Is Occupy Wall Street a Testament to the Need for Systems Thinking?

Systemic Problems

A few days ago I stopped by the Occupy Tacoma site to chat with a few of the protesters. I have also talked with a few occupiers from Olympia who I know personally. I understand their backgrounds and motivations and I think they were clearly expressing their thoughts and those of other occupiers. The two groups have different kinds of participants (the Olympia site is infiltrated by a larger number of homeless people, but they are in the 99% too!) Nevertheless I heard similar stories from both groups.

When you drive by one of their sites you will see many different signs posted, each with a different message. The reason they are taking so much flack about their lack of a consistent, uniform message is that the press and just about everyone else are looking for some simple sound bite to latch onto. They want a simple demand that they can think they understand. Instead they have to deal with a diversity of demands, complaints, and issues that seem complicated and disjoint. What they fail to recognize is that all of these issues are, in fact, part of a larger picture. They appear disjoint because those observing the OWS phenomenon do not think systemically. These issues are joined and the OWS crowds recognize this implicitly. That is what keeps them going, cooperating on their protests even as different people bring different complaints to the effort. They sense that their common issue is, as I noted in my blog of Oct. 9th, Occupy Home Street that things are going horribly wrong for the lives of the vast majority of people (the focus is on the middle class in the USA, but they expressed a sense of solidarity with people around the world who are actively revolting against tyranny). But I also heard a common theme in all of the various complaints. They sense that all of these issues are connected in a deep way. They come from the system, not just individuals being bad guys.

In the US the focus is on the 1%ers. The occupiers see the wealthiest, in cahoots with the politicos, running an effective oligarchy in what is supposed to be a land of opportunity for all. They are protesting this oligarchy that declares wars with impunity, that bails out the rich bankers who knew they were not playing by the rules of common sense but fails to bail out the underwater homeowners who thought they were playing by the rules of a consumeristic society (I am not letting off the hook those who went foolishly into more debt then they had reason to believe they could service; but the point is why should one group get saved just because they are rich?). They are rightly complaining that the rich oligarchs are diminishing their lives and those of the other 99%. But they have the missed the real underlying cause. They tend to believe that their actions (or some actions) will somehow reverse the trend of the rich getting richer and that things will pretty much go back to the way they thought they were before; at least the way that the average American can earn a decent wage and live in a decent abode.

Every System Has a Driver

And it isn't ideology.

The system in question is the global economic system that has been increasingly based on consumption of goods and services and a capitalistic method for aggregating investments. The former represents a shift from a societal sense of scarcity, husbanding resources, and thrift to one of abundance and growth. The latter started out as a means of funding the development of productive businesses that could sustain the prior societal understanding. Businesses that served the needs of building productive tools (like plows and harnesses) or serving productive needs (like horse shoeing) could only be started by aggregating enough capital (money) to purchase the necessary components and pay the workers. Borrowing from banks and selling stocks started out as ways to do this aggregation. Those who loaned the capital expected to earn some profit from their taking a risk and when the businesses did well enough investors/lenders did profit from the use of their capital. As long as everyone was satisfied with profit margins that could be applied to savings (and future investment) at a reasonable rate, this system worked very well. But, perhaps too well.

Somewhere around the end of WWII we started to see a shift in perceptions. We started to see the growth of a belief that capitalism was the engine that produced increasingly abundant wealth, especially niceties like fancier cars and bigger houses. For a while middle class workers were garnering wages that grew. Companies were making more profits and growing. And investors were making huge profits without doing much in the way of working. President John F. Kennedy famously said that “a rising tide lifts all boats.”, expressing the optimism that the American economic system was producing wealth for all. The sentiment became that as the wealthy investors got even wealthier that was good for everyone. A smaller slice of a growing pie is still more pie. Then came the high technology boom and the rise of the get-rich-quick entrepreneur. This was the changing American dream. It was no longer enough that every hardworking citizen would have a chance to establish a modest, but livable home and have a few simple appliances. People saw other people get more. And they wanted more for themselves. The economic system evolved such that we are no longer citizens, we are consumers. And that means of everything; food, stylish clothing and cars, bigger houses, even education and information (so-called, but what is sold on Fox News and most mainstream media can hardly be called information!). We are even consumers of political posturing.

The belief that capitalism and free markets was the driving force that led to the abundance of wealth is stuck in our collective consciousness. We've even sold this belief to essentially every other nation, regardless of their professed political system. Most people sincerely believe that capitalism is responsible for what we have. The reason, I think, is simple. Most people never take enough physics to grasp the relationship between energy and work. But the truth is that capitalism just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I won't deny that it facilitated what came next. But it was not the driver, not the final cause, as it were. There is, rather, a more subtle driving force that would have produced essentially the same effects under any political system. And that is the simple fact that humans are biologically programmed to consume as much energy as they can get their hands on. Or, more appropriately, get control of. Humans have a unique ability to find ways to harness power for their own uses. All that is necessary is that there exists a concentration of power (energy) that can be discovered and we will find ways to exploit it. Nature abhors a steep gradient it seems (Second Law of Thermodynamics - the entropy version).

