I've waited for these two to speak! I find it ironic that some consider this doomery, if anything for me the refusal to talk about it makes me feel far worse. I actually think the 'collapse' is happening a little faster than suggested here. The world I grew up in only 20 years ago is completely gone. People don't even socialise in the same ways, and that is a bizarre shift. A desire for connection has diminished between people, and that is something that cannot be measured.
I agree that the collapse of this civilization will not be over centuries, as suggested, but quite a bit faster given the degree of overshoot and breaching of planetary boundaries. Regardless, the wisdom they expressed is so inspiring and attractive, in contrast to the emptiness of our modern culture.
@@gnoelalexmay longer than that though change did take longer. Change has been occurring at a reasonable pace since the invention of agriculture. Though that I concede that noticeable change took closer to 50 to 100 years as opposed to the 20 year or so change since the Industrial Revolution.
I've been a "dommer" since the late 70's. I ended up in a Zen monastery in the 8o's partly in recognition of my own alienation from the system. But here we are. I'm old and looking at dying. That's the next project. Look at the bookshelves behind Paul, and Perry looks great, and what I'm saying is that we're all embedded. We know it will end, just as we know we're going to die.
"dommer"? *Reply to:* _I've been a "dommer" since the late 70's. I ended up in a Zen monastery in the 8o's partly in recognition of my own alienation from the system. But here we are. I'm old and looking at dying. That's the next project. Look at the bookshelves behind Paul, and Perry looks great, and what I'm saying is that we're all embedded. We know it will end, just as we know we're going to die."_
I like that....."the next project." It is for me, also. Modernity has become a great disappointment! I'm old enough to welcome death, when it comes. And lucky enough to have a strong sense that there's life after death, and feel it will be enough of an adventure, that no one can make an educated guess as to how it unfolds. I like it that way.
@@miyojewoltsnasonth2159 A simple finger-slip misspelling of "Doomer" - I've been one myself ... oddly enough, since the 70's. I suspect it's what comes of maturing under the shade of a very real nuclear threat of extermination.
His innate religiosity explains his urge to doom. It's not logical, it's pathological. People were stupid and vicious when they really really believed in religion too. They were infact far worse!
What a great conversation, thought provoking, I have always been a closet Luddite and deeply sceptical especially about the internet. It is impossible to operate in society without it now, unless you opt out totally. It leaves us so vulnerable, all it takes is a power cut or an internet outage as happened in the UK a few weeks ago and the whole system collapses.
I was in London during the London bombings on 7/7/2005. The whole of central London was shut down. The mobile phone networks were blocked and we had to contact people by landline. Soon there will be no landlines so no alternative. Social media wasn’t really a thing then, although the internet was well established - but we couldn’t get clear information from that at all. Instead we watched the TV news, which is now no longer trusted and which we increasingly need the internet to access anyway. I can’t imagine how it would be today, with our dependence on more advanced technologies that are so vulnerable to misinformation, or to simply being shut down by the authorities in an emergency - let alone tech failure or hackers.
@@GreenWhitePurple me too, very close by to where it happened, I got locked out of my home for mist of the day, as the police cordoned everything off. I did call my parents on a land line to let them know I was ok, you are very right. It’s such a simple thing. Do not put all your eggs in one basket!
@@GreenWhitePurple Perhaps this is how it is supposed to be: complexity leading to breakdown, panic and death. How can it be otherwise? Perpetual advancement in the face of increasing headwinds is impossible.
@@h.astley2113 This is a formulation similar to the people who scream from the rooftops that change is inevitable. What they fail to allow anyone to recognize is that THEY are the ones forcing change down everyone else's throat.
To Mr. Kingsnorth's point at 37m30sec mark and on, the American writer James Howard Kunstler sums up his (dyspeptic) theory of history, especially as it concerns the causes of our present crises, thus: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
27:40 this is pure BS. It is not a “tiny part of the world in the West” which is not having children anymore or having few kids. It is the entire world which is doing so. India’s fertility rate has just dropped to 2 kids, and most of Indian States are already below that threshold. Indian urban areas TFR is down to 1,6 kids, same as France and U.s. and this is the most populous country worldwide from now on. Indonesia TFR is down to 2.14, and Java island, where 55% of population lives, is already below 2 kids; we’re talking about the most populous Islamic country worldwide. Not to mention Turkey and Iran’s Islamic republic: 1.6 kids, also them same as Us and France. PhiliBrazil TFr is now down to 1.5 kids and Mexico to 1.6 kids. Argentina and Colombia are down to 1.4 kids. Oh and what about “religious people within West” which will turn the table again in direction of religion making more babies? Utah’s TFR in the U.s is down to 1.85, nevertheless the Mormons, and no U.s states reach anymore the TFr of 2 kids a part from South Dakota, 0.5% of U.s population. Northern Ireland , the most religious corner of UK, has fallen below 1.7 kids. In the EU, Poland is down to 1.2 , same as Japan, and Hungary- in the face of Orban pro-kids subsidistan, TFr is down below 1.5. And most importantly, who told you that people born and risen in religious families will stay the same in life? I have dozens of people I know who became punks and metal defender after going in catholic private schools. Baby boomer in the 1960s who made the sexual revolution were 90% born and rises in churchgoers families. Oh and about “there are more religious people in the world today than when I was born”, ehm…yes buddy, if you are born 50 years away, it means that world population has doubled in the meanwhile. The festival of obviousness.
Too many religious people ( think the us southern evangelicals/MAGA supporters) aren’t all that Christ-like. They especially tend to be fixated on money (the prosperity gospel) and power.
It’s funny how people call you both depressing and doomer because I take solace in these type of sober and mannered discussions. It’s the “endless potential” mania that is spat out and proselytized from every corner that depresses me with its self reverential house of mirror delusions . I’ve had this perspective for as long as I can remember - no doubt formed by growing up the California redwood forest and witnessing it’s ignored destruction. The demonic algorithm constantly places me on shows like the Lex Friedman podcast(and the like) and it’s that kind of narcotic optimism(stumbling around as it does in humanity’s supposed “unique genius”) that gives me anxiety and drives me up the wall. Outside of the technology high which our modern world buzzes,p is a natural world in constant creation creating miracles we don’t even see and therefore mindlessly destroy, constantly chasing that high. We construct our useless toys that make us so proud of ourselves out of devastated forests, rivers, and seas, ignoring the unmeasurable carnage of The Miracle as we praise ourselves for our devouring contraptions. In reality, all of it isn’t equal to a single unfathomable chirping cricket, let alone a field of them self producing and in perfect balancewith the world around it - and if they should become unbalanced; well, nature will seamlessly take care of that field. I know this is probably annoyingly preachy and poorly put and much easier to say than experience, but the acknowledgment of reality and actual situation we find ourselves in is heartening to me nevertheless. Thank you
@@danielmaher964 Thank you. I was trying to express what I was feeling at the moment as best as I could having awoken at 3:30am to one of those podcasts I describe. Filled with anxiety I went looking for some space that isn’t unquestioningly believing in the myth of progress and the great scientific enterprise and found myself here. This discussion is much closer to how I view the situation we find ourselves in and so I felt relief and wanted to thank them. I’m sure most don’t agree with how I view things but I needed to get it off my chest. It’s kind of you to compliment my post despite disagreeing with it
At 29:22, Kingsnorth says that if you dethrone God you put something else on the throne, and we've put ourselves on the throne. We worship ourselves. I'd argue that religion was always a way of worshiping the self. We created the gods in our own image, and then used them for our own wish fulfillment. Punishing bad people in the afterlife. Protection from disaster. Bring us victory in war and conquest.
Thank-you Louise Paul for a truthful discussion on where we are heading as a species. Thirty-Five years ago a visit to the Science Museum in Coalville Leicestershire made me aware that the life-style trappings progressively enjoyed by those of the Industrial Revolution is simply unsustainable. This was brought home by a paper-chain of men demonstrating the numerous generations of man-kind from Adam, with a few coloured in to represent those that have lived since the Industrial Revolution and the earth resources they have excessively consumed compared to those that went before them. At the same time our then Prime Minister John Major was advocating the UK GDP would double in twenty-five years, so only a foot to the pedal offering from the political class (2024 and their message hasn't changed). Thankfully I over-came my self arrogance and accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour seven years ago, which has put my mind at rest. God bless you both and pray your message becomes main-stream.
Thoughtful, intelligent people, here occasionally straying from the facts of reality. I refer to the fact that bad things happen to good people. These bad things are not consequences to bad choices. Often very young innocent children have very bad things happen. I would like to hear you two discuss that problem in terms of your religious convictions.
Autonomy and Gratification have becomw the only real virtues of our society and it is manifesting in transhumanism; the idea that reality is a technical problem we can "hack" with technology. Great talk. Happily subscribed. Lee Jenkins - Bolton.
Wow, now there is a thought..or two or three. I got a greater understanding of the purpose of religion and its positive influence on society in the fifty minutes of your program then years of attending church with my dear (sadly departed) mother.
