It’s useful to compare whatever 2R is advocating to technology adoption. Technology Adoption Curve: 5 Stages of Adoption | Whatfix
I’ve spent most of my career around the early adopter level for a whole host of technologies (PCs, word processing, internet, etc) and guiding various organizations into widespread use. Many an internal marketing and training plan involved in that. In a nutshell, the Early Majority need to see it work. They need proof of concept. They need to see how it relates to the jobs they do or the things they care about.
One problem with “collapse” is it not only lacks “features” of its own, it actively competes against the values and activities people have in other areas of life. Consider if we really went “cold turkey” on fossil fuels tomorrow in the name of climate goals. That might be long-term beneficial to the climate, but in the short run no more motor vehicles, deindustrialization, economic downturn, political turmoil, many very unpleasant immediate side effects. This is never going to be a good “selling” strategy into the early majority. Innovators may adopt the equivalent of carbon-free monastic lifestyles, but the majority will more likely just keep doing what they do until the gas pumps literally run dry.
It’s especially critical to note that “collapse” is not a one-off technology adoption. It was relatively easy to add PCs to office desks, because PCs were just one more thing. They just slid in next to the pencils, the adding machines, the electric typewriters, etc. No one had to toss the older products. It’s just that after awhile they realized the older tools were not needed as a much, and eventually they stopped using them. “Collapse” can’t just slide in as a tool to use. More critically, what possible usefulness does “collapse” have for any purpose other satisfying some theory or hunch about what will be good for future generations? “Collapse” as a product/service/lifestyle offering really needs quite a bit of brand retooling to get out of the innovator or early adopter niches.
Again, the Early Majority need to see working prototypes. For example build a walkable city and show it is more pleasant. Build a low-carbor permaculture farm and show it grows good food at reasonable cost. Set up low-tech, human-powered social events and entertainments and show they are more fun, more inspiring, more involving than screen-based offerings. To “sell” a comprehensive lifestyle shift at scale, we need lots and lots of working models of that lifestyle offering tangible improvements to the innovators and the early adopters. When the early majority see innovators and early adopters living better versions of a re-defined “good life”, then the early majority will get interested.
(@Martin - I believe I just now also responded to your recent post on “taste!”)
Excellent analysis of “collapse”! I particularly like your “sliding in” metaphor and questioning the usefulness of the “collapse” framing. Who is it for and what is it calling for?
Completely agree with “working prototypes”. I’d also like to see a bit of digging into the “metacrisis” and all other identified problems in order to get to some bite-size frustrations that can be addressed experimentally, so we start building a paradigm for a “better” future and better life.
A competing alternative to collapse-based futurism is technical optimism (a la Ray Kurzweil, whom I am reading now). Kurzweil waves off any Malthusian concerns by projecting current technical exponential growth stories at least several decades longer and visualizing low-energy, high computation nanobots controlled by Artificial Super Intelligence and infused everywhere including brains and bloodstreams. That may sound cartoonish, but anyone who placed financial bets on Kurzweil’s overall way of thinking starting the 1980s would now be a billionaire several times over.
When it comes to collapse, I’m no innovator. Barely even an early adopter. Until a couple years ago, the word was not really on my radar. Not Kurweil, either, at least not the finer details. But for 30 years or so I’ve worked in information technology and have had the generalized sense that science and technology keep coming up with new solutions for all sorts of things, so why should that not continue? As for population, I’ve preferred lower planetary population ever since Paul Ehrich’s book The Population Bomb. (I don’t especially enjoy the cutting down of trees to build more housing in my immediate neighborhood. Of course, I do enjoy having a house myself!). But over the course of the past half century, Kurweil’s techno-optimism predictions have fared far better than Ehrlich’s biological Malthusianism.
And yet, on balance, in our current situation, I have lately come to believe Erhlich’s views in the longer term are more correct than Kurzweil’s. I got there by competitive analysis of both alternatives (and many others), leaning into empiricism, and applying a sort of Occam’s Razor attitude that prefers simple ideas over complex speculations. It’s just easier to see collapse scenarios coming sooner than nanobot-based energy grids and a nanobot-infused terrestrial biome. Engineering is cleaver. It’s not that cleaver.
