I often reference our pets. They have a great life, fed, housed and cared for with no need to think of anything themselves. I find that many people are fine with being the Nanny State's pet. Many are not.
I gave up an easy, secure career for life, as a teacher, in order to step into the unknown and find who I really was. Decades later, I'm still finding out. There can be no real reward without risk.
Really well said. I think as you're hinting what matters is the journey and willingness to take risks, not necessarily the outcome. The pet piece is interesting. For all my love of individualism, I am guilty of being the ultimate Nanny State to my pups. This is a contradiction here for sure, but not one I can break lightly.
There was a cartoon a while back. Two guys are walking their dogs on leashes. The dogs were out front, while the guys were behind, holding the dog's poop bags. One dog says to the other, "Near as I can tell, they think THEY own US!"
I've always wondered if the modern approach to bullying in schools hurts the victim the most. Going to a teacher isn't really an option for the victim, and even if they do, the intervention will almost certainly fail. Adults can't see the thousand little signs of torment being perpetrated on the victim. Often, physical force is the only way to escape. But physical force is the one thing that will always be noticed and punished the most severely.
"My hunch is that an assault on free play in the name of “safetyism” is in essence an assault on risk-taking. The apostles of safetyism shudder at the prospect of “… falls, scrapes, insults, alliances, betrayals, status competitions, and acts of exclusion…” even though these dangers are what allow a child to become “physically and socially competent.”
From my retrospectoscopic view beginning 1950 the safety social engineering actually seems to have benefitted mostly barristers with no statistical "non-equivalence" to the public. A child riding a see-saw unleashes the 3-D reality physics of a space launch with the added bonus benefit of enhancing social synchrony.
Don't worry, an extremely large 'existential' risk is already sitting right on top of all of us, and no one will be taking its monkey bars down any time soon: https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/professional-area/. Plenty of counting coup opportunities for all of our inner Neanderthals (see Harpending and Cochran's "The 10,000 Year Explosion" for the Neanderthal risk-taking reference). Where to strike first is the big question.
This is a fascinating piece, and I had never heard of "energy cost of energy." I will need to reread it to fully grasp it. I also just reserved the Neanderthal book at the library - I have been skirting around the idea of continuing evolution in civilization and looking forward to digging into this. There is probably a world of thinking material in it.
Worth also reading Morgan's earlier book, "Life after Growth" (https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Growth-global-economy/dp/0857193392), and looking at rest of the posts on his Surplus Energy Economics website. A major corollary to Morgan's energy cost of energy measure is that people and governments have all been increasingly going into financial debt in order to compensate for the fact that the energy cost of energy (otherwise known as "depletion") is increasing and -- in about the early 1980s -- had already reached the point where the true cost of living for western man started climbing inexorably. Both this increasing debt and the associated long run decrease in the value of currencies are therefore leading indicators that the much-dreaded and much-predicted peak oil (and coal and natural gas peaks, too) is steadily approaching. At the early 1900s beginning of the 'oil age', for example, we'd get about 100 surplus energy units for every 1 energy unit used to find and produce that oil. Now it's already down to the state of things where about we only get 10-12 surplus energy units for every 1 unit used to produce oil. Makes it more and more expensive to do everything modern civilizations do, and leaves less and less discretionary (surplus) income for most people.
The real economic growth that used to support improved standard of living in the modern world ceased and went negative in the first decade of this century because energy cost of energy fell down to a critical economic inflection point. All government measures indicating increasing growth in GDP are probably now 80-90% fictitious because government accounting defines debt and borrowing as domestic products. Not much beef in that particular accounting bun.
Lots of thinking material in the Neanderthal book, although much of it was somewhat speculative at the time of publication, but continuing academic research seems to be supporting much of those published prescient speculations. The bombshell speculation of the book was the authors' suggestion that hitherto dim-witted homo sapiens only became innovative after cross-breeding (hybridization) with Neanderthals and other hominid species. They began suspecting this occurred after learning that archeological evidence makes it clear that the ongoing acceleration of technological and artistic creativity only began showing in the archeological record after homo sapiens moved into the Neanderthal neighborhood 40,000 or so years ago. We were all pretty uninspired creatures before that contact.
On one hand, energy reserves are enormous and technology makes them more accessible. On the other hand, the incredible amounts of power required for AI, electric vehicles and to raise the standard of living around the world is unprecedented.
So I’m not sure what the equilibrium (or disequilibrium) point might be.
What’s attractive about the model is that it mirrors fundamental physics.
Yes, and there is enormous amount of gold in seawater -- but it takes too much surplus (free energy in chemistry and physics terminology) energy to pull that dissolved gold out of that water. The same thing is true of other resources, including energy resources. As to the equilibrium or disequilibrium point might be, Morgan the author behind the link you speak of, has shown that we've already passed the critical point of fossil energy resource use. See my further commentary above on the same subject.
