Here is a video, in parts, which explains the massive implications of exponential growth. The kind which populations, and supposedly healthy economies, experience. It is an attempt by a college professor at University of Colorado (Boulder) to help people to acquire a better intuition for numbers like “7% growth per year”. The mathematics are very simple–it’s all in the charts, really. But what is most significant about this lecture is what it points out about the dangers inherent in not understanding the implications, and the alarming fact that almost no one in power does understand them (hence, the danger we will all face very soon). This is Malthusianism updated for the twenty-first century.

Please visit Arithmetic, Population and Energy | Integral Visioning. You have a responsibility to be informed. I found this link through KunstlerCast.com forums, a web discussion forum for Kunstler Cast, a weekly audio podcast about issues relating to suburban sprawl and peak oil.

Google search on “post-oil society” picked this up: Ten ways to Prepare for a Post-oil Society.

How do rational people find one another in an irrational world? Can rationality be measured? Is rationality enough? What am I trying to say?

The future is uncertain. But there is growing concern that the level of uncertainty is increasing, and that the variations on the future, if left to the minds and hands of those who have only limited understanding and a short-sighted self-interest in mind, look to be more and more extreme. The number of dreadful outcomes is increasing.

Predicting the future is a tricky business, because of three major factors: fractal divergence, random events, and feedback. I chose to include our lack of complete knowledge of any situation within the “random” category, as the appearance of these otherwise irrelevant effectors is random at the time, irrespective of the fact that a logical, deterministic understanding can (sometimes) be worked out in hindsight.

What we need is an organized, emotionally engaged movement of people with ethical principals, rational intelligence and a healthy self-interest with long-term planning tendencies. Most of all, they must be motivated to act in a co-ordinated manner in ways which are informed by those other traits. These are people who will not shy away from unpleasant truths and uncomfortable or vexing facts. They will seek pragmatic, inclusive solutions which require real effort but which have a reasonable likelihood of succeeding and making a difference in the long term. They will be resistant to fads and trends, and avoid being caught up in aimless, impotent analysis and theory.

In a properly functioning society, this group of people would generally be the government. But by that measure, how many societies in history have ever been properly functioning? You cannot reasonably expect an entire society, or culture, or even sub-culture, to adhere to these principles en masse. They are the product of a certain kind of environment, and/or certain innate personality traits, which are rare. The nature of human beings is fundamentally animal, emotional and socialized (which means self-normalizing, irrespective of what “normal” means–and it certainly doesn’t have to mean rational or devoted to long-term interests).

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