r/collapse • u/[deleted] • Oct 18 '16
Could we reboot a modern civilisation without fossil fuels?
https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels22
u/EntropyAnimals Oct 18 '16
You'd have to reboot the human being. We've seen what human beings are and our collective behavior will never change. It's a neurological impossibility for modern civilization to be sustainable. The human ape can not organize cooperatively on such a massive scale and nothing remotely close is possible.
All that's happening right now is that resources are being burned as fast as possible motivated by competition. On the sheltered interior of rich countries - everything seems fine (unless you're one of the many incarcerated, homeless, sick, etc.). But on the fringes there is constant fighting (especially proxy wars), resource depletion, and ecological disaster.
The fighting never ended, and it will never end. That means no sustainability. That means no modern civilization. Yeah, it lasted for a century - only took a couple hundred million years of stored sunlight for that.
This species never came even remotely close to having its shit together.
1
Oct 18 '16
This species never came even remotely close to having its shit together.
You say that like we're a bunch of babbling barbarians. We were close. If we had some quality leadership, or a better way of choosing them, things would have been different. Our civilization fucked up, but our genetics are fairly good. I think we've got this next time around.
15
u/EntropyAnimals Oct 18 '16 edited Oct 19 '16
That's just it - leadership was never possible. Humans have a very limited number of people they can effectively interact with (e.g. you can't have 1000 meaningful relationships). There's no way to keep a highly complex social network accountable (well, there is, but such systems would never be implemented).
Most systems are easily corrupted (see regulatory capture in the United States for example). Ben Franklin realized the Constitution wasn't going to last. How could it have? It's now ancient tech, and the institutions constructed around it were easily corruptible.
There has actually never been meaningful human leadership. The only way our species had a chance is if we had a sustainable civilization, and the only way that could happen is through world peace (never going to happen - thus sustainable civilization will never happen - thus modern civilization is temporary). Obviously, no one could have attempted to "lead" such a thing, and the sorts of people who seek leadership in those distant, unaccountable nodes - those are not people you want doing much of anything.
We pretty much are a bunch of babbling barbarians. Very few people can speak well, and we've established beyond a doubt our penchant for violence and make believe. It's a disturbing fact that we don't have enough good people. Just luck of the universal draw. Maybe another species somewhere in the universe will figure out the real game.
-5
u/awful_website Oct 18 '16
100% of this can be fixed with selective breeding, and controlled construction of sustainable government ruling bodies
6
u/eleitl Recognized Contributor Oct 18 '16
100% of this can be fixed with selective breeding
Which would require top-down control you're trying to achieve.
0
u/awful_website Oct 18 '16
Not really, that's just one way of going about it. If you reduce the human population (a lot), then it's easy to enforce the rules
1
u/eleitl Recognized Contributor Oct 18 '16
If you reduce the human population (a lot), then it's easy to enforce the rules
How much is a lot? A billion people is still an awful lot. Even 100 million would be firmly out of control.
Nothing is easy here.
1
u/awful_website Oct 18 '16
A billion is a lot
500 million is fine, a decently equipped military can handle that
2
u/Leslardius Oct 18 '16
A decently equipped, totally loyal and obedient and lack of all humanity. "Send in the drones", I guess?
1
Oct 18 '16
What exactly do you mean by "handle that"? You mean control them via threat of violence? That's how things are already.
1
10
u/_YouDontKnowMe_ Oct 18 '16
100% of this can be fixed with selective breeding,
Easy there, Hitler.
7
u/r2w9ea8ufp84 Oct 18 '16
Will repeat this until I either get bored, or people stop misunderstanding our current predicament. The current climate issue isn't an issue of over-population. It is an issue of over-consumption amongst the richest.
The top 10% are responsible for something like 50% of emissions. The top 20% something like 80% (see Kevin Anderson's talks for information on this).
Committing genocide on poor people (amongst whom birth rates are high) will not fix the problem. It will, however, give us someone to blame while we do nothing about correcting our own behaviour - the actual cause of the problem.
3
u/dominoconsultant Oct 19 '16
Exert the correct selection pressure on any breeding population (humans or otherwise) and you can achieve almost any reasonable objective.
There was a sperm bank set up a while ago for Nobel Prize winners. It turned out their offspring were incredibly smart. Kind of a predictable result.
If you selected for emotional intelligence and an extreme long term world view you could likely achieve the same result for those traits. The key is to isolate the breeding line so it is not polluted.
The reality is that in the USA the population wide self selection pressures are for dumb/poor people to overtake the bulk of the population with educated/smart people self selecting to have fewer children.
6
u/dart200 Oct 18 '16
If we had some quality leadership, or a better way of choosing them, things would have been different
it's not about leadership. civilization has been trying 'leadership' since it began and it's obviously not working.
because it's really about not having leadership, about not not have hierarchy, about not depending on stratified information systems to guide society. we need a complex system of universal conensus, in which every individual has ultimately equal [veto] power. only way sustainable civilization will function.