Yea the last 60 years of misandry taking over our institutions and media unchecked has really created an information drought. Suprise, the atheists were ALL wrong, and the particularly smart ones have FINALLY admitted it a day late and a dollar short. They really did a lot of damage, but it was facilitated by technology.
She'd better hold onto her seat, if she interviews Tom Murphy. As a physicist, what he has to say about our state of being, and our future, is not for the faint of heart......to put it very mildly.
@@mrrecluse7002 Tom Murphy has certainly ‘done the math’ ! Canadian Professor Bill Rees, Nate Hagen and quite a few others have all the data too and similarly, their views are not for the faint of heart. Louise and Paul might reassess their positions on bringing children into the world. But I guess they think that the rapture might eventuate to save us all ?
@@mkkrupp2462 Otherwise known as magical thinking, and it can fool the best of us. It did me, in the past. Yeah, you won't find that in Rees, or Hagan. How refreshing, though bleak.
It surprises me that such intelligent people do not see the causal relationship between the different factors of human society. I suppose this results from conceptual constructions that have no relation to reality. But they are comforting, I guess.
MMM suggested, “Modernity is collapsing because it is not true, and humanity will return to its norm, as the Creator intended.” Tremendous. My wife and I attend Mass every Sunday and conceived 9 children, of which 4 made it to term, anecdotally. In the 1970’s a long road trip meant the car was covered in bug strikes, now there are hardly any bug strikes. I find it disturbing and quite sad.... Lastly, living with 4 women for nearly 30 years has taught me to say, “What a wonderful woman!”
I can’t dispute the notion that all have empires eventually collapsed. But just because a thing happened a few times doesn’t mean it will always happen. I suppose there is an inevitability however that the whole surface of the planet is a system that can be considered as a closed system from a thermodynamic perspective. I’m not convinced that anyone can do any more than speculate on how the modern world will end, or it will end. For me, at the moment there is a positive feedback loop between what is happening in the world, how we experience the news of what is happening in the world and our psychological predisposition concerning our collective future. Positive feedback in terms of an amplification effect of how bad the news is. I agree with Paul about having hope but it seems to me his position seems to equate a belief in scientific progress as an anti Christian position. I don’t belief we have seen much pure scientific progress since the 1960s. We have seen massive technological progress driven by mainly economic forces, some might say greed and capitalism. The is a massive difference between science and technology that, I think Paul has overlooked. The scientific principles that underpin all our current technology havent changed much for 40 or 50 years. For example we are still getting into space by putting a chemical bomb under the payload, there are real issues with the Standard Model, we don’t seen to know what over 90% of what the Universe is made of, Denis Noble would suggest that Neo Darwinists have held back our understanding of living systems and the whole of chemistry is moribund. Computer development has surfed on Moores law for 40 years. Hope and confidence in a better future might be a better mindset, and you can still be a good Christian. Rethinking capitalism and dismantling the banking system might be a better way of going forward rather than throwing out science and technology and be coming an anti modernist. Obviously I am just guessing as well ….
There’s a documentary narrated by James Earl Jones called the great year (on TH-cam somewhere). It lays out the theory of the four ages which roughly correspond to the concept in the Western tradition of Iron, Bronze, Silver and Gold ages. Anyway, it’s a pattern amongst these collapsatarian types to always be banging on about how we’re in Kali Yuga - the dark age (Kali is the goddess of destruction) - but we’re not… we’re in Dwapara Yuga, or the Bronze Age. In the ascending cycle. Also how many times do we have to hear Elon Musk turned into a straw man? Seems to be a daily occurrence now. Enjoying this conversation (just had to get that off my chest).
"In the ascending cycle" -- what does that mean? AFAIK, there is no ascending cycle. The cycle trends downward until the end; then apocalypse; then rest; then back to golden age.
How about not wasting resources to start with? One of the biggest waste of resources is the military race. How much gas does an aircraft carrier burn each day? Another big waste is food. Up to forty percent of the food is wasted. One big waste is cultural practice. The green lawn of the American house wasted so much water. In the extreme case of Los Angeles, the water is pumped hundreds of miles to water the lawn. Why not plant a garden of native plants? Consumerism is another big waster. Why do we need to buy clothes that are thrown away after being worn twice? Reduce the wastefulness of the world by half would be a start.
The entirety of religion could be replaced by "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." This philosophy existed long before Christ. It's all we need, to get along with each other, and find sufficient meaning in life.
Two counter facts. Birth rate is falling across Muslim nations too regardless of their absolute religious commitment. And another fact: birth rates in the Soviet Union were as low as in Europe regardless of substantially lower living standards. So probably it goes deeper than religion and level of comfort
Even in the Middle Ages and Classical periods, urban centres themselves had below replacement birth rates, relying on surrounding rural growth and influx. Dense cities always do this, they always have. This is the first time in history that we see majority urban instead of majority rural civilizations, with the predictable accompanying birth rates.
If Paul is right - and I think he is- that narcissism is at the root of so much of our personal and cultural malaise, then a religion that has as its primary goal the salvation of the individual soul can hardly be a thoroughgoing response to it. The Abrahamic faiths all put a singular focus on man’s (sic) relationship with a disembodied divine entity, thus encouraging and catalysing cultural imperatives of domination, exploitation, violence and logocentrism. And sure, there have always been righteous individuals who opposed and fought against the worst excesses of these narcissism-derived phenomenon, but they seemed unable to cut to the ontological heart of the matter. Sustaining cultures - and their religions - are inseparable from, embedded in, and belonging to an animate lifeworld of which they are responsible custodians. They don’t so much seek deliverance and ascension from the world, as immersion and belonging in it. (And, as Paul points to, they are effectively centred on small-scale localism.) The apocalypse we have entered requires we find the insight, wisdom, humility and right action to grow such a healthy culture. A religion wherein the human and more-than-human lifeworld flourish together will emerge alongside that. IMHO Christianity would do well to recalibrate itself and orient to the spirit and spirits of place, to sacred custodianship of the animate everything, and to the immanent transcendent. And who knows, maybe Jesus would agree.
My contention with these types is they always offer very vague solutions because they do not seem very interested in solving the problems at hand -- this does not seem to be his case entirely, which is great, but he could do much more. We all know the diagnostic. Being a constant doomer makes you right about everything in all situation, but that isn't particularly helpful. And also I wonder why they're unhappy given the imminent worldwide population collapse. They should be trying to figure out what shape can a sustainable, military culture take and come with a precise map of what it could be (military because you'd still need to defend it from high-tech unsustainable cultures invading). Now maybe this interview of him wasn't exactly representative but I find Robin Hanson or even the Collins more advanced on this front. Thank you Louise for the great content!
The irony of religiosity in regard to fertility, at least among members of Apostolic sacramental churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern & Oriental Orthodox) is that sexual intercourse within 24 hrs of receiving Communion (either side of it) is canonically forbidden, as well as during fasts (Wednesday, Friday, Great Lent and several other periods during the year). Priests with 12 kids celebrating liturgy daily would be hard pressed to find canonical days on which to impregrate their wives.
Dear Louise. I am sure you have so many Christian-Granny types talking at you these days. Just want to join the chorus. You are attracted to many things about Christianity but I must assure you-- Jesus Christ Himself takes the cake! Go ahead and throw yourself at His feet. All these other things become debris. He is Magnificent! real, ready! Follow the scent, and dive into the ocean of this love. God bless you, dear one.
Yes! Agree! Everything that is attractive about Christianity is flowing out of the river of Christ. He is not just an idea, He is alive, He was raised on the third day, and it is possible to know Him in this life ❤❤❤
This discussion is making the mistake of connoting modernity and industrialism. Yes, modernity will pass. However, buy a Roman Gladius and it still works - because the Iron Age was never repealed. The Industrial Age is the successor to the Iron Age - it may be put on hiatus from time to time, and it will not be repealed. The cultural artifacts of modernity however - feminism, mass participation democracy, etc.? Dead already.
There are consequences to our actions, without doubt. Self worshipping actions produce negative outcomes. Maybe not immediately, but there is always a price to be paid. I asked my mom when I was 6 years old or so what happened to the smoke coming out of our tailpipe. She didn't really know. I knew from what I learned from church, and by instinct that polluting the world would come back to bite us, because it's a selfish act. You don't really need physics to tell you that hubris, greed, sloth, and gluttony are not the bases for a sustainable culture.
But to be intellectually honest, you would have to admit you might not be doing them a favor, in a world of collapsing ecosystems.....to put it mildly.
@@dermotmeuchner2416 Especially so, not the answer, in severe overshoot. Like it or not, we went way too far, and are now suddenly grappling with the consequences.
@@dermotmeuchner2416 I appreciate the answer and your perspective. However, my theory is going to survive as I am planning to have grandchildren. If you don't, your theory is going to die off. Sad... Please, reconsider.
I've always considered myself a 'Deep' Green, which Paul may also be, however my view of Deep Green was always a mix of what's called Light, Bright & Dark, & it might be to Environmentalism what Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore is to WEIRD 1st World Urbanised Societies - it can be done but being pragmatic about it means not compromising the essentials & using force judicially & empirically to keep things working as best they can be.
