s “Iraq: ADM’s Next Conquest??“
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 March 2006 @ 4:54 PM
I haven’t followed much of the dialogue since #29 appeared but I’ve shared this piece with a number of people since it happens to summarize pretty neatly the point I have about the whole issue of collapse. One of the folks I sent it to who’s an economist who worked for the energy industry in Wisconsin sent me this feedback which I thought would interest you:
“Boy you sure know how to party.
“I couldn’t help but think when reading the attachment that to make this argument really interesting they should have some understanding of the electricity grid. The millennial bug that was to cause such tremendous chaos 1/1/2000 led the utility industry to reevaluate the behavior of the electric grid during a regional collapse. As a consequence, during the deregulation debates an extrordinary amount of time was spent on who had the
obligation to start up the grid after a collapse. The Columbia units in Portage for instance cannot start up after being off without being connected to the grid to receive power. The plant uses about 12 MW of “station use”, powering conveyor belts etc. And of course to over come the inertia of the turbines requires a short lived but significant burst of power. The same is true of nuclear power plants, and of course there must be pressure in the
gas pipelines for gas fired plants. It turns out that you can bootstrap a plant, but the process must be maintained and have a series of larger plants and careful control of the transmission system so the power does not flow to other locations causing low voltage at the target plant for start up. An additional concern with the [Y2K] issue was that if the boilers cool for too long then the plant has to cycle entirely down to ambient temperature
and then be brought back up. Without an operating connection to the grid it is impossible to do.
“Of course, the argument back to the gloom of the Collapse scenario is that it is unlikely that a critical mass of the energy sources will fail at the same time. The engineers are quite anal about this, so it is my sense that the collapse would have to be in stages, how long I do not know but as an economist i believe that in the long run we are all dead.”
Comment by camy matthay — 27 March 2006 @ 1:05 PM
Thanks … I talked about the fragility of the electricity grid in thesis #19, but I hadn’t considered the issues of bringing it back online. Compared to a blackout, collapse would be gradual. But we are talking about a timeline of no more than a few decades.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 March 2006 @ 1:12 PM
In talking about genetically modified species only for-profit corporations were mentioned so far.
However, the research and expertise of these corporations maybe appropriated governments in an event of a genuine food crisis. The governments will have different goals and will steer research in different direction, including modifications of food plants that will make them suitable to depleted soils.
This kind of program will be purely a governmental reaction to crisis, not in any way a proactive course, so the objection that governemnts always only react should not matter.
Besides that, if the agri corporations realize that their customers will all starve without fertilizers and that is very bad for business, they might change their business model and consequently their research direction on their own.
Or, the economic crisis preceding the collapse may shatter exising agricultural megacorps in the way it will Walmart, and the scientists and laboratories now working on terminating germ lines will start working on cereal plants that can grow on sand instead.
The coming changes are big enough to invalidate many of our assumptions about the likely direction of genetic modification research
Comment by _Gi — 27 March 2006 @ 2:19 PM
Hey –
You make it sound as if we can ‘breed out’ any undesirable need in a food plant that we choose.
Never forget that it is a LIVING organism that we are talking about. Can you grow a plant in sand with limited water and nutirents? Sure — but there are certain obvious results of doing so — the plant will contain less nutrients, it will grow more slowly, it will produce smaller — whatever food item it is, it will reduce investment in quantity of seeds and focus on one or two ’strong’ ones…
Obviously, different palnts, different gentic changes, different results. But unquestionably, there WILL be ‘costs’ associated with any changes we make.
Grow an apple tree in the desert… end up with an apple tree that produces only 10% as much fruit as traditional, decrease the amount of sugar in the fruit, reduce the volume of the fruit and forget anything more than trace vitamins and minerals…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 27 March 2006 @ 2:49 PM
More notes to myself…
– The Geogrpahy of Desertification
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 April 2006 @ 4:01 PM
Heya Jason,
Question: I understand that food production will clearly become less viable and less possible both as less land becomes arable and as the Holocene ends. However, how is this going to stop humans from modifing their environments to produce more of what they want? I understand how sedentary horticultre (and permaculture) will no longer be valid, but in a non Holocene world, won’t nomadic people still garden nomadicly?
I understand the arguement that agri- horti- perma- culture only began at the beginning of the Holocene. My interpretation of this is that hunter-gathering is an easier, more attractive way of living (if you aren’t caught in an intensification vicious cycle), and that only the Holocene made -cultre attractive enough to compete with hunter-gathering. My question is, now that we have developed thousands of years of horticultural/permacultural skills and knowledge, are you sure the end of the Holocene will mark an end to widespread horticulture/permacultre of any kind? Certainly I could see it marking an end to permanant horticultural settlements, but even to seasonal or non-dependant horticulure?
