Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
I had a fellow on my latest podcast, released Sunday, who insists that the world population will crash 90-plus percent from the current 7.6 billion to 600 million by the end of this century. Jack Alpert heads an outfit called the Stanford Knowledge Integration Lab (SKIL) which he started at Stanford University in 1978 and now runs as a private research foundation. Alpert is primarily an engineer.
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At 600 million, the living standard in the USA would be on a level with the post-Roman peasantry of Fifth century Europe, but without the charm, since many of the planet’s linked systems — soils, oceans, climate, mineral resources — will be in much greater disarray than was the case 1,500 years ago. Anyway, that state-of-life may be a way-station so something more dire. Alpert’s optimal case would be a world human population of 50 million, deployed in three “city-states,” in the Pacific Northwest, the Uruguay / Paraguay border region, and China, that could support something close to today’s living standards for a tiny population, along with science and advanced technology, run on hydropower. The rest of world, he says, would just go back to nature, or what’s left of it. Alpert’s project aims to engineer a path to that optimal outcome.
I hadn’t encountered quite such an extreme view of the future before, except for some fictional exercises like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. (Alpert, too, sees cannibalism as one likely byproduct of the journey ahead.) Obviously, my own venture into the fictionalized future of the World Made by Hand books depicted a much kinder and gentler re-set to life at the circa-1800 level of living, at least in the USA. Apparently, I’m a sentimental softie.
Both of us are at odds with the more generic techno-optimists who are waiting patiently for miracle rescue remedies like cold fusion while enjoying re-runs of The Big Bang Theory. (Alpert doesn’t completely rule out as-yet-undeveloped energy sources, though he acknowledges that they’re a low-percentage prospect.) We do agree with basic premise that the energy supply is mainly what supports the way we live now, and that it shows every evidence of entering a deep and destabilizing decline that will halt the activities necessary to keep our networks of dynamic systems running.
A question of interest to many readers is how soon or how rapid the unraveling of these systems might be. When civilizations crumble, it tends to fast-track. The Roman empire seems to be an exception, but in many ways it was far more resilient than ours, being a sort of advanced Flintstones economy, with even its giant-scale activities (e.g. building the Coliseum) being accomplished by human-powered work. In any case, the outfit really fell apart steadily after the reign of emperor Marcus Aurelius (180 AD).
The Romans had their own version of a financialized economy: they simply devalued their coins by mixing in less and less silver at the mint, so they could pretend to pay for the same luxuries they had grown accustomed to as resources stretched thin. Our financialized economy — like everything else we do — operates at levels of complexity so baffling that even its supposed managers at the central banks are flying blind through fogs of debt, deception, and moral hazard. When that vessel of pretense slams into a mountain top, the effects are likely to be quick and lethal to the economies on the ground below.
In our time, the most recent crash of a major socioeconomic system was the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990-91. Of course, it happened against the backdrop of a global system that was still revving pretty well outside the USSR, and that softened the blow. Ultimately, the Russians still had plenty of oil to sell, which allowed them to re-set well above the Fifth Century peasant level of existence. At least for now. The Soviet Union collapsed because it was a thoroughly dishonest system that ran on pretense and coercion. Apparently, the US Intel Community completely missed the signs that political collapse was underway.
They seem to be pretty clueless about the fate of the USA these days, too. If you consider the preoccupations of two very recent Intel chiefs — John Brennan of CIA and James Clapper, DNI — who now inveigh full-time on CNN as avatars of the Deep State against the wicked Golden Golem of Greatness. Personally, I expect our collapse to be as sudden and unexpected as the USSR’s, but probably bloodier because there’s simply more stuff just lying around to fight over. Of course, I expect the collapse to express itself first in banking, finance, and markets — being so deeply faith-based and so subject to simple failures of faith. But it will become political and social soon enough, maybe all-at once. And when it happens in the USA, it will spread through the financial systems the whole world round.
” the central banks are flying blind through fogs of debt, deception, and moral hazard.”
I doubt that, they, especially at the command levels, know exactly what is going on.
Hell, by the end of the century most of us who post on TBP will be dead anyway. John
Most?
Proper punctuation is your friend.