If we believe that modernity will collapse because it is unsustainable, my hope is that our spiral downwards will remain egalitarian, civil and democratic. My fear is the spiral downwards will be anarchic and revert to survival of the fittest.
Derrick Jensen would be a great person to interview, mainly about dark green environmentalism but also about his experience with trans activists. You'll need allow for at least 2 hrs to interview him. He's like a book.
Totally with you on ULEZ! It’s like the congestion charge in central London , I lived in that zone ( council flat) when it first came in and until last year. Every time you get a workman coming in you get that extra charge on your bill for the congestion charge. It the same with ULEZ it bashes those at the bottom and ultimately makes the costs go up for us all.
From what I heard in the discussion is that the future of the human race and the planet is predicated on the idea that human beings actually have some control over evolution. This is arrogance which is unique to human beings. There are so many factors which come into play in regards to any effect or manifestation which are outside the control of human beings. These types of discussions are useful to a point but ultimately lead nowhere. As was mentioned there are cycles where there is a higher level of consciousness and lower consciousness according to Indian Philosophy. It’s all part of the natural unfolding of Consciousness.
You should speak to Chris Martenson and read his book Crash Course. We can't keep growing at an exponential rate economically nor should we. But we'd need an entire new economic system that incentivises sustainability and not growth.
@@rathelmmc3194 there's so such thing as exponential growth in an environment with finite resources. Hence why there would need to be a completely new financial system that isn't fixated on growth.
Paul is a very interesting guy to listen to! I thought the discussion about religion vs secularism was the most realistic argument for religion which is very utilitarian many atheists will just make all kinds of arguments to muddy the waters proving people will always ignore truth if they don't like it however proven and compelling the argument may be.
Which age of the earth shall we save? There is a sense in this conversation that the Holocene is the way things have always been and we are destroying it. Yes we may be, but the planet will be fine. It is us and our contemporary flora and fauna that will be fucked. Life will go on. Still, I don’t want this to happen.
Consequences are the punishment. So true. I think it was Jonathan Pageau who said that the Bible is more descriptive than prescriptive, something like that. If only this were more widely known...
As a woman, I definitely wouldn’t want to live like my mother and so many of her contemporaries did in the 1950’s. “Keep them poor and keep them pregnant” (and controlled) was my father’s adage.
The big picture is......in the history of humans, the reality of living in a closed system is relatively new. 300 years, perhaps, maybe less. If nothing else, humans have proven themselves to be highly adaptable. We can make this change.
This is precisely the same conclusion and solve I came to as well about a year ago. The irony is evangelizing on the internet. The first step in my opinion for people that want to check out of the stupidity is to develop technology that allows you to discuss these matters intelligently with like-minded individuals, and figure out how to coordinate the grouping to become something more like the Amish/Mennonites .. or even a healthy proportionality of similarity to the something like the Hasidics for something like town functionality .. except with population limitations somehow. And I think inviting non-Christians is a neg sum game though I think something could be worked out/tested if their pop numbers isn't destructive and reach an unhealthy mass, the Old testament does give instruction on functional integration.
As a Central European who has spent a great deal of time in Africa, for us the Apocalypse has happened and we are now out of it, I wonder if the 'civilisation' they are bemoaning is not simply the dominance of the world by Western Europe and the U.S. That IS clearly coming to an end, but I, for one, will not weep for it. It would be worth them thinking about that...
2:45 If fossil fuels are a result of the mining and extracting of millennia old "fossilised trees and dinosaur bones": how is it that Saturn's moon Titan has an absolute abundance of "fossil fuels"?
:grins: And here was me thinking I liked Louise because she was beautiful, clever and possessed of an entrancing voice ... nope, she's just a Collapse-tard like me :D I've been waiting for the other civilisational shoe to drop since I entered my teens in the 70's :chuckles: EDIT: The religious turn of the conversation in the middle was quite interesting. I was born into a religious cult but thankfully escaped when I entered my later teen years by the simple methodology of getting myself cast out as a non-believer :sigh of relief: - the legacy of that has been that I have been an ardent atheist for decades. I used to say I was agnostic but the truth is I did not believe in a creator deity. I *still* don't. The notion, that a loving God created all to nurture just us so we can worship him, is absurd as soon as you realise the extent of the universe. However ... deep breath ... it may actually be necessary for us to act as if it were true if we want to maintain a coherent civilisation. I blame Jordan Peterson for my thinking this :grins: It is absurd and crazy and anti-rational ... but I am seriously considering that I might need to start going to church, to pray to a God I DO NOT believe exists, because that is the only way to forge bonds with my fellow people that are not fragile or conditional on what I can do for them. EDIT 2: Louise, if you have never seen it, dig out the DVD's for the BBC sci-fi(ish) series Survivors - the one from the 70's, not the more recent, less good, version. That's what turned me into a Collapse-tard :)
Islam’s strength is not its theology. Islam is strong because it practices patriarchy (often in excess). Christianity was a gentle patriarchy in its early stages, and it nearly conquered the world (yes, it also had its flaws). When Christianity abandoned patriarchy in the early 1900s it very quickly lost its world dominance. Strong men make strong families and strong social and cultural norms. When the current rotted social systems collapse, patriarchy will return. The only question is whether it will be a gentle form grounded in Christianity or the Islamic form that is currently ascending.
@@DerKirchenhocker Several things. 1. Our involvement in WW1 with thousands of soldiers returning with European ideas of a much greater administrative State and a European laxity of morals, 2. A great increase in promiscuity (known as the Roaring Twenties). 3. Weak men giving in to pleasing a minority of loud women by giving them the power to vote, and that slowly turned the State toward matriarchy.
I can only agree with your point, in the West we are not allowed to be men. I moved to a patriarchy and even though population density is immense society functions very well. People are helpful humble and respectful, however if you publicly embarrass or challenge the men either expect to go to court or war. I was never raised as part of this patriarchy but I will look to investigate further as their men are very well rounded stable and for a large part successful men
Religion is only beneficial when it is turned outwards. Once a society has reached its logistical limit (its culmination point), religion turns inward. Xtianity is great when you're invading other countries and stealing their stuff. Once the heathens have been converted or killed, the internal witch-hunts begin.
In the West that train has left the station because women have long discovered the joy of not being a man’s property, with their own right to self realization and pursuit of happiness. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle unless you’re the Taliban.
The assumption that the children of religious people will themselves be religious, and thus the future will religious, if this were true, then surely we wouldn't be where we are in the first place. In the West in the 18th century everyone (talking generally) was religious, 19th Century the vast majority of people were religious had lots of children, yet in the 20th century the percentage of religious people fell off a cliff, so it obviously does not always follow that the children of religious people will themselves uphold the religion of their parents. In fact it is often the case that children reject both the religious and political affiliations of their parents.
True, but it depends on how strong the ties are with your religious community and the social cost incurred in breaking those ties. Splitting with the C of E is almost cost free as it imposes so little on its believers. Not the same at all if you are Orthodox Jewish, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Evangelical Christian. You split with your religion and you lose a big part of your social circle. There is now a heavy cost incurred in breaking with your religion.
I did not see a major decline in Christianity in the twentieth century. At least not until the 90s. And what I am seeing in my community is children and teens are much more religious than their parents. This is a result of gender fluidity and other unpopular things being taught in government schools. 35% and rising numbers of parents choose Christian schools. Among older teens, I see that God is the only power that can defend us from a dystopian future.
When religious people entrust the education of their children to a secular, government-run system, the children become less religious. But this trend is reversing in many communities.
@@paulsimmons3380 In my country I'm seeing the opposite happen..The government schools are so bad many parents choose to pay fees for their children to attend Christian schools. This ends up in parents raising children more religious than themselves.
I tend to favor the Andrew Yang's and Willian Clouston's for short-term policymaking, Havier Milei's and Conservatarians for long-term policymaking. Although I admit to a relatively limited knowledge of economics, I also tend to resonate with some foundational critiques of the discipline. I'm partial to an argument that geopolitical business trends, as well as (non-woke) socioenvironmental, and urban-anthropological studies and observations, typically have greater explanatory power for most things than do narrow, domestic political and economic analyses. I don't think it's necessarily oversimplified to maintain that, the long-term basic answer on much/most governance and financial regulation, is that we should have less of them. Still, I'm a fan of Michael Lind, albeit exclusively on US domestic policy/trend - contemporary and historical analysis, frequently excluding policy prescriptions. And I'm generally a fan of Matthew Goodwin, although I'm at least somewhat less Conservative. (So I obviously try to recognize, and remain cognizant of the limitations of my preferred 'lens').
For beginning to explore Christianity, I would more strongly recommend the resources provided by the Word on Fire institute. They have a lovely youtube channel and courses and books. The bible project on youtube is also excellent with short videos on biblical themes, and the 'bible in a year' podcast with Father Mike Schmitz where they literally read the bible in a year of daily 20 minute episodes with historical context given by Fr. Mike. Cheers.
Through a combination of existing technologies like nuclear and renewables, moderate to severe decline in population (natural and war), and future discoveries and cultural adaptations, we could very much flourish in the future. Sure, there's going to be tons of problems, catastrophies, etc. but I really don't understand the base for such a confident doomerism.
