Any rapidly reproducing parasitic life form, like a cancer or our worldwide population, 3,000 times bigger and more consumptive than were our migratory H-G clan/band members, inevitably destroys its host and becomes extinct. Biology 101. No one ever mentions the only actual studies using live participants, as the "animal crowding" researchers of the 1940's-a970's did: John Calhoun, Charles Southwick, and J. J. Christian. All available on Google Scholar and described in some detail in the free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us". Bottom line: all such populations explode in numbers, reach a plateau, and, then, become extinct, without a single member surviving to reproduce. We are on this trajectory.
Thanks for the reply, but you have obviously not read my free e-book PDF, Stress R Us", or any of the 3 main research papers by Calhoun, Southwick, or Christian. I won't bore you with facts, but J. J. Christian, believed that the increased stress hormone "cortisol" was responsible for the final failure of all reproduction in a crowded mouse population. That is exactly what we are seeing today in the falling sperm counts and exploding need for IVF. We do live on a cultural "island" in our nationwide urban/suburban populations. Just look at the penetration of the I-Phone worldwide. We are sliding down an existential slippery slope to extinction, and "the beautiful ones" are not the only evidence. Check out CNN today for their article on "Moon Faced" adolescents, the well known result of chronic stress due to the overproduction of cortisol in chronic stress, and crowding causes just such a condition. None of the crowded animal researches had anything to do with "psychology", but, rather, everything to say about physiology and crowding stress. Any damn fool can see the environmental effect of too many humans on the natural environment, although islands have been a clear example as well.
Differences in behavior have nothing to do with psychology?
I happen to prefer living in rural areas, many people seem to prefer suburbia, and a majority of Canada’s population lives in urban centers. You can argue that urban dwellers are stressed, but not to the extent of people living in boarding houses, slum residencies, prisons and concentration camps. Excuse my vulgarity, but Gaza is an example of an open air prison where the inmates breed like rabbits.
The Calhoun experiment demonstrated that animals in zoos or luxury style rabbit hutches can still go insane. Very little applicability to human societies that have room to redistribute geographically, if our economic system were to encourage it.
The Earth’s land surface is too large for island bio-ecology to influence our behavior or our physiology. And now it’s too late.
Very good. The leaders of modern "civilization" are in complete denial of reality. The Limits of Growth study is something most are completely unaware of. It's not like governments and the media wishes to share such information. Not many are clued in to reality.
As with the heliocentric model and evolution - humans don't like being told they aren't special :) I'm just glad LTG is getting some press now. We can't prevent collapse, but at least some portion of society can access a chart that fleshes out their otherwise-vague, instinctual sense
Another thing I found fascinating about the collapse cult I how the Nobel savage myth has been so ingrained into its worldview. Like you do know enslaved people made up one fourth of the population of Pacific Northwest native tribes. The abundance of fishing resources actually allowed them to have the wealth accumulation to have things like an aristocracy and permanent settlements.
And the whole thing with the Windego is even worth. It’s not an indigenous spirt it’s a mythological being of Algonquin lore a monster of who literary eats people. Infant people have been murdered over allegations that they were windego. But hey this doesn’t matter because the reality and diversity of hunter gather cultures isn’t what’s important here. Rather its the idealized idea of them held by the members of the collapse and how this fiction can be worked into you're eschatology.
The most important concept here is that empire-based human societies (civilizations) rely on a resource-access strategy (insofar as it’s oriented around expansion and maximal resource extraction) that is definitely inevitably irredeemably destined for burnout on a relatively short time-scale.
To the extent that any society/community does this to a lesser extent, they have lower resource requirements and therefore at least the potential for longevity (assuming no insatiable culture (civilization) shows up to assimilate/annihilate them). Some of them even embrace perspectives and practices that deliberately / are geared toward promoting restraint.
None of that is to say that societies that exist beyond our civilization are noble or infallible by our ethical standards.
Wetiko / wendigo - Okay, so it's a monster, not a spirit. My point is that our society is possessed by a driving force that has led it into deep doodoo and our culture (namely our survival method) cannot / will not endure. And many people -including of Algonquin background- seem to agree that it's a darn good fiction that can be worked into eschatology: https://www.facinghistory.org/ideas-week/more-monsters-deeper-significance-wendigo-stories
No the collapesenik community absolutely applies the noble savage trope to hunter gatherer peoples. I.E they idea that they all lived peaceful egalitarian lives in tune with nature. Something which is pretty far off from how they exist in reality. Combined with the demonization of modernity by people who sure do love engaging in intellectualism and internet use all products of it. Going further they lump all this groups together using them as a symbol of purity to contrast with the moralized wickedness of modernity.
It’s all just so hypocritical and Orientalist. And then they have the audacity to post heaps and heaps of misinformation around and demonize anybody and everybody who’s actually working to improve the situation all from the comfort of their armchair.
Any rapidly reproducing parasitic life form, like a cancer or our worldwide population, 3,000 times bigger and more consumptive than were our migratory H-G clan/band members, inevitably destroys its host and becomes extinct. Biology 101. No one ever mentions the only actual studies using live participants, as the "animal crowding" researchers of the 1940's-a970's did: John Calhoun, Charles Southwick, and J. J. Christian. All available on Google Scholar and described in some detail in the free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us". Bottom line: all such populations explode in numbers, reach a plateau, and, then, become extinct, without a single member surviving to reproduce. We are on this trajectory.