Thanks,
Matthew J
Comment by Matthew J — 17 June 2006 @ 11:32 PM
Ability. People will continue to modify their environments up to the same two limits they’ve always gone by: (1) the energy they can afford to expend on the task, and (2) the balance of how much energy is returned by it. What’s going to change is that people will have far less energy to expend to the task, and it will return far less energy. As a result, the scale of such modification will become limited to that practiced by hunter-gatherers.
“Gardening nomadicly” is a contradiction, since your garden can’t move. What you can do, if you’re transhumant, is throw some seeds, and when you come by next year, you’ll have more of that plant. Foragers do that, but the intensity is so low that it doesn’t even rank as “gardening.”
Even then it wasn’t terribly attractive, but the Holocene made it possible, and anything that’s possible someone, somewhere, will try.
Where it can survive, I’m sure it will. But those places will be so few and far between that it will no longer pose any global threat ever again. Throughout the rest of the world, there’s a spectrum of foraging to permaculture that everyone will need to find their place on. In those places where only foraging is viable, knowledge is lost in a single generation if it ceases to be useful.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 June 2006 @ 8:42 PM
Hi! Interesting article! But I disagree to the main idea behind it! You seem to believe that _our_ way of building the civilization is the only one possible. In that I would agree - it would be hard to repeat it without the same resource base we used to have! Nevertheless, it is _not_ the only way possible. For example, I believe, that even having the most simple resources at hand - water, air, clay, solar energy, flora and fauna - it is still very realistic to build the most advanced civilization! Possibly it will take longer and will be harder, but it definitely _is possible_! Oftne we have seen how precious resources are just _wasted_, when the job could have been done by other, simpler or more economic, means. I believe that the _ideas_, not the raw materials is what matters! Cheers!
Comment by orknexus — 2 August 2006 @ 3:48 AM
I think you may be using “civilization” where you mean “society.” Civilization is a specific type of society, that is compelled to constantly increase its complexity. Complexity is a function of energy, so civilization must always increase the amount of energy going through it. That’s what makes a society a civilization. Art, knowledge—what I understand you to mean by “the ideas”—are not traits that civilization has any kind of monopoly on. They are human universals, and frankly, I think the Australian aboriginal concept of the Dreamtime is a far more refined theology than anything you’ll find in St. Augustine. The idea of an “advanced” society is a fairly worthless one, defined entirely in ethnocentric terms, and while the startling diversity under the heading we call “foragers” is expansive enough to include incredible, compelling visions of the future, they all share one thing in common: they’re all sustainable, and none of them are civilized.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 August 2006 @ 4:04 PM
What I meant was something else. Here by ‘ideas’ I mean mainly scientific ideas and technological concepts and guidelines, essentially a paradigm. When we talk about resource depletion, we can, roughly, identify two major groups - metals and fossil fuels. Where the first group of materials for millennia has been often substituted for by other materials - like wood, stone, ceramics, bone etc. And one can do without fossil fuels as well if he knows how to produce bioethanol or harvest wind kinetic or water potential energy. I can see no obstacle to recreate the XIX century Victorian age technology (and society) without metals and fossil fuels quite easily. Of course, the machines would be, by our standards, bulkier and less effective, and “technology for masses” would not be so available as it is now (possibly), but still. Airships, gliders, steam engines, jets, mechanical computers, mechanical digital displays, micromechanics using glass instead of metal - all that is possible. If the lack of metals is complete and absolute, I can imagine having problems with electromagnetic generation of electric current, but you can do it with electrostatic machines instead. Not so convenient, but it can be done. Problems with conductors, but there should be ways to circumwent this. Remember, recently a new material was developed, “solid smoke” - aerogel, so here you have material for spaceships to go to the Moon. And no metal! By the way, popular rocket fuels are hydrogen + oxygen and alcohol + hydrogen. No fossil fuel! And so on. Remember that modern day microchips are, putting it simply, made of sand!
No problem to create advanced society, science, culture, technology - civilization - without non-renewable resources. Not at all, sir! 
But the approach shall be different! That is what I meant by saying that our way of progress is not the only one possible. Our way - how we did it - is not the only one, and, possibly, even not the best one. 
Comment by orknexus — 3 August 2006 @ 5:22 AM
Correction: alcohol + oxygen, sorry.
Comment by orknexus — 3 August 2006 @ 5:25 AM
You think we could do all that without metal! Orknexus Im sorry but someone needs to wake you up. You have been watching way too many flintstones cartoons!