Did you mean, “I doubt that they, especially at the command levels, know exactly what is going on” or “I doubt that; they, especially at the command levels, know exactly what is going on”?
For what it is worth, I meant, I doubt they are flying blind.
“Alpert’s optimal case would be a world human population of 50 million…”
There are a slew of environmentalists and academics, all Liberals, that want to see the earth population fall to 500 million. These sub-humans just get an orgasm thinking about how to achieve that end.
These are also the same sub-humans that support GloBULL Warming as it is part of the NWO.
‘There are a slew of environmentalists and academics, all Liberals, that want to see the earth population fall to 500 million.’
They should lead by example and self-reduce it one by one.
Makes little difference since we are adding 250 new folks EVERY MINUTE.
250. Every. Minute.
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html
Bartlett made two notable statements relating to sustainability:
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
and his Great Challenge:
“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”
[wiki]
It’s not even a matter of “wanting” the population to fall… It’s going to fall.
But still, would you rather live here:
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or here:
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I like living just fine, but I chose not to have kids for a reason.
I pick the green place.
So you can die alone? Well you will have your cats.
yet, I do not see these liberals leading the way by example (off-ing themselves), in other words, putting their money where their mouth is. Oh wait, we will need them on the other side, because they are so smart and have all the answers to our problems. Just look at their track record-speaks for itself (heavy sarcasm injected here). http://www.thealterofdeceit.net
I love these predictions by assholes who won’t be around to find out they were full of shit.
In the long run, they are right, but certainly not by this century. No way. There is still plenty of energy in the ground. Unfortunately, for the USA, most of that lies outside the empire and its vassal states. In places like Iran , Russia, and Iraq. In addition, most of world’s manufacturing capacity lies outside the West and its vassals, i.e., in China.
Most of that energy will stay in the ground, as it will cost more to extract than the energy returned. A lot of shale “plays” are at that point, held aloft only by debt and by selling rights on to a greater fool.
News flash, the technology to alleviate many of our problems probably already exists. Our psycho death cult leaders have produced a breakaway civilization that is at least 100 years ahead of the rest of us. With our tax dollars, no less. They stop disruptive technology and weaponize any tech they allow the general population to use.
Unfortunately, they want to see most of us die before they roll out the ‘new’ stuff
If you look at population growth over the last 150 years there has been a stratospheric rise. Commensurate with that there has been an equivalent resource depletion. 40% of earth’s available oil has been used in the last 40 years (BTW, I believe oil is abiotic). Sure, there may be oil in the ground but it will cost more energy to extract than the net return. You can’t expend 150 barrels of oil to retrieve 100. Therefore, forgetaboutit. Applying serious thought you can see this can’t go on. The oceans, forests, etc are dying. Resources are depleted. There has be a depopulation. As long as we all understand a/the plan, it must be implemented over the next 50 years. Nobody needs to volunteer to the offing. It can be done reasonably with forethought. Or, we can stick our heads in the sand and it will be done via nature and/or the ignorance of man. If by the later, it will be done chaotically with gruesome pain for all involved. Pick your poison. Below is a lifetime of resources used by each person just in the US. Sorry folks, hard, very hard choices ahead.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=1b9431dd7f&view=att&th=159d8e542cdc001a&attid=0.1&disp=safe&realattid=2bb49d654d87a0cc_0.1&zw
Oil is abiotic. Thank the rottinfellar for the lie that we will runout.
Just like morgan destroyed Tesla and his free energy for the world.
And don’t forget oppenhiemer and big lie that diomands are rare.
A comment on billions of individuals residing on the planet earth.
These people will not be living “middle class” lifestyles. Consider Haiti
for a moment. The people there experienced an earthquake destroying
the bits of infrastructure they had. Billions of dollars were donated to rescue
the people and rebuild and build infrastructure. Word is $$ was spent in the North
of the Island creating roads, hotels, port facilities and hospitals. The “storms”
ravaged the South. Apparently $$ was misdirected and spent for projects
benefiting other interests.
Consider the African continent. Apparently the USA, and other NATO countries seek
to retain resources from former colonies. China is forgiven for their presence because
they are building infrastructure to benefit trade and commerce. I think the Chinese
are making hay while their sun shines.
