# The Archdruid Report

Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society

## Wednesday, October 19, 2016

### The Future Hiding in Plain Sight

Carl Jung used to argue that meaningful coincidences—in his jargon, synchronicity—were as important as cause and effect in shaping the details of human life. Whether that’s true in the broadest sense, I’ll certainly vouch for the fact that they’re a constant presence in The Archdruid Report. Time and again, just as I sit down to write a post on some theme, somebody sends me a bit of data that casts unexpected light on that very theme.
Last week was a case in point. Regular readers will recall that the theme of last week’s post was the way that pop-culture depictions of deep time implicitly erase the future by presenting accounts of Earth’s long history that begin billions of years ago and end right now. I was brooding over that theme a little more than a week ago, chasing down details of the prehistoric past and the posthistoric future, when one of my readers forwarded me a copy of the latest Joint Operating Environment report by the Pentagon—JOE-35, to use the standard jargon—which attempts to predict the shape of the international environment in which US military operations will take place in 2035, and mostly succeeds in providing a world-class example of the same blindness to the future I discussed in my post.
The report can be downloaded in PDF form here and is worth reading in full. It covers quite a bit of ground, and a thorough response to it would be more the size of a short book than a weekly blog post. The point I want to discuss this week is its identification of six primary “contexts for conflict” that will shape the military environment of the 2030s:
“1. Violent Ideological Competition. Irreconcilable ideas communicated and promoted by identity networks through violence.” That is, states and non-state actors alike will pursue their goals by spreading ideologies hostile to US interests and encouraging violent acts to promote those ideologies.
“2. Threatened U.S. Territory and Sovereignty. Encroachment, erosion, or disregard of U.S. sovereignty and the freedom of its citizens from coercion.” That is, states and non-state actors will attempt to carry out violent acts against US citizens and territory.
“3. Antagonistic Geopolitical Balancing. Increasingly ambitious adversaries maximizing their own influence while actively limiting U.S. influence.” That is, rival powers will pursue their own interests in conflict with those of the United States.
“4. Disrupted Global Commons. Denial or compulsion in spaces and places available to all but owned by none.” That is, the US will no longer be able to count on unimpeded access to the oceans, the air, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum in the pursuit of its interests.
“5. A Contest for Cyberspace. A struggle to define and credibly protect sovereignty in cyberspace.” That is, US cyberwarfare measures will increasingly face effective defenses and US cyberspace assets will increasingly face effective hostile incursions.
“6. Shattered and Reordered Regions. States unable to cope with internal political fractures, environmental stressors, or deliberate external interference.” That is, states will continue to be overwhelmed by the increasingly harsh pressures on national survival in today’s world, and the failed states and stateless zones that will spawn insurgencies and non-state actors hostile to the US.
Apparently nobody at the Pentagon noticed one distinctly odd thing about this outline of the future context of American military operations: it’s not an outline of the future at all. It’s an outline of the present. Every one of these trends is a major factor shaping political and military action around the world right now. JOE-35 therefore assumes, first, that each of these trends will remain locked in place without significant change for the next twenty years, and second, that no new trends of comparable importance will emerge to reshape the strategic landscape between now and 2035. History suggests that both of these are very, very risky assumptions for a great power to make.
It so happens that I have a fair number of readers who serve in the US armed forces just now, and a somewhat larger number who serve in the armed forces of other countries more or less allied with the United States. (I may have readers serving with the armed forces of Russia or China as well, but they haven’t announced themselves—and I suspect, for what it’s worth, that they’re already well acquainted with the points I intend to make.) With those readers in mind, I’d like to suggest a revision to JOE-35, which will take into account the fact that history can’t be expected to stop in its tracks for the next twenty years, just because we want it to. Once that’s included in the analysis, at least five contexts of conflict not mentioned by JOE-35 stand out from the background:
1. A crisis of legitimacy in the United States. Half a century ago, most Americans assumed as a matter of course that the United States had the world’s best, fairest, and most democratic system of government; only a small minority questioned the basic legitimacy of the institutions of government or believed they would be better off under a different system. Since the late 1970s, however, federal policies that subsidized automation and the offshoring of industrial jobs, and tacitly permitted mass illegal immigration to force down wages, have plunged the once-proud American working class into impoverishment and immiseration. While the wealthiest 20% or so of Americans have prospered since then, the other 80% of the population has experienced ongoing declines in standards of living.
The political impact of these policies has been amplified by a culture of contempt toward working class Americans on the part of the affluent minority, and an insistence that any attempt to discuss economic and social impacts of automation, offshoring of jobs, and mass illegal immigration must be dismissed out of hand as mere Luddism, racism, and xenophobia. As a direct consequence, a great many working class Americans—in 1965, by and large, the sector of the public most loyal to American institutions—have lost faith in the US system of government. This shift in values has massive military as well as political implications, since working class Americans are much more likely than others to own guns, to have served in the military, and to see political violence as a potential option.
Thus a domestic insurgency in the United States is a real possibility at this point. Since, as already noted, working class Americans are disproportionately likely to serve in the military, planning for a domestic insurgency in the United States will have to face the possibility that such an insurgency will include veterans familiar with current counterinsurgency doctrine. It will also have to cope with the risk that National Guard and regular armed forces personnel sent to suppress such an insurgency will go over to the insurgent side, transforming the insurgency into a civil war.
As some wag has pointed out, the US military is very good at fighting insurgencies but not so good at defeating them, and the fate of Eastern Bloc nations after the fall of the Soviet Union shows just how fast a government can unravel once its military personnel turn against it. Furthermore, since the crisis of legitimacy is driven by policies backed by a bipartisan consensus, military planners can only deal with the symptoms of a challenge whose causes are beyond their control.
2. The marginalization of the United States in the global arena. Twenty years ago the United States was the world’s sole superpower, having triumphed over the Soviet Union, established a rapprochement with China, and marginalized such hostile Islamic powers as Iran. Those advantages did not survive two decades of overbearing and unreliable US policy, which not only failed to cement the gains of previous decades but succeeded in driving Russia and China, despite their divergent interests and long history of conflict, into an alliance against the United States. Future scholars will likely consider this to be the worst foreign policy misstep in our nation’s history.
Iran’s alignment with the Sino-Russian alliance and, more recently, overtures from the Philippines and Egypt, track the continuation of this trend, as do the establishment of Chinese naval bases across the Indian Ocean from Myanmar to the Horn of Africa, and most recently, Russian moves to reestablish overseas bases in Syria, Egypt, Vietnam, and Cuba. Russia and China are able to approach foreign alliances on the basis of a rational calculus of mutual interest, rather than the dogmatic insistence on national exceptionalism that guides so much of US foreign policy today. This allows them to offer other nations, including putative US allies, better deals than the US is willing to concede.
As a direct result, barring a radical change in its foreign policy, the United States in 2035 will be marginalized by a new global order centered on Beijing and Moscow, denied access to markets and resources by trade agreements hostile to its interests, and will have to struggle to maintain influence even over its “near abroad.” It is unwise to assume, as some current strategists do, that China’s current economic problems will slow that process. Some European leaders in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler among them, assumed that the comparable boom-bust cycle the United States experienced in the 1920s and 1930s meant that the US would be a negligible factor in the European balance of power in the 1940s. I think we all know how that turned out.
Here again, barring a drastic change in US foreign policy, military planners will be forced to deal with the consequences of unwelcome shifts without being able to affect the causes of those shifts. Careful planning can, however, redirect resources away from global commitments that will not survive the process of marginalization, and toward securing the “near abroad” of the United States and withdrawing assets to the continental US to keep them from being compromised by former allies.
3. The rise of “monkeywrenching” warfare. The United States has the most technologically complex military in the history of war. While this is normally considered an advantage, it brings with it no shortage of liabilities. The most important of these is the vulnerability of complex technological systems to “monkeywrenching”—that is, strategies and tactics targeting technological weak points in order to degrade the capacities of a technologically superior force. The more complex a technology is, as a rule, the wider the range of monkeywrenching attacks that can interfere with it; the more integrated a technology is with other technologies, the more drastic the potential impacts of such attacks. The complexity and integration of US military technology make it a monkeywrencher’s dream target, and current plans for increased complexity and integration will only heighten the risks.
The risks created by the emergence of monkeywrenching warfare are heightened by an attitude that has deep roots in the culture of US military procurement: the unquestioned assumption that innovation is always improvement. This assumption has played a central role in producing weapons systems such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is so heavily burdened with assorted innovations that it has a much shorter effective range, a much smaller payload, and much higher maintenance costs than competing Russian and Chinese fighters. In effect, the designers of the F-35 were so busy making it innovative that they forgot to make it work. The same thing can be said about many other highly innovative but dubiously effective US military technologies.
Problems caused by excessive innovation can to some extent be anticipated and countered by US military planners. What makes monkeywrenching attacks by hostile states and non-state actors so serious a threat is that it may not be possible to predict them in advance. While US intelligence assets should certainly make every effort to identify monkeywrenching technologies and tactics before they are used, US forces must be aware that at any moment, critical technologies may be put out of operation or turned to the enemy’s advantage without warning. Rigorous training in responding to technological failure, and redundant systems that can operate independently of existing networks, may provide some protection against monkeywrenching, but the risk remains grave.
4. The genesis of warband culture in failed states. While JOE-35 rightly identifies the collapse of weak states into failed-state conditions as a significant military threat, a lack of attention to the lessons of history leads its authors to neglect the most serious risk posed by the collapse of states in a time of general economic retrenchment and cultural crisis. That risk is the emergence of warband culture—a set of cultural norms that dominate the terminal periods of most recorded civilizations and the dark ages that follow them, and play a central role in the historical transformation to dark age conditions.
Historians use the term “warband” to describe a force of young men whose only trade is violence, gathered around a charismatic leader and supporting itself by pillage. While warbands tend to come into being whenever public order collapses or has not yet been imposed, the rise of a self-sustaining warband culture requires a prolonged period of disorder in which governments either do not exist or cannot establish their legitimacy in the eyes of the governed, and warbands become accepted as the de facto governments of territories of various size. Once this happens, the warbands inevitably begin to move outward; the ethos and the economics of the warband alike require access to plunder, and this can best be obtained by invading regions not yet reduced to failed-state conditions, thus spreading the state of affairs that fosters warband culture in the first place.
Most civilizations have had to contend with warbands in their last years, and the record of attempts to quell them by military force is not good. At best, a given massing of warbands can be defeated and driven back into whatever stateless area provides them with their home base; a decade or two later, they can be counted on to return in force. Systematic attempts to depopulate their home base simply drive them into other areas, causing the collapse of public order there. Once warband culture establishes itself solidly on the fringes of a civilization, history suggests, the entire civilized area will eventually be reduced to failed-state conditions by warband incursions, leading to a dark age. Nothing guarantees that the modern industrial world is immune from this same process.
The spread of failed states around the periphery of the industrial world is thus an existential threat not only to the United States but to the entire project of modern civilization. What makes this a critical issue is that US foreign policy and military actions have repeatedly created failed states in which warband culture can flourish: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine are only the most visible examples. Elements of US policy toward Mexico—for example, the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning scheme—show worrisome movement in the same direction. Unless these policies are reversed, the world of 2035 may face conditions like those that have ended civilization more than once in the past.
5. The end of the Holocene environmental optimum. All things considered, the period since the final melting of the great ice sheets some six millennia ago has been extremely propitious for the project of human civilization. Compared to previous epochs, the global climate has been relatively stable, and sea levels have changed only slowly. Furthermore, the globe six thousand years ago was stocked with an impressive array of natural resources, and the capacity of its natural systems to absorb sudden shocks had not been challenged on a global level for some sixty-five million years.
None of those conditions remains the case today. Ongoing dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is rapidly destabilizing the global climate, and triggering ice sheet melting in Greenland and Antarctica that promises to send sea levels up sharply in the decades and centuries ahead. Many other modes of pollution are disrupting natural systems in a galaxy of ways, triggering dramatic environmental changes. Meanwhile breakneck extraction is rapidly depleting the accessible stocks of hundreds of different nonrenewable resources, each of them essential to some aspect of contemporary industrial society, and the capacity of natural systems to cope with the cascading burdens placed upon them by human action has already reached the breaking point in many areas.
The end of the Holocene environmental optimum—the era of relative ecological stability in which human civilization has flourished—is likely to be a prolonged process. By 2035, however, current estimates suggest that the initial round of impacts will be well under way. Shifting climate belts causing agricultural failure, rising sea levels imposing drastic economic burdens on coastal communities and the nations to which they belong, rising real costs for resource extraction driving price spikes and demand destruction, and increasingly intractable conflicts pitting states, non-state actors, and refugee populations against one another for remaining supplies of fuel, raw materials, topsoil, food, and water.
US military planners will need to take increasingly hostile environmental conditions into account. They will also need to prepare for mass movements of refugees out of areas of flooding, famine, and other forms of environmental disruption, on a scale exceeding current refugee flows by orders of magnitude. Finally, since the economic impact of these shifts on the United States will affect the nation’s ability to provide necessary resources for its military, plans for coping with cascading environmental crises will have to take into account the likelihood that the resources needed to do so may be in short supply.
Those are the five contexts for conflict I foresee. What makes them even more challenging than they would otherwise be, of course, is that none of them occur in a vacuum, and each potentially feeds into the others. Thus, for example, it would be in the national interest of Russia and/or China to help fund and supply a domestic insurgency in the United States (contexts 1 and 2); emergent warbands may well be able to equip themselves with the necessary gear to engage in monkeywrenching attacks against US forces sent to contain them (contexts 4 and 3); disruptions driven by environmental change will likely help foster the process of warband formation (contexts 5 and 4), and so on.
That’s the future hiding in plain sight: the implications of US policies in the present and recent past, taken to their logical conclusions. The fact that current Pentagon assessments of the future remain so tightly fixed on the phenomena of the present, with no sense of where those phenomena lead, gives me little hope that any of these bitter outcomes will be avoided.
****************
There will be no regularly scheduled Archdruid Report next week. Blogger's latest security upgrade has made it impossible for me to access this blog while I'm out of town, and I'll be on the road (and my backup moderator unavailable) for a good part of what would be next week's comment cycle. I've begun the process of looking for a new platform for my blogs, and I'd encourage any of my readers who rely on Blogger or any other Google product to look for alternatives before you, too, get hit by an "upgrade" that makes it more trouble to use than it's worth.

