cargo cult

CARGO CULT

“Overshoot” by William R Catton Jr. is a pretty old book, from the late 1970’s. At the time it was groundbreaking in its themes. Today you won’t find much new there you haven’t already heard about off hand. The book is still a good read for the detail it covers about ecological niches ( to include man’s ) being over exploited and failing, the primary example being the yeast in a vat exploding in population to consume sugars and then dying off for lack of food. The book was brought to my attention from the Web site by the Arch Druid Dude whose name escapes me at this point. Anyway, today’s article and that of a forthcoming article on the source of America’s wealth are thanks to this book and indirectly to the Druid Dude.
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We all know about the Cargo Cults of the South Pacific. First realized after the exploration of Whites, popularized after WWII when ships were replaced by airplanes. White boys were not in the habit of doing hard manual labor, at least as seen from the islanders who were paid for that ( please, no Irish railroad descendant comments, please ). Yet these guys had all the cool toys thought normal by Industrial Man and looked upon as miraculous by Hunter/Gatherer Dudes. So if Whites did no work, it only followed that all their cool tools such as sailing ships or airplanes, canned goods, metal tools, cigarettes, etc., had to be magic. So the islanders built landing strips and air control towers and such out of native materials to copy the Whites totems to lure the magic over to themselves. They had no idea of how the industrial process or the harnessing of carbon fuels worked.
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Today, the majority of the population has the level of understanding about what makes the modern economy possible as the Cargo Cults did. No one assumes America’s wealth is a process of Draw Down ( using up resources faster than they are produced ) of a continent previously unexploited. Rather, they attribute it to the Democratic process or the Constitution or racial superiority or some such nonsense. They give technology and attitude magic like qualities rather than acknowledge the resources behind our growth. Despite a long list of previous examples, the latest being the ’30’s Dust Bowl, they refuse to believe our soil has become depleted. Despite previous examples of fuel shortages such as England’s wood crisis prior to the Industrial Revolution they think the oil will last forever. Despite soil infertility and oil depletion they think the food will never run out, even as weather changes moving gardening zones northward and the huge sea food price increases and growing Dead Zones give warning.
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We are at the point where the yeast has consumed more sugar than ever before, and it is thought to be the normal course of events. Look, Ma, we’ve never eaten as good as this-look at how much more is available all the time! Then the sugar is all consumed and the yeast all die off. Then some guy drinks the dead yeast and gets hammered. Then while sleeping off the drunk on a park bench he soils himself and a pretty flower grows in that fertilized spot. Just remember, as you are huddling in a cave sharpening a leaf spring into a sword, civilizations passing will benefit other life, also.
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