The growth of economic activity and wealth has always tracked right behind the discovery of new forms of energy at higher concentrations of power. Fossil fuels, and especially petroleum, was just the latest naturally occurring concentration of energy (fossil sunlight), and very high powered energy at that. And the oil-based economy started to take off during the later part of the 19 century. With the advent of diesel engines (for trains and ships) and powerful aircraft jet engines, the fossil fuel age came into full swing. Electricity produced from coal-powered turbine/generators rounded out the power portfolio that produced the potential for growth. By the middle of the 20^th century the economic engine fueled by fossil fuels was in high gear. Every nation that had access to abundant fossil fuels, regardless of their economic model, became richer. It is still a puzzle why this didn't occur in the middle east but all of those nations seemed content to sell their oil to the western world and use the money to buy luxuries. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that the west, particularly the US had already been investing in oil refineries and had gone through the learning curve before oil was discovered in places like Saudi Arabia. Even the former USSR was on a track to producing more wealth from their oil reserves, until the economic/military race with the west forced them to dismantle what they had and break up into independent (supposedly) countries. Their oil business suffered from the dismantling, not so much from being communistic. It has since started to make a resurgence, but it may be that their reserves are not as great as needed to make a great comeback.

The fundamental economic driver is the combination of biological mandate to consume energy and the availability of said energy. It matters much less what kind of economic theory or model you adopt or believe you have (like us believing we have free markets!). All that matters is humans have access to energy sources and they will then figure out how to exploit that energy to exploit other natural resources. It has always been thus since the first hominids evolved.

All of the rest of the economic system, regardless of what you call it, is the emergence of organization from the flow of energy and the cleverness of humans to exploit that flow. Our current system has gotten so complex and abstract that it is nearly impossible for anyone to actually understand what is going on. But the clue is that when there are problems arising in so many different facets of a system then you can guess the real causes lay deep at the heart of the system.

Energy Flow Decline and the Collapse of Complex Societies

Joseph Tainter has it right. In The Collapse of Complex Societies he developed the thesis that societies try to solve problems by increasing complexity. But complexity has costs associated with it that are sometimes hidden from the normal accounting. These hidden costs often show up as new problems and the societal response is to increase complexity yet more. And increasing complexity follows a law of diminishing returns^*. At some point the next unit of complexity has a much greater cost than what it was supposed to fix. That is when things start to break down.

Lately Tainter is speaking to the relationship between problems, complexity, development, and energy flow. He recognizes that it is energy flow that allows humans to attempt solutions to problems. And it is energy flow that is needed to maintain the structures developed. He speaks to the historical patterns of civilizations, fueled mostly from real-time solar flows (i.e., agriculture), growing to a point where the energetic cost of shipping food into the core became too high. The civilizations could not sustain themselves but also could not recognize what was really happening.

Tainter and several other social scientists, are using systems thinking and analysis to see this pattern in all of the collapses. There is invariably a proximal cause or two that everyone can see, such as the invasion by barbarians or climate change, and that everyone concludes is THE cause. But now we are seeing that the real underlying cause of collapse is the decline in energy flow that was needed to sustain the complex organization that had evolved over time and many generations.

Today we are a global civilization even if we still recognize borders between nations. Our commerce is global in scope and is fueled by prodigious amounts of fossil fuel energy. Our agriculture is totally dependent on fossil fuels (the Green Revolution) for growing and delivering the food. Every home in the developed world depends on heating and cooking from advanced power sources like natural gas and electricity (only some of which is produced by nuclear or hydro power). We need powerful transportation vehicles to get us to and from work. Our system is completely and irreversibly dependent of fossil fuels. And guess what is diminishing^**?

Our global society is in the beginning stages of collapse. The wealthy sense this even if they can't put their fingers on what is wrong. They are more motivated than ever to try to aggregate all of the paper wealth they can. I do think most of them believe that their efforts to create paper wealth are on a par with manufacturing, for example, in helping to lift all boats. I suspect some of them feel totally justified in taking home huge bonuses as they attempt to build a hedge for themselves against what seems to be a sinking boat. They are working on their life rafts after all. This is a normal human proclivity and you, dear readers, and I, and all of the occupiers would probably do something similar if we were in a position to do so. None of us has transcended our biology and all of us will do what we can to protect ourselves when we sense the impending loss of the system that gave us our sense of well being. Of course I support their demand that what wealth there is being created now should be more equitably distributed. But it has to be real wealth, not the phony money created by Wall Street gamblers and fractional reserve banking. I continue to urge that real jobs can be created for many of the unemployed in a modern version of the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) where the goal is to restore depleted soils for organic agriculture under the permaculture methodologies. So what if these are government jobs. And so what if the rich are taxed heavily to fund it. That would go a long way to doing something worthwhile, investing in real infrastructure. And it would provide incomes for many currently unemployed (it could also be a way to reabsorb the military personnel coming back, at long last, from our foreign adventures.) A program like this could help alleviate the inherent conflict that is boiling up and it would slow down the collapse somewhat.