Superb thoughts Sam! Only that voyage through difficulty can get us to the promised land of knowing ourselves. Resilience comes from conditioning and adaptation to the hardships, not avoidance and outright 'removal' of all danger.
I am totally here for it. I've read the LoTR about 22 times all the way through starting since I was 15. I can also look back on life stages as I have changed while reading the books, and somehow they have only gotten better over time. LoTR crept into this one because I just finished another reread and I could not resist. Have you gotten into the Silmarillion?
Yes! I just finished a re-read of the Silmarillion. Started reading Tolkien back in 1979 and have like you found it more profound as my life changes and different things become more meaningful. I've read some but not all of the posthumous volumes too.
That is awesome. I'm almost wary to read the posthumous volumes. One, I'm afraid I'll get sucked in. But two, I don't want to ruin my love of LoTR if they don't measure up. Some day when things slow down maybe I'll dive in.
I'm 78 and it was many years ago that I first heard or read the phrase "no risk, no reward". I've benefited from all of the risks. And some ended up in what felt to be devastating losses initially. But there were no milk and cookies to soothe my pain. Deal with it and move on. I'm very afraid too many in today's world will keep waiting for those cookies. What a disaster!
"No risk, no reward" is an ancient truth. We wouldn't be here without it. I think we're seeing some of this turn around. When I look past all the voices trying to change human nature, there are great people doing exactly what you did - benefiting from their risks. Thanks for jumping in, Tom.
Our election has shown that Gen-X rebelled to overprotective, DEI, suppressing masculinity state. Athletes are doing the Trump dance and not taking the knee (observation by Sasha Stone)!
It is an unbelievable reversal... people will be writing about this for years. There are many positive signs that people are waking up to the risk of safetysm. If Gen Z can do an about face, than anything is possible. Thank you, Barry.
I often reference our pets. They have a great life, fed, housed and cared for with no need to think of anything themselves. I find that many people are fine with being the Nanny State's pet. Many are not.
I gave up an easy, secure career for life, as a teacher, in order to step into the unknown and find who I really was. Decades later, I'm still finding out. There can be no real reward without risk.
Really well said. I think as you're hinting what matters is the journey and willingness to take risks, not necessarily the outcome. The pet piece is interesting. For all my love of individualism, I am guilty of being the ultimate Nanny State to my pups. This is a contradiction here for sure, but not one I can break lightly.
I think our pets are training us and not us them.
The truth!
There was a cartoon a while back. Two guys are walking their dogs on leashes. The dogs were out front, while the guys were behind, holding the dog's poop bags. One dog says to the other, "Near as I can tell, they think THEY own US!"
I've always wondered if the modern approach to bullying in schools hurts the victim the most. Going to a teacher isn't really an option for the victim, and even if they do, the intervention will almost certainly fail. Adults can't see the thousand little signs of torment being perpetrated on the victim. Often, physical force is the only way to escape. But physical force is the one thing that will always be noticed and punished the most severely.
"My hunch is that an assault on free play in the name of “safetyism” is in essence an assault on risk-taking. The apostles of safetyism shudder at the prospect of “… falls, scrapes, insults, alliances, betrayals, status competitions, and acts of exclusion…” even though these dangers are what allow a child to become “physically and socially competent.”
From my retrospectoscopic view beginning 1950 the safety social engineering actually seems to have benefitted mostly barristers with no statistical "non-equivalence" to the public. A child riding a see-saw unleashes the 3-D reality physics of a space launch with the added bonus benefit of enhancing social synchrony.
https://youtu.be/eRQ3MwA4Nws?si=Hp-eZbw7LUXN8k4a&t=44.
You're coming at this from a completely original angle. I dig it. And the music piece.
We also need to teach children to understand and evaluate consequences and to accept discomfort where it benefits us to do so.
100%
Don't worry, an extremely large 'existential' risk is already sitting right on top of all of us, and no one will be taking its monkey bars down any time soon: https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/professional-area/. Plenty of counting coup opportunities for all of our inner Neanderthals (see Harpending and Cochran's "The 10,000 Year Explosion" for the Neanderthal risk-taking reference). Where to strike first is the big question.
This is a fascinating piece, and I had never heard of "energy cost of energy." I will need to reread it to fully grasp it. I also just reserved the Neanderthal book at the library - I have been skirting around the idea of continuing evolution in civilization and looking forward to digging into this. There is probably a world of thinking material in it.
