Michaels: on maladaptive thinking

The Evolution of My Thinking. Erik Michaels at 
Problems, Predicaments, and Technology. Jan 24, 2024.


Before I get started, I would like to say that I would love to be wrong about all of this (subject matter contained within this article and my blog in general), but the empirical evidence is not pointing that way. I know that there are lots of people who want more to hope for, but I follow the evidence and where it leads, and I just don't see much room for hope and I still think that Derrick Jensen said it best here about hope. The main reason for this entry is to demonstrate the power of conditioning, indoctrination, and our beliefs, along with manipulative narrative generation within the framework of how we process and think about the predicaments we face.

The evolution of my thinking has undergone a rather huge shift over the last decade and a half. Before I watched Collapse with the late Michael Ruppert, I was your typical American cornucopian and had little knowledge of much of the predicaments I have learned about since then. Ruppert's documentary blasted open the doors of peak oil (energy and resource decline) for me and made me aware of the Limits to Growth and the precursor to ecological overshoot. While I had extensive knowledge about climate change and pollution loading, I was unaware of energy and resource decline and how it will affect us.

As with most people, life was roaring all around me, I was busy working on building my company, and spent my time not only on the weddings themselves, but actively volunteering in my community as well. Life was grand, and it still is, although quite a shift has taken place within me since those days of blissful ignorance. A short 3-4 years after watching Collapse, I discovered overshoot and NTHE. Finally, these predicaments slowly came into focus and I advanced from Stage 2 of Bodhi Paul Chefurka's Continuum of Awareness to Stage 5 over the next several years (see the Continuum of Awareness at the end of Why is Civilization Unsustainable?).

As countless others have done, based upon my new knowledge, I made plans and decisions that would affect me and the rest of my life from that point forward. Some of these plans were rather difficult to make because they represent sacrifice. They go against the grain, so to speak. Some folks just don't really get the fact that personal sacrifice and personal change are the ONLY way to help facilitate external change. Many people seem to think that the way to becoming more sustainable is to buy more "green, clean, renewable, and sustainable" products such as solar panels, EVs, and batteries. Buying products labeled with ANY of those terms changes nothing. More mining, energy use, and material throughput had to be facilitated in order to manufacture those products, no differently than the products they are replacing. If there wasn't anything truly wrong with what they were replaced with, the MORE sustainable choice would have been NOT to buy something new, regardless of what it is. Buying new products in an effort to reduce energy use and material throughput because the newer items are "more sustainable" is an illusory concept. By buying the new product, you are cancelling out any real benefit by continuing the same exact cycle of consumerism you are trying to stop.

I considered buying these types of products myself. After looking into options for a solar system, I concluded that the geographical area I live in is far from ideal for such a system and that solar systems work better in sunnier areas of the world. I also now realize that these systems cannot be maintained once the fossil fuel platform can no longer be maintained itself. Long before the fossil fuel platform can no longer be maintained, however, global supply chains will become problematic and what can be obtained from far away will take a very long time to arrive, if at all. Planning on having access only to local or regional resources is much more realistic. What good would a solar system do me when its realistic life cycle would only last until industrial civilization crashes? Since I already own generators and a power inverter and batteries, adding a solar system would be a massively expensive proposition which really wouldn't help much. Many people simply haven't done their homework to realize how frequently batteries, chargers, inverters, and solar panels degrade or become inoperable and how expensive these systems are to maintain. Add to all of this the inevitable decommissioning and junking/recycling of such materials after their effective life is over. Of course, recycling is yet another whole conversation, but let's just expose the fact that recycling is rather energy intensive and often requires many toxic chemicals, and one never gets the same amount of material out of recycling that one put in. As energy and resource decline continue, recycling will likewise become less and less available to the wider economy, which means more and more junk piling up in landfills - toxic junk. While this is a different conversation than the one I am currently discussing, go to this article for more details on pollution loading or see this file.

