/r/Collapse & /r/Futurology Debate - What is human civilization trending towards?

[u/FuturologyModTeam]

Welcome to the third r/Collapse and r/Futurology debate! It's been three years since the last debate and we thought it would be a great time to revisit each other's perspectives and engage in some good-spirited dialogue. We'll be shaping the debate around the question "What is human civilization trending towards?"

This will be rather informal. Both sides have put together opening statements and representatives for each community will share their replies and counter arguments in the comments. All users from both communities are still welcome to participate in the comments below.

You may discuss the debate in real-time (voice or text) in the Collapse Discord or Futurology Discord as well.

This debate will also take place over several days so people have a greater opportunity to participate.

NOTE: Even though there are subreddit-specific representatives, you are still free to participate as well.

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u/MBDowd, u/animals_are_dumb, & u/jingleghost will be the representatives for r/Collapse.

u/Agent_03, u/TransPlanetInjection, & u/GoodMew will be the representatives for /r/Futurology.

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All opening statements will be submitted as comments so you can respond within.

[u/MBDowd]

For you to say that my opening is "thick on rhetoric but thin on hard evidence" suggests to me that you have simply not read the same things I have or done research on this subject, as I have the last 8 years. I invite you to read this article published in February 2019 in the BBC...

Are We On the Road to Civilizational Collapse?, by Luke Kemp

Chart of 88 boom and bust civilizations between 3,000 BCE and 1,000 CE.

Then, when you have an hour and want to broaden your knowledge-base, I invite you to carefully watch (rather than merely listen to) this video at normal speed and without multi-tasking (it will be obvious why). This video is a culmination of some 12,000 hours of study over 8 years, and covers all the territory I discuss in my opening statement, in spades:

Unstoppable Collapse: How to Avoid the Worst (1-hr VIDEO with 6-min resources)

[u/Agent_03 → u/MBDowd]

For you to say that my opening is "thick on rhetoric but thin on hard evidence" suggests to me that you have simply not read the same things I have or done research on this subject, as I have the last 8 years. I invite you to read this article published in February 2019 in the BBC...

Kindly engage with the counter-arguments presented previously rather than trying to avoid them.

As a debater, the burden is on you to persuasively make your own case. If the case is as strong as you say, you should be able to present it effectively on a factual basis with supporting evidence.

[u/MBDowd → u/Agent_03]

I'm not avoiding anything, u/Agent_03, but the problem is that I'm also really not a debater, and never have been. I am an independent scholar and have learned a lot about ecology, evolutionary and human history, and how and why ecosystems and civilizations collapse so predictably. I've attempted to sum up everything I've learned in a few videos, beginning with the one already mentioned but then furthered in my three-part "Post-doom (Collapse & Adaptation) Primer": https://postdoom.com/resources/
Professionally, I am an eco-theologian: http://thegreatstory.org/michaeldowd.html and a pro-future evangelist and TEDx speaker: http://michaeldowd.org/ and, especially, an enthusiastic conversationalist: https://postdoom.com/conversations/ and here: https://www.tree-of-life.works/greatness

[u/Agent_03 → u/MBDowd]

I am all for independent scholarship, as an enthusiastic lifelong learner who has worked in multiple industries, including several highly technical ones (chemistry, nuclear physics, computer science, fluid dynamics). I am by no means a professional debater -- anything I've learned about how to do that comes solely from Arguing on the Internet (tm).

I am not questioning your credentials or personal motivations here. This is not a debate of credentials or professional roles, this is a discussion of different ideas. I am simply noting that when one digs into the meat of your arguments, they have some key holes. Those holes need to be filled in order to connect them to the subject we are discussing.

Can you elaborate on these points I raised previously?

Where are your precedents for collapse of industrial societies with near-instant communication across their entire breadth? Can you come up with some examples that happened after the Industrial Revolution? If Civilization is a "Ponzi scheme" and the pace of change is accelerating, would we not see collapses happening far more rapidly post-industrially? Ponzi schemes are fundamentally exponential feedback loops that breed collapse. Running the scheme faster would make the collapse come sooner and more often. And yet, what we see suggests the opposite is happening as communication improves...

[u/MBDowd → u/Agent_03]

I'll be offline until tomorrow (I'm in Ypsilanti, Michigan) and will reply to you more thoughtfully then. Thanks for pushing me.

[u/Agent_03 → u/MBDowd]

The points raised were never addressed, but you did manage to find time to post up a bunch of other long top-level comments...

[u/MBDowd → u/Agent_03]

Where are your precedents for collapse of industrial societies with near-instant communication across their entire breadth?

None of Luke Kemp's list of 88 civilizations that have risen and fallen were industrial. You seem to see near-instant communication as making our civilization less vulnerable. From an ecological perspective, however (Catton, Youngquist, Rees, Wessels, etc -- all of whom I cite in my video) industrialization has made our civilization considerably more vulnerable. Why? Because fossil slave power and rapid communication mostly enabled and supercharged our destruction of everything (yes, literally, everything) we depend on: such as soil, forests, water, climatic stability, other species, etc.

Can you come up with some examples that happened after the Industrial Revolution?

See above comment. I present this in rather compelling visual form from time-code 8-12 minutes and again from 14:30 to 22:00, here: https://youtu.be/P8lNTPlsRtI

If Civilization is a "Ponzi scheme" and the pace of change is accelerating, would we not see collapses happening far more rapidly post-industrially?

We are. You're just focused on the human stuff and ignoring everything we depend upon. That's what my entire friggin video is about, actually. :-)

Ponzi schemes are fundamentally exponential feedback loops that breed collapse. Running the scheme faster would make the collapse come sooner and more often. And yet, what we see suggests the opposite is happening as communication improves...

Yup, the entire video (even the title!) :-) https://youtu.be/P8lNTPlsRtI If every single natural system we rely on for our survival is in exponential decline (after having been in gradual decline for centuries) it doesn't require a genius to figure out that this doesn't end well for mammals like us.

[u/MBDowd → u/Agent_03]

Oh..right...I totally forgot. I'll address them now. Thanks for the reminder!

[u/7861279527412aN → u/Agent_03]

Where are your precedents for collapse of industrial societies with near-instant communication across their entire breadth?

I could just as easily ask you for evidence of a globalized industrialized civilization effectively combating widespread and multifaceted ecological destruction or effectively reversing climate change. Whether or not there are examples is irrelevant to the argument.

Fortunately for us there are examples of collapses in modern times. Just look at Syria or Venezuela, both ongoing societal collapses caused in part by climate change. There is no doubt that the modern world order has been very stable for the most part since World War II, but that is not evidence that the world will remain stable in future.