{"id":1002,"date":"2009-05-27T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2009-05-27T04:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.synapse9.com\/signals\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2009-05-27T00:00:33","modified_gmt":"2009-05-27T04:00:33","slug":"red-flag-in-our-usual-theories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/red-flag-in-our-usual-theories\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Flag in our Usual Theories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brad mentioned\u00a0Catton\u2019s <\/a>theory of response to overpopulation as \u201cWe must learn to live in harmony with natural systems\u2026\u201d, which is true enough.<\/p>\n

In the details he talks about human values and not about how nature physically works, though.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s a major\u00a0\u201cred flag\u201d<\/strong> to talk about solving physical system problems in terms of human system values. \u00a0Our values are what we should use to motivate our learning about how the systems of nature work. \u00a0 Organizing to live by our own values is to act as if our social systems\u00a0supersede\u00a0nature’s systems.<\/p>\n

That’s the very error that got us into all our environmental problems, and won’t change them!<\/h3>\n
\n

Brad,<\/p>\n

One of the interesting \u201cred flags\u201d contained in the traditional theories of growth limits is that they present the physical processes involved \u201cfollowing a theory\u201d, when in fact theories are only persuasive to people, and nature uses a rather different method\u2026<\/p>\n

Natural systems are only going to be guided by their own increments of accumulation, and the counter increments those end up triggering. The huge error we keep making is thinking that reducing our use of things being overused is the solution.<\/p>\n

We fail to see what happens to the savings we make that way. \u00a0In creating savings for one thing we create surpluses for others, that in our economy become the multipliers of growing impacts, that we\u2019re not paying attention to. If interested in a more complete statement of that see “The Efficiency Mistake<\/a>”\u00a0or the research<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

When the increments of change get progressively larger what you can be as certain of as gravity is \u201csomething\u201d will come along to upset that! \u00a0Humans very oddly don\u2019t generally\u00a0think to look for it, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that the growth of good things is bad, but that you need to ask what will bring exploding use of anything to an end. \u00a0 You do always find there’s great \u00a0good in that too.<\/p>\n

The real dilemma comes down to promoting human welfare without linking it to human self-restraint. \u00a0You just start listing ALL the things that add to the problems, and then struggle with the real dilemma you face.\u00a0 \u00a0When you ask “where’s the multiplier” you find it very close to home, in how we generate profit to have savings, to keep the money multiplying.<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t discover how nature <\/em>links *self-restraint<\/strong>* with *feeding desires<\/strong>* with it, serving our purposes in charitable aid, wealth and development, new technology, alternative energy, improving productivity, holistic living, leisure activity, healthcare, great monuments, artifacts, travel, etc. etc., will be meaningless. \u00a0 All the social movements seeking positive change, the “counter culture” or “environmentalism” or “human rights” or “occupy movements” are then just so much quite aimless philosophizing, without effect.<\/p>\n

So to construct the \u201ccounter system\u201d we need to find \u201ccounter increments\u201d that reverse the directions of the multipliers, erasing our near total ignorance of how and why the aid, and the money, and the technology, and everything else “good” would be good to stop adding to. \u00a0Almost none of the social movement people, that drive the media and the policy world, even talk about these things, though, do they?<\/p>\n

I mention our crossing the EROI\u00a0Line of Sustainability<\/a> (degrading our resources as we increase our societal costs ). \u00a0That’s\u00a0one inescapable physical boundary to definitely avoid, and it seems we have already begun to cross it.<\/p>\n

The subject is a little \u2018scientific\u201d in approach. \u00a0So I need help is getting the idea out other ways too. The problem is not just population growth, but ALL factors that persistently add to our uses of the earth\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

ed 2\/13\/12<\/p>\n

*You could also see\u00a0A decisive moment for Investing in Sustainability<\/a>, a later popular research article on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brad mentioned\u00a0Catton\u2019s theory of response to overpopulation as \u201cWe must learn to live in harmony with natural systems\u2026\u201d, which is true enough. In the details he talks about human values and not about how nature physically works, though. It\u2019s a major\u00a0\u201cred flag\u201d to talk about solving physical system problems in terms of human system values. … Continue reading Red Flag in our Usual Theories<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-econn","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}