Toward a Better Understanding of a Feasible Living Situation

For Future Humanity

See these posts for background:
What is a feasible living situation for future humans?,
A feasible living situation continued.,
What should we fight to save?,
More on aesthetics and humanity
[A small side comment: I have been listening to Brandi Carlile's album (see the third link above), "Give up the ghost", the track "Oh Dear" and I am still just stunned by her talent!!! Brandi, may you always produce such beautiful music! (Also kudos to the Twins for their backup! Absolutely fantastic.)]

A central question that I raised in this series is what kind of living situation would be needed in order for future humans (those living after the population bottleneck event) to survive in a manner that would allow those humans to pursue activities that led to self-actualization. Clearly, a mere subsistence lifestyle is not going to cut it if future humans are going to be happy and continue the tradition of developing culture, even if it isn't going to be a high technology, high powered one. If future humans, evolving toward a new and more sapient species, cannot live in a world in which they can achieve something more than mere subsistence then I'm not sure its even worth the effort for humans to survive into that future (c.f. Homo sapiens, I'm glad I knew ye).

But lets continue to think about what might produce a feasible living condition for those future humans. I must admit that there are a number of things that I am assuming that may or may not be reality. For example, I assume that colonies can be established in climatologically stable (relatively speaking) areas that are also protected from the climate refugee hoards that will likely sweep northward as the impacts of climate start to really have an impact. I assume that the decline of energy available to those hoards will limit their capabilities to invade the kinds of areas I have in mind. I hope you will forgive me for not revealing more detail at this time, but I have been researching the potentials of various geographical areas and, naturally I hope to discover areas that will be immune from these hoards. If my assumptions prove false then kiss the potential goodbye!

I have been studying the energetics of hunter-gatherer and early agricultural communities (c.f. Pimentel & Pimentel, 2008) to get a better handle on what it might take in the way of a feasible support system. I would like to share a few interesting facts.

Several people have 'complained' to me that my ideas about a village of 500 (only an approximate number) being a utopian dream. They feel that if a bottleneck event takes place future humans will face the most brutal environment which will select for the most brutal individuals and a general devolution of humanity. This view has been bolstered by a few science fiction writers addressing the idea of a Mad Max-like dystopian future. Such a view, of course, dismisses the combination of cleverness and wisdom for its potential to overcome the challenges that a future world might produce. I choose not to be dismissive and so cynical about the future. I would like to further explore the potentials for a community to survive the future challenges and actually prosper in the sense that the members of that society might achieve self-actualization.

The Energetics of Hunter-Gatherer and Primitive Agricultural Societies

It will probably come as a surprise to many people to learn that modern hunter-gatherer societies exist that are not living hand-to-mouth existences today. The !Kung bushmen of Botswana in Africa are a case in point. In spite of living in what we would consider a marginal land (rain, soil fertility, etc.) these people have adapted to a lifestyle in which they only have to use 2.2 days per week gathering food adequate to supply their nutritional needs (see Pimentel & Pimentel, Chapter 6), leaving the rest of their time to other activities of living, including recreation. Admittedly they are lucky to have an indigenous food source, the mongongo nut tree, that can supply an incredible source of protein and calories. But the point is that there are environments, even if marginal in such things as rainfall, that can supply the necessary nutrients to allow an indigenous population to more than survive. Anthropological studies of the lifestyle of the !Kung indicate that they are quite happy, thank you.

Studies of the mountainous New Guinea farmer populations demonstrate that even primitive agriculture can produce situations in which people produce adequate nourishment and still have time to pursue other interests. From several studies (including a swidden-style agricultural system in Mexico — where the farmers exploit a piece of land and then move on to another, see slash and burn agriculture) it is clear that a primitive agriculture system is sustainable for the long term, but sustainability requires a stable population size, one that is not growing over time (see: The hardest moral dilemma of all).

