Superorganism

Here's the video we saw last night.

He notes that money is a claim on future energy and resource extraction. And he says that we've been piling up debt (in terms of environmental destruction, but also financially). The financial debt could be erased, since it's just numbers in a machine, but as long as those contracts are believed and enforced, they compel us to keep extracting and burning. If every project -- construction, business, education -- requires debt, then every project locks us into an unsustainable energy system.

This is why I go further than Nate Hagens does (he used to be a finance guy) and say that there's no such thing as "ethical investing", since all investments depend on this infinite growth machine. Everybody expects to get back more money than they put in, and that "more" has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, it comes at the expense of the community of life, and future generations.

The other day I saw someone point out that the Energy Information Administration (government agency that reports on energy use) forecast last year that energy consumption would be 20% lower by 2050. The year before that, they were forecasting 10% higher energy consumption by 2050. The forecasts are dubious, but they signal what our political leaders want us to believe about energy and growth. Previously, they wanted us to hold onto the delusional belief in infinite growth. Now, I think they want us to get used to the reality of declining energy (which means declining economic output and living standards), forever. If they don't also erase a lot of debt in the process, things will get ugly.

One way or another, we're heading for the "Great Simplification" that Nate Hagens talks about, but if we sleepwalk in the direction our leaders are taking us, then we'll end up in an authoritarian technofeudalistic dystopia, at best. It'll be "simplification" for us (confined to gulags, or worse), while the oligarchs party on.

My $0.02

Dave

June 10, 2025