I don’t think we will go back necessarily to mid evil standards of living but I’m pretty confident that we will probably be going to some level of early Victorian standards of living with in the next 200 years.
@@taliaeve969 Some places in the world are still currently at such standards of living, but even the poorest parts of the world are much better off as they very economically employ technological advancements. The QoL decline will not equally distributed as well. We have a lot of technology that is not energy or material intensive, that would make early Victorian standards of living much more enjoyable. E.g. LED light is much better than burning whale fat or whatever we were doing back then. For this reasons I expect a severe and dramatic reconfiguration, including some dramatic and painful events, but not necessarily even Victorian age QoL. Maybe not everyone will have a phone, or a car, or travel abroad in the developed world etc. anymore and more stuff will produced locally as travel and international trade will get limited, and some technology will become uneconomical, but I think with some ingenuity there's a decent world we could have on even 10% of current resource usage. Telecommunication networks might degrade, but will remain. We might not have iTunes, but scientists, engineers, governments will keep using it to exchange information. Some parts of the world will become better places to live, at the expense of other ones, etc.
The long tail of the practical physical limitations before they actually start to limit anything, is long enough for the cultural and moral collapse and resulting instability to do the real damage, long before anything else even becomes relevant. At the moment I question what people even mean by “flourishing” anymore, as that increasingly seems to look like living in some solar powered pod apartment with an AI girlfriend/boyfriend in complete isolation for most, with no reason to leave it ever.
I don't think it's caused by psychological priming through Christianity. I am an athiest and most of my circle are athiests and, while we are far from certain of the collapse of human primacy, we certainly believe an era of increased suffering is on the way along with a very high probability of extinction. Im fact, I typically experience greater optimism from religiously minded people who think I need to have children in order to support the human race. To me, we are already dying. The more we resist and fight, thengreater the suffering will be. Just let go. It's ok to let go.
Can't ignore reality. The believers in the sacred feminine swore their devotion and wound up in a jail cell because he couldn't make his alimony payment. Most of it paying for her drugs.
You just do NOT talk about the concept of capital formation and conservation. That is already the common denominator of individual social productivity and conservation. Please read Thomas Sowell's social science based thought. Please read Ludwig Von Mises's Economic and Sociological Analysis of Socialism and his Human Action Treatice on Economics. Please get aquatinted with the Free to Choose network, with John Stossel and Johan Norberg. Please check out Terry Anderson and his Indian Property Rights and Free market environment works. Please please please please please please please
at 28:00, Please do not fool yourself into thinking this is unsustainable. Its only unsustainable if you consider yourself a part of some group that cannot be sacrificed. As a logical unemotional mechanism, just by being the first to move to the next location to exploit, you just have to have the fall of nations to succeed in being the beneficiary of the next migratory pressure. Remember: A basket of currencies in your go bag can get you to the advantageous location in a timely manner. - Hilary Clinton.
Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was [a]pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate
Totally disagree with Louise's inevitable "political conclusions." We don't need to say that the NHS and pensions and "welfare" are unsustainable. These are the institutions by which we express care for eachother. We have plenty of resources. What needs to go is the growth machine of capitalism which must expand at a geometric rate in order to sustain its institutions. The inescapable political conclusion is that the direction of production and distribution by private institutions (banks and other finance houses) for the purposes of geometrically expanding profit, cannot continue and we must return to a production system whose aim is human wellbeing (of which health and the meeting of basic needs are fundamental).
@austin “ What needs to go is the growth machine of capitalism which must expand at a geometric rate in order to sustain its institutions.” You are fundamentally wrong. The institutions are not capitalism, which has none. They are socialist. Capitalism is people exchanging their stuff free from government interference. That’s it.
32:33 Historic statements on "If the Christian promises are true". Council of Florence 1439. Glossed over here. "It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."
I have no problem seeing Christianity or any religion as a useful social technology. The problem is accepting "life, regardless of quality" as a worthwhile goal. Christianity is great for people having more babies, ok, but why is that good in a vacuum? Because God? Then we need some evidence for God and then we can debate if God's pleasure is a suitable goal to pursue.
The collapse does not take centuries. It take cca 3 generations = 60 years. Due to a decline in numbers of people there will be shortage of manpower = less products and services = less tax revenue = less money for pensions, police, firefighters, health care = no order = chaos = misunderstanding = conflict = destruction. Every country today with replacement rate below 2.0 (if the trend will continue) has less than 60 years. If you don't believe it check out what is happening in Asian countries like Japan
Although I agree that the society we have created is not sustainable and that the collapse is imminent, either through war or some other disturbance of the extremely vulnerable supply chains which hold things together, I do have the feeling that organised religion is not the answer. In fact, organised religion has got us here as much as industrialisation, and with increasing knowledge about the history of religion, the horrors of past and present that have been caused by the church in the broadest sense have driven us away from the sacred. It is not just that people decided not to believe but was a reaction to completely dogmatised and insensitive clericalism, or alternatively, weak, moralistic and hypocritical wishful thinking. On the other hand, with modernity, people were able to feed their babies and satisfy their needs after a horrific time of feudalism and nationalism, which was supported by organised religion. It was an illusion, but there is no way to turn around and pick up organized religion again as a means to overcome our problems. The religion that may emerge, if it does, will be mystic and possibly more aligned with non-dualism. It will not be about cosmic battles over the fate of the world or incarnate saviours who have to die terrible deaths to appease the wrath of an avenging God, except in illustrative literature. For me, the interdependency of life on this planet, our oneness as sentient beings, and the illusion of our senses must be addressed, which Abrahamic religions seem to have left behind and no longer address.
Growing GDP happens with the transformation of capital. Just look at the multiplication of productivity of computers It took a giant physical space for ground control and technology, that would not be anything as productive as today's capital technology, to, in a single cell phone. That is already an obvious example of capital formation and growing economy. So, if you are NOT able to see that multiplier of capital, then you would logically be down on growth. However, growth potential does NOT mean growth of destruction Economic social dynamics, is NOT destructive. Capital is constructive and conservative That is the meaning of capital.
I agree with much of what is said here, but just to things in perspective, the idea the ULEZ is out to punish white van man, seems highly dubious, given that it took me 10 seconds to find an ULEZ compliant Transit for precisely 5K. That surely can not constitute a barrier to operating a small business in London?
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this is such a great podcast thank you so much
I've waited for these two to speak! I find it ironic that some consider this doomery, if anything for me the refusal to talk about it makes me feel far worse. I actually think the 'collapse' is happening a little faster than suggested here. The world I grew up in only 20 years ago is completely gone. People don't even socialise in the same ways, and that is a bizarre shift. A desire for connection has diminished between people, and that is something that cannot be measured.
The 4th turning.
People have been saying this forever though. It’s always different. “20 years ago” has been different for hundreds of years now.
I agree that the collapse of this civilization will not be over centuries, as suggested, but quite a bit faster given the degree of overshoot and breaching of planetary boundaries. Regardless, the wisdom they expressed is so inspiring and attractive, in contrast to the emptiness of our modern culture.
@@rathelmmc3194
Since the industrial revolution.
@@gnoelalexmay longer than that though change did take longer. Change has been occurring at a reasonable pace since the invention of agriculture. Though that I concede that noticeable change took closer to 50 to 100 years as opposed to the 20 year or so change since the Industrial Revolution.
I've been a "dommer" since the late 70's. I ended up in a Zen monastery in the 8o's partly in recognition of my own alienation from the system. But here we are. I'm old and looking at dying. That's the next project. Look at the bookshelves behind Paul, and Perry looks great, and what I'm saying is that we're all embedded. We know it will end, just as we know we're going to die.
"dommer"?
*Reply to:* _I've been a "dommer" since the late 70's. I ended up in a Zen monastery in the 8o's partly in recognition of my own alienation from the system. But here we are. I'm old and looking at dying. That's the next project. Look at the bookshelves behind Paul, and Perry looks great, and what I'm saying is that we're all embedded. We know it will end, just as we know we're going to die."_
I like that....."the next project." It is for me, also. Modernity has become a great disappointment! I'm old enough to welcome death, when it comes. And lucky enough to have a strong sense that there's life after death, and feel it will be enough of an adventure, that no one can make an educated guess as to how it unfolds. I like it that way.
@@miyojewoltsnasonth2159 A simple finger-slip misspelling of "Doomer" - I've been one myself ... oddly enough, since the 70's. I suspect it's what comes of maturing under the shade of a very real nuclear threat of extermination.
His innate religiosity explains his urge to doom. It's not logical, it's pathological.
People were stupid and vicious when they really really believed in religion too. They were infact far worse!
@@offshoretomorrow3346Far worse than Mao and Stalin? Really?
The "Tree of the Knowledge" is still causing us to fall.
"Doing" can never solve the problem unless the mind that is trying to do is cleaned up and understands "Being"
What a great conversation, thought provoking, I have always been a closet Luddite and deeply sceptical especially about the internet. It is impossible to operate in society without it now, unless you opt out totally. It leaves us so vulnerable, all it takes is a power cut or an internet outage as happened in the UK a few weeks ago and the whole system collapses.