Pimentel & Pimentel report that for even so-called marginal hunter-gatherer societies the EROI of lifestyle is 3.3 to 1 and for swidden agriculture the EROI is between 12:1 and 15:1. This ratio is significant since new oil and gas EROIs are running in the less than 10:1 range. Our modern technological society was built with fossil fuels at EROIs in excess of 30:1. It was much higher in the early 20^th century and has been declining as the easiest to obtain fossil fuels have been depleting. It is difficult to get accurate numbers on what a minimum average EROI that would be needed to maintain our current society but one might conclude from the evidence that it is in excess of 10:1 (Hall, et al, 2009). However, it is also the case that such a low average EROI for all possible energy sources would not allow us to grow or even adequately maintain the society that we have now. It is unlikely too that any substantial development of underdeveloped countries could be accomplished. A future society that can establish an agricultural society with EROI greater than 5 or 10 to one can have a very viable existence. With some additional assistance from water and wind power (with EROI at perhaps 10:1 given the nature of that future very low-tech technology) life could be good.

A future society, living in a temperate climate, might require between 10 and 50 hectares (one hectare is 10,000 square meters: equivalent to 2.471 acres) of mixed-use land per person to produce adequate calories (esp. protein sources) for a year. One hectare of agricultural land could support up to five people, but if draft animals are used then more land would be needed for that, and other sustainable resources, like wood, need to be accounted for as well. The land will need to be a mixture of forest, fields, and planting areas, supporting a rich biota. It will need to be within a reliable watershed and have a year round stream. I have found areas that far exceed this amount of land within zones that appear to provide climate stability for the next several hundred years (forgive me if I do not say where or how for obvious reasons!). As a consequence I envision communities being established that could flourish in the sense of growing enough food to supply basic needs, but also having adequate extra time to pursue activities that contribute to self-actualization.

There are no guarantees, of course. But, by the calculations provided by the Pimentels it appears well within the realm of feasibility that future humans might not just survive, but thrive in terms of having extra energy to apply to pursuing self-actualizing activities. Thus the idea of a sapient society with education as the core activity is not so unreasonable after all.

There is hope for future humanity. There is reason to believe that a wiser race of humanity might succeed in living a worthwhile life in spite of the seeming hardships of an energy constrained world. The energetics of a likely environment appear favorable.

What Should Our Species Do?

If this potential is viable, what should we, the extant species of humanity be doing to bring about this future? Unfortunately we cannot know with certainty that this future is realistic. Thus, we might easily revert to cynicism and reject any actions today that might ensure some kind of future for the genus Homo (some commentators on this blog have said as much!). That would be a huge mistake. Despite the lack of certainty we must act as if there were a viable future for humanity. The worst that can happen is that our species will go into extinction with only a whimper. But, if I am right in the idea that there is still potential in our species, then it behooves us to take action on behalf of that future species of humanity. We have a responsibility.

It behooves us to bequeath some protection to a population of potential eusapients.

References

• Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M. (2008). Food, Energy, and Society, CRC Press, New York.
• Hall, C.A.S., Balogh, S., & Murphy, D.J.R. (2009). What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable Society Must Have?, Energies, 2009, 2, 25-47. (on-line pdf http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/1/25/pdf )

Comments

[GaryA]

Neat calculations George I agree with your sentiments. You question what should our species do? Also requires the counter what should they not do? In answering that question they would have a few clues from the demise of current civilisation....
Reconnection I would say; reconnection rather than separation, reconnection to community, to nature, to the universe which begat us and embracing not forgetting of being...which is the cultural componant hinted at by your aesthetic appreciation of music. Artistic multi-dimensional culture has a huge largely untapped potential for resonating and communicating the 'underworld' of existance beyond the narrow torch-beam of our conscious attention..... quality rather than quanitity of our experiences. Showing us the futility of the frantic inertia of growth, development exapansion domination and control of nature and our fellow humans...the things our species should give up henceforth because (20th century prime lesson) they were a project doomed to failure from the start.

[Icarus]

If you were living in (say) the year 2100, what would the graph of global human population look like, looking back over the previous 2 millennia? Would it be coming down even faster than it went up? Where would the peak be? How far down will it be by 2100? I know that it's impossible to know but it would be interesting if you could hazard a guess.

