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Something I wonder on a daily basis... |
So, it's the beginning of another year, a time when look back at all the crap I've already written and see what it actually says. And, I can post my entirely subjective view of what I think are the best posts of the past year. You can either read them for the first time (and not have to page through all the posts) or enjoy them again.
There were a few distinct themes that emerged this year.
It turns out that the modern fossil-fuel powered industrialized, globalized world we take for granted is extraordinarily recent, within the lives of our grandparents if you’re a member of John Tyler’s family, or within just one lifetime if you’re a tortoise. Before the nineteenth century, the world was trapped in Malthusian limits. What that meant was that as our food supply increased and we became more productive, the marginal contribution of each new person decreases even as the population grows. So that leads to most people living in poverty. And if living standards fall too far, it will cause a die-off returning living standards to their baseline. This baseline is called the subsistence level. And from the Neolithic Revolution until about 1870, that's where we were.
There were a few distinct themes that emerged this year.
It turns out that the modern fossil-fuel powered industrialized, globalized world we take for granted is extraordinarily recent, within the lives of our grandparents if you’re a member of John Tyler’s family, or within just one lifetime if you’re a tortoise. Before the nineteenth century, the world was trapped in Malthusian limits. What that meant was that as our food supply increased and we became more productive, the marginal contribution of each new person decreases even as the population grows. So that leads to most people living in poverty. And if living standards fall too far, it will cause a die-off returning living standards to their baseline. This baseline is called the subsistence level. And from the Neolithic Revolution until about 1870, that's where we were.
Living standards before 1870
Health changes since 1870
I wondered whether it was truly “innovation” that had
brought about the industrial revolution as economists tell us, or whether it
was really unlocking half a billion years of stored sunlight under the earth’s
crust. And what might happen once that starts to run out?
The accident of economic history
Progress and the Great Divergence
Will we preserve social progress?
Social Disintegration
Why the Industrial and Scientific revolutions are deeply irrational (and why they may not last)
Will technological progress continue?
Has America failed?
Foundations of Neofeudalism
Coming apart
More Neofeudalism
The Post-Work Society Is Not a Future State. It Is Here. Right Now.
Part 2 - The cost of prisons
Part 3 - Corporate welfare
What Are People Good For 2013
Some Concluding Remarks About Automation
Paging Paul Proteus
Automation linkfest
Robots Will Steal Your Job. Is That Okay?
Automation and the middle class
And we're taking increasingly desperate measures to preserve our technological civilizations, ones that will leave those of us not at the top of the wealth/power pyramid worse off:
Bright Green Environmentalism: A Toxic Love Story
Desperate Measures not once but twice
An architect explains diminishing returns
It Can, But Will It?
The God that failed
I had some things to say about architecture, namely that "modern" architecture has morphed into producing giant pieces of modernist sculpture that perform poorly, don't work for climate and human needs, are costly in terms of materials and energy usage, and are only possible through heroic feats of engineering. The works produced by Starchitects are more and more collector pieces for the one-percenters to show off.
Computers versus architecture
Architecture is not sculpture
Architecture is not sculpture - continued
Starchitecture!
Medieval America
Saving civilization for posterity
I reevaluated our situation five years into Peak Oil and economic stagnation, taking a look at where widely-publicized predictions failed and where they were closer to the mark:
Five years into the apocalypse
I had some thoughts on American politics:
The Enemy Within
Politics of the shutdown
Nicole Foss in Milwaukee
Homage to Detroit
Odds and ends:
The Gift of Poverty
Feral Humans
Why are so many choosing death?
Walking Away
And that caused me to wonder if the social progress we
take for granted today, with leisure time, material wealth, democracy,
universal suffrage, outlawing of chattel slavery, and so on, will remain; or
will we return to the social conditions of the pre-industrial Malthusian world,
as some have claimed, with its hereditary ruling elites, lack of social and
economic mobility, rampant poverty, hunger, starvation, superstition, slavery,
corvee labor and debt bondage. Sadly, all the signs point to the fact that in
America, we have already started well down the path back to that type of
society:
Will we preserve social progress?
Social Disintegration
Why the Industrial and Scientific revolutions are deeply irrational (and why they may not last)
Will technological progress continue?
Has America failed?
Incidentally, since I wrote those, it has emerged that a
third of all American believe the earth has always existed in its present form
(including a majority of Republicans), and that number is increasing, not
decreasing. We are returning to the demon-haunted world.
I called economics our secular religion, and I wondered
if we are losing our faith, much like we lost our unquestioning faith in the Catholic
Church during the Enlightenment. And I said we need to take a look at how our economy really works in order to fix it
Marx claimed that the breakdown of capitalism might lead
to a stateless system of collective ownership he called communism. He also feared
it might lead to barbarism. But it looks like the system that is emerging has
much in common with feudalism, albeit in a much more centralized form. This has
been termed by many people, Neofeudalism:
Coming apart
More Neofeudalism
I noted that we're already living in a de-facto post-work
society, with millions unemployable under the current paradigm and dependent
upon some other source of income, whether a government check or a lone
breadwinner (or a life of crime). We're just going through the motions and pretending
that we're going to have enough work for people in the future. We won't.
The Post-Work Society Is Not a Future State. It Is Here. Right Now.
Part 2 - The cost of prisons
Part 3 - Corporate welfare
Part 4 - The costs of policing fraud
Part 5 - Common objections
Part 6 - The Alternative
Part 7 - Conclusion
Part 8 - Charts
Part 5 - Common objections
Part 6 - The Alternative
Part 7 - Conclusion
Part 8 - Charts
As usual, I pointed out that lot of this has to do with
automation, self-service and productivity:
Some Concluding Remarks About Automation
Paging Paul Proteus
Automation linkfest
Robots Will Steal Your Job. Is That Okay?
Automation and the middle class
All our economy is capable of creating are mostly shitty jobs we don't like
that don't pay enough to live on. This is what counts as "job growth":
Bright Green Environmentalism: A Toxic Love Story
Desperate Measures not once but twice
An architect explains diminishing returns
It Can, But Will It?
The God that failed
I pointed out the errors in the myths embraced by both
the Left and Right that debt is the biggest threat facing our civilization.
Debt is just a side effect of our accounting system. For every debtor, there is
a corresponding creditor, whether now or in the future. These debts can be
renegotiated or written off. Instead, we're literally destroying entire
civilizations. Money is created to mobilize resources. Yet when debt repayment becomes
the sole focus, resources sit idle and wither away, and in the age of Peak Oil,
what we're now destroying, we may never recover.
I looked at population trends:
Computers versus architecture
Architecture is not sculpture
Architecture is not sculpture - continued
Starchitecture!
I pondered some science-fiction scenarios of what might
happen thousands of years from now:
Human extinctionMedieval America
Saving civilization for posterity
I reevaluated our situation five years into Peak Oil and economic stagnation, taking a look at where widely-publicized predictions failed and where they were closer to the mark:
Five years into the apocalypse
I had some thoughts on American politics:
The Enemy Within
Politics of the shutdown
Nicole Foss in Milwaukee
Homage to Detroit
Odds and ends:
The Gift of Poverty
Feral Humans
Why are so many choosing death?
Walking Away
I definitely read your blog. As an Architectural Intern out of East Tennessee your blog couldn't be more interesting for me. Thank you.
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