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 3 August 2006 @ 8:06 AM
Actually, I, too, see some potential for a lot of those—but only in a forager context. Stone, bone, etc. simply cannot take as many pounds of force per square centimer of area before breaking as metal can, and that has major implications for things like plows. Biofuels can work as an energy source, but their EROEI is much lower than fossil fuels: that has major implications for the complexity a society can achieve (as complexity is a function of energy). So biofuels might have a niche, but they could never be as fundamental to a future society as fossil fuels are to our own.
But you are still associating “advanced society, science, culture, technology” with civilization. Technology was invented by uncivilized peoples, and I still have no idea what “advanced society” means. Advanced in what way? Does “advanced” simply mean “more complex”? We are that, but if it means a better quality of life, then civilization is positively backwards.
As for “science, culture, technology,” I’d suggest theses #22, #23 and #24. Civilization has no monopoly on any of these, and has yet to produce a body of knowledge, medicine or art that is superior to the bodies of knowledge, medicine or art of uncivilized peoples. There’s an enormous, unrecognized breadth and depth to “savage” knowledge and technology that is at least equal to our own.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 3 August 2006 @ 9:24 AM
Orknexus, I got a ton of questions for you. Where does the energy to make those aerogels come from, especially in quantities sufficient to make a spaceship? I’m not familiar with them, but what materials are the aerogels made from? Are any of the component materials derived from fossil fuels? How are you going to split sufficient quantities of water to make the hydrogen / oxygen fuels to get to the moon?
Comment by ChandraShakti — 3 August 2006 @ 9:32 AM
->Stephen Wordsworth
“Orknexus Im sorry but someone needs to wake you up”
Why so?
I am not talking about _us_. I am talking about possible future civilization , millenias later, after ice age, starting all over again.
Not us. I do not propose to make Coke cans out of stone. …
Comment by orknexus — 3 August 2006 @ 11:36 AM
-> Jason Godesky
“Stone, bone, etc. simply cannot take as many pounds of force per square centimer of area before breaking as metal can”. True. In some cases. Still, for example - stone takes much more pressure than metal. That’s why we have reinforced concrete.
“And that has major implications for things like plows.” Maybe. Maybe not. In some parts of Europe wooden plows were used until the second part of XX century.
“Biofuels can work as an energy source”. Yes, they sure can. “their EROEI is much lower than fossil fuels”. That depends most on approach and traditions and, consequently, infrastructure and other things. It could be opposite as well.
“they could never be as fundamental to a future society as fossil fuels are to our own”. Why? If we assume, that _there are no_ fossil fuels, then what are the alternatives? If there are no alternatives, these _are_ fundamental.
As for the rest - I find it a “high-philosophy� to discuss what is civilization and what advanced means.
That depends a lot upon the definitions you choose and personal viewpoints, I guess.
Comment by orknexus — 3 August 2006 @ 11:38 AM
As I noted above, with the passage of geological time, new metal ores will rise closer to the surface, new fossil fuel reserves will be created, the Ice Age will pass again, a new one will come, and there will be an interglacial where the climate favors agriculture again. So many tens of millions of years in the future, the window will open again—but by then, who can say what else might happen? We most likely won’t even be recognizable Homo sapiens anymore; after all, it was only two million years ago that we were Australopithecines.
Yes, the least complex parts of Europe—the parts that were propped up by more complex neighbors. Those more complex neighbors did have metal plows.
No, it has to do with the basic physics of conversions, the same underlying principle as trophic levels. Biofuels will always have much lower EROEI than fossil fuels, because it takes more energy to create them (while even now, at peak energy, we’ve yet to come up with a biofuel that produces as much energy as the same amount of gasoline).
Because they can never supply the energy our fossil fuels supply. In most cases, muscle power will be more efficient than biofuels.
Precisely; that’s why I’ve dismissed it as meaningless to define civilization in terms of “advancement.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 3 August 2006 @ 11:49 AM
-> ChandraShakti
“ Orknexus, I got a ton of questions for you�
Why me?
-
“Where does the energy to make those aerogels come from, especially in quantities sufficient to make a spaceship? I’m not familiar with them, but what materials are the aerogels made from?â€?
I do not know. And in scope of the topic discussed here, frankly, I do not care. All that is technicalities. My point was to demonstrate that very advanced materials _can_ be made of simple and abundant things like stone, and what actually matters is to know _ how to do it_. If you have “know-how� you can put to use virtually everything! ‘Solid smoke� of course is way too advanced, but simple honeycomb sandwich structures of mineralized paper or tissue (for example - the way people living in in Alps were making “stone roses� i.e. by submerging a flower in mineral water spring) can be used at lower levels of technological development, for example.