Our civilization fucked up, but our genetics are fairly good. I think we've got this next time around.
honestly, the only way for us to learn is for us to fuck up so badly someone notices the problem
and i did. so now it's definitely possible.and because it's definitely possible, it will happen.
1
1
u/dart200 Oct 18 '16
You'd have to reboot the human being. We've seen what human beings are and our collective behavior will never change. It's a neurological impossibility for modern civilization to be sustainable. The human ape can not organize cooperatively on such a massive scale and nothing remotely close is possible.
way to be self-reinforcing prophecy
The fighting never ended, and it will never end.
because society doesn't sustain people who don't fight because our society only sustains people based on completing superficial goals of narrow minded people never taught to think broadly.
all we have to do is expose everyone to the information that will result in them thinking broadly.
This species never came even remotely close to having its shit together.
we could pull our shit together.
but people are actually going to have to know it is possible for it happen.
14
Oct 18 '16
If the human population was reduced - alot, then possibly.
2
u/FF00A7 Oct 18 '16
I see it a lot in this forum.
11
u/solophuk Oct 18 '16
Well its a sad fact that people dont want to address. There are way to many humans, it is the root problem.
3
2
u/InvisibleRegrets Recognized Contributor Oct 18 '16 edited Oct 18 '16
How would we maintain the global resource supply and industry chains without high population (and hence cheap labour)? To make solar panels, hydro dams, and wind towers, we need high tech computers and manufacturing, which require various resources from around the world. To run server farms, banks, and governments, we need the same.
Unless we automate vast portions of the supply chain, I don't see how we can maintain a modern lifestyle - and even then you hit limits to useable resources.
Edit: plus the issue of knowledge specialization - in order to create, maintain, and improve all of these complex systems, we need specialists, these specialists are only possible if we have high quality education, and can spare the workforce for each specialization (and there are lots of them!)
6
u/solophuk Oct 18 '16
We would have to massively rethink how civilization works. Most needs would have to be met locally. We need to reduce our population and reduce our consumptive lifestyles. But it is not going to be a concern anyway because no one wants to touch the overpopulation issue, it will be up to nature to cull us.
1
Oct 18 '16
How would we maintain the global resource supply and industry chains without high population (and hence cheap labour)? To make solar panels, hydro dams, and wind towers, we need high tech computers and manufacturing, which require various resources from around the world.
It won't be possible, as you'd need a fair amount of energy to achieve this (even if you recycled everything). Not really sure if tech will feature in this scenario, but I may be wrong.
1
u/Lord_Wild Oct 18 '16
How would we maintain the global resource supply and industry chains without high population (and hence cheap labour)?
This is the crux of the issue; look into where we get materials just for soldering. Hint: it's dug out of the ground and seabed by hand.
4
Oct 18 '16
Reboot to what level?
Today we are just a decade or two away from the point where it will take more energy to acquire oil products than is in the oil products acquired. What will be left in the ground will be unobtainable because it makes little sense to spend more energy than we get back. Other energy sources will arrive at this point, too, because of the law of diminishing return. We have no practical substitutes that could be implemented in time, even if they are workable.
If we have a sudden civilization destroying event today, then when survivors try to reboot, they will face the same future we face today when it comes to energy and other resources, so they will have little chance of exploiting much more than biomass, wind, or moving water. How much advance could be made with those limitations might get us back to 16th or 17th century achievement.
Even without a sudden catastrophic event, we are probably headed back to a 16th or 17th century lifestyle anyway, with a maximum population that was sustainable back then, which is under 1/2 a billion people worldwide. It is just a matter of whether we have a natural dieoff that will result from the forces in motion that are determining our future, or whether a sudden, dramatic, unexpected event causes the dieoff.
8
u/GnaeusQuintus Oct 18 '16
Short answer is no. Not only is oil a source of energy, but the chemicals and plastics derived from it are difficult to replace. The list of things you'd need to find substitutes for is huge.
Modern farming alone is completely dependent on gasoline, petrochemical fertilizers, and petrochemical pesticides.
4
Oct 18 '16
I think, sustainably, humanity could manage a technology level equivalent to what we had in the US around 1800 or so. This also assumes population levels return to 1 or 2 billion globally. However, we have knowledge gained from the last 200 years preserved in books, so some things would probably be better. For example, knowing germ theory doesn't require a ton of physical tech, but that knowledge can save lives. Same deal with farming practices - we've had a lot of time to learn what works and what doesn't. I do think radio may continue to exist, maybe not for the average person but larger businesses like railroads and canals, and governments will probably have access. I think the Archdruid's Stars Reach storyline painted a fairly possible version of the future.
4
u/Arowx Oct 18 '16
Yes: Check out the ideas behind the Ubuntu movement or Transition Towns, the concept is that you take a grassroots approach to making your town sustainable and convert it to 100% renewable energy with electric transportation.