Not that my thinking will stop the tech bros from trying. Indeed, it’s almost 100% certain there will be a concerted push to build out Kurzweil’s vision at least at prototype levels. If the resource consumption to build the high tech models comes at the cost of massive global depopulation, there are long-termists who would consider that an acceptable cost. For that sort of long-termist, climate catastrophes, mass starvation, endless warfare in far away places, global pandemics and so forth are more like features than bugs. As long as they get a little high tech enclave to ride out the storm, no real worries with any of that. (Note the absolute collapsers will be cheering all this on as well, for the emotional satisfaction of “I told you so”).
Personally, I’m playing a double game nowadays. One part is “keeping up with Joneses” on AI so as not to become powerless in whatever the next level global power game will be. The other part is cultivating low-tech, low-resource lifestyle options like face-to-face community, cooperative business models, place-based permaculture, bioregional regeneration, walkable cities, and a rediscovery of the spiritual connection between humans and nature. In looking for images to model the role I am moving toward, ideas from Japanese cinema keep cropping up. Things like ronin protecting the village or warrior monks guarding the sacred places.
We cannot rule out a gamechanging technological breakthrough at some point in the future.
On the other hand, the probability that we’re going to avoid a major collapse in this way is getting smaller all the time. That is really why we can now conclusively say collapse is coming – because we’re continually getting further away from where we need to be, and the rate at which we’re diverging from the right path is accelerating.
In collapse-aware lingo, what we’re talking about is called “techno-hopium”.
Collapse has been coming since ancient Sumeria. All previous empires have fallen. So collapse is not really a new thing. What’s new, perhaps, is the possible scale and the wider long-term implications.
I’m wondering if the “poly-crisis” does not also imply a “poly-collapse”? Namely, not everything goes down all at once, some things remain, and some things even grow and thrive in the aftermath of the demise of other things. COVID was a sort of dress rehearsal. The economy took a hit. Some kinds of damage (like educational attainment for children) appear long-lived. But some things did better.
Short of apocalypse, the most practical sort of collapse to keep on short- to medium-term radar would be an economic downturn along the lines of the Great Depression. That’s very plausible, and there are forces at work moving things in that direction. Many will suffer. Some will profit. Likewise, the collapse of one nation-state provides new opportunities for its neighbors. Trump and Putin appear to be colluding to collapse the EU so they can divvy the spoils. Will the EU let them? I hope not! But there will be costs to absorb by the EU to avoid such an outcome, and imposition of such costs on EU populations is likely to roil politics in every nation. All this systemic pushing and shoving is not out of character for world history up until now. Nor would be climate-related disaster just to speed things along. Chinese history, in particular, is replete with that sort of thing.
Obviously not, but it is new for our civilisation…
I’m wondering if the “poly-crisis” does not also imply a “poly-collapse”? Namely, not everything goes down all at once, some things remain, and some things even grow and thrive in the aftermath of the demise of other things.
I would say the overwhelming majority of people who’ve been collapse-aware for a long time are expecting a “slow collapse” – a long decline with occasional sharp lurches downwards, and possibly also with periods where it might seem like things are recovering, only for another lurch downward to happen next. There are ways a much faster collapse could occur, but I don’t think they are very likely.
Short of apocalypse, the most practical sort of collapse to keep on short- to medium-term radar would be an economic downturn along the lines of the Great Depression. That’s very plausible, and there are forces at work moving things in that direction
Yes and no. It will certainly resemble the GD in some ways, and the effect on people will be similar. But the context will be crucially different, especially with respect to our options for getting out of it. Or rather the lack of them.
How would such a depression come to an end? What would follow it? One possible answer is WW3, but if we avoid that then how can it end?
I’d suggest the answer is likely to be the Chinese backing the Renminbi with gold.
Below is a quick reference to Peter Pogany’s model. I’ve lately read two full books of his, but the picture of the next world system (GS3) he paints is not very complete in the books, either. Anyway, your suggestion of gold-backed Renminbi sounds like a version of Pogany’s “maximum bank reserve money”. My thinking was more along the lines of a bundle of national currencies (reindexed periodically) + gold + Bitcoin perhaps. The idea is no given nation can just print money for the world. That will force the monetary economy and the real economy to synch up willy nilly.