The occupiers give us a more realistic measure of the nature of the problem we face. They see the many aspects of the situation and sense that those various aspects are all related to one another. They intuitively understand that all of the various problems are systemic in nature but they just don't go deep enough into that system's drive. What the bankers do, what the politicians do, and what the OWSers do, they are all reactions to the systemic collapse that we are experiencing. The problems we will all face soon will be from our ignorance of the root cause and a belief that we need to do something that will protect our positions. If we believe we could have things back the way we believe they were then we will take radical actions against whatever proximal cause we think we see. People will come to blows as they blame some other group for what is actually happening to everyone. Even the richest will find they can't use their paper assets as food. They won't even buy food. The tide is going out. All boats are lowering. And many of them have sprung leaks and are already sinking. Those in the sinking boats are going to soon try to commandeer the ones that still seem seaworthy. It is coming.

---

^* In my systems science book I describe this in greater detail. It turns out that increasing complexity can, and often does lead to collapse, but it can also lead to reorganization and increases in hierarchical control structures that actually simplify things at the operational level. Thus some societies evolve into seemingly more complex ones, but are organized differently (more hierarchically) to avoid the increasing costs and diminishing returns. Human societies have a harder time doing this because humans are more autonomous agents who invariably fail to do as they are expected. Contrast the organization of a state vs. that of an army. The latter kinds of organizations work because the humans are operating under much stricter discipline rules. The problem with humans in general is that they are not wise enough to grasp the benefit of disciplining themselves to cooperate. Hence, complexity tends to result in collapse vs. reorganization and success.

^** We have already reached the peak of oil extraction rates and this can be expected to have an impact on the extraction of coal and natural gas as well. It is already having negative impacts on agricultural photosynthesis and will soon cause the diminishment of food production. A related problem is that the energy costs of obtaining the next increment of energy from fossil fuels is rising. The energy return on energy investment (EROI) is declining faster than the decline in extraction rates. This is the principle driver in rising oil costs. Net energy per capita has likely been in decline since the late 1970s. Aggregate net energy may soon follow even while the population continues to expand, even if at a slower rate.

Comments

[Selfgovus]

@GaffaUK

This is Shawn, btw.

"If there was a single link to oil production and propersity and no link to economic management and system then Russia followed by Saudi Arabia would be biggest economies in the world. They are not even in the top 10! After the US and China - comes Japan, Germany and France in terms of size of economies - and how much oil do they produce?"

Prosperity is linked with energy acquisition whether it's in the form of locally produced oil or oil purchased.

Oil production in the US peaked long ago but has remained prosperous because the dollar is the reserve currency of the global economy. That gave us access to all the cheap oil we could use.

If any country wants to buy oil, they have to buy dollars first. When they took the currency off the gold standard, the dollar became backed by oil.

"...if we are being so expertly controlled by the fat capitalist 1% then how the hell did these [social] programs exist?"

The programs were created before the US became an oligarchy. Since the metamorphosis, these programs have only increased in friction by both parties micro-regulating them.

"People are not tricked into believing they have a democracy. We have a democracy in the West. And we can play semantics over the ancient or modern term of democracy - but we do have a representative democracy."

Are you a people? If so, it does appear that people are tricked into believing they have a democracy.

"The US is already a democratic republic. If you believe that it used to be and no longer is - then please let me know when in history did this change - and what the difference is."

Seriously, watch this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIIgIhhYhEo

"So I ask again if you don't, like me, want capitalism to be reformed - then let me know *your* (not the OWS generally as they have no idea consensually) credible realist democratic alternative."

You still don't get it. Capitalism is dying. It will be replaced by a more sustainable society focused on community and locally produced goods. OWS is just the latest and most impressive manifestation of the beginnings of this society.

The only thing that will keep this from happening is if the US becomes a police state. I don't really believe the US could acquire enough raw energy to pull it off very well though.

"Snowflake..."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/if-the-occupy-movement-and-tea-party-join-together-we-can-end-the-malignant-partnership-between-big-government-and-big-corporations-which-is-destroying-america.html

[AlT]

@GaffaUK

there is an alternative to democracy and capitalism and they are _evolving_ towards that alternative.

That alternative is a form of "sapient government" that George talks about.

But that alternative is not going to happen any time soon and certainly OWS will not bring it about.

The alternatiove to democracy and capoitalism is trully sustainable system whereby the hierarchical structure of the society is sauch as to enable it to restructure itself dynamically under one and only criterion of continues viability.

Operationally that would be implementing the mantra "least population with least environment impact".

That type of government will only be possible when mankind (organism-whole) evolves to the point when enough "people of reason and disciplined thinking" take it upon themselves to work towards the system without ideology, morals, good or bad, right or wrong or any other so called "values" that are nothing but another name for "ignorance"

This is where the system is heading after continuos die-off over next several hundreds of years two or three generations from now. By that time the environment will be so polluted and so exhausted that it will only be able to support a fraction of current 7 billion people. But those who sutrvive will be much more "sapient" in the words of George, and they will be disciplined to submit themselves to a system that is not democracy and certainly not capitalism as we know them now.

For that the homo sapiens will have to subspeciate into higher sapience survivors.

Of course we will all be dead by then.