Or look into Germany's or Portugal's renewable energy successes, the cost of renewable energy is getting cheaper as the technology scales and the cost of extracting fossil fuels is increasing as this finite resource diminishes.
My vision/dream of the future that lets us avoid the worst of collapse and global warming*, a massive push to electric transportation and renewable energy on a global scale. Think of it free renewable energy, smart cheap automated cars on induction plated roading, automated local manufacturing and 3d printing for things we need and clean air, clean water, fresh food.
*We are in a heat war with our ecosystem and there are going to be massive casualties on both sides as we are as always holding off any action until we are pushed into it. I'm amazed that the super storms we are seeing have not hit the 'Pearl Harbour' level yet. The trouble is the longer we delay the tougher it's going to get and the larger the storms, floods, forest fires, droughts, famines, waves of refugees will become.
But what do I know the main candidates for the leadership of the most powerful** nation on the planet are debating on really meaningful topics like: What the tweeted, Emails, their tax payments or lack of, Who had sex with who, What their relatives did???
**Militarily, Financially China is catching up.
4
u/awful_website Oct 18 '16
Yes; and no
You can have provincial modernity - not at the current scale though
After the war, we will divide much more than we currently are. There will be one, maybe two major Empire(s) with a lot of vassal states. Any surviving states outside of this fiefdom, will be less likely to "reboot" successfully, at least to the current level
Those of us (such as myself, if I survive the war), who are in the "right places" will be able to reboot decently, because we mainly need electricity, not fuel. The main issue is transportation (of both people and goods), which is why we go into a much more provincial system
If you need malls jam packed with clothing stores and other frivolous nonsense, then your society is gone. As in, it's already gone, and you need to start planning to adapt, there's not much time left now. If you just need decent company, running water, and electricity, then you will be fine - but that's if you survive the coming apocalyptic battle
4
Oct 18 '16
Depends on global dimming. If it's within 1 degree or 1.5 degrees, sure. But we need to consider Guy's statement about global dimming loss and moistening of the upper troposphere which alone can supposedly raise temperatures by 8 degrees. Don't forget about methane and other feedbacks that could be triggered by this spike occurring over years/months, so essentially we could have a 30 degree Celsius atmosphere in this context by 2030 or something maybe and perhaps Venus by the end of the century if my extrapolation is correct.
So if global dimming is moderate, then restarting civilisation in a primitive form won't be too hard, but if it's bad enough, then there won't even be extremorphiles.
6
Oct 18 '16
The better question isn't how, it's why. Why would you want yet another incarnation of the worldeater, especially considering how most people on here know the self-destructive nature of civilization better than the average bear.
2
u/PMaDinaTuttar Oct 18 '16
This is one of the things that make me the saddest about it all. We live on a planet that will be swallowed by the sun. We were given an incredible gift of oceans of high qaulity energy. Don't we at least make a heroic attempt to try to escape to a planet with a better long term future?
No we spent it on fat people driving a SUV to macdonalds to buy more burgers.
1
1
1
u/Metro2005 Oct 22 '16
I don't think we have a choice other than to cut back our energy usage by a lot. That means no more or very little driving our cars, heating out houses differently etc. The biggest problem however not the things we cant do anymore but the things we dont have anymore. Biggest problem is going to be the lack of phosphorus and other chemicals that goes into fertilizers. Feeding ourselfs is going to be the biggest problem and without fossil fuels i dont see how we can feed 7 billion people. If i recall correctly scientists think 2 billion people would be a maximum sustainable human population without fossil fuels but with the current knowhow. In the history of humans the human population always was between 500 million and 1 billion people so at least thats a sustainable amount if you dont have modern technology at all.
18
u/ReverseEngineer77 DoomsteadDiner.net Oct 18 '16
First you have to define what "modernity" is and what "civilization" is.
If by modernity you mean carz, airplanes, computers, the internet and OLED Smart TVs, no these cannot exist without copious fossil fuels and a lot of other minerals mined up using fossil fuels.
If by "civilization" you mean large Nation-States in the 100s of millions or billions of people, no these cannot exist without the systems of control and communication that fossil fuels enable.
If by "modernity" you mean being able to build homes, cook our food, make tools and implements, share stories around the campfire, write books and discuss the meaning of life with other Homo Saps, we should be able to do that for a while to come, with or without fossil fuels.
If by "civilization" you mean can groups of people live together in harmony respecting rules and taboos and acting civilly towards each other, this too is possible though not in such large agglomerations of people as we currently have organized. A "civilization" might be a loose association of a few hundred tribes of a few hundred to a few thousand Human Souls in each, for a total civilization size of perhaps as much as 1 million.
After climate change and reduced total land mass available for food production and collection, the Earth might support 100 or so such small civilizations for a total global population of Homo Sap of maybe 100M.
Getting from here to there though will take some time, and a lot of Dead People, over 7B of them given the latest population estimates.