if (length(day) == length(night)) HappyEquinox();

Another inflection point in the year. Now we are diving into the predominance of cold and darkness. And I am talking about the political season not just the autumnal season.

I really don't have anything more to say about the state of politics in the US than I've already said. It is still a spectacle of the very worst form of decision making with respect to how we shall govern our society in the future. There is not one rational voice in the lot of candidates or the media pundits who comment on the races. Neoclassical economists still hold sway over the rhetoric and what passes as policy deliberations. The Republicans (and Libertarians) remain dumbfoundingly irrational in their beliefs that tax reductions (especially for the already rich) are the route to prosperity for all. We have collected so much evidence that this is not the case but they stubbornly cling to that mantra. Of course the party was taken over by the anti-science, anti-intellectual crowd a while back so I guess this isn't terribly surprising. Santorum's recent comment about how the “smart people will never support” US is so revealing and so terribly sad. But it seems to very much reflect the current state of the Republican party members' minds. They have become masters of rationalization in turning greed and selfishness into a virtue. All that brain power going to support what is probably the most destructive force on the planet.

Democrats don't get a pass either. Here we see someone like Energy Secretary Stephan Chu, a Nobel physicist, still playing as if technology (like clean coal) will win the day and we can get the economy going again. Economic growth is physically impossible and somewhere in that man's mind he has to grasp that. Real economic growth depends on increasingly turning physical resources into assets that humans use (and use up). It depends on increasingly available energy to do useful work. It is NOT increasingly printing money just to say we have liquidity! In my mind that fellow is guilty of criminal deceit in not declaring the physical truth.

I can somewhat understand Obama's lack of grasp of the situation. He is trained as a lawyer and lawyers think mostly in terms of winning positions (which is why so many politicians are lawyers). They pick and choose the evidence that will advance their cases. They are not scientists and they are not sensitive to counter evidence to their positions until such evidence becomes overwhelming and obvious to all observers. And that is exactly what is going to happen in the not-too-distant future when regional economies fall right and left as the global economy falters and eventually fails. But then, of course, it is too late to do anything meaningful about it.

Both parties, the ideologues in both camps, the neoclassical economists stubbornly asserting their model of how the world works, all hold to the idea that growth means a healthy economy. A healthy economy creates jobs and lets everyone consume to their hearts' contents. Consumption means demand. Demand drives the economy to grow. THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE ABSOLUTELY STUPIDEST MODEL THAT EVER EXISTED! There is no rational way on Earth that anyone can justify this notion of infinite growth.

So they don't. They just keep mouthing the rhetoric over and over. And the masses just soak it up mindlessly. Their biggest problem is deciding which candidate is more likely to “create more jobs”, the one who says he has a plan, or the one who says he has a plan!

Neither candidate can really claim to understand the real situation and thus have a workable plan. Romney can only bluster that he can do it because his business experience gives him the skills. Of course he doesn't say exactly how he would do it. Obama, has advanced a few of the typical (and completely wrong) Keynesian ideas of government spending (e.g. infrastructure repair) to prime the pump and get demand back up until the economy is then self sustaining. Not only is he talking about the absolutely worst investments in infrastructure (assets that will be stranded such as roads in the post-oil economy) but it is all contingent on there being energy to run such an economy. Ain't gonna happen.

Directing some government investment toward alternative energy research might have a small payoff but the more we learn about the efficacy of these energy sources (solar, wind) the more we realize that the total power that we can expect to get from an all electric system would be many orders of magnitude less than we currently use. We could not expect to have anything even remotely close to the standard of living we have now even after you squeeze all of the waste and inefficiencies out of the system. All Obama's plan does is attempt to kick the can down the road a bit with fingers crossed that a miracle will happen. Well I hope a miracle happens too, but I am not basing an action plan on it doing so.

In a very real sense the acceptance by the vast majority of people of the idea that a growing economy even if feasible, if not desirable, reflects on the abysmal state of knowledge and the education that we get in this country (though it isn't really any different in the rest of the world, is it?) I strongly suspect that this is a result of having reached the limits of the average human brain to grasp reality that is so complex as much as a failure of the education system. I think the system and the increasing insular attitudes toward complex knowledge in the vast majority of the population is the result of a coevolution, or rather a devolution. We don't develop an adequate education system because the students are really not generally capable of dealing with the complexities of knowledge the modern world has to offer. And those same students are the ones who eventually go out into the world, muddling through as best they can, and either complain about the state of education (when Johnny or Jane can't pass the standardized math tests that most of them couldn't pass either), or become teachers and administrators charged with reforming/modifying the system and educating the next generation. We're caught in a downward spiral, negative feedback loop just because our brains have reached their level of incompetence relative to the knowledge environment our own science and engineering efforts have created.

