Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLIV
Overreach And Diminishing Returns: Contributing To Complex Society Collapse For 10,000 Years
Today’s very brief Contemplation is my comment on The Honest Sorcerer’s latest piece.
U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler stated it so clearly in his treatise on war some 100 years ago. War is never about the narratives weaved by our ruling caste.
As he argued: “War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses…
I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
We learn almost nothing from history; are caught up in collective narcissism and hubris; and, are led by a socio-/psycho-pathic ruling elite that are only too willing and able to sacrifice as many pawns as possible to maintain their control of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus power and prestige.
And given our species’ proclivity to defer to ‘authority’ figures and adhere to their self-serving stories (as well as their influence over the media and the political, judicial, and financial systems), the significant majority are blind to it all and cheer the insanity on — the elite leveraging our tribal sense of ‘patriotism’.
Then there’s the whole surplus energy decline predicament that has been kept almost completely behind the curtains as the snake oil salesmen weave a tale about a ‘renewable’ energy transition…is it really any wonder that the entire Middle East is a geopolitical hot spot?
As I stated on another’s Facebook Post about this entire geopolitical morass: Overreach and diminishing returns…contributing to complex society collapse for 10,000 years.
Intelligent species, just not very wise despite its self-imposed moniker.
Recently released:
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
NOTE: Beginning to post these thoughts of mine also on my website. I began a couple of years ago posting them on Medium exclusively but have found that their subscription practices are somewhat restrictive. I will attempt to post one of my previous Contemplations per day on my website until I am caught up…in the meantime, I will be posting all new Contemplations in both locations.