Autumnal Equinox Greetings

The smoke has cleared from the Seattle area skies, for the time being. And rains are here and in the forecast. We very much need the moisture.

Since my teenage years, reading apocalyptic sci-fi, I always wondered what the end times would be like. But like many of you I generally believed it would come after my life time. Yet here we are in the start of what is clearly the demise of global civilization and conceivably the human species. For all these years I have been writing about the increasingly dysfunctional institutions I have been attending to the rate of change as best I could measure it. We've been going downhill for a long time but it seemed to me that rates at which these institutions were changing were accelerating but not so rapidly that the collapse was imminent. But such is the nature of a chaotic system that is being steadily pushed that at some point it can instantly jump to a new attractor basin that disrupts everything. I think that is what we are witnessing now.

Being too old to act on this understanding I will continue to observe the goings-on from my home and, as long as the Internet works, offer my thoughts here. But I would recommend that if you are at all able to distance yourself from the grid and learn to garden it would be a good time to make it happen. Maybe I'll have something to say at the Winter Solstice.

Comments

[Dave Gould]

Definitely one possible scenario. Another, but perhaps not yet evident is that the US bifurcates or splits in some fashion. With CA the world's fifth largest economy, a new country, say the Pacific States of America including HI, CA, OR, and WA could certainly stand alone and be governed rationally and intelligently with a more uniform culture and the current US at large. Money, time, and effort saved from propping up Red States could ,begin to pay for defense, social justice, and so on.

[brickbat]

The world is not coming to a end. We do however have problems we need to resolve.
1. globalists' conflict of interest with nations. (where should their leagues be? with with their business or with the markets/nation that created it)
2. education
3. ethics (green is becoming the replacement of old religions, but it doesn't come with any known moral clause)
4. the verifiability of informations

These problems do have solutions. we have faced far worse in history and we'll solve this problems. No need to be doom and gloom, this is a great time to be alive. we're making a large impact to our future with what we do today more so than thought possible 20 years ago.

[David Gould]

Certainly the world / earth will survive quite nicely; the inhabitants are going to find it challenging beyond anything seen before. One of my favorite quotes is provided below by Joseph Tainter.

People will rarely acknowledge that an accustomed way of life is unsustainable except in the face of prolonged devastating failure.
- Joseph Tainter

My own summary thoughts on tomorrow are as follows.

We are in a perfect storm of five emerging and interacting crises: a viral pandemic; an economic collapse; accelerating climate change; an increasing socio-political divide driven by racism, inequality, and identity; and a crisis of leadership. And of course, a few more minor problems such as our deteriorating infrastructure (e.g., housing, roads, bridges, dams, airports, train stations, and railroads). And inadequate education for preparing our students to compete in a post-industrial globalized advanced technological world on one side and poverty, homelessness, and helplessness on the other.

All systems fail and our form of government(s) will be no exception. It's not about if, but when.

[George Mobus]

All,

You are invited to participate in my new blog, Rethinking Everything (https://questioneverything.typepad.com/rethinking_everything/) where we can have in-depth discussions of these kinds of issues.

@brickbat,
How can you be so sure. If you go back in the archives of QE you will find ample evidence that many of the problems we face are NOT fixable. In the new blog all our assertions must be backed by verifiable evidence.

George