#### 269 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 269 of 269

n=ro said...

  @ JMG,
  Ah, right, that is interesting! I guess this is also why you still stand by your prediction, that Trump is going to win, even though the Polls don't quite look like it? It also seems to be an all-too-convenient finding for establishment democrats to further push the idea, that Trump voters are purely motivated by bigotry...
  nero

  10/23/16, 2:51 AM
Bogatyr said...

  JMG, I don't know if this will get to you before you go away on your road trip (and I'm sure a dozen other people will also link to it), but here's the beginning of your veterans' insurgency, perhaps. Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses a decade after going to war.

  10/23/16, 3:14 AM
patriciaormsby said...

  John, you have my sincerest admiration. I'm trying to imagine the piling on that didn't make the grade for posting. The topic tends to provoke such an emotional response, that I have made it off-limits now to all but one particularly cosmopolitan relative (who disagrees with me), and as the situation heats up, I'm thinking of extending my silence on it to on-line forums as well. My prayers to you for a safe trip and return to us!
  @Shane, your lack of faith in digital technology is such a relief for me! From my distant refuge from presto-digitation, it still looks like quite a long stretch of darkening night before dawn. But I suspect you are right that the most grandiose threats will never see fulfillment, being applied locally with great fanfare and then sort of fading off into the sunset. In the meantime, though, I may yet be forced to move into an off-grid shack.
  @Patricia M, I can relate to this. It's the stress of the situation. I had a set of logic puzzle books sitting on my shelf for decades before being used up rapidly around 2008. I love disappearing into the simple world of illustrated logic, piecing together someone else's lovely scene in intricate detail, and then mostly discarding these. It's a total time waste! As John suggests, I would prefer to be doing something productive. In situations where I can't bring the kitchen work and my husband's droning on and on about some big problem (how he deals with stress) so I can't focus on writing or reading, this provides a sort of relief.

  10/23/16, 4:17 AM
Shane W said...

  JMG, there's also the possibility that the "civil unrests" could cross--for example, in my area, if Lexington or Louisville went up after a Trump victory, then it's highly that vigilante Trump supporters could come in to put it down.

  10/23/16, 4:52 AM
Bill Pulliam said...

  Yard signs -- the very few signs I see around here, nearly all Trump, are in middle class and rich yards. The poor people's yards display nothing. This is in marked contrast to earlier years when Bush signs were very prominent in front of single-wide trailers and hillbilly homesteads.
  As for polling -- Errors of about 3-4% in general elections are common in recent decades, and lead to such things as Obama's unexpectedly strong win in 2012 and the Brexit surprise. But the margins here, now, are bigger than this (if you average them all and do not just cherry pick the outlyiers that lean whichever way you prefer), and all the rationalles being trotted out as to why "this year is different" have been trotted out the same in just about every previous election cycle as well. The fact that Trump has very poor ground-level mobilization and voter registration operations suggests that even if there is a wave of sentiment for him among the disaffected working class, he's not gonna get them to the polls in enough numbers to really overturn the "likely voter" models.
  National polls that break out by class and race find Trump's strongest support among the white middle class. That has not been changing. The people at his rallies ranting about immigrants taking all our jobs are mostly people who do in fact have jobs, trucks, and houses. Those who have lost jobs to NAFTA tend to not vote or go to rallies. Perhaps they instinctively know that rich b***ards are not going to give a flip about them regardless of what party or idealogy they proclaim.

  10/23/16, 7:59 AM
Patricia Mathews said...

  @JMG - re incoherent post - Aldous Huxley. Who has always deserved three wizard's hats and a crystal ball for calling the Unraveling culture on the nose. And apologies for babbling. Will take a vow of silence, but could not resist the following:
  NYC catches up with Neolithic Egypt! Yes, indeed! They have rediscovered, not the wheel, but the time-honored cheap and excellent method of urban rat control. This from a story on Page 5 of the Albuquerque Journal. Three guesses what. Sorry - pass the cat food - they crunched a lot of data to find out where the rat problems were worst, and again where the feral cats congregated, and moved the cats to where the rats were. Returning again to the quiet room ...

