A nice parable about modern society and two ways of understanding how to organize our world society and the practices we live with.
If you ask a fish if its in water, it'll say "what's water". Just as the fish floats in a sea of an existing matrix of conditions, so do we float in a matrix of existing thoughts and ways of being that we can call the prevailing consensus opinion.
There's a lot of people predicting a collapse of our society. Perhaps it's peak oil, perhaps it's the fragile infrastructure and just in time delivery of supplies being disrupted, perhaps it's a global pandemic or disease, or whatever, there are plenty of possible causes. Urban Danger is an online movie talking about the dangers and telling us to be afraid and telling us to move to the country and get an off-grid homestead going.
What they say is:
Danger is stalking the city.
Like it or not, its a fact... life in urban areas is about to radically change due to developments most people are not aware of. Find out what the issues are and what YOU can do to not only survive but also thrive.
Far from a survivalist film, Urban Danger takes a common-sense look at our roots, finding practical solutions to problems we face today. You will meet many people from all walks of life who show you the common-sense preparations they are making for difficult times ahead. And in the process, they have found a superior quality of life. They have found what real living is all about.
The thrust of this movie is that the infrastructure of American Society is fragile, and can easily be disrupted. Cities are more dangerous than rural areas because in a rural area you can grow your own food, run your own solar electricity system, store up wood for the winter, can your own food, etc.
In other words this movie series is selling us on survival fear, and that we'd better go off the grid and learn how to live without money in order to survive.
Maybe this is fearism hyping up false fears that appear real. Or maybe it's a real honest warning of something that's likely to be happening in the not too distant future. How can we predict the future?
Trailer:
Part 1:
Begins with pictures of the Great Depression.. "no money" etc. It was a tough life, no money, little food, etc.
It was worse in the cities. Out in the country people living on farms were more self sufficient.
Today a dramatically smaller percentage of people live in the country on farms. Farming today is dependent on heavy machinery and fossil fuels. If the food supply system gets disrupted store shelves will empty out in about three days.
In other words they're making the case that our society is extremely susceptible to immediate collapse at any time of disruption.
Part 2:
Unfortunately food supply is not the only problem. The cities are going to be targets for terrorism which isn't just big bomb type weapons, but bioterrorism.
Again they're focusing on rural areas as the safe places - rural areas aren't where terrorists are going to strike, instead they'll strike in urban areas.
Part 3:
The electricity grid is fragile and can be disrupted. Think of all the electrical stuff we depend on - if the flow of electricity is cut off it'll disrupt everything.
Very vulnerable to terrorists - supposedly a dozen substations in the U.S. so critical to "the grid" that if those substations were taken out it would blacken the whole grid without recovery in any reasonable time. Take this as a major disruption and the whole system falls apart.
It would involve what they call a "black start" which is to restart the grid without electricity. Supposedly the grid elements can't themselves restart unless there is an electricity supply to get them running.
It's possible to see this movie as an hour and a half of "I told you so", except in truth it's a long lecture on the model of finite resources that's behind the collapse. Instead of "I told you so" it comes across as a strong warning to us, an attempt to educate us on what's going on and ways we might survive. And, surprisingly, the ending of the movie is not his stereotyped doom and gloom.
The setting seems to be as important as the content. For most of the movie we see Rupert, in a darkly lit concrete block room, sitting in a chair, chain smoking cigarettes, and talking. He's passionate about his subject and he knows the pain in the story he's telling us. Interspersed are snippets of film, primarily archival newsreels from the 1950's and earlier, that underscore the points being made by Rupert. The effect is kind of like an interrogation.
The story he lays out is largely one I've written about on this website (see Peak Oil). Back in 2003 I republished an article he published on the From the Wilderness website that laid out the scenario: Eating Fossil Fuels (From The Wilderness)
It starts with Peak Oil - that is, the point where oil companies can no longer increase oil supply. The system we live in is wholly driven by oil and stuff made from crude oil byproducts. Now that the oil supply has peaked we will inexorably enter a period of crisis as tightening oil supplies drive the whole system towards collapse.
The good thing is the collapse will not be like jumping off a cliff with an immediate cessation of oil. Unfortunately that means it's still going to be hard to prove to naysayers that peak oil is happening. In the middle of the movie Rupert tells an interesting fable-like story. He asks, what if you're on the Titanic and know that it's about to sink, you know there aren't enough life boats, and you happen to know how to build lifeboats? What do you do? He suggests the passengers will divide into three camps, those who go into panic, those who recognize the danger and want to go into action to build life boats, and those who will deny reality and go to the bar to have a drink.
He talks about the monetary system. The monetary system used to be based on "gold" and other things that supposedly have real value. Today however our money system is just paper, so what value backs up the money system?