I was in London during the London bombings on 7/7/2005. The whole of central London was shut down. The mobile phone networks were blocked and we had to contact people by landline. Soon there will be no landlines so no alternative.
Social media wasn’t really a thing then, although the internet was well established - but we couldn’t get clear information from that at all. Instead we watched the TV news, which is now no longer trusted and which we increasingly need the internet to access anyway.
I can’t imagine how it would be today, with our dependence on more advanced technologies that are so vulnerable to misinformation, or to simply being shut down by the authorities in an emergency - let alone tech failure or hackers.
@@GreenWhitePurple me too, very close by to where it happened, I got locked out of my home for mist of the day, as the police cordoned everything off. I did call my parents on a land line to let them know I was ok, you are very right. It’s such a simple thing. Do not put all your eggs in one basket!
@@GreenWhitePurple Recepy for disaster, it seems!
@@GreenWhitePurple Perhaps this is how it is supposed to be: complexity leading to breakdown, panic and death. How can it be otherwise? Perpetual advancement in the face of increasing headwinds is impossible.
technology as a means to an end is fine; the problem is technology *as an end in itself* (same goes for diversity, etc)
@@h.astley2113 This is a formulation similar to the people who scream from the rooftops that change is inevitable. What they fail to allow anyone to recognize is that THEY are the ones forcing change down everyone else's throat.
To Mr. Kingsnorth's point at 37m30sec mark and on, the American writer James Howard Kunstler sums up his (dyspeptic) theory of history, especially as it concerns the causes of our present crises, thus: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
27:40 this is pure BS. It is not a “tiny part of the world in the West” which is not having children anymore or having few kids. It is the entire world which is doing so. India’s fertility rate has just dropped to 2 kids, and most of Indian States are already below that threshold. Indian urban areas TFR is down to 1,6 kids, same as France and U.s. and this is the most populous country worldwide from now on. Indonesia TFR is down to 2.14, and Java island, where 55% of population lives, is already below 2 kids; we’re talking about the most populous Islamic country worldwide. Not to mention Turkey and Iran’s Islamic republic: 1.6 kids, also them same as Us and France. PhiliBrazil TFr is now down to 1.5 kids and Mexico to 1.6 kids. Argentina and Colombia are down to 1.4 kids. Oh and what about “religious people within West” which will turn the table again in direction of religion making more babies? Utah’s TFR in the U.s is down to 1.85, nevertheless the Mormons, and no U.s states reach anymore the TFr of 2 kids a part from South Dakota, 0.5% of U.s population. Northern Ireland , the most religious corner of UK, has fallen below 1.7 kids. In the EU, Poland is down to 1.2 , same as Japan, and Hungary- in the face of Orban pro-kids subsidistan, TFr is down below 1.5. And most importantly, who told you that people born and risen in religious families will stay the same in life? I have dozens of people I know who became punks and metal defender after going in catholic private schools. Baby boomer in the 1960s who made the sexual revolution were 90% born and rises in churchgoers families.
Oh and about “there are more religious people in the world today than when I was born”, ehm…yes buddy, if you are born 50 years away, it means that world population has doubled in the meanwhile. The festival of obviousness.
Don’t overlook Nigeria Sunshine! They’re still pumping out the progeny well above replacement rate (to their detriment, in view of the poverty there)
You might have a point but the arrogant way you write it makes people against your point.
Excellent pick up....the world pop is falling in many countries, China and India for example, not just the Feminist West.
Metal defender?
Too many religious people ( think the us southern evangelicals/MAGA supporters) aren’t all that Christ-like. They especially tend to be fixated on money (the prosperity gospel) and power.
Thank you for having Paul Kingsnorth on.
It’s funny how people call you both depressing and doomer because I take solace in these type of sober and mannered discussions. It’s the “endless potential” mania that is spat out and proselytized from every corner that depresses me with its self reverential house of mirror delusions . I’ve had this perspective for as long as I can remember - no doubt formed by growing up the California redwood forest and witnessing it’s ignored destruction. The demonic algorithm constantly places me on shows like the Lex Friedman podcast(and the like) and it’s that kind of narcotic optimism(stumbling around as it does in humanity’s supposed “unique genius”) that gives me anxiety and drives me up the wall. Outside of the technology high which our modern world buzzes,p is a natural world in constant creation creating miracles we don’t even see and therefore mindlessly destroy, constantly chasing that high. We construct our useless toys that make us so proud of ourselves out of devastated forests, rivers, and seas, ignoring the unmeasurable carnage of The Miracle as we praise ourselves for our devouring contraptions. In reality, all of it isn’t equal to a single unfathomable chirping cricket, let alone a field of them self producing and in perfect balancewith the world around it - and if they should become unbalanced; well, nature will seamlessly take care of that field. I know this is probably annoyingly preachy and poorly put and much easier to say than experience, but the acknowledgment of reality and actual situation we find ourselves in is heartening to me nevertheless. Thank you
👍👍👍👍👍
I don't quite agree but that was beautiful
@@danielmaher964 Thank you. I was trying to express what I was feeling at the moment as best as I could having awoken at 3:30am to one of those podcasts I describe. Filled with anxiety I went looking for some space that isn’t unquestioningly believing in the myth of progress and the great scientific enterprise and found myself here. This discussion is much closer to how I view the situation we find ourselves in and so I felt relief and wanted to thank them. I’m sure most don’t agree with how I view things but I needed to get it off my chest. It’s kind of you to compliment my post despite disagreeing with it
@mr.moonmouth4404 this is a great corner of the Internet. May you find peace despite the madness of this world
@@danielmaher964 thanks. I wish you the same
At 29:22, Kingsnorth says that if you dethrone God you put something else on the throne, and we've put ourselves on the throne. We worship ourselves.
I'd argue that religion was always a way of worshiping the self. We created the gods in our own image, and then used them for our own wish fulfillment. Punishing bad people in the afterlife. Protection from disaster. Bring us victory in war and conquest.
Chesterton said, When people stop believing in God they don't believe nothing they believe anything.
That's a naive and simplistic view that allows you to easily dismiss something you don't want to be true.
Thank-you Louise Paul for a truthful discussion on where we are heading as a species. Thirty-Five years ago a visit to the Science Museum in Coalville Leicestershire made me aware that the life-style trappings progressively enjoyed by those of the Industrial Revolution is simply unsustainable. This was brought home by a paper-chain of men demonstrating the numerous generations of man-kind from Adam, with a few coloured in to represent those that have lived since the Industrial Revolution and the earth resources they have excessively consumed compared to those that went before them. At the same time our then Prime Minister John Major was advocating the UK GDP would double in twenty-five years, so only a foot to the pedal offering from the political class (2024 and their message hasn't changed).
Thankfully I over-came my self arrogance and accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour seven years ago, which has put my mind at rest. God bless you both and pray your message becomes main-stream.
One of my favourite episodes to date!
Thoughtful, intelligent people, here occasionally straying from the facts of reality. I refer to the fact that bad things happen to good people. These bad things are not consequences to bad choices. Often very young innocent children have very bad things happen. I would like to hear you two discuss that problem in terms of your religious convictions.
Autonomy and Gratification have becomw the only real virtues of our society and it is manifesting in transhumanism; the idea that reality is a technical problem we can "hack" with technology.
Great talk. Happily subscribed.
Lee Jenkins - Bolton.
In GK Chesterton’s Distributism, he suggests “3 acres and a cow” held privately as an ideal
Wow, now there is a thought..or two or three. I got a greater understanding of the purpose of religion and its positive influence on society in the fifty minutes of your program then years of attending church with my dear (sadly departed) mother.
Yea the last 60 years of misandry taking over our institutions and media unchecked has really created an information drought. Suprise, the atheists were ALL wrong, and the particularly smart ones have FINALLY admitted it a day late and a dollar short. They really did a lot of damage, but it was facilitated by technology.
Now I'm waiting for Louise to interview John Michael Greer and Tom Murphy.
& Piero san Giorgio
She'd better hold onto her seat, if she interviews Tom Murphy. As a physicist, what he has to say about our state of being, and our future, is not for the faint of heart......to put it very mildly.
@@mrrecluse7002 Tom Murphy has certainly ‘done the math’ ! Canadian Professor Bill Rees, Nate Hagen and quite a few others have all the data too and similarly, their views are not for the faint of heart. Louise and Paul might reassess their positions on bringing children into the world. But I guess they think that the rapture might eventuate to save us all ?
@@mkkrupp2462 Otherwise known as magical thinking, and it can fool the best of us. It did me, in the past. Yeah, you won't find that in Rees, or Hagan. How refreshing, though bleak.
It surprises me that such intelligent people do not see the causal relationship between the different factors of human society.
I suppose this results from conceptual constructions that have no relation to reality. But they are comforting, I guess.
MMM suggested, “Modernity is collapsing because it is not true, and humanity will return to its norm, as the Creator intended.” Tremendous.
My wife and I attend Mass every Sunday and conceived 9 children, of which 4 made it to term, anecdotally.
In the 1970’s a long road trip meant the car was covered in bug strikes, now there are hardly any bug strikes. I find it disturbing and quite sad....