[AlT]

@shawn (aka selfgov)

thanks for the last link - good to see how tea party and OWS view the big government and big corporations as the root of all evil :)

but also sad that they don't get the root of the problem: there are too many of _all of us_

they all focus on something that very natural and unavoidable given that mankind as organism-whole evolved out of ignorance

and we still continue to be governed by _ignorance_ because _ignorant voters_ chose _ignorant representatives_ and as soon as we get into positions of poower we focus on enjoyment of the power not "what we should do to make lives of those who voted for us better"

this is how human condition _is_

there is nothing wrong with this

it is _natural_

this is why a crowd will continue to be dominated by _ignorance_

this is why there will be no asulutions coming any time soon from anywhere:
the crowd is ignorant by definition; the rulers are ignorant because they do not have to learn to survive - they are insulated from the adversities of life by the layers of 'lessers' below them

this situation will continue for as long as the whole structure can be supported by the resorce/environment (energy flows, biodiversity, etc.)

as soon as the environment is corrupted above a certain treshold the structure will be falling down

and this is what is happening

but the "learning" is not hapenning neither in the crown nor in the top

it will not be happening _at least_ for as long as the top is insulated - that is before breakdown manifests thru civil unrest, massive killings, and general collapse of all moral values

then some people in the top will begin to think about the whole structure not working

but the people on the bottom have only one future: to die

middle class will have to go first (mayt have already happenned) the n the real show will begin

i do nto think we are there yet but i think we are very close

OWS or Tea Party is simple discontent - they have no idea how and when things can get better at least in theory

[AlT]

@Shawn (selfgov)

"Capitalism is dying. It will be replaced by a more sustainable society focused on community and locally produced goods."

Yes capitalism is dying. But it is killing the environment with it. And the environment will die _before_ capitalism.

Now we cannot even begin to think about how the momentum of environment corruption can be stopped simply because capitalism is nowhere near its death to the degree that would spur people to think about its unsustainability instead of trying to get on top of the structure

It is naive to think that discontent of the masses can bring about sustainable society

Sustainable society will come but not any time soon and not before the planet is many times less livable than now

[Selfgovus]

@A1T,

You are me minus a little bit of hope :-)

I don't know that enough words exist to bring you hope so I'll try to be as succinct as possible.

You write as though you believe the human species will make it through this.

Given that belief, who among the milennials do you suppose is more likely to pass their genes down to this sapient generation?

Will it be the young politicians, lobbyists, managers, executives and bankers who know only how to live within this broken system? The ones who walk by us OWS folks and recommend we all get jobs in that jack-assy way they do?

Or...

Will it be the kids hell bent on learning the skills their great-great-grandparents required to survive? The ones who are joyously learning and practicing sustainable agriculture? The ones familliar with old tech and new?

These brilliant young people with OWS appear to be pre-adapting to the world of the future. They are changing the way we evolve.

<3

[AlT]

@shawn

i do not like the word "hope" because it stinks of "faith"

i prefer to substitute "hope" with "mental habit of optimism"

and optimism can be employed as any other knowledge to improve fitness for survival

your question of who will pass the genes to survivors of a millenium is answered very easy: none of the people alive at the moment _including_ young people of OWS

people who will survive have not been born yet but they will

if we want to be of any use to them we should learn how to think and speak in such a way as to prepare the intellectual environment for them

and that is happening but very slow and without organization

and that is why i am on the quest of finding those who will see thru the goo of institutionalized ignorance and will be willing to engage with people who think likewise on very practical matters of proper education and making sure that the group of these thinkers becomes the seed group of proper institutionalization of _science_ - something that will eventually happen regardless of my efforts either while i am still alive or after i am dead

[George Mobus]

Dear Commentators,

It is thrilling to see some healthy and thoughtful debate on a number of subjects. I hope you will understand that I will probably not be able to comment, myself, on much here. I did want to respond to GaffaUK since s/he started much of the debate off.

Sorry disagree with this article...- the OWS does not have a coherent message or solution.

It is not a good idea to open a discussion/debate with a red herring! I did not claim that OWS has a coherent message or solutions. In fact quite the opposite.

What I said was that even if they do not realize it themselves they are intuitively reflecting a systems message that is consonant with what is going on in the world as a whole. If one has a truly global systems perspective, and a long time frame, one can see exactly how what these people are saying fits into the larger pattern described in this article.

Your pro-capitalism arguments appear to hinge on a well known logical fallacy. The fallacy is sometimes called the "I will never die" fallacy. It assumes the future will be just like the past, perhaps a bit more so. It goes like this: I have not died in the past; I am not dead now; therefore I will never die. That is the extreme version that shows the inherent fallacious form of the argument.

In dynamic systems with inherent non-linearities you cannot use the past as an indication of what is coming in the future. Nor can you argue that past successes (and here the word success is based on what you call good results - capitalists consider more absolute material wealth as a good result which is why we use the GDP as a measure of success) from prior institutions will always give rise to successes in the future.

Using linear thinking as evidenced by some of your cherry-picked examples, e.g. China's success (yet to be really gauged), fails to provide a good argument for why some form of capitalism (I guess you are thinking it can be fixed somehow) won't continue to provide humans with the same benefits it did in the past.