There's a lot of talk about this issue nowadays, and Ruperts discussion falls directly in line with those who call the Federal Reserve a fraud and are calling for a return to the Gold Standard. He essentially calls the system of fiat currency and fractional reserve currency a fraud using nearly worthless paper to fool us into thinking we have money. What he's missing is that the paper, U.S. dollars, are a symbol of the American economy's ability to repay its debts. That is, the Federal Reserve asks everybody to trust that the American economy can continue functioning and pay its debts. It's not that American dollars are valueless, but that the value backing them up is our economy.
However he goes on to describe oil as the energy which drives our economy. Take agriculture as an example. We no longer have real proper agriculture. What we have is oil driven farm equipment, spraying fertilizers derived from oil, spraying pesticides made of oil, shipping "product" around the world in vehicles powered by oil. See the "Eating Fossil Fuels" article linked above for details. Oil drives the system and the abundance of food is directly related to the use of oil.
It's oil that drives our economy, and the ability of America to repay its debts is based on the supply of oil.
Is it any surprise that the collapse in 2008 immediately followed the highest oil prices in the history of oil? Nobody in the mainstream media admits to this, but peak oil researchers including Michael Rupert predicted this years ahead of time.
Rupert goes on to describe the "bumpy plateau" scenario. As oil prices rise the high cost of fuel will cause collapse's, the collapse causes a decrease in oil use, causing a lowering of the oil price. Eventually the lower oil price will allow economic activity to heat up again, increasing demand for oil, until the price goes up again, causing another collapse. It just so happens that many are predicting high oil prices again this year, after the economy "recovered" during a period where oil prices fell a bit from the September 2008 high.
Collapse is a very informative movie which will educate you on the dangers faced by our society. I wouldn't buy it completely at face value because while his story is very well researched, it's a very dark story. It might not be as bad as he says. Or maybe that's my denialism kicking in.
The end of the movie he starts talking about ways to survive the decline he speaks of. And, to be clear, he expects the decline will involve the death of large large quantities of peoples. He shows a graph of world human population that held steady at 1 billion people for hundreds of years until oil became widely used. It's oil that allowed those extra 5 billion people to come into being. Well, oil and modern medicines and modern sanitation methods, but, well, oil. Perhaps with the end of oil that's how many people will die off? Hard to say, and as I say his story is very dark.
But his recommendations for survival are not dark. They are in fact very bright. He points to Cuba's survival of their peak oil scenario (see: Review: The Power Of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil) as an example. They turned to local communities, local agriculture, organic agriculture, and not only survived but are thriving.
One might wonder - just who is Michael Rupert and why should you pay attention to him. He is asked that in Collapse and answers with some history. His parents both worked for the Intelligence services, he was a cop, a detective, and later became an investigative journalist. He broke several large and controversial stories as a journalist.
He's written two books: Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, A Presidential Energy Policy
Each episode is a stunningly graphic examination of how the very landscape of planet Earth would change in our absence. It uses movie-quality graphics simulations to depict the likely fate of dozens of iconic buildings and cityscapes around the world. What would happen to the millions of animals in agricultural captivity? What about the household pets? What about chemicals and whatnot stored in warehouses? When does Mt. Rushmore or Stone Mt wither away?
A key element of the story is the resources currently required to maintain the cities around us. The planets weather and plants and animals all attempt to impose the natural order upon the planet. It is the action of humans that instead imposes human order. Humans have diverted rivers, buried landscapes under concrete, built massive steel or concrete buildings, etc. The thing is all those buildings require constant maintenance, some requiring more than others. For example the Golden Gate Bridge (in San Francisco) is constantly exposed to ocean air, fog, and other weather coming in off the Pacific Ocean. Crews are constantly repainting the bridge in order to keep it from rotting away. Without humans to maintain these structures they crumble away due to weather and other natural effects.
Concrete is a particularly interesting material. It is immensely energy intensive to make concrete. Once it's poured into place it looks rather permanent, but in truth it crumbles away over time. Concrete is unlike the stone used by ancient cultures in the buildings which have lasted millenia, concrete structures are unable to last very long. Hence all the concrete structures from sidewalks to highway bridges to prisons to sports stadia, they all will crumble soon enough, requiring demolition and rebuilding. It's a cost our society is saddled with and I wonder whether our society will find itself unable to pay the bills to rebuild that concrete infrastructure?
Rabies is another example. In the U.S. this disease exists in the wild and to attempt to keep the disease in check biologists work in the field every year distributing vaccinations to the wild animal populations. Without those biologists vaccinating the wild animals the disease would be unchecked.
The Kudzu vines in Georgia are another example of humans being employed to keep nature in check. If humans were not constantly cutting and pruning the Kudzu infestations it would blanked the whole of the southeast U.S.
This is an interesting meme in Life After People - that nature left unchecked by humans is chaos and disaster and destruction. Um. It seems to me that the natural biological life on this planet existed for a billion years or more before humans came along. The natural biological life on this planet does not require humans to tend and care for it, instead the natural biological life on this planet showed it can take care of itself. The chaos and disaster and destruction shown in Life After People is instead destruction of the buildings and artifacts of human life. Those buildings and other artifacts are an unnatural attempt to impose an unnatural order upon the planet. What the show depicts is the process by which the planet will reimpose natural order.