Lastly, living with 4 women for nearly 30 years has taught me to say, “What a wonderful woman!”
It sounds eloquent, but it's a lot to presume....regarding the quote.
I can’t dispute the notion that all have empires eventually collapsed. But just because a thing happened a few times doesn’t mean it will always happen. I suppose there is an inevitability however that the whole surface of the planet is a system that can be considered as a closed system from a thermodynamic perspective.
I’m not convinced that anyone can do any more than speculate on how the modern world will end, or it will end.
For me, at the moment there is a positive feedback loop between what is happening in the world, how we experience the news of what is happening in the world and our psychological predisposition concerning our collective future. Positive feedback in terms of an amplification effect of how bad the news is.
I agree with Paul about having hope but it seems to me his position seems to equate a belief in scientific progress as an anti Christian position.
I don’t belief we have seen much pure scientific progress since the 1960s. We have seen massive technological progress driven by mainly economic forces, some might say greed and capitalism.
The is a massive difference between science and technology that, I think Paul has overlooked. The scientific principles that underpin all our current technology havent changed much for 40 or 50 years. For example we are still getting into space by putting a chemical bomb under the payload, there are real issues with the Standard Model, we don’t seen to know what over 90% of what the Universe is made of, Denis Noble would suggest that Neo Darwinists have held back our understanding of living systems and the whole of chemistry is moribund. Computer development has surfed on Moores law for 40 years.
Hope and confidence in a better future might be a better mindset, and you can still be a good Christian. Rethinking capitalism and dismantling the banking system might be a better way of going forward rather than throwing out science and technology and be coming an anti modernist.
Obviously I am just guessing as well ….
There’s a documentary narrated by James Earl Jones called the great year (on TH-cam somewhere). It lays out the theory of the four ages which roughly correspond to the concept in the Western tradition of Iron, Bronze, Silver and Gold ages. Anyway, it’s a pattern amongst these collapsatarian types to always be banging on about how we’re in Kali Yuga - the dark age (Kali is the goddess of destruction) - but we’re not… we’re in Dwapara Yuga, or the Bronze Age. In the ascending cycle.
Also how many times do we have to hear Elon Musk turned into a straw man? Seems to be a daily occurrence now.
Enjoying this conversation (just had to get that off my chest).
"In the ascending cycle" -- what does that mean? AFAIK, there is no ascending cycle. The cycle trends downward until the end; then apocalypse; then rest; then back to golden age.
How about not wasting resources to start with? One of the biggest waste of resources is the military race. How much gas does an aircraft carrier burn each day?
Another big waste is food. Up to forty percent of the food is wasted.
One big waste is cultural practice. The green lawn of the American house wasted so much water. In the extreme case of Los Angeles, the water is pumped hundreds of miles to water the lawn. Why not plant a garden of native plants?
Consumerism is another big waster. Why do we need to buy clothes that are thrown away after being worn twice?
Reduce the wastefulness of the world by half would be a start.
The entirety of religion could be replaced by "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." This philosophy existed long before Christ. It's all we need, to get along with each other, and find sufficient meaning in life.
!!!!!!!!! My dream collab, thank you!
In most traditional cultures caring for children come before individuals
Two counter facts. Birth rate is falling across Muslim nations too regardless of their absolute religious commitment. And another fact: birth rates in the Soviet Union were as low as in Europe regardless of substantially lower living standards. So probably it goes deeper than religion and level of comfort
Even in the Middle Ages and Classical periods, urban centres themselves had below replacement birth rates, relying on surrounding rural growth and influx. Dense cities always do this, they always have. This is the first time in history that we see majority urban instead of majority rural civilizations, with the predictable accompanying birth rates.
@@NerdlySquared Good point. Children in rural areas are an asset, while in urban areas they are a liability
Paul Kingsnorth is a sage.
If Paul is right - and I think he is- that narcissism is at the root of so much of our personal and cultural malaise, then a religion that has as its primary goal the salvation of the individual soul can hardly be a thoroughgoing response to it. The Abrahamic faiths all put a singular focus on man’s (sic) relationship with a disembodied divine entity, thus encouraging and catalysing cultural imperatives of domination, exploitation, violence and logocentrism. And sure, there have always been righteous individuals who opposed and fought against the worst excesses of these narcissism-derived phenomenon, but they seemed unable to cut to the ontological heart of the matter.
Sustaining cultures - and their religions - are inseparable from, embedded in, and belonging to an animate lifeworld of which they are responsible custodians. They don’t so much seek deliverance and ascension from the world, as immersion and belonging in it. (And, as Paul points to, they are effectively centred on small-scale localism.)
The apocalypse we have entered requires we find the insight, wisdom, humility and right action to grow such a healthy culture. A religion wherein the human and more-than-human lifeworld flourish together will emerge alongside that. IMHO Christianity would do well to recalibrate itself and orient to the spirit and spirits of place, to sacred custodianship of the animate everything, and to the immanent transcendent.
And who knows, maybe Jesus would agree.
Well put!
My contention with these types is they always offer very vague solutions because they do not seem very interested in solving the problems at hand -- this does not seem to be his case entirely, which is great, but he could do much more. We all know the diagnostic. Being a constant doomer makes you right about everything in all situation, but that isn't particularly helpful. And also I wonder why they're unhappy given the imminent worldwide population collapse. They should be trying to figure out what shape can a sustainable, military culture take and come with a precise map of what it could be (military because you'd still need to defend it from high-tech unsustainable cultures invading). Now maybe this interview of him wasn't exactly representative but I find Robin Hanson or even the Collins more advanced on this front.
Thank you Louise for the great content!
The irony of religiosity in regard to fertility, at least among members of Apostolic sacramental churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern & Oriental Orthodox) is that sexual intercourse within 24 hrs of receiving Communion (either side of it) is canonically forbidden, as well as during fasts (Wednesday, Friday, Great Lent and several other periods during the year). Priests with 12 kids celebrating liturgy daily would be hard pressed to find canonical days on which to impregrate their wives.
Dear Louise. I am sure you have so many Christian-Granny types talking at you these days. Just want to join the chorus. You are attracted to many things about Christianity but I must assure you-- Jesus Christ Himself takes the cake! Go ahead and throw yourself at His feet. All these other things become debris. He is Magnificent! real, ready! Follow the scent, and dive into the ocean of this love. God bless you, dear one.
Yes! Agree! Everything that is attractive about Christianity is flowing out of the river of Christ. He is not just an idea, He is alive, He was raised on the third day, and it is possible to know Him in this life ❤❤❤
This discussion is making the mistake of connoting modernity and industrialism. Yes, modernity will pass. However, buy a Roman Gladius and it still works - because the Iron Age was never repealed. The Industrial Age is the successor to the Iron Age - it may be put on hiatus from time to time, and it will not be repealed. The cultural artifacts of modernity however - feminism, mass participation democracy, etc.? Dead already.
which specimen is still functional? the mainz gladius and pompeii gladius are quite corroded
Yes the culture is changing faster than the technology
There are consequences to our actions, without doubt. Self worshipping actions produce negative outcomes. Maybe not immediately, but there is always a price to be paid. I asked my mom when I was 6 years old or so what happened to the smoke coming out of our tailpipe. She didn't really know. I knew from what I learned from church, and by instinct that polluting the world would come back to bite us, because it's a selfish act. You don't really need physics to tell you that hubris, greed, sloth, and gluttony are not the bases for a sustainable culture.
Technology is a possibility but not a requirement. Just because we can doesn't mean we should
"What is true, and good, and beautiful? Whatever produces grandchildren."
But to be intellectually honest, you would have to admit you might not be doing them a favor, in a world of collapsing ecosystems.....to put it mildly.
More kids ain’t the answer.
@@dermotmeuchner2416 Especially so, not the answer, in severe overshoot. Like it or not, we went way too far, and are now suddenly grappling with the consequences.
@@dermotmeuchner2416 I appreciate the answer and your perspective. However, my theory is going to survive as I am planning to have grandchildren. If you don't, your theory is going to die off. Sad... Please, reconsider.
@@mrrecluse7002 Collapse does not equal annihilation. We humans have been through rough times before, and here we are!
I've always considered myself a 'Deep' Green, which Paul may also be, however my view of Deep Green was always a mix of what's called Light, Bright & Dark, & it might be to Environmentalism what Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore is to WEIRD 1st World Urbanised Societies - it can be done but being pragmatic about it means not compromising the essentials & using force judicially & empirically to keep things working as best they can be.
If we believe that modernity will collapse because it is unsustainable, my hope is that our spiral downwards will remain egalitarian, civil and democratic. My fear is the spiral downwards will be anarchic and revert to survival of the fittest.
To quote GSYBE, 'We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine - and it's bleeding to death.'🐈⬛
Its a great line, song and album.
Derrick Jensen would be a great person to interview, mainly about dark green environmentalism but also about his experience with trans activists. You'll need allow for at least 2 hrs to interview him. He's like a book.
absolutely.
His game of Q---- Jeopardy was both hilarious and terrifying. Everyone should watch it.
Yes!