Fall is here. For both the physical season and for the human condition. We are headed for winter and those seeking to run things aren't even thinking of how to prepare for that cold, dark season. Instead they are promising spring and summer as if we could just skip winter. Of course spring will come for the physical season. I seriously doubt that the human condition will know anything other than a long and terrible winter. Fall should be the season of harvest and storing energy for the winter and spring. Instead our political leaders aren't even paying attention to reality.

Comments

[jim MacInnes]

always enjoy reading your comments. See you at the UVM Biophysical economics conference. Here's my book review of EWON http://www.todaysengineer.org/2012/Jun/Book-Review.asp
jim

[Ugo Bardi]

Hi, George. I translated a snippet of your post on an Italian blog; here

http://resistenzafutile.blogspot.it/2012/09/il-modello-piu-stupido-mai-esistito.html

All the best!

[step back]

We have entered the age of "SPOUTR" politics.

SPOUTR= Sweep Peak Oil Under The Rug

If you are part of the 47% experiencing the shrinking part of the pie then Republicans will tell you that you are "lazy" and a moocher. Democrats will tell you that you need to re-educate yourself for the "New Economy".

These are simply different ways of convincing the victims that they "had it coming" and it's their own darn fault.

Blame the victim is a very old mind game.

[Aboc Zed]

i only have one question:

which programming language is the syntax of the title?

C++?

i did not do programming for ages ...

[J. Kallestad]

"A healthy economy creates jobs and lets everyone consume to their hearts' contents. Consumption means demand. Demand drives the economy to grow. THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE ABSOLUTELY STUPIDEST MODEL THAT EVER EXISTED! There is no rational way on Earth that anyone can justify this notion of infinite growth.

So they don't. They just keep mouthing the rhetoric over and over. And the masses just soak it up mindlessly."

I agree in part that there are plenty of "mindless" individuals who are impressionable or more loyal to group-think than to their own soul, but there are, I believe, more people who find themselves befuddled by the complexity, helpless and therefore hopeless to imagine a different way, or a completely rational way out of our current predicament...myself included. In what age has the polical system, or institutional economics provided a clear vision of a path to security or prosperity or justice? It's voices like your own that make people think about their life and make changes. It was the Occupy movement that made me give BOA the heave ho. It's the awareness of worsening climate change that makes me ride to work on a bike, and not buy the flatscreen. It's awareness about the insideous poisoning of our food supply with pesicide residues and herbicide resisitant varieties that has pushed me to buy organic and local food. The rest is faith and hope against all odds that if I stay true to this path, and there are enough of the other 'non-mindless' people doing the same, that some small incremental change to a more sustainable future will be promoted. Not to believe in this is to embrace absurdity. Yes, winter is near, and we ALL deserve a good chill.

[George Mobus]

Jim,

Great. See you there.

Nice review too. Everyone should read it and then go get Charlie's and Kent's book!

----------------------------------------
Ugo,

Thanks. I guess the Borg are the ultimate consumers!

--------------------------------------
Step,

Thanks for the link.

-------------------------------------
Aboc,

That was a C-like statement. Please forgive my impish geekism. It came to me in a moment of mirth. Something hard to come by these days!

-------------------------------------
J.,

One of the reasons I still push ahead with systems science is precisely to combat mindlessness! I am not calling people stupid. Rather I am in agreement with you that many people are swamped with future shock just due to the seeming complexities of life. What systems science (and thinking) can do for one is help organize the complexity into manageable structures.

But, that said, there are going to be so many more people in this world who never do get a systems science education sufficient to allow them to become mindful of the interconnections between things in our world.

In what age has the polical system, or institutional economics provided a clear vision of a path to security or prosperity or justice?

An excellent question. My attempt at an answer would be "there never has been such a time!" But that is what we could evolve toward in the future under the right circumstances. That is what our evolution toward eusociality is actually all about.

