Is 2021 an Echo of 1641?
January 13, 2021
If you don't discern any of these dynamics in the present, what are you choosing not to see?
The reason why history rhymes is that humanity is still using Wetware 1.0 and so
humans respond to scarcity, abundance and conflicts over them in the same manner.
I am struck by similarities between the conflict-torn mid-1600s and the present:
global climate change (The Little Ice Age in the 1600s), political upheavals and wars
which intertwined civil and imperial conflicts.
Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the 17th Century
is a fascinating overview of this complex era which disrupted regimes and empires from England to
China.
Climate change (The Little Ice Age) generated scarcities of grain in a time of burgeoning
human populations. As in the present day, everyone assumed ample harvests would continue
forever--expanding abundance is the New Normal. Alas, Nature is not a steady-state
system and cycles are not tamed by our desire for ever-expanding abundance.
Humans respond to scarcity by assessing who's getting the biggest pieces of the shrinking pie.
When hunger begets desperation, various dynamics are set into motion as those without agency
and capital, i.e. political and financial power do whatever they can to get enough to survive
while those holding the majority of political and financial power, jockey to maintain or expand their
power.
These dynamics are fluid and prone to non-linear flows in which relatively small actions
unleash enormous consequences that are not predictable. If we squint, however, we can
discern some repeating patterns in this chaotic swirl:
Be the first to comment.
Blogger's note: subterrnews.blogspot.com does not send cookies, or collect any information on those using the blog. However, the blogspot is on google, and google may collect information, and send cookies. Many of the links that we connect to do not send out cookies or collect information, but some do. You are keying in to this blog, and you have agreed to this.
The views expressed in the articles do not necessarily represent the opinions of this blog. They are the views, and opinions of the author(s) of the article.
0 comments:
Post a Comment