So appreciative of your deep dive here Jamie and sobering review of these arcs of recent history, especially as a US born citizen who suspects much of these “obligate adaptations’ have flown by unnoticed while on horseback, train, plane and EV fueled vehicles - many thanks for the thoughtful articulations. You deliver consistently. As for that race to the cliff’s edge it may indeed be a time to pump the brakes, put it in park and get out of the vehicle, even if the Car Play AI says there’s nothing to do here. It may not even be about the cliff or reach anymore…but rather the stars overhead and the dirt underneath. There’s an invitation in this race across the desert to pause and listen. And then ask ourselves…what really matters? That we get back into the car? That we try to make a landing? Or maybe, in spite of this evolved “centaur” status and a potential future of “genetic pruning and neural implanting” that we walk for awhile and just listen...to one another. And give what really matters a chance to be heard…we might discover it has nothing to do with that vehicle or cliff...and more to do with that fire in the distance where people are signing together. Naive perhaps but their is wisdom in that circle that deserves to be heard...right now.
Self-identified complexity geek here who spent my life exploring the interplay between consciousness, culture and ecology and thinking about the transition between civilizational arcs – and had the great good fortune to spend considerable time in the 80’s and 90’s as a guest in Lakota communities.
It's been a really engaging series and the pattern dynamics you’re describing are both recursive (Romans/Gauls, British Empire/Mughal India etc.) and vividly relevant for understanding the current moment (China + AI + renewables + automation + long-term systems mindset vs US + fossil + legacy manufacturing + increasingly short-term atomized mindset). So many rich and unsettling themes. What it really takes as a culture/civilization to respond to adaptive challenges and existential threats. The paradox of behaviours that are both adaptively successful in the short/medium term while sowing the seeds of long-term disintegration. The mystery of being insider participants in evolution's game while holding outsider conscious awareness and agency.
Here’s a question: Is the obligate adaptation framework deterministic? The Mongols temporarily reversed the energy density hierarchy through superior organization. Japan (Meiji Restoration) chose obligate adaptation pre-emptively. Are there conditions where consciousness + foresight + a certain cultural cohesion/nimbleness can actually break the pattern, or does every apparent exception just prove the rule on a longer timescale?
Great read! I’d buy the book for sure – and put it on my student reading lists
Nearing my last decade of life, as I reflect on legacy, and because I clearly see the clif in front of us … I am yelling “Hit the breaks, pivot, find a better way over the ravine!”
Otherwise folks … what was all the work, effort, sacrifice and hardship even for?
"Towards what ultimate point is society tending by its industrial progress? When the progress ceases, in what condition are we to expect that it will leave mankind?"
Jamie, this series is fantastic! Please keep them coming. Perhaps it's my bias, but this is the kind of stuff everyone should know. What future are we charging towards in the name of progress? When will we have the discipline to hold back to serve our kids, our fellow species, and ultimately ourselves? How can we move towards the good, true, and beautiful and away from conquest and consumption?
Please keep these articles coming. I sincerely appreciate your work.
Very good and thought provoking essay series. I will say one item on the front of technology that does give me hope in the US Sphere is HELION energies Fusion project. Really check it out. It is likely to be more quickly to deliver energy then any other of these sustained Tokamak or Stellarators(China, French and German most advanced configurations).
I get the point though we are resisting doing the advancements we need but I also see us slowly moving to correct it. We will see if Technocratic political centralization is the winner of this century or democratic republics continues to deliver(even in a clumsy chaotic manner).
If fusion—or any other insanely cheap form of energy—becomes a reality, doesn't that just increase complexity and energy requirements for civilization? Isn't that just the next phase of obligate adaptation and our individual infantilization? Doesn't that just increase and concentrate energy production in ever more complex systems that fewer people know how to operate? Could cheap, abundant energy be the dystopia we're heading towards in the name of progress?
I would say typically when we unlock knew forms of energy the concepts of it become much more widely known and harnessed. Yeah its more complex but societies have tended to get more complex in various ways over time. With abundant and cheaper energy it also unlocks a lot of other avenues we have not considered.
