Great essay. I got into sustainability and peak oil back in 2007. On the subject of economics, I enjoyed reading David Korten’s books. Great outlines for a Post Corporate world and localization. My favorite is eliminating absentee ownership. Illegal for someone in your town to own a business unless they work there full-time - no fastfood, no supermarket chain, no Finance, Insurance, Real Estate chains… I also enjoyed John Michael Greer’s book, Economics as if Humans Mattered.
I remember Ilargi. I should keep him in rotation. When I read a comment of yours on MoonofAlabama, I sensed a common school of thought. Something you might find interesting from John David Ebert who studies Civilizational/Cultural Collapse - Western Civ left the Magian/Medit civ and we are in the Faustian/ Northern European Civ currently. Our deal with the devil was selling our soul for infinite power/expansion. Now that is a problem for Limits to Growth. For a Faustian, the pinnacle of human achievement is placing a McDonalds on Mars. Our quintessential work of art is the Mona Lisa - our crypto-Matriarch with infinite expanse over her shoulder. This civilization will be replaced before any true sustainability movement is embraced. Interesting in Ebert’s synopsis of Spengler and Toynbee, he lists a few common elements for all civilizations: a prevailing form of Math, Architecture, and what we do with our dead - burial, preservation, cremation. As for architecture, I would love to see what forms will arise. My best guess is that is will be derived from our dominant form of future math - fractals and its related holography. And for our rituals of birth, ritehood, marriage, and death, that is where life can become meaningful and vibrant again. Today these actions are quite hollow. Well, I just felt like typing out some ideas. Thanks for your attention. And thanks for your writing.
I feel that the real promise lies in the Byzantine manner of coordination of complexity into a working economy. Does it yet persist somewhere in the world. Turkey and Greece have a taste for it, but are either colonized or having imperial abmbitions.
Is there another center which embodies this approach?
Hmmm, I wonder...
It takes a lot of talent, and a purity of intention.
Hmmm. I am not familiar with what Turkey and Greece are doing. Now I am curious. Have they eliminated complexity or just given their sovereignty to a supercomputer?
"the automatic earth"... Reminds me of a Paul Simon song, on Graceland album-- called "The Boy in the Bubble." The guy was tuned in waaay before I was! "A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires..." Anyway... there's a link below that has some amazing stuff in it, from Daniel Nocera and Fritz.
At my cousins' Kilimanjaro hotel electricity is still produced by generator. At our farm in Lesvos we joined the grid 20 years ago, stopping the generator. But in the last 10 years since Germany took over the Greek economy & elec. prices quadrupled through the imposition of their windmills (as salaries were reduced 8 times and pensions 17 times) the farm is more than half powered by voltaic panels....with spares in reserve.
We still have the old ploughs though and plenty of livestock to pull them. We still have our oil burning lamps (olive oil). This is the good side of being "under developed"....
In modernity we have climbed a ladder of energy and technology use, cutting each rung behind ourselves. This may pose problems if we need to descend, right?
These problems might also be imposed upon us... GASP!
Instead of using electricity to split hydrogen and oxygen apart from water, this process, which I read about over a decade ago, uses light to separate them. Hydrogen can be burned as a fuel, or used in a fuel-cell, where it produces electricity when it recombines with oxygen. This has long been used in space vehicles and space stations.
This is one of many things which could be done to some degree, based upon economics. It would require more fossil fuel than could be spared, and something like 30 years to build the infrastructure for a modestly-sixed hydrogen energy transfer system. Hydrogen, like a battery, transfers energy, which would be solar energy, later reconstituted as electricity, after being stored (like a battery) as hydrogen.
The fact that a thing can be done, does not mean that it could be done on a large scale. This is like so many other things in that way, like very large battery arrays to stabilize the electric grid run by wind and solar. It is the kind of thing that gets comparative-cost and feasibility analysis right away.
The "Eastern Roman Empire" was Byzantium, the capital Constantinople, now "Istanbul".
