Panarchy & The One to The Many-The Final Countdown

[RE]

Panarchy & The One to The Many-The Final Countdown now UP on the Diner Blog.

This article had an unfortunate and unintended complete revision due to losing the last half of it on an internet connection glitch.  The resultant article is a good deal different than the original, with a slightly different focus.  The main points remain the same though, and at least the Music track to this one I like better. 

Diner thoughts on this are appreciated.  Double the work for this one.

RE

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[RE]

Some Notes here:

The original version of this article focused much more on the Panarchy-Resilience theories of Holling-Gunderson.  I also worked hard in that version to make Links to important articles and websites devoted to these theories.  In rewriting the article, I did not have time or patience to do all that linking, I wanted to get it up as the "Daily Article" before the clock turned on the software for the Diner.  This was a big rush since I was busy most of the day and had to do my rewrite quite late into the day.

For those of you unfamiliar with this stuff, I suggest beginning with the following two sources:

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art24/

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art11/

IMHO, the work of Strauss & Howe is derivative to the work of Holling & Gunderson.  It may be independent work, but it is subsidiary.  The fact such similar cyclical structures were identified however lends even more credence to the general hypothesis if they were independently developed.

Under either set of theoretical concepts, we are clearly in the same type of "release" phase of structural collapse.  What remains quite Unclear is exactly how the Reconstruction phase will occure here, much as it is pretty unclear exactly what will grow up again after a Forest Burns Down.  If some Forest remains, you can pretty well asseume a similar forest will re-emerge later amongst the burnt remains of the old forest, since same seeds will find their way to the location over time.

However, if ALL Forests burn simultaneously, you can make no such assumption.

RE

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[p01]

You must have an extra chromosome, RE, because I've never heard of someone at your age having the openness of mind to question Mother Culture's continuous whisper in our ears, and do that since 2008. Amazing! I bow to you, Sir!

Solutions? There are none. Survival strategies with a bit better chances? Stoneleigh's Nine Points on how to build a lifeboat. How much better chances do The Nine offer? Probably not a lot better, but still, if you combine them with very, very low expectations, it might help.

On a related note, to explain "The Why", this video is probably more important than Bartlett's exponential expose, but I don't expect many Diners to make it through to the end of the video. Worth a try, though. Here's "THE WHY" in case you're wondering.:

Food Production and Population Growth - Daniel Quinn & Alan D. Thornhill, Ph.D. (Part 1 of 2)

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[monsta666]

Good article and it is a shame that you lost so many hours of work through a hiccup in the internet connection. It actually happened to me a few times on the website I wrote for before I learnt to write on word before loading onto the website. Maybe you need to find a way of reverse engineering those lost messages back into existence from the error messages?

But to go back to the article in question, whilst I am not familiar with the works of Holling & Gunderson I have read a little about Strauss & Howe although not in any great depth. I have read a bit into systems theory which those people seem to follow rather loosely. I do find that one of the big differences between the doomer lites and normal doomers comes from the whether one grasps the normal behaviour of complex systems and consider factors such as efficiency and resiliency. The people who do place a higher importance on such issues tend to be doomers while those who do not value or consider such things so deeply in their projections tend to be doomer lites. The most famous example I can recall where a system thinker projected a detailed doomer scenario is that of David Korowicz with his report on Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion while another famous person who projects more doomer lite scenarios is Greer and he barely considers issues such as system theory.

As for the current situation, I think I could agree with your statement that we are approaching the release phase of this collapse although to me this release phase sounds a lot like the tipping point of a complex system. At the moment our system has undergone a process spanning several centuries from a point of high resiliency and low efficiency to one that is highly efficient but carries significantly less resilience. This process of increasing efficiency and interconnections seems to describe stage 2 the conservation phase. Since this process has lasted several centuries I do not subscribe to the notion of the 80 year cycle that Strauss & Howe seem to promote. While I can see some examples of how this developed in the past I think it is unlikely to continue due to the fact that overall paradigm or conservation phase has lasted far longer and since it is likely break down shortly this breakdown will lead to larger more dramatic and more lasting behavioural changes that will span more than 80 years.