  10/23/16, 10:56 AM
Stacey Neanderthal said...

  Apropos of last week...
  http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-superhero-we-need

  10/23/16, 12:32 PM
Phil Harris said...

  JMG and all
  I needed to remind myself of the history of Ukraine and of NATO expansion since the collapse of USSR. I hope this is bearable.
  [NB Viktor Yanukovych was elected President in February 2010. The NATO Lisbon summit was in November 2010. Yanukovych was deposed February 2014.]
  http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_68828.htm
  “Lisbon Summit Declaration, 20 Nov. 2010. Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Lisbon
  “At the 2008 Bucharest Summit we agreed that Georgia will become a member of NATO and we reaffirm all elements of that decision …”
  “… Recognising the sovereign right of each nation to freely choose its security arrangements, we respect Ukraine’s policy of “non-bloc” status. … We welcome the Ukrainian Government’s commitment to continue to pursue fully Ukraine’s Distinctive Partnership with NATO … and in this context, we recall that NATO’s door remains open, as stated in the Bucharest Summit decision. … and appreciate the constructive role Ukraine plays in this respect, including through its participation in NATO-led operations.”
  From another NATO report
  http://www.nato-pa.int/default.Asp?SHORTCUT=2439
  “The Ukrainian nation seemed to have made its ultimate strategic choice at Kyiv’s Maidan square in the “Orange Revolution” of December 2004 and January 2005, only to elect as president five years later Viktor Yanukovych, the very leader of the opposing camp whose 2004 election had been overturned as fraudulent. …
  “Since independence at the end of 1991, Ukraine has been divided between an anti-Russian, pro-European West and a more pro-Russian South and East … [incompetent presidential rulers 1991 to 1999 oversaw, inter alia.] hyperinflation … authoritarian leanings … isolated from the West by arms sales to rogue States and a scandal … murder of a journalist. A reformist period from 1999 to 2001, with [pro-western] former central banker Viktor Yushchenko as Prime Minister and Yulia Tymoshenko as Deputy Prime Minister for fuel and energy, was short-lived. The Orange Revolution of 2004 and 2005, in which citizen protests overturned the fraudulent election of [pro- eastern] Yanukovych, brought Yushchenko and Tymoshenko back into power … Ukraine grew at about 7.5% a year and attained WTO membership in 2008. … In many ways, the “Orange” period of the Ukrainian history was one endless political crisis, and the resulting frustration of many Ukrainians, coupled with a deep economic recession in 2009, brought back to power a political leader [Viktor Yanukovych] with a very different foreign and domestic policy agenda."
  Nevertheless, Viktor Yanukovych endeavoured to get an Association agreement with EU. See this fairly balanced account of Ukraine’s relations and tensions with both EU and Moscow up to October 2011 and note the early Yanukovych quote below.
  http://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/european-issues/0214-eu-ukraine-relations-what-developments-have-there-been-since-the-election-of-viktor-yanukovych
  "I intend to establish stable, strong partnerships with the European Union, Russia and the USA," he explained in a speech delivered to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in April 2010
  Although an agreement still looked possible with the EU during the Polish Presidency, Yanukovych failed to sign at the end of 2013.
  From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union_relations
  “But although the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had urged the Ukrainian parliament to adopt laws so that Ukraine could meet the EU's criteria, the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing the association agreement on 21 November 2013
  Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014 after violence in Kiev.
  best
  Phil H

  10/23/16, 12:35 PM
Danil Osipchuk said...

  Regarding Ukraine.
  I think the other side's view may be of some interest. Even if it may result in some itching of haters of Russia.
  It happens so, that I have close ties with Ukraine, my family name is Ukrainian, my (late) mother rose there.
  My wife and her relatives (her brother and mother) are from Ukraine - exactly from the region under Donetsk, where the war is going on (Yasinovataya city). Right now, my wife's brother is in the train, returning from there. He was doing some paperwork - Russia offers citizenship and pension for people of those regions willing to migrate, he collected necessary papers.
  So I dire to say, we know fully well what is going on there, how it began and unfolded.
  It began from the massive mockery and throwing dirt at then president Yanukovich and common past with Russia. That was a massive campaign to delegitimize the power and reshape the history, lots of cartoons on TV, scandals in mass media, nationalism propaganda, etc. Not that Yanukovich is clean - far from it, but in principle he is not different from oligarchs who stayed. Now try this with current rulers. They have a 'ministry of information policy', that is not a joke, google it.
  Back then it was really in full overdrive - an orchestrated campaign. What is disturbing, that Ukraine already went through it before - the first Maidan. The backfire from the first putsch resulted in election of the opposite - Yanukovich. Anyway, now the second Maidan followed, accompanied by the demands of the West not to use force against 'peaceful protesters' (a mass of people who bought into propaganda + nazies with torches).
  After series of provocations culminated by shooting which was blamed on riot police (but investigation has gone nowhere - angle of attack, bullets and the type of weapons, photos from scene everything points that the shooters where in building occupied by protesters), Yanukovich chickened out and fled. Plenty of traces point to the West (cookies of Nuland, a leaked discussion who should be a president famous screw the Europe moment, a discussion about some foul play with the regard of mentioned shootings).

  10/23/16, 1:42 PM
Danil Osipchuk said...

  Only after the referendum in Crimea happened. The vote was popular. That was the point when Russian government stepped in.
  And then on the wave of the Crimea success, a popular local movement started in Donetsk and Lugansk (actually in other places to lesser extent) to join Russia.
  Now you have to understand, that people there had every reason to disagree with what was happening. The president they vote for was overthrown. They were always treated like the second class people or worse - labels like 'biomass', 'vatnik' (a thick outdoor jacket associated with 'stupid' working class people as a contrast to cultural/intellectual elite living in Kiev ) and later the 'May barbecue' after the Odessa massacre (google it). And those people identify themselves only slightly less with Russia than people of Crimea.
  Actual tank and warplanes were sent to suppress them by Kiev, even though at that point they where unarmed and just expressed disagreement. So much for not applying force. The separatist movement turned into armed uprising.
  Russian government found itself in a difficult situation - they didn't want those territories (like Crimea). But to leave them to Ukraine was and still is politically impossible, because people in Russia will see it as a betrayal of Russian people stayed under the hostile regime. Quite a lot of people already see it as betrayal - they expected something along the lines of Crimea.
  Hence the Minsk agreements. For those who care - a rough outline is to create a safeguards (special status for republics and amnesty) so that Russia could let this territories go back into Ukraine, without risk of raids of terror on those who stayed.
  The very structure and and existence of those agreements is rather clear evidence of the intention.
  People try to live as if they are 'normal' countries. They are constantly in process of repair of civil infrastructure which is getting destroyed by Ukraine - they are constantly shelled, however last half-year of so it is not such intensive. People are very tired. And they will never go back to Urkaine because the know who is killing them and who started the whole thing. Frankly, I can not imagine if Minsk agreements are fulfilled and they have to go back after all they suffered.
  So it is not a chaos there. It is a limbo. Also steering a civil war to weaken other country is very against of Russian culture - believe it or not. It is unimaginable. Revolution - yes, but there must be ideological grounds. After the failure of the communism movement no such grounds exist.
  You can not imagine the level of despise and disgust towards the West with its lies and twisting of what is going all. People are burned by rightful justness, that is why so many volunteers.

  10/23/16, 1:42 PM
Cherokee Organics said...

  Hi JMG,
  Thank you for the explanation and I also hope that it is picked up and at least considered, although that mode of communication doesn't generally support ongoing dialogue. I have noticed a tendency over the past few decades for our politicians to disappear into reports - there is a lot of noise when the report is released and then nothing, but it does make people feel better somehow. Down here they love a Royal Commission and wow must the legal people involved in that business get fat and juicy at that feed trough. That is not saying that the Royal Commission is not a good thing, it is just a very expensive process...
  Speaking of 1984 Newspeak (you could also read that as News-peak and it may have a similar meaning), I spotted this delightful article in the newspaper on the housing affordability crisis down here: Scott Morrison puts states on notice over house prices.
  I can't make this stuff up but apparently the quote from the article is that our federal treasurer Scott Morrison will say: ""Housing in Australia, especially in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, is expensive and increasingly unaffordable, but that does not mean it is over valued," he will say, according to an advance copy of the speech seen by Fairfax Media."
  I'm pretty sure he just said both yes and no at the same time which is a commendable achievement. I have come across cultures that are unable to say no. Fair enough. But those cultures do not try to say both yes and no at the same time...
  My gut feeling is that the article - which there is no need to read - treats the housing issue as a supply issue. That trick has been pulled since the Regan era and it is now well beyond its use by date. And recently unemployed people from say the car industry will be funnelled into the construction industry. No doubts about it, the powers that be must be really fearful if this is where it has got to.
  Cheers
  Chris

  10/23/16, 2:00 PM
Bill Pulliam said...