The Eastern empire long managed by complex negotiations and interwoven interests, until the Ottoman Empire overwhelmed it. Most people in Turkey are mainly of Greek extraction, fewer Turkic.
It was said at one time, about Constantinople, that "this Rome would also fall, but there is another that will never fall". That "Rome" has always been interpreted to mean "Moscow".
Moscow could get its turn at empire. Ooorrr, something other than empire? Fractal democracy is my vote. Place power to the lowest, local level that is reasonable. A representative form for every human grouping house, band, clan, hamlet, village, town, city, city-state, state, and confederation (voluntary federation). Ghengis Khan ruled by representative govt based on the power of 10. A band of ten men elected a representative. The ten reps elected a rep to the higher tier. That tier repeated the process. Every member of the horde was about five degrees from the Khan. Their issue could be heard if forwarded by the five tiers. Fractal democracy is democracy that becomes innate as a democracy that one swims in daily. The processes of your neighborhood are handled exactly the same way as the processes of the confederation. One could learn all they need to know about being a President by running their village wisely.
Kurdish PKK leader, Ocalan, long imprisoned in Turkey, was in communication with Bookchin by letters, and advocated/advocates this form of government, which is flexible and "fractal" as you state, since Kurdish enclaves are often broken up. (There is a lot of great-power manipulation of the Kurds, and there are many opinions for and against them.) https://internationalistcommune.com/bookchin-kurdish-resistance/
I am an advocate of this kind of "democracy", as is Eleni, who is Greek and sometimes comments here. (She feels that Bookchin was a copycat, which would "flatter" Greek democracy, as I see it. Bookchin honestly tried; an interesting and sincere fellow.)
Great essay. I got into sustainability and peak oil back in 2007. On the subject of economics, I enjoyed reading David Korten’s books. Great outlines for a Post Corporate world and localization. My favorite is eliminating absentee ownership. Illegal for someone in your town to own a business unless they work there full-time - no fastfood, no supermarket chain, no Finance, Insurance, Real Estate chains… I also enjoyed John Michael Greer’s book, Economics as if Humans Mattered.
Thanks Peter, I hav long enjoyed the Archdruid's work and perspectives.
Thanks for putting me in such good company.
Check this out from Ilargi @ T.A.E.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2022/06/the-entire-world-order-has-changed/#post-110505
I remember Ilargi. I should keep him in rotation. When I read a comment of yours on MoonofAlabama, I sensed a common school of thought. Something you might find interesting from John David Ebert who studies Civilizational/Cultural Collapse - Western Civ left the Magian/Medit civ and we are in the Faustian/ Northern European Civ currently. Our deal with the devil was selling our soul for infinite power/expansion. Now that is a problem for Limits to Growth. For a Faustian, the pinnacle of human achievement is placing a McDonalds on Mars. Our quintessential work of art is the Mona Lisa - our crypto-Matriarch with infinite expanse over her shoulder. This civilization will be replaced before any true sustainability movement is embraced. Interesting in Ebert’s synopsis of Spengler and Toynbee, he lists a few common elements for all civilizations: a prevailing form of Math, Architecture, and what we do with our dead - burial, preservation, cremation. As for architecture, I would love to see what forms will arise. My best guess is that is will be derived from our dominant form of future math - fractals and its related holography. And for our rituals of birth, ritehood, marriage, and death, that is where life can become meaningful and vibrant again. Today these actions are quite hollow. Well, I just felt like typing out some ideas. Thanks for your attention. And thanks for your writing.
I feel that the real promise lies in the Byzantine manner of coordination of complexity into a working economy. Does it yet persist somewhere in the world. Turkey and Greece have a taste for it, but are either colonized or having imperial abmbitions.
Is there another center which embodies this approach?
Hmmm, I wonder...
It takes a lot of talent, and a purity of intention.
Hmmm. I am not familiar with what Turkey and Greece are doing. Now I am curious. Have they eliminated complexity or just given their sovereignty to a supercomputer?