Cheers...

[George Mobus]

Hi GaryA.

All it takes is wisdom.

Icarus,

According to the UN Population Projections by 2100 the world population should just be starting to decline after leveling off at 9.5 billion by about mid century. Personally I don't think we'll ever come close to 9 billion without some major (and I mean major) miracle in energy. Things are starting to come apart at the seams now, today. Within ten years we will be on a major downslide in energy and population will follow shortly. What the shape of the curve will be is completely conjecture.

One possible moderating factor for the population in the US is that the real problem is total biomass in human form. Since there is a real obesity problem in this country we may first see a reduction in per capita weight as people go on forced diets! But once all the excess fat is burned up, then the real problems start.

What could make the curve steeper would be any number of radical social upheavals causing rioting and a government crackdown. Real bullets were shot at Kent State U. Just imagine what they'll use to quell the crowds in our cities.

Finally, the real Black Swan is the potential for an outbreak of a serious killer disease like influenza. Our current and constantly increasing population densities in cities makes us easy targets. Couple the overcomplexity of our public health system that has trouble tying its shoes let alone head off a new disease with the diminishing availability of fuels to move medicines and bodies and you have a real horror story brewing.

And then the bottleneck.

George

[genes]

Enjoyed your post (and the link to Brandi Charlie). Maybe you're vision of a responsibility to our future "eusapient" Homo sapiens is too limited. Are you acquainted with the "uplift" series by David Brin? Maybe we should be working with "pre-sapient" species (great apes, dogs, cetaceans) to hurry them along towards sapience - a less lonely future for our decendants...

[Shoudaknown]

George, I think you know by now I like the "metaphor" of growth to maturity for describing what a physical system needs to do to become sustainable, grow to maturity...

What keeps humanity from adopting that approach to our use of the earth, is the question. Something drives us treat the music of life as if amplifier feedback, so on the first note of modern civilization we are taking our new found power of science and reason to the point of blowing out all the speakers and all the instruments. Why is hard to pinpoint.

I posted a nice couple comments on it on DOT EARTH this AM, on the critical moral and practical difference between "the golden rule" and "the rule of gold" humans have been living by and treating as if "normal" for so long.
++++
Well,... one of the other "golden rules" is one we need to break our true addiction to.

That's arranging economies like casinos, where everyone is offered sure bets of a wide variety and encourages you to keep piling your winnings on your bets. It's a very effective way to manage the economy and the earth as a casino where the house is sure to lose ever more on every bet, giving away wealth to idle users ever faster.

No wonder the finance industry (of the 1400's I guess) set up government to establish that central purpose of economic regulation.
---

Not to avoid mentioning the more "golden ethic" we've been failing to recognize, in the failure of the "rule of gold" in managing the economies to guarantee the bets of idle players and encourage them to pile on their winnings.

It's that betting with a guarantee to win is no bet at all. That's also because it otherwise naturally craters your environment to take such bets and continually add your winnings to them. Everyone is then both naturally and morally obligated to give away their winnings, any time they come from the synergy of the place in which they were found. That is indeed where the great majority of profits do come from.

It's elemental math, involving a recognition that the synergy of all the others around you is not your private property, but a stewardship responsibility.

That's unfortunately, almost a completely foreign concept in our culture, having been run of, for and by the wealthy for so very many centuries it seems. Maybe it comes from the sloppy way we tend to buy someone's story, just because it seems give you part of the spoils. That may seem profitable at first, yes, but it's apparently not actually be a very good form or reasoning.

[Robin Datta]

Yes indeed, a feasible living situation of the future would include both appropriate primary economy (nature) and the secondary economy (labor), to borrow the ArchDruid's terms. The golden rule, "He who owns the gold makes the rules" (as I had once heard) has been applicable ever since we have had tertiary economies.

Depending on its robustness (if such a term can even be applied to a faith-based system of promises as is the tertiary economy), the tertiary economy may continue to sustain that golden rule.

Regrettably with that golden rule the rules that are made are designed to facilitate the further accumulation of gold.