Also, currently we have quite well advanced metal processing technology. But, if we would not have metal at all, we, possibly, would have developed different technology – ceramic, molten stone casting. Nothing is better than a sharp and durable stainless steel tool, but if you do not have iron in your world, possibly you can do with quartz. We do not know this, because we didn’t have to try. See “Basalt fiber” in Wikipedia! Who needs metal!? ;o)
And remember carbon! Carbon nanotubes, graphite composites (with _organic_ resins) and stuff! _Carbon_ and not steel really kicks ass!
I am talking about general principles, not the particular cases, and least of all, Heaven forbid, not about that being applicable to _ our _ society.We are talking about _Second Chance_ here, remember!
“Are any of the component materials derived from fossil fuels?� Sand and some poisonous organic stuff, seems to me. And – as long as it is _organic_, you can produce it yourself and do without fossil fuels. At lesser scale, possibly, but you can. And when the oil will run out (very soon, by the way), we all will have an opportunity to test this assumption in practice! : )
“ How are you going to split sufficient quantities of water to make the hydrogen / oxygen fuels to get to the moon?�. Mhm, electrolysis for example… Whatever.
Particularities do not matter. The principle still holds.
Comment by orknexus — 3 August 2006 @ 12:05 PM
->Jason Godesky
Well, talking about millenias, the time span I thought about was like 10 000 – max 50 000 years. Not really geological eon. And ice age inbetween two civilizations. Guaranteed long to erase traces of the forerunner.
“Yes, the least complex parts of Europe—the parts that were propped up by more complex neighbors. Those more complex neighbors did have metal plows�
Nop. : ) That is the irony! I meant USSR, where thay still used wooden plows in 1980. And they did beat up Germans, who really did have steel plows. And held half of the Europe under their boot. And were considered equal to USA for 50 years. : ) With a wooden plows and A-bomb! Imagine! : )
“Biofuels will always have much lower EROEI than fossil fuels, because it takes more energy to create themâ€? 1) Basically all fossil fuel is “biofuelâ€? buried deep enough and held under pressure and heat for sufficiently long time. So from the point of view of the Nature, “biofuelâ€? is “cheaperâ€?! 2) From the point of view of Human, yes, the fossil fuel is more effective, with higher EROEI (And that is because Nature has done by itself what otherwise would be left to Human to do). _For now_! Very soon it may change to opposite. There was a book “The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societiesâ€? about it.
“Because they can never supply the energy our fossil fuels supply� – Maybe, but not necessarily. All depends upon the production technology! Allow sufficient amount of land for cultivation, create by selection productive plant species, refine processing technology, make it happen at wide scale – to bring the costs down! Voila!
“ In most cases, muscle power will be more efficient than biofuels�. I guess it sooner describes today’s situation. That’s true, muscle power still often is more efficient than biofuels. It is so, because it is new technology. Or, sooner, new economic enterprise.
Still, of course I agree, that our life is easier with all the resources intact and progress is faster. No doubt about it. But it is not the only path to follow, as I said in the beginning. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say. : )
Besides, if we take it over the edge, there was science fiction book “West of Eden� by Harry Harrison – talking about intelligent dinosaur world were everything is based upon biotechnology. Living machines. Effectively, genetic engineering. If we keep in mind, that living beings can produce basically any chemical element (as long as they receive energy, from the Sun, for example), this also could be one way to go. Freaky, but why not? : )
Comment by orknexus — 3 August 2006 @ 12:32 PM
orknexus wrote:
“Nop. : ) That is the irony! I meant USSR, where thay still used wooden plows in 1980. And they did beat up Germans, who really did have steel plows. And held half of the Europe under their boot. And were considered equal to USA for 50 years. : ) With a wooden plows and A-bomb! Imagine! : )”
from:
http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/soviet-union/soviet-union408.html
“The Soviet Union has long been an importer of Third World agricultural products. These imports increased dramatically after 1980 because of poor Soviet harvests from 1979 into the early 1980s and the United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union in 1980 and 1981. From 1980 to 1985, food and agricultural goods, half of them grain, made up 50 percent of Soviet imports from the Third World. In the first nine months of 1986, the decrease in grain purchases accounted for most of the 22 percent drop in imports from the Third World. ”
Not saying that wooden plows won’t work, just, you know, saying that it’s a bit misleading to think of them as anything *like* even *remotely* equal to metal….
Comment by jhereg — 3 August 2006 @ 4:18 PM
This is much to simplistic, and does not consider biodiversity, water, air & landbase as resources (necessities) that are currently being depleted and degraded at an astonishing pace.
