Over Time: the Crowd

Things have changed, in part of course, because we've crowded together in the cities and surrounding areas.  There were just a few of us in the early days, comparatively speaking, and we had plenty of room to spread out and live.

We've grown dramatically in number; what impact might that have?  Our population has tripled in the last century with the majority of the increase occurring in established urban areas.  More than half of the world is now urban.

World Health Organization: The urban population in 2014 accounted for 54% of the total global population, up from 34% in 1960, and 14% in 1900. 

Increased population and density have changed our culture.

We began as rugged, independent ruralists who could build anything, fix anything, and make do with what we had. Since the beginning of industry, we've become a culture of consumerist/ specialists.  Everything we do takes hundreds of skills spread across hundreds of people.  Or thousands.  From getting food on the table via stores and transport to building airplanes via dozens of suppliers and producers and engineering organizations, we're extraordinarily complex and interconnected.  Most of us couldn't last a month on our own in the wild, of course.  And we have so much stuff, but we keep buying more.

We were a nation of younger folks not too long ago.  We've changed.  Now there are so many older people in the middle of everything.  :)

There's a benefit, perhaps.  The 50 year+ folks are stunningly productive.  They can do in a day what the 30-somethings will struggle with for a week.

It's worth seeing the things that have changed with some clarity.  Old ideas may not fit, old solutions may not work, and the way forward will not be like the past.  Everyone is scrambling to keep up. Schools, governments, churches, and families are pressed hard to cope reasonably with the high-speed changes that sweep us all along like a flood.

We do get to choose our own goals, however.  Our purpose can be noble despite the most tumultuous of times.

Impossible Change

Everything changes, often at a slow pace that hides from us the significance; not unlike a frog in a kettle slowly brought to boil.  Our republic has changed for good and bad.  Here's a look at one radical change that needs redirection.  It's our government and its declining ability to represent us all.

Like the great issues past, like slavery and racism, like equal opportunity and gender equality, this one will generate similar upheaval as the debate is enjoined, but the difficulty of the task is irrelevant; it must change.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." — Noam Chomsky, American Linguist and US Media and Foreign Policy critic.

Don't just look and leave.  Look and learn ... and pick a position ... and do something.  That way, at least you'll own your future, and you'll be able to explain your part to your kids.


This article was originally published here, April 2013.

Imagine a world

It's a surprise to realize there's little difference between a self-centered bully and a killer. The only thing that keeps a bully from killing every time they're inconvenienced or annoyed is that it would get them in trouble.  They'll do what they can get away with.


In the decision to do harm to another, the only constraints are morals and penalties.  As the moral element has already been weakened in the bully's mind, the remaining constraints are legal and cultural penalties.

Imagine a world with no rules.  From an early age, our children would tend to violence.  Absent some extraordinary moral stance, each would find occasion for doing deliberate harm to another.  Parents would find themselves struggling to raise good-hearted kids in a violent world, a world where the cultural barriers to destructive behavior are missing.

... a world where the barriers to destructive behavior are missing?

Actually, we're all familiar with that problem and the moral changes that follow.  We've been watching it happen for decades.

Insulating young children from destructive
influences is becoming progressively
less possible.

For instance ... 

Broad sexualization, particularly at earlier developmental stages 
Now common among preteens along with the commensurate disease and relational problems, our abandoning of sexual boundaries has blossomed into a multi-billion dollar porn industry, human trafficking and child exploitation, national redefinition of marriage and family, the broken relational context between parents and children, and the erosion of commitment between partners.

Vaccination for STDs now considered normal
and necessary for all children.

Before the 70's, the general stance of abstinence until marriage, etc., had been the understood standard of right-thinking, but much had changed following the war years.

Today, the process of sexualization unavoidably burdens our pre-teens and tweens.  Should an 8 year old get a body-waxing to remove visible hair on her legs?  Should a 12 year old need to worry about a bikini wax?

It's troubling enough to see young folks overplaying the sexual attraction card.  It's oddly bizarre to see preteens, with parental support, involved in the same game before they even know what it means.  Such activities are brain and life shapers.

Have you noticed that kids don't stand by the street waiting for the school bus without parental supervision?  Just fifty years ago, children and dogs ran free.

Western culture has morphed on many issues; change came slowly, it progressed inexorably.  Is our current cultural position on sexuality and behavior a good one?  Is it smarter or more beneficial than the one from which we've evolved?  There are some troublesome issues ...

Out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. From around 4% in the 60's, it is now more than 40%.  Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families.  Each is more likely to be trapped in poverty, more likely to suffer a variety of impediments to life.