[Jason]

Everyone -- don't forget that the tertiary 'casino' begins as ways to hedge risk. That's a good idea. Yes it ends in the crash of society quite regularly, but that's because no-one sees fit to control speculation on values that arbitrage risk. People with the power to regulate it are too busy making money off it. :)

"Sapience" would involve seeing the long-term systemic effects of such things as they happened and correcting for them. The alternative is 'credit is bad'. That works for populist religions that arise in times like these, ("usury") and we're going to be hearing it a lot. But I can pretty much guarantee more risk-hedging in any putative human future. We're in a cycle here.

I liked this post George, so far as it goes (you know I don't think the bottleneck will be as narrow as you do). I agree with what you are saying in the final para, contra those who say cynical despair could be more useful -- but I would word it a lot stronger.

Despair and (in the modern non-philosophical sense) cynicism are not merely emotionally inappropriate compared with 'optimism', they are flat-out not sapient and can't even be considered viable responses for one moment. This has nothing to do with 'optimism' in an emotional sense.

I don't know where people are getting their old-time wisdom doses (I like Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism and Taoism) but wherever you look, you won't find many recommendations in favour of despair as a viable option for wisdom, or indeed as anything other than a copout. This has nothing to do with judging humanity's worth or even its viability -- it's to do with what works constructively in practice, taking a long view, which is precisely what wisdom/sapience is supposed to be about.

Everyone is starting to get an idea what they should be getting on with on the ground, and there is not one rational argument against doing it; whether it happens to work or not is as you say unknowable, but it's also completely irrelevant.

[George Mobus]

Genes,

Indeed I am familiar with David Brin's work. I knew David when I lived in San Diego a couple of centuries ago. I used to hang out with the sci-fi writers crowd, of which David and Greg Bear were the nucleus. This was before either had really made it big (I'm even mentioned by name in Greg's novel "Queen of Angles", but I don't remember which pages).

Fun to think about, but given the great differences in the brain architectures of various kinds of animals I seriously doubt that any such program would work. Chimps maybe, or at least some increases in cognitive abilities toward human-level intelligence.

We are a long way from knowing which genes do what in brain development (though there are some interesting beginnings here). So I can't imagine that we'd know which genes to twiddle any time soon.

George

[George Mobus]

Shouldaknown,

I believe that from my understanding of your writings (synapse9.com) that we seem to agree that a sigmoid curve is the natural order of things and that human expansion has been the anomaly. I think, too, we agree that the sigmoid is due to an early dominance of positive feedback mechanisms because there is some kind of time lag in the growth of negative feedback loops. At the center inflection point of the sigmoid the negative feedbacks begin to overcome the positive ones and that is what we see in the deceleration effect. Then, what happens after the curve reaches its apogee depends on whether there was overshoot (positives dominated for too long in the system building up excessive reaction forces in the negatives) determines if the curve levels out into the classic sigmoid or goes through a peak and rapid fall. The Limits to Growth model showed this effect and was based on these dynamics.

As to what has allowed humanity to break the mold and far exceed the ordinary carrying capacity of our environment, I think it is the emergence of a new level of organization. I see it as similar to what Teilhard de Chardin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teilhard_de_Chardin ) called the noosphere, the sphere of mind that sits atop the biosphere. What we are witnessing is the sorting out of, the self organizing of meta-mental structures in this new layer. In such newly emergent media there is always chaos.

There are no guarantees that this new level will succeed, of course. And there is no way to cause it to! I do think that the emergence of sapience and the evolutionary drive toward eusapience represents the self organizing going on. Too bad we won't be around to see the results :^(

George

[George Mobus]

Robin,

Don't you think that should there ever be a future viable primary and secondary economy that since we now understand the relationship between money and energy that a tertiary economy would not arise? If that future civilization were to adopt the exergy standard of currency (i.e. one unit of money = x units of exergy) then the money supply would always match the ability to do work and there could be no borrowing from the future (only from savings and for limited times). In fact with a reserve requirement of, say, 95% and no loans from savings longer than 1 year, the impact on money supply would be negligible. Further restrictions on the conditions of borrowing (say to repair damage) rather than growth (building a new house instead of repairing the old one) would assure that no one could start gambling about how much profit they will make at some future time.