  JMG -- any post election unrest will be happening under Obama's watch not Trump or Clinton's. he remains far more popular than either of them, so this is probably a good thing. But, I don't think Clinton's people have ever been passionate enough to riot (even Sanders weren't) and Trumps epic missteps in the last month have probably damped down the fires behind him, too.

  10/23/16, 2:22 PM
David, by the lake said...

  Re the election
  I have mentioned previously, I believe, the not-insubstantial number of *hand-made* Trump signsI 've seen in my part of semi-rural WI. One of these has been joined by a larger anti-Ryan sign, which I take as a rather signiicant step against the Republicans establishment. Despite the talking-head commentary to the contrary, I do not see an way of the Republican establishment stuffing the genie of the working class back into the bottle -- they openly speak of how the establishment (bipartisan) screws them over. The modern Republican Party, in my view, is already on the path the Whigs trod over a century and a half ago.
  The question now is, how long until the Left realizes that they, too, are being taken to the cleaners? Whoever can join this fragmented workin class together will have a potent political force on his/her hands. It will perhaps take more eterioration of conditions before folks can beak themselves out of the roles to which they've been assigned.

  10/23/16, 2:43 PM
Art Myatt said...

  JMG,
  Assuming you go with Wordpress, I think it is a great idea to use a responsive template. That gives you a website that automatically looks different on a smartphone than on a regular computer screen. It can make your main content (blog posts and comments) readable on a smartphone. That's important because for some huge number of people, the main or possibly only way they have access to the internet is through a smartphone. I would guess you would want your posts, etc. to be available to these people as well as to people with larger screens at their disposal.
  "2016" is the free responsive Wordpress template I use for athf3.org. Look at the site on your regular computer and on a smartphone to see the difference. Using a smartphone, you can still access all parts of the site, though you will have to activate a drop-down menu on the smartphone to get to the pages that appear as 'tabs' on the computer screen.
  "2016" is available whether you use wordpress.com (free hosting with their advertising and restricted capabilities to add 'plugins') or wordpress.org (free content management system, no ads [unless you want to run your own ads] and you pay for hosting). Other free responsive templates, as well as custom templates you pay for, are also available.
  Decisions, decisions. And no matter what choice you make, it's guaranteed to cost you something - time if not money - and is also guaranteed not to last forever. The nice thing about wordpress.com is that it's free, so you can put up an entirely experimental site and screw around with in in order to learn what you do and don't want do 'in public,' so to speak. By me, that's one of the best ways to research the subject. (I've done several now defunct Wordpress blogs and one on Blogger.) If you find it does everything you want it to do, great. If not, then at least you haven't spent any money finding out.

  10/23/16, 3:25 PM
Urban Harvester said...

  It is fascinating how common it is for people to think that if we only stay our course that things can't help but get better. And when I suggest that any number of crises could result from our current practices and shortsightedness I tend to be accused of being an apocolypticist and that if I frame things in such pessimistic terms I won't ever convince anybody of taking action. It's true that my debating skills are sub par and that I can be angry at times at our cultures' blindness to the future - but it is great to have examples like this weeks post for how to argue for more realistic futures ahead of us and how to prepare for them. I'm getting ready to move house and I've got this, your dark age America posts, and retrotopia in mind as I figure out my next steps. Many thanks for your insights!

  10/23/16, 4:16 PM
patriciaormsby said...

  @Ray Wharton, very perceptive comment! Thank you for giving me a sense of the situation there. One things for certain, we receive a completely different mix of narratives here in Japan from what I am hearing from America.
  If you are in Colorado, I may wind up there for a spell if familial mayhem breaks out before air travel becomes impossible.

  10/23/16, 4:54 PM
patriciaormsby said...

  @Ursachi, thank you for telling us the situation from your perspective. It is good to have direct information from the region.

  10/23/16, 4:57 PM
onething said...

  Another thing I'm pondering is whether it is even ethical for vote for anyone in the democratic party in light of the fact that the DNC was caught edging out Sanders and the Wasserman Shultz woman leaving in disgrace. It seems to me that they have delegitimized themselves and if people vote for democrats (esp president) they are stating thereby that it is OK, cheating and corruption and breaking the rules will be tolerated by the electorate. I don't kid myself that the Republican party has not perhaps stolen an election, but once you are openly caught, there has to be a reaction.

  10/23/16, 5:28 PM
PO said...

  I think the author here, as well as many readers, fail to understand that US foreign policy specifically seeks to create failed states, perceived as a beneficial goal. The US foreign policy establishment intentionally created a failed state in Libya, is seeking to create one in Syria (by their own writings). A failed state, they think, is a piece taken off the chessboard and is ripe for resolve plunder.
  The Archdruid suggests this is a danger, with warbands leaking over, ultimately, into neighboring states. We are getting this already, will continue to get more of the same. The current term for it is "blowback" but State and is tools, the Pentagon and CIA, are utterly blind to this and absolutely refuse to learn from the past, thus failed states will continue to be generated as a goal in a desperate attempt to maintain US hegemony by leaving shattered those small states that dare resist our orders.

  10/23/16, 6:34 PM
Rafiki56 said...

  Hi JMG --
  I wanted to respond to Trevor's query about the Hill Group report.
  I first heard of that report in a post on Cassandra's Legacy. I was sufficiently intrigued (it was claimed to have predicted the recent downturn of oil prices) to actually buy a copy and study it. My undergraduate degree is in Engineering Physics, so the claim that it's analysis was based on thermodynamics was also intriguing.
  Note that their analysis applies only to crude oil (a hydrocarbon mix with an API of 35.7). This substance has a higher energy density than any of the other hydrocarbon mixes we now call 'oil'.
  They divide the economy in to the petroleum producing sector (PPS) and everything else (NEGS for Non-Energy Goods & Services).
  They observe that the energy used by the PPS (Etp) to locate, extract, refine and deliver oil to the NEGS comes primarily from the oil itself, so that for each extracted barrel of oil, a certain fraction is used by the PPS and the rest is available for NEGS.
  They also observe that, thanks to depletion, the fraction used by PPS increases with time. They claim to have estimated how this fraction changes with time using thermodynamics to get the general equation and then estimating the parameters from historic production data (more on that later). Thus the minimum price that the PPS must charge rises with time to cover its ever-increasing costs.
  In section 6.1 they observe that "the price of a unit of petroleum can not exceed the value of the economic activity that the energy it supplies to the end consumer can generate". In other words, the maximum price that NEGS can pay cannot exceed the amount it can make by using the energy it gets from its fraction of a barrel. Since the amount of energy in a barrel is fixed, the increasing fraction taken by PPS means there is a decreasing fraction for NEGS, and hence the maximum price that NEGS can pay must decrease with time because there is an upper bound to the efficiency of converting energy to work (i.e. goods & services).
  According to the report's calculations, in 2012 these two curves intersected, and henceforward the minimum price required by the PPS will always exceed the maximum that NEGS can afford to pay, resulting in "demand destruction" and corresponding reduction in extraction by the PPS. 2012 was the year that (according to the report) it took half of the energy in a barrel to locate, extract, refine, and deliver it to the NEGS. According to Graph 31, the price of oil will plunge to zero somewhere between 2020 and 2035, depending on how close to the theoretical maximum efficiency NEGS can get in its use of oil.
  So the basic logic of the argument should be familiar to readers of this blog. Things started to come apart when I looked at the use of thermodynamics to estimate Etp (section 3.1 of the report). They appear to be using a technique called "Exergey Analysis" [Exergy is the maximum useful work possible during a process that brings the system into equilibrium with its environment]. However, in my opinion, they don't clearly define their control volume and omit some energy flows across that boundary, so I have questions about how they set up their entropy rate balance equation. Even if one grants that it is correct, the derivation from that equation takes huge steps from one equation to the next, with scarcely a hint as to how one actually goes from one equation to the next. I'm a fairly skilled mathematician, but I'm still puzzling over some of the steps.
  So, my jury is still out. Their derivation may be correct, or there may be a flaw in their logic. It would have been helpful to have a more detailed derivation as an appendix to the report.

  10/23/16, 10:00 PM
Nancy Sutton said...

  Re: adult coloring books and the glowing rectangles, I wonder if the books are a healthy alternative to the rectangles. Friends who love the books use them as a form of (effective) meditation, and I understand that the pixelation,etc., of the rectangles causes a very particular brain condition, that resists sleep, for one thing. Perhaps the books concentrate attention and the rectangles scatter attention. Hmmm...

  10/23/16, 10:17 PM
ViewFromHere said...

  JMG - in case you haven't seen, North Dakota publishes monthly oil production data for the state. Here --> https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/historicaloilprodstats.pdf You will see that the data support your premise that oil production is declining, though the reasons could be economic as well as physical limitations. Best hopes!

  10/24/16, 4:02 AM
Unknown said...

  @JMG,
  I've commented here before both as "Joel" and as "Naval Officer."
  I have a reasoned critique to add to the discussion...
  http://maritimesecurity.asia/free-2/maritime-security-asia/corvettes-belong-in-the-surface-force-structure/
  Argues for the construction of lots of cheaper, smaller ships that could supplement our existing force as well as increase its resilience.

  10/24/16, 6:22 AM
Mountain said...