Comment by JCamasto — 3 August 2006 @ 9:44 PM
Orknexus, things that you talk about like Aerogels, carbon nano tubes etc. Are produced by very high tech machinery and synthetic chemical processes, you cannot make the machines necessary to make such things with a flint knife and a potters wheel. The manufacture of such compliceted and specialised machines requires huge economies of scale and coplicated and specialised machine an people to make them that can only be produced by a large and long lived industrial age.
Even if biofuels could be made more effiecient than muscle power which I doubt. How on earth can a neolithic agricultural economy produce a technology that not even we can make.
I think there will be neolithic and early iron age civilisations in the future perhaps even aproaching the size and complexity of the Roman empire but no more.
“Yes, the least complex parts of Europe—the parts that were propped up by more complex neighbors. Those more complex neighbors did have metal plows.”
OK Jason so who were the people with iron plows who were proping up the Neolthic and bronze age empires and civilisations of the pharoahs and miceneans etc. Before the roman invasion Britain had been practicing some form of agriculture using wooden plows for over three thousand years and was exporting grain and slaves to Rome it was the less complicated parts of europe which were proping up the Roman empire not the other way round. during the Iron age and medieval times, crop rotation, fallow periods and other good agricultural practises were alowed the topsoil to increase in most places in Europe not decrease during these times.
“As I noted above, with the passage of geological time, new metal ores will rise closer to the surface, new fossil fuel reserves will be created, the Ice Age will pass again, a new one will come, and there will be an interglacial where the climate favors agriculture again. So many tens of millions of years in the future, the window will open again”
After a geological age of a hundred million year or so enough mineral resources might build up for another Industrial age if and this is the big IF humans and there decendents do not make any use of them during the intervening hundred million years or so, alowing them to build up to the large quantitys required for a true industrial age overwise the next industrial revolution will go off half cocked. This I see as nigh on imposible. Future fossil fuels and other minerals will become accessible in drips and drabs and fire nothing more than black smiths forges and potery kilns.
Stephen Wordsworth
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 3 August 2006 @ 10:54 PM
-> jhereg
You are right about the fact: agriculture in USSR was, comparing to modern standards, nothing else than a disaster.
Still, that was not due to the plows they used, but due to the planned economy, which, as it historically turned out, is unable to work.
If I remember it right from the book “The Cold War� by Martin Walker, 3% of agricultural land of USSR, owned by families (so called “near-house land plots�), produced 30% of the agricultural production. (!!!) And sometimes those people did not even have a plow (any kind of it)!
Well organized system with poor tools can do far better than poorly organized system with good tools.
“Not saying that wooden plows won’t work” - That was exactly my point! They _can_ work. I am not saying that they are any better than steel plows! Of course they are not!
—
As of - “misleading to think of them as anything *like* even *remotely* equal to metal” - I would not be so critical about it!
Why? Because, in modern times we are spending high quality materials and energy everywhere, is it really necessary or not. I believe, that in simple cases, like for small family farmstead, wooden plow _sometimes_ (!) can be as good as a steel plow!
Why? Because advantages offered by steel tool do not match any real necessity for them. Thus we have overkill. Which is, in effect, unmotivated waste of valuable resource. Wooden plow can be even better – it is lighter, farmer can make replacement parts by himself, using just axe and knife (preferably made of steel
) etc.
Besides, remember, that up to WWII and including, the airplane bodies very often were made of wood (!). Even some of the first jets had fuselage made of wood and painted fabric! (So much for metal!) Of course, it is hard to make light and compact internal combustion engine without metal from our point of view, but (a) jet engines have simpler designs so we could use them, and our aviation pioneers actually used rockets in their early experiments, besides (b) we do not know how advanced would be our, let’s call it, stone technology, if we would be living in a world without metals. There definitely would be some sorts of useful material production technologies developed over the centuries.
Comment by orknexus — 4 August 2006 @ 2:20 AM
-> JCamasto
“This is much to simplistic, and does not consider biodiversity, water, air & landbase as resources (necessities) that are currently being depleted and degraded at an astonishing pace�
You are right about the fact that those resources also are being depleted.