"the automatic earth"... Reminds me of a Paul Simon song, on Graceland album-- called "The Boy in the Bubble." The guy was tuned in waaay before I was! "A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires..." Anyway... there's a link below that has some amazing stuff in it, from Daniel Nocera and Fritz.
At my cousins' Kilimanjaro hotel electricity is still produced by generator. At our farm in Lesvos we joined the grid 20 years ago, stopping the generator. But in the last 10 years since Germany took over the Greek economy & elec. prices quadrupled through the imposition of their windmills (as salaries were reduced 8 times and pensions 17 times) the farm is more than half powered by voltaic panels....with spares in reserve.
We still have the old ploughs though and plenty of livestock to pull them. We still have our oil burning lamps (olive oil). This is the good side of being "under developed"....
THIS. Suuuuper interesting and maybe blows everything we know right out the door...
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/prof-daniel-nocera-and-his-artificial
Fritz is one of your readers, by the way! ^_^
Thanks Eleni,
In modernity we have climbed a ladder of energy and technology use, cutting each rung behind ourselves. This may pose problems if we need to descend, right?
These problems might also be imposed upon us... GASP!
Instead of using electricity to split hydrogen and oxygen apart from water, this process, which I read about over a decade ago, uses light to separate them. Hydrogen can be burned as a fuel, or used in a fuel-cell, where it produces electricity when it recombines with oxygen. This has long been used in space vehicles and space stations.
This is one of many things which could be done to some degree, based upon economics. It would require more fossil fuel than could be spared, and something like 30 years to build the infrastructure for a modestly-sixed hydrogen energy transfer system. Hydrogen, like a battery, transfers energy, which would be solar energy, later reconstituted as electricity, after being stored (like a battery) as hydrogen.
The fact that a thing can be done, does not mean that it could be done on a large scale. This is like so many other things in that way, like very large battery arrays to stabilize the electric grid run by wind and solar. It is the kind of thing that gets comparative-cost and feasibility analysis right away.
Business likes this kind of thing.
The "Eastern Roman Empire" was Byzantium, the capital Constantinople, now "Istanbul".
The Eastern empire long managed by complex negotiations and interwoven interests, until the Ottoman Empire overwhelmed it. Most people in Turkey are mainly of Greek extraction, fewer Turkic.
It was said at one time, about Constantinople, that "this Rome would also fall, but there is another that will never fall". That "Rome" has always been interpreted to mean "Moscow".
Moscow could get its turn at empire. Ooorrr, something other than empire? Fractal democracy is my vote. Place power to the lowest, local level that is reasonable. A representative form for every human grouping house, band, clan, hamlet, village, town, city, city-state, state, and confederation (voluntary federation). Ghengis Khan ruled by representative govt based on the power of 10. A band of ten men elected a representative. The ten reps elected a rep to the higher tier. That tier repeated the process. Every member of the horde was about five degrees from the Khan. Their issue could be heard if forwarded by the five tiers. Fractal democracy is democracy that becomes innate as a democracy that one swims in daily. The processes of your neighborhood are handled exactly the same way as the processes of the confederation. One could learn all they need to know about being a President by running their village wisely.
Thanks Peter. You describe a ground-up representative democracy. Athenian democracy was this, but of course there are always problems at some point...
Murray Bookchin described "Libertarian Municipalism", which is about the same.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-libertarian-municipalism-an-overview
Kurdish PKK leader, Ocalan, long imprisoned in Turkey, was in communication with Bookchin by letters, and advocated/advocates this form of government, which is flexible and "fractal" as you state, since Kurdish enclaves are often broken up. (There is a lot of great-power manipulation of the Kurds, and there are many opinions for and against them.) https://internationalistcommune.com/bookchin-kurdish-resistance/
I am an advocate of this kind of "democracy", as is Eleni, who is Greek and sometimes comments here. (She feels that Bookchin was a copycat, which would "flatter" Greek democracy, as I see it. Bookchin honestly tried; an interesting and sincere fellow.)