  Hi JMG,
  That is a lot of pageviews, which I expected, but when considering options, is an important number to have. I am perusing what is out there, I'm hesitant to recommend shared hosting with those kinds of numbers. Most inexpensive plans I've seen start at about 100,000 pageviews. I'll see what I can come up with.

  10/24/16, 7:17 AM
David, by the lake said...

  Late in our comment cycle, but an article openly talking about the fate of workers in the new normal...
  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/workers-will-simply-try-to-survive-rather-than-prosper-as-tech-takes-over-the-economy-2016-10-24?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
  My first thought is, how can the assumption be made, as it implicitly appears to be, that workers will settle for this state of affairs?

  10/24/16, 7:52 AM
David, by the lake said...

  John--
  I had an internal connecting-of-the-dots a bit ago that I hope will help resolve some of my frustration at our political flailings in this country. I suddenly saw an analogy between can/will on the political front with technical feasibility vs economic viability as you've discussed in other posts (internet, SST, manned space travel, etc). I've found myself exasperated with our policy choices in that I've focused on the fact that we *can* choose differently (we could, for example, choose to give up the empire, develop a self-reliant and sustainable economy, and invest in goods and services for the public welfare) -- analogous to technical feasibility -- but I've ignored the fact that most (if that all) of these choices are now more or less politically impractical -- economic viability -- in that no politician who advocates these positions would get elected and anyone elected is not going to pursue them for any number of reasons (including worldview, power, and pecuniary gain). Essentially, the system *has* to jam before it can be cleared. And I am trying to accept this...
  Have a safe trip!

  10/24/16, 9:58 AM
Sven Eriksen said...

  @JMG
  Thank you for this. The only material I had been able to dig up on T.O.S. so far, had been churned out by the Pentagon's own domesticated intellectuals, and I noted with a certain amusement that they tried to make it sound good by ostensibly avoiding to actually describe what it consisted of...

  10/24/16, 10:31 AM
Susan J said...

  I appreciate your thoughtfulness re: future application of US military force. I could not find a home in your "contexts of conflicts" for internal instability caused by unemployment and environmental changes. For example, disruptions caused by drought and preceding warband formation.

  10/24/16, 2:16 PM
latheChuck said...

  On adult coloring books: I have one, but it's a very special coloring book on human physiology. I got it very cheaply at a garage sale, and found evidence inside that it was bought to be used with a college-level course. The act of coloring the structures and annotations (flows, for example) forces the student to spend a lot more time with the illustration than simply looking at a page for a few seconds, and thinking "OK. Cells. Nucleus, membranes, mitochondria... got it. Next!"
  I've only colored a few pages, but it's awakened a new sense of wonder at the self-organized complexity of it all. (When I say "self-organized", I'm not asserting spontaneous origin, or denying it; I just mean every single individual organism is a miracle. DNA did THAT?!!)

  10/24/16, 2:29 PM
Golocyte Golo said...

  Mr. Greer, again thanks for your reply. You are correct; I am a "coastal liberal" as it were, have a salary class job, and it is true that I don't have much contact with the wage class or the true state of their resentments. But I still maintain my view here, as my opinion is that societies can withstand substantially greater stress than currently exists in the USA. It seems we will just have to remain in disagreement here.
  As an example of a western(ish) society that *does* seem near its breaking point right now, one could look to Venezuela (I have no personal contacts there, but have been following the news with interest). It appears that that society's checks-and-balances were removed by a hard-left governing class who claimed to rule in the people's name and for the benefit of all. They centralized decision-making because their particular leftist theories said a strong government (the people's agent in society, after all) was necessary to combat the forces that were against equality, wealth distribution, and economic justice.
  But of course heavily centralized power means that when things go downhill, there is nobody left to blame except the one serious power structure the government has allowed to stand: the government itself.
  Just now, the Maduro government is attempting to remove the very last systemic checks on its power, even while it has proved itself totally inept at addressing the economic crisis. Ideological blinders appear to be in full effect, and it seems Maduro's only plan of action is implementing the same policies it had before, but with more force, while blaming others (the USA, the corporations, selfish hoarders, etc) for the escalation of the problems. In that society, it is easy to see how daily mass demonstrations will move on to organized, open violence.

  10/24/16, 2:48 PM
Golocyte Golo said...

  Toomas, amazing work you're doing! Knowing more about your motivations, I would say that Hatcher is probably not the way you want to go, after all.
  I am quite curious how your exploration of radio engineering got you started on mathematical foundations.... and how you found a book like Munkrees in the first place!
  FWIW, the mathematical foundations behind electromagnetics, and radio engineering, would lead you from the first few chapters of Munkrees over to the topic of analysis (eg. Rudin' classic book "Principles of Mathematical Analysis") and then to measure theory and integration theory (eg. the first half of Royden's "Real Analysis"). After that, you'd be in a position to understand essentially 80%-90% of the highest-level mathematics in the field---everything except the complex analysis parts.
  The great text on the physics of electromagnetism is Jackson's "Classical Electrodynamics." But to really understand the Relativity part of it, you will have to go down yet another rabbit hole: differential geometry.
  Sadly, none of those books are free.

  10/24/16, 3:07 PM
Justin said...

  Rafiki56,
  I share your skepticism of the Hills report. Although their curve fitting is elegant and convincing, I can't quite wrap my head around all their logic and equations. Of course, this doesn't disprove the Hills report. I have a degree in mechanical engineering, and never had much trouble with thermodynamics including entropy concepts, but share your skepticism about control volumes, especially because natural gas, coal, and yes, renewables, are not really factored into the hills group analyisis.
  Then again, the whole thing passes the smell test in my assessment, even though I don't take their predictions as gospel due to the control volume issues and the near-certitude of 'above-ground' problems throwing a wrench into things.

  10/24/16, 6:21 PM
Unknown said...

  @David,
  "My first thought is, how can the assumption be made, as it implicitly appears to be, that workers will settle for this state of affairs?"
  I'm pretty sure the assumption is that they have no choice, that the the working class are just sacrifices to the altar of progress. How long until the author is next in line...
  -Joel

  10/25/16, 3:30 AM
. said...

  Chris,
  "My gut feeling is that the article - which there is no need to read - treats the housing issue as a supply issue. That trick has been pulled since the Regan era and it is now well beyond its use by date."
  We have exactly the same housing insanity here in Ireland and the same insistence on it being a supply issue. I wasn't aware that that has a long history. What do you think the cause is?
  Mallow.

  10/25/16, 4:32 AM
Toomas (Tom) Karmo said...

  Coordinated Universal Time (= UTC = EST+5 = EDT+4): 20161025T134442Z
  Dear Golocyte Golo:
  Thanks for your posting timestamped "10/24/16, 3:07 PM". This is exactly what is needed at my desk - a concrete suggestion for reading, with pointers to the right authors.
  You ask, "I am quite curious how your exploration of radio engineering got you started on mathematical foundations..." Without expatiating at tedious length, I should explain that I moved into technical stuff only in middle age, having started out in humanities (doing analytical philosophy, with a concentration on philosophical logic and formal logic, and in formal logic emphasizing modal and tense logic, as in Kripke and Prior - unfortunately at the expense of the mathematical logic celebrated in Gödel, Turing, and Alonzo Church).
  Being trained in my youth as a humanist, I was shocked in middle age by the lack of rigour in the Dept of Physics. There I indeed did academically not all that well: there are a couple of physics C-minuses on my transcript, as well as at least one computer-science C-minus.
  An absolute low point, which I will now recount, sums it up.
  Picture a big physics auditorium in first year, with Professor Kindly-Call-Me-God doing something univariate, perhaps deducing some law of one-dimensional kinematics. Prof. KCMG first writes on the board "dv/dx dx/dt", and then says in his booming British-Armed-Forces accent "We're all physicists HEAH" (meaning, "Here we are not mathematicians"), and then crosses out the "dx" in numerator and denominator. This little manoeuvre allows him to append, triumphantly, "= dv/dt".
  What I am trying to do is to atone for the outrage against the cosmos committed by Prof. KCMG and his many mathematically careless co-workers. My dream is Applied Maths, or Mathematical Physics, done with the same attention to rigour as one gets in Pure Maths, or indeed in Gödel-Turing-Church, and with Prof. KCMG's Leibniz notation banished. There must be lots of people at Cambridge Univ who do this. I know that this is done for classical mechanics by Sussman and Wisdom at MIT ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of_Classical_Mechanics).
  Hastily, gratefully,
  Tom
  http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com
  PS: I should additionally remark, for the general benefit of this present readership, that I have in the last few days posted to my blog a pair of essays addressing some of JMG's nice points from earlier this month on his present "TADR" blog. These are points JMG made in his essays regarding deep time and the age of the terrestrial biosphere.

  10/25/16, 7:11 AM
Gavin Harris said...