Totally with you on ULEZ! It’s like the congestion charge in central London , I lived in that zone ( council flat) when it first came in and until last year. Every time you get a workman coming in you get that extra charge on your bill for the congestion charge. It the same with ULEZ it bashes those at the bottom and ultimately makes the costs go up for us all.
@@JohnSmith-nc6ul I think you've replied to the wrong comment, mate.
From what I heard in the discussion is that the future of the human race and the planet is predicated on the idea that human beings actually have some control over evolution. This is arrogance which is unique to human beings. There are so many factors which come into play in regards to any effect or manifestation which are outside the control of human beings. These types of discussions are useful to a point but ultimately lead nowhere. As was mentioned there are cycles where there is a higher level of consciousness and lower consciousness according to Indian Philosophy. It’s all part of the natural unfolding of Consciousness.
Lets get a move on, I want my zombie apocalypse!
You should speak to Chris Martenson and read his book Crash Course. We can't keep growing at an exponential rate economically nor should we. But we'd need an entire new economic system that incentivises sustainability and not growth.
Without exponential economic growth there’s no such thing as retirement.
@@rathelmmc3194 there's so such thing as exponential growth in an environment with finite resources. Hence why there would need to be a completely new financial system that isn't fixated on growth.
In Australia it is perfectly possible to generate enough energy to run a house and car from rooftop solar all year round. Northern Europe is fkd.
Paul is a very interesting guy to listen to! I thought the discussion about religion vs secularism was the most realistic argument for religion which is very utilitarian many atheists will just make all kinds of arguments to muddy the waters proving people will always ignore truth if they don't like it however proven and compelling the argument may be.
Which age of the earth shall we save? There is a sense in this conversation that the Holocene is the way things have always been and we are destroying it. Yes we may be, but the planet will be fine. It is us and our contemporary flora and fauna that will be fucked. Life will go on. Still, I don’t want this to happen.
Consequences are the punishment. So true. I think it was Jonathan Pageau who said that the Bible is more descriptive than prescriptive, something like that. If only this were more widely known...
When Yin become extreme it turns to Yang. When Yang becomes extreme it turns to Yin.
And when artificial emotions like patriotism are dissolved making the cause go from matter to antimatter, what type of imbalance is that?
OOO, the excitment of this Episode! Preach it brother, preach it sister, both of you! ❤
As a woman, I definitely wouldn’t want to live like my mother and so many of her contemporaries did in the 1950’s. “Keep them poor and keep them pregnant” (and controlled) was my father’s adage.
The big picture is......in the history of humans, the reality of living in a closed system is relatively new. 300 years, perhaps, maybe less. If nothing else, humans have proven themselves to be highly adaptable. We can make this change.
This is precisely the same conclusion and solve I came to as well about a year ago. The irony is evangelizing on the internet. The first step in my opinion for people that want to check out of the stupidity is to develop technology that allows you to discuss these matters intelligently with like-minded individuals, and figure out how to coordinate the grouping to become something more like the Amish/Mennonites .. or even a healthy proportionality of similarity to the something like the Hasidics for something like town functionality .. except with population limitations somehow.
And I think inviting non-Christians is a neg sum game though I think something could be worked out/tested if their pop numbers isn't destructive and reach an unhealthy mass, the Old testament does give instruction on functional integration.
"Growing your own veggies"...if only the the weather hasn't been engineered.
Yay!
Christianity was a rejection of our ancestral stories.
Thomas Jefferson thought religion would fade away 220 years ago. He was wrong.
Technology is always with us from language upwards. It’s how we use it critically.
As a Central European who has spent a great deal of time in Africa, for us the Apocalypse has happened and we are now out of it, I wonder if the 'civilisation' they are bemoaning is not simply the dominance of the world by Western Europe and the U.S. That IS clearly coming to an end, but I, for one, will not weep for it. It would be worth them thinking about that...
as far as im concerned people always have and always will follow the economic principle: whichever option is cheapest is the course they will choose
Every single luxury item that signals “status” begs to differ.
@@NerdlySquared this was supposed to have a timestamp it was @ the renewables topic 😂
will not take centuries but soon. anyone can see the decline is speeding up
2:45 If fossil fuels are a result of the mining and extracting of millennia old "fossilised trees and dinosaur bones": how is it that Saturn's moon Titan has an absolute abundance of "fossil fuels"?
Methane can be produced in the absence of life and therefore isn’t a fossil fuel.
Guess a lot of people tried prayer, but for say, eliminating cholera, science proved to be more effective.
Maybe their prayers were answered with the medicine to eliminate cholera
@richardc861 yes.. that's possible.. but how to prove it .??
Yawn.
:grins: And here was me thinking I liked Louise because she was beautiful, clever and possessed of an entrancing voice ... nope, she's just a Collapse-tard like me :D I've been waiting for the other civilisational shoe to drop since I entered my teens in the 70's :chuckles:
EDIT: The religious turn of the conversation in the middle was quite interesting. I was born into a religious cult but thankfully escaped when I entered my later teen years by the simple methodology of getting myself cast out as a non-believer :sigh of relief: - the legacy of that has been that I have been an ardent atheist for decades.
I used to say I was agnostic but the truth is I did not believe in a creator deity.
I *still* don't.
The notion, that a loving God created all to nurture just us so we can worship him, is absurd as soon as you realise the extent of the universe.
However ... deep breath ... it may actually be necessary for us to act as if it were true if we want to maintain a coherent civilisation. I blame Jordan Peterson for my thinking this :grins: It is absurd and crazy and anti-rational ... but I am seriously considering that I might need to start going to church, to pray to a God I DO NOT believe exists, because that is the only way to forge bonds with my fellow people that are not fragile or conditional on what I can do for them.
EDIT 2: Louise, if you have never seen it, dig out the DVD's for the BBC sci-fi(ish) series Survivors - the one from the 70's, not the more recent, less good, version. That's what turned me into a Collapse-tard :)
Islam’s strength is not its theology. Islam is strong because it practices patriarchy (often in excess). Christianity was a gentle patriarchy in its early stages, and it nearly conquered the world (yes, it also had its flaws). When Christianity abandoned patriarchy in the early 1900s it very quickly lost its world dominance. Strong men make strong families and strong social and cultural norms. When the current rotted social systems collapse, patriarchy will return. The only question is whether it will be a gentle form grounded in Christianity or the Islamic form that is currently ascending.
I agree. What changed in the early 1900’s?
@@DerKirchenhocker Several things. 1. Our involvement in WW1 with thousands of soldiers returning with European ideas of a much greater administrative State and a European laxity of morals, 2. A great increase in promiscuity (known as the Roaring Twenties). 3. Weak men giving in to pleasing a minority of loud women by giving them the power to vote, and that slowly turned the State toward matriarchy.
I can only agree with your point, in the West we are not allowed to be men. I moved to a patriarchy and even though population density is immense society functions very well. People are helpful humble and respectful, however if you publicly embarrass or challenge the men either expect to go to court or war. I was never raised as part of this patriarchy but I will look to investigate further as their men are very well rounded stable and for a large part successful men
Religion is only beneficial when it is turned outwards. Once a society has reached its logistical limit (its culmination point), religion turns inward.
Xtianity is great when you're invading other countries and stealing their stuff. Once the heathens have been converted or killed, the internal witch-hunts begin.
In the West that train has left the station because women have long discovered the joy of not being a man’s property, with their own right to self realization and pursuit of happiness. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle unless you’re the Taliban.
The assumption that the children of religious people will themselves be religious, and thus the future will religious, if this were true, then surely we wouldn't be where we are in the first place. In the West in the 18th century everyone (talking generally) was religious, 19th Century the vast majority of people were religious had lots of children, yet in the 20th century the percentage of religious people fell off a cliff, so it obviously does not always follow that the children of religious people will themselves uphold the religion of their parents. In fact it is often the case that children reject both the religious and political affiliations of their parents.
True, but it depends on how strong the ties are with your religious community and the social cost incurred in breaking those ties. Splitting with the C of E is almost cost free as it imposes so little on its believers. Not the same at all if you are Orthodox Jewish, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Evangelical Christian. You split with your religion and you lose a big part of your social circle. There is now a heavy cost incurred in breaking with your religion.
I did not see a major decline in Christianity in the twentieth century. At least not until the 90s.
And what I am seeing in my community is children and teens are much more religious than their parents. This is a result of gender fluidity and other unpopular things being taught in government schools. 35% and rising numbers of parents choose Christian schools.
Among older teens, I see that God is the only power that can defend us from a dystopian future.
When religious people entrust the education of their children to a secular, government-run system, the children become less religious. But this trend is reversing in many communities.
@@paulsimmons3380 In my country I'm seeing the opposite happen..The government schools are so bad many parents choose to pay fees for their children to attend Christian schools. This ends up in parents raising children more religious than themselves.
Tremors is absolutely one of the highlights of western art.
I love your concept of Human Empire. It is all too accurate. Are we talking end of the anthropocene ?
Regenerative Family Farming Is the New Manufacturing
I tend to favor the Andrew Yang's and Willian Clouston's for short-term policymaking, Havier Milei's and Conservatarians for long-term policymaking.