The Trump administration wants many things, most of which cancel each other out. The dollar as international reserve currency depended on many factors. For one thing, capital flows in and out of the US needed to be fairly loose. Also, everyone needed the ability to access dollars by selling into the US consumer. The US needed both an overly large GPD and a dominating military. All of that is under question now. Trump wants to maintain US global reserve currency status while weakening the dollar to promote exports, while re-shoring manufactures to the US, while increasing the cost of supply chains for those manufactures, while deporting low wage labor needed to build the infrastructure for re-shoring the manufactures. Of course it won’t work. The only question is which part of it falls apart first.
Pogany puts all this into the “chaotic transition” category, which is as good a label as any. Chaotic transitions involve vain attempts to apply old rules to a new situation, with absurd and destructive results. Only after the old system is well and truly beaten down by conflict after conflict will the space open up for new ideas and structures to emerge. Collapse theorists will be getting lots of material to work with in the coming years. I would invite 2R, however, to try to see through the chaos and visualize what the seeds of recovery might look like on the far side of all the current wheels in motion.
Yes, that has surely got to be the ultimate goal. The question, as ever, is what exactly that should look like, and how we might get there.
Your idea of a basket of currencies and commodities could be an option, but it sounds like it might be an organisational challenge too much. Who would administrate it?
I see a gold-backed Renminbi as a likely next step, but not the ultimate solution. China can implement such a thing without negotiation with any other countries.
In the long term my own proposal is more complicated than that. I think we need a three-tier currency system.
1: local currencies issued as UBIs to support a new localised economy, and saleable back to the government for (2).
2: National fiat currencies, none of which has a special status.
3: An international currency backed by gold and/or other physical resources, which is administrated by a new global authority (with representatives from all nations) whose remit is to manage that currency in the interests of fostering global peace and ecocivilisation. This organisation would also have to determine which sort of commodities and services can be traded using which currency tier. This would be a potential precursor to a more extensive form of globalised governance
This is the same question Pogany asks: “What will it take to go from the current hostile disgust with the dystopia of tightened modes of multilateral governance to people around the world on their knees begging for a planetary guild? It will take nothing less than a mutation in consciousness, as outlined in the oeuvre of Jean Gebser (1905-1973).” (quoted from his 2013 paper on Thermodynamic Isolation and the New World Order). And that mutation in consciousness, he believes, will only take place after a chaotic transition – likely more chaotic than the great depression and two world wars. “The current world order,” he said, “cannot deliver long-term sustainability on a planetary scale. By design, it is incapable of recognizing humanity’s thermodynamic reality.” The new world order, GS3, will likely be characterized as “two-level economy/maximum bank reserve money/strong multilateralism.” Micro-activities would be subject to globally-determined and nationally allocated macro-constraints; money creation would be curbed and disciplined.”
I find this problematic on many levels.
- Mutation of consciousness - why and how would it happen when it didn’t in the past?
- “The current world order,” he said, “cannot deliver long-term sustainability on a planetary scale - the problem is that currently it’s not in the interest of the world to work towards long-term sustainability on a planetary scale because countries are not equally affected, so the crisis is another performance tweaking parameter.
- Strong multilaterism - you’ll never have a strong and durable multilaterism while keeping both national governments and relying on global organisations. Without fully committing to merge countries into the same political and economical entities and remove the threat of exploitation of nationalism for democratic advantage, this won’t reliably work
- Maximum bank reserve - again, can only work if everyone subscribes to the same model, but impossible unless under one government.
There will be no global enlightenment. “Mutations of consciousness” are things that happen to individuals. We can change society to make it easier and more common, but we can’t change the underlying tendency of the human animal to behave like any other animal.
- “The current world order,” he said, “cannot deliver long-term sustainability on a planetary scale - the problem is that currently it’s not in the interest of the world to work towards long-term sustainability on a planetary scale because countries are not equally affected, so the crisis is another performance tweaking parameter
That is why ecocivilisation needs to be a national goal in multiple countries (and multiple political systems) before we can start considering global co-operation of the sort needed.