The Father Factor

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US DoH/Census); 5 times the average. 

• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes; 32 times the average. 
• 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes; 20 times the average. (CDC) 
• 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes; 14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26) 
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes; 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report) 
• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes; 10 times the average. 
• Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. 
• Children with fathers who are involved in their lives are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school. They are 70% less likely to drop out of school. They are more likely to get A’s in school. They are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

This is just one of many change categories.  Most areas of life are changing, and some are troubling ...

• Commercialization of life purpose
• The divorce between business for profit and business for service
• The exaggeration of capitalism to the threshold of depriving others of the means to live
• The trivialization of character and reason, perhaps best exemplified by reality television
• Polarization of the public forum

Note that discussion on the subject today will include the observation that there's always been such change.  True, yet when seen in the larger context of civilizations in turmoil, such change is significant.

So as we observe what we've done, it's clear that just making rules is no solution.  We've made rules and managed to apply them and to justify doing so despite the destructive outcomes.  So how might we, as a culture and as a nation, be changed for the better?  What would it take?
  
Now, imagine a world where we've agreed to value character more than bling, caring more than having, and serving others more than winning.  What would it be like to live in a world without Kardashians in the limelight?

Beside still waters ... or not.

It would be nice, but courage and character are not formed in peaceful times beside still waters.

Liberal vs Conservative vs ...

The difference between liberals and conservatives, we're told, is that liberals think we should be equal at the finish line, and conservatives think we should be equal at the starting line. I'd been wondering what it was about that idea that bothered me.

New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin stumbled and fell, accidentally tripping Abbey D’Agostino of the US.

Abbey got up first and helped Nikki back to her feet — but Abbey had injured her leg in the fall.

When it gave way and she fell back to the track seconds later, Nikki helped her up and stayed by her side to make sure she was OK.

Nikki only resumed the race
when she knew Abbey was able to walk on her own, and she waited at the finish line to greet her as she hobbled through the pain to complete the race.

Nikki Hamblin says, “I went down, and I was like, ‘What’s happening? Why am I on the ground?’

“Then suddenly there was this hand on my shoulder and she said: ‘Get up, get up, we have to finish this.’ I was like: ‘Yup, you’re right. This is the Olympics. We have to finish this.'”

She described Abbey D’Agostino as 'an amazing woman'.  The pair had never met before the collision.

Our greatest performance doesn't have to occur in the public arena or during the biggest sporting event of our lives. Sometimes we are at our best when we can put our own goals aside and help someone finish the course.

What if ... ?

... it was you and your family?  Looking for work.

The economic downturn that began in December 2007 was associated with a rapid rise in unemployment and with an especially pronounced increase in the number of long-term unemployed.  Of those who lost full-time jobs between 2007 and 2009, only about half were employed again by 2010.

If that was your family, what would you have done for the years?  Scrambling for work became the norm for the 8.8 million workers (BLS) that previously had been employed full time.  So you applied everywhere you could, but there weren't any jobs.  You lived on your spouse's salary perhaps and on whatever savings you might have had.  Unemployment, food stamps, ....

There just weren't any jobs to be had.  The economy stabilized by '10, but recovery wasn't easy for the long-term unemployed.  It was a life changer for all of them.  Opportunities disappeared, kids' college vanished, retirement receded into the distant neverland.  Roughly 7 million families lost their homes during the great recession, and 2.5 million businesses were shuttered.  American households lost roughly $16 trillion of net worth.

That was the Great Recession, brought to you by Wall Street and the finance industry.  

Poverty is done to you.  It's not something you choose.  Is that true?

Today, 23% of our children live in poverty.  That means they don't eat well, their health will suffer, they live in higher crime areas, their education will often be interrupted, their home life will be insecure, and most will be exposed to street violence, gangs, drugs, and the death of a friend or family member from that environment.  Dads who can't provide for their families tend to disappear or die.  Single moms will face difficult choices for survival.

They should just get a job, right?  But remember, ... there aren't any.  

Too, a full time job at the federal minimum wage means you can afford $375 for housing, but the median one-bedroom rental is $1000+.  You'd need three full-time jobs to afford it.  Part of the reason, the minimum wage is worth 25% less than it was fifty years ago.

So for those children living in poverty ... they didn't choose that dilemma for themselves, and their parents didn't either.  Poverty isn't something you choose, it's done to you, or at least that was Nelson Mandela's take on the subject.  Interestingly, sociologists and economists agree, poverty is done to you.