While the system that has developed is highly effective at allocating and expanding resource extraction efficiently it is less resilience and becomes less resilient year on year. This overall behaviour comes because the objective of the system is to expand and increase efficiencies (or profits) and since resilience is not an objective of the system devised it is always the factor that is sacrificed to promote its primary objective. However as the resilience lowers then the set of suitable conditions required to maintain current system behaviour narrows and the range of parameters for it to achieve a dynamic equilibrium becomes more difficult to maintain.

Like all complex system once under stress there will be various feedback mechanisms that will be placed on the overall system. At this moment the system is under some stress however the various negative feedback loops (stabilising loops) serve to maintain system integrity. These negative feedback loops can be seen everywhere for example the price of oil places a strain on the economic system. To compensate for this stress factor the system undergoes a process of demand destruction and allocates this critical resource in a more efficient manner that primary serves to keep the core functions running. This reallocation of resources serves to maintain the system while it is under stress. Another analogy can be made where if the body suffering from hypothermia the body will cut circulation from the peripheral regions such as the arms and legs to maintain a normal temperature at the core. These two negative feedback processes come from two different set of complex systems but they both achieve the same purpose of maintaining or preventing the death of the overall system. I am sure with some thought you could offer some other negative (stabilising) feedback loops. 

However this behaviour of the two complex systems highlighted will result in similar outcomes if the factor causing the distress is not relieved in short order. In the case of the human body if circulation is not restored to the arms and legs then eventually the cells in those regions will slowly die and if no further action is taken the regions will develop gangrene and these infected regions will spread to the other regions (a contagion effect) where the whole body dies. A similar thing will occur in the economic system as while the peripheral regions will suffer first (such as the PIGS or MENA countries) when those finally die their bad debts will pass toxic amounts of risk to the core economies and then those will eventually cease to operate.

Also in all this, we need to remember there are positive feedback (self-reinforcing) feedback loops. In the case of the economy a positive feedback loop can be found in economies suffering from deflation where lower demand for products will mean more job losses which then results in more demand destruction and further job losses. These positive feedback mechanisms, if left unconstrained by negative feedback loops, can cause the system to radically change in short order. However at this moment of time it seems the various negative feedback loops are roughly as powerful as the positive feedback loops so the overall system seem to be in some kind of dynamic equilibrium. However in time it is quite likely that the force of positive feedback loops will become more powerful than the negative feedback loops so the parameters in the system will change and stresses will escalate.

As this happens the system will leave the island of stability and it will soon reach the tipping point i.e. the point when the systems response to a stress event is disproportionate to the stress itself. It is impossible to say when this tipping point will be reached but this point will come provided the stress factors are not removed or contained. When that happens it is likely we will see dramatic changes in behaviour (or collapse) in the overall system. Most system thinkers are aware of such points and even a recent IMF report on oil prices does highlight the fact there would be a tipping point in oil prices that can cause significant changes in the behaviour of various economies. In either case I would say this tipping point is something that is often neglected by doomer lites as they feel the system can carry on getting more and more stressed without the overall system suddenly undergoing sudden changes in behaviour. This lack of tipping point does not generally happen in complex systems or in ecology so I do not see any reason why the economic, political or social systems will fair any differently, they are complex systems after all.

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[JoeP]

Excellent article RE - especially as a follow-up to "The Burning of The Great Library at Alexandria".  I was going to post the comment below (saved in my text editor from Oct 9th):

=======================================================

From RE's Peak Oil thread comment:

"The building of the Tower was meant to bid defiance not only to God, but also to Abraham, who exhorted the builders to reverence. The passage mentions that the builders spoke sharp words against God, not cited in the Bible, saying that once every 1,656 years, heaven tottered so that the water poured down upon the earth, therefore they would support it by columns that there might not be another deluge.

If you Google up the collapse of the Roman Empire, it actually occured in 352 AD (2008-1656=352) when the Empire fractured between Constantinius II and Magnentius.

http://www.roman-empire.net/collapse/magnentius.html

Coincidence? Perhaps. However, that is one pretty big coincidence if you ask me. Interesting how the Geopolitics seem to replay themselves on the interval of every 1656 years."

 
It seems like this is "Fourth Turning" cycle theory on steroids to me.  Comments?

