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| Image from http://www.get-real.dk/tak/godt-nytar |
With my friend Carl, we have spent altogether many days talking, and weeks and months thinking about the future scenarios. Considering all the research that has been done on the topic, it looks like the possible futures can be broadly divided into the following four categories:
1. Anarchy, chaos
As resources run out, the resources to maintain orderly societies also run out. Roads and bridges fall apart, police, firemen and ambulances no longer show up when needed, streetlights go dark, etc. Unfortunately, all this can already be witnessed happening in different Western countries.Perhaps one lucky aspect about this scenario in its pure form is that hopefully also military will have no resources left to try anything crazy. However, usually military is in the position to grab more for themselves than is their share simply because they have the power to do so. So perhaps this is too much to hope for.
In the state of anarchy, people take things into their own hands, and will grab resources as needed from someplace where they are available. As recent social unrest breakouts around the world (including highly developed Western countries such as UK or Germany) indicate, people in position of nothing to loose are completely willing to forget about laws that do not seem to do any good for them.
Anarchy and chaos will probably result in a primitive, uncoordinated tribal world. Perhaps something like a combination of Mad Max and Lord of the Flies - everyone for themselves in order to grab the last drop of livelihood, and as much power within tribes as possible to make sure small-scale kleptocracy is successful.
2. War, planned or unplanned
The realization that infinite growth within limited means is impossible first came in the '60s and '70's. Since then, there have been military plans in place to deal with the problem should the need arise. The plans are not inter-disciplinary ones carefully allocating a piece of blue sky and green grass for everyone; the plans are military and aim to deal with the problem via elimination of the problem - the excess population.
War, of course, can also start in an unplanned manner. Our first, the Anarchy, scenario can easily turn into the second one if the resources to sustain military powers do not fade away, or if the military is capable of grabbing or retaining enough to start a war.
What is unfortunate is the fact that so far, only military seems to have a clear action plan what to do when there will be too many people around to share the limited resources available to all of us. Keeping eyes and ears open today, almost no-one in politics, business, or media seems to have any idea that thinking about these things is even necessary.
For politicians laboring in our democratic world, thinking too far ahead, further than the next election, is something completely undesirable as the politics works based on tomorrow's promises. For businessmen, the prevailing business model of late seems to be increasingly "what's behind my teeth is mine", so thinking further than that is counter-productive as there will always be competition perfectly willing to think and act shorter-term. And media only trumpets scandals as these sell best. Our World hitting its limits to growth has not become scandalous enough.
What is unfortunate is the fact that so far, only military seems to have a clear action plan what to do when there will be too many people around to share the limited resources available to all of us. Keeping eyes and ears open today, almost no-one in politics, business, or media seems to have any idea that thinking about these things is even necessary.
For politicians laboring in our democratic world, thinking too far ahead, further than the next election, is something completely undesirable as the politics works based on tomorrow's promises. For businessmen, the prevailing business model of late seems to be increasingly "what's behind my teeth is mine", so thinking further than that is counter-productive as there will always be competition perfectly willing to think and act shorter-term. And media only trumpets scandals as these sell best. Our World hitting its limits to growth has not become scandalous enough.
3. Deus Ex Machina
This is the scenario that most likely will not happen. Well, at least if a person does not belong to one of the following groups of believers. In which case it still most likely will not happen despite how strongly one feels about it. In a few words, this is the scenario where help is expected from the outside and the person does not need to do anything. Indeed - it is very unlikely to happen.
Throughout history, there have been people who don't care about facts and logic because they have their own, "better" idea about the world. Some late politicians come to mind as perfect examples of this kind of thinking. Hence our first group within this category - The Total Denialists. For these people, everything is just fine and there are no problems anywhere. For these people, high Oil and food prices, increasing global temperatures, social unrest or worldwide banking crises do not exist. There's just some temporary problems that can be explained away and fixed easily. Facts pointing at warming temperatures, melting polar ice, or oil production still at the level of five years ago with increasing demand are easily brushed away as unimportant that do not register in their minds not a bit.
The second group, The Hopeful, are capable of perceiving the problems, but rely on someone else, most likely the Government, to take care of them. They agree that, yes, there may indeed be a banking crisis or melting glaciers, but Government will pass this or that act and everything will be just fine. Again, the individual person does not really need to do anything, definitely not change their own thinking - it will all be taken care for them by someone else. The King or the President has the job to do all of the population's thinking for everyone, isn't it so?
And then there is The Crazy Bunch, the most imaginative, although probably the least useful in any constructive way. Their strong belief is that, again, nothing needs to be done now by anyone, not even the Government, because some magic solution from somewhere else will appear. Be it Cold Fusion, Christ re-appearing to save us all, or space aliens riding on comets.
And then there is The Crazy Bunch, the most imaginative, although probably the least useful in any constructive way. Their strong belief is that, again, nothing needs to be done now by anyone, not even the Government, because some magic solution from somewhere else will appear. Be it Cold Fusion, Christ re-appearing to save us all, or space aliens riding on comets.
4. The Intelligent Way Out
If there are any actual plans to deal with our current problems from any other fields besides military, we are not aware of them. In this case, please, enlighten us.
A major worldwide and coordinated plan to deal with our current and fast-approaching crisis' is badly needed. This plan can not be put together by politicians or bankers who are only capable of "saving" the world economy by pushing it into a much more horrible chaos. Neither can this plan assume "growing out" of the problem as the post about bacteria in the test tube should explain, and that should be intuitively obvious.
The solution we are talking about here has to be devised carefully by scientists to consider all the knowledge and resources currently available. There has to be a clear plan what to do with our remaining resources to make sure that either the resource-limits are not met, or that we can somehow grow out of the limiting factors by changing the rules of the game, to be discussed in a later post.
The above four categories seem to cover all broad possibilities. Of course there may happen any combination of these, or different scenarios may play out in different geographic areas, but still it looks like all that can happen will probably fall within these outlines.
The solution we are talking about here has to be devised carefully by scientists to consider all the knowledge and resources currently available. There has to be a clear plan what to do with our remaining resources to make sure that either the resource-limits are not met, or that we can somehow grow out of the limiting factors by changing the rules of the game, to be discussed in a later post.
The above four categories seem to cover all broad possibilities. Of course there may happen any combination of these, or different scenarios may play out in different geographic areas, but still it looks like all that can happen will probably fall within these outlines.
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