You might appreciate a look at poverty from a different perspective.  It's perhaps worth noting that conservatives commonly blame the behavior of the poor for their poverty citing drugs and alcohol, gangs and crime, and the 'sinful choices' folks make.  Liberals commonly blame the rich for exploitation of the workforce, of resources, and their influence on government policies.  So who's right and who's wrong?  Both, pretty much all the time.

Poverty is complex with interrelated and unrelated causes. Society's responsibility is just to do their part.  There's much that can be done to make a lasting difference.  Curious what works?  Take a look at what the UN University came up with.

You might appreciate Wealth vs. Ethics as well.

Boxed!

Ever notice how we're stuck with choosing between two cesspools.  Government of the people, by the people, blah blah, we're stuck, at least for now.

If you're pro-life, you're stuck with the big-business candidate who favors the wealthy and is opposed to healthcare.  You can't vote pro-life and pro-health and pro-education at the same time.

If you're pro-equality and anti-poverty, you're stuck with the big-government candidate and with trade policies favoring the wealthy.  You can't vote to address economic inequality without endorsing massive indebtedness for your grandchildren at the same time.

If you're looking deeper than the tv screen, you know some government policies do more harm than good, but neither cesspool is getting pumped out and cleaned up any time soon.

Pick your cesspool.  Our largest political parties along with the media have polarized the nation and limited the debate to just two sides, ignoring the fact that there are more positions of significance than just the two we're offered.  It simplifies their job, of course.  All they have to do is keep us fighting the two-sided battle.


We're boxed, and without a venue for a real public forum. The next decades will be a blast. Only figuratively, we hope.

Among the issues, most of which will not be addressed:

• big pharma price gouging because by rule, they can
• med costs skyrocketing because by rule, insurance must pay it
• college costs up 800% since govt instituted student loans
• economic inequality booming; the richest 10% got 98% of economic gains for the last 40 years.
• the financial industry continues to clobber the world without accountability.

And the list goes on.  It's not a comfortable world for people of faith, nor are the problems we face simple, one-sentence issues.  If our hope is built on government, we're likely to be disappointed.

In the meantime, there are many things we might do, are there not?

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." — Noam Chomsky, American Linguist and US Media and Foreign Policy critic.  Is he right?

Which is better - slavery or poverty?

Between 1525 and 1866, the era of the New World slave trade, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Only 10.7 million survived the passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.

During the time slavery was legal in the United States, perhaps 100,000 slaves escaped to freedom.  If you found yourself in slavery, your likelihood of an exit other than death was less than 1%.

If you find yourself below the poverty line today, you'll have perhaps a 50% chance of finding a way up and out. That's such an improvement.  Of course.  But ...

Recent studies have shown the United States to be less mobile than in decades past and less mobile today than other OECD countries. Around 40% of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes are stuck there for the rest of their lives. Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, rich folks tend to stay at the top and regular folks stay at the bottom, as do their children according to research by the Economic Mobility Project.

The economic mobility of African-Americans compared to that of whites is revealing. Half of blacks born in the bottom income quintile remain there as adults, while only a third of whites do.  Research has also found that the children of black middle-class families are more likely to fall out of the middle class.

Besides overt racial discrimination, explanations include the better access of wealthy families to superior schools and prep schools.  Better credentials mean better jobs and better pay. For the non-wealthy, wages have been stagnant for four decades despite improved productivity. College costs have increased 800% in that same time frame.  The sheer size of the income gap makes it harder to climb the proverbial income ladder as the rungs are progressively farther apart.

So to the question of which is better between slavery and poverty, the answer is another question ... are those few steps toward equality and justice enough?

If we're the wealthiest and most successful country in the world, why do 20%+ of our children live in poverty and food insecurity today?  Those born into poverty in America, they're likely to be trapped there and their children as well.  It's not like that elsewhere in the developed world.

The bottom 90% made more money 30 years ago.  In today's dollars, the bottom 90 percent of U.S. earners averaged $33,526 in 1979 and $30,438 in 2012.  The top 10 percent averaged $144,418 in 1979 and $254,449 in 2012. That's about 76 percent growth.  PolitiFact Jan 13, 2015

So, have we adequately addressed inequality?  Do we understand the one-way flow of wealth from our extraordinary workforce exclusively to the elite?  Or have we missed the goal for 90% of our citizenry.

The federal minimum wage was enacted to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the
maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and
general well-being of workers.”  Despite these intentions, the federal minimum
wage has failed to keep up with the rising cost of  living, and has instead
become a wage mechanism that keeps working people in poverty.
Now after years of public protest and exploding welfare
costs, some employers are beginning to change
the way they treat employees.  Just a few.

