Oh, yeah, I guess that is today...

Historically (on a previous blog) I’ve done a St. Patty’s Day rant, but this year, I just can't get myself worked up enough to bother with it. With all the other shit that's going down in the world these days, a few more drunk Irish (real or honorary) frat boys (real or honorary) doesn't seem to matter. Very little that people take seriously seems to really matter these days, it’s all silly little petty bullshit. Oil prices are skyrocketing. Food prices are skyrocketing too, because of the increased cost of oil to transport it, because mock-petroleum usage is sucking supply away, and because the demand for (and therefore cost of) fertilizer (which is also petroleum-derived) is going up too. The economy is tanking, and people have less money to spend on the increasingly expensive food. Water is getting scarcer, further exacerbating food shortage problems, and fueling stress and contributing to border disputes.

And people really think things will go back to the way they've been, that everything will work itself out, and nothing will have to change. Or at least, that's the way they act. A lot of individuals don't really believe that the system can continue, but they don’t talk about it; they just keep their heads down and stay in their safe ruts, unable to get the perspective to convince themselves that their world is going to end, and they bloody well need to do something about it, or they're going to get caught in the crash.

The crisis is upon us. We just haven’t realized it yet. I’m not interested in “saving” the planet, as I don’t even really believe that’s possible anymore. Despite the recent swings toward eco-friendly living, electric cars, renewable energy sources, it’s too little too late. Those movements are just now getting started, and will take many years to swing into gear. And that’s just in the “developed” nations. In the rest of the world (call it what you will, “third world”, “undeveloped”, “developing”, “unindustrialized”, whatever), these changes will be much longer in coming, because they’re so far behind the technology curve.

I’m more interested in salvaging the planet. We need to take what we can and start over, as there’s not going to be enough left intact to be able to carry on with anything resembling the past. So let’s start gathering it up now and get out while the getting’s good. Rats off the bloody ship.

“But what about working to patch the ship, rather than abandoning it and letting it go down?” First question, is it even possible to fix it? Not by any recognizable definition of the word “fix”. Civilization as we’ve made it is fundamentally unsustainable. It’s built (literally) on cheap, readily available resources, and cheap transportation of those resources from source to sink. Both of those conditions are becoming less and less true, and there’s not a bloody thing we can do about it. We’re running out of resources quicker than alternatives are being figured out. And thus far none of the alternatives have been able to match fossil fuels in terms of abundance, portability, or ease of use.

To make things worse, most of the other alternatives inherently use fossil fuels as part of their preparation, manufacturing, or execution processes. Solar panels need rare elements to be mined, a process that requires petroleum. Windmills need lots of metals to generate electricity, as well as for structure, meaning more oil used for mining, transportation, and smelting. These may be short-term solutions, but they’re still fundamentally unsustainable, and won’t be replaceable long-term.

If anything that we recognize as civilization is going to survive, it’s going to need a major overhaul. Which leads us to the second question, is the system as it is really worth saving? It’s got some good ideas, some good foundations, but it’s got a huge mountain of useless junk piled on top of it, with occasional gems scattered throughout. It’s not only much simpler, but it will also be necessary to rebuild from the ground up, to start fresh, rather than to try and extricate the valuable bits from the tarry, cohesive matrix of social assumptions they’re embedded in, and leave the counterproductive bits behind.

And there’s where this analogy falls apart. In starting over, we don’t need to subtract anything from the existing system. We pick up ghosts, impressions, ideas, and transport them outside the system, where they become real in their own right. Transmission of a meme does not count against the “parent”. Nothing has been removed from the original, and only the parts that are relevant and worthwhile are adopted and integrated into the new system.

The vertebrate kidney works similarly. As blood flows into the kidney, just about everything in the bloodstream smaller than a protein (which includes individual amino acids, sugar molecules, urea, electrolytes, just about any other random chemicals that might be floating around, and most of the water) is dumped out of the bloodstream and into the kidney. The only things left in the bloodstream at that point are the blood cells, platelets, large protein molecules, and just enough water to keep the sludge flowing. Once everything is out, the kidney picks certain things to reabsorb back into the bloodstream. Like amino acids, sugars, most of the water, and many electrolytes. Urea is left behind in the kidney because it has no receptor to bind it, which would then signal the body to absorb it back into the bloodstream. This is how the body gets rid of nitrogen-containing waste. Any other random junk that doesn’t have a specific receptor, which is the body saying, “That’s useful, hang onto that”, also gets overlooked and does not get reabsorbed. Excess electrolytes are also left behind, above our normal reserve concentration. And then all that stuff eventually gets flushed out of the kidney with the excess water that’s not reabsorbed, down to the bladder, and eventually out of the body as urine.

In building our new culture, we need to get rid of everything, start with nothing, and only take the bits that are actually useful with us. Buckminster Fuller's Law says, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” At this point, we can’t even hope to fight the existing reality, the runaway train has too much momentum and we’re too close to the end of the tracks. All we can do is position ourselves on the outside, such that we’re thrown free when the crash occurs, rather than being torn apart by the components grinding and tearing at each other as they get shredded by their own bulk and misdirected energy.

It’s going to take a new model to have any chance at success. Living green, living sustainably is not just a way to postpone the crash a little longer, and maybe even make it a little softer, but it’s also the only way anyone is going to survive afterwards. I’m developing my plans. Start working on yours. The sooner the better. Before it’s too late. What are you waiting for?