  The problem with reading the JOE is that it is as much a political as intelligence document. The authors are intending it to form the basis of budget justifications as much as it is a genuine attempt to forecast the future. Therefore these documents tend to portray a world in which we need to continue to keep funding whatever big budget projects are in flight, even after those projects have been superseded by changes on the ground. That is because the people in charge are the ones with the most invested in these projects and the most to gain. Thus we invariably see militaries bringing forward systems that are marginal improvements on older systems rather than complete game changers. It is only once conflict starts and thee systems reveal their full suite of failures that space opens up for genuine innovation. Though I fear that the next time we get into that situation, the genuine innovation is going to be looking for a better rock delivery system. Its a shame that political and military elders fail to spend more effort on systems designed to prevent war and the concept of not going to a foreign country and ruining it for the locals.
  With regards to the end of the British Empire, it should be remembered that while the British did give up their empire, it was forced upon them by a combination of local economic destruction by WW2 and its aftermath, and the direct actions of both the newly risen 20th century empires. Niall Ferguson has written extensively on the subject and details how the British Foreign Office, under pressure from the US, initially formed a handover plan that would take 50 - 100 years (depending on country) and was intended to create a strong local middle class, established respect for democracy and an Anglic legal system. Instead, both the US and USSR, pressured the UK directly and through supporting local political/terrorist proxies (why does that sound familiar?). As a result, the FO and British political establishment essentially just walked away from the empire in less than ten years, knowing full well that most of the countries formed at the end of empire wouldn't survive as modern democracies but unable to persuade the US or USSR that that would be a problem.

  10/25/16, 7:15 AM
nuku said...

  @.said
  re “housing is just a supply side problem“: same thing here in New Zealand. Our clueless Gov’t, led by john Key, a millionaire former currency trader (read gambler), lets in 100,000+ immigrants per year in a country of 4,000,000, but claims the outrageous house price rise (average house price in Auckland is $1,000,000) is just lack of new houses. Meanwhile, the city is in gridlock, all municipal services are stretched to their limits, high school teachers bailing out of their jobs because they cannot afford housing, plumbers charging $120/hour...
  Why? Well my cynical side says 1) immigrants drive down wages and make Key’s affluent business owner buddies richer, 2) those now on the so-called “property ladder” who are Key’s core voters are feeling richer every day due to their houses being worth more, and are therefore inclined to back the Gov’t whose policies are making it all happen. The political opposition is just as clueless.
  Greed is rampant and so is corruption here in “clean green“ land of the Hobbit.

  10/25/16, 3:03 PM
Cherokee Organics said...

  Hi dot Mallow,
  What a great question. :-)!
  Well, way back in those heady days of the late 70's and early 80's when the hard realities of the Oil crisis had sunk in and the US was facing serious economic contraction, some cheeky wag of an politician or economist (or school of such people) came up with the fascinating slogan of "Reaganomics" which basically treated every economic problem as a supply issue. You see economists believe that demand is basically unlimited and they describe that problem as the basic economic problem. You'll note that they rarely question this basic assumption as to its validity on a planet of finite resources! ;-)! Anyway, in its most basic form, supply side economics is an attempt to get more stuff to consumers and cheaper in whatever form that takes. You don't have to be Einstein to see that eventually that policy has serious diminishing returns.
  What you are seeing in Ireland is the same story here: Stagflation. Unemployment (often masked by growth in under employment) is rising and costs are rising. If you are in the housing market, you see rising house prices as a good thing. If you are not in the housing market you see the rise in house prices for what it is: Inflation.
  The politicians are setting up a meme that the rise in house prices is somehow a supply issue, and there is a grain of truth in that, and so they can engage in squabbles between different policy bodies and avoid taking action to address the core issues. Down here, the Federal Government which has nothing to do with housing (which is a state controlled matter) is blaming the states for the lack of supply. However, the Federal mob do control interest rates which they are pushing lower and immigration which they are pushing higher and so they ensure rising house prices continue. The state governments have set up a system for housing approvals which is basically very complex (and I have negotiated that beast of a system), but they also benefit from rising house prices as they receive more stamp duty from house sales and also land tax. The local government who administers the housing approval system receives more funds as rising house prices leads to higher property rate taxes.
  Everyone is enjoying a good feed, but what those three tiers of government won’t tell you anytime soon is that they have all committed to future spending which they have no (or not nearly enough) provisions for. Watch this space… And only the Federal government can print money – although as we are seeing, that policy has diminishing returns too and it runs counter to the objective of low prices for stuff. You will note that inflation is being channelled into housing and other equities. It is a feel good thing, but that too faces a tipping point. Sun Tzu advised never to back your opponent into a corner and the powers that be would do well to consider that.
  The basic problem is that everyone is conflicted about the whole issue and so it will continue. Whilst they are all bickering about this craziness, which is inevitably self-defeating, I just quietly went off and did something else.
  Hope that explains it?
  Cheers
  Chris

  10/25/16, 3:27 PM
Kevin Warner said...

  I'm wondering if another factor which should be planned in might be smaller states challenging the entity that they are a part of. I am not only thinking of Brexit here but also Walloon's refusal to sign the EU-Canada Treaty on the grounds that a part of the treaty contains secret corporate systems which allows corporations to sue states which will be prosecuted by corporate prosecutors and judges (https://www.rt.com/business/363920-eu-ultimatum-belgium-ceta/). Interesting to see if they take it all the way.
  European Commissioners are already panicking and saying that they need to enact two-tier authority to stop this. That is, a bunch of elites sign the treaties and the states will have to fall in line to fulfill them because democracy. That should work out OK. What could possibly go wrong?
  As the poster says: "It is 2016 and suddenly strange women laying in ponds distributing swords is starting to look like a pretty good basis for a system of government"

  10/25/16, 4:41 PM
Ozark Chinquapin said...

  Golocyte,
  You make a good point about Venezuela, the U.S. isn't at the point Venezuela is at yet, which is why i don't expect the outcome of this election to result in a sustained open revolt, even if there are riots in the short term. However, a lot can change in ten years, and JMG has put the breaking point for the US in the mid-2020s in both Twilight's Last Gleaming and Retrotopia.
  Using Venezuela as an example again, (with the same caveat as yours that my info is only from what I can gather secondhand from reading about the situation) I remember ten years ago that Chavez was still popular there, there were plenty of American leftists praising what he had done in Venezuela and hoping it would be the wave of the future for Latin America.
  On the other hand, ten years ago I remember reading articles about Russia that treated it as a land with no hope, a country that since its collapse was worthy only of pity, where large number were drinking themselves to death with vodka because they had no future.
  Also, ten years ago I remember there was plenty of talk in the peak oil scene and to some degree elsewhere of the Euro becoming the dominant world currency and America being superceded by Europe.
  The seeds of Venezuela's demise, Russia's revitalization, and the EU's current tension were growing ten years ago, but still the results weren't what most people were thinking would happen. It's interesting to see how those ideas that made sense to so many ten years have quietly disappeared. The U.S. being in as bad or worse shape in ten years as Venezuela is now doesn't sound unlikely at all to me, especially now that the cold war has restarted. Especially if Clinton is elected and actually tries to implement the no-fly zone over Syria that she's been pushing, American millitary defeat could be closer than ten years off.

  10/25/16, 7:31 PM
Nachtgurke said...

  "....whichever way the election goes, we could get serious civil unrest...."
  From a future view, the events that happened slightly more than 15 years ago might mark the point where societies downward slope began to be visible for a significant part of the public for the first time.
  I predict and fear, the upcoming election will in that context mark the point where the whole mess really caught momentum and spinned out of the least little bit of control that remained before. And this will be especially true, if Clinton wins (reading this CNAS-paper gives a hint to where the story's going even for those who have managed to remain clueless so far). It's a desaster. A complete desaster.
  And the critical insight, that in spite of the election there might be no choice left and that the point when there still was has a choice is of course completely absent from mainstream media. German media are for example more and more full of military jargon again. My latest favourite titled "Now it's getting serious" is telling us that NATO fighting brigades are to be stationed in the baltic states by 2017 and that Germany is the "lead nation" of the contingent stationed in Litua. 70 years since the end of WW II German troops and German leadership is established at the Russian border and critical words are nowhere to be found (except in the articles user comments). Ah, and of course all of this is only the righteous and logical response to Russian aggression which is of course the work of evil Putin alone.
  People are out of their minds. Completely. Living with my family rather close to Ramstein it's especially hard for me to find words for all this madness anymore.
  So to return to the initial sentence - sometimes I wonder if, although cynical in a way, civil unrest and domestic crisis are the only way around the real big crash and are the only silver line on the horizon. Well ok, maybe we (or you in this case, although Germany might have its time as well in the middle future) can also have both at the same time....

  10/26/16, 3:29 PM
donalfagan said...

  This is a good discussion of the trajectory of the Dems and Reps lately:
  http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/live_from_philadelphia_thomas_frank_and_robert_scheer_on_day_2_of_the_dnc_v

  10/26/16, 4:58 PM
Jeanne Labonte said...

  In regards to coloring books, I agree that the fad has passed its peak. As an occasional purchaser of coloring books from Dover Publications (an old guilty pleasure I cheerfully admit to indulging on and off) I have done my share of coloring just for fun. However, I find the coloring books currently being hawked on the store shelves to be a weird cross between kid coloring books and Zentangle that look to my eyes like a contemporary version of the baroque cats drawn by the late artist Louis Wain after his mental breakdown. I have passed on this latest attempt to separate us from our money and prefer drawing my own pictures (which I also have enjoyed doing by the way), thank you very much.
  As to yard signs, here in the small town in northern New Hampshire where I live, I have noticed something interesting. Over the past few months and up until this past week, all of the signs have been for state representatives, governor, etc. Only now am I seeing signs for Trump and Hillary popping up, all them (so far) small in size, overshadowed by the local ones. It seems people are focusing their efforts on state elections and turning away from the corrupt circus currently performing in Washington. I am wondering if the economic contraction underway is being accompanied by political contraction as well.