Each episode includes an example of a city which had been inhabited by humans, but was abandoned. Each of these places have undergone decay and destruction because humans were not there to maintain human order. Without humans to maintain human order these cities are crumbling and falling apart.
One example is Hashima Island in Japan. It was a city built on a rocky island in the ocean where the inhabitants operated a coal mine (mining undersea coal). But 30 years ago the city was abandoned and is slowly crumbling away. Another example is Gary Indiana, a city built because of a U.S. Steel plant and which was abandoned when the U.S. Steel corporation died. The city of Gary Indiana is largely abandoned with crumbling buildings galore. Another example is Angkor Wat in Cambodia, abandoned over 600 years ago when the Khmer Empire was defeated by invaders from another land. There the jungle has taken over, with tree roots growing into the temple walls and the primary occupants are the wildlife.
The scenario they depict is more than extremely unlikely. Just how would all humans disappear all at once without a war or massive disease? Short of divine intervention humanity is unlikely to disappear without a fight. It's not worth pondering too closely the precise story they depict but it's very worth while pondering an aspect of this story.
Human history is full of examples of empires who were unable to continue funding the empire. The cost of maintaining these empires became too much, and the empire collapsed. Sometimes the collapse was hastened by wars or famine or some such. There's no reason to think the current capitalistic empire that's slowly engulfing the world will be permanent. There are plenty of indications it's long term health is very precarious. What's fueling this world spanning capitalistic globalized empire is cheap oil, and as cheap oil runs low becoming expensive oil the globalization empire will collapse.
In some cases the buildings and cities attain iconic importance to human culture. Certainly buildings like the Washington Monument or the Capital Building or the "Big Ben" tower in London have huge symbolic importance. But without maintenance they will crumble and collapse as did the once-grand capital of the Khmer empire, Angkor Wat.
A few years ago I visited St. Petersburg Russia. It had been the capital of the Russian Empire. The Tsars of Russia had built their main palaces all through this city. It was apparent that the lustre of that city was mostly left over from years of the Tsars. The years of Communist rule had not been kind to the city, but it appeared that in recent years they had been refurbishing the city through extensive rebuilding investment. Russia would only be able to afford this because of its own recent economic boom.
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In the C-Realm Podcast episode #124 is an interview with Toby Hemenway which has several interesting thoughts in it. The interview was drawn heavily from his article Apocalypse, NOT. They were discussing "the end of the world as we know it" (TEOTWAWKI) and the likelihood of the collapse of our society due to the various crises facing us.
While listening a question came clearly to mind ... If we are to have the world we want, is it necessary to have our society collapse? Do we need to erase our existing society and start over with a new one? Alternatively is it possible to build the society we want to have, while in the context of the society we're living in?
I think most of us want to live in a better place. There are many versions of what would be a "better" society, right? Different people have their own ideas of "better" society, "better" living conditions, "better" political structures, etc.
Toby Hemenway is a Biologist turned Permaculturist. He discussed the danger of the "growth economy" and how the "growth economy" needs to die, in his view. The "growth economy" is the requirement that companies and population is always growing, enforced by the stock market which gives high value to growing companies and death sentences to those who aren't. He also discussed the "solar budget" and the need for our society to live within the solar budget, meaning that the resources our society consumes ought to be constrained by the energy which can be converted from sunlight.
In any case he has a clear preference for "better" which he described as a horticultural based society rather than agricultural.
There are many people who are predicting doom and gloom and a collapse of our society. I am a student of peak oil and am familiar with the peak oil thinking, that pretty darn soon the oil supply is due to enter into a decline which will cause a crisis to our society over how to make up the difference between demand and supply for the fuel to drive our machines.
Maybe the collapse will be as bloody as depicted in some of the movies such as the Mad Max trilogy. Or maybe it will be smoother.
The desire for "better" stems from unhappiness with the status quo, fear of where the status quo is leading our society, and a vision we have for the better society of our dreams.
It seems to me we can choose for ourselves to live in alignment with our vision of a better society. Depending on our individual vision it may be simple to accomplish or hard.
History is full of clusters of people who set up communal living situations in which they could experiment with developing a vision of a "better" way to live. Today these are called "Intentional Communities" and they vary in size from the big ones like Damanhur or Findhorn down to small groups. These communities have existed all through human history with varying success.
These people have been able to experiment but it still leaves people like me concerned about the direction the status quo is leading our society. These experiments have perhaps been good for the people involved, but they've had little effect on the status quo, and the status quo appears to be leading us all to disaster.
At some points our experiments in better lifestyles ought to become mainstream to make the lessons learned from these experiments to have a broad effect.
Technosanity #24: Is it required for society to collapse to build the society we desire?