Ahh yes, the Rodent Utopia study - I recently learned of it. And I watched the 1982 animated film, "The Secret of NIMH" many times as a kid!
Look for "Critical Mass" on youtube for $0.99 to see Calhoun working the "utopia" and an interview with his daughter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_syndrome
This is a more realistic interpretation than Calhoun's experiment, which was limited by time constraints.
The "beautiful ones"?
That study told us more about psychology in geographically limited areas than the negative effects of overpopulation on the environment.
Life evolving on isolated islands is a better predictor of what happens naturally.
Thanks for the reply, but you have obviously not read my free e-book PDF, Stress R Us", or any of the 3 main research papers by Calhoun, Southwick, or Christian. I won't bore you with facts, but J. J. Christian, believed that the increased stress hormone "cortisol" was responsible for the final failure of all reproduction in a crowded mouse population. That is exactly what we are seeing today in the falling sperm counts and exploding need for IVF. We do live on a cultural "island" in our nationwide urban/suburban populations. Just look at the penetration of the I-Phone worldwide. We are sliding down an existential slippery slope to extinction, and "the beautiful ones" are not the only evidence. Check out CNN today for their article on "Moon Faced" adolescents, the well known result of chronic stress due to the overproduction of cortisol in chronic stress, and crowding causes just such a condition. None of the crowded animal researches had anything to do with "psychology", but, rather, everything to say about physiology and crowding stress. Any damn fool can see the environmental effect of too many humans on the natural environment, although islands have been a clear example as well.
Differences in behavior have nothing to do with psychology?
I happen to prefer living in rural areas, many people seem to prefer suburbia, and a majority of Canada’s population lives in urban centers. You can argue that urban dwellers are stressed, but not to the extent of people living in boarding houses, slum residencies, prisons and concentration camps. Excuse my vulgarity, but Gaza is an example of an open air prison where the inmates breed like rabbits.
The Calhoun experiment demonstrated that animals in zoos or luxury style rabbit hutches can still go insane. Very little applicability to human societies that have room to redistribute geographically, if our economic system were to encourage it.
The Earth’s land surface is too large for island bio-ecology to influence our behavior or our physiology. And now it’s too late.
Thank you for this. I hope it will open some eyes.
Very good. The leaders of modern "civilization" are in complete denial of reality. The Limits of Growth study is something most are completely unaware of. It's not like governments and the media wishes to share such information. Not many are clued in to reality.
As with the heliocentric model and evolution - humans don't like being told they aren't special :) I'm just glad LTG is getting some press now. We can't prevent collapse, but at least some portion of society can access a chart that fleshes out their otherwise-vague, instinctual sense
So clear, thank you. I had to look up BAU. I don't think I've ever seen that acronym!
will add clarification above too! I've been noticing other little improvements I could make. I guess one final full review is due, eventually!
Another thing I found fascinating about the collapse cult I how the Nobel savage myth has been so ingrained into its worldview. Like you do know enslaved people made up one fourth of the population of Pacific Northwest native tribes. The abundance of fishing resources actually allowed them to have the wealth accumulation to have things like an aristocracy and permanent settlements.
And the whole thing with the Windego is even worth. It’s not an indigenous spirt it’s a mythological being of Algonquin lore a monster of who literary eats people. Infant people have been murdered over allegations that they were windego. But hey this doesn’t matter because the reality and diversity of hunter gather cultures isn’t what’s important here. Rather its the idealized idea of them held by the members of the collapse and how this fiction can be worked into you're eschatology.
The most important concept here is that empire-based human societies (civilizations) rely on a resource-access strategy (insofar as it’s oriented around expansion and maximal resource extraction) that is definitely inevitably irredeemably destined for burnout on a relatively short time-scale.
To the extent that any society/community does this to a lesser extent, they have lower resource requirements and therefore at least the potential for longevity (assuming no insatiable culture (civilization) shows up to assimilate/annihilate them). Some of them even embrace perspectives and practices that deliberately / are geared toward promoting restraint.
None of that is to say that societies that exist beyond our civilization are noble or infallible by our ethical standards.
Wetiko / wendigo - Okay, so it's a monster, not a spirit. My point is that our society is possessed by a driving force that has led it into deep doodoo and our culture (namely our survival method) cannot / will not endure. And many people -including of Algonquin background- seem to agree that it's a darn good fiction that can be worked into eschatology: https://www.facinghistory.org/ideas-week/more-monsters-deeper-significance-wendigo-stories
No the collapesenik community absolutely applies the noble savage trope to hunter gatherer peoples. I.E they idea that they all lived peaceful egalitarian lives in tune with nature. Something which is pretty far off from how they exist in reality. Combined with the demonization of modernity by people who sure do love engaging in intellectualism and internet use all products of it. Going further they lump all this groups together using them as a symbol of purity to contrast with the moralized wickedness of modernity.
It’s all just so hypocritical and Orientalist. And then they have the audacity to post heaps and heaps of misinformation around and demonize anybody and everybody who’s actually working to improve the situation all from the comfort of their armchair.
Great comic relief to have this kind of incoherent babbling in a comment at this estimable site.
Why does anyone put out highly researched, strongly-worded social meta-analysis when this is what you get in response?
"Orientalist"? "Working to improve the situation"? "Demonization"? WTF is wrong with you?
Do you actually have something substantive to say?
You aint defending indigenous people the way you think you are.