The majority of the world’s people are in poverty, lack basic plumbing, and
have polluted dirty water. America’s poor “charity” cases sometimes live
better and have luxuries that the “working” poor can’t afford. Yet, even the
working poor in the US live like kings compared to dusty shack poverty experienced
by the “third world.” It is sad and a mess and too big a “problem” to be “solved.”
Something is going to happen, but reducing population to 50 million will be
some kind of event. Anyone ever try to drown a deformed kitten or puppy?
Life clings to life. And our collective “arms industry” continues to pump out
product. Will the kill rate/level of violence overtake the birth rate? People
predict the future…only a few are privy to the plan.
Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of the rich country and giving it to the rich people of the poor country.
– Dr. Tim Ball
Ever hear of the Georgia Guidestones???
FUCK THE NWO!
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature
While some of them are clearly noble and laudable (like having fair laws and avoiding petty laws), some of them have stirred controversy. For example: Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature, and Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity. If we were to apply this now, we’d have to kill over 90% of the planet. However, this is a perfect example of a misinterpretation, because it has to be kept in mind that these “commandments” have to be applied after the alleged apocalyptic event. I’m not really sure how they came to the number 500 million, but the bottom line is that even though we hate to admit it, the world is overpopulated right now; it’s way overpopulated. We are indeed finding better and better ways to manage our resources and use sustainable or renewable forces, but in just the last 50 years, the population of the Earth has more than doubled, and if we keep this up, the prognosis is pretty dire indeed. But back to our Georgia Stones.
Georgia guidestone humanity commendent.
The construction of a post-apocalyptic monument
Whoever built them, knew what he was doing. The slabs stand proud and sturdy and will endure through the centuries with minimal damage. They also have a remarkable set of other features. For example, they feature a built-in channel that indicates the celestial pole, a horizontal slot that shows the annual travel of the sun as well as a system that marks noontime throughout the year. But why they have these features and lack others that would apparently be more useful for dazed survivors is still a mystery.
It all started on a Friday in June, 1979. An elegantly dressed gray-haired man showed up in Elbert County and introduced himself as R. C. Christian – a reference to Christian Rosenkreuz, or Christian Rose Cross in English, and said he represents a small group of loyal Americans. Rosenkreuz is a legendary character that founded the Order of the Rose Cross. He quickly became one of the most important and mysterious figures of the time, by blending Christianity with some teachings of Arab and Persian sages. R. C. Christian admitted this is not his real name, but refused to reveal anything about his identity. Joe Fendley, president of the company that built on granite didn’t care too much about this; until he found out what monument R. C. Christian had in mind.
He explained that it would be a compass, calendar, and clock and also be engraved with a set of “guides” written in 8 of the world’s languages. Fendley believed he was dealing with a crazy man, and wanted to get rid of him; he explained a whole lot of tools and machines would be required, but Christian just nodded. He then quoted a price several times greater than the real one, but again, Christian seemed indifferent, so Fendley sent him to Wyatt Martin, president of the Granite City Bank. Martin is probably one the people who have seen and spoken to the mystery man the most.
Ten guides, a clock, a calendar, and a compass
The astrological specifications were incredibly complex, so the construction company had to employ the help of an astronomer from the University of Georgia. The complex indicates the day of the year, equinoxes, and solstices among others. But the main feature is the 10 guides engraved in the several languages. The mission statement raises the first few questions marks: let these be guidestones to an age of reason. But controversy started even before the monument was finished – it’s the devil’s work, people said. By 1980, when they started building the monument, Martin remembers that people started telling him to stop, and accused him of being part of an occult movement.
The main problem is that the commandments engraved on the stones are quite eccentric, to say the least. It didn’t take a lot to compare the first two commandments to the practices of Nazis, among others, but again, this doesn’t mean that a large part of mankind has to disappear – the guides apply in a post-apocalyptic event, where the population is undoubtedly very small; this can be very hard to digest, but seeing things from their point of view is quite interesting, and any comparison with the Nazis or far right ideology is unreasonable. I mean, if a horrendous tragedy happens, and somehow the world population is reduced to just a few hundred million yes, it would be a good idea to have some care regarding the number of humans.
To be opened… when?