I plan on writing more on this soon. I've just finished E.O. Wilson's new book, "The Social Conquest of Earth" and it has inspired me to provide more details on why the evolution of sapience is the mechanism by which eusociality was coming about in humans. Keep a weather eye out for it.

George

[Molly]

You don't have to be a "systems scientist" (which obviously I AM NOT) to realize that infinite growth in a finite system is a logical impossibility. No, people are not "stupid," but they ARE willfully ignorant.

[JimMacInnes]

If you liked The Social Conquest of Earth you would probably also like Wired for Culture by Mark Pagel.

[porge]

George,
The education system is inadequate by design.
The politicians are marionettes.

We live in a profoundly hierarchical social structure and the upper crust would be crazy to educate the lower tiers to a level of competency that would allow them to climb to their level. The goal is to keep the lowers where they are or even push them down the pyramid.

George Carlin pretty much sums it up here and funny too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

[Robin Datta]

Dr. Mobus, are you preaching to the choir, crying in the wilderness, or hoping to convert some passerby? Or perhaps all three? Nevertheless, thank you for speaking out.

[George Mobus]

Molly,

You are probably more of a systems scientist than you imagine! But you are right. There are a lot of people who just refuse to think of the implications of growth, preferring to think, I suppose, that we should just keep it going as long as they are alive!

Maybe not stupid. But definitely not wise.

-------------------------------------
Jim,

Thanks for the tip.

-------------------------------------
porge,

I've seen the Carlin clip. This is one of those areas where it is really hard to say which is cause and which is effect. In my mind the masses are essentially co-conspirators with the elite in a kind of mutually beneficial social contract. After all, the lower classes have gotten a lot of stuff by playing along with the system. Where I think things started going wrong was when the elites started sensing that the insane growth scenario was grinding to a halt (I'm not suggesting they actually understood this, only that they intuited something was amiss). In response they have tried to keep the illusion alive through debt financing but also they made the mistake of leveraging their own positions with greater disparity between themselves and the lower classes. Result: growing unrest as it becomes clear to the lower classes that the elites are not playing the game by the agreed upon rules.

-------------------------------------
Robin,

Basically I write for myself. By writing I can expose my thoughts to the light of day and my own reflection on them. I have no desire to preach, cry, or convert anyone. That others, like yourself provide commentary and additional insights is just a benefit of this blog platform.

What I do know is that there are a large and growing number of regular readers with whom my writing seems to resonate. Perhaps this work provides a voice of some kind to them.

George

[porge]

George,
First I hate the term "elite" because it implies a superiority by virtue which is definitely not the case. I prefer a group of despots (I wish I could find a plural form)
As to Panem et circeses no argument there.
It has been a game of give the masses what they clamor for and now it is running out.
The despots didn't "intuit" anything. This is all by design to impoverish as many as fast as possible and make them totally dependent on the "system".
That makes it very easy to control and prevent any violent blow back and also to cull as needed. They can simply stop the supply chains food, water.
They are evil and mentally ill and unfortunately our system is structured such that the bad guy always wins. So over time the most ruthless psychopaths will concentrate at the top of the hierarchy. All that concerns them is playing games against each other at the highest levels of society and the "people" are merely livestock... pawns on the chessboard.
Sorry to rant and sound like Alex Jones but the more I watch this mess the more I think that most of what I wrote above is correct.

[porge]

George,
One more thing; I have been directing many younger people to your blog. You know I sample and participate on quite a few blogs and I have to give you the compliment of being by far the best on the web.
Like I mentioned before I want my son to be educated by you and others like you.
He is 14 now and I would love to have him check out The University of Washington and particularly the new Systems Science program that you are standing up.
Personally I am about to get completely liquid and will have the time and the resources to enroll myself but I am 52 and I am not sure I could be admitted since it would seem that a younger student would have many more years to contribute to society than I would.
I studied Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering both on the BS level but I am really a life long autodidact and learned most of what I know after I graduated from the University of Rhode Island.
This is probably an inappropriate post but I just feel compelled to laud your efforts and keen powers of observation and articulation.OK I have patted you on the back enough.
Keep it up George!!

[George Mobus]

Hi Porge and thanks for the endorsement. Either a systems engineering track in computer engineering, or a systems science program (or both) should be up and running about the time your son is ready. Unless I get hit by a Mack truck!

George