- Strong multilaterism - you’ll never have a strong and durable multilaterism while keeping both national governments and relying on global organisations. Without fully committing to merge countries into the same political and economical entities and remove the threat of exploitation of nationalism for democratic advantage, this won’t reliably work
Which is why we need an over-arching meta-ideological/epistemological system. Without that then there is no way for political and economic systems to converge.
I’m not sure how this “need” becomes something of substance? You mean - we need to build a theory first and then, as a separate process, think about the implementation?
I think that the meta ideology/theory is not the ideal solution. The way I’d suggest it’s done is through creating a “brand” that would deploy small scale experiments. Successful solutions would make it into the “opus” of the future grand solution.
That is not to say that these experiments should be stand alone bits. They’d work towards a bigger picture.
As a first step towards designing a new world - there should be a research into what are people’s frustrations and what do they want from the future. The current metacrisis framing is too vague.
Yes. We need to start with epistemology as a top level meta-ideological system that comes before science, politics and religion. We need to agree to start with the truth – with reality.
For me, that is what 2R has to be. Nothing else will work.
The way I’d suggest it’s done is through creating a “brand” that would deploy small scale experiments.
We have seen plenty of small scale experiments, with varying results. The main problem is that none of them can be scaled up.
The current metacrisis framing is too vague.
I agree. My clarified/simplified version involves three things that must go:
(1) Growth-based economics.
(2) Metaphysical materialism.
(3) Postmodern antirealism.
This is the beginning of the meta-ideology. All of these things are based on false premises, and they are foundational claims.
Let’s say you manage to create a credible ideology - the next step would have to be a political party and then you’ll still have a problem of proving that the new paradigm would work and be better than what’s currently there. You’d probably need a revolution too.
I think the way to approach this would ideally be within the current system so as not to create too much of a friction. It must incorporate changing taste and preferences, rather than hoping to affect change through fear-mongering.
Yes, there would need to be a “political wing” for this to happen in Western democracies. And yes I can see some countries descending into civil war over this sort of political revolution. It is also possible it can happen peacefully – I do not rule it out.
I think the way to approach this would ideally be within the current system so as not to create too much of a friction. It must incorporate changing taste and preferences, rather than hoping to affect change through fear-mongering.
Calling collapse-awareness “fear-mongering” is so old paradigm…
We need to face up to the realities of collapse. Yes this will involve fear. It is going to be traumatic. For me what is important is to channel these emotions into transformative change rather than letting fear and irrationality take over.
Fear is useful only because of its potential to break people out of their current worldview. The new paradigm must be held together with hope rather than fear, but it has got to be hope grounded in realism.
There’s the fallacy! People already prone to reacting on fear and already paralysed - maybe. The rest will see this approach totally contrary to what they think is right. It’s similar to focusing and preparing for one’s death or preparing for an illness.
In order to get “quality people” (rich in capacities and capabilities) on-board - you need another strategy - that’s how to make things better. Just because you have a bunch of people cohering around fear paralysis really makes no difference.
I am not talking about right and wrong. I am not making any moral judgements. I’m talking about what is real and not real, and I believe collapse is real. For me an essential part of 2R is making sure everybody accepts reality before they start making value judgements of any sort. In other words, we need to change how people think about what is right and wrong.
In order to get “quality people” (rich in capacities and capabilities) on-board - you need another strategy - that’s how to make things better. Just because you have a bunch of people cohering around fear paralysis really makes no difference.
Ah, but isn’t that just the beauty of liminality?
I hope you don’t mind me quoting a bit more of my forthcoming book. This is the end of the introduction:
Part One of this book is an exploration of the complex set of problems that humanity in general, and Western civilisation in particular, currently faces. Part Two is my best attempt to imagine a realistic solution. Unrealistic solutions are worse than no solutions at all, for they breed a false sense of security and provide hiding places for the inconvenient truths which grow ever more abundant in our world.