Back to this discussion, what the last paragraph demonstrates is that I decided that owning a solar system wouldn't be worth the cost as I couldn't recoup those expenses with the number of cloudy days we have here and the intermittent nature of the electrical supply to begin with (they only produce power when the sun is shining). Likewise, the same thought processes went into other items such as EVs and I came up with the same results - that these are expensive devices and they don't actually change anything we are doing within the system of civilization. In order to actually make a difference, NO car is the better answer by far (Steve Bull points out all the details in this article, so be sure to check all his footnotes). My regular bicycles that I already own are far better than a car for getting from point A to point B. Obviously, this isn't always possible, but there's really no reason to replace anything I have unless what I have is no longer working properly.

The other thing that most people aren't considering is how long the roads they drive on will continue to be maintained at their current rate and at their current quality. This is going to be seriously reduced in the coming years due to collapse, unfolding all around us. In fact, for those of you in the United States, our infrastructure is really in a sad state. For a better understanding of the infrastructural platforms that we depend on daily, check out this article. The system is generally much larger than most people assume and depends on more basic platforms which support the upper layers. Without the basic support structure intact and properly maintained, the upper layers cannot function correctly either. Due to constantly reducing EROEI levels (see this article on what surplus energy is), constantly and continuously reducing amounts of surplus energy will be available to power society.

Combine all these facts with the simple fact that the electrical grid is nowhere near ready to be able to supply the energy that all these EVs would require in the first place (if we were to replace ICE vehicles with EVs). It would be another generation at least before the grid was up to such a level and this is right around the time industrial civilization is expected to be finished. Perhaps a more valid reason NOT to buy an EV is the simple fact that the electrical grid itself is unsustainable and will not outlast industrial civilization, being the one of the weak links that brings the entire system down.

More often than not, many people choose to buy an EV in hopes of making a difference to emissions. Emissions is a symptom predicament of ecological overshoot and cannot be brought down by using more complex technology. The only way to reduce emissions is to reduce overshoot, and this requires less technology use, not more or more complex technology use. Art Berman points this out in his article about how climate change is a rather narrow view of overshoot here.

At the same time that many people hope to use different devices (EVs, solar panels, batteries, and other "clean, green, renewable, and sustainable" devices) instead of ones they already own, they are entirely missing that this doesn't really change anything within the system; they are merely bargaining to maintain civilization which CAN'T be maintained.

Comprehending all of this was difficult and like most people, I went through some serious grief with many periods of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression before reaching acceptance. Even after reaching acceptance I have caught myself going back through different phases of grief. I frequently use sarcasm as a way of coping with all of this, and it does help. But wait...it gets worse! Much worse...

Some people have the wisdom to see all of this and have embarked on projects to build resilience and regeneration through permaculture, planting trees, and/or regenerative agriculture. While this is helpful and a noble goal for people, it just won't be enough. Just like the Degrowth Movement or The Venus Project or even other versions of The Venus Project as I highlighted in my last article, these types of ideas require global unity which is not forthcoming. These types of ideas depend utterly on what amounts to wishful or magical thinking, and the reason I make this statement is because of one of the symptom predicaments of overshoot, climate change. Climate change is slowly but steadily gaining speed and strength and a large portion of the damage has already been done - it's in the rear-view mirror, folks. Discussing ideas about how to reduce emissions at this point is fine, but let's realize that climate change will NEVER get better during our lifetimes or even those of our grandchildren. I struggle with this myself because I hold no illusions in my mind about what the future looks like. Things aren't going to suddenly change most likely (unless a nuclear confrontation takes place), but conditions a decade from now are going to be much different from those today.

Too many people (keep in mind that this is my perspective) do not understand how these changes will affect them. To comprehend these things more fully, the late Will Steffen explained that it isn't just the changing climate so much as it is the rate of change that is so significant. However, even that is paled by the new paper that Hansen et. al. 2023 put out (Global warming in the pipeline). In this new video put out by Nate Hagens, Leon Simons explains the study along with the graphs used for the video where you can follow along as you listen. In order to fully appreciate these changes, it will be helpful to understand how warming affects agriculture and food security. It is further help to understand photosynthesis. Once one has those basics down pat, then one can also understand why almost any type of agriculture will become problematic at best and totally unworkable at worst. An additional set of information is available here in the Aerosol Particulates, Clouds, and Global Dimming file.