Capitalism in its many forms is inherently a growth-oriented strategy that depends on expansion. That depends on high-power energy flows to promote and sustain. Capitalism has been more like a catalyst than a cause of expansion and growth in physical wealth. That is the part I think you are missing. You are attributing cause to a facilitator rather than the active agency (another fallacy).

This whole article was not about OWS per se. It was about the building evidence that phenomena like OWS provides that our problems are really due to a lack of systems thinking by the people in general. We cannot just expect our leaders to think systemically and fix things, because when one actually does understand the system (and its diminishing driving force) one discovers a future that is completely in opposition to the one we all thought we would have. And the people are not going to like that.

The vast majority of people seem to have very minimal skills at thinking systemically when it comes to the scale of anything larger than a neighborhood, or a small company. On the scale of a state or the world most people are hopelessly lost in understanding what is causing what. All they do understand is that they are experiencing discomfort or even pain as the world seems to be turning on them. They just fail to see that the real cause of systemic dysfunction is their own behavior, motivated by ideologically promoted beliefs - such as in capitalism being the engine of progress. Most people don't have a clue that there are dots to be examined let alone how to connect them. That is just the way our species is. We didn't evolve to grapple with complex global issues such as we face today. No one can blame us for being ignorant because we simply don't have the mental horsepower (on average) to grasp the enormity of the problems let alone the dynamics and trends into the future. And as I have written many times, it isn't just about cleverness in problem solving - the ordinary kind of intelligence and creativity. It is about sapience, about judgment and intuition based on veridical tacit knowledge. And for global scale concerns we are talking about a lot of tacit knowledge!

I will try to read these comments more deeply over the weekend. This will be the first weekend in several months that I didn't have to work both days! Thanks again to all for your thoughts.

George

[AlT]

@shawn re: engaging the young

i am delighted to see you enjoy engaging the young and educating them

but i must serve a drop of tar in the bucket of honey:

when we trying to pontificate what we think we "know" most likely we will be simply regurgitating institutionalized ignorance

we are very bad at distinguishing which of our beliefs have become dogma and which still are adequate given the whole body of accumulated knowledge (science)

this is why the proper education of the youn can _only_ happen in a group setting when the young _observe_ the process of refinement of definitions by which the science progresses

in addition to a proper group setting the student has to have a minimal foundations of early childhood stimulation to be able to "graduate" to scientific thinking

if integrity of learning was not addressed during formative years the person becomes immunized against proper learning and instead becomes purely opinionator and regurgitator of institutionalized ignorance

the third obstacle would be the language itself because the meanings of the words are not absolute but relative to the aforementioned integrity of learning, willingness to engage in refinment of definitions and overriding desire to continue cooperation until the common understanding is forged

i trust you now see why i am sceptical of your efforts to educate OWS-ers and why i would consider them a waste of your precious time

of course if yyou enjoy it that means that it contributes to your well-being - something that only you can decide for yourself- hence I am very happy for you that uou have something that makes you happy

peace, brother

[simon]

@Shawn,

Am glad to see am not the only one hoping there's an awakening occurring.

At times I feel...delusional(?)...in hoping this economic miasma will lead to the awakening of Homo Eusapien and a more fair and wise species. Though you and Mobus feeling similarly don't change my feeling of delusion at least it makes me feel that if we're to go, am fine going with my current wishful-thinking :)

And certainly I feel refreshed to continue trying to spark some synapses in people I come across and fall into talking on the economy and then leading them to the role of energy in it all. If it would only take hold and spread like an infection, a good infection.

[Selfgovus]

Yay @ Simon.

@A1T

How can you have humans later but not have anybody alive today pass on their genes?

If there are going to be humans after the population bottle-neck some will have to live through.

I know you get it.

Are you trying to say that none of these young people are going to pass their genes on? All the young and their young will be killed?

I know you understand biology but that doesn't jive with what you said.

The young OWS crowd may not be alive when the sapient society forms but they are direct ancestors of the people that will.

This is why I support them and help guide them. They are all our children. They will be the authority figures when our tiny spawn are grown.

The increase in sapience I've witnessed has given me hope.

You will be a seer and a believer.

[AlT]

@shawn

what i meant by my comment about OWS-ers not passing their genes to "survivors" is simply that we are several generations away from "survival event"

indeed someone will pass their genes but who is unpredictable at the moment

i tend to think that people who are now on top of the hierarchy are more likely to pass their genes than protesters in the street unless some of them become disenchanted with their movement and will try to "move up"

but we really cannot even think of who is from the living will be the gene passer: in the end the population will go from billions to tens of millions at best which means that we probably have one in a thousand to pass theigenes or even less

my point was about the insignificance of individual efforts on the scale of mankind as organism whole (7 billion)

on the other hand even the tiniest conversation matters because one never know how it may affect the whole - you may be talking to someone who will give birth or play a role in the life of someone who one generation from now will make real breakthru by taking charge of the system when it is in the state of anarchy

my point is always the same:
before we rush to do anything we need to understand how our efforts fit into the big picture and i think you don't have the understanding

and i am not saying i have the ultimate understanding - i suspect i don't but i have a theory of when and how the understanding will be possible and in that theory the time has not come yet

i am working on brining that time sooner than later

of course the system will evolve at a sped that is the result of the system properties - i cannot possibly have enough information or computational power in my brain to even approach proper understanding of the speed

eventually mankind will do exactly that but when i do not know and most likely will die not knowing

[Bruce]

Historically, empires expand until labor and resources plundered from the periphery no longer are sufficient to sustain expansion and maintenance of the imperial frontiers, at which point decline and devolution occurs and resources and financial, economic, and political power are increasingly concentrated at the imperial center.