But, as here we are talking about “Second Chance� for Human Civilization, which takes place, say some 10 000 –50 000 years in future and possibly after an Ice Age or other serious event (My suggestion, just for purposes of this discussion. We can agree upon other timeframe etc., if you wish), then it is assumed that renewable resource systems (biodiversity, water …) have restored themselves to the natural equilibrium. Of course there is a risk of taking it (mainly biodiversity) beyond the Point of Return, but, as other subsystems of Nature are obviously more durable than Human and his creations, I believe, Nature still has much higher chance of survival than Human. (Actually I have no doubt about it). Even if we poison and spoil the environment to the highest degree possible and then blow up all the nuclear stockpile in addition, the scars at the face of Planet Earth will disappear in a matter of centuries. It may look a little different than today (different plants, different animals, different climate), but so what? It would not be the first time it happens, whatever the cause. No humans? Well? Who cares? : )))
If we look at the longer, geological, periods of time, as Jason mentioned, then there is no point in discussion, actually. Because that is the fact, that our changes to the thin top layer of the lithosphere (ore extraction etc.), to the atmosphere and hydrosphere (pollution), will be cancelled by geological processes very soon. Continents will drift, ores will come to the surface again. The game field will be ready for new player (intelligent hexapods with infrared vision and natural radio-communication ability : ) ) to start it over again. But that is millions of years…
Comment by orknexus — 4 August 2006 @ 2:39 AM
Yuo can produce a glider or hot air baloon, but you are not going to be able to make a jet engine out of glass or any other form of airoplane engine with hand tools even if they are iron! Such things require the pricision engineering that comes from the economys of scale and susequent specialisations in machinery and people from a large industrial economy.
I think I am going to give up arguing with Orknexus he has watched way too many Flintstone cartoons or something.
Stephen Wordsworth
Comment by Stephen Wordsworth — 4 August 2006 @ 2:49 AM
orknexus, I think I’ve discovered the core of our disagreement. You think anything is possible. I think we live in a physical world with physical limitations. As such, you want to ignore the details; for me, the details are everything. These are very different, fundamental worldviews, and not something we’re likely to resolve here.
Know-how is nothing without the energy to do it. I know a few different possibilities that might take a spaceship faster than light, but I don’t have the energy to do it, so it means exactly diddly squat. Just knowing how to do something is meaningless if you lack the energy to use it.
You just admitted that it is inferior to metal, though. That means that it’s going to have a lower EROEI. Maybe it takes more effort to create; maybe it breaks more often, so you have to make it more often. Either way, the energy you get from that tool is lower, so the amount of energy your society has access to is lower. That means there’s less you can do.
You’ll notice I never argued that we’d be stuck without really amazing things; I said we wouldn’t have the same amount of energy, and that would have ramifications for the maximum possible complexity of society. Examples like this lend further support to that contention.
Oh, well, that’s quite unlikely. During that time, we’ll still likely be seeing the ramifications of global warming. Then you’ll need to wait for a new ice age to set in, and then wait for a proper interglacial. Only then will you have the right climate for agriculture.
Maybe they were using wooden plows in some parts, but most of their food came from the Ukraine, where they used stuff like this, and still didn’t produce enough food. I imagine there are people in the U.S. today using digging sticks, but I don’t think it would be true to say that the U.S. is fed with digging sticks.
I’m familiar with it, but what of it? Heinberg doesn’t say biofuels are going to become cheaper, he says fossil fuels are going to become more expensive (though, the way we currently make biofuels is very intensive in its use of fossil fuels, so their price will rise accordingly). That price is not ephemeral: it reflects the energy cost of producing the fuel, the “EI” part of EROEI. The higher that goes, to paraphrase Richard Manning, “the less fuel there is in our fuel.”
Yes, you can lower the cost from what they are now, but basic biology will tell you that you will never get biofuels to yield the same amount of energy as fossil fuels—but I guess you believe in magic.
Because so far, there’s no indication that this is actually anything but a figment of imagination. I can imagine many things; it doesn’t make any of them necessarily possible, at least not in this world.
You don’t need propped up if you’re the most complex society around; you only need propped up if your neighbors are more complex than you, otherwise, your neighbors would conquer you and you would cease to exist. The upward trend in complexity is easy; it’s the downward trend that’s tricky.
You misunderstand me. Propping up complexity. Rome’s complexity required a high level of resources, so Rome, being more complex, conquered its less complex neighbors to take the resources it needed. Notice what happened in Britain: when it had a wooden plow, it was the most complex society around. Then it came into contact with a more complex society with metal plows, and it was summarily conquered. Rome propped up the complexity of its provinces to a level of complexity they neither had before, nor could sustain locally. It did so using the energy it exploited from those same provinces. The energy came from the provinces, but the complexity came from Rome. Such is the nature of empire. There’s nothing inherently unstable about wooden plows, though; what’s unstable is a lower level of complexity than your neighbors.
I disagree. That same planned economy has actually done pretty well in Cuba, where it’s managed to deal very effectively with the loss of the Soviet Union. We like to blame things on those factors we can control; it promotes our feeling of “agency,” but I tend to find those arguments weak and unconvincing.