Get rid of the gold.

George

[George Mobus]

Jason,

My own preference (as I indicated in my response to Robin) is that the only viable and useful hedge against risk is an adequate savings. The kinds of risk-hedging that goes on in Wall Street these days is hedging bets on bets. The theory, from finance, sounds good but it is flawed. It works only as long as energy flow is increasing. When energy flow is decreasing the risks are greater than calculated from models based on past experience with rising energy flows. We simply cannot bet that we will be making more wealth (real wealth) in the future when we have less and less net energy to do the work with!

The future will require diligence, frugality, and savings. These are values that worked well for humans for thousands of years before we discovered oil.

As for despair, I agree wholeheartedly. To succumb to that emotion is a personality flaw. Those who do will almost certainly be the ones selected against! Survival and a future thriving population depend on wisdom, intelligence, creativity, and gumption - nothing less.

George

[Jason]

GM -- The kinds of risk-hedging that goes on in Wall Street these days is hedging bets on bets.

Oh I fully agree, but "these days" is the operative phrase. What you're calling "adequate savings" is just where insurance begins after all -- essentially paying into a pool that pays out when needed. The problem is when it goes fully tertiary and speculative, and "metastasizes" (as Greer would say) at such a furious rate.

I'm kind of surprised by your reply to Robin though -- you say "we now understand the relationship between money and energy", but who is this "we"? Maybe your readers do and a few other people, but I see a very high possibility that the knowledge won't make it through the bottleneck, don't you?

Maybe your best bet is to start making a big rock inscription, Oenoanda Style. It worked for Diogenes!

[George Mobus]

Jason,

Something like that is in the works! The "we" is the biophysical economics (and to some extent the ecological economics) crowd. This is the kind of stuff we do!

Here is are the slides from my 2009 Biophysical Econ meeting presentation:
http://faculty.washington.edu/gmobus/Background/moneyAndEnergy.ppt

It isn't a new idea, just needs more work.

George

[Jason]

I'm very aware of the thermoeconomic stuff, systems stuff, ecological economics etc. etc. (And I think it's great BTW). All I'm suggesting is, you might want to think how you can be sure to pay it forward to whatever succeeds us.

I talk about Greek philosophers very liberally, but we so nearly don't have them, and this time we might not have an Islam to hand them off to. Culture doesn't necessarily survive dark ages, that's why they're dark!

And what does survive tends to do so because it's useful to each generation. Oenoanda contained wisdom meant to help with life during the collapse. But we'll see the end of money during the decline, and there may be a hate-backlash against money that lasts for centuries, followed by feudalism that doesn't require it for centuries more. To hoard economic theories like Hall's and yours, etc., through all those centuries could require some forethought. No?

I don't think it's impossible, I just suggest it's worth a headscratch or two. It'd be a shame, having produced a theory that could prove so useful to our successors, if they never saw it! I've seen some fancy ideas floating around about indestructible microfiches deposited in monasteries... short of that, how does one ensure the survival of information?

[Florifulgurator]

Apropos Oenoanda,
"I declare that the vain fear of death and that of the gods grip many of us, and that joy of real value is generated not by theatres and ...and baths and perfumes and ointments, which we have left to the masses, but by natural science..." (-- The Epicurean Inscription (Abridged)
by Diogenes of Oinoanda (c. 200 CE) http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/tei.html

Already said in the last thread, to preserve some of our knowledge: my suggestion is to form some sort naturalistic religion around science (and agriculture). Knowledge will survive best when actively used and pondered. Not microfiches in monasteries, but brains in monasteries. (But I suggest to drop chastity and poverty and replace the classic vows by non-procreation resp. carbon negativity. A bit more at http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2009/08/getting-serious.html ).

[Jason]

@Florifulgurator, agree living traditions will work better than dead ones; it's just that like I said, it might be hard to keep theories about money "actively used and pondered" when no-one is using any money for a few centuries.