Since US peak crude oil production in 1970-85, and especially since 9/11, the only net incremental growth occurring since 2000-01 in the US economy has been associated with federal gov't spending, including for imperial wars, and so-called "health care", the latter being derivative of the financialization of the US economy, particularly via the banking and insurance sectors.

Therefore, hereafter we are likely to see the furthering of the trend of imperial concentration of power to the executive branch, US Senate, and imperial military (Pentagon), as well as Wall St., which implies even more acute wealth and income concentration to the top 0.1-1% of US households (from the top 1-10% of the past 30-40 years to date).

Consequently, economic activity and receipts and transfers will decline at the local and state levels as more of federal receipts go to war and supranational corporate subsidies and transfers, resulting in further permanent cuts to social programs, infrastructure, public salaries and pensions, schools, etc.

The increasing concentration of wealth and income to the top 0.1-1% and power to DC and the Pentagon implies further alienation, marginalization, and disenfranchising of the bottom 90-99%, who will have little recourse at the federal level given that the US is the best gov't money can buy and no representation for the bottom 90% without taxation (top 10% pay 75% of federal income taxes; therefore, they are represented and the bottom 90% are not).

The more disruptive social unrest, the more scarce resources at the local and state gov't level will be required to be deployed to maintain order and protect property, reducing scarce resources for necessary local and state funding.

Thus, imperial decline, devolution, and eventual collapse occurs at the periphery and outer core long before the center gives way; and we are likely beginning to see increasing evidence of this at various locales where OWSers are amassing and becoming "disruptive" and costlier than they realize in the larger systemic context. The worsening of economic conditions for increasing numbers of people and resulting social unrest will mean even more scarce resources going to law enforcement and "security" at the local and state levels, reducing further the ability of local and state gov'ts to provide public goods and services, thereby threatening the legitimacy and authority of local officials and governance in general.

[Selfgovus]

@A1T,

So, to sum it up...

You have a hypothesis (not a theory) about how this collapse and rebirth is going to take place.

Because of this hypothesis...

You believe it is a waste of resources for these young people to work towards a sustainable and sapient future?

You believe it is a waste of resources to encourage the largest generation in the history of the planet to think systemically?

You believe that George's work and this site are also a waste of resources merely because it is showing up generations too early and because he is just an individual?

I disagree 100%. In fact, many of the people I've spoken with at OWS (personally at OccupyMN and digitally with others) are already thinking systemically. Remember the OccupyMN library I mentioned a few comments ago? Well yesterday I found a copy of Bardi's "The Limits to Growth." Put that in your pessimistic pipe and smoke it :)

We all feel something is wrong. We all feel like somebody should do something about it. Some of us are realizing that we are somebody.

#OccupyTogether #OccupyEverything #OccupyMpls #OWS

[AlT]

@shawn

we have not only a theory of how collapse will be unfolding but a theory of why collapse is inevitable, why not much progress will be made until collapse become manifest to the degree of actual breakdown of government and why OWS is merely an indication of unfolding collapse not the force that will result in any chage on a system-wide scale

i know about limits to growth, overshoot, environmentalism and even such groups as "nature and society forum" in australia that you probably never heard of

there is very little system thinking in homo species in general - it does not even exists in academia and it certainly does not exist in the general assembly in the market square

that is all i was saying and i repeat: we would serve humanity better if we learn system thinking and try to institutionalize it - a task much more difficult than trying to "fix things right now right this moment"

trying to do something about things one does not understand is bound to just aggravate the problem while giving the false "feel good" feeling of being involved in solving the problem

but i am not the one who am to say you what you should or should not do

your life is your life and you live it the way you see fit

[AlT]

@shawn

since we are both having a conversation at george's space i think it would be interesting to use some of his writings for an experiement

i would do it myself but i do not believe in sapience of OWSers therefor if i attempt it i will not be sincere and therefore will not be believable

why don't you take one of the george's writings and "test run" it on OWSers?

for example you can print out "Overpopulation: Here is the Solution" at
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2011/04/overpopulation-here-is-the-solution.html

see what they have to say about george's solution

see how sapient they are and if they can even calmly discusss it (not to mention do anything to implement it)

and then report your findings here

[Selfgovus]

@A1T,

"we have not only a theory of how collapse will be unfolding but a theory of why collapse is inevitable, why not much progress will be made until collapse become manifest to the degree of actual breakdown of government and why OWS is merely an indication of unfolding collapse not the force that will result in any chage on a system-wide scale"

We know why collapse is inevitable. We don't know how collapse will take place.

We can make educated guesses though these guesses, while based on theory, should not be called theory themselves.

The system you speak of is going to collapse. OWS is not going to change the existing system enough to prevent its collapse.