And that’s my point. Even in those few areas where agriculture will remain viable, the lower EROEI of wooden or stone plows puts a fairly effective cap on the amount of energy that can be obtained from farming, and that puts an effective cap on the energy that goes through a society, and that puts a cap on the complexity a society can maintain. In localized, geographically constrained pockets, the highest level of complexity will be the Neolithic.
Have you done a lot of farmwork? Plows need to break up ground that’s often quite hard, with stones and so forth. Anything less than a metal plow breaks much more often. You lose the rest of that day, and have to go make a new plow. That increases the amount of energy in, the “EI,” which decreases you EROEI, which decreases the amount of energy going through your society, which decreases the amount of complexity your society can maintain.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 August 2006 @ 9:34 AM
Actually, I want to say close to 50% of the old Soviet Union’s food was produced outside of “official” agricultural projects, but I don’t have the reference handy. Nevertheless, it doesn’t change how that food was actually produced, which, _for_the_most_part_ wasn’t “agriculture” in the anthropological sense, rather that food was produced more by horticultural methods via (basically) home gardens. There wasn’t much plowing involved.
Having said that, I recommend that you do a bit of research on the differences between horticulture and agriculture. I’m not saying this to be snarky, I’m saying this because they really _aren’t_ the same, there are _very_ crucial differences, not the least of which is scale.
Comment by jhereg — 4 August 2006 @ 9:35 AM
Are you addressing me or orknexus? I’ve been studying the difference between agriculture and horticulture intently for several years now, and have written about the distinctions many times on this website.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 August 2006 @ 9:38 AM
lol
sorry, orknexus
I know you’re well aware of the differences Jason. orknexus, on the other hand, appears oblivious.
Comment by jhereg — 4 August 2006 @ 9:42 AM
Oh, this is timely: “A Net Energy Parable: ERoEI Explained“
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 August 2006 @ 9:52 AM
-> Jason Godesky
:)) OK, I do not want to argue any farther.
I still do not agree with you and majority of other folks in regard of general conlusions in the article and I still believe that you are too much realist here and looking at things from today’s perspective . And paying too much attention to the details is dangerous as it can lead one into the situation where he “can see no forest behind the trees”.
Onthe other hand - I may be too optimistic, because I actually do believe that everything is possible … sometimes. At least in theory.
I prefer to see the whole picture, to see the trends and principles behind details. But that ’s my personal preference only. 
Anyway, in your article you rised important point and I agree to much of it.
-> Everyone else
Cheers, folks! Thanks for comments!
Yours sincerely
orknexus flinstone jr.
Comment by orknexus — 4 August 2006 @ 4:16 PM
So I have a question about the loss of metals, kind of superficial but I’ve always wondered about it. Would we be able to make basic cutting tools, say for shaving and cutting food, out of such stones as obsidian and flint? I also wonder how basic tools such as knives, razors, and scissors made by industry out of “stainless steel” would last.
Comment by Thomas Rondy — 1 September 2006 @ 4:31 AM
Hey –
Well, currently, stainless steel does not last very long (or the edge does not). A razor is good for what? two or three shaves? All but the most premium knives lose thier edge within a relatively short time… and scissors, I would expect the same.
But not to worry. You can get yourself a simple ‘rock knife’ just by breaking whatever is lying around until you get a good edge for your needs.
With more investment of time, flint knapping can create some vey specific and useful tools. And if you have access to it, obsidian knives are sharper than modern surgical scalpels. So, yeah, I’d think we would use those materials!
Janene
Comment by janene — 1 September 2006 @ 7:59 AM
Though I suppose shaving would end up going the way of the dinosaur. (Once again, very superficial yes, but I’ve never been a fan of the “mountain man” look.) I do know that hair and beards can be prevented from getting *too* long by tying off the end, and the tied-off part will simply fall off eventually.
Comment by Thomas Rondy — 1 September 2006 @ 12:45 PM
I stand corrected (I don’t know how to do hanging indents, so italics will have to do):
The AZTEC INDIANS of North and Central America are shaving with razors made from the volcanic glass obsidian.
I got that from this interesting website.
Comment by Thomas Rondy — 1 September 2006 @ 11:16 PM
Thomas: the other night, Jason and I were watching a show on Animal Planet about piranhas. At one point, the host got a haircut from an indigenous family in their traditional way: with piranha jaws. When the Europeans came and showed them scissors, they named scissors after piranhas.
Also, they had a pet ocelot. That was just freaking adorable.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 2 September 2006 @ 12:45 AM
Civilization has left lots of glass lying around. Broken glass is terribly sharp. Obsidian is basicly volcanic glass. I see no reason why glass shouldn’t be available for blades for at least the first several generations. That has nothing to do with rebuilding civilization though
Comment by ChandraShakti — 2 September 2006 @ 9:34 PM
I guess like a lot of people who have been conditioned to believe that everything good comes from civilization, I sometimes wonder if basic personal hygiene would be no more. It probably wouldn’t, as soap-making, for instance, is very basic stuff.