Guide number 3 instructed people to use a common language – which would of course greatly reduce numerous difficulties throughout today’s world; achieving such a task is, however, impossible at the moment due to evident practical reasons. This is what annoyed the Christians though, who quoted the bible saying that a common tongue is the mark of the Antichrist – yeah, makes a lot of sense for me too. Same thing with RULE PASSION—FAITH—TRADITION—AND ALL THINGS WITH TEMPERED REASON – for some, faith has to be the alfa and omega, and nothing else in between. For others, yours truly included, finding a sustainable balance is a much nobler goal.
The structure sometimes referred to as an “American Stonehenge” sure stirred a lot of controversies, but it got us thinking — which means that at least a part of its objective was achieved. Even ignoring the more controversial commandments, the final 6 should definitely be worth achieving. After all, what’s wrong with avoiding unnecessary officials and prizing truth?
Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite and Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature. There’s a really powerful
https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/georgia-guidestones-mysterious-instructions-for-the-post-apocalypse/amp/
“Alpert’s optimal case would be a world human population of 50 million, deployed in three “city-states,” in the Pacific Northwest, the Uruguay / Paraguay border region, and China, that could support something close to today’s living standards for a tiny population, along with science and advanced technology, run on hydropower.”
Written by someone without a clue. Advanced technology requires advanced INDUSTRY to support / produce it; are you expecting to have computers without Intel and the peripherals makers? Food without a distribution system to keep it wholesome until it arrives at your location? Minerals occur where they will, do you expect to recycle all metals and minerals to furnish your advanced industries? Will there be enough hydropower to keep the lights on, and who builds / repairs the turbines when / if they break?
It takes tens of thousands of people to supply food, energy, machines, etc. to our society now. Let’s suppose someone figures out a new gadget, performing some task for less energy and pollution. Who is going to build something new? New advances in technology require new materials, new ideas, new tools-to-build-the new-tools-to- build- the-new-advanced-machines or whatever was invented (think CERN or Webb space telescope or fusion reactor designs). How does a tiny society generate the mind and machine power to develop new advances?
500 million are all scientists, engineers, workers in materials / machines / applied sciences? Who grows the food?
This is ridiculous; such a small civilization is doubtful to produce or support much above steam power and probably not even that very well.
You’re ignoring robots to service and provide for the human population.
If Kuntzler is negative, it’s time to go positive…
Alpert is right on overpopulation, but apparently retains some flavor of techno-optimism as james the deplorable wanderer observes.
What’s funny is how everyone you run into has a “solution” based in their own fetishes. For this Alpert guy, the “solution” involves engineering. For the godly, the “solution” requires Moar God Character. For a teacher, Moar Education. For a community activist, Moar Political Actions, petitions, protests, etc.
My personal view is that there are no solutions.
There never were.
This guy… For every middle class job and family that is destroyed by the globalists, resources are freed that could easily provide a decent life for 2 dozen familes. Do the math. One can live like a king with just 5% of the resources that a typical american family wastes. This is the way of the future. Sure, there will still be a parasitic top 1% that wastes resources, but the rest of the population is going to get a LOT more efficient. Millions will find a way to be happy in their little shack because they will have their portal into the digital world.
Even if waste were the key issue.. that “waste” going to feed another, larger, generation only guarantees a bigger population collapse further on down the road, when you’ve eliminated that buffer. Efficiency is the enemy of resiliency.
In my neck of the woods, there is a race to see who can put the most solar panels (to run the digital world) onto the largest extent of prime ag. soil.
“Decent life”? “Portal into the digital world”? How?
Right now the Marxist collective is trying to figure out how to control all information flow on the Internet. Freakbook, Twatter, Gaggle and all those massive outfits are doing their best to convert the ‘Net into an echo chamber of approved thought. If they succeed they will singlehandedly LOWER the collective intelligence of the human race by some amount – hard to imagine that previously, isn’t it? The Gutenberg printing press made mass dissemination of information possible. The Internet probably 10X’ed that, even in modern terms. The Information Nazis are trying to REVERSE that progress.