  10/26/16, 7:45 PM
PRiZM said...

  Mr. JMG,
  This post more than any other helped me realize a point you've subtly yet strikingly been making nearly in the entirety of this blogs existence. That we've developed tool sets in modern science, whether ecology or as in this case, geology, which can and should be applied also to humans, and that we can make incredibly deep, and beneficial realizations once we embrace the reality that we are a part of this world.

  10/26/16, 8:33 PM
Shane W said...

  I'm not sure if it's wise to debate which straw will break the camel's back, so to speak. We really have no way of knowing just how much stress the US can take, but one thing people on here are not factoring in is that Americans, by and far, are the most fragile, most dependent, least resilient people ever. Cultures like Russia that are more resilient can withstand quite a bit more stress than a culture like ours that is burdened w/the American dream.

  10/27/16, 3:15 AM
Robert Mathiesen said...

  On American resiliancy:
  In sharp contrast to Shane W., I think we are a highly resiliant people, even though the mass media push the contrary view quite hard. I taught college-age young people from 1967 up to 2005. Sure, there were always some students who had hardly any resiliancy, and their number did seem to grow slightly over the years--but they were always a small and distinct minority of the entire student body. On the whole, the students at my university seemed to me to be tough young survivors, even when they *believed* they were not. When push came to shove, they actually did what they had to, and survived.
  As for my own generation--I am from the end of the Silent Generation--there were also a few peers of mine who were quite fragile, not survivors at all. But the media, way back then, did not tell us we were fragile.
  That's what's really changed over the last 3/4 century, it seems to me, and not actual fragility or resiliancy. We generally believed that we, like our parents, would rise to whatever the occasion might be. Talk of trauma was rare (though traumas themselves were not rare at all); medicine was much cruder than now, and somewhat more brutally practiced; and professional therapists almost nonexistent. If our psyches were broken, or we were always down in the dumps and feeling blue, or could not make friends or keep up, we suffered alone--and a very few of us died alone, like a wounded cat that had crawled under a porch to expire in secret. We knew we were all going to die in the end, and the A-bomb meant that we expected our deaths to come well before the end of our natural life-spans. Since a huge number of our fathers had died in the recent war, that was just how life seemed to be.
  The Boomers, who came after us, would pretty much all have living fathers, who would not die until decades later. That was one of the biggest causes of the generational shift between the Silents and the Boomers: their fathers were alive, and they, too, might well hope to live out their natural life-spans. If you can hope to live, you might well work to make that hope more sure, and many Boomers became activists on the social or political front. Very few Silents did.

  10/27/16, 8:29 AM
Gavin Harris said...

  Completely off topic, but XKCD did a cartoon for global temperature that is worth looking at for all those people curious about how the Earth's temperature has varied over time.
  http://xkcd.com/1732/

  10/27/16, 9:07 AM
stravinsky7 said...

  In re: coloring books.
  My 6th grader had heard that his grandmother had gotten a nice set of colored pencils. So he wanted to go over there and spend the evening drawing. Imagine my shock when, after we had him all set up she whipped out a coloring book. I was shocked and reflexively said "Elijah can draw!", and then the realization that it was hers set in. I couldn't pluck the comment out of the air. In a few moments the TV in the background changed the subject.
  They are a perfect picture of declining white power in America, praying to vote, voting for Trump, cognitive dissonance, this terrible deep-seated feeling of shame.. They've got it all. I don't know what to do to help them, I feel like a poor son-in-law. Need to think.
  p.s. I am a believer that the constant massive carb American diet is detrimental to our ability to think. When the kids come back from being fed by either grandparents, I have to low-carb them for a day before they act right.

  10/27/16, 10:18 AM
Brian Cady said...

  Thanks, JMG, for this post and especially for the previous post.
  Here's a link to another 2035 forecast, that Ugo Bardi mentioned: http://www.acstrategy.net/global-risks-2035
  I really liked and am grateful for the perspective within last weeks' post of the life of earth as a day, and now as early autumn.
  Brian

  10/27/16, 11:22 AM
jleagan said...

  I've been using Wordpress for a few years now to post my occasional babbling into the interwebz, and it works well. Plus, you have many options on appearance.
  JLE
  https://jleagan.wordpress.com/

  10/27/16, 3:43 PM
Shane W said...

  Another thing to keep in mind is that societies don't necessarily need to be "stressed" beyond a particular breaking point in order to implode spectacularly. Early 20th century Europe is a spectacular example of this. Western Europe was at its peak of power before WW I, and was reduced to rubble after WW II, and became client states of the two superpowers. Even Germany, with its much smaller empire compared to France and Britain, was still in a way better position before the World Wars than after.

  10/27/16, 5:01 PM
Shane W said...

  It's interesting that our local Senate race is mirroring the national election in that Democrat businessman Jim Grey is trying to run to the right of Rand Paul on defense and the economy. Very fascinating. I have the misfortune of living with a TV watcher, so I catch the occasional ad.

  10/27/16, 5:04 PM
onething said...

  Considering what the German nation did to Russia 70 years ago, it is difficult for me to remain calm when reading how they are gearing up again to attack.

  10/27/16, 5:22 PM
Shane W said...

  This had generated quite a bit of discussion on here a while back: the Bundy's were acquitted of charges related to their standoff...

  10/28/16, 3:31 AM
Marinhomelander said...

  As to the internet of things in one's home allowing hacking,control and chaos, there are alternatives.
  Only buy things without any internet connectivity,or,if there is no choice, never register the devices i.p. address. Turn off the wifi on your router and string some good old fashioned and cheap Cat 5 cable throughout your house to connect your essential devices like your Mac to the router via an ethernet socket in the wall.
  The ChinaCrap cameras can be connected by wire to to a dedicated and usually provided hard drive that you can access within the house and that is never connected to the router. "Closed Circuit" is what CC means. You can't check your front door through your iPhone then? Too bad. Flip phones are in vogue now and there's a market for used ones on Craigslist.
  Mr. Greer, would you please poll your readers on how many have cut the TV cable? Over half the people I know have and rely on their internet connection to watch Netflix or streaming TV (rarely).
  "Our Great Economic Recovery?" Every pissed off voter that I know [24 votes for Trump-6 for Clinton, S.F.Bay Area] is sitting on their wallet until after the election in an easy act of "consumption disobedience". Our liquor cabinet is getting empty and the oil can get changed in December. Watch the sales numbers jump once this mess is resolved for the near term.

  10/28/16, 8:14 AM
Patricia Mathews said...

  Several posts ago, you used "The Emperor's New Clothes" to point up the prevalence of fakery and feedlot sweepings in the art world. This morning, someone posted another sequel to the fairy tale, which seems more political but just as valid - and as funny:
  "One fine morning, when the emperor felt hot and bored, he extricated himself carefully from under
  the mountain of clothes and is now living happily as a swineherd in another story. The tailor is
  canonized as the patron saint of all consultants, because in spite of the enormous fees he extracted,
  he was never able to convince his clients of his dawning realization that their clothes have no Emperor.
  - C.A.R. ("Tony") Hoare"
  That our clothes have no emperor is becoming clearer by the moment.
  Pat

  10/28/16, 8:46 AM
Caryn said...

  Thank You, JMG! Safe travels.
  Interesting enough, I've been reading a book given to me by my eldest, (17 year old) called "Anti-Fragility" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's actually a free download on the internet. So far, it's a well thought out, humorous yet rigorous read.
  The premise is that we can NEVER know when, where or how a 'Black Swan', a change, a disruption, upheaval, chaos; A cataclysmic or game-changing event will occur. All we know is that it WILL at some point, and we know that we DON'T know (where when how.) Some systems are fragile, like our current governmental and economic system, they fall apart or are hurt by changes. Even 'small' changes can present as disasters because the system is so unable to accept change. Some are robust or resilient, they not easily hurt or helped by changes. They weather most storms. Some are"Anti-Fragile", they actually benefit from a measure of upheaval and change. They thrive on small and medium changes as it grows and strengthens the system as a whole.
  MOST organizations that consider to prevent or prepare for 'Balck Swans', (changes / disasters) at all, will (like this JOE), try to predict when where and how, and try to bolster resilience. They often fail, because they base their predictions and curative precautions on past Black Swans, yet the whole definition is an outlier change or upheaval. It cannot be predicted. BTW: I fully agree with you, JMG that these are predictions of the past or at best the present. Your predictions based on our trajectory do seem a lot more likely.
  Anyway, I'd highly recommend the book to anyone interested. For those of us aspiring Green Wizards preparing for a Long Descent; It's an interesting and really helpful thought expander to see how we can become not only resilient but 'Anti-Fragile', to actually find gain or benefit from changes.

  10/28/16, 8:50 AM
steve pearson said...