Some sort of catechism perhaps? ^_^ Or maybe there is a scriptorium approach possible where the idea is to write the history of the fall and continually explain it in terms of exergy, then illuminate the results on vellum.

JMG is just talking about monasticism on his blog today, matter of fact, but I agree with him that traditions like that won't spring up in earnest for a hundred years yet.

Not that I'd stop anyone being in the vanguard of course! Myself though, I practice spiritual discipline for actual spiritual reasons, oddly enough.

[George Mobus]

Jason,

I should have been clearer when I said, "Something like that is in the works!" I was referring to the fact that I have been in conversations with several people who are thinking about methods for selecting, encrypting (for compression), and archiving critical knowledge for a distant future generation to decrypt and start using. So we are thinking about this problem. However, if you have some more thoughts on the subject please feel free to e-mail me or post them here. It is a very worthy subject to pursue.

Flor,

Some kind of tradition, based on beliefs in how the world works, is certainly natural to Homo sapiens and would be essential to foster while this species begins the process of sympatric speciation that I have envisioned. A more eusapient species of humans would, I presume, better understand why they believe in the tradition, whereas our current, weakly sapient kind might easily forget the purposes and let a tradition morph into something, possibly harmful. After all, isn't that how Christianity morphed into greedy capitalism?!

The reason I think we need to ensure that any bottleneck survivors are as maximally sapient (genetically) as we can is that this might help minimize the loss of meaning. Sapience, as evidenced by attributes of wisdom in later years, is highly correlated with deeper understanding vs. superficial knowing of facts. But of course the whole scheme remains a conjecture regarding a crap shoot!

At present I am enamored with David Holmgren's version of Permaculture as it entails a "spiritual" dimension that is not based on dogmatic beliefs as found in most religions, but in practical wisdom regarding natural systems and the application of systems thinking to a human built world. I think that traditions built up from this kind of approach could be maximally successful in being passed on intact from generation to generation.

Jason (again),

I may have missed that JMG post. I'll have to take a look. It has been a busy week (esp. following the oil leak in the GoM - what a horrible tragedy). My notion of a village based on Permaculture and a University of Noesis is really just a version of a circumscribed culture (like a monastary but, as Flor noted, with sex, not necessarily procreative!) that is functioning to preserve understanding by living sustainably and able to adapt to future climate changes (if possible).

George

[Jason]

Fascinating George, that you're thinking about that question of bringing the data forward. I also think Flor's idea of a living tradition is important too. I would love to know more at some stage.

Greer's post on monasteries came up yesterday, still there. Other important ideas of his on that: they are funded by necessarily lower standards of living than even regular livelihoods, plus I personally very much like his idea of 'dissensus', that is, of having more than one strategy in play to up the likelihood of something getting through. That is, don't have only one model of monastery and make each very very local.

Having spent the last decade putting together a personal spiritual practice, I'll be practicing whether in a community of this kind or not. My only potential problem would be if I were expected to adopt practices I didn't like... but I can usually get around that.

I hope sex is not compulsory your final model either! For many spiritual practices, periods of celibacy are incredibly useful, they aren't by any means a random product of spiritual systems worldwide.

[George Mobus]

Hi Jason.

I don't plan on any final model! I agree with Greer on that point, variation is a key. However, I think that variation will necessarily arise quite naturally over time. My only concern is with the necessary and sufficient conditions needed to produce a viable village. Just a set of guidelines. After that the villagers will decide what they will. My expectation is that the more sapient villages will adapt and survive reasonably well. The less sapient will succumb. What their spiritual "practices" will be is anybody's guess. But part of the culture and heritage that they pass on to future generations will surely be based on physically meaningful choices and those meanings will be part of what is passed on as well, not just the practices. E.g., abstinence may prove both spiritually uplifting and a good method of maintaining a stable population. It supposedly worked for the shakers. But, of course, they imported new bodies into their fold. Every once in a while somebody has to get pregnant!

George

[Jason]

All sounds sensible George, I look forward to hearing more.