Collapsatarianism

I watched a movie with my family a few nights ago called Aliens of the Deep , a Disney documentary. It was ostensibly about the ocean floor and depths heretofore unrecorded, but it was also about space exploration. In context the two were presented in a very similar and light. And it occurred to me (as I am sure was part of the goal of the film) that space exploration is well and good and we should be exploring more and more often. But we also need to better understand our home planet.

Then for a day or two after that I got caught up on a few TED talks.

Nathan Wolfe shows us that understanding our world is both simpler and more complex. Of course it would make all of us (humans) safer if we could deal with viruses before they become human adapted. A breakthrough modern idea that would have made no sense a hundred years ago.

Will we? How do you get funding to chase viruses in pigs and birds and on the ocean floor when they are no current threat to humans while grandma is in the hospital dying?

Then you got this awesome funny story from Julia Sweeney . Her voice gets on me after awhile too but she has the comedic timing and dramatic narrative, which is a great combination.

And it is not exactly her point, but she reminded me that we have an unbalanced way of establishing the relative truthfulness of something. Mom and dad said it, grandparents believe it, most of the neighbors are on board- oh, it must be the truth. And so slavery propagates for multiple generations. Or other wackiness like – dirt is good for you, bathing is bad. Leeches and blood letting will cure your headache. And so on.

And that brings me toMichael Shermer "> Part comedy, all serious and a great illustration of how we believe whatever we think makes sense. Even though in the cool calm moments or when we’re watching someone else do it, we know it is not likely. And just in case you’re thinking you are safe because you only believe what you see or hear, there’s Al Seckel. We see things all the time that confuse hell out of our bizarre excuse for a brain.

We’re apparently better at establishing the probability of truth or correctness than we used to be. But is it enough? Enough to survive? Enough to move toward singularity? Or enough to get my flying car? Utility fog? Life extension?

Or do we collapse under our own collective stupidity? Glenn Beck says he thinks we are close to failing if not already there. He has been pining for the national mood of 9/12. The Galtists and the Collapsetarians are getting all kinds of attention. I think they are wrong. And I am hopeful and even optimistic.

Let us back up a bit.

How do we know anything? When do we decide we know instead of merely believe? I’m not sure there’s always a bright line, especially when we’re predicting the future. I think we can almost all agree that when predicting, we move from knowing to believing pretty quick, because we cannot know the future.

(Related, but separate: What should we know instead of look up? Or even ignore? Or when is it appropriate to know a little but no more? Or know a little more, and well? Or even to master a subject? (see George Leonard, Mastery and Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers.))

Will there be a general or severe “collapse” as discussed by Brian Wang on a recent FFR and on recent Speculist posts?

Highly unlikely, at least not for any of the reasons that Collapsatarians are predicting. We are at risk, but we are more at risk from things we cannot predict: asteroid collisions, viruses and disease, colony collapse disorder eliminating bees, for example.

Things we already know, even if we cannot predict, we can mitigate. Things we know enough about that we can predict we can also mitigate. We can alter our behavior and we can choose. When we are really getting it right, we can also organize.

It is like we’re driving on a curvy highway. The collapsists are focused on the curve. BUT we can turn the wheel. We always have, intentionally or emergently or just by luck.

Yes, perhaps it is dark and we need more light to avoid overdriving our headlights. Oddly, the kinds of things that suggest slowing down so as not to overdrive our headlights, climate change, cap & trade, oil alternatives, etc., are not interesting to most coallapsists. They want to focus on accounting issues, tax policy and implied or actual loss of value in their stock portfolio.

I do not dismiss moral failings as symptomatic of something negative. And I would not trivialize the value of high morals as part of the reason we can thrive and survive as we have. But to suggest that the stock market is down so our agricultural production is sure to follow is just … well, it is a tough connection to see.

So we know, for example, that human life span got longer. I believe it will continue to extend. And I hope it extends a lot.

How do we use that information to decide what to do (or what to know)?

Perhaps we should we recognize that our population and economy have moved on from 1935 when life expectancy and Social Security eligibility happened to both be 65 years old. (Social Security history denies that one drove the other.) The demographics and actuarials have moved on –we should too.

Perhaps we should recognize that driving a car is practical and fun and Risky. In fact anything we do that accelerates our head to 15 mph or higher w/no helmet is risky. The math says we should avoid doing that when we are younger and the loss or penalty for fatality or significant injury is greater.

But we frequently determine value the wrong way. Or we are bad it, most of the time. Or at least we are not nearly as good at determining value as we think we are. See Dan Gilbert. (All too often we underestimate the odds of our future pains and overestimated the values of present pleasure.)

And now we have the Collapsatarians.

They are wrong for several reasons, and Brian Wang did a great job asking the most useful questions.

But let me say this- Yes, the Roman Empire collapsed. But Rome is still there, though we do not call the people Romans, we call them Italians. Likewise, the Spanish Armada was defeated and the dominance of Spain was irrevocably altered. But there is a still a Spain. And a Spanish Armada. Yes, Spain still has a navy, it just does not dominate the high seas as it once did. Likewise, the era of the British Empire ended. But I have been to Britain since then – it is still Britain.

I think a major part of the problem or part of the confusion is a belief or desire that becomes a belief that becomes what collapsists think we know. It is a desire/belief/idea that there is order and organization. That someone is in charge.

There is no order. There is little meaningful organization. And hardly anyone is in charge of anything.

If the President of the United States could push the right button and keep GDP growing and keep employment high and make the nation secure just because he was President, he would. He would! Always. But it is way more complicated than just the most powerful person in the world willing it to be so.

No one invented AIDS. No one put mercury in our dental fillings so we could be tracked by the fluoride in the water supply. No one faked the lunar landing.

But we are a pattern seeking, order seeking anthropomorphicizing species (see Al Seckel above). So when we can find a pattern that suggests order and control, we believe it. And even if we cannot prove it, that belief turns into us knowing it.

So I conclude that the collapsists are wrong. Because:
- There is no way they could know;
- Anything they can identify that could predict problems so significant that would lead to collapse, we can mitigate, and;
- I just do not choose to believe it.