blow me, change 1 of 2

BLOW ME, CHANGE

Humans do not like change.  Change blows.  We would rather stew in a terrible situation than change.  Never a truer phase, “better the devil you know”.  Now, know that resistance to change is simply human nature.  It is how we are programmed.  There is no shame in it, it isn’t a weakness.  But you should also know that if you are able to change, there is an exponential cascade of benefits.  So today we cover why change is bad and why it is also good.  A cool duality. 

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Stasis is a fancy two bit word for balance, but like all two bit words there is a better reason for using it than simply just trying to make myself look smarter.  I mean, okay, I need all the help I can get.  But “balance” alone doesn’t really define a desired state like “stasis” does.  Stasis is achieving equilibrium.  Stasis is removing uncertainty.  It is arriving at a state where things might not be perfect but they are understood.  A known Known ( to make fun of the old bastard Rumsfeld from the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight ).  Now, none of us place the same fear and hatred towards uncertainty that was the historical norm.

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Why was it a historical norm to fear and avoid uncertainty?  Because carbon fuels and carbon fuel accessories are a safety net we never had before.  Today, you can be the worlds biggest dumb ass and ignore all historic precedents.  You can ignore Fat Shaming from your peers, embracing ill health.  You can outlaw Slut Shaming ( used by all the other women as a safeguard against you being a home-wrecker ) and embrace a culture of Hippie Free Love ( ruining any family stability and smart child rearing ).  You can force males to support two families, because there is a surplus for that now. 

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Do you get the idea?  Culture is a tool, THE tool of paramount importance, allowing each group to adapt to the local conditions.  What worked was what became custom and custom was not changed because if it was, you would be embracing a set of behaviors that was counterproductive to survival of the group.  If you suddenly decided that potatoes were a much easier, higher calorie food, great for feeding far more people, and then replaced your traditional diet with them, suddenly you had a famine.  Dumb ass!  Why did you change your cultural diet?  Those foods thrived at sea level with less sunlight.  You used a food needing high elevations for optimal blight prevention.

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Lack of change, the taboo of embracing uncertainty, didn’t always work.  Man was forced to change from hunter gatherers to farmers.  Nothing but grief there, so the change HAD to be forced upon them by severe climate change.  In war and invasion, sometimes change is forced on to you.  Say, all your breeding stock was captured and you had to upend your traditional marriage customs ( say, by having brother husbands, or by allowing the provision for war brides yourselves ). 

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To simplify, if change is bad because uncertainty can lead to survival traits being abandoned, we avoid ALL change.  You can’t guarantee that the new way will be beneficial rather than catastrophic.  During the Colonial/Oil Age, we had the surplus to try change because if we failed we survived off of the surplus but if the change worked it benefited everyone.  It was a no lose situation.  Without surplus, if you change you could die.  It wasn’t as simple as “but if it works, think of the benefits”.  It was, simply, “if it doesn’t work we die”.  So, the two things to keep in mind is that, once again, the Oil Age IS different this time.  And, culture changes just like people do.

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I would think the most obvious thing in the world is, without oil you can’t have an oil age.  But everyone keeps trying to convince you that we can indeedily-doodily keep most of the benefits of oil, without oil.  This is a good example of resistance to change ( remember, just because we can now safely change doesn’t mean most of us ever will, as it is a basic human program ).  I don’t want to change all that the oil age gives or takes from us, because that is change. 

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So we engage in mental gymnastics convincing ourselves even without oil we can keep things the same.  Fracking energy independence forever.  Alternate energy fueling the future.  Fusion, colonizing the stars, X new promising just five years down the road technology will save the day.  Fission too cheap to meter, etcetera, etc.  Oil, only possible after the Coal/Steam Age, and coal IS running out ( net energy wise ) and oil IS running out ( conventional high net energy wise ) and without the surplus energy we don’t have an Oil Age anymore, nor can we devolve back to a Coal Age.

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Since the Oil Age is different, it follows as night after day that you need oil to stay in the oil age.  And if oil is being used up, you cannot be in the Oil Age and if you cannot support an Oil Age lifestyle you must ipso facto live in a Solar Energy economy.  And except for the Empire O’ De Day, that means there is NO FRIGGIN SURPLUS.  Which means you do NOT want to change whatever is working to keep you alive.  You all make fun of Muzzies being stuck in the Tenth Century culturally, but who is going to be more predisposed to a petroleum free future, the bare assed savages or the high tech high oil use Americans who are all like progressive and stuff?

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The other thing is HOW change takes place.  Just as a single person ONLY changes their childhood or previous programming through pain, so does a culture.  No culture changes, in the absence of energy surplus, with FIRST experiencing pain and suffering and loss.  This should be so simple anyone can understand it, without any “yeh, buts…”.  You say, yo, bitches, you’ll easily die in the future from disease.  And how do they respond? “Yeh, BUT…we know all about germ theory now”.  What they mean is that they don’t want any change from the current reality.  Does knowing about germ theory in and of itself build sewers or bring in enough crops to thwart malnutrition leading to less sickness?  Didn’t think so.

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Violent change will change culture ( setting aside SURPLUS changing culture, because we no longer have surplus as a measure of per capita global energy.  From now on, you can ONLY count on less, not the same and certainly not more ).  Just as pain and violence change a persons programming it will change culture.  But that isn’t optimal, is it?  Continued tomorrow.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2EYqPSI )

 

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