Does either political party offer a reasonable explanation and plan of action?  Granted, neither party perhaps actually planned to abuse the citizenry.  Both, however, are culpable for the impediments faced by the non-elite, and especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder who neither chose nor deserve what they've endured.

True or false?
If it's true, what must I do differently?

Cultural Evolution

Ideally, the natural evolution of culture would refine us all for the better. Cities would become better places to live, countries would prosper, and the world would be a better place.  At least that's the evolutionary process we're encouraged to believe, but look beyond to the larger context of civilization.

As a rule, civilizations rise, stagnate, and decline.  That inevitable fall is commonly devastating with displacement of populations and economic collapse.  That which might have been considered social progress can be offset by death and suffering.  A vibrant culture can become insipid.

The Babylonians

In 2000 BC, Babylon was a city-state in ancient Mesopotamia.  It became the largest city in the world, and by the 5th century BC, Babylon had grown into an empire. It was captured by the Assyrians, but the citizens rebelled and established the empire again under Nebuchadnezzar. Later, Babylon was conquered by the Persians and then by the Macedonians. The region flourished under Alexander the Great, but after his death in 323 BC, it collapsed.  In the modern era, nothing remained of Babylon but ruins until Saddam Hussein built the city again. 

What happened to the Phoenicians?
Why did the Ottoman and Persian empires fail?
Why did the Greek and Roman empires disappear?
The Yuan and Qing Dynasties came and went.
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen, ending after centuries in 1783, but why?

What might they all have in common?           

Most cited, a natural sequence of rise and fall.                 

"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long." [Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (London, 1788, ed. 1909)] 

To that immoderate greatness, Arnold Toynbee adds:  The fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats (working class folks, grouped).  I.e., revolution follows.

Joseph Tainter observes:  There are diminishing returns to increased complexity.  After a civilization reaches some maximum level of complexity, further increases produce a negative return and decline.  When there are too many hands between the crop and the table, too many layers between work and the product, and too many rules regarding day to day life and business, perhaps the threshold has been reached.

It raises the question, just how complex (and sustainable) is our civilization?  There are obviously many elements in a civilization's durability, yet one can't help but wonder about our 'parasitic elite' and extraordinary complexity.  If there is such a threshold, we have certainly passed beyond the first risk level.  Well beyond.

Solutions?  Are democracy and a free market economy the solution?

Our second president John Adams warned, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

How well do we understand the world, the daily life of others and our place in it all?

Perhaps he's got a point. The evolutionary changes our culture has undergone in the last century or so suggest that the wealthy have left common folks behind. The GAP is widening rapidly.  In our country, wages for the bottom 90% have stagnated, opportunity has declined as have mobility, family, and community coherence. Economic inequality plagues a large segment of our population; one in five children lives in poverty.  As for complexity, our subsistence pipelines for food and water, energy and transportation, all are fragile to some degree.  Can we step back and see the larger view?  How might we behave more reasonably? 

And how about that 'parasitic elite' idea?

Civilization's End

Don't bother to go further unless you've got some time and are academically inclined.  The content offers an inquiry into related ecological and economic trends. Follow the issue of inequality through the modeling.  The science is intriguing, to say the least, and the issues are pointedly relevant.

Ecological Economics

Volume 101, May 2014, Pages 90–102

Methodological and Ideological Options

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies

• Safa Motesharrei^a, , , 
• Jorge Rivas^b, , 
• Eugenia Kalnay^c, 

• ^a School of Public Policy and Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland; and National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)
• ^b Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota; and Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES)
• ^c Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and Institute of Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland

Shared under a Creative Commons license

Abstract

There are widespread concerns that current trends in resource-use are unsustainable, but possibilities of overshoot/collapse remain controversial. Collapses have occurred frequently in history, often followed by centuries of economic, intellectual, and population decline. Many different natural and social phenomena have been invoked to explain specific collapses, but a general explanation remains elusive.

In this paper, we build a human population dynamics model by adding accumulated wealth and economic inequality to a predator–prey model of humans and nature. The model structure, and simulated scenarios that offer significant implications, are explained. Four equations describe the evolution of Elites, Commoners, Nature, and Wealth. The model shows Economic Stratification or Ecological Strain can independently lead to collapse, in agreement with the historical record.

The measure “Carrying Capacity” is developed and its estimation is shown to be a practical means for early detection of a collapse. Mechanisms leading to two types of collapses are discussed. The new dynamics of this model can also reproduce the irreversible collapses found in history. Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at maximum carrying capacity if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level and if resources are distributed equitably.

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Graphical abstract