simple minds

SIMPLE MINDS


Well, embarrassingly, there appears from the electronic ether a collapse article so good that I almost hesitated to share it with you. You might all pack up your bag of marbles ( Bag of Marbles ) and desert en masse and go over and play with another writer. I would be left without gifts and revenue and the chance to abuse my loyal following. But, being the super duper swell guy that I am I have to point out genius when I see it. I’ll even give a Bison Brownie Badge to the minion that sent me a copy of the article in an e-mail, bringing it to my attention. Actually, on second thought, forget the brownie point. Now there is ANOTHER web site I have to find the time to read on a regular basis. I was peripherally aware of Ol’ Remis before but this article impressed me so much he’s now going to be a regular of mine. I understand this is a lot of pressure for him but that ain’t my fault. I didn’t draw attention to myself with greatness. Now the bar has been raised. Sucker. Read http://woodpilereport.com/html/index-189.htm

*

The part that grabbed my attention more than the others was on the effects of complexity ( Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means ). How professions complicate and even blind themselves with their own quest for complexity. Think of it like this. You are a scientist and wish to attract grants or a corporate researcher wishing to not get fired. You pick a subject to specialize in that few others are aware or knowledgeable about. And you zoom in with a microscope and over analyze the crap out of something. This applies to pretty much any job or activity. A factory tries to shave pennies off the cost of a widget and does so by ever increasingly complex machinery ( does has the benefit of not asking for overtime or a living wage ). A bank is seeing profits dropping to mere triple digits and must go into ever complex derivatives to keep the CEO ( CEO Logic : How to Think and Act Like a Chief Executive ) in bonuses of millions. No matter where you look and by whatever motivation, complexity is baked into the cake and is by now counterproductive. So, to all those “growth is good” yahoos out there that thought billions of new brains out there improved mankind, congratulations for drinking the grape Kool-Aid. All it did was create intense competition to justify individuals existence. And complexity was one of the results.

*

Simplicity to any problem should also follow the 80/20 rule ( The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less ). The simple solution solves 80% of the problems out there. At 20% of the cost. To solve the remaining 20% you must spend 80%. Decreasing returns at far more cost. But since there is intense economic justification to go after the 20% we just set ourselves up for failure. Whenever I present a simple look at a problem, I am immediately subjected to venomous denials and proof of a complex answer. For instance, look at the simple statement that energy is life. Lack of surplus energy equals lack of growth or riches. With this, you can see why Europe prospered economically by mining resources through colonization ( Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization ). And why they have been in decline since. And you know why America became the worlds super-power through its position of number one oil producer. And has been in decline since. But a hundred different complexity based objections are thrown in the way, courtesy of generations of college educated idiots that killed hundreds of forests to justify their jobs. You get mind numbing economic drivel, political justifications, patriotism, etc. It CAN be simple but most likely no one wants it to be.

*

Look at China. You wonder about a perhaps not so distant future and wonder if they will eclipse us in power ( they might already have but the matter is a bit murky without looking back in hindsight ). You can bring up advanced computer weaponry that only we have, or our past dominant currency or our occupation of the middle east. Perhaps try to justify things on economic philosophy ( we might have been capitalist at one time but I would argue that communist China in a lot of ways is more so than we are ). Talk about how since we churn out so many business grads from overpriced schools that we will own the global economy ( snicker! ). Whatever. But let’s just step back a bit and try to simplify. If China is the global factory, and powers that production with far less energy than we use to consume those products, who is in a position of strength in an oil decline scenario? Perhaps that is why Peak Oil ( Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak ) is fought against so hard. It implies a loss of luxury, but it also underlines our vulnerability empire wise. China consumes under half the oil we do ( and that’s taking into account our three year import decline ). With three times ( or is it four times? ) the population. They build computers and we sit behind them trying to increase complexity. They produce all of our clothes and shoes that we sit around in in front of a central air unit, oblivious to the fact that when the heaters go cold our poorly made cotton clothes will be useless.

*

We more than likely use more oil driving to and fro to shopping malls than China uses to build things. Even as their middle class rises, they use far less oil per capita than we do. So, who will be effected far more as oil supplies decline? China, a growing economy, uses one sixth our oil to do so. I’m not saying we should ignore such issues as paving over fertile farmland or pollution or overpopulation. But since those factors are pretty much equal between us and China ( we both pave over fields and poison the water and have too many mouths to feed as oil declines ) we can assume that baring collapse, we are giving up the economic lead since we are so much more inefficient energy wise in an oil down world. A simple equation. Who uses far less oil to get far more done? If you can wipe away the crap and simplify, things become pretty clear.

END

The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.