=======================================================

But I didn't post this comment because the "The Burning of The Great Library at Alexandria" thread had become toxically fundified by this this time and it just didn't feel right.  Anyway, nice coincidence (for me) that you followed up with "Panarchy & The One to The Many-The Final Countdown".

In "From Complex Regions to Complex Worlds", C. S. Holling states:

"Those adaptive cycles and their relationships are not limited to the dynamics of ecosystems. I see them even in my own life. I happen to have had a pattern of 7- to 10-yr cycles of unplanned intellectual growth, frustration, and renewal that has been both great fun and provided a great sense of discovery."

I wonder if any Diners have noticed/experienced similar "cycle" patterns?
 

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[RE]

You must have an extra chromosome, RE, because I've never heard of someone at your age having the openness of mind to question Mother Culture's continuous whisper in our ears, and do that since 2008. Amazing! I bow to you, Sir!

Thanks for the backhanded compliment. 

This is about the 3^rd time I can remember where you implied that if you are a Boomer, ya just don't get it.  Like a charicature of a 60s Hippy saying everybody over 50 wasn't Groovy and Hip.  LOL.

Granted as you get older the tendency is toward more rigid thinking, but anyone who was a Free Thinker for their whole life tends to stay a FT.  Surly here is older than me, and he gets it.  Peter too.

From my side of the 50 yard line, I never cease to be amazed at how clueless the latest generation of 20-somethings is, sticking their bodies full of Pins and turning their skin into a Pop Art Canvas.  Regardless of age, you have to be an Outta da Box thinker to ignore your daily dose of bullshit and figure it all out.

Solutions? There are none. Survival strategies with a bit better chances? Stoneleigh's Nine Points on how to build a lifeboat. How much better chances do The Nine offer? Probably not a lot better, but still, if you combine them with very, very low expectations, it might help.

I've heard Stoneleigh's 9 Points mentioned before, but I've never seen them listed.  I went over to TAE to see if I could locate the original article on this, but they don't have a good Search Engine installed on the Forum.  If somebody could point me to the article or list the 9 Points here I would appreciate it.

Far as the vid goes, I am on my slow connection with limited bandwidth so I don't watch long vids.  I'll get to it when I am on free wi-fi.

Finally, I still wonder why you persist in guest posting?  You clearly read the Diner more than most diners do, and you miss some good stuff going on at the Diner's Only tables.  You wanna explain this to me?

RE

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[RE]

Good article and it is a shame that you lost so many hours of work through a hiccup in the internet connection. It actually happened to me a few times on the website I wrote for before I learnt to write on word before loading onto the website. Maybe you need to find a way of reverse engineering those lost messages back into existence from the error messages?

Most of the time the autosave function on WP keeps drafts and if you have a glitch you can grab one of them and lose no more than a paragraph or two.  So I got lazy because it is much easier to compose, add pics and links etc directly in WP rather than using a text editor first.  I neglected to notice that the page I was on had lost connection during my writing frenzy and when I finally hit the Save Draft button, POOF GONE!  I tried every trick I know to try to pull it out of the cache of temp files in my OP system, but could not find it.  Very depressing.  In many respects I liked my first version better, but I couldn't reproduce it perfectly.

Anyhow, I shall attempt not to be so stupid again and remember to do a copy paste to a text editor before hitting any upload buttons.

Far as the rest of your comment goes, it's detailed enough to be an article in its own right and I may put it up as such on the Blog.  Definitely you have a Tainter style complexity issue going on, but complex systems aren't always unstable.  Certainly the ecosystem is extraordinarily complex, but overall finds stable nodes for very long periods of time before some perturbation pushes it out of equilibrium.

Looked at in this way, its not complexity that is leading to the system failure, its because the equilibrium is being disturbed by diminishing available energy to run it.  If an endless source of cheap energy could be accessed, no reason to believe this system could not go on in perpetuity, regardless how complex it got.  The Boot Stamping on the Face of Humanity forever scenario of George Orwell there.  In this respect, we can be greatful we are running Short on Oil.