Although I admit to a relatively limited knowledge of economics, I also tend to resonate with some foundational critiques of the discipline.
I'm partial to an argument that geopolitical business trends, as well as (non-woke) socioenvironmental, and urban-anthropological studies and observations, typically have greater explanatory power for most things than do narrow, domestic political and economic analyses.
I don't think it's necessarily oversimplified to maintain that, the long-term basic answer on much/most governance and financial regulation, is that we should have less of them.
Still, I'm a fan of Michael Lind, albeit exclusively on US domestic policy/trend - contemporary and historical analysis, frequently excluding policy prescriptions.
And I'm generally a fan of Matthew Goodwin, although I'm at least somewhat less Conservative.
(So I obviously try to recognize, and remain cognizant of the limitations of my preferred 'lens').
Glad my dad was working class and Australian
Me too.
Very interesting and I will have a look at the course for possible use.
For beginning to explore Christianity, I would more strongly recommend the resources provided by the Word on Fire institute. They have a lovely youtube channel and courses and books. The bible project on youtube is also excellent with short videos on biblical themes, and the 'bible in a year' podcast with Father Mike Schmitz where they literally read the bible in a year of daily 20 minute episodes with historical context given by Fr. Mike. Cheers.
Are you Orthodox? My first time to see you. I guessed that you are.
Mark
Through a combination of existing technologies like nuclear and renewables, moderate to severe decline in population (natural and war), and future discoveries and cultural adaptations, we could very much flourish in the future. Sure, there's going to be tons of problems, catastrophies, etc. but I really don't understand the base for such a confident doomerism.
I don’t think we will go back necessarily to mid evil standards of living but I’m pretty confident that we will probably be going to some level of early Victorian standards of living with in the next 200 years.
There was a massive cultural and technological slide backwards after Rome. Things aren't always moving upwards
@@taliaeve969 Some places in the world are still currently at such standards of living, but even the poorest parts of the world are much better off as they very economically employ technological advancements. The QoL decline will not equally distributed as well. We have a lot of technology that is not energy or material intensive, that would make early Victorian standards of living much more enjoyable. E.g. LED light is much better than burning whale fat or whatever we were doing back then. For this reasons I expect a severe and dramatic reconfiguration, including some dramatic and painful events, but not necessarily even Victorian age QoL. Maybe not everyone will have a phone, or a car, or travel abroad in the developed world etc. anymore and more stuff will produced locally as travel and international trade will get limited, and some technology will become uneconomical, but I think with some ingenuity there's a decent world we could have on even 10% of current resource usage. Telecommunication networks might degrade, but will remain. We might not have iTunes, but scientists, engineers, governments will keep using it to exchange information. Some parts of the world will become better places to live, at the expense of other ones, etc.
The long tail of the practical physical limitations before they actually start to limit anything, is long enough for the cultural and moral collapse and resulting instability to do the real damage, long before anything else even becomes relevant.
At the moment I question what people even mean by “flourishing” anymore, as that increasingly seems to look like living in some solar powered pod apartment with an AI girlfriend/boyfriend in complete isolation for most, with no reason to leave it ever.
If you want a good book on the thermodynamical limits of civilization, you should read "Energy and human ambitions on a finite planet" by Tom Murphy
I don't think it's caused by psychological priming through Christianity. I am an athiest and most of my circle are athiests and, while we are far from certain of the collapse of human primacy, we certainly believe an era of increased suffering is on the way along with a very high probability of extinction. Im fact, I typically experience greater optimism from religiously minded people who think I need to have children in order to support the human race.
To me, we are already dying. The more we resist and fight, thengreater the suffering will be. Just let go. It's ok to let go.
Can't ignore reality. The believers in the sacred feminine swore their devotion and wound up in a jail cell because he couldn't make his alimony payment. Most of it paying for her drugs.
Any judgement that forecasts a fabulous or despotic future is just ego
I really loved Tremors movie as a child! Pogo jump stick!
She should have called this one “The Case Against Having Kids” 😅
I'm with George Carlin on this.
when will you interview Ed Dutton (Jolly Heretic) and Academic Agent?
Nothing is being destroyed environmentally
We ought to have heeded Ted Kaczynski -- he saw the problems that technology was to bring.
You just do NOT talk about the concept of capital formation and conservation. That is already the common denominator of individual social productivity and conservation. Please read Thomas Sowell's social science based thought. Please read Ludwig Von Mises's Economic and Sociological Analysis of Socialism and his Human Action Treatice on Economics. Please get aquatinted with the Free to Choose network, with John Stossel and Johan Norberg. Please check out Terry Anderson and his Indian Property Rights and Free market environment works. Please please please please please please please
Great guest! Looking forward to this one
As an agnostic or atheist i worship humans. Volunteer, do public service
at 28:00, Please do not fool yourself into thinking this is unsustainable. Its only unsustainable if you consider yourself a part of some group that cannot be sacrificed. As a logical unemotional mechanism, just by being the first to move to the next location to exploit, you just have to have the fall of nations to succeed in being the beneficiary of the next migratory pressure.
Remember: A basket of currencies in your go bag can get you to the advantageous location in a timely manner. - Hilary Clinton.
God damn it Louise! I'm trying to catch up on this podcast and you just keep putting out episodes!!
Growing GDP does NOT mean using more resources.
Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was [a]pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate
Totally disagree with Louise's inevitable "political conclusions." We don't need to say that the NHS and pensions and "welfare" are unsustainable. These are the institutions by which we express care for eachother. We have plenty of resources. What needs to go is the growth machine of capitalism which must expand at a geometric rate in order to sustain its institutions. The inescapable political conclusion is that the direction of production and distribution by private institutions (banks and other finance houses) for the purposes of geometrically expanding profit, cannot continue and we must return to a production system whose aim is human wellbeing (of which health and the meeting of basic needs are fundamental).
@austin
“ What needs to go is the growth machine of capitalism which must expand at a geometric rate in order to sustain its institutions.”
You are fundamentally wrong. The institutions are not capitalism, which has none. They are socialist. Capitalism is people exchanging their stuff free from government interference. That’s it.
The machine is out of control. Why not just switch it off before its too late? That's what God would want.... Surely.
@@brian5001 I did say surely Brian. Think Donald Hoffman and you are getting close. I have never involved myself in a game of the gods top trumps.
How about Margaret with a French twist?
Depends on some Great War,
I see it as decades (and not many).
32:33 Historic statements on "If the Christian promises are true". Council of Florence 1439. Glossed over here.
"It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."
I have no problem seeing Christianity or any religion as a useful social technology. The problem is accepting "life, regardless of quality" as a worthwhile goal. Christianity is great for people having more babies, ok, but why is that good in a vacuum? Because God? Then we need some evidence for God and then we can debate if God's pleasure is a suitable goal to pursue.
The collapse does not take centuries. It take cca 3 generations = 60 years. Due to a decline in numbers of people there will be shortage of manpower = less products and services = less tax revenue = less money for pensions, police, firefighters, health care = no order = chaos = misunderstanding = conflict = destruction.
Every country today with replacement rate below 2.0 (if the trend will continue) has less than 60 years.
If you don't believe it check out what is happening in Asian countries like Japan
Although I agree that the society we have created is not sustainable and that the collapse is imminent, either through war or some other disturbance of the extremely vulnerable supply chains which hold things together, I do have the feeling that organised religion is not the answer.
In fact, organised religion has got us here as much as industrialisation, and with increasing knowledge about the history of religion, the horrors of past and present that have been caused by the church in the broadest sense have driven us away from the sacred. It is not just that people decided not to believe but was a reaction to completely dogmatised and insensitive clericalism, or alternatively, weak, moralistic and hypocritical wishful thinking.
On the other hand, with modernity, people were able to feed their babies and satisfy their needs after a horrific time of feudalism and nationalism, which was supported by organised religion.
It was an illusion, but there is no way to turn around and pick up organized religion again as a means to overcome our problems. The religion that may emerge, if it does, will be mystic and possibly more aligned with non-dualism. It will not be about cosmic battles over the fate of the world or incarnate saviours who have to die terrible deaths to appease the wrath of an avenging God, except in illustrative literature.
For me, the interdependency of life on this planet, our oneness as sentient beings, and the illusion of our senses must be addressed, which Abrahamic religions seem to have left behind and no longer address.
Yawn.
Hey also, don't stress yourself LP! (I thought you were gonna slow down content).
Growing GDP happens with the transformation of capital. Just look at the multiplication of productivity of computers
It took a giant physical space for ground control and technology, that would not be anything as productive as today's capital technology, to, in a single cell phone. That is already an obvious example of capital formation and growing economy. So, if you are NOT able to see that multiplier of capital, then you would logically be down on growth. However, growth potential does NOT mean growth of destruction
Economic social dynamics, is NOT destructive. Capital is constructive and conservative
That is the meaning of capital.
I agree with much of what is said here, but just to things in perspective, the idea the ULEZ is out to punish white van man, seems highly dubious, given that it took me 10 seconds to find an ULEZ compliant Transit for precisely 5K. That surely can not constitute a barrier to operating a small business in London?