Musings Report 2025-24 6-14-25 12 Contexts for an Era of Global Conflict
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12 Contexts for an Era of Global Conflict
Understanding any complex system or situation begins by identifying contexts that illuminate rather than obscure, misdirect or confuse. I find these 12 contexts helpful in making sense of the current era of global conflicts.
1. Oil and soil. Oil and soil are the foundations of civilization. Both are being depleted. The technologies of recovering more oil have advanced, but there is no guarantee that these advances will continue. Diminishing returns could take hold.
The nutrient content of our food has been declining for decades. Meat is only as nutritious as the feed eaten by the livestock. The financial-economic mindset focuses solely on quantity of food produced, not the quality as measured by what counts: nutrient content.
Supplements / pills are not a replacement for micro-nutrients in real food; numerous studies have found that supplements have few if any discernable effects. The uptake of micro-nutrients depends on many factors, including a healthy, diverse microbiome and healthy, diverse diet of real food.
Soil is alive. It can't be restored by applying chemical fertilizers. It takes long-term composting with organic materials to restore micro-nutrients and micro-organisms.
Without ample, affordable food and hydrocarbon energy, civilization in its current configuration goes away.
2. The price of oil and food is set on the margins. A 10% drop in the supply of oil doesn't cause a 10% rise in the price; it causes a 50%+ rise in the price. A 25% decline in supply can trigger a 300% rise in price.
3. Shocks that destabilize base assumptions about the global status quo's costs and consequences are becoming more numerous.
4. There are no conventional political or financial "saves" for these shocks, which are not even recognized as destabilizing factors until after the fact.
5. The "Waste Is Growth" Landfill Economy of disposable products, low-quality goods, planned obsolescence and accelerated product cycles was never a wise use of resources, capital and labor, nor was it a stable system. The illusion of stability was created by unprecedented expansion of credit, money and globalization since 2008.
6. Hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization are in the decline phase of the S-Curve. There is no restoring the conditions that held from 2001 to 2019.
7. There is no replacement system. What are touted as replacement systems are failed ideologies and mythologies.
8. Progress has been replaced by Anti-Progress, but this has been obscured with hype (AI!) and runaway expansion of credit. The quality of life--hard to measure--has deteriorated while financial statistics--easy to measure--are ceaselessly hyped.
9. Credit and the predatory Addiction Economy (we're addicted to credit, social media. ultra-processed foods, drugs, smart phones, etc.) are self-liquidating. Interest payments eat the financial system alive and addiction is not a sustainable, healthy model of "growth" for the economy or society.
10. Uncertainty is destabilizing, and uncertainty is in the boost phase of the S-Curve.
11. Shifting the gains of increasing productivity from wages to financial speculation and credit-asset bubbles
was never a sustainable foundation for the economy or society, as all speculative credit-asset bubbles burst.
12. The global status quo has been hyper-optimized into a tightly bound system: everything is connected, and vulnerable to disruption from forces and events that appear unconnected at first glance.
Unstable, dynamic, tightly bound systems that operate beyond the sight lines of conventional understanding and expectations are unpredictable. This suggests taking every prediction with a very large grain of salt.
Highlights of the Blog
And So It Begins 6/13/25
Now That the Parasites Have Consumed the Host.... 6/11/25
The Miracles of Moderate Exercise 6/9/25
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Completed the draft of my new book, 31,400 words in 7 weeks, which means 41,000 words as 10,000 got tossed in the rewrites.
You'll be the first to hear about the new book...
In the kitchen, a gifted kabocha pumpkin once again turned into Thai Chicken curry with Thai basil and limes from the garden. Yes, this is one of our go-to dishes, as the leftovers are as good as the initial servings.
What's on the Book Shelf
The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking (Leor Zmigrod)
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
Why I Broke Up with New York: Most people accept the city’s chaos as a toll for an expansive life. It took me several decades to realize that I could go my own way.
The people refusing to use AI.
A business owner tested if customers would pay more for American-made. The results were 'sobering.'
The Banks Know What’s Coming: Wall Street’s (not so) quiet pivot to thriving in a world that’s burning.
‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ (Florida story...)
Food Science: Why Bagels are Boiled.
We Will Be Poorer Than Our Parents — Here’s Why.
What Happens To Your Body When You Walk For Just 2 Minutes--Or As Much As 60 Minutes.
The Geography of Upward Mobility in America: Children's Chances of Reaching Top 20% of Income Distribution Given Parents in Bottom 20%
CPS Historical Geographic Mobility/Migration Graphs. (Census.gov)
In Spain, a homelessness crisis unfolds in Madrid's airport.
The Best Advice I’ve Ever Heard for How to be Happy.
Bees Are Behind Our Food And Natural Medicines - And They're Disappearing.
"In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end." Alexis de Tocqueville
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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