Comment by Thomas Rondy — 3 September 2006 @ 4:20 PM
Sorry about the anonymous post, I’m a little confused by the icons
A few points I’d like to make, having done some living history and experimented with pre-industrial technology:
- you can smelt with charcoal. I have done this, and it’s perfectly possible, if a little tricky the first few times. Taking rusted hunks of iron or steel from a landfill in 10,000 years and producing workable iron is perfectly possible using bronze-age tools. Charcoal will reach the necessary temperatures for smelting and working iron (the Romans used it almost exclusively for all their iron-working in Britain)
- you can make a workable plough from copper or bronze, and given the abundant amounts of copper and tin in our landfills, this shouldn’t be a problem at all. Once you’ve got bronze, getting to the Iron Age is possible
- if there is *any* perceived value in metals, regardless of use (jewelry, etc), then you immediately have a problem with H-G lifestyle. The people who can make metal goods will be able to trade those metal goods for food, and will specialise in making those goods…division of labour -> private property -> hierarchy -> war -> slavery, all over again
But then, I’m a pessimist about this stuff.
- if we assume that metal is impossible, then there are several alternatives to provide the tensile strength for a plough. Ceramics or treated wood, for example. Pre-industrial civilisations have proven extremely good at finding ingenious (and very complex) solutions to problems. The chemical process of extracting a usable dye from the woad plant would stun a modern chemist, but dark-age peoples managed it with no understanding of chemistry and only using commonly available ‘chemicals’.
I’m right with you that living as a hunter-gatherer would be a much more viable and satisfying way of life, and that humans evolved to live at a tribal or band level of organisation, which we feel much more comfortable at. I’ll work at finding ways to do this without requiring the apocolyptic vision that you have, however. Apocolyptic visions have been with us for as long as history records, but somehow we’ve always managed to avoid the actual downfall. People have died in their countless billions, yes, and whole civilisations have collapsed and died, but we have always managed to recover and carry on. We need to evolve upwards, not collapse downwards, in my opinion.
Keep up the good work, we need this.
Marcus
Comment by Anonymous — 15 January 2007 @ 6:48 AM
Thanks for your comments, Marcus. Please see “Correction to Thesis #29: Post-Collapse Metals,” where I recanted much of the argument I made here in response to criticisms like yours.
I think there is an essential problem with this: namely, without a reliable means of producing a surplus, there is not enough food to support such specialists. Even if metals are valued for tools, hunter-gatherers cannot produce a reliable surplus. Their existence is far too moment-to-moment, and they cannot very easily store food to trade to specialists.
Untrue on both counts. Apocalyptic visions date back reliably to the Second Temple period 2,000 years ago, so they’ve been around only 2/5 as long as there have been historical records. During that time, several apocalyptic collapses have been recorded. All civilizations collapse, and when seen in its proper perspective, it’s easy to see what a rare anomoly civilization is. We can hardly expect it to endure—particularly when it is fundamentally built to not endure.
That implies that evolution is a straight line we move along.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 January 2007 @ 12:26 PM
Evolution is tree-shaped, obviously, and when viewed from a leaf on that tree, appears straight-line. I have a direct, straight-line path of ancestors, parent-to-child, right the way back to the first single-cell lifeform on this planet (as does every other living thing on this planet).
Staying with this tree analogy, your proposal is to lop off the entire branch of our societal evolution that represents ‘civilisation’, and start evolving again from the ancestor branch of ‘hunter-gatherers’. I see the possibility that this ‘civilisation’ branch could continue to somewhere good, and we just need to prune a bit.
Marcus
Comment by Anonymous — 24 January 2007 @ 8:05 AM
[quote]Staying with this tree analogy, your proposal is to lop off the entire branch of our societal evolution that represents ‘civilisation’[/quote]
I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure that we, as a species, have changed enough to make equating the move back to a H/G way of life with lopping off an ‘evolutional’ branch entirely reasonable.
I [b]think[/b] I avoided a run-on sentence there….
Comment by jhereg — 25 January 2007 @ 4:01 PM
Hey –
And… to be quite frank, sometimes a tree branch dies and needs to be cut off for the health of the tree…
But agreed with jhereg… if you want to use the tree analogy, we’re really talking about a pretty small side branch… that is killing the large, robust, main branch that is humanity… and threatening the rest of the tree besides…
Janene
Comment by janene — 26 January 2007 @ 9:15 AM