RE

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[RE]

Excellent article RE - especially as a follow-up to "The Burning of The Great Library at Alexandria".  I was going to post the comment below (saved in my text editor from Oct 9th):

At least somebody here is smart enough to save all their shit in a text editor. LOL.  I used to make a practice of saving all my comments on Peak Oil, until I had a few thousand of them and couldn't find anything.  They are listed in a hard drive on one of my laptops PO1474, PO1475....

I did actually write this as a sort of Part II for the Great Library article, since that was concerned with Civilization Collapse Cycles.  The Holling-Gunderson work gives this a theoretical underpinning.

It is all very fractal, and you see similar cycles on all sorts of timescales, even down to the individual human life.  I can identify in myself a Career Cycle where I Get Bored, Quit or Get Fired, Get a new Job I am interested in, Succeed for a while...then rinse and repeat. 

RE

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[monsta666]

Far as the rest of your comment goes, it's detailed enough to be an article in its own right and I may put it up as such on the Blog.  Definitely you have a Tainter style complexity issue going on, but complex systems aren't always unstable.  Certainly the ecosystem is extraordinarily complex, but overall finds stable nodes for very long periods of time before some perturbation pushes it out of equilibrium.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. My intention of my post was not to say all complex systems are inherently unstable. Some complex systems are highly adaptable, resilient and can withstand large disturbances in the level of stocks and flows before being pushed out from its equilibrium range. What I did want to stress is the fact that the current economic system man uses is a complex system that is highly unstable because one of the prime objectives of this particular complex system is to increase efficiency and growth. This increased efficiency and accompanying growth often come at the expense of resilience and this lack of resilience is what makes the system more and more unstable.

I will agree ecosystems are examples of stable complex systems but quite often they are stable because they have different layers of redundancy or/and buffers that enables it to absorb shocks easily. This redundancy and resiliency is an anathema to our current economic system however as not only does redundancy means less efficiency (which translate to less profits) it also means each subsystem can operate more autonomously which is not good for the illuminati who wish to control everything by making its subjects more dependant on the system.

In any case, if you wish for this to become a blog entry I would be happy for you to include it just pm first if you wish to add it to the blog. I would like to look at this post and make some edits to it and flesh out the problems you highlighted however before you post up. I do not want people reading it to misunderstand that I think all complex systems are unstable. I just want to highlight how unstable this particular system is and provide examples of the behaviour complex systems exhibit when put under stress. With that said my knowledge could be improved in this area, so if you have any books or other resources you can provide for recommended reading I would greatly appreciate that. 

Looked at in this way, its not complexity that is leading to the system failure, its because the equilibrium is being disturbed by diminishing available energy to run it.  If an endless source of cheap energy could be accessed, no reason to believe this system could not go on in perpetuity, regardless how complex it got.  The Boot Stamping on the Face of Humanity forever scenario of George Orwell there.  In this respect, we can be grateful we are running Short on Oil.

I would agree that the system would be on a more stable footing if our energy resources were unlimited. However energy is just one stock out of many so even if this source were unlimited then it would face other issues as while this energy could still increase then other stocks such as soil, water etc. would become the limiting factor which would eventually bring the system down. Now if resources were unlimited also then perhaps things could carry on in perpetuity but this assumes that the issue of pollution from soil degradation, water pollution, radioactive waste and other such problems could be tackled which is by no means certain.

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[RE]

In any case, if you wish for this to become a blog entry I would be happy for you to include it just pm first if you wish to add it to the blog. I would like to look at this post and make some edits to it and flesh out the problems you highlighted however before you post up. I do not want people reading it to misunderstand that I think all complex systems are unstable. I just want to highlight how unstable this particular system is and provide examples of the behaviour complex systems exhibit when put under stress. With that said my knowledge could be improved in this area, so if you have any books or other resources you can provide for recommended reading I would greatly appreciate that. 

Rather than me just pasting it up, the better choice is for you to do a rewrite first and PM it to me the way you want it to read from the get-go.  A few Graphics and a Music Soundtrack would help also to Dinerize it properly. 

Far as further research, I suggest starting with the Resilience Science blog, where you will find plenty-o-links to Holling & Gunderson as well as others exploring these ideas.  In fact, I should add that Blog to our Blogroll.