Brilliant conclusion! I love the way you point out what looks like karma of "the First Nations were both conquerors and conquered. Perpetrators and victims."
Also, the underlying narrative here of energy and how important that is in the total overview.
And then the "Obligate Adaptations" are a must in order to survive, but difficult to see what they may be, as they always are. I would argue that the next novel iteration coming would be a techno-indigenous adaptation.
Great stuff, this food for thought has no doubt made us all smarter. Thanks.
Singing "Where is the Love" in my head. Yes, publish this as a book. It seem crucially important to consider. Also happily humming "I will go down with this ship"!
Ah, the idealization of progress through an evolutionary lens is tempting. But doubtful all the tech in the world is not going to save us from ourselves destroying the planet. It hasn’t done anything for the thousands of people flooded by these random atmospheric rivers the past few weeks. Best we hedge our bets by relearning the other TEK (original people’s traditional ecological knowledge).
Love how you honour historical adaptation and agree w how deeper energy extractions drive material culture. And. Would also add social adaptation. If a defining feature of humans is our ability to coordinate at scale, then western technological innovation was also driven by coordination among novel and different groups of people. It wasn’t the landed aristocracy that invented steam power!
It is social innovation that will enable guardrails and purpose for the emerging technologies. Among different nations, tuning into the deeper rhythms of nature in which we are embedded (regenerative ag).
And it is attentional training that may overcome the trend to passive infantilization. Ie mindfulness not just to self calm but to claim agency.
well--if we dont draw potential parallels, then the whole thing is just a nostalgia experiment frozen in amber. Your analogues may vary, the value is in comparing an If/Then to Now/What?
Winding, fascinating, familiar and shocking. I've always loved how you articulate thoughts. If your book had nothing but comparisons just like that saga, I'd read it, re-read it, and recommend it to everyone.
So appreciative of your deep dive here Jamie and sobering review of these arcs of recent history, especially as a US born citizen who suspects much of these “obligate adaptations’ have flown by unnoticed while on horseback, train, plane and EV fueled vehicles - many thanks for the thoughtful articulations. You deliver consistently. As for that race to the cliff’s edge it may indeed be a time to pump the brakes, put it in park and get out of the vehicle, even if the Car Play AI says there’s nothing to do here. It may not even be about the cliff or reach anymore…but rather the stars overhead and the dirt underneath. There’s an invitation in this race across the desert to pause and listen. And then ask ourselves…what really matters? That we get back into the car? That we try to make a landing? Or maybe, in spite of this evolved “centaur” status and a potential future of “genetic pruning and neural implanting” that we walk for awhile and just listen...to one another. And give what really matters a chance to be heard…we might discover it has nothing to do with that vehicle or cliff...and more to do with that fire in the distance where people are signing together. Naive perhaps but their is wisdom in that circle that deserves to be heard...right now.
Self-identified complexity geek here who spent my life exploring the interplay between consciousness, culture and ecology and thinking about the transition between civilizational arcs – and had the great good fortune to spend considerable time in the 80’s and 90’s as a guest in Lakota communities.
It's been a really engaging series and the pattern dynamics you’re describing are both recursive (Romans/Gauls, British Empire/Mughal India etc.) and vividly relevant for understanding the current moment (China + AI + renewables + automation + long-term systems mindset vs US + fossil + legacy manufacturing + increasingly short-term atomized mindset). So many rich and unsettling themes. What it really takes as a culture/civilization to respond to adaptive challenges and existential threats. The paradox of behaviours that are both adaptively successful in the short/medium term while sowing the seeds of long-term disintegration. The mystery of being insider participants in evolution's game while holding outsider conscious awareness and agency.
Here’s a question: Is the obligate adaptation framework deterministic? The Mongols temporarily reversed the energy density hierarchy through superior organization. Japan (Meiji Restoration) chose obligate adaptation pre-emptively. Are there conditions where consciousness + foresight + a certain cultural cohesion/nimbleness can actually break the pattern, or does every apparent exception just prove the rule on a longer timescale?