Some within the movement do believe that the system is fixable but they're wrong. More people are waking up to this every day.

I never claimed that OWS would change the existing system enough to prevent collapse. I claimed that this movement (which OWS is an incarnation of) is the beginnings of a sapient global society that will value sustainability, community and peace that could eventually replace the system that is currently collapsing. Just to clarify, I claim that it, "could," but I believe and have hope that it, "will."

"i know about limits to growth, overshoot, environmentalism and even such groups as "nature and society forum" in australia that you probably never heard of"

I'm not trying to say I know more than you. I'm not trying to introduce you to a new concept. I fully expected you to have read that book. The point I was making, which you're missing, is that this systemic thinking does exist in the minds of some of the people participating in the general assembly, including me. "The Limits to Growth" wasn't the only book I was impressed to see at OccupyMN. I also saw, "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan, "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt and "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich.

"we would serve humanity better if we learn system thinking and try to institutionalize it"

It sounds to me like you're the one saying we should change the system from within. Do you mean we should get schools to teach and encourage systemic thinking? I personally agree but I don't think that's going to work since currently acedemia/education is also a completely unsustainable system which will go down with the rest of the ship.

Also, I don't think the "Student Debt Bubble" generation is going to be preaching to their kids about how important a college education is.

[Selfgovus]

@A1T,

"why don't you take one of the george's writings and "test run" it on OWSers?

for example you can print out "Overpopulation: Here is the Solution" at
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2011/04/overpopulation-here-is-the-solution.html

see what they have to say about george's solution"

I think this is a brilliant idea. I'd like to propose a few friendly amendments though...

I propose...

• We create an acceptable summary of George's argument to present instead of the entire article.
• We both bring the approved summary to different occupations and report our findings here. This way my bias will have a counter-weight ;)

I'm currently working on my summary of George's overpopulation solution.

I'm going to share the document through my Google Apps account. I'll setup an A1T@selfgov.us account for you just in case you'd like to work on the summary with me.

You can access the account through http://mail.selfgov.us. Email me @ logicalunatic@selfgov.us for the login information.

I'll post soon with a link to the summary.

Thanks!

Shawn

[GaffaUK]

@Shawn

In regards to the video you posted about democracy, oligarchy, anarchy and republic.

Firstly the video forgets to state the words Republic (along with democracy)doesn't appear in the Declaration of Indepedence or the US Constitution. Oops!

I was hoping to avoid a debate on semantics but nevertheless let's look at those terms as you dispute that the US is a democracy.

So what is the modern definition of democracy…?

DEMOCRACY

1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

2 : a political unit that has a democratic government

3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States

4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority

5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy

So the US along with many other western countries fall under definition 1.

REPUBLIC

1: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit

2: a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity

3: a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Yugoslavia

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic?show=0&t=1305888802

So the US is a democratic republic.

Note – the Romans wouldn’t recognise the concept of Republic as we have it today. Indeed its Senate was appointed not elected.

Also the metaphor used in the video with cowboys was laughable – as if democracies don’t have law (they do). The law is not an immovable objective entity – it is decided by humans and can and does change. Often it is decided upon by those elected (by majorities) into power.

And these previous US Presidents would agree with me that the US is democracy as well as a republic...

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

– Thomas Jefferson

If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled

John Quincy Adams

Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people

Abraham Lincoln

The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people—a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it—it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy.

William Henry Harrison

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy

Teddy Roosevelt

The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man.

Woodrow Wilson

Because we cherish ideals of justice and peace, because we appraise international comity and helpful relationship no less highly than any people of the world, we aspire to a high place in the moral leadership of civilization, and we hold a maintained America, the proven Republic, the unshaken temple of representative democracy, to be not only an inspiration and example, but the highest agency of strengthening good will and promoting accord on both continents.

William G Harding

In our form of democracy the expression of the popular will can be effected only through the instrumentality of political parties.

Herbert Hoover

The essential democracy of our Nation and the safety of our people depend not upon the absence of power, but upon lodging it with those whom the people can change or continue at stated intervals through an honest and free system of elections. The Constitution of 1787 did not make our democracy impotent.

FDR

Events have brought our American democracy to new influence and new responsibilities. They will test our courage, our devotion to duty, and our concept of liberty.

Truman

History is a ribbon, always unfurling; history is a journey. And as we continue our journey, we think of those who traveled before us. We stand together again at the steps of this symbol of our democracy—or we would have been standing at the steps if it hadn’t gotten so cold. Now we are standing inside this symbol of our democracy.

Ronald Reagan

We meet on democracy’s front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.

George Bush

Our founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams in each new day.

Bill Clinton

Through much of the last century, America’s faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations.

George W Bush

OLIGARCHY
1: government by the few

2:a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes; also : a group exercising such control

3: an organization under oligarchic control

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oligarchy?show=0&t=1321345863

Wow – so that’s pretty vague isn’t it? Any organisation or nation which has a leadership is open to be called an oligarchy if it is considered being controlled by the few and is corrupt. That would cover pretty much all nations then by the cynical.