Yes, I have posted many of these links before, but it appears rather obvious to me that I need to repeat them as people tend to forget these things (even I do). Perhaps it is the conversations I have with people who fail to understand what it is I am trying to communicate to them because they don't bother to read the articles I post in my conversations, designed to help them understand what I am attempting to communicate. MOST of the information is contained in the articles, so if they don't even bother to read them and continue conversing with me, I am well aware of how well they understand (or lack thereof) the concepts I am trying to communicate. A considerable number of these people clearly don't really want to learn, unfortunately. Initially, this was something I wasn't quite prepared for. Now, I am unfortunately quite used to it. Each one of these conversations teaches me something. Some of them I am impressed with, but overwhelmingly most of them are depressing. Still, they inform me of where I can at least try to direct more information towards. As can be seen in the above paragraph, conditions are progressing pretty much as has been predicted in multiple studies over the past decade, and this should get people focused much more on using less technology, not more. Sadly, this isn't what I am seeing generally. There are a few people who wisely see what is needed with low tech or no tech, but much of society is still chasing more tech or more complex tech, taking us in the wrong direction.

What people need to be doing isn't prescribing technological devices as some sort of way to reduce their ecological footprint, but devising ways instead to change their lifestyles and habits to reflect a lower energy and material throughput future. One successful way to do this is to reduce your income. If you don't have the money to buy gadgets that aren't needed in the first place, you'll appreciate more fully the ones you have. For tools that need replacing, try purchasing hand tools or items that aren't powered by gasoline or electricity. This is the coming reality and one must accept it or suffer.

Needless to say, where I once looked for solutions to every problem I now look to see whether I am facing a problem with a solution or a predicament with an outcome. Predicaments can't be solved, so a response is the best that can be proffered. These responses should be tailored to the future we will be inhabiting, as developing ideas based on today's conditions won't necessarily be of any use tomorrow. EVs won't be of much use if the roads required for them can't be maintained properly. If you live in a desert area today, you may not have a water supply tomorrow. Photosynthesis may be unreliable in the future due to high temperatures, so depending entirely on agricultural crops might be a mistake. Building resilience and regenerative capacity means depending on less technology use, plain and simple. We must all get out of certain mindsets that lead us into trouble.

What I want to promulgate with this post is that most people don't appear to understand that what passes as the correct things to do in response to overshoot are frequently counterintuitive to what many think are the correct things. Buying products or using more technology or more complex technology is a maladaptive behavior and will not help to reduce overshoot. Looking for more efficient technology or items that use less energy or material throughput is a noble idea; but unless what is currently being used needs to be replaced, sticking with what one already has is more often than not a better choice since it has already been manufactured and is located where it needs to be (rather than halfway around the world). The obsession of looking for solutions needs to be replaced with looking for ways to help others. Reductionism and siloed thinking need to be replaced with good, old-fashioned community connectivity. The bottom line is that we are not going to solve anything - the best we can accomplish is to reduce the severity of the outcomes of the predicaments we are enmeshed within. We must come to our senses and realize that the entire human-built world is in the process of simplifying. An individual born today will see within his or her lifetime (IF he or she lives a typical lifetime of about 75 years) the ending of industrial civilization, cars, grid electricity, big box stores, most retail outlets, and many other things that today we take for granted. What I notice with regard to my thinking is that ultimately, my first thoughts (a decade ago) on how to tackle the predicaments we face was precisely the wrong way to go about making the outcomes better. From what I commonly see in groups and threads on certain topics, I can see the same maladaptive thinking at work causing many people to make the incorrect choices in their lives; bringing a reduction of resiliency and regeneration to the forefront rather than an increase. This can only happen if we are changing BOTH how the overall system operates AND our own behavior within that system. Switching to a different or more complex way to power cars or the electrical grid or civilization itself doesn't really change anything does it? No, the system itself is unsustainable, so how it is powered is almost totally irrelevant because it will never make it sustainable. Changing our behavior requires changing our thinking patterns away from wetiko, and this requires a sustained commitment to doing so. As I finished up this article, I came across this video from Nate Hagens which is surprisingly similar.

I understand that most people either aren't going to see these facts or will disagree with them because they don't want to see the facts or agree with them. This unfortunately does not change those facts. Until next time, Live Now!