Great read! I’d buy the book for sure – and put it on my student reading lists
Nearing my last decade of life, as I reflect on legacy, and because I clearly see the clif in front of us … I am yelling “Hit the breaks, pivot, find a better way over the ravine!”
Otherwise folks … what was all the work, effort, sacrifice and hardship even for?
That's the central question, Mike.
"Towards what ultimate point is society tending by its industrial progress? When the progress ceases, in what condition are we to expect that it will leave mankind?"
- John Stuart Mill, 1857
Jamie, this series is fantastic! Please keep them coming. Perhaps it's my bias, but this is the kind of stuff everyone should know. What future are we charging towards in the name of progress? When will we have the discipline to hold back to serve our kids, our fellow species, and ultimately ourselves? How can we move towards the good, true, and beautiful and away from conquest and consumption?
Please keep these articles coming. I sincerely appreciate your work.
Very good and thought provoking essay series. I will say one item on the front of technology that does give me hope in the US Sphere is HELION energies Fusion project. Really check it out. It is likely to be more quickly to deliver energy then any other of these sustained Tokamak or Stellarators(China, French and German most advanced configurations).
I get the point though we are resisting doing the advancements we need but I also see us slowly moving to correct it. We will see if Technocratic political centralization is the winner of this century or democratic republics continues to deliver(even in a clumsy chaotic manner).
If fusion—or any other insanely cheap form of energy—becomes a reality, doesn't that just increase complexity and energy requirements for civilization? Isn't that just the next phase of obligate adaptation and our individual infantilization? Doesn't that just increase and concentrate energy production in ever more complex systems that fewer people know how to operate? Could cheap, abundant energy be the dystopia we're heading towards in the name of progress?
I would say typically when we unlock knew forms of energy the concepts of it become much more widely known and harnessed. Yeah its more complex but societies have tended to get more complex in various ways over time. With abundant and cheaper energy it also unlocks a lot of other avenues we have not considered.
Brilliant conclusion! I love the way you point out what looks like karma of "the First Nations were both conquerors and conquered. Perpetrators and victims."
Also, the underlying narrative here of energy and how important that is in the total overview.
And then the "Obligate Adaptations" are a must in order to survive, but difficult to see what they may be, as they always are. I would argue that the next novel iteration coming would be a techno-indigenous adaptation.
Great stuff, this food for thought has no doubt made us all smarter. Thanks.
Singing "Where is the Love" in my head. Yes, publish this as a book. It seem crucially important to consider. Also happily humming "I will go down with this ship"!
Thank you Jamie! Your writing/perspective is a breath of fresh air.
Ah, the idealization of progress through an evolutionary lens is tempting. But doubtful all the tech in the world is not going to save us from ourselves destroying the planet. It hasn’t done anything for the thousands of people flooded by these random atmospheric rivers the past few weeks. Best we hedge our bets by relearning the other TEK (original people’s traditional ecological knowledge).
Love how you honour historical adaptation and agree w how deeper energy extractions drive material culture. And. Would also add social adaptation. If a defining feature of humans is our ability to coordinate at scale, then western technological innovation was also driven by coordination among novel and different groups of people. It wasn’t the landed aristocracy that invented steam power!
It is social innovation that will enable guardrails and purpose for the emerging technologies. Among different nations, tuning into the deeper rhythms of nature in which we are embedded (regenerative ag).
And it is attentional training that may overcome the trend to passive infantilization. Ie mindfulness not just to self calm but to claim agency.
Cool read! Thank you! Increased infusion of energy fueling complexity is a compelling analysis.
Thought and emotion provoking, Jamie. Thank you!
First gut action…like overall concept…will I/We trip (fall) over the Indian, China, Trump reference.
well--if we dont draw potential parallels, then the whole thing is just a nostalgia experiment frozen in amber. Your analogues may vary, the value is in comparing an If/Then to Now/What?
Winding, fascinating, familiar and shocking. I've always loved how you articulate thoughts. If your book had nothing but comparisons just like that saga, I'd read it, re-read it, and recommend it to everyone.