RE

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[WHD]

Money as it exists today is an artifact of the Growth phase of Civilization, and cannot function without that growth.  When you also consider that Money is the “Glue” that holds this Civilization together, it is difficult to conclude otherwise that when the Monetary system collapse, the Civilization we know goes with it.  “Money Makes the World Go-Round” the saying goes, and so when the money STOPS working, the World as We Know It STOPS going round also. TEOTWAWKI.

Revalations 18:23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

When you observe all these factors in synergy, it becomes quite difficult to offer much HOPE for Humanity, or even for most living organisms above the level of the Tardigrades, and some like Guy McPherson make the case that this is an Extinction Level Event on the order of the Permian Extinction 252 Million Years Ago.  This may be so, but even if true will not occur Overnight here.

The questions of how to deal with such a massive upheaval on the Indidvidual level are the questions we seek to deal with here in the Doomstead Diner.  If it truly does turn into an ELE, in the end we all will go to the Great Beyond, but who wants to be the FIRST to DIE?  if you value Life for yourself and your children, you seek to find a way to SURVIVE the great conflagrations to come.  Are there ANY foolproof solutions to this problem?  None yet have turned up at the Diner Tables, but some Solutions presented are better than others and becoming aware of issues that Transcend physical survival into the the world of Psychological and Spiritual preparation also serve as endless fodder for the Diners to chew on.

The Doomstead Diner is not an easy place to take a meal, ever, but on these pages you will find a level of Truth you can find nowhere else on the Net.  At least no place to my knowledge anyhow.  Join us here as we prepare ourselves for the Final Countdown.

See, this article is exemplar why I keep saying, the Diner is at the leading edge of consciousness in America.

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[stewie]

Here you go RE http://theautomaticearth.com/Lifeboat/how-to-build-a-lifeboat.html

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[Uncle Bob]

Here you go RE http://theautomaticearth.com/Lifeboat/how-to-build-a-lifeboat.html

When I read all that it struck me they had failed to take into consideration the threat of thieves on their plans.

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[WHD]

Stewie:    Here you go RE http://theautomaticearth.com/Lifeboat/how-to-build-a-lifeboat.html


Uncle Bob  -  When I read all that it struck me they had failed to take into consideration the threat of thieves on their plans.

That would be an unfortunate thing to fail to consider, if your intent is to keep and to hold.

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[RE]

Stewie:    Here you go RE http://theautomaticearth.com/Lifeboat/how-to-build-a-lifeboat.html
Uncle Bob  -  When I read all that it struck me they had failed to take into consideration the threat of thieves on their plans.

That would be an unfortunate thing to fail to consider, if your intent is to keep and to hold.

OK, read the article and Captured the 9 Points:

1) Hold no debt (for most people this means renting)
 
2) Hold cash and cash equivalents (short term treasuries) under your own control
 
3) Don't trust the banking system, deposit insurance or no deposit insurance
 
4) Sell equities, real estate, most bonds, commodities, collectibles (or short if you can afford to gamble)
 
5) Gain some control over the necessities of your own existence if you can afford it
 
6) Be prepared to work with others as that will give you far greater scope for resilience and security
 
7) If you have done all that and still have spare resources, consider precious metals as an insurance policy
 
Be worth more to your employer than he is paying you
 
9) Look after your health!

#4 is the one I want to focus on here.  How do you run a self sufficient Amish Style Farm if you SELL the Real Estate?  You gotta OWN the property to FARM it!

Just about all the 9 points just don't WORK in the event of complete monetary system collapse!

I see NO MENTION of rewilding in Stoneleigh's 9 Points, no mention of knapping stone tools, no practical ideas for how to avoid Zombies, Goobermint Death Camps, the Human Waste Reprocessing Facility in San Antonio etc, etc, etc...

This is DOOM LITE! It assumes all sorts of Social Systems will stay operational here.  As a Collapse Prepper, these 9 Points do not help me much at all. Where can I find an analysis of the relative merits of the Sailboat Paradigm against the Doomstead or the Final Bugout into the Wilderness?

Nothing of this in Stoneleigh's 9 Points at all!  That is why we have the DOOMSTEAD DINER!  We get REAL here!  It is a CLUSTERFUCK 10 Millenia in the making!  Those 9 Points don't do JACK SHIT to address the problem.

RE

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