As the chart listed below on ‘how systems collapse’ highlights, the loss of supporting buffers goes undetected up until the entire structure collapses under its own weight.
Disruptive extremes of weather: examine
Rising geopolitical tensions without any diplomatic resolution: inspect
Multiplying shortages in necessary commodities: examine
Domestic disorder speeds up as extreme positions harden into irreconcilable conflicts: inspect
Welcome to the 21st century sequel of the disastrous 1600s, an extended duration of equally strengthening crises that overturned regimes and empires from England to China and activated continuous suffering across much of the human people. (Worldwide Crisis: War, Climate Modification and Disaster in the 17th Century is a captivating introduction of this complex period.)
What can we gain from the disastrous 1600s? Leading the list: people do not respond well to scarcities. They get crotchety, argumentative, and prone to discovering ways to become disagreeable rather than agreeable. Their derangement deepens as they form self-reinforcing echo-chambers of the like-minded, and the source of their bad luck shifts from fate to similarly fixated human challengers.
Three extended quotes come to mind: the very first bitter satirical tirade from Mark Twain, the 2nd from Patrick Henry and the 3rd from James Madison:
Mark Twain: “O Lord our Daddy, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to fight– be Thou near them! With them– in spirit– we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, assist us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; assist us to cover their smiling fields with the pale kinds of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the weapons with the squeals of their injured, agonizing in pain; help us to lay waste their modest homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and cravings and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summertime and the icy winds of winter season, broken in spirit, worn with travail, urging Thee for the haven of the tomb and denied it– for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, lengthen their bitter trip, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their injured feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful haven and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His help with modest and contrite hearts. Amen.”
Patrick Henry:“But we are informed that we require not fear; since those in power, being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will send to your recollection, whether liberty has actually been damaged frequently by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers.
I think of, sir, you will discover the balance on the side of tyranny. Delighted will you be if you miss out on the fate of those countries, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under excruciating despotism!
The majority of the human race are now in this deplorable condition; and those countries who have actually entered search of magnificence, power, and elegance, have actually likewise fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own folly. While they got those visionary true blessings, they lost their liberty.”
James Madison: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, possibly, the most to be dreaded, since it consists of and establishes the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these continue financial obligations and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the recognized instruments for bringing the lots of under the dominance of the couple of. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its impact in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the ways of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people … (There is likewise an) inequality of fortunes, and the chances of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and … degeneracy of good manners and of morals … No nation could preserve its liberty in the midst of continual warfare.”
Apt descriptions of 1641 and 2021? Examine, inspect and inspect. War and dispute appear to be the option once people remain in the grip of this crisis-hardened derangement, and they find their recklessness after their torment has actually increased 100-fold.
So where does all this lead? No place excellent. Concentrated wealth and power breed hubris and unlock to devastating repercussions streaming from the addled choices of the couple of at the top.
Voices of calm factor are shouted down and excoriated, and compromise ends up being difficult. Those looking for to preserve their exploitive grip on wealth and power work up strengths of derangement to enhance their own self-interest, constantly under the banner of some honorable cause.
In the confusion of decay and failure, the herd seeks a simple description and solution. Those seeking to maximize their personal gain are keen to provide the easy answer, which so occurs to maximize their personal gain at the cost of the herd.
In self-organizing emergent systems, every individual is making decisions based their viewed self-interests. This seems to be a stable arrangement, however the line between stability and instability thins in eras of deficiency and crisis, and trends that appeared linear and foreseeable all of a sudden shift into non-linear dynamics, in which seemingly small actions trigger tremendously substantial turnarounds of pattern. Stability wobbles and after that dissipates, and those experiencing the loss of stability slowly concerned realize there is no other way to put the genie back in the bottle.
As the chart listed below on how systems collapse illustrates, the loss of stabilizing buffers goes unnoticed up until the entire structure collapses under its own weight of artifice, financial obligation, scams, obfuscation, greed, inequality and incompetence.
2 brief quotes enter your mind:
“The item of life is not to be on the side of the majority, however to get away finding oneself in the ranks of the ridiculous.” (Marcus Aurelius)
“I never ever did provide anyone hell. I simply informed the reality and they believed it was hell.” (Harry S. Truman)
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