[p2p-research] James Howard Kunstler

[Ryan Lanham]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Kunstler's good on the kinds of stresses the energy and transportation
> system will be subjected to, but IMO he seriously underestimates the
> resilience of society.  I think we'll be amazed at how rapidly people
> in the U.S. pick the low-hanging fruit of economic relocalization and
> energy conservation, in the face of $12 gasoline.
>
> Ditto for Dave Pollard, who thinks server networks will eventually go
> the way of the Roman aqueducts in the face of extended rolling
> brownouts and blackouts.  That strikes me as ludicrous.



This resliance theory was very hot in the graduate schools in the early
2000s.  I find it interesting but I doubt strongly it is right.  Things
actually do fall apart to borrow from Achebe.

The evidence for that seems to be that things don't organize when they are
bad--as in most of Africa, or Burma, etc.--some of which I too have seen
firsthand.  In short, with all the freeware in the world, undereducated folk
don't spontaneously start functioning bureacracies which are notorious
difficult to achieve--witness the Middle Ages.

Further, when those things cash out and collapse (as they are in a number of
the Failed State Index states with rankings worse than 100), or as in parts
of Appalachia I have seen like War, WV, they don't come back either.  Smart
people move on and functionality ceases.  The Mad Max movies have this sort
of right when the captive engineering type is made to run the town until he
inevitably rebels.  Most will just walk out as they do in ghettos or in
industrial towns in the Midlands of England which increasingly look like
bombed out zones in Sheffield and similar.  I know many smart people from
those places.  Most would like to be there because it is "home" but few, I
think, will ever wander back to Detroit or Smolensk or Newcastle.  What is
left is the group that doesn't perform because they have little
understanding or access to what performance is or how it can be done in ways
that aren't magical.  The smart migrate.

You can tell there will be few simple solutions for the masses because those
who focus on stuff for the free (as in air) market rarely emphasize
useability and ease of access.  Instead, they attempt to corner the
technology expertise.  Everytime one of these currency tools, etc. that come
through this list pops up I generally have a look.  Almost always, the tools
are complex, require Linux expertise and advanced tinkering, and have poor
user interfaces with little focus on ease of set-up or portability.
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