history says you are humped 1 of 3

HISTORY SAYS YOU ARE HUMPED

It is easy and fashionable to compare America and Rome.  Oh, look, they hyperinflated and so will we and yada, yada.  Personally, I think we will look more like the Anasazi of the Four Corners region of the US, archeological evidence of brutal warfare and population mobility and then complete die-off ( the consensus seems to indicate that the religion, centralized government and neighbor village family ties back-ups all failed and there was no escaping or slowing the implosion of an agriculture system destroyed by decades long droughts ).  Rome at least had SOME survivors, so we “vote” to be them.

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My point is that we know history rhythms rather than repeats.  We know the general outcome of an era or event, but details differ.  Both Rome and the Anasazi civilizations collapsed, but one was seemingly a much worse collapse than the other ( one more of a generational duration and the other closer to instantaneous-not overnight but months or years rather than decades ).  So knowing collapse is coming doesn’t help as much as knowing which kind.  You know my Go-To answer is always Worst Case, based on how a failure of centralized farming and transportation cannot by definition be long lasting or slow.

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But today, rather than the inevitability of collapse, I want to talk about the inevitability of change.  How humans can react badly but they can only react rather than control.  History has a tidal action we can only ride, never wish away.  Civilizations rise and fall regularly.  Perhaps not in the clear 250 year cycle that is popular ( although, despite the fundamental flaw of Rome lasting twice that long and only the others fitting the pattern, it is a lot closer than some other theories ) but pretty close enough to be a useful model.

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You could ignore the 10 generation theory and focus instead on resources.  If looking at soil fertility, you could also reasonably predict the lifespan of a civilization.  China, despite boom and sometimes complete busts, endures for millennia.  As did Egypt. Those two had an advantage in their soil fertility in that the soil was regenerated ( despite the seemingly retarded damming of the Nile at Aswan, trapping the soil regenerating sediment, I imagine as soon as petroleum based inputs become scarce, the dam will be destroyed and the Nile freed again.  Nothing else, an Egyptian die-off and an eventual dam collapse and downstream rejuvenation ).

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Rome’s seemingly longer than normal civilization survival could be attributed to colonial wheat importation ( from Egypt, and others ). It denuded its own soils but imported the food from elsewhere.  Just as the US has done, but it receives high BTU fuel rather than food, then turns fuel to calories.  It isn’t JUST gasoline going to $20 a gallon when oil imports cease ( and, just from fuel used domestically, due to population increases, importing nations see decline about 6% a year, regardless of Peak Oil ) that is a problem.  It is less fuel to food.  At the same time we open borders.

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Just as the US cannot escape the fate of empires ( we were imperial prior to 1898, or 1776.  We were expanding almost from the beginning of settlement.  So we have had far longer than the purported Ten Generations ), we couldn’t escape the fate of economics.  At our Independence Industrialization was already a huge force of nature.  We didn’t settle the issue over Industrial economic dominance until 1865.  There had been so much unexploited land to turn into crops that agriculture had an unnaturally long period of resisting dominance by industry.

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One could claim the same of Russia, perhaps not fully surrendering an agricultural economy until 1917.  We tend to look at these changes politically, but economics determines politics, not the other way around.  Capitalism wasn’t possible until colonialism.  Communism was just another way of organizing industrially without the central banks ( as was National Socialism-although Germany had long been industrialized, so in their case it was designed to fight central bank control.  Perhaps the extra venomous hatred against Nazism was their victory over Western central bankers, who control our propaganda apparatus ). 

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The point is that industrialization was inevitable.  Simply because it was a superior weapon of war.  Industrialization isn’t about making consumer items or placating the citizens or even about trade.  It is about war.  He who industrializes has superior strategy and logistics.  Industrialize or die.  It was the same with civilizations.  Centralize and conquer, or be conquered.  This obvious point completely eludes the Gore Warming Brigades.  It doesn’t matter if we are heating up the globe ( I tend to surmise we are in for an Ice Age-look at the sunspots-and that the funding of Gore Warming is to blind us to this danger ).

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Because if we don’t keep funding our industrial economy to fund our war machine, if we give Gaia a big hug and go sustainable, the bigger enemy keeping the old paradigm defeats us and we all die.  Just as most tree hugging female armpit hair weaving Birkenstock wearing Hippie pukes still drive a car and rape Earth through their jobs, they also wouldn’t want to die as our Glorious Sino Overlords depopulated the cities and put us on the farms working manually and organically.  They might not realize it, but they WANT the US oil and industrial age to remain and protect them.

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At one time, being a decentralized mini-nation such as a principality or city-state or semi-autonomous region was the key to survival.  If you expanded you collapsed your resource base.  But when those decentralized areas failed to grow and fight for territory after full size nations became viable again, they were crushed and destroyed.  As a culture, you must look into the future and guess which way the wind blows.  In effect, the US blindly grasping at the old paradigm is beneficial NOW, but since we can’t abandon that later as need be, it will ensure our doom.

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Tomorrow, I’d like to explore that just a bit more.  We can focus on commie verses populist voting and perhaps a civil war, but it also helps to zoom out big picture and see what broad historic fundamentals guide the small micro-activities.  The macro is no guarantee with the micro.  France was going to industrialize, but the Revolution didn’t have to be the way to do so, for instance.  Until next time, same Bat Channel

( .Y. )

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