This book is about transformation. This includes both the socio-cultural transformation of the current, broken and unsustainable forms of Western and global civilisation into a mature global ecocivilisation, and my own transformation from an evangelical materialistic atheist into a magical realist. Common to both transformations is the traumatic process of breakdown and collapse of existing structures as a necessary pre-requisite to the creation of new and better ones. Cultural Anthropologist Victor Turner called this “liminality” – the “between and betwixt” part of a rite of passage, such as a coming of age or a marriage, when the participants no longer belong to the old state but do not yet belong to the new one.
Liminality is the disorienting, in-between stage where old structures have collapsed, and new ones are not yet formed – a state of profound possibility. The deep bonds that emerge in such moments exist outside the normal hierarchies of structure and anti-structure, fostering equality and shared purpose. Turner called this “Communitas”. Collapse can be thought of as a perilous journey through liminality on a global scale. Just as in personal transformation, societal collapse brings both loss and opportunity: the loss of what no longer serves us, and the chance to rebuild with intention, imagination, and a deeper sense of what it means to be human.|
This book is about navigating the threshold: between what is and what could be, between despair and hope, and between an unsustainable present and a sustainable future. To move forward, we must embrace the discomfort of liminality, the insight of communitas, and the radical creativity that collapse demands. Transformation is not optional.
Discussions about Gebser generally run in idealistic directions. Integral consciousness is a beautiful thing - it will happen - but why? Per Gebser, consciousness did indeed already mutate several times in the past (archaic, magic, mythic, mental). so more prosaically, his is a theory of cultural history. Gebser saw the emergence of the integral in the works of his artistic and intellectual friends like Pablo Picasso, who were seeing the world through different eyes than the scientifically rational modern.
In reading world history in general, I’ve always been bothered by the seeming disconnect between cultural idealism (in which Mind seems to have a mind of its own) and cultural materialism, in which things like means of production dictate the bulk of what happens in our heads. The two-way traffic between the ideal and the material is not so easy to map.
I just now started a new thread on World Republic to introduce a large cast of well-known theoreticians to such questions. Too much to summarize it all right here. But because Pogany is already in this current thread, I will share that Pogany (mostly a cultural materialist) invoking Gebser (a mystical idealist) for me held out the prospect of a firm material-ideal connection. For me, that connection goes generally like this:
- structures of consciousness are a function of the social-material circumstances people find themselves in.
- prior mutations of consciousness map to massive social shifts like hunter-gather to agrarian, or Bronze Age to Iron Age, or the emergence of the modern.
- our current world is experiencing a shift as profound as any of those.
- to put a finer point on it, Pogany’s “chaotic transition” model posits that the old world-system (GS0, GS1, GS2) breaks down for thermodynamic reasons. Limits to growth and such. This is pure materialism. But the essence of “chaotic transition” is that on a mental level, old cause and effect rules don’t work properly any more (because circumstances are different), but people do the same things anyway, resulting in more and more conflict, catastrophe, and collapse. Only after the old ways thoroughly rubbish themselves is the ground clear for new thinking with new rules.
So to answer your main question here, our current “metacrisis” is the demise of the Gebserian mental, because the damn thing doesn’t work any more. Not that we won’t spend a generation or so trying to bring back the glory days of whatever it was and digging ourselves a deeper hole with every step. The survivors of all this will be seeds of the future like quasi-monastic permaculture communities whose social structure and spiritual grounding will reflect the Gebserian integral. Gebser’s integral incorporates all the other structures - archaic, magic, mythic, and mental - all at once, so what I’m describing is back-to-indigenous or back-to-medieval in some of its dimension, but also retaining certain features and advantages of the mental/scientific. To sum up, it will happen because it needs to happen, and because all the other options are worse.
I just want to say (again) - that I appreciate that you have ideas and feel passionately about them. It’s rare these days…
What would be a potential workflow of a profound shift in consciousness?
Who are the actors involved? Who matters and who doesn’t?
If the top 1,000 richest and most powerful people on the planet had a shift in consciousness towards addressing the core causes of the “crisis” - would that be enough?
What’s the “definition of done” in this case?
There’s a huge amount of “unclarity” in this model.