Worth also reading Morgan's earlier book, "Life after Growth" (https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Growth-global-economy/dp/0857193392), and looking at rest of the posts on his Surplus Energy Economics website. A major corollary to Morgan's energy cost of energy measure is that people and governments have all been increasingly going into financial debt in order to compensate for the fact that the energy cost of energy (otherwise known as "depletion") is increasing and -- in about the early 1980s -- had already reached the point where the true cost of living for western man started climbing inexorably. Both this increasing debt and the associated long run decrease in the value of currencies are therefore leading indicators that the much-dreaded and much-predicted peak oil (and coal and natural gas peaks, too) is steadily approaching. At the early 1900s beginning of the 'oil age', for example, we'd get about 100 surplus energy units for every 1 energy unit used to find and produce that oil. Now it's already down to the state of things where about we only get 10-12 surplus energy units for every 1 unit used to produce oil. Makes it more and more expensive to do everything modern civilizations do, and leaves less and less discretionary (surplus) income for most people.
The real economic growth that used to support improved standard of living in the modern world ceased and went negative in the first decade of this century because energy cost of energy fell down to a critical economic inflection point. All government measures indicating increasing growth in GDP are probably now 80-90% fictitious because government accounting defines debt and borrowing as domestic products. Not much beef in that particular accounting bun.
Lots of thinking material in the Neanderthal book, although much of it was somewhat speculative at the time of publication, but continuing academic research seems to be supporting much of those published prescient speculations. The bombshell speculation of the book was the authors' suggestion that hitherto dim-witted homo sapiens only became innovative after cross-breeding (hybridization) with Neanderthals and other hominid species. They began suspecting this occurred after learning that archeological evidence makes it clear that the ongoing acceleration of technological and artistic creativity only began showing in the archeological record after homo sapiens moved into the Neanderthal neighborhood 40,000 or so years ago. We were all pretty uninspired creatures before that contact.
I will dig into this. How this is not well known is beyond me. I appreciate the leads.
Thanks for try fascinating link!
On one hand, energy reserves are enormous and technology makes them more accessible. On the other hand, the incredible amounts of power required for AI, electric vehicles and to raise the standard of living around the world is unprecedented.
So I’m not sure what the equilibrium (or disequilibrium) point might be.
What’s attractive about the model is that it mirrors fundamental physics.
Yes, and there is enormous amount of gold in seawater -- but it takes too much surplus (free energy in chemistry and physics terminology) energy to pull that dissolved gold out of that water. The same thing is true of other resources, including energy resources. As to the equilibrium or disequilibrium point might be, Morgan the author behind the link you speak of, has shown that we've already passed the critical point of fossil energy resource use. See my further commentary above on the same subject.
Great essay, as usual, Sam!
But the comments are next level! What a great community you have managed to assemble here.
I really appreciate it John. I am blessed.
Superb thoughts Sam! Only that voyage through difficulty can get us to the promised land of knowing ourselves. Resilience comes from conditioning and adaptation to the hardships, not avoidance and outright 'removal' of all danger.
Well said, Anthony. Also epic reference to knowing ourselves - the ancient Greeks would all about this.
Love your LoTR lingo too. My shelf is full of JRRT! Got me through a lot of life stages lol. Fly you fools!
I am totally here for it. I've read the LoTR about 22 times all the way through starting since I was 15. I can also look back on life stages as I have changed while reading the books, and somehow they have only gotten better over time. LoTR crept into this one because I just finished another reread and I could not resist. Have you gotten into the Silmarillion?
Yes! I just finished a re-read of the Silmarillion. Started reading Tolkien back in 1979 and have like you found it more profound as my life changes and different things become more meaningful. I've read some but not all of the posthumous volumes too.
That is awesome. I'm almost wary to read the posthumous volumes. One, I'm afraid I'll get sucked in. But two, I don't want to ruin my love of LoTR if they don't measure up. Some day when things slow down maybe I'll dive in.
I'm 78 and it was many years ago that I first heard or read the phrase "no risk, no reward". I've benefited from all of the risks. And some ended up in what felt to be devastating losses initially. But there were no milk and cookies to soothe my pain. Deal with it and move on. I'm very afraid too many in today's world will keep waiting for those cookies. What a disaster!
"No risk, no reward" is an ancient truth. We wouldn't be here without it. I think we're seeing some of this turn around. When I look past all the voices trying to change human nature, there are great people doing exactly what you did - benefiting from their risks. Thanks for jumping in, Tom.
Our election has shown that Gen-X rebelled to overprotective, DEI, suppressing masculinity state. Athletes are doing the Trump dance and not taking the knee (observation by Sasha Stone)!
It is an unbelievable reversal... people will be writing about this for years. There are many positive signs that people are waking up to the risk of safetysm. If Gen Z can do an about face, than anything is possible. Thank you, Barry.
This is a pretty poetic riff. I dig it.