Do you reckon those living in ancient Rome really believed that their ‘Republic’ left them alone? What with all the wars, the slaves, the taxes and all those disenfranchised? I’m pretty sure Republican Rome could be accused of being an oligarchy. How about the founding fathers – didn’t they set up an Oligarchy then? They were few and they certainly looked after their interest as opposed to slaves and the native americans.

Of course it’s interesting to see that so many OWS are advocating anarchy as a credible solution to capitalism – the most foolish way there is. And a reason those who advocate anarchy shouldn't be taken seriously as they are unable to think things through.

And again – I ask you if you believe that the US was once a Republic but now isn’t – let me know what date it changed. Because as far as I can see the US is truly a democratic republic which can be accused at any time of being an oligarchy (like almost any nation today and in history).

[GaffaUK]

@Shawn

If countries like France and Japan have no access to producing oil themselves and their currencies aren’t the reserve currency– then sure they can acquire it, like any other country by purchasing it. So therefore on their balance sheet they must be making money and being economically successful countries by some other means other than producing oil. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to accept that some countries may be better run and have better systems than others. Also the US dollar wasn’t always the reserve currency nor is it the only reserve currency and nations can vote with their money on what they choose the top reserve currency to be. Also capitalism existed before oil was being exploited on an industrially significant scale.

In the UK – the minimum wage was introduced in 1999 – does that mean the UK (at least until that point) wasn’t a capitalist oligarchy?

As for capitalism dying and the OWS being the beginning of this society there’s no sign of that happening beyond the usual protests which aren’t unusual during and after recessions. Capitalism apparently has been heralded as dying for centuries and yet it’s still thriving. I’m sure the levellers, the diggers, the enrages, the marxists, the anarchists, the communists, the socialists, the luddites, the hippies etc have all believed within a decade or so from their time capitalism would be dead. There has been a pattern of recession centuries now. And yet here we have a banking crisis caused by some toxic loans in the US and suddenly everyone grafting on their own pet doomsday scenarios.

It must be hard for those who see we are doomed due to energy stocks running out. On one hand – what’s the point of going on – it must be very depressing. On the other hand it must be disappointing when the catastrophes predicted don’t occur. Dire predictions have been made for centuries and few of them happen. Yes mankind has a big challenge to wean itself off oil over the next few decades – but oil hasn’t been the only energy reserve it has. The industrial revolution didn’t start off on oil. There is and still remains lots of existing and alternative energy supplies – some of which are renewable and other fossil fuels besides oil have centuries yet before they are depleted. Maybe the evironmentalists will embrace nuclear!;)

Finally the article you linked on OWS and Tea Party is a premise – ‘if’ – a hypothetical snowflake. They aren’t joined together. You don’t have to scratch the surface much to see the Tea Party is dominated by the right and the OWS by the left. So much for post-partisan politics! As I say the Tea Party are capitalists. The OWS has plenty of anti-capitalists. As they largely both don’t like big government – that’s not a solid building block for the age of aquarius, where we only buy locally etc etc. Meanwhile I’ll continue to watch with amusement the OWS protestors with their V for Vendetta masks (big old corporation Time-Warner getting royalties for each mask) and using their iphones – and watch the Tea Partiers complain about high taxes and big government whilst they drive to their rallies on government paid for roads and policed by government paid for police.

[AlT]

@shawn

don't bother with a set-up

i will not waste my time on OWS crowd

crowd will never be sapient because its intelligence is the intelligence of the least intelligent member - tat one who knows the least and cares the least about knowing

sapience cannot be taught - it is aquired over lifetime - this is why older people can be expected to have more sapience

if you think you can teach sapience in OWS crowd - good luck - that is why I suggested the experiemnt with Georges writings

but I know that you will be rediculed and booed because those people do not like to think - if they could think they would understand why they are their - they are their to grab power which they lack when thewy are on their own

the crowds are all about power not the "working together to solve problems"

crowds are the assemblies of those who cannot find the ways to move up and stay at the bottom - they smart enough to understand they lack power but they are not smart enough to climb up

with time the crowd will get dumber and diumber because its members will have less and less oppoirtunities for education

it is all have happened in history for so many times - collapse of roman empire -is a classical example

the only difference that is happening now is that in the past there was room geographically there was frontier to expand and grab resources and power

now the whole thing got global - everything is connected we all in the same boat we all poop in our own home

the system cannot be changed by the crowd because they have no idea

the system can be changed from the top but the top is only marginally smarter than the bottom

the whole species has not learned yet

the collapse will be learning experience and those who are sapient among us will understand that the only way for survival of sapience is for sapient individuals to look for each other then to form a group that will be viable in the goo ovf institutionalized ignorance; then to take over the power structure without allowing the power politics to corrupt the group - and that how it will happen and it will only happen when there is enough sapient individual and their sapience is strong enough for them to learn how to work together in such a way as not to allow the power to break their sapience - that is how it all will happen

and it will only happen _after_ a massive die off when population of the planet is not in billions but in millions at most

but the sapient group can form any time annd it can hone its skills of cooperating from the moment it forms all the way to when the ignorat elites come begging to solve the problem of the masses for them - much like the elites always come to the scientists for help to keep feeding the masses

there is no sapience in a crowd - never was and will never be