  OK, might as well get in my last comment on the yard sign/ bumper sticker count here in Honolulu. So far it is two Trump yard signs, zero Clinton, one Trump bumper sticker( on a car with Kentucky plates}, zero Clinton, still a few Bernie and Obama 08, and hundreds of mayoral and state senate/ assembly{ more yard than bumper}
  By the time we met again, bloggishly speaking, the U.S. and, by implication, the world in general will have taken another rather major step on its downward trajectory, regardless of which villain wins.
  I raise my glass and salute you all. You are good company.
  Cheers,Steve

  10/29/16, 12:47 AM
siliconguy said...

  In regard to that CNAS report mentioned above;
  "A second and related step is to formulate policies that take advantage of the
  substantial military, economic, and diplomatic power Washington has available but has been reluctant to deploy in recent years."
  How many wars do these idiots want us in? Anyway, they fall into the "Indispensable American" camp, along with Hillary and John McCain. If you have't read the book "Superpower" by Ian Bremmer put it on the list. It's not that long.

  10/29/16, 4:19 PM
Nastarana said...

  Dear Patriciaormsby, I suppose you do know that cats were sacred in Ancient Egypt. Grain had to be stored to be distributed during the floods, which lasted several months, and the enemy of stored grain is rodents. I think that serpents may have been protected as well, and I would guess for similar reasons. In Roman times, citizens of Alexandria rioted when a Roman killed a cat.
  Dear onething, I know people, former Democratic voters all, who are voting third party all down the line.
  Here in Oneida County, upstate NY, I am seeing lots of Trump signs, mostly as noted above in rather more upscale yards. One Clinton sign only and one sign sporting the hand painted message Hillary lied, People died.
  The American working or formerly working class may not yet be at the point of open revolt, but neither is it in any mood to cater to the pretensions of its' social and economic betters, you should excuse the expression. Those betters, for their part, are quite capable of provoking revolt and resistance for any and every perceived slight, affront, lack of deference and so on. Police killings of unarmed black folks might be a preview of what is waiting for all of us who refuse to cringe on command.
  My respectful suggestion to all is the day after a Clinton (stolen) "victory" we should get our wills made, every bequest clearly spelled out, correctly filed and copies readily accessible by our designated heirs. That is what I intend to do.

  10/31/16, 8:50 AM
Fred said...

  Fwiw Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been poking fun of 538's Nate Silver over his analysis of polling data. Taleb claims Silver is clueless and hasn't taken into account the high variance possible on election day. The polls are so limited now in who they talk to, the idea that it is a true random sampling of voters is ridiculous.
  Since Silver has been calling the election for Clinton most weeks, I'm assuming that mean Taleb thinks Trump will win.
  @Caryn - Taleb's concept of black swan is really good. His concept of "skin in the game", I love even more. He immediately dismisses anyone making a contribution to a conversation who is not a participant in the activity or the outcome. In my life I've joined online groups of permaculture people. I'm practicing permaculture on my property and did the certificate course. But in these online groups, 80% of the people are dabblers, or just checking it out, and their nativite and negativity inevitably take up the online discussion. All discussion is educating them, convincing them, and encouraging them. People who are actually doing permaculture don't get to talk about doing permaculture.
  I've reorganized my life so I only participate in groups online and in life with people who are actually doing the actions the group is doing. All skin in the game from everyone. Makes for a much more vibrant and engaging experience.
  Another example of skin in the game - I believe our host deletes many comments put through by people who haven't read his post in its entirety and just type out their opinion and send it. The richest comments here are from long time readers who pull together threads of posts going back months and years.

  10/31/16, 10:53 AM
trippticket said...

  A young artist exhibits his work for the first time...
  ...and a well-known art critic is in attendance.
  The critic asks the young artist, "would you like my opinion on your work?"
  "Yes," replies the young artist.
  "It's worthless," says the critic.
  The young artist replies, "I know, but tell me anyway."
  Happy All Saints Day, friends!

  11/1/16, 5:47 AM
donalfagan said...

  Article from the Intercept, with video purportedly from the Joint Special Operations Unit:
  https://theintercept.com/2016/10/13/pentagon-video-warns-of-unavoidable-dystopian-future-for-worlds-biggest-cities/
  "The video was used as part of an “Advanced Special Operations Combating Terrorism” course offered at JSOU earlier this year, for a lesson on “The Emerging Terrorism Threat.” JSOU is operated by U.S. Special Operations Command, the umbrella organization for America’s most elite troops. JSOU describes itself as geared toward preparing special operations forces “to shape the future strategic environment by providing specialized joint professional military education, developing SOF specific undergraduate and graduate level academic programs and by fostering special operations research.”"

  11/1/16, 8:44 AM
gjh42 said...

  "Fans" of the Lardbucket may be happy to hear this news:
  The US Air Force has embraced reality — the A-10 is here to stay ‘indefinitely'

  11/1/16, 11:21 AM
Hammer said...

  Aw... I should have seen this post two weeks ago and commented. This one is the most relevant to me in a long time. Too bad I missed it.
  Fred:
  I can definitely see why insurgents in America over the next 30 years would be angry at high-skilled immigrant workers, as well as the lower-skilled ones. I only support immigration when it's a competitive process, brings skill into the country, and isn't done at the expense of existing citizens. Although I agree with what you're saying, I do not think I will get much sympathy from the future insurgents.
  Although I and my family don't meet your description of the "idea-stealing temporary visa worker", I see how it's impossible to prove otherwise. My parents have immigrated legally from India ~25 years ago, without any H1-B or work visa, and have stayed faithful to American companies. But at the end of the day, supporters of the future neo-fascist party will look at the color of my skin and assume I am one of the undocumented Indians working at the Subway restaurant or the Kwik-E-mart. So there's not much I can do.
  I was born and raised here and I originally planned to work for American companies, in America, for the rest of my life. I have to compete with the imported technology workforce too. My future career was already threatened by offshoring and "inshoring" (which is what I call the H1-B practice), even before I learned about our civilization collapsing.
  Yet I still feel unsafe here. I believe that at some point in the next 20 years, if I still live in the U.S. of A., the neighborhood gang or terrorist group will either threaten me with violence, or the government will place restrictive laws on everybody of Asian-American descent, similar to the laws the Nazi government imposed on the Jews.
  In conclusion, I can definitely see somebody who shares your fears and anger, except much more radical and heavily armed, knocking on my door within the next 20 years. Also, I love your excellent insight into how ideas are stolen from American corporations.
  Varun:
  "By the way if you give China until 2100 before it hard crashes, I give India until 2060"
  Oh yeah. I completely agree. I have been thinking about what position India is in compared to China, for the last few months. It's rarely addressed on this blog. So far, I think China is in a better position than India to become rich, democratic and powerful. However, I think India will more easily return to a less-industrial state. I think there are two scenarios for India: catching up to China or imploding from overpopulation, war, and environmental causes.
  I'll do more research. I'm going to write much more about this when a future Archdruid Report essay or comment calls for it!
  I'm very worried about this personally. I thought retreating to India was the be-all end-all solution to the collapse here. I guess not!

  11/1/16, 10:18 PM
Philip Bogdonoff said...

  A possible path to war if Trump is elected: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/11/07/48-hours-from-a-new-world-crisis/

  11/7/16, 7:25 PM
Phil Harris said...

  JMG
  I rejoined the British Labour Party after Brexit (I had been a supporter during the Thatcher years and until 2002). Not that I have any certain hope of helping what you rightly call our ‘predicament’. It is more that I support re-organisation of the Left. I gather from some of your comments you see some hope for example in angry Democrats challenging the current leadership.
  I think the Left needs to take on board voluntary sufficiency (perhaps a kind of conservatism in my view) in order to avoid the admittedly more likely ‘Scenario 3’; see this presentation. http://www.eis.uva.es/energiasostenible/?lang=en This website links to your own post among others. The presentation of interest is Trump: in the way to Scenario 3. This presentation has been re-posted by Bardi. The more hopeful model for the Left could be ‘Scenario 4’. Like you I do not put too much trust in ‘future technology’ or for that matter international co-operation but arguably we have a long way to go and need to get through the next decades as best we can.
  Your own American Retrotopia differs perhaps mainly concerning the means. You posited a better informed society and polity using traditional resources like solid reporting and analysis in newspapers, among other things, (contrasting we hope with modern ‘information’ better termed I guess by Bardi last week the Empire of Lies I am glad you think there might be some hope for ‘science’ if people like Bardi ‘get it’).
  best
  Phil H

  11/17/16, 10:58 AM
unfrozencavemanguitarplayer said...

  A minor point relative to the scope of your post, but my understanding of the "Fast and Furious" scandal, based on the detailed investigative piece in Fortune magazine, is that there is no "there" there. There was never an officially sanctioned program to allow guns into or out of Mexico. There was one flakey ATF guy who then turned into a "whistleblower" blaming the entire ATF for unauthorized actions that he had taken entirely of his own initiative.
  http://fortune.com/2012/06/27/the-truth-about-the-fast-and-furious-scandal/

  1/18/17, 10:26 AM
Emily Alyn said...

  I imagine that my local warband leader would see the value in keeping a guild of radiomen inside the gates.Check Advantage coupon

  5/15/17, 3:10 AM

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