On the one hand, the printing press made it possible to spread BAD information faster – like porn, Marxism, all idiot philosophies that would have died a quick, unnoticed death if no one but the fifty idiots in Hyde Park ever heard of them. Jefferson famously lamented the proliferation of printing presses in the America of his day, fearing the ignorance and falsehoods would spread faster and more widely than worthwhile knowledge – and he was correct.
But instead of diminishing society’s ability to think, MORE people learned to think critically – they would read something that was nonsense, and recognize it as such, from their own life lessons learned firsthand at the hard school of living.
THAT is what we are short of now – the ability to read, reason and accept / reject based on logic and life experience. When half your waking life is spent listening to crap in government schools, watching tripe sitcoms on TV and in movies, and avoiding responsibility, no wonder people like Bernie Sanders are elected to public office. If you are taught crap and entertained with crap and discouraged from using your brain, what other result can be expected?
If every child was required to learn critical thought processes, design / build / operate functional equipment (as part of a curriculum) and perform real science experiments firsthand (chemistry, physics, biology) to graduate, society would re-learn sanity in a generation. That’s probably why it WON’T be done.
My fellow Americans, we have met the enemy and he is wearing a skirt.
And this person is threatening you how?
Suzanna, it will all work out in the end. When everyone is living like Hati, there will be no one to help when disaster strikes. Instant population reduction at a geometric rate when the bodies start to rot.
Haiti? What do you mean? Won’t the Clinton Foundation come to the rescue?
Someone above said there are no solutions. In fact, there are. And they are reasonably simple, although enormously painful. Often people say that complex problems require complex solutions. That is not my experience.
For instance, world population can be limited immediately by one act alone: no country exports food to any other. Simple. Brutally effective. Only the amount of population viable in any given area of land would survive.
Same goes for medical support and supplies. Either produce sufficient medicine and medical personnel for your population, or collapse back to what you can support.
Very, very simple solutions to “complex” problems. The issue is not that solutions are not available. The issue is that there is no will to implement the simple solutions. Instead, great cost and effort is made to find solutions that are palatable, and hence proposed, but ineffective, solutions become exceedingly complex as they attempt to satisfy all the special interest groups and prevent pain.
Nature has always been ruthless in selecting who lives and dies, and in the end it will be so again. Does anyone really think a world with 12 billion people will be sustainable at what we consider good standard of life?
BTW – I do believe in personally helping my fellow man. But only those that are of my clan, or my family, or my community, or my nation. My help does not extend endlessly. It certainly does not extend to the Middle East, or Africa, or Asia. They need to help themselves.
I do not believe in any way that the role of govt includes taking money from me by force and redistributing it to Israel or Africa etc. That is a matter for individuals per their own beliefs.
What’s amazing is that over the last 13 years since I woke to prepping and I have found in my opinion to be about 80% of women want to remain oblivious. They cherish living in neighborhoods with sidewalks and parks close by. Even when you make a pragmatic case that you should work together to maybe buy several acres and slowly fund the off grid place just in case, these women fight back citing that will cut into the vacation budget or little Johnny’s choir fees. Yet, when the shtf they will turn to their hubby and fully blame them because you knew, you warned me and you didn’t do anything to fix it or protect your family. Sometimes, you just gotta go do shit, git er done and deal with mama bitching. ANd if that bugout location never used you can bet your kids or grandkids will be thankful. The population is multiplying at an unsustainable rate yet the oceans are supposedly rising reducing landmass. Simple 10 IQ begs the questions at what point will people A) either become fish and live underwater or B) starve to death since their grandfather never bought a few acres. Of course we all know some point in the future you will be deemed racists because you own more land than you need and it should be socialized for the betterment of society and the gubberment will take it anyways via massive taxation or by regulations or laws, then by force if needed. In the end you may be leaving it to your grandkids who were educated by snowflake sissy’s at college who will gladly give up land ownership for the betterment of the socialist society. So, maybe I should just buy the beach house make mama happy FTW and enjoy the last few decades and allow my future grandkids to reap what they sow, fuck ‘em I want to enjoy life vs allow them to receive a snowflake gubberment metal of acknowledgement for being a good socialist and willingly give up their property. Their philanthropy and socialist adoration will last about 36 hours whereas my enjoyment will last 40 years at the beach. I am starting to see maybe these women are right……..